Chris Boonzaier

I find the symbolism totally bizarre ... we are talking about the Belgian Congo, In this photo the children of indiginous Rubber plantation workers... those who did not reach quotas had to watch their children have their hands hacked off..... "Thus, under Léopold II’s administration, the Congo Free State became the site of one of the worst man-made humanitarian disasters of the turn of the 20th century. The report of the British Consul Roger Casement, published in early 1904, was an irrefutable indictment of the “rubber system”: “... the drowsy, unsupervised machine of coercion which wore out the people and the land”.[8] In the absence of a census (the first was made in 1924), it is difficult to quantify the population loss of the period, but it must have been very high. According to Roger Casement’s report, depopulation was caused mainly by four causes: “indiscriminate war”, starvation, reduction of births, and tropical diseases. Adam Hochschild argues that roughly 10 million perished.[9] The human suffering inflicted by the rapacious exploitation of the colony was immense." “…The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. , The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber, They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace, the people who were demanded for the forced labor gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected…”

Hi, that was a good book for its time, I have a couple od issues with it, but it is worth having.

How can you find 2 journalists dummer than this pair to discuss an IED ? http://edition.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c3#/video/us/2013/04/22/erin-mattingly-pressure-cooker-bombs.cnn

it is actually quite interesting, we read so much about how the Germans invented everything and how the allies were way behind etc. etc... This was a fascinating read. The French grenadier system was IMHO not in anyway more backward than the germans.... Whereas the French did not believe in forming special assault units, but rather that every infantry unit should learn assault methods, the germans had of course their Sturmbataillon... but their purpose was also to train the infantry to become assualt troops, so in the end the same result was sought. The French system in early 1916 was actually more advanced than I thought.... An assault grenade team had Fusiliers, these were picked soldiers who protected the grenadiers and were the point men, then the grenadiers who were not supposed to have to use their rifles (worn on the back) and had to have hands free for grenades. For protection they had pistols and knives, then the supplyers who carried extra grenades and would take over the grenadiers place. "Elite grenadiers " were specialists who were responsible for training other troops to use grenades, they were also trained in making IEDs, in the different enemy grenades, Trench mortars and rifle grenades, Operations in the trenches in assault and raids were to be done in silence with a system of hand signals and gestures... In fact, the whole book makes me see the theme of assault trrops in a different light. Part of the book is devoted to describing a raidcarried out by canadian troops which the French claim is a fantastic example of assault. Here an example of Trench clearing, the fusilier first, then the grenadier etc. etc...

I just recieved this french booklet today, published at the beginning of April 1916, so obviously written a little earlier than that....

Here are a couple of 3rd Jäger postcards, was really over the moon to get the one on the left in the post today....

I dont like it from the pics.... looks to be "something" with added modern Bullion?

Here is an NCO of the 17 Res Füs Arty in Spring 1917

Here is a postcard from the 1st Jäger Battalion...

Does anyone have any idea what this top is?

Here you go, the LIP watches, http://www.lip.fr/en/history/ LIP and Geismar are from the same town, there were even marriages between the families

Looks pretty close to this one... Here are some more..... http://www.br-avo.com/forum/photography-13/vintage-bomb-timers-3948/

Hi, Does anyone have the book? Does it also deal with 1917? Thanks Chris

fantastic work indeed!!! Do you do commission work?

am not sure of the maker, but it seems to be an issue one. Best Chrs

It seems this is related to the Canadian battle of Hill 70 / Lens and the aftermath. Thas pretty "cool"

I an tending towards "Buy" on this one... or would if it was offered to me and I was in the market for one. best chris

Hi Danny, thanks :-)

That's fantastic, I wonder if he served in some auxillary capacity in 14-18 ?

lets see the other docs ?

That is a nice regiment, I have 3 Iron Cross documents to them, but have have not done any work on them. Here is the battles he would have been in... http://www.militaerpass.net/21id.htm

I just bought this one.... http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/58240-nice-unit-ek1-letter-and-doc/ I wish it were possible to know if he is mentioned in the book about the batterie

Just picked up a nice EK1 doc and letter for the 14th Infanterie Geschutz batterie... the Lt commander won the PLM some time later....

This was tossed into an Ebay buy

I got this one thrown in as a freebie with his WW1 EK1