CAN I HAVE A DO-OVER ?

Today, the 26^th July is an anniversary of three events which took place 85 years ago in 1936. They were related to the Spanish Civil war which had kicked off some 8 days earlier in Southern Spain and what was then Spanish Morocco on the 17th July 1936. The fascist military coup had begun. On the 26^th July, Germany and Italy declared that they would intervene in support of Francisco Franco and the Nationalist faction, whilst on the same day in Prague an international communist conference decided to raise an international brigade of 5000 men and a fund of 1 billion francs to help the Republican Government. Italy went on to send some 50,000 troops and Germany another 16,000, whilst the International Brigades made up some 59,000.

 

Meanwhile on the same day at Givenchy-en-Gohelle not far from Vimy in the Pas de Calais, France, a new King Edward VIII unveiled the Canadian National Vimy War Memorial dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Forces killed in the First World War. The monument is the centrepiece of a preserved battlefield park that encompasses a portion of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault during the initial Battle of Vimy Ridge offensive of the Battle of Arras in 1917. The unveiling took place in the presence of then French President Albert Lebrun, a crowd of over 50,000 people and some 6,200 Canadian citizens.

 

 

 

The years between 1935 and 1939 were pretty turbulent times, what with the Italian Invasion of Ethiopia, the Japanese invasion of China, the Soviet-Japanese border conflicts, the general malaise in Europe, with concessions to Hitler and the Munich Agreement, etc. As to the events in Spain, the Spanish Civil War officially ended on the 1^st April 1939. It had been a training ground for the German Air Force and Army, as well as the Italian Army. During the almost 3 years of that conflict, some 455,000 people were killed.  Five months later on the 1^st September 1939 Hitler’s armies invaded Poland, which expanded worldwide and led to the death of some 70 to 85 million people.

 

As to Edward VIII, he abdicated in December of that year and in 1937, he and his new wife paid a social call to Berchtesgaden as Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

 

I am not sure what one can make of the bizarre nature of human activity, that on the one hand has crowds of people ready to commemorate the lives, or rather the deaths of people who gave their lives for what they believed was the preservation of freedom and democracy, and on the other hand, light a torch that escalated to the death of some 9 million people a year over 9 years of conflict.

 

What I can say is that the Duke of Windsor, on arrival at the pearly gates, must have pleaded for a do-over. He clearly didn’t get one.