Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

WWI underground: Unearthing the hidden tunnel war (...killed an estimated 10,000 Germans.)
BBC ^ | June 10, 2011 | Peter Jackson

Posted on 06/10/2011 10:09:12 AM PDT by decimon

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-63 next last
To: ken5050
It is incomprehensible to realizie that millions died, over several years, for a few miles of terrain.

I agree. Easy to write about and beyond imagining.

Prior to that experience, I'd always failed to understand how the Brits allowed Hitler to come to power, when he could have been stopped early on quite easily. I used to ridicule Chamberlain's "peace in our time."

Once you realize that the Brits lost the better part of an entire generation in WW I, it gives context to their actions up till the outbreak of the 2nd WW.

And the much maligned French.

21 posted on 06/10/2011 11:02:45 AM PDT by decimon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: decimon
Documentary Heaven
22 posted on 06/10/2011 11:05:54 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ken5050; ClearCase_guy
Keynes correctly predicted that it would cause Germany to take up arms again. The terms imposed left them no chocie. If you give people no hope, then death is an acceptable, if not welcome alternative.

I disagree with Keynes.

The terms of the surrender were militarily humiliating, but did not necessarily remove hope.

A lot of commentators do not seem to realize exactly what was at work in the Versailles Treaty.

The victorious powers knew that Germany's industrial base was still intact at war's end and that Germany would have a swift economic recovery and be able to rearm in short order, to begin the war again.

They also knew that France's industrial and agricultural base was deeply impaired.

So the goal of the reparations/demilitarization was that Germany would transfer its military budget to industrial output to pay off the reparations - the proceeds from reparations would rebuild France's industrial base (and also its military capability) while the demilitarization would give France the time it needed to regroup.

The goal of the Versailles treaty was primarily to restore the "natural balance" of power between France, Germany and Britain - not to deprive Germans of hope.

23 posted on 06/10/2011 11:06:08 AM PDT by wideawake
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy; ken5050

Both excellent posts.

You may be interested in a book called Rites of Spring by a fellow named Modris Eksteins. Assigned to me by some liberal college professor years ago when I was studying WWI it details among other things the birth of “expressionism” in the postwar period and the rise of homosexuality and cross-dressing. Also on the reading list Franz Wedekind’s Frulingserwachen and a bunch of other crazy stuff. That class is most memorable to me because, as my homosexual TA whose advances I refused failed me on my final paper, it is the only class I have ever failed.


24 posted on 06/10/2011 11:08:37 AM PDT by golux
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: golux
Rites of Spring is an excellent book! Also worthwide is "War and Modern Memory" by Paul Fusell, and "Children of the Sun: A Narrative of Decadence in England After 1918" by Martin Green.

WWI defined the entire 20th century. Culturally, it changed everything. And the rise of the Bolsheviks became a poison that damaged the entire globe.

25 posted on 06/10/2011 11:15:31 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (The USSR spent itself into bankruptcy and collapsed -- and aren't we on the same path now?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: wideawake
The goal of the Versailles treaty was primarily to restore the "natural balance" of power between France, Germany and Britain - not to deprive Germans of hope.

I would agree with your theory a little more if the European power brokers didn't start carving up the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires under the watchful eye of Woody Wilson. And they took the German representatives on a lengthy tour of war desolation with the clear objective of making it known that "All this is your fault!" There was a clear desire for severe punishment of the German people and an elitist attitude toward the "Barbarians"

26 posted on 06/10/2011 11:20:05 AM PDT by Gordon Pym (2+2=4)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: ken5050
I toured Verdun, and some of the other Somme sites in the early 70's, while I was stationed overseas. To look at the momuments, with the endless lists of the dead..it is humbling experience. It makes D-Day, and the American military cemetary, look like a minor skirmish.

Prior to that experience, I'd always failed to understand how the Brits allowed Hitler to come to power, when he could have been stopped early on quite easily. I used to ridicule Chamberlain's "peace in our time."

Once you realize that the Brits lost the better part of an entire generation in WW I, it gives context to their actions up till the outbreak of the 2nd WW.

I've also found it easy to laugh at jokes about used French military rifles from WWII being "almost new; only dropped once", or referring to "surrender monkeys."

However, I believe the French suffered casualties rivaling the English. An entire generation of brave men disappeared. I think this had something to do with French attitude to WWII, and that we may still see the effects in pacifist Europe today of the loss of almost an entire generation of brave fathers, brothers, husbands, and uncles during WWI.

27 posted on 06/10/2011 11:20:56 AM PDT by Scoutmaster (You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: KC_Lion

I once heard the Civil War described as a 19th century war fought with 20th century weapons and using 18th century tactics. The Prussians learned a lot by observing our Civil War, and then used that knowledge to win the Austro-Prussian War and the Franco-Prussian War. ....and after all of that, the Brits and French (and Germany cavalry) still used mid-19th century tactics to destroy millions of their own troops.


28 posted on 06/10/2011 11:28:12 AM PDT by Pecos (Constitutionalist. Liberty and Honor will not die on my watch.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: wideawake

Beg to differ. The roots of WW II had nothing to do with the military surrender terms. Indeed, Germany felt betrayed, because it had NOT been defeated militarily. But the reparations were beyond impossible, they defied logic. Germany’s industrial base, which as you correctly point out, was largely intact at the end of the war, was to have bene virtually dismantled and shipped to the Allies. Germany’s economy would have to grow to 50X the size of WW I, and at that lever, EVERY drop of output would have gone to pay the reparations. There have been several excellent studies which make this point. The Allies were bled dry by the cost of the war, and the governments told the people that they would recoup the cost of the war from the Germans.


