August 1914

[TheDarkling]

Why is he using a source I was told earlier was bullshit and contradictory???

My sources came from colby.edu, and they were deemed "a mixed batch.."

He confused you and me and thinks I was using it and he is also quoting specific parts which are largely correct although they aren't really relevant to his case.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

ahhhh I see. I couldn't get why he was using it.

[Patrick Degan]

Why is he using a source I was told earlier was bullshit and contradictory???

My sources came from colby.edu, and they were deemed "a mixed batch.."

He confused you and me and thinks I was using it and he is also quoting specific parts which are largely correct although they aren't really relevant to his case.

Oh really? Then what explains the link appearing in your own posting of August 6th 2004, 4.49 pm?:

The people didn't really get a say because it was a virtual autocracy with a few social reforms to buy off the people.

Visit Edu

And as the sections quoted attack your arguments at their bases, they are very relevant to the case at hand.

Linky

That's the page in this thread with your posting including the link in question.

And as for the rest, which you claim is a strawman, this:

They did exterminate 80% of a racial group in camps set up by a man named Goering and they did brutalise resisting (and non resisting) peoples in Europe, the difference is one of scale, I think the scale will increase with German power (although not up to Nazi levels) and will continue for longer, things in Africa are going to get alot worse.

—shows you very clearly conjoining Nazi Germany with Imperial Germany as part of your argument.

Oh, and as far as the notion of the British somehow being less cruel to their colonials:

There is precious little acknowledgement of the relentless and bloody repression that maintained a quarter of the world's population under British rule until barely half a century ago. Nor is there much awareness of the hundreds of thousands who died in continual rebellions across five continents, or from forced labour and torture in prison camps such as the Andaman islands, let alone the ubiquitous racist segregation or deliberate destruction of economic prosperity in places like Bengal. It is less than 50 years since British soldiers were paid five shillings for each Kenyan they killed, nailed the limbs of Mau Mau fighters to crossroads posts and had themselves photographed with the severed heads of Malayan guerrillas. But - as with other former colonial powers, such as France and Belgium - there has been no public settling of accounts, no pressure for colonial reparations or for old men to be tried for atrocities carried out under the union flag.

And:

Early in the 19th century, the British finally had found a lucrative product the Chinese wanted : OPIUM. They established opium plantations in India and exported it into China, even pushing opium consumption there (the Chinese had used it, in low quantities, for medical purpose). In 1839 the Chinese outlawed the opium trade, confiscated and destroyed large quantitires of (British) opium; Britain responded by declaring war (the OPIUM WAR, 1839-1842). In 1842, defeated China ceded HONG KONG to Britain, agreed to British demands of opening more harbours, and lessening state control over trade. It was the beginning of the breakup of old China.

And:

Timeline: Mau Mau Rebellion
The Mau Mau were a militant African nationalist movement active in Kenya during the 1950s who's main aim was to remove British rule and European settlers from the country.

August 1951
Information is filtering back about secret meetings being held in the forests outside Nairobi. A secret society called the Mau Mau, believed to have been started in the previous year, requires its members to take an oath to drive the white man from Kenya. Intelligence suggests that membership of the Mau Mau is currently restricted to members of the Kikuyu tribe, many of whom have been arrested during burglaries in Nairobi's white suburbs.

24 August 1952
The Kenyan government imposes a curfew in three districts on the outskirts of Nairobi where gangs of arsonists, believed to be members of the Mau Mau, have been setting fire to homes of Africans who refuse to take the Mau Mau oath.

7 October 1952
Senior Chief Waruhui is assassinated in Kenya -- he is speared to death in broad daylight on a main road on the outskirts of Nairobi. He had recently spoken out against increasing Mau Mau aggression against colonial rule.

19 October 1952
The British government announces that it is to send troops to Kenya to help the fight against the Mau Mau.

21 October 1952
With the imminent arrival of British troops, the Kenyan government declares a state of emergency following a month of increasing hostility. Over 40 people have been murdered in Nairobi in the last four weeks and the Mau Mau, officially declared terrorists, have acquired firearms to use along with the more traditional pangas. As part of the overall clamp down Jomo Kenyatta, president of the Kenya African Union, is arrested for alleged Mau Mau involvement.

30 October 1952
British troops are involved in the arrest of over 500 suspected Mau Mau activists.

14 November1952
Thirty-four schools in Kikuyu tribal areas are closed in the continuing clamp down on Mau Mau activists.

18 November 1952
Jomo Kenyatta, president of the Kenya African Union and the country's leading nationalist leader is charged with managing the Mau Mau terrorist society in Kenya. He is flown to a remote district station, Kapenguria, which reportedly has no telephone or rail communications with the rest of Kenya, and is being held there incommunicado.

25 November 1952
The Mau Mau has declared open rebellion against British rule in Kenya. British forces respond by arresting over 2000 Kikuyu suspected of Mau Mau membership.

18 January 1953
Governor-general Sir Evelyn Baring imposes the death penalty for anyone who administers the Mau Mau oath - the oath is often forced upon Kikuyu tribesmen at the point of a knife, and calls for the individual's death if he fails to kill a European farmer when ordered.

26 January 1953
Panic has spread through Europeans in Kenya after the slaying of a white settler farmer and his family. Settler groups, displeased with the government's response to the increasing Mau Mau threat have created their own Commando Units to deal with the treat. Sir Evelyn Baring, the Governor-general of Kenya has announced that a new offensive is to begin under the command of Major-general William Hinde. Amongst those speaking out against the Mau Mau threat and the government's inaction is Elspeth Huxley, author (who wrote The Flame Trees of Thika in 1959), who in a recent newspaper article compares Jomo Kenyatta to Hitler.

1 April 1953
British troops kill twenty-four Mau Mau suspects and capture an additional thirty-six during deployments in the Kenyan highlands.

8 April 1953
Jomo Kenyatta, known to his followers as Burning the Spear, is sentenced to seven years hard labour along with five other Kikuyu currently detained at Kapenguria.

17 April 1953
An additional 1000 Mau Mau suspects have been arrested over the past week around the capital Nairobi.

3 May 1953
Nineteen Kikuyu members of the Home Guard are murdered by the Mau Mau.

29 May 1953
Kikuyu tribal lands are to be cordoned off from the rest of Kenya to restrict movement of potential Mau Mau terrorists.

July 1953
Another 100 Mau Mau suspects have been killed during British patrols in Kikuyu tribal lands.

15 January 1954
General China, the second in command of the Mau Mau's military efforts is wounded and captured by British troops.

9 March 1954
Two more Mau Mau leaders have been secured: General Katanga is captured and General Tanganyika surrenders to British authority.

March 1954
The great British plan to end the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya is presented to the country's legislature -- General China, captured in January, is to write to the other terrorist leaders suggesting that nothing further can be gained from the conflict and that they should surrender themselves to British troops waiting in the Aberdare foothills.

11 April 1954
British authorities in Kenya admit that the 'General China operation' revealed previously to the Kenyan legislature has failed.

24 April 1954
Over 40,000 Kikuyu tribesmen are arrested by British forces, including 5000 Imperial troops and 1000 Policemen, during a widespread, coordinated dawn raids.

26 May 1954
The Treetops Hotel, where Princess Elizabeth and her husband were staying when they heard of King George VI's death and her succession to the throne of England, is burnt down by Mau Mau activists.

18 January 1955
The Governor-general of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, offers an amnesty to Mau Mau activists -- the offer means that they will not face the death penalty, but may still be imprisoned for their crimes. European settlers are up in arms at the leniency of the offer.

21 April 1955
Unmoved by Kenya's Governor-general's, Sir Evelyn Baring, offer of amnesty the Mau Mau killings continue -- today two English schoolboys are murdered.

10 June 1955
Britain withdraws the offer of amnesty to the Mau Mau.

24 June 1955
With the amnesty withdrawn, British authorities in Kenya can proceed with the death sentence for nine Mau Mau activists implicated in the death of two English schoolboys.

October 1955
Official reports suggest that over 70,000 Kikuyu tribesmen suspected of Mau Mau membership have been imprisoned, whilst over 13,000 people have been killed (by British troops and Mau Mau activists) over the last three years of the Mau Mau Rebellion.

7 January 1956
The official death toll for Mau Mau activists killed by British forces in Kenya since 1952 is put at 10,173.

And:

Mr Gavaghan is not implicated in the other widespread allegations of torture, rape and murder detailed in the programme. Witnesses came forward to recount tortures and murders committed throughout the eight-year emergency involving other white officials and local soldiers under British command. One man says he was castrated and blinded for defying his captors. A woman recalls how her two-year-old child was whipped to death by a white police officer. Women claim that thousands of civilians - mainly women and children - died of beatings, starvation and disease.

Professor Elkins says the scale of suffering and death was far higher than previously thought and the Kikuyu death toll could have been as high as 50,000.

John Nottingham, a district colonial officer at the time who stayed on in Kenya, said compensation could not wait because the victims were now mostly in their 80s."What went on in the Kenya camps, the Kenya villages was brutal, savage torture by people who have to be condemned as war criminals. I feel ashamed to have come from a Britain that did what it did."

Oh, and there's also the Irish Potato Famine and England's response of simply letting the Irish die:

One might assume that through all the years of depression, nothing worse could happen to the Irish, but then came "The Great Famine". As the nineteenth century progressed, the Irish became very dependent on the potato for their main food source. In fact, a majority of rural people lived on it completely (the potato is one of the few foods that has all the basic vitamins necessary to maintain a human life). Several English committees that studied the economic situation in Ireland warned that if there was a major failure of the potato crop, extensive starvation would result. All these warnings were ignored.

In 1845 it happened, the biggest fear hit Ireland and suddenly became reality. A disease attacked the potato crop and half of the crop was destroyed. People harvested the few potatoes they had and prayed that the next years crop would be an abundant one. But the crop of 1846 suffered even more than the previous year. To add to the misery, that winter was the "severest in living memory". When the 1847 crop failed also, the Irish population of the whole nation was faced with starvation. This is when the first wave of immigrants escaped their starving homeland. The majority of this first group went to Canada because prices were very low--ships bringing lumber to England were glad to receive paying passengers instead of returning to Canada empty. Unfortunately, many of these people carried typhoid and many other diseases with them on to Canada.

Ironically, during these tragic years it was only the potato crop that failed in Ireland. Wheat, oats, beef, mutton, pork, and poultry were all in excellent supply but the Irish-English landlords shipped these to the European continent to soften the starving there and receive a very good profit in return. When people today wonder about the hatred between the Irish and the English, they don't recognize the fact that Irish peoples memory is a long one and that stories are still being told about those ships leaving Irish ports loaded with food at the same time that their ancestors were eating grass to live.

All throughout the years of the horrific famine, which continued past 1847, the English government was unwilling to give any money to Ireland to help with the famine because, as they said, "the Irish will use it only to buy guns to revolt against them." They were also reluctant to provide material aid such as soup kitchens because, "they will get used to the free food and never become of be self-sufficient."

As an sign of how bad things were, when Americans (primarily Quakers) offered to send food to Ireland, England demanded that the food be first landed in England and then transferred to English ships--to assure that the English's shipping interests were fully employed. The American press so taunted this law, asking how greedy could England be at a time when hundreds of thousands of their people were starving, that England finally backed down and let the American ships sail directly to Ireland.

Author C.W. Smith, an Englishwoman herself, was dumfounded by the way her countrymen were behaving during the famine years. As she says, "It is not characteristic of the English to behave as they behaved in Ireland. As a nation, the English have proved themselves of generosity, tolerance, and magnanimity, but not when Ireland is concerned. The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots."

In 1849, Queen Victoria decided to visit Ireland. Press stories reported the pomp and circumstance escorted her arrival in Cork harbor. They described the great variety of troops and bands as she arrived by ship and it was this day that William Kindles became a local hero. A huge Union Jack was flying over the dock directly above the spot where the Royal parade was to pass. Somehow, William was able to get near the flagpole and cut the ropes so the flag dropped on the heads of the lead marching band (he promptly emigrated to America).

