World War I Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

All Quiet On The Western Front (2022)

World War I

The current iteration of the film All Quiet On The Western Front is the third World War I film I’ve seen in the last four years. I watched 1917 in January 2020, and the documentary footage of They Shall Not Grow Old a year earlier.

There’s a bit of surface similarity between Grow Old and All Quiet. In each case, the potential recruits, from Britain and Germany, respectively, are led to believe that going off to war will be an adventure. They’re so cheerful marching off to battle. But they soon discover they’re mired in a slog of trench warfare.

All Quiet is a remake of the 1930 film of the same name, which I have never seen. The original won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director, Lewis Milestone, and was nominated in two other categories. The new film is up for nine Oscars, including Best Picture.

The characters even share the same names. Felix Kammerer plays Paul, the Lew Ayres role. Albrecht Schuch is Kat, played initially by Louis Wolheim. I did not know there was also a 1979 TV movie with Richard Thomas and Ernest Borgnine.

At some level, the charge by the soldiers, which happens thrice, looks almost exactly the same in the new film. Perhaps it’s to show what is explained in the epilogue, that tens of thousands of soldiers were killed to gain or lose only a few hundred meters of territory. This caused me slight confusion for a time.

Recycled

Even in the “quiet” moments, one sees the horrors. The uniforms are stripped from the dead soldiers and shipped to a factory where women sew up the holes created by bullets and bayonets. Often, the names of the previous wearer have not been removed until after the recruit notices the old nametag.

Still, nothing showed the utter pointless insanity of war more than a segment near the end.

The new All Quiet On The Western Front is an excellent movie worthy of its BAFTA win. But it inevitably has lots of wartime violence, some of it up close. Occasionally, the participants consider their actions’ emotional and moral consequences. Then there’s the next skirmish, and a soldier has no time to think.

The eyes. The image that will linger in my mind is often the blue eyes of the living and the dead on faces caked with mud.

Formerly known as Armistice Day

changed in 1954

When I read history.com telling of the history of Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, most of it was quite familiar.

“The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, marking the official end of World War I. Nonetheless, the armistice date of November 11, 1918, remained in the public imagination as the date that marked the end of the conflict.”

But somehow, this part I forgot, though I was alive at the time. In 1968, “Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which sought to ensure three-day weekends for federal employees—and encourage tourism and travel—by celebrating four national holidays (Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day and Columbus Day) on Mondays.” I had forgotten that Veterans Day was part of the Monday holiday package.

“The observation of Veterans Day was set as the fourth Monday in October. The first Veterans Day under the new law was Monday, October 25, 1971; confusion ensued as many states disapproved of this change and continued to observe the holiday on its original date.

“In 1975, after it became evident that the actual date of Veterans Day carried historical and patriotic significance to many Americans, President Gerald Ford signed a new law returning the observation of Veterans Day to November 11th beginning in 1978.” This oddly pleased me. Not everything has to be shoehorned into a Monday holiday.

I used to correct people who would confuse Memorial Day and Veterans Day. So pedantic, I suppose. “Memorial Day (the fourth Monday in May) honors American service members who died in service to their country or as a result of injuries incurred during battle, while Veterans Day pays tribute to all American veterans—living or dead—but especially gives thanks to living veterans who served their country honorably during war or peacetime.”

Armistice Day

Still, I miss the term Armistice Day, which is what the holiday was called before World War II and the Korean conflict. “In 1954, after lobbying efforts by veterans’ service organizations, the 83rd U.S. Congress amended the 1938 act that had made Armistice Day a holiday, striking the word ‘Armistice’ in favor of ‘Veterans.'”

But three states recognize Veterans’ Day/Armistice Day: Mississippi, Rhode Island, and Texas. Here’s a song by Paul Simon.

Did you know there is a Veterans Day poster contest? I didn’t either. Here’s the winning design for 2022, which frankly doesn’t excite me very much.

Here are some 2022 Veterans Day discounts and freebies, plus more specific deals at restaurants.

