BS: Christmas Truce (1914)

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 12:21 PM

I know Dave.
Just priming you.
Enjoy.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 12:15 PM

Not seen it yet Keith so I cannot comment.

Cheers

D

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 12:03 PM

Sheffield and others certainly said that, and I will happily post it up again.

No threat of invasion of Britain?
I supplied copious historical evidence that the threat was very real, as did the programme last night.
Perhaps you fell asleep through that bit Jim.

They should never have been sent unprepared as they were

No alternative Jim.
France and Belgium would have fallen and we would have been next.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 11:24 AM

"That was all the army we had when the German onslaught began."
They should never have been sent unprepared as they were - it was simple slaughter coupled with humiliation.
"That is what Gary Sheffield and other historians have said, and it is what I have said."
No he didn't - none of them did.
They have agreed that there was no threat of invasion of Britain and with a litle preparation they could have made an immediate difference in Europe - "Lions led by Donkeys" as the man said.
One historian actual entitled her book "Sleepwalking into War" and this is exactly how last night's programme described Britain's entry into the war
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 10:00 AM

Musket,
I'll stick to the accounts of those who were there.

So will I.
So do the historians.
But, not just a narrow, unrepresentative selection that appealed to all those leftie intellectuals of the 1930s.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 09:53 AM

You have yet to comment on the fiasco of sending an unprepared and inadequately sized army in to be wiped out at Mons

That was all the army we had when the German onslaught began.
We were unprepared for the war, and never wanted it.
They were well equipped and well trained, and eventually stopped the German advance very effectively as Terribus said.


Dave, I am sure you will agree that the message of last night's programme was that Britain had no choice but to resist the German onslaught, and the British people overwhelmingly understood and accepted that.

That is what Gary Sheffield and other historians have said, and it is what I have said.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 08:56 AM

On the basis of the information they had been fed by Government propaganda - you have been given precise details of what that iformation was and how it was delivered
Your star witness (Gary Sheffield) appears to have blown up in your face, he has ether been misrepresented by you (almost certain), has changed his mind or has not done his job properly.
You have yet to comment on the fiasco of sending an unprepared and inadequately sized army in to be wiped out at Mons.
The programme reported that the divine intervention of The Angel of Mons was a result of the men being traumatised by their defeat.
"a mere "mobbing" exercise"
The Chocolate Soldier rides again.
What you are trying to say is that Keith is the sole jingoist contributing to this debate, he started that way and has had no support whatever - he remains in the minority of one (you don't count - you've stayed back at headquarters while Keith has been conducting his one-man campaign - just like the Generals, senior officers and politicians.
The facts presented in last night's programme,( on the competence of the military leadership, the morale among soldiers, the reasons why men joined, the information they were given, their being forced and tricked into joining..... cut the legs completely from under every single one of his arguments
Your soemwhat late interventio here is a little like the lads who went in after the Little Big Horn Massacre to pick up the pieces.
Dis-miss Corporal Terminus
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 08:43 AM

Well, even from this height, Keith still sounds like an absurd soft cunt and now Teribus is sucked in by the concerted effort to rewrite historical fact.

Rather disgraceful really.

I'll stick to the accounts of those who were there. I'll stick to the appalling statistics. I'll stick to the jingoistic attempts to sow seeds in heads. I'll believe we executed our own soldiers for not being up to expecting the truth when they got there.

Enjoy your revision. It comes just in time for celebrating 1914. Let's face it, if the truth hadn't been sanitised over the last couple of years, we would have to commemorate political failure and that would never do.

Voltaire 1. Fools 0.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 08:39 AM

I have it recorded, ready to watch. I think it is available on iplayer as well for those who are interested.

Just as an aside I find it fascinating that people will view the same program and get entirely different things from it. The show remains the same but the interpretations are different. Pretty much like peoples opinions of the same history sources :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 06:45 AM

About 9 minutes in, Paxman to camera.

"Most people seemed to have accepted that the war had to be fought.
To honour treaties. To defend the empire. To protect Britain.
And, what else were they supposed to do?
To sit back and watch as Germany amassed an empire from Russia to the shores of the English Channel?
Now war had broken out, almost everyone backed it.
Most trade unions suspended strikes, which had been common."

