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Speaking of WW1, I'd love for some goon to cover some of the French weaponry of the war.
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Feb 23, 2016 20:47
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edit: ^^^^^^ not going to effort post, but the Chauchaut was actually a pretty OK LMG for time time, at least until the tried to re-bore it for .30-06 for the Americans. Gully Foyle posted:Did the better German trenches/dugouts have any effect on the rates of cases of 'shell shock'/PTSD? It seems like having a more secure and relatively more comfortable place to sleep while in the front-lines might make it a lot easier to withstand the mental stresses. I'm more curious if they lead to a lower incidence of trench foot and related maladies. Having dugouts that well made indicates that they would be able to take off their boots, dry off their socks, and get some air between their toes rather than just crouching in a puddle for a week or so.
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Feb 23, 2016 20:51
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SeanBeansShako posted:Speaking of WW1, I'd love for some goon to cover some of the French weaponry of the war. Seconded. Small arms for sure, plus wasn't this the war where what we would recognize as modern field guns became widespread on all sides? American Rifleman had a rather simple article in their issue from a year ago about the Belgican FN Mauser rifles used by Belgiania during the early war delaying action: http://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2015/2/13/the-belgian-model-1889-mauser-the-rifle-that-saved-paris/
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Feb 23, 2016 21:05
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Squalid posted:Interesting words. lenoon posted:I remember when the Nairobi westlands attack happened there were a couple of posters writing good contextual background on the kenya/somalia situation - I'll try to dig up the thread if you like as it might save you some time with the deep dark background.
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Feb 23, 2016 21:21
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Nenonen posted:I'm the completely accurate "Achtung! Please Watch Your Step" sign. Here's the pics I took! In the distance of the first picture you can see the recreated Vietnam artillery base, and in the second pic you can see some recreated Civil War huts on the left.        
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Feb 23, 2016 21:28
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Gully Foyle posted:Did the better German trenches/dugouts have any effect on the rates of cases of 'shell shock'/PTSD? It seems like having a more secure and relatively more comfortable place to sleep while in the front-lines might make it a lot easier to withstand the mental stresses. Anything to do with German casualty figures is a gigantic clusterfuck because all four German armies recorded their casualties in as many different ways as possible. Add to that the trouble that all sides had with determining exactly how to classify psychiatric casualties ("now, is this man wounded, or is he sick?) and the answer has to be "no idea". There's still very little consensus for determining German (and, to a lesser extent, French) casualties during any given battle because of all the different ways you can add the various numbers up. What I can say is that there's a very definite counterpoint to having your deep dugout; being trapped down there without respite during the seven-day-long preliminary bombardment for the Somme seriously, seriously, seriously hosed with a lot of people's heads. It's the one German viewpoint of the Somme that you can find in all but the most Anglo-centric of treatments.
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Feb 23, 2016 22:19
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More Baker before bed, I think: George Baker goes to War When we left absent-minded romantic socialist George Baker, he was sunning himself in the regard of his girlfriend, comparing her to cherry blossom, working as a bank clerk and reading endless socialist literature. Truly, the last great summer of the old world. But now it’s September 1914 and George’s pacifist tendencies are now well known in Steadingbourne where he works. Accosted by “chattering feather-head women” he’s transferred away by the bank, leaving behind his girlfriend and her habit of saying everything is “Jolly!”, which George, like the goon he most certainly was, has already started to resent. He’s moved around a lot in the early years of the war, filling in for positions vacated by volunteer soldiers. He’s in Chatham when submarine action fills the town with mourners, and his pacifism takes a knock: "I wavered, overcome with horror of this sorrowful thing, tortured by doubt as to whether the Germans who compassed it might not be the power-thirsty, blood-thirsty devils painted by the Bandar-Log (Monkey-People from Jungle book - here referring to the patriotic mob) press” He’s back with his “little brown slip of a girl” at the beginning of 1916, but avoids her - having been told that bands of soldiers were looking to attack him if seen with her (something he later identifies as “libel against the Tommies; no man in khaki at any time offered me violence”). In fact, his first white feather comes from a woman on the arm of a soldier: "This girl called upon her soldier escort to give the “Pro-German