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World War I: Difference between revisions
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** Modern plastic surgery owes its [http://www.plasticsurgery.org/about-asps/history-of-plastic-surgery.html beginnings] to this. The results were [http://bitchitoldyouigottaste.tumblr.com/post/11508919065/some-photos-of-wwi-veterans-with-their-tin-masks primitive] by today's standards, but they were far better than nothing. In particular, big advancements were made in prosthetic eyes.
* [[Book Ends]]: The treaty that ended the war and the German Empire was signed in Versailles, the same place where the German Empire was unified and proclaimed after the [[Franco Prussian War]].
* [[Cassandra Truth]]: Charles I of the Austro-Hungarian Empire protested against [[Imperial Germany]]'s plan to allow certain dissidents hiding in Switzerland safe passage into Russia in the hopes of driving them out of the war, with the Germans ultimately dismissing the warning. Said dissidents also happened to include [[Vladimir Lenin]], their return having [[Commie Land|drastic consequences]].
* [[Colonel Kilgore]]: A disturbingly large number of veterans threw themselves back into fighting almost as soon as the war ended - the [[Weimar Germany|Freikorps]] might be the most famous but even in nominally victorious Britain at least 10,000 [[wikipedia:Black and Tans|ex-British]] [[wikipedia:Auxiliary Division|soldiers]] ''volunteered'' to fight the IRA (itself with more than a few ex-soldiers in its ranks) in Ireland. Although, considering what some of those soldiers did in Ireland...
* [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]: The German military strategy for the start of WWI, named the ''Schlieffen Plan'' after it's creator Field-Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, involved a sweeping attack that bypassed the formidable French defences in Alsace-Lorraine to attack via neutral Belgium, and knock Britain and France out of a war by taking Paris (effectively beating France), Dunkirk and Calais (cutting the British off from the mainland) - leaving Germany to fight (and probably beat) Russia alone. They needed this to take a maximum of six weeks - and the crucial element of that was that the outnumbered (reportedly more than 10:1), out-skilled, poorly-commanded and under-equipped Belgian army would simply surrender and let the Germans through. When the Germans came to Belgium, they found King Albert I in personal command of the full Belgian Army, ready to hold them off for a crucial three months - something that, though all too often forgotten, was probably the single most important reason the Germans didn't win the war. The icing on the cake? When the Germans actually sent King Albert the ultimatum demanding that his men step aside and let the German army pass, he responded simply by saying; "I rule a nation, not a road!".
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** Also Karl von Müller and the crew of the German commerce raider SMS ''Emden'', which sank 16 Allied merchant ships without taking a life. When she was finally sunk and her crew taken prisoner even the heavily anti-German British press saluted their courage and gallantry.
* [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]: Lots of this, in many forms. Particularly once the Russian Civil War began, there was some romanticization of the War as a "global revolution." The 19th Century was very much the age of revolutions, with many nationalist and (small-r) republican movements springing up around the world. Colonial empires were slowly being dismantled from within, territories breaking away, becoming independent nations, and spreading democracy. From that perspective, the Great War was seen as the death throes of Imperialism, where the empires that dominated the world would fade away and be replaced by a more equitable, more modern form of government. Yeah...not exactly...
** Charles I of Austria-Hungary can arguably be described the right person at the worst possible time. As all his efforts to save the Habsburg domains and end the war ultimately proved to be either for naught or too little, too late.
* [[You Fail Economics Forever]]: Germany's strategy for paying for the war, instead of increasing wartime taxes and other such things that the other countries did? Just print money. This left the Germans with a useless form of currency, with the life savings of a retired citizen barely enough to cover a table. People were ''using marks as fuel for their fires or wallpaper'' because there was nothing else they could do with them.
* [[Young Future Famous People]]: Due to conscription, you generally couldn't throw a brick in the trenches without hitting someone who would grow up to be an important writer/actor/scientist/future political leader etc. (Most notably [[Adolf Hitler]]). Which has led some to speculate on just how much the 20th century would have been enriched considering how many ''potential'' future famous people were killed in the war.
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* [[Wings (video game)|Wings]]
* In the ''[[Command & Conquer: Tiberium]]'' series, [[Biblical Bad Guy|Kane]]'s [[State Sec|Black Hand]] is suggested to be the very same organization that assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
* ''[[Verdun]]'', a first-person MMO shooter in the style of the ''[[Battlefield]]'' games is not only named after the infamous Battle of Verdun but also aims to be as authentic and realistic to the time period. [[War Is Hell]] [[Scenery Gorn|and all]].
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