The First World War

[palo5]

... we know who lost, but anyone who thought he won is nuts, imho

Your takes?

[tygrkhat40]

All the French were concerned about was that no matter what, Germany was crippled economically and militarily so the Boche were no longer a threat to la Belle France.

[MaxJoker]

Originally Posted by palo5

... we know who lost, but anyone who thought he won is nuts, imho

Your takes?

Everyone ultimately lost

Semi ironic thing is the Grand Duke was an utter snobby cnut anyway so who cares that he died

The war happened as usual due to the thirst for oil , that there were an awful lot of soldiers on either side, plus those bombs were getting close to their best before date.

[tygrkhat40]

Originally Posted by MaxJoker

Everyone ultimately lost

Semi ironic thing is the Grand Duke was an utter snobby cnut anyway so who cares that he died

I disagree on that Max. What I've learned about Archduke Ferdinand was that he was truly concerned with all the people of his fractious nation and if he had survived to become emperor, he wanted to institute true reform. Whether it would have worked is just a historian's fantasy.

Originally Posted by Bullard

There was no "World War One." Or "World War Two" for that matter. There was only, "The World War - Act One 'Europe's Game'," an intermission including a period of prosperity followed by a Great Depression, then "The World War - Act Two 'Asia Joins the Fun'".

Actually, there was fighting in Asia and the Pacific in WWI. Japan was on the Allies side and fought Germans in China and in the German holdings on the Pacific islands. At Versailles, the Japanese wanted a piece of China as a price for their participation. They also asked for a clause in the treaty that espoused racial equality, which the Europeans laughed at. One of the reasons that Japan joined the Axis was that like Italy, they felt cheated out of what they thought they were due after WWI.

[squigg58]

Having mentioned a possible WWI thread in response to a comment made by our learned friend Mal Hombre in the WWII thread, I suppose I'd better "put up or shut up"!

Mal suggested that "the RFC and RNAS were often forced to make do with planes that were markedly inferior to enemy machines."

I don't disagree in principle, but I do think it was the pace of development which "forced" one side or the other to fly inferior aircraft at any given time; not the respective politicians or senior commanders.

The Fokker Eindeckers were probably the first to gain what we'd now recognise as air superiority, but the actual E-series aircraft were somewhat unremarkable and their advantage was (in the main) the gun synchronization gear. The resulting "Fokker Scourge" lasted for a relatively short time, and by early 1916 the DH.2's and the Nieuport 11's were (arguably) the best fighter aircraft around.

Then, along came the new Albatros variants and the Germans had the superior aircraft ... until the SE5, Camel and later SPAD variants appeared and the pendulum swung back ... but then the Fokker D.VII arrived ... !!

I'm not aware of aircraft development being held back by "the powers that be" during WWI, but I have no problem with anyone putting me right on that score!

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by squigg58

I'm not aware of aircraft development being held back by "the powers that be" during WWI, but I have no problem with anyone putting me right on that score!

The aviation curiosity of WWI is that, having been invented in the US by the Wright Brothers, the US had no militarily adequate airplanes in WWI, and US pilots flew British and French planes -- most famously Eddie Rickenbacker (and Snoopy's) SPAD (for Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés)

The attitude of the US towards the military-industrial complex, pre-WWI bears zero resemblance to the contemporary . . . the US distrusted a standing military, and was extremely stingy. The Wright brothers spent years, mostly fruitlessly, trying to get military contracts, and also did not advance their technology rapidly enough.

[Mal Hombre]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Snoopy's SPAD (for Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés)

Snoopy flies a Sopwith Camel....

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

Snoopy flies a Sopwith Camel....

. . . right you are.

On that note, its interesting to see how a historical event "ages out" of popular culture.

WW I remained contemporary in the British Empire and France much longer than it did in the US and Germany. WW I is "The Great War" in Britain, whereas WW II is "The Big One" in the US.

Its mostly the scale of the casualties. Walk around a small farm town in Wales, in New Zealand, in Australia, and you'll inevitably find a monument to the dead, with an improbably long list of names . . . on more than one occasion I've found myself looking around at a tiny village of just a few houses, and trying to figure out where the twenty young men could have come from.

Charles Schultz was the probably the last American popular writer with WW I references, the "Red Baron" mysteriously remained an icon in US pop culture, even getting a strange novelty song: "Snoopy vs the Red Baron (1966)

Its an artifact of Charles Schultz' age: he was born in 1922, so he's from the small chronological window of those who would have been exposed to stories of WW I as children, but would no longer be kids when WW II came around.

[knobby109]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

. . . right you are.

On that note, its interesting to see how a historical event "ages out" of popular culture.

WW I remained contemporary in the British Empire and France much longer than it did in the US and Germany. WW I is "The Great War" in Britain, whereas WW II is "The Big One" in the US.

Its mostly the scale of the casualties. Walk around a small farm town in Wales, in New Zealand, in Australia, and you'll inevitably find a monument to the dead, with an improbably long list of names . . . on more than one occasion I've found myself looking around at a tiny village of just a few houses, and trying to figure out where the twenty young men could have come from.

There are a handful of towns and villages which lost none of their men in WW1 and these were dubbed "Thankful Villages" by Arthur Mee in the 1920s.A very few of these went on to lose nobody in WW2 either.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thankful_Villages

[rustler]

Originally Posted by squigg58

Having mentioned a possible WWI thread in response to a comment made by our learned friend Mal Hombre in the WWII thread, I suppose I'd better "put up or shut up"!

Mal suggested that "the RFC and RNAS were often forced to make do with planes that were markedly inferior to enemy machines."

I don't disagree in principle, but I do think it was the pace of development which "forced" one side or the other to fly inferior aircraft at any given time; not the respective politicians or senior commanders.

I'm not aware of aircraft development being held back by "the powers that be" during WWI, but I have no problem with anyone putting me right on that score!

In November 1916, a very young, they all were!, and inexperienced Manfred von Richtofen encountered Maj. Lanoe G. Hawker VC. in what was to become a famous encounter.
The already antiquated DH.2 pusher, that Hawker was flying was no match for the new Fokker Albatross, that were just then emerging.
I seem to recall, that Henderson tried to get Sopwith Triplanes and was refused, as these, far superior machines were destined for the RNAS. The result was that Hawker, a vastly experienced pre war flyer and already a national hero, an 'ace', and holder of the Victoria Cross, was, after a long and gallant fight killed. Had he been flying a 'Tripe' he would undoubtedly have killed, or at least shot down von Richtofen, and the pilots and crew of some 70 aircraft would have been saved from a grim fate.