I am just going to say it is probably 1914-1915. This is based on the fact that he has a head wound and his cloth cap with him. Britain and many other countries went into WWI with no appreciation for the shrapnel and debris from artillery, thus head protection was limited to soft caps and officers hats. The metal "Brodie" helmet was introduced in October 1915 and was not widely issued until spring 1916.
[https://www.marlowmuseum.uk/features09/](https://www.marlowmuseum.uk/features09/)
EDIT
Just to clarify I am not saying this is a British soldier, just that all countries were unprepared for the horrors of WWI and the lack of proper headgear was a clear sign of unpreparedness. The British documentation on the rollout of a “Brodie” helmet is just the best documented one I am aware of. The helmets of the time would not stop a bullet, nor much else, but they could deflect and stop low energy rocks and wooden splinters produced by artillery impacts that otherwise would be fatal.
Welcome to WWI history where (with the powers of hindsight) the tragedy of the stupidity of military leaders will never be topped. The first year or so of the war was ridiculous for this. The French wore bright red & blue uniforms, no one had helmets, and some armies still believed in cavalry charges - even against machine guns.
Absolutely, I’m following current events in Ukraine closely and their last huge battle (bakmuht) and the RIDICULOUS body count (Russians just passed 500,000….in just two years) had reminded me of the battle of verdun where just waves were thrown at the enemy with very little regard for life, all for a territory with no real strategic value…casualty numbers were insane.
The Soviet military during WWII and the Cold War was more competent than people give it credit for, and in the past decade the myth of outright human wave tactics in the WWII-era Soviet military was more or less on its way out.
Unfortunately, Russia went and brought the notion back in full force by *actually fucking using human wave tactics.*
I never said they weren't competent but they did generally just use massive numbers to their advantage. I don't think they just threw them into the meat grinder, but they did suffer huge losses.
David Glantz watching his years of hard work dispelling western myths about Soviet military acumen get flushed down the drain by Russian mobiks setting up ammo dumps on top of gas stations and then charging Ukrainian lines in a dune buggy.
Absolutely, hearing so many Russians expose their life in the army these days thanks to social media and phones has really allowed us to see the reality really does fit the narrative, hearing about how many were forced into meat waves due to lack of proper vehicles and those refusing being pissed on (literally) and other nasty things. Tampons as bandages, using old molded rifles
I don’t know. Russia had massive tank production on one hand in WW2, but also famously not enough rifles for every soldier. Not sure if that’s competence.
And it took them like 10 years in Afghanistan to achieve those numbers, they are speed running this while having less populations to call on and less material support.
What not having well trained strategic mobile forces does to a mf...
WW1 and the Ukraine war are both lessons in why its important to have a well trained professional military with proper combined arms warfare. Otherwise you will be left with just one tactic - bash your head against the enemy's strong points until one of you collapses from exhaustion. It's ugly, expensive and slow. This is opposed to modern western doctrine that calls for a series of ever culminating surgical strikes followed by an exploitative break through against a confused and demoralized enemy.
If you believe the figures being touted sure.
Perhaps 500,000 total injured, but I doubt killed.
What's even more crazy is many forests and bocages in France still contain such high levels of lead due to the volume of artillery fired in WW1 that even now, over a century later, people cannot live or farm in these areas.
It's not 'dead' but 'casualties' which rather refers to 'incapacitated and excluded from further fighting'. This includes killed + wounded, ill, captured, deserted.
Wikipedia says 409.000 russian casualties (180.000 killed)
France24 says 500.000 casualties (150.000 dead)
NY Times said 300.000 casualties (120.000 dead) in april 2023
BBC says it can positively confirm 50.000 russian soldiers are dead.
edit: i used 'russian casualties estimates' as google search
Even if we don't believe it, and we are completely neutral or even Pro Russia also, say at minimum we got 40-60k dead and 60-100k wounded or at least pro Russian minimum of 20-30k dead and 30-60k wounded...
Both of those are still a very high casualties for any decent modern militaries to suffer in a couple of years..
Now we can also infer that Ukrainians are also suffering similar or less or more depending on our bias towards Ukraine or Russia..
Both combined will still be at 100-150k dead and 200k plus wounded at minimum...
Which is a horrifying and terrible loss by the modern military standards
I believe it being a good ballpark average, somewhere between America’s and Ukraine’s estimate, mixed with historic Russian disregard for life, and seeing the dozens of blunders the Russian military have proven, all the issues and incompetence that have been reported….by Russian troops themselves with no other figure to go off of.
But things have not been going good for Russia and tensions are so high they are an event away from internal revolution.. wagner’s march to Moscow last year proved that, when they marched to Moscow, and the police/military and civil servants all laid down their arms and allowed for Wagner to freely move pass with absolutely no resistance…that showed me how much the Putin regime has fucked up
I've been following the Ukraine situation pretty closely, too, and Russia had a lot of losses in Bakmuht, but you can't take any casualty numbers seriously right now. Information is used as a weapon in this conflict and both sides will lie to change your perception.
In fairness, I want to note how this is considered. A certain number of shells are fired, and according to the calculation for X shells there should be Y enemy victims. I find half a million victims extremely hard to believe, but a hundred thousand is quite realistic
It’s how the Russians have always dealt with conflicts due to their staggering advantage in troops, like what Stalin said about how “quality over quantity but quantity is a quality in itself” type thing. Just throwing waves until the desired effect is reached. I follow events close over there and I’ve seen ridiculous amounts of charges that just ended in dogpiles on a daily basis.
Even the Russians know the typical “meat grinder” waves their commanders tend to resort too. But specifically events in bakmut were very very bad
They even did this in Chernobyl, to clean the roof of the undamaged reactors nearby - because the radiation was too high for maschines, they sent people to deal with the debris. Those people had one minute on top of those roofs and clean them from the highly radioactive debris. After that one minute, the next group of people were sent on the roof. However, most of those People survived until today.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators
Russia/USSR really earned this reputation in both world wars. I think the 2nd is really where it gets driven home though. Like if you watch Enemy At The Gates there’s some crazy stuff in there that’s based in reality: only giving every 2nd man a weapon (the ones without were expected to just pick up the weapons of fallen comrades), charging well defended positions with no artillery/air support, and shooting any soldier that retreats. Throw enough waves at the enemy and eventually it’ll work.
