The Battle of the Somme raged between July 1st 1916 and November 18th 1916. An estimated 650,000 German soldiers were killed along with 420,000 British soldiers and 195.000 French.
Perhaps the significance of the name "Somme" is fading as the decades pass by but in my generation - born thirty to forty years after World War I, the very word "Somme" remains an irksome symbol of the futility and heartlessness of war.
Upon that terrible killing field, there were two young Yorkshiremen. As far as I know, they never met but such a meeting would have been possible. The man in the top picture is Wilfred Henry Jackson, a coal miner by trade who hailed from Rawmarsh in South Yorkshire. He was my maternal grandfather.
The man standing in the picture below was my paternal grandfather, Philip. He came from Malton in North Yorkshire. Though he was from a long line of agricultural workers, he himself worked on the railways.
Sadly, I never met either of these men. Wilfred and my grandmother separated and later divorced in the early nineteen thirties and Philip died just a month before I was born in 1953.
Yes it is true. Not all of the men who fought at The Battle of the Somme were killed. In fact the majority came home. But what had they seen? What had they heard? How had their lives been changed? Though physically unharmed, I wonder what price Wilfred and Philip had to pay in the years that followed The Somme.
Ailly-sur-Somme today
More than a million and a quarter men killed. Shouldn't that have been a lesson for all sides? But it goes on. And on.
ReplyDeleteAs the song goes, "When will they ever learn?"
DeleteMy grandfather Grieve went to Franch during WWI, but he had already emigrated and was in the United States Army which arrived late to the war. I've seen enough documentaries to be sickened by what these soldiers saw and experienced in battle and in those terrible trenches. Have you seen "They Shall Not Grow Old?"
ReplyDeleteNo. I haven't seen that Margaret. Have you seen the film "1917"?
DeleteI've seen it and enjoyed it. "They Shall Not Grow Old" is about British soldiers in WWI, told through photos and their own words (before they died). It's stunning.
DeleteThere have always been wars but the appalling conditions of WW1 and the new methods of inflicting untold horror on the soldiers created a whole generation of poor buggers with PTSD which was unrecognised ("a touch of shellshock"), untreated and often, seen as something to be ashamed of. Will we ever learn?
ReplyDeleteWe have had a few millennia to learn the lessons of warfare but we haven't bothered yet.
DeleteI think you would have a good idea as to what these men went through during the war. It change their lives forever.
ReplyDeleteYou are right. My grandfathers came home looking normal but were they still "normal" on the inside?
DeleteWar destroys lives, even those who physically survive the war.
ReplyDeletehttps://genius.com/Edwin-starr-war-lyrics
Yup! Absolutely nothing.
DeleteFutility and heartlessness, that pretty much sums it up.
ReplyDeleteEven with his mouth hidden by a moustache, I think you have a lot of your grandfather Philip.
For your maternal grandparents to have divorced, things must have been pretty bad. In the 1930s, as far as I know, divorces were far less common than today. Who knows how much Wilfred's time in the war had to do with it.
Your last point is one I have frequently considered but now there is no one left to ask about it.
DeleteThey said it was lions led by donkeys. My grand uncle fought at the Somme and survived.
ReplyDeleteI feel so grateful that I was never called to war. Nor was my son, now aged 38.
DeleteThere's always a price to pay after being in a war. Back in the old days, men suffered in silence and their families along with them. Now, there are services available to help them cope with what they have been through, although many don't know about them or take advantage of the help, they fool themselves that they don't need help.
ReplyDeleteThe traumas that war causes cannot be underestimated.
DeleteIt only takes one megalomaniac to think he can conquer the world. Each century seems to spawn at least one to plunge the world into chaos and treat human life as expendable.
ReplyDeleteIt seems Mankind will never learn.
The men who make wars never fight in them. The men who make wars are always safe.
DeleteThe rabbit holes around ancestors and wars can get pretty deep. I have a number of great grandfathers that served in that war and one that I am fortunate to have memories of while he was still alive. Now I have their campaign/military buttons and a few bullets as a reminder of their time of service.
ReplyDeleteSo many lives cut short for nothing.
DeleteI was lucky, I knew all four of my grandparents, and one great-grandmother (born in Wales.) War leaves invisible scars.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, you were lucky Mr Penguin. What I would have given for that. I only knew my grandmother Nana Morris and she lived miles away in Newcastle-upon-Tyne with my step-grandfather.
DeleteMy husband's great uncle died in WW1, and it must have been a terrible war. We visited the Somme in 1998 and I felt terribly sad as we walked around and visited many of the graves. It was a very sombre area to visit but well worth it to be able to better understand what those brave men went through.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many graves aren't there Rosie? Why-oh-why did they have to die? Such a waste and for what?
DeleteThere is no sense to war. None. All it leads to is death and hardship. You would think by now we would have figured out a better way but we don't. I despair.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, leaders always have to sit down and forge agreements so why can't they just miss out the nightmare of warfare?
DeleteHaving just welcomed my son back from his 3.5 months long trip to S.E. Asia, I am even more aware of the horrors of war and the pain and grief it causes those left behind. The thought that kept surfacing during my son's absence was how does one survive the anxiety of having their child leave for war. My child left for pleasure and I still had a few sleepless nights and days with a sketchy appetite.
ReplyDeleteI remember you expressing your anxiety about his trip and I am happy to hear that your son came home safe and sound - hopefully with some great memories - some of which he may not be inclined to share with his mother!
DeleteMy grandfather never spoke about it. He went to the Hull Pals reunion each year.
ReplyDelete