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History Thread - WW1 Attack of the Dead Men (August 6, 1915)
Posted on 4/24/24 at 8:25 am
Posted on 4/24/24 at 8:25 am
Attack of the Dead Men was a battle between Russian and German Troops during WW1 in 1915. Over the series of a few weeks, German Troops had tried to take the Russian held Osowiec Fortress.
The Germans tried to attack the fort multiple times but were continuously driven back by a determined combination of Russian soldiers and Russian artillery.
Eventually the Germans were tired of this constant pain in the back and decided to test a relatively experimental weapon, Poison Gas. The Germans had Mustard and Chlorine Gas available in the area, and had to choose between the two.
On the Western Front Germans tended to use Mustard Gas as it would hurt Allied troops even with a gas mask and it caused blisters on the skin, whereas Chlorine Gas would only hurt those who had no gas masks.
The trade-off though, was that Mustard Gas tended to be easier to survive and recover from, whereas Chlorine Gas would basically melt your lungs and any soft flesh.
Chlorine Gas needed to REACH your lungs though, and as most troops on the Western Front had masks, it wasn’t THAT much of a threat.
The problem is, this isn’t the Western Front— the Russian Army isn’t in a very good position or situation and is using a LOT of outdated materials.
The Russians don’t have gas masks, and the Germans know it. They decide to use the Chlorine Gas option and after the wind is cooperating, give their troops gas masks and get ready to advance.
They let the gas loose and begin to advance, and expect to see nothing at all.
They advance, and then they see something horrible advancing from the Russian trenches.
While coughing up blood and bits of their own lungs, the Russians covered their faces with cloths and managed to rout German forces by rising like the undead, grabbing their swords, axes, knives, and releasing a blood-curdling battle cry.
The Germans retreated, running so fast they were caught up in their own barbed wire traps. The five remaining Russian guns subsequently opened fire on the fleeing Germans.
~60-100 Russians routed 7-9000 Germans.
Dramatized some over time? Probably, but still a crazy story.
And here it is immortalized in song by the great band Sabaton.
This post was edited on 4/24/24 at 8:27 am
6
Posted on 4/24/24 at 8:38 am to Scruffy
It never fails to astound me just how brutal and barbaric WWI was. The ones who survived had to come out of it some of the most hardened people to ever walk the planet.
Posted on 4/24/24 at 8:41 am to Scruffy
Good post Scruffy. That's brutal.
I bet the grabbed some gas masks off the dead Germans
I bet the grabbed some gas masks off the dead Germans
Posted on 4/24/24 at 8:50 am to 9Fiddy
quote:WW1 was brutality distilled.
It never fails to astound me just how brutal and barbaric WWI was. The ones who survived had to come out of it some of the most hardened people to ever walk the planet.
Tactics that were becoming more and more outdated, facing increasingly destructive war machines and weapons.
It was a meat grinder, reducing a generation to so much offal.
Posted on 4/24/24 at 9:05 am to Scruffy
quote:
While coughing up blood and bits of their own lungs, the Russians covered their faces with cloths and managed to rout German forces by rising like the undead, grabbing their swords, axes, knives, and releasing a blood-curdling battle cry.
Man, I got down to this part and thought, "that sounds perfect for a song."
Then scrolled down and saw Sabaton and did this
Posted on 4/24/24 at 9:24 am to Scruffy
quote:
It was a meat grinder, reducing a generation to so much offal.
The British learned that the hard way. At the start of the war, they used a buddy system. Regiments were made up of young men from the same towns/villages. The thinking was that because they grew up knowing each other and being in the same community, that they would have a stronger bond and fight better together as a unit.
What ended up happening is that entire towns lost a generation of their future, and thousands of survivors got PTSD from seeing their brothers/friends/classmates get blown up or mowed down by machine gun fire.
The British eventually abandoned the buddy system mid way through the war, after realizing what was happening and the staggering loss of life also forced their hand to recreate fighting units with men mixed from different communities.
This post was edited on 4/24/24 at 9:26 am
Posted on 4/24/24 at 9:28 am to Scruffy
Posted on 4/24/24 at 9:32 am to Nole Man
quote:
The Osowiec fortress, located near the Polish town of Bialystok,
Bialystok and Doom.
Posted on 4/24/24 at 9:37 am to fr33manator
quote:
Bialystok and Doom.
The quotes on YouTube for that song are great.
“Sir, the enemy is gassing our position! Requesting permission to die!”
“Request denied! FIX BAYONETS!”
On August 6, 1915, the Russians were literally too angry to die.
Posted on 4/24/24 at 10:15 am to Scruffy
Sabaton does multiple great songs about insane battles.
Will probably make a thread about the 180 Swiss Guards who held off the invaders in Rome in 1527 at some point.
Will probably make a thread about the 180 Swiss Guards who held off the invaders in Rome in 1527 at some point.
