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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:46 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
If everyone can chill out, I recommend this thoughtful article on the hundreds of soldiers who died in WWI between the armistice being signed (at about 5am) and coming into force (at 11am). The poor, poor guys.


That's quite sad.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:46 
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I'll always just do what everyone else around me is doing when it comes to these silences. However I do remember the sacrifices they made and not just once a year. The time we need to be reflecting on it though isn't the 11th November but whenever our politicians plan on sending more young men to their deaths, that's when we should have a good long fucking remember.


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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:47 
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Grim... that story about your grandad and the bagpipes is heart wrenching man.

Thats why days like this are important. We should all remember at our own time and all that, but collective days like this means stories like that get told and passed along.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:47 
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Quote:
To be fair, this is what happened:

* You said something a bit insensitive
* Grim... reacted angrily
* You clarified your comments
* Grim... said, 'Phew, ok then'

And all that's missing is the apology for the overreactive insult. Stu never apologised for anything either.

As an aside, and LET ME JUST CLARIFY that this is no way casts aspersions on the sarifices made by the many who died in the war, I wonder how the statement 'to preserve our freedom' really applies. It rather suggests that we'd be living under a German totalitarianism right now, but would we?

It occurs to me that England was invaded more than once in y'olden days by various foreigners and while it certainly changed things it didn't result in any permenant kind of foreign control. With the politics of today I think it more than likely that even had the UK been overun in WWI, we'd probably still have national autonomy today.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:48 
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Tell you what - bagpipes are fucking impossible to play - we were rubbish :)

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:49 
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ComicalGnomes wrote:
Quote:
To be fair, this is what happened:

* You said something a bit insensitive
* Grim... reacted angrily
* You clarified your comments
* Grim... said, 'Phew, ok then'

And all that's missing is the apology for the overreactive insult. Stu never apologised for anything either.


Fuck off, Comical. Seriously.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:49 
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Grim... wrote:
Fuck off, Comical. Seriously.

The prospect is becoming evermore tempting, I can assure you.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:50 
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Guys, play nicely.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:51 
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Colour me intimidated.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:51 
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ComicalGnomes wrote:
I wonder how the statement 'to preserve our freedom' really applies. It rather suggests that we'd be living under a German totalitarianism right now, but would we?

Perhaps not, but our lives would almost certainly be very different. Of course, during the wars they really were fighting for their freedom because for all intents and purposes we were under threat by dictatorships.

Perhaps over time those dictatorships (had they won) would have been fizzled out and life today wouldn't be all that dissimilar, but it's not a stretch to imagine what could have been.


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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:52 
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ComicalGnomes wrote:
Dudley wrote:
I didn't think that.

Mostly Com's post, with the addition that I hate poppy fascism. Th number of complaints the BBC gets anytime they don't drape every single piece of output in it for several weeks is astonishing. They had a large one next to the time on the sodding WEATHER this year ffs. If and when I've contributed to any charity I don't feel the need to go thrusting that in everyone's face and neither should the presenters on the BBC be effectively force to.

This country is at risk of being so caught up in the tradition and protocol of the event that the whole point is almost missed.


For WWI it is nealy forgotten. There are only 3 old-soldiers left that were in the 'great war'.

Personnaly I think every one should wear a poppy, if only to remind people why it has be come a tradition.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:53 
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Grim... wrote:
Colour me intimidated.

Nonsensical FTL.

Quote:
Personnaly I think every one should wear a poppy, if only to remind people why it has be come a tradition.


But then you get people wearing poppies because it's tradition to do so, rather than it evoking any kind of proper contemplatiion of what happened 90-odd years ago.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:55 
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ComicalGnomes wrote:
Grim... wrote:
Colour me intimidated.

Nonsensical FTL.

Do you even know what nonsensical means?

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:56 
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Grim... wrote:
ComicalGnomes wrote:
Grim... wrote:
Colour me intimidated.

Nonsensical FTL.

Do you even know what nonsensical means?


Definitions of nonsensical on the Web:

* absurd: incongruous;inviting ridicule

Yes, I do.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:56 
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I find the subject of WWI baffling, probably because to understand how and why it started seems to require huge in-depth knowledge of about sixty years of European political history from the mid-1850s onwards, which itself can only be understood in the context of the three hundred years before that. MyFinger tried to explain it to me once but to no avail. Am I alone here?


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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:57 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
I find the subject of WWI baffling, probably because to understand how and why it started seems to require huge in-depth knowledge of about sixty years of European political history from the mid-1850s onwards, which itself can only be understood in the context of the three hundred years before that. MyFinger tried to explain it to me once but to no avail. Am I alone here?

It's because someone assasinated a pop-band, right?

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:57 
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ComicalGnomes wrote:
Grim... wrote:
ComicalGnomes wrote:
Grim... wrote:
Colour me intimidated.

