There have been many complaints that Britain does not do enough to state its case to the world.
on 06/22/2009 at 02:54 AM
Wow - now I have to admit WWI is not my thing but I can put this into some perspective (having lived with 4 history buffs and in Germany 2 times). Quite a piece - even then the ‘press’ felt that if the people heard it raw - they would understand. They didn’t then, and I fear that they won’t now.
These resolute and ruthless people who are eager to stand up to a cannonade are frightened at a whisper. But our poor, degenerate unpatriotic democracies – as they tell us we are – not only do not mind what is said about, us but welcome and positively relish the fullest expression of the Nazi views.
Just change Nazi in there and this could be printed today about the Obama Administration.
And that, people, is utterly terrifying.
God Help America
Re: Franco, you are both quite true in this matter.
Hitler’s attempt to “encircle” France is perhaps better summed up as an attempt to strike at France from multiple directions at once, witht the Germans from the Northeast, the “Italians” (read: other Germans) in the Southeast, and a possible Portuguese-Spanish joint attack from the Southwest.
Of course, you are correct that Franco was a major irritant to the Germans, given his semi-halified-ok-maybe-next-year habit of negotiating. This wasn’t because he necessarily LIKED the Western Allies or innately distrusted Hitler (as I have seen all too many Franco apologists say), but because he was hedging his bets. And he eventually hedged them right out of the gate.
However, the Germans certainly tried, and Franco himself was all to willing to give them virtually all help above the level of open war.
Posted by Turtler
06/22/2009 at 02:04 PM
Dont forget this was all enabled by the communists (google the french aero industry in the 30s, France was in the grip of communist unions and a fascist government) the commie party was big in England and France, the commie demonstrations NOT to oppose Hitler pushed public opinion and the government into appeasement (source:- Churchills diaries) I put the blame firmly on the left, with good reason (there is a word to scare lefties with) Hitler used the Jews like the left use global warming (not quite fair, some jews had been financially malicious and global warming is a con)
These are scary times, I would like to think the lefty new world order has left it too late, we should make this the end game, one good start would be to take the Liberal party back from the authoriterians , surely it cannot be remotely possible to be liberal and left wing?Posted by Chris Edwards
06/22/2009 at 08:21 PM
It must be said again that no matter his reputation, Franco did save Spain from going red.
And he was the only one who could in those times. A communist Spain would have been far worse then Spain under Franco. Interesting too that so much of the anti Franco diatribes in later years, came from the left.
All ancient history I guess.T. re. Portuguese.
About 5 yrs ago I stumbled upon a govt. site newly opened to the public on the Portuguese
and WW2. I wish I could just remember the darn name of the file. I don’t even recall what made me open the document or click the link or how I arrived there.I’ve never seen so much print in one place so help me Hannah. Thousands of words and ALL damn interesting too. Portuguese apparently were bullied and threatened to aid allies etc.
Brits had a big hand in it but man oh man did the USA carry a HUGE stick and threatened to use it. I spent hours reading it and naturally there were tons of related links which I got lost in. Even after spending hours with it, I never did finish it all.
Who could have guessed that Portuguese would occupy so darn much printed space. You would find it most interesting I am sure.Don’t know why but I keep thinking perhaps Library of Congress. ?? Would that sort of thing be stored there? Or another govt. agency?
The Franco thing is interesting, the commies I think called themselves something occlusive, as usual, and there was a lot of support from the acting profession, as usual for the privileged, for the oppressive left. At what point would we have been better off under the Nazis?
Posted by Chris Edwards
06/24/2009 at 06:56 PM
better off under the Nazis?
Wow. That’s an uncomfortable thought.
It must be said again that no matter his reputation, Franco did save Spain from going red.
Perhaps, but two things need clarification:
A. At what cost?
B. Define “Red.”
“Red” as in the Communist party and a Spanish Soviet? Or Red as in the Democratic Socialists and other well-intentioned idiots.
The former may have done as much damage to Spanish Democracy as Franco and his Coup did. The later is, unfortunately, a genuine and necessary part of every Democracy.