29 posted on 06/10/2011 11:30:15 AM PDT by ken5050 (Save the Earth..It's the only planet with chocolate!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Gordon Pym
There's no question that one goal was to rub Germany's nose in it and to prevent the formation of German-Austrian Empire.

But if the main purpose was to deprive Germans of hope and destroy Germany, the Allies could have permanently occupied large portions of Germany.

30 posted on 06/10/2011 11:37:23 AM PDT by wideawake
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: US Navy Vet
Verdun and The Somme were an ecological Diseaster.

I remember reading Alistair Horne's excellent book on Verdun, "The Price of Glory," and he says that there was something like a ton of explosive detonated for every square yard of the battlefield, rendering the soil to the consistency of fine sand.

31 posted on 06/10/2011 11:41:32 AM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("More weight!"--Giles Corey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Scoutmaster; decimon
Good points about the French. The country suffered terribly in WW I..horrific casualties. Don't know why it's not often discussed. It may well be a function of language. Look, here in the US, we still hear the occasional outcry about the cruelty of bombing German cities..the Dresden raid is an example...yet we cannot even comprehend that the USSR lost perhaps 20 million, if not more..at some level, the mind shuts down..refuses to compute..the scale is to great.

We've just finished honoring another D-Day anniversary. It's generally accepted that about 2,500 US troops were killed on that first day. Yet it is hardly ever mentioned that over 600 US troops were killed some 6 weeks before the invasion, during a training exercise to practice landings on the beaches...

32 posted on 06/10/2011 11:41:52 AM PDT by ken5050 (Save the Earth..It's the only planet with chocolate!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Berlin_Freeper

Wow - thanks for the tip! Looks like a great site.


33 posted on 06/10/2011 11:44:15 AM PDT by GOP_Party_Animal
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: ken5050

Not to mention the fact that German civilians were starving to death at the end of the war. Germany needed every ounce of industrial and agricultural output to right itself for years after the treaty was signed.


34 posted on 06/10/2011 11:51:20 AM PDT by GOP_Party_Animal
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: decimon

Somewhat off topic, but poignant, is a book I read about German generals. In it, Senderlin, who fought in and lost his brother in WWI, actually went to the trench where he was buried, dug him up, put him in his car and drove him home to be buried. Horrifying to say the least.


35 posted on 06/10/2011 11:51:43 AM PDT by Amberdawn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ken5050
But the reparations were beyond impossible, they defied logic. Germany’s industrial base, which as you correctly point out, was largely intact at the end of the war, was to have bene virtually dismantled and shipped to the Allies. Germany’s economy would have to grow to 50X the size of WW I, and at that lever, EVERY drop of output would have gone to pay the reparations. There have been several excellent studies which make this point.

This was not the case.

The reasoning was simple: during the runup to WWI, Germany had been spending about 7% of GDP on its military.

The Treaty provided for about 40 years of reparations at the rate of about 7% of 1910 GDP.

The goal was hardly dismantling Germany's industrial production, but diverting a portion of its products to the Allies.

German industrial production was back up to prewar levels by 1921.

Your claim of 50x is simply divorced from reality.

The original total reparations were 269mm gold marks and German GDP was about 85mm gold marks - three years worth of GDP, not 50 years.

The reparations were easily sustainable by Germany.

36 posted on 06/10/2011 11:52:38 AM PDT by wideawake
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: Bubba Ho-Tep

If you tour the Verdun battlesite, because of the huge about of nitrates/nitrites in the soil from all the explosives detonated, there are still today acres upon ares of soil where nothing grows...it looks like the surface of the moon..


37 posted on 06/10/2011 11:55:04 AM PDT by ken5050 (Save the Earth..It's the only planet with chocolate!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: GOP_Party_Animal; ken5050
Not to mention the fact that German civilians were starving to death at the end of the war. Germany needed every ounce of industrial and agricultural output to right itself for years after the treaty was signed.

Again, inaccurate.

There was widespread hunger in Germany at the end of the war because most agricultural production was going to the front lines and the rest of Germany was well-blockaded by the UK navy.

Within months after the blockade ended, German domestic agricultural production and food consumption was approaching prewar levels.

France had worse food shortages in 1920 than Germany did.

38 posted on 06/10/2011 11:56:37 AM PDT by wideawake
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Scoutmaster
I've also found it easy to laugh at jokes about used French military rifles from WWII being "almost new; only dropped once", or referring to "surrender monkeys."

Same here, until I read A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918. Phenomenal bravery and toughness on the part of the ordinary French soldier.

39 posted on 06/10/2011 11:56:57 AM PDT by GOP_Party_Animal
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

I think Vietnam was a result of what had already changed within the American leadership that was already in it’s 50s, 60s and 70s.


40 posted on 06/10/2011 11:58:09 AM PDT by ansel12 (Bachmann/Rollins/Romney=destruction for Bachmann, but it sure helps Romney. WHY?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-63 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson