BS: Armistice Day (debate)

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.