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[–]sauceboss188 336 points337 points ago

I think its more saddening than creepy. These guys went through absolute hell

[–]shoryukenist[S] 142 points143 points ago

That is what is so chilling about it, it is totally real.

[–]Abomonog 25 points26 points ago

I guess you've never seen true shell shock. That ain't it. This guys craziness is off on a totally different tandem. I don't know the name of the illness, but this guy is in Inspector Dreyfus land.

Shell shock is a form of catatonia. Lighter cases come down with the famed "thousand yard stare" while the worst ones become statues that are just as poseable as a Ken doll (this is exceedingly freaky to watch). He certainly would not be staring into the camera for the picture.

In truth, it looks like the guy is stoned on something. I would not blame him for that, but he is obviously lucid.

Although clinically there is really no clinical difference between shell shock and PTSS, shell shock was used to denote a specifically acute condition while PTSS is a generic term for virtually any mental breakdown due to extreme stress.

[–]zipmic 14 points15 points ago

like this kind of stare? - It's from a Danish movie called Armadillo and is real footage from Afghanistan, including this guy's stare

[–]Abomonog 12 points13 points ago

That is about right. When you're looking like that your buddies are quite literally leading you around the battlefield like a dog on a leash.

Oh yeah.

Source; I used to work at a lovely place outside of Chicago called "Elgin State Mental Health Center". I've seen a few Vietnam vets that were permanently reduced to catatonia in battle. It is by far the creepiest mental disorder to have.

[–]Kildragoth 3 points4 points ago

I'm curious if you can provide any insight to this. Why doesn't everyone come back from these horrific situations effected with PTSD/shell shock, etc? Considering you are aware of this kind of mental state, would you in turn be less susceptible to this?

[–]Abomonog 3 points4 points ago

Because there is a limited amount of stress anyone can take and warfare quite literally puts every ones stress level at the red line. Whether one can take this is determined by so many factors they can't be listed.

Scale also has a determining factor in this that should be mentioned. Even battle hardened gang members can break down when faced with the scale of all out warfare. Ever noticed how 9/11 was a huge shock while Hurricane Katrina was not so shocking despite the fact that it was even more destructive? Humans killing humans is not a natural act, and so when a human dies by the design of other humans we are shocked deeper than when such deaths happen by accident.

Even being aware of the condition and being prepared for a battle, there is no way to know how your base instincts are going to react until the moment comes, and being a veteran makes absolutely no difference. You could survive a hundred battles smiling and one small event or a culmination of all of them could cause it. In the end, the conscious mind has no control over the result. When the switch is triggered the wall going up is entirely automatic. And it doesn't even have to be a battle. Battle hardened solders have gone shell shocked and stayed that way for months over something as innocent as a letter from home. On the other hand there are men who have fought multiple wars without so much as batting an eye.

You can never know.

[–]SpermWhale 346 points347 points ago

The more low tech the war, the more barbaric it is. Imagine the medieval times.

[–]recreational 3129 points3130 points ago

There's a lack of appreciation in this and other comments, I think, for why WWI was so traumatic for soldiers.

There's an ebb and flow over military history between the offense and the defense having the upper hand. In the last major European war before WWI, the Franco-Prussian War, the offense had the edge; Germany won via its decisive and swift march onto Paris, disabling France before it could really even get in the fight. Decades later, however, by the time WWI began, technology had changed; advances in artillery, machine gun, railway systems, fortifications, etc., and even the adaptation of some low-tech stuff like barbed wire, made the defense much more powerful than the offensive technology that existed at the time.

But the mindset that everyone was operating under was still based on that last major war. This was the rationale behind Germany's invasion of France through Belgium- it believed it had to move quickly to disable France, or it would lose a two-sided war against France and Russia. Likewise, the cult of the offensive dominated French thinking; there was a strikingly testosterone-driven belief that a fervent charge of bayonets was enough to overcome any machine gun fire. And let's not even get started on cavalry. This was the first war in history where cavalry was finally and completely rendered obsolete, and the generals did not adapt well, they were still sending cavalry out to be massacred by machine gun fire even by the time the war ended.

The point is, you have this dynamic where the technology of the time says, "Sit and defend," and the generals say, "Go out and charge!" And the shocking thing is how long it takes the military leadership, especially of the Entente, to adapt; and how frequently they relapse. Really why the war dragged as long as it did; the Germans were better, although by no means perfect, at learning not to bleed themselves dry (culminating ultimately in the intentionally flexible Hindenburg line, while the French were still ordering their men to never yield an inch of ground.) So there's this cycle of long squalid tedium, guys sitting in mud holes getting eaten alive by bugs and fungi and their own bodies, eaten cold food out of tins, interrupted by the occasional pointless but massive bloodletting as whoever's in charge this month initiates another stupid offensive that he sells back home as being decisive and sure to break the stalemate, but maybe, at best, gains a few square miles of territory- as often as not lost again six months later.

And meanwhile the artillery. WWI has lots of poison gas, although it's not very effective in the final tally, and snipers and machine guns, and sappers that explode a line from underneath you; but all together none of them take near the toll that the artillery does. WWI was the war for artillery, dominated by the big guns, with tanks and functioning bombers still in the future. The industrial countries blow through millions of tons of artillery shells, cratering and re-cratering the landscape, first indiscriminately and then in creeping waves as they learn how to use them; the entire peace-time reservoirs of shells are expended in months at the start of the war, and they churn out more, the later battles often using in a matter of days as many shells as even existed in the world in 1912. Being on the frontlines usually meant being surrounded by the constant shock and roar of the big guns, always meant living in fear that you could be snuffed out in an instant by them; and besides the pure psychological terror, meant exposure to literal shockwaves that were constantly fucking with your brain in ways we're just coming to grips with today as we deal with combat veterans who've been exposed to IEDs.

So to recap; if you're a soldier in WWI, you're spending your time in a squalid trench- German trenches were constructed better but made up for it with the severe shortages of pretty much everything caused by the British naval blockade, so that almost everything you ate or wore was a poor substitute made from something else; paper shoes and acorn coffee. Most of the time is a constant tedium undergirded by the fear that at any second a massive offensive could be launched, or even just a random burst of artillery fire, that reduces you to powder without your ever hearing or seeing a warning of it. This is the best case scenario. Worst case scenario you're in an offensive and your general is sending you out to get ground up against the enemy's defenses, with deserters getting shot or hung, trying to crawl through shell-blasted mud and barbed wire into a nest of machine gunners. Slightly luckier and you're on the defense, which is great as long as you don't get gassed or an artillery shell doesn't land on you, or sappers don't blow up the entire ridge you're sitting on, or snipers don't see your head sticking up, or just caught at the hammer point of an all-out offensive that might peter out a few miles forward but is going to sweep you aside through sheer mass of numbers.

And this just goes on. And on. That's what drives people mad. All this thunder and blood and mud and nothing changes. Some of the battles themselves drag on for months of near-constant murder. Maybe if you have a good general you get rotated through so you're not constantly living under the guillotine, but more likely your commander has you or a bunch of your buddies killed for a few worthless square miles you have to give up again when he realizes he can't defend them effectively.

The "Stabbed in the Back" myth that Hitler would use later to help rise to power held that the German army was never defeated in the field, that it lost to politicians at home. The first part is actually kind of true though. Even on the run at the end, the Germans inflicted about as many casualties as they took. The thing is they were never really victorious in the field, because battles during WWI just weren't winnable, really. To either side. The technology meant that both sides were just slowly, painfully bleeding each other until someone gave up. To the soldiers this meant there was no hope of victory- but also no hope even of defeat. Just sitting there, waiting to die.

And all war is barbaric, but it's not hard to see why WWI was so unusually tormenting to the mental well-being of those who fought it.

edit: Sweet, tasty karma. I am studying to become a history teacher, actually. Also if you found the above interesting you want to read A World Undone by GJ Meyer, definitely the best comprehensive and introductory resource on WWI I'm aware of. Goes into all of the above with much more awesome detail, also delves into the incredibly interesting and frustrating story of the series of fuckups that led to war breaking out in the first place, which was hardly the unavoidable outcome you probably read in your gradeschool textbook.

[–]llordlloyd 129 points130 points ago

There was a single ridge outside Verdun that was fought over by thousands of soldiers for months. After a while, the soil had a discernible characteristic of fetid, rotting flesh, churned over every time a shell landed.

The above also needs to be posted whenever any dickhead refers to the French as cowardly. As the most ardent believers in the cult of the offensive, the French poilu was involved in more sacrificial, suicidal actions than any other army.

[–]Hans_Zimmer_Gruber 49 points50 points ago

Thank you. I understand that most people aren't being serious when they give the French shit about cowardice, but it drives me crazy because the French have, throughout history, been some of the most consistently tough motherfuckers around.

[–]GrandOak 25 points26 points ago

My view on it is most people see the french as cowardly by their lack of international military presence and hesistance to get involved. But if someone comes at the French there is none more suited to hold their territory. Theyre too pompous to let someone walk over them

[–]labrys 28 points29 points ago

doesn't help that one of their main rivals throughout history was England, and when England expanded it's empire to cover a third of the globe they took the negative french stereotypes with them.

[–]g00n 11 points12 points ago

Is anyone aware of any scholarly work where the trope of the French as cowards is analyzed? Did it only arise after the rapid takeover of Paris during WW II or had it been present in some form beforehand?

I think the Italian army had a reputation as being incompetent and ineffective, but not so much cowardly. It's only the French that have this reputation. Given the fact that the French were (and to some extent still are) a major military power for the last millennium, it certainly is undeserved.

[–]GrandOak 22 points23 points ago

I can't speak on behalf of other countries, I feel like in America people make fun of the French and have no basis other than "its funny to". Given that the education system likes to talk about how awesome America is and doesn't go in depth on other countries, people are unaware of France longstanding history as a world superpower.

[–]AmbulatoryAndroid 11 points12 points ago

I suspect it's because of the terrible performance of the French military during the Nazi invasion, and the surrender and cooperation of Vichy France.

[–]a1211js 17 points18 points ago

There is some basis for this from the end of WWI as well. The French were really driven a lot more to the breaking point through the cult of the offensive, and by 1917 there were large scale mutinies and desertions. Whole sections of the line were close to crumbling, and it really is the British and the (threat of) arriving Americans that held everything together. This is the side of France that America really saw at the time, not the 3 years prior or suicidal, stupid bravery that had killed more than a million young French men and wounded a few million more.

Americans like to take credit for "winning the war", and the French and British get (understandably) upset by this. However, by the end of the war, there were ~30,000 Americans arriving on the mainland EVERY DAY. Their military contribution was quite small in the scheme of things, but the threat and promise of the 10-20 million men that could still be mobilized and shipped over once the sleeping giant that was the American economy woke up certainly helped hasten the end for Germany.

