I'm with you on that last one. I've always wanted to be Howard Carter in that moment. (Lord Carnarvon, not so much. The whole dying part was tres ironic and awkward.)
I'm also fascinated by the Christmas Truce. I've read different soldiers' diary accounts of it and just... I don't know many stories that better sum up the contradictions and futility of war waged by politicians safe behind the lines, and paid for by front-line troops.
There was a tri-lingual film about it, which was on over Christmas a couple of years ago - I think it's just called Merry Christmas. Harrowing but very powerful...
Yes, exactly on the soldiers. The war was just one big muscle-flexing exercise, rather than the altogether more worthy fight of World War II with Nazism. These people paid for the politicians' ambitions with their life blood. To see humanity overcome that idiocy at such a time leaves me breathless. I really recommend you read The Thirty-Nine Steps, which takes a very bitter look at the motivation behind World War I (er, there is some strange anti-Semitism in it, though).
What gets me is that nobody learns anything. I mean, I was reading the other day about how in WWII they could only stagger sending out soldiers because Britain couldn't equip as many as were needed.... but lack of equipment didn't stop soldiers being sent to their deaths in the Iraq War.
And, well, there's the whole Rise Of The Right thing, and the Government Scapegoating A Hated Minority In A Recession thing, so that I keep thinking I've accidentally fallen into the 1930s... pah!
I must read The Thirty-Nine Steps; I've always had a soft spot for the film(s)...
The Christmas Truce--I heard something about that on the radio, and no one I ever talked to have ever heard anything about it. So I didn't imagine it. (Course, I spend all day at work with people who can't believe we've cracked the great mysteries of why the sky is blue or the grass green.....) It's such a haunting story. I don't want to imagine how they felt in the morning when they had to go back to killing each other.
Supposedly my grandpa was nearby when Hiroshima was bombed--he told me it was the most horrifying event of his entire lifetime, just knowing that we not only had such a horrible weapon, we just used it on civilians, and knowing that a horrific amount of people just suddenly died in agony. Then they were all expected to go on like nothing happened.
Yeah, my dad told me about it years ago, but I only read the full story recently. The idea of them having to overcome their own nature and kill again is just too horrible for words.
Oh, wow. It's interesting to see another reaction from the American side with regard to Hiroshima. I've read and watched a lot about that day and remember the pilot and his crew, and those around them, being adamant that it had to happen, it was just a job. But surely everyone couldn't have felt like that? Surely the sheer numbers -hundreds of thousands dead within minutes - horrified some. Well, now I now that it did one, at least.
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I'm also fascinated by the Christmas Truce. I've read different soldiers' diary accounts of it and just... I don't know many stories that better sum up the contradictions and futility of war waged by politicians safe behind the lines, and paid for by front-line troops.
There was a tri-lingual film about it, which was on over Christmas a couple of years ago - I think it's just called Merry Christmas. Harrowing but very powerful...
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Yes, exactly on the soldiers. The war was just one big muscle-flexing exercise, rather than the altogether more worthy fight of World War II with Nazism. These people paid for the politicians' ambitions with their life blood. To see humanity overcome that idiocy at such a time leaves me breathless. I really recommend you read The Thirty-Nine Steps, which takes a very bitter look at the motivation behind World War I (er, there is some strange anti-Semitism in it, though).
Thank you for the film rec! I'll check it out!
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And, well, there's the whole Rise Of The Right thing, and the Government Scapegoating A Hated Minority In A Recession thing, so that I keep thinking I've accidentally fallen into the 1930s... pah!
I must read The Thirty-Nine Steps; I've always had a soft spot for the film(s)...
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Also, my history geekage is loving that icon. It reminds me of one of those Russian propaganda posters. Awesomesauce.
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Supposedly my grandpa was nearby when Hiroshima was bombed--he told me it was the most horrifying event of his entire lifetime, just knowing that we not only had such a horrible weapon, we just used it on civilians, and knowing that a horrific amount of people just suddenly died in agony. Then they were all expected to go on like nothing happened.
Reply
Oh, wow. It's interesting to see another reaction from the American side with regard to Hiroshima. I've read and watched a lot about that day and remember the pilot and his crew, and those around them, being adamant that it had to happen, it was just a job. But surely everyone couldn't have felt like that? Surely the sheer numbers -hundreds of thousands dead within minutes - horrified some. Well, now I now that it did one, at least.
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