JerseyJohn
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Posts posted by JerseyJohn
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Branching off into U. S. involvement in the European War:
... I'll even go one step further. As a Yankee, I would have stayed out of the war. There was no point losing 300,000 men for Europe's problem.Lodi's Response:
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JJR
America paid a high price in the war, though modest compared to many of the other major combatants – the toll of this war is mind boggling to me. It is impossible to determine if avoiding the war would have been more costly in the long run or not. My view is that it probably would have been. But counter-factuals are the hardest to prove.
Arado combines responses to the earlier subjects:
JerseyJohn im not sure that the Brits and French could have done anything else(Standing up to Hitler after they sold out the Czechs which was REALLY STUPID).The only other recourse would be to let him wipeout minor after minor country with no threat from anyone.Because the French and the Brits.declared war it forced Hitler to change his plans radically.He couldnt prepare his country for war in 1942 because he was already at war and suffering losses(especially after the Battle of Britain).It changed his whole strategy and the course of the war.If we just sat back and did nothing untill we thought we were ready who knows what Hitler may have achieved by then.I agree with you in that alot of suffering just continued at the hands of the Soviets and we just traded one tyrant for another but where did you get your info on overall human losses due to wars on the latter half of the 20th century?Over 50 million died as a result of WW2(dont know the overall human cost in WW1)It was the single most destructive war ever fought.Im not familiar with the losses from the other wars fought but was it really over 60 million(im guessing the human lives lost in WW1)?
Rambo do you really think it would have been wise to just let the Europeans fight it out?I know it was still a long shot but without U.S.actual involvement Hitler may have been able to pull off some sort of victory.How do you think the world would view America and what type of a world would people(including America)be living in?Imho it would have been absolutly horrible.You can also bet that if Hitler remained in power as soon as he figured he had the upper hand he would start the dam war all over again(this time with the latest and greatest rockets which would have been able to hit America).Now America and the rest of what was left of the world would have to fight some nut that could fire rockets anywhere armed with who knows what.Stopping Hitler decisivley with overwelming firepower was the right thing to do.It aslo showed the Russians that if they tried to start anything that America would fight.
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An earlier thread, The WWII Bookshelf, began wandering way off topic as several of us got into speculative issues instead of talking about WWII books we'd recently read that we either enjoyed, found interesting, or that had a positive or negative reaction to.
I'm going to copy the speculative posts to this thread in the hope that it continues, but in a more sensible area.
On Britain and France giving hopeless guarantees to Poland and Rumania in 1939, aftrer allowing the destruction of Czheckoslovakia, a legitimate democracy allied to France, with strong defences and a good army, a country the British and French might actually have conducted a successful war over, the previous year.
Exactly what did Britain and France do in 1939 that was so wonderful? France wanted to lay low, as it had all along, and Chamberlain, for whatever reason only he could have known, suddenly guaranteed that Britain would guarantee the independence of Poland, Hungary and Rumania if attacked by Germany. The French felt obliged to add that they would do so as well, though they went along with it in a mood of fatality, and well they should have because Chamberlain had gone mad. After having handed Nazi Germany the means to instantly increase its army by 50% in handing it Czhechoslovakia, the only Democracy of all the countries involved, they suddenly decide at that point, with the scales suddenly tipped hopelessly against them, that they should fight the war they ought to have fought, on more than equal terms, a year earlier. It was a reckless course that ignored reality, made a major war inevitable, and increased exponentially the suffering and death that Europe and the entire world had to endure. Chamberlain, and after him Churchill, did nothing but destroy a basically civilized world along with their own country and leave in the ruins the breeding ground for all the discontent and misery that came afterwards. For a second half of the 20th Century that saw even more people killed as a result of wars than the first half, in which the two biggest were fought....
