History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VIII

[Dachs]

Why is it that France (which had a much smaller navy than Germany) had the ability to threaten Britain's colonies and Germany could not develop such a power? Could the German's never "win" the naval race, that is create an even bigger fleet than historically (say add in Hollman's cruisers to Tirpitz's Battleships) to deter the British? Even if that were not enough on its own, would it, paired with say a Russo-German alliance (or "detente" even) be enough to tilt the scales?

France had the ability to threaten Britain's colonies on land more than by sea. Strong French army detachments were posted in Algeria, West Africa, and Indochina that could have caused trouble that the British could not easily counter. The Germans had no such ground forces in their colonies and no real means to support them, and their colonies were often far from places where they would threaten the British anyway. In addition, while the French navy was smaller than that of the Germans, the French did possess the means to engage in cruiser warfare worldwide against British trade from their network of relatively developed naval bases. The Germans, by comparison, did not configure their fleet to fight a cruiser war from their colonies; they mostly designed their fleet to fight in the North Sea. It wouldn't have made any sense for them to do anything else, because without access through the North Sea, Germany could not easily support a global cruiser force or colonial war.

Besides, it's difficult to imagine the Germans investing more than they already did in a fleet that would have had no purpose other than to...try to ally with Britain? The logic doesn't really track. It would be pretty hard to sell the Reichstag and naval public opinion on the notion of spending a zillion Mark on ships that would be expressly there not to be used. And some sort of Russo-German agreement might have lent some weight to Germany's potential usefulness to the British, but in that sort of situation it would've made a lot more sense for the British to just deal directly with the Russians.

From what I remember reading from The Sleepwalkers was that Edward VII was a complete Germanophobe and was responsible for placing the anti-German bloc in key positions in the Foreign Office.

Yeah, Edward sponsored the likes of Francis Bertie and Eyre Crowe. I don't think I'd go so far as to say he was "responsible" for their power and influence, but his support helped them a lot.

How important was it that Buelow withdrew his support for the treaty after Wilhelm changed it? Also, how important was it that the Reinsurance Treaty was not renewed by Germany? Had Bismarck been around a few more months and the treaty renewed, how long would it have lasted? What are some "butterflies" that would've resulted? Britain drawing closer to the Germany?

Bülow's threatened resignation was about an issue that, while it had meaning, didn't necessarily sink the concept of negotiation with Russia. The Russian cabinet, however, objected to the mere idea of a meaningful deal with Germany. Lamzdorf and the other ministers were the real obstacle to an agreement.

There are a lot of historians who think that the Reinsurance Treaty's non-renewal was a humongous deal. Clark refers to it as the single most important foreign policy decision of Wilhelm's reign. I don't really agree. Russia was not a close ally of Germany in 1890. The Reinsurance Treaty did not suddenly resolve the tension that the Eastern Rumelian crisis caused between the two governments. Instead, it made immediate Russian intervention in a Franco-German war less likely, and that was about it. Herbert von Bismarck said that the treaty pretty much just bought Germany six weeks in the event of war. Those six weeks were a very meaningful advantage, but they did not constitute a close relationship. Effectively, the treaty was the result of Bismarck attempting to paper over the gaping cracks in the Russo-German relationship that were opening during the reign of Aleksandr III and it did not have much chance of surviving for very long. He himself helped to destroy the treaty's chances of renewal in 1890 during the maneuvering that led to his ouster.

On the other hand, Russo-French capital flows were increasing and positive diplomatic contact between the two countries was improving. Bismarck actually helped that process along, too, with his Lombardverbot restrictions on German capital flows to Russia, but he didn't cause it. There were long-term causes to the French alignment that had little to do with German policy. With that said: was failing to renew the treaty a poor decision? Absolutely. It was made on questionable grounds and had a lot more to do with the internal politics of Germany's ruling officials than it did with sensible diplomacy. Would it have suddenly made Russo-German relations perfectly fine? Eh, probably not. The Russian foreign minister, N. K. Girs, was under serious pressure to abandon the deal as well. He wanted to sign the Reinsurance Treaty again in 1890 largely as a form of covering his back against his political enemies in the Russian cabinet. This does not speak strongly for the durability of such a treaty.

