Why The Great War?

[CROONAERT]

Just as an aside.The wording of the question "Why the Great War?" reminded me of something that a friend's daughter (aged 8 and learning about both world wars at school at the moment) said that amused me. Knowing my interest, she asked me "Why do they call it the great war? More people got killed in World War 2, so that must have been a better war."

I didn't really have an answer to that kind of reasoning!

Dave.

[Bob Coulson]

You're right Dave, there really is no answer to that.

As to the main thread, I'm really glad I posted this question and am now enjoying reading all of the comments with great interest.

[Alan Lines]

A bit off topic. Along similar lines to Dave's comment, my friend's 14 year old son declared recently that the Green Berets are definitely better than the SAS. When his puzzled ex. army dad asked why? Lxxx replied "because they've made a playstation game about the Green Berets"!!!!

[Patrick]

Well for those of you, who know the Asterix Comics , I can start with the line

“I fell in it when I was small “(in the cauldron with the magic potion ).

My two Grandfathers fouth the great war entirely , and both survived it , both started at the Yser , with the battles of october 1914 ,

and one of my grandfathers went to the Congo to continue to fight jerry there as of 1915 .

The one that stayed at the Yser was gassed , but he lived with this handicap to a respectful age of 84.

He corresponded with a war aunt (I wish I had this correspondence but it is lost )

Several times a year they both went together to their pilgrimage trips to the old battlefields

and they took me along as a young boy I was 8

( my parents were happy so they had the day free )

I remembered them talking ,discussing, arguing, together pointing out positions were jerry was , meanwhile explaining me this and that, there ..there was a machine gun , here it was dangerous to pass etc and telling me horrible stories which shook me as a young boy .

On the Sunday Visits, to keep me quite, I was allowed , to browse the two big volumes of l’Illustation

(on the condition that I took the huge pages nicely by the corners )

I still do as I have inherited the books . And I was seeing the first sometimes horrible images of what war really was , and I asked whilst browsing,why this ,why that how, come etc….

I have good memories of my grandfathers

In my early twenties I visited on my own the area , and then the interest had to make place for life . Six years ago my best friend Hubert ( sadly died 3 years ago)

offered me for my birthday the interpretation of the great war by Tardi (trench War)

http://www.lambiek.com/tardi.htm

and wrote in it “to revive your interest”

Gee !!! did he revived it ….. I started to read the classics ,first French ,then English the first day on the Somme , collected pictures, discovered there was lots and lots on the internet ,

This was the booster …and that there was much more I had to know ,see, that I could impossibly read all there was written , went to the library and stilled my reading hunger there , once that finished I started buying books on e-bay , I visited the whole front line , many places more than once , mastered Gothic German reading , translated portions of German regimental histories to French for an organization , discovered forums , internet friends became persons with whom I visit battlefields , and keep a correspondence, collected the missing medals of my grandfather ,as I had rcvd recently from mum an old colonial envelope , full of certificates , but there were only a few of the medals still in the family.

I like to see this interest as a quest in understanding mans stupidity ,

and unfortunately come to the conclusion that man does not learn from the past ,

he makes the same mistakes (C’est l’homme qui se répète pas l’histoire -Voltaire )

look at today’s scary equivalent points , many same situations , hope the theory of repetition is false,

only 11 years to go towards 2014 !

I like to see this interest as a way to comprehend and not forget the suffering they endured. To remember them to not forget them .

To try to comprehend the mechanism that lead countries into war

I understand better where I stand in time today ,knowing were I come from, what they had to give so that I can live the way I live now.

I like to say to myself that these young boys gave their lives to form a united Europe

( although they did not know it at the time )

L’amitié Franco - Allemand

Is written on the wall at Verdun signed Kohl – Mitterand .

Yes Americans the old Europe has hopefully understood it by know.

And like Ian wrote at the beginning of this post , when you ask Germans- French – Brittons – Italians -Russians -Austrians ( I travel a lot) about their ancestors in the great war , they do not consider this interest so strange anymore, they discover they too almost forgot , and go discovering what their granddad did, and many came back ( with stories) thanking me for pointing that out to them .

Thanks for reading to the end

Patrick

[laughton]

Kate - you have a good collection of answers now, perhaps enough for an article in a magazine or at least the Sunday paper. I think it would make a good piece and be well received. Chris might think of that for the whole web site, it would gain a lot of interest. There are not many places where these many memories come alive!

