World War I: Difference between revisions

** If this is in reference to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, then it should be pointed out that Franz Joseph didn't particularly like him. The declaration of war against Serbia was to take a hardline against violent nationalism, not revenge.

* [[Last of His Kind]]: Most of the last surviving veterans of the war have died in the past 15 years. As of 2011, nobody who saw active combat remains (the last, Claude Choules (British-born Australian, served in the RN and RAN) died May 5th, 2011). The last known survivor was Florence Green (British, last female veteran, died 7 Feb 2012). The last Canadian, Polish, Ukrainian and Austro-Hungarian veterans died only recently, only one to four years ago. Also, the last American veteran, Frank Buckles, died February 27th, 2011.

* [[Memetic Badass]]: Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, commander of German forces in East Africa, intentionally built up a crazy reputation among both his enemies and his own troops though such acts as personally reconoitering a battlefield on his bicycle. When he lost his glass eye and one of his Askaris (African troops) found it, returned it, and asked why he had dropped it, he replied "I left it there, to make sure that you would do your duty." By the end of the campaign, his enemies believed he was carrying his men on his back and going barefoot to conserve boots. After the war, he managed to get England to pay the retirement funds of his African troops. Let me repeat that: he managed to get England to pay for the retirement of the people who had ''shot at their soldiers''.

** He was also a [[Father to His Men]], insisting that his black troops be treated the same as his white troops. When Lettow-Vorbeck returned to east Africa in 1953, his surviving askaris assembled and serenaded him with their marching song.

** Less debatable is the Russian military equipment being pretty sub-par. Malnourished and ill equiped troops were the norm in that empire.

* [[Schizo-Tech]]: The introduction of poison gas, tanks, and surveillance aircraft (as well as one of the first campaigns of aerial assault led by [[Colonel Badass|Lt. Commander Peter Strasser]]) mixed with distinctly old-world attitudes and aesthetics.

* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]: Practically ''every common footsoldier'' (though not only them). [[Trope Namer|The war itself was the actual originator of the term "shell shock"]].

* [[Shotguns Are Just Better]]: So much so that the Germans decided that anybody captured with one would be executed on the spot.