Dulce et Decorum Est

Hace hoy 93 que acabó la Primera Guerra Mundial. No sé mucho de Historia pero no se me ocurre un mejor ejemplo de la futilidad de la guerra. Más de cuatro años dedicados en exclusiva a masacrarnos unos a otros, luchando en pedazos de terreno sin ningún valor estratégico, simplemente porque así lo quisieron unos gobernantes que, unos días antes de que un anarquista asesinase al sobrino del Emperador en Sarajevo (sobrino que, de haber sucedido a su tío, hubiera accedido a las demandas nacionalistas de los pueblos eslavos) se intercambiaban cariñosamente la correspondencia. La guerra para acabar con todas la guerras. Qué equivocados estaban, qué equivocados estamos:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs 

And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots 

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!---An ecstasy of fumbling, 

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... 

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 

Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud 

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--- 

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 

To children ardent for some desperate glory, 

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen