I also exaggerated it. I was going to just delete the OP and ask for the discussion to be locked, but it seems that some people are discussing it. Just keep that in mind, that this is a bit exaggerated.
Also, by revisionist, I don't mean that racist historians are becoming credible or anything like that, but that views that lean slightly in that direction are becoming more acceptable.
Again, it was dumb and I totally exaggerated the question. I'm trying to learn not to do that.
^ EDIT ^
How long is it going to be before the Allies are seen as war criminals?
How long is it going to be before the war is remembered as us imposing our culture on another equally valid culture that should have been respected?
Is there really any difference between what the Nazis did and what is now considered to be "part of another culture that needs to be respected?"
There's already a growing attitude that the Allies were war criminals, even for supposed "crimes" that were necessary to anyone studying the subject.
People are also starting to blatantly ignore the historical context behind Allied "crimes." While such crimes were not "right," it is profoundly a-historical to separate any reactionary atrocities from their historical context. It is completely inappropriate to give the impression that the British suddenly started bombing German cities, when the fact is that they were engaged in a war started by the Germans. Providing the historical context is not justification either, as there is a major difference between explaining the reason why something happened, and justifying it. The fact is that the Germans supported a murderous regime that started a war and determined the terms on which it would be fought; what followed was natural. The Germans started a war that killed 60 million people, directly killed 20 million, and raped over 10 million Russian women. Now we're starting to see Nazi sympathetic revisionists gaining acceptance in spreading the idea that the Nazis were somehow victims and that "we weren't really much better then them."
This does not mean that there were not victims in Germany. There were hundreds of thousands of Jews who were persecuted, who had proven to be more nationalistic than non Jews during WWI. There were also small numbers of non Jews who were victims, but they are anecdotal exceptions. The vast majority of Germans supported the Nazis actively or passively.
EDIT
If anyone does think that maybe I am being a bit heavy handed or "anti German," please discuss it in a private message, as it is something that I have considered.
If anyone does think that maybe I am being a bit heavy handed or "anti German," please discuss it in a private message, as it is something that I have considered.
That's not quite what I took away from this. He appears to think that revisionist history will make it so Oceania will have always been at war with Eastasia.
Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote: If anyone does think that maybe I am being a bit heavy handed or "anti German," please discuss it in a private message, as it is something that I have considered.
Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote: If anyone does think that maybe I am being a bit heavy handed or "anti German," please discuss it in a private message, as it is something that I have considered.
"Please don't call me out in public."
I don't want people going off topic. That is something that I would be interesting in discussing, and I might start a discussion on it, but I don't want this to devolve into that.
Generally speaking, anti-American historical revisionism only applies to fighting non-Caucasian/left-wing foes. As the Nazi's were neither, I don't think you'll see what you're describing. Overall cultural relativism that is being pushed down peoples throats (aka "it's their culture you need to respect them" when one blows up embassies) does not apply to Western states.
For instance, you see much more disapproval of the U.S. war with Japan then Germany.
Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote: If anyone does think that maybe I am being a bit heavy handed or "anti German," please discuss it in a private message, as it is something that I have considered.
Wait, so I can't think that you are being ridiculously hyperbolic, to the point of creating issues out of nothing, because you've already considered that possibility?
Great thinking there, buddy go on like this, you'll be Neumann 2.0 in not too long.
For instance, you see much more disapproval of the U.S. war with Japan then Germany.
Which is odd considering that Japan was the agressor.
The only war crime the US might be guilty of is that Japanese warcriminals weren't prosecuted for their treatment of POWs and civilians.
We really would have remained at peace had Japan not attacked us. We would have eventually declared war on Germany, but Japan was not our main concern and they remained so until Germany was defeated.
Frankly, I don't see it. Yes, there have always been streaks of historical revisionism (in every nation, who would've guessed), yet the followers of such obscure theories are - to my knowledge - quite small in number and frequently ridiculed in the media as well as the common populace. Historical documentations in TV and in books as well as the internet have made information readily available, and kids learn about WW2 in school. To actually get to follow the revisionist path you really have to try hard, and likely needed to have a relative or a friend who had a relative who "missed the good old days" or (perhaps more likely) couldn't deal with what he or she was fighting for, resulting in a defensive attitude about how "the other ones weren't better".
Of course I can only speak for how I grew up in Germany, even more specifically the region I lived in ... but Germany as a whole is quite conscious of its role in WW2, and anyone trying to paint the USA as the aggressor (or similar silliness) would have a hard time explaining why even their erstwhile enemies would object to this.
I'm regularly ashamed when I read of some nutjob trying to make a case of twisting history, but I would never go as far and actually believe that the general populace would just swing around and swallow it. That's ... rather paranoid, I think. The US are often perceived as an aggressor nowadays because of what happened in recent history. Maybe some people somehow transplant this current image to the USA during WW2, but that still doesn't make such views generally accepted.
Testify wrote:No there isn't. The Soviets may have been war criminals but the western allies definitely were not.
Without question the Allies committed less war crimes than their enemy (certainly not comparable to what happened in, say, Vietnam) - but to claim complete innocence is just as wrong as painting them in the same light as the Axis powers. Stuff happened, deal with it.
Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:Yes, we stayed out, even after Pearl Harbor, until the Germans specifically declared war.
That depends on whether you limit "WW2" to Europe alone or include the Pacific (as I would do). Germany declared war on the US after the US had declared war on Japan.
Of course, Japan declared war on the US first, so the US merely responded. Either way, they were "in" on December 8, 1:10 pm.
Grey Templar wrote: The only war crime the US might be guilty of is that Japanese warcriminals weren't prosecuted for their treatment of POWs and civilians.
So I guess the Tokyo Fire Raids, atomic bombing, mutiliation of Japanese war dead, and hideous behaviour of US occupation troops in Okinawa and postwar Japan were all perfectly acceptable.
Grey Templar wrote: The only war crime the US might be guilty of is that Japanese warcriminals weren't prosecuted for their treatment of POWs and civilians.
So I guess the Tokyo Fire Raids, atomic bombing, mutiliation of Japanese war dead, and hideous behaviour of US occupation troops in Okinawa and postwar Japan were all perfectly acceptable.
So what?
What's the objective here?
That was WAR.
And using the atomic bombs was probably the most humane thing we did for Japan... otherwise, had we invaded, it would've been an absolute blood-bath that may destroy Japan.
there's a lot of theories about WWII that are coming out, now that the veterans of that war are no longer in power.
For fifty years, it was seen as the "feel good" war that established the US as a superpower. History focused mostly on either how the Allies won, how the axis lost, or why the axis did what they did.
It's not like there weren't questions about the morality of the allies even in the 1940s. The use of atomic weapons alone raised a lot of questions.
While I think it will be hard to paint the war as anything other than axis aggression (as opposed to WWI which was the natrual result of the tensions of the time), there are a few questions that current and future generations will have about the Allies:
1) Is demanding unconditional surrender moral?
2) Was the wide spread bombing of civilian targets known to the allies, necessary for the allies, and if yes and no, was it moral?
3) How strong was the racial component in the Pacific war?
There were no doubt war crimes committed by the allies, even in the West. The question seems to be did the allies do everything they could reasonably do to prevent them.
Polonius wrote: there's a lot of theories about WWII that are coming out, now that the veterans of that war are no longer in power.
For fifty years, it was seen as the "feel good" war that established the US as a superpower. History focused mostly on either how the Allies won, how the axis lost, or why the axis did what they did.
It's not like there weren't questions about the morality of the allies even in the 1940s. The use of atomic weapons alone raised a lot of questions.
While I think it will be hard to paint the war as anything other than axis aggression (as opposed to WWI which was the natrual result of the tensions of the time), there are a few questions that current and future generations will have about the Allies:
1) Is demanding unconditional surrender moral?
Why does that matter?
2) Was the wide spread bombing of civilian targets known to the allies, necessary for the allies, and if yes and no, was it moral?
Why does that matter? In WWII, there wasn't much precision bombing... so, in order to be effective, carpet bombing is a tactic.
Let me ask you this: Is there such thing as conducting a "Moral" war?
3) How strong was the racial component in the Pacific war?
? Is this referring to the American-Japanese internment camps?
There were no doubt war crimes committed by the allies, even in the West. The question seems to be did the allies do everything they could reasonably do to prevent them.
Again... what are these "war crimes" really about?
its' a big question because it's the underlying reason for the atomic bombs, the Soviet offensive into germany, and many other things. Could the goals of the allies have been achieved through a negotiated peace, rather than unconditional surrender? Particularly in Japan, where surrender is an enormous cultural taboo.
2) Was the wide spread bombing of civilian targets known to the allies, necessary for the allies, and if yes and no, was it moral?
Why does that matter? In WWII, there wasn't much precision bombing... so, in order to be effective, carpet bombing is a tactic.
Let me ask you this: Is there such thing as conducting a "Moral" war?
Of course there is moral war. Wars of defense, both of self and allies. Wars of intervention can be.
In an imperfect world, the goal should be to conduct war as morally as possible. Specifically, carpet bombing in germany. I'm not saying it's immoral. But it's an interesting area. It was, by some accounts, wildly unsuccessful at anything other than killing civilians. Did Allied command know that? If they did, did it matter to them?
3) How strong was the racial component in the Pacific war?
? Is this referring to the American-Japanese internment camps?
At most indirectly. There is a very good argument I'd read from a prior thread that the Pacific war was really about whether the East or West controlled the Pacific. I'm not sold, as it seems more like any other nationalist conflict of interest, but the Pacific theater is the only time a Non-Western fully industrialized great power fought a western one. It's also the most important conflict in history to not mainly feature a european power.
There were no doubt war crimes committed by the allies, even in the West. The question seems to be did the allies do everything they could reasonably do to prevent them.
Again... what are these "war crimes" really about?
Simply put, the victor makes the rules.
I think that's the rule, in practice. The question is: how many of the rules that we created did we break?
Being a soldier does not give you the right to rape and kill innocent civillians.
Absolutely not, but I don't think you can find a single example from the US or another Western military in theater that even vaguely comes close to the atrocities (well documented, historical facts) perpetrated by Imperial Japanese occupation forces in China. Notably the Rape (as it is rightly called) of Nanking. Systematized, institutionally approved, rape, murder, brutality and torture. Encouraged by the Japanese racial superiority complex. (Interesting how that got along with Nazi Germany's OWN racial superiority complex innit?)
On to the fire bombings. You attack an enemy's ability to make war, this is nothing new. They attacked our fleet at Pearl Harbor for just this reason, to cripple our offensive capability. The Doolittle raids and the more regular sustained bombing of the Japanese home islands while psychologically useful by "spilling blood on Japanese soil" was a direct method of engaging and destroying Japanese industrial capacity. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both terrible when considered individually but when looking at the larger picture, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were Industrial targets. Which is why they were picked in the first place, and while hundreds of thousands died Whembly's right, those bombs saved a lot more lives then they claimed. Russian, American and Japanese. We're still using Purple Hearts from the run made in anticipation of the invasion of the Japanese home islands.
Back to the Inquisitor's initial subject I don't think I've really seen much in the way of Nazi apologists within any respectable historical circles any way. Actual Nazis or Neo-Nazis sure but that's about as respectable as the Mushroom Kingdom's castle security. I think as time's gone by and documents have been declassified our picture of the Second World War has been changing significantly. Whether that's being shifted unfairly against the Allies or it's just being more fair overall is... unclear as yet. I don't think anti-American, or anti-Western bias is quite that extreme in academia to scew the results and conclusions quite that badly.
Lynata wrote: Frankly, I don't see it. Yes, there have always been streaks of historical revisionism (in every nation, who would've guessed), yet the followers of such obscure theories are - to my knowledge - quite small in number and frequently ridiculed in the media as well as the common populace. Historical documentations in TV and in books as well as the internet have made information readily available, and kids learn about WW2 in school. To actually get to follow the revisionist path you really have to try hard, and likely needed to have a relative or a friend who had a relative who "missed the good old days" or (perhaps more likely) couldn't deal with what he or she was fighting for, resulting in a defensive attitude about how "the other ones weren't better".
Of course I can only speak for how I grew up in Germany, even more specifically the region I lived in ... but Germany as a whole is quite conscious of its role in WW2, and anyone trying to paint the USA as the aggressor (or similar silliness) would have a hard time explaining why even their erstwhile enemies would object to this.
I'm regularly ashamed when I read of some nutjob trying to make a case of twisting history, but I would never go as far and actually believe that the general populace would just swing around and swallow it. That's ... rather paranoid, I think. The US are often perceived as an aggressor nowadays because of what happened in recent history. Maybe some people somehow transplant this current image to the USA during WW2, but that still doesn't make such views generally accepted.
Testify wrote:No there isn't. The Soviets may have been war criminals but the western allies definitely were not.
Without question the Allies committed less war crimes than their enemy (certainly not comparable to what happened in, say, Vietnam) - but to claim complete innocence is just as wrong as painting them in the same light as the Axis powers. Stuff happened, deal with it.
Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:Yes, we stayed out, even after Pearl Harbor, until the Germans specifically declared war.
That depends on whether you limit "WW2" to Europe alone or include the Pacific (as I would do). Germany declared war on the US after the US had declared war on Japan.
Of course, Japan declared war on the US first, so the US merely responded. Either way, they were "in" on December 8, 1:10 pm.
My question was a bit exaggerated. I'm not really worried that it would ever get to the point of thinking that WWII was a war of American agression, but sometimes I get frustrated that people are taking a less than desirable view of the Nazis. Good post though.
whembly wrote: there are a few questions that current and future generations will have about the Allies:
1) Is demanding unconditional surrender moral?
Why does that matter?
2) Was the wide spread bombing of civilian targets known to the allies, necessary for the allies, and if yes and no, was it moral?
Why does that matter? In WWII, there wasn't much precision bombing... so, in order to be effective, carpet bombing is a tactic.
Let me ask you this: Is there such thing as conducting a "Moral" war?
3) How strong was the racial component in the Pacific war?
? Is this referring to the American-Japanese internment camps?
There were no doubt war crimes committed by the allies, even in the West. The question seems to be did the allies do everything they could reasonably do to prevent them.
Again... what are these "war crimes" really about?
Simply put, the victor makes the rules.
Oh come on, don't be silly. Deliberately targeting civilian population centers was not an accidental necessity. No one was targeting factories, and those pesky cities just got in the way. Targeting cities and populations centers was a deliberate tactic by both sides of psychological reasons and to force the enemy to split their forces. If they're too busy defending their cities, they can't do anything else.
Further, the idea of being at war with a certain element of a country, but not others, was completely alien to the people of the time. Civilians were often viweded as being just as much the enemy as combatants were.
Looking at the actions of the United States or other allies during World War 2 does not equal reducing it to a war of "american aggression". The allies, both citizens and soldiers, made a lot of sacrifices and I am glad that I didn't grow up in a Germany still ruled by Hitler. But that doesn't mean that we cannot look at the actions of all participants with a critical eye. The worst thing we can do is ignore wrongs by the allies using the justification that the axis powers did worse things.
While I have heard people talk about american war crimes and thing that the allies have done wrong, I have never heard anybody seriously talk about WW2 being a war of US aggression.
Polonius wrote:There were no doubt war crimes committed by the allies, even in the West. The question seems to be did the allies do everything they could reasonably do to prevent them.
Of course not, though I'm not sure you could actually blame them. There's a certain tendency in any nation's military to confer a lot of leeway towards its troops, out of an esprit-du-corps as well as out of respect for their service. Even today, militaries attempt to cover up war crimes by moving against the whistleblowers - the "traitors" - more often than the actual perpretrators.
whembly wrote:Why does that matter? In WWII, there wasn't much precision bombing... so, in order to be effective, carpet bombing is a tactic.
When carpet bombings are conducted against the city rather than the factories outside the city, that starts to sound like a cop-out.
Not to mention the indiscriminate bombing of Tokyo, which saw 100.000 men, women and children killed in a firestorm that completely destroyed the city's residental area - the most destructive bombing in the history of mankind. Yes, even worse than the nukes.
Polonius wrote:
whembly wrote:Let me ask you this: Is there such thing as conducting a "Moral" war?
Of course there is moral war. Wars of defense, both of self and allies. Wars of intervention can be.
I think that (barring extreme circumstances) even more important than the cause are the means. It may sound weird, but I might even be able to feel better about a simple war of conquest and expansion that is done with a strict enforcement of a minimum collateral damage policy, rather than a "just" war where a defender commits to eradicate entire cities of the invader, or execute/torture/rape POWs and noncoms.
And yes, this is possible. Sadly, it is also very inefficient, and requires additional sacrifice from the forces involved. Still, many attempts have been made at making wars less destructive for the civilian populace throughout history, and the current public outrage at even minor incidents is a good sign of a culture's commitment to morals.
Polonius wrote:
whembly wrote:Is this referring to the American-Japanese internment camps?
At most indirectly. There is a very good argument I'd read from a prior thread that the Pacific war was really about whether the East or West controlled the Pacific. I'm not sold, as it seems more like any other nationalist conflict of interest, but the Pacific theater is the only time a Non-Western fully industrialized great power fought a western one. It's also the most important conflict in history to not mainly feature a european power.
Oh, I thought this was about the accounts of G.I.s regarding Japanese people as "sub-humans", which - together with the Japanese reluctance to surrender in the first place - allegedly resulted in a "take no prisoners" attitude and lots of POWs not reaching the collection point.
Also, all the stuff that d-usa said. Have an exaltation.
WWII in a modern perspective looks atrocious from the allies side, and we really were the nice guys. If it was OK for them to slaughter our civilians, then they should have no complaints when we rained death on untold hundreds of thousands of there’s. The lesson the axis country’s learned was dont start genocidal wars of conquest. My grandparents attitude was always feth em, and they fought them so I stick with there first hand knowledge. They were there.
For those that complain about what the allies did in WWII, ponder on this. With the allies when the fighting stopped the killing stopped. With the Germans and Japanese when the fighting stopped the killing continued. Thats why we were the good guys, any one says different is a moron of epic proportions.
Polonius wrote:There were no doubt war crimes committed by the allies, even in the West. The question seems to be did the allies do everything they could reasonably do to prevent them.
Of course not, though I'm not sure you could actually blame them. There's a certain tendency in any nation's military to confer a lot of leeway towards its troops, out of an esprit-du-corps as well as out of respect for their service. Even today, militaries attempt to cover up war crimes by moving against the whistleblowers - the "traitors" - more often than the actual perpretrators.
Well, I'm a lawyer. The term "reasonably" is a bit elastic. I think that even given the times, there were likely times when command allowed more than they should. By the same token, I think the allies, as a whole, acted more morally than the axis.
Oh, I thought this was about the accounts of G.I.s regarding Japanese people as "sub-humans", which - together with the Japanese reluctance to surrender in the first place - allegedly resulted in a "take no prisoners" attitude and lots of POWs not reaching the collection point.
Also, all the stuff that d-usa said. Have an exaltation.
Well, the actual combatant on combatant stuff is trickier. There is no referee in war. If you have one side sniping medics, and desecrating bodies, and torturing prisoners... it's hard to come down too hard on guys, knee deep in stress and trauma we can't imagine, that give in kind.
There likely were sadists, and there were guys that got caught up. War, and the pacific theater in general, is not a clean place in which one can act morally without problems.
In short, I'm always more willing to overlook the morality fo the guys in the trenches, while I focus on what's encouraged from on high.
cpt_fishcakes wrote:For those that complain about what the allies did in WWII, ponder on this. With the allies when the fighting stopped the killing stopped.
Whilst much of what you said is true, this is not. See the links provided earlier.
Or did you mean the war in general, not just a particular battle?
Polonius wrote:Well, I'm a lawyer. The term "reasonably" is a bit elastic. I think that even given the times, there were likely times when command allowed more than they should. By the same token, I think the allies, as a whole, acted more morally than the axis.
My thoughts exactly.
Polonius wrote:There likely were sadists, and there were guys that got caught up. War, and the pacific theater in general, is not a clean place in which one can act morally without problems.
In short, I'm always more willing to overlook the morality fo the guys in the trenches, while I focus on what's encouraged from on high.
Definitively. Although I have to say that racism very likely was already ingrained in people's heads (keep in mind that this was the time when black people still were treated unjustly as well, and that was in their own nation) and did not just develop on-location. The war would have obviously served to intensify such feelings, though. Especially war with an enemy who doesn't shy back from sacrificing his own life so long as they can just take a couple of the enemy with them. I imagine that lots of soldiers came down with thoughts like "safer to just shoot them now", in addition to any thirst for revenge for the death of a comrade.
