[myrmekochoria]

Na żołnierzy w czasie tej wojny czekało wiele zagrożeń z którymi wcześniej armie nie miały styczności - ze względu na warunki i naturę walki (front się nie rusza). Jedną z bardziej makabrycznych i z pewnością meczących przypadłości była tak zwana "stopa okopowa". Wiele z tych walk będzie toczyć się w Belgii (Flandria), gdzie pada bardzo często, więc okopy są zalewane przez wodę. Wodę... . Wodę z resztkami gnijących ciał z domieszką ekskrementów, moczu i oparów po trującym gazie. Żołnierze często stoją po kolana w wodzie i nie przez kilka godzin, ale przez dni - czasem tygodnie. Pamiętajcie, że oprócz tego cały czas wokół was trwa chaos morderczej walki - szrapnel, ludzie padają, musicie całą waszą uwagę zwrócić na strzelanie do ludzi, zwłoki unoszą się na błocie itd. . Oddaje głos Gibbsowi:

"The men remained in the trenches, and suffered horribly. I have told about lice and rats and mine-shafts there. Another misery came to torture soldiers in the line, and it was called "trench-foot." Many men standing in slime for days and nights in field boots or puttees lost all sense of feeling in their feet. These feet of theirs, so cold and wet, began to swell, and then to go "dead," and then suddenly to burn as though touched by red-hot pokers. When the "reliefs" went up scores of men could not walk back from the trenches, but had to crawl, or be carried pick-a-back by their comrades, to the field dressing stations. So I saw hundreds of them, and, as the winter dragged on, thousands. The medical officers cut off their boots and their puttees, and the socks that had become part of their skins, exposing blackened and rotting feet. They put oil on them, and wrapped them round with cotton-wool, and tied labels to their tunics with the name of that new disease—"trench-foot." Those medical officers looked serious as the number of cases increased".

"This is getting beyond a joke," they said. "It is pulling down the battalion strength worse than wounds."

"Brigadiers and divisional generals were gloomy, and cursed the new affliction of their men. Some of them said it was due to damned carelessness, others were inclined to think it due to deliberate malingering at a time when there were many cases of self-inflicted wounds by men who shot their fingers away, or their toes, to get out of the trenches".

"There was no look of malingering on the faces of those boys who were being carried pick-a-back to the ambulance-trains at Remy siding, near Poperinghe, with both feet crippled and tied up in bundles of cotton-wool. The pain was martyrizing, like that of men tied to burning fagots for conscience' sake. In one battalion of the 49th (West Riding) Division there were over four hundred cases in that winter of '15. Other battalions in the Ypres salient suffered as much".

"It was not until the end of the winter, when oil was taken up to the trenches and rubbing drill was ordered, two or three times a day, that the malady of trench-foot was reduced, and at last almost eliminated. The spirit of the men fought against all that
misery, resisted it, and would not be beaten by it".

Zalany okop: http://www.wykop.pl/wpis/15313809/zolnierz-brytyjski-w-zalanym-okopie-fotografia-fot/
Jeszcze jedno ujęcie na stopy okopowe: http://i1.wp.com/causticsodapodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/12/trench-foot.jpg

#cytaty #fotografia #fotohistoria #historiajednejfotografii #ciekawostkihistoryczne #historia #iwojnaswiatowa #wielkawojna

[myrmekochoria]

@myrmekochoria: Pytałem się już o to kiedyś na początku. Niech ten komentarz pulsują ludzie, którzy czytają (te wpisy) po angielsku albo nie mają problemu z angielskimi cytatami, żebym ewentualnie wiedział czy streszczać cytaty czy je załączać

[P.....y]

@myrmekochoria: To ja zapodam linkiem do "Apokalipsy" od National Geographic.
Trzeci odcinek traktuje o wojnie okopowej:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoBH-0CMUTI

[rafaloooj]

@PanJanKochany: tktyk

[Ph3n0m]

@PanJanKochany: Panie Janie Kochany miałby Pan może co o II WŚ? :D