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The Somme

Discussion in 'Charlton' started by Ken Shabby, Jul 2, 2016.

  1. Ken Shabby

    Ken Shabby Well-Known Member

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    Not a football topic, but quite a big thing. 100 years ago yesterday, the battle of the Somme began. The carnage was appalling, but it didn't stop Field Marshall Haig ordering a similar campaign the following year, against much advice.
    My Dad was one of those guys who studied WW1 a lot, and in later years went on holiday to the WW1 battlefields and cemeteries. I never saw the interest in something in which so many people died, but I am just rereading the history of the First World War now, and this rather nasty anniversary happened to cross with it.
    There were a lot of terrible battles in that war,and it turned out to be a brutal foretaste of what the 20th Century would bring, but I figured it wouldn"t be out of order to stop and think for a moment about the young lads whose bravery led them to give everything in a terrible struggle which in the end, had to be repeated twenyy odd years later.
     
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  2. Holden Chinaski

    Holden Chinaski Well-Known Member

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    I have many a relatives on the Menin Gate. Only seeing names and names and names in their thousands to you realise how costly it was.

    War, as such, is so senseless and pointless. A whole young generation taken years before their time, deprived of countless loves, heartbreaks and good times.

    We who remains, year and years after the events will never truely understand the horrors that you all encountered.
     
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