Brits urged to turn out the lights for WW1 centenary, World leaders at WW1 centenary events in UK an - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;45588849]Hey, all the people from Titanic are dead, let's just forget about them and the rusting wreck that's slowly withering away.[/QUOTE] Fuck it, I'm gonna add to this. The American Civil War? PFFT, only brought more racism and rednecks The Statue of Liberty? Just a statue of some chick with some BORING poem at it's base. It's not even American, so what :v:. Nikola Tesla? Some slavic, pigeon feeding bum, EDISON WAS THE MAN! The Rosetta Stone? The essential key to unlocking the secrets of the Ancient Egyptians? Just some rock with pictures on them, you see graffiti all the time on the walls of some random McDonalds.

[QUOTE=darkedone02;45588781]Not to be an asshole, but have we already moved on from WW1? All of the WW1 Vets have passed on and I think it's time to end any event about ww1 to end permanently. WW1 will forever be in our history books and I think it's time we put WW1 in the back of our minds. I would say the same thing with WW2 but I don't think that will happen until 2040 or later.[/QUOTE]Sooo does that mean we can keep talking about 9/11 until 3011?

[QUOTE=loopoo;45589722]This took place in my hometown, my sister was there and managed to get closeup pictures of Harry and William. RIP to all those who gave their lives. I remember we'd have a moment of silence during Remembrance Day in primary school.[/QUOTE] I wanted to see the ceremony as I live nearby, but am not in the country atm. My parents know the guy who designed the arch

[QUOTE=darkedone02;45588781]Not to be an asshole, but have we already moved on from WW1? All of the WW1 Vets have passed on and I think it's time to end any event about ww1 to end permanently. WW1 will forever be in our history books and I think it's time we put WW1 in the back of our minds. I would say the same thing with WW2 but I don't think that will happen until 2040 or later.[/QUOTE] Come the hell on dude. Farmers here still find bombs and shells form WW1 in their fields. Hills and rivers in Passchendaele have literally disappeared. There are still craters and rubble in some places. There's cemeteries all over the place. We can't forget. I know it's difficult for an American to appreciate how traumatic both world wars have been for Europe, but we should never, ever stop remembering both.

[QUOTE=Terminutter;45589991]I wanted to see the ceremony as I live nearby, but am not in the country atm. My parents know the guy who designed the arch[/QUOTE] Folkestone repre[B]sent[/B]!

[QUOTE=loopoo;45590087]Folkestone repre[B]sent[/B]![/QUOTE] I'm Hythe but it's close enough! All the old people! And a fancy canal for keeping frogs out!

[QUOTE=deltasquid;45590030]Come the hell on dude. Farmers here still find bombs and shells form WW1 in their fields. Hills and rivers in Passchendaele have literally disappeared. There are still craters and rubble in some places. There's cemeteries all over the place. We can't forget. I know it's difficult for an American to appreciate how traumatic both world wars have been for Europe, but we should never, ever stop remembering both.[/QUOTE] Don't even say that. Of course Americans can understand. Or at least this American can understand.

[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;45590151]Don't even say that. Of course Americans can understand. Or at least this American can understand.[/QUOTE] Well they exactly live in a wartorn world after the war. In fact they went right into the roaring 20s with the general population priding themselves as being the saviors of Europe.

[QUOTE=Rangergxi;45590226]Well they exactly live in a wartorn world after the war. In fact they went right into the roaring 20s with the general population priding themselves as being the saviors of Europe.[/QUOTE] Well to be fair besides Pearl Harbour and 9/11, America has never really had to deal with things like the Blitz. So it's not very easy to understand that kind of thing. But that doesn't mean we can't try to.

