BS: Armistice Day (debate)

Subject: BS: Armistice Day (unmoderated)
From: mg
Date: 09 Nov 13 - 09:09 PM

Here you go.

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Please note: this thread is no less moderated than any other BS thread. -Mod

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Nov 13 - 10:07 AM

"I guess we all know why the 14 - 18 was fought?"

Come on then, let's have your reasons!!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Nov 13 - 10:56 AM

Reasons:

1. There was a 'will to war' amongst the leaders of Germany,

2. The German government wanted events to slide into war in 1914,

3. The German government had a plan of expansion very similar to that of Nazi Germany in the 1930s,

4. This was as a result of social and economic factors inside Germany - the ATTITUDE of Germans - as much as it was the result of any fears about foreign policy or the international scene.

Blame the krauts!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 03:54 AM

Thanks Keith I would like to return to the why.

"Lest we forget" and the popies are are essential and powerful but what is also essential is understanding why the 14 - 18 started and carried on as it did.

I don't know why - I guess that's my own fault. I think you are the only one to respond to my question - perhaps others will?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 05:17 AM

They didn't. Nobody patronised them either.

It was carnage and slaughter for no reason.

Sad but true.

If there were any reason for the First World War, "lest we forget" would be self evident and unnecessary.

The church that asks me each and every year to sing the song had, when I first started doing it many years ago, veterans from that time. I never heard any view from those people other than the blinkered drift into a war that was talked up till it became inevitable. A full contrast to The Second World War where totalitarian methods of achieving aims were roundly rejected. Whilst such ideology still exists, they are withering and dying out. Slowly, but surely. Control of people without their consent is being questioned, whether it be from the dispatch box or the pulpit.

That is the legacy we have from those who fought. Including the First World War veterans. The snag is, Bogle sums up the thoughts of those who fought in his songs, and to those who hold little Englander ideals dear, that is anathema....




I am not going to say any more on this topic. Michael asked for moderation and someone is trying to spill his baiting of me to this thread, and that is sad.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 05:25 AM

I have made the same point many times on this subject.
It is not about you.
There are thousands of diaries and collections of letters.
The did know and believe in what they were doing.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 05:32 AM

Not sure what this means Ms/Mr Musket

"If there were any reason for the First World War, "lest we forget" would be self evident and unnecessary."

The people - leaders (?) the Captains and the Kings decided to have that war and decided to carry it on as they did and millions of ordinary women and men died and suffered,

Who were the C & K and why did they organise that war?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 06:28 AM

Am I right in thinking that if we don't understand why wars happen we are less likley to stop them happening again?

WW1 & WW2 were quite different in a number of ways but I am not at all sure that many of us understand that.

The current strife in Syria is terrible but I think the US and others finally realised that sending guns and soldiers would almost certainly make things worse. Good call?

Maybe it's not the Vets organisations place or job to search for the reasons that wars are engaged - but it is certainly somebody's job.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 08:14 AM

The BBC series on the subject identified four underlying causes of WW 1, as follows:

    ""Nationalism - the belief that your country is better than others. This made nations assertive and aggressive.
    Imperialism - the desire to conquer colonies, especially in Africa. This brought the powers into conflict - Germany wanted an empire. France and Britain already had empires.
    Militarism (Arms Race) - the attempt to build up a strong army and navy gave nations the means and will to make war.
    Alliances - in 1882, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy formed the Triple Alliance. This alarmed, France, Britain and Russia. By 1907, they had all joined the Triple Entente. Europe was divided into two armed camps, to help each other if there was a war.""

Then of course, the spark that set off the kindling, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, often mistakenly quoted as the reason.

As to whether those who died knew why, of course many of the better educated did, but there were hundreds of thousands of young men who joined up in an enthusiastic desire for adventure, travel and glory, whose knowledge of the reasons was minimal at best.

In an era when news travelled slowly, many men had never been more than a few miles from the place of their birth, and recruiters didn't care to inform, how was a young farm lad to know about international politics?

If asked why they were there, many would say simply "Somebody's got to give the Hun a bloody good kicking". It was what they were told! It was exactly the same on the other side too.

So Eric wasn't, I think, patronising too many people. If he had written the same about WW 2, that would have been patronising.

However, aware or not, they deserve our respect and they deserve our continuing remembrance. Whichever war they died in, they did it for us.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 08:27 AM

Britain declared war on Germany in response to the invasion of Belgium.
It was a war of liberation.

You can discuss why Germany invaded Belgium, but not why Britain went to war.
Britain was treaty bound to assist Belgium.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 08:27 AM

We'll put Don.

Too often, people confuse Remembrance with celebration. Celebration of the fact of the existence of war it is not, Remembrance of those on all sides who suffered and died in the conflicts of the 20th, and this current, centuries it most certainly is. And rightly so, IMHO.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 08:28 AM

Thanks Don, I find that most informative.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 08:31 AM

Wiki.
The Rape of Belgium is the usual historical term regarding the treatment of civilians during the 1914-18 German invasion and occupation of Belgium. The term initially had a propaganda use but recent historiography confirms its reality.[1] One modern author uses it more narrowly to describe a series of German war crimes in the opening months of the War (4 August through September 1914).[2]
The neutrality of Belgium had been guaranteed by the Treaty of London (1839), which had been signed by Prussia. However the German Schlieffen Plan required that German armed forces violate Belgium's neutrality in order to outflank the French Army, concentrated in eastern France. The German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg dismissed the treaty of 1839 as a "scrap of paper".[3] Throughout the beginning of the war the German army engaged in numerous atrocities against the civilian population of Belgium, and destruction of civilian property; 6,000 Belgians were killed, 25,000 homes and other buildings in 837 communities destroyed. 1,500,000 Belgians (20% of the entire population) fled from the invading German army.[4]:13

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 08:45 AM

Historian Sir Max Hastings,
"I never stop being amazed by the number of people I meet - who are educated, thoughtful people – who say to me "I have never understood why the whole of Europe when to war just because some Austrian big wig was shot in Sarajevo"."
In Blackadder Goes Forth, Baldrick said the war began when "Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry", reflecting confusion the popular opinion that the issues we were fighting over were not worth the huge loss of life.
"We think we know the story of World War II because Hitler was evil, we can get our heads around that," Sir Max said.
"But the modern British view of the First World War is dominated by the Blackadder attitude which is believed even by school teachers.
"The Germany of 1914 might not have been as evil as Hitler's Germany, but it was still bent on dominating Europe, and the idea that it didn't matter who won is ridiculous.
"The politicians are frightened of saying that we fought a great evil and they are afraid of saying who started WWI."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10110657/Germany-and-Austria-started-WWI-seeking-European-domination-historian-says.html

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 09:09 AM

If asked why they were there, many would say simply "Somebody's got to give the Hun a bloody good kicking". It was what they were told! It was exactly the same on the other side too.

How do you know this Don?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 09:44 AM

Yes.
A moderated thread on Remembrance is no place to denigrate brave men by saying they believed shit about kicking Huns because that is what they were told!
Hasings again.

The fact that Britain sacrificed three-quarters of a million lives to prevent the triumph of Germany's militarists should be a matter of profound pride to those men's modern descendants, not grounds for ministers to take refuge in empty platitudes.
Most veterans rejected the 'poets' view'. One old soldier, named Henry Mellersh, declared in 1978 that he wholeheartedly rejected the notion that the war was 'one vast, useless, futile tragedy, worthy to be remembered only as a pitiable mistake'.
Instead, wrote Mellersh: 'I and my like entered the war expecting an heroic adventure and believing implicitly in the rightness of our cause; we ended greatly disillusioned as to the nature of the adventure, but still believing that our cause was right and we had not fought in vain.'
The fact that Britain sacrificed so many lives to prevent the triumph of Germany's militarists should be a matter of pride to those men's modern descendants, not grounds for ministers to take refuge in empty platitudes.

That view was far more widely held by Mellersh's contemporaries than the 'futility' vision of Owen, Sassoon and their kin. Although a few new-wave British historians scrabble to gain a headline through the familiar device of claiming it was all Britain's fault, the best modern German scholars accept their own nation's prime responsibility for the horrors that befell Europe.
It seems hugely important that in preparing for this centenary commemoration, our Government and national institutions should seek to explain to a new generation that World War I was critical to the freedom of Western Europe.
Far from dying in vain, those who perished in the King's uniform between 1914 and 1918 made as important a contribution to our privileged, peaceful lives today as did their sons in World War II.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2339189/MAX-HASTINGS-Sucking-Germans-way-remember-Great-War-heroes-Mr-Cameron.html#ixzz2kLdoRTh5

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (unmoderated)
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 10:13 AM

Refresh, for those who want a debate.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (unmoderated)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 10:31 AM

Historian Sir Max Hastings.

The fact that Britain sacrificed three-quarters of a million lives to prevent the triumph of Germany's militarists should be a matter of profound pride to those men's modern descendants, not grounds for ministers to take refuge in empty platitudes.
Most veterans rejected the 'poets' view'. One old soldier, named Henry Mellersh, declared in 1978 that he wholeheartedly rejected the notion that the war was 'one vast, useless, futile tragedy, worthy to be remembered only as a pitiable mistake'.
Instead, wrote Mellersh: 'I and my like entered the war expecting an heroic adventure and believing implicitly in the rightness of our cause; we ended greatly disillusioned as to the nature of the adventure, but still believing that our cause was right and we had not fought in vain.'

That view was far more widely held by Mellersh's contemporaries than the 'futility' vision of Owen, Sassoon and their kin. Although a few new-wave British historians scrabble to gain a headline through the familiar device of claiming it was all Britain's fault, the best modern German scholars accept their own nation's prime responsibility for the horrors that befell Europe.
It seems hugely important that in preparing for this centenary commemoration, our Government and national institutions should seek to explain to a new generation that World War I was critical to the freedom of Western Europe.
Far from dying in vain, those who perished in the King's uniform between 1914 and 1918 made as important a contribution to our privileged, peaceful lives today as did their sons in World War II.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2339189/MAX-HASTINGS-Sucking-Germans-way-remember-Great-War-heroes-Mr-Cameron.html#ixzz2kLq0RIMK

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (unmoderated)
From: GUEST,undoderate
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 11:04 AM

It's a unique chance to place related music here at BS-as it is not morerated


Music, since it is unmoderated BS

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 11:06 AM

Was my post to this rmoved for a reason. If so, will somebody tell me what was wrong with answering the question about reasons and making entirely reasonable comment on the need to respect and remember the fallen?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 11:10 AM

Seems like afew have gone missing Don.

So why is that then?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: selby
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 11:32 AM

Very disappointed to see a post that posted earlier today on this thread that I thought was contributing to the thread seems the censor has struck on an innocent thread. I would at least you would have done me the honour of telling me in a pm as to why it was removed
Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 11:59 AM

There probably would have been no war at all if Germany hadn't given its weaker friend Austria carte-blanche to crush Serbia in 1914. In fact the Serbs, desperate to avoid war, acquiesced to virtually every condition of an lengthy Austrian ultimatum, but Austria invaded anyway.

Berlin had been planning an aggressive war for years. German philosophers held that wars earned respect and made nations strong.

Serbia, Russia, Belgium, and France fought because they'd been invaded. Belgium collapsed, France nearly did, and Russia eventually sued for peace.

The British fought to uphold a decades-old treaty with Germany to maintain Belgian neutrality. It also fought to prevent German military domination of Europe and the English Channel, and to protect British colonies from German annexation. Many, many people believed, regardless of politics, that British national honor alone required the defense of Belgium and France.

It didn't help Berlin when it derided the Belgian treaty as "a mere piece of paper."

The United States entered the war in 1917 when Germany had resumed the unrestricted sinking of neutral ships and secretly promised Mexico the return of the US Southwest in the peace settlement if it would invade the USA. In 1916, German saboteurs had also blown up a major munitions depot near New York City.

If the Allies didn't exactly fight an idealistic "war to end war," they did fight to uphold the force of international law (such as it was), protect existing borders and governments, punish naked aggression in Europe, maintain freedom of the seas, discourage the German and Austrian militarism that led to the war in the first place, and expel their armies from Serbia, Belgium, Luxemburg (which had no power to resist), Russia, and France.

The Allied victory accomplished all of these things, though at horrific cost.

If the peace lasted only twenty years, the lion's share of the blame lay elsewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 12:04 PM

Like Don, Les and Selby, I'm bemused as to why my post, which was respectful and non-contentious, was deleted without reference.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 12:39 PM

That one will go too an a minute!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (unmoderated)
From: GUEST,Musket being patriotic
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 12:41 PM

I never said I'd not debate on an unmoderated thread though.

Max Hastings has a view. Fine.

Rather interesting that many don't agree with it.

Rather interesting that he wrote it in The Daily M*il. Considering how they showed support for Herr Hitler. .......



The men who went to war in 1914 to 18 genuinely thought there was a purpose. King and Empire meant a lot to them. The nationalistic plans of The Kaiser and other murderous half wits may have been the reason given, chiefly by other murderous half wits, but the plans of either side needed war to take place anyway.

Hence the dying was in vain. No matter how we try to see it through the eyes and ears of the time and not put present day valued to it, the glorious fallen were sacrificed for no reason because if the armies told their political leaders to piss off, the outcome in 1914 would have been the same as the actual 1918 but without Germany being humiliated to the extent of the rise of Naziism and The Austrohungarian Empire may possibly have given stability where fascism rose.

The war to end wars eh?

Wearing your poppy to remind us that things should never be repeated is a modern idea. The first remembrance celebrations were about how we won and how our armies kick the shit out of Johnny Foreigner. The regret of war is from a more enlightened age that the likes of Hastings would not wish to write about.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (unmoderated)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 12:46 PM

Moderating to remove the kind of contentious and argument comment which is often seen on this kind of thread is all very well.

Neither thread has seen any abuse, but some hyperactive pixie has seen fit to wield its power in a most unacceptable way, even when applied to a moderated thead.

I would like somebody to tell me why we have been punished in this way.

Who is so tight arsed as to find offence where there is none?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (unmoderated)
From: selby
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 12:52 PM

my post from the moderated post has arrived on here now out of context with still no explanation as to WHY
Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (unmoderated)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 12:53 PM

My seemingly offensive post is the second one on this thread. It answers a question posed by Lighter and gives the reasons quoted by the BBC, plus a comment on the Eric Bogle song in answer to another poster, and finished of with an assertion of the need for respect for and remembrance of those who didn't come back.

What were we supposed to say?

Don T.

Earlier posts returned. Unless they are obviously offensive, this thread is labeled "unmoderated"

---

This thread is re-labeled "debate", which is, I believe, closer to what mg wanted when she started the threads. I base this on what happened in previous years when more personal thoughts offered were overwhelmed by those who chose to argue. This thread will be moderated no less than other BS threads.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 12:59 PM

Sensitive posts on a sensitive subject and they get thrown off the thread by people being somewhat insensitive.

As we can't discuss lest we forget, we need to keep the moderators happy.

Anyone know any good knob gags?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 01:06 PM

Having had my fill of the Keith and Jim show, followed by the Keith and Musket show, I deliberately stayed out of this thread, because I am not going to join the Keith and Don show.

So some eejit slung my well presented and thoughtful post into the one place I didn't plan to visit.

Now I've just about had my fill of the Mudcat Musical Threads Show as well.

This isn't what Max wanted it to be any more.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 02:21 PM

How about we do a Musket and Don show? We can sell the rights to Channel 4 with repeats royalties via Dave?

If nothing else, we could show that argument isn't just tedious contradiction? The common link you complain about just wouldn't get invited, that's all. Although we would get challenged to show where he hasn't been invited I suppose......

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 04:17 PM

but the plans of either side needed war to take place anyway.
No.
Britain did not want war.
Germany did.

Hence the dying was in vain.
Why?
because it would not have mattered if Germany had conquered Europe, or because there was another way to stop their war machine?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 04:58 PM

For once in your life Keith, why don't you just STFU?

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: GUEST,Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 05:14 PM

Lighter hit many of the important points, but omitted Britain's self-imposed need to prevent any power becoming too dominant on the continent. It wasn't an unwise or unwarranted aim in their foreign policy, just one that does not sit as easily with us in our "current threat environment."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: selby
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 05:17 PM

This thread is re-labeled "debate", which is, I believe, closer to what mg wanted when she started the threads. I base this on what happened in previous years when more personal thoughts offered were overwhelmed by those who chose to argue. This thread will be moderated no less than other BS threads.

Censor person if you read my thread it was NOT an argument it was a story of what happened in a different time to a relation of mine which in todays society is hard to understand so again WHY THE CENSORSHIP
Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: GUEST,Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 05:17 PM

Actually, Lighter did not miss the British aim about continental dominance, I did, so just consider it reinforced. It was, however, a lot more important to H.M.'s government than Belgian neutrality, I would argue. It can be argued that the treaty was a fig leaf.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 05:22 PM

Fuck Armistice Day.

Fuck poppies.

Fuck war memorials.

The state wants to turn as much public space as possible into a tomb. Cenotaphs are shoved into teh most prominent places possible in parks and town squares in Britain (and most other countries) simply to intrude the state religion of war-worship into everybody's lives.

No we don't need to remember it. We just need to round up the slime who want us to reverence warfare and piss on the lot of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 05:32 PM

Cenotaphs are shoved into teh most prominent places possible in parks and town squares in Britain

And who shoved them there?
The ordinary people of those towns and villages, who also scraped together the money to pay for them in the hardest times they had ever known.

That is how important it was to them, and we should keep faith with them today.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 02:48 AM

"as there was a disproportionate contribution (and sacrifice) from the Anzacs in WW1"

Disproportionate as opposed to who else?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 02:48 AM

Remembrance should focus on the soldier, not on the Kings and Generals.

That is exactly how we do it here.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 03:51 AM

Was is essential that millions of people died between 1914 and 1918?

Was that the only way - who decided that that was the only way?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 03:57 AM

The best way to respect those who were killed - on all sides is to understand in detail - with a long historical perspective - how it happened and why.

Was it essential that millions of people died between 1914 and 1918?

Was that the only way - who decided that that was the only way?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 04:03 AM

Germany decided to go to war and invade Belgium and France.
Britain France and Belgium were just defending.
What else could they do?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 04:05 AM

Germany decided to go to war, and invade Belgium and France.
Belgium, France and Britain were just trying to hold them back.
What else could they do in the face of naked, imperialist agression?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 04:58 AM

Thanks Keith, a good starting point but didn't a lot of other things happen before that point was reached. I know hindsight has 20/20 vision (maybe) but isn't that where we stand now? Isn't that the value of hindsight and historical analysis?

Wars don't start on Monday morning just after breakfast and the decision to start and continue a war in which millions of people died was what? All the powers that their were knew that millions were being slaughtered - why didn't they care enough to stop it?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 05:17 AM

We now know that Germany HAD been secretly planning the war for some years.

The war continued because Germany seemed likely to win it, so why should they stop.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket being patriotic
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 05:33 AM

I'm sure there were lots of reasons Les. Many of which were opportunity. To the Victor the spoils.

In terms of why didn't soldiers question, well the Edwardian fascination with jingoism for starters. Empire day celebrations were the order of the day.

If soldiers did start questioning the government ensured there were enough padres in soldier's uniforms to let them know God wants us to win.

This appalling association between religion and carnage carried on and of course still does.

The second world war,
It came and it went.
We forgave the Germans
And now we are friends.
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried.
The Germans now too have
God on their side.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 05:43 AM

In terms of why didn't soldiers question
Who says they did not?
The evidence is that they did question, but they believed the war had to be fought.
They were right.
You are wrong.
Who are you to denigrate them?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 05:54 AM

I think Les is right there was lots of things happening prior to war breaking out. Initially Britain looked to an alliance with Germany but was basically rebuffed and it seems the Kaiser by then saw Britain as the main competitor rather than friend. So Britian cosied up to France instead and later Russia. Germany was bolshie and looking out for its own interests but so was Britain and France who were making secret treaties involving Morocco etc which they had no legal right to do. According to H.L.Peacock in his "A History Of Modern Europe" the events after Sarajevo and the break out of hostilities between Austria and Serbia went like this chronoligacally. July 28th Austria declares war on Serbia; Russia immediately mobilises in support of Serbia; Germany immediately demands that Russia demobilises and that France assures neutrality; Russia refuses and Germany declares war on Russia on 1st August then on France on 3rd August; on 4th August Germany strikes at France through neutral Belgium believing that Britain wouldn't go to war over a piece of paper.

In the summing up he says German aggresiveness was greatly to blame but that it would be wrong to think that all aggresiveness was centred on Germany. There were those in Britain who favoured a war with Germany before that country became too strong; there were those in France who wanted revenge for the war of the 1870s; and pan-Slavism was as much a problem as pan-Germanism.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 06:11 AM

There were those in Britain who favoured a war with Germany before that country became too strong; there were those in France who wanted revenge for the war of the 1870s

No doubt there were all sorts in all countries, but they did not lead France and Britain into war.

Germany attacked and invaded.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 06:20 AM

I am not up for denigrating anyone.

But if the answer was millions of dead what on earth was the question.

Was this war a good idea? Was it what everybody wanted? Did it have a good and useful outcome?

Who's idea was it?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 08:30 AM

Many did question. Conscientious objectors existed.

Many did question. Middle class women were encouraged to hand out white feathers.

Many did question. The padres were on hand to help them see the error of their ways.

Many did question. Firing squads were on hand to ensure others stopped asking.

Many did question. The poems of Wilfred Owen were not scrutinised as he was seen as from the establishment.

Many did question. But didn't return.

Many did question. But their lost limbs eyes and minds insulted the "Glory pomp and circumstance of glorious war. " So were left to beg.

Many do question. And they are getting louder than the revisionists amongst us.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 08:41 AM

Firing squads were on hand to ensure others stopped asking.

No-one was shot for questioning the war.
They did not have to be threatened with shooting.
Most were volunteers.
Not jingoistic fools.
Not dupes of the church.
Men most remarkable like you, except that they understood that Germany had to be stopped and it fell to them to do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 08:52 AM

""Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T - PM
Date: 11 Nov 13 - 08:14 AM

The BBC series on the subject identified four underlying causes of WW 1, as follows:

    ""Nationalism - the belief that your country is better than others. This made nations assertive and aggressive.
    Imperialism - the desire to conquer colonies, especially in Africa. This brought the powers into conflict - Germany wanted an empire. France and Britain already had empires.
    Militarism (Arms Race) - the attempt to build up a strong army and navy gave nations the means and will to make war.
    Alliances - in 1882, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy formed the Triple Alliance. This alarmed, France, Britain and Russia. By 1907, they had all joined the Triple Entente. Europe was divided into two armed camps, to help each other if there was a war.""

Then of course, the spark that set off the kindling, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, often mistakenly quoted as the reason.

As to whether those who died knew why, of course many of the better educated did, but there were hundreds of thousands of young men who joined up in an enthusiastic desire for adventure, travel and glory, whose knowledge of the reasons was minimal at best.

In an era when news travelled slowly, many men had never been more than a few miles from the place of their birth, and recruiters didn't care to inform, how was a young farm lad to know about international politics?

If asked why they were there, many would say simply "Somebody's got to give the Hun a bloody good kicking". It was what they were told! It was exactly the same on the other side too.

So Eric wasn't, I think, patronising too many people. If he had written the same about WW 2, that would have been patronising.

However, aware or not, they deserve our respect and they deserve our continuing remembrance. Whichever war they died in, they did it for us.

Don T.""

Keith calls that denigrating the soldiers!..It isn't!

It is facing the truth that Britain's motives in the lead up to WW2 were not pure as the driven snow, and the invasion of Belgium was the perfect opportunity to act to prevent Germany gaining an imperial foothold in Africa.

The senior officers, mostly public school educated, knew what was going on, but most of the cannon fodder, farm and factory workers, knew only what they were told by government propaganda and posters, and if you take the trouble to look at what was recorded of the comments of ordinary soldiers, they are larded with such remarks as I quoted about "The Hun".

Also, listen to the Music Hall songs of that time.

The point is that Keith's view of these events isn't just "My Country, right or wrong!", It is "My Country cannot be wrong.

I'm sorry but it can, it often has, and it most likely will in the future.

That is FACT! But it takes nothing away from the brave men who lay down their lives in defence of that country, which incidentally I love, but without the rose tinted viewpoint.

I love my country warts and all!

Those who died in all her wars and police actions deserve our utmost respect and admiration and should be remembered.

I firmly believe that the day we forget, we open the door for history to repeat itself.

As for Max Hastings, while he may be right in saying that Germany bears most blame, he cannot imagine the effect on Wilfred Owen or the other war poets of watching a constant stream of young men, many in their teens, arriving at the front to be sent "over the top" and slaughtered like cattle in an abbatoir. He wasn't there and has no right to judge those who were.

In his ranting about embracing German remembrance, he forgets that most of the Germans killed were no different than ours, "Husbands and Brothers, Fathers and Sons" (Whitsun Dance), and there were villages without men in both countries.

Hastings is a bitter bastard, who has forgotten that the soldiers don't start wars. He has also forgotten that one can forgive without forgetting.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 09:09 AM

If asked why they were there, many would say simply "Somebody's got to give the Hun a bloody good kicking". It was what they were told! It was exactly the same on the other side too.

How do you know that Don?
How can you accuse those dead young men of believing shit because they were told to?

Hastings was not there, but historians use sources.
The IWM has thousands of ordinary soldiers' war diaries and letters.

He says,"Most veterans rejected the 'poets' view'. One old soldier, named Henry Mellersh, declared in 1978 that he wholeheartedly rejected the notion that the war was 'one vast, useless, futile tragedy, worthy to be remembered only as a pitiable mistake'.
Instead, wrote Mellersh: 'I and my like entered the war expecting an heroic adventure and believing implicitly in the rightness of our cause; we ended greatly disillusioned as to the nature of the adventure, but still believing that our cause was right and we had not fought in vain.'

That view was far more widely held by Mellersh's contemporaries than the 'futility' vision of Owen, Sassoon and their kin."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 09:12 AM

I've always thought Max Hastings to be a pompous, arrogant twat, and his jingoistic article in the "Daily Mail" confirms this.

He calls any rapprochement or concord with Germany as "sucking up" to the Germans and claims it dishonours the millions who died and who he believes sincerely supported the war.

Well, that support and belief was then, by the soldiers of the time - and it was also almost 100 years ago. Perspectives alter. I would ask Hastings this" Is it, in the long run, more sensible (a) to refuse any friendship, rapprochement or political alliance with Germany and keep old grudges going in Europe, or (b) to find ways of building friendship and alliances within Europe and, without forgetting the events of the past, try to ensure that such events don't happen again?

I'm sure the old soldiers of 1914-1919 would never want the events of those days to be repeated, and it's surely possible for alliances to be forged without dishonouring the memories of those men. As it happens, the hard-nosed terms of the Treaty of Versailles, with the consequent economic and social effects on 1920s Germany, were a major contributor to the rise of the Nazis. Grudges beget grudges.

I recall my grandfather telling me of a conversation with his own father in the 1920s. "Son", old George said to my grandad, "you mark my words - our natural enemies are the French. In the next war, it'll be us and the Germans against them." How wrong can you be...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 09:32 AM

I find this deleting messages thing a bit strange to say the least. One post states that there "was as a disproportionate contribution (and sacrifice) from the Anzacs in WW1. as the Aussies and Kiwis went off to do their bit for King and Empire and the 'pride of the British race'."

I simply asked the question disproportionate compared to who? It is a fair question as the statement is misleading as that all the major combatants from Europe had greater losses per head of population than either NZ or the Aussies did. The UK included. Not denigrating anyone as of course all the countries suffered a great loss but there is nothing wrong with getting basic facts right! If we are to have perfectly polite posts deleted for questioning statements then shouldn't the original statement be deleted too?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 09:47 AM

Another historian then.
Dr.Dan Todman

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

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 09:54 AM

Dr. Gary Sheffield.
" popular opinion: that the issues were not worth the ensuing bloodbath. Most modern scholars would not agree. Germany and Austria-Hungary (the Central Powers) are seen, at the very least, as creating the conditions for conflict. Some go much further, blaming Germany for planning and waging a deliberate war of aggression."

"Britain and France came to be led by Lloyd George and Clemenceau, popularist democratic leaders, while Germany was ruled by a military dictatorship that sidelined the constitutional leader, the Kaiser. An Allied victory led to the maintenance and even extension of liberal democracy in Europe. A German victory would have snuffed it out. When the German army appeared to be on the verge of victory in spring 1918, the Kaiser crowed that this was the vindication of monarchy and autocracy over democracy."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_01.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 09:56 AM

Sheffield again, same link.
"Far from being fought over trivial issues, World War One must be seen in the context of an attempt by an aggressive, militarist state to establish hegemony over Europe, extinguishing democracy as a by-product. To argue that the world of 1919 was worse than that of 1914 is to miss the point. A world in which Imperial Germany had won World War One would have been even worse."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 10:01 AM

> There were those in Britain who favoured a war with Germany before that country became too strong; there were those in France who wanted revenge for the war of the 1870s; and pan-Slavism was as much a problem as pan-Germanism.

But none of those nations took those steps. Nothing done by the other countries over previous decades even begins to match the policies and *actions* of Germany in 1914. Austrian designs on Serbia were Germany's perfect opportunity to launch the war it had decided was inevitable and that it would win.

I can't imagine a political situation in 1914 that would have prompted Britain, France, or Russia to launch a war in Europe while Germany remained peacefully within its borders. It was widely realized that Europe was so reliant on mutual economic and financial ties that any big war would result in national economic collapses. As it did.

Those predictions didn't stop the Kaiser. He and his generals thought Germany could win "by Christmas."

Unlike Britain, Germany and Austria had long had universal conscription and a truly pervasive militarist bent. (In Germany, pacifist organizations were banned by law.) Germany believed its "destiny" as the "bravest" and "most highly civilized" nation was to control Europe. When Russia surrendered early in 1918, Germany seized most of European Russia and its resources. For Berlin, the case for innate German superiority had been proved.

Germany did "fear" France, Britain, and Russia, in more or less that order, mainly because their geography stood in the way of German expansion. And that expansion (according to the incredibly influential philosopher Hegel) was required for the "health" of the nation and (once pseudo-Darwinism got mixed into it) was actually demanded by "survival of the fittest." Nietzsche's writings are filled with ignorant praise of war - in the abstract.

No nation was immune from these influences, and colonial wars were partly based on similar assumptions. But nowhere outside of Germany did warlike ideals turn into reckless policy against populous, neighboring, sophisticated, technologically and industrially advanced, and culturally related European states. And nowhere else was the risk of a continent-wide explosion thought to be a perfectly reasonable policy choice.

Even more amazing is that the later followers of Mussolini and Hitler seem not to have learned anything from it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 10:04 AM

All this is very well, Keith - and I'm not querying it - but the point is: despite what Hastings says, for Britain, France & Germany to get together now and in the future, and to put the grudges and problems of the past to one side, does not necessarily mean that we dishonour the memories of the men and women - soldiers and civilians - who died in WW1, or forget them.

Such jingoistic crap does no-one any service these days. By all means remember the events of the past - and try not to repeat them ad nauseam

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 10:13 AM

But no-one is saying that.
What they are saying, and I am denying, is that our people fought a futile and pointless war, without knowing what it was supposed to be about, because they were such pathetic jingoistic dupes and dummies.

I find that a disgraceful and disgusting slander on their memory.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Will Fly
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 10:16 AM

It's interesting to recall that the plot of "The Riddle Of The Sands", by the Irish writer Erskine Childers, is based on the concept of Germany using the channels between the Baltic Islands as grouping and embarking points for wave upon wave of barges to be towed to the UK as part of an invasion programme.

"The Riddle Of The Sands" was written in 1910 so, presumably, German's intentions or possible intentions were common knowledge at that time.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: GUEST,sciencegeek
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 10:17 AM

last night Mike was watching a show about a group of researchers and veteran sailors who went out to the sites were the Hood and Bismarck were sunk during WWII and sent submersibles to observe the wrecks.

Not just Bristish sailors, but German survivors as well. Men who had been 18 years old and had grown up with the rise of Nazism. Men who had cheered when the Hood sank and now returned with a better understanding of what they had done and all saluted those who were lost. Like the monument at Gallipoli dedicated to ALL those who died.

I think that we can take a lesson from their example. Regardless of the causes... it is the fighting men and women who bear the brunt of the cost of war... and those unfortunate civilians caught in the path. We can acknowledge that sacrifice.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 10:26 AM

Obviously Keith is as knowledgeable about history as he is about science, evolution, and "Christians"[sic].

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 10:45 AM

Very sorry for the near-duplicate posts. (Long too!) I hope the second one is clearer and better written.

Few here think Allied involvement in World War 2 was pointless or jingoistic. But except for the fact that Hitler and the Nazis managed to be even viler than the Kaiser and his generals, a comparable German expansionism was the cause of the second installment as well. Poland in 1939 played roughly the role of Belgium in 1914.

The biggest difference was that by 1939 there'd been several years of warnings - and desperate attempts to avert the inevitable.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Rapparee
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 10:45 AM

If you haven't experienced it, I suggest you read about it AND UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU READ. Here are some suggestions:

Grossman, Dave. On Combat.
Grossman, Dave. On Killing.
Keegan, John. The Face Of Battle.
Holmstedt, Kirsten. Band of Sisters.
Holmstedt, Kirsten. The Girls Come Marching Home.
S. L. A. Marshall. Pork Chop Hill.

But I doubt if you'll take my suggestions. Perhaps its better if you don't.

And for all of us who ARE experienced...thanks. You're the best there is.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket being patriotic
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 11:06 AM

This disgraceful crap about it being a slur on the memory of the fallen when you analyse war. ...

Could have come straight from the appalling pages of the Hitler appeasing stain known as The Daily M*il." Oh. Many of his quotes did. Normally do in fact.

The more I read the more I sadly feel vindicated in being cynical when I read his posts.

Don't worry Keith, I can hear your usual two apologists typing their defence of you.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 12:16 PM

You did not "analyse" anything.
Just made up shit about why in your worthless opinion people fought.

The Daily M*il." Oh. Many of his quotes did. Normally do in fact.
More lies.
I quoted 3 historians to support everything I have argued.
Count them.
Hastings was published both in the Telegraph and the Mail.
I quoted him not any newspaper or hack.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket and Keith Show
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 12:33 PM

Sorry about this everyone.

Hastings fits the description of hack. Writing to the political and social colours of the rag paying your fee makes you a hack. Insisting you are writing as a historian makes you a disingenuous hack.

Why don't you cut and paste some David Irvine and have done with it?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 12:35 PM

You will find no Daily Mail quote from me in any recent post, apart from that Hastings piece.
You know this, because you would have used it against me before.
You attempt to discredit me by telling lies about me.
Pathetic.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,someone else
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 01:14 PM

Me really.

Recent= a few days if anyone is interested.

The problem as ever is that remembrance is noting that people died. It started out if the documentary on BBC2 last week is accurate, as celebrating how good we were at war. By the end of the second world war it had become a way of saying how fed up people are with war and killing. Commemorating subsequent conflict therefore is valid as the men dying now are not pushing an imperialist agenda, not protecting our shores from invasion and not making Col Blimp look good.

They are dying trying to protect innocent civilians from conflict in a humanitarian gesture in most cases. Very different from the gung ho jingoism the Tommies were bombarded with from the despatch box, from the pulpits, from the Kitchener posters, from the marches through their towns and villages followed by the recruiting sergeants.

Remembrance is about death. Whether the fallen believed in their cause or not. Attempts to say it is only about those who saw reason in war is a bit much. Especially for the millions caught up in it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 01:23 PM

""What they are saying, and I am denying, is that our people fought a futile and pointless war, without knowing what it was supposed to be about, because they were such pathetic jingoistic dupes and dummies.

I find that a disgraceful and disgusting slander on their memory.""

As pretty a piece of answering what was never said as you have managed yet.

1. How much knowledge of international affairs do you suppose farm labourers and factory hands possessed at a time when only the wealthy had radios and only the well to do had any formal education beyond reading writing and arithmetic at the most basic level?

They weren't stupid, but they had this notion of the evil Hun drilled into them long before the war started.

Instead of reading the skewed interpretations and xenophobic rants of those self styled modern historians, try reading the accounts of the time as they were happening. There are plenty of books available, if you can be bothered.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 01:27 PM

Rap, there is also Gwynne Dyer's "War" which is on par with those you mentioned.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 01:28 PM

Recent= a few days if anyone is interested.
I am. Put it up!

Now you suggest that Sir Max Hastings would write shit just to get published in the Mail.
You are desperate.
He is not.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 01:36 PM

Those lucky rich people with radios in 1914!

People from all levels of society volunteered, not just ignorant peasants.
The ignorant peasants could read as well as you and had access to a free press like you.
You might like to think yourself superior to those ignorant dupes, but you are not.

And, the historians agree with them, not you Don.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 02:02 PM

This thread is proof positive that war will always be with us.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 02:31 PM

Branno: there was a disproportionate contribution (and sacrifice) from the Anzacs in WW1. as the Aussies and Kiwis went off to do their bit for King and Empire and the 'pride of the British race'.

How do you work that out? The proportions of the UK male population killed and injured in WW1 are very similar to those of the ANZACs. Almost identical in fact.

My grandad was category "C" when he went for his initial medical...flat footed, poor eyesight and weak chest. Also married with 2 young children. When we was recalled for a medical in 1916 he was miraculously re-classified A1!

I have his diaries....a set of 4 exercise books detailing his training and his experiences in France. I've often thought of having them published. However, they don't read well. Poor grammar and spelling and a lot of repetitive "we did this, we did that....". He was an uneducated private with relatively poor literacy, not a "gentleman ranker" so not sure there'd be a demand.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 03:04 PM

Fun fact:

Kaiser Wilhelm II himself is responsible for the "Hun" business. As he exhorted his troops in 1900 as they departed for China,

"When you meet the enemy,... you will give no pardon and take no prisoners. ...As the Huns a thousand years ago under King Etzel [i.e., Attila] made a name for themselves that has lasted mightily in memory, so may the name 'Germany' be known in China so that no Chinese will ever again even dare to look askance at a German."

From Isabel V. Hull's "Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany" (Cornell University Press, 2005).

Attila the Hun: role model.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,achmelvich
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 03:14 PM

what if they gave a war and nobody came?

while i have some respect for and pity anyone who has lost their life or loved ones in a war - in every case (the world over) it is not good enough to just blame the kings and generals and media. all men - apart from the virtuous ones- join up. whether it is for the trenches in WW1, a colombian drugs gang, as crew on a pirate ship, al-quaeda, a school bullying group (here, at least,women -or girls- have achieved equality), to fight for an african war lord or george bush, to fire american drones or to fight with the british in iraq.... etdepressingcetera. in each case we commit to doing harm to whoever the commanders tell us to and choose to ignore our own feelings and judgment.

we all have the mental capacity to reject jingoistic or racist justifications for conflict but choose to fight instead. ww1 is particularly tragic because there is no agreed cause or purpose for the event (see above)ultimately, you would have to conclude it was because men (around the world) like fighting. and can hardly complain when it turned out to be a hell.

there were (and are) instances of conscientious objection, desertion, co-operation between enemies and informal agreements to shoot to miss. these men for me are the true heroes.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 03:45 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 05:56 PM

Rob Naylor said, 'He was an uneducated private with relatively poor literacy, not a "gentleman ranker" so not sure there'd be a demand.'

Maybe not a best seller, but it's certainly something I would read. I like 'history' that was written by people who were there. People who didn't have editors. My own grandfather had a grade four education and his stories about historical figures and events still are more meaningful to me than most official histories.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Nov 13 - 07:15 PM

My post disappeared.

Essentially it said what GUEST just said.

Nowadays the journals of an "uneducated private" could be of great interest, regardless of the grammar. It all depends on what they include.