Skunk” what for. Her soldier escort disappointed the lady by saying disconcertingly “Put it there, Sonny, and stick it out”” a not unusual response from soldiers home from leave. When conscripted in March, he assesses his position. He’s not against Conscription - he sees it as a useful component of socialism, provided that it puts the rich to work in the mines, and doesn’t like religious or political bodies. He wants to be judged on his own merits, and the merits of his argument, which he puts to the local Tribunal: “The Old Men of Europe had divided the world into two camps. They had made the young men dig two long and narrow ditches across Europe’s face. They had compelled Europe’s young men to become ditch-men and cave-men, and to translate Stone-Age barbarities into terms of poison-gas, liquid-fire, land-mine and aerial torpedo. For myself, I would be neither ditch not cave man. I was, or I sought to be, civilised. I stood for civilisation against barbarism, for internationalism against nationalism, for peace against patriotism, for love against hate.” It goes down like a lead balloon. With the unmistakable arrogance of your early 20s, George has claimed that “I have not a conscientious objection, so much as an intellectual and emotional objection”. He does not object to war out of “conscience”, which he does not believe in, but out of intellect. He has reasoned his way to his stance, and expects the Tribunal to respect that. Of course, the Tribunal has no recourse to grant him an exemption based on intellect - conscience is very much the magic word. This is a man who has, in his rational mind, actually denied that he has a conscientious objection. The first time I read it, I actually said "oh god George". But the tribunal is not as harsh as it could be - they grant him “Exemption from Combatant Service Only”, the standard verdict, and he will be expected to go to the Army as a non-combatant. George finds this unacceptable, and appeals to the County Tribunal in Canterbury. His appeal process will take a while, though, and in the meantime he finds the town of Sittingbourne hostile: "I found written, with obscene variants, such inscriptions as “Baker is a Conchy Coward” and “Baker is a Pacifist Skunk”... Their elders conspired to give me what they termed “rough-houses”. On each occasion, to demonstrate their courage over my own, they “rough-housed” me two or three, or even half a dozen strong” He hides it from his girlfriend and landlord, but he’s getting pretty badly beaten. Bruised but not broken, he doesn’t even attempt to argue his case at the Appeal Tribunal, but instead states that he’d go to prison before he went to the army. He does so because it's what his hero, Philip Snowden, would have done. And also, as he admits, he's caught up in the defiance of it, the thrill of going against the status quo, making a stand and saying to the world at large "I am a socialist, and I say NO". He's never done that before - always quietly working, listening to the bandar-log chattering their patriotism at the bank, hearing his father's conservative Conservatism, and seeing the press and public whipped up into bloodlust. But no longer! No more appeals to reason, he's given the chance, at 21, to stand up to authority and nail his colours to the mast, one great and grand gently caress you to authority (He doesn't swear in his autobiography, but he talks about swearing a lot). It's all for nothing. Appeal rejected, and he's told, in no short terms to sit down, shut up and be glad of his non-combatant status. He's resolved to reject non-combatant service, so George goes home and tries to work out what to do next. Unfortunately, he decides on suicide. Though he himself mocked his attempt as "an adolescent emotional" decision, the reality of it was very serious. Aside from his goon tendencies and possibly having somehow preinternalised e/n's kill u are self advice, the fact that he wrote about his suicide attempt in an autobiography dedicated to his son says a lot about George. He wanted him to know about it - about the enormity of what his father had set to do, and why. I'm going to leave it for another post - probably need a more serious tone.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:06
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I'm sorry, but I can't see this as anything besides Giving The Earth A Hat. That's just what that looks like. A little global yarmulka.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:33
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Xiahou Dun posted:I'm sorry, but I can't see this as anything besides Giving The Earth A Hat. Imagine there's a little bit of the skull scooped out underneath a part of the yarmulke, and inside that little hole there's a tiny Frenchman with his little red pants and his little Lebel ready to defeat the advancing Allemander with sheer force of cran.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:52
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I imagine it is a lot more scary with a machine gun sticking out and soaking everything in that angle with fiery lead.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:57
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FAUXTON posted:Imagine there's a little bit of the skull scooped out underneath a part of the yarmulke, and inside that little hole there's a tiny Frenchman with his little red pants and his little Lebel ready to defeat the advancing Allemander with sheer force of cran. Excusez-moi, monsieur. Ou est Rosalie?