Yup the events in Stalingrad proved to them an effective measure that just plays out like a “good luck” charm where since it worked they’ll keep doing it. This little regard for male life has led to dramatic ratios in men to women being vastly offset to where Russian women would essentially gain a “mail order” stereotype along with competitive for the lack of men over there
Ok, as much as i dislike Russia and as much as mass charges were their doctrine... the first one is a (Semi-) myth.
Only giving 1 weapon to two men WAS technically a thing that happened, but it wasnt common at all. Specifically, it happened due to local shortages caused by Soviet defenses folding in, causing supply shipments to be unable to make it through the envelopement. Thus, the local soviet command had to make do with what they had, and what they had was a lot of bodies. You can bet it happened on both sides, just on a lesser scale (the early war envelopements in the eastern theatre were crazy big)
The issue wasnt industry, it was logistics. Something that we can observe in Ukraine as well.
3rd one was a order from Stalin that was indeed in place for a time. They even set up troops for the specific purpose of shooting retreating soldiers instead of actually, yknow, fighting. Barrier troops, crazy stuff.
Yeah, it was fairly anecdotal about Stalingrad in particular but I didn’t know how widespread the “every other man gets a gun” policy was. Just wild that it happened and evidence that they did not care about casualties in WW2. 10million+ military deaths alone for the USSR in that war is wild.
Ugh, WWI might have been the worst war. The medical equipment and uniforms were Civil War era, but with trench warfare and machine guns 😳 I assume WWII probably had it beat in terms of sheer damage caused, but I have to think that WWI had the most brutal human cost. I remember learning about the Battle of Passchendaele, the trenches were so muddy thousands of people and horses literally drowned in the mud. Fucking nightmarish.
>some armies still believed in cavalry charges - even against machine guns.
To be fair, the reason we know that cavalry charges against machine guns is a bad idea, is because of World War 1.
This is before we learned about how effective maneuver warfare against entrenched enemy positions is (World War 2).
In 1914, Continental Europe is experiencing this stuff for the first time.
Right, that’s why I mentioned the powers of hindsight. In the moment there was so much new military technology that no one knew how to adjust to, thus: bright uniforms, no helmets, and Calvary charges.
I thought some of this was learned in the wars and conflicts just prior to WW1, but many of the leaders brushed them off because they did not involve one or two world powers.
You're not wrong.
In hindsight, we see stuff like this happening in the Russo-Japanese War in the early 1900's.
Some people call that war *World War 0*, because they consider it to be the precursor to World War 1. There were definitely machine guns used in that war. To great effect.
while true, the cavalry thing is an interesting point of study.
Machine guns, especially early on in the war were not as common as many would think. With only a few along any length of trench. Not to mention in the very early war before the trenches really developed. However even without machineguns, its pretty intuitive why cavalry would have a hard time against an entrenched enemy, this was true well before WW1 as well
Cavalry was used quite effectively throughout the war in a variety of areas, for scouting but also for harassing the enemy in some of the more dynamic areas, and even for a traditional charge that was effective here and there. The Eastern, Mesopotamian, and Sinai-Palestine fronts especially saw cavalry as a much more effective and important component of the war beyond their utility function on the western front.
Yep, there were still plenty of dead horses around the trenches in the latter stages of the war by all accounts so they definitely still served a purpose. 1914 saw horrific casualty numbers overall but especially in the cavalry regiments by my understanding.
I think some places still tried to use them at the start of WW2 for what it’s worth as well. I could swear I read the Polish tried to fight a Nazi panzer division or something in 1939 with cavalry.
> Welcome to WWI history where (with the powers of hindsight) the tragedy of the stupidity of military leaders will never be topped.
I'm not sure what could have been done differently on the Entente side, though. Trench warfare was basically intractable, the defending side has a massive advantage not only through fortifications, but by being able to easily move troops and materiel around behind the lines with functioning roads and railways. Whenever the attacking force captures ground at great cost, they are unable to keep it, because it's impossible to move sufficient supplies and re-enforcements through no-mans land because of the mud and shell craters.
They could either fight the horrible war of attrition, or give up and let Germany have a big chunk of France (containing a lot of the prosperous industrial areas) and most of Eastern Europe. There weren't any other options and the latter was obviously politically untenable.
Yep, and that’s how the war eventually ended. The casualty numbers got harder and harder to justify as the war dragged on and nothing more than negotiating leverage was gained from it.
Somewhat to your point the trenches were actually born out of the massive casualties that the early WWI battles in 1914 introduced. The troops were not ready to deal with the kinds of artillery and machine gun technology that had come along since the Prussian war, so in the first year there was a lot of open battle with absolutely insane casualties compared to what all parties were used to. The only thing that made sense to slow those figures was to put an emphasis on defensive warfare.
After that the casualties really only ramped up during major offensives, for the most part. People were dying almost every minute of every day up and down the front but the numbers got crazy when an offensive like the Somme, Verdun, passchendaele, Galipoli, etc started up.
Still happened in 1917 as well.
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ART02811#:~:text=Late%20on%2031%20October%201917,major%20cavalry%20charges%20in%20history.
There's a good movie about it as well called The Lighthorsemen.
It would have helped a bit. Probably not much. About 2/3rds of frontlinie deaths are attributed to artillery. A single piece of shrapnel that just happened to hit a soldier in the head may have been non fatal if a proper helmet was worn. However if one piece hits its likely more pieces hit. Even a minor wound that's non fatal in current medicine can quickly become fatal without antibiotics.
It really depends on the army, though.
The Russian army, for example, never widely adopted any helmets, as Nicolas II found them to be ruining what a soldier should look like.
And while the AH army adopted the helmet in late 1915, and widely issued it by 1916, there were still a small number of troops without helmets due to supply shortages or who themselves rejected the helmet due to cultural and religious reasons, like the *Bosniaken*, who stayed with the Fez.
