quote:

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Originally posted by Hawk:
Axis

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sighthound:
As it's over 100 years ago, I don't see how anyone could object. The Germans, Austrians and Turks are our friends and allies now - we should be over the old hatreds.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:

quote:

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Originally posted by Sighthound:
As it's over 100 years ago, I don't see how anyone could object. The Germans, Austrians and Turks are our friends and allies now - we should be over the old hatreds.

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You do, however, run against the historical facts that that group of people died in pursuit of a bad cause, whilst this group of people died in defence of a good cause (ok, it's not quite so simple, but you get the gist.) Whenever we commemorate the sacrifice of people in war we can't do it without remembering the context unless we sanitise history and make it all rose-tinted and dancing and fairies.

As for the question posed in the op - I don't know what my answer would be completely, I agree mostly with the article, and it raises some real points, and...

As a community we have these public commemorations to remember the fallen in our society, not other societies (though the sacrifices of the Commonwealth realms and nations are often incorporated into most of the commemorations I have attended in the UK) as these people fell for our society, in defence of our society adn not in defence of the enemies society and I guess whilst I still have family that fought in WWII alive my views are a little coloured and I will continue to think of commemorations as for the particular society in which they are 'celebrated', whilst the institutions we have created in the world, such as the UN and NATO are the perpetual memorials to all who died and that these institutions are their legacy seeking to create a more peaceful and fair society.

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The problem with discriminating along the lines of "good causes vs bad causes" is that history is written by the winners, who will always make great efforts to airbrush out any atrocious acts they committed along the way. You can add to that the problem that no state had any plausible claim to have been fighting a just war in WWI, except perhaps the Belgians who had their neutrality violated. You can certainly rule out the British and their Commonwealth client states, most of their involvement was more about expanding and consolidating their colonial possessions which is hardly a just cause.

The ordinary soldiers and field-grade officers who fought on the ground during the course of a war deserve to be remembered regardless of whether they were fortunate to be on the side which won the war and wrote the history - they were all fighting the noble cause of serving their country. It is the leaders of the states involved (both civilian and military) who deserve to have their actions analysed critically, including the leaders of the winning states who got to write the official history. That ordinary soldiers, sailors, airmen and field-grade officers had to go into battle because those leaders fucked up is a tragedy regardless of which nation they came from.


One thing that makes me proud of being an Australian is the special honour given to veterans and current service personnel from Turkey if they are in Australia at the time of ANZAC Day, they will be invited to take a highly honoured place in the veterans march to signify that both nations have learned from the Gallipoli campaign which is memorialised by ANZAC Day. Remembering the context here means acknowledging that neither side gained from that conflict, and that without the web of alliances and some truly incompetent British strategic planning there was no sane reason for Australians to be fighting against Turks at Gallipoli.


I would suggest that the best way to memorialise the centenary of WWI starting would be to focus on the context of WWI starting- world leaders on all sides fucking it up - and the great shame that so many from so many nations suffered the result of that. Jingoistic memorials to "our good boys" should carry on using the dates they normally use, to avoid crowding in on the global memorial to all military and civilian people who suffered from the war.

Communities which were directly affected by a particular battle and have an already-established tradition of marking that occasion (like the ANZAC Day service at the Villiers-Bretoneaux monument to Australia) should carry on marking that anniversary in the same way they normally do.

[ 12. February 2013, 17:32: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Even during World War I itself, there were demonstrations of respect for enemy soldiers that suggest to me the lower ranks saw each other as 'doing their job' for their respective countries.

More recent conflicts may well have had different attitudes, but I don't think the people of World War I would think there was anything wrong with remembering those who died in opposition.

[ 12. February 2013, 17:33: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by the giant cheeseburger (# 10942) on :
 
That's a good point.

I would support that by pointing to the differences between WWI and WWII in terms of direct civilian impact (mainly the development of aerial bombing, but also mechanisation of armies) and the level of propaganda employed, facilitated by advances in communication technology. The contribution of this to the "total war" employed by both the Axis and Allied powers was to make it such that there was no difference between the people on the other side (civilian and military) and the army on the other side, whereas in WWI soldiers only fought against the army on the other side and attacking the civilian population was still less acceptable than it became during WWII.

