"The old army died so gloriously at Ypres because the battle they had to fight called for those qualities of unflinching courage and dogged self sacrifice in which they were pre-eminent. They were given in the opportunity of dying for their country and they died uncomplaining. It occured to no one thet they had to die in that fashion because the men responsible for their training had never learned the lessons from history, had never realised what resources modern invention had opened to them, with the consequence that men had to do at the cost of their lives the work which could have been done with one quarter the losses at one tenth the risk of defeat if they had been adequately armed and equipped."
The General
C S Forester
True today as it was in 1914
Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil\'s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.