BS: Armistice Day (debate)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 11:39 AM

Not quite clear to me what point is being made by 'Guest' [is it you, Musket?] at 1112. The fact that the Church of England is 'Established' doesn't mean that all English people are members of it, or subscribe to its doctrines, or are even 'Church people' [Christians] at all.

If that was not the point being made in response to the post of mine copied & purportedly being answered, then what was, please?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 12:26 PM

Not me.

I'm not a Christian, neither is my mate Tahir, in fact neither are you, as you say. Yet you and I are seen by many as at the very least culturally Christian. I resent such titles, although Tahir wouldn't mind being seen as a Muslim. Especially as whenever you want to catch him on a Friday, he is usually down at prayers.

It is a fact that legally speaking, we are a theocracy. Constitutionally, that puts us in a club with Iran and unless someone knows better, no other place. Even Saudi Arabia aren't daft enough to give the theocrats total control.

Our legal status has two problems. First we are a multicultural society and have had Muslims, Jews, Hindu etc British citizens for hundreds of years. I read one statistic recently that over 94% of British Muslims were born here so have as much right as the right, as it were.

Second, it gives Church of England senior staff thinking they have the right to address all people, not just their members. There's a bloke who stands outside the hospital entrance I see most mornings who rants at the moon, people walking past and the pavement, poor sod. Technically, he has as much right to influence me as any Bishop. And yet.... The Lords Spiritual can vote in the Lords and therefore influence parliament. Rather more loudly than the ineffectual backbencher in the commons in my case. And don't get me started about our EuroMP. Keith's ex mate, Godfrey soddin' Bloom.

I like the word disestablishmentarianism on two levels, both as a word that Apple don't understand (see the red underlining for details) and for the fact that the church they represent has no mandate other than to the 1% or so who go in for a warm on a Sunday morning.... And then only at their behest...



Hey Keith! Have you looked up consensus yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 12:41 PM

"over 94% of British Muslims were born here so have as much right..."
.,,.
Yes; but that hasn't prevented most of the Islamist attackers of Fusilier Rigby, 7/7, &c, from being drawn from precisely that demographic.

Honestly not trying to start a fight here; but just saying as seems relevant...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 12:58 PM

It is certainly relevant.

Cultural ties are a two way street. The "enlightened" agnostic majority are crap at looking after their old, letting the state do it instead, yet those we almost accuse of being drawn into cultural communities consume their own smoke as it were.

Religion has a part to play in the solution and yet religion is a huge part of the problem. But try telling BNP members that St George was a Turk and see how far you get.... Likewise, try telling a joke about the Prophet in front of some.. (I once innocently asked, when on a course about using pictorial inspection reports so service users with learning disabilities could easily understand them, how we would depict the Prophet should it be pertinent to the report? Took me weeks to wriggle out of the issues that raised....

Social mobility and increasing / redistributing wealth is as good an answer as any. Better than the UKIP apologists amongst us can come up with anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Stringsinger
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 01:11 PM

Soldiers never really analyze in detail why they go to war. They are induced to do so by pressures due to their upbringing, their families and some misguided morality that says they have to fight for the country otherwise they are not good people.

Wars can be alleviated through diplomatic means. The point being is that these means are never really tried, despite the Chamberlain illusions about Hitler.

The reason that they're never tried is because of the armament industry which capitalizes
on war and has too much power in the US.

In he case of WWII, though Hitler was out of hand and psychopathic, there were too many institutions, banks, agencies that supported him in the early days in both the US and Britain.
Bank of America is one.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 01:13 PM

Im the absence of a reply, these are extracts from the sleeve blurb, introduction and an autobiographical account of his taking part in and being wounded at The Battle of Loos in 1915, by the great Irish poet and writer
More lies, no doubt
Jim Carroll

