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Except for a battle between highly expensive, very mobile forces such as navies in the early 1900s. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that a decisive battle was still in the cards from a naval standpoint.
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Dec 21, 2014 02:37
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xthetenth posted:Except for a battle between highly expensive, very mobile forces such as navies in the early 1900s. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that a decisive battle was still in the cards from a naval standpoint. That depends heavily on the war, I guess. If Germany had decisively lost Jutland, I doubt that they would have surrendered. If Britain had suffered a really crushing blow at Jutland, they would still have looked whether Germany would be able to mount a credible invasion force before calling it quits.
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Dec 21, 2014 02:58
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P-Mack posted:They did throw away thousands of men taking Port Arthur. Keep in mind though that it was very hard for Russia to get reinforcements to Port Arthur. The Trans-Siberian Railway was only in its infancy at the time (one track apparently) and thus severely limited how much stuff could move from the west to the east.
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Dec 21, 2014 04:09
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the JJ posted:See, this poo poo bothers me. It's not like Japan has a separate term for 'totally secular and not divine emperor' that has ever been applicable to the royal family. Beside, the term 'god-emperor' means a totally different thing in Japan (e.g. mah bro Akihito) and in English (bringing to mind either Egyptian pharaohs or WH40k.) The Japanese language is more than capacious enough to admit alternatives. The term does not mean anything remotely as casual as 'mah bro Akihito' and to pretend even casually that that is the case is highly deceptive. The emperor is still held in enormously high regard in Japan, and Japan is still a very hierarchical society. Of course, most of Japan is now an extremely secular society, so religious belief in the divinity of the emperor is more or less dead. But the retention of extremely evocative language to describe and deal with the emperor does speak to the degree to which Japanese society was not reformed in the same manner as German society after the war. quote:And no, they blamed a lot of poo poo for their failures. Go read the Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa. The white devil was one but they didn't really have a betrayal myth the way the Nazi's did so much as a Napoleon complex/I wanna be one of the cool kids thing going on w/r/t Prussia, Great Britain, the USA and before that China. I never claimed there was one conclusive thing that Imperial Japan blamed its failures on, nor did I claim it had a betrayal myth of the same type. The second part of this paragraph references other points I have made indirectly. quote:Sure, but that poo poo isn't inherent to Japan (and it can wax and wane and turn on a dime, see also, Japan 1860's->20xx)[quote] The phenomenon is much more complex than this, and involves a large number of factors, which we could get in to. quote:the expansions in China were kicked off by groups of pissed off junior commanders, A very naive view. That is to mistake the immediate cause for the overarching cause. quote:Japan went from a bombed out shithole to eating huge chunks of the American market based on relentless innovation for a good while. Do they have problems? Yeah, but go look at Lehman Brothers or Enron or the clusterfuck that is the American security apparatus post-9/11 and tell me that that's unique to the slanteyes. You're not comparing like with like, and to bring the term 'slanteyes' into the mix is to attempt to portray what I said as racially motivated. That could not be further from the truth, which is in part evidenced by my strongly expressed view that it is absurd to try to think about Asian history in a non-distinct way. I admitted the way in which Japan can find itself extremely successful in terms expressed by Japanese social commentators in a way that could completely explain your challenge. My suspicion is that you have some strong personal attachment to Japan and felt naturally defensive about it, though I would love to be disproven. theJJ posted:Like, yeah, it didn't work, but it's kinda regular nation-state dumb. It happens. I agree with a lot of what you have to say, but I think you are a bit off base. Something did go really radically wrong in Imperial Japan in the 20th Century. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 04:24
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Lehman Brothers and Enron.... Well, Japans has it's own set of problems, corporations included. This might be anecdotal, but there's a Kanji museum in Kyoto, where they show, among other, the Kanji that is supposed to represent each year. It's not a very happy museum, since Japanese rarely voted for happy Kanji, and among the reasons cited (they give those year by year) you can see some examples of both corporate fraud and government waste. And then you have the current problem of "not making any more babies" compounded with "not even trying to do beast with two backs either", that likely stems from strict post war economical and societal norms, and, I guess, feminism. Many people (women included) choose to go single, because they don't have time for boyfriends or babies. I'd say you could tie that to falling birthrates in Europe and increasing secularization, but that would probably be reaching on my part. For a more pertinent question: WitP has a lot of Japanese planes and yet their models are always referred to by Western names, like Betty and such. Why is that? Did Japanese have a system that didn't really differentiate between marks of same line or is it just grogs using Western designations because learning the Japanese names for them would be effort?