During the Queen's visit no expense was spared to make the tour a success. At one banquet, $5,000 was spent on food and wine alone. The Duke of Leinster, one of the better Irish-English landowners and landlord over the area where many of the Chinless lived, was disgusted with the overwhelming spending. He wondered how in this land where hundreds of thousands were starving, where a family of six could be kept alive for a week for less than $1, the Queen's government could justify spending thousands of dollars to entertain a privileged few for one night!

It is estimated one and a half million people died of starvation and disease in The Great Famine. Another million people emigrated, the people that had bitter feelings about the land they loved. Some cut off all ties with the motherland and never looked back. The majority however, never lost their love for the land they left. They continued to follow what was happening in Ireland. They talked and sang about it as they gathered together at social events. It was said of this immigrant generation that few found success and prosperity in America...this had to wait for their children's and grandchildren's generations.

And:

In 1845, the potato blight destroyed 40% of the Irish potatoes
and the following year, approximately 100% of the crop was ruined.
Successive crop failure led to "Black '47," with increases in
famine, emigration, and disease. Although the potato crops from
1847-1851 were unaffected by the blight, famine conditions
intensified due to a lack of seed potatoes for planting new crops
and an inadequate amount of potatoes having been planted for fear
that the blight would persist.(28)

Tenant farmers held short-term leases that were payable each
six months in arrears. If the tenants failed to pay their rent,
they were jailed or evicted and their homes burned. During the time
of the Great Hunger (1845-1847), approximately 500,000 people were
evicted, many of whom died of starvation or disease or relocated to
mismanaged and inadequate poor houses.(29) The alternative to
eviction, poorhouses, or starvation was emigration, which pre-dated
the Potato famine, but rose to over two million people from
1845-1855. In 1851, the largest number of emigrants, a quarter of
a million people, left for overseas destinations. The emigration
continued through the 1850s and into the 1860s, with an average of
an eighth of a million people.(30) Emigrants tended to follow along
family routes, which were found mostly in Great Britain, United
States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.(31)

]The British were reluctant to provide relief to the inferior
people of Ireland. In the 1840s, laissez-faire philosophy
dominated the British economic policy. The government officials
supported a policy of non-intervention, which maintained the belief
that it was counterproductive to interfere in economics.(32) The
chief instrument of relief came in the form of low-paid work
projects to build an infrastructure to promote industrialization
and modernize the Ireland.(33) Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel
repealed the Corn Laws, a protective tariff enabling the Irish to
import grain from North America. For this relief measure, Peele was
ousted and replaced by Lord John Russell, who was less lenient on
the Irish.(34) Relief measures, such as corn importation, were sent
from North America; however, these shipments were mere tokens to
the necessary relief required to comfort the starving.(35)

Charles Trevelyan, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury under
the Prime Minister Lord John Russell, oversaw famine relief
efforts. In 1846 Trevelyan wrote: "'The problem of Ireland being
altogether beyond the power of man, the cure has been applied by
all-wise Providence...'"(36) Various relief schemes were tried and
abandoned: public works projects, importing corn from America, soup
kitchens, workhouses, even sending agricultural advisors to the
west of Ireland where they found no surviving farmers.(37)
Ultimately, the Russell government ". . .was not prepared to
allocate what was needed to head off starvation, but was always
ready to dispatch police and troops of dragoons to help a landlord
evict destitute tenants or protect a shipment of cattle or grain
export."(38)

In November of 1845, to lessen the plight of the Irish,
Russell approved the purchase of corn and meal; however, the shift
from potatoes to corn as the staple food caused dysentery and
scurvy due to the lack of nutrients and resulted in additional
deaths. Additionally, loans of 365,000 sterling were granted to the
Irish in 1845-1846 to lessen the starvation.(39) In principle, they
believed that the best interests of the Irish were served by
exporting agricultural goods from Ireland, so that they could pay
their rents.(40)

In 1847 ("Black 47") the public works projects were abandoned
by the government and instead poor houses were established by
private groups, such as the church and the Quakers.(41) During the
famine peak, one hundred and seventy-three workhouses were built
throughout Ireland. During Black '47, the Galway Vindicator
illustrated the degree of workhouse overcrowding when it cited 2513
occupants in the Limerick workhouse, which was built to accommodate
800 occupants.(42) Generally, poor houses or work houses were
mismanaged, overcrowded, and inadequate to provide relief for the
starving peasants of Ireland. People entering the workhouses were
"forced to wear prisonlike uniforms in fetid male and female
dormitories and hoped to avoid the adjacent fever hospital by
subsisting on 'poorhouse porridge,' a watery oatmeal soup ladled
from a huge iron 'stirabout pot.'"(43) Additionally, soup kitchens
gave soup (a broadly defined term) to 3 million people daily.(44)

To limit the number of people seeking relief and the expense to the British government, The Poor Law Extension Act of 1847 was instituted to deny aid to tenant farmers with over a quarter acre
of land. This Act promoted emigration, increased land clearance,
and disintegrated the structure of rural society, which were
beneficial to British landowners, who sought profit, power, and
larger plots of land. (45) According to the Poor Laws, landlords
were bound to support peasants sent to the workhouse, which cost
$12 pounds a year. Instead, some landlords sent peasants to Canada
on "coffin ships", which cost $6 pounds.(46) Coffin ships were
"wet, leaky holds" of timber ships returning to North America that
were "crammed in with as many as 900 [people], with barely room to
stand."(47) Approximately half of the people died during the voyage
and the other half arrived in North America unable to disembark,
without assistance, due to sickness and starvation. (48)

The British rationalized that landlords and industries, who
needed laborers, would find it in their best interests to protect
their investments (human laborers).(49) However, with the
industrialization of agricultural processes, the decrease in tenant
farmers proved advantageous to most landlords, who were intent on
maximizing profit by increasing the size of plots. Thus, the
absentee landlords were distanced from the peasants and focused on
the maximization of trade and luxuries rather than the welfare of
the people.(50)

And:

The 'Great Hunger' was one of many famines in Ireland during the first half of the nineteenth century, but the size of the disaster dwarfed those that preceded it. A contemporary comment was that "God sent the blight, but the English made the famine: and to some extent this was true because the governments of both Peel and Lord John Russell did little to help the Irish population.

The Irish population had exploded in the first half of the nineteenth century, reaching about 8.5 million by 1845. The peasants were almost totally dependent on the potato as a source of food because this crop produced more food per acre than wheat and could also be sold as a source of income. Because of the widespread practise of conacre, the peasants needed to produce the biggest crop possible and so the type of potato most favoured was the "Aran Banner," a large variety. Unfortunately, this particular strain was highly susceptive to the fungus, Phytophthora infestans, commonly known as blight, which had spread from North America to Europe. The blight destroyed the potato crop of 1845 and by the early autumn of that year it was clear that famine was imminent in Ireland. Peel's government was slow to react. Peel said that the Irish had a habit of exaggerating reports of distress; since he had been Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1812 and 1818, his experience might have told him that there might have had some truth in his comment, but in 1816 he had produced a contingency plan for the government in case economic disaster ever struck Ireland. Consequently his lack of action is difficult to explain.

During the winter of 1845-1846 Peel's government spent £100,000 on American maize which was sold to the destitute. The Irish called the maize 'Peel's brimstone'. Eventually the government also initiated relief schemes such as canal-building and road building to provide employment. The workers were paid at the end of the week and often men had died of starvation before their wages arrived. Even worse, many of the schemes were of little used: men filled in valleys and flattened hills just so the government could justify the cash payments. The Irish crisis was used as an excuse by Peel in order for him to the repeal the Corn Laws in 1846, but their removal brought Ireland little benefit. The major problem was not that there was no food in Ireland -- there was plenty of wheat, meat and dairy produce, much of which was being exported to England -- but that the Irish peasants had no money with which to buy the food. The repeal of the Corn Laws had no effect on Ireland because however cheap grain was, without money the Irish peasants could not buy it.

Lord John Russell Peel was replaced in office in June 1846 by Lord John Russell and a Whig administration dedicated to a laissez-faire policy. Russell's administration believed that Irish wealth should relieve Irish poverty, and rejected the policy of direct state intervention or aid. However, neither Irish landlords nor the Poor Law unions could deal with the burden of a huge starving population. In January 1847 Russell's administration modified its non-interventionist policy and made money available on loan for relief, and soup kitchens were established. The potato crop did not fail in 1847, but the yield was low. Then, as hundreds of thousands of starving people poured into the towns and cities for relief, epidemics of typhoid fever, cholera, and dysentery broke out, and claimed more lives than starvation itself.

In September 1847 Russell's government ended what little relief it had made available and demanded that the Poor Law rate be collected before any further money be made available by the Treasury. The collection of these rates in a period of considerable hardship was accompanied by widespread unrest and violence. Some 16,000 extra troops were sent to Ireland and troubled parts of the country were put under martial law. The potato crop failed once more in 1848, and this was accompanied by Asiatic cholera

The 1841 census recorded an Irish population of 8.2 million. By 1851 this figure had been reduced to 6.5 million. These statistics give some indication of the scale of the disaster but since many of those affected by the famine lived in remote and inaccessible places, it is more than possible that far more people died that has ever been thought. It has been estimated that at least one million people died from starvation and its attendant diseases, with the balance seeking emigration to Britain and North America

Oh, and about that jolly period known as the Raj:

excerpt:

The fact remains that British rule in India was largely rule with an iron fist, even though it may most often have been in a velvet glove. Before the arrival of the East India Company, the existing states in India were often very aggressive towards each other, and the brutality was often extreme. The military violence employed by the British was hardly excessive compared with what had been an done by Indian rulers for centuries. As an conquering and occupying power, the British East India Company were largely free from legal control from Britain and could virtually make their own laws to subdue, divide and rule these states and their peoples. These laws were made just as draconian as the demand for control of India's resources, draining its economy for huge profits and ensuring the ascendancy of the British white man demanded. Though relations between the British and the existing rulers and their subjects varied considerably in earlier centuries, when racialist attitudes were evidently much less prominent and widespread, the laws and behaviour of the British came to be founded and practiced strictly on a racialist basis, especially after the so-called 'Mutiny'. The British lived more and more as an isolated ruling caste, with all too widespread disdain and hardened attitudes towards most peoples in the sub-continent. This is perhaps the chief similarity with the ideology of the Third Reich, the British thought and behaved as a 'master race' towards their subordinates.

Among the many sins of the British was the recruitment under false pretences and promises of Indian workers to labour in their other colonies in Africa and the West Indies. Their exile was permanent as they could not get the means to return to India and were exploited thoroughly - bonded labourers under virtual slavery in all but name, often held in their places by systems of unjust debts. This was a major population shift that created the world-wide Indian diaspora today.

Many of the the forms of slavery under the British in India were taken over from their Indian predecessors - the maharajas, other rulers and zamindars - and were sometimes ameliorated, as far as local traditions and the caste system allowed. The kind of serfdom practiced by landowners and industrialists was virtually endemic to the caste system and social organisation, which is shown by the fact that it still exists on a massive scale in India today, after nearly 40 years of independence. No impartial observer who knows both countries would deny that the human rights situation in most of India today just does not compare for liberality and justice with that in Britain. The only area of relative comparison is the Northern Ireland situation, which bears some general similarities to the Kashmir problem, the Naga and other tribal problems and partly also the Sri Lankan Tamil problem. However, only a handful of I.R.A. terrorists may have been shot out of hand by special forces, which - unlike the vast majority of similar and worse cases in India - was brought to litigation according to the law.

The exploitation of child labour also existed in India before the British and still exists on a huge scale in India, Pakistan and Bangla Desh. On the subject of slavery, one should remember that, though Britishers were once active as slave-traders among people of many other nations - it was the British Empire that first abolished international slavery, following the lead of William Wilberforce and the magnificent exertions in Africa to obviate the slave-trade of Dr. David Livingstone.

