Lest we forget

But we draw special attention to it as an apt time to mull those dreadful periods, and how their legacies in Europe could be affected by two recent geo-political earthquakes - the Brexit vote in which the British voted their country out of formal European affiliation, and the rise of United States President-elect, Donald Trump, whose campaign sent some worrying signals to traditional allies on whether America will be just as strong a partner in the preservation of global peace.

Lest we forget, WWI, the Great War, was supposedly “the war to end all wars” because of the belief that the horrors of newly-mechanised warfare would deter anyone from ever repeating such acts.

Calvary lancers charged in futility against steel tanks, even as rows of attacking infantrymen were literally mowed down by enemy machine-gun fire. Men hopelessly entangled in huge reels of barbed wire - like flies caught on flypaper - languished for days with wounds so agonising that they pleaded with their own troops to put them out of their misery with a wellaimed bullet.

Men cowered in water-logged dugouts in the mud, fending off the disease, trench foot, and the threat of lice and rats. Poison chlorine gas corroded away men’s lungs, leaving them “guttering, choking, drowning” in their own fluids as related in poet Wilfred Owen’s Dulce Et Decorum.

Sadly, the lessons of WWI were not learnt as national humiliation led to festering resentments which were stoked to lead to WWII. Industrialised warfare evolved further in WWII.

Nazi engineers calculated how to most efficiently kill concentration camp inmates on an industrial scale. The lot of the ordinary soldier pitched against WWII’s deadly weaponry is vividly shown in the movie, “Enemy at the Gate”, where masses of Russian soldiers in futility charged the Nazi machine- guns at the Battle of Stalingrad.

At the end of WWII, the Allied Powers prevailed but not before unleashing two atomic bombs on two cities of the Axis Power, Japan.

Again, WWII despite its horrors did not put an end to warfare, even as it is suggested that unresolved issues from WWII may have led to the atrocities of 1990 at the break up of former Yugoslavia, and in other areas.

The end of WWII saw attempts to prevent any recurrence by establishing a common-trade area, the European Union. Further, amid Cold War tensions between the capitalist West and communist East, the division of Europe into North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact respectively maintained a stability of sorts in Europe.

All of this is not just of historical interest to TT, some of whose citizens signed up for service in each wart, including aviator, the late Justice Ulric Cross.

Further, at present the occasion of Remembrance Day invites us all to mull the changes to the map of Europe that could result from Brexit and a Trump Presidency.

If other nations were to each have their own Brexit, the EU could implode on itself. This ironically, even as the Ukraine seeks to join the EU, literally fighting to leave the Russian sphere of influence.

A re-drawn map of Europe could heighten instability.

Secondly, Trump is seen as resentful of American funding of NATO and as being a personal and mutual admirer of Russian leader, Vladimir Putin.

Will a Trump Presidency be a further destabilising force in Europe? Remembrance Day, therefore, must be not only an opportunity to remember The Fallen, but also to pay them the greatest tribute of showing our constant vigilance so as to avoid any other such major breakout of war on a world-scale.