Free Republic

That the end of the Russian Empire brought about by Russian Revolution also resulted in the former Emperor’s execution now feels like an inevitability. However, though his monarchy was overthrown, Nicholas and his family were related to many other royal families, thanks to Queen Victoria’s habit of arranging marriages for her offspring across Europe. In the 15 months from his abdication to his death, royal relations still in power debated if and how they should grant the family asylum, with many of the Romanov descendants believing King George V of England, the czar’s cousin and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II,...

Despite the final horrific death toll, many believed war in Europe would be over in months, writes a leading historian.

Ukraine claimed that Russia has lost close to 117,000 troops since the beginning of the full-scale invasion last February — which is more servicemen than the US lost during World War I. There have been 116,950 enemy troops “eliminated” since Feb. 24, according to the latest tallies released by Ukraine’s Armed Forces Tuesday, which The Post could not independently verify. Kyiv reported that in the last 24 hours alone, 870 Russians had been killed in Ukraine. For comparison, the US lost 116,516 soldiers during World War I, of whom more than 63,000 suffered non-combat deaths mostly related to illnesses.

The brutal horror of the Battle of the Somme is unveiled in colourised photos released ahead of the 106th anniversary of World War One, with July 1st marking the start of the battle. The battle was one of the most bloody of World War One which saw such figures as JRR Tolkien, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, Otto Frank - the father of Anne Frank - and Adolf Hitler fight in the battle. Over three million men fought in the battle which saw over a million killed or injured, scarring the earth in one of the deadliest battles in human...

World War I had no good guys and no winners. France rightly sought the return of the provinces Germany had annexed in 1870. Russia rightly feared that German influence would sever its industrial centers and tax base in the Western parts of it its empire; England feared that Germany would encroach on its overseas empire; Germany feared that Russia’s railroad system would overcome its advantage in mobility and firepower. None of them wanted a war, but each of them decided that it was better to fight in 1914 than fight later at a disadvantage. Historian Christopher Clark in his 2013...

Alvin York- 10/8/1918 On Oct. 8, 1918, U.S. Corporal Alvin C. York was credited with killing 20 German soldiers and leading the capture of one hundred and thirty two more during the Meuse-Argonne offensive. It was the final Allied push on the Western front of World War I. York and his battalion were to seize control of a German-held valley when his superior officer was killed by German machine guns. York took charge, returning fire and inspiring his men to do the same. Caught out in the open, York started picking off German soldiers one by one as they attacked...

The Project B tests were held in the Chesapeake Bay in July 1921. Airplanes of the First Brigade sank a captured German destroyer and then a an armored light cruiser. Next was the German battleship Ostfriesland, considered “unsinkable” due to its extensive compartmentalization. After a day of 230- and 600-pound bombs dropped by Marine, Navy, and Army aircraft, the battleship settled three feet by the stern with a five-degree list to port. Ostfriesland, it turned out, was not unsinkable from the air.

One of the most important poets of the 20th century April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s, My...

New standards proposed by the Minnesota Department of Education would banish lessons about World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the Civil War, the American Revolution, communism, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Replacing those significant history topics will be "systemic racism," how democracy has "excluded certain groups," an "awareness" of "the LGBTQ+ community" and how the disenfranchisement of freed blacks during Reconstruction connects to "persistent discrimination and inequity" today.

“That was such a glaring error."The U.S. Army has given the official go-ahead for a National Guard unit to bear a name its forebears earned in the trenches of World War I: the Harlem Hellfighters. The Army Center of Military History approved the “Harlem Hellfighters” as the official designation for the 369th Sustainment Brigade of the New York Army National Guard on Sept. 21, 2020, according to a Guard press release. The quest to make the moniker official began in 2019 at the New York State Military Museum, when Courtney Burns, the museum director, was looking through the Army’s list...

