WW1 memory

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I was a tourist in Meath recently visiting some medieval sites, including old monastery ruins etc.

I was taken by surprise when I saw a WW1 headstone dated 8th March 1916 amongst the ruins in one site. He may not be buried there, maybe as far away as Palestine, based on the date and regiment. I just thought of him, how far removed this tranquil place beneath a yew tree is from wherever he lost his life all that time ago. A red and a green plastic poppy were still there presumably since last November.
 
In terms of far removed places my paternal Grandfather won the Military Cross at the battle of Sheikh Sa'ad in Mesopatamia in January 1916( modern day Iraq/Northwestern Syria )against the forces of the Ottoman Empire , bit of a pyrrhic victory 2000 Allied dead & 2400 wounded.

He also fought at the Somme & Ypres , he had an amazingly diverse war during which he campaigned on foot in the infantry , on a horse in the cavalry & culminated by flying a plane in the RFC ( Royal Flying Corps ) the forerunner of the RAF.

He joined as a private & was commissioned in the field ending the war as a Captain, he was a great man & I'm hugely proud of him & I still have all his service medals including the aforementioned Military Cross in it's presentation case .
 
Deiseblue said:
In terms of far removed places my paternal Grandfather won the Military Cross at the battle of Sheikh Sa'ad in Mesopatamia in January 1916( modern day Iraq/Northwestern Syria )against the forces of the Ottoman Empire , bit of a pyrrhic victory 2000 Allied dead & 2400 wounded.

He also fought at the Somme & Ypres , he had an amazingly diverse war during which he campaigned on foot in the infantry , on a horse in the cavalry & culminated by flying a plane in the RFC ( Royal Flying Corps ) the forerunner of the RAF.

He joined as a private & was commissioned in the field ending the war as a Captain, he was a great man & I'm hugely proud of him & I still have all his service medals including the aforementioned Military Cross in it's presentation case .
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You should be proud. Great story.
 
I had an uncle who died in the battle of the Somme.

He had just qualified as a dentist at UCD when he decided to join up.

Unfortunately, he never made his graduation ceremony. He was killed in action in the battle.

@ Deiseblue- maybe they knew each other? We will never know.

Marion.
 
Marion

What a sad story.

The loss of human life in that particular conflict was unfathomable.

It would be nice to think that your Uncle & my Grandfather did indeed cross paths in the Somme !
 
This thread about WWI got me thinking about my own families history and the part they played in history. Both my mother’s family and my father’s family would have been very big supporters of Fine Gael but both sides of the family were diametrically opposed to each other.
While it is hard to believe now apparently there were two wings to Fine Gael back in the 1930s. At least at a grassroots level.

My grandfather signed the dotted line on his 18th birthday in 1915 and joined the Royal Navy. He worked as a messenger boy in Cork so joining the navy must have seemed pretty exciting. He was on the HMS New Zealand during the Battle of Jutland (the largest naval engagement of WWI). The ship had been built and paid for by the government and people of New Zealand (hence the name) and when it was launched a Maori witch doctor ‘blessed’ it and said the ship would never come to harm so long as the ship’s captain wore the traditional Maori grass shirt (I don’t know the actual name for it) before going into battle.

On the morning of the battle the men on board the ship were extremely nervous so one of them climbed up the outside of the bridge to check if the captain was wearing the grass skirt. He was and this was relayed back to the men in the turrets and a huge cheer went up as they now believed that they were ‘protected’.
They were indeed protected and the ship escaped unscathed during the battle (and during WWI). My grandfather told my father and uncles (he died the day after I was born so I never met him) that the morning after the battle the sea was the calmest anyone had ever remembered it. He was ordered into a longboat and he had to retrieve bodies and body parts from the sea. He pulled arms, legs and heads out of the water. Both German and British. My uncles told me that after he died my grandmother told them that he suffered from nightmares for the rest of his life, often waking up screaming during the night.

After WWI ended he could have been demobbed but instead stayed in the Navy as rumours reached them that there was no welcome for ex servicemen in Ireland as the political climate had changed.
He signed up for another stint and ended up on a gunboat in Russia as part of the interventionists fighting against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War.
He got back to Ireland in the late 1920s and settled down. He got a lot of ‘hassle’ from ex IRA men and ended up joining the Blueshirts in the 1930s, getting involved in street battles and skirmishes (google Marshes Yard and the battle of Bleasby St Cork) and from there becoming a member of Fine Gael.

