WWI, was No-Man's Land

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:49 AM

Steve recently posted some thoughts on the Somme.
I find I have a book on my shelves on that subject by military historian Malcolm Brown.
The famous historian Richard Holmes said of it in The Times Literary Supplement, "If you can buy only one book on the Somme, it should be Malcolm Brown's powerful and scholarly account."

From the foreword.
"The character of the Somme fighting is seen as so appalling and the losses it entailed so unimaginably huge that decent civilised people find themselves, as it were, angrily demanding that it should be called off, for the sake of the wretched victims duped into fighting it.
The advantage of researching what the alleged victims wrote at the time is that they don't seem to have seen things that way. Even those who clearly deplored the brutal, inhuman aspects of the Somme - and there are not a few of that persuasion in this book - believed that there was no option other than that of carrying on with the fighting. They might not like the practice, but there was little argument with the principle. After all, the Germans were occupying French and Belgian soil and had to be removed."

He quotes Charles Carrington who wrote the "classic" A Subaltern's War in 1929. "The Somme battle raised the morale of the British Army. Although we did not win a decisive victory there was what matters most, a definite and growing sense of superiority over the enemy. man to man....We were quite sure that we had the Germans beat: next spring we would deliver the knock-out blow."

Prof. Dr. Gary Sheffield in the interview I mentioned last week.

How about your view of the most decisive battle?

"I would argue that the single most decisive battle came two years earlier, on the Somme."
http://www.historynet.com/interview-with-military-historian-gary-sheffield.htm

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:42 AM

Steve, we are having a debate about the History of WWI
My views come from reading History so I can quote any number of historians to support them.

Those who argue against me have been unable to find a single historian to support them, so they have lost the debate.
They lose.
OK Steve.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:32 AM

I suppose its like discussing the Hillsborough disaster and what happened there with a South Yorkshire police officer....

Thanks for saying what my mindset is by the way. For fuck's sake, don't let me ask you what the time is, or where the gents are.

The sad fact is, men were led by incompentent top brass, on a wave of jingoism and their methods of engaging in the theatre of war led to unnecessary death and sheer slaughter on a scale they were, up till it became fashionable to be proud of failure, rightly castigated and made to be ashamed of.

Our past is a stain on the memory of a generation we pushed into the machine guns and celebrated another half a yard of mud for another few months.

The more you keep selectively quoting commentators who by their nature look for angles away from the norm, the more stupid you look.   Now, I don'thave a problem with that. I have a mate who gets all upset and thinks we are all thick for believing men went to the moon. Just bcause someone is gormless doesn't make them bad in general.

But calling people dumb for weiging up the evidence and forming accurate conculsions just makes your credibility about zero. Keith I can understand. He plays with his toy soldiers all his life and sees military leaders as heroes, so it must hurt to grow up and see that they are not society heroes after all, but gung ho callous fools. Keith can't handle that. Hence the childish "you lose" comments that perfectly describe his immature approach.

But you seem to be the real thing. Rather intriguing in an irrelevant kind of way.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:11 AM

Most certainly Musket you dumb Ox you are after all being slaughtered - you're only too dumb to appreciate that fact.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 04:05 AM

Sniff sniff

Here, can you smell bullshit?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 03:14 AM

"I think I may have mentioned how one historian, an eminent one at that, (you prefer that type, don't you) made it quite clear, from contemporary research, interviews and studying memoirs that the senior staff in WW2 felt they were well equipped, having learned from the blunders and callous attitude to their men that they saw when junior officers in WW1."

And the context in which that eminent historian of yours came out with that was what? A study of the Second World War Commanders or a study of the First World War Commanders?

Now this bit of it is ridiculous when you take it in isolation as you have done Musket (You ducked this before when I mentioned it so I will repeat myself):

"senior staff in WW2 felt they were well equipped, having learned from the blunders and callous attitude to their men that they saw when junior officers in WW1."