SeaMonkey making a point about speculating on historical events:
Currently I'm reading "The Path to Victory" by Douglas Porch, a good examination, albeit in hindsight of the Mediterranean campaign, my favorite theater. Its a great read but like so many historians offers multitudes of anecdotal recipes based on that Monday morning quarterback philosophy.The fact is, these guys never seem to elaborate on the intangibles in realistic terms, just like we do when we try and recreate a "what if " with these games of WW2 simulations. No man knows. Its very hard to not use your knowledge in hindsight and try and put yourself in the decision makers' shoes facing an unknown conclusion, hard to ignore what has already concluded.
I'll be the first here to discuss the possibilities and passionately defend my line of reasoning with circumstantial evidence, but remember my friends we can't really know, just like the historical players, how a different decision here, an appropriately conceived action there would have opened up a whole set of different conclusions, its impossible for us mortal beings. But we can contemplate.
Just remember its pure conjecture, so don't be so quick to judge the historical figures based upon hindsight, for a different route offers many branches and it was not us that was in the position of power making that educated decision, or so they thought.
Many times we take action, when perhaps no action was required, but what's the price of inaction? We have history to shed a light but it is by no means bright and the many possibilities of the alternative will forever escape us....for no man knows.
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huhr, Thanks for the link, went there and looked around. Looks like a treasure trove for books on the SS. As you said, they're very costly, not really suited for normal reading but ideal for various kinds of research.
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Awww, go ahead JerseyJohn, start the new thread.
At least we'll all be able to tell what the new thread looks like.
So will the late comers.
By Jove, you've convinced my. It's nearly 2 a.m., an ideal time to cut and paste.
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BrotherX, And it is ageed, my friend, I tarried too long and now this thing can't possibly be reorganized back to its original purpose. Doesn't make much sense starting that new thread either as so much has already been said in this one.
Oh well, tomorrow is another day.
-- Never really did expect a game that would have all these aspects in it. Perhaps someday, ten or twenty years down the road, when something appears called, oh, I don't know, :confused:, maybe, uh, SC-3.
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:DIf I wore a hat, it would be off to you, BrotherX. I especially like that final ingredient. :eek:
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"Hubert isn't seeing anybody today. He said for you to come back tomorrow.
-- Or maybe next week.
-- -- Or perhaps next month."
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I'd like to see a game that would have all the things we've been talking about here.
-- I better set that new thread up pretty soon before our three way discussion finishes hijacking this one.
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It isn't so much Germany getting the oil as it is depriving it to the British. The Royal Navy in the Eastern Mediteranean/Red Sea Persian Gulf relied on that oil; it was the original reason Churchill in ~1920 pushed for the creation of a nation of Iraq, and also forced the conversion of the Royal Navy from coal to oil.
Additionally, it might have pulled Iran and Turkey into, or at least closer to, the Axis. This would have blocked one of the support routes to the USSR through Southern Russia.
And gaining access to all that oil wouldn't have hurt either. Probably the Royal Navy would have been forced to either leave the Eastern Mediteranean, or curtail its operations there, and the Middle Eastern oil could have been brought to Germany through Turkey-Bulgaria-Rumania-Hungary.
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Thank you, BrotherRambo, I'll be looking for it in the mail. :cool:
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I agree with Arado. The best selling book in Iraq at the time was Mein Kampf. Hitler made a huge blunder in not helping that country to oust the Brits. He could also have sent aid earlier than the actual uprising but he kept telling his inner circle that the Middle East fell within Il Duce's sphere. A ridiculous position to take at that point in the war. With Iraq in the Axis and Rommel taking Tobruk almost simultaneously the British, aside from the Iraqi oil, would have been a very desperate strategic situation. All the Iraquis needed was a little air support; even ME 110s, next to useless against the Hurricanes and Spitfires, might have won air supremacy against the training models Britain had on its airfield in Iraq.
I have to agree with BrotherRambo that Rommel couldn't have forced his way through to Alexandria and the Suez Canal. That was also the opinion of Paulus, who was sent to do an evaluation of the theater after the fall of Tobruk. Paulus advised the Axis should hold Libya but not try to take Egypt. But this was too tame for Rommel who wouldn't even allow Kesselring to take Malta, convincing Hitler to cancel the operation (he was against such battles in any case after Crete) and send those troops (including a German paratroop brigade and an Italian paratroop regiment) to his command instead, with a green light for the push into Egypt.
