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World War 1 overshadowed

GonzalezT1000

World War 1 was a very interesting war but it's not discussed nearly as much as World War 2. Does World War 1 interest you?

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VONSHIRACH

WW1 was pretty much a prequel for WW2 but WW1 did bring about dramatic European change such as

1. end of Hapsburg empire
2. end of German empire, abdication of Kaiser, fascist seeds sown
3. end of Imperial Russian empire and the Romanov dynasty, start of communism
4. increased technological development and mechanisation
5. influenza epidemic in 1918 25m - 50m? died
6. greater emancipation of women

The WW1 conflict is interesting. It is hard to believe things like how it started, trench warfare, all the mindless slaughter day after day, shot at dawn etc etc

ww2 was a nastier affair with equally devastating consequences.

MRnotlob606

also gave military experience too hitler and mussolini

mikemac1

Mussolini achieved what 60 years of CIE could not :cool:

tim3000

It is a very overshadowed conflict. Video games completely skipped it and this has ensured that the youth of today are not as familiar as they should be with it in the way they would be with WW2. Also if memory serves WW1 isn't thought at L.C. history at any level. Though if you understand it and the technology and tactics used then you will get a fuller understanding of the second. Its a shame that it is overshadowed but it would be worse if it was like the Korean War.

LuckyLloyd

Stojkovic wrote: »

The Seven Years War was really the first World War.

Good shout.

WW1 was really the last of a certain type of war and the last example of societies functioning from top to bottom as class based systems. WW2 had its gestation in the Treaty of Versailles, but that fact makes WW1 all the more fascinating. Western society in 1933 was a completely different and almost unrecognisable beast to the world of 1913.

Zebra3

mattjack wrote: »

One of my uncles died in a concentration camp.

He was drunk and fell out of his watchtower one night.

The old ones are the best.

You can't beat a good aul' wan.

Wibbs

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

i have a world war 1 belt buckle

Cool. I have a Great war wristwatch(where it first became popular. Before that pocket watches were for men, wristwatches for women). Still ticks along mightily too.

Just finished a book on the Somme this very day. Jesus christ, even though I had a fair notion, the carnage and daily death toll was still utterly startling to me. Unimaginable really. Many thousands could be mown down in a single day in a remarkably tiny area. Many moons ago I was in that part of France and it's worth a visit to see the graveyards of many nations, row after row. Mechanised death by Maxim guns, though artillery killed the most as an average.

I agree with others that WW2 seems more relevant to us because it looks more "modern" in many ways. Movies and TV and media adds to this by making way more documentaries and dramas about WW2. It's more "photogenic" for a start. WW1 feels more like a 19th century war, which in many ways it was. WW2 was the 20th century war. Even the way many wars are fought today had it's genesis in WW2. Look at the gulf wars. The US used the German innovation of Blitzkrieg in all but name.

Hownowcow

I'm more interested in the first World War but that's probably because I have a relative who didn't come home from it. He's in one of those war graveyards you often see on tv. I hope to visit on the hundredth anniversary.

dxhound2005

Wibbs wrote: »

Cool. I have a Great war wristwatch(where it first became popular. Before that pocket watches were for men, wristwatches for women). Still ticks along mightily too.

Just finished a book on the Somme this very day. Jesus christ, even though I had a fair notion, the carnage and daily death toll was still utterly startling to me. Unimaginable really. Many thousands could be mown down in a single day in a remarkably tiny area. Many moons ago I was in that part of France and it's worth a visit to see the graveyards of many nations, row after row. Mechanised death by Maxim guns, though artillery killed the most as an average.

I agree with others that WW2 seems more relevant to us because it looks more "modern" in many ways. Movies and TV and media adds to this by making way more documentaries and dramas about WW2. It's more "photogenic" for a start. WW1 feels more like a 19th century war, which in many ways it was. WW2 was the 20th century war. Even the way many wars are fought today had it's genesis in WW2. Look at the gulf wars. The US used the German innovation of Blitzkrieg in all but name.

I think it was a good war but it wasn't a Great War.

strangel00p

dj jarvis wrote: »

unless you are aged about 70 , you should change that to great uncle !!

Errr...hang on, I'm 38 and three of my uncles were in the second world war...

dj jarvis

strangel00p wrote: »

Errr...hang on, I'm 38 and three of my uncles were in the second world war...

yea , fully possible , but would be unusual , i am in my mid 40's and my uncles were mostly born at the end of the war , mid to late 1940's

none of my uncles were anywhere near old enough to fight , most were not born , it was my granddad and great uncles that were soldiers

one of them was even killed in a POW camp - he fell from his watch tower

CruelCoin

GonzalezT1000 wrote: »

World War 1 was a very interesting war but it's not discussed nearly as much as World War 2. Does World War 1 interest you?

Not particularly.

The entire thing was waged as a method of willy-waving and Honerz whoring.

If i happen upon it on the history channel i watch it, but i don't seek it out.

Fratton Fred

CruelCoin wrote: »

Not particularly.

The entire thing was waged as a method of willy-waving and Honerz whoring.

If i happen upon it on the history channel i watch it, but i don't seek it out.

It was, but the scale of the war and the social and economic effects were very influential on 20th century politics.

It changed, the enormously, the world we live in.

[Deleted User]

Don't know why World War 1 isn't as discussed as it should be. Trench warfare has to be one of the most miserable things in history.

