How is the western front WW1 remebered?
To remember something you would have to have been there/experienced it. What you see in poems, plays, films, paintings etc are perhaps impressions of someone who was there. They may well be faithfully recorded impressions, but they are impressions nonetheless and subject to the particular experiences and world view of those particular individuals. The Western Front will no longer be remembered by anyone in the U.K., the last of over 5 million “Tommies” who served on the Western Front died last month. His experiences of the Trenches were pretty horrific as a Lewis Gunner he saw his section (and friends) smashed by artillery. Fortunately, many of the experiences and the testimony of these astonishingly brave men was recorded before they passed away (How in God’s name they stood up to artillery, rifles, bayonets, machine guns, gas, barbed wire and flame throwers still amazes me !!
I visited the Western Front in May this year to find my Great Uncle’s Grave. France and Belgium are full of military cemeteries and there are many museums in the area. As someone else said, there is a Last Post ceremony every night at 8.00 p.m. at the Menin Gate in Ypres. The most well known film is All Quiet on the Western Front told from a German Soldiers point of view, My boy Jack (about Kipling’s son). There are a number of documentaries showing footage which has been collected by the Imperial War Museum. Poets: Robert Graves, Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Thomas (and many more). Artists: John Nash, Paul Nash, William Orpen, Pablo Picasso, Stanley Spencer (and many more). Plays: Journey’s End, Oh What a Lovely War, War Horse, Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching towards the Somme. Don’t forget the poppy day remembrance service on November 11th every year which started out as a service to remember those who were killed in WW1, and now covers all who have been
