Flanders

florerider

My thought for today.

my grandfather was a keen racing cyclist. 100 years ago, at the age of 16, he went to Flanders, but did not take his bike. His tour took 4 years.

Monty Dog

As you ride through Flanders and Northern France it's inevitable that you will pass war memorials and cemeteries - it's quite humbling that literally millions died to allow people today to maintain such freedoms.

smoggysteve

A few months ago, members of my unit and myself cycled from Germany through Belgium over a week ending at Ypres and a visit to the Menin gate (which I will be visiting again on Tuesday) It is very humbling seeing the size of some of the memorials especially around Flanders. I would recommend taking the time to visit them to anyone. As a serving soldier it means a lot to me to get the chance to pay my respects to those that went before me.

ballysmate

florerider wrote:

My thought for today.

my grandfather was a keen racing cyclist. 100 years ago, at the age of 16, he went to Flanders, but did not take his bike. His tour took 4 years.

Glad your granddad completed 'the tour'.

veronese68

I've been a few times and it really is mind boggling. We took the kids last year as my son was supposed to go as part of a school trip, but was too sick to go. In class they had researched graves using the Commonwealth War Commission site and he had found my great grandfathers grave. So we went to see it, going through a field of gravestones, counting the rows and then finding the one with your surname on it is incredibly humbling. Both the kids had learnt about the war at school, but had no idea of the sheer numbers involved. Being told the numbers you don't get a true picture, they are just big numbers. But when you go and you see a cemetery, then another, and another and so on each with row upon row of stones you start to get more of a feel for it. I think everyone should go.
This is why the poppies at the Tower works so well. Not only do they look stunning but when you think that each one represents a person you get the impression of the scale. Imagine if you were to add the German casualties to that number.

pliptrot

Monty Dog wrote:

it's quite humbling that literally millions died to allow people today to maintain such freedoms.

They didn't die for that. It was a stupid war which was between 2 spoilt countries and should never have happened. It caused the 2nd world war -more or less directly- and many others. One thing it did do was to make the ruling classes take note of the rest of us - they needed the working classes on-side to fight their stupid wars - which resulted in huge increases in living standards (eventually). Increases which are being rolled back now at an alarming pace. One hopes that an increasingly sophisticated and discerning population would never again submit to such horrors, but I wonder.

ugo.santalucia

pliptrot wrote:

Monty Dog wrote:

it's quite humbling that literally millions died to allow people today to maintain such freedoms.

They didn't die for that. It was a stupid war which was between 2 spoilt countries and should never have happened. It caused the 2nd world war -more or less directly- and many others. One thing it did do was to make the ruling classes take note of the rest of us - they needed the working classes on-side to fight their stupid wars - which resulted in huge increases in living standards (eventually). Increases which are being rolled back now at an alarming pace. One hopes that an increasingly sophisticated and discerning population would never again submit to such horrors, but I wonder.

It's an interesting take on a topic which is often taboo... you can't say bad things about The War!

I am more or less with you in that WWone led directly to the nazi-fascism and the unavoidable WW2 and on the idea that a new world order could have probably been achieved without the loss of tens of millions of lives, but I suspect we are too entrenched in an enforced patriotic spirit to admit that whichever way you look at WW I and WW2... they were avoidable

Moonbiker

They didn't die for that. It was a stupid war which was between 2 spoilt countries and should never have happened. It caused the 2nd world war -more or less directly- and many others. One thing it did do was to make the ruling classes take note of the rest of us - they needed the working classes on-side to fight their stupid wars - which resulted in huge increases in living standards (eventually). Increases which are being rolled back now at an alarming pace. One hopes that an increasingly sophisticated and discerning population would never again submit to such horrors, but I wonder.

agree

Now we can have remote control wars with alot fewer allied deaths, though due to drone tech etc as wee tend to war less advanced nations.

pblakeney

Moonbiker wrote:

They didn't die for that. It was a stupid war which was between 2 spoilt countries and should never have happened. It caused the 2nd world war -more or less directly- and many others. One thing it did do was to make the ruling classes take note of the rest of us - they needed the working classes on-side to fight their stupid wars - which resulted in huge increases in living standards (eventually). Increases which are being rolled back now at an alarming pace. One hopes that an increasingly sophisticated and discerning population would never again submit to such horrors, but I wonder.

agree

Now we can have remote control wars with alot fewer allied deaths, though due to drone tech etc as wee tend to war less advanced nations.

Fortunately, I think that lessons have been learned and there will be no more large scale battles.
Unfortunately, the new tactic is guerrilla warfare which is considerably riskier for those not directly involved.

smoggysteve

PBlakeney wrote:

Moonbiker wrote:

They didn't die for that. It was a stupid war which was between 2 spoilt countries and should never have happened. It caused the 2nd world war -more or less directly- and many others. One thing it did do was to make the ruling classes take note of the rest of us - they needed the working classes on-side to fight their stupid wars - which resulted in huge increases in living standards (eventually). Increases which are being rolled back now at an alarming pace. One hopes that an increasingly sophisticated and discerning population would never again submit to such horrors, but I wonder.

agree

Now we can have remote control wars with alot fewer allied deaths, though due to drone tech etc as wee tend to war less advanced nations.

Fortunately, I think that lessons have been learned and there will be no more large scale battles.
Unfortunately, the new tactic is guerrilla warfare which is considerably riskier for those not directly involved.

No matter how much technology you put in the air with drones etc you will not win any conflict without boots on the ground. Its not about annihilating your enemy any more, its about hearts and minds and winning over the local people. You have to consider the post conflict situation. That is where we went wrong in Iraq and Afghan. We just went in, destroyed the enemy and left a power vacuum and a pissed off population in a worse position than what went before and extremism moved in and created the bigger problems we are seeing now with ISIS.