Passchendaele

[sp1814]

I don't want to offend anyone, and I am not being flippant - but I've literally never heard of this before.

There are rememberance ceremonies going on today - but the Battle of Passchendaele isn't something that (I suspect) my generation really know about.

Is this a notable event in WW1? Am I just uneducated in this, or have others been taken by surprise?

[mikey4444]

TTT....yes and the Tory Party Conference....the one where Mrs May might be stabbed in the back at !

[sp1814]

TTT

Yep - this is all brand new information.

I know about the D Day landings, Dunkirk, Ypres, Gallipoli, but Passchendaele is not something I've ever heard of before.

[ToraToraTora]

well they were mostly teaching the kids to hate TGL to be bothered with trifling details like why they were safe to teach them to hate her.

[sp1814]

I'm going to ask the 30 and 40 somethings at work tomorrow. I wonder whether this is a product of my school, or a generational thing.

[Zacs-Master]

To be honest, I think I've only heard of it because my daughter went on a school trip.

[mikey4444]

TTT....what ?

[jourdain2]

My 'A' level History course stopped at the outbreak of WW1 (I know quite a lot about Disraeli's foreign policy). My parents did not talk much about their lives during WW2. Since then I have learned such a lot. I had to teach WW1 & 2, so learned a lot (had the Eng.Lit. poetry background). I have learned a lot more since marrying Mr. J2 (was evacuated twice). People need to care about their history as well as about their future.

[sp1814]

mikey4444

I'll translate:

well they were mostly teaching the kids to hate TGL to be bothered with trifling details like why they were safe to teach them to hate her.

means:

Well they were mostly teaching kids to hate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (TGL = The Glorious Leader) to be bothered with teaching them how men and women fought in the two world wars to guarantee their freedoms which they abuse by slating the PM.

Is that about right TTT?

[sherrardk]

What I know about history could be written on the back of a stamp. There's children leaving school who can't read, write or add up. Schools are fighting a losing battle without covering every nuance of British history.

[mikey4444]

Jourdain2...." those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" perhaps ?

[jim360]

I stopped studying history at school in year 9 (age 14). Didn't stop me from learning about it, but I can't comment on what specifics were taught from then on. However, my impression from those who did carry on with the subject spent more time in history lessons learning how to be historians, rather than about history specifically.

Also, it seems to me that, in as much as anyone can ever learn about the horrors of life in the trenches of WWI from a book, does it matter if they learned about those at Passchendaele specifically? Or perhaps they learned about it under a different name? Passchendaele and the Third Battle of Ypres are one and the same; Flanders, which I expect sp *has* heard of, is also pretty much the same place. "In Flanders Fields" is one of the poems I *did* come across while at school, and while that dates from 1915 it was still written by a soldier serving at Ypres, and I don't think many children can have missed that one. Similarly Dulce et Decorum Est was part of the curriculum.

My expectation, anyway, is that these days the war is taught not as a list of locations, dates, and facts and figures, but as an experience, or as an attempt to describe what it was like to *live* at the time. I don't know how successful such attempts can ever be, but it's maybe not so bad an approach and I don't think it loses anything compared to teaching names and dates of particular battles.

[Peter Pedant]

would anyone go to Amerikee and say

this so called Civil War - it all seems such a long time ago - I mean 1865 - today is 2017-so that is 2017 minus 1865 which is 45 and 17 o god my maff has gone to pot o and a hundred. - I did do it at skool you know.
And let me say - it doesnt sound very Civil to me !

sixties - most people did periods 5 and 6 - 1760-1914
causes of the first world war but no battles

when did I first learn of the holocaust
nuremberg war crimes trials - have always been in my memory - it was a very large POW camp ( 250k) - you know where the rallies were.
Hermann Goering finger pointed at the Brits and said "you havent prosecuted me for unrestricted aerial bombing of civil populations because you were doing that yourselves!"

an american chief justice had down-sized to (american) prosecutor
and made a complete mess of Goerings examination

[mikey4444]

Jim....I have met teenagers that weren't even sure who was on which side during WW1 and 2 !

[jim360]

To be fair, I don't think the Italians knew which side they were on in most of WWII either.

[Cloverjo]

Jim: //my impression from those who did carry on with the subject spent more time in history lessons learning how to be historians, rather than about history specifically. // yes, that was exactly my point earlier.

TTT and Jourdain, we did study the war poets in English, so I know Dulce et Decorum Est and others.

[jourdain2]

I'm rubbish at dates, jim. But people need to know, generally. mikey is right 'those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it'.
I am quite alarmed because I can see so many parallels with the arms races etc.

[Mamyalynne]

I don't really see the point in getting on someone's case for something they didn't know - for whatever reason.

Surely it's good that now a new swathe of knowledge has come to light for SP thanks to this wonderfully handled Commemoration.

There are bound to be gaping gaps in my knowledge base too depending on whether older family members spoke of things or they were in the curriculum.

We never stop learning.

[Peter Pedant]

//Jourdain2...." those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" perhaps ?//

no Jourdain apparently some french writer said,

"zere is only one lesson from History and zat is there are no lessons from History"
Maurois / Mauriac /maurras - you dont have any idea who it might be do you ? - hey good one doncha agree Jim ?

(I also like Mme de Maintenon - ze more I see of men: ze better I like dogs)

[jim360]

yes, saw that after I'd posted cj -- took a while to write that post and a few people had posted in the meantime.

[jourdain2]

clover-jo I'm not specifically an historian (although I was proud to hear myself described as one) I qualified in English/Art (with History of Art) and History.