WWI

For some reason, Anselm asked me this morning, "How many people were killed in the First World War?". No idea where that came from. But it got me thinking that WWI has no real resonance in the minds of Americans, where it does for Australians-- in part because of Gallipoli (the film that launched Mel Gibson, and that other cute boy who didn't quite take off). But it was a major historical shock: many deaths, far away, for, it was perceived, England.

I've had Eric Bogle's song No Man's Land in my mind all day, about encountering a grave in France: the refrain--

Did they beat the drums slowly, did they sound the fife lowly,
did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sing the Last Post and chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

In Australian culture, the response to war is much more centred around grief than the more political slant of American protest. Many Australians have experienced an emotional catch at finding a field full of graves with familiar names in a strange place-- for me, Jerusalem. (Until fairly recently, being Australian mapped onto a relatively restricted set of names: all my schoolfriends are a Mc or an O' or a Lewis).

Here is a very interesting site about US war casualties which addresses some of this.