By 1905 a lot of the considerations that made the Russo-German power relationship so fraught had changed. The shock of the Manchurian War and France's courting of Russia's antagonist Britain helped push the tsar closer to Germany, while the Russo-Austrian antagonism that had made the Reinsurance Treaty necessary in the first place had significantly abated since the 1897 agreement to keep the Balkans "on ice". And yet agreement still wasn't possible, at least not without an additional push of some kind. I just don't know.

So yeah, I personally don't think that the Reinsurance Treaty was enough of a big deal to be The Thing that set Russia on the road to war with Germany. (Hell, there probably was no such thing.) But there are plenty of very intelligent historians who do, and on reasonably good grounds. If your intention is to write alternate history, like your comment about butterflies implies, you could do worse than the Reinsurance Treaty.

Have you read The Lost History of 1914 by Jack Beatty? Great book concerning counterfactual scenarios where WWI doesn't occur in the way it did, or at all.

I have not. Thank you for the recommendation.

What was the correct policy for Germany re Britain then? Was conciliation the best course as Bethmann pursued? Or would an actual militaristic, aggressive policy by Germany been enough to deter Britain? Or would it drive her closer to the Entente? In addition to protecting the colonies, Clark points out in The Sleepwalkers that British perception of German weakness and vast overestimation of Russian strength is what drove Britain to a policy of appeasement with Russia and antagonism with Germany. Had Germany, for example, vastly expanded her army (say much larger than what the Reichstag would realistically approve) and aggressively supported Austria in all matters, have forced Britain to appease Germany as well? This is very confusing because Britain almost didn't intervene historically, but the Liberal Imperialists narrowly won out in the end. Had Grey been forced to resign in 1913 like he almost did, it is hard to imagine Britain intervening.

I genuinely don't know. These are deep waters, and it's difficult enough to try to diagnose the causes of what actually happened without trying to lay out overall policy recommendations.

It's much the harder to do this for polycratic Germany because of the fact that it's almost impossible to detect any coherent policy in the Wilhelmine leadership for any length of time.

 

[HSC]

By 1905 a lot of the considerations that made the Russo-German power relationship so fraught had changed. The shock of the Manchurian War and France's courting of Russia's antagonist Britain helped push the tsar closer to Germany, while the Russo-Austrian antagonism that had made the Reinsurance Treaty necessary in the first place had significantly abated since the 1897 agreement to keep the Balkans "on ice". And yet agreement still wasn't possible, at least not without an additional push of some kind. I just don't know.

So yeah, I personally don't think that the Reinsurance Treaty was enough of a big deal to be The Thing that set Russia on the road to war with Germany. (Hell, there probably was no such thing.) But there are plenty of very intelligent historians who do, and on reasonably good grounds. If your intention is to write alternate history, like your comment about butterflies implies, you could do worse than the Reinsurance Treaty.

...

I genuinely don't know. These are deep waters, and it's difficult enough to try to diagnose the causes of what actually happened without trying to lay out overall policy recommendations.

It's much the harder to do this for polycratic Germany because of the fact that it's almost impossible to detect any coherent policy in the Wilhelmine leadership for any length of time.

I'm not looking to write alternate history (although I do make maps from time to time) however I'm trying to evaluate Germany's foreign policy through counterfactual analysis. If even today, with all we know now, it's still extremely difficult to see Germany pursuing any diplomatic options on her own that would improve her position, perhaps those, such as Conrad, Moltke, and Falkenhayn, that argued for Präventivkrieg weren't the loons that they are often made out to be in the histories? Perhaps they were right? Why should Germany rely on the goodwill of other powers and not secure her own security? Frederick the Great would have agreed.