Towards the end of the war, the “Republic” certainly looked like the former, but what about BEFORE the war and the Western embargo? What was the Republic and its policies like before Franco and his goons forced the trash to the top of his opponents?
I cannot get a solid answer, but it is clear that there is FAR more than Franco or his henchhistorians like to show.
And he was the only one who could in those times.
Extremely, EXTREMELY doubtful. Hell, his Co-Conspirators whom we hear vastly less of in spite of virtually all factors (Sanjuro, Mola, etc) CERTAINLY disagreed, given their rather offensive nicknames for him (Miss Canary Islands ‘36). Again, was the Communist influence in Spain reaching such a point that it foundationally crippled Spanish Democracy and could only be forced back by a coup?
I am not so sure. Spain mid-late 19th and early 20th century were little more than chaos wrapped up in urban unrest smothered in rural uprisings candied with Imperial dreams of grandeur and occasionally flavoured by open war (civil or foreign). All mention of
how THIS was somehow *THE* last chance should be taken with an ENORMOUS grain of salt.In addition, Franco had absolutely every reason to burn all bridges. Manymanymanymany of the Nationalist strategies during the war (including the carpet bombing of Bilbao and other charmers) was meant to outrage while marginalizing the moderate Republicans while forcing the radicals to the forefront. So forgive me if Franco gets rather little credit for saving the cabin from the forest fire he largely started.
A communist Spain would have been far worse then Spain under Franco.
Well, it depends on the particular Communards who become Dear Leader and Co, I suppose. However, even if we ACCEPT that, we must keep in mind that Franco was FAR worse than many of the other possibilities (hell, even than a few of the alternative Nationalist governments that were contemplated).
That, and we are forgetting the risk he posed to the West during WWII, and the possibilities if he had entered the war.
The bottom line is that, like the Confederacy’s “reasons” in the US Civil War, strip away the religious reasons, strip away the sanctamoneous moralizing, strip away the grand pronouncements, and the bottom line reason for the Nationalist revolt boils down too… the fact that they lost an election. That is quite literally what it is when all boils away.
This is why I tend to get VERY irritated by those who insist on whitewashing the Confederacy or the Nationalists by trying to hand-wave
Interesting too that so much of the anti Franco diatribes in later years, came from the left.
“Diatribes?” Yes, many of those do come from the Left, including those who probably would have backed a far bloodier and less savory Leftist government ala Che or (per capita, anyway) Castro.
But by NO means are all criticisms of Franco Leftist revisionism- if anything, just the opposite. It IS worth noting that the dozens of thousands of dead both during the war and after can largely be traced to him (sometimes even directly), that he had the potential of exploding into the type of threat that even the Communist Vietnamese almost never would have matched, and that he was, in general, scum.
Unfortunately, I have seen far too many on the Right bend over backwards to whitewash or excuse the actions of Franco, Salazar, Pinochet, Batista, etc.
Regardless of whatever relatively minor benefits they gave us (like preventing a Communist power on the Pyrenees), they must be held accountable for their crimes. To do otherwise is to do a disservice to those who were butchered without remorse and without reason by both sides in the Civil War and beyond.
Portuguese apparently were bullied and threatened to aid allies etc.
Brits had a big hand in it but man oh man did the USA carry a HUGE stick and threatened to use it.Can’t say I’m surprised, and as for the Portuguese, well they can go cry me a river.
Yes, we threatened to use armed force, yes occasionally USED it (see a few of the African colonies), and yes we had no issues about using embargoes, espionage, and even a few assassinations to get the point across.
But, given Portugal’s financial and military aid to Germany and its ideological ties to the Third Reich, forgive me if I don’t really take such complaints as being oh-so-terrible.
