Memorializing the war dead at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month! (Pt 1)

Nov 04, 2018 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols

This is the first in a two-part narrative on the centennial of the 1918 Armistice, and the part played by Guyanese/West Indian troops in World War l
(Nb. Some of the data for this article has been culled from sources including articles by David Granger {SN 5/10/2008} and Francis Farrier, {Guyana Chronicle 12/11/2017} The Guyana Legion, and the internet)
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Exactly 100 years ago, in early November 1918, the last battle of World War l was drawing to a close in the Amiens region of northern France. Victory for the Allies was just one week away. They included Great Britain, among whose troops hundreds of British Guianese were numbered. Every year we memorialize our boys who fought and died alongside their Caribbean comrades in the British West Indies Regiment under the ‘crown’ of King George V.

And as if to show that the world had not learnt its lesson from the horrors of that first Great War, we do the same for those who fought and died in World War ll three decades later, still under ‘crown and king’, this time George VI.
With victory in sight, a British soldier named Wilfred Owen wrote his mother in England a letter. In it he said, “I am more oblivious than alas! yourself, dear Mother, of the ghastly glimmering of the guns outside, and the hollow crashing of the shells. There is no danger down here, or if any, it will be over before you read these lines.” He was killed in fighting the day she received that letter.
Famous last words from a man who had one year earlier written and sent to his mother, a ‘gas’ poem that was later to become a kind of anti-war anthem. Many readers no doubt learned the words of Owen’s ‘Dulce et decorum est’ in high school. I’ll end this story with it.
Less than two months ago, The Week, an international news magazine, asked the question, “Are we on the brink of World War 3?” It cited concerns that ‘mounting tensions over Syria, Iran, and the Gaza Strip coupled with militarization in the South China Sea are fueling fears of a global conflict.”
That this question was being asked as the world prepared to commemorate the centennial anniversary of the end of the first Great War, is both symbolic and significant for our planet’s inhabitants, the vast majority of whom were obviously not yet born when an armistice to end hostilities was signed between Britain, Germany, and France in a humble railway carriage in France’s Compiegne Forest at 11 ‘o’ clock on November 11, 1918.
By that time, there had been almost 20,000,000 military and civilian deaths, and some 22 million wounded over a four-year period. Let that sink in my fellow Guyanese – from a country of less than one million people.
Guyana (then British Guiana) as a colony of Great Britain and part of its worldwide empire, was drawn into battle amongst the Allies which also included France, Belgium, and Russia, later to be joined by the United States. Figures are hard to come by, but it is estimated that about 700 Guyanese volunteers enlisted and were shipped overseas with the British West Indies Regiment. (BWIR)
The ‘enemy’ comprised Germany, Austria-Hungary, The Ottoman Empire/Turkey, and Bulgaria. The war was purportedly triggered by a shot from the pistol of a teenaged Serbian, Gavrilo Princip, which killed heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his wife in June 1914. They were at the time visiting Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia which had recently been annexed by Austria much to the dismay of many Bosnians and their Serbian neighbours.
Princip was said to be a member of the Serbian secret organization ‘Black Hand’ and the assassination created immediate tension between Austria-Hungary and Serbia which led to the former declaring war on the latter on July 28, 1914. By the first week in August, Germany, Russia, France, and Britain had joined the fray, and World War 1 was on.
More than 5000 miles from these shores, across the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, into North Africa, the Middle East, and western Europe, Guyanese and West Indian soldiers fought bravely under harsh circumstances in unfamiliar territory. Over 15,000 men from B.G, Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, The Bahamas, Belize, and other Caribbean colonies served in the BWIR.
Exactly how many died and how many returned home may never be known, but the last Guyanese WW 1 veteran, Gershom Browne, died in 2000 at the age of 102. There are currently 15 Guyanese veterans of World War ll still alive of whom ‘Pte’ Benjamin Durant, who will be 100 years old on November 15, is the oldest.
As black/coloured men, members of the BWIR were often treated shabbily as noted in this report from the Imperial War Museum (IWM) “West Indian troops also often had to deal with racial discrimination from their fellow soldiers and the military authorities. In 1918, BWIR soldiers were denied a pay rise given to other British troops on the basis that they had been classified as ‘natives’. In fact shortly after the war ended, things got so bad that men from the BWIR 9th Battalion attacked their officers in a four-day mutiny.
A year earlier, Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig had said of the BWIR: “Their work has been very arduous, and has been carried out almost continuously under shell-fire. In spite of casualties, the men have always shown themselves willing and cheerful workers, and the assistance they have rendered has been much appreciated by the units to which they have been attached, and for whom they have been working. The physique of the men is exceptional, their discipline excellent and their morale high.”
West Indian soldiers worked under challenging conditions leading to such maladies as malaria, frostbite, amputations and lack of food and clothing. Letters from home were rarely delivered. Nevertheless, several BWIR soldiers were awarded decorations including Distinguished Service Orders, Distinguished Conduct Medals, Military Crosses, and Despatch Mentions.
A third world war may never materialize, but who knows? The threat of another great conflict flickers in countries like Syria, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and the United States. Even here in Guyana, we need to watch what is happening in Venezuela. Naïve speculation? But again, who knows?
War may be valorous and unavoidable, but it is not a beautiful thing. Read now the words of Wilfred Owen’s World War l poem, which I rededicate to our fallen fighters.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks/ Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs/ And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots/ But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/ Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling/ Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling/ And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light/ As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight/ He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace/ Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face/ His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood/ Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud/ Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/ To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est … Pro patria mori. (It is sweet and honourable … to die for one’s country.

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