Examine_the_‘Memory_of_War’_in_Twentieth_Century_Europe.

Examine the ‘memory of war’ in twentieth century Europe. Wars and conflicts have been detailed and represented in many different formats over the centuries by almost every nation. From the early ancient periods of the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians the most common form of preserving the memory of war was tableted in the form of art; from paintings to hieroglyphics. The most famous of all documented memory of warfare in European history is probably the Bayeux Tapestry which visually illustrated the events of the Norman Conquest. There are millions of paintings and art dedicated to the wars of their time and this along with poetic writings and diaries have moulded our knowledge and perspective of the memory of war. However, as time went on and technology progressed, the twentieth century was by far the most advanced and boasted many different methods in preserving the memory of war. The industrial revolution led to the finest technology to become developed such as the camera as well as the common format of literature and writing. Education had developed rapidly, with many people possessing the ability to write and produce their own documented opinions and diaries. The twentieth century has by far in comparison to previous eras, boasted the largest and most atrocious wars ever documented such as WWI, WWII and the Cold War. The fact that we are in the twenty first century where modern warfare is directly in our attention; for example the War on Terror, The war on Iraq and Afghanistan; we are able to relate as the memories of the previous wars of the twentieth century still carry the same wounds and are instilled in our minds. There is somebody we know whose forefathers, and even our own, have fought in wars and the preservation of those wars are all around us; surrounding us in our day to day lives. Written and spoken words are a common form of preservation of the memory of war as there are still many veterans today whom we are able to obtain first-hand information from. Having such primary source is an excellent, commemorative way of understanding their first-hand experience as opposed to written accounts of wars of previous eras as the material is not always reliable and could have been tampered with. Initially, The Boer War which ended in 1902, and consequently fell in to the first part of the twentieth century, the memory of that war was described in grave detail through letters and memoirs of the generals and lords who would describe matter of warfare from Africa back to the Defence Ministry. It was a traditional war, the last of the old fashioned British imperial wars with cavalry playing a significant part.1 However; it was also the first of modern warfare where the combat became guerrilla and the concentration camps of the British Army allowing them to gain victory in holding and exterminating prisoners of war. It is estimated that around 27,000 Boers were killed in the camps, almost triple the amount of numbers that were killed on the field. With the expansion of the press, and newspapers costing half a penny, most of British society were interested in updates about the war due to the fact that they were being fed with reports almost every day in the papers. Mass readership and technological updates both contributed to sculpturing the first part of British Media, with in the summer of 1900 there were fifty eight newspaper reporters in South Africa, up to twenty from The Times alone.2 Up until around 1901, all the papers were pro war and continued to pedestal the British Troops as opposed to those reporters with a more liberal view and taking in to account the Boer side. The reporters that were employed to follow the war, not only reported military action, but many were assigned, especially by The Times, to explore other areas, in turn publicising the war as though it were a drama novel. In the beginning, many reporters published a romantic description of the efforts of the British troops during the battles of Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberly; however towards 1901, the dark truth about the concentration camps and politics behind the war were published. The main Times reporter in Mafeking, Angus Hamilton, a man of liberal instincts, was repeatedly censored, and once briefly dismissed when he ventured on a more balanced treatment of the Boers.3 It is important that when researching and reviewing the memory of war, especially in this scenario, that we take caution as to believe the exact words printed, for it is common knowledge that the media is able to manipulate our thoughts; and some of the events that occurred may or may not have happened the way they were described due to the fact that reports were all pro Britain and possibly altered to give the public the news in a juicer manner. Although these sources are of primary significance, they do not always hold the truth that the researcher is looking for. Most of the time the Boers were described to the British public as rural farmers, rebels and troublemakers whereas in comparison to the view of the British Army who described them to be doughty, whose qualities, physical and moral, they respected.4 Many Infamous writers such as Rudyard Kipling were situated in South Africa at the time, who in time included this war in their writings with Kipling even writing many a poems. There is also a museum in South Africa called The Anglo Boer War Museum which beholds many instruments, armour and art that is solely based on the war and in particular ‘to the glorious memory of mothers, women and children, who during the recent war, passed away, or had otherwise suffered bitterly, either in the concentration camps or outside.’ Towards the middle of the century, cinematography became very popular, as well as visual entertainment, films now contained sound system as opposed to the previous ‘black and white silent movies’. In 1942, Ohm Kruger was released by the Nazi’s as one of the first forms of anti-British propaganda and was a nationwide success in Germany. This film was very pro Boer and was released in almost eight states (all closely linked to the Nazi rule) and went on to gain multiple awards and recognition for its value exceeding beyond expectations of a film made during such an immense war. It illustrated the British as colonial and hungry for empire expansion without a care for the people it snatched the land from and stole their goods; in turn instilling fear in to the German public and in order to gain support. Goebbels had the film rereleased in 1944. Detailed spoken accounts are usually recorded in literature; however transcripts are very hard to get hold of and usually it is depicted in a story like form, and sometimes its significance is lost. An interesting piece of literature I happened to have come across in this research was a book by Bernice Archer titled The Internment of Western Civilians under the Japanese: 1941-1945. This book happened to capture at least 50 oral interviews from the prisoners of war of the Far East during WWII highlighting what the British were subdued to during the years they were held by the Japanese. However, these accounts were collected almost 50 years after the war and many people who were a part of the torture of the Far Eastern camps. It is important to realise that the Nazi’s were not the first to create concentration camps, as the British used them in the previous century and in the notable Boer War. However, the methods that the Nazis used were extremely advanced in comparison to the Boer war due to enhancement in warfare. The Holocaust is forever imprinted in history and is probably the most notable feature of the Second World War; however America too; although they may not have realised it at the time, had created their own concentration camps. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued an order known as 9066 to ‘establish the War Relocation Authority in the Executive Office of the President and defining its functions and duties’; whereby over 110,00 Japanese Americans would be relocated in to one of several camps. The fenced camps resembled the camps of the Nazis, and also deprived its citizens of decent housing, shelter, food and water. Although this isn’t as publicised as the holocaust, for many Japanese Americans today the consequences of the government’s actions and treatment of these citizens affects them today. Many Japanese died due to malnutrition and disease during this period and those who survived carry many of the health problems imposed on to them from a young age in the camps. The Magic Mountain written in 1924 is by Thomas Mann is probably by far the only piece of written memory of war that, rather than briefing the way the war was fought and the aftermath, this confronts the ideological struggles of Europe before and after the Great War. Considered one of the most influential works of German literature, this novel excels others in terms that it is a European bildungsroman ( a novel of education/information) as the protagonist explores the culture, art, music, politics, nationalism and illustrates the world before the war erupted. The fact that Mann’s writing was interrupted due to the outbreak of war we are able to see the difference of time especially in the final two chapters where he focuses on his own view and expanded greater knowledge of the changes towards the end of the war. The themes explored in this novel are relevant to the memory of war because it highlights the way society was pre-war. It is important that we identify the sociological aspects of life at the beginning of the twentieth century due as it was the most revolutionary in terms of changes and addressing political and social views. Women gained more rights during this period as well as the birth of shaping liberalism and nationalism. Before the outbreak of the First World War, women over the age of thirty had gained a right to vote in the British system. During this period when the men went to war, the women on the home front managed the professions and jobs of men and proved themselves suitable to a mans degree. However, as soon as the men returned although they proved that they were capable of doing strong jobs, they were still considered weak. The Great War was one of the reasons as to why feminism grew popular and even more extreme; which is why by the second war women were joining the military and naval bases; although they weren’t particularly welcomed by the men. A classical wartime film is Operation Petticoat which humorously illustrates the role of women in a ‘man’s world’ and the misadventures within a fictional submarine. It touches on the role that even then women still had feminine roles within the military, for example the female characters in this film are a group of nurses. Cinematography like this, although it is fictional, up to an extent highlights the sociological aspects about the changes and attitudes to women in society during and after the war. Written accounts are most popular amongst students, scholars, academics and even general interest for finding detailed information about practically anything. History is preserved in its written format, the most significant and undisputed way of passing knowledge and memories on from generation to generation; and with the most momentous wars of all time fought in such a short space of time, it was inevitable that so many detailed accounts would be mass produced. Reading became an invaluable experience, books and knowledge were more in demand than ever and with the printing press and the birth of