Of Men and Marlows
Last week I left the white cliffs of Dover behind me and sailed toward France, our boat chugging out into the English Channel as efficiently as the teenagers on-deck were funneling down cheap lager in anticipation of the England vs. France game in Paris the next day.
My companion -- one Josh Clipperton -- and myself reclined and watched the hooligans scuttle around the boat, racing each other red-faced and wheezing, while we examined the distance between Calais and Dover. It was, we estimated, not terribly far for any invasion force, which explains why the British sunk the French fleet out of precaution during the Second World War.
Our minds were so war-focused because of our mission: to seek out the resting places of our great-grandfathers, both of whom died during the First World War. Josh's mission was more of a pilgrimage, since various members of his family had already paid their respects. Mine was sort of improvised, brought about at the last minute by some quick typing and the discovery that my great-grandfather -- about whom I knew nothing, except that he died in the war, and that my own grandfather never met him -- had his name inscribed on the memorial to the missing at Thiepval. His G-GF fought for the Canadians; mine for the British.
After arriving in France, renting a Citroen, and buying ample supplies of bread, cheese, and wine, we set off across northern France. We found the grave Josh was seeking after a prolonged period of being lost, and then made our way further north to Lille, where we stayed the night. We dined in style at some cheese-oriented restaurant (delightful) and were quizzed by a lonely Frenchman from the south. One of his questions was "Did Canada fight in the First World War?"
Thus armed with the profound realization that war is ultimately futile and that the efforts of our forebears were capable of being utterly forgotten, we headed toward Vimy Ridge -- that ever so famous piece of elevated grass where Canada is said to have become a nation. The memorial was pretty moving. Privately, I felt as if the lily-white, high art-edness of it all sanitized the brutality; but the innumerable carved names of men much better than I silenced my forked, cynical tongue.
The most remarkable thing about Vimy, I thought, wasn't the memorial. It was the fact that after some 90-odd years, the ground is still unsafe to walk on; the grass and copses of trees have grown over the pockmarked ground, but still it erupts. This, and the fact that the countryside surrounding all of the memorials is still the same as it was in 1914, added an eerie background noise to the whole journey. Occasionally, I thought of Afghanistan, and how much blood and conflict its dusty soils has been forced to soak up.
Later in the Afternoon we drove south, towards and past Arras, to see the Thiepval Memorial, where my great-grandfather's name is carved. The Somme was and is synonymous with human carnage, where generals earned their nicknames as meat-grinders and butchers.
Sir Douglas Haig, that ignorant man who presumed a horse could canter into a German machine gun nest and maintain its place in modern warfare beside a tank, "butchered the flower of British youth in the Somme and Flanders without winning a single victory" according to a biographer of MacArthur.
My great-grandfather died at the Somme. I have not done any research to figure out where the Rifle Brigade, of which he was a part, actually fought, but his inscription -- like the 72,000 + names that surround his own -- is for those who were not offered the dignity of a grave. What this means, in macho war speak, is that he was never found: blown apart, buried under the mud, rotted, disintegrated, etc. That, or he simply died in No Man's Land when it was too dangerous to retrieve his body.
I know remarkably little about him or the circumstances in which he died. And I was the first person in my family to see his inscription on the memorial.
When I saw it, I felt melancholy. It was only when my eyes refocused on the names surrounding his, row upon row, column upon column, that I felt true sadness. It grew deeper and more intense when I thought about my own grandfather, who I had the privilege and joy to know. My grandfather was named after his father: Ernest Marlow, hence the "Marlow E." on the Thiepval wall. Before we even walked up to the memorial, we sat on a grassy hill and feasted, offering a toast to my grandfather's memory.
Having seen the memorial, and reflected, we decided to drive into Paris. We slept in the car that night after wandering the streets.
My companion -- one Josh Clipperton -- and myself reclined and watched the hooligans scuttle around the boat, racing each other red-faced and wheezing, while we examined the distance between Calais and Dover. It was, we estimated, not terribly far for any invasion force, which explains why the British sunk the French fleet out of precaution during the Second World War.
Our minds were so war-focused because of our mission: to seek out the resting places of our great-grandfathers, both of whom died during the First World War. Josh's mission was more of a pilgrimage, since various members of his family had already paid their respects. Mine was sort of improvised, brought about at the last minute by some quick typing and the discovery that my great-grandfather -- about whom I knew nothing, except that he died in the war, and that my own grandfather never met him -- had his name inscribed on the memorial to the missing at Thiepval. His G-GF fought for the Canadians; mine for the British.
After arriving in France, renting a Citroen, and buying ample supplies of bread, cheese, and wine, we set off across northern France. We found the grave Josh was seeking after a prolonged period of being lost, and then made our way further north to Lille, where we stayed the night. We dined in style at some cheese-oriented restaurant (delightful) and were quizzed by a lonely Frenchman from the south. One of his questions was "Did Canada fight in the First World War?"
Thus armed with the profound realization that war is ultimately futile and that the efforts of our forebears were capable of being utterly forgotten, we headed toward Vimy Ridge -- that ever so famous piece of elevated grass where Canada is said to have become a nation. The memorial was pretty moving. Privately, I felt as if the lily-white, high art-edness of it all sanitized the brutality; but the innumerable carved names of men much better than I silenced my forked, cynical tongue.
The most remarkable thing about Vimy, I thought, wasn't the memorial. It was the fact that after some 90-odd years, the ground is still unsafe to walk on; the grass and copses of trees have grown over the pockmarked ground, but still it erupts. This, and the fact that the countryside surrounding all of the memorials is still the same as it was in 1914, added an eerie background noise to the whole journey. Occasionally, I thought of Afghanistan, and how much blood and conflict its dusty soils has been forced to soak up.
Later in the Afternoon we drove south, towards and past Arras, to see the Thiepval Memorial, where my great-grandfather's name is carved. The Somme was and is synonymous with human carnage, where generals earned their nicknames as meat-grinders and butchers.
Sir Douglas Haig, that ignorant man who presumed a horse could canter into a German machine gun nest and maintain its place in modern warfare beside a tank, "butchered the flower of British youth in the Somme and Flanders without winning a single victory" according to a biographer of MacArthur.
My great-grandfather died at the Somme. I have not done any research to figure out where the Rifle Brigade, of which he was a part, actually fought, but his inscription -- like the 72,000 + names that surround his own -- is for those who were not offered the dignity of a grave. What this means, in macho war speak, is that he was never found: blown apart, buried under the mud, rotted, disintegrated, etc. That, or he simply died in No Man's Land when it was too dangerous to retrieve his body.
I know remarkably little about him or the circumstances in which he died. And I was the first person in my family to see his inscription on the memorial.
When I saw it, I felt melancholy. It was only when my eyes refocused on the names surrounding his, row upon row, column upon column, that I felt true sadness. It grew deeper and more intense when I thought about my own grandfather, who I had the privilege and joy to know. My grandfather was named after his father: Ernest Marlow, hence the "Marlow E." on the Thiepval wall. Before we even walked up to the memorial, we sat on a grassy hill and feasted, offering a toast to my grandfather's memory.
Having seen the memorial, and reflected, we decided to drive into Paris. We slept in the car that night after wandering the streets.
posted by iain.e.marlow at 1:40 AM
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