Considering that she's the single most-decorated female soldier in world military history, a grizzled seven-year veteran of three wars fought across two continents, a two-time recipient of her country's highest award for military bravery, and a poor farm girl who single-handedly captured at least fifty enemy combatants and two enemy trenches during her career, there's not a whole lot of digital ink on the Internet dedicated to Sergeant Milunka Savic that isn't printed in a language with so many consonants and accent marks that it looks like someone fell asleep on the keyboard with their character map open.
There should be.
Milunka Savic was born in Koprivnica, Serbia, some time in either 1888 or 1889, depending on whether you're down with the Gregorian Calendar or if you're still hung up on that Julian Calendar bullshit. We don't know much about her early life in this tiny rural mountain village, except that in 1912, at the age of 24, she got bored of her regular life, chopped off all her hair, dressed in men's clothing, and volunteered for the Serbian Army to help fight the First Balkan War and drive the Ottoman Turkish Empire out of Europe forever on a tsunami of bullets and brain matter.
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Pvt. Savic barely had time to swap the dried blood from her rifle before the Second Balkan War was on like Donkey Kong, and once again this estrogenocidal kicker of other peoples' nutsacks was back out on the front lines lobbing grenades with reckless abandon like the Ikari Warriors or a tennis ball machine juryrigged by the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.
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The Second Balkan War ended in 1913, but even more nasty shit went down in Sarajevo Town on June 28, 1914, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire's Archduke Franz Ferdinand - a man famous solely for his ability to be shot to death - was assassinated by a Serbian Anarchist named Gavrilo Princip. [...] Long story short, Austria-Hungary was pissed, and they invaded Serbia. Serbia was allies with the United States, England, France, and Russia, and Austria-Hungary was friends with the Turks and the German Empire, and the next thing you know you've got World War I on your hands and the Austro-Hungarian Empire is marching half a million jackbooted Teutonic goons with stupid hats and large rifles across the Serbian border to turn their entire country into a flaming inferno.
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Sergeant Milunka Savic, commander of the Iron Regiment's Assault Bomber Squad, charged into the Battle of the Kolubara River armed with her Mosin-Nagant rifle and three bandoliers of hand grenades - one across each shoulder and one worn across her waist like a belt. She single-handedly assaulted an Austrian trench, rushing across No Man's Land (I feel like there's an Eowyn / Return of the King joke to be made here) hurling grenades out like Mardi Gras beads and blasting the fuck out of everything around her, then diving feet-first into an Austrian bunker with her bayonet at the ready. Inside, she found 20 men, all of whom threw their weapons down and surrendered to her. Once those POWs were secured, she continued on, dropping bombs like a Predator Drone and smoking enemy machine gun nests from distances so impressive that from this day forth her nickname was "The Bomber of Kolubara", stopping only when an enemy artillery shell landed next to her and planted a couple pieces of shrapnel in her head. For her exploits on the battlefield, Savic received the Karadjordje Star with Swords, the highest award for bravery offered by the Kingdom of Serbia, and the battle was such a success that the Serbs pushed the Austrians out of Serbia completely. They didn't return for 10 months.
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But the war was going badly for Serbia, and with the vengeful Bulgarians and Austrians burning Serb cities the Serbian Army evacuated as many civilians as they could and began a long, brutal fighting withdrawal through the knee-deep snow drifts and snow-covered mountains of Montenegro, Albania, and Kosovo as they withdrew to the coast. Milunka Savic was wounded seven more times during this fighting retreat (bringing her total wounds to nine!) as she and her people desperately attempted to evacuate tens of thousands of civilians and save the core of her army.
When she reached the coast and was evacuated by French and British warships, she was one of just 125,000 soldiers left in the Serbian Army.
The Serbian Army withdrew to Corfu, then Greece, where they joined up with the French Army and continued the war against the Turks and Krauts and other assorted villainy. Serving in the Serbian Brigade of the French Army, Sergeant Savic continued commanding the Assault Bomber Squad, fought through the rest of the war, ended up on the front page of some European Newspapers, and ended up winning enough awards from her service that her ribbon board weighed roughly the same as a suit of medieval plate armor. She received the French Legion d'Honneur twice, the Russian Cross of St. George (awarded for "undaunted courage by a non-commissioned officer), the British Medal of the Order of St. Michael, the Serbian Milos Obilic Medal, and was the only woman from World War I to receive the French Croix de Guerre (the highest bravery award they have).
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After the war ended and Serbia was liberated, Milunka Savic declined an offer from the French government to move her to Paris and put her up with a nice pension, instead opting to return to her homeland. She got married, had a kid, got a job at a bank, and adopted three children who had been orphaned by the war. When the Germans came through Belgrade during the Second World War in 1940, Savic refused an invitation to attend a banquet held in honor of the city's New German Overlords - a feat that got her a ten-month stint in Banjica Concentration Camp. She survived that as well, however, and after the war she was offered a state pension for being such a ridiculousy-hardcore war hero.
