100 years since the bloodbath of the somme
 

Lions led by donkeys!


100 years since the battle of the Somme and all those millions of tragic deaths.....Infinite respect to those young men, in both wars, so many teenagers amongst them,
who died for us to exist....We're forever standing on the shoulders of these giants!
Infinitely less respect for those cavalier generals and elitists who frivolously sent our men into these dreadful rich mans wars...

Amidst the carnage they did at least have one day of peace Christmas day 1914, a grand sing song which the Germans started with silent night,
cigarettes were exchanged, the ball came out and they used jumpers for goalposts. And our boys laughed and joked and explained they really meant
each other no malice. These were just kids.

The generals and their masters were of course furious and prevented any future conviviality and treated this as treasonous.
The working classes must be kept dirt poor, impoverished and uneducated. Millions more young men were conscripted and if they
tried to run they could face a firing squad. To think these men barely had rights at home, those without property had no voting rights,
many lived in squalor , their wives and children were left at home to fend for themselves.

Even without the war the masses often died of TB working down coal pits and slate quarries for a pittance and the welfare state and NHS didn't
exist to protect them....But The war must be continuous. Who was this war between? These British, French and German young lads straight out of
school fighting over a few miles of land in France ? The real war was between those insatiably greedy cold blooded elitists and their own people, those
masters of war would do anything to keep their power structure in place! Has this really changed as much as we think? Injured soldiers get a pat on the
back, but what else? Barely a military hospital left, pitiful pensions and poor job prospects and a lot of nightmares.
Its not a man's world, its a very rich man's world.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zxsfyrd

:clap1::clap1::clap1: Yes Truth, these poor souls should NEVER be forgotten.

Yes World War 1
was Evil

At this time

On day one of the battle

British soldiers were being killed at a rate of 8 per second - as they walked over the top

I have 2 picture and two medals of my great grandfather Louis John Clay who died on The Somme. The first picture is of a somber Lieutenant in full uniform, the second, my favorite is in his shirt-tails, holding a horse and grinning at the camera. On the back it says, Aldershot garrison preparing for France.

The battle that became a byword for slaughter. Those boys were mostly the same age as the younger members of our forum. Their courage was beyond question and their terrible deaths a testament to the carnage we've rained down on each other over the years.

We will remember them.

And it's also my Grannies birthday, she would have been 100 today, she made it to 92 though, which is a good age :love:

We should all take a moment to reflect and remember them today.

there was a 2minute silence this mornng at 7.30

Excellent radio this morning on LBC. Nick Ferrari and Nigel Farage were at the battle fields of the Somme. Nigel has an excellent historical knowledge of the battle and it was very good.
small snippet here is really worth a listen

http://www.lbc.co.uk/nigel-farage-an...e-somme-133119