LES GUÊPES, 1849
JEAN BAPTISTE ALPHONSE KARR
This essay has spent a longer time than normal in gestation. I had intended to dictate it on Memorial Day, but the news from Iraq was so depressing that I could not bring myself to work on it. Now that the essay has emerged from the womb, let us see what we have.
This essay is about the effects of war and uses World War I as its example. You may recall that Woodrow Wilson, our President during the First World War, called that war “The War to End Wars.” The fact that we have had several wars since that time merely validates the title of this piece. The war to end wars was a naïve idealistic hope of Woodrow Wilson. The current administration claims to be conducting a “global war on terror”. This is a cynical attempt for this administration to remain in power because the American electorate is reluctant to vote against a wartime administration. The fact is that wars and terror have been with us since the beginning of time and they will continue to be with us until the world’s history adjourns, demonstrating the truth in Karr’s maxim.
You may also recall that in 1914, Winston Churchill, who was the British Defence Minister, claimed that the German fortress could be conquered by attacking “its soft underbelly”. That soft underbelly was Turkey, who bloodied the nose of the Allies in the Battle at Suvla Bay near Gallipoli. In the current war in Iraq, the Americans elected to invade that country because it was a “slam dunk” which constituted another soft underbelly. We are now in the fifth year of the current war and it appears that the only people being “slam dunked” are our forces. Again this demonstrates the thought that in 93 years, we have learned nothing.
Let us leave Woodrow, Winnie and the current war on terror and turn now to Eric Bogle. That fellow is an extraordinary writer of songs, lyrics, and poetry. Two songs that he has written about the First World War are now sung throughout the English-speaking world. They are “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” and “The Green Fields of France,” which is also known as “Willie McBride.” There are three citations from these two songs which were written about events that took place between 1914 and 1918 that have relevance to events taking place today.
Winston Churchill gave the job of attacking the Turkish forces at Gallipoli to the Australians. When the attack began against the Turks, Bogle says that the Aussies were “rained by bullets and showered with shell, which nearly blew us back to Australia.” As a result, our “blood stained the sand and the water.” Any correlation between the Turks’ resistance in the First World War and the resistance we are encountering in the civil war in Iraq is not coincidental. They are quite related. Again, in 93 years we have learned nothing.
There is another elegant Eric Bogle line before the battle at Suvla Bay finishes. The line holds that:

“Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
Never knew there was worse things than dying”

What is happening today in the battle against the insurgents in Iraq is multiplied several fold from the battle of Suvla Bay. Our soldiers are losing their arms and their legs, but also of great significance, the roadside bombs have separated them from their senses. So in ninety plus years the killing goes on and the results have become much crueler. Have we learned nothing? Obviously not.
The Australian soldier who speaks in this song was saved and was returned to civilian status. We know this from several lines in the song, “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda.” The soldier laments that he will not do much dancing anymore because it takes two legs to go waltzing with Matilda or anyone else. Our legless soldiers have made the same discovery.
As an old man, the legless soldier sits on his front porch and watches “the parade pass before him.” This is a reference to the annual celebration of ANZAC Day, which memorializes the achievements of the Australian as well as New Zealand soldiers. This is much like our Memorial Day. The old soldier sits on his porch as time goes on and watches his old comrades “old, stiff, and sore”…“still answering the call.” A young person asks, “What are they marching for?” The old soldier says, “I ask myself the same question.”
Finally, the old soldier makes note of the fact that as time goes forward, fewer and fewer soldiers will march in the ANZAC parade. He concludes, nostalgically, that someday “No one will march there at all.”
The poet Phil Coulter says, “The minutes fly and the years go by.” For American soldiers of the First World War, only three are left, and they are well past the century mark. For those of us who were involved in the Second World War, we are now well into our eighties, and a number of us are advancing into our nineties. It is fairly obvious that as time goes on, that soon old soldiers will not be there to answer the call. What has happened to the veterans of the First World War is now happening to those of us who served in the Second World War. And when age creeps up on the veterans of the Iraq War, they will find that it is difficult to answer the call in the future. But the call will be there, which is why the title of this piece is “The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same.”
In the second piece mentioned earlier, that being “Willie McBride,” we find a weary traveler sitting down by the graveside of a British soldier. With the name McBride, the soldier could be of either Scottish or Irish parentage. According to the gravestone, Private Willie McBride died in 1916 at the tender age of 19 years. In his imaginary conversation with Willie McBride, the stranger asks, “Did you really believe that this war would end wars?” And then he goes on to ask Willie, “Do the soldiers who lie here know why they died?”
Of course the answer is no, because soldiers do what they are told and they are not paid to think. If they do what they are told and get killed in the process, so be it.
As the story about Willie McBride comes to an end, there is a poignant line. It goes, “Countless white crosses in mute witness stand to man’s indifference to his fellow man.” I suppose that it was this way in the First World War just as it has recurred so many times and continues with the Iraq War.
In any event, Eric Bogle has written two powerful anti-war songs. With one war succeeding another, I believe it validates the thought that the more things change, the more they remain the same.
In this essay, I hope that I have whetted your appetite for the music of Eric Bogle. He was born in 1944 in Peebles, Scotland. Since 1982, he has been a citizen of Australia. Bogle is an astute commentator on the affairs of men. As he said in “Willie McBride,” the “war to end wars” has not resulted in the demise of wars but the fact is they have happened “again and again, again and again, and again.”
The quotation that I attribute to Jean Baptiste Alphonse Karr is an apt one. With respect to our wars, it is obvious that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Unfortunately, that is tragically so. Woodrow Wilson claimed that the First World War was the war to end wars. Today we have an American president who claims that he is in charge of “the global war on terror.” So you see, in 93 years we have learned nothing.
Can anyone deny that the more things change, the more they remain the same?
E. E. CARR
June 3, 2007
Essay 258
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Kevin’s commentary: Well, we certainly do get more efficient ways of killing one another. That counts for something, right?
A nice live version of “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” can be heard here. We listened to a lot of Eric Bogle at Pop’s house earlier this week. He’s incredible.
The song about Willie McBride is also very well done. Reminds me, weirdly, of some lullabies that my dad used to sing me. Say what you will about Bogle, Clancy and the like, but they create damn pleasant music especially considering the subject matter. Rap has violence and money, pop has sappy love songs, and this kind of music has war deaths. Guess they’re just popular to write about for this genre.