Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
LETS LOOK AT A DIFFERANT ANGLE
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Message 1.Β
Posted by ritajoh (U10855204) on Saturday, 28th August 2010
A message on this board recently asked about attrosities after battles. but have there been very little ill treatment by the victors, i wouldnt say kindness but very little cruelty, and the victors in time have settled down with the vanquished and created a more or less peaceful country.
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Message 2
Posted by Herewordless (U14549396) on Saturday, 28th August 2010
That would be my thread! Lol
A good example to your own posting might be 1066- the aftermath of the battle of Stamford Bridge on 25th Sept?
King Harold II had just massacred 90% of a huge, veteran Norse invasion army under the feared King, Harald Sigurdsson 'Hardrada' (Hard ruler).
Harold could have wiped out the other 10% or so, but he didn't. He allowed "24 out of 300" shiploads of Norsemen to sail home in peace, upon oath of swearing never to invade again. They didn't.
Amongst these was Prince Olaf, son of Hardrada, who later looked fondly towards England for this mercy. Harold II's sons are alledged to have found exile in Norway under Olaf and his successors, due to this clemency. -
Message 3
Posted by tucuxii (U13714114) on Sunday, 29th August 2010
The western allies treatment and rebuilding of west Germany and Japan after World War Two would be a good examples
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Message 4
Posted by redced (U7864573) on Wednesday, 1st September 2010
One more for the list would be the actions of the Royal Navy in saving the lives of so many Spanish and French sailors during the storm which raged for days after the Battle of Trafalgar.The level of courage and seamanship displayed was equal to that shown during the battle itself.
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Message 5
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 1st September 2010
Of course acts of kindness in a war situation may be misconstrued..
A drama series about Cecil Rhodes some years ago featured a scene in which Rhodes Dr. "accomplice" [Carson?] on the famous raid into [probably] Matabeleland was shown after a battle putting a bullet through the head of wounded warriors.
This was acted as a racist attrocity.But it is difficult to see how any doctor could leave wounded people to die of exposure and predation out on the African Veldt. I think that most people would prefer instant death to being eaten alive.
In the later Zulu War Mohandas K Ghandi organised a humanitarian stretcher-bearing unit which carried wounded men up to forty miles across wild country so that they might have some chance of medical treatment.
I am not sure just where the "save the last bullet for yourself" principle applies in the modern world.
Cass -
Message 6
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Thursday, 2nd September 2010
Cass
Henry Rider Haggard described in an article (and again in the novel King Solomons Mines) how Zulu medicine men would often open an artery of a mortally wounded warrior on the battlefield without his knowledge. This was done to save the man from undue suffering and to speed up his demise painlessly.
I often wonder if the same action was not performed on warriors who were not so badly wounded, but injured enough to be a burden to the rest of the Zulu army fighting far from home. -
Message 7
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 2nd September 2010
Sleepyrooster
But it was probably against warrior pride to be a burden.. A favourite incident in Laurens Van Der Post on bushmen of the Kalahari.. He and his party were camped for the night in the middle of the desert. One of his guides sensed people coming, though there were no visible traces- even using binoculars. Eventually a group came out of the desert. They were given and drank large quantities of water. Then one grabbed some and rushed off, only to return with the elders who had insisted on being left to die instead of hindering the chances of everyone else.
Cass -
Message 8
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Thursday, 2nd September 2010
CASS
Yes, a different age with different values.
How did the old quotation go? forgive me if I get it wrong...
'There is no greater love on Earth than that in which a man will lay down his life for his friend'. -
Message 9
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 2nd September 2010
Sleepyrooster
Yes. Different times.
But going back to the OP was it not the case that as Europe crawled into being out of the Dark Ages, and people tried to spread the idea of Christendom, that those who had found themselves at war, submitting themselves to the judgement of the "God of Battles", were expected to then accept that judgement as "Brothers in Christ and be reconciled"?
The recent blocked post about NI made me think yet again of the modern misconstruction of Jesus' calling for people to love their enemies. It seems to be commonly interpreted now as meaning "live in peace", but as a married man of 42 years I can say that that is not all that easy. My French mother-in-law quotes the old wisdom of her country that men and women were just not made to live happily together.
