HISTORY IN IMAGES: Pictures Of War, History , WW2: FIRST WORLD WAR: Rare pictures: Part 3

AMAZING....

French military car picking up the dead

TRENCH WARFARE DURING WW1

Regarding the German soldier's experience, various selections from Erice Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front proved to be a valuable source of insight. A analysis of the above mentioned sources, one can note various similarities between the German and French armies during World War I in the areas of trench warfare, ill-fated troops, and military technology.Trench warfare was totally unbiased. The trench did not discriminate between cultures.

This "new warfare" was unlike anything the world had seen before, millions of people died during a war that was supposed to be over in time for the holidays. Each side entrenched themselves in makeshift bunkers that attempted to provide protection from the incoming shells and brave soldiers. After receiving an order to overtake the enemies bunker, soldiers trounced their way through the land between the opposing armies that was referred to as "no man's land."

The direness of the war was exemplified in a quotation taken from Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, "Attacks alternate with counter-attacks and slowly
the dead pile up in the field of craters between the trenches. We are able to bring in most of the wounded that do not lie too far off. But many have long to wait and we listen to them dying." After years of this trench warfare, corpses of both German and French soldiers began to pile up and soldiers and civilians began to realize the futility of trench warfare.

German battery in the snows of Poland

Japanaese bombardment at Tsing-tau

General Allenby entering Jerusalem through the Jaffa Gate

Difficult Austrian advance in the Tyrol

Germans resist on the Western Front

Oil wells destroyed in the Romanian retreat

British engineers bridging flooded ground in Flanders

Destruction. Ypres in the autumn of 1917

Armoured cars on the British Indian border

More on WW 1

Points To Ponder

WHY WAS THE FIGHTING ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT SO FIERCE DURING WW2?

It is difficult to distinguish between the quality of both the German and Russian soldiers. Both were motivated by their love for their motherland. But there were others factors that drove the two sides to such desperate fighting.

One, both sides knew that this was a no-holds bar war. Not fighting was thus not an option.

Second, both Hitler and Stalin had squads that killed any deserter. Turning away from fighting was just not possible.

Thus was seen some of the most bitter, brutal and desperate fighting on the WW2 eastern (Russian) Front.

Quotes....

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
--Hermann Goering