<small>[ 07. February 2013, 13:48: Message edited by: the giant cheeseburger ]</small>

[ 12. February 2013, 17:33: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Sergius-Melli. Which is which?

[ 12. February 2013, 17:34: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :
 
If a set of remains can be identified as UK, Empire or German forces make that notation on the marker. If a name can be attached even better. BUT I think it is time for WW I remains to be treated equeally.

[ 12. February 2013, 17:34: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :
 
One of my favorite descriptions of a WWI warrior is An Irish Airman Forsees His Death. The Irish oppressed had little reason to wish to put their lives on the line for the Empire at that point. But some did fight.

People on all sides fought for different reasons, and those that died died a difficult death.

[ 12. February 2013, 17:35: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
I would feel uncomfortable about formally honouring the Ottoman fallen until the Turkish state has acknowledged the Armenian genocide.

[ 12. February 2013, 17:35: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
A while back I heard a moving account of the experiences of a man from the Indian sub-Continent who was conscripted to fight on the British side.

Indian conscripts had never experienced industrialized slaughter on the scale seen in WW1 .
Something that struck a note of futility/poignancy was when he told of how he, and his Indian comrades, would pull their turbans over their eyes to protect themselves from gas while going over the top.

Coming back to OP my guess is , with the current militaristic mood, the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WW1 will be used to promote sense of nationalism over a feeling of tragedy.

[ 09. February 2013, 09:47: Message edited by: rolyn ]
 

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Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
Go back to 1934:

quote:

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Gallipoli - Memorial at Anzac Cove by Ataturk.
"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…
You are now living in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours…
You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."
Ataturk, 1934

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quote:

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Originally posted by Hawk:
...next year's WWI centenary...

...mourn the deaths of all those who died in this tragic conflict, British, Allies and Axis alike...

...But...dying in war is special, that it is a dishonour to the dead to extricate their death from the meaning of their sacrifice...

What do you think?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Net Spinster:
I agree Belle Ringer.

My great grandfather fought and was wounded at Gallipoli. His future son-in-law, my great-uncle, had a brother, Ferenc Békássy, killed fighting for Austro-Hungary; his name is listed in King's College, Cambridge, though on a separate wall (he had been a student there). War destroys.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rolyn:
A while back I heard a moving account of the experiences of a man from the Indian sub-Continent who was conscripted to fight on the British side.

Indian conscripts had never experienced industrialized slaughter on the scale seen in WW1.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
Either going to war because of known dodgy evidence means you can't be remembered*, or it does, or their some special 'unless it's Britain(/America)' clause. If it's the third lets be honest and replace 'never again' with 'until next time'. If the second what's the problem, the first...I really hope that's not the case.

Sometime around the 100 years anniversary seems a good to mourn all the dead, if not now within 5 years.

*and this distinction doesn't really apply to WW1 where the starting was decidedly mixed.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:
I would feel uncomfortable about formally honouring the Ottoman fallen until the Turkish state has acknowledged the Armenian genocide.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bran Stark:

quote:

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Originally posted by rolyn:
A while back I heard a moving account of the experiences of a man from the Indian sub-Continent who was conscripted to fight on the British side.

Indian conscripts had never experienced industrialized slaughter on the scale seen in WW1.

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Strange, I thought for sure that the colonial army of India was all volunteers.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Bran Stark:
Strange, I thought for sure that the colonial army of India was all volunteers.

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OK, thanks for putting me straight . It was from a TV documentary a while back , and I've watched way too many since .
Although, yes, having "volunteered" I guess it was a case of ,-- your in the Army now son. Oh, and BTW what's 'Cannon fodder' in Indian ?
_________________________________________________

Having actually now read the link in OP . I disagree that we can't expect people to fight , and possibly make the ultimate sacrifice if we regard WW1 as a universal tragedy.
After-all wasn't it regarded as such throughout much of the inter-war period ? This didn't prevent our Countrymen and women motivating themselves ,(reluctantly), to repel the Nazi threat.
 

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Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Net Spinster:
I agree Belle Ringer.

My great grandfather fought and was wounded at Gallipoli. His future son-in-law, my great-uncle, had a brother, Ferenc Békássy, killed fighting for Austro-Hungary; his name is listed in King's College, Cambridge, though on a separate wall (he had been a student there). War destroys.

