King Washington
Semi-Depressed Lurker
- Location
- Indiana
Out of curiosity will we eventually cover how film and literature and such is affected in the aftermath of the Great War and revolutions?
The Widening Gyre: The Great War and the Remaking of Europe
- Thread starter Curby
- Start date
- Timeline Post-1900
There's nothing that doesn't indicate that it wasn't some crank or some lone ideological extremists like the other times a US president was assassinated.
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- He/She/They
The USI, Unione Sindacale Italiana, a major player in the section on Italy, is an anarcho-syndicalist labor union. Similar groups in South America have been mentioned.
I'm not sure if any non-syndicalist anarchist groups would be particularly relevant yet.
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Presumably at some point Makhno will pop up.
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
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- He/They
Yes, though anarchists will be more of a political force in Mediterranean and South American countries on the semi-periphery of global capitalism than in its core areas. Expect to see much more discussion of anarchism in Catalonia, Greece, Central and Southern Italy, and Argentina. There will be anarchist currents in Germany and Russia, but they will be smaller and have markedly less political power.
Definitely! Most of my own historical interests gravitate around intellectual and cultural history, so there will definitely be a lot of attention paid to these questions. I hope to have independent entries dedicated to the following subjects:
Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union.
a. Architecture and Urban design
b. Socialist Legal Theory
c. Orthodox and Revisionist Marxist thought
d. Changing mentalities and conceptions of time
e. Mass culture
f. Youth culture
g. Radio and Photography
Germany.
a. The development of sociology and psychology
b. The fate of phenomenology and neo-kantianism
c. The crisis of scientific knowledge in physics and chemistry
d. Film and film theory
e. Writing and Politics
f. Gender and sexuality
g. Visual art and the development of a socialist avant-garde
Italy
a. Film
b. Visual art
c. Italian socialist academia and political theory
d. Religion and secularism
The Soviet Union
a. Film
b. The struggle for socialist art
c. The development of soviet anthropology and museum culture
d. Soviet literature and poetry
e. The development of Soviet academic institutions
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The Twilight of the European Bourgeoisie: The Western Front in 1919
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
- Pronouns
- He/They
The Twilight of the European Bourgeoisie: The Western Front in 1919
"Whoever has been in these trenches for as long as our infantry, and whoever has not lost his sanity in these hellish attacks, must at least have lost feeling for a lot of things. Too much of the horrific, too much of the incredible has been thrown at our poor chaps. To me it's unbelievable that all that can be tolerated. Our poor little brain simply can't take it all in."
"Many people say the war will never end. I often wonder whether it may not be brought to a finish by the rank and file on both sides deciding to lay down their arms and go home."
"Idealism is dupery. The world belongs to those who don't believe in ideas."
-Anonymous quotes, British and French journalists and soldiers, 1918-1919
"Whoever has been in these trenches for as long as our infantry, and whoever has not lost his sanity in these hellish attacks, must at least have lost feeling for a lot of things. Too much of the horrific, too much of the incredible has been thrown at our poor chaps. To me it's unbelievable that all that can be tolerated. Our poor little brain simply can't take it all in."
"Many people say the war will never end. I often wonder whether it may not be brought to a finish by the rank and file on both sides deciding to lay down their arms and go home."
"Idealism is dupery. The world belongs to those who don't believe in ideas."
-Anonymous quotes, British and French journalists and soldiers, 1918-1919
Planning for the Dammerungoffensive
On December 3rd, 1918, in the wake of the failure of the 2nd Somme offensive, Field Marshall Erich Ludendorff and General Hans von Seeckt embarked on a month-long tour of the 250-mile front stretching from Flanders to Verdun. With an inexhaustible energy that fit uneasily with his portly, phlegmatic countenance, Ludendorff inspected troops, surveyed battlefields, and interrogated generals. Above all, he was drawn to the two new technologies of the war - the airplane and the landship - and started to compile a series of notes on their use. These would become "Battle in the Modern Age", today the standard textbook for mechanized warfare.
