Did you choose to ignore my first post?
The History Thread
- Thread starter SteveJ
- Start date
Did you choose to ignore my first post?
The one which acknowledges that Dresden was a legitimate target, but its methodology of execution was unnecessarily brutal? Think I’d have phrased it differently.
The one which explains why it wasn’t a war crime.
your comment of “only axis charged with war crimes” seems like a weird “both sides”fallacy
What? Care to elaborate? Were there war crimes committed by the Allies in WWII?
Depends what you mean by war crimes?
Legal definition of war crimes? Or "severely morally bankrupt stuff"
Not sure how war crimes could have been committed by the Allies in WWII when the concept of war crimes didn't exist until 4 years after the ending of hostilities.
If you want to retroactively apply them, there were cases where individuals or groups of individuals committed acts which could be classed as such, but as a systemic organization? No, the Western allies did not commit systemic war crimes.
The Soviets did commit systemic war crimes, though less by intention and more to do with stavka being unable to contain the rage of 15 million angry men.
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“Conquistadores” by Fernando Cervantes covers the story from Columbus through to Pizarro. The author is a little bit generous to the Spanish in his judgments but he does a good job of framing the story in the context of the worldview of the Europe of the late 15th/early 16th century.
Excellent, looks exactly what I’m after, thanks.
Dresden was a war crime. Even the BBC reported it as such a few years ago on the anniversary.
Are we seriously going down this route?
Please, if you're going to make confident statements like this atleast have something to back yourself up with.
Although, I will find it remarkable if you find sources better than Soviet/Nazi/Allied War Archives.
From Sennefer, Mayor of Thebes in the 18th Dynasty, under the rule on Amenhotep III.
I love these very normal letters that pop up every now and again. An annoyed boss with a lazy employee.
Nah, I'm with @neverdie on this
Are we seriously going down this route?
Please, if you're going to make confident statements like this atleast have something to back yourself up with.
Although, I will find it remarkable if you find sources better than Soviet/Nazi/Allied War Archives.
Then kindly scroll back a page and fully read everything I wrote on this topic.
I had a course in Greek papyrology once - which in practice consisted mostly of deciphering and reading ancient Greek letters. All kinds of business, administrative, and personal letters. Mundane stuff and it would be fairly boring for other time periods, but since this is exactly what you never see for Greek and Roman history otherwise, it was absolutely fascinating.
Was it archaic or something like koine? I had to do a little koine some years ago for New Testament modules at seminary.
Mundanity is perfect for the ancient world, which to the average person is covered by a mist of mystery, magic and mythology. People can barely think of the ancient world in any way other than in an almost otherworldly perspective. So these little letters to farmers and shopping lists are brilliant. It gives the common class character, which is usually missing from a layman's view of what the ancient world looked like.
It was Greek papyri, so koine by definition, cause the Greeks weren't there much before that. Well, I suppose there might be earlier texts, but there would be very little of it. There was also a text in Latin in our textbook actually, I think it was a soldier from Roman that had been stationed in Egypt and wrote home to his mom.
Yeah, exactly, Graeco-Roman history usually comes from the perspective of the elite and their filtering of information, so these texts are great. You do have more sources like that of course, like Egyptian papyri, infinite Mesopotamian business documents on clay tablets, and tons of Roman administrative materials; but I think these papyri give a glimpse of ordinary day-to-day life like nothing else.
Stonehenge megalith came from Scotland, not Wales, ‘jaw-dropping’ study finds
Monument’s largest ‘bluestone’ moved more than 450 miles – a discovery researchers say rewrites relationships between Neolithic populations
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...m-scotland-not-wales-jaw-dropping-study-finds
The New York Times' first article about Hitler's rise is absolutely stunning
https://www.vox.com/2015/2/11/8016017/ny-times-hitler
Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
Regarding the latter part, of how "Polite German society was not ready for a radically violent movement as Hitler's", is a bit of an incorrect statement.
