Today is the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI or the Great War, also call the War To End All Wars. Germany invaded neutral Belgium on Aug. 4, 1914, as part of a planned
attack on France. By nightfall, Britain had joined the war. The prelude to the war happened on June 28th 1914, when Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand visited the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. A group of six assassins from a nationalist group had gathered on the street where the Archduke's motorcade would pass. One of the assassins threw a grenade
at the car, but missed. The other assassins failed to act as
the cars drove past them quickly. An hour later, when Franz
Ferdinand was returning from a visit at the Sarajevo Hospital, the
convoy took a wrong turn into a street where one of the assassins
stood. He shot and killed Franz Ferdinand and his
wife. At the end some 7 million lives lost. On November 11th, at 5:00 am, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne France. At 11 am on November 11th, 1918 (the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month) a ceasefire came into effect.
Note
One of my grandfathers served in the 91st Infantry Division (The Wild West Division), 364
Infantry Regiment. He first saw action in the Battle of
Saint-Mihiel (September 1918) and fought in the battles of The
Meuse-Argonne Offensive and The Fifth Battle of Ypres. He died in March 1977.
Thanks for the post, Scott. When I left France in 1966, a WW! American veteran was on the train with me heading for Paris. In his early 70s, he was in France visiting some of the same ground where he fought. Something I will always remember.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder, Scott. My father was in World War II but I have much less knowledge of World War I.
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