THE GREAT PUSH
Written from the trenches of Flanders, this book is MacGill's great war classic, and rivals in stature his well-known and brilliant socialist novel, CHILDREN OF THE DEAD END. Hailed as a minor masterpiece of war writing when it was first published in 1916, THE GREAT PUSH is a ferocious and passionate tour-de-force rivalling in its power the greatest of all war literature. Nowhere has everyman ever found a more compelling voice to describe his experience of war — the fear, the total destructiveness, the humour, and the profound existential sense of life lived bloodily on the edge of death in one of the most terrifying wars ever to have been waged.
THE GREAT PUSH is the sequel to THE RED HORIZON and ends with MacGill being wounded and returned to England, marking his permanent exit from the war. The book will not only interest war historians but all those who wish to understand human behaviour and endeavour in one of the most extreme situations ever known to man.
THE justice of the cause which endeavours to achieve its object by the murdering and maiming of mankind is apt to be doubted by a man who has come through a bayonet charge. The dead lying on the fields seem to ask, " Why has this been done to us ? Why have you done it, brothers ? What purpose has it served ? " The battle- line is a secret world, a world of curses. The guilty secrecy of war is shrouded in lies, and shielded by bloodstained swords; to know it you must be one of those who wage it, a party to dark and mysterious orgies of carnage. War is the purge of repleted kingdoms, needing a close place for its operations.
I have tried in this book to give, as far as I am allowed, an account of an attack in which I took part. Practically the whole book was written in the scene of action, and the chapter dealing with our night at Les Brebis, prior to the Big Push, was written in the trench between midnight and dawn of September the 25th; the concluding chapter in the hospital at Versailles two days after I had been wounded at Loos.
PATRICK MACGILL.

..............
there. . . . The line of wounded stretches from Lens to Victoria Station on this side, and from Lens to Berlin on the other side. . . . How many thousand dead are there in the fields round there ? . . . There will be many more, for the battle of Loos is still proceeding. . . . Who is going to benefit by the carnage, save the rats which feed now as they have never fed before ? . . . What has brought about this turmoil, this tragedy that cuts the heart of friend and foe alike ? . . . Why have millions of men come here from all corners of Europe to hack and slay one
another ? What mysterious impulse guided them to this maiming, murdering, gouging, gassing, and filled them with such hatred ? Why do we use the years of peace in preparation for war ? Why do men well over the military age hate the Germans more than the younger and more sober souls in the trenches ? Who has profited by this carnage ? Who will profit ? Why have some men joined in the war for freedom ? "
Suddenly I was overcome with a fit of laughter, and old Mac woke up.
" What the devil are you kicking up such a row for ? " he grumbled.
,f Do you remember B , the fellow
whose wound you dressed one night a week ago ? Bald as a trout, double chin and a shrapnel wound in his leg. He belonged to
the          Regiment."
" I remember him," said Mac.
" I knew him in civil life," I said. " He
kept a house of some repute in         . The
sons of the rich came there secretly at night; the poor couldn't afford to. Do you believe
that B joined the Army in order to
redress the wrongs of violated Belgium ? " Mac sat up on the floor, his Balaclava helmet pulled down over his ears, and winked at me.
" Ye're drunk, ye bounder, ye're drunk," he said. " Just like all the rest, mon. We'll have no teetotallers after the war."

……………pitiful lying there, His face close to the wires, a thousand bullets in his head. Unable to resist the impulse I endeavoured to turn His face upward, but was unable ; a barb had pierced His eye and stuck there, rusting in the socket from which sight was gone. I turned and ran away from the thing into the bay of the trench. The glory of the dawn had vanished, my soul no longer swooned in the ecstasy of it; the Pleiades had risen, sick of that which they decorated, the glorious disarray of jewelled dew-drops was no more, that which endured the full light of day was the naked and torturing contraption of war. Was not the dawn buoyant, like the dawn of patriotism ? Were not the dew-decked wires war seen from far off ? Was not He in wreath of Pleiades glorious death in action ? But a ray of light more, and what is He and all with Him but the monstrous futility of war. . . „ Mac tugged at my shoulder and I awoke.
" Has the shelling begun ? " I asked.
" It's over, mon," he said. " It's four o'clock now. You'll be goin' awa' from here in a minute or twa."
" And these wounded ? " I asked, looking round. Groaning and swearing they lay on their stretchers and in bloodstained blankets, their ghastly eyes fixed upon the roof. They had not been in when I fell asleep.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket paging Keith
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 01:32 PM

Here Keith, that consensus word is getting a bit stretched isn't it?