The forced labour 'concentration camps' of Nazi Germany, which were really mostly forced labour death camps and often sheer extinction centres, went much further than those the British had introduced in South Africa during the Boer War, officially to concentrate the civil population in controllable areas. The truth about British camps has however been carefully concealed from the public and new startling facts emerged in the 1990s. Due in part to the work of Emily Hobhouse, it has long been widely known in South Africa but only recently in U.K., that 28,000 Boers died while in such confinement, yet unknown until recently is the fact that there were at least 86 camps for blacks. The Boers themselves and historians generally denied or ignored the participation of blacks against the British. But from State archives opened after the emancipation of South Africa in the 1990s, it now emerges that about 26,000 blacks also died in these camps, of which 81% were children. Terrible as this was, it can hardly be compared either quantitively or otherwise, with the concentration camps of the Nazi regime.

I can easily find more examples; they're no secret. Sure you want to continue flogging the myth of British moral superiority over "the Evil Hun?"

The rest of your bullshit I'll deal with later.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Oh really? Then what explains the link appearing in your own posting of August 6th 2004, 4.49 pm?:

The people didn't really get a say because it was a virtual autocracy with a few social reforms to buy off the people.

Visit Edu

What was this particular article set out to disprove, because it really says
the germans were always more militarily aggressive, aristocratic, and largely undemocratic.. They were never able to pull off the liberal progress that sweeped many other nations of the time and earlier. It was a preliminary basis. I think that's what we all already knew. They were slow to develop by western standards of what Liberal Democracy was.

1

Other historians have pointed out that national unification came unusually late in Germany (historical argument)

2

the Prussian landed aristocracy and -- with its military help -- many other German princes were able to defend their privileges against the liberal bourgeoisie, while the Austrian dynasty took advantage of the rivalry of the national groups in its empire to crush the Revolution.

3.

Later, it was the conservative Junker Bismarck and the Prussian military who achieved German unification, not the liberal German bourgeoisie. After 1871 the financial and industrial bourgeoisie received concessions from the landed aristocracy, which made possible the famous "alliance of iron and rye" (big industry and Junkers).

continued to exert a predominant influence even in the industrialized society of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

4.

National unification, Eley and Blackbourn admit, did not fulfill all liberal dreams of the period, but it created an acceptable basis for further improvement.

5.

the old aristocratic elites in all European countries managed to keep much social and political influence at least until 1914 and partly beyond. This was true even in France and Britain where the old aristocracy had lost its most powerful institutions and legal privileges.

Here they are saying the aristocrats in other nations managed to keep a lot of socio-political influence, but they do also mention that in the major democratic nations, France and England, they had also lost much of their most powerful privileges and special rights (relics of feudalism?)

He doesn't mention Germany being similiar. I might have missed it, however.

Are these the parts you wanted him to see? It looks like they are just trying to make excuses why Germany was not the liberal democracy the majority of Western Europe was. It looks like they are saying historians are judging Germany unfairly by western standards (20th century) of what liberalism is, yet they then turn around and admit the German Liberal movement didn't even live up to the standards of Liberalism of it's own period... civil rights and freedom.

Basically, they weren't as good as the others. Other nations were worse than Germany, especially Russia. This is already known, but how can they say Russia was bad if they cannot use a stanard for good liberalism?

Finally, seeing Germany only through its seemingly dominant militaristic culture does not do justice to many diverse traditions within its culture.

This is fair and makes sense. It wasn't a military dicatatorship. It did have a rudementary parliment and democratic system, but very weak by western traditonal standards. Their elite aristocracy was also more powerful than in other areas as the professor even agreed.


Actually, now that I read it again, he makes exuses for a lot of things which goes against the common perception (not that it's always right) and the basic historical teachings. He then seems to go to the middle ground and say he "is" right, but it's an unfair analysis. He then stresses that it's only his opinion over and over. Someone who is confident of his possition rarely will say that repeatedly.


this article doesn't provide any concrete evidence against

The people didn't really get a say because it was a virtual autocracy with a few social reforms to buy off the people.

. Instead, it offers "opinions" and vague statements of no, perhaps, and well...they are technically correct.

Whatever conclusions historians draw, they tend to agree that something went "wrong" in German history in the nineteenth century.

He isn't saying anyone is wrong even. He again stresses it's only one opinion, and many historians will come to conclusions different from his.

The forced labour 'concentration camps' of Nazi Germany, which were really mostly forced labour death camps and often sheer extinction centres, went much further than those the British had introduced in South Africa during the Boer War, officially to concentrate the civil population in controllable areas. The truth about British camps has however been carefully concealed from the public and new startling facts emerged in the 1990s. Due in part to the work of Emily Hobhouse, it has long been widely known in South Africa but only recently in U.K., that 28,000 Boers died while in such confinement, yet unknown until recently is the fact that there were at least 86 camps for blacks. The Boers themselves and historians generally denied or ignored the participation of blacks against the British. But from State archives opened after the emancipation of South Africa in the 1990s, it now emerges that about 26,000 blacks also died in these camps, of which 81% were children. Terrible as this was, it can hardly be compared either quantitively or otherwise, with the concentration camps of the Nazi regime.

Many of the colonial powers of the period were bad due to the burdon of the "white man." Was germany equal or worse?

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I am sorry to all of you. This whole thing is my fault. I shouldn't have asked why Woodrow Wilson was so horrible. It took it kinda off topic.

[Patrick Degan]

The point of contention is not whether Imperial Germany was as advanced in the development of constitutional democracy as Britain or France; the balance of powers laying the greater share of authority with the throne and the Bundesrat demonstrating that it wasn't. It is rather whether Imperial Germany was the militaristic dictatorship which Darkling seems determined to caricature them as, and the evidence indicates that this also was not the case. It is also clear, as the 20th century progressed into the teens and particularly as World War I wore on, that the Kaiser largely became impotent on the throne and the influence of the Reichstag and that of the popular parties grew even within the limitations of the Constitution of 1871; culminating in the Kaiser's eventual forced abdication from power in 1918 under the pressure of the war.

As for the morality argument, attempting to caricature the Imperials as more oppressive or racist than the other colonial powers does not bear close examination.

[Patrick Degan]

Excuse me for a moment, but THIS I had to respond to before anything else:

British people weren't executing people in Belgium nor well they committing genocide in Africa.

No, the British weren't executing Belgians. But as for the other, well:



Here's a map of some British concentration camps in South Africa.



And here are some reserved for blacks.







Some recipients of British "hospitality" in the camps, the story of which is told here:

Hellkamp

Another camp set up by the British for the Boers:



The concentration camp at Krugersdorp. Women can be seen walking up a road through the centre of the camp. Such camps were an obvious and controversial result of the British strategy of attrition. Overcrowded conditions, when combined with a lack of knowledge about hygiene among the prisoners, led to fatal results.

Linky

"Not all concentration camps were so appallingly badly run" says a South African visitor to this exhibition. "Certainly in the case of the concentration camp in East London the refugees from the Rand and the local communuity complained because while the British army recognised its oblgation to house and feed the Boers, the refugees who had been expelled from the Rand because they were British subjects had to survive on charity. That was a huge strain on local communiuties whose pre-War economies had depended heavily on trade with the Rand".

By the end of the war, the situation in the camps had improved to the point where the death rate was said by British authorities to approximate that of the major Scottish city of Glasgow. If this was so, it was hardly a great improvement. Poverty and hygienic conditions in heavily industrialised Glasgow were among the worst in Britain.

The Scandal of the Black Camps

A South African visitor to this site has raised the controversy about the imprisonment of Black South Africans in conditions much worse than those for Boer prisoners. Removed from farms or other areas, at least 14 000 Black people are believed to have died in these concentration camps--but for nearly a century the ordinary South African was completely unaware of their existence.

Unlike the Boer prison camps, the Black prisoners were mostly left to fend for themselves, and were not given any rations at all. They were expected to grow food or find work. In a few instances this actually improved their chances of survival because they were able to get out of the camps which were hellholes of infection and disease.

Where the dead from these camps are buried is mostly still unknown. Studies by the British War Graves Commission and other bodies in recent years have proved relatively fruitless.

Questions about British Army leadership

The British Army saw action somewhere in its far-flung Empire during every year of Queen Victoria's reign. Some were minor wars described in official papers as mere 'disturbances'. But even the minor wars required the commitment of British regiments and money. Successful tactics from previous wars proved useless on the South African veldt, where a highly mobile guerilla force could ambush British units both large and small at will.

General Roberts and questions about 'Ethnic Cleansing'

Most British historians agree that General Roberts was a great improvement on his predecessors. He managed to sucure military victories out of past disasters.

The phrase 'ethnic cleansing' had not yet entered the English language, but Ethnic Cleansing certainly took place on the Rand. When Roberts took Johannesburg he had already prepared for immediate action to rid the town of "Jews and other riff-raff." Many Mediterraneans and Central Europeans were arrested and deported on trumped-up charges of plotting to kill Roberts and his entourage. More than 300 were arrested the day after the town had surrendered. Amongst them were two Englishmen!

Two days after the town was taken the British issued a gazette re-imposing the Pass Laws of the ZAR to control Black inhabitants. Sadly many Blacks had seen the British as liberators and some had even torn up their passes.

Baden-Powell and his treatment of the Barolong People of Mafeking

The Siege of Mafeking by the Boers encircled town inhabitants both Black and White. Leader of the defence of Mafeking was Colonel Baden-Powell, soon elevated to great international celebrity for his part in the siege, and future founder of the Scouting movement, including Boy Scouts.

Baden Powell's broken promises to the Barolong and other Blacks in Mafeking who bore arms and participated actively in the Siege, led to a high death toll among the Blacks. This is quite apart from his miserly rationing which gave Blacks far, far less than their White--or their Boer--counterparts and led to the starvation of an estimated 2000. When some of the women left the town in desperation with their children the Boers refused to let them through and drove them back to certain death.

So much for the myth of British moral superiority over the "Evil Hun"...

[Patrick Degan]

One more little point to address for the moment:

You're so full of bullshit it's flowing out of your ears. The only way Wilhelm could have disbanded the Reichstag was through a coup d'etat; he shared power with the Bundesrat, and as World War I dragged on, he was rendered increasingly impotent on the throne. That's fact, whether that suits you or not.

It is in the constitution, your ignorance does not constitute a credible argument.

And yours even less so. The following is from the text of the 1871 Constitution of the Second Reich, found at this little link here:

V. The DIET (Reichstag)


Article 20

The members of the Diet shall be elected by universal suffrage, and by direct secret ballot. Until regulated by law, which is reserved by section 5 of the Election Law of May 31, 1869, 48 deputies shall be elected in Bavaria, 17 in Wütemberg, 14 in Baden, 6 in Hesse, south of the River Main, and the total number of deputies shall be 382.

Article 21

Government officials shall not require leave of absence in order to enter the Diet. When a member of the Diet accepts a salaried of the Empire, or a salaried office in one of the States of the Confederation, or accepts any office of the Empire or of a States involving higher rank or salary, he shall forfeit his seat and vote in the Diet, but may recover his place in the same by a new election.

Article 22

The proceeding of the Diet shall be public. Truthful reports of the proceeding of the public sessions of the Diet shall subject those making them to no responsibility.

Article 23

The Diet shall have the right to propose laws within the jurisdiction of the Empire, and to refer petitions, addressed to it, to the Federal Council or the Chancellor of the Empire.

Article 24

Each legislative period of the Diet shall last three years. The Diet may be dissolve by the resolution of the Federal Council, with the consent of the Emperor.

Article 25

In the case of dissolution of the Diet new election shall take place within a period of sixty days, and the Diet shall re-assemble within a period of ninety days after its dissolution.

Article 26

Unless by consent of the Diet, an adjournment of that body shall not exceed the period of thirty days, and shall not be repeated during the same session without such consent.