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Teribus
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 06:40 AM

As far as I can see and read in this exchange and what it has generated into - a mere "mobbing" exercise - in terms of debate Keith is wiping the floor with the lot of you as regards reasoning, fact and source material.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 06:32 AM

You've had the total drift of the programme - not carefully selected snippets that have nothing whatever to do with its contents.
You have taken a couple of quotes that in no way contradict the fiasco into Belgium, the recruiting, the reasons they joined - nothing
C'mon - you're not even trying to justify you'r jingoism - give us a bit of a competition!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Teribus
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 06:32 AM

Under the terms of the treaty known as the Entente Cordiale (1904) the size of the British Force to be sent to France in the event of hostilities breaking out was set.

Undermanned:
Naturally the British Force was undermanned in comparison to its continental equivalent, the British force comprised entirely of volunteers the larger European Armies were conscripted.

Unprepared:
The British Army were taught some pretty painful lessons in South Africa, but learn them they did. By 1914 when it came to infantrymen skilled in "fire-and-manoeuvre" tactics they were second to none, and although small in number they were perfectly capable of making their presence felt. According to the Historian George Gordon - " The BEF was probably the best trained and most experienced of the European armies of 1914"

Ever heard of something called the "Mad Minute"? It was an individual firing drill. The British Army training of the day emphasised rapid marksmanship and the average British soldier was able to hit a man-sized target fifteen times a minute, at a range of 300 yards with his rifle firing over 36 rounds per minute. This ability to generate a high volume of accurate rifle-fire astounded German troops who had to face it and it ended up playing an important role in the BEF's battles of 1914.

Battle of Mons 23rd August 1914:
German Forces - 160,000 men supported by 600 guns
German casualties – 5,000 men
British Forces - 80,000 men supported by 300 guns
British casualties – 1,638 men
Result of the engagement was that even although outnumbered two-to-one in terms of manpower and artillery the German advance was successfully and crucially delayed. At the end of the engagement the BEF far from being destroyed was still a force in being.

Does that sound like humiliating defeat?

Battle of Le Cateau 26th August 1914. - Another successful holding action halted the German advance for a further five days, the BEF still continued to exist, it continued to manoeuvre and it was ready in all respects to play its part in the Battle of the Marne which stopped the German Schlieffen Plan in its tracks.

First battle of the Marne 5th – 12th September 1914 - Decisive Allied Victory
Allied Forces – 1,071,000 men (39 French Divisions + 6 British Divisions)
German Forces – 1,485,000 men (27 German Divisions)
Allied Losses – 81,700
German Losses – 220,000

All over by Christmas - Was a popular misconception held by all sides, it was not the official view held by any of the combatant powers. The popular misconception was fueled by recent experience of wars involving industrial powers dating back to the Franco-Prussian War all of which were of short duration so to the general public why should this one be any different.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 06:01 AM

So, far from our government wanting war, we were completely unprepared to even hold the German armies.
They had an army 2 millions. Ours a few thousand.
"This contemptible little army" (The Kaiser)

Far from wanting it, the prime minister and senior ministers, at different times, cried like babies at the prospect of it.

The authorities were overwhelmed with volunteers.
Far more than they could cope with.
The greatest number came forward after the chaotic retreat before overwhelming German numbers, when there was no longer any question of a quick victory, but every prospect of a crushing defeat.

There was no enthusiasm.
Just an acceptance.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 04:51 AM

Incidentally - the expeditionary force that was sent ill prepared and undermanned to defeat at Mons went in the full understanding that it would be a short war - a formality that "would be all over by Christmas" (quoted in the programme).
It should be remembered that Keith's historian Gary Sheffield is a leading advisor to the BBC series.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 04:13 AM

