NOTED.CO.NZ
23 April, 2017
The little-known story of Ernest Rutherford's secret anti-submarine work in WWI
Famous for his work splitting the atom, Kiwi Ernest Rutherford also distinguished himself in secret anti-submarine research that helped the Allies win WWI.
(Frank Duffield)
This month marks the centenary of the United States entering World War I. Immediately after the US declared war, the British and French governments sent a high-level delegation to Washington to liaise with their new ally. The leader of the team was Ernest Rutherford, the New Zealand-born scientist who was to split the atom, becoming, in the words of his biographer, John Campbell, the world's first successful alchemist.
Rutherford's high standing in the US scientific community was no doubt a factor in his being chosen for this role. But there was another reason. US entry into the war had been provoked by the devastating impact of Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare on America's merchant fleet. Before being sent to Washington, Rutherford had been leading research into submarine defence.
This secret work was not discussed in Rutherford's official biography. Now a cache of notes and letters relating to the work has come to light at the University of Manchester, where he was professor of physics at the outbreak of the war.
This material provides a first-hand glimpse of the man, confirming assessments of his character made by others and providing further evidence of his scientific versatility and experimental genius.
When WWI broke out, Rutherford was already renowned, having won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for research into "the chemistry of radioactive substances". He had established the phenomenon of the half-life of radioactivity and overturned old ideas about the life of the Sun. Newspaper headlines chronicled the "postponement of doomsday". A bemused winner, Rutherford said the award constituted the most rapid conversion ever of a physicist into a chemist.
In July 1914, Rutherford started on a long-planned visit to Sydney to attend a major scientific conference. From Sydney he went on to New Zealand, where he was given several civic receptions. In Christchurch, students from Canterbury College, his alma mater, hauled his car through the streets. The Christchurch Star, on October 12, 1914, announced his reception alongside reports of the capture of "beautiful Antwerp" by German forces.
When Rutherford returned to Manchester, he found a depleted laboratory with many men now in the services. One of his team, James Chadwick, a future Nobel laureate in Berlin on a fellowship at the start of the war, was interned for its duration. His most promising student, Henry Moseley, was killed by a sniper's bullet at Gallipoli. Rutherford went public in trying to persuade the authorities to post young scientists away from the frontline, but was accused by some of lacking public spirit.
Rutherford's chance to prove otherwise came when he was appointed to the Board of Invention and Research (BIR) established by the Royal Navy to solicit scientific expertise on tactical and technical naval problems. Admiral of the Fleet Jackie Fisher was chairman. He had recently resigned as First Sea Lord, the result of a disagreement with his political boss, a young Winston Churchill, over the Gallipoli campaign.
Fisher and Rutherford were both whirlwinds. Fisher was identified at a young age as the most remarkable midshipman. Argumentative, energetic and reform minded, he went on to dominate and radically reform the Navy. When a researcher at Cambridge, Rutherford was described as having "more enthusiasm [and] ability for original research" than had ever been seen. A future Nobel Prize winner said of him, "I abandoned all to follow [Rutherford]. For more than two years, scientific life became hectic to a degree rare in the lifetime of an individual." But where Fisher was divisive and created enemies, Rutherford, in contrast, engendered devotion in those who worked with him.
At the first meeting of the BIR in July 1915, Fisher rejected the notion that the committee should simply sift ideas. "Men invent, monkeys imitate," he had said when appointed. The Navy did not like this, but Rutherford relished the attitude and set about planning research on submarine defences, an area far removed from nuclear physics but requiring urgent work. The scientist, who was in his mid-forties, impressed with his undaunted approach to this radical change of focus.
He soon produced a report on countering submarine warfare, concluding that acoustic detection was the way forward. His case was compelling and the report was accepted. He immediately set up tanks in his Manchester laboratory to measure frequencies of metal diaphragms in water. Before long the basement of the laboratory was one large water tank, and the sensitivity of such diaphragms had been increased tenfold.
In September 1915, Rutherford visited an experimental station, Hawkcraig, on the Firth of Forth, where hydrophonic research was done, but lack of interest among naval chiefs had resulted in little progress. He produced a proposal, "written in plain English that the Admiralty would understand", for a detailed acoustic research programme. It was accepted.
With funding and a ship secured, Rutherford persuaded two young University of Manchester researchers, Harold Gerrard and Albert Wood, to work at Hawkcraig. The recently found Manchester papers belong to Tom Gerrard, Harold's son. From December 1915 to April 1916, Rutherford sent a series of 40 letters and notes from Manchester to Gerrard and Wood in Scotland with detailed instructions, often scrawled in pencil, for doing experiments based on his laboratory work.
He regularly visited Hawkcraig and often took part in sea trials. On one occasion he brought with him an official of the BIR committee, Sir Richard Paget. Paget had an extraordinary ability to identify frequencies by ear and Rutherford inveigled him into being hung overboard from a dinghy to establish whether a submarine generated a unique "signature" of frequencies. It did not.
In this period, Rutherford worked for six months without a break. But it soon became evident that more progress required a better understanding of the actual service conditions of the Navy and the methods already in use to detect submarines. Rutherford pressed successfully for this, once again in the face of naval opposition. In early 1917, the work was moved to the Navy's main submarine base, with an expanded team.
It was at this time that Rutherford visited the US, and his close involvement in experimental work on submarines now ended. His US visit was a great success, resulting in ongoing co-operation between the US and Britain on submarine research. Rutherford also developed links with several scientists who were to play key roles in the Manhattan Project, which developed the nuclear bomb.
Rutherford continued as a member of a joint British-US anti-submarine committee when he returned to Britain. But he was freer to turn again to his nuclear research. In late 1918, he telegraphed an apology to the committee. He would be delayed, he said, as he needed to complete experiments in Manchester that evening in which he believed he had succeeded in "exploding" the atomic nucleus. He added, "If this were true, its ultimate importance is far greater than that of the war." He was right on both counts, although in 1919, he merely "chipped" the atom. True splitting was to come in the early 1930s.
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Rutherford met an untimely death in 1937. Harking back to his rural New Zealand background, he took to pruning trees in his garden and ruptured his intestines in a fall. Yet his legacy was also to make a significant contribution to the Allied cause in World War II.
The work he initiated in Manchester in 1915 formed the basis on which anti-submarine sonar and asdic technologies, crucial in the later war, were developed, although Rutherford was quick to give much of the credit for this research to another colleague and friend from that time, the French scientist, philosopher and Nazi resister Paul Langevin. Moreover, the effectiveness of America's submarine fleet, building on the co-operation with Britain established by Rutherford, was a key factor, not well enough recognised, in enabling the US to recover quickly from Pearl Harbour and vanquish the Japanese Navy.
At the time of his death, Rutherford was pressing the British Government to establish an integrated national approach to research and development in co-operation with the armed services. It seems clear that had he lived, Britain would have been much better placed to mobilise its scientific resources when war broke out.
Rutherford's biographies and the testimonies of the many scientists with whom he worked demonstrate not only his pre-eminence as a researcher but also his ability to instil great enthusiasm and loyalty among his colleagues and students. He inspired a remarkable number to achieve greatness in their own right. The public and the private record of his work during WWI confirm this assessment.
Rutherford brought his unique personality to making a globally significant contribution in two fields of research and to two world wars. All this was achieved with a down-to-earth colonial manner, a boisterous style and, to the end, an unmistakably Kiwi accent.
Fonte:
http://www.noted.co.nz/history/ernest-rutherfords-secret-anti-submarine-work-in-wwi
Mais:
http://www.ww1.manchester.ac.uk/rutherfords-secret-war
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWPsj6fVbeUSyfqtRHwGcN1inD73EkdX
La vita militare di Papa Giovanni XXIII
(Adolfo Zamboni)
Tornò subito con rinnovato entusiamo ai cari studi. Il 10 agosto 1904 venne ordinato sacerdote. Il 9 aprile 1905 mons. Giacomo Maria Radini Tedeschi, nuovo vescovo di Bergamo, lo [Angelo Roncalli] chiamò al suo servizio come segretario particolare. Quel compito segnò la vita, la vocazione, la missione di don Roncalli, che trascorse dieci intensi anni accanto a quel grande Vescovo. Monsignor Radini Tedeschi, rampollo di nobile famiglia, sempre attento ed aperto alle problematiche sociali che tanto drammaticamente andavano emergendo all'inizio del Novecento, gli fece da guida fino alla morte, avvenuta il 22 agosto 1914, tre settimane dopo lo scoppio della prima guerra mondiale. Roncalli lo tenne come esempio per tutta la vita.
Il 23 maggio 1915, vigilia dell'entrata in guerra dell'Italia, Angelo Roncalli fu richiamato alle armi. In partenza per Milano per presentarsi al centro di raccolta per la mobilitazione nella caserma di S. Ambrogio (destinata dopo la guerra a diventare sede dell'Università Cattolica), egli annotò nel "Giornale dell'Anima": «Domani parto per il servizio militare in sanità. Dove mi manderanno? Forse sul fronte nemico? Tornerò a Bergamo, oppure il Signore mi ha preparata la mia ultima ora sul campo di guerra? ... penso di mantenermi all'altezza della mia vocazione e di mostrare a fatti il mio vero amore per la Patria e per le anime dei miei fratelli. Lo spirito è pronto e lieto.»
Egli non si preoccupava soverchiamente della sua destinazione, perchè si attendeva che fosse Iddio a doverci pensare. E Iddio ci pensò. Da un muricciolo, che taglia le arcate del monastero-caserma di Sant'Ambrogio un sergente vociava: - Occorrono soldati di sanità per Bergamo; chi è che vuol andare a Bergamo? Così, dopo solo due giorni trascorsi a Milano, il sergente Roncalli salì sul treno per Bergamo alla testa di un plotone di 25 uomini, assegnato all'ospedale militare allestito in una parte del Seminario di quella città. Si ritrovò così, mutato d'abito, nel grande dormitorio da cui era partito appena tre giorni prima e dove era stato da ragazzo seminarista.