Rob might consider xeroxing some sample pages and sending them off for a reaction to someone who teaches about the Great War at a nearby university. There's nothing to lose. Here in the US, Civil War letters and diaries are still being found and published.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 02:57 AM

The Imperial War Museum in London keeps an archive of ordinary soldiers' war diaries.
They would welcome such an addition.

ww1 is particularly tragic because there is no agreed cause or purpose for the event (see above)
If you saw the historians quoted above you would see that there was a clear cause and purpose.
That of saving Britain and Europe from a tyrannical aggressive invader.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket popping up
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 03:50 AM

Saving them, and therefore allowing them to carry out their own imperialistic aggressive invasions around the globe.

C'est le guerre

As Sven Hassell used to say in the words of his characters.............

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

and therefore allowing them to carry out their own imperialistic aggressive invasions around the globe
So says the ignorant Musket spouting shit he has just made up.
Here is an historian.
Contrast and compare.

Dr. Gary Sheffield.
" popular opinion: that the issues were not worth the ensuing bloodbath. Most modern scholars would not agree. Germany and Austria-Hungary (the Central Powers) are seen, at the very least, as creating the conditions for conflict. Some go much further, blaming Germany for planning and waging a deliberate war of aggression."

" Germany was ruled by a military dictatorship that sidelined the constitutional leader, the Kaiser. An Allied victory led to the maintenance and even extension of liberal democracy in Europe. A German victory would have snuffed it out. When the German army appeared to be on the verge of victory in spring 1918, the Kaiser crowed that this was the vindication of monarchy and autocracy over democracy."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 04:17 AM

Ok. I'm a historian.

Beat that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 04:38 AM

Of course you are.
You are anything you want to be.
But these are REAL ones.
They do research and stuff.

Dr. Gary Sheffield.
"Far from being fought over trivial issues, World War One must be seen in the context of an attempt by an aggressive, militarist state to establish hegemony over Europe, extinguishing democracy as a by-product. To argue that the world of 1919 was worse than that of 1914 is to miss the point. A world in which Imperial Germany had won World War One would have been even worse."

Dr. Dan Todman.
"In the last quarter of the 20th century, the modern mythology of World War One became firmly established. In a society increasingly distant from the experience of war, 1914-1918 became more important as a symbol for tragedy and suffering than as a triumph or as a complicated and ambiguous event."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 04:47 AM

The Daily M*il." Oh. Many of his quotes did. Normally do in fact

How are your researches to find any such going Musket?
Or those posts where I linked myself to UKIP?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket the historian
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 04:54 AM

I am involved in post graduate management courses via our deanery, and one lecture I give each year for the MBA module in transferable skills , (the third one is next week by coincidence) is the HISTORY of six sigma approach.

I reckon that, with glasses pushed up to to bridge of nose accordingly, that makes me a historian every bit as much as a hack writing history. Real historians would weep at the thought of either Hastings or me, but as it isn't a protected title, a hell of a lot of people spout shit on a self titled or lazy association basis.

Do you wish to enrol for Module 101 Revisionist skills? Past experience taken into account, you already have half the points so won't need to do the foundation course. You won't need to trawl the internet for articles to cut and paste either. (Here's a thought. Read them first. Dr Sheffield makes a case in one of them that runs fully contrary to your general thrust.)

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

So you teach management!
(Here's a thought. Read them first. Dr Sheffield makes a case in one of them that runs fully contrary to your general thrust.)
Perhaps you could produce some quotes?
(Quite a backlog now!)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 05:40 AM

Sir Max Hastings, Military Historian.

He has presented historical documentaries for the BBC and is the author of many books, including Bomber Command which earned the Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction in 1980. Both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year prize. He was named Journalist of the Year and Reporter of the Year at the 1982 British Press Awards, and Editor of the Year in 1988. In 2010 he received the Royal United Services Institute's Westminster Medal for his "lifelong contribution to military literature", and the same year the Edgar Wallace Award from the London Press Club.[2]
In 2012 he was awarded the US$100,000 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, a lifetime achievement award for military writing, which includes an honorarium, citation and medallion, sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation.[4]
Hastings is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the Royal Historical Society. He was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England from 2002–2007.
In his 2007 book Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45 (also known as Retribution in the United States), the chapter on Australia's role in the last year of the Pacific War

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 05:45 AM

No.. I teach some management. The lecturers teach management, but as a retired CEO with public sector chairs in the old CV, they reckon my rambling is worth listening to. (Also, the teaching trust I am a director of has it in director contracts to lend themselves to both the medical school and the management faculty.)

Why?

Does context of where a person is coming from alter your approach?

If so, I would like to add bear wrestler, porn star, wringer outer for a one armed window cleaner, rock god, backlog supplier, iPad typist extraordinaire, racing driver, carrier of a greyhound's poop bags, still art model, jelly baby taster and all round good egg.



If you need people to point out where your cut and pastes differ from your points, you possibly aren't able to notice them anyway.

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

My point is simply this.

The invading German armies posed a real and terrible threat to freedom in Europe.
Historians are quite clear that the threat was real.
Britain had no choice but to stand against them.
People understood that and responded.
They were not duped.

That makes you and Don wrong.
Again.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 06:00 AM

From Telegraph review of Hastings' WW1 book.

However, Hastings's recent massive volumes on his specialist subject, the Second World War, have shown why 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. As a historian, his objective is twofold: to pin the principal blame for launching the catastrophic conflict where it rightly belongs: on Austria and Germany; and to argue unashamedly that Britain was right – politically and morally – to fight it.

Hastings's second adversary is more amorphous: what he calls "the poets' view" of the war as a futile struggle for a few blood-drenched yards of mud, which wasted a whole generation, solved nothing and which Britain should have steered clear of, allowing those funny foreign fellows to slaughter each other without compromising its splendid isolation.
This view, propounded by various powerful voices from the great economist John Maynard Keynes in 1919 down to the scriptwriters of the television comedy Blackadder Goes Forth, has been hammered so relentlessly into our heads that it is now the received opinion on the war. So much so that the government seems unsure how to mark next year's centenary of the conflict, both for fear of upsetting the Germans and because British public opinion generally regards it as a senseless, unmitigated tragedy.
Hastings, who received a knighthood in 2002, will have none of this.

Hastings pushes the parallels between the two world wars even closer. He details the barbarities perpetrated by the Kaiser's armies as they marched through Belgium, showing that such atrocities, though smaller in scale than the Nazis' crimes in 1939-45 (6,000 civilians murdered rather than six million), were inflicted in the same wanton spirit. With irrefutable logic Hastings argues that if it was right for Britain to wage war in defence of Poland in 1939, then it was also correct to take up arms in defence of Belgium in 1914.

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

A historian can and will describe events, as they happened and what effect they had on the future, suggesting the past as reason.

Hastings can do that and does.

He also commentates on the social setting, impact and rationale. That is using his historian credibility to put a particular slant on things. Professionally known as a hack.

The threat was real. The ensuing carnage was tangibly real. The drift into war for all sides was inevitable.

But the reason for war was incompetence and jingoism from all sides. Hence the war to end wars was a sop to the men to justify their slaughter, and that was wrong. Pushing men over the top to try and swamp the opposite trenches was dereliction of duty to their men. Men died through awful decisions.

You seem to propose that reminding ourselves of this shows disrespect to the dead? Kidding ourselves that war is just, that parochial interests are paramount to the effect of killing your people to achieve it. THAT is disrespect of the dead.

Lest we forget? Lest we forget why it shouldn't happen again, not lest we forget how brave the poor buggers were.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 06:31 AM

It was an entirely new kind of warfare.
Mistakes were made, but the war did have to be fought.
It did.
The soldiers knew that.
They were not ignorant, they were brave.

That is the historians' view.
What is yours worth?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 06:40 AM

100!

Dr Sheffield again.
"Haig, however, was no technophobe. He encouraged the development of advanced weaponry such as tanks, machine guns and aircraft. He, like Rawlinson and a host of other commanders at all levels in the BEF, learned from experience. The result was that by 1918 the British army was second to none in its modernity and military ability. It was led by men who, if not military geniuses, were at least thoroughly competent commanders. The victory in 1918 was the payoff. The 'lions led by donkeys' tag should be dismissed for what it is - a misleading caricature."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/lions_donkeys_01.shtml#one

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 06:53 AM

The role played by armament manufacturers in war has been missing from this debate .... sorry if I've missed any reference. A book, The Merchants of Death by Engelbrecht and Hanighen, 1934, deals extensively with this subject from the Middle Ages to the present (1934), covering events leading up to the 1914 war and after.
While agreeing that they (armament manufacturers) are not the sole cause of war, this quote by the biographer of Sir William Henry White who was a prolific British warship designer and Chief Constructor at the Admiralty is included:

Great armament firms have no national or political prejudices; they are concerned not with the ulterior objects of war, but with the immediate means by which victory may be secured; and the value of such abstract ideas as justice and Liberty they leave to the discussion of idle and metaphysical minds, or employ the terms as convenient euphemisms by which the real objects of statesmen may be cloaked and the energies of a people directed.

By the way, I read this book in gaol while servicing time as a consciensous objector.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 06:54 AM

""This thread is proof positive that war will always be with us.""

Indeed! As long as we have the kind of jingoistic xenophobes who believe that, of all countries, theirs is the one innocent participant in conflict.

_______________________________________________________________

""we all have the mental capacity to reject jingoistic or racist justifications for conflict""

I'm afraid that statement doesn't stand up to examination Achmelvich, and you need go no further than this thread to see that.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (moderated)
From: Jim McLean
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 06:54 AM

The role played by armament manufacturers in war has been missing from this debate .... sorry if I've missed any reference. A book, The Merchants of Death by Engelbrecht and Hanighen, 1934, deals extensively with this subject from the Middle Ages to the present (1934), covering events leading up to the 1914 war and after.
While agreeing that they (armament manufacturers) are not the sole cause of war, this quote by the biographer of Sir William Henry White who was a prolific British warship designer and Chief Constructor at the Admiralty is included:

Great armament firms have no national or political prejudices; they are concerned not with the ulterior objects of war, but with the immediate means by which victory may be secured; and the value of such abstract ideas as justice and Liberty they leave to the discussion of idle and metaphysical minds, or employ the terms as convenient euphemisms by which the real objects of statesmen may be cloaked and the energies of a people directed.

By the way, I read this book in gaol while servicing time as a consciensous objector.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 07:00 AM

""we all have the mental capacity to reject jingoistic or racist justifications for conflict""

I'm afraid that statement doesn't stand up to examination Achmelvich, and you need go no further than this thread to see that.

I defy you to produce any Don.
Why must you two make up so much shit?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket gettin.. can't be arsed
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 09:05 AM

Anything else you defy people to produce? Might as well get it off your chest now whilst people are still doing you a favour and humouring you.

An Uncle of mine was a conscientious objector. Ended up becoming a Jehovas Witness to convince the authorities. Snag is, religious mumbo jumbo can be addictive and that branch were and still are of that persuasion. I applaud anyone with courage of their conviction. The soldiers who were convinced they had purpose and those who saw the purpose and didn't agree. All caught up one way or another. All hoping others since don't have to go through what they did.

I can't begin to understand my father's generation yet I think I understand the generation of my sons.   Funny old world.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 09:15 AM

Anything else you defy people to produce?

Yes.
Any post where I link myself to UKIP.
My Daily Mail quotes of past "few days"

And, top favourite for today, a quote where "Dr Sheffield makes a case in one of them that runs fully contrary to your general thrust."

If you people could stop lying I would stop defying you to produce.
Why do you do it?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Branno
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 09:46 AM

Bless all here at sandpit mudcattus...!

More on the Australians in the Great War.
Perhaps the "disproportionate' reference has been misunderstood : in the census of 1911 there were 1,497,456 males aged 15-64 in Australia; the AIF embarked 330,770 men to fight in the ill-conceived and badly executed Dardanelles campaign and thereafter in Flanders and Palestine.

Great Britain had a population of around 40 million (?)and a far larger pool of manhood to draw on. I don't have the total casualty figures to hand, but around 23,000 Aussies died at Pozieres alone.
Eric's "whole generation" has particular resonance in Australia, where the adventurous spirited egalitarianism met the imperial loyalty, propoganda did its appointed task,
and they all joined up (and voted in two referenda AGAINST conscription!)

For the more serious historian, George Trevelyan, grandson of Lord Macaulay and a very English man is a prime source for detailed explanation of the root causes of the conflagration.
And the aftermath: "Lloyd George had the majority, and the majority had Lloyd George." I have his 'History of England' right here. There's far too much to selectively quote!

'The Broken Years' by contemporary Australian historian Bill Gammage I have here also, presented as "A horrifying yet moving portrayal of men at war, based on their own accounts". The selected bibliography runs for several pages.

"I have seen things here that will make the bloody aristocrats' name stink forever. The soldiers I pity as they have been ruled into this farce...God, it is cruel. What humans will stand is astounding... I have seen the most gruesome sights the most awful tragic scenes it has been my cruel lot to witness, however, take it from me none of mine will ever tackle this job again... if men refuse to fight all the world over war will cease."
Corporal A.G. Thomas 6 Bn 27/7/16 after Pozieres. KIA 8/6/18

Adieu, the years are a broken song
And the right grows weak in the strife with wrong.
The lilies of love have a crimson stain
And the old days will never come again.   

September 1917

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 10:47 AM

Facts:

Had the nations attacked without provocation by Austria and Germany in 1914 not resisted, there'd have been no war.

Had the nations attacked without provocation by Japan and Germany in the '30s and '40s not resisted, there'd have been no war.

And the lesson we should learn from these indisputable facts is what?


More facts:

If armies unanimously refused to fight, there'd never be another war.

If no one ever joined an armed force, there'd never be another war.

If a rabble never took up arms, organized and waged war for a cause, there'd never be another war.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Hats off to Rap and Jim for their insight and personal courage.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 12:03 PM

" I don't have the total casualty figures to hand, but around 23,000 Aussies died at Pozieres alone."

I've given the figures as quoted by the Australian Anzac day website ( and I checked from other sources and they all tie up) on the other thread. Whether talking about total casulaties or actual dead the Anzac losses were just under the UK losses per head of population though as someone else pointed out it is so close as to be meaningless. There is no point in breaking it down further by certain events or certain regions. The whole picture is when you look at the total losses in the entire conflict. Your point about every little village having its war memorial etc will be right enough but of course that is mirrored across the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 12:39 PM

"I don't have the total casualty figures to hand, but around 23,000 Aussies died at Pozieres alone"

Again terrible though they were you are greatly exaggerating the losses through misundestanding what casualty means in this context. The Australians had 23,000 casualties at that said battle but that was wounded and killed. 6,800 were killed which is bad enough. In the entire conflict the Australians lost between 60,000 and 70,000 dead(exact figure on other thread) whilst the UK lost just over 700,000.


http://www.awm.gov.au/ww1/1916/essay.asp

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 02:11 PM

And don't forget the railway timetables, once mobilised a country needs one to get its troops to the front!!! AJP Taylor has all the answers.

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 02:55 PM

That is the historians' view.

No, Keith, that is SOME "historians'"[sic] view, and they are definately in the minority, not to say the fringe.

Very much like your beloved "creationists".

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 03:21 PM

No they are not Greg.
They are mainstream.
How many can you find with any significantly different view?
Give it your best shot Greg.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 03:45 PM

Mainstream = fits Keith's prejudice.

The common link with mudcat.org members is music. I don't hear many folk songs aping Hastings but there are thousands and thousands questioning glorifying war. Most point out that people die unnecessarily. Shouldn't have died. Died through the incompetence of their leaders.

Glory pomp and circumstance of glorious war.

Pass me a bucket.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 05:09 PM

Refer to reality, Keith. Then you won't need my "best shot".

You are obvioussy not conversant with the whole body of historical work on WW 1 - which, considering the abysmal ignorance you have demonstrated regarding a host of other topics - should come as no surprise.

But do keep on with your various delusions.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 05:44 PM

They are mainstream.
BBC history presenter and two used for the BBC history site.
You have become desperate indeed.
Just google them.
You have put up nothing to support your discredited view.

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

You have put up nothing to support your discredited view.

Nor have you put up anything to support your idiosyncratic distorted view other than the spew of minority, idiosyncratic distorted historians.

The majority view is only considered "discredited" by iconoclasts such as yourself.

But no surprise there.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 03:04 AM

I have put up 3 eminent mainstream historians, and add a fourth, Nigel H Jones.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_H._Jones

Todman and Sheffield were the ONLY two historians chosen to write on these events for the BBC history site.
You can not get more mainstream than that.

The Telegraph review of Hastings' book, " his position as Britain's leading military historian is now unassailable."

How are you getting on with your list of dissenting historians Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 03:34 AM

Bugger me. The Daily Telegraph is now put forward as the Oracle of opinion. ..

Scraping the barrel a bit aren't we Keith?

How about when having Hastings dismiss his war memoirs, a very old very still with it Spike Milligan noted that the works of the likes of Hastings and Taylor are evidence that history is written by the victors. (Taylor called his books unreliable. Milligan was so happy about this he quoted it on the book jackets. )

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 03:43 AM

No, but they can be trusted not to say that about "the spew of minority, idiosyncratic distorted historians"

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 04:14 AM

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

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 04:47 AM

And the Kaiser's cousin was with him to a man in that aim.......

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 09:41 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 10:13 AM

" popular opinion: that the issues were not worth the ensuing bloodbath. Most modern scholars would not agree."

Unless they were put in the trenches, in the mud, shit and blood.

Then their ideas would mean something.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 10:19 AM

We know that most who served in the trenches DID think it was worth it.
But what did those oafish dupes know?
Right?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 11:21 AM

They thought the bible was literal for that matter. They thought the smell of rotting seaweed was ozone and therefore good for you. They thought radioactivity had many health promoting properties. They thought cigarettes were benign. They thought blacks were generally inferior. They thought the a Empire was there to wipe our arse.

They thought a lot of things based on what they had been told. The age of communication, starting with the telegraph but through satellites and now the internet allow more people to question.

Would the recruiting marches have been so successful if the men had access to facts and the freedom to question the church and establishment ?

Would we have questioned Blair's dossier if this was 1914?

Keith. Despite everything, your unswerving loyalty to what you construe as defending the fallen is commendable. But your evidence base is not only subjective, it is based on 1914 thinking, and those of us who see it differently do so with 20/20 hindsight.

It doesn't make us wrong, and your attempts to put this into a right and wrong rather than opinion versus opinion does you no favours.

It does however vindicate my attitude towards your posts in recent weeks.

Yours aye,

Musket the Historian.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 11:34 AM

They thought the bible was literal for that matter. They thought the smell of rotting seaweed was ozone and therefore good for you. They thought radioactivity had many health promoting properties. They thought cigarettes were benign. They thought blacks were generally inferior. They thought the a Empire was there to wipe our arse.
They thought a lot of things based on what they had been told.

Yes, but in this case they were right.
We have that on the authority of the eminent, leading mainstream historians who do have access to all the information required.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 12:38 PM

Jingoist and extremely dishonest bullshit – an insult to those who died.
It was strictly against the rules for an ordinary soldier to keep a diary
All correspondence home was strictly censored, dissention in the ranks was severely punished; often those found guilty of such were placed in the most dangerous positions, which virtually amounted to being executed
Desertion, and sometimes, slowness to 'go over the top' was routinely a capital offence
The only reports to come from the front were the official diaries (below), which did not even record the names of the 'ordinary' soldiers.
http://www.greatwar.co.uk/research/military-records/british-army-war-diary.htm
By 1916 Lord Derby's recruitment drive was announced to have failed and was abandoned in favour of compulsory enlistment.
Enthusiasm for the war was a myth circulated by "officers, toffs and their toadies" according to the Liverpudlian docker who had lied about his age to enlist "we usually shouted the toadies down when they were given the job of egging us on".
He said the lies about the army being "a man's life" had been "kicked into touch before we even embarked for Europe".
He and most of his mates had enlisted because "there was no work back home".
He described the experience as "traumatising and brutalising" – he refused to speak about it for years; many of his comrades "couldn't settle back into civilian life and the only work on offer was to re-enlist and go off and fight in Ireland with the 'Tans'.
Desertion, which usually involved "walking away from the noise", was automatically met with the firing squad.
We were told that, if a push was on, "those condemned to death were taken out and put in the front line" – if they survived they were re-imprisoned and later shot"
We were instructed to "tell anybody who said there was any honour or glory in fighting in that filthy war, that they are fucking liars – it amounted to nothing more "
"Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger" as somebody here is fond of saying.
Jim Carroll

WW1 British Army War Diaries
British Army War Diaries were handwritten or typed documents providing a daily account of the activities of a British, Dominion, Indian and Colonial Army unit on active service. This was a British Army Field Service Regulation dating from 1907. Sometimes the War Diary was designated as an Intelligence Summary.
It was the responsibility of the commander of every military unit – from the level of a battalion to a division – to ensure that the War Diary was kept up to date. It was to be written up each evening by a specific junior officer and usually signed off by a senior officer or the commanding officer.
The War Diary was compiled by month for every month that the unit was on active service.
In addition to the completed official War Diary Army Form, there might also be sketches, messages, maps and Operational Orders included as appendices.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2491760/Harry-Drinkwaters-lost-diary-Great-War.html

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 03:07 PM

Diaries were forbidden but soldiers kept them anyway.
The Imperial War museum has thousands.
Rob Naylor said he has one kept by his Grandad, so that was a silly thing to say Jim.

Letters were censored for locations and activities.
If a soldier was nervous of expressing disillusionment, he would just wait until he got leave.
He would not need to lie in his letters. Just not mention it.

Over 80% of soldiers made it home, so we can be sure what they thought.

So you are talking bollocks again.
All the historians are not fools who need you to explain their job to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 03:46 PM

"Diaries were forbidden but soldiers kept them anyway"
There is no information from the UNKNOWN AND UNPUBLISHED war diaries held at the IWM - I know that for a fact from my attempts to annotate our recordings of the WW1 soldier I knew
All the 'FACTS' you have claimed here have been made up by by you.
You have invented every single claim you have made here.
You are using the dead just as the people who sent thousands of them to their deaths in an Imperial war use them while they are living
The only 'FACT' here is there are no depths that you are not prepared to sink to to support your scummy little world
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 04:01 PM

You [Keith] have invented every single claim you have made here.

Shouldn't come as a surprise, Jim - that's his standard M.O. on each and every topic, innit?

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

Over 80% of soldiers made it home

Source?

Which/whose soldiers precisely?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 05:31 PM

I do not make stuff up.
I leave that to Jim and Musket.
The IWM material is available for historical research.
I believe the historians, not the arrogant twats who think they know better.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 06:07 PM

Over 80% of soldiers made it home
Source?

Some numbers from Great Britain : "Conscription put into uniform nearly every physically fit man, six million out of ten million eligible in Britain. Of these, about 750,000 lost their lives and 1,700,000 were wounded." Makes about 5,250,000 British survivors.
Source:
"World War I casualties", Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I...
"World War I: Troop Statistics", Digital Survivors : http://www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives...
"Surviving veterans of World War I", Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_v...

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

Bollocks, Keith.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWdeaths.htm

http://europeanhistory.about.com/cs/worldwar1/a/blww1casualties.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 08:16 PM

It's truly remarkable how many folks feel compelled to sound off on political or military topics without stooping to soil their hands by actually doing research, as for instance reading books about their chosen topics.    There are no doubt rightist know-nothings on other sites, but here we are lopsidedly blessed with those on the left. No wonder folkies' grasp of military and political realities is so universally admired.

It takes just a bare modicum of research to find out that there was considerable enthusiasm for war in 1914 in Paris, London, St. Petersburg and Berlin, among others.   Many in each nation were seemingly convinced that they would win before Christmas 1914. It is simplistic in the extreme--and typical on Mudcat--to claim that this is due solely to jingoistic xenophobia or propaganda.   It is always easy to underestimate your enemy, especially if you have not been in a major war for a while.   (The same thing happened in the US in 1861--in both the North and South.) And there were all sorts of personal reasons to greet war with enthusiasm.

By Christmas 1914 it was apparent the war would not be short and war fever had in large part evaporated--all over. In Germany, for instance, the old particularism was still very much in evidence---many Bavarians and Saxons, some of whom had been employed in the UK, wanted no part of what was seen as a Prussian war.    The "Christmas Truce" for instance was primarily in the sectors manned by Saxons and Bavarians.

But if we hope to have any grasp of history at all, we need to stop looking at it from our own 20/20 hindsight and often pacifist viewpoints.

Face it, in August 1914 the war was very popular in many quarters.    And that was not just due to propaganda.


The flip side is that the allegation that in 1939 mankind had learned nothing is also wrong.   In 1939 Hitler was one of the few in all of Europe who welcomed war.   The start of war was not popular in Germany; it was received somberly.   Indeed Hitler's popularity in Germany was in large part due to the perception that he had achieved many German goals without war. Even so there had been several attempts within Germany to kill him, as well as conspiracies which fizzled. And the primary impetus to asssassinate him was a conviction that he would start a war Germany could not win.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Ron Davies
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 08:18 PM

I am "Guest" above.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 08:31 PM

"Green Fields of France" is a good song. It is not a documentary.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 02:46 AM

Greg, from your Spartacus site.
British Empire        8,904,467mobilisesd        908,371killed/died

Do the sums Greg dear.
87% survived.

From your other site.
Great Britain        5,397,000 mobilised        703,000 killed
Do the sums Greg dear.
86% survived.

So after all your abuse and filthy language you have confirmed that I was right all along and you, as usual, were wrong.

What is the point of you Greg.
You contribute nothing to debate, just flinging in abuse and shit.
What a bleak empty world you must inhabit that you are driven to do it.
You sad man.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 03:40 AM

"I do not make stuff up."
You do nothing else Keith
"The Imperial War museum has thousands."
As the Daily Mail pointed out - soldiers diaries were illegal, they are extremely rare and they were never published - the first one only came to public notice this month.
We have no idea how many there are - I tried to access information to annotate our recordings of the Liverpool soldier we recorded - there was none available, so your jingoistic claims of flag waving soldiers marching into Europe is crap made up entirely by yourself by yourself.
From the official records, 5.4m Britons served in WW1; 996,000 died - somewhat astray from your own figures
http://www.1914-1918.net/faq.htm
"Over 80% of soldiers made it home, so we can be sure what they thought."
Serving ranking soldiers accounts of their war experiences are extremely rare and I have never come across any that fit your descriptions that describe flag-waving zealots fighting the good fight.
Rather, the realities of fighting came from poets like Sassoon, Owen and Brook, or vivid descriptions of the horror of it all by Robert Graves, Patrick McGill or The Dillen - no flag-waving there.   
We recorded the reality from Tommy Kenny the docker:
As little more than a child, he was conned into joining up with promises of glory and adventure - and most important, regular work.
Many of his mates were forced to join up by their employers who had done a deal with the local military not to touch their best workers.
Others had been refused entitled benefits if they didn't 'GO'
Somme were shamed by fur-coated women carrying white feathers.
The realities of what they had done sank in almost (but not quite) before the door had had time to close behind them.
We recorded vivid descriptions of the brutality, deliberately degrading ill-treatment and viciousness of army life even before they left Britain
And when they got there - the months of end of walking on duck-boards so they didn't drown in the mud (many of them did)
Being prodded by sticks to climb ladders to face the enemy by officer who never left the trenches - and being court martialed if they didn't go quick enough.
The summary executions for supposed desertion, sharing their beds with thousands of rats, rancid food , dirty water, constant beatings....
The deafness caused by the constant noise and the semi-blindness from the fog and gas - even if you didn't receive a direct hit.
My mother's father died in France and her stepfather was gassed - I still remember from a child, being terrified by the old man with the horrific scars on his neck.
That was the reality of fighting in Flanders and France - not the jingoistic shite you have dreamed up.
And when those who managed to survive returned home from "The War to end all Wars"
The unemployment, leaving returning to the forces to fight in Ireland, or become part of one of the 14 armies that went to Russia to attempt to return the Tzar to power in the Civil war there one of the few alternatives.
Then the Hungry thirties; Jarrow, Salford, Liverpool - the mass Hunger Marches, the crippling and degrading poverty.... a true "Home fit for heroes to live in".
The German workers returned home and tried to overthrow the bastards who had sent them to fight - they nearly won, but their failure led to Hitler's rise to power.
The British Government sat on its hands and did nothing, and punished those who tried by fighting the fascists in Spain or by opposing the British Knight, Sir Oswald Mosely on the streets of Liverpool, Manchester and East London.
They appeased Hitler to the point of waving a "Peace in our time" treaty - the British monarch and his American friend became his close friend and supporter, as did many businessmen, Newspaper owners, Members of Parliament and the House of Lords.
And then - as Bogle's song says
"We started all over again".
W.W.1. was an Imperial war, a falling out between two members of the same family – our and their monarchs - over who should rule the world.
Two and a half percent of the British population perished - it is deeply insulting to them and to the British population as a whole to suggest that they did so willingly or with any degree of enthusiasm for the cause of that war.
You appear to get off on supporting these establishment thugs in their monstrosities.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 03:45 AM

"Documents
Our documents cover a wealth of personal experience and testimony, both British and foreign, as well official records. Private Papers IWM holds almost 18,000 individual collections of important private papers, principally comprising unpublished diaries,..."http://www.iwm.org.uk/global-tags/diaries


18000 Jim.
Not that rare then.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 03:54 AM

You will almost certainly ignore all the facts you have been presented with - a few more for you to ignore
Jim Carroll

The traditional image of recruitment in 1914 is of an initial wave of enthusiasm and volunteering greeting the outbreak of war. At the beginning of August 1914, Parliament issued a call for an extra 100,000 soldiers. Recruitment in the first few weeks of war was high, but the real 'recruiting boom' began in the last week of August, when news of the British retreat following the Battle of Mons reached Britain. Recruiting peaked in the first week of September.[2]
By the end of September, over 750,000 men had enlisted; by January 1915, a million. 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.
The government demand for men continued unabated, and after the first call in August for 500,000 men; a further 3.5 million were called-for before the year ended. The pre-war calculations had supposed that the British Expeditionary Force would lose around 40% of its manpower in the first six months of fighting. Kitchener's predictions of three years fighting and a million men needed was regarded as incredible. The seven divisions of the BEF, totalling 85,000 men, had been landed in France at the outbreak of war; casualties in the first three months totalled almost 90,000. By mid-1915, this total had risen to around 375,000 even before the autumn offensives and the rate of recruitment was falling off, for a number of reasons.


May 1915 poster by E. V. Kealey, from the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee
In 1915 the total available number of men of military age was 5.5 million, with around 500,000 more reaching the age each year. By late September, 2.25 million men had been enlisted and 1.5 million were in reserved occupations. Of the rest, the recruiters had uncovered a dismaying fact — almost two in every five volunteers were entirely unsuitable for military service on the grounds of health. When volunteer numbers fell to around 70,000 a month after the Dardanelles Expedition, the government felt forced to intervene, although they initially avoided conscription. A National Registration Act in 1915 created a register that revealed the number of men still available and they were targeted in a number of ways. The skills of advertising were brought to bear with posters, public meetings, tales of German atrocities, and the threat of shame. The 'Derby Scheme' used door-to-door visits to gather men to 'attest' to serve if needed, with a promise that bachelors would be called up before married men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment_to_the_British_Army_during_the_First_World_War

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 03:58 AM

"comprising unpublished diaries,."
Unpublished and unavailable
As far as we are concerned - almost non-existent
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 04:11 AM

Historians have access.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 05:08 AM

Where - what are their findings?
Sources and links only accepted - not bullshit jingoistic claims by you
You have made claims on the vabasis of these diaries - where did you get your information - sorry a rhetorical question - you made them up as you make all your 'information" up.
"Over 80% of soldiers made it home, so we can be sure what they thought"
What did they think?
Stop lying
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 05:14 AM

I you bothered to check, I already have provided links to various historians' findings.
You have jumped in to an ongoing discussion without reading anything!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 05:28 AM

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10110657/Germany-and-Austria-started-WWI-seeking-European-domination-historian-says.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2339189/MAX-HASTINGS-Sucking-Germans-way-remember-Great-War-heroes-Mr-Cameron.html#ixzz2kLdoRTh5


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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_01.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/lions_donkeys_01.shtml#one

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 05:40 AM

Sorry.   Still giggling over the sources of what Keith refers to as objective truth.

Daily Telegraph
Daily Ma*l.

Why not add The Daily Sport and have done with it?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 05:48 AM

No.
That is just where the historian published.
The source is the historian not the publisher.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 06:00 AM

Where do any of these quote the diaries you claim show soldiers fighting the war for for other reasons than having been coerced or forced to join.
Where is your evidence that they came back from the trenches and made such claims
Where is the evidence for any of your jingoistic claims
We recorded someone who fought in the war and says anybody who makes such claims is a fucking liar
Are we to dismiss his statement as lies and believe you, who has proved himself a habitual liar over and over again
His testimony is accessible in the British library - where is yours?
Diary quotes please
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 06:04 AM

You will find those things in those sources.
They are produced by eminent historians of the conflict.

Read them first, then post.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 06:21 AM

NO KEITH They ARE NOT THERE
No diaries - no eye witness accounts, no opinions of why people enlisted
Just arguments for who was to blame
Where is the evidence of your claims that soldiers who joined did so because they believed in the cause?
Where is your evidence that returning soldiers said they believed such nonsense?
Where is your response to the actual eye-witness accounts claiming the contrary?
here is your evidence that they weren't coerced and forced?
Nowhere-nowhere-nowhere-nowhere
Yoe have lied openly again
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 06:31 AM

My mother in law was going through old boxes and came upon various things which included her father's (last name Kirby from Norfolk) little diary from when he was in the first war. In truth there wasn't much of note written in it, mostly mundane stuff, though there was a poem which I took a copy of and put a tune to. I'll look it out over the weekend and post the lyrics. Not pro or anti war. He was a signalman so it basically just describes how he feels about his duties and comrades.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 07:05 AM

No diaries - no eye witness accounts, no opinions of why people enlisted

Those would be some of the sources used by the historians to make their conclusions.
Why should I reject the historians and take notice of you Jim?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 07:11 AM

Most veterans rejected the 'poets' view'. One old soldier, named Henry Mellersh, declared in 1978 that he wholeheartedly rejected the notion that the war was 'one vast, useless, futile tragedy, worthy to be remembered only as a pitiable mistake'.
Instead, wrote Mellersh: 'I and my like entered the war expecting an heroic adventure and believing implicitly in the rightness of our cause; we ended greatly disillusioned as to the nature of the adventure, but still believing that our cause was right and we had not fought in vain.'
The fact that Britain sacrificed so many lives to prevent the triumph of Germany's militarists should be a matter of pride to those men's modern descendants, not grounds for ministers to take refuge in empty platitudes.

That view was far more widely held by Mellersh's contemporaries than the 'futility' vision of Owen, Sassoon and their kin.


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


Dr. Gary Sheffield.
" popular opinion: that the issues were not worth the ensuing bloodbath. Most modern scholars would not agree

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 07:16 AM

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 08:10 AM

Sassoon and Owen were there - they had no political axe to grind
Your 'historians' were not - and have
Your 'historians' conclusions contradict long standing accounts, including the eye-witness ones you have neither responded to nor provided examples of ones you claim to support your views.
Once again you are dominating someones thread with your own twisted distortions and selectively part-quoting 'historians' to back your distortions - your 'Irish famine' technique all over again.
Any moment you are going to claim "I am no historian - don't blame me, I am only the messenger", as you have in the past.
The fact that millions died over a squabble between family members as to who should rule the world make W.W.1 made it 'one vast, useless, futile tragedy, worthy to be remembered only as a pitiable mistake' - no matter who claimed otherwise.
That is an inescapable fact - not an opinion.
Now - your "soldiers' diary" quotes rather than desperately searched for cut-'n-pastes - all unlinked - as is your wont.
Him Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket giggling
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 08:21 AM

Fook me!   Sassoon and Owen were too posh to comment!

Posh people not allowed views then? That Farage bloke, he's a bit posh. Mind you, I dismiss his views on Europe I suppose, but based on his naive philosophy rather than his logic.

Let's get this right. If you were capable, as the poets of the trenches appeared, of articulating the awful situation, you are irrelevant because you contradict the view that the Generals wrote from their hq bases a few miles back? As The Imperial War Museum, The British Museum and other establishment bodies were concerned with the official account of the war, dissenting views are immaterial?

I'll give you this much Keith, you write as if you are keeping a straight face.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 08:36 AM

In times of insecurity, it does not take much to make young men "believe in the cause" of their leaders. As we found on the threads about religion, the word "believe" has many shades, and must not be reduced to the meaning "conclude by sober analysis". Also, there are various forms of "coercion", the most efficient one being haranguing by propaganda and peer pressure. If we could ask young men in Taliban controlled areas anonymously and secretly, most would still claim to be voluntary fighters.

So did young men in WWI, on both sides. Few, if any, really understood what was going on. Those who came to curse their leaders often did so only because the promised quick victory did not occur, and the losses were larger than anticipated. Others, who were originally critical of their governments' causes, resolved to fight bravely to help their comrades.

As usually, only few people felt they had to change their minds when the war was over and new evidence was available.

Therefore, if we now mourn those who died young in WWI and other wars, we should not judge about their morality at all. Praising anyone as a hero requires an analysis of the individual person's motives and of the cause.

At a given point in time, the leaders of a country may only have the choice to send their soldiers to war or to surrender at unacceptable conditions. Often enough, however, they failed to prevent that situations when there was still time. Most governments, definitely including all protagonists of the WWs, play with their military power to gain influence on other countries, in other words to bully them, and thus consciously take the risk of "unprovoked" war. Praising soldiers' heroism amounts to supporting that power play and encouraging governments to continue it. Not my idea of modern politics.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket being patriotic
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 09:07 AM

Not a lot to disagree with there Grishka. Where you say we should not judge their morality, I see no disagreement in this thread. There are those however who see cold reflection and judging of the situation by today's standards as judging the prevailing morality of those who fought. If you read some posts, and in particular those of Keith A of Hertford, questioning the cause or questioning the methods of war is pounced upon as being disrespectful.

And that is sad.

The war memorials are a mixture of commemoration of those who fell, especially when people reading the names could still put faces to them, and reminding us of sacrifice in order to have the peace afterwards.

Nowadays they also serve as sentinels to the worst methods of resolving political failures. War occurs when humanity fails. Every death is ultimately futile on the basis that they shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place.

The first world war especially. Im not anti monarchist as such, but a pissing contest between cousins with empires as gambling tokens. ..... weak politicians caused that war. Stumbled into it.

Futile.

Unnecessary.

A stain on what we were calling civilisation.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 09:19 AM

Sassoon and Owen were too posh to comment!

No-one said that Musket.
Made up shit again.
What the historians did say was that their views were not representative.

I choose to believe the historians.
I think it more likely that you two are talking bollocks than that all of them are.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 09:23 AM

a pissing contest between cousins with empires as gambling tokens. ..... weak politicians caused that war. Stumbled into it.
Futile.
Unnecessary.

You are free to think what you like (thanks to the armed forces), but I will reject your view based as it is on profound ignorance, and accept the views of historians based as it is on years of research.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 09:27 AM

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watchin' us all with the eye of the tiger

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 09:31 AM

Do the sums Greg dear.

Good ol' keith - lying with statistics, yet again.
Do add in those wounded and SUBSEQUENTLY died (not just the KIA) and the MIA's, and those that "survived" as vegetables, sunshine, and then YOU do the sums.

Idiot.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 09:33 AM

"Far from dying in vain, those who perished in the King's uniform between 1914 and 1918 made as important a contribution to our privileged, peaceful lives today as did their sons in World War II."

"Because I have myself been writing a book about 1914, I have spent many hours reading the timelessly moving correspondence and diaries of men who fought. I came across one letter penned in November from an officer serving at Ypres, speaking about a close friend's death there.
He wrote: 'When I think of poor Bernard's utter weariness (I left him in his trench in the early morning, and wished I could take his place, he was so done) . . ."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 09:38 AM

You provided those stats. Greg.
If you can do sums with them better, do it.

