Remembering soliders: War memorials from around the world

This post is about war memorials - monuments to remember the soldiers who had died in the wars.

My feelings about the wars are ambivalent - memorials to the dead soldiers bring a node to my throat and I love visiting war cemeteries. However, I am also against the wars. Gandhi ji and his ideas about non-violence have been my inspiration. I remember being part of the protest march in London against the Bush-Blair decision to attack Iraq.

Yet I believe that some times, especially when dictators, fascists and fundamentalists of different colours and ideologies kill their people, wars can be necessary.

Let me start this photo-essay with the picture of a dying soldier from a war monument in Verano cemetery in Rome (Italy). It is my favourite image about the war memorials - it shows the moment of the death of a soldier, as his heart stops beating, his eyes turn unfocused and his body starts to fall down.

Another reason for my ambivalence about wars and soldiers is the way they treat civilian deaths. The deaths of soldiers are considered more important and they are mourned, while the civilians killed "by mistake" or as "necessary collateral damage" are usually forgotten, or sometimes even depicted as terrorists or their accomplices. The way we give values to lives of different people is very unequal.

I also feel that usually wars and violence do not solve any problems - rather, while they solve somethings, they invariably create new problems. I also suspect that most recent wars, though presented as humanitarian efforts to "liberate people" or to "stop despots and mass murderers", were for gaining and controlling power and resources.

This photo-essay is about the war monuments built to remember the soldiers killed in wars. I am also working on a second part of this photo-essay about the other victims of wars and people who fight for their rights. As you can imagine, putting together that second photo-essay is much more difficult because we hardly ever build monuments to remember ordinary persons, except for the victims of some big events like holocaust or the people killed in the 9-11 terrorist attack.

WAR MONUMENT FROM INDIA

I grew up looking up to two of my uncles, brothers of my mother, who were soldiers in the Indian army. Seeing them in the military uniforms and hearing their stories about the wars, shaped my initial ideas about nationalism, patriotism and protective role of the men in the society. Even today, though women can also become soldiers, the common public image of the soldiers remains anchored to masculinity.

The most important Indian war monument is called the "Amar Jawan Jyoti" (Immortal light of the soldier). It is located at India Gate in New Delhi. India Gate was built in 1921 to remember the soldiers from Indian regiments who had died as a part of the British army in the first world war. Its walls carried the names of the officers of Indian regiments.

In 1971, after the India-Pakistan war that led to the creation of Bangladesh, it became "Amar Jawan Jyoti" with the construction of a black slab with an upside down gun and ever-lit flame underneath the arch of Indian Gate.

The next image is also about Indian soldiers. It is from the second world war and is from Forli in Italy. It shows a Sikh soldier holding an injured Italian soldier. This monument is built next to one of the biggest cemeteries of Indian soldiers in Italy.

If you are interested in reading more about the Indian soldiers and their cemeteries in Italy during the second world war, you can read my post on this theme written in 2011 in my Hindi blog.

Though many more Indian soldiers have died in different wars over the past decades, I am not aware of any other war monuments In India.

WAR MONUMENT IN USA

The image from New York, is the marine soldiers' monument from the second world war, built at the tip of Manhattan as you look towards the statue of Liberty.

Another important war monument in USA that I had visited was in Washington DC, near the Lincoln statue - Vietnam Veterans memorial. How ever, I do not have any images from visit.

I have also heard about the Arlington national cemetery and the US Marine War memorial, but I did not get an opportunity to visit them.

MEMORIALS FOR THE GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN SOLDIERS

A large number of German and Austrian soldiers had also died during the first and the second world wars. However, I do not remember seeing any war memorial about those soldiers. This may be partly due to the defeat of Germans (and Austrians) in the both the world wars.

In Germany, to remember the Nazi past is also problematic so perhaps those soldiers remain unacknowledged in the national monuments. How ever, I must confess that I haven't been to many places in Germany and Austria, so perhaps some war memorials may be there about which I am unaware.

Soldiers fighting for the "wrong" side and those who are defeated, hardly ever get any monuments. History decides who will be remembered and in which way. Just to remember that even Germans and Austrians had died in the two world wars, the next image has the ruins of an Austrian soldiers' outpost in the mountains in north Italy. Though this is not a formal monument, but I wanted to acknowledge them in this post.

The next war memorial is from Vienna in Austria but it is not about Austrian soldiers - rather, it is for commemorating Soviet soldiers and was built by the occupying Russian army in 1945.