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Dec 21, 2014 04:51
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ArchangeI posted:That depends heavily on the war, I guess. If Germany had decisively lost Jutland, I doubt that they would have surrendered. If Britain had suffered a really crushing blow at Jutland, they would still have looked whether Germany would be able to mount a credible invasion force before calling it quits. Would the Germans have needed to mount an invasion in order to force Britain out of the war, though? From what I understand, the whole point of British strategy was that it could blockade and starve Germany out while sucking in resources from across the world. If Germany could achieve naval dominance (without necessarily being able to invade), that would have gone right out the window, not to mention how it makes the whole business of reinforcing and resupplying the BEF more than a little dicey. It'd depend on just how crushing a victory the Germans won at Jutland, I'd imagine, but if the Royal Navy no longer ruled the waves it doesn't seem like Britain has a whole lot of reason to remain at war unless they expect the French or the Russians to achieve an immediate and decisive breakthrough. And if the Germans could go so far as to begin even a partial blockade of Britain, it seems like there'd be a LOT of voices crying out for peace. Or am I entirely wrong? Thinking about that bought up a question - were there ever any plans for the French Navy to coordinate with the Grand Fleet during WWI? Having a few French battleships hanging about Scapa Flow to thicken the line, that sort of thing?
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Dec 21, 2014 04:54
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JcDent posted:For a more pertinent question: WitP has a lot of Japanese planes and yet their models are always referred to by Western names, like Betty and such. Why is that? Did Japanese have a system that didn't really differentiate between marks of same line or is it just grogs using Western designations because learning the Japanese names for them would be effort? I can't remark on the cultural debate going on in the thread with much clarity, but in this case I'm pretty confident that it's mostly the grogs preference. Prime example is that the Zero actually refers to the Japanese designation of Mark 0 rather than the early American designation of Zeke. It's just that American sailors and airmen eventually picked up Zero as an identifying designation later in the war and that's what stuck in the American consciousness. My guess is that when it comes to the Pacific war you don't get quit as many wehraboos who take pride in being super authentic to the intentions of a particular side, so the popular American names stick.
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Dec 21, 2014 05:09
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:I can't remark on the cultural debate going on in the thread with much clarity, but in this case I'm pretty confident that it's mostly the grogs preference. Prime example is that the Zero actually refers to the Japanese designation of Mark 0 rather than the early American designation of Zeke. It's just that American sailors and airmen eventually picked up Zero as an identifying designation later in the war and that's what stuck in the American consciousness. My guess is that when it comes to the Pacific war you don't get quit as many wehraboos who take pride in being super authentic to the intentions of a particular side, so the popular American names stick. I don't know, you don't see western designations for the tanks, I'd love that, they're always Type Number Something-Ho, and I can't tell them apart. Did German tanks have popular names among the troops and such? I don't think it gets a lot easier than just "Panzer III" or just "three".
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Dec 21, 2014 05:54
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I imagine with the Big Cats it didn't matter because (A) They already had catchy nicknames and (B) You were going to have a bad day no matter which one it was. With Japanese tanks.. Crack open a beer because you're going to have some fireworks in a minute. With aircraft I think tactics mattered a hell of a lot more even between variants of a particular craft and you had to make live-or-die decisions based on what you were about to face within seconds.