Nonsensical FTL.

Do you even know what nonsensical means?


Definitions of nonsensical on the Web:

* absurd: incongruous;inviting ridicule

Yes, I do.

How about "sarcasm"?
Mr Chris isn't that intimidating.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:57 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
I find the subject of WWI baffling, probably because to understand how and why it started seems to require huge in-depth knowledge of about sixty years of European political history from the mid-1850s onwards, which itself can only be understood in the context of the three hundred years before that. MyFinger tried to explain it to me once but to no avail. Am I alone here?

No, you're not. I studied it back in school, but it still seems to come down to "we really needn't be having this war, but these bits of paper say we must".

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:58 
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Grim... wrote:
How about "sarcasm"?

Colour me bored of this. Do try to stay on topic.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:58 
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ComicalGnomes wrote:
Grim... wrote:
Colour me intimidated.

Nonsensical FTL.

Quote:
Personnaly I think every one should wear a poppy, if only to remind people why it has be come a tradition.


But then you get people wearing poppies because it's tradition to do so, rather than it evoking any kind of proper contemplatiion of what happened 90-odd years ago.


Does it matter whwy they wear them, as long as they do, and remeber the two 2 min silences

it is ww1 and every war sinse. It brought it home when you think we have been in conflict since 2001 for Iraq and Afgan.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 12:58 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
I find the subject of WWI baffling, probably because to understand how and why it started seems to require huge in-depth knowledge of about sixty years of European political history from the mid-1850s onwards, which itself can only be understood in the context of the three hundred years before that. MyFinger tried to explain it to me once but to no avail. Am I alone here?


Nope, you're spot on. I've always wanted to study how it came about, but like you said, it's quite baffling.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:00 
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No your not alone there. What annoyed me in school was the fact that we studied Arab Israeli conflicts and suchlike in depth and not this-I mean...why not? Shouldn't it be taught in History as standard and go 'in depth' and do papers on it? Or was that just my school being shit?

edit: Took me ages to get that in-someone done gawn and broke the thread

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:00 
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ComicalGnomes wrote:
Grim... wrote:
How about "sarcasm"?

Colour me hypocritical.


FTFY, Captain Clarification.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:01 
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Can you both get to fucking fuck now? I want to talk more about WWI, thx. ;)

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:01 
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It's almost upsetting that when searching for 'Franz Ferdinand' on Google, it takes 6 results to get to the actual, real man. I'm sure we could find a statistic about how the vast majority of people just think it's a name of a band.

Quote:
No your not alone there. What annoyed me in school was the fact that we studied Arab Israeli conflicts and suchlike in depth and not this-I mean...why not? Shouldn't it be taught in History as standard and go 'in depth' and do papers on it? Or was that just my school being shit?


Serious question - which school did you go to? I also studied this and it's more than likely you and I studied the same stuff out of the same local textbooks. I went to secondary school in Llangollen.

Quote:
FTFY, Captain Clarification.

Fuck me, you're such a petty child.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:02 
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ComicalGnomes wrote:
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FTFY, Captain Clarification.

Fuck me, you're such a petty child.

Says the guy that won't play unless everyone plays the way he wants them to.

Thing is, I was talking to Mr Chris, but you assumed I meant you. Zounds, non?

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:04 
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Mr Chris wrote:
No, you're not. I studied it back in school, but it still seems to come down to "we really needn't be having this war, but these bits of paper say we must".
I don't think it helps that, as far as I can tell, to bring it down to a real Hollywood story kind of thing, there were no particular bad guys. Certainly nothing like was the case in WWII.

Hmm, that provokes another thought, why are there no WWI films? Or are there some that I'm not aware of? Given how thouroughly WWII, Vietnam, Westerns, even the Boer War has been explored on celluloid, why is WWI comparatively overlooked?

Shin wrote:
No your not alone there. What annoyed me in school was the fact that we studied Arab Israeli conflicts and suchlike in depth and not this-I mean...why not? Shouldn't it be taught in History as standard and go 'in depth' and do papers on it?
I think it's too complicated, as has been noted elsewhere in the thread, to be meanginfully studied at below degree level. MyFinger has suggested as much to me (he has a political history degree).


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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:04 
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http://www.poppy.org.uk/index.php/give-money.html

you can see where your poppy money goes..

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:04 
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Grim... wrote:
ComicalGnomes wrote:
Quote:
FTFY, Captain Clarification.

Fuck me, you're such a petty child.

Says the guy that won't play unless everyone plays the way he wants them to.

Thing is, I was talking to Mr Chris, but you assumed I meant you. Zounds, non?

I give up. I'm actually trying to participate in a discussion about WWI here, and you're more concerned about getting the last word in, in order to make yourself look clever. You're just being a fucking twat, quite frankly.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:05 
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It's the same reason we don't have any decent WWI shooters - the PEW PEWs were rubbish.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:05 
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Come on lads, no need to start a war over it.


