IN reference to the letter from Ben Andriessen regarding the death of Private Henry W Liddell in 1916 (HAS, Nov 3), he writes: “How blessed is he who for his country dies.”
I certainly do not share these sentiments.
In the words of Harry Patch, the last surviving British tommy from the First World War, it was “nothing better than legalised mass murder”.
Between eight and 13 million men and women died, and for what? So that a few more colonies could be added to an Empire which already enslaved millions across the world.
Moreover, what did the country ever do for young men like Private Liddell? Had he, and millions of other soldiers, survived the war then they may well have been rewarded with mass unemployment in Britain, France and America or fascist tyranny in Italy and Germany.
Millions of men who survived the First World War were also brutalised by their experience and two of the young men who fought, Corporal Hitler from the German Army and Sergeant Mussolini from Italy, later led two of the worst regimes in human history.
The reality is that from 1914 onwards Europe was never really at peace until 1945. This was the real tragedy of the First World War.
John Gilmore, Bishop Auckland
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