Saturday Morning, November 9, 2024

Poppy Field of Dreams

Documents flew. Howling dervishes. Pyre pages. Pens scribbled. Voices rose, and fell. Tempers flared. Anger. Vengeance. That lean and hungry look victors wear on judgement day, facing the loser with scathing sanctimony. Winner takes all. The first mistake. Bodies buried. Firearms shelved. Wounds never to heal. An aroma of acidic acrimony wafted through the Hall of Mirrors. Animosity on hold. Ten million souls lost in the field, and in here, the rancor stank. Never a lesson learned. Bitterness with bite. Pain without gain. Nothing resolved, except compounded hostility.

World War One Liberty Bonds poster
Designed by Fredrick Strothmann (1872-1958)
The battle for funding WW1 was on in America.

Selection of Chinese snuff bottles.
Let us all hope this is not the next front.
As of today, chances now are lessening.

All potentates gathered. Their goal? Hard to understand. Drawn and quartering at the least. Versailles Palace, June 28, 1919. In a stunning display of deep-seated hatred, a loathing tracing back to Medieval fiefdoms, a peace treaty was concocted. Written in the language of vanquishment, without a word of accommodation, seeds were sown. The harvest growing into a greater horror fifteen years beyond. European allies placed severe punitive demands on Germany for the atrocity we know as the Great War. A second mistake. President Woodrow Wilson would face his final stroke, upset with this troglodyte mentality of the participants.

Best Laid Plans...

Politicians follow a ritual of giving acts and bills ironic titles. The Inflation Reduction Act comes to mind. History is replete. Let's glance at the Hague Conference of 1899 held in the Peace Palace, Netherlands. The agreement, tagged Laws and Customs of War on Land, was conceived by European countries to set limits on war atrocities. POW's were not to be killed. Poisonous gas was restricted from the battlefield. Neutral territories and towns were to be respected not attacked. One primary point was the protection of cultural sites, forbidding looting and destruction. The agreement was updated in 1907, just in time for World War I.

Jacket promoting the 1993 movie.
Outlandish as the movie is, seems humans relive the same behavior pattern generation-after-generation. The formula for a classic film.

Philosopher Kings Unite

The plan was perfect, except for one small detail. It didn't work. Germany's initial invasion into Belgium negated neutrality. POW's were executed, cultural centers were looted then destroyed, and innocent villages were annihilated. A walk through the Verdun battlefield is all one need do. The University of Louvain's library in Belgium was reduced to rubble by the Germans. They also sank the Lusitania, drawing the United States into the conflict. Like the battleship Maine, nineteen years earlier, it was a clever ploy to escalate war.

WWI French poster - Exposition...German War Crimes. Designed by Adrien Barrère (1877-1931). All pre-war agreements against war atrocities evaporated at the first gun shot. The French held an exposition highlighting the horror through documents and photographs. This exposition ended on October 30. 1917. WWI ended twelve days later. By then, the irreparable damage was done. A generation caught in T.S. Eliot's Waste Lands.

Then there was the German execution of British nurse Edith Cavell. Miss Cavell was caught behind German lines as the troops entered Brussels. A nurse first, she attended to the injured, never biased to their country. German, French, and English soldiers lay side-by-side in the hospital wards. Among her daily duties she began smuggling English soldiers out of Belgium. Caught in the act, the German military arrested her, tried her, and had a firing squad kill her on October 12, 1915. The act created a firestorm and a propaganda blitz by the Allies. Her death carried an impact. She is remembered in statues and memorials, even in song. Twentieth century singer Édith Piaf, born in Paris two months after Miss Clavell's execution, carried her name.

Paris Review Abstract Expressionist silkscreen.
Signed Conrad-Relli [1968], 16/150, 40" H. 26" W.

Thus Spake Zarathustra

War, its own animal. It answers to no one. Its atrocities echo into silence. It remains the weakest link in man's DNA. Yet, the experience bonds. Those who survive live their lives harboring war's experience. If a line is drawn in the sand, humans will rise to the challenge. A circadian cycle as reliable as the rising moon and setting sun. Can we learn? Following World War II, the United States did the unthinkable. We rebuilt Europe including Germany through the Marshall Plan. Aid and supplies flowed into Japan. The result? Festering wounds healed. Germany and Japan became and still are trusted allies. This, the unspoken greatness of America, so often overlooked by critics of this magnificent human experiment, still thrives. One story begs repeating. One rich in the western culture and dripping with our old friend irony.

Keystone View Co. WWI stereoscoptic cards illustrate the massive amount of men and munitions spent.

Careful what you wish for

Greek legend speaks of King Croesus, ruler of a successful Anatolian kingdom. With success comes hubris. Feeling the need to challenge the vast Persian Empire, Croesus first visits the Oracle of Delphi in Greece seeking reassurance for his mission. The infamous oracle says, If you fight against the Persians, a great empire will be destroyed. Great, he thinks. So, on his steed he hops, advancing against his neighbor. And the Oracle's words were true. A great kingdom was indeed destroyed. His.

Wars on many fronts.
July 25, 1968, Pope Paul admonished the new contraceptive, the pill.
Poster made by Pandora Productions, 1968, 16 7/8" H. 10 7/8" W.

Best to all the Veterans everywhere in the world. Eleven. Eleven. Eleven. Another day of infamy. The moment still remaining in our hearts. If we listen, we can still hear those church bells pealing for everlasting peace.