BS: Armistice Day (debate)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 01:47 PM

Hastings reckons that putting any German perspective by their historians is an insult to the fallen.
Rubbish.
Made up shit.
Desperation now.
You were wrong and have made an arse of yourself over it.

Sheffield is no sycophant.
His views are in line with all historians, not just Hastings.

And now we have Troubadour who also knows more about history than historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 01:50 PM

What is "an insult to the fallen" is to suggest they were jingoistic fools incapable of understanding why they were at war.

Stating such things at any time is a disgrace, but at the time of Remembrance an obscenity.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 02:46 PM

Remembrance Sunday is an obscenity.

But one that we decent people note.

Disagreeing with Keith A of Hertford isn't a disgraceful disrespect to the fallen.

In fact. Quite the opposite. ....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 02:03 AM

There is nothing wrong in disagreeing with me, but when your notion of history disagrees with the historians there is no contest.

They have spent most of their working lives studying original material.
You are just making shit up.

You expect any thinking person to believe you over the world renowned experts of those events.
You are arrogant fools.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 02:28 AM

You will note that I replied to your comment above.

However I replied in the Christian Persecution thread.

Not exactly perfect myself sometimes. Strange but true.

Disagreeing with commentators doesn't make you wrong on the basis they are right. Mainly because their accounts, or at least the parts I have read thanks to your links, gloss over the callous disregard and wicked stupidity of the senior officers who sacrificed men in their thousands each day for a token land grab.

You are making the mistake of judging the attitude of men then with the education and mindsets of today.

So are those historians who should know better.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 04:53 AM

So are those historians who should know better.

Oh yes.
What do the historians know about history compared to you?!

(and you accuse me of trying to make you look an idiot!)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 05:35 AM

"There is nothing wrong in disagreeing with me"
Your breathtakingly arrogant tone is stunning Keith - everybody disagrees with you. Over the last year I cannot think of anybody other than a couple of your personal toadies and nodding-dogs who have taken your side in any argument.
Nobody here is "putting the German" case - don't you dare suggest any of us are.
The German hierarchy were no different from the British - they were the same family of inbreds for Christ sake!
The war was fought in order to expand empires, the leaders on both sides were happy to wheedle, blackmail and finally force their subjects to their deaths at gunpoint in order to achieve their goals.
The conditions on both sides were appalling brutal, the war was an obscenity and should be remembered as such, if for no other reason than out of respect for those who died and to ascertain that their descendants are never again forced through the same obscene adventures - for power, for land, for markets, and nowadays, for oil - in Germany, Afghanistan, The Middle East or anywhere else the bankers or politicians might care to send them to die for profit.
It is you who insult the memory of the dead by suggesting that they put up with what they did knowingly.
The German people were in exactly the same position as we were, the only difference being that immediately following the war Germany was plunged into a revolution which all but succeeded
It was the disillusionment of the failure of that revolution and the attempted return to the old order which led to the rise of Fascism - if you ever get around to reading a book, try - 'The Kings Depart': The Tragedy of Germany - Versailles and the German Revolution by Richard M. Watt - still available and a nice easy read for you to start on.
You insult us by expecting that, on the basis of a few (undigested on your part) cut-'n-pastes suggesting that everything might not be quite the same as 'Oh What a Lovely War' (a biting satire - no more) and Blackadder (a very funny comedy series - no more), we have to abandon everything we know and take up the word of a fairly middle-of-the-road historian who might or might not have produced new evidence.
I was taught your jingoistic crap in school nearly 60 years ago - my twin sisters, nine years younger than me, were taught something entirely different on the war.
The world has moved on - our understanding of war has moved on from Biggles, Colonel Blimp and The Hotspur.
It is only flag-waving 'My-Country-Right-or-Wrong'dinosaurs like you who attempt to keep alive the old death-or-glory myth.
If Max Hastings has produced something world shattering to upturn all our beliefs, show us what it is instead of hiding behind your deception that he is a great and respected historian - he isn't, and you have been unable to produce anything important that he has discovered.
Give us something more than his CV to go on.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 06:36 AM

No amount of quoting those paid to revise history is going to further your cause Keith.

We commemorate Remembrance Sunday NOT to remember how we won a war or two, but to ensure we learn from the mistakes of the past. We don't set up cenotaphs to those taken by cancer or coronary heart disease, or those killed at work, or those in car accidents... We do it for the fallen in war.

Why?

To make sure those with an appetite for war are reminded of the mistakes and callous disregard for human life that the disgraceful senior staff at The War Office had in those days. They started the remembrance idea in order to remind ourselves how good we are at war, but the idea was taken over by far more rational thought than they could ever realise.

We remember to try to make sure we don't make the mistakes again, however unsuccessful we seem to be.

Your idolising of revisionist hacks is a barrier to facing the cold facts that our fallen were all in vain. Slaughtered for no reason in the First World War and slaughtered in the Second World War because we couldn't even get the peace right....

Does it worry you that they were duped into believing jingoistic lies? Does it worry you that most were killed through the disgraceful actions of their leaders?

Does it worry you that there is no glory in war, just futile death.

Cheer leaders for military fools should hang their heads in shame, as they are a hindrance to remembering why we stand there each year.

Sorry Keith, but in the "Masters of War" debate, they seem to retain their servants......

The Glory Pomp and Circumstance of glorious war.

Or as Baldrick put it,

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 12:46 PM

It is you who insult the memory of the dead by suggesting that they put up with what they did knowingly

I do say that, and it is no insult.
To say they knew not why is to denigrate brave men.

