LECTURE 6: GERMANY'S CULPABILITY

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I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR GENERAL

I thought this patter song pertinent to our studies on the lead up to the First World War.  It criticises the quality of the generals in charge of the British Army and their outmoded knowledge of all things military.  The major-general's song is a great favourite and one I can recite.  Perhaps at Christmas I shall give you a rendition if you are unfortunate!

I am the very model of a modern Major-General
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical

I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse

With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotepotenuse

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral
I am the very model of a modern Major-General

In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral
He is the very model of a modern Major-General

I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus
In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous

I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies
I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore

And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinapinafore

Then I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform
And tell you ev'ry detail of Caractacus's uniform
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral
I am the very model of a modern Major-General

In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral
He is the very model of a modern Major-General

In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin"
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at
And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat"

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy
You'll say a better Major-General had never sat a gee

You'll say a better Major-General had never sat a gee
You'll say a better Major-General had never sat a gee
You'll say a better Major-General had never sat a sat a gee

For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral
I am the very model of a modern Major-General

But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral
He is the very model of a modern Major-General

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GILBERT AND SULLIVAN PATTER SONGS

On a lighter note, the hugely comical poems/lyrics of W.S. Gilbert make me smile.  I will share two of their "patter songs".  The first is from the operetta "The Sorcerer" (1877).  Not only is it highly comical (well I think so!) but I recall my good friend Andrea can recite the whole piece at full throttle!  "Simmery axe" is St. Mary's Axe, an area of London, where the Gherkin now stands.

Oh, my name is John Wellington Wells
I'm a dealer in magic and spells
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses
In prophecies, witches, and knells
If you want a proud foe to "make tracks"
If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax
You've but to look in on our resident Djinn
Number seventy, Simmery Axe

We've a first-class assortment of magic
And for raising a posthumous shade
With effects that are comic or tragic
There's no cheaper house in the trade

Love-philtre, we've quantities of it
And for knowledge if any one burns
We keep an extremely small prophet, a prophet
Who brings us unbounded returns
For he can prophesy with a wink of his eye
Peep with security into futurity
Sum up your history, clear up a mystery
Humor proclivity for a nativity
He has answers oracular, bogies spectacular
Tetrapods tragical, mirrors so magical
Facts astronomical, solemn or comical
And, if you want it, he
Makes a reduction on taking a quantity
Oh, if any one anything lacks
He'll find it all ready in stacks
If he'll only look in on the resident Djinn
Number seventy, Simmery Axe

He can raise you hosts of ghosts
And that without reflectors
And creepy things with wings
And gaunt and grisly spectres
He can fill you crowds of shrouds
And horrify you vastly
He can rack your brains with chains
And gibberings grim and ghastly
Then, if you plan it, he changes organity
With an urbanity full of Satanity
Vexing humanity with an inanity
Fatal to vanity
Driving your foes to the verge of insanity
But in tautology on demonology
'Lectro biology, mystic nosology
Spirit philology, high class astrology
Such is his knowledge, he
Isn't the man to require an apology

Oh, my name is John Wellington Wells
I'm a dealer in magic and spells
In blessings and curses
And ever-filled purses
In prophecies, witches, and knells
If any one anything lacks
He'll find it all ready in stacks
If he'll only look in on the resident Djinn
Number seventy, Simmery Axe

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LINES OF SOLACE

We all have experienced times in our lives where we have felt grief and pain for myriad reasons. At the time we can find no justification or purpose to our suffering, even when we try our hardest to be philosophical.   Lines in which I have found comfort and solace throughout the years come from the Greek poet and dramatist, Aeschylus’s Agamemnon:

‘Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart , until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God’.

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WAR POETRY

"MCMXIV"

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheats' restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

Philip Larkin

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NATIONAL POETRY DAY

Today is National Poetry day and I thought I would share some of my favourites or at least some with a historical link.  As we are studying the lead up to the First World War I thought I would share two "war poems".  The first is by Wilfred Owen who served in the Manchester Regiment and was killed within days of the war ending.  The second is about the call to war and was written by Philip Larkin who did not serve in the war but his theme is as poignant.

"Dulce et Decorum Est "

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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 I 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.

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LOCAL HISTORY AND THE WONDERFUL PLAZA STOCKPORT

Back to the local history theme today and also the idea that history is all around us, even in the most unlikeliest of places.  The Plaza, Stockport is a must for all those who like real heritage  rather than the fake plastic variety too often served up across the country.  Boasting an Art Deco tea room, my good friend Andrea and I repaired there to enjoy a leisurely light luncheon after an exhausting morning of visiting my cutter and rummaging in antique book-shops in search of the poetry of Catullus and Horace.  

After luncheon we were treated to a tour of the Cinema's impressive auditorium with its fully restored Compton Theatre organ.  Many thanks to the member of staff who kindly allowed us access and explained the history of the organ's restoration and its recent use in accompanying the silent movies which are frequently shown there.  Hopefully, we will visit one of these screenings and see such a beautiful instrument in its full working glory.

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THE LONG TERM CAUSES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR POWERPOINT

Long term causes sessions 4 and 5 (2) (1) from quintus

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RUSSIA 1910

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RUSSIA 1913

There was no doubt that Russia’s greatness was still a work in progress in 1913. The empire’s geography presented a daunting challenge to the movement of goods and people. Decent roads were few and far between. Fewer than one tenth of one per cent of Russian villages had local telephones and no public telephone line connected the Russian empire to the outside world. Russia’s rail network, in which the French were keen to invest in order to speed their ally’s mobilisation against Germany in a time of war, was only a quarter as dense as that of the United States. Poring over Russia’s railway timetables, Théry calculated that it would take a minimum of 75 hours and nine minutes for an express passenger to travel from Chelyabinsk, where Europe meets Asia, to the German border.



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ROMANOV RUSSIA ON THE EVE OF WAR

Interesting article in this month's History Today magazine which I will share with you.  Charles Emmerson writes, "Had it not been for the First World War, the country's fortunes might have taken a very different turn".

Steve

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AND THE RESULTS ARE...

Pleased to see that Great Britain won by a good length.  New poll to follow.

Steve


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