WW2. War started for Britain on this day. (8 Viewers)

[skybluetony176]

That’s not what you’re saying though. Any half decent historian should laugh at the idea of the right side of history. But to compare a project to systematically eradicate an ethnicity and religion using industrial means and taking over countries for resources (and let’s be honest if you didn’t someone else would) is just ludicrous.

Every nation on Earth has been involved in war and conquest, it wasn’t “imperialism” that made Nazi Germany abhorrent.

We killed 10 million in 10 years in India alone for having an opposing ideology to us. That’s just in one country and 4 million more than Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis.

 

---

[shmmeee]

We killed 10 million in 10 years in India alone for having an opposing ideology to us. That’s just in one country and 4 million more than Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis.

Im sorry are you claiming the way the British treated the Indians is worse than he way Nazi Germany treated Jews?

 

[skybluetony176]

Im sorry are you claiming the way the British treated the Indians is worse than he way Nazi Germany treated Jews?

Jeez, I can literally do this all day with the amount of atrocities committed by the empire. How about how we eradicate by hunting them down and murdering men, women and children the Native American tribe that not that long before sat down with the pilgrims to celebrate a good harvest? Just one of many tribes on the east coast of what is now the USA that we eradicated by the same methods. Numerous groups of people with their own unique cultures, ideologies and belief systems lost forever.

 

[fernandopartridge]

Coming up to 100 years now. Can’t be many still alive who remember it. Id have felt very weird as avoid commemorating a war from 1880 or something. I wonder how kids today feel about it.

Indeed but plenty who weren't around but like to pretend they were. The country needs to move on from it like all the other parties involved have done.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Jeez, I can literally do this all day

I have no doubt about that.

 

[RegTheDonk]

We killed 10 million in 10 years in India alone for having an opposing ideology to us. That’s just in one country and 4 million more than Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis.

Leave the "we" out of it please Tony. I was born in 1964.

 

[jimmyhillsfanclub]

Two world wars and one world cup
Scream by the desperate divided crutch
Used to have an Empire then we grew up
Lost everything who gives a fuck.......

 

[shmmeee]

Jeez, I can literally do this all day with the amount of atrocities committed by the empire. How about how we eradicate by hunting them down and murdering men, women and children the Native American tribe that not that long before sat down with the pilgrims to celebrate a good harvest? Just one of many tribes on the east coast of what is now the USA that we eradicated by the same methods. Numerous groups of people with their own unique cultures, ideologies and belief systems lost forever.

OK. Time to see some sources. Because I’m having real trouble making these numbers add up. Are you counting native Americans killed by European disease here?

I mean “people did horrible shit in the past” sure. But the scale of the Holocaust was something else. There’s nothing in British history close. The Spaniards are probably the closest.

 

[skybluetony176]

OK. Time to see some sources. Because I’m having real trouble making these numbers add up. Are you counting native Americans killed by European disease here?

I mean “people did horrible shit in the past” sure. But the scale of the Holocaust was something else. There’s nothing in British history close. The Spaniards are probably the closest.

How about The Killing Times period in Australian history? The empire spent over 100 years deliberately trying to eradicate the aboriginal people again hunting men, women and children. It took another 100 years for the aboriginal population to recover we were that successful in that crusade.

 

[skybluetony176]

Leave the "we" out of it please Tony. I was born in 1964.

That’s fair enough, I should have said the empire.

 

[shmmeee]

How about The Killing Times period in Australian history? The empire spent over 100 years deliberately trying to eradicate the aboriginal people again hunting men, women and children. It took another 100 years for the aboriginal population to recover we were that successful in that crusade.

This wasn’t a systematic government policy. It was a mix of a whole host of things but mostly that’s the way the world worked in the 1800s.

Germans are taught about fascism because it was a live issue that needed addressing in the populace. Unless you’re claiming there’s a live issue in U.K. school of sympathy for genociding aborigines I can’t see the comparison. It’s just “in the old days people were shitty and human right weren’t a thing” yeah no shit. But there’s no evidence the British were worse than anyone else, just more effective at conquest. It’s just not comparable to antisemitic fascism in Nazi Germany.

Go through a list of historical atrocities. Every major civilisation on earth is there. There wouldn’t be a nation on earth that could claim clean hands. So why do we specifically in 2023 need to focus on every bad thing ever done in the name of Britain? What’s the purpose?

