World War 1

[Seagull over Canaryland]

I note that most of the current news features regarding WW1 are focused on the Western front, which is understandable because of the horrific scale of casualties.

However I do hope there is some recognition of the conflict extending across Southern and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the South Atlantic. Plus of course civilian casualties here in Blighty due to shelling by the German Navy and bombing by Zeppelins.

My own Grandfather was part of small Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) unit initially serving on the Western front but then sent by Churchill to northern Russia to fight for the Tzar in a campaign that lasted 3 years, but ended up fighting Germans and Turks in the south (across Ukraine, Georgia, Romania, Turkey, Persia). All while trying not to get shot in their backs by Bolsheviks who at one point put their British allies in front of a firing squad. It got so precarious that they had to buy a train to escape. Eventually they got back to Britain and were transferred to the Army and promptly sent to Mesopotamia in the Middle East to fight the Germans and Turks to protect the oil fields in what is now Iraq, Iran and Azerbajhan. There were horrendous massacres of Armenians by Turks and other rival factions, bordering on genocide from which again the British decided to make a not very glorious 'withdrawal' and rarely gets mentioned in the wider scheme of things.

My Grandfather was lucky enough to survive and just to cap it all served in the RAF in WWII, so served in all three armed services, but being 'old school' rarely mentioned his exploits and this only became apparent when I looked into the archived records and books.

Another bizarre expedition was 'Mimi and Tutu go to War' (an interesting book) about two British gunboats dismantled and carried overland within Africa to fight the Germans on an inland lake (Lake Victoria?).

It seems only right to ensure that current and future generations understand the true scale of the first true 'world war'.

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

Forgot to mention 'The Great War Forum' is a useful font of information - a sort of 'NSC' for WW1 anoraks and those interested in finding out more detail, in my experience much of it is very informative.

Certainly a little more mature than some stuff on NSC.......ahem. But then the subject matter does rather put the ups and downs of football into perspective.

 

[daveinprague]

When I first left the navy, whilst looking for work, I worked in an NCP carpark with an ancient old fellah....turned out, he was formally a ww1 RFC pilot ..
I asked him about it...you know..the machine guns through the propellers etc...
He told me, no...he was wounded before those times...his weapon in the cockpit was a shotgun?? and grappling hook...

a grappling hook?..yes...used to try and fly over the German recce planes with the grappling hook trailing below them, and try rip the Germans wings off!!

Can understand a shotgun, but not sure whether he was winding me up about the grappling hooks..

 

[Superphil]

When I first left the navy, whilst looking for work, I worked in an NCP carpark with an ancient old fellah....turned out, he was formally a ww1 RFC pilot ..
I asked him about it...you know..the machine guns through the propellers etc...
He told me, no...he was wounded before those times...his weapon in the cockpit was a shotgun?? and grappling hook...

a grappling hook?..yes...used to try and fly over the German recce planes with the grappling hook trailing below them, and try rip the Germans wings off!!

Can understand a shotgun, but not sure whether he was winding me up about the grappling hooks..

 

[daveinprague]

Blimey...

 

[symyjym]

When I first left the navy, whilst looking for work, I worked in an NCP carpark with an ancient old fellah....turned out, he was formally a ww1 RFC pilot ..
I asked him about it...you know..the machine guns through the propellers etc...
He told me, no...he was wounded before those times...his weapon in the cockpit was a shotgun?? and grappling hook...

a grappling hook?..yes...used to try and fly over the German recce planes with the grappling hook trailing below them, and try rip the Germans wings off!!

Can understand a shotgun, but not sure whether he was winding me up about the grappling hooks..

Sounded believable and just searched for it........

There are even stories of the crew of rival reconnaissance aircraft exchanging nothing more belligerent than smiles and waves.[8] This soon progressed to throwing grenades, and other objects - even grappling hooks............... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_in_World_War_I

 

[Stoo82]

War is terrible but sometimes you have to stand and fight or else. It's better that we stood with France, Russia and Belgium as I can't believe the Kaiser would have stopped at The Channel.

Ps, my grandfather took four bullets in his arm but lived to 72.

It's better to die in a war than die a slave. As somebody once said.

 

[smudge]

2 of my Nan's brothers killed at Ypres. Went there with school & found their names on Menin Gate. One was a Royal Marine the other in the Sussex.
I'd like to go back again some time.

 

[cunning fergus]

Yeah...Napoleon was demonised by the British aristocracy, fearful of losing the good times... managed to convince the common man as well...
Amazing though that three of the main WW1 protagonists royal families were actually related.
Not entirely certain but think the Romanian, Serb or Bulgarian Queen was British as well.

He was demonised for good reason, he was (as history proved) a dangerous despot that plunged Europe and many parts of the world into decades of war.

These days convention indictates that the French Revolution was a noble enterprise (and maybe the initial cause was), however it soon descended into barbarism and murderous intolerance. The period immediately after the revolution was known as “the terror” which involved the deaths of hundreds of thousands of working class Frenchmen and women as well as aristocrats, not least in the Vendee.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vendée

The British Govt at that time would have well understood the nature of civil wars, our own was just 150 previous at that time and it is still the most murderous war the nation has even been involved in. As depressing as the losses were in WW1 proportionately more British people died in the English civil war………………..a fact we should do well to reflect on in the coming years remembering WW1.

