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Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

#41

Post by Ididntdothis »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #39
Ididntdothis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard this hate only from people who fought the partisans in Yugoslavia. I can imagine Vietnam was a similar kind of war which is even more brutal and disturbing than regular warfare. I have never heard any of them having ill will against the brits, French or Russians. They especially liked the Americans because they treated POWs and civilians by far the best.

I think I overgenerlized this specific point of my OP. Have a look at my response below. How much this is a factor probably depends a lot on the length and intensity of conflict, which is what you allude to here.

In the end war just sucks and most of the young guys who have to fight would agree.

Re: Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

#42

Post by DubiousPusher »

gumby wrote: post #40
DubiousPusher wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And war is full of atrocities because people just cannot being themselves to do bad things to eachother? I am not making a basic argument for the goodness or lack thereof in people. Only that war changes the rationale and emotional stability of people. It makes the illogical or unthinkable into the next logical step.

Wars are opportunistically encouraged and joined by psychopaths, of course, though armies often don't want those people because they aren't mission oriented. When they rise in the ranks it can be terrible. My point is that the majority of people don't "join the dark side"

Yeah, I overemphasized that point which I didn't even mean to originally honestly. See below.

Re: Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

#43

Post by agapon »

admax88q wrote: post #15
DubiousPusher wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will post this at the risk of being downvoted because I am all but a pacifist and it is not a popular position. This is not surprising at all for two reasons. Despite what films will depict, people fighting on the front lines in a war do not generally begrudgingly respect each other. They hate eachother in a way most people probably cannot understand. Many would not pass up the opportunity to rid the world of what…

Imagine being brainwashed to the point that you purposefully get yourself killed because you only have a minute left to kill the others.

I think that the kind of brainwash that we typically think about evaporates very quickly at front lines. But the actual fighting -- trying not to get killed, seeing your comrades killed, killing in return -- is a 'brainwash' of its own.

Re: Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

#44

Post by jfk13 »

capableweb wrote: post #11
jtbayly wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I understand why they were added. But they ruin the sombre silence.

I don't understand why. No birds would still be present in an environment where you have so many bombs and guns going off, they would be far away by then and take long time before they are brave enough to come back.

Maybe you should read _Where Poppies Blow_ by John Lewis-Stempel. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29905681-where-poppies-b...

Or even just skim the reviews on Amazon:

> ...no man’s land was, effectively, a bird reserve with a barbed wire perimeter: ‘If it weren’t for the birds, what a hell it would be’ says one soldier. Experiences with birds, especially when they were singing in the lulls, lifted their spirits: “They offered a touch of Heaven in Hell.”

Re: Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

#45

Post by [deleted] »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #18
Retric wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1914 Christmas truce demonstrates otherwise as five months of fighting was insufficient to guarantee hate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce It’s surprisingly difficult to train civilians to kill each other, but governments have discovered how. You don’t do it on the front lines, you do it before they get to the battle field.

Simple. March them to the front lines and say "If you don't kill them, they'll try to kill you. Go get em!" And lo and behold! they were told the same thing, so everybody starts shooting.

[deleted]

Re: Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

#46

Post by [deleted] »

m-i-l wrote: post #13
jtbayly wrote: post #3

I didn't find the audio on that page, but a link to it here: https://codatocoda.bandcamp.com/album/iwm-ww1-armistice-inte... I want to know if the birds were actually recorded at the end, or if it was added for dramatic presentation.

My first thought was that perhaps some of these last minute explosions were like celebratory gunfire[0]. But no, it seems that people were still desperately trying to kill each other knowing full well they only had hours, minutes or even seconds left to do so: "the cease-fire would not come into effect for a further six hours - at 11am ... the final day of WWI would produce nearly 11,000 casualties, more than those k…

[deleted]

Re: Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

#47

Post by [deleted] »

billziss wrote: post #27

Like others I found the recording profound at first. The birds at the end cheapened the experience for me because they made me question the authenticity of the sounds heard and whether this was leaning closer to an actual representation or an artistic interpretation. Perhaps somewhere in between. Assuming that this is leaning closer to an actual representation of the sounds heard on that morning (with the dubious add…

[deleted]

Re: Listen to the moment the guns fell silent ending World War I

#48

Post by lainga »

m-i-l wrote: post #13
jtbayly wrote: post #3

I didn't find the audio on that page, but a link to it here: https://codatocoda.bandcamp.com/album/iwm-ww1-armistice-inte... I want to know if the birds were actually recorded at the end, or if it was added for dramatic presentation.

My first thought was that perhaps some of these last minute explosions were like celebratory gunfire[0]. But no, it seems that people were still desperately trying to kill each other knowing full well they only had hours, minutes or even seconds left to do so: "the cease-fire would not come into effect for a further six hours - at 11am ... the final day of WWI would produce nearly 11,000 casualties, more than those k…

It wasn't celebratory. They had to haul home all the ammunition they didn't fire.
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