A great article here from Dan Snow
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25776836''Much of what we think we know about the 1914-18 conflict is wrong, writes historian Dan Snow.
No war in history attracts more controversy and myth than World War One.
For the soldiers who fought it was in some ways better than previous conflicts, and in some ways worse.
By setting it apart as uniquely awful we are blinding ourselves to the reality of not just WW1 but war in general. We are also in danger of belittling the experience of soldiers and civilians caught up in countless other appalling conflicts throughout history and the present day.'' [Article continues]
Also the links are worth following
Find out more from Dan Snow on how so many soldiers survived the WW1 trenches
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3kgjxsand Michael Mosley on the plastic surgery techniques pioneered in WW1.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zxw42hv 
Comments
However, the fact is that well over 700,000 young British men and hundreds of thousands more German, French, Italian, Russian and other young men of various nationalities perished due to the uncaring incompetence and greed of their respective ruling classes.
Snow makes the mistake of talking of German 'defeat' .. Germany was not defeated until 1945. WW1 was father to the bastard child that was WWll
AJP Taylor has an excellent account. The waste of life as Lincs says is truly shocking.
Germany was clearly defeated. It was Hitler and others who invented the "never defeated, stabbed in the back" excuse as Snow clearly says. Their navy had mutinied, there were revolutions on the streets, the army had been on the run for 100 days, their people were starving and all their allies had already surrendered.
These genuine documents alongside the views of the veterans were so different to the rhetoric published in works like Alan Clarke in the 60's with his Donkeys book, a reference to the French Army in the Franco Prussian war with no Great War relevance.
1914-18 is such a huge subject that we will never be able to come to terms with not only losses but the numbers of those involved. The very real statistic that 5 out of 6 British soldiers came home is forgotten and by being forgotten we miss the tradegy that was their mental state, long term injuries and community needs that lead to the welfare state we benefit from today.
I see thing slightly different re the ruling classes Lincs and wouldn't consider them uncaring. Whilst all stratas of society suffered
losses the officer casualties were so proportionally high that it led to far greater opopportunities for the working man, whilst this is an unplanned by product of the war it is a seminal moment in our nation's history and development.
I have been a serious student of the Great War for 25 years now and it's such a complex subject it's almost dangerous to try and post definitive views on a football forum but I welcome the article by Dan Snow, his own views on the war have changed and matured significantly in the last few years.
I am especially pleased the BBC have published it as it was as recently as Armistice Day 2011 when their flagship 10 o'clock news opened with the headline that 60,000 men had been slaughtered in a single day on the Somme. More than three times the actual horrific figure as if somehow 19,000 was not enough.
I was fortunate to help Max Hastings with his latest book "Catastrophy" and did some filming with him for an upcoming BBC documentary on the First Year of the war in Ypres. It was amazing to see the penny drop after Gary Sheffield and I had been with him for a few days. His view and the entire program direction shifted.
I and other historians have been building up to the Great War centenary for years now and we still share anxiety and anticipation as to how the subject will be covered by the media and received by the viewing public.
There will certainly be some input on Charlton's involvement in the war and the legacy it left when the museum opens. In many ways the best way to study the campaign is at a local level, a human story but supported by an objective strategic and tactical overview. I hope we can strike the right balance.
"Mud Blood and Poppycock" is an easy to read but very serious and funny book debunking some of these myths and others.
Does anyone know if there will be a day by day "live" twitter feed for WWI? I follow one for WWII @RealTimeWWII which is fascinating and informative and hope someone has the time and knowledge to do the same for the Great War
For those interested, the archives from Queen Mary's on the plastic surgery from WWI
Did you even read what I said this time? I doubt it.
Not swallowed what Snow said but I have done a lot of reading about WWI and discussed it at length with others with the same passion.
German lost the war, it was not a draw so it was defeated. End of. Does a defeat mean a country is crushed and cleansed of all enmity?. That is your very strange definition but plenty of wars have been lost without that being the case.
