On this day in 1918, Susan Owen (center in picture) received word that her son, Wilfred, had been killed the previous week while fighting with his unit in the Battle of the Sambre. She thus might have read the words of his death while listening to the bells of the town church peal the news of the Armistice that ended World War I. Peace had come for Britain, if not perhaps for her.
She likely feared such a telegram. Wilfred’s letters to her rarely tried to conceal the situation at the front. One, from 1917, said that:
I can see no excuse for deceiving you about these last 4 days. I have suffered seventh hell. I have not been at the front.
I have been in front of it.
I held an advanced post, that is, a ‘dug-out’ in the middle of No Man’s Land.
Those fifty hours were the agony of my happy life.
Every ten minutes on Sunday afternoon seemed an hour.
I nearly broke down and let myself drown in the water that was now slowly rising over my knees.
No death is preordained, of course, but those of a frontline soldier in World War I came closer than most. One of Wilfred’s poems may have suggested to Susan that her son was at rest, of a sort, while all around people loudly celebrated. At a Calvary Near Ancre:
The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.
Or perhaps not.
11 comments
November 11, 2009 at 7:09 am
Matt McKeon
“I didn’t expect the Battle of the Somme to be quite like this.”
Siegfried Sassoon
November 11, 2009 at 10:54 am
Davis X. Machina
I noticed someone added poppies to the banner at the head of the page.
Nicely done.
November 11, 2009 at 1:09 pm
eric
Thanks.
November 11, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Charlieford
Interesting that Owen and Bourne both speak of “the state.” Later it’d be more common to refer to “my country,” I think.
November 11, 2009 at 6:49 pm
eric
As you know, Charlie, war is the health of the state.
November 11, 2009 at 8:44 pm
TF Smith
In front of the memorial auditorium in Sacramento is a statue of a WW I veteran talking with a boy; if I remember the inscription correctly, it is something along the lines of “learn from our mistakes.”
I couldn’t find a photo of it, but I did find this; the names make for an interesting demographic snapshot:
[link]
Safely rest…
November 11, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Charlieford
eric, don’t tell me we’re finally getting back to Ron Paul?!
November 12, 2009 at 11:00 am
eric
Does Randolph Bourne have to take us back to Ron Paul?
November 12, 2009 at 11:06 am
eric
I had a doggerel about this kind of thing, somewhere, which I thought I scrawled here, but maybe not. Anyway:
Actually, it’s probably a pastiche, more than a doggerel.
November 12, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Michael Holloway
“manufactory of destruction” I won’t forget that one.
November 13, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Charlieford
Bourne had an essay on the handicapped, if I recall. That’s sort of getting us in Paul territory, isn’t it?