First World War: 1914-1918

[pieter]

First World War: 1914-1918

The Great War

[pieter]

[kaima]

The first world war is one of my interests as well, but my interest lies in the Eastern Front, the Carpathian campaign of the Winter of 1914-1915 specifically, and the misery for both soldiers and civilians in that terrible time. From conditions and ignorant butcher generals, the first world war exceeds the second by far. The disregard for human life was incomprehensible, with the common policy of sending waves of humans against chains of interlinked machine guns and artillery. Didn't work? Send in another 250,000. They are simple soldiers, after all.

My father grew up in Slovakia in the aftermath of the war, and played with supplies and equipment the soldiers jettisoned on the way to the nearby front (Dunajec). The hunger of the war period and in the aftermath of the war was tremendous, even on the farms. The destruction, depopulation and disappearance of whole villages was not at all unusual.

Much neglected - nearly entirely neglected - in reports of that miserable war is the story of the Winter Carpathian campaign. Austria-Hungary (A-H) lost about 60% of their standing professional army in the first 6 months of the war, essentially crippling them for the remainder of the war, this compounded by the emperor keeping on the same incompetent leadership he started the war with. So A-H became only an auxiliary force under more competent German leadership. The troops, for all of the generalized statements of disloyalty and unreliability, performed quite well when under competent leadership. But then, we never blame the leadership, then or now.

"Blood on the Snow: The Carpathian Winter War of 1915" is about the only book written about that winter campaign, and it is a poorly written book at that, but quite detailed, reading much more like notes taken during research than a compilation and composition based on those notes. I read the book from the university library,then some time later bought my own book so I can annotate and correlate the contents. It is a great confusion of repetitions, repetitions, and variations on repetitions of repetitions.

Last summer I hiked along 47 miles of that front in addition to another excursion or two, following the crest of the Carpathians, the current border between Poland and Slovakia. At most every mountain saddle there were signs of trenches dug to defend attack from one side or another, the A-H forces facing north against the Russians, and in the vicinity of Ruske Sedlo (Ruské sedlo (polsky Przełęcz nad Roztokami Górnymi)) facing south, where the Russians had penetrated deep into Hungary up to Humenne. Parts of the crest were challenging enough (and quite pleasant) in the summer, and to imagine trying to survive with winter winds, snowstorms, rain,melt, refreeze, and ice on the mountains and "roads" and trails leading up the mountains, leading to a lack of supplies ... there was a degree of misery and suffering that is hard to imagine. Much of this was brought on by a "leadership" that accounted for much in their table=top planning, but not for superfluous logistics and supply of the troops.

To add to the misery was the fate of the Lemkos and Rusyn in the Galician area, peoples who spoke a language compatible with Russian, and people who shared the Eastern faiths with the Russians... which led to A-H assumptions of disloyalty, spying and rather quick summary justice, with some 60,000 civilians being executed on imagined and justified charges. In any nation that finds itself in need of such large scale executions, it is obvious that the "leadership" and the "nation" finds itself in the wrong place, the wrong time, and should not exist with the power of life and death over so many people, people they cannot trust and are so quick to murder at the slightest suspicion.

Our western histories, where they do brush up upon the Eastern Front, are quick to repeat the extreme difficulty A-H had with logistics and the inadequacy of the rail and road system in the A-H province Galicia of the time. There is never mention of the Russian forces coming into this same remote province, at a much greater distance from the supply sources, adapting to the change in railroad gauge, and moving troops over the same rails and roads, and quite effectively challenging the A-H on their home territory.

Pieter, with your different perspectives and sources available, do you have additional sources or information you may suggest on this front?

Kai

[pieter]