This monument is to remember the death of 17 thousand Soviet soldiers who had died in the siege of Vienna. It is called the "Heroes' Monument of the Red Army".

WAR MONUMENT FROM FRANCE

I did travel to different parts of France and I remember seeing some war memorials, but those journeys were much before I had discovered my passion for photography. Thus I do not have many images of the French war memorials.

The next image shows a small memorial of the second world war from the tiny town of Divonne les Bains in the south of France. The monument carries the list of the persons from the city who had died in the war.

WAR MEMORIALS FROM LONDON, UK

London also has different monuments to remember the persons dying in the first and the second world wars.

Another of my personal favourites is the British monument in London for the animals who died during the world wars.

WAR MONUMENTS IN BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

Brussels is surprisingly full of war related monuments, from the first and second world wars. The next four images show some of those monuments that I noticed during a brief visit to the city.

WAR MONUMENTS FROM ITALY

My interest in the war monuments started in Italy and thus, this is the section with largest number of images in this post.

Our house in the north-eastern Alpine city of Schio (Vicenza), is very close to what was once the border between Austria and Italy. During the first world war, fierce fighting had claimed lives of young men from almost all towns and villages of this part of Italy. Around Schio, I am always struck by the war memorials in the villages and the small towns, invariably having a list of local lads who had died in the first or second world wars.

The next 5 images of war memorials are from places near Schio, remembering soldiers from the first world war. The places are Sant'Antonio, Arsiero, Forte Maso, Asiago and Bassano del Grappa.

The "Ossary" at Sant'Antonio is located at Pian delle Fuggazze, the old Austrian-Italian border on Pasubio mountain, and contains bones and remains of hundreds of soldiers who died here.

Arsiero is a tiny town at the entry to Tonnezza and some valleys hidden behind the mountains. Beyond Tonnezza, the road leads to Altopiano Fiorentino, that was another of the border post that saw fighting in the first world war.

Forte Maso has an old war building hidden among the trees in the mountains on the way to Pasubio mountain. A telescope, old pictures of the war, a restaurant and the beginning of a mountain trail to go up the mountain, mark this place. The image below shows one of the old war pictures from Forte Maso.

The beautiful mountain city of Asiago has a huge arch in white stone, at the top of a hill. The base of the hill contains hundreds of tombs containing the bones or remains of the soldiers.

I am especially fond of the "war memorials" from Bassano del Grappa that have pictures of young soldiers fixed on the trees.

The next 3 images are from Bologna, showing the monuments about different wars. The first monument is about first world war and is from Certosa cemetery.

The next image is about a war in 1848 when Bologna was able to defeat Austrian army that occupied the city as allies of the Vatican Government. It is known as the 8 August monument.

The 3rd image is of the memorial for the soldiers who died in the second world war and is from Certosa cemetery in Bologna. The sculptures are by Stella Korczynska and Genni Mucchi.

The next image is from Redipuglia in Fruili region of Italy, not far from the border with Slovenia and Austria, where thousands of soldiers from the first world war are buried.

The next image is a monument to Francesco Baracca, an ace pilot in the first world war. This monument is in the city of Lugo, where he was born.

Finally the last image from Italy is from the Marine Soldiers' monument in Verano cemetery of Rome.

CONCLUSIONS

Apart from India and USA, all the images of war memorials to the dead soldiers in this post are from Europe. In different other countries of South America, Africa and Asia, I do not remember seeing any war memorials.

To conclude this photo-essay, the final image is once again of the monument to the Soviet soldiers from Vienna.

So what do you feel about war monuments? I feel that war monuments are useful mainly for building patriotic feelings so that young men and women feel encouraged to give their lives for military services.

During the wars and in the years immediately after the wars, there is a lot of patriotic build-up and rhetoric around soldiers. However, once wars are over, countries often forget them quickly. In many countries, ex-soldiers with physical and psychological disabilities are ignored and marginalized.

Some years ago, I remember watching a Bollywood film called "Dhoop" that had shown the callous behaviour of Indian bureaucracy towards the family of a dead soldier. I wonder if that kind of situation is unique to countries like India?

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Indian Soldiers in Italy 1917-1919

A coincidence brought me a book about Indian soldiers passing through Italy during the last years of the first World War (1917-1919). This post is about Camp 3, the resting camp of the British in Faenza (Italy) based on the information I found in this Italian book by Enzo Casadio and Massimo Valli.