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Feb 24, 2016 01:10
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lenoon posted:More Baker before bed, I think: 
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Feb 24, 2016 01:40
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Trin Tragula posted:The trenches themselves were usually deeper, better-drained, and relatively more pleasant to live in. After tanks came along they also started making them wider; easier to hit with a mortar bomb, but wide enough that a tank would fall in and get stuck like an upturned ant. They were still doing more or less the same thing as on t'other side at trench level, just taken to a greater extreme. They were still fundamentally building with wood, sandbags, and corrugated iron, and digging traverses and reinforcing with gabions and revetments; there was just a hell of a lot more wood/sandbags/iron being used. I've not seen any reference yet to concrete in trench construction, but I'm keeping my eyes open. How much of these complexes still exist? HEY GAL posted:i've seen photos of some with wallpaper lol
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Feb 24, 2016 03:38
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MikeCrotch posted:Someone should have probably told that to General Westmoreland This reminds me that I finished Matterhorn, and I can't thank whoever recommended it enough! It's a masterful work, full of creepy moments. My favorite part is towards the ending where Mellas is on the hospital ship getting his eye fixed, meets his friend who got both legs blown off, and complains to a sweet nurse, who says "Look at it from our point of view. Right now, you're a broken guidance system for forty rifles, three machine guns, a bunch of mortars, several artillery batteries, three calibers of naval guns, and four kinds of attack aircraft. Our job is to get you fixed and back in the action as fast as we can 
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Feb 24, 2016 08:33
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SeanBeansShako posted:Speaking of WW1, I'd love for some goon to cover some of the French weaponry of the war. I am unfortunately not your man, but Forgotten Weapons has covered the Chauchat LMG, the Hotchkiss HMG (along with British and German HMGs) and the 1886 Lebel 8mm rifle.
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Feb 24, 2016 11:03
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lenoon posted:In fact, his first white feather comes from a woman on the arm of a soldier: It nearly always was women doing the white feather thing, wasn't it? Must have been easy to do when you weren't the one risking being shot at! I'm kind of curious how that affected post-war gender relations, actually.
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Feb 24, 2016 11:54
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feedmegin posted:It nearly always was women doing the white feather thing, wasn't it? Must have been easy to do when you weren't the one risking being shot at! I'm kind of curious how that affected post-war gender relations, actually. I thought it was a deliberate campaign to make women "encourage" young men to sign up. Maybe something in the WWI day-by-day newspaper excerpts? I also really like the solider who went "Nah I'm not going to punch a guy for not getting into this poo poo right away, but sure babe, do your feather thing if you must." Would be interesting to know how the soldiers at the front saw the whole thing. There must have been some volunteers who regretted their choice pretty badly once they realized that it's really not dulce et decorum, and that carrying a feather beats getting shelled any day of any week. Which does remind me: What happens to the guys who signed up for Kitchener's Armies and later decided that this who war thing wasn't for them? Could they retroactively apply for CO status?
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Feb 24, 2016 12:17
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How pacifism worked in Germany in WW1 and WW2? How could one become a contentious objector in Germany before and during WW1? I suppose it was impossible in Nazi Germany in WW2?
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Feb 24, 2016 13:32
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Pyle posted:How pacifism worked in Germany in WW1 and WW2? How could one become a contentious objector in Germany before and during WW1? I suppose it was impossible in Nazi Germany in WW2? Techically, it was possible for a certain specific definition of countentious objector for a very limited period of time, determined by how long it took the Gestapo to find you and behead you. 
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Feb 24, 2016 13:38
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In ww1 there was no formal concept of objection in German law. If you made a fuss about refusing to serve then you'd end up in prison or declared insane. Informally you can imagine that on the ground level smart people who weren't dicks had arrangements made if they could - people would be quietly assigned to non-combatant duties rather than lost to the unit completely. I imagine that just as in the British army, a fair number of medics and strecher bearers were people unwilling to kill but willing to place themselves in mortal danger.
