Armistice Day
Nov. 11th, 2004 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydyThe Eleventh hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh month --
It was a celebration of the end of the world. Nothing else has affected the Western world so profoundly as World War I. A generation of young men dead, a permanent shift in the economy from agriculture to manufacturing, the destruction of socialism and anarchism, the stage set for World War II, and class order crumbling. It was the end of the absolute rule of monarchs in Europe, and provided the catalyst for the Russian Revolution (remember that the revolution did not start out as a communist or socialist movement). Women were forced to go to work. In order to finance and manage the war, governments were forced to substantially increase their size and authority. It was the end of 300 years of European hegemony.
It doesn't mean much, anymore. While it is, just barely, within human memory, the last veteran of the war has died (or else is over 100 years old). Do they still toll the bells on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month? They did when I was a teenager. St. Paul Cathedral would toll the bells -- I don't remember for how long. Possibly as much as an hour. It seemed to go on forever.
I think I know a little bit of how Emma Goldman felt. When the war came rushing up, and was received by such excitement, she was devastated by the enthusiasm and patriotism it inspired in her comrades. As an anarchist, she believed in internationalism. To watch her fellow anarchists, socialists, and communists throw away all of their principals to join the army to defend their beloved country, to defend France, Germany, America, or the British Empire, was appalling. Each country had most of their left leaning political leaders suddenly charging into war, suddenly overcome with statism, and loyalty to their country, not to all people everywhere.
I watch our country charge into Iraq with the same enthusiasm, and hope that we aren't making a similarly catastrophic mistate. Oh, it won't be trench warfare, it will be like Vietnam, with sand instead of jungle. There's no longer any politically powerful radical left to be torn apart by such issues. Gods know what my government will do over the next four years, but I find it unlikely that they will exile me to Russia.
It's odd, you know. One of the few people left who still remembers when the armistice was signed, one of the few people who still feel some small, ancient grief about World War I, is an anarchist, a loony liberal, someone who would have been a peace actiist (or at least a lazy supporter of same).
I don't know how it is in Europe. Ancient history seems to have a more personal impact on them, and they are still feeling the effects of the Great War, the War to End All Wars. Are there still public ceremonies? Do the bells still toll on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month?
It was a celebration of the end of the world. Nothing else has affected the Western world so profoundly as World War I. A generation of young men dead, a permanent shift in the economy from agriculture to manufacturing, the destruction of socialism and anarchism, the stage set for World War II, and class order crumbling. It was the end of the absolute rule of monarchs in Europe, and provided the catalyst for the Russian Revolution (remember that the revolution did not start out as a communist or socialist movement). Women were forced to go to work. In order to finance and manage the war, governments were forced to substantially increase their size and authority. It was the end of 300 years of European hegemony.
It doesn't mean much, anymore. While it is, just barely, within human memory, the last veteran of the war has died (or else is over 100 years old). Do they still toll the bells on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month? They did when I was a teenager. St. Paul Cathedral would toll the bells -- I don't remember for how long. Possibly as much as an hour. It seemed to go on forever.
I think I know a little bit of how Emma Goldman felt. When the war came rushing up, and was received by such excitement, she was devastated by the enthusiasm and patriotism it inspired in her comrades. As an anarchist, she believed in internationalism. To watch her fellow anarchists, socialists, and communists throw away all of their principals to join the army to defend their beloved country, to defend France, Germany, America, or the British Empire, was appalling. Each country had most of their left leaning political leaders suddenly charging into war, suddenly overcome with statism, and loyalty to their country, not to all people everywhere.
I watch our country charge into Iraq with the same enthusiasm, and hope that we aren't making a similarly catastrophic mistate. Oh, it won't be trench warfare, it will be like Vietnam, with sand instead of jungle. There's no longer any politically powerful radical left to be torn apart by such issues. Gods know what my government will do over the next four years, but I find it unlikely that they will exile me to Russia.
It's odd, you know. One of the few people left who still remembers when the armistice was signed, one of the few people who still feel some small, ancient grief about World War I, is an anarchist, a loony liberal, someone who would have been a peace actiist (or at least a lazy supporter of same).
I don't know how it is in Europe. Ancient history seems to have a more personal impact on them, and they are still feeling the effects of the Great War, the War to End All Wars. Are there still public ceremonies? Do the bells still toll on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month?
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Thanks for this post
Date: 2004-11-11 09:51 am (UTC)My guess would be that some parts of Europe still remember the Great War. It was certainly omnipresent in the portion of France I lived in mumble-mumble years ago.
Nitpick
Date: 2004-11-11 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-11 09:56 am (UTC)And with respect, 1914's not ancient history to me. I also still honour those ancestors of mine who fought and died to drive out the barbarians at Clontarf, nine hundred years earlier.
In France
Date: 2004-11-11 09:58 am (UTC)K.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-11 10:27 am (UTC)Re: Nitpick
Date: 2004-11-11 02:34 pm (UTC)Re: In France
Date: 2004-11-11 02:43 pm (UTC)I like calling the roll of names of the dead. It has a magical correctness to it. Names are important. I feel oddly about "He died for France." He probably did, but the connotations of country are too complicated and conflicting for me to resolve. As I said, I'm basically an internationalist.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-11 02:47 pm (UTC)Re: Thanks for this post
Date: 2004-11-11 03:02 pm (UTC)Re: Nitpick
Date: 2004-11-11 03:08 pm (UTC)Unlike the typos I make in my comments...
Re: In France
Date: 2004-11-11 03:12 pm (UTC)We also commonly dug up other dangerous things, as well.
But K is correct - every town in the area I lived in had its memorial, usually in the very center of town. I didn't really understand it when I lived there - understanding came much, much later.
Re: In France
Date: 2004-11-11 08:59 pm (UTC)I work with a lot of extremely mundane people. As people go, they're rather nice. Some of them are even well-educated. What I don't understand is their almost hysterical determination to avoid learning anything, or even to put what they did learn to any use. Nice people. I'd go out for a beer with them any time.
I don't know if World War One happened in their universe. I doubt that the words Somme or Verdun mean anything to them. Hell, I can only provide you with extremely sketchy details of the war, if it comes right down to it. I forget, though, that there are a lot of people out in the world who aren't like my work mates. It makes me look like an idiot, but it's reassuring.
I do have one gripe. Armistice Day has become conflated with World War Two. Perhaps that's why they changed the name. I hate losing WWI. It was different in so many ways. People hate to celebrate a tragedy, I suppose.
Re: Nitpick
Date: 2004-11-11 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-11 09:13 pm (UTC)MKK
It isn't a statutory holiday anymore
Date: 2004-11-13 11:47 am (UTC)Very much not forgotten; an enormous big nation-defining deal, and front page articles and significant mention every year. (It was a matter of actual public controversy when the poppy centres went from green back to black a few years ago, and a Block Quebecois MP who publically declined to observe the occasion got pounded in the press for two solid weeks this year.)
The US isn't the whole world; I don't know if you might find that cheering or not.
-- Graydon