start of the Battle of the Somme [100th anniversary]

[Daniel Kalal]

Tomorrow (Friday) is the 100th anniversary of the start of that long battle--most killed this day in the history of the British Army.
I've ridden through the area in France, and made a point today of dropping by the national WW1 museum in Kansas City to see their special exhibit.  They've done a nice job and have brought out lots of artifacts that they've not had on display before.

Anyway, I know there are plenty of folks on the board with an interest in history, so if you're nearby, you might look at it (the museum is changing their special exhibits as the 100th anniversary dates progress, so this one wont be here for terribly long).



[I'm pretty confident that this post won't start up anything, but if it does, I'll take care of it]

[oldbike54]

 As someone who is interested in history let me say

                                                Thanks Deke 

  Dusty

[lucydad]

Duly noted.  Immense, titanic, tragic, fascinating struggle. 

My great Uncle with the AEF died in WW I:  April, 1918 in the final push through to defeat the Bosch.  Combined arms strategy, plus American weight and sacrifice, and British/French persistence, and German fatigue finally ended it all.

Amazingly close thing though, especially opening stages in 1914.

I have always wanted to visit the battle field trenches--seen them from the air on flights from London to Tunis.  Been close in Paris an Champagne.  Seen many memorials in Paris, and around France.

The Arc d'Triumph has amazing sculptures within the top.  Poilus.

Never discount French �lan.  Never.

[canuck750]

More men per capita were lost in that terrible war from Newfoundland than any other commonwealth nation (Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949).

More than 30% of the Newfoundlanders died in the Great War.

An unimaginable loss.

[John A]

The start of mechanized warfare. Troops and Calvery were ground up as the generals tried to understand what was going wrong. June 28 was the date in 1914 the Archduke and his wife were killed, a month later war was declared. There is a good documentary on streaming Netflix , 14 diaries of WW1, if it's still there
When I was a kid there was a Veteran that we called "Old Step and a Half" who had been gassed walked the streets in Red Wing late at night. I couldn't understand him and had no idea of the rough duty those folks had.

[Aaron D.]

Thanks for the heads up.

I will keep my comment to remembering my grandfather, Raymond Dewar, from Prince Edward Island. I only knew him as the tall man with a hearing aid who didn't say a lot-he was in Europe for the duration.

[ITSec]

More men per capita were lost in that terrible war from Newfoundland than any other commonwealth nation (Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949).

More than 30% of the Newfoundlanders died in the Great War.

An unimaginable loss.

Some excellent materials at the CBC website on the Royal Newfoundland Regiment's experience in that battle. On July 1, 1916, 801 Newfoundlanders were in the third wave of those over the top into the face of withering machine gun and artillery fire.

The next day, only 68 made roll call. The rest were dead, wounded or missing in action.

The Allies hoped the Battle of the Somme would regain the momentum they had lost in the disaster at Gallipolli - instead, they suffered a failure of leadership that has been aptly labeled "strategic stupidity' by one of Canada's most respected military commanders.

[Sasquatch Jim]

  Most of those in command had been schooled in 19th century military thought which dictated that if you charged enough men fast enough over the top, eventually you had to prevail.  Entrenched Maxim guns put the end to that stupid tactic but only after record numbers of good soldiers had been fed to the new guns in wasteful actions.  One of the reasons it took so many lives before they learned was that by that time, senior officers never led from the front.  They never got an intimate knowledge of facing a hail of bullets that no previous war had seen.  Junior officers seldom lived long enough to become senior to put their experience to change.

[rboe]

My Dad's dad served with the US. Got gassed (ended up having an issue with the VA - same old same old), came back and bought a sheep ranch in Montana living to 82.

The story leading up to WW1 is very interesting. Bismark worked on so many interlocking treaties that if one lone gun man killed someone everybody ended up involved. It was folly. The war was folly and such a disaster it is quite surprising we had the stomach for another one thirty years later. Such a waste of life. :(

[SmithSwede]

The Dead.  Rupert Brooke (1915)

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
      Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
      And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
      Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
      Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
      Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
      Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

[gittbox]

That's a fine poem. I've read Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, I hadn't heard of Rupert Brooke. My Pop gave me a circa 1915 Model 98 Mauser when I was a kid, anytime I look at it I try to imagine what it must have been like to be at the Somme or Verdun during those battles, and my guess is, it defied description.

[rboe]

NPR had a story on yesterday (or was it the day before) and they played some recordings that the British have for one of their museums. They let some veterans of the war tell their story of the Somme; I think it had to be done but damn, to make old warriors relive that horror. 

[ken farr]

More men per capita were lost in that terrible war from Newfoundland than any other commonwealth nation (Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949).

More than 30% of the Newfoundlanders died in the Great War.

An unimaginable loss.

Amazing.  I never knew either........


kjf

[ScepticalScotty]

I can very much recommend 2 fine books - "Mud, Blood, and Poppycock" by Gordon Corrigan, and "Tommy" by the late Richard Holmes.

[SmithSwede]

Another excellent book, from a literary perspective, is The Great War and Modern Memory, by the late Paul Fussell. 

[ITSec]

Among the best examinations of how WWI started is Tuchman's "The Guns of August" - winner of a well-deserved Pulitzer prize. Instead of telling the story of 'what', it looks at 'why'. I was lucky enough to have to study it in high school history.

[ohiorider]

I turned 73  this past January, so I’m no spring chick.  If my parents and grandparents had been born when most of yours were, I would have remembered my grandparents on my dad’s side.  However, they were both gone over 20 years before I came along.  How’d this happen?

For starters. My dad was an old Irishman who decided not to marry until he was in his early 40s, when he married a lovely woman of 24.  My oldest brother was born in 1931, next oldest in 1934.  I came along in 1943. 

My father was born in 1887, and ended up in France in 1917 or 1918.  Fortunately for him, he was in the quartermasters corp, stationed ‘far behind the lines’ (40 miles.)  I can only assume he volunteered, since I doubt the US was drafting 30 year old males to serve in the army.

So, unusually, I had a father, not a grandfather, who was in France in WW1.  He passed when I was 21, in 1964.

I still have a souvenir of his time in France, a 75mm shell casing that was converted to a vase.  Apparently the shell was placed over some sort of mold that embossed images of flowers, the flag of Free France, and other decorative symbols into the shell casing.  Troops in the trenches also decorated these depleted shells to while away the time.  This ‘vase’ still has the 75mm markings on the rear of the shell, and the detonated shell primer is still in place.

Bob

[leafman60]

More men per capita were lost in that terrible war from Newfoundland than any other commonwealth nation (Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949).

More than 30% of the Newfoundlanders died in the Great War.

An unimaginable loss.

And to top tragedy upon tragedy, the 1918 flu epidemic spread by returning WWI soldiers wreaked terrible havoc upon Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Spanish Flu.


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