Don't Mention the War. Or Churchill.
Discussion
Mothersruin said:
fblm said:
Mothersruin said:
...The French fare somewhat better...
You're kidding! With a few notable exceptions, the list of ex-french colonies reads like a list of every poorest, most corrupt, war torn sthole on earth!Eric
Winston Churchill is indeed a fascinating character, though The River War is an even better read than My Early Life. However
1.Some suggest that his heroic escape was largely an example of history treating him favourably because he wrote it; further that
2. He achieved very little in WW1 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
3. Between the wars he was funded by a group of ‘wellwishers’ whose bidding he then did
3. He achieved very little in WW2 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
4. After WW2 he achieved very little
These points of view have got some weight. One of the reasons why I do not want to see Boris as PM, and find all the anti-Russia hysteria alarming, and have a positive aversion to all the jingoism surrounding Brexit.
Winston Churchill is indeed a fascinating character, though The River War is an even better read than My Early Life. However
1.Some suggest that his heroic escape was largely an example of history treating him favourably because he wrote it; further that
2. He achieved very little in WW1 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
3. Between the wars he was funded by a group of ‘wellwishers’ whose bidding he then did
3. He achieved very little in WW2 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
4. After WW2 he achieved very little
These points of view have got some weight. One of the reasons why I do not want to see Boris as PM, and find all the anti-Russia hysteria alarming, and have a positive aversion to all the jingoism surrounding Brexit.
cardigankid said:
Eric
Winston Churchill is indeed a fascinating character, though The River War is an even better read than My Early Life. However
1.Some suggest that his heroic escape was largely an example of history treating him favourably because he wrote it; further that
2. He achieved very little in WW1 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
3. Between the wars he was funded by a group of ‘wellwishers’ whose bidding he then did
3. He achieved very little in WW2 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
4. After WW2 he achieved very little
These points of view have got some weight. One of the reasons why I do not want to see Boris as PM, and find all the anti-Russia hysteria alarming, and have a positive aversion to all the jingoism surrounding Brexit.
What would that be then? Winston Churchill is indeed a fascinating character, though The River War is an even better read than My Early Life. However
1.Some suggest that his heroic escape was largely an example of history treating him favourably because he wrote it; further that
2. He achieved very little in WW1 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
3. Between the wars he was funded by a group of ‘wellwishers’ whose bidding he then did
3. He achieved very little in WW2 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
4. After WW2 he achieved very little
These points of view have got some weight. One of the reasons why I do not want to see Boris as PM, and find all the anti-Russia hysteria alarming, and have a positive aversion to all the jingoism surrounding Brexit.
cardigankid said:
2. He achieved very little in WW1 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
He had a lot to do with the invention of the tank.cardigankid said:
3. Between the wars he was funded by a group of ‘wellwishers’ whose bidding he then did
He also pushed for rearmament which arguably saved a lot of innocent people in WW2.cardigankid said:
3. He achieved very little in WW2 other than get a lot of innocent people killed
I suppose you could sum up deciding not to reach an 'agreement' with AH but to continue the fight until the Nazis were destroyed as 'getting a lot of innocent people killed' but that's hardly the whole story.cardiankid said:
4. After WW2 he achieved very little
He was 70 in 1945 and didn't get back into power for another 5 years, though did manage to get a Nobel prize for literature in his spare time.The guy was an MP in Queen Victoria's reign and with a few short breaks remained an MP until the Beatles were in the charts. That in itself is a bit special.
Dr Jekyll said:
He was 70 in 1945 and didn't get back into power for another 5 years, though did manage to get a Nobel prize for literature in his spare time.
The guy was an MP in Queen Victoria's reign and with a few short breaks remained an MP until the Beatles were in the charts. That in itself is a bit special.