Diversamente da altri sacerdoti, Roncalli non cercò di farsi raccomandare come cappellano militare, ma accettò di buon animo l'umiliazione dell'abito militare secondo le evidenti disposizioni della Provvidenza e trovò naturalissimo essere sergente, e nient'altro che sergente. Iniziò così, a 33 anni e 6 mesi, il suo servizio di sergente nella 3a Compagnia di Sanità.
In gennaio del 1916 venne trasferito, con gli ammalati, all'Ospedale Militare di Riserva di Bergamo. In marzo venne assegnato all'Infermeria Presidiaria. Sperava di non doversi più muovere da quel piccolo ospedale dove, essendo il solo sergente, si sentiva "dominus loci", ma già in data 11 dicembre 1915 il Direttore dell'Ospedale Militare Succursale di Riserva di Bergamo aveva fatto richiesta al Vescovo di Campo per avere un Cappellano Militare, resosi necessario a causa del trasferimento dei degenti dell'Ospedale del Seminario nell'Ospedale della Nuova Casa di Ricovero (detto "Ricovero Nuovo") e del conseguente aumento dei posti letto a 1.500. Nella richiesta si proponeva per la nomina il sacerdote Roncalli. Il 18 febbraio 1916 il vescovo Angelo Bartolomasi, Ordinario Castrense, inviò da Roma il nulla osta. Così il 28 marzo 1916 don Roncalli ricevette la nomina a Cappellano Militare, col grado di tenente, presso l'Ospedale Militare Succursale di Riserva di Bergamo, detto del "Banco Sete" perché collocato nei locali del mercato della seta in via Broseta. Da giugno del 1917 furono affidati alle sue cure anche i degenti nel nuovo Ospedale Orfanotrofio di S. Lucia, dove egli si recava due volte al giorno nonostante la distanza da percorrere.
Quelli della Grande Guerra furono gli anni tra i più laboriosi della sua vita e fra i più densi di esperienza. Le giornate di quel mite e solerte sacerdote iniziavano molto presto e non conoscevano orari. Oltre al servizio di graduato di Sanità prestato nei primi dieci mesi, egli forniva assistenza religiosa e morale ai militari ricoverati ed alle suore di servizio, celebrava la "Messa del Soldato" nella chiesa di Santo Spirito a Bergamo, teneva spiegazioni del Vangelo e sei o sette discorsi domenicali, coordinava l'assistenza alle famiglie dei soldati, agli orfani ed ai profughi e dirigeva l'ufficio diocesano per la raccolta di notizie sui prigionieri di guerra. Nel 1917 organizzò le Case del Soldato di via Solata n. 4 e via S. Tommaso, di fronte alla caserma Camozzi. Nel 1918 fondò la "Associazione tra le Famiglie dei Morti e Dispersi in guerra". Come membro esterno della congregazione dei Preti del Sacro Cuore si dedicava anche all'assistenza agli studenti. Nella primavera del 1918, obbedendo all'invito del Vescovo che egli accolse col suo solito spirito di obbedienza in nomine Domini, divenne il fondatore nientemeno e il direttore di una Casa degli studenti con pensionato, scuole di religione, ritrovi serali, doposcuola ... e il propulsore di un più vasto programma di formazione e di assistenza alla gioventù studiosa.
Sapeva penetrare nell'animo della gente, come appare nella cronaca pubblicata da "L'Eco di Bergamo" della messa da campo da lui celebrata alle 7 del mattino di domenica 2 giugno 1918 nella piazza di fronte all'Ospedale Maggiore, gremita di soldati e di borghesi. Il giornale sottolineava l'impressione prodotta dalle forti ed insieme paterne parole di don Roncalli che ognuno poteva leggere sugli occhi inumiditi dei presenti.
Contemporaneamente egli riuscì anche a svolgere altri incarichi: insegnante di filosofia patristica e di apologetica in seminario, predicatore in vari istituti religiosi e parrocchie, redattore de "La Vita Diocesana". Don Roncalli trovò anche il tempo per scrivere la biografia di monsignor Radini Tedeschi, tributo di venerazione, riconoscenza ed amore per quel suo amato vescovo, che ebbe accoglienza e recensioni lusinghiere. Inviò il grosso volume di cinquecento pagine al nuovo papa Benedetto XV, amico ed estimatore del suo compianto vescovo, il quale lo ricevette in udienza il 24 settembre 1916 e gli inviò una lettera gratulatoria.
Il 19 luglio 1918 venne incaricato dell'assistenza ai reduci dai campi di prigionia rimpatriati per gravi malattie e si dedicò soprattutto a quelli che ritornavano ammalati di tubercolosi.
Per il "Te Deum" dell'Armistizio, celebrato nella Chiesa di Santo Spirito a Bergamo domenica 17 novembre 1918, don Roncalli fece scrivere sulla facciata del tempio: «Al Dio degli eserciti / invocato / con la invitta fede dei padri / nella lunga vigilia / negli aspri eroici cimenti / i soldati d'Italia / umili e fortissimi / dicono grazie / cantano inni di gloria / e di vittoria.»
Il 10 dicembre 1918 venne inviato in licenza illimitata, ma continuò il servizio religioso nei vari Ospedali Militari. Il 28 febbraio 1919 venne posto in congedo illimitato.
Alla sua esperienza di cappellano militare il professor don Angelo Roncalli fece riferimento nel discorso al VI Congresso Eucaristico Nazionale svoltosi a Bergamo nel 1920, in cui egli ricordò le lunghe notti vigilate fra i giacigli dei cari e valorosi soldati e affermò che la guerra, che è stata e rimane un gravissimo male, aveva tuttavia fornito un grande assaggio del valore dei popoli, perchè accanto alle bruttezze ed alle miserie aveva offerto tanti episodi consolanti. Ricordò, commosso, che molte volte gli era accaduto di doversi buttare in ginocchio e piangere come un fanciullo, tutto solo nella sua camera, non potendo più contenere la emozione provata davanti allo spettacolo della morte, semplice e santa, di tanti poveri figli del nostro popolo, modesti lavoratori dei campi, ... che si spegnevano non bestemmiando al duro destino, ma lieti di offrire la loro fiorente giovinezza in sacrificio a Dio pei fratelli.
Sul retro della fotografia di un giovane Alpino, don Roncalli scrisse: «Diani Egidio di S. Romano di Garfagnana (Verrucole) distretto di Lucca, 3° Artigl. da Montagna - classe 1898: morto di polmonite violenta e da me assistito all'Osped. Mil. "Banco Sete" in Bergamo la notte del 19 aprile 1917. Anima eletta e pura, carattere schietto ed amabilissimo, era troppo degno di abitare cogli angeli prima che i contatti profani potessero contaminare il cristiano candore. Nelle ore estreme mi promise di ricordarsi di me in Paradiso.»
Dando conforto a molti soldati che dovevano compiere, e lo facevano con serenità, il passo supremo, don Angelo ebbe la possibilità di conoscere la vera anima della gioventù italiana, i suoi slanci generosi, soprattutto la grande fede. Il 23 giugno 1917 egli scrisse in una lettera al padre: «... questi cari giovani soldati non si può non amarli quando si sono avvicinati una volta: e sono tanto, tanto degni di ogni cura e di ogni conforto.»
Sempre gli fu cara l'esperienza di buon fantaccino diventato nientemeno che sergente e il ricordo dei quattro anni di sacro ministero accanto ai soldati feriti o ammalati o morti, come egli disse ai Bersaglieri in occasione del loro Raduno Nazionale a Roma nel 1962 con parole spontanee e calde che si possono oggi ascoltare su internet.
A distanza di oltre quarant'anni papa Roncalli rievocava quei momenti di grazia del suo servizio d'ospedale militare, delicatissimo ministero di pace e d'amore svolto in condizioni spesso ardue e difficili, quando, rientrato nella sua camera dopo giornate di serrato lavoro, cadeva in ginocchio e mentre lacrime di consolazione rigavano il suo volto ringraziava Dio per quella stupenda riserva di energie morali che il popolo italiano custodiva e tramandava.
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Rivolgendosi ai Cappellani Militari in congedo quell' l'11 giugno 1959 nei Giardini Vaticani papa Roncalli disse che indimenticabile fu il servizio da lui compiuto come Cappellano negli ospedali del tempo di guerra, che gli aveva fatto raccogliere nel gemito dei feriti e dei malati l'universale aspirazione alla pace, sommo bene dell'umanità. Mai come allora aveva sentito quale sia il desiderio di pace dell'uomo, specialmente di chi, come il soldato, confida di prepararne le basi per il futuro col suo personale sacrificio, e spesso con l'immolazione suprema della vita.
In quelle parole sono già presenti i sentimenti che avrebbero ispirato "Pacem in Terris", l'ultima enciclica di Giovanni XXIII, pubblicata l'11 aprile 1963, meno di due mesi prima della sua morte, che inizia affermando che la pace in terra è l'anelito profondo degli esseri umani di tutti i tempi.
Fonte:
http://www.solfano.it/canicatti/giovanni_XXIII.html
Trechos de Krieg (1928), de Ludwig Renn.
ZUSAMMENBRUCH
"Unerfreulich!" sagte er nach einer Weile. "Die Lage an der Front scheint auch recht bedenklich zu sein."
"Ich habe die Frontbewegungen nicht verfolgt, Herr Leutnant."
