I Guerra Mundial (Continuación)

EuropaUnión EuropeaUE a debate, ,

El año que viene, con enormes fastos, un sinfín de publicaciones, homenajes a caídos de todos los bandos y reflexiones por doquier, será celebrado el aniversario del comienzo de la Primera Guerra Mundial, cuyo funesto espoletazo de salida tuvo lugar el 28 de julio de 1914, para finalizar el 11 de noviembre de 1918. Nada sería igual desde entonces. Nadie saldría indemne de la denominada en francés Grand Guerre: ni los millones de muertos muchas veces enterrados en tumbas anónimas, ni los atrozmente heridos y mutilados que pasearían por calles y plazas de un moribundo continente el recuerdo devastador, e inquietantemente vivo aún, de la tragedia, ni los miles de familiares y huérfanos entregados a la beneficencia.…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea,

Within a year the UK will be immersed in the first stage of a centenary commemoration like no other the world has seen: that of the First World War. But what will that great commemoration of the Great War be like?

Already, plans are being laid from national government to local history groups. Outline information is emerging, from TV programmes to a candlelight vigil marking the war’s outbreak. But the next year will be crucial for setting details of the commemoration, and defining the sorts of questions that are asked about the war.

There are two dangers in the questions we might ask.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia, , ,

15 millions de morts pendant la première guerre mondiale, 60 millions lors de la seconde, réfugiés, disparitions, exterminations... les conflits du XXe siècle sont caractérisés par un déchaînement des brutalités autant à l'encontre des combattants que des civils.

A l'heure où les cadavres livides des victimes syriennes du gaz sarin de la Ghouta envahissent nos écrans, la violence de guerre aura imprimé sa marque sur le siècle qui nous sépare désormais de la Grande Guerre. Pour comprendre comment- la violence a tout submergé sur son passage, il faut en premier lieu en interroger les cadres, les formes et les techniques, avant d'embrasser l'évolution des figures de ce drame et de s'intéresser à l'expérience des corps, des âmes et des êtres qui y furent confrontés.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa

In announcing details of the official programme of commemorations for the centenary of the first world war, Maria Miller, the culture secretary, was careful to say the government would simply "set out the facts" about the origins of the conflict without any interpretation. I am not the only historian to be uneasy about this. The government, through its silence, is tacitly endorsing the popular view of the war as a futile one, a belief that is sharply at odds with most modern scholarship, and with how it was perceived at the time.

Britain went to war with Germany in August 1914 for similar reasons to those which the country fought Hitler's Germany in the second world war: to prevent an authoritarian, militarist, expansionist enemy achieving hegemony in Europe and thus imperilling British security.…  Seguir leyendo »

Internacional

In France I live near a little village called Sadillac. It’s no more than a cluster of houses, an old chateau, a church and a graveyard surrounded by a few farms and vineyards. The village probably hasn’t changed much since the French Revolution; its population hovers around 100. By the graveyard is a simple obelisk with the names of the 30 or so young men from Sadillac who died in the First World War, 1914-18. It’s almost impossible to imagine the effect on this tiny community of these fatalities over four years. Every year on Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. — the hour and the day of the 1918 armistice — villagers gather to participate in a short memorial service around the obelisk.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia,

Es posible representar en un escenario la espantosa carnicería de la Primera Guerra Mundial, con sus 20 millones de muertos, sus soldados asfixiados por los gases de mostaza en trincheras llenas de barro, sapos y ratas, y los pueblos, aldeas y familias destruidos por los obuses, incendios y el odio vesánico de los contendientes?

Es perfectamente posible, a condición de contar con el talento artístico y la infraestructura dramática indispensables. La prueba de ello es War Horse (Caballo de guerra), el gran éxito de esta temporada teatral en Nueva York, que presenta cada noche ante auditorios compactos y delirantes el Vivian Beaumont del Lincoln Center Theater.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

Not many people noticed at the time, but World War I ended this year. Well, in a sense it did: on Oct. 3, Germany finally paid off the interest on bonds that had been taken out by the shaky Weimar government in an effort to pay the war reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.

While the amount, less than $100 million, was trivial by today’s standards, the payment brought to a close one of the most poisonous chapters of the 20th century. It also, unfortunately, brought back to life an insidious historical myth: that the reparations and other treaty measures were so odious that they made Adolf Hitler’s rise and World War II inevitable.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesTestimonios

Harry Patch celebrates his 111th birthday in June 2009 at his Somerset care home. Photograph: Jason Bryant/PA

Today is the day that Harry Patch, having lived 111 years on the earth to become last surviving "Tommy" of the first world war, is laid to rest in Wells, Somerset.

Like Henry Allingham, who died aged 113 just weeks ago, Harry kept silent for over eight decades about the horrors he witnessed in the trenches.

