Retreat to Victory

Mons: Retreat to Victory, by John Terraine, is an account of the retreat of the British Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.) and the French Armies following the invasion of Belgium in 1914. In sparse yet graphic language, Terraine chronicles attempts by the Germans to outflank the Allies, and to cut through all opposition in Northern France like a scythe. The bold endeavor almost succeeded. That it did not is due both to the timidity of German High Command, and to the bravery of the Allies. It was, however, a close run thing. Here are a couple of impressions from my reading.

First, wars are not won on paper. Von Schlieffen, the German commander at the turn of the century, laid the groundwork for the maneuver which could have destroyed France and its Allies within a few weeks. Pivoting on Alsace-Lorraine, the whole force of the German war machine could have swept all before it - if its forces had been deployed according to Von Schlieffen's plan. Instead, Von Moltke, Von Bulow and other leaders reinforced the line where it needed to bend, and weakened it where it needed superior strength. The plan failed because they failed.

The British and French also failed because of their inability to read the tide of battle. Intelligence reports were either ignored or forced to fit within some preconceived idea. Estimates of opposing strength were far too low, despite evidence of troop movements gathered by those who flew the new-fangled flying machines. The British, under Sir John French, seemed to have difficulty in adapting to changing circumstances. The French forces, under Joffre, were simply blind to danger. For forty years they had planned their revenge upon the Germans. They had dreamed of forcibly removing the teutonic oppressor from occupied lands in what had once been North East France. The spirit of Napoleon I was alive and well in the French army. Its generals vowed to attack at every opportunity and not to yield an inch of sacred earth. Too frequently, that earth became a grave as patriotic young Frenchmen still dressed in the red kepis and long blue capotes of the Second Empire, hurled themselves against forces they could not hope to break. The plans of grey-haired generals, far from the front-line, were far removed from the realities of conflict .

Second, in war, very few people have any idea what they are doing. Those who have at least some idea are at a huge advantage. The detailed accounts of the withdrawal of the B.E.F. demonstrate a remarkable degree of forethought, most often exercised by supply officers down the line, not by those caught up in the action. An army in retreat still needs to be fed. It requires ammunition and supplies. The wounded must still be evacuated. Lines of communication must be established and renewed whenever necessary. But when it comes down to it, especially when moving through a heavily-industrialized area, the movement of so many men is littered with misunderstandings and mistakes. If the retreat is not uniform, units can become isolated and enveloped, as happened to members of the Cheshire Regiment. Despite the skills of impressive and experienced commanders such as General Smith-Dorrien, whose reputation was largely made during the retreat from Mons, it must be admitted that the success of the operation was due, in no small measure, to the failure of the Germans to press home their advantage. Some German troops said later that they had expected the British to mount a counter-attack, so badly mauled had the Germans been in their attempts to advance. They did not realize their numerical superiority, nor the large gaps that sometimes appeared between Allied Corps. The history of war may be told on maps in bright colors, but it is written in fog, in shades of grey.

If there is something to be learned, apart from the folly of war, it is that persistence and imagination often have their reward. When, in the end, the German armies pushed too far and exposed their flank, it was those who had seen strategic retreat as a means to victory who were ready to pounce. The small-minded, vainglorious fools who had refused to listen understood how to lead men to their defeat, but not much more. It was those nearing retirement, Petain and Foch, who became the leaders of revitalized France. While the young could only impale themselves on steel, experience taught older heads to feint, to parry, and then to strike.

Life is not war, though it sometimes feels like it. But it seems that there is, after all, something to be said for the wisdom that comes from experience, as long as it is still open to innovation and risk. The other lesson, if you are looking for one, is that patience is often the best policy, as long as it does not become an excuse for indecision. Knowing when to strike and when to hold back can often be the difference between victory and defeat.

