[lit-ideas] Re: Barnett's Blueprint for Action
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 13:23:30 -0700
After WWI, inasmuch as we didn't really want to fight that one anyway, and
had pretty much disarmed ourselves afterwards, we didn't write the
histories, but time has passed and John Mosier has written The Myth of the
Great War, How the Germans won the Battles and How the Americans saved the
allies, a new Military History of World War I, 2001. The critical point
relative to this tangent is that until the Germans were defeated by the U.S.
at the Battle of Belleau Wood they believed they could fight the allies to a
draw. After that battle they gave it up. See Mosier, pp 321-23.
Ironically, had we stayed out and allowed the Germans to fight to a draw,
WWII probably could have been avoided.
As to WWII, the US was very much the quarterback of the victory in both the
European and Asian theaters much to the chagrin of General Montgomery in
regard to the former. Also, The Russians couldn't have defeated the Germans
in the East without US aid. In November 1941 Roosevelt authorized aid to
the USSR. The battle of Leningrad, for example, which had two phases. The
first was pretty much a stalemate. The Russians weren't able to take taken
advantage of it until they started getting aid shipped to their troops them
from Vladivostok.
American aid to the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1945 amounted to 18
million tones of material at an overall cost of $10 billion ($120 billion
modern) and 49 percent of it went through Vladivostok. [see Vladivostok
News, an article dated April 13, 2005 entitled "American aid to Soviet
Union, or unknown lend-lease." ] Prior to that aid the Soviet army was in
very bad shape. Hitler received reports of the starvation and cannibalism
of Soviet solders on the Eastern front which was part of the reason he
persisted in thinking he could win. [Hitler, 1936-1945, Nemesis by Ian
Kershaw, 2000]
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Jack Spratt
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 12:37 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Barnett's Blueprint for Action
Judith is correct in downgrading the United States role in beating the
Germans during WWII. The Soviet Union effectively won WWII in the European
theatre by defeating the Germans in a titanic struggle.
The Soviet Army and the German Army fought the largest tank battle in
history at Kursk in 1943 with over 1 million casualties on both sides.
In the Battle of Stalingrad the Soviet Army held 1,000 yards of territory
with their backs to the Volga against a German force twice their size.
Entire German armies were encircled and annihilated by the Soviets through
1943 and 1944, when the Soviet Army turned the German advance into a
retreat. It is likely they would have defeated Germany without the opening
of the western front.
Hitler knew that a two front war with a war against Russia was a formula for
defeat, since in WWI the two front war defeated Germany. He claimed that he
studied Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia but neither WWI nor his
knowledge of Napoleon prevented him from repeating these mistakes. His
explanation was that he feared that Stalin would attack him first and he
believed that the alliance would not hold between Britain, the US and the
Soviet Union. Hitler also thought that he could defeat Stalin in one
campaign.
Regarding the British, when the Germans smelled defeat in 1943 Goebbels
called for the valiance of the "Dunkirk Spirit" to be developed in the
German people. Hitler agreed. Without that British spirit there would also
have been no launching platform for D-Day in 1944 or the bombing campaign
against Germany.
As for WWI if we speculate that the US entry into that war in 1917 had not
taken place and Germany defeated those "European losers" would we have had
WWII?
The U.S. was important in WWI and WWII in Europe, but as a team player, not
the quarterback.
J.S.
The one thing we lack is a handy utopia.
Judith Evans <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
LH> the Russians could not have stopped the Germans without America's
supplies.
I read that's not the case; the Russians had stopped the Germans by then.
(I don't see your point re your reductio, but will read the exchange again.
LH> I know emotion enters in here and thinks that the colossal loss
LH> of Russian life ought to count for more than American supplies,
It certainly does think that, but also you said
L.H.> > Look at all the troops we lost
Judy Evans, Cardiff
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence <mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 7:45 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Barnett's Blueprint for Action
Judy,
I was intending a reduction ad absurdum. Irene probably missed it as well
but for different reasons.
