Transcription
Where you see the passing of time, the crowds in St. Peter's Square are praying like mad for the Pope's light. Where moments refuse to die, this is a momentous hour in world history. This is the invasion of Hitler's Europe and where Victory lives on. Plenty of girls are being kissed by plenty of boys they don't know, and they do not care. You can love it, hate it, embrace it, or turn away. Lennon was shot to death late last night outside his apartment building, but it is a past we all share.
Come on out here, give me a salute, big Navy salute! This is where yesterday has a home, where we wonder what it was like back then. Go forward, nights in safety, and not too long ago, his Spirit must live on. It's where history has its place and where the past comes alive.
The History Channel.
More than any war that came before it, World War I was about the foot soldiers. It was fought by American doughboys, British tommies, and German Huns. These rugged soldiers were the raw material that made up the Great War. War on both sides of the conflict, men marched into the trenches on the Western and Eastern Front, packing more than just bayonets and bullets. They took with them state-of-the-art weaponry that would change the way 20th-century warfare was fought and, at the same time, changed the world forever.
World War I was a conflict like no other. It was nothing like a video game where you could detach yourself from the experience. It was always right in your face. It was a war of men against metal. The four-year conflict featured some of the most epic wartime scenes in history, like the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Somme. They were memorable enough to make any military critic's top 10 list.
Ready to take risks, Rambo warriors marched into this war pumped up with patriotism. Each side was determined to kick some, well, you know what, and return home with a chest full of medals. Hollywood also got in on the action, dramatizing the heroism of these human fighting machines on the silver screen. A dashing Gary Cooper played a decorated war hero in the film Sergeant York.
"Rest of you, keep under cover! Come back here! Where you going? You didn't give me command!"
But no movie better painted the pure picture of a foot soldier in action than the acclaimed Academy Award-winning film All Quiet on the Western Front. But all was not quiet on the Western Front; in fact, it was one of the noisiest wars the world had yet seen. Battlefields resembled one continuous Fourth of July fireworks display. Yet, despite the relentless hammering of shell fire, young men from all over the world took up arms in this global conflict, a conflict that began with a royal assassination.
Here's how it went down. In June of 1914, Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were shot dead by a Serbian assassin in the streets of Sarajevo, what is now Bosnia. In retaliation, the Austrian powers decided to teach the Serbs a lesson by declaring war on Serbia. This declaration sparked a chain reaction across the world, each country taking sides in this combat chess match.
Here are the cliff notes of what happened: First, Tsar Nicholas of Russia, an ally of Serbia, began mobilizing his troops in response. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm, an ally of Austria-Hungary, declared war on Russia. Germany, certain that France would side with the Russians, then declared war on the French and sent troops through Belgium on their way to France. England and Belgium then declared war on Germany.
Three years later, the United States entered the conflict. By the end of 1917, the number of nationalities serving in World War I read like the directory at the United Nations. In Germany and Russia, enlistment was mandatory for any young man healthy enough to hold a rifle. In Great Britain, never had a call for volunteers been met with such enthusiasm. Young men served in what were called Pals battalions; basically, they were groups of neighborhood chums who joined up to go to war together.
This war was no place to strike it rich. The monthly salary for an American private was $33; a German of the same rank was paid 19 DCH marks, roughly US in terms of dollar and cents. These guys would have been better off keeping their day job at the factory. But money aside, for most men, this war would be the Great Adventure. It was a way out of their daily ruts at work and at home, and it was the cheapest way to see the world.
But this would not be a Club Med vacation for any of these guys. Just look at the uniforms they had to wear. These macho men are modeling what were the latest runway fashions of the war. As you can see, each country had its own unique design of helmets, jackets, and boots.
"I'm representing today a member of the 111th Infantry Regiment, a German infantry regiment from World War I. I'm wearing the model 1910 tunic, very decorative. This was the model that was introduced at the beginning of the war. You can see a lot of red piping, very decorative buttons. My regiment went increasingly to leggings, which are wrapped very tightly around your leg and help keep the mud and lice and everything else out of your uniform."
The helmet that we started the war with was essentially a very decorative weapon. However, as you can imagine, with sunshine, you don't want to be seen, and it would reflect the brass very heavily. So very early in the war, when we went to trench warfare, we put these on to make it much more difficult to be seen.