Privilege and Power

I have just finished reading Philip Haythornthwaite's Wellington: The Iron Duke. It's a well-written, very accessible little book, (which doesn't make you feel like an idiot for not knowing the insider's jargon). Haythornthwaite deals with, perhaps the most accomplished British General, certainly since Marlborough, a man who demonstrated his prowess in India, confirmed his abilities during the Peninsula war, which liberated Portugal and Spain, then fixed his place in history with the defeat of Napoleon.


Haythornthwaite traces Wellington's development from his childhood in Ireland, through his military training (surprisingly, some of it was in France), through his triumphs and subsequent political career. Although he was born in Ireland, Wellington was really part of the English aristocracy, but he bore that mantle well. In fact, one of the recurring problems of Wellington's long and distinguished career arose from the system of preferment, based largely on social standing, which prevented him from giving promotion on the basis of merit. At times, he was able to sidestep this by advancing careers through the Portuguese army, of which he was also head, but it apparently riled him to see the inexperienced sons of the landed gentry given posts to which they were not at all entitled. He wrote:

I, who command he largest British army that has been employed against the enemy for many years, and who have upon my hands certainly the most expensive and difficult concern that was ever imposed upon any British officer, have not the power of making even a corporal!

Having said that, Wellington himself benefited from this system early in his career, especially when serving in India, where his older brother had a great deal of political influence. However, later in life, he saw how dangerous this system could be.

Although he could be aloof and reserved, Wellington at least had an admiration for the common man. He retained the prejudices of his age, especially in his fear of mob rule, and he did not believe that commoners raised from the ranks made good officers, since he thought them more likely to succumb to drink; but he did not despise those who had been born without the advantages of rank and wealth. This passage, by Wellington, caught my attention:

Perhaps there is no man now existing who would like to meet me on a field of battle; in that line I am superior. But when the war is over and the troops disbanded, what is your great general more than anyone else? I am necessarily inferior to every man in his own line, though I may excel him in others. I cannot saw and plane like a carpenter, or make shoes like a shoemaker, or understand cultivation like a farmer. Each of these, on his own ground, meets me on terms of superiority. I feel I am but a man.

Probably, in his own day, few people would have accused Wellington of excessive humility, but in contrast to many others, he retained a sense of perspective. He did not think of himself as better than others, simply because he was the most successful soldier of his generation. I suspect that, in our supposedly more egalitarian age, that is a lesson we would do well to note.

Deliver Us From Evil

During this season of remembrance, I've been re-reading Alistair Horne's superb book, The Price of Glory, a study of the battle of Verdun in 1916. It makes sobering reading. Like two stags locked in combat, the armies of Germany and France fought themselves to a standstill. The Germans, under the overall command of the dithering General Erich von Falkenheyn, attempted to bleed the French dry at Verdun. In one sense they succeeded, since the successful defence of 1916 was followed by the mutinies of 1917. Virtually every French settlement, large or small, was affected by Verdun. A generation of young Frenchmen was wiped out by their leaders' defence a outrance, the single-minded determination not to cede an inch of land or, having done so, to reclaim it as soon as possible. To this day, the names of some of the key features of the battle - Douaumont, Le Morte Homme, or Cote 304 - send shivers down the spine of France. Indeed, neither side 'won' at Verdun. It was, as Horne says, "an indecisive battle in an indecisive war." By the end of 1916, Germany had suffered a third of a million casualties and captured only a pathetically small strip of land. France lost a similar number, though no one will ever know for sure. Churchill put the French casualties as high as 469,000.

What struck me, 'though, was a metaphysical reflection (p.242-243). It seems completely out of place among the realism of harsh statistics. Horne writes about a common understanding, at the time, that events were being manipulated by evil.

In the last days of peace, there had seemed a point where the collective will of Eurpoe's leaders had abdicated and was usurped by some evil, superhuman Will from Stygian regions that wrested control out of their feeble hands. Seized by this terrible force, nations were swept along at ever-mounting speed towards the abyss.

