(no subject)

[hushpiper]

I’ve been doing a lot of World War I research lately for a project, and with momtaku‘s posts about Erwin today, it brought on a thought.

At the heart of it, Isayama is really a military history buff, and he can’t be unaware of the stories that were told–good and bad–of the officers in WWI. And I wonder how much of what we see of the leadership and the deep comeraderie in the Survey Corps might be based on the relationships between the front-line officers and the soldiers in that war.

Unlike the higher-ranking staff officers, these officers lived with their men in the trenches of the Western Front: they endured the same conditions, lived with the same danger, and their men depended on them for guidance and purpose. They had to embody a certain unshakable courage and moral force in order to command the solders’ confidence, even when they themselves were terrified, and the soldiers often admired them deeply for it.

And it had to be that way. These officers were the ones who would lead their men over the tops of the trenches into poison gas, barbed wire, and machine gun fire in no man’s land–and their men followed them. Ordered to go anywhere, even out into the open, “they’ll go like lambs as long as they’ve got an officer with them.”

Every word of that applies just as strongly to Erwin and the Survey Corps: he rides out with them, putting himself into the same danger as the rest of them, and to them he is an almost superhuman figure in embodying the cause they give their lives for, and never wavering. And for his efforts, the soldiers trust him to decide how they die, and to give their deaths purpose.

But the bond was never one way only. In letters home–the only place they could be really expressive–the officers rarely talked about their own deeds or heroics. Instead, over and over, they spoke of their men–and that’s the part that reminds me most of Erwin. The letters of one officer, Captain Thomas Kettle, make me think so strongly of Erwin and his humility and unending regard for the people he led and the sacrifices they make, that I could imagine him having written them:

What impresses and moves me above all is the amazing faith, patience and courage of the men. To me it is not a sort of looking-down-on but rather a looking-up-to appreciation of them. I pray and pray and am afraid!–they go quietly and heroically on. God bless them and make me less inferior to them.

Erwin Smith died, alongside many of his men, in a successful attempt to retake Shiganshina and all of Wall Maria, an offensive which he knew he likely would not survive. Captain Kettle died, alongside many of his men, in a successful attempt to retake the village of Ginchy at the Battle of the Somme, an offensive which he also knew he likely would not survive. In his last letter to his brother he wrote:

We are moving up to-night into the battle of the Somme. The bombardment, destruction and bloodshed are beyond all imagination, nor did I ever think the valour of simple men could be quite as beautiful as my men’s. I have had two chances of leaving them–I have chosen to stay with my comrades.