And it is not just Hastings Jim, it is every historian
Or have you found one who agrees with you?
Please share.

No amount of quoting those paid to revise history is going to further your cause Keith.

You mean professional historians Musket.
As you say, they should know better, like you.

Your idolising of revisionist hacks
No, but I do believe the historians.
Have you found one that is not a "revisionist hack"?

When I want to know about times past I go to history.
You two close your eyes, ears and minds and make up a fantasy that suits your politics.
Never mind that it is a lie.

You choose to believe a lie.
(or can you produce anything to support it?)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 01:00 PM

You are obviously beyond being capable of seeing through your own ignorance and trying to highlight the stupidity of your claims is obviously only going to result in further tedious shouting.

I suppose when you reach a time in life, you recall the past differently to the reality. Right wing war mongerers rely on the Col Blimp attitude of shallow people, so I am not surprised you pick your "historians" with care.

Just remember. David Irvine is a professional historian. If you put forward credentials on the basis of title, you may as well waffle on about the "science" of hand cream manufacturers, so seen in the absurd adverts, where 71% of eight women agree apparently that rejuvenation cream works... They show people in white coats and test tubes. Are you impressed by their "professional" approach too?   (Or that many of them bear more than a passing resemblance to extra as in soap operas?)

Pathetic little apologist for discredited hired help for justifying the MoD budget..... Hope you're proud mate. Me? I can sleep at night.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 02:33 PM

You are obviously beyond being capable of seeing through your own ignorance and trying to highlight the stupidity of your claims is obviously only going to result in further tedious shouting.

No shouting from me.
This is just text anyway Musket.
Please do highlight the stupidity of my claims.
Point out anything that can be challenged.

I am not surprised you pick your "historians" with care.

BUT I HAVE NOT PICKED!
I have put them all down.
You can not find a single one to give the slightest credibility to your lie.
You choose to believe a lie because the truth does not equate with your politics.
Never mind that it traduces the memory of better men than you.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 02:35 PM

"And it is not just Hastings Jim, it is every historian"
Please do not be stupid, and do not insult our intelligence
Hastings' claim to faim is that he appears to have come up with something new - he has not and you haven't even put up anything new that he has said regarding this discussion.
Yo u maid exactly the same clams on the Irish Famine thread, and when it backfired in your face, went on to admit you had never read a book on the subject the same is obviously the case here..
This years run-up to the Armistice has been crammed full of programmes, real and dramatised dealing with the War - all, without exception, have presented the traditional view - Birdsong, The Wipers Times, The Village (which specifically dealt with recruiting and desertion), not to mention all of the recent documentaries ....
How can you possibly claim "every historian" - the whole point of Hastings' book is that it is said to challenge the orthodox view of history... if this is the case, who holds the 'orthodox view' if "every historian" already agrees with him? - how utterly stupid can you get.
You often whinge that everybody "makes these threads about me" - you make them about you with you utter stupidy, your self-confessed ignorance and your obsessive attention-seeking in dominating these thread with your ignorance and stupidity which invariably ends with your screaming your ignorance at an empty thread.
Clown!!   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 02:38 PM

I have put them all down.

ALL historians?? You Have? Really

You really have no connection to reality whtsoever, Keith.

Not as that comes as much of a surprise, reviewing you posting history of fundagelical and other delusons.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 03:38 PM

ALL historians?? You Have? Really
Really.
Everyone whose work I have looked at.
No picking.
No choosing.

"And it is not just Hastings Jim, it is every historian"

If that is not true Jim, find one.
I have produced about 12 now.
You muppets, between the whole lot of you, none.

You prefer to believe a lie just because it suits your politics.
Never mind that you smear the memory of better men than any of you.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 06:14 PM

Really. Everyone whose work I have looked at. No picking. No choosing.

So you really think that the few historians you have chosen to look at are in fact "all historians".

You really ARE a fucking idiot. Hopeless.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 06:41 PM

Never mind that it traduces the memory of better men than you.

Well here's something from historian (and WWI Vetweran and POW) John Still that you would do well to keep in mind:

The memories of men are too frail a thread to hang history from.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 02:46 AM

Yes.
Historians hang their history on hard evidence.

How many historians would it take to convince you Greg?
I have produced all the most eminent, best known and most published ones, including all those chosen to produce the BBC History site.

All unanimous that you muppets are pushing a pernicious lie.
And, you have found no-one to give you any credibility at all.

I know Jim of old.
I know he has been frantically Googling for days in the vain hope of finding something, anything, to save his face.

If you all believed your crap at the start, you all now know it is a lie, but you will all die still proclaiming it.
You have to.
It is who you are.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 03:37 AM

There are literally hundreds of sources on the internet for the causes of world war one, all boiling down to the fact that it was a conflict between Imperial powers sparked off by one of those powers, Germany, stepping out of line.
The consensus on the causes of the war boil down to, Imperialism, Militarism and Nationalism (Jingoism)
The war was a culmination of consequences; the idea that it was "all Germany's fault" is described as revisionist and simplistic.
Nowhere is it presented as anything other than this and to select one particular 'historian' to make your case it to drive an agenda.
The reasons for men fighting, the recruitment campaigns, the conditions in the trenches, the treatment of the men by their officers, the ruthlessness of the leaders in pursuit of their aims – none of this is disputed, a matter of historical record.
To select one 'historian' Hastings "a prominent British military author and journalist", without having read what he has written, is jingoistic agenda driving to the extreme, to claim that the millions who went to their deaths did so because they knew and supported the causes of the war, is deeply insulting, and to suggest that WW1 was in any way just is to fly in the face of all that is now accepted and openly taught to our children.
Jim Carroll