Kaima,

The First World War is greatly neglected and forgotten in the West. In my opinion the Western Front was as crual as the Eastern Front, in contrast with the Second World War -in which the Eastern front clearly was more brutal and devastating for both civilians and military-. The Netherlands was not involved in that war so I have little resources here. I know thought that the Flanders part of Belgium and France were struck hard. Large parts of Southern-Flanders were completely destroyed. Towns, villages and land were completely destroyed due to a series of multiple large-scale attacks on civilians and the destruction of historic buildings and cultural centers. This came out of the fact that the German army was outraged at how Belgium had frustrated the Schlieffen Plan to capture Paris. The Flemish landscape was changed for ever. France saw 4 years of a vicious war with mass artillery attacks, machine gun fire, gun fire, waves of new tanks, poisonous gas and waves of hundreds of thousands of soldiers which came out of their trenches, created hell on earth. Belgium faced a brutal German occupation, called "The Rape of Belgium". Belgian, French and British soldiers against German soldiers. Both sides suffered great losses in life and wounded soldiers who were tormented for the rest of their lives, by their memories, shrapnel (Fragmentation (weaponry)), bullet wounds, the poison gass attacks, the dirt, mud, the lice, large rats and smell of death. A well known story of the First World war was the story of French speaking Belgian officers and their Flemish (Southern-Dutch language) speaking soldiers of Flanders. The soldiers didn't understand the orders of the officers, and that created communication problems at the front and probably deaths, wounded and other losses.

The Central Powers (German: Mittelmächte; Hungarian: Központi hatalmak) were one of the two warring factions in World War I (1914–18), composed of Germany, Austria–Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria (hence also known as the Quadruple Alliance (German: Vierbund)). The the Allied Powers of the French, British and Russians that had formed around the Triple Entente. Japan, Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, Romania and the Czechoslovak legions were secondary members of the Entente. The United States declared war on Germany in 1917 on the grounds that Germany violated U.S. neutrality by attacking international shipping and because of the Zimmermann Telegram sent to Mexico. The U.S. entered the war as an "associated power", rather than a formal ally of France and the United Kingdom, in order to avoid "foreign entanglements". Although the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria severed relations with the United States, neither declared war.

I read Im Westen nichts Neues, a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The English title of the book is 'All Quiet on the Western Front'. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental stress during the war, and the detachment from civilian life felt by many of these soldiers upon returning home from the front. Later I read Remarque's novel 'Der Weg zurück' (The Road Back (1931)). It details the experience of young men in Germany who have returned from the trenches of World War I and are trying to integrate back into society. Although the book follows different characters from those in All Quiet on the Western Front it can be assumed that they were in the same company, as the characters recall other characters from All Quiet on the Western Front. The book begins a few weeks after the end of All Quiet on the Western Front. Its most salient feature is the main characters' pessimism about contemporary society which, they feel, is morally bankrupt because it has allegedly caused the war and apparently does not wish to reform itself.
The book was banned during Nazi rule.

With All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque emerged as an eloquent spokesperson for a generation that had been, in his own words, "destroyed by war, even though it might have escaped its shells." Remarque's harshest critics, in turn, were his countrymen, many of whom felt the book denigrated the German war effort, and that Remarque had exaggerated the horrors of war to further his pacifist agenda. The strongest voices against Remarque came from the emerging National Socialist (Nazi) Party, an ultranationalist group in Germany led by the future Führer, Adolf Hitler. In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, All Quiet on the Western Front became one of the first "degenerate" books to be publicly burnt. Both of Remarque's novels I read in German.



So it is not unlikely that Erich Maria Remarque has influenced my view on the First World War. My Polish grandfather was a Polish officer in the Russian Czarist Army during the First World War. He died in 1976 in Poznań when I was 6 years old, so I haven't got the chance to ask him about his war experiences of that time. I know that he was a coordinator of the Russian artillery. He measured how the Russian canons had to shoot. With a field phone he phoned to the Russian/Polish artillery. I don't know excactly if he fought against the Germans or against the Austrians. But anyway he was involved in the war at the Eastern Front. Later at the end of the First World War he made a long journey through the Caucacus and he was in Saint Petersburg during the Russian October revolution. He owed his life to Russian civilians who removed his officers signs from his uniform, because Russian and Polish officers were being killed by the Bolsjewist gangs that roamed the streets. My grandfather told family members that that were the scarriest moments of his life. That surprised me, because he had experianced awful things during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 (like executions of young Polish men, being harassed by the Gestapo who was searching for him and brutal treatment by Ukrainian SS thugs in the streets of Warsaw). But the Russian revolution was the scarriets thing he experienced in his life. The Russian revolution was a result of the end of the First World War, which weakened the position of the Russian Czar. My Polish grandfather was born in Tallinn in Estonia and went to Gymnasium in Kiev. Therefor he was fluent in Russian. My mother never heard him speak Russian again during her life (late thirties, fourties, fifties, sixties, seventies). He was a Polish Patriot and belonged for a short period to the Polish armed forces, which united Polish soldiers and officers which had fought on the Russian, Austrian and German sides. These Poles had stood on opposite sided during the war. Probably had shot at eachother. But now they joined forces in the New Polish army of the Polish republic.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Ron (Kaima),