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quote:

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In memory of the men of this college who coming from a foreign land entered into the inheritance of this place and returning fought and died for their country in the war 1914 - 1919

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quote:

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Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:

quote:

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Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:

quote:

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Originally posted by Sighthound:
As it's over 100 years ago, I don't see how anyone could object. The Germans, Austrians and Turks are our friends and allies now - we should be over the old hatreds.

---

You do, however, run against the historical facts that that group of people died in pursuit of a bad cause, whilst this group of people died in defence of a good cause

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The problem with discriminating along the lines of "good causes vs bad causes" is that history is written by the winners, who will always make great efforts to airbrush out any atrocious acts they committed along the way. You can add to that the problem that no state had any plausible claim to have been fighting a just war in WWI, except perhaps the Belgians who had their neutrality violated. You can certainly rule out the British and their Commonwealth client states, most of their involvement was more about expanding and consolidating their colonial possessions which is hardly a just cause.

The ordinary soldiers and field-grade officers who fought on the ground during the course of a war deserve to be remembered regardless of whether they were fortunate to be on the side which won the war and wrote the history - they were all fighting the noble cause of serving their country.

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This is true up to a point. But it ignores the case of personal ethics. Is it good enough for a soldier to invade another country without consideration of the rights and wrongs of the matter? No soldier can hide behind 'orders' and 'just doing his job'. Or can they? Is merely 'serving one's country' enough to be considered an noble cause, and worthy of honour, no matter what that service looks like?

Surely it is vital that every individual judge for themselves the ethics of their actions and obey or disobey orders of their leaders based on their free-will and conscience.

Should the German soldiers have invaded Belgium in their service to Germany? Was there any ethical reason for this? Can they be blamed for their actions?

Were the British soldiers right to have journeyed to foreign trenches to defend their allies, to protect their neighbour's land? Was it ethical to kill Germans in that situation - in their attempt to repel the German advance into their ally's country?

If you claim that a soldier's sacrifice should be commemorated just in recognition of their service, no matter what the actions and ethics of that service actually entailed, then should we commemorate German soldiers of WWII as well, most of whom willingly and enthusiastically participated in the holocaust, both directly and indirectly.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, - Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est

[ 12. February 2013, 17:23: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by edgeofthecity (# 17557) on :
 
Hi everyone. I've been a lurker on this forum for quite a while but decided to register and post as, being a former British soldier myself, this is a topic that is particularly close to my heart.

During my time in uniform, I took part in two military campaigns - the NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and the counter-insurgency ***ration that took place in the years following the invasion of Iraq. Both of those campaigns were immensely complex and on neither occasion could any of the participating sides (mine included) be said to be clearly on the side of the angels. That doesn't do much for my ability to sleep soundly every night but has given me a perspective on war that goes beyond narrow national sentiment and gives me some appreciation of the fact that a conflict viewed from afar (whether in time or distance) rarely looks as it does up close. I h*** you don't mind if I make a couple of points, largley motivated by some of what has been posted so far.

If you fancy a few hours depressing - if sadly predictable - reading, just bring up a few Great War videos on YouTube and take a look at the comments underneath. Even below anti-war videos and those posted for the purpose of remembrance, you're likely to come across reams of chest-thumping comments extolling the merits of a particular country's soldiers, as well as others castigating the soldiers of other countries as cowards (and worse). It doesn't say much for humanity that we appear to have learnt precisely nothing since 1918 and will happily insult soldiers who went through hell from the comfort of our bedrooms.

From personal experience, I can say that the whole idea that there are ever 'goodies and baddies' is a complete myth and things that filter through to the popular imagination are often based more on sentiment than fact. One of the greatest lessons Bosnia taught me was that received wisdom is not necessarily based on fact. Britain may have officially gone to war in 1914 to protect Belgian neutrality but did so with one eye on protecting it's own colonial interests. 11,000 ANZACS may have been butchered as a direct result of the incompetence of the British political establishment at Gallipoli but so were 21,000 British soldiers, who certainly weren't 'drinking tea on the beach'. Turkey may have had her territory violated but was herself an oppressive imperial power. And on and on, myth piled on myth, serving only to obscure the fact that the vast majority of soldiers from every nation were ordinary men and boys who may have enlisted out of a sense of duty, patriotism or simply for adventure but had no control of the course or conduct of the war beyond the purely personal. Like soldiers everywhere and in every age, most were not heroes, cowards or war criminals. They were the same people as we are, plunged into extraordinary circumstances, and all deserve to be remembered with equal respect.

