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My first thought was that perhaps some of these last minute explosions were like celebratory gunfire[0]. But no, it seems that people were still desperately try

by m-i-l 7y ago

My first thought was that perhaps some of these last minute explosions were like celebratory gunfire[0]. But no, it seems that people were still desperately trying to kill each other knowing full well they only had hours, minutes or even seconds left to do so: "the cease-fire would not come into effect for a further six hours - at 11am ... the final day of WWI would produce nearly 11,000 casualties, more than those killed, wounded or missing on D-Day ... Just minutes before 11am, to the north around Mons, the 25-year-old Canadian Private George Lawrence Price was on the trail of retreating German soldiers ... But Pte Price's death at 10.58 was not the last. Further south in the Argonne region of France, US soldier Henry Gunther was involved in a final charge against astonished German troops who knew the Armistice was about to occur. What could they do? He too was shot ... It was 10.59."[0] Madness. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebratory_gunfire [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7696021.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7696021.stm

DubiousPusher 7y ago
I will post this at the risk of being downvoted because I am all but a pacifist and it is not a popular position. This is not surprising at all for two reasons. Despite what films will depict, people fighting on the front lines in a war do not generally begrudgingly respect each other. They hate eachother in a way most people probably cannot understand. Many would not pass up the opportunity to rid the world of what they see as the most evil upon its face unto the very last minute. The grudging respect you see discussed in documentaries comes decades later. After the continual trauma and memories of dead friends have time to fade. War beaurocracies transform people into rational psychopaths. They create an order in which a letter of the law is utmost and that letter is laid by your betters. If your betters find some purpose in ordering you to kill pointlessly, you will. We all like to think we could find the courage or clarity to disobey an unethical order. But history is much more full of compliant atrocities than righteous mutinies. Soldiers kept firing because that is the perogative that came out of the leadership black box.
- admax88q 7y ago
  Imagine being brainwashed to the point that you purposefully get yourself killed because you only have a minute left to kill the others.
  - agapon 7y ago
    I think that the kind of brainwash that we typically think about evaporates very quickly at front lines. But the actual fighting -- trying not to get killed, seeing your comrades killed, killing in return -- is a 'brainwash' of its own.
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    Henry Gunther's story is particularly sad. He was a sergeant who got demoted due to private after writing a friend a letter containing some antiwar comments that were perceived as cowardice. He was obsessed with regaining what he perceived as his lost honor, which is why he led a futile charge in the final moments of the war. IIRC the Germans he was charging were reluctant to actually shoot at him
  - CaptArmchair 7y ago
    It wasn't so much plain brainwashing as it was a total lack of modern communication on the battlefield. Especially in 1918. Back then, communication happened via carrier pigeon, runners, telegram, telephone or telegraph. In extremely hostile conditions. Trench newspapers were the only alternate source soldiers and availability depended entirely on the situation on the ground. In fact, fighting didn't necessarily seize at 11AM all over the world because communication was hard: https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-end-at-11am-on-11-november/ https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-... As for the Western front in particular, it didn't help that some generals disapproved of the ceasefire and armistice: > General John Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, did not approve of the armistice. Consequently he gave no instructions to his commanders to suspend any new offensive action during the remaining hours until 11am. This gave individual commanders latitude to determine their actions in the last few hours and in some quarters there was fierce fighting up to 11am which was difficult to stop. On 11 November alone were nearly 11,000 casualties, dead, missing and injured, exceeding those on D-Day in 1944. Over 3,500 of these were American. Pershing had to face a Congressional hearing to explain why there were so many deaths when the hour of the armistice was known in advance. Officers at the front at that time pretty much were left to their own devices. With an absolute minimum of orders or context, the 'safe' approach was to assume that the enemy might have ignored the cease fire and overwhelmed those who would have let their guard down. Being partly blind, many of them doubled down on the fighting "just in case". Let's not forget. 4 years of atrocious fighting had passed by. By then, soldiers new perfectly well that life on the front carried little value. They could only hope for a break as refusing to fight or dodging orders meant martial punishment. Plus, it wouldn't have done them any good anyway since there was little to no practical way out of that theater anyway. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/service_records/courts_martial.htm http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/se...
outworlder 7y ago
How certain where they that the cease-fire would be successful?
Spooky23 7y ago
Nothing better reflects the insanity of WW1 than 11/11/18. The sheer ridiculousness of needless slaughter to allow a few old men the vanity of stopping a war at 11 is the most WW1 thing ever.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lainga 7y ago
It wasn't celebratory. They had to haul home all the ammunition they didn't fire.
gentleman11 7y ago
Fighting over nothing except marginally better terms in the peace treaty...
Fnoord 7y ago
> Madness. Outliers, therefore newsworthy. If these very few haters were able to get a final confrontation, there were also many who did want to stop the fight. What happened during an unofficial seasonal ceasefire in WWI? Seasonal greetings were shared, between enemies. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceasefire#World_War_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceasefire#World_War_I