On the other hand, perhaps we're being sucked into the loop of determinism, that is to explain something we point to what caused it, and what caused it, and get so bogged down in the details of the chain of events we can't see it happening in any other way? Perhaps the Butterfly Effect would account for things we cannot explain. By the way, Dachs, what is your take on the whole parallel universe/multiverse/different timelines stuff? What's your view on chaos theory? If you ran a simulation of the world 1000 times starting on a random date, in this case, June 15th 1888 (Wilhelm II's accession), would we see the same, historical result every single time, or would we see many crazy implausible results, such as Waldersee becoming Kanzler, Germany launching a pre-emptive war against Russia in 1905, Britain willing to pay for Germany's alliance and never signing the Entente's?

 

[Arakhor]

Edward VII was half-German (and not in the he's a Hanoverian, duh sense, either), so I'm not sure it's correct to refer to him as a Germanophobe.

 

[Dachs]

I'm not looking to write alternate history (although I do make maps from time to time) however I'm trying to evaluate Germany's foreign policy through counterfactual analysis. If even today, with all we know now, it's still extremely difficult to see Germany pursuing any diplomatic options on her own that would improve her position, perhaps those, such as Conrad, Moltke, and Falkenhayn, that argued for Präventivkrieg weren't the loons that they are often made out to be in the histories? Perhaps they were right? Why should Germany rely on the goodwill of other powers and not secure her own security? Frederick the Great would have agreed.

On the other hand, perhaps we're being sucked into the loop of determinism, that is to explain something we point to what caused it, and what caused it, and get so bogged down in the details of the chain of events we can't see it happening in any other way?

There is a lot of space between "the diplomatic hostility evinced by Entente powers before the outbreak of the First World War was largely out of German control" and "Germany should have declared war because, uh, it would have made everything better somehow".

I am in no way arguing here that the First World War was inevitable either in its actual form or some sort of modified form. I would say that that is the opposite of what I actually think.

Firstly, I think that all governments involved in the July Crisis, including the German government, had the ability to pull back from the brink and made the positive choice not to. All governments also badly mismanaged the crisis if avoiding a general war was their aim, which in some cases it was.

Secondly, I think that, while the German government's control over what the eventual Entente powers thought of it was either very limited or nonexistent, that is usually true of most such situations in international politics. It is rare to be able to will an alliance into being through sheer bloody hard work. That doesn't mean that those constellations could not have changed through other, more unexpected means. Perhaps a Russian victory in the Manchurian War, for example, could have strengthened the tsar's hand, deepened Anglo-Russian antagonism, and allowed for an alternative avenue for national ambitions than the Balkan route that would bring Russia and Austria-Hungary into collision. Nobody at the Wilhelmstraße could have caused that to happen, but it had the potential to improve Germany's strategic situation considerably.

Finally, and related to the first two points, I believe that avoiding the July Crisis somehow, whether through historical accident preventing the Habsburg assassinations or through proper alliance and crisis management, bade fair to allow some form of diplomatic realignment.

Perhaps the Butterfly Effect would account for things we cannot explain. By the way, Dachs, what is your take on the whole parallel universe/multiverse/different timelines stuff? What's your view on chaos theory? If you ran a simulation of the world 1000 times starting on a random date, in this case, June 15th 1888 (Wilhelm II's accession), would we see the same, historical result every single time, or would we see many crazy implausible results, such as Waldersee becoming Kanzler, Germany launching a pre-emptive war against Russia in 1905, Britain willing to pay for Germany's alliance and never signing the Entente's?

It's fun to play games with it and sometimes useful when discussing causation. I'm mostly interested in plausible alternatives.

Edward VII was half-German (and not in the he's a Hanoverian, duh sense, either), so I'm not sure it's correct to refer to him as a Germanophobe.

It is.

 

[caketastydelish]

How the hell did the Nazis take themselves seriously with their “we are for the Aryan race” thing while allying with the Japanese who are far from being blue eyed, blonde haired people?

