STAND UP, SHAKE IT OFF, AND GET OUT THERE AND FIGHT.
on 10/12/2008 at 10:43 AM
I agree that Ts words are right on.
I heard this, it is about the devil - it was a preacher who spoke it - but it really does hold true as we face the next few weeks of never ending attack:
The enemy has already been defeated, he has no power over us. His only power over us is if we believe his lies.
Fits quite well with our current opposition (whatever you believe that opposition to be).
For those who are gun people - our local Range has bumper stickers -
John McCain Hit the Bullseye with Sarah Palin
How appropriate.
Were it not for Charles de Gaulle going to Britain in defiance of the tactily legit Vichy government, it is possible that the French Colonies would have fallen to Germany.
The only good thing de Gaulle ever did was block Britain’s entrance to the Common Market. Sadly when he died the traitors got their way and we joined the worthless organisation. As for the French colonies. Churchill’s decision to attack the French fleet at Mers-el-kebir put them in their place.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-Kébir
” As for the French colonies. Churchill’s decision to attack the French fleet at Mers-el-kebir put them in their place.”
BZZZZZZTTTTTT!!
Wrong answer.
Mers-El-Kebir was not meant to intimidate the French colonies out of Vichy’s orbit. You would know this if you studied the rationale the British put forth for their strike. Mers-El-Kebir is sort of the modern day Anglo-Danish Campaign in the Napoleonic Wars (which was launched by the British to prevent the Danish Navy from being used by Napoleon).
Indeed, Mers-El-Kebir, if you study the Vichy response, actually IRRITATED the French colonies that remained Vichy. From that point on, the Free French would not take even one SINGLE colony more from the Vichy regime without armed action. Most of the turnover you imply happened BEFORE Mers-El-Kebir, which was trigged by De Gaulle’s setting up of the Free French government and by Western Allied forces contacting the French colonial admins to try and get them to defect.
That is not saying that Mers-El-Kebir was a mistake, far from it, as the possibility of the Reich seizing the Vichy fleet can be clearly shown by the fact that 70%+ of the “French” in the fleet when it was attacked were actually Germans listed as Frenchmen. But, while it was valuable, it is dishonest to state that it brought the French colonies into line behind Britain, when it did not.
In addition, does the raising of several hundred thousand French soldiers to fight alongside the Western Allies not count as a significant “good thing?”
De Gaulle, especially in his latter life, was a hardcore French nationalist who disliked the idea of France being dominated in an alliance by the “prefidious Anglo-Saxons”, but, at the same time, he took a MASSIVE risk (he was condemned to death in Abstentia by both Germany and Vichy) in fleeing to continue the fight.
Accept him as you will, but without him, it is likely that the French colonies could have fallen to Germany. He was not a massive, massive player in the Western Allies like Churchill or Roosevelt, but he was not a weak or insignificant factor.
And, for all of De Gaulle’s failings, it must be remembered that he was a staunch believer in the Republic (though certainly not without his unappealing features), and it takes A LOT of nerve to choose the WEAK HORSE by fleeing to an overstretched Britain with a handful of followers to try to rally a badly mauled France back into the fight.
And that is why, for whatever his many faults, you can’t deny he was brave nor that he did not fight for a just cause.
Posted by Turtler
10/12/2008 at 06:49 PM
Very very good, that. The only way to guarantee defeat is to surrender, the only way to stand a chance of victory is to fight. Never give up, never surrender.
My point was not that the attack on the French fleet was intended to sway the French colonies. It was carried out to remove the French navy from the equation. Churchill gambled that the action would undoubtedly provoke the French and cause a lot of hostility. However had the Germans or Italians gained control of the French ships it would most certainly have encouraged the French colonies. As for De Gaulle’s courage in fleeing to England. One might ask where else would he go? Maybe he was braver than most of his countrymen by not joining the Vichy government but as for a MASSIVE risk. I’m afraid I don’t see it. Do you think Hitler would have shaken Churchill by the hand if the Germans had won, or given the Polish /Czech/Canadian/American pilots a big thank you for shooting down the luftwaffe?
De Gaulle was tolerated by Churchill and Roosevelt because he was useful I agree but he was no great shakes as a wartime leader or in peacetime truth be told.My point was not that the attack on the French fleet was intended to sway the French colonies.
