World Politics

[blutto]

Re:

I'm sure there must be an old History thread already, or we could start a new one. But I also feel Echoes's post only merits one response: wut.

Might have been their great plan.

I don't see it. While they certainly played up their role in WW1 in later times, and they didn't cooperate with the French command to the extent you'd expect of an ally whose weight on the field was rivalled by Belgium's for a long while, the simple fact is that, at the beginning of the war, Britain couldn't have done much more than it did - their land army was positively tiny. If they had just been letting their allies and enemies bleed each other dry, they wouldn't have stepped up themselves like they did - they'd have waited for the US to deploy properly (which didn't happen until mid 1918), and they'd have exploited the troops of their dominions far more than they did (and contrary to what Australian nationalism has to say, they weren't used as cannon fodder).

....yeah and Canadian troops weren't used as cannon fodder either eh....they were just, errr, uhhh, shock troops....

...and here is a thought....maybe you could do a lecture tour of, say, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and straighten out all those nationalistically driven misconceptions about how things really were during that wars...I'm absolutely sure that such a tour would be just a smashing success ( especially in Australia where the native are hardly nationalistic at all....well as long as they are sober.... and not at all like the rabid lunatics here in Soviet Canuckistan...)....oh, and one more thing, you may want to carefully plan your exit strategy for all of your lecture dates, because you just may run into the odd , or two , or more contrary soul(s) who think(s) you are just another w@nker who has read too much Britcentric history and is talking out his ass ( for some weird reason they don't respond too well to that...though I'm sure your considerable charm and knowledge of the real facts will win them over... )...

....oh and before you go you may want to bone up on history from the period....in that regard you may want to look up a fellow named David Lloyd George and see what he has to say about being so proud of the shock troops of the British Empire....

Cheers

 

[hrotha]

Oh, so nationalists may object to my not conforming to nationalist myths. Duly noted.

I've read plenty about WW1 and intend to continue doing so, thankyouverymuch. If that makes me a w@nker, so be it - but you'll note I didn't insult you. I should have, though.

 

[blutto]

Re:

Oh, so nationalists may object to my not conforming to nationalist myths. Duly noted.

I've read plenty about WW1 and intend to continue doing so, thankyouverymuch. If that makes me a w@nker, so be it - but you'll note I didn't insult you. I should have, though.

...you already have (past tense btw)...so don't shed any tears...

...and do note I did not or would not call you a w@nker though given the circumstances many would and with some justification....we do however have a difference of opinion about a question of history and that is quite cool I say...

Cheers

 

[hrotha]

I don't care about the insult itself, I don't give a damn what you call me. But I do care about how throwing around unwarranted insults (and no, I hadn't insulted you or anyone else at all) renders all intellectual discussion pretty much impossible. If that's the kind of childish playground you're comfortable with, then by all means, do go on.

 

[Echoes]

Surrendered to Wilson?! Are you sure? The Treaty was ridiculously harsh, and in part caused the uprising of Hitler and the Nazis, and almost 100% contributed to the winning election of 1933, as the German people blamed the ToV for most their problems and so did the Nazis. Some of Clemenceau's aims were inconceivable, such as splitting Germany into many states. UK would've had their trade ruined. Not gonna happen.

I agree on all of that. In what way does your comment contradict what I said? Surely, Wilson had a huge responsability in all this. Besides the fact that he created the Fed and the Fed extended the war through funding all parties.

What's wrong with addressing Wilson in English? This is called politeness. Now Wilsom would consider Clemenceau polite and be more friendly towards him and someone whom he could concede most of his demands, which he did. This is called getting them on your side. Thank God you're not a diplomat.

It's wrong because it's never going to be reciprocal. No US President would ever address a French President in French. And I mean, there was a Vietnamese delegation in Versailles. I guess sieur Clémenceau did not address them in Vietnamese.

And yes, being a monarchist is much better than being a republican, i.e not giving power to a single family line until the rest of forever.

Absolutely!

