Theme |
1. Sacrifice & Remembrance |
2. The Vast Cock-Up |
3. The Great Betrayal |
Propagated By |
Governments, Church, Veterans Groups, Official Historians |
Well-Educated, Academics, Journalists, Artists [including many official war artists] |
Revolutionaries, Traumatized Veterans & their Families, Modernists, Avant Garde |
The War Was |
A Call to Duty & A Great Trial |
Mega-Mistake |
Meaningless Waste |
The Dead Were |
Fallen Heroes |
Slaughtered Sheep |
Victims of Manifest Evil |
Survivors |
Benefited from Comradeship & Doing Duty |
Lucky to get out Alive |
Suffered Irreparable Damage: Emotional and Psychic if not Physically |
Relationship of Soldiers to Society |
Home front & Trenches are One |
Soldiers Alienated from Homefront |
Soldiers Sacrificed by Their Society |
War & Tradition |
Soldiers Fought to Uphold Tradition |
Tradition Caused the War |
Tradition Rejected |
Characteristic Quote From the War Poets |
In Flanders fields the poppies Blow … McCrae |
Now all roads lead to France where heavy is the tread of the living and the dead returning lightly dance… Thomas |
If any question why we died, tell them, because our fathers lied… Kipling |
Representative Classic Films |
Dawn Patrol;
Sgt. York |
All Quiet on the Western Front;
Oh! What a Lovely War! |
J'Accuse;
Paths of Glory |
Representative Classic Memoirs |
Storm of Steel ... Junger |
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer ... Sassoon |
Testament of Youth ... Brittain |