Early in the morning on the 24th March 1914 two trains arrived at the Railway station in #Belgrade carrying the first generation of recruits from the newly liberated regions, Old #Serbia and Southern Serbia. After the official reception, the recruits headed via central city streets towards the barracks in the Upper Town of Kalemegdan Fortress.
ANZAC day, the 25th April, is one of the most solemn days in #Australia, commemorating the first great battle Australia took part in as a nation - the storming of the beach in what is now known as "ANZAC Cove", Türkiye on April 25, 1915 as part of #WWI. #ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, the name for the joint force of the two young nations, forever joined in solidarity and mateship.
Considered too old to be a war correspondent during World War I, photographer Horace Nicholls aimed his camera lens on the homefront capturing the many contributions of the women who took over the workforce - including the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC)
Great War Fashion: Tales From the History Wardrobe by Lucy Adlington
The story of World War I women as told through their changing wardrobes, from silk stockings to factory wear.
"A man knows that if for a year he were to submit himself to the restraints which a woman puts upon herself, he would mentally, morally, and physically degenerate."
Today In Labor History March 26, 1918: American anarchist Philip Grosser wrote about being tortured in the prison on Alcatraz Island, while serving time there for refusing to serve in World War I. By 1920, he was the only draft resistor still serving time at Alcatraz. Alexander Berkman referred to him as "one of [my] finest comrades."
Thirteen Days Diplomacy and Disater The Countdown to the Great War by Clive Ponting
Enormously gripping popular history of the 13-day crisis that led to world war.
At the end of the First World War, Germany was demonised. The Treaty of Versailles contained a 'war guilt' clause pinning the blame on the aggression of Germany and accusing her of 'supreme offence against international morality'. Thirteen Days rejects this verdict.
Mark Francois talks about Neville Chamberlain "denuding the British forces of funding until it was too late."
This is wrong. Even while Chamberlain was signing the Munich Agreement in 1938, he was agreeing to a huge increase in spending to increase Britain’s armament in preparation for war.
#MarkGinoFrancois, #MP
I find it deeply troubling that a #UK politicians who used to be Minister of State for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans and then Minister of State for the #ArmedForces doesn't know these essential fact.
What he has been (wrongly) saying about deluding the #pre-WWII #British#military is, in contrast, very true...
...living in part of #Czechoslovakia called the #Sudetenland. #Sudeten#Germans began protests and provoked violence from the #Czech police.
👉#Hitler claimed that 300 Sudeten Germans had been killed. This was not actually the case, but Hitler used it as an excuse to place German troops along the Czech border."👈
Welcome to #Putler's repetitive playbook!--Always the same old, same old for decades.
...with the #Poles to defend them if [#Nazi] #Germany invaded [them]. 👉#Hitler did not think #Britain would go to war over Poland, having failed to do so over #Czechoslovakia.👈 He sent his soldiers into Poland in September 1939. Two days later, Britain declared war on Germany."
And there is a sixth lesson to be learned: an unjust peace, even if only viewed by a large majority of one of the former combatants, will not...
...will not hold, but lay the foundation for the next war: #the#TreatyOfVersailles which left millions of #Germans suddenly on foreign soil with a foreign sovereign and unpaiable reparations (as deemed by Sir #JohnMaynardKeynes) made it rather easy for the #Nazis to gain followers and spread their propaganda.
"The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age" by Juliet Nicolson.
3 out of 5 stars. Non fiction and the author tries to sum up too much, the time in Britain after WWI but there's no focus. There's some good parts in it but a bit all over the place. #books#Bookstodon#NonFiction#History#WWI
An interesting paper about interest clashes in #Albania between #Serbia and #Italy just before #WWI. Never a problem in #Europe when a small country and a member of Concert of Europe's interests clash, right?
Today in Labor History February 8, 1919: A General Strike occurred in Butte, Montana against a wage cut. Inspired by the Seattle General Strike, members of the IWW and the Metal and Mine Workers Union, Local 800, organized Soldiers’, Sailors’ and Workers Councils to lead the strike. Streetcar workers joined in, shutting down transportation for 5 days. Soldiers, returning from World War I, joined the pickets. Montana’s governor called in the National Guard. They bayoneted 9 workers. The workers ultimately called off the strike out of fear that there would be fatalities.
Today, in honor of Black History Month, we celebrate the life of Ben Fletcher (April 13, 1890 – 1949), Wobbly and revolutionary. Fletcher joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1912 and became secretary of the IWW District Council in 1913. He also co-founded the interracial Local 8 in 1913. Also in 1913, he led a successful strike of over 10,000 dockers. At that time, roughly one-third of the dockers on the Philadelphia waterfront were black. Another 33% were Irish. And about 33% were Polish and Lithuanian. Prior to the IWW organizing drive, the employers routinely pitted black workers against white, and Polish against Irish. The IWW was one of the only unions of the era that organized workers into the same locals, regardless of race or ethnicity. And its main leader in Philadelphia was an African American, Ben Fletcher.
By 1916, thanks in large part to Fletcher’s organizing skill, all but two of Philadelphia’s docks were controlled by the IWW. And the IWW maintained control of the Philly waterfront for about a decade. After the 1913 strike, Fletcher travelled up and down the east coast organizing dockers. However, he was nearly lynched in Norfolk, Virginia in 1917. At that time, roughly 10% of the IWW’s 1 million members were African American. Most had been rejected from other unions because of their skin color. In 1918, the state arrested him for treason, sentencing him to ten years, for the crime of organizing workers during wartime. He served three years. Fletcher supposedly said to Big Bill Haywood after the trial that the judge had been using “very ungrammatical language. . . His sentences are much too long.”
Forgotten Voices of the Great War: A History of World War I in the Words of the Men and Women Who Were There
A touching, searing, and above all mesmerizing account of World War I, told in the voices of those who endured the tedium, heat, cold, pain, fear, and loss of the world's most brutal trench warfare to date.