I don't think that Horne is suggesting that responsibility for the mistakes of the war can somehow be transfered to a malevolent spirit; he is clear about the culpability of leaders. Nevertheless, he acknowledges the existence of evil. There is something for us, here. Perhaps in our post-modern sophistication, we have become blind to the shadows that stalk our world. We watch Twin Towers fall, and we are too clever, or too afraid, to call evil by its name.

Storm of Steel

I picked up Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger the other day, which is a first hand account of his experiences in the trenches during the First World War. It's interesting to be able to view the war through the eyes of a fairly ordinary German soldier. Not long ago, I read an account of the battle of Combles, from an Allied perspective, so it's fascinating to see the same events unfolding from an Axis point of view.

To be honest, apart from a certain Teutonic orderliness, and some differences in temperament, there is little to choose between the experiences on different sides of the divide. There are patches of almost lyrical intensity when Junger is suddenly assailed by beauty in the midst of destruction, like when the larks begin to sing over the detritus of war. There are also rare snatches of rather plodding humor. There are even a couple of occasions when the exaltation of battle makes Junger appear impervious to the bullets and deadly shrapnel falling around him. But most of the time, he is either bored out of his mind or scared out of his wits. Sudden violence is always only a split second away. Death is commonplace. Just like on the other side of no man's land.

The irony of Junger's war is self-evident in the name of his Hanoverian regiment. They were known as the 'Gibraltars' because of their staunch defense of that British possession at the end of the eighteenth century. Across the bloody fields of Flanders, old allies exchanged artillery ordinance; young men from Mannheim and Manchester laid down their lives for competing ideals, rival empires. Divided by ideology, or at least by the intransigence of old men, they were united in suffering, and in death.

It is sobering, and instructive, to witness war from the vantage point of the other. There would, perhaps, be fewer wars if men could see one another not in caricature, but in terms of common humanity.

Azincourt

Azincourt (Agincourt in the US) by Bernard Cornwell is an account of the battle, fought on St. Crispin's Day in 1415, which has become one of the most famous in European history. The names of so many fields of battle have been lost, the combatants and their causes swallowed up in the amnesia of time. But Agincourt (as the English mis-spelt the name of the near-by hamlet) has become a romantic touchstone. Why?

Of course, Shakespeare helped. The famous speech, placed in the mouth of Henry V, has stirred the patriotism and the emotion of generations. I remember hearing that the captain of the England Rugby team, Will Carling, used it to energize and encourage his team-mates in their pursuit of glory (naturally, against the French). And the phrase, 'band of brothers' has gained a popularity of its own among those who probably have no idea that it comes from the Bard, or that it refers to conflict on the fields of Picardy. Even the notorious English two-fingered salute (not for polite company) is traced back, in legend at least, to the battle cry of the archers which claimed that, with just two strong fingers they would send their adversaries to the grave.

Azincourt is told through the lens of a common archer, Nick Hook. Cornwell took the name from contemporary records. An archer by that name did, indeed, fight for Harry, St. George, and England, (but that he endured a blood feud with a local family, or enjoyed a relationship with a beautiful French nun who would become his wife, is to be doubted). Nevertheless, Cornwell's skills enable him to weave a story that is at once both believable and bloody. Life was cheap in those far-off days. Members of the aristocracy could be ransomed, if captured, but commoners were expendable. Archers, in particular, were hated by the French. Ordinarily, archers had no training in formal warfare beyond their ability, ten years or more in the making, to bend a fine yew bow and to fire a bodkin-tipped arrow 250 yards. To do so, an archer had to be able to pull back about 120 pounds, and aim without being able to see down the length of the arrow. A bodkin (the word means 'needle') could pierce any but the finest armor. At Agincourt, 5,000 English archers could shoot 75,000 per minute. No wonder the French suffered such an ignominious defeat. A combination of atrocious weather and English archers led to the decimation of their forces. Though outnumbering their opponents by at least 5 to 1, the French suffered a reversal that sent shock-waves around Europe. For many years thereafter the French called 25 October la malheureuse journee - the unfortunate day.