"Lesen Sie denn keine Zeitungen?"
"Nur selten, und dann versteht man nichts."
Er sah mich forschend an. "Da wissen Sie wohl auch nichts von dem deutschen Friedensangebot?"
"Ich habe gehört, dass man sich darüber aufregt. Aber ich verstehe nicht, weshalb."
"Nu, es ist doch ein Eingeständnis unserer Schwäche!" fuhr der Leutnant auf.
Ich wollte mich nicht mit ihm streiten. Es war mir auch ganz gleichgültig, was man darüber sagte, wenn nur der Krieg zu Ende ginge! Ich hatte auch noch nie über Politik nachgedacht. Ich hatte einen Ekel davor, wie vor etwas Schmutzigem.
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In einer kleinen flandrischen Stadt stiegen wir nach mehreren Tagen Bahnfahrt aus und marschierten bei Sonnenschein auf einer flachen Straße, rechts und links Gemüsefelder mit blauen Kohlköpfen auf moorigschwarzer Erde.
Ich marschierte vorn, der Leutnant hinten. Die Leute schwatzten und schimpften so laut, dass wir es verstehen mussten. [...]
Ein paar niedrige Ziegelhäuser kamen, neben denen vier Bäume seltsam hoch aussahen.
Wir kamen in einen größeren Ort. Auf dem viereckigen Marktplatz verteilte der Regimentsschreiber den Ersatz auf die Bataillone.
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Ich wartete von Tag zu Tag, was mit mir werden sollte. Das Regiment war winzig klein geworden. An einer Stelle, irgendwo vorn, war ein ganzes Bataillon umzingelt und abgefangen worden, anderswo die erste und die dritte Kompanie mit dem Bataillonsstab. Offiziere fremder Regimenter waren herversetzt worden, die niemand kannte. Zwei der Bataillonskommandeure waren eigentlich Kavalleristen. Jetzt sollte ein Reserveregiment aufgelöst und damit unser Regiment aufgefüllt werden.
Die Geschäftszimmer, bei denen ich war, lagen etwa fünfzig Kilometer hinter der Front und verkehrten mit der Front und den Feldküchen durch Boten auf Fahrrädern, die meist erst am nächsten Tage zurückkamen.
Die Ersatzmannschaften, die ich mitgebracht hatte, bummelten in den Straßen umher und gingen ins Kino. [...]
Wir traten auf dem Marktplatz an. Die Ersatzmannschaften waren sehr still. Vielleicht fürchteten sie sich vor dem Bataillon, das angekündigt war, und wollten erst einmal das Weitere abwarten. [...]
Im nächsten Ort traten wir in eine große, leere Scheune, die merkwürdig schwarz aussah, und warteten, dass der Gewitterguss vorüberginge.
Gegen Abend kamen wir in eine kleine Stadt mit engen Gassen. Es ging auf schmalen Brücken über Kanäle mit langsam fließendem Wasser, auf dem Lastkähne lagen.
Auf einem Platze hielten wir. Mehrere Offiziere kamen aus einem Hause. Ich kannte keinen von ihnen.
"Vizefeldwebel Renn zur sechsten Kompanie!"
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Mehling sah mich aus offenen, braunen Augen an und erklärte mir mit wenigen Worten alles. Er war der erste klare Mensch, seit ich wieder im Felde war.
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Wir blieben mehrere Tage in der Stadt. In der Ferne hörten wir manchmal ein Murren von Kanonen. Vor uns lag noch eine Division. Wir stellten nur einige Posten nach rechts, weil man unserer Nachbardivision nicht traute. Angeblich hatte sie sich mit der Bevölkerung verbrüdert.
In der Stadt waren alle Läden offen. Da gab es Zwirn und weiße Semmeln. Ich kaufte mir gleich welche und aß in einer Konditorei ein Stück echten Kuchen. Das alles gab es ja seit Jahren in Deutschland nicht mehr.
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In den ersten Tagen des November kam der Befehl, nach vorn abzumarschieren.
Zu Mittag kamen wir gegen einen kleinen Ort mit Bäumen und niedrigen Häusern. Alle paar Minuten ging ein Schuss nach dem Straßenkreuz. Wir liefen, eine Gruppe nach der andern, über das Straßenkreuz weg nach einer Feldscheune, in der wir mehrere Stunden blieben.
Gegen fünf Uhr nachmittags trafen zwei schwere Maschinengewehre bei uns ein. Wir nahmen auch unsere leichten Maschinengewehre vom Wagen und rückten an einem Bahndamm entlang vor. Es begann dunkel zu werden.
Düstere Häuser unter hohen Bäumen. Vielleicht zweihundert Meter vor uns krachten Granaten. Rasseln von Wagen. Zwei Geschütze jagten nach hinten an uns vorbei.
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Wir legten uns in einen ziemlich verfallenen Stall, in dem einige Rinder standen.
Nach zwei oder drei Stunden wurde der Rückmarsch befohlen. Es war stockdunkel.
Sehr müde kamen wir nach Mitternacht in ein Dorf und nächtigten in einer Kirche auf Stroh.
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Zwei Tage später rückten wir wieder ein Stück vor. Wir waren Reserve. Vor uns hatte das erste Bataillon eine Stellung längs eines Kanals besetzt.
Bei Sonnenschein rückten wir über eine Höhe. Die deutschen Batterien bellten uns gellend in die Ohren. Ab und zu barsten französische Granaten.
In einem Ort sollten wir bleiben. Dort bekamen wir ein kleines, verlassenes Haus zugewiesen, in dem es nichts mehr gab als Wände und teilweise auch Fensterscheiben. Die Offiziere wohnten im nächsten Haus.
Die jungen Kerle begannen gleich wieder vorm Haus im Sonnenschein mit Schinkenklopfen. Unteroffizier Höhle schlachtete hinter dem Hause ein Schwein, damit es der Kompanieführer nicht merkte. Den Leutnant Hanfstängel wollten seine Leute nachher vom Kompanieführer weglocken und ihm auch Wellfleisch geben. Ihn hatten die Leute, glaube ich, weniger deshalb gern, weil er auch vergnügt blieb, wenn es schoss, als weil er so fein und jung war.
Zu Mittag kam die Feldküche mit Rindfleisch. Eine Stunde später gab es hinter dem Hause Höhles Schwein. Wir waren dann kurzatmig vom vielen Essen und legten uns aufs Stroh.
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Auf der Straße kam mir der Kompaniefeldwebel entgegen.
"Guten Morgen!" sagte ich. "Die Leute schreien nach ihrer Löhnung. Hier gibt's soviel zu kaufen, und sie haben kein Geld mehr."
"Wie soll ich denn das machen?" rief er erregt.
"Wieso? Sie kriegen doch das Geld vom Zahlmeister?"
"Nein, keinen Pfennig! In der Etappe ist ja der Teufel los. Wir Feldwebel haben vor drei Tagen einen Boten zum Zahlmeister hintergeschickt, er ist noch nicht wieder da. - Die Leute in der Etappe taugten ja schon immer nichts, aber jetzt sind's die reinsten Räuberbanden geworden! Besonders in Brüssel! Natürlich lauter Drückeberger!"
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In der Nacht hatte eine Granate einen Mann und eine Frau des Dorfes erschlagen. Am Morgen rückten wir weiter vor.
Auf ein Straßenkreuz ging alle paar Minuten ein Schuss, aber so genau immer auf denselben Fleck, dass wir nur auf das Feld zu biegen brauchten und dann wieder auf die Straße.
Vorn war ununterbrochenes Rollen und hier und da Bersten. Mir war beklommen zumut. Ich hatte gedacht, wir würden nicht noch einmal ins Feuer kommen; der Waffenstillstand würde früher eintreten.
Wir sahen jetzt über eine flache Höhe die ganze Gegend vor uns. In der Ferne lag ein großes Dorf oder eine Stadt, mit einem kleinen dichten Wald rechts, aus dem große schwarze Granatwolken stiegen. Über dem Dorf lag eine Dunstwolke. Manchmal sah ich auch den Staub auffahren.
Halbwegs zu diesem Ort lag ein kleines Dorf, in das wir marschierten. Wir erhielten drei große Stuben in einem Haus zugewiesen. Die ganze Kompanie war nur fünfzig Mann stark. Die Feldküche fuhr auf den Hof und machte den Deckel auf, um das Mittagessen auszugeben.
- - -
"Die Franzosen haben vorn angegriffen. Sie scheinen einen Offizier und zwei Züge abgefangen zu haben, die vor einem Sumpf lagen. Genauere Nachrichten fehlen noch. Jedenfalls haben sie nur wenig Boden gewonnen. - Es ist möglich, dass wir heute Abend vorn ablösen müssen. Dann erwarte ich, dass der Geist der Unterordnung unter die Fronterfahrung stärker sein wird als kleine Bedenken des Augenblicks!"
Er entließ uns durch Neigen des Kopfes. Wir gingen stumm hinaus. Schubring hatte also kein Vertrauen zu uns? Das brachte mich auf. Habe ich deshalb versucht, deine saudummen Befehle so gut wie nur irgend möglich auszuführen, dass du mich dann beschimpfst?
- - -
"Die Leute sagen, morgen Mittag wäre Waffenstillstand, und heute um sechs würde die Stellung hier geräumt, da hätte's keinen Zweck, sich noch zum Krüppel schießen zu lassen! Ich hab die Bande gehörig angeniest. Ich hab sie auch gefragt, ob sie nicht Offiziere hätten. Nee, sagten sie, der letzte wäre vorgestern Nacht in einem Haus erschlagen worden."
