Post: #176

(11-27-2015 09:56 PM)WestIndianArchie Wrote:  

(01-11-2015 11:33 AM)DirectDanger Wrote:  I did a search for this but did not find anything so I hope this is not a repost.

There is a fantastic youtube series on The Great War where each week it follows along what is happening 100 years ago during WW I. I watched all of them and am totally impressed. Everyone should give it a watch.

There are about 40 videos so far with lots more to come.

Youtube channel...
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUcyEsE...69RRVhRh4A

Great Series!

WIA

+1 to that.

I only discovered this series about a month ago and I have managed to get through every video since. It is a brilliant series hosted by American actor Indy Neidell who is based in Stockholm. It is very well presented and researched and whoever came up with the idea, deserves the plaudits. Indy is an ideal host, sharp, witty and knowledgeable. They have plans to expand all depending on the funding of course.

Anyway here is to the next 3 years of the Great War. 10/10 from me.

Post: #177

Thought I'd bump this with this very large, striking, and haunting World War I album on Imgur, with several photos I'd never seen.

One caveat: the album, especially the last stretch of pictures showing early efforts of reconstructive surgery done on the wounded, is extremely NSFW. That's part of what I appreciate about it - I was never shown that kind of stuff in school, and it gives the horror of the war and the trauma these men lived through a real purchase on my imagination.

Link

Post: #178

Today is the centennial of the beginning of the Battle of the Somme. If there was one single event that can probably be said to define this war and how its disillusions still dominate the modern mind, I'd say this one is it.

20,000 British dead in a day. 60,000 casualties total. Over a million casualties for the duration of the battle. Think about that number for a moment. That's the size of a typical alpha city. It makes the devastation of bloodbaths like Cannae, Adrianople, Malplaquet, and even more recent (for the time) battles like Gettysburg look like a complete joke, ones which would fill up only the smallest pf squares of the dead and wounded on the Somme.

And yet even here there was kindness and generosity toward enemies, a kind of chivalry still seemed to live.



When I see things like this, I don't think it's entirely wrong to say that these men, who were suffering the worst conditions imaginable, were in some ways still more civilized than the behaviors we see celebrated today.

Post: #179

^Statistics like this make me doubly certain that whether by accident or design war is a son of a bitch for ripping so many alpha males out of our gene pool.

Post: #180

A reader of my site visited the beach at Gallipoli in Turkey. It's pretty much hallowed ground. I thought you might want to see photos of the place. The easiest way for me to do this is just to post links to the photos on Instagram.

For me there is an old connection to the place, too. My grandmother had two uncles who were killed at Gallipoli. They were Irishmen who had emigrated to Australia.

These are moving photos. The guy who took them had to get up early and got there just after sunrise. The beach itself is a lot smaller than I had expected. The carnage must have been terrible.

Anzacs forever. Long live Australia.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQntIsPleq7/...y=qcurtius

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQntDC3FFJh/...y=qcurtius

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQnqCWJlbyL/...y=qcurtius

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQnpxRclPUS/...y=qcurtius

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQnptGjlexR/...y=qcurtius

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQnpm1ylHLA/...y=qcurtius

Post: #181

I've been reading Achtung Panzer by Heinz Guderian recently. He goes into great detail about battles like Verdun and Cambrai and what may have happened if the new weapon, tanks, were used en masse and as spearheads plus capitalizing on any gains in the effort to achieve a full break through. The sheer amount of wounded and dead soldiers because of battles like Verdun, Ypres, Somme, Paschendale, and Vimmy to name a few is shocking and depressing. It was also a waste of resources and the amount of people dead to capture so little was insane. Just wave after wave, back and forth. Insanity. It was mass fratricide in my opinion.

Post: #182

There is a fantastic documentary on the Gallipoli campaign that can be found on Netflix streaming. It's a Turkish production with English subtitles, and brings in interviews, original photos and film clips, memoirs, and a lot of other things to produce a truly first-rate production.

Anyone interested will find it to be well worth his while. The carnage and tragedy of the entire campaign can't be fully appreciated until you hear about it from the theater and the small-unit level.