Why does Agincourt hold such a special place in the folk history of the English nation? There had been victories before (Crecy, Poitiers); there would be victories in later years (Trafalgar, Waterloo), but none would be against such overwhelming odds. Perhaps therein lies the clue. Agincort was an exceptional victory in two respects. First, about 6,000 weary English, Welsh, and Gascon soldiers, of whom only about 1,000 were men-at-arms, overcame at least 30,000 of the finest warriors of France. That in itself is good reason to remember, but there is another. Second, the three French armies at Agincourt were defeated by a king who led the field himself, and an army of ordinary men. Does this make it the English Yorktown? For maybe the first time the professionals, in all their pomp and splendor, were brought down by the farm-workers and country-bumpkins of the English shires. The soldiers of Harry's army were underdogs in more senses than one. Shakespeare, cleverly, caught this theme:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother, be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

William Shakespeare, 1599

Dachau

There are some things we need to remember, and there are some things we need to forget.

There are some things we need to forgive, and there are many things for which we need to be forgiven.

Art Katz in his testimony-book Ben Israel writes of his visit to the concentration camp at Dachau:

I was totally unprepared for what greeted me at this museum of death ... the gas rooms with the jets still in the ceiling. Here my brother-Jews had been herded like cattle into cars. Women and children. Stripped naked. Old men and young boys. Why was the ear of God silent to the shrieks and prayer of these helpless, innocent ones who were slaughtered like cattle? My stomach turned sick and my eyes blurred with tears ... Outside were the conveyor belts where the bodies were dispatched to the giant ovens ... the mutilated bodies were slowly and systematically fed into the flames. The huge smokestacks never ceased their ugly belching - twenty-four hours a day as the ovens were stoked with the House of Israel.

And later, on the train that took him on his way ...

In an instant the truth dawned: Katz, except for the accident of birth, the caprice of time and place, you might have been born a German Aryan. It could have been you stoking bodies into the ovens. He shuddered and looked long into the blue eyes of the German man opposite. "I have been to Dachau," he said quietly.

A photograph of Dachau, which was posted with this article, has been removed. My apologies; I did not realize that the photograph was under copyright.

Mud and Glory

I've been reading Paul Reed's study of the struggle for control of the village of Combles, France, during the battle of the Somme. "Combles" makes for grim reading. By 1916, the village had been under German occupation for two years. The German Army, steamrollering across Picardy, had finally been halted by the French on the Somme. Stalemate ensued. The front lines were handed over to the British in the Fall of 1915 and the war of attrition began in earnest.

Many of the British soldiers who contested this tiny, bloody patch of rural France were from the London Regiment. When war was declared, in 1914, the British Army could muster only 250,000 men, compared to approximately five million in the German Army. Volunteer or Territorial units were swiftly formed in Britain. Some of them volunteered to serve overseas. Like many other geographically based regiments, the "London" had a distinctly local flavor. Men from the same street, factory, school, club, or church often joined up together. Many of them served together, and died together.

The London Regiment, though never at full strength, was supposed to have 28 battalions bearing such evocative names as: the London Rifle Brigade (5th), the Post Office Rifles (8th), the London Scottish (14th), and the Artist's Rifles (28th). Class distinctions differentiated the battalions at first, but these distinctions tended to disappear as units were decimated, merged, and re-formed.

Near Combles, two small areas of woodland were fought over inch by inch. Leuze Wood ("Lousy Wood") and Bouleaux Wood ("Bully Wood") soon could not boast a standing tree between them. The land was taken, lost, and retaken. Bodies were buried in the mud, only to be exhumed by subsequent bombardments. Young men in their prime were subjected to appalling conditions, then sent to their deaths. Hundreds of lives were lost seeking control of twenty yards of dirt. When the Kensingtons and the London Scottish moved up to take over from the Royal Irish Fusiliers, they saw that the whole battlefield was covered by the remains of the dead.

