The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #158525   Message #3751794
Posted By: Teribus
18-Nov-15 - 06:46 AM
Thread Name: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
As asked by Keith A - WHAT REPORTS?
You cannot even verify that the Tommy Kenny you interviewed was ever in the Army FFS!! As research work goes your approach is just too damned sloppy to be of any merit or value at all.

If Journals were forbidden how come so many of them and we are talking tens of thousands here exist? There was no prohibition on keeping either a journal or a diary, what they did do was ban you from taking it into the front line - worked out as about 5 days a month - you see troops were regularly rotated - unlike the portrayal in Blackadder that they moved into their little dug outs for the duration. If what you state is true there would not be the wealth of memoirs and autobiographies of ordinary soldiers who saw action during the First World War would there. And oddly enough Jim none of those authors bang on about "special groups of military police" or about summary executions of British troops carried out by their own officers - perhaps because they were too busy writing diaries that they weren't supposed to have to have time to chat to those bending the ear of the likes of Harry Patch?

The material donated to the Imperial War Museum has been available to historians with proper accreditation for decades, but in most cases the material is normally donated on the death of the author.

I can go back to find out but it was you and your fellow travelers who challenged the three points put up in a post by Keith A relating to the First World War that post 1970 historians concluded that:
1 - The war was necessary
2 - That the people of Great Britain understood why it was necessary to fight it
3 - That in general compared to other combatant powers the British, Commonwealth and Empire armies were well led.

It was you who tried to tell us that all those volunteers were mindless morons, idiots who didn't know what end was up, fools who could be easily lied to and manipulated. Keith A, myself, Lighter and a number of others countered those slurs of yours and demonstrated that those men, those volunteers were educated men who were fully aware of the situation and responded as they did out of principle, duty and respect for freedom.