by m-i-l 7y ago

DubiousPusher 7y ago

I will post this at the risk of being downvoted because I am all but a pacifist and it is not a popular position. This is not surprising at all for two reasons. Despite what films will depict, people fighting on the front lines in a war do not generally begrudgingly respect each other. They hate eachother in a way most people probably cannot understand. Many would not pass up the opportunity to rid the world of what they see as the most evil upon its face unto the very last minute. The grudging respect you see discussed in documentaries comes decades later. After the continual trauma and memories of dead friends have time to fade. War beaurocracies transform people into rational psychopaths. They create an order in which a letter of the law is utmost and that letter is laid by your betters. If your betters find some purpose in ordering you to kill pointlessly, you will. We all like to think we could find the courage or clarity to disobey an unethical order. But history is much more full of compliant atrocities than righteous mutinies. Soldiers kept firing because that is the perogative that came out of the leadership black box.

admax88q 7y ago
Imagine being brainwashed to the point that you purposefully get yourself killed because you only have a minute left to kill the others.
- agapon 7y ago
  I think that the kind of brainwash that we typically think about evaporates very quickly at front lines. But the actual fighting -- trying not to get killed, seeing your comrades killed, killing in return -- is a 'brainwash' of its own.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  Henry Gunther's story is particularly sad. He was a sergeant who got demoted due to private after writing a friend a letter containing some antiwar comments that were perceived as cowardice. He was obsessed with regaining what he perceived as his lost honor, which is why he led a futile charge in the final moments of the war. IIRC the Germans he was charging were reluctant to actually shoot at him
- CaptArmchair 7y ago
  It wasn't so much plain brainwashing as it was a total lack of modern communication on the battlefield. Especially in 1918. Back then, communication happened via carrier pigeon, runners, telegram, telephone or telegraph. In extremely hostile conditions. Trench newspapers were the only alternate source soldiers and availability depended entirely on the situation on the ground. In fact, fighting didn't necessarily seize at 11AM all over the world because communication was hard: https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-end-at-11am-on-11-november/ https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-... As for the Western front in particular, it didn't help that some generals disapproved of the ceasefire and armistice: > General John Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, did not approve of the armistice. Consequently he gave no instructions to his commanders to suspend any new offensive action during the remaining hours until 11am. This gave individual commanders latitude to determine their actions in the last few hours and in some quarters there was fierce fighting up to 11am which was difficult to stop. On 11 November alone were nearly 11,000 casualties, dead, missing and injured, exceeding those on D-Day in 1944. Over 3,500 of these were American. Pershing had to face a Congressional hearing to explain why there were so many deaths when the hour of the armistice was known in advance. Officers at the front at that time pretty much were left to their own devices. With an absolute minimum of orders or context, the 'safe' approach was to assume that the enemy might have ignored the cease fire and overwhelmed those who would have let their guard down. Being partly blind, many of them doubled down on the fighting "just in case". Let's not forget. 4 years of atrocious fighting had passed by. By then, soldiers new perfectly well that life on the front carried little value. They could only hope for a break as refusing to fight or dodging orders meant martial punishment. Plus, it wouldn't have done them any good anyway since there was little to no practical way out of that theater anyway. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/service_records/courts_martial.htm http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar/se...

outworlder 7y ago

How certain where they that the cease-fire would be successful?

Spooky23 7y ago

Nothing better reflects the insanity of WW1 than 11/11/18. The sheer ridiculousness of needless slaughter to allow a few old men the vanity of stopping a war at 11 is the most WW1 thing ever.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lainga 7y ago

It wasn't celebratory. They had to haul home all the ammunition they didn't fire.

gentleman11 7y ago

Fighting over nothing except marginally better terms in the peace treaty...

Fnoord 7y ago

> Madness. Outliers, therefore newsworthy. If these very few haters were able to get a final confrontation, there were also many who did want to stop the fight. What happened during an unofficial seasonal ceasefire in WWI? Seasonal greetings were shared, between enemies. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceasefire#World_War_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceasefire#World_War_I