[Andrew Hesketh]

My interest? I've always had an interest in military history and was a keen wargamer for many years and a member of the Sealed Knot (English Civil War reenactment society). I was particularly interested in WWII and the Civil War but always found WWI difficult - the sheer intensity of it always scared me off.

However several years ago, in an idle moment, I found myself in front of the village war memorial at home, casually scanning the names. I must have walked past that memorial thousands of times - it was on the way to school - but suddenly realised that I'd never really looked at it properly.

Then, in the midst of my idle moment an idle question cropped up: "I wonder what happened to these men? I wonder where they are buried?"

Well I've solved these questions now, but in so doing an obsession was born..........and it's nice to be on such an active forum with like-minded folk.

All the best,

Andrew

[Guest lesley]

Why?

good question. I've no relative who died or served in the Great War, no particular interest in history, and I wasn't taught about the war at school.

The answer is people. When sticking my nose into brian's research on the oxford and Bucks ( I couldn't for the life of me see what he found so fascinating about a bunch of muddy battlefields!) I was appalled to see that many of the commemorations on the CWG site only listed an initial and a surname. These were real people who had made the ultimate sacrifice and they weren't even commemorated with their given first name.

That started me off on a mission to track down their names - I then wanted to know about them as people - what did they do for a living? why did they join up? that combined with a visit to Brian's great Uncle's grave and I was hooked.

[Conor Dodd]

Why?

good question. I've no relative who died or served in the Great War, no particular interest in history, and I wasn't taught about the war at school.

The answer is people. When sticking my nose into brian's research on the oxford and Bucks ( I couldn't for the life of me see what he found so fascinating about a bunch of muddy battlefields!) I was appalled to see that many of the commemorations on the CWG site only listed an initial and a surname. These were real people who had made the ultimate sacrifice and they weren't even commemorated with their given first name.

That started me off on a mission to track down their names - I then wanted to know about them as people - what did they do for a living? why did they join up? that combined with a visit to Brian's great Uncle's grave and I was hooked.

I collected first world war medals and had no real interest in the men they were awarded to up until the age of 12 when I visited the Western Front for the first time and have been "hooked" which it really is since (well it isn't as long as it sounds only 3 years) it is funny how people become intereted in the war. Mabey we should start up a new thread about this I for one would like to read some of the stories.

Conor

[Guest lesley]

this thread has shown that we all became interested for a wide variety of personal reasons.

what is important is that our interest is helping keep alive memories of the men who served and the research which many forumites are undertaking will preserve this information for generations to come.

[Guest Hill 60]

this thread has shown that we all became interested for a wide variety of personal reasons.

what is important is that our interest is helping keep alive memories of the men who served and the research which many forumites are undertaking will preserve this information for generations to come.

Well said! You are right Lesley, the most important thing we can do is keep alive the memory of those who served in the Great War, be they British, German, Italian, Serbian, French or any of the other countries involved.

[Bob Coulson]

Lesley/Lee,

Couldn't agree more with the sentiments you have both expressed above.

Bob.

[Guest woodyudet]

Charley's War -

I'd almost forgotten all about that - what a fantastic cartoon strip that was. I remember reading that strip in 'Battle Action Force' in the early 80's which covered the end of the war, intervention in the Russian civil war, the inter-war years and Dunkirk.

Does anyone know if a single volume is available with all the strips available in chronological order? It was an excellent way for kids to be introduced to the First World War.

[Paul Reed]

Charley's War also played an important role in my early understanding of the Great War; it was a well researched and presented comic strip, way ahead of itself in the graphic novel genre. I know the publishers did put some of the early stories in one or two volumes - I have them somewhere - but most of it is now part of the comic collecting market, I suspect.

I remember in one of the issues Charley went back to Ypres on a battlefield tour; I sent a copy of this to John Giles, who was delighted that the story of the Great War was being spread amongst a younger generation... he would be happy now to read how many forum members were brought into the fold by it!

[CROONAERT]

Charley's War -

Does anyone know if a single volume is available with all the strips available in chronological order? It was an excellent way for kids to be introduced to the First World War.

Only 2 volumes were published. This only covered part of the Somme battle.

However,I cut out and kept every episode, and still have them (and still read them!!!). A fantastic piece of comic book history.

Did you know that at one point, Charley's war was being studied as part of the syllabus on a modern history course at some universities?

Well done to Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun!

Dave.

PS ,if nostalgia gets the better of you and you want any particular episode scanning.Let me know.