Looking at the film of the time that made soldiers appear to be marching "herky-jerky," the funky-looking vehicles and flying machines, it is easy to forget this is one of history's most devastating wars, even using poison gas, especially in such a short time. It also put an end to three empires (German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian).

Simplistically, a big ass family dispute for which millions paid with their own lives.

If there's a war I detest it's WW1.

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
It also put an end to three empires (German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian).

Four (Ottoman).

Zone Rouge, you don't hear much about that one. Still a mess in NE France.
Many of the problems we face today started with the ending of WW1, and WW2 was clearly a direct result. The years between them was just an intermission.

The loss of lives in this war is unbelievable. There were battles where one side lost in one day all the lives lost by the US in the entire Vietnam war.

The French didn't surrender, but, (understandably) tired of being nothing but cannon fodder, they did mutiny in 1918.

The aristocracies played chess with the lives of those they considered meaningless. Just a big exciting game to them.

The Great War (WW1) has been long overshadowed by WW2 as it had more visual recordings and was closer to the present. But if it wasn't for the first one there wouldn't have been a second one.

With two main battles of 1916, Somme (British) and Verdun (French) against Germany, both sides were fairly well spent. Austria-Hungary and Russia had exhausted themselves and internal strife was on the rise.

Peace-feelers from the new Austro-Hungarian Emperor Karl through the Vatican had initially been rebuffed by the French because of the anticipated American entry with fresh troops; but had the USA not entered that war in April 1917 then WW1 might have ended by that summer.

The "Long Shadow" cast by the Great War is still visible today throughout the Middle East and environs.

I don't know if you guys would be interested, but there is a channel on Youtube called "The Great War" which gives a detailed history of the war. It was started by Indian (Indy) Neidell in July, 2014 and gives weekly updates on what was happening a hundred years ago that week. He also has special episodes on the personalities, the countries, the conditions, the weapons and tours of battlefields and museums.
He does a nice job and I've enjoyed watching.

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
[H]ad the USA not entered that war in April 1917 then WW1 might have ended by that summer.

This is one of those under-recognized facts that would have changed the course of history to an unimaginable degree. Whether the world would have been better off is impossible to know, but things certainly would have been far different (I wouldn’t be here, but that would have been okay).

That was no big deal.

My current wife (so far my favorite wife) and I were married 26 years ago today.

That's a big deal!

Just finished reading "To the Last Man" by Jeff Sharra.....It visits four or five characters that are in the Great War and explains a lot of tactics and failings through the characters

Dan Carlin did a series on WWI in his Hardcore History podcast. Highly recommended if you have 20 hours to spare.

I can't think of a war I would less want to be a soldier in than WWI. Trench warfare in suffocating mud, disease, the human slaughterhouse of repeated massed assaults against fortified positions, chemical weapons...it's a depressing war to even think about. While WWII saw a higher overall death toll, WWI was more deadly for the combatants. A soldier in WWI had a much higher chance of dying than his comrade a generation later.

At one time there were eleven members of my family in uniform during the four and a half years of WW1. All but one, a sailor, were either gassed or suffered other battlefield injuries, some both. Only one died, my grandfather, and rest came home.

Every village in the UK has some kind of memorial, and some, like Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, have both a memorial and a stained glass window commemoration.

Little villages all over the land have there own small services on 11/11, or the nearest Sunday to it. Four of the names on OUR village memorial are still represented in the congregation.

I am privileged to have the self-imposed task of caring for a number of Canadian graves here in UK, some of them dating from WW1. AAMOF, just one church in North Wales, Boddelwyddyn Parish church, has eighty-six of them.

tac

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
It also put an end to three empires (German, Russian and Austro-Hungarian).

Four (Ottoman).

The British carving up the Ottoman Empire at the Treaty of Versailles has given us headaches even to this day.

I heard it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich cause he was hungry.