The Epworth Bells

The topic of war is hard to imagine from the perspective of one who hasn't experienced it. Literature makes it accessible for the reader to explore the themes of war. Owen and Remarque both dipcik what war was like for one who has never gone through it. Men in both All Quiet on the Western Front and “Dulce Et Decorum” experience betrayal of youth, horrors of war and feelings of camaraderie.

The idea of loss is explored diversely in the poems ‘Conscript’ by FA Horn and ‘The Photograph’ by Peter Kocan. Where ‘Conscript’ conveys the loss of a soldier on the battlefields of World War II and his physical demise, ‘The Photograph’ conveys the loss of a World War I Australian soldier and the grief his family endures with the passing of time. Although the two poems are set in different wars, the poets similarly reinforce the devastation, as well as the emotional and physical impact associated with war.

Effects of War Exposed in All Quite on the Western Front, Bury the Dead, and Paths of Glory

Public perceptions of World War I were formed by literature written during the war itself. British literature in particular offers a vast array of perspectives. The writings of Siegfried Sassoon and Vera Brittain demonstrate themes of grief and recall upon instances of mental fragility revealed by war. In “The Great War and Modern Memory, literary historian Paul Fussell identifies that this type of literature expresses an essential truth about not only the First World War, but all modern wars. Fussell strongly asserts that war is futile, wasteful, and most importantly, destructive. (Fussell 3-35). Modern literature about the First World War is also demonstrative of these themes.

We all, as a people who have not seen the real war, are left in a state of confusion and uncertainty, when it comes to think about the war times, without real information and impressions of the combatants. Of course, looking from the bigger frame, there is no any event that had demolished the valuable heritage of humankind. But if we get closer, “we cannot, indeed, imagine our own death; whenever we try to do so we find that we survive ourselves as spectators”. People often try to imagine a war, in which 18 years olds had been killed mercilessly for the sake of their land, mothers of the soldiers lost the piece of their hearts and women had waited for their beloved ones even if they knew that they will not come. We are the people who did not

The feeling of pride had slowly drained from my body and left a terrible sense of fear in it’s hollow shell; with the only way to retrieve that pride was to put parliament in their place and win the war.For three years now the revolution had been going on. In the prime of the war the soldiers were nothing but chirpy, and hopeful, but numerous defeats had foiled any sign of that hope we once had. My nine month enlistment in the army was almost up. I missed my family dearly and was very concerned about my aging mother, however I had decided to re-enlist because I wanted my family to live in a free country, even if I died trying, The army needed more men in good health and able to fight and death sounded much more preferable than living the rest

From afar a sea of white crosses stood before me, and it took my breath away how many there were. As I walked past each grave no longer was it a an objective experience but personal. I watched people find their great grandfathers and fall to their knees and place red poppies before the crosses. It was in doing so, I found the grave of Private Robert ‘Bobby’ Johns, the youngest soldier to parachute into Normandy on D-Day, who was just 14 when he ran away from home to join the army, two years

The summer of 1914 had been hot; some called it a heatwave, others referred to the weather as tropical. It was indeed a ‘flaming June’ and there were those in Axholme who declared it too hot to work. In such an isolated place, the assassination in Sarajevo had little impact on the residents of the Isle, indeed, in the week that Britain went to war there were many focusing on an expected good crop of potatoes and revelling in a countryside that had never looked better. There were few who dwelt on the extraordinary rapidity of world events as the war clouds over Europe moved to shroud the whole of the British Isles. Only days before there had been celebrations in Crowle when the cricket team thrashed Epworth, with Mr. Brooks rattling up 77 not out from a total of 119. Epworth struggled to reach 60 but did have the satisfaction of

All Quiet on the Western Front is a short book, but remarkably deep. More than 50 years after its jolting prose, haunting poetry, and powerful truths slashed their way into the consciousness of a worldwide readership, All Quiet still stands at the forefront of a host of novels on that most tragic recurrence in the history of human experience: war. All the aspects of trench warfare are present—excitement, boredom, horror, hunger, fear, dirt, alienation, imminent death, futility, to name a few. All Quiet has a pervasive sense of uselessness, an initially unvoiced but later fully expressed question of 'Just what is this war about, and why am I being put on the line for it?' The answer is, of course, nothing, and if All Quiet has but one overriding message, it is that war is awful, and young people ought not to fight. All Quiet is not a book which glorifies the German war effort, or portrays soldiers as heroes. In Remarque's own words, it is “an attempt to give an account of a generation that was destroyed by the war—even those of it who survived the shelling.” As such, it is brutal and confronting, but in the best possible way. Anti-war fiction has seldom been this effective, or this memorable for that matter.

