BS: Armistice Day (debate)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 05:14 PM

500? Name 'em, Sunshine.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 05:37 PM

500 was the post number Greg dear.
It is your turn to name some now.

Some!
Any?
One??

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 02:02 AM

NONE!
Quel surprise.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 03:07 AM

Ah Musket, I would dearly like to know what in my single contribution to this thread could have been considered "jingoistic"?

Jingoism being defined as - "Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent foreign policy; chauvinistic patriotism."

The discussion that appears to be raging between yourself and Keith relates to whether or not the vast majority of those who fought for Britain in the First World War were simpletons, dumb hewers of wood and drawers of water who were duped and manipulated into fighting for a cause that they didn't, or shouldn't have believed in.

One of the greatest tragedies of the First World War was the universal loss right across the board of a generation that were in a position to contribute and make the world a far, far better place, through their education, understanding, sense of duty, obligation and responsibility. This was the generation that should have been left alone to peacefully divest the great colonial powers of their empires. You may scoff at that but financially the empire from about the 1880s onwards was actually costing Great Britain money and its days were numbered.

"If it wasn't for education, universal suffrage and cosmopolitan thinking by all those people with world views, we might have had to resort to things that recent revisionists play down, such as

Marches through towns to impress young ladies to get their men to join them. - No the marches through towns were not designed for that purpose, their object was to boost the morale of those who had just joined and to reinforce the belief that they were part of a cohesive unit about to go and do their duty as their forefathers had done before them - had they wanted to impress young ladies they would have held tea dances and band recitals - much more effective.

"Recruiting sergeants waiting outside pubs to get them whilst pissed." - Really? I think that maybe you should go away and study recruitment patterns and then apply that to some of the dearly held myths you so obviously believe - By the way Recruiting Sergeants traditionally hung about to invite young men inside pubs in order to get men pissed so that they would then enlist. Of the 5 million+ men who made up the British Armed Forces (1 in 4 of the male population) roughly half were volunteers and half were conscripts. Conscription didn't come in until 1916 and at the start only single men could be conscripted.

"Women being told of their duty to give white feathers to any man without a uniform." - Want to know who "told them" to do that? The Woman's Suffrage Movement - I get the impression that you thought it was a trick devised by the evil aristocrats in Government - it wasn't.

"Draconian punishment for being shell shocked."
- Really? What "draconian" punishments are you referring to? Again you need to do some actual research instead of relying on myth.

"Capital punishment for those for whom the penny had dropped."

The facts are as follows - "During the course of the First World War there were 240,000 Courts Martial, 3080 Death Sentences handed down, in only 346 cases was the sentence carried out."

Out of those 346 cases, 301 of them fall in with your "draconian" punishment deal, although not all were "shell shocked", and all were pardoned posthumously on the 7th November, 2006

- 266 British soldiers were executed for "Desertion".
- 18 for "Cowardice"
- 7 for "Quitting a post without authority"
- 5 for "Disobedience to a lawful command"
- 2 for "Casting away arms"

"After all, every soldier knew their duty. Sadly, many thought so." - Yes they were of a generation that appreciated that they did not only have rights, but they also had a moral sense of obligation, something the country in general has now lost completely.

Unfortunately you apply present day thinking to past events.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket again
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 03:48 AM

Err no mate. Keith A. Hole of Hertford started the ludicrous idea that anyone disagreeing with him therefore thought that nobody knew what they were doing. Everybody poking fun at him now do so because of being tired of words put in their mouth.

He picks up on sentences out of context and throws them in your face just like he will be doing after reading this post.

I for one questioned the methods of recruitment which relied on propaganda. I then questioned the absurd idea they were well led.

I didn't invent the term "butcher of the Somme" an "eminent historian" did.

They were well led alright. Right up to being given a whistle and a small ladder.

Even Keith can find the myriad news and articles over concerns about marking 100 years next year. Friendly accounts from retired newspaper editors who know where their gong came from helps the airbrush effort.

You can't lead a generation to destruction and write a cosy account of everybody knowing what they were doing and happy with the methods. The reasons for the war are one thing. The butchered and butchering incompetence of how to go about it cannot be ignored. It would be a stain on every town memorial.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 06:09 AM

You might be right Musket, but I think it more likely that actual historians know more about it than even you do.