While murdering countless people in the holocaust who were just as white as they were?

(This is a completely serious question)

 

[Traitorfish]

How the hell did the Nazis take themselves seriously with their “we are for the Aryan race” thing while allying with the Japanese who are far from being blue eyed, blonde haired people?

While murdering countless people in the holocaust who were just as white as they were?

(This is a completely serious question)

I understand the short answer to be, they didn't really take the "Aryan" stuff all that seriously. It was an ideological tool that helped place their political project in a grand historical narrative, but didn't really inform that project on a practical level. References to Aryanism are inconsistent in Nazi propaganda, and mostly appear in the context of distinguish "Aryan" Germans from "Semitic" ones. The Nazis were fundamentally German nationalists, and that was always the core of their ideology and rhetoric; how they dealt with non-Germans, even with German-speakers from outside the historical boundaries of Germany, was informed primarily by pragmatism and existing prejudice rather than by grand racial theories. There was never even an official definition of who or what constituted an "Aryan", except that ethnic Germans did, and ethnic Jews did not.

Later accounts have tended to over-emphasise Nazi racial theory for a variety of reasons, but one of them is because it helped distinguish bad Nazi racism from good Allied racism. The horrors of Nazism turned a spotlight on the racist attitudes that still predominated among Westerners and especially among their political leadership, and emphasising the specific weirdo quack-theories which nominally underpinned Nazi racism helped distance them from the supposedly empirical racism of Britain, France and the United States. This proved ultimately unconvincing, but there was enough of an effort made that Aryanism came to occupy a place in popular imagining of Nazis disproportionate to its actual role within the Nazi regime.

 

[innonimatu]

Besides, it's difficult to imagine the Germans investing more than they already did in a fleet that would have had no purpose other than to...try to ally with Britain? The logic doesn't really track. It would be pretty hard to sell the Reichstag and naval public opinion on the notion of spending a zillion Mark on ships that would be expressly there not to be used. And some sort of Russo-German agreement might have lent some weight to Germany's potential usefulness to the British, but in that sort of situation it would've made a lot more sense for the British to just deal directly with the Russians.

I was wondering, just how wealthy was imperial Germany, for it to even be able to fund a naval race against the British Empire?
I know that it looks like Germany had gone through an economic miracle, and (together with the US) gained upon, even surpassed or was about to surpass, the British in industrial production. But doesn't that discount the massive wealth controlled by the british through their empire?

The UK may have been surpassed by early 20th century Germany on some technical and economic fields (chemistry, perhaps steel production?) but it seems to me that it was still far ahead overall, in terms of overall technical and industrial capabilities. The british islands were small but very developed, Germany was a large country with extremely backwards swaths of land and a predominately agricultural population, still undergoing the phase of fast urbanization with all the attendant misery?

 

[Dachs]

I was wondering, just how wealthy was imperial Germany, for it to even be able to fund a naval race against the British Empire?
I know that it looks like Germany had gone through an economic miracle, and (together with the US) gained upon, even surpassed or was about to surpass, the British in industrial production. But doesn't that discount the massive wealth controlled by the british through their empire?

The UK may have been surpassed by early 20th century Germany on some technical and economic fields (chemistry, perhaps steel production?) but it seems to me that it was still far ahead overall, in terms of overall technical and industrial capabilities. The british islands were small but very developed, Germany was a large country with extremely backwards swaths of land and a predominately agricultural population, still undergoing the phase of fast urbanization with all the attendant misery?

Eh. It was less about how wealthy the respective countries were and more about the political costs of funding those programs. In both Germany and Britain, state debt-to-GDP ratios declined between the 1860s and early 1910s. German chancellors were relatively conservative in their funding requests to the Reichstag and were also constrained by the size of the army budget, which made the part of the pie for the navy smaller than it was in Britain (which barely spent anything on its tiny army). In addition, German federal taxation powers were very limited, and efforts to expand them caused a political crisis in 1912. That said, the British also ran into severe difficulties with their armaments and taxation, with the so-called People's Budget - which was partially a navy expansion - precipitating tremendous fallout that eventually included a civil war in Ireland.