In material terms, Germany was outmatched on the battlefield of 1919. It took significantly longer than most expected, but Britain and France had finally mobilized the tremendous resources of their colonial empires. Entente troops outnumbered German ones, and Entente artillery was more accurate and better-supplied than German guns. The latest battlefield innovation, the heavily-armored landship, was developed by the British, and German designs had proven inferior time and again. In the skies, after several years of relative success, new British and French planes had started to outmatch German ones, and bombing runs were consistently employed to terrorize the trench infantry.
Ludendorff's plan for an industrial reorganization of the German economy had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations, but this was still not enough: The Entente war economies had simply outpaced the German one. There was no hope of outproducing the Franco-British coalition. But there was, he believed, a chance of outfighting it.
Ludendorff knew that the British and French would stay in the fight until Paris had fallen. He resolved to wage a final offensive that would marshal all the resources of the German Empire and throw them at a single section of the front. An elite, loyal core of infantry would be trained in the new art of "machine warfare". The German war industries would be retooled to produce the landships and planes necessary to make an "armored spearhead" that would punch through enemy lines in concert with an overwhelming concentration of artillery and air bombardment. Motorcars would be used to resupply the leading units, while the regular army defended their flanks.
The plan was called the Dämmerungsoffensive, literally, "The twilight offensive". In both its conception and details, it straddled the old, 19th-century bourgeois-aristocratic world and 20th mass society. From one perspective, it was the culmination of the entire history of Prussian military thought, with its emphasis on the tactical autonomy of the individual officer, the importance of surprise, and the vital role of movement and speed. It is a cruel irony that the "twilight offensive" was the death knell of Prussia itself, which would be eliminated as a federal unit by the new socialist government.
The twilight offensive was also the logical endpoint of a long tradition of European military thought which was not solely German in origin. On the eve of the Great War, all continental European powers trusted in the doctrine of the "decisive offensive". It was believed that a single, shattering offensive could permanently alter the strategic balance with the sheer weight of its attack. The Schlieffen plan was the manifestation of such thinking, but so too was Joseph Joffre's Plan XVII and the scheme for the Russian invasion of East Prussia. Ludendorff's Dammerungoffensive came closer than any of the others to achieving its objectives, and its failure would be especially bitter.
The twilight offensive was also expressive of what we might call, for lack of a better term, a 19th century mentality. It bore all the marks of the 19th century middle-classes: a preference for the monumental and gargantuan, an obsession with scientific precision and detail, a belief in the use of rational planning to reshape the world, and a conviction that industry could be employed to achieve the ends of society. The twilight offensive was intended to bring about the end of the war, but instead it came to represent the death rattle of the European bourgeoisie.
Planning began in February. The General Staff concluded that it would take at least five months to gather the men and materiel necessary for the idea. In fact, it took eight - the offensive did not begin in July, as initially slated, but in the first week of October. Developments elsewhere delayed it. Turkish capitulation in May forced Germany to direct resources toward an invasion of Greek Macedonia and British-held thrace to keep its Bulgarian ally in the war. Dutch entry lengthened the frontlines and further delayed the operation until capitulation was achieved.
Meanwhile, the situation at the front was anything but static. The declining defensive value of the trenches meant that even limited offensives had better prospects than ever. While some in the Entente wished to simply hunker down until Germany exhausted itself, the new British government under Churchill adopted a strategy of "active attrition", forcing the Germans to fight battles that would degrade their army's capacities to engage in future offensives. With Britain's vast superiority in army intelligence, it was impossible for the German general staff to hide its preparations for the future offensive.