The Prussian helmet was the most distinctive piece of a German soldier's kit. Its intimidating steel spike pointed out the obvious: you were young and strong with a whole lot of attitude. This was his pride and joy. The Prussian helmet has the Prussian plate, whereas each state would have its individual plate along with battle honors.
Everyone wonders what the spikes are all about. It represents the spear points of the army of Frederick the Great. This particular piece of headgear had an effect upon other countries because 12 other countries adopted the spiked helmet because the Germans used the spiked helmet.
"Wow, that spike looks more like a lethal weapon than a helmet decoration!"
The Germans eventually replaced these pointy caps with sturdy steel helmets that could shield them during aerial shelling. Soon, the steel helmet became every army's most coveted accessory.
The typical and very characteristic British infantry helmet of the First World War was based in shape, stamped out of manganese steel. It's got a very heavy application of a dull-colored paint mixed with some sand in there, which was meant to break up the light on it. This particular helmet bears the tactical emblem on the front of the Fourth Canadian Machine Gun Battalion's red arrow, which is the machine gun battalion within the green rectangle of the Fourth Canadian Division.
For the most part, every army's uniform was dark and drab, but their nicknames were colorful. The British soldiers were called tommies because a guy named Tom was the first name filled in the sample soldier's paybook by the Duke of Wellington. As for the Germans, they were given the derogatory name Hun after the 4th-century Mongolian militant Attila the Hun.
No army was spared from name-calling. When the Americans entered the war in 1917, they were called doughboys. Some say their unique doughnut-shaped buttons on their jackets gave rise to their nickname. No one really knows for sure where the name came from, but it definitely stuck.
Salvation Army lasses, as they were called, even began making donuts for the boys overseas. But these doughboys weren't soft and squishy, as their nickname might suggest. They were cocky and confident, ready to meet the enemy head-on.
This meant taking a crash course in offensive and defensive warfare. For most of the doughboys, it was their first time away from home. They were put through a rigorous obstacle course of infantry training. These guys didn't have the luxury of a personal trainer.
Masses of men worked out together. From a Goodyear blimp, they looked like a scene from a football halftime show. Columns of men bulked up by doing bends and squats in unison. Most doughboys didn't have the time to perfect these drills since they entered the war late in the game. For them, it became on-the-job training.
"You put right on the rifle range as soon as they could run you through your physical and get you your equipment and your uniform and get you to a camp, and this usually took about a week after you have signed up. So you went in blindfolded. We're on the rifle range so many hours a day. We're on tactical exercises, the storming and chasing and the closing, and we better get bayonet training, how to protect and how to use the bayonet offensively."
Most doughboys got their combat tips from their fellow allies. Here, an energetic French soldier is showing off the finer points of throwing a hand grenade. First, there's the thrusting overarm toss. Next, the soldier must learn to throw the grenade while kneeling, and finally, there's the deadly lob while lying on one's stomach.
Boy, this soldier looks like he's been practicing a little too much. Grenades were helpful, but infantrymen on both sides of the war went in with a single primary weapon: their rifle. This is the model 1898 German Mauser, probably one of the finest designed weapons in history.
Mauser created a weapon that had an extremely strong receiver and bolt. One of the most unique features of this gun is the charging system. A soldier could simply set the charger in, strip in the rounds, and close the bolt, making it capable of firing 35 to 45 rounds a minute. The Mauser rifle was an awesome killing machine, something the German soldiers never left home without.
When the German Army finally left home for the war, they typically marched on foot like most infantrymen. They carried a 60-pound pack, which included clothing and a mess kit. Initially, men on both sides were a little gun-shy, but that would all change by the time they reached the front lines.
These modern-day warriors would loosen up and demonstrate their courage under fire.
For American doughboys, over there meant sailing to Europe and marching across the barren farmlands of Belgium and France. Their destiny: an area called the Western Front. This was the danger zone where a spade was just as valuable to a soldier as his rifle. But the Americans wouldn't show up for another three years, so for now, the Europeans were on their own.
The Allies had been trying to outflank the Germans and Austrians by digging ditches. Soon, two opposing tunnels stretched 470 miles from the Swiss Alps up to Belgium. They were enough to intimidate any groundhog in the area. This was siege warfare fought unlike any other in history. Instead of manning fortresses like the ancient warriors of Greece and Rome, men positioned themselves inside these death-defying ditches.
This was the beginning of trench warfare.