I take it you all watched the magnificently presented first programme on the First World War on BBC " last night.
How the war was a struggle for European domination by the Imperial powers, instigated by Germany breaking ranks by overstepping the mark.
The gross miscalculation by the British military in sending an unprepared and undersized army into Belgium to be slaughtered, defeated humiliated and disheartened at Mons.
The realisation that the war could not be won without a huge campaign to recruit volunteers, so they put the fanatical Kitchener in charge - he set about persuading those recruits that they "shouldn't drink alchohol or consort with members of the opposite sex" while they were in Europe.
The recruiting campaign was, as has been previously stated, based on moral blackmail, appeals to 'manhood, and 'virility' racist depiction of the German people as "blood-thirst beasts" - "Germany should be wiped off the face of the world".
The atrocities that were undoubtedly taking place in Belgium were grossly exaggerated to back up this picture of Germans - figures inflated and and incidents distorted.
One story put about was of the British nurse working in a Belgian hospital was reported to have been "raped repeatedly, had one of her breasts cut off, then bayonetted" - he was, in fact, safe and sound and unharmed at home in Hartlepool "with both breasts intact" when the reports were published.
Part of the recruiting campaign was "to raise money to pay for petticoats for the cowardly men who didn't enlist".
The misleading poster campaign was aimed at putting across the message that volunteers were fighting for "God, King and Country".   
Protests had taken place in Britain claiming that the British people had no argument with the German workers.
The British people were persuaded otherwise by exaggerated claims of imminent invasion, based on the bombardment of Scarborough.
The coastal authorities set about warning farmers that this threat was real by demanding that farmers on the coast should move all their livestock inland, and those that could not be moved should be maimed "so they would be of no use to the enemy".
The programme covered the recruiting drive bt Horatio Bottomly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Bottomley

A declared bankrupt, he became a millionaire overnight with lurid shows persuading the nation of the monstrous nature of the German people, profiteering by sending young men to their deaths with grotesque theatrical productions based on a racist depiction of the German people
He became a member of Parliament and was eventually imprisoned for fraud theft and false accounting.
Rivetting viewing.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jan 14 - 03:38 AM

"Bloody minded"
"Idiocy"
That is what you call reading History and quoting it to the uninformed?

I am glad you are going.
Your only contribution was a link to a library(!) and to name two books you had not read and which did not contradict me.
One of them actually supported me.

The rest of your posts just claimed repetitively that there are dissenting historians, but never actually identifying one.

Not one single one in 12 weeks.
Good job Greg.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jan 14 - 11:11 AM

Relax, Dave - This pig ain't ever going to learn to sing (or to read history for that matter), and he gives stupidity and bloody-mindedness a bad name. I think his idiocy is apparent tyo all & sundry, & I've tired myself out. He can continue to play with himself if he so desires;
I'm outa this one. ;>)

G.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jan 14 - 11:01 AM

Get a room you two :-)

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jan 14 - 10:58 AM

You have not read those two books either Greg.
Reynolds supports my views.
The reviews clearly show that.
(Unless you can provide any quote from either book that says different Greg? Ha Ha!)

"An intelligent assessment of the impact of the first world war on Britain that challenges its iconic status as a world of gloomy trenches, anti-war poets and wasted lives."

" During this second phase, he argues, the great war assumed its iconic status as a world of gloomy trenches, antiwar poets and wasted lives, and has, on the whole, stayed that way up to the present. He fears that the commemorations next year will be filled with more Sassoon and Owen, and melancholy evocations of life on the western front."

"Reynolds understands that the idea of the great war as trenches and poems grew in significance from the 1960s, and was soon embedded in school curricula and media representations of the conflict (unlike in continental European countries, where the war receded in popular memory due to the horrors and conflicts provoked by world war two). He is surely right to argue that this has narrowed the popular perspective. "

"Reynolds goes further. He argues that we have "lost touch" with the Great War, in large measure because of a "peculiar British preoccupation" with the poetry rather than the history: "1914-18 has become a literary war, detached from its moorings in historical events". On this account, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon have a lot to answer for."

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 27 Jan 14 - 10:00 AM



Yup- book reviews, internet blogs and graphic novels.

Come back after you've actually read the books you prattle on about.

Until then, rave on, fool.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jan 14 - 04:31 AM

Open University.
"The escalation of the crisis to full-scale war was in no small measure due to Germany's war plans. But more importantly, it unleashed the war with Germany's invasion of neutral countries to the West.

The violation of Belgian neutrality in particular proved to Germany's enemies that they were fighting an aggressive and ruthless enemy. It provided the perfect propaganda vehicle for rallying the country behind an unprecedented war effort and sustained the will to fight for four long years of war.

And it provided ample proof, if proof were needed, for the victors to allocate responsibility for the outbreak of the war to Germany and its allies."
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/world-history/the-schlieffen-plan

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 27 Jan 14 - 02:27 AM

The reviews prove that Reynolds' book supports my views.
They prove that you, Greg, have no idea what is in his book.
I have read widely on the History of this conflict.
It is a life-long interest of mine.

