The War To End All Wars Started 100 Years Ago

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

The war saw many new weapons put in to use, such poisonous gas, machine guns, airplanes, tanks and submarines.

 

A few interesting points about weapons in WW1:

 

They learned how to make and use weapons like artillery shells and poison gas shells/grenades in mindblowingly-large quantities, but they did not learn quality control like we have when it comes to today's munitions. It's estimated that in the vicinity of France's Western Front, that approximately 1 ton of explosives fell on every square meter of ground over the course of the war - ONE TON! Furthermore, it's estimated that roughly 1 out of every 4 shells failed to explode, leaving roughly a quarter-ton of unexploded ordnance in every square meter of the Western Front.

 

The French still reports recovering upwards of 900 tons of WW1-era unexploded ordnance each year, and the Belgians say they recover upwards of 200 tons of WW1-era unexploded ordnance each year. Ypres, Belgium was the site of 5 major Western Front battles, and it's estimated that the British and German forces fired approximately 1 billion shells at each other in the course of those 5 battles - and it's further estimated that almost 300 million of those shells failed to explode. In 2012, just within the area of Ypres, there were 160 tons of unexploded ordnance recovered from the ground.

 

The biggest dangers are the shells containing chemical munitions, like mustard gas. As the shells degrade over time, the chemicals often leak into the surrounding ground and water, and have even been known to collect in pockets only to be recovered by farmers plowing their fields or construction crews excavating for new construction projects. Most farm equipment and heavy construction equipment in France and Belgium comes standard with HEAVY blast plates on the underside to protect against unexploded ordnance. As recent as 1991, there were 36 French farmers killed plowing up unexploded ordnance.

[PepRock01]

Of the 21 huge mines built and filled with explosives at Messines 1 is still sitting there unexploded and no one is quite sure where it is. After WWI all but two had exploded. In 1955 one of them was struck by lightning and amazingly, outside of an extraordinarily unlucky cow, no one was hurt.

 

When they dug those mines they had put 600 tons of TNT in them. I would not want to own property in that part of Belgium today.

[Bert]

Of the 21 huge mines built and filled with explosives at Messines 1 is still sitting there unexploded and no one is quite sure where it is. After WWI all but two had exploded. In 1955 one of them was struck by lightning and amazingly, outside of an extraordinarily unlucky cow, no one was hurt.

 

Instant cooked steaks!!!

 

Seems like with technology today we could find it. Maybe a giant metal detector from a helicopter.

[Bert]

Of the 21 huge mines built and filled with explosives at Messines 1 is still sitting there unexploded and no one is quite sure where it is. After WWI all but two had exploded. In 1955 one of them was struck by lightning and amazingly, outside of an extraordinarily unlucky cow, no one was hurt.

 

When they dug those mines they had put 600 tons of TNT in them. I would not want to own property in that part of Belgium today.

 

Numerous people point out that WWII was in some way just a war over unresolved issues from WWI. Didn't WWI come from many conflicts simmering and carried over from a few decades earlier?

[PepRock01]

 

Numerous people point out that WWII was in some way just a war over unresolved issues from WWI. Didn't WWI come from many conflicts simmering and carried over from a few decades earlier?

 

Yes, Franco -Prussian War in particular. That is one of the reasons why France was so insistent on punitive clauses in the treaty with Germany.

[TAC]

Instant cooked steaks!!!

 

Seems like with technology today we could find it. Maybe a giant metal detector from a helicopter.

 

Could you find that Malaysian airliner while you are at it?

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Instant cooked steaks!!!

 

Seems like with technology today we could find it. Maybe a giant metal detector from a helicopter.

 

I read part of a book about the tunnelers when I was in college. I took a history class on 20th centrury warfare - it was taught by a professor born and raised outside of Somme, as a matter of fact. Anyway, most of the mines were between 60 and 120 feet underground, so finding any signal of the cans used to hold the ammonal explosives would seem pretty tough through that kind of cover. I thought I read some time ago that they believed to have located the remaining mine now, though - but that the person who owned the land wouldn't let anyone proceed with excavating the mine up.

 

Another interesting thing about the explosive mines is that they all took their lead from the Lochnagar and Y Sap mine blasts on the first day of the Battle of Somme. These were two coordinated explosions that went off exactly two minutes before the British mounted their initial attack at 7:30am on July 1, 1916. The explosion of those mines was so loud that the British Prime Minister hear the explosion while sitting at his desk in London from across the English Channel - 198 miles away. That's like sitting in Louisville and hearing a bomb go off in Columbus, OH. The explosion is considered to have been the loudest man-made noise to have ever occurred to that point in the world's history, and has only been surpassed once, by the Tsar Bomb - a 60,000 pound hydrogen bomb tested by the Russians in 1961 with a payload equivalent to 58 million tons of TNT.

 

Here is a shot of the explosion site of the Y Sap mine blast (it was filled in in the 1970s, but you can see the outline of the once-75-foot-deep crater on the left of the roadway.

 

Here is a shot of the crater at the site of the Lochnagar mine blast. It's 70 feet deep and almost 300 feet in diameter.

[Content1]

I read part of a book about the tunnelers when I was in college. I took a history class on 20th centrury warfare - it was taught by a professor born and raised outside of Somme, as a matter of fact. Anyway, most of the mines were between 60 and 120 feet underground, so finding any signal of the cans used to hold the ammonal explosives would seem pretty tough through that kind of cover. I thought I read some time ago that they believed to have located the remaining mine now, though - but that the person who owned the land wouldn't let anyone proceed with excavating the mine up.