I choose to believe history not you.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 07:17 AM

Which history?

Just curious...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 07:37 AM

The History produced by the work and research of historians, as opposed to what you just believe.

You are mad to believe that the historians are all lying in the hope of getting some award.
No-one cares, least of all any government, what historians tell us about events of a century ago.

The historians are reporting their findings.
I believe them.
No-one would take seriously your politically motivated whims compared to the work of professional historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 03:41 PM

This caught my eye in a thread refreshed today.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
From: Jim Dixon - PM
Date: 27 Jan 10 - 07:06 PM

From The Vermilion Box by Edward Verrall Lucas (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1916), page 343:

Richard Haven to Barclay Vaughan

My Dear B.,—My nephew Toby Starr, who is a second lieutenant at the Front, has sent me an astonishing chorus, or litany, or what you will, that the men are singing. The Germans hear them, of course, but I doubt if it is sent across No Man's Land as an intimation of our own eventual bliss and the Germans' certain loss of it. I should guess not. That is not the British soldier's way, his heart being far more in conquering the enemy than in criticising him. Indeed, I find such men from the Front as I chance to meet very loth to talk about the Hun at all and rarely voluble as to his iniquities. Rather do they emphasise his merits as a fighter.

I should guess that this odd triumphant credo, set to an old music-hall tune and springing up and spreading probably as mysteriously as a folksong, is not a defiance of the earthly foe, but merely one more manifestation of the courageous levity that this war has drawn forth. It is Tommy's light surface way of accepting death. To do even so tremendous a thing as that without a touch of humour would not be playing the game. We get therefore trench after trench filled with men who at any moment may be blown to atoms singing these astonishing words:

The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me.
For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling
They've got the goods for me.
O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling?
O Grave, thy victoree?
The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me!

Isn't that wonderful? and incredible? It is not exactly religion, and yet it is religion. Fatalism with faith. Assurance with disdain. The very aristocracy of confidence. And only the new British soldier could sing it....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Dec 13 - 05:53 PM

The History produced by the work and research of historians

Which historians? Yop mean the half-dozen you can muster to support your idiosyncratic view?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Teribus
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 04:24 AM

Greg F you have been asked on at least two occasions to provide sources and names of "Historians" that support your contentions - to date you have provided none - That speaks volumes.

Musket - Was the British Army well led during the First World War? I would say that under the circumstances all combatant nations found themselves in - Yes it was. They most certainly were not worse led than anyone else - it was the Turks who had the "hardest war" in terms of casualties, which was odd as they mostly fought on the defensive.

In terms of casualties the major combatant nations were roughly on a par with one another. You can only ever go to war with what you have, not with what you'd like, that always comes later for the side that is victorious, so let's take a look at the British armed forces in 1914 compared to what they had become by November 1918.

1914 - A regular army of around 80,000 men with a reserve of around 770,000 men, sufficient to halt the massive initial German onslaught and force the abandonment of their Schlieffen Plan or "Race to the sea".   
1918 - Britain had 5.5 million men serving under arms, which after the German Hindenberg offensive in the Spring and early summer of 1918 remained cohesive enough and resilient enough to mount the final offensive that finally defeated the German Field Armies.

No two British offensives were conducted using the same tactics (I know that flies against what most learned watching "Blackadder Goes Forth" and "Oh what a lovely war" but never mind, neither represent history or fact.), lessons learned tended very much to be applied, what was lacking in all armies at the time was efficient and effective tactical command and control that would have enabled commanders at the front to fine tune and adjust to situations as they arose - but that was the same for everybody, not just the British.

Throughout the War the British were by far the most innovative of the
combatant powers, both in the creation of new weapons and in countering advances made by the enemy. Those innovations saved lives and provided solutions that ultimately broke the deadlock of trench warfare that had existed since the winter of 1914.

That there are differing opinions regarding the performance of Haig is not surprising, the same is true of opinions on Montgomery and Wellington - Fact still remains that against the best their respective enemies threw at them in their day - all three won.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket again
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 05:22 AM

Yes. They even provided ladders to get up into No Man's Land and Red caps to hold thelladder for them.

Very well led if the object was to get them running into the other side's guns.

My point in all of this is the concerted attempts to whitewash what has always been the perceived history. That's why you see Keith trying to argue that Oh What a Lovely War and chuffing Blackadder are the only dissenters. Really?

