LEST WE FORGET

[tautech]

In a couple of hours @ 11am NZ time, a solemn moment of remembrance for those that fell in the great war.

Today is the centenary of Armistice Day, when on the 11th hour of November 11, 1918, the guns fell silent, bringing to an end a four-year war that cost almost 20 million lives.

Granddad was in Egypt and returned safely but with the loss of an eye from a potato fight on the ship coming home.
Maybe if he'd not been to the war he'd have lived beyond his 60 short years.

Please share a moments reflection on what our world (friend and foe alike) might have become.............

https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/107872536/over-18000-crosses-placed-on-auckland-domain-for-armistice-day

[Zero999]

Sadly we didn't learn. It happened again with WW2 and we still have wars today.

[MK14]

[VK3DRB]

Sadly we didn't learn. It happened again with WW2 and we still have wars today.

Who is "WE"? It was the Germans who started World War II.

Thanks to electronics, there is a lot better communications now than 70 or 100 years ago. Communications technology prevented a nuclear WWIII breaking out in 1962; and has prevented many wars since. It is not the holy grail though.

[cdev]

No, it certainly isn't.

Its my understanding that the real reason the Allies jumped into WWI was because of some banking issue.

But then they amassed huge additional debts that in the case of Germany the loser, were the reason Hitler came to power and that led to WWII

Some countries were still paying back various debts (mostly to small investors) from the two wars 100 yrs later.

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/still-paying-world-war-i-debt-100-years-later/382293/

However, in both Germany and Japan the 10 richest families remained essentially the same, and they all pretty much profited immensely from the war and got to keep the money.

They should set aside some little populated area and just let them and their corporations fight it out between themselves and leave the people and countries out of it.

What a racket.

[Brumby]

Today is a day of remembrance.  It is to show respect to those who went to war.  To those who fought and suffered.  To those who were wounded and to those who died.  The circumstances that brought war to the world stage is not what today is about.  It is about those involved in its gruesome theatre.

Please do not diminish the sacrifice these people made through their service by casting shadows or creating distraction.  They acted as they were called - to give of themselves in patriotic duty.


LEST WE FORGET.

[tautech]

Its my understanding that the real reason the Allies jumped into WWI was because of some banking issue.

Hardly.
I thought is was common knowledge an assassination was the root cause.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_I

Sadly we didn't learn. It happened again with WW2 and we still have wars today.

I beg to differ.
Assassinations have not triggered further wars and other events that might have are carefully considered rather than repeat what we have learnt.

However this could turn into a political or religious discussion which would spoil a solemn centenary of remembrance and that would be a shame.

What we must do however is to continue to annually celebrate this and Anzac day to remind us of the losses historically and serve as a flag to some that incite worldwide violence that the West united is a formidable opponent so that peace for the masses prevails.

[Wan Huang Luo]

You lost me at potato fight. Seriously. Who loses their eye in a food fight?

Are you serious or taking the piss?

[tautech]

You lost me at potato fight. Seriously. Who loses their eye in a food fight?

Are you serious or taking the piss?

Not at all, that's fair dinkum !

He was a crack shot so Grandma said and the army wanted him as a marksman (he won a marksman medal) but he wouldn't do it, instead just served as an infantry man.
On returning from the war he had to learn to shoot from his left shoulder and became a good shot gunner even winning prizes at the local claybird shoots......so Grandma said.
His trap gun has been passed to me and I'll pass it to my son. 

[cdev]

"May the Good Lord have mercy on our souls".

[BradC]

I can't thank you personally for what you did, as by the time I was old enough to understand the sacrifice you made, you were gone.

I will never forget the role you and your contemporaries performed and the sacrifice you all made.

[cdev]

The best way to honor those who died is to do our best is to protect the values they fought for to prevent those wars from ever having to be fought again.

Because we may not survive the next one.

[Zero999]

Sadly we didn't learn. It happened again with WW2 and we still have wars today.

Who is "WE"? It was the Germans who started World War II.

The human race of course.

I beg to differ.
Assassinations have not triggered further wars and other events that might have are carefully considered rather than repeat what we have learnt.

I  don't think so. If we had learned from WW1 there wouldn't have been a WW2 and if we'd learned from that, there wouldn't have been millions killed by various wars since.

The invention of nuclear weapons is why we haven't had a world war three. Yes it's true nukes were invented in WW2, but I think they would still have been invented even if WW2 didn't happen.

As far as remembrance is concerned, it does move me, but nowhere near as much current wars do.

[coppercone2]

this thread kind of makes me want to watch Paths of Glory or All Quiet on the Western Front again

Be sure to check out the re-colored footage on youtube

This series is more then a few hours:


And you get some very interesting stuff like this

[cdev]

Paths of Glory is really good.

All of Kubrick's films, without fail, are.

Basically, its my understanding that the British and the Germans were heading towards war because of their rivalry over trade and colonial expansion, basically there were two groups of oligarchs with similar colonial ambitions locked into a bitter rivalry with one another, with a Franco-German economic struggle over iron and coal also being important.

Imperial Russia also wanted to control the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean while Germany saw Russia as standing in the way of its eastward ambitions, which included a proposed Berlin to Baghdad railway that was supposed to also cement a relationship between Germany and Turkey.. 

Britain saw this as threatening their position in India and Russia as threatening their position in Persia.

[Mr. Scram]

Who is "WE"? It was the Germans who started World War II.

Thanks to electronics, there is a lot better communications now than 70 or 100 years ago. Communications technology prevented a nuclear WWIII breaking out in 1962; and has prevented many wars since. It is not the holy grail though.

"They started it" isn't really a sound argument when millions of lives are lost. The Germans as a people didn't start much either, most casualties on both sides were homesick boys wanting nothing more than to go home or civilians caught in the maelstrom. A few people decide the fate of many and the many suffer for it. The first World War is an especially poignant example of endless lives thrown into the fire and being lost on all sides in sickening numbers for no tangible gain at all.

War is a terrifying beast and it consumes all.

[EEVblog]

It doesn't matter what the political event is, this forum is not the place for it, thread locked.