Am I the only one who finds World War I...
 

more interesting then World War II? Everyone I've said this too looks at me like I'm crazy, but for some reason I'm just fascinated with WWI. Maybe it's because WWII has been done to death and pop culture, and I'm kind of sick of it, but ever since I read All Quiet on the Western Front I've been interested. I know a lot of people think WW1 was boring because of 'trench warfare' but, not only do I find trench warfare interesting in itself, but that was far from the only thing going on in WWI


Anyone else interested in The Great War?

http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.co...a000500_p3.jpg

http://0.tqn.com/d/history1900s/1/0/Q/wwi6.gif

http://0.tqn.com/d/history1900s/1/0/a/3/wwi23.gif

Oh and an interesting fact is that there are now only 3 surviving members of the first World War. It'll be a sad day when that generation of history passes on. List of surviving veterans of World War I - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I agree. I'm not an expert on either one, but I liked learning about WWI more than WWII when I was in school. My favorite one, though, was the American Civil War.

I don't think that first picture is authentic, btw; I'm pretty sure color photos weren't around at that time, but I could be wrong.

The trench wars of WWI don't appeal to me much. In general, I think WWI lacks some of the drama and flair (dashing nazi uniforms) that large scale fascism had and I guess the trench wars sort of show that the generals of WWI didn't really know how to do tactics with their new war toys either.

What I do like from WWI is the air combat and the pilots. Although they perhaps didn't do the largest contribution to the war, it's a piece of the history away from the muddy trenches that has a bit of shine to it.

It does look fake, but it is authentic. It's just very old.

More color pictures from world war one: World War One Color Photos - Color Photos from World War I

The new war toys didn't come into play until late into WWI, and at that point trench warfare did start to become obsolete.

Don't know much about the aerial aspects of WWI, will do some research on it. :thumb:

I find trench warfare interesting though.

Some interesting info on "No Man's Land":No Man's Land

http://data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/ap/a/a001020.jpg

http://quarterlyconversation.com/ima...-mans-land.jpg

http://www.melvynhigson.com/2%20Mira...nomansland.jpg

I just like the glory :p: I'm no expert on it either, but from what I think I know .. If you have a fokker plane high up in the air with a machine gun on it, you're not going to be able to shift the tide of war with it. Without bombs, it's not a practical way to attack anything on the ground, so it's mostly a threat to whatever's in the air.

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/aircraf...1-dogfight.jpg

Holding "tactical air mass" is of course also problematic because planes can only stay up for so long. So generally, these planes and pilots fought eachother. How much that contributed to the war effort on either side is probably negligible compared to what went on closer to the ground, but they also used zeppelins for bombing which is cool.

The first world war has cooler imagery, especially with those moonscapes and gasmasks chemical zones, but WWII had more clear cut good guys and bad guys giving it a more dramatic story line.

Yes, I was very bored by world war two, I thought it was badly written and the acting was terrible. Anyone know where I can purchase a copy of WWI? Is it out on blu-ray yet?

Just be glad the majority of you didn't have to live through that shit. Having a historical interest in war is one thing, but some of the posts in this thread are completely ignorant and indignant.

Both wars were extremely boring to me in history class, because all we studied was Canada's part in each one, and Canada didn't do too much of anything.

All you studied was Canada's part in each war? Interesting. I remember when I was in school, we not only studied Canada's part, but also almost every other aspect of the war and which countries were a part of it. Canada didn't do much? The Battle of Vimy Ridge, the Battle of the Somme, and the Battle of Passchendaele, among other contributions in WWI. Also in WWII, D-Day. But that stuff bores you, right? ;)

Vaguely remember half of those events, but in 9th grade what I really wanted was an Inglourious Basterds take on history, and when I didn't get it I tuned out.

I did write a poem about trench foot though. Lost that somewhere. It was gold.

Almost 67,000 Canadian dead and just short of 150,000 wounded, suggests otherwise.
And that's just WW1.

Norway was also occupied during WWII, so of course that one is more interesting to me. Also, aside from the nazis in Europe, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also quite exciting events .. from a historical perspective, of course.

I'm pretty interested in WWI. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that I never learned much about it in history class growing up. It seems like all it ever got was a cursory mention before we'd move on to WWII. To this day I feel undereducated about it.

I can't study wars for too long before I get really depressed. I know it has happened since our existence began, but it still bothers me that humans can do that to each other. The worst part is knowing WWIII is right down the line. Nothing has changed.