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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:05 
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Kovacs Caprios wrote:
Does it matter whwy they wear them, as long as they do, and remeber the two 2 min silences

Yes, it absolutely does matter why they wear them. If they don't care about the reasoning behind it then wearing a poppy is nothing more than a fashion accessory, and that's just wrong.

I've always liked Blackadder's explanation of how WW1 started. "The plan was to have two vast armies, with each acting as a massive deterrent to each other. There was only one tiny flaw in the plan. It was bollocks."

Or words to that effect.


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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:06 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
why is WWI comparatively overlooked?

The same for games really. WWI also involved the Germans, but the 'plot' of WWII is easier to follow, with more evident bad guys and thusly makes it more usable.

Edit: bah, beaten by myp.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:07 
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I forgot about this - how vain

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Shin wrote:
No your not alone there. What annoyed me in school was the fact that we studied Arab Israeli conflicts and suchlike in depth and not this-I mean...why not? Shouldn't it be taught in History as standard and go 'in depth' and do papers on it? Or was that just my school being shit?

edit: Took me ages to get that in-someone done gawn and broke the thread


I don't understand WW I either. And learning about it now would know doubt reveal insights in all the bickering we have between states now days.

But I don't think it's an either/or case. The Arab Israeli conflict is probably the biggest source of global conflict today. I think it's pretty essential that the public is as informed as possible about it.

If their is a Last World War. The people living in mud huts and buying goods with pop caps will no doubt be confused how it started but know it was somehow linked to Israel & Palestine.

Which kinda fits with how WW I lead to WW II, which lead to Israel which has lead to a lot of our conflicts to day (which would probably have been a world war by now if it wasn't for nukes).

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:07 
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I didn't say WWI flight sims, did I? ;)

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:07 
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ComicalGnomes wrote:

Serious question - which school did you go to? I also studied this and it's more than likely you and I studied the same stuff out of the same local textbooks. I went to secondary school in Llangollen.


I studied at Church Stretton School for that-long live the hills!!!


Also:
Please stop the pissing contest guys, as we are now starting an arguement when we should be remembering the soldiers and speaking of the sacrafices made-sorry if that sounds pansy and 'gay' but I'm a bit fed up because it's reduced to name-calling and it's petty

Gaz-don't you start :p

Lave- I know but still I'd like it to be taught in schools more-it's overshone by the Arab Israeli conflict-why can't it be sort of 'shared' with it? I don't want my heritage looked over

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:09 
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Lest we forget:

War, it's never been so much fun
War, it's never been so much fun

Go to your brother
Kill him with your gun
Leave him lying in his uniform
Dying in the sun!

War, it's never been so much fun
War, it's never been so much fun

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:09 
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If you've never studied it the origins of the Arab/Israeli conflict are pretty fascinating, and unsurprisingly we had a hand in sparking off the conflict to start with. Something about very silly plans to partition the country, and not down the middle or in any other logical sense.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:09 
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GazChap wrote:
Kovacs Caprios wrote:
Does it matter whwy they wear them, as long as they do, and remeber the two 2 min silences

Yes, it absolutely does matter why they wear them. If they don't care about the reasoning behind it then wearing a poppy is nothing more than a fashion accessory, and that's just wrong.

I've always liked Blackadder's explanation of how WW1 started. "The plan was to have two vast armies, with each acting as a massive deterrent to each other. There was only one tiny flaw in the plan. It was bollocks."

Or words to that effect.


it is a charity, as long as the money goes to thr right place. who cares why you wear one as long as you do

http://www.poppy.org.uk/index.php/give-money.html

you can see where your poppy money goes..

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:10 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
Mr Chris wrote:
No, you're not. I studied it back in school, but it still seems to come down to "we really needn't be having this war, but these bits of paper say we must".
I don't think it helps that, as far as I can tell, to bring it down to a real Hollywood story kind of thing, there were no particular bad guys. Certainly nothing like was the case in WWII.


Absolutely. That was an interesting thing in the programme about COs last night - there was this one artillery chap who was sent in to scout around at the Messiness Ridge* after the bombardment, and he found a german soldier sat in a shell hole who he thought was asleep - but was dead. He was holding a photo of his girlfriend, who looked just like this artillery man's gweetheart back home. That really did it for him - the Germans really were just like "us".

They weren't evil monsters, like you could argue the footsoldiers of the Nazis were. Just regular guys, being told to go and sit in a trench and shoot at other regular guys for no fucking reason at all.

Quote:
Hmm, that provokes another thought, why are there no WWI films? Or are there some that I'm not aware of? Given how thouroughly WWII, Vietnam, Westerns, even the Boer War has been explored on celluloid, why is WWI comparatively overlooked?


