History HubÌý permalink
ww1
This discussion has been closed.
-
Message 1.Ìý
Posted by shetland13 (U14982578) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
i would like some thoughts on how the uk and europe would have turned out if the uk had stayed out of ww1
-
Message 2
Posted by dmatt47 (U13073434) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
The likelihood is that we would not have had the Second World War and Belgium would have probably suffered badlly with lots of people migrating to the UK and Britain would have been better off financially. There would also have been many more people as the deaths and destruction from battles and Spanish Flu would not have gone on and there woud have been dictatorships for many years. Yugoslavia,Czechoslovakia and East Germany would not have existed and possible also the Soviet Union and a general lack of freedom due to the dictatorships that existed in 1914. We would almost certainly not have computers and hence the internet, no coalition governments and the like.
-
Message 3
Posted by stalti (U14278018) on Sunday, 18th September 2011
we would have been involved in ww1.5
surely something had to happen - germany was getting tooooo powerful
france and germany would have got it together in the end and we would have been involved
st -
Message 4
Posted by Patrick Wallace (U196685) on Saturday, 24th September 2011
The outcome of the war might not have been too different. The war would have started in the same way: Austria/Serbia/Germany/Russia/France. If Britain had stayed out, it's quite likely that sooner or later there would have been some incident at sea that led to Britain's joining in, either through the unrestricted submarine warfare that brought America in, or some incident like that of Charles Fryatt - or if Edith Cavell had helped French soldiers to escape through Holland. It would certainly have happened if the Germans had been stupid enough to arm the Easter Rising of 1916 against a neutral Britain.
The only question is, when? On the assumption that the Eastern Front would have been unaffected, the Russian revolution would have happened much the same. The later the date of British involvement, the more likely that some German breakthrough, like that of spring 1918, would have put France under greater pressure. On the other hand, the more likely also that there wouldn't have been the huge losses of British manpower in the earlier phases of the war, which might have led to more confidence at the end of the war and after. Or, the less likely the necessary changes in management and organisation of the war effort, undermining British participation in 1917 or 1918 the way the munitions problem did in 1915.
Likewise, the chances are that the influence of Woodrow Wilson's ideas would have been exactly the same; the break-up of the Austrian Empire and relations between its successor states would have been the same. Possibly the Polish boundaries might not have left quite such difficult issues for Germany, but the immiseration of most of central Europe would have been the same, and the rise of the Nazis equally likely. Certainly, delayed British participation would have left the French as least as, and probably much more, suspicious of Anglo-Saxon attitudes and intentions as they were in the 1920s and 1930s.
Possibly the Irish situation would have been different. No war in 1916 = no Easter Rising (or a much less serious version of it, causing less severe reaction?). No coalition government and the 1914 Â鶹ԼÅÄ Rule Act allowed to go ahead in peace? What then? -
Message 5
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Saturday, 24th September 2011
i would like some thoughts on how the uk and europe would have turned out if the uk had stayed out of ww1
Ìý Britain's word would have been worthless as, by staying out of WWI, she would have gone back on a treaty obligation to secure the sovereignty of Belgium, set up largely at British insistence, as well as informal agreements to defend France entered into before WWI.
A German-dominated Europe would certainly have not been more peaceful or susceptible to British interests. Britain would have suffered economically from the exclusion of a large part of her trade from the European market as well as probably having to contend with a far stronger Germany at a later stage. Neutrality in WWI did not protect Norway, Denmark and Holland from involvement in a subsequent conflict. -
Message 6
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Saturday, 24th September 2011
i would like some thoughts on how the uk and europe would have turned out if the uk had stayed out of ww1
Ìý The phrase "the UK and Europe" is the weakness in the what-if. Sometimes people considering the advantages of "splendid isolation" seem to live in the belief that the British isles are somewhere in the mid-Atlantic. In reality the straits are little more than a moat, and the UK is part of Europe in geographic, economic, political AND military terms. The practical consequence: It is almost unheard of for Britain to remain out of a major conflict on the continent. This only ever happened if the war was short, to my knowledge never if it was long.
So I agree with those who argue that Britain would inevitably have entered the war at some point. But assuming that it would have stayed out for a while...
