Requiems for forgotten wars

[Narukami]

Of course, war and killing are not an instinct, but something that is taught and is learned. As Gwynne Dyer pointed out, "Anybody's son will do." Armies have been "doing it" for centuries. "Human beings are fairly malleable, especially when they are young, and in every young man there are the attitudes for any army to work with..." (War, c1985, p103)

But more to the example of Jona's nephew playing with toy soldiers (an image that really struck me) -- I think H.G.Wells sets the standard. A prolific writer and historian (Many credit Tom Clancy with beginning the Techno Thriller genre, but I give that pride of place to Wells.) H.G. Wells was not only an vowed pacifist but was also an avid player of war games. Indeed, he is often credited as the father of the modern hobby of miniature war games.

In comparing games to the real thing, H.G. had this to say:

"And if I might for a moment trumpet! How much better is this amiable miniature than the Real Thing! Here is a homeopathic remedy for the imaginative strategist. Here is the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster -- and no smashed nor sanguinary bodies, no shattered fine buildings nor devastated country sides, no petty cruelties, none of that awful universal boredom and embitterment, that tiresome delay or stoppage or embarrassment of every gracious, bold, sweet, and charming thing, that we who are old enough to remember a real modern war know to be the reality of belligerence.

This world is for ample living; we want security and freedom; all of us in every country, except a few dull-witted, energetic bores, want to see the manhood of the world at something better than apeing the little lead toys our children buy in boxes. We want fine things made for mankind -- splendid cities, open ways, more knowledge and power, and more and more and more, -- and so I offer my game, for a particular as well as a general end; and let us put this prancing monarch and that silly scaremonger, and these excitable 'patriots,' and those adventurers, and all the practitioners of Welt Politik, into one vast Temple of War, with cork carpets everywhere, and plenty of little trees and little houses to knock down, and cities and fortresses, and unlimited soldiers -- tons, cellars-full, -- and let them lead their own lives there away from us ...

Great War is at present, I am convinced, not only the most expensive game in the universe, but it is a game out of all proportion. Not only are the masses of men and material and suffering and inconvenience too monstrously big for reason, but -- the available heads we have for it, are too small. That, I think, is the most pacific realisation conceivable, and Little War brings you to it as nothing else but Great War can do."

H.G. Wells, Little Wars, 1913

This quote may be found here: http://www.imaginative-strategist.layfigures.com/

Now, I will admit that this does little to answer Jona's original central question, nor is it quite a eloquently honest as Ralph's statement, however I think that H.G. Wells is quite right and there is little reason to believe that because kids play with toy soldiers they have a inherent tendency toward war. More game with toy soldiers and fewer wars with real soldiers thank you.

My apologies for the digression.

:oops:

Narukami

[Jona Lendering]

I think that H.G. Wells is quite right and there is little reason to believe that because kids play with toy soldiers they have a inherent tendency toward war.

You are right, that example did not prove my point, that we're somehow addicted to war; we know it is bad, but always allow our politicians to bring about some new disasters.

[Epictetus]

Here are my favourite quotations regarding the creation of war-themed works of art:

Over the years, people I’ve met have often asked me what I’m working on, and I’ve usually replied that the main thing was a book about [the] Dresden [firebombing in WWII].

I said that to Harrison Starr, the movie-maker, one time, and he raised his eyebrows and inquired, ‘Is it an anti-war book?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I guess.’

‘You know what I say to people when I hear they’re writing anti-war books?’

‘No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?’

‘I say, “Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?”’

What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

And then there is this gem:

And somewhere in there a nice man named Seymour Lawrence gave me a three-book contract, and I said, ‘O.K., the first of the three will be my famous book about Dresden.’

The friends of Seymour Lawrence call him ‘Sam’. And I say to Sam now: ‘Sam – here’s the book.’

It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.

And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?’

Ibid.

[Jona Lendering]

Personally, I think the glacier is the better of the two. The truth of the second one is contradicted by Vonnegut's own writing...

But let's go back to the music. Is it justifiable to commemorate a war that has lost its direct relevance? Musically? One argument, and a good one, for doing so is that it brings people to studying that war - which gives it new relevance. Anyone else?

[hoplite14gr]

Jona, David (Narukami)

I believe that the answer lies into the fact that humans are biologically mammals and have the "instinct of the pack" -* both the positive and negative aspects of it.

A WW II requiem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtjAmaG7jjA
But I am sure more like it will come in the future thanks to human stupidity!


Kind regards

[ParthianBow]

What an interesting, and meaningful topic. Thank you, Jona, for starting it, and thank you to everyone who's posted.
I thought the P!nk song was beautiful.
To answer your question, Jona, I do think it is OK to commemorate a war that has lost its relevance. I can think of no better than this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKj2ZPEY7pY 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda', about the Australians' experience at Gallipoli. While the relevance has gone (except for those who may have had relations who fought there) the song honours the dead who fell, and helps us to remember them. I have been known to sing the song after a few beers, and one of my proudest memories is the response I received from New Zealanders after singing it very late one ANZAC day (night, really). Their emotional reaction would say to me that such music is justifable.