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/248f6960-29d3-11e3-bbb8-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2kbqMXxnU

October 4, 2013 7:02 pm
THE CAUSES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
By Tony Barber
How recklessness, unstable alliances and bad luck plunged Europe into crisis
The War That Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War, by Margaret MacMillan, Profile Books, RRP£25, 704 pages
July 1914: Countdown to War, by Sean McMeekin, Icon Books, RRP£25/Basic Books, RRP$29.99, 560 pages
Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, by Max Hastings, William Collins, RRP£30, 628 pages
One hundred years on, it is mostly historians rather than politicians who wrestle with the question of which countries were responsible for the outbreak of the first world war. Yet nothing demonstrates the enduring sensitivities surrounding the Great War and its causes more than the delicate discussions taking place among European governments over how to commemorate next year's 100th anniversary and a rolling series of centennials up to 2018.
Furthermore, public interest in the war remains strong, as reflected in the mass of academic and popular history books that publishers were putting on the market year after year even before the anniversary. The reason is not hard to find: the war, in the words of Richard J Evans, an eminent British historian, was "the 20th century's seminal catastrophe".
On the war's causes the outstanding recent study is Christopher Clark's The Sleepwalkers (2012), whose carefully textured arguments and deep understanding of the sometimes neglected Balkan context set the bar high for everyone else. The three books reviewed here are stimulating and enjoyable, but they are of varying quality. Sean McMeekin's is controversial, arguing that Russia and France were more bent than Germany on war in July 1914. Max Hastings's book is less good on the causes than on the course of the war between August and December, on which he writes fluently. Only Margaret MacMillan's The War That Ended Peace matches Clark's work – which by no means implies that she fully subscribes to his explanation of why the war broke out.
Until the 1960s there was a sort of consensus on what had caused the war. One year after the Allies insisted on the "war guilt" clause of the 1919 Versailles treaty, which placed all the blame on Germany and its associates, David Lloyd George, the British premier, observed that Europe had "glided, or rather staggered and stumbled" into war. Politicians in Weimar Germany, anxious to evade reparations payments premised on the "war guilt" clause, clutched eagerly at the implication behind Lloyd George's remark that German behaviour before 1914, and immediately after the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo, was not blameworthy. Historians of later decades pointed the finger at pre-1914 military planners, especially in Berlin, Vienna and St Petersburg. As AJP Taylor memorably put it, the generals launched a "war by timetable" because their mobilisation plans, once set in motion, allowed no room for diplomacy to stop the slide into disaster.
Everything was turned upside down in 1961 when Fritz Fischer, a German historian, published Griff nach der Weltmacht, known in English as Germany's Aims in the First World War. This book showed that, one month after the war's outbreak, the German government had drawn up a plan for large-scale territorial annexations and economic hegemony in Europe. Fischer earned the opprobrium of many of his peers by blaming the war squarely on a German bid for world power. FL Carsten, a fellow historian, commented drily: "We had really fixed it all so well, and then this stupid ass must come along and spoil it."
Some of Fischer's followers refined his argument by contending that Germany's leaders had provoked a war in an effort to prevent internal political and social tensions from destroying their regime. MacMillan and Hastings mention this line of inquiry and should perhaps have devoted more space to it. "A key factor in Berlin's original decision to fight had been a desire to crush the perceived domestic socialist menace, by achieving a conspicuous triumph over Germany's foreign foes," Hastings writes.
As Hastings, MacMillan and McMeekin point out, most historians nowadays regard the Fischer thesis about a pre-1914 German plan for world domination as too extreme. Instead it is more usual to blame the war's outbreak, in descending order of culpability, on Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Serbia, France and Britain. Germany stands accused of practising an abrasive diplomacy in the prewar years, and of offering rash, wholehearted support for Austria-Hungary's insistence on punishing Serbia after Franz Ferdinand's death on June 28 1914 at the hands of a Bosnian Serb terrorist. Austria-Hungary's leaders are deemed guilty of reckless behaviour from the start of the July crisis. Russia was willing to risk war and ordered early mobilisation in the knowledge that this would expand the conflict beyond the Balkans. All in all, MacMillan speaks for many historians today when she writes that the greatest responsibility lies with "Austria-Hungary's mad determination to destroy Serbia in 1914, Germany's decision to back it to the hilt [and] Russia's impatience to mobilise".
MacMillan places less emphasis than Clark on the Serbian role in destabilising Austria-Hungary. Still, she reminds us: "It is one of the smaller tragedies of the summer of 1914 that in assassinating Franz Ferdinand the Serb nationalists removed the one man in Austria-Hungary who might have prevented it from going to war." A year before his murder the archduke, heir to the Habsburg throne, criticised in no uncertain terms Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Austria's military commander, commenting that he stood for "a great Hurrah-Policy, to conquer the Serbs and God knows what".
MacMillan, warden of St Antony's College, Oxford university, is the author ofPeacemakers (2002), a prizewinning history of the 1919 Paris peace conference, and of Seize the Hour: When Nixon Met Mao (2006), an engaging work on the US president's visit to China in 1972. As in those books, the Canadian historian laces The War That Ended Peace with deft character sketches and uses sources incisively. For instance, the erratic Kaiser Wilhelm II wrote in 1905 to Bernhard von Bülow, his chancellor: "First cow the Socialists, behead them and make them harmless, with a bloodbath if necessary, and then make war abroad. But not before and not both together." More harmlessly, the kaiser left King Ferdinand of Bulgaria "white-hot with hatred" after smacking him on the bottom in public.
MacMillan escorts the reader skilfully through the military, diplomatic and political crises that framed the road to war from 1870 to 1914. Europe's state system suffered from the problem that Prussia, having defeated France in 1870, united Germany and annexed Alsace-Lorraine, had guaranteed the lasting enmity of Paris. Otto von Bismarck avoided trouble for 20 years by aligning Germany with the conservative monarchies of Russia and Austria-Hungary, but his successors were more careless in their diplomacy. In particular, they allowed Germany's Reinsurance treaty with Russia to lapse in 1890, a step that opened the door to the Franco-Russian alliance of 1894, heightening German fears of encirclement.
Then the kaiser and Alfred von Tirpitz, his grand admiral, started a naval arms race with Britain in 1898, failing to see that this was the worst possible way to persuade London to cede Germany the "place in the sun" for which its leaders clamoured. It is curious to recall, as do MacMillan and Hastings, that Tirpitz appreciated Britain enough to send his daughters to Cheltenham Ladies' College, a renowned English private school, and that Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Germany's chancellor from 1909 to 1917, sent his son to Oxford university. The children of today's Chinese and Russian leaders likewise receive the most privileged US and British educations.
Events in the decade before 1914 pushed Europe closer to war. After Britain and France settled their colonial disputes in the Entente Cordiale, Germany tried to exploit the first Moroccan crisis of 1905-06 to drive a wedge between them. Rivalry between Vienna and St Petersburg intensified thanks to diplomatic duplicity and incompetence on both sides over Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. Arguably, the second Moroccan crisis of 1911 and two Balkan wars in 1912-13 inured politicians, generals and the European public to the idea that war was becoming inevitable.
Yet why did Europe's leaders, having prevented earlier crises from triggering a general war, fail to do so in 1914? McMeekin, a US historian based at Koç university in Istanbul, contended in The Russian Origins of the First World War (2011) that Russia bore far more responsibility than once thought because it aimed to break up the Ottoman Empire, conquer the Turkish straits and seize Constantinople. July 1914 plays down this argument. At times it adopts the more established view that a decisive moment came on July 5-6, when Germany gave Austria-Hungary its infamous "blank cheque". This allowed Vienna to intimidate Serbia with an ultimatum in the knowledge that, if war came, Germany would fight at Austria's side. "Austria's diplomatic isolation and military weakness meant that German backing was indispensable. The Germans gave it unambiguously," McMeekin writes.
Quite so, most scholars would say. Moreover, Germany's Schlieffen Plan dictated that, in the event of a Russian mobilisation, the kaiser's armies should attack France via Belgium. The violation of Belgian neutrality, acknowledged by Bethmann Hollweg as a breach of international law, was what brought Britain into the war.
On these matters July 1914 has little to say. Its main weakness, though, is that it tries to build a case that Russia's military preparations in the July crisis were possibly more important than the actions of Berlin and Vienna in causing the war. "In 1914 France and Russia were far more eager to fight than was Germany. . . So far from 'willing the war', the Germans went into it kicking and screaming as the Austrian noose snapped shut around their necks," McMeekin writes. It is a questionable conclusion to an otherwise well-written book.
Hastings, a prominent British military author and journalist, who writes for the FT as a contributing editor, has produced a punchy, entertaining book that is strong on the failings of each nation's military leaders in 1914. Sir John French, commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force, was "boundlessly foolish, childishly sullen", Hastings writes. And of Helmuth von Moltke, Germany's commander: "No man had done more to precipitate the calamity of European war; yet, having got his way, Moltke proved incapable of effectively conducting his nation's armies." The book gains balance from chapters, such as "Mudlife", that paint vivid accounts of the horror and tedium that confronted ordinary soldiers.
Could the immense tragedy of 1914-18, in which 65m men fought and about 8.5m were killed, have been avoided? By July 1914 most of Europe's political and military leaders felt the defence of national power and honour was worth the risk of war. Yet as MacMillan concludes, those who were against war could have stood up more firmly against those who denied there were other choices. "There are always choices," she writes.
Tony Barber is the FT's Europe editor