Do add in those wounded and SUBSEQUENTLY died
Good point Greg.
100% subsequently died.
A very helpful statistic.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 09:54 AM

Any moment you are going to claim "I am no historian - don't blame me, I am only the messenger"

We are not historians Jim.
If I want to know about the past, I do go to the works of historians.
What do you do?
Close your eyes and make it up as it should have been!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 10:07 AM

You provided those stats. Greg.

Not quite: I provided references to the tables, yes, but you have demonstrated that you are incapable of reading and understanding the tables.

> 100% subsequently died.

You really ARE an idiot.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 10:20 AM

but you have demonstrated that you are incapable of reading and understanding the tables.

Really Greg.
Oh dear.
Please educate me and everyone on how you read them Greg.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 11:04 AM

"We are not historians Jim."
Only a matter of time before you claimed this
We read everything we can on the subject rather than do what you do - make your stupid and reactionary statements then go and scramble for a cut 'n paste - then grab the first one that (sort of) backs you up.
Nowhere has Hastings contradicted in any way the account than has been accepted - high pressure recruiting based on lies, 'white feather' blackmail, ill treatment by officers, summary executions, total disillusionment.... nothing of this - all these are established facts of history and all these you have denied with your jingoistic claims
Your (once again) unlinked quote from Max Hastings refers in its entirety to his attempts to blame the Germans for the war -it nowhere backs your claim that British soldiers went to war because the believed in the cause - nor does it back up your equally false claim that they maintained that belief when the came home.
You are using your 'historian' to prove something which he has not referred to.
Are we to assume that your total failure to provide a single shred of evidence for these claims is proof positive that you made up these facts and that they are part of your jingoistic, flag-wagging agenda?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 11:34 AM

I love that bit.

I am free to have my views thanks to the armed forces. ....

I actually am free to have my views in spite of the armed forces.

My view by the way is based on a search for the truth, not the easy revisionist propaganda you are wedded to.

Most men died through outrageously callous and ill conceived decisions by their own ignorant senior officers. Even your buddy Hastings concedes thats one factor of the second world war was the senior officers had been junior officers in the first war and learned from the incompetence and wholesale slaughter.

I recall the old man next door when I was a child selling his medals, Boer and WW1. He said there was no glory in keeping them, no difference to the mates he lost. Once people showed interest in buying them, it was nice to see them having some use at last.   Paid for having the house decorated. He died in 1972 at a ripe old age, and you know what? The most heroic thing he did was see the futility of having pride in medals. Mind you, dodging bullets is hard too, but seeing jingoism for what it is? Priceless.

(George Cooper of Worksop. Served in Sherwood Foresters.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 12:28 PM

What does one mean though when one talks about Sassoon's views? Is that his later poems or his initial reaction to the war? Sassoon went into the war head first and was reckoned to be far too brave and basically far too wreckless for his own good taking actions with apparent indifference to his own safety. His poems took a turn and he started to think about the war in a different light because of the experiences he had and the losses that he suffered. What do we mean by the views of the ordinary soldier? Do we mean the views they had when they all marched off happily in the first place arms in arms - or do we mean the views they had when many returned partially broken men often refusing to even discuss their experiences? Surely things are far from black and white?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 12:36 PM

Jim, I had already given links to those extracts.
I was repeating them for you.

I have provided material from 4 historians already to support my views and can produce more.
My views derive from the historians.
Yours are just your made up ramblings.

Most men died through outrageously callous and ill conceived decisions by their own ignorant senior officers.
Not according to the historians.
Just made up shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 12:37 PM

Surely things are far from black and white?

Not if you're a fundamentalist "Christian"[sic] with the name of Keith they ain't.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 01:05 PM

We are to assume that you have made up everything you have claimed about the reason the 'ordinary soldiers enlisted then - nothing new there!!
"have provided material from 4 historians already to support my views and can produce more."
Once again you certainly can't produce anybody who agrees with yo here
Just like those 6 phantom politicians who claimed your "cultural implant" theory -never to emerge in the public eye
YOU'RE MAKING IT ALL UP AGAIN.
A bit of a mess really - why do you contribute to a debating forum if you are going to invent things?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 01:09 PM

According to me and I keep telling you, if paid Fleet St hacks can call themselves historians and fool gullible idiots, so can I.

I'm a historian dontcha know?




When 20, 000 men die on one day in a field you could fit on our village green, it makes you wonder how it happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 01:11 PM

"Most men died through outrageously callous and ill conceived decisions by their own ignorant senior officers."
Of course they did
Advance to gain territory (which was basically worthless) was calculated on the basis of how many men were expendable per yard of advance.
French resigned when he was challenged for putting this policy into place
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 01:15 PM

I do not know who or what exactly started WWI, but I know that monarchs and presidents, however evil and conceited, would not have had the power to do it by their lonesome decisions. My favourites among the many culprits are jingoistic newspapers, heating conflicts for profit - still do.

Should we be grateful to soldiers? In some sense yes, as to firefighters and policemen. But I refuse to thank them collectively for risking/sacrificing their lives "for us", since this would amount to accepting that their commanders acted for our objective benefit. Nine of my granduncles died in WWI, on both sides, not counting those who died in the Russian civil wars. They cannot all have died for me, can they?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 01:28 PM

Ah, Grishka, now you're entering the realm of logic.

Shame on you.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 03:16 PM

You have given me a lot of stuff to reply to.
It is all in the thread already, but I enjoy rubbing your silly faces in it all.
Max Hastings refutes all your claims so you dismiss him as a hack.
Another eminent historian described him in the Telegraph as the leading military historian in the country.
An extract from his wiki entry.
"He has presented historical documentaries for the BBC and is the author of many books, including Bomber Command which earned the Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction in 1980. Both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year prize. He was named Journalist of the Year and Reporter of the Year at the 1982 British Press Awards, and Editor of the Year in 1988. In 2010 he received the Royal United Services Institute's Westminster Medal for his "lifelong contribution to military literature", and the same year the Edgar Wallace Award from the London Press Club.[2]
In 2012 he was awarded the US$100,000 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, a lifetime achievement award for military writing, which includes an honorarium, citation and medallion, sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation.[4]
Hastings is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the Royal Historical Society.

Do you expect to be believed over him guys?
Good luck with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 03:24 PM

Dr. Gary Sheffield.
"Haig, ... was no technophobe. He encouraged the development of advanced weaponry such as tanks, machine guns and aircraft. He, like Rawlinson and a host of other commanders at all levels in the BEF, learned from experience. The result was that by 1918 the British army was second to none in its modernity and military ability. It was led by men who, if not military geniuses, were at least thoroughly competent commanders. The victory in 1918 was the payoff. The 'lions led by donkeys' tag should be dismissed for what it is - a misleading caricature."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Nov 13 - 03:29 PM

We are to assume that you have made up everything you have claimed about the reason the 'ordinary soldiers enlisted then

I said that they accepted and responded to the need to stop the invading German armies.
The historians all agree that they were right about that.

What am I supposed to have made up Jim?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 01:55 AM

You know, it wasn't that long ago that revisionist historians were reviled. One even went to prison for it. (David Irvine.) Nobody is saying the historians Keith refers to are wicked in the sense he is, but the establishment needs apologists to airbrush history.

The Daily Telegraph and Daily M*il being wonderful outlets for propaganda and distortion.

With the rallying cry of "we'll get it done by Christmas, " the volunteers soon found that was only the first lie. Wait till the whistles and ladders are in position. ....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 02:30 AM

This is mainstream history.
The revisionist period began in the 30s and culminated with "Oh What A Lovely War" and Blackadder.
That view of pointless futility has been swept away by responsible informed historians, but remains in popular opinion.

When Hague died in 1922, a million people turned out to pay their respects on a freezing day.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 03:51 AM

"What am I supposed to have made up Jim?"
You have made up virtually everything here
You have basically dominated this thread (again) on a couple of cut 'n pastes from a short article discussing a book (which you haven't read) on a subject you have no particular knowledge of in, in order to show that the Germans were baddies and the Britons were goodies.
You have claimed that the soldiers who were slaughtered went to fight for a cause rather than having followed the tradition and historical path of recruitment, which has been a long established part of our understanding of W.W.1 - and all wars throughout history.
This latter has not even been raised as a question in anything you have produced and you persistently ignore all requests to show otherwise.
The causes of World War One have long been established and accepted - it was part of the fight for territories and markets by two major Imperial powers.
Contrary to your claims, Max Hastings (your star witness) is not an established and respected historian - he is a journalist turned populist historian who has (apparently - I haven't read his book, neither have you) done some work on researching the war and (apparently - not clear from the article) may or may not have come up with a few new facts.
What those facts are remain to be seen; they are certainly not included in the newspaper article and the snippets you have cut -'n-pasted indicate that you have been unable to be able fill out any more detail of what Hastings has to say on the matter.
If it proves to be of interest I might make the effort to read it - you won't - you've made it quite clear in the past that you rely on quick dips into the net for your information, which you use to dominate these threads and, when you arrive at the far reaches of your 'knowledge' and have driven any discussion you take part in into a mind-numbing dead-end, throw up your hands and squeal "I'm no historian" - this happens on this forum time after time.
You are basically an old-fashioned jingoist who has sought out something which apparently supports your jingoism written by a minor populist historian who has just written a book which you have not read and almost certainly will not bother to read.
I'm no historian and I make no claim to anything other than a superficial knowledge of the subject here other than what I have read over the last fifty odd years.
I do have a fairly deep and active interest in social history and have spent some time recording that particular aspect of history from a few people who have been involved in some major historical events
This includes a three-day long interview with a First World War soldier - which is why I bothered to join this discussion.
I am well used to jingoism and apologist outpourings such as yours - I can pick up a copy of a tabloid newspaper any day of the week, should I choose to.
It got up my nose that, yet again, at a time when those who died nearly a century ago for their sacrifices, out came the usual bunch of flag-waggers who are still prepared to use those sacrifice to defend a war that has long been established as indefensible between two Imperialist powers whose avarice and inhumanity has been equally long established.
Their empires are dead, long may they remain dead; the only reason for keeping their histories alive is to make sure we or our children, or our childrens' children.... never see the rise of another one.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 04:00 AM

Sorry - correction:
"out came the usual bunch of flag-waggers"
You appear not to be 'a bunch' but a lone flag wagger in the wilderness.
By the way - sorry that last posting was so long; perhaps you can get someone to read it to you, or better still, get a mate to select a couple of cut-'n-pastes - that seems to be about your level of 'scholarship'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 04:09 AM

Max Hastings (your star witness) is not an established and respected historian
Yes he is.
Read his biog.

The Daily Telegraph and Daily M*il being wonderful outlets for propaganda and distortion.

That is just bollocks.
The BBC site uses Todman and Sheffield to provide the history of that conflict.
That is where virtually all my extracts were taken from.
Read it Jim.
There is nothing there to prop up your discredited views.
My own views were formed by reading such historians.
You two muppets are putting yourself up against all the professional historians.
Why should anyone do more than laugh at you?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 04:29 AM

They should laugh at us because it would be part of laughing with us.

However for your part, there is nothing funny about defending sanitised revisions on behalf of the establishment.

The two world wars would be totally in vain if we don't try to learn from them. To perpetuate the myth that they were well led, thought out and carried out with the objective free will of the soldiers caught up in them is awful.   Truly fucking awful.

Have you no shame?

The military leaders in WW2 however did learn from the incompetence and slaughter of WW1. That's why the murderous technique of using our soldiers as cannon fodder was no longer an option. The stupidity of sacrificing men for the victory of a small field was roundly rejected as tactic.

Tell you what. When I visited a war cemetery the other year and saw "the countless white" I decided there and then that the poem that best sums up the whole mess was this one, presumably either Richard Curtis or Ben Elton wrote it.

Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 04:49 AM

there is nothing funny about defending sanitised revisions on behalf of the establishment.

But no-one is doing that.
Some of us are able to open our minds to the accepted historical truth.
You two can only cling to your discredited, outdated version.

I have produced numerous top historians, and there are more.
You two, just your own made up shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 05:06 AM

I'm not entering this debate as it will no doubt end, as many Mudcat debates do, in horns permanently locked. But I will make one point:

The problem, Keith, with trotting out opinions by one or two historians whose views support yours, is that you present just one side of an argument and then claim it as Gospel. However, there are countless other good military historians whose views may differ. Have you actually read the high quality material by the late Richard Holmes, by Peter Hart, by David Stephenson - and many, many others who may or may not disagree with Hastings or Sheffield? (I have, by the way). If you haven't then you can't just keep reiterating "top historians have said..." as though it's an unassailable argument.

Just a comment. Now, back to reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,keith
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 05:27 AM

I have produced about six, including all those on the BBC History site.
Here are some more.

"Some historians, however, argue that the other ranks were not likely to exhibit 'high diction' and in that point they may be partially correct. But they did have a real sense of patriotism and devotion to their homeland and the evidence says as much. 'Such sentiments were by no means as rare among the rank-and-file as is normally assumed; indeed, censorship reports compiled from the letters of tens of thousands of soldiers remarked explicitly on the continued, widespread evidence of idealistic beliefs and sacrificial willingness among other ranks ...'(6) Sacrificial ideology is a logical extension of Watson's earlier work and complements his thesis that morale and sacrificial willingness were inextricably linked to the outcome of the First World War."

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1039

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 06:32 AM

Horns locked, but where is the doe? Highly motivated soldiers are evidence of good propaganda, not of a good cause. See my post of 15 Nov 13 - 08:36 AM.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 06:41 AM

No answer to anything Keith - just more undigested raids on the internet - go read a book
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 07:10 AM

Jim go to the BBC hitory site.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/perceptions_01.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_01.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/lions_donkeys_01.shtml#one
It is you two muppets who have put up nothing but your very own discredited, outdated views.

The choice is between historians and you, and you really expect us to beieve you!
Why?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 07:35 AM

Will Fly suggested Peter Hart.
"But when I started the detailed research I began to realise that our communal understanding of the whole of the First World War has a strangely 'unfinished' aspect to it; why have the great battles of the earlier years seemed so futile in the public imagination and why are British High Command so denigrated?"

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 07:59 AM

The late Richard Holmes was another.
From his obit.
Forty years on, in his book Tommy (2004), Holmes continued to repudiate the view, promoted by the war poets, that the troops of the First World War were poorly led. He also re-examined the enduring legends about the prevalence of shellshock, drunkenness in the trenches, and soldiers shot at dawn for cowardice or desertion, pointing out that 90 per cent of death sentences were commuted.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 08:13 AM

Finally, david SteVenson.
A review of his book on Amazon.
If you think that the European powers stumbled into the Great War by accident; that the generals were numbskulls who learned nothing from the slaughter on the Somme or at Verdun; or that the sudden collapse of Germany in 1918 owed little to British and French efforts, then read this book and think again.

This is a superb history of World War One, clearly written and comprehensive in its scope. Stevenson is clear that the origins of the war were not accidental. Politicians on both sides had choices and they chose war or the threat of war as preferable to the alternatives. In particular Austria-Hungary and Germany wanted a war in the Balkans and were willing to risk its escalation into a general European war.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 08:20 AM

Hastings reckons that putting any German perspective by their historians is an insult to the fallen.

Bollocks. Pathetic little England bollocks from a jingoistic apologist for the mistakes of barbaric generals with little or no regard for human life.

He panders to the thoughts of nationalistic fools who hanker for an England that never actually existed.

With Keith's track record, Hastings and his sycophant Sheffield must make good reading for him.....

If you didn't already know, there's a fringe loony political party that would be right up your street.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 16 Nov 13 - 10:24 AM

""The result was that by 1918 the British army was second to none in its modernity and military ability. It was led by men who, if not military geniuses, were at least thoroughly competent commanders.""

Who were still using the same tactic that had killed thousands of young men, sending them across a kill zone against well dug in machine guns, in full frontal assault.

The Germans didn't even have to aim, just swing side to side and scythe 'em down.

Most didn't make it ten yards from their own trench.

Good job the war ended in 1918. Much more of that modernity and military ability, and Britain might well have lost.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Remembrance Sunday is an obscenity.

But one that we decent people note.

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

In fact. Quite the opposite. ....

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

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

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

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

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

You will note that I replied to your comment above.

However I replied in the Christian Persecution thread.

Not exactly perfect myself sometimes. Strange but true.

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

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

So are those historians who should know better.

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

So are those historians who should know better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Glory Pomp and Circumstance of glorious war.

Or as Baldrick put it,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have put them all down.

ALL historians?? You Have? Really

You really have no connection to reality whtsoever, Keith.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You really ARE a fucking idiot. Hopeless.

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

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

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

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

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

Yes.
Historians hang their history on hard evidence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(See how you like it.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ahem....

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

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

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

That would be stupid.
I did not.

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

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

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

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

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

No.

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

Your quote Jim.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From The free dictionary.com:

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

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


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

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

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

Another.
Dr.Dan Todman

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

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

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

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

He places the blame firmly on Germany.

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

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

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

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

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

Oh yes... The Belgians...

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

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

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

Yet they did....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hardly, Keith.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which have I left out then Greg.

Lots. Even most.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

☺~M~☺

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

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

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

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

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

~M~

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Lest we forget.






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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~M~

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

Whoops - forum fairy please!!
Apologies
Jim Carroll

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

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

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 04:11 AM

Jim, you seem to be saying that Britons were wrong to be angered at the massacres of ordinary people and children because they deserved it.
Right?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 04:11 AM

Before anybody - guess who - attempts to claim I or anybody is taking sides in all this jingoistic shit and claiming that Belgium's behaviour in its colonies in any way justifies the German atrocities
"The Rape of Belgium" - in context
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Belgium
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 05:31 AM

So, if it was not justified Jim, can you not see how caring, brave people might be moved to put a stop to it?
That is what happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 05:55 AM

BBC Jim.
Germany admits Namibia genocide
German army hanging Hereros (archive pic)
Germany's military commander had vowed to wipe out the Herero
Germany has offered its first formal apology for the colonial-era massacre of some 65,000 members of the Herero tribe by German troops in Namibia.
German minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul told a commemorative ceremony that the brutal crushing of the Herero uprising 100 years ago was genocide.

But the German government has ruled out compensation for victims' descendants.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 05:55 AM

At the risk of confusing Michael. ..

Keith has decided that tabloid articles don't have the sincerity he claims after all and in a vain search for an Oracle, has decided that nobody can argue with an Amazon review.

Quite.

What next.. Wikipedia?

I thought A J P Taylor would at the very least cause him to argue against the man. But apparently he does made up shit.

Fucking priceless.



I, just like Keith, reckon the BBC is normally on the button. Let's see now. What did I get from there?
Oh yes!


Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 06:08 AM

I did not contradict Taylor.
Do you deny that Hastings made copious use of material from ordinary soldiers as the reviewer states and you deny?
It will be very easy to check.

Can you provide anything to support your lies about the historians?
Of course not!
You made it up.
Made up shit to hide and save your silly face.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Musket
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 08:02 AM

For anyone bored enough to keep up with Keith's logic, (I must be, but humouring him is a distraction that I welcome. Procrastination helps with the day...)

Keith says a newspaper reporter cum author who wrote a version of military history that his paymasters would like and serialise for him said one thing.

Keith says that it must be true because he is called Hastings so must be respectable. (Been watching or reading too much Agatha Christie I reckon.

An eminent historian, A J P Taylor asserted something that creates huge holes in the logic of Hastings, and of course wrote it decades earlier.....

Keith said he doesn't contradict Taylor either.

A classic case of having your cake and eating it.

Watch out if you wish to quiz him on this. In the spirit of Mudcat members having a love in, he will call you a liar, a disgrace to the memory of dead people and call quotes by famous people "made up shit" on the basis you quoted them.

Michael is clever enough to defend him in order not to have the machine gun spray in his direction, or stupid enough to defend him because he likes sanitised history that doesn't jar with what we were told in school and conditioned to believe. I can't fathom which.

Funny old world.

I feel a poem coming on.

Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 08:25 AM

Not 'defending' [or the opposite] anyone, Ian. Not engaging specifically on either side in this controversy at all (how many times do I have to point that out to penetrate your stubborn thick ☠!?). Merely disputing a stupidity in [what you claim to be merely] 1% of your argument; which, if it had any validity, wouldn't need any such pathetic crutches anyhow as to claim that if it's in the Daily Wotsit or the Daily Umyah then it can't be right becoz decent lefties don't like them.

'S'all

Ta-ra

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 08:35 AM

IT IS NOT JUST HASTINGS!
NO HISTORIANS HOLD YOUR VIEW BECAUSE IT IS BOLLOCKS!
YOU LIED ABOUT HASTINGS!

Hisorian Nigel Jones describing Hastings' book.
"But it is the voices of ordinary folk that resonate loudest and longest: the conscripted clerks and scholars torn from their ledgers and books, never to return; or the wives and children"

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 08:59 AM

AJP Taylor quotes, with page refs from his WW1 book.

p.527: "The Germans did not fix on war for August 1914, but they welcomed it when the occasion offered. They could win it now; they were more doubtful later. Hence they surrendered easily to the dictates of a military time-table. Austria-Hungary was growing weaker; Germany believed herself at the height of her strength. They decided on war from opposite motives; and the two decisions together caused a general European war."

"The Powers of the Triple Entente all entered the war to defend themselves."

"It is sometimes said that the war was caused by the system of alliances or, more vaguely, by the Balance of Power. This is a generalization without reality. None of the Powers acted according to their commitments, though no doubt they might have done so if they had not anticipated them. "

p.528:"As to the Balance of Power, it would be truer to say that the war was caused by its breakdown rather than by its existence. ..Russia began to recover her strength, France her nerve. Both insisted on being treated as equals…The Germans resented this and resolved to end it by war, if they could end it no other way.They (germany) feared that the Balance was being re-created. Their fears were exaggerated. "

"The German military plans played a vital part. The other Great Powers thought in terms of defending themselves. "

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 10:23 AM

Your point being?

None of that bears any relationship to the callous disregard the military top brass had for their men, the jingoism to encourage enlisting, the incompetence and worst of all, the deaths that competent leadership would and could have avoided.

A J P Taylor said as much. If you wanted to, you could even selectively quote your precious bloody Hastings out of context and he would be seen to agree.

By the way. I don't have a view. I know that war is a failure by definition. I know that millions died. I know that waves after waves of men were pushed into the waves and waves of bullets. I know what the government did to encourage men to enlist. I know what the army did to discourage them from questioning.

You don't need views. You don't need revisionist accounts. You just need to shake your head at the "To the Glory of God" obscene mumbo jumbo above the carved names of innocent victims of failure to prevent war. There is no glory. Nothing to get glorious about. Nothing to thank. War is the perfect example of the non existence of any bloody God.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 10:44 AM

None of that bears any relationship to the callous disregard the military top brass had for their men, the jingoism to encourage enlisting, the incompetence and worst of all, the deaths that competent leadership would and could have avoided.

Historians, e.g. those on BBC site, say the British army was well led.
AJP Taylor did not agree, but he knew little of military matters.
He was more politics.

All countries used jingoism to encourage enlisting, but our volunteers had a just cause, according to historians eg those on BBC site and AJP Taylor.

Your version is refuted by historians.
We have not found one that supports you.
Boom, boom, boom.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 11:18 AM

We have not found one that supports you.

Who precisely are "we", Keith? or are you employing the Royal We?

By the by, Its hard for one to find something if one don't look.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 12:34 PM

One can go on about German or Belgian atrocities in Africa etc but we weren't exactly lily-white handed ourselves. Not even going into how many countless native Africans will have died at the hands of British troops there is the episode with 26000 Boers, mainly women and children, dying in British concentration camps. Then there was the camps for black prisoners which were even more numerous than those for the Boers. How many died in them? Glass houses and all that

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 01:13 PM

"Germany admits Namibia genocide....."
So what?
My point is that the hypocrisy of using the atrocities carried out against the Belgian people (undisputed) as an excuse for going to war, was just that - hypocrisy.
The Belgian atrocities in the Congo, which the world totally ignored as unworthy of comment, let alone not worth going to war over, underlines that fact.
Mark Twain wrote his pamphlet six years before the war broke out - not a dickie bird from the rest of the world.
The Wiki article underlines the cynicism shown by Britain using the plight of "poor little Belgium" as an excuse for sending millions of young people to die in the mud.
As Allen points out - you could not squeeze a credit card between the inhumanity shown by any of them towards their subjects
Poor little Belgium - 10 million Congolese, - what's the difference (apart from the colour - and the numbers involved, which seems to be important to some people when discussing other forms of persecution!!)
Empires struggling for power - that's what slaughtered a generation of young men - not sympathy for anybody.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 03:39 PM

We have not found one that supports you.
Who precisely are "we", Keith? or are you employing the Royal We?
By the by, Its hard for one to find something if one don't look.


By "we" I mean anyone on this thread.
None of us have found one.
Not me, though I have produced about 12 that do not support you.
Not any of you.

And I have looked.
And I know Jim has looked and failed.
And you Greg?
Still can't find the time?
Of course you can't.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 05:11 PM

My point is that the hypocrisy of using the atrocities carried out against the Belgian people (undisputed) as an excuse for going to war, was just that - hypocrisy.

It was not Jim.
Britain was treaty bound to defend Belgium.
Were it not, Britain would still have had to fight for its own security.
But, ordinary people were angered by the massacres of thousands of ordinary people and children.

That is what the historians say.
Who are you Jim Carroll to say they are all wrong and you right?

(Yes Greg. I said all. If you want to challenge that again, come up with some names this time.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 06:42 PM

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

Depends on your definition of argument Nigel. The title seems fine.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 07:06 PM

I have produced about 12 [historians(sic)] that do not support you.

TWELVE? GODDAMN! Now that dozen certainly constitutes "All Historians" who have written about the First World War.
You are, once again, a fucking idiot. And a pathetic one at that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 07:07 PM

"Your version is refuted by historians".

Some historians, all British or allies of the British.

Mandy Rice-Davies.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 02:02 AM

If it is only some historians, why can no-one find a dissenting one?
Greg?
Why do the BBC not provide some balance on their history site?
Balance is basic to BBC.
They clearly can not find one either.
Funny that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 03:22 AM

I found two.

A J P Taylor.

Baldrick.

The former was dismissed by Keith as being a political not military historian and the latter he even quoted himself a few posts back so there is hope yet.

Keith has inadvertently cut to the chase. He is only interested in military historians. People write the history of urinals don't notice the smell of the shit coming from the doors behind them. But shallow fools call their accounts a history of the gents.

Or some such bollocks. ..

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 03:29 AM

Baldrick of course is a fictional character in a sitcom.

AJP Taylor agrees with me that the war had to be fought.
That also means that those who fought had a right and just cause.
That is my view that you all dispute.

Military historians agree that the British army was well and effectively led.
The long dead Taylor disputed that but was no military historian.
His main interest was the politics of the far-left.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 03:57 AM

This thread is entitled 'Armistice Day' an event to give thanks to those who died in World War One.
With a grand total of 102 postings out of 273 Keith has managed to reduce the subject to "my historian's better than yours" without once referring to the facts of the causes of the War other than to produce the 'qualifications' of 'a handful' whose works he has not read and does not intend to.
I have little doubt that those who died would have been proud to be remembered with such respect and gratitude.
Well done Keith - a true patriot, as usual!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 04:06 AM

"my historian's better than yours"

I say no such thing Jim.
I say that my view is in line with the historical evidence, according to the historians, and that there is nothing whatsoever to support what you muppets claim.

Or have you found something Jim?
Musket?
Troubadour?
Greg?
Don?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 06:14 AM

Keith has inadvertently cut to the chase. He is only interested in military historians.

No Musket.
No need to be a military historian to know and understand the causes of the war, or people attitudes and feelings about the war.

On matters of military history, military historians do know more.
The clue is in the name.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Musket
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 07:18 AM

Yes, and many theological scholars write of history proving scripture. Doesn't mean they are dealing with facts, even though they would have you believe it so.

The only comment on military history I am concerned with is that of history being written by the victors.

"On matters of military history, military historians do know more." I suppose you haver some of your precious evidence to back that up?

Baldrick may be a fictional character, but there is less fiction in "Boom Boom Boom" than "the war was well and effectively led." Worst bit is, pushing waves of men into the bullets didn't end the bloody fiasco anyway.

Have you no shame Keith?

Just because your political affiliations are little Englander, doesn't mean you have the right to portray carnage we should be ashamed of as something to be proud of.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 07:55 AM

"On matters of military history, military historians do know more." I suppose you haver some of your precious evidence to back that up?

As I said, the clue is in the name.
You could make a similar claim about social historians, classical historians, art historians, political historians,.........

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 08:02 AM

You have been given the horrific facts of "Gallant little Belgium's' Colonialism (claimed by you to to be the motivation force behind WW1 - no comment
Yu have been given a description of the cynical way that the British War Machine used the plight of the people of Belgium to inveigle British youth to their deaths - no comment.
You have persistently been told the now historical fact that WW1 was a war between Imperialist forces fighting over the colonial division of the world - no comment.
You have been given the long accepted reasons for British soldiers joining up - no comment
You have been given recorded descriptions of somebody who actually served in the War bearing out all the accepted reasons - no comment
I have repeated an account - with link - to those reasons, along with a summary of all those reasons - I'm sure you do not need my invitation not to comment - that's how you and all jingoists propogate your jingoism
Jim Carroll

Volunteer Army, 1914-15[edit]
The traditional image of recruitment in 1914 is of an initial wave of enthusiasm and volunteering greeting the outbreak of war. At the beginning of August 1914, Parliament issued a call for an extra 100,000 soldiers. Recruitment in the first few weeks of war was high, but the real 'recruiting boom' began in the last week of August, when news of the British retreat following the Battle of Mons reached Britain. Recruiting peaked in the first week of September.[2]
By the end of September, over 750,000 men had enlisted; by January 1915, a million. 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.
The government demand for men continued unabated, and after the first call in August for 500,000 men; a further 3.5 million were called-for before the year ended. The pre-war calculations had supposed that the British Expeditionary Force would lose around 40% of its manpower in the first six months of fighting. Kitchener's predictions of three years fighting and a million men needed was regarded as incredible. The seven divisions of the BEF, totalling 85,000 men, had been landed in France at the outbreak of war; casualties in the first three months totalled almost 90,000. By mid-1915, this total had risen to around 375,000 even before the autumn offensives and the rate of recruitment was falling off, for a number of reasons.
In 1915 the total available number of men of military age was 5.5 million, with around 500,000 more reaching the age each year. By late September, 2.25 million men had been enlisted and 1.5 million were in reserved occupations. Of the rest, the recruiters had uncovered a dismaying fact — almost two in every five volunteers were entirely unsuitable for military service on the grounds of health. When volunteer numbers fell to around 70,000 a month after the Dardanelles Expedition, the government felt forced to intervene, although they initially avoided conscription. A National Registration Act in 1915 created a register that revealed the number of men still available and they were targeted in a number of ways. The skills of advertising were brought to bear with posters, public meetings, tales of German atrocities, and the threat of shame. The 'Derby Scheme' used door-to-door visits to gather men to 'attest' to serve if needed, with a promise that bachelors would be called up before married men.
Many public institutions of all sorts mobilized to help recruit for the war. The women's suffrage movement was sharply divided, the slight majority becoming very enthusiastic patriots and asking their members to give white feathers (the sign of the coward) in the streets to men who appeared to be of military age to shame them into service. After assaults became prevalent the Silver War Badge was issued to men who were not eligible or discharged.
The popular music hall artistes of the time worked enthusiastically for recruitment. Harry Lauder toured the music halls, recruiting young soldiers on stage in front of the audience, often offering 'ten pounds for the first recruit tonight'. Marie Lloyd sang a recruiting song I didn't like you much before you joined the army, John, but I do like you, cockie, now you've got yer khaki on (1914). Vesta Tilley sang The Army of Today's alright.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment_to_the_British_Army_during_the_First_World_War

Men enlisted in the army in WW1, because:
Songs
Posters
Economic reasons (money)
Glamour (uniform, bravery etc.)
German brutality (propaganda, eg. gorilla)
White feathers (handed out by women to symbolise guilt and shame of not enlisting)
Travel (adventure)
Money (fed regularly)
Women (popularity with heroes)
Guilt (not signing up)
Religion (god ensure survival)
Pals batallions (fought with friends)
Patriotism (King and country)
Fatherly instincts (protecting future children)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 08:08 AM

You have persistently been told the now historical fact that WW1 was a war between Imperialist forces fighting over the colonial division of the world - no comment.

Ok.
My comment is it is not a fact, it is bollocks.
Germany invaded Belgium and France.
That is a fact.
Britain France and Belgium fought a defensive war of liberation.
That is a fact.

You have been given the long accepted reasons for British soldiers joining up - no comment
Ok.
My comment is that your reason is bollocks and an insult to brave young men, and is not "long accepted" except by people like you.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Musket
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 08:17 AM

So if you ignore the reasons Jim has cited, all of which seem perfectly reasonable to me, what other reasons are there for a bus driver in Bolton to leave his family and go to France?

You know, the words "brave" and "foolhardy" are not mutually exclusive.....

Your pathetic attempts to gag reality on the flimsy basis that YOU think dissent to the official MoD account of their cock ups is disrespectful doesn't wash. Dragging the "brave young men" into your justification is not nice, not clever and not very respectful either.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 08:29 AM

what other reasons are there for a bus driver in Bolton to leave his family and go to France?

For national survival and to ensure that his family do not become victims of the cruel invaders like families in Belgium.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 09:21 AM

From Jim's last paste job.

"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."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 09:32 AM

"For national survival......"
One single reason among fourteen others given, all fully documented (including illustrations and quoted examples) and accepted by every single historian
And ignoring every other point I made - as you have throughout this thread
That's what I like to see, good, honest open debate!!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 09:46 AM

Jim, your list was a Wiki answer!

Your other piece made this point for me.
Thanks.

" 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."

(Mons was a defeat and a desperate, chaotic retreat for the British in 1914.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Musket
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 09:49 AM

Problem is Jim, one point in his argument's favour and he thinks all arguments against aren't valid. He is incapable of noting the truth in some of what he says, choosing to say that if part is true, the rest must be too and anyone saying otherwise is a disgrace etc.

Rather pathetic really.

(Even when a "real" military historian is cited by me, he dismisses him as "political." It'd be funny enough, but A J P Taylor for Clapton's sake......)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 10:02 AM

Taylor, the only historian you cited, was not a military historian and anyway he supports my view on the cause of the war and why we fought.

This is Todman on the BBC history site.

"Both Clark (for financial reasons) and Littlewood and Taylor (for political reasons), emphasised - often inaccurately - the incompetence of British generals and the futility of war."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/perceptions_01.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 10:10 AM

"Problem is Jim, one point in his argument's favour and he thinks all arguments against aren't valid. "
You have responded to one single point - that is what is pathetic
There y'are again - second chance
20 Nov 13 - 08:02 AM
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 10:14 AM

Keith A of Hertford - PM
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 08:08 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 10:47 AM

Bollocks is no response - it is simply a denial of a single point I made
You have the evidence from accredited sources
You have yet to respond to the facts of Belgian colonialsm and the hypocrisy of using "gallant little Belgium" as an excuse for the slaughter of millions
You have yet to respond to the fact that it was an Imperial war (despite the fact that the War Museum in London is named after it.
You have yet to respond to the documented evidence of the recruitment campaign (maybe the posters, songs, and jingoistic articles are all fakes - waddya think?)
You have yet to even respond to the eye witness evidence we recorded.
You have responded to nothing whatever other than to deny history (nothing new there)
Your entire argument is based on a few cut-'n-pastes from review of a book by a military journalist which you have not read, nor intend to
That's two - one more go and your out
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Musket
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 12:39 PM

Todman disagrees with Taylor. Ok, got that. Taylor agrees with Keith A of Hertford. Ok, got that if I don't get the first bit...

I doubt Taylor supports your view as your view isn't easy to fathom. As Todman says, in your own cut and paste, that Taylor was inaccurate to refer to incompetence and futility.....

May I suggest you sit down, have a cup of tea and one of those nice pills they gave you. You have managed in one very short (by your standards) post to contradict yourself threefold.

I shouldn't laugh. Not professional...



By the way, can you ensure that you start and end all your posts with parentheses? That way, we can differentiate between Keith the rambling fool and Keith the rambling fool who gets his words from other sources. Making them the same allows you to wriggle out of your own views. Citing the source would be nice too. After all, I don't want my browsing history to have some of the far right websites you seem to visit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 03:33 PM

Bollocks is no response - it is simply a denial of a single point I made
I agree.
That is why I told you why it was bollocks.
And, only 1 or 2 questions at a time.

You have yet to respond to the facts of Belgian colonialsm and the hypocrisy of using "gallant little Belgium" as an excuse for the slaughter of millions

It was not.
Britain went to war because it was bound by treaty to do so in response to the German unprovoked invasion, and for its own security.

You have yet to respond to the fact that it was an Imperial war (despite the fact that the War Museum in London is named after it.

It was indeed a war caused by German imperialism and militarism.

You have yet to respond to the documented evidence of the recruitment campaign (maybe the posters, songs, and jingoistic articles are all fakes - waddya think?)

Yes I have. I said that all recruitment campaigns used such methods.
So what?

You have yet to even respond to the eye witness evidence we recorded.

That is because one individual's view is of no historical significance.

Your entire argument is based on a few cut-'n-pastes from review of a book by a military journalist which you have not read, nor intend to

That is a simple lie Jim.
I have put up the findings of many historians and everything on WW1 from the BBC history site.
It all supports me.
Nothing supports you.

In future I only respond to one or two issues at a time.
I do not want my replies to go unread like your long unreadable posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 03:39 PM

Musket.
I doubt Taylor supports your view as your view isn't easy to fathom.

My view is easy to fathom.
1. Britain had to fight. (Taylor and all the other historians agree)

2. Our people understood and accepted the need to fight. (Taylor and all the other historians agree)

3. The British Army was well and effectively led. (Taylor disagreed, but all the military historians do agree, and Taylor was politically motivated.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 03:59 PM

If killing hundreds of thousands of young British men was the actions of an army effectively led then you are right.

However. ...






Tried phrasing this lots of ways and to be honest, if Keith needs it phrasing he is beyond reason. Beyond hope. Beyond respectability.

Sorry.   I am genuinely saddened that occasionally articulate people can defend carnage and decision making that was not fit for purpose. A generation was effectively wiped out or scarred and the stupid man defends it.

No wonder he is a right wing zealot. Something about human nature and the beast I suppose. He'll be telling us he is a Christian next. Not s Christian I would recognise by the term.

So sad.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 04:54 PM

You write as if it comes from me.
I only know this because I have studied the findings of the military historians.
You believe that they are all wrong and yet you have some special knowledge.
Where did you get it from Oh Wise One?

You made it up, like the rest of the shit you come up with.

Contact the BBC and tell them their WW1 history site is "beyond reason. Beyond hope. Beyond respectability."

Tell them it is true because Ian Mather pronounces it so.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 06:24 PM

"By the start of the twentieth century Germany and the United States had eroded some of Britain's economic lead. Subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire

Wikipedia - British Empire"

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 06:35 PM

Previous post was me.

"Britain's 1882 formal occupation of Egypt (triggered by concern over the Suez Canal) contributed to a preoccupation over securing control of Nile, leading to the conquest of neighboring Sudan in 1896-1898, which in turn led to confrontation with a French military expedition at Fashoda in September 1898. In 1899, Britain set out to complete its takeover of the future South Africa, which it had begun in 1814 with the annexation of the Cape Colony, by invading the gold-rich Afrikaner republics of Transvaal and the neighboring Orange Free State. The chartered British South Africa Company had already seized the land to the north, renamed Rhodesia after its head, the Cape tycoon Cecil Rhodes.