To me this is Australia at its finest. The documentary is very, very moving. The level of suffering and endurance on both sides was nothing short of epic.

I can't end this post in any better way than by embedding this photo below. I found it on the internet, somewhere. A modern traveler left this Australian slouch hat on the beach near one of the landing sites.

They were an extraordinary breed of men.

Post: #183

(06-06-2016 01:43 PM)Canopus Wrote:  Thought I'd bump this with this very large, striking, and haunting World War I album on Imgur, with several photos I'd never seen.

One caveat: the album, especially the last stretch of pictures showing early efforts of reconstructive surgery done on the wounded, is extremely NSFW. That's part of what I appreciate about it - I was never shown that kind of stuff in school, and it gives the horror of the war and the trauma these men lived through a real purchase on my imagination.

Link

Of course I had to scroll right to the bottom. Holy fucking hell, you weren't kidding.

The final guy, and that guy third from the bottom on the right, especially. Craters were just awkwardly blown in the middle of their faces, yet they retained their full eyesight and had to see just what happened to them. It's almost like some kind of sick joke - you wouldn't think of injuring someone that way even if you were a particularly cruel person.

A few of the guys at least had their entire faces torn away - they never saw again, but were fortunate enough to never have to see the damage for themselves.

These pictures are the purest nightmare fuel you'll ever find. I'm not going to sleep easily tonight, but thank you for sharing that collection.

Post: #184

Great summary of the events of WWI:

Post: #185

The slaughter of World war I was enabled by factors like:

-The industrial revolution which ensured that there are resources available for a massive army of millions of men. In contrast to the medieval warriors of Europe prior lives were cheap and men were expendable.

-The Levee en masse originating with Revolutionary France which forced all other countries to implement similar policies.

-Gunpowder revolution(and scientific revolution) enabled Gunpowder technologies which alongside the industrial revolution develop powerful modern weapons like the machine gun,artillery,grenades and airplanes that dropped bombs as well as fought in the air with other planes. Later on the development of the 1st tanks

-Scientific revolution also enabled the invention of chemical weapons for the 1st time in history.

-The Strategy and tactics of the Napoleonic Era where they marched in close formation and wore brightly colored clothing(among several armies) which made them out to be easy targets

The results of WWI was the complete and almost utter destruction of Old Order Europe and gave rise to the democracies we know today.

The reverberating consequences enabled the rise of Communism and Nazism.

In both instances the monarchy was abolished and in the case of Russia Tsar Nicolas II and his entire family was massacred on the order of the Bolshevik communists when an attempt was made to reinstate him as Tsar.

The Nazi's meanwhile purged Germany of the Old Order and instated National Socialism.

All the horrors of WWII and the Soviet Threat with the Cold War was the direct results of that.

Post: #186

Very harrowing photos in the link you posted, Canopus. I couldn't really bear to see most of the ones near the bottom.

I know it's harder for non-Europeans, but if you ever get the chance to go and visit WW1 (and WW2) battlegrounds and memorials in France- go. I can't really describe the feeling of what it's like in writing, but even if I could I don't think my words would be doing it justice.

There are whole fields where the ground (over 100 years on) is completely torn up and small grassy hills have formed, like an empty egg carton but in a more random arrangement. You will also get to meet people from all over the Commonwealth who have come to the memorials, and speaking to them was very interesting (although some people aren't in the mood to speak, naturally).

Post: #187

Father of my grand-grandfather died the first year of the war in service of the Habsburg Army, just 3 days after his son was born back home. There is still memorial with his name on it near place where I was born.

My grand-granduncle fought for German Empire in Verdun, got shot in the knee and spent the rest of his life in veteran sanatorium in Upper Silesia.

Too bad we have lost and the globalist clique managed to destroy the last strongholds of monarchist traditional european values

Gott Mit Uns!!

