M14 Forum

Seventh Fleet

Anyone even remotely interested in WW-1 or any war for that matter owes it to themselves to read the story of Harold McBride, "A Rifleman Went to War", first published in 1918, as well as its sequel, "The Emma Gees".

Both of which are fantastic reads. They are the story of a young lad from the Indiana National Guard who left and went to Canada where he joined the Canadian Army to get into WW-1 as quickly as possible.

His fine record in France with the 21st Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force is the basis for A Rifleman Went to War. I first learned of these books from the writing of one of my heroes, Col Jeff Cooper, who highly recommended these two books to his readers.

I long ago bought both books at a gun show and consider them both to be an important part of any well read gun/history lovers library.

7th

bsaubin

+1 It would make an intresting movie on Marines got the nickname devildog.

"The term "Devil Dog" has its origins at Belleau Wood. It was in a dispatch from the German front lines to their higher headquarters explaining the current battle conditions that described the fighting abilities of the new, fresh Americans as fighting like "Teufel Hunden" or "Hounds from Hell."

carpshooter

I had uncles who were draftee Army WW1 vets , one who served in France with the Army's 82 division ( non-airborne , as they weren't jumping out of planes then ).I was about 10 when he died and never talked about it to me !

My wife's grandfather also a draftee Army also served and I once sat by him and we chatted alot until about being in the military until I asked about being in the trenches and he just shut up on any war stories as he was an infantryman in France !

I think in my town , most of these vets just returned and went back to living on with their lives ! Most of their stories they took to the grave .

Silver Eagle

In his younger days, my Great Grand-Farther on my mothers side, was a NCO in the Astro-Hungarian army and faught for Imperial Germany. Latter after the war, he and his family imigrated to the U.S. and during WW 2 he was building landing craft outside of Pittsburg PA.

BigBuckeye

If you are interested in WW1, I recommend "The myth of the great war" excellent read. Also John Keegans "the first world war"

bigbang

I found this on gunboards.com:
Germany, Austria and Italy are standing together in the middle of a pub when Serbia bumps into Austria and spills Austria’s pint.
Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit because there are splashes on its trouser leg.
Germany expresses its support for Austria’s point of view.
Britain recommends that everyone calm down a bit.
Serbia points out that it can’t afford a whole suit, but offers to pay for the cleaning of Austria’s trousers.
Russia and Serbia look at Austria.
Austria asks Serbia who it’s looking at.
Russia suggests that Austria should leave its little brother alone.
Austria inquires as to whose army will assist Russia in compelling it to do so.
Germany appeals to Britain that France has been looking at it, and that this is sufficiently out of order that Britain should not intervene.
Britain replies that France can look at who it wants to, that Britain is looking at Germany too, and what is Germany going to do about it?
Germany tells Russia to stop looking at Austria, or Germany will render Russia incapable of such action.
Britain and France ask Germany whether it’s looking at Belgium.
Turkey and Germany go off into a corner and whisper. When they come back, Turkey makes a show of not looking at anyone.
Germany rolls up its sleeves, looks at France, and punches Belgium.
France and Britain punch Germany. Austria punches Russia. Germany punches Britain and France with one hand and Russia with the other.
Russia throws a punch at Germany, but misses and nearly falls over. Japan calls over from the other side of the room that it’s on Britain’s side, but stays there. Italy surprises everyone by punching Austria.
Australia punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings because Britain made Australia do it.
France gets thrown through a plate glass window, but gets back up and carries on fighting. Russia gets thrown through another one, gets knocked out, suffers brain damage, and wakes up with a complete personality change.
Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway. Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting.
America waits till Germany is about to fall over from sustained punching from Britain and France, then walks over and smashes it with a barstool, then pretends it won the fight all by itself.
By now all the chairs are broken and the big mirror over the bar is shattered. Britain, France and America agree that Germany threw the first punch, so the whole thing is Germany’s fault . While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends.

willriskit

From the perspective of my academic background, the study of WWI and its causes can easily consume a decade. Most of what is taught at the high school and lower college levels provides little more than a timeline and an overview of key events. At around the 300 level, courses begin to explore the economic, social, military, political and diplomatic trends of the decade preceding that war and the myths prevalent in popular histories begin to evaporate. Propaganda in all forms was skillfully employed during that era and sadly, many of the prejudices it created are still given credence today. Without going into a dissertation, one overriding theme is that once nations align their foreign policy inextricably with that of another power, any semblance of diplomatic flexibility is abandoned and conflict is practically guaranteed. Americans would be well advised to remember that lesson.

Old Sarge

I'm a long time student of history, and World War 1 and its aftermath shaped the 20th Century. The terrible Treaty of Versaille led to World War 2. After WW1, Germany was forced to accept the blame for the war, but much of the root cause of the war was, as stated above, all of the entangling alliances that didn't leave much room for flexibility. And the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, where Bismark and Kaiser Wilhelm 1 unified the Germanic states into a unified country, soundly defeated big mighty France in very short order. Germany, as part of its war spoils, gained the border provinces of Alsace & Lorraine. Well, France was really humiliated over their loss and lost territory, and was itching for a fight. With the advent of repeating rifles and smokeless powder, the "arms race" was on. I think we can all relate to arms races....

Like any nation would, if one gets into a war, you fight to win, so Germany thought the best way would be to swing through the low countries, Belgium, Luxemburg, etc. to attack France and capture Paris. Most French troops were on the German border, so when Germany attacked through the low countries and were heading for Paris, France quickly pulled many of its troops from the German border and rushed them north of Paris by the Somme River. When these two armies collided at the Somme, Germany lost over 60,000 men killed and France lost almost that many, just in the first day of fighting!!! Put that in perspective where we lost 56,000 men total in Vietnam, but twice that many were killed from both sides in a single day.

This was really the first modern war of major proportion to be fought with modern artillery, machineguns, poison gas, with airplanes and tanks in their infancy, etc. It was so terrible, it was "The War to End All Wars"....

Many people don't know this, but the Czar from Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm 2 from Germany, were first cousins. Their mothers were sisters, and were the daughters of the Queen of England. So the leadership of all three of these countries were related, and the hopes were that by inter-marrying these royal families would prevent just such a war...

My grandpa was in WW1, and died when I was barely 2 years old, but my dad and uncles said he never talked much about the war. Just too much death and destruction, and didn't ever want to see his sons go off to fight a war. One story I did hear about his war time experience was that he was in the "ammo trains" bringing ammo to the front lines when they came under artillery attack. They quickly jumped out of their vehicles and into some foxholes. Well, my grandpa and his buddy jumped into a foxhole, when two other guys came up and said that they were in their foxhole, and my grandpa and his buddy should find a different one. Well, my grandpa and his buddy did so, and shortly after, an artillery round landed in their prior foxhole, killing both of those men.

Swamp Rat

A good follow up is the Polish-Bolshevik war. Lenin intended Poland as a stepping stone into Germany, France, and other countries with civil unrest.

willriskit

Good point! It seems that only historians are even aware of that war anymore. Perhaps people will begin to comprehend the factors relating to the origins of the Freikorps and appreciate the ramifications of an ineffectual national government. Political vacuums are usually of very limited duration when the survival of a nation is at stake.

PhillipM

I don't remember where I read the stats, but we only had boots on the ground in Europe for a few short months an lost an awful lot of men. An American soldier was more likely to be killed in WWI than any other campaign, including the south Pacific battles of WWII.

My Grandfather died when I was two so I've no personal stories. I looked at some of his papers and discovered he was a cook and under marksmanship N/A. They never even issued him a rifle. I have his cook's hat and VFW overseas cap somewhere.