[anarchist23]

For millions of soldiers, the First World War meant unimaginable horror: artillery shells that could pulverize a human body into a thousand fragments; immense underground mine explosions that could do the same to hundreds of bodies; attacks by poison gas, tanks, flamethrowers. Shortly after 8 p.m. on November 7, 1918, however, French troops near the town of La Capelle saw something different. From the north, three large automobiles, with the black eagle of Imperial Germany on their sides, approached the front lines with their headlights on. Two German soldiers were perched on the running boards of the lead car, one waving a white flag, the other, with an unusually long silver bugle, blowing the call for ceasefire—a single high tone repeated in rapid succession four times, then four times again, with the last note lingering.

By prior agreement, the three German cars slowly made their way across the scarred and cratered no man’s land between the opposing armies. When they reached the French lines, they halted, the German bugler was replaced by a French one (his bugle is in a Paris museum today), and the German peace envoys continued their journey. At La Capelle, flashes lit up the night as the envoys were photographed by waiting press and newsreel cameramen, then transferred to French cars. Their route took them past houses, factories, barns, and churches reduced to charred rubble, fruit trees cut down and wells poisoned by retreating German troops. “It appeared to me that the drive was intentionally prolonged in order to carry us across devastated provinces and to prepare us for the hardest conditions which the feelings of hatred and revenge might demand,” one of the German passengers later wrote. The envoys next boarded a railway carriage that had once belonged to Napoleon III, who was forced to surrender most of Alsace and part of Lorraine to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War.

Finally, the train pulled into a clearing in the forest of Compiègne, near another train occupied by an Allied delegation headed by Marshal Ferdinand Foch, the Allied commander-in-chief, a diminutive Frenchman with an immense, shaggy mustache. The two groups met in Foch’s train, in what was formerly the dining car of a luxury sleeper service. The German delegation was headed by a civilian cabinet minister, but the high command was desperate to avoid blame for a humiliating end to the war, and the military representatives were relatively junior: a major general and a Navy captain.

The German Army had asked for peace talks because it knew that it was fast losing the war. Germany had already seen the surrender of its two major allies, Ottoman Turkey and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was rapidly fragmenting as one ethnic group after another declared its independence. The most powerful German commander, General Erich Ludendorff, had had a nervous breakdown, raging at his staff, drinking heavily, and suffering panic attacks; a hastily summoned psychologist advised flowers in his office and the singing of folk songs when he woke in the morning. He had resigned in late October, and fled the country wearing a false beard and blue spectacles. In rear areas, tens of thousands of German troops were deserting. On the Western Front, the Allies had been gaining ground since midsummer. And mutinous crews in the German Navy, ordered to sea for a suicidal last-ditch foray against the British, seized control of their ships, ran up the red flag, arrested their officers, and made common cause with rebellious workers and soldiers ashore.

The Allied powers yielded to the French—on whose soil so much of the bloodiest fighting had taken place—the role of dictating peace terms to the Germans. The demands that Marshal Foch laid down were even harsher than the pessimistic German delegates had feared. German troops were to swiftly evacuate territory they occupied in France and Belgium. Alsace and Lorraine were to be returned to France, and the left bank of the Rhine—Germany’s industrial heartland—would be occupied by Allied troops at German expense. Foch further demanded that the Germans turn over to the Allies not merely large numbers of artillery pieces, machine guns, aircraft, submarines, and surface warships but also five thousand trucks, five thousand railway locomotives, and a hundred and fifty thousand freight cars. Reparations would be determined and imposed later. The German representatives pleaded for an immediate ceasefire while the two sides discussed these terms. Foch refused. Instead, he ordered all Allied commanders to step up attacks: “It is urgent to hasten and intensify our efforts.”

In the five weeks since the Germans first requested peace negotiations, half a million casualties had been added to the war’s toll. As the delegates talked, Germany continued to collapse from within: inspired by the Russian Revolution, workers and soldiers were forming soviets, or councils. Bavaria proclaimed itself a socialist republic; a soviet took over in Cologne. With Berlin in ferment, Kaiser Wilhelm II had gone to Western Front military headquarters in the Belgian resort town of Spa (which is where the word “spa” comes from). But even there he found a soldiers’ soviet, and troops who refused to salute their officers. As news came that the red flag had been raised over his own palace, in Berlin, he fled across the border to neutral Holland.

It was no longer clear what sort of government the German delegates in the railway carriage were representing, but the Allies’ chief concern was that the German Army accept Foch’s terms for peace. Ferocious combat continued as a courier was sent back through the front lines to carry the text of Allied demands to Spa, again with a white flag and bugle calls. (Years later, the French bugler who accompanied him described the thrill to a veterans’ magazine: “For the first time in my life, I am riding in a luxury car.”) At last, the high command in Spa radioed its approval, and, early on the morning of November 11, 1918, the delegates signed the agreement known as the Armistice. There were no handshakes. The Armistice took effect at 11 a.m. At that moment, the Times correspondent Edwin L. James wrote from the front, “four years’ killing and massacre stopped, as if God had swept His omnipotent finger across the scene of world carnage and cried, ‘Enough!’ ”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018 ... -armistice

[anarchist23]

Did your relatives fight in WWI?

Although threatened with execution by firing squad my grandfather refused to fight in WWI.
He was incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London for two and a half years but did not relent.

Were there lessons learnt?

Hardly any.

[ingliz]

My 17-year-old grandfather fought at the Battle of the Somme.

An apprentice joiner/cabinet maker before the War, he managed to escape the slaughter and survive by wangling a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps as ground crew. He spent the rest of the war repairing broken aeroplanes.

[Heisenberg]

Did your relatives fight in WWI?