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 03:49 AM

Thanks Jim.
I produced that piece last week.
It proves me right and you wrong.

Keith A of Hertford - PM
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 04:14 AM

Tony Barber writing in Financial Times identifies the German Historian Fritz Fishcher.
. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/248f6960-29d3-11e3-bbb8-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2kbqMXxnU

Everything was turned upside down in 1961 when Fritz Fischer, a German historian, published Griff nach der Weltmacht, known in English as Germany's Aims in the First World War. This book showed that, one month after the war's outbreak, the German government had drawn up a plan for large-scale territorial annexations and economic hegemony in Europe. Fischer earned the opprobrium of many of his peers by blaming the war squarely on a German bid for world power. FL Carsten, a fellow historian, commented drily: "We had really fixed it all so well, and then this stupid ass must come along and spoil it."
Some of Fischer's followers refined his argument by contending that Germany's leaders had provoked a war in an effort to prevent internal political and social tensions from destroying their regime. MacMillan and Hastings mention this line of inquiry and should perhaps have devoted more space to it. "A key factor in Berlin's original decision to fight had been a desire to crush the perceived domestic socialist menace, by achieving a conspicuous triumph over Germany's foreign foes," Hastings writes.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 04:05 AM

"Quite so, most scholars would say. Moreover, Germany's Schlieffen Plan dictated that, in the event of a Russian mobilisation, the kaiser's armies should attack France via Belgium. The violation of Belgian neutrality, acknowledged by Bethmann Hollweg as a breach of international law, was what brought Britain into the war"

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 04:08 AM

"Hastings, a prominent British military author and journalist, who writes for the FT as a contributing editor,...."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket swearing
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 04:42 AM

How do you know they were all better men than me? Have you the evidence or is it all made up shit?

