History questions not worth their own thread IV

[Dachs]

Yeah, apparently we had this notion that the guys who ought to run the alliance should be the guys who were actually capable of winning the war.

This did not sit well in Blighty.

 

[innonimatu]

Plus American representatives would quickly lose legitimacy back home since they would never be with their constituents.

That would actually have been a good reason for the brit nobs to go with representation of the colonials in parliament. It was extremely stupid, not only of the UK but also of Spain and Portugal not to do down that route. Though Spain admittedly had a little extra problem with the whole napoleonic nepotism thing it had to go through. But the UK? They had the freedom to choose a different path. And Portugal? They should have had some hindsight from the other american examples.

What I think really happened was that the elites in all those countries really didn't want to share their power at all, even it they were only going to share it with people they could easily co-opt into their ranks. The european-based elites were used to monopolizing trade profits and to also get the higher political offices in the american colonies. For the nobs it was a matter of having prestigious offices available (even though they complained interminably in their private correspondence of bring stuck in the american backwaters), for the merchants one of money. Together they refused to share power and made secession inevitable.

 

[W|M]

Portugal was more successful than you might think, the offspring of João VI of Portugal were in power in Brazil until 1889.

 

[Lord Baal]

Sounds like a good plot for a political thriller IMO.

There's an arseload of them. Problem is that they're all in Turkic.

Was there any point during or prior to the American revolutionary wars which could of stopped independence and meant that Britain would remain in control?

Paul 'Wrong Way' Revere loses a lantern and David Farnsworth kills George Washington and marries a Spice Girl. "Don't rightly know which one."

We kinda helped dismantle the Empire.

"Helped?"

Yeah, apparently we had this notion that the guys who ought to run the alliance should be the guys who were actually capable of winning the war.

This did not sit well in Blighty.

Actually, Churchill did everything bar fellate FDR to remain in any sort of position of power in the alliance. It was mostly FDR's dickbag manoeuvres like snobbing De Gaulle and lying to Churchill about cutting deals with Stalin that ruined all of Churchill's initial goodwill.

That would actually have been a good reason for the brit nobs to go with representation of the colonials in parliament. It was extremely stupid, not only of the UK but also of Spain and Portugal not to do down that route. Though Spain admittedly had a little extra problem with the whole napoleonic nepotism thing it had to go through. But the UK? They had the freedom to choose a different path. And Portugal? They should have had some hindsight from the other american examples.

The French method?

 

[overkill9]

There's an arseload of them. Problem is that they're all in Turkic.


Paul 'Wrong Way' Revere loses a lantern and David Farnsworth kills George Washington and marries a Spice Girl. "Don't rightly know which one."


"Helped?"


Actually, Churchill did everything bar fellate FDR to remain in any sort of position of power in the alliance. It was mostly FDR's dickbag manoeuvres like snobbing De Gaulle and lying to Churchill about cutting deals with Stalin that ruined all of Churchill's initial goodwill.


The French method?

Ah the evil FDR and those evil americans! Always the source of evils in this world to whom we can blame all our ills on!

Maybe you should also mention how exasperated and bitter Churchill himself was about De Gaulle, whose hot air ego and undeserving arrogance earned the ire of virtually all major member of allied forces. I paraphrase: "He seems to take a great deal of perverse pleasure in biting the hand that helps him".

Unfortunately, Churchill's goodwill could not change the geopolitical reality that Britain's power had degraded to the point at that time in history where he could not offer a significant source of leadership. FDR's decision to take the reins and at least salvage western europe from post-war soviet domination under stalin's policies, while not satisfactory, ensured that mainland europe could exist in much better condition today than it would have been under complete soviet influence. FDR's decision was not some spiteful powergrab as you like to portray with enough biased spite of your own. It was a means to which to prevent a war with soviets temporarily, because if the war with soviets broke out, the only way to end it was to either extreminate the entire soviet population and march on moscow, or costly attrition warfare along the entire already-war torn europe winding down to a stalemate that would have snuffed out the very flame of what little semblance of life there was. Soviets didn't care about europe, and held its legacy hostage to blackmail americans who at least did not act in soviet level of standards when it came to disgarding the lives of europe, instead saving the most of what he could. Granted, if US decided to reroute most of their assets from pacific back to europe and waged an all out war against the soviets without caring for the lives of europeans caught in the crossfire, things would have turned out much more differently for great many europeans.