Post: #188

I haven't gone through the whole thread yet, but this is an alternative perspective from historian San Dickson on Red Ice that you won't find in many places:





Dickson addresses the political factors in Europe before the outbreak of World War I, arguing that this period was one of the best in all of European history for various reasons. He then discusses World War I, and ponders if it could have been avoided. Also covered are the Black Hand and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the background of tension in Europe that led to the outbreak of World War I, the Balfour Declaration, sinking of the Lusitania, and hypocrisy in Wilsonian America’s geopolitical agenda.


There are other good reads on the WW1 geopolitics of Europe and how that war was used by the globalists to destroy the world's last remaining independent Christian empires of Russia and Austria-Hungary, as well as reigning in Germany that I will try to add in future posts.

Post: #189

Is being a soldier beta?

Post: #190

Yesterday marked 100 years since the US declared war on Germany!

Post: #191

(04-01-2017 04:03 AM)Chris Brown Wrote:  Is being a soldier beta?

It depends...

Post: #192

Looking at that Imgur thread and I came across this:



You can see the fear, despair and maybe even mental anguish there, that sense of "Just stop". NO judgment obviously. Picture says it all. Damn.

Post: #193

World War One saw the passing from warfare of the past to warfare of the present day.

They quickly found out that charges against machine gun nests were futile. At the start of the war, some were still leading charges with horses. That stopped quickly.

World War One saw the introduction of the tank (which was perfected in World War Two), the flamethrower, machine guns and airplanes. It truly revolutionized the way that war was waged and by the end of 1918, warfare looked completely different than it had looked during the 19th century.

I have full confidence that World War Three, whenever that happens to be fought by the end of the 21st century, will usher in the same type of revolutionary warfare that World War One ushered in.

There's a lot of weapons that the world powers have yet to display to the public. What we see in these modern day third world warfare regions is child's play compared to what will be rolled out during the next war.

By the start of World War Three, warfare will be fought as it has been fought during the 20th century. By the end of World War Three, warfare will look completely different than just a few years prior when the war started.

Post: #194

WW1 & WW2 depended so hugely on personnel that I wonder how difficult it would be nowadays to so easily propagandize entire populations into committing to war with one another (how simple it must have been back in the day with only radio and a handful of newspapers).

Then I remembered that WW3 won't need the masses of bodies that previous wars relied on. I have family in the Army and am often told that they are constantly reminded that drones and technology will take their place very, very soon.

My Grandfather fought in WW2 and before he died he told me that he looked around at England as it was then (this was the 90's) and wondered what those who died would have thought about their sacrifice if they had known the future of the country. And he died in the 90's, things have gotten a lot worse since then.

I had the opportunity to go on one of those Battlefields tours recently and despite being sorely tempted I resisted as it cost a fortune. It was a 5 day tour but the lads doing it are going to do it every year and I promised to go next time they do one of the cheaper 3 day ones.

Was just reading about the love for Junger's WW1 memoir; Storm of Steel in one of the old threads. I've been meaning to read it for years. Next time I'm in a bookshop I'll pick it up.

Post: #195

Post: #196

If only the European powers could have united to take down the Ottomans and get back Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria instead of fighting each other.

The British empire would still be around and millions of refugees wouldnt be fleeing Africa because the continent would be an economic powerhouse. What a waste!

Post: #197

(07-26-2018 04:55 AM)Richard Turpin Wrote:  WW1 & WW2 depended so hugely on personnel that I wonder how difficult it would be nowadays to so easily propagandize entire populations into committing to war with one another (how simple it must have been back in the day with only radio and a handful of newspapers).

Then I remembered that WW3 won't need the masses of bodies that previous wars relied on. I have family in the Army and am often told that they are constantly reminded that drones and technology will take their place very, very soon.

My Grandfather fought in WW2 and before he died he told me that he looked around at England as it was then (this was the 90's) and wondered what those who died would have thought about their sacrifice if they had known the future of the country. And he died in the 90's, things have gotten a lot worse since then.

I had the opportunity to go on one of those Battlefields tours recently and despite being sorely tempted I resisted as it cost a fortune. It was a 5 day tour but the lads doing it are going to do it every year and I promised to go next time they do one of the cheaper 3 day ones.

Was just reading about the love for Junger's WW1 memoir; Storm of Steel in one of the old threads. I've been meaning to read it for years. Next time I'm in a bookshop I'll pick it up.

