Remembering the Great War

Posted by Queuebot in Weapons & War on November 11, 2009 at 7:02 am

"The War to End All Wars" ended 91 years ago on the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month in 1918. This became known as Armistice Day, and later as Veteran’s Day. For many, especially Americans, World War I has been practically forgotten as it is overshadowed by WWII in history classes, but WWI had a great impact on the 20th century and that impact lingers to this day. The nation of Iraq was created in the aftermath of the war, for example.

World War I in many ways was the “War to end all Wars” in that it was every war past and future rolled up into one. There were Napoleonic charges, aerial bombardment, a few misguided cavalry charges with actual horses, tanks, machine guns, artillery barrages, air combat, poison gas attacks, flamethrowers, submarine warfare, and primitive hand-to-hand fighting that came down to knives, sharpened spades, and clubs.

The trenches were hell on earth – mud, water, snipers, artillery barrages, barbed wire, machine gun fire, and the rotting corpses of those who fell in No-Man’s Land, the deadly area between the opposing armies’ trenches. Plus there was rampant disease, lice, and rats grown fat from feeding off of corpses.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by samuraidave.

 
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The Execution of Mata Hari

Posted by Miss Cellania in Crime & Law on January 3, 2009 at 12:17 pm

Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Zelle, an exotic dancer who was lured into the spy business during World War I. The French, who recruited her, suspected her of being a double agent and sentenced her to death. Read an eyewitness account of her execution on October 15, 1917, from Henry Wales, a British reporter who covered the event. Link -via Cynical-C

 
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