I honestly don't know. I think my great-grandfather(s) did, but I know no details. Both of my grandfathers were in the Royal Navy in WW2, though.

Were there lessons learnt?

Just the one: walking very slowly across open ground towards heavily fortified, dug-in machine gun posts is sub-optimal.

[Rich]

There were so many lessons learnt about artillery the decline of cavalry, the early use of tanks, storm trooper tactics, supply logistics, air power, it just goes on and on and on. Whats interesting is looking at some of the battles at the end of WWII and just how important artillery concentration was and their similarity to WWI.

Also look at the great / famous German Generals of WWII, they nearly all got their early experience in WWI. This went for other armies as well.

[anarchist23]

Although threatened with execution by firing squad my grandfather refused to fight in WWI.
He was incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London for two and a half years but did not relent.

Here is a short piece on my grandfather. George Baker.

http://www2.westsussex.gov.uk/learning- ... version=-1

[Rancid]

I don't believe i have any relatives that fought in that war. My great grandfather is French, I have no idea how that war affected him.

[Victoribus Spolia]

I had no kindred in that war to my knowledge.

My maternal Grandfather was a Fighting Seabee in WWII in the D-Day invasion and was also in Okinawa (both fronts).

He was a deep-south carpenter from Louisiana before the war and became a welder on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico afterwards before marrying a yankee and moving to her home state of Pennsylvania. My mother was youngest of their seven kids.

As for WWI and the lessons learned?

WWI was supposed to be the triumph of democracy as a superior system to that of monarchy and aristocracy.

Those who believed such were gravely mistaken, history has born this out.

[One Degree]

My ancestors have fought in every war the US was involved in since about 1730. But, I have no personal accounts from WWI currently. I remember reading one account of the Argonne Forest, but don’t recall the details now.
My father claimed he had 3 ships sunk under him in WWII. My father-in-law (first born generation German American) had pictures of him in one of Hitler’s swimming pools and the battle ribbons to back it up. He was involved in intense fighting and never talked about that part. He just told stories like the swimming pool and sleeping under an ammo truck.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Both my grandfathers fought in WW1; one on the Western Front, where he was an officer in the same battalion as Wilfred Owen. He won the Military Cross and 2 bars, and the DSO (the latter in the action in which Owen was killed). The other was in the eastern Mediterranean, where he was (not very seriously) shot, and nearly died from disease - typhoid, I think, but I'm not sure. Another couple of great uncles also fought, and a 3rd was killed at Gallipoli. My grandmother's cousin was a German soldier in WWI; he was called up again for WW2, in which both he and his 2 sons died.

No, not many lessons learnt. You might say the British and the French weren't so quick to go to war the next time, but since the Germans were, that didn't help much.

[Rancid]

I come from a long line of cowards. Pretty sure no one in my family has participated in war.

[Nonsense]

Both my grandfathers fought in WW1; one on the Western Front, where he was an officer in the same battalion as Wilfred Owen. He won the Military Cross and 2 bars, and the DSO (the latter in the action in which Owen was killed). The other was in the eastern Mediterranean, where he was (not very seriously) shot, and nearly died from disease - typhoid, I think, but I'm not sure. Another couple of great uncles also fought, and a 3rd was killed at Gallipoli. My grandmother's cousin was a German soldier in WWI; he was called up again for WW2, in which both he and his 2 sons died.

No, not many lessons learnt. You might say the British and the French weren't so quick to go to war the next time, but since the Germans were, that didn't help much.

My grandfather fought at Gallipoli, where he won the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal(RN version)in June 1915.

He was in the enemy trenches where he and his comrades came under heavy machine gun fire.
He stayed behind, keeping the enemy at bay whilst his comrades retreated back to their own trenches.
He noticed a wounded comrade at his feet, picked him up, carrying him back to their own trenches, all the time under heavy machine fire by the enemy.

Both made it back, but my maternal grandfather, who was in the R.N.V.R as part of the 3/226 HOWE Division, suffered shrapnel injuries on the 4th June 1915.
He was taken to Egypt for hospital treatment & recovery.

He died almost 38 years to the day later on an operating table, whilst under anaesthetic for an operation for a burst appendix, which created a blood infection causing his death from Peritonitis on the table.

Like so many war operations, little glory, but much suffering for countries, families & those lost in the conflicts.

[fuser]

Recruitment drive in my region was an epic failure, Gandhi himself stayed here for weeks urging people to join in the volunteer British Indian army but no one bothered, so I guess there is a lesson here i.e. "Don't fucking volunteer no matter who is asking you to."

[Sivad]

[anarchist23]

Although threatened with execution by firing squad my grandfather refused to fight in WWI.
He was incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London for two and a half years but did not relent.

My grandfather who I never met wrote an autobiography.
This is page one....


[center-img]http://i63.tinypic.com/2iiz5sp.jpg[/center-img]

[skinster]

Not sure if any of my relatives were in any war but fuck that noise unless it's to defend your own land.

Not sure how many today are still willing to "fight" wars for corporations since it's clear that's what they are for. Cucks, the lot of them.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Not sure if any of my relatives were in any war but fuck that noise unless it's to defend your own land.

But what should other countries have done when one large country invaded a smaller one - eg Austria invading Serbia, or Germany invading Belgium?

[Sivad]

but fuck that noise unless it's to defend your own land.

I don't get how soldiers are willing to risk life and limb for some bullshit that doesn't benefit them in any way. If I was gonna put my life on the line and go on the warpath I would go after my actual enemies and not some backward hicks on the other side of the world.

[anarchist23]

Lesson?

[Sivad]

I should probably clarify that I'm not advocating violence of any kind. I'm just saying that there are better causes to put it all on the line for and that only stupid fucks are willing to sacrifice their lives to advance the interests of the ruling class.