They learned their tactics and they learned their craft during the First World War, some of them kept pace with and appreciated changes brought about by advances in science and technology. Unfortunately for all these brilliant British Senior Officers of WW2 that AJP Taylor witters on about Musket the ones who had kept pace, etc were all German, and all those brilliant Senior British Generals who had learned so much from the blunders of their leaders in WW1 were not so hot in the period 1939 to 1942. In fact Musket all those brilliant Senior British Generals who learned so much from the blunders of their leaders in WW1 came damned close to losing the entire BEF in 1940 didn't they - that is how good they were - that is how well they had learned their lessons. Remembering all the time that in 1939 and in 1940 the British and French outnumbered the attacking Germans, had more artillery than the attacking Germans, had more aircraft than the attacking Germans and actually had numerical and technological superiority in tanks compared to the Germans - They just didn't have a f**kin clue how to either command them or deploy them - Same could not be said of the likes of Plumer, Rawlinson, Byng, Currie and Monash during the First World War. The Commanders of the BEF during the First Wolrd War were at least skillful enough to keep it intact as a fighting force whilst waiting for the mass mobilisation to bulk it up. The only things that saved the BEF in the Second World War from complete destruction was their ability to run (fast), the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force.

Rather liked this though:

"I actually read rather than search."

Well when it comes to discussing historical events what the F**K are you reading the Whippet Section of "Sporting Life"?? Whatever it is it obviously doesn't have any connection with the subject under discussion.

I have stated the following on the OWALW Thread but it applies equally here and is relevant - Keith A of Hertford is right there is only one history but that doesn't stop there being many interpretations of it by people with vastly varying skills, knowledge and abilities when it comes to examining the events. In the case of yourself, Christmas and Steve Shaw you are all hidebound in your mindset of today's mores, memes and attitudes, hellbent on your insistence that they somehow could have ever been applicable and adopted by those in charge of events and having to deal with real problems over 100 years ago. You have displayed little or no skill in understanding the events, the problems faced, or the solutions available to those involved. All that coupled with a brilliantly demonstrated woeful lack of knowledge.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 14 - 02:37 AM

"We gained five miles in over four months at the cost of a million and a quarter casualties all round, and we still had two more bitter years of war to go. Hardly a cunning tactical plan, was it, and what a waste of life." - The Steve Shaw reprise of the Battle of the Somme

VERSUS what WAS actually won on the Somme in 1916:

The breaking of moral of the German Army
The destruction and loss of the best and most experienced troops in the German Army.
The realisation within the German High Command that it was impossible for them to defeat the combined armies of Great Britain and France on the Western Front.

The politicians in Great Britain in August 1914 knew that the war would be prolonged, Kitchener had predicted three to four years at the least. By 1915 most of Great Britain's political leaders thought that the war wouldn't end until 1919 at the earliest and more probably sometime late in 1920. On the Somme over the four months of the battle Haig and Rawlison found the means that led them to believe that the war would be over much quicker than that, and had the heavy and unseasonal rain not fallen and had British troops not been sent to bolster up the Italians after Caporetto, then using the lessons learned and the tactics pioneered the previous year on the Somme the war would have ended in 1917. Haig could not have predicted or done anything about the weather, but it was Lloyd George at home that robbed him of troops and sent them to Italy.

On Passchendaele, Liddle, P. H. (1997), Passchendaele in Perspective: The Third Battle of Ypres. London: Pen & Sword. ISBN 0-85052-588-8. page 71:

"Paddy Griffith wrote that the bite and hold system kept moving until November because the BEF had developed a workable system of offensive tactics against which the Germans ultimately had no answer.

Study of the Official German Documents and Reports studied by Professor J. E. Edmonds in 1948 showed that in German General Staff publications that, "Germany had been brought near to certain destruction by the Flanders battle of 1917".