Introduction

I know that my maternal great-grandfather had been in Europe during the first world war. I had heard the stories of his coming home from the war with a bag of British pounds and how this had brought prosperity to his family. He must have passed through the port of Brindisi or Taranto, because that was the way used by Indian troops for coming to Europe. I don't know if he had stopped at Camp 3 of Faenza, but I would like to immagine that he had been there!

My great grandfather Hiranand (from Karyala, Jhelam district of undivided India - in 1947 this had become part of Pakistan) had died in the 1970s. However, when he was alive, I was not interested in the family history and had never asked him anything about his European experience.

Indian soldiers had been in Italy in both the world wars. During the second world war they had taken part in the war in Italy as shown in the film "The English patient" (1996) where Naveen Andrews had played the role of the Sikh soldier Kip. Different Indian cemeteries in Italy are testimonies to those Indian soldiers, and there are some books about those days. I had visited the cemetery of Indian soldiers in Forli once.

However, there is much less printed material about the Indian soldiers in Italy during the first world war.

Ethel Graham and the Zauli Naldi family

Faenza is a small town, about 50 km south-east of Bologna. It is famous for its ceramics.

Enzo Casadio and Massimo Valli from Faenza have done research and written about the history of their town during the second world war. Some years ago, they found about a collection of pictures from the first world war during a casual meeting with Prof. Francesco Emiliani Zauli Naldi.

The Zauli Naldi is a well known noble family of Faenza. The pictures were taken by a British woman called Ethel Graham, who was living with the Zauli Naldi family between 1914 and 1922, as a governess or companion to Ms. Maria Zauli Naldi, mother of Prof. Francesco. He remembers meeting Ms. Ethel in 1930, when she had come to visit them in holidays. Ms. Ethel died around 1939. (Image below: Ms. Ethel Graham with Camp 3 commander and officials in Faenza)

As the only British civilian living at that time in Faenza, Ms. Ethel had access to the British officials and could visit the British Rest camp 3. She also must have been a photography enthusiast and thus could keep a memory of those days in her images.

British Rest Camp in Faenza

During the first world war, British soldiers were engaged in wars in France, Italy, Turkey, Balkans and middle east. Persons from the British colonies around the world were also involved as part of the British troops. Transporting troops from one war front to another through the British ships had become difficult because of the threat of German and Austro-Hungarian submarines. Thus, train travel through France and Italy to the port of Brindisi and Taranto in south of Italy, and then with ships through the Suez canal up to Bombay was preferred. It also reduced the journey time.

After reaching France, the British troops started their journey in Cherbourg, called British Camp 1. The end stop on this journey was the port town of Taranto in Italy, called British Camp 4. On the way, two rest camps were set up, where soldiers could get hot meals, take bath and receive medical care - Camp 2 in St Germain au Mont d’Or near Lyon in France and Camp 3 in Faenza.

As the number of persons increased, additional smaller satellite camps were set up in many other cities, towards the south up to Pescara and towards the north, up to Bologna.

Among the famous persons who passed through the British Camp in Faenza, there was colonel T. E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, on whom David Lean had made his famous film in 1962.

Indians in Camp 3

The camp for Indian soldiers was set up in Piazza d'Armi (The Armaments square, today it is Bucci park between Via Marozza and Via Oberdan), not far from the Faenza railway station.

Compared to the camps for British officials and troops, which had more decent houses and shacks, Ethel's pictures of the Indian camp show open spaces with soldiers making tea and cooking chapatis on makeshift chullahs. In the background some tents can be seen in a group. The pictures were probably taken in summer, since the Indian soldiers can be wearing dhoti, half-pants and shirts.

According to the research done by Casadio and Valli, there was a group of Santhals among the Indian soldiers, who had built the canals for draining the camp and then divided the camp in separate areas so that persons of different castes could live and cook in separate groups. They had also built the Tennis court for the British officials.

From the pictures taken by Ethel Graham presented in the Casadio-Valli book, two are presented here. In the first image, a group of soldiers pulling a carriage through the city centre, probably to collect water from a fountain. The second image shows soldiers cooking chapatis.

Conclusions

History remembers only empires and the powerful kings and queens. So much of our recent history remains forgotten, especially in terms of lives of ordinary persons. How many Indian soldiers died in Europe during the first world war, and who were they - who knows and who remembers it today?

Personally I find it very moving to come across images that tell something about those nameless figures who had travelled to far away places. Some like my great grandfather had come back to India to tell the stories, others must have died in the war.