Blaming Americans for everything as you did shows a selective and biased measure of argument not suitable for proper debate.

 

[History_Buff]

Yeah, apparently we had this notion that the guys who ought to run the alliance should be the guys who were actually capable of winning the war.

This did not sit well in Blighty.

To be fair, you Yanks didn't really have the best showing in '42 and '43 (at least in Europe). Not that we Canucks remember British leadership too fondly either.

Also, you certainly seemed to be great at pissing the Portuguese off.

 

[privatehudson]

WWII or the Cold War? I could see American actions post-WWII breeding hostility, but what did we do during the war that would cause resentment?

Very little if anything that Britain wouldn't have done if the positions were reversed. The thing is that bias against a country doesn't always have to be based in logic and facts, especially when many of those I was thinking of don't really know the facts but instead rely on a perception of events derived from TV, films and annecdotes passed down by relatives who lived through the war.

It leads to some unsual viewpoints such as people being proud that Britain stood alone against the might of the Nazi war machine whilst at the same time being aggreived that America only turned up 2 years into the war.

 

[r16]

It was only decades after Atatürk died that something close to republican government was actually installed in Turkey.

twice he tried to start a "guided but multiparty democracy with elections" , twice Ittihad tried to hijack the country , for want of a better term .

the Susurluk scandal, where army officers started dealing drugs to take over the narcotics market and destroy the biggest source of funding for some of those groups, then started murdering government officials who started to find out. And something happened in 2006, although whether it was an extremely disjointed and unplanned knee-jerk reaction by a few guys working alone or a foiled counterrevolutionary plot by the whole Ergenekon cabal is, like I said, unclear. I

susurluk is a locale on the highway between Istanbul and Izmir , where a Mercedes car crashed into a truck . It was driven by a police chief who died in the accident along with a leading Right wing terrorist who was involved - among other things - in the assasination attempt of Pope in 1981 , the terrorist's mistress , a Member of the Parliament survived . The drug trade , as far as the reporting here inTurkey goes , had more of the police though their chief military contact is also high in the list of the suspects in the main Ergenekon trial. This killing of goverment officials thing is not about the drug trade but about a change of tack in handling the seperatists issue - where take no prisoners talk and doing absolutely nothing on the ground has naturally raised a generation that hates the State and feels safe enough to do stuff , you know , what is terrorist to me .

the 2006 stuff must be the killing of a judge in Central Ankara , where the operative-murderer panicked and blew it up in the end , though the failure of the whole thing can be explained by America was most unconducive about a coup against its experiments of a Moderate Islamist country under Uncle Sam's thumb . You know , we are kinda lighter than all those Brown countries to our South and we can be an "inspiration" for them .

well that May 19th , 2006(?) was remarkable with the amounts of helicopters that flew low over my town , as if that would ever make a change . ı for one thought that was kinda loud for the official Youth and Sports day celebrations .

Sounds like a good plot for a political thriller IMO.

There's an arseload of them. Problem is that they're all in Turkic.

you might be familiar with the Kurtlar Vadisi , a TV show that did most to popularize the debate about this whole Ergenekon stuff . While the show goes on , one of its creators is in jail for opposition to the goverment in the evil scheme people instantly recognize from TV .

 

[ParkCungHee]

To be fair, you Yanks didn't really have the best showing in '42 and '43 (at least in Europe). Not that we Canucks remember British leadership too fondly either.

We prevented the British from invading Greece. That alone has to be worth something.

Also, you certainly seemed to be great at pissing the Portuguese off.

Who cares? They weren't even on our side!

 

[Masada]

I wasn't suggesting that WW2 is a major cause of what overall anti-american feeling that does exist in Britain. Its just a better explanation for angst based on historical events than a war that isn't even really taught in schools or anywhere near as popular in terms of TV programmes, films and generic history books.

I know. I was just suggesting World War Two wasn't a great explanation for historical based angst than the Revolutionary War.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Ah the evil FDR and those evil americans! Always the source of evils in this world to whom we can blame all our ills on!

Maybe you should also mention how exasperated and bitter Churchill himself was about De Gaulle, whose hot air ego and undeserving arrogance earned the ire of virtually all major member of allied forces. I paraphrase: "He seems to take a great deal of perverse pleasure in biting the hand that helps him".

