WWI, was No-Man's Land

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 10:00 AM

More irrelevant twaddle from Musket and Steve - how reassuring - if they actually had brains they'd be dangerous.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 10:03 AM

Not just alive Greg. They have to be sane too, don't forget

😂

Judging by the other WW1 thread, Terribulus seems to have lost the plot. Sad to see really.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw untwaddled
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 10:19 AM

The only twaddle around here is the twaddle involved in cherrypicking the historians who suit your preconceived notions, dissing the rest as non-historians then claiming that all historians agree with you.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 10:20 AM

As I said in my opening post. I am trying to keep it simple. Sites aimed at schools appeal to the lowest common denominator without any of the political leanings of more cynical presentations. I see no need at all to question their veracity. It was pretty easy to find that Greg Jenner, freelance writer and historian (qualifications unknown) is credited on a lot of programmes produced by the BBC, including "Horrible Histories", aimed specifically at children. In fact, the WW1 episode of that series is very good and here if you want to take a look. I would never say 'you lose' but the statement that BBC schools do not employ historians is somewhat misleading. However, even that is beside the point. I still stand by the statement that not all historians are in agreement. I think this point is indisputable.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 10:22 AM

Well come on down Steve Shaw untwaddled give us a name, or better still names - it is some thing that neither Musket or Jim Carroll have been able to do for over a year now.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 10:29 AM

Never had to try, you daft twat. You are the one spouting off bollocks. I'm just asking you to justify it and to date, you aren't doing very well.

Let's all join hands, close our eyes and invoke the presence of the historians!

😂😂😂🐴🐴🐴🙉🙈🙊

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw name-dropper
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 10:50 AM

I gave you a name and you immediately shot it down. Nothing to do with the fact that the guy didn't think much of Haig, I s'pose...?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 11:32 AM

"I gave you a name and you immediately shot it down. Nothing to do with the fact that the guy didn't think much of Haig, I s'pose...?" - Steve Shaw

Did you really now. Steve if you are going to lie then perhaps you should try and be a bit cleverer about doing it. You have posted 37 times to this thread, mostly inaccurate, misrepresentative crap and guess what? - you haven't mentioned the name of a single historian dead or alive that refutes anything the current crop believe - not one.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 11:50 AM

Liddell Hart believed that the frontal assault was a strategy that was bound to fail at great cost in lives (Wikipedia - Sure it can be substantiated elsewhere). And did not Liddell Hart vet Alan Clark's writings? Sorry, I know I am in this debate late but does that not refute some of the things that has been said and have these names not been mentioned earlier? By multiple people. I know that their work is currently out of fashion but wait another 10 years and it will be back. Again, not all historians agree.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw amused bemused unconfused
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 12:26 PM

[Just in case the end of my soubriquet gets snipped, it says "unconfused" :-) ]

Well I certainly gave you a name, Liddell Hart, who I see you pre-dissed. Valid to me, not to you. Valid to others too. If you don't like him because he changed his mind about Haig et al., er....tuff titty! Nothing quite shoots a big hole through evangelism like a demurrer....

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 12:26 PM

What I like is how Terribulus has sat and counted the number of posts from Steve.

Just think how much wiser he could be if he used that time constructively. Like finding out about the "great" war for instance.

Tell you what me old love, Steve may be a harmonica player and Liverpool fan, neither of which makes him easy to pair against at dinner parties, but a liar? Not sure I or anyone else on Mudcat can point to evidence to support that claim.

There again, drawing assessments from evidence doesn't appear to be your strong point.
🐴🐴🐴

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 12:27 PM

The research findings of the current generation of historians have discredited the work of the previous generation.

You people think they are all wrong just because the old view chimes better with your politics.

And that is an em passé and we should leave it there.

You think all the historians have now got it wrong and you know better.
I choose to inform myself of the most up to date findings.
Are we done?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 12:38 PM

The research findings of the current generation of historians have discredited the work of the previous generation.

Only in your distorted mind, Keith. Once again, since you haven't READ any books by any historians, and most certainly have not read the work of ALL historians, living and dead, you have no idea what you're talking about.

The Prince of Bullshit. And I'm thinking about upgrading you to King.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 12:44 PM

Well Greg, if there are any who still believe those old myths, why have none of you found one in over a year of searching.
On the evidence, I am fully justified in my statement.

You are welcome to believe that I am not well read but I have been able to produce quotes with links of a lot of historians, and you lot none.
(Except long dead ones.)

