Nadzieja( Polish for Hope)

Chapter 14: Gas And Bullets

The year 1914 started of normally, for most people in Europe like Charles Moad who was now known as Thomas Thorne a shoe cleaner. However, things would get heated in late June when the Austro-Hungarian prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife were murdered in Sarajevo by Serb Gavrilo Princip and his group revolution group the Black Hand who wanted Bosnia to be a part of Serbia not Austria-Hungary. The assassination of the prince infuriated the Austro-Hungarian government and royal family. Austria-Hungary demand that Serbia give Princip and his group to be give a court trial otherwise they will declare a war against Serbia. Serbia despite being a lot smaller than Austria-Hungary, Serbia refused. So, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia marking the beginning of the great war (aka world war 1), Austria-Hungary started arming their soldiers with varieties of weapons life rifles with bayonets and machine guns to aircrafts like planes and zeppelin. Austria-Hungary decided to also test out few new weapons which were grenades and gas bombs.

Russia who was Serbia's ally decided to help by sending funding and weapons to help Serbia as they themselves didn't want to be involved in the war. However, Germany didn't like that Russia was helping the enemy of its ally so they declare war against Russia. Which later made France declare against Germany as they were in an alliance with Russia. Sometime later Montenegro joined France's and Russia's side. However, Britain decide to stay neutral despite being in the same alliance as Russia and France. However, thing started to change when Germany decided to attack France by going through Belgium. As the border between France and Germany was well guarded by artillery so Germany decided go through Belgium as it was a neutral country and thought that the Belgians will just let them through.

 But they don't, they fight back along with their king Albert I who lead his country as general. For a neutral country Belgium did a good job of keeping the German soldiers at bay for a few days. This caused Britain to join the war on 4th August 1914 as many British people didn't like that Germany was attacking a neutral country and also because they made an agreement to defend Belgium if anything happens to them in the 1830s.

The next day many Brits started lining up to became a soldier in ques. Charles on the other hand had doubts whether he should join or not, for a few days as he thought that war in most cases is a terrible and gruesome thing and it would be better to avoid it at all costs unless it is absolutely necessary and unavoidable. However, a strong part Charles thought that he should join the war as he could people and most importantly use his wizard powers for good as to ensure that the war ends a lot quicker. So, after carful consideration Charles decided to join the army as he wanted to ensure the war ends quickly before signing up, he met a member of the suffragettes and decided to give £20 to help herself and to help with the suffragette movement, he also brought with him a small spell book with him. He of course used his new name Thomas Thorne when signing and lied to the officers that he was 24 years old when in actuality he was 54.

 After signing up he along with men who were 17 or older began (thought there were a few teenagers who were 14 to 16 who lied about their age and even a few women) the intensive exercises involved doing running, squats, sit ups, push ups and target practice with weapons like rifles and machine guns. The exercise was exhausting for everyone even for dear Charley as he still had to continue them even when his muscles started to ache from exercise and even his shoulder and knee joints were cracking quite often.

On the final day of training Charles and all recruits did their last 1-mile sprint and of course 100 push ups and squats. They later on had a briefing in a classroom with a projector where they were told they will be going to northern France where the main base of organisation will be in a trench. At the briefing they were show the map of Europe and also told who are their enemies which are Germany and Austria-Hungary will be called the Central Powers while they the British along with their allies like France, Russia and Serbia are called the Allies. After the briefing everyone was sent into the uniform to get their uniforms and equipment which they were given in special sacks wrapped up in brown paper like presents, they were also given 2 grenades and a rifle.