"Well, this is what you would call real troglodyte living. Infantrymen were like trolls; they hid underground by day, and at night they would go over the top, as the men would say, to attack when they were less visible. I can't imagine living in this tunnel day and night with only this wool jacket to keep warm."
These trenches were dug at least six feet deep, enough so that the tallest soldier's head wouldn't be exposed. The number one rule: keep your head down. The last thing these guys needed was to get hit in the noggin by bullets or mortar shells. I guess in this war, being short came in handy.
Boy, Napoleon really missed his century.
Soldiers had to be just as good at hammering nails as they were at loading ammo. Anything that could be used to fortify the trench was used: earth, sandbags, pieces of metal. On the bottom of some of these trenches were wood slab floors. Up above, barbed wire was strung around the trenches to make it more difficult for the enemy to break through.
Both sides of the conflict built frontline trenches, sometimes only hundreds of feet apart from each other. But soldiers burned out fast on the front lines, where they were constantly being attacked by enemy fire. So after a week tour of duty on the front line, trench soldiers were rotated to a rear-line trench several hundred feet behind. Eventually, they were allowed to retreat to base camp, miles from the conflict.
Trenches were an awesome maze of tunnels; they became underground cities, each with their own neighborhoods. Some soldiers put up street signs to make sure you didn't get lost. They even installed phone booths. No phone cards were needed, but soldiers couldn't make personal calls on Uncle Sam's dime. These telephones were strictly for business.
Between these mud-packed walls, soldiers formed a brotherhood stronger than a college fraternity. They were comrades in arms in this subterranean place they now called home.
Every trench neighborhood was armed with its own citizen militia. Soldiers built bunkers to house their grenade launchers and high-tech machine guns. These guys definitely needed some earplugs, but I guess the machine gun was invaluable when having to defend yourself against an entire enemy regiment.
"That's all you're interested in is right in front of you. This down here, that's making the noise. After you hear some of it, but this is what your danger point is, right straight in front of you. That's where you're watching, and if them fellas are moving out there, you knock hell out of him."
Watching out for a surprise enemy attack distracted the men from their major preoccupation, which was food. There were no gourmet carry-out restaurants nearby. Most regiments tried to scrape up one hot meal a day for their men. The British and the Americans, too, when they arrived, typically guzzled on biscuits and canned bully beef. They called it monkey meat.
The only thing that you could take with you on a march was that canteen full of coffee and a few hard biscuits that were so hard you had to cut them with your bayonet or soak them in cold coffee to eat them. They were that hard. The food was tough to chew, but getting supplies to the front was like running the gauntlet, more terrifying than any pizza delivery boy in the wrong part of town could imagine.
Sometimes men went without any food at all. At times, the German Army was known to go to desperate means to fill their bellies, like making gruel out of sawdust and bread. What a way to get fiber into your diet! Thank goodness there was booze around to wash down the foul grub, not to mention taking the edge off the day.
Like foot soldiers throughout history, alcohol was definitely a part of the soldier's diet. The French preferred wine, the Germans drank beer, the British liked a shot of rum, and Americans, well, they drank just about anything.
Part of the British infantry ration of World War I, especially in the winter months, was a shot of British Army rum every day in the trenches. It was thought that it would increase circulation, and regardless of whether it had any medicinal benefit, it was certainly eagerly looked forward to by the troops.
So the rum was brought up to the trenches in these crockery jugs, which were called rum jugs. It has on the letters SRD, which is reputed to have stood for service rum diluted or special ration division.
But even a tot of rum couldn't protect the manliest of men from the bitter winter months. Living in the trenches with no roof or covering over them, many industrious souls burrowed holes in the sides of their trenches to shield themselves from the bitter snow and wind. The British called their dugouts funk holes.
On the German side, there was nothing funky about their dugouts. Some were rigged up with electrical lights. Boy, I bet their utility bills were high! Kaiser Wilhelm's son, a field marshal, had a dugout fine enough to fill the pages of Better Homes and Gardens.
"In the trenches, we found pianos. Down on the social levels, we found bedrooms with regular German beds. We found women's lingerie in the closets, and we found kitchens almost like a house underground."
But even a dugout with underground plumbing and heating couldn't protect men from all the elements. Rain was the soldier's worst nightmare. Water flooded the trenches; sometimes soldiers' feet were soaked for days, causing nasty foot sores appropriately called trench foot.