RIP those that fell. [QUOTE=Spirit_Breaker;45589662]It was a fight for freedom for Slavs, A-H was "prison of nations". One thing that disgusts me about WW1 is historical revisionism where people are trying to downplay A-H's fault and try to go for "everyone is equally at fault" bullshit. Do you really think Serbia wanted to go to war after 2 Balkan wars and after claiming loads of new territory with depleted resources? If assassination didn't happen some other reason would eventually be found as A-H wanted to conquer Serbia regardless of the current events. Serbia lost 62% of it's adult male population, was backstabbed by Bulgaria and refused to surrender thus being forced to retreat trough enemy oriented Albania where killing and looting of tired Serbian soldiers and civilians was a common thing. To top that off Italy, France and Great Britain refused to supply boats and board on Serbs until Russian emperor threatened them that he will break off the alliance. Pretty much everyone apart from Greeks and Russians were against Serbs and then people wonder why Serbia is so "blinded" about being close with Russia and disliking the west. I don't really hate anyone nor do I approve of blind hate or extremism, but I can see that side of story those people have. Quite a shame how people only care about western front and completely ignore timeline and story of eastern and Salonika front.[/QUOTE] Bulgaria only back-stabbed Serbia due to the result of the First Balkan War, where Serbia and Greece did not give land to Bulgaria that they had promise, they instead opted to keep it for themselves. Which started the 2nd Balkan War. [quote=Wikipedia]In the original document for the Balkans league, Serbia promised Bulgaria most of Macedonia. But after the war, Serbia and Greece, in violation of previous agreement between the allies, revealed their plan to keep possession of most of the promised territories destined to Bulgaria. This act prompted the tsar of Bulgaria to invade his allies.[/quote] So if anyone had done backstabbing, it was Serbia and Greece.

[QUOTE]At that ceremony, Prince William paid tribute to the soldiers who "died to give us our freedom". [/QUOTE] Whose freedom did they die for? Certainly not ours, Imperial Germany was no threat to us. Did they die for the freedom of the Palestinians, the Arabs or the Turks who we tried to subdue during and after the war? Did they die for the freedom of Belgium? A country who had no problems with enslaving and massacring the entirety of the Congo. Did they die for the freedom of the Slavs who started the war to begin with? No our Soldiers didn't die for freedom, they died for the foreign policy interests of the Asquith government. I don't mean to sound disrespectful, because it is important that we pay respects to the dead, just for the right reasons and not the wrong ones and using "fighting for freedom" certainly is a wrong one for the First World War. [QUOTE=Spirit_Breaker;45589662]It was a fight for freedom for Slavs, A-H was "prison of nations". Do you really think Serbia wanted to go to war after 2 Balkan wars and after claiming loads of new territory with depleted resources? If assassination didn't happen some other reason would eventually be found as A-H wanted to conquer Serbia regardless of the current events. [/QUOTE] No, Serbia didn't want war but they didn't do anything to stop it. The Serbian Government of 1914 was almost exclusively run by hardline, Anti-Austrian Extremists who did whatever they could to undermine the Austrian Government.[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Overthrow"] They murdered one of their Kings in the early 20th century because they felt that he wasn't Anti-Austrian enough.[/URL] The Serbian Blackhand funded Gavrillo Princip and his gang and had direct links to the murder of Franz Ferdinand as well as other terrorist groups which wanted to get rid of Austria-Hungary. What were the Austrians supposed to do? Let all the Serbian aggression just slide? The worst part is that pre-1914 Austria-Hungary had no intention of annexing Serbia, the Serbians just wanted to get rid of Austria-Hungary. In fact Franz Ferdinand wanted to liberalise the empire and give freedom to all the Empire's minorities under a federation led by Austria. Not only this but he even said something along of the lines of "what would we get from annexing Serbia but a few plum trees and a bunch of rebellious Serbs" The Serbian people suffered during the war as a result of their own government's hatred of Austria.

[QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;45590151]Don't even say that. Of course Americans can understand. Or at least this American can understand.[/QUOTE] The general reaction from some American posters in this thread make me think otherwise sadly.