British gains in southern and East Africa prompted Rhodes and Alfred Milner, Britain's High Commissioner in South Africa, to urge a "Cape to Cairo" empire: linked by rail, the strategically important Canal would be firmly connected to the mineral-rich South, though Belgian control of the Belgian Congo Free State and German control of German East Africa prevented such an outcome until the end of World War I, when Great Britain acquired the latter territory.

Britain's quest for southern Africa and their diamonds led to complicated social complications and fallouts that lasted for years. To work for their prosperous company, British businessmen hired both white and black South Africans. But when it came to jobs the white South Africans received the higher paid and less dangerous ones, leaving the black South Africans to risk their lives down in the mines for limited pay. This process of separating the two groups of South Africans, whites and blacks, was the beginning of segregation between the two that lasted until 1990.

Paradoxically, the United Kingdom, a staunch advocate of free trade, emerged in 1914 with not only the largest overseas empire, thanks to its long-standing presence in India, but also the greatest gains in the conquest of Africa, reflecting its advantageous position at its inception.

Wikipedia - New Imperialism"

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 02:04 AM

So what.
None of that would have led to Britain going to war with Germany.

German armies pouring across Europe to the Channel, massacring civilians as they went, did.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 02:13 AM

Really?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket being patriotic
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 02:40 AM

300.

How many before the number matches the soldiers dead through incompetent irresponsible leadership?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 03:19 AM

BBC WW1 History site.

"The result was that by 1918 the British army was second to none in its modernity and military ability. It was led by men who, if not military geniuses, were at least thoroughly competent commanders. The victory in 1918 was the payoff. The 'lions led by donkeys' tag should be dismissed for what it is - a misleading caricature."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/lions_donkeys_01.shtml

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 03:52 AM

There are few who would disagree that by four years of callous disregard for troops causing the headache of sending too many telegrams to wives and mothers, that by 1918 tactics were being altered.

If the value of the lives of soldiers had been higher in 1914, that point could have been reached a few years earlier.

You are grasping at straws again. You seem determined to sanitise the lessons society is trying to learn. You are a stupid little man who would stifle debate into what military leaders must do in order to protect lives.

Luckily, the MoD is a learning organisation and studying mistakes of the past is lesson 101 for wannabe command officers. As Taylor notes, the command officers of WW2 had been the junior officers of WW1 and therefore put a higher regard on the lives of those they were responsible for.

You just don't understand what "Lest we forget" entails, do you?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 04:04 AM

Like Montgomery?
Casualty rates in his campaigns were as high as those of WW1.
Likewise the Italian campaign.

That is the price that has to be paid to defeat a powerful modern army.
You people know nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 05:45 AM

Which seems to be a damned site more than you know.

I suggest before you go too far you read a soldier's account or two. I have. My Uncle Albert was a desert rat and went through Italy. He was fascinated with Spike Milligan's memoirs as he felt he captured the essence.

Are you saying, in order to defend your view that the first war was well led, that you are willing to say the second wasn't?

Go and have a lie down you old fool.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 05:56 AM

Are you saying, in order to defend your view that the first war was well led, that you are willing to say the second wasn't?

No. I am saying that that is the price that has to be paid to defeat a powerful modern army.

Now you know that your uncle survived a casualty rate as high as that of WW1, you should respect him all the more.

You people know nothing.
Hopefully you are learning something as we go along.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 10:21 AM

Yeah, listening to you teaches us that there are still a few jingoistic fools who see only the evils of the "other" side.

Their own, of course can do no wrong!

Britain and Germany were head to head in Africa long before the outbreak, and the murder of Frederick was nothing but a good excuse for both sides.

If you think that the war was won by Britain due to competent leaders, you are wrong.

It was won by attrition and German inability to get needed resources, which was why they were seeking African colonies in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 10:26 AM

Back home in Germany everything was faling apart.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 10:32 AM

Someone else who knows more than the historians do!
Attrition worked both ways.
The German army was kept supplied, but the naval blockade did help.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 10:54 AM

Tye Geman army had families at home who were not well supplied. They were starving.

Britain OTOH,........

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 12:40 PM

Respect him? He was a bigoted old fool who mistreated his wife and spent all his time in the pub pissing away his wages. Many years ago the Park Drive caught up with him.

Still, he did his bit.

Mainly for Rommel as it happens. He was in the catering corp.



The dissenters seem to be piling up Keith. I'd start mining for some more favourable quotes to prop up your revision of history if I were you......

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 02:29 PM

Dissenters?
None with any credibility, like an historian or something.

So not stacking up at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket gettin.. can't be arsed
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 05:45 PM

Ruddy hell Keith. You've got me quoting Welsh poets now.

"There are none so blind as those who will not see. "

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 06:49 PM

That is how I feel!
I have shown you that, according to the historians, you are wrong.

I believe them.
You think you know better than those whose life's work is that event.

Such egotistical arrogance and stupidity, proudly displayed on a public forum.
Can you not hear the laughter?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 07:58 PM

according to the historians, you are wrong.

According to your hand-picked half a dozen.

Pathetic.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: ollaimh
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 08:38 PM

I find it hard to believe that as militaristic Germany would have been much different in victory than a militaristic and rapacious capitalist Britain. moreover it might have averted a murderous Nazi state and similar Stalinist state. it would have dethroned the british empire but few outside of Britain would have suffered.

what I lament is Canada didn't have the independence of mind to stay out. there was no benefit to anyone in Canada to anyone winning, and the French Canadian opposition to imperialist military service created national divides that still exist.

in addition several Canadian regiments were wiped out as expendable cannon foder for a cause they could not benefit from.

of course a german victory might have stunted the French cultural leadership of Europe. as the arguably most culturally advanced nation that might have been a disaster.

then there was the destruction of the liberal class in north America which has never recovered. read "the death of the liberal class" by chris hedges.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Nov 13 - 11:35 PM

according to the historians, you are wrong.
According to your hand-picked half a dozen.
Pathetic.
.,,.
So how about just a hand-picked one who differs from Keith's ½-dozen back from you, eh Greg F?

Come on: just 1 [count them - one] of any remotely comparable distinction to any of K's 6...

Who's the 'pathetic' one, might well be the question...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket musing
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 02:53 AM

At the risk of sounding radical, you could always form your own view rather than find comfort in trawling for those that fit your preconceptions?

Just a thought. ..

After all, the odd afternoon in the various war museums to escape the pissing it down outside does allow you to get a perspective without having someone provide a ready made commentary for you to follow.

Watching the many documentaries from time to time or reading accounts, both historical and even fictional set in the time, it is hard not to see the merit in questioning the historians who would wear their nationalism on their sleeves.

Equally, it is clear to see who may grasp at nationalism for comfort.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 03:15 AM

So historians do not know about history, but you do.
For months you have been ridiculing religious fundamentalists who just know that all the scientific evidence for evolution and cosmology are wrong.

Do you not see the irony.
You really believe that you are right and all the historians wrong.
You are a posturing buffoon.

I really do not try to make you look an idiot.
You are self made.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 03:58 AM

When are you going to take responsibility for your own opinions instead of hiding behind the (claimed) opinions of "historians" -which WW1 was an Imperialist War - the clue is in the title of the body dedicated to the archiving and preservation of the facts of the war.
It is insulting to the 40 million who died that their cause wan no more than the treatment of "gallant little Belgium" - a colonial power responsible for the massacre of a quarter of that number of its own colonial citizens.
It was a struggle for colonial dominance.
You have refused to address any of the salient features of the cause of WW1 and the manner in which it was carried out, instead, resorting to "muppet" and rubbish as a substitute for the facts you chose to ignore.
One More Time:
You have been given the horrific facts of "Gallant little Belgium's' Colonialism (claimed by you to to be the motivation force behind WW1 - no comment
Yu have been given a description of the cynical way that the British War Machine used the plight of the people of Belgium to inveigle British youth to their deaths - no comment.
You have persistently been told the now historical fact that WW1 was a war between Imperialist forces fighting over the colonial division of the world - no comment.
You have been given the long accepted reasons for British soldiers joining up - no comment
You have been given recorded descriptions of somebody who actually served in the War bearing out all the accepted reasons - no comment
I have repeated an account - with link - to those reasons, along with a summary of all those reasons - I'm sure you do not need my invitation not to comment - that's how you and all jingoists propogate your jingoism
Jim Carroll

Volunteer Army, 1914-15[edit]
The traditional image of recruitment in 1914 is of an initial wave of enthusiasm and volunteering greeting the outbreak of war. At the beginning of August 1914, Parliament issued a call for an extra 100,000 soldiers. Recruitment in the first few weeks of war was high, but the real 'recruiting boom' began in the last week of August, when news of the British retreat following the Battle of Mons reached Britain. Recruiting peaked in the first week of September.[2]
By the end of September, over 750,000 men had enlisted; by January 1915, a million. 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.
The government demand for men continued unabated, and after the first call in August for 500,000 men; a further 3.5 million were called-for before the year ended. The pre-war calculations had supposed that the British Expeditionary Force would lose around 40% of its manpower in the first six months of fighting. Kitchener's predictions of three years fighting and a million men needed was regarded as incredible. The seven divisions of the BEF, totalling 85,000 men, had been landed in France at the outbreak of war; casualties in the first three months totalled almost 90,000. By mid-1915, this total had risen to around 375,000 even before the autumn offensives and the rate of recruitment was falling off, for a number of reasons.
In 1915 the total available number of men of military age was 5.5 million, with around 500,000 more reaching the age each year. By late September, 2.25 million men had been enlisted and 1.5 million were in reserved occupations. Of the rest, the recruiters had uncovered a dismaying fact — almost two in every five volunteers were entirely unsuitable for military service on the grounds of health. When volunteer numbers fell to around 70,000 a month after the Dardanelles Expedition, the government felt forced to intervene, although they initially avoided conscription. A National Registration Act in 1915 created a register that revealed the number of men still available and they were targeted in a number of ways. The skills of advertising were brought to bear with posters, public meetings, tales of German atrocities, and the threat of shame. The 'Derby Scheme' used door-to-door visits to gather men to 'attest' to serve if needed, with a promise that bachelors would be called up before married men.
Many public institutions of all sorts mobilized to help recruit for the war. The women's suffrage movement was sharply divided, the slight majority becoming very enthusiastic patriots and asking their members to give white feathers (the sign of the coward) in the streets to men who appeared to be of military age to shame them into service. After assaults became prevalent the Silver War Badge was issued to men who were not eligible or discharged.
The popular music hall artistes of the time worked enthusiastically for recruitment. Harry Lauder toured the music halls, recruiting young soldiers on stage in front of the audience, often offering 'ten pounds for the first recruit tonight'. Marie Lloyd sang a recruiting song I didn't like you much before you joined the army, John, but I do like you, cockie, now you've got yer khaki on (1914). Vesta Tilley sang The Army of Today's alright.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment_to_the_British_Army_during_the_First_World_War

Men enlisted in the army in WW1, because:
Songs
Posters
Economic reasons (money)
Glamour (uniform, bravery etc.)
German brutality (propaganda, eg. gorilla)
White feathers (handed out by women to symbolise guilt and shame of not enlisting)
Travel (adventure)
Money (fed regularly)
Women (popularity with heroes)
Guilt (not signing up)
Religion (god ensure survival)
Pals batallions (fought with friends)
Patriotism (King and country)
Fatherly instincts (protecting future children)

Now let's see if you can do a little better than "muppet" - give it a go Keith
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 04:08 AM

responsibility for your own opinions instead of hiding behind the (claimed) opinions of "historians"

Not "historians" but historians.
Not claimed, but actual and based on years of research.

If I want to know about history, I study history.
I do not make up my own version of it based on my politics, like you lot.

The museum was originally called the National War Museum, but was changed to acknowledge the contribution made by countries of the empire.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 04:13 AM

Since you have posted the same piece, I will post the same extract.

"the real 'recruiting boom' began in the last week of August, when news of the British retreat following the Battle of Mons reached Britain. Recruiting peaked in the first week of September.[2]
By the end of September, over 750,000 men had enlisted; by January 1915, a million."

"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."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket again, hello!
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 04:59 AM

Sadly, I got home far too late to go out and support my local folk club last night. So eventually got around to catching up on what I record to watch and never get around to.

QI were discussing the hate lessons the British Army set out doing till some MPs complained and got it stopped. A few interesting bits about the black propaganda we used too. All available in the public domain now. Especially talking up the invasion threat and mentioning that Germans rape nuns, etc. what was interesting was the reason for the hate lessons. The top brass had realised most soldiers were shooting to miss, as they were sickened by the thought of an innocent person killing another innocent person on the basis of being told to under threat of death by his own side. (Sources dear boy, sources. Look it up if you must.)



Keith. I must apologise. I thought this was a serious thread so had been responding accordingly. You should have said the object of the exercise was to talk bollocks.

Dear me, I am slow on the uptake sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 05:05 AM

I tried to look it up.
I think you must have got it wrong, or it would be mentioned by soldiers and veterans.
See what you can find.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 11:41 AM

Once again you have totally ignored every point that has been put to you and you have dismissed with your silence the testimony of an actual veteran of WW1 who described how he believed he and his matesd have been tricked into joining.
You have been presented with fourteen reasons for recruits joining
You have ignored the historically documented facts regarding the Imperialist nature of the war
Among all this you have totally dismissed the cynicism of the emotional exaggeration of Belgium's plight being used to inveigle young men to there deaths.
Your fairy godmother may be impressed with your 'half-dozen witnesses' which says far more about him than it does about your case.
Y'rs the 'Rape of Belgium bit again so you won't forget it, even though you choose to ignore it, it's worth putting it up in its full glory - you've already been given your blue clickie, so I won't bother.
Jim Carroll

Rape of Belgium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The ruins of the library of the Catholic University of Leuven after it was burned in 1914.
The destroyed city of Leuven in 1915
The Rape of Belgium is the usual historical term regarding the treatment of civilians during the 1914-18 German invasion and occupation of Belgium. The term initially had a propaganda use but recent historiography confirms its reality.[1] One modern author uses it more narrowly to describe a series of German war crimes in the opening months of the War (4 August through September 1914).[2]
The neutrality of Belgium had been guaranteed by the Treaty of London (1839), which had been signed by Prussia. However the German Schlieffen Plan required that German armed forces violate Belgium's neutrality in order to outflank the French Army, concentrated in eastern France. The German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg dismissed the treaty of 1839 as a "scrap of paper".[3] Throughout the beginning of the war the German army engaged in numerous atrocities against the civilian population of Belgium, and destruction of civilian property; 6,000 Belgians were killed, 25,000 homes and other buildings in 837 communities destroyed. 1,500,000 Belgians (20% of the entire population) fled from the invading German army.[4]:13
War crimes[edit]
In some places, particularly Liège, Andenne and Leuven, but firstly Dinant, there is evidence that the violence against civilians was premeditated.[4]:573–574 However, in Dinant, the German army believed sincerely that the inhabitants were as dangerous as the French soldiers themselves.[5][6]
Bronze monument in memory of the 674 civil victims in Dinant, on August 23, 1914
German troops, afraid of Belgian guerrilla fighters, or francs-tireurs, burned homes and executed civilians throughout eastern and central Belgium, including Aarschot (156 dead), Andenne (211 dead), Tamines (383 dead) and Dinant (674 dead).[7] The victims included women and children.[8]
On August 25, 1914, the German army ravaged the city of Leuven, deliberately burning the University's library of 300,000 medieval books and manuscripts with gasoline, killing 248 residents,[9] and expelling the entire population of 10,000. Civilian homes were set on fire and citizens often shot in the place they stood.[citation needed] Over 2,000 buildings were destroyed and large amounts of strategic materials, foodstuffs and modern industrial equipment were looted and transferred to Germany. (There were also several friendly fire incidents between groups of German soldiers during the confusion.[6]) These actions brought worldwide condemnation.[10]
In the Province of Brabant, nuns were ordered by Germans to strip naked under the pretext that they were spies. In Aarschot, between August and September, women were repeatedly victimised. Just like looting and murder, rape was widespread.[4]:164–165
Adolf Hitler later stated that:
" The old Reich knew already how to act with firmness in the occupied areas. That's how attempts at sabotage to the railways in Belgium were punished by Count von der Goltz. He had all the villages burnt within a radius of several kilometres, after having had all the mayors shot, the men imprisoned and the women and children evacuated.[11] "
Wartime propaganda[edit]
The slogan "The Rape of Belgium" was used in the United States as a propaganda device to build popular support for American intervention in the European war.
World War I, US propaganda poster[12]
Agreeing with the analysis of historian Susan Kingsley Kent, historian Nicoletta Gullace writes that "the invasion of Belgium, with its very real suffering, was nevertheless represented in a highly stylized way that dwelt on perverse sexual acts, lurid mutilations, and graphic accounts of child abuse of often dubious veracity."[13]:19 In Britain, many patriotic publicists propagated these stories on their own. For example popular writer William Le Queux described the German army as "one vast gang of Jack-the-Rippers", and described in graphic detail events such as a governess hanged naked and mutilated, the bayoneting of a small baby, or the "screams of dying women", raped and "horribly mutilated" by German soldiers, accusing them of cutting off the hands, feet, or breasts of their victims.[13]:18–19
Gullace argues that "British propagandists were eager to move as quickly as possible from an explanation of the war that focused on the murder of an Austrian archduke and his wife by Serbian nationalists to the morally unambiguous question of the invasion of neutral Belgium." In support of her thesis, she quotes from two letters of Lord Bryce. In the first letter Bryce writes "There must be something fatally wrong with our so-called civilization for this Ser[b]ian cause so frightful a calamity has descended on all Europe." In a subsequent letter Bryce writes "The one thing we have to comfort us in this war is that we are all absolutely convinced of the justice of the cause, and of our duty, once Belgium had been invaded, to take up the sword."[13]:20
Although the infamous German phrase "scrap of paper" (referring to the 1839 Treaty of London) galvanized a large segment of British intellectuals in support of the war,[13]:21–22 in more proletarian circles this imagery had less impact. For example, Labour politician Ramsay McDonald upon hearing about it, declared that "Never did we arm our people and ask them to give up their lives for a less good cause than this". British army recruiters reported problems in explaining the origins of the war in legalistic terms.[13]:23
As the German advance in Belgium progressed, British newspapers started to publish stories on German atrocities. The British press, "quality" and tabloid alike, showed less interest in the "endless inventory of stolen property and requisitioned goods" that constituted the bulk of the official Belgian Reports. Instead, accounts of rape and bizarre mutilations flooded the British press. The intellectual discourse on the "scrap of paper" was then mixed with the more graphic imagery depicting Belgium as a brutalized woman, exemplified by the cartoons of Louis Raemaekers,[13]:24 whose works were widely syndicated in the USA.[14]
Part of the press, such as the editor of The Times and Edward Tyas Cook expressed concerns that haphazard stories, a few of which were proven as outright fabrications, would weaken the powerful imagery, and asked for a more structured approach. The German and American press questioned the veracity of many stories, and the fact that the British Press Bureau did not censor the stories put the British government in a delicate position. The Bryce Committee was eventually appointed in December 1914 to investigate.[13]:26–28 Bryce was considered highly suitable to lead the effort because of his prewar pro-German attitudes and his good reputation in the United States, where he had served as Britain's ambassador, as well as his legal expertise.[13]:30
The commission's investigative efforts were, however, limited to previously recorded testimonies. Gullace argues that "the commission was in essence called upon to conduct a mock inquiry that would substitute the good name of Lord Bryce for the thousands of missing names of the anonymous victims whose stories appeared in the pages of the report." The commission published its report in May 1915. Charles Masterman, the director of the British War Propaganda Bureau, wrote to Bryce: "Your report has swept America. As you probably know even the most skeptical declare themselves converted, just because it is signed by you!"[13]:30 Translated in ten languages by June, the report was the basis for much subsequent wartime propaganda and was used as a sourcebook for many other publications, ensuring that the atrocities became a leitmotif of the war's propaganda up to the final "Hang the Kaiser" campaign.[13]:31–23
For example, in 1917 Arnold J. Toynbee published The German Terror in Belgium, which emphasized the most graphic accounts of "authentic" German sexual depravity, such as: "In the market-place of Gembloux a Belgian despatch-rider saw the body of a woman pinned to the door of a house by a sword driven through her chest. The body was naked and the breasts had been cut off."[15]
The British government regularly fabricated bizarre stories and supplied them to the public, such as Belgian nuns being tied to the clappers of church bells and crushed to death when the bells were rung.[16] Reports paved the way for other war propaganda such as The Crucified Soldier, The Angels of Mons, and the Kadaververwertungsanstalt.
Much of the wartime publishing in Britain was in fact aimed at attracting American support.[17] A 1929 article in the The Nation asserted: "In 1916 the Allies were putting forth every possible atrocity story to win neutral sympathy and American support. We were fed every day [...] stories of Belgian children whose hands were cut off, the Canadian soldier who was crucified to a barn door, the nurses whose breasts were cut off, the German habit of distilling glycerine and fat from their dead in order to obtain lubricants; and all the rest."[17]

The fourth Liberty bond drive of 1918 employed a "Remember Belgium" poster depicting the silhouette of a young Belgian girl being dragged by a German soldier on the background of a burning village; historian Kimberly Jensen interprets this imagery as "They are alone in the night, and rape seems imminent. The poster demonstrates that leaders drew on the American public's knowledge of and assumptions about the use of rape in the German invasion of Belgium."[18]

In his book Roosevelt and Hitler, Robert E. Herzstein stated that "The Germans could not seem to find a way to counteract powerful British propaganda about the 'Rape of Belgium' and other alleged atrocities.[19] About the legacy of the propaganda, Gullace commented that "one of the tragedies of the British effort to manufacture truth is the way authentic suffering was rendered suspect by fabricated tales."[13]:32

Later analysis[edit]





A relic of the Great War, tucked away in a backstreet in Bonnington, Edinburgh. It depicts women being assaulted by soldiers
The war crimes of August 1914 in the 1920s were often dismissed as British propaganda. In recent years a new generation of scholars has thoroughly examined the original documents and found that large-scale atrocities were committed. [4]:162 There is an ongoing debate between those who believe the German army acted primarily out of paranoia, and those (including Lipkes) who emphasize additional causes.

However according to Larry Zuckerman the German occupation far exceeded the constraints international law imposed on an occupying power. A heavy-handed German military administration sought to regulate every detail of daily life, both on a personal level with travel restraints and collective punishment as on the economical level by harnessing the Belgian industry to the German advantage and by levying repetitive massive indemnities on the Belgian provinces. Before the War Belgium was the sixth largest economy in the world but the Germans destroyed the Belgian economy thoroughly by dismantling industries and transporting the equipment and machinery to Germany that it never regained its pre-war level. More than 100,000 Belgian workers were forcibly deported to Germany to work in the war industry and to Northern France to built roads and other military facilities to the German military's benefit.[20]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Belgium

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 11:51 AM

QI the other week even mentioned the name of the MP who complained and got the hate lessons stopped.

Not difficult to find it if you try. I don't need to, I have quoted my source. BBC by the way.... The same source as you enjoy using.

In fact The BBC commissioned a series where a poem about the war was written and performed. Do you want to read it?

Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 13 - 03:49 PM

Musket, you make shit up.
If there was anything you will have twisted it out of all recognition, and I can't find it at all.

Jim, I will answer anything you raise, but put them not more than two at a time.
I do not do long unreadable posts.

I did respond to your "witness."
I said that one opinion out of millions is worthless as history.
That testimony is so unusual that I doubt it is even true.
He spun you a yarn, telling you what you wanted to hear.
I bet he cracked his mates up with the story.

The BBC has provided some genuine examples with evidence, selected from thousands as representative.
Like this lad. He lied about his age and served at the front.
Eventually he was rumbled and sent home.
He rejoined as soon as he was old enough.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/humanfaceofwar_gallery_08.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket doing research stuff
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 05:01 AM

On the basis you can't find something it must be made up shit.

Wow. Just think, if your router went down and you lost your Internet, you'd be clueless then. ...

Your reply to Jim was rather interesting. A child tries to join the army but all the soldiers had full facts available and all made a rational decision to take the shilling.

I strongly suggest that before you embarrass yourself further you read the short essay on blind servility to authority available on many websites for free.

"I think I wish to do as I am told" by Isaac Uminmassah.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 05:25 AM

On the basis you can't find something it must be made up shit.

No.
On the basis that you do make up shit all the time.
Like you claimed to have something by Sheffield that refuted my view.
Straight lie.
Last night you claimed I told you not to question the bible! (Militant atheism thread)
Wilful lie.

That is why I will only believe your latest "fact" when I see it.

And young Tate went back knowing exactly what it was all about, because he believed it was the right thing to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 05:44 AM

"Jim, I will answer anything you raise, but put them not more than two at a time.
I do not do long unreadable posts."
You have answered nothing, you have put up nothing of relating to either the causes of WW1 not of the reason why recruits enlisted.
As for my postings being "unreadable" - they are extreme simplifications of a fairly complicated and wide ranging subject - that's what Wiki does and it does it quite well.
If you can't cope with complicated subjects, as you obviously can't, stop dominating them with your inanities and one liners.
Maybe you should stick to The Sun until you find the time to take a literacy course - or maybe get someone to read them for you.
This isn't the first time you've whinged about "too much information"
You are in fact using the length of these selections to avoid answering the questions they raise
If you can't take the heat.... as they say.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 05:50 AM

You have answered nothing, you have put up nothing of relating to either the causes of WW1 not of the reason why recruits enlisted.

That lie is obvious to everyone.
I have put up pages of well documented History on exactly those things.

You are in fact using the length of these selections to avoid answering the questions they raise

Why don't you expose me then?
Put them up a couple at a time and I won't be able to avoid answering.

Just put up one or two at a time, and I will knock them down one or two at a time.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 05:53 AM

You have been presented with fourteen reasons for recruits joining

Just one short and simple question to you.
What is your source for that Jim?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 06:00 AM

And by the way - publicly calling a WW1 soldier who you have never met a liar is as bout as disgustingly base as it gets
We recorded Tommy Kenny at the request of his grandson, who had been brought up on his reminiscences and had asked him to record them for posterity.
Tommy spent three days with us filling tape after tape with those reminiscences, covering WW1, The Depression and life on the Liverpool docks.
Writing him off as a liar underlines what a disgusting little shit you are.
Those reminiscences are now part of the British library sound collection
The genuine examples referred to by the BBC very much back up Tommy's version of events, as does the Daily mail extended "and rare" example given in the earlier part of this thread - before you dominated it with your agenda driven jingoism.
Your sole friend may be "impressed" with your contribution to this subject - I don't think anybody else had much reason to be
You really are an appalling little fanatic
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 06:13 AM

"So historians do not know about history, but you do."

Since the first Tudor reign history has always been re-written by the winning side.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 06:40 AM

Modern historians are expected to be objective and to base everything on reliable, verifiable sources, and they don't get locked up anymore when their findings are unpalatable.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 06:40 AM

"I said that one opinion out of millions is worthless as history."

So half a dozen historians out of how many?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 06:43 AM

It seems to be unanimous.
I have referred to more than six, and no-one has found any with a dissenting view.
Not one.
Funny that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 06:55 AM

If you quoted the writings of an equal number of French, German, Belgian etc. etc. historians from all sides of the imperial battles over African territories, and the lead up to war, what do you think the outcome would be.

After all, you claim that modern historians always get it right.

Good luck with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 06:58 AM

Don't bother by the way. I already know that you'll dismiss the others as liars.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 07:17 AM

Not at all.
Be aware I have already referred to the work of the German Fritz Fischer.

of the imperial battles over African territories

Much rivalry, but no battles.
Britain went to war because of the German invasion of France and Belgium.

Do put up the views of any historian from anywhere, if relevant in any way to this discussion.

Please give yourself a name so we know if you are one person or four.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 08:05 AM

You appear to once again ignoring all the evidence put before you, and will no doubt continue to do so, instead choosing to scurrying behind the mythical non-statements of carefully selected 'historians'.
I would have thought you had arrived at the lower depths of your debating technique by describing the account of a veteran WW1 soldier as "lies" - no doubt you will prove me wrong on this one.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket between courses
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 08:24 AM

So... half a dozen historians can't be wrong.

Over half a dozen mudcat.org members reckon you are talking out of your arse.

Historians are expected to be objective eh? David Irvine no longer a historian then? Max Hastings was paid by The Daily M*il to be objective?

They reckon Harlow is in the top ten in the UK shit place to live table most years but obviously the residents are blissfully unaware. Their testicle truly are rose tinted.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 11:42 AM

Jim, it is possible to be a veteran and a liar.
I can not say that yours is, but his story is wildly unrepresentative.

Jim and Musket, I get my historical facts from the professional historians.
Where else would an intelligent person go?

There is a consensus that Britain was right to fight, and although it was a steep learning curve with some disastrous mistakes, the leadership was good.

You two, by contrast, reject the historians' version of history because you just somehow know what happened!

A bit like the fundamentalists' belief in creation.
Never mind the carefully researched facts, you just know the Truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 12:13 PM

I suppose we could all be like Keith and choose our sources on the basis of those that flatter his prejudice.

zzzzzz

Nobody is rejecting the historians version of history on account of there not being one. There are thousands and you happen to find a few that sit comfortably with old men in blazers and false nostalgia. You then insult the intelligence of anybody who questions jingoistic spin because you reckon your spot near your war memorial the other Sunday had more gravitas than theirs. Which medal shone the brightest, the one with the pound sign on it?

Well fuck you, blue eyes.

Men died needlessly and whilst they may or may not have known, for no good reason. It isn't an insult to anything to dismiss nationalistic distortions of our past. There came a point where fighting was the only option but the decisions to fight for nationalist reasons came well before that point. When the point came, poor leadership and disregard for the lives of those they were responsible for marked the military fools of the day.

Your stance, if repeated by enough idiots would undermine why cenotaphs and other memorials haven't been demolished to make way for supermarkets yet. But they may as well do if blinkered fools reckon war to be just and glorious rather than shoddy and wrong.

Our soldiers today carry our tertiary social work, saving innocent civilians from attack by those who wish to persecute them. Far better than being told the other equal soldiers over that hill are a set of cunts.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 01:24 PM

I suppose we could all be like Keith and choose our sources on the basis of those that flatter his prejudice.

No choosing.
There is nothing else to choose from.
That is why none of you have come up with a single one.

Nobody is rejecting the historians version of history on account of there not being one.
There are many, but on some things there is consensus.
That is my case.

Men died needlessly and whilst they may or may not have known, for no good reason.

There is consensus on that.
There was a need.
Even your AJP Taylor accepted that.
No-one with actual knowledge shares your view.
It is just political dogma.
Lies actually.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour(I'm not yet used to printing this
Date: 23 Nov 13 - 06:40 PM

"Jim and Musket, I get my historical facts from the professional historians.
Where else would an intelligent person go?"

An intelligent person might go to more than one foreign historian, if he had any intention of acknowledging that every story has more than one side, and balancing the words of "more than six Brits".

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 02:08 AM

And for American history you should avoid American historians?
They would be too inhibited by nationalism to be reliable?

You find some other historians who dissent from the consensus, never mind where they come from, because I have tried and failed.
It is as if there are none.
Funny that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket being patriotic
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 02:18 AM

You are up too early.

Go back to bed.

I've just checked my phone whilst letting the dog out and taking a coffee up for us both.

I suggest you do the same.

I'm going to read a book. Perhaps you might think on about the substance of what the consensus is you keep bleating about because be buggered if I can itemise it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 04:09 AM

"Jim, it is possible to be a veteran and a liar."
You are are now openly calling a WW1 veteran a liar because his eye-witness account doesn't fit your jingoistic garbage - you are an unspeakable shit.
You have ignored the 14 reasons given for men joining up - many of which coincide with Tommy Kenny's "wildly unrepresentative" account - which continues to make you one of the most dishonest people on this forum
You have disgraced those who died by attempting to make one of the main reasons for the war the defence of an Imperial power which was responsible for the massacre and torture of ten million of its subjects - you have consistently refused to comment on Belgium's genocidal nature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment_to_the_British_Army_during_the_First_World_War You are a fanatical jingoist
Jim Carroll

And some more unlikely accounts
Some were conscripted - this however was introduced in March 1916 when numbers of volunteers failed to match the rates with which they were being killed.
Patriotism - many joined up in a fit of patriotic fervour believing that they were fighting to protect their country and families.
Propaganda - WWI propaganda suggested that this was a necesary fight by exaggerating the way that Germans treated women and children. One poster claimed that German soldiers attacked nuns and another that a Canadian soldier had been crucified. Thus the war was sold in terms of a rightous fight against evil.
Peer-group pressure - it was seen partly as a civic duty to join, but also many men saw their friends, neighbours and work colleagues enlist and they joined up too. The British army had to form so many new battalions that they allowed people from the same towns and communities to join the same battalions. Called the "Pals Battalions" these units had a strong local identity to mostly northern towns.
Adventure - many of those who enlisted saw the war as a chance to grab a bit of glory. When war was declared it was genuinely thought that it would be over pretty quickly, men joined thinking that if they delayed a decision that the war would be over and others would get the honour of having participated.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket again
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 04:33 AM

"Unspeakable shit." Rather perceptive for a Sunday morning Mr Carroll?

I must admit, if you keep posting facts, Keith will have more problems explaining what this consensus is about.

I reckon Jim has his finger on the consensus pulse more than Keith on this subject.

They were indeed told it was a righteous fight of good versus evil. The BBC reference I gave to QI discussing the hate lectures and black propaganda was screened on BBC 2 only a couple of weeks ago and even still available on iPlayer, but Keith said he couldn't find it.

Funny that.

Good versus evil. They played the God card to dupe men into seeing war as just and holy... About as sick as it gets. Ironic that it resulted in the oppressed German nation being duped by someone who puts your Lucifer bloke into shame when it comes to being evil.....

Pals battalions, white feathers, firing squads.... I wonder why they encouraged the former and supplied the latter if everybody was so objectively happy about going and dying?

Sorry Keith, you are the one exhibiting views that are a disgrace to the memory of a wiped out generation, not those who question the sanitised third and fourth hand accounts you keep handing out.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 04:52 AM

Perhaps you might think on about the substance of what the consensus is you keep bleating about because be buggered if I can itemise it.

Once again!
1. Britain had little choice but to stand against the invading German armies.
2. The people understood and responded by volunteering.
3. Despite some disasters as the new warfare was mastered, the British Army was well led.

Jim, of course some of the couple of million were liars.
Musket's uncle was a WW2 vet and worse than a liar.

Please give us the source for your list.
Why do you ignore this reasonable request?

(Jim)if you keep posting facts,
I must have missed that.
Please repeat them.

Your half remembered aside on a quiz show is not worth mentioning.
Between you you have produced nothing.

Everything I say is supported by all the most eminent historians.
What you say is supported by none, because it is bollocks.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket again
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 05:39 AM

Funny? Even the dodgy oracle Wikipedia has it. My O Level history course many years ago was where I learned of the black propaganda and was introduced to the word jingoism.. It is also where we were taught about using waves of men to run at German machine guns in the hope they run out of bullets before we run out of cannon fodder. It's also where I learned of Lloyd George calling for the heads of many of the generals for their deceit in reporting back to the war ministry.   I don't need a tabloid hack to airbrush it out for me.

Can you please state the items that have consensus. You haven't yet.

Anyway, it's Sunday. Piss off and give your weekly thanks to God for allowing you to be so just and holy. You so obviously are in his image.... Group sanctimony seems to be right up your street. Say a prayer for eminent historians whilst you are there, won't you?

By the way, stop saying eminent historians agree with you. Either say you agree with them or demonstrate where your unique knowledge comes from. As you contradict yourself so often, I doubt anybody, even your political friends, could honestly say they agree with you as you often don't agree with yourself!

Your wisdom on WW1 is about as good as your take on Palestine....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 06:30 AM

We have now arrived at where all Keith's arguments do - the Establishment line is right, those who deny that line are wrong, traitors, Lefties or liars (in the latter case this includes those who actually fought in WW1)
The reasons for enlisting were more or less the fourteen given, in no particular order of importance.
Not only are all these reasons documented history, but the recruiters for the war actually recognised them and incorporated them into their recruiting campaigns, in the case of the Belgian atrocities, deliberately manipulating the facts in order to make them appear more significant than they actually were.
Nowhere is there any record of Britain objecting to the horrendous genocide carried out by the Belgians on their colonial citizens - this would have undermined the use of Belgium in their recruiting campaign.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 07:40 AM

Keith writes

1. Britain had little choice but to stand against the invading German armies.

Even if we accept that as of 1914 (as we must for France), politics had (theoretically) had ample opportunities to achieve a more stable peace in the decades before. This applies to the governments of all other major powers, as has been written by many posters above. Historians can try to find some causalities, but for the purposes of this thread, all we have to know is that that way of doing politics must be thoroughly condemned for out times, and therefore must not be glorified in retrospect.

2. The people understood and responded by volunteering.

As we have seen, historians in hindsight do not know what exactly was going on, so how should "the people" have known, including soldiers? Without the Internet, they had to rely on their newspapers and official propaganda. Many were convinced and volunteered wholeheartedly, many others were coerced. Some wanted national glory - then considered more valid a cause than it is nowadays -, others were moved by stories of the enemy's atrocities (which the propagandists usually needed not invent, just select).

Also, soldiers in particular tend to take pride in doing what their leaders say, and to be happy to be praised by their governments. Once the war has been entered, civilians usually suspend any criticism as well - reactivating it afterwards is not always easy.

Exactly the same applies to Germany and Austria. Quite a number of former anti-monarchists and prominent moralists suddenly rallied behind the kaisers and their governments. Efficient propaganda, not a good cause.

