Siege of Weinsberg

In the winter of 1140, the fortress of Weinsberg in Germany was forced to surrender. King Conrad, who had laid siege to the castle, decreed that the women might leave freely, but only with what they could carry upon their shoulders.

When the gates opened, the king’s soldiers expected them to bear gold, silver, and treasures. Instead, each woman carried her husband or a man of the town upon her back.

Moved by their loyalty and wisdom, the king allowed it. Thus the men of Weinsberg were saved—not by armies or weapons, but by the love and devotion of their wives.

"Faithfulness is the cornerstone of love, without which it cannot endure.” 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

PS this legend appears to have emerged decades after the actual real siege took place, but it lifts my heart so I include the tale to raise your spirit too!

Killing us slowly

It seems absurd, that while the sixth great extinction is underway, with species being eradicated from fish to butterflies to gorillas in eye watering numbers, mankind chooses at this time to wage war. 

Never mind that our planet is evidently weary of us with environmental pollution poisoning our seas and air.  Even our climate is showing distress with areas of the world becoming uninhabitable due to drought or flooding. 

In the face of a global pandemic, mankind could have united and saved millions more lives. Instead some countries bought excessive numbers of vaccines which they never used and others suffered the consequences. 

Businesses cost us many more millions of lives each year, with drugs, alcohol, smoking, fast food, guns and gambling having free rein to cause misery while making huge profits.  Many of them have more lobbying power than nations. 

But knowing all this, at this critical junction, when our eyes need to be on pressing urgent problems, we squabble and race into battle with each other. Blinded by prejudice,  hatred and nationalism we stumble into more deadly mistakes.  This must stop!

There are issues that underpin everything we see around us.  Will we respond with hatred and prejudice or try and address the fundamental problems of which these are only symptoms?

Gertrude Remembered

I know it is sad to stand at a funeral and remember someone but in Gertrude’s case, she was really ready “to go to sleep and not wake up”, as she put it. She was indomitable and single-minded and not the confused elderly woman people often thought she was at first sight. I remember one ambulance man speaking over her head to me asking “Does she understand anything?” and Gertrude responding instantly in an annoyed, clear voice “I could buy and sell you!” She was over 104 and could remember sitting in the very first car in the town. There is a picture of her as a young girl in Portrush in the backseat of one of those early huge open-topped vehicles in the local chemist’s shop. Her father was chief fireman in Londonderry and she remembered the horse-drawn fire engines of those days. 

She had lived through both wars, was educated in Trinity College, Dublin and was fluent in both French and German. She ran her own private school in Portrush for many years and set herself high standards that students were expected to maintain. She was a good artist and could draw exceptionally well and wrote stories for children. Her carpentry was equally impressive. She made a wooden box for her father’s medals (and epaulettes) with a special glass front.  If you wanted to know more about Gertrude you had only to look at her handmade toolbox with each spotless instrument in its place positioned precisely.

Her attention to order in drawers and cupboards was extraordinary and when I would often tease her about the dust over every surface she replied that she did not mind the dust but everything had to be in its proper place. She knew every state in the US, the weather zones in the UK and the phone numbers of everyone she knew by heart. She was blessed with a fine mind and it never failed her not even to the last weeks of her life. Always clear, always articulate.

She kept us in the dark about her age, took 10 years off, and never received the Queen's card on turning a hundred. We all went on thinking of her as 10 years younger than she really was and she got away with this without any questions. The love of her life never returned from World War II and I often wondered if he had survived would she have gone on to have her own family and lead a completely different life? Wars take away so much from so many and even decades later loss and damage are still felt.

Gertrude always believed in the Big Bang Theory and felt that there was nothing after death. She wanted to believe there was an afterlife but could not rationally accept it. But she loved to hear others speak of heaven, to be assured of its existence and to have hope that she would meet those she had loved and lost in this life again. It is my prayer that she will be enjoying a reunion with her dearly loved father and other family and friends as well as her young lost love as we gather here to remember her and wish her well.