Milunka Savic, the world's most decorated female war hero, died in Belgrade on October 5, 1973, at the age of 84. She was buried in a famous cemetery there with full military honors.
Fonte:
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=97717212284
Mais:
http://vimeo.com/108887012
O Almirantado discutia a estratégia a ser empregada contra a poderosa Frota do Alto-Mar alemã sediada na parte sul do mar do Norte e contra os esquadrões de cruzadores que a Marinha alemã estacionara no estrangeiro - especialmente no Mediterrâneo e no Pacífico.
O bloqueio observacional foi abandonado um mês antes da deflagração da guerra. Em seu lugar adotou-se o "bloqueio a distância", planejado para controlar as saídas do mar do norte. Isto era possível devido à posição geográfica das ilhas Britânicas, colocadas como um quebra-mar entre as passagens que conduzem dos portos alemães e bases navais no Báltico e no mar do Norte aos oceanos. O plano britânico determinava que a frota do canal estacionada principalmente nos portos do estuário do Tâmisa, em Dover e Portsmouth, fechasse o canal da Mancha, enquanto a muito mais poderosa Grande Esquadra ficaria sediada em Scapa Flow, nos Orkneys e colocaria no mar uma linha de cruzadores ou navios mercantes armados (chamada patrulha do Norte) para vigiar as águas distantes e tormentosas entre as ilhas Shetlands, a Noruega e a Islândia. Tal era, em breve resumo, o plano de bloqueio naval que foi levado a cabo em agosto de 1914.
O Almirantado esperava que a resposta do inimigo ao bloqueio britânico tomasse a forma de um ataque ao comércio marítimo, como nas guerras anteriores, usando cruzadores e navios mercantes armados. Este era um tipo de guerra naval perfeitamente legal, sujeito às regras incorporadas pela convenção de Haia no que diz respeito à segurança das tripulações dos navios mercantes capturados. E de fato os atacantes alemães de superfície mostraram humanidade na observância dessas regras. Antes da guerra o Comitê Imperial de Defesa examinara as medidas necessárias para manter o tráfico [tráfego] marítimo em andamento, apesar das possibilidades de captura. A Convenção determinou que o Estado deveria receber 80% dos prêmios necessários para cobrir os riscos de guerra dos navios mercantes e responsabilizar-se por 80% das perdas. Contudo, de início, o Tesouro não estava disposto a aceitar tal intrusão no campo da iniciativa privada e o esquema de Seguro dos Riscos da Guerra não entrou em vigor até o início da guerra.
A 20 de novembro de 1914 um pequeno navio mercante britânico foi afundado por um submarino alemão no mar do Norte e a tripulação foi deixada em botes - o que era contrário à convenção de Haia. Outros afundamentos por submarinos vieram em seguida. Isso introduziu um elemento inteiramente novo no ataque alemão ao comércio - para o qual a Marinha Real estava completamente despreparada. As implicações deste fato foram muito sérias. No dia 11 de março de 1915, o governo britânico emitiu uma Ordem ao Conselho, normalmente conhecida como "Ordem para Represálias", já que fora emitida "em represália" ao uso ilegal dos submarinos. Declarava que os bens destinados à Alemanha poderiam ser apreendidos, mesmo que estivessem sendo conduzidos para um porto neutro.
Os países neutros e especialmente os Estados Unidos protestaram, considerando o gesto uma interferência com o que consideravam um comércio legítimo e sem dúvida altamente lucrativo. Os Estados Unidos nunca modificaram sua posição de que a Ordem para Represálias era ilegal - até sua entrada na guerra. Mas a razão verdadeira para a ordem era que o governo britânico sabia que os países escandinavos e a Holanda estavam importando quantidades muito maiores de bens da lista de contrabando britânica do que faziam antes da guerra. Obviamente o excesso estava sendo passado para a Alemanha. Desse modo, os serviços de transporte marítimo estavam substituindo a frota mercante alemã, a esta altura imobilizada. As falhas de bloqueio através da Itália nunca foram sérias e, quando ela entrou na guerra ao lado dos aliados, em maio de 1915, desapareceram completamente. O mesmo não acontecia com a Holanda e os países escandinavos, que conseguiam passar grande quantidade de mercadorias. Não foi fácil interromper este tráfico.