Hello?

Keith?





Oh. I suppose keeping quiet is a honourable way of apologising.





Dear Michael,

Yes I am. But it serves a purpose as well as being somewhat cathartic.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 01:56 PM

Yes you are what? Sorry, but you have lost me.

Oh woe -- lost o lost. Lost beyond recall!

usw

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 02:24 PM

In he case of WWII, though Hitler was out of hand and psychopathic, there were too many institutions, banks, agencies that supported him in the early days in both the US and Britain.
Bank of America is one.

& George Dumbya Bush's grandpa is another.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket Adding to list
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 02:29 PM

Don't forget Keith's favourite read, The Daily M*il.





That's what I meant Michael.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 02:36 PM

Sorry, Ian. But I have no recollection of asking any question on that topic, or even referring to that journal. So why was the remark at end of your penultimate post addressed to me?

More & more puzzled...!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 03:07 PM

Musket, the consensus has yet to be broken by any of you.
Jim, the historians have studied the letters and diaries and reported their findings.
I reported them here.
Your list of 14 does not come from any historian, or have you identified a source?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket between courses
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 04:30 PM

Easy Michael. Nothing to do with the subject.

Whenever I point at Keith and laugh you come as a knight in shining armour to defend him. Ok, your sword is somewhat wonky and your horse is knackered. Oh, and most knights don't need the nurse etc etc (insert insult as appropriate. )

I am merely preempting your disdain, saving you the trouble.




Keith. A consensus of a few military historians reflecting a military view is not a consensus of reality. If I wrote a book on military history, I'd aim it at people who want to read military history.

There. A grown up answer and didn't call you poo pants once. Or a fucking idiot. Or question your use of brain cells or laugh at your pick n mix interpretation of faith.

I must be getting soft.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 05:17 PM

Oh, well, Ian: as my late first wife used always to enjoin me when a bit out of patience ~~

PLAY YOUR GAMES...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 05:21 PM

Keith. A consensus of a few military historians reflecting a military view is not a consensus of reality.

It is if there are none who do not have that view.
How many are there Musket?
Give us their names.
Perhaps Jim, or Troubadour, or Greg, or Grishka can supply some?

Otherwise yes, it is a consensus Musket.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 06:32 PM

It isn't because I don't agree.



And I have been paid for writing in a newspaper, just like the retired tabloid editor you swoon over.   I too had a brief about the slant to put on my piece. *

My dog doesn't agree either.

Have you actually checked in a dictionary what consensus actually means?

Look up Butcher of The Somme if you wish. The consensus hacks you mention are recently trying to Bury the title. Revisionism in action.






*Ok. Trade magazines but the "political" brief was there. Playing to the crowd.

If I wrote science fiction I wouldn't have a main character who loved reading science fiction but couldn't get a girlfriend. Likewise I would write military history for those who get their rocks off from reading it, not to shatter their delusion.

Black propaganda anyone?


Enjoy.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 07:03 PM

Otherwise yes, it is a consensus Musket.

A consensus of six, out of thousands. Of such stuff is Fox News and the U.S. "Tea Party" arseholes made.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 02:03 AM

Fair point.
I only have a consensus of the most eminent and representative historians.
Against that Musket, and his dog who has a comparable knowledge and understanding of that period of History.

I have the Historians.
You have your dog.
Woof.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 04:34 AM

You'd get on fine with my dog. He has religion.

No, , it's true.

His faith extends to licking his balls but they were lopped off three years ago. Doesn't stop him licking them though.

That's faith that is.



Of course, I reckon faith is subjective.

So is "eminent"

So is "consensus"

I might add the word "Keith" to that list.