PTSD

I worry about the conditions veterans experience. BVA points to unemployment, their relationship with themselves, homelessness, physical handicaps, and poor mental health as very real issues.

Organizations such as the VFW and Sound Off note a sad situation. “Between 19% and 44% of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan meet criteria for mental health disorders, such as PTSD or depression. Yet, 47% do not seek mental health support.” Sound Off and other groups “provide a platform where military members who would otherwise avoid mental health support can engage anonymously with peers like you who can understand their experiences.”

I like a good parade occasionally. But Thank you for your service rings hollow until the country does better by the people it has put in harm’s way.

Classical music to end all wars

Ralph Vaughn Williams

From a Zoom discussion meeting of the choir folk on a recent Thursday night, I discovered that quite a bit of classical music was written to commemorate the Great World War.

I knew about a number of pop tunes for “the war to end all wars.” It’s A Long, Long Way to Tipperary; I Didn’t Raise My Son to Be A Soldier; Keep the Home Fires Burning; and of course, Over There, were all #1 charters in the United States. The latter was a #1 hit by three different artists in a row, American Quartet, Peerless Quartet, and Nora Bayes in the fourth quarter of 1917.

Here are nine classical compositions, with music links. I was familiar with Britten’s War Requiem. I have a recording of Gustav Holst’s The Planets, but I did not know of its WWI connection. Perhaps I should have. “In the opening section of the suite, ‘Mars, The Bringer of War,’ there’s a truly visceral sense of horror; what must have seemed like the end of the world to those who experienced The Great War.”

Ralph, pronounced Raif

This article from the British Library notes the number of young composers killed in the conflict. One noted composer who physically survived the conflict was Ralph Vaughn Williams (12 October 1872 – 26 August 1958).

“He enlisted as a Private in the Royal Army Medical Corps… on New Year’s Eve 1914. At 42 he was old enough to have been excused service, but the medical corps were often chosen by older… men who wanted to serve.

“Maurice Ravel, who had tutored Vaughan Williams in orchestration in 1907-8 also became an ambulance driver. Becoming a medical orderly was not an easy posting, however.

Many of Vaughan Williams’ friends died. “Ralph wrote to Holst in 1916 about the loss of his contemporaries and his fear of returning to civilian life. ‘I sometimes dread coming back to normal life with so many gaps…out of those 7 who joined up together in August 1914 only 3 are left.'”

Listen:

Symphony No. 3, “A Pastoral Symphony” (June 1921) Haitink conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra

Dona Nobis Pacem cantata (1936) London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Conductor: Richard Hickox – Soloists: Bryn Terfel (baritone), Yvonne Kenny (soprano), Philip Langridge (tenor)

November rambling: triple plays

Rebecca Jade And The Cold Fact

The Violent History of the U.S.-Mexico Border

The Revolution Isn’t Being Televised

Stephen Miller E-Mails Show How He Promoted White Nationalist Ideology In Media, going back to when he worked for then-Senator Jeff Sessions

How women fall into the white supremacist movement

Maligned in black and white– Southern newspapers played a major role in racial violence. Do they owe their communities an apology?

Religious Freedom for Loganists!

My Childhood in a Cult

Republicans want to out the whistleblower because they can’t defend him on the merits

His tortured English

The Obama date-night controversy

Amazon’s Absence from Worker Safety Alliance Highlights Dangers of Unsafe Supply Chains

How One Employer Stuck a New Mom With an $898,984 Bill for Her Premature Baby

Charles à Court Repington and when did we start to refer to the horrors of the 1914-1918 conflict as ‘The First World War’?

Weekly Sift: Sacrifices

Yvette Lundy: French Resistance member who survived Nazi camps dies at 103

UK halts fracking, effective immediately

The Untold Story of the 2018 Olympics Cyberattack, the Most Deceptive Hack in History

AIER: Questions for Immigration Skeptics

Court Allows Police Full Access to Online Genealogy Database

In a rural Wisconsin village, the doctor makes house calls — and sees some of the rarest diseases on Earth

Dial 911 if there’s an emergency, not 112

Social Security and SSI Benefits Are Increasing in 2020

Wealth Is About Much More than Physical Things

New Airplane Feature Could Save You If Your Pilot Can’t

There’s no reason to cross the U.S. by train. But I did so anyway.