Again, not saying this is a valid basis for claims of cowardice, but it is not 100% unfounded and made up.

[–]AmbulatoryAndroid 4 points5 points ago

Hmm, the French have one of the largest military prensences around the world, and they aren't at all hesitant to use military force. They're all over the third world in dirty, little wars, not to mention UN peacekeeping and Afghanistan. They didn't join the coalition invading Iraq, but that was for political and practical reasons, not any inate pacifism.

[–]Rondoggg 7 points8 points ago

When i visited Verdun it amazed me that, under the trees, the ground still rolls with the punches from shells that landed 90+ years ago.

[–]porkpie-hat 14 points15 points ago

That was so good! I found myself totally absorbed.

[–]NegativeD 246 points247 points ago

Awesome read, thank you. Submitted to best of!

[–]recreational 439 points440 points ago

Thanks.

On the upside I think WWI left us with some of the most beautifully haunting poetry in the history of war; it was the inspiration for T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Yeats's The Second Coming, and Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est, amongst many others. The latter I think is especially compelling because Owen himself died in action very shortly before the end of the war. It's sort of a brutally gentle smackdown to all of the rah-rah patriotism that was getting wide play in the press at the time, saccharine ballads of imagined glory by old men who were never at the front lines;

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[–]sailors_jerry 66 points67 points ago

The one that always makes me shudder is 'Suicide in the Trenches' by Sigfried Sassoon:

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go. 

Absolutely haunting.

[–]Bjidgel 214 points215 points ago

In Canada as a kid we learnt In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Wikipedia article about the poem

[–]BaobhanSith 24 points25 points ago

                    The General

‘Good-morning; good-morning!’ the General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,

And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.


Siegfried Sassoon (1886 - 1967)

[–]kimchifart 7 points8 points ago

Best name ever.

[–]Insomniakkz 68 points69 points ago

Same for Australian soldiers.

Lest we Forget.

[–]CaptainCraptastic 51 points52 points ago

Lest we forget.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them."

[–]koshercowboy 32 points33 points ago

[–]char2 18 points19 points ago

That song gets me every time, though the version I have is by the "Franklin B. Paverty Bush Band". If we're sharing these kinds of songs, I'd like to offer Motorhead's 1916.

And relating to a different war, Saxon's Broken Heroes.

[–]meaganmollie 19 points20 points ago

Different war, but I Was Only Nineteen ruins me every time.

[–]2Rare2Kill 4 points5 points ago

Iron Maiden's Paschendale is another good one.

[–]koshercowboy 2 points3 points ago

thanks for that.

also, this is highly relevant, about Balaclava in 1854 during the Crimean War. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADBo0s4CbvM

[–]jwat82 11 points12 points ago

You may not see this, but as an old Jarhead, in bootcamp we hear a lot about the Battle of Belleau Wood (where the name Devil dog or Tuefelshunden came from) , could you explain how this battle was different (if it was) from the conventional trench warfare of the time, and if you don't have the time to discuss, could you point me to some reading that isn't so up the Marine Corps ass as to be rational.

Thanks in advance!

[–]LustLacker 24 points25 points ago

Hey brother,

I went there in the 90's, awesome place. As a US service member/former member they'll let you comb through the woods and take what you find.

So, at the south end of the wood still stands the farm fields USMC crossed to start the offensive. They stepped out of a tree line and walked in four waves toward the German MG's. This is where USMC senior leadership disregarded lessons learned by the UK and French, using ye olde tactics. German MG's just mowed them down.

If you go there, to this day (at least, until 1999 when I was there last), at the south end of the wood are the German positions from the first day of the battle. Just in the treeline runs a granite rock formation, with a split that forms a trench, with a high granite wall behind and a shelf out toward the open field. THis is where the German MG's were set up, and there are still PILES AND PILES of brass casings rotting under the leaves. You can clearly see where MG positions were, judging by the brass mountains. You can see the granite wall behind the MG positions are pock marked with 1903 Springfield 30-06 rounds as the Marines tried to shoot the gunners dead. There is a concentration of pock marks directly behind each MG position.

The entire wood is filled with stories like this, written in the rocks and shell craters. There are two forests there, the white ghosts of the ancient trees that were cropped to an even height by arty, and the almost 100 year old new trees growing up above them. There is the Woodsmens' Lodge at the North end of the wood where a German officer was captured. Not far from there is a swamp where a US round burrowed down into a German munitions bunker and cratered a lake. There are abandoned trenches filled with leaves and brass and rifle cleaning kits and chempro masks and rusting T&E's and we even found a skeletal hand with an EGA ring on it.

We took metal detectors, found many interesting things. But the last thing we found was an undetonated large bore arty shell, nose first down in the mud. SO there's that out there, too. US put tens of thousands of gas rounds into the north wood the last couple days.

Teufelhund was probably a self bestowed moniker.

Oh yes, go to Belleau, people there are awesome, mayor's house is where you can get a drink.

[–]LustLacker 11 points12 points ago

I should also note the attention and care the French custodians give BOTH cemeteries. The German one is quite lonely, though well maintained. See both, if you can. At the American cemetery is a shrine with the names of the MIA. My relative's name is there, great great uncle sent to war, body never found.

Also check out Chateau Thierry, and the people there are equally warm and welcoming. You can see the open fields USMC first engaged Germans at 700M with their Springfields. Hire at historian guide there, or sign up for one of the groups. The French historian will have an unbiased insight into the historical happenings. Quite a trip, devil.

[–]jwat82 4 points5 points ago

Thanks! All great info. Next time I find myself on that side of the ocean I will make Belleau Wood a priority!

[–]hughwphamill 20 points21 points ago

take up our quarrel with the foe

This poem is the antithesis of Owen's above.

[–]Bjidgel 19 points20 points ago

Historian Paul Fussell criticized the poem in his work The Great War and Modern Memory (1975). He noted the distinction between the pastoral tone of the first nine lines and the "recruiting-poster rhetoric" of the third stanza. Describing it as "vicious" and "stupid", Fussell called the final lines a "propaganda argument against a negotiated peace".

-From the Wiki Article about In Flanders Fields

[–]cantlurkanymore 13 points14 points ago

This shit pisses me off and somebody brings it up every goddamn time. The man was a DOCTOR people! His foe isn't 'ze Germans' or whoever, it's war itself and those who cause it.

[–]hughwphamill 3 points4 points ago

Genuinely interested if you have a source for this claim? If true, then the poem itself seems at the very least recklessly ambiguous.

[–]2Rare2Kill 9 points10 points ago

My great grandfather was gassed at the Second Battle of Ypres. He spent the rest of his life in and out of hospital, but did live into his 80s. Apparently he was a wonderful human being, despite the hell he endured.

[–]RainyRat 4 points5 points ago

It was dedicated to Owen's "friend", Jessie Pope, who was one of the white-feather brigade that would try to shame young men into joining up during WWII. It's also one of the very few poems that I studied at school and didn't end up subsequently hating.

[–]keepsharp 4 points5 points ago

This sends chills down my spine every time I hear it.

[–]FatMansPants 26 points27 points ago

Like in Lord of the Rings, Tolken was talking about his time in the Somme when he was describing the Marshes of the dead.

*They walked slowly, stooping, keeping close in line, following attentively every move that Gollum made. The fens grew more wet, opening into wide stagnant meres, among which it grew more and more difficult to find the firmer places where feet could tread without sinking into gurgling mud. The travellers were light, or maybe none of them would ever have found a way trough.

Presently it grew altogether dark: the air itself seemed black and heavy to breathe. When light apperared Sam rubbed his eyes: he thought his head was going queer. He first saw one with the corner of his left eye, a wisp of pale sheen that faded away; but others appeared soon after: some like dimly shining smoke, some like misty flames flickering slowly above unseen candles; here and there they twisted like ghostly sheets unfurled by hidden hands. But neither of his companions spoke a word.

At last Same could bear it no longer. "What's all this, Gollum?' he said in a whisper. "These lights? They're all round us now. Are we trapped? Who are they?'

Gollum looked up. A dark water was before him, and he was crawling on the ground, this way and that, doubtful of the way. 'Yes, they are all round us,' he whispered. 'The tricksy lights. Candles of corpses, yes, yes. Don't you heed them! Don't look! Don't follow them! Where's the master?'

Sam looked back and found that Frodo had lagged again. He could not see him. He went some paces back in the darkness, not daring to move far, or to call in more that a hoarse whisper. Suddenly he stumbled against Frodo, who was standing lost in thought, looking at the pale lights. His hands hung stiff at his sides; water and slime were diping from them.

'Come, Mr. Frodo!'said Sam. 'Don't look at them! Gollum says we mustn't. Let's keep up with him and get out of this cursed place as quick as we can - if we can!'

'All right,' said Frodo, as if returning out of a dream. 'I'm coming. Go on!'

Hurrying forward again, Sam tripped, catching his foot in some old root or tussock. He fell and came heavily on his hands, which sank deep into sticky ooze, so that his face was brought colse to the surface of the dark mere. There was a faint hiss, a noisome smell went up, the lights flickered and danced and swirled. For a moment the water below him looked like some window, glazed with grimy glass, through which he was peering. Wrenching his hands out of the bog, he sprang back with a cray. 'There are dead things, dead faces in the water,' he said with horror. 'Dead faces!'

Gollum laughed. 'The Dead Marshes, yes, yes: that is their names.' he cackled. ' You should not look in when the candles are lit.'

'Who are they? What are they?' asked Sam shuddering, turning to Frodo, who was now behind him.

'I don't know,' said Frodo in a dreamlike voice. 'But I have seen them too. In the pools when the candles were lit. They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair and weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all routting, all dead. A fell light is in them.' Frodo hid his eyes in his hands. 'I know not who they are; but I thought I saw there Men and Elves, and Orcs beside them.'

"Yes, yes,' said Gollum. 'All dead, all rotten. Elves and Men and Orcs. The Dead Marshes.*

[–]bamdastard 48 points49 points ago

motorhead 1916

16 years old when I went to war,
To fight for a land fit for heroes,
God on my side,and a gun in my hand,
Counting 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,
Is 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 fought and we brawled
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 tell 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 Í
And that's how it is for a soldier. Ð

[–]CzarApex 17 points18 points ago

Christmas in the Trenches

My name is Francis Tolliver, I come from Liverpool. Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school. To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here I fought for King and country I love dear. 'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung, The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung Our families back in England were toasting us that day Their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my messmate on the cold and rocky ground When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound Says I, "Now listen up, me boys!" each soldier strained to hear As one young German voice sang out so clear. "He's singing bloody well, you know!" my partner says to me Soon, one by one, each German voice joined in harmony The cannons rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more As Christmas brought us respite from the war As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was spent "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" struck up some lads from Kent The next they sang was "Stille Nacht." "Tis 'Silent Night'," says I And in two tongues one song filled up that sky "There's someone coming toward us!" the front line sentry cried All sights were fixed on one long figure trudging from their side His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shown on that plain so bright As he, bravely, strode unarmed into the night Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man's Land With neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand We shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well And in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home These sons and fathers far away from families of their own Young Sanders played his squeezebox and they had a violin This curious and unlikely band of men

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more With sad farewells we each prepared to settle back to war But the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night "Whose family have I fixed within my sights?" 'Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost, so bitter hung The frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung For the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war Had been crumbled and were gone forevermore

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell Each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame And on each end of the rifle we're the same

[–]juke_the_stats 34 points35 points ago

My favorite is by Wilfred Owen:

Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
and builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

[–]koshercowboy 14 points15 points ago

Jesus. I've never quite read poetry so harrowing and hopeless.