During my time in Iraq, 29 British soldiers were killed, along with over 700 Americans, 1 Australian and a number of soldiers from other coalition countries. As I was based for a time at Basra Airport, I was able to attend two repatriation ceremonies, when the bodies of eight fallen British soldiers were loaded onto Hercules transport aircraft for the final journey home. Before the union-jack covered coffins were taken up the loading ramp, an army Padre stood over them and gave a collective eulogy. What struck me at the time, and on every Remembrance Sunday since, is that Imams down in Basra would have been saying much the same sort of thing when burying the dead of the Mahdi Army and other insurgent groups. Despite the propaganda on both sides, they died fighting for their own beliefs and deserve to be remembered just as much as those who fell wearing the same uniform as myself.

The events that will take place 2014-2018 offer a unique opportunity for the former Great Powers, their former colonies and allies to move beyond tabloid headlines of 'Achtung Fritz', accusations between nations of cowardice, betrayal etc and acknowledge that not only was the war a collective experience, but that the memories of national heroism and glory, as well as the mistakes and blunders, belong to a generation that has now passed on. It is our responsiblity to learn from the common human sacrifice and we can make a start on doing that by making the commemorations collective and by making an effort as individuals to stop tearing strips off people of other nations who bear no responsibility for the real or imagined sins of their fathers.

(Off-topic but the legal principle established at Nuremburg is a bit more complicated than 'just following orders is no defence'. Individuals below the upper command echelons can only be held responsible for following an illegal order where they are competent to judge the legality of said order. Soldiers who have received basic training in the law of armed conflict all know that to murder a civilian is illegal. They are not expected to judge complex issues of international law and never have been, including at Nuremburg.)

(Also off-topic but, as stated above there was never conscription in India, or in Ireland for that matter. I've never seen any evidence to suggest that Indians were 'unofficially conscripted' or used as cannon-fodder. Quite the opposite in-fact, the Indian Expeditionary Force was moved out of the worst parts of the line on the Western Front in fairly short-order when it was realised that they could be more usefully employed in non-temperate theatres).


Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. - Wilfred Owen

[ 12. February 2013, 17:25: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
Welcome, edgeofthecity, and thank you for a thoughtful and moving post. I h*** you've been lurking long enough to realise the Ship isn't always quite as crazy as this - things will settle down in a bit, so that intelligent discussion can resume.


Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; - Wilfred Owen

[ 12. February 2013, 17:26: Message buggered about with by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by iamchristianhearmeroar (# 15483) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by edgeofthecity:
the memories of national heroism and glory, as well as the mistakes and blunders, belong to a generation that has now passed on

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quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Welcome, edgeofthecity, and thank you for a thoughtful and moving post. I h*** you've been lurking long enough to realise the Ship isn't always quite as crazy as this - things will settle down in a bit, so that intelligent discussion can resume.

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quote:

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Whence then have descended the Wisdom and Love That in man leap to light in intelligent fountains? ~John Townsend Trowbridge

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quote:

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Originally posted by iamchristianhearmeroar:
The bit I struggle with is what we, as Churches, should be doing on Remembrance Sunday, and even if there is a need for the Church to mark that Sunday at all - it is not after all a traditional church festival.

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St Martin's Day. Patron saint of both soldiers and pacifists. Quite fitting.
 

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Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :
 
Bit of an aside on the ethics of certain acts of war: I'd always known the bombing of Dresden by the allies in WW2 was controversial because of whether it was/wasn't a legitimate military target, but I'm ashamed to say I never looked in to the history of it. Then yesterday, being the 68th anniversary of the start of the bombardment, one of the few surviving eye witnesses, Victor Gregg, was recounting his memories of the scene on the Today programme.

I haven't been able to get the horror of it out of my head. I think it's the fact that so much thought seems to have gone into maximising the number of people who suffered absolutely horrific deaths.

