Should George Washington be wiped from History?

[S.Kennedy]

The success of those campaigns is not really the point. ANZACs already knew that they were damn good soldiers and always have been. The whole reason Gallipoli is celebrated is because how much of a disaster it was, which was entirely due to the British Generals who ordered it and commanded it.

Prior to that, white NZers and Australians considered the UK the "mother country" and considered themselves part of the British Empire. The mistakes of the British commanders was a key point in history that cemented our identities as being separate from the UK, and no longer just a couple of colonial countries.

I'm not exactly refuting any of this. I'm simply pointing out that your average Australian is very much aware of Gallipoli and not aware that the Australian corps (NB: not the ANZAC corps which had been disbanded 1916) spearheaded the defeat of Imperial Germany alongside the Canadians at Battle of Amiens 1918! It is an impressive enough national achievement to warrant more attention I feel. I was being complimentary if anything.

Crikey - you are touchy about that peninsular, you lot, aren't you? There is an analogy with how the other allies see that war pertaining to the Somme and Third Ypres/Passchendaele (British), Verdun (French) and Caporetto (Italians) - you'd be forgiven of thinking we'd lost that war judging by the historiography.

 

[Bahnz]

I'm not exactly refuting any of this. I'm simply pointing out that your average Australian is very much aware of Gallipoli and not aware that the Australian corps (NB: not the ANZAC corps which had been disbanded 1916) spearheaded the defeat of Imperial Germany alongside the Canadians at Battle of Amiens 1918! It is an impressive enough national achievement to warrant more attention I feel. I was being complimentary if anything.

Crikey - you are touchy about that peninsular, you lot, aren't you? There is an analogy with how the other allies see that war pertaining to the Somme and Third Ypres/Passchendaele (British), Verdun (French) and Caporetto (Italians) - you'd be forgiven of thinking we'd lost that war judging by the historiography.

Well, it crippled the British empire, left a generation of men disfigured and traumatised, and caused a permanent shift in political and economic power away from Europe to the far side of the Atlantic. In that sense, those battles that you mentioned are much more relevant events to memorialise than the fact that the allies eventually rolled over the dying Kaiserreich in late 1918. I mean, it really probably would've been better for everyone (except maybe the Belgians) if the German plan in 1914 had worked and things had been wrapped up by Christmas.

 

[hendrix]

I'm not exactly refuting any of this. I'm simply pointing out that your average Australian is very much aware of Gallipoli and not aware that the Australian corps (NB: not the ANZAC corps which had been disbanded 1916) spearheaded the defeat of Imperial Germany alongside the Canadians at Battle of Amiens 1918! It is an impressive enough national achievement to warrant more attention I feel. I was being complimentary if anything.

Crikey - you are touchy about that peninsular, you lot, aren't you? There is an analogy with how the other allies see that war pertaining to the Somme and Third Ypres/Passchendaele (British), Verdun (French) and Caporetto (Italians) - you'd be forgiven of thinking we'd lost that war judging by the historiography.

Yeah, we tend to get a bit tetchy about unnecessary mass slaughter of barely adult men.

I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. For NZers and Australians there is very little interest in celebrating success - particularly in WWI where what they were fighting for isn't particularly appreciable. As I said - they knew they were good soldiers.

 

[Burgey]

I'm not exactly refuting any of this. I'm simply pointing out that your average Australian is very much aware of Gallipoli and not aware that the Australian corps (NB: not the ANZAC corps which had been disbanded 1916) spearheaded the defeat of Imperial Germany alongside the Canadians at Battle of Amiens 1918! It is an impressive enough national achievement to warrant more attention I feel. I was being complimentary if anything.

Crikey - you are touchy about that peninsular, you lot, aren't you? There is an analogy with how the other allies see that war pertaining to the Somme and Third Ypres/Passchendaele (British), Verdun (French) and Caporetto (Italians) - you'd be forgiven of thinking we'd lost that war judging by the historiography.

Never mind that. They played a huge role in stopping the Hun in the early part of 1918 too.

Australians do venerate Gallipoli too much imo. One of the most cringeworthy things I've seen was the 01 Ashes teams in the trenches there wearing slouch hats. I mean, come on.

 

[Spikey]

We absolutely do but equally I don't think it's particularly surprising

 

[S.Kennedy]

Well, it crippled the British empire, left a generation of men disfigured and traumatised, and caused a permanent shift in political and economic power away from Europe to the far side of the Atlantic. In that sense, those battles that you mentioned are much more relevant events to memorialise than the fact that the allies eventually rolled over the dying Kaiserreich in late 1918. I mean, it really probably would've been better for everyone (except maybe the Belgians) if the German plan in 1914 had worked and things had been wrapped up by Christmas.

And that was for the victorious. As to the defeated...

