Poor Twilight just looks so broken by this nonsense :D

@Background Pony #4339  
Oh I’ve read the plans. I had family that helped plan some of them. No one expected quarter or mercy as they saw those concepts die in the Great War.

@Iron Storm  
I think those were very bad, but not the worst part. The lice, the typhus that was spread by the lice, the cholera epidemics in warm weather and the Spanish influenza pandemic that started in the last winter. Oh, and the poison gas, that all sides eagerly adopted when governments and military establishments began eagerly adopting new technological advances for the battlefield instead of dismissing them as “ungentlemanly” or “undignified.”
 
In my melancholy moods, I am reminded of a 20th Century historian who said that in the future, August 1914 will be recalled as the moment when Western Civilization went mad and committed suicide. The corpse has continued to twitch for a century and a bit more, but there is no doubt of the outcome. A German historian named Spengler said, after the war, “optimism is cowardice.”
 
You can see it even in textbooks of military doctrine published in the 1920s. Every nation agreed: next time it’s going to be total war, total civilian mobilization, total industrialization for total mechanized warfare, war to extermination. They didn’t have nuclear weapons yet, but they thought biological and chemical weapons would work well enough. Read some time about the biological warfare programs pursued in the US, UK, and Canada in the 1930s. Everyone was eager for a rematch, including the “good guys,” and they’d not stop with an armistice this time. It makes my blood run cold.

@DarkObsidian  
The worst part was the sheer reluctance most armys had of changing uniforms or to metal helmets. Even court martialing soldiers that did not keep a clean uniform in the trenches. Or the Red Pants the French wore that literally caused a near mutiny.

Well, it may be that some soldiers at that time had written the motto of the Prussian royal family Gott mit uns (God with us) on the inside of their helmets. However, the saying Mit Gott für Kaiser und Reich (With God for emperor and empire) was much more widespread.
 
Furthermore, the Pickelhaube was only worn in the field until September 1915. After that there were models where you could unscrew the tip. Parallel to this, the first steel helmets were of course developed from 1916 onwards. Of course, the Pickelhaube was completely unsuitable for trench warfare and also shows how much the Oberste Heeresleitung (Supreme Army Command) at that time was of the opinion that the war could be won within a few months. A fatal error, which was on the side of all warring parties, and therefore ended in one of the greatest slaughters of soldiers lives in the history of mankind.
 
My great-grandfather’s youngest brother died at the age of 16 as a war volunteer within the first two months of the war. Sometimes the thought of it still fills me with melancholy.

@Background Pony #4339  
 
ooga booga where da western front at.

@laofuzi  
You’d think, but then again, during that era, three quarters of Europe’s armies issued pickelhaube helmets. The Germans are remembered for them mainly because they kept issuing them after the rest of the world’s militaries dropped them to seek out new fads. Note how many WWI propaganda posters show evil “Huns” wearing them fifteen years after they went out of style everywhere else.
 
One of the more famous propaganda posters of the era depicted a German soldier as a baboon wearing a pickelhaube and holding a blood-dripping bludgeon labeled “KULTUR.” At the time this sort of thing was held to be highly effective propaganda. Now it looks silly, and a little surreal.

At this point we might need to start tagging these as Twilight abuse lol.

@Background Pony #CC0A  
Twilight: Hey, Starlight, can you look into this mirror?  
*pushes her in*
*smashes mirror*  
Sunset: Banished to another dimension, huh? Classic.

To recap: Celestia, Luna, and Discord are all of no help to Twilight. If she can’t get Cadence to help, she’s probably gonna live with historical roleplay Starlight until the end of time.

@Background Pony #4339  
Not the worst thing to wear into a wore.

@Background Pony #4339  
Probably resulted in many friendly fires that day

Dat pickelhaube, tho.
 
Strange fact: though it is now associated solely with the German military, between 1880 and 1905 some US Army and Marine units wore pickelhaube helmets as part of their dress uniforms.
 

 
Weird to see, isn’t it? It’s like some kind of steampunk artifact from an alternate timeline.

@laofuzi  
I can definitely see her being General Mao

You BETTER not dress up as a Nazi or a communist next time!

Welcome to Prussia!

Starlight, being Stalin isn’t enough for her…

@Background Pony #1142  
Can’t wait to see her get Trixie involved in these antics.

These historical roleplay Starlight annoying Twilight memes are hysterical.  
It also reminds me of Inconvenient Trixie

AS WE ALL STAND UNITED!
 
ALL TOGETHER,
 
GOT MIT UNS!