The lives of the civilians lost on all sides in conflicts should be remembered as well as those of combatants on all sides.


 

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Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on :
 
ken: Reminds me of what Gen. Schwarzkopf said to the effect that "any good soldier should be anti-war. And yet there are still some things worth fighting for." I wish that wasn't so; how DO you respond to a 9/11, or troops streaming across the 38th parallel, or Pearl Harbor...

Maybe I'm getting softer as I get older. I was never in a combat situation. But I occasionally get to indulge in my flight simulation hobby - the real kind where you must actually be able to fly, and you don't have arcade style weapons virtually guaranteed to vaporize your "enemy" - anyway, as I got involved in a dogfight for the first time, I'm surprised at my own tension; suddenly a Zero crosses in front of me, I give a quick burst and he catches fire, rolling away - and I was stunned - and I find myself following him down urging in my mind, "Get out! Get out!" But he never did - my burst raked his engine and cockpit, and probably "killed" him (virtually, of course), but the impact on my thinking was profound. Wars are staged by the leaders but fought by men who, at the end of the day, simply want to go home and live in peace with their friends & families.

WWI was supposed to be "The war to end all wars." Maybe, just maybe, on it's 100th anniversary, it can still be so. I kinda doubt it, but you never know...

& welcome to our new friend, good 1st post!
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I have been uneasy since the idea was put forward. What are we going to be doing? Now that the last who were there have died, and cannot say what they think? I see that the idea is NOT to discuss the reasons of state involved (I quote Kipling there, in his story about Elizabeth I) behind the war, but things more local.
We do that without discussing how many names there are on some local memorials, how many from how few families.
Did Cameron at al have no-one in their family who died with their mind trapped in a field hospital in Flanders, no woman whose love never came back and has no known grave, no family Bible with a list of brothers dead?
Didn't they see "Oh what a lovely war!": didn't they read the poets; didn't they look at the art?
A letter in the Guardian today made the point about the true extent of the Christmas truce. Will we remember that and think what might have happened?
Or will we be, as the post above infers some are, trapped in the mindset of the hospital orderlies who would not nurse the German POWs who lay in separate wards in those field hospitals? (Source, my Grandad, who did nurse them, and died in nightmares in 1960.)
Just what exactly do they have in mind? The bells of hell go tingalingaling for us but clearly not for them.
 

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Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by TomOfTarsus:
ken: Reminds me of what Gen. Schwarzkopf said to the effect that "any good soldier should be anti-war. And yet there are still some things worth fighting for." I wish that wasn't so; how DO you respond to a 9/11, or troops streaming across the 38th parallel, or Pearl Harbor...

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quote:

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Originally posted by tclune:
...
...
As my daughter said when she was a toddler, "He hit me back first!"
[/QB]

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Kids! My youngest is autistic, and so got blamed for everything by the 4 older ones!

You've got good points. The Middle East is a mess of the colonial power's making, and our appetite for oil as well - but they do a pretty good job of going after each other, too. I'd feel a lot better about "American exceptionalism" if we didn't seem to have such dirty hands in so many affairs like that.

I never really addressed the question in the OP. In one way, I feel like it should be a collective repentance, that we should allow things to get so out of hand - I'm not as well-schooled in history as I ought to be, but ISTM that WWI was not as clearly about right and wrong as WWII is considered to be. The Christmas "truce" of 1914, the solemn burial by the Entente forces of the Red Baron with full Military honors, exchanges of wreaths, etc. - it just seems to me that the troops were a little less excited about this than the national leaders were, and tended to see, at least at times, each other as humans. Not that it wasn't brutal and horrible in every way - it just seemed a little different to me somehow.

Best,

Tom
 

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Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by TomOfTarsus:

WWI was supposed to be "The war to end all wars." Maybe, just maybe, on it's 100th anniversary, it can still be so. I kinda doubt it, but you never know...

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quote:

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Originally posted by rolyn:
It has been said that it was a war of Alliances , and a war rooted in philosophies and attitudes of that time. An accident waiting to happen.

It does have to be said though that Germany was rather better prepared for the *accident* when it did happen than were any of the Allies.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rolyn:
It has been said that it was a war of Alliances , and a war rooted in philosophies and attitudes of that time. An accident waiting to happen.