As dificuldades com os países neutros tornaram-se agudas. Os navios interceptados ficavam sujeitos a longos atrasos e algumas vezes eram afundados enquanto navios britânicos os conduziam para inspeção. Depois da guerra o governo britânico pagou o valor total das mercadorias mais 5% de juros por todos os navios afundados nessas circunstâncias. O governo britânico tinha que agir com moderação e cautela, devido às susceptibilidades dos países neutros. Isso se aplicava muito especialmente aos Estados Unidos, onde os grupos de pressão contrários aos britânicos eram poderosos e barulhentos.
A resposta alemã ao endurecimento do bloqueio britânico consistiu em declarar todas as águas em volta das ilhas Britânicas, a partir de 4 de fevereiro de 1915, "zona de guerra". Qualquer navio poderia ser afundado nessa zona, sem qualquer aviso prévio. Começou então a campanha submarina sem restrições. Ela durou até agosto, quando o aumento dos protestos dos países neutros levou o governo alemão a ordenar o retorno a métodos menos flagrantemente ilegais.
O bloqueio comercial da Alemanha ganhou em importância a partir do impasse na frente ocidental.
Os britânicos demonstraram grande talento nas pressões que exerceram para reprimir essas atividades. Era possível à Grã-Bretanha privar os navios de carvão e outros suprimentos essenciais, já que os depósitos de carvão em muitos portos estrangeiros eram controlados pelos britânicos. O fato da maior parte dos negócios bancários e de seguro estar situada em Londres permitia recusar crédito e seguro às firmas que não estivessem acima de suspeitas. O controle britânico sobre a maioria das comunicações mundiais por telégrafo e cabo submarino tornou improvável que negócios com a Alemanha e seus aliados pudessem ser ocultados por muito tempo. E, por fim, se um navio partisse com uma carga ilícita, o Almirantado seria chamado para interceptá-lo. Se a marinha britânica conseguisse alcançá-lo, quase certamente sua carga seria apreendida.
Mas o Ministério do Bloqueio não trabalhou apenas para impedir o embarque de carregamentos para o inimigo. As importações das nações neutras foram racionadas com severidade crescente, de modo a não ultrapassarem os totais anteriores à guerra. Bens que eram particularmente vitais ao esforço de guerra inimigo, tais como minerais especiais (tungstênio, por exemplo) usados na manufatura de armas e chapas blindadas, foram controlados através da compra preventiva de todo o estoque disponível.
Certamente os alemães não aceitaram de braços cruzados a escalada das medidas aliadas com relação ao bloqueio e em março de 1916 eles recomeçaram a campanha submarina sem restrições.
Embora suas Forças Armadas ainda não tivessem sofrido demasiadamente, já que tinham a prioridade para todos os suprimentos disponíveis, as condições da população civil estavam começando a se deteriorar seriamente. As colheitas tinham sido más em 1915 e 1916, especialmente devido à falta de fertilizantes importados. Os territórios conquistados na Europa Oriental não tinham conseguido substituir os suprimentos vindos do além-mar. Os produtores domésticos de alimentos estavam retendo sua produção ou vendendo-a no mercado negro. O valor calórico da ração civil vinha caindo constantemente e a escassez de roupa tornava-se cada vez mais aguda. Com a aproximação do inverno de 1917 - que seria lembrado na Alemanha como o "Inverno do Nabo" - as perspectivas pareciam extremamente sombrias.
Fonte:
http://www.grandesguerras.com.br/artigos/text01.php?art_id=147
THE VOICE OF RUSSIA
6 December 2013
The Battle of Galicia
The Battle of Galicia took place during the early stages of the World War I and became one of its most dreadful battles. From August 5th to September 8th of 1914 the Russian army fought relentlessly for the freedom of its Motherland.
The Battle of Galicia has started with the two separate military operations - the Lublin-Cholm and the Galich-Lvov. General Nikolai Ivanov, the Russian commander of the Southwest Front, was expecting an Austro-Hungarian offensive in eastern direction.
"Four Russian armies and four Austro-Hungarian armies participated in the operation. The latter were led by Archduke Friedrich and chief-of-staff Conrad von Hötzendorf. The German forces fought under the command of general Remus von Woyrsch. The opposing sides had about equal amount of soldiers. The total number of troops reached two million, says Konstantin Pahaluk, leading researcher for the Russian Military-Historical Society.
"It was one of the major front-line operations of the First World War. Each party had about one million soldiers and officers but the battle ended with the severe defeat of the Austro-Hungarian army. They suffered 400,000 casualties against 300,000 that the Russian forces lost. Some 100,000 prisoners were taken by Russians. The operation revealed the great leadership abilities of the Russian commanders such as general Alexeev, general Sakharov, general Brusilov and general Lechitzky. It also demonstrated the skills of Russian officers and ordinary soldiers who surpassed the servicemen of the enemy. It is important to mention the high morale of the Russian troops after defeating the Austro-Hungarian army, which is especially significant given the fact that the army wasn't ethnically common and some of the Slavic divisions had gone over to the Russian side,"Konstantin Pahaluk said.