I see that you don't address the relevant point I made that Clémenceau betrayed France by stopping Franchet d'Esperey who was marching on Berlin and instead sent him to Russia and also by giving in on the Sykes-Picot agreement letting the UK run Irak and all its oil wells while France only gained palm trees in Syria and Lebanon. He even let the Brits govern Palestine, enabling the Zionists to create their homeland there with all the consequences on the Arab people living there, till date. The so-called Balfour declaration was actually written by Alfred Milner, former associate of Cecil Rhodes, the main architect of the colonial Empire. Milner was the founder of the Rhodes scholarship and had a key role in the Boer War.

All this is well established but you stamped as a revisionist. I don't mind the label because revision is exactly the job of a historian, critically analyzing a historical commonplace is what any historian should do. As long as you don't label me a negationist ...

However, we should realize that the key events of WWI were not in Europe but in the Middle East. One of the main factors leading up to the war was the German Baghdad Bahn, which was meant to be a pipeline on rails, from Hamburg to Baghdad (with an extension to Bassora). The Brits realised that if the Germans succeeded in their undertaking, they were done. But the German project had a weakness, Serbia (Russian ally). So that's why they funded and armed Balkanic rebels in order to create chaos there preventing the German to complete the Bagdad Bahn. Hence the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

Hence also the prestige of Lawrence of Arabia, who was nothing but a British agent, who had no concern for the Arabs.

 

[hrotha]

How exactly was D'Esperey going to march on Berlin? When?

 

[Echoes]

By September to October 1918 after his victory in Dobro Pole (Sep. 15) with the Serbians of Zivojin Misic

In a letter to a friend, Franchet d'Espérey said: "With 200,000 men, I can cross Hungary and Austria, and gather in Bohemia, covered by the Czechoslovakians, and then march on Dresden. If the Krauts are clinging on the Rhine, it would be the most economical in human lives and most of all French ones, to shift them. No doubt, my entering Bohemia will make it all collapse." But on Oct. 7 the government's order to d'Espérey was to contend with liberating Serbia and to watch the application of the armistice with Bulgaria. Some day in October (don't know exactly when) he got the order to gather troops in Romania and to prepare fighting the Bolsheviks in Crimea and Odessa.
(source is the Pierre Gosa's biography of Franchet d'Espérey)

 

[Brullnux]

I didn't pick up on the Franchet d'esperey bit as i don't know enough on that to be 100% sure.

However, you claimed Clemenceau "surrendered" to Wilson which is not correct. Clemenceau gave in to a few things as they were impossible, but got his way on most other things.

The monarchist thing I'm too tired to debate with.

 

[python]

just wow...as i type, i am listening to the france 24 extended report on the post-putsch ukraine's political situation.

what i hear, sounds like it is coming straight from a vlad-subsidized mouth piece like rt, rather than a downright blue-blooded western source...

here is the short hand of some 'findings':

'the current president is an oligarch himself, the only top-10 who actually got richer post 'anti-oligarch revolution'

'he and his supporters use the country's state prosecution office and its full power to fight and persecute their political opponents and other oligarchs' (several specific examples were provided)

'as before the revolution, oligarchs control everything including their own pet parities, media and even military/militia formations'

'the present govt remained largely deaf or ineffective to the west's calls to fight corruption'

etc...

the amazing thing is that it took so long for france 24 to refute its own self-manufactured delusions which was rather obvious imo.

 

[blutto]

Re:

just wow...as i type, i am listening to the france 24 extended report on the post-putsch ukraine's political situation.

what i hear, sounds like it is coming straight from a vlad-subsidized mouth piece like rt, rather than a downright blue-blooded western source...

here is the short hand of some 'findings':

'the current president is an oligarch himself, the only top-10 who actually got richer post 'anti-oligarch revolution'

'he and his supporters use the country's state prosecution office and its full power to fight and persecute their political opponents and other oligarchs' (several specific examples were provided)

'as before the revolution, oligarchs control everything including their own pet parities, media and even military/militia formations'

'the present govt remained largely deaf or ineffective to the west's calls to fight corruption'

etc...

the amazing thing is that it took so long for france 24 to refute its own self-manufactured delusions which was rather obvious imo.