Many of the air raids are said to be motivated by revenge as well, with the British always pushing for more - obviously as a sort of payback for what the Luftwaffe did to their cities.
Grey Templar wrote: The only war crime the US might be guilty of is that Japanese warcriminals weren't prosecuted for their treatment of POWs and civilians.
So I guess the Tokyo Fire Raids, atomic bombing, mutiliation of Japanese war dead, and hideous behaviour of US occupation troops in Okinawa and postwar Japan were all perfectly acceptable.
As Whembly said, it was war.
And the Atomic Bomb was the best thing that happened for the Japanese and the US.
Otherwise, we would have invaded. Casualities were estimated at one million US soldiers, which given what we know now would have been a VERY conservative number. it was conservative when it was given.
For the inhabitants of Japan, it would have been out right Genocide. because the entire population was prepared to fight to the death, we would have had to kill everyone that was able to inflict physical harm on our soldiers.
The only people of Japanese descent today would have been descendents of anyone living elsewhere in the world, including PoWs, and any people too young or too old to fight that were found in the course of the invasion.
Japan would not exist today except as a geograpic location.
The Bomb then gave us the option of saving over a million americans and giving the Japanese Empire the option of total annhilation or unconditional surrender.
The fact it took 2 bombs and 2 cities just shows the fighting spirit the Japanese had at the time. And their population was prepared to fight to the death. They only stopped because the Emperor capitulated.
2 bombs was mercifully light. We, and everyone descended from people living in Japan at the time, are exceedingly lucky it only took 2.
War is horrible, and rightly so. it is good that such atrocities occur in the course of it.
it reminds me of a star trek episode. There are 2 planets that engage in mock war, and calculate the war dead. Those killed must then voluntarily kill themselves to keep their society surviving. Thats horrible.
Alfndrate wrote: Can you elaborate on the whole American agression? Did we remain out of the war until we were attacked?
Yes, we stayed out, even after Pearl Harbor, until the Germans specifically declared war.
The topic though is also on the ridiculousness of people constantly trying to turn us into the aggressor.
I'm afraid that's not exactly the case. Here's how it happened: 1. Japan bombs Pearl Harbor 2. US declares war on Japan. 3. Germany and Italy declare war on US. So, we entered the war right after we were attacked, unless you consider the US vs. Japan war to not be part of WWII. Although, that viewpoint isn't totally invalid. The Japanese weren't that closely associated with Germany and Italy. They were kind of doing their own thing. Back on topic though... I doubt anyone will ever see WWII as raw American aggression. People have been pretty eager to label us aggressors since the 2003 Iraq War, but I think people will forgive us for that (whether we deserve to be forgiven or not) before they go that far.
Alfndrate wrote: Can you elaborate on the whole American agression? Did we remain out of the war until we were attacked?
Yes, we stayed out, even after Pearl Harbor, until the Germans specifically declared war.
The topic though is also on the ridiculousness of people constantly trying to turn us into the aggressor.
We? You've got the canadian flag on your posts, and they went to war in 39' along with the rest of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Long before Pearl Harbor that had the US fully jumping in.
And the Atomic Bomb was the best thing that happened for the Japanese and the US.
Otherwise, we would have invaded. Casualities were estimated at one million US soldiers, which given what we know now would have been a VERY conservative number. it was conservative when it was given.
For the inhabitants of Japan, it would have been out right Genocide. because the entire population was prepared to fight to the death, we would have had to kill everyone that was able to inflict physical harm on our soldiers.
The only people of Japanese descent today would have been descendents of anyone living elsewhere in the world, including PoWs, and any people too young or too old to fight that were found in the course of the invasion.
Japan would not exist today except as a geograpic location.
That's a very unrealistic view of the Japanese civilian population during the war. Certainly, an invasion would be difficult, but the idea that a civilian population of over one hundred million would fight to the last against an invading force is cartoony. That's never happened before. No level of indoctrination is that powerful or consistent.
It's also highly unlikely that we would engage in that kind of warfare given that our goal was to dismantle the Japanese military. Something that would happen in relatively short order once total air supremacy had been achieved in the islands and their factory supply base had been cut.
And the Atomic Bomb was the best thing that happened for the Japanese and the US.
Otherwise, we would have invaded. Casualities were estimated at one million US soldiers, which given what we know now would have been a VERY conservative number. it was conservative when it was given.
For the inhabitants of Japan, it would have been out right Genocide. because the entire population was prepared to fight to the death, we would have had to kill everyone that was able to inflict physical harm on our soldiers.
The only people of Japanese descent today would have been descendents of anyone living elsewhere in the world, including PoWs, and any people too young or too old to fight that were found in the course of the invasion.
Japan would not exist today except as a geograpic location.
That's a very unrealistic view of the Japanese civilian population during the war. Certainly, an invasion would be difficult, but the idea that a civilian population of over one hundred million would fight to the last against an invading force is cartoony. That's never happened before. No level of indoctrination is that powerful or consistent.
It's also highly unlikely that we would engage in that kind of warfare given that our goal was to dismantle the Japanese military. Something that would happen in relatively short order once total air supremacy had been achieved in the islands and their factory supply base had been cut.
The Japanese were actively training their citizens, including young children to oppose the invaders. They were training people in the use of bamboo spears. children were taught to carry hidden grenades up to US soldiers and detonate them.
While if the invasion had gone on like this it might not have resulted in the extermination of the Japanese(there would be people that decided not to do that) the US response to it would have.
In the face of such desperate tactics it is likely we would instituded a scorched earth policy. We would have fire bombed and bombarded any place any human could have hidden in. Civilians would have been legitimate targets and would be shot on sight.
This is what the US government was prepared to do and expecting, and they knew it would happen to a great degree.
The Atom bomb was sooo secret not even Trumen knew about it after he was sworn in when FDR died. Most of the top brass didn't even know about it.
As far as everyone was concerned, we were going into hell and were going to have to kill everything that moved on the way through it.
This is what the US government was prepared to do and expecting, and they knew it would happen to a great degree.
I'd like to see some proof to the claim that were both preparing for and expecting to have to commit genocide to the degree of killing over one hundred million people. That would beat the nazis, stalin, and mao combined.
This is what the US government was prepared to do and expecting, and they knew it would happen to a great degree.
I'd like to see some proof to the claim that were both preparing for and expecting to have to commit genocide to the degree of killing over one hundred million people. That would beat the nazis, stalin, and mao combined.
If you want proof all you have to do is look at how the Battle of Okinawa went down. 150,000 civilian casualties. Mass suicides were rampant. The people were indoctrinated to believe that US Soldiers were going to rape, torture, and murder them, and they found more honor in death at their own hands then the Americans.
On the home islands, 28 million Japanese civilians were being prepared to take part in combat operations. They were even issuing garden tools to school girls and giving guidance on the best way to kill Americans with them. Leaderships plan was one of two things. To make the cost of life to the allies so high that they went to the negotiating table, or to simply be wiped out.
This is what the US government was prepared to do and expecting, and they knew it would happen to a great degree.
I'd like to see some proof to the claim that were both preparing for and expecting to have to commit genocide to the degree of killing over one hundred million people. That would beat the nazis, stalin, and mao combined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall wrote:A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7-4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan.[1]
Keep in mind this was based on the assumption of a fairly short (6 month) campaign to conquoer Japan. Had things not gone well things would have spiralled upwards.
So while not expecting to exactly commit a total depopulating of the Japanese home islands, there was a long, hard bloody fight anticipated.
As for the OP, my fiance is Japanese. Having spoken with her about what is taught in the schools there, yes, the American involvement in WWII is being portrayed as a war of aggression. All the Japanese children are taught about the war is that there were American economic sanctions in the 1930s and bombers in the 1940s.
This is what the US government was prepared to do and expecting, and they knew it would happen to a great degree.
I'd like to see some proof to the claim that were both preparing for and expecting to have to commit genocide to the degree of killing over one hundred million people. That would beat the nazis, stalin, and mao combined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall wrote:A study done for Secretary of War Henry Stimson's staff by William Shockley estimated that conquering Japan would cost 1.7-4 million American casualties, including 400,000–800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities. The key assumption was large-scale participation by civilians in the defense of Japan.[1]
Keep in mind this was based on the assumption of a fairly short (6 month) campaign to conquoer Japan. Had things not gone well things would have spiralled upwards.
So while not expecting to exactly commit a total depopulating of the Japanese home islands, there was a long, hard bloody fight anticipated.
Certainly, but what was being claimed was the genocide of the japanese in totality, not an incredibly bloody and intractable campaign. When you times the number of fatalities by ten it raises red flags.
This is what the US government was prepared to do and expecting, and they knew it would happen to a great degree.
I'd like to see some proof to the claim that were both preparing for and expecting to have to commit genocide to the degree of killing over one hundred million people. That would beat the nazis, stalin, and mao combined.
If you want proof all you have to do is look at how the Battle of Okinawa went down. 150,000 civilian casualties. Mass suicides were rampant. The people were indoctrinated to believe that US Soldiers were going to rape, torture, and murder them, and they found more honor in death at their own hands then the Americans.
On the home islands, 28 million Japanese civilians were being prepared to take part in combat operations. They were even issuing garden tools to school girls and giving guidance on the best way to kill Americans with them. Leaderships plan was one of two things. To make the cost of life to the allies so high that they went to the negotiating table, or to simply be wiped out.
Which is a rather unrealistic battle strategy. There has never been a largescale population in history that would, in unison, and without a functioning hierarchy of leadership resist an occupying force to death. That's simply not how humans work. The closest I can come to as an example is the depopulation of native Laos through their protracted geurilla capaigns funded by the CIA. That's a significantly smaller population though, and even that wasn't unified.
And 1940's Japan was quite a differant culture from what this world has ever seen. Bushido was still alive and well in that day. Death by combat, never surrender. They did not think on the same wave length that we do. To them glorious death in futile combat was far preferable to allowing an invasion force to land even if you know you cannot win. The nuclear option literally was the most humane to end it, because there was no combat. They could not inflict return casualties, even if it was one for every ten you lost. That was the only reason they surrendered unconditionally.
As for the OP, my fiance is Japanese. Having spoken with her about what is taught in the schools there, yes, the American involvement in WWII is being portrayed as a war of aggression. All the Japanese children are taught about the war is that there were American economic sanctions in the 1930s and bombers in the 1940s.
Once again, by the same book the IJA's atrocious behaviour in Korea and China was justified because they won those wars and the victor makes the rules.
As far as I'm concerned (I will admit I have VERY strong views on this), war should be fought against the enemy's ARMY, not their people.
Your average Japanese mother is not responsible for atrocities being carried out in a distant country by Japanese troops in the same way that the average American man is not responsible for the horrors carried out in Vietnam by US soldiers.
Blow up as many soldiers as you like (within reason) but the moment millitary brutality extends onto innocent civilians is the moment you lose all rights to feel morally superior. I don't care who's doing it to who or why, Japanese on Chinese, German on Russian, British on German, American on Japaneseor a country's government on their own people. it's all equally monstrous.
But it's all alright, because we were the good guys and we won the war and ALLIES HURR!
Area bombing is the one part of the war in which the western allies may have something to reproach themselves about.
To put it into context;
The other lot started it (Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry, Nanking, ChongQuing, etc.)
With the technology of the time it was impossible to do effective pinpoint attacks on military targets such as docks and armament factories.
The western leaders considered it a necessary evil, and got uneasy as the campaign progressed.
"This could all have been avoided if we hadn't started the war." (To quote a German Catholic.)
Does a democratic nation have a moral duty to put its citizen soldiers' lives at peril in order to reduce the burden on civilians of an aggressor nation?
Yes. The civilians, for the most part, are completely innocent. They aren't the ones marching into neighboring countries and raping, killing and looting. Their army is. It's like a man is stealing items from a supermarket and arresting his sister, who had nothing to do with the shoplifting.
I can confirm the already mentioned notion that no sensible person in Germany, and surely not a single one I've ever met personally, has tried to claim that the US started a war or were the aggressor in any way. As somebody also pointed out, our education system has a huge emphasis during history lessons on lecturing about WW2 and Hitler's rise to power in great detail. At no point has anyone tried to tell me that the US or the UK or whoever were the "bad guys".
I think the German government and by logical extension our education system are aware of "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" and try to make damn sure nobody forgets about the NSDAP rose to power and how WW2 was started.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Not to mention the US interring loads of Japanese-Americans in camps.
I will point out to this comment, that yes, America interred many Japanese-Americans into camps. BUT, we did so because many (not all) of these same citizens were actively spying against the US, and its interests. We didn't go off one day not liking the Japanese in our country and locking them up like the German Government did to Jews (and anyone else they got their hands on they didnt like), we had a cause which drew the effect of prison camps.
Did we go overboard with the camps? Maybe, but when you don't know who will be the active spy what are you going to do? The vast majority of our Counter-Intelligence was learned from the Brits during WW2, so it's not as if we could root out the spies, and give them all bad information in order to get the IJN and IJA to walk into a trap, we just didn't have those sorts of capabilities.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Not to mention the US interring loads of Japanese-Americans in camps.
I will point out to this comment, that yes, America interred many Japanese-Americans into camps. BUT, we did so because many (not all) of these same citizens were actively spying against the US, and its interests. We didn't go off one day not liking the Japanese in our country and locking them up like the German Government did to Jews (and anyone else they got their hands on they didnt like), we had a cause which drew the effect of prison camps.
Did we go overboard with the camps? Maybe, but when you don't know who will be the active spy what are you going to do? The vast majority of our Counter-Intelligence was learned from the Brits during WW2, so it's not as if we could root out the spies, and give them all bad information in order to get the IJN and IJA to walk into a trap, we just didn't have those sorts of capabilities.
And unlike the Japanese and Nazi's, we didn't exterminate these people.
They were all released after the war ended.
They did get screwed over because they lost all their property, which I don't believe was right. But its in the past. We arn't going to do it again.
And we had the perfect excuse to do the same thing when the war on terror began. We could easily have justified locking up everyone of Arab origin/islamic faith. Terrorists are a far greater threat then the Japanese spies were.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Not to mention the US interring loads of Japanese-Americans in camps.
I will point out to this comment, that yes, America interred many Japanese-Americans into camps. BUT, we did so because many (not all) of these same citizens were actively spying against the US, and its interests. We didn't go off one day not liking the Japanese in our country and locking them up like the German Government did to Jews (and anyone else they got their hands on they didnt like), we had a cause which drew the effect of prison camps.
Did we go overboard with the camps? Maybe, but when you don't know who will be the active spy what are you going to do? The vast majority of our Counter-Intelligence was learned from the Brits during WW2, so it's not as if we could root out the spies, and give them all bad information in order to get the IJN and IJA to walk into a trap, we just didn't have those sorts of capabilities.
And unlike the Japanese and Nazi's, we didn't exterminate these people.
They were all released after the war ended.
They did get screwed over because they lost all their property, which I don't believe was right. But its in the past. We arn't going to do it again.
And we had the perfect excuse to do the same thing when the war on terror began. We could easily have justified locking up everyone of Arab origin/islamic faith. Terrorists are a far greater threat then the Japanese spies were.
or ARE we?
There needs to be a Godwin-like rule for Alex Jones. I dub it Terry's Rule.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Not to mention the US interring loads of Japanese-Americans in camps.
I will point out to this comment, that yes, America interred many Japanese-Americans into camps. BUT, we did so because many (not all) of these same citizens were actively spying against the US, and its interests. We didn't go off one day not liking the Japanese in our country and locking them up like the German Government did to Jews (and anyone else they got their hands on they didnt like), we had a cause which drew the effect of prison camps.
Did we go overboard with the camps? Maybe, but when you don't know who will be the active spy what are you going to do? The vast majority of our Counter-Intelligence was learned from the Brits during WW2, so it's not as if we could root out the spies, and give them all bad information in order to get the IJN and IJA to walk into a trap, we just didn't have those sorts of capabilities.
And unlike the Japanese and Nazi's, we didn't exterminate these people.
They were all released after the war ended.
They did get screwed over because they lost all their property, which I don't believe was right. But its in the past. We arn't going to do it again.
And we had the perfect excuse to do the same thing when the war on terror began. We could easily have justified locking up everyone of Arab origin/islamic faith. Terrorists are a far greater threat then the Japanese spies were.
or ARE we?
There needs to be a Godwin-like rule for Alex Jones. I dub it Terry's Rule.
People are watching too many conspiracy theory movies
Squigsquasher wrote: Yes. The civilians, for the most part, are completely innocent. They aren't the ones marching into neighboring countries and raping, killing and looting. Their army is. It's like a man is stealing items from a supermarket and arresting his sister, who had nothing to do with the shoplifting.
It would be more like if his sister gave him the car keys, gun, ammunition, and said "it is my desire for you to go get me some bread" and saluted him as he walked out the door.
As much as we like to act like they exist in two separate worlds and practically don't even know each other, the line between civilian and military is not that simply drawn. The military gets its orders, supplies, funding, and drive from civilians. This does not mean that measures should not be taken to avoid attacking enemy civilians, but saying that civilians are 'completely innocent' is incredibly naive, and shows a lack of recognition of the symbiotic relationship between the two; they don't exist independently of each other.
Once again, by the same book the IJA's atrocious behaviour in Korea and China was justified because they won those wars and the victor makes the rules.
No... that's not what I said... IJA were NOT the victors. Had they've beaten'ed the US... then, yes they'd be victors.
As far as I'm concerned (I will admit I have VERY strong views on this), war should be fought against the enemy's ARMY, not their people.
If its total world war ala WW2, Civvies are valid targets. Who funds/support any army?
Your average Japanese mother is not responsible for atrocities being carried out in a distant country by Japanese troops in the same way that the average American man is not responsible for the horrors carried out in Vietnam by US soldiers.
Again... see my previous point.
Blow up as many soldiers as you like (within reason) but the moment millitary brutality extends onto innocent civilians is the moment you lose all rights to feel morally superior. I don't care who's doing it to who or why, Japanese on Chinese, German on Russian, British on German, American on Japaneseor a country's government on their own people. it's all equally monstrous.
This get's up my craw... to me, if you go to war... this whole "within reason" crap needs to stop. If we have to spend blood and treasure, you go "do you business by laying down the hammer", then get out.
Case in point: The crap that we're doing in Pakistan with armed drones needs to stop. If there's objectives there, get our guys down there with the help of the ISI and get it done... then get out. WE are the one terrorizing the locals there. (and this isn't a total world war)
But it's all alright, because we were the good guys and we won the war and ALLIES HURR!
There are no good/bad guys in total war... there's only victory.
As for the OP, my fiance is Japanese. Having spoken with her about what is taught in the schools there, yes, the American involvement in WWII is being portrayed as a war of aggression. All the Japanese children are taught about the war is that there were American economic sanctions in the 1930s and bombers in the 1940s.
All she got from her regular school history was that:
1) in the early 20th Century the west made an effort to block the Japanese from establishing a mercantile empire on moral objections despite having established mercantile empires of their own.
2) in the 1930s the west applied sanctions to the Japanese to block the creation of said mercantile empire and starve the Japanese into submission and dependence on the west.
3) American bombers bombed Japanese cities in the 1940s culminating with the atomic bombs.
4) then MacArthur came and it turned out the western way wasn't so bad and they abandoned being warlike forever.
5) the Chinese and Koreans complain a lot for no reason and dispute claims to territory that belongs to Japan.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Not to mention the US interring loads of Japanese-Americans in camps.
I will point out to this comment, that yes, America interred many Japanese-Americans into camps. BUT, we did so because many (not all) of these same citizens were actively spying against the US, and its interests. We didn't go off one day not liking the Japanese in our country and locking them up like the German Government did to Jews (and anyone else they got their hands on they didnt like), we had a cause which drew the effect of prison camps.
Did we go overboard with the camps? Maybe, but when you don't know who will be the active spy what are you going to do? The vast majority of our Counter-Intelligence was learned from the Brits during WW2, so it's not as if we could root out the spies, and give them all bad information in order to get the IJN and IJA to walk into a trap, we just didn't have those sorts of capabilities.
And unlike the Japanese and Nazi's, we didn't exterminate these people.
They were all released after the war ended.
They did get screwed over because they lost all their property, which I don't believe was right. But its in the past. We arn't going to do it again.
We aren't? I mean, technically we aren't because world war 2 had a definitive end. Instead we're just never releasing them.
whembley wrote:WW2 was total world war... in that, anything and everyone were legitimate targets. So, yes, Civvies were valid targets.
That's the kind of talk you have at the dinner table when you're breaking bread with the devil. It basically disavows any pretension either side had to being morally right at all. It's reprehensible.