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 12:52 PM

Liddell Hart's writings were terribly biased as were Alan Clark's. The latter's being absolutely hammered by his contemporaries and his superiors:

"John Terraine and A. J. P. Taylor wrote damning reviews and historian Michael Howard wrote "As history, it is worthless", criticising its "slovenly scholarship".

"Professor Richard Holmes made a similar complaint, writing that "Alan Clark's The Donkeys, for all its verve and amusing narrative, added a streak of pure deception to the writings of the First World War.   Its title is based on 'Lions led by Donkeys'. Sadly for historical accuracy, there is no evidence whatever for this; none. Not a jot or scintilla. The real problem is that such histories have sold well and continue to do so. They reinforce historical myth by delivering to the reader exactly what they expect to read"."

"Graham Stewart, Clark's researcher for The Tories noted "Alan wasn't against quoting people selectively to make them look bad"

Alan Clark as a historian was not shy of just making things up when it suited his purpose - so not a very good historian. Even his tutor at Oxford Hugh Trevor Roper thought that.

Clark's book deals with a very specific part of the Great War namely the BEF campaign under Sir John French in 1915 - OWALW used it as being representative of the British Army and British Command throughout the entire war, which it most certainly was not.

Liddell Hart's "knowledge" was more than slightly suspect as they reflected the work of others General Sir Ivor Maxse (Infantry) and Major-General John Fuller (Tanks) which makes your opening sentence rather strange:

"Liddell Hart believed that the frontal assault was a strategy that was bound to fail at great cost in lives"

I say strange because the inescapable reality of the situation on the western front was uninterrupted lines of trench works running for ~400 miles from the Belgian coast to the Swiss Alps. If they were to be attacked it could only be by frontal assault and starting from 1916 onward the British and Commonwealth troops and their Commanders got better and better at it - Fuller and Maxse being two of them. The 100 Days Offensive fought under the direction and command of Haig in 1918 remains to this day to as the best offensive operation ever undertaken by a British Army. Haig was perfectly correct in his assessment in 1916 that Germany could only be militarily defeated by the Allies on the Western Front - nowhere else.

Liddell Hart advised Chamberlain and advocated appeasement - had Liddell Hart's view been adopted by Lloyd George in the First World War then Germany would have overrun France and won the War as there would have been no BEF in France at all. Mons and Cateau would not have happened the Germans would not have been delayed and the Marne would never have been fought.

A good illustration of this "military theorists" judgement was given early in 1944 when Basil Liddell Hart prepared and distributed a treatise titled "Some Reflections on the Problems of Invading the Continent" Which caused a gasp in the security services at the time.

Liddell Hart was WRONG in 1917; He was WRONG in the 1920s and 30s; He was wrong in the 1940s.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 01:09 PM

none of you found one in over a year of searching.

Wrong.

I have been able to produce quotes with links of a lot of historians

Yes, sound-bites you cut and pasted from websites and bogs. You still haven't read any historian's works.

If the sum total of the information contained in historians' works could be expressed in a 20-word sentance, they'd be rather foolish to have produced an extraneous several hundred pages in their books.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 01:34 PM

Would that be the same AJP Taylor who wrote that the senior officers in WW2 had learned from the institutional and systemic mistakes and blunders they witnessed as junior officers in WW1?

Just wondering like.

I notice "dead historans" has been updated to "long dead" historians. Looks like Keith has found something he needs to be prepared for if anyone else sees it...

Do your "historians" have to be on a right wing approved list perchance? Its just that you keep naming some who have given a more balanced view than you have both portrayed and at least one is by his own admission, left leaning as it were.

why does left v right mean so much to you if you are trying to put forward what you want to be seen as objective cold truth?

😂😂😂🐴🐴🐴

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 03:03 PM

Not alive anyway.

Greg ,If it is "wrong" that you lot have failed to find a single living historian who still believes the old myths, WHO IS HE/SHE???

You will never tell us because you really have not found one!
Will you prove me wrong?
Confident prediction, NO!

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 03:24 PM

John Terraine was just as biased in the other direction as Liddell Hart was in his, if not more so. He was nothing less than a pro-Haig evangelist. This kind of talk, the cherrypicking variety, is just the booby trap I warned you about but you didn't appear to listen. Your historian is shite compared to my historian blah blah. You have your conviction from which you cannot be budged. I' m still learning. Cheers for the lesson. You're teaching me loud and clear who not to believe, and you're absolutely first in line. And now we've got Keith, who you heartily and routinely defend, telling us that all dead historians are shite and we should only listen to the modern chaps. Distance lending enchantment to the view? :-)

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 03:47 PM

I am just telling you that modern historians don't believe that anymore.
Are you saying you don't believe them?