When our days are drawing to a close let us think of the eternal worlds, and we shall be full of joy!

‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Beatrice a hundred year old mystery

My grandmother died aged 25 when my father was only 14 months old. One of the few photos we have is her sitting with him, a baby on her lap. She looks so lovely, but it feels strangely heartbreaking knowing that in a matter of months, she would be dead. What caused her death or even any details of her death seems still shrouded in mystery. It was 1925 and attitudes to death were different in those times. The general approach then could be summarised as ‘least said soonest mended’!

A friend, even in the 1960s, said her mother had died when she was just 13 and her sister 11. They were sent to school the day of their mother’s funeral and no one ever mentioned her mother again. Such a reaction was fairly common in those earlier years of the 1920s, and to be fair, there were so many deaths from diseases and other causes that perhaps not talking about such losses was a practical way of coping. What is there to say about the death toll of World War I when 40 million died between the years 1914 and 1918? My grandfather fought in that war. The Spanish flu which followed from 1918 to 1919, killed another 50 million. In the face of such a scale of loss, possibly people opted to just accept death as an ever-present feature of their lives. 

My grandfather was born in 1898 and entered the army aged only 16. It is hard to imagine him going through World War I as a teenager and facing the brutal horror of those days including the battle of the Somme. During that time he was shot in the upper arm and once recovered was sent right back into battle. By the time World War I was over he was in his early 20s. He returned to Northern Ireland fell in love with Beatrice Magee and married in 1923, aged 25. They had a baby boy but after just two years, his young wife suddenly died.

Because her death was seldom discussed my father knew little of his mother’s death. He was fortunate that his mother was one of many siblings and during his childhood, he had many loving aunts lavish attention on him. But that void where a mother should have been was ever-present. He had questions that were never answered. One gossipy villager whispered that she had been sent to an asylum and died there. In the absence of real knowledge, toxic gossip often takes its place. Also in today's world, not knowing your family’s health details leaves you uninformed about important things like any inherited diseases there may be. When a relative examined one side of our family tree, he was horrified at the number of male relatives who had died quite young from heart disease.

Last week, my brother found an old tray in the attic of our garage and brought it down for us to see.  It had been there for decades but we read its inscription as we examined it.  Given to Beatrice Magee on the occasion of her marriage in 1923.  My brother took it home and cleaned, polished and fixed the tray and my Mum placed it in the living room behind the photograph of Beatrice holding her baby.  It triggered renewed memories of this lady that none of us had ever met.  Several family members had failed to find Beatrice’s death certificate while carrying out their research and there seemed to be a mystery in its absence.  

This week I applied online and bought a copy of her death certificate using a different birth date than the one commonly used.  This morning the death certificate arrived and I felt that at last the mystery of almost a century would be solved.  However, the death certificate was written in such poor handwriting I could not make out the cause of death!  In frustration, I sent it to relatives, medical and otherwise hoping they could help decipher the words.  It took a day but the answer eventually came, she suffered from “mitral regurgitation 2 years cardiac failure certified”.  So there in back and white at last was the answer.  

In examining the names on her grave there are signs of the scale of loss of life in those days.  Of her 10 siblings a five-year-old Violet died of scarlet fever in 1914 (the scarlet fever epidemic would peak in 1914).  The Spanish flu in 1919 took two of her brothers 24-year-old William and 19-year-old Charles.  They had to carry out the coffin of one brother through the family front door in November and then the second brother in December.  The scale of such loss was repeated through homes throughout this country.  It hurts the heart to think of it all.  There are no words.  How that generation weathered so much in such a short time should remind us all of the preciousness of life that we too often take for granted.  War and disease rip families apart. Each loss leaves a void that lingers in the hearts of all those who loved them.  

