First Battle of the Marne – Entente forces counter attack | Hacker News Reader

First Battle of the Marne – Entente forces counter attack

en.historylapse.org

28 pointsdomnuprofesor39 comments

Lots of very interesting content, especially the images, and for some stupid reason they decided to reinvent a way to display images and text together on a website. As a result I stopped reading after having clicked on a text box in order to be able to read it all (otherwise some of it was lost below the window I had to view it in), and then there was no back button to return to where I was at.

Great content. Could have been very well served up by even (perhaps especially) a static web page. Reinventing how web pages work makes it not worth the effort, and I leave.

Before this I hadn't known how much I like to go back and forth between the text and picture, sometimes just skimming so I can interpret the picture, then maybe reading more carefully, etc. When the text covers the image, sometimes even adding a scroll bar, that really increases the friction.

Well, it is a learning experience in more ways than one. I was just getting to this part of the war in Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast so it was great to look at a good photo collection.

https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-51-bluepr...

I actually like the fresh approach to telling a story they're experimenting with, but they do have some bugs. Specifically that pop-over dialog you're talking about - if you set the window to half-size, a close button appears that apparently is getting lost in the responsive layout breakpoints. Pressing Escape will also close it.

If the site owner ends up visiting - please consider using some form of javascript routing or html5 history tied in to any full-page repaints to allow for backing out and using native browser functionality! Interesting page that I'll be checking back to later at any rate.

...or maybe just put p-tags and img-tags right next to each other, which works perfectly fine in any browser ever.

I am the founder of History Lapse. I have fixed the bugs, now the modal/gallery that pops up has the "close" icon visible. I'm working daily on adding new content and improving the layout presentation. Regarding the "fresh approach to telling the story" here is our whitepaper that explains why History Lapse could be a great tool: https://en.historylapse.org/whitepaper

I must admit I liked it. A different way to consume the written content by looking at the pictures.

Currently I'm reading Martin Gilbert's "The First World War: A Complete History". It's great to be able to put pictures on what I've read already. With hindsight it's mind-boggling to know that Germans (and Austrians) expected a very quick war, and they disregarded a lot of warning.

If the text is larger than the area designated for the image there is built-in support for scroll. Also, a decent resolution is needed to have a great user experience. If you click on an image a gallery opens up. You can use the ESC key to return. On the content side, we use great resources that go through a diligent process of synthesis.

It always bothers me when war is told from the perspective of the generals who lived in splendor while they were sending thousands and ten thousands of soldiers into certain death and have them live in misery in the trenches.

I can understand resenting the generals and politicians that sent men to misery and death, but the men on the ground, the generals, the politicians and the general population all play key roles in any conflict and it is important that the perspective of each be documented in order to gain a true understanding of events. This site happens to document the perspective of the generals involved in this battle. Other sources document the other perspectives.

That's a bit of a stereotypical view not backed up by history. Generals didn't really "live in splendor". Generals visited the front line every day and were if anything more involved in the business end of the war than generals today would be. Many of them (more than 200 British generals) were killed or captured in action!

More generally, the officer class had a higher casualty rate than the troops, at least in the British army.

On top of that, they strategised a whole new type of industrial war for which they hadn't been trained or prepared, and they weren't any more or less enthusiastic about the war then the troops they led or the society they came from.

And it is particularly odd thing to say if you consider it from the perspective of, say, French generals. Their country was being invaded by a militaristic neighbour, but according to your formulation generals are callously squandering men and material for a pointless cause - except from the point of view of the people involved it was anything but pointless, the future of their country was at stake.

Read a little about history of WW1. Especially the French generals ignored new developments in warfare like camouflage clothing or steel helmets. They sent probably hundreds of thousands of soldiers into death out of sheer arrogance. And yes, they lived in splendor. They liked to set up their headquarters in castles and other luxury properties. They didn't live in trenches or underground while artillery was falling on them. They ate well while their infantry almost starved and had no water.

I am German and I am aware of the crimes the Germans committed during WW1 and WW2. I just object to the tendency of making generals virtuous heroes while nobody talks about the foot soldiers. The German generals were callous assholes and so were most of the other generals.

You say that as if generals decides war all on their own. Generals generally don't decide when to go to war, civilian leadership usually does.

While the Military School thinking prevailing at the time definitely did not consider the lessons learnt from the American Civil War relevant, this was also a political issue. While generals still thought of war as a series of set piece battles, politicians also thought of it this way, feeling it unnecessary to provide their armies with 'unnecessary equipment' like camouflage.

A lot of generals during WW1 thought in the Franco-Prussian War, so most of them had been foot soldiers themselves in the past. They knew the horror, but they didn't understand the effectiveness of the machine guns. Well, until, essentially, it was too late.