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Dec 21, 2014 06:10
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So I learned the other day that apparently my great-aunt survived the firebombing of Tokyo and was an early responder at Nagasaki. I literally had no idea, she never brings up anything about her time in Japan during the war; even her own brothers and sisters have almost no idea of what she did while stranded in Japan.I kind of want to interview her to hear her story but on the other hand I also am afraid of how she will react to dredging up memories like that.Disinterested posted:I agree with a lot of what you have to say, but I think you are a bit off base. Something did go really radically wrong in Imperial Japan in the 20th Century. Everything was sunshine and roses up until it wasn't. It is really interesting to see how what little democratization made during the Taisho era was reversed during the Meiji era. Of course, the Diet only had increased power then because Emperor Taisho was a bit... special to say the least. IIRC his one lasting contribution to Japanese culture and society was inventing a new type of tonkatsu; it's a great recipe but not exactly on the same level as his father or son. I have my own theories as to why they took a hard right into shitville after the 20's but I'm not nearly well informed enough to say for sure one way or another because it's a massively complicated subject.
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Dec 21, 2014 08:02
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Don Gato posted:So I learned the other day that apparently my great-aunt survived the firebombing of Tokyo and was an early responder at Nagasaki. I literally had no idea, she never brings up anything about her time in Japan during the war; even her own brothers and sisters have almost no idea of what she did while stranded in Japan.I kind of want to interview her to hear her story but on the other hand I also am afraid of how she will react to dredging up memories like that. She may or may not want to share her experience, so you should ask her. I'd love to read what she says if she is willing to talk about it. My grandfather didn't like to talk about the war - he enlisted at 14, then they learned he lied about his age, but Uncle Sam kept him in the Navy anyway as a dockworker.
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Dec 21, 2014 08:10
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Chamale posted:She may or may not want to share her experience, so you should ask her. I'd love to read what she says if she is willing to talk about it. My grandfather didn't like to talk about the war - he enlisted at 14, then they learned he lied about his age, but Uncle Sam kept him in the Navy anyway as a dockworker. It's going to be really loving depressing, I can tell you that. Museums here use stories like that to great effect.
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Dec 21, 2014 08:27
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War stories can be fascinating. Did anyone else have relatives who were 4-F and couldn't join? My grandfather had absolutely poo poo vision and couldn't pass a US army physical to save his life; he even cheated once by memorizing an eye chart but the doctor who'd been working the day before recognized him. He ended up working in war industries instead as a welder or a riveter, I think. But the fact that he couldn't serve really hosed him up. He drank himself to death before I was born but from what my uncles said he was never like that before 1941. Never got any stories out of him. My other grandpa served in the navy on a merchant marine vessel (from his description he was a Navy enlisted man but worked on a cargo ship that didn't have its own radio man) and never got near the Pacific fighting; his only war story was about how he ended up on the top bunk and had a very strong startle response. Every now and then they'd test-fire the gun while he was off watch. It was loud enough and close enough to jerk him awake and he'd sit up real fast. Only problem was his face was like a foot from the bulkhead so he'd slam his head into it. Ended up concussed once or twice, but stayed stuck with the top bunk because he did the same thing to the back of the guy above him once. He said he had a good one from Hong Kong, too, but that I'd have to wait 'till I was older. He died before I got the chance to ask, more's the pity. Basically: Gun: Bang! Grandpa: Huh?! Bulkhead: Bonk! Grandpa: gently caress!
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Dec 21, 2014 09:02
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I never did get my boyfriend's grandmother's test pilot stories, and now he's my ex.  Also, petition to rename the thread In Min Goon in honor of the latest international dustup
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Dec 21, 2014 09:06
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World War 2 was cruel to my family. One side was Jewish and every extended family member in Europe died or lost touch in the chaos. Family Stateside pretty much all died fighting for the US except for my grandfather who was a mechanic and never saw combat. Other side is Japanese and every line of the extended family lived in the Hiroshima area, so that branch was scattered to the wind as well. Of course in the States everything was poo poo all around, except for my grandfather who lived east of the exclusion zone and volunteered to go to Europe to rebuild and run the railways as the Allies advanced. After the end of the war both extended families were basically pared down to the a dozen or so individuals living in the United States. By the way you really should talk to your relative about any stories they have and if they agree, make sure to record it. There's valuable history there, and it can all be lost so easily.
