[DannytheBaggie]

Just seen the latest Bowlers Delivery Article on the club website...It's about remembering the war and one of the best articles i think i have read for a long while.

Worth a look:

http://www.wba.co.uk/news/article/bowler...59691.aspx

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

That is a truly great article.

One of the many misconceptions about the 1914 Christmas truce is that it was unique; it actually wasn't. Without a doubt, it was the most sustained, widespread and open fraternisation between the two sides, but do a bit of reading and you actually find that minor "truces" took place throughout the war, usually on quiet sectors of the Western Front (areas which had no strategic value worth fighting over, and where trenches were sometimes just yards apart). Swapping fags and little luxuries in those areas was commonplace - sometimes under the cover of repairing barbed wire or scouting enemy positions, etc - and even when units were rotated in and out of the line, it didn't change anything. A lot of ordinary Germans despised the aristocratic Prussians who'd come to dominate the German government and military, and saw the hatred of Britain as a Prussian trait which they didn't share. (There's one case of a note being tied to a rock and lobbed across no man's land into the trench of an East Anglian regiment which said, "English soldiers; we are Saxons, you are Anglo-Saxons. Let us not fight. Next week there's a regiment of Prussians coming into the line. Kill the bastards.")

Anyway, here's one of my favourite songs on the famous truce:

[talkSAFT]

I like to think that the brotherhood of man exists, and that that truce was evidence of the fact. Those millions who died were really just pawns -they didn't want War.
Like anyone else, I hate violence and bloodshed, and that's why I wish that every nation in the world would send (say) 1/2 their armed forces to Syria and Iraq to hunt down every single IS "Soldier" and brutally murder them. I don't understand how the Arab nations can virtually do f-all while these Yobs do whatever they want, to anyone they want.

[silverbaggie]

I like to think that the brotherhood of man exists, and that that truce was evidence of the fact. Those millions who died were really just pawns -they didn't want War.
Like anyone else, I hate violence and bloodshed, and that's why I wish that every nation in the world would send (say) 1/2 their armed forces to Syria and Iraq to hunt down every single IS "Soldier" and brutally murder them. I don't understand how the Arab nations can virtually do f-all while these Yobs do whatever they want, to anyone they want.

Bit of a mixed message there talksaft.

You hate violence and bloodshed but you want IS soldiers brutally murdered!

Actually I agree that the world needs to come together and wipe out all IS armies.
Perhaps, having the philosophy of taking no prisoners.

Britain should, IMO, make it clear that UK citizens who go out there to fight for IS will no longer be allowed back into the UK.
Indeed their British citizenship should be revoked and that therefor leaves them stateless.

Oh wait we are not allowed to do that are we.

[drewks]

Britain should, IMO, make it clear that UK citizens who go out there to fight for IS will no longer be allowed back into the UK.
Indeed their British citizenship should be revoked and that therefor leaves them stateless.

Oh wait we are not allowed to do that are we.

That is SO OBVIOUSLY the thing to do - WTF isn't it obvious to those that are meant to represent us?
Twots

[talkSAFT]

Bit of a mixed message there talksaft.

You hate violence and bloodshed but you want IS soldiers brutally murdered!

I meant what I said, Silver. That was the point. I "hate violence and bloodshed". But even so, I'd give it to the IS. They aren't even fighting a cause - they're just like our worst yobs with guns instead of bovverboots.

[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Another interesting story from Christmas 1914 (and one which Sainsbury's are unlikely to ever hijack) is what happened to the Royal Scots and Gordon Highlanders at Wytschaete when the Prince of Wales visited the front line. Field-Marshal French decided he needed to "put on a show" for the prince, so he ordered a frontal assault on a heavily-fortified farm. They bombarded the German positions with shrapnel - which was utterly useless against entrenched soldiers - and gave the troops mattresses to throw over the barbed wire. The troops then had to advance over a ploughed field, which had turned to thick mud with the winter rain, under fire from three sides while the field-marshal and the prince watched through binoculars from a hill behind the line.

Billy Congreve was a young staff major from Burton who witnessed the Gordons' advance, and he wrote that some almost reached the German trenches, where they were killed. One or two even got into the trenches where they were killed or captured. A few lay in little depressions in the mud till darkness and then crawled back. Those who got there could send no communication to the supports etc in the rear. Several men tried to get back but were all shot. They lost 7 out of 9 officers and 250 men. Next day, I read in the paper 'British troops hurl back Germans at Wytschaete'. A beautiful epitaph for those poor Gordons who were little better than murdered.

To back up Dave Bowler's point about how those alive during Christmas 1914 fared later in the war, Billy Congreve was determined after the attack at Wytschaete never to sit back while ordinary troops gave their lives, always personally leading his men to the front and accompanying the medical officer to help retrieve wounded soldiers. In the middle of doing this at Longueval on the 20th of July 1916, at 10.55am, he was shot in the throat and killed.

[WBA-Josh]

That article is brilliant. Thank you for sharing it Danny.

The Christmas truce is often misunderstood as a big act of fraternisation where in actual fact it was only small sections of the front line which took part in it. For most soldiers it was business as usual with fighting and being sent over the top to an almost certain death in the hope of gaining 50 metres on the opposition. There was even occurrences of soldiers from one side walking to the other side to start a truce and being shot when they got there. With that being said though, the truces that did happen were very good. It showed the soldiers that they weren't fighting evil like they were told they were, (Some British propaganda painted the Germans as evil, murdering rapists) they were fighting normal people with normal lives just like them. There is one noted occurrence during one of the truces of a British soldier meeting a German solider who used to work in a hairdressers on the same street as the British soldiers house.

Here is a good documentary about the truce if you guys are interested:

---

If any of you guys are into poetry, then have a look at some of Wilfried Owen's World War 1 poetry. They really make you think about the horrors that the soldiers encountered.

Dulce et Decorum Est is his most notable piece - http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175898

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young is another great piece - http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/parab...-and-young

[silverbaggie]

Britain should, IMO, make it clear that UK citizens who go out there to fight for IS will no longer be allowed back into the UK.
Indeed their British citizenship should be revoked and that therefor leaves them stateless.

Oh wait we are not allowed to do that are we.

That is SO OBVIOUSLY the thing to do - WTF isn't it obvious to those that are meant to represent us?
Twots    

The problem in the case of deliberately making somebody stateless ,isn't caused by those representing us.
I believe it's enshrined in international law instead.

Personally, I would ignore the law even if it upsets Amnesty International and all those other well meaning but toothless organisations.
The French ignore new European laws when it suits them, why can't we?

[Dingle-Dingle]

Interestingly. Even before the fall of the Berlin wall and the disintegration of the old Soviet block, NATO had one eye on the Middle East as the next Global Conflict area. DD