While German steel production was more than sufficient to meet the requirements of the new navy (in contrast to the Second World War, where steel production was the primary limitation on the Nazi war economy), the actual shipbuilding industry in Germany was very limited, and much of the money devoted to naval construction actually went to plant and training rather than building ships. Britain, which possessed the largest shipbuilding industry in the world, did not suffer this constraint, and thus money spent on ships in Britain went further than an equivalent amount of money spent in Germany.

So the Germans had a lot of obstacles to overcome in the naval arms race which made it very impractical for them to think about building up to British numbers. They never actually planned to build up to British numbers, but rather to build a fleet large and powerful enough to make a British attack on it not worth the trouble. Germany's military leaders in both the army and navy assumed incorrectly that the Royal Navy would have to mount a close blockade of German ports to avoid international condemnation, which would leave it vulnerable to even a smaller German fleet that was much closer to its bases.

 

[r16]

on the French versus British in Colonial Fighting from the last page , one can also invoke the "traditions" . The French were all over the globe for a century or two before the Germans . Any self styled Sultan in Asia or King in Africa would know his grand-grand-grand father was once bribed by the French and they had their spies who could arrange for his precious throat slit , but practically no one knew the Germans , and well the first Germans were nothing like polished ...

 

[HSC]

There is a lot of space between "the diplomatic hostility evinced by Entente powers before the outbreak of the First World War was largely out of German control" and "Germany should have declared war because, uh, it would have made everything better somehow".

I'm not seriously proposing this, however if you view the First World War as a German defensive war, and that if Germany could do everything right diplomatically and still draw a coalition of great powers around her that want to carve her up, then might as well break out of your encirclement and assert your hegemony while you can, no? If not, then at least arm to the teeth and vigorously support your allies under any and all circumstances since if you don't (and lose) the histories will write that you did anyways and paint you as the aggressor. To be clear this isn't my opinion but I'm trying to give the perspective of someone like Falkenhayn or Moltke with the hindsight we have now.

I am in no way arguing here that the First World War was inevitable either in its actual form or some sort of modified form. I would say that that is the opposite of what I actually think. Firstly, I think that all governments involved in the July Crisis, including the German government, had the ability to pull back from the brink and made the positive choice not to. All governments also badly mismanaged the crisis if avoiding a general war was their aim, which in some cases it was.

I agree.

Secondly, I think that, while the German government's control over what the eventual Entente powers thought of it was either very limited or nonexistent, that is usually true of most such situations in international politics. It is rare to be able to will an alliance into being through sheer bloody hard work. That doesn't mean that those constellations could not have changed through other, more unexpected means. Perhaps a Russian victory in the Manchurian War, for example, could have strengthened the tsar's hand, deepened Anglo-Russian antagonism, and allowed for an alternative avenue for national ambitions than the Balkan route that would bring Russia and Austria-Hungary into collision. Nobody at the Wilhelmstraße could have caused that to happen, but it had the potential to improve Germany's strategic situation considerably.

Interesting idea. It should also be pointed out that the Russian government could draw very different conclusions than it did historically. For example they could have concluded that if Russia could not even beat the "yellow peril" then there would be no hope in a war against Austria-Hungary, much less Germany, thus Russia would seek a non-aggression pact (or alliance) with the two and keep on focusing on Asia, encroaching on China and rearming for round 2 with Japan. Just a thought.

Finally, and related to the first two points, I believe that avoiding the July Crisis somehow, whether through historical accident preventing the Habsburg assassinations or through proper alliance and crisis management, bade fair to allow some form of diplomatic realignment.