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Dec 21, 2014 10:36
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Kemper Boyd posted:The story of decolonization in Asia (apart from India) and Africa is pretty much the story of Western countries realizing that they're never again gonna turn a profit with their colonies since fighting insurgencies is so expensive. The Brits actually post-WW2 tried to reinforce their colonial system in Africa but failed. Also, the US and the USSR were the superpowers after World War 2 and neither of them had ever been big fans of colonialism (probably because neither historically had any overseas colonies to speak of, apart from the Philippines of course), so there was a lot of pressure from both to spur decolonisation. The Suez Crisis kind of put the nail in the coffin of any attempts by France or Britain to hold on to their empires for good.
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Dec 21, 2014 11:38
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feedmegin posted:Also, the US and the USSR were the superpowers after World War 2 and neither of them had ever been big fans of colonialism (probably because neither historically had any overseas colonies to speak of, apart from the Philippines of course), so there was a lot of pressure from both to spur decolonisation. The Suez Crisis kind of put the nail in the coffin of any attempts by France or Britain to hold on to their empires for good. regarding the Suez Canal Crisis: I think you could make a far better argument that the US pretty much forced the Brits/French/Isrealis to end their invasion of the Suez in order to avoid war with the Soviet Union. Beyond that(decolonization), another few parts of it is: 1) The British/French/Dutch losing all of the Far East Colonies to the Japanese. The pysche of the colonized kind of changed when they saw their imperial masters get beat by 'little yellow men'. The image of the British general tendering the surrender of Singapore to a Japanese officer under a white flag was probably pretty powerful. 2) European colonial powers were forced to draft men from the colonies in both world wars. These draftees fought for the glory of the empire or whatever and they felt owed for spilling their blood. Beyond that, they got a taste of what the Europe was like. 3) Nature of the war itself; fight against Nazi Germany for freedom and democracy etc. Kind of hard to deny people the right to chose their own destiny. 4) India pretty much fought their war themselves. 5) Various resistance groups in occupied former colonies often composed solely of natives(a poor word choice but I can't remember the proper one) You forget that the United States didn't really care about colonies once the Cold War ramped up. In general, the US was more concerned with keeping the third world from falling in line with the second than a lot of other things. vains fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 11:58
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:World War 2 was cruel to my family. One side was Jewish and every extended family member in Europe died or lost touch in the chaos. Family Stateside pretty much all died fighting for the US except for my grandfather who was a mechanic and never saw combat. Other side is Japanese and every line of the extended family lived in the Hiroshima area, so that branch was scattered to the wind as well. Of course in the States everything was poo poo all around, except for my grandfather who lived east of the exclusion zone and volunteered to go to Europe to rebuild and run the railways as the Allies advanced. After the end of the war both extended families were basically pared down to the a dozen or so individuals living in the United States. Ugh. I felt sick when I talked to my family about the stuff they experienced in WW2, particularly those who had to live in NDH. It's not even the combat-related stuff that's the most sickening, it's the day-by-day life as part of the resistance. You can't get off the drat mountain because the Nazis will gun you down (and they might even attack you on the mountain, but at least the terrain is working to your favor and you don't have to worry about tanks), but you can't stay on the mountain because you or your kids will starve (and even the most desperate sources of food can only take you so far). And you can't really avoid joining the resistance because you're gonna get shipped to a death-camp or just killed on the spot by the Nazis sooner or later. And you aren't alone - the Partisans are fighting the Nazis to save you and need all the help they can get, so you have to venture out, maybe steal a gun or two, give them some of your meager supplies, or improvise a way to weaken the Nazis. Like, you know how that team of NASA engineers had to come up with the craziest ideas to save the crew of Apollo 13, using only random crap aboard the ship? Well, imagine a bunch of farmers stuck on a mountain, trying to figure out a way to destroy a German tank using just the lovely weapons and random farming implements they still have, and the lives at stake were the lives of their families. Hell, even if your aren't attacked, and even if you can find some balance that lets you survive during the year, you have to flee the mountains during the winter, and the Nazis know it, so you have to avoid a bunch of ambushes while getting away, and hope the Partisans can keep them off your back for long enough. My great-grandma (local community's leader of the Women's Antifascist Front) and her youngest kid (my grandpa) were actually captured during one such escape, and only survived because the German radio dude working with the fascist militia that captured them insisted that the plan 'rape the woman, slit the kid's throat in front of her, and then kill her too' will only happen over his dead body. And that still wouldn't have worked if a conscripted teen that knew my great-grandparents hadn't somehow persuaded the militia that great-grandma was 'one of the good ones' who certainly wasn't working with the resistance, no sir. I don't know what happened to the German dude, but the teen didn't make it to the end of the war. When I talk about the stuff that happened during the war, I usually focus on the stuff that happened to my great-aunt because stuff like being married to a commissar and escaping a Nazi prison camp and not getting wounded until the very last battle of the war (for the Yugoslavs, at least) despite fighting almost from the start is the kind gung-ho story people like to hear about. But in reality, war is hell. War is a very, very special kind of hell that nobody should ever have to experience. Anyway, I asked a question earlier in the thread if any Japanese tried to resist the regime during WW2, do you know something about that?
