(106 yr old) Why this boot caused 75,000 casualties in WW1

so we did a video on this boot a couple months ago and it was our most successful video of all time as our fastest growing it was my favorite video that we've done I loved it but unfortunately YouTube did not and after it got like half a million views it got demonetized soon after that I got age restricted and now it's just wiped off the face of the Earth and so we recut it add some additional information some new imagery removed any potentially bad stuff that YouTube might not like for whatever reason when it comes to history it's weird in my opinion to not show people history so if you think you've seen this video just watch it again help us out you'll learn something new I think from this re-upload if you haven't seen it support it watch it I think you're really gonna like it and just help us out wherever you can because it's such a bummer when we spend thousands and thousands of dollars on these videos that take a ton of time editing Power Research and then YouTube Just arbitrarily shuts it down when it's a historical piece of information showing you guys something that nobody else in the world has ever seen the inside of a World War One Booth that's 100 years old telling the history of this boot through the lens of the history of the war the wars history through the lens of the boot I love doing it it's a bummer that gets shut down so check this video out stick around to the end support it help it view it share it all that stuff this is the m1917 boot which was the very first boot used by the American troops in World War one and it's the very first boot to use the world famous months and last and I think this boot is absolutely gorgeous it's one of my most favorite looking boots of all time but this boot only saw service for a year before they went back to the drawing boards to try to improve it so we're going to cut this over 100 year old boot in half to see why it only had a year of service and the coolest thing about this is for the first time in Internet history if not history in general we get to actually see what's inside this m1917 boot and the history of this boot starts in 1912 when Edward L Munson publishes the book The Soldier's foot and the military shoe which was a study of 2 000 soldiers over four years to find the best shape for a shoe and this book led to the creation of the months and lasts because of his last name and the whole concept of this last was to fit as many soldiers as comfortably as possible because in the 1800s the vast majority of shoes were super pointy and squished all your toes to the front the months and lasts was one of the very first widely produced last that was fairly anatomical and then just a couple years later July 28 1914 World War one starts and from 1914 to 1917 the U.S provided Aid to the Allied Forces including boots built on the months and last but avoided fighting until April 4th 1917 when the U.S entered World War One and the U.S military quickly realized that this war was all about trench warfare and if you don't know what trench warfare is it's essentially instead of standing in lines like the Civil War they Advanced a little bit started digging trenches to fight at each other barbed wire mortar shells people shooting each other very little progression on the warfront it was a very terrible way to fight a war but more importantly trench warfare led to a lot of water in the trenches and this m1917 boot was not ready for really wet trench warfare but by the end of the year leading into 1918 casualties and trench foot was so heavy and so prevalent that they were forced to go back to the drawing board and come out with the Pershing Boot and to put in perspective how detrimental and devastating trench foot was to the Allied Forces even after revamping this boot after a year there was over 75 000 casualties caused by trench foot over the course of the year for the Allied Forces and I don't know if that means they actually died or if they were just out of service and couldn't fight but either way 75 000 people was a huge loss to the Army but also just human life 75 000 people not a small amount of people and trenchfoot clearly is very devastating so what is trench foot if you have no idea well trenchfield was first reported in 1812 by the French army when Napoleon's Army was retreating from Russia but trenchfoot really became well known during World War one because of how big the impact was well what is it that actually causes trench foot according to Wikipedia unlike frostbite trench foot does not require freezing temperatures it can occur in temperatures of 16 degrees Celsius 61 degrees Fahrenheit so really not that cold and within as few as 13 hours and exposure to these environmental conditions causes deterioration and destruction of the capillaries and leads to damage of the surrounding flesh excessive sweating has long been regarded as a contributory cause unsanitary cold and wet conditions can also cause trench foot but what does trench foot actually feel like and what does it do and like what are the signs and symptoms well trench foot frequently begins with the feeling of tingling and an itch in an affected area and subsequently progresses to numbness or pain the feet become red or blue as a result of the poor blood supply later as a condition worsens feet can start to swell and smell of Decay as muscle and tissue become uh macerate macerate as muscle and tissue becomes macerated Advanced trench foot often involves blisters and open sores which lead to fungal infections this is sometimes called jungle rot which we covered in the jungle boot video and how they kind of tried to solve this issue it's really pretty interesting if you haven't seen it so trench foot's clearly no joke and how do you prevent trench foot well the ways that they used to do this is they'd they'd send you the boots two sizes too big so you could wear two layers of socks it also thoroughly clean and dry your feet put clean dry socks on treat the affected area with warm packs or soaking it in warm water when sleeping let your feet dry out let the moisture dissipate and basically everything else you can think of that would be literally impossible inside of a trench in World War one and you might be thinking that all the trench foot is no longer an issue for Humanity but there's a lot of jobs and a lot of hobbies that people inadvertently end up getting trenched foot whether they're coal miners people are working water all day hiking spelunking and if you're not careful like we mentioned trench foot can happen in 61 degrees and in 13 hours then if we look at the salt construction where this boot on the surface looks like it's a super high quality Boot and even today if you built this boot this would be as about a high quality as anyone makes today but when you put this much leather and water you're going to have a lot of problems because this thing is chock full of leather it's got a full-length leather midsole a half leather slip sole that's tapered down it has four layers of leather in the heel stack and and it has this leather half sole on the forefoot with all the hob nails and the nails going