3. Despite some disasters as the new warfare was mastered, the British Army was well led.

Compared with what? Most leaders would not waste their soldiers' lives out of sheer fun, but winning the war was considered worth all sacrifices. Technically good leadership does / would not make the cause any better.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 08:41 AM

"As we have seen, historians in hindsight do not know what exactly was going on, so how should "the people" have known, including soldiers?"
Propaganda during world war one was based on deliberately manipulating the realities of military life and distorting the reasons for going to war.
Below is an assortment of the "lies" Tommy Kenny told us as to why he and his mates enlisted to fight and die in World War One
Jim Carroll

Introduction
Upon Australia hearing the news of the declaration of war, the response was one of almost unanimous excitement and devotion. Not surprisingly, this initial eagerness resulted in Australia quickly fulfilling the quota of 20 000 men that she had pledged to the British Empire. Support, however, waned and measures had to be taken to ensure that the numbers the nation was offering could be met. Propaganda was used to influence people to think in a particular way. There were two types of war propaganda at the time. The first was recruitment propaganda, a popular method that influenced people to enlist. The second was conscription propaganda which encouraged people to vote for or against conscription.
The context of propaganda
From the beginning, Australians embraced World War I with an enthusiasm that had never been experienced before and will probably never be seen again. Australian men rushed to enlist in droves but many were turned away because they were not able to meet the rigorous physical standards of the time. These standards, which included a minimum height of at least 5ft 6in (167.6cm) and a chest size of 34in (86.4cm), as well as a full set of teeth without any fillings, may seem frivolous by today's standards but at the time for those who were unable to meet them the outcome was often devastating. Many men travelled hundreds of kilometres to attempt to enlist at a different office in the hope that perhaps a minor ailment, which was the reason for their previous rejection, could be overlooked.
While the initial response to war was one of extreme enthusiasm and patriotism towards Britain, support began to waver. It had reached a peak at the time of the landings at Gallipoli but it was not long after that the realisation of war hit Australian shores. With the first lists of casualties, the Australian public had a sudden and rude awakening that their fathers, brothers, sons, husbands and friends might not all return safely home as previously expected. The public's attitude turned quickly, which was reflected in weakened recruitment figures.
In response to Britain's request for more troops, the Commonwealth government realised that strategies had to be implemented to encourage more people to enlist. In July 1915 some standards for entry were amended to widen the target market for recruits. This included lowering the minimum height restriction to 5ft 2in (157.5cm), which enabled men who were not previously eligible to enlist, to do so. In that same July, a two-week recruitment campaign was run in Victoria to encourage more enlistments. As part of this drive, campaign meetings were held during which patriotic speeches were given, often by injured war heroes. In addition, films of heroic action on the battlefields of Gallipoli were shown. Among these various recruitment ploys, perhaps the most effective and popular types of propaganda were the colourful posters displayed everywhere across the nation.
Recruitment propaganda
Propaganda in World War I was particularly influential in the years 1915 and 1916 when it was at its peak, serving to recruit volunteers in the hundreds of thousands each year. The recruitment propaganda of the time achieved its aim in a number of ways. Firstly, it influenced men through means of persuasion, fear, guilt, confrontation and accusation. Secondly, it appealed to the emotions of the women, friends and family of those who were eligible to go to war but had not, to feel strongly enough to press them on the matter.
It was particularly the propaganda posters that were popular at the time. The reasons could be that they were cheap and easy to create, able to be displayed just about anywhere and, as with most visual forms, were immediately able to convey meaning to a wide audience. Their popularity and significance is confirmed even today by how frequently propaganda posters are referred to in books about the war.
Recruitment propaganda perhaps achieved success because it amplified the original reasons for Australians wanting to be involved in the war. It can be concluded that Australian propaganda posters utilised six different aspects to appeal to men to enlist. These included:
Appealing to their patriotism by summoning people to 'rally around the flag' and reminding them of their duty to the Empire and the British
Utilising a gender approach which made men feel they needed to enlist to prove their sporting aptitude, courage and masculinity.
Inviting peers and family to place pressure and shame on men for not applying in order to make them feel ashamed and cowardly.
Encouraging a spirit of adventure and a desire to see the world by using a recruitment poster which places emphasis on a physical, sport-like side of war.
Self-interest, including a chance to have a secure job which was relatively well paid.
Exaggerating the hatred and fear of the Germans by allowing people to think that they might attack their friends and families.
Recruitment propaganda, however, omitted important facts from the posters. These omissions gave people a false impression of what war was really like. The propaganda intentionally neglected to mention the realities which the soldiers had to endure, such as a rationed, unvaried diet, adverse climatic conditions, physically arduous training and, most importantly, the substantial risk of injury and death. See image 1
From image 1 we can see that this particular propaganda relies on persuasion to conform or 'join the crowd'. It gives the impression that their peers have joined and that they should do so, too, if they do not want to be left out. The poster tries to entice men to enlist by appealing to their competitive nature by making war seem like an adventurous sport. It does this by incorporating images of men with sporting equipment. As with all wartime propaganda, it does not acknowledge the harsh realties the men would face if they enlisted.
http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-14%20_u-42_t-47_c-139/propaganda/nsw/history/australia-and-world-war-i/recruitment-and-conscription

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/ww1posters/contents

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

http://www.authentichistory.com/1914-1920/2-homefront/1-propaganda/

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 09:14 AM

Jim.
The reasons for enlisting were more or less the fourteen given,

I deny that they were significant reasons why people joined.

Where did you get that list Jim?
I keep asking.
You seem reluctant to reveal your source.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 09:19 AM

Grishka.
As we have seen, historians in hindsight do not know what exactly was going on

I have seen no such thing, but then I have actually read some History.
The History is rich in contemporary sources and thoroughly researched.
However can you justify that ridiculous statement?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 09:22 AM

Musket.
Can you please state the items that have consensus. You haven't yet.

Certainly.

1. Britain had little choice but to stand against the invading German armies.
2. The people understood and responded by volunteering.
3. Despite some disasters as the new warfare was mastered, the British Army was well led.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 09:43 AM

Er.. Nope. Still can't see anything with a consensus.

Perhaps you might post them some day. In the meantime, here's a few..

A huge number of men died.

Haig was called The Butcher of The Somme.

Hang on, I got that bit wrong.. My apologies, a fucking huge number of men died. I stand corrected.




Oh, by the way. I too have read some history. What an amazing coincidence! Rather than do your trick and select a few snippets out of context to prop up a preconception, I invite you to google the following in order to see where I am coming from;


History

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 09:50 AM

Keith (24 Nov 13 - 09:19 AM), we have seen that they disagree and keep changing their minds on some aspects. If they did not, the rest of my argument would still hold water: soldiers cannot be expected to be political analysts.

For a good illustration even from the Internet age, study the Iraq war. Means of mass destruction? Fostering democracy? Hussein, previously supported (!), suddenly an arch villain?

Or the Taliban, erstwhile Western heroes (sorry for the pun) when fighting Soviet troops, ...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket shaking his head slowly
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 10:17 AM

As Keith relies on an ex newspaper editor as his war bible, I thought it would be fun to read his disgraceful diatribe on war.

Here he is in his favourite place, writing for The Daily M*il on why Alan Turing shouldn't have been pardoned for breaking anti gay laws and why it was right that deserters in WW1 were executed in front of as many soldiers as possible.

Nasty little bastard don't you think?

Makes me wonder why Keith idolises him......

Max Hastings defends our criminal past

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 10:24 AM

Er.. Nope. Still can't see anything with a consensus.

I have shown that many historians support my view.
No-one has found one that does not.
How is that not consensus?

Haig was called The Butcher of The Somme.

Really?
By who?
Any quotes?

Certainly not the million ordinary people who stood in the streets on a winter day in 1922 to pay their respects at the funeral of a revered national hero.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 10:43 AM

Where did you get that list Jim?"
You have been given that list at last three times - it is a condensation of the Wikipedia article from a wikepedia site - look the ******* thing up - you persist in giving us unlinked articles
On what frounds do you reject the articles - they are all contained in the (linked) Wikipedia article and are fully confirmed in the other links - some of which include the actual posters.
You seem now to be denying historical evidence in order to prove a veteran volunteer a liar - there really is no limit to the depths you will sink to protect the establishment
"I keep asking."
No you don't
I trust you went to church this morning - do all Christians behave the way you do or are you a one-off?
Jim Carroll


http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/151/4/the-white-feather-campaign-a-struggle-with-masculinity-during-world-war-i


I Tried to Stop the Bloody Thing'
Print
In World War I, nearly as many British men refused the draft—20,000—as were killed on the Somme's first day. Why were those who fought for peace forgotten?
By Adam Hochschild


Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on reddit Share on email An early autumn bite is in the air as a late, gold-tinged afternoon falls over the rolling countryside of northern France. Where the land dips between gentle rises, it is already in shadow. Dotting the fields are machine-packed rolls of the year's final hay crop. Up a low hill, a grove of trees screens the evidence of another kind of harvest reaped on this spot nearly a century ago. Each gravestone in the small cemetery has a name, rank, and serial number; 162 have crosses and one has a Star of David. When known, a man's age is engraved on the stone as well: 19, 22, 23, 26, 34, 21, 20. Ten of the graves simply say, "A Soldier of the Great War, Known unto God." Almost all the dead are from Britain's Devonshire Regiment, the date on their gravestones July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Most were casualties of a single German machine gun several hundred yards from this spot, and were buried here in a section of the frontline trench they had climbed out of that morning. Some 21,000 British soldiers were killed or fatally wounded that summer day, the day of greatest bloodshed in the history of their country, before or since.
From a nearby hilltop, you can see a half dozen of the 400 cemeteries where British soldiers are buried in the Somme battlefield region, a rough crescent of territory less than 20 miles long, but graves are not the only mark the war has made on the land. More than 700 million artillery and mortar rounds were fired on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918, and many failed to explode. Every year these leftover shells kill people. Dotted through the region are patches of uncleared forest or scrub surrounded by yellow danger signs in French and English warning visitors away. More than 630 bomb-disposal specialists have been killed in France since 1946. Like those shells, the First World War itself has remained in our lives, below the surface, because we live in a world so much formed by it.
The war's destructiveness still seems beyond belief. In addition to the dead, another 36,000 British troops were wounded on the first day of the Somme offensive. But worse was yet in store. "No, we do not pardon," Adolf Hitler fulminated soon after the war ended, "we demand—vengeance!" Germany's defeat, and the vindictive, misbegotten peace settlement that followed, irrevocably nurtured the seeds of Nazism, of an even more destructive war 20 years later, and of the Holocaust as well. The war of 1914–1918 was, as Simon Schama has put it, the "original sin" of the 20th century. Even the victors were losers: how could France, for example, be considered victorious when half of all Frenchmen aged 20 to 32 at the war's outbreak were dead when it was over?
Inaugurating industrialized slaughter on a scale previously unknown, the First World War remade the world for the worse in every conceivable way. It has few remembered moments of triumph or glory: no Waterloo, no Pickett's Charge, no D-day landing. Those who took part are not celebrated as the greatest generation. Today we usually look on it as an object lesson in multiple follies, such as the illusion that winning a major war can be quick and easy—or the illusion that wars do not have enormous unintended consequences. But oddly, despite the flood of histories, novels, and films that will only increase as the centenary of 1914 approaches (at least one major TV series is already in the works), we pay little attention to the people at the time who knew this war was an unmitigated catastrophe—and acted on their convictions. Ignoring those who argued for peace while the battles raged seems all the more strange today, when we have a vast and rising military budget and two ongoing wars that have created far more problems than they have solved.
What kings, emperors, and prime ministers did not foresee, many others did. From 1914 on, tens of thousands of people in all the belligerent countries believed the war was not worth the horrendous cost in blood, and some anticipated with tragic clarity at least part of the nightmare that would engulf Europe as a result. Moreover, they spoke out at a time when to do so took great courage. In Germany, antiwar radicals like Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were sent to prison—as was the American socialist Eugene V. Debs after he left a sickbed to give a series of speeches when the United States entered the conflict. The judge told him he might get a lesser sentence if he repented. "Repent?" asked Debs. "Repent? Repent for standing like a man?" More than 500 American draft resisters went to prison.
Or consider a scene that unfolded a few weeks before that notorious first day on the Somme, not far away. In the spring of 1916, Britain had begun conscription, and some 50 men who were among the first to refuse it were forcibly inducted into the army and transported, some in handcuffs, across the English Channel to France. Family members and fellow pacifists were horrified. When questioned about the men, Lord Derby, director of military recruiting, declared that "if they disobey orders, of course they will be shot, and quite right too!"
There was no news of where the men were. Then one day in early June a clue reached England: an official Field Service Post Card, designed to save army censors the time it took to read mail. These cards had half-a-dozen printed messages that a soldier could either underline or cross out, and this particular one was signed by a 27-year-old schoolteacher named Bert Brocklesby, one of the resisters. All the messages were crossed out, except two. One was, "I am being sent down to the base." The other was, "I have received no letter from you for a long time." But Brocklesby had lightly crossed out many individual letters, so that the message read, "I am being sent. . . to. . . . b. . . . ou. . . . long."
Supporters of the men immediately dispatched two clergymen to Boulogne.
But would they be in time? While the ministers were still crossing the Channel, a smuggled letter arrived from France, reaching the mother of a Quaker named Stuart Beavis. "We have been warned today that we are now within the war zone," he wrote to her stoically, "and the military authorities have absolute power, and disobedience may be followed by very severe penalties, and very possibly the death penalty. . . . Do not be downhearted if the worst comes to the worst; many have died cheerfully for a worse cause." To a peace group, he sent a brief message on behalf of himself and his comrades, ending, "We regret nothing." For a time, there was no more news of the men's fate.
It was in Britain that significant numbers of war resisters first acted on their beliefs and paid the price. They did not even come close to stopping the bloodshed, but their strength of conviction remains one of the glories of a dark time. By the conflict's end, more than 20,000 British men of military age would refuse the draft. Many, on principle, also refused the noncombatant alternative service offered to conscientious objectors, and more than 6,000 served prison terms under harsh conditions: hard labor, a bare-bones diet, and a strict "rule of silence." This was one of the largest groups ever jailed for political reasons in a Western democracy. War opponents behind bars also included older men—and a few women—as well. If we could time-travel our way into British prisons in late 1917 and early 1918 we would meet the nation's leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize, more than half a dozen future members of Parliament, one future cabinet minister, and a former newspaper editor who was now publishing a clandestine journal for his fellow inmates on toilet paper. It would be rare to find a more distinguished array of people ever imprisoned together.
A major reason many Britons opposed the war was that their country had not been attacked. Unlike France and Belgium, Britain saw no steel-helmeted German troops pouring across its frontiers. In the first few days of war, the conflict seemed to be other countries' business. It was only after Germany invaded Belgium—whose neutrality Britain was pledged by treaty to support—that opinion among the public and in the cabinet swung toward war.
For years, the most consistent, eloquent voice warning his fellow citizens against going to war was that of Keir Hardie. Born in great poverty in Glasgow, Hardie never went to school and by the time he was 21 had worked more than half his life underground, as a coal miner. Then he became a union leader, labor journalist, and member of Parliament. He was a believer in socialism with all the fervor, hope, and innocence that only the pre-1914 world knew: surely, surely, this was the best bulwark against the generals, because the workingmen of Europe, who cheered an advance for labor in one nation as an advance for all, would never fight each other on the battlefield. Right up to the last minute—a tumultuous peace rally in Trafalgar Square two days before Britain joined the war—Hardie called for a general strike in any country that took part. In portraits, his thick beard is dark red when he is young, white as a shroud when, in his fifties, he saw the bloodshed he had long feared shatter his dreams. His hauntingly sad, heavy-browed eyes seem to stare out at you so piercingly from any photograph that they might be staring beyond his own life, into an entire century of world wars and crushed hopes.
The war struck at Hardie's very core. After it began, people jeered him on the street in London and mobs hooted and sang "Rule, Britannia" to try to drown out his speeches. Late in 1914 he suffered a stroke, and for a time his arm was useless, and he could write only by dictating. One of his last public appearances was in the spring of 1915. "The little hall was crowded to suffocation and the lights were dimmed," a witness remembered. "Hardie's bushy white hair and his white beard shone out in the darkness with almost phosphorescent radiance. His head was held high, defiantly; his voice was strong and deep. . . . His voice nearly broke when he spoke of the tragedy of Socialists murdering each other." A newspaper printed a cartoon showing Kaiser Wilhelm II giving "Keir von Hardie" a bag of gold. Crushed and broken by the slaughter, he died of pneumonia later that year, at 59.
Unlike, for example, American opponents of our wars in Vietnam, Central America, Iraq, or Afghanistan, the Britons who opposed this war had no major news¬papers and only a tiny handful of legislators on their side. For someone in a prominent position to advocate any compromise was considered close to treason. When Rev. Edward Lyttelton, the headmaster of Eton, proposed some possible peace terms, the resulting uproar forced him to resign. From Parliament to pulpit, ferocity reigned. "Kill Germans! Kill them!" raged one clergyman in a 1915 sermon, " . . . not for the sake of killing, but to save the world. . . . Kill the good as well as the bad. . . . Kill the young men as well as the old. . . . I look upon it as a war for purity. I look upon everybody who dies in it as a martyr." The speaker was Arthur Winnington-Ingram, the Anglican Bishop of London.
A West End theater put on a play mocking pacifists, called The Man Who Stayed at Home. Women stood on street corners handing out white feathers, an ancient symbol of cowardice, to young men not in uniform. Recruiting posters appealed to shame: one showed two children asking a frowning, guilty-looking father in civilian clothes, "Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?" (Keir Hardie's friend Bob Smillie, leader of the Scottish mineworkers, said his reply would be: "I tried to stop the bloody thing, my child.")
One dissenter was the 42-year-old Bertrand Russell, the Cambridge logician and mathematician. Not only was the pipe-smoking Russell his country's best-known philosopher, but his broad forehead, aquiline nose, piercing blue eyes, ramrod posture, and arresting shock of hair made him one of the most striking-looking philosophers of all time. A young woman who fell in love with him recalled that Russell's hair "seemed almost to give off sparks like a heath fire."
Russell explored the most abstruse heights of theory—his greatest work, the coauthored Principia Mathematica, takes 347 pages before reaching a definition of the number 1—but he also wrote fluently for the general public. He denounced conventional marriage but attracted women like a magnet, hated organized religion but felt moments of spiritual ecstasy, and, during this greatest crisis of his generation, loved his country deeply but believed from the very first moments that the war was an appalling mistake.
Part of Russell's intellectual bravery lay in his willingness to confront that last set of conflicting loyalties. He described himself poignantly in the autumn of 1914 as being "tortured by patriotism. . . . I desired the defeat of Germany as ardently as any retired colonel. Love of England is very nearly the strongest emotion I possess, and in appearing to set it aside at such a moment, I was making a very difficult renunciation." What left him even more anguished was realizing that "anticipation of carnage was delightful to something like ninety per cent of the population. . . . As a lover of truth, the national propaganda of all the belligerent nations sickened me. As a lover of civilization, the return to barbarism appalled me. As a man of thwarted parental feeling, the massacre of the young wrung my heart." Over the four years to come, he never yielded in his belief that "this war is trivial, for all its vastness. No great principle is at stake, no great human purpose is involved on either side. . . . The English and French say they are fighting in defence of democracy, but they do not wish their words to be heard in Petrograd or Calcutta."
Antiwar beliefs were tested most severely by the mass patriotic hysteria of the war's first months. "One by one, the people with whom one had been in the habit of agreeing politically went over to the side of the war." How hard it was, Russell wrote, to resist being swept away "when the whole nation is in a state of violent collective excitement. As much effort was required to avoid sharing this excitement as would have been needed to stand out against the extreme of hunger or sexual passion, and there was the same feeling of going against instinct." One night Russell heard a "shout of bestial triumph in the street. I leapt out of bed and saw a Zeppelin falling in flames. The thought of brave men dying in agony was what caused the triumph in the street."
By the beginning of 1916, in response to recruiting drives, posters ("Don't Lag! Follow Your Flag!"), and music-hall songs ("Oh, we don't want to lose you, but we think you ought to go"), 2.5 million volunteers had enlisted in the British military. But as battles on the Western Front devoured men by the hundreds of thousands, compounded by similarly bloody operations like the disastrous Gallipoli landing in Turkey, the army's appetite for bodies was such that Britain finally began a draft.
The authorities started raiding soccer games, movie theaters, and railway stations to round up military-age men who were not in uniform. A pamphlet by "A Little Mother" typically declared that "we women . . . will tolerate no such cry as 'Peace! Peace!' . . . There is only one temperature for the women of the British race, and that is white heat. . . . We women pass on the human ammunition of 'only sons' to fill up the gaps." It sold 75,000 copies in a few days. "The conscientious objector is a fungus growth—a human toadstool—which should be uprooted without further delay," screamed the tabloid John Bull. In April 1916 the major group backing resisters, the No-Conscription Fellowship, or NCF, drew some 2,000 supporters to a London meeting hall while an angry crowd milled about in the street outside. The organization's chairman, wrote one delegate, "did not wish to incite further attack by the noise of our cheering. He therefore asked that enthusiasm should be expressed silently, and with absolute discipline the crowded audience responded." When Bertrand Russell addressed the gathering, he was "received with thousands of fluttering handkerchiefs, making the low sound of rising and falling wind, but with no other sound whatsoever."
Russell continued to write articles, books, and letters to newspapers in prose that rang with moral clarity. The longer the war went on, he said, the more it was militarizing Britain in Germany's image, while making certain an embittered and dangerous postwar world. He lent his enormous prestige to the NCF, and for much of the war his thick mass of graying hair was a familiar sight at its headquarters, for when the group's chairman went to prison, Russell took his place. He attended the courts-martial of conscientious objectors, visited COs in jail, and devoted hours to the most mundane office tasks, writing "Dear Comrade" letters to branches around the country signed "Fraternally Yours, Bertrand Russell."
The activists of the NCF scored a rhetorical point when, in the course of one legal case, a lawyer on the government side, Sir Archibald Bodkin (later notorious as the man who would get James Joyce's Ulysses banned from publication in postwar England) protested angrily that "war will become impossible if all men were to have the view that war is wrong." Delighted, the NCF issued a poster with exactly those words on it, credited to Bodkin. The government then convicted an NCF member for putting up this subversive poster. In response, the NCF's lawyer demanded the arrest of Bodkin himself, as author of the offending words. The organization's newspaper called for Bodkin to prosecute himself, and declared that the group would provide relief payments to his wife and children if he sent himself to jail.
In the late spring of 1916, Boulogne, where the group of COs who had dropped from sight were apparently being held, was one of the ports through which supplies flowed to the British army in preparation for its great offensive near the point where the River Somme meandered its weed-choked way across the Western Front. The decisive assault, scheduled for July 1, 1916, was supposed to burst through German lines like a flood breaking open a dam. After an unprecedented weeklong artillery bombardment of more than a million shells, 120,000 men would attack on the first day alone. The plans even included a map with the British names to be given to German trenches scheduled for capture. Such thorough planning was hard to conceal. When one unit slated to take part moved into position, it found a sign held up from the German trench opposite: WELCOME TO THE 29TH DIVISION.
Preparations for the offensive were at high pitch when the first group of British COs forcibly transported to France were taken to an army camp parade ground with other soldiers and given the order, "Right turn! Quick march!" The other troops did as told; the COs remained in place, unmoving. The army fined them five days' wages, something that amused them since they were already refusing to accept any military pay. There was little else to laugh about. Periodically they were summoned to hear announcements of soldiers sentenced to death for desertion or disobedience.
They refused to do any work. Angry sergeants punished them by administering what was known as Field Punishment Number One, which meant being trussed to a fixed object for two hours at a time, arms held open in crucifixion position. "We were placed with our faces to the barbed wire of the inner fence," recalled one CO, Cornelius Barritt. "I found myself drawn so closely into the fence that when I wished to turn my head I had to do so very slowly and cautiously to avoid my face being torn by the barbs. To make matters less comfortable, it came on to rain and the cold wind blew straight across the top of the hill." But the men's spirits held, for when officers weren't looking, ordinary soldiers showed them unexpected kindness. One gave his dinner to CO Alfred Evans, and when his superiors were gone for the evening, a sergeant of the Irish Guards spent his own money buying cake, fruit, and chocolate for the whole group at the post canteen. Worried that the men's pacifism might influence the troops, the army moved them off base, to a fish market on the docks of Boulogne that had been turned into a punishment barracks. There, they were locked in group cells with no sustenance but water and four biscuits a day.
The men in one cell could talk to those in others only through knot holes in the wooden walls. As best they could, they held debates: on Marxism, Tolstoyan pacifism, and the merits of Esperanto. The Quakers among them held a Quaker meeting. For some, the convictions that had put them behind bars were religious; for others, political; for many, both. They sang both Christian hymns and labor songs.
Unable to comprehend so many people acting according to conscience, the military decided that Barritt and three other COs were ringleaders responsible for the larger group's mass disobedience. They were court-martialed and found guilty. No one knew whether the messages they had tried to send had reached their families and supporters in England—or would have any effect. On June 15, 1916, two weeks before the Somme offensive, the four "ringleaders" were taken out of their cells for sentencing.
They were brought to a large parade ground, and several hundred soldiers were assembled on three sides. The rumble of artillery sounded in the distance. "I cast many a glance in the direction of the white cliffs of Dover," remembered one, "for this might be our last opportunity." A command rang out for silence. "I caught a glimpse of my paper as it was handed to the Adjutant. Printed at the top in large red letters, and doubly underlined, was the word 'Death.'"
As each man stepped forward, the adjutant read out his name and serial number and the charge, and intoned, "Sentenced to death by being shot." Then there was a pause, "Confirmed by General Sir Douglas Haig." Then a longer pause, "And commuted to 10 years' penal servitude."
What the men did not know was that their supporters in England had been working feverishly. Russell had led a delegation to see Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and, as he put it, "I made him a speech of denunciation in an almost Biblical style, telling him his name would go down in history with infamy" if the men were brought before the firing squad. Asquith then sent a secret order to Haig, the British commander-in-chief in France, saying that no conscientious objectors were to be shot.
In the days that followed, while ships, trains, and truck convoys all around them sped last-minute supplies to the front, the men were returned to England and sent to civilian prisons—as would happen with all COs from now on. In an act of great collective courage that echoes down over the years, they had stuck to their beliefs even when threatened with death. "As I stood listening to the sentences of the rest of our party," one CO said later of that day on the parade ground, "the feeling of joy and triumph surged up within me, and I felt proud to have the privilege of . . . testifying to a truth which the world as yet had not grasped, but which it would one day treasure as a most precious inheritance."
It was only days after these COs learned they would live that thousands of British soldiers on the Somme realized they were doomed. The German machine gun emplacements facing them were built of concrete, steel, and sometimes even stone, and proved largely impervious to all but a direct hit by a high-explosive shell, something which seldom happened. Their crews waited out the British bombardment in reinforced bunkers as deep as 40 feet below ground, and when the shelling stopped and British soldiers advanced across no man's land, bugle calls brought the Germans racing up stairways and ladders to man their machine guns. It was these that took the bulk of the toll of British troops on that first disastrous day.
Not only soldiers perished in this war, for the conflict erased the traditional distinction between soldiers and civilians. Total war among industrialized economies meant that everybody was fair game, and each side tried to starve the other into submission. German U-boats torpedoed Allied and eventually neutral ships (which brought the United States into the war) carrying food and supplies to France and Britain. Meanwhile, the Royal Navy threw a tight blockade around Germany and its allies, sealing them off from all imports of food and fertilizer. Bad harvests in central Europe compounded the food shortages, and often the only meat on sale in Germany was that of dogs and cats. A foreign visitor described what happened when a horse collapsed and died on a Berlin street one morning: "Women rushed towards the cadaver as if they had been poised for this moment, knives in their hands. Everyone was shouting, fighting for the best pieces. Blood spattered their faces and their clothes. . . . When nothing more was left of the horse beyond a bare skeleton, the people vanished, carefully guarding their pieces of bloody meat tight against their chests."
If there were ever a war that should have had an early, negotiated peace, it was this one. After all, before it began the major powers had been exchanging royal visits and getting along reasonably well. In public, at least, none of them claimed a piece of another's territory. Germany was Britain's biggest trading partner. But once the conflict was on, neither side was willing to consider anything but total victory. From the beginning, Bertrand Russell had ceaselessly proposed peace terms. He suggested that a future "International Council" resolve disputes before they turned into war. In 1916, he wrote to President Woodrow Wilson, urging him to use his influence to start peace talks, but with no result. Sometimes, however, encouragement came from unexpected sources. In December of that year, Russell received a letter that began, "To-night here on the Somme I have just finished your Principles of Social Reconstruction. . . . It is only on account of such thoughts as yours, on account of the existence of men and women like yourself that it seems worth while surviving the war. . . . You cannot mind knowing that you are understood and admired and that those exist who would be glad to work with you." The writer, 2nd Lieutenant Arthur Graeme West of the 6th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infan¬try, was killed by a sniper's bullet three months later, at the age of 25.
As the war went on, the number of resisters in British prisons grew. Fenner Brockway, editor of a socialist newspaper, was now, in Liverpool's Walton Gaol, editor of the Walton Leader, one of at least nine clandestine CO prison papers. It was written with pencil lead that Brockway and other resisters had smuggled into prison attached to the bottoms of their feet with adhesive tape; each issue was published on 40 squares of brown toilet paper. The subscription price was extra sheets of toilet paper from each prisoner's supply. Twice a week, until guards finally discovered it after a year, a new issue—only one copy could be "published"—was left in a toilet cubicle the CO prisoners shared.
It was not only draft refusers who were locked up. In the spring of 1918, Russell himself was sentenced to six months for writings the authorities deemed subversive. When he arrived to begin serving his sentence, the warder taking down his particulars "asked my religion and I replied 'agnostic.' He asked how to spell it, and then remarked with a sigh: 'Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.'"
Officials were so awed by Russell's fame and aristocratic ancestry (his grandfather had been prime minister and his older brother was an earl) that, alone among war resisters, he was allowed to be a "First Division" prisoner—an ancient, privileged status that permitted inmates to keep the tools of their trade, which for him meant books and paper. Russell had a lively and unconventional love life, and, evading the strict limits on prisoners' correspondence, was able to smuggle out letters to two women he was involved with, all the while still nominally married to a third. A set of letters to one lover, a young actress, were in French, which he knew his guards would not be able to read; Russell persuaded them that these were historical documents copied from his research materials. A letter to another woman he slipped inside the uncut pages of the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, telling her the volume was more interesting than it appeared. Always self-disciplined, Russell wrote four hours a day, producing, among other work, 70,000 words of his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy.
After the bloodshed had continued without respite for three years, dissenters like these were joined by an unexpected voice that rang out from the very highest reaches of the country's hierarchy. Lord Lansdowne was a great landowner and former viceroy of India, minister for war, and foreign secretary. His doubts about battling to an unconditional victory began after the Somme. Very much a man of his class, he was particularly appalled by the number of British officers slain. "We are slowly but surely killing off the best of the male population of these islands . . . " he wrote. "Generations will have to come and go before the country recovers from the loss."
When the shocked London Times refused to publish it, an open letter from him appeared in the Daily Telegraph on November 29, 1917, laying out some proposals for a negotiated peace. "We are not going to lose this War," Lansdowne wrote, "but its prolongation will spell ruin for the civilised world, and an infinite addition to the load of human suffering which already weighs upon it. . . . Just as this war has been more dreadful than any war in history, so, we may be sure, would the next war be even more dreadful than this." Nearly three decades before Hiroshima, he prophetically sensed something about the future: "The prostitution of science for purposes of pure destruction is not likely to stop short." Lansdowne was attacked by many former colleagues, and in their confidential reports on the public mood, undercover intelligence agents began speaking darkly of "Lansdownism." Many soldiers, however, wrote to congratulate him on his bravery.
Government harassment of the antiwar movement grew steadily worse. The police raided the printer that produced the No-Conscription Fellowship's newspaper and dismantled the press. The paper quickly switched to a new printer, who soon also found his presses wrecked. Produced next on a small hand press, the paper promptly reappeared as a single page with the triumphant headline "Here We Are Again!!" When the two men who operated this press ran out of type for the large capital letters used for headlines, they borrowed them from friendly fellow printers on Lord Northcliffe's rabidly pro-war Daily Mail. For months to come, moving once or twice because of suspicious neighbors, this secret press continued to print the paper. Scotland Yard detectives never found it. Violet Tillard, an NCF activist, served two months in prison for refusing to reveal its location. Trying to figure this out, agents kept the organization's office under surveillance, but an impoverished-looking woman with a baby, who visited the building every few days apparently hoping for a handout, never attracted their attention. She was smuggling proof sheets beneath the blankets of her baby carriage.
The former editor Fenner Brockway was in his prison cell when he heard the news that an armistice was to take effect at 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918. Allowed no watch, he had learned to tell time by the position of a sunbeam on the wall.
I remember sitting on the shelf-table in the denuded cell, my feet on the stool, watching the sun creep along the wall towards eleven o'clock. I cannot reproduce the chaos and intensity of my thoughts.
"Was the slaughter of four years to end? . . . Was I to see my family and children? . . . Was I to see the fields and woods and hills and sea?
"The line of the sun on the wall approached eleven.
When horns all over the city suddenly sounded, Brockway wept.
Bertrand Russell, who had recently completed his prison term, walked up Tottenham Court Road and watched Londoners pour out of shops and offices into the street to cheer. The public jubilation made him think of the similar mood he had witnessed when war was declared more than four years earlier. "The crowd was frivolous still, and had learned nothing during the period of horror. . . . I felt strangely solitary amid the rejoicings, like a ghost dropped by accident from some other planet."
Over the years, as the war's toll sank in, they and others who had gone to jail for their beliefs began to win considerable respect from a public that had once scorned them. Brockway and several others became members of Parliament. Russell continued to write; in 1950, his top-heavy thatch of hair now completely white but as thick as ever, he would appear in Stockholm as one of the few writers of nonfiction ever to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. A trade unionist named Arthur Creech Jones spent two and a half years in prison as a CO; 30 years later, he was in the British cabinet. Ramsay MacDonald, an antiwar Labour MP, had not gone to prison during the war but had been under police surveillance and was repeatedly stoned when he spoke at peace meetings. Angry patriots had even voted to expel him from his golf club. In 1924, he became prime minister.
"I knew that it was my business to protest, however futile protest might be," wrote Russell, decades later. "I felt that for the honour of human nature those who were not swept off their feet should show that they stood firm." And stand firm and honor the best of human nature they did. Their battle was not won, but it remains an example for our own time, a time increasingly shadowed by conflict, a time when we still, as General Omar Bradley once said, "know more about war than we know about peace." As the 100th anniversary of 1914 approaches, who now seem the heroes—Russell and those like him, or those who dutifully marched off to be slaughtered at the Somme?
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Adam Hochschild is the author of six books. This article is drawn from his seventh, To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914–1918, which will be published in May.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 10:51 AM

I apologise profusely for the length of that extract
But on the other hand - your postings have now reached`140 on this subject and you have said nothing other than old soldiers tell lies
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 10:51 AM

Nobody ever called Haig The Butcher of The Somme. I just made it up, obviously.

I have no quotes. I don't even know how to google it.

zzzzzzzzzzz

You seem to have read "history." Why don't you tell us why he was the butcher of The Somme?



Did you read the article by the ex newspaper editor I just gave you the link to? Obviously, you must be left speechless by his callous disregard for decency. Perhaps that's why you aren't commenting?

You realise you are looking a bigger fool each and every post? Why not stop digging and get onto subjects you know more about such as

Err...

Ok. Let's carry on.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 10:56 AM

You have been given that list at last three times - it is a condensation of the Wikipedia article from a wikepedia site - look the ******* thing up - you persist in giving us unlinked articles

I have provided links for all my sources.
Can you identify one I have missed Jim?

Wikipedia gives sources for things like that list.
What was it?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 11:30 AM

"Can you identify one I have missed Jim?"
Please, please say I invented that list Keith
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 11:40 AM

I know you did not Jim.
If you Google the list, you find it is a Wiki Answer provided by someone called Jmimins.

Is he known to you or is he just some random bloke off the internet?
Does he/she know anything?
Why should we take any notice?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 11:42 AM

Try it.
Songs
Posters
Economic reasons (money)
Glamour (uniform, bravery etc.)
German brutality (propaganda, eg. gorilla)
White feathers (handed out by women to symbolise guilt and shame of not enlisting)
Travel (adventure)
Money (fed regularly)
Women (popularity with heroes)
Guilt (not signing up)
Religion (god ensure survival)
Pals batallions (fought with friends)
Patriotism (King and country)
Fatherly instincts (protecting future children)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 12:39 PM

"If you Google the list, you find it is a Wiki Answer provided by someone called Jmimins."
You appalling little shit
Every single reason on that list is covered in the links you have been given
Propaganda songs
Too well known to worth a mention
You have been given a list of recruitment posters and how they have been used for all the aspects in the list
The Wiki article on The rape of Belgium fully covers how the Government exaggerated German brutality.
White feathers and guilt were too well known to even merit a mention
Unemployment and regular food is included in the first Wiki article
God on our side and the role of the church can be googled at length
The Pals Battalion - google it
Patriotism - you want to deny that one?
Threat to family - Wiki again - as is travel and adventure

Have I missed anything? - if not, which of these do you deny as being a reason for enlistment
The list doesn't include the fact that some employers forced their employees to enlist.
Now - howe about a full apology and some honest responses from the corner you have painted yourself into.
Jim Carroll

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_did_the_British_government_encourage_young_men_to_fight_ww1#slide1

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 12:42 PM

Guilt (not signing up)
White feathers (handed out by women to symbolise guilt and shame of not enlisting)
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/151/the-white-feather-campaign-a-struggle-with-masculinity-during-world-war-i
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather

http://worldwaripropaganda.wordpress.com/

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/first-world-war-wwi


http://hubpages.com/hub/How-Were-Propaganda-Posters-Used-In-World-War-1

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/pals_01.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket laughing
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 12:57 PM

Jim.. Why did you bother?

He will say the sources are irrelevant.

He thinks the sun shines out of the arse of the disgraceful revisionist Max Hastings. No comment on the article I supplied that just shows his true colours.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 01:01 PM

I do not accept that those reasons were significant for many people.
Your same Wiki page gives us the main reason.

"Recruitment in the first few weeks of war was high, but the real 'recruiting boom' began in the last week of August, when news of the British retreat following the Battle of Mons reached Britain. Recruiting peaked in the first week of September".[2]
" 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."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 01:06 PM

Musket, the "revisionist" historians were those who emerged in the 20s and 30s like Liddel-Hart and AJP Taylor.

They have been discredited and forgotten as more evidence became available.
I have no particular brief for Hastings.
He is just typical of modern historians.
I have hardly used him as a source.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 01:18 PM

"I do not accept that those reasons were significant for many people."
"He will say the sources are irrelevant."
How on earth did you guess Musket?
I will now ask him why he doesn't believe and ask him for evidence of this and how he accounts for all the information he has been given, and he will ignore my question and fail to provide back-up for his beliefs
Good game this, isn't it
David Nixon would have loved it (remember David Nixon anybody?)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 01:44 PM

"And for American history you should avoid American historians?
They would be too inhibited by nationalism to be reliable?"

You are a prat!

Looking at both sides of an argument isn't avoiding either, except for bigots.

The British, the French and v\rious others would have a take on US history which would warrant examination.

The only one here who denies thaat is you!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 02:07 PM

"Certainly not the million ordinary people who stood in the streets on a winter day in 1922 to pay their respects at the funeral of a revered national hero."

Which, of course didn't include the thousands mown down within ten yards of their own trenches at his command.

The dead don't get to complain, do they?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 02:34 PM

Most of those standing in the cold were veterans.
Men who fought for him.
I am completely open to non-British historians, even if they contradict me.
I just can't find any.
Can you?

Jim, we know why men volunteered because we have their letters and diaries.
There are many reasons including all those on your sourceless (made up) list, but mostly for the reason given in your quote.
To try and stop the invading German armies.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 04:28 PM

The dead don't get to complain, do they?

Good thing for Kieth's "argument", eh? Otherwise he might have to face reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 05:49 PM

I do not have an argument in this one Greg.

I formed a view based on reported historical fact.
That is why historians have the same view.
That is why you can not find one that disagrees with me.
What does that tell you Greg?

You people make up a narrative that suits your preconceptions but has no basis in fact.
Lies actually.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 05:57 PM

'Good thing for Kieth's "argument", eh? Otherwise he might have to face reality.'
.,,.

My, what a valuable & convincing knockdown post - er - Gerg.

~Mcihela~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 06:14 PM

Is a knockdown the same as a put down?

You know, like for instance belittling someone for spelling errors instead of the meat of what they say?

Keith is perfectly capable of showing us what a complete prat he is without you assuming he is your apprentice.

Shouldn't you be tucked up with Horlicks by this time? Hang on, I spelt that wrong. Should have been bollocks not Horlicks.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 07:59 PM

I formed a view based on reported historical fact.
That is why historians have the same view.

No, you formed your bias on the basis of the minority view of a half-dozen discredited "historical" writers, ignoring the majority view and the facts of the situation.

But that's your right. Everyone has a right to their own delusion.

\Asalong as they don't attempt to present it as fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 11:54 PM

There there, Musky-me-darlin': I know you are a bit niggled with me for showing up your hyperbolical hypocritical evasiveness on the 'persecution' thread!. Now go back to sleepy-byes...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 02:00 AM

Greg, my views derive from a lifetime of reading everything I could find on this subject but, if more than six of the most eminent and representative historians is not enough form an opinion, why no criticism of those who have found NONE AT ALL?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket evolving slowly
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 02:43 AM

You're the one with the hyper bollocks, petal.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 02:43 AM

" discredited "historical" writers"

Discredited by who Greg?
That is a libellous lie.

"ignoring the majority view"

Another lie Greg.
More than the majority view, it is unanimous!