Anyway, my dog was born in Kilkenny. His narratives of the period are more concerned with the failures of achieving home rule. He wrote a wonderful essay on the politics of Oliver St John Gogerty.   I prefer to drink in it when I am over. ..

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 05:25 AM

Consensus is not subjective.
There is a consensus among historians that I share.

Eminent is subjective.
I use it to mean those selected by the BBC to write their History of the war. Chosen for their eminence and because they are representative of the historical consensus.

And then there is you, the giggling, sniggering know-nothing.
So arrogant in you ignorance that you put your knowledge (!) above that of all those professional historians for whom this is their life's work.

A pity your dog can't post.
He could hardly have less to contribute than you Musket.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket giggling
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 05:36 AM

His contributions are similar to yours. The difference being I put his in a small bag and carry them for him.

Thus I hold them in fine reverence.

Dream on and enjoy your military nostalgia. You don't mind if decent people don't join in eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 06:04 AM

How could you join in Musket?
You do not know anything, and you can find no-one with any knowledge to back up your made up claims because they are shit.

My knowledge comes from studying History.
You have to make up shit.
Just an ignorant buffoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 07:36 AM

"If that was not the point being made in response to the post of mine copied & purportedly being answered, then what was, please?"

The point was, and is, that viewed from the point of view of Muslims, the UK is no less a Christian country than Iran is an Islamic one.

Context is everything, and the Western context is one of vociferous and often fundamental Christianity.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 08:00 AM

"So arrogant in you ignorance that you put your knowledge (!) above that of all those professional historians for whom this is their life's work."

If any one of your "historians", publishing their revision of someone else's revision of jingoistic government propagandists revisions, had stood in the trenches with the like of Owen and Sassoon, they might be more credible.

But they get their experience of trench warfare second or third hand and their opinions are barely more acceptable than Shakespeare's Tudor inspired hunchback Richard III.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 08:43 AM

If any one of your "historians", publishing their revision of someone else's revision of jingoistic government propagandists revisions, had stood in the trenches with the like of Owen and Sassoon, they might be more credible.

They would now be dead silly!
Why put historians in quotes.
That is their profession, and they rely on contemporary sources from the men who did stand in the trenches.
They find that Sassoon and Owen were very unrepresentative of them.

Why not do some reading and find this out for yourself.
You could start with the BBC site I linked to.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 09:06 AM

There's a good poem recited on the BBC iPlayer website, all about WW1.

I assume it is the same BBC as Keith bows at the altar of?

It goes,

Well you know how it goes, silly!


Boom Boom a Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom a Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom a Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom a Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom a Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom a Boom Boom Boom Boom


The a was added by me for artistic effect, though I don't think I match the pathos of the original.

Nor indeed the harsh reality it describes.

As far as Keith is concerned, the only concession to reality he proposes is that "mistakes were made." This, by the way is the legal wording politicians utter when they mean they were caught fiddling.

In the meantime, I gave a link to his beloved Max Hastings defending the idea of firing squads for those realised the reality wasn't what they had been told, and in the same article, if he couldn't sink any lower, said that it was right to castrate Alan Turing, possibly the most important man in ending WW2 for being gay. Keith chose to ignore it. Funny that. It was from the website of The Daily M* il! the only British newspaper to support Herr Hitler in the '30s. Hastings feels comfortable writing his views there these days.

Hastings shows himself to be a Nasty lying twisting little shit.

Are you sure you still support him Keith? I didn't have to get that view of him from any eminent historian, I judged him by his outpu
To same as I judge the events of WW1 by reading lots of accounts, not just those I am politically comfortable with. Even then, revisionist ones.

I know his politics are a bit right wing but you don't need to lionise the creep and his revisionist bullshit just for being comfortable with his outlook.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 09:28 AM

Nor indeed the harsh reality it describes.

No.
It was written by a couple of comics for a sitcom.
It does not describe reality. It is a joke.