It does have to be said though that Germany was rather better prepared for the *accident* when it did happen than were any of the Allies.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cedd007:
Something else that suggests the rights and wrongs of international politics are not as black and white as we imagine was shown in the TV documentary the other day about the USA's plans to invade Canada in the 1930's, plans that were surprisingly well advanced. USA was concerned that Britain had a track record of eliminating her trade rivals, and the US thought they might be next on the list. Canada's rival plan (because she was obviously in the firing line) was to try to slow the American invasion down so that Imperial troops could come to their rescue. Unfortunately the British plan was not to attempt the defence of Canada, but to conduct naval warfare against the US. The reason why I find this interesting is that it shows us that it wasn't just Germany that was concerned about a British stranglehold on world trade.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cedd007:
Ooops, sorry. Good job my finger wasn't on the nuclear button ...

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What was it we used to say ? 'Hope I'm pissed and sat right under it'
Think it's fair to say we'll be equal death if that day should come.

Not wanting to derail a good discussion on the origin of WW1 though . It's a subject that fascinates me, and there's was a lot of new information I knew nothing of.
 

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Posted by Cedd007 (# 16180) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cedd007:
Something else that suggests the rights and wrongs of international politics are not as black and white as we imagine was shown in the TV documentary the other day about the USA's plans to invade Canada in the 1930's, plans that were surprisingly well advanced. USA was concerned that Britain had a track record of eliminating her trade rivals, and the US thought they might be next on the list. Canada's rival plan (because she was obviously in the firing line) was to try to slow the American invasion down so that Imperial troops could come to their rescue. Unfortunately the British plan was not to attempt the defence of Canada, but to conduct naval warfare against the US. The reason why I find this interesting is that it shows us that it wasn't just Germany that was concerned about a British stranglehold on world trade.

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It's not as simple as saying "the US had designs on invading Canada and defeating Britain, how evil." The USA had war plans prepared for dealing with just about any eventuality (nothing special about Britain there) including combinations of them like the 'War Plan Red-Orange' for defending against an offensive war by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. All the coloured plans (including the various iterations of 'War Plan Red' for fighting Britain and its client states) were primarily defensive plans to be enacted only if isolationism failed and the USA needed to be defended.

In the end, they did read the signs well and switched to the five 'Rainbow' plans in the late 1930s which included offensive plans for the first time. All of the revised plans assumed that the main enemy would be Japan and (in some of them) that expeditionary operations would be conducted against Germany to protect the buffer zones between Germany and the Atlantic.

The 'Red-Orange' plan for fighting the UK-Japan alliance of the 1920s did eventually evolve into the main basis of Rainbow plan 5 option D which was the US strategy for WWII. The catch was that the part of the 'Red' plan originally intended for Britain evolved into the strategy for fighting against Germany-Italy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by rolyn:
I thought A.J.P. Taylor meant that the stalemate of trench warfare was caused by the speed at which re-enforcements could be railed in to strengthen areas of front under attack.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cedd007:
Something else that suggests the rights and wrongs of international politics are not as black and white as we imagine was shown in the TV documentary the other day about the USA's plans to invade Canada in the 1930's, plans that were surprisingly well advanced. USA was concerned that Britain had a track record of eliminating her trade rivals, and the US thought they might be next on the list. Canada's rival plan (because she was obviously in the firing line) was to try to slow the American invasion down so that Imperial troops could come to their rescue. Unfortunately the British plan was not to attempt the defence of Canada, but to conduct naval warfare against the US. The reason why I find this interesting is that it shows us that it wasn't just Germany that was concerned about a British stranglehold on world trade.

---

It's not as simple as saying "the US had designs on invading Canada and defeating Britain, how evil." The USA had war plans prepared for dealing with just about any eventuality (nothing special about Britain there) including combinations of them like the 'War Plan Red-Orange' for defending against an offensive war by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. All the coloured plans (including the various iterations of 'War Plan Red' for fighting Britain and its client states) were primarily defensive plans to be enacted only if isolationism failed and the USA needed to be defended.

