why are they so subservient when they have nothing to lose?

[Bruce Tuncks]

The WW1 soldiers, and the Wagner crims, both went over the top . But as armed men, why did they not fight back, against their own lot?

Sure, the officer ordering you to go has a revolver, but you have a rifle.

I think that in Vietnam, the too-aggressive officers in the American army often died as a result of a grenade rolled into their tents at night, and this eventually resulted in conscripts being replaced by mercenaries. They were mexicans fighting for a green card.

So, is this happening with the russians? if not, why not?

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Well maybe the Russians have had a crack: https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-brigade-commander-killed-by-his-own-forces/

[willedoo]

My great-uncle went over the top at one of the battles for Mouquet Farm near Pozieres in his first and last battle. He was hit by a shell. That English general killed a lot of people that way. He had a habit of ordering small ad hoc suicidal assaults to 'keep the pressure on the Germans' as he said. The only problem was the attacks were so small and piecemeal, the Germans were able to redirect and concentrate all their artillery on the one spot to obliterate our forces.

 

It sounds almost identical to what's happening in Ukraine today. The Russian generals think and act just like those incompetent WW1 British generals and have learned nothing after all that time. That's what the Z stands for. Zero brains.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Maybe I have anti-authority genes. If so, I got them from my WW1 grandfather, who was among a lot of "trouble making, undisciplined australians" who attacked a group of pommy MP's. ( The MP's had been taking it in turns to bash a tied-up pommy soldier ) Well the Australians left the pommy MP's unconscious, and every second war telegram to Australia consisted of whinging about our troops doing such things. ( How can we enjoy our lovely war with your savage and undisciplined troops mucking it up?)

So I have Breaker Morant to thank for being born, because in the aftermath of his ( Breaker's ) execution by the poms, the Australian govt decided that henceforth no Australians could be killed by pommy court-martials. In ww1, lots of pommy troops were killed by their own side, I don't think any Australian was. This is pretty impressive when you consider that the world was about 50 years away from discovering PTSD.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I looked up the numbers....  The french were by far the worst with 600 killed. Then came the poms and the Germans ( 48 )  followed by the Belgians (13) , the Canadians ( 23) and the New Zealanders. In the last 2 countries, the men have been given a belated apology. The youngest known killed was a pommy 16 year-old who had been the sole surviver of his group. Not one Australian or American.

It sure is interesting that one of the reasons the war ended when it did was because the French army refused to attack  ( Aprez-vous, mon general") was their thing, which became known to us us 1950's  schoolkids as the "french mutiny ", spoken of in hushed tones by fat teachers . ( I also looked up PTSD and found that it was known of since the Greeks, over 2000years ago.)

[Old Koreelah]

4 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

…in the aftermath of his ( Breaker's ) execution by the poms, the Australian govt decided that henceforth no Australians could be killed by pommy court-martials. In ww1, lots of pommy troops were killed by their own side, I don't think any Australian was. 

While it’s great that Australian troops were spared the firing squad, the logic escapes me. All Australian soldiers were volunteers- they chose to be there, so I guess they signed a contract of some sort. Why would the English troops, conscripted against their will, be any more guilty of LOMF?

[Bruce Tuncks]

I don't think those pommy troops were guilty of anything OME. I think their leaders were the guilty ones.

[Bruce Tuncks]

And yes, the Australian troops were there to fight evil. So when they saw a truly evil thing, they took action. I reckon they were great and I think their government was ok too.