First World War £2 Coin

[mushroom25]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2531850/Royal-Mint-unveils-2-coin-featuring-famous-image-Lord-Kitchener-commemorate-100th-anniversary-World-War-One.html

a fitting remembrance for the conflict? or an ill-judged design that sends all the wrong messages about how war is viewed in this country?

[emmie]

sorry don't know how that came out, they went a few feet and were likely shot and killed. not a game of cricket after all.

[tonyav]

I think it was officers above the rank of Captain ( senior officers ) not in the front line trenches, emmie.

[jno]

battles have been tolerably well recorded over the centuries (Henry V's slaughter of French prisoners after Agincourt was even worse) so no point in trying to excuse Kitchener on the grounds that "somebody else, somewhere else, some other time and I've no idea if it ever happened" might have done the same.

[plowter]

The First World War was a nasty, brutal conflict. Time has shown it was a pointless war. All sides fought to a standstill. There was no glorious victory and nothing to celebrate at the end.

After the Afghanistan and Iraq 'wars' the political attitide towards WW1 seems to have changed to one of celebration rather than commemoration and this coin seems to be another example of this. Public figures no longer talk about 'the war to end wars'.

If the City wants to commemorate the great slaughter of WW1 the coin should show amputees, corpses and widows... or a picture of Edwin Starr.

[emmie]

plowter, its not seen as a celebration, but commemoration, there is a massive difference.
as to excusing what one person did, where does anyone say that

[browntrout]

WW1 was certainly bloody, brutal, terrible etc. but it wasn't pointless. people who go on about how pointless it was, we should have kept out of it etc never really consider what the alternative was.

it's very hard to imagine that a victorious Germany would have been magnanimous. even harder to imagine the Austro-Hungarian lot being so. the only alternative to fighting was to let them have whatever they wanted.

[emmie]

indeed, to not fight, wonder if we had that attitude in WW2, where would be now,
tony still not sure, there is evidence that was linked to executions of soldiers thought of as cowards, they weren't i am sure but shell shocked, often so young they should never have been there,
i will find the piece i was reading earlier and see what else it says.

[plowter]

I agree with your earlier points, emmie, but it will become a celebration. Didn't that creep Cameron say:

"Our ambition is a truly national commemoration, worth of this historic centenary. I want a commemoration that captures our national spirit, in every corner of the country, from our schools to our workplaces, to our town halls and local communities. A commemoration that, like the Diamond Jubilee celebrated this year, says something about who we are as a people."

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/speech-at-imperial-war-museum-on-first-world-war-centenary-plans

There will be TV scriptwriters pitching for WW1 sitcoms for 2014 because 'the time is right'.

[emmie]

tonyav, that through footage and reportage of the times, including early newsreels that officer and men died alongside one another. i am not sure there was a clear mandate to stop senior officers going over the top, but even if it did, many died on the battlefield.

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120130024956AARiKX6

[emmie]

if Cameron says its a celebration he is wrong, and would be wrong to ever suggest it, and anyone who attends a service at the Cenotaph as i have countless times, knows that. Its a link to our past, a remembrance, and if you visit many villages, towns, will still see memorials to the war dead, men from the same families who died together, and friends called the pals regiments, and the sites on foreign soil, like the Somme, you don't forget it.

[jno]

why would anyone commemorate the start of a war?

[tonyav]

I for one will not be celebrating the death of my great uncle who died on July Ist 1916.

[tonyav]

Or just the war obsessed British. ?


Steve, hope you mean the war obsessed British government.

[mushroom25]

a list of events is here
http://www.greatwar.co.uk/events/2014-2018-ww1-centenary-events.htm
it's not just Britain.

[browntrout]

Cameron did not say "celebration" he said "commemoration".

but if he had said celebrate that would have been OK because the word means "to honour".

[mushroom25]

maybe they will steve - at this time there's no information on what the WW1 Centennial Network or the Western Front Association are planning.

[jno]

**if he had said celebrate that would have been OK because the word means "to honour"**

Not always... you can commemorate a war, I don't think you can honour a war.

[emmie]

Agincourt, as this explains they would likely been overwhelmed and killed by the French, it was amazing that Henry and his troops prevailed, going on the numbers involved.


"In any event, Henry ordered the slaughter of what were perhaps several thousand French prisoners, sparing only the most high ranked (presumably those most likely to fetch a large ransom under the chivalric system of warfare). According to most chroniclers, Henry's fear was that the prisoners (who, in an unusual turn of events, actually outnumbered their captors) would realize their advantage in numbers, rearm themselves with the weapons strewn about the field and overwhelm the exhausted English forces. Though ruthless, Henry's decision was thus arguably justifiable given the situation of the battle; even the French chroniclers do not criticise him for it.[56] In his study of the battle, John Keegan [57] argued that the main aim was not to actually kill the French knights but rather to terrorise them into submission and quell any possibility they might resume the fight, which would probably have caused the uncommitted French reserve forces to join the fray as well.

there is obviously a lot more, but you can read it for yourself.