Ignorance of The Great War

[Ghazala]

How many people can tell you the names of five families in the same street these days, sometimes the immediate neighbors are unknown to them.

khaki

Down here in Dorset we are a bit more friendly than that... In fact when we attend weddings we all sit on the same side of the church!

[angelab]

QUOTE

#19 Ghazala

Posted 11 February 2014 - 07:47 PM

Not The Great War but I felt I should mention it here. In the 80s I was on exercise at SHAPE in Mons with a US female Master Sergeant. Over a coffee she asked me if the Brits had fought in WW2!

END QUOTE

I am afraid I can beat that... An educated, late-50ish Frenchwoman friend of mine expressed surprise to me a few years back on discovering that Britain had been involved in World War 1 !

Angela

[Erine]

For our German commemoration site, I am doing a lot of research by reading original letters sent from the front. One such letter from Najarowka (eastern front) in November 1916 describes a large battle "near here" that has taken place the previous day between the Russians and the Turks. Up to this point, I hadn't been aware of Turkey's involvement on the eastern front, so it was a surprise that they popped up in this letter.

I also found a long article on Japan's involvement in a newspaper of 1914 and likewise an article in June 1915 of the disappointment of the German people in Italy. When you think how much of a terrible shock it must have been at the time, yet these memories complete fade over the years.

[centurion]

You could almost say that the Russo Turkish wars of the past simply got continued in WW1. The two countries had been fighting each other off and on ever since the time of Peter the Great with the Russians usually coming out on top (unless other countries intervened as in the Crimean War). Turkey was initially asked to attack Russia in 1914 in part to take pressure off East Prussia by diverting Russian forces. The front ran from the Black Sea to the Persian border. Much fighting was around the Turkish strategic fortress of Erzerum which finally fell to the Russians who moved on to take Trebizond

Erzerum probably meant to the Turks what Verdun did to the French and they had defended it with much vigour, its fall was a huge blow to Turkish morale

[healdav]

I have been told by friends that his name is spoken of with pride when they travelled to Wadi Rum in the Jordanian desert.

And not just in Wadi Rum. You can hardly go anywhere in Jordan without being told, "Lawrence was here".

A real national hero.