On the other hand, assuming you have a tangent here, the Russians could not
have stopped the Germans without America's supplies. I know emotion enters
in here and thinks that the colossal loss of Russian life ought to count for
more than American supplies, but it is what it is. America's productive
capacity was crucial to the winning of WWII.
I have been reading James Bowman's Honor, a History this morning and got up
through the First World War and noted that this war is credited with a
quantum jump in the giving of honor a bad name -- and war as well. Bowman
writes on page 142, "One reason for the popularity in the west of policies
of appeasement in the 1930s was that even liberal opinion had largely come
to accept that war was avoidable simply by refusing to fight [an opinion
Irene and Mike seem to hold today]. It was in the year of Munich when C.V.
Wedgwood's magisterial yet popular history The Thirty Years War was
published. It ends with the severe moral: 'they wanted peace and they
fought for thirty years to be sure of it. They did not learn then, and have
not since, that war breeds only war." [Now doesn't that sound like Irene?]
If we look at the events of WWI we see that the absurd loss of life on both
sides was due not so much to anything intrinsic in the nature of war itself
as from leaders who refused to come up with tactics to match the modern
weaponry of the day. No platoon with fixed bayonets was a match for a well
placed machine gun. The solution to the machine gun was new tactics not what
they did in that war: the sending of another platoon with fixed bayonets.
If the tactics had been updated, and each army had skilled leaders who knew
what the updating should consist of (although the stodgy senior military
staffs kept them from being heard), the troops would not have felt their
lives were being thrown away. That is, with different tactics the troops
would see that they had a fighting chance. They would not have come away,
those who survived, with the feeling that they were merely canon fodder. My
point here is that it was poor leadership rather than war itself which
caused the "Lost Generation" and the despairing novels and movies that
created the anti-hero and a different sort of honor that honored the victim
rather than the hero.
I know that if Andreas reads this he will be thinking, there is Lawrence
praising war once again, but that isn't my intention. My intention is to
criticize the destructive anti-war sentiment that was based on the wrong
things. Further, the Wedgwood (not to mention Irene & Mike) approach to
wishing war away is absurd and has been proved absurd even though anyone
thinking about it should have been able to see it as an unworkable precept.
Also, Andreas should watch the Barnett interview before he criticizes my
opinions about war again. There are steps that can be taken that offer a
plausible process for the ultimate elimination of war. But we won't start
out with a Wedgwood-type wishing it away. We start out strong enough so
that the petty tyrants of the non-integrating gap know that it will not be
to their advantage to war with us.
http://www.booktv.org/ram/afterwords/1005/arc_btv102905_4.ram
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Judith Evans
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 9:47 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Barnett's Blueprint for Action
LH>You obviously missed the absurdity of Irene's statement
LH> and my drawing attention to it.
I read both posts, Lawrence. I don't read all the lit-ideas posts,
I admit; some are too long (IMO). I'm not though sure which
statement of Irene's you meant.
Anyway. My reaction has nothing to do with the context/s of those
of your comments that I singled out (but if you feel the context/s
exonerate them, please say so). It's all to do with the history of
"Europe"-baiting on this list and its predecessor (a baiting you did not
begin; my anger predates your posts, you will find it in Phil-Lit's
archives). It's crass, it's unpleasant, it's historically inaccurate,
and when not that, historically ill-informed, it's nasty. It
continues in the face of factual correction.
Garry Younge was surprised to find (some) Americans saying
"If it weren't for us, you'd be speaking German now". ("No",
he's been known to reply, "I'd probably be speaking Yoruba".)
You know what? If it weren't for the French, you'd be speaking
the Queen's English now.
My Polish neighbours moved out about a fortnight ago but not, as they
were going to, to return to Poland; they have a flat there but
are staying in Cardiff, in a smaller house. They're part of Britain's
settled Polish community. Poland never formally surrendered to
Germany, the Poles fought on inside and outside mainland
Europe, and their Air Force was crucial to the Battle of Britain.
My neighbour is somewhat younger than that. He doesn't talk about
that. He does talk about his liberation by Russian soldiers.
He speaks of their kindness.
Back off.
Judy Evans, Cardiff
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