Danny
That is very kind of you, and I'm sorry none of us managed to pinpoint
the exact quotation you had in mind.
Lord Lansdowne, a British Government minister, wrote a memorandum in
1916, saying, "We are slowly but surely killing off the best of the
male population of these islands."
http://www.addingham.info/war/warsummary.htm
It was Vera Brittain who said that "the finest flowers of English
manhood had been plucked from a whole generation". This article quotes
her and adds some context:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1031689,00.html
On the same page of "Testament of Youth" she also wrote that "the men
who excelled in mind and body were mostly vanished into oblivion."
Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925
by Vera Brittain
page 610
Penguin USA (1994)
(Read at Amazon if registered for the "search inside" feature.)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140188444/ref=sib_vae_dp/104-8273820-5884716?%5Fencoding=UTF8&no=283155&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&st=books
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The idea that the 'very best men' fought and died in the first world
war was widespread in the years after the war, especially in England,
yet it is surprisingly difficult to pin down actual "quotable quotes".
While searching, I discovered an interesting website which discusses
the post-war feeling that the finest of men had been lost. It quotes
George A. Greenwood, author of "England Today: a social study of our
time", writing in 1922:
"They were of the stock of men with high desires that come from fresh
brains and who have the energy to apply them, the elements that count
for most in the world's affairs. It is no mere coincidence that our
almost intolerable weight of social, industrial and economic problems
follows upon the sudden abstraction from and the very partial
restoration to the life of its nation of its noblest, bravest and most
unselfish youth."
http://www.aftermathww1.com/lostgen2.asp
This site also quotes a sermon preached in 1932:
". . a generation was not decimated but decapitated, not mauled at
mere haphazard, but shorn precisely of its grace and glory, of its
most ardent, its most generous, its most brave . . ."
and talks of a:
". . . mystical belief that there was something very special about
those young men who died in the Great War. The feeling that those men
who died were the finest of their generation, and that the fact of
their dying somehow proved their wasted excellence, became very common
in post-war writing."
http://www.aftermathww1.com/lostgen.asp
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Victor Serge wrote:
"The flower of the youth of a continent, an entire generation of young
men were mowed down."
Victor Serge quoted in:
Victor Serge: The Course is Set on Hope
by Susan Weissman
Despite searching quite thoroughly on Amazon and Google, I haven't
come up with any more quotes which would meet your criteria, only
private comments on the men who fought the war, or educational
webpages discussing the mood of the 1920s.
I hope this is of some use, and thanks once again for accepting the
results of my research.
Best wishes - Leli
Search terms used:
"best men" "very best" finest noblest flower youth manhood generation
"first world war" "great war" "world war one" "world war 1" ww1 wwi 1914 1918 |
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