Great War Presentation
Introduction
Tony Novosel
We welcome you to our presentation on The Great War. This is something that has come to mean a great deal to us and we are pleased you could joinus. Before we begin, we want to make clear how this presentation came about and why it is structured and performed this way.
Over four years ago Bernie and I were each working separately on the importance of the Great War in European and World History, while also trying to make the war, and the violence and the chaos it unleashed in the 20th Century understandable to our classes. Bernie had begun to use poetry and music, while I was experimenting with poetry and video. Eventually, we brought these together and the result is this presentation.
What we want to make clear is that this is not an “anti-war” presentation. Our intent is to show how those involved in The Great War went from the idealism, the hopes of glory and the enthusiasm of 1914, to the disillusionment of 1916-1917, to the utter despair of the post-war era. We believe that this Poetryand music accurately and truly captures the sense of these times.
The Presentation:
Poetry of Glory and Hope: Brooke, Seeger and McCrae
1914-1916 - The poems here reflect the attitudes many young people held towards the coming of the War and the War itself. At its start, the Great War was a popular war. “The war was even blessed by those thinkers and artists who were non-violent by nature.”( Steven Kreis) The war, many people sincerely believed, would be quick and glorious, and a generation of young men marched off to war thinking they were going to “. . . home before the leaves fall.” They sincerely believed that they would come home decorated and celebrated or, at worst, sacrifice themselves valiantly in “imitation of Christ.” Brooke, Seeger and McCrae are also representative of the “Generation of 1914” that believed that the War would rescue them “. . . from a world grown old and cold and weary.”
Poetry of Disillusionment: Owen, Brittain, Weddeburn and Sassoon
1916-1917 – 1916 is generally known as “The Year of Slaughter” because of “Verdun” and “The Somme.” These two battles, lasting about 16 months combined, resulted in over 1.5 million casualties. Instead of the short, glorious war they believed would renew them and the world, the young men and women of 1914 came face-to-face with industrial warfare that introduced new forms of “impersonal” death (poison gas, fire, machine guns and long-range shells) along with death on an industrial scale. The poems in this section are an attempt by these poets to cope with and deal with this new “reality.”
Poetry of Despair: Owen, Sassoon and Bogle
1917-??? – Prof. Dr. Rolf P. Lessenich of Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn looking at the after-effects of the War saw that those who had survived had acquired “. . . a sense of fatalism and helplessness in view of an absurd and bungled War which ran out of human control.” This is clearly illustrated in Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” Sassoon’s “Aftermath,” Bogle’s “Green Fields of France” and the quote from Edwin Campion Vaughn. Instead of the new “dawn” and the “renewal,” the Great War had led only to despair and disillusionment among those who fought it. For the survivors the “. . . war was insanity, irrationality and the triumph of unreason in a world taught that reason was the guide to the good life.” (Steven Kreis) Without understanding this disillusionment and despair one cannot understand the rise of the Nazi, Fascist and Communist movements in the inter-war years.