German lost huge amounts of territory to the east and west, other parts were demilitarized and occupied by Allied armies. Germany then suffered the huge inflation of the early 20s. So they did not get off lightly. It was a crushing defeat.
That Germany was able to recover and fight and lose another war does not alter the fact that it was defeated in 1918. The desire of some of the German people to start another war was, in part, to wipe clean what they saw as the stain of defeat in 1918. The bigger the defeat the greater the desire to revenge it.
I would also recommend Forgotten Victory by
Gary Sheffield, Tommy by the late Richard Holmes and anything by my mentor and influence John Terrains.
I will look for a daily twitter feed,
We have a countywide initiative here Herts as War that is going develop in real time as the war developed over the next four years.
As well as an online presence it is based in a shop in Letchworth kitted out as if it was August 14 and evolving with local stories and exhibitions through to November 2018.
We have lots of school and youth involvement I am asisting with some media work and providing the tours that accompany the project, it has secured major HLF funding all very exciting.
Another thing to keep your eye on is the National Trench Museum that is being developed just outside Cambridge. Called the Lestweforget project it will cover the size of a couple of football pitches, be very authentically constructed and act as a major educational resource.
Ben it would be worth subscribing to centenary news online it's a free email newsletter with the latest exhibition/projects locally and nationally.
Lastly and for photography people have a look at www.westernfrontphotography.com it is part of the Fields of Battle exhibition that is touring the globe from August. My company Battle Honours are sponsors and Mike Sheil the photographer is one our guides. There is some really amazing stuff on there.
I live very close to the Smith-Dorrien trail - a highway through the mountains within the Kananaskis area of Alberta. Many of the mountains and glaciers are named after leading personalities of the Great War -as well as a whole range named after Battleships that fought at Jutland. Canada was a great contributor to the war & as a young country had a huge inventory of land and features that leant itself to the names of those who participated with varying degrees of honour during that conflict.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Sir_Douglas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Joffre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Foch
Nothing named after Sir John French though...even though many mountains are named after quite obscure & more junior commanders.
There is a range named after Victoria Cross Winners, including this chap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_George_Pattison who was born in Woolwich & emigrated to Canada at around the same time CAFC were founded. Very interesting stories (for me anyway)
Tell Gordon the pics have fallen out of my copy. Shoddy work : - )
Forgotten Victory by Gary Sheffield is also very good and to my mind dispels the myth that we didn't win the war, hence the title.
Don't know John Terrains but will look him up now.
My point is only that many Germans could not quite believe they had been defeated so swiftly. The fact that they were not overrun and had looked like possible victors only a a few months earlier simply gave plausibility to the stab-in-the-back myth.
Many of our battles were delaying actions that saved a regiment a cross roads or a colour where as the French at Guise or the Marne were engaged in huge history changing actions we often overlook.
Sir John French (buried just outside Dover) is considered fairly unfavourably by many historians today and was certainly on his back foot after Greason died on his way up to Mons, he was French's chosen man. His replacement Smith Dorrien had a strained relationship with French and that's being kind.
Anyway you know all this as you have read the book!
Don't you have a Chip Kerr mountain near you, his VC was at Courcelette in September 1916 and I once took a family member to France to visit the site.
Will definitely look into the Woolwich VC thanks for mentioning him.
In his introduction he say,-
"The notion that British soldiers were Lions led by donkeys continues to provoke debate that has not lost its passion; even if it is now devoid of originality. For a war that was global, it is a massively restricted vision; a conflict measured in yards of mud along a narrow corridor of Flanders and northern France. It knows nothing of the Italian Alps or of the Masurian Lakes ; it bypasses the continent of Africa and Asia; and it forgets the war's other participants - diplomats and sailors, politicians and laborers, women and children".
Compelling reading.
We do indeed have Mount Kerr, the highest prominent peak in Alberta is Mount Edith Cavell - the whole place around here echoes of the 1st World War. I wonder though how many people who take the outstandingly beautiful Smith-Dorrien trail, realise anything about the man for whom it is named.