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[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Politics, diplomacy, revolution and mutiny take center stage at the start of this episode, but mud, blood, shells and tragedy drown all by the end.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

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Listen to Blueprint of Armageddon V

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[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

– John Quincy Adams (6^th U.S. President) speaking of the United States in an 1821 speech

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

– President Woodrow Wilson 1917 War Message to Congress[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/4″][/vc_column][vc_column][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row height=”auto”][vc_column width=”2/3″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]

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The Russian Emperor Nicholas II was fortunate to have kept his throne after a revolution in 1905, but he wouldn’t be so lucky in 1917. Nearly three years of war had pushed Russia’s army and people to the brink and in March 1917 the situation in the Russian capital exploded. When the army troops in the city threw their weight behind protesters and against the police the Czar’s fate was sealed. But when three hundred years of Romanov autocracy collapses, what exists to fill the void? And can this largest of countries still fight on in the war? Or is the Russian bear down for the count?

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[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]“Blood and mud, blood and mud, they can think of nothing better!”

 – British Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1917)

How do you make the ghastly, traumatizing, charnel house moonscape of a First World War Western Front battlefield more horrific? Add water.

Third Ypres (also known as “The Battle of Passchendaele”) combined all the atrocious features of other Western Front battles, with swamp-like conditions that were so appalling that it’s hard to imagine that conducting modern military operations there was even possible.

While rain and mud were a common feature of First World War battles, the conditions at Passchendaele were uniquely terrible. Men, horses and equipment sunk in the quicksand-like muck. The rain and standing water drowned the wounded. The day-to-day existence for the soldiers living and fighting in thigh-deep mud or water was appalling. And it went on month after month. At least half a million soldiers became casualties.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Missed a past episode? Or looking for detailed show notes? We’ve got you covered.

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Dan’s research and book list

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