to the inside which if you look at all these hob Nails you can only imagine with this many nails going at the inside of the boot and this mini Nails tacking the boot together it's the only amount of time before water keeps seeping in through the outsole as well and if we look at the leather leather is not the best material for for water because I love leather it's one of the best materials for Footwear because it's equal parts durable breathable and flexible and there's a reason why leather has been used in Footwear ever since the invention of Footwear there's also a reason why rubber boots are almost exclusively used in wet conditions in the modern era and that's because water seeps into the leather and slowly pulls out the conditioning and Tanning compounds which causes the leather to shrink cause it to be brittle and it causes it to be even less water resistant and the thing is once it's dry and once you start wearing these and the cracks are showing the splits are happening and the stitching holes start opening up it's almost impossible to keep water out of this style of boot without constant conditioning and oiling and waxing which like we talked about wasn't the easiest place to do it during trench warfare in the early 1900s and then to the final area where water could have easily seeped in and that's how this boot is built because this is a 270 Goodyear welted construction with a nailed heel and this is one of the most time tested and proven ways to build a durable boot because even 100 years later the vast majority of Heritage style boots are still built in this exact same way and just like the leather and the sole construction once this leather gets dry and starts to get brittle and those holes start opening up it just it just flows into the inside of the boot especially if you're in standing water so now let's cut this thing in half and finally see what's in this over 100 year old boot the first time as far as I understand on the internet and maybe there's something else on the inside that we can point to that's causing even more the issues that they change in the next iteration of this boot so let's cut them in half foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] cut in half and if you want to see how we would preserve and Revitalize an over 100 year old boot we did it on this boot for the Roosevelt builds channel so go check that out and I want to do a collab on this video I love the look of this boost if you want to be notified of if and when we do this collab as close to the historical boot as possible sign up for the limited edition email list and since the initial posting this video we've been working with NYX on re making this boot to where you guys could buy it as a collaboration between Rose Anvil and Nyx a little bit of Resto mod nobody wants to be walking around with hop Nails in 2023 so sign up the limited edition email list to get notified when that drops because it's going to be limited quantities and it's gonna be so cool I love this boot so back to the vid and now let's see what's inside [Music] and now that it's cut in half you can see why if you got these boots wet it would take months to dry this thing out because once all that water seeps into all these multiple layers of leather you know one layer of leather is hard enough to dry out but having six or eight stacked up pieces of leather that are holding onto that moisture there's no way for it to get out and it just keeps seeping in more and more every day These Boots would never dry out and that's a big part of the reason why trench foot was so prevalent in these boots they just there's no way they'd ever dry out you think the upper would dry out but that's not even nearly as important as that moisture on the bottom of your feet constantly breaking down the tissue of your feet so what is inside this hundred year old m1917 boot well pretty much exactly what we expected it has all that leather on the inside but it does have a still shank and it looks like there's some filler material underneath the shank which I did not expect I thought for sure it'd be leather all the way through and you you can also see the little leather or the little canvas on the inside assuming that that's some sort of squeak pad a little layer on the inside there to prevent it from squeaking as you're marching these things and you can see that really thick leather heel counter there that's like almost as thick as the Pacific Northwest Brands and one thing that I didn't notice before we cut this in half which would lead to even more water seeping through is that the it's either these little nails or there's Nails somewhere on the inside that you can see they've used all the way through the inside of the boot to tack that insole into place so even there you're going to have as you wear those boots that little Gap that was once tight with that nail being driven through as you wear that's going to loosen up these the nails are going to get a little bit loose and that water is going to slowly seep its way in so ultimately what was it that made this boot only last a year what was the design flaw why did it flop so hard I don't really think it was that bad of a design I think it just was a bad design for the application and I don't even think they really knew what they were getting into with World War one I'm sure they kind of got it it but I don't think they anticipated this boot failing so miserably so fast and so that's why they went back to the drawing board just a year later to come out with the m1918 boot which if this video does well I'd love to cut one of those and have to really compare and contrast what did they change did it solve the problems and how did they solve the problems because I love this boot I think it's a beautiful boot it may be one of the biggest failures in historical boot history because of how short-lived it was and the issues it caused with trench foot but I still love it I think this boot is absolutely gorgeous and more importantly I just love the fact that we can tell this this story through the the lens of a boot explain what trench food is what causes it instead of this boot just being in someone's basement or being thrown in a landfill or slowly rotting we're able to extract as much information and history from this boot as possible and attempt to immortalize it on YouTube so let me know what you thought and if we missed any details and what other historical boots you want us to cut apart because I love doing these videos it is so fun it's probably my most favorite style of video so thank you guys see ya thank you

Channel: Rose Anvil

Views: 1,891,852

Keywords: world war one, first world war, trench warfare, world war 1, the great war, world war i, military history, world war 2, world war ii, great war, second world war, world war one oversimplified, world war one all parts, world war one documentary bbc, red wing boots, red wing boots rose anvil, red wing boots review, thursday boots, ll bean boots, nicks boots, rose anvil, rose anvil review, usa history, m1917 boot, pershing boot, service boot, service boot review

Id: fyLuQ7Ge1hY

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2023