World War One

[Voltaire]

I think Gallipoli was his idea, with the war on the Western Front in stalemate, take over the Dardanelles , land troops and then on to Constantinople. The Ottoman Empire would crumble...... well we all know how that went.
He did however take over from Chamberlain who declared war and then a few months later resigned......doh.
Probably a good thing as he may have sued for peace leaving the Germans free to pursue Eastern objectives.
Churchill galvanised a nation after the fairly successful withdrawl of the BEF from France.
They could have thrown in the RAF but it would have meant nothing to defend England with other than the Royal Navy who were vulnerable to U boats.
The Germans did not have the resources to cross the English Channel.
He was probably successful in getting the Americans to focus on the defeat of Germany after Pearl Harbor.
Odd that when the war ended he was voted out, it was like his time was over.

[Hitcher]

I don't think I is always wrong to participate in wars. I do think that I you are at the front you should know why you are there and what you might be about to sacrifice for.

I agree. There's a lot of shit talked about wars and what motivates soldiers.

Few did it for "god and country". In the first days of the war, some volunteered because that's what their mates were doing and it was some big adventure. Then conscription arrived and young chaps had no choice, or it was just something that was expected and one trotted off to do it.

Many armed forces personnel didn't expect to come home, despite what expectations they may have shared with loved ones before they left or in the contents of letters written while they were away. But they still went. Definitely those standing in trenches in France, or in foxholes at Gallipoli didn't expect to leave alive. My Grandpa survived both Gallipoli and the Palestinian campaign in WWI.

"Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl," according to Prussia's Frederick II. Like other arrogant toffs, Fred never spent a minute under constant barrage in Belgium or France, let alone months.

Industrialised death is a hard concept to understand, yet it is quite common and easy for politicians and their propaganda merchants to market. Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nazi death camps, WWI, the Boer War, the list is endless. It is somehow sanitised to a point where the death bit gets completely overlooked. "The ends justify the means," and all that nonsense.

Even in WWII many didn't expect to come home alive. My Dad turned 18 during the war, was trained to fly multi-engined aircraft and became part of the feeder line for Bomber Command's war of human attrition in the skies over Germany. Dad and his mates knew that their odds of survival weren't particularly crash hot. About three weeks before he was due to start active service, the Germans surrendered. A few months later in Egypt, after converting to Liberators for the campaign against the Japanese in Burma, that conflict was also all over. Dad celebrated his 21st birthday on a troopship on his way home. No active service, no medals, painfully aware of what many surrendered to rid the world of facism, a great believer in the value of family. His story is no different to that of many other returned service personnel, but his mental and physical health a lot better than most.

[Banditbandit]

They (TPTB) are all set to play silly buggers again (just look at the world around us) and like every other time before ... we will let them get away with it!

Yeah - remember WWI was "The War to End All Wars" - yeah right ..

[Oakie]

Oh the irony...

TVNZ news on chan 1 last night cut over to some muppet reporter at Te Papa...

He talked right through the last post and the minutes silence... One of the Army guys sushhed him and he was getting foul looks but he kept on keeping on... Bloody disgraceful really.... We will remember them eh?

Bit tough to blame the reporter. He was thrown a real hospital pass. Just really bad timing.

[R650R]

I don't think I is always wrong to participate in wars. I do think that I you are at the front you should know why you are there and what you might be about to sacrifice for.

Growing up I bought into the whole hero complex. I still do in many ways.
At 19 I would have considered it a privilege to go to war for my country. To serve my queen and all that goes with that.
At 40 I have a wider and perhaps more cynical view. Sitting here in the comfort of New Zealand poverty I would still feel proud to serve against a tyrant. I would still feel proud to stand for queen and country but now I would only enlist if there was a clear and present danger from something I believe in.

I wonder how I would feel in knee deep mud?
In the trenches 4 years after signing up believing this was a chance for a short adventure? For motives that are still disputed by historians?

We all know it kicked of over the assassination of archduke Ferdinand. But is that enough?

Good posts. Its refreshing that in our hard fought for freedoms we can have a civilised debate over the folly of wars.

When I was young I yearned for a military career after a tv/movie diet of TopGun and Tour of Duty etc... Knowing what I do know about politics and world affairs I'm glad I never joined.
Most of our modern crisis don't seem to warrant the loss of life that previous threats posed.
Back in those days the threat was very real that another nation could just sail up unopposed and take over where as in todays world it cant really happen.
We still haven't learnt our lesson though. Both WWI and WWII were started by small affairs but blew into global disasters thanks to treaties dragging in multiple players. Kinda like a gang fight, couple guys have minor dust up but because of colours it escalates into drive by shootings.
Yeah that journo needs to be issuing a public apology. Done my fair share of Anzac parades with Cadets and never heard anything like it except once for a lone boyracer car a street or two away...