What are your thoughts on historians stressing that a different crisis would provoke a war if Franz Ferdinand escaped his assassination? For example, McMeekin gives the example of a regional war between Greece and Turkey which could've exploded into a wider war. Or do you think it unlikely with the historical July Crisis being the "perfect storm" of circumstances that allowed Europe to slide into war?

 

[Dachs]

Interesting idea. It should also be pointed out that the Russian government could draw very different conclusions than it did historically. For example they could have concluded that if Russia could not even beat the "yellow peril" then there would be no hope in a war against Austria-Hungary, much less Germany, thus Russia would seek a non-aggression pact (or alliance) with the two and keep on focusing on Asia, encroaching on China and rearming for round 2 with Japan. Just a thought.

Maybe, but the goal seems to have been more to seek an arena in which Russia could get achievable, easy foreign policy victories. Both Izvolskii and Sazonov seem to have sold their respective policies as that rather than an opportunity for a true showdown. While eventual Russian ambitions in the East remained alive - the Chinese Eastern Railway remained under Russian control, after all - the opportunity for cheap, easy, obvious victories was temporarily closed. The other thing is that the way in which the war went down discredited many of the "Easterners" and left them out of power.

What are your thoughts on historians stressing that a different crisis would provoke a war if Franz Ferdinand escaped his assassination? For example, McMeekin gives the example of a regional war between Greece and Turkey which could've exploded into a wider war. Or do you think it unlikely with the historical July Crisis being the "perfect storm" of circumstances that allowed Europe to slide into war?

While a war between Greece and the Ottoman Empire over Chios, Samos, and the other Aegean islands was very possible in the summer of 1914, it was a) not certain and b) did not represent the constellation of powers that so easily gave rise to war over Serbia. None of the Great Powers had vital interests at stake in the eastern Aegean. The only one close would be Russia, ready to intervene if the Straits were placed at risk, but what Great Power would pick a fight with Russia over Greece?

 

[r16]

ı would disagree . As long as we were involved and were on the losing side , there was nothing that would have stopped a global war . Britain plus France plus Russia and plus America was a winning combination and while ı have a lot more to read and digest on the subject , ı can see no way out of the war that came .

 

[Dachs]

ı would disagree . As long as we were involved and were on the losing side , there was nothing that would have stopped a global war . Britain plus France plus Russia and plus America was a winning combination and while ı have a lot more to read and digest on the subject , ı can see no way out of the war that came .

Never change. <3

 

[r16]

expanding was the norm back in the day with even a defeat decreasing the number of "competitors at home" . Reading Fromkin's Peace to end all Peace or whatever and while am pretty sure it was seriously written to justify a "return" of England to the Middle East after the "fall" of Russians , it says Russia expanded 50 squaremiles a day for 400 years straight and one can always says the true proof of how bad the situation Russia was : That the Commies managed to taker power only there , a "White" country and all that . Have latent USB issues at the laptop so can't save threads to read at home so apologies if it has already appeared but Russia pressed for war , England could have stopped it and didn't and Kaiser was a buffoon , not for thinking he could win but he was pals with London . Tons of stuff that needs 20 or 40 kilobytes long of walls of text , but involves if we were not taken out , Iraqi Oil , oil for Germany and while apparently America produced 80 times more oil at the time when compared to UK , they had doubts about their reserves , hence America joins in "protecting" the Ottoman Empire within a decade or two . Hence the Balkan Wars started as a means to disgrace the Young Turks , despite the examples in charge were and are a disgrace with provisions that the borders would not change and change they did , when the Ottomans were routed . 1914 or 1915 and the war is certain , before we manage to get up after the referee counts up to 8 . "America" of course joins the "pact" as a bankers thing , taking max advantage of a British victory with loans and stuff . Ready to join in case of trouble . The whole WW I then reads as a thing how the Turks must be denied oil . And we certainly do not learn it at school that America would go to war with Italy , so that the Greeks could occupy Izmir . Nor that Churchill offered to re-establish the Ottoman Empire , within its 1914 borders , but subject to full foreign control , because the momentum carried America forward , despite the bankers and America would have dominated the seas , a very British nightmare . So , as soon as the Washington treaties happened , Churchill was back to routine and whatnot and we also got to rout the Greeks , better then nothing at least . You know , one is seriously tempted to say the J word , now that we are never forgiven for 1492 and oh my , people are so ready , but Churchill would have the Stuntwoman shot , if he was alive these days , am not right or whatever ?

