#wwi

[my-darling-boy]

Source: I was there

[yeoldenews]

A selection of emojis from a love letter written in 1916.

The final one appears to have been the author's favorite as he wrote: "I'm particularly proud of this one - It looks so natural. Bless its 'ittle 'eart-"

[earlgraytay]

It's kind of incredible just how much the Country House Murder Mystery genre is, at its roots, a reaction to WWI and the social change that sprang from it.

[captain-price-returns]

French troops pass a dog wearing sunglasses and smoking a pipe, 1915

[oldshrewsburyian]

I recently finished a reread of LOTR, and in all the (often reductive) discussions of the influence of WWI on the trilogy, there's one conspicuous motif in the books that I don't think I've ever seen. And that is: leaders being driven by madness to war, and the desire for power and dominion over others being itself a kind of madness. Interestingly, Denethor's blinkered isolationism is a kind of madness too. There's a lot there!

I realize that "unfortunately a lot of world leaders were kind of insane and a lot of people died about it" is -- obviously -- not a framing of this historical conflict now. But the folly of political elites leading to destruction of life and livelihood on a massive scale was absolutely a popular framing of it in the interwar period. Cf. the novels of James Hilton. Or for that matter, arguably, the Women's International League.

Anyway. I also don't see a lot of discussion of the other WWI-informed motif that struck me most forcibly on this reread, which is: sometimes you have to break laws to save lives, and it does not matter if they are civil or military laws or how culturally important they are. Smash them to bits, if it means saving lives.

[eunicidae]

WWI 1914 UK and France

fruk

[2ward]

christ of the trenches