"The ground just over the ridge of Death Valley was scattered with the Irish dead, mainly young fellows who appeared to have been killed by concussion, tiny streaks of blood having from their ears and noses. Others had been killed by machine gun and shrapnel fire... One middle aged Irishman was sitting upright in a shell hole, one side of his head shining pink, where half his scalp had been torn off... at Wedge Wood... this trench was full of German dead, Prussian Guards. For some particular reason they were minus their tunics, wearing new white vests. The bodies were lying several deep, and we had to walk over them in order to proceed along the trench."

After several weeks of fighting the British unleashed their secret weapon, the tanks of the Heavy Branch Machine Gun Corps. This was the first time that the lumbering behemoths would be used in military history. Although, initially, they spread panic among the Germans, they were not an unqualified success. As with just about everything else, the tanks became stuck in the mud.

"The field of battle was a field of mud; the resting area of the division was a field of mud; the roads and tracks were rivers of mud; anyone can paint a picture of the Battle of the Somme provided that he can paint miles of mud. And the Army had simply blasted its way forward so that the shell holes cut one another in the mud."

On September 26, 1916 Combles fell to men of the 56th (London) Division. It would be more accurate to say that was was left of the village fell into British hands. Almost every building had been destroyed. The church had been flattened, the town hall had disappeared, the railway station ceased to exist. Only the catacombs, stretching beneath the buildings, providing refuge for its defenders, remained relatively unscathed.

One young private, Stuart Dolden of the London Scottish, was glad to get out of the place where so many of his comrades had died. His abiding memory was of the mud.

"We were all filled with unbounding joy when we realised that at last our backs had been turned on the Somme, and all its horrors and miseries. The one outstanding feature of the Somme was the mud. Living with it around one, day and night, seemed to tap one's vitality. We had already experienced severe shelling, trenches and all the incidences of warfare on other sectors of the line, and so it became more a question of degree, but after our trip to the Somme I realised what a truly demoralising affect mere mud could have."

The village was retaken, briefly, by the Germans in March of 1918, but returned to Allied hands later that same year.

* * * * * * *

There is an immediacy to the story of Combles that transcends the years. The absolute horror that is war is not shown on maps with colored arrows for the movement of troops. War must be studied through the experience of those who struggled through the mud. There are lessons to be learned, even from a Lousy Wood, somewhere in France.

Ill Met By Moonlight

William Stanley Moss' account of his exploits in Crete during World War II makes fitting reading for Memorial Day. Operating in occupied territory, with the help of local anadartes, Moss, and a small team of special operations commandos, managed to kidnap a German General and, somehow, spirit him off the island. What ismost interesting about the story is that almost all of it is taken from a journal written by the author as events unfolded. There is a startling immediacy about the language. Several times the author relates that he has to stop writing because the light is failing, or because a local shepherd has just brought the band something to eat.

Two things struck me:

First, I was appalled by the senseless violence of some among the occupying force. In one incident, a Gestapo officer has to swerve his car on a country road and stop in order to avoid hitting a shepherd boy crossing the road with his sheep. Seeing that his car has sustained a slight scratch, the officer beckons for the shy child to come to him. When he does as he is told, the officer promptly breaks the boys arm across his knee as punishment.

Second, and in contrast, the story contains a remarkable sense of shared humanity between combatants. The General, although obviously shamed by his capture, only rarely demonstrates the haughtiness of his office. A classical scholar, the son of a pastor, he is able to exchange Greek aphorisms with his captors. He shares the same bottle of raki, and pulls at the same blankets to escape the cold. He may be a patriot, but he is not an idealist. He serves his country, not the Party.

This is the sadness of war. Often, the only thing that separates the soldiers of opposing armies is the color of their uniforms. In one, telling, incident, Moss and his villanous band of Cretan resistance fighters celebrate Easter Day in the mountains, singing songs of resurrection in several languages (and, one suspects, several keys). Surely this is a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven, where every tongue sings praise to the Lamb, and war shall be no more.