Hastings is just one historian.
I have hardly used him as a source. All the others say essentially the same anyway.
That is where my knowledge comes from.

Yours comes from a sitcom, a half remembered comment by a non-historian on a quiz show, and what you think you remember from your school history.

In your ignorant stupidity you put that up against the life's work of professional historians.

You are a sniggering, giggling buffoon, pontificating about something you know nothing about.

Oh no!
I have made a cunt of you again.
Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 11:48 AM

All the others say essentially the same anyway.

ALL the others?

Absolute Horseshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 12:44 PM

"Your list of 14 does not come from any historian, or have you identified a source?"
My list of 14 reasons for joining are all historically established reasons for joining are are accepted as fact by all historians.
They are a part of our culture and have been so since the end of World War One
Which one of them do you dispute in particular ?
If you have any evidence that none of them are valid, produce your evidence - you really do not need confirmation for something that is accepted until it is challenged - show an example that a single one of them has been challenged INCLUDING YOUR OWN 'FAVE' HASTY MAX (WHOSE QUALIFICATIONS ON THE CAUSES OF THE WAR HAVE BEEN DESCRIBED AS "WEAK" BY THE REVIEW YOU PUT UP, BY THE WAY - not such a great historian, maybe?).
All of these reasons have been included in most of the articles you have been provided with, including the Wiki article you dishonestly claimed backed your case
One again you disgracefully dismiss an eye witness account of the feelings of a soldier who took part in the fighting and actually wrote that account in a military hospital following the Battle of Loos - what are you on Keith?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 01:00 PM

This is from he Wiki article which you claimed backed your case - historically established and accepted fact
You've had the link
Jim Carroll

"The reasons for their enlistment cannot be pinned down to a single factor; enthusiasm and a war spirit certainly drove some, while for others unemployment prompted enlistment. Some employers forced men to join up, while occasionally Poor Law Guardians would also refuse to pay support for fit military-aged men. The timing of the recruiting boom in the wake of the news from Mons, though, suggests that men joined knowing that the war was dangerous and indeed many joined precisely because it seemed to be a threat to their home, district and country.[3]
One early peculiarity was the formation of "Pals battalions": groups of men from the same factory, football team, bank or similar, joining and fighting together. The idea was first suggested at a public meeting by Lord Derby. Within three days, he oversaw enough volunteers sufficient for three battalions. Lord Kitchener gave official approval for the measure almost instantly and the response was impressive. Manchester raised fifteen specific 'Pals' battalions; one of the smallest was Accrington, in Lancashire, which raised one. The drawback of 'Pals' battalions was that a whole town could lose its military-aged menfolk in a single day."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 01:18 PM

Ah... Hastings has gone from being the oracle to just one of many.

Good. Keith has the intelligence not to back pedal too fast in case the chain comes off.

He does however think I got the information about black propaganda from a TV quiz show. Funny, I thought I originally got it from school history lessons, followed by reading books, but there you go. Mention a recent readily available source and he drops you to his level, thinking it is the only source available.

Rather funny actually.

Black Adder may be comedy but the backdrop was well researched. Ben Elton has written a hell of a lot about the war, using research gained from giving the accurate backdrop for their slapstick comedy. To the point of ending the series on the serious point they all felt necessary.

But of course all this is irrelevant. My knowledge is based on a whole life of reading, studying history at school just like everyone else and visiting exhibitions and museums.

Keith gets two or three bits of military history, ( nobody doubts the day Kitchener signed a piece of paper or Lloyd George went for a crap etc) and uses the sympathetic treating of the butchers and incompetent idiots in charge to change history.

Luckily, everybody laughs at him rather than taking him seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 02:35 PM

There seems to be little point continuing with this, if there ever has been.
This clown has denied historical facts, has insulted the testimonies of veterans of World War One, had made claim of statements from his own 'historians' that they simply haven't made, has deliberately ignored documented evidence then lied by claiming that the rest of us haven't put up any evidence.
The only reason I can possibly in continuing with this is to allow this half-wit to humiliate himself even further - that seems to be an endless road.
Personally, I'd much rather donate to a charity than spend valuable time doing community work with an irretrievable waste of space.
Wasn't cut out for working with mental basket-cases
Enjoy
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 03:03 PM


Ah... Hastings has gone from being the oracle to just one of many.
Good. Keith has the intelligence not to back pedal too fast in case the chain comes off.

