First World War £2 Coin

[mushroom25]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2531850/Royal-Mint-unveils-2-coin-featuring-famous-image-Lord-Kitchener-commemorate-100th-anniversary-World-War-One.html

a fitting remembrance for the conflict? or an ill-judged design that sends all the wrong messages about how war is viewed in this country?

[VHG]

WW1 was probably worst (and most pointless) slaughter of humans in history.

It was also at a time when most of the generals and others leaders were from the "upper class" who had no thought about sending thousands of the "working class" to their death (though of course many "upper class" people also died).

So I think this is a TERRIBLE way to make a tribute to those that died in this awful war, showing an upper class leader asking for the working class to sign up.

Far better to show an "ordinary" soldier, one of the poor men who were sent over the top by leaders who did not seem to care.

[emmie]

i have an issue with the fact it's a 2 pound coin,
Churchill fought in the Boer war i believe, we revere him don't we...
not sure whether Kitchener was the best choice, i would have perhaps have chosen a poppy as the symbol most recognised, unless they did already

[emmie]

many young men from the upper, middle classes lost their lives in that war too, it wiped out whole rafts of our society, it changed this country for ever.
with it essentially went the hierarchical system, estate, land ownership and how we view the establishment of the times, church, Royalty, government

[emmie]

if you want one of the best books on this read no further than Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth, and any Siefried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen Poetry. its a misconception it was Tommy Atkins who alone went off to fight.
I think that we will have commemorations in one form or another for the next four years, long enough to reflect on that dreadful war.

[anotheoldgit]

It would be a great gesture if everyone gave one of these coins to the Help the Heroes fund.

[FredPuli43]

It remains true that a higher percentage of 'the officer class' than of the working class were killed. That may give the lie to any suggestion that the officer class, as a class, somehow avoided action.

You can hardly blame the generals for the war or for conducting it in the only way they knew how. Previous wars had not been anything like it. And none since has been like it, either.

What different views of war we do we have now? The only view that has changed since before the Great War is that, then ,warfare was seen as a justifiable part of foreign policy, sometimes at the expense of diplomacy. Hitler adhered to this old idea because he was set on expansion, but he was the last. Stalin merely took advantage of Hitler's defeat to expand unopposed by the West

[plowter]

Wasn't the Kitchener poster declared an urban myth?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10218932/Your-Country-Needs-You-The-myth-about-the-First-World-War-poster-that-never-existed.html

[emmie]

it was different not just because it was a world war, but one that was modern yet still played out by some like a cricket match at Eton, bonkers riding into battle on the back of a horse, whilst being shot at by Germans with machine guns. They had cavalry as did the French, but the needless slaughter on all sides was what marks it out as so horrendous. General Jack Seeley is another hero, he rode his horse Warrior and led his troops throughout the war, surviving until old age, a remarkable man, story.
But much of it was slog, mud, sludge, bog, disease, mustard gas, and gory death. No glory in that at all.

[jno]

about 30,000 people died in the concentration camps Kitchener set up in the Boer wars - mostly women and children.

After the battle of Omdurman in Sudan, Kitchener ordered thousands of wounded Arabs slaughtered. (Churchill, who was there, called this a disgrace).

And yet the controversy is ... tadaaa... whether Jane Austen should be on the £10 note.

[jno]

that's interesting, plowter

[tonyav]

I believe officers above the rank of Captain were not in the trenches.

[emmie]

think that was already pointed out at the beginning of this thread, whether to have him as a role model, on a coin. He was considered a hero then, and please don't forget that the British public would have largely been unaware of his role in that - unless it made front page news at the time. i doubt that it would have been.

[FredPuli43]

Plowter, that's interesting but your own link says that the same image, but with a differently worded slogan, was used during the war. So to say that this version with that famous wording was not used is a form of special pleading

[jno]

just curious about why putting mass killers on the money is uncontroversial yet putting female authors on a note creates storm of twittering outrage.

I can't see any point in commemorating 1914 at all. 1918, when it ended, is another matter.

[jno]

I don't know, FredPuli, I think the way words and pictures works together is part of what makes a poster; same picture with different words just isn't the same poster.

This seems to be the one as used

http://www.iwmshop.org.uk/images/prod_12784.jpg

[jno]

this is the original magazine cover, with the better known wording, but not a poster

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Kitchener_poster_by_Alfred_Leete.jpg

[emmie]

i can see the point, many of our ancestors died in that mass slaughter, it's not a celebration but a remembrance.

as to those in the trenches i would say that those going over the top to lead their men must have been over the rank of Captain, i have always believed so, they certainly led them on charges out on the battlefield.
Vera Brittain lost her fiancée , brother and most of their friends,
they were from the middle class, well to do families.

[emmie]

some have queried it about Kitchener, that is the point of the post, as to killer, wouldn't you say the same about any General that led an army, Custer, Patton, Eisenhower, Montgomery, and more besides, they may not have rounded them all up, but we don't know what others have done, as they may not have been recorded, or were considered noteworthy.

[tonyav]

Emmie, they put a stop on officers going over the top first, 1915 I think, they were losing to many officers.

[emmie]

i will look into that, as that has never been my understanding, but you are right about losing the officers, as been pointed out. first one up, blow the whistle, sniper takes them out, or get a few week and gone, it must have been hell.