[–]Ftumsh 18 points19 points ago

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

[–]VolatileChemical 13 points14 points ago

Great observation, I was thinking about artistic depictions and reactions to WWI as I read your earlier post. The Waste Land is probably my favourite poem, and we studied Dulce decorum in my English course last year, it's great; also, the fourth season of the British series "Blackadder"; hilarious, haunting, moving.

[–]evilarhan 18 points19 points ago

Blackadder Goes Forth really captured the mindset of the war, while remaining absolutely funny. The quiet pathos of Hugh Laurie's line about him being "the only one of the Trinity Tiddlers still alive" in the final episode still gets to me.

[–]Trachtas 3 points4 points ago

It's on youtube. There ain't nothing like British comedy and its streak of pathos.

[–]tlisia 12 points13 points ago

I can never decide whether this or 'Suicide in the Trenches' is more eloquent on the matter. Sassoon's is just so brief and harsh and cruel, yet this so emotive.

There's always this bullshit contempt of English Literature but this is why people study it. You compare this to the poems before and after and you can see in the literature how the nature of war itself changed. When you read Tennyson with his Poet Laureate status and all the glory he imbues in 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' you can see exactly what Owen was fighting against in his poetry: the people back home and the years of belief in 'the old lie' as he has it. Admittedly 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' was a direct response to Jessie Pope, but this was an old, established tradition.

There is a really interesting collection of First World War poetry, called 'The Men Who Marched Away', and it separates it all in to equal section, the titles of which I can't remember, but kind of like 'Before' and 'After', 'Death' and then it has separate sections on the 'Glory of War', and the the realities of war, and you can see just how the attitudes of the soldier-poets progressed when they got to the trenches, and how much the reports of glory and the enlistment drives back home hurt, maybe even tortured the serving soldiers that they could not save their sons and brothers from this unknown fate. It's devastating but fascinating. It's like they saw no honour or purpose as they had been taught to expect and were fighting for their right to be human and have identity, rather than just be canon fodder.

And then later, in the Second World War, Dylan Thomas making himself in to a Poet Laureate figure, but focusing on the home front and what he knew, with 'A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London' or 'Among Those Killed in the Dawn Raid Was a Man Aged a Hundred'. He never tried to pretend to understand what the soldiers were going through. Thomas is the evidence that whilst so many soldier-poets of the First World War lost their lives in the fields of France, they didn't lose the war they fought over literature, and if people would only read it with respect and attention like the people right here have done, at least a part of their experiences would not have been in vain.

I find the First World War to be transitional, in that finally, war could be seen as something traumatic and terrible, not honourable and noble. And that Sassoon, Owen and all the others fought as much for that as they did the Triple Alliance.

For reference, as seems to be included here:

Tennyson, 'The Charge of the Light Brigade':

1.
Half a league, half a league,

 Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!

"Charge for the guns!" he said:

Into the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.





   2.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"

Was there a man dismay'd?

Not tho' the soldier knew

 Someone had blunder'd:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.




3.
Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

 Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

 Rode the six hundred.





4.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,

Flash'd as they turn'd in air,

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

 All the world wonder'd:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro' the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel'd from the sabre stroke

 Shatter'd and sunder'd.

Then they rode back, but not

 Not the six hundred.





5.
Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

 Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro' the jaws of Death

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.




6.
When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

 All the world wondered.

Honour the charge they made,

Honour the Light Brigade,

 Noble six hundred.

    

Sassoon, 'Suicide in the Trenches':

    

I knew a simple soldier boy.....

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.






In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

And no one spoke of him again.





You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

     Thomas, 'Among Those Killed in the Dawn Raid Was a Man Aged a Hundred':

    

When the morning was waking over the war

He put on his clothes and stepped out and he died,

The locks yawned loose and a blast blew them wide,

He dropped where he loved on the burst pavement stone

And the funeral grains of the slaughtered floor.

Tell his street on its back he stopped a sun

And the craters of his eyes grew springshots and fire

When all the keys shot from the locks, and rang.

Dig no more for the chains of his grey-haired heart.

The heavenly ambulance drawn by a wound

Assembling waits for the spade's ring on the cage.

O keep his bones away from the common cart,

The morning is flying on the wings of his age

And a hundred storks perch on the sun's right hand. 

    

Thomas, 'A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London':

    

Never until the mankind making

Bird beast and flower

Fathering and all humbling darkness

Tells with silence the last light breaking

And the still hour

Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round

Zion of the water bead

And the synagogue of the ear of corn

Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound

Or sow my salt seed

In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn




The majesty and burning of the child's death.

I shall not murder

The mankind of her going with a grave truth

Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath

With any further

Elegy of innocence and youth.




    Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,

Robed in the long friends,

The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,

Secret by the unmourning water

Of the riding Thames.

After the first death, there is no other. 

[–]mahm 8 points9 points ago

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,

I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.

When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

[–]MalaysiaTeacher 19 points20 points ago

Who downvotes this? This poem is still regularly taught in schools (for GCSE English Literature), and never loses its power.

[–]Mance_Rayder 11 points12 points ago

Mate, no-one is downvoting it, its just the way reddit fuzzes the votes

[–]brakattak 5 points6 points ago

One of my favorite poems ever. I go back over Wilfred Owen from time to time, and am continually surprised at just how much he still effects me.

[–]CTTAAG 4 points5 points ago

"An ecstasy of fumbling". Sarah Mclachlan, that's a messed up reference!

[–]CcouldBeFunn 3 points4 points ago

And some of the bravest fighters. This is a speech made to his troops in the beggining of the war, to gather moral in sight of suicadal mission. By Dragutin Gavrilović:

Soldiers, exactly at three o'clock, the enemy is to be crushed by your fierce charge, destroyed by your grenades and bayonets. The honor of Belgrade, our capital, must not be stained. Soldiers! Heroes! The supreme command has erased our regiment from its records. Our regiment has been sacrificed for the honor of Belgrade and the Fatherland. Therefore, you no longer need to worry about your lives: they no longer exist. So, forward to glory! For the King and the Fatherland! Long live the King, Long live Belgrade!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragutin_Gavrilovi%C4%87

[–]dagobahh 9 points10 points ago

"Forward he cried,

and the men on the front ranks died.

The general sat and the lines on the map

moved from side to side"

~ Pink Floyd

[–]happybadger 31 points32 points ago

What's really interesting to me is how profoundly World War 1 changed art and the mindset of those not even in the trenches.

Prior to the war, art was pretty. That's not to demean it, but it was something the nouveau riche went to see between meals in a clean museum filled with scenes of tranquility and exploration. We had just come out of impressionism and the art of the day, from post-impressionism's naivety and vibrancy to cubism's worship of the industrial age and human progress, reflected this deep love of the accomplishments of the present and potential of the future.

In many ways, we were on the verge of adopting the Technochrist and outright worshiping machines. On one end you had people painting aeroplanes and automobiles with the same reverence that renaissance painters gave god and human form, even the most recognisable building of the era being a gigantic steel erection dedicated to engineers and scientists, and on the other end you had technocratic extremists like the Italo-futurists who outright called for the burning of museums and total purge of Old Europe.

Then the Technochrist gave us machine guns and the ability to slaughter each other on a scale not even the grandest sociopath could wish for. It was a war that no one walked away from alive, and overnight you had an incredible shift in culture.

Enter Dada. Dada wasn't just art, it was a coping mechanism that stretched across every medium. Out was nature and serenity, in were collages of horribly disfigured man and machine-beasts. Text swirled around newspaper clippings and crude, distorted illustrations, screaming faces carried nonsense babyspeak in their mouths, machines and urban pleasures were smashed together into a meaningless material ball and then pasted over by mindlessly assembled fragments of passages.

It wasn't just because the artists of the era were buried in their trenches across France, European society as a whole realised what the modern age brought with it and fell out of love with progress. We fell into a deep Zeitgeist depression and the next two decades were nothing but the outbursts of traumatised children trying to cope with unimaginable loss.

War in general is terrible, but it's not called the Great War because it was big. We didn't survive that war.

[–]SultanPeppar 29 points30 points ago

I would like to recommend that if you haven't read All Quiet on the Western Front that you do so immediately.

It is short and poignant.

[–]rongonathon 8 points9 points ago

And if you really want to paralyze yourself for a couple of days, follow that up with Johnny Got His Gun.

[–]Elemmakil 5 points6 points ago

My first thought. Remarque's book is shocking and was universally targeted by various groups. We did interpretations of reviews of this book from from different positions. Monarchists, Nationalists, Communists... That book received much hate in Germany, after all "anti-war" was an insult at that time.

Despite that it's one of the most well know German books of that century.

[–]Amadeus_McDowell 185 points186 points ago

I'm always reluctant to post in military topic threads, but I couldn't help myself. You describe the realities of trench warfare very well, but much of your background information is viewed through a single lens of Offense-Defense theory which is interesting academically but not so much so when held to a real test of history and politics.

The end result of trench warfare is indisputable for the Western Front, but the Eastern Front was not nearly as you describe it. In fact, there was much military-political infighting within Germany as to the conduct of the war because of this fact.

The so called Eastern Team of Hindenburg, Ludendorff, and Hoffman were having a lot success in the East and there was growing resentment within the military towards Chief of the General Staff Falkenhayn for his reinforcement of failure in the West with troops that would have been better utilized in the East where there was success (basic military theory - don't reinforce failure). In fact, there was so much resentment for Falkenhayn that he was dubbed "The Evil Angel of the Fatherland." This in-fighting is all the more exacerbated because of Emperor Wilhelm's inept leadership. Falkenhayn is perhaps best remembered for his horrible strategy for Verdun - a total failure. Later in life, Falkenhayn would argue that he never intended to capture Verdun - only to "bleed the enemy to death." This is a very dangerous proposition strategically speaking as it "elevated the exhaustion of the enemy from a means to an end." (Strachan, The First World War, pg. 68).

