Well done!

Yes well done corporal Binoy! More generals were killed in the first war than in any other modern wars. No one deliberately set out to have their armies decimated. Mistakes were made and armies worked out new strategies.
It is a bit rich criticising with twenty twenty hindsight and little idea.

1917!? I wonder if any of the responsible adults, who decided to willing sacrifice men with no more thought? Than they were tin soldiers and able to be spent in a war of attrition, if it cost the enemy more!? Yes good idea Binroy! Let's go on a widespread manhunt leaving no stone unturned, around the veterans hospitals and nursing homes to seek find and bring these villains to justice!

Eh? What? When? Who? Why? On whose authority Sir? Well, I never!

One such officer, when asked to recall wartime exploits, found this distant memory.

I can recall a time during the Boer campaign, lead by Sir Winston, when during one of many cavalry charges, I somehow got separated from the unit and the horse.

What?

When I recovered my equilibrium, found myself on this damnable rock and frying in the noonday African sun.

What?

Anyhow, sat up and looked around when a bloody great lion jumped up and roared right in me face like, Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh!

So, what happened then, the inquisitor asked?

Well, I disgraced meself!

What, when the lion roared, asked the questioner?

No, just now when I did, replied the ancient warrior.

The greatest fear among the surviving few? Being farts with lumps in them!

Memories of futility, being linked to time and place and the most important perceptions! Nurse! NURSE!
Alan B.

Binoy

And this article is for what?

Binoy - you say - " If faith is there to be broken, is it not in the ties between humankind so much as its sanguinary leaders who keep insisting that slaughter and an inventory of dead are necessary for matters of state."

Faith wasn't broken with those citizens of Australia during World War 1 and 2 or Vietnam and many others. Those "beautiful angels" who fought in both Wars believed in their efforts to protect their country and citizens "Australia", their efforts have afforded Australia with the freedoms, democracy and voices - we all have today.

There are others who believe Church, (religion and State) cannot be separated.

Well hullo - that's not our Australian democratic Western society who has always been accepting of all religions, credos and colors for many generations.

Is this a picture you wish to debate? If so, am most willing to debate online with you.

We have one law in Australia - only.

In October 1916, Australians voted down the first of two referendums to make conscription compulsory. This vote saved thousands of young Australian men from dying in imperial military fiascos like Passchendaele.

Yet anti-conscription and anti-war campaigners at the time were ruthlessly persecuted, jailed, tortured and deported. Their legacy of saving thousands of young Australian lives has been reduced to a tiny footnote in Australia's history.

At the same time, the architects of the WWI slaughter are revered and honoured. And the thousands of young men who died from their military bungling, aristocratic privilege and imperial hubris are now canonised in annual maudlin Dawn Services.

How ironic that a couple of weeks ago, Tony Blair was reprieved by Britain's High Court from standing trial for war crimes leading to the deaths of up to 1 million Iraqis. Nothing has changed in 100 years. Industrial slaughter is still the number one blood sport of the ruling classes.

Fact is. All sides were suffering horrendous casualties from human wave (run in the open at the enemy) tactics in the first 3 years of WW1.

That was until Monash's highly coordinated approach of creeping artillery barrage and wide use of tanks emerged in the last year of the war.

I'm particularly talking about the Battle of Hamel (1918) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hamel onwards.