Clearly the Emperor's power to dissolve the Diet was not absolute as per the Constitution of 1871.

Oh, and just for a reminder on another subject:

British people weren't executing people in Belgium nor well they committing genocide in Africa.

No, the British weren't executing Belgians. But as for the other, well:



Here's a map of some British concentration camps in South Africa.



And here are some reserved for blacks.







Some recipients of British "hospitality" in the camps, the story of which is told here:

Hellkamp

Another camp set up by the British for the Boers:



The concentration camp at Krugersdorp. Women can be seen walking up a road through the centre of the camp. Such camps were an obvious and controversial result of the British strategy of attrition. Overcrowded conditions, when combined with a lack of knowledge about hygiene among the prisoners, led to fatal results.

Linky

"Not all concentration camps were so appallingly badly run" says a South African visitor to this exhibition. "Certainly in the case of the concentration camp in East London the refugees from the Rand and the local communuity complained because while the British army recognised its oblgation to house and feed the Boers, the refugees who had been expelled from the Rand because they were British subjects had to survive on charity. That was a huge strain on local communiuties whose pre-War economies had depended heavily on trade with the Rand".

By the end of the war, the situation in the camps had improved to the point where the death rate was said by British authorities to approximate that of the major Scottish city of Glasgow. If this was so, it was hardly a great improvement. Poverty and hygienic conditions in heavily industrialised Glasgow were among the worst in Britain.

The Scandal of the Black Camps

A South African visitor to this site has raised the controversy about the imprisonment of Black South Africans in conditions much worse than those for Boer prisoners. Removed from farms or other areas, at least 14 000 Black people are believed to have died in these concentration camps--but for nearly a century the ordinary South African was completely unaware of their existence.

Unlike the Boer prison camps, the Black prisoners were mostly left to fend for themselves, and were not given any rations at all. They were expected to grow food or find work. In a few instances this actually improved their chances of survival because they were able to get out of the camps which were hellholes of infection and disease.

Where the dead from these camps are buried is mostly still unknown. Studies by the British War Graves Commission and other bodies in recent years have proved relatively fruitless.

Questions about British Army leadership

The British Army saw action somewhere in its far-flung Empire during every year of Queen Victoria's reign. Some were minor wars described in official papers as mere 'disturbances'. But even the minor wars required the commitment of British regiments and money. Successful tactics from previous wars proved useless on the South African veldt, where a highly mobile guerilla force could ambush British units both large and small at will.

General Roberts and questions about 'Ethnic Cleansing'

Most British historians agree that General Roberts was a great improvement on his predecessors. He managed to sucure military victories out of past disasters.

The phrase 'ethnic cleansing' had not yet entered the English language, but Ethnic Cleansing certainly took place on the Rand. When Roberts took Johannesburg he had already prepared for immediate action to rid the town of "Jews and other riff-raff." Many Mediterraneans and Central Europeans were arrested and deported on trumped-up charges of plotting to kill Roberts and his entourage. More than 300 were arrested the day after the town had surrendered. Amongst them were two Englishmen!

Two days after the town was taken the British issued a gazette re-imposing the Pass Laws of the ZAR to control Black inhabitants. Sadly many Blacks had seen the British as liberators and some had even torn up their passes.

Baden-Powell and his treatment of the Barolong People of Mafeking

The Siege of Mafeking by the Boers encircled town inhabitants both Black and White. Leader of the defence of Mafeking was Colonel Baden-Powell, soon elevated to great international celebrity for his part in the siege, and future founder of the Scouting movement, including Boy Scouts.

Baden Powell's broken promises to the Barolong and other Blacks in Mafeking who bore arms and participated actively in the Siege, led to a high death toll among the Blacks. This is quite apart from his miserly rationing which gave Blacks far, far less than their White--or their Boer--counterparts and led to the starvation of an estimated 2000. When some of the women left the town in desperation with their children the Boers refused to let them through and drove them back to certain death.

So much for the myth of British moral superiority over the "Evil Hun"...

Good night, folks.

[TheDarkling]

Oh really? Then what explains the link appearing in your own posting of August 6th 2004, 4.49 pm?:

Check Boyish-Tigerlilly's Fri Aug 06, 2004 6:47 pm which I was responding to, you will find that it was a quotation from him and I just left the link outside of the quotation.

—shows you very clearly conjoining Nazi Germany with Imperial Germany as part of your argument.

I didn't think you would own up, regrettable but not unexpected.

Just have the guts to admit you mistook one for the other because they committed similar actions, have the honesty to do that.

Oh, and as far as the notion of the British somehow being less cruel to their colonials:

The Guardian?

The Andaman Islands was a penal facility where “freedom fighters” were sent and some were executed however that is clearly different from mass extermination (from the limited information I could gather with a quick search).

I was rather clear that Britain and France weren't nice to their colonies but the Germans went way beyond what they did.

This is just another attempt to dodge that the Germans were quite clearly worse; you yourself accidentally compared their actions to Nazi actions (which I'm sure you regret doing).

Snip Opium War facts.

Pushing Opium is not the same as mass extermination; I assume you realise that, I would also point out that it isn't like Britain didn't also import Opium.

And:

Timeline: Mau Mau Rebellion
The Mau Mau were a militant African nationalist movement active in Kenya during the 1950s who's main aim was to remove British rule and European settlers from the country.

Much later than 1914, you shouldn’t compare Germany in 1950 and 1914 according to you so why do it for Britain?

24 April 1954
Over 40,000 Kikuyu tribesmen are arrested by British forces, including 5000 Imperial troops and 1000 Policemen, during a widespread, coordinated dawn raids.

Arrested, not sent into the desert where all the wells had been poisoned.

October 1955
Official reports suggest that over 70,000 Kikuyu tribesmen suspected of Mau Mau membership have been imprisoned, whilst over 13,000 people have been killed (by British troops and Mau Mau activists) over the last three years of the Mau Mau Rebellion.

Which is nowhere near mass extermination which the Germans conducted, is this really the best you can do?

And:

Snip

Very bad indeed but still not mass extermination on the scale of 80% of a racial group being systematically eradicated.

The Prisoners were beaten and broken so they could be released whereas Imperial Germany was killing all people of a particular group, see the difference yet?

You will also note that the Guardian points out that the more ugly things were not official policy (and they have no memos to backup that they happened) whereas it was official Germany policy to kill 80% of one ethnic group and 50% of another.

Try again.

Oh, and there's also the Irish Potato Famine and England's response of simply letting the Irish die:

Rubbish as usual, the Irish got money from the British government and food.
It wasn't enough and strange economic theories got in the way (one line of reasoning held that government involvement would only exasperate the problem and that economics would ensure optimal distribution of food).

I would also point out that Ireland wasn't a colony but a full part of the UK.

Ironically, during these tragic years it was only the potato crop that failed in Ireland. Wheat, oats, beef, mutton, pork, and poultry were all in excellent supply but the Irish-English landlords shipped these to the European continent to soften the starving there and receive a very good profit in return. When people today wonder about the hatred between the Irish and the English, they don't recognize the fact that Irish peoples memory is a long one and that stories are still being told about those ships leaving Irish ports loaded with food at the same time that their ancestors were eating grass to live.

Yes the government did not steal private property in order to feed the peasants, they did import foreign food stuffs though (again economics, buying British wheat would force up prices so they bought foreign grain).

In 1845 Peel had £100 000 worth of Indian corn imported from America for food relief in November 1845.
The Irish turned there nose up t this (they weren't fond of this foodstuff).

In March 1846 the government sponsored public works to employ eth needy, by the following march these programs employed 3/4 million.

Peel also repealed the Corn Laws (which were part of the problem) which immediately caused his government to fall.

In March 1847 Soup kitchens were opened and by July were feeding 3 million a day, these were paid for by charities, local rates and central government.

However Peels successor government was against economic inference and the soup kitchens were shut down (not from malice but out of deluded ideology).

The Irish poor Law system was to become the new instrument of government aid, which housed 200,000 and fed a further 800,000 by July 1949.
The system was never designed to handle this many though and conditions were poor.
This was far more than the system was designed to ha

All throughout the years of the horrific famine, which continued past 1847, the English government was unwilling to give any money to Ireland to help with the famine because, as they said, "the Irish will use it only to buy guns to revolt against them." They were also reluctant to provide material aid such as soup kitchens because, "they will get used to the free food and never become of be self-sufficient."

Rubbish, see above.

This sort of propaganda may be helpful for the IRA but it isn’t true to history.

The Irish got the same treatment as the Scottish did who also suffered from the blight.

As she says, "It is not characteristic of the English to behave as they behaved in Ireland. As a nation, the English have proved themselves of generosity, tolerance, and magnanimity, but not when Ireland is concerned. The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of tyrants and the fatuity of idiots."

Again rubbish, £450,000 (no small amount) was raised for famine relief in Britain during the time.

I suspect your source buys into this mythology of British genocide in Ireland like many Irish-Americans seem to, many in order to justify certain actions against innocent parties by terrorists.

And:
The British were reluctant to provide relief to the inferior
people of Ireland. In the 1840s, laissez-faire philosophy
dominated the British economic policy. The government officials
supported a policy of non-intervention, which maintained the belief
that it was counterproductive to interfere in economics.(32)

That is true, although unwillingness to help the inferior Irish is unsupported, the government did help them in a very inefficient manner and the people in Scotland were treated the same.

In 1846 Trevelyan wrote: "'The problem of Ireland being
altogether beyond the power of man, the cure has been applied by
all-wise Providence...'"(36) Various relief schemes were tried and
abandoned: public works projects, importing corn from America, soup
kitchens, workhouses, even sending agricultural advisors to the
west of Ireland where they found no surviving farmers.(37)
Ultimately, the Russell government ". . .was not prepared to
allocate what was needed to head off starvation, but was always
ready to dispatch police and troops of dragoons to help a landlord
evict destitute tenants or protect a shipment of cattle or grain
export."(38)

All true, the governments position was non intervention and encouraging people to help themselves, essentially conservative thinking which was wrong.

British response was driven by false ideology and inefficient understanding of the situation but it was not one of malice.

Snipped Info I already provided above

To limit the number of people seeking relief and the expense to the British government, The Poor Law Extension Act of 1847 was instituted to deny aid to tenant farmers with over a quarter acre
of land. This Act promoted emigration, increased land clearance,
and disintegrated the structure of rural society, which were
beneficial to British landowners, who sought profit, power, and
larger plots of land. (45) According to the Poor Laws, landlords
were bound to support peasants sent to the workhouse, which cost
$12 pounds a year. Instead, some landlords sent peasants to Canada
on "coffin ships", which cost $6 pounds.(46) Coffin ships were
"wet, leaky holds" of timber ships returning to North America that
were "crammed in with as many as 900 [people], with barely room to
stand."(47) Approximately half of the people died during the voyage
and the other half arrived in North America unable to disembark,
without assistance, due to sickness and starvation. (48)

Still not deliberate genocide as I have already said, the Irish were living in an unsupportable system (well over populated) and when the system collapsed it wasn’t handled well but it wasn't a tool of government genocide (charities were expected to cover this sort of thing but the scale of this eclipsed previous famines).

The British rationalized that landlords and industries, who
needed laborers, would find it in their best interests to protect
their investments (human laborers).(49) However, with the
industrialization of agricultural processes, the decrease in tenant
farmers proved advantageous to most landlords, who were intent on
maximizing profit by increasing the size of plots.

Funny you don't highlight this which clearly shows government miscalculation not malice.

And:

Peel's government was slow to react. Peel said that the Irish had a habit of exaggerating reports of distress; since he had been Chief Secretary for Ireland between 1812 and 1818, his experience might have told him that there might have had some truth in his comment,

Yet again, the Government was inefficient and clueless; they were not handing out poisoned soup though.

Eventually the government also initiated relief schemes such as canal-building and road building to provide employment. The workers were paid at the end of the week and often men had died of starvation before their wages arrived. Even worse, many of the schemes were of little used: men filled in valleys and flattened hills just so the government could justify the cash payments.

