I'm Indy Neidell; and welcome to another exciting edition, of Out of the Trenches,
where I sit here, in the Chair of Wisdom, and answer your questions about World War One.
TheKarateKid writes: I must ask, what did Indy's family do during World War One?
For me, family history is the most interesting part in all of this.
I actually wrote an answer to this post in the comment section of an episode.
But it seemed like a good one to include here, so here it goes again.
In World War Two, not World War One, my grandfather was a bombardier in the Royal Air Force in North Africa.
His name was Basil Ray, and he had actually been living in Egypt a few years before the war, where he was Superintendent of Schools for the British dominion of Egypt.
He died in 1987, and at that point, still detested Germans but had enormous respect for Rommel
Now it's trickier with World War One. I grew up in Texas and my dad's family is all Russian and Polish.
And most of them went to the States just after the first Russian Revolution in 1905.
And as far as I know, none of them fought in the war, although the smart money says,
I have relatives that stayed behind and fought on the Eastern Front
On my mother's side though, my World War Two grandpa was an only child, and his dad was a vicar,
and stayed home in England. But, my grandmother was one of 11 children, born in 1902 and was the third youngest.
They lived in London, so I guarantee, she had elder brothers, who fought in the war.
But I have no information on them, and haven't taken the time to find out actually. More fool me.
115Predator writes: Maybe this has been explained already and I forgot by now,
but what exactly is meant by the British were the only ones with a fully professional army?
Was the typical British soldier much better trained and/or equipped than all other armies? If so, why was this so?
Well, the other countries in Europe had armies that were formed by conscription, which was maybe for a couple of years,
and their officers were often from "the best families", and it was a mark of prestige, sort of a hereditary thing.
But it was different with the British.
The British Regulars were a paid, professional army of well-trained and often battle-experienced soldiers.
No conscription. There is really no question, in my mind, at least, that the British professionals were the best soldiers, in the world, at the outbreak of the war.
But, there weren't that many of them. There were 100,00 of them against, for starters,
a couple million German conscripts. By the end of 1914, that professional, British, army was no more.
It was replaced by volunteers, and eventually conscripts, after heavy losses at battles like Ypres and Mons.
You see, the British had relied on that small, very well trained army, combined with their immense naval strength to secure the Empire.
And this did not work so well in mainland Europe.
This is a question from Reddit. Brandor asks about Conrad von Hotzendorf:
How the hell is that man considered to be a military genius? Can someone explain that to me?
No. No I can't. It baffles me.
You know what, though? I'm not gonna let it go there. Conrad von Hotzendorf got exactly what he wanted.
He had pushed Franz Josef, the Emperor, to make war, in the Balkans, a couple of times in 1913 and 1914, to try to expand the empire.
And the only thing really preventing this from happening was Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was firmly against war.
So Ferdinand dies and Conrad has his excuse and he goes to war, and all hell breaks loose, and millions of people die, and millions of people get wounded,
and Conrad's glorious empire, that's been around for around 600 years, gets ground to pieces because of his incompetence.
Okay, he was not Hitler. No. But with no Conrad, I say it's pretty likely, that there's no war, at least no Austro-Hungarian war in 1914
Especially, with Franz Ferdinand still in the picture, trying to give the Slavic minorities a larger voice in the empire.
Now, Moltky and the German general staff however, in 1914 still thought they needed to fight Russia before 1917,
when they believed Russia would be technologically advanced enough that she could crush Germany with the added weight of her manpower.
I kind of see a war happening anyhow, but not THIS war, and Conrad was a curse for the empire.
And the fact that there are still streets and things named after him today in Austria, when all he brought was ruin is...
I don't know. I don't even have a word for what that is. You know who Conrad reminds me of?
You know the comic strip Dilbert? He's like Dilbert's boss, with the pointy hair.
Conrad von Hotzendorf.... he was Dilbert's boss. That's who Conrad reminds me of. You can cut that out later.
Mark Grange writes: Didn't Rommel fight in World War Two and was the desert fox?
Yes. Yes he did. Yes he was. We actually mentioned Rommel and some of his actions in World War One in our episode from week 27.
which is also a great episode about Conrad von Hotzendorf. You can check it out right here.