[...] "Was hat das nur für einen Sinn", sagte Hanfstängel, "jetzt noch so auf den Stellungen herumzutrommeln und gar noch anzugreifen? Macht es denn denen da drüben Spaß, nur ja noch einige totzumachen, solange es noch völkerrechtlich erlaubt ist?"
[...] Es begann zu dämmern. Der Mond kam. Das Artilleriefeuer schwieg von deutscher Seite ganz. Wahrscheinlich waren unsere Batterien schon abgerückt, damit später die Straßen für die Infanterie frei wären. Die französische Artillerie schoss auch nicht mehr so heftig.
Um sechs Uhr rückten wir ab, ausgeschwärmt über das Feld. Freute ich mich? Ich fragte mich selbst danach. Ich fühlte mich befreit von der ständigen Furcht der letzten Jahre. Aber sonst? Ich wusste nicht, was der Waffenstillstand für Folgen haben würde, und war unruhig. Aber die Nacht war schön.
- - -
Wir waren die ganze Nacht durch marschiert und kamen bei Morgengrauen in eine enggebaute, kleine Stadt mit düsteren Häusern. Mein Zug lag im Hintergarten einer Villa, in dem nur noch einzelne Blumentöpfe mit spärlichen Gewächsen am Boden standen. Wir schliefen bis Mittag. Am Nachmittag standen wir auf der Straße herum.
"Herr Feldwebel!" kam Mehling lachend. "Hier sind Strafgefangene gewesen, mehrere Kompanien. Die sind von ihren Bewachungsleuten freigelassen worden. Und die Strafgefangenen haben sich auf einen Verpflegungszug, der auf dem Bahnhof stand, gestürzt und haben die ganzen Vorräte an die Einwohner verkauft. Eine Kompanie unseres Regiments hat eingreifen müssen."
[...] "Die Meuterer haben unsere Feldbäckereikolonne aufgelöst und in die Heimat geschickt."
"Was? Woher kriegen wir denn da Brot?" fragte Höhle.
"Das müssen wir uns selbst backen. Und dazu hatte uns das Generalkommando den Zug mit Mehl und Zucker und anderen Vorräten hier stehen lassen."
"Wie sollen wir denn auf dem Marsch backen?"
- - -
Die Offiziere hatten lange Besprechungen. Dann kam der Kompanieführer und rief die Kompanie um sich. "Ich habe Ihnen mitzuteilen, dass in Deutschland die Revolution ausgebrochen ist. Seine Majestät der Kaiser hat sich nach Holland begeben, ebenso der Kronprinz. - Die Division hat befohlen, dass in jeder Kompanie drei Vertrauensleute zu wählen sind. Die Züge teilen mir bis morgen je einen mit. Ich bemerke noch, dass diese Vertrauensleute keine Soldatenräte sind wie in Russland, sondern dass sie lediglich das Vertrauen zwischen Offizier und Mann noch mehr festigen sollen."
- - -
Am Morgen schickte ich noch einmal eine Patrouille dorthin. Die kam schon nach zwanzig Minuten wieder. "Herr Feldwebel, jetzt stehen belgische Posten an der Brücke!"
Ich schrieb darüber sofort eine Meldung an den Kompanieführer, schickte sie ab und saß in Ungewissheit da. Aber ich erhielt keine Antwort.
- - -
Am nächsten Morgen marschierten wir ab. Es war kalt geworden. Aber die Sonne schien. Die breite Straße lief gerade durch eine flache Landschaft, die munter aussah. Am Nachmittag wurde sie unfreundlich. Die Bäume erschienen mir grau, und der Ort, in den wir marschierten, sah ungastlich aus. An der düstern Kirche lehnten Maschinengewehre. Geschütze aller Art standen auf dem Friedhof.
Eine unserer Maschinengewehrkompanien hielt davor und schaffte ihre Maschinengewehre hinein. Das waren Waffen, die nach dem Waffenstillstandsvertrag den Feinden auszuliefern waren. Die würden sie im Regen stehen lassen, und bald wäre alles altes Eisen.
Wir marschierten wohl zwei Wochen lang durch das flandrische Belgien und kamen dann in den französisch sprechenden Teil. Wir marschierten immer als ständige Nachhut einen Tagesmarsch vor den uns folgenden Feinden. Vor den Häusern standen Zivilisten, sahen voll Hass nach uns und schimpften.
[...] Die Stimmung gegen die Revolutionäre wurde noch schärfer, vor allem durch Höhle und den Gefreiten Mann geschürt, während Herrmann, der Sozialdemokrat, versuchte, die Stimmung lau zu erhalten. Dieser Herrmann mit seinem immer mürrischen Gesicht war wie ein kleiner Beamter und gegen jede entschiedene Tat.
- - -
Erst spät kam Mehling aus Lüttich zurück und erzählte, dass die ganze Stadt beflaggt wäre. Franzosen, Engländer und Belgier waren schon dort. In den Cafes saßen sie. Die Marseillaise wurde gespielt und hurra geschrieen.
- - -
Am nächsten Morgen ging es auf einer langen Brücke über die Maas, die hier ein recht stattlicher Fluss ist. Dann schlängelten wir uns am andern Ufer Stunde über Stunde die Höhen hinauf. Bei Dunkelwerden marschierten wir in ein Tal mit einem Kirchdorf drin. Es war kalt.
- - -
Am Nachmittag marschierten wir ab und kamen bei Anbruch der Dunkelheit nach Aachen. Alle Häuser waren beflaggt. Unsere Musik spielte ein Stück vor uns, und die Trommel schlug sich an den Häusern, aus denen Menschen sahen. Menschen begleiteten unseren Marsch.
Wir waren die letzten deutschen Truppen vor den einrückenden Belgiern und Franzosen.
Am Tage darauf rückten wir auf den Bahnhof und warteten da bei strömendem Regen auf den Zug. Es war längst Nacht geworden, als er eintraf. Es waren alles Viehwagen mit Schiebetüren. Wohin wir fuhren, wussten wir nicht, nur, dass es noch nicht gleich nach Hause ging.
Mais:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/Prince-William-Theresa-Battle-Amiens-centenary.html
Trechos de One Of Ours (1922), de Willa Cather.
He had always been taught that the German people were pre-eminent in the virtues Americans most admire; a month ago he would have said they had all the ideals a decent American boy would fight for. The invasion of Belgium was contradictory to the German character as he knew it in his friends and neighbours. He still cherished the hope that there had been some great mistake; that this splendid people would apologize and right itself with the world.
- - -
"The war will be over before Washington can do anything, Mrs. Wheeler," Ernest declared gloomily, "England will be starved out, and France will be beaten to a standstill. The whole German army will be on the Western front now. What could this country do? How long do you suppose it takes to make an army?"
- - -
Three days later they knew that the German ambassador had been dismissed, and the American ambassador recalled from Berlin. To older men these events were subjects to think and converse about; but to boys like Claude they were life and death, predestination.
- - -
Pictures of soldiers in gas-masks puzzled her; gas was something she hadn't learned about in the Civil War, so she worked it out for herself that these masks were worn by the army cooks, to protect their eyes when they were cutting up onions! "All the onions they have to cut up, it would put their eyes out if they didn't wear somethin'," she argued.
- - -
Mr. Yoeder, a witness declared, had said he hoped the United States would go to Hell, now that it had been bought over by England. When the witness had remarked to him that if the Kaiser were shot it would end the war, Yoeder replied that charity begins at home, and he wished somebody would put a bullet in the President.
When he was called upon, Yoeder rose and stood like a rock before the judge. "I have nothing to say. The charges are true. I thought this was a country where a man could speak his mind."
"Yes, a man can speak his mind, but even here he must take the consequences. Sit down, please."
- - -
He was still burning with the first ardour of the enlisted man. He believed that he was going abroad with an expeditionary force that would make war without rage, with uncompromising generosity and chivalry. [...]
Most of his friends at camp shared his Quixotic ideas. They had come together from farms and shops and mills and mines, boys from college and boys from tough joints in big cities; sheepherders, street car drivers, plumbers' assistants, billiard markers. Claude had seen hundreds of them when they first came in; "show men" in cheap, loud sport suits, ranch boys in knitted waistcoats, machinists with the grease still on their fingers, farm-hands like Dan, in their one Sunday coat. Some of them carried paper suitcases tied up with rope, some brought all they had in a blue handkerchief. But they all came to give and not to ask, and what they offered was just themselves; their big red hands, their strong backs, the steady, honest, modest look in their eyes. Sometimes, when he had helped the medical examiner, Claude had noticed the anxious expression in the faces of the long lines of waiting men. They seemed to say, "If I'm good enough, take me. I'll stay by."
- - -
All his comrades had been tucked away in prairie towns, with their little jobs and their little plans. Yet here they were, attended by unknown ships called in from the four quarters of the earth. How had they come to be worth the watchfulness and devotion of so many men and machines, this extravagant consumption of fuel and energy? Taken one by one, they were ordinary fellows like himself. Yet here they were. And in this massing and movement of men there was nothing mean or common; he was sure of that. It was, from first to last, unforeseen, almost incredible. Four years ago, when the French were holding the Marne, the wisest men in the world had not conceived of this as possible.
Downstairs the men began singing "Annie Laurie." Where were those summer evenings when he used to sit dumb by the windmill, wondering what to do with his life?
- - -
A scourge of influenza had broken out on board, of a peculiarly bloody and malignant type.
- - -
On the second day the doughboys were still calling to each other about the poppies; nothing else had so entirely surpassed their expectations. They had supposed that poppies grew only on battle fields, or in the brains of war correspondents.
