Posted on 06/30/2021 5:47:13 AM PDT by DFG
Incredible colourised photos from the Battle of the Somme have provided a glimpse into the brave sacrifice of British and Commonwealth troops ahead of tomorrow's 105th anniversary of the start of the horrific carnage.
In one picture, a German prisoner assisted wounded British solders as they made their way to a dressing station after they fought on Bazentin Ridge on July 19, 1916.
Another image showed Australian gunners who stripped off in the summer heat, serving a 9.2 howitzer during the Battle of Pozières which took place during the Battle of the Somme.
The torrential rain of October 1916 which brought an end to the British Somme offensive were brought to life in colour as horses were pictured drawing carriages through the mud.
The series of images were colourised by electrician Royston Leonard from Cardiff who was inspired by the courage of the troops in what was one of the bloodiest battles in human history, leaving a million men dead.
'I got the idea for this set after hearing stories about my grandfather who was there in World War One for almost four years,' said Royston.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
These horrific wars yet was strangely a more civilized time vs today’s dumpster-diving societies.
Motorhead - 1916
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqFoqtpUFY8
The War that destroyed Europe.
19,240 British troops were killed on the first day;
In one of his letters in 1960, Tolkien himself wrote that “The Dead Marshes [just north of Mordor] and the approaches to the Morannon [an entrance to Mordor] owe something to northern France after the Battle of the Somme”.
What my history professor referred in class as “the great f%@k up”. It even had the honour of starting on my country’s Dominion Day.
My great uncle lied about his age and enlisted in the Army when he was 15. Was still “shell shocked” from his experince in France until his dying day in 1983.
Britain should have made a deal with the Germans, the world would have been better off. But Britain and France couldn’t deal with a new kid being on the block.
So what if France lost. But consider, no Hitler, no Bolsheviks. And we would have stayed out of it, as well.
I’ve been reading Churchill’s biography and am currently in the WWI period. The casualties in the war are simply staggering and battle after battle fought to gain a few hundred yards at the cost of one hundred thousand lives. Unbelievable. One quarter million lost in the Gallipoli campaign.... which could have been successful if the Brits had quickly followed up on their initial successes.
As a complete contrast (just for amusement) I had a class in “Twentieth Century Europe” in the 1970s.
So much to cover: WWI, Great Depression, Rise of the Nazis, WWII, Cold War, Suez, etc.
Now, as the teacher explained, to understand the 20th century, you need some background. He went all the way back to 1492 and Columbus. You need to understand the impact of the New World on Europe. The teacher did a thorough job of explaining European history leading up to the 20th century.
By the end of the semester, when the class ended, we had made it up to 1914 and the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Our “Twentieth Century Europe” class didn’t discuss WWI or later events. Just didn’t have enough time.
Gotta love those government schools.
Britain cut off Germany through a Naval Blockade, that is why the Germans used the U-Boats to try to get them to relent.
If the US truly was a neutral, we should have insisted Britain lift their blockade so as to not endanger US ships. But of course, we never really were.
I recall the Brits had a special project interviewing WWI survivors before it was too late to lose their stories forever.
The commonly-used expression “best and brightest” is a lamentation of the loss to England through two world wars of it’s great brain trust.
Explains to me in very simple terms why Marxist-socialists took over government completely after WW2.
That is the great tragedy and takehome lesson for me.
It wasn't just England, it was all across Europe.
“The War that destroyed Europe.”
You might even call it the War that destroyed Western Civilization and the War that destroyed Christianity.
Mark Steyn covered this in detail in “America, Alone.”
>They even had a mouth reader and injected the words into the documentary.
It went beyond that. They looked at the unit patches and insignia and went and got people for the voiceovers from that part of Great Britain, so they’d have the right accent. The attention to detail was incredible. And since Tolkien was mentioned earlier, this attention was in part made possible by all the money Peter Jackson made from Lord of the Rings.
I love the part in the Peter Jackson interview at the end when he’s talking about getting the sound for the artillery battery scenes, so they put a microphone on HIS piece of artillery “that one has”, and worked the breech. LOL
yes. And many other countries. I appreciate the feedback.
The thing I got from watching They Shall Not Grow Old, was how those men actually looked forward to fighting. Life for the working class at that time was so monotonous and dreary that they welcomed any diversion from it. War was the “great adventure”.
Current Englishmen should go to the war cemataries in France and apologize to all the soldiers killed defending the island they gave away to the muslims.
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