Fugawi, I agree with you.
I would LOVE this to be a good Pictures thread (as it has been for a long time now).
My problem is people who read too many books written by revisionists who didn't need to revise in the first place.
Reality is bad enough; we don't need to trash it up with poorly-written denunciations backed by far too little research. Anyone who claims to know something about atrocities in the Great War SHOULD have known about the Ponsonby Commission; it has been public knowledge since 1922. I mean, really I CAN'T be the first person in 50 years to have researched this..... and then nobody after me for the next 40????????
A quote from that great American philosopher/historian/visionary Fox Mulder: "The truth is out there...."
Sorry for being suckered in, guys.
Have to come up with some REAL good pics for this......
I agree 100% about "revisionists who didn't need to revise", but who exactly are the revisionists? There's the rub eh?
Lots of talk around about the devilish cunning of British propaganda, not many concrete examples though. The Ponsonby Commission apologized for some exaggerated or false stories? Good. Did they discredit any of the thousands of other incidents in British, French or Belgian records? I guess not.
As for the Ponsonby Commission, I've read similar comments by British officers. "Professionals" never want to believe that fellows in their profession can be murderers and criminals; the recognition taints them too, they instinctively feel. We see this all the time, even today, don't we? The British are particularly prone to this sort of good-natured gullibility: wanting to believe that others "mean well" and everyone is "basically decent" and similar tripe. Bless their souls, they had to learn the hard way, twice. These same easy-going, rather easily duped British are somehow transformed by a declaration of war into sneaking fiends of propaganda?
So I'll see your Ponsonby Commission and raise you a Bryce Report, and I'll throw in
"German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial", by John Horne and Alan Kramer, Yale University Press 2001. (450 pages, 145 pages of notes, sources and bibliography)
You suggested that the 30 Years War helped to shape the national psychology; are you saying it skipped the WWI generation then?
Here's a couple of concrete examples out of thousands that no one has ever ascribed to "British propaganda": the massacre of 674 Belgian men, women and children at Dinant on the 23rd of August 1914. And second an incident with a Canadian flavour: the sinking of the hospital ship Llandovery Castle and systematic murder of the survivors by shooting and ramming the lifeboats by the U-86. 234 dead on the 27th of June 1918, including 14 nurses.
And Smellie I think you know that I value your contributions here as much as anyone, but I'm sure you'd agree that debate is healthy at any age and I'm sure someone of your intelligence doesn't take it personally.
Well, we'll leave reality there folks, you can have your thread back now.
Roll your pictures!