"and the facts of the situation."

Established facts is what I provide.
You people make all your stuff up.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 05:07 AM

OK, Popgun-Flower -- so how about an answer to the point I made about your - ah - equivocal invention of any "Christian" element on the Persecution thread then? ~~ if you're awake enough by now, my pwetty ickle Popsicle!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Muskety wuskety
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 05:33 AM

Ok poppet.

I posted on the persecuting Christians thread the other day. I referred to a BBC report where UK Muslims were being persecuted, such as violence, threats and vandalism of mosques which were not being investigated or, even sadder, not being reported as people don't have faith in the police.

I pointed out that Christians were attacking Muslims.

If anybody has an issue with that, and I do for one, then it is illogical not to have an issue with grouping victims as Christians. Keith tries telling us that all the ones he refers to are being persecuted for their belief in their particular God. That is putting Christianity on a pedestal it doesn't deserve. It also glosses over being the perceived largest minority grouping in some countries or the played on association with western military interventions. The grunts at the front may have been told that their Belief and way of life is being threatened, but the reasons are far more temporal.

A bit like WW1 come to think of it....




Now, back to your mashed banana. Nurse will be along shortly.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 06:11 AM

I fear you miss my point, Ian. The press campaign persecutors who were being complained of on that Muslim website were indeed UK-ers; but nowhere in the link you provided does the word "Christian" appear, nor any attempt at identification of the persecutors' beliefs or religious practices; and it was tendentiously & provocatively disingenuous of you to call the link "Christian persecution...".

You cocked up: not all that seriously, but making an unjustified accusation nonetheless. You would appear in much better light, it seems to me, to man up & admit to this. Matters are scarcely mended by the facetious tone of your replies to my pointing out of this simple fact, which I think merits a more serious admission on your part.

Regards

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket dumbing down
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 07:47 AM

Of course it didn't say Christian. I said Christian...

If you would just read what I put, it isn't difficult, unless I accidentally got it right and you are waiting for nurse to call.

I was pointing out the stupidity of calling victims Christians. By calling perpetrators Christians by the same logic, I was exposing the absurdity for what it is.

But you knew that.

I suggest a sprinkle of Demerara sugar on the mashed banana, it adds crunch and a complimentary texture to the dish. Watching Masterchef has it's uses.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 08:02 AM

But, we only call the victims Christians when they are Christians.

How is that "stupidity" but calling perpetrators Christians when they are not is not "stupidity"???

Or am I being stupid?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 08:39 AM

From: GUEST,Musket dumbing down - PM
.,,.
Well, you said it, matey!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 09:41 AM

I could have said playing to the crowd Michael.. The effect is the same.

Take Keith's last post as an excellent example. If Clapton forbid, you are I had our houses burnt down by a mob of young men of Pakistani origin, a newspaper in any given country, should it be bizarrely newsworthy, refer to it as Christian persecution.

He however only refers to actual Christians being persecuted. A surgeon friend of mine got out of Iraq during the Sadam years, as his house had been bulldozed and him detained for six months as part of what was reported as a concerted persecution campaign against Christians. He managed to drive with family into Kuwait and eventually secured a consultant post here.

Funnily enough, his family and most of the people in his part of town who had been set upon were seen as Christians and had been told on their identity papers that if they weren't Sunni or S'hia they had to put Christian. Turns out he is about as religious as me, whilst his wife has become a Christian since getting here.

One story in millions of course, but Keith's view that everybody being persecuted as a Christian is actually under a god delusion whilst Somehow saying you can't identify thugs by inferring a religion based on stereotyping their background is laughable. Or would be if the reality wasn't so brutal.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 09:51 AM

More than the majority view, it is unanimous!

As I said - pure delusion. And absolute horseshit into the bargain.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 09:59 AM

But, you can't actually find a single dissenting historian.
Funny that Greg.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 10:10 AM

The point you are missing, Ian, is that those referred to as being 'persecuted' are being so because those persecuting perceive them as being "Christian". Whether they are actually so in any practising/practical sense, or how they came to be so perceived [documentation &c], beside the point. The intention of the persecutors is to "get" the Xtns.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 10:29 AM

Totally agree. Never said anything different. I would add, as I have done that whilst the thugs carrying out the dirty work perceive them as Christian, and the media allow for the extra shock value of having you mentally compare them to sweet old ladies organising a beetle drive in the church hall.....

The ones ordering the persecution invariably use the time honoured political stance of finding a large but not too large minority to let people blame for their ills, rather than the blame laying at the door of the ones in charge.

You see Putin with gay people, Eastern European governments with the Romany, Israelis with Palestinians, Palestinians with Israelis, UK governments with unions and in general, holy war has to be against other ideologies..

Nothing deep or meaningful, just happens, we all know it happens.

Of course, try telling Keith it is anything but because they are Christians. Go on, it's alright. I can get the posts up easily enough if he wriggles out of his own stupidity.

As I said, dragging it back to this thread. You use propaganda to fire up your soldiers to think their cause is noble. Snag is, the other side do too....

Oh shit, Musket had a song coming on, where's my earplugs?

The Second World War boys, it came and it went.
We forgave the Germans and now we are friends.
Though they murdered six million,
In the ovens they fried.
The Germans now too have,
God on their side.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 10:57 AM

"Jim, we know why men volunteered because we have their letters and diaries."
You have not produced any here, nor have you produced a single reference why the majority joined nor the feelings of the survivors who returned.
You have been given a fully documented and referenced list of 14 reasons why men enlisted, the moral blackmail of the white feather, the pretended romance of army life (dealt with in full in several accounts) the glamour of the uniform, unemployment, being forced to enlist by employers...... all fully documented and historically accepted facts.
From the outset you were aware that these soldiers diaries were extremely as far as the general public are concerned - the oral account you have had described you referred to as "lies" - so much for the veracity of the accounts from veterans as far as you are concerned, unless they fit in with your bigoted jingoistic agenda of course.
None of your so-called historians have made any claim whatever on why the majority, or any particular portion of soldiers enlisted - the nearest you have come to any sort of conclusion is "I do not accept that those reasons were significant for many people" - doesn't hack it as evidence, just bigoted agenda chasing.
Debunking genuine historians as 'revisionist' (a term you have fallen foul of before) because they don't toe your flag-waving line doesn't do great deal for your case either.
You want to show that the majority enlisted to defend a genocidal Imperial power (another fact you have tiptoed around) show us your evidence (before you say it - no you most certainly haven't).
You want us to believe your 'historians' back up your anachronistic claims - show us their evidence (before you say it - no you most certainly haven't).
Otherwise are the same extremist froth they have always been
(Have I kept this brief enough for you?)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 11:12 AM

"I fear you miss my point, Ian. The press campaign persecutors who were being complained of on that Muslim website were indeed UK-ers; but nowhere in the link you provided does the word "Christian" appear, nor any attempt at identification of the persecutors' beliefs or religious practices; and it was tendentiously & provocatively disingenuous of you to call the link "Christian persecution..."."

Did we miss the disestablishment of the C of E, or is the above just another spin job.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 11:26 AM

Some Brits look down their noses and denigrate Islamic theocracies, using the foulest of pejoratives ("rag heads", etc. etc.)

At the same time they ignore, or are too stupid to recognise that their own country is a theocracy, with an established Church which plays a significant part in its government.

The only difference is that UK Ayatollahs aren't very good at their job.

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.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 06:18 AM

I'm not going to repeat it. Just that you don't have to look more than a couple of sentences in...


Generally, how can any views be debated in this thread? It is based on posting snippets from other sources and challenging people to defy the subjective view of someone who isn't even in our debate?

You'll never get anywhere with this approach. Some of us are capable of forming views based on years and multiple opportunities for learning. A bit difficult when you are up against someone who needs the comfort blanket of an off the shelf opinion of someone who isn't part of this debate so cannot be questioned.

Something about organ grinders and monkeys.....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 06:50 AM

Here are the sentences you refer to.

"Like one of Field Marshal Haig's family whiskies, Max Hastings is a dram that steadily improves with age.
His own trenchant views on war, and caustic opinions of the commanders who ran them, tended to obtrude too obviously in his early works, suggesting that if only he had been present at key military conferences costly errors would have been avoided.
However, Hastings's recent massive volumes on his specialist subject, the Second World War, have shown why his position as Britain's leading military historian is now unassailable."

None of it refers to his work on WW1.
Has has done no previous work on WW1, so your claim is rubbished.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 07:17 AM

Some of us are capable of forming views based on years and multiple opportunities for learning.

Some of us a capable of reading history, and forming views based on established historical fact.
Some of us do not regard sitcoms as an opportunity for learning.

A bit difficult when you are up against someone who needs the comfort blanket of an off the shelf opinion of someone who isn't part of this debate so cannot be questioned.

Hastings is only one of the many historians I have referred to.
You made a false claim about him.
I exposed it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 08:15 AM

I was going to say you are delusional, then perhaps not reading your own words, then perhaps less nice thoughts.

Then you defended bigotry on the pope thread.

Good day to you.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 09:40 AM

Classic!
When losing argument, switch to personal attack, making up smears.

My only contribution to the pope thread was to ask these questions, without any comment.

"Does that include those gays who oppose it?
Does that include those who have no issue with sexuality but just have the traditional view of what the institution of marriage is and should be?"

Not defending or attacking anything, just asking.

On this thread, I argued just 3 things.
1.That overall the army was well led.
I know this from reading history.

2.That Britain had to try and stop the invading German armies.
Again, that is not questioned by historians.

3.People mostly volunteered because they understood that.
This is from The Daily Mirror on the day war was declared.

"Why There is War.
The following statement was issued from the Foreign Office last night: Owing to the summary rejection by the German Government of the request made by His Majesty's Government for assurances that the neutrality of Belgium would be respected, His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin has received his passport, and His Majesty's Government has declared to the German Government that a state of war exists between Great Britain and Germany as from 11pm on August 4."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 09:46 AM

Daily Mirror headlines on day war declared.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/mirror01_01.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 11:03 AM

Keith A of Hertford does appear to enjoy being hoist by his own petard. He defends the "masters of war" in a manner that goes some way to explain why simple folk were taken in by the jingoistic propaganda of the government(s) of the day, leading to the awful waste of life that is nowadays somehow celebrated. So long as you are an innocent victim of the winning side. If you were on the losing side, your luck by mere geography makes you evil in the eyes of fools.

Great Britain shall be celebrating going to ear next year. Those of us who find that somewhat odd and distasteful heed look no further than Mr A of Hertford to see why it makes sense to the British government.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket noting
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 11:08 AM

Poor bugger. I bet he had a bloody iPad too!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,keith A
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 03:05 PM

He defends the "masters of war"
I do not defend anyone.
I base my views on the findings of historians.
That is how rational, intelligent people come to understand times before their own.
Where do your views come from?

simple folk were taken in by the jingoistic propaganda of the government(s) of the day,

Who are you to call other people simple?
Read the Daily Mirror headlines I linked to.
They had clear, dispassionate information about what was happening, and made decisions based on facts just like you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,keith A
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 05:35 PM

leading to the awful waste of life that is nowadays somehow celebrated.

Celebrated?
You must be a mad person.
Or an American.
In Europe this tragedy still haunts us all.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 05:51 PM

"That is one more historian to add to my list."

More unmitigated BS from him who reads only the first couple of sentences (by his own admission).

"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."

Reading a little more (I know it's difficult for you, but worth the effort), he is hardly in the Max ("Blimp") Hastings, or the K.a of H. school of revisionist history.

In fact the bottom line is that he is much closer to Owen and Sassoon than to 'Orrible 'Astings, who believes it right to execute shell shocked servicemen.

If "Maximum Penalty" had his way, half our Falklands and Gulf veterans would be dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 29 Nov 13 - 05:57 PM

"Those of us who find that somewhat odd and distasteful heed look no further than Mr A of Hertford to see why it makes sense to the British government."

And why, 100 years on, we still MUST remember, to prevent such warmongers and their pet revisionists from persuading another generation to become sacrificial lambs to their territorial ambitions.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,keith A
Date: 30 Nov 13 - 04:54 AM

I am not going to be drawn into discussing the US contribution.
It was welcome indeed and hastened the end.

Your historian defended Haig.
The other sentiments were from the reviewer.
I welcome the recognition given to the Tommy.
I came to this thread in anger at their denigration as ignorant, jingoistic dupes.
They were not.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,keith A
Date: 30 Nov 13 - 05:32 AM

More about Hart's book.
He is on my list.

"The historiography of the Great War has changed dramatically in recent times. Serious students have long since abandoned the Lions Led By Donkeys approach to the war and academics like the late Paddy Griffith and Professor Gary Sheffield have championed the formal approach to our understanding of how the conflict was really fought. But in many respects this new thinking has hardly left the lecture room. Working as a battlefield guide with thousands of members of the public one does not have to be a mind reader to know where the majority of those who start the tour stand when it comes to the command and conduct of battles like the Somme: slaughter, butchers, tin-pot generals are all common phrases. After a few days of looking at the ground, hearing the problems of command with little control, seeing how the conflict was ever evolving and how much training went into the later battles, most returned changed, and not a little challenged on many levels. That is what the First World War has long needed in print – the whole war in a broad brush stroke but with no attempt to dilute. And perhaps Peter Hart's book is it."

"As we move into the unknown territory of the Great War Centenary we need books like Hart's. We need to know that the war was a conflict the veterans were not ashamed of, we need to know where it's commanders sit in the wider picture but equally we need to understand what a catastrophe it was: to his credit, unlike some revisionist historians, Peter Hart does not exclude the human element."
http://ww1centenary.net/2013/04/02/ww1-books-the-great-war-by-peter-hart/

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,keith A
Date: 30 Nov 13 - 05:42 AM

By 1918 the British had mastered a new kind of industrial warfare, the nature of which no one had understood in 1914, and which, with tanks and aircraft, heavy artillery and integrated arms, tipped the balance against defensive trench warfare and played the decisive role in the final victory.

Such a thesis is at loggerheads with the idea of the war as futile butchery (and of Haig as the British butcher) that is summed up by the interwar "literature of disenchantment" (Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen) and expressed, for most people nowadays, by Owen's haunting poetry. Yet the military historians, to their chagrin, feel that they have lost this battle and that Owen's "pity of war" vision commands popular perceptions of the conflict.

Perhaps Hart's book will contribute to a sea change in our understanding of the war during the years of the centenary. It has a lot to recommend it in this regard. Much of the "revisionist" British military history has been written in a narrowly national framework, whereas the fighting in the two world wars was, by definition, transnational and has to be explained as such, not least regarding the "enemy"
http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/the-great-war-by-peter-hart.html

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 30 Nov 13 - 06:18 AM

"Much of the "revisionist" British military history has been written in a narrowly national framework, whereas the fighting in the two world wars was, by definition, transnational and has to be explained as such, not least regarding the "enemy"

A point which you, in your adamantine "Germans evil, British good" point of view, would seem to have misunderstood completely.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,keith A
Date: 30 Nov 13 - 09:04 AM

The regime in Germany was autocratic and anti democratic and yes, worse than the democracies it sought to enslave.
1914 as 1939.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Dec 13 - 08:26 AM

Some extracts from a relevant piece in The Guardian.
(I assume Musket has no objections to that publisher)
It predates anything Hastings published on WW1.

"Lloyd George's war memoirs, like the writings of Siegfried Sassoon, belong to the category of "literature of disillusionment". The Goat had thought differently in August 1914. Initially sceptical, he rapidly came to see, like the rest of the cabinet, that Britain was faced by a grave threat to national security. Modern scholarship gives little support to the accidental war thesis. The drafters of the Versailles treaty had it broadly right after all."

"The first world war began for two fundamental reasons. First, decision-makers in Berlin and Vienna chose to pursue a course that they hoped would bring about significant political advantages even if it brought about general war. Second, the governments in the entente states rose to the challenge. At best, Germany and Austria-Hungary launched a reckless gamble that went badly wrong. At worst, 1914 saw a premeditated war of aggression and conquest, a conflict that proved to be far removed from the swift and decisive venture that some had envisaged."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/08/first-world-war-causes-deliberate-accident

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Dec 13 - 08:51 AM

I notice the main antagonist in this thread has introduced the term "democracy" to support his idealistic simple position.

Perhaps he can make use of his access to Google once more and tell us which year The United Kingdom recognised universal suffrage and became a democracy?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Dec 13 - 09:21 AM

Democracy is an evolving process.
In 1914, Britain and others were committed to it.
The brutal, militarist regime in Berlin was committed to its destruction.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 01 Dec 13 - 09:31 AM

BBC history site.
"An Allied victory led to the maintenance and even extension of liberal democracy in Europe. A German victory would have snuffed it out. When the German army appeared to be on the verge of victory in spring 1918, the Kaiser crowed that this was the vindication of monarchy and autocracy over democracy."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/origins_01.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 01 Dec 13 - 07:29 PM

English state education between the late 1880s and 1914 ended at age 14, many teachers taught the farmers sons (lucrative) and used the sons of the labourers as whipping boys (source, my father's memories of the time), and the military definition of literacy at the time was "able to write own name".

Sure they all knew what they were getting into. They could figure out the posters on every wall.

Oh, wait a minute, THAT was the propaganda.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 02:01 AM

They could read and write perfectly well.
They had access to a free press.
Look at the Daily Mirror headlines I linked to.
The reasons for war dispassionately and accurately set out.
They would be on the newsstands and shouted in the street by the vendors.
It was common knowledge.

It is you who are ignorant, not them.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 02:45 AM

Read about James Tate.
He left school at 14 but was working as a clerk when he lied about his age to join up.
Read his letters. Highly articulate and literate.

He was eventually sent back from the front because of his age, but he rejoined when he was old enough.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/humanfaceofwar_gallery_08.shtml

The Daily Mirror, outbreak of war.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/mirror01_01.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 07:32 AM

And who would "they" be Mr Hertford?

My Grandfather was in a reserved occupation and couldn't volunteer for military service unless he left his job first. He used to tell us of the disgust people had for him and others and how the government came out with a badge for them to wear as the propaganda was so successful.

He said he could start a pillow factory with all the white feathers he was given.

He also said that history will ultimately be kinder to those who failed their men. He was a canny man my Granddad.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Dec 13 - 07:51 AM

One of my grandfathers was in a reserved occupation.
He applied twice to be released but was refused.
My other grandfather was given a white feather on his wedding day, despite being in the Navy!

The government did not need to encourage these things.
People desperately afraid for loved ones at the front resented any they perceived to be shirking their duty.

All this is well documented.
Some people were reluctant to serve.
Conscription was eventually required.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 05:47 AM

Critics believe the Government is formulating its plans based on a
narrow view, articulated by war poets such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried
Sassoon and Robert Graves and later cemented in popular culture by
Joan Littlewood's hit musical Oh! What a Lovely War.
According to this interpretation, it was a futile, avoidable and
unnecessary war, the brutality of which was made worse by the
incompetence of the generals in charge.
In recent years, this has been increasingly challenged, with
historians arguing that, like the Second World War, it was a fight for
survival against a Germany bent on European domination. As such it was
neither accidental nor futile but just and necessary.

"But there has to be something beyond remembrance and wreath laying.
Otherwise we have failed these men. They didn't join up to die. They
joined up to fight for freedom."
Maj Gen Mungo Melvin, president of the BCMH, said: "The generation who
fought thought it was a war worth fighting, and the commission takes
the view that there was a great deal of sacrifice, but none the less
it was fought with reason.
"British soldiers, sailors and airmen fought for their country, for
freedom and a set of values they felt very deeply about. These aspects
are often overlooked."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10037507/Historians-
complain-Governments-WW1-commemoration-focuses-on-British-defeats.html

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 05:50 AM

Sorry, premature ejaculation.

"Critics believe the Government is formulating its plans (for centenary commemoration) based on a
narrow view, articulated by war poets such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried
Sassoon and Robert Graves and later cemented in popular culture by
Joan Littlewood's hit musical Oh! What a Lovely War.
According to this interpretation, it was a futile, avoidable and
unnecessary war, the brutality of which was made worse by the
incompetence of the generals in charge.
In recent years, this has been increasingly challenged, with
historians arguing that, like the Second World War, it was a fight for
survival against a Germany bent on European domination. As such it was
neither accidental nor futile but just and necessary.

"But there has to be something beyond remembrance and wreath laying.
Otherwise we have failed these men. They didn't join up to die. They
joined up to fight for freedom."
Maj Gen Mungo Melvin, president of the BCMH, said: "The generation who
fought thought it was a war worth fighting, and the commission takes
the view that there was a great deal of sacrifice, but none the less
it was fought with reason.
"British soldiers, sailors and airmen fought for their country, for
freedom and a set of values they felt very deeply about. These aspects
are often overlooked." "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/britain-at-war/10037507/Historians-
complain-Governments-WW1-commemoration-focuses-on-British-defeats.html

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Charmion
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 06:24 AM

Cripes, are you lot still at it?

"The past is a foreign country" where things are done differently for reasons we can only guess at.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 08:52 AM

desperately afraid for loved ones at the front

Ah yes, but who SENT them to the front, and why?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 09:05 AM

Who sent them?
Their country.
Why?
To prevent their country and others being enslaved by a cruel, brutal, militarist, tyranny.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,DPerson626
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 01:46 PM

There will be hundreds of reasons for WWl given and most will probably have some merit, but for me Armistice Day was the day when we had a parade down Main Street in which the community notables rode, the High School band paraded and the veterans of that terrible war marched, some wearing those wrap around leggings of the Army at that time.

I was a child of the Great Depression, born in 1928 and raised by poor, working class parents who should be nominated for sainthood. The Armistice Day parade was an excuse for the entire community to come together, and the most striking part of it, for me, was the flag passing by. When that happened the people on both sides of the street stood a little straighter and everyone placed their hand over their heart in salute to the colors. I miss that.

People back then loved their country. Not for anything it did for them, in fact it did very little to hlp them, and they didn't expect it to, but they loved their country just because it was their country. We could use some of that today.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 02:00 PM

To prevent their country ...being enslaved by a cruel, brutal, militarist, tyranny.

So you actually believe Germany had a snowball's chance in hell of invading occupying and taking over the British Isles?

Now THERE'S your problem.....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 02:52 PM

That"Cruel, brutal, militarist,tyranny" had trade unions, a free press, the first social welfare system in Europe, as well as a democratically elected parliment voting rights for all adult males(not just property owners). As to the "autocratic monarch" he was the oldest grandson of Queen Victoria, lest we forget....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket BIG GRIN
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 03:06 PM

Eyup Keith!

Haven't looked at this thread for a while, what with being disgusted by your support for the worm Akenhateon and all that.

I was curious as to whether all the dissent to the new official government line was just me?

Seems like you are still the majority of your own delusion. You know, as you cling to numbers of opinions in your substantiating jingoistic revision, perhaps you might count the number on this thread, exclude me if you must, who point out the flaws in your / journalists attempts to rewrite history?

There was a time when if Victoria and, I think I was told, two offspring died in the same accident, (they often were on the same train) then the Kaiser would have been King. Patriotism and tyranny.... Wonderful bed mates.

I notice you concede above that the Tommies were so happy to sign up, they didn't need conscription of course, but introduced it anyway. No need to execute innocent youngsters either but cruel, brutal, militaristic tyranny being what it is eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 03:09 PM

... whereas Tsar Nicholas was a classical tyrant. (Yes, the kaisers were no better morally, but had less personal power.)

It is not countries who prepare wars, not simple soldiers either, but governments and pressure groups. Citizens who love their country (whatever that means) must demand from their governments responsible politics before any war. Not appeasement or pacifism, but peacefulness and peacemaking.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 03:45 PM

perhaps you might count the number on this thread

On matters of History, I will be swayed by a few professional historians over any number of ignoramuses such as yourself.
As you say, "historians should know better"!

The historians all refer to the sad fact that the general population still believe the old discredited myths.

What is this "new official government line" you have just made up?
The historians are bemoaning that the government seems determined to pander to the old myths still believed by the great unwashed.
You should be pleased Musket.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 03:59 PM

I will be swayed by a few professional historians

Correction: Read "a few professionial ignoramuses"

Against any superior number or real historians who hold the opposing view.

Fascinating.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 05:22 PM

Against any superior number or real historians who hold the opposing view.

How many have you found Greg?
None right?
Funny that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 03 Dec 13 - 05:58 PM

Make of it what you may, Tsar Nicholas II bore a remarkable resemblance to his cousin, King George V. Neither were likely to be confused for their Cousin Willhelm II. It seems very much like they were more connected to each other than to the social and economic realities which they held sway over.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 02:47 AM

Musket thinks that "historians should know better" (like he does!) and Greg describes them as "professional ignoramuses."

We have a simple choice.
Should we believe the historians, or these two swaggering buffoons?

Tough choice!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 07:35 AM

"The historians all refer to the sad fact that the general population still believe the old discredited myths."

Is it just barely possible that the reason for that is that the general public are correct, or are you now claiming that the general public are too ignorant to know what is going on?

I seem to remember you having difficulty with that concept when it related to farm labourers, who made up the bulk of Haigh's cannon fodder.

Maybe those historians aren't the only ones in the army who are in step.

Maybe they are the ones who aren't, and the "discredited myths" are the truths they are trying to hide.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 07:49 AM

I think that on matters of History, historians know more than us.

We learn our History from historians, if we are intelligent.
Otherwise we create a false History based on our preconceptions.

To the people of 1914, it was current affairs not History.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket again
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 08:15 AM

Ok Keith.

Let's start a thread discussing historians. Even better, those describing c20 military history.

WW1 has been flogged more than a dissenting Tommy so let's turn to WW2.

The game is simple. You cut and paste a historian then call anyone disagreeing with a professional historian thick.

Fancy starting with David Irvine? Or is it Irving? Must get facts right when Keith is around. Otherwise he picks you up on detail to hide him being clueless on the actual subject. ...







You get worse. You do.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Teribus
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 09:06 AM

"Great Britain shall be celebrating going to ear next year." - GUEST, 29th Nov 13 - 11:03 AM

Where's "ear"? And where ever it is, isn't it relative? Or did you actually mean to make the ludicrous and totally incorrect statement that - Great Britain shall be celebrating going to war next year - which is a deliberate misrepresentation.

Several European Nations will be commemorating the 100th anniversaries of the events that marked the passage and course of the "Great War" - to those who actually had to fight through it and live through it, they would tell you that there was nothing at all "great" about it - apart from the horrendous degree of suffering caused.

But in general having followed the discourse Keith A of Hertford is basically right on the money:

1. That overall the army was well led.

The British Army in general was well led it was the only allied army left capable of mounting any serious offensive effort by the early summer of 1918. After Verdun the French were finished and the American contribution in 1918 was only symbolic, their main contribution was psychological.

2. That Britain had to try and stop the invading German armies.

Again, correct. The corner stone of British foreign policy since 1700 until our entry into the EEC has been that no single country in Europe should be allowed to become undisputed masters of Europe. The 75,000 strong BEF in 1914 stopped the Schlieffen Plan in its tracks, although contemptibly small in numbers they were still the most effective infantrymen on the planet (Look up what the firing exercise known as the "mad minute" was to give you an idea). All through the course of the war the British mounted offensive after offensive and beat off the subsequent German attacks including their last gasp attack in the spring of 1918 against the British Fifth Army under General Hubert Gough when the German Armies from the Eastern Front were moved West, the British gave ground but did not break and run, costing the Germans some 230,000 casualties.

3. People mostly volunteered because they understood that.

As part of that view on the "Mastery of Europe" that no European conqueror should control the waterways and coastline of Europe opposite the Thames Estuary - hence the creation of the small state of Belgium and the Treaties signed to guarantee its Sovereignty. I had two grandfathers who fought in the First World War and both were fully aware of why they fought, to suggest that the vast majority were conned into fighting a war that had nothing to with them is idiotic. Newspapers actually contained news in those days and people of all classes did read and understand them.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 11:12 AM

A great pity that history, the people of Europe and my Granddads didn't have the wonderful learning, understanding and faith in jingoism that the mighty Teribus and Keith A. hole of Hertford portray.

Just think, if it wasn't for newspapers reporting news, we might have had to resort to propaganda. If it wasn't for education, universal suffrage and cosmopolitan thinking by all those people with world views, we might have had to resort to things that recent revisionists play down, such as

Marches through towns to impress young ladies to get their men to join them.
Recruiting sergeants waiting outside pubs to get them whilst pissed.
Women being told of their duty to give white feathers to any man without a uniform.
Draconian punishment for being shell shocked.
Capital punishment for those for whom the penny had dropped.

After all, every soldier knew their duty. Sadly, many thought so.

zzzzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 01:54 PM

The corner stone of British foreign policy since 1700 until our entry into the EEC has been that no single country in Europe should be allowed to become undisputed masters of Europe.

So was the declared policy of all other powers including German, and their newspapers offered "news" that the other countries were now trying to become such masters. As someone mentioned upthread, the French and British governments did not really trust each other either - let alone Belgium. Alliances were forged in order to win, not by moral criteria.

Frenchmen in 1914 (including two of my grand-uncles) were certainly right to defend their country once the disaster was there. This must not lead us to glorify or "celebrate" their government - as my grandmother, their sister, clearly understood and later told me. (She also told me that the British soldiers had a completely distorted image of continental Europe - but that should not be news to anybody.) Of my distant German relatives I know nothing at all, but I read that German and Austrian soldiers were about as convinced of their cause being good, as French and British were.

Newspapers were among the main culprits, and often they did not have to lie, just to select. (I wrote that before, sorry.)

"Well led" in terms of military technique is a completely different category. Its moral component is about weighing human lives against chances for victory. Not easy to decide by philosophy and in practice. However, the idea of sacrificing lives to defend one's society's claims is anchored deeply in our genes, simply because those who did not have those genes were exterminated long before the others had even evolved to become homo sapiens, and sophisticated inter-society morals were invented. "Right or wrong".

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 03:35 PM

If only the professional Historians could understand History like you Musket.
How silly they must feel.
They really should know better like you do.

Just who do you think you are you posturing, pretentious fool?

Troubadour.
the "discredited myths" are the truths they are trying to hide.
Do you not see how mad that is?
A conspiracy of all the historians to hide the truth!
Why would the government or anyone care what historians say about events of a century ago?
Why would Historians go along with it?
Why would no-one expose and denounce them?

How is that easier to believe such bizarre constructions, than that historians are just publishing their findings and research like historians do?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 03:50 PM

If only the professional Historians could understand History like you Musket.

You mean your 6 per "professional historians" out of thousands, correct?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 04 Dec 13 - 03:57 PM

Nope.
500.

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

500? Name 'em, Sunshine.

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

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

Some!
Any?
One??

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

NONE!
Quel surprise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unfortunately you apply present day thinking to past events.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I choose to believe history not you.

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

Which history?

Just curious...

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

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

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

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

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

This caught my eye in a thread refreshed today.

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

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

Richard Haven to Barclay Vaughan

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

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

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

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

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

The History produced by the work and research of historians

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everybody knew what to expect. Really?


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

I can imagine Keith in that crowd.

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


I can imagine Keith in that crowd.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But have fun with your delusions in the interim..

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

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

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

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

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

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

Or just a couple.
Or even one.

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

But that is what you are!
Right Greg?

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

Make that three liars Keith, you forgot me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Envidently you are a complete and utter fuckwit, Keith.

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

You lose.

Again.

Still.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




Abstract



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evidently not.

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

Rave on.

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

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

You final piece supports me not you.

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

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

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

AHA!

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

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

ARE NOT AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

Google again with two Ls in hallifax.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, indeed, Keith.

Which subject, precisely?

Which books and by which historians?

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

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

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

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

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


Keith would like to apologise to Musket 


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


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

Or are we going to see pedantic wriggling again?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hastings declaring Alan Turing deserved his punishment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hence my questioning his objectivity.

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

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

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

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

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

Still nothing from your side.

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

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

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

Alan Turing deserved his punishment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is this supposed to make sense, Keith?

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

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

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

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 10:49 AM

The one and only thing you have ever produced is a link to a resources site that does not include anything from any historian.

Aha. As I thought. As far as you are concerned,The British Library does not contain anything from any historian.

Please re-read post of 06 Dec 13 - 02:17 PM

Thanks, fuckwit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket as in pick up thy
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 12:53 PM

I haven't decided which Viz character Keith A hole of Hertford reminds me of, but I certainly get a mental image of the comic when I read his waffle.

Could be Mr Logic, or possibly the tall one out of Real Ale Twats.

Although when he and the worm start agreeing on things, they remind me mostly of the self righteous brothers from Harry Enfield and chums off the telly.

Sorry, lost interest in the debate. You can't educate pork.




Just landed at the hotel, which isn't a great distance from Hertford. Wouldn't it be funny if Keith came to the gig tonight? The covers include Maginot Waltz and Curtains of Old Joe's House. Best research the intros just in case he pays good money to see us...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 01:08 PM

He is quite clear that the punishment was an outrage.

Neither, I'm afraid. Hastings wrote that the sentence for Turing conformed to the law then in force. Similar laws existed in most other countries, regarded unjustified only since the 1970s. If apologies for those laws are due, they should be made in the name of all those countries and to all homosexuals - obviously not what Cameron had in mind. The only interpretation left is that exceptions from laws should be made for war heroes; not a good statement for a PM who is supposed to claim that the wars of his country are fought precisely for the rule of law. To illustrate the emotions in the 1950s, imagine the allegation were pedosexual acts. Homosexuality was then considered equally dangerous and disgusting, falsely, as we now believe.

Understanding articles in the Daily Mail seems to overstrain many Mudcatters. I do not think they are lying, since that would require knowledge of the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 01:36 PM

Homosexuality was then considered equally dangerous and disgusting, falsely, as we now believe.

Correction: as SOME OF US now believe.

Especially in light of some of the Neanderthal comments on this and other threads

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 03:39 PM

As I thought. As far as you are concerned,The British Library does not contain anything from any historian.

The site you linked to does not Greg, so why did you link to it?

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 05:42 PM

The site you linked to does not Greg, so why did you link to it?

Excuse me???

The "site" is the catalogue of the entire collection of the Britisth Library.

You are obviously a complete ignorant moron as well as a flaming fuckwit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 06:05 PM

The British Library does not contain anything from any historian.

The site you linked to does not Greg, so why did you link to it?

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 03:35 AM

Allow me to help.

Me!

If a retired newspaper editor can call himself a historian, so can I!

(Here, you weren't the one who dropped his glass, sending beer and shards all over the back of the hall last night were you? Seriously, the compere knew him and referred to clumsy Keith. I had to chuckle.)

Decent breakfast, decent walk, interesting town. Never been here before, but wary of the locals. Going by our resident idiot, I hope there isn't a commune of the buggers.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 04:43 AM

Besides being a retired editor, he has presented historical documentaries for the BBC and is the author of many books, including Bomber Command which earned the Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction in 1980. Both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year prize. He was named Journalist of the Year and Reporter of the Year at the 1982 British Press Awards, and Editor of the Year in 1988. In 2010 he received the Royal United Services Institute's Westminster Medal for his "lifelong contribution to military literature", and the same year the Edgar Wallace Award from the London Press Club.[2]

In 2012 he was awarded the US$100,000 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, a lifetime achievement award for military writing, which includes an honorarium, citation and medallion, sponsored by the Chicago-based Tawani Foundation.[4]

Hastings is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the Royal Historical Society. He was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England from 2002–2007.

In his 2007 book Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944–45 (also known as Retribution in the United States), the chapter on Australia's role in the last year of the Pacific War was criticised by the Returned and Services League of Australia and one of the historians at the Australian War Memorial for, among other things, allegedly exaggerating discontent in the Australian Army during this period.[5]

Hastings currently writes a column for the Daily Mail but often contributes articles to other publications such as The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The New York Review of Books.

And you Muppet?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 09:09 AM

Keith: Please re-read post of 06 Dec 13 - 02:17 PM

Thanks, fuckwit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 09:14 AM

How many times must i read it Greg?

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

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 09:18 AM

How many times must i read it Greg?

Until you comprehend it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 10:20 AM

It is complete bollocks Greg, but I comprehended that the first time.

Now please Greg.
Name just one historian whose work you are familiar with.
Just one.
Surely you can manage just one Greg dear.
You SURELY can not be THAT ignorant!
Can you Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 06:17 PM

Fuckwit? No. I told you. You either remind me of Mr Logic or the tall fat one out of real ale twats. If you must join in the Viz name game, Terry Fuckwit doesn't fit you as he wanders all over the place whereas you are like a dog with a bone.

Thanks for joining in the game though.

Regarding historian credentials, I have had lots of posts published on Mudcat.org if that helps? Never lost an argument yet either for that matter.

Max "nice work if you can get it" Hastings has never won an argument with me yet.









One day, I am going to have to come clean. I enjoy his work to be fair. His conclusions can be interesting but his style is readable. His attention to detail isn't bad either. I just take his revision of the main thrust with a healthy pinch of salt.

Must be awful to have to take everything you read on the chin? Makes you somewhat vulnerable.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 09:18 PM

It is complete bollocks Greg, but I comprehended that the first time.

See? Now there's your problem. It hardly bollocks. Now, be a good boy & read it again - this time for comprehension.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 02:16 AM

Musket, if it was only Hastings I would be sceptical too.
It is not.
He has only just produced work on WW1, but other historians have been making the same points for years.
I know because I have followed the debate, which is now over.
You are hopelessly out of touch and still believing discredited myths.
Have a read through the BBC history site for instance.

Greg, I comprehend your post perfectly, but it is bollocks.
What is your problem with comprehending this?
Name just one historian whose work you are familiar with.
Just one.
Surely you can manage just one Greg dear.
You SURELY can not be THAT ignorant!
Can you Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 06:44 AM

Look, to be serious for once (and once only) you were the one putting Max Hastings up as the oracle. I merely responded. You are the one who found half a dozen historians who were kind to the military leadership and political opinion forming, not me. You are the one who said any dissent from that view stems from "Oh what a lovely war!" and "Blackadder."

I reckon that my taking the piss is being somewhat polite, don't you? Your research and conclusions in other fields, medical being the latest example, do you no justice and leave me thinking you are narrow minded and trawling for evidence of your position rather than evidence to form a position.

Ok. Back to the real debate.

Finding evidence to support preconception. "Helping" society since 32 AD.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 07:04 AM

were the one putting Max Hastings up as the oracle.
Not true.
He was just the first one I happened to mention.
He is new to the subject (ww1)

The historians have been saying this for decades now.
That is why none of you can find one that disagrees.

You still believe outdated, discredited myths.
I do not.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 07:42 AM

Would all of you please state what single statement you find controversial? As for Keith's earlier statements, most are moot:

Well led? Could have been better, could have been worse.
Soldiers motivated? Many were, many were not.
Soldiers well informed and of mature judgment? Of course not - how could they.

Remains the crucial point. In my words: Have the British government, diplomacy, and other authorities done everything that could have been reasonably expected of them to prevent the wars? The same question can be asked about France, presumably with the same answer.

National pride is not as condemnable a feeling as jingoism, but it can be as dangerous and foolish. I am proud of my own personal achievements, and ashamed of my personal failures.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 07:54 AM

Why could WW1 soldiers not be as well informed as WW2 soldiers?
No-one ever claims they knew not why they fought.
The claim against WW1 soldiers is false for the majority.
Their letters and diaries give the lie to that slander.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 08:16 AM

Why could WW1 soldiers not be as well informed as WW2 soldiers?

In all wars, and in the periods in between, people are subjected to propaganda, however subtle. You, Keith, seem to be blissfully unaware of subtle but efficient means of propaganda, so let me tell you that nobody has sufficient and sufficiently unbiased information - not even the NSA nowadays!

Also, mature judgment can only be expected from more mature citizens - when the majority of these fails, we cannot blame the young soldiers.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 08:27 AM

Did they not know that German armies were streaming across Europe towards the English Channel?
Did they not know about the treaty with Belgium?

