by Matt Symes | Apr 9, 2014 | LCSC, War & Society Web Series
This post originally appeared on Canadianmilitaryhistory.ca in December 2012. In September 2012 I was fortunate enough to have the rewarding experience of visiting the battlefields of the First World War in northern France. It was a trip I had planned throughout my...
by Matt Symes | Jan 10, 2013 | LCSC, War & Society Web Series
“The Fuhrer has decided to raze the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth. After the defeat of Soviet Russia there will be not the slightest reason for the future existence of this large city […] It is proposed to blockade the city and by means of artillery...
by Matt Symes | Dec 9, 2012 | LCSC, War & Society Web Series
“I don’t give a damn about my duty as a poet,” Keith Douglas wrote in 1943. Instead, he argued, his only object was “to write true things, significant things” that can be read as “significant speech.” This defiant approach led Douglas away from the compassion of Owen...
by Matt Symes | Nov 8, 2012 | LCSC, War and Society
I can still remember exactly the way my stomach dropped when I stepped through the gates into Sucrerie Cemetery. Arthur Manuel Hall is the only soldier I knew anything about before arriving in France and he is buried there. I came on the Cleghorn Battlefield Study...
by Matt Symes | Nov 3, 2012 | LCSC, War & Society Web Series
One year ago, I had a very rich, though unexpected experience in France over Remembrance Day. I was in Péronne at the Historial de la Grande Guerre for a conference on “Future Wars, Imagined Wars [Guerres futures, guerres imaginées].” The conference...
