What WW I battle...?
 

Did the French use every taxi available to get to the battle front?
I cant remember:beer:

Re: What WW I battle...?
 

The Marne was the "taxicabs of Paris" battle in September 1914 in which a lot of civilian transport was used to get the French up to the front before the southern (IIRC) wing of the German pincer movement flanked them at that river and got to Paris about 40 miles away. The battle went on a week or so, cost both French and Germans hundreds of thousands of causalties. But it defeated the von Schlieffen Plan, stopped all possibilty of movement by the Germans, and thus ultimately meant that the war would be fought from trenaches.

Re: What WW I battle...?
 

Excellent thank!

Re: What WW I battle...?
 

Soldier: "Taxi!"
Driver: "Bonjour, where to?"
Soldier: "The trenches please, and do hurry"
Driver: :dropsjaw:

Re: What WW I battle...?
 

Watching that excellent WWI series on the Military Channel, I learned another tidbit. They had a segment on the various sides trying to foment revolution in the other guy's home countries. The Germans backed the Bolsheviks quite successfully, The Brits (via Lawrence) stirred up the Arabs against the Turks, and quite unknown to me, the Germans tried to back a revolution by the Republican Irish! They sent over a boatload of weapons and some money, and were planning to coordinate a 25,000 man invasion of Ireland to coincide with a general uprising by the "Republicans".

They got cold feet at the last minute, and the Brits rounded up the conspirators and dealt with 'em rather harshly.

Re: What WW I battle...?
 

Well they may have had more influence than you think. In 1916 the IRA carried out the "Easter Uprising" which I think (but I'm only a Yank, so Sons of Eire pitch in here) amounted to actual street warfare with pitched battles, artillery and armored cars, not just the guerilla-type fighting that's done today. The Republicans in 1916 needed no encouragment to want to overthrow the Brits and the Loyalist Orangemen, so the Germans didn't need to do any "cheerleading". But almost certainly some German-supplied weapons were used by the IRA then, but I don't know for sure.

Re: What WW I battle...?
 

Yep, they mentioned in this segment that the Irish made good use of the already-supplied German weapons. They had sent over another boatload, but botched the rendevous with the Irish, and they got caught by a British navy patrol. The captain scuttled the ship.