In the end, they did read the signs well and switched to the five 'Rainbow' plans in the late 1930s which included offensive plans for the first time. All of the revised plans assumed that the main enemy would be Japan and (in some of them) that expeditionary operations would be conducted against Germany to protect the buffer zones between Germany and the Atlantic.

The 'Red-Orange' plan for fighting the UK-Japan alliance of the 1920s did eventually evolve into the main basis of Rainbow plan 5 option D which was the US strategy for WWII. The catch was that the part of the 'Red' plan originally intended for Britain evolved into the strategy for fighting against Germany-Italy.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cedd007:
The German people were also badly served by Hindenburg's advisers in 1930.

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"Badly served"? Glorious English understatement there! In further news, the Antartctic is quite cold, and space is big. I think a course of policy that led to Nazi dictatorship, seven years of war, over eight million Germans killed, Russian tanks parked on Unter den Linden, and the country divided and occupied by foreign armies for over forty years rates a bit stronger language than "badly served"!

The US-plan-to-invade-Canada thing is a bit of a joke I'm afraid. I'm sure there were plans. I know there were plans. There are always plans. What else do you give trainee staff officers to do for their homework? Or generals to plan for in those wargames they play? You can't alway be refightung the same scenario about Russia or Germany or whoever. They'd get bored. And they'd never develop the skills they would need when the next war turns out not to be against who you expected. If you don't know who you are going to be figting next you might as well plan to fight Canada as anybody else. After all a US plan to invade Canada would, if it leaked out today, actually be rather less embarrassing than one to invade Russia or Cuba or Iran or even Mexico. Because those countries might believe they meant it and get cross. I'm sure there are American officers sitting in a bar somewhere right now (or maybe in a few hours time as its still lunchtime over there) chatting over a beer of five and wondering hey, what would we do if we had to invade Canada?

And what Cheesburger said.
 

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Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Cedd007:
He then developed the point by saying that Germany only had one plan, and it was for war with France and Russia. This was one reason, alongside the alliance system, why a quarrel over terrorist activity in Bosnia led to a world war.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cedd007:
The German people were also badly served by Hindenburg's advisers in 1930.

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"Badly served"? Glorious English understatement there! In further news, the Antartctic is quite cold, and space is big. I think a course of policy that led to Nazi dictatorship, seven years of war, over eight million Germans killed, Russian tanks parked on Unter den Linden, and the country divided and occupied by foreign armies for over forty years rates a bit stronger language than "badly served"!

The US-plan-to-invade-Canada thing is a bit of a joke I'm afraid. I'm sure there were plans. I know there were plans. There are always plans. What else do you give trainee staff officers to do for their homework? Or generals to plan for in those wargames they play? You can't alway be refightung the same scenario about Russia or Germany or whoever. They'd get bored. And they'd never develop the skills they would need when the next war turns out not to be against who you expected. If you don't know who you are going to be figting next you might as well plan to fight Canada as anybody else. After all a US plan to invade Canada would, if it leaked out today, actually be rather less embarrassing than one to invade Russia or Cuba or Iran or even Mexico. Because those countries might believe they meant it and get cross. I'm sure there are American officers sitting in a bar somewhere right now (or maybe in a few hours time as its still lunchtime over there) chatting over a beer of five and wondering hey, what would we do if we had to invade Canada?

And what Cheesburger said.

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quote:

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Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
It's an interesting theory, but I wouldn't pay too much attention to any suggestion that it has a significant role to play because it takes little account of what was happening on the strategic level.

If you look at the timeline of the diplomatic manoeuvring during the July Crisis, it seems pretty clear that all the parties had decided to go to war before the general mobilisations that all happened within the space of a couple of days. A good example of this is that there were two different texts of the German declaration of war on Russia which indicates it was carefully planned and did not revolve around the actions of the Russians. One referred to Russia having ignored a German ultimatum, the other referred to Russia's response not being adequate - but both were mistakenly delivered!

It also seems to completely ignore one major strategic issue - that the Germans wanted a general war to break out. They successfully goaded Austria-Hungary into using the July Crisis to create the political opportunity for it to happen. History would say they failed - because they did not manage to manoeuvre even one of the Triple Entente powers out of the conflict.

Finally - that article places a lot of emphasis on the German plan being unstoppable when it actually was cancelled, then later restarted!

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