The more things change

[pecunium]

Mesopotamia 1917

They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

They shall not return to us, the strong men coldly slain
In sight of help denied from day to day:
But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,
Are they too strong and wise to put away?

Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide -
Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?

Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?
When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power
By the favour and contrivance of their kind?

Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,
Even while they make a show of fear,
Do they call upon their debtors, and take counsel with their friends,
To confirm and re-establish each career?

Their lives cannot repay us - their death could not undo -
The shame that they have laid upon our race.
But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
Shall we leave it unabated in its place?

Comments

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yup, Kipling had it right in that first stanza -- pretty much applicable to most wars, too.

I'm uncertain about precise dates, but suspect that this poem was instrumental in getting an Investigative Commission appointed (though, if memory serves, that didn't do much to Fix Responsibility) -- which seems to be more than the U.S. is likely to do. *sigh* (I do note that the British losses in that sector were predominantly among troops that had been recruited in India -- and that the predominant losses of lives during the U.S. War On Iraq were among Iraqi civilian non-combatants.)

-"But the Statesmen, in solemn conclave met,
Alas, they have no graves as yet."-
[As GKChesterton put it, more or less.]

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

There's info on the 1914 Order of Battle in India here (http://www.orbat.com/site/history/historical/india/army1914.html). A big chunk of the force was British. And this is an outline of the campaign (http://www.1914-1918.net/mespot.htm) in Mesopotamia.

In particular, the Defence of Kut-al-Amara (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Kut) was the sort of cock-up which gets remembered. And I have a gut feeling that the photograph in that Wikipedia article, of the Indian Army Lewis Gun crew, is from later in the war.