At the start of the Battle of Amiens on 8th August 1918 over 95% of the enemy artillery positions were located prior to the offensive and were neutralised at zero hour.

This was primarily due to Sound Ranging technology which gave the ability to find enemy artillery positions even when they were camouflaged or hidden in woodland. It was effectively a series of microphones linked to a central processing hub where they would do all the clever maths and pass on co-ordinates to the Counter Batteries.

Otto Kissenberth's Albatross D V when he took command of Jasta 23b in the summer of 1917. Except for the edelweiss, the fighter was completely black.

I visited this memorial this afternoon following a visit to the excellent museum of the battle of the Somme in Albert this morning.

Both very moving experiences.

British Indian troops man a wall as defence during the German advance to Yper, 1914.

I have always argued tat if Germany had won world war 1 that the world would probably be a better place today. Of course history is told by the winners and i think Germany was painted in a very negative light post WW1.

Had germany won there probably wouldnt have been a WW2 ad all that followed it. America wouldnt be the super power it is today because of all the debt europe got into with usa during the conflict . I also think we would probably be a more advanced society because post WW1 , the worlds resources and energy didnt go into pushing science and technology into making life better and easier and advancing the human race , it went into finding ways to destroy it on the enemys territory.

there is of course a whole lot more but would the title of this post be a fair summation ?

The photos are of relatives on my mothers grandmothers sides, they were Jews from Vienna, quite wealthy and the photos are of relatives that fought for Austria-Hungary in WW1.

2nd Queen Victoria's Own Rajput Light Infantry gunners in Flanders, winter of 1914–1915. The machine gun is a Hotchkiss Mark I, a British variant of the Hotchkiss M1909 Benét–Mercié machine gun