100 Years Since World War 1 began

[chunkygull]

Just to mention the milestone 100 years commemoration of the start of World War 1 or as many have always called it The Great War.

Is everybody lighting their candles at 10 pm. There is a candle lighting event on at Paignton seafront.

From what I learnt at school and have read since, this war was particularly bloody, brutal and horrific. The conditions many of our brave armed forces fought in were truly awful.

I remember when I was a boy my Nan showing me a picture of her as a baby with her Dad, then one of him in his army uniform, then she told me she had no memory of him as she was less than a year old when he went off to fight in World War 1 to fight and he was killed.

We owe so much to all those brave souls who gave so much to fight for us, it may have been a long time ago now but both World Wars changed everything so much and who knows what life would be like today if things had been different and our armed forces hadnt been so brave and defeated our enemy.

I would just like to say to all those who fought for us - THANKYOU!

[chunkygull]

Just been down to Paignton seafront to light and add a candle.

Lots of people gathered there to do the same which was nice to see.

Thought I would print a poem I remember from school.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

[Colorado Gull]

28th July 1914 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia which sparked off the alliance systems which officially started The Great War. 4th August 1914 commemorates the deceleration of war between Britain and Germany, following the Germans going into Belgium and therefore attacking France. This was the most devastating war the world had ever witnessed. Who would have known that the Second World War would be just 35 years later. The Black Hand gang, Gavrilo Princip, the sandwich, Arch Duke Ferdinand's idiotic driver, whatever the cause, 37 million casualties was the result.

[Gullscorer]

I look upon all wars with the greatest sadness. War is a failure of diplomacy. All that's ever needed is for both parties in a disagreement to discuss and understand each other's concerns, yet arrogance, selfishness, and hubris, on one side or the other, or both, almost always prevail.

The negligent egotistical politicians, on whichever side, who send those young men to their deaths are the worst of war criminals. And the same thing is happening even today. You'd think humanity would have learned the lesson by now, but in all the thousands of years of human history, we appear to have evolved very little beyond primitive savage bestiality.

I don't really know the answer to that. I remember Gandhi saying (in the film at least) at a protest against the South African pass laws: 'In this cause I, too, am prepared to die. But, my friends, there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.'

Perhaps that's something we should all consider. Because if things go on as they are, the human race will eventually destroy itself.

[Alpine Joe]

Gullscorer

The negligent egotistical politicians, on whichever side, who send those young men to their deaths are the worst of war criminals. And the same thing is happening even today. You'd think humanity would have learned the lesson by now

A similar conclusion to that drawn by Peter Hitchens in his newspaper column last Sunday:

I for one have had enough of war poets and trench memoirs. Let’s have some proper history – who did what to whom and what it cost.

As Simon Heffer explains on the previous pages, the war was the greatest event in modern history, its aftershocks still persisting even now.

By the way, we didn’t even go to war to save Belgium. The Cabinet had already decided on war before a single German jackboot had crossed the Belgian border.

The rape of Belgium – which we weren’t actually obliged to defend – was a pretext invented afterwards to soothe readers of The Guardian.

Have our leaders learned anything from this episode of folly, mass death and waste? Absolutely not.

They still reach for war at the slightest opportunity.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... ferno.html

[Pea]

Ahahaha, Alpine Joe, noted religious zealot, reads the Wail and presumably refers to it as Broken Britain. Magnificent stuff.

Per Harry Patch:

"I felt then as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder."

What bothers me is that history expels the most important figure ever. Forget Jesus, who didn't exist. Forget Hitler, who was little more than a by-product, forget Chairman Mao and all those others. The most important man in the entirety of human history is Gavrilo Princip, the man who caused the first world war. A list of the things we wouldn't have without him includes, but is very much not limited to:

Precision engineering (so we'd have basically none of the things that we have today which require any sort of even vaguely accurate machining)
Computers
Jet engines
Street lighting
Nuclear power
Anaesthetic
Laparoscopic surgery (I'll concede that we would have had surgery, which we'd had for over 200 years at St Thomas' prior to the war)
RADAR
SONAR
Television
Wireless
Infra red signal
Telephones
Equal rights
James Bond
Modern mining, tunnelling and demolition

And about a billion other things. Have a think about some of the things on that list. Computers, I'm not just talking about laptops, I'm talking about the silicone chip. Everything from mobile phones to televisions to cars to large scale engineering to everything else. Were it not for Princip, we'd still be hacking about with a Babbage Difference Engine to work out maths problems. Have a look at those mock ups of what the early industrial revolution was like in places like Telford. That's what 21st Century [Broken] Britain would look like without Princip. The effect the man has had on the course of human development is impossible to overstate. His contribution dwarfs that of Churchill, Nixon, Henry Tudor, Brunel, Obama, Gandhi, Elizabeth Windsor and basically everyone else put together.
Most people affect the world in one sphere. Thomas Andrew, chief designer of the Titanic has, indirectly, saved the lives of tens of thousands of people and kept a similar number gainfully employed by his failure to genuinely design an unsinkable ship. Pythagoras has changed the way mathematicians and physicists think. Plato and Socrates expanded the minds of millions with their deep thought. It is almost certain that the decision made by Princip on that June day in 1914 to have a coffee after failing in his first attempt to commit murder instead of going home as he had planned, has indirectly affected every person who has lived since. Literally every person on the planet who has lived even a portion of their lives since 28/06/1914 has, in some way, had their life influenced by Princip and the ripple of what he brought about will affect every human who lives between now and the end of the race/planet, whichever is sooner.

And that makes me feel very, very small indeed.

[Gullscorer]

Bollocks....!!! =D

[Alpine Joe]

He certainly was a key and influential figure pea, and I shall certainly do as you advise and 'Have a think about some of the things on that list'.
In return could I ask you to think whether it would have been possible to make those same interesting points about Gavrilo Princip without needing to label me a religious zealot ?

You rightly point out that Matt's reference to 'black lads' was only a small part of his post. Yet as we saw, it was sufficient for hector to feel provoked. The moderators will of course take into account whether you 'knew what you were doing' when you chose that particular phrase to describe me, and how to proceed bearing in mind that I could possibly have found it not only provocative but also hurtful and distressing.

The punishment as we've seen, falls on the provoker and not on the provoked, and it seems it could be a case where Gavin Princip works against you. As you've informed us that but for him there'd be no Equal Rights, then naturally you'll demand no leniency on account of your sex and demand the same full 7 day suspension that would be issued to a male.

But I have my reputation to think of, and will be contacting the Mods demanding instead, that you be stoned to death.

All the best,

Joe

[Pea]

Hector's an idiot. I credit you, my dearest Joe, with a more keenly honed sense of fun and ability to appreciate that a gentle probe at your expense need not be cause for offence.