WW1: Battle of the Somme

WW1: Battle of the Somme

Well, what do you know. The British and French troops mounted an offensive against the Germans around the Somme River in France. In just the first hour, 60,000 British troops were killed, and, overall, there were over 1 million British and French causalities in the battle. And in the newspaper, it said, “that most of the British Army was made up of British citizens who volunteered.” If Kitchener’s death didn’t do it, this goes to show you the absurdity of nationalism. Britain even engineered a new machine of war to the battle—the tank—and still got miserably slaughtered. Also, another reporter aptly summed up the strategy of this battle, 

“The conduct of the battle has been a source of controversy: senior officers such as General Sir Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force and Henry Rawlinson, the commander of Fourth Army have been criticised for the human cost while failing to achieve their territorial objectives.”

I know there are no easy answers to this war but when 1 million people die in a single battle I think it merits the question—Is what the German’s want worth this many lives? Also, although I think the novel sort of vulgar, maybe it would do all these cretins giving up their lives for a country’s ideals some good if they gave The Mysterious Stanger a read. I guess I am just at a loss of words in the face of such horrid cruelty in a modern world full of so many great inventions and thinkers. I’ll stop preaching. War is...