I don't think it would be that hard to get people (or propagandize) people to go into war with each other. I only think that World War Three will come because if you look at history, we get a big war at least once a century. World War Three might not even be related to anything going on in current events, but some completely new scenario towards the end of the century.

And World War Three might need large army masses. Don't underestimate how big of a role hacking will play in the war. If your technology is rendered useless by hacking, even if for just certain time periods until the side that's hacked can get the servers or technology up and running again, people are going to have to fight in war the old fashioned way.

You mention your grandpa, and you don't have to expand any further if you don't want to. But, if you do want to expand, what changes in particular was he talking about?

I'm assuming the demographic and cultural changes? Perhaps more violence? The government and big brother playing an ever increasing role in people's lives? The regular monthly allah akbars?

Post: #198

(07-26-2018 12:39 PM)Contagion Wrote:  And World War Three might need large army masses. Don't underestimate how big of a role hacking will play in the war. If your technology is rendered useless by hacking, even if for just certain time periods until the side that's hacked can get the servers or technology up and running again, people are going to have to fight in war the old fashioned way.

You mention your grandpa, and you don't have to expand any further if you don't want to. But, if you do want to expand, what changes in particular was he talking about?

I'm assuming the demographic and cultural changes? Perhaps more violence? The government and big brother playing an ever increasing role in people's lives? The regular monthly allah akbars?

That's a very good point about hacking. One of the biggest deciding factors in the next one (and I agree with you that there will be another one simply because it's 'due') will be each side's resilience to having their tech compromised. Any advantage, however short-lived could be decisive.

Regarding my Grandad, I was just a kid but I remember how even though he was a very easy-going soul, he would get incensed every now and again at stuff on the news and things going on outside his window.

Yeah, it was mainly everything you said. Demographics, definitely. He was born in 1920! Despite what revisionists say, England was racially homogenous back in his day, so as he saw this change it must have troubled him. Yes, he'd inevitably be called racist nowadays, but that rings hollow to me. I can't remember him being verbally abusive towards other races, just more his repeated expressions of foreboding about the fact that we weren't all going to get along and that his country was now a time-bomb.

He hated Germans and Japanese! Couldn't stand to see them on TV. Everytime a war film or anything with a German came on TV he (and Grandma) would launch into stories about what 'they happened in the London Blitz'. They lived in London at the time.

Looking back, I'm certain they wouldn't have known (or cared about) the full horrors of allied bombings on Dresden, Hamburg etc. That's what I mean about people of his generation being easy to control. They really only knew what the newspapers, radio and TV showed them. This obviously happens today even more, but at least (for now) we have access to alternative information.

With the Japanese, it was their treatment of prisoners of war that he liked to go on tirades over.

In terms of violence and crime; football (soccer) violence was a huge deal back then and that would aggravate him. Drugs were becoming prevalent. Everyone (incl women) were getting tattoos. Locally, there was a glue-sniffing craze going on! I remember being told not to sniff glue in the woods with the bad lads and I used to wonder what the fuck they were talking about.

You know what? The subject of Muslims didn't really come up with him. That's something that came later and he missed out on. The beheadings, the bombings, the rapings. He would be going absolutely ballistic at the TV if he were still alive today. In fact, typing this out really hits home at how fast life has changed in just the short time since he's been dead.

I can totally understand why some old veterans wonder whether it was worth it. After fighting and winning a world war (or two) you should be living in some sort of utopia as a reward. You should never have to pay taxes again for a start! Or to put it another way, why does winning a war make some feel as though they actually lost it?

Post: #199

(07-27-2018 06:43 AM)Richard Turpin Wrote:  That's a very good point about hacking. One of the biggest deciding factors in the next one (and I agree with you that there will be another one simply because it's 'due') will be each side's resilience to having their tech compromised. Any advantage, however short-lived could be decisive.

Regarding my Grandad, I was just a kid but I remember how even though he was a very easy-going soul, he would get incensed every now and again at stuff on the news and things going on outside his window.

