Omniparity of observance...

---

At the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month – we will remember them.

Today [The Legion] asks you 'to pause at 11am – mute your phone, close your laptop, switch off the telly – for just two minutes and pay your respects to our Armed Forces community, past and present.'

"What we're remembering this year: In 2021 we are marking 100 years since the nation’s collective Remembrance traditions were first brought together, such as the poppy, two-minute silence, Armistice Day, the service for the Unknown Warrior, and the march-past at the Cenotaph."

Omniparity of observance...

---

At the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month – we will remember them.

Today [The Legion] asks you 'to pause at 11am – mute your phone, close your laptop, switch off the telly – for just two minutes and pay your respects to our Armed Forces community, past and present.'

"What we're remembering this year: In 2021 we are marking 100 years since the nation’s collective Remembrance traditions were first brought together, such as the poppy, two-minute silence, Armistice Day, the service for the Unknown Warrior, and the march-past at the Cenotaph."

Observing our obstriction...

---

What a wonderful image. Seen HERE on the Twitter feed of BabelColour @StuartHumphryes 

The picture is outside Mansion House, London in 1919. The post was from Remembrance Day yesterday: "101 years ago today: 11am on Tuesday 11th November 1919, crowds in London observe the very first 2 minute silence for those killed in the Great War. The men have removed their hats out of respect for the fallen. (I originally coloured this photo for the Evening Standard in 2019)."

Observing our obstriction...

---

What a wonderful image. Seen HERE on the Twitter feed of BabelColour @StuartHumphryes 

The picture is outside Mansion House, London in 1919. The post was from Remembrance Day yesterday: "101 years ago today: 11am on Tuesday 11th November 1919, crowds in London observe the very first 2 minute silence for those killed in the Great War. The men have removed their hats out of respect for the fallen. (I originally coloured this photo for the Evening Standard in 2019)."

Odd obscurantism over one observation II...

---

"Europe will not be united unless it is able to reunite its history, recognize Communism and Nazism as a common legacy and bring about an honest and thorough debate on all the totalitarian crimes of the past century" (Prague Declaration). It is a strong document.


"...millions of victims of Communism and their families are entitled to enjoy justice, sympathy, understanding and recognition for their sufferings in the same way as the victims of Nazism have been morally and politically recognized".



a.k.a. The European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. [Wiki]



People navel gazing won't help.  I wrote back then that it "never ceases to amaze me how Nazism, Hitler, Nazi Germany etc are
rightfully vilified yet the Soviet Communist regime is barely mentioned,
a willful forgetfulness; they even call it Stalinism presumably to not
taint 'Communism': I guess with so many left wing MPs and MEPs with
their past in the Communist parties they feel another name is needed."



The Prague Declaration has not been without it's critics but "Those who neglect their past have no future".

Odd obscurantism over one observation II...

---

"Europe will not be united unless it is able to reunite its history, recognize Communism and Nazism as a common legacy and bring about an honest and thorough debate on all the totalitarian crimes of the past century" (Prague Declaration). It is a strong document.
"...millions of victims of Communism and their families are entitled to enjoy justice, sympathy, understanding and recognition for their sufferings in the same way as the victims of Nazism have been morally and politically recognized".

a.k.a. The European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism. [Wiki]

People navel gazing won't help.  I wrote back then that it "never ceases to amaze me how Nazism, Hitler, Nazi Germany etc are rightfully vilified yet the Soviet Communist regime is barely mentioned, a willful forgetfulness; they even call it Stalinism presumably to not taint 'Communism': I guess with so many left wing MPs and MEPs with their past in the Communist parties they feel another name is needed."

The Prague Declaration has not been without it's critics but "Those who neglect their past have no future".

Obligations over open ossuary...

---

Image from The Royal British Legion, 'a national champion of Remembrance'. Our obligation is to remember.  The Legion came into existence after 'The Great War', when many that had fought joined together to support to each other. "The Legion advocates a specific type of Remembrance connected to the British Armed Forces, those who were killed, those who fought with them and alongside them."



