Both the Battle of the Somme and the Nivelle offensive (the Battle of the
Chemin des Dames) illustrate the deadly dilemma of the western front. Each
can represent a score of similar, if less costly and less well-known encounters,
in which troops were thrown in hopeless attacks against powerful
defenses manned by a determined enemy. But in a war marked by futile
offensives, these two tragic encounters have come to symbolize the pain
and loss of the entire war for two nations. The Battle of the Somme is the
portion 6f the war's carnage that has held the British imagination most
tightly during the course of the entire century. For decades after July 1 , 1916,
for example, the Times of London published poignant memorial messages,
placed each year on the anniversary of the battle by the loved ones of
individuals who fell that awful morning.
For Frenchmen, the Battle of the "Chemin des Dames remained an
unbearably painful memory for decades. The futility and horror of the
Nivelle offensive were captured vividly in the 1 957 American film Paths of
Glory, which the French government did not permit—perhaps could not
permit—to be shown to its own people four decades after the tragedy. The
gripping battle scenes picture only French soldiers dying. The audience
never sees the implacable and well-entrenched enemy shooting them down.
In such ways is the war remembered by generations fortunate enough not
to have fought in it. War had indeed become modem, terribly so, with
faceless machines destroying all before them. In that way, these battles
became a metaphor not only for modem war but for the bmtality and
inhumanity of impersonal bureaucratic society, where, in the acid words of
Georges Clemenceau, it is the privilege of great men only to stand on the
terrace to observe the slaughter below.
World History