PS The Spanish Flu originated in the US on March 11, 1918, at Fort Riley a military camp in Kansas.  When those soldiers went to fight in World War 1 they took the disease to Europe and the rest of the world. It feels odd that the war my grandfather fought resulted in a disease that killed his wife's two brothers. However, pestilence and warfare were often fellow bedfellows over the millennium and no doubt recent wars will continue to contribute to the re-emergence of infectious diseases.  Already diseases such as cholera, polio, measles, tuberculosis and malaria are rising in the conflict areas of Iraq, South Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen. The sad truth is that adequate prevention and treatment of communicable diseases are often impossible in times of conflict. In fact, war itself provides perfect vectors for disease such as refuge camps, mass movements of populations, poor sanitation, and a lack of access to either proper medical assistance, water or a healthy diet.

Mud holes, heroes and homes that nurture

My grandfather was a brave character. He enlisted in World War I and when he gave his age of 16 years the enlisting officer told him to walk around the table and come back and say he was 17.  He was then accepted into the Irish Fusiliers and subsequently shipped via Folkestone to France and the killing fields of World War 1.  When he returned to his village after the war had ended he hardly ever spoke of what he had seen.  Perhaps, the horror could not be shared with family and friends, it had to just be endured.  He seemed to regard the world differently as if fear of death had been erased on those blood-soaked muddy fields.

He was mentioned in dispatches and his photograph and the message from Churchill are on the wall here in my parent’s home.  He was shot in the arm and badly wounded but was indomitable and even volunteered to go out on extra missions from the trenches. This was no small thing as often the commanding officer would a handgun ready to shoot those who wouldn’t go over the top, such was the fear felt in those wretched mud holes.  On emerging from the shelter of the trench, too often, young soldiers were simply walking into deadly machine-gun fire as this article describes.

“On 24 June 1916 1500 British guns began a week-long bombardment to smash German defences on the Somme before the infantry attacked.  Many of the shells they fired, however, were duds and when the infantry advanced it soon became clear that the artillery bombardment had failed.  German troops emerged and gunned down advancing British infantry, killing 20,000 on 1 July alone.”

20,000 in one day, no wonder soldiers didn’t want to go over the top into a hail of bullets! In the battle of the Somme, the loss was even higher with 60,000 British troops dying in one day.  Several awards are given to those who show exceptional bravery on the battlefield in the face of the enemy.  I just had no idea how many there were   It turns out that being mentioned in dispatches is one of the lowest awards given and at the other end of the scale is the Victoria Cross (VC) which is one of the rarest.  This medal was introduced in January 1856 during the Crimean war and has only been awarded 1358 times. You need to do something pretty spectacular in order to get the VC,

“The VC is awarded for most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or preeminent act of valour or self sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.”

That degree of bravery can get you killed. For example, a quarter of all the Victoria crosses given during World War I were posthumously awarded.  Any VCs medals made since 1914 have come from two antique Chinese bronze cannons (captured during Opium Wars in the 1840s). At present, there are only 85 medals left. However, don’t worry, this supply will not run out soon as only 15 VCs have been awarded in the last 76 years. 

The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system.  Quite recently one VC has been sold for half a million pounds. So, it is startling to learn that Captain Noel Chavasse won two Victory crosses during World War 1.  This is a unique achievement even among the elite of VC holders.   Even before being awarded his VC he had already been previously mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Military Cross. It is surely worth knowing more about this unusually brave man and just why he received these awards.

He was awarded a VC for his actions on 9 August 1916, at Guillemont, France when he attended to the wounded all day under heavy fire. The full citation was published on 24 October 1916 and reads

"Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse, M.C., M.B., Royal Army Medical Corps.

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty.

During an attack he tended the wounded in the open all day, under heavy fire, frequently in view of the enemy. During the ensuing night he searched for wounded on the ground in front of the enemy's lines for four hours.

Next day he took one stretcher-bearer to the advanced trenches, and under heavy shell fire carried an urgent case for 500 yards into safety, being wounded in the side by a shell splinter during the journey. The same night he took up a party of twenty volunteers, rescued three wounded men from a shell hole twenty-five yards from the enemy's trench, buried the bodies of two officers, and collected many identity discs, although fired on by bombs and machine guns.