That is how I am able to produce names and quotes of so many historians.
It is why not one of you can produce a single one.

Some of the historians quoted on these threads in support of my views.
Saul David, Nigel Jones, Richard Holmes, Peter Hart, David Stephenson,
Fritz Fischer, Dan Todman, Gary Sheffield, Max Hastings, Malcolm Brown, Stuart Halifax, Catriona Pennel, Margaret MacMillan, William Philpott, Tristram Hunter, Dan Snow, Ian McMillan, David Renolds.

All of those quoted in contradiction of my views.
None.

Am I alone in knowing that History.
On Mudcat, yes.
In the real world, no.
Intelligent, informed people know what I know.
See Paxo tonight for instance.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 04:44 PM

History By Book Review. Absolutely pitiful. And ridiculous.

Since you've obviously never READ any history, its easily explained why you have a minimal familiarity with and grasp of it, and wouldn't know real history if it reared up and bit you on the arse. Hence your nonsensical claims and rationalizations of the BS you believe.

Do they have "Readers' Digest" condensed editions of great literature in Britain, or do you prefer graphic novels?

However why you are absolutely devoid of the ability to reason and think critically is anyone's guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 04:06 PM

Grishka, The only views I expressed were that Britain had no choice but to resist the German onslaught, the British people overwhelmingly understood and accepted that, and that the British army was not badly led.
No living historian has been shown to contradict any of the above.
I have shown copious support.

Greg, do you think the reviewers are lying about what they read in the book?
All of them?
That is your case?

You have clearly never read either book or any living historian.
I have.
That is why I have been able to quote so many, while all of you together have found nothing.

Where do you think Paxman got the same views as me?
From the historians.
Where do your views come from?
Nowhere!
Enjoy Paxman's programme tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 03:20 PM

... people who have not read any recent historical work.

I hope you recognize yourself in this category,fool, since all you have read- as you yourself have stated- are book reviews of books on history.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 03:17 PM

You can quote as many reviews as you like Keith - but until you have read the BOOKS, and can quote from THEM, you'd best shut the fuck up since you're only adding more evidence to support the already established fact that you are a complete idiot.

And despite what Grishka says, there are indeed losers by your nonsense: Fact loses, reality loses, rational thought loses, any pretense at knowing actual history (rather than sound bites and/or book reviews) loses & on & on.

Now, about that list of ALL living historians worldwide........

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 02:28 PM

Grishka, I am disappointed that you can not remember the quotes I have provided supporting the first view.

Sorry, I should have written: among the links you posted today. Earlier on, you did mention some nationalists. Nationalists are nationalists (- I mentioned one criterion for identifying them thus -), whatever their expertise on, say, "military history". It may well be that this subject is most attractive for people with ideological views - so it was for communists, BTW.

I know that you are immune to parables, but other readers may imagine someone writing "The White Man had no option but to fight the Negro, given that Emperor Bokassa publicly threatened to dominate the world." What would be the reaction?

You also failed to react on my offers to discuss each of the many aspects of your theses individually. Some of these are undisputed, others are irrelevant, the most crucial ones contain their ideological load in their very formulations, as I amply pointed out.

I would not bother to post to this thread at all were it not for the new rise of nationalism and bellicisme in many western countries. It is in fact about possible future wars, not about past ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 01:51 PM

The only views I expressed were that Britain had no choice but to resist the German onslaught, the British people overwhelmingly understood and accepted that, and that the British army was not badly led.
No living historian has been shown to contradict any of the above.

Grishka, I am disappointed that you can not remember the quotes I have provided supporting the first view.
Sheffield, Todman and Hastings for a start.
If that does not jog your memory, I can soon find them again.
I have shown that several historians specifically support the view, and not one contradicts.

It is true that in the tiny pond that is Mudcat, I am a lone voice, shouted down by people who have not read any recent historical work.
In the real world, intelligent, informed people exemplified by Jeremy Paxman, know what I know.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 12:57 PM

Keith, in all the texts you link us to, I cannot read any claim that the British leaders had no other option than to do what they did, or to surrender.

Whoever uses nationalist terminology, such as names of countries as if they were single persons, is a nationalist, whatever her or his qualification as a historian.

