There Is A City : Tribute to the Heroes of The Warsaw Uprising (August 1, 1944)

YouTube ^ | 7/31/2012

[dfwgator]

Once a year on August 1st, the people of Warsaw pay hommage to the fallen heroes that fought for freedom in 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising. The biggest rebellion against German Nazi occupation during WWII cost over 200 000 lives and destruction of the capital.

[dfwgator]

Today commemorates the beginning of the Warsaw Uprising which began on August 1st, 1944, at 5 PM (known as W-Hour)

[dfwgator]

Link to Video Here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejd2rsXoQSI

[dfwgator]

Ping.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Remind me again when it’s time for the 8/1/2014 70 year commemoration.

[rmlew]

Remind me again when it’s time for the 8/1/2014 70 year commemoration.
It'll be overwhelmed by a bigger commemoration, the 100th anniversary of the First World War. Imperial Germany declared war on Imperial Russia on August 1, 1914.

[Cronos]

Pamiętamy!

[Cronos]

WWI started on 28 July when the Austro-hungarians invaded Serbia. the others got automatically involved due to treaties (and quite frankly that’s what they wanted — the Russians wanted to crush the Ottomans and their plan in 1914, shared with the French and British was to take over Constantinople and have their sphere of influence in central/eastern europe and to reduce Austria to just the area of Salzburg.)

[Cronos]

Note that in 1912 at the time of the Balkan wars, Bulgaria established itself as a strong power -- it nearly captured Constantinople -- this alarmed the Russians who wanted Constantinople with it's command of the Bosphorus, for themselves

In 1914 also, the British sold two modern destroyers/first class naval ships to the Turks -- this was a big alarm to the Russians as this threatened Russia's bases in the Black Sea

Remember that Russia and Turkey were/are mortal enemies for centuries

Also, the Russian war preparation and conscription was humming and this alarmed the Germans -- who saw Russia as a massive threat. Well, this was the Prussian's fault for allowing the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth -- even a weakened buffer state is better than no buffer state.

The Rzeczpospolita in the 18th century was a puppet of the Russians that is true, but it was a good buffer between the Russians and the Germanics (Prussians and Austrians).

Before its destruction the Austrians and the Russians were actually allies as they had a common enemy -- the Turks

After the partitions, Austria now had TWO enemies to the east.

[rmlew]

WWI started on 28 July when the Austro-hungarians invaded Serbia. the others got automatically involved due to treaties (and quite frankly that’s what they wanted — the Russians wanted to crush the Ottomans and their plan in 1914, shared with the French and British was to take over Constantinople and have their sphere of influence in central/eastern europe and to reduce Austria to just the area of Salzburg.)
What?
Right until August 1, Russia and Austria-Hungary were negotiating. It could have been contained with Austria-Hungary punishing Serbia. Most European nations supported some punitive action. The ultimatum was harsh, but everyone to the Serbs to give in to most if not all demands. And the Serbs gave in to all but one demand. Russia did not want war. It was not ready for war and the Central Powers new this. They gambled that they could cripple Serbia and diplomatically cripple Russia. Tzar Nicholas understood this and mobilized on July 30th. The Germans then mobilized, and the rest was disaster. The Ottomans were not even allied with Germans until August and did not enter the war for another month. Russia sought to take Poland and protect Serbia.

[rmlew]

German, Russia and Austria were allied from 1873 until 1887. The lunacy of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the scramble to claim Ottoman occupied Slavic lands killed it.

[Cronos]

Yes, but as the article itself says, this was an unstable alliance, mostly clobbered together by Bismarck. The Germans had nothing to gain in the East and looked more to France as the real enemy (remember that the Russian Tsars were mostly German by blood since Catherine the Great -- as an aside the British royal house, the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha's are also nearly pure German in blood right since George Ist)

The alliance was never real and only put together by one man.

Russian aim to have a pan-Slavic area of influence could never allow this to last

Though note one other thing -- the Russians were involved ingetting Bulgaria free in 1878 but in 1912 felt betrayed because Bulgaria was getting stronger again. This would have put the southern slavs under a new Tsardom of Bulgaria (the third Bulgarian empire) . The Western slavs were divided between pro-russian Czechs and extremely anti-muscovite Poles.

[Cronos]

I disagree -- I believe that Russia wanted the war -- they had prepared for it in the years following their defeat against Japan. Their side of Poland had bad roads and rail, but the Russian troops were on the borders with Galicia in a flash. They were already there by July -- the Russians had a plan.

If you read the articles by the Stavka, their aim was clear -- get Galicia from the Austrians and stream south to wrest Constantinople from the Turks

It was not ready for war and the Central Powers new this. --- I don't think anyone quite knew that -- the Russian Empire was not prepared for a modern long war, no one was -- everyone believed that the war would be over by Christmas

The Central Powers definitely did not know this -- on the contrary they knew about the number of conscripts in the Russian army -- 2.5 million men and trembled. Combine that with increasingly better weapons from France and England and the Germans were terrified that by the 1920s the Tsardom would be an unstoppable horde from the East.

[Cronos]

Russia sought to take Poland and protect Serbia.

Russia already had the lion's share of Poland after the partitions in the 1700s. They wanted Galicia and at the most wanted to push the border with Germany to the Vistula. They had no aims for the Polish lands between the Vistula and the Oder-Neisse, nor for East Prussia

[Sherman Logan]

I believe you are approximately correct. The Germans decided to precipitate war because they thought it was “now or never.” They believed, quite possibly correctly, that the odds would go increasingly against them as the Russian Empire modernized.

Russia advanced tremendously in the decade before 1914. Another decade like this and the Germans would have a more or less modern enemy on each flank. Better to strike now while Russia is still a third world nation.

[dfwgator]

70th Anniversary Ping.

[dfwgator]

Remind me again when it’s time for the 8/1/2014 70 year commemoration.

Done.

[dfwgator]

Warsaw Uprising Anniversary Bump.

[dfwgator]

Some videos from Godzina “W”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OUYzYAJWV0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBtxea6t-Xs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_V7wds1FIg

[Matt_DZ_PL]

During the Warsaw Uprising Germans killed 160,000 people, thousands of them were children: (see the Germany’s protested stadium performance of the Legia football fans):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixvSaIrhnTI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R1K8oeDN58