Everybody knew what to expect. Really?


Nobody cheered, they stood there and stared
Then turned their faces away.

I can imagine Keith in that crowd.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 05:56 AM


I can imagine Keith in that crowd.

As with your imaginings about history, you are wrong.
The song is also a misrepresentation of attitudes to wounded soldiers.
The "perceived history" was wrong.
Historians have shown that, but as we see on this thread, the false perception will not go away.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 08:45 AM

It seems that our jingoistic nutter and his pseudo historical facts are going to ascertain that this one isn't going to be all over by Christmas - just like it wasn't the last time, despite promises to the contrary.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 09:25 AM

Greg F you have been asked on at least two occasions to provide sources and names of "Historians" that support your contentions - to date you have provided none.

Not room enough here to list 'em all, T-bird.

Go Here and do a search for "history of WWI" or "home front WWI" or "causes of WWI" or similar permutations.

But have fun with your delusions in the interim..

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 09:32 AM

"Go Here and do a search for "history of WWI"
Waste of time Greg - neither of them 'do' books!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 10:29 AM

What promise about Christmas by whom Jim?
Made up shit.
Most joined after Christmas anyway.

Greg your link is to a collection of primary sources, not any historians' work.

Why not just name a few of your historians so we could learn from them?
Plenty of room for that.

Or just a couple.
Or even one.

Only a complete lying arsehole would say "Not room enough here to list 'em all,"

But that is what you are!
Right Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 10:52 AM

Make that three liars Keith, you forgot me.

Oh, don't forget, revisionists need a book burning party. Shall I dig out my old school text books? Or my sons' as airbrushing incompetent butchers and colonialists wasn't in fashion by their time either.

In fact, it's quite a recent phenomenon. Except amongst those who press their blazers and polish their medals. Did the execution party get special medals or just threats?

When you can answer truthfully to yourself exactly why one of the party had blanks in their rifle, you can begin to understand the truth of the "everybody knew and understood everything" stance that is being pushed by revisionists now.

I don't blame you for your stance. If shallow patriots didn't exist, it wouldn't be worth rewriting history. A bit like Hastings writing to say Alan Turing deserved his chemical castration. Must hurt a few to know a gay bloke did more to end the second war than every General that ever dressed for dinner. His view on those who were murdered by their own side is rather juicy too....

I stopped taking you seriously on this subject, of which I know little to be fair, when you reckoned I'd come up with "Butcher of the Somme" when it was one of your precious few historians who either coined or perpetuated the phrase.

How much of their work have you actually read? Even Hastings had it in for the top brass till his conversion to the establishment.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 11:13 AM

You expect to be believed over historians.
That just makes you a fool not a liar.
However, I believe this is a lie, "A bit like Hastings writing to say Alan Turing deserved his chemical castration."

It is not relevant to this discussion because Hastings is just one of the historians whose findings inform my views, but it tells us something about you and what you will do to score points on some Mudcat thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 12:28 PM

Greg your link is to a collection of primary sources, not any historians' work.

Envidently you are a complete and utter fuckwit, Keith.

The link is to the main on-line catalogue of the entire collection of British Library.

You lose.

Again.

Still.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 01:12 PM

"What promise about Christmas by whom Jim?"
You really are an ignoramous - one of the main recruiting ploys in WW1 was that "it would all be over by Christmas", it lasted throughout the war which included 4 Christmases - it was a standing joke among the troops which has been current saying ever since - you moron

"But perhaps the biggest reason everyone thought that the war would be over by Christmas was because that was what the government wanted people to believe. Internal war correspondence and wires of the time suggests that at heart the military leaders probably knew they were in for the long haul. But most nations tried to keep the public opinion light and positive. Keeping a light-hearted attitude about the war, painting a rosy picture of the call to glory that it represented, meant that recruiters had an easier time convincing young men to join up."