Probably, instead of sending Paulus to the Sixth Army, Hitler should have sent Rommel to Russia and placed Paulus in command of the Africa Corps. Russia, aside from the genocide which I'm sure he'd have kept under control in his command, was well suited to Rommel's skills while Paulus, in a defensive posture in Libya, could have eased into his first field command instead of being dropped totally without experience into the most important offensive taking place at the time. -- My only guess is Hitler would probably have deemed command of Sixth Army to be a sort of demotion for Rommel, who was promoting to fieldmarshal.
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BrotherRambo, I just finished your book about it, Unjustly Banned To The Outer Islands. Definitely not for the squimish, makes Papillon and Midnight Express seem like kids stories by comparison. But in the end you were escaped and were found half dead by those sardine harvesting pygmies who nursed you back to health and, in gratitude, you built a miniature golf course and taught them how to play before setting off for home. Best book I've read since Kapitain Kuni's Memoirs, Top Sailor In A Landlocked Grand Duchy. :cool:
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Thank you, Arado and BrotherRambo, glad you gentlemen found it interesting.
-- Cultural Revolution? I guess that was when Mao came out of retirement in the mid-60s and had the Red Guard, waving their Little Red Books all over China and killing anyone they deemed to be anti-revolutionary.
Not so sure that some of those things on the list qualify as wars or just simply extremely huge genocides.
Planning to start those two threads but at this point it's going to take some time to copy the relevant comments out of this one. That will be my first project here after Christmas. :cool:
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From me and the penguins,
Happy Holidays back to you, Hubert and all the rest of you here. Even, and especially, Captain Kuniworth (he really should be promoted to Major)
Actually, that would be a double demotion (lt. commander and commander) as Kuniworth is senior naval Kapitain of the Grand Duchy of Kuniland. If the Duke ever buys a second ship Kuni will be promoted to Komodore.
Cantona66 Excellent! Two new ones to discuss in the Bookshelf thread as you finish reading them. :cool:
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constancechan One suspects senior membership may not lie in your future.
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Snowstorm, Glad you like the idea too. Don't agree that I would do it better than yourself, but with me there's sure to be at least one psychotic episode :eek: so it would probably be more amusing.
I'm going to start a thread on it during the next few days.Arado, Don't recall where I first heard or read it, probably from a history documentary, but just as likely from a world atlas. I pretty much only keep track of things that relate directly to something on working on, otherwise it goes to the mental note department.
But below is something I found just now on the Internet. This list has even higher totals for WWI & WWII than you estimated, and the second half deaths still appear to be higher. Though I didn't add them up, and it isn't organized that way.
-- Regarding the Brit and French topic, I'm going with Snowstorm's suggestion and starting a thread on it during the next few days so this one will stay more on topic regarding books people have read. I'm planning to copy the posts we've both made on the subject in the thread's top post to begin the discussion. I think it ought to be worthwhile and interesting.
Also planning to start another thread on how far the United States should have taken neutrality, and what actions it took such as Lend-Lease, embargoes and other moves that may have led up to our ultimate involvement. I think both subjects are interesting and don't want to mix them together.
If you feel like starting either or both threads please do so, I'm eager to see what thoughts go into it and am sure both will develop quickly. :cool:
-- Ooops, forgot to paste that grizly list I mentioned.
