"Jim, you have not found one single historian who still believes that shit you cling to."
You've
been given them Keith - even from your ow miniscule selection
You've rejected them or ignored them - Hasting is a classic example he writes something you don't agree with he acknowledge it as fair and doesn't dispute it, you produce quotes that do not relate in any way top the review and claim he can't have said it.
"I say what is in the history books."
You haven't read the history books- you have selected about two pages worth from less than six authors and you have refused to respond to what they have really said when it has been put up to you.
"Give us a name!"
No historian claims that it was not a war of attrition - every single one of them do - Sheffield, McMillan, Hastings.... every one you have mentioned and more - it was a war where men were sent to kill each other and die in mud - it was simple butchery
Hastings aid
A summary of what Hastings said runs thus.
""Hastings hates British complacency about her military past, he hates British chauvinism, he hates Britain's patronising attitudes towards her allies, he hates Britain's love of turning retreats — Corunna, Dunkirk, Mons — into moral victories, he hates her continuing penchant for 'gesture politics', and he is damned sure that he is going to leave no treasured national myth unexploded. For the officers who only arrived in France in 1915 there already seemed something heroic about the men of the BEF; but in Hastings's hands even the old saw of lions led by donkeys is turned on its head, with the VCs they win 'soft' VCs, the battles they fight 'little battles' and even Mons — the jewel in the Old Contemptibles' crown — little more than a sideshow of a sideshow.
'Dodgy' battalions in the Ypres Salient, wholesale abandonment of weapons and positions, pusillanimous leadership, a reluctant showing at the Marne, a navy that couldn't fire, politicians who knew nothing of war, it all makes for chastening reading" was to describe it as "generous" and say about the suggestion that he hated the British military - "on the contrary, I have loved it all my life, but want its reputation to rest on its achievements, not on jingo legends."
I have no problem with that.
The only sign of disgreemant was the conclusion that he hated the Miltary NOTHING MORE - HE AGREED WITH THE REST
You are not intending to address my points - I didn't think you would, despite your "lifelong study" claims
I realise it is pointless asking you to provide answers to them from any historian - you haven't and they wouldn't - all common knowledge.
You are basing your argument on selected cuttings from historians you haven't read and even then, you haven't read what the ones you have selected say properly - you have been told what they say but you refuse to respond.
If am a fool then so is every other contributor to this thread exept the bullying deckhand.
We're all "Muppets" again Keith and you pair of eejits are the only ones right - nothing changes
You really have shit in your own nest this time with your idiocy - your fame spreads!!
Jim Carroll