The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est

As we approach the centenary of the end of the First World War it behoves us to look beyond our colourful commemoration ceremonies and to remind ourselves of the obscene, desperate suffering of a generation.

This copy of a famous photograph shows most vividly the utterly appalling conditions suffered by the soldiers. Taken in early November, 1917 it shows men of the Canadian 16th Machine Gun Corps during the battle of Passchendaele. The man closest to the camera was Private Reginald Le Brun; he was the only man in the photograph who was to survive the battle, living to the age of 87. After the war he wrote down some of his memories of that terrible battle.

“After a march all night, losing our way, falling in shell holes, slipping, and losing our tin hats in them, and having to fish them out, and the odd shells dropping around us. We were getting nearer to where we were supposed to dig in and hold the line. We couldn’t see much in the dark and picked out the best shell holes we could find and mounted our guns… Our guns were useless, full of mud and the water cooling barrel was punctured. The wounded officer told me he was going to see the other guns but as he left me a shell landed under him as he was crawling away. He was blown several feet away. I crawled after him, expecting any moment to share the same fate… After that terrible night, the mist of morning creeping over the sea of mud, my hands were covered with blood, steaming from the work of dressing the wounded…Eleven days and nights were spent under these conditions, which I have only covered briefly, in the cold and wet with no sleep. Haunted by the cries of those we had left in the sea of mud and torture, as it is now called- “Flanders Field where the poppies grow” – about 14 years ago.”