- - -
Captain Barclay Owens, attached from the Engineers. He was a little stumpy thumb of a man, only five feet four, and very broad, - a dynamo of energy. Before the war he was building a dam in Spain, "the largest dam in the world," and in his excavations he had discovered the ruins of one of Julius Caesar's fortified camps. This had been too much for his easily-inflamed imagination. He photographed and measured and brooded upon these ancient remains. He was an engineer by day and an archaeologist by night. He had crates of books sent down from Paris, - everything that had been written on Caesar, in French and German; he engaged a young priest to translate them aloud to him in the evening. The priest believed the American was mad.
[...] In the Battalion, Owens was called "Julius Caesar," and the men never knew whether he was explaining the Roman general's operations in Spain, or Joffre's at the Marne, he jumped so from one to the other.
- - -
The men kept the phonograph going; as soon as one record buzzed out, somebody put in another. Once, when a new tune began, Claude saw David look up from his paper with a curious expression. He listened for a moment with a half-contemptuous smile, then frowned and began sketching in his map again. Something about his momentary glance of recognition made Claude wonder whether he had particular associations with the air, - melancholy, but beautiful, Claude thought. He got up and went over to change the record himself this time. He took out the disk, and holding it up to the light, read the inscription:
"Meditation from Thais - Violin solo - David Gerhardt."
- - -
Ruin was ugly, and it was nothing more, Claude was thinking, as he followed the paths that ran over piles of brick and plaster. There was nothing picturesque about this, as there was in the war pictures one saw at home. A cyclone or a fire might have done just as good a job. The place was simply a great dump-heap; an exaggeration of those which disgrace the outskirts of American towns. It was the same thing over and over; mounds of burned brick and broken stone, heaps of rusty, twisted iron, splintered beams and rafters, stagnant pools, cellar holes full of muddy water. An American soldier had stepped into one of those holes a few nights before, and been drowned.
- - -
On a cross at their feet the inscription read merely: Soldat Inconnu, Mort pour La France.
A very good epitaph, Claude was thinking. Most of the boys who fell in this war were unknown, even to themselves. They were too young. They died and took their secret with them, - what they were and what they might have been.
- - -
Hicks broke out and told Claude how he and Dell Able meant to go into business together when they got home; were going to open a garage and automobile-repair shop.
- - -
At ten o'clock the men began to ascend the water-course, creeping through pools and little waterfalls, making a continuous spludgy sound, like pigs rubbing against the sty. Claude, with the head of the column, was just pulling out of the gully on the hillside above the village, when a flare went up, and a volley of fire broke from the brush on the up-hill side of the water-course; machine guns, opening on the exposed line crawling below. The Hun had been warned that the Americans were crossing the plain and had anticipated their way of approach. The men in the gully were trapped; they could not retaliate with effect, and the bullets from the Maxims bounded on the rocks about them like hail. Gerhardt ran along the edge of the line, urging the men not to fall back and double on themselves, but to break out of the gully on the downhill side and scatter.
Claude, with his group, started back. "Go into the brush and get 'em! Our fellows have got no chance down there. Grenades while they last, then bayonets. Pull your plugs and don't hold on too long."
They were already on the run, charging the brush. The Hun gunners knew the hill like a book, and when the bombs began bursting among them, they took to trails and burrows. "Don't follow them off into the rocks," Claude kept calling. "Straight ahead! Clear everything to the ravine."
- - -
When Claude and David rejoined their Battalion on the 20th of September, the end of the war looked as far away as ever. The collapse of Bulgaria was unknown to the American army, and their acquaintance with European affairs was so slight that this would have meant very little to them had they heard of it. The German army still held the north and east of France, and no one could say how much vitality was left in that sprawling body.
The Battalion entrained at Arras. Lieutenant Colonel Scott had orders to proceed to the railhead, and then advance on foot into the Argonne.
The cars were crowded, and the railway journey was long and fatiguing. They detrained at night, in the rain, at what the men said seemed to be the jumping off place. There was no town, and the railway station had been bombed the day before, by an air fleet out to explode artillery ammunition. A mound of brick, and holes full of water told where it had been.
- - -
Claude explained in his best French that an American battalion had just come in; might they sleep in his field if they did not destroy his stacks?
"Sure," replied the farmer, and shut the window.
- - -
This farmhouse, for some reason called by the prisoners Frau Hulda farm, was a nest of telephone wires; hundreds of them ran out through the walls, in all directions. The Colonel cut those he could find, and then put a guard over the old peasant who had been left in charge of the house, suspecting that he was in the pay of the enemy.
- - -
The next night the soldiers began teaching the girls to dance the "Pas Seul" and the "Fausse Trot." They had found an old violin in the town; and Oscar, the Swede, scraped away on it. They danced every evening. Claude saw that a good deal was going on, and he lectured his men at parade. But he realized that he might as well scold at the sparrows. Here was a village with several hundred women, and only the grandmothers had husbands. All the men were in the army; hadn't even been home on leave since the Germans first took the place. The girls had been shut up for four years with young men who incessantly coveted them, and whom they must constantly outwit. The situation had been intolerable - and prolonged. The Americans found themselves in the position of Adam in the garden.
- - -
The Cure's niece was buried there. She was the prettiest girl in Beaufort, it seemed, and she had a love affair with a German officer and disgraced the town.
- - -
"Do you realize, Claude, you and I are the only men in the Company who haven't got engaged? Some of the married men have got engaged twice. It's a good thing we're pulling out, or we'd have banns and a bunch of christenings to look after."
- - -
The bad ground continued for about a mile, and then the advance reached Headquarters, behind the eighth trench of the great system of trenches. It was an old farmhouse which the Germans had made over with reinforced concrete, lining it within and without, until the walls were six feet thick and almost shell-proof, like a pill-box.
- - -
The Colonel bit off the end of a fresh cigar. "They'd better, by thunder! If they give way and let the Hun bombers in, it will let down the whole line. I'll give you two teams of Georgia machine guns to put in that point they call the Boar's Snout. When the Missourians come up tomorrow, they'll go in to support you, but until then you'll have to take care of the loop yourselves. I've got an awful lot of trench to hold, and I can't spare you any more men."
The Texas men whom the Battalion came up to relieve had been living for sixty hours on their iron rations, and on what they could pick off the dead Huns.
- - -
[...] the condition the place was in. The stench was the worst they had yet encountered, but it was less disgusting than the flies; when they inadvertently touched a dead body, clouds of wet, buzzing flies flew up into their faces, into their eyes and nostrils. Under their feet the earth worked and moved as if boa constrictors were wriggling down there soft bodies, lightly covered. When they had found their way up to the Snout they came upon a pile of corpses, a dozen or more, thrown one on top of another like sacks of flour, faintly discernible in the darkness. While the two officers stood there, rumbling, squirting sounds began to come from this heap, first from one body, then from another - gases, swelling in the liquefying entrails of the dead men. They seemed to be complaining to one another; glup, glup, glup.
- - -
Five Boche planes had been circling over the wood since dawn, signalling to the enemy Headquarters back on Dauphin Ridge; the Missourians were sure they had avoided detection by lying close in the under-brush.
- - -
Claude gave the signal to the machine guns. Fire opened all along the loop. In a moment a breeze sprang up, and the heavy smoke clouds drifted to the rear. Mounting to the firestep, he peered over. The enemy was coming on eight deep, on the left of the Boar's Head, in long, waving lines that reached out toward the main trench. Suddenly the advance was checked. The files of running men dropped behind a wrinkle in the earth fifty yards forward and did not instantly re-appear.
- - -
The right of the Hun line swerved out, not more than twenty yards from the battered Snout, trying to run to shelter under that pile of debris and human bodies. A quick concentration of rifle fire depressed it, and the swell came out again toward the left. Claude's appearance on the parapet had attracted no attention from the enemy at first, but now the bullets began popping about him; two rattled on his tin hat, one caught him in the shoulder. The blood dripped down his coat, but he felt no weakness. He felt only one thing; that he commanded wonderful men.
- - -
He was not bleeding very much. He smiled at them as if he were going to speak, but there was a weak blankness in his eyes. Bert tore his shirt open; three clean bullet holes. By the time they looked at him again, the smile had gone... the look that was Claude had faded.
- - -
Mrs. Wheeler got the word of his death one afternoon in the sitting-room, the room in which he had bade her good-bye. She was reading when the telephone rang.
"Is this the Wheeler farm? This is the telegraph office at Frankfort. We have a message from the War Department, -" the voice hesitated.
Mais:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_of_Ours
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga4zLsMmkE0
PHILITT
15 mars 2015
Drieu la Rochelle, la petite mort dans la Grande Guerre
(Youness Bousenna)
La Première Guerre mondiale a détruit Drieu la Rochelle, comme elle a emporté avec elle toute la génération des «20 ans en 14». Sauvagement touché par les épreuves du feu et inspiré par ses expériences de l'arrière, la Grande Guerre marquera pour toujours sa vie et son œuvre littéraire jusqu'à son suicide, il y a 70 ans, le 15 mars 1945.
Pierre Drieu la Rochelle n'a éjaculé qu'une seule fois dans sa vie: c'était le 23 août 1914, lors d'une chaude journée de guerre dans la plaine de Charleroi. Ce jour-là, le caporal de 21 ans vit sa première épreuve du feu. Soudain, au milieu de l'affrontement, il se lève, comme s'il n'avait plus peur de la mort, charge son fusil et entraîne plusieurs camarades. L'enivrement que lui procure la sensation d'être devenu le chef qu'il a toujours rêvé d'incarner est comme un orgasme sexuel. «Alors, tout d'un coup, il s'est produit quelque chose d'extraordinaire. Je m'étais levé, levé entre les morts, entre les larves. [...] Tout d'un coup, je me connaissais, je connaissais ma vie. C'était donc ma vie, cet ébat qui n'allait plus s'arrêter jamais», écrit-il dans La Comédie de Charleroi (1934) qui rassemble, sous forme de nouvelles, ses expériences de la Grande Guerre.