[QUOTE=WeekendWarrior;45590603]The general reaction from some American posters in this thread make me think otherwise sadly.[/QUOTE] Even if we act like that. America will always have Britain's back.

[QUOTE=The mouse;45590457]Did they die for the freedom of Belgium? A country who had no problems with enslaving and massacring the entirety of the Congo.[/QUOTE] King Leopold II had no problem doing that. Our parliament nationalized Congo (it was his private property before then) and turned the thing around to bog standard colonialism rather than the bloody occupation by Leopold's cronies. So saying Belgium had "no problem" massacring the Congo is a massive overstatement.

The end of the first world war is what caused my mother's side of the family (Her grandmother, my great grandmother) to leave Ireland and come to America. My family was unaffected by the first world war, and I feel blessed, but I understand the struggles that all families ultimately went through. The Great War is referred to as the Death of Empires. I feel that it could have been referred to as "The Death of Hope", for the next 30 years that followed it.

[QUOTE=darkedone02;45588781]Not to be an asshole, but have we already moved on from WW1? All of the WW1 Vets have passed on and I think it's time to end any event about ww1 to end permanently. WW1 will forever be in our history books and I think it's time we put WW1 in the back of our minds. I would say the same thing with WW2 but I don't think that will happen until 2040 or later.[/QUOTE] This is the worst post I've seen in years. The current state of things around the world is still largely a direct result of the first world war, WW2 was largely a direct result of the first world war. The first world war standardized cynicism as the most prevalent way for people to view the world, the notion that there is no glory in war originates from the first world war, the first world war propelled the USA to the world stage. There is absolutely no well-informed argument anyone can make in claiming that the world has 'moved on' from WW1 in any way at all. in short, it could be argued that WW1 was the [i]worst thing that ever happened[/i] and you want us to forget it just because it was a long time ago?

[QUOTE=darkedone02;45588892]I did not say to totally forget about it, these events will forever be in the books... My point is that this is 2014, and we right now worried about the other wars that is going on in the world. WW1 was over with in a decade, it's events will forever be in the books but have most of us moved on from WW1? I see alot of people don't mention WW1 unless something else happens, same thing with WW2 unless a TV show is playing about it. I'm not trying to be an asshole about this, all I'm saying is that I think it's time to put it in the back of our minds, just as much as we put the french revolution and the civil war of America in the back of our mind unless we have to recall events.[/QUOTE] it has special meaning for people living in GB because WW1 was kind of the wake-up call britain basically lost an entire generation in one battle [editline]4th August 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Pvt. Martin;45590673]Even if we act like that. America will always have Britain's back.[/QUOTE] I don't think anyone honestly thinks americans don't understand WW1 or 2, it's just bitterness from us to be honest from the British perspective though, WW1 and 2 are quite scary times for national sentiment. The weird phenomenon at the latter stages of WW2 is that while there is some nationalism/patriotism and jingoism going on in the UK, the vast majority of the feeling was grim determination. I mean, goddamn London was bombed for 57 nights [I]in a row[/I]; the feeling at the end of that must have been unimaginable This quote explains why most British people are how they are to Americans, good explanation of national psyche really. [quote]"For many reasons, what that does is confirm a trajectory of British national culture that started to emerge in the late 18th Century, of the British believing that they are best when they are alone, when their backs are against the wall, when they don't have foreign-speaking allies to pander to."[/quote] which makes this quote about Germany even more legit [quote]"It's right and proper that we commemorate the valour and bravery as well as the suffering that went on in Britain in 1940, but it's unthinkable that Germans would be having a conversation like this about the bombing of their cities, because the scale was colossal compared with what happened here - half a million civilians killed from the bombing... What people remember there is the horror of it all, the nightly terror of the bombing. You can't look back on that and think how brave the population were, or what courageous Blitz spirit there was. People remember the suffering, and the deaths and the devastation."[/quote] TL;DR british people like to big up our trials because its what we do, even though others had it far worse