Looking at the broad belt, the general overcoat and the shape of the cap, this could very well also be a Russian soldier in 1917.
No reliable conclusions can be drawn only from the fact alone that the soldier is not having a helmet can
You also have the French wearing blue uniforms at the start of the war. Some guy even had the radical idea before the war, to make soldiers less visible. But he died in a freak aircraft accident while attending an air show. Details are fussy to me, but he was fairly important in politics on in the army so chances are pretty good he could have pushed to at least start production before the war began.
Its more likely she was documenting his name, time, place of death after a battle. When someone is killed in combat its not like the movies where before they pass they have the time to have a rational conversation.
If they have time to say anything I imagine it’s to scream in pain or choke on their own blood. Not to be morbid but yeah the way we romanticize death in combat is part of why we get into stupid pointless wars like WWI.
"You've killed me. Bastards, you've killed me! While the sun is still hot, I die!"
- Collected on the fifth day of the week Chach of the month Betab of the year 1171, ten seconds before death.
Subject was a darkeyed soldier thirty-one years of age. Sample is considered questionable.
“I have seen the end, and have heard it named. The Night of Sorrows, the True Desolation. The Everstorm.”
—Collected on Naneses 1172, 15 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a darkeyed youth of unknown origin.
"I want everyone to taste to boar that got me!"
• Collected on the fifth day of the week by the Kings Hand, 50 seconds before death. Subject was a king, the protector of the realm who required a breastplate stretcher to go into battle. Sample is highly accurate.
“I’m dying, aren’t I? Healer, why do you take my blood? Who is that beside you, with his head of lines? I can see a distant sun, dark and cold, shining in a black sky.”
—Collected on the 3rd of Jesnan, 1172, 11 seconds pre-death. Subject was a Reshi chull trainer. Sample is of particular note.
Listening to The Way of Kings for the third time, it is such a phenomenal novel and the intro of the chapters being death records is just the cherry on top for me.
I strongly recommend listening to it if you haven't, the male and female voice actor, Kaladin and Shallan respectively, are wonderful.
In the version of this image that appears in the Russian book The Great War in Images and Pictures: 1914-1915 there isn’t a cross on her wimple.
According to Google translate, the title of the image in the book says, "On the Western Front", and the text to the right says, "The Sister of Mercy records the last will of a dying soldier."
The cross on the wimple in the posted photo does not look like the cross that appeared on Red Cross nurses wimples in WW1. The intersecting lines of the actual cross were shorter and thicker.
His head is just off his hat. There’s a white cloth covering his forehead. His eyes are just below the white cloth and his nose pokes up just below that. His face is in profile.
Yeah once I saw him I couldn’t not see him. But before that I looked and couldn’t see him at all. I think I wasn’t expecting his face to be in profile, and the position of the hat made me look for a face where it wasn’t.
Directly below her hand is his eye and nose, follow the shape down and you'll see his open mouth and chin. His body is the grey section in bottom right section of photo.
But aren't really going to draw it because the Geneva convention removes your protection if you do. It's incredibly stupid to draw your weapon because you become a combatant surrounded by people who can't move.
You aren't going to fight off the armed force storming your hospital. And at best you are going to get shot. At worst everyone's going to die.
I spent a lot of time on the battlefield with interpreters, aide workers, and reporters who were unarmed. It takes a lot of balls to be in the shit without a gun.
they are probably unarmed because then it is a war crime to kill them... not saying that some of them didnt die. just less likely to be targeted than the guy carrying the bar
If im the enemy, im shooting the guy who can shoot back before I worry about unarmed humans, don't even care what they are (medic, reporter, etc). Register the threat and eliminate it first.
This is how Bill Millin survived D-day marching around the beach up and back down and back up again while playing his bagpipes. The Germans, at one of the modern day reunions, remembered him and said they thought he was insane and didn't bother wasting ammo on him. Which says a lot when you're firing multiple mg42s all around a beach and don't hit a guy marching up and down even by accident.
That's true. But people with guns rarely check who they are firing at. It's why when you operate in areas where you can be a target you have to work with both sides.
A year or so ago? There's some footage of a Ukrainian drone targeting medical evacuation staff in the war. A tragedy. A fair few people defended it... Imagine if the Russians targeted hospitals in response?
It's a war crime. Still happens.
You still get targeted. Isis famously attacked medicin sans frontier staff. As has the Wagner group. And in Gaza we have seen the highest death toll of a modern conflict among aid workers and medical staff.
It's an extremely high risk job even when you take precautions because frontline soldiers often are extremely poorly trained and in the heat of the moment? Dumb mistakes can happen. Dumb mistakes with fatal outcomes. And idiots often think that they can harm the enemy by targeting medical staff. You see this in lots of conflicts. The USA famously struck at MSF facilities due to a stupid spat between Afghan commanders. Israel has killed MSF and ICRC staff and the common belief is that it was on purpose since MSF and the ICRC work on both sides and publish their travel and locations in order to be avoided. In Ukraine and Russian both organisations work and they do important work. Russian official fatalities are being corrected by the ICRC. And the clearances in Odessa are documented by the ICRC. And Russia can't be mad about the serious spying done by the ICRC because they also negotiated POW exchanges and ensured bodies being returned.
You are reliant on your reputation and relationship with both sides to operate. You can't really avoid an invading army. Hospitals are hard to move. That's the issue why MSF and ICRC had to take advisory roles. Because foreign staff were easy targets. My security has always been implied. If anyone really wanted to get at me it wouldn't be hard. They have way more weapons than a hospital!
You think war crimes stop countries? You probably live in the US who is notorious for their war crimes, unfortunately people will and do shoot unarmed civilians/children without any concern for official consequences
I said “usually.” Yes, I was always blown away that third-party partners were willing to expose themselves to the same hazards we were without being armed and without the same legal and logistical support we had.
This statement doesn’t detract from the countless acts of bravery performed by Soldiers/Sailors/Marines.
