Sixty Million To One

  

As of this week, only one of the sixty million troops who fought in World War I remains alive. That's 110 year old Claude Choules who as a teenager served in the British Royal Navy and now is seeing out his remaining days in a care home in Perth. Until last Sunday there were two men with first hand experience of 'the war to end all wars', but with the death last Sunday of US veteran Frank Buckles, English born Claude is left as the last man standing who saw active service in the hideous conflagration that shaped so much of the first half of the last century. Joining the navy in 1915 after lying about his age - he was 14 at the time - Mr Choules survived WWI to witness the surrender of the German fleet and its scuttling at Scapa Flow in the Orkney islands off Scotland. Later he transferred to the Australian navy in which he served until 1956 before retiring to enjoy a quiet life crayfish fishing with his wife Ethel. As the human experience of World War I moves to the very edge of living memory, we take that cataclysmic conflict as the subject of today's quiz.        

 First World War Quiz  

 1  Which city was the scene of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand which sparked World War I? 

 2  Who wrote 'Birdsong', the novel acclaimed for capturing brilliantly a range of the key experiences and episodes of WWI?   

 3  What was the name of the passenger liner torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland in May 1915 as it journeyed from New York to Liverpool, leaving over a thousand people dead and fuelling American public opinion that the United States should enter WWI?    

 4  Which event led to the withdrawal of the Russian army from WWI? 

 5  What was the name of the treaty which represented the formal establishment of peace  between the Allied Powers and Germany at the end of WWI, subsequently seen by many as planting the seeds for future conflict in the shape of World War Two?

Answers will be published along with tomorrows quiz.

  Dylan Quiz Answers  

 1  Martin Scorsese directed the documentary film 'No Direction Home' which explored Dylan's journey from protest singer to enigmatic rock star.

 2  'The 'Wonder Boys' was the name of the film starring Michael Douglas that featured on its soundtrack Dylan's recording of his song 'Times Have Changed' which won him both the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 2001.

 3  Robert Zimmerman was Bob Dylan's original name.

 4  Joan Baez wrote and recorded the song 'Diamond's And Rust' as a reflection on Bob Dylan with whom she'd previously been romantically involved.

 5  Japan is where Dylan's 1979 'Live At The Budokan' album was recorded over the course of eight concerts he had given the previous year at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo.   

The author of the Highly Questionable? quiz and trivia blog, Harry Reid, is a freelance question setter, writer and blogger. He can be contacted at harryreid@btinternet.com.