L'espace de quelques instants, il pense être le surhomme de Nietzsche, lui qui a mis Ainsi Parlait Zarathoustra dans sa besace de fantassin. Ce sera l'expérience la plus forte de sa vie, confessera-t-il. Drieu, dont le premier émoi littéraire fut les épopées napoléoniennes, rêve d'être un héros. Et pas n'importe lequel: un chef viril, dont l'héroïsme prend les traits d'une érection. «Qu'est-ce qui soudain jaillissait? Un chef. [...] Un chef, c'est un homme à son plein; l'homme qui donne et qui prend dans une même éjaculation. [...] J'ai senti à ce moment l'unité de ma vie. Même geste pour manger et pour aimer, pour agir et pour penser, pour vivre et pour mourir. La vie, c'est un seul jet. C'est un seul jet. Je voulais vivre et mourir en même temps», décrit-il cette journée du 23 août.
Vivre, éjaculer, mourir: voilà les trois temps du héros que Drieu croit expérimenter en ce jour de guerre. Sous l'élan de vitalité point l'attrait morbide, comme l'éjaculation conduit à une petite mort. Cette pulsion de vie dans laquelle couve la pulsion de mort est le nœud du psychisme de Drieu. L'enivrement dure peu car, ce 23 août, son régiment doit battre en retraite après une belle percée. Son ami André Jéramec, dont il épousera la sœur Colette, est tué. Drieu, lui, doit être évacué; un shrapnel l'a blessé à la tête; il est interné à l'hôpital de Deauville. Durant la Première Guerre mondiale, Drieu ne cessera les allers-retours entre le front et l'arrière, le combat et l'hôpital, les obus et les mondanités.
SYPHILIS, GALE ET DYSENTERIE
Le front, il en a deux autres expériences. Quelques mois après sa blessure, il passe sergent et retourne à l'avant, en Champagne, à l'automne 1914. Puis, il est envoyé dans le stratégique détroit ottoman des Dardanelles, pour un combat voué à l'échec. La promesse de l'exotisme oriental se fracasse vite contre la réalité. «J'ai des morpions que ma crasse engraisse. J'ai pioché et j'ai des ampoules. Mes muscles me font mal. J'ai soif tout le temps. Tondu et barbu, je suis laid. Je ne reçois pas de lettres. Je mourrai totalement ignoré», s'écrie le narrateur du Voyage des Dardanelles (1934). L'année 1915 est un cauchemar. Lorsqu'il revient en France, son corps est déliquescent. En sus de la syphilis, probablement contractée dans un bordel de Marseille d'où il est parti dans les Dardanelles, il revient avec la gale et la dysenterie - maladie qui le fait rapatrier. Surtout, la blessure est psychologique : l'insupportable sensation du corps souillé, à rebours du héros nietzschéen qu'il rêve d'incarner, contribuera à son affinité avec le fascisme dans lequel il retrouve l'obsession du corps pur, viril et athlétique.
Ce corps décadent rend aussi plus compliqué son rapport avec les femmes. Drieu, dont les tendances homosexuelles ont rejailli à plusieurs moments de son existence, a connu sa première expérience sexuelle peu avant la guerre. À 18 ans, il suit une femme dans la rue à qui il fait l'amour contre de l'argent dans un hôtel miteux. En plus, elle lui refile la «chaude-pisse»: une blennorragie. Dans ses Notes pour un Roman sur la Sexualité jamais publiées de son vivant, il confesse n'avoir connu aucune «femme propre» avant la guerre. Ce dégoût du corps n'empêche pas l'auteur de L'homme Couvert de Femmes d'accumuler les conquêtes autant dans les bordels qu'ailleurs. Obsédé par ces souillures, il songera à écrire une histoire de son corps.
En attendant, le voilà reparti au front. Et pas n'importe où: à Verdun. Il est à la pointe d'une contre-attaque lancée le 26 février 1916 par des «chefs derrière [...] chargés de déverser des trains de viande dans le néant» (Le Lieutenant des Tirailleurs, 1934). L'expérience est atroce. «Qui n'a vu le vide d'un champ de bataille moderne ne peut rien soupçonner du malheur perfide qui est tombé sur les hommes et qui anéantira l'Europe», prophétise Drieu. Le jeune homme de 23 ans est au milieu d'un «pays lunaire, où les volcans pressaient les gueules béantes les unes contre les autres» et où «toute la ligne était calomniée par la continuelle diatribe que vomissaient dix mille bouches noires». L'artillerie fait pleuvoir une pluie de ferraille sur le champ de bataille peuplé par des fantassins aux pantalons souillés par la colique. Quand, soudain, «l'univers éclata. L'obus arriva et je sus qu'il arrivait. Énorme, gros comme l'univers.» Un obus qui lui arrache un hurlement. «J'allais mourir; j'étais au fin fond du monde» (Le Lieutenant des Tirailleurs). Drieu est gravement touché au bras et il perd un tympan. Après un jour de combat, il est évacué comme à Charleroi. Mais, cette fois-ci, sa blessure est plus importante. On le reverse en décembre 1916 dans le service auxiliaire.
«DES MASSES DE FERRAILLE DANS LA TÊTE»
De cette journée d'enfer, qui clôt ses expériences du feu, Drieu garde deux marques indélébiles: l'impression de profonde absurdité de la Grande Guerre, dont le titre même de La Comédie de Charleroi témoigne, et l'horreur moderne de ces combats de fer, qu'il oppose à la grandeur de l'affrontement chevaleresque. «On fabrique des masses de ferraille dans les usines, et puis on se les jette à la tête, de loin sans se regarder et en geignant. [...] Nous sommes loin de la guerre décrite par Joinville ou même par Montluc», regrette-t-il dans Le Lieutenant des Tirailleurs; comme dans La Comédie de Charleroi: «Et cette guerre est mauvaise, qui a vaincu les hommes. Cette guerre moderne, cette guerre de fer et non de muscles. Cette guerre de science et non d'art. Cette guerre d'industrie et de commerce. [...] Cette guerre de généraux et non de chefs. [...] Cette guerre faite par tout le monde, sauf par ceux qui la faisaient. Cette guerre de civilisation avancée. [...] Il faut que l'homme apprenne à maîtriser la machine, qui l'a outrepassé dans cette guerre - et maintenant l'outrepasse dans la paix.» Cette haine de la civilisation décadente des machines le conduira à voir dans le fascisme un renouveau souhaitable. Avec Socialisme Fasciste, publié en 1934, Drieu est le premier intellectuel français à se revendiquer de cette idéologie. Trois ans plus tard, il adhère au Parti populaire français (PPF) du futur collaborationniste Jacques Doriot.
En quittant Verdun, Drieu renoue avec l'autre Grande Guerre. La douce, celle des bourgeois de derrière, dans un contraste vertigineux qu'il évoque au début de son roman phare, Gilles (1939). Le personnage empruntant des traits de l'auteur arrive à Paris pour une permission, un soir d'hiver 1917. Gilles se rend au Maxim's pour boire un verre de champagne. Et revit: «Il but, et tout le délice de ce premier soir coula dans ses veines. Il était au chaud, au milieu de corps vivants, bien habillés, propres, rieurs; il était dans la paix.» Une paix où les femmes «ignoraient absolument cet autre royaume aux portes de Paris, ce royaume de troglodytes sanguinaires». Gilles, comme Drieu, «avait faim des femmes, [...] de paix, de jouissance, de facilité, de luxe». Durant cette année 1917, Drieu se perd dans des soirées de débauche au Maxim's et au bordel pour oublier, exorciser l'enfer du front. Son ami, l'écrivain Maurice Martin du Gard, raconte qu'au Maxim's Drieu se rappelle avec nostalgie ses années d'avant-guerre, les souvenirs peuplés de camarades tombés. Sa débauche est une fuite en avant qui préfigure celle que vivra, avec lui, la France des «années folles» pour conjurer le douloureux souvenir. Une France qu'Aragon décrit dans Aurélien (1944), double romanesque de Drieu, son ami surréaliste devenu adversaire fasciste. Colette Jéramec a affirmé que son ancien époux lisait Aurélien le jour de son suicide, le 15 mars 1945.
UN CADAVRE QUI S'APPELLE DRIEU
1917 n'est pas seulement une nouvelle expérience de l'arrière faite de soirées et de femmes; c'est une année rendue majeure par deux événements. Le premier est le mariage avec Colette Jéramec. Cette union est à l'image du rapport torturé de Drieu aux femmes. Elle représente ce qu'il abhorre car elle est une juive issue de la grande bourgeoisie d'affaires. Colette a été sa confidente depuis leur rencontre à l'été 1913, mais le mariage - non consommé - n'est pas heureux. Myriam, que Gilles épouse, est une représentation à peine voilée de Colette contre laquelle Drieu excite par la plume son antisémitisme et son dégoût d'une femme honnie. Mais il sait en profiter. Colette, qu'il trompe dès le début, lui donne 500 000 francs avec lesquels il mène une vie de luxe: tailleurs prisés, cabarets chics, restaurants à la mode... Ce mariage, lui permettant une vie bourgeoise qu'il exècre en idéologie, place Drieu face à ses contradictions et lui fournit un thème littéraire qu'il ne cessera d'exploiter: outre Myriam (Gilles), Lydia (Le Feu Follet) et Béatrice (Drôle de Voyage) captent son goût refoulé des femmes fortunées.
