History The Great War 1914 - 1918

[mjmooney]

 

 

The story which amused me the most from Vera Brittain's famous account of her nursing in WW1, in her book Testament of Youth, and which confirmed every suspicion I ever had about the class division, was where she explains how she was working in a hospital which was full to capacity, and suddenly they got news that there was a group of wounded officers about to arrive, so they emptied the ward of ordinary soldiers and put them in a shed.

 

<Gove> 

 

Left-wing propaganda spread by Tony Robinson. 

 

</Gove> 

[MakemineVanilla]

The most memorable thing about Vera Brittain's account, which makes me want to puke when I remember it, was her description of the stink of the wards, where in those pre-antibiotic days, wounded soldiers oozed puss and the gagging smell of gangrene filled the air.

 

It is the sort of details which get left out of the school history lessons and when just imagined, makes all talk of glory and honour sound like humbug. 

 

Another one which is enough to make anyone's eyes water (from another source), is that it was thought that the stumps of amputees needed stimulation to heal properly, so every day nurses used slap the stump to provide that stimulation. It has to be noted that pain-killers were often withheld in army hospitals because noble warriors were supposed to endure pain.

 

Something the patients used to dread apparently, and which more than shatters the image of angels of mercy which is also part of the myth.

 

I get an attack of the vapours just thinking about it.

[CrackpotForeigner]

Reading Catastrophe about 1914, by Max Hastings. It's pretty good.

 

Things learned so far:

It was the Germans' fault (or so Hastings convincingly argues)

The German Reichstag was controlled by Social Democrats, who were anti-war (but this didn't make much difference).

The German warmongers started the war when they did in order to crush Russia, which was industrialising and militarising rapidly.

Max Hastings is unexpectedly a moron who uses the non-word "normalcy" instead of the word "normality".

[MrDuck]

Ah, the first oil war.

[Si.]

 

 

The story which amused me the most from Vera Brittain's famous account of her nursing in WW1, in her book Testament of Youth, and which confirmed every suspicion I ever had about the class division, was where she explains how she was working in a hospital which was full to capacity, and suddenly they got news that there was a group of wounded officers about to arrive, so they emptied the ward of ordinary soldiers and put them in a shed.

 

<Gove> 

 

Left-wing propaganda spread by Tony Robinson. 

 

</Gove>

Left wing softies

[The_Rev]

 

I like this series of videos on YouTube.  Some of the jokes fall a bit flat and it is painted in the broadest of strokes but they tend to be worth ten to fifteen minutes of your time. 

 

Dan Carlin is doing a series of podcasts on the war too.  The first episode has been available for a couple of months so a new one might be due soon.   The first episode mostly covers the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the political alliances which were in place in 1914 and the German invasion of Belgium.  It's three hours long and thoroughly enjoyable.  

[MrDuck]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIpm_8v80hw

 

Great vid from Rob Newman, excellent presentation and comedy, and certainly not the first person to suggest the origins of WW1 may not be quite what we've been taught they were.
 

[nobler]

Dan Carlin is doing a series of podcasts on the war too.  The first episode has been available for a couple of months so a new one might be due soon.   The first episode mostly covers the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the political alliances which were in place in 1914 and the German invasion of Belgium.  It's three hours long and thoroughly enjoyable.  

Absolutely fantastic those Dan Carlin podcasts, I've been hooked to pretty much every series he's done, they are structured really well and just incredibly interesting. 

[MakemineVanilla]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIpm_8v80hw

 

Great vid from Rob Newman, excellent presentation and comedy, and certainly not the first person to suggest the origins of WW1 may not be quite what we've been taught they were.

 

 

Very good.

 

I am not sure people want to hear this though. People tend to prefer to foist the blame on to governments and really don't want to face the fact that every act of consumption beyond the absolute minimum and reproduction, produces war, for the resources needed to create that consumer item and to provide the same for that extra human being.

 

The brilliance of Newman is his cynical conclusion that when people are given the blame and the responsibility they cease to suggest action for change because it means that they and no one else is responsible for making that change.

 

So I concluded that it is really about self-knowledge and the realisation that everyone has to accept the consequences of their consumerism and take responsibility for it.

 

When people say they would kill for a consumer item, they are not being as ironic as they pretend, because in actual fact, they really are.

 

A sermon brilliantly sugar-coated in comedy.

Edited January 15, 2014 by MakemineVanilla

[MakemineVanilla]

My favourite explanation for the cause of WW1 is that it was caused by poor obstetrics.

 

The Kaiser had a very difficult birth which gave him a withered arm which gave him an inferiority complex and an obsession with proving his manhood, not helped by being treated with contempt by the British.

 

So he sacked Bismarck, let the treaty with Russia lapse and after reading the book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (written by a damned Yankee), which stated that no country could be a world power without a big navy, and under the influence of people like Tirpitz, the Kaiser started an arms race with Great Britain by building dreadnoughts.

 

Having ended their policy of Splendid Isolation the British got chummy with France who being French got really cocky after British assurances and seeking revenge for their arse-kicking in the Franco-Prussian, made a treaty with Russia, which left Germany surrounded by hostile countries.

 

The house of cards was created and it was just waiting for the minor event which would bring it down.

