I was about to say the same. Well played, Bukayo :-\Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
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I was about to say the same. Well played, Bukayo :-\Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
No, i have no real interest in stuff like that. I don't generally read for fun, it's for a purpose.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
And I don't have an opinion on fhe English civil war. Too early for me. The US civil war, now you're talking :-)
Obviously I love Blackadder but that is very clearly comedy set in a historic period, and doesn't pretend to be anything else.
Blackadder has a lot to answer for. That communist Ben Elton taught a whole generation that the first world war was a pointless farce and that all officers were retards. The 'Lions led by donkeys' nonsense is now considered historical fact by many of the hard of thinking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
But the Eng Civ War {W3K} is one of the most fascinating things in UK and Euro history. It bookends the changeover from the walls of religion period to the enlightenment. The war of religion entered in Europe with the Peace of Westphalia ending the 30 years were in 1648. While second, we kill the king in 1649 and bring his son back in 1660.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
But the vital difference is that well it ends the wars of religion in the UK, it's also the worlds first political revolution. This is 140 years before the French revolution which book ends the start of the transformation from the enlightenment to Romanticism.
Without the W3K and restoration, we've never had the Glorious revolution which gave us permanent parliament and effectively started our constitutional monarchy. This 140 year lead over France and consequently the rest of Europe is what set us up for global domination.
As such, it doesn't really matter whether we like the Wrong but Wromatics or the Right but Repulsives. It's the fact that we shook hands at stumps on the fifth day in 1660 that is the vital point.
Even if you've never lived in France, you can probably guess how important the revolution is to them. The French public, including my crusty, lefty mates take the same pride in the French revolution that the the British public, especially the right, take Spitfires at the Battle of Britain.
So when I've mentioned W3K to them, they are really shocked:
"What? You cut the head of your King too?"
"Oh yes. 140 years before you did."
Ending the wars of religion and starting the European enlightenment with the worlds first political revolution is a pretty major deal.
And it shows that if we give them enough rope, the English Civil War will eventually lead to us all living in safe European homes.
re: Flashman. Are you not into imperial history, then? I don't see how anyone that's in to 19th century British imperial history called love Flashman. That's why the only books I don't like the one set in America. I'm not really bothered about their Civil War, et cetera.
But the ones about the retreat from Kabul, the Sikh wars and the mutiny are brilliant. It's brilliant historic fiction.
"Obviously I love Blackadder but that is very clearly comedy set in a historic period, and doesn't pretend to be anything else." all of which is true of Flashman.
But if you're into World War II and/or military autobiographies, then GMF's Quartered Safe Out Here is up there with Goodbye To All That. But it's even better because it's got loads of Indians in it.
I think the genuinely hard of thinking just found it funny and probably couldn't place it as WWI.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir C
You are really referring to people you don't like, and they thought that anyway. Blackadder is merely indulging a prevailing view.
And anyway, it is largely true..... :-)
There are many, many things that are simultaneously of tremendous significance and of no interest whatsoever to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
I'm a later modernist.
Oh, I get that. It's just I did W3K for one of my courses and later did a course on the changeover from the Enlightenment to Romanticism 1780-1830. And my A-level on the long C18th from the Glorious Rev to Waterloo/GRA/Slavery emancipation basically linked the two - the Gl Rev needed the W3K and Restoration to set the scene.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
But I wasn't so interested in the W3k itself as opposed to the effects it had by starting the Enlightenment.
Have you read Quartered Safe.....? If not, you really should.
I probably should read that. One of my grandfathers was stationed in Burma during the war.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
He came back a qualified mechanic with a love of curry :-)
I have the same view of pretty much every war. I am more interested in the causes and long lasting effects than I am the war itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
WW2 is the exception as it is, by any measure, a genuinely exciting war. Had a bit of everything, real end to end stuff.
Good for the neutrals, as it were :-)
:nod: If I was only allowed to watch one TV series, it would be The World at War.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Oh, I was the same. Fischer Thesis for WW1 and Hitler's long term plans as the causes of WW2.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
But then I saw the BBC adaptation of Pat Barker's Regeneration {Owen and Sassoon together in the Craiglockhart officers' loony bin under Dr Rivers} and when I told my mum she said it was a trilogy and gave me the 2nd and 3rd books.