Although there were a few scholarly communities that denounced war and the general enthusiasm seemingly shared by the public, the majority stood behind the government’s actions of enlisting men and continuing violent engagements. Propaganda leapt from the page and into rest life in cinemas across Britain, ensuring that civilians witnessed the true atrocities of the front in the safety of their homes. However, soldiers who experienced films such as the infamous “The Battle of the Somme” now grappled with a new personalized war on the home front. Though they indeed saw gruesome realities, no man or woman could truly fathom what involvement in the war could do to a soldier’s psyche. A rift of misunderstanding rather than ignorance prompted Siegfried

I made my way to Trafalgar Square with my factory coworkers, following the crowds of people. It seemed as though all of London was there, civilians and on-leave servicemen gathered together in the square. Everybody gathered in the square to celebrate and pay tribute to the end of the Great War. We linked hands with Londoners and servicemen, singing and swaying in the streets. There was euphoria in the streets of London, and it was understandable, we felt free. We had been chained down by sacrifice, horror, and grief for years and at the eleventh hour, those chains had been broken. Greif was still inevitable, the vast majority of people would never see their relatives again. My two brothers and father lost their lives in the war. I grew up as the baby sister and the Great War left me an only

World War One, known by many as the “Great War”, lives in infamy as one of the harshest, brutal wars in history. While the high amount of casualties decimated populations, another huge factor was the toll the war had on the youth that served. The madness that was known as trench warfare was the stuff of nightmares, from the horrid living conditions, to the unpredictability of the opposing onslaught of artillery, soldiers were surrounded by death. This trauma and constant stress ruined countless lives, old and young. If the bullets did not get you, the stress would. The question was when, not how. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, author Erich Maria Remarque told the story of a young man named Paul Bäumer, and how he and

There are wars going on everyday in our lives, while some people are going through the same, they have many of the same thoughts going through their heads. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria , and “Suicide in the trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon, although their character are in different parts of World War 1 they have numerous of the comparable thought during this time. Paul and Siegfried have similar conditions when they are fighting on The Front, as Siegfried states in the poem “...In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum…’’(Sassoon). Paul describes a similar setting in All Quiet, since it was constantly at war and with all passed away bodies on the ground the trenches were unimaginable

So great was the rush that Sergeant Temperton was kept busy filling out forms until 3 a.m. the following morning. It was the final push towards voluntary enlistment and allowed men (many of whom were in reserved or ‘starred’ occupations) to ‘sign on’ and show their willingness to be called up should they be needed. Although not allocated to regiments the men were given khaki armlets to show their commitment. Several hundred more enlisted at Crowle and Scunthorpe, although a significant number had to be excluded having failed to pass the medical test. Each man received 2/9d for ‘one days service with the Army’ but were invited to subscribe this to the fund for wounded soldiers of Lincolnshire. All told, this raised £8/15/- from recruits and other friends. The scheme was not a great success. The glamour of war as a huge adventure had worn off months ago. The horrors of Gallipoli, that claimed the lives of 8,000 Australians had come to define a nation, and the stalemate on the Western Front, meant the flow of volunteers drained to a trickle. There would be no Christmas truce this year either. The rallying call for the British Army was, ‘Remember the Lusitania!’ The men decreed this Christmas the Germans, ‘would receive nothing but lead from our 9.2

“So prying and insidious were the fingers of the European War” suggests the all encompassing nature of the war. No matter how much people might think that they are sheltered, no aspects have been left untouched. Once the war starts even something as personal as the “geranium bed” is destroyed, nothing is spared. The most private as well as public spaces are intruded, damaged and scarred by the war. War affected not just soldiers but also civilians like the ‘cook’, Lady Bexborough and Miss Kilman. Miss Kilman had to struggle to