And again, the thinking of the day prevented direct cash handouts so the money was given as wages for useless jobs.

This all indicates a clear pattern of government idiocy, miscalculation and flawed understanding of economics not a deliberate campaign of extermination.

Lord John Russell Peel was replaced in office in June 1846 by Lord John Russell and a Whig administration dedicated to a laissez-faire policy. Russell's administration believed that Irish wealth should relieve Irish poverty, and rejected the policy of direct state intervention or aid. However, neither Irish landlords nor the Poor Law unions could deal with the burden of a huge starving population. In January 1847 Russell's administration modified its non-interventionist policy and made money available on loan for relief, and soup kitchens were established. The potato crop did not fail in 1847, but the yield was low. Then, as hundreds of thousands of starving people poured into the towns and cities for relief, epidemics of typhoid fever, cholera, and dysentery broke out, and claimed more lives than starvation itself.

The government couldn’t really fight disease now could they.

Oh, and about that jolly period known as the Raj:

You quote a source comparing Britain to Nazi Germany after all your bleating, you have no shame do you.

Many of the the forms of slavery under the British in India were taken over from their Indian predecessors - the maharajas, other rulers and zamindars - and were sometimes ameliorated, as far as local traditions and the caste system allowed.

Indeed Britain weakened the caste as much as possible.

On the subject of slavery, one should remember that, though Britishers were once active as slave-traders among people of many other nations - it was the British Empire that first abolished international slavery, following the lead of William Wilberforce and the magnificent exertions in Africa to obviate the slave-trade of Dr. David Livingstone.

Indeed, but I fail to see what Britain’s crusade against Slavery has to do with comparing German genocide.

The forced labour 'concentration camps' of Nazi Germany, which were really mostly forced labour death camps and often sheer extinction centres, went much further than those the British had introduced in South Africa during the Boer War, officially to concentrate the civil population in controllable areas.

Indeed they did, considering that the inmates in those camps could get Whiskey and other Alcohols for medicinal purposes and that they were paid by the British state to work in eth camps (if they wanted an oven Britain paid them to build an oven, in effect paying them twice).

The truth about British camps has however been carefully concealed from the public and new startling facts emerged in the 1990s. Due in part to the work of Emily Hobhouse, it has long been widely known in South Africa but only recently in U.K., that 28,000 Boers died while in such confinement, yet unknown until recently is the fact that there were at least 86 camps for blacks. The Boers themselves and historians generally denied or ignored the participation of blacks against the British. But from State archives opened after the emancipation of South Africa in the 1990s, it now emerges that about 26,000 blacks also died in these camps, of which 81% were children. Terrible as this was, it can hardly be compared either quantitively or otherwise, with the concentration camps of the Nazi regime.[/i]

Your own source makes it clear it wasn't deliberate, it is just another example of lack of fore planning.
Diseases and malnutrition (not starvation just a lack of the correct diet) lead to the deaths, not deliberate killings.

I can easily find more examples; they're no secret. Sure you want to continue flogging the myth of British moral superiority over "the Evil Hun?"

Yes because you haven't raised a single case of deliberate pre planned Genocide that Britain undertook which is what Imperial Germany did.

The rest of your bullshit I'll deal with later.

I'm sure you will think you have in you own little world.

[Patrick Degan]

My god you're pathetic! Is there no end to your bullshit denials?

Oh, and BTW:

British people weren't executing people in Belgium nor well they committing genocide in Africa.

No, the British weren't executing Belgians. But as for the other, well:



Here's a map of some British concentration camps in South Africa.



And here are some reserved for blacks.







Some recipients of British "hospitality" in the camps, the story of which is told here:

Hellkamp

Another camp set up by the British for the Boers:



The concentration camp at Krugersdorp. Women can be seen walking up a road through the centre of the camp. Such camps were an obvious and controversial result of the British strategy of attrition. Overcrowded conditions, when combined with a lack of knowledge about hygiene among the prisoners, led to fatal results.

Linky

"Not all concentration camps were so appallingly badly run" says a South African visitor to this exhibition. "Certainly in the case of the concentration camp in East London the refugees from the Rand and the local communuity complained because while the British army recognised its oblgation to house and feed the Boers, the refugees who had been expelled from the Rand because they were British subjects had to survive on charity. That was a huge strain on local communiuties whose pre-War economies had depended heavily on trade with the Rand".

By the end of the war, the situation in the camps had improved to the point where the death rate was said by British authorities to approximate that of the major Scottish city of Glasgow. If this was so, it was hardly a great improvement. Poverty and hygienic conditions in heavily industrialised Glasgow were among the worst in Britain.

The Scandal of the Black Camps

A South African visitor to this site has raised the controversy about the imprisonment of Black South Africans in conditions much worse than those for Boer prisoners. Removed from farms or other areas, at least 14 000 Black people are believed to have died in these concentration camps--but for nearly a century the ordinary South African was completely unaware of their existence.

Unlike the Boer prison camps, the Black prisoners were mostly left to fend for themselves, and were not given any rations at all. They were expected to grow food or find work. In a few instances this actually improved their chances of survival because they were able to get out of the camps which were hellholes of infection and disease.

Where the dead from these camps are buried is mostly still unknown. Studies by the British War Graves Commission and other bodies in recent years have proved relatively fruitless.

Questions about British Army leadership

The British Army saw action somewhere in its far-flung Empire during every year of Queen Victoria's reign. Some were minor wars described in official papers as mere 'disturbances'. But even the minor wars required the commitment of British regiments and money. Successful tactics from previous wars proved useless on the South African veldt, where a highly mobile guerilla force could ambush British units both large and small at will.

General Roberts and questions about 'Ethnic Cleansing'

Most British historians agree that General Roberts was a great improvement on his predecessors. He managed to sucure military victories out of past disasters.

The phrase 'ethnic cleansing' had not yet entered the English language, but Ethnic Cleansing certainly took place on the Rand. When Roberts took Johannesburg he had already prepared for immediate action to rid the town of "Jews and other riff-raff." Many Mediterraneans and Central Europeans were arrested and deported on trumped-up charges of plotting to kill Roberts and his entourage. More than 300 were arrested the day after the town had surrendered. Amongst them were two Englishmen!

Two days after the town was taken the British issued a gazette re-imposing the Pass Laws of the ZAR to control Black inhabitants. Sadly many Blacks had seen the British as liberators and some had even torn up their passes.

Baden-Powell and his treatment of the Barolong People of Mafeking

The Siege of Mafeking by the Boers encircled town inhabitants both Black and White. Leader of the defence of Mafeking was Colonel Baden-Powell, soon elevated to great international celebrity for his part in the siege, and future founder of the Scouting movement, including Boy Scouts.

Baden Powell's broken promises to the Barolong and other Blacks in Mafeking who bore arms and participated actively in the Siege, led to a high death toll among the Blacks. This is quite apart from his miserly rationing which gave Blacks far, far less than their White--or their Boer--counterparts and led to the starvation of an estimated 2000. When some of the women left the town in desperation with their children the Boers refused to let them through and drove them back to certain death.

So much for the myth of British moral superiority over the "Evil Hun"...[/quote]

[CJvR]

Get it through you head, the POD is a German victory in the Great War at Marne, that is what I am arguing is bad and what you are arguing against.

Obviously a German victory would not be a particulary good thing, mainly for France. But the alternative that the world actually had to endure was almost certainly even worse. A 1914 peace would save about 9 million soldiers and civilians in WWI alone. It would probably reduce the effect of the great influenca epedemic in 1918. It wouldn't have disrupted world trade and caused the great depression. It is very unlikely that either Nazis or Communists would ever get an oppertunity to rule Germany and Russia. A 1914 peace could have prevented the horror of WWII.

A German victory on the Marne would be a big victory but it would not be a total victory that would allow the enforcing of the most megalomaniac fantasies. Russia would still be in it and fear of the steamroller was still there and the defeat of France would not defeat the British so Germany would have to negotiate a peace treaty rather than dictating one.

A reduced and defeated France, possibly with yet an other corner nibbled of by Germany would not be something new, it had been the normal state in Europe since 1871.
Belgian independence would be the price Germany would have to pay for peace with the British.
No real conquests had been made out east in 1914 so border adjustments there would probably be minimal.
Habsburg had no ambitions beyond punishing Serbia so a reduction of Serbia is likely but hardly a big one since Russia isn't defeated yet.
Japan would probably refuse to return the German colonies and there would be little Germany could do about that.

A German victory on the Marne would IMPO probably lead to a negotiated peace with France as the main looser. With Germany's position strenghtened the external pressure would no longer be available as a diversion from internal political reform. I don't think that Germany could have remained with it's autocratic executive for long, the Germans were to well educated and politicaly aware for that. I see Germany on the road to a constitutional monarchy and millions of conscripts returning in triumph from their victory will probably accelerate that trend far more than any admiration for the aristocratic officer corps will slow it down. The aristocratic officercorps was more and more infiltrated by commoners anyway.

Naturally Im only speculating but I don't think things could turn out worse than they actually did. The outcome of a German victory would produce a more stable situation than the French pygmé trying to keep the pissed German giant down, witch was the legacy of Versailes. There are naturaly trouble on the horizon, the decline of Habsburg, the growth of Russia but any war originating from those conflicts are not likely to be worse than WWII actually was.

[TheDarkling]

My god you're pathetic! Is there no end to your bullshit denials?

They aren’t denials they are reasoned evidence which you seem unable to dispute (and with which many of your own sources agree).

Oh, and BTW:

British people weren't executing people in Belgium nor well they committing genocide in Africa.

No, the British weren't executing Belgians. But as for the other, well:

You did this in your post above, just love the play to emotion provided by the pictures eh?

I hate to break you smugness but this isn’t the victory you think it is, to think that the Boer war is some hidden secret shows once again you own lack of knowledge, I am all to aware of the events and they do not support your cause.

The concentration camp at Krugersdorp. Women can be seen walking up a road through the centre of the camp. Such camps were an obvious and controversial result of the British strategy of attrition. Overcrowded conditions, when combined with a lack of knowledge about hygiene among the prisoners, led to fatal results.

This is true, lack of knowledge led to deaths, to put things in perspective 16,000 British soldiers were also lost to disease (almost 3/4 of total British losses) was Britain committing Genocide upon its own armed forces?

"Not all concentration camps were so appallingly badly run" says a South African visitor to this exhibition. "Certainly in the case of the concentration camp in East London the refugees from the Rand and the local communuity complained because while the British army recognised its oblgation to house and feed the Boers, the refugees who had been expelled from the Rand because they were British subjects had to survive on charity. That was a huge strain on local communiuties whose pre-War economies had depended heavily on trade with the Rand".

So the British recognised there responsibility to look after the Boers in preference to British subjects, hardly makes your case of British genocide.

By the end of the war, the situation in the camps had improved to the point where the death rate was said by British authorities to approximate that of the major Scottish city of Glasgow. If this was so, it was hardly a great improvement. Poverty and hygienic conditions in heavily industrialised Glasgow were among the worst in Britain.

So Britain was also committing genocide on the Scots, good lord, or and I am just guessing here, general hygiene was bad and it was this not British malice which caused the deaths.

I would point out that once a report to parliament was made on the conditions in the camps Parliament immediately saw that they were improved, again contrary to what one would expect in a genuine attempt at genocide.

By 1901 British forces were no longer rounding up people because of the problems with the camps, again contrary to your attempt to draw a parallel between the deliberate poisoning and execution of people by imperial Germany.

Unlike the Boer prison camps, the Black prisoners were mostly left to fend for themselves, and were not given any rations at all. They were expected to grow food or find work. In a few instances this actually improved their chances of survival because they were able to get out of the camps which were hellholes of infection and disease.

They were allowed to leave, hardly a great extermination camp if people can check out when they wish too, compared with the German directive to shot anybody found outside the camps, be they man, woman or child.

