World War 1

banjo · Feb 25, 2014

http://www.1914.org/why_remember/

100 years remembered this year. Sorry to take a side step from the current threads about all our problems on and off the pitch.

daveinprague · Feb 25, 2014

A subject im very interested in....tragic loss of life, over what seems like a family squabble between Victoria's offspring., English King, German Emporer, Russian Tsar, plus the French and various others....
To go through what seems hundreds of graveyards in N.France, its quickly apparent that many of the victims were nothing more than children.

Raleigh Chopper · Feb 25, 2014

Facinating war and era to study. The Paxman documentary was very good. The war to end all wars?
I dont think many people realise just how close we was to losing.

forrest · Feb 25, 2014

That Gavrilo Princip has alot to answer for. Who could ever imagine the changes and carnage that would unfold after that day in Sarajevo. Changed the face of Europe forever and lets be honest in some parts the resentment and hatred still bubbles under the surface to this day. Especially in the Balkans.

vegster · Feb 25, 2014

Had a few days in Ypres last week and managed to see the Last Post Ceremony that takes place every night at 8 at The Menin Gate.
Very poignant few minutes, I was not sure exactly what was to happen but we drifted down to the Gate at 7.45 and there were a few people looking at the inscriptions and standing around chatting, quickly a large crowd built up of about 250 people, the road was closed off and then the trumpeters arrived and took up their positions and all fell silent. The Last Post was played followed by one minutes silence, then a lament was played, an act of wreath laying and reflection and then the trumpeters played reveille to signal the end of the ceremony. Two schoolchildren from Yeovil had lain wreaths but others on display had come from various British Legion groups and a few from Belgium and Holland.
It was immaculately observed, afterwards,several people went over and shook the trumpeters hands and thanked them warmly. It was incredibly moving, and it must be remembered that these names are just the names of the fallen who were never buried as their bodies were never found. Nearly 55,000 names are on the Menin Gate and a further 34,000 on the memorial at Tyne Cot, Paschendale.

The inscription on the Gate reads "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam - Here are recorded names of officers and men who fell in Ypres Salient, but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death".

We owe them a huge debt.

Leekbrookgull · Feb 25, 2014

BBC tonight Max Hastings on WW1 at 9pm then two more on either BBC 3/4 10PM onwards.

portslade seagull · Feb 25, 2014

When playing golf in France at Arras we visited a few cemetery's and it was very sobering, we saw ages starting from 16 poor souls

banjo · Feb 25, 2014

daveinprague said:
A subject im very interested in....tragic loss of life, over what seems like a family squabble between Victoria's offspring., English King, German Emporer, Russian Tsar, plus the French and various others....
To go through what seems hundreds of graveyards in N.France, its quickly apparent that many of the victims were nothing more than children.

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/timeline/ww1-events-1914.htm

I didn't realise how complicated and how quickly things escalated.

Seagull on the wing · Feb 25, 2014

vegster said:
Had a few days in Ypres last week and managed to see the Last Post Ceremony that takes place every night at 8 at The Menin Gate.
Very poignant few minutes, I was not sure exactly what was to happen but we drifted down to the Gate at 7.45 and there were a few people looking at the inscriptions and standing around chatting, quickly a large crowd built up of about 250 people, the road was closed off and then the trumpeters arrived and took up their positions and all fell silent. The Last Post was played followed by one minutes silence, then a lament was played, an act of wreath laying and reflection and then the trumpeters played reveille to signal the end of the ceremony. Two schoolchildren from Yeovil had lain wreaths but others on display had come from various British Legion groups and a few from Belgium and Holland.
It was immaculately observed, afterwards,several people went over and shook the trumpeters hands and thanked them warmly. It was incredibly moving, and it must be remembered that these names are just the names of the fallen who were never buried as their bodies were never found. Nearly 55,000 names are on the Menin Gate and a further 34,000 on the memorial at Tyne Cot, Paschendale.

The inscription on the Gate reads "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam - Here are recorded names of officers and men who fell in Ypres Salient, but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death".

We owe them a huge debt.

I did that tour as well...makes you wonder what a hell it was,some graves....15 year old...my grandfather was 25 when he was hit at the second battle of the Somme...Hinderburg line. He died of his wounds 30th August 1918.
But for all those millions that died, the Flu epidemic (said to have started in the trenches) and swept across Europe killed far more.

daveinprague · Feb 25, 2014

portslade seagull said:
When playing golf in France at Arras we visited a few cemetery's and it was very sobering, we saw ages starting from 16 poor souls

I saw a couple of 15 years olds in one of the Somme cemetery's and one 14 year old...tragic..
Some kids were even executed for cowardice....

Ive read that joining up...some kids would put bits of paper with 18 written on them in their shoes, so they could honestly say they were over 18

British Bulldog · Feb 26, 2014

Been watching programmes about WW1 lately and it's hard to imagine the sheer hell they must have gone through in the trenches and being ordered to go over the top, As Harry Patch put it " if any man told you he wasn't scared then he's a damn liar "

MattBackHome · Feb 26, 2014

I found the R4 'Voices' podcast to be EXCELLENT.

attila · Feb 26, 2014

A CENTENARY WAR POEM
For Bill Baine, 1899-1968

‘What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.’
And so some lines to spike centenary prattle:
These words a sole survivor soldier’s son’s.

My father Bill, born in Victorian England:
The sixth of January, 1899.
His stock, loyal London. Proletarian doff-cap.
Aged seventeen, he went to join the line.

Not in a war to end all wars forever
Just in a ghastly slaughter at the Somme -
A pointless feud, a royal family squabble
Fought by their proxy poor with gun and bomb.

My father saved. Pyrexia, unknown origin.
Front line battalion: he lay sick in bed.
His comrades formed their line, then came the whistle
And then the news that every one was dead.

In later life a polished comic poet
No words to us expressed that awful fear
Although we knew such things were not forgotten.
He dreamed Sassoon: he wrote Belloc and Lear.

When I was ten he died, but I remember,
Although just once, he’d hinted at the truth.
He put down Henry King and Jabberwocky
And read me Owen’s ‘Anthem For Doomed Youth’.

‘What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.’
And so some lines to spike Gove’s mindless prattle:
These words a sole survivor soldier’s son’s.

ATS/JB
22nd January 2014

glasfryn · Feb 26, 2014

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.

vegster · Feb 26, 2014

glasfryn said:
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.

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.

Superphil · Feb 26, 2014

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.

Tyrone Biggums · Feb 26, 2014

Sad old song about WW1 with pictures.

glasfryn · Feb 26, 2014

Tyrone Biggums said:
Sad old song about WW1 with pictures.

makes you think they(Aussies, Canadians, Indians,Pakistanis) are our arch enemies when it comes to sport, but when we needed them they were there standing shoulder to shoulder with us

Vicar! · Feb 26, 2014

daveinprague said:
A subject im very interested in....tragic loss of life, over what seems like a family squabble between Victoria's offspring., English King, German Emporer, Russian Tsar, plus the French and various others....
To go through what seems hundreds of graveyards in N.France, its quickly apparent that many of the victims were nothing more than children.

So a bloody good revolution in Victoria's era would have saved us two world wars. I wonder what the world would have been like if we had risen up like the French.

daveinprague · Feb 26, 2014

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.

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World War 1

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