This year is the 100th Anniversary of the end of that 'war to end all wars'. "The absolute horror of the First World War, if not realised when reading details, is brought home when we look at the numbers of dead and wounded", Open ossuaries




Update: stunned by something I've just read at SteynOnline: "Exactly a century ago - on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month - the guns fell silent on Europe's battlefields. The belligerents had agreed the terms of the peace at 5am that November morning, and the news was relayed to the commanders in the field shortly thereafter that hostilities would cease at eleven o'clock. And then they all went back to firing at each other for a final six hours. On that last day, British imperial forces lost some 2,400 men, the French 1,170, the Germans 4,120, the Americans about 3,000."

"The dead in those last hours of the Great War outnumbered the toll of D Day twenty-six years later, the difference being that those who died in 1944 were fighting to win a war whose outcome they did not know. On November 11th 1918 over eleven thousand men fell in a conflict whose victors and vanquished had already been settled and agreed." [my emphasis]

Unbelievable: "Hell cannot be so terrible as this. Humanity is mad; it must be mad to do what it is doing.", anonymous French soldier, reference to the 'hell' of Verdun. 

Obligations over open ossuary...

---

Image from The Royal British Legion, 'a national champion of Remembrance'. Our obligation is to remember.  The Legion came into existence after 'The Great War', when many that had fought joined together to support to each other. "The Legion advocates a specific type of Remembrance connected to the British Armed Forces, those who were killed, those who fought with them and alongside them."

This year is the 100th Anniversary of the end of that 'war to end all wars'. "The absolute horror of the First World War, if not realised when reading details, is brought home when we look at the numbers of dead and wounded", Open ossuaries

Update: stunned by something I've just read at SteynOnline: "Exactly a century ago - on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month - the guns fell silent on Europe's battlefields. The belligerents had agreed the terms of the peace at 5am that November morning, and the news was relayed to the commanders in the field shortly thereafter that hostilities would cease at eleven o'clock. And then they all went back to firing at each other for a final six hours. On that last day, British imperial forces lost some 2,400 men, the French 1,170, the Germans 4,120, the Americans about 3,000."

"The dead in those last hours of the Great War outnumbered the toll of D Day twenty-six years later, the difference being that those who died in 1944 were fighting to win a war whose outcome they did not know. On November 11th 1918 over eleven thousand men fell in a conflict whose victors and vanquished had already been settled and agreed." [my emphasis]

Unbelievable: "Hell cannot be so terrible as this. Humanity is mad; it must be mad to do what it is doing.", anonymous French soldier, reference to the 'hell' of Verdun. 

Open ossuaries...

---

[edited 11 a.m.] Today marks the start date, 100 years ago, of the Battle of the Somme (The Somme Offensive). The absolute horror of the First World War, if not realised when reading details, is brought home when we look at the numbers of dead and wounded.



The irony of the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Kovel-Stanislav (better known as the Brusilov Offensive, where the Russians, at the request of the French, opened up another front to the east against Austria-Hungary) was that the intention was to relieve the valiant French at the hell of Verdun (which itself lasted for 10 months and became the longest battle in human history, with more than 300,000 deaths and up to 700,000 wounded). “Hell cannot be so terrible as this. Humanity is mad; it must be mad to do what it is doing.”, anonymous French soldier.



In the Brusilov Offensive casualties and deaths were at least a million and a half. At the Somme the length of battle was less than 5 months; on the first DAY 19,240 British soldiers lost their lives (the bloodiest day in the whole history of the British army). [edited 03/07] The deaths and wounded from all nations by November totaled between 950 thousand and one million...one MILLION dead or wounded... These three offensives (in both senses of the word!) were the worst in pure numbers of dead and wounded - and all were in 1916 - but made up a few of dozens of battles or operations in WWI with deaths and casualties in the tens/hundreds of thousands; the two battles of Marne and the three at Ypres also account for over 800 thousand and 900 thousand casualties respectively.



Image from The Royal British Legion commemorating the 'memory of the fallen and the future of the living'.