Back to the cause of the war, you have to consider German fatalism and fundamental organizational issues within the Imperial Army at the time - things brewing since before unification in 1871. The Imperial Army was entrenched in "old army system" ideologies, failed to appreciate civilian control of the Army exacerbated by the fact that all Chancellors after Bismarck were too weak to exert any real control, and finally they actively worked to subvert the authority of the Reichstag. There was no War Minister that could even oversee the entire Imperial Army as the War Minister was actually just the Prussian War Minister. Issues like this compounded problems of control.

This is all, by the way, to ignore the fact that the Germans had been itching to get to war for some time... nearly successful several times. The utilization of the 1879 treaty between Germany and Austria was absurd as it was originally envisioned as a promise of mutual support in the event of an invasion of Russia that was principally not due to a provocation by either signatory of the treaty! Bismarck himself spoke of this many times during his day - including once in Vienna. However, this treaty was the justification used to support Austria-Hungary.

By the time it came down to it, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg was unable to keep the soldiers out of politics. He deferred to the military and, thus, "in the end, the great decision of 1914 was made by the soldiers." (Craig, Politics of the Prussian Army, 1640-1945, pg. 291).

The bottom line is that Germany wanted a war for a lot of strange and confounding reasons. Certainly, they felt they were better, but they were also fearful of the Triple Entente. Political issues within the Empire enabled the military to hijack the government and, essentially, drag it into war with little protest due to incompetence within the Emperor and the Chancellor. The Reichstag may have thought differently, but the Army had cut them out of this type of decision long ago.

With respect to the Franco-Prussian war, I again disagree. It is true that the early victories were quick - although remember it was the French who declared war on Prussia due to fears of mobilization. When Napoleon III was captured after Metz and Sedan, the Second Empire (government) went with him and the 8 Corps of the Army of the Rheine (and nearly all of the reserves at Chalons). The war, however, didn't end on 1 September as it would have seemed. Bismarck (one of his only failures) allowed Napoleon to surrender himself, as an individual, and didn't force him to agree to any broader demands as the sovereign of the Empire. This left the country (and its people) sans a government.... so how to define victory without a loser? At one point, the Germans tried to negotiate through Empress Eugene exiled in England!

A government of National Defense stood up under Jules Favre in Paris, and Moltke was pushing to go... Bismarck wanted to wait.. blah blah blah, Moltke just says fuck it and rolls anyhow. Bismarck is not happy. Now the issue is dealing with the French civilians (who were using old US Civil War armaments and basically whatever they could find to fight as an insurgency against the Prussians!!). This drags on for some time... Paris under siege but not really giving in and the people in the hills coming after them. Hell, they had French Naval Officers coordinating and running infantry attacks (naval power wasn't really a factor during this war at all, so the navy officers wanted to get in on some Prussian killing).

It took until the late Fall of 1870 for Bismarck to feel truly pressured to do anything about the conflict to expedite it. This outside pressure comes from an international conference to discuss the 1856 Black Sea treaty and Russia's intent to violate it. This pushes Bismarck's hand to the point that he agrees to actually utilize some of the heavy artillery on Paris in an attempt to bend the knee of the civilian resistors (of which there were many).

Prussian morale starts to plummet both on the line and at home. No one is interested in becoming "the last casualty of a war that seemed to drag on," (Showalter, The Wars of German Unification, pg. 297).

FINALLY, in December a 3 week massive bombardment starts. It's not so good at killing Parisians, but it did bow the head of Jules Favre who finally agreed to the surrender and thus gave the Prussians Alsace and Loraine (and their Empire). Interestingly, Wilhelm was crowned in Versaille DURING the war (18 Jan 1871). The war itself didn't end until May.

Again, my point is just that there is so much more to war theory and understanding than the over-simplistic offense-defense model. It has some uses - it is particularly interesting when talking about nuclear powers and nukes as a defensive weapon, etc. But I am much more in line with neoclassical realism when it comes to true military and security studies.

I would suggest the following three articles which I think will give you a better perspective on offense-defense theory and its applications:

World Politics Vol. 30 No. 2, Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma, by Robert Jervis

International Security Vol. 25 No. 1, Grasping the Technological Peace, by Keir A. Lieber

International Security Vol. 22 No. 4, Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War, by Stephen Van Evera

Finally, you may like:

Neoclassical Realism, The State, and Foreign Policy, by Lobell, Ripsmann, and Taliaferro.

*Edited for Grammar and the making of sense.

[–]LtCmdrSantaClaus 47 points48 points ago

I'm confused about your point. The original post uses "offense" and "defense" as brief background descriptors of prior wars; what I'm getting from your post is that you disagree with the use of these; but I don't understand what's different.

E.g. Are you saying cavalry wasn't obsolete? Are you saying that generals understood the cavalry was obsolete but used it anyway for complex political reasons?

What errors would you change about that post to make it more accurate? I don't get why you posted this and I am trying to understand.

[–]antejentacular 24 points25 points ago

If I had to guess, I would suggest that recreational has an academic background in history and Amadeus has one in international relations.

Amadeus is focusing on the OP's use of the 'Cult of the Offensive' theory to explain the outcome of the First World War. He is suggesting that there are other IR theories that (arguably) offer 'greater' explanatory value.

Neorealism, Waltzian or otherwise, suffers from a great many flaws in explaining why war broke out. It really depends on how much weight is put on the existence of an anarchic international system. And whether you believe Wendt's contention that anarchy is what states make of it.

Incidentally, Van Evera also wrote an article entitled 'The Cult of the Offensive and the First World War' in which he states quite clearly that: 'the cult of the offensive was a principle cause of the First World War'.

No references because I'm lazy. Google is friend.

[–]jeaguilar 130 points131 points ago

I see you are unfamiliar with how academics swing their dicks.

[–]fixeroftoys 39 points40 points ago

"You know something, eh? Well you're not entirely correct, my professor talked about this thing over here that is mildly related to your point but is different enough to not contradict it, despite my assertion you are incorrect and that my sliver of knowledge is superior."

[–]Amadeus_McDowell 8 points9 points ago

I appreciate your question, and it is definitely valid. Some of the posters below already hit on the thrust of my point (in particular, wolff).

The main point is this: Offense-Defense theory is a way to view the possibility or likelihood of conflict, but it is not a complete view in that it ignores the following: civil-military relationships, military-political relationships, sovereign positions in the international system, and normative realities of the international system of the day. It also puts too much weight to technological advancements as we understand them today..

The crux of the O-D theory states - briefly - that when technology favors the offense, war is more likely as nations will feel they are able to actually achieve their strategic ends. Some apply more metrics than simply technology, such as: nationalization of the population, military doctrine, strength of alliances, and force size (to name a few). These are additions made in order to strengthen the theory because the tech. dominant "core" of the theory is weak. I believe that if the "core" is rotten, the fruit is bad.

E.g., O-D theorists may state that the railroad swung favor towards the offense and therefore it was clear that the Franco-Prussian was going to occur - or at least that a war was going to occur because the tech. advancement ripened the state for conflict, but this is a incorrect. Wars were more frequent between 1850-1871 when neither the Prussian's nor others viewed the railroad as an offensive tool - it was considered favorable to the defense. After 1871 when mobilization realized more authority, the Prussians and others viewed the railroad as more favorable to the offense, but then one must reconcile this fact with the reality that there was 40 years of continental peace between 1871 and WW1.

One must also ask how tech. favors the offense... this is an ambiguous approach. Is a rifle an offensive or defensive weapon? Is a tank? Some outfits have more obvious 'assault' qualities such as paratroopers, but this ignores geographic qualities of the defender. Just because some nation can now "reach out and touch" another nation, how does this favor the reaching nation over the nation that never had to go anywhere? Would the static-nation's supply lines, communications ability, and access to resources, etc.. not still be at an advantage by virtue of the proximity of the fight to its boundaries?

Also, I disagree that Germany viewed the offense as superior in the build up to WW1. Germany understood the inherent strength of the defense - which is why it ultimately tried to utilize a plan of quick and deep penetration in order to mitigate defensive opportunity.

O-D theorists would state that Nuclear Weapons are the most powefull defensive weapon ever created, and thus, a conflict involving or between nuclear powers is unlikely because the offensive is never favored. However, since 1945 there have been many conflicts involving nuclear powers, and even conflicts between nuclear powers (India - Pakistan). Clearly, then, O-D theory falls short (at least in this example) of providing an understanding as to why wars occur.

As far as the cavalry statement, I agree that cavalry was largely obsolete - at least in horseback form. My disagreement is less with the conduct of the war than the causes of the war. Much of my first post was just to highlight the general characteristics of the conflict internally. Wars and governments are often viewed as monolithic in nature - this is probably never the case. O-D theory also doesn't really discuss the conduct of a war (except to draw conclusions about ripeness for future conflict based on the apparent power of the O or D) - it goes up to the point of conflict not through the conflict itself.

recreational highlights rather well the perspective of the individual soldier on the Western Front. He is largely correct and provides a good view of what that may have been like. I agree with him that the poetry of the day is powerful, as well. I simply disagree that O-D is an appropriate tool to use to advance a complete understanding as to why the (or any) war(s) started in the first place.

Does this help clarify? I wrote the last post at 4am, so I apologize for any gaps in my point.

EDIT: for clarity, typos, etc. For references, see my previous post.

[–]recreational 3 points4 points ago

Wow, this is a lot to respond to. Thank you for the post. I've gotten a lot of recommendations on things to read/watch/listen to, most of which is new, so I'm going to be a while slogging through that.

I'm aware of the vastly different nature of the war in the Eastern theater. However, the post I made was addressing shellshock, which was essentially a Western front phenomenon, so I intentionally simplified things a good bit to try and bring that experience home (the Franco-Prussian war I actually haven't studied much at all, so on that point I was basically just reiterating the explanations I've heard from others; it's an area I'm interested in and need to bone up more on but I don't have nearly the confidence to offer my own opinions there.)

I only really lightly touched on the causes of the war, because I think it's too complex a subject to treat as a sidebar, so that was another lie of simplification. I also wouldn't want to put the entirety of military history in a prism of simply offense vs. defense; but the balance swung so precipitously towards defense in WWI that I think that really is one of the primary defining features of the war, particularly in the Western front where the fully industrialized powers were going at it; of course there was a lot more movement in other theaters, but that was primarily a result of the relative technological backwardness of the Russians, Austrians, Ottomans, Italians, etc.; and even then there were plenty of spots where the war bogged down interminably.

Appreciate your insights, will try to tackle the recommended literature.

[–]Amadeus_McDowell 3 points4 points ago

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate your response as well as your original post. I'm also glad that you didn't take offense to what I wrote as some thought I sounded dickish/smug/whatever in my post - unintentional if perceived that way. It is an area that I am passionate about and sometimes that doesn't translate as well to text - particularly at 4am.

