BS: Armistice Day (debate)

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 - 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
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: Lighter
Date: 14 Nov 13 - 09:41 AM

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: 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: 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: 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 - 03:04 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: Lighter
Date: 13 Nov 13 - 02:35 PM

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: 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: 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: 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,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: 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,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 - 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 (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: 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 (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: 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: 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: 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 - 06:00 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: 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: 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 - 05:40 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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 - 04:08 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 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 - 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: 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: 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 - 03:45 PM

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 - 03:04 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: 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: 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: 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.