SAM'S BULLET

Robert Firth

Description

WWI, LOSSES, WASTE, STUPIDITY, POLITICS, WAR, MADNESS. On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This set the Triple Alliance (Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy) against Serbia's allies in the Triple Entente (Russia, France, and Britain).Eventually, the momentum became unstoppable, sparking one of the dumbest and bloodiest conflicts in history. Incidentally, WWI also set the stage for WWII 22 years later as well as making possible 70 years of brutal communism. This book is about this terrible conflict and also we tell the story of a very special British boy murdered in this deadly, avoidable and utterly senseless war- a war not of his making and indeed not of his or anyone's understanding. We discuss Sam Mason, a 19 year old, murdered a day before his 20th birthday at the battle of Somme. Sam was a mathematical Genius, a child prodigy, gifted far beyond his contemporaries. The British Government never should have allowed his enlistment. Sam was a national treasure. His potential for bettering the lives of all was enormous but tragically, we will never know.

Sujets

• Histoire
• World War I
• Military
• History

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 12 juin 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456635152
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Caribex Books 
REAL WAR
 
A division of Robert-j-Firth.com
9173 Old Pine Road, Boca Raton, Fl, USA
 
Copyright © 2017 by Robert J. Firth
 
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information,
address Caribex books Subsidiary Rights Department 1973
Old Pine Road, Boca Raton Fl, USA 33428.
 
Caribex Books/ Robert-j-firth.com paperback edition April 2014
Caribex Books/ Robert-j-firth.com are trademarks™
 
Caribex Books/ Robert-j-firth Speakers Bureau can bring
the author to your live event. Contact us at;
http://www.robert-j-firth.com/connect.htm or call us at 561 852 3989
 
Interior and cover/ jacket design by: Alyona; www.alyonas-world.com
 
Manufactured in the United States of America
 
10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-3515-2
 
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Flanders fields
 
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
 
We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!
 
Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields
 
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae at the battlefront on May 3, 1915 during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
FORWARD
CHAPTER 1
A GREAT SICKNESS DESCENDS ON THE WORLD
CHAPTER 2
THE GENESIS OF THE BOOK
CHAPTER 3
Who was Sam Mason?
CHAPTER 4
THE MADMAN DIRECTING THE BATTLE
CHAPTER 5
WE FIND HANS ROBERT ROTH
CHAPTER 6
English life in 1915
CHAPTER 6
SAM GOES TO WAR
CHAPTER 7
SAM COMES TO LIGHT
CHAPTER 8
WHAT IN HELL WERE THEY THINKING AND WHO IN HELL IS TO BE BLAMED?
CHAPTER 9
A WAR STARTED BY MANIACS
CHAPTER 10
WHAT DOES THE LOSS OF FORTY MILLION LIVES MEAN?
CHAPTER 11
WHAT'S IT TAKE TO KILL AND WOUND 40 MILLION HUMANS
CHAPTER 12
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
CHAPTER 14
GRIEF, LOVE AND HUMAN EMOTION
CHAPTER 15
GOD AND THE MEN WHO STARTED WWI
CHAPTER 16
Helmuth Johann Ludwig Graf von Moltke, AKA Moltke
CHAPTER 17
THE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE IN 1914, DEFINITION OF A BELLIGERENT
CHAPTER 18
AMERICA MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE
CHAPTER 19
AMERICA WINS THE WAR BUT AT WHAT COST
CHAPTER 20
WWI, A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
CHAPTER 21
GERMANY NEVER HAD ANY INTENTION OF ABIDING BY THE TERMS OF EITHER THE ARMISTICE OR THE TREATY THAT FOLLOWED
POST SCRIPT
APPENDICES
FORWARD
I have written several books on war. I flew 3 years in Vietnam and witnessed the terrible cost of military conflict. As Marc Antony says in Act 3, Scene 1, of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: "Cry 'Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." The insanity begins. There can be nothing so terrible as war. No one who's hearts been burned by its savagery believes there's honor and glory in conflict- there simply is not. War is hell!
 
Individual soldiers have demonstrated incredible courage, strength and bravely. In some, war brings out the very best. The soldier fights for his life and the lives of his friends and fellow soldiers- not for the distant general ordering him to kill other men. We all recognize that crazed dictators from totalitarian states must be stopped and we know that too often, the only way they can be stopped is by fighting and killing them.
 
On June 28, 1914, Near the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo Serbia, a mad-man murdered the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand ‎ and ensuing events swept the world into war. 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip shot both Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie with a Browning pistol. Princip was sentenced to 20 years in prison, where he died from tuberculosis in 1918.
 
