Forgotten Weapons
Published on 24 Jul 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
With the surprise capture of Fort Douaumont in February 1916, the French reinforced all the remaining forts around the city of Verdun, and would hold them all successfully for many months. In fact, the only other fort in the area to fall would be Fort Vaux, in June of 1916.
In the chaos of the early battle, orders had actually gone out to evacuate Vaux and destroy it, but these were countermanded, and the fort remained a major lynchpin of French defenses in the sector. Critically, before they could be removed, demolition charges set in the fort’s main gun turret were detonated by a massive German shell, destroying the weapon.
In May, German advances seriously threatened the fort, and a new commander was assigned – Major Sylvain Eugene Raynal. Upon arrival, he found the fort in a terrible condition – heavily damaged by German bombardments and hugely overcrowded with as many as 500 soldiers, most of them wounded and sheltering in the fort (it had been designed to garrison 150 men). Shelling had broken through the fort’s walls in several places, and unbeknownst to Raynal or his men, the water cistern had been damaged and was nearly empty despite its gauge reading substantial levels of water.
The climactic German assault began on June 1st 1916, and by the end of the day only 71 French soldiers remained in unwounded inside. On June 2nd, the cistern damage was discovered – at that point it held just 8 gallons of putrid dregs. Intense fighting would continue for nearly another week, without any relief forces or supplies able to reach the fort. On the 5th, a bit of water was collected from rain, but not much. A relief force attempted to reinforce the fort, but was virtually obliterated, with only 37 men reaching its walls.
The Germans would storm the fort on June 5th, and the most horrific of combat would rage for two days inside its tunnels and galleries. Raynal ordered barricades erected inside the fort, and the French forces fought from one to the next, with only a few dozen men remaining. The battle would include machine gun and hand grenades in these tight passageways, and eventually a German attempt to burn out the defenders with flamethrowers.
Finally on the morning of June 7th, the combination of casualties and a complete lack of water meant the end of the resistance. Raynal and his surviving men surrendered, and Germans soldiers finally occupied the fort they had spent months attempting to conquer. In recognition of his valiant defense, Raynal’s sword was returned to him by German Crown Prince Wilhelm.
The German occupation of the fort would last only a few months – by late October it was abandoned quietly, and a French scouting force would find it empty and retake it on November 2nd, 1916.
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow
July 25, 2018
Forgotten History: The Underground Hell of Fort Vaux
July 20, 2018
2nd Battle Of The Marne – Turning Point On The Western Front I THE GREAT WAR Week 208
The Great War
Published on 19 Jul 2018The German Army launches an diversionary attack from the Rheims-Soisson salient and increases the pressure on Paris. But the Allies knew about the attack and for the first time, they effectively counter the German Stormtrooper tactics and even counter-attack along the line.
July 15, 2018
More Info About Alsace-Lorraine in WW1 I OUT OF THE ETHER
The Great War
Published on 14 Jul 2018Markus and Indy give you some background on our recent special episode.
July 10, 2018
Mountain Combat In The Vosges – The Battle For Alsace-Lorraine I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 9 Jul 2018The Battle for Alsace-Lorraine in the Vosges was unforgiving and brutal. Both the French and the German troops were fighting in extreme conditions for a extremely symbolic stretch of land.
July 3, 2018
French North Africa in World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 2 Jul 2018Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco were all part of French North Africa before and during World War 1. They all contributed in material and men to the war effort and the French colonial soldiers were praised for their bravery.
June 27, 2018
Calico prohibition
In the current issue of Reason, Virginia Postrel outlines an eighteenth-century French government attempt to prohibit calico cloth:
Calico printing, an image from Wellcome Images, via Wikimedia Commons
On a shopping trip to the butcher’s, young Miss la Genne wore her new, form-fitting jacket, a stylish cotton print with large brown flowers and red stripes on a white background. It got her arrested.
Another young woman stood in the door of her boss’ wine shop sporting a similar jacket with red flowers. She too was arrested. So were Madame de Ville, the lady Coulange, and Madame Boite. Through the windows of their homes, law enforcement authorities spotted these unlucky women in clothing with red flowers printed on white. They were busted for possession.
It was Paris in 1730, and the printed cotton fabrics known as toiles peintes or indiennes — in English, calicoes, chintzes, or muslins — had been illegal since 1686. It was an extreme version of trade protectionism, designed to shelter French textile producers from Indian cottons. Every few years the authorities would tweak the law, but the fashion refused to die.
Frustrated by rampant smuggling and ubiquitous scofflaws, in 1726 the government increased penalties for traffickers and anyone helping them. Offenders could be sentenced to years in galleys, with violent smugglers put to death. Local authorities were given the power to detain without trial anyone who merely wore the forbidden fabrics or upholstered furniture with them.
