It has a new scale of reference vast, vicious and unforgiving death for millions will be anonymous machine gun arbitrary and indiscriminate shelled and shocked, barraged and buried no whole corpse to recognise as human no remains to mourn and grieve just rich blood and bone for Poppies growing strong in the Flanders' fields.
Landscape resculpted to barest bone earth desecrated and destroyed every old tree and young bush uprooted tossed like feathers to the blackened sky debris swirling in the clouds of poison gas and the putrid stench of burning flesh in pyres that smoke and stink for days just fertile ash and dust for Poppies growing strong in the Flanders' fields.
Read at an exhibition of the etchings of Ottto Dix, a soldier fighting for the Germans as a young man in WWI. He was persecuted by the Nazis in WWII Go to National Gallery of Australia website to view his chilling art.