[QUOTE=Megadave;45588833]As they always say, the sequel is never as good as the original.[/QUOTE] i wonder when they'll complete the trilogy

[QUOTE=RobbL;45589252]I don't mean to be insensitive, but I've never understood this sentiment regarding ww1 What I read is "our side were the goodies and the other side were the evil baddies out to enslave everyone"; as if they're saying the world would have descended into a degenerate state had the central powers been victorious[/QUOTE] I've always argued the Brits were honestly the worst of the bunch in a conflict of bad guys. World War One is so interesting because there were no "heroes" or "good guys" like World War Two, only a bunch of shitty, greedy, power-hungry empires. But that isn't the kind of thing you say to honor the dead.

[QUOTE=The mouse;45590457] No, Serbia didn't want war but they didn't do anything to stop it. [/quote] Nonsense, it accepted all borderline insane demands from ultimatum apart from one where A-H has rights to investigate on Serbia's territory thus ruining her integrity. [quote=http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/austrianultimatum.htm] The Royal Serbian Government shall further undertake: (1) To suppress any publication which incites to hatred and contempt of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the general tendency of which is directed against its territorial integrity; (2) To dissolve immediately the society styled "Narodna Odbrana," to confiscate all its means of propaganda, and to proceed in the same manner against other societies and their branches in Serbia which engage in propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The Royal Government shall take the necessary measures to prevent the societies dissolved from continuing their activity under another name and form; (3) To eliminate without delay from public instruction in Serbia, both as regards the teaching body and also as regards the methods of instruction, everything that serves, or might serve, to foment the propaganda against Austria-Hungary; (4) To remove from the military service, and from the administration in general, all officers and functionaries guilty of propaganda against the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy whose names and deeds the Austro-Hungarian Government reserve to themselves the right of communicating to the Royal Government; (5) To accept the collaboration in Serbia of representatives of the Austro-Hungarian Government for the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the territorial integrity of the Monarchy; (6) To take judicial proceedings against accessories to the plot of the 28th of June who are on Serbian territory; delegates of the Austro-Hungarian Government will take part in the investigation relating thereto; (7) To proceed without delay to the arrest of Major Voija Tankositch and of the individual named Milan Ciganovitch, a Serbian State employee, who have been compromised by the results of the magisterial inquiry at Serajevo; (8) To prevent by effective measures the cooperation of the Serbian authorities in the illicit traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier, to dismiss and punish severely the officials of the frontier service at Shabatz Loznica guilty of having assisted the perpetrators of the Serajevo crime by facilitating their passage across the frontier; (9) To furnish the Imperial and Royal Government with explanations regarding the unjustifiable utterances of high Serbian officials, both in Serbia and abroad, who, notwithstanding their official position, have not hesitated since the crime of the 28th of June to express themselves in interviews in terms of hostility to the Austro-Hungarian Government; and, finally, (10) To notify the Imperial and Royal Government without delay of the execution of the measures comprised under the preceding heads. The Austro-Hungarian Government expect the reply of the Royal Government at the latest by 5 o'clock on Saturday evening the 25th of July. [/quote] [quote] The Serbian Government of 1914 was almost exclusively run by hardline, Anti-Austrian Extremists who did whatever they could to undermine the Austrian Government.[/quote] Gee, I wonder why, maybe because A-H annexed BiH just a few years ago and has been trying to colonize and undermine Serbia literally for ages??? It even forced Serbia to retreat from huge part of conquered lands during Balkan Wars because it felt threatened. [quote][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Overthrow"] They murdered one of their Kings in the early 20th century because they felt that he wasn't Anti-Austrian enough.[/URL][/quote] Again, A-H p much illegally annexed BiH which had significant Serbian population and terrorized them. [quote] The Serbian Blackhand funded Gavrillo Princip and his gang and had direct links to the murder of Franz Ferdinand as well as other terrorist groups which wanted to get rid of Austria-Hungary. What were the Austrians supposed to do? Let all the Serbian aggression just slide?