November 11 1918

[Louis VI the Fat]

It is the eleventh of November. Remembrance day.

A terrible war. One statistic that has haunted my thoughts ever since I first read it, is that in France in 1914 there were seven million males aged 18-45. By November 1918, 1,5 million were killed, 4,5 million wounded. Unbelievable. An entire lost generation.



The picture is from the northwest of France, a bit below where the front was, but similar in appereance. If you plough a field here, the north of France and Belgium, then leave it untended, these colourful weeds will spring up. As they did everywhere near the frontlines, with its intense disturbance of the soil. Little else will grow initially.

The blue-lila flowers are bleuets, French remembrance flowers. The red ones are poppies, to remember the British and Commonwealth. I shall think of the white flowers as representing the poor peoples of other nations who suffered in this dreadful war.

[gaelic cowboy]

The Green Fields Of France

[Strike For The South]

Holy Christ are those numbers real?

[drone]

Holy Christ are those numbers real?

It's not well known in the US just how much the Great War cost France, with our limited role and the focus on WWII we tend to overlook WWI. An terrible war, industrialized but with outdated tactics and a casual disregard for the common soldiery. A true meatgrinder, and France as the home side on the western front bore the brunt of it. Only the Russians lost more on the Entente side, but they always have more to spare.

[Lemur]

Hey Strike, here's a little history lesson aimed at the young'uns.

[Skullheadhq]

Hey Strike, here's a little history lesson aimed at the young'uns.

The German soldier icons have WWII helmets instead of pickelhaube helmets.

[Furunculus]

I iz waring my poppy bling, in it?

[al Roumi]

I have some sympathy for John Snow's view, although his choice of term (poppy fascism) was not great.

I remember the execrable and calous sacrifice of human lives today, but I am not so keen on some of the undertones to the day in the UK. This is about remembering sacrifice and loss, not glorifying conflict or militarism.

[Furunculus]

I have some sympathy for John Snow's view

agreed, it is his business when he chooses to wear a poppy, and i won't fault him for wearing it only on the given day, regardless if i do otherwise.

it isn't my business to inflict myself on his personal life.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Holy Christ are those numbers real?

http://europeanhistory.about.com/cs/...casualties.htm

Welcome to war, Strike. War is not that video game footage of a high tech plane dropping a smart bomb on an enemy installation. War means death, suffering, humiliation, pain. Fear and despair. Unlike America's video game wars, industrial wars are wars you can lose. You live in mortal fear that your world might come to an end.

And even if you win, your family home has been destroyed. Your village no longer exists is is unrecognisable because of all the damage. Your sick child has starved for want of proper nutritional and medical care, which were unavailable. Your brother has returned. But he is cripple and got no place to go. Destitute, your family tries to care of their maimed relative, who has turned emotionally inwards, or has become aggressive.

War is not a video game. It is not glamorous, or heroic, or cool. It is dirty, nasty, dehumanising.
It has often been noted that war here, unlike in America, is not associated with a glamorous foreign expidition to spread freedom. War is associated with the end of the world. To be avoided, to be a means of last effort. One does not enter a war thumping a chest bearing an infantile flag pin. One enters a war with tears in one's eyes, because you've got no other choice, begging God for mercy on your soul.

For me, November 11th is a day of pacifism, anti-militaristic.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I have some sympathy for John Snow's view, although his choice of term (poppy fascism) was not great.

I remember the execrable and calous sacrifice of human lives today, but I am not so keen on some of the undertones to the day in the UK. This is about remembering sacrifice and loss, not glorifying conflict or militarism.

I dislike poppies because I hate with a vengeance the poem it refers to.

I myself consider 'In Flander's Fields' a work of proto-fascism, up there with Hitler's Mein Kampf and Keynes' Economic Consequences of the Peace as the Unholy Trio of post-war trauma fiction. Each clinging on to the war, unable to let go, imploring future generations to remain stuck in the depravity of the war forever.

They all needed shrinks, as did their readership, instead of people heeding their call to keep up the torch and start it all over again.

[naut]

The German soldier icons have WWII helmets instead of pickelhaube helmets.

