I agree with you that that thinking made Hitler's bloodless conquests on the 30's possible, but not the fall of France. The French were overwhelmed by the tempo, and tactics of the German invasion of 1940. The Luftwaffe's superiority was also a major factor.
Why do WW1 threads always get so many replies and are full of controversy?
- Thread starter Gwachiko
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Someone needs to do a "YWUA" Luigi Cadorna....
To be fair, I'm not sure any general could have created a Battle of Vittorio Veneto in 1916 or 1917...
... declaring about half (if not more) of facts "unreliable" simply due to someones inability to read them ? ... or unwillingness to "trust" others offering their content ?
... very "scientific" ...
marathag
Banned
Thing about WWI, there really wasn't 'Good vs Evil', despite the propaganda, both CP and Entente had atrocious behavior with CP being worse, on average.
British didn't need embellishments to what the 'Horrible Hun' was actually doing, but turned the dial to 11 anyway and lost the advantage of actual truth.
So it was kind of a medium Grey Hat vs dark Grey Hat contest. No White Hats to be seen, as much as Wilson thinking that what he was wearing.
British didn't need embellishments to what the 'Horrible Hun' was actually doing, but turned the dial to 11 anyway and lost the advantage of actual truth.
So it was kind of a medium Grey Hat vs dark Grey Hat contest. No White Hats to be seen, as much as Wilson thinking that what he was wearing.
??? They're not unreliable. It's just helpful for people on this website (which is primarily English) to see translated English documents. The point is a post of helpful sources, in English. I'm not going to go on a German website and post Polish books that aren't available online or easily translatable for general usage.
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Personally, I wouldn't dream of commenting on the attitudes of French or German soldiers (and people on the Home Front) if I didn't have access to French and German memoirs and diaries and writings at the time.
AustrianFanboy
Banned
My nickname is obviously hilarious, despte the gact that I admit being a fan of the Habsburg,and yes, I admit it, a monarchist, if that matters (though i believe in constitutional monarchy).
That said I haven't ever seen any anti-slavic prejudice here; if some slavic coutries often end up being on the losing part of history in many threads or timelines, it is jys because many slavic nations are numerically small and live in areas devoid of important geographical barriers, which opens the upo to domination by neighbouring countries; I do not need to remind you that the most historically important "oppressor" of fellow slavic nations has alkways been Russia, as most people in easter Europe will be rwady to tell you . Concerning Serbia: Machiavelli said, of course, that the ned justifies the means, but it was, back i early XXth century a country deeply engaged in activities far from transparent: a very aggressive and manipulative little nation: this doesn't make them much popular, I assume: even today traditional Serbian thinking is that they are for some reason superiroe to their neighbours and allowed to opress and slaughter them at will; back in the '90s, it took two wars for some sort of good sense to be imposed on the country, and then again this, I assume, does not make them popular.
Last but not least, concerning France, it is not my "imbecil imbred monarchs" (btw those who imbred were the spanish, not the asutrian branch), which behaved as they were given a god-granted right to bully anyone on the continent, especially german states, and acted hysterical when they perceived having lost this "privilege". I have no quarrells with France or French people, and I have several french friends; only, I find their historical position far from...palatable.
That said, when someone delves into blatant aggression , it is usually because they have little arguments
I know that Canadian troops had a terrible record of atrocities, so it's certainly not confined to one side.
Honestly, as far as I can tell every country's soldiers would do Very Bad Things (tm) on occasion. Don't know who were the worst overall. The Ottomans?
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My guess is that he was conflating anti-PRC sentiment with anti-Chinese sentiment, and granted there's a fair amount of the former on the site, for precisely the reasons you outlined above... but that's perhaps a topic best left to Chat...
Not only that, but affection for the old Dual Monarchy doth not make one " anti-Slavic"
I have personally known a couple Slavs (and encountered a few on here as well) who professed a certain affection for the old Habsburg Empire... particularly in light of subsequent history...
David Flin
Gone Fishin'
Ottomans certainly. Attempting genocide, treatment of POWs, treatment of civilians, treatment of Arabs ... Worst by a long, long way.
German treatment of Belgian civilians was grim, and the worst in the Western theatre of the war. Ditto their unwillingness to take non-white soldiers prisoner.
On the Eastern front, no-one comes out with any credit.
Given that the Austrian ultimatum was designed to be rejected so that they could have a war, not really.
What is a YWUA?
And honestly I don’t think that’s fair at all. There’s a difference between not being able to secure major victories versus gross incompetence and cruelty. He had over 700 men executed for cowardice, and ordered officers whose units retreated when his idiocy caused his army to fall apart summarily executed.
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I misspoke here, but yeah. its the tactics and speed in which the German military moved at that completely overwhelmed the allies,combined with the inflexibility and slow communication of the French with both the British and themselves.
marathag
Banned
Or not be cause of the first two Balkan War, where the 3rd spun out to be the Great War, once Russia decided to widen the War with a country that they had no Defense Treaty with.
marathag
Banned
You Wake Up As
What could be done with a non murderous soul inhabiting that thick skull of his
I think that the combination of the two world wars (the UK was the only country that was in WW2 from the beginning until the end) and economic mismanagement between the wars and, to a lesser extent, a socialist government right after WW2 accelerated the UK's decline. If the US had not got involved in WW1, it may well have continued on an isolationist path.
I hate the idea of monarchy but it is interesting that, in the Middle East, the most stable countries seem to be the monarchies.
I could honestly see him just continually stubbornly ordering more and more Battles of Isonzo. Until by the 97th or so as he's writing up the order to launch another battle of Isonzo and gets puzzled because he can't find his aid to hand the orders off to. Then he wanders around his completely empty headquarters because by that point he's managed to kill every single Italian left leaving Cadorna the only Italian left alive in the entire country. Leaving Cadorna to just sit puzzled trying to figure out how he's supposed to launch another moronic bloodfest if every single " Cowardly" Italian has already shamefully failed him by getting horribly killed carrying out his brilliant plans.
I would say he is basically a living example of the pop culture incompetent pompous cowardly Italian military stereotype resulting from WW2 but honestly the majority of those pop culture stereotype characters are legitimately probably more competent then Cadorna was IRL.
I would go on the defensive, letting the Austro-Hungarian Army smash against my defences over and over again, while also maintaining my logistics, and army morale too.
For some reason, I'm reminded of the old caricature of Robespierre guillotining himself, after running out of other suitable heads to lop off