According to the plans of the Austrian commandership, the attack was supposed to start at the region of Lublin and Cholm. The operation was carried out by the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army under Viktor Dankl and 4th Army under general von Auffenberg. They were supported by the Army group of general Kummer and the German corps of general von Woyrsch.
On the left flank of the Southwestern Front the Galich-Lvov operation started. On the right flank of the Austrian forces the 3rd Army of general Rudolf Brudermann and the Army group of general Kövess positioned, says Oleg Chistyakov, the head of the scientific department of the Russian State Military-Historical Archive.
"In accordance with the prewar plan, two fronts were created - the Northwestern front against East Prussia and Germany, and the Southwestern front against Austro-Hungary and Galicia. General Zhilinsky commanded the Northwestern Front and general Ivanov was in charge of the Southwestern front. The first front consisted of the armies of general Rennenkampf and general Samsonov. They approached in the direction of Koenigsberg. At first, Russian troops carried the palm - the first army defeated Germans in the battle of Gusev, the troops led by Samsonov triumphed too, but, unfortunately, in the chaos of the combat, the 13th and the 15th corps of the army had been surrounded by the enemy and forced to capitulate," Oleg Chistyakov said.
The crushing defeat of Samsonov's army in East Prussia gave German troops the opportunity to advance in the Southern direction towards the Austro-Hungarian forces attacking Liblin and Cholm. The possible alliance of the two armies near Warsaw could lead to the encirclement of the Russian armies in Poland. But Germans concentrated on freeing East Prussia from the Russian forces.
Having lost faith in the support of the allies, Hötzendorf tried to stop the Russian offensive heading from the Western direction of Galich-Lvov. The colonel used a clever maneuver - he left a moderate covering force against the 5th Russian army near Cholm and shifted the 4th army to Lvov. Attacks from the north and south were supposed to crash the left flank of the Southwestern front and help recapture Lvov. There was only the 1st army of general Dunkl and part of the 4th army forces left of the Lublin-Cholm line. They were ordered to take on the defensive and contain the Russians coming from the north.
On August 17th general Ivanov directed both armies to attack Lvov. The goal was to hold the enemy on the Lvov-Mikolaev position. The next day the situation changed. Now the 3rd army was needed in Lublin. General Alekseyev worked out a plan to encircle the main Austro-Hungarian forces. To make that happen the 8th army of general Brusilov had to hold the enemy to the east of Lvov and the 3rd army - to take in the rear. However, on August 18th general Ruzsky makes orders to prepare for the assault of Lvov.
After the fight on the river Gnila Lipa the defeated Austro-Hungarians abandoned their ammunition and disorderly retreated in the direction of Lvov, Nikolaev and Galich. The 3rd army achieved a victory too. The 21st Corps attacked the enemy from the right flank and defeated the military group under the command of Dempf, putting them to rout. On August 21 Russian forces seized Lvov and the next day - Galich.
The Russian army was confident of the future victory. The correlation of forces and the position of the army on the battlefield looked promising. The 4th and the 5th armies received reinforcements, and the 9th army under the command of general Lechinsky was based nearby on the Vistula River. Russian headquarters ordered all the armies to launch an attack.
The 4th army started the offensive defeating the enemy at the battle of Suhodol. The 5th and the 9th armies followed. The only chance for the Austrians to escape was to crush the 3rd and the 8th Russian armies. The Austrian 2nd Army was recalled from Serbia for support but it was too late. Having numerical superiority, Russians launched a direct attack, pushing the enemy to the Carpathians.
At the battle of Tarnavka on August 26-27 the three Russian armies defeated the 1st Austrian army and Archduke Joseph Ferdinand's military group. On August 25, the 8th army of general Brusilov held out against the two Austrian armies at the battle of Gorodok. All that brought Russians a glorious victory.
Conrad had to cover the retreat with a cannonade and numerous counterblows. The withdrawal of troops was also protected by five cavalry divisions. The 2nd Austrian army stretched out at the extended front locking up the Carpathians' pass.
On the 1st of September the Austrian high command ordered further retreat to the river Dunajec and a preparation for the counter-offensive together with Germans. The Russian army was facing problems providing food for the troops and disorder in the rear so they were forced to stop the pursuit near the Austrian fortress of Przemysl, which Russians then sieged for over a hundred days. The next day the armies of the Southwestern front regrouped for the defensive warfare. Only the 9th army went after the retreating enemy. The 5th army was preparing for the transfer to the Middle Vistula River. The 3rd army sieged the Przemysl, while the 4th and the 8th armies shielded it, says Yuri Bahutin.