Anti-Serb protests and riots broke out throughout Austria-Hungary blamed on the assassination. One month later, on July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This set the Triple Alliance (Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy) against Serbia’s allies in the Triple Entente (Russia, France, and Britain). Eventually, the momentum became unstoppable, sparking one of the dumbest and bloodiest conflicts in history. Incidentally, WWI also set the stage for WWII 22 years later as well as making possible 70 years of brutal communism.
 
This book is about this terrible conflict and also, we tell the story of a very special British boy murdered in this deadly, avoidable and utterly senseless war- a war not of his making and indeed not of his or anyone's understanding. We discuss Sam Mason, a 19-year-old, murdered a day before his 20th birthday at the battle of Somme. Sam was a mathematical Genius, a child prodigy, gifted far beyond his contemporaries. The British Government never should have allowed his enlistment . Sam was a national treasure. His potential for bettering the lives of all was enormous but tragically, we will never know.
 
Sam, as it turned out, became just one of the millions of lives snuffed out before their time by the collective insanity of that terrible and totally unnecessary war. In our book, we try to come to terms with the waste.
 
We tell you about the instigators of this most terrible conflict- the terrible men who could have, at any time, stopped it but -for whatever insane reasons, promoted the conflict- plunging the world into this most ghastly war!
 
The book tells the reader exactly how and why the Second World War as well as the 70 years of the USSR was a consequence of the first.
 
Robert J. Firth,
Florida, September 2017
CHAPTER 1

A GREAT SICKNESS DESCENDS ON THE WORLD
I n the summer and early fall of 1916, on both sides of the upper reaches of the River Somme in France, more than three million men fought each other for 141 days. One million of both sides were wounded or killed making this horrific battle one of the bloodiest and most costly in human history. British and French troops were facing a somewhat larger number of Germans across a field of muddy shell craters and sticks of dying trees.
 
Between the cannon, rifle and machineguns 11,000 burning hot projectiles per minute were flying in all directions at 2,500 feet per second. The air itself was churned and heated by the whizzing metal. The enormous pressure and din of battle was deafening, the smoke and gas obscuring opposing trenches.
 
On the first day of July 1916, following 7 days of continuous bombardment by 1.5 million shells and ten minutes after the largest land mine in human history was blown up under the German lines, at exactly 0810 hours local time, the British General, Sir Douglas Haig, ordered the attack. Thirty minutes later 57,400 British boys were wounded or dead. The Brigadiers (Sergeant Majors) blew their whistles and, with one hand on their Webley 44's, prepared to 'murder' any 'cowards' who failed to go "over the top"- daring to choose life over almost certain death.
 
Douglas (The Butcher) Haig, who ordered this slaughter was born in Edinburgh Scotland on 19 June 1861 into a wealthy family and was 55 years of age when the first whistle blew and his boys began to die. Haig's sobriquet, as you will see was most apt! In 1928, at the age of 67, he thankfully croaked and, we hope, got to meet his victims.
 
The thousands of young men of this innocent age- like sheep they went- leaping up and over the parapets, toward the German trenches, slowed by their rifle and kit, mud and barbed wire, they died by the thousands from massive artillery fire and bullets from the opposing trenches. The Germans had a deadly efficient field gun of 77mm with other calibers including the famous 100, and 105mm canons. Literally, hundreds of these weapons were zeroed in on the battlefield from rear batteries and were responsible for some 70% of all casualties.
 
The main rifle of the German soldier was the Gewehr 98. This bolt action Mauser fires the 8.20 mm (.323 in) 9.9 g (154 gr) spitzer bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2,789 ft/s and 2,398 ft/lbs of muzzle energy. Thousands of German soldiers were shooting at the approaching British boys. Even more deadly than the rifles were the many machine guns set up to sweep the field, spraying thousands of bullets at 2500 fps into the ranks of advancing soldiers.
 
In the spring of 1915, the German military decided to fit 15,000 of the Gewehr 98's with telescopic sights for sniper use. Twenty-five-year-old Sergeant Hans Robert Roth had one of these weapons. He was 400 yards east of the British lines behind the burned stump of a French oak situated on a rise of about fifteen feet. Hans watched the young Brits rise up and picked out one. There was no wind that calm morning but the air was moist. He wiped the lens twice before placing the reticle on the chest of his target.
 
Like all snipers, he saw the boy's face clearly before killing him. He looked far too young to be fighting but then, they all did. The pressure on the trigger increased tripping the catch sending the firing pin into the fulminate of mercury in the center of the cartage, igniting the powder and sending the powerful round at almost 3000 feet per second (4 times the speed of sound) toward his target.
 
The rifle cracked and jumped as Han's shoulder absorbed the impact. Only briefly noting his success, the shooter focused on other targets, sending some 15 young men to join the thousands who died on that day. There is something special I have to tell you about Sergeant Roth. As well as being an exceptionally talen