The fact is that we had every reason to believe that is Franco went with the Germans, Salazar would go with him. In addition, it was a VERY open secret that German spies and even your occasional covert military outfit operated from Spanish and Portuguese territories (with the possible exception of East Timor, which was officially occupied by the Japanese), and god knows the amount of damage they did. And hell, if the Portuguese think what we did was unjustified, they should examine Brazil and quit complaining (not coincidentally Brazil had a regime patterned after the Portuguese one, and it was even more openly pro-German than Lisbon was, pretty much up until Brazil declared war on Germany).
Another thing you may want to keep in mind while checking Portuguese grievances: you will probably see a lot of mentions regarding Western Allied seizures of Portuguese shipping in both world wars.
What you probably WON’T hear them mention is that, towards the end of both wars, what passed for the officially-flagged German Navy in both conflicts that was actually out of port was usually underwater (for one reason or another), and to rectify this, the Germans had a VERY nasty habit of flagging their ships as Portuguese (or occasionally Spanish and in the early years Brazilian) to ship things out. Even in the later part of WWI- FOLLOWING the Portuguese declaration of war against Germany- Western Allied naval observers noted that the Portuguese ships that were NOT torpedoed by the U-Boats had a bad habit of making supply drops to areas behind enemy lines, particularly in Africa. In addition, Lisbon was a known hub for German Espionage and smuggling, and German contacts in the Portuguese governments from 1900-1950 ran deep, to the point that, towards the dying days of WWI, the handful of Portuguese forces in the field in France were denied reinforcements by their government, which had been taken over by pro-German factions.
Long story short, Portugal was hardly innocent, and Western Allied threats were hardly without reason. So talk all sources with salt. A considerable amount of it.
As for sources, well, I honestly don’t know. Lisbon is the obvious place to start, but time and resource issues may rule that out for you. The best guess I could make would be to browse through American or British sources, or to check the internet.
Posted by Turtler
06/28/2009 at 05:22 AM
browse through American or British sources.
as for the Portuguese, well they can go cry me a river.T.
Thanks.
As for the Portuguese. I didn’t mean to infer that they were complaining. No.It was just that I had stumbled on the American site for Library of Congress. (I think it was them) And was riveted by the wealth of information presented and was also very much surprised by much of what I read.
Yes, I knew the Portuguese of the day were pro German. But I hadn’t any idea of the extent of it. But anyway, it was all very interesting and informative. The site was loaded with comments from the players of the day and diaries and interagations etc. Much very dry as you might expect, but very hard to quit reading.Re. Franco.
As I understood my reading of the period, it could have very likely been that a Spanish Soviet would have set up as they were better organized with Russian help for a time.Re. Franco. He just wasn’t going to play ball with the Germans as the Nazis had hoped or thought. Spain just was not in any position to fight an Axis war, and Franco knew it.
I’ve been reading Ciano’s diaries lately. Now that is an eye opener. I hadn’t realized the extent of anti-German feelings there were among the man in the street. And we aren’t talking about communists.
According to Ciano, The Duce said that while Germany was a military country, the Germans weren’t truly warriors. He said, Give them barrels of beer and sausage and they’re happy and aren’t willing to face bayonets. I think he read em wrong.Bottom line too if you will, none of these folks were exactly the kind of ppl we’d want to live next door to. But I also think you must take the very human feelings of pure hate into account as well. No, I don’t mean that to be an excuse for butchery. But it is an explanation to account for the way folks allow themselves to treat each other in the extremes of war.
As the history of Stalin and his fan club show (for now at least) communism is just about the most dangerous regime to try and live under, you cannot have democratic socialism, they are opposite, socialism is a law unto its self ask Peiper how democratic nu-labour and the EU are. I think the time has come to point out to the masses that Stalin was far worse than Hitler(bear in mind that for most of the war the nazis were under awful pressure from all sides whereas Stalin was safe after the germans failed to take Moscow, and from then on communism destroyed millions of people.I would also like to point out how anyone who wants to tax and spend is NOT a liberal, neither is anyone who wants to enlarge government and erode your freedom. Libertarianism is the precious ground never to the left of centre and not far to the right.
Posted by Chris Edwards
06/28/2009 at 08:08 PM
