Friday, July 1, 2016

The Whistles Blew and Over the Top They Went

Right into the face of German Maxim guns and artillery fire.

The Battle of the Somme began 100 years ago this day. The British Army had almost 60,000 casualties on the first day of the battle.

One of the more insanely stupid ideas that the Brits had were to form "Pals Battalions". units made up of men from one area. Their idea was that men would be more inclined to enlist if they were to serve with their friends and neighbors. When one of those units suffered heavy casualties, well, you can imagine the impact back in Old Blighty.

That's just what happened at the Somme.

One of the sadder things of Western military tradition is that flag officers who are incompetents and wastrels of their men are allowed to retire gracefully, instead of being shot.
on or about

2 comments:

  1. Tod Germanica7/03/2016 10:01 PM

    Yeah, Stalin and Hitler did shoot them, or put them in camps. Stalin had camps of ace aero designers slaving away:(Polikarpov at Factory #39).

    Thought there might be more interest in WWI than just the Apocalypse WWI TV documentary. Guess to most people it was too pointless, bloody and long ago to properly remember. But historically it's what started the degradation of the 20th century.
    'Tod'

    ReplyDelete
  2. Comrade Misfit7/04/2016 8:59 AM

    I don't know "the Apocalypse" series. I have written a couple of posts here and there about the Great War.

    For a series, I recommend the BBC series The Great War.

    ReplyDelete

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