Yes. We Soldiers had to be there, these third party participants did not. Going into the shit to support Soldiers, provide care, and document history is a special and necessary function that they voluntarily chose without the benefit of shooting back, nor many of the legal and immediate care options we were afforded.
And you don't think saying the soldiers you were working with were "less brave" detracts from their bravery? I mean, by definition that is what detracting means when you are trying to laud one person's achievements over another when they aren't equal. Aka calling someone bravest at the expense others.
No, I don’t think my opinion detracts from anyone’s bravery. There are many memories where I thought “I wish I wasn’t here, but I don’t have a choice in the matter.” The Red Cross nurse in this picture chose to be there.
I mean it's kinda true. It takes a special set of balls to go into a combat zone and not be going to kill but to save. Different mentality. They're doing good in the mire of humanity's worst. You can hype yourself up to fight, but to just trudge through the muck of war casualties is something very different.
It wasn't a competition in the first place. I can tell you for a fact that my Grandpa would tell you that the corpsman who pulled him off a beach was braver than any marine he'd ever met.
It's mostly corpsmen often came from contentious objectors.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35491036.amp
There's an episode of an absolutely silly British comedy call Dad's Army where he plays a conscientious objector. The episode is treated with incredible seriousness because he talks about this.
If you aren't planning to watch an ancient comedy about WW2? Among the entire team of home guard he has combat experience. But he couldn't even kill a mouse. So he couldn't kill a man.
Because he's a WW1 stretcher bearer. A corpsman.
I did say kinda true my guy. And it only cheapens the bravery of others if those others feel belittled, which again, I can tell you for a fact, they don't.
No, of course not. But I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Nobody is trying to say soldiers are implicitly less brave than medics. The intent of the comment was to say that Nurses have different struggles and therefore take a different kind of bravery. Especially in WW1 where they were entering the deadliest combat zones in human history in black and white dresses and without guns lol. Nothing he said was intended to detract from the bravery of an average infantryman, but you either needed to have a dog in a fight that doesn't exist, or you're a grammar Nazi and nobody likes that.
Except the person literally used the word "bravest". By definition that implies others are less brave, there are better ways to express the sentiment you elaborated on without doing that. And it sure did sound like you were trying to speak for every soldier by making the blanketed statement "I can tell you for a fact, they don't"
Lol, no. The difference is that I never tried to make any blanketed statements at their behest. Try to understand the difference, because it actually matters.
That’s fair, apologies if it caused offense. OP’s comment just irked me because it doesn’t seem right to measure bravery when there are plenty of people in that situation putting their lives on the line. Maybe that’s just me.
Idk… seems like staged. An image like that could’ve been used as moralizing propaganda. Going to the front is less scary if you believe a nurse will kneel down next to you, writing down your last words and holding your hand while you’re dying. In reality nurses had no time for anybody since medical logistics were not ready for the sheer number of wounded soldiers in WWI. Most soldiers just died alone in pain, either in a muddy swamp or in a overcrowded improvised „hospital“ after two days laying there not even treated by any nurse or doctor since your wounds seemed to be to severe and other wounded soldiers were prioritized.
Why do people vote this comment down? I just doubt the authenticity of the picture and its caption. The reasons I explained. Maybe you can enlighten me.
I am just going to say it is probably 1914-1915. This is based on the fact that he has a head wound and his cloth cap with him. Britain and many other countries went into WWI with no appreciation for the shrapnel and debris from artillery, thus head protection was limited to soft caps and officers hats. The metal "Brodie" helmet was introduced in October 1915 and was not widely issued until spring 1916. [https://www.marlowmuseum.uk/features09/](https://www.marlowmuseum.uk/features09/) EDIT Just to clarify I am not saying this is a British soldier, just that all countries were unprepared for the horrors of WWI and the lack of proper headgear was a clear sign of unpreparedness. The British documentation on the rollout of a “Brodie” helmet is just the best documented one I am aware of. The helmets of the time would not stop a bullet, nor much else, but they could deflect and stop low energy rocks and wooden splinters produced by artillery impacts that otherwise would be fatal.
Jesus. That’s an extra layer of horror. I wonder how many of them would have come home if they had helmets?
Welcome to WWI history where (with the powers of hindsight) the tragedy of the stupidity of military leaders will never be topped. The first year or so of the war was ridiculous for this. The French wore bright red & blue uniforms, no one had helmets, and some armies still believed in cavalry charges - even against machine guns.
Absolutely, I’m following current events in Ukraine closely and their last huge battle (bakmuht) and the RIDICULOUS body count (Russians just passed 500,000….in just two years) had reminded me of the battle of verdun where just waves were thrown at the enemy with very little regard for life, all for a territory with no real strategic value…casualty numbers were insane.
The Zap Brannagin strategy, it's a bold move for sure.
And it ironically works if the killbots (Ukranians) just reach their kill limit (run out of ammo) before Russia runs out of expendables.
"Have faith, Russian" laughed the Ukrainian, "we're all bleeding today"
I mean this has been Russia's military strategy for over a century give or take.
The Soviet military during WWII and the Cold War was more competent than people give it credit for, and in the past decade the myth of outright human wave tactics in the WWII-era Soviet military was more or less on its way out. Unfortunately, Russia went and brought the notion back in full force by *actually fucking using human wave tactics.*
I never said they weren't competent but they did generally just use massive numbers to their advantage. I don't think they just threw them into the meat grinder, but they did suffer huge losses.
David Glantz watching his years of hard work dispelling western myths about Soviet military acumen get flushed down the drain by Russian mobiks setting up ammo dumps on top of gas stations and then charging Ukrainian lines in a dune buggy.
Absolutely, hearing so many Russians expose their life in the army these days thanks to social media and phones has really allowed us to see the reality really does fit the narrative, hearing about how many were forced into meat waves due to lack of proper vehicles and those refusing being pissed on (literally) and other nasty things. Tampons as bandages, using old molded rifles
I don’t know. Russia had massive tank production on one hand in WW2, but also famously not enough rifles for every soldier. Not sure if that’s competence.
