Thursday, November 11, 2010

November 11th

This blog especially lends itself to a special post of remembrance. Over the last few years I’ve read a lot of postcards written at the front. Boys writing home – some of them could barely write. Men writing to their wives and children. Some in a hurry some with time on their hands….

Some postcards of World War One

British soldiers resting


Les Chausseurs Alpins, French soldiers with special knowledge of the Alps. Thousands were killed in avalanches as well as battle.

Wounded English soldiers


Masses were held at the front too

And to finish; a few lines from Wilfred Owen. Killed a few days before the Armistice, he was 25 years old. A verse from ‘The dread of falling into nought’

My power of life, though youthful, also sinks;
Before my time I bear a hoary head;
And chill airs strike my brow, that blow, methinks,
Straight from the icy cavern of the dead.
Night darkens round; my day shall know no afternoon.

Other posts on World War One.

4 comments:

A Lady's Life said...

Oh gosh this makes me cry.
So sad. To think how ugly a painting
history paints for us. So much blood shed, so much death, pain, anguish, broken hearts and broken souls.
And all for what?
Why must men perish without having a chance to enjoy the reason they were born,....... to live a life.

Anji said...

A Lady's Life: It really was a dreadful war. We must never let it be forgotten.

Robert Scott Lawrence said...

Nice pics. I just inherited my grandmother's photo album, which has a ton of rapidly fading photos from the early 1900s through the crazy Insta-Matic 1960s, including a handful of my grandfather in his engineer corps uniform from WWI.

Anji said...

Robert: that's interesting, make sure that somewhere you keep a note of who they all are - if you know the details. There are so many mysteries....