"At the Battle of Galicia the Russians suffered 230,000 casualties. The Austro-Hungarians lost approximately 100,000 more, including some 130,000, which equals one third of their armed forces. The battle severely damaged the Austro-Hungarian Army, destroyed a large portion of its trained officers, and crippled Austria. Henceforward it couldn't achieve success at the Russian front except for when supported by Germany. The victory of the Russian Imperial Army at the Battle of Galicia somewhat made up for the defeats at the early stages of the war such as the rout of the Russian forces in East Prussia. This also helped Serbia to repulse Austro-Hungarian attacks that year," Yuri Bahutin said.
Fonte:
http://voiceofrussia.com/radio_broadcast/254124597/254732715
Mais:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWPsj6fVbeWE9ZqDmJm6pcT7h17h10_f
WHEN WERE THE TRENCHES IN WORLD WAR I FIRST BUILT?
After the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 (one month after the war truly began), the Germans were pushed back to the River Aisne. The German commander, General Erich von Falkenhayn, assessed the situation. Not wanting to lose the territory in France and Belgium Germany had gained, he ordered his army to dig trenches to defend against French and British troops. The trenches provided necessary protection from artillery shells and machine guns, and gave soldiers a major advantage when warding off a frontal assault. Realizing that they could not break through these trenches, the British and French soon began digging their own.
Over the next few months the equally-matched armies tried to outflank each other, continuously adding on to their trenches as they went. This "race to the sea" ended with two parallel trench lines running from the North Sea all the way to the border of Switzerland. If all of the trenches constructed during World War I were laid end to end, they would cover 25,000 miles.
Because the Germans dug in first, they were able to seize the high ground. This not only gave them a tactical advantage, it also kept them much drier than the British and French, who were forced to dig in areas that were typically only 2 to 3 feet above sea level. This led to frequent flooding and an almost constant presence of water in Allied trenches.
HOW WERE THE TRENCHES CONSTRUCTED?
There were two main ways to dig a trench. There was entrenchment, which was the faster method, allowing many soldiers equipped with shovels and picks to dig a large portion of trench at once. However, this left the diggers exposed to all of the dangers that the trenches were supposed to protect against. So entrenchment had to take place either in a rear area where diggers were not as vulnerable, or at night. British guidelines for trench construction inform us that it took 450 men approximately 6 hours to dig 275 yards of a front-line trench (approx. 7 feet deep, 6 feet wide) a night.
The other option was sapping, where a trench was extended by digging at the end face. It was a much safer route, but took more time, as only one or two men could fit in the area to dig.
These trenches were dug through the beautiful countryside of France, and often through private property, particularly that of farmers. Private Victor Wheeler, a Canadian soldier, described his experience when digging one of the first Allied trenches:
With pick and shovel we dug trenches through beautiful fields of grain, fully realising what damage we were doing to the farmers' hopes of reaping small harvests that would enable them to stem hunger during the coming winter. The patriarch with his ox-drawn plough, the matronly gleaner, and the young woman gathering grass and leaves, roots and truffles, stood arms akimbo, wordlessly, helplessly, hopelessly watching. The depressing effect on the morale of the men - to many of whom raising grain on the Western prairie also meant their livelihood - could not be easily dismissed.
After a trench was constructed, sandbags, wire mesh, and wooden frames would be brought in to reinforce the walls. Wooden planking, referred to as duckboards, were also put in place to prevent men from standing in water, which often led to an ailment known as "trench foot." Shell fire and the weather made constant maintenance a necessity.
HOW WERE THE TRENCHES LAID OUT?
Trenches were never built in straight lines but instead in a zigzag pattern. This method was used so that if the enemy invaded a trench, they would be prevented from firing down its entire length, as well as providing some buffer in the event a shell were to explode.
Multiple trenches were created on either side of No Man's Land. The front-line trench was exactly as it sounded - it was the first line of defense. Sandbags placed at the opening of the trenches were particularly important here, as they also absorbed bullets that might otherwise hit soldiers. Fire-steps were built into the sides and allowed soldiers to see over with their rifles at the ready when on sentry duty or when an enemy attack was anticipated.
Front-line trenches also had appendages called "saps," which were dug out into No Man's Land and used as listening posts to find out information about the enemy.
Behind the front-line trench was the support trench. As its name implies, it held support troops and supplies to aid the front-line trench soldiers when necessary. It also could be used as a fall back point if the enemy occupied the front-line trench. Dugouts were typically built in the rear of the support trench, varying in size between 8 to 16 feet for the British.
Beyond the support trench was the reserve trench, which held emergency supplies and troops, in the event the first two failed.
All three of these trenches were connected by communication trenches, which allowed men and supplies to travel safely back and forth. This is also where telephone lines could be run.