After three months of relative quiet, in April new battles broke out all along the front. Unlike much previous fighting, this was a seemingly spontaneous paroxysm of violence, which occurred without the active direction of the general staff. The Lille section of the front had never fully stabilized, and an initial German push toward the outskirts of the city was repelled at great cost by a French counterattack. In the Somme, some of the first mass landship battles of the war occurred as the elite soldiers of Ludendorff's "Imperial Corps" got their first hands-on training in this new form of warfare. Only a relatively small number of the infamous "Eagle AV8 Landships" were deployed in this battle, and mechanical problems rendered them ineffective in combat. By the end of the fighting, neither side had gained a strategic advantage, though much more land had been exchanged than in any of the previous fighting. The Germans once again pushed into Mondidier and stood at the gates of Amiens, though their defensive lines further south on the Aisne river had been breached, forcing them to retreat north, away from Rheims and toward the towns of Laon and Coucy. Further east, they successfully pushed British soldiers down the Meuse.
Frontlines at the end of April 1919 in Northeastern France
The final plan for the Twilight Offensive was one of the most detailed of the war. Dozens of carefully timed attacks would occur along a 58-mile section of the front stretching from Montdidier to Arras. The initial assault would begin toward Amiens from Montdidier, but this would be a feint which only used a fraction of Ludendorff's forces. The main attack would happen two to five days later, when the Entente transferred their reserves to defend Amiens. This blow would come north of the Somme, from the town of Thiepval. The core of Ludendorff's elite forces, under the command of August von Mackensen, would assault French lines with landships, while the majority of the air force would be concentrated in the sector to provide local air superiority. The drive would be coordinated to appear to center on Amiens, a city which had immense symbolic value in France. Instead, the offensive would thrust further west, continuing along the northern side of the Somme River and only crossing it midway between Amiens and Abbeville. This maneuver, along with a simultaneous assault on Arras, was intended to give the impression of a Cannae-like encirclement of the Entente forces in Flanders, Calais, and Lille.
Ludendorff had no intention of capturing Abbeville and seizing the Flanders Ports; he desired to win the war in 1919, which he thought could only be accomplished by capturing Paris. This is why a large reserve force, the remainder of the German landship units, was to sit in reserve in the town of Noyon. The decision to keep this elite, expensive force out of the preliminary fighting was an immensely risky gamble. Ludendorff believed that once the Somme was crossed and Abbeville was in sight, the Entente reserves would be pulled back from Montdidier, allowing this force, to be commanded by Hans von Seeckt, to punch through the lines toward Beauvais, threatening an encirclement of Amiens. With Beauvais captured and the French lines broken, the entire army would proceed south, approaching Paris and seizing the city before the Entente could regroup.
With its multiple axis of advance, feinting attacks, and staggered assaults, the offensive was intended to confuse and overwhelm the enemy. In some sectors, poison gas was to be used; in others, so-called "Dummy gas" would be employed, which had the same aroma and appearance, but no effect on soldiers. Assaults would proceed in some areas without the customary artillery barrage, whereas in others shelling would go on for days without an attack ever coming. Captured British soldiers were to be sent back to the front, unharmed, to bewilder and befuddle their comrades.
Trench-Socialism, Soldier's Councils, and the Rise of Military Dissent
Before discussing this final battle of the Great War, we must consider the situation of the European soldier, as well as the limited offensives launched by the British Army in July and August. Both of these had a coequal part to play in determining the fate of the twilight offensive; the former, because of the effect on German morale, and the latter, because of the crucial role of the attritional battles in degrading the offensive capacity of the German Army.
Changing attitudes among soldiers is still an understudied subject. While it is clear that by November 1919 the average soldier's conception of the war and its causes was very different than five or even two years ago, the precise evolution in feelings and value-orientations is difficult to track because of the prevalence of wartime censorship. For obvious reasons, monitoring revolutionary sentiments is particularly difficult.
One reliable indicator of systemic discontent is the rise of the secret, anti-war newspapers. The "soldier's paper" had been an institution since the beginning of the war. Like other media, it was subject to wartime censorship; though the tone and content of the articles was designed to appeal to its soldierly audience, descriptions of the war and its meaning usually did not meaningfully differ from more mainstream publications. At first, censors were somewhat astounded at the degree to which soldiers' own descriptions of the war matched those of the newspapers. For a time, this media clearly influenced the common infantryman's understanding of the war, which was oriented around notions of duty and patriotism.