The story you tell me about the First World War from your Slovak perspective is very interesting. But as you can witness when you read the story of my Polish grandfather I have very limited information about the Eastern Front of the First World War in Central Europe. My inability to speak or read any slav language, West- and Eastern-slav limits my sources on the Eastern-front. Germany and Austria have suffered greatly from the First World War too. Again, the Netherlands as neutral country wasn't affected by the Great War. The Netherlands received a lot of Belgian war refugees though. The feeling of humiliation amongst ordinary Germans and Austrians was large. They not only had lost many men and boys at the Western- and Eastern fronts, and received a lot of traumatized and heavily wounded sons, husbants, boyfriends, uncles, cousins, nephews, teachers, students, artists and workers back, but also had to pay a lot to Great-Britain, France and the USA. Revenge thoughts arose. Poverty and unemployment and also starvation took place in the Germany of the Weimar Republik and Austria. My Dutch family of my Dutch father received impoverished, thin/skinny Austrian girls who stayed for a while in this Dutch Rotterdam family until they were strong enough to return to Austria. Their situation was a direct result of the First World War. Later my Dutch grandparents were not so pleased when they received a letter of these Austrian girls in 1938; "That their Dutch guestfamily in the early twenties would be glad for them that they were liberated by the Führer, due to the Anschluß of Austria to Nazi Germany." The connections between the Dutch family and their former Austrian guests were broken, because the Austrian girls or young women never received a reply from their Dutch guestparents. My grandparents weren't particulary Pro-Nazi. Ron, I am dependent on German and Austrian sources concerning the First World War. The Germans are exellent in making fairly objective documentries and sometimes movies. But I haven't seen German or Austrian documentries or movies about the First World War. I have only seen movies and documentries about the Second World War, because that war was closer to me and interested me more. Maybe unfair so, but it is the reality. I only know that reason or the cause of the Second Wolrd War was excactly the First World War. I know the Versailles treaty and the resentment of the Germans and Austrians against that treaty.

The Netherlands during the First World War

Although the Netherlands remained neutral during the First World War, it was heavily involved in the war. The German general Count Schlieffen, who was Chief of the Imperial German General Staff, had originally planned to invade the Netherlands while advancing into France in the original Schlieffen Plan. This was changed by Schlieffen's successor, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, in order to maintain Dutch neutrality. Later during the war Dutch neutrality proved essential to German survival until the blockade by the British Royal Navy in 1916, when the import of goods through the Netherlands was no longer possible. The Dutch were nevertheless able to continue to remain neutral during the war using their diplomacy and their ability to trade.

There were other factors that made it valuable for both the Allies and the Central Powers for the Netherlands to remain neutral. The Netherlands controlled the mouths of the Scheldt, the Rhine and the Meuse Rivers. Germany had an interest in the Rhine since it ran through the industrial areas of the Ruhr and connected it with the Dutch port of Rotterdam. Britain had an interest in the Scheldt River, and the Meuse flowed into France. All countries had an interest in keeping the others out of the Netherlands so that no one's interests could be taken away or be changed. If one country were to have invaded the Netherlands, another would certainly have counterattacked to defend their own interest in the rivers. It was too big a risk for any of the belligerent nations, and none wanted to risk fighting on another front.
Nevertheless, the Dutch were affected by the war. Troops were mobilized and conscription was introduced in the face of harsh criticism from opposition parties. In 1918, mutinies broke out in the military. Food shortages were extensive, due to the control the belligerents exercised over the Dutch. Each wanted their share of Dutch produce. As a result, the price of potatoes rose sharply because Britain had demanded so much from the Dutch. Food riots even broke out in the country.