I think your portrayal of the plight of the soldier on the Western Front was very well articulated and gives great insight. It is also timely. It is important for all of us to recognize the plight of the soldier - shell shock, ptsd, combat stress, whatever as those issues are present in today's wars as well (although obviously MUCH less violent, etc.). It is clearly visible in the extremely high suicide rate of veterans and active duty service members. It's great that you, as a historian, are so well read on this particular issue that is inextricable from conflict but so understudied and considered.

Best of luck on all of your future studies and work!

[–]tpwoods28 9 points10 points ago

Thank you, so so much for that. I'm studying German history, including the great war, and have seen many generalisations and the usual uninformed "all of the war was the western front" bollocks. To see someone who genuinely knows what they're talking about and has a deep understanding of the reality of the subject is completely refreshing and gives me some hope for reddit.

Even more so, I cannot commend you enough for the use of citations in your writing and your referral to further reading. History on reddit is completely stuck in the pointless drudgery of two users hurling their own opinions at each other, without a single cited fact thrown in to the melee. I hope dearly that one day all history on this site will be like what you have presented here.

So thank you, for both showing everyone how it's done and for giving me some hope.

[–]brokenarrow 11 points12 points ago

History on reddit is completely stuck in the pointless drudgery of two users hurling their own opinions at each other, without a single cited fact thrown in to the melee.

[citation needed]

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. I'll see my way out.

[–]ImranRashid 13 points14 points ago

As an addendum

Generally speaking, as you said, there is a lag period for tactics to catch up to technology, and it is usually the commanders who adapt the fastest to the provisions of said technology that fare the best.

One example of this would be the extent to which the Prussian Field Marshall von Moltke swiftly deployed troops through use of locomotives in an amount of time previously logistically impossible.

An example of where failure occurs in this regard- you could look to Pickett's charge in the battle of Gettysburg. More accurate rifling, quicker reloading, and things like the Gatling gun mean that the volume of fire faced by a charging infantryman makes a head-on charge suicidal. Am I right in saying the Civil War was America's bloodiest? I've heard that said before, and it's as you say- old world tactics meet new world technology.

The Russo-Japanese (thanks doughboy334) conflict at the start of the 20th century is also interesting as it occurred at a rather crucial period in military technology history and represents the entrance of Japan as power on the world stage.

One of the most tragic aspects, I think, about WWI is that behind, "old world tactics," existed a concept of honourable sacrifice that was absolutely torn to pieces when the staggering numbers of the deathtolls made their way back home. I mean, the first battle of the Marne killed about half a million soldiers. WTF.

[–]lyjobu 7 points8 points ago

You are correct Sir, re the Civil War being out bloodiest. More Americans were died during that war than all our others put together.

Of course it helps that stat when you remember both sides were us.

[–]doughboy334 3 points4 points ago

cough Russo-Japanese War, not Sino-Russian. Sino = chinese

edit: You're welcome!! :)

[–]mcbi4kh2 13 points14 points ago

This from Captain Corelli's Mandolin has always stuck with me. A soldier explaining to a mother how her son died:

"When did he die, Signor? Was it a good day?"

"He died on a fine day, Signora, with the sun shining and the birds singing."

(He died on a day when the snow was melting and when, from beneath that carapace, there were emerging a thousand broken corpses, knapsacks, rusted rifles, water-bottles, illegible unfinished letters drenched in blood. He died on the day when one of our men realised that he had entirely lost his genitals to frostbite, put a rifle barrel into his mouth, and blew away the back of his head. He died on the day when we found a corpse with its trousers down, squatting against a tree, frozen solid in the act of straining against the intractable constipation of the military diet. Beneath the fundament of the dead man lay two tiny nuggets of blood-streaked turd. The cadaver wore bandages in the place of boots. He died on a day when the buzzards came down from the hills and began to tear the eyes from those long dead. The Greek mortars were coughing over the bluff, and we were buried in the hail of mud. It was raining.)

"He died in action, Signor? Was there a victory?"

"Yes, Signora. We charged a Greek position with bayonets and the enemy were expelled."

(The Greeks had repelled us for the fourth time with a barrage of mortar fire. They had four machine-guns above us where they could not be seen, and we were being cut to pieces as we fell back. Eventually we received a command rescinding the order to take the position, since it was of no tactical significance.)

[–]jimicus 9 points10 points ago

Suddenly "Blackadder Goes Forth" makes much more sense.

[–]InPassing 8 points9 points ago

My grandfather had one strong memory of WWI that he never forgot even when he became senile. It was of being in the trenches and hearing a lieutenant say "Fix bayonets!" Your description helps me better understand the horror of those words.

[–]E3D89 8 points9 points ago

I'm German, but I've lived in France and visited a lot of places, these pictures are from my trip to near Verdun, one of the most known battlefields of WW1.

First one is just a sign that says: Destroyed village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont

http://i.imgur.com/QCuyA.jpg

The next ones are where the village should be, there are literally thousands of small craters. Of course, after roughly 100 years, theres lots of vegetation now.

http://i.imgur.com/G1VAS.jpg http://i.imgur.com/RPMus.jpg

Not spectacular, but it shows clearly how many artillery bombs have dropped.

Lastly, there are two pictures of the memorial for the fallen soldiers:

http://i.imgur.com/zaom5.jpg http://i.imgur.com/POhiu.jpg

[–]vulpes_occulta 9 points10 points ago

As a history fan, all I can say is wow. You painted the picture astonishingly well. I feel sad that history teachers today often lack the zest and capability that you have exhibited this evening.

[–]neanderhummus 4 points5 points ago

I'll troll with a tl:dr from my warfare professor: when technology advances and tactics get left behind, you have a bloodbath.

[–]Keats852 7 points8 points ago

You're not entirely right about the tactics... the Russo-Japanese War had been fought with roughly the same weapons, and had also turned to trenchfighting. The Japanese had stormed the Russian trenches and had actually won due to tenacity. This was keenly observed by European generals witnessing the battles, who got the feeling that the army with the highest fighting spirit or 'morale' would be able to achieve victory. The Allies also continued their old tactics because in the end, they would have more men left than the Germans. Pretty easy maths in terms of who could field the largest number of men.

In the end, it could be argued that the Germans were the more civilized people, because the people at home decided that the war was enough, and that admitting defeat was better than to continue the bloodshed.

On a further note: I was once at an ambient metal concert, I forgot the name of the band, but the music was so loud, with such a-rhythmic bass & drums and all kinds of whatever, that I felt overwhelmed by it all. My brain couldn't cope and at that moment, I realized that WW1 must have been similar for the soldiers.

[–]Coitastic 6 points7 points ago

I always find it disappointing that the sociological history surrounding WW1 isn't discussed in as much depth as it could and should be.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand never really answered why all those countries went to war. Sure, the dynastic history of the alliances, the military movements, and so on was explained, but why the countries and the peoples were so eager and ready to follow that road to war was never explained.

When I was in England, studying WW1 in college, I ended up reading "Riddle of the Sands", learning about invasion literature, and writing a paper on it or a related subject. At the very least there was 40 years of concentrated pulp literature in England, and in the other countries I believe, which aroused peoples attentions and fears, and excited them.

When people talk about how young men were eager to go to war...well, it helps to understand that eagerness if you realize those young men were probably grabbing the paper to read a serial every week, buying cheap novels to read stories - and it was often about invasion, war, the French! The Germans! If you grow up with that and it frames your childhood and adolescence, and it even affects politics on a national scale (which it did!), of COURSE you're eager to go! You've got the prime chance to enter the exciting novels of your youth, what fun!

But that discussion almost never enters classrooms or lecture halls when WW1 comes up. Even my esteemed, world-class professor who focused his career on WW1 didn't bother mentioning this stuff to us. He almost entirely focused on the - to me - lame and useless minutiae of every battles, outcomes, and so on.

TL;DR read "Riddle of the Sands" and find more depth to the origins of WW1 than you thought there were.

[–]mackduck 12 points13 points ago

Just a memory. every armisice day my Grandmather would cry- she was 10 when the Great War brokr out- and in her words ' all the men, they went away- and they NEVER came back' - still makes me tear up. She explained that, apart from the fact that so many died ( numbers hard to conceive- for nothing) the men who came home were not the same- something was lost....

[–]Banzai51 6 points7 points ago

Along those lines, if you read the pre, during, and post- war literature of the day, you really see that change in mindset for the general populations. WWI is just fucked up on so many levels.

[–]SomeGuyInOttawa 6 points7 points ago

Topical for me.

I'm currently re-reading The Guns of August it's fantastic.

Let me recommend for you: Dreadnought by Robert K Massie.

[–]karmerhater 6 points7 points ago

War. War tends to change.

[–]eat-your-corn-syrup 5 points6 points ago

To the soldiers this meant there was no hope of victory- but also no hope even of defeat. Just sitting there, waiting to die.

In the movie The Front Line, when North Korea took most of Korea, some South Korean soldiers were captured by communists. A communist general said to them they were losing because they did not know what they were fighting for, then he released them. The general then was confident that he was taking part in liberation. years later, the two Korean governments were negotiating for total cease fire, and soldiers at the front line of both sides had to fight to death for just a few miles back and forth. In the last battle where dead bodies were everywhere, one of the released South Korean soldiers encountered the communist general injured. the soldier asked what the general meant by him not knowing what he was fighting for. and the general said his last word "i used to know what I was fighting for. I don't know any more."

[–]Draskiller 8 points9 points ago

That was really well written bud, thank you for that, really. You really know your stuff.

[–]CloseCannonAFB 5 points6 points ago

Motorhead- 1916

[–]Jocephu5 4 points5 points ago

My great grandfather fought for Germany, before he and his family immigrated to the US to escape the Nazi Party. Upon his arrival, he voluntarily committed himself to a mental institutuion, where he spent the rest of his life. He willingly separated himself from the lives of his wife, and four sons because of the "shellshock" he suffered from as a result of fighting in WWI. OP really sheds some light on what was going on my great grandfather's head as a result of what went on back then.

[–]Nischaree 4 points5 points ago

Besides being really interesting, I believe you left out an important detail: Soldiers on both sides started rebelling. Especially as you had generals sitting in castles, far far behind the lines deciding over what to do next. This wasn't the only problem, when talking about keeping the soldiers moral high, something small would be the way the 'washed' your clothes in gigantic hot-steam..., things that would kill every parasite but not flea-eggs, aka soldiers would get them back and enjoy their time getting those eggs out. Anyway, this was a really interesting read.

[–]wolfalice 2 points3 points ago

For anyone interested in some illustrative period literature, here's Alfred, Lord Tennyson's bombastic Charge of The Light Brigade, written in 1854. Virginia Woolf famously used passages of this poem as a synecdoche for Victorian values in her novel To The Lighthouse (1927).

The Charge of The Light Brigade

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter'd & sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Now compare with Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est, also known as the "gas poem", written around 1918. Wilson later died in the war. As with the dramatic shift in which war was fought and understood, in which people lived their lives, in which notions of the state and state service changed, there was also a very noticeable adaptation in the literature of the time to reflect these changing social and technological trends.

