On this Remembrance Day, the 11th of November 2023, we reflect on the armistice that ended the First World War, a day to remember the sacrifices of so many. In 2018 – the centenary of the World War I Armistice – I wrote and posted a poem, but since then, I’ve added two stanzas and modified another. My revisions stem from viewing the two World Wars as essentially one prolonged conflict with a conclusive outcome only in 1945. The same protagonists were involved, with one side refusing to accept its initial defeat, instead preparing during the interwar period for what it considered the rightful outcome in the second.

It was a misstep for the Western Allies to agree to an “Armistice,” a term suggesting a mere truce, at a time when the German army was collapsing, the Hindenburg Line had been breached, and the Kaiser had abdicated. With no path to recovery and its Home Front in revolutionary turmoil, the Allies could have demanded unconditional surrender – and likely would have secured it.

My original poem did not touch upon the second, more devastating round of conflict, nor did it delve into the role of artillery in battlefield losses. The common belief attributes most casualties to bullets, particularly from machine guns, bayonets, poison gas, among other weapons. However, it was in fact artillery – responsible for 60% of the losses – that served as the primary agent of death and injury.

Few war poems capture this immense tragedy comprehensively. I hope my poem does so, portraying the sorrow, waste, and madness of war with poignant clarity. As we commemorate wars past on this solemn day and observe ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, let us reflect once more on the madness of war.

Echoes from the Trenches

A sea of time has passed us by, and still, we think of them,
The lives unlived, the dreams curtailed, the legions of our men.
We did not know, we could not tell, what horrors lay in store,
As year on year the mournful call went out for more and more.

A maelstrom fell upon our men of iron, steel, and fire,
And sent a piteous wail of grief through every town and shire.
"We must resist," we told ourselves, "the evil, hated Hun,
Have not our leaders deemed this war a just and noble one?"

Through mud and ice and poison gas, the order was ‘stand fast’,
This agony, like none before, it surely could not last.
For four long years, we stood our ground and bravely would not yield,
Till battlegrounds ran red with blood through every poppy field.

Nigh half a thousand miles were dug of trenches where men slept,
Exposed and wet and freezing cold, companionship they kept.
Of lice, of rats, of mice and men, over whom they scurried.
Comes the light, the lice still bite, but off the others hurried.

A wasteland scowled between the lines with not a living thing,
Where even as the dawn came up, the lark, it would not sing.
To cross through no-man’s land and live might be a lucky feat,
But barbed wire and machine-gun fire could yet that luck defeat.

How could men cause such numbing pain and suffering to all?
What thoughts of gain or equity were on their lips to call?
How could they think to justify the carnage and the blood?
What rationale endured to turn their tears into a flood?

Delusions born of hubris' ease had caused them to believe,
This war would be no different from the rest they had conceived.
But science changes everything, and chivalry was dead,
Midst strafing planes and shrapnel shards and mustard gas and lead.

Oh God above, what did man do to vent his foolish spleen,
But sacrifice the best he had on altars of the keen?
How little did he think it through and cry aloud, ‘Enough!’,
But yet preferred to stumble on with bloody blind man’s bluff.

Versailles was born with bitterness and vengeance at its heart,
And so, in barely twenty years, a fresh war would it start.
Depravity beyond belief were hallmarks of this clash,
With millions lost to racial hate, their bodies turned to ash.

Then did at last all Europe rise and vow with every breath,
To put in place a Union to end this dance with death.
A world at war must nevermore be deemed a noble thing,
Its sons and daughters join as one, this anthem now to sing.