Also the only alternative to allied victory was allied defeat and I do not believe the 1918 victory, at Second Marne and during the Hundred Days, was a foregone conclusions as the Germans could've fallen back (without allied harassment and with greater thoroughness and planning than what actually happened) onto sections of the Hindenburg Line which would have merely led to a resumption of trench warfare lasting until 1919. There was enough fight in the Germans to cause horrendous allied casualties during those 1918 battles, e.g, the Americans at Meuse-Argonne. She was teetering but she had the protection of her reserve fortifications. If Ludendorff, who was half mad at that stage, had not been in command Germany might've retreated further back, back to the more economical Antwerp-Meuse line.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Yeah, we tend to get a bit tetchy about unnecessary mass slaughter of barely adult men.

I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. For NZers and Australians there is very little interest in celebrating success - particularly in WWI where what they were fighting for isn't particularly appreciable. As I said - they knew they were good soldiers.

The same is actually true of all of the allied participants pertaining to that particular war, but surely it overlooks the historic events of 1918, and rather undermines those men who won the war in the end, suffering casualties for it in order to not make sure the war did not enter 1919, or even worse, result in victory for the Central Powers.

The final string of allied victories is overlooked, which is basically my only point. Happily there are a few great books on the subject.

One myth about Australians during that war is that of them being rugged bushwacking/farmer types. You see this depicted in that Mel Gibson film. A historian who is cited in the notes of one of the books I have just read on the 1918 battles researched the majority of ANZAC backgrounds and arrived at the conclusion that most of them were actually town dwellers - doctors and teachers and so forth - and a lot were actually recent migrants from the United Kingdom.

 

[hendrix]

The same is actually true of all of the allied participants pertaining to that particular war, but surely it overlooks the historic events of 1918, and rather undermines those men who won the war in the end, suffering casualties for it in order to not make sure the war did not enter 1919, or even worse, result in victory for the Central Powers.

How?

One myth about Australians during that war is that of them being rugged bushwacking/farmer types. You see this depicted in that Mel Gibson film. A historian who is cited in the notes of one of the books I have just read on the 1918 battles researched the majority of ANZAC backgrounds and arrived at the conclusion that most of them were actually town dwellers - doctors and teachers and so forth - and a lot were actually recent migrants from the United Kingdom.

An urban background in Australiasia is not the same thing as an urban background in Europe. Even today.

 

[hendrix]

double post

 

[S.Kennedy]

How?

They are rather forgotten, cast aside in favour of the commemorative 'futility of war' indecisive mud-caked battles, of Gallipoli, Somme, Verdun and Third Ypres. The amount of books on the 1918 offensives pales in comparison to the works on those four battles. The war needed to be won in 1918 so the allies may as well have tried to win the thing, and that is what actually happened but you'd be forgiven that this wasn't the case. Not that I'm degenerating the remembrance of those aforementioned battles but the Second Marne and Hundred Days are surely forgotten?

An urban background in Australiasia is not the same thing as an urban background in Europe. Even today.

I never implied it was!

 

[Bahnz]

They are rather forgotten, cast aside in favour of the commemorative 'futility of war' indecisive mud-caked battles, of Gallipoli, Somme, Verdun and Third Ypres. The amount of books on the 1918 offensives pales in comparison to the works on those four battles. The war needed to be won in 1918 so the allies may as well have tried to win the thing, and that is what actually happened but you'd be forgiven that this wasn't the case. Not that I'm degenerating the remembrance of those aforementioned battles but the Second Marne and Hundred Days are surely forgotten?

Again, I don't see why you're at all surprised or upset about this. World War 1 destroyed old Europe. Yes, the victories of the allies in the 100 days campaign were impressive. They probably saved many lives by ending the war sooner than expected (though I tend to think that there probably would've been either a revolution in Germany or a mutiny in the army in very short order if the generals hadn't seen sense when they did).

But it was a classic pyrrhic victory for the allies. The impact that the final exhausted march to victory had on the future course of European history pales in comparison to the slaughter that took place on both western and eastern fronts in 1914-17. So yes, people remember those battles more, and historians study them more, because they had a bigger impact on society at the time, and were fundamentally more important to the way 20th century history played out.

 

[Athlai]

Didn't WW1 end when Ares was defeated by Wonder Woman?

 

[S.Kennedy]

Again, I don't see why you're at all surprised or upset about this. World War 1 destroyed old Europe. Yes, the victories of the allies in the 100 days campaign were impressive. They probably saved many lives by ending the war sooner than expected (though I tend to think that there probably would've been either a revolution in Germany or a mutiny in the army in very short order if the generals hadn't seen sense when they did).

But it was a classic pyrrhic victory for the allies. The impact that the final exhausted march to victory had on the future course of European history pales in comparison to the slaughter that took place on both western and eastern fronts in 1914-17. So yes, people remember those battles more, and historians study them more, because they had a bigger impact on society at the time, and were fundamentally more important to the way 20th century history played out.

I cannot agree seeing as it was not a foregone conclusion that the war would have been won by the allies in 1918 and that the allied successes inherently precipitated Compiègne. I'd go further and say, if we are discussing 1918 in toto and not just the allied resurgence, that before the Michael offensive petered out the situation of the German army was better than at any point of the war since 1914, since before the Marne, before the Schlieffen plan collapsed. Brest-Litovsk had released fifty German divisions for redeployment on the western front.