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw, lossless
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 07:12 PM

What's with all this "you lose" business, Keith? You are doing it a worryingly large amount lately. It sounds like you keep having to convince yourself of something, that you're having an insecurity crisis. It's a laughable way to proceed, Keith. I love it.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 04:32 PM

Jim,
"Your latest champion bases her thesis on the complex and conflicting reasons why men enlisted - no consensus, even within her own work."

Completely made up shit.
A lie Jim, as is your remark about Hastings.

You are a desperate, sad loser.

(Or will you back up your lies)

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 03:58 PM

I have not selected.
We have all failed to find a single one who thinks different.
You lose.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10931918/Historian-Dan-Snow-received-hate-mail-for-debunking-World-War-I-myths.html

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 03:54 PM

"On the issues I have have raised, the Historians all agree"
Utter nonsense - you have carefully selected from four historians - you have never given the slightest impression of having read more, on the contrary, you refused to even consider the list of those actively studying the war as being too many.
Three of those you have cited have stated that the commonly held view must be challenged - if there is a consensus, what is there to challenge?
Your former champion, the tabloid journalist Max Hastings, has declared his contempt for the conduct of the the military - so there's a historian (of sorts) who doesn't fit your consensus.
Your latest champion bases her thesis on the complex and conflicting reasons why men enlisted - no consensus, even within her own work.
One can only wonder why you are prepared to spend so much time contradicting and denigrating those who actually fought the war in favour of the modern trend of making it antiseptic - well no, that's not entirely true, one can perfectly well understand it in the light of your political views.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 03:18 PM

On the issues I have have raised, the Historians all agree.
Unless you have found one that does not, you lose.
Have you?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Ed T
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 03:11 PM

"All this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should occur rather than that any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country`s pride." Bertrand Russell on WW1

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 02:22 PM

Jim, I have pasted in quotes of historians because I can.
My case is that the Historians know about their subject.
You can not paste in any quotes because there are none that support you.
Your case is that they are all wrong.

Unless the historians are all wrong, you lose.
Found one yet?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 12:57 PM

"History better than historians."
You have yet to give one quote you haven't cut-'n-pasted, you you have o fore-knowledge whatever

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: GUEST,Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 12:16 PM

What planet?

Well.

What I know (not from Blackadder) is that the German lines were bombarded by us for a week before that infamous first day. Fritz knew exactly what we were up to, though, didn't he. We thought we'd snuffed 'em, didn't we, but they were a damn sight better defended than we thought, weren't they. They were lying low, not lying dead, weren't they. And it didn't help that lots of our shells were duff and never went off, did it. So when the order came to walk towards their trenches we thought it would be be a walkover, didn't we, but it wasn't, was it, and we bagged 60000 casualties in next to no time, didn't we. As for the upshot of the Somme that you so enthusiastically regaled me with, well here's how I see it. We gained five miles in over four months at the cost of a million and a quarter casualties all round, and we still had two more bitter years of war to go. Hardly a cunning tactical plan, was it, and what a waste of life. Sorry for not being an historian. Or, as Keith sometimes likes to put it, a Historian.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 11:49 AM

What is hilarious Musket is a buffoon like you thinking he knows History better than historians.
I have just put up what they say.
You can find not one single living historian who still believes all that class war shit.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 11:29 AM

Your perfectly correct?

Tell you what, it isn't just grammatical errors you should be apologising for!
🐴🐴🐴🐴

Keith. Saying you have been reading it and studying it all your life just makes it all the more hilarious!

🙈🙊🙉

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 11:01 AM

" have been reading the History of this all my adult life."
Yeah - sure you have - have reminded you of your Christine Kenealy cut-'n-paste fiasco on 'tother thread
Clown
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 10:20 AM

You're - Your perfectly correct Musket thank you, but I noticed it the second I had pressed "Submit".