Then the major advantage for Germany would have been the absence of a naval blockade: The French navy was probably not able to enforce one, also because it did not have the strategic ports in the North Sea. An early industrial power, Wilhelm II's Germany depended a lot on trade and could not fully feed itself. The British naval blockade cut off nearly half of its imports. By 1916, the German city population was already starving and cold. Lack of access to colonial products such as rubber handicapped the German war effort. With Britain out of the war, Germany would have been in a much stronger position.
Perhaps strong enough to impose peace terms on France. However, probably not quickly enough to prevent a British intervention. -
Message 7
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 24th September 2011
Perhaps you should try to get a copy of "When Bill Came" by Hector Munro alias Saki.. It was written about 1912-13 and describes a Great Britain taken over by the Kaiser.
Don't forget that the Kaiser had brought everyone to the brink of war in the Agadir Crisis of 1911.
Cass -
Message 8
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Sunday, 25th September 2011
As well as being warned off after Lloyd George made it clear in his Mansion House speech that Britain would stand by France in the event of war. Perhaps if Sir Edward Grey had delivered that message at an earlier juncture in the crisis of 1914 instead of merely calling for an international conference to resolve the issues Kaiser Bill might have issued his recall orders at a point when the railway timetables might have allowed them to be put into effect.
-
Message 9
Posted by FulwellLib (U14560427) on Monday, 26th September 2011
I think France would have struggled to last beyond 1915. Even allowing for the same result of the Battle of the Marne it was British forces which were instrumental in keeping the Germans out of Ypres. Without this the last chunk of Belgium would have fallen and the channel ports threatened. By mid 1915 the British Armies were occupying a sizable section of the front (not forgeting the Belgian Army) and without this the French army would have been very streched to hold. Given this situation I dont think the Germans would have gone over to the defensive but would have continued attacking in the West.
Given impending French collapse I think Britain may have had second thoughts, the atrocity stories of the helpless Belgians being raped and pillaged by the dastardly Hun could have rallied popular opinion to national interest in favour of intervention. How much notice the Germans would have taken if they were on the brink of victory is another question, as unless Britain had mobilized all eight Regular divisions plus the dozen or so Territorial Divisions then we could'nt have made much of an imediate impact.
To sum up I think negotiated peace by 1916 at the expence of the French but with Britain able to mitigate the more extreme German demands. -
Message 10
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 27th September 2011
I have lost two posts trying to make these points so I will be brief
(a) Given the fact that Britain had realised that it needed a defensive ally, had plans for an attack on France through Belgium, and had created a small BEF to be part of such a war, while focussing UK spending on the Navy- it is difficult to see how the UK could have stayed out of the IWW- short of opting out of the history of the times.
(b) But if GB had done so, we have no right to assume that France would have been unable to do anything..
If GB was no longer prepared to fight for its place in the world, the French presumably would have looked for the possibility of new allies- and might well have done, in relation to Britain and its Empire , what we both did together to other Empires that had no further competence in the Darwinian struggle for the Survival of the Fittest.
France might have encouraged Irish and Scottish Nationalism with promises of support for National Independence based upon its own model of republican secularity. British rights in Egypt and the Sudan, where Britain had supplanted the French might have been used to entice Turkey away from the German alliance, as Italy was.
Even the whole Russia-Turkish question might have been resolved once more once the British obsession with its naval command of the Mediterranean Sea was taken out of the equation.
French was not the language of diplomacy by accident.
And "French India" might well have raised up the question of the dishonour imposed by the "Crown Government" upon the Emperor of India, to whom all the Native Princes had sworn personal allegiance at the Delhi Durbhar just three years before.. After all the "Indian Mutiny" had "rescued" the last Moghul Emperor from the powerless condition that he was placed in by the Company Rule, and Lord Minto had tried to build up the Indian Princes in the first decade of the century in the hope that one of the Indian States might emerge as a kind of Prussia to re-create a new Indian Empire.
****
But in fact , as events after the war were to show, even then Britain was not prepared to give up these things without a fight.