Let's face it, the Western Front was a hellhole. But no area on the front was more ominous and deadly than no man's land, the territory between Allied and German trenches. It was a place of disease, rats, and rubbish, a junkyard where no garbage collector dared to enter. It was a place where both sides patrolled, scrapped over, and tried to dominate, but only at night.
At dusk, soldiers maneuvered through this forbidden territory, crawling on their hands and knees like this so as not to be spotted. Their strategy was to cut through the enemy's barbed wire and overtake their trench. Not a pleasant assignment for any soldier.
Nobody owned it, and at the same time, it had a sinister definition in which you really didn't want to go there because that's where people get killed. They get killed because the enemy is there waiting for them in the darkness, and an enemy raid or patrolling party is out there ready to grab prisoners. Or, in some cases, they get killed by their own people because they're out there in the dark, stumbling around or crawling around.
Exactly how dangerous no man's land could be was made painfully clear on July 1st, 1916, the very first day of the Battle of the Somme. Over 100,000 men from the British Army climbed out of their trenches and into no man's land toward enemy territory. Most of them did not make it; they were slaughtered by German machine guns and artillery. It became one of the bloodiest days of the war for foot soldiers on both sides.
Their innocence and patriotism would be tested in no man's land. It would be a course that no soldier dared to fail.
Well, that was a World War I movie called Shoulder Arms, and it starred none other than Charlie Chaplin, one of the most comedic actors of his time. He would be tough competition for Jim Carrey or Robin Williams if he were still alive today.
Now, back then, the Allies loved Chaplin. Infantrymen used to imitate his penguin-style walk. One soldier even brought a cardboard figure of Chaplin to the Western Front to keep up his spirits. Chaplin's contribution to the war effort was laughter, and humor was just what these guys in the trenches needed.
The Great War was not all murder and mayhem. In fact, there were moments when foot soldiers had a downright good time. When given leave from the front lines, men usually retreated to military camps or to nearby towns for rest and relaxation.
There were no fancy Walkmans or boom boxes back then. Some men, though, brought along instruments to perform their very own regimental tunes. Soldiers put on their dancing shoes to tap dance alone. How about that fancy footwork or cheek to cheek with each other? Some men even dressed in drag to perform small skits and plays.
Women were a scarce commodity, except for nurses, and meeting a nurse meant you've been injured enough to land yourself in the hospital. The military mailman was always a sight for sore eyes. A letter from the world outside was just what these guys needed, even if the envelope contained a bar of soap from mom instead of a scented letter from their sweetheart.
Speaking of soap, forget about taking a luxurious bath. These guys were lucky to find wash tubs the size of their helmets. Military camps were places where soldiers could escape from the pressures of the war, not so far away.
Sometimes even mundane chores like cleaning rifles while puffing on a pipe soothed the soul. The Germans were real neatniks; they scrubbed and polished everything until they could see their reflection.
Foot soldiers on both sides of no man's land even tested their skills as artists. Using shrapnel or scraps of material found on the killing fields, they carved and pounded out decorative items that became known as trench art.
"This is an example of what's called trench art, and this is made out of a French 75mm brass cartridge case. The work that's gone into this obviously is indicated by the soldier's ability to flute it here, and then he stippled the case and actually engraved the emblem of his American Division."
Trench trinkets were great wartime souvenirs. Some of the sculpted knives and bracelets were masterpieces, beautiful enough to be displayed at the Louvre. Making art sure helped to whittle away the time before men returned to the front lines.
A soldier was smart; he'd also try to catch some sleep whenever he could, but usually with one eye always open. In many areas on the Western Front, the Allied and German trenches were literally a stone's throw away from each other.
At times, the infantrymen on both sides felt they were just as much comrades as they were enemies, stranded in this game of trench warfare. Independent of the big brass, soldiers often made their own rules of live and let live.
Early in the war, both sides would often announce spontaneous truces. There were many instances where the closeness of the trenches was such that they could actually throw grenades back and forth, where they could talk to each other. So there were many instances where they just left each other alone.
But they would hold up signs teasing each other. They would sometimes play music back and forth across the lines. You'd hear the music. It did have its lighter times, but the next day you might go over the top, and you might have to kill the people that you were conversing with the previous day.
The most memorable truce occurred on the bitterly cold Christmas of 1914. Across no man's land, British soldiers could hear the German soldiers sing "Silent Night." The British applauded and began singing their own Christmas hymns.
