The Price of Liberty

By Nathan Barton

I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. I stood on the great Canadian memorial to their dead at Vimy Ridge, I saw the memorial with the names of 72,000+ dead whose bodies were never recovered at Thiepval. I have walked over and around the remnants of the fortifications and trenches, and the shell and mine craters. I’ve seen where 2,000+ Newfoundlanders died: one out of every five men in that colony (now province). And I have seen the rows upon rows in cemetery after cemetery, at Albert and Serre, where the white stones mark the graves of the dead. The horror and the ghostly stench was still there, 70 and 90 years after.

One century ago, today, 01 July 1916, the Battle of the Somme opened with British Imperial troops (with French Republican support) crossed the lines between trenches, following days of bombardment, to push the German Imperial invaders out of their trenches and out of France. The first day alone, of 100,000 attackers, just under 20,000 died and another 30,000+ were wounded. By the end of the battle, 4-1/2 months later (141 days), the British casualties alone were over 400,000. Total on all sides, dead, wounded, and missing in action were 1.3 million. The British gained six miles of territory. Land today worth very little, except for the lessons it can teach us. Lessons NOT being taught, or learned. Continue reading →