Wars and Genocides of the 20th Century
160 million people died in wars during the 20th century
(See also 1900: A century of genocides)
TM, ®, Copyright © 2009 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
1860-65: American civil war (360,000)
1886-1908: Belgium-Congo Free State (8 million)
1899-02: British-Boer war (100,000)
1899-03: Colombian civil war (120,000)
1899-02: Philippines vs USA (20,000)
1900-01: Boxer rebels against Russia, Britain, France, Japan, USA against rebels (35,000)
1903: Ottomans vs Macedonian rebels (20,000)
1904: Germany vs Namibia (65,000)
1904-05: Japan vs Russia (150,000)
1910-20: Mexican revolution (250,000)
1911: Chinese Revolution (2.4 million)
1911-12: Italian-Ottoman war (20,000)
1912-13: Balkan wars (150,000)
1915: the Ottoman empire slaughters Armenians (1.2 million)
1915-20: the Ottoman empire slaughters 500,000 Assyrians
1916-23: the Ottoman empire slaughters 350,000 Greek Pontians and 480,000 Anatolian Greeks
1914-18: World War I (20 million)
1916: Kyrgyz revolt against Russia (120,000)
1917-21: Soviet revolution (5 million)
1917-19: Greece vs Turkey (45,000)
1919-21: Poland vs Soviet Union (27,000)
1928-37: Chinese civil war (2 million)
1931: Japanese Manchurian War (1.1 million)
1932-33: Soviet Union vs Ukraine (10 million)
1934: Mao's Long March (170,000)
1936: Italy's invasion of Ethiopia (200,000)
1936-37: Stalin's purges (13 million)
1936-39: Spanish civil war (600,000)
1937-45: Japanese invasion of China (500,000)
1939-45: World War II (55 million) including holocaust and Chinese revolution
1946-49: Chinese civil war (1.2 million)
1946-49: Greek civil war (50,000)
1946-54: France-Vietnam war (600,000)
1947: Partition of India and Pakistan (1 million)
1947: Taiwan's uprising against the Kuomintang (30,000)
1948-1958: Colombian civil war (250,000)
1948-1973: Arab-Israeli wars (70,000)
1949-: Indian Muslims vs Hindus (20,000)
1949-50: Mainland China vs Tibet (1,200,000)
1950-53: Korean war (3 million)
1952-59: Kenya's Mau Mau insurrection (20,000)
1954-62: French-Algerian war (368,000)
1958-61: Mao's "Great Leap Forward" (38 million)
1960-90: South Africa vs Africa National Congress (?)
1960-96: Guatemala's civil war (200,000)
1961-98: Indonesia vs West Papua/Irian (100,000)
1961-2003: Kurds vs Iraq (180,000)
1962-75: Mozambique Frelimo vs Portugal (?)
1964-73: USA-Vietnam war (3 million)
1965: second India-Pakistan war over Kashmir
1965-66: Indonesian civil war (250,000)
1966-69: Mao's "Cultural Revolution" (11 million)
1966-: Colombia's civil war (31,000)
1967-70: Nigeria-Biafra civil war (800,000)
1968-80: Rhodesia's civil war (?)
1969-: Philippines vs New People's Army (40,000)
1969-79: Idi Amin, Uganda (300,000)
1969-02: IRA - Norther Ireland's civil war (2,000)
1969-79: Francisco Macias Nguema, Equatorial Guinea (50,000)
1971: Pakistan-Bangladesh civil war (500,000)
1972-: Philippines vs Muslim separatists (Moro Islamic Liberation Front, etc) (120,000)
1972: Burundi's civil war (300,000)
1972-79: Rhodesia/Zimbabwe's civil war (30,000)
1974-91: Ethiopian civil war (1,000,000)
1975-78: Menghitsu, Ethiopia (1.5 million)
1975-79: Khmer Rouge, Cambodia (1.7 million)
1975-89: Boat people, Vietnam (250,000)
1975-90: civil war in Lebanon (40,000)
1975-87: Laos' civil war (184,000)
1975-2002: Angolan civil war (500,000)
1976-83: Argentina's military regime (20,000)
1976-93: Mozambique's civil war (900,000)
1976-98: Indonesia-East Timor civil war (600,000)
1976-2005: Indonesia-Aceh (GAM) civil war (12,000)
