Beneath the ivy stones molder away;
Light shineth out as the last golden ray.
For all is autumn now under the birch,
Lest snowy night ore’ take the cathedral church.
It is a quiet autumn on our Western front, and beneath the ivy we may still glimpse the moldering remnants of our older world.
Read more on Landmarks of Liberty…
E. Wesley – Mackinac Center Intern
As we approach July 17th, the landmark date for the beginning of the Second Battle of the Marne, I thought it appropriate to wrap up the World War I theme. I’ve composed a poem, perhaps from the perspective of the French or British soldiers during the Allied counter offensive of the battle, in which the troops were expected to abandon their trenches and fight a less conventional war (Neiberg 40:10). American reinforcements are now numbering about twenty two to twenty three thousand soldiers a day, giving the French more leeway room for ambitious tactics (Ibid 59:36). My poem gets at the contradictions of the war and hints at future problems that proved all too true in our post world war era. It looks back to the 19th century Christian world for its inspiration of childhood, including the Victorian concept for an imaginative and chivalrous youth. Like Chesterton’s Ballad of the White Horse, it is an attack on Nihilism, although more pertinent to the 20th and 21st centuries. Below are some video tributes.
E. Wesley – Mackinac Center Intern
The Men at the Marne
Leave our trenches and coldly fight
To ascend the world of death and light?
And all because more men as we
Now come from a far country?
The cost of men to save more men;
Which is more costly? None now ken.
To war, from ditch to earth our height;
We fight our act; and act our fight;
The plan from those whose ends are met
Without a thought to cost or debt.
So sacrifice untallied be,
Until by war, from war, we’re free.
What lurked behind clouds of glory,
An endless war; who could foresee?
Only the wise, but they spoke not,
And with sorrow left to their lot
The foolish who’s counsel it was
Within a year to win the cause.
From death, more hard than earth their toil,
They sooner learned to hide in soil.
Now, weeping, wailing it seems,
Pours from the guns that slay the dreams,
Of a generation young but old
Between worlds modern and more bold.
More men, less care; more life, less life,
If ever we win to lose our strife.
But such a world that would arise,
Might wage new war within the skies.
Empire ends. What will next be;
Harder masters or liberty?
Time of troubles, wherein the right
Is just as wrong as wrong is trite;
Where law is law that law is not,
From naught is naught, and naught our lot?
For childhood once more we would
Stand as we stand for truth and good.
A video tribute to the Second Battle of the Marne
This was an earlier battle called Passchendaele, but it has some actual original footage worth watching.
Work Cited:
Neiberg, Michael S. The Second Battle of the Marne: The Turning Point of 1918. US Army War College. Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, PA. 20 August 2008. Lecture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aey6nVhZpcU
Image of General gouraud french army world war i machinegun marne 1918 from Wikipedia
Cross-posted from Landmarks of Liberty
E. Wesley – Mackinac Center Intern
I won’t have time to post anything big since I’m preparing for an Intern University lecture. However, in keeping with the Russell Kirk theme, here’s a little poetic description of the beginning of the “Time of Trouble”: WWI. In this poem, Wilfred Owen points out the end of a Western progress (something I would term as the false ideology of progressivism), and ties this in with the history of Western politics. Although he perhaps over-glorifies Greece and Rome, the idea is that the Western World is losing its luster. This fact is incontrovertible, but not inevitable for the future. Let us restore that which has been lost.
This was the moment Bismarck had been so carefully arranging since before the Franco-Prussian war. Victory in France could mean only one thing; the ascendency of a new unified Germany. No one had witnessed such military audacity in Continental Europe since the Napoleonic Wars. Paris lay in ruin, and all of France had been turned upside-down. The situation would only be resolved in two world wars, which destroyed the 19th century European structure and formed the modern world. Read more on Landmarks of Liberty…
E. Wesley – Mackinac Center Intern
Although now dimmed by the obvious disaster of the Titanic, the RMS Lusitania’s end was no less tragic. In fact, the sinking of the Lusitania ought to go down in history as an unprovoked atrocity of war. Although not among the immediate causes for the U.S.A.’s entrance into the Great War it did break the neutral disposition of the American public during the War. Read more on Landmarks of Liberty…
E. Wesley – Mackinac Center Intern
“About 6 o’clock things went positively dead; there was not a sound… The road along there is honestly, as a rule, rather infested with bullets: it seemed so strange to walk along it and never hear a whisper of one.”
“Even out here there is a time of peace and good will… Last night a select band of officers and men sang carols to them and they did ditto.”
“The most extraordinary scenes took place between the trenches.”
“The signing and playing continued all night…”
“What a time? ‘Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.’ It is hardly to be believed, but nevertheless it is quite true that such was the case this Christmas.”
On Christmas Eve, 1914, Germans and English alike threw down their arms to begin a spontaneous, yet far reaching, 48 hour truce. Being pushed by politicians and “high command” through muddy trenches and rotting bodies, the privates of both armies were ready to shake hands with their fellow Christians on the other side. Read more on Landmarks of Liberty…
E. Wesley – Mackinac Center Intern
It was the light at the end of the tunnel. Its beginning was called the “blackest day of the German Army,” and its finish would spell the end of the War. It left 96,200 men killed, wounded, or missing. Read more on Landmarks of Liberty…
E. Wesley – Mackinac Center Intern