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

TL;DR welcome to modernist literature.
EDIT: Formatting. Always formatting.

[–]liberty4e 4 points5 points ago

That was very informative. Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves were both in WW1 (I'm a fan of their poetry). This is my favourite Sassoon poem about the war. It's titled "Suicide in the Trenches."

I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.

[–]BackFromHell 7 points8 points ago

Amazing read, thanks.

[–]cumbert_cumbert 3 points4 points ago

For some reason this reminded me of - and made me think you might like - Robert Newmans History of Oil.

He talks about how we have been taught a bogus version of how WWI developed. Its also really interesting aside from that. One of the best rationales Ive seen as to why the US is in a constant state of warfare in and around the middle east.

[–]koshercowboy 1 point2 points ago

So brilliantly writen; you've cleared up so many things and educated me on so many others about WWI of which I know very little about. I would love to hear more. Do you study much wartime history?

What was the end result of WWI and can you elaborate a bit further on what you mean by the "Stabbed in the Back" myth?

Thanks, man.

[–]tyrannofuckingsaurus 11 points12 points ago

Not OP, but I know a little bit about the subject.

The "stab in the back" legend arose because the German Army was certainly not comprehensively defeated at the end of World War I. Germany won the war in the East (after the Russian government was overthrown by revolution and they left the war); in the West, though they were in retreat, the Germans were still inflicting massive casualties on the Allies in 1918. No Allied troops had set foot on German soil.

During the last days of the war, and knowing that the war was unwinnable, the German military government at home - run by the Kaiser and the Army high command - was replaced by a civilian government known as the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic sued for peace with the Allies. This is the basis of the "stabbed in the back" myth - the German Army, which was perceived by Germans as being undefeated on the battlefield, was 'betrayed' by civilian politicians at home.

The treaty which ended the war, the Treaty of Versailles, was extremely harsh on the Germans (at the insistence of the French, whose land and people had suffered the worst of the destruction). It stripped Germany of huge amounts of its territory, allowed Allied troops to occupy German soil, and forced Germany to accept full responsibility for the war and to pay massive reparations to the Allies (Germany only paid these off in 2010). The German armed forces were restricted to no more than 100,000 men, with no tanks or aircraft. The Treaty was massively unpopular in Germany and the politicians who signed it on Germany's behalf became known as the 'November Criminals'.

Many Germans also believed that the Army had been failed by the people at home who provided their supplies. The prevailing mood in much of Europe at the time was highly nationalistic, anti-Semitic and anti-Communist. It didn't take long for the actions of the Weimar Republic and the failures on the home front to be blamed on conspiracy and sabotage by Jews and Communists.

As a result, German troops came home to a country which they believed had sold them out - their war effort had supposedly been sabotaged by corrupt Jews and Communists, and they had been stabbed in the back by their politicians who had forced them to accept the shame of defeat. In short, Germany was filled with young men angry at the government, angry at Jews, angry at Communists, and desperate to reclaim the glory of Germany which had been shamed by defeat in the war. Conditions were perfect for the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. It's widely accepted that the surrender of Germany and the harsh conditions imposed on them by the Allies was a major cause of the Second World War.

[–]helloavalanche 3 points4 points ago

Machine guns, man. Imagine coming from possibly never hearing a mechanical sound in your life, to seeing a man's face ripped off by a machine that is a couple hundred yards away. Plus all of the other sensory overload. It was the first time anyone had witnessed anything like that.

[–]lurker-no-longer 3 points4 points ago

Mr Wright, is that you? My highschool history teacher talked to us about WW1 exactly like that, he was a badass. You're going to make a fucking awesome teacher :) Mr Wright was my favourite.

[–]Tweev 3 points4 points ago

Another fantastic source is listening to the "Hardcore History" podcast. I really need to get back to listening to those, they are fantastic.

[–]jmact1 3 points4 points ago

Another good book on WWI is A Short History of WWI by James Stokesbury, concise, easy to read, and historically accurate.

The concept of defensive warfare and shell-shock was a significant feature of the American Civil War over 50 yrs before WWI. Certainly many military leaders, such as Longstreet and Grant, were well aware of it, but the lessons learned were quickly forgotten. I am reading on WWII again, and one of the reasons the Nazis took Poland as easily as they did at the start of the war was the Polish adherence to horse cavalry tactics rather than use of defensive strategy. Also see Shook over Hell by Eric Dean which documents shell-shock in the Civil War.

Looking over deaths in WWI, I believe that although the soldiers suffered greatly, there were far, far fewer civilian deaths than WWII where killing civilians achieved horrible efficiency and suffering.

Another point is that WWI spawned the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 which killed between 50-100 million people world-wide which dwarfs the 10 million soldiers KIA. One viable theory is that the pandemic started in the US which was gearing up for WWI and killed thousands of young recruits crowded into training camps and on cross-Atlantic troop ships that spread it to Europe. The news blackouts of the time, everywhere except neutral Spain, is why it is called the Spanish flu- It was the only place the pandemic was discussed in the news. More so, it also sickened and eventually killed Pres Wilson, preventing his moderating influence at the Treaty of Versailles, which, if his views had been incorporated in the Treaty, might have prevented WWII. Influenza, BTW, continually mutates, and we are no-more capable of dealing with a lethal strain now than we were in 1918. See the movie Contagion which the directors tried to make as scientifically accurate as possible. Read The Great Influenza by John Barry if you want to scare the shit out of yourself and put WWI in a different perspective.

[–]H_E_Pennypacker 3 points4 points ago

What's a sapper?

[–]gruntle 7 points8 points ago

sigh Yet another history person whose entire idea of WWI is the Western front. Not a thing about the war in the East, which was frankly more important. And Germany didn't win? Look up the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. If you were a soldier of the East and you won the war and then your country suddenly surrendered, you'd feel stabbed in the back too.

[–]Boondock-Saint 4 points5 points ago

No one wins in war.

With that being said, this is probably the most accurate read of WWI I've seen yet, and you take it to a level deeper than most, a personal one. Thank you sir.

Also, as a history major/etc, have you ever read "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien, and his other books?

[–]TheTT 4 points5 points ago

German here. The Stab-in-the-Back myth ("Dolchstoßlegende") is completely and entirely a myth. The german army was, as a matter of fact, defeated in the fields. They might have inflicted a lot of casualties, even in the last days, but they lost. They lost because of the sheer number of people and equipment that Britain, France and later America would churn out - Germany was incapable of matching that.

The german military were in denial about their impending loss, and when they realized what would happen, they decided that the damn Brits shouldn't get their perfectly fine boats. They ordered the navy to start a suicide attack on the British Fleet, causing the seaman to revolt. This started the November Revolution, and after some shit happens, Friedrich Ebert declares himself Chancellor. The military broke the news about their impending doom to him, and he did the responsible thing and surrendered. The military were strictly conservative, though, and favored the old monarchy over the new democracy, and pulled a "We would totally have won this, those damn commie revolutionaries stabbed us in the back with their surrender stuff". This was one of the things that destabilized the Weimar Republic so much, and was one of the major battlecries of the monarchist opposition to the new system. They ultimately turned fascist, and that didn't go so well...

TL;DR You seriously think Hitler was right?

[–]MrSnare 4 points5 points ago

Wow

[–]ptveite 1 point2 points ago

Wow, reading through this a HUGE part of it is true about the civil war as well - rifling made it easy to mow down oncoming charges, but the war was still one that saw generals on both sides regularly losing massive numbers in infantry charges.

[–]mrpotatopancreas 2 points3 points ago

For some more information on the subject, Tardi's piece "It Was The War Of The Trenches" is a great graphic novel exploring the horrors of WW1, and very accurate, too. http://classic.tcj.com/international/it-was-the-war-of-the-trenches/

[–]Sarex 2 points3 points ago

That was the west front, what about the east one. The most famous battles of ww1 took place there and they weren't trench warfare, and the scariest thing there was disease not battle it self. (Typhus took more lives then bullets)

[–]jchives 0 points1 point ago

 Studied European History for a year a while back. Teacher spent a lot of time talking about this as well. When those in the trenches weren't being shelled by artillery or running from a wall of Chlorine gas that caused them to cough up their lungs, the trenches were infested with disease carrying rats the size of terriers. This was also the first time "bombers" were used in a war. A bomber was a guy in an open cockpit dropping cannonballs over trenches. If you survived 14 flight missions in the "Air Force", you were honorably discharged. This never happened. 
 The concept of machine guns were different, too. A machine gun used correctly went through a boxcar of bullets a day. The idea was not to fire at enemies, but to create an intricate wall of bullets that no one could pass through. It was into these walls of bullets the cavalry charged.

[–]DontLookInTheCloset 1 point2 points ago

After reading this brilliant post, I think I might have PTSD.

[–]Goatblower111 3 points4 points ago

As a history teacher myself it's nice to see someone so passionate about world war I, it's kind of a forgotten one. I studied the Korean War for my capstone for that very same purpose. Cheers man

[–]Guinness59 21 points22 points ago

I think this is worse for the fact that new inventions of killing people were implemented with modern technology and nothing was off limits, such as poison gas (for a while), leveling massive areas with bombs and artillery fire. WW1 is probably the most brutal and savage fight in human history.

[–]annenoise 22 points23 points ago

I think the main difference is that something like poison gas or bombs don't put a face on the lives you kill. Imagine having to stab an entire army to death with your musket, or beat an opposing village to death with a club - you are up close and personal for a bunch of that gore and loss and death.

The brutality of the overall wars might be getting worse and worse, but I think there was a ton more... I don't want to say "opportunity" but I can't find a better word right now. There was more opportunity to see the personal side of war back in the day.

[–]critiquelywhat 4 points5 points ago

Not really. Most battles of the dark ages were not really like, say Breaveheart. Way less casualties and direct trauma for most participants, compared to post-industrial warfare.

I guess it is a matter of defining "barbaric", to me, its simply a question of casualties, participating and civilian.

[–]Woop_D_Effindoo 4 points5 points ago

History Prof once pointed out a useful statistic for comparison: Disease and Non-Battle Injury (DNBI) rates. One measure of brutality/progress of warfare.

[–]rocketman0739 4 points5 points ago

Let me guess: you have not actually studied the Middle Ages.

[–]ginger_lover 3 points4 points ago

War is barbaric whether it's a computer butchering a human or a human with an axe.

[–]OremLK 3 points4 points ago

To go along with recreational's excellent comment, I'd also like to further refute the idea that higher tech necessarily = less barbaric by talking a little bit about WWI and especially WW2 and why they were some of the worst and most barbaric wars in history.

Before the 20th century Europe had codified tons of rules of war to make it more gentlemanly and spare civilian casualties and other war crimes. At least in terms of conflicts between European countries, there was a sort of ideal followed for how you treat your enemy and by the standards of war it was all relatively tame.