Cass -
Message 11
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 27th September 2011
In short it reminds me of the H.G. Wells short story that was made into a film of "The man who stopped the world". He did so ignoring the fact that the World is surounded by its atmosphere.. and in stopping the world dead the result on the ground was winds of up to 1000 miles per hour that had an effect more or less like a nuclear blast. Our world can hardly stand up to winds of 100mph
Cass -
Message 12
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Tuesday, 27th September 2011
Britain's word would have been worthless as, by staying out of WWI, she would have gone back on a treaty obligation to secure the sovereignty of Belgium, set up largely at British insistenceÌý
There was no obligation under either the Treaty of 24 Articles (1831) or the Treaty of London (1839) for the UK to 'secure the sovereignty of Belgium'. Article 7 of the Treaty of London simply said that Belgium 'shall form an independent and perpetually neutral State.' And that Belgium 'shall be bound to observe such neutrality towards all other States.' This specifically relates to Belgium's obligations - not the UK's. The defence of Belgium was the responsibility of Belgium - not the responsibility of the UK.
A German-dominated Europe would certainly have not been more peaceful or susceptible to British interests. Britain would have suffered economically from the exclusion of a large part of her trade from the European marketÌý
This is debateable on at least 2 levels. Firstly there is no evidence that Germany would have 'dominated Europe' following a war with Russia and France in 1914. Secondly there is no evidence that Germany would have excluded British trade from Germany or anywhere else even if they had wanted to. Even before the First World War people In the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Rumania etc were already prefering to buy quality German goods rather than inferior UK products. UK industry had been in steady decline since the 1880s to such an extent that even British consumers were increasingly finding themselves purchasing goods made in Germany. -
Message 13
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 27th September 2011
Vizzer
The actual "scrap of paper" that was relevant in 1914 was the Treaty of London of 19 April 1839 - though the main idea was in the Treaty of 15 November 1831- viz. that Austria, Russia and Prussia signed up to a treaty of friendship and guarantee with King Leopold.
Cass -
Message 14
Posted by FulwellLib (U14560427) on Wednesday, 28th September 2011
Generaly neutral countries only remain so if 1) they can look after themselves enough to deter attack -USA or 2) Its not in the agressor nations interest to attack them at that time -Netherlands WW1. It didnt matter what the treaty said in 1914, Belgium was just unfortunat to be
in the way of the Schlieffen plan. -
Message 15
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Friday, 30th September 2011
there is no evidence that Germany would have 'dominated Europe' following a war with Russia and France in 1914.Ìý
What about Bethmann Hollweg's "September Programme" of September 1914 which outlined Germany's war aims as follows:
1)The annexation of Luxembourg.
2) The disabling of France. A crippling war indemnity of 10 billion Reichsmarks for France, with further payments to cover veterans' funds and to pay off all Germany's existing national debt. The ceding of some northern territory such as steel producing Briey, and a coastal strip running from Dunkirk to Boulogne-sur-Mer. The French economy will be dependent on Germany and all trade with the British Empire will cease. France will partially disarm by demolishing its northern forts.
3) Turning Belgium and the Netherlands into satellite states, if not annexing Belgium altogether. Parts of Belgium would be annexed to Prussia and Luxembourg. Germany would retain military and naval bases in Belgium and possibly the Netherlands, and they would be ruled under Germany's "guidance". Abolition of neutral states on Germany's borders.
4) The creation of a Mitteleuropa economic association dominated by Germany but ostensibly egalitarian. Members would include newly created buffer states carved out of the Russian Empire's west such as Poland, that would remain under German sovereignty "for all time".
5) The German colonial empire would be expanded. Most importantly, the creation of a contiguous German colony across central Africa at the expense of the French and Belgian colonies. Presumably leaving the option open for future negotiations with Britain, no British colonies were to be taken, but Britain's "intolerable hegemony" in world affairs was to end.
The zollverein customs union behind which the German states had been unified in the 19th century would presumably have been extended to the conquered parts of Europe and presumably to countries such as France, Austria-Hungary and Russia who wished to enter into an economic relationship with the victorious German Empire. Britain's commitment to Free Trade and its overseas Dominions would have precluded such a relationship to Britain's disadvantage. -
Message 16
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 30th September 2011
Allan D
Exactly..
In a less accessible part of my bookshelves I have a biography of Millicent Garrett Fawcett.
Even after the outbreak of war the Womens Social and Political Union in the UK was still hopeful that a great international conference of the women of all the nations might yet restore peace.. but she received a letter from one of her members, incensed that she had just received a letter from one of the expected German delegates in which the "frau" had said that, in fact, she thought that the world was going to be better off once Germany had won and was running things for the whole of humankind properly..
I think that it is just as well that we have decided to put the excesses of Prussian militarism behind us.. and hope that the Germans have too.