The Road

A man and his son travel a long-abandoned Road to an uncertain destination, in search of a salvation that is, at the same time, both remembered and the object of their desires, both past and future. They journey through a nightmare, apocalyptic landscape, the result of a blinding flash, and half-forgotten low concussions in the night.

Like Christian, in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the travelers find the road to be rife with danger. Death lurks around every corner, watches from a distance, stalks them like prey. In a time beyond mutual annihilation, where only a few survive, where society has collapsed into anarchy, and where the only sustenance is to be scavenged from the ruins of the past, the man and his son travel a Road that is absolutely without hope.

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is a simple story, at times lyrical, almost poetic in tone, but harsh and graphic in content. McCarthy, searching for foundational truth in a world that increasingly values style over substance, scours the earth and returns to the primal void. Civilization is gone, and with it the restraints that make us able to co-exist. It remains to be seen whether, in this stark vision, anything of value remains.

Never named, the man and his son descend by foot from the mountainous north country, fearing the approaching winter. They follow the remains of the Road, down through the barren countryside where nothing lives, where every memory is painful, and even the snow is ashen. Along the Road they encounter men-become-animals, cannibals who feed upon their own. Death, and the detritus of a civilization destroyed by nuclear war, accompanies their every step. Even the landscape is devoid of life. Nothing grows. The shore of the sullen, brooding sea is lined with the bones of a million fish. The earth is dead. Those who, somehow escaped the holocaust shall surely not survive. God is not in His heaven; all is not right with the world.


Towards the end of this grim tale a nameless woman embraces the boy. She talks to him of God. Yet when the boy tries to talk to God, he finds himself speaking to his father, now dead. The woman tells him that God cannot be dead because their breath is the breath of God. But on a Road without hope, where every painful breath spreads a mist of blood, can one really speak of God?

On the Road the man and his son, "each the others world entire," are sustained by love. That is a noble vision, but it is not enough. There is no grand narrative behind the tale. There is no destination towards which the Road leads. It leads nowhere. Time and truth have lost all meaning. Philosophy and theology, always uneasy bedfellows, lie together, abandoned in a ruined library. Nothing is of value that cannot be eaten. Man has descended to his most basic instincts - food, shelter, fire. Woman has taken her own life in despair. Survival trumps civilization. Godless and friendless, without a future worth striving to attain, the last human beings slouch, angry yet resigned, towards oblivion.

Meanwhile, in a much older story, Christian travels a road that has a destination, an End.

Christian knows where he began, and why he became a pilgrim, and he trusts that the path he takes will lead him home. At his destination, having endured trials and temptations along the way, and having escaped from perils that threatened to destroy him, Christian finds the peace for which he longed - the blessing of peace with God. For him, the pilgrimage of the Christian life is a journey with purpose, and every step is filled with hope.


Both stories assess the human condition. Both find value in sacrificial love. But one story ends with shattered lungs and a dirty blanket as a shroud; the other story finds meaning in an empty cross and a risen Savior. Christ, the goal of all our journeying, is the embodiment of our hope. In a world grown gray, devoid of meaning, He is The Road: the Way, the Truth, the Life.

A Song from "The Pilgrim's Progress"

"Confessed that they were strangers
and pilgrims on the earth."
~ Hebrews 11:13 ~

ho would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather.
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent,
To be a pilgrim.


Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is.
No lion can him fright,
He'll with a giant fight,
But he will have a right
To be a pilgrim.


Hobgoblin, nor foul fiend,
Can daunt his spirit:
He knows, he at the end
Shall life inherit.
Then fancies fly away,
He'll fear not what men say,
He'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.

John Bunyan

Paradise

Last night, on PBS, Michael Wood, the historian, had an interesting programme in his series on myths and heroes, in which he explored the story of Shangri-La.

In its modern form, the tale of Shangri-La is not very old. James Hilton captured the imagination of a war-weary world in his novel Lost Horizon, which told the story of Westerners rescued from a war-zone by 'plane, who subsequently crash landed in a remote area of Tibet, near Mount Kailash. There, they found what everyone craves - a place of perfect harmony and peace.