Notes

If you wish to get this book, it is called "Il campo inglese a Faenza nella grande guerra (1917-1919)" (The British camp in Faenza during the big war 1917-1919). It is written by Enzo Casadio and Massimo Valli, and published by Casanova Editore Faenza.

I also wish to thank notary Paolo Castellari of Faenza, who shared this book with me.

Thanks also to Richard Burton for the correction of location of Camp 2 and for sharing the memoirs of his father Philip W. Burton, a signaler in the British army during WWI.

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Iraq documentary on the TV

This morning I saw a documentary done by Italian news channel Rainews 24 on the use of chemical weapons in the attack on Falluja in November last year. The documentary showed satellite pictures of use of napalm like phosphorous bombs called MK77, interviews with american soldiers confirming use of chemical weapons, a letter of someone from British defence ministry to their labour party MP Linda Riordan saying that it was true and such bombs have been used and finally, shots of burnt up bodies with their faces contorted in ghastly rictus smiles of agony. I almost puked.

My first thought was, how can they show such pictures when people are having breakfasts and getting ready to leave for work? A bit later, I could appreciate that without those pictures, it would have been just another story on "false accusations" against the "pro-liberty and pro-democracy liberation forces" of Bush and Blair.

OK, so you can say that I am a tubelight and that so many persons had been already saying it for months. So, wake up and welcome to the real world. Yet to think that USA did use chemical bombs on a city where it knew that lot of civilians were present, and that are banned by Geneva convention (though americans never signed that convention), was like a sobering cold shower. Of course, they were cynical, they were selfish, they were doing it all for their personal gains but they would stoop so low?

A colleague who had seen that documentary this morning said, "Even if Berlusconi government was perfect for everything else, just for this thing, for having dragged Italy into this war and for making us all accomplices to this shame, I won't vote for this government."

Another colleague said that this means that there is no difference between Bush and Bin Laden and terrorists are justified. I don't agree. I don't think any terrorists are justified, whatever their name, nationality or cause. At least the american soldiers who spoke during the interviews, or those who must have passed the satellite images for the documentary, did not agree and could act. That is much better than the dictators on the other side, where no voice of dissent seems to come out. But that credit goes to individual Americans and certainly not to those in power.

Yet, Indian news papers on the internet are still talking about the concern of some american commission about the atrocities against minorities in India, the role of Al Qaeda in the chemical attack in USA, ...

In the end, I ask myself if killing twenty or twenty thousand makes any difference? If killing by gunfire or a sword or a chemical bomb makes any difference? You are dead any way. It is just that your dead body is more hideous and puke-provoking and so people can't easily forget your image and salvage their conscience by saying "it is just collateral damage"?

For me, killing even one person for war or for terror, is one person too many.

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Feeling low

When we had just come to live in Italy, I found that clouds had a different effect on me, compared to others living here. They would say, "What a pity, it is cloudy" and I would say, "Lovely, it is cloudy today!" People asked me if I didn't like the sun and I would answer, "No thanks, I have had enough of sun to last me a life."

I was not right. After about two decades, I share the gloom around me when summer ends and autumn comes with its lovely colours, cold winds and rains. The joy of listening to thunderstorms, waiting for the hard pitter-patter of the rain drops, I haven't forgotten - they are like words read in a book, there and yet not so real.

I haven't been depressed ever. I mean, there are days that I feel low but I have never experienced that bottomless pit of gloom that is depression, where nothing seems to touch you. Yet it is one of those things that make me most afraid. Pietro, our neighbour has that. His whole body changes. Becomes kind of stiff. He doesn't look up or move, remaining in the same position for hours, gazing into nothingness. He feels guilty to be alive, that he did not die when the Germans killed his sister. He had run away in the forest. His sister wanted to come with him. "No you go back to home, you are safe there. Here you will slow us down", he had said. Germans won't kill young girls he had thought. Maria, 17 years, was shot dead in the village square with 34 other persons, as a reprisal for the Italian Resistance's attack on German soldiers.

Today is the anniversary of that massacre. It was 4th October 1943. Pietro will go there for the ceremony. Hopefully, after a few days, he can come out of this depression.

So many persons around us have to take anti-depression medication, I can't believe. It is as if there a silent epidemic all around us. It waits behind comfortable houses, perfect marriages, smiling picture postcard families.

Perhaps we human beings have not evolved enough? We are still the hunter-gatherer-fighter needing challenges and if things go too well, if we don't need to run and rush, we get depressed?

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