The First World War

Uncle Joe, the true peacekeeper... :mickey:

 

My guess is that mickey here indicates irony.....

I don't like Stalin's general regime, but no doubt that the USSR did play the major role in defeating Hitler.

 

My own family history is similar. My grandmother was a French woman, one of 4 daughters of a peasant farmer in northern France. Their land was overrun by the Germans, but my grandma and one of her sisters managed to get behind the Allied lines, and both became nurses.
Grandma hated the Germans - she would kind of spit the word out with contempt.

My grandfather was in the British Army, and was also the victim of a gas attack, which left him blind for several months. It was in the hospital to which he was sent that he met grandma.
He returned to France after the war and they were married.

 

In my opinion Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Germany and Russia were equally responsible for World War 1.

 

I've heard the argument there is only one World War with a cease fire in between. I kind of agree with that. Germany didn't do anything other countries did not do during that time. But they become the bad guys so Hitler really makes them bad guys because the economy is shot. Without WW1 and the rest of the world shaming Germany there is no Hitler.

Overall I think WW1 is the sadder war of the two even if the casualties were lower. People just didn't understand how to fight with modern weapons so they try old school tactics and die. Also none of the death was really for anything. No dictator to fight just a series of treaties making every country pick a side. The people did not want to fight they were told to fight. For example the Christmas Armistice of 1914.

 

Spanish Flu ended WW1.
Deaths due to fighting 17M, deaths due to Spanish Flu 100M.

 

Only 10% of British military age males were killed by fighting in WW1, the Crimean War killed far more.
As for soldiers charging machine guns ....... hardly the 'best genetic stock' .... but maybe the most foolish.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25776836

Not to mention, many soldiers considered it better than being home on the farm,
"Many soldiers enjoyed WW1. If they were lucky they would avoid a big offensive, and much of the time conditions might be better than at home.
For the British there was meat every day - a rare luxury back home - cigarettes, tea and rum, part of a daily diet of more than 4,000 calories.
Remarkably, absentee rates due to sickness, an important barometer of a unit's morale, were hardly above those of peacetime. Many young men enjoyed the guaranteed pay, the intense comradeship, the responsibility and a much greater sexual freedom than in peacetime Britain."

 

The Glorification of War - as it was depicted in no short measure by an eager Press and Political ambition for seeking out potential opportunity to impose more colonial rule over non-european lands and states - this was in itself a disastrous act - with far too many young men giving of their all for a cause which was more to do with an arrogant belief by those ruling nations in winning the war (at any cost) rather than securing the peace.
((WW2 however = a different story!))

 

The first world war just set the foundation for the second world war, and the third world war at present, the war against terrorism.

What these wars prove is that dualistic divisions created on the basis of language, religion, sectarianism, ideology, economic interests, nationalism are bound to result in conflict, disharmony and war, whereever they may be created.

This mentality of 'us versus them' should be minutely studied to understand the causes of war, so as to prevent war, especially the thermonuclear war which can potentially wipe out the planet and milleniums of human civilization.

 

the technology of that era, if only population were no greater.

war though, is always needless and wasteful.

just like ostentation, which motivates the thoughtlessness, which result in resource deprivations, which ultimate lie at the root of mass conflict.

because some guy got shot, europe had to try and destroy itself?

insanity.

 

I want to contribute to this thread but my lack of knowledge when it comes to WW I is a disgrace.

In school we taught ancient history and the accompanying wars. I’m well versed in the Hundred Years War, French & Indian wars, The American Revolution, The War of 1812, The Mexican War, The Civil War, The Spanish War, WWII, The Vietnam War, The Gulf War, but when it comes to WWI or the Korean War we never touched the subject in school.

I read the Zimmerman Telegram and the Guns of August, and my only knowledge of the Korean conflict was watching the Manchurian Candidate (1962) on TV starring Frank Sinatra and Janet Leigh



Hotwater

 

My great-grandfather fought in WWI. He got tired of waiting for the US to enter the war so headed up to Montreal and enlisted in the Canadian Army. His hand was blown off at Paschendaele.

I recently found his Canadian military records including the surgean’s notes. Canada put their old military records online. I also found his American WWII draft card that lists him as a pensioner from the Canadian Army.

 

Wow, you could even find the surgeon's notes in online records? That's pretty cool

 

They were in his military file, 76 pages of documents including the hotel he stayed at in Montreal when he enlisted and his pay records. I found the draft card through ancestry.com along with his border crossings through St. Albans, VT.

 

The SS Lusitania explosion was an inside job....

 

Prove it.

 

Exactly there is no proof, but, conspiracy theorists believe it was deliberately sunk to hasten the US entry into the war. Which BTW didn’t happen.

 

they had interesting little trains in the trenches. that's what i meant by the technology. some of them survived to find their way ultimately to preservation societies.