Replies

Good post.

The Brits spoke out of both sides of their mouths with Sykes-Picot & the Balfour Declaration, one to the Arabs and one to the Jewish Homeland ressurection.

Worst/most powerful thing I ever read about WWI in general was “All Quiet on the Western Front” Remarque. The description of injured horses still sticks in my mind, decades later.

I met WWI vets as a child. To a man, they never spoke of it.

What I was taught was that it was a war for markets and power, as in a power shift. Of course, now we simply go in somewhere for ‘humanitarian’ reasons.

Lemmy of Motorhead, of all people, probably wrote the most poignant lyrics about WWI

1916 - Motorhead

16 years old when I went to the war
To fight for a land fit for heroes
God on my side and a gun in my hand
Chasing my days down to zero

And I marched and I fought and I bled and I died
And I never did get any older
But I knew at the time that a year in the line
Was a long enough life for a soldier

We all volunteered and we wrote down our names
And we added two years to our ages
Eager for life and ahead of the game
Ready for history’s pages

And we brawled and we fought and we whored till we stood
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder
A thirst for the hun, we were food for the gun
And that’s what you are when you’re soldiers

I heard my friend cry and he sank to his knees
Coughing blood as he screamed for his mother
And I fell by his side and that’s how we died
Clinging like kids to each other

And I lay in the mud and the guts and the blood
And I wept as his body grew colder
And I called for my mother and she never came
Though it wasn’t my fault and I wasn’t to blame

The day not half over and ten thousand slain
And now there’s nobody remembers our names
And that’s how it is for a soldier

Thanks. Read AQWF a long time ago, and it was quite a good book. The Keegan book on WW I is good, and gets you most of what you need to know. Liddel-Hart also wrote a good one on it.

WW I is a very poorly understood war in this country and that is a shame since it is extremely important. WW I caused the slide in the confidence of Western Civilization. Before the war, Europe was vigorous, confident, and proud. After the war they became plagued by either resentment, nonsense philosophies, or self loathing and doubt. They really have never recovered.