No.
He was always just one source among many, all saying the same.

This clown has denied historical facts, has insulted the testimonies of veterans of World War One,
Only one, and only saying it was wildly unrepresentative, which is true.
had made claim of statements from his own 'historians' that they simply haven't made,
That is a lie.
Or can you produce an example?
Of course not.

has deliberately ignored documented evidence
Your list off Wiki Answers from an anon contributor!

then lied by claiming that the rest of us haven't put up any evidence
I said you have not found an historian that contradicts my view.
You still haven't.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket again
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 03:45 AM

Of course Keith relies on nobody else reading Hastings. I have read quite a bit of his work actually. He writes in an easy style and his attention to detail is remarkable.

His earlier work was highly critical of the commanders and purpose.   Yet in Catastrophe he does an about face.   Why?

He is the same Hastings with the same sources. ... mmmm must be another reason.

On the basis of takes one to know one, he found an account by the eminent (but rather silly) historian Christopher Clarke to be too kind to the dammed bosche! Clarke, (Cambridge Professor as opposed to newspaper hack) reckoned the Serbs got the ball rolling.   To my mind, Hastings couldn't refute this notion without being kinder to the British establishment.

His dismissal of the war poets was appalling. Usually it is those who were at an event who decry the poets of the day. In this case Hastings's Dad wasn't even a sperm when the poets were facing the bullets, mud and fear.

So. .. why the revisionist book that is wonderful to read but shows his bias too much for it to be a reliable source?

Ah... next year we commemorate 100 years since the start. It is easy to mark the end of carnage as we will in 2018, but to get excited about the start, we need to be kinder to the buggers that started it and blundered through it. If course.

Enter Sir Max Hastings. World leading expert on forming people's opinions for them. Ex editor of Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph.




Not very deep, are you Keith?

Dense maybe but definitely shallow.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 03:45 AM

"The real Field Marshal Haig was certainly not a callous man," says Gary Sheffield, author of The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army.

"He was commanding the largest British army ever. Whatever he did you ended up with lots and lots of casualties.


"In the end he was a successful general. His record was no worse than most other commanders and rather better than many of them."

The other general in Blackadder Goes Forth is even more cartoonish. Known for his catchphrase "Baaaaaah!", Gen Melchett with his exaggerated public school ethos and pitiful intelligence represents another side of the post-WWI criticism.

"As far as the portrayal of Haig, Geoffrey Palmer plays Haig, but in effect Melchett is an amalgam of Haig and John French and the other generals so Haig appears twice," says Sheffield.

But Haig and his fellow WWI generals were operating in a period unique in military history, he argues. Armies had grown so big that generals could no longer cover their whole extent in person, while the radio technology that made manipulating large armies in WWII possible was yet to be invented.

Haig and the other generals learned lessons which led to the sweeping victories of 1918.

Sheffield is still a fan of Blackadder and, having given lectures alongside John Lloyd, enjoys using it as a starting point when tackling preconceptions about Haig and the other generals.

"It is a very good and clever satire not just of WWI but also the popular perception of WWI.

"The problem is that it misses out 1918. The very final scene is set in 1917. It doesn't deal with the victory."

Of course, the debate over Haig is still very much live and there will be plenty who dispute the revisionist view vehemently.

But he certainly wasn't a Melchett-esque dolt.