IvySlayer

World War I indirectly caused World War 2

WWI is extremely complicated to explain how it really started

B0jangles

strangel00p wrote: »

Errr...hang on, I'm 38 and three of my uncles were in the second world war...

I'm 35 and my grand-uncle died in the First World War!

clairefontaine

Wibbs wrote: »

Cool. I have a Great war wristwatch(where it first became popular. Before that pocket watches were for men, wristwatches for women). Still ticks along mightily too.

Just finished a book on the Somme this very day. Jesus christ, even though I had a fair notion, the carnage and daily death toll was still utterly startling to me. Unimaginable really. Many thousands could be mown down in a single day in a remarkably tiny area. Many moons ago I was in that part of France and it's worth a visit to see the graveyards of many nations, row after row. Mechanised death by Maxim guns, though artillery killed the most as an average.

I agree with others that WW2 seems more relevant to us because it looks more "modern" in many ways. Movies and TV and media adds to this by making way more documentaries and dramas about WW2. It's more "photogenic" for a start. WW1 feels more like a 19th century war, which in many ways it was. WW2 was the 20th century war. Even the way many wars are fought today had it's genesis in WW2. Look at the gulf wars. The US used the German innovation of Blitzkrieg in all but name.

I think it's because the US was more involved in WW2 and very much part of our heroic narrative. So as a major producer and disseminator of media, film, stories, narratives, etc, more attention gets put out there about ww2. Also ww2 was the beginning of intelligence for the US, CIA etc, and the glamour of espionage stories around MI5 etc, have a glamour that keeps people very intrigues.

So dare I say there is a glamor attached to ww2. The women fighter pilots, the music, Casablanca, etc.

Also, Nazi iconography was powerful so sticks more so and is memorable in a way ww1 isn't. I was really shocked and moved and horrified the more I read about ww1 because I had no idea how horrific I was.

WW1 doesn't get as much representation.

Blisterman

It might just be an Irish thing, because it's pretty well remembered in the UK. There's more memorials to it than WW2 and remembrance day on the 11th November is huge. You'll see people selling poppies on practically every street corner in the run up to it.

It's probably because for a long time, WWI veterans in Ireland were considered almost as traitors, and it wasn't really talked about. Plus it would have been overshadowed at the time by the Irish war of independence and the civil war.

[Deleted User]

The war memorial gardens near Phoenix Park in Dublin say that something like 49,000 Irish people died during World War 1? That's a crazy amount for it not to be remembered or any memorials!

losthorizon

clairefontaine wrote: »

I think it's because the US was more involved in WW2 and very much part of our heroic narrative. So as a major producer and disseminator of media, film, stories, narratives, etc, more attention gets put out there about ww2. Also ww2 was the beginning of intelligence for the US, CIA etc, and the glamour of espionage stories around MI5 etc, have a glamour that keeps people very intrigues.

So dare I say there is a glamor attached to ww2. The women fighter pilots, the music, Casablanca, etc.

Also, Nazi iconography was powerful so sticks more so and is memorable in a way ww1 isn't. I was really shocked and moved and horrified the more I read about ww1 because I had no idea how horrific I was.

WW1 doesn't get as much representation.

Deleted User wrote: »

The war memorial gardens near Phoenix Park in Dublin say that something like 49,000 Irish people died during World War 1? That's a crazy amount for it not to be remembered or any memorials!

The greatest war film of all time imo is All Quiet on the Western Front. Slow to Start and the first 20 mins it looks dated but after that ... wow. It will live with you for ever. It tells about war from the German side in WW1.

Do not watch the remake see the 1930 original.

The last British soldier killed in action was with the Irish lancers and the first soldiers killed were an Irishman, a Scot and an English man on a patrol very early in the war.

Indeed Michael Palins doc has it that the German soldiers were trying to wave back the American soldiers as they didnt want to shoot as they knew about the ceasefire but the American commanders just wanted to gain ground by fighting which they were going to get anyway. Madness
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7696021.stm

Finally the Thiepval Memorial , Somme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSC3IBqUlNY

ONeill2013

I can't say it interests me that much, I have a few ancestors who fought in it with the Connaught Rangers, it was a lot more interesting than the Cold War at school anyway,

Oakboy

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I think it was a good war but it wasn't a Great War.

Not world class, Bill

wretcheddomain

IvySlayer wrote: »

WWI is extremely complicated to explain how it really started

Ehm...no, it isn't.

Faith+1

wretcheddomain wrote: »

Ehm...no, it isn't.

Then explain the root causes?

karma_

losthorizon wrote: »

Indeed Michael Palins doc has it that the German soldiers were trying to wave back the American soldiers as they didnt want to shoot as they knew about the ceasefire but the American commanders just wanted to gain ground by fighting which they were going to get anyway. Madness

Hell wouldn't be hot enough for that unbelievable bastard Pershing.

Jimminy Mc Fukhead

Not critically acclaimed. But did well at the box office.
Disorganised massed infantry assault should of got at least an oscar nomination.

MRnotlob606

one of the most amazing world war 1 stories i heard was that during the war german snipers use to aim for bagpipe players in the scottish regiments,bagpipes got the scots rearing to fight.

losthorizon

Anybody watch that comedy-drama on BBC 4 last week on the Wipers Times. It was a true story. It starred Ben Chaplin and Michael Palin had a supporting role.

Quite funny it was about a group of British soldiers who found a printing press and they started producing "Punch with jokes"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/0/23931340