In actuality, the shells were fired from 75 miles away from what has become known as the “Paris Gun” or “Emperor William Gun.” It had the longest range of any artillery weapon in history, but unlike the modern American platform that even on its first shot was within 300 feet of the intended target, the massive German weapon was only really useful against city-sized targets. As such it was more of a psychological weapon, but it did little to cause fear in Paris when it was employed.

AIDS likely made the leap from chimpanzees to humans because of a starving World War I soldier who was forced to hunt the animals for food, according to a new book. The unknown “Patient Zero” was part of an invasion force of 1,600 Belgian and French troops who, along with 4,000 African aides, had traveled from Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo to a remote outpost in Cameroon, says Canadian microbiologist Jacques Pepin, who once worked as a bush doctor in central Africa in the 1980s. Pepin, a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at Universite de Sherbrooke...

It is not too far-fetched to say that Christian Europe officially died on June 28, 1914. On that day, the heir to the imperial throne of Austria-Hungary and his wife were gunned down on the streets of Sarajevo. In modern parlance, we would call the assassin, 19 year-old Serbian radical Gavrilo Princip, a terrorist. His act would lead directly to the outbreak of the Great War a little over a month later. Following is an article that appeared in The Outlook, an important New York-based political and social journal, from a week after the assassinations. It is notable that the...

Doctors in the early 1900s dismissed Spanish flu as a 'minor infection' just years before it killed 50 million people, according to scientists. Countless lives could have been saved if medics had taken it seriously and worked out how to stop the virus before the disastrous outbreak in 1918, researchers say. A study has found there were investigations as early as 1915 into a mysterious illness which was killing World War I soldiers in France and England. ...

PARIS — President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel his visit to an American military cemetery outside of Paris threatened to overshadow his trip here, as government officials, historians and fellow Republicans hammered him for more than 24 hours for that move. “President@realDonaldTrump a no-show because of raindrops? Those veterans the president didn’t bother to honor fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow — & many died in trenches for the cause of freedom. Rain didn’t stop them & it shouldn’t have stopped an American president,” wrote former Secretary of State John Kerry, a veteran of the Vietnam...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) – Poland is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its rebirth as an independent state on Sunday with a multitude of events across the country, including marches, Masses, and the national hymn being sung in more than 600 public places. The national white-and-red flag fluttered from buildings and buses, dignitaries and regular citizens placed flowers and wreaths at memorials to the father of Polish independence, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, and the historic Sigismund Bell, reserved only for the most important national events, rang out over Krakow. Poland regained its independence at the end of World War I in...

US President Donald Trump was forced to cancel his attendance on Saturday at a commemoration in France for US soldiers and marines killed in World War I because rain made it impossible to arrange transport. “[The attendance of the president and first lady] has been canceled due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather,” the White House said according to Reuters, adding that Chief of Staff John Kelly, who is a former general, went instead. While the president was scheduled to attend the ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, rain and low clouds prevented his helicopter...

The White House and President Trump took some heat on Saturday after it was announced that he would not make a previously scheduled visit to a cemetery in France for Americans killed in World War I due to inclement weather. Trump arrived in France on Friday to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, along with first lady Melania Trump. They'd planned to visit Ainse-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau, France. The president was expected to lay a wreath and observe a moment of silence. The first couple was supposed to travel to the site via helicopter,...

What do you think about during the two minutes silence? I used to think of men at war, and hear in my head the shouts and the clash of arms. Now I see a narrow street of small houses at dusk. A young man in army uniform is embracing his wife and little children in a lighted doorway. He will not return. I recently learned that, on the first day of commemoration, in 1919, the silence was often far from silent. In many places, when the traffic and the factories stopped, the sound of uncontrollable weeping could be heard in...

The Queen and senior royals attended a remembrance concert at the Royal Albert Hall on Armistice Day. The annual Festival of Remembrance in London, which commemorates the war dead, included performances from Sir Tom Jones an Sheridan Smith. It came ahead of Remembrance Sunday on 11 November, which this year marks 100 years since the end of World War One...….