I think that Jesus was realistic enough to realize that conflicts are part of life, and they are made all the more difficult to resolve if the substantive points at issue are compounded by hatred and other noxious emotions... But our current mass culture seems to be built on such negativity.. It is good to be bad.
Cass -
Message 10
Posted by AlexanderLiberty (U14397753) on Thursday, 2nd September 2010
Vae victis!
Woe to the vanquished!
(Brennus, Celtic leader, as quoted by Livy)
It's an old quote but it always true because every war is different, every war is the same. -
Message 11
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Friday, 3rd September 2010
Cass
Yes, the analogy you use concerning a married couple and peoples of different vocations certainly does ring true. I can vouch for the former!
But seriously, when conquerors and vanquished inevitably integrate (as most seem to have done throughout history) it makes one wonder why they ever bothered to fight in the first place.
Greed and the quest for personal power seem to have driven most aggressors to invade their neighbours, but time heals all wounds.
Another analogy to make here, is the affinity which develops between kidnappers and their victims. Time spent together seems to draw people together, and only extreme religious differences will keep them apart. -
Message 12
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Friday, 3rd September 2010
CASSEROLEON,
My French mother-in-law quotes the old wisdom of her country that men and women were just not made to live happily together.Β
Does your father-in-law concur? -
Message 13
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 3rd September 2010
Sleepy rooster
On the general point of why people fight, at the personal level in my teaching experience particularly in boys only schools it was almost a golden rule that boys that I came across rolling around on the floor fighting subsequently became the best of friends for the rest of their school career. Girls tended to get into other kinds of fights, but it was often the case that, while opposites attract, similarities initially repel- until both parties realise that the conflict arose because they had so much in common. The key moment in a developing realtionship was often discovering a common ground in things and people they hated. In the case of the English and the French, it was surely the Germans who created the present generally amicable relationships.
Just consider how much affection the Aussie have and had for Ian Botham and Freddie Flintoff, two Englishmen who played the game as aggressively as any Aussie. What Aussie's really hate is "whinging poms" who can not put up a good fight! And the Aussies probably started to love Ian Botham when he deliberately ran Geoffrey Boycott out in the Headingly Test. OK so Australia lost, but what a way for a young man to go out to win!
There is that old adage about love and hate being so closely related, and the most bitter football rivalries are between clubs serving the same basic community.
In our own case I am often aware that England and France, as true Old Enemies, are in many ways mirror images of each other. Thus,for example, in a national crisis the English instinct seems historically to be to show solidarity and unity, while the French fight each other.
In between such crisis moments, however, the English expect everyone to just "do their own thing" enjoying the precious English freedom that we demand not just for ourselves but for all people who wish to be English, while the French expect [especially everyone else] to be ruled by custom, law and red tape.
As for my father-in-law, he long ago settled for a Western Front type of situation in which his trench-system is well-established, as is that of my mother-in-law. Ocasionally they can meet in "No Man's Land".
Cass -
Message 14
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Friday, 3rd September 2010
Cass
Ha ha, poor old pa-in-law!
I went to a boys only school and what you say about conflicts in the playground is spot on.
Also, I agree entirely with your other remarks concerning England and her oldest 'enemy'.
And Botham...what a star! I read once about the time one of the Chapell brothers was giving him a hard time in a pub somewhere in Aussieland. The story goes that Botham chased him out of the place and down the street but couldn't quite catch up with him. Good job he couldn't really, he might have been villified in the media for a different kind of bodyline series!
Anyway, thanks Cass, speak soon. -
Message 15
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 3rd September 2010
Sleepyrooster
I may as well chance my arm once more..
When I called France the "Old Enemy", the "auld enemy" claims of the Scots came to mind... But it is perhaps indicative of something that the Scots think themselves of equal status to the English and therefore of "enemy" status: but I do not see much evidence that the English see the Scots in the same way..
Playground style- one of the lower school who makes trouble from time to time.