As for Napoleon's spirit of republicanism the first French Republic lasted a mere 12 years, 5 of which had Napoleon as Consul and therefore de facto head of state, before became the type of despotic monarch the French had originally outed in 1793.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_First_Republic

He certainly grew into the role of monarch too because he married a Hapsburg princess, their child was named the “King of Rome”, his brothers, relatives and associates were married or forced into the monarchies of other French occupied European states. The source of the current Swedish and Norwegian Royal families can traced back to a Napoleon appointed Marshal of France (Jean Bernadotte).

 

[daveinprague]

Yeah, hindsight proved it...but at the time, im fairly sure the British aristocracy were bricking it.

 

[melias shoes]

my Grandfather came back in 1918 with injuries and he died in 1927 at the age of 42 as a consequence of those injuries
I found this out only a year ago ...........no photo's nothing.
it was a terrible war, what war isn't millions died .....really for nothing.

It wasn't really for nothing though. Germany led by the kaiser was intent on conquering Europe. Had to be stopped.

 

[Fungus]

It wasn't really for nothing though. Germany led by the kaiser was intent on conquering Europe. Had to be stopped.

I'm guessing Glas mean that millions died (on both sides) simply for things to stay (pretty much) the same as they were before.

There must be a better way than that - surely only the guys at the top had any argument with each other?

 

[Norman Potting]

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 & 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 'til 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.

As written by Ian Kilminster, 1991.

Just listened to this on Spotify - surprisingly moving piece "1916" by Motorhead in case anyone wondered.

 

[Seagull over Canaryland]

I was surprised to read that my Grandfather is credited with the dubious honour of the first ever shooting down of an enemy aircraft using a gun mounted on a vehicle (an armoured car), while fighting on the Russian side in the Danube delta. Verified by an eminent military historian in a fascinating book called 'The Tzar's British Squadron'

No mean feat, but probably a lot easier than using a grappling hook...

 

[cunning fergus]

Yeah, hindsight proved it...but at the time, im fairly sure the British aristocracy were bricking it.

But to what end?

From a British perspective at that time a belligerent republican France was probably only marginally better or worse than a belligerent Royalist France. Royalist France was no friend to Britain as the American war of independence (or 2nd English civil war) had proved.

The French revolution only further destabilised a simmering European continent, there was no tangible egalite, liberte and fraternite for the poor.

In many ways, like ww1 and ww2 it was inevitable that Britain would be drawn in to a war to confront an aggressive nation that was bent on dominating the continent.

 

[daveinprague]

I understand what youre saying...he was basically a warlord....but i believe the British royals genuinly were terrified of his ideas arriving in Britain..as would have the Revolution before his arrival on the scenel, which would have removed them from the good life, and would have gone out of their way to demonise him, which is all im really saying..
Just another land grabbing despot...as the British are often seen in many parts of the world, not just Europe.
We get told its a bad thing to dominate, and occupy, and enslave people...when we were actually masters of it.

 

[Dowling93]

My Great-Grandfather survived World War One even though a bullet his his pocket went through a letter and hit his lighter luckily! We still have the letter with the hole in!

 

[Stoo82]

But to what end?

From a British perspective at that time a belligerent republican France was probably only marginally better or worse than a belligerent Royalist France. Royalist France was no friend to Britain as the American war of independence (or 2nd English civil war) had proved.

The French revolution only further destabilised a simmering European continent, there was no tangible egalite, liberte and fraternite for the poor.

In many ways, like ww1 and ww2 it was inevitable that Britain would be drawn in to a war to confront an aggressive nation that was bent on dominating the continent.

Sorry... but if you are going to re-name a war, its best to get it correct. Probably should re-name the American War of Independence as something like the 4th or 5th English Civil War. Not that the American Colonies were ever in England or part of an 'English state'.

 

[Superphil]

Just listened to this on Spotify - surprisingly moving piece "1916" by Motorhead in case anyone wondered.

We listened to it as we arrived at the Thiepval monument in the Somme a few years ago, brought lumps to our throats.

It was also recited by the Veterans for Peace at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday last year.

 

[Stoo82]

I understand what youre saying...he was basically a warlord....but i believe the British royals genuinly were terrified of his ideas arriving in Britain..as would have the Revolution before his arrival on the scenel, which would have removed them from the good life, and would have gone out of their way to demonise him, which is all im really saying..
Just another land grabbing despot...as the British are often seen in many parts of the world, not just Europe.
We get told its a bad thing to dominate, and occupy, and enslave people...when we were actually masters of it.

Absolutely right. The British establishment, along with all other established elites (I do so hate that word) in Europe, were terrified of Napoleon and the New French Empire he created. He was no democrat. The Republic was abolished in 1799 and he came to power as First Consul, effectively a Dictator in the same year. He was crowned Emperor 1804 and lasted until 1815. The Code Napoleon, the reorganization of France from a Medieval mess into a modern state is his lasting legacy.

Napoleon had no problem with Monarchy, not only was he an Emperor himself, he was also King of Italy. His brother, was King of Spain and many other Royal Houses came under his domain. Not, president or Coucal or any kind of, however rouge, democratic idea at all.