My grand aunt (my mothers aunt) on the other hand was a huge follower of Michael Collins and was part of his spy network during the War of Independence. While she was too young to be involved in any fighting she used to carry messages from safe house to safe house in her underwear. She looked younger than she was (at least that is what she told me as a young boy) so she used to saunter past the army blockades saying she was going to collect milk for her mother while secretly carrying messages.
As a small boy she told me stories of the Black and Tans and the atrocities they committed. I was too young to know what the Black and Tans were so for years I actually thought they were ghosts who frightened small children. She told me one story of how the Black and Tans gouged out the eyes of one young man and I used to dream of them coming to get me. It was only in later years that I discovered what the actual Black and Tans were.
After Collins was shot she blamed Dev and actually believed that he pulled the trigger for the fatal shot that killed him. I am old enough to remember Devs funeral and she wouldn’t allow the TV to be turned on that day. All she used to say was "That b*****d Dev". In the 30s and 40s when Fianna Fail came canvassing door to door she intentionally went upstairs to empty the chamber pot over the heads of any Fianna Fail canvassers who dared knock at her door.
She used to tell my mother that she married into the "Johnny come lately family" as my fathers father was a late comer to Fine Gael.
When I was a kid she had taken to the bed which was downstairs in the sitting room so that she could see the TV and watch Tolka Row but she had very bad arthrithus and all us kids used to sit around her bed and she would tell us stories from when she was young. She would always finish a story with the words... "Gimme me purse there boy and ill see if I have any few lops (coins) for ye". Then she would go for a snooze while life when on around her in the house.


It would be great to be able to talk to them now when I am old enough to understand their stories but all I have are the photographs and memories of them.
 
Further to the WWI posts, my Grandfather (now buried in Grangegorman Cemetery) fought in Mesopotamia, my father and my Uncle Tom fought in Iraq during WWII and my son was called back to the colours to fight in Iraq during Gulf War II.
I am delighted to say that all survived unharmed.
 
I have never understood what there is to be proud of in a young man from Britain or Ireland going half way around the world to fight the locals.
 
Both of those locations were part of the Turkish Empire at the time, and, particularly at Gallipoli, the enemy troops were Turks.
 
cremeegg said:
In Mesopotamia? In Gallipoli? I think you will find that they were.
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The point is that they didn't unilaterally choose to invade a country, they were drawn into a war due to secret treaties (in the case of the first war) and those countries declaring war on them (in the case of the second).

Only Britain and France declared war on Germany without being attacked first, or Germany declaring war on them (in the case of the USA). They did so after Poland was invaded (and to protect themselves).
 
BillK said:
Both of those locations were part of the Turkish Empire at the time, and, particularly at Gallipoli, the enemy troops were Turks.
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Gallipoli was part of the Turkish Empire in the same way that Somerset was part of the British Empire.

Yes at Gallipoli, thousands of young men from Britain, Ireland and especially Australia and New Zealand travelled half way around the world to bring war to the locals.
 
cremeegg said:
Gallipoli was part of the Turkish Empire in the same way that Somerset was part of the British Empire.

Yes at Gallipoli, thousands of young men from Britain, Ireland and especially Australia and New Zealand travelled half way around the world to bring war to the locals.
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Lets stick to the facts. The Ottoman Empire entered the war when they bombed Russia's black sea fleet in late October 1914. The Allied powers declared war on the Ottoman Empire a week or so later in early November 1914. Therefore young men from Britain, Ireland and especially Australia and New Zealand didn't travel half way around the world to bring war to the locals; the locals brought war on themselves by attacking an existing military alliance first.
The Ottoman Empire was disintegrating anyway and they knew that the war would accelerate their demise so they chose to enter the war on the side that they thought would win. They also had a long history of enmity with Russia (particularly dating to the wars fought with Potemkin under Catherine the Great) so they were drawn to their enemy's enemy.
 
The Ottoman Empire had a long history of enmity with Russia. Yes indeed.

The Ottoman Empire entered the war when they bombed Russia's black sea fleet in late October 1914. Again yes.

The Ottoman Empire and Russia were neighbours, the Black Sea lies between them. Australia and New Zealand are half the world away.

I think my perspective, "thousands of young men from Britain, Ireland and especially Australia and New Zealand travelled half way around the world to bring war to the locals," is a more rational interpretation of the facts.

As for the motivation of the parties, well historians generally have a negative view of the allies motivation, but lets stick to the facts.
 
cremeegg said:
As for the motivation of the parties, well historians generally have a negative view of the allies motivation, but lets stick to the facts.
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Historians have a negative view of the motivations of all parties in the whole war. It's a case study in why secret pacts and jingoistic politicians are a bad idea. There were no good guys and bad guys, just kids killing each other. Then again, that's the norm in most wars.
 
It is the norm in many wars that kids from rich powerful countries travel to poor and less powerful countries to bring war to the locals.

Sudan in the 1880s, South Africa, Gallipoli, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq.

To my mind there is a distinction to be made between those kids who travelled across the world to wage war, and those kids who had war come to their door.

I cannot see anything to be proud of in a soldier joining an army to travel the world to bring war to the locals. Sorry
 
Soldiers are usually poor kids, usually sent to die by rich old men.
Wars are usually fought for the control of resources and there's usually very few "good guys" involved. The soldiers who travel are usually no worse or better than the ones who they go to fight
 
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