“Somebody should visit John’s grave”. A vivid childhood memory is hearing my granny urging that a family member pay respects at her brother’s grave in France. It was 1969 and John had been dead for 51 years, but she often reminisced of how he was killed on 15 October 1918. He had been serving Mass in the trenches as poison gas wafted onto the miserable congregation, closely followed by German soldiers with bayonets. “Poor John”, granny would say, “killed just weeks before the end of the Great War”.
Sixteen years after she died in 1970 some of the family did visit the grave. John Magee of the Enniskillen Fusiliers is buried in Terlincthun Cemetery near Boulogne. The clean white block of Portland stone bearing his name records that he died of “wounds and gas” on 15 October 1918.
My family has only one photo that still exists of John. Brown and wrinkled with age, it was taken in Belfast during the summer of 1918 when he returned to his County Down farm in Northern Ireland on leave. After describing the terrible conditions in the trenches, some in the family suggested he shouldn’t return, but the photo shows a man resigned to re-embarking for France. Dressed in his uniform, seated beside a brother and sister smiling into the camera, he stares solemnly.
I don’t recall my granny perceiving John’s death as anything other than a personal and family tragedy. He wasn’t a dead hero. He was simply dead.
Around 900,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed in the First World War, affecting, ‘every family, every village, every town’. In fact, John was one of the world’s first victims of chemical warfare. But he should have been protected by an international agreement, made at The Hague in 1899, which prohibited the use of projectiles filled with poison gas. Despite it, 1915 saw the first large scale use of chemical agents on the World War I battlefields in Belgium. By 1918, the use of over 100,000 tonnes of toxic chemicals during the war had resulted in the deaths of 90,000 soldiers and had caused more than a million casualties. Warring parties to this day often ignore international law.
As we remember John and the millions like him on Remembrance Sunday, particularly in our churches, I wonder whether the commemorations truly pay tribute to them. Are their perspectives on war acknowledged? Have we as a society learnt from their experiences? The Wilfred Owen poem ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ describes the death throes of a Great War soldier choked by gas and his final journey in “the wagon we flung him in”. It could have been John. “If you could hear at every jolt, the blood come gargling from froth-corrupted lungs,” says Owen “you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory, the old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country).
The churches tend to support the establishment view that war is a necessary means for resolving problems. Does the predominance of men in positions of power in the religious as well as in the political sphere have something to do with this? Christian peace organisations such as Pax Christi and the Fellowship of Reconciliation have banged on for decades promoting peace education and alternatives to war. Yet, still in our churches we remember the dead whilst endorsing the view that today’s young people would be doing something worthwhile and good if they were to be prepared to participate in violence on behalf of the state. We thank God for the sacrifice of the dead soldiers. We don’t mention the witness of conscientious objectors.
Nor do we mention Britain’s role as a leading player in arms trading which fuels current wars, and the dead civilians who comprise at least 80 per cent of the casualties of modern war. The dead soldiers are presented as victims, but victims of the militarism of foreign powers, not as victims caught up in the global entrancement with war.
When I reflect on the security of my country, I feel most concern about the impact of climate change, diminishing biodiversity and polluted rivers and seas on our small island home. Did you know that militaries are responsible for 5.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions? Wars and conflicts not only have a devastating impact on people’s lives, but also negatively affect the environment and contribute significantly to climate change.
Wars are not inevitable, says the Movement for the Abolition of War (MAW), which the late Bruce Kent helped to found. They happen as a result of the decisions of a few powerful people, require vast sums of money, the obedience of troops and money. The decisions could just as easily be made not to declare war, but to seek justice through the United Nations, International Court of Justice and International Criminal Courts. Then, according to MAW, the $1,000 billion per year military expenditure could be used instead to feed, house and educate all the peoples of this world. Wars these days carry massive social, economic and environmental costs. Indeed, an escalating nuclear conflagration could destroy life on the planet as we know it. Why, o why does the US government want to resume nuclear testing!
The Catholic movement to delegitimise weapons of mass destruction and war – Pax Christi – is supported by the Columbans. After all, five Columbans were killed during the Second World War in the Philippines, and seven during the Korean War in 1950. Columbans promote a culture of peace and nonviolence, supporting the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative in recent years. The Columban Peace Policy laments, “expansion of military presence around the world and the arms industry erodes at the culture of peace which Columbans work to cultivate.” Columbans in Britain helped to produce the DVD ‘Conflict and Climate Change’ and the accompanying study booklet.
There are many organisations and individuals – often faith-inspired – with a great deal of expertise in preventing and resolving conflict and in reconciliation work. Some have a strongly pacifist philosophy but most accept that a diverse range of skills, expertise and activities is needed to transform violent conflict, rebuild civil society and establish real security. They support the United Nations in its peacemaking mission. Peace activists are often portrayed as naive idealists, but, in my view, they are the realists. More than that, they are realists with a positive vision and a long-term perspective on what true security really is.
This Sunday, I’ll be wearing a white poppy – produced by the Peace Pledge Union – which not only recalls the war dead but symbolises the belief that there are better ways to resolve conflicts than the institution of war. The white poppy was created over 90 years ago by women who had lost loved ones in the First World War, and was then adopted by Canon Dick Sheppard who founded the Peace Pledge Union. Ever since then it has stood for remembrance of all victims of war, of all nationalities, as well as an active commitment to peace.
And I’ll probably attend the National Alternative Remembrance Ceremony in Tavistock Square, Central London, from 12 noon to 1pm. Speakers at this event, organised by the Peace Pledge Union, include Sir Mark Rylance – Oscar-winning actor, director, playwright and peace campaigner. Then, nearby, at 3pm, Movement for the Abolition of War is hosting its 2025 Remembrance Lecture ‘Ending Wars’. The speaker is Lord John Alderdice, Founding Director of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict in Oxford. All are welcome to attend both.
Wouldn’t a fresh commitment to peace – which involves no less than a paradigm shift in our collective thinking – be a fitting tribute to our war dead? Let’s continue dreaming of a world without war.