Many would say it was characteristic of that generation to simply remain quiet. Harry Patch, like millions of other young men, put themselves on the front line in the name of duty – "king and country".…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

Like most people of my generation, I grew up with a mystery. I felt I understood the second world war. The attempt to dominate and destroy, to eliminate the people of other races, though raised to unprecedented levels by the Nazis, is a familiar historical theme. The need to stop Hitler was absolute, and the dreadful sacrifices of the second world war were unavoidable.

But the first world war, which ended 90 years ago today, seemed incomprehensible. The class interests of the men sent to kill each other were the same. While Germany was clearly the aggressor, the outlook of the opposing powers - seeking to expand their colonies and to dominate European trade - was not wildly different.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

Today is the 90th anniversary of the armistice that ended the First World War, and it will be commemorated very differently on each side of the Atlantic and across the borders of Europe. It’s a reminder that not all “victors” experience wars in the same way, and that their citizens can have almost as much difficulty as those of the vanquished states in coping with the collective trauma of conflict.

For Americans, Veterans Day celebrates the survivors of all the nation’s 20th and 21st century wars. In France and Britain, by contrast, the mood is altogether more somber. In these countries, it is the dead who, since 1919, have been the focus of the ceremonies.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalOrden Mundial

By any conceivable measure, Frank Buckles has led an extraordinary life. Born on a farm in Missouri in February 1901, he saw his first automobile in his hometown in 1905, and his first airplane at the Illinois State Fair in 1907. At 15 he moved on his own to Oklahoma and went to work in a bank; in the 1940s, he spent more than three years as a Japanese prisoner of war. When he returned to the United States, he married, had a daughter and bought a farm near Charles Town, W. Va., where he lives to this day. He drove a tractor until he was 104.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica, , ,

Muslims are obliged to make at least one trip to the holy city of Mecca during their lifetime. This pilgrimage is known as the hajj. It is mandatory for men, voluntary but encouraged for women. A basic dress code ensures that there's no visible difference between rich and poor, weak and powerful. This simple requirement unites the faithful.

I started thinking about the hajj in the spring, when my wife and I visited nine American military cemeteries in Europe. With the exception of the Normandy American Cemetery, which attracts thousands, others are virtually devoid of visitors, especially American visitors. I wondered:

What if every American who is able to do so made an effort to visit at least one American military cemetery overseas during his or her lifetime?…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea,

By Michael Portillo (THE TIMES, 12/11/06):

In the week that American people displayed their disappointment over the war in Iraq, in Britain the poppy, symbol of remembrance, was drawn into controversy.

Jonathan Bartley, the director of a Christian think tank, Ekklesia, has urged people to wear white poppies, which he believes to be more Christian. He argues that political correctness obliges public figures to wear red ones or face uproar. Certainly Channel 4’s Jon Snow attracts criticism for refusing to sport a poppy while on air. He believes that newscasters should avoid wearing “anything that represents any kind of statement”.

At a time when even President Bush has lost confidence in what the Iraq war is achieving, we are bound to ask: what is it that we remember at this time of year?…  Seguir leyendo »

EuropaUnión Europea,

By Joe Moran, a reader in cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University (THE GUARDIAN, 11/11/06):

On November 11 1937 an ex-serviceman, Stanley Storey, interrupted the two-minute silence at the Cenotaph. Breaking through the crowd, he screamed "All this hypocrisy!" and something that sounded like "Preparing for war!" The police gave chase and, yards from the prime minister, clambered on top of him and muffled his cries.It turned out that he had escaped from a mental asylum. But his shattering of the two-minute silence struck a chord. The Daily Mirror argued that the silence was now "a silence of shared impotence ...…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

By Ben Macintyre (THE TIMES, 10/11/06):

ON CHRISTMAS DAY 1914, from a trench in northern France, a British soldier who signed himself “Boy” wrote a letter to his mother: “My Dear Mater, This will be the most memorable Christmas I’ve ever spent . . . just before dinner I had the pleasure of shaking hands with several Germans . . . It all seems so strange.” Boy was merely doing what so many soldiers of the Great War did as a matter of routine: putting his thoughts and observations into words, and committing them to paper. He knew he was recording history, but he cannot have suspected that he was creating an artefact that would one day be worth a small fortune.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesTestimonios

By Roy Hattersley (THE GUARDIAN, 16/10/06):

Last week - "somewhere in France", as War Office communiques used to say - a patch of barren land, which a farmer had hoped to use as a rubbish dump, became the site of a memorial to men who fought and died in one of the first world war's most bitter battles. The official dedication was reported, at about item five, on a regional television news bulletin which I was about to switch off. But, on hearing the name of the battle, I paused. The Hohenzollern Redoubt is part of my family's folklore.

I own a penny notebook that an uncle I never knew took to France in 1914.…  Seguir leyendo »