In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae, 1872-1918

[Wednesday update at lunchtime]

Porphyrogenitus has some commentary that's pertinent to the discussion in the comments section.

And I can't help but wonder now, William McBryde
Do all those who lie here now know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
But the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain
For William McBryde it all happened again
And again and again and again and again

-- Eric Bogle

Thank you, Rand, for posting this - it always moves me to tears, starting when I first read it over 40 years ago.

We can never thank our veterans enough for buying our freedoms with their blood and their lives. Our disgrace is that we never do.

For Ron G (and Eric B,above), plus any others who think it was in vain):

You have no clue of what you write
There WAS a cause to rise and fight

Be thankful you're free to spout such bile
You MIGHT have had to close: "Sieg Heil".

Yep, some people apparently think that all wars were fought in vain. I, for one, am grateful I didn't have to grow up saluting swastikas and face death for even mild criticism of the regime. Some wars ARE warranted.

Er, folks, you'd better take a closer look. Both McCrae and Bogle are talking about World War One, not Two. By the time the sieg-heiling and the swastikas started McCrae had already been dead more than a decade.

Maybe not all wars are fought in vain, but WW One certainly was.

All this reminds me of another quote, this one from Otto von Habsburg, great-nephew of Archduke Ferdinand, whose assassination started WW One: "The only thing you learn from history is that no one learns anything from history."

Ron, even if that war was fought in vain, and may even have resulted in the carnage of the war to come two decades later, it's no reason not to honor those who sincerely gave their lives for it in the hopes that it wasn't. It's more than a little churlish to make such a post on the day meant to remember their sacrifice.

Anyone who thinks WWI was fought in vain -- as opposed to having been fought incompetently, which is uncontestable -- is urged to read this book, which persuaded me that Imperial Germany would have destroyed civilization by the mid-20th-century had it not been stopped at the Marne.

Jay:

In the 1960s, there was certain degree of revisionism about whether the First World War was a "war by accident" or whether Germany was, in fact, interested in having a major war. (I'll let you guess which way the revisionists of the 1960s leaned.)

The Fritz Fischer school, using German archives, subsequently pretty much made it clear that Germany wanted war, reinforcing what Tuchman had concluded (but w/ original source material).

It is interesting that the more recent revisionism, such as Charmley, now argue that it was in BRITAIN's best interests to have allowed Germany to win, rather than that Germany was not at fault. (The argument being that a Britain that reached an accommodation could've faced down the US and retained its great power status better.)

But the idea that the war was "in vain" is a hang-over of 1960s-1970s thinking (which, in turn, built on the post-WWI revulsion from the carnage, which was in turn muted by the experience of WWII).

Jay: WWI was fought in vain notwithstanding Germany's intentions at the time because, as Rand points out, it didn't stop them.

Rand: I believe that the best way to honor those who sincerely gave their lives in WWI in the hopes that the war to end wars was not fought in vain is to do everything we possibly can to prevent future wars, and that includes not glorifying past ones.

I don't think that "recognizing sacrifice" = "glorifying war"--apparently your mileage varies.

There's a big difference between recognizing sacrifice and taking up the cause for which that sacrifice was ostensibly made. It's a little late to take a poll, but I'll wager that a lot of doughboys would have rather been honored by seeing the world striving to allow their grandchildren live in peace rather than exhorting them to "Take up our quarrel with the foe."

I think you take the poem too literally. I think that he was talking about just wars in general, not WW I specifically.

Ron:

So, b/c it didn't stop them permanently, ergo a war is a waste? So every Arab-Israeli war has been a waste, since it didn't stop them. For both sides, for the Israelis, for the Arabs?

It stopped them then.

Of course, by your lights, perhaps the only solution is the Morgenthau plan, i.e., complete deindustrialization, and possibly depopulation?

Was the Cold War worth fighting? If the Russians, not the Soviets, come back in 20 years, does that mean that it was meaningless? If Germany becomes an opponent again, in 20 years, does that make World War II not worth fighting either?

No, the Germans of 1914 did not come back. The Kaiserin fell, it was a different situation.

Given the circumstances under which the poem was composed I find that highly doubtful. But it doesn't matter, the message is clear: McCrae wants us to honor our fallen veterans by "tak[ing] up [their] quarrel". I respectfully dissent. I believe that the best way to honor our veterans is to strive to create a world where there are no more veterans because there is no more war. And I believe that the only way to do that is to begin, at least in some cases, not by taking the quarrel up, but by laying it down.

> No, the Germans of 1914 did not come back.

Actually they did. Hitler was a WWI veteran.

> Was the Cold War worth fighting?

The Cold War wasn't really a war. We pretty much haven't had a real war since WWII, and I think that's a very good thing. Was the cold war worth "fighting"? If fighting the cold war is the reason we haven't had a hot one, then yes, absolutely.

WW I stopped Germany from getting the Bomb. Imagine it's 1944, and Fermi, Szilard, Teller, and von Neumann are working for the other side. That didn't happen, because Imperial Germany's ambitions were thwarted and the Nazis blamed it on scapegoats. Most of the best physicists in central Europe fled to the West.

Oh, we've had war since WW II. You betcha.

But there were extreme wars every few decades going back centuries, with death counts due to war increasing each time. For good or ill, I have no doubt that would have continued but for nukes. We would probably be at WW IV or V by now.

The big problem when arguing justification is that too many confuse being against the choice to enter all wars with debating the choice in some wars, and blaming the veterans for the choices of the decision makers. I wouldn't argue WW I or WW II, but I'm not too sure about the current Iraq war. And that has nothing to do with those who were told to fight there. While I'm not absolutely against it, it is a dangerous precedent for the U.S. - If we do this sort of thing regulary, I don't think the U.S. Republic can continue. Also, it is very expensive, money we could use in other ways (space development, energy independence) that might help us and the world more than the Iraq war in the long run. And we are certainly giving more countries an incentive to develop or buy nukes. On the other hand we took down a monster.