The “battle” of Verdun lasted 10 months; it was less of a battle in the usual sense of a single let’s-fight-and-loser-runs-away event, and more like an open-air industrial blender made of shrapnel and bullets into which a continuous stream of mostly innocent people were ordered to walk over a long, long period of time.
The Somme was similar, but worse because it was bigger. All war is hell, but World War 1 was much, much worse.
There’s a universe where the Christmas Truce has held to this day, and I wish I was in that one.
I listened to a good part of Blueprint for Armageddon, and I had to stop. It’s so, so sad. It’s too real.
I still haven’t watched “They Shall Never Grow Old” because I’ll just bawl the whole time
Nice fort you have there. It would be a shame if someone… Flattened it…
Cratered it, even.
Babe wake up, it’s time for your ten month long flattening.
So was this actually in use or was it collateral damage?
In use, I believe.
It was mostly abandoned when the French realised how little resistance similar structures in Belgium had offered to German heavy artillery. The Germans took it without much of a fight, then the French took it back a few months later much the same way.
Fort Douaumont was one fort that fell along with Fort Vaux which saw some hellacious fighting in it’s corridors. Just made a post about it after seeing this one: https://lemmy.world/post/11304986
I didn’t realize USA had such good surveillance satellites up in the 1900s
Actually a lot of Google “satellite” imagery is from planes, as I assume this is.
Or a balloon, which they used in ww1 for observation
Some fascinating history, thanks for the note!
They called them ‘birds’ back then
Nowadays it’s open for visitors and well worth a visit.
Sabboton is great
Yeesh I think they missed a spot!