....so just to make sure I got this straight, the "vlad-subsidized mouth piece like rt" was actually closer to the truth than the psalms sung by the angel's choir that is the Western press....that comes as such a shock, like I'm literally and figuratively shocked, did I mention that I'm shocked, wow, totally shocked, shocked beyond belief...

...no, really on the real side, shocked....

..."rather obvious imo", indeed !...

Cheers

 

[python]

not sure if you need a shock therapy or a better shock absorber...

 

[blutto]

Re:

not sure if you need a shock therapy or a better shock absorber...

....given the circumstances probably both, and in huge quantities...wonder how Echoes is taking this turn of events, at the very least he probably popped a few rivets...

...but on the serious side what does this mean for the big picture in the long run vis a vis The Ukraine...?....a split from the Merikan neocon mission....?....moving Vlad from an evil incarnate rating to a just another regular badass rating...?...

Cheers

 

[python]

Re: Re:

...but on the serious side what does this mean for the big picture in the long run vis a vis The Ukraine...?....a split from the Merikan neocon mission....?....moving Vlad from an evil incarnate rating to a just another regular badass rating...?...

Cheers

i sweat over this and some related questions at least twice a month. literally, not joking. i mean twice a month i , my 2 friends (one finn, one swede), an englishman, 2 amercan brooklyn zionists and 2 russians, we brainstorm the worlds problems in a russian brooklyn bath house...such is the tradition. the verdict - no one really knows. i asked directly one of the local zionists, why is the putin story so loaded here ? his response - he's perceived as a sort of mussolini and the cold war mentality isn't likely to change the perception any time soon. a russian joked that it will take trump to 'fix (the) americans'. the englishman, a professional journalist and a publisher, more or less agrees with my views...

from the main stream eauropean sources, i gather the france 24 remarkably candid piece was more of an exception than a norm. though, in france, the far-right (marine le pen) and the centre-right (sarcozy and many of his party's mps) have been known to sympathies with vlad and thus i guess they set an alternative agenda for france 24.

not so in germany. not in holland. not in the nordic lands except perhaps finland where russia has long been a sensitive and complex subject. overall, i think the uropeans are confused by the on-going migrant crisis from the m.east and mostly tired of anything ukraine.

 

[Amsterhammer]

Multiple shooting and explosions in downtown Paris, at least 18 dead, many injured per CNN............

 

[The Hitch]

This is bad. Looks like it could be worse than anything we've seen in Europe since the Balkans. 60 hostages in concert hall.

 

[Amsterhammer]

Getting worse by the minute. Now at least 26 dead, many more injured, 60 hostages at the Bataclan concert hall.

 

[gooner]

Sky News now say 100 hostages.

Fans out on the pitch at the Stade de France.

 

[Red Rick]

I'm a little bit in disbelief right now. This is beyond horrible. At least 40 dead now

 

[Irondan]

Re:

I'm a little bit in disbelief right now. This is beyond horrible. At least 40 dead now

I'm also in shock, following Twitter is not clearing things up at all ...

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Must be either some radical Christians or as with almost all things bad (a plot by the CIA and other parts of USA government)

This is bad no doubt similar to the Chechen black widows and the Russian theater.

 

[Brullnux]

No
Horrendous news.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

I don't think any words on this message board can capture the moment such as this.

I only would like to help these "peaceful" muzelimms to their promised land. Anything I could do to help that on a fast track would be a good thing.

 

[Irondan]

There are reports of 200 hostages being held in a theater being shot one by one right now.....

Glenn's right, there are no words.

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

I don't think any words on this message board can capture the moment such as this.

I only would like to help these "peaceful" muzelimms to their promised land. Anything I could do to help that on a fast track would be a good thing.

I agree no words

 

[Amsterhammer]

Tonight's band at the Bataclan - Eagles of Deathmetal. No lie.

Hollande speaking - closing borders.