100 Interesting Facts About WWI

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1Sausages

Sausages

Germans were banned from eating sausages during WWI because intestines of 250,000 cows were needed to make each Zeppelin


2. Harry D. Andrews (1890-1981) was a young man when he was declared dead from spinal meningitis. He was revived with experimental adrenaline. He recovered, served in France in WWI. He later found out that his fiancé left him. Later he proceeded to carry 56,000 pails of stone from a river to build his own three-story castle.


3. British Secret Intelligence agency MI6 used semen as invisible ink during WWI.


4. Two years after Titanic sank, the Empress Of Ireland sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and lost 68.5% of all passengers (0.5% more than Titanic). The event was buried in the papers because of WWI.


5. In WWI Canadian soldiers used urine-soaked clothes as primitive respirators against chemical attacks. The ammonia in urine would react with the chlorine, neutralizing it, and that the water would dissolve the chlorine, allowing the soldiers to breathe through the gas.


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6Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was the respected commander of German forces in East Africa during WW1 who was offered a job by Hitler in 1935. He told Hitler to "go f*ck himself" though other reports say he didn't "put it that politely."


7. Up until the early 1900’s, it was completely normal for children of both sexes in America to wear dresses until the age of 6 or 7. Gendered clothing didn’t arrive until just before WWI when pink was recommended for boys and the more ‘delicate and dainty blue’ was recommended for girls.


8. Until it was forcibly suppressed during WWI, German was the second most widely spoken language in the USA, with many local governments, schools, and newspapers operating in German.


9. Beethoven's 9th Symphony was introduced to Japan by German POWs in WWI (who played it for them), and it is now a national tradition to perform it every New Year’s.


10. During WWI, Romania decided to send its vast collection of treasure to Russia for safekeeping. In 1918, the new Soviet government cut all diplomatic ties and refused to return the treasure. Russia still holds the treasure valued at over $1.5 billion and has no intention of giving it back.


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11Armistice Day

Armistice Day

In WWI, even though the officers knew that at 11 am there was a cease-fire agreement, they kept on sending troops into no man's land and shelling the enemy lines, right up to 10:59 am. About 2,000 people died with only hours left off fighting.


12. Henry Allingham, the oldest Briton in history, credited his longevity to “cigarettes, whiskey and wild, wild women – and a good sense of humor.” He fought in WWI, worked as an engineer in WWII, and died at the age of 113.


13. During WWI, Woodrow Wilson kept a flock of 48 sheep on the White House lawn to save money on groundskeepers. The sheep also earned $52,823 for the Red Cross through the auction of their wool.


14. At the start of WWI, Italy developed the Villar Perosa Double Machine Gun that could fire 1200-1500 rounds per minute, but they were unable to figure out a practical use for it until the end of the war.


15. U-28, a WWI German submarine sunk after it was struck by an automobile which flew off a cargo ship it had just torpedoed.


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16Pals battalion

Pals battalion

During WWI a British recruitment tool called the “Pals Battalion” allowed people from the same town to enter the military together. Though it increased enlistment rolls, it also devastated whole regions of the UK whenever a battalion experienced heavy casualties. By WWII the idea was abandoned.


17. The earliest reference to “cooties” was a nickname for lice in the trenches of WWI where they were also known as “arithmetic bugs” because “they added to our troubles, subtracted from our pleasures, divided our attention, and multiplied like hell.”


18. During the WWI fight for Belgrade, Serbia, German troops encountered a very stiff resistance, so German Field Marshal August von Mackensen erected a monument to the Serbian soldiers who died defending Belgrade, saying, “We fought against an army that we have heard about only in fairy tales.”


19. The Hungarian serial killer Béla Kiss is thought to have murdered at least 23 young women and 1 man and attempted to pickle them in giant metal drums. When WWI began, he was conscripted and left his house. When his crimes were discovered, he evaded capture and was never heard from again.


20. The first and the last British soldiers to die in WWI are coincidentally buried only 15 feet apart. In the 4 year period between their deaths, nearly a million other British/Commonwealth troops died.


21Harlem Hellfighters

Harlem Hellfighters

There was an all-black regiment in WWI that the Germans feared so much that they called them the "Harlem Hellfighters". They never lost an inch of ground and none of them was ever captured.


22. The Uncle Sam, "I Want You" poster was used in WW1, not WW2!


23. New York City gangster Monk Eastman decided to enlist in the Army at age 42 to fight in WWI. During his physical, the doctor asked Monk in which war he got all of his knife and bullet scars. Monk replied, "Oh! A lot of little wars around New York."


24. During WWI, the Belgian King (Albert I) personally led the army, the Queen served as a nurse, and the 14-year-old Prince enlisted as a private and fought in the ranks.


25. During WWI, at one point, skirmishing Russian and German forces had to declare a temporary truce to fight off a sudden onslaught of wolves that were making regular raids on trenches. The joint operation was successful.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Actually, paul was correct, Hitler was a legend and If Hitler would live his life until 1950-60, then Hitler would be the world’s #1 leader and there will be no ISIS or Superpower America or China…

    Germany would be the #1 then…

    816

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