Cass -
Message 16
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
Cass
Yes, I see what you mean. The antagonism between the English and Scots seems to be altogether one-way. I remember myself and some friends cheering for Scotland in a world cup years ago for which England didn't qualify, and was shocked when the rolls were reversed in a later version to hear how badly the Scots wanted us to lose.
Then, recently, there has been this ABBE thing (anybody but England) that was banded about on T shirts up there before the latest world cup, even Andy Murray wore one! I just can't see why they are so anti-English, unless it is a racial memory; or is it perhaps just plain jealousy?
Rooster -
Message 17
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
Sleepyrooster
Going back to the school analogies, I well recall early conversations with young lads I was teaching who had come from Jamaica aged 14-15 and who were weighed down by the history of slavery (that had been abolished in 1833)- and treated me as a privileged "white middle class" person.. Well we all have history. And I was very aware of just how hard I had worked to get from my "roots" to a position where I had quite a deal of freedom to choose how I was living my life.. As far as I was concerned that was the lesson that I could teach them from my studies and personal experience.. Many pupils over the next 37 years did learn the lesson.
I think that the English attitude to the "other nations" in the British Isles is not dissimilar. One of the personal lessons that "saved me" was the realisation that blame and guilt are totally negative and fruitless avenues to pursue. The only positive thought in any situation is "What can I do about it?".. We should never allow other people to determine our lives for us.. But then that is a principle that English people have acted upon over centuries. We have consistently fought against all kinds of tyranny within and without: but have resisted any temptation (perhaps before 1945?) to adopt a permanent fortress mentality; as exemplified by the long-standing resistance to the creation of a standing army. (post-45 National Service continued for nearly 20 years)
Cass -
Message 18
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
Cass
I remember well the primary influx of Jamaican immigrants, and although we accepted them with typical English grace, I couldn't understand at that time why they acted so disdainfully toward us. Of course, the only thing I was taught regarding the slavery era was that the English were instrumental in ending it. However, it seems that these people tarred us with the same brush as they did the Spanish and Portugese, if not actually believing us to be worse. Why they thought that we alone owed them some kind of reparation I'll never know.
Is it because we as a nation have so much history that we allow people to dictate to us?
I do believe, as you probably do, that our regard and humanity toward other nations is not altogether reciprocated. -
Message 19
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
Sleepyrooster
It was not only my first black pupils who thought that I must have had some kind of privileged background. I was somewhat amused when in my first year at uni some fellow students said that surely I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and my material future was all mapped out-n daddy's firm or office.
As I have inferred on a wider scale there seems to be an assumption that the English have had it easy. Such people should come and work my allotment plot on London clay that I have been digging over for 20 years. The kind of heavy soil and back-breaking work that I associate with my ancestors.
After 12 years or so of teaching I recall a year five class watching "How We Used To Live" with a re-enactment of child labour in the textile mills. I heard two black pupils nudge each other and say that they never knew white people had had it that bad..
Of course all pronouncements by West Indian planters are now dismissed. But it is just possible that those who visited some mills with Richard Oastler and remarked that they would never dare to treat their black slaves the way that the workers were being treated in Yorkshire- were telling the truth. It is now accepted that slave revolts and uprisings were quite common; and a document that I have read about the actual work load on a plantation has a ring of truth. Any mono-crop cultivation is likely to involve two periods of intense activity- the planting season and the harvesting season. Usually rural labour is unemployed or underemployed in between, and it was in the planters' interests to allow slaves- like agricultural workers in the British Isles- allotment plots like mine where they could grow food to feed themselves, and sell any spare produce.
According to a school book written by a West Indian academic that I read some time ago, during the eighteenth century many slaves had used these plots to earn enough to buy their freedom, and also to purchase plots of their own. A good friend on the allotments, who came here in the Fifties, went back to Jamaica this summer for 6 weeks to do some work on the family lands and properties that they have owned for generations.
But certainly many of those migrating to our Brixton area seem to have come from the poorest parts of Kingston, and from memory I seem to recall that post-independent Jamaica asked the UK to take some of its unemployed because of a labour shortage here.
