Origins of the First World War

[dedalus]

Three fingers

couched in brine and courtly love

drove the Austrian ambassador

in anger to the telegraph.

 

Vienna, as usual, was asleep,

thanks to all the good restaurants.

Nobody listens. They have never listened

for the last four hundred years.

 

Whose fingers? An Orthodox priest,

so very sad for the silly man.

Shall we start a war with Serbia?

Not yet. Let’s wait.

 

Franz Ferdinand!

Assassinated, Sir, I beg to report.

Oh, dear, this is not a good event.

Perhaps we should do something?

 

Call the Germans.

Hello, Germans. The line is so poor.

Hallo, hallo. Seid Ihr Da?

Would you like support us in a little war?

 

Kein Problem. Jetzt geht’s los.

Two or three weeks, no more,

finished by Christmas.

[jainrohit]

an excellent account of world war 1. i just loved the conversational aspect of this .......... expressions like "the lines were bad " ,, ,

 

"Vienna, as usual, was asleep,

thanks to all the good restaurants." are just just worth reading again and again . thanks for this wonderful piece mr. dedalus

[dedalus]

My pleasure ... but to be honest I am in a rage over the senseless slaughter. I went to visit the battlefields at Ypres and the Somme a few years ago. This was a bad mistake because it literally enraged me, then benumbed me, so much so that I have never been able to get over it. I have re-visited twice since then and still cannot get my head around it. The world moves on, I know, but nothing has really changed. We are still quite capable of doing the same thing all over again. Here are a few links which might prove of interest:

 

An article on the subject: http://dublinerinjapan.blogspot.jp/2005/11/121-armistice-day.html

 

Plus, a slide show (turn up your speakers!):

http://secure.smilebox.com/ecom/openTheBox?sendevent=4d6a597a4e5467784d6a413d0d0a&sb=1

 

Yes, you'd be right in thinking this bloody war still bothers me!

 

The New Yorker link at the end of the Armistice Day article is dead: try here

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/08/23/040823crat_atlarge?currentPage=all

 

Here are two more related poems. Both can be found in the archives, I think, but without the pictures:

http://dublinerinjapan.blogspot.jp/2010/01/368-timor-mortis-non-conturbat-me.html

http://dublinerinjapan.blogspot.jp/2009/09/362-leaving-flanders-fields.html

Ignore the invitation to the slide show: the newer version has been linked above.

[Larsen M. Callirhoe]

wow brendan. i agree war entrages me also. bloody fools to die for nothing but a grain of sand or an ounce of soil. your poem does serve juctice to a few who died senselessly.

 

victor

[Larsen M. Callirhoe]

enjoyed the links brendan. all we see of war is mass graves and that is all it will ever bring.

[dedalus]

We all die in the end. But there is no sense in dying before you have to, before you have a bit of a life behind you.

[tonyv]

Good stuff, poem and replies alike. This one's about as distilled as it can get.

 

Tony