You are not only wrong in many ways, as I pointed out many times, you also "lost" in a technical sense:

1. Among the many British Mudcatters who are happy to wave the Union flag (- one of them defends using the H word in another thread -), not a single one comes to support your theses, being so obviously indefensible.
2. On 04 Jan 14 - 10:35 AM, you described the texts copy-pasted by Jim Carroll as "unreadable tosh". Since they are obviously easier to read than most treatises on history (beyond mere military topics), you do not understand these either.

Note that this does not mean that anybody else "wins". Other losers are those who continue this thread without anything new and precise to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 12:06 PM

Here, historian Margaret McMillan writes about modern historians including david Reynolds.

"Now is surely the right time to challenge the accepted views. The wartime generals were not all cowards and incompetents as Alan Clark argued in his infamous The Donkeys (1961). A new generation of British historians, among others, has done much to explode such lazy generalisation and show that commanders developed both strategies and tactics that, in the end, worked. And was the war just a dreadful mistake or was it about something? At the time people on all sides thought they had a just cause. It is condescending and wrong to think they were hoodwinked."
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/7b6f0490-6347-11e3-a87d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2rWZC3uoT

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 11:44 AM

Another review.
Times Higher Education Supplement.
"Reynolds goes further. He argues that we have "lost touch" with the Great War, in large measure because of a "peculiar British preoccupation" with the poetry rather than the history: "1914-18 has become a literary war, detached from its moorings in historical events". On this account, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon have a lot to answer for."
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/the-long-shadow-the-great-war-and-the-twentieth-century-by-david-reynolds/2008721.ar

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 11:32 AM

You clearly have not read the review or either of the books!

Just like Musket saying in his last post, "I have read some of the above and let me tell you, they don't."
If he were not lying, he would have given a name and/or a quote.
He gave neither because he has neither.

From the review,
"An intelligent assessment of the impact of the first world war on Britain that challenges its iconic status as a world of gloomy trenches, anti-war poets and wasted lives."

" During this second phase, he argues, the great war assumed its iconic status as a world of gloomy trenches, antiwar poets and wasted lives, and has, on the whole, stayed that way up to the present. He fears that the commemorations next year will be filled with more Sassoon and Owen, and melancholy evocations of life on the western front."

"Reynolds understands that the idea of the great war as trenches and poems grew in significance from the 1960s, and was soon embedded in school curricula and media representations of the conflict (unlike in continental European countries, where the war receded in popular memory due to the horrors and conflicts provoked by world war two). He is surely right to argue that this has narrowed the popular perspective. "

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 11:20 AM

Actually, Keith, the Guardian review does no such thing. But even if the REVIEW did, it wouldn't matter, since THE BOOK DOES NOT. You obviously haven't read the book.

"The Fateful Year" DOES, indeed, address a number of the issues that you have expressed a view about, which you would know had you read the book- which it is obvious you have not done, again.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 10:08 AM

I am adding David Reynolds to my list.
Thanks Greg.
Mark Bostridge's The Fateful Year is mainly concerned with events preceding the outbreak of war and does not address any of the issues that I have expressed a view about.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Jan 14 - 04:54 AM

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/13/long-shadow-great-war-david-reynolds-review

This Guardian review shows that Reynolds shares my views.
You lose Greg.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Jan 14 - 07:04 PM

OK, Keith, since you are congenitably unable to find these things for yourself, do read (gasp! READ??? NOT ON THE INTERNET????) Mark Bostridge's The Fateful Year and David Reynolds' The Great War.

Then we'll talk.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jan 14 - 05:23 PM

Some of the historians quoted on these threads in support of my views.
Saul David, Nigel jones, Richard Holmes, Peter Hart, David Stephenson,
Fritz Fischer, Dan Todman, Gary Sheffield, Max Hastings, Malcolm Brown,
Stuart Halifax, Catriona Pennel, Margaret MacMillan, William Philpott,
Tristram Hunter. Dan Snow Ian McMillan.

There are none who disagree with me.
That is why you can not name a single one Greg.

That is why, after twelve weeks of bulshitting, not one of you can quote a single one, while I can produce that extensive list.
You lose.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Jan 14 - 03:23 PM

Some of the historians quoted on these threads in support of my views.

No, no, NO! - you didn't say some, you said ALL.

So let's have the complete list of all historians worldwide.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jan 14 - 05:34 AM

Enjoy your holiday Musket.
Poor Paxamn.
His views "blown out of the water" by your razor-like intellect.

