“Keep the Silence of the Monastery – for it is in Silence that you will Hear the Voice of God.”
We visited St Albans Cathedral (Abbey) yesterday – travelling on the Thameslink Train from West Sutton to St Albans City (a journey of around 90 minutes). Prior to the 1539 Dissolution – St Albans was one of the most important Benedictine monasteries in England (perhaps Europe) visited on numerous occasions by England’s many Kings! I will write about this further in subsequent posts, however, whilst focusing today on the “Verdun Tree” – an object of some considerable beauty (and sadness) which commemorate the 1916 Battle of Verdun. This was a bloody battle between France and Germany during WWI which cost the lives of some 700,000 victims in total – with 305,000 killed (and missing) – and another 400,000 wounded!
Not mentioned in this bourgeois memorial is the fact that widespread “Socialist” uprisings spread throughout the French Army due to the callous attitudes of the French Generals. Research shows that around 7000 Frenchmen were arrested and Courts Marshalled – with 629 being sentenced to death by firing-squad (49 of these executions were eventually carried-out). Many Frenchmen were acting in sympathy with their Russian Allies – the soldiers of whom were participating in the 1917 Socialist Revolution! This is a clear example of the bourgeois censorship of history which only partly informs the masses about the reality of their own history! The British mass murder of the Battle of the Somme soon followed Verdun – where the bourgeoisie demonstrated to the working-class that the middle-class still controlled society – which led to 60,000 British casualties in the first 20-minutes!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 