Sometime in late 1916, soldiers, particularly French ones, ceased to write about the war in the high-minded language of patriotic idealism. Yet save the exceptional case of Russia, overwhelmingly the new attitude was one of begrudging acceptance, not open revolt. Soldiers who did complain did so in response to local conditions, and only infrequently targeted the war itself as the problem. The shift from a language of idealism and duty to one of acceptance and pragmatism demonstrated a change in the understanding of the war, but did not necessarily signal a withdrawal of consent.
In studying the changing mentalite' of the soldiers, recent sociological research has focused on the role of small, intensely bonded groups of soldiers, typically consisting of between four and seven men. These were the smallest meaningful social unit at the front, typically composed of infantrymen who had been fighting together for years on end. Their expertise in survival and experience in battle endowed them with more social power than newer recruits, as did their participating in tight-knit networks. Soldiers who remained loyal in 1918, a year of growing mutiny and discontent, often explained their decision by referencing their closest friends and comrades.
These groups and the connections between them also constituted the embryonic form of the soldier's council. While they imposed expectations on members to demonstrate bravery and elan in battle, their high levels of trust also permitted frank discussions of matters that were deemed seditious by military censors. Oral testimony indicates that skepticism of the war was already widespread in 1918, though at the time, much of the conversation in these small groups was not necessarily ideological or socialist in character, cutting against the theory that it was the presence of newly conscripted revolutionary workers which radicalized the armies. On many occasions, elites were blamed for the war and the condition of the soldiers without their precise identity being specified, and ordinary civilians at the homefront often came in for as much abuse as politicians and businessmen.
This inchoate discontent began crystallizing into a more clearly delineated oppositional ideology in 1919. The secret newspaper was instrumental in shaping broadly felt sentiments into a coherent, political worldview. The basic contours of trench-socialism were well-articulated by these propaganda outlets, and oral testimony, uncensored letters, and soldier's diaries from the period all reflect its perspective.
Like its councilist and anarcho-syndicalist cousins, trench-socialism was one of many strands of social radicalism that emerged during the Great War. Its specific presuppositions and values were shaped by the outlook of the men who developed it and came to believe it was the most plausible description of their reality. The adherents of trench-socialism were soldiers who had been psychically and physically brutalized for years on end, and who shared an ethic of self-sacrifice, bravery, and manly camaraderie. The soldier radical counterposed the virtue of the suffering, spartan common infantryman with the decadence of the wealthy civilian and detached officer; against the soft, nationalist myth-making of the domestic propagandist was placed the universal, common struggle of the soldiers of all nations, who shared their plight together. A romanticization of masculine sacrifice persisted, but so too did a pacifist condemnation of the war, particularly of the leaders who had started and now chose to continue it. Perhaps the most abiding affect of trench-socialism was a sentiment of aggrievement and anger toward the "the unholy trio of Clemenceau, Ludendorff, and Churchill", who were frequently depicted fraternizing together over the corpses of the fallen. The language of violent confrontation toward the existing order was pervasive, but so too was the seemingly utopian hope of "laying down our arms and living once more as men".
The soldier radicals did not necessarily have a developed understanding of capitalism. Many had never worked in a factory, having come from rural or even middle-class backgrounds. Their political imagination was transfixed by the notion of the soldier's councils, and the slogan of "a world made and ruled by the common man". They did frequently show solidarity with the workers back home; in 1919, there were many incidents of entire platoons going on "strike" following the suppression of labor action, an occurrence that invariably fed the anxieties of the officer and political class.
By all accounts, the secret newspapers soared in circulation in 1919. Military police and intelligence played a cat-and-mouse game trying to determine their publishers, but inevitably a different paper popped up whenever a previous one was shut down. The proliferation of the newspapers and other subversive materials created an atmosphere of mistrust between soldiers and officers. It is likely that the number of soldiers who had knowledge of the publications but refused to comment on them was astronomically higher than those who actively read them. At a certain point, it became a point of dishonor to rat out one's comrades to the officers, even if one did not share their political convictions. Over just the month of May, there were over thirty reported killings in the French Army in which the target was chosen because of the suspicion that he informed on his fellow soldiers. Even more common was beating and informal social ostracization.
