The Horror of It: Camera Records of War's Gruesome Glories

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SILENT



THE NEST



AMBULANCE



WAITING



"IN FLANDERS"
by James Norman Hall

Could you have seen them marching,
Ten thousand men in line,
You would have said that war must be
Adventurous and fine.
You would have felt your pulses beat
Fast to the tread of marching feet.
***
But had you seen them creeping back
In the grey, grey dawn,
The broken bleeding bodies
With all their beauty gone,
Oh! never could you cheer again
To see ten thousand fighting men.

By permission of Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers.

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INFERNO



FIELD OF GLORY



WATERY GRAVE

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LANDSCAPE



CITY STREET



ABANDONED



BONES



***

"If a war started tomorrow, would we of 1914 be as enthusiastic in going again? I know we wouldn't be, we couldn't be. It isn't the danger, it isn't that war is lacking in adventure, but because we now know that it isn't glorious. We were told in school it was.

"We know now that for every Victoria Cross won, there must be 10,000 wooden crosses won -- we were not told so much about the wooden cross at school. We know that men excel themselves in war -- but now we also know that to excel is to kill. In 1914, we saw and knew statues of heroes of our glorious tradition, but now as fathers of our boys, we, super-patriots of 1914, pray our governments of England, France, Germany, Russia, American and humanity, that our sons be told and taught the truth of war. A little more of the wooden cross and a little less of the glory cross. Teach them young, so that as statesmen they may know that war is too filthy a way for civilized men to settle their differences."

From "The Inexcusable Lie," by Harold R. Peat

***

AT HIS POST



DECAPITATED



FIRING STEP

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Oh, it isn't cheerful to see a man, the marvellous work of God,
Crushed in the mutilation mill, crushed to a smeary clod;
Oh, it isn't cheerful to hear him moan; but it isn't that I mind,
It isn't the anguish that goes with him, it's the anguish he leaves behind.
For his going opens a tragic door that gives on a world of pain,
And the death he dies, those who live and love, will die again and again.

From "Only a Boche," by Robert W. Service

From "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man," published by Barse & Co.

***

CRUMPLED



LIFE'S BLOOD



ASPHYXIATED



AT REST



SHRAPNEL WOUND



How many men were killed today?
Ten thousand will never again draw their pay!
Ten thousand will never again see the sun,
They were good soldiers and their work is done.

From "Song and Cry of a Soldier in the Lines," by Albert Edward Clements

Used by permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers

***

GOOD SOLDIERS

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SOLDIERS



CIVILIANS



STARVING



STARVED



A WORD PICTURE

"Twelve thousand corpses were encumbering this river, among which were thousands of women and children. Navigation was all but impossible. Every moment the boat had to slow her way through a tangled, mangled mass of corpses strung and lashed together by their long hair. The river's banks were literally covered with them, and in the curves of the winding stream were to be seen dark putrid masses of human flesh and bone surging and swaying in the steamer's wake and wash."

From "War's Hellish Panorama."

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FAMINE



DEBRIS



LEFT BEHIND

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WHERE THEY FELL



DERELICT



MASS GRAVE



HOMELESS



SHELL SHATTERED



NO MAN'S LAND



DESTRUCTION



DESECRATION

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SACRILEGE



DEVOTION



TO A NINE INCH GUN
by Anonymous

Whether your shell hits the target or not,
Your cost is Five Hundred Dollars a shot.
You thing of noise and flame and power,
We feed you a hundred barrels of flour
Each time you roar. Your flame is fed
With twenty thousand loaves of bread.
Silence! A million hungry men
Seek bread to fill their mouths again.

This poem came to the New York World office on a crumpled piece of paper. The author's address was given as Fourth Bench, City Hall Park.

***

CIVILIZATION (?)



CAUSE



EFFECT



THE IRON CROSS



THE WOODEN CROSS



"For every Victoria Cross won, there must be 10,000 wooden crosses won"

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Lo, these are they that toil by night
With mattock and with spade,
Beneath the flickering lanthorn light,
In meadow and in glade.
Row upon long and crowded row,
How gruesome is the seed they sow!

From "The Night Sowers," by Clinton Scollard

***

THE NIGHT SOWERS



THOROUGHFARE



ROADSIDE



THOSE WHO WENT



AND CAME BACK



THOSE WHO WENT



AND NEVER CAME BACK

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These are the mother's sons
Who fought
"To make the world
Safe for Democracy."
These are the men
Who, silent, tread
The stony road
To Calvary.

Go look at them,
I say,
To you, and you, and you!
The truth is known
By, oh, so few!

From "God's Challengers," by Marion Perham Gale

[Written after a visit to a soldiers' hospital]



A MOTHER'S SON



THE STRETCHER BEARER



CART LOAD



CANNON FODDER



UNTIL THE JUDGMENT DAY