I'm definitely more interested in WWII than WWI, and I think it makes sense why so many people are more interested in WWII. For one, the fronts in WWII fluctuated a lot more, not to mention the fact that there were more fronts in the first place. That's reason alone to explain why people think WWII is so much more interesting.

Still waiting for that Call Of Duty game set in WWI.

There were many fronts during WW1.
The Great War made WW2 look like a bar brawl.

I agree, the first World War is far more intriguing to me than WWII. Maybe it's the mystery that surrounds it from it being completely neglected as a topic while I was in school. I've definitely done a lot of research about it and would love to learn more, but it's hard to find accessible info on WWI, unlike WWII.

Eh, not really. The Pacific Theater, Russia, Western Europe/Britain, North Africa, etc.

WW1
The Western Front: Britain & France Vs Germany
The Eastern Front: Germany & Austro/Hungary Vs Russia
The Italian Front: Austro/Hungary Vs Italy
The Balkan Front: Britain & Commonwealth Vs Turkey (Gallipoli landings)
Not to mention Palestine and Iraq where the British fought the Turks.

Total British dead (not including the commonwealth countries) 1,663,435

I find both wars to be fascinating, in terms of the types of warfare and things. But WWII definetly has more interesting figures, people that are really interesting to study. I also think they both had an interesting impact culturally, economically and the like, where they are both equally important.

In terms of war fiction. I also think they are about on par, All Quiet On The Western Front may be the greatest war book ever written. There's something about trench warfare that makes for interesting stories, the conditions would have been a lot worse than the actual fighting in my opinion. But WWII has good stories too like Sophie's Choice.

I think that overall other less popular wars are sometimes more interesting to study for me, because I don't know as much about them from the media and everyday conversations.

Compare that to 450,700 British casualties for WW2 and to us it was a bar brawl.

Ok, if you look at where there was fighting during WWII:

Western Europe: France, Britain, Germany
Eastern Europe: Soviet Union, Poland, Germany
Northern Europe: Germany, Denmark, Norway
Balkans: Greece, ****load of small Balkan countries, Italy, Germany
Southern Europe: Italy, U.S., Britain
North Africa: Germany, U.S., Britain, Italy
Burma/India: Britain, Japan
The Rest of the entire pacific theater

I don't know how you can even argue this. World War 2 was a much larger war, being fought over a much larger geographic region, between more nations, with a greater number of men, etc. There really is no argument.

I'm not debating the fronts of WW2.
It was you who said WW1 didn't have many.

Common trend I've picked up on is that WWI is bigger (historically speaking) with the Brits and WWII is bigger in the US. I think it boils down to the number of families that were directly affected by each war on each side.

This could be true. WWII was definitely the bigger war though.

I did?

edit: oh wait, I see, I misunderstood you're bar brawl analogy. I thought you were trying to say WWI had more fronts or something.

You quoted me; There were many fronts during WW1.
The Great War made WW2 look like a bar brawl.

And replied with this;

Yeah. I think I misunderstood your reply too.

Triple post...shoot me!
The point I was making, was that to the British WW1 was a massive sacrifice compared to our losses during WW2.
As much as 35% losses of armed forces mobilised.

Alright, cool, then we all agree with each other. :laughing:

I think we can avoid a bloodbath over the matter, yes. ;)

Nice to see the U.S. making up for being late twice btw.
Roll on WW3.

Btw guys. Bit off topic but I've always thought this. Do you tend to be more interested by wars if your country is involved or doesn't it matter to you? I don't care at all tbh, I usually find wars from other cultures fascinating as it allows different viewpoints on the conflict. But I find a lot of people are only interested in the wars that their home country has fought in and played a big role in as they get to see how it's affected their lives.

What the Brits eat doesn't make the US shit... btw.

I'm a lover of history in general and wars are an integral part of shaping a nations history.
I've more interest in my own national history than in others, naturally, but that doesn't stop me having an interest in others too.
Ancient history particularly.

You'll have to explain that. Not sure I understand...

I'm from the U.S. and despite what the previous poster said, I do still find WWI more interesting then WWII, though I'm in the clear minority.

But for the most part, I find few wars interesting post-1776 that didn't involve the U.S. Come to think of it, I can barely think of any. Guess I'm just ill-informed. :p:

The Napoleonic wars?

I know very little about it. :o:

They don't teach that stuff in our school.

What you guys do doesn't really affect us.

Why? What did we do?