(See how you like it.)

Most were not better men than me. Some may have been, had they had the opportunity to live a long and fruitful life. The generals put a stop to that.

They were men. Some were saints, some were sinners but by today's standards they were naive. The not so naive ones were either conscientious objectors or managed to get into reserved occupations. To say they were better than someone on the basis they are dead really is about as gormless as you can get.

I keep looking for signs that you can get out of the hole you have dug yourself, but you keep digging. I know you are not stupid. So why insist on this awful blinkered sanitised revision of history? We are supposed to learn from the past, not get justified by a version of it.....

Oh, contributing editor is the Sunday word for hack. Journalist is a word that can be used, but only in the same way as a pretty airhead stars in a Hollywood B movie and can call herself an actor in the same way as a RSC actor can.... Ditto historian.

Historians research history. Hacks trawl history for snippets to justify the position they are paid to give. As he is being paid by the likes of Paul Dacre for a view, I rest my case.

Here's a view from a real historian. (He presents Time Team and that gets repeated on The History Channel!)

Ahem....

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 05:23 AM

To say they were better than someone on the basis they are dead

That would be stupid.
I did not.

As Jim's quote just reminded us, Britain went into the war because of the German invasion and the brutal repression of the people.

They knew what was needed and put themselves through hell to save their own and other peoples.
That is what makes them better.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 05:38 AM

"It proves me right and you wrong."
It proves nothing other than there is a consensus that the war was an Imperialist dispute over territories, you stupid little man.
That is all anybody has been saying here, other than yourself, who has produced a few cut-'n-pastes to show that it was a patriotic war - IT WAS A DISPUTE OVER EMPIRE.
Nowhere has anybody disputed Germany's role in attacking Belgium - a recorded fact, but it was a war for power and territory and it was generated by jingoistic propaganda.
Barber's article makes that clear, as does every single modern article on the First World War.
Your argument that those who died were fired with enthusiasm for that cause doesn't feature - you made that up.
Your argument that those who returned still supported that cause, doesn't even feature in any of the references - you made that up.
You have done exactly what Musket described, trawled for snippets to make your jingoistic case.
The causes of the war have long been a matter of history
Attempting to lay blame for the war has long been abandoned as revisionist jingoism.
The treatment of soldiers who fought in the war has been long established and indisputable.
The high-pressure methods used to recruit those soldiers is as old as war itself, as is the disillusionment with the military leaders, politicians and money-men who promote these wars.
World War One does not even have the respectability of the Second World War in being a war for freedom - it was purely an Imperial war for territory between now extinct dinosaurs.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 05:50 AM

No.

"The violation of Belgian neutrality, acknowledged by Bethmann Hollweg as a breach of international law, was what brought Britain into the war"

Your quote Jim.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 06:05 AM

"Your quote Jim."
Read the article - and all the other articles on the causes of the war and stop taking points totally out of context.
You conveniently overlook the statement following the Fischer reference:
"As Hastings, MacMillan and McMeekin point out, most historians nowadays regard the Fischer thesis about a pre-1914 German plan for world domination as too extreme. Instead it is more usual to blame the war's outbreak, in descending order of culpability, on Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Serbia, France and Britain. Germany stands accused of practising an abrasive diplomacy in the prewar years, and of offering rash, wholehearted support for Austria-Hungary's insistence on punishing Serbia after Franz Ferdinand's death on June 28 1914 at the hands of a Bosnian Serb terrorist. Austria-Hungary's leaders are deemed guilty of reckless behaviour from the start of the July crisis. Russia was willing to risk war and ordered early mobilisation in the knowledge that this would expand the conflict beyond the Balkans. All in all, MacMillan speaks for many historians today when she writes that the greatest responsibility lies with "Austria-Hungary's mad determination to destroy Serbia in 1914, Germany's decision to back it to the hilt [and] Russia's impatience to mobilise".
A WAR BETWEEN DINOSAURS - PURE AND SIMPLE.
Characteristically, you refuse to comment on your previous claims regarding the effect that all this politicking had on the people who fought and died in this obscenity - but then agsin, you've made your name on this forum as an establishment brown-noser who doesn't give a toss for humanity.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 07:06 AM

"too extreme" not wrong.
The imperialist issue is what led Germany to invade Belgium and France, and that is what brought Britain into the war.
The men who fought understood and accepted that the German armies had to be stopped.
They knew why they fought.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 08:09 AM

"They knew why they fought."
On what grounds do you claim this - all the literature and the interview we did with the Liverpool soldier claims the contrary, that they were tricked (or forced by conscription) into joining mand came home thoroughly disillusioned with the whole fucking mess?
The "brutal repression' of Belgium was, from the beginning, a red herring.
Belgium's genocidal policy in The Congo had been fully exposed by Mark Twain ten years before the War broke out in his King Leopold's Soliloquy' (also still available and very readable if you ever get round to reading)
The British behaviour throughout the colonies, particularly in India and Africa, has long been a matter of undisputed historical fact.
Turkey and Russia were notorious tyrants   
None of them were any better than the other.
If the First World War did anything, it exposed them all for what they were - rapacious monsters - it led to the end of imperialism.
You are the only one attempting to deal in "rights and wrongs" here in order to back your own favourite horse
If you read some of the things you cut and pasted, perhaps you might learn something - even if you never get round to reading a book.
Even Hastings, who is "less good on the causes" does not attempt to deny the Empire motive for the war.
Now - your evidence that the soldiers "knew why they were there....."
And the rest is silence.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 08:11 AM