Then all this new technology comes around, and as recreational discussed, the leaders just don't know how to deal with it. In the first world war that was machine guns, artillery, poison gas, etc. Resulting in lots and lots and lots of casualties as everyone tries to adapt to the new mode of warfare. It became a thing where you could literally plug numbers into a spreadsheet and figure out how many people were going to die today.

So WWI ends and nobody wants to get into this constant day by day grind of lost lives again. The attitude becomes "anything to end the war faster is worthwhile" because anything is better, for both sides, than the constant flow of death. At the same time air power is just coming into its own.

The result when WW2 rolls around is this idea of using strategic bombing to damage the morale of your enemy. Essentially what this means is justifying anything and everything as a "military target" so that you can bomb city centers and civilians in order to end the conflict faster.

This results in one of the most horrific periods in human history in terms of loss of civilian life. It didn't actually end the war but everybody got caught in a cycle of bombing each other's cities into oblivion (because if you didn't do it, your enemy still would) costing countless lives in horrific ways. Keep in mind that a lot of the bombing done was with napalm, burning people to death--an individual air raid could have a thousand planes and cost as many lives as a nuclear strike.

And all of this, you could argue, was the result of rapid technological advancement. Of course culminating in the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[–]bantam83 28 points29 points ago

Nonsense. Just because some coward in a bunker can press a button and have a flying robot on the other side of the world blow up a hut full of poor people doesn't mean there's less barbarity in the killing. It's just as barbaric. I doubt the people wanted to die more, or that the dead give a fuck how they died.

[–]SpermWhale 36 points37 points ago

The the more primitive a weapon is, the higher emotional stress is for the killer . A friend of mine (special forces) stationed at the mountains of SE Asia told how one of his squad member just lost it the next day when he neutralize an enemy with a bayonet. It's not the killing that got him, but the the eyes of the enemy looking at him while dying.

[–]brutishbloodgod 37 points38 points ago

At the same time, people flying drone missions from cushy, air-conditioned rooms stateside are suffering very high rates of PTSD. Killing is killing. It takes its toll no matter how it's done, and I guarantee that your buddy's buddy's bayonet kill was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

Source: I'm a combat veteran with PTSD

[–]vandalklown 7 points8 points ago

Definitely agree with that.

I'd like to add that, although not at all comparable by accuracy/effectiveness of measure, we now see a higher "PTSD" rate in soldiers abroad than any other war; not just combat soldiers. In wars of past generations the opposition utilized air strikes, effectively trained mortar teams, tanks, etc. These methods were atrociously effective at killing our soldiers by the masses (Don't get me wrong that is horrible to say.) The tactics being used in Afghanistan/ Iraq are very different, there are quick/ petty ambushes, there are mostly ineffective Improvised Explosive Devices planted in roads (ineffective mortality rate, to clarify), there are pop-shots from poorly trained snipers.

There is viable reasoning behind the amount of explosives "bouncing bettys" or "toe poppers" contained in WW2. Why kill the enemy if you can instead wound him and effectively immobilize a few of his mates, both physically and mentally. Instead of coming back to a fellow soldier and bagging him for flight after the fire fight, you now have to carry him/care for him and at the same time rethink your vulnerability and combat effectiveness. Although not effective by death rate, the enemy of our dual-conflict uses the same tactic, no matter if it is on purpose. Every day our soldiers convoy and take part in "soft knock" oriented movements. They aren't mortally wounded by well-trained passionate enemies (for the most part), they are wounded by untrained/ cowardice attack.

These men (and sometimes women) are coming home, not in bags, but still in pieces, both in body and sanity. They've had to witness and rationalize, not only the deaths of their countrymen but also have had to deal with their own unexpected/ life changing injuries. First solidarity, then chaos, and then a lasting feeling of anxiety and anger. I don't at all mean to disrespect our ancestors who made the ultimate sacrifice, but sometimes death is the better outcome. If you don't believe me then look at our military's suicide rate.

TL;DR: War is war is war. War is hell.

Source: 2008-2009 Kandahar, Afghanistan.

[–]charliedarwinsfather 10 points11 points ago

Do you have a source on that? The part with people operating the drones getting PTSD? I too am a vet with PTSD but everything I've read and heard seems to suggest that there is a relationship between distance and likelihood of developing PTSD.

[–]brutishbloodgod 5 points6 points ago

Some of it is what I've heard from other people who have served, and obviously I can't source that. But here are few related articles that I was able to find:

http://www.veteransunited.com/network/do-unmanned-aircraft-operators-suffer-from-ptsd/

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/drone-pilot-ptsd/

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/19/143926857/report-high-levels-of-burnout-in-u-s-drone-pilots

Some of the articles state that the actual rates of diagnosis are not very high. I was under the impression that the numbers were comparable to boots-on-the-ground infantry, but I may have been mistaken about that. The articles do state that drone pilots experience comparable amounts of combat stress, which is really what this conversation is about (since I was responding to SpermWhale, who was discussing "emotional stress"). That's consistent with my experience. I once watched a strike on a vehicle via drone-cam in a TOC: I was watching people being killed in HD, and I was hearing the soldiers in the fight coming in over the radio. It's not like actually being in the fight, but the intensity is comparable, and it is most definitely traumatic.

It's also possible that the numbers for PTSD diagnosis are low because they're just not looking for it. They really keep a close eye on you psychologically after you get home from a deployment; maybe not as much for people flying drones.

[–]throwawayguy88 4 points5 points ago

Out of curiosity, have you ever tried empathogens? Mdma or similar

[–]recreational 9 points10 points ago

This was Himmler's logic in planning the Holocaust, actually. Rounding up and shooting Jews and Slavs by hand, shoving them into ditches- it was traumatic even for the types that were joining the Waffen SS to start with. The gas chambers were designed to be more humane (for the soldiers doing the killing.)

[–]NotADamsel 5 points6 points ago

"They're just going into the shower, I'm just leading them to a shower, They're only going to be taking a shower, It's only a shower..."

[–]SarahC 4 points5 points ago

I wonder - if the draft where to be called again, with so many people disillusioned with wars, and the government whims..... if anyone would even show up for it?

I imagine there'd be anarchy and riots... today's society is so individualistic, and people so pissed off with the unfairness of it all I imagine they'd just tell the country to go fuck itself...

Back then when society was more interknit (was it?), there was a "grand purpose" of defending ones freedom, family, and soil from the invaders.

Also now, with everyone living everywhere... how would anyone know who the "enemy" is? Chinese live in America, Blacks in France, Swedish in Canada.... there's no "them and us" - like "Japs Vs Americans" anymore..... you can't just jump on a battlefield and shoot the Chinese looking people...

I imagine it would be chaotic as fuck for the "almost troops" who were just thrown into the frey.

TL;DR:
1: Has any study been done by the government about the draft? Would it even be successful?

2: Multicultural lands - no longer "Shoot the Jap!" targeting, just what problems (and subterfuge) would be caused by a war where the sides have no racial lines, and cannot easily be identified?

[–]lyjobu 3 points4 points ago

  1. A draft that involved everyone between, say, 18-30 would mean that pretty much every citizen would know someone drafted into the military and they (the civilians at home) might actually have a reason to do something about a war with which they disagreed. Currently less than 1% of Americans are in the military and it tends to be a family thing. So the average person has no reason to care what happens to 'them' and their voice and vote are silent.
  2. ummm, most wars have had no racial lines. France v. Germany; Scotland v. England; Prussia v. Badden-Wurtenburg; Japan v. Japan; China v. China etc, etc, etc...

[–]ModRod 26 points27 points ago

I couldn't imagine the absolute Hell WW1 soldiers went through. Trench warfare seems absolutely horrifying. They need to stop making WW2 movies and make a great prequel.

[–]Popozuda72 21 points22 points ago

Still waiting for a gripping WWI movie depicting the special kind of hell that that war was. Have not seen War Horse but pretty sure that's not quite it, even though I plan on seeing it.

[–]happygreeneyes 16 points17 points ago

They appear to be making another movie based on All Quiet on the Western Front . That might be a good one.

[–]somewhatsafeforwork 14 points15 points ago

Yeah, War Horse was more like "Hey, did you know that horses fought in WW1, too? Neither did I!"

[–]haxorjimduggan 20 points21 points ago

[–]SarahMae 11 points12 points ago

Yeah, you're right. Compare the eyes, and it's clear they are both badly messed up. What a sad thing to have happen.

[–]drwhofan1985 19 points20 points ago

This is both saddening and creepy to me.

[–]Werewolfgirl34 35 points36 points ago

Totally reminded me of Renfield from Dracula (The Bela Lugosi version)

[–]theDeathShip 24 points25 points ago

Goddamn, I never want to break like that.

[–]GrowdonTreeman 40 points41 points ago

The biggest reason he is smiling is because he knows he isn't dead.

[–]davidkappelt 86 points87 points ago

How do we know he is shell shocked and not actually happy?

[–]DroppaMaPants 16 points17 points ago

Manic glaze in the eyes.

[–]Poogy 57 points58 points ago

I was curious about this as well. For all we know, the medic told a joke or something. Seems too presumptuous to say he's shellshocked just because his facial expression was captured at a particularly intense moment.

[–]xxxSnappyxxx 11 points12 points ago

...like the medic said, "this injury will send you home."

[–]davidkappelt 12 points13 points ago

Shell shock is weird, and the wikipedia article sucks... Does anyone know if shell shock happened after WWI?? What about modern times... seems like it still should have... Why the fuck cant they walk and why do they shake so much... How did these people even make it back from the front lines, or EAT for that matter?

[–]lastofmohicans 57 points58 points ago

Today it is called PTSD. It has had other names in between, like "battle fatigue". Do a search on these three terms and you'll find more of what you're looking for.

[–]davidkappelt 13 points14 points ago

I've never seen modern day PTSD people act like those WW1 shell shocked guys.

[–]Trotrot 34 points35 points ago

PTSD varies with the type of trauma, and how the individual grew up. they had a different society back then, and how your mind matures is a major variable in how it can handle extreme stress. there are some symptoms that are synonymous across the generations though. paranoia, anxiety & depression, contemplating/attempting suicide, drug abuse, insomnia, extreme recklessness, and hyper violent 'black-outs'.

[–]grantmoore3d 62 points63 points ago

My mother recently got married to a special forces vet with PTSD, after seeing it first hand I'm shocked there isn't more support for helping these soldiers recover. The poor guy is on so many meds just to keep him balanced and even then he still has terrible bouts of insomnia and mood swings due to medication going awry. It really makes living a normal life difficult for him. As he said to me, "I sold my nightmares for far too cheap when I was young"

[–]pauldustllah 11 points12 points ago

I am inclined to agree with you. However there are many resources that a veteran can use to get help. The problem lies with the fact that the Veterans Administration is grossly mismanaged so a veteran trying to get very much needed help will run into many road blocks. road blocks so severe that it is very hard to actually access the help that is needed.