[/quote] If some Frenchman shot Hitler in Paris in 1941, would you call him a liberator or a terrorist? Are you actually trying to potray A-H as innocent one here and ignore their expansionism? [quote]The worst part is that pre-1914 Austria-Hungary had no intention of annexing Serbia, the Serbians just wanted to get rid of Austria-Hungary. In fact Franz Ferdinand wanted to liberalise the empire and give freedom to all the Empire's minorities under a federation led by Austria. Not only this but he even said something along of the lines of "what would we get from annexing Serbia but a few plum trees and a bunch of rebellious Serbs" The Serbian people suffered during the war as a result of their own government's hatred of Austria.[/QUOTE] I'll quote myself from several months ago to cover this and previous quote. [quote] [quote=cis.joshb] Did the Serbian government support the black hand?[/quote] Black Hand was coordinated by Apis mostly and was not officially directly supported by goverment. It was secret military organization. They supplied Young Bosnia which consisted of Serbs and [B]muslims and Croats[/B]. There were several attempts of assassination on Ferninand that day, it was by a pure chance that Serbian actually managed to kill him. All Princip wanted was liberation from Austrian rule and uniting of south slavic nations. Most of the people here have no idea what they're talking about nor about A-H's ambitions to extend all the way to Thessaloníki or German's march to the east (forgot the phrase used for it). To call Princip terrorist yet glorifying Americans who broke from the British rule and similar nations who did the same is hypocritical. Germany was fully aware that war would break out, they just weren't ready during the Moroccan crises or Annexation crisis, but they were ready in 1914 an massively influenced on A-H to declare war on Serbia. I'm kinda tired of writing almost identical words every time this discussion comes up because people are really misguided, and I may write out how WW1 played out for Germans in detail. tl;dr: Their worst nightmare was fight on 2 fronts, they failed on knocking out France early and focusing all forces on Russians, eventually they gambled all on their submarines and failed thus depleting their resources. They surrendered while they still had parts of France in their possession so they wouldn't lose out their original territory. [/quote] [quote]Young Bosnia was an organization whose goal was destruction of A-H + freeing the Slavs and uniting them all into a single nation. It consisted of Serbians, Bosniaks and Croats. It was supported by some members of Black Hand (whose motto is "unity or death"). Black Hand (Serbia) (Crna Ruka), a secret society devoted to Serbian unification in 1910s. [quote=Gavrilo Princip] "The political union of the Yugoslavs [..] was my basic idea [..] I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, and I do not care what form of state, but it must be free from Austria"[/quote] To think that assassination was the sole thing that plunged a world into the war is ridiculous. Everything was planned way before that, it's just that at the time of assassination Germany was ready for the war.[/quote] I may continue this in Mass Debate, but you're completely wrong and incorrect about some stuff you claim. If you want to have accurate discussion you need to look all the way back to 16th century and then read history of A-H and Ottoman Empire and then read up about 3 Austro-Turkish wars and just follow complete political scene and major events in The Balkans from 16th to early 20th century just before the war. [editline]4th August 2014[/editline] Oh and Greece and Serbia teamed up for Balkan War 2 against Bulgaria because Greece didn't sign any agreement with Bulgaria and Serbia's agreement with Bulgaria was invalidated by A-H screwing over Serbia over it's conquered lands so they decided to go with everyone gets what they own now. [editline]4th August 2014[/editline] Again, instead of responding here (if you plan to respond) and derailing the thread even further, make a thread in Mass Debate and I might come. [editline]4th August 2014[/editline] I can't edit posts, but I'd also like to know your reasoning just why is A-H present in Bosnia and are you aware of their plans to make a railway all the way to Greece and expand even further?

[QUOTE=Megadave;45588833]As they always say, the sequel is never as good as the original.[/QUOTE] i know this is a joke post but how fast technology moved during ww2 from both the germans and the allied response to the germans is absolutely fascinating, and it would take another war for technology to move that fast again. This is the main reason i spend more time learning about ww2, and im sure the same could be said about a lot of other people.

