I’m making a quiz on WWI on another site (I’ll post the link here when it’s complete) and it will be open to the general public to test their knowlege on WWI. It will have questions ranging from basic knowlege to commonly misunderstood beliefs, to expert questions and general trivia. Partly, this quiz will be to educate and provide answers at the end.
It’s all multiple choice.
So my question is, what questions should I include to make the test really interesting?
Ask how Flechettes were used in WW1.
Well, most German women then were quite fleshy, but there were some rather nice ones who weren’t. They were called Flechettes and they were used to …
If you want to be obscure and test their classical knowledge as well, ask them whether capturing the Trojan horse would have altered the course of the war?
The site of ancient Troy is somewhere on the other side of the Dardanelles to Gallipoli, although the Turks have a firm view about its location for tourism purposes. If the Allies had won at Gallipoli and had captured Troy then they would have been in control of the Dardanelles as originally intended by the Gallipoli campaign and could have achieved the purpose of that campaign.
Who was Little Willie?
Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst, crown prince of the Kingdom of Prussia and of the German Empire. The first prototype tank was named after him.
Who was the last surviving holder of the Blue Max?
Ernst Jünger. The civil version of the Pour le Mérite still exists, but was never known as the Blue Max.
Which cartoonist was visited by Military Intelligence, accused of giving away military secrets by means of his implausible inventions?
William Heath Robinson - allegedly true, but I have been unable to find a reference so I might be imagining it.
What did a “mad minute” comprise of?
One of the prewar musketry tests for British troops was hitting a man-sized target with as many rounds as possible inside a minute at 200 yards. The minimum pass rate was 15 rounds hitting the target in this time, with the all-time record being 37.
This is one of the reasons the BEF did so well for it’s size at Mons and Le Cateau, and why the Germans initially thought they had run into a machine-gun unit.
Who said “Lafayette, we are here!”?
Lt. Col. Charles Stanton, at Lafayette’s tomb after a parade through Paris of the first American troops to arrive in France. The quote is popularly attributed to Pershing, but I can’t find any evidence that he actually said it.
Wow! Great start to the questions. I’ll give some examples of questions I was considering:
(b)
(b)
(c)
(a) Yes, France used gas first in the form of hang grenades. They were so ineffective that the Germans failed to notice.
How the heck were flachettes used in WWI?
a) Claymores
b) large comfort women
c) ?
d) ???
The first American Airplanes to patrol the front were missing what important element?
a) Engines
b) Machineguns
c) Maps
d) Country markings.
(b)
What year did WWI start?
a) 1910
b) 1914
c) 1916
d) 1918
What year was the Armistice signed, ending all hostilities?
a) 1914
b) 1918
c) 1919
d) 1920
What major countries made up the Triple Entente?
a) Germany, Italy, Japan
b) Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary
c) Austria-Hungary, Germany, Turkey
d) Germany, Turkey, Italy
Which country did Japan fight first in WWI?
a) England
b) USA
c) Germany
d) Russia
7 = b >> Aug 4th, 1914, according to British records. NZ was the first Commonwealth nation to offer troops to Britain, followed about 6 hours later by Australia.
8 = c >> IIRC, Aug 28th, 1919, at Versailles.
5 = >> Two major uses for flechettes.
A: Dropping on troops in trenches, hand-thrown from aircraft attacking from above.
B: Dropping on observation balloons and (more importantly) Zeppelins once altitude was gained above the airship. This was because early “tracer” and “De Wilde” ammunition was unreliable as an ignition source, whereas flechettes were almost certain to cause enough damage to cause an airship to depart the area, which was, after all, the purpose of the exercise. A Flechette is at its’ simplest a steel dart, about 6 inches long, and approximately half a pound in weight.
1 >> the trenches themselves were the cause of the greatest injuries, via trench foot and stagnant water, often leading to superation of any existing wounds.
In mechanical terms, the machinegun was the weapon which caused most casualties in WW1.
6 >> no “American Airplanes” patrolled the front, because no American-manufactured aircraft ever reached the European Front. Most aircraft used by the Americans in action over the Western Front in WW1 were French, chiefly Nieuport 11’s, 17’s, and Spad VII’s, IX’s and XIII’s.
Just a little general knowledge, thought it fun to reply. :mrgreen:
Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
Source? Everything I’ve ever seen cites artillery as causing between 50 and 75% of all combat casualties. Furthermore, except for US forces roughly 2/3 of casualties were in combat, with the rest being down to all forms of disease and accidental injuries. Accordingly, this smells like bullshit to me.
How about these:
(c)
(b)
(a) The American Springfield rifles was little more than a modified Gewehr 98
(a) After the first assassination attempt using a hand grenade had failed, Princip went to eat a sandwich in a cafeteria. Franz Ferdinand had the bad luck to slowly drive by that cafeteria, and Princip used this opportunity to shoot him.
More to come!
Perhaps more importantly, IIRC the Pickelhaube was made from leather and so provided virtually zero protection. After the French and then British adopted steel helmets, the Germans did too - and putting spikes on the top would be thoroughly awkward for mass production.
Hello Pdf27,
Source is Volume One of “The Great War” Published in 1923, (By Reeds, IIRC) and given to my father by his father, who fought at Passchendael on 4th Oct 1917, and in certain earlier battles after being transferred to Europe from Egypt.
There is a chapter on “Medicine in the Trenches” (Chapter 7 or 8, I think) in which illnesses and casualties are detailed in numbers broken down by categories.
Surprising though it may seem the listing under “Trench Foot” has up to 65% of those in the trenches suffering from the condition during the conflict, though admits to the bulk of them being returned to active duty in less than 30 days. The other factor regarding what I inaccurately called “stagnant water” is that whatever water seeped into the trenches was infected with various pathogens resulting from the decomposed bodies (of both humans and animals such as horses) that had not been recovered, and which had thus released their contents into the local seepage.
It goes without saying that any existing open wound that encountered groundwater would thus be a pathogenic nightmare, medically-speaking.
Not surprising thus that a trench was a very unhealthy place to be, from a pathological standpoint.
In effect, while the various weapons such as artillery , grenades, mortar shells and machineguns certainly caused vast amounts of deaths and wounds, casualties did result from the combat environment itself, notwithstanding that that fact is and has been consistently understated ever since.
I hope that clarifies my earlier post, and I apologise for not having cited my source in it.
Regards, Uyraell.
Uyraell might be right about casualty numbers, if the Australian records are anything to go by.
Our total battle casualties for the war on the Western Front were 179,455 against total non-battle casualites of 207,978, 202,246 of the latter being sick and 1,039 dying of disease. http://www.awm.gov.au/cms_images/histories/14/chapters/30.pdf
There is a comment in our official war history medical volumes about trench foot in 1916 that “the problem of “trench foot” was dominating the military and medical situation alike”. p.87 at
http://www.awm.gov.au/cms_images/histories/14/chapters/06.pdf
The large casualty list is attributed primarily to the factors which cause trench foot. At p.91 in the last link.
See note 36 at p.97 in the last link for concealment of the condition in casualty lists and the miserable treatment given the sufferers of trench foot.
I read that note with much interest, RS*: My Thanks for the links.
It bears out much of what the 1923 book I cite says or implies.
Personal note, here: My dad never really could get his father to speak much on the war in Ypres, as the old man had lived it. That he died before my birth is somewhat unfortunate, in as much as I might just have heard things my dad did not, in the old man’s company. The major comment my dad makes on his father’s memories is this: “The old man said it was a terrible, terrible place, with conditions people here (home in NZ) can never imagine, and God willing will never have to imagine. The trenches were the worst part, and for some of them (the men) combat was a relief, horrible though that was.”
I can’t really comment, other than from what I myself have since read, all of which tends to bear-out the old man’s expressed views, albeit in somewhat understated manner.
Respectful Regards, and Warm Thanks, RS*, Uyraell.
You read that a lot in the subject literature. No matter what personal/semi-personal accounts I have read before, the soldiers always thought of the waiting in the trenches as the worst part. In combat, they would turn on a kind of ‘Animal-Mode’ where it would be kill or be killed, and they would be completely steered by the adrenaline and training, without much time for thought.
In the trenches, however, there was plenty of time to think.
Plus the spike was to stop swords from splitting the helmet in two…which seems kinda unlikely compared with having a big point sticking out, visible above your trench.
But I thought the Germans were the first to introduce steel helmets, not the British. I know the Canadians had cloth caps in both 1914 and 1915…which meant a whole lot of head wounds.
lol! So the main reason for the successful assignation that started a world war was … a sandwich???
The 50-75% of all combat casualties were from artillery. But this is in interesting distinction: combat versus all casualties. Trench foot was very common…but it wasn’t a killer: just a temporary cause of removal from combat status.
When I first read the statement about the trenches, I too, thought it was BS…as WWI was the first war that actually had more deaths from combat than from illness, starvation and other other environmental killers. (Note: I said ‘deaths’ and not ‘casualties.’) But from the way I phrased the question…trenches would be the correct answer. So I think I’ll do two questions:
FYI, according to the British official medical history whose statistics were taken from a sample of 212,659 wounded, 58.51% of casualties were from shells and mortars, 38.98% from bullets, 2.19% from bombs and grenades (keep in mind that bombs were often referring to grenade type devices and not things dropped from planes), and bayonets come in with a measly 0.32%
(If you don’t like these figures either, see this post)
Adrian - Summer 1915 (can’t find a more accurate date)
Brodie - October 1915
Stahlhelm - February 1916
See, those are the numbers I was thinking of. Rather surprised at the low number for grenades though - the British at least would often attack down trenches with the bombers being the main assaulting force, protected by a small party of bayonet men. I think I’ve read that the Germans did much the same, so those casualty statistics kind of imply they were wasting their time.
The casualty figures from bayonet may not accurately reflect the psychological impact of a bayonet assault on the enemy and the bayonet’s true worth.
As WWI veteran Corporal Jones was fond of saying of bayonet assaults on the Germans in the TV series Dad’s Army:
“They don’t like it up 'em, the cold steel. They do not like it up 'em!”
Somewhat similarly, as far as I’m aware nobody was killed by a Japanese firecracker during a Japanese assault in WWII or a Chinese bugle during a Chinese assault in the Korean War but the crackers and bugles had a significant impact on the enemy while it was being assaulted with conventional weapons.
As for the distinction between artillery and grenade / bomb (which necessarily includes Mills bombs = grenades as well as aerial bombs) wounds, I doubt that there was any great forensic science effort devoted to distinguishing between artillery and grenade shrapnel in the field medical services. I wouldn’t take those figures as being too precise.