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Feb 24, 2016 13:48
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The majority of the prominent pre-war pacifists in Germany end up trying to refuse conscription by arguing conscience - political ones tend to be certified insane or simply imprisoned for high treason, which ends up with them receiving almost exactly the same treatment as their British colleagues, including the occasional letter between prisons on opposite sides of the war. Ernst Friedrich, who would eventually write "war against war", one of the most potent antiwar statements of the 20th century, was a political objector - no public platform unlike the Brits, he was effectively imprisoned for being a CO, but officially sequestered as mentally ill and for committing sabotage. The German SDP voted almost uniformly for the war - in fact Karl Liebknecht (did non-combatant work in 1915, eventually imprisoned) was, I believe, the only member of the Reichstag to oppose it. With that, the possibility for concerted resistance vanished. Religious objectors in Germany were given non-combatant roles, burying the dead, Labour and logistics, but in a less organised manner, without a specific Non-Combatant Corps. In theory the system was very different, and much is (rightfully) made about Britain being the only country to have legal provision for conscientious objectors (also the US, and commonwealth nations), but in practice the system was similar. Having said that, not a whole lot of information is out there at the moment. Edit: The white feather campaign had both an ad hoc and organised basis and explicitly recruited women in order to shame men into going to the front. Emmeline Pankhurst and Millicent Fawcett, suffrage campaigners now lauded as some of the great heroes of British liberal democracy, were involved up to their eyeballs in an organised campaign to use female sexuality as a weapon against Germany. If you listen to old British men talk about the war, you can still hear the shame they felt from getting a feather - and they walked straight to the recruiting offices as a result. The campaign was started by a man - Admiral Charles "so manly I'm going to make women do the dirty work" Fitzgerald, and ironically ended up causing a shitload of trouble for the government when essential workers and civil servants and soldiers, serving and disabled, were endlessly pressured to fight. But to be honest, it's not that surprising that women wanted to hand out white feathers. Not only patriotism and a reaction to horror stories from Belgium and being caught up in general war enthusiasm, giving out white feathers was a way of asserting a place within society - a useful, contributory one, before the factories started opening up for women. They could decide what was considered socially manly, and granted them real power to needle at their own subjugated role in society. It gave them the chance to be active in the public sphere and to cross social boundaries. There's a lot of stories of soldiers on leave being given a white feather, an the reactions are mixed; anger and bemusement, even violence, or the stunning reveal that you were a soldier all along, and very possibly a kiss, or better yet a quick gently caress. It would have taken a bit of misguided bravery to do, as well as the patriotism and anger and even spite that jumps to mind first when we think of the White feather brigade. Of course, there's more than one CO who wrote in their memoirs "by the end of the week I had enough to present my wife with a large fan", or words to that effect. lenoon fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Feb 24, 2016 |
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Feb 24, 2016 14:50
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That was Brockway I think. There's also the time that a white feather got given to a mariner who was to be presented with a VC for bravery later that day while he was returning for the reception it was being issued at.
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Feb 24, 2016 15:19
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spectralent posted:That was Brockway I think. I don't get it, was he out of uniform or something?
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Feb 24, 2016 15:25
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ArchangeI posted:I don't get it, was he out of uniform or something? I assume so; I don't remember the story very well, it's one of the few bits of GCSE WW1 that's stuck in my head for the irony of it.
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Feb 24, 2016 15:26
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Yeah, how does that happen? Do they jsut buy white feathers and truck them around, looking for any random men outside of uniform to give it to?
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Feb 24, 2016 15:27
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100 Years Ago The Germans continue rolling forward at Verdun, despite pockets of stiff French resistance. But, everyone rejoice, back at GQG General Joffre has finally, after three and a half days, started taking things seriously. The French are now arranging a major retreat, and after the brief suggestion that the entire east bank might be given up, they're drawing up a short line of resistance around Verdun, anchored on the forts and the Meuse Heights. Today is also the day when it's decided to send Petain and his Second Army to Verdun. Meanwhile: In Africa one of Smuts's subordinates dares to question his boss, which doesn't end well; E.S. Thompson goes out on patrol; Lt-Col Fraser-Tytler has some new friends to talk to; and Edward Mousley gets some bad news at Kut.
