Victory Stuff

Victory Stuff
By Robert Service

What d'ye think, lad; what d'ye think,
As the roaring crowds go by?
As the banners flare and the brasses blare
And the great guns rend the sky?
As the women laugh like they'd all gone mad,
And the champagne glasses clink:
Oh, you're grippin' me hand so tightly, lad,
I'm a-wonderin': what d'ye think?

D'ye think o' the boys we used to know,
And how they'd have topped the fun?
Tom and Charlie, and Jack and Joe --
Gone now, every one.
How they'd have cheered as the joy-bells chime,
And they grabbed each girl for a kiss!
And now -- they're rottin' in Flanders slime,
And they gave their lives -- for this.

Or else d'ye think of the many a time
We wished we too was dead,
Up to our knees in the freezin' grime,
With the fires of hell overhead;
When the youth and the strength of us sapped away,
And we cursed in our rage and pain?
And yet -- we haven't a word to say. . . .
We're glad. We'd do it again.

I'm scared that they pity us. Come, old boy,
Let's leave them their flags and their fuss.
We'd surely be hatin' to spoil their joy
With the sight of such wrecks as us.
Let's slip away quietly, you and me,
And we'll talk of our chums out there:
You with your eyes that'll never see,
Me that's wheeled in a chair.

 

Rob, the poem is about the First World War. It was first published in 1919. I find it a very powerful poem. Service's The Cremation of Sam McGee is his best known poem.

Sassoon wrote powerful poems also. Here is one.

The Rear-Guard
BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON

(Hindenburg Line, April 1917)

Groping along the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.
Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes and too vague to know;
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
And he, exploring fifty feet below
The rosy gloom of battle overhead.
Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw someone lie
Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug.
And stooped to give the sleeper’s arm a tug.
“I’m looking for headquarters.” No reply.
“God blast your neck!” (For days he’d had no sleep.)
“Get up and guide me through this stinking place.”
Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,
And flashed his beam across the livid face
Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
Agony dying hard of ten days before;
And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.
Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
At last, with sweat and horror in his hair,
He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
Unloading hell behind him step by step.

 

One of the more famous poems from WW I

In Flanders Fields
By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

 

Not in Western Europe. I did go through the Fulda Gap on a train going from Frankfurt to Dresden. I also visited Auschwitz in Poland and drove through Dachau. Of course there were battles for almost all the cities. Prague, fortunately, was taken without damaging the city by a Russian tank division. I did walk the Sarka Valley numerous times. This is the valley the tank division followed to get into the city. I visited the church were the men who assassinated Heinrich Heydrich and the village, Lidice and Ležáky, that Hitler ordered destroyed in revenge. It is one of the saddest places I have every visited. Some of the children from that village who looked Aryan enough and were not killed were housed for a period of time where the Baptist Seminary was located. I never made it to Normandy. I visited Dresden several times. You know what happened there.

This is a memorial to the children of Lidice, almost all of whom wee killed by the Nazis. The artist was going to include all the children, but died before she could complete it.

Every male over 16 was shot. One poor lad had just had his 16th birthday.

To read about Lidice go to:

Lidice and Ležáky – Prague Blog

 

Bullets marks from German soldiers have never been repaired at the Cyril and Methodius Church in Prague. This is the church where orthodox priests allowed Czech soldiers to hide after they assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague. Betrayed the Nazi's sent 700 soldiers to the church. There was a standoff lasting at least 6 hours or more. The Czechs committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner.

Citizens of Prague always keep containers of fresh flowers at this site commerating the men who lost their lives here.
Reinhard Heydrich. He might have survived if he had competent doctors attending him. He died a slow and painful death from infections.