 

[rob9872]

 

[Deleted member 5849]

It may just be me and for I feel, but as the people who remember it pass away, it seems some want to hijack what was always a sober affair reflecting on the horrors of war, to it becoming slightly jingoistic and cartoon-like.

The ceremonies themselves are still siber, calm, reflective, the chat around rather simplified.

WW2 commemorations were never about how great Britain was, they were to remind us we should never go there again. As long as that still remains the main message, that should continue.

And that's what we need to remember.

 

[Flying Fokker]

Where my dad came from, they never stop talking about September 1944. This British column is parked outside the railway station in Eindhoven:

Heerlen was where my uncle lived for 55 plus years. He was billeted there and met a local girl. Married, came back to England together in 47 then ‘followed’ his wife back to her home town.. One of my cousins had a career in the Dutch army.


In de prachtige leeftijd van 91 jaar is van ons weggegleden mijn allerliefste man, one liefhebbende en zorgzame vader
en schoonvader, onze trotse opa en opi
William George Sinfield
Bill
* Blackfordby (GB), 23 september 1921 † Heerlen, 31 december 2012
Landgraaf: Trees Sinfield-de Vos

Bill Sinfield

WWII in South - Limburg

ww2insouthlimburg.nl

 

[skybluetony176]

This wasn’t a systematic government policy. It was a mix of a whole host of things but mostly that’s the way the world worked in the 1800s.

Germans are taught about fascism because it was a live issue that needed addressing in the populace. Unless you’re claiming there’s a live issue in U.K. school of sympathy for genociding aborigines I can’t see the comparison. It’s just “in the old days people were shitty and human right weren’t a thing” yeah no shit. But there’s no evidence the British were worse than anyone else, just more effective at conquest. It’s just not comparable to antisemitic fascism in Nazi Germany.

Go through a list of historical atrocities. Every major civilisation on earth is there. There wouldn’t be a nation on earth that could claim clean hands. So why do we specifically in 2023 need to focus on every bad thing ever done in the name of Britain? What’s the purpose?

The British Army led The Killing Times in Australia, it was the British Army that killed millions in India and it was the British Army that did most of the killing of Native Americans during the earlier periods of British rule there. How could it have been anything other than systematic government policy?

Polling suggests that more people in the UK are proud of our empire than are ashamed of it, almost twice as many in fact. There was uproar when Corbyn in opposition suggested that we should teach about the atrocities the empire committed, we have a large element of the press and indeed people in the government who label the national trust as Woke and want to cancel it from telling us the wrong type of history, for instance how buildings in its care was built on the proceeds of slavery. It’s bizarre.

 

[Grendel]

The British Army led The Killing Times in Australia, it was the British Army that killed millions in India and it was the British Army that did most of the killing of Native Americans during the earlier periods of British rule there. How could it have been anything other than systematic government policy?

Polling suggests that more people in the UK are proud of our empire than are ashamed of it, almost twice as many in fact. There was uproar when Corbyn in opposition suggested that we should teach about the atrocities the empire committed, we have a large element of the press and indeed people in the government who label the national trust as Woke and want to cancel it from telling us the wrong type of history, for instance how buildings in its care was built on the proceeds of slavery. It’s bizarre.

The British empire was a successful thing tony as was the march of the Roman Empire across Europe

Empires and ruling countries have always exploited resources to gain advantages - it’s somewhat different to an ideology of genocide less than a century ago

 

[PVA]

I am mildly obsessed with WW2.

I don't claim to be an expert, but it fascinates me. Podcasts, books, documentaries, audiobooks - it's pretty much all I listen to or read.

Just finished this audiobook, which features some astonishing, almost incomprehensible, acts of bravery and fortitude:

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. One of the most remarkable stories in the history of Special Forces' operations - Daily Express In the bleak moments after defeat on mainland Europe in winter 1939, Winston Churchill knew that Britain had to strike back hard. So Britain's wartime...

www.audible.co.uk

 

[shmmeee]

The British Army led The Killing Times in Australia, it was the British Army that killed millions in India and it was the British Army that did most of the killing of Native Americans during the earlier periods of British rule there. How could it have been anything other than systematic government policy?

Polling suggests that more people in the UK are proud of our empire than are ashamed of it, almost twice as many in fact. There was uproar when Corbyn in opposition suggested that we should teach about the atrocities the empire committed, we have a large element of the press and indeed people in the government who label the national trust as Woke and want to cancel it from telling us the wrong type of history, for instance how buildings in its care was built on the proceeds of slavery. It’s bizarre.