But they were real enough.. as G. M. Trevelyan commented in one of the pieces in "Recreations of an Historian" written in 1912 or 13 when he seemed to assume that after the Agadir Crisis affairs were going to move away from that Prussian militarism on the German side- and what Matthew Arnold called the Anglo-Saxon contagion on the other..
In 1918 GMT wrote a piece in the hope of rescuing the early Thomas Carlyle- more responsible than most for creating an admiration of things German in the UK- from the prevalent anti-German feeling.
Of Carlyle's later work he wrote:
"Ever since Carlyle's death his name has been coupled with Darwin's in argument for every bit of Prussian brutality that any Anglo-Saxon wished to commit under the sun. This was to but put a gloss upon the text of Darwin; but from Carlyle's later works chapter and verse for the whole doctrine of force could warrantably be quoted."
Cass -
Message 17
Posted by FulwellLib (U14560427) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
Presuming Britain had not taken part in the war, could the UK have stood by and watched Germany become so dominant in the Low Countries. A sutuation which had been contrary to English/British national interests since the 16th century. In addition could Britain have tolerated continued German naval expansion and the threat to maritime supremacy.
Personaly I think Britain would have been forced to oppose this and as Germany could not have been challenged in Europe without allies, the war would have been a naval/colonial conflict. If Britain had succeeded in this, (more than likley), she could have used this as a strong negotiating position to secure a favorable position for Belgium and the Netherlands suitable for British interests. -
Message 18
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
FulwellLib
As per my previous post-- You assume a unity within GB and its Empire which I do not think was there.
I think that the violent fractiousness and division with Great Britain and its Empire were a major factor in politics in the years up to 1914, and to some extent the war was seized as an opportunity to direct the anger and aggression externally and creating a good excuse to, for example, really improve the material conditions of "the working class"..
Much of the later radicalism within the UK for the 30+ years after 1918 owed a great deal to resentment that the large measure of State control that had been imposed during the war was lifted afterwards NB. the handing of the coal mines back to their pre-war owners.
Today's news is still being dominated by this idea that war time measures like putting the bill on the National Debt can be used in peace time-- and that government can run the economy on a National Scale.
Cass -
Message 19
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 1st October 2011
Further to my last-
You seem to ignore the fact that England/Britain had only been able to win the colonial wars against France because we had allies in Europe to fight the continental element of those conflicts-- most crucially we had almost called into being Prussia as our main military ally in Europe- and the German alliance seemed much more likely- up to the moment of the Entente Cordial with France.
Cass -
Message 20
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Sunday, 2nd October 2011
One of the victors’ most notorious slanders following the First World War was the so-called ‘Bethmann Hollwegs September Program’.
It was, in fact, neither Bethmann Hollweg’s and nor was it a program. It is true, though, that is was published in September 1914. That, of course, was a month after the war had started. In other words the reasons for Germany being in the war had already been decided upon before this ‘program’ was ever produced. The document was hurriedly penned by an over-excitable young academic working in the German Foreign Office by the name of Kurt Riezler simply as a proposal and was never officially adopted by Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg or the Imperial Government.
The ‘September program’ was later revived in the 1960s when an attempt to give it credibility was made by an opportunist historian at Hamburg University called Fritz Fischer who shamelessly sought international attention through courting controversy and hoped that raising his profile thus would help increase the English-language sales of his works – particularly in the lucrative US market.
Even if we take this ‘program’ at face value (which no serious historian would) and look at the details of the document then neither is it as extreme as some would like to paint it.
For example the proposed annexation of Luxembourg is no less extreme then the Russian plan to annex the whole of Poland, Lithuania and East Prussia or the French plan to annex Alsace-Lorraine and the Saarland. And the proposed German take-over of some French and Belgian territories in Africa was no different to the UK goal of annexing German overseas territories (a plan which was indeed realised in actual history).
There was also to be independence for the subject people's of the Russian Empire. I'm pretty sure that this was also NATO's preferred outcome to the later Cold War with the Soviet Union. It would seem that the fact that Finland, Estonia and Georgia etc are today independent countries would suggest that Riezler was actually prescient in this.
Then there is the proposed coal and steel union between Germany and France. That was, of course, no different to what actually took place 36 years later with the Franco-German Coal and Steel Union of 1951 – (that time proposed by France).
