Posted on 12/28/2018 8:47:44 AM PST by rktman
My great-uncle served in the 38th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in WWI. He was wounded by machine gun fire on September 2nd, 1918, near Dury, France. This occurred while he was crossing the Arras-Cambrai Road, during the advance on the Drocourt-Queant Line. He died on September 9th, and is buried in Terlincthun British Cemetery near Boulogne, France. I got a photo of his grave by writing to the War Graves Commission in Ottawa, Canada. They also sent me copies of whatever papers they had on him. I have two photos of him. One is prior to his enlistment, and the other is him in uniform, on horseback, but I have no idea if it was taken in Canada, or overseas.
Saw his grave when we visited St. Columba's Parish Church in Drumcliffe, County Sligo, Ireland. He died in 1939. I took a photo of it. His headstone reads: Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!
bump
Those living in the “Dark Ages” didn’t use that term, which was coined during the Renaissance—a term that was, in turn, coined in the nineteenth century.
A lot of that migration was for economic reasons - people looking for a better life.
The fact is, it was neither tolerant or a melting pot.
It sort of was. Look at a Vienna phonebook and you'll find names coming from a dozen nationalities or more, so it was a melting pot.
And it probably was more tolerant than what came later. Of course people had complaints. The various nationalities weren't masters in their own countries, and they didn't like that, but compared to what came later, they weren't severely oppressed either.
The empire passed a law saying that government workers in Bohemia had to know both Czech and German. That outraged the Germans and didn't satisfy the Czechs, but it was something relatively novel for the time, something that other empires wouldn't do.
It wasn't an entirely bad thing that Poles and Ukrainians lived under the Austrian flag. Populations were mixed and if one nationality or the other got the upper hand the underdogs would complain more loudly than if they had the distant, relatively detached Austrians to complain about.
Same thing with Serbs, Croats and Bosnians. After the empire fell, they hated each other more than they ever hated the Austrians or Hungarians. I'm not saying Austria-Hungary was paradise or a model for the US today, but compared to some other empires, it wasn't that bad.
bkmk
Unreal that someone attempted to distract this thread from this important topic/article.
Thanks for offering them additional ‘info’.
IIrc, that charge of Polish cavalry against German tanks was a desperate attempt by the Polish troops to cause enough confusion to buy time for other forces to retreat out of a pincer envelopment by those tanks.
If I’m correct in my memory, it was a known suicidal charge by those Polish soldiers with the hope of saving their comrades.
Looking stuff up is hard. LOL!
bkmk
LOL...thanks for pinging that ‘explanation’ link to the doubtful poster :-)
Good post, John.
The trouble is we have to rewrite the propaganda that is called “history” about this war and those that followed it.
No academic historian has the capability to really study this history, and no MSM would print or broadcast it if such a review of our past history is ever done.
So, seeing our past history that was truly occurring in the past is a good start.
The A-H empire led to the mass exodus of millions in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the deaths of millions. Plus it was not a melting pot. Even today these countries all went back to their original ethnic roots once the soviet republic collapsed.
Saw the movie twice. Once on the 17th and again on the 28th. The second showing I took a 75 year old retired AF colonel who recently lost his wife. He was a student of WWI and found it enthralling. My grandfather was an American who served in the French trenches in WWI in the area of Metz/Vurdon. Suffered from mustard gas exposure the rest of his life.
I was stationed in Germany in the mid-70s and visited the battlegrounds where my my grandfather fought. Took lots of pictures and was able to show them to grandpa and hear his war stories before he died in 1981.
So my main reason to go was to become more educated about the war experience. Peter Jackson had similar motives when he made the documentary. He dedicated the film to his grandfather who fought and was severely wounded in the war.
I hope when/if the movie is released more widely or on DVD that they include the “how it was made” documentary that followed the movie - it was also excellent.
My mother is in an assisted living facility and I played for her the song “Hinky Dinky Parlez Vous” (also known as “Mademoiselle from Armentieres”), which played during the ending credits. She laughed and said it had been decades since she’d heard her father sing the song - to grandma’s chagrin - since the song was considered somewhat risqué. He often sang it to his kids. It was extremely popular with the British and American troops.
In sum, it was a great documentary on WWI and on war in general. Most of the kids fighting on all sides had no clue what the war was even about.
Yes, always found it unusual as I did the obsession over the Romans as they were gods. Most during Roman times had a pretty crap life.
Back then, war was thought of a break from the monotony, a chance to experience a great adventure. Life was pretty boring for the most part, back then for a young man.
Bttt
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