The Gen

[Moggy]

Bruce Anderson: We have every reason to grieve for Harry Patch and his time

1914-1945 was the worst epoch in history since the Dark Ages
Monday, 27 July 2009

No soldier can hear The Last Post without emotion; no civilian should. Every evening, the local fire brigade plays it at the Menin Gate, in memory of the First World War dead, and especially of the tens of thousands of allied soldiers who have no known grave. Soon, those serene and sweetly melancholy bugle-notes will sound for the final time for Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier who fought in the trenches.

The men may fade into history, but theirs is an unquiet grave. The controversies will not fade away. Like a strong poison in the bloodstream, the First World War is an event which cannot be assimilated. In view of the evil, the destruction and the poisoned legacy, it could be seen as a second fall of man.

If we were able to choose our date of birth, there is a good case for 1820. One would need to have been a child of the comfortable classes and to have possessed a constitution robust enough to require no serious encounters with Victorian medicine. But subject to those conditions, the advantages are obvious. The Nineteenth Century was a period of remarkable improvement in almost every area. By 1900, the world had been transformed. Though problems remained, it seemed that the West could look forward to steadily increasing prosperity, stability and freedom, while the rest of the world would benefit, albeit at a slower pace, from the West's influences and the West's trade.

If he were fortunate, our infant of 1820 would have enjoyed good health until the early summer of 1914 and then a rapid decline, sparing him from the knowledge that a few hundred miles from his peaceful deathbed, a deathbed was being prepared for millions of sufferers, plus the hopes of a hundred years. 1914-45 was the worst epoch in history since the Dark Ages, and there is a hideous paradox . We only recovered, avoiding a third world war which would have finished off most of European civilisation, because of the threat of nuclear war, leading to a dark age from which there could be no recovery. That threat is still with us – and to think that in the Nineteenth Century, men believed in moral progress.

They achieved material progress, and then all the arts of peace became weapons of war. Instead of liberating the world from scarcity, technological progress reached its climax in total war.

Yet it was all so unnecessary. There was no need for the issues which divided the great powers to lead to conflict. If only one-hundredth of the unavailing diplomatic efforts of the 1930s had been deployed before 1914, the tragedy could have been averted. Instead, in five capitals, the monarchs and politicians took their place in the Totentanz. If only they had known what they and their successors were shortly to discover.

Given that war was declared, a basic question remains. Should Britain have ignored its treaty obligations and stayed out? We could probably have exacted a payment for our neutrality. The Germans might have agreed to limit their construction or acquisition of Dreadnoughts. They might even have handed over Tanganyika and German South-West Africa, expecting compensation at France's expense. If we had decided to abandon our allies, we might as well have snaffled Angola and Mozambique from Portugal, plus, perhaps, the Belgian Congo, which would have been of little use to a Belgium left to the Hun's mercies.

So: no war, no sacrifice of a generation, an even greater African Empire with Britain in control from the Cape to Cairo: those seem strong arguments for peace. But consider the state of Europe after a German victory. France, shattered, bankrupt and demilitarised, unable to decide whom she hated more: the Germans who had ravaged her or the British who had betrayed her. Russia would have been convulsed by revolution and territorial loss. A victorious Germany might have intervened against the Bolsheviks, perhaps with success. Whatever the outcome, Russia would not have looked towards Britain. We would have had no prospect of finding any allies in mainland Europe, while the US, which would not have joined the War, would still have been a wide ocean away from European affairs >>>>

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