[mjmooney]

 

CHAPTER 61

 

The Great War

 

KING Edward's new policy of peace was very successful and culminated in the Great War to End War. This pacific and inevitable struggle was undertaken in the reign of His Good and memorable Majesty King George V and it was the cause of nowadays and the end of History.

 

Causes of the Great War

 

The Great War was between Germany and America and was thus fought in Belgium, one of the chief causes being the murder of the Austrian Duke of Sarajevo by a murderer in Servia.

There were many other Causes of the Great War, such as

 

1.     German Governesses, a wave of whom penetrated Kensington in King Edward's reign and openly said that Germany ought to be top nation, and

2.     The Kaiser, who sent a telegram consisting entirely of poems to one of the memorable Boerwar leaders.(*)

 

These are now agreed to have been causes of the War though at the time the newspapers (rather conceitedly) declared that it was caused by a strip of paper.

 

(*)And, during a subsequent crisis, a panther to Agadiers (a brutal act and quite contrary to the Haig Convention).

 

The War

 

The War lasted three years or the duration, the Americans being 100% victorious. At the beginning the Russians rendered great assistance to the American cause by lending their memorable steam-roller and by passing silently through England one Sunday morning before breakfast with snow on their boots. The Americans were also assisted by the Australians (AZTECS) and some Canadians, and 51 Highlanders.

 

The Peace to End Peace

 

Though there were several battles in the War, none were so terrible or costly as the Peace which was signed afterwards in the ever-memorable Chamber of Horrors at Versailles, and which was caused by the only memorable American statesmen, President Wilson and Col. White House, who insisted on a lot of Points, including

 

1.     that England should be allowed to pay for the War: this was a Good Thing because it strengthened British (and even American) credit;

2.     that the world should be made safe for democracy, i.e. anyone except pillion-riders, pedestrians, foreigners, natives, capitalists, communists, Jews, riffs, R.A.F.S., gun-men, policemen, peasants, pheasants, Chinese, etc.;

3.     that there should be a great many more countries: this was a Bad Thing as it was the cause of increased geography;

4.     the Freedom of the Seas: this was a Good Thing as it did not apply to Britain or America (or Switzerland);

5.     that the Kaiser should be hanged: this was a Good Thing as it was abandoned, together with Mr Lloyd George, the Irish Question, etc.

 

The only history book you ever need

[MakemineVanilla]

I see historian Niall Ferguson has offered the opinion on WW1, that Britain's entry into the war, was the 'biggest error in modern history'.

 

I am sure that Gove would find that far more contentious than anything a Lefty might say.

 

Ferguson makes Gove look like a Liberal wet by comparison.

 

http://tinyurl.com/oq9e3hf

[The_Rev]

We had to enter the war when Germany invaded Belgium, we had guaranteed their safety with a treaty.  I'd accept the argument that Germany invading Belgium was the biggest error in modern history, but that headline probably doesn't generate as many clicks on a link on the internet in 2014. 

[Eames]

**** off back to the Bolitics thread with the Gove stuff.

[Shillzz]

I accept the points made in that article, but it relies on the assumption that Britain would still win the war had it entered at a later stage. That's quite a big assumption, and given that we did eventually come out as victors anyway (sort of) then it's difficult to argue against the war path that 'we' trod. 

 

Empires were doomed to fail in the 20th Century anyway, this wasn't the only reason that ours started to crumble.

[Awol]

I accept the points made in that article, but it relies on the assumption that Britain would still win the war had it entered at a later stage. That's quite a big assumption

Indeed, Ferguson fails to note that when the Germans later overran Europe in 39/40 it took the combined might of Russia, the British Empire and the US to eventually defeat them.  Had Germany succeeded in 1914 (it really would have been over by Christmas if UK had stayed home) and knocked out France and then Russia in quick succession, that would have left us in a very tight spot and probably unable to reverse the situation.

 

British foreign policy for 100's of years has been to avoid the Continent being dominated by a single power and becoming an existential threat to an independent UK, which would have been the precise outcome of a German win in 1914/15.

 

Fortunately, after two unsuccessful military adventures it's now unthinkable that Germany would ever again dominate the continent of Europe...

Edited January 30, 2014 by Awol

[Xann]

The Kaiser had a very difficult birth which gave him a withered arm which gave him an inferiority complex and an obsession with proving his manhood, not helped by being treated with contempt by the British.

 

The Kaiser was pissed off with being treated like an idiot by his relatives to the East and West.

 

Puts your common or garden Christmas family spat into perspective.

[MakemineVanilla]

 

The Kaiser had a very difficult birth which gave him a withered arm which gave him an inferiority complex and an obsession with proving his manhood, not helped by being treated with contempt by the British.

 

The Kaiser was pissed off with being treated like an idiot by his relatives to the East and West.

 

 

 

 

Robert Massey makes a very good case for such an explanation.

 

But he's an American and Americans do tend to have a different view to the standard British orthodoxy, which I noticed Paxman repeated in his documentary on Monday.

 

I tend to think that after a 100 years, it might be time to try and understand German perspectives on the war, rather than just trotting out the one we find the most comforting.

[Xann]

But he's an American and Americans do tend to have a different view to the standard British orthodoxy

 

I'm not and I've never read him.

[JamieZ]

The new Dan Carlin episode is going up today, apparently...which means the transfer I'm likely to be most excited about today is a file transfer.

Edited January 31, 2014 by JamieZ