yunki – Member

what is the lesson that we are supposed to learn from WW1..?

Don’t try and take on a machine gun with a football.

Don’t try and take on a machine gun with a football.

Wouldn’t it have been a lot more economical to give all schools a free download of Blackadder Goes Forth..?

Freeing up the 50million for something more practical.. not football coaching though obviously

sod the current lot of troops

I suggest you ACTUALLY GO to a Remembrance Sunday some time. Youll find they are anything BUT.

You’re assuming an awful lot there. Are you suggesting that’s it’s not possible to remember and commemorate the people who died in war whilst at the same time being critical about the reasons they were killed?

You’re assuming an awful lot there. Are you suggesting that’s it’s not possible to remember and commemorate the people who died in war whilst at the same time being critical about the reasons they were killed?

Nothing wrong with being critical.

Ive been to many, many Remembrance services in & out of uniform & not once did I feel they were jingoistic, tub thumping occasions as is being implied by a few here..

Far from it..

2014 will be a great time to remember how “great” Britain is and what a shame it would be if it broke up.

Well I’m not really talking about remembrance Sundays, and I certainly never said they were jingoistic or celebratory. I have no problem with them, and the ones I’ve seen have been very sobering and respectful as you say. What I do have a problem with though is the glorification of war, and the failure question the validity of it or to learn the lessons from it. It seems to me these days that there’s lots of the former, and precious little of the latter.

I’m 100% for spending £50m on REMEMBERING WWI. Pop into WHSmiths and leaf through the WWI and WWII pictures book. WWI’s is full of men full of dispair, skeletons in uniforms, body parts, bodies and mud.

If the Government is merely spending the money to justify our young men and women dying for **** all in a nasty dusty land then I question what lessons he has learnt.

WWI and remembering WWI is about remembering the senseless sacrifice and loss of youth to blundering Politicians and bad Generals.

Not read all of that but IMO it is very important to remember the human sacrifice and courage of our ancestors.

Not getting in to who/why/when and the with class discussion aside, WW1 was unimaginable in scale, unimaginable in horror, unimaginable in suffering.

In our cosy 21st century lives nothing comes close.

One thing though is certain, and that is that each and every one of the dead should be remembered, even more so on the 100th anniversary.

I applaud the plans, and bear in mind this would have been done if any of the other political parties were in charge as this is how a civilised country conducts itself.

We should always remember the past to make for a better future.

What I do have a problem with though is the glorification of war, and the failure question the validity of it or to learn the lessons from it. It seems to me these days that there’s lots of the former, and precious little of the latter.

I think after the treason committed by a recent labour prime minister a lot of people are questioning the validity of war

if the current gov was jingoistic we would be expanding the armed forces not contracting them, we’d be expanding in Afgan rather than withdrawing etc etc

this is how a civilised country conducts itself

I’d be very careful using the term ‘civilised’ in any discussion related to war.

if the current gov was jingoistic we would be expanding the armed forces not contracting them, we’d be expanding in Afgan rather than withdrawing etc etc

That’s just due to public opinion and the economic times. If there was widespread support and money for buying hundreds of new APC’s and new fangled munitions, we’d be in Afghanistan till 2030.

Perfectly jingoistic labor and conservative MP’s got us into both Afghanistan and Iraq, remember? The British public aren’t jingoistic, the politicians would just like them to be.

Shouldn’t you really give a citation after that?

I think you should go back to reading the Daily Fail.

what is the lesson that we are supposed to learn from WW1..?

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups?

This is interesting

http://irnwc.hypotheses.org/169

so is this (especially the bit on the media jumping on commemoration band wagons, some of the analysis actually makes me feel a bit sick)

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NyQ5BkBo7asC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

Also, just for the lolz.

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/34369585/commemoration-construction-nationalism-war-memorial-museums-korea-japan

So at the end of it, is war commemoration really a good thing? In the uk, except during the actual remembrance services, the media exposure seems to be very jingoistic (Battle of Britain commemorations, etc).

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups?”

we all now work in supermarkets

umm, obviously a while ago people sacrificed their lives in terrible situations. This isn’t just a british thing, this is a human thing. Terrible thing we do to each other. We are still doing it today all over the world, for the same reasons as far as I can tell. It’s all about power, profit and control. Well, great. I just want great music

Shouldn’t you really give a citation after that?

[quote]I think you should go back to reading the Daily Fail. [/quote]So you made that all up by yourself did you? Surprising really, assuming by your response you are claiming full credit, that you have so little imagination that your only come back is ‘Daily Fail’ 🙄

Tat Wink offers the most reasoned and objective response to the OPs question

Felt quite saddened reading this thread and some of the responses when it was originally started.

