THE GREAT WAR--A CENTURY AGO . . .

@djjd62,

The German War Graves Commission has a website in English (which many links, to mainly German projects etc) about 100th Anniversary of the First World War.

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@Walter Hinteler,

i'll have to check that out

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a really interesting documentary

The story of the Great War told from a unique new aerial perspective. Featuring two remarkable historical finds, including a piece of archive footage filmed from an airship in summer 1919, capturing the trenches and battlefields in a way that has rarely been seen before. It also features aerial photographs taken by First World War pilots - developed for the first time in over ninety years - that show not only the devastation inflicted during the fighting, but also quirks and human stories visible only from above.

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two more good docs about the build up to the war

The Royal Cousins at War

Episode 1: A House Divided
Examines what impact the relationships between cousins Nicholas II of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and George V of the United Kingdom had on the outbreak of the First World War. This episode focuses on the story of the emerging divisions and rivalries between the inter-related royal houses of Europe during the 19th century.

http://dai.ly/x1eywhw

Episode 2: Into the Abyss
The realignment of the European powers and the emergence of the alliance system in the years following the death of Queen Victoria, played a significant role for the three monarchs in the frantic, desperate days of July and August 1914.

http://dai.ly/x1fnz84

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@djjd62,

I've driven dozens of times through that reason.
What always makes me shudder is looking any few meters at the signs showing where the front has been - and moved after days/weeks: you really get an idea how terrible it must have been

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@Walter Hinteler,

We take that route at least twice a year, from Calais down to Geneva in a straight a line as possible. It takes you right through the centre of where the battle(s) took place, Bethune, Vimy Ridge, Arras, Cambrai, StQuentin.

Each time we're either starting out and wanting to make good progress, or coming back up and have a ferry to catch.
We have stopped to have a look around on one occasion, and very quickly found a military cemetery in the middle of nowhere. Wheat fields all around, skylarks and beautiful blue sky. You wouldn't have a clue as to the carnage, apart from the lack of really old trees and buildings.

We've promised ourselves a full week or so round there soon.

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@Lordyaswas,

When you drive on rural roads instead of the A26 ...

As an aside: my father was during his last year as POW in 1947/8 for one year as a family doctor in Cambrai. Since he was very interested in art and history, the family he staid with (he was "imprisoned privately" at the chief of police's) gave him a German book about that region: published and printed by a German army corps that had fought there.

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If I was alive in 1914 and the Brit government tried to call me up I think I'd have said "I ain't going! If the Germans want to conquer France I don't care, it's none of my business!".. Smile

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@Walter Hinteler,

"When you drive on rural roads instead of the A26 ..."

We tend to do that during the summer, as we nearly always get the first ferry of the day, and are the only ones on the road for the first few hours.
I normally pick up the Autoroute just around Reims.

Once, on the way down, we stopped in a lay-by just outside Bethune, and there was a plaque commemorating a massive battle on the very spot where we were enjoying a ham baguette.

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@Lordyaswas,

On the N 2, you find nearly side by side memorials from Napoleon's time (1814, Chemin des Dames, when young recruits beat an army of Prussians and Russians), WWI memorials and cemeteries as well as the Führer's headquarter Wolfsschlucht II. (But that region resisted during the One Hundred Years War to the Burgundians and to the English.)

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Veteran British test pilot Eric Brown was a diplomat in Germany in the 1930's and he said "The Germans are an evil race".
He could be right because they started WW1 AND WW2..

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@Romeo Fabulini,

Consider the Brits, among other countries, raping and pillaging the planet for how many centuries.

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Quote:

JTT said: Consider the Brits, among other countries, raping and pillaging the planet for how many centuries.

Nah mate we civilised half the world and stopped them eating each other.
For example if it wasn't for us conquering America, the yanks would still be scalping each other, making whooping noises, speaking Apache and living in wigwams.. Smile

Book-

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/pilgfathsleaveplym1620.jpg~original

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/arrival3.gif~original

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@Romeo Fabulini,

Romeo Fabulini wrote:

Veteran British test pilot Eric Brown was a diplomat in Germany in the 1930's

You are a bit wrong about Scotland's greatest ever pilot

Quote:

In 1937, Brown left the Royal High School and entered Edinburgh University studying Modern Languages ... In February 1938 he returned to Germany, where, having been invited to attend the 1938 Automobile Exhibition by Udet, by then a Luftwaffe Major General, ... In the meantime, Brown had been selected to take part as an exchange student at the Salem International College, located on the banks of Lake Constance, and it was while there in Germany that Brown was woken up with a loud knocking on his door one morning in September 1939. Upon opening the door he was met by a woman with the announcement that "our countries are at war". Soon after, Brown was arrested by the SS. Fortunately, they merely escorted Brown in his MG Magnette sports car to the Swiss border, saying they were allowing him to keep the car because they "had no spares for it".

Source

Quote:

Eric said: “It turned me upside down because I had made some very good friends, especially among my students, in Germany and I saw them as fine young men. Perhaps I was politically naive in not realising the underlying evil of the Nazi regime but after, when I saw Belsen, I was not prepared to make allowances for them at all.

“Having said that, as I’ve got older, I realise that every nation has an element of evil in it and if you allow that element to get into power, it can be dangerous.

“In Germany, the treaty of Versailles had taken its pride away and if you take a country’s pride away, it will do anything to get it back. Now I can recognise that but it still does not excuse what went on in the concentration camps.”

Source

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Well this thread's trashed.
Thanks for starting it Set.
Wish I could stick around but now Walter's quoting mussolini like it's valid input.
Time to collapse it.

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@panzade,

People quote USA presidents and politicians all the time, Pan. Are they different than Hitler or Mussolini? If you think so, please do explain.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

The Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo one hundred years ago today (June 28, 1914--it is now June 28 in Europe), leading to the First World War. People did not, of course, call it the First World War, because they didn't know there would be a second.

Arguably, it was 1 war, fought in 2 rounds
(with some changing of sides).

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@panzade,

Because I respond with sourced quotes I'm Mussolini like?

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@Walter Hinteler,

USians have really queer ideas on freedom of speech, Walter.

Incredibly ironic, ain't it?

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http://flyingmachines.ru/Images7/Putnam/Pioneers/63-1.jpg

Above, a Bleriot aircraft of the early French Air Service (1909?)

http://www.aviation-news.co.uk/archive/media/June-6.jpg

Above, a British design based on the Bleriot, designated the BE series at the Royal Aircraft Factory, it was one of the first aircraft in the Royal Flying Corps.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7jaVoJLRunI/URQ26FCmasI/AAAAAAAADNM/0Ovk6pBAZ5o/s400/Fokker.jpg

Above, a Fokker aircraft in 1914.

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THE GREAT WAR--A CENTURY AGO . . .

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