But why the morbid fascination with making out we were some kind of historical anomaly?

Our most popular kids history series is all about horrible things people did in history, it’s hardly hidden from kids. There seems to be a new thing that insists European or Western “imperialism” is somehow exceptional from what’s happened around the world historically. I’m not sure there’s any evidence for that. It just seems like inverse exceptionalism.

 

[fernandopartridge]

Britain's standing in the world is as much because of the empire as in spite of it.

 

[Deleted member 5849]

The British empire was a successful thing tony as was the march of the Roman Empire across Europe

Empires and ruling countries have always exploited resources to gain advantages - it’s somewhat different to an ideology of genocide less than a century ago

The denial from some that it's a bad thing is very bizarre however, as is the outcry of National Trust explaining where people got their wealth from, as one example. Why hide it? It happened, there's no denying that.

Let's face it, all through time people don't get well off by being nice and benevolant to their neighbours, do they! If it's not slave plantations, it's exploitation of the working class, the enclosure of farmland, etc etc. It astonishes me that people are astonished by the revelation that generous benefactors weren't all sweetness and light!

Now that of course doesn't automatically make them bad people, as they may well have been part of their time period etc. and good people can do bad things, as much as bad people can do good things - it doesn't have to be just black and white. I can perfectly well enjoy going round a historic building and enjoying the craftmanship even if I know that said work was done by being dastardly to some people!

But to deny it that empire was probably bad is bizarre in the extreme.

(And yes, we can even then explain that the British version was actually one of the more benign empires in history, and did often advance nations and peoples in technology etc in ways that wouldn't otherwise have happened).

I mean, I dunno if it's moved on, but my GCSE History was about Empire, WW1, and how competing powers looking for world supremecy then ended up dragging in ordinary people for a pointless war - it's not even a new thing to say Empire is bad, so why are we politicising such a thing!

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

I am mildly obsessed with WW2.

I don't claim to be an expert, but it fascinates me. Podcasts, books, documentaries, audiobooks - it's pretty much all I listen to or read.

Just finished this audiobook, which features some astonishing, almost incomprehensible, acts of bravery and fortitude:

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. One of the most remarkable stories in the history of Special Forces' operations - Daily Express In the bleak moments after defeat on mainland Europe in winter 1939, Winston Churchill knew that Britain had to strike back hard. So Britain's wartime...

www.audible.co.uk

Likewise. Mark Felton's YT channel is a definite rabbit hole for me.

 

[PVA]

Likewise. Mark Felton's YT channel is a definite rabbit hole for me.

For some reason I had never really thought of using YT for such content actually. Will take a look, cheers

 

[skybluetony176]

But why the morbid fascination with making out we were some kind of historical anomaly?

Our most popular kids history series is all about horrible things people did in history, it’s hardly hidden from kids. There seems to be a new thing that insists European or Western “imperialism” is somehow exceptional from what’s happened around the world historically. I’m not sure there’s any evidence for that. It just seems like inverse exceptionalism.

You’re adding your own context there. I’ve not remotely suggested that we were some sort of historical anomaly. If anything I’m suggesting that Germany is the anomaly here in that unlike other nations who had imperial ambitions of world domination they actually teach compulsory in schools the whole truth about their atrocities in history. Correct me if I’m wrong but you used to be a teacher and from our conversations today it seems you were under the impression that Germany is the only nation ever to attempt to eradicate an entire race, I point out the Native American slaughters, you question that. So I point out the slaughter of aboriginals in Australia, you question that suggesting that it wasn’t government policy so I have to point out that it was as it was the British army carrying out said slaughter. I must have missed The Killing Times special of Horrible History although they did go on to create Ghosts so I won’t hold that against them.

 

[shmmeee]

You’re adding your own context there. I’ve not remotely suggested that we were some sort of historical anomaly. If anything I’m suggesting that Germany is the anomaly here in that unlike other nations who had imperial ambitions of world domination they actually teach compulsory in schools the whole truth about their atrocities in history. Correct me if I’m wrong but you used to be a teacher and from our conversations today it seems you were under the impression that Germany is the only nation ever to attempt to eradicate an entire race, I point out the Native American slaughters, you question that. So I point out the slaughter of aboriginals in Australia, you question that suggesting that it wasn’t government policy so I have to point out that it was as it was the British army carrying out said slaughter. I must have missed The Killing Times special of Horrible History although they did go on to create Ghosts so I won’t hold that against them.