They did, it was fact not propaganda, and that is why so many were willing to fight.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 09:26 AM

Did they not know that German armies were streaming across Europe towards the English Channel?
Did they not know about the treaty with Belgium?

They did, and it was correct. (In France, the argument was even simpler: Germans were invading the country.) What they did not know is how these conditions had come about, and what political alternatives there had been.

German soldiers had been told that they were preventively acting against domination by Britain and France, plus a pan-Slavic conspiracy, and given similarly selective information (by persons of authority who should have known better).

In other words: I would not discuss about soldiers in that context at all. Discuss governments, newspapers, churches, and other forces of society. Take the Iraq war as an example for some aspects - we still remember it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 09:36 AM

Did they not know that German armies were streaming across Europe towards the English Channel?
Did they not know about the treaty with Belgium?

As you say, they did.
This was not "selective information" or propaganda.
It was fact, and the main reasons so many stepped forward.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 10:44 AM

Bloody hell, for someone who reckons he knows a bit about warfare, he has turned on his allies now...

See Grishka?   

Easier to disagree with him from the outset because he has a complete no surrender stance on every small detail of every bit of prejudice he can substantiate by his trusty sword Google.

Yes Keith, it was all fact. Now.. Here's a ball. Run and play.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 11:45 AM

Facts selected for propaganda purposes. For instance, they were rarely told about the questionable human rights records of their allies (and in fact of their own country). Is that really so difficult to understand?

And do you claim British soldiers were experts on European politics? My grandmother (not representative, but principally pro-British) told me they did not know anything - even less than French soldiers, who knew little enough. The newspapers could tell us what they liked, and spare us what they disliked.

Nowadays we have the Internet, but still, when someone tells us Saddam has done xxxx and possessed yyyy weapons, soldiers will shout hurray - it is their job, not their necessarily their personal character.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 11:54 AM

Not facts selected for propaganda.
The German invasions and the treaty were the reason for the declaration of war.
No selection.

No country had a good "human rights record" in those days.
Germany was massacring thousands of civilians in Belgium.
None could compete with that, or their genocide in Africa.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 12:13 PM

If I were seen as anybody's ally here, that would be a gross misunderstanding. In all my posts I took the same stance, clearly distinct from the others'. Anybody is welcome to challenge my statements, but please be specific. I do not enjoy partisan fights where the sides are preset wholesale.

Those who cannot read Mudcat messages or short newspaper articles have a hard time declaring themselves expert historians. And making one grammatical error in a two-words French sentence does not add to one's authority either. (I make mistakes as well, but I do not claim such expertise.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 04:12 PM

I claim no expertise in French grammar, and never make an issue of anyone's mistakes unless relevant to the subject.
I do appreciate being able to debate and disagree with someone without any abuse.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 02:54 AM

Here are some quotes from the WW1 historians commissioned to write for the BBC History site.

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

Far from being fought over trivial issues, World War One must be seen in the context of an attempt by an aggressive, militarist state to establish hegemony over Europe, extinguishing democracy as a by-product. To argue that the world of 1919 was worse than that of 1914 is to miss the point. A world in which Imperial Germany had won World War One would have been even worse.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket grinning
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 03:47 AM

Come on, you love rolling with the pigs really..

Ok. Back to the rambling bollocks about soldiers knowing what they were doing...

Anyone for a bit of Voltaire?

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

We can all come up with astounding quotes Keith. The difference is, some of us can draw conclusions from them...... If you look closely, I am sure that somewhere on the BBC website, you can find a quote or two by profound philosophers.

If we played top trumps, I'd win pitching French philosophers above little Englander newspaper hacks.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 04:10 AM

We can all come up with astounding quotes Keith.
You can't Muppet.
Neither can Greg.
You just can't find anyone to support your claims.
Funny that.

I am sure that somewhere on the BBC website, you can find a quote or two by profound philosophers.

Yes.
I have put up lots already.
It is you who can't find a thing that supports your claims.
It is as if they are just myths.
Funny that.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 04:40 AM

Keith,

I claim no expertise in French grammar, and never make an issue of anyone's mistakes unless relevant to the subject.

That was my (minor) point: an expert in continental politics must certainly be able to read documents in French; in your case indications (not proofs) are to the contrary.

My main criticism was that neither you nor Musket look like good readers at all, judging from this very thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 04:53 AM

I'll have you know I have read you alright Grishka.

Annoying little twat who is so far up his own arse he looks beyond reality to see if it can fit into what only he can understand.

Am I getting warm?

Anyway, Keith will tell you that we don't have to read foreign accounts cos we won!

Une plaie sur vos maisons

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 05:08 AM

Grishka, please suggest an historian of any nationality who you think might alter my perception.
My step daughter is fluent in French and translations are easily achieved anyway.
Where might I start please.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 05:49 AM

Keith, as I wrote, my knowledge of history and historians is not anything extraordinary. The dispute here is not really about facts, but about interpretation and, most of all, about present-day feelings.

Assume you were in a fire brigade who have extinguished a large fire in a factory. Many of your comrades were killed because of poisons that were stored in the building without sufficient security measures. You may well say "Gosh, we're glad we did it!", but if the factory owner says "We can be really proud of our village!" - what would you reply?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 05:55 AM

He'd google a few newspaper hacks before replying, silly.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 06:05 AM

. The dispute here is not really about facts, but about interpretation

I have not needed to interpret the statements of the historians.
They are unequivocal.
The historians interpret the data, but since they all agree on the issues in question, that must be unequivocal too.

and, most of all, about present-day feelings.

NO!
Feelings are subjective.
They are irrelevant in establishing historical fact.
The muppets' argument IS based solely on their "feelings."
That makes them worthless.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 06:32 AM

Please, gentlemen, tell us what exact point you believe to be controversial. In my view, the question is whether on occasions like Armistice Day, countries should be proud of their past - a matter of feeling, for sure. (Fortunately, the officials of France and Germany have learned a lot.)

A statement like "X knew why he fought" is not precise enough to be discussed in one piece. "X was convinced to be serving his country" is more specific, and probably true for most soldiers of most countries. "The government had never had a better option" is quite a different statement; see my post of 09 Dec 13 - 07:42 AM.

Treaties as such are no moral justification. (Think of the Soviet Union invading Czechoslovakia in 1968, formally justified by the Warsaw treaty.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket amazed
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 06:35 AM

Two legs good. Four legs bad.
Two legs good. Four legs bad.
Two legs good. Four legs bad.

"I don't need to interpret what I read." Should that be "I don't know how to interpret what I read." ??

I don't have to think I get journalists to do it for me.

Have you any idea at all how utterly preposterous your statement above is? This is Mudcat. Mudcat is where people put their views, borne of assessing and interpreting, adding their life experience and knowledge, applying it to form a view.

You are way out of your league sonny.

Here's a ball. Now run and play.




Mind you, go too far and you get to Grishka territory which is so off the wall, you forget what he is trying to say in the first place....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 06:44 AM

"Of the 5 million+ men who made up the British Armed Forces (1 in 4 of the male population) roughly half were volunteers"

Putting aside your record of absolute belief that the UK and US military have always been and still are models of rectitude, and only the enemy ever did any evil act, would you like to break that two and a half million volunteers down for us into

1. Genuine volunteers to the rank and file (exclude officers and NCOs)
2. Volunteers bullied into it by white feather merchants.
3. Volunteers considered literate by the army (i.e. able to write their own names)
4. Volunteers influenced by mates who volunteered.

There's an old army saying "A volunteer is a bloke that misunderstood the question".

I have seen nothing that proves that all, or even most, fall into category number 1, just the opinion of a genuine example of the worst kind of so called "patriot".

I love my country, but not "right or wrong", and when it's wrong I bloody well shout about it. YMMV, K A of H's certainly does.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 07:20 AM

"In other words: I would not discuss about soldiers in that context at all. Discuss governments, newspapers, churches, and other forces of society. Take the Iraq war as an example for some aspects - we still remember it. "

Waste of breath Grishka.

He only has his mantra "Britain = good, Germany = evil, anybody who disagrees = stupid".

From there it's just a selection process. Find a few with like minded prejudice and ignore all others.

He's the same on every topic, hijacking those which don't relate to him.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 07:26 AM

"I do appreciate being able to debate and disagree with someone without any abuse."

Try reading your posts now and then. If you don't want abuse don't dish out so much of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 07:50 AM

I don't have to think I get journalists to do it for me.

You can think about WW1 as much as you like, but you can not think up what happened back then.

That requires research, which most of us can not do.
That is where historians come in.

The correct statement is "I don't have to do years of research, I get historians to do it for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 07:52 AM

would you like to break that two and a half million volunteers down for us into

The historians have done just that by studying thousands of letters, diaries and documents from the time.
Their findings are unequivocal that most believed in what they were doing.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 08:11 AM

It is not a waste of typing effort, since misconceptions about nations are very common (- as about religion etc.). In my opinion, countries can never be right or wrong, but officials can, and others who claim to speak on behalf of a nation.

(BTW, is "does not add to one's authority either" an abuse?)

(BTW2, has Chris Clark been mentioned?)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 08:43 AM

I just found Chris Clark having been mentioned in the message from Jim Carroll of 18 Nov 13 - 03:37 AM, some seven pages ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 08:57 AM

(BTW, is "does not add to one's authority either" an abuse?

No it is fair comment.
No offence taken.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 10:54 AM

Ah.. Fair comment or abuse. How do you distinguish between the two Keith?

Just curious.

Oh, by the way. My youngest sent a photo of him on holiday the other day. What I enjoyed most was his T shirt. It had a cartoon of Nigel Farage in a strait jacket, singing "Don't stop me now! I'm having such a good time."

All this European integration Keith. It must really piss you off, what with your sense of "history" and all that. Remember that retired Colonel who ambushed Ted Heath and gave him a white feather after he pushed for the common market? It's one thing living in the past. It's another to imagine the past was what you want it to be rather than what it was...

What I don't understand is how you can read an account you are told is accurate and believe it based on liking the outcome, yet you are told the figures public services use and you refute them on the basis of the bloke telling you.

Remembering games, and daisy chains and laughs.
Got to keep the loonies on the path.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 02:37 PM

yet you are told the figures public services use and you refute them on the basis of the bloke telling you.
That is the complete OPPOSITE of the truth!!

A bloke, YOU, told me a figure, and I checked with the Health Protection Agency and found you were wrong.
I was not surprised

It's another to imagine the past was what you want it to be rather than what it was...

That Is YOU not me!
I find out what the past was from the historians.
You believe myths that no historian believes because it fits your preconceptions.

There is History and there is myth.
I believe the historians.
You, monumentally arrogant egoist that you are, actually believe you know more about WW1 than WW1 historians!!
You know more about health than the HPA!
You are beyond parody.
So funny but your hubris hides it from you.
I am so enjoying this "debate."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket giggling
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 03:42 PM

Bloody hell. He's cutting and pasting his own words from elsewhere now. Must be an apprentice historian.

Your post above was significant Keith. It is post number 600.

600..

On one day in The Somme, that was a significant number. For a sustained battle raging for ages, that is the number of allied soldiers killed per second, as a result of being well led.

You've got some face, that's all I can say.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Dec 13 - 04:16 PM

I cut and paste YOUR words you giggling buffoon.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,musket drooling
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 01:25 AM

Really? hubris is a big word. I don't use big words when trying to get facts into your thick skull. Ignorance is a plausible excuse and I wouldn't want to give you an easy get out.

600.

At the time of WW1 there were still people alive who remembered another example of well led slaughter. It was cold last night so I put a cardigan on. That's what got me thinking.

Military strategy eh? You couldn't make it up. Ok YOU could.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 02:06 AM

trying to get facts into your thick skull.

You have no facts.
Only politically motivated feelings.
You believe myths to justify your preconceptions.

I get my facts from the hard evidence produced by research.
That is what the historians deal in.

You believe your myths.
I believe the professional historians.
You actually think you know more than them!
You are a drooling, giggling numpty.

Bbut please don't stop. Humiliation is a cure for hubris.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 04:20 AM

"I believe the professional historians."
You still have not put up anything on what your "professional historians" said to back your disgusting claims that the millions who died did so willingly in defence of a country which had massacred 10,000,0000 of its colonial citizens
You insult the British people by suggesting that they would give their lives for such a cause and you don't say much for a government which would ignore the deaths of so many Belgian colonials and go to war for a far lesser number of Belgians (a number that had been greatly exaggerated and distorted for recruiting propaganda - you've been given the facts of this and have chosen to ignore them.
You are continuing to either ignore or dismiss the facts of the bullying and distorting recruiting campaigns - the facts that that campaign failed in 1916 and was replaced by compulsory conscription - and the facts that history and society in general now recognise the war as being an imperial dispute
Prior to WW1 it was openly referred to as "The Great Imperial War" - the museum commemorating it is titled The Imperial War Museum - it was a dispute between Imperial powers over world domination, nothing less - all else were a fore-running incidentals to the main event.
You have yet to produce single single shred of evidence to your claims on recruitment - everything you have produced indicated that what you have been given here is now rejected by historians as jingoistic garbage - even by your tame historical journalist who, as has been pointed out by proper historians is 'somewhat weak on the causes of WW1'
You have once again dominated a thread with your self-confessed ignorance by inventing statements on their behalf to prove a point they haven't expressed an opinion on.
You seem to be determined that this now familiar display by you, "will not be over by Christmas", just like WW1 - but there again, in your spectacularly stupid fashion, you have even denied this commonly known phrase which is now used worldwide to describe naivety based on misinformation and ignorance of fact.
You appear to thrive on self-humiliation.
Jim Carroll
Sorry there are so many big wards in this - perhaps you can get a friend to explain it too you - a 'proper historian' maybe!!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 04:28 AM

They fought to defend Europe including Britain from a nasty aggressive and cruel regime whose armies were rampaging towards the coast massacring thousands of innocent civilians as they went.

Why would they not.
Do you think they were ignorant of those facts or uncaring?

Historical research reveals that they both knew and cared.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 04:40 AM

Anyone reckon this thread will be over by Christmas?

Wonderful that Keith A. hole of Hertford accuses me of "political feelings." Politicians are people who cling onto a publication and throw it in peoples's faces as the oracle to justify their shaky position.

Remind you of anyone?

In 1915, over 2000 soldiers had their lives extended by a week because the government wanted a show of force for the newspapers to report, needing a load of soldiers to march down The Mall on Empire Day to lift spirits.

I've got a picture of my old Mum on an Empire Day picnic her Sunday School arranged. Naw, we never conditioned people, never indulged in propaganda, never invented the word jingoism......

But..

Did we do justice to a whole generation of impressionable men and their families?

Discuss.

Yes Keith, we've heard your borrowed view. Either assess your pretty books or accept you don't seem to represent the consensus here.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 04:47 AM

and the facts that history and society in general now recognise the war as being an imperial dispute
No. they do not.

Prior to WW1 it was openly referred to as "The Great Imperial War"
Huh?!
- the museum commemorating it is titled The Imperial War Museum -

It was originally called "The National War Museum."
The name was changed to recognise the contribution of countries of the empire.

Prof Dr Gary Sheffield.
"Growing up in England in the 1960s and 1970s, I was influenced by what amounted to a "national perception" of the Great War as an utterly futile conflict, fought over trivial issues. It was only when I began serious reading as an undergraduate that I realized how wrong this idea was. In particular, I was struck by the views of German historian Fritz Fischer, who argued that Germany had gone to war in a bid for world power—the events of July 1914 were the occasion rather than the cause of the war. I simplify Fischer's arguments, of course, and I don't accept them in their entirety, but at the very least he pointed to an expansionist, militaristic tendency among German policy makers."
http://www.historynet.com/interview-with-military-historian-gary-sheffield.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 04:52 AM

accept you don't seem to represent the consensus here.

I do accept that.
The consensus happens to be wrong.
You still believe the old discredited myths.
I used to as well.
I was in good company. See Sheffield's comment.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 05:13 AM

The literature of the War was documented as The Great Imperial War - it was undisputed war between Imperial powers.
To suggest that Britain went to war to defend a country that slaughtered one third more of its own colonial people than the Nazis did Jews is a disgusting insult to the intelligence of those who fought and died and an insult on the Governance of Britain - acknowledge that fact or disprove it.
You should take the hint that once again you are alone here - are you (once again) the only sane inhabitant of the asylum?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 06:04 AM

Jim, I showed you the Daily Mirror headlines on the day war was declared.
It made clear that the reason was the invasion of Belgium and our treaty obligation.
Everyone would have known that simple fact.


The literature of the War was documented as The Great Imperial War
Really?
- it was undisputed war between Imperial powers.
Because the European powers had empires obviously.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 06:48 AM

"Because the European powers had empires obviously"
Which is all covered by what it is now known as THE FIRST WORLD WAR
All your historians have acknowledged that fact - the only qualification being in placing the blame for which of them started it.
I suggest you read Sheffield's view of the war - an antithesis of the "Blackadder Image" - which was a satirised account of the 'Poor Little Belgium"/Archduke Ferdinand assassination theory.
He said that "Britain did not drift into the war" but responded to an Imperial power stepping out of line - he was right - this is what you have been persistently told from the beginning.
The propaganda line put out by the government was that "poor little Belgium" was being raped by those "Nasty Huns" - you've been shown the posters to this effect.
The actual atrocities taking place in Belgium were grossly exaggerated to gain support for this line - you've been given evidence for this also and have totally ignored it.
The press reiterated this line because they supported the war and you are repeating it now as part of your anachronistic Jingoist flag-wagging.
There were fourteen listed reasons for recruitment - all of them relevant and none of them prominent.
The disillusionment that was rife among those both fighting in returning from the war has been an undisputed part of our literature and culture for nearly a century.
All your historians support the view that it was an Imperial War, choosing only to differ on who started it.
You have debased the memory of those who fought and died by suggesting they went "like lambs to the slaughter" on the basis of tub-thumping Jingoist (a word conjured up for the event and inseparable from WW1) recruiting propaganda.
They died in defence of a genocidal Imperialist power - disgusting and utter garbage.
You have dismissed actual word-of-mouth accounts by veterans as being "lies" or have ignored them altogether, pretending you haven't been given them.
You have dismissed the great British poets who fought and wrote of their experiences, as "romantics"
You have dismissed long-established historians such has Liddel Harte (who actually served in the war) as "revisionists".
You have written off widely-held knowledge and evidence of the war as "not being written by historians" (your carefully selected "historians" maybe).
On the basis of what? - opinions of so-called historians based on statements they have not made and opinions they do not hold or have not given.
You continue to prove yourself the rabid right-wing nutter you have now firmly established yourself as.
Far from debunking the 'Blackadder' image, you represent its most satirical caricatures perfectly "Darling".
It appears that there might be another possible series in it based on you!!
Rule Britannia
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 07:07 AM

All bollocks Jim.
My views coincide with the historians' because that is where I got them from.
The old myths have been discredited by History.
You are a dinosaur.
A politically motivated dinosaur.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 07:42 AM

"The historians interpret the data, but since they all agree on the issues in question, that must be unequivocal too."

Who was it that stated just days ago that a consensus doesn't necessarily constitute proof of an argument?

Are you foolish enough to believe that prejudices and pre-conceived ideology do not inform utterances of "experts", sometimes to the point of idiocy?

Yours most certainly do!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 07:58 AM

Who was it that stated just days ago that a consensus doesn't necessarily constitute proof of an argument?
Yes.
A consensus of uninformed people is worthless.

Are you foolish enough to believe that prejudices and pre-conceived ideology do not inform utterances of "experts", sometimes to the point of idiocy?

Yes I am
The "utterances" of professional historians are informed by their research.
Anything not substantiated would be exposed and rubbished by their rivals (peers.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 08:00 AM

"The historians have done just that by studying thousands of letters, diaries and documents from the time.
Their findings are unequivocal that most believed in what they were doing."

Now I understand why you like them so much!

Just like you, they simply dismiss what doesn't fit their POV.

The first action of the whole pack was to rubbish the opinions of those war poets who catalogued the horror and futility.

How many of those "letters, diaries and documents" went the same way, I wonder? It would be very interesting to look into that, but of course it wouldn't be allowed.

Mustn't spoil the celebrations Old Sport!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 08:08 AM

"Jim, I showed you the Daily Mirror headlines on the day war was declared.
It made clear that the reason was the invasion of Belgium and our treaty obligation."

Do you realise how stupid that sounds (it must be true, I read it in the DAILY MIRROR)?

Are you for real?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 08:10 AM

Their findings are unequivocal that most believed in what they were doing.

Ah, but who, exactly, are "they"?


Q:Are you foolish enough to believe that prejudices and pre-conceived ideology do not inform utterances of "experts", sometimes to the point of idiocy?

A: Yes I am. [says Keith]

Simply more evidence that you are, indeed, an idiot, if not a fuckwit.

By the way,Keith, which University DID you take your degree in history from, anyhow?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 08:11 AM

but of course it wouldn't be allowed.
Yes it would.
The thousands held by the IWM are available for research and are being made available on line.

There is no conspiracy of historians to fool us all with a faked history.
You have to be mad to believe such a ludicrous construction.
Why are you people so desperate to believe a lie?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 08:16 AM

I am a scientist not a historian Greg.
And you?

Do you realise how stupid that sounds (it must be true, I read it in the DAILY MIRROR)?

It was true, but that was not the point.
I produced it to show that everyone knew exactly why the country was going to war.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/mirror01_01.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 08:25 AM

"My views coincide with the historians' because that is where I got them from."
No you didn't Keith otherwise you would have produced them - you haven't - you have just claimed you have.
Where has one single historian dismissed all the reasons for men joining up in the way you have - they haven't - you made it up.
You appear to be receiving voices in your ear telling you what to believe - you weren't interpreting at Mandela's funeral, where you - he's just said that he was getting the same messages?
If you are not going to read a book, at least read your own cut-'n-pastes.
You're a joke Keith and you're not going to let it be "all over by Christmas" because of your obsession with having the last word without actually saying anything
Around 250 postings on this thread from to and you still haven't said anything - get a life Keith
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 08:36 AM

Where has one single historian dismissed all the reasons for men joining up in the way you have

I have not dismissed them.
There were as many reasons for joining as there were men who joined, including all your 14.

The historians tell us that the main reason for joining was to resist the German conquest, and defend Britain and Europe.

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

The extent to which this mythology was shared made it an attractive setting for television series and historical novels."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/perceptions_01.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 08:55 AM

Your latest link makes the point perfectly
Your evidence, such as it is, is based on the satements of historians a century after the event.
You have dismissed contemporary accounts as "lies", "revisionism" and "romanticism" - all directed at those who actually experienced the war - they were there and they experienced the events.
Dr Dan Todman is a Sandhurst graduate presenting the official army line on warfare a century after the event - on what gounds should we accept his word over those who were there - he is military mouthpiece - read his credentials.
He would say what he says, wouldn't he?
"There were as many reasons for joining as there were men who joined, including all your 14."
Please stop lying - you have dismissed them all
First you accused me of inventing them, then you said they were random opinions not given by official (read "carefully selected")historians
You are suck-holing up to the establishment again Keith - it's the only thing you are consistent about.
Now where are those statements about why soldiers joined?
You are a joke.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 09:10 AM

Your evidence, such as it is, is based on the satements of historians a century after the event.

Yes.
I am the only one here who does that!

You have dismissed contemporary accounts as "lies", "revisionism" and "romanticism"
No. I have not.


Dr Dan Todman
Senior Lecturer

I joined Queen Mary College, University of London in 2003. I did my first degree at LSE, for whom I made an embarrassingly brief appearance on University Challenge, and completed a PhD at Cambridge. I then taught at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. As well as my teaching and research, I run the School of History's School Liaison and Widening Participation programme.

Research
I work on the social, military and cultural history of Britain in both world wars, with a particular interest in intersection between home and fighting fronts and the remembrance of conflict. I am currently working on a major new history of Britain's Second World War, as well as undertaking research with my undergraduate students into London's experience of the First World War.

Undergraduate teaching
◦Winning on the Western Front: the British Army 1914 -1919
◦Exhibiting the First World War
Postgraduate supervision
I welcome applications from candidates wishing to undertake doctoral research in the areas above and the following areas:

◦the operational military history of British forces in either world war
◦contemporary remembrance of war and conflict
◦the oral history of wartime experiences and attitudes
◦military motivations and morale
◦the political framework of remembrance
◦'war culture' in Britain and the Empire, 1939-1945
Publications
Books
◦D. Todman, The Great War, Myth and Memory The Great War: Myth and Memory, (London: Hambledon and London, 2005).
◦G. Sheffield and D. Todman, eds., (editor and chapter contributor), Command and Control on the Western Front, (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2004).
◦Danchev and D. Todman, eds., War Diaries 1939-1945, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001).
Articles
◦D. Todman, '"Sans peur et sans reproche": the retirement, death and mourning of Sir Douglas Haig 1918-1928', Journal of Military History, (October 2003).
◦Danchev and D. Todman, 'The Alanbrooke Diaries', Archives, (April 2002).
◦D. Todman, 'The reception of the Great War in the 1960s', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 22, 1 (March 2002).
Chapters
◦D. Todman, 'Defining Deaths: Richard Titmuss's Problems of Social Policy and the Meaning of Britain's Second World War' in N. Martin and P. Purseigle, eds, Aftermath: Memories of War in Europe, 1918, 1945, 1989 (Ashgate, forthcoming)
◦D. Todman, 'Representing the First World War in Britain: The 90th Anniversary of the Somme' in H. Herwig and M. Keren, eds., War Memory and Popular Culture (Ottawa, McFarland, 2009)
◦D. Todman, 'The First World War in Contemporary British Popular Culture' in H. Jones et al, eds., Uncovering the First World War (Amsterdam, Brill, 2008)
Accolades
My book, The Great War: Myth and Memory won the Times Higher Education Supplement Award for Best Young Academic Author in 2005.

Membership of professional associations or societies
I sit on the academic advisory panels for the Imperial War Museum's redesign of its 1914-18 galleries and its 'Lives of the Great War' citizen history project.

Appearances in the media
◦The Show to End all Wars, BBC Radio 4
◦Archive on 4: Remembrance, BBC Radio 4
◦Timewatch: The Last Day of World War One, BBC 2
◦Things We Forgot To Remember: The First World War, BBC Radio 4◦I have also written about the remembrance of the First World War   'The First World War in History' on OUCS World War 1 Centenary Open Educational Resources◦'How We Remember Them Today' in Opendemocracy◦'Misrepresentation of a Conflict?' in BBC History

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 09:14 AM

Jim, do you claim to know more about the History of WW1 than WW1 historians?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 10:29 AM

"Jim, do you claim to know more about the History of WW1 than WW1 historians? "
No I don't - but I have read some of their books - you haven't, instead appear to rely entirely on carefully selected and half-digested cut-'n-pastes which you appear not to have understood or read, but merely selected because they seem to back your case
I have no idea what you CV means other than he has a military background - what has he actually said that backs your case and again - why should we believe him over those who were there - oh - I forgot "soldiers tell lies" - it appears that insulting soldiers that fought in the war by calling them "liars" a century after the event is something you both have in common.
Both Patrick Magill and Tommy Kenny described the compulsory pep talks they were forced to attend where an officer peddled the same line you are peddling here - and how many Tommys were put on a charge for humming 'Tell me the Old, Old Story' - some things never change!
One thing is certain - should you ever get around to reading one of his 9or anybody's) books (perish the thought) and find they contradict the establishment line in any way, they will miraculously be transformed into a "revisionist" - just like that nice Irish lady historian who you were using to prove the "the Famine was nuffin to do with the British", and when it turned out she was saying just the opposite - whoosh - gone in a cloud of dust.
There appears to be a hasty re-writing of certain aspects of WW1 in time for the coming centenary - perhaps 'Blackadder' has struck as deep as Swift's recipe for "how to prepare children of the poor for the table" had on the Irish question.
Another certainty - until you actually get round to reading a couple of books you will continue to display yourself as the clown you really are.
253 and still climbing - and still not providing anything to back your claims.
Ah well - It'll be all over by Christmas - I don't think!!
As you were - carry on calling those who were there liars
And have I mentioned it before - GO READ A BOOK - ANY BOOK.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 10:35 AM

Could we all agree on the following statement:

In 1914, many British soldiers (and other citizens, particularly younger ones) were convinced that their country was right to join the war.

(In later years, the percentage dwindled, mainly because there were a lot more British casualties than originally expected. Note that this is not exactly the same as joyfully volunteering, but pretty well correlated. Note also that the same statements are true about most wars and most countries. Take the Vietnam war as another example: in Kennedy's time, only the communists were the villains; later on, the Văn Thiệu regime lost its reputation of sainthood as well, the sole cause being the rising US casualty numbers.)

We may then concentrate on politics.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 11:08 AM

Todman has no military background, except that he taught History at Sandhurst for a time.

On the general issues which I have put up as my view, the Historians have been in agreement for decades.

You accept they know more than you, so stop denying them.
I have not been at all selective in my quotes.
Follow the links.
That is what the historians say.
That is why you have found NOT ONE SINGLE HISTORIAN WHO SUPPORTS YOUR OLD AND DISCREDITED BELIEFS.

Grishka, yes.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 11:22 AM

No I don't - but I have read some of their books

Really Jim?
Are you sure?
Name one from the last 20 years that supports your myths.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 11:49 AM

"Todman has no military background, except that he taught History at Sandhurst for a time."
That's what I said - an establishment historian - you don't get a job at Sandhurst unless you toe the official line - 'a pair of safe hands' as they say.
"You accept they know more than you, so stop denying them."
Denying who - like you, I have not read their books - I am nothing, just asking for proof as to why I should abandon what I believe to be true on the basis of what you have offered so far - precisely nothing.
Lets see what we've got.
We are told (not asked - "stop denying them") that we should abandon everything we know or have been told on the basis of a group of 'historians' none of us have read who are reiterating a line abandoned generally half a century ago.
On this basis we are asked to join you (and them) in calling the soldiers who come up with accounts which contradict these 'historians' "liars" and dismiss writers, historians and some of England's finest poets who were either contemporaries of or extremely close to the events under the discussion - many of them actually participated in the events.
The basis of your argument is not that you have read these (revisionist - go and look up the term before you use it again) accounts and accepted their arguments, but simply that they are "historians".
You carefully select these 'historians' because they seem to bear out your jingoism, and you carefully choose the bits that seem to suit your arguments
Nowhere have you presented a modicum of proof as to the correctness of their arguments - NOWHERE - we have to take their words and your distortions completely on trust.
I cannot begin to imagine anything more mindless than the way you have interminably presented your case here.
BELIEVE THEM BECAUSE YOU CLAIM THEY ARE HISTORIANS AND REJECT ALL OTHERS BECAUSE THEY ARE FALSE - REVISIONIST - ROMANTIC - LYING, ANTI-ESTABLISHMERNT MORONS
Are you totally out of your mind?
Where are the statements - where is your/their evidence - why should veterans like Sassoon go around poisoning the minds of children with romantic lies, why should soldiers like Tommy Kenny and Patrick Magill lie about their experiences - how could the history books, the schools, the writers, the social historians, and those simply interested in the subject got away with peddling all these lies for so long?
Why the **** should we reject everything we know on the basis of a few new kids on the block without actually knowing what they have to say?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 12:23 PM

"BELIEVE THEM BECAUSE YOU CLAIM THEY ARE HISTORIANS AND REJECT ALL OTHERS BECAUSE THEY ARE FALSE "

What others Jim?
Name one.

And also name one of the books you have read that supports the old discredited myths.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 12 Dec 13 - 12:51 PM

Jim, please reply to my post of 12 Dec 13 - 10:35 AM, so that we can agree that the exact motives of soldiers, with exact percentages, are no longer the topic of this thread.

Young people of 1914 can be excused for believing that what the Daily Mail wrote was the whole story. (There is no point in blaming such a large collective of long-deceased people anyway.) We cannot.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Dec 13 - 11:17 AM

Jim, you have been posting elsewhere but missed this.

"BELIEVE THEM BECAUSE YOU CLAIM THEY ARE HISTORIANS AND REJECT ALL OTHERS BECAUSE THEY ARE FALSE "

What others Jim?
Name one.

And also name one of those books you have read that supports the old discredited myths.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Dec 13 - 11:48 AM

Also, which claimed historian is not really a historian?

(Do be careful of opening yourself to a libel charge.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Dec 13 - 01:31 PM

"so that we can agree that the exact motives of soldiers, with exact percentages, are no longer the topic of this thread."
Sorry Grishka
Diverted by our resident moron - if this discussion is going to regain a semblance of common sense I suggest he is ignored until he puts up some sort of a justification for his jingoistic rantings - my intention anyway.
Your statement is of course right and is included in the Wikipidia article that was put up right at the beginning of the thread
Of course a considerable number were influenced by the carefully orchestrated propaganda at the beginning of the war - as you say, that happens in all wars.
But all of the other listed reasons were factors in joining - unemployment, glamour, relief of boredom, belief that the war would be a short one, employers forcing employers to enlist having been promised that the rest of the work force would not be pressurised into joining.

Wiki
"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.[2]"
At the beginning comradeship and the manipulation of friendship at home was a factor in enlistment - see The Pals Batallions.

Wiki again
"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."

As time went on the ladies with their white feathers put pressure on those who had listed to join - even the Suffragettes agreed to cease their activities on the promise of female suffrage when the war was over.
Music Hall stars such as Harry Lauder were persuaded to write and sing songs encouraging youngsters to join "To make man of you".
Somewhere among the tsunami of links which have been given there is a chronological list of how the poster campaign was
Reports from the front (see Patrick Magill) indicated that the patriotic fervour dissipated among many of the volunteers when faced with the brutalities of army life and the stark reality of trench warfare - Tommy Kenny was particularly vehement about this.
By January 1916, 18 months after the launch of the recruiting campaign, British authorities was forced to admit that it had totally failed and they introduced compulsory conscription.
Incidentally, the BBC has just announced that is planning a series of fifteen minute programmes on the history of WW1 which are intended to stretch over several years and cover all aspects of the conflict, both abroad and at home
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Dec 13 - 03:09 PM

From the same Wiki page Jim.
"The timing of the recruiting boom in the wake of the news from Mons (defeat and retreat), 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."

Now please Jim.

"BELIEVE THEM BECAUSE YOU CLAIM THEY ARE HISTORIANS AND REJECT ALL OTHERS BECAUSE THEY ARE FALSE "

What others Jim?
Name one.

Also name one of those books you have read that supports the old discredited myths.

Also, which "claimed historians" are not really historians?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Dec 13 - 03:21 PM

Who the **** do you think you are Keith?
You are a know-nothing troll who has refused to justify one single statement he has made.
Don't you dare demand answers from anybody else when you refuse to answer one put to you.
It is to be hoped that your trolling hasn't sent yet another subject crashing in flames with your fillibusting tactics.
Do the decent thing and let those who are interested enough to actually make an effort to learn about the subjects they contribute to - please go away
Jim Carroll

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

Why not give us some quotes from those books you read, and some of those "other" historians, instead of just Wikipedia Jim?

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

You are a know-nothing troll who has refused to justify one single statement he has made.

I have only stated 3 opinions, and backed them with numerous quotes from acclaimed professional historians specialising in that period.

All you can do is deny that they are historians.

"BELIEVE THEM BECAUSE YOU CLAIM THEY ARE HISTORIANS AND REJECT ALL OTHERS BECAUSE THEY ARE FALSE "

What others Jim?
Name one.

Also name one of those books you have read that supports the old discredited myths.

Also, which "claimed historians" are not really historians?


Why not give us some quotes from those books you read, and some of those "other" historians, instead of just Wikipedia Jim?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 13 Dec 13 - 05:48 PM

Now that we all agree about the main statement in my post of 12 Dec 13 - 10:35 AM (cf. also my message of 12 Dec 13 - 12:51 PM), we can split off that part for the purposes of this thread. In a mathematical formula:

"most soldiers knew what the fought for" =
"most soldiers initially believed the reasons given to them"
+ "those reasons were true and the full story".

Only the last statement, not containing rank and file soldiers, is still disputed.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 03:21 AM

Only the last statement, not containing rank and file soldiers, is still disputed.
Still disputed by a couple of lefties on Mudcat.
Not disputed by experts in the field.

Jim, why not give us some quotes from those books you read, or from some of those "other historians", instead of just Wikipedia?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket pointing and laughing
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 03:35 AM

Wow.

Two comments from Keith A Hole of Hertford managed to stay in my head whilst getting up to date on this thread.

He says he gets his opinion from historians. Strange, most people get their own opinion based on others.

He reckons one bloke must be right because he taught at Sandhurst. That liberal hotbed of peaceniks eh? Senior soldiers must get a proper objective education if they are to pass their objective education onto smiling squaddies. I used to be in a civic club and one of our members was a teacher from the nearby Welbeck College. He resigned and went elsewhere because of his concern that the military sixth form were being conditioned into a version of how society ticks rather than reality.

I too have a view you see. I get mine from analysis of all I encounter. Not a careful selection of revisionist takes on the situation. Keith appears to be unable to distinguish between the account and the analysis of that account. His pet historians may be able to describe an event but the reader doesn't have to accept their conclusion.

Unless you have your opinion formed for you.

?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 03:53 AM

Last word from someone who sums all ths up perfectly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnPD3eEUeBU
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 04:55 AM

He says he gets his opinion from historians. Strange, most people get their own opinion based on others.
I disagree.
Most people get their opinions on History from reading History.
Intelligent people anyway.

He reckons one bloke must be right because he taught at Sandhurst.

I said no such thing.
It was Jim who made an issue of it.
Here is the rest of his story again.

I joined Queen Mary College, University of London in 2003.

I did my first degree at LSE, for whom I made an embarrassingly brief appearance on University Challenge, and completed a PhD at Cambridge. I then taught at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. As well as my teaching and research, I run the School of History's School Liaison and Widening Participation programme.

Research
I work on the social, military and cultural history of Britain in both world wars, with a particular interest in intersection between home and fighting fronts and the remembrance of conflict. I am currently working on a major new history of Britain's Second World War, as well as undertaking research with my undergraduate students into London's experience of the First World War.

Undergraduate teaching
◦Winning on the Western Front: the British Army 1914 -1919
◦Exhibiting the First World War
Postgraduate supervision
I welcome applications from candidates wishing to undertake doctoral research in the areas above and the following areas:

◦the operational military history of British forces in either world war
◦contemporary remembrance of war and conflict
◦the oral history of wartime experiences and attitudes
◦military motivations and morale
◦the political framework of remembrance
◦'war culture' in Britain and the Empire, 1939-1945
Publications
Books
◦D. Todman, The Great War, Myth and Memory The Great War: Myth and Memory, (London: Hambledon and London, 2005).
◦G. Sheffield and D. Todman, eds., (editor and chapter contributor), Command and Control on the Western Front, (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2004).
◦Danchev and D. Todman, eds., War Diaries 1939-1945, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001).
Articles
◦D. Todman, '"Sans peur et sans reproche": the retirement, death and mourning of Sir Douglas Haig 1918-1928', Journal of Military History, (October 2003).
◦Danchev and D. Todman, 'The Alanbrooke Diaries', Archives, (April 2002).
◦D. Todman, 'The reception of the Great War in the 1960s', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 22, 1 (March 2002).
Chapters
◦D. Todman, 'Defining Deaths: Richard Titmuss's Problems of Social Policy and the Meaning of Britain's Second World War' in N. Martin and P. Purseigle, eds, Aftermath: Memories of War in Europe, 1918, 1945, 1989 (Ashgate, forthcoming)
◦D. Todman, 'Representing the First World War in Britain: The 90th Anniversary of the Somme' in H. Herwig and M. Keren, eds., War Memory and Popular Culture (Ottawa, McFarland, 2009)
◦D. Todman, 'The First World War in Contemporary British Popular Culture' in H. Jones et al, eds., Uncovering the First World War (Amsterdam, Brill, 2008)
Accolades
My book, The Great War: Myth and Memory won the Times Higher Education Supplement Award for Best Young Academic Author in 2005.