A big problem was smuggling. When Germany had conquered Belgium, the Allies saw it as enemy territory and stopped exporting to Belgium. Food became scarce for the Belgian people, since the Germans seized all food. This gave the Dutch the opportunity to start to smuggle. This, however, caused great problems in the Netherlands, including inflation and further food shortages. The Allies demanded that the Dutch stop the smuggling, and the government took measures to remain neutral. The government placed many cities under 'state of siege'. On 8 January 1916, a five-kilometre zone was created by the government along the border. In that zone, goods could only be moved on main roads with a permit. In addition, German authorities in Belgium had an electrified fence erected all along the Belgian – Dutch border that caused many refugees from Belgium to lose their lives. The fence was guarded by older German Landsturm soldiers.


Electrified fence along the border between the Netherlands and Belgium during the First World War

During the First World War, between 1914 and 1918, tens of thousands of Belgians fled across the border to the Netherlands. These refugees were both citizens who were afraid of the violence of war and the alleged atrocities of the Germans, as soldiers whom either deserted or whom had been cut off their army unit .


The Belgian Monument is a monument on the mountain Amersfoort in Amersfoort. It was donated by Belgium to the Netherlands to commemorate the internment of displaced soldiers during the First World War. It is the largest monument in size from the Netherlands.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Statement made by the maker of this Video:

Shots made of traces and monuments of WW1 during my visit to West Flanders, Belgium.

I dedicate this to the 600.000 sons, brothers, fathers and husbands that gave their lives in the horrors of the trenchwar in West Flanders. And to the people of West Flanders who had to witness their lands getting torn apart and their villages shot to rubble in a war they never asked for.

[pieter]

An exellent historical documentry series In Europa had a episode dedicated to the First World War

This is it:

[kaima]

Jan 4, 2014 15:44:42 GMT -7 pieter said:

First World War: 1914-1918

The Great War

Pieter,

My comments were not intended to imply one theater of war as more terrible than the other. Certainly the first world war was a terrible war in all respects, and it is sad that it did not prove sufficiently traumatic to truly become "the war to end all wars". Since this is a Polish forum, deliberately chose to comment on the Eastern Front, and within that the Carpathian & Galician (south Poland) engagements and misery.

The Western Front was indeed a horrific experience and consumer of men, in both body and spirit. In many ways it was certainly more terrible than WW II, which gets so much attention in the West and on this Forum. Please note I chose to neglect most of these endless war topics. Like most boys I knew, I had my war fascination growing up and in reading histories, and finally grew bored with it. At the same time I continued and further developed my interest in history of peoples, culture and development and perspective of civilizations, largely as defined by the perspective of the people rather than by the elites and thinkers and philosophers. Thus Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kirkegaard are largely neglected.

Reluctantly I have re-read and read for the first time some accounts of the slaughters of the Western Front, and it serves to reinforce my contempt for the incompetent generals of the time, generals lacking in imagination and ever so willing to toss away thousands of lives and hundreds of thousands of lives to prove for the third or fifth time that a wall of flesh cannot penetrate well established defensive lines of the time, but can only die and rot in the fields. The politicians and the generals of the time seemed to form a particular concentration of incompetency, an incompetency paid for my millions of soldiers.

That is also not to deny the suffering of the civilians, and the total waste of many square miles of productive farmland and settlements destroyed, pulverized and pounded into the sterile moonscape of the battle front.

Thus you will find I try to neglect war, war history, heroes, and other such topics. I am currently forced to read and work with the specific area of WWI I referred to, in order to develop and produce my ideas and conclusions for the activities in the Polish-Carpathian theater of that war. I look forward to completing this task and again taking up active neglect of war topics.

Kai

[pieter]

Ron,

I agree with you that it is sad that the First World War did not prove sufficiently traumatic to truly become "the war to end all wars". That war surely proved that it was a totally useless war and that nobody really won. Millions of lives lost for nothing. The lands of Western Flanders, Galicia and France destroyed for hundreds of years. Old beautiful towns and villages wiped of the earth and hundreds of thousands of people homeless, displaced and living in dangerous lands filled with bombs and grenades, which stil caause casualties and death.

That you chose to neglect most of these endless war topics is your good right. Yes, indeed the Second World War has gotten to much attention from me and historians and others. It is gone now, we live today. Your interest in the history of peoples, culture and development and perspective of civilizations is interesting, because you look at it from the peoples perspective.

I share your contempt for the incompetent generals of the time. Generals and politicians from left and right for Patriotic and nationalistic pride and emotions. They didn't saw the absurdity and the uselessness of that war. That nobody won, not even the winners.