German nobility, or more specifically Prussian dominated Germany nobility were, by culture, incredibly violent. Clauswitz and Bismarck were some of the earlier true pioneers of Realpolitik and they saw violence as a natural extension of politics, and that it was a legitimate, and effective method of achieving political goals at a national level, namely war.
That's why the majority of the German nobility didn't really take on Hitler openly. Though they were appalled by his blaise words, disregard for the appearance of civility, secretly they applauded the geopolitical goals of Hitler, though not from a genocidal and ideological movement, but from the perspective of Prussian Military Glory and dynastic German power. Gerd Von Rundstedt's memoirs goes quite deeply into this.
Interesting that back then they also (interchangeably) referred to Russia instead of the Soviet Union.
off topic but I'm on hols in Bulgaria and a taxi driver told me the country is still controlled by the USSR
I would love for a 2-3 hour documentary about WW2 to be storylined through newspaper headlines. So we can see chronologically how events were reported back then in "realtime". And what the narratives were.
Spain and Portugal began to abandon their governmental dogma the same time as all the other western nations did when they realized what their dogma did was almost being the entire continent to ruin.
The treaty of Westphalia was the beginning of the end of religious based foreign policy and dogmatic fighting and the beginning of the transition to secular democracies or imperial secular rule.
Which was wayyy before any of the other countries you specified abandoned them. That’s not to say some stuff wasn’t still religiously motivated, like destiny manifest and Cecil Rhodes but ultimately by 1648 Europe began to secularize quickly.
To quote a famous band:
“Has man gone insane, the few shall remain, religion and greed, cost millions to bleed” in reference to 1648
So what we do of the 1500 and 1648? Precisely Spain started to lose the grip on its world dominance when there. So are you saying when it started to be less dogmatic it lost the power?
i don't understand the question?
The point is that the Western World developed and gained power far quicker and cemented that power compared to what people refer to nowadays as "third world countries" because it threw away it's idiotic religious based foreign policy and focused on actually improving the nations wealth and political position.
Spain's relative position compared to other Western European states isn't the focus of the point nor is it relevant.
Find a different thread, please.
Western world became a supremacy power when their armies became superior technologically speaking. Nothing else
Nooo, why did you have to put them in this thread? This thread is pure.
Let's make it down and dirty.
Oops sorry I made another post before I saw the notification.
In what example?
Obviously Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd argue without clearly defined realistic victory conditions you can't win.
Clickbait titles was also a thing back then too.
But isn't this similar with how England and UK is/was used interchangeably (sometimes) too? At least by not English people.
Still US still dominate the area and so what they want with them. US was not there for a war of conquest.
How about:
The Iraqi 1st Armoured Division and the Iraqi 3rd Division, totalling 30,000 troops, with a full complement of 300 M1A1 Abrams Tanks, A battalion of AH64D Apache Helicopters, with M113 APC's, Black Hawk Helicopters and Fixed Wing Air Support:
Got absolutely and decisively destroyed by 2500 ISIS fighters with AK47s, RPG's and Toyota Hilux pickup trucks.
So i cant single out 150 years of spain world dominance but you single out a battle?
Also that means in your example that the most dogmatic wins?
You contradict yourself twice in your example
This was reported in 1933.
HITLER PUTS ASIDE AIM TO BE DICTATOR;
HITLER PUTS ASIDE AIM TO BE DICTATOR;
https://www.nytimes.com/1933/01/31/...-be-dictator-german-cabinet-also-reveals.html
Ah I don’t know if you’re purposefully choosing to completely miss the point.
Would not do that on purpose so i might be thick. You are equating dominance of western civilization to loaong its dogmas. I say is for their supperior military might, mainly technological differences with fire arms and superior vessels
You refute my argument on a single battle when we could find many more others where army superiority wins it all. At the same time if we accept your example to disprove my argument take in account that the one that wins in that battle has a more dogmatic approach contradicting your initial argument. So you cant have it both
This is what i undertand at this point
NOW please let me know where i got lost and what is your point i missed, please