tabloid newspapers; the memories were reserved. The memories of these wars are all around us today, beautifully caged in museums around the world. In most, if not all countries, almost every town and city has a memorial dedicated to the lives of those who fought or were a part of these wars. A cenotaph is a term used to describe an empty tomb; probably the most famous of them all being the one that stands in Whitehall, London, which has a beautifully engraved ascription of Rudyard Kipling’s infamous description titled ‘The Glorious Dead’ with the dates of the two world wars inscribed in roman numerals. The cenotaph was originally made to commemorate the deaths of those who lost their lives in probably the bloodiest and worst combat in British military history, WWI, however soon after the Second World War it was then used to honour all the British servicemen who paid with their lives and fought with their souls in all the British Wars. The cenotaph at Whitehall is still used today in the public rituals of Armistice Day and Remembrance Day in the United Kingdom. These special days are a salute to the comrades who are absent and for the 20 million people that died during The Great War. In the UK this day is called Remembrance Sunday and a special service is broadcasted where the Queen, members of the Royal Family and military personnel are able to give their respects to the fallen ones. At 11am a minutes silence is held to honour the Glorious Dead and other soldiers that participated in the battles. Australia also hold this same ritual, however their time is 9pm; which is the presumed to coincide with the time of London (11am). Member states of the Commonwealth also celebrate this day; and although in the UK it is celebrated to the Sunday closest to the original day of armistice; the public around the world in almost every country still hold a two minute silence on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month when all fire was ceased. In America this day is known as Veterans Day and there are many cenotaphs around the US also to commemorate their soldiers. Canada has many cenotaphs resembling and inspired by Whitehall with most of them in Ontario. The fact that the almost every nation participates in such a manner where they are all together to celebrate and raise a toast to all those who lost their lives in the Great War indicates the immensity of the memory of this war and how it is, in comparison to the other wars of the twentieth century; because although the second world war has a deeper rooted place in modern European history, the first world war has a deeper place in our hearts. The Second World War is more famous than the two wars mentioned previously, simply due to the fact that it was one of the most disastrous wars of all time. It was also a war, that thankfully due to the advancement in technology, we were able to capture it on film. From rallies around the world to public speeches; there was nothing by then that hadn’t been developed or captured. The age of television was growing, every home owned or had access to a radio and the press was hungrier than before. In comparison to the First World War; we are automatically able to identify how the air force, the army and even the people had advanced in society. We are able to witness the ideologies and recording of famous speeches and events. Since the war, there have been unlimited amount of access to gaining information about the Second World War. From the obvious books and poems, to captured essences on film; the cinematography makes it more alive than others. The photographic quality excelled from that of previous wars; and less than a hundred years prior, many battles and wars were painted either from the artists imagination based on the description of a witness or by an actual army personnel who was able to draw the image of war. The Holocaust is an undefinable memory that still haunts us today. The Nazi’s anti Semitist agenda in exterminating the Jews and the methods they used to execute it was probably one of the most horrific war crimes in all of history. The Nazi’s had set up concentration camps in Germany and in conquered controlled Nazi territories. The concentration camps were inspired by the British camps during the second Boer War; however, the German camps were more utilised and ferocious. The first camps were initially to be used for political prisoners and those who rejected the Nazi regime; although as the camps tripled in numbers, so did their use. Eventually, the camps were used to house not only rebels, but gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, communists and people with disabilities. They were considered ‘unclean’ and useless to the German state and therefore had to be dealt with accordingly. The camps became home to slave labour and soon enough, some of the concentration camps became a second branch, notably ‘extermination camps’ for the Jews where they committed the most heinous mass slaughter on an industrial scale of mass murder. The first camp opened by the Nazis was one that accommodated 5000 people and was founded in Dachau in March 1933. There are seven known types of camps that the Nazi’s used for different purposes be it slave labour, prisoners of war or camps for rehabilitation and education of the Poles (where they were forced upon learning the values of the Nazi’s and then used as slaves); although the camps usually had these branches intertwined, so no camp was secular from the other. After the war ended and the camps were liberated, only then could the outer world see the devastation and inhumane cruelty; photographs were published showing naked decrepit bodies piled upon one another as well as ovens in which some bodies were cremated. The images were horrific and amongst those, especially of war in twentieth