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Feb 24, 2016 15:31
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JcDent posted:Yeah, how does that happen? Do they jsut buy white feathers and truck them around, looking for any random men outside of uniform to give it to? Literally yes. Actually they might get the feathers from an office or something but the intent is totally to just shame anyone out of uniform into going to sign up immediately. This did lead to significant problems with people in protected professions and people who were either on leave, dismissed for wounds or unsuitability, or literally not even british.
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Feb 24, 2016 15:47
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spectralent posted:Literally yes. Service guarantees citizenship.
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Feb 24, 2016 16:04
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Somehow this reminds me of the overeager "stolen valor" hunters that Americans have. Also, Mussulman is the only word we have for Muslims. Oh language, you so crazy
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Feb 24, 2016 16:12
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MikeCrotch posted:I am unfortunately not your man, but Forgotten Weapons has covered the Chauchat LMG, the Hotchkiss HMG (along with British and German HMGs) and the 1886 Lebel 8mm rifle. POke around TFR's archives a bit and you'll also find a bunch of effort posts on French weapons by a guy named Mishaco. One thing I'll say is that French WW1 rifles are the epitome of "good enough, I guess it works." They were among the first smokeless powder rifles and by 1914 are pretty loving antiquated. We're talking 3 round magazines on carbines and tube magazines on some of the rifles, plus actions that feel clunky even next to a Mosin. That said, they were good enough for a war that raised the supremacy of artillery to an art form. feedmegin posted:It nearly always was women doing the white feather thing, wasn't it? Must have been easy to do when you weren't the one risking being shot at! I'm kind of curious how that affected post-war gender relations, actually. Read Vera Brittain's A Testament of Youth. She was in the same age cohort as all those guys who volunteered in 1914 and died over the next two years and lost a LOT of men in her life. Eventually she was wracked with what amounted to survivor's guilt enough that she volunteered for service as a field nurse. The book as a whole is an interesting look at the changing attitudes of a civilian as the war got shittier and shittier, and it really highlights how 1918 was a real problem for the Brits: the public couldn't sustain much more in the way of total warfare and public sentiment was loving grim, but at the same time they had lost enough that any government that didn't push for a really decisively victorious peace settlement wouldn't last long. In the latter parts of the book she talks a lot about how foolish they all were in the first couple of years of the war and is very bitter about the older generations in British society pushing hers into annihilation. Interestingly she also talks a lot about a generational divide. After the war she finishes her studies at a university and writes about how people her age were utterly alienated from men and women even 3 or 4 years younger who never had to either serve in the war or see a huge percentage of their friends die in it. One thing to really keep in mind as we slog through the war day by day is that just as the battlefield is 100% different in Feb 1916 compared to August 1914, poo poo is REALLY different when you look at civilian attitudes in 1917-18 compared to the first half. lenoon posted:The German SDP voted almost uniformly for the war - in fact Karl Liebknecht (did non-combatant work in 1915, eventually imprisoned) was, I believe, the only member of the Reichstag to oppose it. With that, the possibility for concerted resistance vanished. A quick historical note, it is this unified support of the war that splits the SPD and leads to the rise of the German Communist Party (KPD). Previously they were a big tent Socialist party that encompassed everything from hard core marxists through factory union socialists and on to what we would describe today as social democrats. poo poo, the word "Socialist" used to be in their name when they were technically illegal, and once legalized they toned it down to being the "Social Democratic Party." Their failure to stand up to the war caused a lot of tensions with the more internationalist end of the party, leading eventually to Liebknecht and some of his followers (including Rosa Luxembourg) being kicked out and in turn forming the Independent SPD, which in turn became the KPD. If you want to read more about this and the political opposition to the war (and its consequences once poo poo started falling apart) in general check out Schorske's German Social Democracy 1905-1917: The Development of the Great Schism. The title's a bit of a bear but it's a really good book and will give you a great understanding of how the German left developed and unraveled at that time and what their role in both supporting and opposing the war was. If you want to get a German perspective on the home front and the changing role women played in it check out Belinda Davis's Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics, and Every Day Life in WW1 Berlin. Now, German history like this is always a bit tricky because of just how regional it is, and Berlin always plays a special role in German politics. That said, it does a really good job of showing just how much German women finally got fed up with all the bullshit and the role they played in speeding things to their conclusion. Combine Brittain with this and you can get a bit of an idea of how things could have gone in England if the war had dragged out a few more years. JcDent posted:Also, Mussulman is the only word we have for Muslims. Oh language, you so crazy One of my favorite incidents of racism within an already over-the-top racist context is the use of the term "Mussmann" in concentration camps during WW2. It was a camp prisoner term for the people that they could tell were well on downward slope and weren't expected to make it. This could be a self fulfilling prophecy because that could lead others to withhold aid that they though would be better used on people who might live a bit longer. Why that term? Well, because the people who were finally seeing the last stages of over-work and malnourishment would become listless, adopt a shuffling gait, and in general appear very low energy. Apparently this reminded people of the steriotype of the shiftless, shuffling, lazy orientalist character of near eastern Muslims. I tend to think this is the most correct origin for it, since Primo Levy specifically references the shuffling. Others point to the fact that loss of leg muscle would lead them to spend a lot of time on the ground, something vaguely imitative of Muslim prayer, but I personally think its a bit far fetched. This conversation is always a fun one when I assign Levy in a holocaust class. It's not even the implicit 1930s racism, it's also the fact that it exposes the inter-prisoner dynamics and the way they could dehumanize each other with the context of their own communities.