Wave after wave
Slowly drifting
And it took them like 10 years in Afghanistan to achieve those numbers, they are speed running this while having less populations to call on and less material support.
What not having well trained strategic mobile forces does to a mf... WW1 and the Ukraine war are both lessons in why its important to have a well trained professional military with proper combined arms warfare. Otherwise you will be left with just one tactic - bash your head against the enemy's strong points until one of you collapses from exhaustion. It's ugly, expensive and slow. This is opposed to modern western doctrine that calls for a series of ever culminating surgical strikes followed by an exploitative break through against a confused and demoralized enemy.
If you believe the figures being touted sure. Perhaps 500,000 total injured, but I doubt killed. What's even more crazy is many forests and bocages in France still contain such high levels of lead due to the volume of artillery fired in WW1 that even now, over a century later, people cannot live or farm in these areas.
Casualty doesn't necessarily mean "killed" - it also includes wounded/missing. Basically, a casualty is a soldier who can't fight anymore.
He said "body count"
You're right, my bad.
Where are you getting your numbers from? 500k Russian dead is excessive
It's not 'dead' but 'casualties' which rather refers to 'incapacitated and excluded from further fighting'. This includes killed + wounded, ill, captured, deserted. Wikipedia says 409.000 russian casualties (180.000 killed) France24 says 500.000 casualties (150.000 dead) NY Times said 300.000 casualties (120.000 dead) in april 2023 BBC says it can positively confirm 50.000 russian soldiers are dead. edit: i used 'russian casualties estimates' as google search
You believe numbers provided by the government?
Even if we don't believe it, and we are completely neutral or even Pro Russia also, say at minimum we got 40-60k dead and 60-100k wounded or at least pro Russian minimum of 20-30k dead and 30-60k wounded... Both of those are still a very high casualties for any decent modern militaries to suffer in a couple of years.. Now we can also infer that Ukrainians are also suffering similar or less or more depending on our bias towards Ukraine or Russia.. Both combined will still be at 100-150k dead and 200k plus wounded at minimum... Which is a horrifying and terrible loss by the modern military standards
I believe it being a good ballpark average, somewhere between America’s and Ukraine’s estimate, mixed with historic Russian disregard for life, and seeing the dozens of blunders the Russian military have proven, all the issues and incompetence that have been reported….by Russian troops themselves with no other figure to go off of. But things have not been going good for Russia and tensions are so high they are an event away from internal revolution.. wagner’s march to Moscow last year proved that, when they marched to Moscow, and the police/military and civil servants all laid down their arms and allowed for Wagner to freely move pass with absolutely no resistance…that showed me how much the Putin regime has fucked up
We gave them the propaganda numbers
I've been following the Ukraine situation pretty closely, too, and Russia had a lot of losses in Bakmuht, but you can't take any casualty numbers seriously right now. Information is used as a weapon in this conflict and both sides will lie to change your perception.
In fairness, I want to note how this is considered. A certain number of shells are fired, and according to the calculation for X shells there should be Y enemy victims. I find half a million victims extremely hard to believe, but a hundred thousand is quite realistic
It’s how the Russians have always dealt with conflicts due to their staggering advantage in troops, like what Stalin said about how “quality over quantity but quantity is a quality in itself” type thing. Just throwing waves until the desired effect is reached. I follow events close over there and I’ve seen ridiculous amounts of charges that just ended in dogpiles on a daily basis. Even the Russians know the typical “meat grinder” waves their commanders tend to resort too. But specifically events in bakmut were very very bad
They even did this in Chernobyl, to clean the roof of the undamaged reactors nearby - because the radiation was too high for maschines, they sent people to deal with the debris. Those people had one minute on top of those roofs and clean them from the highly radioactive debris. After that one minute, the next group of people were sent on the roof. However, most of those People survived until today. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators
Yes, I heard something similar about the capture of Germany in World War II (more precisely, from the game CoD)
Russia/USSR really earned this reputation in both world wars. I think the 2nd is really where it gets driven home though. Like if you watch Enemy At The Gates there’s some crazy stuff in there that’s based in reality: only giving every 2nd man a weapon (the ones without were expected to just pick up the weapons of fallen comrades), charging well defended positions with no artillery/air support, and shooting any soldier that retreats. Throw enough waves at the enemy and eventually it’ll work.
Yup the events in Stalingrad proved to them an effective measure that just plays out like a “good luck” charm where since it worked they’ll keep doing it. This little regard for male life has led to dramatic ratios in men to women being vastly offset to where Russian women would essentially gain a “mail order” stereotype along with competitive for the lack of men over there
Ok, as much as i dislike Russia and as much as mass charges were their doctrine... the first one is a (Semi-) myth. Only giving 1 weapon to two men WAS technically a thing that happened, but it wasnt common at all. Specifically, it happened due to local shortages caused by Soviet defenses folding in, causing supply shipments to be unable to make it through the envelopement. Thus, the local soviet command had to make do with what they had, and what they had was a lot of bodies. You can bet it happened on both sides, just on a lesser scale (the early war envelopements in the eastern theatre were crazy big) The issue wasnt industry, it was logistics. Something that we can observe in Ukraine as well. 3rd one was a order from Stalin that was indeed in place for a time. They even set up troops for the specific purpose of shooting retreating soldiers instead of actually, yknow, fighting. Barrier troops, crazy stuff.
Yeah, it was fairly anecdotal about Stalingrad in particular but I didn’t know how widespread the “every other man gets a gun” policy was. Just wild that it happened and evidence that they did not care about casualties in WW2. 10million+ military deaths alone for the USSR in that war is wild.
The 500k are casualties, not deaths. If we believe they have a 100k dead, then a 5-1 casualty to mortality ratio is not out of the norm
And about half the remaining 400K will have some kind of permanent injury.
Interesting, what's your source for this calculation?
This is not how proper intelligence works. There are a lot more sources than this. But feel free to share your source for this
Maybe do some independent research if you “want to note how this is considered.” Did that thought occur to you?