Distrust and tension contributed to a hardening of attitudes amongst officers and military police. A tightening noose of censorship was met with ever-expanding smuggling networks, frequently run by demobilized soldiers and socialist radicals. An atmosphere of pervasive suspicion and lurid conspiracy played a large role in the soldier's revolt in November, but so did a very real increase in the incidence of brutal and often humiliating punishments.
Over time, a series of counter-institutions evolved which ran parallel to the traditional, hegemonic military order. The secret newspaper was one of these; it did not simply serve as an outlet of propaganda, but also as a source of trustworthy, uncensored reporting. Anonymous "letters-to-the-editor" offered soldiers a means to air their complaints to a broader collective, while editorials and the responses to them stimulated the formation of a revolutionary consensus.
The trench newspaper was only one of these so-called "interstitial" institutions which paved the way for a new social order. Equally important was the formation of soldier's councils. Though these were not as widespread in the armed forces as on the homefront, this is likely owed more to the difficulty in coordinating meetings under military discipline than to a dearth of discontent among soldiers. This movement was broadest in France, where the memory of the mutinies of 1918 prompted the election of secret delegates who would represent soldiers in the event of another rebellion. The sheer extent of the French councils and the persistence of patriotic feelings among some soldiers made it fairly easy to find and arrest the revolutionary delegates. This accounts for the extraordinary number of French military arrests in 1919. The German council movement was smaller, more ideological, and significantly more tightly-knit. It bore more of a resemblance to the clandestine council movement at home, with a much higher percentage of its participants being socialist radicals.
Among British soldiers, the wild popularity of the secret newspaper was not matched by the growth of a council movement. There were "discussion societies" that formed, but these did not elect delegates, though they did present demands to the army brass for better living conditions and rations. The relatively conciliatory British attitude toward the discussion societies likely slowed their radicalization. One British soldier remarked that "everyone read the socialist newspapers, everyone dabbled in socialism, but only a few of us really became socialists."
Matters proceeded differently among the dominion troops. Here, there was a much greater degree of radicalization. Stories are common of soldiers from Canada and Australia joining French ones in their soldier's councils. Antiwar sentiment was rampant, though it was frequently expressed in Republican-liberal as well as socialist forms. Anti-censorship campaigns and mutinies were particularly common, as well as letter-writing to national politicians. In February 1919 alone, Canadians on the western front addressed over 4,000 letters to the Duke of Devonshire, urging him to quit the war and make an honorable peace. The vast majority of these never reached their intended recipient.
Among colonial soldiers, there was repeated frustration with racism and poor living conditions. Curiously, most of the colonial soldiers - especially British ones - did not voice the same degree of antiwar sentiment as their white peers. The racism of many ordinary British and French soldiers prevented them from including the colonials in the soldier's councils, and they had less access to the smuggling networks which ferried in secret newspapers and other agitational literature. That being said, most of the colonial soldiers, particularly Indian ones, had some knowledge of the repression that occurred in British India at the time. They were conscious, too, of their absolutely vital role at the front. In March 1919, they recognized a group of around a dozen leaders to represent their complaints to the British Army: these included unequal pay, censorship of newspapers and letters, poor living conditions, and "the repression of our national brethren in India." The spread of nationalistic feeling clearly alarmed the British high command, who arrested the entire body of Indian leaders. There were some marginal improvements made thereafter to the rations and pay of Indian soldiers, but as a whole, the British response radicalized rather than pacified colonial discontent.
The British Summer Offensives
In British military history, there are few campaigns more debated than the so-called "Summer Offensives" of 1919. To its admirers, the campaign prevented an outright German victory in the coming Dammerungoffensive and halted the arrival of German hegemony in Europe. To its detractors, it radicalized the already exhausted British Army, frayed the bonds which held together the Empire, and prepared the ground for the evacuation from the European continent in November. There is some truth to both of these judgements.