And while you are calling people liars - you still haven't produced one relevant statement concerning the motivation for men joining the war - none of hour "historians" have made claims on this
You have even lied about the number of first hand accounts - you were given two - you claimed one
Your pathetic attempts to overturn history by misquoting historical journalist really does put you in line for a 'troll of the year' award - hoper you've filled in the acceptance form
Troll on
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 01:26 PM

Enjoy
Jim Carroll
Christmas 1914 and World War One
Many myths and legends surround World War One and Christmas - especially the first Christmas of the war in December 1914. The British public and the soldiers fighting in the mud of Flanders were given the impression by those in charge that the Germans, fighting possibly less than100 metres away, were blood-lusting psychopaths bent on destroying all in their way. Any form of friendship between the two sides fighting the war, would have been seen as detrimental to this impression. While the Germans remained the "evil Hun", the government and the military could justify their respective tactics.

However, the first Christmas of 1914 clearly broke the impression that those in charge wanted to portray. For many years - even after the war - the government wanted to maintain the image of the dastardly Hun and any references to any fraternisation between both sides was clamped down on. There were whispers here and there but no actual evidence. The same happened with the football match between the British and the Germans. The image that the German soldiers were just like the British and the French would not have worked for the Allies. But recent research by Stanley Weintraub has proved that there was fraternisation - improvised at the time in December 1914 but with some 'rules' quickly built in.

Weintraub has found that the first smatterings that something was not quite right took place in the trenches where the Berkshire Regiment faced the XIX Corps of the German Army. The XIX's were from Saxony. The Saxons started to put up small conifers on the parapets of their trenches - akin to our Christmas trees. The Berkshires could see many of them lining the tops of the XIX's trenches. Groups of the Berkshires and the Saxons met in No-Mans Land and officers from both sides turned a blind eye to this fraternisation which broke military law. In fact, the officers in these trenches agreed to an informal truce between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

During the next 24 hours, impromptu cease fires occurred throughout the Western Front. The British High Command - stationed 27 miles behind the trenches - was horrified but little could be done. A military directive had been issued which stated:




Abstract



That the British public thought that the First World War would be 'over by Christmas' in 1914 is such a common feature of war fiction, memoirs and histories that it has scarcely been questioned, let alone seriously examined. The phrase has become shorthand for naivety among a generation of young men who are supposed to have rushed to join the army rather than missing all the 'fun', the politicians and generals who sent them to the front and the journalists who cheered them on. This article investigates how common it really was and attempts to place it in the wide context of public reactions to the war, using newspapers, letters and diaries to uncover the feelings of the time rather than post-hoc reflections. As with former givens of 1914, such as 'war enthusiasm', what emerges is a more complex picture than simple naïve faith in the imminent success of British and Allied arms. Treating predictions of peace as part of a coping strategy for soldiers and civilians at war, we should not be surprised to find predictions of peace by various specific dates, and particularly by Christmas, throughout the Great War and beyond. This article questions the ubiquity of the idea of the war ending before Christmas in 1914 and the singularity of that year for optimistic predictions.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 01:28 PM

You really are an ignoramous - one of the main recruiting ploys in WW1 was that "it would all be over by Christmas", it lasted throughout the war which included 4 Christmases - it was a standing joke among the troops which has been current saying ever since - you moron

Then produce an example of that promise.
Good luck with that!

Greg, no historian's work is available on that site.
Not one.
You lose.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 01:36 PM

Greg, no historian's work is available on that site.

So the British Library contains no works by historians whatsoever Keith?

You DO know what the British Library - or any library for that matter - is??

Evidently not.

As I said - you're a comptete and utter fuckwit.

Rave on.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 01:41 PM

Jim, this is the author of your first piece.
"Chris wrote much of the content for the site from his in-depth knowledge of History having taught History and Politics at a major secondary school in England for the last 26 years."

You final piece supports me not you.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 01:44 PM

Greg, the British Library does not put its books on the net.
The authors would not like it.
So, how about YOU give us a couple of names or admit you are a know-nothing lying arsehole.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 02:17 PM

AHA!

Now I see - you are basing your "extensive"[sic] "knowledge"[sic] of history and historians on WHAT IS AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET!!!

Thus it will come as a surprise and a shock to you that 99% of the historical studies and works that have been written

ARE NOT AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET!!!

By basing your "knowledge"[sic] of history and historians and your arguments on the few works available on the Internet you're considerably worse than an ignorant imbecile.

As I said previously - you're a comptete and utter fuckwit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 02:37 PM

I have been reading books on this subject since I was at school, long before there was an internet.

You say you know of many dissenting historians but there is "not room for them all here."