They had discovered a lost valley untouched by the struggles of the world, truly a paradise. The story was made into a movie in 1933. It had a wide appeal, probably as a means of escape from the privations of the Great Depression, and the bombast and rhetoric of a certain Adolf Hitler.

The story, like the lost valley of Shangri-La, is fictional. However, it seems to have been based upon a much older story told by one Antonio Andrade, a 16th century missionary at the court of the Moghul emperor Akbar. This ruler had gathered representatives of all of the major religions, because he believed "that it cannot be right to assert the truth of one faith above any other...." Andrade set out in search of a Christian community rumoured to exist in a remote area of Tibet. Eventually, after much searching, he found the hidden valley, and the kingdom of which he had heard. But there were no Christians there. Andrade's account was lost for many years only to be rediscovered in Calcutta in the late 19th century. Its publication led to Lost Horizon.

Andrade may well have heard the story of a lost kingdom at Akbar's surprisingly post-modern inter-faith conference. The Buddhists told a tale of a wonderful place called Shambala, (Sanskrit for 'peace') in the land beyond the Himalayas, a magical land of harmony and peace, ruled over by the wise, a land of plenty, in the shadow of a magnificent mountain.

Wood may well have identified the source of these legends in a Tibetan mountain-top community which he explored in his television program. Interestingly, the once fertile valley is now barren; the fortress that once protected the King and his family has been destroyed; the revered Buddhist shrines have fallen victim to the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. If it is Shangri-La, it is no paradise.

Wood's comment, right at the end of the program was telling: "Of course, paradise may still be found anywhere on earth, but only on earth."

What are we to make of this?

In typical PBS fashion, the cultured commentator makes approving noises when recounting Akbar's search for the Golden Bough that underlies all religious experience. He then goes on to assert, as an article of blind faith, that paradise is only to be found on earth. Given that he has just been exploring the remains of a beautiful kingdom, destroyed by the avarice of men, his conclusion is a little surprising. One would have thought that he would have denied the possibility of paradise on earth, while acknowledging that, for most major religions, that hope is transferred to heaven.

So, what did Jesus mean when he told the dying thief, suffering beside Him on his cross, that, "Today, you will be with me in paradise"? (Luke 23:43) Surely, this: That beyond the grave, for those who trust in Him, there will be be a place where we shall enter into the presence of God. It will be a place of beauty and of peace. For the Christian, the yearning for paradise is not for a specific location on earth, but for the City of God, where Christ shall reign (Revelation 22:2). The word 'paradise' is Persian. It means 'garden' or 'park.' According to the Bible, paradise was lost in a garden.

It will be regained, not on a mountain in Tibet, but when we see our Savior face to face.

All Quiet on the Western Front

When I was growing up, in Blackburn, in the North West of England, I knew a man named Tommy. I have no idea whether or not it was his real name, but that's what everyone called him. Most days, when my mother sent me to the grocery store that neighbors operated out of their front room, I would pass Tommy's terraced house. Unless the weather was poor, (which, to be honest it often was), he would be sitting on a stool by his front door, smoking Woodbines, quite prepared to pass the time of day with anyone who happened by. Of course we became friends. There is a natural affinity between the elderly and the young - there are simple pleasures to be shared, like a bag of pear drops; the concerns of the world may be blissfully ignored when you are 7 or 77. Not that I had any idea how old he was. To me, Tommy was just old. He always had a smile and a happy wave. He was harmless. He was also a trained killer.