Open ossuaries...

---

[edited 11 a.m.] Today marks the start date, 100 years ago, of the Battle of the Somme (The Somme Offensive). The absolute horror of the First World War, if not realised when reading details, is brought home when we look at the numbers of dead and wounded.

The irony of the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Kovel-Stanislav (better known as the Brusilov Offensive, where the Russians, at the request of the French, opened up another front to the east against Austria-Hungary) was that the intention was to relieve the valiant French at the hell of Verdun (which itself lasted for 10 months and became the longest battle in human history, with more than 300,000 deaths and up to 700,000 wounded). “Hell cannot be so terrible as this. Humanity is mad; it must be mad to do what it is doing.”, anonymous French soldier.

In the Brusilov Offensive casualties and deaths were at least a million and a half. At the Somme the length of battle was less than 5 months; on the first DAY 19,240 British soldiers lost their lives (the bloodiest day in the whole history of the British army). [edited 03/07] The deaths and wounded from all nations by November totaled between 950 thousand and one million...one MILLION dead or wounded... These three offensives (in both senses of the word!) were the worst in pure numbers of dead and wounded - and all were in 1916 - but made up a few of dozens of battles or operations in WWI with deaths and casualties in the tens/hundreds of thousands; the two battles of Marne and the three at Ypres also account for over 800 thousand and 900 thousand casualties respectively.

Image from The Royal British Legion commemorating the 'memory of the fallen and the future of the living'.

Ottoman overkill...

---

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red is an installation at the Tower of London's dry moat and "it will continue to grow throughout the summer until the moat is filled with 888,246 ceramic poppies, each poppy representing a British or Colonial military fatality during the war." Link



The war to end all wars...the Great War. It certainly wasn't the former but there are those who don't wish to call it the latter either; I disagree, I know vocabulary usage changes but really nobody thinks it refers to 'great' as in good. Yesterday, 100 years ago Germany attacked France; today 100 years ago Germany invaded Belgium and in response Belgium and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany (also, the USA declared its neutrality). The numbers are horrifying: almost ten million military dead (9,911,000), 7,750,000 missing (mostly presumed dead), over 21 million wounded. [Wiki]. Russia had the greatest number of deaths (civilian and military combined), almost 2% of the population but some countries lost over 10% of the entire population (Serbia); an oft forgotten or ignored fact is that in the Ottoman Empire lost almost 15% of its then population: in fact taking civilian deaths from all causes (military action, crimes against humanity, malnutrition, disease etc.) the Ottoman Empire accounts for 33% of the total civilian deaths of WWI. Obviously this includes the deaths from the 'policy of extermination' i.e. Armenian Genocide and other ethnic groups like the Assyrians and Greeks, similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during the WWI period.



When we remember the military dead, soldiers making the ultimate sacrifice, please remember too the not inconsiderable 7.5 million civilians who lost their lives.



P.S. I donate monthly to The Royal British Legion, please help too if you can.

Ottoman overkill...

---

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red is an installation at the Tower of London's dry moat and "it will continue to grow throughout the summer until the moat is filled with 888,246 ceramic poppies, each poppy representing a British or Colonial military fatality during the war." Link

The war to end all wars...the Great War. It certainly wasn't the former but there are those who don't wish to call it the latter either; I disagree, I know vocabulary usage changes but really nobody thinks it refers to 'great' as in good. Yesterday, 100 years ago Germany attacked France; today 100 years ago Germany invaded Belgium and in response Belgium and the United Kingdom declared war on Germany (also, the USA declared its neutrality). The numbers are horrifying: almost ten million military dead (9,911,000), 7,750,000 missing (mostly presumed dead), over 21 million wounded. [Wiki]. Russia had the greatest number of deaths (civilian and military combined), almost 2% of the population but some countries lost over 10% of the entire population (Serbia); an oft forgotten or ignored fact is that in the Ottoman Empire lost almost 15% of its then population: in fact taking civilian deaths from all causes (military action, crimes against humanity, malnutrition, disease etc.) the Ottoman Empire accounts for 33% of the total civilian deaths of WWI. Obviously this includes the deaths from the 'policy of extermination' i.e. Armenian Genocide and other ethnic groups like the Assyrians and Greeks, similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during the WWI period.