FWIW I think we should remember everyone who made the ultimate sacrifice (no matter how futile some of you think that may have been) so we could inherit the freedoms we have today (no matter how dubious some of you think they are).

I like this “We” spending 50 million, cos stw has the power to spend that much. even as a daydream.. I love the guys on here pretending to know how to spend that kind of money on something important lol…..

dont have an issue with £50m being spent, it is peanuts as government spending goes.

I AM cynical enough to think it is being announced 2 years before it is due to happen is purely for political motives. Politicos have a habit of announcing and then re-announcing anything positive, especially where spending is concerned, with the consequence that the public think more is being spent on insert-good-cause-here than actually is.

Remember those who died, were injured, survived the somewhat horrible conditions or lost friends or loved ones, servicemen or not, friend or former foe?

Yes. No doubt. But we should do that as individuals not as a nation – in my opinion anyway, because I simply believe it’s more meaningful that way.

Have big military parades, fly-bys, and see the successors of the “donkeys” who sent the “lions” to their deaths make speeches? (The phrase “lions led by donkeys” is a WWI reference isn’t it?)

No thanks.

As for defending our freedoms, possibly in WWII that is reasonable, but WWI happened mainly because the ruling classes wanted a fight (ok vast simplification, but it probably wouldn’t have been that different for me 100 years later if we’d lost WWI).

So, remember the victims of all sides, invite the veterans of all sides to walk together as humans, brothers and sisters their battles behind them and perhaps invite our children to walk with them.

And if you want to spend £50m, pay for foreign veterans, once enemies, to come as friends, and pay for our veterans to reciprocate. And educate the young.

One last thought – maybe the most fitting tribute to those victims, is to celebrate and preserve the peace that Western Europe at least has enjoyed for nigh on 70 years.

I feel that military spending as a whole is a tragic waste of money, life, time and resources.

We’re spunking spending £50m because it’s what we do. We don’t look after the older generation who were affected in a primary and secondary sense by the poverty and disturbance; we wave flags and boast.

Roughly 26,700 elderly men and women die annually in fuel poverty related problems (Age UK, 2012. 😉 ). This is embarrassing, and some of them were either in the war or are the children of those who were. Additionally those who are in supported living/care are treated as if they were subhuman and gradually marginalised further socially.

Bill sums up my sentiment in the last segment of the following (1:36 onwards) :

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMUiwTubYu0[/video]

So you made that all up by yourself did you? Surprising really, assuming by your response you are claiming full credit, that you have so little imagination that your only come back is ‘Daily Fail’

Actually it was me. And yes, it was all my own work. If you’re going to get involved slinging mud, at least make the effort to read the thread properly.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/sqoSZ0uubBYvrrz3VgWirMw/view.m?id=15&gid=commentisfree/2012/oct/16/first-world-war-imperial-bloodbath&cat=commentisfree

FWIW I think we should remember everyone who made the ultimate sacrifice (no matter how futile some of you think that may have been) so we could inherit the freedoms we have today (no matter how dubious some of you think they are).

How was WWI about defending freedoms exactly?

Blair and Cameron both visited as children and it clearly had no effect on their decision to lead us into conflict after conflict.

I could hardly believe it when Blair stood in front of the Cenotaph knowing that his lies to Parliament were directly responsible for some of the dead soldiers being remembered.

grum – Member

How was WWI about defending freedoms exactly?

It gave us the freedom to dick about in the Middle East and **** it into the cocked hat it is now.

How was WWI about defending freedoms exactly?

I just wish they would stop calling it the ‘Great War’. The ‘Great Waste’ would be more appropriate, or perhaps the ‘Great Slaughter’. Considering the number who died for no particular reason, and arguably the events it caused in later years (German hyperinflation, rise of the Nazis etc), has there ever been a single event in human history which has claimed more lives and destroyed more nations?

I struggle with long sentences ^^^

Radio 4 reckoned it was part of a great Tory “Unionist” campaign to counter the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, anniversary of Bannockburn and Scottish Referendum…