My own hypothesis is that the slavery episode is seen through the lens of what happened afterwards. My pupils assumed (a)that their ancestors were slaves because of racism; when they were enslaved by Africans according to African custom and law. And (b)that the poverty of Jamaica is due to the exploitation involved in slavery. In fact those West Indian planters visiting Yorkshire may well have realised, as factory bosses had when the laws were brought in about factory apprentices, that "free" labour paid by the hour or according to productivity was much more economic than having an obligation to support workers and their families for 12 months a year, even when there was no work.
The abolition of slavery in 1833 was possible because GB had invested hugely in larger plantation systems in the Latin America, where there were new economies of scale, and Britain had no government responsibility. The West Indies, which had been some of the most valuable real-estate in the Americas for much of the eighteenth century, became something of an economic backwater. And ideas like scientific racism did tend to write off the lands and the peoples as a "waste of space".. Thomas Carlyle wrote a famous pamphlet "The N Problem" after a black uprising had been put down with extensive violence and a number of hangings, including (I seem to remember) a black Christian clergyman.
Whenever Racism started, it certainly became a very real thing.. A recent TV documentary in France on the German invasion of 1940 made a point of highlighting the great bravery of some French African units, and in some cases their white officers. If captured the Germans exterminated them as belonging to inferior race.
At least my background and roots may be misinterpreted.
Cass -
Message 20
Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Saturday, 4th September 2010
In 1903, Britain invaded Tibet. The battle of Guru was so one sided that even British officers complained of the slaughter. In the aftermath almost all the Tibetan wounded survived thanks to the treatment in British army hospitals.
This endeared them hugely to the Tibetan poeple who'd never experienced such care from their own rulers, yet hampered the advace on Lhasa as the army was swamped by Tibeten civilians seeking medical care. -
Message 21
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Sunday, 5th September 2010
Cass n Cloudy
Yes, what you posted seems to say it all.
I believe that it is because of us having to fight many wars during our history that we became magnanimous in victory. Also, contrary to some people's perception of us, we are, and have always been, a basically benevolent nation. I often wonder what aid certain other countries would give US if we suffered some kind of natural disaster?
Methinks it's a one-way street! -
Message 22
Posted by ritajoh (U10855204) on Sunday, 5th September 2010
SLEEPY ROOSTER
Yes i agree with you,what help would other countries give us in the case of a distaster,but they seem to think nothing could ever happen to us, a lot of people think of britain as a nation where money grows on trees. If a distarter did strike us, i believe other nations would be stunned that such a thing could happen to us.to them we are undistrutable,lets hope we remain so. -
Message 23
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Sunday, 5th September 2010
ritajoh
I'm afraid that some countries look upon us as if we owe them a living, and more often than not they blame our past colonialism.
However, they forget that we did in fact bring these people forward and helped them on the way to civilisation - just as the Romans did here.
Perhaps the animosity felt toward us (and also toward the USA) is borne out of jealosy for our peaceful way of life. If these nations channelled all their energies into creating a better country for their people instead of lying back and trying to get ahead through handouts, they would really begin to prosper. ( Look at the Chinese as an example!) -
Message 24
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 5th September 2010
SleepyRooster
I am currently writing a rather substantial piece at the moment which I think touches on some key issues that are relevant. And I think that they go to the heart of a number of current problems.
(a) The success of England[and the American colonies that became the USA] was based upon the fact that the English had developed a way of life in which the common people had a great deal of control- as individuals an communities- over their lives. Kings did well out of this because it allowed people to be enterprising and opportunistic, and thus the English could afford a State that could function according to the needs of the people- and not the ambitions and dreams of Kings. In crisis moments when the King and the elite were really crucial and "earned their keep", the people rallied round and were vitally important in fighting together, all as Englishmen.
(b)This particularly English way of life was connected with the geography- the human scale of a small country and its countryside, and the advantage of its island status.. Other places were not so lucky, and there daily life was heavily dependent upon "Civilization"- that is a complex of common ideas, underpinning a clear hierarchical structure that brought and maintained order out of the potential chaos. Civilizations were in fact engaged in a constant struggle to maintain coherence against the threat of chaos from within and without. As in the Noah/Gilgamesh myth, they might be overwhelmed by "the flood". Then they would be 'scattered to the winds', only to recreate themselves along the lines dictated by their civilization, that "chained down" the common people to defined positions within the overall structure.