That is a lie.
You know of none.
You van not produce any.
Liar.
Arsehole.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 02:55 PM

Jim, your "extract" is by an Oxford historian and it makes clear that "over by Christmas was never a promise.

Here is the conclusion.
The words and actions of civilians and leaders do not suggest that expectations of peace by Christmas were widespread, and they certainly did not spur the recruiting boom of late summer 1914.

Soldiers more frequently predicted peace by Christmas, some hoping to play some part in the war and fearing a quick peace; once soldiers had seen action, they, like civilians, began to long for peace and their return home. The desire on the part of both soldiers and civilians for the war to end soon (but victoriously) and the particular appeal of Christmas as a religious and familial occasion made predictions of a return by Christmas a very desirable notion in 1914 and afterwards. What could be closer to the hearts of soldiers, and particularly the citizens-in-uniform of Britain's world war armies, than wanting to be at home for Christmas?

As part of the image of a nation unprepared for war, 'over by Christmas' is an iconic phrase that has become accepted as ubiquitous in and singular to 1914. It was neither. "

http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopic.php?t=24650

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 03:02 PM

You stupid, stupid man - the belief that the war would be over by Christmas is common knowledge - it is part of our history and literature - it was part of the recruiting propaganda at the time - the officers spread the rumour that it would be a short- term war - that is the fact of our history of the war.
It appears in both Tommy Kenny's account of his experiences and in Patrick McGill's autobiographical account of his war experiences.
However - if one of your "historians" has ever claimed anything different I'm quite happy to consider what they have to say.
If not, (just like your claim that the majority of those who fought did so for patriotic reasons) - it is purely of your own invention.
Whatever the dubious merits of the cut-n-pastes on which you have attepted to base your miserable jingoism - not one of your "historians" have made any claims on either
Feel free to prove me wrong.
ALONG WITH ALL THE OTHER REASONS FOR JOINING UP, THE COMMON BELIEF - BY THOSE WHO ENLISTED AND BY THOSE WHO STAYED AT HOME, WAS THAT THE WAR WOULD BE A SHORT TERM ONE - EVERY SCHOOLBOY KNOWS THAT, BUT THERE AGAIN, WE WERE ENCOURAGED TO READ BOOKS AT SCHOOL that idea doesn't seem to have reached Hertford
You give idiocy a bad name.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 03:03 PM

Thank you Jim.
I am adding Stuart Hallifax, The Queen's College, Oxford to my list.
Read the whole piece, and weep.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 03:06 PM

"The words and actions of civilians and leaders do not suggest that expectations of peace by Christmas were widespread, and they certainly did not spur the recruiting boom of late summer 1914."

"As part of the image of a nation unprepared for war, 'over by Christmas' is an iconic phrase that has become accepted as ubiquitous in and singular to 1914. It was neither. "

Stuart Halifax, Oxford historian.
You expect us to believe you over him, Jim?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 03:39 PM

Whoever "Stuart Halifax, Oxford historian" is, he does not Google - and the use of the lie that the war would be "over by Christmas" remains an unchallenged fact
You don't have to believe me - it is a commonly accepted fact - Google it - you might have better luck that with "Stuart Halifax, Oxford historian".
And the fact remains that all the reasons you have been given for joining up have never been challenged - not by your historians - who knows - maybe "Stuart Halifax, Oxford historian" might throw some light on the matter as well - stranger things have happened at sea!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 04:01 PM

I suggest you navigate your way through this site and if you challenge any of its conclusions please show that these are not just your jingoistic dribblings by providing specific contrary evidence - you have totally failed to do anything of the kind so far - maybe "Stuart Halifax, Oxford historian" has something to say on the matter - who knows?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 04:17 PM

Thought I'd send this on a separate message so you can't claim that you hadn't been given any information - not that this will stop you, mind you - it hasn't so far.
Be sure to follow the slide show link
Jim Carroll
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_successful_were_the_recruitment_campaigns_in_WW1#slide1

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 04:33 PM

Jim, your Wiki Answer is by some random, anonymous person.

Remember YOU quoted Stuart Hallifax.(thank you Jim)
I just provided the link.
Here it is again
http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopic.php?t=24650



Stuart Hallifax
Queen's College Oxford
Article 'Over by Christmas': British popular opinion and the short war in 1914"
published in First World War Studies
Vol.1, No. 2, October 2010 103-121
Published By: Routledge
Print ISSN: 1947-5020
Online ISSN: 1947-5039
Queen's College, Oxford

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 04:40 PM

Google again with two Ls in hallifax.