Well, fair enough, though that runs directly opposite of what you said earlier:
As for the French colonies. Churchill’s decision to attack the French fleet at Mers-el-kebir put them in their place.
Which we have established was not the case.
However had the Germans or Italians gained control of the French ships it would most certainly have encouraged the French colonies.
Huh?
but as for a MASSIVE risk. I’m afraid I don’t see it.
Well, let me put it this way:
The Western Allies after the Western European fiasco in 1940 had, at most, 2 million men under arms. The Germans (counting only the Germans and the units officially marked as German, unlike the faux-Italian and faux-French units that the Germans used, especially in the middle of the war) had around seven times that number in arms.
The US is sending some aid that is being interdicted to hell. The invasion of Russia was not known to be in the works yet, and it was widely assumed that the Germans would focus on Britain and the Med to destroy the Allies with their overwhelming numerical superiority (which was what they did in the leadup to Barbarossa).
It seemed very likely that the Germans would be able to keep funneling millions of men in until the Allies were simply wiped out, and even after Barbarossa began to sap the German resources, they STILL had a numerically superior force in North Africa (contrary to popular opinion, which has the Germans being grossly outnumbered, but that tends to count the Allied forces in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, where they were tied down and not able to move West until 1943).
Under such circumstances, it was viewed by MANY (most clearly by the French Benedict Arnold, Phillipe Petain) that Germany was going to WIN this wa, and that any attempts to resist would be futile and, even more, abortive, thanks to the German occupation of much of France and her colonies.
By committing what Vichy viewed as treason in fleeing to Britain to set up a pro-Allied government, he had a death sentence on his head. If he were to loose this gamble (and, make no mistake, it looked all-too possible for that too happen), he, his followers, his family, his friends, his acquaintances etc. would have been tracked down and killed (as can be seen by the fact that the Germans did so against many people with connections to De Gaulle that remained in France).
Do you think Hitler would have shaken Churchill by the hand if the Germans had won, or given the Polish /Czech/Canadian/American pilots a big thank you for shooting down the luftwaffe?
Nope. Especially in the Cases of Churchill, the Czechs, and (in particular) the Poles. However, in the case of the Commonwealth forces (which the Poles and Czechs were in), they had a relatively intact military that (fortunately) had been spared the worst damage in the France-Low Countries Campaign. The Poles and Czechs both were suffering attrition (and, indeed, as the war dragged on, they became more and more diluted from losses), but both had pre-existing forces organized.
De Gaulle had to organize his men from scratch with the help of his less-than happy Allies, and that is a massive undertaking no matter who is doing it.
but he was no great shakes as a wartime leader or in peacetime truth be told.
Exactly. He was no Napoleon, had extremely turbulent relations with his allies (a trend that continued throughout his life I might add), and played a secondary role in the campaign.
My point is that De Gaulle, for all his flaws, limitations, and hubris, had both the courage to continue fighting in a hopeless situation AND the endurance to work through immense difficulty to reorganize a Free French military from scratch to aid the fight against the Reich. History has been changed by people who fight and fight hard for seemingly lost causes. Sometimes they win against all odds (San Jacinto, Bir Hakeim/Bir El-Hamet, D-Day, New Orleans, etc), and other times they are crushed (Armenian Revolution WWI, Operation Market Garden, Bay of Pigs, Thermopylae, the Alamo, Budapet 1956, etc). And sometimes, victory on the ground is squandered by poor choices from above (Dien Bien Phu, the crushing of the Tet Offensive, Korea, etc.).
But, in spite of all these things, these men, be it the Greeks at Thermopylae, the Texan Revolutionaries, the Western Allies of WWI, the Hungarian and Czech protesters/fighters in 1956 and 1968, or countless others, they did not give up and they did not give in, even when, in many cases, they KNEW they were doomed.
That is the point I want to get across: one must Live Free or Die, and even impossible odds are not an excuse to try.
And that is why, in this election, in this War on Terror, we all have to come out (no matter how much we dislike McCain) and fight it out.
Or else there will be nothing left.
Posted by Turtler
10/12/2008 at 07:55 PM
The words of the greatest small group of RADICALS in the history of the world:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Which resulted in this bit of posturing by a small group of people concerned about their welfare:
WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES,IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION,ESTABLISH JUSTICE,INSURE DOMESTIC TRANQUILITY AND PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE ,DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH THIS CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
10/12/2008 at 06:08 PM