And I’ve asked for your sources for the numbers you claim. I don’t know of any legitimate source that claims the British killed 10m Native Americans systematically as an act of genocide. You’re conflating years of conquest and occupation with the eradication of a race. Again, it’s apples and oranges.

You keep capitalising things to give them weight but these aren’t things in the same way as the Holocaust and with good reason. “The killing times” as far as I can tell is the name of a Guardian series: The killing times | The Guardian

 

[shmmeee]

The denial from some that it's a bad thing is very bizarre however, as is the outcry of National Trust explaining where people got their wealth from, as one example. Why hide it? It happened, there's no denying that.

Let's face it, all through time people don't get well off by being nice and benevolant to their neighbours, do they! If it's not slave plantations, it's exploitation of the working class, the enclosure of farmland, etc etc. It astonishes me that people are astonished by the revelation that generous benefactors weren't all sweetness and light!

Now that of course doesn't automatically make them bad people, as they may well have been part of their time period etc. and good people can do bad things, as much as bad people can do good things - it doesn't have to be just black and white. I can perfectly well enjoy going round a historic building and enjoying the craftmanship even if I know that said work was done by being dastardly to some people!

But to deny it that empire was probably bad is bizarre in the extreme.

(And yes, we can even then explain that the British version was actually one of the more benign empires in history, and did often advance nations and peoples in technology etc in ways that wouldn't otherwise have happened).

I mean, I dunno if it's moved on, but my GCSE History was about Empire, WW1, and how competing powers looking for world supremecy then ended up dragging in ordinary people for a pointless war - it's not even a new thing to say Empire is bad, so why are we politicising such a thing!

Yeah this I have no issue with. Give things context all you like.

 

[Grendel]

And I’ve asked for your sources for the numbers you claim. I don’t know of any legitimate source that claims the British killed 10m Native Americans systematically as an act of genocide. You’re conflating years of conquest and occupation with the eradication of a race. Again, it’s apples and oranges.

You keep capitalising things to give them weight but these aren’t things in the same way as the Holocaust and with good reason. “The killing times” as far as I can tell is the name of a Guardian series: The killing times | The Guardian

I would assume a considerable amount of deaths were from the introduction of diseases and the inability of immunities in the population

 

[shmmeee]

I would assume a considerable amount of deaths were from the introduction of diseases and the inability of immunities in the population

And this is the difference between a bunch of people clumsily and violently colonising land and a state setting out to eradicate a race. You can’t jump lump everyone who died during an occupation together and claim genocide.

 

[fernandopartridge]

The denial from some that it's a bad thing is very bizarre however, as is the outcry of National Trust explaining where people got their wealth from, as one example. Why hide it? It happened, there's no denying that.

Let's face it, all through time people don't get well off by being nice and benevolant to their neighbours, do they! If it's not slave plantations, it's exploitation of the working class, the enclosure of farmland, etc etc. It astonishes me that people are astonished by the revelation that generous benefactors weren't all sweetness and light!

Now that of course doesn't automatically make them bad people, as they may well have been part of their time period etc. and good people can do bad things, as much as bad people can do good things - it doesn't have to be just black and white. I can perfectly well enjoy going round a historic building and enjoying the craftmanship even if I know that said work was done by being dastardly to some people!

But to deny it that empire was probably bad is bizarre in the extreme.

(And yes, we can even then explain that the British version was actually one of the more benign empires in history, and did often advance nations and peoples in technology etc in ways that wouldn't otherwise have happened).

I mean, I dunno if it's moved on, but my GCSE History was about Empire, WW1, and how competing powers looking for world supremecy then ended up dragging in ordinary people for a pointless war - it's not even a new thing to say Empire is bad, so why are we politicising such a thing!

Empires of course don't exist any more

 

[skybluetony176]

And I’ve asked for your sources for the numbers you claim. I don’t know of any legitimate source that claims the British killed 10m Native Americans systematically as an act of genocide. You’re conflating years of conquest and occupation with the eradication of a race. Again, it’s apples and oranges.

You keep capitalising things to give them weight but these aren’t things in the same way as the Holocaust and with good reason. “The killing times” as far as I can tell is the name of a Guardian series: The killing times | The Guardian

I never said 10M Native Americans. I did say 10M Indians, as in people from India. 10M by the way is a disputed figure, many people believe the number to be far far higher especially if you look at it over a longer period, the 10M I was referring to was specific to a 10 year period of uprising in India. The true cost of life in India under British colonial rule is estimated to be 10 times that. When talking about Native Americans I was talking about specific tribes, each with their own unique languages and culture, including the tribe that were present at the event that the US celebrates every year without any sense of irony. The killing times is how Australia refers to that period in their colonial past. It’s hardly surprising that the only place you can find reference to it in the UK is in a woke lefty rag.