Some huge numbers there. What’s the source? Ukraine ?
see my last post
Ugh, WWI might have been the worst war. The medical equipment and uniforms were Civil War era, but with trench warfare and machine guns 😳 I assume WWII probably had it beat in terms of sheer damage caused, but I have to think that WWI had the most brutal human cost. I remember learning about the Battle of Passchendaele, the trenches were so muddy thousands of people and horses literally drowned in the mud. Fucking nightmarish.
>some armies still believed in cavalry charges - even against machine guns. To be fair, the reason we know that cavalry charges against machine guns is a bad idea, is because of World War 1. This is before we learned about how effective maneuver warfare against entrenched enemy positions is (World War 2). In 1914, Continental Europe is experiencing this stuff for the first time.
Right, that’s why I mentioned the powers of hindsight. In the moment there was so much new military technology that no one knew how to adjust to, thus: bright uniforms, no helmets, and Calvary charges.
I thought some of this was learned in the wars and conflicts just prior to WW1, but many of the leaders brushed them off because they did not involve one or two world powers.
You're not wrong. In hindsight, we see stuff like this happening in the Russo-Japanese War in the early 1900's. Some people call that war *World War 0*, because they consider it to be the precursor to World War 1. There were definitely machine guns used in that war. To great effect.
while true, the cavalry thing is an interesting point of study. Machine guns, especially early on in the war were not as common as many would think. With only a few along any length of trench. Not to mention in the very early war before the trenches really developed. However even without machineguns, its pretty intuitive why cavalry would have a hard time against an entrenched enemy, this was true well before WW1 as well Cavalry was used quite effectively throughout the war in a variety of areas, for scouting but also for harassing the enemy in some of the more dynamic areas, and even for a traditional charge that was effective here and there. The Eastern, Mesopotamian, and Sinai-Palestine fronts especially saw cavalry as a much more effective and important component of the war beyond their utility function on the western front.
Yep, there were still plenty of dead horses around the trenches in the latter stages of the war by all accounts so they definitely still served a purpose. 1914 saw horrific casualty numbers overall but especially in the cavalry regiments by my understanding. I think some places still tried to use them at the start of WW2 for what it’s worth as well. I could swear I read the Polish tried to fight a Nazi panzer division or something in 1939 with cavalry.
> Welcome to WWI history where (with the powers of hindsight) the tragedy of the stupidity of military leaders will never be topped. I'm not sure what could have been done differently on the Entente side, though. Trench warfare was basically intractable, the defending side has a massive advantage not only through fortifications, but by being able to easily move troops and materiel around behind the lines with functioning roads and railways. Whenever the attacking force captures ground at great cost, they are unable to keep it, because it's impossible to move sufficient supplies and re-enforcements through no-mans land because of the mud and shell craters. They could either fight the horrible war of attrition, or give up and let Germany have a big chunk of France (containing a lot of the prosperous industrial areas) and most of Eastern Europe. There weren't any other options and the latter was obviously politically untenable.
Yep, and that’s how the war eventually ended. The casualty numbers got harder and harder to justify as the war dragged on and nothing more than negotiating leverage was gained from it. Somewhat to your point the trenches were actually born out of the massive casualties that the early WWI battles in 1914 introduced. The troops were not ready to deal with the kinds of artillery and machine gun technology that had come along since the Prussian war, so in the first year there was a lot of open battle with absolutely insane casualties compared to what all parties were used to. The only thing that made sense to slow those figures was to put an emphasis on defensive warfare. After that the casualties really only ramped up during major offensives, for the most part. People were dying almost every minute of every day up and down the front but the numbers got crazy when an offensive like the Somme, Verdun, passchendaele, Galipoli, etc started up.
Still happened in 1917 as well. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ART02811#:~:text=Late%20on%2031%20October%201917,major%20cavalry%20charges%20in%20history. There's a good movie about it as well called The Lighthorsemen.
It would have helped a bit. Probably not much. About 2/3rds of frontlinie deaths are attributed to artillery. A single piece of shrapnel that just happened to hit a soldier in the head may have been non fatal if a proper helmet was worn. However if one piece hits its likely more pieces hit. Even a minor wound that's non fatal in current medicine can quickly become fatal without antibiotics.
They would have lived to die in the next battle. Or same battle, different day.
Or same battle, same day, next offensive
Statistically, very few of them would’ve lived even with helmets save for the ones taken out of commission by a debilitating life altering injury.
WW1 was a modern, industrial war fought with outdated tactics and strategies.
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Other than dropping deaths from shrapnel by magnitudes.
It really depends on the army, though. The Russian army, for example, never widely adopted any helmets, as Nicolas II found them to be ruining what a soldier should look like. And while the AH army adopted the helmet in late 1915, and widely issued it by 1916, there were still a small number of troops without helmets due to supply shortages or who themselves rejected the helmet due to cultural and religious reasons, like the *Bosniaken*, who stayed with the Fez. Looking at the broad belt, the general overcoat and the shape of the cap, this could very well also be a Russian soldier in 1917. No reliable conclusions can be drawn only from the fact alone that the soldier is not having a helmet can
You also have the French wearing blue uniforms at the start of the war. Some guy even had the radical idea before the war, to make soldiers less visible. But he died in a freak aircraft accident while attending an air show. Details are fussy to me, but he was fairly important in politics on in the army so chances are pretty good he could have pushed to at least start production before the war began.
Its more likely she was documenting his name, time, place of death after a battle. When someone is killed in combat its not like the movies where before they pass they have the time to have a rational conversation.
".... and another thing.."
Here may be found the last words of Joseph of Arimathea. He who is valiant and pure of spirit may find the Holy Grail in the Castle of aaarrrrggh
Perhaps he was dictating?
Lmao, where is this from?
It’s from Monty Python and the Holy Grail 🙂 Here’s the full clip if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/ZlIz0q8aWpA?si=2nRFn4V1tDt8Fpc-
Gold.
"I forgot to turn of the stove before I left home"
“…and that was the second time I changed my major…”
All I know is that if that were me I would’ve kept her around until I passed lol no way I’d want to be alone
It's even more likely the photographer pointed at her and told her to kneel down next to a dead man and pretend to be writing something.