Yeah, it was mainly everything you said. Demographics, definitely. He was born in 1920! Despite what revisionists say, England was racially homogenous back in his day, so as he saw this change it must have troubled him. Yes, he'd inevitably be called racist nowadays, but that rings hollow to me. I can't remember him being verbally abusive towards other races, just more his repeated expressions of foreboding about the fact that we weren't all going to get along and that his country was now a time-bomb.

He hated Germans and Japanese! Couldn't stand to see them on TV. Everytime a war film or anything with a German came on TV he (and Grandma) would launch into stories about what 'they happened in the London Blitz'. They lived in London at the time.

Looking back, I'm certain they wouldn't have known (or cared about) the full horrors of allied bombings on Dresden, Hamburg etc. That's what I mean about people of his generation being easy to control. They really only knew what the newspapers, radio and TV showed them. This obviously happens today even more, but at least (for now) we have access to alternative information.

With the Japanese, it was their treatment of prisoners of war that he liked to go on tirades over.

In terms of violence and crime; football (soccer) violence was a huge deal back then and that would aggravate him. Drugs were becoming prevalent. Everyone (incl women) were getting tattoos. Locally, there was a glue-sniffing craze going on! I remember being told not to sniff glue in the woods with the bad lads and I used to wonder what the fuck they were talking about.

You know what? The subject of Muslims didn't really come up with him. That's something that came later and he missed out on. The beheadings, the bombings, the rapings. He would be going absolutely ballistic at the TV if he were still alive today. In fact, typing this out really hits home at how fast life has changed in just the short time since he's been dead.

I can totally understand why some old veterans wonder whether it was worth it. After fighting and winning a world war (or two) you should be living in some sort of utopia as a reward. You should never have to pay taxes again for a start! Or to put it another way, why does winning a war make some feel as though they actually lost it?

Thanks for sharing man, that's some great insight into the minds of the old generation who came of age at the midpoint of the 20th century.

Good point about them not caring about Dresden or Hamburg and about the government being able to hide information from people. But, nobody really thinks about it, during the next World War do you really think access to information is going to flow so quickly and so smoothly?

People just take for granted the quickness of the information, but what's the first thing that gets knocked out during wartime? Infrastructure. Whether that's railways, roads, airports, energy grids or computer servers. All of that is always going to be the first to go.

So while I agree with you that information would probably be flowing freely and quickly like it does now before the start of a big war, it would quickly be shut off when the war kicked off. Just like people wouldn't be using the eurorail to travel around, neither would they be able to so easily log onto the internet.

Back to the subject of your grandpa - You know, when I was reading over your post, I couldn't help but think of the similarities of what was going on in England to over here in the states. After the war, people were probably just happy to be alive. They were grateful for what they had.

It's so sad that this is what has become of us, as a society, when people like your grandpa would be immediately shouted down at as being racist. Respect for elders has gone out the window, it seems. I know every generation says that, but damn if it isn't true.

I remember when Brexit happened, here in the states, overseas talking with British people and on the internet people were saying that the older generation shouldn't be allowed to vote. That is a very, very sick society.

Post: #200

I love watching interviews from the old timers, they are always full of gems just waiting to come out.

Listen to this American soldier from Wisconsin, talking about a little French village that he encountered in the Vosges Mountains. The way he describes what a simple kind of life the French villagers lived is really incredible and really shows what a static war it was.

After the first few months of the war, the lines on the western front never really moved much. It was only a few big movements at the end where the lines started to really move again.

So while the nations were in an all out war, in the tiny villages away from the battlefields life went on as it always did.

I also wondered as I watched this video, whether the people who are going on and on about the evils of the white man and colonialism ever watch videos like this and realize that the majority of the population really just lived simple lives and were getting by, just like everyone else.

Well, there's probably a 50/50 shot that this tiny village in the Vosges Mountains of France is probably already paying for the sins of its past in the form of some new vibrant enrichment that has graced the village with its presence. Similar to many of the other little villages around Europe that are getting vibrantly enriched. Wouldn't want the cities of Europe to have all the enrichment for themselves, now would we?