The proposed ‘creation of a Mitteleuropa economic association dominated by Germany but ostensibly egalitarian’ is pretty much and accurate description of the current configuration of the EU. One wonders, perhaps, if today the UK government should declare war on Germany because the German taxpayers are threatening to subsidise the Greek economy.
(It’s not clear where the supposed ‘abolition of neutral states on Germany’s borders’ comes from. It certainly does not feature in the ‘September program’. Another casual slander perhaps?)
With regard to the UK ‘tolerating’ German naval expansion then Britain had quite happily learned to co-exist with French naval expansion and US naval expansion during that exact same period of history. The somewhat hysterical reaction in Whitehall to the very existence of the Germany Imperial Navy was basically irrational and at odds with reality. Sadly, however, the phantom ‘German threat’ in the minds of some members of the UK establishment gradually took on the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy. -
Message 21
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 2nd October 2011
Vizzer
At least I agree with you in some of that.
The Wilsonian dream of an age of the common man, represented in self-determined nation states in which life could return to the human level, had shown that a world without strong Empires would descend into World Chaos.
Subsequently the kind of arguments put forward by Darwinists like Dr. Julian Huxley became part of the world order that was built after 1945- and is now facing perhaps its sternest test..
Huxley argued that the totalitarian states had been able to steal a march on the rest in their rigorous exploitation of science and technology reaping all the benefits that those physical sciences offered , making it possible to realise that dream of all power-mad people- i.e. taking control of Nature itself.
Humankind was "Living in a Revolution" and Darwinism argued that those who did not adapt to the revolution would perish. The Allies would have to copy the Axis Powers or lose the war.. And Britain's war aims came to be built around the idea of "winning the peace the way that we won the war".
After the First World War people had rejected the horrors of industrialization and the fruits of inhuman conduct-- hoping for a better world. And they just got a worse one.
So in 1945 they just accepted the need to work their way up out of Hell. But to climb up out of Hell it was necessary to get to grips with and come to terms with Hell- initially just giving first aid and trying to cope with just the "simple rights of the common man".
Cass -
Message 22
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Sunday, 2nd October 2011
For example the proposed annexation of Luxembourg is no less extreme then the Russian plan to annex the whole of Poland, Lithuania and East Prussia or the French plan to annex Alsace-Lorraine and the Saarland.Ìý
Playing somewhat fast and loose with the facts. What Russian plan? Where? Perhaps more comparable to the German plan to annex large parts of Russia and the Ukraine as outlined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 that would have been realised but for German defeat on the Western Front. So much for "independence' for the subject peoples of the Russian Empire. The German government appeared to have forgotten about that by March 1918.
It was not the French who annexed Alsace-Lorraine but Germany by the Treaty of Frankfurt in 1871. The French aimed to recover it (although of course they did not initiate war in 1914). Although the Saar was occupied after both wars it was never annexed but returned to Germany after internal plebiscites, in 1935 and 1955 respectively. Holding free and fair elections and respecting their outcomes is something the Germans found rather difficult, even in their own country, let alone the territory they occupied, in the period up until 1945.
It is true that the German colonial empire was broken up after WWI but it was distributed to a number of powers on the basis of League of Nations mandates including the Marianas Islands in the Pacific to the Japanese and South-West Africa, where the Germans had behaved with the utmost brutality before WWI, to South Africa (not Britain).
The idea that Germany intended some form of egalitarian European Union to emerge from WWI is ludicrous and easily dispelled by an examination of German behaviour in those territories which they did conquer in WWI, principally Belgium and Poland where the natural resources were pillaged for Germany's benefit and the civilian population were used as forced labour, with any resistance being ruthlessly crushed by means of reprisals and random killing, thus setting a template that was to be refined with exponential cruelty by a succeeding generation. -
Message 23
Posted by FulwellLib (U14560427) on Monday, 3rd October 2011
I am aware of Britains requirement for allies in fighting the continental powers at home as it were, but in this scenario Britain may well have had to make the best of a bad job depending on the point at which she took action vis France and Russia. Besides the war aim would only be to have fought a naval/colonial war in order to aquire barganing chips for a negotiated settlement.
A 'blue water' strategy was under consideration in the Admiralty in the years before the war, but was overtaken by the military agreament with France and the commitment to a continental strategy. As an aside the various Baltic operations that were looked at might have been interesting!