We shouldn’t buy a story just because it is picturesque. Let’s just take a slightly more German perspective on this. You can’t project current attitudes and standards back in history. You have to accept that at the end of the C19 and start of the C20, the British Empire was seen, particularly by itself, as the successor to Rome, in its ethos, its civilising force and its economic benefits. Therefore, anything that was done to make and keep Britain as the one and only global superpower was not only good but to the benefit of humanity. The fact that the principal benefit accrued to a very small elite would not have been seen as a problem. Germany was a more efficient industrial nation than Britain, and bluntly, Britain could not compete with Germany on level terms. It still can’t. That is the main problem with Britain and the EU, and always has been. So, Germany did not start or cause the First World War. Britain, with Churchill to the fore, forced that issue. There was no Morocco crisis, there was no Agadir crisis, there was no naval arms race, at least on the German side. They were all a fiction. It was a put up job, Russia was to get Constantinople, France was to get Alsace and Lorraine, as well as a free hand in North Africa. So, how many people were killed so that Britain could control world trade? How many war graves in France, or War Memorials in every town and village in Britain are down to that. Look at what Kipling said.’They died because their fathers lied’. Britain beggared itself to be colossally supreme in Dreadnoughts at at time when the same interests were trying to prevent the introduction of social security rights which had existed in Germany for 30 years. Look at Churchill in that perspective - an entertaining maverick - comparable in that respect to Boris Johnson.The guy was an MP in Queen Victoria's reign and with a few short breaks remained an MP until the Beatles were in the charts. That in itself is a bit special.
There is no doubt that Churchill saw himself as a Great War leader in the mould of his ancestor, Marlborough. But Gallipoli shows the real extent of his ability.
No First World War, no destruction of the German regime, no outrageous war reparations, no War Guilt clause, no hyper inflation, no Hitler. Simple as that. And in the end Britain had to surrender its prime position to America, having bankrupted herself.
And so Churchill’s story goes on.
cardigankid said:
Dr Jekyll said:
He was 70 in 1945 and didn't get back into power for another 5 years, though did manage to get a Nobel prize for literature in his spare time.
The guy was an MP in Queen Victoria's reign and with a few short breaks remained an MP until the Beatles were in the charts. That in itself is a bit special.
We shouldn’t buy a story just because it is picturesque. Let’s just take a slightly more German perspective on this. You can’t project current attitudes and standards back in history. You have to accept that at the end of the C19 and start of the C20, the British Empire was seen, particularly by itself, as the successor to Rome, in its ethos, its civilising force and its economic benefits. Therefore, anything that was done to make and keep Britain as the one and only global superpower was not only good but to the benefit of humanity. The fact that the principal benefit accrued to a very small elite would not have been seen as a problem. Germany was a more efficient industrial nation than Britain, and bluntly, Britain could not compete with Germany on level terms. It still can’t. That is the main problem with Britain and the EU, and always has been. So, Germany did not start or cause the First World War. Britain, with Churchill to the fore, forced that issue. There was no Morocco crisis, there was no Agadir crisis, there was no naval arms race, at least on the German side. They were all a fiction. It was a put up job, Russia was to get Constantinople, France was to get Alsace and Lorraine, as well as a free hand in North Africa. So, how many people were killed so that Britain could control world trade? How many war graves in France, or War Memorials in every town and village in Britain are down to that. Look at what Kipling said.’They died because their fathers lied’. Britain beggared itself to be colossally supreme in Dreadnoughts at at time when the same interests were trying to prevent the introduction of social security rights which had existed in Germany for 30 years. Look at Churchill in that perspective - an entertaining maverick - comparable in that respect to Boris Johnson.The guy was an MP in Queen Victoria's reign and with a few short breaks remained an MP until the Beatles were in the charts. That in itself is a bit special.
There is no doubt that Churchill saw himself as a Great War leader in the mould of his ancestor, Marlborough. But Gallipoli shows the real extent of his ability.
No First World War, no destruction of the German regime, no outrageous war reparations, no War Guilt clause, no hyper inflation, no Hitler. Simple as that. And in the end Britain had to surrender its prime position to America, having bankrupted herself.
And so Churchill’s story goes on.
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