1977-92: El Salvador's civil war (75,000)
1979: Vietnam-China war (30,000)
1979-88: the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan (1.3 million)
1980-88: Iraq-Iran war (1 million)
1980-92: Sendero Luminoso - Peru's civil war (69,000)
1980-99: Kurds vs Turkey (35,000)
1981-90: Nicaragua vs Contras (60,000)
1982-90: Hissene Habre, Chad (40,000)
1983-: Sri Lanka's civil war (70,000)
1983-2002: Sudanese civil war (2 million)
1986-: Indian Kashmir's civil war (60,000)
1987-: Palestinian Intifada (4,500)
1988-2001: Afghanistan civil war (400,000)
1988-2004: Somalia's civil war (550,000)
1989-: Liberian civil war (220,000)
1989-: Uganda vs Lord's Resistance Army (30,000)
1991: Gulf War - large coalition against Iraq to liberate Kuwait (85,000)
1991-97: Congo's civil war (800,000)
1991-2000: Sierra Leone's civil war (200,000)
1991-2009: Russia-Chechnya civil war (200,000)
1991-94: Armenia-Azerbaijan war (35,000)
1992-96: Tajikstan's civil war war (50,000)
1992-96: Yugoslavian wars (260,000)
1992-99: Algerian civil war (150,000)
1993-97: Congo Brazzaville's civil war (100,000)
1993-2005: Burundi's civil war (200,000)
1994: Rwanda's civil war (900,000)
1995-: Pakistani Sunnis vs Shiites (1,300)
1995-: Maoist rebellion in Nepal (12,000)
1998-: Congo/Zaire's war - Rwanda and Uganda vs Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia (3.8 million)
1998-2000: Ethiopia-Eritrea war (75,000)
1999: Kosovo's liberation war - NATO vs Serbia (2,000)
2001-: Afghanistan's liberation war - USA & UK vs Taliban (40,000)
2002-: Cote d'Ivoire's civil war (1,000)
2003: Second Iraq-USA war - USA, UK and Australia vs Saddam Hussein (14,000)
2003-09: Sudan vs JEM/Darfur (300,000)
2003-: Iraq's civil war (60,000)
2004-: Sudan vs SPLM & Eritrea (?)
2004-: Yemen vs Shiite Muslims (?)
2004-: Thailand vs Muslim separatists (3,700)
Arab-Israeli wars
- I (1947-49): 6,373 Israeli and 15,000 Arabs die
- II (1956): 231 Israeli and 3,000 Egyptians die
- III (1967): 776 Israeli and 20,000 Arabs die
- IV (1973): 2,688 Israeli and 18,000 Arabs die
- Intifada I (1987-92): 170 Israelis and 1,000 Palestinians
- Intifada II (2000-03): 700 Israelis and 2,000 Palestinians
- Israel-Hamas war (2008): 1,300 Palestinians
Main sources:
- Charny: Genocide - A Critical Bibliographic Review (1988)
- Stephane Courtois: Black Book on Communism (1995)
- Clodfelter: Warfare and Armed Conflicts (1992)
- Elliot: Twentieth Century Book of the Dead (1972)
- Bouthoul: A List of the 366 Major Armed Conflicts of the period 1740-1974, Peace Research (1978)
- R.J. Rummel: Death by Government - Genocide and Mass Murder (1994)
- Matt White's website
- Several general textbooks of 20th century history
- I (1947-49): 6,373 Israeli and 15,000 Arabs die
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Yeah. I always wondered why he didn't send his army into Harrisburg instead of fighting the battle at Gettysburg, all though both armies seem to have just collided there. Great battle, though Lee was definitely not at his best; he was going against his own most successful tactics, as Longstreet kept trying, unsuccessfully, to tell him.
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But SeaMonkey, didn't Kuni have everything under control when the --? Uh, okay, yeah, sure, we got Kapitain Kuni watching things, what could possible run amok?
:eek: Thank you, Hubert, and best wishes to you as well. Also, about that bone you threw, very glad to see you're finally doing the Japan Incites Aleuet Rebellion in Alaska option.
And likewise Snowstorm.