Grey Templar wrote: Compared to many other countries, including some that are supposedly quite cosmopolitan, the US has a fairly unbiased worldview of historical events.
It can be shocking what other country's historical revisionists do with history.
Of course we have our own share of them here too. They especially like to mess with early colonial facts.
And civil war history/the sciences. Don't even bother with economic history textbooks, those are about as revisionist as humanly possible (Hayak shouldn't even be in them).
If the ingenious people of North America hadn't released the nano-virus, the cyborgs never would have left and we wouldn't have needed slaves to do all the work to get this country started. We also wouldn't have had to phase shift most of them to the parallax boundary if they hadn't started the war either. It is quite obvious to anyone, really. You can read about it at Colonial Williamsburg.
Grey Templar wrote: Compared to many other countries, including some that are supposedly quite cosmopolitan, the US has a fairly unbiased worldview of historical events.
It can be shocking what other country's historical revisionists do with history.
Of course we have our own share of them here too. They especially like to mess with early colonial facts.
And civil war history/the sciences. Don't even bother with economic history textbooks, those are about as revisionist as humanly possible (Hayak shouldn't even be in them).
I have to (skin crawls) agree with Shuma here, probably for different reasons. Lies My Teacher Told Me has SW pretty good explanations of why the history you are taught is often pretty contorted. My personal favorite is Helen Keller :I was deeply engaged in an argument with one of those wild right wing nutjobs berating me for my socialist RINOism and he threw a Helen Keller quote at me. Epic fail.
There is a pretty good book called "The Shoemaker and Tea Party" that is ostensibly about the Boston Tea Party as seen through the eyes of a Boston Shoemaker but is actually a discussion on communal history versus actual history, and why the two are different.
As for the OP, my fiance is Japanese. Having spoken with her about what is taught in the schools there, yes, the American involvement in WWII is being portrayed as a war of aggression. All the Japanese children are taught about the war is that there were American economic sanctions in the 1930s and bombers in the 1940s.
All she got from her regular school history was that:
1) in the early 20th Century the west made an effort to block the Japanese from establishing a mercantile empire on moral objections despite having established mercantile empires of their own.
2) in the 1930s the west applied sanctions to the Japanese to block the creation of said mercantile empire and starve the Japanese into submission and dependence on the west.
3) American bombers bombed Japanese cities in the 1940s culminating with the atomic bombs.
4) then MacArthur came and it turned out the western way wasn't so bad and they abandoned being warlike forever.
5) the Chinese and Koreans complain a lot for no reason and dispute claims to territory that belongs to Japan.
Wow.... I'm not even sure how to digest that completely.
As for the OP, my fiance is Japanese. Having spoken with her about what is taught in the schools there, yes, the American involvement in WWII is being portrayed as a war of aggression. All the Japanese children are taught about the war is that there were American economic sanctions in the 1930s and bombers in the 1940s.
All she got from her regular school history was that:
1) in the early 20th Century the west made an effort to block the Japanese from establishing a mercantile empire on moral objections despite having established mercantile empires of their own.
2) in the 1930s the west applied sanctions to the Japanese to block the creation of said mercantile empire and starve the Japanese into submission and dependence on the west.
3) American bombers bombed Japanese cities in the 1940s culminating with the atomic bombs.
4) then MacArthur came and it turned out the western way wasn't so bad and they abandoned being warlike forever.
5) the Chinese and Koreans complain a lot for no reason and dispute claims to territory that belongs to Japan.
Wow.... I'm not even sure how to digest that completely.
As for the OP, my fiance is Japanese. Having spoken with her about what is taught in the schools there, yes, the American involvement in WWII is being portrayed as a war of aggression. All the Japanese children are taught about the war is that there were American economic sanctions in the 1930s and bombers in the 1940s.
All she got from her regular school history was that:
1) in the early 20th Century the west made an effort to block the Japanese from establishing a mercantile empire on moral objections despite having established mercantile empires of their own.
2) in the 1930s the west applied sanctions to the Japanese to block the creation of said mercantile empire and starve the Japanese into submission and dependence on the west.
3) American bombers bombed Japanese cities in the 1940s culminating with the atomic bombs.
4) then MacArthur came and it turned out the western way wasn't so bad and they abandoned being warlike forever.
5) the Chinese and Koreans complain a lot for no reason and dispute claims to territory that belongs to Japan.
I feel like the west is really undereducated about the entire Pacific war in general. Lot of people don't even know there was a war between Japan and China or that like 10,000,000 Chinese where killed (I'm not even sure that's right actually. If someone knows correct me.)
Once again, by the same book the IJA's atrocious behaviour in Korea and China was justified because they won those wars and the victor makes the rules.
No... that's not what I said... IJA were NOT the victors. Had they've beaten'ed the US... then, yes they'd be victors.
As far as I'm concerned (I will admit I have VERY strong views on this), war should be fought against the enemy's ARMY, not their people.
If its total world war ala WW2, Civvies are valid targets. Who funds/support any army?
If the Japanese people had known exactly what was going on in China and Korea they would not have been impressed, but what could they have done about it? Written stern letters of complaint? Japan was a millitary dictatorship, the citizens only knew what the top brass wanted them to know, and were shot at the first sign of dissention.
What did you expect them to do, send Sailor Saturn to Hadouken Admiral Tojo to death?
Your average Japanese mother is not responsible for atrocities being carried out in a distant country by Japanese troops in the same way that the average American man is not responsible for the horrors carried out in Vietnam by US soldiers.
Again... see my previous point.
In that case seeing as the US lost the Vietnam War, you cannot complain when Vietnamese soldiers burst into your home, bayonet you and rape your wife.
Blow up as many soldiers as you like (within reason) but the moment millitary brutality extends onto innocent civilians is the moment you lose all rights to feel morally superior. I don't care who's doing it to who or why, Japanese on Chinese, German on Russian, British on German, American on Japaneseor a country's government on their own people. it's all equally monstrous.
This get's up my craw... to me, if you go to war... this whole "within reason" crap needs to stop. If we have to spend blood and treasure, you go "do you business by laying down the hammer", then get out.
Case in point: The crap that we're doing in Pakistan with armed drones needs to stop. If there's objectives there, get our guys down there with the help of the ISI and get it done... then get out. WE are the one terrorizing the locals there. (and this isn't a total world war)
I disagree entirely. Wars should be fought with as little collateral damage as possible. Really we need not to be fighting, or rather not to have started fighting at all. I recommend a "sorry we screwed up" and a hasty retreat.
But it's all alright, because we were the good guys and we won the war and ALLIES HURR!
There are no good/bad guys in total war... there's only victory.
In that case you must acknowledge US troops to be every bit as degenerate and verminous as the mentally twisted beasts of the IJA. But at least they had the excuse of being psychologically tortured to obey their commander.
Just because someone wins does not mean that what they did to win was acceptable.
Wow.... I'm not even sure how to digest that completely.
Well, I think there are some traditional cultural drivers in Japan that account for this.
1) It is very rude and disrespectful to talk publically about the shames of others. Discussing anothers shame is almost as shameful as the actual infraction being discussed.
2) Ancestors are to be honored (worshipped even) or their unhappy spirits will cause you great distress in your life.
Combine these two factors and you have a culture that really just doesn't even want to talk about it and finds the whole topic uncomfortable. In the early years after the war this wasn't so problematic as everyone more or less knew what happened, but as we move to Japanese who are three or more generations separated from the war the lack of knowledge of their own history continues to grow. As a history major and someone who thinks that there are great lessons that humanity can learn from the first half of the 20th century this concerns me greatly.
A pretty good quote that I got from a documentary on Dresden was, "The most immoral thing the Allies could have done in WW2 was lose." Which I think is pretty accurate, because even if some of the things that were done by the Allies were reprehensible, what would have followed an Axis victory would have been far far worse. Unless of course you're white and Germanic, then it wouldn't have been way too bad.
Anyone read The Man in the High Castle by Philip K, Dick?
Ratbarf wrote: A pretty good quote that I got from a documentary on Dresden was, "The most immoral thing the Allies could have done in WW2 was lose." Which I think is pretty accurate, because even if some of the things that were done by the Allies were reprehensible, what would have followed an Axis victory would have been far far worse. Unless of course you're white and Germanic, then it wouldn't have been way too bad.
Anyone read The Man in the High Castle by Philip K, Dick?
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
Wow.... I'm not even sure how to digest that completely.
Well, I think there are some traditional cultural drivers in Japan that account for this.
1) It is very rude and disrespectful to talk publically about the shames of others. Discussing anothers shame is almost as shameful as the actual infraction being discussed.
2) Ancestors are to be honored (worshipped even) or their unhappy spirits will cause you great distress in your life.
Combine these two factors and you have a culture that really just doesn't even want to talk about it and finds the whole topic uncomfortable. In the early years after the war this wasn't so problematic as everyone more or less knew what happened, but as we move to Japanese who are three or more generations separated from the war the lack of knowledge of their own history continues to grow. As a history major and someone who thinks that there are great lessons that humanity can learn from the first half of the 20th century this concerns me greatly.
You might want to add into that the traditionalists and militarists role in shaping the curricula. It would be akin to a Confederate sympathized getting to decide what would be taught as a national standard. That of course, is another issue, in that we have no national educational standard, whereas Japan does. This isn't really a new issue, to be honest, and has been a point of debate for some time.
Ratbarf wrote: A pretty good quote that I got from a documentary on Dresden was, "The most immoral thing the Allies could have done in WW2 was lose." Which I think is pretty accurate, because even if some of the things that were done by the Allies were reprehensible, what would have followed an Axis victory would have been far far worse. Unless of course you're white and Germanic, then it wouldn't have been way too bad.
Anyone read The Man in the High Castle by Philip K, Dick?
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
Nobody wanted to do that, but we were faced with a situation where thats what we would be forced to do.
Otherwise the war would continue.
Seriously, look up Bushido. It calls for some pretty fethed up things.
Heck, even today suicide is a socially acceptable response to just about any failure in Japan. Failed to get into the school of your choice? Commit Seppuku. A student gets a C on an exam, commits Seppuku.
The Japanese mindset was, and is, radically different to other parts of the world.
Ratbarf wrote: A pretty good quote that I got from a documentary on Dresden was, "The most immoral thing the Allies could have done in WW2 was lose." Which I think is pretty accurate, because even if some of the things that were done by the Allies were reprehensible, what would have followed an Axis victory would have been far far worse. Unless of course you're white and Germanic, then it wouldn't have been way too bad.
Anyone read The Man in the High Castle by Philip K, Dick?
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
...What...
Who said that? And why the hell would they think that? If they did that, where would the world get all of its clever electronic gadgets and weird cute things from?
Depopulating Japan would spell the doom (or at least boredom) of 75% of the world.
Ratbarf wrote: A pretty good quote that I got from a documentary on Dresden was, "The most immoral thing the Allies could have done in WW2 was lose." Which I think is pretty accurate, because even if some of the things that were done by the Allies were reprehensible, what would have followed an Axis victory would have been far far worse. Unless of course you're white and Germanic, then it wouldn't have been way too bad.
Anyone read The Man in the High Castle by Philip K, Dick?
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
...What...
Who said that? And why the hell would they think that? If they did that, where would the world get all of its clever electronic gadgets and weird cute things from?
Depopulating Japan would spell the doom (or at least boredom) of 75% of the world.
I said it because its the truth.
But good thing we didn't for those reasons you mentioned
Ratbarf wrote: A pretty good quote that I got from a documentary on Dresden was, "The most immoral thing the Allies could have done in WW2 was lose." Which I think is pretty accurate, because even if some of the things that were done by the Allies were reprehensible, what would have followed an Axis victory would have been far far worse. Unless of course you're white and Germanic, then it wouldn't have been way too bad.
Anyone read The Man in the High Castle by Philip K, Dick?
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
Nobody wanted to do that, but we were faced with a situation where thats what we would be forced to do.
Otherwise the war would continue.
Seriously, look up Bushido. It calls for some pretty fethed up things.
Heck, even today suicide is a socially acceptable response to just about any failure in Japan. Failed to get into the school of your choice? Commit Seppuku. A student gets a C on an exam, commits Seppuku.
The Japanese mindset was, and is, radically different to other parts of the world.
Whilst suicide is legal in Japan, and there is intense pressure to succeed, it definately isn't that bad. Otherwise the population would be halving every week.
Ratbarf wrote: A pretty good quote that I got from a documentary on Dresden was, "The most immoral thing the Allies could have done in WW2 was lose." Which I think is pretty accurate, because even if some of the things that were done by the Allies were reprehensible, what would have followed an Axis victory would have been far far worse. Unless of course you're white and Germanic, then it wouldn't have been way too bad.
Anyone read The Man in the High Castle by Philip K, Dick?
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
...What...
Who said that? And why the hell would they think that? If they did that, where would the world get all of its clever electronic gadgets and weird cute things from?
Depopulating Japan would spell the doom (or at least boredom) of 75% of the world.
I said it because its the truth.
But good thing we didn't for those reasons you mentioned
Exactly. We need our daily dose of Kawaii from somewhere.
Ratbarf wrote: A pretty good quote that I got from a documentary on Dresden was, "The most immoral thing the Allies could have done in WW2 was lose." Which I think is pretty accurate, because even if some of the things that were done by the Allies were reprehensible, what would have followed an Axis victory would have been far far worse. Unless of course you're white and Germanic, then it wouldn't have been way too bad.
Anyone read The Man in the High Castle by Philip K, Dick?
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
Nobody wanted to do that, but we were faced with a situation where thats what we would be forced to do.
Otherwise the war would continue.
Seriously, look up Bushido. It calls for some pretty fethed up things.
And when you assume that an entire population of civilians follows a military code developed for and historically followed by nobles you begin to get into the realm of belief that would allow for a population to turn into suicidal zombies with pitchforks. It's patently unrealistic. Even during the warring states and unification periods, where Bushido literally was a way of life, a majority of the population of Japan didn't follow it.
Bushido wasn't something the peasant or merchant classes did. The imperial government of japan tried to implement it along nationalistic lines, but that project was doomed to failure for the same reason that communism or fascist indoctrination in the west and east failed. For the same reason that no theologically based society has pulled that off ever (including historical japan). It's impossible to coerce millions of people to willingly die for something like country or religion. There' is a breaking point and it's always reached quickly once the governmental structures that reinforced your belief and punished straying from it fail.
Granted my examples are a little extreme, but Japan does have the 3rd highest suicide rate of any country in the world. An average of 19.7 suicides per 100,000. And its much higher among men the women(29 vs 10)
Once again, by the same book the IJA's atrocious behaviour in Korea and China was justified because they won those wars and the victor makes the rules.
No... that's not what I said... IJA were NOT the victors. Had they've beaten'ed the US... then, yes they'd be victors.
As far as I'm concerned (I will admit I have VERY strong views on this), war should be fought against the enemy's ARMY, not their people.
If its total world war ala WW2, Civvies are valid targets. Who funds/support any army?
If the Japanese people had known exactly what was going on in China and Korea they would not have been impressed, but what could they have done about it? Written stern letters of complaint? Japan was a millitary dictatorship, the citizens only knew what the top brass wanted them to know, and were shot at the first sign of dissention.
What did you expect them to do, send Sailor Saturn to Hadouken Admiral Tojo to death?
What did you expect the Allies do? Take their licking at Pearl Harbor?
Your average Japanese mother is not responsible for atrocities being carried out in a distant country by Japanese troops in the same way that the average American man is not responsible for the horrors carried out in Vietnam by US soldiers.
Again... see my previous point.
In that case seeing as the US lost the Vietnam War, you cannot complain when Vietnamese soldiers burst into your home, bayonet you and rape your wife.
erm... what?
Blow up as many soldiers as you like (within reason) but the moment millitary brutality extends onto innocent civilians is the moment you lose all rights to feel morally superior. I don't care who's doing it to who or why, Japanese on Chinese, German on Russian, British on German, American on Japaneseor a country's government on their own people. it's all equally monstrous.
This get's up my craw... to me, if you go to war... this whole "within reason" crap needs to stop. If we have to spend blood and treasure, you go "do you business by laying down the hammer", then get out.
Case in point: The crap that we're doing in Pakistan with armed drones needs to stop. If there's objectives there, get our guys down there with the help of the ISI and get it done... then get out. WE are the one terrorizing the locals there. (and this isn't a total world war)
I disagree entirely. Wars should be fought with as little collateral damage as possible. Really we need not to be fighting, or rather not to have started fighting at all. I recommend a "sorry we screwed up" and a hasty retreat.
Disagree with what? That we're terrorizing the Pakistani?
Or disagreeing that we should use disproportionate amount of force?
But it's all alright, because we were the good guys and we won the war and ALLIES HURR!
There are no good/bad guys in total war... there's only victory.
In that case you must acknowledge US troops to be every bit as degenerate and verminous as the mentally twisted beasts of the IJA. But at least they had the excuse of being psychologically tortured to obey their commander.
No... I do NOT acknowledge that...
We.Were.At.War.
You do know what "War" is...right? Lemme help you here... it ain't the same as your usual police activity.
Just because someone wins does not mean that what they did to win was acceptable.
What do you mean by acceptable?
Truth of the matter is that the victors set the rules, hence why you'll see revisionist activities afterwards.
Bushido is simply a subsect of their culture. Seppuku was not just something found in Bushido. Ritual suicide was something everyone would be expected to do in certain curcumstances.
Samurai of course would not be surprised if commoners didn't do the honorable thing but that is your typical noble snobbery. Peasents and commoners would commit ritual suicide too.
I am incredibly anti war, so our opinions are going to clash. I believe that any action that harms non combatants and innocent people is unacceptable.
Period.
The moment you put winning the war over the lives of innocent ordinary people is the moment that what you fight for isn't worth fighting for.
Yes, you can say "it's war, everything is a valid target" in that case, it is war as an idea of conflict resolution that is flawed and needs to be completely abandoned.
Kilkrazy wrote:With the technology of the time it was impossible to do effective pinpoint attacks on military targets such as docks and armament factories.
That's ... not entirely true. Yes, the means for pinpoint attacks were not comparable to what is available today, but precision bombing was possible and did happen. There's a huge difference between leveling, say, a couple house blocks surrounding a factory and razing half a city with incendiary bombs. The fact is that, at some point, tactics were simply adapted to maximise the effect on the civilian population, as it was believed that eroding the fighting spirit of the general population would bring a quicker end to the war, regardless the collateral damage. Some allied military officers (unsurprisingly more within the USAAF than the RAF) even disputed the concept of carpet bombing, stating that it had little effect on the enemy's war machine - which gets more obvious when you consider those attacks where industrial areas were intentionally left unharmed because they were not situated in/near residential areas.
Morale plays a big role in a war, and unfortunately, "dirty tactics" can start to appear quite attractive when your nation is at war.
"Victory must depend on smashing the material and morale resources of a people caught in a frightful cataclysm which haunts them everywhere without cease until the final collapse of all social organization. Mercifully, the decision will be quick in this kind of war, wince the decisive blow will be aimed at civilians, that element of the countries at war least able to sustain them."
Kilkrazy wrote:Does a democratic nation have a moral duty to put its citizen soldiers' lives at peril in order to reduce the burden on civilians of an aggressor nation?
This has nothing to do with a nation's form of government, but with the morale of its culture. If a nation's military wants to don the mantle of the "noble and honourable soldier", then yes, I think this duty is there. I do acknowledge that this concept of conducting a war is rather difficult and inefficient, as it may (and likely will) reduce in casualties that may have been prevented. Then again, the same goes for any prisoner hiding a hand grenade in his hands - does that mean you should shoot anyone and take no prisoners? Do we start rounding up civilians and stage mass executions to counter an insurgency? Do we exterminate POWs because our troops should be fighting at the front rather than being "stuck" with guard duty at camps?
The real question is where would we draw the line - what are "acceptable losses" and how much avoidable collateral damage can we force upon a hostile civilian population without damaging our morale high ground? This is a very current issue, come to think of it.
Witzkatz wrote:I think the German government and by logical extension our education system are aware of "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it"
Very true - and as much as I like to rant about my former countrymen, I think this is actually an area where other nations could learn from us/them.
At least as far as WW2 is concerned. German education does like to twist some things about the Cold War as well, pushing for a very black-vs-white comparison. But I guess it's just easier to condemn something that you aren't anymore rather than addressing issues of something you still identify with.
Sometimes I get the feeling that lots of Germans would like to render "Nazi" a separate entity from "German" altogether, as if it was a different species. At least that's what I occasionally get from various comments on the interwebs whenever a topic like "legacy of guilt" comes up, with people posting stuff like "let it go, that was them not us". Unfortunately it's not as easy, considering current trends and issues within the populace.