I wish you succes in your reading and work with the specific area of WWI I referred to, in order to develop and produce my ideas and conclusions for the activities in the Polish-Carpathian theater of that war. That you may complete this task in your way and to your aim and determination.

Thank you for your reply Kai,

Cheers,
Pieter

[karl]

Pieter

In the first, I was not to enter this subject you have covered so well, but, for every question of Why? There layst the answer of: Why Not..

I am not for war, but,,I am not against war. For war is a natural progression with the failure of Deplomacy. It is not a matter of fiction, but a matter of fact we must and have in past dealt with in most industrial and premative societies. Even to the head hunters of the upper Amazon basin.

The War of the first, was yes,,a terrible war, for most all wars are not good, and some times much worse after the conclusion as the vectors take their revenge upon the vanquished.

But, the First World War was very important in the development from the earlier wars of horse calvary and concentration of fire power with the weapons avialable before {Prior to WW1}. The First World War though, was the time of development and use of machine guns that replaced the previous need for effective fire power by use of solders. In this stead, after and present, solders accompany the squad machine guns with their own individual fire power.

With the development of the maxum machine gun and realated automatic machine pistols, was the invention of the armoured tracted vehicle by the Britisch adn related experments in use with varied success. Accompanied by the Tank, was the tactical applied use of aircraft as fighter and bomber.

With the above, was develpment and use of chemical weapons, with tactical use applied by both sides {French/Britisch/Americans}.

All the above, with exception of Nuclear, was a development of the First World War.

Whilst in year 1958 with the required military duty, I was assigned to serve in the Panzers. For then to attend the various schools prior to unit assignment to understand the mechanical operation and care of the vehicle. To then learn and understand the application and use of the machine and weapons use in the most effective manner. Whilst in this period of learning, it was suprising to my self and others in training. Much attention was paid to the past use of horse calvary, for the simular prevailing conditions in effective use of horse calvary, simularly applied to operations use of the Panzer. And of course the lessons learnt from the last war.

Climate, weather,location and conditions will of course dectate how and where the use of panzer with maximum effect. The Russians used it with great success in the last war with the version of maximum production in numbers with maximum application in numbers upon the field of battle. Theirs was the sacrifice by number, we do not do that.

The Israelies use also simular technics in their various wars with surrounding Arab countries.

It is of great hope and trust that our wars will/have turned away from killing to economics, but I do not think we are so fortunant.

Preporation is the key to survival, defeat is the price paid for being foolish.

Karl

[pieter]

Karl,

The question "Why I opened this thread" I can easily answer. It has to do with two things, numbers and time. 1914 and 2014, 100 years lay between them. This year, 2014, one hundred years ago the First Great World War started with the involvement of armies and soldiers of all continents. That was the only reason I started this thread, inspired by the front page of my saturday NRC Handelsblad newspaper.



Ofcoures your scientific, military historical and logical and personal comment about the importance and relevance of the First World War is true ofcourse. The Great War didn't started from scratch (nothing), the war started due to guerilla/rebellion agains the Habsburg empire by Balkan independent fighters. One of them killed the Austrian monarch. That started the chainreaction!

From a human perspective the war was a disaster for the British (English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh), French, German, Austrian, Russian, Polish, Australian, New Zealandish, American, Belgian, Italian and Hungarian soldiers and the civilians of the area's in Europe that were struck by the war. For the development of arms, the military Industrial complex, trade, contraband, generals, Field Marshals, nationalistic politicians and businessmen and bankers that profited from the war it was not a disaster. I think it must have been quite profitable for Krupp Stahl and William Foster & Co Ltd (the producer of the first tank).

Cheers,
Pieter

[kaima]

Jan 6, 2014 7:26:20 GMT -7 karl said:

In the first, I was not to enter this subject you have covered so well, but, for every question of Why? There layst the answer of: Why Not..

Karl

Karl,

To add my perspective, I find Pieter's introduction of WW I onto this forum is quite appropriate, for all of the reasons he stated. I expect this year we will be exposed to much media attention on this 100th anniversary of this great folly.

