Great War Monument in New Rochelle, NY
Monday, July 28, 2014
The Great War
The war that was supposed to end all wars began exactly hundred years ago on July 28, 1914 and lasted till November 11, 1918. It is estimated that more than nine million soldiers perished on its battlefields.
The Great War changed the way wars were to be fought in the future. It completely altered the political map of the world. But most importantly, it set conditions for an outbreak of a war that was even more unimaginable in its scope.
“In the Somme valley, the back of language broke. It could no longer carry its former meanings. World War I changed the life of words and images in art, radically and forever. It brought our culture into the age of mass-produced, industrialized death. This, at first, was indescribable.”
- Robert Hughes in "The Shock of the New"
The Great War changed the way wars were to be fought in the future. It completely altered the political map of the world. But most importantly, it set conditions for an outbreak of a war that was even more unimaginable in its scope.
“In the Somme valley, the back of language broke. It could no longer carry its former meanings. World War I changed the life of words and images in art, radically and forever. It brought our culture into the age of mass-produced, industrialized death. This, at first, was indescribable.”
- Robert Hughes in "The Shock of the New"
Image source here