[–]grantmoore3d 7 points8 points ago

I don't know the exact details and I might get the terms wrong, but that's very much what this guy is going through right now. Essentially he needs to be classified as a disable but is only currently recognized as being partially disabled (or something like that, I'm not sure), so he doesn't qualify for a lot of the programs that could help him. He is working with his doctor to change that, but it's taking a really long time and he has to jump through a lot of hoops to get there... meanwhile he's suffering, struggling to make do financially and trying to keep it together.

So I definitely agree with your re-assesment of my statement.

[–]pauldustllah 6 points7 points ago

Well, Don't let anybody fault you for not knowing the exact details or the terms. I doubt the VA knows the exact details themselves. I can understand what this guy is going through My grandfather fought the VA for 30+ years over issues from agent orange. I've been waiting for two years for the VA to decide that I actually lost my leg in afghanistan. It's stories like the one you have just told me and my grandfathers that fuel my drive to become a veterans service officer. I wish your acquaintance luck in dealing with the VA. He is going to need all the help he can get. the VA currently has a backlog of around 900,000 claims pending and after talking with the VA on the phone today They are currently behind two years.

[–]RebelTactics 6 points7 points ago

Could you explain what those WWI shell shocked guys acted like? Serious question.

[–]thekeanu 5 points6 points ago

Fewer modern day wars are fought where American soldiers are getting shelled repeatedly.

[–]Poogy 8 points9 points ago

It's not the same as PTSD. PTSD can happen as a result of events that cause "shell shock", but the best I've heard it described was that it's an "acute stress reaction", not unlike when you have a near-miss while driving and sort of involuntarily laugh afterward. Not that the two are comparable, but shell shock seems to be a very intensified version of the hysteria following near-misses.

Edit: Here is an interesting article on the differences and similarities

[–]rabidbasher 7 points8 points ago

Put yourself in his shoes...

Six hours...maybe six days pinned in a foxhole under heavy mortar and artillery fire. You can hear others' short, choked-out screams, as a shell lands in the bottom of their foxhole, blows them to pieces and buries them in a single stroke. Every second you know the next explosion could mean that it's your dog-tags mailed back to mom and dad.

Imagine not knowing how long it will last. When, or if the enemy soldiers will arrive? Where your backup is, or if there is backup coming? Then your day gets really bad as the enemy tries to flush out the straggling survivors with mustard gas.

I would say that an 'intensified version of the hysteria following near-misses' could even be an understatement. War, then, was not what war today is.

[–]sowhydontyoublowme 5 points6 points ago

After WWI, the men with Shell Shock were treated as cowards, because they had to be sent back to the homeland and were not allowed to fight anymore. Since they had no physical wounds, it was hard to prove that they were not just faking it to go home. Modern times aren't as bad because you don't have large artillery shells raining down upon you every second of every day. Sure the IEDs are bad, but cannot possibly match the explosive power of a Howitzer, even back then.

[–]archimedic 4 points5 points ago

Most IEDs (in Iraq) are made from old 105mm and even 155mm Howitzer shells. Commonly there are more than one.

[–]minion_of_osiris 4 points5 points ago

it was worse than just being seen as a coward. Shell shock victims would be sent to recover in a military hospital until relatively recovered (I use the term "recovered" loosely) and then sent back into battle. If in battle they proceeded Togo back to the state of shell shock and froze or went mad or insane, they were taken out and killed. The officers would kill the shell shock victims who never recovered because it was just seen as cowardice.

[–]pixelObserver 16 points17 points ago

one of his eyes is knocked off center. and his pupils are still tight from the bomb flashes even though he is now in the shade. both are symptoms of brain shock.

[–]CaptainVulva 15 points16 points ago

I don't know if I've ever been that happy in my life

[–]Badwoolf 4 points5 points ago

He could be high, especially if he's injured. Didn't soldiers carry morphine in their packs?

[–]conjectureandhearsay 42 points43 points ago

Now we'd used the more sterile PTSD to describe this. I think shell shock is better - it gives a more vivid picture of what is a horrible affliction. Great pic.

[–]WyoBuckeye 19 points20 points ago

Either you've heard this or you should. Euphemistic Language - George Carlin.

[–]Kirrie0507 10 points11 points ago

No, PTSD is the aftermath of "shell shock" or CSR (Combat Stress Reaction).

Source: Wikipedia to verify I knew what I was talking about as the wife of a soldier with PTSD.

[–]vladtaltos 8 points9 points ago

wow shot, spooky as hell.....

[–]randomherRro 26 points27 points ago

He's looking through the camera, that's not a happy smile at all.

[–]vedfolnir 7 points8 points ago

He appears to be wounded too. You can see the blood on his left hand and on his pants

[–]Evokerofsorts 8 points9 points ago

That's the look, I want a time machine and talk to this man. He truly looks mad.

[–]cupcakehipster 7 points8 points ago

I can't get over how disturbing the look on his face is.

[–]poke588 3 points4 points ago

Same here. What is it about it that's so terrifying and loathsome? It's like looking at a spider. You try to rationalize that the picture can't hurt you and yet you're still afraid of it.

[–]CaptainVulva 15 points16 points ago

Well shit. Chalk this up as one of the few that I immediately wish I hadn't opened. (I'm sure I'll change my mind as I get over the, ah, unexpected sense of dismay)

[–]ibpants 13 points14 points ago

Siegfried Sassoon wrote some interesting poetry about shell shock and life in the trenches, for anyone with an interest in this kind of thing.

It's not immediately creepy, but if you linger on it there's some really troubling stuff in there.

[–]thepupilindenial 14 points15 points ago

Was just going to mention him. Flipped through some of his poems just now, and they are indeed eerily accurate...

... one youngster laughs,
Lifting his mug and drinking health to all
Who come unscathed from that unpitying waste:
(Terror and ruin lurk behind his gaze.)

[–]CTallPaul 6 points7 points ago

He's not just really doped up from the medic? Poor dude

[–]Da_Booty_Masta 15 points16 points ago

Morphine or heroin would not induce a big creepy smile that. Source: I am heroin addict

[–]imthegdbatman 18 points19 points ago

Horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. You can he didn't just hear a joke, he wasn't laughing. Smiling at something only he can see. Horrifying...

[–]falconomics 29 points30 points ago

You can tell he isn't laughing or smiling at anything because when you look at his eyes you can tell he's looking at... nothing; or if he is, is something only he can see. War was, is, and always will be morbidly fascinating

[–]pluto789josh 11 points12 points ago

Was this edited? and where did you find it?

[–]shoryukenist[S] 30 points31 points ago

I edited (just enlarged, no effects) it from a pic i saw at /r/historyporn.
http://i.imgur.com/XMtxV.jpg

[–]pluto789josh 9 points10 points ago

When i saw this on /new i didnt see /r/creepy it gave me hell of a jump and it still hits me to think that could be real

[–]Calibansdaydream 29 points30 points ago

There is no "could be" about it. This is very real. WWI was absolute fucking hell.

[–]pluto789josh 6 points7 points ago

yeah, its what happens when we have a massive war before we made any real laws about chemical weapons and torture.

[–]CerealK 4 points5 points ago

Jesus Christ

[–]BlueZoe 4 points5 points ago

Peace activists sometimes forget that soldiers are victims too.

These photos should remind us all of how evil war is.

Violence in any form has no place in a world that wants to be civilized.

[–]Travie6492 4 points5 points ago

I'm chilled about it.

[–]wheresmysmokes 5 points6 points ago

My #1 fear is weird or strange emotions at inappropriate times. This scares me to the core.

[–]flangle1 12 points13 points ago

Dirty but happy, sad but true, losin' a shoe or a button or two.

[–]darkain13 3 points4 points ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSp8IyaKCs0 I believe Carlin has the point here.

[–]youreuglyasfu 4 points5 points ago

what does shell shock mean

[–]FakePlasticShrimp 8 points9 points ago

Distressed out your fucking mind because of whats happening/happened.

[–]RetroFan89 4 points5 points ago

It was the original name for battle fatigue but now it's treated more as its slang term.

[–]justplaintom 3 points4 points ago

this is just a zoomed in part of a photo posted earlier

[–]Joystick35 3 points4 points ago

I am doing my thesis on Canadian Soldiers in World War One, and during my research I came across a song written by Private Wilfred Bouch of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was 21 years old and considered to be a real joker at heart. Known for his love of improvising and write dirty little songs that he sang for his unit during breaks in the fighting.

It is a silly, upbeat song, different from the sad, poetic ones that have been posted on this thread so far. It's little known, bawdy, brash, a little bit rude and definitely a song relevant to the times it was written in. - But I think it deserves mention when compared to this picture. Because it references another side of the war. Times when you and your mates were sitting side by side. Relaxing and collecting our wits as your fellow soldiers talked and ate around you. Writing letters to their families and girls back home as they puffed away on a stumpy cigarettes and sipped at their brandy ration. I think it really highlights the comradeship and brotherhood that seemed to connect these soldiers together, regardless of how bad things got.

Title: "It's a Long Way to Get to London"

Submarines beneath the sea and Zepplins in the air.

Tons of Huns with great big guns, his soldiers everywhere.

Said Bill, "I'll first take Calais then for Dover, Oh mein Gott!'

But Britain let her bulldog loose and fucked the Goddamn lot.

It's a long way to get to Calais, it's a long way to go.

It's so damn far to get to Dover, that you'll never stand the blow.

Goodbye German Empire.

Farewell Kaiser Bill.

If you don't know the way to Hell, God help you...

You goddamn soon will.

  • (Written by Private Wilfred Bouch. Shared by his Brother Lance-Sergeant J.L Bouch of the First Battalion, Cold Stream Guards.)

This song was a favorite of his unit and one of very few of his songs that survived the war after his death in combat sometime after April 23, 1916. This was believed to be the last song he wrote and he included it in a letter he wrote to his brother only a few weeks before his death.

*Please be aware this song was written in the context of the World War period by Allied troops with clear bias. No offense was meant to any country by the sharing of this song. I just felt it was relevant to the topic.

TL;DR: Historically relevant song.

[–]Gentleman_Anarchist 4 points5 points ago

Hiding in a bunker while getting shelled is one of the most terrifying things on earth. The inescapable sound of that much high explosive going off over and over is the physical embodiment of two truths: 1. You're very small and the earth does not care about you and 2. You could die at any time and you have no say in the matter.

Iraq and Afghanistan gave me maybe 1% of the experience with indirect fire that this guy had, and it's been years since I was in a combat environment. I still have to pull my car over sometimes when there's thunder or fireworks.

[–]upsidedowntoilet 3 points4 points ago

I accidentally clicked on this.. man, I just had a heart attack