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studying ancient history will have you thinking stuff like The 18th century was basically yesterday

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seeing as we have Communities on tumblr now and no one else had done it, i made the Military History Community.

it looks like the bastard child of tumblr and discord. let's see how it goes

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seeing as we have Communities on tumblr now and no one else had done it, i made the Military History Community.

it looks like the bastard child of tumblr and discord. let's see how it goes

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The 56th Punjabi Rifles, an infantry regiment of the British Indian army posing with the Sphinx, WWI.

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The memorial is for those killed by the French during the suppression of the Kaocen Rebellion in what is now northern Niger. At least 130 people were massacred by the French after the area was recaptured.

There was also an uprising around the same time by the Sennusi in nearby Libya and Egypt. It was put down in a similarly heavy-handed way.

Seen in Agadez, Niger by Mariam N’diaye

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Another hobby of mine, that is within another hobby: taking photos on a 100+ year old camera while at my World War I reenactments.

I ordered film in the middle of October for my late 1910's-early 1920's Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak camera. It's a film that is rare nowadays...as late as 1995 I'd have been able to go to any film store in my hometown (where I still live, and where Kodak's corporate headquarters and manufacturing facilities are/were) and get myself a few rolls. Now I have to order it from film suppliers online who import the 8-shot rolls from Japan. I found the camera online last year on Etsy. I paid not a lot of money for it, and damned if it wasn't in tip-top shape. In April of 2024 I went to the WWI spring tactical in Newville, Pennsylvania. I had one roll of film with me and took some damned good photos of some damned good friends of mine, as well as a shot of no-man's land and the German trenches beyond....which coincidentally housed some other damned good friends of mine. There's a place about 15 minutes from me that develops 127 film and also scans it onto a flash drive. The two rolls I received today I had hoped would have gotten here in time for the fall tactical last month, but the supplier was out of stock. Oh well, it just means I have more for next April's event! The reproduction film box was a gift from one of my oldest and bestest reenactor friends.

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« When I think back on the year 1915, it seems to me that I still hear my friends tell me despondently: "I can't think of anything else! I can't read, I can't work, or find useful distractions (...), I only ruminate about our times, incessantly, until I'm nauseated (...). I've just had two hours of liberty—there was a time when I would have offered them to Tolstoy or Pascal. Today I read about [the war], or European colonial methods; issues that are entirely beyond my reach, but how to think of anything else?"

And perhaps we shouldn't strive to think of anything else; the point is not to turn our backs on our times, but to consider them calmly and thoughtfully. (...) It may be that the philosophy which absorbs you leaves no room for indulgence. Perhaps you feel yourself full of bitterness and rancour towards your fellow men, perhaps you have made up your mind to see in their activities nothing but greed and selfishness. (...) Do not be too eager to prove yourself right! Above everything, do not rejoice in being right in so dismal a fashion. (...) My only ambition is to beg the world to look for anything which can lighten the present and future distress of mankind, to find what interests the soul in a life burdened with troubles and disillusionments, to honour more than ever the faithful and imperishable resources of our inner life. (...)

The storm rages on, the events escalate, worsen, never cease. Never have they seemed more complex, more severe, more demanding. More dangerous. Wherever we turn, an opinion holds up its head and vehemently solicits our belief. (...) Our convictions, our certainties, are at each other's throats. (...) Yet mankind, even in these terrible hours, is only seeking happiness. Men have set off to conquer happiness, clutching in their hands the tools which will forever destroy it. (...) The wrong direction the world has taken is so obvious, so cruel, so vast (...)

Regardless, I would suggest not to lose hope—so long as a single wallflower still opens, in April, over the ruins of the world. Like algae, like mosses, like these laborious lichens which attach to the very ruins their infinite need for happiness, we will find joy in our present affliction and we will grow it, like a wind-battered plant in the parched soil of a wilted world. »

— Georges Duhamel, La Possession du monde (translation mine) Written in 1917 as he worked as an army surgeon.

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Parade of the Dead by Georges Bertin Scott (1873-1943).

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British artillery officers used some interesting methods for locating German batteries.

How fucking bad were methods in 1916 that this is an improvement?

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Damage to Seydlitz from HMS Queen Mary's 13.5" in guns during the Battle of Jutland.

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Poilu, Argonne, France. 1916

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I fucking hate trenchposting sometimes

All my mutuals throw me into a muddy field with a shovel and shout "go trench boy go"

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"During the course of a combat it is well known that the accuracy of fire falls off to an almost incredible degree, and the mean expenditure of bullets per man placed out of action previous to the introduction of long-range weapons never fell materially below 200." Continental vs South African Tactics - Col Frederick Maude, Royal United Services Institute Journal, 1902.

Something you don't see a lot of is the research that the British army did before the 20th century about the wars they fought. This is mostly because they didn't have an organised staff to actually do this research, but interested individuals certainly did.

Maude doesn't cite his sources, but he draws reference to the Napoleonic and US Civil wars as being before the advent of "long-range weapons". Gives you a sense of how inaccurate smoothbore muskets and even mid-century rifles were given the close ranges at which they're firing.

What's also interesting is how much that number grows by the middle of the 20th century. In WW2 it's taking upwards of 5,000 bullets to cause a single casualty, and by some accounts 50,000+ during the Vietnam War.

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An improvised trench catapult used by the British in 1914. Also firing/flinging an improvised grenade known as a 'jam tin bomb'.

London Illustrated News, 1914.

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My first phd supervisor wrote about troops from the British West Indies during the war.

One reason men from across the Caribbean volunteered... was the belief that ‘wartime sacrifice’ would lead to post-war ‘improved standing’. The hoped-for ‘improved standing’ for returned soldiers did not materialise. They were permitted to vote in the first post-war election, but thereafter the colony returned to being a white-only electorate. Fearful of armed uprisings, the colonial government encouraged 4,000 BWIR veterans to emigrate to Cuba and other locations. With the return of peace, Jamaica issued a series of new postage stamps. Two featured the departure and return of the BWIR contingents. A third, portraying Jamaican slaves gaining their freedom, was produced by De La Rue & Company in England and sent to the colony in April 1921. The government considered the stamp too controversial and destroyed the entire stock for ‘political reasons’. Someone Else's War: Fighting for the British Empire in World War I - John Connor.

Classic British Empire.

The Great War was indeed a World War. These gentlemen from the Royal Garrison Artillery represent His Majesty from far-off Bermuda!

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Testing of armour-piercing shells and an armoured cupola at the Hadfield's foundry.

Illustrated London News, 1914.

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Canon de 138mm modèle 1887 dominating the bow of the French Type A riverine gunboat Furieuse on the Aisne, 1916