Unknown Soldiers (Neil Hanson, 2005)

[Re-read for book club per my own selection, 2015.  Below is from original read in 2010.]

Another WWI book; these are increasingly compelling as I get a bit more familiar with the subject matter.

I found this particular book particularly powerful, particularly poignant. There's something about the (British) author's style. Systematic; detailed; matter-of-fact; he totally "gets it" that the subject matter is so intrinsically powerful that no hyperbole is required.

In many ways he is taking Remarque's approach in "All Quiet on the Western Front", but with a different story angle. With the same underlying, unspoken message that beyond all the rationalizations and pious memorials - and who can blame anyone for trying to make sense of this in the immediate aftermath - so much of this slaughter was nonsense.

He starts with the stories of three characters. Paul Hub's story is the most interesting - this poor German enlisted in the first days of the war; refused to marry his fiancee because he didn't want to leave a war widow behind; survived all the major hell-holes - amazing in itself (Verdun, the Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele); lost his only two brothers in combat in the first months of the war; relented after four years and was married while on a short leave; was killed when the Allies counterattacked against Germany's "Operation Michael" in spring/summer 1918; and all the while sent a steady stream of loving, personal, informative letters to his parents and fiance. His body was never found. She never remarried.

Second character was Alec Reader - British. Third was an American aviator - but he didn't have any letters to quote and was in the war only a few months, I think he was included here because his mother was involved in the founding of the Gold Star Mothers.

The author quotes extensively from Hub's letters in particular; also Reader's letters; works these into factual descriptions and excerpts from other letter-writers in a manner that really works.

Lots of matter-of-fact descriptions of trench life, shells.

The volume of shelling was just unbelievable. Supposedly 14 million shells at Verdun alone

Difficulties on the German home front - the British blockade made life extremely difficult. This is illuminated in the letters Hub received from home hoping he could track down basics like shoes, string, etc.

While the German army itself was weak with low supplies. When they swept over Allied trenches in Operation Michael - the good news was that they finally had chocolate, food, tobacco; the bad news was they realized their leaders had been constantly lying to them about how the Allies were starving (when the opposite was true). Germans were quickly pushed back.

The author then turned to the idea of remembering the war dead and covered this in detail - remembrances previously had not been done except for senior officer types. There was definitely a political calculus involved. No British bodies had been brought home - too dangerous to morale for stacks of coffins to show up. Literally millions of bodies unidentifiable.

The stories of the remembrances were far more compelling than expected - the Cenotaph in London; the tomb for the unknown warrior in Westminster. The planning - special seating for mothers who lost husband and all sons; mothers who lost all sons; and down the line. The unexpected outpouring of emotion; endless piles of wreaths (dwarfing the piles for the people's princess, it seems)

Hard to imagine the effect on those left behind in the countries with the biggest losses. America was at a definite distance.

And just look at the guys in the bottom photo . . .