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Did the British successfully defeat a Communist insurgency in Malaysia?

 

[Dachs]

Did the British successfully defeat a Communist insurgency in Malaysia?

The short answer is yes. You can qualify some parts of it, but it's not wrong to say that.

 

[r16]

so , what's the latest on the Greek fire ?


ı would check wikipedia , but it limits my "creativity" . Now that , apparently "infernal" fires existed for maybe 2 centuries when this long siege of Umeyyads were awfully broken in ı think 678 . And it didn't stay Greek either , with like in two centuries' time it was also fielded by Arabs . My 20th Century history might find it useful to "explain" that Omar , the second Caliph , specifically targeted the Great Library , but failed to get it , this Indian recipe . And not defecting bigshots but translations made it possible for the Arabs to get it , explaining a cover for the masssive translation effort that like made the Western Civilization . And it is supplies that made it disappear , now that a lap top wide search in my computer provided a download of a Chinese Greek fire unit for Civ III . Would also explain the Greeks wanted some for 1974 but it was rather poor when compared to available flamethrowers . And yeah , once at the webcafe ı access wikipedia and oh my , some poor Armenian discovers it but Ottomans poison him in the 19th Century !

 

[caketastydelish]

Did the western European countries with colonies actually benefit in any tangible way from the countries they colonized?

Did it help them gain more power? Income? Resources? Or for all practical purposes, they spent more money on the colonies/lands they invaded than they took back from it?

Did the average person in those countries (England, Spain, France, Portugal, Netherlands) benefit from these colonies in any tangible way?

also: how much difference did the colonies make in wars between powers? (such as WW1, WW2).

 

[r16]

definitely so for the British . Their control of so much land overseas helped them to dominate the seas and swamp the French for centuries , buying enemies to carry out the land fighting . Which then helped them to dominate international trade .

which might have helped to cover the losses they had due to actual economic processes of colonies .

average people rarely enter the picture , even this very day .

canada , being practically an independent country had one third of the Allied warships in the Atlantic convoy battles and the hardest hit convoys would regularly have Canadians as escorts , but that's solely because Allied electronic industries had concentrated on the regular RN and USN , because they might have to fight a German battlefleet and things like that , a thingh that would have no place for the minimally armed Canadians .

 

[r16]

some times ago , there was a poster in CFC who had some certain misgivings about the Wonder Woman movie , can't locate that post , certainly not at home where am typing this for transfer to USB and posting here at the webcafe . So this will have to be a free-style type of thing . Reminding ı have a movie a year and Star Warses fill the slots easily , so ı just saw the movie on TV , surfing between late night news as well , so my understanding of the thing is not exactly complete either .

Spoiler :

the "jeune" would inevitably be near them Ottomans , because he is got to be lost to find his way to the Amazonland , me assuming that Themis something is an Aegean island . Fokker Eindecker the jeune steals is par the course , naturally am nerd enough to know they were not in use in 1918 , but the poorest loser of a moviegoer knows we Turks are worse losers and we live in the Stone Age - now that the German fighter in Belgium is a Fokker Dreidecker . And we are not good enough to fly - so the Eindeckers are all crosses , and the poorest moviegoer can immediately can go on the web now and sink me with the tale of the "Paşa Bölükleri" , all-German units serving on Ottoman fronts , except the German crosses were painted into a Black square , because many of the Ottoman fronts were places firing at anything with a cross on was the only right thing to do . Of course , the Amazon sailing ship is magical , making it to London in a single night and is not sunk or at least stopped by the RN , now that its like would not have been seen in like , what , 15 centuries ? Poorest moviegoer will also have to be content with the humourous content of how babies are made in the Amazonland and the real world ; now that if the Jeune was real in 1918 he would have grown into adulthood with the full knowledge of how the Amazon Queen rode 1000 kilometers or 1000 miles or whatever to get Alexander the Great's seed and they were starving in Amazonland for a real guy .