A soldier did not spend the allof his time in any given trench. A typical British soldier spent 15% of his year on the front line, 10% on the support line, 30% on the reserve line, and the rest of his time would be spent either on rest, on leave, in the hospital, etc.
GERMAN TRENCHES
Unlike the British and French trenches, German trenches were much more elaborate in construction. This was due to the defensive strategy of their army. The above photograph is an excellent illustration of this: the German trenches are located to the right, the British to the left.
German bunkers were also more sophisticated. Unlike the shallower dugouts of the British, German dugouts were typically 12 feet or more in depth, and were sometimes constructed three stories down, complete with concrete stairs. German dugouts also typically had electricity, as well as toilets (luxuries that were not found in Allied trenches).
SIGNIFICANCE
It soon became obvious to both sides that this would be a war of attrition. Who could outlast the other with men and supplies? Trench warfare created a stalemate that prolonged the conflict well past what either side originally imagined. It would take the implementation of new tactics and technology to finally propel the war to its conclusion.
Fonte:
http://dianaoverbey.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/trench-construction-in-world-war-i
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
11 January 2013
First World War anniversary: we must do more than remember
Breaking ranks with the Government's centenary advisory board, Hew Strachan argues that our commemoration of World War One is in danger of becoming sterile and boring.
(Hew Strachan)
The centenary of the outbreak of the First World War is only 20 months away. The clouds of the media blizzard are forming. Publishers have planned their lists - many hoping to pre-empt the market by bringing out books this year. The theme of much of this, as it was of the Prime Minister's announcement on October 11, 2012 of his plans for the centenary, is remembrance.
So what is it we are going to "remember"? There is no veteran of the war alive today. Anybody who claims that they can remember the war was only an infant at the time and is now very, very old. Many can remember veterans remembering (or not, because many of them were reluctant to talk). Their memories were coloured and shaped by the intervening years, including the knowledge of the Second World War, and some of their reminiscences could be a misleading guide to their feelings at the time. What we also "remember" is the familiarity of Remembrance Sunday, of poppies and the Cenotaph, the symbols through which the First World War is still most commonly refracted today.
The centenary of the First World War must not be Remembrance Sunday writ large. We have few precedents with which to approach this landmark, which will not be a single event but will last more than four years. If it simply reworks the familiar themes of remembrance, it will be repetitive, sterile and possibly even boring. If we do not emerge at the end of the process in 2018 with fresh perspectives, we shall have failed.
We need a sense of progression through this war: perhaps different themes for different years. We also need to recognise the degree to which this war shaped our thinking about all war: our notions of when it is right to fight and when not, of warfare as simultaneously necessary and wasteful. Indeed, those very dilemmas are to be found in how our predecessors elected to interpret its conclusion - both victory, as marked by Armistice Day, and mourning, as marked by Remembrance Sunday.
In the 1920s those who had experienced the war kept those rituals separate precisely because they recognised that the forces that underpinned each of them also created tensions. We shall confront the same problem in 2018. So how we commemorate the beginning of the war must reflect a quest rather than pre-empt the answers - just as those who went to war in 1914 did not know what they faced, did not know when or if they would come back home, and were not sure of their own courage.
In fact, the vast majority of those who donned a uniform did return. Over six million served in the British Armed Forces, and roughly 722,000 (though estimates vary) or 12 per cent died. It was more dangerous to be a Grimsby trawlerman who swept mines in the North Sea than to be in the Army. The same percentage died in the (admittedly longer) Napoleonic wars, which were celebrated as a national triumph. Most people did not lose an immediate family member. This is not to trivialise the immense losses that Britain incurred, or the long-term suffering of many survivors. But it does mean that visiting war graves or refurbishing village war memorials neglects the majority of our forefathers, let alone foremothers, who may have supported the war effort in other ways, through munitions and food production, charitable work and refugee relief.
The iconic war memorials are not those that mark the British landscape but those that occupy the battlefields. In November, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the body charged with their care, undertook a survey of public opinion on the centenary. Nearly nine out of 10 of the British public, and even four out of five of the age cohort 18 to 24, feel that we should mark it. However, only one in five feels that there is sufficient awareness of the contribution of the other Commonwealth countries to the war.
For Britain, this is a crucial challenge, both psychologically and politically: we find it very difficult to elevate our gaze from our parochial preoccupations with the mud of the Western Front. The Prime Minister announced the Government's plans at the Imperial War Museum, an institution founded, as the commission was, in 1917. Both titles (and in the latter's case its funding) make it clear that Britain fought this war as a global empire.
