Why 2014 marks a happy centenary
These are images that are etched
across our national consciousness: the oft-bespoke analogy of “Lions led by
Donkeys” as wave after wave of young working class men in sepia black-and-white
go “over the top” amidst the wail of cello-song. Miles upon miles of military cemeteries
in Northern France and Belgium are testament to this scar upon history. The
cliché that we will no doubt be told ad
nauseum this year is that those million or so who gave their lives in
Flanders and the Somme were the best of the best. Like the Battle of Britain
lot of the early 1940s these people (most of whom were only in their teens or
twenties at the time) made the ultimate sacrifice to keep Britain and Britain
and to defeat the enslaving clutches of European-based international socialism.
2014 will be chocka full of anniversary events dedicated to perpetuating the
memory of this most glorious of generations. Whilst we will no doubt stand in
salute collectively at the metaphorical Menim Gate many of us historians of the
amateurish hue will count the what ifs. What if Britain hadn’t gone to
war over that “little scrap of paper” vis-a-vis Belgium? What if the strenuous
terms of the Treaty of Versailles hadn’t led to the bloodletting of an aggrieved
Austrian colonel twenty-five years later? Thank God that we all can celebrate
that it didn’t. For not only has the British nation earned a new mythology
thanks to the conflicts of the twentieth century but the deaths of those
involved meant that decades of progressive/socialist governments have been
averted.
The large body of those who
endorsed the socialist tyranny of Mr Attlee in 1945 were of working class stock
who’d participated first hand in the two world wars. The contribution
of these men apparently gave them grand ideas far above their station as to the
running of the country post the Nazi capitulation and hence forth history
records the sad litany of leftish failure in the years following the defeat of
Hitler. Just think what might have happened if the Germans had won the first bout of their efforts towards
world domination - had we been defeated in 1918 might Britain have retained a
downsized empire whilst keeping the underclass in their place to boot? Would
Churchill, Lloyd George and others have embraced universal suffrage had the
krauts not surrendered their only natural interest for empire building and lebensraum? We will never know. What we
do know however is that this most “unselfish” of generations emerged from the
slaughter of Passchendaele and of the heroics of D Day, the dam busters and all the
rest voting for socialist surrender to the eastern bloc and spurning the generous offerings of British industrialists and imperialists who offered
them a better sight of the future in a world where one could work for a living
and expect just rewards in doing so; where one could aspire to be the best one could
be without pandering to the labour movement’s “Gestapo” tactics as predicted so wisely by Mr
Churchill. Thank the lord then that post-1979 British politics has been thusly
realigned to the advantage of the wealth creators to the general horror of the trade
unionists and other such traitors to British interest. That the dying wishes of two
generations of British working class heroes who gave their utmost for King and
Country have been systematically reversed over the previous three decades is to
our credit as a nation and a people who believe wholeheartedly in free
commerce and are sceptical as per class consciousness and human solidarity.
So this year let us come together not only to celebrate these greatest of all Britons but more importantly to breathe a sigh of relief that oh so many of them came to a premature end.