The summer offensive was initially slated to begin in early August. The British knew of Ludendorff's expansive plans, though not of all its details. Increased orders of Swedish iron and the retooling of German factories were clear indications of a sharp increase in German tank production. Churchill and the new commander of the British Western Theater, Edmund Allenby, devised a preventative, attritional attack that would exhaust the German forces before they could pose a credible threat to Paris. The plan was to launch a series of concentric assaults along the German salient running from Achiet to Coucy. Driving the Germans back would force any "Dammerungoffensive" to travel much longer before reaching Paris.
In May, Dutch entry into the war prompted the British to expedite the plan. With the German lines now further stretched, a unique opportunity for an offensive presented itself. It was hoped that launching the attack would divert German soldiers from the attack on the Netherlands, and allow the Dutch to halt the inevitable assault on Fortress Holland. Eventually, reserves in the Middle East and India could be directed to shore up the dutch lines. There was some thought given to redirecting British soldiers currently in France, but this proved to be a political impossibility.
The offensive began on June 5th with attacks toward Cambrai and Noyon. For several weeks, the British made steady progress toward their objectives. They were limited more by the morale of their own soldiers than German strength in the area. Cambrai fell on June 21st, enraging Ludendorff, who finally made the decision to throw a significant tank force into the battle. By this point, most of the mechanical issues of the new "Eagle AV8" had been hammered out. The force was still a small one, but the extraordinary speed and agility of the German tanks dumbfounded the British defenders, and Cambrai was retaken on the 23rd. Further German counteroffensives in the area were finally halted on the 29th, near the initial battle lines. The German landships were extremely vulnerable to artillery fire, and were badly outmatched in direct battles with the more heavily armored Entente machines.
At this point, most British historians believe that the assault should have been stopped. Many British military officers felt similarly. The decision to press on, made primarily by Churchill, meant that reserves were directed to the more successful attack in the south, which had taken Coucy, Laon, and was now advancing toward Ribemont and the Oise river. The possibility of rolling up the German lines to the northwest was too tempting for Churchill to pass up, but in truth the British simply did not have the military advantage in the theater to press home the attack. Over July, the 2nd battle of the Oise led to over 250,000 imperial casualties. Most of these were not British soldiers, who had already been dedicated to the Cambrai attack, but Indian, Canadian, and Australian troops. July 24th, the day that brought an end to the battle, is today considered a national holiday in both Canada and Australia.
German casualties in the fight were only slightly smaller. This time, Ludendorff did not commit either his landship force or his planes, and employed the Austrian expeditionary force to shore up the lines. German losses were nonetheless significant; the blows suffered by the Duetsches Heer prompted Ludendorff to delay the Dammerungoffensive another month, until October.
Churchill undoubtedly succeeded in weakening the German Army, though he nearly caused a revolt in his own. Absenteeism and disobedience skyrocketed among both Dominion and Colonial troops. The failure of the offensive to break through German lines and regain sizable French territories led to a chronic crisis of confidence amongst British soldiers. Even those loyal to King and Country no longer understood how the war could be won. Dominion troops issued a series of anonymous letters promising that any future offensive would lead to mutiny. Indian ones began defecting en masse to the German lines, alarming British officers. In August, there were increasing reports of letters, trinkets, and other paraphernalia being exchanged between the soldiers of the two warring blocs. The smuggling networks were beginning to stretch through no man's land.
The crisis of confidence did not only impact soldiers. Dominion politicians began to indefinitely delay sending more troops to the European continent. In England, the Labor Party and Haldane's radical liberals committed to a general strike, prompting a pre-emptive crackdown on trade union activists. Bengal, Punjab, and the traditionally quiescent princely provinces erupted in protest. Workers and intellectuals demanded the return of Indian troops and the immediate devolution of British administration to Indians. Over two dozen imperial soldiers died in clashes with rioting workers. All across the British Empire, there were signs of unrest and agitation. The first revolutionary era approached as a new world struggled to break loose from the confines of the old.