The Germans created avoidable tensions with Britain by initiating a large capital ship building program that had no other purpose but to challenge Britain, and thus encouraged Britain to patch up the colonial differences with France and Russia. The Germans effectively created the threats to themselves which went on to fuel their own 'encirclement' paranoia.
I wasnt aware that tensions with the Dominions was that serious after all they did provide 10 divisions of elite infantry for the war by voluntary enlistment. Also they declared war independently and had some influence in the use of these troops. Of course a 'blue water' strategy wouldnt have required the same level of commitment. -
Message 24
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 3rd October 2011
Fulwell
But would the Dominions have been happy to know that Britain's promises were not worth the paper that they were written on..
The White Dominions in 1914 were among the wealthiest populations in the world based upon per capita National Income..
But this really depended a great deal upon the UK retaining its status within the global community- an issue that Mr Osborne was talking about in the Tory Conference today..
The World's principal currency was the pound sterling - and everyone around the world knew that "an Englishman's word is his bond".. Hence "I promise to pay the bearer on Demand etc..." was enough.. It is interesting to note that when after 1945 the Attlee Government did take a more insular and "look after our own" attitude the result was a 30% devaluation of the pound, which cost all of the "British countries" with accounts in Sterling 30% of their global assets against the dollar- the new base currency.
Cass -
Message 25
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Monday, 3rd October 2011
What Russian plan?Ìý
As stated, for example, in the Proclamation of the Russian Supreme Commander-In-Chief issued 14 August 1914:
'Let the boundary line which has cut the Polish nation asunder be obliterated. Let the Poles be reunited under the sceptre of the Russian tsar.'
So much for "independence' for the subject peoples of the Russian Empire. The German government appeared to have forgotten about that by March 1918.Ìý
Not true. The Finns and the Estonians etc were close allies of Germany in 1918. So much so that the newly independent Finnish Parliament even elected Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse to be their king in October of that year.
The idea that Germany intended some form of egalitarian European Union to emerge from WWI is ludicrous and easily dispelled by an examination of German behaviour in those territories which they did conquer in WWI, principally Belgium and Poland where the natural resources were pillaged for Germany's benefit and the civilian population were used as forced labour, with any resistance being ruthlessly crushed by means of reprisals and random killing, thus setting a template that was to be refined with exponential cruelty by a succeeding generation.Ìý
Of course. The Hun used to crucify Belgian babies didn't they.
And with regard to Poland during the First World War then such crude atrocity propaganda is more than laughable. The German record in the Russian partition of Poland was in fact exemplary. It was also a far cry from the dismal Russian record when they occupied Galicia in the Habsburg partition of Poland. (And let's not forget the sorry record of the UK in Ireland during and after the First World War.) -
Message 26
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Monday, 3rd October 2011
And with regard to Poland during the First World War then such crude atrocity propaganda is more than laughable.Ìý
I'm sure this caused huge amusement:
-
Message 27
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Tuesday, 4th October 2011
That use of that wikilink as some kind of 'historical evidence' in this discussion certainly has the ability to raise a wry smile if not cause outright mirth.
The online wikipedia, of course, has a reputation for having many credible and sound pages but also some others which are decidely not. Let's just say that the page linked above falls into the latter category.
For example it only gives references to an obscure publication from the 1970s. That publication is itself suspect by having been produced in Poland during that decade (i.e the 1970s) when the communist/socialist regimes across eastern Europe were indulging in pro-nationalist historical revision in a desperate attempt to increase their popularity. This was in the face the reality of their economic failures. Obviously anti-Russian nationalism was out of the question at that time but anti-German nationalism, of course, was fair game.
But even if we take that dodgy wikientry at face value, it claims that around 221 civilians died in Kalisz. And even the Polish authors then say that this was largely down to jittery nerves and confusion on the part of the Germans in this border town in the very first days of the war with a massive Russian army nearby. The 221 civilian casualties claimed here, however, is still a smaller figure than the over 250 civilians killed in Dublin during Easter 1916. As said above the Germans had the excuse that Kalisz was a town on the front-line between 2 huge armies. One wonders what exactly the UK's excuse is for the even greater number of deaths in Dublin just 18 months later. There was certainly no Russian (or German) army camped in the Wicklow hills.