ı distinctly remember the trench warfare segment was discussed , but am unable to remember the "issue" . Of course everybody knows trenchs were bad and Donkeys led the Lions , but nobody knows the 100 Days and the Allies were capturing quite a few trenches by the Armistice time . It's like an ode to the Greatness of the Mankind , where this superior being (a goddess and stuff like that) is stopped by the evil German fire and Man finds heart and overcomes it . Man superior to god is a thing , considering the jeune is from the Abrams' Trek , and Shattner in his day was defeating a god in every two weeks . Actually the Abrams' Trek is why we people actually with a little knowledge of the Great War should find solace about this movie . The guy played there , too , and this is obviously a parallel universe , not ours . Otherwise , we would have to explain a Winchester toting , long haired Native American making smoke signals behind German lines or whatever . That the target audience is American Youth which is a bunch of morons does not count , considering of my 4800 odd posts until now , 3000 might easily be about my own country with its attendant Greatness (and saving an heartattack or two on my part) . The Boss Fight is though accurate , with laying the Guilt of WW I squarely at the feet of British Ruling Class . And conforms to the required Love will Prevail crp or whatever you call that in English . Ask Jane Fonda how that works in our universe ...


my incredulity was at the German airport , you know with miles of concrete in all directions , but soon overcame that . Sand or grass for Ottomans , concrete for the advanced Germans . The German bomber is obviously the most famous British airliner of the interwar period , with metal plates they ripped off some passanger ship or possibly a tank . But the people have done good research and the fuselage shows the barest corrugated structure or whatever - ı think . Which was invented by Junkers . Or maybe not as it might well be cloth . Then the good old Ludendorf . Every single poster in this subforum would use the coup attempt as a strong support for the thesis that Man is superior to god . Ludendorff supported by a god to conduct evil does not learn his lesson and tries to be the dictator , with Adolf in tow . Clad in black , sinister and looks in contempt at Ludendorff , wannabe evil contrasted to pure evil . A full shoot , or even as a picture on the laptop for later times . But then this is obvious and not doing obvious is "good cinema" . Let me assure you that it's called creativity in Hollywood .


anything else ? Well , this is on weaker grounds .

ottoman existed as a written language or something , with apparently a couple of specific written forms and whatnot . When ı heard it together with Sumerian , the lady here came to my mind . Maybe not at the exact moment , but within minutes . She is more than 100 years old and a Sumerologist with a penchant for defending Kemal's days and stuff and ı think ı might have read newspaper accounts that she takes her notes in Arabic letters -as it was common up to maybe 1950s . Age deformation clearly does not match the movie . So ? Like it would be glorious for the poorest loser of a moviegoer to "discover" she wrote Sumerian , too . And she was given all the facilities by a regime that used Chemical weapons and stuff in 1937-8 against Kurdish rebels and stuff . Despite the boys from Langley were here in 2014 to tell they would not follow Seymour Hersh to blame the Ghouta attack of 2013 that like came almost to a blow between US and Syria . On Ankara . Despite the movie clearly showing an Arab is the superior form of the Oriental .


here most would expect me to blame the Stuntwoman . ı wouldn't , as it's profession . Then it dawned on me that if ı didn't it would look like humility and stuff and pandering to Hollywood . Half a day and well , it's obviously the fault of Stuntwoman and don't know how she will deflect that , as the half Ottoman half Sumerian is in tears as she waits for Wonder Woman to crush her with the bootypanzer , naturally in tears . We are still expected to beg , like in 20 or 30 years time now .