Squigsquasher wrote: I am incredibly anti war, so our opinions are going to clash. I believe that any action that harms non combatants and innocent people is unacceptable.
Period.
The moment you put winning the war over the lives of innocent ordinary people is the moment that what you fight for isn't worth fighting for.
Yes, you can say "it's war, everything is a valid target" in that case, it is war as an idea of conflict resolution that is flawed and needs to be completely abandoned.
I agree that War is horrible.
Unfortunately people are naturally evil and as such abandoning War will never ever happen. There will always be someone on the planet that will use force to enforce their desires. And as such we can never abandon war because without that we cannot defend ourselves.
Peace requires both sides to agree to it, War only requires one.
Grey Templar wrote: Bushido is simply a subsect of their culture. Seppuku was not just something found in Bushido. Ritual suicide was something everyone would be expected to do in certain curcumstances.
Samurai of course would not be surprised if commoners didn't do the honorable thing but that is your typical noble snobbery. Peasents and commoners would commit ritual suicide too.
Or they would run, or the would refuse and be killed, or they wouldn't do it and be dishonored and people would look at them funny. Peasants were very rarely called on to commmit self sacrifice and typically it was at a nobles specific behest, there was virtually nothing a peasant could do that would incur that kind of penalty on his own. Rulers who overused that kind of authority dealt with a lot of peasant revolts. Bushido was a moralism based set of laws roughly adhered to by noble classes and which informed social taboos and general culture. If you think they were universally followed by pastoral farmers or rice croppers, let alone merchants or fisherman (90% of the population) you have an overly romantic view of Japanese medieval society. If you think that those codes of conduct were somehow even more powerful during the imperial era you've played too much street fighter.
Squigsquasher wrote: I am incredibly anti war, so our opinions are going to clash. I believe that any action that harms non combatants and innocent people is unacceptable.
Period.
The moment you put winning the war over the lives of innocent ordinary people is the moment that what you fight for isn't worth fighting for.
Yes, you can say "it's war, everything is a valid target" in that case, it is war as an idea of conflict resolution that is flawed and needs to be completely abandoned.
Fair enough...
What about collateral damage? That is, the military isn't targeting civies, but the explosion (or error) ends up killing the innocents?
Grey Templar wrote: Bushido is simply a subsect of their culture. Seppuku was not just something found in Bushido. Ritual suicide was something everyone would be expected to do in certain curcumstances.
Samurai of course would not be surprised if commoners didn't do the honorable thing but that is your typical noble snobbery. Peasents and commoners would commit ritual suicide too.
Or they would run, or the would refuse and be killed, or they wouldn't do it and be dishonored and people would look at them funny. Peasants were very rarely called on to commmit self sacrifice and typically it was at a nobles specific behest, there was virtually nothing a peasant could do that would incur that kind of penalty on his own. Rulers who overused that kind of authority dealt with a lot of peasant revolts. Bushido was a moralism based set of laws roughly adhered to by noble classes and which informed social taboos and general culture. If you think they were universally followed by pastoral farmers or rice croppers, let alone merchants or fisherman (90% of the population) you have an overly romantic view of Japanese society.
Which is where the Japanese government's brainwashing kicked in.
Squigsquasher wrote: I am incredibly anti war, so our opinions are going to clash. I believe that any action that harms non combatants and innocent people is unacceptable.
Period.
The moment you put winning the war over the lives of innocent ordinary people is the moment that what you fight for isn't worth fighting for.
Yes, you can say "it's war, everything is a valid target" in that case, it is war as an idea of conflict resolution that is flawed and needs to be completely abandoned.
I agree that War is horrible.
Unfortunately people are naturally evil and as such abandoning War will never ever happen. There will always be someone on the planet that will use force to enforce their desires. And as such we can never abandon war because without that we cannot defend ourselves.
Peace requires both sides to agree to it, War only requires one.
War didn't exist for the majority of the history of the human species. To assume that people are inherently evil because of it is a bit silly. If anything it speaks more to the nature of largescale societal structures and technology and what they enable in scale.
Grey Templar wrote: Bushido is simply a subsect of their culture. Seppuku was not just something found in Bushido. Ritual suicide was something everyone would be expected to do in certain curcumstances.
Samurai of course would not be surprised if commoners didn't do the honorable thing but that is your typical noble snobbery. Peasents and commoners would commit ritual suicide too.
Or they would run, or the would refuse and be killed, or they wouldn't do it and be dishonored and people would look at them funny. Peasants were very rarely called on to commmit self sacrifice and typically it was at a nobles specific behest, there was virtually nothing a peasant could do that would incur that kind of penalty on his own. Rulers who overused that kind of authority dealt with a lot of peasant revolts. Bushido was a moralism based set of laws roughly adhered to by noble classes and which informed social taboos and general culture. If you think they were universally followed by pastoral farmers or rice croppers, let alone merchants or fisherman (90% of the population) you have an overly romantic view of Japanese society.
Which is where the Japanese government's brainwashing kicked in.
And yet it's assumed by virtually every foreign policy and NK expert that if the regime falls there would be a largescale civil war and mass exodus of people into china, not people fighting tooth and nail unto death to defend the sacred Korean bloodline. Indoctrination exists everywhere, but the human brain is too elastic in it's method of learning and adapting and too hardwired for self survival for a large population to act the way you describe. Humans will capitulate to reality in order to survive the majority of the time.
Squigsquasher wrote: I am incredibly anti war, so our opinions are going to clash. I believe that any action that harms non combatants and innocent people is unacceptable.
Period.
The moment you put winning the war over the lives of innocent ordinary people is the moment that what you fight for isn't worth fighting for.
Yes, you can say "it's war, everything is a valid target" in that case, it is war as an idea of conflict resolution that is flawed and needs to be completely abandoned.
I agree that War is horrible.
Unfortunately people are naturally evil and as such abandoning War will never ever happen. There will always be someone on the planet that will use force to enforce their desires. And as such we can never abandon war because without that we cannot defend ourselves.
Peace requires both sides to agree to it, War only requires one.
War didn't exist for the majority of the history of the human species. To assume that people are inherently evil because of it is a bit silly. If anything it speaks more to the nature of largescale societal structures and technology and what they enable in scale.
For the majority of our history people have had to spend every waking moment looking for food.
Once settled society emerged war became inevitable. It comes with the territory of being a social creature.
Even Ants and Primates wage war on each other. Out genocide to be honest. So you can't say war isn't a natural thing.
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
I still think that fits, as Japan certainly could have depopulated an equal amount of Chinese or South Pacific Islanders had they won. And to be honest, I think the population would have fought pretty damn close to annihilation, I'm thinking like upwards of a 50% casualty rate. If you go and look at the historical training and films of the time they had children trained to run under american tanks with anti tank mines strapped to their bodies. That's some pretty fethed up stuff right there. Also, look at the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Had the Japanese fought like this extensively on the home islands, which the Americans later found out that they did indeed intend to do this, the casualties would have been immense. Here's a fun fact, in the pacific theater the ratio of killed to surrendered for IJA forces was about 100 to 1. In Europe it was about 3 to 1. That's insane, and a lot of the time the Japanese that "surrendered" didn't actually surrender, they were incapacitated and unable to resist capture. Hell even the ones that were captured didn't necessarily give up. There was a case in an Australian POW camp were some 3000 Japanese POWs escaped the camp by charging the fence and machine guns until the pile of their own dead had litterally formed a ramp over the 8 foot tall fence.
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
I still think that fits, as Japan certainly could have depopulated an equal amount of Chinese or South Pacific Islanders had they won. And to be honest, I think the population would have fought pretty damn close to annihilation, I'm thinking like upwards of a 50% casualty rate. If you go and look at the historical training and films of the time they had children trained to run under american tanks with anti tank mines strapped to their bodies. That's some pretty fethed up stuff right there. Also, look at the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Had the Japanese fought like this extensively on the home islands, which the Americans later found out that they did indeed intend to do this, the casualties would have been immense. Here's a fun fact, in the pacific theater the ratio of killed to surrendered for IJA forces was about 100 to 1. In Europe it was about 3 to 1. That's insane, and a lot of the time the Japanese that "surrendered" didn't actually surrender, they were incapacitated and unable to resist capture. Hell even the ones that were captured didn't necessarily give up. There was a case in an Australian POW camp were some 3000 Japanese POWs escaped the camp by charging the fence and machine guns until the pile of their own dead had litterally formed a ramp over the 8 foot tall fence.
The Japanese were freaking nuts.
And those were also trained soldiers sent to a battlefield and for whom execution was a punishment for surrender, not sharecroppers or fisherman staring down a giant metal machine covered in canons and whose training was involuntary and likely short. This is a red herring.
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
I still think that fits, as Japan certainly could have depopulated an equal amount of Chinese or South Pacific Islanders had they won. And to be honest, I think the population would have fought pretty damn close to annihilation, I'm thinking like upwards of a 50% casualty rate. If you go and look at the historical training and films of the time they had children trained to run under american tanks with anti tank mines strapped to their bodies. That's some pretty fethed up stuff right there. Also, look at the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Had the Japanese fought like this extensively on the home islands, which the Americans later found out that they did indeed intend to do this, the casualties would have been immense. Here's a fun fact, in the pacific theater the ratio of killed to surrendered for IJA forces was about 100 to 1. In Europe it was about 3 to 1. That's insane, and a lot of the time the Japanese that "surrendered" didn't actually surrender, they were incapacitated and unable to resist capture. Hell even the ones that were captured didn't necessarily give up. There was a case in an Australian POW camp were some 3000 Japanese POWs escaped the camp by charging the fence and machine guns until the pile of their own dead had litterally formed a ramp over the 8 foot tall fence.
The Japanese were freaking nuts.
And those were also trained soldiers sent to a battlefield and for whom execution was a punishment for surrender, not sharecroppers or fisherman staring down a giant metal machine covered in canons and whose training was involuntary and likely short. This is a red herring.
Shuma... are you arguing that had we invaded Japan, that the initial casualty assessments were too high?
Can someone correct me, didn't the local peasants in Okinawa fight the Allies forces? The results of that battle may have been the driving force in the belief that the peasants on the mainland would fight as well.
Even then, I don't think we would've gone "total exterminatus" on them as I'm sure some would surrender.
Also Shuma... until the surrender, the Japanese still considered the Emperor a god. Food for thought there dude....
The Japanese still consider the Emperor a god. Or at least as much as they used to.
And those were also trained soldiers sent to a battlefield and for whom execution was a punishment for surrender, not sharecroppers or fisherman staring down a giant metal machine covered in canons and whose training was involuntary and likely short. This is a red herring.
I don't exactly see the large difference between a conscript soldier who used to be a sharecropper/fisherman and has only had a month or so of training to change that and a current sharecropper/fisherman who is currently receiving training the handling of firearms and explosives? Especially as in Imperial Japan military rules and ideaologies started in elementary school.
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
I still think that fits, as Japan certainly could have depopulated an equal amount of Chinese or South Pacific Islanders had they won. And to be honest, I think the population would have fought pretty damn close to annihilation, I'm thinking like upwards of a 50% casualty rate. If you go and look at the historical training and films of the time they had children trained to run under american tanks with anti tank mines strapped to their bodies. That's some pretty fethed up stuff right there. Also, look at the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Had the Japanese fought like this extensively on the home islands, which the Americans later found out that they did indeed intend to do this, the casualties would have been immense. Here's a fun fact, in the pacific theater the ratio of killed to surrendered for IJA forces was about 100 to 1. In Europe it was about 3 to 1. That's insane, and a lot of the time the Japanese that "surrendered" didn't actually surrender, they were incapacitated and unable to resist capture. Hell even the ones that were captured didn't necessarily give up. There was a case in an Australian POW camp were some 3000 Japanese POWs escaped the camp by charging the fence and machine guns until the pile of their own dead had litterally formed a ramp over the 8 foot tall fence.
The Japanese were freaking nuts.
And those were also trained soldiers sent to a battlefield and for whom execution was a punishment for surrender, not sharecroppers or fisherman staring down a giant metal machine covered in canons and whose training was involuntary and likely short. This is a red herring.
Shuma... are you arguing that had we invaded Japan, that the initial casualty assessments were too high?
Can someone correct me, didn't the local peasants in Okinawa fight the Allies forces? The results of that battle may have been the driving force in the belief that the peasants on the mainland would fight as well.
Even then, I don't think we would've gone "total exterminatus" on them as I'm sure some would surrender.
Also Shuma... until the surrender, the Japanese still considered the Emperor a god. Food for thought there dude....
No, I'm not. I'm arguing against people saying that the casualty assessment was a fiftieth to one hundredth what the actual casualties would have been. I've been really really consistent with that. I'm also arguing against the portrayal of the Japanese civilian population as the thing we were fighting in starship troopers. If they really were like that two nuclear bombs wouldn't have caused their surrender. We had already destroyed Japanese cities before, and the ability for the Japanese to resist our air power was practically nothing by that point in the war. It's just bs. When you pretend that a country was nothing but insane fanatics you dehumanize them and reduce the humanity of everyone else in the process. Those same "fanatics" we're perfectly ok with us a decade later and are one of our staunchest allies now. What they're saying just doesn't gel with reality.
Some joined the fight against the Americans, some committed suicide, some were caught in the cross fire and some were killed by their own side rather than be allowed to be captured.
So these figures must be considered with what might have happened had the Japanese mainland been invaded. Given that Japan had 72 000 000 people in 1945, this could have meant 24 000 000 casualties had the campaign gone to the bitter end.
Tell that to the guy 2 pages ago saying the Americans were getting ready to depopulate the Japanese isles entirely.
I still think that fits, as Japan certainly could have depopulated an equal amount of Chinese or South Pacific Islanders had they won. And to be honest, I think the population would have fought pretty damn close to annihilation, I'm thinking like upwards of a 50% casualty rate. If you go and look at the historical training and films of the time they had children trained to run under american tanks with anti tank mines strapped to their bodies. That's some pretty fethed up stuff right there. Also, look at the battles of Okinawa and Iwo Jima. Had the Japanese fought like this extensively on the home islands, which the Americans later found out that they did indeed intend to do this, the casualties would have been immense. Here's a fun fact, in the pacific theater the ratio of killed to surrendered for IJA forces was about 100 to 1. In Europe it was about 3 to 1. That's insane, and a lot of the time the Japanese that "surrendered" didn't actually surrender, they were incapacitated and unable to resist capture. Hell even the ones that were captured didn't necessarily give up. There was a case in an Australian POW camp were some 3000 Japanese POWs escaped the camp by charging the fence and machine guns until the pile of their own dead had litterally formed a ramp over the 8 foot tall fence.
The Japanese were freaking nuts.
And those were also trained soldiers sent to a battlefield and for whom execution was a punishment for surrender, not sharecroppers or fisherman staring down a giant metal machine covered in canons and whose training was involuntary and likely short. This is a red herring.
Shuma... are you arguing that had we invaded Japan, that the initial casualty assessments were too high?
Can someone correct me, didn't the local peasants in Okinawa fight the Allies forces? The results of that battle may have been the driving force in the belief that the peasants on the mainland would fight as well.
Even then, I don't think we would've gone "total exterminatus" on them as I'm sure some would surrender.
Also Shuma... until the surrender, the Japanese still considered the Emperor a god. Food for thought there dude....
No, I'm not. I'm arguing against people saying that the casualty assessment was a fiftieth to one hundredth what the actual casualties would have been. I've been really really consistent with that. I'm also arguing against the portrayal of the Japanese civilian population as the thing we were fighting in starship troopers. If they really were like that two nuclear bombs wouldn't have caused their surrender. We had already destroyed Japanese cities before, and the ability for the Japanese to resist our air power was practically nothing by that point in the war. It's just bs. When you pretend that a country was nothing but insane fanatics you dehumanize them and reduce the humanity of everyone else in the process. Those same "fanatics" we're perfectly ok with us a decade later and are one of our staunchest allies now. What they're saying just doesn't gel with reality.
No... I understand ya...
But, I thought I read somewhere that the Emperor basically said "no mas", which allowed Adm Yamamoto to surrender. Otherwise... it'd be a bloody confict.
Some joined the fight against the Americans, some committed suicide, some were caught in the cross fire and some were killed by their own side rather than be allowed to be captured.
So these figures must be considered with what might have happened had the Japanese mainland been invaded. Given that Japan had 72 000 000 people in 1945, this could have meant 24 000 000 casualties had the campaign gone to the bitter end.
That seems plausible, though external factors like disease and starvation (endemic to that kind of military conflict) could throw off the number heavily as well as influence an early surrender.
Well, the Japanese were prepared to continue the fight. They had a condition to their conditional surrender, and that was that the Emperor would not be prosecuted, nor would he be removed as head of state.
Some joined the fight against the Americans, some committed suicide, some were caught in the cross fire and some were killed by their own side rather than be allowed to be captured.
So these figures must be considered with what might have happened had the Japanese mainland been invaded. Given that Japan had 72 000 000 people in 1945, this could have meant 24 000 000 casualties had the campaign gone to the bitter end.
That seems plausible, though external factors like disease and starvation (endemic to that kind of military conflict) could throw off the number heavily as well as influence an early surrender.
Daaamn. 24 millions...
Putting that in perspective, here are US Casualties:
Wars ranked by total number of US military deaths
Rank ____________________________Deaths
1 American Civil War 1861–1865____625,000
2 World War II 1941–1945_________405,399
3 World War I 1917–1918_________116,516
4 Vietnam War 1955–1975_________58,209
5 Korean War 1950–1953_________36,516
Squigsquasher wrote: Yes. The civilians, for the most part, are completely innocent. They aren't the ones marching into neighboring countries and raping, killing and looting. Their army is. It's like a man is stealing items from a supermarket and arresting his sister, who had nothing to do with the shoplifting.
In total war, there is no difference between civilians and military. Its all one machine. You have to kill the machine.
Squigsquasher wrote: Yes. The civilians, for the most part, are completely innocent. They aren't the ones marching into neighboring countries and raping, killing and looting. Their army is. It's like a man is stealing items from a supermarket and arresting his sister, who had nothing to do with the shoplifting.
In total war, there is no difference between civilians and military. Its all one machine. You have to kill the machine.
What is total war? Why does that suddenly allow for the killing of innocents, but insurgencies or geurilla warfare doesn't? How is it different from conventional warfare that doesn't? If it makes it all ok, why did we have all those war crimes trials? This just sounds like a defense of the indefensible so that the greatest generation can keep being great.
Grey Templar wrote: Compared to many other countries, including some that are supposedly quite cosmopolitan, the US has a fairly unbiased worldview of historical events.
It can be shocking what other country's historical revisionists do with history.
Of course we have our own share of them here too. They especially like to mess with early colonial facts.
And civil war history/the sciences. Don't even bother with economic history textbooks, those are about as revisionist as humanly possible (Hayak shouldn't even be in them).
What kind of godless commie pinko denies the gift to men that Selma Hayak???
Frazzled, go back to bed. You know you aren't supposed to post things not relating to sausage dogs on Dakka. Now drink your ovaltine and have a nice hot bath.
Squigsquasher wrote: Yes. The civilians, for the most part, are completely innocent. They aren't the ones marching into neighboring countries and raping, killing and looting. Their army is. It's like a man is stealing items from a supermarket and arresting his sister, who had nothing to do with the shoplifting.
In total war, there is no difference between civilians and military. Its all one machine. You have to kill the machine.
What is total war? Why does that suddenly allow for the killing of innocents, but insurgencies or geurilla warfare doesn't? How is it different from conventional warfare that doesn't? If it makes it all ok, why did we have all those war crimes trials? This just sounds like a defense of the indefensible so that the greatest generation can keep being great.
Total war is a state of war in which the entire political and economic apparatus of the state has been put to the war effort. Under such circumstances the civilian populace does become an extension of the fighting force through the production of weapons, food, supplies and new fighting men.
Squigsquasher wrote: Yes. The civilians, for the most part, are completely innocent. They aren't the ones marching into neighboring countries and raping, killing and looting. Their army is. It's like a man is stealing items from a supermarket and arresting his sister, who had nothing to do with the shoplifting.
In total war, there is no difference between civilians and military. Its all one machine. You have to kill the machine.
What is total war? Why does that suddenly allow for the killing of innocents, but insurgencies or geurilla warfare doesn't? How is it different from conventional warfare that doesn't? If it makes it all ok, why did we have all those war crimes trials? This just sounds like a defense of the indefensible so that the greatest generation can keep being great.
Total war is a state of war in which the entire political and economic apparatus of the state has been put to the war effort. Under such circumstances the civilian populace does become an extension of the fighting force through the production of weapons, food, supplies and new fighting men.
