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Old 06-26-2006, 05:23 AM   #6
The Squatter of Amon Rûdh
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Pipe Remember regardless

It should be borne in mind that when you remember the Somme you are remembering somewhere in the region of a million men of both sides who died in a sordid, muddy stalemate that dragged on for five months. By the end of the first day, British and Empire casualties alone totalled 19,240 dead and 38,230 wounded. I know that Bêthberry will thank me for mentioning the First Newfoundlanders, one of only two non-British units in the British sector, who entered the field with a Battalion strength of 801 and the following morning had 68 men fit for duty, the worst Battalion casualties of the day. The Tyneside Irish Brigade (34th Division) advanced more than a mile under heavy fire and were practically annihilated. Such is the butcher's bill for one day of a four-year war.

Our main interest, I suppose, is the British 29th Division ("The Incomparable Division"), which comprised the 86th, 87th and 88th Brigades. It was to the 86th Brigade that the First Battalion, the Lancashire Fusiliers was assigned. The 29th Division order of battle included the 16th Battalion, the Middlesex Regiment, which was excusively recruited from public (read extremely prestigious private) schools, but also such famous names as the King's Own Scottish Borderers, the Royal Fusiliers, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and the South Wales Borderers (formerly the 24th Foot, who defended Rorke's Drift). The division was to maintain the British flank, but like much of the British assault its attack was a failure. In fact it was the French XX Corps who made the only obvious gains, and the British units alongside them were the beneficiaries of their attack. The determination of the attackers can be seen in the fact that nine Victoria Crosses were later awarded for individual actions on that day, six of them posthumously. The most ever awarded for a single action was 20, for the Crimean battle of Great Redan in 1855.

By the end of the war, the Entente lines along the Somme had advanced by ten kilometres, at the cost of more than six-hundred thousand casualties. German casualties are generally estimated at around five-hundred thousand. Effectively for the sake of the distance from one side of London to the other an entire generation ceased to exist. Since volunteer Brigades, who selected only the best applicants, were used extensively, the loss of talent and promise is disproportionately high. Had the Lancashire Fusiliers been assigned to the Bapaume sector, or had his battalion been among the leaders of the advance, it is highly likely that J.R.R. Tolkien, or probably 2nd Lt. J. Tolkien, would have made no greater name in print than to appear in the Times Roll of Honour, but perhaps greater men died there who never had a chance to make their mark.

In these jingoistic times it's worth remembering that Britain in 1914 was nearing the end of a century of domestic peace, with burgeoning nationalist pride in the strength of her armed forces and a growing mistrust of foreigners. A massive mutual deterrant, delicate checks and balances and complicated diplomatic ties completely failed in the face of imperialistic paranoia and self-interest to prevent a war that ended not in peace, but in a twenty-year cease fire. We are lucky that the likes of Tolkien, Lewis, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and others survived, but a gifted poet in Wilfred Owen and a comic author who betters Wodehouse in H.H. Munro were cut off with their careers unfinished, and they are only two names among many. We should remember how near we came not to having the works we discuss here, but it's more important to remember what was actually lost and why. Obviously those who survived gave much thought to it, some to the difference between the ideal and reality of war, others, like Tolkien, considering the very nature of good and evil. Many arguments for pacifism and international co-operation were born in the aftermath, and even the seed of the United Nations was sown as the pieces were gathered up. That such world-shattering events should be tied up with the history of Middle-earth seems hardly surprising, and it's inevitable that when intelligent and sensitive people try to reason out a great horror something remarkable must happen. What ought to be surprising is that less in Tolkien's line did come out of it, and that we are so quick to forget the events themselves. I am reasonably sure that Tolkien never did, and he was only present at the front for a very short space.
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Last edited by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh; 06-26-2006 at 07:27 AM.
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