When we remember the military dead, soldiers making the ultimate sacrifice, please remember too the not inconsiderable 7.5 million civilians who lost their lives.

P.S. I donate monthly to The Royal British Legion, please help too if you can.

Ode obligation...

---

Lest we forget. Two minutes silence are observed on 11th November: at 'the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month' (although in the UK the main ceremony of commemoration is Remembrance Sunday on the 2nd Sunday of November). The date and time mark the agreement that ended the First World War: the Armistice of Compiègne which went into effect at 11 am on 11th November 1918. The Armistice was signed in a carriage of the private train of Allied Commander French Generalissimo Ferdinand Foch [I doubt there are many in the UK and US who have even heard of him] who later - as the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919 - declared, when Germany was allowed to remain a united country, that "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years"...

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

Ode obligation...

---

Lest we forget. Two minutes silence are observed on 11th November: at 'the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month' (although in the UK the main ceremony of commemoration is Remembrance Sunday on the 2nd Sunday of November). The date and time mark the agreement that ended the First World War: the Armistice of Compiègne which went into effect at 11 am on 11th November 1918. The Armistice was signed in a carriage of the private train of Allied Commander French Generalissimo Ferdinand Foch [I doubt there are many in the UK and US who have even heard of him] who later - as the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919 - declared, when Germany was allowed to remain a united country, that "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years"...

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Our omphaloskepsis over onyxis

---

An ingrowing nail is painful but can be ignored for a bit; however it will become agonising and possible create an open festering wound...I missed posting this yesterday; I always like to remember 23rd August (anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Communist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany) as it is International Black Ribbon Day (European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism); and - at the risk of sounding bitter and twisted - I also think it is odd obscurantism, "Those who neglect their past have no future". It never ceases to amaze me how Nazism, Hitler, Nazi Germany etc are rightfully vilified yet the Soviet Communist regime is barely mentioned, a willful forgetfulness; they even call it Stalinism presumably to not taint 'Communism': I guess with so many left wing MPs and MEPs with their past in the Communist parties they feel another name is needed.

"Europe will not be united unless it is able to reunite its history, recognize Communism and Nazism as a common legacy and bring about an honest and thorough debate on all the totalitarian crimes of the past century" (Prague Declaration).

More 'forgetful' celebrations on the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition (also on August 23rd) yet this day is to memorialize the transatlantic slave trade. Hold it right there! Slavery is everywhere and probably has been since man walked this earth. "The bigger problem with celebrating the 'abolition' of the slave trade is that it has not been abolished. It’s happening here, now, in Britain. It’s going under the euphemism 'human trafficking'". Good article and comments in The Spectator today (now yesterday!) about modern slavery.

"The brutal fact about slavery is that it was not just something that white imperialists did to Africans. People of every creed and colour were slaves, and were enslaved. When we commemorate slavery by focusing on its colonial aspect, we lose sight of a far wider historic evil. And its capacity to renew."

Nelson Fraser's article also appeared in the DT as 'William Wilberforce’s heirs are ready to tackle the great evil of the age'. He also mentions the Times report (££) on nail salons, innocuously sounding but behind the cosmetic front many of them are modern dens of manicured misery with thousands of immigrants (mainly Vietnamese in this instance apparently) are being forced to work 'as slaves'.

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) is calling for a Modern Slavery Act: their report "It Happens Here: Equipping the United Kingdom to fight modern slavery" [pdf link]



More willful blindness is those that fail to see the key role of uncontrolled immigration in all of this.



Omphaloskepsis
n. - contemplation of the navel

Onyxis
n. - ingrowing nail.