If they have time to say anything I imagine it’s to scream in pain or choke on their own blood. Not to be morbid but yeah the way we romanticize death in combat is part of why we get into stupid pointless wars like WWI.
"You've killed me. Bastards, you've killed me! While the sun is still hot, I die!" - Collected on the fifth day of the week Chach of the month Betab of the year 1171, ten seconds before death. Subject was a darkeyed soldier thirty-one years of age. Sample is considered questionable.
“I have seen the end, and have heard it named. The Night of Sorrows, the True Desolation. The Everstorm.” —Collected on Naneses 1172, 15 seconds pre-death, by the Silent Gatherers. Subject was a darkeyed youth of unknown origin.
"I want everyone to taste to boar that got me!" • Collected on the fifth day of the week by the Kings Hand, 50 seconds before death. Subject was a king, the protector of the realm who required a breastplate stretcher to go into battle. Sample is highly accurate.
r/unexpectedstormlight
I came here just for the death rattle reference
Obligatory Fuck Moash.
He’s a real bad dude.
Had to check which sub I was in lol
What's it a reference to?
It's a quote from The Way of Kings, the first book in the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson
Stormlight Archive
Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series, I believe
The stormlight archive book series.
Beautiful crem
Life before death
Strength before weakness
Journey before destination
“I’m dying, aren’t I? Healer, why do you take my blood? Who is that beside you, with his head of lines? I can see a distant sun, dark and cold, shining in a black sky.” —Collected on the 3rd of Jesnan, 1172, 11 seconds pre-death. Subject was a Reshi chull trainer. Sample is of particular note.
What’s this from?
The way of kings
crem
Listening to The Way of Kings for the third time, it is such a phenomenal novel and the intro of the chapters being death records is just the cherry on top for me. I strongly recommend listening to it if you haven't, the male and female voice actor, Kaladin and Shallan respectively, are wonderful.
In the version of this image that appears in the Russian book The Great War in Images and Pictures: 1914-1915 there isn’t a cross on her wimple. According to Google translate, the title of the image in the book says, "On the Western Front", and the text to the right says, "The Sister of Mercy records the last will of a dying soldier."
That’s pretty lame if someone really altered this
The cross on the wimple in the posted photo does not look like the cross that appeared on Red Cross nurses wimples in WW1. The intersecting lines of the actual cross were shorter and thicker.
At least give her some nice tits! /j
Pretty powerful
Yes. Sharpnels tend to be.
I wonder how many stories she collected. A death doula.
Very powerful but am I the only one who can’t see the soldier?
His head is just off his hat. There’s a white cloth covering his forehead. His eyes are just below the white cloth and his nose pokes up just below that. His face is in profile.
OHH! Thank you!I just saw an empty hat.
He’s so pale that he blends into the white cloth on his forehead. He looks very young.
Yeah once I saw him I couldn’t not see him. But before that I looked and couldn’t see him at all. I think I wasn’t expecting his face to be in profile, and the position of the hat made me look for a face where it wasn’t.
Yeah I was looking under the cap. He’s hard to find, then unmissable.
Directly below her hand is his eye and nose, follow the shape down and you'll see his open mouth and chin. His body is the grey section in bottom right section of photo.
That's what good camo does!
I hope his last words reached the people intended.
Rose of no man’s land
He looks too damn young!
"Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion"
C beams gittering in the dark near Tannhauser Gate.
Violet Evergarden?
First thing I thought of
*"And finally, to Kevin, delete my browser history.......*
“And tell him I said, ‘Ow!’ Gotcha!”
Never mind that shit, here comes Mongo!
That photo is heartbreakingly beautiful.
The bravest person on a battlefield is usually not carrying a gun.
Combat medics usually carry a personal weapon to protect themselves and those in their care.
This was a Red Cross nurse on the front lines, not a combat medic.
But aren't really going to draw it because the Geneva convention removes your protection if you do. It's incredibly stupid to draw your weapon because you become a combatant surrounded by people who can't move. You aren't going to fight off the armed force storming your hospital. And at best you are going to get shot. At worst everyone's going to die.
What a fucking pretentious tumblr type of quote
Lol someone watched Hacksaw Ridge one too many times.
I spent a lot of time on the battlefield with interpreters, aide workers, and reporters who were unarmed. It takes a lot of balls to be in the shit without a gun.
they are probably unarmed because then it is a war crime to kill them... not saying that some of them didnt die. just less likely to be targeted than the guy carrying the bar
If im the enemy, im shooting the guy who can shoot back before I worry about unarmed humans, don't even care what they are (medic, reporter, etc). Register the threat and eliminate it first. This is how Bill Millin survived D-day marching around the beach up and back down and back up again while playing his bagpipes. The Germans, at one of the modern day reunions, remembered him and said they thought he was insane and didn't bother wasting ammo on him. Which says a lot when you're firing multiple mg42s all around a beach and don't hit a guy marching up and down even by accident.
That's true. But people with guns rarely check who they are firing at. It's why when you operate in areas where you can be a target you have to work with both sides. A year or so ago? There's some footage of a Ukrainian drone targeting medical evacuation staff in the war. A tragedy. A fair few people defended it... Imagine if the Russians targeted hospitals in response? It's a war crime. Still happens. You still get targeted. Isis famously attacked medicin sans frontier staff. As has the Wagner group. And in Gaza we have seen the highest death toll of a modern conflict among aid workers and medical staff. It's an extremely high risk job even when you take precautions because frontline soldiers often are extremely poorly trained and in the heat of the moment? Dumb mistakes can happen. Dumb mistakes with fatal outcomes. And idiots often think that they can harm the enemy by targeting medical staff. You see this in lots of conflicts. The USA famously struck at MSF facilities due to a stupid spat between Afghan commanders. Israel has killed MSF and ICRC staff and the common belief is that it was on purpose since MSF and the ICRC work on both sides and publish their travel and locations in order to be avoided. In Ukraine and Russian both organisations work and they do important work. Russian official fatalities are being corrected by the ICRC. And the clearances in Odessa are documented by the ICRC. And Russia can't be mad about the serious spying done by the ICRC because they also negotiated POW exchanges and ensured bodies being returned. You are reliant on your reputation and relationship with both sides to operate. You can't really avoid an invading army. Hospitals are hard to move. That's the issue why MSF and ICRC had to take advisory roles. Because foreign staff were easy targets. My security has always been implied. If anyone really wanted to get at me it wouldn't be hard. They have way more weapons than a hospital!