"Whatever else he might have been he clearly wasn't stupid," says Sheffield. "Haig must not be judged solely on his role as a battlefield commander. He reorganised the Army and trained the Army. To get a true picture we need to see him in the round."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22887110

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 04:06 AM

Funny how so many historians have reached the same conclusion as Hastings.
Perhaps you could provide some extracts from Hastings' previous work that challenges current thinking.
Or did you make that up Musket?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 04:10 AM

Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914 Reviews
Hailed as 'excellent' by Andrew Marr, Max's new book Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, published on 12th September, is now in its fifth week in the Sunday Times top ten non-fiction bestsellers. Among the latest reviewers, Nigel Jones writes in the Sunday Telegraph's Book Of The Week feature: 'This is a magnificent and deeply moving book, and with Max Hastings as our guide we are in the hands of a master'. Hew Strachan in the New York Times writes that Barbara Tuchman's legendary best-seller The Guns of August 'has been supplanted'. Max Boot in the New York Times Book Review describes the book as 'excellent', concluding 'Hastings brilliants shows how … World War I came to assume the dispiriting and bloody form it would hold for the next four years'. America's Library Journal says Catastrophe represents 'an ideal into World War I history'.

'Like one of Field Marshal Haig's family whiskies, Max Hastings is a dram that steadily improves with age … His position as Britain's leading military historian is now unassailable … In this enormously impressive new book, Hastings effortlessly masters the complex lead-up to and opening weeks of the First World War … [He] is as magisterial as we would expect … This is a magnificent and deeply moving book, and with Max Hastings as our guide we are in the hands of a master' Nigel Jones, Telegraph

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 05:13 AM

Not content with reading what he wants to agree with him, he treats reviewers as gospel now. Is there no beginning to Keith's talents?

You quoted my argument perfectly you dozy twat.

1. Sheffield concedes his view is revisionist and people will vehemently disagree.

2. He regrets Blackadder didn't deal with the victory. Or put another way, out of a four year war, he bases his overall opinion on the final months when the message had finally got to the generals that human waves were criminal needless loss of life. Not much to say about the rest of the war then.

3. He speaks of lack of means of communication in a war that was larger theatre than anything before, yet the decisions to push waves of men into no mans land was a decision by Haig. Full stop.

4. Saying they had learned over the time glosses over their atrocities in The Boer War. My digital picture frame in the study this morning was showing me staring at the war graves on the summit of Spion Kop when I visited it last year.


Oh, if you must quote the Nigel Jones review, try to include the bits where he seems to agree with my notes a couple of posts up....

Oh and current thinking isn't the kind airbrushed Hastings account, nor indeed Sheffield's make over of Haig. Just because you have read them, doesn't make them current thinking you silly little man. They were written to CHALLENGE current thinking.

And have largely failed.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 05:46 AM

The reviews are not gospel, but show that he is a respected and eminent historian, and pokes from a pygmy like you can be ignored.
Jones, an eminent historian himself, states that Hastings is "Britain's leading military historian."

Please do produce something, anything by Hastings that contradicts current thinking, or was that another lie Musket?

I can not post much more today.
Nasty medical procedure.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 07:48 AM

Hastings produces "things" that contradict current thinking, not me. He even says so if you bother to read it rather than just look at the pictures. The reviews even are full of how he challenges current bloody thinking!

So stop saying that people who can read, understand and even last night listen to him are liars on the basis that you either fail or set to not understand his rationale behind his book or why Sheffield wrote a revisionist (his words, repeated by you) portrait of the butcher of the Somme.

I suggested Hastings is helping the establishment get ready for the 100 year events next year and the Prime Minister said in an interview a while ago that it could polarise opinion, as society is divided between glorious and shameful past. I still think his timing of a book that contradicts even his own hitherto view of the military leaders is far too close to the event to be a coincidence.

Good luck with the nasty medical procedure. I had a biopsy for a forthcoming operation myself yesterday and can hardly sit in the car or in the office.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 12:19 PM

Well, I'll be! (Strongest exclamation I was allowed as a kid.) I finally understand what is going on.

You two are merely imitating what you see on your telly.

It must be a British thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket noting
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 04:32 PM

Oy.   We are talking about the war that started in 1914. You wouldn't know about that.