If so, I am happy to leave it there.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 03:53 PM

What gives you the right to ask loaded questions and judge the answers?

You aren't teaching PE now, prat.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 03:54 PM

I am happy to leave it there.

Promises, promises. Don't hold yer collective breaths, folks.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw historically non-judgemental
Date: 04 Dec 14 - 06:12 PM

I don't believe or not believe stuff that's supposed to be based on evidence, Keith. I don't believe or not believe either modern or dead historians, though I do recognise that the modern chappies, though undoubtedly wiser than those of old (he said ironically :-) ), are one more step removed from their sources. You talk as though, somehow, historical knowledge increases with time. That is a very doubtful proposition, old chap. In sum, I care not a jot about what modern historians "believe". I'd be far more interested in what they've gleaned from evidence.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 02:05 AM

More evidence does become available with time Steve.
The IWM archive of tens of thousands of original documents became available in the late 60s, as did secret government and military documents under the 50 year rule, but why do you disbeliev a whole generation of historians anyway?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 02:49 AM

The snag is, there is a lot to "believe" in what most historians conclude, but you are being selective to substantiate your belief and in doing so misrepresent most of those you put up as objective.

You said it yourself, left wing vs right wing. Nothing to do with discussing the reality some of us are actually interested in. You are merely dancing to the tune Michael Gove is calling.

With two right feet.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 03:28 AM

Well, I sat on the sidelines for ages but in the end decided I needed to point out that not all historians agree. Amongst the list of those who believe that the great war was not, well, great are many who are dismissed simply because they are dead. What a shame. On that basis we should never believe anything that a dead person has said. I wonder what Christians and Muslims make of that? I suppose, on that basis, that David Cameron must be a better politician than Clement Atlee. I am really glad that most people do not think the same way and I think I will go back to the sidelines.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 03:40 AM

We are all on the sidelines.

It's just that prodding the zealous clowns can be entertaining. The more they try to justify an absurd notion, the more funny it gets. When they snap and resort to childish "you lose" or posts that could fill a library, the more you want to go

😎😎😎😎😎😎




Yeah, that's childish too. But fun.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 04:42 AM

Guest, history moves on as more information becomes available.
In history as in science and every knowledge base, the views of those involved are refined and evolve with ever greater knowledge.

Musket, it is blatantly not true that I have been "selective"
I have produced actual, in context quotes from a large number of historians, and none of us have been able to find one that disagrees.
We have all found nothing else I could select from!

Steve, Keith. I don't believe or not believe either modern or dead historians,

Why ever not? Why would a non historian refuse to believe an historian.
You are like a religious fundamentalist refusing to believe geologists paleontologists and cosmologists.

though I do recognise that the modern chappies, though undoubtedly wiser than those of old (he said ironically :-) ), are one more step removed from their sources.

So you believe that every day we know less about history?!
You do not believe that historians' researches add to our knowledge at all?!

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 05:37 AM

Historical documents are written or recorded by people. They are then viewed, summarised and interpreted by other people, all of whom have their own views, prejudices and foibles. Historians are people just like that, not omniscient beings, and history is not an exact science. Which is why I chose to link the most simple and least prejudiced account I could find. The views of current historians are no more or less valid than the views of those who came before them or those who will come after and probably give us yet another slant on historic events. There is a book by Michael Moorcock that I read many years ago. Set in the distant future it refers to the ancient gods of Granbretan - Jhone, Jhorg, Phowl and Rhunga as well as Chirshil and Aral Vilsn. Obviously a fantasy but it made me wonder whether the slight changes each generation of historians make will eventually result in similar nonsense!

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 05:49 AM

Elric had stormbringer to settle scores though guest.. (Years since I read any Moorcock. Must get around to his escapism again.)

History tends to be written by the victors. Whilst accounts of WW1 are tossed around and different slants are put on, mainly (taking Keith and Terribulus's admission into account) political slants, there remain a few elephants in the room. Fields full of them actually.

Join the army and get to buy a farm.

Who could resist?
💀🔫

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw lied about
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 05:54 AM

I did not say that I disbelieved a whole generation of historians. I am trying to tell you, though you are not listening, that I don't come to conclusions based on belief. I don't believe or not believe geologists, cosmologists or palaeontologists. I hear what they say and ensure to the best of my ability that what they are saying is based on plausible evidence. I don't even not believe religious fundamentalists - I just want their evidence, that's all. Of course, I like to hear people's opinions, on the understanding that they are opinions, not edicts. What you are doing in these threads is telling us whose opinions you have chosen to believe, choices apparently based on your prejudices rather than scholarship. And if you've chosen not to believe particular people, you tell us they're not historians in order to cling on to some bogus unanimity that you see among the others. That isn't a good way forward.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 06:17 AM

Whenever Keith fails to make his point he scurries behind 'historians' he has not read
The thread inevitably becomes about historians nd their supposed views, niftily diverting the subject away from his ignorance |(asnd his disinterest - if he was interested he would at least come with a little knowledge gathered beforehand).
This thread is now about an invisible army of ghost historians - now there's a surprise!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 07:48 AM

On this "historians" thing, from the British perspective.

