tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22301740.post115841317960022660..comments2024-03-26T09:49:07.212-07:00Comments on The Scratching Post: A Vote for 1933 Pacifism from a Neo-conK T Cathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10259428595745509790noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22301740.post-1158781400689183922006-09-20T12:43:00.000-07:002006-09-20T12:43:00.000-07:00Alan,I went and read your suggested link. Thanks ...Alan,<BR/><BR/>I went and read your suggested link. Thanks for taking the time to give it. Here's the money quote for me:<BR/><BR/><I>They seek to give an authoritative answer as to why 6,500 civilians were killed by the German Army during the invasion</I><BR/><BR/>For some reason, the literary survivors didn't focus on this aspect of the war. I would suggest that 6500 dead was just not a significant number for the war. At Verdun alone, the casualties ran about 1,000,000 in dead and wounded.<BR/><BR/>At Passchendaele in 1917, General Haig repeated the disastrous techniques that led to the slaughter at the Somme a year earlier, with similarly pitiful results. firstworldwar.com has this to say about General Haig's campaign:<BR/><BR/><I>Unwilling to concede the failure of the breakthrough, Haig pressed on with a further three assaults on the ridge in late October. The eventual capture of Passchendaele village by British and Canadian forces on 6 November finally gave Haig an excuse to call off the offensive claiming success.<BR/><BR/>The Third Battle of Ypres was, like its predecessors, a costly exercise. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) incurred some 310,000 casualties, with a similar, lower, number of German casualties: 260,000.</I><BR/><BR/>Accounts of Passchendaele are illuminating when looking at the vote of 1933.K T Cathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10259428595745509790noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22301740.post-1158771011874076322006-09-20T09:50:00.000-07:002006-09-20T09:50:00.000-07:00What's at issue here is not the original cause of ...What's at issue here is not the original cause of the war, but the effect on society of the war madness at home, whipped up by government propaganda and the willingness of all of them to spill the blood of their men without regard for the cost.<BR/><BR/>The theme from the German ppoint of view is the same in <I>All Quiet on the Western Front</I> as well.<BR/><BR/>As for wartime atrocities, they pale in comparison to the utter incompetence of the general staffs on both sides.<BR/><BR/>None of the great authors that survived the war that I have read are concerned with atrocities by the "Huns" at all. Siegfried Sasoon, Robert Graves and the rest focus on the madness and folly of the whole affair.K T Cathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10259428595745509790noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22301740.post-1158762511573735212006-09-20T07:28:00.000-07:002006-09-20T07:28:00.000-07:00The Allies may have disproportionately publicised ...The Allies may have disproportionately publicised German atrocities in 1914 however they were very real (it is only in the shadow of a century in which we have become inured to worse, that they perhaps do not shock us).<BR/><BR/>This book review is worth a read: http://doc-iep.univ-lyon2.fr/wwi/article.php3?id_article=255. "The German Atrocities of 1914: A History of <BR/>Denial". It was an object of the counter-cultural project of the 1960s to portray the antagonists in the Great War (many of whose soldiers were still alive, and holding office in western legislatures) as moral equivalents. They were not; and saying so won't make them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22301740.post-1158761477610448422006-09-20T07:11:00.000-07:002006-09-20T07:11:00.000-07:00Utter Rubbish!World War I was a war of German aggr...Utter Rubbish!<BR/><BR/>World War I was a war of German aggression, just like World War II. The cost of defeating it was huge, indescribably huge - and certainly the media colluded in concealing how terrible the slaughter was; but nobody has seriously suggested there was any alternative for the Allied countries, except submitting to defeat and conquest.<BR/><BR/>Freedom was at stake then too - perhaps not yours or mine, but Frenchmen's and Belgians'. I suppose with the benefit of hindsight, given how easily they were overrun 25 years later, they might as well have just let the Germans in. <BR/><BR/>Let us never forget at what great price our freedom was bought; nor be unwilling to pay it again.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com