Fully Accessible Guide to Smart Home Tech for Disabled and Elderly

That’s entertainment

Washington Grays baseball, in honor of the Homestead Grays, a Negro League Team

All 720 Triple Plays in Major League Baseball history

Beany and Cecil

The accidental brilliance of Silly Putty

Four toy commercials from the sixties – I definitely had a Slinky, and I know I played someone’s Rock ’em, Sock ’em Robots

Tips on attending TV Tapings

Amy Biancolli: I Really Don’t Care

Now I Know: The Last Army Pillow Fight and Why Filmmakers Use That Black and White Flapped Board and The Ark That Went Full Circle

MUSIC

Rebecca Jade And The Cold Fact: Songs From Their New Album ‘Running Out Of Time’ and Gonna Be Alright and how they began

Viola Sonata in D minor by Mikhail Glinka.

The Wolf Glen scene from the opera Der Freischutz by Carl Maria von Weber

Coverville 1284: Cover Stories for Grace Slick and Katy Perry

Go up Moses – Roberta Flack

Polka and Fugue from Schwanda the Bagpiper! by Jaromir Weinberger

How to Play Guitar Like Keith Richards

What Does ‘Born In The U.S.A.’ Really Mean?

Disease: flu epidemic of 1918-1919

The flu epidemic spread following the path of its human carriers, along trade routes and shipping lines

flu epidemic. I knew there was a terrible flu epidemic near the end of what we now refer to as World War I. The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 struck young people particularly hard, and killed between 20 and 40 million people worldwide, including an estimated 675,000 Americans, far more than the war. But what CAUSED what was perhaps the second deadliest disease outbreak in human history?

The EcoHealth Alliance’s Robert Kessler shares some facts:

“In researching his book The Great Influenza, John M. Barry discovered that in January 1918, a doctor in Haskell County, Kansas reported unusual flu activity to the U.S. Public Health Service. By March, that had spread to nearby Fort Riley. On the morning of March 11, an Army private reported symptoms of fever, sore throat, and headache. By lunch that day, more than 100 soldiers on the base had fallen sick.

“At the time, very little was known about viruses and their transmission. In fact, the very first virus – Tobacco mosaic virus – had only been discovered 26 years earlier in 1892.”

Interesting that the recommendations against contracting the flu were slightly different from a century later. “Wash inside nose with soap and water each night and morning; force yourself to sneeze night and morning, then breathe deeply; do not wear a muffler; take sharp walks regularly and walk home from work; eat plenty of porridge.”

Kessler notes: “Diet and exercise are, of course, essential components of our health, but a brisk walk isn’t going to do much when it comes to preventing a virus from hijacking a host’s cells and replicating itself. From Fort Riley, soldiers carried the disease to other American military bases and, eventually, the battlefront in Europe.”

That first wave wasn’t particularly virulent. But, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control: “In September 1918, the second wave of pandemic flu emerged at Camp Devens, a U.S. Army training camp just outside of Boston, and at a naval facility in Boston. This wave was brutal and peaked in the U.S. from September through November. More than 100,000 Americans died during October alone.”

Stanford University notes the awful effects of the flu epidemic worldwide: “It spread following the path of its human carriers, along trade routes and shipping lines. Outbreaks swept through North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Brazil and the South Pacific In India the mortality rate was extremely high at around 50 deaths from influenza per 1,000 people. The Great War, with its mass movements of men in armies and aboard ships, probably aided in its rapid diffusion and attack.”

As the CDC notes, “Scientists now know this pandemic was caused by an H1N1 virus, which continued to circulate as a seasonal virus worldwide for the next 38 years.”

For ABC Wednesday