After I'd read those, mum asked if I'd read Goodbye To All That, and when I said no, she gave me a copy and I was hooked. Then I bought Forgotten Victory by Gary Sheffield. {He was one half of the two-person teams in a debate on WW1 at the Brit Library for the centenary of the start in 2014. The other on his team was the OU's WW1 head, Annika Mombauer who's one of the world's leading experts on the Fischer Thesis and organised the 50th anniversary Conf in 2011.}
Sheffield was a re-revisionist {i.e. going back to how the war was seen in the '20s} before the post-WW2 revisionism of Lions led by Donkeys {Clarke's The Donkeys} and Oh, What a Lovely War. Sheffield argues against the Blackadder Haig is a donkey thesis, and has changed the academic perception in this country.
{A decade or so ago, Field Marshall Lord Brammal started a debate in The Times' letters pages saying Haig was a great general. The debate raged all week and on Friday they had two final letters, one from each side and mine was the pro-Haig one.}
So while I'm like you with all other wars {though not interested in the fighting of WW2, only the causes}, reading Owen and Sassoon as a kid and then reading the Regeneration trilogy, then Graves, then Sheffield, then others, I got into the fighting in WW1, hence my MA in it.
Btw, re: WW2 being better for neutrals. I told my MA tutor - one of the country's current top WW1 experts - about a Viz letter which said: "Why is WW1 called the Great War when WW2, with its truly global nature and use of nukes, was much better?"
But yes, if your grandfather was in Burma, you really should read Quartered Safe. And GMF is such a good writer.
That series is quite magnificent. Everybody should watch it.Quote:
Originally Posted by PSRB
I was really lucky that when I spent the best part of a week in an isolation ward at Homerton hospital, I had a tv in the room. It was the time when each bed in the wards had a screen where you had to pay a fortune to watch tv or make calls.Quote:
Originally Posted by PSRB
They had The Great War {the WW1 series} on every lunchtime. One day the nurse came in to give me blood tests etc in the middle of it and I was not amused.
The food was inedible. They gave you a menu the day before to choose what you wanted and after a couple of days, I told them I couldn't eat it. So the glw would come up from South London every evening, and when I said I was going out for a fag, I'd nip to Wetherspoons and get steak and chips with her and some after dinner drugs.
Then later at night, I'd nip out for another fag break and get a few tinnies of Spesh from my old Turkish offie, and sit on the steps drinking and smoking. God alone knows why they bothered with the isolation room.
See above. The WW1 won is genius as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
I read Goodby to all That years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
I was always more interested in Rupert Brooke..
I grew up with a grandfather (the other one) who despised the wars and hated the whole narrative about heroism and sacrifice. So I think the flawed and fruitless patriotism of a rather silly and tragic figure like Brooke was more appealing.
And I quite like the poetry, even though it is very Oscar Wilde-ish.
Which one? The really old BBC one from the 60s?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
See above. The WW1 won is genius as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Yeah, with a Redgrave doing the narration, I think. It was purrfect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Ive been watching it on YouTube. Never seen it beforeQuote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
Larry Olivier was the narrator.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
It's Michael Redgrave, Chief.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chief Arrowhead
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_(TV_series)
The won about the war with Pershing, not Patton.
He?s talking about World at War, GG,Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
And his narration is brilliant, to the extent that they can be.
beaches and waited for the end. But the end would come from the sky. Unimaginable, irresistible ....... mushroom shaped." It was Larry's excellent timing that made his narration so compelling and poignant.Quote:
Originally Posted by WES
It feels like an odd thing to say, but these types of series are so reliant on the quality of narration. Almost as important as the script. The wrong voice can ruin the drama.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert Augustus Chapman
The music in that series was perfect. Dramatic and slightly terrifying.