The Stahlhelm was introduced in 1916. That game is 1917. Therefore perfectly legit.

Holy Christ are those numbers real?

The crazy thing is not so much the numbers, but the associated casualty percentages. France 75%, Austria 74%, ANZAC 64% (mostly due to Gallipoli), Russia 55%, Germany 54%, GB 44%. Crazy figures.

[lars573]

Holy Christ are those numbers real?

I wouldn't doubt them for an instant. I'll give you another example, The Royal Newfoundland Regiment. When the Great War started Newfoundland like all British imperial processions wanted to show their patriotism and raise an army unit. They raised a single Battalion regiment and sent it to Gallipoli, then France. Their first action in France was the battle of the Somme, July the 1st 1916. I actually heard an audio recording from one of the survivors on the Newfoundland regiments charge on that day at Beaumont-Hamel. 780 officers and men charged that morning, the next day when they took a role call 68 were still fit for duty. The first day of the Somme still holds the record in the British Army for the most casualties in a single day, 60,000 dead, wounded, or missing.

[gaelic cowboy]

I was just scanning the Wiki page on WW1 deaths and there is an interesting section on deaths by modern borders makes sobering reading.

[HoreTore]

Bah.

The ignorant puppets of the nobility threw themselves at each other for trivial reasons - that was the tragedy.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

My 91 year old grandfather who passed away last December was born on November 25th, 1918, 2 weeks after WWI was ended.

Always a shocker to me why this war was fought and how many people died. US had 116,000 killed and they was only in the war for what, 18, 19 months?

[gaelic cowboy]

delete post

[Rhyfelwyr]

What did I miss?

[The Stranger]

http://europeanhistory.about.com/cs/...casualties.htm

Welcome to war, Strike. War is not that video game footage of a high tech plane dropping a smart bomb on an enemy installation. War means death, suffering, humiliation, pain. Fear and despair. Unlike America's video game wars, industrial wars are wars you can lose. You live in mortal fear that your world might come to an end.

And even if you win, your family home has been destroyed. Your village no longer exists is is unrecognisable because of all the damage. Your sick child has starved for want of proper nutritional and medical care, which were unavailable. Your brother has returned. But he is cripple and got no place to go. Destitute, your family tries to care of their maimed relative, who has turned emotionally inwards, or has become aggressive.

War is not a video game. It is not glamorous, or heroic, or cool. It is dirty, nasty, dehumanising.
It has often been noted that war here, unlike in America, is not associated with a glamorous foreign expidition to spread freedom. War is associated with the end of the world. To be avoided, to be a means of last effort. One does not enter a war thumping a chest bearing an infantile flag pin. One enters a war with tears in one's eyes, because you've got no other choice, begging God for mercy on your soul.

For me, November 11th is a day of pacifism, anti-militaristic.

actually the when they first went to war many thought it would be glorious, over by christmass 1870-71 all over again. triumph and victory for home and fatherland. untill the war bogged down into trenches...

[lars573]

That's what Germany though anyway. France wanted a chance at sweet, sweet, vengance for 1870-71. Britain wanted to make sure that no one could in anyway threaten their precious (India). Russia wanted to prove that it could be big brother and protector to the southern slavs.


In other words nationalist horse excrement that served nothing accept sweeping away the 19th century world order and bringing in the 20th/21st century world order.

[Brenus]

The reasons why it did start are not relevant. What is relevant is the scale of the slaughter.
Take a classroom, take only the boys, kill one on 4 and injure 3 on 4 and you have the WW1 for France.

I went in manoeuvre there as the Military Camps are in this area for the good reasons that nothing can be cultivate due to too much (sometime still active) heavy metal in the ground. There are still wires. You can still see the trenches.
And you have the soil. This white clay, which is white dust in summer and a white ice in winter. The continuous rains in autumn made any hole and paddle on this clay a cold sea that never disappears. It is a flat countryside so when the Northern wind picks up, you can’t escape from it. Frost and cold keep you awake even with modern military equipment, so in 1915… Only to stay in so miserable conditions would be a punishment, so to fight…
It was misery.