Posted on 4/24/24 at 10:21 am to Scruffy
quote:
Sabaton does multiple great songs about insane battles.
They really do. Historical metal. Now there's a genre near and dear to my heart.
A lot of mine are more poetic and less specific, but it's just great material to write about.
Like
Posted on 4/24/24 at 10:23 am to Scruffy
quote:
It was a meat grinder,
The lobotomy craze in the early 20th Century was really a desperate attempt to deal with all the WW1 brain injuries. Very depressing
Posted on 4/24/24 at 10:41 am to Scruffy
Dead Enough
Now hear the tale of Osowiec,
A name the Huns came to dread,
Superior numbers useless when,
They faced the Attack of the Dead,
For weeks they'd faced the German guns,
Been blasted by bombard,
But Russia would not cede the line,
Dug in and held them hard,
And so the High Command agreed,
To unleash horror new,
That creeping fog of chlorine death,
An eerie green its hue,
It entered every orifice,
It turned the grass to black,
Leaving them dead, or begging for,
A bloody, screaming wrack,
Their mask seals tight, the Hun horde,
Full seven thousand strong,
Marched fearless towards the dead men,
But they wouldn't march for long,
In bloody rags with weeping sores,
A hundred Dead Men rose,
Fixed bayonet, and chlorine screams,
Rushed forth to meet their foe,
They hewed ol Hans with battle axe,
With sword and wicked knife,
The horrid undead hundred,
Barely clinging on to life,
Their blood soaked rags spewed war cries,
As they spat up bits of lung,
The Huns retreated, lost their feet, and,
On the barbed wire hung,
Some say it's merely legend,
And the story? Made up stuff,
But Fritz would find, that sometimes,
All the Dead aren't Dead Enough
Now hear the tale of Osowiec,
A name the Huns came to dread,
Superior numbers useless when,
They faced the Attack of the Dead,
For weeks they'd faced the German guns,
Been blasted by bombard,
But Russia would not cede the line,
Dug in and held them hard,
And so the High Command agreed,
To unleash horror new,
That creeping fog of chlorine death,
An eerie green its hue,
It entered every orifice,
It turned the grass to black,
Leaving them dead, or begging for,
A bloody, screaming wrack,
Their mask seals tight, the Hun horde,
Full seven thousand strong,
Marched fearless towards the dead men,
But they wouldn't march for long,
In bloody rags with weeping sores,
A hundred Dead Men rose,
Fixed bayonet, and chlorine screams,
Rushed forth to meet their foe,
They hewed ol Hans with battle axe,
With sword and wicked knife,
The horrid undead hundred,
Barely clinging on to life,
Their blood soaked rags spewed war cries,
As they spat up bits of lung,
The Huns retreated, lost their feet, and,
On the barbed wire hung,
Some say it's merely legend,
And the story? Made up stuff,
But Fritz would find, that sometimes,
All the Dead aren't Dead Enough
Posted on 4/24/24 at 1:12 pm to fr33manator
I’m not sure if you are just into historical metal, but Brothers of Metal does Viking/Norse Lore Metal.
They also have a female lead singer with an amazing voice.
They also have a female lead singer with an amazing voice.
Posted on 4/24/24 at 2:44 pm to Scruffy
It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it
- Robert E. Lee
- Robert E. Lee
Posted on 4/24/24 at 2:49 pm to Scruffy
I'm into good storytelling. Whatever the style. I'll check it out. I love folk/ western story songs.
Posted on 4/24/24 at 2:58 pm to BayouBengal51
quote:
At the start of the war, they used a buddy system.
Called Pals Battalions for the nerds out there.
Posted on 4/24/24 at 3:26 pm to fr33manator
This is a song about Hel and her consignment to rule over the unworthy.
quote:Same.
I'm into good storytelling
This post was edited on 4/24/24 at 3:27 pm
Posted on 4/24/24 at 3:27 pm to Areddishfish
quote:
Called Pals Battalions for the nerds out there.
I've always heard Pals Brigades
ETA: huh. And now I can't find the use of Pals Brigades anywhere. Only pals battalions.
Mandela effect?
I know I thought it was Pals Brigades because i included it in a piece on WW1
The men were chewed like burger,
Wilting wheat before the thresher,
As chattering machine guns claimed whole pals brigades of sons,
The war that was to be a jolly rout was far from pleasure,
As mankind met modern murder in that hell of World War One.
Artillery rained down and blew me mate's brains out his backside,
As hills were turned to plains without a single plow in sight,
And forests turned to toothpicks,
Grass to mud and blood and gore,
As the cannons flashed unending belching thunder through the night.
The Vickers gun spewed lead as fast as we could keep it loaded
The barrel got so hot it steamed like fog in the Ardennes,
I couldn't hear the screams when the grenade fell and exploded,
As O'leary held his belly trying to keep his insides in.
The trenches lay like rows of graves grave where only frost flowers bloomed,
Where we shivered in the frigid mud and spoke with steaming breath,
'Til gas shells came and rolled towards us bringing clouds of doom,
And cried out for our mothers as we drank in poison death
The galloping of hooves awoke me cruelly from my dreaming,
The whiz-bang boomed and I could feel the wet earth raining down,
The dirt fell from my ears and I could hear the horses screaming,
The riders strewn like broken toys all scattered on the ground.
Our boys they died in droves with each charge that was undertaken,
A generation cut to ribbons for a bit of mud,
The dying cried out through the night, the song of the forsaken,
And paid the price for cravens with each drop of valiant blood.
Were that that war to end all wars had ended senseless dying,
For politicians safe at home who sent them all away,
And no more children wept o'er graves to sounds of mothers crying,
But still they die in foreign lands up to this very day
ETA2: and now that I look it up a pals brigade is much too big anyway. 3-5000
I wonder if I just misheard it and made it up out of whole cloth
This post was edited on 4/24/24 at 3:45 pm
Posted on 4/24/24 at 3:47 pm to Scruffy
The vast majority of people believe, falsely, that Germany started WW1.
WW1 was started by Serbia & Austria - Hungary.
At 11:15 AM on June 28, 1914, in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife, Sophie, duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip. The chief of the Austro-Hungarian general staff, Franz, Graf (count) Conrad von Hötzendorf, and the foreign minister, Leopold, Graf von Berchtold, saw the crime as the occasion for measures to humiliate Serbia and so to enhance Austria-Hungary’s prestige in the Balkans.
The Austrians decided to present an unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia and then to declare war, relying on Germany to deter Russia from intervention. Though the terms of the ultimatum were finally approved on July 19, its delivery was postponed to the evening of July 23, since by that time the French president, Raymond Poincaré, and his premier, René Viviani, who had set off on a state visit to Russia on July 15, would be on their way home and therefore unable to concert an immediate reaction with their Russian allies. When the delivery was announced, on July 24, Russia declared that Austria-Hungary must not be allowed to crush Serbia.
Serbia replied to the ultimatum on July 25, accepting most of its demands but protesting against two of them—namely, that Serbian officials (unnamed) should be dismissed at Austria-Hungary’s behest and that Austro-Hungarian officials should take part, on Serbian soil, in proceedings against organizations hostile to Austria-Hungary. Though Serbia offered to submit the issue to international arbitration, Austria-Hungary promptly severed diplomatic relations and ordered partial mobilization.
Home from his cruise on July 27, William learned on July 28 how Serbia had replied to the ultimatum. At once he instructed the German Foreign Office to tell Austria-Hungary that there was no longer any justification for war and that it should content itself with a temporary occupation of Belgrade. But, meanwhile, the German Foreign Office had been giving such encouragement to Berchtold that already on July 27 he had persuaded Franz Joseph to authorize war against Serbia. War was in fact declared on July 28, and Austro-Hungarian artillery began to bombard Belgrade the next day.
WW1 was started by Serbia & Austria - Hungary.
At 11:15 AM on June 28, 1914, in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic wife, Sophie, duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip. The chief of the Austro-Hungarian general staff, Franz, Graf (count) Conrad von Hötzendorf, and the foreign minister, Leopold, Graf von Berchtold, saw the crime as the occasion for measures to humiliate Serbia and so to enhance Austria-Hungary’s prestige in the Balkans.
The Austrians decided to present an unacceptable ultimatum to Serbia and then to declare war, relying on Germany to deter Russia from intervention. Though the terms of the ultimatum were finally approved on July 19, its delivery was postponed to the evening of July 23, since by that time the French president, Raymond Poincaré, and his premier, René Viviani, who had set off on a state visit to Russia on July 15, would be on their way home and therefore unable to concert an immediate reaction with their Russian allies. When the delivery was announced, on July 24, Russia declared that Austria-Hungary must not be allowed to crush Serbia.
Serbia replied to the ultimatum on July 25, accepting most of its demands but protesting against two of them—namely, that Serbian officials (unnamed) should be dismissed at Austria-Hungary’s behest and that Austro-Hungarian officials should take part, on Serbian soil, in proceedings against organizations hostile to Austria-Hungary. Though Serbia offered to submit the issue to international arbitration, Austria-Hungary promptly severed diplomatic relations and ordered partial mobilization.
Home from his cruise on July 27, William learned on July 28 how Serbia had replied to the ultimatum. At once he instructed the German Foreign Office to tell Austria-Hungary that there was no longer any justification for war and that it should content itself with a temporary occupation of Belgrade. But, meanwhile, the German Foreign Office had been giving such encouragement to Berchtold that already on July 27 he had persuaded Franz Joseph to authorize war against Serbia. War was in fact declared on July 28, and Austro-Hungarian artillery began to bombard Belgrade the next day.
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