My favourite episode was the one on the defeat of France, the Maginot Line, the French reaction etcQuote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Also the first episode on the new Germany
Magnificent stuff
I like Alone and Barbarossa. The tipping point of the war in Europe.Quote:
Originally Posted by WES
The tragedy of the thing is that it was filmed before the release of the Enigma files; without the story of Ultra and Bletchley Park the story was lacking one of its most important elements.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Doesn't stop me watching it over and over again, of course.
Shirley the cathartic moment of the series must be the episode on the fall of Berlin where the German woman un-emotionally tells of her and her mother being raped by Russian soldiers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir C
For some reason I found that more disturbing than the Holocaust episode, which at the time just seemed unfathomable.
I think the scale and severity of the war on the Eastern front is almost unfathomable. There is a scene after Stalingrad that shows hundreds of thousands of German soldiers being taken captive before quietly informing you that fewer than 3% of those pictured returned home alive...... the difficulty in feeling sympathy for German soldiers shows that war can sometimes be as dehumanising as genocide.Quote:
Originally Posted by WES
Germany, innit. A fantastic piece of real estate but, with avaricious foes on all sides, she has proven to be impossible to defend or protect. Almost every competent invading army in history has had a go at her and most have succeeded.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Interestingly, while the British get up on our hind legs about hordes of military-age men overrunning our islands, the Germans shrug their shoulders; it's normal for them, it's their history.
My late grandmother-in-law was like that. Dying of cancer, she would wake from her coma from time to time to warn us "Der Ivan kommt! Der Ivan Kommt!"Quote:
Originally Posted by WES
Not like the majority of them had a choice. Wasn't like Blighty in the 2nd war where you could be a conchie and just help out down a mine or in a hospital. Adolf didn't like being told you wouldn't fight for him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Also, by the time of Stalingrad, the Krauts fighting would have had 9 years of Goebbel's pwoppa-ganda and the Hitler Youth. So all those 23 or under would have only known Naziism=Good since their bollox dropped.
The poppies go back to WW1 and ask us to remember those that fell on all sides in all wars for a reason.
Something the current culture warrior ****wits of both left and right would do well to remember when banging on about poppies.
But anyway, WW2's **** compared to WW1. The first war wins on the poetry alone. {And that's before we mention the Indians giving the Hun a slap on their own turf and thus saving the empire 1914-15.}
I completely agree re the German soldiers. But it stings a little at first when you are left with little choice but to sympathise.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
Max Aitken, the son of Lord Beaverbrook appears in the episode about the Battle of Britain and disagrees with the other contributors about there being any sense of camaraderie between British and German pilots. He said he hated them. And in the middle of war, if that is what he needed to feel, that's fine.
With our distance and hindsight, it is difficult not to see the starvation and death of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war as a pretty awful thing. Even if they are the dreadful Hun.
I will never agree about the relative qualities of the two wars. WW1 is a stodgy 0-0 with a late winner given by VAR. WW2 is an all time classic, a thriller. Goals galore and a real 'war of two halves' :-)
Counting up how many for and against individual primary sources we have is a mug's game. But the Hun did let us fly Baader's legs in to hi PoW camp, giving us clear passage. Also, when a visiting Luftwaffe chap at one of the camps found they were holding a couple of RAF escapees, he totally kicked off, said that all RAF are in the control of the Luftwaffe, got them scubbed down, fed and handed over to him, with him apologising profusely to our boys and telling the camp commandant that if this happens again, he'll send a couple of Stukkas to take out his family home there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Also seen/read several sources of GB RAF Pilots in '40 saying they would never shoot down a parachuting pilot but the Poles did and they could understand that.
So perhaps it's just the Tory press baron's a bit more of a psycho than the average RAF officer. Who'd'a thunk it?
If you want to play footie analogies WW1 wasn't "a stodgy 0-0 with a late winner given by VAR." It started with the big no.6, Joffre, pulling off the greatest ever goal line tackle when the Hun forward had rounded our keeper. {Let's call him Antwerp or Mons.}
Had he mistimed that, it would have been a pen and down to ten men. Game over.
We then have a peak PV4 vs Woy Keane MF battle for the ages. The Hun then go 1-0 up late on when an injury crisis forces the Russians to bring on Oleg and Stepanovs.