Stuart Hallifax | A Forlorn Hope
aforlornhope.wordpress.com/stuart-hallifax/‎
After 3 years at the Queen's College, Oxford, I had my DPhil viva in March 2011 (passed, with minor corrections). My thesis is on Essex in the First World War, ...

John Horne (Hrsg.): A Companion to World War I. Oxford 2010. - H ...
hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2010-4-095‎
8 Nov 2010 - Stuart Hallifax über: Horne, John (Hrsg.): A Companion to World War I. Oxford ... under stewardship of eminent Great War historian John Horne.

Jessica Meyer (Hrsg.): British Popular Culture and the First World ...
hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2009-4-050‎
16 Oct 2009 - Stuart Hallifax über: Meyer, Jessica (Hrsg.): British Popular Culture and the First World War. ... Stuart Hallifax, Queens College, Oxford ... The experience of the First World War and its cultural legacy are two areas of its history ...

A Kingdom United: Popular Responses to the Outbreak of the First ...
ehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/09/05/ehr.cet244.full
by S Hallifax - ‎2013

6 Sep 2013 - stuarthallifax{at}gmail.com. The way in which historians have depicted British responses to the outbreak of the First World War has changed ...
Patriotism and Propaganda in First World War Britain: The National ...
books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1846318300

David Monger - 2012 - ‎History
Evidence, History and the Great War, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2003, 67-85. ... Hallifax, Stuart, "'Over by Christmas": British Popular Opinion and the Short War in ...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 05:03 PM

No contradictions about any of the facts you have been given - not a single one - no surprises there then.
So CV on Start whatsisname - just another of those historians then
You're a dishonest pratt Keith - you're not even good at bluffing your way around your self - confessed ignorance
All the facts you have been given are historically based and have been linked
No "historian" you have produced has produced a shred of evidence to contradict them
The facts remain facts except in your minuscule blimpish mind
Read a ******* book and stop creating smoke-and-mirrors with non existent "prrof"
Where is you evidence - what have your "Historians" actually said
There isn't any you - invented it - they haven't said anything - you made it up
There - a chance to prove me wrong - feel free
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 06 Dec 13 - 05:36 PM

I have been reading books on this subject since I was at school, long before there was an internet.

Oh, indeed, Keith.

Which subject, precisely?

Which books and by which historians?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 03:13 AM

Greg, you did not even look at the only link you have produced.
I read the memoirs of Sassoon and Graves and my grandfather's book of collected accounts of Jutland when I was still at school and have never stopped.
What have you ever read?
Your turn.

Jim, you found for us an historian who rubbished your "home by Christmas" myth but could find none who support it.
I have shown that historians agree on the need for Britain to fight, the quality of leadership and the understanding of the soldiers.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket drooling
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 03:33 AM

Tell you what Keith. Rather than say I was lying about Hastings declaring Alan Turing deserved his punishment, why don't you prove you are human and apologise to me?


Keith would like to apologise to Musket 


He was writing in one of your favourite bedtime reads too. It took me less time to Google it than it took you to write a sentence to say I was lying.


Then you might wish to ask for other offences to be taken into account. You know, clean slate and all that.

Or are we going to see pedantic wriggling again?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 04:44 AM

You are indeed a drooling, giggling fool.
If one historian is a homophobic monster, his work is not discredited, so it would have no bearing on this discussion.

Hastings nowhere says Turing deserved his punishment, so you lied.
He makes clear that NO prosecuted homosexual deserved it.
His point is just that it is unfair to just pardon one out of thousands."But a pardon? To me and many others, this is a travesty, further evidence of David Cameron's foolish submissiveness to popular whim and gesture.
If Turing is to have a pardon, why not also thousands of others, including one of my own great-uncles — who was imprisoned for homosexual offences in the Twenties, and such a man as Ian Harvey?"

He describes Turin as a "hero" and a "genius."
He says his OBE was an inadequate recognition of his work.

He makes it clear that his punishment was NOT deserved,"Now, it seems extraordinary that none among his war-time employers — in 1952 Churchill was again Prime Minister — heard of Turing's condition and intervened at least to spare him from his ghastly fate at the hands of the doctors.
But the Secret Service has never been a humane or generous employer."