[Jona Lendering]

I do think it is OK to commemorate a war that has lost its relevance. I can think of no better than this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKj2ZPEY7pY 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda', about the Australians' experience at Gallipoli. While the relevance has gone (except for those who may have had relations who fought there) the song honours the dead who fell, and helps us to remember them. I have been known to sing the song after a few beers, and one of my proudest memories is the response I received from New Zealanders after singing it very late one ANZAC day (night, really). Their emotional reaction would say to me that such music is justifable.

Good point - yes. I may, for argument's sake, object that WW1 is not really irrelevant. But that's just for argument's sake.

[Astiryu1]

I do not think any war is irrelevant as it is a chapter in the story of us all. I mean look at us; we are all talking about the Romans, Greeks,Persians, etc... The American Civil War is reenacted and for some still a sore subject. The Plains Wars are still relevant to the Native Americans. Thermopylae is still relevant. The Battle of Salamis is taught in at least the Greek Naval Academies today. Our world is shaped by wars for better or worse and the relevance is always there in the back of our minds.

[Robert Vermaat]

Personally, I think the glacier is the better of the two.

Not only that, but I think we are pretty successful at stopping glaciers. We might have them on the run, in fact.
Maybe a reqiem for a glacier, anyone?

[Jona Lendering]

Maybe a requiem for a glacier, anyone?

"Sit upon the ground / and tell sad stories of the death of glaciers ..."? (Nope, metrically incorrect.)

[Celer]

Salve,

Not quite a forgotten war, but there is a setting of the Walt Whitman poem 'The Wound Dresser' by John Adams. Whitman served as a medical orderly during the American Civil War and wrote a set of poems filled with pathos about his experiences and the sense of futility of prolonging a life that gangrene had doomed anyhow. Also, Sir Michael Tippetts 'A Child of our Time' is in effect a requiem for children caught up in war, as is Henri Dutilleux's 'The Shadows of Time'. There are also non-vocal requiems such as Frank Bridge's 'Oration for Cello and Orchestra' (painfully poignant) and the War Symphonies and Sonatas by Shostakovich and Prokofiev. I must admit however that most 'war' music before the C20th is pretty jingoistic and celebratory, from the anonymous hymn celebrating the English victory at Azincourt to Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture. It seems the Great War changed the public conception of war and it's cost, and the music of war changed with it.

As for the earlier post about graphic images ..... anyone here seen the most useless propaganda film of all time, 'Military Medicine in Vietnam'? That is one express way to turn public opinion against a war!

Vale,

Celer.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

No I haven't seen that one.
But I believe that superglue was invented to glue small blood vessles back together during the war.

[Paullus Scipio]

What an interesting, and meaningful topic. Thank you, Jona, for starting it, and thank you to everyone who's posted.
I thought the P!nk song was beautiful.
To answer your question, Jona, I do think it is OK to commemorate a war that has lost its relevance. I can think of no better than this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKj2ZPEY7pY 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda', about the Australians' experience at Gallipoli. While the relevance has gone (except for those who may have had relations who fought there) the song honours the dead who fell, and helps us to remember them. I have been known to sing the song after a few beers, and one of my proudest memories is the response I received from New Zealanders after singing it very late one ANZAC day (night, really). Their emotional reaction would say to me that such music is justifable.

The 'Spirit of ANZAC' and the role of Gallipoli in our history plays an important part in the history of both Australia and New Zealand - so much so that our annual commemoration day for all veterans is the anniversary of the Gallipoli landings - April 25 - rather than Armistice day ( the 11 November).
"And the band played Waltzing Matilda" is also unusual for a 'requiem' in that it refers only in passing to the dead - the protagonist is wounded and returns home crippled. Such casualties always outnumber the dead, but are often ignored in favour of the 'Glorious Dead'.

That song, usually sung in bars or on ANZAC day, is guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of all Australians/New Zealanders.......

[Astiryu1]

America's Nat'l Anthem is one of the more somber war songs; it was written by Francis Scott Key while he was a prisoner of war as we are told in school. I have preformed it many times in Chorus while in High School.

[Jona Lendering]

It seems the Great War changed the public conception of war and it's cost

That is indeed the common opinion, and I see no reason why it would be wrong. Yet, perhaps a case can be made for 1860-1870 as turning point: the American Civil War, the Risorgimento Wars in Italy, the Prussian-Austrian War, and the Franco-German War. It was a bloody decad. Especially the fights in Italy caused many people to think about it. Henri Dunant founded the Red Cross, and a new type of hero became popular: the war-hating generals like Garibaldi.