- Location
- Fort Worth, TX
I hate to ask but how many Irish have died during this, especially the 'pal battalions'?
DracoDracul
Transbian Communist
- Location
- Austin
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- She/They
I've binged this over the last few days. Taft's running mate being such a non-entity as to have no wikipeida page is a nice touch.
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- Norfolk, England
Proof positive that the German High Command has no clue what it's doing; who on Earth makes a tank and gives it the designation "Eagle Aviate"?!
Aw yeah, now we're cooking with gas!
Something tells me we're not gonna get to see if the Damn Offensive works...
DracoDracul
Transbian Communist
- Location
- Austin
- Pronouns
- She/They
You just know that drives a certain type of Military History need mad. Every 6 months, like clockwork, Entante4Evah and Ludendorff#1 have a 30 page debate over which side would have won "The Twilight Offensive" several milhist forums have it as a banned topic.
- Location
- Australia
Great chapter loved it.
250k colonial casualties is like empire ending bad figures. For comparison the entire WW1 colonial casualty figures were 370k wounded 181k killed. This is half an entire wars casualties in a week in an environment where IRL the Canadian government had resorted to shooting 150 of its own civilians in draft riots and the Australian Prime Minister had been expelled from his Labor Party for being too pro conscription.
Frankly 150k deaths over the course of the war for Canada or Australia would be socially unacceptable as mid tier colonies of 5-7 million people they don't have the capacity to die in droves for the mother country.
ANZAC day going from IRL an amazingly well run retreat to the most bloody of pyrrhic of victories is sufficiently poetic though.
Gotta hand Churchill this he's managed to preside over a bigger fuck up than Gallipoli with even worse consequences. With the 250k casualties amongst (presumably) colonial troops the dominions balking at sending more troops is the least worse outcome for this utterly hollow the victory was. Not only that but Indian soldiers defecting en masse because they don't want to be used as cannon fodder probably isn't helping entente (or central powers) morale. I kind of wonder what role these defectors are going to play in the german revolution.
Oh no its way worse. Canada's population pre-WW1 was just under 8 million while Australia's was around 4 million. Canada might be able to take a hit but Australia? They really can't take the number of casualties TTL's WW1 is bringing in without risking a complete population collapse.
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
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- He/They
Not many. After the beginning of the Irish War of Independence in February, most of the Irish soldiers on the western front were disarmed and "detained" in Britain.
For those curious about the precise breakdown of casualties:
90,000 British soldiers
70,000 Indian soldiers
45,000 Australian soldiers
40,000 Canadian soldiers
10,000 Kiwi/New Zealender soldiers
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To clarify here, you're using casualties to mean casualties and not killed, right?
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
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- He/They
Yes, I am!
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I feel like there's going to be a real risk for both Canada and Australia of, like, injured and PTSD soldiers to cause the kinds of... er, problems that soldiers caused in Italy, Germany, and France.
Though at least so far we don't see any hints of the strange Soldier-y Fascism that declares that actually the real highest and greatest victory was the PTSD we got along the way (as several factions and groupings seemed to believe OTL, and the partial inspiration for my idea of Kasernism), as compared to Trench Socialism.
...though admittedly it's actually not that hard to imagine Trench Socialism potentially becoming Trench Fascism in the right conditions, tbh?
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Gladsome
VOULL NE XATA VOK, MARA LOHK?
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Yeah it seems very vibes based among most of its practitioners which could be dangerous - of course, it's also a heavily pacifist movement which might counterbalance fascist impulses.
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The solidarity with the workers is going to be the key thing, since otherwise you can go, "It is us against the weak civilians that have brought us to this place." Imagine or dream of the idea of Soldiers' Councils running the country or something like that.
DracoDracul
Transbian Communist
- Location
- Austin
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- She/They
Oh so a full percent of the Australian population were were injured or killed duong this operation.