WW I (The Great War) is quite an appropriate topic for this forum, as it was the catalyst that brought about the formation of Modern Poland after a century + of partition between its neighbors. As bad as the WW II experience was for Poland, the birth trauma of WW I stands out as a singular event with Polish soldiers fighting for all three of the Partitioning powers (A-H, Germany, Imperial Russia) as well as for the Polish forces fighting for a re-constituted Poland that were formed while WW I was still going on.

Hopefully this topic will distract those of you fascinated by WW II into looking at the events of WW I in Poland and contributing original material to the topic for all to share. Perhaps this will end up as a year-long thread , a Birthday Book of Poland.

I expect the largest part of commentary will encompass the Western Front, as that is where most of us live or our current nations were involved. That is all fine and good. But it is the Eastern Front that will include specific Polish events. Within that area I have announced I plan on concentrating on events in the Carpathian Front and Galicia, what is South East Poland today.

So polish up your reading glasses and put some wear and tear on your computer keyboard, and join in the topic! Perhaps the weapons of the day and development of tanks is an area you can research and share with us.

Further, the events of WW I are strongly with us 100 years later. The events of WW II were a continuation of the unsettled issues of The Great War. In addition to the creation of Poland, the Middle East was divided as a result of that war, giving us the current nations and boundaries that are causing such a fuss today - Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Iraq. ALL of those nations have been prominently in the headlines throughout our lives. ALL of that is a direct consequence of The Great War.

Kai

[kaima]

Our ever-reliable magazine Der Spiegel has a series of articles and photo sequences on line. Even if you don't read German, you likely are able to find familiar words or locations in the descriptions to indicate what life looked like back then. Perhaps begin here

einestages.spiegel.de/external/ShowAuthorAlbumBackground/a29831/l0/l0/F.html
on the Western Front,

and continue with

einestages.spiegel.de/static/topicalbumbackground/2818/das_laecheln_der_henker.html

and the terrible reality of civilians in Polish Galicia being hanged as spies. From other sources some 60,000 civilians,most often Lemkos, were killed as spies. Quite often the greatest proof was that the Lemko language is similar to Russian, and they were Eastern Rite Christian rather than Roman Catholic.



While the 8 of 9 photos in that last series shows deserters being marched off to prison or execution, other sources tell of the Germans, despite their hard reputation, only executing 45 or so soldiers during the war, while the allies executed thousands of their own. In one case of the French mutiny, some 4,000 were marched into a remote area and then assassinated with dense French artillery fire.

Further topics of WW I with photos are available just to the right and a bit below the photos under "Verwandte Artikel" "Related Articles".

Including
Erster Weltkrieg: "Geiseln in den Rücken geschossen"
First World War: Prisoners shot in the Back

Fotografie im Ersten Weltkrieg: Propaganda aus der Hölle
Photographs in the First World War: Propaganda out of Hell

Weihnachten 1914: Ein bisschen Frieden mitten im Gemetzel
Christmas 1914: A bit of Peace in the middle of Slaughter

[karl]

Pieter

Thank you for your very thoughtful reply. The entent of my post reply to your presentation was not meant as a challenge in any manner of shape or entent. It was my own selfish manner of exdpression to answer, but not answer in a manner of ducking out of any critizium of my enthnic person. The hundred year connection had passed over my head like the shadow of a dead eagle taking a last dive to earth, for my head was with currant issues of the moment as if swimming up stream with my cloths on.

I was struck by your reply, for it was logical and well meaning.

I will try in future, be a bit more cognacent of the present..

Karl

[karl]

Kai

Thank you for your very nice reply of my post reply to Pieters. I do understand you keeping the focus on Polish subject matters, for this is quite very logical, for it is after all, a Polish forum. With this, my self have not been very helpful with the various presentations made in past and present that were not inclusive to Poland, of this, I am quite guilty I must say.

Over the years, have I built up a certain amount of resistance wall to the subjects of the past war with avoidenence, avoidence tactics. With some slippage of course by default of temperment and lack of judgement.

I do not feel guilt over the actions of my country, for the reason I was not in Germany in the war. My feelings are whilst of the war, I was spared since years 1.5 to my mid teens living in Dänmark. Whilst others suffered the consequnces of the war. But, this is neither here nor there.

I am not sure what I have to contribute to the present subject in reguards to Poland and the first war. Perhaps when the time approches, it will come to me.

Karl