tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190326263026916588.post808561148064810096..comments2024-03-04T21:50:12.306+11:00Comments on Upon Hope: Why Fighting WWII was rightMark Moncrieffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07988061141727262837noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190326263026916588.post-42486539523664622522015-03-17T04:34:37.118+11:002015-03-17T04:34:37.118+11:00Mr. Neal
Should Britain and France gone to war in...Mr. Neal<br /><br />Should Britain and France gone to war in September 1939, the answer is yes as it is the logical next step. They sell out Czechoslovakia to win peace. The sell out doesn't work so they change tactics and give a guarantee to Poland. Any other answer is 20/20 vision. But lets look at the other options. The first and best option is when Germany breaks the Treaty of Versailles in 1935, Germany is much weaker and there is a clear casus belli. Instead Britain caves in and signs a treaty with Germany.Two the Anschluss with Austria, Austria has never been part of Germany it is the takeover of a sovereign state by another, the Allies ignore it. Third, Germany destroys Czechoslovakia in March 1939, instead of declaring war the Allies give Poland a guarantee. Fourth, the Allies do not declare war over the invasion of Poland, they build up, so do the Germans, I fail to see how this makes Germany easier to defeat.<br /><br />WWII was absolutely the good war of popular culture. A warmonger and butcher was defeated. How much clearer do wars have to be before they are good enough?<br /><br />Both yourself and Mr. Doom have given the argument that the Soviets won WWII. They did and we helped them win, because they helped us win. As Winston Churchill said "If Hitler invaded hell I would at least make a favourable reference to the devil in the house of commons" I think you have both forgotten an important fact, the Soviet Union was invaded. Britain joined forces with another of Germany's victims, nothing more, nothing less. Because I believe that the peoples of the Soviet Union deserved our support against a regime that believed at best they should be slaves, at worst exterminated. That Communism was murderous and barbaric you'll get no issue from me. But one war at a time please.<br /><br />At for Poland not regaining its freedom in 1945, I do not agree, Poland was once again Governed by Poles in 1945. Not by a democratic Government, not by the pre-war Government, by a Communist Government, a Polish Communist Government. That the Soviets controlled the Polish Government, true, but under the Nazi's the Poles hardly had a present let alone a future. Surely a future in which the Polish people exist and can no matter how imperfectly govern themselves is better than what the Nazi's had to offer them?<br /><br />The British Empire is a sad loss, like you I am an Empire Loyalist. Sadly the British Empire wasn't built to last, if it was Canada would never have been given Dominion status, or Australia. Surely we would have all had seats in the Mother of Parliaments at Westminster. But that never happened and instead we became independent and we are all the poorer for it, including Britain herself.<br /> <br />You are right Communism benefited greatly from WWII and it did enslave people, I fail to see how not defeating Germany and Japan leaves these peoples better off? <br /><br />Mark MoncrieffMark Moncrieffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07988061141727262837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-190326263026916588.post-68297550665614563582015-03-17T01:12:31.368+11:002015-03-17T01:12:31.368+11:00Hi Mr. Moncrieff,
It needs to be recognized that ...Hi Mr. Moncrieff,<br /><br />It needs to be recognized that the subject of the justness of World War II is multifaceted. The question of “was it right to go to war with Hitler” is very different from the question of “was September 1939 the right time to go to war with Hitler”. If we focus on the first of these questions then the answer of “yes” as you have articulated both here and in your comments to the review at Politically Incorrect Australian is, of course, correct. Hitler was a maniacal despot, and while his domestic tyranny was hardly a sufficient cause to go to war, he was an aggressor, clearly itching for war and conquest, who had proven that he could not be trusted to keep his word given in negotiations, and therefore posed such a threat to the peace, security, and liberty of his neighbours as to justify the Allies going to war with him.<br /><br />The answer to the second question is not so obvious and I think that here the stronger case can be made for the answer being “no”. Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany in September of 1939 in response to Germany’s invasion of Poland because they had promised Poland they would do so. If we leave aside the matters of whether Poland’s government deserved such a promise and whether Hitler’s demands against Poland were among the more or the less reasonable of his demands, neither Britain nor France, which were on the opposite side of Germany from Poland and which were not militarily prepared for war at that time, was in a position to make good on what they had promised Poland. Indeed, when the war was over, Poland was enslaved completely by the country that had agreed to divide it with Nazi Germany in a secret codicil to a treaty signed with Hitler just before the war. On the grounds that you should not make promises that you are unable to keep, the promise to Poland should not have been made, and the declaration of war in September of 1939 that ensued from that promise, should not have taken place, not because war with Nazi Germany was wrong, but because it was the wrong time.<br /><br />That, of course, raises the question of when the right time would have been and there are two possible answers. The first is that Britain and France should have nipped the matter in the bud earlier, at the first sign of aggression from Hitler and before he had a chance to fully develop his war machine. The second is that they should have refrained from declaring war immediately but instead initiated their own, large scale, military build up so that when the war did come they would be better prepared to fight it. <br /><br />Judged in terms of its outcome World War II was hardly “the Good War” of pop culture mythology. Yes, Hitler and Nazi Germany were defeated. To defeat him we had to make a pact with the devil himself in the form of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. The price that we paid to defeat Hitler was the loss of the British Empire. This is a price that was even more terrible to your country and mine than it was to the United Kingdom, because although our countries went to war for the noblest of motives – loyalty to our king and to the mother country in her hour of need – what the price of the loss of the Empire meant to us was a weakening of the ties to the mother country, the source of our tradition, and I don’t think either of our countries are better off for it. Poland did not regain her freedom as a result of the war, but was rather swallowed up along with several other Eastern European countries by the Soviet Union. The number of peoples enslaved by Communism went up drastically as a result of this war and the world was left in a state in which the old powers of Britain and France were weakened and exhausted and two new superpowers, one the avatar of liberal capitalism the other the avatar of Marxist communism were locked into a forty year “struggle for the world” that would be determined by which would be able to develop the largest arsenal of high tech weapons of mass destruction. <br /><br />Gerry T. Nealhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12137796641408373451noreply@blogger.com