[QUOTE=darkedone02;45588781]Not to be an asshole, but have we already moved on from WW1? All of the WW1 Vets have passed on and I think it's time to end any event about ww1 to end permanently. WW1 will forever be in our history books and I think it's time we put WW1 in the back of our minds. I would say the same thing with WW2 but I don't think that will happen until 2040 or later.[/QUOTE] You don't move on from history, especially not when the effects of said history are still felt today. You remember it, and you understand it.

[QUOTE=Spirit_Breaker;45591484]Lots of words[/QUOTE] Serbia signed an agreement and broke it with Bulgaria. Bulgaria had a right to be pissed. It doesn't matter that Greece didn't sign the agreement (By Joining the Balkan League anyway, the effectively signed it), Serbia was supposed to uphold the original agreement which they did not. [Quote=Wikipedia]The Second Balkan War broke out on 16 June 1913. Both Serbia and Greece utilizing the argument that the war had been prolonged repudiated important particulars of the pre-war treaty and retained occupation of all the conquered districts in their possession which were to be divided according to specific predefined boundaries. Seeing the treaty as trampled, Bulgaria was dissatisfied over the division of the spoils in Macedonia, made in secret by its former allies, Serbia and Greece, and commenced military action against them. [/quote] Not only did Serbia break the original agreement, they went behind Bulgaria's back and broke it. Just so they and Greece could make gains.

Just went down stairs to get some watermelon. Almost killed myself.

[QUOTE=Elfy;45592649]Just went down stairs to get some watermelon. Almost killed myself.[/QUOTE] Wrong thread?

[QUOTE=bdd458;45592786]Wrong thread?[/QUOTE] Think he turned his lights out mate

[QUOTE=Ignhelper;45588757]Right now, I feel it is. World War 2 is much more easy to remember because of the scale and amount of nations involved, and aside from the poetry and works from World War 1, there has been rather little works on WW1 post war. Especially in the modern context, you often see more stories and movies on WW2 rather than the first world war. [editline]4th August 2014[/editline] Yeah, should had used that word, describes it better.[/QUOTE] Honestly I'd say that in Europe it's very well remembered. The sheer amount of shows, movies and plays about the war or interwar period is actually quite staggering at times. It's just probably not seen as such a big thing outside of Europe. Which kinda makes it less interesting in terms of international movie releases as well. Since holywood probably won't pick up much stuff from the era. Keep in mind that many Euro countries started existing with the end of the war. The interwar period was the height of culture. The ww2 post war period on the other hand was marred. Much of the inteligence either fled or died. Large segments of national cultural identities were eliminated with the jews and a lot more happened. Which is kinda why you haven't seen anything about ww2 from mainland Europe for ages.

[QUOTE=jamzzster;45592810]Think he turned his lights out mate[/QUOTE] oh yeah, I was being dumb. Dunno how I didn't think about that.

[QUOTE]OMG guys why are we celebrating these people they didn't give us freedom - also we were bastards during the war as well i hate hungary they were to blame no it was the swiss blah de blah[/QUOTE] As far as I'm concerned it's nothing about that. It's about remembering the catastrophic loss of life and the simply horrific conditions people sent to the front had to live and die in. I, and I don't really think anyone here can possibly imagine just how dismal a situation these people were put through. It's about remembering them, honouring their payment of the ultimate price and learning from history that war is a final resort option and most of all not repeating these mistakes. Infighting and blaming different countries for causing the war is slightly missing the point.

[t]http://imgkk.com/i/wto1.jpg[/t] Parliament, the London Eye, and Tower Bridge are all dark [t]http://imgkk.com/i/3j09.jpg[/t] Downing Street is lit only by a single candle [t]http://imgkk.com/i/jqj5.png[/t] A tower of light shines into the sky from Westminster