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Dec 21, 2014 12:58
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my dad posted:Ugh. I felt sick when I talked to my family about the stuff they experienced in WW2, particularly those who had to live in NDH. It's not even the combat-related stuff that's the most sickening, it's the day-by-day life as part of the resistance. You can't get off the drat mountain because the Nazis will gun you down (and they might even attack you on the mountain, but at least the terrain is working to your favor and you don't have to worry about tanks), but you can't stay on the mountain because you or your kids will starve (and even the most desperate sources of food can only take you so far). And you can't really avoid joining the resistance because you're gonna get shipped to a death-camp or just killed on the spot by the Nazis sooner or later. And you aren't alone - the Partisans are fighting the Nazis to save you and need all the help they can get, so you have to venture out, maybe steal a gun or two, give them some of your meager supplies, or improvise a way to weaken the Nazis. Like, you know how that team of NASA engineers had to come up with the craziest ideas to save the crew of Apollo 13, using only random crap aboard the ship? Well, imagine a bunch of farmers stuck on a mountain, trying to figure out a way to destroy a German tank using just the lovely weapons and random farming implements they still have, and the lives at stake were the lives of their families. Hell, even if your aren't attacked, and even if you can find some balance that lets you survive during the year, you have to flee the mountains during the winter, and the Nazis know it, so you have to avoid a bunch of ambushes while getting away, and hope the Partisans can keep them off your back for long enough. My great-grandma (local community's leader of the Women's Antifascist Front) and her youngest kid (my grandpa) were actually captured during one such escape, and only survived because the German radio dude working with the fascist militia that captured them insisted that the plan 'rape the woman, slit the kid's throat in front of her, and then kill her too' will only happen over his dead body. And that still wouldn't have worked if a conscripted teen that knew my great-grandparents hadn't somehow persuaded the militia that great-grandma was 'one of the good ones' who certainly wasn't working with the resistance, no sir. I don't know what happened to the German dude, but the teen didn't make it to the end of the war. The 717. & 714. Infanteriedivision sends it's regards. You all now have an idea how places looked like where there were no mountains.
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Dec 21, 2014 13:33
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Only one of my grandfathers served in WW2, but for him it was a hilariously easy and relaxing time. He was in the US Navy and spent the entire war on a ship patrolling the coast of Brazil in case Germany tried to raid the area. His ship never fired on anything but training targets.
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Dec 21, 2014 14:33
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I missed an opportunity with my grandfathers. I was young when they died, both served in the British forces in WW2. One as a fitter in WW2 - fixing the engines of Spitfires and Hurricanes. Even though he wasn't formally trained in those things before or in the service, be became a genius mechanic for the rest of his life despite not working in the area. He could fix your loving car no matter what was wrong with it. I know his best friend died in a bomber over Europe. He gave me a few insights, like just how important the victory in North Africa was for morale at home. My other grandfather was an infantryman in the British forces and an NCO; he later was involved in some way with the procurement of military vehicles and was based out of Singapore for some time after the war. He was involved in occupying Germany. He didn't talk about it much. He was extremely efficient at peeling potatoes and remained strong as an ox until he died. He could throw me around as a child when he was already an old man. I'm going to have to dig up their service records to see what I can find, someday. It's hard to know if they didn't talk about it because they didn't want to or because we didn't ask.