The then go 2-0 up when they break the leg of our no.5, Gough, and get away with it.
We are forced to make a tactical change. Our starry French striker takes the captain's armband with the top English boy moving to no.10 to play 2nd striker to him. We bring on an Aussie on one wing and a Canadian on the other.
We then score literally the three finest goals in the whole history of football to turn it round in the last five mins and win 3-2 11 mins into injury time with the last overhead kick of the game.
But in all seriousness, it's the poetry. You watch your WW2 doc and good as it is, you're watching a telly doc.
If you read Owen, you are there, in the trenches, watching your mate drown in the poisoned gas.
Likewise Sassoon.
If the war had only ever given us McCrae's In Flanders Field it would still have won hands down.
What has WW2 got? The Naming of Parts and that's it. And that's not even about the war. It's just about how training doesn't turn him on as much as a good buggering does. NTTAWWI.
I wasnt suggesting old Max was right, simply noting that different people see these things differently. I'd guess if I was forced to kill someone I would probably find it easier to train myself to hate him first.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganpati's Goonerz--AFC's Aboriginal Fertility Cult
Nobody had time to write bleeding poetry during WW2. They were too busy fighting a war by air, land and sea. Dodging rockets, ducking from bombers or blowing up subs.
Of course, it was only that western front that was dull and literally stuck in the mud. There was excitement elsewhere. Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Jutland. My great grandfather got shot in the arse in Basrah.
And I don't like much of that poetry, aside from Brooke. And that isnt really war poetry as such.
What confounds me most about 30's Germany is that the nation of Beethoven, Brecht and Einstein descended into a collective psychopathy that saw them embark on a programme of exterminating their fellow human beings, by gassing them, for simply being jewish!Quote:
Originally Posted by redgunamo
I have never really understood what the Jews have done wrong. Why are they persecuted by so many?Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert Augustus Chapman
They seem to largely mind their own business and share strong western values.
Weird.
Would be a strange old world if somebody here could explain it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich
But in 19th and 20th century Europe they came to be seen as a threat to emerging nation states and their national identities. And Germany were looking for somebody to blame for WW1.
What is harder to understand is why people who would describe themselves as staunch anti racists seem to think that anti semitism is ok. Or simply fail to recognise it when they see it.
Of course people had time to write poetry. Most of the squaddies did sweet FA between Dunkirk and D-Day. And while the aircrew had the same life expectancy as a junior officer on the Western Front they also had as much down time in which they could have written poetry if they'd had the talent.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
But they didn't. Probably too much radio and movies etc. Made them lose the art of writing.
And it wasn't just all mud, you know. Yes it rained for the first and final thirds of Passchendaele, but the first day of the Somme was glorious sunshine.
But why do you think that? Oh, yes, the poetry of Owen and Sassoon both written around the time of Passchendaele. {Sasoon's even got one that explicitly mentions the battle, Memorial Tablet, while Owen's Dulce Et was clearly written during that.}
And if you're great grand-father got shot in the arse at Basrah, then there's a chance that the grandfather of Raju, one of my Delhi chemist mates, patched him up cos he was an RN surgeon. Brahmin. Realised the Britishers were actually made up of loads of plebs, not just officers, and decided the empire was finished.
But I'm confused. You're into mil-hist enough to study it, but you don't like Owen and Sassoon. So what are your non-war poetic tastes?
I would say that Owen and Sassoon are the people's poet laureates - they do the Tennyson but from the PoV of those there. They also get it across as musically as Kipling. But they can craft iambic pentameters like the best of the Romantics.
I just don't think you get poetry. Or WW1. Or Both. :judge:
But they'd only been a nation since 1871, and as the Fischer Thesis tells you, the war aims in both wars were identical, global domination.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert Augustus Chapman
So you could say "Not a surprise that the Hun were like that in the '30s given that all they ever did between Unification in 1871 and being chopped up again in 1945."
The good things - Guttenberg, Luther, Beethoven; Mad Jens, Per, Kai - all came before or after.