Killed in action, 18 years young

I assume that you have guessed from my mini-blog about Wilfred Owen that I have been in France recently and that I have visited his grave. I published this short mini-blog because I had no time to write a real blog but didn’t want you to be too long without one.
In fact, I didn’t go to France for visiting Owen’s grave, for when I left home, I hadn’t realized that it was not far from where I had planned to stay. However, my trip had to do with the cause Owen had died for, for I went to the battlefields east of Reims, in the north of France. The region around Reims is called Champagne. It is known by most people for its wine, but those interested in the First World War know that there has been heavy fighting in the region, especially in 1915. These fights are known as the First and Second Battles of Champagne. I have a website with photos of World War One monuments and just photos related to these battles yet failed there; so a good reason to go there this summer.
As everywhere along the former front line in Northern France and Belgium, also the region east of Reims is full of war monuments and traces of World War One. Most important is the War Memorial for the Armies of Champagne near Sainte-Marie-à-Py, but, as everywhere along the former Western Front, most striking is the big number of war cemeteries. Only in these two battles more than 100,000 French soldiers plus the same number of German soldiers died. Some cemeteries are only for French soldiers, other ones are for German soldiers and again other ones are mixed in the sense that they have sections for both nationalities. Some soldiers got individual graves and other soldiers have been buried in mass graves, especially those killed in the beginning of the war. Most soldiers are known by name but some have a stone or cross with the inscription that an unknown soldier lies there. When I am in the former war zone, I always visit several war cemeteries. I walk along the crosses and stones, read some of the names, when they died and how old they were. Most were in their twenties. Sometimes I read also the book with names which is always there and sometimes I also sign the guestbook.
In the meantime, I had discovered that Wilfred Owen had been buried not far from where we stayed, but more to the north, in Ors in the Nord Department. So after having been a week in Champagne my wife and I decided to spend there the last days of our trip and to visit Owen’s grave.
Wilfred Owen has been buried in the British section of the Ors Communal Cemetery. He was killed while he was encouraging his men when they tried to cross the Oise-Sambre Canal. Owen had previously been treated for “shell shock” in a psychiatric hospital and needn’t to go back to war, but he chose to do so since he felt guilty because his comrades were fighting and run the risk to be killed, while he was safe in England. Owen was killed on the 4th November 1918, one week before the war ended.
It was easy to find his grave in the Ors Communal Cemetery, since there had been put a few little crosses in front of the stone by admirers. It was in the last row of the British section, third from the left. Owen was 25 years old when killed, so he was quite young. On a gravestone more to the right, I read the name of a captain who died 42 years old. Then I read the gravestone just left of Owen’s final rest-place: 63554 Private W.E. Duckworth, Lancashire Fusiliers, 4th November 1918 Age 18. I got a shock. Of course I know, that such young people had been sent to this war and had been killed there, but nevertheless I was shocked. Owen was with his 25 years already very young when he was killed, but 18 years? This private was actually yet a child, when he died. 18 years old was so young! Who was this man; who was this child? A quick internet search taught me that this private was William Edward Duckworth, son of William and Sarah Duckworth, of 99, Warwick Rd., Carlisle. I didn’t find his date of birth, but since William Edward was yet so young, I assume that he lived yet with his parents when he left for war and so that he was also from Carlisle. But then the question remains: Why did he go to war? Of course, I know that it happened much then that such young boys went to war and that many went by their own choice. But even then, who has sent such young boys, children yet, to the battlefields?
But not only then, still today children are sent to war. The problem of child soldiers is a widespread evil. But also if a soldier is “already” 18 years old and officially no child any longer, in many respects he still is. Mentally, 18-years-olds still aren’t fully grown-up. And do they know enough about the world to bear the responsibility of a soldier in action and are they mature enough to be exposed to war risks? And what will be the consequences for a society that sees its young people lost and so will see a literally lost generation?
But times have not changed and times are not changing. Yet-nearly-children are still sent to war, like in Ukraine – by both sides – and elsewhere in the world. Still children and nearly-children are killed in action, physically or mentally.