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Dec 21, 2014 14:58
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:You forget that the United States didn't really care about colonies once the Cold War ramped up. In general, the US was more concerned with keeping the third world from falling in line with the second than a lot of other things. One way of doing this was backing anti-colonialism, though. It was much better press in the Third World to explicitly be all 'we're on the side of freedom and self-determination and against colonialism!' (and hope the non-communist anti-colonial movements came out on top) than to just let Britain and France keep on like it's 1933. And as I say, the US has been fairly consistent in opposing colonialism (of places overseas rather than, say, places occupied by native Americans) for most of its history.
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Dec 21, 2014 15:10
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In my family, there wasn't much talk about the war. On the paternal side, my gramps was unfit to serve, but his wife's side (stepmother to my dad) had some staunch nazis. One dude in the SS and another one who was an pilot that got killed in Russia (supposedly being some ace?). The maternal side is probably more interesting, my grandmother had 2 twin brothers, one was in the 9th army in Stalingrad and the other one was stationed in France for most of his time, where he was part of an AA crew. The Stalingrad brother refused to talk about the war, and he got out by plane because there wasn't much left of his feet after the frostbite. The AA brother is still alive and lucid, I need to interview him. Maybe he also has some stuff about his brother, pics and more precise info, which unit they were in. A few years back, I had only a brief chance to talk to him. He said that he was most scared of seeing the bombs fall, how they come closer. And that the crew was ordered to have carrots all the time. Never refuse to eat your carrots, that's Wehrkraftzersetzung otherwise.
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Dec 21, 2014 15:17
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I think I have family who went with Christian Von Schalburg and fought as part of the Schalburg_Corps, or possibly Free Corps Denmark, volunteering to fight the Soviets sometime during 43-44. I'll have to ask my dad what became of him, though the answer is probably depressingly obvious.
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Dec 21, 2014 15:19
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Tias posted:I think I have family who went with Christian Von Schalburg and fought as part of the Schalburg_Corps, or possibly Free Corps Denmark, volunteering to fight the Soviets sometime during 43-44. Assuming such a person wasn't KIA, what would have been the outcome for a person like that in Denmark after the war?
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Dec 21, 2014 15:29
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My grandfather had an interesting career going from Military Police to artillery man (he had ended up losing his hearing and got an extra pension), at one point he was driving with a friend through France when they stopped in a village to make inquiries, he got out from the car, walked about a few dozen paces when a roar burst from no where. And he turned around to see the jeep was only wreckage and his friend was dead. A German with a panzerschreck had got his friend.  My friends grand parents though was quite the surprise. They're Byelorussian and his grandmother was only a teenager during the war, so I asked about it. "Well we were in Germany in 1943..." "How were you in Germany?  "*Remembers about the hundreds of thousands of Russians herded into Germany to help various German families with domestic chores* "Ooooooooh." She was eventually liberated by the Americans and thanks to Truman got to settle in Canada with her family (I think he dad and brother and older sister?) instead of returning to the Soviet Union.
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Dec 21, 2014 15:30
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The people who were enslaved in Belorussia and got assigned to farming and the likes were the lucky ones. Mining? Not so much.
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Dec 21, 2014 15:39
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my dad posted:Anyway, I asked a question earlier in the thread if any Japanese tried to resist the regime during WW2, do you know something about that? Does the conspiracy that tried to kidnap the Emperor and hold him hostage to prevent Japan from surrendering count? Most major anti-government acts on the Home Island were of that nature, some cocky young officers trying to overthrow the government. Japan was seriously dysfunctional circa-WW2.