Both sides were singing Christmas songs, and eventually, one brave soul yelled back, "Would you meet me in no man's land?" Another brave soul perhaps got the courage enough to walk out, and they shook hands.
Pretty soon, men started coming out of the trenches and exchanging, swapping maybe tobacco for chocolate. The officers, although they knew this was wrong, overlooked it in most cases. Soldiers on both sides laid down their weapons and gathered together in no man's land to share in the holiday spirit.
It was a time soldiers on both sides could feel human again, but it was a fleeting moment. British high command was peeved when they heard the news about the Christmas truce. The holiday ceasefire quickly ended; both sides returned to their fortified ditches.
Just to make sure this didn't happen again the following year, the Allies launched a Christmas Eve bombardment. For the rest of the war, there were no holiday truces. The live and let live policy returned to live and let die.
The infantrymen never had another Yuletide truce, but they did spend three more Christmases battling it out on the Western Front. After the first year on the front, the foot soldiers' New Year's resolutions were always the same: let's just make it through the holiday season alive.
World War I was a techno battle of machinery against men. To defend themselves, a supporting cast of the most sophisticated artillery to date backed the foot soldiers on both sides. Modern-day catapults launched 16-inch projectiles that pounded and flailed the landscape. Heavy howitzers called Big Berthas blew towns to smithereens.
Both sides fought with the same war toys until 1915 when German high command decided to change the rules. A new weapon exploded onto the battlefield; its effects would shock the world and change the psychology of warfare forever.
On April 22nd, 1915, near the German front, a French regiment noticed a thick green cloud rising up in the air. Within minutes, Allied soldiers began to fall to the ground. The German Army had dropped a deadly dose of chlorine gas. The silent game of chemical warfare had begun.
The Germans used a variety of gases; the most horrible was probably mustard gas, which was 35 times more lethal than chlorine gas. Not only did it choke you and kill you, but it would also burn your skin if it went through your clothing. They also used forms of toxic smoke; the smoke was an irritant that would make you take your gas mask off to cough, and then they would dump in the lethal gas on top of that.
During gas attacks, soldiers on both sides were forced to wear these alien-looking gas masks for weeks on end. Here's how one worked: this filter takes the air in here, and the soldier breathed through this tube. This mask had to be extremely uncomfortable to wear, but it became a soldier's most defensive weapon.
Unable to see or hear it coming, poisonous gases became a new weapon in psyching out the enemy. Another way foot soldiers caught their enemy by surprise was with a well-planned trench raid. You see, stalemating was the biggest military obstacle in World War I. Both sides never anticipated that modern weaponry would bring battles to a standstill.
Stranded in the trenches, foot soldiers felt like sitting ducks. As a result, trench raiding was one sure tactic to break a deadlock. The German Army recruited elite assault units specially trained for this type of siege warfare. They were called Stormtroopers.
German Stormtroopers' morale was extremely high because they felt they could actually do something instead of just sitting, waiting to be attacked. These German Stormtroopers were programmed to stop at nothing, always maneuvering at night. Their assaults were synchronized and well-choreographed.
First, they usually sent up a flare, then they charged over the top and into enemy territory. They used grenades and good old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat to overtake an opposing trench. The trench raids served a dual purpose: to take prisoners for interrogation and to snatch some booty for military intelligence.
These guys would grab letters, maps, IDs, anything that could give them info on their enemy's next move. These soldier skills were evident after the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. German Stormtrooper battalions counterattacked and drove the British back like a scene from a James Bond movie. They captured documents and were able to study the Allies' tactics.
Naturally, this forced the Allied troops to strategize their own trench raids. "Okay, we'd crawl over there during the night, and we'd lay out in front of the German trench. Every man was given a .45 and a dagger instead of a rifle, and myself and my sergeant and two or three of the men would have wire cutters to cut the lower wires. Then we crawled under the barbed wires, and when I'd given the signal, everybody jumped at once."
The Germans also had success counterattacking on the other front, the Eastern Front. The battle line between Eastern Europe and Russia. In July of 1917, the Russian army launched its last offensive of the war. They had advanced, pushing the Germans and Austrians 30 miles back. Then they just stopped, refusing to go any further.
Russia was in the throes of riot and revolution, and the foot soldiers had lost morale. During this decisive battle, the German counteroffensives shattered the Russian army and made them retreat 75 miles further back from where they had started.
