BS: Armistice Day (debate)

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.