"In any event, he suffered his punishment and met his squalid end in a fashion for which Britain is right today to be ashamed."

So, he says that Britain should be ashamed of what it did to Turing, not that he deserved it.
You lied Musket.
Yet again, a lying, drooling, giggling buffoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 05:16 AM

I just read that Daily Mail article and found no indication of

Hastings declaring Alan Turing deserved his punishment

The past is past and the present is present. Enough to be ashamed of happened more recently, including questionable war propaganda. Two methods of diverting attention from that are glorifying the past and apologizing for it (i.e. accusing the dead of personal wrongdoings). The right thing to do is to dissociate oneself from earlier forms of politics - Cameron and most others have a long way to go.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 06:03 AM

You have been given the opportunity to back your case with actual statements from your "witnesses" - nary a one.
As I said Keith - all smoke and mirrors, just like your "cultural implant" witnesses - you made it all up.
Seems all you are capale of doing nowadays
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 06:52 AM

For me Grishka, it was the bit where he said he shouldn't be pardoned. He then waffled on about Turing's love life for good measure.

Pedantic wriggling. Don't join in, it makes you look as stupid as Keith. I for one agree that you shouldn't make legal decisions based on subsequent law and decency, but Hastings was purely doing what he was paid to do as the hack he professionally is, sensationalise to sell copy. His reasonable conclusion is buried, whereas the sensationalism is top billing. He knew damned well he was teasing with controversy, and I for one was repulsed by his paymaster's awful stunt.

Hence my questioning his objectivity.

Churchill's attempts to intervene make the case alone worthy of Question. Chiefly on the grounds that his consent to medical intervention was not of his own free will, as it was coercion. This was, and still is an offence in itself. The test case being Quentin Crisp, who won and wasn't assaulted. Turing and many others deserved their pardons then, let alone the disgraceful way we treated a national hero. The reason for pardon, if you look at the submission by The Ministry for Justice, is based on the clinical assault where consent wasn't freely given, which makes it pardonable under the laws of the time. Hastings wrongly makes the case of retrospective justice being the driver. Not so in the case of chemical castration as punishment. This is why, despite some offenders actually requesting it, we don't castrate paedophiles where they are diagnosed as personality disorder. It might "cure" the urge, but is legally unsafe under, at present, The Health Act 2006 and The Health and Social Care Act 2008.

If the wars were about freedom over tyranny, the stain that was inequality up till very recently make a bit of a mockery of the claim. Just a more benign tyranny, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 07:19 AM

Far from deserving his punishment, Britain should be ashamed that he was punished, and the service should have saved him from it.
The exact opposite of your claim Musket.
All Turing was said to deserve was greater recognition.

Jim, you make yourself ridiculous.
I have given quotes from numerous historians who all support my views, simply because it was them who informed my views.
Here for example is the BBC History site, where the historians all say what I said.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/

Still nothing from your side.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 07:48 AM

For me Grishka, it was the bit where he said he shouldn't be pardoned.

The reason he (Hastings) gave cannot possibly be summarized as

Alan Turing deserved his punishment

As I read it, the idea seems to be rather that Cameron does not deserve to pardon such a hero. Not quite wrong in my opinion, although worshiping heroes / martyrs is questionable as well - it implies appropriating them for one's own agenda.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 08:24 AM

He is quite clear that the punishment was an outrage.
The complete opposite of saying it was deserved.
He opposed the pardon because it would be invidious and unfair to pardon one victim because of his status, when there were thousands of such victims including a member of Hastings' own family.

The claim was false.
A lie.
Like the claim that Hastings had changed his position on WW1.
Same false accuser.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 09:14 AM

Greg, you did not even look at the only link you have produced.

Is this supposed to make sense, Keith?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 09:37 AM

Let me explain Greg dear.
You are asked maybe 20 times to name any historian you have read or who disagrees with me.
The one and only thing you have ever produced is a link to a resources site that does not include anything from any historian.

So why did you put it up Greg?
You obviously had no idea what was on it.

Let's try once more Greg.
Name just one historian whose work you are familiar with.
Just one.
Surely you can manage just one Greg dear.
You SURELY can not be THAT ignorant!
Can you Greg?