I also note that no evidence has been provided to support the assertion made in Message 22 that the civilian population of the Russian partition of Poland was 'used as forced labour' by Germany. And neither has any evidence been provided to support the assertion made in Message 15 that Bethmann Hollweg et al planned the 'abolition of neutral states on Germany's borders'. Maybe the reason for no such evidence being provided is that there isn't any. -
Message 28
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 4th October 2011
There were, however, incidents in the German Imperialism in Africa where the German Army was used quite deliberately to surround and liquidate settlements as exercises of brute force and genocide.. And this was not exceptional. My wife's grandmother's family left Lorraine after the German annexation, for one of the women in the family clearly showed her displeasure at the Germans marching in and had her head smashed in with a rifle butt. These were unsettled times. In the USA the horrors of the Civil War , the first truly industrial war, were followed by the massacre at Wounded Knee
So, of course the Germans were not alone. There was the whole scandal of the Attrocities in the Belgian Cogo, and as I have posted somewhere earlier today- British policy too had been influenced by the "Anglo-Saxon Contagion" of the Scot Thomas Carlyle and his circle. As G.M.Trevelyan observed in 1918 Carlyle and Darwin had been quoted over the last 20 years as giving just cause to every action of Prussian brutality perpetrated in the name of Great Britain. But if fighting was honourable much depended upon the cause and the treatment of the Rubber Collectors in the Belgian Congo had followed on in the UK from the public enquiry into the use of Concentration Camps for the Boer women and children in that war , in which the British resorted to trying to destroy the capacity of the Boers to live off the land.
As I have said at the start in view of the mindset of the time I can not see how Britain could have avoided concluding that the excessive use of militarism and brute force- which had become the modern style with the industrialised wars of the USA and Prussia in the 1860's - had to be fought in order to restore concepts of legality and order and prevent another Teutonic descent into the Dark Ages.
As for deaths in Dublin some responsibility surely has to rest with those people who took up armed struggle in the midst of a city.. Or are you counting those who took up arms as "civilians"?
Cass -
Message 29
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Tuesday, 4th October 2011
I also note that no evidence has been provided to support the assertion made in Message 22 that the civilian population of the Russian partition of Poland was 'used as forced labour' by Germany.Ìý
"The deployment of civil foreign workers and prisoners of war in World War I is often referred to as a rehearsal for the organisation of forced labour in World War II. National Socialists learned an important lesson from these experiences to successfully plan and enforce inhuman exploitation and treating foreign manpower in a cold and calculating way."
Interesting to note that the Wiki article also states:
"Before the war Kalisz had 65,000 citizens; after the war, only 5,000."
but I'm sore that's more Allied propaganda about a war that ended almost a century ago. It is also notable that Polish Jews were singled out for deportation at a time when Adolf Hitler had not yet earned his corporal's stripes. -
Message 30
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 4th October 2011
And Germany before 1914 had worked hard to provide both Turkey and Japan with modern and efficient armies in the image of its own..
A few years ago- on the eve of the French Referendum on the admission of Turkey into the EU- French TV broadcast a documantary about the Armenian Massacres with interviews from survivors etc.. My father-in-law said "Well that guarantees the "No" vote".
Cass -
Message 31
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 5th October 2011
It’s worth noting that that Bundesarchiv wepage offers no accreditation or references. By comparison it makes the previous linked wikipage seem positively scholarly.
Here’s another link about forced labour during the First World War – this time in the British Empire:
(Note that it too comes unaccredited and without references.)
It’s significant that the Budesarchiv website states that plans to institute forced labour were quickly dropped by the Germans. Not so with the other. According to the other website - not only was there forced labour in the British Empire throughout the First World War but the British continued to enslave Canadians for 2 years afterwards.
With regard to the drop in population of Kalisz during the war then this was no different to what happened in Ypres etc on the Western Front. One wonders, however, if historians should now deduce from the exodus of civilians from those destroyed Flanders towns that rather than the obvious refugee conclusion that instead this suggests that they had been either massacred or interned by UK forces.
About this Board
The History message boards are now closed. They remain visible as a matter of record but the opportunity to add new comments or open new threads is no longer available. Thank you all for your valued contributions over many years.
or Ìýto take part in a discussion.
The message board is currently closed for posting.
The message board is closed for posting.
This messageboard is .
Find out more about this board's
Search this Board
Â鶹ԼÅÄ iD
Â鶹ԼÅÄ navigation
Â鶹ԼÅÄ links
Â鶹ԼÅÄ Â© 2014 The Â鶹ԼÅÄ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.