“The exasperation of the lawmakers, after forty years of successive edicts and ordinances which had been largely ignored, flouted or circumvented on a wholesale basis, can be sensed in this law,” writes the fashion historian Gillian Crosby in a 2015 dissertation on the ban. Her archival research shows a spike in arrests for simple possession. “Impotent at stopping the cross-border trade, printing or the peddling of goods,” she writes, “government officials concentrated on making an example of individual wearers, in an attempt to halt the fashion.”
They failed.
In the annals of prohibition, the French war on printed fabrics is one of the strangest, most futile, and most extreme chapters. It’s also one of the most intellectually consequential, producing many of the earliest arguments for economic liberalism. “Long before the more famous debates about the liberalisation of the grain trade, about taxation, or even about the monopoly of the French Indies Company, philosophes and Enlightenment political economists saw the calico debate as their first important battleground,” writes the historian Felicia Gottmann in Global Trade, Smuggling, and the Making of Economic Liberalism (Palgrave Macmillan).
June 26, 2018
Henry Johnson And The Harlem Hellfighters I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?
The Great War
Published on 25 Jun 2018The 369th Infantry Regiment from Harlem, New York was an all-black unit that served on the Western Front. But not under American command, but loaned tot he French Army.
June 23, 2018
Ian Explains the French Mutinies of 1917
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 24 May 2018http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Check out my new series of WW1 shirts!
https://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forgotten-weaponsWhile on the road with Military Historical Tours visiting American battlefields of World War One, I was asked to explain the French mutinies of 1917. This was an extemporaneous lecture, so please forgive any factual errors I may have made (and such errors are entirely my fault, not that of MHT). Please not that I am not a regular tour guide or anything for MHT; I’m on this tour as a participant. Want to take one of their tours yourself? They go all over Europe and Asia, covering sites form WW1, WW2, Korean, and Vietnam:
June 15, 2018
The French Counter Attack At Matz I THE GREAT WAR Week 203
The Great War
Published on 14 Jun 2018The French have cracked the German radio code on the Western Front and use their advantage for a counterattack at Matz. The already hastily planed German attack during Operation Gneisenau is called off after just 4 days. Meanwhile Austria-Hungary plans another offensive in Italy and German and Ottoman forces fight each other in Georgia.
June 11, 2018
Feature History – Thirty Years’ War
Feature History
Published on 12 Nov 2016Hello and welcome to Feature History, featuring religious conflict, tragic war, and a really nifty collaboration with Jabzy.
3 Minute History – German Peasant’s War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeQVAUmyLksInvolvement Chart
June 10, 2018
The Landings At Cape Helles 1915 I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
The Great War
Published on 9 Jun 2018Thank you to Mr Ali Serim for making this trip possible.
Indy and our guide Can Balcioglu explore the southern tip of Gallipoli where the British Army landed in April 1915.
June 8, 2018
The Battle of Belleau Wood Begins I THE GREAT WAR Week 202
The Great War
Published on 7 Jun 2018The German Army is still threatening Paris and the situation for the Allies looks dire. Reluctantly, General Pershing agrees to put some of the American troops into action at Belleau Wood and Château-Thierry.
D Day – III: La Résistance – Extra History
Extra Credits
Published on 20 Jun 2017Although the French government surrendered to the German invasion, French people rose up and formed resistance groups to take their country back. Charles de Gaulle and his Free French took advantage of these independent movements to help organize actions that would greatly aid the Allied landings at Normandy.
June 6, 2018
D-Day: Canada at Juno Beach
Yesterday Today
Published on 3 Jun 2017D-Day: Canada at Juno Beach
6 June 1944
Of the nearly 150,000 Allied troops who landed or parachuted onto the Normandy coast, 14,000 were Canadians. They assaulted a beachfront code-named “Juno”.
The Royal Canadian Navy contributed 110 ships & 10,000 sailors in support of the landings while the RCAF had helped prepare the invasion by bombing targets inland. On D-Day & during the ensuing campaign, 15 RCAF fighter & fighter-bomber squadrons helped control the skies over Normandy and attacked enemy targets. On D-Day, Canadians suffered 1074 casualties, including 359 killed.
June 1, 2018
50 Miles To Paris – Third Battle Of The Aisne I THE GREAT WAR Week 201
The Great War
Published on 31 May 2018The German spring offensive has lost some traction over the past few weeks but the Allies are still under pressure. With Operations Blücher and York, the Germans are getting within 50 miles of Paris again, just as they did in 1914.