From The free dictionary.com:

de·bate (d-bt)
v. de·bat·ed, de·bat·ing, de·bates
v.intr.
1. To consider something; deliberate.
2. To engage in argument by discussing opposing points.
3. To engage in a formal discussion or argument. See Synonyms at discuss.
4. Obsolete To fight or quarrel.

ar·gu·ment (ärgy-mnt)
n.
1.
a. A discussion in which disagreement is expressed; a debate.
b. A quarrel; a dispute.
c. Archaic A reason or matter for dispute or contention:


Maybe it's time this thread was accurately labelled :)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 08:25 AM

Jim, Hastings maintains, based on research, that our soldiers knew exactly what they were fighting for.
He gives this example.
"Most veterans rejected the 'poets' view'. One old soldier, named Henry Mellersh, declared in 1978 that he wholeheartedly rejected the notion that the war was 'one vast, useless, futile tragedy, worthy to be remembered only as a pitiable mistake'.
Instead, wrote Mellersh: 'I and my like entered the war expecting an heroic adventure and believing implicitly in the rightness of our cause; we ended greatly disillusioned as to the nature of the adventure, but still believing that our cause was right and we had not fought in vain.'"

Another.
Dr.Dan Todman

"Notwithstanding the enormous casualty lists, in 1918 many Britons thought they had achieved a miraculous deliverance from an evil enemy. They celebrated a remarkable military victory and national survival. For those who had served in the trenches, and for those left at home, the war experience encompassed not only horror, frustration and sorrow, but also triumph, pride, camaraderie and even enjoyment, as well as boredom and apathy."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/perceptions_01.shtml

The "brutal repression' of Belgium was, from the beginning, a red herring.
No. The atrocities against civilians are well documented and caused much anger here.

Even Hastings, who is "less good on the causes" does not attempt to deny the Empire motive for the war.

He places the blame firmly on Germany.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 09:14 AM

Todman again (BBC)
Sassoon and Wilfred Owen could be used to evoke an emotional reaction against war which engaged students and satisfied teachers, but which utterly misrepresented the feelings of most Britons who lived through the war years.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 09:14 AM

"Jim, Hastings maintains, based on research, that our soldiers knew exactly what they were fighting for."
He mentions one soldier - his claim is not backed up by any facts which dispute the reality of the disillusionment
Nor does he deal with the bullying and intimidatory techniques of recruiting.
Nor does he in any way attempt to dismantle the the destructive effect the war had on the survivors.
Nor does he contradict in any way the Imperial nature of the war - that is now accepted history.
You said it all:
"He places the blame firmly on Germany."
His is a military journalist and writer - that is his specialty, and as the reviewer pointed out, that is the weakness of his book.
It was an imperial war, whatever the propagandists claimned at the time, Imperialism was tantamount to slavery - Belgium was among the worst offenders - as I said, go read a book.
"Maybe it's time this thread was accurately labelled"
Or maybe it's time some participants started to debate rather than attempting to score points
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 09:22 AM

Oh yes... The Belgians...

I notice that even Poirot had to kill some poor bugger in the end.

Whilst reading up on your history, read about the Belgian exploits in Africa immediately before the war, it makes our shameful actions in The Boer War look tame. Whether the innocent Belgian residents deserved another country taking over is another discussion for another time, but the bloodthirsty fool leading them made the Kaiser look benevolent. (Despite his aim being The Congo, not Brussels. No bugger wants Brussels. I once wrote a paper as part of a course I was on about Belgium. (The subject was given to me, I didn't choose it...). My title page said "Belgium. A country armies march through to attack other countries."

Red herring. It was imperialism and dirty squabbling over imperialist aims. That's why no matter how much the soldiers who died may have been brave, foolhardy, whatever, they certainly didnt die for the right of rich merchants to keep their cheap raw goods markets open.

Yet they did....

Repeating the mantra of the time just perpetuates the idea of us not learning from our past, and that certainly would dishonour them. If their deaths had a purpose, then let it be that we never repeat the mistakes of our gung-ho idiotic past.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 09:28 AM

Hastings says, "Most veterans rejected the 'poets' view'."
That is his statement as a historian based on his research of original sources.
He then gives an example.
The same fact is given by both Todman and Sheffield on BBC site.

You said"Now - your evidence that the soldiers "knew why they were there....."
And the rest is silence."

You had it within minutes, and from three separate historians.

Still nothing to prop up your shit though.
Funny that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 09:37 AM

I have produced all the most eminent, best known and most published ones

Hardly, Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 09:40 AM

Musket, the German war crimes and atrocities committed in Belgium did cause much anger here.
It added to the determination of people that they had to be stopped, as well as the reasonable fear that we would be next.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 10:00 AM

I have produced all the most eminent, best known and most published ones
Hardly, Keith.

Which have I left out then Greg.
Answer for a change.
Share you great knowledge with us all, even if you can't do basic percentages.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 03:23 PM

Which have I left out then Greg.

Lots. Even most.

But since demonstrably no amount of fact will alter your delusions or change your mind, I can't be arsed to waste the time required.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 03:31 PM

Just naming a couple would take no time at all.
But you are lying.
You have nothing and that is obvious to everyone.
You just keep making an arse of yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 03:37 PM

Jim.
Nor does he contradict in any way the Imperial nature of the war - that is now accepted history.

