First World War: Commemorations

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Black, has initiated a thoughtful and timely debate. I congratulate him on doing so and on his excellent speech. In my view, George Butterworth was a most wonderful composer. I can hardly bear to think what he might have written on the evidence of what we still have. The noble Lord mentioned the Imperial War Museum. I often just walk around it because, strangely, it has the same moving effect on me as going to war graves in various locations. Doing so is to be reminded of those sacrifices, which was a very painful thing indeed. In fact, I congratulate the Government and the organisers of the many memorable events that have taken place over the past year.

I have to say, though, that what the debate has most inspired in me, as I suspect it has in many noble Lords, is very mixed emotions. It is hard to approach this subject without discomfort. If we listen to and look at the substance of the work of First World War writers, painters and musicians, we must heed a very serious note of warning. As we witnessed the extraordinary display of poppies at the Tower, and another moving ceremony on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month at the Cenotaph, a profound sense of grief and admiration for those who fell was, for me, peppered by a sense of the anger that fuelled so much of the creativity of the Great War: in the pictures of Paul Nash, Sargent and Lewis, in the writings of Housman, Kipling, Owen, Sassoon and Brooke, and in the influence of their words on subsequent generations of, for instance, composers like Britten and Tippett.

As we salute what we refer to as the nobility of the dead—we even say “the Glorious Dead”—I fear we must realise that those artists who actually saw action, and often died in it, could not find nobility or glory in the terrible, terrible waste that was born too frequently of arrogance, incompetence and foolhardiness. They wanted us to learn the lesson that I fear, arguably, politicians have failed to learn: strength and discipline are admirable qualities, but so too are humility and understanding. The two world wars, without doubt, had to be fought. However, in recent BBC programmes we have learnt not only that profoundly shell-shocked soldiers were executed but that distinguished military men have begun to acknowledge that, in much more recent conflicts, hubris and ill prepared adventures have forced them into situations where they now feel that they must beg the terrible question, “Was it worth the cost?”. Or, to borrow from Wilfred Owen:

“Was it for this the clay grew tall”?

“All a poet can do”, he said, “is warn”.