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BrotherX, You're a much braver game player than I; never could bring myself to choose that option. But I have to add I've worked for people who had that identical mentality. :eek:
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JJ
I’ll give up on Buchanan. As his publisher notes, he is very good at stimulating controversy.
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True! :eek: I saw him come off a discussion recently with a rant about not believing humans are descended from monkeys. The commentator chuckled and said, "You're a great medieval man, Pat" and Buchanan burst out laughing. Once in a while, when I want to be amused by politics gone berserk, I watch him and Jim McClaughlan howling at one another. I think the guy mostly likes to get people going to see where the chips come down.
Everyone has the right to not read a given author. There's a former Alaska governor, for example, whose book I wouldn't read even if I were paid to. Well, okay, maybe if I got the right price, but it would need to be extremely high, and she wouldn't have to autograph my copy, it wouldn't be around long enough to become a collector's item.
BrotherRambo,
I think most people, men mainly, feel that way about serving in the military. All armies like to recruit kids, legally around 18 but if they were able to grab them at 12 I'm sure none of them would hesitate. The reason, put a kid in a uniform and he'll usually think he's impregnable and will be willing to put his life on the line because someone of higher rank said it was what he should do. No kid ever thinks he's the one who'll be getting killed. Put an older man in a uniform and the main thing on his mind is finding a way to get out of it without being called a deserter.
SeaMonkey,
Appreciated, and likewise. I was in a disgruntled mood last night and, unfortunately, it came out in those two posts.
A better idea, and one I'm sure I'll do a little later, is to turn those points into a thread -- something like How WWII Might Have Been Sidestepped.
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Exactly what did Britain and France do in 1939 that was so wonderful? France wanted to lay low, as it had all along, and Chamberlain, for whatever reason only he could have known, suddenly guaranteed that Britain would guarantee the independence of Poland, Hungary and Rumania if attacked by Germany. The French felt obliged to add that they would do so as well, though they went along with it in a mood of fatality, and well they should have because Chamberlain had gone mad. After having handed Nazi Germany the means to instantly increase its army by 50% in handing it Czhechoslovakia, the only Democracy of all the countries involved, they suddenly decide at that point, with the scales suddenly tipped hopelessly against them, that they should fight the war they ought to have fought, on more than equal terms, a year earlier. It was a reckless course that ignored reality, made a major war inevitable, and increased exponentially the suffering and death that Europe and the entire world had to endure. Chamberlain, and after him Churchill, did nothing but destroy a basically civilized world along with their own country and leave in the ruins the breeding ground for all the discontent and misery that came afterwards. For a second half of the 20th Century that saw even more people killed as a result of wars than the first half, in which the two biggest were fought.
My purpose at the start of this thread was to encourage people to discuss books on WWII that they'd read recently and either enjoyed or found interesting.
I didn't start off with this book to make myself Pat Buchanan's apologist, I most certainly am not.
Nor did I do it to make myself some sort of target for condescending, pontifical remarks about how I enjoyed something written by a "Historical Hack." It would have been just as easy for me list something more conventional from academia, or to set about with a high handed trashing of Buchanan's book, but instead I tried to remain honest and objective. I certainly have never agreed with the man's politics, but I happen to find much of what he said here to make sense. Excuse me for expressing the opinion.
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I said at the start that this was not a straight history book and I'm beginning to become annoyed at being seen as a champion of Pat Buchanan. As for saying what the book is or isn't worth, those who haven't read it really can't be saying that. I enjoyed it, found his premise interesting and he said many things I happen to agree with. Period.
Among them isn't that the most of Europe should have been abandoned so the Nazis and Commies could kill one another. What I said is that Britain and France, after giving up the Czechs, no longer had any means of helping anyone in either Eastern or Central Europe and the policy should have been containment, in other words, as I said, drawing a line past which they could not commit themselves, as Buchanan suggests, and as I've always felt would have been the most sensible course.