Jefffar wrote: Total war is a state of war in which the entire political and economic apparatus of the state has been put to the war effort. Under such circumstances the civilian populace does become an extension of the fighting force through the production of weapons, food, supplies and new fighting men.
That sounds like all war.
Not at all.
In the Global War on Terror and it's subsequent conflicts we have not seen the draft of every available man into the military. We have not seen the suspension of the production of the big three automakers so that they can produce tanks and airplanes. We don't have food rationing so that the governemnt can purchase the bulk of produced food to send overseas to the military . . .
The Western world has not seen that level of commitment to a war since 1945.
Jefffar wrote: Total war is a state of war in which the entire political and economic apparatus of the state has been put to the war effort. Under such circumstances the civilian populace does become an extension of the fighting force through the production of weapons, food, supplies and new fighting men.
That sounds like all war.
Not at all.
In the Global War on Terror and it's subsequent conflicts we have not seen the draft of every available man into the military. We have not seen the suspension of the production of the big three automakers so that they can produce tanks and airplanes. We don't have food rationing so that the governemnt can purchase the bulk of produced food to send overseas to the military . . .
The Western world has not seen that level of commitment to a war since 1945.
Jefffar wrote: Total war is a state of war in which the entire political and economic apparatus of the state has been put to the war effort. Under such circumstances the civilian populace does become an extension of the fighting force through the production of weapons, food, supplies and new fighting men.
That sounds like all war.
Not at all.
In the Global War on Terror and it's subsequent conflicts we have not seen the draft of every available man into the military. We have not seen the suspension of the production of the big three automakers so that they can produce tanks and airplanes. We don't have food rationing so that the governemnt can purchase the bulk of produced food to send overseas to the military . . .
The Western world has not seen that level of commitment to a war since 1945.
Vietnam..?
Nope.
While the draft did exist, only a small portion of men were actually put into the service. Ford was allowed to produce cars instead of tanks. Boeing didn't' have to stop making 707s because they were too busy making B-52s. There was no food rationing either.
Jefffar wrote: Total war is a state of war in which the entire political and economic apparatus of the state has been put to the war effort. Under such circumstances the civilian populace does become an extension of the fighting force through the production of weapons, food, supplies and new fighting men.
That sounds like all war.
Not at all.
In the Global War on Terror and it's subsequent conflicts we have not seen the draft of every available man into the military. We have not seen the suspension of the production of the big three automakers so that they can produce tanks and airplanes. We don't have food rationing so that the governemnt can purchase the bulk of produced food to send overseas to the military . . .
The Western world has not seen that level of commitment to a war since 1945.
Vietnam..?
Nope.
While the draft did exist, only a small portion of men were actually put into the service. Ford was allowed to produce cars instead of tanks. Boeing didn't' have to stop making 707s because they were too busy making B-52s. There was no food rationing either.
Vietnam was a Limited war by definition.
So the term total war is a one off exception characterized by a lack of morals by the nations experiencing it? Seems convenient as a justification for atrocities to simply handwave them as the excesses of the time.
ShumaGorath wrote: So the term total war is a one off exception characterized by a lack of morals by the nations experiencing it? Seems convenient as a justification for atrocities to simply handwave them as the excesses of the time.
Oh no, there's still the choice to be as moral as you want.
It's just that in total war the entire apparatus of the state is a part of their war effort, so some people feel more comfortable with reduced targeting restrictions as certain soft targets become viable ways to reduce the enemy's combat capabilities. Doesn't make it more or less moral to target those things, just makes targeting them a legitimate means to prosecute the war.
The city bombings of WWII wre horrible things and morally repugnant, even if they can be justified in the circumstances.
Which is one of the true tragedies of war. In war, good men learn to do bad things and be okay with it.
ShumaGorath wrote: So the term total war is a one off exception characterized by a lack of morals by the nations experiencing it? Seems convenient as a justification for atrocities to simply handwave them as the excesses of the time.
Oh no, there's still the choice to be as moral as you want.
It's just that in total war the entire apparatus of the state is a part of their war effort, so some people feel more comfortable with reduced targeting restrictions as certain soft targets become viable ways to reduce the enemy's combat capabilities. Doesn't make it more or less moral to target those things, just makes targeting them a legitimate means to prosecute the war.
The city bombings of WWII wre horrible things and morally repugnant, even if they can be justified in the circumstances.
Which is one of the true tragedies of war. In war, good men learn to do bad things and be okay with it.
In war, good men learn to do bad things... period. That's why its "war".
WW2 was a series of gakky things done by gakky people for gakky reasons. No one was innocent, some events were worse then others, but no one was innocent
So the term total war is a one off exception characterized by a lack of morals by the nations experiencing it? Seems convenient as a justification for atrocities to simply handwave them as the excesses of the time.
World War 1 and the Napoleonic Wars also fit into the Total definition, as does the 7 years war to some extent and the War of Religion in the early 1600's as well. As does the Second Punic War.
Total War has happened several times over human history, and is usually characterised by several nations fighting to the near death.
Everyone is a war criminal because war is criminal.
Now get over this petty argument, it's not a constructive topic by any means to blame a country over another one - especially when the lessons learned by even those brainwashed into fighting are probably most prevalent in the countries that lost the most in the war.
Everyone is a war criminal because war is criminal.
Now get over this petty argument, it's not a constructive topic by any means to blame a country over another one - especially when the lessons learned by even those brainwashed into fighting are probably most prevalent in the countries that lost the most in the war.
Called a war criminal and brainwashed in one post. Thanks buddy! Proudly defending your rights to denigrate me for the past 10 years.
Squigsquasher wrote: Yes. The civilians, for the most part, are completely innocent. They aren't the ones marching into neighboring countries and raping, killing and looting. Their army is. It's like a man is stealing items from a supermarket and arresting his sister, who had nothing to do with the shoplifting.
In total war, there is no difference between civilians and military. Its all one machine. You have to kill the machine.
What is total war? Why does that suddenly allow for the killing of innocents, but insurgencies or geurilla warfare doesn't? How is it different from conventional warfare that doesn't? If it makes it all ok, why did we have all those war crimes trials? This just sounds like a defense of the indefensible so that the greatest generation can keep being great.
Total war is a war in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of fully available resources and population.
In the mid-19th century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, there is less differentiation between combatants and civilians than in other conflicts, and sometimes no such differentiation at all, as nearly every human resource, civilians and soldiers alike, can be considered to be part of the belligerent effort.
The concept is that everything is part of the war effort. The civilian population and infrastructure are working to support their armed forces in the field. And according to the rules of war(silly concept but whatever...) anyone and anything activly participating in a war effort is a legitimate target.
Only read the OP, so sorry if I bring up points already mentioned. I always think of it like this.
The winners will always demonise their opposition to justify the war. There is no point in arguing against that one. Caesar did it in his Gallic War books, the British did it when writing about their colonial wars, etc.
To demonise their opposition one side will always bring in a lot of facts and figures that demonise their opposition - for example, the Americans accuse Pearl Harbour of being sneaky when in fact America probably would have gone to war with Japan anyway if they hadn't got their asses out of Manchuria and China.
No Allied commander was ever tried for war crime. Meanwhile guys like Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, was executed for war crimes that, to be frank, were non-existant and no worse than the American removal of Japanese people.
However, I do not think that World War 2 will ever be considered a war of American aggression for the simple reason that America didn't get involved until the war had progressed quite a bit. It may eventually be considered a war of Allied aggression - after all, it was the Allies that declared war on Germany, wasn't it?
That day will not come soon though. It's clear to anyone who knows anything about World War 2 that it was a direct result of Nazi warmongering and expansion.
Nobody will ever see it as a war of Allied aggression.
They may have declared war on Germany and not the other way around, but the Nazi's were on a path of world conquest in no uncertain terms. They weren't hiding their plans to take over the whole world and the world responded appropriately.
That's not quite true. Hitler wanted Lebensraum, or living space, for the German people. He said so in Mein Kampf. By doing so he wanted to expand Germany's borders but never wanted to take over the world, only to assert Aryan dominance. Kind of like what America has done now.
They also wanted revenge against the Allied nations for the Treaty of Versailles which they rightly viewed as unfair. I mean, if you had to pay ridiculous amounts of money, lose a lot of your land and disband your armed forces, you'd be pretty pissed off as well.
They're not asserting Aryan dominance at all, barely any of them are true Aryans!
The point of including America in my previous post was that the Germans would not have conquered the world. America asserts its dominance not militarily (well partially militarily) but mainly politically and economically. The Third Reich would have attempted to do that and show that the Aryan race was superior. They would have done this after annexing nearby countries to create Lebensraum for the German people.
Given that the Germans were training people to oversee their new holdings in areas far Europe I would say they had world conquest on their minds.
There was a story I heard about a captured german prisoner.
He spoke almost perfect English, American English. And in conversation with his army guard the subject of where the American soldier was from came up. He was from an obscure town in upstate New York. The German knew exactly where it was when the name was mentioned.
His explaination was that he had been trained to be an administrator of the new german territories of that area.
whembly wrote: But, I thought I read somewhere that the Emperor basically said "no mas", which allowed Adm Yamamoto to surrender. Otherwise... it'd be a bloody confict.
The Allies shot Yamamoto's plane down in (IIRC) 1943, so I doubt that.
whembly wrote: But, I thought I read somewhere that the Emperor basically said "no mas", which allowed Adm Yamamoto to surrender. Otherwise... it'd be a bloody confict.
The Allies shot Yamamoto's plane down in (IIRC) 1943, so I doubt that.
Oops... who was the Admiral that surrendered on U.S.S. Missouri?
whembly wrote: But, I thought I read somewhere that the Emperor basically said "no mas", which allowed Adm Yamamoto to surrender. Otherwise... it'd be a bloody confict.
The Allies shot Yamamoto's plane down in (IIRC) 1943, so I doubt that.
yeah, Yamamoto was no more but the rest is true.
The Emperor is the one that ended the war. The people and military were ready to fight to the bitter end.
No Allied commander was ever tried for war crime. Meanwhile guys like Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, was executed for war crimes that, to be frank, were non-existant and no worse than the American removal of Japanese people.
Do not ever so blatantly deny the severity of genocide ever again.
According to you:
The rape of Nanking was "not worse" in any way and completely equivalent to a humane and temporary relocation. There is no justification in denying genocide the way that you have.
The list of Japanese war crimes and brutality against captured P.O.Ws and against civilian populations is long, detailed and very documented. Japanese war crimes are not up for debate. Unit 731's atrocious medical and weapons experiments against captured civilians and P.O.Ws are not up for debate, the use of comfort women is not up for debate, the Bataan death march is not up for debate, the instances of cannabalism against P.O.Ws and civilians are not up for debate, nor are any of their other crimes. These are facts and they are right on par with the worst behavior of the Third Reich in Europe.
Sigh, read what he actually wrote Ehrenstein, he said that the crimes of Yamashita were non-existant. Which, to be frank, there is very good evidence that they were not his crimes to atone for. Nowhere did he say that the Rape of Nanking didn't happen, he is referring to the events in Singapore and the Phillipines and General Yamashita's culpability for them.
Goodness gracious me.
What the heck? Where did the post from ExNoctemNacimur go?
Ratbarf wrote: Sigh, read what he actually wrote Ehrenstein, he said that the crimes of Yamashita were non-existant. Which, to be frank, there is very good evidence that they were not his crimes to atone for. Nowhere did he say that the Rape of Nanking didn't happen, he is referring to the events in Singapore and the Phillipines and General Yamashita's culpability for them.
Goodness gracious me.
What the heck? Where did the post from ExNoctemNacimur go?
He said war crimes that were NON EXISTENT or were no worse then the American internment of Japanese Americans during WW2. (deplorable to be sure, but certainly not genocide)
I'd say that implies quite a lot given the sector of the Japanese war effort under Yamashita's command.
Yeah, as in Yamashita was executed for war crimes that he a) didn't commit or could not reasonably be held culpable for, or b) that the crimes if he could be held culpable, were no worse than the American internment of the Japanese. Now I would agree with A, and B is really no different than the things that happened under Soviets part but we didn't scream out for their crimes to.
PS: I know they happened, y'all are blowing it out of proportion.
The true irony of the war-crimes trials of the Japanese following WWII is that they had been merely following the pattern set by the western powers in their 'colonial' actions in the late 19th century.
Case in point: The American takeover of the Phillipines after the Spanish-American war was every bit as brutal and nasty as anything the Japanese did. The Phillipios had the Spanish beaten back to the fort-city of Manila even before the Americans had landed a single man. When the Americans came in to take Manila, they shot at any armed Phillipinos who dared to get close enough, because America wanted the Phillipines for herself. America took over where Spain had left off and ignored the Phillipino's desire for self-governance - they weren't 'white' and therefore were incapable of it, according to the 'wisdom' of the time. Naturally the Phillipino forces resisted, and a nasty little guerilla war persisted there for quite a long time. In retaliation, American troops rounded up Phillipino civillians into concentration camps, raped, killed, and plundered in the finest fashion of an army that had lots of practice doing the same against the Native American tribes not twenty years before.
(Those who say Iraq was the first time America committed a war of aggression don't know their history. The first war of aggression commited by America was Washington against the Iroquis... before there even was a nation called America. But that wasn't the last, not by a long shot.)
No Allied commander was ever tried for war crime. Meanwhile guys like Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, was executed for war crimes that, to be frank, were non-existant and no worse than the American removal of Japanese people.
Do not ever so blatantly deny the severity of genocide ever again.
According to you:
The rape of Nanking was "not worse" in any way and completely equivalent to a humane and temporary relocation. There is no justification in denying genocide the way that you have.
Don't worry, I know a lot about Japanese history from the early days of the Shogunate to the end of World War 2.
Yamashita - the Tiger of Malaya. He was a brilliant general and shot through Malaysia and Singapore. He was then the commander of Singapore and later the Phillipines. It's hard to account him for the Sook Ching and Manila massacre since he didn't really have too much of a choice - in the Japanese high command there was a lot of Anti-Sinoism. What he really was executed for was his defeat, as he said during his trial that is still considered unfair. He wasn't even in charge of the Rape of Nanking.
Now, let's look at what the Allied powers had done, as Vulcan had already said.
-Massacre of indigenous Native Americans -Massacre of Jews -The random shooting of colonials with weapons -The Belgian massacres of indigenous Congans -Stalin's murder of 50 MILLION PEOPLE
Anyway, as I said before, we will never know the true extent of what the Allies did that could be considered a war crime because they covered it up and blew their enemy's ones out of proportion.
ExNoctemNacimur wrote: That's not quite true. Hitler wanted Lebensraum, or living space, for the German people. He said so in Mein Kampf. By doing so he wanted to expand Germany's borders but never wanted to take over the world, only to assert Aryan dominance. Kind of like what America has done now.
They also wanted revenge against the Allied nations for the Treaty of Versailles which they rightly viewed as unfair. I mean, if you had to pay ridiculous amounts of money, lose a lot of your land and disband your armed forces, you'd be pretty pissed off as well.
I'll agree with you about the Treaty of Versailles being unfair, but I don't think many people from Europe would agree with you on the Germans not wanting to take over the world.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think the Op's original question has been answered as far as this thread goes.
In theory you could blame the British and French for causing WWII.
If they kept their promises, and attacked Germany from behind when they invaded Poland the war would have been over before Christmas and wouldnt have evolved into a world wide conflict.
But no, they were too afraid of Hitler and just waited, and look what happened, Germans defeated the combined British-French forces faster than the Polish army.
And not all the German manpower/resources was deployed in the east.
And the French put too much faith in the Maginol (Spelling??) Line and were caught off guard by the blitzkrieg going around the side of it
They did indeed declare war on on Germany BUT they didnt do besides that, just sat on their asses while our country was attacked by both germans and russians. Hitler anticipated that, and roughly 80% of manpower was in the eastern part of germany. And yes, the French failed big time, but the Polish front was larger than the Maginot Line.
They did start to mobilise and the BEF did land in France and advance towards the germans before getting beaten back but for the most part they were peace time armies in Europe apart from the Germans. The 6 years of Appeasement gave some time but they were still updating equipment and recruiting men which takes time and Poland was on the other side of Europe.
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: They did start to mobilise and the BEF did land in France and advance towards the germans before getting beaten back but for the most part they were peace time armies in Europe apart from the Germans. The 6 years of Appeasement gave some time but they were still updating equipment and recruiting men which takes time and Poland was on the other side of Europe.
Neither England or France attack Germany before you were attacked by them. Both England and France promised us that they would attack Germany if they attacked us. Not only did you Betray us then, you even sold us (and a few other countries) to the USSR after the war.
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: They did start to mobilise and the BEF did land in France and advance towards the germans before getting beaten back but for the most part they were peace time armies in Europe apart from the Germans. The 6 years of Appeasement gave some time but they were still updating equipment and recruiting men which takes time and Poland was on the other side of Europe.
Neither England or France attack Germany before you were attacked by them.
Both England and France promised us that they would attack Germany if they attacked us.
Not only did you Betray us then, you even sold us (and a few other countries) to the USSR after the war.
It was definitely not a glittering page in our history.
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: They did start to mobilise and the BEF did land in France and advance towards the germans before getting beaten back but for the most part they were peace time armies in Europe apart from the Germans. The 6 years of Appeasement gave some time but they were still updating equipment and recruiting men which takes time and Poland was on the other side of Europe.
Neither England or France attack Germany before you were attacked by them.
Both England and France promised us that they would attack Germany if they attacked us.
Not only did you Betray us then, you even sold us (and a few other countries) to the USSR after the war.
Not quite. There were some minor French attacks on Germany during the polish campagin.
However you are mostly right, although you can expect someone to die for anothers freedom, it would be just heroic.
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: They did start to mobilise and the BEF did land in France and advance towards the germans before getting beaten back but for the most part they were peace time armies in Europe apart from the Germans. The 6 years of Appeasement gave some time but they were still updating equipment and recruiting men which takes time and Poland was on the other side of Europe.
Neither England or France attack Germany before you were attacked by them.
Both England and France promised us that they would attack Germany if they attacked us.
Not only did you Betray us then, you even sold us (and a few other countries) to the USSR after the war.
It was definitely not a glittering page in our history.
Yet Britain and France weren't able to launch an effective strike at any of the German forces
- The Maginot Line was directly opposite the Rhineland, the only French-German border,
-The rest was neutral or opposing countries (Netherlands/Belgium to the north, Italy and Switzerland to the south)
Without either exposing and overextending themselves by trying to fight the Dutch before the Germans as the forces available at the time were still deploying with antiquated technology.
And after the war the USSR would of had a war if we and tried to get more than what we ended up and all that would of succeeded in doing was to have the cold war between Europe and the US instead fo the USSR and Nato
Not quite. An allied invasion would have been successful in the oppinion of the most historians:
The most german forces were in Poland (to fasten the campaign to rush back to the French broder) (only 23 divisions remained, facing 110 allied divisions).
The Wehrmacht was weaker in `39 than `40 and most ,,Blitz" lessons not learned.
However it was a matter a critical timing. It was smart to put the best troops into Poland to end the campain fast, because decisions need time.
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: They did start to mobilise and the BEF did land in France and advance towards the germans before getting beaten back but for the most part they were peace time armies in Europe apart from the Germans. The 6 years of Appeasement gave some time but they were still updating equipment and recruiting men which takes time and Poland was on the other side of Europe.
Neither England or France attack Germany before you were attacked by them.
Both England and France promised us that they would attack Germany if they attacked us.
Not only did you Betray us then, you even sold us (and a few other countries) to the USSR after the war.
It was definitely not a glittering page in our history.
Yet Britain and France weren't able to launch an effective strike at any of the German forces
- The Maginot Line was directly opposite the Rhineland, the only French-German border,
-The rest was neutral or opposing countries (Netherlands/Belgium to the north, Italy and Switzerland to the south)
Without either exposing and overextending themselves by trying to fight the Dutch before the Germans as the forces available at the time were still deploying with antiquated technology.
And after the war the USSR would of had a war if we and tried to get more than what we ended up and all that would of succeeded in doing was to have the cold war between Europe and the US instead fo the USSR and Nato
One of the truly severe mistakes was letting the Germans get their hooks into Czechoslavakia without a fight and in fact, forcing the Czechs to give up extremely defensible areas.
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: They did start to mobilise and the BEF did land in France and advance towards the germans before getting beaten back but for the most part they were peace time armies in Europe apart from the Germans. The 6 years of Appeasement gave some time but they were still updating equipment and recruiting men which takes time and Poland was on the other side of Europe.
Neither England or France attack Germany before you were attacked by them.