Paxman is on the front cover of next week's Radio Times as Kitchener.
He gives an interview reiterating his views.
You should get a copy.
There are a lot of programmes coming up you will seriously want to avoid!

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jan 14 - 02:39 AM

Jeremy Paxman is not an historian, but being intelligent his views come from History, not his own prejudices and fantasies.
Before his programme on Monday, here are some of his opinions.

"Don't insult my Uncle Charlie or his comrades. Their sacrifice in WWI foiled Germany's plan to rule the world,"

"Yet we are stuck with the default conviction that the First World War was an exercise in purposelessness. That was not the prevailing view at the time. On the contrary, Lord Kitchener's appeal for volunteers in the early days of the war had been so successful that lines at recruitment offices snaked for blocks down city streets.
The great harvest of anti-war memoirs and novels did not appear until ten years after the Armistice. Throughout it all, the resolve of the British people did not weaken."

"What aggravates our ignorance is the false assumption that we do understand the First World War. We need to cast ourselves back into the minds of these men and their families, to try to inhabit the assumptions of their society rather than to replace them with our own.
How, one wonders, would the teacher explain to her students that after writing his celebrated denunciations of battle, Wilfred Owen returned to the Western Front to continue fighting and, furthermore, described himself in his last letter to his mother as 'serene'? It was, he said, 'a great life'."

"The retrospective narrative of innocent conscripts, dullard generals and boneheaded battle plans has become tiresomely familiar. It is precisely because the Great War changed so much that we understand it so little."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2428591/JEREMY-PAXMAN-Dont-insult-Uncle-Charlie-comrades.html

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 07:56 AM

Keith's rather absurd insistence that all the "historians" he listed are saying the same as each other

Of course they are not.
I only claim that they agree on the 3 points that are my sole case here.

I have quoted numerous historians in support of my views.
None of you in 12 weeks could find a single one that does not.

Either the historians are wrong, or you are.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Musket
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 06:44 AM

Keith's rather absurd insistence that all the "historians" he listed are saying the same as each other, and bizarrely, the same as him is interesting.

Also easy to dismiss.

I have read some of the above and let me tell you, they don't.

Ok. Can we close the thread now? I sort of promised Joe Offer I only respond never start an argument, and this thread needs no further input as I have just blown Keith out of the water.

It's nice to be a fucking genius.

I'm out of it anyway. No idea of internet availability most of the time for the next two weeks, skiing in the land of the cheese eating surrender monkeys. Although I know what to expect when I get there and why I am going, unlike my Granddad.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 05:14 AM

"Hiding behind historians" if you mean learning from them.
I am guilty of that, unlike you.

And it is what they DO say.
That is why I have put up so many quotes, with links to show them in their intended context.

So, unless all the historians are wrong, you are Jim.
Don't miss the Paxman programme on Monday.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 04:08 AM

"They call me idiot for believing renowned, professional historians "
Still hiding behind historians and what they didn't say - thought your coming to grief as badly as you have on the Christian Persecution thread might have taught you a lesson.
Told you the war wouldn't be over by Christmas
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 02:20 AM

Some of the historians quoted on these threads in support of my views.
Saul David, Nigel jones, Richard Holmes, Peter Hart, David Stephenson,
Fritz Fischer, Dan Todman, Gary Sheffield, Max Hastings, Malcolm Brown,
Stuart Halifax, Catriona Pennel, Margaret MacMillan, William Philpott,
Tristram Hunter.

Still waiting for that single dissenting voice Greg.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 06:23 PM

No, Keith, you have quoted exactly two. Apoparently in addition to neo being able tro reasun, you are unable to count. Not surprising, I suppose, for somone shown by his own system conclusively to be a idiot.

Still waiting for that list of "all" historians worldwide.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 02:55 PM

I have quoted numerous professional historians in support of my stated views.
You have not found a single one yet.
It is as if they all share my views, but none yours.
That would suggest I am right, and you are wrong.
Strongly.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 12:39 PM

I back up everything with hard evidence.

Amusing. You have cited no hard evidence whatsoever - just the opinions of 2 individuals with dubious qualifications.

But what could oneexpect from an individual who by application of his own system is classified as a complete idiot.

Still waiting for that list of "all" historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Jan 14 - 09:54 AM

I don't ask for any credence Greg.
I back up everything with hard evidence.

You still can't find one single historian can you!?
You lose.