Past & Present:

Well real past would be those who lived through it. They, depending upon who they were and what they did got to see varying sizes and bits of the picture and they rushed to print in the immediate aftermath. Their view would be almost entirely British and there would be vast chunks of it that they just simply could not have known because of security and sensitivity of the information. They would not have access to any of the material say from the French, Belgian or German point of view. As such it is terribly subjective and lop-sided, and as previously stated everyone had an axe to grind with two notables seeking to hide their own failures by exaggerating the mistakes made by others who could not defend themselves.

This basically holds good for anyone writing between 1914 and 1964.

Since things like release of information under various rules makes more and more information available then once studied the history of any event can only be improved in direct proportion to the information you have on that event. The other aspect that improves with age is objectivity and that itself is improved on with access to material from foreign sources and since the 1970s more and more of this information has been brought into the public domain and translated.

Yes the study and understanding of history does improve with age - because you get to see more as there are far more sources that open up. Best example of this relates to a Fort on Hadrian's Wall - everybody knows about Hadrian's Wall, we learned from the study of history and archaeology how it was built and manned - that the Forts located along its length provided shelter for the men on watch where they lived, ate, drank and slept - we know this part from common sense, part from written records and part from bone and pottery fragments. That was what was all basically known up until the nineteenth century - by the time the twentieth was about three-quarters through our study of history and knowledge could actually tell us who these men were and where in the Roman Empire they came from - Hell we could even identify where the vineyards were and the type of wine they mulled to keep warm coming in from their watches on a winter's night purely by forensic examination of the broken pottery shards they left behind.

Another example relating to the First World War and one of the RFC's pilots, Major E.C. Mannock. He was shot down over enemy lines on the 26th July 1918. The crashsite and the wreckage of his plane was noted and observed by his wingman. With all this information, provided by "people who were there" the body of one of Great Britain's greatest fighter pilots was never found - missing believed dead, killed in action - Unknown except to God - UNTIL - 21st March 2009 - using translated information from German sources (Trench maps, logs and reports) it is now strongly suspected that the "Unknown British Airman" buried in Plot III, Row F, Grave 12 of the Laventie Commonwealth War Graves Commission war cemetery is Major "Micky" Mannock VC.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 08:11 AM

Well I wouldn't argue with any of that. Want we seem to be arguing about is interpretation of evidence. Good scholarship dictates that anyone wishing to form an opinion about historical realities had better do more than simply read and trust accounts by historians who are, after all, distilling evidence in their own sweet way. Some are right-wing, some left, some royalist, some republican, some sexist, some militaristic, none saints. Careful who you trust, that's all I'm saying, as a non-scholar of history though a scholar in one or two other spheres. Don't ask.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 08:29 AM

Returning to this thread for first time in a couple of days, I find

"From: Greg F. - PM
Date: 03 Dec 14 - 12:13 PM

'smatter, MG? Cat got yer tongue?"

Not sure if this addressed to me. If so, I just point out that I took issue with GF a few days back regarding his absurd predictions as to what other posters were sure to do, for which he had no warrant or evidence whatever; but with no intention of starting a conversational exchange with one whose views I generally find absurd, and his manners execrable.

My cat Cleo joins me in declining to engage further just at present, with the assurance that she is perfectly satisfied with her diet of catbix and cat-jellies from Tesco, and has no designs on my tongue or any other of my organs.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 09:10 AM

Jim, you keep saying I have not read history.
On WW1 I have.

Otherwise it means I made up those passages I transcribed from books.
It means it is just coincidence that my views are the same as theirs.
It means I quoted those historians at random and it was pure luck they all contradicted the old myths.

It does not matter anyway because it is a fact that they all contradict you, and a fact that none of you in over a year have found a single one that does not.

Musket,
Whilst accounts of WW1 are tossed around and different slants are put on,

On the points I have argued, all the ones any of us have managed to find in over a year of debate are in agreement.
And they agree with me because I got my views from them.

You have still not found one single living historian who believes the old myths you cling to.

Musket again, you mention "political slants."
Like a religious fundamentalist, you ignore the evidence amassed by the historians because your political creed tells you what it must have been like.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 09:45 AM

I find it rather interesting that the following applies.