Membership of professional associations or societies
I sit on the academic advisory panels for the Imperial War Museum's redesign of its 1914-18 galleries and its 'Lives of the Great War' citizen history project.

Appearances in the media
◦The Show to End all Wars, BBC Radio 4
◦Archive on 4: Remembrance, BBC Radio 4
◦Timewatch: The Last Day of World War One, BBC 2
◦Things We Forgot To Remember: The First World War, BBC Radio 4◦I have also written about the remembrance of the First World War   'The First World War in History' on OUCS World War 1 Centenary Open Educational Resources◦'How We Remember Them Today' in Opendemocracy◦'Misrepresentation of a Conflict?' in BBC History

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 04:59 AM

Jim, instead of Henry Hall songs (!?) why not give us some quotes from those books you read, or from some of those "other historians", instead of just Wikipedia?

Is it because you lied about all that?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 05:38 AM

Keith, to my message

..."those reasons were true and the full story".
Only the last statement, not containing rank and file soldiers, is still disputed.

you replied

Still disputed by a couple of lefties on Mudcat.
Not disputed by experts in the field.

So here we are at the crucial point, most relevant not only for our judgment on history, but also for present-day politics, and political philosophy in general. Or even human behaviour in general: "X commits atrocities, Y reacts in righteous and adequate self-defence and defence of innocent victims" is very rarely the full story of anything. Wars are all the more suspicious as the gamble is with other people's lives; the risk for the gamblers is comparatively low. Think of Kaiser Wilhelm's comfortable retirement in Holland.

Christopher Clark's "The Sleepwalkers" was considered news in the Anglophone world; I suspect continental historians knew the essence of it long before. Particularly, the "Rape of Belgium" never played the role in France that it played in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 06:38 AM

You have been given masses of evidence from historians, journalists, writers and participants of the war by many contributors to this thread Keith - those who don't fit your squalid theories you have dismissed as "romantics" "revisionists" and liars - then you have gone on to claim that nobody apart from yourself has produced proof.
Now that's what I call lying - a quality you are now recognised for throughout this forum.
Why on earth should anybody make the effort to feed a troll who has abandoned any pretence of honest debate and appears to be using Mudcat to gain the attention he is obviously and understandably failing to get elsewhere
I could supply a list of a dozen books and quotes, real or invented, to claim anything I wish - how on earth would you be able to tell the difference between the genuine and the invented.
You don't read, you admit you are ignorant of the subjects you pollute, you don't have the courage to stand by your statements as your own, but scurry behind "experts" and "historians" which you have scrabbled to find on the net, and when you can't find anything, you simply make it up.
You never produce valid, solid evidence for anything you claim and you invariably end up on your own (most of the time you start out on your own)
You are a sad, destructive little man who seems to need the attention of others, but is not prepared to work for that attention.
You have long since ceased to be an embarrassment, you are now little more than a figure of fun and a destructive pest.
Have a nice Christmas and please pray for us "leftie" sinners
JIm Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 08:05 AM

You have been given masses of evidence from historians, journalists, writers and participantsYou have been given masses of evidence from historians, journalists, writers and participants
Not true.
Just anon., unverified Wiki pages, and one participant out of 2 million.
I alone have referenced actual historians of the event.

- those who don't fit your squalid theories you have dismissed as "romantics" "revisionists" and liars
Lie. I have not.
And I have no theory.
I just believe the historians.
Only a deluded, egotistical fool would think he knew more than them.
Like you two do.

You don't read, you admit you are ignorant of the subjects you pollute, you don't have the courage to stand by your statements as your own, but scurry behind "experts" and "historians"

I am not at all ignorant about thise.
It is a lifelong interest of mine and I have read widely.
That is why I know what the historians all say.
You people know nothing.

you never produce valid, solid evidence for anything you claim

Lie.
Everything I claimed is supported by the works of historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 09:06 AM

One day Keith A Hole of Hertford is going to answer my question; is David Irvine a historian?

The more he throws the title around as vindication of sanitising history, the more pertinent the question.

Well?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 09:21 AM

Jim, this thread is not only for Keith. For example, I sense MtheGM reading attentively, who is a man of traditional English mindset, and appreciative of good manners. Try to convince him (if he is not yet). Write what exactly you are talking about.

I cannot be too specific in debates about details, because I am neither an expert nor British. My general message is that national pride makes people easy prey for propaganda, and thus become losers while believing to have won. Leftist parties and governments can play on that piano as well as rightist ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 09:30 AM

I have no opinion of Irvine.
I know little about him.
I have not read any of his stuff, and have no wish to.

Do you regard Todman as an historian?
Gary Sheffield?
Max Hastings.
Hart?
Malcolm Brown?
Fritz Fischer?
etc., etc.,.......the expensive cars, holidays and share ownership you love to brag about.)
(Again, remember the libel laws.
You are a prime target with the expensive cars, holidays and share ownership you love to brag about.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 10:16 AM

"Jim, this thread is not only for Keith. For example"
This is now the umpteenth thread that this clown has driven into the ground with his ignorance and his bigoted dishonesty.
There are plenty of people on this forum who I disagree with and who I have learned from in discussion with - Keith is most certainly not one of these.
I suggest you count how many threads he has filibusted into silence - how many he has had the last word on- how many he has confessed to total ignorance of the subject and how any 'phantom friends' he has called on to excuse his ignorance and has invented statements in his own support when he has been unable to obtain it from anywhere else.
His behavior kills threads and stifles honest argument and friendly disagreement.
I'm happy to, and often do disagree and even argue strongly with MtheGM - I know he will put up an honest, well-thought-out argument - not the case here.
Of course we could leave these topics to Keith - we invariably do, even the ones that concern us deeply and know a little about - the 'last-man-standing' tactics that this individual adopts is not democratic, enjoyable or fruitful - it is like trying to talk over a precocious, self-centred child.
I've had enough of this subject just as I've had enough of many others that interest me.
If it continues I will have had enough of this forum; just as I will not remain in a household where the occupants are unable to control their children
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 01:12 PM

Jim, a thread is about a topic, normally not about particular persons. We should discuss statements, one at a time, not persons and wholesale ideologies. At each statement from any poster, we are free to respond or not; we are not obliged to keep stating our disagreement with posters who only strive to have the last word (which "trophy" they may stick wherever they want).

Usually there are interested readers who do not join the argument but study the positions of the protagonists. MtheGM declared himself thus upthread; I do the same with hand-selected other threads. Therefore, all posters are well-advised to imagine themselves addressing the general public, not just their fellow posters.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 05:05 PM

and has invented statements in his own support when he has been unable to obtain it from anywhere else.
That is a dirty lie.
If you can produce such a thing I swear now I will leave Mudcat for ever, but you can not.
It is just a filthy lie.

he has confessed to total ignorance of the subject and how any 'phantom friends' he has called on to excuse his ignorance

I am not ignorant.
I have made a lifelong study of WW1.
That is why I am fully cognisant of the history, and can produce any number of historians to support everything I have said.
You are ignorant.
You can produce nothing to support anything you have claimed because it is bollocks.
Those "OTHER HISTORIANS" do not exist.
Neither dfo those books you claim to have read.
You are an ignorant liar.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 06:18 PM

As long as everybody's having a good time.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 06:59 PM

"That is why I am fully cognisant of the history,"
You are an obsessive moron - you have produced nothing other than cut-'n-pastes here
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 02:34 AM

you have produced nothing other than cut-'n-pastes here

Cut and paste quotes from acclaimed and eminent experts of that conflict that support everything I have said.
What have you produced Jim?
An anonymous, un-sourced Wiki page that supported my view anyway.
Ask Greg his opinion of "blogopedia" as a reference source.
He is always scathing, except when you do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 02:48 AM

Keith A Hole of Hertford sets out why historians are the oracle and how he has them set his view for him.

Then, when you mention an historian who was inprisoned for revising world war history he claims to know nothing about him.

Fascinating.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 04:27 AM

Are you talking about the Irvine who believes the government and Royal Family are alien, shape shifting lizards?
Is he a fellow of any reputable historical society?
Does he lecture at any prestigious university.
Any acclaimed publications on any historical period or event?

What is your point Muppet?
What is the point of you?
Find a corner somewhere else for your giggling and drooling.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 04:39 AM

Perhaps you mean Irving?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 04:47 AM

" Irving's reputation can be seen in the surveys of the historiography of the Third Reich produced by Ian Kershaw. In the first edition of Kershaw's book The Nazi Dictatorship in 1985, Irving was called a "maverick" historian working outside the mainstream of the historical profession.[133] By the time of the fourth edition of The Nazi Dictatorship in 2000, Irving was described only as a historical writer who had in the 1970s engaged in "provocations" intended to provide an "exculpation of Hitler's role in the Final Solution".[134]"

From wiki but with sources.
What has he to do with any of the highly acclaimed historians I have cited?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 04:53 AM

I always did. I also wished to know if you had heard of him. Hence the opportunity for pedantry.

He is called a historian on account of publishing history books. A bit like a newspaper hack being recognised by the same honorarium.

So..... Why is income from publication by some historians fact whilst income from publication by other historians fiction? Or to put it another way, why insult the intelligence of mudcat members by assuming only you are capable of deciding which historian based comment is true or not?

You are as absurd on this thread as you are on the subject of Christians and statistics.

Bugger off to church. It's time you scrubbed up and went to be grateful again.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 08:51 AM

If a historian starts producing stuff that does not stand up to scrutiny, other historians expose and vilify him.
That happened to Irving.
That has not happened to any of the historians I have cited.

On the issues we have been discussing, they are all in agreement.
Their individual researches have produced the same results.

Your version of History is ideologically sound, and "right-on," but not actually true.
Mine is.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 09:29 AM

I wish to share something with you. I thought of Keith half an hour ago when researching a paper I am writing as commentary on the latest NHS mortality figures.

I wrote a comment refuting a claim by someone from Dept of Health. I wrote "you can't reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into."

Being lazy I would like to write that in this thread also and dedicate it to our resident evangelist for the establishment Keith A Hole of Hertford.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 09:38 AM

"you can't reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into."

Musket believes all the historians are wrong, and he is right.

You could write a comment about that.

Subject: RE: BS: the Somme Battle 1916
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 05:55 AM

Musket recently posted some thoughts on the Somme.
I find I have a book on my shelves on that subject by military historian Malcolm Brown.
The famous historian Richard Holmes said of it in The Times Literary Supplement, "If you can buy only one book on the Somme, it should be Malcolm Brown's powerful and scholarly account."

From the foreword.
"The character of the Somme fighting is seen as so appalling and the losses it entailed so unimaginably huge that decent civilised people find themselves, as it were, angrily demanding that it should be called off, for the sake of the wretched victims duped into fighting it.
The advantage of researching what the alleged victims wrote at the time is that they don't seem to have seen things that way. Even those who clearly deplored the brutal, inhuman aspects of the Somme - and there are not a few of that persuasion in this book - believed that there was no option other than that of carrying on with the fighting. They might not like the practice, but there was little argument with the principle. After all, the Germans were occupying French and Belgian soil and had to be removed."

He quotes Charles Carrington who wrote the "classic" A Subaltern's War in 1929. "The Somme battle raised the morale of the British Army. Although we did not win a decisive victory there was what matters most, a definite and growing sense of superiority over the enemy. man to man....We were quite sure that we had the Germans beat: next spring we would deliver the knock-out blow."

Prof. Dr. Gary Sheffield in the interview I mentioned last week.

How about your view of the most decisive battle?

"I would argue that the single most decisive battle came two years earlier, on the Somme."
http://www.historynet.com/interview-with-military-historian-gary-sheffield.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 05:56 AM

http://www.historynet.com/interview-with-military-historian-gary-sheffield.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 06:02 AM

Hundreds of thousands felt fairly knocked out themselves.

In the brief milliseconds they had to consider their fate.....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 02:53 AM

Canadian John McRae was the poet who wrote the iconic "In Flanders Fields."

McCrae fought in the second battle of Ypres in the Flanders region of Belgium where the German army launched one of the first chemical attacks in the history of war. They attacked the Canadian position with chlorine gas on April 22, 1915, but were unable to break through the Canadian line which held for over two weeks. In a letter written to his mother, McCrae described the battle as a "nightmare": "For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds ..... And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way."[7] Alexis Helmer, a close friend, was killed during the battle on May 2. McCrae performed the burial service himself, at which time he noted how poppies quickly grew around the graves of those who died at Ypres. The next day, he composed the poem while sitting in the back of an ambulance.[8]

An extract. The final verse.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:06 AM

In the period leading up to any war, there are always hundreds of Keith As, vomiting the message of right and duty, and the evil nature of the other side.

The other side has 'em too, with the same message, the same jingoistic fervour and the same lies!

The world would benefit greatly from their absence!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:19 AM

You would have given Hitler and the Kaiser a free run.
Fortunately for the world, there were men and women prepared to put a stop to their ambitions.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:59 AM

Keith, so far you have failed to reply to my message of 11 Dec 13 - 05:49 AM, now one page back. Allow me to restate it:

Assume you were in a village fire brigade who have extinguished a large fire in a factory. Many of your comrades were killed because of poisons that were stored in the building without sufficient security measures. You may well say "Gosh, we're glad we did it!", but if the factory owner says "We can be really proud of our village!" - what would you reply?

Nobody advocates giving the fire a free run.

(I am now convinced that you are immune to any argument; the abusers make your agenda unnecessarily easy. Other readers may be more attentive.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 06:05 AM

I reject the analogy.

The fire was arson.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 06:08 AM

I am now convinced that you are immune to any argument

I have responded to every argument.
I have not said or claimed anything that is not supported by experts on that conflict.
What exactly is your criticism of me?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 06:37 AM

What exactly is your criticism of me?

You do not even try to understand our objections, and dismiss all critics as "lefties". For example, you did not read my parable properly.

The fire was arson.

Of course it was, but the factory owner consciously took excessive risk, for profit. The same story again and again. Many a "victim" of arson had previously even sponsored and equipped the arsonists (Taliban, Saddam Hussein, ...), believing that they would light the competitors' factories only, or be "appeased".

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 07:02 AM

I have not dismissed anyone as a lefty.
I have shown that their views are not supported by History.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 07:59 AM

Keith, you do not even honour your own words of 14 Dec 13 - 03:21 AM. See my post of 14 Dec 13 - 05:38 AM.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 08:19 AM

I did not dismiss them.
I did show that their views were not held by historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 09:50 AM

I did show that their views were not held by historians.

Correction: "not held by some historians" - a statement that could be made about anything whatsoever, and thus nugatory..

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 09:57 AM

If it was only by some, you could find some, or perhaps just one, who does share their views.

Funny you can't find one Greg.
Funny no-one else can either.
That is because there are none.

I did show that their views are not held by historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 01:48 PM

Dream on. Keith. I just can't be arsed to list dozens (hundreds?) of names that wouldn't shake your delusions in the least.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 02:10 PM

Just one than Greg, you lying fool.
You have not got even one.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 03:26 PM

Dream on, Kevin.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:17 PM

I dream of you finding one and making me look silly.
Go for it Greg.
Show the world you are not a lying fool.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:23 PM

I once again refer you, Keith, to the catalogue of The British Library, where you will find books by a veritable legion of historians who disagree with your bullshit.

IF you look for them.

Or, you can keep your head up your arse.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 02:35 AM

I have.
Can't find one.
Neither can you, because there are none.

You are a lying fool and everyone reading your shit KNOWS you are a lying fool.

I produce historians.
You can produce nothing but lies and shit.

But, it is not too late.
Name one Greg.
Just one.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 03:27 AM

Anti-establishment Max Hastings.
" Mr Cameron is deluded. The tragic truth is that Britain accomplished NOTHING in Afghanistan."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 03:56 AM

Would that be the Max Hastings who is paid to write newspaper opinion or the Max Hastings who researches history? In this case, prior to the end of the campaign he is commenting on....

This is the rub. I would like to agree with him on his Afghanistan stance, with the caveat that a read of the Afghanaid website reveals the many advances for the general population that would not have come about without the removal of the Taliban. Having had a close family member carrying out aid work there, I am tainted with a one sided view, but there again, we all weigh such evidence higher than that we may suspect as loaded....

You see, Keith uses his gut feelings too, but rather than be guided by them, he defies anyone to disagree with them. That is boorish at best, stupid at worst and irresponsible in general.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 04:03 AM

He is paid for his opinion because he is an authority on military matters.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 07:15 AM

Anti-establishment Max Hastings.
"Mr Cameron is deluded. The tragic truth is that Britain accomplished NOTHING in Afghanistan."

The real "tragedy" is that the militias later known as the Taliban had previously been fostered, funded, and equipped by British and US governments to fight the then Soviet Union in the 1980s. When will they ever learn (- the democratic internationalists, not the Taliban)?

As I wrote before, there does not seem to be much dispute about facts, but about interpretation and consequences for present-day political philosophy. In these fields, historians are not experts at all; they have their opinions and political convictions as ordinary persons.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 07:51 AM

Yes Grishka, but this debate was not about interpretation.

It started because I gave the opinion, based on my knowledge and reading of History, that British troops knew what they were fighting for, and mostly believed in what they were doing.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 08:38 AM

What I see as the kernel of the debate is whether politics about 1900 by British and French governments can be seen as justified by present-day standards, and communicated honestly. Only if so, the formulation "Most knew what they fought for" would make sense, otherwise "Most believed in the official reasons" is adequate - we agreed on the latter.

Afghanistan after 1979 makes a good model. Those western soldiers - this time including Germans - who believed they were fighting for girls' right of schooling were not downright wrong, but missed the half of the story of which their governments should be ashamed.

I bet Keith will have the last word in this thread. I hope my point is clear enough to unbiased readers.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 08:40 AM

this debate was not about interpretation. It started because I gave the opinion

Righto, Keith, and that opinion is your interpretation. Or should I say misnerpretation?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 09:08 AM

It is what the historians say, so why would I not believe them.
Unless you know some that say different Greg.
Do you?
How many Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 01:27 PM

It is what the historians say,

No, once again, it is what SOME historians say, fuckwit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 02:40 PM

No, once again, it is what SOME historians say, fuckwit.

No, once again, it is what HISTORIANS say.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 04:31 PM

I seem to recall an adage about teaching pigs to sing........

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket with bucket of swill
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 01:46 AM

Also something about trying to educate pork.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 02:52 AM

Educating pork!
Are you describing the frustration you feel when telling the leading historians in the land that they know nothing, and should take lessons from you?

I felt the same when I told you that your views were long discredited by research.(Like you with the creationists.)
I was ridiculed for that truth.
I reported the findings of someone hailed by historians as the nation's leading military historian.
More hoots of derision.

I steadily added more historians.
Muppet actually stated, "those historians should know better" LIKE HE DOES!

I now have, Richard Holmes, Peter Hart, David Stephenson, Fritz Fischer, Dan Todman, Gary Sheffield, Max Hastings, Malcolm Brown, Stuart Halifax.

The list includes ALL the military historians with an interest or specialism in WW1, the historians commissioned by the BBC to write about WW1 on their history site, and all the historians used by the television companies to educate and inform the public.

But no use.
Like trying to educate pork.
Never mind. I have so enjoyed exposing the arrogance, hubris, ignorance and stupidity of all the muppets in this show.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 04:41 AM

I'd have thought Miss Piggy was the obvious muppet?

Your list is getting quite impressive Keith. If it keeps growing at this rate, you might have enough to convince a few shallow fools that propaganda never existed, that the white feathers were nice but not necessary, that firing squads were just practicing for the enemy.

The accounts of those there, especially the poets who could articulate their feelings. Nothing compared to those who get cited by The BBC eh? If you look carefully, (you never do though,) the history section also includes a smattering of Wilfred Owen and speaks of propaganda and enforced hate lessons for soldiers. It speaks of deserters, it rattles on merrily about the butcher of the Somme.

zzzzzzz


Hoots of derision. Thanks, I couldn't have articulated it better myself. Hoot hoot! (Boom Boom..)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 05:43 AM

So even now you think you know more than the historians!
Please don't stop.
And you accuse me of trying to make you look a twat!

Poets?
Rupert Brooke?
John Mcrea?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 08:33 AM

The list includes ALL the military historians with an interest or specialism in WW1

All? Horseshit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 09:05 AM

Same old lie from the same old fool.
Who did I leave out Greg?
You can not name any.
You can not name one.
You are full of "horseshit" Greg.

How many times do I have to slap you down?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 09:42 AM

So, you actually believe that the ten persons you name are "ALL the military historians with an interest or specialism in WW1" on the face of the globe? I repeat: absolute horseshit.

You know, Keith, for sheer bloody-mindedness, pig-headedness and ignorance you remind me of Ian Paisley - one of the great "Christian"[sic] persecuters of all time.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 09:50 AM

Do you know any others who have published on the subject in the last 20 years?
No you do not.
There are none.

Next time you post the same old lie, why not just make up some names?
If you are going to lie, make it a real whopper!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 10:33 AM

Do you know any others who have published on the subject in the last 20 years?

I'm curious: Why only in the last twenty years?

And yes, I do. I once again refer you to the Catalogue of the British Library. Do a search on "World War I" and check the publication dates. You'll find hundreds.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 12:02 PM

Poets?

Err. Baldrick?

Oh, Rupert Brooke. He wrote one about you, didn't he?

If I should lie, think only this of me.
There is a corner of a Hertford keyboard that is forever self satisfied and smug.



Eeh, tha' does look a reight twat me old duck.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 01:07 PM

I can't help but be self-satisfied and smug.
Sorry, but all your gang declaring that historians are wrong and you all are cleverer than them!
Priceless.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 03:09 AM

Ergo you are right



Or should that be ego?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 03:45 AM

Right first time.
Unusual for you Musket.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 20 Dec 13 - 09:24 AM

Just to be specific. I was right second time.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 01:49 AM

Again declaring that historians are wrong and you all are cleverer than them!
Priceless.

Is there one historian who agrees with you?
No.
Is there one who disagrees with me?
No.
But you keep on making a fools of yourselves.
That does make me satisfied.
That does make me smug.
Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 01:59 AM

I would suggest they have better things to do than "agree with" Keith A Hole of Hertford.

Just a hunch.

After all, should "they" have even heard of you, "they" would have written you off as someone who reads and believes rather than reads, critiques and forms an opinion that is then articulated as a version of history.

It's harder for we historians than you buggers think......

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 05:33 AM

And now for those still keeping down with us, a second instalment of Voltaire.

"It is dangerous to be right on matters in which the established authorities are wrong."

Still, at least Keith A Hole of Hertford can sleep soundly at night eh?





Next time everybody stands freezing at a a War Memorial on a cold November morning, look around you. How many are there to commemorate the wasted life and how many are celebrating kicking the shit out of the Hun? Keeps the mind busy and whiles away the time whilst the God section waffles on.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 05:36 AM

Excellent point well made.
Thank you.

Is there one historian whose findings support your views?
No.
Is there one whose findings contradict my views?
No.
But you keep on making fools of yourselves.
That does make me satisfied.
That does make me smug.
Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 10:22 AM

You'd be just as insufferable if you were right.

Pride cometh before a fall. You can spin history but there are too many war graves standing in neat defiance, to eradicate the truth.







Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom (love the pathos) Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 10:30 AM

Who cares what you say or think.
It is based only on your superstitious belief in how things should be and must be, in defiance of all the actual evidence.

Belief without evidence.
Exactly what you ridicule others for.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 12:40 PM

There's a reason why I dismiss superstition when weighing evidence.

The more I read of oafs such as Keith A Hole of Hertford, the more I see why I do.

Superstitious belief eh? Don't judge rational people by your own standards. If you must treat opinion based on credentials , I'm surprised you claim to pick and choose what you believe in your bible. Or did a historian choose them for you? Far easier to be literal like pete you know. Try reading "Worlds in Collision." Right up your street.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Dec 13 - 02:57 PM

The more I read of oafs such as Keith A Hole of Hertford, the more I see why I do.
Oafs like me who read and learn from History, instead of making it up out of an empty head like you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 01:46 AM

This book is published by Oxford University Press. (Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship and education...)
A large preview is online.

Page 4.
"The central tenet of this book is that ordinary British and Irish people in 1914 did not back the war because they were deluded, brainwashed or naively duped into an idiotic bloodbath as the subsequent myth would have it.
Rather, their support was often carefully considered, well-informed, reasoned, and only made once all other options were exhausted. By 4 August people supported the war, but only because they felt it was the right thing to do in the circumstances. They then proceeded to positively immerse themselves in the war effort, and collaborate in its prosecution, but not necessarily in an overtly enthusiastic and jingoistic manner."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 01:48 AM

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lVK0SSmvD5wC&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=invasion+preparation+1914&source=bl&ots=qPt2tdhG9V&sig=JIZ

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 04:47 AM

By 4 August people supported the war, but only because they felt it was the right thing to do in the circumstances.

In other words: now that their governments had maneuvered them into disaster (or had gambled with their lives, or had been "sleepwalking", as C. Clark put it), they saw no other option than to fight it through. See above.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 04:55 AM

Excellent article in this week's The Week. Whilst exploring the Xmas Day football activities, it gives an excellent insight into how in subsequent years snipers were brought in who were not normally in those sections to keep the men hating the opposition.

A nice section about propaganda and exaggeration to ensure volunteers.

In fact, hardly a word about the recent revision attempts by many to see the war as just, well led and fruitful.

Boom fucking Boom



Oxford Press eh? And your point?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 05:02 AM

(Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship and education...)

"did not back the war because they were deluded, brainwashed or naively duped into an idiotic bloodbath as the subsequent myth would have it.
Rather, their support was often carefully considered, well-informed, reasoned, and only made once all other options were exhausted"

Stop believing the old, discredited "myth."
How can you imagine you know more about it than the historians?!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 10:14 AM

Now the pig really IS getting annoyed.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 11:12 AM

Just wondered about why waving Oxford University Press is supposed to add to the credibility? It isn't one thing nor another. It exists to raise funds by publishing. It publishes fiction and non fiction. In fact, it published Thomas Carlisle's unfortunate books on eugenics. It also printed a number of publications I cite in my own papers over the years. Broad spectrum then.

Am I supposed to be impressed? Perhaps if the binding of a first edition hardback shows the hand crafting skill of the binder I might he. But the content? No reason to say you can't read it and draw your own conclusions.

I have read some of the books you cite and in certain areas draw different conclusions to the author. That's part of reading, you ignoramus.

Anyway, googling can be fraught with fun. Musket is a bit of silly bugger stuff. Ian is what I use on line in non professional waffle, my real name is what I use professionally and privately and just to make it fun, I have a stage name too, although I don't get to use it much these days, and as the royalty cheques get ever smaller, the name list for the bank account gets ever less used.

And that's just me... Add that many people do likewise, and black can indeed be white, hence how funny it is when you grasp at straws claiming it must be true cos I read it!

I also find it amusing when you and your mate Akenhateon keep calling me Ian for reasons that make the name rather superfluous. (I use the first name in homage to a mate from Worksop who enjoys a pint and a song, bless him.)

Did you know that when an editor, Max Hastings used to write using an alias? All the rage you know.... I wonder if...   Naw, too easy.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 11:44 AM

I have read some of the books you cite and in certain areas draw different conclusions to the author.
The authors base their conclusion on their extensive research.
Yours is based on ignorance and preconception, so worthless.

Who cares what your conclusion is compared to the historians?
Apart from gormless Greg.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 12:22 PM

And now the annoyed pig is getting nasty.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 02:43 PM

Musket, you previously made an issue of who the publisher was.
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship and education...

Is there one historian whose findings support your views?
No.
Is there one whose findings contradict my views?
No.
But you keep on making fools of yourselves.
That does make me satisfied.
That does make me smug.
Sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 03:39 PM

Is there one [historian] whose findings contradict my views?

Absolutely correct, fuckwit. There is not one, there are hundreds. Possibly thousands.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 04:30 PM

Still haven't worked out why he keeps rattling on about the publisher.

Soft cunt

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: bobad
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 05:22 PM

Keith's wiping the floor with you guys and I'm enjoying the spectacle - keep it up please - fine entertainment for the holidays.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Dec 13 - 01:24 AM

there are hundreds. Possibly thousands.

Of course there are Greg dear.
And you could name them all if you wanted to, couldn't you?

No-one is laughing at you.
Everyone believes you.
There might even be millions, or billions, or trillions, .......

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Dec 13 - 01:56 AM

"fuckwit" sez Greg

"Soft cunt" sez Musket.

Could there be any clearer instances of the inevitable descent to abuse on the part of poor pathetic losers when attempts at rational argument have manifestly failed?

Saddoes both!

Still -- Wish them [& all] a Merry Xmas just the same...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 24 Dec 13 - 02:22 AM

Michael. I racked my brains to come up with soft cunt. Please don't dismiss my erudite donnish wit.

Keith A Hole of Hertford clearly is wiping the floor with dissenters. If he weren't doing so, I wouldn't find it quite so ironically entertaining. In Victorian times, people paid good money to stare at the human exhibits. Mudcat offers good value.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Dec 13 - 03:18 AM

Dear me, no, Ian.

So how about some erudite donnish wit right back to you?

On second thoughts, no: as may have been observed, I make it a principle never to indulge in erudite donnish wit around and about these parts!.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 24 Dec 13 - 04:21 AM

Confession time. I confuse erudite Donnish wit with knob gags.

Always been a failing of mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Dec 13 - 02:38 AM

Christmas Day, guys - time to declare a truce, get an old football out and have a kick-about, shake hands, show each other photos of your families, share a fag and a drop o' rum.

If Tommies and Jerries in the trenches could manage it, I'm sure you lot can too! (Or was it just a figment of the propagandists' imaginations?).   :-)

Merry Christmas! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 25 Dec 13 - 02:17 PM

It must have happened mate. I read it in The Week!

Mrs Musket got me a copy of Wipers Times. (Stocking filler. I had accidentally noticed it and she said it was for her Uncle. So glad it's mine, I was feeling rather jealous.

Best not let Keith read the forward and introduction. He is so enjoying being clever, I'd hate to piss on his chips.

Merry Xmas to everybody! Especially the few who are only here today because their granddads survived the carnage.

By the way. According to the late Tony Capstick, their full back was a big dirty bastard and their winger was a little Austrian Corporal with a moustache who picked up the ball on the spike of his helmet and ran off with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: bobad
Date: 25 Dec 13 - 04:22 PM

"Saddoes"......nice word, I had to look it up....aptly fitting.....or should that be fittingly apt?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 26 Dec 13 - 07:05 AM

Reality can be very sad. Whereas propaganda can be so jolly what?

The entertainment gets better. Keith has poor gullible Bobad believing his tosh now. Absolutely delicious that he sees it as fun in the other direction.

For me, Keith has found an excellent way of demonstrating how propaganda works in practice. Mind you, I hope he feels appropriately embarrassed when Bobad realises he has been sold a pup. (You can look that up too if you must.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Dec 13 - 05:43 PM

Not my "tosh."
Everything I said can be substantiated with quotes from eminent, acclaimed historians.
Nothing you have said can be.
But as you say," historians should know better," like what you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 26 Dec 13 - 06:35 PM

Thinks he's Ernie Wise now. Still, it's Xmas I suppose.



Bring me sunshine..........

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Dec 13 - 07:57 PM

If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
          -- Kipling

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 02:33 AM

Very poignant.

At the risk of misquoting old Rudyard;

If any question why millions died
Keith will say that we all lied.





Let's see. I'm a liar for questioning revision of history. I'm a liar for noting atrocities by groups claiming to be Christian. I'm a liar for pointing out the unfortunate use of a word that paints every Muslim as a terrorist. I'm a liar for pointing out why we spend so much money on public health.

Oh. I'm a liar for reprinting a post by Keith that he should be ashamed of.

Zzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 03:16 AM

You do not know what a lie is Musket.
None of those examples are lies.
Thinking that you know more than the historians makes you a fool, not a liar.
Likewise your ignorance of the word Islamist. It does not describe all Muslims, fool.
It is only a lie to note Christian atrocities if you make them up, which you did.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 03:31 AM

You DID state that the November HPA report was "preliminary."
That was unquestionably a lie.
You DID state that it was "superseded" by another.
That was unquestionably a lie.
You are a liar and must expect all you statements to be challenged.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 04:05 AM

Nice to see you are reading what I put. With regard to the field of commissioning health services, you can even quote me. If you search you might even quote me from publications on the issue.

Although on other issues I am as amateur as you. Except I don't take snippets out of context and cry when educated people laugh at them.

In the past 24 hours you have inferred that seven mudcat members are liars. Getting silly aren't we?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 05:51 AM

In the past 24 hours you have inferred that seven mudcat members are liars

You have just made that up.
It is you alone, but maybe seven times.
You are quite a prolific liar.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 08:25 AM

Just for you and checking back , I was lying. Yes.

36 hours not 24.

My bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 10:48 AM

If your claim is valid, Musket, may we please have a rundown {with copy-pastes for confirmation} of the 6 Mudcatters in addition to yourself whom you claim K to have denounced as liars in the past 36 hours.

I think, as they say, we should be told. They must have been pretty feeble denunciations -- I for one have not the least recollection of any of them.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 11:02 AM

36 hours is still a lie.
Why do you do it Musket?
Is it a compulsion?
Should we pity you?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 11:21 AM

Sure thing Michael.

www.mudcat.org

You will find it all there.

Sorry I don't do cut and paste unless I feel it relevant. I use Mudcat.org for debate rather than top trumps.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 12:10 PM

Oh, wow, Musket. Now that is certainly definitive. I am entirely convinced by the incomparable conclusiveness of your arguments; and so are my cat Cleo and my wife's admirable collection of Teddy Bears, Jemima, Juniper, Roo, Sophie, Jersey, & Emmie, with one Panda called Pandora. How could any of us ever have doubted the entire veracity of every assertion you have ever promulgated on this site!

Kamerad! Kamerad!

teeheeheeheeheehee...

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 02:50 PM

What isn't widely known is that Kipling was very pointedly referring to Members of Parliament who before the war had denied there was any need for greater defense appropriations or a better equipped British Army.

Kipling's son John was killed on his first day of action. Kipling, who was neither a fool nor a dupe nor a profiteer, continued to support the Allied war effort to the end.

According to Oxford historian Margaret MacMillan:

"The wartime generals were not all cowards and incompetents as Alan Clark argued in his infamous 'The Donkeys' (1961). ... And was the war just a dreadful mistake or was it about something? ... It is condescending and wrong to think they were hoodwinked. British soldiers felt they were fighting for their country and its values."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 28 Dec 13 - 05:42 PM

British soldiers felt they were fighting for their country and its values, wrong though they may have been.

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

Why were they wrong Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 01:46 AM

You said, Dec 3, 2pm,
So you actually believe Germany had a snowball's chance in hell of invading occupying and taking over the British Isles?

Invasion was recognised as a serious threat in 1914, and many regiments were deployed to meet it.

page 125
"In 1914, invasion preparations and home defence measures were taken all along the east coast of Britain, from Scotland to Sussex.
While the authorities tried to keep these preparations out of the public eye-to avoid scaremongering, people witnessed them, stoking fear and anxiety.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lVK0SSmvD5wC&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=invasion+preparation+1914&source=bl&ots=qPt2tdhG9V&sig=JIZ

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 03:07 AM

Wasn't Alan Clark right wing enough for you then Keith?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 07:12 AM

The one thing we don't know or understand is how people thought then. Watching old newsreels of the pals regiments being formed the patriotism the people had we can't start to understand. The belief that the viscous Hun was about to arrive on our shores drove people on to protect their families. Some people saw it as a great adventure. People still join the forces today arguably more informed that our ancestors and still suffer the ravages of war and conflicts. No matter how you view it, how you discuss it, still a sad loss of life.
Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 07:17 AM

Yes Keith.
The scale of the losses almost incomprehensible.
First Guest, I am not Right Wing, and what has politics to do with it anyway?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: selby
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 09:07 AM

07:12 guest was me had been signed out.
Keith

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 12:30 PM

"I am right of centre."

"I read what the historians wrote."

Keith A of Hertford.

Lighter notes The Donkeys (1961) by leading historian the late Alan Clark. His post was, to most people reading this thread in bemusement an example of how later historians are dismissing the work of credible historians such as Clark.

I asked the question in a mocking sense, as your stance is absurd. As many here are pointing out.

Do you have actual thoughts on the war, based on the copious amount of reading you have done? Any fruits of your efforts?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 12:42 PM

I am centre-right, the majority position here.
That puts me well to the left of most US Democrats.
My stance?
Absurd?
I read the History.
There is now a consensus on the issues we have discussed.
I would not be such an arrogant fool to believe it to be all wrong and me right.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket finding his brown shirt
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 04:44 PM

Are you sure centre right is the majority position here?

For every wannabe Farage we have a few armchair socialists.

As your reputation as Mr Logic is fairly established, what does centre right mean? What figures do you have to substantiate your claim ? Or are you making it up again ?

If it means sharing your take on society, I must be a raving tree hugger peering out of my yurt. Note to self. Pick up a copy of The Guardian.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 06:35 PM

what has politics to do with it anyway?

Jesus wept. Again.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 06:56 PM

"The belief that the viscous Hun was about to arrive on our shores drove people on to protect their families."

The above sentence could be a true representation of what the British public believed.

It could also be a true representation of what the German public believed about Jews in November 1938, and for the exact same reason.....................PROPAGANDA!

Remember the events of Kristalnacht?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 07:06 PM

It appals me that people can accept the effectiveness of Goebbels' propaganda in propelling Hitler to the heights of a godlike leader, yet in the next breath, deny that the same techniques had any effect on the British public in WW1.

After all, our lads wouldn't be fooled by that, being so much smarter than the Hun!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 29 Dec 13 - 07:08 PM

Last guest was me!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 30 Dec 13 - 01:15 AM

Someone appears to be a little slow shouting liar! at the posts above?

Must be one hell of a cut and paste coming our way.

Take cover ! Incoming !




False alarm.
Still waiting.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 30 Dec 13 - 04:43 AM

Three hours on. Keith has posted on other threads yet remains somewhat quiet here.

Can't wait to see what we have all got wrong now!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Dec 13 - 04:48 AM

People are expressing opinions Musket.
No-one has lied.
I am not challenging anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Dec 13 - 05:45 AM

University Of Leicester. Department of Politics and International Relations.
"Party competition on the centre right of British politics has intensified in the last decade, with New Labour occupying territory traditionally inhabited by the Conservative Party and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) emerging as a rival to the Conservatives on their right flank. "

http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/politics/research/research-projects/centre-right


Can we drop the politics?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 30 Dec 13 - 07:12 AM

Be my guest.

Fancy the dropping the liar claim you make at me



And Greg




And Jim



And anyone not commissioned by The BBC to comment on history. Subjective discussion papers by universities over the basis of your angle on matters isn't entirely useful either.

How about what Keith thinks? Is that too hard without links to opinions of others portrayed as unequivocal facts by you?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Dec 13 - 07:55 AM

Which lie do you want to be forgiven for?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Aldridge Prior, the hopeless liar
Date: 30 Dec 13 - 08:14 AM

Ooh.. I don't know Keith.

I've posted so many posts, mostly as a guest, that I don't know how many posts I need forgiving for?

Are you including everything I say or just the things that upset your preconceptions of how the world spins?

You see, to your mind, they are all lies.


zzzzzz

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Dec 13 - 08:24 AM

No.
When you posted about schoolkids cut up and fed to pigs, I asked you for details and searched for it myself.
You made it up.
It was a lie.

Likewise when you posted a "quote" and claimed it was from a non-existent site.
Google could only find your posting of it.
It was a lie.

Then you claimed that the November 2013 HPA/PHE November report on 2012 was an "interim report" and was "superseded."
None of that was true.

If you do not want to be known as a liar, stop making shit up.