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Missed opportunities and hypocrisy leading up to WWII.

Discussion in 'WWII General' started by USMCPrice, May 14, 2016.

  1. USMCPrice

    USMCPrice Idiot at Large

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    It's just my opinion but, I feel that is a spurious argument. How is it less evil to kill your own people than to kill someone elses people? More modern examples such as the Khmer Rouge killing a millon or more of their fellow Cambodians, the Rwandan mass killings of between 500,000 and 1 million, or the murders in the Darfur region of the Sudan at a mere 300,000 are all generally carried out by what the international community considers "evil" regimes or as I called the "bad guys".

    Stalin with 1.2 million killed and several times that number shipped off to Gulag's is right up there numbers wise. The fact that he targeted ethnic Poles at one point (111,091 killed per Soviet records), and in Mongolia targeted Buddhist monks, nobility and academia makes it more than just "his own people. Also at his urging and with NKVD help, one of his acolytes, Sheng Shicai, carried out a purge in conjunction with Stalin's in Xinjiang China (borders Russian and Mongolia). Then add to that his invasion of Poland where there were killings and Poles shipped off to Gulag's (how were these different than concentration camps?).

    Poland's Holocaust. McFarland.
    In September, even before the start of the Nazi atrocities that would horrify the world, the Soviets began their own program of systematic individual and mass executions. On the outskirts of Lwów, several hundred policemen were executed at one time. Near Łuniniec, officers and noncommissioned officers of the Frontier Defence Cops together with some policemen, were ordered into barns, taken out and shot ... after December 1939, three hundred Polish priests were killed. And there were many other such incidents.

    Nobody will probably ever know for sure how many Poles the Soviets massacred, between 300,000 and 1.5 million were deported to prisons and camps, and how dare we forget the infamous Katyn Forest massacre in April/May 1940, a mere 22,000 Poles murdered. They also invaded Finland in November 1939, not so much different from what Hitler was doing. The Soviets did eventually fight on the allied side, but that was more out of necessity than free choice.

    Chiang Kai-Shek was a close German ally starting in May of 1933. They had an agreement where they traded Tungsten, antimony and other strategic materials that China possessed in bulk for military aid.

    [​IMG]

    This is H.H. Kung, Chiang's Finance Minister meeting with Hitler in 1937.

    Germany loaned China 100 million Reichsmarks to buy German arms and equipment. Germany built railroads in China for Chiang's government. In 1936 Germany and Chiang signed the Three Year Plan where Germany helped with industrial modernization, supplied military training and extended an additional 100 million Reichmarks line of credit. China became Germany's third largest trading partner. Chiang publicly supported Germany in it's seizure of Austria in 1938.

    [​IMG]

    Nationalist Chinese soldiers, note anything about the helmets and gear???

    Starting in 1927 Chiang had 12,000 people killed in Shanghai, 300,000+ country wide during his "White Terror". One of Chiang's Generals Bai Chongxi was famously given the "The Hewer of Communist Heads" in the western press. General Bai would later be Chiang's first Minister of National Defense for the Republic of China in 1946. Funny how these beheadings are less egregious than those by the Japanese at Nanking several years later. Chiang's biggest killing was when he destroyed the dikes at Huayuankou in 1938, resulting in the deaths of 800-900,000 people by drowning, and made 10-12 million people refugees. It has been called "largest act of environmental warfare in history." The destruction of farmland and infrastructure led directly to the 1942 famine that killed an additional 2-3 million people. Chiang initially tried to place the blame on the Japanese, but it didn't work. He did however reap what he sowed, the areas he flooded became fertile recruiting grounds for the Chinese Communists and played a large role in his postwar defeat by them.
     
  2. green slime

    green slime Member

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    So what were these "real reasons" to which you elude?
     
  3. Tamino

    Tamino Doc - The Deplorable

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    Here you are, an answer by a prominent historian:




     
  4. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    So, Britain was planning to expand the empire via WWII? First I've heard of it.
     
  5. Tamino

    Tamino Doc - The Deplorable

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    Where have either I or Overy stated that?
     
  6. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    "Last great imperial war" can be interpreted that way. And I did.
     
  7. Tamino

    Tamino Doc - The Deplorable

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    You may think whatever you want - that's your right and yours only. But if you want to find out more, the book can be purchased on ebay for just $9.39.
     
  8. USMCPrice

    USMCPrice Idiot at Large

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    Found this interesting tidbit while reading today, something I did not know. It is off topic but since I started the thread I figured it was OK to share.

    [​IMG]

    This is LtGen. Hyakutake Seikichi. He had two older brothers that served as Admirals in the Imperial Japanese Navy. He had served as Japanese Resident Officer in Poland from 1925 to 1927 (thread tie in #1). He commanded the Japanese forces that fought the Marines at Guadalcanal and (tie in #2) was a classmate of Chiang Kai-Shek at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy class of 1909.
     
