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WW1 bombing and the attitude of british soldiers towards German soldiers

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shop.shoe | 20:10 Mon 19th Feb 2007 | History
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I again can not find any useful info on bombing and the attitude of british soldiers towards German soldiers. Can anyone help?
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My wife's uncle was a medical orderly in WW1 and had to leave the trenches to collect or treat wounded soldiers. He said that he would have trusted any German soldier rather a French one.
My grandad was in charge of the horses that pulled the guns and he used to say how wicked the german soldiers were to the British horses, they would terrify them with fire and then blow them up to destroy the guns. Grandad said he hated the way horses were used that way, they were terrified and expendable, he saw how the animals suffered and blamed the germans, but the british sent the horses to the front i suppose.
I've heard it rumoured that both the British and German soldiers had a fairly unfriendly attitude towards each other. And, yes, they did use bombs and other weapons, so I think that is a pretty good indication of their feelings.
Yeah but they had football match one xmas!
Were the linesmen Russian and did the ball cross the line?
Initially there was a lot of British government propaganda
to inspire hatred for the Germans. Spurious stories of
German atrocities and 'frightfulness' were common.
Seemingly these had relatively little effect, since during
Xmas 1914 there were many instances of mutual
fraternisation in 'no-man's-land', inc. the odd game of football.
After the German use of gas during 'Ypres 2' and, later,
the shooting of Edith Cavell, British attitudes hardened
toward the Germans, but even so, this was patchy
among the British 'Tommies'.
There is credible evidence that following the German
'Spring Offensive' of 1918, and the 'Kaiserschlacht'
in the summer of that year, attitudes softened considerably
as Germany was patently losing the war, and this was
evident to both the Allies and the Axis.
One could argue that respect for the foe was never quite
lost from beginning to the end.
Respect for the French ? Well, that's another story.
Should you ever have a chance to visit Ypres in Belgium and assit to a last post at the Menen gate. You will understand that a lot of good man lost their lives and will never reach the age of 22. Just wonder about the Menen gate and look all the names on the walls those are just the ones that they never found their body on the battle fields, but their was not enough space on the walls of the gate that they build an other monument where you can find another 50. 000 names. If it was not for the soldiers from the commonwelth and the Americans, and for the Belgians a French soldiers. Europe would have looked completely different. Iam pretty sure that a lot of German soldiers who died on the battle fields of Flanders. Did not whant to be their in the first place. But every war ask pople like you and to me to fight for an Ideal or for country, I think that every war is wrong and that it just not need to pofit to politician, because if you see al the wars in the world at the momment you will never see a politician going to the front line with a gun in his hands.
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Thank you very much everyone history project was a success!!
Hi Belgian,
I am of an age whereby I had to take part in WW2. Let me say first that any politician or nation whose actions are responsible for the outbreak of a war, you can say they are greedy and/or crazy. Looking around the world today there are many wars(?) on a minor scale but as far as I can see it is mostly to do with greed. WW2 was an instance where if everybody said, "No, whatever Hitler decides to do we will not take up arms against him". Whatever would the outcome have been? The expression 'Jaw jaw is better than war war' is OK up to a point but do you allow the transgressor to walk all over you? Bomber Command lost over 55,000 in WW2 and most of them have no known graves like many you mention in WW1.

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