The battle of the Somme

Today we remember the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest on the Western Front.
The whistles blew as the last shells flew overhead in a bombardment which was designed to obliterate the enemy in preparation for an assault designed to pierce an opening through two lines of German troops dug in with machine gun emplacements, waiting for the men to begin their run across no-mans -land.

From the relative safety of the trench, over the parapet and into the zone of death these men didn't question why, they were under orders and somehow believed their betters knew better. It was only as the realisation struck home and their comrades and friends began to fall like flies around them, as the machine gun bullets brought death and destruction did they realise that at any moment their number would be up and their death 'duly noted'. 

As the carnage progressed those in the vicinity knew a mistake had been made, that the calculation of the generals was horribly wrong and that to return to the shelter of the trench was the only sensible way to stay alive. But the officers on the General Staff were many miles in the rear safely out of harms way glowering at their maps consulting their carefully considered notes oblivious of the mayhem they had unleashed on their own flesh and blood. It was well over an hour before the reports began to trickle back from the killing field by which time, wives were becoming widows and children would never again see their fathers. In that hour of "wait and see" battalions of men were being cut to pieces, regiments proudly representing the traditions of that little piece of England from which they came, were being obliterated.
And so today we stand in a two minutes silence to remember them.
Perhaps at the same time we should all question the futility of war especially a war which was based on so much propaganda and bad faith, between people who were linked through marriage and family, through hubris and isolation, through traditions of glory and too quickly forgotten failure, through noblesse oblige and our  ill placed confidence.