You are however, still waffling.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 08:59 AM

I have been reading the History of this all my adult life.
I am able to quote historians to support my views because I got my views from them.
You clowns can produce nothing because your views are based on nothing but ignorance and prejudice.
Can you produce anything, or shall we leave it here?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 08:49 AM

And if that reality walked into this pub now with its blood soaked indifference, I'd say Oy! NO!

zzzzzzz

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 08:38 AM

"You two believe that you understand History better than The Historians."
And you claim to understand history without ever having read a book on the subject
Terrytoon still appears to be somewhere on the Somme, fighting the good fight - too busy to read
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 08:37 AM

No, no. It's You're waffling Musket not Your waffling Musket.

If you can't speak of reality, at least address your fantasy in ways that make you appear intelligent if you wish to have any credibility at all.

🐴

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 08:05 AM

Your waffling Musket

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 08:01 AM

"anyone reading Teribus's and Keith's valiant defence of the organisation and competence of the British military leadership, who then goes on to read an account of the Battle of the Somme, will come away wondering what bloody planet these two are on." - Steve Shaw

Really Steve?? Have you ever read anything based factually on what occurred on the Western Front in 1916? Or are you too, locked into OWALW and Blackadder Goes Forth?

1916 the year of the big German Offensive:

Falkenhayn the German Commander on the Western Front wanted to mount a major offensive his desire to bleed the allies white.

OK then Steve old son, taking everything you say is true about the British at face value, Falkenhayn has got two candidates to attack:

1: The smaller, weaker, incompetently led British located in a position that if he is successful will knock the British out of France leaving him free to sweep down on Paris and win the war

2: The much larger French Army.

Which does he choose to attack? He chooses to attack the French at a place called Verdun, the battle lasts from 21st February 1916 to 18th December 1916 and results in a French victory.

I would be interested in hearing why you think he made the decision to attack at Verdun instead of attacking the British?

Now the French are being sorely pressed at Verdun and would like their allies the British to attack the Germans somewhere else along the line to relieve the pressure on the French fighting at Verdun. The British and French politicians and the French High Command agree that Haig should attack on the Somme - neither the timing of the attack or the location of the attack are those that would have been selected by Haig, they are forced upon him by his superiors.

The Somme Battle:
It took place between the 1st July and 18th November. The result of the battle was considered to be inconclusive but is notable for it demonstrating the importance of air power and the first use of the tank. At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 6 miles (9.7 km) into German-occupied territory, taking more ground than any offensive since the Battle of the Marne in 1914.

"General Sir Douglas Haig, the commander of the BEF, and General Henry Rawlinson, commander of the Fourth Army, have been criticised ever since, for the human cost of the battle and for failing to achieve their territorial objectives. On 1 August 1916 Winston Churchill criticised the British Army's conduct of the offensive to the British Cabinet, claiming that though the battle had forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was damaging the British armies more than the German armies. Though Churchill was unable to suggest an alternative, a critical view of the British on the Somme has been influential in English-language writing ever since.

A rival conclusion by some historians (Terraine, Sheffield, Duffy, Chickering, Herwig and Philpott et al.) is that there was no strategic alternative for the British in 1916 and that an understandable horror at British losses is insular, given the millions of casualties borne by the French and Russian armies since 1914. This school of thought sets the battle in a context of a general Allied offensive in 1916 and notes that German and French writing on the battle puts it in a continental perspective, which is inaccessible to anglophone monoglots because much of the writing has yet to be translated. The Battle of the Somme has been called the beginning of modern all-arms warfare, during which Kitchener's Army learned to fight the mass-industrial war, which the continental armies had been engaged in for two years. This view sees the British contribution to the battle as part of a coalition war and part of a process, which took the strategic initiative from the German Army and caused it irreparable damage, leading to its collapse in late 1918.

By the end of the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Verdun the German Army had lost the best of its men on the Western Front. In the period January 1917 to march 1917 continued British actions forced the Germans back a further 8 miles

The Germans considered that their selected strategy and attacks were so successful in 1916 Steve old son that they sacked their Commander in August 1916. Here is what Generalleutnant von Fuchs said on the 20th January 1917:

"Enemy superiority is so great that we are not in a position either to fix their forces in position or to prevent them from launching an offensive elsewhere. We just do not have the troops.... We cannot prevail in a second battle of the Somme with our men; they cannot achieve that any more

After 1916 Steve, the German High Command knew that they could not win on the Western Front.