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Dec 21, 2014 15:43
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My friend's paternal Grandpa was 14 years old in 1945, and he and his best friend got picked up by passing soldiers in his Bavarian hometown and sent to fight in Hungary right around the time of the Balaton offensive. He sat in a halftrack that somehow foundered in the path of some Soviet tank. He jumped out one side of the half track and heard the tank's machine rip lose on the other. When he ducked into cover, he saw that all the soldiers who jumped out the wrong side were dead, including his friend, who was bisected. Some veteran ostfronter convinced him that Soviet captivity wasn't what he wanted, and he ended up sitting in a car beelining for the US army. He just sort of went back to farming, but he didn't stay in Germany for long.
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Dec 21, 2014 15:48
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:2) European colonial powers were forced to draft men from the colonies in both world wars. These draftees fought for the glory of the empire or whatever and they felt owed for spilling their blood. Beyond that, they got a taste of what the Europe was like. Not sure about some of the facts in this one, especially in the case of the United Kingdom. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere there was a lot of volunteers from all over the Commonwealth. Especially in the first one.
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Dec 21, 2014 16:03
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SeanBeansShako posted:Not sure about some of the facts in this one, especially in the case of the United Kingdom. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere there was a lot of volunteers from all over the Commonwealth. Especially in the first one. The British Empire conscripted about 1million Africans to serve as porters in Africa. The French conscripted men from their colonies. In either case, 'draw men from their colonies' might be better. I wrote that without much sleep. The point wasn't brought up to show the empires requiring men to serve, but to point out that these men did serve and saw the rights that people in the metropole had. vains fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 16:31
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Ah I see, Porters too. I was thinking in terms of frontline combatants.
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Dec 21, 2014 16:33
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MassivelyBuckNegro posted:The British Empire conscripted about 1million Africans to serve as porters in Africa. The French conscripted men from their colonies. This even applies to African-American servicemen stationed in Britain. Although in some places segregation was imposed by the British authorities in deference to American preferences, in general these men were much more accepted in Britain than they were at home. Given we're talking about ~100,000 black servicemen, the experience wound up being quite influential after the war.
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Dec 21, 2014 16:50
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The only story my grandfather will tell about WW2 is when he was a cook in England and made brown bag lunches for the boys the morning of D-Day.
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Dec 21, 2014 17:14
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SpaceViking posted:The only story my grandfather will tell about WW2 is when he was a cook in England and made brown bag lunches for the boys the morning of D-Day. Well I guess if you're only gonna tell one war story, tell the good one.
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Dec 21, 2014 17:48
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Disinterested posted:Assuming such a person wasn't KIA, what would have been the outcome for a person like that in Denmark after the war? They would be arrested and sent to prison, if they didn't get killed by random angry people. Some 40000 collaborators were arrested after the war and ~80 were sentenced to death with ~50 of them actually being killed. There was a lot of angry mobs though, so I would imagine that anyone that helped the germans either didn't come back or did their very best to hide it.
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Dec 21, 2014 18:20
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One of my relatives has a story of serving in late 1945 after the war was over. He was one out of two from his platoon that weren't dead or injured at the end of their stint, he did mineclearing work.
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Dec 21, 2014 18:21
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100 Years Ago Yesterday: The First Battle of Champagne begins, and goes exactly the same way as First Artois. The Indian Corps takes a major kicking at Givenchy, and has to retreat; this is the first reference I've seen to the Germans using underground mines. The result of the mining and shelling is pretty horrific. Meanwhile, the Spectator completely buys the week's propaganda and declares itself pleased at a completely non-existent advance in Belgium and at Belfort. Today: The ultimate "The English on holiday" advert.  I don't know about anyone else, but I don't go to Monaco to hob-nob with Johnny Foreigner, by Gad! There's a counter-attack to restore the situation around Givenchy; another lorry-load of poilus give their lives to move General Joffre's dining table six inches closer to Berlin; and British and German sailors in Africa are having some jolly larks. Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Dec 21, 2014 |
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Dec 21, 2014 18:25
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Trin Tragula posted:
Or even with the perfidious Scots, apparently 
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Dec 21, 2014 18:51
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feedmegin posted:Or even with the perfidious Scots, apparently I know you're probably joking, but England was used in Britain interchangably to mean Britain very often in the 19th century (including by Scots) and that habit probably continued into the WW1 period, though I couldn't say for sure.
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Dec 21, 2014 19:00
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