Yes. German Imperialism (and militarism).
Their militarist, imperialist expansion across Europe brought Britain into the war.
Stopping them was the reason people were willing to fight.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 05:21 PM

(We Americans are frequently told that Europeans and UKeries approach disagreement differently from us, that they use strong language and harsh putdowns on each other- but it is all done affectionately, that we just don't understand. lol

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 05:26 PM

'you can't just keep reiterating "top historians have said..." as though it's an unassailable argument",' says Will above. Without taking sides [I don't even purport to be a military historian & have no direct comment to make on either side in this particular dispute], must just observe that it strikes me as a somewhat better argument than Musket's constant assertion that anything that has appeared in the Telegraph or the Mail is ipso facto to be denounced as untrue. Dear me, what a silly fellow the occasionally intelligent Mather can be when he really puts his mind to it!

☺~M~☺

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 06:30 PM

...anything that has appeared in the Telegraph or the Mail is ipso facto to be denounced as untrue.

So do you then maintain that anything that appears in the Telegraph or the Mail is ipso facto to be accepted unequivocably as true?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 11:40 PM

No, of course not: but not in any other paper either, necessarily. They all have their axes to grind. Surely not right bright automatically to assume truth in those whose axes happen to be one's own, but falsehood in those whose are not; and to present such conclusions, as Musket has been doing, as nice knockdown arguments. That's all my point. I repeat, I don't have a dog racing in this thread, but just hope, as in any thread I happen to log on to, to read some attempt at intelligent, objective comment in it, & not stupid biased agenda-based doctrinaire assumptions of the "It's in the Mail so we can safely ignore it" kind that Mr Mather has been going on about. It was, don't forget & for what it's worth, the Mail that first named Steven Lawrence's murderers.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 02:09 AM

My source was the historians.
The publisher was not relevant.
Most of my quotes are from BBC anyway.

I support my case by saying that it is what the historians say.
It is.
Only a self-obsessed, arrogant fool would believe he knew better, like these muppets all do.
"Those historians should know better."!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket between courses
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 03:20 AM

Not surprisingly Michael demonstrates the methods of newspapers by displaying their own tactics.

I doubt I have built my point on such a flimsy basis but Michael conveniently ingored 99% of what I have said on the matter in order to concentrate on the point that Keith's source writes with the political slant that he is paid to


So. .. just for Michael, as I suspect Keith will as ever ignore anything I write as disrespectful of his rambling nonsense,

Hastings writes accounts that are based on official records of the govenment of the day combined with selected views of those involved that happen to agree with it. I have read quite a lot of both Hastings and Sheffield and prior to this thread existing found myself drawn to the camp of those who were appalled by their airbrushing of callous operations combined with jingoistic propaganda, including censorship of the newspapers to hide the reality. Hence Keith's claim of objective reasoning by the soldiers contrasts with their experiences.

The inconvenient fact that even revisionists have to deal with is that come WW2, the generals were the junior officers of the first campaign and, in the words of A J P Taylor "learned the lessons from the first campaign and put a much higher value on the lives of those they asked to fight. "

Hence the revisionist shit Keith is so wedded to runs the risk of having society eventually forget why we remember. Why we must see war as the failure of peace.

Lest we forget.






If you claim you have no dog in this race, I suggest you leave your dog at home when watching racing as it tends to slip its lead and chase the rabbit with the pack. As a UK citizen who likes to think people are interested in his views, I think you do have a dog here. "Responsibility" running in the 19.14 at 18/1 odds.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 03:31 AM

"Their militarist, imperialist expansion across Europe brought Britain into the war."
As I said - a war between Imperialist powers.
This really has turned into an anachronistic blame game.
Spending time 'debating with a self-confessed ignoramous whose sole occupation appears to be hi-jacking threads on subjects he has no knowledge of, and hasn't the interest to read up and learn about those subjects seems to be a somewhat sterile way of spending my declining years
I'm off.
Jim Carroll

"The German war crimes and atrocities committed in Belgium did cause much anger here."
Gallant little Belgium
"A list of some of the atrocities committed in the name of King Leopold II of Belgium in the Belgian Congo or the Congo Free State as it was then known, between 1885 and 1908.
The Kingdom of Belgium only came into being in 1831, but soon joined in the race to forge an Empire. The nation's second king, King Leopold II, an ambitious and ruthless man, focused his attention on "Darkest Africa" and the result was the creation of the Congo Free State in 1885 under his own personal sovereignty. The atrocities committed in the Belgian Congo by King Leopold II, and in effect the Belgian people (as he was their sovereign and they his people!), were appalling and have to rank as one of the worst human rights atrocities of all time. The atrocities include:
The use of Tippu Tip, a slave trader from Zanzibar, and his slaves (which constituted the Force Publique) , to enslave the rest of the Congo populace.
The severing of the hand of any person, be they man, woman or child, who did not fulfil the task required of them.
The forced separation of children from their parents, after which they were organised into three children's colonies where they were indoctrinated, being taught Christianity and trained as soldiers.
The stipulation by the Belgian missionaries that only orphans were to be appropriated, so the parents were summarily executed.
The kidnapping of black women so as to force their husbands to work on the Belgian rubber plantations in the Congo.
These women were kept as hostages until their men had provided the required quota of rubber.
The wife of any man refusing to collect rubber would then be killed, and his children would in all likelihood also be killed. .
These atrocities were not just the transgressions of an isolated bunch of rebellious soldiers, as the official manuals handed out by the Belgian authorities actually recommended and endorsed these methods.
Hundreds of thousands of men were conscripted in this manner to work on the Belgian rubber plantations, and had to carry their heavy load of rubber for many a mile, many dying along the way.
Villages that did not meet the quota of rubber stipulated were then required to pay the outstanding amount in the form of a severed hand, each hand representing a "kill".
This often resulted in wars between the different tribes and many deaths, as the quotas were not at all realistic, and the only recourse was to then "harvest" the necessary hands in order to avoid any punitive measures on the part of the Belgian authorities.
Whenever a village resisted in anyway, the Force Publique would then be ordered to terrorise them.
Their methods included tying up ten hostages in a tent with large stones attached, and then pushing the poor victims into a river.
Another method of oppression was to rape the women
Or they just simply shot as many people as it would take to intimidate the rest.
However, for every bullet expended, the soldiers would have to return one right hand.
The Belgians also resorted to beheading any recalcitrant tribes people.
In addition, the soldiers were told that the more severed hands they could collect the less time they would have to serve in the Force Publique, and thus this incentive also served to further fuel the "orgy" of killing and bloodletting.
Entire villages and towns were destroyed, and it is surmised that as many as 10 million native Congolese died as a result of King Leopold's Tyranny!."