Both England and France promised us that they would attack Germany if they attacked us.
Not only did you Betray us then, you even sold us (and a few other countries) to the USSR after the war.
It was definitely not a glittering page in our history.
Yet Britain and France weren't able to launch an effective strike at any of the German forces
- The Maginot Line was directly opposite the Rhineland, the only French-German border,
-The rest was neutral or opposing countries (Netherlands/Belgium to the north, Italy and Switzerland to the south)
Without either exposing and overextending themselves by trying to fight the Dutch before the Germans as the forces available at the time were still deploying with antiquated technology.
And after the war the USSR would of had a war if we and tried to get more than what we ended up and all that would of succeeded in doing was to have the cold war between Europe and the US instead fo the USSR and Nato
One of the truly severe mistakes was letting the Germans get their hooks into Czechoslavakia without a fight and in fact, forcing the Czechs to give up extremely defensible areas.
The Sudetenland incident was probably one of the lowest points in British history in the past 100 years, it was an absolute disgrace but at the time Britain had a peacetime army with no real technology to speak of, the years of appeasement bought Britain enough time to update thei technology and start training new soldiers so that when war came we weren't destroyed and invaded by the Germans
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:Yet Britain and France weren't able to launch an effective strike at any of the German forces
- The Maginot Line was directly opposite the Rhineland, the only French-German border,
-The rest was neutral or opposing countries (Netherlands/Belgium to the north, Italy and Switzerland to the south)
Dont give me that , both Chamberlain and Lebrun were too afraid to do anything, the Appeasement proves that.
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Without either exposing and overextending themselves by trying to fight the Dutch before the Germans as the forces available at the time were still deploying with antiquated technology.
Um, go trough the Maginot line straight into germany?
The french tanks were actually more advanced than the german! and you Brits did fine when it came to defending your own country. Maybe thats what its about, you probably tought "Oh its not our country, so it dosent matter as much."
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:And after the war the USSR would of had a war if we and tried to get more than what we ended up and all that would of succeeded in doing was to have the cold war between Europe and the US instead fo the USSR and Nato
You AGREED to let the USSR take over the countries! And none of us had any say in it!
The allies only advantage in military hardware was in tanks. In other areas the Germans were equal if not superior. Especially in tactics.
German Tanks may have been small, but they used them to the greatest effect. Unlike the allied "land battleship" techniques that tried to apply navel tactics onto armored vehicles.
The only real disadvantage the Germans had was that they didn't have the manpower or resources to do what they did. Hitler also was not a great tactician, his general were. When he took over direct command is when things went south.
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:Yet Britain and France weren't able to launch an effective strike at any of the German forces - The Maginot Line was directly opposite the Rhineland, the only French-German border, -The rest was neutral or opposing countries (Netherlands/Belgium to the north, Italy and Switzerland to the south)
Dont give me that , both Chamberlain and Lebrun were too afraid to do anything, the Appeasement proves that.
Appeasement although dispicable for what happened under it bought enough time for Britain to mobilise and update their armed forces
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: Without either exposing and overextending themselves by trying to fight the Dutch before the Germans as the forces available at the time were still deploying with antiquated technology.
Um, go trough the Maginot line straight into germany? The french tanks were actually more advanced than the german! and you Brits did fine when it came to defending your own country. Maybe thats what its about, you probably tought "Oh its not our country, so it dosent matter as much."
The French generals relied on the Defensive strength of the Maginot line and most of the military tactician outside of Nazi Germany hadn't advanced beyond trench warfare and as a result they were never going to attack the Rhineland as the Rhine's bridges could of been rendered useless by the defending Germans stalling the advance until they could re-deploy their superior airforce to neutralise the armour
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:And after the war the USSR would of had a war if we and tried to get more than what we ended up and all that would of succeeded in doing was to have the cold war between Europe and the US instead fo the USSR and Nato
You AGREED to let the USSR take over the countries! And none of us had any say in it!
Because anything else would of resulted in another war
The sad thing about Czechoslavakia was that Hitler's generals were scared of the Czech army and Hitler's bluff would have been shown for what it was if he were told to go take a flying It would be interesting to see what would have happened if it were Churchill in charge during this time instead of Chamberlain.
but at the time the desicion to give the Sudetenland to Germany was hailed by most of western Europe who praised Chamberlain because he got the promise from Hitler that there would be no war
Grey Templar wrote: The allies only advantage in military hardware was in tanks. In other areas the Germans were equal if not superior. Especially in tactics.
German Tanks may have been small, but they used them to the greatest effect. Unlike the allied "land battleship" techniques that tried to apply navel tactics onto armored vehicles.
The only real disadvantage the Germans had was that they didn't have the manpower or resources to do what they did. Hitler also was not a great tactician, his general were. When he took over direct command is when things went south.
Like i stated, Nearly 80% of German forces were present in the east at the start of WWII. Hitler anticipated that the French And English would be too afraid to attack them. He took a gambit (again) and he succeeded.
If they attacked Germany instead of acting like cowards, they would have won before Christmas and WWII would not escalate into what it did. (Remember that in 1939 WWII was still confined to Europe.)
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: but at the time the desicion to give the Sudetenland to Germany was hailed by most of western Europe who praised Chamberlain because he got the promise from Hitler that there would be no war
This is true. Historical hindsight is almost always 20/20, but Churchil pretty well had the bastard pegged.
Grey Templar wrote: The allies only advantage in military hardware was in tanks. In other areas the Germans were equal if not superior. Especially in tactics.
German Tanks may have been small, but they used them to the greatest effect. Unlike the allied "land battleship" techniques that tried to apply navel tactics onto armored vehicles.
The only real disadvantage the Germans had was that they didn't have the manpower or resources to do what they did. Hitler also was not a great tactician, his general were. When he took over direct command is when things went south.
Like i stated, Nearly 80% of German forces were present in the east at the start of WWII. Hitler anticipated that the French And English would be too afraid to attack them. He took a gambit (again) and he succeeded.
If they attacked Germany instead of acting like cowards, they would have won before Christmas and WWII would not escalate into what it did. (Remember that in 1939 WWII was still confined to Europe.)
True, I mearly was giving some reasons the Allies didn't attack.
And its not like they could have done this in secret. if they had made a move the Germans would have immediatly pulled their forces back to face the threat, and the stalemate would likely have continued.
Grey Templar wrote: The allies only advantage in military hardware was in tanks. In other areas the Germans were equal if not superior. Especially in tactics.
German Tanks may have been small, but they used them to the greatest effect. Unlike the allied "land battleship" techniques that tried to apply navel tactics onto armored vehicles.
The only real disadvantage the Germans had was that they didn't have the manpower or resources to do what they did. Hitler also was not a great tactician, his general were. When he took over direct command is when things went south.
Like i stated, Nearly 80% of German forces were present in the east at the start of WWII. Hitler anticipated that the French And English would be too afraid to attack them. He took a gambit (again) and he succeeded.
If they attacked Germany instead of acting like cowards, they would have won before Christmas and WWII would not escalate into what it did. (Remember that in 1939 WWII was still confined to Europe.)
Once again he French's prefered tactic was to sit back and block Germany's advances by way of the Maginot Line,
You also forget that they didn't have the internet back then and as a result didn't know the German distribution of forces or a perfectly accurate vision of all the options final results
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:Yet Britain and France weren't able to launch an effective strike at any of the German forces
- The Maginot Line was directly opposite the Rhineland, the only French-German border,
-The rest was neutral or opposing countries (Netherlands/Belgium to the north, Italy and Switzerland to the south)
Dont give me that , both Chamberlain and Lebrun were too afraid to do anything, the Appeasement proves that.
Appeasement although dispicable for what happened under it bought enough time for Britain to mobilise and update their armed forces
And still all you managed to do in the early stage of the war was to defend your own country.
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Without either exposing and overextending themselves by trying to fight the Dutch before the Germans as the forces available at the time were still deploying with antiquated technology.
Um, go trough the Maginot line straight into germany?
The french tanks were actually more advanced than the german! and you Brits did fine when it came to defending your own country. Maybe thats what its about, you probably tought "Oh its not our country, so it dosent matter as much."
The French generals relied on the Defensive strength of the Maginot line and most of the military tactician outside of Nazi Germany hadn't advanced beyond trench warfare and as a result they were never going to attack the Rhineland as the Rhine's bridges could of been rendered useless by the defending Germans stalling the advance until they could re-deploy their superior airforce to neutralise the armour
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:And after the war the USSR would of had a war if we and tried to get more than what we ended up and all that would of succeeded in doing was to have the cold war between Europe and the US instead fo the USSR and Nato
You AGREED to let the USSR take over the countries! And none of us had any say in it!
Because anything else would of resulted in another war
Not if you tried negotiation instead of selling countries to stalin.
Grey Templar wrote: The allies only advantage in military hardware was in tanks. In other areas the Germans were equal if not superior. Especially in tactics.
German Tanks may have been small, but they used them to the greatest effect. Unlike the allied "land battleship" techniques that tried to apply navel tactics onto armored vehicles.
The only real disadvantage the Germans had was that they didn't have the manpower or resources to do what they did. Hitler also was not a great tactician, his general were. When he took over direct command is when things went south.
Like i stated, Nearly 80% of German forces were present in the east at the start of WWII. Hitler anticipated that the French And English would be too afraid to attack them. He took a gambit (again) and he succeeded.
If they attacked Germany instead of acting like cowards, they would have won before Christmas and WWII would not escalate into what it did. (Remember that in 1939 WWII was still confined to Europe.)
Once again he French's prefered tactic was to sit back and block Germany's advances by way of the Maginot Line,
You also forget that they didn't have the internet back then and as a result didn't know the German distribution of forces or a perfectly accurate vision of all the options final results
But my point that if they attacked the war would have been won before Christmas.
Even if the german forces were split evenly you would have still won! our army was the 3 third largest allied army in the early stages. You have helped, it would take the pressure off us and we would have pushed them back eventually.
Instead you betrayed us.
Your phrasing seems to hold Dakka members responsible for decisions made in WW2.
I'm pretty sure no one posting here was in charge of any of these nations' militaries or foreign policy seventy years ago, so do you think you might cool it with the accusatory-sounding use of "you"?
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:Yet Britain and France weren't able to launch an effective strike at any of the German forces
- The Maginot Line was directly opposite the Rhineland, the only French-German border,
-The rest was neutral or opposing countries (Netherlands/Belgium to the north, Italy and Switzerland to the south)
Dont give me that , both Chamberlain and Lebrun were too afraid to do anything, the Appeasement proves that.
Appeasement although dispicable for what happened under it bought enough time for Britain to mobilise and update their armed forces
And still all you managed to do in the early stage of the war was to defend your own country.
we were very nearly defeated, we were saved by Hitler demanding that the Luftewaffe target cities instead of airfields, if that didn't happen Britain would of been invaded and conquered
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:
Without either exposing and overextending themselves by trying to fight the Dutch before the Germans as the forces available at the time were still deploying with antiquated technology.
Um, go trough the Maginot line straight into germany?
The french tanks were actually more advanced than the german! and you Brits did fine when it came to defending your own country. Maybe thats what its about, you probably tought "Oh its not our country, so it dosent matter as much."
The French generals relied on the Defensive strength of the Maginot line and most of the military tactician outside of Nazi Germany hadn't advanced beyond trench warfare and as a result they were never going to attack the Rhineland as the Rhine's bridges could of been rendered useless by the defending Germans stalling the advance until they could re-deploy their superior airforce to neutralise the armour
So you sat and waited for the germans to come.
It was the accepted tactic of the time, they still were locked in WW1 thinking
Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:And after the war the USSR would of had a war if we and tried to get more than what we ended up and all that would of succeeded in doing was to have the cold war between Europe and the US instead fo the USSR and Nato
You AGREED to let the USSR take over the countries! And none of us had any say in it!
Because anything else would of resulted in another war
Not if you tried negotiation instead of selling countries to stalin.
Chances are Stalin would not of agreed to the negotiations, Churchill also had more of a hate for communism and the USSR than fascism and Nazi Germany. The Soviets were merely allies of convenience and situation. The USSR still had the available man-power and lack of morals to continue the war against the other allies
I think now the best thing we can do is figure out how to help each other up.
We can't replay history, but we can learn enough from it hopefully to make a better future.
Mannahnin wrote: Your phrasing seems to hold Dakka members responsible for decisions made in WW2.
I'm pretty sure no one posting here was in charge of any of these nations' militaries or foreign policy seventy years ago, so do you think you might cool it with the accusatory-sounding use of "you"?
Since he was defending his country from the decisions they made, i meant "you" as in his country.
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Relapse wrote: I think now the best thing we can do is figure out how to help each other up. We can't replay history, but we can learn enough from it hopefully to make a better future.
The thing is the allies betrayed us twice before, sold us to the USSR and because of that our economy is still in a "meh" state. If Russia invaded Europe (Somewhat unlikely, but the current placement behavior of their armies is "questionable") How would we know if we can trust the Allies? Of course i dont speak for my entire country, im just pointing out some facts.
Daemonhammer wrote: In theory you could blame the British and French for causing WWII.
If they kept their promises, and attacked Germany from behind when they invaded Poland the war would have been over before Christmas and wouldnt have evolved into a world wide conflict.
But no, they were too afraid of Hitler and just waited, and look what happened, Germans defeated the combined British-French forces faster than the Polish army.
Mannahnin wrote: Your phrasing seems to hold Dakka members responsible for decisions made in WW2.
I'm pretty sure no one posting here was in charge of any of these nations' militaries or foreign policy seventy years ago, so do you think you might cool it with the accusatory-sounding use of "you"?
Since he was defending his country from the decisions they made, i meant "you" as in his country.
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Relapse wrote: I think now the best thing we can do is figure out how to help each other up.
We can't replay history, but we can learn enough from it hopefully to make a better future.
The thing is the allies betrayed us twice before, sold us to the USSR and because of that our economy is still in a "meh" state.
If Russia invaded Europe (Somewhat unlikely, but the current placement behavior of their armies is "questionable") How would we know if we can trust the Allies?
Of course i dont speak for my entire country, im just pointing out some facts.
You're in a historically bad location, being a crossroads and all and I wish there were better options for you than having your country be a potential battlefield.
I really can't answer your question with certainty, but I don't think we would stand back and let you go under the bus based on the history behind just this very conversation.
I just always thought it was a weird response. Germany invades France during WW1 by largely ignoring their shared border, so to prevent another attack France reinforces the border only for Germany to ignore it again during WW2.
I just always thought it was a weird response. Germany invades France during WW1 by largely ignoring their shared border, so to prevent another attack France reinforces the border only for Germany to ignore it again during WW2.
Well the French and the Belgians were intending to co-operate on a line of fortifications all the way to the coast.
Unfortunately for the French the Belgians never got around to their part.
What's that line from Red Dwarf about Rimmer's fantasy of his favorite time period to go back to and what he would do/be?
"It would be the 19th century for me. One of Napoleon's marshals. A chance to march across Europe alongside the greatest general who ever lived. And kill Belgians."
I just always thought it was a weird response. Germany invades France during WW1 by largely ignoring their shared border, so to prevent another attack France reinforces the border only for Germany to ignore it again during WW2.
Well what actually happened what the German's got their forces through the Ardennes, which the British and French thought were impassable. So yes and no, it was similar but also very different. Not to mention massive failures the French Command structures
Demonhammer, you do realize that even if the Allies had invaded Germany proper, Poland would have fallen under soviet control regardless of the outcome....
I'm pretty sure that the Allied plan in case of German attack was to advance into Belgium and hold them along a much smaller front that that would extend from the Maginot Line to the Flemish coast. Remember that Belgium and the Netherlands were still neutral until the German invasion in 1940.
The French Army was almost entirely a static defensive force. They lacked the mobility or the logistics to prosecute a war away from their fortress lines. Most of their divisions were either reserve divisions or fortress divisions that either existed mostly on paper or were so hunkered down in their defensive lines as to be useless on the attack.
Basically, it was decided (somewhat reasonably) that the Belgians would be able to hold the river Meuse and that the allies should focus their forces further north in the more armor friendly regions of Belgian-Dutch plains.
Their entire plan was to contain the German attack and at all costs not allow a breakout into the wide open countryside in France where everyone knew the greater mobility of the Germans would wreak havoc. Of course, that's exactly what happened.
Btw. Belgium (and Holland) build a lot of forts and stronbgpoint, which were not the same strength as the French Line, propbaply because they just dont have the same ammount of res. as whole France.
This strongpoints were mostly raided by Germany Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers) and Brandenburger (Commandos), which were also quite a surprise that days.
And in WWII they went through the Ardennes because they knew the allies would expect the same route as in WWI because it is the best rout into France.
Grey Templar wrote: Interesting. Odd that they would pull the same trick twice and have it work.
According to B.H Liddell Hart's book, IIRC, the original German plan would have seen them meet the Allies strongest forces head on, but a Nazi staff officer carrying the plans was forced to land in enemy territory and so the Germans actually opted for plan B.
Also, the Allies were under the impression that they would have plenty of time to mobilise reinforcements to cover their advance; obviously they were not prepared for the speed of blitzkrieg. He also claims that the fall of France may have been prevented had the French and British not left the weak hinge of their deployment unprotected while pushing forward. Apparently some French officers had wanted to mine the region, and even fell trees but were denied so that scouts and messengers would have an unobstructed path. I wonder how history would have played out had that blitztkrieg been checked?
Daemonhammer wrote: In theory you could blame the British and French for causing WWII.
If they kept their promises, and attacked Germany from behind when they invaded Poland the war would have been over before Christmas and wouldnt have evolved into a world wide conflict.
But no, they were too afraid of Hitler and just waited, and look what happened, Germans defeated the combined British-French forces faster than the Polish army.
It didn't help that the French lacked the moblie logicistical capability to even go the - what, sixty miles? - from the Maginot Line to the Ruhr industrial area. And the BEF lacked the numbers to do it alone.
This thread descended into farce several pages ago, I'm also sick of reading the royal "we" whereby one pasty youth claims "we" won the war, and "you" fethed everything up....
When neither of them are old enough to remember the Falklands, let alone WW2
mattyrm wrote: This thread descended into farce several pages ago, I'm also sick of reading the royal "we" whereby one pasty youth claims "we" won the war, and "you" fethed everything up....
When neither of them are old enough to remember the Falklands, let alone WW2
We're all armchair generals here who would have done things perfectly mattrym. Of course, we'd all be able to deduce exactly how the war, post war, and coming Mole Men uprising would play out without the aid of 70 years of research and the internet to tell us how we're geniuses.
PS - exalted your post mattrym
PPS - another Nazi thread by Inquisitor whats-his-face?
mattyrm wrote: This thread descended into farce several pages ago, I'm also sick of reading the royal "we" whereby one pasty youth claims "we" won the war, and "you" fethed everything up....
When neither of them are old enough to remember the Falklands, let alone WW2
]
I know, I don't even identify as British but it''s good to use that int 2 history
Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote: People are also starting to blatantly ignore the historical context behind Allied "crimes." While such crimes were not "right," it is profoundly a-historical to separate any reactionary atrocities from their historical context. It is completely inappropriate to give the impression that the British suddenly started bombing German cities, when the fact is that they were engaged in a war started by the Germans. Providing the historical context is not justification either, as there is a major difference between explaining the reason why something happened, and justifying it. The fact is that the Germans supported a murderous regime that started a war and determined the terms on which it would be fought; what followed was natural. The Germans started a war that killed 60 million people, directly killed 20 million, and raped over 10 million Russian women. Now we're starting to see Nazi sympathetic revisionists gaining acceptance in spreading the idea that the Nazis were somehow victims and that "we weren't really much better then them."
The basic failing in your logic above is to confuse the idea that the Western Powers did very bad things indeed, they must somehow be on the same level as the Nazis. The simple fact is that many actions undertaken by the Allies, most notably the Strategic Bombing campaign, were as immoral as they were pointless.
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Testify wrote: No there isn't. The Soviets may have been war criminals but the western allies definitely were not.
There were criminal actions undertaken by the Western Allies. Pretending otherwise is to ignore reality.
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Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote: Yes, we stayed out, even after Pearl Harbor, until the Germans specifically declared war.
Factually incorrect.
While the German declaration of war made it easier to sell the Germany first policy to congress and to quiet the Isolationists, the policy of Germany first had been at the centre of Roosevelt and Marshall's war strategy for some time before that.
Look up the ABC-1 conference between Roosevelt and Churchill.
The only war crime the US might be guilty of is that Japanese warcriminals weren't prosecuted for their treatment of POWs and civilians.
Wrong. Several incidents of execution of prisoners were hushed up during the war.