Britain will have to coordinate what it does not only with Australia, New Zealand and Canada, which established their national identities on the battlefields of Gallipoli or France, but also with other Commonwealth members whose legacy is more ambivalent. For South Africa, the sinking in 1917 of the SS Mendi, which resulted in the deaths of 616 members of the South African Native Labour Corps, is now more important than the 80 per cent casualties (of whom 547 died) of the white 1st South African Brigade at Delville Wood on the Somme in 1916. India raised over a million men for military service, and they fought in France and Flanders, at Gallipoli, in East Africa, and in Iraq and Palestine, but their legacy today is also carried by Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as by the Gurkhas who serve in the British Army.
This is going to be a worldwide commemoration. We are fond of stressing that we live in a globalised and interconnected world. So did our ancestors in 1914. Their system, erected by the banks and built on the convertibility of the gold standard and on the City of London, was broken first by conflict and then by the slump of 1929. Globalisation may be back on the agenda, but we still live with the war's consequences, not just in the Middle East, but also in its introduction of the United States as a global power and in its contribution to the long-term relative decline of Europe.
Paradoxically, although the public is almost unanimous that the country should commemorate the war, it is much less sure what that war was about, only six out of 10 people feeling that they have sufficient knowledge of it, with that number falling with reducing age.
So the big challenge is not the principle of commemoration but the practice of education. The Imperial War Museum and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission have anticipated this. The former is developing new First World War galleries, not least thanks to the additional money announced by the Prime Minister in October, and is creating an online presence that embraces other institutions. The commission, by enhancing its provision of onsite information, is addressing the fact that visitors now come to be informed rather than to mourn.
It is not the job of these institutions or of the Government to impose interpretations on a war dogged by controversy. For some, this will always be a futile and wasteful war, despite the convictions of many who fought that it was not. For their opponents, the British Army achieved the decisive victory over the main enemy in the main theatre of the war. Those in the middle argue that this victory was also the achievement of Britain's allies: France's losses were double ours, and by the war's end the largest army on the Western Front was that of the US. The commander of the German army, General Erich Ludendorff, believed the war was lost when the Balkan Front collapsed.
It is the institutions' task to provide the framework within which these debates enhance knowledge and understanding - both of the First World War and of war more generally. The only other significant tranche of new government money contained in the Prime Minister's announcement was £5 million to enable selected school pupils in England to visit the Western Front. Many already do so, and it is hard to see how this funding is going to change much, not least when it is not extended to the rest of the United Kingdom and given that it will be exhausted by 2019. The major challenge is to produce an educational legacy that lasts and is more pervasive, originating in the classroom and stimulated by big and new ideas. The plans for the centenary are still conceptually empty.
Fonte:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/First-World-War-anniversary-we-must-do-more-than-remember.html
Mais:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxwrrqPyqsnISVVzOFV6cnhsLWM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/inside-first-world-war
AVENTURAS NA HISTÓRIA
1 de março de 2013
Táxis a serviço do exército francês na Primeira Guerra Mundial
Numa manobra improvável, um general francês requisitou os táxis de Paris para levar soldados ao front. A ação salvou a cidade de uma invasão na Primeira Guerra.
(Wilson Machado)
Uma frota de centenas de táxis requisitados por soldados armados nas ruas de Paris - quase todos os veículos de aluguel da cidade - começou a se acumular no Boulevard des Invalides às 22h de 6 de setembro de 1914, para alarme dos parisienses. "Táxis em uma hora daquelas?", perguntavam alguns habitantes da cidade enquanto se preparavam para deixá-la, temendo uma invasão alemã na Primeira Guerra. Os carros, porém, eram preparados para seguir na direção inversa. Iriam ao front, revitalizar a defesa francesa com 6 mil militares, tentar deter os invasores a 60 km da capital e salvar a França. "Pelo menos não é um lugar comum", disse, divertido, o autor da ideia, o governador militar de Paris, general Joseph Gallieni. Não foi só questão de originalidade: a vitória francesa na Primeira Batalha do Marne marcou a virada do conflito e ajudou a prolongá-lo até a derrota alemã em 1918, colocando o motor a explosão no centro da arte da guerra.
Em setembro de 1914, a Alemanha estava a ponto de vencer a França com o Plano Schlieffen, uma estratégia de 1905. O objetivo era resolver um pesadelo que assombrava os alemães desde o século 19: enfrentar uma guerra em duas frentes, na França e na Rússia. Chefe do Estado-Maior alemão no início do século 20, Alfred von Schlieffen calculara que os russos levariam seis semanas para mobilizar as tropas. Planejara derrotar nesse tempo os franceses.
Os alemães entrariam pelo nordeste francês, conduziriam 90% de seus homens rumo ao sul, fariam uma curva e surpreenderiam pela retaguarda a parte do exército da França que seguia para a Alsácia e Lorena.