The previous secretary of state for education, Michael Gove made a statement in 2011 saying that schools were not taking enough regard to publications that put the role of military planners, leaders and government in a good light. He stated that with the upcoming centenary of the war, we need to celebrate success, not question by the standards of today.

The Prime Minister qualified this and stated there was need to note but not celebrate.

The secretary of state for defence said that the military were not being held in high regard and this was affecting recruitment.

Michael Gove goes on the attack, calling BBC 'lefty' and saying Blackadder is socialist propaganda. One of the actors, Tony Robinson defends the historical background their comedy was set in.

Right wing newspapers, columnists and others start a concerted effort to sanitise, highlight the elements of published history that infer good leadership at the expense of writings that question decisions, tactics and results.



In chronology terms, this has even reached Mudcat with Keith A of Hertford and Teribus claiming anybody who disagrees with what they call truth is a left wing fundamentalist.

It is good to see so many people not prepared to let them get away with it.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 09:54 AM

Do not be silly.
The historians have been saying this for decades.
Many of the links we provided were to decades old pieces.

Or perhaps we are part of the conspiracy too, as well as all the universities, BBC, etc.
Is that what you are suggesting?
Is that rational?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 11:40 AM

Thought you were leaving again, Keith - or is this just more W.S. Gilbert?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 11:45 AM

...what other posters were sure to do, for which he had no warrant or evidence whatever...

Well, now Em Gee Em, lets try the facts for a change.

Comment was about a single poster, it was based on extensive evidence of his history of behaviour, and you know what? My "prediction" came true several times over. So I guess it wasn't so absurd after all, eh?

So un-knot your nickers & bugger off.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Some bloke in Scotland
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 12:10 PM

funny, I didn't know the historians was a single view?

What do you mean when you say " the historians"? At a glance, there are hundreds and hundreds of accounts, and Keith A of Hertford mentions a handful, and then cherry picks his quotes.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 12:24 PM

The army performed well under competent leadership.
No historian has been found who challenges that.
The people overwhelmingly believed the war necessary.
No historian has been found who challenges that.
The war was necessary.
All agree on that too, apart from one far right Tory.

No cherry picking because there is nothing else to pick.
(unless you or anyone has now found something. Have You?)

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 02:12 PM

I have already mentioned Greg Jenner, consultant on Horrible Histories. Has anyone seen the link I posted?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 03:37 PM

"No historian has been found who challenges that."
You've linked six historians - only one line from oe historian disputes that and he's in the armament industry
You have invented all your historians - none of them claim anything like what you say they do
You've been telling porkies
You are a joke - roll over and die for the Queen
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 05:02 PM

Why, then, Gregory Fatuous, who was the 'MG' you addressed so impudently, then?

I have not the least intention of buggering off on your say-so, you arrogant jumped-up little nobody.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 05:11 PM

Why, then, Gregory Fatuous, who was the 'MG' you addressed so impudently, then?

Why Em-Gee, it was your own illustrious, arrogant, jumped-up, fatuous self! Cleo apparently has all the brains and tact in the family, eh?- she can probably tell a fact when she sees one and likely admits when she's in error.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 05:24 PM

Jim, you can find no historian who still believes what you do.
You claim they are all involved in a conspiracy of lies to help the arms industry.
Is the BBC complicit too.
It has published or broadcast most of them, and put some on an international list of "ten leading historians."

You people are beyond parody.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Greg F.
Date: 05 Dec 14 - 06:35 PM

on an international list of "ten leading historians."

They certainly seem to be leading YOU by the nose, Keith. Question is, where and what have they leading you TO??

You claim they are all involved in a conspiracy of lies to help the arms industry.

No-one has made this claim EXCEPT YOU!

You people are beyond parody.

Can you try that again & in English this time?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 06 Dec 14 - 03:13 AM

On the thread Keith started in order to make everybody else look stupid, oh and failed spectacularly, someone asked why Keith doesn't include AJP Taylor in his little list of prophets err historians.

That thread has come to a satisfactory conclusion so not much point in revisiting it.

The reason is that I keep pointing out that AJP Taylor, in his fairly definitive account of WW2 points out repeatedly that senior officers had learned the lessons the hard way when as junior officers in WW1 they witnessed and to their shame were involved with the awful decisions and methods. They had no intention of repeating them.

Perhaps that's why Keith glossed over the one historian named on these threads who puts the e in eminent.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Dec 14 - 03:29 AM

☝☝☝☝-up: who thinks GregF is a waste of space and a mannerless yobbo?