On the whole the US fought the war with an admirable level of discipline and morality, but to claim no war crimes were committed is just nonsense.
We really would have remained at peace had Japan not attacked us. We would have eventually declared war on Germany, but Japan was not our main concern and they remained so until Germany was defeated.
The idea of the USA just drifting along peacefully until Japan attacked out of nowhere is a total fiction, born out of complete ignorance. The US had set containment of Japanese expansion as a major policy goal, and was strcitly limiting resource supplies to Japan to achieve this goal.
The US were right to undertake that policy, because the Japanese policy of military expansion was unacceptable, from either a strategic or moral point of view, but the attack on Pearl Harbour hardly came out of nowhere. In one form or another war was inevitable.
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Squigsquasher wrote: Of course I have my suspicions over the authenticity of the Nanking massacre but it makes gak turn ugly.
Evidence of atrocities at Nanking are overwhelming, and recorded by multiple sources including many Western workers and press officials who were trapped in the city. There is simply no reasonable doubt possible.
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whembly wrote: Why does that matter? In WWII, there wasn't much precision bombing... so, in order to be effective, carpet bombing is a tactic.
And the mistake in your answer is to conclude 'and therefore we should carpet bomb'.
The British RAF was politically committed to being a seperate wing of the armed forces, and so grossly overstated their ability to destroy German industry and public moral with strategic bombing (while steadfastly ignoring how little impact German bombing had had on the English). The American Airforce grossly overstated their precision bombing (while the bombing aids were excellent in ideal conditions, flying into heavy flak, under attack from German aircraft, with limited reconaissance of targets and commonly flying in very cloudy European conditions left almost all bombing raids far from ideal conditions) and so they quickly shifted from precision raids to area bombardment... without ever considering the idea that perhaps strategic bombing was a concept that didn't work.
The reason it went largely unquestioned, politically, is that both Churchill and Roosevelt had promised Stalin a second front in Western Europe years before such an operation was practical. Stalin was able to bully each of them because of this and feign at offering Hitler a seperate peace deal, and so wildly exaggerated claims of the effect of strategic bombing became a handy counter to Stalin's claims that the Western Allies were doing little to aid in the war.
It was, at best, a collossal feth up that tied up immense resources in war machines that would have been far better off directly supporting allied operations in the field, and at worst slaughtered of hundreds of thousands of people (including thousands of allied airmen) for little gain.
Let me ask you this: Is there such thing as conducting a "Moral" war?
Yes, and the best argument for a moral war is WWII. But that doesn't mean we should just ignore the things that happened during the war that were really fethed up.
Again... what are these "war crimes" really about?
Simply put, the victor makes the rules.
No. Shooting an unarmed man is a war crime, no matter who ends up winning. Getting away with a crime does not stop it being a crime.
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KalashnikovMarine wrote: Absolutely not, but I don't think you can find a single example from the US or another Western military in theater that even vaguely comes close to the atrocities (well documented, historical facts) perpetrated by Imperial Japanese occupation forces in China.
Just because someone else is doing something even nastier, it doesn't make your action acceptable.
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Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote: The bombing of cities should have never happened. It had to happen, as there was not enough advancement to bomb any more accurately.
While there were deliberate raids against entire cities that were unjustified, it is inappropriate to condemn the entire air war.
You've made the same mistake as Whembly, and as allied air planners at the time - once they realised there was insufficient technology for more accurate bombing, they concluded that they had better just target cities as they could at least be confident of hitting them.
At some point it should have considered that the best use of bombers should have been in more integrated use with forces on the ground, that bombers simply weren't a strategic air weapon in and of themselves.
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cpt_fishcakes wrote: Thats why we were the good guys, any one says different is a moron of epic proportions.
No. But anyone who leaps from 'we were on the right side' to 'and therefore everything we did is just fine' is a moron of epic proportions.
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DOOMBREAD wrote: I'm afraid that's not exactly the case. Here's how it happened: 1. Japan bombs Pearl Harbor 2. US declares war on Japan. 3. Germany and Italy declare war on US. So, we entered the war right after we were attacked, unless you consider the US vs. Japan war to not be part of WWII.
While the events you listed are technically correct, they leave out a very important fact - Roosevelt and Churchill had met in March of 1941 and agreed to a Germany first policy - nearly eight months before Pearl Harbour. The issue of the US was a question of when, not if, and when it happened Germany would be the priority target.
Although, that viewpoint isn't totally invalid. The Japanese weren't that closely associated with Germany and Italy. They were kind of doing their own thing.
The Germans weren't actually informed by the Japanese they were about to attack Pearl Harbour. Despite this, and despite the German Japanese alliance being a defensive pact that didn't require a German response after the Japan began hostilities, Hitler declared war anyway.
It probably didn't mean anything, though it did make it politically easier for Roosevelt to prioritise Germany over Japan.
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Grey Templar wrote: The Japanese were actively training their citizens, including young children to oppose the invaders. They were training people in the use of bamboo spears. children were taught to carry hidden grenades up to US soldiers and detonate them.
So were the Germans, and while it had some effect no-one is silly enough to claim the Germans fought to the very last man, woman and child. In fact, Berlin was only crushed as utterly as it was because Stalin wanted revenge.
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djones520 wrote: If you want proof all you have to do is look at how the Battle of Okinawa went down. 150,000 civilian casualties. Mass suicides were rampant.
A single conquered island holding the last elite troops of the IJA is a really terrible comparison to the old and young men pressed into makeshift divisions on the mainland.
On the home islands, 28 million Japanese civilians were being prepared to take part in combat operations.
And the Germans did the same. And yet they didn't have to wipe the entire German population from the planet to secure victory. Hell, the Russians kind of wanted to wipe the Germans from the face of the Earth and it still didn't happen.
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Jefffar wrote: Keep in mind this was based on the assumption of a fairly short (6 month) campaign to conquoer Japan. Had things not gone well things would have spiralled upwards.
So while not expecting to exactly commit a total depopulating of the Japanese home islands, there was a long, hard bloody fight anticipated.
Yeah, and the difference there is vast. It is accurate to state 'the invasion would have been incredibly bloody', and absurd to state 'the Japanese people would have been wiped from the Earth'.
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djones520 wrote: And 1940's Japan was quite a differant culture from what this world has ever seen. Bushido was still alive and well in that day. Death by combat, never surrender. They did not think on the same wave length that we do.
Oh look, it's 1940s style racism. How quaint.
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Ensis Ferrae wrote: I will point out to this comment, that yes, America interred many Japanese-Americans into camps. BUT, we did so because many (not all) of these same citizens were actively spying against the US, and its interests. We didn't go off one day not liking the Japanese in our country and locking them up like the German Government did to Jews (and anyone else they got their hands on they didnt like), we had a cause which drew the effect of prison camps.
No, they weren't spying against the US. And there was a vast amount of anti-Japanese racism in the country, with anti-miscegenation laws, and laws to prevent the Japanese becoming naturalised citizens.
Seriously, in the late 80s then President Reagan formally apologised, stated it was an act of racism against Japanese American citizens and organised a compensation fund. That stuff you've claimed above is at least 25 year old nonsense.
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whembly wrote: WW2 was total world war... in that, anything and everyone were legitimate targets. So, yes, Civvies were valid targets.
Yes, but that doesn't justify any and all action that will kill civilians. Proportionality must always be a guide. You always, always have to ask 'what's the point of this operation' and before going ahead you always, always have to confirm that the good done in bringing the war closer to a satisfactory end is worth the loss in your people and their's.
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Grey Templar wrote: Compared to many other countries, including some that are supposedly quite cosmopolitan, the US has a fairly unbiased worldview of historical events.
It can be shocking what other country's historical revisionists do with history.
Of course we have our own share of them here too. They especially like to mess with early colonial facts.
US revisionism over the founding fathers is pretty bad. And we've seen plenty of myth making in this thread over WWII. You should have seen the outrage people showed about a year back when I pointed out that Soviet Russia beat the Germans, and the Western Allies were useful but not essential to that.
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KamikazeCanuck wrote: I feel like the west is really undereducated about the entire Pacific war in general. Lot of people don't even know there was a war between Japan and China or that like 10,000,000 Chinese where killed (I'm not even sure that's right actually. If someone knows correct me.)
Chinese casualties were about 2 million soldiers (about 1.5 million nationalist troops, and another 500,000 communist troops), and another 20 million civilian casualties.
To be fair to all of us, though, it isn't as though the Chinese as a whole know much about the war either. Most of them believe the Nationalists spent the war hiding away while communist forces fought the Japanese, but the opposite is true.
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Ratbarf wrote: A pretty good quote that I got from a documentary on Dresden was, "The most immoral thing the Allies could have done in WW2 was lose." Which I think is pretty accurate, because even if some of the things that were done by the Allies were reprehensible, what would have followed an Axis victory would have been far far worse. Unless of course you're white and Germanic, then it wouldn't have been way too bad.
Sure, but it's a complete nonsense to pretend that Dresden in any way advanced the allied war effort. It's something more akin to claiming 'we must do everything in our power to stop the Nazi scum, so I'm going to kick this puppy'.
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Grey Templar wrote: Seriously, look up Bushido. It calls for some pretty fethed up things.
Heck, even today suicide is a socially acceptable response to just about any failure in Japan. Failed to get into the school of your choice? Commit Seppuku. A student gets a C on an exam, commits Seppuku.
The Japanese mindset was, and is, radically different to other parts of the world.
At this point I'm basically waiting for you to say 'inscrutable'.
The actual estimates of the time, already mentioned in this thread, estimate 5 to 10 million civilian casualties, which is short of complete genocide by a factor of 10. Out by a factor of ten, and you just keep posting, pretending like what you're saying matches reality.
You're absurd.
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Lynata wrote: That's ... not entirely true. Yes, the means for pinpoint attacks were not comparable to what is available today, but precision bombing was possible and did happen.
It was attempted, the US in particular were extremely confident of their accuracy, but Air Force review found about 3% of bombs landed within five miles of the target. Once you have bomber formations under flak fire, fighter attack, in heavy clouds common in Europe, and trying to hit target with limited reconaissance, you start missing by a really long way.
There's a huge difference between leveling, say, a couple house blocks surrounding a factory and razing half a city with incendiary bombs. The fact is that, at some point, tactics were simply adapted to maximise the effect on the civilian population, as it was believed that eroding the fighting spirit of the general population would bring a quicker end to the war, regardless the collateral damage. Some allied military officers (unsurprisingly more within the USAAF than the RAF) even disputed the concept of carpet bombing, stating that it had little effect on the enemy's war machine - which gets more obvious when you consider those attacks where industrial areas were intentionally left unharmed because they were not situated in/near residential areas.
Harris, leading the RAF bomber command, was absolutely committed to carpet bombing the belief that it would destroy German moral and end the war in and of itself. He was wrong, and stupidly wrong, because the British had suffered direct attack on their civilian populations and never even slightly considered negotiating for peace.
Le May, leading the Eighth USAF (? I think) was convinced the accuracy of US bombers could cripple German war machinery. I think we can have a fair bit of sympathy with that mistake, but once the issues became clear the US response to shift to basically carpet bombing is a lot less understandable.
Sometimes I get the feeling that lots of Germans would like to render "Nazi" a separate entity from "German" altogether, as if it was a different species. At least that's what I occasionally get from various comments on the interwebs whenever a topic like "legacy of guilt" comes up, with people posting stuff like "let it go, that was them not us". Unfortunately it's not as easy, considering current trends and issues within the populace.
There's also the near complete absence of meaningful resistance among the German population against the actions of the Nazi leadership.
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Grey Templar wrote: For the majority of our history people have had to spend every waking moment looking for food.
Once settled society emerged war became inevitable. It comes with the territory of being a social creature.
Even Ants and Primates wage war on each other. Out genocide to be honest. So you can't say war isn't a natural thing.
Fighting is a natural thing. War is the product of the very unnatural circumstances we call modern society.
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whembly wrote: Shuma... are you arguing that had we invaded Japan, that the initial casualty assessments were too high?
That's a pretty universal position held by military analysts today. Study of Japanese cabinet documents have shown that they were pretty close to surrender as it was, and their ability to supply even the hastily formed civilian brigades was almost nil.
Truman didn't, and couldn't have known that, so his decision based on estimates of the deaths in Japan, to drop the bomb instead is entirely fair. But people here claiming the Japanese would have fought to the death is just plain crazy.
Can someone correct me, didn't the local peasants in Okinawa fight the Allies forces? The results of that battle may have been the driving force in the belief that the peasants on the mainland would fight as well.
No, the local Okinawans had to be pressed into service by the IJA. The Japanese used them as human shields during the fighting. After the fighting they helped the Americans identify Japanese people hiding among the civilian population.
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Ratbarf wrote: I don't exactly see the large difference between a conscript soldier who used to be a sharecropper/fisherman and has only had a month or so of training to change that and a current sharecropper/fisherman who is currently receiving training the handling of firearms and explosives? Especially as in Imperial Japan military rules and ideaologies started in elementary school.
The first difference is in the amount of training the soldier recieves, and how this impacts his skill and discipline in the field. The teenagers and old men thrown into service in Berlin in 1945 were nothing like as effective as the troops in service in Barbarossa. For obvious reasons.
The second point is that Japanese military indoctrination was a highly focused thing - you were raised from birth as a soldier, and had all manner of cultural values instilled into you, or you were not. By 1945 all those raised as soldiers were dead.
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ShumaGorath wrote: What is total war? Why does that suddenly allow for the killing of innocents, but insurgencies or geurilla warfare doesn't? How is it different from conventional warfare that doesn't? If it makes it all ok, why did we have all those war crimes trials? This just sounds like a defense of the indefensible so that the greatest generation can keep being great.
Total war began as a concept in the 19th century, differentiated from a limited war, in which the total survival of the nation was at stake.
It developed over time until it reached notoriety when Hitler used it for his first speach following the retreat from Moscow, chanting 'total war, short war' over and over again. The speach basically invented the fantasy that by being utterly ruthless you can win war more easily. Within a couple of years that was line of bitter comedy in Germany, as they were suffering total war as the bombers flew over every night.
The idea didn't die, though. Internet hard men still like to pretend that any inhumanity is justified if it might advance your cause one step further.
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Jefffar wrote: The city bombings of WWII wre horrible things and morally repugnant, even if they can be justified in the circumstances.
Which is one of the true tragedies of war. In war, good men learn to do bad things and be okay with it.
Well, the bombing is either morally repugnant, or justified in the circumstances. Had the bombing had a realistic chance of reducing the length of the war or collapsing German moral and forcing a surrender, or even had such a belief been reasonable, then it would have been justifiable.
But the simple fact is that very early on it was apparent that the bombing was not effective enough to justify the cost in allied lives and German civilians.
Everyone is a war criminal because war is criminal.
That's hopelessly simplistic.
There are necessary wars, and WWII is the classic example of a war that simply had to be fought because the regimes that waged it. But when that war is waged it simply cannot be denied that some actions are needed to successfully win that war, and others increase the suffering far more than they bring the war to a likely conclusion. It is of the absolute most importance that people understand that, and develop tools to assess which actions are and are not justified, to reduce suffering as much as possible.
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ExNoctemNacimur wrote: However, I do not think that World War 2 will ever be considered a war of American aggression for the simple reason that America didn't get involved until the war had progressed quite a bit. It may eventually be considered a war of Allied aggression - after all, it was the Allies that declared war on Germany, wasn't it?
That day will not come soon though. It's clear to anyone who knows anything about World War 2 that it was a direct result of Nazi warmongering and expansion.
In the wake of the fall of France, as Britain stood alone, Hitler accused Churchill of being a warmonger. It was a laughably stupid claim then, and it's even more stupid now. Someone may some day attempt to claim otherwise, but it will never be taken seriously.
And yeah, fair point on some Allied officers never being charged with war crimes. Raeder was charged at Nuremburg with undertaking unrestricted submarine operations, when the US undertook the exact same policy from the day after Pearl Harbour.
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ExNoctemNacimur wrote: That's not quite true. Hitler wanted Lebensraum, or living space, for the German people. He said so in Mein Kampf. By doing so he wanted to expand Germany's borders but never wanted to take over the world, only to assert Aryan dominance. Kind of like what America has done now.
Lebensraum involved conquering territory, depopulating through forced sterilisation or containment in forced work camps, while Aryan citizens moved into the land. It's nothing like anything the US is doing.
The Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere is a lot closer to waht you're talking about, which had a notion of guiding the other Asian people with benign Japanese guidance. But Hitler's policy were pretty much flat out explicit doom to anyone who wasn't Aryran.
They also wanted revenge against the Allied nations for the Treaty of Versailles which they rightly viewed as unfair. I mean, if you had to pay ridiculous amounts of money, lose a lot of your land and disband your armed forces, you'd be pretty pissed off as well.
Don't think it really justifies undertaking a genocidal war of slaughter, personally.
And not all the German manpower/resources was deployed in the east.
It was almost overwhelmingly deployed in the East. A concerted push on Berlin could have reached the city without great resistance. Hitler had gambled on the passivity of France and Britain, and succeeded in achieving it. And what forces were there were almost entirely incapable of effective defence, having a handful of shells for each artillery piece.
And the French put too much faith in the Maginot Line and were caught off guard by the blitzkrieg going around the side of it
It's a lot more complicated than that. Certainly the drive through the Ardennes allowed the Germans to run havoc through the allied lines, but the British and French still held numerical superiority, and the Germans lacked the mobility to actually deploy fully through the breach. After the Dunkirk evacuation the British made further landings to continue the war, only to find the French capitulards had basically arranged a coup and negotiated the surrender of France (largely to prevent their own largely fantastical fear that Communists were about to sieze power in Paris).
and you have to admit it's a brilliant tactical plan.
France: "Hahah try getting through our massive wall!"
Germany: "What if we go around it?"
France: "....gak"
First up, it wasn't a wall, but an extensive, deep series of foritifications and underground supply dumps.
Second up, everyone including the French knew the Germans were going around it. That was the point. When war is declared the French and British advance to meet the Germans as they moved through Belgium and Holland to avoid the Maginot line, and then grind down the Germans on that narrow front in an attritional war. And to a large extent it would have worked, as the German plan was originally to attack through Holland and Belgium, but the plans for that attack were abandoned after the Mechelen incident, a forced landing by a German plan carrying the plans for this attack.
Instead they went to the lightning war of manouevre argued for by Manstein - driving mechanised units through the Ardennes to complete the encirclement of British and French units as they marched into Holland and Belgium. It worked rather well, though it was largely dependant on the collapse of morale within the French forces and Guderian's personal initiative in continuing the attack despite having advanced far further than senior planners could ever have imagined.
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Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: They did start to mobilise and the BEF did land in France and advance towards the germans before getting beaten back but for the most part they were peace time armies in Europe apart from the Germans. The 6 years of Appeasement gave some time but they were still updating equipment and recruiting men which takes time and Poland was on the other side of Europe.
The Germans were making do with an piece meal army in the process of modernisation as much as anyone else. They had chronic shortages and woefully inadequate tanks, same as everyone else.
The difference is that the Germans, knowing that the long game favoured the better resourced French and British, took to gamble with new military concepts, particularly a return to manouevre warfare. The Western Allies, on the other hand, responded to their limitations with passivity. The German approach worked better.
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Daemonhammer wrote: Neither England or France attack Germany before you were attacked by them. Both England and France promised us that they would attack Germany if they attacked us. Not only did you Betray us then, you even sold us (and a few other countries) to the USSR after the war.
To be fair to the British, Churchill argued strongly in favour of denying Stalin control of Poland after the war, but by this time the nature of Britain as a second tier power was well established. At the same time Roosevelt made noise about it to ensure he wasn't hurt by the Polish American vote during his re-election, and immediately afterwards gave up Poland to the Russians.
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Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: Yet Britain and France weren't able to launch an effective strike at any of the German forces - The Maginot Line was directly opposite the Rhineland, the only French-German border, -The rest was neutral or opposing countries (Netherlands/Belgium to the north, Italy and Switzerland to the south)
Without either exposing and overextending themselves by trying to fight the Dutch before the Germans as the forces available at the time were still deploying with antiquated technology.
And after the war the USSR would of had a war if we and tried to get more than what we ended up and all that would of succeeded in doing was to have the cold war between Europe and the US instead fo the USSR and Nato
No, it wasn't that Britain and France couldn't launch an effective strike, it's that they didn't. They held an overwhelming advantage in men and material, but French defensive doctrine was so deeply ingrained that they managed nothing more than a few recon efforts across the border.
