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World War I: Difference between revisions
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* [[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]]:
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* Perhaps it wasn't [[Canada]]'s finest hour in WWI, but the [[w:Battle of Vimy Ridge|Battle of Vimy Ridge]] in April 1917 was the first time all of the Canadian Corps fought together - and they took and held a ridge that other Entente forces could not. The battle has become mythologized in Canada as the event where the nation began to be taken seriously in world affairs. (On the other hand, the Germans' inability to retake the ridge was a contributing factor in their decision to adopt scorched earth tactics elsewhere in France.)
** Another came in 1918 for the Italians. Italy was the [[Butt Monkey]] of the Allies, only good enough to keep the Austro-Hungarian Army away from France, where the war was being decided. In 1918 the tide was turning against the Central Powers, with Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire forced to sue for peace when the Allies broke through the Macedonian Front and the pro-British Arab Revolt became too strong respectively, but Austria-Hungary and Germany could still offer a stiff fight and extort concessions during the peace talks... When the Italians literally destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Army as organization in the battle of Vittorio Veneto, starting the chain reaction that dissolved the Austro-Hungarian Empire and opening the way for the Italian Army to march not just on Berlin (a condition the Italians required for not simply continuing the advance and wipe out Austria itself), as the German Army was tied up in France against the rest of the Allies. According to German general Ludendorff, the massive [[Oh Crap]] caused by the Austro-Hungarian collapse caused Germany to sue for peace instead than continue the war during the winter to get a less harsh peace.
* [[Crowning Moment of Funny]]: General Plumer before the Battle of Messines (1917), in which the Allied plan was to detonate 450 tons of TNT underneath the German trenches prior to an attack: "Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
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