It’s also Polish Independence Day.
And as usual the foreign press proclaims that anyone celebrating it is “Far Right”.
I found out years after my mom passed away that her father had served in WW1. I do not know if she was aware of his service or not, she never mentioned him being a veteran. Mom was born in 1939 so it was well after that war ended. I do remember her telling me how German POWs on our family farm were deathly afraid of her father. He spoke their language and when he would walk out of the farm house into the yard, all of the POWs would jump up and come to attention, regardless of what they were doing. She said more often than not after he spoke to them one of the soldiers would have soiled themselves. I do remember Mom telling me no one in the family understood why or how he knew German, they just figured it was something he learned “up north”.
The YouTube Channel/series “The Great War”, began tracking the war on the 100th anniversary of its start and goes week by week revealing the entire conflict with many side episodes on the personalities, home front, and obscure battlegrounds. The crew who put it together are based in Sweeden and often take their cameras to the memorials, battle sites and museums for a deeper look into what life was like in the trenches and in the air. I can’t recommend this Channel highly enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FgaL0xIazk&list=PLB2vhKMBjSxMK8YelHj6VS6w3KxuKsMvT
Leading to the Treaty of Versailles. We all know what happened after that.
A very interesting site with lots of interesting articles - thanks for posting.
IMHO they get one thing wrong in this instance. The Armistice brought an end to the fighting on the Western Front but not everywhere. Eleven months on in 1919 we were still fighting Germans, in places like Latvia and the Baltic states, who thought that, although they may have lost the battle for France and Belgium, they hadn’t lost the war and indeed were the victors on the Eastern front entitled to keep their gains.
This is the bigger reason for the next war, not the reparations. Next time around, the Allied leaders determined that this time the Germans would KNOW they lost.
In the debate of who is responsible for more deaths - Hitler or Stalin - Woodrow Wilson is often overlooked.