Altogether he saved the lives of some twenty badly wounded men, besides the ordinary cases which passed through his hands. His courage and self-sacrifice, were beyond praise."

 Chavasse's second award was made during the period 31 July to 2 August 1917, at Wieltje, Belgium; the full citation was published on 14 September 1917

"His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to approve of the award of a Bar to the Victoria Cross to Capt. Noel Godfrey Chavasse, V.C., M.C., late R.A.M.C.,

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty when in action.

Though severely wounded early in the action whilst carrying a wounded soldier to the Dressing Station, Capt. Chavasse refused to leave his post, and for two days not only continued to perform his duties, but in addition went out repeatedly under heavy fire to search for and attend to the wounded who were lying out.

During these searches, although practically without food during this period, worn with fatigue and faint with his wound, he assisted to carry in a number of badly wounded men, over heavy and difficult ground.

By his extraordinary energy and inspiring example, he was instrumental in rescuing many wounded who would have otherwise undoubtedly succumbed under the bad weather conditions.

This devoted and gallant officer subsequently died of his wounds."

In another version of the same incident, it was recounted that Noel Chavasse received a blow to the head, from an exploding shell, fracturing his skull. He took off his helmet and bandaged his own wound and then carried on working as a medic treating the wounded.  He went on to experience two more head injuries as a result of additional shelling but continued to work arranging for other severely wounded soldiers to be stretchered to safer areas. Meanwhile, he continued to search for wounded soldiers still on the battlefield.  On the 2nd of August 1917 he was injured in the stomach by a Shell blast and died on the 4th of August aged only 32.

He is buried in Belgium in the military cemetery and is the only headstone in the world to have two VCs engraved on it.  

He did not have a promising beginning. Both he and his twin brother were so small and weak at birth that their baptism had to be delayed.  They were very ill with typhoid in their first year of life and as adults were below average height. Noel’s school report of 1897 was not complimentary and refers to him as an ‘Imp of mischief’.  

There were another pair of twins in the family May and Marjorie who were born in 1886 would live for over 100 years old.  Apart from these two sets of twins, there were three other siblings.  When Noel’s father, Francis James Chavasse, was a young man he felt he would never even find a wife because of his hunched back, bad stammer and state of poverty. He went on to marry have seven children and became an eloquent Anglican priest. Later, when the position of Bishop was suggested Francis wrote to a friend doubtfully, "A man with my feeble body, average ability and temperament can hardly be intended by God for such a diocese”.   Despite his own misgivings he was appointed as Bishop and served the community well. The family would start each morning with prayers in the chapel and although a fairly remote father Francis had a clear vision of how a home should shape a child’s character.  He wrote,

“Every moment which tend to make the home more bright, more orderly more clean and more healthy, above all more full of love … helps to ennoble the privilege and dignity of bringing up little children … and is the greatest factor in the formation of the character“

In fact, his wife must have contributed even more greatly to the atmosphere within the home.  It is recorded that,

“The kindness of the whole Chavasse family soon became legendary even among their servants who were taught to read and write by their mother.”

Noel himself described his parent’s home succinctly.

“There was an atmosphere of calmness and integrity in the house, which we took as a matter of course!”

Noel as a teenager provided sporting opportunities, Bible classes and singing lessons for boys in an Industrial School in one of the poorest areas of Liverpool.  Even when he subsequently went to Oxford University to study medicine Noel kept up his connection with the school giving up his vacations to help.  Noel’s attendance at Trinity College Oxford involved mixing almost exclusively with boys of a public school background but he clearly had the capacity to relate to people of quite different backgrounds.  As a qualified doctor, he was travelling in a poor area near the docks and saw a disabled child crawling on the road.  Noel stopped and gave the child his card and arranged for the boy to be treated by him at the Royal Southern Hospital.  After nine operations the boy was able to walk upright and went on to have a full and active life in the Merchant navy.   Both Noel and his twin represented Great Britain in the Olympic Games in the 400 metres.  When one reads of such a wonderful character from such a family the loss of such a life becomes even more painful.  That is what war does it steals from the world often the very best of us.

