海角大神

The Great War

How to truly understand the scale and cost of the Battle of the Somme? Artist Joe Sacco depicts the horrific World War I conflict in a 24-foot-long panoramic drawing.

For more than a century, the Battle of the Somme has been a metaphor for the savagery and horrors of trench warfare in World War I. Military historians commonly use words like 鈥渉olocaust,鈥� 鈥渃atastrophe,鈥� and 鈥渕assacre鈥� to describe it.聽 聽聽聽聽聽

The battle lasted 141 days 鈥� from July 1 to November 18, 1916. The strategy behind the British and French offensive was simple:聽 a massive artillery bombardment would destroy the barbed wire defenses and decimate the German trenches. Once the British and French ground troops secured the front lines, Allied cavalry were to rush through and break open the stalemate on the Western front.聽

Nothing worked as planned. The bombardment was certainly massive 鈥� there was one artillery piece for every 18 feet of the front lines and they fired 1.5 million shells.聽 But the barbed wire was not damaged, which slowed the Allied advance and the deeply-dug-in German soldiers were largely unaffected by the artillery fire. Armed with machine guns, the defenders slaughtered the slow-moving Allied troops as they slogged through no-man鈥檚 land.聽

But what we remember today is the number of casualties. Of the 120,000 British troops who went into battle on July 1, 57,000 were dead or wounded before the day was over. More than half of the casualties occurred in the first hour. Before the fighting stopped, roughly 1.2 million British, French, and German troops were dead or wounded. The exact toll will never be known.聽

The central challenge for anyone who describes this event has always been to document the sheer size and scope of the battle as well the human cost that it entailed. In The Great War, artist Joe Sacco, who has already distinguished himself for his ability to depict military conflicts in pen-and-ink drawings, has tackled this problem through a 24-foot-long panoramic drawing.

This isn鈥檛 a map or a picture of a precise moment in the day. Rather, it is an incremental narrative that attempts to depict what happened on (and shortly before) that horrific day. It begins with General Douglas Haig, the British commander in chief, walking in the garden of his chateau and ends at a casualty clearing station where the dead are being buried in mass graves. In between, we see supplies being brought up; heavy guns wheeled into place and the artillery barrage; the British troops eating breakfast and drinking a rum ration before the attack and then walking (yes, they had been ordered to walk) across no-man鈥檚 land and directly into the German machine guns: the dead and wounded falling, stretcher bearers returning with the casualties to the overwhelmed field hospitals.

The crowded panorama is engrossing and the drawings are tight and carefully rendered. The detail is amazing 鈥� Sacco depicts trains, trucks, and horse-drawn wagons bringing up supplies; soldiers smoking, eating, urinating and defecating, going over the top and into no-man鈥檚 land; and falling where they were hit.聽聽 Severed body parts are strewn about the battlefield.聽 The numbers of soldiers appears to be countless.聽 Readers will find themselves repeatedly revisiting scenes to uncover details that they may have missed before.聽

One disquieting feature is that almost all of the soldiers are faceless, a quiet commentary, perhaps, on the shameful disregard of human life demonstrated by the British General Staff throughout the engagement.聽 聽

There is no text on the drawing itself. An accompanying booklet contains a short essay on the battle drawn from Adam Hochschild鈥檚 "To End All Wars" that is very useful. In addition, it offers Sacco鈥檚 own annotation for each of the scenes. His comments are often brief and powerful: 聽鈥淚f they survive, most of the wounded in no-man鈥檚 land will not be collected until nightfall鈥� and 鈥淭he dead are thrown over the side of the trenches to be dealt with later.鈥澛犅�

Sacco鈥檚 complex drawing is absorbing, haunting, powerful, and moving. Most who see this work will want to learn more about this landmark battle.聽 And all who see it will be moved by senseless slaughter that was so sadly commonplace in World War I.聽聽 聽聽聽聽

Terry Hartle is senior vice president of government relations for the American Council on Education.