As for the difference between real historians and hacks, William S. Shirer belongs with the hacks, at least that's what all the scholars said when he published Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in the early 60s. His only right to having written the thing was that he'd been an eyewitness in Europe while all of the events were taking place, rather than having been sitting as a professor at Harvard or Yale.
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Well put, SeaMonkey.
DesertDave, I remember reading about a badly damaged bomber returning to base, unable to get the unwounded young gunner out of its ball turret, and unable to engage its landing gear. You can easily imagine the rest. I believe it was a true story, but heard or read about it so long ago I can't be sure.
Read A Farewell To Arms too long ago, was also too young to really understand what Hemingway was saying; will be reading it again soon.
As a boy in the fifties (there were still plenty of WWI veterans alive and well!) I always tried to get in to listen to what all the war veterans had to say. Almost none of them would talk about the things they'd seen, especially an uncle of mine who almost never spoke. He'd see me playing soldier with friends and would give each of us a to go for ice cream while he watched our toy guns; usually just altered old broom or mop handles. I found out after his death that he'd served in North Africa and Europe, don't know what division he was with, but he was in it right up to the end. A few days after the announcement of Hitler's death he was on patrol in a deserted farm area and came under fire from a cottage. They kept yelling in pigeon German that the war was over but the reply was just heavier firing. Finally he got close enough to lob handgrenades inside. A moment later a boy of about 11 or 12 staggered out, shredded, and died in his arms thinking my uncle was his father. He went inside to see his buddies, half of them also dying in his arms, and he never fully recovered.
Another uncle, a tanker in Europe, told me once about what was usually left of a Sherman's crew after it had been hit and burst into flames. He shrugged and told me how the wreck would be towed back, cleaned out, repaired, and a given to the next crew.
And so it goes. None of them wrote books about it. I've also known several concentration camp survivors and even an old man who'd been in the Waffen SS fighting in Russia. He always said he was Swedish though he was actually from Finland and went to Germany in the early 30s because he wanted to be a Nazi. In his late eighties he showed me some photos he'd taken in his soldiering days, one had him picking up a long bench under a branch, looking up and smiling at the camera. Hanging from the branch were several young boys and girls. He looked at the photo over forty years later and had a little smile, "Those rascals, what did they not do?!" as though it were all part of a game. And yet, he was my friend, a sort of favorite old uncle who I loved too much to hate.
And on, and on, but I think there's no need (nor space) to go into all of them. Aside from which they aren't my war stories, only those that some older people have told to me.
Curiously I've never been able to read about the Vietnam War, or to watch movies on the subject. I always end up seeing people I grew up with getting killed in that pointless tragedy, and it still makes me sick to think about it. To a lesser extent the Korean War has a similar effect on me. Kind of odd because it's easy for me to read about other wars Americans fought in.
Snowstorm and Arado, thanks for the suggestios, put them on my list. :cool:
In the way of novels about WWII I've always liked Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five andJoseph Heller's Catch 22, both of which incorporate a great deal of satire, but deliver the message in ways that gave me chills. A straight war novel published during the war, A Walk in the Sun is one of my all time favorites. No guts and glory, only reality.
I like the alternative history novels of Harry Turtledove. Also one by J. N. Stroyar, The Children's War and one that is set in a hypothetical post war Germany of around 1960, Fatherland by Robert Harris, with the Cold War being between the United States and Third Reich. I'm not sure but I think there's an unending war going on beyond the Urals somewhere, but other than that WWII ended long before with Germany conquering and holding Europe.
Some collections of alternative history short works I like are: The World Hitler Never Made compiled by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld. Third Reich Victroious compiled by Peter G Tsouras.l Rising Sun Victorious compiled by the same editor. And, Disaster at D-Day, also by Peter Souras (busy, busy busy!)
Within the war I like The Pianist very much, by Wladyslow Sipilman, a great concert pianist who lived through the German occupation of Warsaw.
Holocaust in fiction I like a collection of short stories by Hugh Nissenson, A Pile of Stones.
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Thank you Lodi for the very enlightening reply, and Cantona for increasing my interest in The Wages of War. I’ll definitely be getting it soon and will read it sometime soon.
I have yet to read a book on either world war, or anything else for that matter, that is totally good, or totally bad; totally useful or utterly pointless. Well, okay, perhaps a few that have been utterly pointless but fortunately I’ve managed to forget them.
It’s hard for me to see anything like a unified German point of view in WWII. There was only what Hitler wanted and what Hitler decided to do and everyone else either worked within those limits, was dismissed, retired or transferred to something else, or was killed.
And, of course, it was the same with Stalin.
So we’re talking about anyone trying to deal with either, or both those leaders, having to deal with madmen. It’s possible that Neville Chamberlain’s mistake was to view Hitler and his cronies as sane. The Nuremburg Laws and Night of Shattered Glass should have shown the true nature of what other nations were dealing with.
Poland, to be sure, was in the least enviable position of any nation on earth being located between two great military powers led by madmen, both of them feeling they had valid claims to the country. Add to that the shortsighted actions taken at Versailles assigning areas that were wholly German and wholly Russian to the fledgling nation along with a port that was totally German and a swath of land leading to the sea that, aside from also being inhabited by Germans was made all the more untenable because it cut a large part of Germany off from the rest of the country. I don’t see any viable path for Poland other than to marry one or other of its powerful neighbors. An alliance with Britain, France or for that matter the United States would have been less than useless in terms of their country’s survival.
To me Britain and France, having passed on defending Czechoslovakia, a war that would actually have made sense, follow a course the following year of handing out guarantees to Poland and Rumania.
Buchanan’s conclusion is that this altered the course taken by Poland to that of playing chicken with Hitler. Not a wise policy when dealing with a madman who happened to be armed to his teeth. Without the Anglo-French guarantee, which again I have to say I’ve always felt was pure folly, Poland would have needed to find its own path. Ultimately it might well have ultimately lost its sovereignty but the continent, as a whole, would have been spared the catastrophic war that followed. At least one assumes. As you say, there’s no guarantee that Hitler wouldn’t have next claimed some sort of Greater Germania to include Holland, Denmark and Norway, a turn that Britain would definitely have had to stand against. Although in that case perhaps Germany would have been more cautious with the USSR sharing a common border through what had once been Poland.
Getting back to the Poles. I believe that, had Colonel Beck and the rest of the government agreed to what appeared to be Hitler’s very reasonable 1939 terms of a German highway through the corridor and return of Danzig to the Reich -- with Poland receiving financial compensation for lost revenue -- it would in time have been followed for with the official transfer of the Polish Corridor to Germany, the adaptation of anti-Semitic laws etc & etc. The only thing Poland could hope for in such a scheme with Germany was to eventually be reduced to minor ally status, self-governing as long as it did whatever Germany asked, and in every possible way subservient to a criminal regime.
Buchanan doesn’t deny that, although neither does he ever quite put it in the terms I’ve stated above. What he says is that its total destruction at the hands of Germany was easily foreseeable and the only logic behind the British and French guarantee (which did not ask Poland to come to their aid in the event they went to war with Germany over some other issue) was that Hitler, again presuming him to be sane, would not risk the insanity of a war with two great powers -- particularly in view of his having a third with a loaded gun standing at his back.
There are way too many aspects to these issues to properly discuss in a single thread, or even in anything less than a thorough and objective multi-volume study. But what Buchanan suggests is that Britain and France ought to have gotten together and decided what they could reasonably defend and drawn an announced policy along those lines, as the United States did in the post war world.
I have to agree with that. To be cynical, I think the policy of the west ought to have been to direct Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia into a collision without themselves becoming participants. What might have happened from there is an area that can be speculated upon from now till Doomsday (2012?!!). :eek::eek:
WWII Speculations Thread
in Strategic Command - GLOBAL CONFLICT
Posted
Responses to Snowstorm's earlier post supporting the idea for this thread, and Arado's question about number of deaths in 20th Century Wars: