As above he draws from eyewitness accounts on both sides. You get troop movements and generals’ names.
You get descriptions of 300,000 pound war machines and the incalculable dead. Well, in the context of military history, anyway. Carlin calls it a moment of the individual human spirit shining through, like a beacon in total darkness. She heard it on a Christmas album her mother had. Our Christmas was over.Ī German Deserter’s War Experiences: Fighting for the Kaiser in the First World War – Julius KoettgenĮrin says she’s heard the story before. Suddenly a shot rang out then another one was fired somewhere. Why could it not always be as peaceful? We thought and thought, we were as dreamers, and had forgotten everything about us. Then everybody went back to his trench, and incessantly the carol resounded, ever more solemnly, ever more longingly-“O, thou blissful-”Īll around silence reigned even the murdered trees seemed to listen the charm continued, and one scarcely dared to speak. They were all laughing, and so were we why, we did not know. We exchanged gifts with the French-chocolate, cigarettes, etc. There they stood, quite overpowered by emotion, and all of them with cap in hand. The French left their trenches and stood on the parapet without any fear. From everywhere, throughout the forest, one could hear powerful carols come floating over “Peace on earth-” The Christmas candles were burning brightly, and were renewed again and again. That night I was with a company that was only five paces away from the enemy. Not a shot was fired the French had ceased firing along the whole line. “0, thou blissful, 0, thou joyous, mercy bringing Christmas time!” Hundreds of men were singing the song in that fearful wood. We had decorated the tree with candles and cookies, and had imitated the snow with wadding.Ĭhristmas trees were burning everywhere in the trenches, and at midnight all the trees were lifted on to the parapet with their burning candles, and along the whole line German soldiers began to sing Christmas songs in chorus. We had procured a pine tree, for there were no fir trees to be had. There was a moment in Part III that broke me:Ĭhristmas in the trenches! It was bitterly cold. Dan Carlin freely admits that the truth is difficult to ascertain and frequently engages in armchair psychology.īut it’s all in the interest of telling the story well and trying to come to terms with it.
Drawing on multiple print sources and quoting (with citation) liberally, the listener gets a sense of what the war meant for the governments and generals as well as the common people involved in it. It’s like a history lecture by your favorite instructor ever.
#Blueprint for armageddon free series
The podcast, this series anyway, is great. Not as visceral, nor as visually documented as World War II, and not something anyone I knew remembered with clarity. But the Great War was something awful that happened a hundred years ago when my grandparents were barely children. I have some sparse history, broad enough to comprehend the scope of world affairs and specific enough in areas to have strong opinions. It’s all interconnected, see.Īnyway, the entire six podcast series “Blueprint for Armageddon”, about World War I, was recommended. What I’m in, what I’ve been in for most of my life, is more like a warren or a wild burrow. People talk about going down the rabbit hole. Okay, by the writer’s notes for three pages of a comic book. In between audiobooks and coming off a Spotify binge, I was turned on to Hardcore History. But 99 years later the dam breaks and a Pandora’s Box of violence engulfs the planet. The Planet had not seen a major war between all the great powers since the downfall of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History “Blueprint for Armageddon”
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