1917 marque aussi son entrée en littérature. Interrogation, un recueil de poèmes sur la guerre, paraît à l'automne chez Gallimard. Trois ans plus tôt, il avait écrit un premier texte, à l'hôpital de Deauville. Mais il ne fut jamais publié : il l'avait oublié dans un train. En 1920, Drieu reprend, avec un nouveau recueil de poèmes, Fond de Cantine, le thème de la Grande Guerre. A-t-il vraiment le choix? «Du jour au lendemain, la guerre me remplit du besoin impérieux de crier, de chanter», confesse-t-il dans l'inédit Débuts Littéraires, en 1943. La guerre le hante et devient le moteur de son œuvre, car il en est mort comme tous ceux de la génération des «20 ans en 14». De la pulsion de vie mystique du 23 août 1914 à Charleroi, il ne reste qu'un cadavre. Et ce cadavre, qui s'appelle Drieu, voudra croire au surréalisme dans les années 20, au fascisme dans les années 30, un temps au stalinisme à la fin de la guerre, puis, faisant le constat de ses fuites en avant, se suicidera. L'avant-veille de ce 23 août déjà, enfermé dans un cabanon, harassé par des jours de marche sous le soleil de plomb, Drieu ôte sa chaussure pour placer son orteil sur la gâchette de son fusil chargé et regarde le trou du canon. «Je tâtai ce fusil, cet étrange compagnon à l'œil crevé, dont l'amitié n'attendait qu'une caresse pour me brûler jusqu'à l'âme» (La Comédie de Charleroi). L'arrivée d'un camarade fit cesser la contemplation.
Toute sa vie, Drieu est resté dans la tranchée. «Nous y sommes encore dans ce trou, nous n'en sommes jamais repartis», jure-t-il dans La Comédie de Charleroi, pourtant écrit vingt ans après la guerre. De ce nihilisme profond, qui rejaillit sur toute son œuvre, Le Feu Follet (1931), narrant la marche d'Alain vers le suicide, prospère sur son attraction de la mort. Pour trouver une issue à son obsession de la décadence, cette mort de la société, il fut prêt à verser dans des croyances qui, de Breton à Staline en passant par Hitler, lui ont donné l'espoir d'un renouveau. Toutes furent des impasses. Et c'est ainsi que se dénoue - peut-être - avec la Grande Guerre l'énigme des engagements paradoxaux de Drieu. Dans quelques mots, écrits en 1934 sur ses souvenirs de Verdun: «Je sentais cela. Je sentais l'Homme mourir en moi.»
Fonte:
http://philitt.fr/2015/03/15/drieu-la-rochelle-la-petite-mort-dans-la-grande-guerre
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImX8h9r27B8
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq3003200130.htm
OPEN DEMOCRACY
30 June 2014
The 'White Feather Girls': women's militarism in the UK
(Nicoletta F. Gullace)
The suffrage movement was split by the Great War. Most often remembered are the pacifists. But the militant history of feminist war supporters in Britain, and the audacity of the 'White Feather Girls' who shamed young men into enlisting, must also be remembered in this centenary year.
In 1914 and '15, notorious bands of women roamed the cities of England giving white feathers of cowardice to men wearing civilian clothes. Why would so-called 'white feather girls' wish to humiliate men not in uniform? This question has puzzled feminists for 100 years, since the first feathers of World War I were pinned to the lapels and hatbands of young men by disdainful flappers wishing them to enlist in the army. The 'White Feather Brigade' was established in Folkstone by Admiral Charles Penrose Fitzgerald, an ardent war-supporter who wished to see Britain institute mandatory military service. His idea spread through the country with astonishing rapidity. As young women combed beaches, high streets, trams, theaters, and places of resort, pinning tiny white feathers to men casually strolling or socializing with their friends, they sent shock waves through society. Not only were those men pinned with the mocking 'Order of the White Feather' profoundly humiliated, but commentators began to decry the immodesty of forward young women who had the audacity to insult perfect strangers and tell men what to do. Remarkably, the recollections of male victims suggest that they continued to feel this stain upon their honor well into old age. Why would women use their sexual power to shame men into the army when their pacifist sisters were meeting, organizing, and in 1915, braving great danger to travel to The Hague, with precisely the opposite aim: to stop the war?
The Order of the White Feather raises interesting questions about women's response to the Great War. For pacifist feminists, ranging from Sylvia Pankhurst to Virginia Woolf, as well as the many rank and file members of the Women's International League of Peace and Freedom, the obvious feminist position on war was to be against it. Yet, to fully understand the dynamics behind the white feather campaign, we need to recognize the range of both feminist and feminine response to war and to examine why those militarist women who supported the conflict might have chosen the path they did.
The Great War split the feminist movement with seismic violence. Despite a multiplicity of philosophical differences among pre-war suffragists, most had been united in their opposition to war. Yet, in 1915, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) - Britain's largest suffrage organization - expelled its pacifist members as Millicent Fawcett admonished her followers to 'show ourselves worthy of citizenship, whether our claim to it be recognized or not.' Meanwhile, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) turned itself into a junta of pro-war militants, distinguished by an enthusiasm for war that rivalled the radical right. Indeed, the confluence between the ideology of the WSPU and the actions of the white feather girls was so striking that Christabel Pankhurst's pacifist sister, Sylvia, even surmised that the two groups were one and the same. While the extraordinary war enthusiasm of both the WSPU and the white feather girls has made them objects of peculiar, and often horrified, curiosity, uncovering the sources of their radical nationalism offers insight into the pro-war sentiments of many more moderate women who, during World War I, repudiated the pacifist cause.
Why would feminists split over the question of peace, a value that had once stood at the heart of the suffrage movement? First, the representation of the war itself was carefully designed to appeal to women. The brutal German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 was immediately characterized as a 'rape', and graphic images of sexual assault and the torture of women and children began to pour out of the occupied territories, gaining primacy as Britain's ostensible reason for entering the war. The 'Rape of Belgium' brought forth evocative images of women in danger and electrified world opinion in favor of a war with complex causes that were difficult for feminists to oppose.
As pacifism grew in power after the war, atrocity stories were increasingly cast into doubt. If accounts of German 'barbarism' had little basis in reality, the slaughter of millions of idealistic young men appeared catastrophic and senseless. While new scholarship suggests that the Germans terrorized invaded populations and precipitated a refugee crisis of enormous magnitude, the invention of 'propaganda' as a sociological concept in the 1930s nevertheless fostered the growing reputation of World War I as a futile waste of life. If we consider that the feminist militarists of World War I believed what they read in the press, and that more of it was true than we once believed, their nationalism becomes more comprehensible. For many feminists who supported the Government war effort, the enemy was not the British military state, but the militarized masculinity of a rapacious German Army.
The war also opened up a host of opportunities for women. The Pankhursts sponsored gigantic parades demanding female admittance to union jobs, while engaging in a theatrical strike-breaking campaign in the North, where they argued that women workers would never 'down tools'. Similarly, the NUWSS raised and equipped women's ambulance corps and hospital units, many of which were shipped to the front in an enduring spectacle of women's bravery, patriotism, and capacity to aid in righteous war. As Radclyffe Hall's fictional Stephen Gordon recognized, for many 'odd' women, competent, strong, and in Stephen's case lesbian, the war finally offered a sense of true purposefulness.
Shrewd feminists like Pankhurst and Fawcett realized that patriotic sacrifice could greatly enhance women's claim to citizenship as well. When the issue of franchise reform reemerged in 1916, the case for women's suffrage was far more difficult to oppose. Not only were women loyally supporting the war effort, making munitions, and doing jobs formerly done by enfranchised men, but many were risking their lives as doctors, nurses, and ambulance drivers at the front. As press campaigns pilloried un-enlisted 'shirkers', they simultaneously praised women for their valiant contributions. Indeed, the Representation of the People Bill of 1918 not only re-enfranchised soldiers, but included female householders over thirty, under aged veterans, and military nurses, while disenfranchising conscientious objectors for seven years. Patriotism, rather than sex, was the new qualification for the vote.
Surely, however, such arguments meant little to the bands of teenage girls hopping cheekily onto buses and trams to offer white feathers. That many of them were slapped, pinched, knocked down or - most mortifyingly of all - confronted with a handless stump or footless leg, attached to a disabled veteran who had inadvertently been given a feather, should surely have dissuaded them from this irritating hobby. Why then did they continue to give out white feathers, even after the adoption of conscription in 1916? For some, the act was clearly a gesture of liberation and a moment of excitement and fun. One veteran claimed that he would go to the theatre district in the hope of getting a feather and then make off with the 'feather girl' once he had revealed he was a soldier. Stories in women's magazines played on this trope, offering fictional tales of white feather girls whose 'pluck' brought them into the arms of a heroic VC. As music hall stars sang 'We don't want to lose you but we think you ought to go', and posters like 'Women of Britain, SAY GO!' shouted from hoardings, daring girls felt increasingly entitled to echo these themes to the flesh-and-blood men lingering in their midst.
If some women were looking for a bit of fun as they policed the boundaries of acceptable masculine behavior, others were clearly just angry at those men who refused to serve. The contempt many white feather-givers felt for the un-enlisted can be read in the anonymous letters that were often enclosed with a feather sent through the mail. A Bath railway porter was invited by a girl scout troop to come join them, as washer up; a conscientious objector seeking exemption was called a 'trench dodger' and a 'chicken heart', while an underage boy was sent a feather and told to wear 'a frilly white dress'. For women, some of whom had probably been subject to harassment or hoots from men as they travelled on trams or walked home from work, the opportunity to harass and shame men in return must have been somewhat tempting.