(c)England's tradition of individual and corporate freedom to pursue adventure and to exploit opportunities, meant that the English were more able to take advantage of the economic potential of great Empires and Civilizations that were often priest-ridden or subject to absolute monarchy, or the like. Queen Elizabeth's sea-dogs took advantage of the Spanish Empire, the Ottoman Empire,and Muscovy; and finally the East India Company was set up to seize the opportunities offered by the economic systems associated with India and China. These larger units were cumbersome and heavy like the Spanish Armada, and the English, having decided years ago to avoid the really heavy issues that created endless problems, were much better equipped to take advantage of opportunities.
(d) This possibility of keeping out of the dark and terrible mainstream of European History and the cumbersome development of a clear and coherent Civilization served England very well in the modern era. By and large England avoided the worst of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The 300+ killed by "Bloody Mary" was too much for English tastes: but continentals might be excused for wondering what all the fuss is about. Later on mainland Europe "saw reason", but the Civilization of European Rationalism, in an age of global development, led to the Age of Revolution. This quickly became the Age of Gothic Horror. And an England that had taken the opportunities offered by that global economy, was now able to forge a new and counter-power through its industrial revolution, enough power to defeat both the Revolutionary and Napoleonic dreams.
(e) But after 1815 there were still cumbersome old Empires determined to impose "the old ways", and thereby to frustrate the pressures fo change from within and without. This period of Reaction v Revolution lasted until around the European Year of Revolution 1848. In the aftermath, however, there was a significant shift as many states began to analise the secrets of English, [now British] power. For Great Britain was the ascendant country on Earth between 1850 and c1870. But rather like the "Accidental Man" of a novel by Iris Murdock the path that England/Britain had taken had been really a "muddling through". As Matthew Arnold wrote in the 1860's England was a place of Philistinism and not of Civilization. It was not really possible to define England for it had no systems or rational frameworks.
Dr. Johnson, who wrote the first English Dictionary in about 3 years laughed when it was pointed out that it had taken a large number of French academicians something like 27 years to produce a French one. After a quick calculation he said that about one year of English work to 600 years of French work was about correct.
But the French Academy defined what the French language should be, while Johnson just wrote down English as English people used it. When it was suggested that a second edition might give "proper" pronunciation, he pointed out that currently there was a word that the best orator in the House of Commons pronounced one way, while the best orator in the House of Lords spoke another. Both were equally well understood, which is the point of language.
(f) By the time that Arnold, Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, wrote his piece Philistinism and Helenism, England was no longer an independent small island. It was part of a global economy, and was in fact "the Workshop of the World". During that period of ascendancy there was a hope that the pursuit of the Wealth of all Natioms in accordance with the ideas of Adam Smith, as developed by Cobden and Bright, would produce a peaceful world in line with English simplicity. But old Empires and potential Empires had now taken the path to industrialization and were wedding it to old and new ambitions of race, culture and civilization, many of them connected with their distant past.
Napoleon had seen already that Britain was a "nation of shopkeepers" and tried to destroy it by his "Continental System" having crowned himself as a new Charlemagne, architect of Christendom. By 1850-70 Britain and the British way of life was now based upon economic development- How else could Britain cope with the challenge of its population growth, and hope to deal with the problems of Disraeli's "Two Nations". Britain now faced the challenge of Civilization -coherence or chaos.
Britain had stood outside of the mainstream of history, as had the USA. Both had a tradition of individualism and opportunity, which had made it possible to exploit the global potential for economic growth and "the pursuit of happiness", whatever that was for each individual.
But neither Anglo-Saxon power had any clear and overall purpose other than to protect the right of its citizens to just carry on in an old-English tradition. Arnold was depressed by the Anglo-Saxon contagion of the 1870's as teutonic and other folk cultures were trumpeted and praised. But for other countries and other traditions the old-ways were not good enough: and increasingly as the nineteenth and twentieth centuries advanced the common people in such countries could be made to feel that they were involved in some great project. The result was "Great Leaps Forward", dreams of "A Thousand Year Reich" etc. And Britain, and even the USA, has been challenged.