Tommy had served in the fiasco that was Gallipoli. He had a pith helmet with a bullet hole in it to prove his story. After more than fifty years he was still angry at the stupidity of the commanders who would not let their troops take the high ground in safety, instead pitching camp at the foot of cliffs, allowing Turkish troops to occupy the positions that would lead to the debacle. Tommy had also served on the Western Front. It was there that he had succumbed to shell-shock, the paralysis of the will caused by being subjected for too long to the horror and noise of battle. Since demobilization, in 1919, Tommy had not been able to do anything but the most menial of jobs. In retirement, drawing a meager pension, he spent his days smoking, and talking his time away.
I thought of Tommy as I read, recently, Malcolm Brown's Imperial War Museum Book of the Western Front.
This is a different type of account of the 'war to end all wars', quite unlike the dry dispatches of the official historians. Instead of pretending to view the events of those four fateful years from some dispassionate position, high above the fields of battle, Brown's book uses first hand, contemporary accounts to paint a very different picture. The book is written in a series of short chapters, each chapter concentrating upon some aspect of the experience of the common soldier. It is liberally illustrated with extracts from letters and diaries. Many of those quoted did not survive the war. Here are a few of the things that caught my attention:
- The humanity of the ordinary man. Unlike the modern, fictional hero, who is applauded for his ability to 'take out' the enemy, Tommy Atkins (the nickname for all British soldiers at that time) was a decent chap who did not kill unless he had to.
- In order to win, therefore, most killing had to be done at a distance. Thousands did die in suicidal rushes across no-man's land, but many more were killed by the use of heavy artillery. Indeed, many soldiers remarked that it would have been easier to have fought face to face, instead of wondering whether the next screaming shell "has my name on it."
- Since combatants could do nothing to prevent their deaths at the hands of artillery fire, a fierce fatalism developed during the war years, which had more in common with Islam than with Christianity. It seemed, to those who hunkered down in the trenches of Ypres or the Somme, that either God slept or He was unconcerned by their fate. In the end, the tenets of historic Christianity were sacrificed in the interests of survival. Sociologists have often noted that the decline of the church in the West can be traced to the First World War. It did not help that political jingoism was trumpeted from the pulpits of both Britain and Germany. Every German infantryman bore, on his belt buckle, the words Gott mit uns. This did not prevent his superiors from turning loose poisoned gas upon the cream of England's youth. Ironically, the belt buckle became, in the mind of Tommy Atkins, just another proof that his enemies were just "Huns," less than human.
- At the same time, the stories recorded in the book speak of an incredible heroism, and of a dedication to King and country that has largely dissipated today. Nationalism may have a great deal to answer for, and patriotism may, as Johnson said, be the last refuge of scoundrels, but it is better than the cringing anarchy of today, where no good thing is immune from carping cynicism. Despite the disillusionment that developed towards the end of the war, hardly surprising considering the huge losses, there is still something noble about Tommy Atkins. He may be a little rough around the edges, overly fond of hard drink, but he is also a gentleman. There's one telling story about a group of weary, grimy soldiers given a brief respite from the Front, for whom a troupe of visiting entertainers put on a show. One of the artistes was a beautiful young woman who sang for the soldiers. Between songs she teased them with racy comments (doubtless incredibly mild by today's standards). The men were simply embarrassed. They spent their days and nights killing or being killed, but when a young woman sang to them, they remembered their mothers and their wives.
- One final thing. The war was almost lost to the Allies in late 1917 when a German offensive pushed them back from the positions they had held for over three years. If the Germans had reached the coast they would have split the Allies, and probably outflanked them. Axis forces could have strutted down the boulevards of Paris, or maybe even the avenues of London. But the retreating armies did not break, though they bent. Soon, reinforced by the doughboys from over the water, they were able to turn the tide. In reaching too far the German offensive stalled. Before they could dig in, and trench warfare recommence, the Allies counterattacked. A war that had looked lost in March was over by November. Here's the startling fact - many of the soldiers who pushed back the Kaiser's troops were still in their teens. Barely old enough to vote, or to drink, they were old enough to kill.


Anyone who seeks to glorify unnecessary warfare should read this book; anyone who seeks to demonize those who fight should also read it. Wars are not really fought by generals, but by eighteen year old boys, like Tommy.