Posted on 12/20/2014 8:40:23 AM PST by NKP_Vet
Yesterday, June 28, 2014, marked the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Assassin Gavrilo Princip fired the first shot in what was to become a horrific years-long bloodbath. However, after the sound of gunfire was silenced on Armistice Day, the deaths continued to mount. Revolutions spawned in Russia and Germany, arbitrary redrawing of national borders set the stage for decades of conflict, harsh reparation demands inspired the rise of Nazi Germany and the onset of World War II. The first World War continues to kill to this day - just this past March, two Belgian construction workers were killed when they encountered an unexploded shell buried for a century. Bomb disposal units in France and Belgium dispose of tons of discovered shells every year. Though the events of World War I have now fallen out of living memory, the remnants remain -- scarred landscapes, thousands of memorials, artifacts preserved in museums, photographs, and the stories passed down through the years -- stories of such tremendous loss. On this 100-year anniversary, I've gathered photographs of the Great War from dozens of collections, some digitized for the first time, to try to tell the story of the conflict, those caught up in it, and how much it affected the world. To
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I’m watching the American Heroes Channel now (AHC). There’s a show on now about Chosin in Korea.
the best book on the Korean war is a book about SSgt Reckelss. http://www.sgtreckless.com/Reckless/Welcome.html
“Bones from 130,000 unidentified soldiers in the ossuary at Verdun. Incredible.”
Ii remember going there as a child back around 1957. A friend of mine and I went around to the back side and there were little ground level windows. We looked in through many of them to be surprised at rooms full of human bones.
bfl
I always used to enjoy talking to WW1 vets, when I traveled around. Lots of interesting stories. Also remember chatting with an old gent who was a soldier who went after Pancho Villa under General Pershing. I’d often ask such folks of that generation (not just vets) things like the first time they saw an airplane in flight, which was something that always seemed to leave quite an impression. Or, their first encounter with radio.
Lot of grit in those old folks. Ditto the ones that went through the Depression and fought WW2. Always fascinating to talk to. I’d always make a beeline to some “old-timer” just for the conversation. Not much point in it anymore, though. Not with the generational shift of “old-timers” now being grotty old hippies awash in insufferable self-importance, and self-congratulatory tales involving sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. Ugh. I really miss having those pre-baby boom generations around. They were more of a reflection of the America I admired and was in awe of.
Thanks for the photos. I have been to Verdun and the little village of Fleury one feels a great sadness as one walks in the area. It is hard to believe. If I remember correctly there were 800,000 casualties in the battle that lasted from February until the end of the year.
My parents are boomers and neither are grotty hippies. This forum is full of boomers who are rock solid conservatives. Is it possible you’re overgeneralizing?
Grandpa also told me about life in the trenches, being chased by a German Albatross, and ending up in the French sector. He also told me about hand-to-hand with the Germans. Grandpa's folks came from Germany and he spoke German. He told me a sad story that remains with me always.
I need to write down what he told me and pass it on to my cousins while I can still remember it.
Grandpa was a heck of a hunter, fisherman and a great teacher. I miss him and he has been gone about 40-years.
Beautiful and haunting photos, and grim reminders of the terrible costs of a needless war that should never have been fought. WWI was the opening episode of Europe’s two step demographic suicide, ushering the rise of Hitler and the second round of slaughter. Today we are entering a similar cyclical phase of history, with multicultural societies fragmenting into their most disparate parts. War fever never remains dormant for long.
WWI and the subsequent flue epidemic that killed additional millions, left an indelible mark on Europe.
Of course I’m overgeneralizing. But there really is a huge difference in the kind of worldview/mindset of the pre and post baby-boomer generations, and I almost always found conversations with the former vastly more interesting and rewarding. A stark, down-to-basics difference. Without things like pop-culture obsessions or self-absorbed pursuits. An undistilled ruggedness and outlook towards life.
“WWI was the opening episode of Europe’s two step demographic suicide....”
.
The Vietnam War was the opening episode of the stark change of demographics in the USA.
Yep, WWII was merely piling on.
Only they traded Jews for Muslims.
Were the Africans Senegalese fighting with the French?
For my grandfather and my great uncles who barely survived the Great War. They lived decades with gas scarred lungs and carried pieces of German lead to their graves; they were my heroes and taught me to hate war! God Bless them; may their memories be eternal!
DULCE ET DECORUM EST
Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
That generation has a well deserved reputation for grit because they were less affluent and suffered more than the boomers or more recent generations. But there’s a lot of grit in us moderns too. It’s just that it manifests in ways that aren’t conventionally gritty. I work with a bunch of Gen X’ers and millenials. None of us were forced as children to sell apples on the street corner like my grandfather did, but we work our asses off nevertheless. We pour ourselves into what we do. It doesn’t get registered as grit because our efforts aren’t about staving off literal starvation. There’s a lot of character in the current generation, character that I am confident would rise to the occasion if pressed like our grandparents. I think it’s a mistake to think that what we had has been lost forever.
I believe that too, somehow.
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.