World War 1 again

The commemoration of World War I became temporarily marred when Michael Gove suggested that there was too much criticism of the leaders of the time.

This encouraged us to go back and look at that excellent book written by military historian and advocate of the tank, Liddell Hart. His History of the First World War (it had a different title at the time) was written in 1930.

In it, he lists endless examples of people who were sacked for being right, only to be replaced by people who seem to have done exactly what their predecessors proposed. Granted, he claims the French were better at this than the British but there were plenty of British examples too, not least the early advocates of the tank.

His epilogue is objective and generous to all participants. It includes this wonderful passage which seems to be just the sort of thing to get up Mr Gove's nose.

In this mood of reflection we are more ready to recognise both the achievements and the point of view of our late enemies, and perhaps all the more because we realise that both the causes and the course of war are determined by the folly and frailty rather than the deliberate evil of human nature.

The war has become history, and can be viewed in the perspective of history. For good it has deepened our sense of fellowship and community of interest, whether inside the nation or between nations. But, for good or bad, it has shattered our faith in idols, our hero-worshipping belief that great men are different clay from common men. Leaders are still necessary, perhaps more necessary, but our awakened realisation of the common humanity is a safe guard against either expecting from them or trusting in them too much.

Have we really learned that great men are not different clay from common men? Have we really learned not to expect too much of them, or not to trust them too much? I am sure it felt that way when he was writing in 1930.

And what of the idea that the causes and course of war are determined by folly and frailty rather than the deliberate evil of human nature? Would he have agreed with this when he wrote his other great book: the History of the Second World War?    

The neutron

One of us was once a physicist and came across this poem in New Scientist some time back in the dark ages. The metre of the opening lines has stuck in the memory (and was probably a help in some exam or other).

When a pion an innocent proton seduces
with neither excuses
abuses
nor scorn
for its shameful condition
without intermission
the proton produces:
a neutron is born.

What love have you known,
O neutron full grown,
as you bombinate into the vacuum alone?

Its spin is a half and its mass is quite large
- about one AMU - but it hasn't a charge;
though it finds satisfaction
in strong interaction, it doesn't experience coulombic attraction

But what can it borrow
of love, joy or sorrow
O neutron, when life has so short a tomorrow?

Within its
twelve minutes
comes disintegration
Which leaves an electron in mute desolation
and also another ingenuous proton
for other unscrupulous pions to dote on
and last, a neutrino:
alas, one can see no
fulfilment for such a leptonic bambino -
no loving, no sinning -
just spinning and spinning -
eight times through the globe without a beginning ...
a cycle mechanic -
no anguish or panic -
for such is the pattern of life inorganic.

O better
the fret a
poor human endures
than the neutron's dichotic
robotic
amours.

Gina Berkeley