This devastating defeat, combined with the country's food shortages and the downfall of Tsar Nicholas II's dynasty, made the Russian army negotiate a ceasefire with Germany. Russia had now dropped out of the war, but the war's end was still nowhere in sight.
Never before had men in uniform been exposed to the constant hammering of shell fire. It was enough to give anybody a massive headache or worse, a case of shell shock. This great adventure was not what the recruitment brochures said it would be. Many men wanted out.
The going AWOL was a no-no; mutiny could land you in front of a firing squad. Still, after three long years, many foot soldiers on both sides had had enough. Families wanted their boys back home. The infantrymen wanted peace. Everyone wondered what it would take to stop this war.
On April 6th, 1917, they got their answer: America declared war on Germany. Soon, eager young American soldiers would be charging on European soil like the cavalry riding over the American West. After months of training and watching their allies in action, the Americans had finally entered the war and were determined to bring down the German Army once and for all.
Those who had placed bets in 1914 that the Great War would only last a few months lost their shirts on the deal. The conflict went on for four years and took millions of lives. But on the morning of March 1st, 1918, it looked like the war was finally going to end.
At last, the Allied Forces landed an explosive counteroffensive. It was the first major Allied breakthrough on the Western Front in three years. This time, the Allies were determined to take no prisoners. The British opened the most massive artillery firepower of the war. Over 1 million shells exploded into the air, including lethal poisonous gas.
In October of 1918, the American doughboys, part of the American Expeditionary Force, were ready to raise some hell. They launched a decisive offensive near the French city of St. Mihiel.
"Our battle plan would be all worked out for us, and this is the way that we would study the terrain, study the German trenches, the German strong points. Just like you're boxing, you're working out your opponent. You jab him and find out these weak spots, and we found their weak spots."
The Americans blasted the Germans with infantry, tanks, and artillery. The Allies finally brought the Germans to their knees. The soldiers themselves realized that they were up against an undefeatable enemy, especially when the United States entered the war with fresh troops.
They saw these fresh young Americans coming over. The ones they captured were happy-go-lucky; they were fearless. They waded into German positions like crazy men. They just couldn't understand these Americans; they were acting like cowboys. They realized they were beat; they were fighting an undefeatable foe, and it was only a matter of time.
Time had run out for the German Army. Rumors spread of a surrender. "We had rumors going about a week ahead of time that the war was going to end. Everybody was being real conservative at that time; boy, they didn't want to get bumped off at the tail end of the war."
But a lot of them got it. On November 11th, the German high command gave in and signed an armistice agreement delivered by US President Woodrow Wilson. Both sides had agreed to lay down their arms. The Great War was essentially over.
When news of the surrender made its way to the Western Front, many German soldiers literally laid down their rifles and walked home. On the other side, the Allied soldiers tossed up their hats in celebration.
"Be mighty, mighty glad I'm home! Home back from over there! Glad I did!"
Victory parties spread across two continents. Every country was glad to have their boys home.
"When I go back to my American in the United States, decoration ceremonies for the heroes were bigger than the Academy Awards."
Over 120 American men received the coveted Medal of Honor. The American doughboy's ultimate war trophy, however, lay back on the battlefields at war's end. Soldiers scavenged no man's land like starving hyenas for war mementos, like German medals, helmets, and automatic pistols.
One American soldier paid a French comrade to mail him a 145-pound machine gun, and it eventually arrived on his doorstep in the US a few months later. I wonder how many stamps it took to mail that monstrosity!
For American doughboys, the so-called Great Adventure had paid off. They suffered the least amount of casualties, mostly because they entered the war late in the game. They lost roughly 116,000 men, but in Great Britain and France, almost an entire young male population was wiped out in the war. For them, the homecoming was definitely bittersweet.
The Great War was supposed to be the war that ended all wars, but the conflict was just the beginning of modern 20th-century warfare. In June of 1919, almost five years after the war began, governments on both sides had convened in Versailles, France, to determine the terms of Germany's surrender.
Most Allied countries wanted to punish the Germans, but in the end, the only thing the signed treaty did was stir up hostility and resentment in Germany. In 1939, the Germans would rebound with a vengeance. Many World War I foot soldiers would give a repeat performance in the Second World War.
After the dust and shrapnel settled over Europe, the Great War left a mixture of emotions for most foot soldiers. The conflict was the pinnacle event in their entire life. Spirited brotherhood amongst their comrades in the trenches would never be matched again. Everything would always be measured to it, and nothing would live up to that experience.