PS other siblings of Noel,

Aidan Chavasse served in World War 1 and died in Flanders 1917. “His Brigade-Major (Bernard Paget) considered him to be the bravest man in the Brigade due to his willingness to volunteer for dangerous missions. It was during such a mission to inspect German wire near Sanctuary Wood in July 1917 that he was wounded in the thigh. He sent his patrol back to safety and took cover in a shell hole. Subsequent attempts to find him, including three separate attempts by his brother, were unsuccessful and Aidan was never found.”

Chrstopher Chavasse, Noel’s twin became Bishop of Rochester, was awarded OBE and the Military Cross

Francis Chavasse, was awarded the Military Cross, and became an eye specialist

Marjorie and May (Noel’s twin sisters) volunteered at a convalescent hospital for soldiers.  Later May would travel out to France to work at a fully equipped mobile hospital during World War 1 and was mentioned in dispatches.  She qualified as a nurse and also served in WW2 as part of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Service.  Marjorie worked for Barnardo’s for most of her life.

“Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.”

Baháʼu'lláh

 

Winter is Coming

My grandfather rarely spoke about the War. I believe it was because what he’d seen and lived through was so awful words could not describe it, nor hearts sustain it. 

Wars are often thought of as inevitable. A permanent affliction of humanity like the seasons. That famous soldier and President U.S Grant urged preparation for war as he felt;

“War never changes. War is like winter and winter is coming.”

Ulysses S Grant

But other voices speak of war as crime;

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

Ernest Hemingway, 1946

At times the sheer amount of death that war entails makes a mockery of either side being a winner.  Henri Barbusse described such an encounter;

“Two armies that fight each other is like one large army that commits suicide.”

We commemorate the dead and the heroes that return but somehow the wounded, the injured and the vile process of dying and its horror is rarely captured adequately, but Captain Edwin Vaughan came close when he wrote;

“The cries of the wounded had much diminished now, and as we staggered down the road, the reason was only too apparent, for the water was right over the tops of the shell-holes.”  

War is about killing and any method that achieves that end, whatever the cost is too often deemed okay.

“I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke.”

 Nurse Vera Brittain, 1933

Conflict can occur when two argue and disagree but when language fails its purpose then we have war as Margaret Atwood so succinctly put it;

“War is what happens when language fails.”

We have had two World wars and they are a part of our history taught in schools.  But it is impossible to educate any of us about future wars, their nature and their outcome. The horror is too great, the loss of life too terrible to convey to young minds but one of the greatest minds considered it deeply and made this heart stopping prediction;

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Albert Einstein

Of course, people fight wars for reasons and Tolkien gave a powerful reasons;

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

However even war that begins with reasoned justification  and thoughtful serious reflection and reluctance  can conclude in the mindless celebration of mass murder; 

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”

Voltaire

“There are perhaps many causes worth dying for, but to me, certainly, there are none worth killing for.”

Albert Dietrich, Army Gi, Pacifist Co: The World War II Letters of Frank Dietrich and Albert Dietrich

I like the way Dietrich makes this clear distinction between being prepared to die but not to kill.  These letters written between these identical twins one a soldier and the other a pacifist have been compiled into a wonderful book about war and life.

The specific reasons for a war of course will have very little effect on the suffering of those who die as a consequence as Mahatma Gandhi pointed out;

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

Margaret Atwood suggested in her earlier quote that war is a failure of language whereas John Steinbeck felt it was a more fundamental failing than that;

“All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal.”

John Steinbeck

And our choice to go to war has consequences not just on those who fight or are killed, because that very choice shapes the life we all lead in endless ways.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Perhaps the most horrific thing about war is that it recalibrates all that we normally value as humans.

“Consider human ignorance and inconsistency. A man who kills another man is punished by execution, but a military genius who kills one hundred thousand of his fellow creatures is immortalized as a hero. One man steals a small sum of money and is imprisoned as a thief. Another pillages a whole country and is honoured as a patriot and conqueror. A single falsehood brings reproach and censure, but the wiles of politicians and diplomats excite the admiration and praise of a nation. Consider the ignorance and inconsistency of mankind. How darkened and savage are the instincts of humanity!”

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 287

I am not sure why thoughts of war have come to me at this time of a pandemic sweeping the world.  But doesn’t war seem particularly pointless when humanity is trying to marshal its defences against a virus that is 0.000125 mm across and not even a living thing?  Fundamentally does this not remind us that we are one family and if we cannot work together for the best of humanity then we are less than the most inferior of us all.

war fuels disease and messes with our minds

It started by accident.  I got lost in Senglea in Malta.  

That triggered a hunt for news in the archives of the British papers on Senglea.  So great to have this resource with newspapers available from 200 years ago.  The two earliest mentions of Senglea in the British newspapers were interesting.  One, from the Manchester Courier June 26th 1847, concerned a lady from Senglea who was bitten by a cat and subsequently caught rabies and died of the condition.  

The second was an article entitled The Sickness at Malta, from The Dublin Evening Mail on Monday 30th October 1848.

This recounted a strange sickness affecting the British troops stationed in Malta.  This article talks of a prevailing disease amongst the military, but chiefly in the barracks at Fort St. Elmo.  The 1st battalion of the 44th, the 1st battalion of the 69th and the head-quarters of the Royal Artillery were stationed in this area.  The Lieutenant-General Ellice, in charge of these forces, ordered a change of quarters.  He unwisely moved the 69th from Senglea to St Elmo and sent another battalion to Floriana and other random movements of the troops in response to the outbreak.  This backfired in that the Senglea battalion, who had been previously free of disease suddenly started dying of the same complaint.  Those battalions moved to various other places continued to suffer from the disease in the same numbers as before.  The only result of this movement had been to spread the disease among a wider population. Dr Potelli, the chief surgeon of the civil hospital, was convinced that the disease was Asiatic Cholera but Dr Barry, the principal military medical officer, persisted in his claim, supported by other military doctors that it was no such thing.  

In one day on 11th October they had seven deaths and still the disease progressed in the midst of conflicting opinions.  There is a strange mention of a native, meaning a Maltese, being brought in, suffering from what appeared to be the same complaint.  His illness was dismissed as being brought on by unwholesome food or possible neglected disorders of the bowels!!  A curious twisting of facts making it the patient's own fault.  To allay the fears of the general population the presence of stagnant water within the Fort St Elmo was blamed for the outbreak of disease.  The fact that mostly military personnel were affected (they claimed) pointed to this being the case.

By 1850 despite their conviction to the contrary, Cholera was indeed found to be the culprit and yet the practice of responding to outbreaks had not improved.  When a company of the 44th Regiment, stationed at San Francesco de Paolo Barracks, lost a third of its men to the disease the military reacted by sending the entire company to Gozo.  Within ten days of their arrival no less that 26 men fell ill with 16 deaths.  Unsurprisingly, cholera then appeared in the village of Ghajnsielem, beside the Fort and spread throughout Gozo resulting in 105 attacks and 78 deaths among the civilian population.

All of this makes one think about how disease and war could be linked in more ways than we could possibly imagine.  Apart from the movement of troops which provide a perfect vector for the spread of disease throughout a population, war itself is a perfect breeding ground for disease.  

