When painting soldiers from World War 1, I always see a muddy pool of misery for me. Useless human sacrifices for nothing. Fathers, brothers, sons, children, everything and everyone sacrificed for the sake of a few old men who wanted to win.

I have always found it incomprehensible that so many millions of people had to die a cruel death for nothing.

The French plowed lands, the terrible minefields, the fearsome bombardment, the inhumane way people were maimed for life .

The First World War, for that matter, is in my view a totally different war than the second war in which the world had to deal with the devil in person.

War is in my eyes always a struggle of good against evil. It is a portrayal of the human struggle with his own sins. I do not like violence, but in the eternal war I always see the struggle in which the good is in battle with the bad. Soldiers, men of honor fighting for a noble cause. However, it is terrible to see that in the First World War on both fronts soldiers faced each other with probably the same feelings. Fighting for their own barge, the only good in their eyes

René Betgem