{"id":988,"date":"2008-11-11T14:34:48","date_gmt":"2008-11-11T04:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.msnaughty.com\/blog\/?p=988"},"modified":"2008-11-11T14:34:48","modified_gmt":"2008-11-11T04:34:48","slug":"the-somme-90-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/msnaughty.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/11\/the-somme-90-years-on\/","title":{"rendered":"The Somme, 90 Years On"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Unknown
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\n11am today marked the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I.<\/p>\n

The above two photos were taken during my trip to France. The first one is the grave of an unknown soldier at the Adelaide Cemetary at Villers-Brettoneux.<\/p>\n

The second photo was taken at the official Australian memorial<\/a> amid the fields of the Somme. It shows machine gun damage to one of the monuments, caused when the Nazis attacked the area in 1940. The memorial, only officially opened in 1938, was extensively damaged during World War II.<\/p>\n

The latter photo is, to me, the lasting memory I’ll have of that place. The Nazis obviously didn’t give much thought to the meaning of all those white gravestones at Villers Brettoneux or to the cemetaries dotted across the Somme. But then apparently Adolf Hitler paid the Menin Gate<\/a> and the Canadian memorial at Vimy<\/a> a visit in 1940.<\/p>\n

On TV last night I saw old footage of our ex-prime minister placing a wreath at the memorial. And yet he happily committed us to two wars, both of which are still being fought.<\/p>\n

We wear the poppies, we say the ode, we offer our one minute’s silence, but we never learn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

11am today marked the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I. The above two photos were taken during my trip to France. The first one is the grave of an unknown soldier at the Adelaide Cemetary at Villers-Brettoneux. The second photo was taken at the official Australian memorial amid the fields of the Somme. It shows machine gun damage to one of the monuments, caused when the Nazis Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[403,747,842,862],"class_list":["post-988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pornforwomen","tag-hitler","tag-somme","tag-war-memorials","tag-world-war-one"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t