You know, you're right. I can only think of "The Bunker", which is a horror film. That's really quite odd.


*Look this up - it's an amazing battle, if that's the right word. The british dug under the German positions and dumped hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tonnes of explosives underneath them and then set it all off - the explosion could be heard in Dublin. Phenomenal.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:11 
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From a military history point of view, though, WWI is fascinating. Some of the people fighting in it were Boer War veterans who trained with cavalry, sabres and muskets; as I said earlier in the thread, it's barely more than twenty years after the Wild West period with repeating shotguns and six shooters. And yet by the end of WWI, the vast armies had tanks, aircraft, modern artillery, and telephones. What a collossal shift in how wars were prosecuted.


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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:12 
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Don't forget the strategic bombing, either. Zeppelins over London.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:12 
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Actually I had more than a bit of a gripe about the history syllabus in Wales. The vast majority of lessons were aimed about teaching us about coal and tin mining in Mythir Tydfil and other such Welsh stuff. That's all fine and well except for the fact we ended up learning that instead of broader historical things like, y'know, WWII, which is something I was never taught anything about in school.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:12 
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Tell you what I thought was a fucking excellent idea, this:

http://www.artfund.org/queenandcountry/index.php

It should be in everyone's face, every day and not just a dewey-eyed set of news reports and silences once a year about something that happened far enough in the past that it feels safe, like history. The Royal Mail won't get involved though because they fear that it is somehow more subversive than a simple remembrance.


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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:13 
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Mr Chris wrote:
They weren't evil monsters, like you could argue the footsoldiers of the Nazis were. Just regular guys, being told to go and sit in a trench and shoot at other regular guys for no fucking reason at all.
This was true of a hell of a lot of German soldiers in WWII of course, mind you. Very few frontline soldiers were Nazi party members, for example.


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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:13 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
From a military history point of view, though, WWI is fascinating. Some of the people fighting in it were Boer War veterans who trained with cavalry, sabres and muskets; as I said earlier in the thread, it's barely more than twenty years after the Wild West period with repeating shotguns and six shooters. And yet by the end of WWI, the vast armies had tanks, aircraft, modern artillery, and telephones. What a collossal shift in how wars were prosecuted.


Also remember that without wars, our technological advances would have been much slower.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:13 
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I forgot about this - how vain

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Shin wrote:
ComicalGnomes wrote:

Serious question - which school did you go to? I also studied this and it's more than likely you and I studied the same stuff out of the same local textbooks. I went to secondary school in Llangollen.


I studied at Church Stretton School for that-long live the hills!!!


Also:
Please stop the pissing contest guys, as we are now starting an arguement when we should be remembering the soldiers and speaking of the sacrafices made-sorry if that sounds pansy and 'gay' but I'm a bit fed up because it's reduced to name-calling and it's petty

Gaz-don't you start :p

Lave- I know but still I'd like it to be taught in schools more-it's overshone by the Arab Israeli conflict-why can't it be sort of 'shared' with it? I don't want my heritage looked over



Still, I think a more important part of our heritage is that after WW II our nation (and the other allies) decided that giving the jews a nation was a good idea.

Our heritage is creation of one of the biggest causes of conflict the world has. We should know that. But again, I don't think it is an either/or situation.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:14 
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We learnt a little on it (not as much as I'd have liked-but there we go, Mr Smith was too busy trying to get in Hannah-leaky-bucket-Leask's pants anyway)

There was one bit about tar I'm sure and they were using it to seal wounds or something?! By Christ!

I think there should be a thing where you can choose which paper to write about personally, I'd like that option for kids nowadays

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:14 
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Doctor Glyndwr wrote:
Mr Chris wrote:
They weren't evil monsters, like you could argue the footsoldiers of the Nazis were. Just regular guys, being told to go and sit in a trench and shoot at other regular guys for no fucking reason at all.
This was true of a hell of a lot of German soldiers in WWII of course, mind you. Very few frontline soldiers were Nazi party members, for example.

Well, depends who you ask, really. As I said, it is something you could argue. And people have - even to the extent of tarring the entire population of Germany with the same brush. I keep meaning to read Hitler's Willing Executioners, which goes on about this.

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 Post subject: Re: 11.11.11
PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 13:15 
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markg wrote:
Tell you what I thought was a fucking excellent idea, this:

http://www.artfund.org/queenandcountry/index.php

It should be in everyone's face, every day and not just a dewey-eyed set of news reports and silences once a year about something that happened far enough in the past that it feels safe, like history. The Royal Mail won't get involved though because they fear that it is somehow more subversive than a simple remembrance.


Do you know anything about the white poppies? I've seen a few people wearing them. Are they some kind of namby-pamby, 'I'm a pacifist and against wars, but still want to remember the dead' kind of poppy?

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