I recommend a stroll through the rest of Rob's site, Skip. Breaking lots of new ground in web-based German Military history from WW2-WW1 & well before. http://gottmituns.net/page/2/ ~A
I wished I had interviewed the last surivors while they were still alive. As a matter of coincidence I found a 1916 dated map of Verdun yesterday in a cardboard suitcase full of other great WW1 maps. It includes a 1918 dated map of the French troops entrance in Strasbourg with pencil intinary drawn on it. The map is all in German and has names like Kaiserplatz etc.... There was also a Christmas parcel sent to a pow in 1914 at the Kassel Stalag.
Thanks for posting, Von P. "A German soldier writes to his parents: ...An awful word, Verdun. Numerous people, still young and filled with hope, had to lay down their lives here – their mortal remains decomposing somewhere, in between trenches, in mass graves, at cemeteries.... Louis Barthas recounts the bitter man-to-man fights: ...Woe betide anyone who fell into the hands of the enemy alive; all sense of humanity had disappeared. Soldiers, wounded, stretcher-bearers – a distinction was no longer made...." That is some heavy stuff, there brothers and sisters. The interviews really grabbed me and I became very curious as I had only read summary reports on the Battle. One French Captain arrived at the trenches for 96 hours with 175 men and returned with 34, "several of whom had gone quite insane." More at: http://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/battleverdun/index.htm#start
Whenever someone lazily dismisses 'French Fighting Spirit' in that way that people do, it's always worth keeping Verdun in mind, isn't it...
The British have seen enough of French fighting spirit in the history of our nations...which is why we would rather be friends than enemies...1940 was a blip, and not down to the fighting man. And even then the whole allied strategy was to blame not the French nation. That man on the horse on the left...the horse may be English the Man was French..
Yes, remember Lafayette and the French Navy at Yorktown. Franklin, Jefferson and Adams finest hour working on that deal.