O avanço alemão foi rápido, derrotando os belgas e empurrando britânicos e franceses para dentro da França. Os alemães chegaram aos arredores de Paris, no que parecia uma repetição de conflitos europeus anteriores, resolvidos rapidamente. O 5º e o 6º Exércitos da França, além da Força Expedicionária Britânica, depois de empreender um recuo de dez dias, basearam-se no sul do Rio Marne. O governo francês deixou Paris, junto com 100 mil pessoas.
A cidade preparou-se para o cerco e provável rendição. "Nossa intenção é forçar os franceses na direção sudeste, a partir de Paris. O 1º Exército será responsável pela proteção de flanco", determinou o Comando Supremo alemão em mensagem às tropas em território francês.
O general Alexander von Kluck, que comandava o 1º Exército alemão, porém, considerava a manobra difícil e arriscada. Para a efetiva proteção do flanco da tropa e garantir as comunicações com o 2º Exército, comandado pelo general Karl von Bulow, von Kluck avaliava ser preciso ter, pelo menos, quatro divisões na ala direita alemã - o que não havia.
PAGOS PELA CORRIDA
Foi essa a chance que Gallieni - um improvável candidato a herói - agarrou. Aos 65 anos, ele nem deveria estar ali. Passara à reserva em abril de 1914 e foi reconvocado em agosto, depois que a guerra eclodiu. Idoso, com bigodes grossos, espetados e brancos, óculos metálicos redondos e conhecido pela falta de elegância, circulava com o uniforme largo desabotoado.
Naquele setembro de 1914, parecia destinado ao papel de general da humilhação, o comandante que entregaria Paris aos invasores. O reconhecimento aéreo, feito por pioneiros biplanos, convenceu Gallieni que poderia atacar as tropas alemãs pelo mal protegido flanco e deter seu avanço. O general tentou convencer os britânicos da viabilidade da manobra, mas ninguém queria levar a sério o "comediante", como alguns o chamavam. Mesmo o comandante-chefe do Exército francês, general Joseph-Cesáire Joffre, já avaliava a retirada para o sul, deixando Paris quase sem defesa. Um telefonema do governador ao chefe o convenceu a contra-atacar. "Mon coup de téléphone" (meu golpe de telefone), diria, mais tarde, Gallieni.
A contraofensiva foi convencional, ainda sem os táxis. Cento e cinquenta mil homens, sob comando do general Michel-Joseph Maunoury, atacaram o flanco direito das tropas alemãs, em 6 de setembro, e abriram uma brecha nas linhas do inimigo. No corredor criado entre o 1º e o 2º Exércitos alemães, penetrou a Força Expedicionária Britânica. O 5º Exército da França atacou o 2º Exército alemão. A manobra francesa parecia prestes a dar certo, quando reforços alemães, recém-chegados, ameaçaram fazer os alemães triunfar sobre Maunoury. Os franceses tinham tropas de reserva, mas o sistema ferroviário estava desmantelado, e não haveria tempo de marcharem até o front. Aparentemente, tudo acabara.
Não para Gallieni. O velho general, em seu quartel no Boulevard des Invalides, por volta de 20h de 6 de setembro, lembrou-se da frota de táxis que mandara reservar para a eventualidade de uma retirada. Por que não usá-la para levar soldados ao front em vez de fugir dele? Ordenou então que todos os táxis em circulação fossem requisitados - os números variam de 600 a 3 mil. Militares foram para as ruas, pararam os veículos onde passavam, solicitaram aos passageiros que descessem e ordenaram que fossem para o Invalides. Antes, explicaram que as corridas seriam pagas.
Duas horas depois, o Boulevard des Invalides estava lotado de táxis. O primeiro comboio foi para Tremblay-Les-Gonesse, pequena cidade próxima. Na manhã seguinte, mais carros foram para Gagny. Ao longo do dia 7, os veículos se agruparam em outros pontos e, à noite, sob comando do próprio Gallieni, rumaram em grupos para o front - em alta (para a época) velocidade - e cobrando pelo taxímetro. Chegaram na madrugada do dia 8 ao ponto onde as tropas alemães ameaçavam retomar o seu avanço. A batalha teve 250 mil baixas da França, cerca do mesmo número entre os alemães e mais de 12 mil entre os britânicos. Em 9 de setembro, os alemães iniciaram a retirada.
Joffre saudou a vitória em telegrama ao Ministério da Guerra: "Em toda parte o inimigo recua. Os alemães estão abandonando prisioneiros, feridos e material." Na mensagem, não havia uma palavra sobre os "Táxis do Marne" ou sobre Gallieni. Os motoristas voltaram a Paris e receberam pela corrida.
Fonte:
http://guiadoestudante.abril.com.br/taxis-exercito-frances-primeira-guerra-mundial-735023.shtml
Mais:
http://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxwrrqPyqsnIQWVWWDg3eXhpYjg