The phrase 'ethnic cleansing' had not yet entered the English language, but Ethnic Cleansing certainly took place on the Rand. When Roberts took Johannesburg he had already prepared for immediate action to rid the town of "Jews and other riff-raff." Many Mediterraneans and Central Europeans were arrested and deported on trumped-up charges of plotting to kill Roberts and his entourage. More than 300 were arrested the day after the town had surrendered. Amongst them were two Englishmen!

Deported, not sent into the desert to die, you will no doubt fail to note.

I also couldn't find other information about this event but then again 300 out of 80,000 is a very small number indeed (and it doesn't say all those were deported).

Two days after the town was taken the British issued a gazette re-imposing the Pass Laws of the ZAR to control Black inhabitants. Sadly many Blacks had seen the British as liberators and some had even torn up their passes.

British general maintains status quo, shock horror.

Baden Powell's broken promises to the Barolong and other Blacks in Mafeking who bore arms and participated actively in the Siege, led to a high death toll among the Blacks. This is quite apart from his miserly rationing which gave Blacks far, far less than their White--or their Boer--counterparts and led to the starvation of an estimated 2000. When some of the women left the town in desperation with their children the Boers refused to let them through and drove them back to certain death.

He encouraged the women to flee because he didn't have enough food, he can't be held responsible for the actions of the Boers, as for the whites being fed more, is that really so much of a surprise?
Britain treated Black people better than most other nations (in British parts of South Africa they could vote etc) but that doesn't mean they were treated as equals, especially not those overseas.

So much for the myth of British moral superiority over the "Evil Hun"...

Nope, if you really think what you have outlined above compares to forcing people into desserts where you have already poisoned all the wells then you are more capable of self delusion than I thought.

[TheDarkling]

Obviously a German victory would not be a particulary good thing, mainly for France. But the alternative that the world actually had to endure was almost certainly even worse. A 1914 peace would save about 9 million soldiers and civilians in WWI alone. It would probably reduce the effect of the great influenca epedemic in 1918. It wouldn't have disrupted world trade and caused the great depression. It is very unlikely that either Nazis or Communists would ever get an oppertunity to rule Germany and Russia. A 1914 peace could have prevented the horror of WWII.

Well I'm not sure a WW2 style war wouldn't have happened but I essentially agree with the rest (the Flu was traced to barracks in Texas IIRC so without the soldiers crossing the Atlantic it likely will be prevented).

A German victory on the Marne would be a big victory but it would not be a total victory that would allow the enforcing of the most megalomaniac fantasies. Russia would still be in it and fear of the steamroller was still there and the defeat of France would not defeat the British so Germany would have to negotiate a peace treaty rather than dictating one.

The Germans weren't really interested in negations, if they make it too Paris it likely they will be dictating terms and after Tannenberg fear of the Russian steamroller was gone.

A reduced and defeated France, possibly with yet an other corner nibbled of by Germany would not be something new, it had been the normal state in Europe since 1871.

And it lead straight to WW1, the Germans could see this as clear as we can and they weren't going to let it happen again.

Belgian independence would be the price Germany would have to pay for peace with the British.

If France is beaten then Britain’s ability to enforce anything is severally diminished, Belgium would probably be restored by as a German puppet.

No real conquests had been made out east in 1914 so border adjustments there would probably be minimal.
Habsburg had no ambitions beyond punishing Serbia so a reduction of Serbia is likely but hardly a big one since Russia isn't defeated yet.
Japan would probably refuse to return the German colonies and there would be little Germany could do about that.

Having more Serbians in the Empire was not something that was really wanted so a good pounding and puppeteering is probably in order.

As for gains in Russia, the main reason the Germans had gone to war was to stop the Russians coming for them, they aren't going to leave that issue unresolved so the creation of Poland (at least) is likely (and was in the September program).

A German victory on the Marne would IMPO probably lead to a negotiated peace with France as the main looser.

I wouldn’t be so sure, you posit a near repeat of the Franco-Prussian war which certainly wasn't much of a negotiation.
I think the Germans can realise their aims with France beaten, they had those aims and a desire to see them implemented, to do otherwise would be to make the same mistake that was forced upon the French at Versailles.

With Germany's position strenghtened the external pressure would no longer be available as a diversion from internal political reform. I don't think that Germany could have remained with it's autocratic executive for long, the Germans were to well educated and politicaly aware for that.

But the military was also very powerful and conservative; I think if there is a push for too much reform Wilhelm will block it and bring the house of cards falling down.
Do you honestly see him giving up his power? He will use his constitutional powers along with military backing to prevent reforms. and possibly provoke a civil war, which would have some rather red chaps on one side and some rather brown shirted fellows on the other.

I see Germany on the road to a constitutional monarchy

I just don't see Wilhelm going quietly into the night, he had denied the Reichstag before and he was less than pleased by democracy, read his notes on telegrams about Britain.
He is disgusted that parliament doesn't do as the king says and he often talks about the rights of the monarch when blabbering about A-H and Serbia (in his opinion the highest crime of the Serbs is that they killed their own King).
He also sneers about Russia being in cahoots with the French *Republic* something else he finds offensive.

Naturally Im only speculating but I don't think things could turn out worse than they actually did. The outcome of a German victory would produce a more stable situation than the French pygmé trying to keep the pissed German giant down, witch was the legacy of Versailes. There are naturaly trouble on the horizon, the decline of Habsburg, the growth of Russia but any war originating from those conflicts are not likely to be worse than WWII actually was.

I'm not so sure about that, the possibility of the two sides developing nukes during a war is a possibility and a very scary one.

If Germany had a somewhat more stable government I could agree with you but the Kaiser was unstable, the military to powerful, conservative forces still ruled the day and a disregard for non German life had already been displayed.
It doesn't bode well for those under German domination (which will be most people on the continent, directly or indirectly).

[Elfdart]

Wilson was the worst president in US history. His meddling in the Great War tipped the scales against Germany. The Germans turned Lenin loose...

Without Wilson, Hitler would have been another multi-talentless artist in Austria and Stalin would have been another police snitch in Georgia. Lenin would have rotted in jail rather than hijacking the Russian Revolution. Thanks Woody!

As if he could have foreseen it.

George Washington foresaw the kind of mischief Wilson's meddling could cause. That's why he warned against it. So did James Monroe. What people forget about the Monroe Doctrine is the second part: The US would not intervene in European affairs.

Wilson knew or should have known that meddling in the affairs of other nations is a bad idea.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

So, Intervening to stop the nazis would have been a bad thing had Japan not attacked the United States? If they knew about the Holocaust, would they not be justified in stopping the Nazis? AFter all, it would only have been a European affair.

What people forget about the Monroe Doctrine is the second part: The US would not intervene in European affairs.

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist - so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat - so I did nothing. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew - so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up for me."

Sometimes isolationism and apathy are not good. Sometimes if you don't intervene, it will be too late. This is why strictly adhering to the Monroe doctrine is silly.

Note. This has nothing to do with anything said about WW1. *

[Patrick Degan]

My god you're pathetic! Is there no end to your bullshit denials?

They aren’t denials they are reasoned evidence which you seem unable to dispute (and with which many of your own sources agree).

Oh, and BTW:

British people weren't executing people in Belgium nor well they committing genocide in Africa.

No, the British weren't executing Belgians. But as for the other, well:

You did this in your post above, just love the play to emotion provided by the pictures eh?

That isn't an Appeal to Emotion, numbskull, that's blowing a hole in your attempt to whitewash away British crimes in colonialism.

I hate to break you smugness but this isn’t the victory you think it is, to think that the Boer war is some hidden secret shows once again you own lack of knowledge, I am all to aware of the events and they do not support your cause.

I hate to burst your balloon, but as you attempted to portray the Germans as far worse colonial masters than any of their contemporaries and the British as benign, you opened the door for comparisons.

The concentration camp at Krugersdorp. Women can be seen walking up a road through the centre of the camp. Such camps were an obvious and controversial result of the British strategy of attrition. Overcrowded conditions, when combined with a lack of knowledge about hygiene among the prisoners, led to fatal results.

This is true, lack of knowledge led to deaths, to put things in perspective 16,000 British soldiers were also lost to disease (almost 3/4 of total British losses) was Britain committing Genocide upon its own armed forces?

Nice little Red Herring. It's one thing when soldiers die from disease and poor conditions on the battlefield and entirely another when it happens to civilians deliberately herded into concentration camps. Civilians are not supposed to get herded into camps at all.

"Not all concentration camps were so appallingly badly run" says a South African visitor to this exhibition. "Certainly in the case of the concentration camp in East London the refugees from the Rand and the local communuity complained because while the British army recognised its oblgation to house and feed the Boers, the refugees who had been expelled from the Rand because they were British subjects had to survive on charity. That was a huge strain on local communiuties whose pre-War economies had depended heavily on trade with the Rand".

So the British recognised there responsibility to look after the Boers in preference to British subjects, hardly makes your case of British genocide.

Strawman. The argument was not whether the British were committing genocide but rather whether they were the morally unstained heroes you keep trying to portray them as, and simply because "not all" camps were "as bad", this does not erase 28,000 Boer deaths which resulted from their being herded into camps when they should not have been left unmolested by British forces. The issue isn't one of bodycount.

By the end of the war, the situation in the camps had improved to the point where the death rate was said by British authorities to approximate that of the major Scottish city of Glasgow. If this was so, it was hardly a great improvement. Poverty and hygienic conditions in heavily industrialised Glasgow were among the worst in Britain.

So Britain was also committing genocide on the Scots, good lord, or and I am just guessing here, general hygiene was bad and it was this not British malice which caused the deaths.

A Strawman and a Golden Mean Fallacy. I suppose it just escapes you the fact that Glasgow had a far larger population to begin with that renders such a simple statistical comparison meaningless; nevermind the fact that the crux of the matter is noncombatants being herded into concentration camps when they should have been left unmolested by British forces.

I would point out that once a report to parliament was made on the conditions in the camps Parliament immediately saw that they were improved, again contrary to what one would expect in a genuine attempt at genocide.

Funny, but I never accused the British of attempting genocide but pointed out what was an act of mass slaughter. That Parliament stepped in and halted it is to Parliament's credit but there's no record that the generals who carried out the attrition strategy were ever brought to justice. Indeed, Lord Baden-Powell had no impediment to his later career of founding the Boy Scouts from his part in the deaths of 2,000 Barolongs which was covered up for a century.

By 1901 British forces were no longer rounding up people because of the problems with the camps, again contrary to your attempt to draw a parallel between the deliberate poisoning and execution of people by imperial Germany.

By 1901, the Boer War was largely over. And again, the issue is not one of bodycount. No matter how much you try to whitewash away British crimes to support your case that they were unstained moral heroes compared to the Germans, their making war upon Boer civilians in order to eliminate the Boer resistance is still a war crime. Herding noncombatants into concentration camps is a war crime.

And if we're going to try to argue bodycounts, the German atrocities against the Herero don't compare in scale to what Belgium was responsible for in the Congo Free State (death toll 10 million).

Unlike the Boer prison camps, the Black prisoners were mostly left to fend for themselves, and were not given any rations at all. They were expected to grow food or find work. In a few instances this actually improved their chances of survival because they were able to get out of the camps which were hellholes of infection and disease.

They were allowed to leave, hardly a great extermination camp if people can check out when they wish too, compared with the German directive to shot anybody found outside the camps, be they man, woman or child.

They were "allowed to leave" to fend for themselves or die. How charitable. And after 14,000 blacks died. Nevermind the plain fact that the British had no business or moral right to be herding anybody into camps in the first place, fuckwit.

The phrase 'ethnic cleansing' had not yet entered the English language, but Ethnic Cleansing certainly took place on the Rand. When Roberts took Johannesburg he had already prepared for immediate action to rid the town of "Jews and other riff-raff." Many Mediterraneans and Central Europeans were arrested and deported on trumped-up charges of plotting to kill Roberts and his entourage. More than 300 were arrested the day after the town had surrendered. Amongst them were two Englishmen!

