[promise] now kept

I have kept my word and "the links have been removed from my sidebar and ... the posts secreted away somewhere." They are obliquely accessible.

Nothing will appear here though, as promised yesterday. Check this post, by the way - there has been an update.

[thought for the day] wednesday evening

Let not the sun go down on your wrath

[Ephesians]

... especially on Armistice Day. Let there be Armistice.

[armistice day] the essential meaning of the day

This is a re-posting of an article from one year ago. It essentially argues against war. You might like to take in the comments section as well.

Please, I urge you, readers, whether you read my post or not, do go over to Jams after this and read the human side of the story. Please then go on to Cherie's, a lovely post. Do check these out too - Nunyaa and Anndi. Check out Aaron's links too. Here is Cassandra's historical look. Here is JMB's.

Armistice Day, Veteran's Day, Remembrance Day

This piece below is indebted heavily to Wikipedia.

Hawks, backed and abetted by the finance, have always prearranged wars long before the opening salvos. Dearieme brought my attention to another angle on it but the two are not mutually exclusive, as far as I can see. Just a question of emphasis.

Nowhere was this prearranged willingness to sacrifice boys' lives for political purposes more glaringly obvious than in The Great War, a term which already had currency in the corridors of power long before the due date. Even Buchan admitted as much in The Thirty Nine Steps [available online]. Check Chapters 1 and 2.

The Schieffen Plan

For complicated reasons you can read yourselves, the Germans were long harbouring a desire to punish France and for what? Because France had punished them for a wrong which they had perpetrated on France and so on.

This is the eternal cycle of war so beloved of two classes – the aristocracy and the old money of Europe.

Some speculate that if Helmuth von Moltke the Younger has not lost his nerve, Germany might have shortened the war but I think not. Historians almost always fail to take into account the invisible factor in all public life – the Old Finance.

So the long drawn out and extremely lucrative conflict and devastation of the common man was very much anticipated.

Helmuth von Moltke the Younger

French Plan XVII

It is erroneous to suppose that the French were the poor victims in this.

Almost immediately following her defeat by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, together with the humiliating annexation by the newly unified Germany of the coal-rich territories of Alsace and Lorraine, the French government and military alike were united in thirsting for revenge.

To this end the French devised a strategy for a vengeful war upon Germany, Plan XVII, whose chief aim was the defeat of Germany and the restoration of Alsace and Lorraine. The plan was fatally flawed, and relied to an untenable extent upon the "élan" which was believed to form an integral part of the French army - an irresistible force that would sweep over its enemies.

Like Caesar's Soothsayer

It wasn't that no one spoke out:

A few dissident intellectuals in Europe had been trying to warn their nations about how different a war among the great industrial powers of Europe would be from wars of the previous century.

This has always been the way and even the kudos of this very blog has suffered for sometimes speaking a truth which is not generally recognized at the time. When it does come out, it is often too late.

And so to Compiègne

This photograph was taken in the forest of Compiègne after reaching an agreement for the armistice that ended World War I. This railcar was given to Ferdinand Foch for military use by the manufacturer, Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Foch is second from the right.

I sometimes imagine that meeting in the forest of Compiegne after all the trench warfare, the slaughter and massive dislocation imposed on a bewildered and yet highly patriotic people.

It was 4.30 in the morning of Monday, November 11th in France and perhaps they'd travelled from Paris via Foch's special train, rugged up for the occasion.

Think for a moment what it would have looked like and felt like that morning.


The German delegation crossed the front line in five cars and was escorted for ten hours across the devastated warzone of Northern France (perhaps, they speculated, to focus their minds on the lack of sympathy they could expect). They were then entrained and taken to the secret destination, Foch's railway siding in the forest of Compiègne.

Telegrams were passed to and from the German team:

Matthias Erzberger, a civilian politician;
Count Alfred von Oberndorff, from the Foreign Ministry;
Major General Detlev von Winterfeldt, the army; and
Captain Ernst Vanselow, the navy.

[General Weygand and General von Gruennel are not mentioned in the French document]

... to both the German Army Chief of Staff Paul von Hindenburg in Spa and the hastily assembled civilian government of Friedrich Ebert in Berlin.