Take for example Syria.  The war there has resulted in millions of Syrians being displaced.  High percentages of its ambulances and hospitals have been damaged or destroyed.  Only 10% of its pharmaceutical need are now being met.  Vaccination coverage was 91% in 2010, now a mere 50% of children born since the war broke out have been vaccinated.  To put that in perspective, there were no cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis before 2008.  

cutaneous leishmaniasis

By 2012 there were 52,982 confirmed cases.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Poliomyelitis, measles, meningitis and scabes  are all spreading among the vulnerable population.  Could those parents who peddle anti-vaccine rhetoric please take note!  Leave emotions and gut instinct aside and look at the facts, so many lives depend the presence of effective vaccines.  Those living in refugee camps and in poverty do not have the luxury of your options.  Poor diet, lack of sanitation, stress, contagions from close quarters are not choices people make.  They are a result of external forces beyond their control and for those who have an excess of money, food and good healthcare to be so short-sighted is frankly inexplicable.

War and disease have a history together.  During the Napoleonic wars , eight times the number of British army soldiers died from disease than from battle wounds.  In the American Civil war two thirds of the 660 000 deaths of soldiers were caused by pneumonia, typhoid, dysentery and malaria.

The result of the so-called Spanish flu, following World war 1 in 1918, was a worldwide death toll of between 50 and 100 million worldwide. Recent investigative work by a British team led by virologist John Oxford of St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Royal London Hospital has suggested that the major troop staging and hospital camp in Étaples, France, has almost certainly being the centre of the 1918 flu pandemic. A significant precursor virus, harboured in birds, mutated to pigs that were kept near the front is proposed as the source. 

The Second World war had its own contributions.  One of which was that dengue increased in South-East Asia during the war and the immediate post-war period, due to the spread of mosquitos and different virus strains throughout the region.  This disease produces a spiking fever, searing muscle and joint pain, blood seeping through skin, shock and possibly death.  Today this disease threatens 2.4 million people worldwide.  With such tasks facing humanity it begs the question should we be wasting valuable resources on wars?

In order to really understand why war is so conducive to disease we need to understand the various changes that contribute to the spread of disease.

1. mass movement of populations
2. lack of access to clean water
3. poor sanitation
4. lack of shelter
5. poor nutritional status
6. collapse of public health infrastructure
7. lack of health services

More than 25 countries in Sub Saharan Africa are affected by conflict and 70% of all deaths in these countries are caused by infectious diseases.

When you have a displaced population they will have a 60 times higher mortality rate.  Today there are 40 million refugees and displaced people.  The figures are heart-breaking, almost too huge to take on board.

The Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan

The loss of life can be quick and huge.  When there was an outbreak of cholera and dysentery in Goma (formerly Zaire) in 1994, twelve thousand Rwandan refugees were killed in just 3 weeks.

In Afghanistan malaria was very well controlled before conflict began in 1979.  In the past twenty years there have been 2/3 million cases every year.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1930 there were more than 33 000 cases of trypanosomiasis (sleeping disease).  With health care initiatives by 1959 this figure had dropped to less than a thousand cases.  The conflict that erupted in the 1960s meant that by 2001 the number of cases was estimated at 40 000.  It is hard not to hold your head in despair.

In focussing on physical complaints alone, of course we do not have the whole picture.  It is estimated that 10% of the World's population lives with mental illness.  In 2008, five years after Liberia's civil war had ended 40% of Liberians had symptoms of major depression.  Conflict leaves scars that we have yet to understand fully. For example, in Northern Ireland there has been a doubling of the suicide rate since the peace agreement in 1998.  Conflict, it seems leaves effects that linger and eat into the mental wellbeing of a population long after peace has been established.

What strikes one is that we cannot afford to have war.  We must learn the lessons of the past.  War is far too expensive in terms of human suffering, creation of disease and far too distracting from the vital tasks that lie ahead in this world of ours.

refugees in Europe   Photographs that speak to the heart

The Charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale

(first part of this story is given in  Sa Maison and Lady Lockwood this is part 2)

After a peaceful decade of living in Malta with her daughter and son, cultivating her lovely garden Lady Lockwood must have felt a genuine relief that the torment and turbulence of her married life was behind her.  Given the court case and widespread publicity within the British papers of her husband’s abuse her garden and home in Sa Maison must have been a solace.  Few, knew of her here and she could live a quiet life in the sunny and friendly Mediterranean island.  The views from her villa and garden are breath taking and the area to this day has a wonderful calm atmosphere.

