Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Beautiful memorial of WWI at the Tower of London…

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Tomorrow, August 5th (technically tonight, near midnight) marks the 100th Anniversary of the Entry of Great Britian into the First World War, and the Tower of London is participating in a memorial in poppies for each of the British military fatalities. The artist behind the project is Paul Cummins and the art work is called, “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red“. It consists of hundreds of thousands of ceramic poppies.

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  1. “So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens – four dowager and three regnant – and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.”-The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman

      • The short of it is that the pre-war environment was still defined by a balance of power via great power rivalries rules by dynastic monarchies. After the war-only the British would remain as a great power with a monarch as head of state. The age of imperialism giving way to the age of ideology (Wilsonian democracy vs. fascism and Bolshevism). This war destroyed empires, dynasties, and nations while creating new nations and much of the international political situation we have today from Bosnia to Iraq to Crimea to Israel can be traced to the consequences of this war.

        • …though I do sometimes wonder if allowing the losers of WWI to keep their monarchies would have soothed feelings enough to prevent WWII, just as we did with Japan thereafter.

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