 

[Grendel]

I never said 10M Native Americans. I did say 10M Indians, as in people from India. 10M by the way is a disputed figure, many people believe the number to be far far higher especially if you look at it over a longer period, the 10M I was referring to was specific to a 10 year period of uprising in India. The true cost of life in India under British colonial rule is estimated to be 10 times that. When talking about Native Americans I was talking about specific tribes, each with their own unique languages and culture, including the tribe that were present at the event that the US celebrates every year without any sense of irony. The killing times is how Australia refers to that period in their colonial past. It’s hardly surprising that the only place you can find reference to it in the UK is in a woke lefty rag.

Your wiki research is letting you down Tony as the figure often quoted is 100 million in India

 

[Grendel]

You do realise Tony these estimates are calculations based on average life expectancy and excess deaths over a long period of time and not a targeted and deliberate policy of mass extermination? I think you’ve had a bad day

 

[shmmeee]

I never said 10M Native Americans. I did say 10M Indians, as in people from India. 10M by the way is a disputed figure, many people believe the number to be far far higher especially if you look at it over a longer period, the 10M I was referring to was specific to a 10 year period of uprising in India. The true cost of life in India under British colonial rule is estimated to be 10 times that. When talking about Native Americans I was talking about specific tribes, each with their own unique languages and culture, including the tribe that were present at the event that the US celebrates every year without any sense of irony. The killing times is how Australia refers to that period in their colonial past. It’s hardly surprising that the only place you can find reference to it in the UK is in a woke lefty rag.

I mean I'm online, I'd assume if there was much English language info it would surface pretty quick. Apologies for conflating the two instances you were talking about. But you keep missing my point: you're joining up lots of disparate incidents that occurred under occupation, committed by a variety of people, organised and not, and claiming it make it comparable to 6m Jews in the 40s. It just doesn't. It would make more sense to compare to total deaths in all of WW2 if that's what you wanted.

"The true cost of life" is about as vague a statement you can get aimed at making a number as high as possible. Let's talk reliable estimates. What have you got?

 

[Flying Fokker]

Claymore anyone?

 

[skybluetony176]

I mean I'm online, I'd assume if there was much English language info it would surface pretty quick. Apologies for conflating the two instances you were talking about. But you keep missing my point: you're joining up lots of disparate incidents that occurred under occupation, committed by a variety of people, organised and not, and claiming it make it comparable to 6m Jews in the 40s. It just doesn't. It would make more sense to compare to total deaths in all of WW2 if that's what you wanted.

"The true cost of life" is about as vague a statement you can get aimed at making a number as high as possible. Let's talk reliable estimates. What have you got?

Kind of proves my point doesn’t it, the fact that you can’t find much on it. I’m assuming that you didn’t read the guardian link you put up. If you did and followed some of the links on that page it explains it to you. It’s a relatively new phrase, I’ll give you that but it’s been around since Australian academics started drawing up a map of known/confirmed sites in Australia where massacres took place and documenting them, it’s that document that’s known as The Killing Time and as the articles in the Guardian tells you has triggered much debate in Australia about their colonial history and origins. The map (which is still being updated, again all in your link) is starting a process of reflection in Australia and many there, just like here are resistant to the fact that their forefathers ever did anything wrong. But they at least as a nation are starting to have that conversation.

 

[Grendel]

Kind of proves my point doesn’t it, the fact that you can’t find much on it. I’m assuming that you didn’t read the guardian link you put up. If you did and followed some of the links on that page it explains it to you. It’s a relatively new phrase, I’ll give you that but it’s been around since Australian academics started drawing up a map of known/confirmed sites in Australia where massacres took place and documenting them, it’s that document that’s known as The Killing Time and as the articles in the Guardian tells you has triggered much debate in Australia about their colonial history and origins. The map (which is still being updated, again all in your link) is starting a process of reflection in Australia and many there, just like here are resistant to the fact that their forefathers ever did anything wrong. But they at least as a nation are starting to have that conversation.

Its called the Killing Time as that’s the title given by the Guardian Special Report Tony and I assume is a take of sorts on the Killing Fields