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| Pupils plant crosses of Remembrance |
Today we remember the fallen of two world wars. We especially commemorate Old Malvernians and members of our Prep School who died in action during those conflicts. It’s poignant to think that those Malvernians sat in these pews as we do today, and looked around at these windows and knelt before this altar. Many of them were killed soon after leaving here and the marks of the drawing pins that secured the notices announcing their deaths can still be seen in the dark wood of the doors as you enter Chapel from the main building. It is appalling to remind ourselves that 718 of our former pupils were killed in those two wars – roughly the number of us crammed into chapel today. A further six Servicemen from this school have also been killed in conflicts since the Second World War and there is a memorial to them at the back of Chapel, on the far West wall. There are also memorials to those killed over a century ago in the South African wars.
By now, had the Second World War victims lived, they would have reached the autumn of their lives. It seems appropriate therefore to do something extra to acknowledge this, and to mark their sacrifice. We are grateful to the Malvernian Society for donating the poppies and wooden crosses that have been placed in the pews today. Each has been named after the fallen. You are invited, after this service is over, to take a cross and, as directed by the heads of houses, place it in the ground between the war memorial and the memorial library. If you would prefer not to do this please leave the cross in you pew and someone else will do it at the end.
By personalising our remembrance in this way we seek, in addition to acknowledging the sacrifice of those men, to remind ourselves of the terrible sadness each family must have endured as those losses occurred. Similar losses were sustained in communities like ours throughout Europe, and indeed all over the world.
It was not only servicemen who were killed in those wars. No sector of the population was spared and we do well also to remind ourselves today of those civilian losses too. It brings home to us the nature of modern warfare. Now the destructive nuclear power has been added to that of conventional weapons the prospect of total war is even more awesome than before.
This is not the occasion to dwell on the rights or wrongs of Just Wars in the nuclear era. However I am sure no one here would dispute that evil prevails when good people fail to stand up for justice and peace. Paradoxically during much of the last 60 years the peace in Europe was safeguarded by a balance of military might between the Warsaw Pact and NATO.
Despite continued conflict and the threat of international terrorism today we must not be downhearted. If the will is there and there is also mutual respect, adversaries can be reconciled. The reconciliation that has taken place in Europe since the Forties is a good example. Our College is testimony of that reconciliation and we have reason to celebrate, but not be complacent about, the community in which we live today.
Two weeks ago there was a service at Dresden to mark the reconstruction of the original eighteen century Frauenkirche; itself based on St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Dresden, historically the capital of the old kingdom of Saxony and a famous cultural and aesthetic centre, was devastated in early 1945 by a joint Anglo-American bombing raid, the British by night, the Americans by day. Until that raid Dresden had been almost the last of Germany's large cities not to have been laid waste. By the time the raid finished, much of historic and modern Dresden had been flattened and 35,000 people, mostly civilians, had been killed. The baroque Frauenkirche, the church of our Lady, was at the heart of the city, lying in ruins. For decades the Communist regime left the ruins untouched; a political symbol perhaps of devastation coming from the west wrought on Germany.
When I was at school in the fifties and sixties it was fashionable amongst my questioning generation to challenge our parents about certain aspects of the war. Dresden was the catchword for all that the opponents of strategic bombing most detested. In the debate the casualty figure was sometimes inflated by a factor of seven. Air Marshall Harris, head of RAF Bomber Command, was branded a war criminal. Today, as we ponder our own dilemmas, we are more circumspect and understanding of our parents’ challenges. We thank them for the sacrifices they made in the cause of duty and for the free inheritance they secured for us.
While I was an instructor at Sandhurst I got to know a brilliant civilian lecturer called John Keegan – now Sir John Keegan. Because of a childhood illness, which left him slightly disabled, he has never been a soldier himself. However, his insight into the military profession and psyche is profound. Today he is the Defence correspondent of the Telegraph. Two weeks ago, when the Frauenkirche was re-consecrated, he wrote an excellent balanced article, which concluded:
In the last analysis, remembering Dresden forces one to recognize that there is nothing nice or admirable about any war. Victory, even a victory as desirable as that over Nazi Germany, is purchased at the cost of terrible human suffering, the suffering of the completely innocent as well as of their elders, including their parents in the forces. It is right to remember Dresden, but chiefly as a warning against repetition of the mass warfare that tortured Europe in the 20th century.
Another newspaper article described how many Dresdeners wept as the Frauenkirche’s bells tolled once again and its new 48,000-pipe organ was played. Thousands had themselves been caught up in the bombing and still have vivid memories of the destruction. One, Rita Voigt, had arrived as a 7-year-old refugee in the City hours before the raid began. She is quoted as saying:
“My whole life has been dominated by the horrors I saw in Dresden that night. Yet I remain convinced that the attack was necessary in order to bring Hitler’s regime to an end. Today is like drawing a line under history.”
Drawing a line under history does not mean turning our backs on it. We need to draw the better lessons from it.
Early this term, at Father Huw’s installation, the Bishop of Worcester spoke to us about Forgiveness. The burden of his sermon was that forgiveness is not about seeking the high moral ground and then pronouncing overbearingly, ”You are forgiven”. Ideally it is a two way process. We should all subscribe to being part of a forgiving community. We should all ask for forgiveness and seek to grant it. It will only lead to reconciliation if those doing the forgiving recognise their own inadequacies too.
How good that Coventry and Dresden …… appalling memories that could so easily have led to further spirals of violence and despair ……. have become symbols of hope and reconciliation.
Drawing a line under history and forgiving does not, therefore, mean forgetting. My hope is that this community will go on marking Remembrance in the years to come in a way which
• Recognizes the loss of the fallen and the grief their loved ones endured,
• Reminds us of all the suffering that accompanies war,
• And emphasizes reconciliation.
We honour the bravery and commitment that was demonstrated by our parents, grandparents and great grandparents. We pray that in future, war is never undertaken lightly, or for spurious reasons. We seek to build a world in which all people are treated justly and with dignity.
Only then will swords be beaten into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks: and nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
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