Erzberger apparently attempted to take negotiations to the limit of the 72 hours Foch had offered Hindenburg, but an open telegram from Berlin imploring him to sign immediately somewhat undermined his team's credibility.

Ebert was desperate, facing imminent insurrection in many large German cities. Signatures were made between 5:12 AM and 5:20 AM, Paris time.

How it affected some people

Colonel Percy Dobson wrote:

It was hard to believe the war was over. Everything was just the same, tired troops everywhere and cold drizzly winter weather- just the same as if the war were still on.

Stephen Longstreet, in the Canvas Falcons (1970), wrote:

On that November 11, 1918, morning, another flier, Capitaine Jacques Leps, commander of the French 18th Squadron, sat in his Spad. He was about to take off with his fliers and their planes, all marked with the insignia of a leaping hare chased by a greyhound. The engines were turning over, the props spinning silver.

It was time to get into the air, to escort a major bombing raid on Metz. As Leps raised his arm to signal the take-off, someone came running from the airdrome's communication room, running agitatedly, arms waving.

"La guerre!! C'est finie, la guerre!"

Jaques Leps took in the heart-bursting news. He switched off the Spad's engine. The engines of the rest of his fliers went silent, one by one, as the cry "C'est finie, la guerre!" spread throughout the field. Capitaine Leps unfastened his safety belt and slowly got out of his cockpit.

Penultimate

At 11:00 a.m. this day, we put down whatever we're doing and remember long-suffering humanity who have had to endure these things and especially the brave men and women who gave their lives to defend their homes and families from totally unnecessary and indefensible aggression.

Lovely piece on the issue from the Domestik Goddess who writes of singer-songwriter Terry Kelly, who witnessed an act of philistinism and did what artists have always done, in the grip of the strongest emotions — he channelled his anger into his music.

Here is an account of the time:

On the stroke of 11:00, all the store fell silent.

All, that is, except for one man, who was accompanied by his little daughter. Oblivious of the example he was setting for the child, the man continued to try to talk to the sales clerk all through the respectful silence.

I have a copy of the Last Post and will play it during that time. What I love about this day is that it brings all of us together - American, Canadian, Britain, Commonwealth and many others.

Finally

Do not forget the modern German either - he is as much against this madness as any of us. He is not to be excluded from this remembrance day. Many of the British recognize this new reality and it seems to me to be a good step towards the ultimate exclusion of war as a means of resolving disputes.

Check Juliet's post - it really brings it home. Also, last year's series from Jams.

[armistice eve] the slide to oppression

And I thought I was the only one who wrote this kind of thing:

There was a time when I struggled to convince myself that these people were well meaning but incompetent ... There is nothing well meaning about this proposal, nor does it smack of casual incompetence. This is very deliberate. This is an intentional raid on our civil liberties. This is designed to reverse the relationship betwixt citizen and state with the state’s boot firmly on the citizen’s throat. This is pure, unadulterated evil.

Referring to the latest Labour proposal to wrest yet another liberty from the ordinary person who can't defend him or herself.

[how this blog began] well ...

This is a "how I got my start" post. Well, I was only a teaboy in those days .....

Despite some of the people I've been addressing in these past few November '08 days, there are some really good people around the sphere and I thought I'd mention the ones I found or who found me at the beginning.

I've posted on this before but my blogging life began as a result of hogging Stephen Pollard's comments section on a post I can't remember, maybe on Cardinal O'Brian, when an opinionated blogger called Indecent Left, aka Stuart A, swept in and started attacking Christianity. Problem was, most of those trying to argue him down were not in his intellectual class and though I also was not, I decided to take him on.

The result was three whole days of battle and Stephen apparently had a slight spike in his stats as a result. [He now blogs here, by the way.] It wasn't Holmes and Moriarty but there was a great deal of cut and thrust and I was finding my evidence on the run. He seemed to have it at his fingertips. As he got on his high horse, I dropped into my "post-a quote-and-then=speak-to-it-mode". Both were aiming for the high moral ground, both were digging deep.

There was one beautiful moment when he challenged me to produce something about the Councils of Nicea I seem to recall. Damn it, I had to google it, go to page four and cut and paste. That stopped him for about fifteen minutes and then he came in with howls of outrage: "You found that at [followed by a url]!!!" Well I had but not the url he'd said.

And so it went.

Afterwards, we were quite good friends, to the point where we blogrolled each other [he's since dropped me but I retain him] and he admitted it had been a tough battle. I admitted he'd had the wood on me all the way. Some readers of Stephen's blog scored it a draw.

Whatever.

That's where I realized I liked this blogging lark and told Stephen that I was going to set up my own, on Blogger. He gave me advice and came in with both a supportive comment on my blog and a short, dedicated post - my goodness that bucked me up no end but it got better.

In came my first troll though a good-natured troll who claimed he didn't want his own blog but preferred to sniff around the sewers of other people's. Johnathan Pearce advised me not to worry about him and just blog. My very first comment was on an Iceland post by EU Serf and it was another boost to the enthusiasm that a real live commenter had come in and actually, you know, like ... commented.

Chris Dillow came in and gave me some excellent advice too, telling me that Tim Worstall's blog was one of the best going. Tim was also very supportive, in his quick, sharp way and asked me about my first day uniques. I said a bit more than a hundred and he was surprised, quite rightly as it turned out because it was 37 the next day and stayed around there a long time.

I was having some html trouble and Tim put me onto a chap called Devil's Kitchen about this and I was a bit scared of him because he swore a lot and had a pitchfork. To me though, he was a thorough gentleman and gave the required advice. This then led to the other members of the Edinburgh triumvirate, Mr. Eugenides and the Reactionary Snob.

Another to also come in and give some advice was the peerless Pedant General-in-Ordinary, later known as Cleanthes, of The Select, who gave me some barked orders on what to do with my bleedin' template and then added: "Now retire to the mess for tea and biscuits." Later, he emailed me with: "Bloglines, that's the way to go but nobody ever listens to me."

I've just now googled his moniker and had a rude shock. Click on the link and see who is running it now!

Through the PGinO, I found Deogolwulf and then struck out laterally, from Stephen Pollard's links, visiting Clive Davis, Norman Geras, the daunting Oliver Kamm and Melanie Phillips. I noticed that Indecent Left really had it in for Oliver Kamm and wondered about that.

So that's how it started and they were my initial blogroll. Others linked, I linked and so on and thus this blog was underway. All along, the niceness of people came through and the support for each other, which is why others who would character assassinate and dissemble disappoint so much and get the short end from me.

I think the blogosphere will survive, at least for longer than surmised, as this camaraderie is a very special thing.

* By the way, try this blog on for size.

[progress] quite often equals deterioration

Steve Hayes quotes Betjeman;

Let's say goodbye to hedges And roads with grassy edges And winding country lanes Let all things travel faster Where motor-car is master Till only Speed remains.

... then goes on to say:

About 25 years ago the mailships between Britain and South Africa were phased out in the name of "progress". Containerisation had killed them and made then uneconomic, we were told.

Steve then mentions Chessalee, who writes of:

The 'Night Mail', the train that W H Auden and T S Eliot made famous in rhyme, and the 1963 Great Train Robbers made famous in crime, is being replaced by a much less romantic means of getting letters from one end of the country to the other: lorries.

This blog does not accept that the passing of iconic things which shaped the image of the nation. There was every reason, in a similar way to that of the Americans trying to preserve the Diner for cultural/historic reasons, that we should also have preserved the most iconic things - routemaster buses, red pillar boxes, the nighmail and so on.

There is not even a justification, in terms of tourism for this. It is known that tourists like to see things still existing "as they were" and for the residents, the inconvenience of these things is nowhere near as pronounced as the "progress at all costs" supporters make out. Does a red pillar box inconvenience you in posting a letter?

The argument is made that it all costs so much and that progress demands more and more efficiency. Yes, in the bulk of our lives, fair enough. But in the iconic matters - a resounding no. It reminds me of the railways and the argument that it must pay its way, must make money, to justify the huge salaries of the company heads.

Rubbish.

Public tranport is there to serve the citizenry in the cheapest way possible and in some sort of comfort. This sort of woolly-headed thinking has even crossed the water into Russia, where the iconic trams, which still give a cheap, simple ride for the less wealthy and romantic, are being phased out in the interests of efficiencyand deals with China.

Don't get me wrong - technology is going to make all our lives better, I'm convinced of that. But that is a far cry from hacking out the very things which exist in people's minds as images collectively creating the image of the nation.