Bisexual-Mart
Far from the shallow ground
- Location
- The Great State of Warshington
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- He/Him
The image of TTL Australia becoming something akin to OTL Uruguay after the Chaco War of 1870 is something pretty interesting.
Does this mean that Australia is going to temporarily legalize polygamy to boost the birthrate? Now I have the image of some bushranger with 2 wives and 12 children.
Does this mean that Australia is going to temporarily legalize polygamy to boost the birthrate? Now I have the image of some bushranger with 2 wives and 12 children.
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- Australia
The May 1919 update teased that either the Irish Civil War had either kicked off 3 years early or the War of Independence is going so well they can afford to fight their civil war at the same time. So any pal battalions that weren't immediately arrested are probably busy either burning down County Cork or playing whack a mole with the Black and Tans. Ironically being pulled out of the meat grinder to go murder civilians/sit in jail would probably result in less military deaths for the Irish.
The Anthem of the German Socialist Republic
Curby
recovering analytic philosopher, still sensitive
- Location
- Most Serene Republic of Unwashed Brooklyn
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- He/They
The Anthem of the German Socialist Republic
Adopted June 19th, 1920
Translated into English by Maynard Krueger
BackgroundAdopted June 19th, 1920
Translated into English by Maynard Krueger
The anthem of the German Socialist Republic is an adaptation of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", originally written by Schiller. Typically, the song is played to the accompaniment to the music from the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony. Because the German version of The Internationale is also widely played at national holidays and ceremonies, it is often considered a "co-anthem" of the DSR. The lyrics, jointly written by a commission of over a dozen different artists, express the utopian hopes of the first revolutionary era. Notably, the references to a Christian God are replaced with a religious-humanist language of faith in the power of man to remake the world.
Musical Reference
View: https://youtu.be/dHDXdbSWu0E
Ode to Man
Man, blessed child of nature,
can you feel it in your breast?
With fiery rapture upon the mind,
we long for gentle brotherhood.
We join our wills to reunite;
what custom strictly divided;
All men will become brothers,
upon the completion of our work.
Let the solder with the fortune;
to make his enemy a friend,
and the worker standing for his right;
join in our chorus of jubilation.
Yes, even if he has just embraced
the call of human brotherhood.
But let the man who knows not of this;
be cast from this sacred union.
All nature's creatures cherish
The simple joy of comradeship.
All the just, all the evil
Rest their head on another.
Kisses she gave all and grapevines,
A friend through life and death.
But to man alone the task
To build ourselves a future.
Gladly, shall we embark,
to complete our cherished plan.
Go on, brothers, to the way,
The final victory is at hand!
Be embraced, Millions!
The kiss to all the world!
Friends, in every human breast
There must dwell a human faith
Are you collapsing, millions?
Do you sense the new world arriving?
Seek it within your brother!
In him does our future dwell
Man, blessed child of nature,
can you feel it in your breast?
With fiery rapture upon the mind,
we long for gentle brotherhood.
We join our wills to reunite;
what custom strictly divided;
All men will become brothers,
upon the completion of our work.
Let the solder with the fortune;
to make his enemy a friend,
and the worker standing for his right;
join in our chorus of jubilation.
Yes, even if he has just embraced
the call of human brotherhood.
But let the man who knows not of this;
be cast from this sacred union.
All nature's creatures cherish
The simple joy of comradeship.
All the just, all the evil
Rest their head on another.
Kisses she gave all and grapevines,
A friend through life and death.
But to man alone the task
To build ourselves a future.
Gladly, shall we embark,
to complete our cherished plan.
Go on, brothers, to the way,
The final victory is at hand!
Be embraced, Millions!
The kiss to all the world!
Friends, in every human breast
There must dwell a human faith
Are you collapsing, millions?
Do you sense the new world arriving?
Seek it within your brother!
In him does our future dwell
Last edited:
PrognosticHannya
Far Too Enthusiastic About Etymology
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