OK chum which planet are you living on?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 07:27 AM

"Either or"

You two believe that you understand History better than The Historians.
That makes you a laughing stock.
You two believe that the historians are collaborating in a conspiracy to hide the truth.
Even more laughable.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 07:22 AM

Getting desperate aren't we. fool?

As you seem to revel in irrelevant but somehow connected facts, try this. The Academy of Royal Colleges accepted podiatry as a surgical speciality as opposed to general surgery as a result of the many variations of trench foot presenting during and immediately after WW1. The huge numbers led to allowing a post graduate qualification for chiropodists rather than make it a GMC specialist register (equivalent) requirement.

I don't know why you hung onto the trench foot, but the only bloated anything at Glastonbury 1998 was my gut after a dodgy kebab. The toilet attendants from Water Aid made a few bob out of me.

That was real shit,not your bullshit.

💩

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 07:10 AM

"I've just been looking at photos of all these modern historians in the trenches, watching their feet rot at the same rate as the bloated horses along the supply lines."

Hey Musket, if you've got a fiddle you could put that to music. Although if you want to discuss the most recent outbreaks of what became known as "Trench Foot" you need go no further back than:

2013 - Leeds Festival
2012 - Download Festival
2009 - Leeds Festival
2007 - Glastonbury Festival
1998 - Glastonbury Festival

Exposure of feet to cold, wet, insanitary conditions for periods of up to three or more days.

What was your myth again Musket related to all those "historians" you were referring to - something to do with them spending "years in the trenches" wasn't it?

Your point once all the bullshit has been cleared away?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 06:59 AM

Either / or.

it works with ignorant peasants.

💩

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 06:44 AM

"Words in your mouth"
So you do not accuse the Historians of being "establishment lackeys" seeking to conceal the truth to protect the establishment, or that you think Historians are wrong and should "know better" ?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 06:22 AM

No and no.

You do keep putting words in the mouths of those who make you look foolish, don't you?

Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom BoomBoom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom BoomBoom Boom Boom thick Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom BoomBoom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom cunt Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom BoomBoom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 06:21 AM

Jim, your claim to have a hundred historians you COULD quote, is an obvious and silly lie.
You have not got a single one.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 04:31 AM

"Unlike you pair of flag-waggers. I don't dig out 'historians" (or tabloid journalists) to make my case for me "

You can't because there are none who believe the shit that you two muppets do.
If you want to understand History you go to Historians.
I do not use them to "make my case for me" I got my case from them.

You two believe that you understand History better than The Historians.
That makes you a laughing stock.
You two believe that the historians are collaborating in a conspiracy to hide the truth.
Even more laughable.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 03:50 AM

Eehh, I've just been looking at photos of all these modern historians in the trenches, watching their feet rot at the same rate as the bloated horses along the supply lines.

I'm so glad they all seem to agree with each other. After all, they were a) obviously all there, so contemporary accounts are cast aside and b) whoever heard of a historian giving a different perspective to other historians???

Gosh. Perish the thought that tabloid editors would ever stray from factual reporting....

Have you any idea how stupid you both look?