… and I thought I was cynical 🙄

I think the Great War should be remembered – like some others have said it was a defining moment in human history, and many lost their lives. But £10 million would cover it, and any further amount made up from voluntary charitable donation. If £50 million is available, the other £40 million should be used to pay off the complete West Coast Mainline **** up, or the Assange embassy siege, so that is doesn’t fall as an extra burden on the taxpayer. This is blatantly a case of “Big events” like the Olympics “Reinforcing the national spirit” and “taking minds off the dire economy” – a very old school (Emperor Nero, anyone?) and public school mentality , hence why Eton Dave has adopted it. Spending £50 million on a cause that will show no economic return couldn’t be a worse idea at a time that benefits to the poor are being cut, money is being taken out of national services such as the NHS and at a time when the government refuses to increase tax on their rich buddies, when the Chief executives of the FTSE companies have seen personal profits skyrocket. WW1 was supposed to be the war that ended all wars – so maybe a fitting tribute to those that died would be to stop the war in Afghan? I think it couldn’t be more ironic that the event that saw the average joe being forced into machine gun fire by posh game-playing Generals is being celebrated by posh, game-playing MPs who want to send the “undeserving” poor into greater debt by cutting their welfare.
And I’m a Tory voter. Call me disillusioned. In my defense, we still had to get rid of Labour at the last election. Frankly, as the only viable opposition, it’s time for Labour to shake themselves up, get rid of the Marxist Milibands and power-hungry Balls and produce a genuinely electable alternative.

Re ‘freedoms’

It’s fair to say that WW1 was not so much about freedoms being defended as much as commitments the government of the day made to its allies at the time.

It’s very easy to look back and say we shouldn’t have gone to war for those reasons now (although some people would perhaps see it as reason enough). My point is that the world we live in now is shaped by the decisions taken then and the outcomes that followed from WW1 through the intervening period, WW2 and the subsequent period.

For better or worse this created the ‘freedoms’ we ‘enjoy’ now and I’m grateful that we can remember. If anyone chooses not to that’s up to them but whether we spend £50m or £50 we shouldn’t forget the sacrifices made.

Mr Starfanglednutter, I think you might be voting for the wrong party!

Haha. I don’t think so though. I vote on the circumstances, not on any sense of party loyalty. Given the circumstances at the last election, I think I made the right call. Where they take us after that is never guaranteed. 🙂

project
Herman the german must be really upset us spending so much cash on a huge junket for so few, and rubbing their faces in the thought they lost twice.

No, they’ll look at us with the same pitying confusion that English people look at Scots who harp on about William Wallace etc.
Then they’ll go back to being the most successful rich industrial nation in Europe.

We should mark it with anger and defiance against our leaders who sent millions of normal decent men to their graves

Admittedly I know next to nothing about the first world war but I think the principal of fighting it was just. I think the way it was implemented was very poor but not the initial act of declaring it.

Is your issue that the war shouldn’t have been fought or that it shouldn’t have been badly fought?

Not sure that WW1 fits the “just war” case…

WW2, yes, undoubtedly

thegeneralist – Member
Admittedly I know next to nothing about the first world war but I think the principal of fighting it was just

Fantastic.

Re WW2 being a ‘just’ war you should watch ‘The Living Dead’ episode ‘On the Desperate Edge of Now’:

The title of this episode comes from a veteran’s description of the uncertainty of survival in combat. It examined how the various national memories of the Second World War were effectively rewritten and manipulated in the Cold War period.

For Germany, this began at the Nuremberg Trials, where attempts were made to prevent the Nazis in the dock, principally Hermann Göring, from offering any rational argument for what they had done. Subsequently, however, bringing lower-ranking Nazis to justice was effectively forgotten about in the interests of maintaining West Germany as an ally in the Cold War.

For the Allies, faced with a new enemy in the Soviet Union, there was a need to portray World War II as a crusade of pure good against pure evil, even if this meant denying the memories of the Allied soldiers who had actually done the fighting, and knew it to have been far more ambiguous. A number of American veterans related how years later they found themselves plagued with the previously-suppressed memories of the brutal things they had seen and done.

Admittedly I know next to nothing about the first world war but I think the principal of fighting it was just. I think the way it was implemented was very poor but not the initial act of declaring it.

WW1 a power struggle by the large empires that were around then. That coupled with the “we’ll be home by Christmas” mentality ld to a willingness to fight

what wasn’t appreciated was the mechanisation of death to an industrial scale and the lack of an ability to “manoevre” by all sides would lead to casaulty rates that are unimaginable now.

an interesting book is “on the psycology of military incompetence” which tries to understand the British military high command

WW2, yes, undoubtedly

Debatable. Whilst the goal of defeating fascism was obviously a justifiable one, there was plenty of stuff going on in WW2 (on the allied side that is, we all know about what the nazis got up to) that doesn’t fit this description. Chief among them the concept of ‘total war’ and the levelling of entire cities along with their civilian inhabitants, and the use of nuclear weapons etc. In some respects you could argue that WW2 simply continued where WW1 left off. Where the ruling elites extended their contempt for the lives of soldiers to the population at large, in pursuit of narrow territorial and financial interests.