Telly is a British thing. Yogi Bear invented it. There's another thread about telly. This thread is about Keith and his dogmatic approach to debate. Or at least from where I gingerly sit it is.

There was a time when it was about General Haig and his callous disregard for the wellbeing of those under his command. There was a time when it was about needless waste and slaughter of a generation and how we must be vigilant to ensure we never blindly follow those in charge again.

Mind you, from Keith's perspective it was about rattling your medals and pressing your blazer. Oh and promoting revisionist books on the culprits of war.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Nov 13 - 05:46 PM

Thanks for your good wishes for today Musket.
I hope your biopsies bring no nasty surprises.

I am challenging this.
His earlier work was highly critical of the commanders and purpose.   Yet in Catastrophe he does an about face.   Why

He is quite clear that mistakes were indeed made and is not uncritical of the leadership now, but he has made no "about face"

If he has, please prove me wrong with an extract or quote.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 03:11 AM

Oh, if you must quote the Nigel Jones review, try to include the bits where he seems to agree with my notes a couple of posts up....

Not one word of it does.
See here.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/historybookreviews/10382547/Catastrophe-by-Max-Hastings-review.html

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket asking the point
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 04:35 AM

Yes.. that is the one I read.

I suggest you read it too.

Then take a long look at your dogmatic certainties regarding Hastings in this and the earlier work Jones refers to. Interesting considering this was commissioned as a favourable review in order to look after their ex editor. ...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 04:48 AM

The earlier work referred to was not about WW1.

"try to include the bits where he seems to agree with my notes "

Not one word seems to agree with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 05:50 AM

"I suggest you read it too."

You know he can only handle a couple of sentences at a time. He's always asking for his info to be sliced, diced and pre-digested.

(See his rsponses to Jim).

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 05:58 AM

I do prefer short posts.
Be honest, do you read Jims multi-pagers?
Does anyone.

I did read this though.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/historybookreviews/10382547/Catastrophe-by-Max-Hastings-review.html

Can you find anything that agrees with Musket?
Go on.
Prove me wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 06:09 AM

"Weidenfeld & Nicolson   552pp   £20
ISBN 978 0 29784 652 9
Hart is one of the now-dominant school of Great War British military historians who feel that the real story of 1918 has been largely lost – muffled by the weight of the attention given to the disasters of 1915, the Somme and Passchendaele that first drowned the flower of Britain's pre-war army and then the volunteers of Kitchener's New Armies in glutinous, stinking mud.
He attempts here to give the much-reviled Field-Marshal Douglas Haig his due (some may think more than his due) with his insistence – backed by the words of the men who were there – that 1918 was an undisputed victory: a series of daring triumphs that smashed the seemingly eternal deadlock of the trenches, and shattered the apparently impregnable shield of the German defences. The breakthrough that Haig had sought in vain from Loos to Cambrai, via the Somme, Arras, Messines and Third Ypres, was at last achieved.
All this is fair enough, if hardly original. (The late John Terraine was making the same point back in the 1960s.) But in Hart's worm's-eye view there is a danger that the real grand strategic significance of the year is lost. Broadly, the troops that Ludendorff rushed to the Western Front for his offensives after Russia's collapse could not compensate for the great inexhaustible drafts of fresh blood pouring across the Atlantic into France, as the United States rode to the rescue of the exhausted Anglo-French. The psychological impact of America's arrival in the war on allies and enemies alike can hardly be over-emphasized.
Nevertheless Hart is a clear, down-to-mud writer who refuses – as some of his revisionist colleagues do not – to pretend that war is anything other than unmitigated Hell. He has chosen his sources well – from both sides of the lines – and his book is a magnificent tribute above all to 'the man who won the war': the British Tommy."

Not the leaders, not these mythical military geniuses who had learned from their earlier mistakes and lack of concen for hman life!........ the Tommies!

And sending in the subs from across the pond played a not insignificant part in those "sweeping 1918 victories" over a thoroughly worn out and disheartened enemy.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 06:15 AM

Thanks Troubadour.
That is one more historian to add to my list.