Our omphaloskepsis over onyxis

---

An ingrowing nail is painful but can be ignored for a bit; however it will become agonising and possible create an open festering wound...I missed posting this yesterday; I always like to remember 23rd August (anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Communist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany) as it is International Black Ribbon Day (European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism); and - at the risk of sounding bitter and twisted - I also think it is odd obscurantism, "Those who neglect their past have no future". It never ceases to amaze me how Nazism, Hitler, Nazi Germany etc are rightfully vilified yet the Soviet Communist regime is barely mentioned, a willful forgetfulness; they even call it Stalinism presumably to not taint 'Communism': I guess with so many left wing MPs and MEPs with their past in the Communist parties they feel another name is needed.

"Europe will not be united unless it is able to reunite its history, recognize Communism and Nazism as a common legacy and bring about an honest and thorough debate on all the totalitarian crimes of the past century" (Prague Declaration).

More 'forgetful' celebrations on the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition (also on August 23rd) yet this day is to memorialize the transatlantic slave trade. Hold it right there! Slavery is everywhere and probably has been since man walked this earth. "The bigger problem with celebrating the 'abolition' of the slave trade is that it has not been abolished. It’s happening here, now, in Britain. It’s going under the euphemism 'human trafficking'". Good article and comments in The Spectator today (now yesterday!) about modern slavery.

"The brutal fact about slavery is that it was not just something that white imperialists did to Africans. People of every creed and colour were slaves, and were enslaved. When we commemorate slavery by focusing on its colonial aspect, we lose sight of a far wider historic evil. And its capacity to renew."

Nelson Fraser's article also appeared in the DT as 'William Wilberforce’s heirs are ready to tackle the great evil of the age'. He also mentions the Times report (££) on nail salons, innocuously sounding but behind the cosmetic front many of them are modern dens of manicured misery with thousands of immigrants (mainly Vietnamese in this instance apparently) are being forced to work 'as slaves'. The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) is calling for a Modern Slavery Act: their report "It Happens Here: Equipping the United Kingdom to fight modern slavery" [pdf link]

More willful blindness is those that fail to see the key role of uncontrolled immigration in all of this.

Omphaloskepsisn. - contemplation of the navel
Onyxisn. - ingrowing nail.

Overlooking or oblivious...

---

OK, it's worth celebrating the first in 77 years but please don't forget to spare a thought for 7/7, the memorial for which, up until only 2 days ago, was disgracefully and shamefully uncared for: despite claims of  "regular maintenance of all our memorials", "it is demonstrative of how the British establishment would rather sweep such events under the carpet, choosing not to remember, but rather, to easily and swiftly forget.". For those who have already forgotten the image is of the 52 stainless steel stelae, erected as a permanent memorial to honour the 52 victims of the 7 July 2005 London Bombings.

Overlooking or oblivious...

---

OK, it's worth celebrating the first in 77 years but please don't forget to spare a thought for 7/7, the memorial for which, up until only 2 days ago, was disgracefully and shamefully uncared for: despite claims of  "regular maintenance of all our memorials", "it is demonstrative of how the British establishment would rather sweep such events under the carpet, choosing not to remember, but rather, to easily and swiftly forget.". For those who have already forgotten the image is of the 52 stainless steel stelae, erected as a permanent memorial to honour the 52 victims of the 7 July 2005 London Bombings.

Owen's orisons...

---

"Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) is widely recognised as one of the greatest voices of the First World War. His self-appointed task was to speak for the men in his care, to show the 'Pity of War'." 

"'Anthem for Doomed Youth' is an elegy, a lament for the dead, a judgement on Owen’s experience of war rather than an account of the experience itself. Doomed youth is right. These were young men, some very young." Then and now...Lest we forget...

Link to World War One art

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

      Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,

      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Owen's orisons...

---

"Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) is widely recognised as one of the greatest voices of the First World War. His self-appointed task was to speak for the men in his care, to show the 'Pity of War'." 
"'Anthem for Doomed Youth' is an elegy, a lament for the dead, a judgement on Owen’s experience of war rather than an account of the experience itself. Doomed youth is right. These were young men, some very young." Then and now...Lest we forget...

Link to World War One art

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

      Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

      Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,

      Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

      And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

      Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

      The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.