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

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

#61

Post by Rebelgecko »

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.

Henry Gunther's story is particularly sad. He was a sergeant who got demoted due to private after writing a friend a letter containing some antiwar comments that were perceived as cowardice. He was obsessed with regaining what he perceived as his lost honor, which is why he led a futile charge in the final moments of the war. IIRC the Germans he was charging were reluctant to actually shoot at him

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

#62

Post by Sylamore »

AndrewOMartin wrote: post #10
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.

For a seasoned gamer that reconstruction just sounds like a collection of stock EXPLOD01.WAV files.

It basically is: https://codatocoda.com/blog/making-a-new-world-armistice-sou...

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

#63

Post by capableweb »

jfk13 wrote: post #44
capableweb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

Haven't heard about that book before, thanks for the recommendation. I'm a bit hesitant to read a book to confirm if birds are scared off bombs and how long time it'll take for them to come back after setting off artillery and other explosions, could you share the section from the book where it's confirmed that birds didn't care about this and stayed where they were?

The description of the book says "At the most basic level, animals and birds provided interest to fill the blank hours in the trenches and billets" which makes sense. When nothing is happening, the birds will come back after a while. But seconds after fighting? Not so sure about that. My experience with birds are that if you make the slightest movement and they see you, they will be gone for a while.

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

#64

Post by jdietrich »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #14
m-i-l wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

>They hate each other in a way most people probably cannot understand. Many would not pass up the opportunity to rid the world of what they see as the most evil upon its face unto the very last minute.

That really isn't true, which is largely why the First World War was characterised by immobile trench warfare. A group of experienced and highly motivated soldiers were perfectly capable of breaking the lines and holding territory, as demonstrated by Stoßtruppen and Arditi, but most soldiers weren't experienced and highly motivated - they were barely-trained civilians who just wanted to go home in one piece. They might have occasionally fired a few shots over the barricades to show willing, they might have chosen to risk death in a charge over the lines rather than face certain death by firing squad, but they really didn't want to be fighting and certainly didn't want to risk death or live with the consequences of having killed.

Snipers can achieve remarkable combat effectiveness, partly because of their marksmanship and fieldcraft skills but mainly because they're actually shooting to kill, due to an innate or acquired psychological difference from ordinary infantrymen. Most infantrymen weren't really trying to kill anyone, which is why the overwhelming majority of combat casualties were inflicted by artillery - it is psychologically far easier to fire an artillery piece at a grid coordinate than to fire a rifle at a human being.

The burden of sustained combat or psychologically-informed training can increase the propensity of people to kill, but it's not a natural psychological state. Ordinary men under prolonged stress sometimes become hardened killers, but they're more likely to become disaffected and depressed.

Modern military strategy is based on this reality - a small proportion of elite infantrymen at the tip of the spear, supported by vast numbers of men in support and indirect combat roles. Tanks, aircraft and drones provide firepower, but just as crucially they provide psychological distance from the act of killing. The significance of psychological distance is a crucial but often overlooked aspect of the Milgram experiments.

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

#65

Post by Fnoord »

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…

> Madness.

Outliers, therefore newsworthy. If these very few haters were able to get a final confrontation, there were also many who did want to stop the fight.

What happened during an unofficial seasonal ceasefire in WWI? Seasonal greetings were shared, between enemies. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceasefire#World_War_I

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

#66

Post by lb1lf »

spectra72 wrote: post #57
Ididntdothis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad is German :). Did your dad have a desire to kill VC after going home?

Desire to kill may be a bit strong but I distinctly remember sitting with my WWII veteran grandfather in November 1989 (US Thankgiving to be exact) and watching the stories of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the obvious prospect of a united Germany in the near future. My grandfather and I watched CNN silently and after a while he got up, and as he left the room he remarked "We'll be fighting the bastards within 50 ye…

Being Norwegian (occupied by the Nazis during WW2) I'd like to chime in with my anecdata - my grandfather served as occupation police in Germany for a couple of years after the war; when the Berlin Wall came down, I was eleven years old and visiting my grandparents. I had been put to bed, but then my grandfather comes and tells me to come to the living room with this weird, strained look on his face; I duly followed him, expecting bad news - some death in the family or whatever.

He nods to the television and tells me that tonight, I'll stay up until the newscast is over - because tonight, the war finally comes to a close.

My grandfather didn't do feelings very well - but for most of that night, he wept with relief and joy. It is to this day the most powerful experience of my life - seeing the impact this event had on my otherwise stoic, accept-anything-in-its-stride grandfather.

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

#67

Post by CaptArmchair »

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.

It wasn't so much plain brainwashing as it was a total lack of modern communication on the battlefield. Especially in 1918.

Back then, communication happened via carrier pigeon, runners, telegram, telephone or telegraph. In extremely hostile conditions. Trench newspapers were the only alternate source soldiers and availability depended entirely on the situation on the ground.

In fact, fighting didn't necessarily seize at 11AM all over the world because communication was hard:

https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-...

As for the Western front in particular, it didn't help that some generals disapproved of the ceasefire and armistice:

> General John Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, did not approve of the armistice. Consequently he gave no instructions to his commanders to suspend any new offensive action during the remaining hours until 11am. This gave individual commanders latitude to determine their actions in the last few hours and in some quarters there was fierce fighting up to 11am which was difficult to stop. On 11 November alone were nearly 11,000 casualties, dead, missing and injured, exceeding those on D-Day in 1944. Over 3,500 of these were American. Pershing had to face a Congressional hearing to explain why there were so many deaths when the hour of the armistice was known in advance.

Officers at the front at that time pretty much were left to their own devices. With an absolute minimum of orders or context, the 'safe' approach was to assume that the enemy might have ignored the cease fire and overwhelmed those who would have let their guard down. Being partly blind, many of them doubled down on the fighting "just in case".

Let's not forget. 4 years of atrocious fighting had passed by. By then, soldiers new perfectly well that life on the front carried little value. They could only hope for a break as refusing to fight or dodging orders meant martial punishment. Plus, it wouldn't have done them any good anyway since there was little to no practical way out of that theater anyway.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/se...

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

#68

Post by cs02rm0 »

capableweb wrote: post #63
jfk13 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

Haven't heard about that book before, thanks for the recommendation. I'm a bit hesitant to read a book to confirm if birds are scared off bombs and how long time it'll take for them to come back after setting off artillery and other explosions, could you share the section from the book where it's confirmed that birds didn't care about this and stayed where they were? The description of the book says "At the most basi…

I'd imagine that'll happen the first time. When there's as much going on as in WW1 though with them having no idea where to go to avoid artillery, with potentially less competition for food, established nests and fewer people around in no man's land than elsewhere, I can well imagine over time they'd get relatively used to it.

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

#70

Post by ArnoVW »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #14
m-i-l wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

To anyone having doubts about this: this has been an active field of research by the military for the last 70 years, when it was found that the efficiency of the average conscripted soldier was lacking due to non- or mis-firing soldiers.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology

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