  9. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    Nah.
     
  10. green slime

    green slime Member

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    The question was:

    "What were the real reasons (that were so desperately hidden) Britain was involved in Central European affairs?"

    To which an answer

    "In September 1939 Britain embarked on her last great imperial war."
    -Richard Overy The Road to War

    Is entirely inadequate, bordering on nonsensical. You'll need to expand a great deal on your explanation if you wish to provide anything beyond mirth.
     
  11. Tamino

    Tamino Doc - The Deplorable

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    Richard Overy is:

    1. Fellow of the Royal British Historical Society,
    2. Fellow of British Academy
    3. Fellow of King's College

    I trust his judgement; I have read his book "The Road to War" twice and I have found his point of view is convincing. Read it too and I am sure you would understand.

    But I understand why you are so perplexed, let me explain.

    Conversation in this theme reveals how profoundly propaganda has penetrated into the minds of ordinary people and some historians. For those affected by propaganda it is perfectly normal that certain countries, Britain and France, have swollen beyond the limits of controllability and in the same time they lament about some other countries (Germany and USSR) taking small chunks of other countries (Poland). How Britain and France have deserved such a preferential treatment? By spreading propaganda about »benevolent« imperialism and »just« aggressive application of their military forces to provide world domination.

    There are no such things as »benevolent imperialism« and »just aggression«. But people prefer to believe the myth that their relative wealth originates from »just« domination over other peoples possessions. However, wealth of western civilisation today does originate to some extent from misery West (NATO, USA) have created in Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya ... The same old story - they did it then and they do it now. Whether you like it or not it is plain truth.
     
  12. green slime

    green slime Member

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    I know who Overy is. I'm not buying what you are saying, because you've taken it out of context. Purely because you want to make a point about something else entirely, than what Overy himself was stating.

    The question is still: "What were the real reasons (that were so desperately hidden) Britain was involved in Central European affairs?"

    Your replies have not addressed the issue. You allude to there being some vague reason of "Empire", but without any details, it becomes impossible to delve any deeper than your trivial empire bashing. Whether you like it or not, without evidence it's just opinion.

    You need to be far more explicit and detailed to convince.
     
  13. Tamino

    Tamino Doc - The Deplorable

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    This is NOT me:

    [​IMG]
     
  14. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    "Conversation in this theme reveals how profoundly propaganda has penetrated into the minds of ordinary people and some historians. "

    Meaning your favored propaganda is better than everybody else's propaganda?
     
    USMCPrice and Takao like this.
  15. USMCPrice

    USMCPrice Idiot at Large

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    Very astute statement, and one of the things I was thinking when I started the thread. We all practice hypocrisy to one extent or another. Those we needed as allies were painted, with propaganda, as noble patriots, standing in the breach against evil aggression. We all accentuated the crimes of our potential adversaries and minimized those of our allies.
     
  16. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    Nobody ever tells the whole story about anything, it's just not possible. So we all tell what we think is important, and decide what to leave out for whatever reasons. If you wish to deem that hypocrisy you're free to do so. I simply call it "doing what's possible." Hyperwar doesn't come close to telling the "whole story" of WWII, but it gives the reader a place to start and, in many cases, gives them many places to start. That, for me, is the beauty of history, you can cut through the Gordian knot, but you can never unravel it. Follow the threads and see where they take you, that's the wonder of it.
     
  17. Tamino

    Tamino Doc - The Deplorable

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    You may think what you want but a scientist, prominent historian Overy, in an interview with Laurence Rees, presents his view on the events leading to the war without embellishments:

    Hitler didn’t choose Poland as the site and he didn’t want to fight the Western powers in September 1939. He wanted to fight them, if he had to fight them at all, later on. But the British and French chose that as their site, and nobody else did.

    Does anyone need further interpretations? This was rather straightforward statement. Britain and France did not want neither to fight for Poland nor attack USSR at that time. Target was Germany.
     
  18. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    So, everybody else is wrong?
     
  19. Tamino

    Tamino Doc - The Deplorable

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    Science isn't what everybody thinks but what the facts indicate. Before Gallilei the Earth was a flat surface.

    You may start a poll and I am sure you would easily win with your "interpretation", I have no illusions about that. People think what pleases them.
     
  20. green slime

    green slime Member

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    What is the point you are rather confusedly trying to make? None of your quoted texts provide evidence to any "hidden" motives, nor imperial desire. How is this in itself a "hypocrisy" or "missed opportunity" as per the OP?

    The statements you quote are rather mundane, trivial, and obvious. They do not, however, support the kind of conspiratorial theory you are alluding to.

    Britain and France did not force Germany to invade Poland. Germany under Hitler made itself a target.

    Or are you trying to suggest it was British servicemen dressed as Poles that attacked the German Radio station at Gleiwitz on 31st August 1939?
     

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