I have an interest in WW1, and have recently stumbled across some photos on the internet showing some sad, shocking and really mad stuff.
Roy Robertson had conned the enlistment people at Liverpool, NSW, Australia, into believing he was 18. He was 16 years and 4 month when killed in Gallipoli.
Haunting.
WW1 Alpine shelter on Mount Cristallo, Belluno.
Sending food to the soldiers, Italy, WWI
The cow is very likely alive since it was easier to let it walk on the mountainous ground and kill it later.
German soldiers and a donkey....all wearing gas masks.
Venice 1915. Antiaircraft guns.
A sergeant of the Lancashire Fusiliers in a flooded dugout opposite Messines near Ploegsteert Wood, January 1917
The Austro-Hungarian aircraft gunner in the picture is seen using a Mauser C96 pistol combination. Each pistol held a clip of ten bullets and the device attached to them fired them in unison, giving the gunner the ability to rapidly fire 100 rounds in volleys of 10. Two bars passed through the five upper and five lower trigger guards and were attached to the single aiming grip that can be seen in his hand. It had a trigger at the end which was pulled to fire all ten pistols at the same time. Given the close arrangement of the pistols, if the gunfire did hit the enemy aircraft, it would have been like using a shotgun. With the light frame and canvas structures of early war aircraft that might have been enough to bring it down. But one has to wonder how long it would take, and how difficult it would be, to reload and re-mount all ten pistols
British soldiers in the trenches, Battle of Loos, September 1915.
The Germans cannot believe their eyes. The British, according to a German account, “moved forward in ten columns, ‘each about a thousand men, all advancing as if carrying out a parade-ground drill…Never had machine guns had such straight-forward work to do.’”
The German guns mow the attackers down like blades of grass. “One machine-gun alone fired 12,500 rounds that afternoon.”
“The result was devastating,” writes historian Adam Hochschild, quoting the German account. “The enemy could be seen falling literally in hundreds, but they continued to march.”
“Hundreds of men have left descriptions of the Battle of Loos,” writes historian Martin Gilbert. One of those is the British writer Robert Graves, twenty years old at the time of the battle.
In his book Goodbye to All That, Graves relates one officer’s story. “When his platoon had run about twenty yards, he signaled them to lie down and open covering fire. The din was tremendous. He saw the platoon on the left flopping down too, so he whistled the advance again. Nobody seemed to hear. He jumped up from his shell-hole and waved and signaled ‘Forward.’ Nobody stirred.”
“He shouted, ‘you bloody cowards, are you leaving me to go alone?’ His platoon-sergeant, groaning with a broken shoulder, gasped out….
Not cowards, sir. Willing enough. But they’re all ****ing dead.”
As with many episodes from this war, writes Hochschild, “it is hard for us to see the attack on September 26, 1915, as anything other than a blatant, needless massacre initiated by generals with a near-criminal disregard for the conditions their men faced.”
The Allies gained “a mile or two of ground.” The cost? More than 61,000 British casualties.
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Roy Robertson had conned the enlistment people at Liverpool, NSW, Australia, into believing he was 18. He was 16 years and 4 month when killed in Gallipoli.
Haunting.
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WW1 Alpine shelter on Mount Cristallo, Belluno.
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Sending food to the soldiers, Italy, WWI
The cow is very likely alive since it was easier to let it walk on the mountainous ground and kill it later.
You must log in or register to see images
German soldiers and a donkey....all wearing gas masks.
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Venice 1915. Antiaircraft guns.
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A sergeant of the Lancashire Fusiliers in a flooded dugout opposite Messines near Ploegsteert Wood, January 1917
You must log in or register to see images
The Austro-Hungarian aircraft gunner in the picture is seen using a Mauser C96 pistol combination. Each pistol held a clip of ten bullets and the device attached to them fired them in unison, giving the gunner the ability to rapidly fire 100 rounds in volleys of 10. Two bars passed through the five upper and five lower trigger guards and were attached to the single aiming grip that can be seen in his hand. It had a trigger at the end which was pulled to fire all ten pistols at the same time. Given the close arrangement of the pistols, if the gunfire did hit the enemy aircraft, it would have been like using a shotgun. With the light frame and canvas structures of early war aircraft that might have been enough to bring it down. But one has to wonder how long it would take, and how difficult it would be, to reload and re-mount all ten pistols
You must log in or register to see images
British soldiers in the trenches, Battle of Loos, September 1915.
The Germans cannot believe their eyes. The British, according to a German account, “moved forward in ten columns, ‘each about a thousand men, all advancing as if carrying out a parade-ground drill…Never had machine guns had such straight-forward work to do.’”
The German guns mow the attackers down like blades of grass. “One machine-gun alone fired 12,500 rounds that afternoon.”
“The result was devastating,” writes historian Adam Hochschild, quoting the German account. “The enemy could be seen falling literally in hundreds, but they continued to march.”
“Hundreds of men have left descriptions of the Battle of Loos,” writes historian Martin Gilbert. One of those is the British writer Robert Graves, twenty years old at the time of the battle.
In his book Goodbye to All That, Graves relates one officer’s story. “When his platoon had run about twenty yards, he signaled them to lie down and open covering fire. The din was tremendous. He saw the platoon on the left flopping down too, so he whistled the advance again. Nobody seemed to hear. He jumped up from his shell-hole and waved and signaled ‘Forward.’ Nobody stirred.”
“He shouted, ‘you bloody cowards, are you leaving me to go alone?’ His platoon-sergeant, groaning with a broken shoulder, gasped out….
Not cowards, sir. Willing enough. But they’re all ****ing dead.”
As with many episodes from this war, writes Hochschild, “it is hard for us to see the attack on September 26, 1915, as anything other than a blatant, needless massacre initiated by generals with a near-criminal disregard for the conditions their men faced.”
The Allies gained “a mile or two of ground.” The cost? More than 61,000 British casualties.
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One of the most disturbing scenes it that DVD was sending the squaddies over the top unarmed, deliberately, to draw fire and find out exactly where the German gun placements were. Talk about cannon fodder.
