Monty Python got some good alliterative mileage out of that term in their movie “And Now For Something Completely Different.” One sequence in the movie is a fake WWII British newsreel, in black and white, with suitably bombastic narration that includes the opening line “Yes, the war against the Hun continues – and as Britian’s brave boys battle against the Boche…” By the standards of genuine WWII newsreels, that’s actually not as over-the-top as it sounds to modern ears. And during a real WWII deception operation, the fake letter from General Nye to General Alexander which was the centrepiece of the “Mincemeat” disinformation scheme used such phrases as “We have had recent information that the Boche have been reinforcing and strengthening their defences in Greece and Crete…”
Melting Glaciers Uncover WWI Remains
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I found this story, for any WWI fans, this story in a good read.
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Wow. That’s sort of overwhelming. All those stories buried in the ice.
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I found this story weirdly fascinating. The Italian/Austria Front is largely forgotten, had it not been for Rommel’s service in this front and the Blue Max he earned the front would find itself further forgotten.
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An intriguing story, and nicely timed: just one year short of a century after it happened.
The part which says…
“With the remains also comes the story of the highest battle in history—‘The White War’ […] a cold, four-year-long standoff between Italian mountain troops, named ‘the Alpini’, and their Austrian opponents, ‘the Kaiserschützen’. The battle was fought at high altitude, with special weapons and infrastructure like ice-trenches and cable transports.”
…errs when it calls this “the highest battle in history”. I believe that distinction actually goes to the Siachen Glacier conflict, fought in the Himalayas between India and Pakistan from 1984 to 1999. The disputed terrain there reaches above 20,000 feet, whereas the the highest peak in the Alps, Mont Blanc is only 15,782 feet high (and in any case is located on the border between France and Italy, who were allies in WWI).
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How will the world react to the hundredth anniversary of WWI?
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@ABWorsham:
How will the world react to the hundredth anniversary of WWI?
Indifferently aside from the crowd that ends up here. There will be a burst of new books on the war and lead up published and maybe a newspaper article or two but few will notice.
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I have been fascinated with WWI since I read All Quiet On The Western Front as a middle schoolboy. After all it was the Great War.
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@ABWorsham:
How will the world react to the hundredth anniversary of WWI?
We’ll do it again. The whole 20th century. WAR!
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@ABWorsham:
How will the world react to the hundredth anniversary of WWI?
We’ll do it again. The whole 20th century. WAR!
oh has it allready been sixty years since the last large conflict??..time is running it seems, wow…
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Maybe China and Russia, Or China and India will go at it. And the west can sit this one out!
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I wish the West could sit this one out but the trainwreck of this global hegemon will be everywhere. The American empire is nosediving fast into fascism and soon it will collapse into ruin. All our cities will become Detroit. Most of us will die. Those who are left will face a worldwide post-industrial dark age with ecological damage so bad they won’t even be able to revert to even the most primitive kinds of agriculture. There will be Revolution, War, Famine and Death.
:-)
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@aequitas:
The American empire …
:lol: :lol: so who is the emperor then???
Google, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Monsanto, Exxon….
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@ABWorsham:
How will the world react to the hundredth anniversary of WWI?
Interesting question you brought up ABWorsham, but I doubt that there will be much of interest spent on WW I. nowa days.
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Could you imagine if it started today?
Everyone would be on thier smart phones in the trenches! Or listening to Katie Perry and lil wayne.
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Could you imagine if it started today?
Everyone would be on thier smart phones in the trenches! Or listening to Katie Perry and lil wayne.
And drones flying down trench lines.
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And the whole thing would have been started by a tweet announcing the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
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@aequitas:
@ABWorsham:
How will the world react to the hundredth anniversary of WWI?
Interesting question you brought up ABWorsham, but I doubt that there will be much of interest spent on WW I. nowa days.
unless…
Could you imagine if it started today?
Everyone would be on thier smart phones in the trenches! Or listening to Katie Perry and lil wayne.
@ABWorsham:
And drones flying down trench lines.
@CWO:
And the whole thing would have been started by a tweet announcing the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
and a RED Northrop BARON-2 Spirit is flying over Verdun
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Rome and France had Empires while still Republics.
Currently reading this:
Fairly convincingly describes the UK secret elite manipulating events to create a war to crush Germany, which it had come to see as the main economic rival to Anglo-American hegemony (at this stage they assumed America would learn its lesson and come back into the Empire; which in fact ultimately happened, albeit in reverse.)
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