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Feb 24, 2016 17:28
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JcDent posted:Somehow this reminds me of the overeager "stolen valor" hunters that Americans have. In english 'Mussulman' sounds like some sort of vendor who sells mussels
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Feb 24, 2016 17:30
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Nebakenezzer posted:In english 'Mussulman' sounds like some sort of vendor who sells mussels Or a guy who never misses a day at the gym.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:05
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Well, for us Muslim sounds like a type of cereal or cloth so
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Feb 24, 2016 18:07
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Cyrano4747 posted:POke around TFR's archives a bit and you'll also find a bunch of effort posts on French weapons by a guy named Mishaco. Actually, that's an interesting contrast. Franco-Prussian war - France has the good rifle and Germany the antiquated one; Germany has the good artillery and the French not so much. Germany wins. World War I - that's exactly reversed (with the Soixante-Quinze), and France wins. Edit: I'm not sure who 'us' is for JcDent but muslin is a thing in English too.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:08
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Does anyone know any good book that covers the American revolutionary war? Preferably something that's on kindle and not to biased or focused on Washington.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:31
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spectralent posted:I assume so; I don't remember the story very well, it's one of the few bits of GCSE WW1 that's stuck in my head for the irony of it. I remember reading in Catastrophy at the start just after the orders to mobilise were given and they were preparing two officers for the British Army were playing golf when they got feathered out of the blue. Now that must have been quite awkward.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:47
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MikeCrotch posted:I am unfortunately not your man, but Forgotten Weapons has covered the Chauchat LMG, the Hotchkiss HMG (along with British and German HMGs) and the 1886 Lebel 8mm rifle. i am a total liberal gun control guy but i love this dudes videos and they are endlessly fascinating
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Feb 24, 2016 18:49
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feedmegin posted:Actually, that's an interesting contrast. Franco-Prussian war - France has the good rifle and Germany the antiquated one; Germany has the good artillery and the French not so much. Germany wins. World War I - that's exactly reversed (with the Soixante-Quinze), and France wins. It's really arguable about France having the better artillery. They were really hamstrung, especially early on, by their lack of heavier pieces. The Germans out ranged them badly on a number of occasions, and by the time WW1 came around hydraulically recoil dampened artillery wasn't exactly the bleeding edge of technology any more. Remember: the soixante-quinze was the Canon de 75 modèle 1897 - by the time the war started it was almost 20 years old.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:56
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feedmegin posted:Actually, that's an interesting contrast. Franco-Prussian war - France has the good rifle and Germany the antiquated one; Germany has the good artillery and the French not so much. Germany wins. World War I - that's exactly reversed (with the Soixante-Quinze), and France wins. The 75 was good but if I remember right France relied on it and let development of heavier pieces lapse, which wasn't great.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:58
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Cyrano4747 posted:Now, German history like this is always a bit tricky because of just how regional it is... Thank God the units were mono-regional though, or the German Army might have had serious language problems.
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Feb 24, 2016 19:02
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