 

Another interesting thing about the explosive mines is that they all took their lead from the Lochnagar and Y Sap mine blasts on the first day of the Battle of Somme. These were two coordinated explosions that went off exactly two minutes before the British mounted their initial attack at 7:30am on July 1, 1916. The explosion of those mines was so loud that the British Prime Minister hear the explosion while sitting at his desk in London from across the English Channel - 198 miles away. That's like sitting in Louisville and hearing a bomb go off in Columbus, OH. The explosion is considered to have been the loudest man-made noise to have ever occurred to that point in the world's history, and has only been surpassed once, by the Tsar Bomb - a 60,000 pound hydrogen bomb tested by the Russians in 1961 with a payload equivalent to 58 million tons of TNT.

 

Here is a shot of the explosion site of the Y Sap mine blast (it was filled in in the 1970s, but you can see the outline of the once-75-foot-deep crater on the left of the roadway.

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Here is a shot of the crater at the site of the Lochnagar mine blast. It's 70 feet deep and almost 300 feet in diameter.

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Thank you CWB for the WWI data. The pictures are great. And thanks for sharing how WWI continues to effect the region today. The things we take for granted. Having to buy an armored tractor to farm due to unexploded munitions a 100 years later...

[Jim Schue]

Wow. I had heard WW1 killed so many young men that many women at that time did not marry simply to not enough men surviving the war so there was an imbalance in numbers of the sexes. I would guess that could have happened to Russia in WWII. Didn't Russia have extremely high fatalities due to WWII?

 

Estimates of combined military and civilian casualties in the USSR range from 21 million on the low end to 28 million on the high end — a whopping 13.5 percent of the population. Comparatively, in WWI the Russian Empire lost 3 million +/- for about 2 percent of the population.

[AHSPanther23]

Oh I know, I just wanted if any other ruling royal or imperial families in areas controlled by the Soviets were killed.

 

 

 

I am guessing the Romanov family was not well liked by the German Kaiser so he probably didn't shed too many tears.

 

 

 

I am trying to think why the British people would care? Afraid of Russian influence on Great Britain? I wonder if France turned him down also?

 

No other royal family was eliminated like this to my knowledge.

 

Wilhelm II and Nicholas II were cousins through Christian IX of Denmark. Nicholas' wife Alix of Hesse and Wilhelm were first cousins and grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

Wilhelm II is to the left dressed in Russian military uniform, and Nicholas II is to the right dressed in German military uniform.

 

Just to show you their similarity, here is a picture of Nicholas II and George V:

 

I don't think it was the British people exactly. I think it was more of a fear from George V as there had been an uprising in Ireland similar to what was going on in Russia a few years before.

 

 

 

I think justice was served on Lenin. Eventually Lenin suffered a series of strokes (three I think), which rendered him mute and paralyzed on one side. Lenin's Testament is a powerful document since it criticized several prominent Soviet officials, including on Joseph Stalin. Stalin had the most to lose if this Testament had been published. Lenin feared that Stalin had too much power and was not cautious in using this power. So Lenin's dream of a Communist country was not truly put into place.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

On this day 98 years ago, the Battle Of Somme was nearing its end, with just over two weeks remaining in the 140 day long battle. By the battle's end, the British had suffered 415,690 casualties, the French had suffered 202,567, and the Germans had suffered 434,500. Two years later, on November 3, 1918, the Armistice of Villa Giusti was signed between the Italians and the Austro-Hungarians, ending the war on the Italian front. Eight days later on November 11, 1918, the Armistice of Compiègne was signed between the Germans and the Allied Forces, bringing the First World War to an end.

 

Here is an aerial shot of the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial site near Albert, France, which was left largely untouched after the war so the landscape of the front and no-mans-land would be left for civilians to witness. If you notice, there are constant 'zig-zags' in all of the trenches - this was so if the enemy managed to overtake a section of the trench, they would not be able to shoot straight down the trench and overtake the entirety of the trench.

 

[lawildcat]

On this day 98 years ago, the Battle Of Somme was nearing its end, with just over two weeks remaining in the 140 day long battle. By the battle's end, the British had suffered 415,690 casualties, the French had suffered 202,567, and the Germans had suffered 434,500. Two years later, on November 3, 1918, the Armistice of Villa Giusti was signed between the Italians and the Austro-Hungarians, ending the war on the Italian front. Eight days later on November 11, 1918, the Armistice of Compiègne was signed between the Germans and the Allied Forces, bringing the First World War to an end.

 

Here is an aerial shot of the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial site near Albert, France, which was left largely untouched after the war so the landscape of the front and no-mans-land would be left for civilians to witness. If you notice, there are constant 'zig-zags' in all of the trenches - this was so if the enemy managed to overtake a section of the trench, they would not be able to shoot straight down the trench and overtake the entirety of the trench.

 

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It is hard to wrap my head around so many casualties in one battle, let alone an entire war!

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

It is hard to wrap my head around so many casualties in one battle, let alone an entire war!

 

There were over 30,000 soldiers killed on the FIRST DAY of the Battle of Somme.

[Bert]

It is hard to wrap my head around so many casualties in one battle, let alone an entire war!

 

I have often heard WWI was a war that you were sent there, you were basically sent there to die.

[Bluto]

Napoleonic tactics fought with modern weapons.