century, of the brutal Nazi regime. Cameras were common, and images during the mid half of this century were used in almost everything; however, these devastating pictures have impacted not only mentally on the new generations but it also prompted social and political change. Everybody shared a common perspective; that human life was dear and that nobody should be treated as such. The United Nations was consequently founded and in turn created and adopted the use of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Most of the concentration camps were burnt down due to the fact that they were infested with rotting bodies and diseases were spreading fast. In Poland there is a museum in Potulice where suspected Nazis, Germans as well as anti communists were held as prisoners of war. However, the most famous of all concentration camps is Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp. It was described by Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler as ‘the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.’5 Today it is used as a museum; it is home to the deaths of almost 4 million Jews, although these figures are only estimates due to the uncertainty there is argument over which death toll is correct because in 1989 it was claimed that 1.1 million Jews were killed. By preserving such sites for memory of warfare and including detailed accounts from prisoners who were liberated from the camp allow us to clearly identify what happened behind the walls of these camps and the fact that we are able to see the site where it all occurred brings the truth home. Anne Frank is a representative of the Jews and their treatment under the Nazi rule, Ilyah Ehrenburg, a Soviet writer described in 1961 that Anne Frank as ‘one voice [that] speaks for six million- the voice not of a sage or a poet but of an ordinary little girl’6 Her diary is infamous around the world and is still a best seller of today; her literary performance is appraised as well as her honest and unique style of lexical structure. Her struggles were entered in to a private diary; which her father published soon after the war ended and has resulted in being published many a times as well as being a subject matter for modern cinematography. Her legacy has continued in to the twenty first century along with the second world war; with a TV series produced in America titled Anne Frank: The Whole Story; though this did cause some dissention due to the fact that it was based more for entertainment and failed to stick to the original details of Anne Frank’s story; for example, the series claimed that it was the family’s cleaner that betrayed them to the Nazi’s, when the traitor has never been identified. Her memory will always be identifiable, even in years to come due to her diary being not only literarily published in book form, but her story line is one that has been adapted in to many films, for example the Oscar winning 1959 film (The Diary of Anne Frank) and even fifty years on after this film was released; another was created in 2009 and broadcast on British television. This shows that our attatchment to the Second World War will never die and never be forgotten like the war itself. There are many museums dedicated to warfare; though notably, in my opinion Eden Camp in North Yorkshire is by far one of the best dedicated to the memory of warfare in the twentieth century. Each ‘Hut’ is numbered and breaks down the timeline of the Great War and the Second World War. It tells the story of the wars through life like sights, sounds and smells. Eden Camp was originally a small camp accommodating prisoners of war from 1942. It contains replica as well as real tanks and other instruments of warfare as well as huts dedicated to life on the home front showing us what a typical home or street was like in Britain during the Blitz etc. Overall, the memory of war in the twentieth century is not one that can be replaced. In modern history it most definitely the century of rapid changes to warfare and technology. The memories of these wars, including wars such as the Cold wars and other wars from the later half of the century were extensively covered by media that no other century had seen. There are millions of pictures that tell a billion tales of the wars fought throughout the twentieth century. Moving films and cinematography reached its peak after the Second World War and allowed us to visually see warfare as it had never been seen before. Poems written by those present at the time give us an amazing form of literary response to the war in short paragraphs, for example ‘Flander’s Fields’ by John McCrae. These keep the memory of war alive now as much as it was then; hence why we are able to salute those who fought for the world we live in today and to show us how important life is and why the memory of those fallen soldiers and victims of the wars are still important towards the lives we live today. The twentieth century is undeniably the most memorable of all history for it is home to the greatest wars and rapid changes of warfare and technology. Hasta la victoria siempre [always towards victory]- Che Guevara. Bibliography: 1 Kenneth O Morgan http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/1215/Morgan.pdf 2 Tabitha Jackson, The Boer War, London 1999, page 80-81 3 Raymond Sibbald, The War Corrospondents: The Boer War (Stroud 1993), 130 ff. 4 Keith Surridge, “All you soldiers are what we call Pro Boer”: The Military critique of the South African war 1899-1902, History 82 (1997), 582-600. 5   Furet, François. Unanswered Questions: Nazi Germany and the Genocide of the Jews. Schocken Books (1989), p. 182 6 Graver, Lawrence. "One Voice Speaks for Six Million: The uses and abuses of Anne Frank's diary". Yale Holocaust Encyclopedia. Yale University Press. Retrieved 2007-11-19.