[R650R]

I think that instead of wars that the politicians from both sides should battle it out hand to hand in a large stadium Gladiator style....dang I think I got that idea off a Frankie Goes to Hollywood video...
100 years later and we're still at it.

A website I frequent usually comments after that latest political posturing:

"Oh you want to go to war with country x Mr Z, well here's your parachute and here's your rifle"...

[Paul in NZ]

Bit tough to blame the reporter. He was thrown a real hospital pass. Just really bad timing.

Yup hospital pass of all time but I disagree - live TV and all but he could have shown a bit of class....

[oneofsix]

Bit tough to blame the reporter. He was thrown a real hospital pass. Just really bad timing.

Wrong. He should have just kept his mouth shut and motioned behind him, the studio would have soon got the point and they would have then had the egg on their faces and well and truely the produces who would have know what was happening at Te Papa, or should have, before the live cut-over. It is this :BS: covering for others mistakes that get us into these messes. Speak-up, or in his case shut-up, or put up with the consequences.

[mada]

Like the other poster, have become more critical with age. Used to be a young and a semi-blind "patriot".

Greatgrandfather got shot near the heart at Gallopoli, his twin stabbed with bayonet, and other family members didn't make it home.

In terms of modern day propaganda - WW1 was definitely a war in which there was no "fight for freedom" nor any moral justification for the war. It was about Empire building and smashing (for the Brits ensuring that the rising German state got nowhere near them).

We tried to build a little empire of our own - taking Samoa and then fucking it over go and proper.

So yep, very important to commemorate and remember the suffering, but about time we dropped all the hype of "going to serve their country, going in the name of freedom" and all that shit which is a bunch of bull.

[mada]

I think that instead of wars that the politicians from both sides should battle it out hand to hand in a large stadium Gladiator style....dang I think I got that idea off a Frankie Goes to Hollywood video...
100 years later and we're still at it.

supposedly it will just be fought by robots and shit soon.

Despite all the smartest gadgets, satellites, and "smart bombs" the military machine which now goes out to kill 1 terrorist/enemy/associate ends up taking out another 100 innocents and wounding 1000s.

The cynic in me questions whether those profiting from such machines and killing actually support killing innocents to continue making terrorists and the cycle of violence which they profit from.

The solution would be to chuck them all on an island and play survivor or lord of the flys.

[Oakie]

Yup hospital pass of all time but I disagree - live TV and all but he could have shown a bit of class....

Oh it would have been outstanding if he had done that and the country would have applauded. Perhaps an older more established presenter might have had the confidence to do that ... but a young reporter still trying to make his way and faced with the greatest sin of reporting ... ie, saying nothing. Well your boss tells you it's time to talk ... you have to have a certain standing to be able to say no.

[Motu]

Braking moderately heavily perhaps.......

No brake lights, and there is no one in the car.

[Berries]

I never would have thought the ground would remain so scarred almost 100 years on.

I studied for a while in northern France in a place called Béthune not far from the Belgian border. Went a couple of times to a place called Vimy Ridge that has pretty much been left the way it was after the war as a memorial to all the Canadians who fought there. Trenches, unexploded bombs and craters you cannot believe. A very eerie place.

[Voltaire]

Few more pics. These are of Gallipoli.

Taken I think from top of " the Nek"

The nek

ANZAC Cove


ANZAC Cove



Most of the peninsula is a national park or else it would have been made into a beach resort like the rest of coastal Turkey.
At Cape Helles there are large French Irish and English cemetaries

[Big Dog]

Good posts. Its refreshing that in our hard fought for freedoms we can have a civilised debate over the folly of wars.
...

Both my grandfathers were survivors of the second dust up. I think they were very brave in that by then they had "tours" and you got to go home when you had done your bit. Both served the full length, repeatedly rejoining, sometimes changing command just to be allowed to serve.

Neither expressed anything more than it needed doing.

My big takeaway from both men was always be humble but never back away from a job that needs doing, because if you won't do it who will?

They were also both big on voting.

My last memory of my grandad ( I was too young to remember which one, they were alike enough it could have been either) was going with him to vote. We got up early. He shaved in the kitchen while he cooked bacon and eggs.
We sat outside in the rising sun after a good feed and polished our shoes.
Put on our Sunday best and walked to the nearest polling booth. A fair walk, but you mustn't rush these things or waste the opportunity to enjoy the experience. It only comes around every three years.
The whole way there he smiled as he chatted about the options. I don't remember much, I doubt I even understood.

The rest is lost to the passing years, but the sense of purpose and the conviction that this is what he "fought and died for" remains.

Hopefully my children will never need to offer such sacrifice to give their children the gift of keeping their freedoms.