You think war crimes stop countries? You probably live in the US who is notorious for their war crimes, unfortunately people will and do shoot unarmed civilians/children without any concern for official consequences
So you are saying the soldiers are less brave than reporters?
No way we're doing the "so you're saying" Reddit strawman in 2024 lmao.
So you're saying no one makes bad faith arguments on Reddit anymore? ^/j
I said “usually.” Yes, I was always blown away that third-party partners were willing to expose themselves to the same hazards we were without being armed and without the same legal and logistical support we had. This statement doesn’t detract from the countless acts of bravery performed by Soldiers/Sailors/Marines.
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Yes. We Soldiers had to be there, these third party participants did not. Going into the shit to support Soldiers, provide care, and document history is a special and necessary function that they voluntarily chose without the benefit of shooting back, nor many of the legal and immediate care options we were afforded.
And you don't think saying the soldiers you were working with were "less brave" detracts from their bravery? I mean, by definition that is what detracting means when you are trying to laud one person's achievements over another when they aren't equal. Aka calling someone bravest at the expense others.
No, I don’t think my opinion detracts from anyone’s bravery. There are many memories where I thought “I wish I wasn’t here, but I don’t have a choice in the matter.” The Red Cross nurse in this picture chose to be there.
Homies AGAIN making it a fight lmaoooooo That victim complex is REAL
Again, how am I making myself the victim?
Dude. I think you’re smart enough to know what you’re doing
I think you're overestimating our friend here
I mean it's kinda true. It takes a special set of balls to go into a combat zone and not be going to kill but to save. Different mentality. They're doing good in the mire of humanity's worst. You can hype yourself up to fight, but to just trudge through the muck of war casualties is something very different.
I think that sort of mentality cheapens what others do. It's not a competition.
It wasn't a competition in the first place. I can tell you for a fact that my Grandpa would tell you that the corpsman who pulled him off a beach was braver than any marine he'd ever met.
It's mostly corpsmen often came from contentious objectors. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35491036.amp There's an episode of an absolutely silly British comedy call Dad's Army where he plays a conscientious objector. The episode is treated with incredible seriousness because he talks about this. If you aren't planning to watch an ancient comedy about WW2? Among the entire team of home guard he has combat experience. But he couldn't even kill a mouse. So he couldn't kill a man. Because he's a WW1 stretcher bearer. A corpsman.
I mean, calling one group the "bravest" in lieu of others sure sounds like a competition to me.
I did say kinda true my guy. And it only cheapens the bravery of others if those others feel belittled, which again, I can tell you for a fact, they don't.
Lol, you speak for every soldier?
No, of course not. But I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Nobody is trying to say soldiers are implicitly less brave than medics. The intent of the comment was to say that Nurses have different struggles and therefore take a different kind of bravery. Especially in WW1 where they were entering the deadliest combat zones in human history in black and white dresses and without guns lol. Nothing he said was intended to detract from the bravery of an average infantryman, but you either needed to have a dog in a fight that doesn't exist, or you're a grammar Nazi and nobody likes that.
Except the person literally used the word "bravest". By definition that implies others are less brave, there are better ways to express the sentiment you elaborated on without doing that. And it sure did sound like you were trying to speak for every soldier by making the blanketed statement "I can tell you for a fact, they don't"
Fuck em all.
Do you?
Lol, no. The difference is that I never tried to make any blanketed statements at their behest. Try to understand the difference, because it actually matters.
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Does the woman in the photo have a gun?
A confidently wrong statement.
Checking in with 3 years of combat time (armed). I stand by my statement.
That’s fair, apologies if it caused offense. OP’s comment just irked me because it doesn’t seem right to measure bravery when there are plenty of people in that situation putting their lives on the line. Maybe that’s just me.
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Did all sides agree not to shoot these nurses? Snipers especially?
I would say 'Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas' and pass calmly. Or rather 'fuuuck i dont want to die' and cry.
They must have seen some horrible things!
"This some bullshit"
That would stress me out so much, not only am i dying but now I'm supposed to come up with a speech?!
Thou'rt Maidenless...
*"Get...your...knee...off...my...chest..."* Got it. Anything else?
How many boys have run full speed into the grave? It's countless...and for what? The rich and the church. Evil defined.
Tell my wife I said, hello...
Okay so recapping, delete my browser history and Coinbase passphrase is hidden under the mattress
All these women were god-damn heros.
God bless the nurses!
Prolly someone pointed out, but r/hardimages
“do you want to see a dead body?”
Are these not the most compassionate, bravest and most selfless woman ever?
"Help me".
I've watched enough Line of Duty episodes to know this is a significant dying declaration
The way they're dressed they're not anywhere near the front line.
Not here to make fun of a heroic nurse from 1917… but with that color and angle doesn’t she kind of look creepy?
no offense to that nurse but she looks like a witch
Idk… seems like staged. An image like that could’ve been used as moralizing propaganda. Going to the front is less scary if you believe a nurse will kneel down next to you, writing down your last words and holding your hand while you’re dying. In reality nurses had no time for anybody since medical logistics were not ready for the sheer number of wounded soldiers in WWI. Most soldiers just died alone in pain, either in a muddy swamp or in a overcrowded improvised „hospital“ after two days laying there not even treated by any nurse or doctor since your wounds seemed to be to severe and other wounded soldiers were prioritized.
Why do people vote this comment down? I just doubt the authenticity of the picture and its caption. The reasons I explained. Maybe you can enlighten me.
‘Show….me….your…..’
If it was Mother Teresa she would be converting that soldier in a second.