Deported, not sent into the desert to die, you will no doubt fail to note.

Which should not have been done in the first place, asshole No matter how much you drag forth this little strawman about my characterising British actions as genocide (which I haven't), it does not help your effort to whitewash away forced resettlement, or for the deaths of 28,000 Boers and 14,000 black natives in concentration camps at the hands of the British.

I also couldn't find other information about this event but then again 300 out of 80,000 is a very small number indeed (and it doesn't say all those were deported).

Nice. Keep pretending that the issue is one of mere bodycount.

Two days after the town was taken the British issued a gazette re-imposing the Pass Laws of the ZAR to control Black inhabitants. Sadly many Blacks had seen the British as liberators and some had even torn up their passes.

British general maintains status quo, shock horror.

42,000 Boer and native deaths as part of the new status-quo. Shock, horror.

Baden Powell's broken promises to the Barolong and other Blacks in Mafeking who bore arms and participated actively in the Siege, led to a high death toll among the Blacks. This is quite apart from his miserly rationing which gave Blacks far, far less than their White--or their Boer--counterparts and led to the starvation of an estimated 2000. When some of the women left the town in desperation with their children the Boers refused to let them through and drove them back to certain death.


He encouraged the women to flee because he didn't have enough food, he can't be held responsible for the actions of the Boers, as for the whites being fed more, is that really so much of a surprise?

He encouraged them to flee camps they should never have been brought to in the first place.

Britain treated Black people better than most other nations (in British parts of South Africa they could vote etc) but that doesn't mean they were treated as equals, especially not those overseas.

Nice, but that doesn't whitewash away a British war crime. And while Britain didn't massacre the Hereros, they did participate in the suppression of the Blue Book report on the crime in 1926, destroying all copies that could be found throughout the Empire and for years afterward dismissing all stories of the atrocity as communist propaganda.

So much for the myth of British moral superiority over the "Evil Hun"...

Nope, if you really think what you have outlined above compares to forcing people into desserts where you have already poisoned all the wells then you are more capable of self delusion than I thought.

Nope, since I wasn't arguing that the British committed an action equivalent to the Herero massacres but pointed out that the fantasy of Britain as unstained moral paragon of the colonial powers is exactly that.

And as for capability for self-delusion, given your whitewash of British colonial crimes combined with your lurid portrait of the all-conquering German Empire being somehow able to accomplish what they were materially and militarily incapable of pulling off in any real-world scenario, the spectacle of you accusing anybody of being delusional is quite comical.

[EmperorSolo51]

I think what blows a hole further into Darkling's Imperial-Germany=Nazis argument is the subject of the German East Africa front. The Germans treated the Askari tribesmen with considerable respect. German East Africa had the highest education rates among the natives than in the Belgian Congo,(who were practically enslaving the natives of the Congo) French Central Africa, Italian Somaliland, or British Africa.

During Paul Von Letteow-Vorbeck's camapign in East Africa while most of his officer corp was white, the Germans relied heavily on thier native forces. Who, if I might add, fought bravely if not more bravely than the KAR or the South Africans.

To say that the Imperial German government was more racist or evil than the other colonial powers is to be ignorant or blindly nationalistic.

[TheDarkling]

I think what blows a hole further into Darkling's Imperial-Germany=Nazis argument is the subject of the German East Africa front.

I made not such argument.

The Germans treated the Askari tribesmen with considerable respect. German East Africa had the highest education rates among the natives than in the Belgian Congo,(who were practically enslaving the natives of the Congo) French Central Africa, Italian Somaliland, or British Africa.

And in German Southwest Africa they killed 80% of one tribe where two men conducted medical Experiments.
Theodore Mollison and Eugen Fischer, Fishcer was trying to prove the superiority of the white man over the black man and both men were teachers of one "Doctor" Joseph Mengele AKA The Angel of Death.

To say that the Imperial German government was more racist or evil than the other colonial powers is to be ignorant or blindly nationalistic.

Why is it? Do you think they all must have been on an equal playing field?
Must they all have been identical in outlook, we both know the Belgians were worse in the Congo then Britain or France so why is it impossible that the same cannot be said for Germany?

What the Germans did in Southwest Africa was worse than anything Britain/France did and it bears a striking resemblance to what the Nazis got up to (including the involvement of people related to those who would later propose and conduct the holocaust).
I d not think Imperial Germany was the same as the Nazi's (and I must question whether you have read the thread if you have come to that conclusion) only that they were worse than Britain/France for treatment of their colonial subjects, Racism, Democracy and militarism.

[TheDarkling]

That isn't an Appeal to Emotion, numbskull, that's blowing a hole in your attempt to whitewash away British crimes in colonialism.

I meant specifically the pictures and the fact that you seemed so happy to have found them (either that or you were unaware of the Boer war and were happy to find out about that).

I however made no attempt to Whitewash British (or French) colonial crimes, I have only pointed out that the Germans had already gone far further than them, something which you have yet to prove wrong.

I hate to burst your balloon, but as you attempted to portray the Germans as far worse colonial masters than any of their contemporaries and the British as benign, you opened the door for comparisons.

I didn't portray the British as benign at all (although for an Empire we were rather liberal on the whole), I showed that the Germans had already conducted actions worse than Britain (or France).

Nice little Red Herring. It's one thing when soldiers die from disease and poor conditions on the battlefield and entirely another when it happens to civilians deliberately herded into concentration camps. Civilians are not supposed to get herded into camps at all.

I don't disagree, however those camps were not meant to kill people and it was blundering and disease which lead to those deaths where as the Germans had a deliberate policy of extermination in Southwest Africa and medical experimentation to boot.

Strawman. The argument was not whether the British were committing genocide but rather whether they were the morally unstained heroes you keep trying to portray them as, and simply because "not all" camps were "as bad", this does not erase 28,000 Boer deaths which resulted from their being herded into camps when they should not have been left unmolested by British forces. The issue isn't one of bodycount.

I am portraying them as no such thing.
I am accept your concession about being unable to prove British genocide (therefore the Germans were worse) and also recognised the fact that you have been forced to build such a straw man about my opinion is further evidence you have little ground to stand on.

I have not said the British Empire were stalwart heroes who lived up to modern day morality what I have said is they did not commit deliberate Genocide, the Germans did ergo Imperial Germany treated its colonials worse than Britain.

Funny, but I never accused the British of attempting genocide but pointed out what was an act of mass slaughter.

Then you are proving nothing, in order to show Britain was as bad as the Germans you need to show a deliberate campaign of genocide, complete with medical experimentation and death camps.

You have failed to do so which means if you had any amount of decency you would admit that Britain did not sink to the levels Imperial Germany did.

By 1901, the Boer War was largely over. And again, the issue is not one of bodycount. No matter how much you try to whitewash away British crimes to support your case that they were unstained moral heroes compared to the Germans, their making war upon Boer civilians in order to eliminate the Boer resistance is still a war crime. Herding noncombatants into concentration camps is a war crime.

Yes it is but again my position isn't that the British empire was a paragon of moral virtue only that they were better than the Germans, if you are unable to find a British duplicate for the Herero extermination then you must concede that point.

And if we're going to try to argue body counts, the German atrocities against the Herero don't compare in scale to what Belgium was responsible for in the Congo Free State (death toll 10 million).

I already pointed out the Belgians were worse (although they didn’t go in for genocide so much as randomly killing people in order to increase productivity, there was also limb chopping for the same reason) and that I would be unhappy to see them gain colonial territory.

With that said the 10 million death toll is suspect and things did improve when the Belgian government took over running the show instead of the Belgian king, which I would point out that Britain forced because they were unhappy with what was going on in the Congo.

They were "allowed to leave" to fend for themselves or die. How charitable. And after 14,000 blacks died. Nevermind the plain fact that the British had no business or moral right to be herding anybody into camps in the first place, fuckwit.

I'm not justifying those actions, as much as you wish I were.

Which should not have been done in the first place, asshole No matter how much you drag forth this little strawman about my characterising British actions as genocide (which I haven't), it does not help your effort to whitewash away forced resettlement, or for the deaths of 28,000 Boers and 14,000 black natives in concentration camps at the hands of the British.

Then you admit Britain didn't carry out a campaign of genocide complete with medical experiments design t prove the superiority of the white Race, therefore Britain was not as bad as Imperial Germany.

Britain dealt with rebellion by gathering people into open camps, feeding them and looking after them (to the exclusion of British subjects) whilst the Germans systematically murdered them, THAT is the difference here and it is a difference you dance around but will not admit.

Nice. Keep pretending that the issue is one of mere bodycount.

It isn't, it is one of intent. Britain grabs those people for a purpose and deported them (which is wrong), the Germans grabbed them to put them in camps, where they were experimented on or exterminated (worse wouldn't you say?).

He encouraged them to flee camps they should never have been brought to in the first place.

They weren't brought to the camps; they lived in the city, a city under siege.

Nice, but that doesn't whitewash away a British war crime.

No need to, this entire escapade of yours is just an attempt to prove that Britain wasn't blame free, which is true and thus subtly imply that which you cannot prove which is that Britain was as bad as Germany.

And while Britain didn't massacre the Hereros, they did participate in the suppression of the Blue Book report on the crime in 1926, destroying all copies that could be found throughout the Empire and for years afterward dismissing all stories of the atrocity as communist propaganda.

Destroying a report, murdering 80,000 people.
Destroying a report, murdering 80,000 people.

Hmm I just can't decide.

Nope, since I wasn't arguing that the British committed an action equivalent to the Herero massacres but pointed out that the fantasy of Britain as unstained moral paragon of the colonial powers is exactly that.

And since I wasn’t pushing that view we can agree, Britain wasn't crime free but Germany was worse to the level of having a mini holocaust complete with a Goering and the Angel of Death's mentors.

And as for capability for self-delusion, given your whitewash of British colonial crimes

Did no such thing.

combined with your lurid portrait of the all-conquering German Empire being somehow able to accomplish what they were materially and militarily incapable of pulling off in any real-world scenario, the spectacle of you accusing anybody of being delusional is quite comical.

I'm sure it is, I accept your concession on the fact that Imperial Germany committed worse actions than the British Empire since you didn't have the intellectual courage to offer it, instead shifting from “Germany wasn’t worse” to “Britain was no Angel”.

As for Germany being militarily unable, your belief that American would read into a war with Germany for no particular reason doesn’t match reality and Britain was far less capable at ground warfare than the Germans were (in 1914).

[CmdrWilkens]

The question really centers on what would have been possible if Von Moltke had not transferred some 6 corps and withheld another 3 for service on the Eastern Front. Moreover the decision to attack (or rather "Pursue direction Epinal" IIRC) after France's own counterattack completely stalled might have altered things. In the later case it would have tied down a notable portion of the French reserve while allowing a tranfser of troops away from the defensive lines. Essentially the question is would the additional forces have allowed a continuing leapfrog attack that could have sustained a greater advance.

Or if they, the Germans, had limited themselves to more realistic goals from the start instead of the great right wing walkathon? Of cource that would have ment that that the planning of the General Staff woud need to be a bit more imaginative.

I don't know if it isn't all that unrealistic from a plannign standpoint. The original plan also called for a much wider sweep around the right which (although increasing some distances) would have captured several key channel ports potentially enabling a potential settlement despite the non-encirclement of Paris. Moreover the plan shows a great flair for placing armies into the best possible position to win without large casualties, essentially it is a great piece of manuever warfare that fixed the French in place focuing on Alsace-Lorraine while attacking their political center of gravity. All other considerations aside it was a masterufl bit of planning and while close only counts in horeshoes and grenades the plan came damn close to succeding which speaks volumes given that most military plans are useless beyond the 24 hours they were concieved in. Moreover the fixed defenses in France present a huge obstacle to any plan not involving the huge right hook, and one which would have likely been paced much more slowly in the first days (giving the French time to react which above all else they could not be given).