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Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote: The Sudetenland incident was probably one of the lowest points in British history in the past 100 years, it was an absolute disgrace but at the time Britain had a peacetime army with no real technology to speak of, the years of appeasement bought Britain enough time to update thei technology and start training new soldiers so that when war came we weren't destroyed and invaded by the Germans
Yeah, for all the talk condeming Chamberlain for "Peace in our Time" pretty much as soon as he got back to Britain they started driving a range of modernisation initiatives through the armed forces. The military had been left to dwindle for too long, and so by the Sudetenland they British were simply in no position to oppose Hitler.
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Grey Templar wrote: The allies only advantage in military hardware was in tanks. In other areas the Germans were equal if not superior. Especially in tactics.
German airpower was far greater, but at the time of the Polish campaign it was hopelessly short of resources and would have been unable to maintain any kind of protracted campaign. German collapse was inevitable.
The only real disadvantage the Germans had was that they didn't have the manpower or resources to do what they did. Hitler also was not a great tactician, his general were. When he took over direct command is when things went south.
That's a common myth, achieved by ignoring the points in which Hitler's directives led to greater success. It was Hitler that rejected Halder's original plan to advance through Belgium and Holland, and go with the much less popular plan from Manstein, as he understood that given Germany's terrible strategic position a gamble on lightning war was the only way to win. And it was Hitler that refused the retreat from Moscow, understanding that retreat would collapse into a route.
It's interesting to contrast two orders given to von Paulus. The first was when he was struggling to resist the Kharkov offensive, and requested permission to withdraw, Hitler denied this, Manstein deployed tank divisions in a flanking manouvre and the overextended Russians were cut off and destroyed. But it is Hitler's direct order to von Paulus to hold in Stalingrad, so that Manstein could undertake an offensive to break the offensive that is famous as a blunder, while no credit is given to him for the first.
Now, as the war continued Hitler became increasing unstable and made many costly errors, but by that stage the war was basically over. If you want to talk about people that interfered and fethed things up constantly, you talk about Churchill.
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Relapse wrote: This is true. Historical hindsight is almost always 20/20, but Churchil pretty well had the bastard pegged.
True, but at the same time Churchill still wasn't popular enough to claim power. It took until the debacle of the Norwegian Campaign for Chamberlain to be replaced by Churchill (the irony being that Churchill's interference in that campaign was a pretty major reason for its failure).
The other piece of often forgotten history is that Chamberlain remained part of Churchill's cabinet, and after the Fall of France Chamberlain was Churchill's strongest supporter that they could not negotiate peace with Hitler.
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Grey Templar wrote: Well, no. The Maginot line was built after WW1 as a precaution against further German invasion.
Wrong. By being a fortified line right across the border the idea was to force the Germans into attacking through Holland and and Belgium, exactly as d-usa said.
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d-usa wrote: I just always thought it was a weird response. Germany invades France during WW1 by largely ignoring their shared border, so to prevent another attack France reinforces the border only for Germany to ignore it again during WW2.
The idea was that much of France was left devastated by WWI, and so the Maginot line would force any future war into Belgium and they could get fethed up instead.
There was, at some time, an idea that they line would be expanded across Belgium, but the Belgian's refused.
It's worth pointing out Poland had a similar line of defences, but this was completely outflanked by the German annexation of Czechoslovakia.
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Grey Templar wrote: Interesting. Odd that they would pull the same trick twice and have it work.
It wasn't really a trick the second time around. Everyone expected the Germans to hook through Belgium. In fact, when the first German attack was aborted early in 1940 the British and French thought the attack had begun and were already marching into Belgium.
Then when the attack did happen, the German attack into Belgium was a deception, and the real drive came through the Ardennes, the thickly wooded, mountainous region between the Maginot line and the Belgian border. The Allied troops marching into Belgium were suddenly outpositioned, and only escaped by the evacuation at Dunkirk.
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Sgt_Scruffy wrote: I'm pretty sure that the Allied plan in case of German attack was to advance into Belgium and hold them along a much smaller front that that would extend from the Maginot Line to the Flemish coast. Remember that Belgium and the Netherlands were still neutral until the German invasion in 1940.
The French Army was almost entirely a static defensive force. They lacked the mobility or the logistics to prosecute a war away from their fortress lines. Most of their divisions were either reserve divisions or fortress divisions that either existed mostly on paper or were so hunkered down in their defensive lines as to be useless on the attack.
Funnily enough, the French actually had vastly more motorised units than the Germans. Most of the German troops that advanced through the Ardennes were walking - the Germans had about two properly motorised divisions for the attack.
The French, on the other hand, had an excellent supply of vehicles, which the Germans captured when the French capitulated - those vehicles were the backbone of Barbarossa.
I'm not disagreeing with your summary of French and German actions during the war, the French were static and the Germans mobile, but that was a product of tactical doctrine, not actual capability.
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Vulcan wrote: It didn't help that the French lacked the moblie logicistical capability to even go the - what, sixty miles? - from the Maginot Line to the Ruhr industrial area. And the BEF lacked the numbers to do it alone.
The logistical capability of France was far greater than that of Germany. In fact, it was French vehicles and horses that were the backbone of the German drive into Russia.
And I think it is really noteworthy that at the beginning of WW2, the French tanks were very much superior to the Panzer IIs, Panzer IIIs and early Panzer IVs that the Germans mostly used in the early years. There's a nice story about this fact...
Next to the village of Stonne, south of Sedan, the french Char B1 tank "Eure" from 1st Company, 41st tank battalion encountered a German column of 11 PIIIs and 2 PIVs. With its Baneblade-style 75mm hull howitzer and the 47mm turret gun, it managed to destroy ALL of them (by killing the first column vehicle with the hull gun and the last column vehicle with the turret gun, trapping all other German tanks inbetween) and blowing up two AT guns somewhere inbetween.
This Char B1 was hit 140 times (!) during this battle, but the armor was never penetrated by the small 5cm KwK L/42 of the Panzer IIIs (which were designed to destroy tanks) or the even worse shells from the early PIVs or Pak 36s.
That's one hell of a tank on the French side right there.
ExNoctemNacimur wrote: That's not quite true. Hitler wanted Lebensraum, or living space, for the German people. He said so in Mein Kampf. By doing so he wanted to expand Germany's borders but never wanted to take over the world, only to assert Aryan dominance. Kind of like what America has done now.
Lebensraum involved conquering territory, depopulating through forced sterilisation or containment in forced work camps, while Aryan citizens moved into the land. It's nothing like anything the US is doing.
The Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere is a lot closer to waht you're talking about, which had a notion of guiding the other Asian people with benign Japanese guidance. But Hitler's policy were pretty much flat out explicit doom to anyone who wasn't Aryran.
They also wanted revenge against the Allied nations for the Treaty of Versailles which they rightly viewed as unfair. I mean, if you had to pay ridiculous amounts of money, lose a lot of your land and disband your armed forces, you'd be pretty pissed off as well.
Don't think it really justifies undertaking a genocidal war of slaughter, personally.
Daemonhammer wrote:You AGREED to let the USSR take over the countries! And none of us had any say in it!
I find this concept that the British are somehow ultimately responsible for the fate of Poland amusing. We may have drawn lines on a map with the USSR, but that in no way forced the Polish people to adhere to them. If a country wants freedom and independence, it should acquire the capacity to maintain and defend that freedom and independence. It is nobody else's responsibility to defend it for them. Other countries may choose to do so for their own reasons, but the buck doesn't stop there.
Poland lost a war, and badly so. It paid for that failure to defend its people by no longer being a player internationally for a period of time. It lost so quickly and so badly, that there was not a long enough period of time available for the British to intervene in any real way. I don't see why it would somehow become the responsibility of the British to risk engaging in a second major war five years later, to restore a country that was unable to even begin to defend itself against the first wave of German aggression.
These whole comments reek to me of passing the buck and being unable to admit that Poland had its own duty to defend itself, and that it was one it failed to do adequately.
Sebster wrote:Well, the bombing is either morally repugnant, or justified in the circumstances. Had the bombing had a realistic chance of reducing the length of the war or collapsing German moral and forcing a surrender, or even had such a belief been reasonable, then it would have been justifiable.
But the simple fact is that very early on it was apparent that the bombing was not effective enough to justify the cost in allied lives and German civilians.
I'd dispute this. But I have a sneaky feeling we've hashed this one out at least once before.
The damage to the economy highlighted here more or less indicates that the end of the war would have been sped up by damage to the German industrial base. If you're referring more to the civilian targeted raids, then it would appear to be the case that we should have either been MORE ruthless, or not have bothered.
Vulcan wrote: It didn't help that the French lacked the moblie logicistical capability to even go the - what, sixty miles? - from the Maginot Line to the Ruhr industrial area. And the BEF lacked the numbers to do it alone.
The logistical capability of France was far greater than that of Germany. In fact, it was French vehicles and horses that were the backbone of the German drive into Russia.
It was also all centered well inside France, to move supplies TO the Maginot line, not AT the Maginot Line to move supplies PAST it.
And I think it is really noteworthy that at the beginning of WW2, the French tanks were very much superior to the Panzer IIs, Panzer IIIs and early Panzer IVs that the Germans mostly used in the early years. There's a nice story about this fact...
Next to the village of Stonne, south of Sedan, the french Char B1 tank "Eure" from 1st Company, 41st tank battalion encountered a German column of 11 PIIIs and 2 PIVs. With its Baneblade-style 75mm hull howitzer and the 47mm turret gun, it managed to destroy ALL of them (by killing the first column vehicle with the hull gun and the last column vehicle with the turret gun, trapping all other German tanks inbetween) and blowing up two AT guns somewhere inbetween.
This Char B1 was hit 140 times (!) during this battle, but the armor was never penetrated by the small 5cm KwK L/42 of the Panzer IIIs (which were designed to destroy tanks) or the even worse shells from the early PIVs or Pak 36s.
That's one hell of a tank on the French side right there.
The problem with the French tanks though is that they had no means of communicating outside of naval flags or actually getting out and talking. The Germans use of radios in every tank made it much easier to evade, surround, outflank, etc while still maintaining unit coherency and unit effectiveness.
The French also spread out their tanks throughout an infantry line while the Germans ran in Panzer formations which made it easier for the Germans to neutralise any opposing armour
Frazzled wrote: I think Sebster just won the award for longest post.
Yeah, uh, once I'd corrected like eight people on the first page, and there was seven pages of this thread I thought if it was worth doing. Then I saw my month end processing on my PC was about 5% done and figured I had the time.
Frazzled wrote: I think Sebster just won the award for longest post.
Yeah, uh, once I'd corrected like eight people on the first page, and there was seven pages of this thread I thought if it was worth doing. Then I saw my month end processing on my PC was about 5% done and figured I had the time.
Witzkatz wrote: A very informative post, long as it was, though!
Thanks!
And I think it is really noteworthy that at the beginning of WW2, the French tanks were very much superior to the Panzer IIs, Panzer IIIs and early Panzer IVs that the Germans mostly used in the early years. There's a nice story about this fact...
Next to the village of Stonne, south of Sedan, the french Char B1 tank "Eure" from 1st Company, 41st tank battalion encountered a German column of 11 PIIIs and 2 PIVs. With its Baneblade-style 75mm hull howitzer and the 47mm turret gun, it managed to destroy ALL of them (by killing the first column vehicle with the hull gun and the last column vehicle with the turret gun, trapping all other German tanks inbetween) and blowing up two AT guns somewhere inbetween.
This Char B1 was hit 140 times (!) during this battle, but the armor was never penetrated by the small 5cm KwK L/42 of the Panzer IIIs (which were designed to destroy tanks) or the even worse shells from the early PIVs or Pak 36s.
That's one hell of a tank on the French side right there.
Yeah, they were, however, very slow, and like all tanks vulnerable to attack from the air. In the chaos de Gaulle cobbled together a mechanised brigade to counter the advance through the Ardennes, but lacking decent support (in large part because other French generals obstinately refused to give it to him) and the speed to exploit success his actions were eventually beaten back by artillery and air attack.
It's interesting that the Germans basically failed to learn from their own successes, and from the failures of their enemies, and proceeded to build bigger and bigger tanks at the expense of numbers and operational range.
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Vulcan wrote: It was also all centered well inside France, to move supplies TO the Maginot line, not AT the Maginot Line to move supplies PAST it.
Sure, which is a choice made due to tactical doctrine, not one made due to capability. French supply could well have been advanced forward, had they been willing to attempt to advance on Germany.
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Ratbarf wrote: The problem with the French tanks though is that they had no means of communicating outside of naval flags or actually getting out and talking. The Germans use of radios in every tank made it much easier to evade, surround, outflank, etc while still maintaining unit coherency and unit effectiveness.
Sure, which was a product of German doctrine wanting more aggressive deployment and adjustment on the field, while the French thought tanks would be acting in response to carefully planned, slowly played out operations ordered from above.
Thats a common assessment Sebster. An interesting codicil would be the argument that more capital should have been expended on fighter bombers who could take out the heaviest armor at will. Indeed even today putting an M1 against an armed P 47 thunderbolt, I'd take the thunderbolt with its 500 lb bombs.
Frazzled wrote: Thats a common assessment Sebster. An interesting codicil would be the argument that more capital should have been expended on fighter bombers who could take out the heaviest armor at will. Indeed even today putting an M1 against an armed P 47 thunderbolt, I'd take the thunderbolt with its 500 lb bombs.
Yeah, take the resources sunk into the strategic air campaign, and instead put them into fighter bombers that can hammer German positions in support of the Allied drive. Wonder if that could have got the Allies to Berlin before the Russkies?
Maybe if the Mediterranean campaign ends with Sicily and doesn't drag out that Italian meatgrinder, then you'd have more resources to make D-Day happen sooner?
Frazzled wrote: Thats a common assessment Sebster. An interesting codicil would be the argument that more capital should have been expended on fighter bombers who could take out the heaviest armor at will. Indeed even today putting an M1 against an armed P 47 thunderbolt, I'd take the thunderbolt with its 500 lb bombs.
Yeah, take the resources sunk into the strategic air campaign, and instead put them into fighter bombers that can hammer German positions in support of the Allied drive. Wonder if that could have got the Allies to Berlin before the Russkies?
Maybe if the Mediterranean campaign ends with Sicily and doesn't drag out that Italian meatgrinder, then you'd have more resources to make D-Day happen sooner?
It depends though. The strategic bombing campgin did strongly impact Luftwaffe production capacity and refining capacity, which was the real deal. It also effectively drained the Luftwaffe such that they had very few remaining interdiction fighters to contest the invasion.
But thats a bit of a special case. Germany and the USSR, should have been out the wazoo in fighters and fighter bombers. I think the numbers were intense, especially on the Soviet side, byut the German's really should have focused on it more. Neither of them develeoped the level of spohistication the Americans had however in local ground force / air force interaction to turn fighter bombers into roving artillery. It woulod be interesting to see anOperation CObra carried out not by a thousand heavy bombers, but three thousand fighter bombers continuously clearing the way in front of allied tank columns.
Vulcan wrote: It was also all centered well inside France, to move supplies TO the Maginot line, not AT the Maginot Line to move supplies PAST it.
Sure, which is a choice made due to tactical doctrine, not one made due to capability. French supply could well have been advanced forward, had they been willing to attempt to advance on Germany.
Fair point.
It still doesn't fix the operational problem that in September 1939, the French army did not have the logicstical capability to go the 60 miles to the main German prodiction facilites in the Ruhr.
Frazzled wrote: It depends though. The strategic bombing campgin did strongly impact Luftwaffe production capacity and refining capacity, which was the real deal. It also effectively drained the Luftwaffe such that they had very few remaining interdiction fighters to contest the invasion.
Spaatz' impact on oil production is about as overstated as Harris' efforts against German cities.
As you point out, the major impact of each was the damage inflicted on the Luftwaffe. But much of that damage was done not with by the bombs dropped, but in the drain of fighters as German fighter losses mounted in countering the constant bomber raids.
I don't know, I'm just an armchair general, but it just seems to me that there would have to be a better way to draw down the power of the Luftwaffe.
But thats a bit of a special case. Germany and the USSR, should have been out the wazoo in fighters and fighter bombers. I think the numbers were intense, especially on the Soviet side, byut the German's really should have focused on it more. Neither of them develeoped the level of spohistication the Americans had however in local ground force / air force interaction to turn fighter bombers into roving artillery. It woulod be interesting to see anOperation CObra carried out not by a thousand heavy bombers, but three thousand fighter bombers continuously clearing the way in front of allied tank columns.
One of the most significant advantages the Germans had at the beginning of the war was the close co-operation between air and ground assets, so that dive bombers could hammer key enemy positions in preparation for lightning attacks, without needing the slow build up of conventional artillery. It was far more effective than the more independant, strategic focus given over to the RAF.
I mean, I agree that when the US entered the war they did it much better (and co-ordinated conventional artillery better as well), but at the start of the war the Germans did it better than anyone else.
I don't think the Russians were ever in a position to do anything like that. The fighter bombers they had were pretty good, but the kind of command and control needed to engage in those kinds of operations was just beyond an army that was, basically, conscripted from among a peasant population. You don't purge your officer corps once, have most of the rest killed in Barbarossa, and then shove peasants into junior officer positions to direct close co-ordination with aircraft
It still doesn't fix the operational problem that in September 1939, the French army did not have the logicstical capability to go the 60 miles to the main German prodiction facilites in the Ruhr.
As you point out, the major impact of each was the damage inflicted on the Luftwaffe. But much of that damage was done not with by the bombs dropped, but in the drain of fighters as German fighter losses mounted in countering the constant bomber raids.
I don't know, I'm just an armchair general, but it just seems to me that there would have to be a better way to draw down the power of the Luftwaffe.
There is also the serious drain on manpower that it caused the germans. Something in the range of 1-2 million soldiers were kept from the front lines to man air defenses and other such anti-bombing shenanigans.
1) Shoot lots of big guns(>9000) at a target till its dead.
2) Send in wave after wave of tanks, the first couple waves wrecks will provide cover to the following waves.
3) As #2 but with infantry.
4) combine all of the above at the same time
Not really, no. Russian operational doctrine was exceptional, their deception operations and unit co-ordination at the strategic level is basically what everyone since has looked to emulate. You don't achieve Uranus with what you describe above.
It's only once you get down to the tactical level that you notice the lack of properly trained junior officers and Russian units starting to act more like blunt force objects.
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Ratbarf wrote: There is also the serious drain on manpower that it caused the germans. Something in the range of 1-2 million soldiers were kept from the front lines to man air defenses and other such anti-bombing shenanigans.
Somewhere around 2 million soldiers were kept away from the Russian front, but that's because they were operating in North Africa, Italy, France and Finland - guarding those positions from allied landings.
In terms of draining away resources due to the bombing campaign you see fighter planes drawn away from the Eastern Front, and you see the construction of those vast flak towers, but only the former is really material in the scheme of the war.
My problem really, is that when the debate is on whether bombing campaign made any difference at all, it becomes clear that whatever difference it made it certainly wasn't enough of a difference to be worthwhile, when you consider the resources and men it cost.
I like to think about the Strategic air campaign like a lot of very expensive, resource intensive things in the war. It was a theoretical model that didn't bear up under actual war time conditions. Strategic bombing of cities doesn't crush an enemy nation's will to fight. It does not sufficiently destroy the manufacturing capacity.
I would say that bombing rail heads, bridges, and other transportation hubs was probably the greatest contribution of the air campaign. By the end of the war, it was easier for replacement parts and men to be shipped 4000 miles from America than it was for the Germans to get people to the Sigfried line.
I would chalk strategic bombing up along with mass airborne drops, air mobile/air assault operations, and thing like drones and UAS centric warfare as situationally useful in limited conflicts, but not realistic in actual total war scenarios.
That's not quite what I took away from this. He appears to think that revisionist history will make it so Oceania will have always been at war with Eastasia.
Sgt_Scruffy wrote: I like to think about the Strategic air campaign like a lot of very expensive, resource intensive things in the war. It was a theoretical model that didn't bear up under actual war time conditions. Strategic bombing of cities doesn't crush an enemy nation's will to fight. It does not sufficiently destroy the manufacturing capacity.
I would say that bombing rail heads, bridges, and other transportation hubs was probably the greatest contribution of the air campaign. By the end of the war, it was easier for replacement parts and men to be shipped 4000 miles from America than it was for the Germans to get people to the Sigfried line.
I would chalk strategic bombing up along with mass airborne drops, air mobile/air assault operations, and thing like drones and UAS centric warfare as situationally useful in limited conflicts, but not realistic in actual total war scenarios.
go on like this, you'll be Neumann 2.0 in not too long.
besides that, just sat on their asses while our country was attacked by both germans and russians.