The Anglo-Saxon response has been the old-one of the unified stand against the threat of overwhelming force and conquest by some great Imperial power, as well as willingness to resort to that old-Anglo-Saxon tradition of "the last ditch stand". It saw off Kaiser Willhelm, and Adolf Hitler, and eventually it saw off the challenge of Communism. But it was evidently goalless and purposeless before 9/11 gave it a new crusade- and negative purpose.
For, in between such crises, what is the point of English, American/Anglo-Saxon life, - apart from merely preventing the world from going down definitively into the kind of dark place that we have been at pains to avoid?. My Sixties Generation wanted to have some idea that it might all be for something.
In the late Sixties Kenneth Clarke produced his great Civilzation TV series, because the result of Matthew Arnold article (and others on the same theme) was that the Victorians undertook a serious educational revolution inspired by the French and Prussian national systems. All of a sudden the world history revealed that "White men" of Northern Europe were the torch-bearers of Western Civilization, with a duty to both master Civilisation and to spread it around the world.
In keeping with this historical ideal, the only one the West really had to offer,after the Second World War Britain and most countries of the world placed a great emphasis on developing the "human capital" of the rising generations. After half a century of the Age of Catastrophe we were supposed to come up with answers. But we were children and students: and our teachers had no answers. It was a chicken and egg situation. Fortunately we were a global phenomenon, and gained at least a sense of all being on the same road.
A great lyric,{if you take out one repeated word] one of many from the Burt Bacharach/Harold David team said:
"What's it all?
Is it just for the moment we live?
What's it all about when you sort it out?
Are we meant to take more than we give?
Or are we meant to be kind?
And if only fools are kind
Then I guess it is wise to be cruel.
And then life belongs only to the strong.
What would you lend on an old golden rule.
As sure as I believe there's a Heaven above,
I know there's something much more
Something even non-believers can believe in.
I believe in love.
Without true love we just exist
Until you find the love you've missed
Your nothing.
When you let your heart lead the way
You'll find love any day.
But I have been told that I intellectualise too much.It is just not English. It is true. As a child in Oxford I wanted to be part of the world, and took on Hell. The English have generally been able to avoid going into Hell- the Dr, Faustus trip- or if they have, they tend to take advantage of the peace and security of England to put it out of their mind.
[ One of the most heartfelt experiences of my life was hearing a quiet voice from a colleague in the corner of a staff-room say "Actually I was at Auschwitz"]..
I recently watched Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice for the first time, and I knew what Sophie meant when she said to her young friend "You know nothing"... And those who know nothing are of only limited help in the challenges of life.
F.D. Roosevelt famously said "We have nothing to fear but fear itself".. But it has been something of an Anglo-Saxon privilege to live without the kind of fear and terror that has haunted much of humanity..
Cass -
Message 25
Posted by TrailApe (U1701496) on Monday, 6th September 2010
Yes, I see what you mean. The antagonism between the English and Scots seems to be altogether one-way
I think this would very much depend on whereabouts in England you live. Whilst the denizens of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Counties might not see the Scots as a threat -it's not for nothing that the North has dozens of pele towers and bastles - to say nothing of the bigger fortified sites.
It was as recent as August 1640 that the Scots were knocking seven kinds of hell out of Newcastle.
If it had been London we would never have heard the end of it! -
Message 26
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Monday, 6th September 2010
Cass
While I agree with most of what you say, I'd like to bring your attention to a few points if I may.
During research for a novel I had published recently, I read extensively about tactics used by our forces during their many battles throughout history. (The most informative being by David Howarth regarding our naval prowess).
The research served only to confirm what I already knew; that it was discipline and intense training that usually won the day for us.
Our navy's ability to fire their cannon accurately during heavy seas for one; or the army's grim determination in not breaking rank when under extreme fire.
Instances of these qualities abound, and examples can be found in contemporary accounts of the goings-on at Waterloo; Trafalgar; Crimea; Armada; Roarke's Drift; Dunkirk, etc etc.
Perhaps it is because of our rich history that we remember and rejoice in these shows of heroism.