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 03:47 AM

" Give us the name of one single historian who backs your perception as to how, why and what the First World War was about from the British Government of the day's point of view. I won't hold my breath."
When you elucidate on your "lying soldiers" statement I will re-supply the list of over 100 historians all holding varying and often contradictory views on the War, showing that your "consensus" on the war is a myth.
Unlike you pair of flag-waggers. I don't dig out 'historians" (or tabloid journalists) to make my case for me - I prefer a holistic approach to my history by taking the entire prevailing situation into consideration - that which led to the war, and everything that followed - itt was a struggle of Empires, and, as far as I am concerned, one was no better than the other.
That is a fairly popular view among most historians, that ha been what was taught in schools for at least the half century (to an extent) and that is what your historians (and tabloid journalist) have said they are seeking to revisit (read what they have said).
Keith says he (conveniently) doesn't remember the list - he has it and couldn't understand it in the first place (too much information for him) - and he is renowned for not reading beyond what he already agrees with
now about these "liars and misfits"......   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 03:00 AM

"The coming of the wireless era will make war impossible, because it will make war ridiculous." Guglielmo Marconi, 1912

Well that sort of conclusively demonstrated how much he knew didn't it.

Christmas, come on answer Keith's challenge - Give us the name of one single historian who backs your perception as to how, why and what the First World War was about from the British Government of the day's point of view. I won't hold my breath.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 24 Nov 14 - 02:02 AM

"You so lose."

Been watching CBeebies again have we? Get down and diss!

zzzzz

So reality has been summed up as wanting to believe a conspiracy about the establishment. Clapton wept......

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Ed T
Date: 23 Nov 14 - 05:23 PM

"The coming of the wireless era will make war impossible, because it will make war ridiculous." Guglielmo Marconi, 1912

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 14 - 03:29 PM

I do not remember you offering a hundred historians Jim.
I do remember asking over and over for a single one that believes the shit that you do.
Choose the best of your hundred and give us a quote why don't you?
Is it because you are talking bollocks and there is not a single one that believes anything like your shit?
Yes, but please, prove me wrong.
"Establishment lackeys"
So like Musket you want people to believe that the historians are lying preserve an establishment who all died long ago.
You so lose.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 14 - 03:08 PM

"You can not produce or find a single Historian who believes what you do."
I've given you the choice out of 100 - you refused even to look at them
You still have't provided one single statement from one reliable historian - every one you've mentioned (all three) is an establishment lackey - one is directly involved in the arms industry - what else are they going to say except "war is OK as long as our side is winning"?
You claim an "overwhelming majority" for your view - three lackeys and a tabloid journalist who thinks the British military was shit doesn't fit that description
Even your istorians don't claim a "majority" for their veiw - they all say "the popular view of the war must be challenged, making them the misfits.
Outmoded? - Flag-wagging jingoism is what is outmoded - lethally so in the case of W.W.1. - it sent the pride of British youth to their deaths for "God, King and Country".
Good cause - freedom from German tyranny?
I'm sure the Congolese would much rather have been slaughtered in their millions or had their hands removed by Gallant Little Belgium rather than those nasty Germans!
The War was hardly over when the British Army were slaughtering unarmed Indians at Amritsar - wasn't that much more preferable than being seen off by 'The Huns'?
Shortly afterwards British troops were firing into the football crowd at Croke Park during the first of several 'Bloody Sundays' - luck old Dubliners; it could easily have been German troops.
Then came the depression, the appeasement, the rise of fascism, bring with it the Holocaust - "Land fit for heroes" my arseum.
And it didn't stop there.... the Empire still had a few rabbits in its hat, as the castrated Kenyans have just testified.
Don't want a rose garden - you promised me a consensus - where is it?   
Mind you - the overwhelming support you're getting here might be the reason you believe "I've won" - but hang on a minute....!!
Looks like the rest of the world's mad and you and the Chocolate Soldier are the only sane ones - again - unless I've missed something!
Rule Britannia eh, keep the home fires burning till the "liars" come home, and all that
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 14 - 02:05 PM

Jim, you can not find a single historian who believes what you do.
The Times Higher Educational Supplement saw fit to publish deGeroot so why should anyone give a shit about what you think of him as a historian?!
Todman and Sheffield are both doctors and professors of History at prestigious universities, are the most published of any Historians on WWI and extensively used by the BBC so again, what is your opinion worth compared to them.
There are many more Historians whose own words I have quoted rubbishing your ignorance, and if you have forgotten I can easily post them and rub your nose in it again.
Have you found one single historian who believes the shit that you do Jim?
No, because there are none.
You lose.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 14 - 08:50 AM