Are they innocent? No. Did they send hundreds of thousands into their death out of arrogance? Probably more out of ignorance and political pressure.

If you look at the deadliest battles of WW1, they come later in the war. And they come after politicians demand action, rather than just entrenched warfare.

All I am saying; don't let politicians off the hook. They likely share more of the blame than the generals.

Top generals are politicians.

I hear what you're saying but the problem is that, when retelling the history of a large battle, no foot soldier plays a large enough part to give the reader a good sense of the overall event. An author can try to incorporate the grunts but they run the risk of overwhelming the reader with names that need to be kept track of.

The stories of the foot soldier can be told but they are usually closer to a biography rather than over-arching history. Author Stephen Ambrose was one of the best at it. His books "Citizen Soldier" and "Band of Brothers" (among others) are excellent.

> French generals ignored new developments in warfare like camouflage clothing or steel helmets

For the helmet, it didn't last long, since the Adrian helmet was introduced in 1915 [0]. And at the start of the war, I don't think any army had standard issue steel helmets. For the clothing, the standard issue also switched to the navy blue in 1915.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_helmet

Considering the number of French generals who were sacked in 1914 after the start of the war [0] (one third of them), there was still a skill problem.

[0]https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limogeage#Liste_de_généraux_li...

That's their job.

To avoid sacrifices of life when unnecessary, and to decide when it is necessary to send soldiers to their deaths.

It seems assumptive to discount the millions of souls weighing on a leader's shoulders. I'm sure there are monsters, but it's a terrible thing to have responsibility for, one I wouldn't want, and one which when assumed I won't begrudge them the distractions of worldly pleasures.

The particular irony of WWI is that, had the Germans prosecuted the war more aggressively (absorbing more casualties) at the crux of the Marne (as they later did in the WWII invasion of France), Paris would have been captured, France likely would have fallen, and trench warfare would have been avoided.

I find the lack of maps to be a huge disappointment, but the photography and other content seems quite good and well organized.

History Lapse is a start-up with no financial support other than my income on my full-time job. I think I have a great idea on how to implement the map concept on History Lapse but at the moment I am stuck in my current predicament.

When I say maps, I simply mean having something like this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Battle_o...

In place of one of the photographs you have now. Does that not jive with the way your site is organized?

The link is broken.

But, after a google search I got to the website.

Great Site!!.

I am trying to add to my knowledge of WWI.

The site's tagline is "the most natural and easiest way of learning history"

And indeed it does seem natural and easy.

Took me way too long to realise that all the text is in hover-overs on the images. I had to go back several screens and start again.

Sidenote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzf9aHZmCAM is a great WWI documentary.

Also, If you like Dan Carlin, his WWI podcast series is amazing: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-bluepr...

Related: http://www.wdfpodcast.com/vap/

This series just started on the 100th anniversary of the 1918 armistice, and the content is simply epic and bottomless. Can't recommend it enough.

pure gold ! I think bataille of the Marne starts in episode 2. https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-51-bluepr...

The Great War youtube channel is a good follow. Although perhaps was, they were doing week by week of 100 years ago, so I don't know if there'll be new content...

https://m.youtube.com/user/TheGreatWar/featured

Yeah, I am trying as well, however I find it extremely complex, compared to WWII for example. Many decisions are very counter-intuitive unless you dig deep into the motivations. It's like the quantum mechanics of wars.

Can you expand on this?

WW1 has never struck me as more complex than WW2, except maybe the events leading up to the start.

Agreed, this site is wonderful. Definitely something I need to come back to after work and dedicate some serious reading time towards.

Glad you like it. Here is our whitepaper that explains the concept and mission of History Lapse: https://en.historylapse.org/whitepaper

I've always wanted a history format that would present events as headlines in newspapers of the time. I think that would give a much more direct feeling to the history, as if you're living it now.

A bit of self-promotion here, I am the creator of a World War 1 podcast focused on being approachable to people without a ton of knowledge about the war called History of the Great War

Website: https://www.historyofthegreatwar.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/history-of-the-great-war...

https://en.historylapse.org/first-battle-of-the-marne

Martin Crevald has a book on the USMC reading list (https://grc-usmcu.libguides.com/usmc-reading-list/intermedia...) "The Changing Face of War: Combat from the Marne to Iraq". Interesting that he uses that battle as one of the fenceposts.

The link should be https://en.historylapse.org/first-battle-of-the-marne cc: @dang

I wish there were a better way than this of correcting bad posts.

There is: email hn@ycombinator.com. We don't see most of the posts where people are trying to contact us in comments, simply because there are far too many comments to read. I noticed the GP randomly. We do, however, read all the emails.

Good to know; thanks!

Oh I assumed you had a parser written that notified you when your name gets mentioned, or something like that.

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