It must have been horrendous to find that peace shattered by the onset of war in the Crimean.  The British Expeditionary force arrived on route to the Crimea and some of her husband’s ex regiments were included in the battalions posted to Malta.  It seems a strange coincidence that some of the British force should be billeted in her very garden.  For a year and a half Malta was full of soldiers and in order to get to their accommodation they had to gain access through her garden.  One of the soldiers posted at this time was an artist and his paintings ( and some photographs of troops) in Malta show how much the British Expeditionary force dominated the island during this period.

Having arrived in 1843-46 Various accounts suggest that they needed to use the site of her house to position guns to defend the walls.  They wanted to demolish her house and for a year and half Lady Lockwood held out hoping that she would not lose her home.  Having been to the garden and examined the bastions it seems strange to position the guns on this lower bastion when much higher sites on the walls above would have provided greater height and range.  In the end the military had their way and her villa was knocked to the ground.  It originally was a hunting lodge built in the 18^th century and its seems a shame that such a historic building was flattened to provide two gun mountings.  Lady Lockwood left the island and all that remains are the beautiful gardens and two circular slabs on which the guns were mounted.  On the adjacent walls the military have carved their insignia which can just be made out although weather worn.  I know historians have argued that the demolition  of the house was purely a military expediency but one wonders what other factors played a role in their decision.  All the paintings shown above are by a soldier from her husband’s old regiment the rifle brigade.  In the officer’s circles they must have known of her husband, Captain Robert Manners Lockwood and his disgrace in the press which had happened a few years previously.  From one historical account there is this piece which is tantalising.

‘In 1853 British military experts obtained permission to pull down the house to make way for a gun platform... the decision to bring in the Military experts to decide on the dismantling of the house was taken after Lady Lockwood gave the cold shoulder to a high ranking military official’. 

Who knows?  I found it fascinating to see that there are actual photographs of the troops at the Crimean war.  I had thought that this was before cameras were available but no there are these shots of various officers from this time and it makes it all seem so much closer.    

Florence Nightingale and forty of her nurses visited Malta on route to the Crimea and their services were much needed.  In the Crimean War (October 1853 – February 1856) Russia lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia.  At its end there were 350,000–375,000 dead.  

Florence Nightingale 1854

I remember my father would often quote from a famous poem (by Lord Tennyson) about a battle of the Crimea known as the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

It ends with a section celebrating their bravery

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made,
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

A wonderful poem. It is thought a mistake was made in sending instructions to this brigade and they were sent into direct withering fire.  I find it hard to celebrate anything about war and loss of life.  Certainly, no glory or long lasting good seems to emerge from most conflicts.  Over 20,000 of the British Expeditionary force would die in the Crimean war.

“How is it possible for men to fight from morning until evening, killing each other, shedding the blood of their fellow-men: And for what object? To gain possession of a part of the earth! Even the animals, when they fight, have an immediate and more reasonable cause for their attacks! How terrible it is that men, who are of the higher kingdom, can descend to slaying and bringing misery to their fellow-beings, for the possession of a tract of land!

The highest of created beings fighting to obtain the lowest form of matter, earth! Land belongs not to one people, but to all people. This earth is not man’s home, but his tomb. It is for their tombs these men are fighting. “ Baha’i Writings

Yesterday, I walked along the front to the gardens of Sa Maison and found the flowers blooming along its outer bastions.  Spring has arrived and Lady Lockwood might have been delighted to see how much of her garden remains.  Perhaps, as Marcus Aurelius said so succintly around 170 AD, 

“What we do now echoes in eternity.”