Sadly, women had more to gain from supporting the war than from opposing it. As feminist pacifists were pilloried as 'cranks', and Sylvia Pankhurst found herself pelted with paint and rotten fruit by angry soldiers who objected to her peace meetings, militarists like Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst became darlings of the conservative press and even received the coupon of coalition endorsement when Christabel stood for Parliament in the famous Khaki Election of 1918. Partial though the suffrage victory was, it opened the door to an equal franchise ten years later, and temporarily eclipsed the achievements of those women who had striven for peace.
As the guns quieted in November 1918, and the war receded into a nightmarish memory for those who served, the price of the dead hardly seemed worth the chimerical victory consolidated at Versailles. Haunted by the apparent futility of the Great War, we as feminists have understandably celebrated our pacifist sisters while conveniently forgetting the militant history of those feminist war-supporters who helped force open the door of the parliamentary vote. Only if we understand them too - with their calculation, their boldness and their ability to win the approval of powerful men - will we recognize the allure of right wing causes for Conservative women who wish to share political power without challenging the social values that have helped bring about war.
Fonte:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/nicoletta-f-gullace/white-feather-girls-womens-militarism-in-uk
Mais:
http://1914centenary.com/2013/11/06/quaker-white-feather-diaries-explore-objections-to-war
http://docs.google.com/file/d/14ldmmHj9p7xALAtPRaPnIQwGCGzDqLPq (Saki)
Isadora Duncan
 |
DAILY MAIL
13 July 2012
Incredible pictures reveal the pioneering plastic surgery carried out on First World War facial gunshot victim by leading British surgeon
(Tom Goodenough)
His is the face of one of the very bravest of our ancestors and his scars pay testament to the horrors he endured in the trenches of the Great War.
But staring back from the camera, the pictures also demonstrate the work of the pioneering British plastic surgeon who attempted to help some of the men get their lives back after they had suffered terrible injuries.
Dr Harold Gillies is renowned for developing the first skin grafting and plastic surgery techniques to treat the World War One soldiers left wounded with severe facial disfigurements.
The physician performed some 11,000 operations at the Queen's Hospital in Sidcup, Kent, between 1917 and 1925.
And Dr Harold Gillies work was so groundbreaking that he eventually received a knighthood in 1930.
Until now, however, very little has been known about the family stories behind the surgeon's work.
But on the 130th anniversary of the surgeon's birth and 95th anniversary of the Sidcup hospital where plastic surgery began, details of the pioneering surgery have been released online.
The records are an index of the 2,328 soldiers who were treated at The Queen's Hospital during the war and in its aftermath, with information including their names, regiments, ranks and the injuries they sustained.
Debra Chatfield, family historian at findmypast.co.uk who are launching the files on their site, said Dr Harold Gillies work was inspiring: 'The medical world owes a great deal to Dr Gillies, as do those who were treated by him in the early twentieth century and anyone who has ever received plastic surgery treatment since then.
'Without his pioneering developments in this field, plastic surgery might not be as advanced as it is today.
'These records are an important source of information for historians, the medical world and those interested in learning about the reality and aftermath of World War I.'
Due to the sensitive nature of some of the medical information, many of the hospital records and individual photographs will not be published online.
However, those whose ancestors were injured in the First World War and underwent surgery can search the collection to see if they received treatment from Dr Gillies' team.
The index makes for fascinating reading, as it conveys the extent of facial disfigurements suffered by some soldiers and shows how quickly life could change for a soldier in the First World War.
One patient who can be found in the records was Richard Walker, a Private in the Royal Lancaster Regiment of the British contingent, 3rd battalion.
Aged only 20 years old, he was wounded on 23rd October 1918 and admitted to The Queen's Hospital with a 'gunshot wound lower lip' - a severe disfigurement that would require specialist attention if he were to go on to lead a normal life again.
Another example is William M. Spreckley, a Lieutenant from the Sherwood Foresters Service in the British contingent, 16th battalion.
He was Gillies' 132nd patient and was admitted to the hospital in January 1917 at the age of 33 with a 'gunshot wound nose'.
It was three-and-a-half years before doctors were able to discharge him in October 1920.
Dr Sam Alberti, Director of Museums & Archives at the Royal College of Surgeons, said the British surgeon was a 'founding figure in the history of plastic surgery':
'(He developed) innovative procedures to help reconstruct the faces of badly injured soldiers and airmen, whose facial injuries were caused by bullet wounds and flying shrapnel and needed extensive bone, muscle and skin grafting to restore their appearance.
'Most notably, Gillies introduced the tubed pedicle which used the patients' own tissue to aid reconstructive surgery and reduce the chance of rejection.
'The files associated with his work are an unparalleled resource for the study of this important branch of medicine and family history.'
* * *
Henry Pickerill and Harold Gillies: the changing faces of war
Harold Gillies and Henry Pickerill's pioneering treatment of soldiers with facial wounds during the First World War helped form the basis of modern plastic and facial reconstructive surgery. Gillies was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, and made a career in England; Pickerill was born in England and became the first director of the University of Otago's dental school in Dunedin. During the First World War the two served at Queen Mary's Hospital at Sidcup, Kent, a specialist hospital for facial injuries, where Gillies led the British section and Pickerill the New Zealand section. The two men were highly competitive and Pickerill, in particular, refused to acknowledge his Kiwi colleague's contribution. But they each contributed to the development of plastic surgery.
- - -
Pickerill took leave from the university in 1916 to join the New Zealand Dental Corps. Arriving in England in March 1917, he transferred to the New Zealand Medical Corps and established a unit for the treatment of facial and jaw injuries at No. 2 New Zealand General Hospital at Walton-on-Thames in Surrey.
- - -
Gillies was 32 years old when war was declared. He volunteered for the Red Cross and in 1915 joined a Belgian ambulance unit as a commissioned officer. While serving in France, Gillies became aware of the many soldiers suffering jaw and facial wounds. On his return to the United Kingdom, he persuaded the military authorities to establish a specialist ward for facial injuries at Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot.
On 1 July 1916 the Somme offensive took place and, although the hospital had been allocated an extra 200 beds, it was overwhelmed when 2000 patients turned up - 'a stream of wounded, men with half their faces literally blown to pieces, with the skin left hanging in shreds and the jawbones crushed to a pulp that felt like sand under your fingers.'
- - -
It was decided to create a purpose-built facility for soldiers with facial injuries - Queen Mary's Hospital at Sidcup in Kent, which opened in July 1917 with around 300 beds. Its capacity was quickly increased to 560 beds, but eventually nearby hospitals and private houses were also pressed into service. Some of the benches in Sidcup were painted blue, indicating that they were for patient use only - and to warn the public that they might be occupied by someone who was distressing to look at.
Gillies, in command of the hospital, decided to open it to soldiers and staff from Britain's dominions, and to divide it into units. The British section was led by Gillies and the New Zealand section by Major Henry Pickerill.
RESTORING FACES
The two major innovations that Gillies introduced were the tubedpedicle method and the epithelial outlay technique for reconstructing eyelids. He famously trialled both procedures on 20-year-old Able Seaman Willie Vicarage, who had been badly burnt in an explosion during the battle of Jutland in 1916. Tube pedicles were created by cutting out a flap of healthy skin from the chest, shaping it into a tube, then attaching it to the graft area on the face. This resulted in a 'pipeline' of living tissue with a good blood supply, and it also closed off the graft area to infection. Gillies developed the eyelid technique after worrying about Vicarage, who had to spend all night during an air-raid trying to sleep with his eyes open because his lids had been burnt off.
The New Zealand section, led by Pickerill, treated over 200 New Zealand, British and other Commonwealth troops. Pickerill quickly earned a reputation as a first-class plastic and maxillofacial (jaw and face) surgeon. Supported by surgeons, dentists, anaesthetists and medical illustrators, he was part of a team that helped pioneer new techniques of tissue transfer, higher standards of hygiene to combat infection and new methods of administering anaesthesia.
For men missing parts of their face and jaw, treatment was a slow and gradual process, sometimes taking several years to complete. To avoid sepsis (blood infection), surgical procedures were carried out in stages. Depending on the severity of the wound, a patient at Sidcup could undergo as many as a dozen operations. Pickerill kept meticulous records of his section's work. Photographs, watercolour sketches, diagrams and wax models recorded each stage of treatment.
RIVALRY
Pickerill and Gillies enjoyed a 'healthy' rivalry at Sidcup. Both men had strong personalities and this led to differences of opinion on occasions. After the war, Pickerill and Gillies jealously guarded their reputations by claiming ownership of developments and techniques pioneered at the hospital.
- - -
Pickerill, his team and 59 patients returned to New Zealand in 1919, where treatment continued at the facial and jaw department of Dunedin Hospital. Pickerill also resumed his position as dean of the dental school. Later he decided to specialise in plastic surgery - first in Sydney, then in Wellington and Auckland, and finally at Bassam Hospital in Lower Hutt, which he and his second wife, Cecily, also a surgeon, established in 1939. It specialised in treating cleft lips and palates in children. He died in 1956.
- - -
After the war, Gillies continued to perform reconstructive surgery and also pioneered transgender and cosmetic surgery. He was awarded a knighthood in 1930, before returning to medical service during the Second World War. In 1946 he was elected the first president of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons.
[...] He was never good at saving, which is why he was unable to retire after the Second World War, and he kept working until shortly before his death on 10 September 1960. He was 78 years old.
HIDDEN TRACK: http://drive.google.com/file/d/17TTCQezip7PycAdAOSwX0HNy3DxUyFDT
Fontes:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173166/Pioneering-plastic-surgery-First-World-War.html
http://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/video/pickerill-and-gillies-great-war-story
Mais:
http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/great-war-stories-gillies-pickerill-2014
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gueules_cassées
http://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-birthplace-of-plastic-surgery/3814
