Selective memory

Critics of the rituals associated with Remembrance Day often face the accusation that they are unpatriotic or, worse still, that they are disrespectful to those being honoured. In voicing reservations about the event, it’s hard to avoid a plea of guilty to the first charge but it’s certainly possible to accurately deny the second... indeed, a case can be made that the language used during the ceremonies which is far more disrespectful towards the fallen than any criticism of the ceremonies.

Let’s start with the word ‘sacrifice’. In many ways, it’s an accurate word to use when describing the fate of the young men who fought in the First World War. But to describe them as having ‘sacrificed’ their lives for their country is largely inaccurate. Instead, we should acknowledge that they were ‘sacrificed’ by their country.

Those who died in the first two years of World War I did, at least, volunteer to join the various armed forces. The same cannot be said of those obliged to serve after the introduction of The Military Service Act 1916 which introduced the military draft in this country. Once this Act was enacted into law, anyone meeting the stated criteria was obliged to serve unless they also met one of the criteria which enabled them to be excepted from the draft.

Interestingly, one of the exception criteria was ‘conscientious objection to the undertaking of combatant service’, however anyone making such a claim had to face a tribunal to determine their sincerity. Since the tribunal panels were generally composed of individuals with a highly conservative attitude, most of the 20,000 men who sought to avoid military service through such a claim had their applications dismissed.

Since most ‘conscientious objection’ appeals were denied, the only way of determinedly avoiding the draft was to refuse to comply... considered an act of desertion and punishable by death.

So it’s fair to say that most of the young men who were sent to the trenches in the second half of the First World War were compelled to do so. Any sense of them having made a ‘sacrifice’ already looks dubious since self-sacrifice is, by definition, a voluntary act.

What was required of these men once they reached the front line makes the notion of them ‘sacrificing’ their lives yet more contentious. The nature of warfare in the second decade of the 20thy Century was a permanent brutal stalemate. Attempts to break the stalemate could be considered suicidal if the men making the decisions had been required to carry them out themselves... but they weren’t. They passed their orders on to the mixture of volunteers and conscripts in the trenches and those men had no choice but to comply... any attempt to resist the duress could have the dissenter in front of a firing squad. Therefore, the attempts to break the stalemate were not suicidal... they were homicidal.

‘Never again’ was the abiding motto in the aftermath of World War I... but what was it that was not supposed to happen again? War itself? Or was it just something that was said because there was no adequate way of trying to justify the slaughter and ruination of a whole generation of young men? A meaningless platitude among other meaningless platitudes designed to placate the righteous anger of a population forced to fight a War whose significance they could not grasp?

These men are often described as having ‘given their lives’. This phrase offers a nobility to the squalid deaths of millions. They did not give their lives... in a lot of cases they didn’t even willingly risk their lives. They had their lives taken off them and it doesn’t dishonour them to accept this truth.