Americans might not understand the staggering losses Europeans suffered in WWI.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

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Donny Ferguson 🗽 Retweeted

I think it hard for modern Americans to understand the staggering losses Europeans suffered in WWI.

Link to tweet

[Hotler]

1. Sadly many can not.

I think there is a comprehension/intelligence problem in this country.
For history buffs and others, this is very good and well done. The great war, 15-20 minute videos reviewing what happened week by week.
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar

[genxlib]

2. This is what always infuriated me about the whole Freedom Fries bullshit

The fucking war mongers who were just itching to go to war with Iraq were calling the French cowards because they didn't want to go with us.

We had no right to tell a Country that has that kind of history what bravery means.

[denverbill]

8. France has had our back since the American Revolution.

And what did we do in WWI and WWII? Sit on the sidelines for nearly 3 years in WWI while France was devastated, and ONLY got in when the Lusitania was sunk, then sat on the sidelines during WWII until finally Japan attacked us and Germany declared war on us.

And of course it turns out the French were right about not invading Iraq. And they'll probably be right about the war Trump gets us into as well.

[MaryMagdaline]

3. F Scott Fitzgerald comment stuck with me since my teensc

Said he looked for his generation in Europe, but they were all gone.

[Pope George Ringo II]

4. Remember that quote about war being god's way of teaching Americans geography?

It may do that occasionally, but it never teaches Americans what war is. Rationing and a draft is not a big deal. A few hundred thousand dead soldiers actually is a big deal, and it's a pretty strong hint you're at war, but when you're fitting gas masks to baby strollers and evacuating your cities before they're razed, you're in a war.

I kind of like not having our cities destroyed, but it's important not to get cocky, or to act like geography + luck= virtue.

[mopinko]

5. i dont think americans know jack shit about ww1.

honestly, i didnt know that much about it. there was a pbs series about it that really opened my eyes. it was horrific.

[violetpastille]

6. I have read that during the Blitz, Londoners suffered an equivalent of 9/11 deaths every six weeks.

Different war, but it showed me how little able we are able to put ourselves into a global perspective.

[FakeNoose]

7. Same is also true of WWII

However the first world war came before the discovery of penicillin and many other medical advances that we take for granted now. So many fighting men died then because they were "beyond saving." Add to the war deaths, the civilian fatalities from starvation and diseases (influenza, typhoid, malaria), and they comprise a horrific loss of life during those years 1914-20.

The USA didn't enter the war until the worst part was almost over. Our boys received good weapons and rations, and sufficient training so they were better prepared to fight than the French and Brits who were barely hanging on. As a result the American fighting men had fewer casualties and a better chance of coming home safe and alive. (I believe the Canadian troops suffered a greater loss of life.) Casualties were far higher for the French and British soldiers, and of course Germany lost an entire generation of men in their fruitless war. It's something that's rarely taught in American high schools - the outcome of the wars of the 20th century.

[Retrograde]

9. Every small town I've been to in France and Great Britain has a war memorial

These memorials have a number of names of young men killed in WWII - and about 5-10 times the number killed in WWI. I've been to Verdun, where you can still see some of the remains of the shell holes and trenches - and the ossuary where the remains of who knows how many unknown soldiers are kept. And that's just the Western Front: the Eastern Front was just as bad, if not worse. It was an awful war, and it's understandable why leaders in the 1930s were so set on preventing another one.

[Blue_Tires]

10. Why are we posting tweets from some Fox News jerkoff?

[UTUSN]

11. K&R

[Mendocino]

12. The Battle of the Somme

The British and French forces lost about 650,000 killed and wounded, the Germans about 500,000. Just on the first day of the battle 60,000 wounded and 20,000 dead for the British alone. The whole battle lasted 6 months.

WWI was a horrific mess. Artillery and machine gun caused a majority of the losses. Add in poison gas, starvation rations, disease, no antibiotics, trench foot, old 19th century tactics versus the reality of total war. The Russian Revolution broke out, dynasties were no more, vengence took power. The worst part of WWI, it made WWII inevitable