Antagonists throughout our history, ever since the middle ages, have underestimated the resolve of the people of this island, and that has been their biggest mistake.
What I have just written may smack of intense patriotism; perhaps it is to some extent, but it is something I truly believe.
Some nations in their past, (and some now) have been fanatical followers of their heads of state. However, this fanaticism falls short when the chips are down and their own life becomes in danger. The only exception to this rule are the religious maniacs; but that is a whole new ball game! -
Message 27
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 6th September 2010
Sleepyrooster
Yes. I make that point quite specifically in what I am writing.. I quote a couple of interesting pieces in Montgomery's Memoirs.
After Dunkirk he was very angry at the public attitude, mistaking the mood for one of triumphalism.. People, he said, did not seem to understand that the British forces had suffered a humiliating defeat.. But "Montie" had been born and grew up in Tasmania where his dad was the Anglican Bishop. He had been sent to London to board at St. Paul's at 13. But this too excluded him from the "normal" English experience. He was one of that "Lost Generation" that was educated to accept the burden of being part of the "ruling establishment" in the Roman tradition and "making something" of Barbarians- who occupied the "lower orders" of Roman Society.
The post-Dunkirk mood, in fact, was one of celebration and recognition that, in a crisis hour, the English people had, as over the centuries, pulled together- so that there was a seamless connection and inter-relationship between individual, community and State. It was the kind of teamwork that had saved England so many times. After the age of catastrophe from 1914- 1940- that had seen so much bitterness and division (that in fact had started a few years before 1914) there was the Shock of the Familiar in "the miracle of Dunkirk". As someone interviewed in probably "The World at War" TV series said, all of a sudden the complications of the modern world had fallen away. It was not a case of "England expects each man this day will do his duty"- for now it was hoped that the challenge would be met by a global Britishness.. But failing that [the Irish Free State remained neutral] in any case the English were in a familiar place. And the country that gave the world just about all of its major team games knew all about this kind of "War Game".
Of course Montie, in the tradition of many very talented outsiders, who did not suffer from English modesty and self-deprication, had very early on established that he was a captain and not just a team player. At St.Paul's, where he was exposed to the great public school games of rugby and cricket for the first time, he very quickly became the captain of the school's year teams..{ Shades of Kevin Pieterson, who cannot 'play for his team'; and recently admitted to not having recovered from the trauma of losing the English captaincy]
Writing about the BEF before Dunkirk Montie makes exactly the point that you have made about the exemplary nature of his own unit. There were no weak links, as the result of his selection and training. But also, I would assert, because of that English tradition of being quite happy to serve and do whatever it takes to make the team succeed..
This was brought out in Dad's Army where Captain Manwairing constantly showed his limitations and led his unit towards catastrophe. He could only operate as an officious and "bossy" commander, and,as so often in English life, it was his deputy who actually made sure that things actually worked..
Having just had my rugby hat on, the obvious rugby parallel was the role of Dean Richards in English or British Lions teams. Some people just do not need to be in charge to 'make a difference'.
When Montie was subsequently given command of the Army in the South of England, he applied his principles to the whole army. No weak links. Ever individual must be both physically and mentally fit, since ever team plan requires intelligence in order to marry individual performance to the actual circumstances which are never going to be exactly the same as in forward projections.
He tells of one senior officer who came to him with a medical certificate asking to be spared something like cross-country runnin (great for mind and body. Montie sold him to put on his running shoes. If he was going to drop dead he did not want it to happen "in the field". He could train, or resign his commission.
Regards
Cass
PS Congratulations on getting published.. I never manage it. -
Message 28
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Monday, 6th September 2010
Cass
I know getting published is like battering ones head against a brick wall, as they say; but keep battering away, don't give up, and I'm sure you'll do it.
Again, your last post is fascinating; and, like you obviously do, I enjoy doing the research almost as much as the writing.
What are you turning out by the way?
The very best of luck whatever it is.
Rooster -
Message 29
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 6th September 2010
Rooster
Thanks for encouragement.. I realise that I have never really battered enough.
What I have been working on for the last year- to 14 months is a project that I call "Towards a View of History for Our Own Times"..So far I have completed Sections One and Two and have posted them in My Space on h2g2.
