Thread: Field Kit and animals in the trenches in WWI and how they affected battle.

There are some pictures I did not post, while every picture above that is obviously taken by the friendly side showing friendly losses was technically illegal and a courts martial offense there are a few that survive that would have gotten a man shot. All the governments tried to hide the true scale of death in the trenches, which is why so many pictures from the war only show a few bodies at most. But the reality in the big battles was bodies on bodies on bodies, except for the lack of stripped prisoner uniforms the pictures are not much different than those at a concentration camp. A small patch of woods where entire companies or battalions lay piled on one another gunned down wave after wave.

The earliest of these pictures stem from the very opening of the war when the French in broght red trousers and blue jackets charged across the frontier with a surplus of cran and a dearth of machine guns and shovels. Or of the German attacks on the forts around Leige Belgium, where the attacking Germans had risk life and limb just to pull down the bodies of the waves who had gone ahead of them because the piles had grown too high to climb.

The early story about the 1st Newfoundland, they were not the only ones forced out of the trenches before even reaching the front line who were wiped out before even reaching the front line. One the first day of the Somme, almost 20,000 British troops died... a careful phrasing that hides the truth. If the Commonwealth War graves Commission and the various governments ever went through the hospital records and dug out every man who died of wounds received on that day the total would be several thousand higher.

History of course has marched forward from World War I, but every step of man's collective journey since then has had a noticeable limp, the smiling faces and gay conversation of the years before the war forever replaced by new bullet shattered face of humanity- more somber, more prone to violence, less prone to idealism. Every war the west has fought since WWI has been a bigger or smaller flashback to the trenches..... in many ways the war is not over.

Much like the long slow death of the Roman Empire and the lingering ghost like haunting presence of the Roman Senate in Rome into the 8th century... WWI lingers on, who knows when the last victim of the war to end all wars will die... However I think it will be long after the first battle of WWI on an alien planet takes place.

Originally Posted by Tanker

Not if he was a US Marine.
My grandFATHER was a FATHER and a survivor of WWI. I assume chogy meant all FATHERS. I'm sure he can correct me if I am wrong.

Chogy made three specific references to France, "I've often wondered if the horrors of the trenches and the war affected French Morale and fighting spirit in 1940... You almost get the feeling that France was saying "No. Not again. ANYTHING is better than reliving those horrendous years once more.... "We know obviously the Battle for France wasn't the surrender festival that it's made out to be...

2 before and 1 after his father comment.

In Flanders, in the district of Ypres the local bomb squad is slowly defusing 20,000 gas shells, they can only do 20 a day. This same unit was called out 8 times a day in 2009 for unexploded WWI ordnance.

There are parts of France that are still considered zone rouge (red zone)- completely destroyed ad the gorund too polluted with the bodies of dead men, dead animals, unexploded ordnance and chemical weapons.

Meet Maité Roël a pieced 28 year old woman from Ostend- that 28 years old today 2012. She is officially a civilian war victim of WWI- identification card and all. In 1992, when she was 8, a naval scout (boy scout?) threw what they thought was a small log on a campfire she was sitting by. The explosion put her into the hospital for 2 years after nearly severing her leg, she still walks with a limp.

In a way though she was lucky, since Nov 11 1918 559 people have died as a result of unexploded ordnance in Flanders alone- the last in 2007. The locals call the annual find of 3000+ shells each spring "the iron harvest'.

Ever wonder why war cemeteries are located where they are? For most WWI location its becuase that is where a casualty clearing station (forward hospital) was located.

1.5 billion artillery shells were fired in WWI, 450 million of them didn't explode.

Jack (boy) Cornwall joined the Royal Navy in 1915 whe 15 years old, won immortality and a Vicotria Cross with his death at Jutland. 3rd youngest VC winner ever, youngest of the world wars.

Frank Buckles, America's last WWI enlisted when he was 16

US Senator Mike Mansfeild joined the US Navy when he was just 14, he crossed the Atlantic 7 times before he was discharged. He then joined the US Army while underage, and finally the USMC before legally able.

Future King of Belgium Crown Prince Leopold was enlisted into the Belgian Army and sent into the trenches in 1915 age 13.

Jim Martin died of typhoid at Gallipolli- he was 14.

John Kipling- the son of Rudyard Kipling died at age 17- he got his commission at 16 due to his fathers intervention.

JRR Tolkien started what would become the greatest fantasy triology of all time while serving at the Somme.

Tanker, I was referring to French Fathers in that post. France (like Britain and Germany) suffered the trenches for 4 long years, compared to a shorter American involvement. Like Zraver mentioned, French elan and the "attack, always attack" mentality was destroyed, and I think France, much more than the other two, suffered a withering of spirit that was never able to recover in time for WW2.