"once the Germans decided to invade France through neutral Belgium, it was impossible for Britain, mindful of its own position within Europe and a guarantor of the small state's neutrality, to simply stand by. Not only that, when the conflict was only weeks old, the Germans were already compiling a shopping list of key territories they would seize after victory to secure their complete domination of Europe."
This quote, from tabloid writer, Max Hastings (just in case anybody should be confused into thinking it was out of your own fertile mind), makes the point perfectly that World War One was a territorial struggle between conflicting Empires - a family squabble over who gets the After Eights.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 23 Nov 14 - 06:11 AM

Oh, is that what they died of?

Thanks for that. I always say if you learn something new every day, you'll never be the bluntest chisel in the toolbox.

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Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Nov 14 - 05:06 AM

"I have read extensively on this"
No you haven't - you have consistently dredged the net for you pre-concieved opinions
Throughout all our arguments you have constantly whinged about being given 'too much information', making it n excuse not to respond to it.
Your latest dredge for 'historians' has produced two employees of the War Department and the founder of an organisation financed by the Danish Armament Industry - very trustworthy, I'm sure!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Nov 14 - 04:49 AM

They died defending Europe from. The onslaught of a massive and powerful war machine.

"once the Germans decided to invade France through neutral Belgium, it was impossible for Britain, mindful of its own position within Europe and a guarantor of the small state's neutrality, to simply stand by. Not only that, when the conflict was only weeks old, the Germans were already compiling a shopping list of key territories they would seize after victory to secure their complete domination of Europe."

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Musket
Date: 23 Nov 14 - 04:37 AM

So why did they all die then?

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Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 05:09 PM

The BBC had Max Hastings make a programme, "The Necessary War"
This is what BBC said about it.

Our perceptions of the First World War today are dominated by the idea it was a futile , a colossal waste of life, and an immense tragedy for Britain and all of Europe. It is a view that has been fostered by the war poets who wrote vividly about the experience of trench warfare, and by countless novels, films and television programmes in the years since. Many even go as far as suggesting that the First World War led directly to the rise of Hitler and the outbreak of the Second World War.

In a single documentary to mark the 100-year anniversary of the outbreak of war, Sir Max Hastings presents the argument that although it was a great tragedy, far from being futile, the First World War was completely unavoidable.

Max presents the case that the rulers of Germany in 1914 were intent on dominating Europe and, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in June 1914, actively encouraged the Austrians to invade Serbia. They were responsible for igniting the spark that turned a local controversy into a full-blown European war.

He also argues that once the Germans decided to invade France through neutral Belgium, it was impossible for Britain, mindful of its own position within Europe and a guarantor of the small state's neutrality, to simply stand by. Not only that, when the conflict was only weeks old, the Germans were already compiling a shopping list of key territories they would seize after victory to secure their complete domination of Europe.

Through conversations with the world's most eminent World War I scholars and military historians, including Sir Michael Howard, Sir Hew Strachan, Professor John Rohl and Professor Margaret MacMillan, Max explores the key questions surrounding the outbreak of the war and the necessity for Britain to step in.

He also explores how and why, once the war was over, the common perception of the conflict as a bungled, unnecessary bloodbath emerged. He examines the misconceptions that surround the Versailles peace agreement, which many unfairly blame for the outbreak of the Second World War, and the sense of disappointment and frustration created by economic and political turmoil of the 20s and 30s.

In conclusion Max argues that, while the centenary of the war is not a cause of jubilation, we should tell our children and grandchildren that their ancestors did not fight for nothing; if Germany had won, Europe would have paid a far more terrible price.

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 04:30 PM

http://www.warhistorian.org/todman.php

Subject: RE: WWI, was No-Man's Land
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Nov 14 - 04:24 PM

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/he-had-hatred-thrust-upon-him/99766.article