rivate, Pritchard vent about the irony, Make no mistake about it, comrades, brothers, fellow Welshman. This is not the war we signed on freely to fight. They take advantage of our desire to serve the cause of liberation and convert us into a force of tyranny and oppression They want liberation from the unjust rule of the Saxon, and the Saxon in arms is supposed to step in there terrible in his bloody wrath and put down the insurrection. Well, we are not Saxons but bloody Welshman and brother Celts, and we will not do the bidding of an oppressive power whatever the consequences. [Anthony Burgess, Any Old Anvil. 38]Jones regiments escapades at the Battle of the Somme, are also indicative of the English view of the sanctity of its subjugated peoples lives. Upon joining the Second Battalion of the Royal Gwent Regiment (the First Battalion had been decimated at an earlier offensive during the Battle of the Somme), Jones was shipped off to Mazentin. There he is to act as a runner between HQ and the front lines in an offensive what in those days was known as *censored* hill. It seemed the Second Welsh regiment was going to meet the fate beholden to its predecessors in the First. To add insult to injury, the Gwent Regiment was to be aided by two Scottish regiments on its suicide run. Needless to say, all three regiments were annihilated, and Jones, himself sustained a head wound. [Anthony Burgess, Any Old Anvil. 45]What is even more horrifying than reading about how the English indirectly murdered these minorities in Any Old Iron, is how the English actually did send these three regiments to their doom. On 7 July 1916, seven days into the battle of the Somme, the men of the 38th (Welsh) Division (known as Lloyd George's Welsh Army) were directed to capture the formidable Mametz Wood. Advancing uphill under steady artillery fire, the Welsh suffered 4,000 casualties. Skinnerian techniques of Aversion counterconditioning are no longer implemented ...