The point is a very debatable one comparing the ability of those extra corps to relieve in place other units and moving the whole force further forward (enough to encircle Paris as in 1870) or whether the overworked supply lines, rail supply terminated essentially at the Belgian border, simply could not maintain any more of an advance. Its been a while since I've looked at it but personally so long as fresh troops can keep moving forward I could and would keep pushing an army forward, in the end just coming within artillery range (normal artillery mind you) of Paris may have been enough to cause a capitulation and a settlement by the end of September or the beginning of October.

If they wanted to do that it would have ment slowing down the offensive to ensure extra troops can be supplied beyoned the point of the railheads. Slowing down the offensive would give Joffere time to react, and that would have been unnaceptable.

Not neccessarily, the front as a whole while not nearly as staqtic as the Western Front we think of was hardly fast paced. IIRC the lead armies with von Kluck were making only a little better than 12-15 miles per day. A good infantry force without opposition can move itself at 20 miles per day rather comfortably for a few weeks (certainly in the late summer or early Autumn at least, mid summer would have been difficult). In other words additional troops could have moved forward behind the advancing lines and then overtaken them briefly to allow a brief (1 or 2 day) R&R period during which it could refit enough to resume the offensive with vigor. Moreoover von Kluck eventually turned because his flank was exposed at the end of the hook and those extra 6 corps would have done more than enough to fill the hole. Again even if he had still turned the availability of forces would have allowed him to extend his lines bringin Paris, potentially, within conventional artillery range. The goal here is to displace the political center of gravity (Paris) which, with panic already flying, would likely have led to France suing for peace. Obviously the in the later case its less likely than with encirclement but the French government was already prepared to dynamite the Eiffel Tower and ost of the bridges on the Seine just to render Paris useless to the Germans for occupation. In other words they were close to the edge of snapping and if artillery shells started landing in the city center it is highly likely that they would have folded.

Assuming all that possible (and its about the only reasonable course that leads to German victory) Germany will not posses enough territory (nor will they have been able to effectively enough lock up the channel ports) to enforce a total domination of France. Rather they will have the leverage to take additional territory, gain a dmilitarized zone, and generally let the French stew in their defeat much as they had in 1870. Moreover a swift victory at this point would essentially keep Britain from being a major factor in negotiations. In other words France would certainly lose a bit but Britain (which to this point had only engaged the rather tiny BEF under French) would almost certainly have retained the empire and thus continued to stifle Germany from becmoing a world dominating power. As with any other era in history British control of the seas will leave them a dominant player and while Russia will have taken a beating from their advances they have virtually no real territorial loses. Though we might assume revolution it is important to note that the Bolsheviks were a tiny minority within the framework of the revolution and denied Lenin it is entirely plausible to believe that Russia would have emerged as a socialist democratic republic or retained its monarchy a while longer rather than fallen to the extreme of Leninism.

I think that any kind of dominance on the continant by one power will be opposed by Britian out of principle, and in this instance things would be a rehash of the preceeding how many hundreds of years?

Oh I'm sure they will oppose it but France will still be independent and Russia (without another revolution or perhaps with a non-Leninist revolution) will only be growing as a potential counter to Germany. Moreover with the German fleet still irrelevant the position would not likely lead to immediate war (until such time as Russia begins to re-establish itself). While the potential for conflict is large you are trading a few months on war and a few thousand casualties for at least a few decades of peace and possibly more against millions of deaths and asecond world war. While I think the more lasting peace of the post WWII era is unlikely I think a shorter WWI here wouldn't lead to a kind of titanic Germany v Britain conflict devouring the whole of Europe for six years.

In general I am quite willing to trade the possibility that the Germans will rule with a degree of prejudice (and yet greater democracy an odd combination) larger swaths of Europe for the known horrors of Stalinism/Leninism/Maoism/Nazism that wracked the world with tens of millions of deaths over the course of the decades before and after WWII (or Part 2 of the Great European Civil War).

I think you would just end up with a rehash of the Napolonic wars, as Britian will never tolerate one nation dominating Europe.

In some ways yes but in others no, agian Russia will remain a notable power, the Turks are essentially uninvolved at this point and will largely remain as they are (though diminished even more) and the instability inherent in Austro-Hungary will present a series of problems for the Germans which won't neccessarily force Britain to use warfare to solve. Moreover the Napoleonic conflicts while destructive are a far cry from the devestation of WWII and I think trading one for the other isn't all the horrible.

[CmdrWilkens]

I think what blows a hole further into Darkling's Imperial-Germany=Nazis argument is the subject of the German East Africa front.

I made not such argument.

No you merely suggested that it would be better to let things happen as they did (Germany loses WWI with 8.5 million extra dead, starts WWII killing millions, masacres 6 million, communism rises in Russia and 10 million are killed, communism travels to China millions more are killed) than to let Germany win WWI (potential realignment of the continent, more suppression in Africa).

In other words you have advocated than some 50 million plus deaths in war and atrocities committed thanks to the string of events leading down from Germany's losss is somehow BETTER than what would have happened if they had not lost. Frankly I think making the Imperial Germans into Nazis is about the only way you could even come close to justifying that point of view.

The Germans treated the Askari tribesmen with considerable respect. German East Africa had the highest education rates among the natives than in the Belgian Congo,(who were practically enslaving the natives of the Congo) French Central Africa, Italian Somaliland, or British Africa.

And in German Southwest Africa they killed 80% of one tribe where two men conducted medical Experiments.
Theodore Mollison and Eugen Fischer, Fishcer was trying to prove the superiority of the white man over the black man and both men were teachers of one "Doctor" Joseph Mengele AKA The Angel of Death.

So the Germans had the best and one of the worsrt colonial records. This means what? You've essentially proved nothing. THer Germans treated some colonies FAR better than other European countries and some worse. You aren't proving a damn thing here, your entire point seems to be that one instance where they killed off large portions of a tribe (of 65,000 persons) is somehow inifitely worse than British (the Boers), Blegian (Congo), and French (sorry I don't have any ready thoughts in mind) colonies. Your argument is foolish in the extreme, you are trying to argue thatone example of colonial brutality is somehow worse than another (its like arguing whether murder by knife or gun is more horrible). EVERYONE was committing massive atrocities that killed thousands, the fact that the Germans also had some of the most noble pursuits in some of their colonies is the final nail reminidng you that they were NO WORSE than any one else. Your entire argument lacks proof that the Germans would have been worse colonial rulers had they been given charge over British and French colonies.

For the record your constant reference to the eventual participants in the Nazi crimes does make your argument look like a blatant attempt to link Imperial Germany to Nazi Germany by association (i.e. since these men who were horrible Nazis were allowed to do some horrible things under Imperial Germany the Imperial Germans must have similair racial and social morals). Now I admit it isn't much of a link btu by all appearneces you are appearing to make it by constant refernce to Goering and Mendle and co. I would rather remind you that those individuals would likely have done everything they did no matter who was in power and refering to the individual and not the incidents themselves is rather foolish as a means of making a point.

To say that the Imperial German government was more racist or evil than the other colonial powers is to be ignorant or blindly nationalistic.

Why is it? Do you think they all must have been on an equal playing field?
Must they all have been identical in outlook, we both know the Belgians were worse in the Congo then Britain or France so why is it impossible that the same cannot be said for Germany?

What the Germans did in Southwest Africa was worse than anything Britain/France did and it bears a striking resemblance to what the Nazis got up to (including the involvement of people related to those who would later propose and conduct the holocaust).

Beyond the fact that you'd have a hard time telling me that the 65,000 deaths in German SW Aftrica are signifincatly worse than the 42,000 odd civilian deaths due to concentration camps the British enacted. Playing a numbers game like that is a losing proposition. Both nations were equally culpable in efforts to kill off and deprive colonists and you aren't getting anywhere invoking the names of Nazi collborators along with the incidents. Once more just because you say 65k is worse than 42k doesn't make it so. Just because you say that German actions in Belgium were worse than British ones in Ireland does not make it so. Your arguemnt is giant fluff piece saying that German atrocities were worse than British atorcities...they weren't unless you somehow wish to place a finite value on human life and make this a numbers only game.

I d not think Imperial Germany was the same as the Nazi's (and I must question whether you have read the thread if you have come to that conclusion) only that they were worse than Britain/France for treatment of their colonial subjects, Racism, Democracy and militarism.

Well for starters stop bringing up the ghosts of Nazi collaborators (and their parents) and maybe people wouldn't think you are trying to make a guilt by association argument. Secondly your continued perseverence in stating that the Germans were worse than the British (I have no evidence relative to the French) is not supported by the facts unless you wish to make this a numbers game. Again you are comparing a nation that casually tossed away 65000 lives against one that casually tossed away 42000 live and saying the latter is obviously much better than the former. You are saying that a nation the was criminally indifferent to the deaths of hundred of thousands of its citizens of differnt ethnicity is worse than a nation that was criminal indiffernt to the abuse of civilians in a conquered nation. One final time your argument is purely a puff piece asserting that the numbers make Britain less evil of a colonial master and that German indifference to the Belgians was worse than Biritsh (or English if you prefer) distaste for the Irish.

In all of this you still have not fundamentally made a convincing point against the ORIGINAL argument. You have failed to show how even a brutal colonial master (which you haven't shown anyway) in Germany is somehow worse than the tens of millions of deaths from genocide, ethnic cleansing, and political upheavel in the twentieth century after autumn 1914. Until you can show this your entire argument in simply nothing, and a rather foolish nothing at that.

In all of this I ask are you willing to trade the POTENTIAL deaths of a few thousand extra Afican colonialists and some repression against the genocide and mass executions/ethnic cleansing, of the next 85 years of the twentieth century?

[CJvR]

The Germans weren't really interested in negations, if they make it too Paris it likely they will be dictating terms and after Tannenberg fear of the Russian steamroller was gone.

No it was still there and very real, the Russians was raising troops faster than the Germans could crush them...
In the real world there never was much to negotiate, both sides never got to a position where there would be much incentive to negotiate. A victory in France would be something big, France would be desperate to limit the damage, the British would be thinking of dámagecontrol and the Russians would wan't peace before the German armies redeployed eastwards. The Germans on their part would want their victory recognised in a peace treaty.

If France is beaten then Britain’s ability to enforce anything is severally diminished, Belgium would probably be restored by as a German puppet.

Actually the British position is very strong, it can maintain the trade blockade indefinetly without a groundcampaign. Once France is on the ropes Belgium become much less of an issue.

Having more Serbians in the Empire was not something that was really wanted so a good pounding and puppeteering is probably in order.

Actually the Hungarians only agreed to war on the condition that no Serbian land was annexed.

As for gains in Russia, the main reason the Germans had gone to war was to stop the Russians coming for them, they aren't going to leave that issue unresolved so the creation of Poland (at least) is likely (and was in the September program).

Russia was a problem, but smashing France will have seriously reduced that threat by leaving Germany's back free from threats. A peace in 1914 will free Germany from the threat of a two front war by thrashing France and that was an outcome good enough to seek peace on IMPO. Otherwise we would have WWI dragging on for much longer, Russia would not surrender Poland because of the outcome of Marne.

I wouldn’t be so sure, you posit a near repeat of the Franco-Prussian war which certainly wasn't much of a negotiation.

Well without the fear of outside involvement I think it is safe to say there would have been even less negotiation.

Do you honestly see him giving up his power?

He did in WWI. With a few more decades of peace and political pressure things would change. Practicaly all nations in situations similar to Germany's in 1914 evolved that way.

I'm not so sure about that, the possibility of the two sides developing nukes during a war is a possibility and a very scary one.

Well that will not happen in WWI. Indeed without the massive wartime resources available to the US Manhattan program nukes might not come along until the 50'ies or even 60'ies.

[Patrick Degan]

I see Darkling's just determined to make a total fool of himself on this thread. Not surprising.