I am currently working on the introduction to the third section that I have entitled "Work In Progress".. having discussed this idea with Thomas B who was kind enough to read the early parts and to encourage me to write on.
As for research - The way things happen I decided to get right away from History for our summer break,so I took away "Tarka the Otter"-- only to realize after a very few pages that the book was all about Henry Williamson's attempt to escape from his part in History, having gone to war in 1914 at the age of 17.
What he described in Exmoor was just another kind of "Western Front"; but one that quickly became a classic when it was published in 1927 because, while it was full of slaughter, it placed it within a familiar English countryside, and showed the Truth of food-chain as part of the Darwinianism that was then becoming so popular.
Your original post raises questions that I dealt with in the first thing that I first completed about 10 years ago which I entitled "English Peace". I believe that, as the Queen put it recently, the "waging of peace" has been a major theme of English History; and a very important element in my own development since being born into a troubled world in 1944.
Regards
Cass -
Message 30
Posted by AlexanderLiberty (U14397753) on Sunday, 12th September 2010
Sleepyrooster,
I often wonder what aid certain other countries would give US if we suffered some kind of natural disaster?
I'm not an entire country but I would give you help for a natural disaster.
Bye -
Message 31
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Monday, 13th September 2010
Why, thank you Alexander. I'll chalk that one down!
Rooster -
Message 32
Posted by Wally (U14414065) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
Not sure how relevant this is, but the bonds forged between Turkey and their enemies at Gallipoli have endured through the generations. Thanks to the leadership of Mustafa Kemal a great respect grew between the opposing sides, and this translated into warm relations after the end of the conflict. This in turn led to economic and cultural links that have continued into the twenty first century.
-
Message 33
Posted by MB (U177470) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
"I often wonder what aid certain other countries would give US if we suffered some kind of natural disaster? "
Cuba and Venezuela were amongst the first countries to offer aid to the US after Hurricane Katrina but were rejected by the US government. -
Message 34
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
MB
Hmmm...that would be like a tramp offering to help a millionaire!
Smacks of looking for brownie points. What would they want in return?
No, I meant a devastating disaster; and by US, I mean the UK. -
Message 35
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
Wally66
Without disagreeing with what you say:
(a)Perhaps one might point out the fact that the Crimean War was undertaken by Great Britain and France (certainly initially) to save Turkey from Russian expansion. Britain having decided that the Eastern Question would become too dangerously volatile should a Turkish/Islamic power that Europe could "do business with" collapse.. In the light of subsequent history it was not a foolish idea.
(b) The modernisation of Turkey in the twentieth century is generally linked to "The Young Turks" who had been educated in the West.. Much as the Chinese revolution of the same time 1911 was associated with Sun Yat Sen who had been educated by western missionaries in the Pacific.
And it may well be that the Turks, like Germany's other allies before 1914, had no clear idea- as hisorians have, of just who was in the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. As it was Italy backed out when they found that they were fighting with, rather than against, Austria-Hungary.
Cass -
Message 36
Posted by MB (U177470) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
"Hmmm...that would be like a tramp offering to help a millionaire!
Smacks of looking for brownie points. What would they want in return?
No, I meant a devastating disaster; and by US, I mean the UK."
For a small country Cuba has a well organised medical service that has often gone to the help of their neighbours in the Caribbean. The US might be much bigger and richer but they took a long time to get organised after Katrina so perhaps the people of New Orleans would have welcomed the help in the period when it was not coming from the Federal and State authorities. -
Message 37
Posted by AlexanderLiberty (U14397753) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
Sleepyrooster,
Because I love the natural and the historical heritage of UK. Cool
It's the land of William Shakespeare. A great poet and playwright. His plays are ever actually because he speaks about mankind with his virtues and vices.
Bye -
Message 38
Posted by rooster (U14062359) on Tuesday, 14th September 2010
Alexander
Thanks for that. Yes, I too love the plays of the bard. When I was first introduced to them as part of my school curriculum, I hated them. It took a full term for me to fully understand what I was reading, but when the penny finally dropped I was hooked. Love them now!
Rooster
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