So, for me, the 11 of November are a humble Remembrance Day to the ones I didn’t listen when they were still alive. The ones who were gathered around the Monument aux Morts, and the list of Names written on it. This List was their friends, neighbours, brothers who suffered and died on various battles fields. The ones they went fishing in the Veyle when the sun plays on the waves of the water and the trees are singing in the wind, the ones they played then worked with in the fields and forests around the hameaux spread around the main village consisting in a Church, three pubs, a School, a Town hall, a boulangerie/grocery, a butcher and the blacksmith. Their village, my village.

And their flags: The reason why they were able to carry one was the fact they believed it was not in vain.
We can mock them and dismiss the reasons why they went through this. But they survive the peace because the little squares of silk were what was left to them.

The size and the Number of the Military Cemeteries are absolutely incredible. And they are not all in graves. There are still the Bones of the unidentified in the Ossuaire of Duaumont.
Millions of young individuals, their lives, dream and pity hopes erased. 1,300 men in a Company in the morning, 15 in the evening.

[PanzerJaeger]

RIP

[Brenus]

All of them

[Louis VI the Fat]

Yeah, burn a candle for the poor Germans. The wind is as cold to them.

[PanzerJaeger]

Yeah, burn a candle for the poor Germans. The wind is as cold to them.

Yes. The Germans fought just as bravely, just as honorably, and paid just as dearly as the Allies for the same reasons, yet they are all too often forgotten in these types of misty-eyed tributes. Not on my watch.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Yes. The Germans fought just as bravely, just as honorably, and paid just as dearly as the Allies for the same reasons, yet they are all too often forgotten in these types of misty-eyed tributes. Not on my watch.

See, that kid in your picture is just some poor German bloke of 20(?) years old, who got pushed a rifle in his hands and was put on a train to the Somme. I got no beef with him. I hope he returned home alive, in a sufficient mental and physical state for him to be happy he was still alive too.


I do have got issues with German nationalism and the German military of the period, which was anything but honourable before, during and after WWI. But soit. Worse is their reprisal twenty years later, which was well outside the bandwith of what is considered proper conduct for even a state engaged in agressive European war. This can not be remained unsaid when remembering German victims.

Speaking of your watch - I'm sure you saw this coming - would you be so kind as to commemorate all those Red Army soldiers who fell fighting for communism, during the invasion of Germany in 1945, and commend them for their braveness and honour?

[PanzerJaeger]

I do have got issues with German nationalism and the German military of the period, which was anything but honourable before, during and after WWI.

In contrast to... who exactly? What about the German intentions and actions set them apart from those of the Allies?

But soit. Worse is their reprisal twenty years later, which was well outside the bandwith of what is considered proper conduct for even a state engaged in agressive European war. This can not be remained unsaid when remembering German victims.

Why? This conflation of the Germans in WW1 and WW2 is all too common. How was my young man a couple of posts above, or even Erich Ludendorff himself to know of events twenty years in the future? Such logic is equivalent to saying that one cannot discuss the presidency of George H. W. Bush without discussing the mistakes of George W. Bush, or even more directly correlated, the First Gulf War to the Second.

Speaking of your watch - I'm sure you saw this coming - would you be so kind as to commemorate all those Red Army soldiers who fell fighting for communism, during the invasion of Germany in 1945, and commend them for their braveness and honour?

More jumbling of two very different conflicts. That's ok, though.

I would think it is implicit in these types of tributes that we are honoring the honorable, not the thieves, rapists, or murderers that are among every army. When I celebrated veteran's day, I wasn't celebrating Abu Ghraib or the horrible excesses of American soldiers during WW2, but the many Americans who served the country in a respectable manner. I don't have a problem accepting that there were some good, honorable Russians, even in the occupation of Germany in 1945.

[Shaka_Khan]

I remember reading that France lost a huge proportion (was it 1/3?) of young French adult men.

[Skullheadhq]

I remember reading that France lost a huge proportion (was it 1/3?) of young French adult men.

At least they got Alsace-Lorraine back.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

At least they got Alsace-Lorraine back.

Shame on the French!