"Their militarist, imperialist expansion across Europe brought Britain into the war."
As I said - a war between Imperialist powers.
This really has turned into an anachronistic blame game.
Spending time 'debating with a self-confessed ignoramous whose sole occupation appears to be hi-jacking threads on subjects he has no knowledge of, and hasn't the interest to read up and learn about those subjects seems to be a somewhat sterile way of spending my declining years
I'm off.
Jim Carroll

"The German war crimes and atrocities committed in Belgium did cause much anger here."
Gallant little Belgium
"A list of some of the atrocities committed in the name of King Leopold II of Belgium in the Belgian Congo or the Congo Free State as it was then known, between 1885 and 1908.
The Kingdom of Belgium only came into being in 1831, but soon joined in the race to forge an Empire. The nation's second king, King Leopold II, an ambitious and ruthless man, focused his attention on "Darkest Africa" and the result was the creation of the Congo Free State in 1885 under his own personal sovereignty. The atrocities committed in the Belgian Congo by King Leopold II, and in effect the Belgian people (as he was their sovereign and they his people!), were appalling and have to rank as one of the worst human rights atrocities of all time. The atrocities include:
The use of Tippu Tip, a slave trader from Zanzibar, and his slaves (which constituted the Force Publique) , to enslave the rest of the Congo populace.
The severing of the hand of any person, be they man, woman or child, who did not fulfil the task required of them.
The forced separation of children from their parents, after which they were organised into three children's colonies where they were indoctrinated, being taught Christianity and trained as soldiers.
The stipulation by the Belgian missionaries that only orphans were to be appropriated, so the parents were summarily executed.
The kidnapping of black women so as to force their husbands to work on the Belgian rubber plantations in the Congo.
These women were kept as hostages until their men had provided the required quota of rubber.
The wife of any man refusing to collect rubber would then be killed, and his children would in all likelihood also be killed. .
These atrocities were not just the transgressions of an isolated bunch of rebellious soldiers, as the official manuals handed out by the Belgian authorities actually recommended and endorsed these methods.
Hundreds of thousands of men were conscripted in this manner to work on the Belgian rubber plantations, and had to carry their heavy load of rubber for many a mile, many dying along the way.
Villages that did not meet the quota of rubber stipulated were then required to pay the outstanding amount in the form of a severed hand, each hand representing a "kill".
This often resulted in wars between the different tribes and many deaths, as the quotas were not at all realistic, and the only recourse was to then "harvest" the necessary hands in order to avoid any punitive measures on the part of the Belgian authorities.
Whenever a village resisted in anyway, the Force Publique would then be ordered to terrorise them.
Their methods included tying up ten hostages in a tent with large stones attached, and then pushing the poor victims into a river.
Another method of oppression was to rape the women
Or they just simply shot as many people as it would take to intimidate the rest.
However, for every bullet expended, the soldiers would have to return one right hand.
The Belgians also resorted to beheading any recalcitrant tribes people.
In addition, the soldiers were told that the more severed hands they could collect the less time they would have to serve in the Force Publique, and thus this incentive also served to further fuel the "orgy" of killing and bloodletting.
Entire villages and towns were destroyed, and it is surmised that as many as 10 million native Congolese died as a result of King Leopold's Tyranny!."

http://socyberty.com/history/a-list-of-atrocities-committed-by-king-leopold-ii-of-belgium-in-the-belgian-congo-1885-1908/#ixzz2l

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 03:34 AM

I fear you have lost me in your rather metaphysically metaphorical tailpiece -- tho dimly recognise it as some sort of extension of my own image re the 'dog'.

May be only 1% of what you wrote, Ian; but you did post in 'nice knockdown' tones statements to effect that anything appearing in those two journals could be safely discounted. If that wasn't part of your argument, however minimally, then why make the point at all? Especially as it is a very silly point at that, you know.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 03:38 AM

Whoops - forum fairy please!!
Apologies
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 04:09 AM

Musket, now you make up shit about historians.
There is no basis for your lies about them.
This from a review on Amazon
"I've read several of Sir Max Hastings' books, and I have found them to immensely involving (particularly through his use of diaries and letters from those involved in the fighting on the ground, which serves frequently as a counterpoint to the writings of the commanders), very thoughtful, especially in terms of his interpretations of the qualities of, and decisions made by, those
charged with running principle battles and campaigns, and equally insightful regarding the motives for all of the abov..."

It is not just Hastings and Sheffield.
There are no historians pushing your views because they are false.
Not true.
Made up shit.