There was a revolution in German, between the Spartakusbund and an (uneasy) alliance of the SPD and the Germany army, throwing in multiple freikorps units which proliferated after the armistice. The Germany navy mutinied beginning at Kiel and numerous army councils and 'soviets' were established. In fact one of the reasons as to the Germans requiring an armistice so urgently was the need to redeploy the army domestically to quell the revolution.

Ultimately the far left would be defeated but the Hohenzollern/junker autocracy would be replaced by a moderate-left constitution, which still left the army present albeit chastened.

 

[Bahnz]

I cannot agree seeing as it was not a foregone conclusion that the war would have been won by the allies in 1918 and that the allied successes inherently precipitated Compiègne. I'd go further and say, if we are discussing 1918 in toto and not just the allied resurgence, that before the Michael offensive petered out the situation of the German army was better than at any point of the war since 1914, since before the Marne, before the Schlieffen plan collapsed. Brest-Litovsk had released fifty German divisions for redeployment on the western front.

Again, I'm not taking anything away from how dangerous the German army was, and that things looked pretty hairy for a while during Operation Michael. But I still don't understand exactly what you disagree with. That the victory for the allies was fundamentally pyrrhic in nature (with the obvious exceptions of the US and Japan)? That the millions of men who died during the trench stalemate was far more destabilising and had significantly farther reaching consequences for European society than the ultimate breaking of that stale-mate? I mean, it seems that your position can be summed up with the question, "Why don't we celebrate winning this war that devastated our society and ended our status as a global power?" - and I would've thought the answer to that question would've been fairly obvious...

 

[S.Kennedy]

Again, I'm not taking anything away from how dangerous the German army was, and that things looked pretty hairy for a while during Operation Michael. But I still don't understand exactly what you disagree with. That the victory for the allies was fundamentally pyrrhic in nature (with the obvious exceptions of the US and Japan)? That the millions of men who died during the trench stalemate was far more destabilising and had significantly farther reaching consequences for European society than the ultimate breaking of that stale-mate? I mean, it seems that your position can be summed up with the question, "Why don't we celebrate winning this war that devastated our society and ended our status as a global power?" - and I would've thought the answer to that question would've been fairly obvious...

My position is the exact same as the view postulated in a book I've just finished reading, that we dwell too much on the Somme (etc) and that there is not enough attention given to how the war actually ended. I never mentioned the word 'celebrate' although if you were a Frenchmen there would be a lot to celebrate seeing as 3.7% of your homeland under occupation would now be returned to the mother country - Belgium, whose entire country except western Flanders, lay under a brutal occupation, even more so.

If you regard the victory as not worth celebrating least of all remembering then you have to countenance a German victory as the only alternative, something allied victory prevented. If not an allied victory, what else? As I've said multiple times now, allied victory was not a foregone conclusion like it was in 1944-45. Irrespective, allied victory meant that there would be no more casualties in 1919 (or onward) - allied victory saving future loss of life in fact.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Didn't this have something to do with George Washington? How on earth did we go from that to the Great War? Although speaking of the Yanks they were torn up during the Meuse-Argonne offensive during the Hundred Days, proof of the stubbornness of the German army at this late stage.

 

[Bahnz]

My position is the exact same as the view postulated in a book I've just finished reading, that we dwell too much on the Somme (etc) and that there is not enough attention given to how the war actually ended. I never mentioned the word 'celebrate' although if you were a Frenchmen there would be a lot to celebrate seeing as 3.7% of your homeland under occupation would now be returned to the mother country - Belgium, whose entire country except western Flanders, lay under a brutal occupation, even more so.

If you regard the victory as not worth celebrating least of all remembering then you have to countenance a German victory as the only alternative, something allied victory prevented. If not an allied victory, what else? As I've said multiple times now, allied victory was not a foregone conclusion like it was in 1944-45. Irrespective, allied victory meant that there would be no more casualties in 1919 (or onward) - allied victory saving future loss of life in fact.

Yeah well, there really isn't much more to say than we're not going to agree on this (especially on the bolded).

 

[S.Kennedy]

Yeah well, there really isn't much more to say than we're not going to agree on this (especially on the bolded).

Everybody vehemently disagrees with me on here, whether that be first innings declarations and general English/Straussey upper order stodge, the merits of twenty20 franchise cricket or world war one historiography. I wouldn't worry about it. At least I have not been called a plank or muppet (yet) in this thread.

 

[Burgey]

Didn't this have something to do with George Washington? How on earth did we go from that to the Great War? Although speaking of the Yanks they were torn up during the Meuse-Argonne offensive during the Hundred Days, proof of the stubbornness of the German army at this late stage.

Yanks are a strange lot. They don't mind a stoush of their own making but they're always late to the big dances.

 

[S.Kennedy]

The American army in those days was tiny, sixteenth in the world, and had to borrow all of its equipment from the allies: it wore British Tommy helmets and operated French chauchats.