Unfortunately, Churchill's goodwill could not change the geopolitical reality that Britain's power had degraded to the point at that time in history where he could not offer a significant source of leadership. FDR's decision to take the reins and at least salvage western europe from post-war soviet domination under stalin's policies, while not satisfactory, ensured that mainland europe could exist in much better condition today than it would have been under complete soviet influence. FDR's decision was not some spiteful powergrab as you like to portray with enough biased spite of your own. It was a means to which to prevent a war with soviets temporarily, because if the war with soviets broke out, the only way to end it was to either extreminate the entire soviet population and march on moscow, or costly attrition warfare along the entire already-war torn europe winding down to a stalemate that would have snuffed out the very flame of what little semblance of life there was. Soviets didn't care about europe, and held its legacy hostage to blackmail americans who at least did not act in soviet level of standards when it came to disgarding the lives of europe, instead saving the most of what he could. Granted, if US decided to reroute most of their assets from pacific back to europe and waged an all out war against the soviets without caring for the lives of europeans caught in the crossfire, things would have turned out much more differently for great many europeans.

Blaming Americans for everything as you did shows a selective and biased measure of argument not suitable for proper debate.

Should we whip out the tiny waveable flags and the teary-eyed eagles now or do you want to go on?

 

[Dachs]

Actually, Churchill did everything bar fellate FDR to remain in any sort of position of power in the alliance.

No, he didn't. He didn't field a military capable of standing on its own and winning on its own against Germany. Who cares about personal politics?

 

[privatehudson]

I know. I was just suggesting World War Two wasn't a great explanation for historical based angst than the Revolutionary War.

Well if you mean not drastically greater then fair enough, but if you mean its not greater at all then I'm afraid I don't see why you believe that to be the case.

 

[overkill9]

Should we whip out the tiny waveable flags and the teary-eyed eagles now or do you want to go on?

Just quit grumbling 'late for the party' and we're even

 

[Midnight-Blue766]

Let me rephrase my question: in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, do titles go before a ruler's name or after?

 

[Dachs]

Depends on the title. Something like "sultan" would usually go first. But a bey would put his title at the end of his name.

 

[History_Buff]

We prevented the British from invading Greece. That alone has to be worth something.

God, was that really a thing?

Who cares? They weren't even on our side!

Well, we wanted stuff (the Azores) from them, and we really, really didn't want to push them into the German camp, especially since Salazar was doing his best to keep Spain out of the war too.

These tend to be reasons to not piss them off.

 

[privatehudson]

God, was that really a thing?

I guess it depends on what's meant by "invading Greece" since we did have a pretty important role in the Civil War over there between late 1944 and early 1945. If memory serves there was the best part of 50,000 trops sent over there before fighting died down, including some rushed there from the Italian front.

However that was after the Germans had evacuated the country and the British forces were for the most part initially welcomed as liberators rather than invaders, so I doubt that PCH was referring to that.

It is more likely to be a reference to the way that in 1942 and 1943 the British chiefs often pushed for a a Mediterranean themed strategy, usually on the grounds of drawing German troops away from NW Europe, knocking Italy out of the war and bringing neutrals into the war on the Allied side. The American joint chiefs tended to prefer a massive build up of troops in Britain followed by a cross channel invasion as soon as possible, arguing that was more likely to knock Germany out of the war faster.

Off the top of my head I can't recall anything specific about a proposed invasion of Greece, but I don't doubt that it was mooted at some point.

Rick Atkinson's books, An Army at Dawn and The Day of Battle include some very interesting discussions on the subject, I can reccomend them both.

 

[overkill9]

In turkic, title such as Bey for nobility or rank can go after the name.

 

[innonimatu]

The French method?

? Sorry, you meant the french method in Africa? Or the "ok, you're free - no, you're not - ouch, you gave us a bloody nose" method they applied in Haiti?

Also, you certainly seemed to be great at pissing the Portuguese off.

Planning to just seize the Azores on the flimsy excuse that the germans might invade the islands (!) does that, yes.

The british were generally good allies for Portugal during WW2. We had a slightly saner government than the idiots who got us into WW1 as british "allies" against british wishes, and managed to stay neutral in ww2, but Salazar's inflexibility negotiating a base for the Allies in the Azores almost had FDR approve an invasion. Afaik it was Churchill who finally dissuaded FDR from doing that, when the plans were only waiting his final ok.