Political Crossfire Forums

[URallIgnorant]

Well, well. Here is a thread typical of the ignorance of these forums that I just had to participate in.

Canada is by far and away the main nation that put down the Germans. You can't determine it strictly by how many people were killed. Yes the French lost a lot, but that was because of their moronic plans! The same can be said of Britain.

Canada had all the competent commanders. Men like Currie, McNaughton, Crerar, Lipsett the list goes on. These comanders had troops that consistently shocked the Germans. At places like Ypres (where they held the line against the first effective gas attack in modern warfare) and Vimy where they smashed the German line to take the ridge with relatively few casualties. The same Vimy Ridge that saw the French and British fail miserably before.

The Canadians were used as shock troops for the remainder fo the war. It was Canada who turned the tide in the last 100 days pushing relentlessly through the wall of steel known as the Hindenburg line right up until the last day of the war where 38 men were killed in taking Mons (ironically, just up the road from where the whole thing took place when the lead elements of the BEF ran into the advancing hordes back iin 1914).

Don't beleive me? Think it is just another Canadian going on abotu what Canada did. Nope, the Great War was without a doubt our war all themore so because we were such a small nation (population wise) yet easily the greatest contributor (per capita technically and far away by our victory ratio). Read about it for yourself, this is one topic that isn't strictly a matter of opinion but is documented fact!

[thundertaker]

Canada certainly fought hard and punched above it's weight, but there are two things to consider:

1. They didn't contribute as much in terms of sheer manpower and resources required. The Russians in WWII had a much higher loss to victory ratio than any of the other allies, but by sheer weight of numbers were the greatest contributors to final victory. It is the difference between effort and end result....

2. Canada wouldn't have entered the war without Britain, and they considered themselves to be British at the time. So Britain has to take partial credit for anything canada did....:twisted:

[Snow Patrol]

thundertaker wrote: 2. Canada wouldn't have entered the war without Britain, and they considered themselves to be British at the time. So Britain has to take partial credit for anything canada did....:twisted:
:lol:

[Felix]

URallIgnorant wrote:
The Canadians were used as shock troops for the remainder fo the war. It was Canada who turned the tide in the last 100 days pushing relentlessly through the wall of steel known as the Hindenburg line right up until the last day of the war where 38 men were killed in taking Mons (ironically, just up the road from where the whole thing took place when the lead elements of the BEF ran into the advancing hordes back iin 1914).

Well, Canadians spearheaded the assult at Amiens, which led to the "Black day for the German Army", but so did the Australians. I believe Canada had a very professional Army, but again, so did the British.

psholtz wrote:
Britain deliberately started the war to knock out the Baghdad-Berlin Railway, a goal they were willing to pay price to attain..

Please try to keep up w/ the rest of us.. :wink:

Wait, you're joking, right? I mean, how did Britain start the war? By honoring her treaty with Belguim?

[psholtz]

thundertaker wrote: psholtz wrote:
Britain deliberately started the war to knock out the Baghdad-Berlin Railway, a goal they were willing to pay price to attain..

Please try to keep up w/ the rest of us.. :wink:

Willing to destroy Britian's position as the world's most powerful nation and be supplanted by the United States, whom she would be heavily indebted to?!?

Cui Bono Psholtz?
Try not to think of it as "this nation state goes to war against that nation state".. Rather, understand, that ever since the rise of the British Empire 300+ years ago, the corporation has always defined and controlled the nation state. In other words, the corporation comes first, and only then does the nation state come. For instance, first came the Massachusetts Bay Company, or the British East India Company, and only later (and only per the terms and conditions dictated by those corporate interests) did "nation states" like America or India (respectively) arise.

I looked up the answer (in F. William Engdahl's Century of War) to the question I posed earlier on this thread: where was Germany getting its oil during WWI? The answer was predictable for any (somewhat) astute student of history: throughout all of WWI, Germany was getting all its oil from the Standard Oil Company of the United States (i.e., the Rockefellers). So bearing in mind what I just said about nation states and corporations, realize that WWI was not so much a war between, say Britiain and Germany, as it was a war between let's say British Petroleum of the UK (actually, BP didn't exist then .. it was the Anglo-Persian Oil Company + Royal Dutch Shell, but.. since Anglo-Perisan would eventually became BP and since BP communicates the concept that we're discussing, i.e., "British oil interests", let's just call it "BP") on the one hand and Standard Oil of the U.S. on the other hand.

In fact, WWI was just the climax of a decades-long battle that had defined U.S. politics since the end of the Civil War: the battle for control of the U.S. (and later the world) between (a) JP Morgan's banking interests on the one hand; and (b) JD Rockefeller's oil interests on the other. U.S. politics during this era (Civil War to WWI) is impossible to understand unless you understand the "war" that was being waged between Morgan and Rockefeller, and it was a "genuine" war. It wasn't like it is today, where One (Communist) Party rules the United States, and Democrats and Republicans both answer to the same overlords. Back then, you really did have a struggle for political control between the two groups. You might get a Rockefeller man, like William McKinley in office, only to have him assassinated by some "lone nut gunman" (sound familiar?) and have him replaced by a Morgan man like Teddy Roosevelt.. It's interesting that Teddy's first act in office was to throw a lavish party for his sponsor, JP Morgan. It's also interesting that Teddy's next act in office was to break up and destroy Standard Oil, something that Rockefeller's arch-nemesis Morgan had been long keen on doing.

Getting back to WWI, understand that WWI was a battle for control of Mideast oil fields. Standard Oil was aiming to get control the Mideast oil through its German connections. Germany would finance and build a railroad down through the Middle East through the Baghdad-Berlin corridor. Oil that would be brought back up to Europe and for export out through the German port of Bremen would be under the control of Standard Oil. The British oil interests, on the other hand, were keen on shattering and destroying the Ottoman Empire, and reconstructing that part of the world in their own colonial image. To finance their imperial war plans, the British turned to their longtime US ally, JP Morgan, and yes, Morgan did bankroll the entire British (and Allied) war effort, almost single handedly.. Also, in 1915, JP Morgan purchased the 25 largest media outlets in the United States (see Congressman Calloway's testimony in this regard), so that later, in 1917, when the British/Morgan interests decided it was time to rally the "United States" into entering the war on behalf of Britain, it was trivial for Morgan to get propaganda going in this country to do so.

Rockefeller was, of course, *annoyed* at the idea of the "United States" entering a war against his own financial interests in April, 1917.. sooo, in April 1917 Rockefeller pulled the trigger on his Plan B. First bear in mind that the Soviet Union was a creation of the Rockefellers.. Next bear in mind that April 1917 (when JP Morgan entered the United States into WWI, on behalf of Britain) is the precise time Rockefeller stooge Vladimir Lenin left Switzerland to begin to his Russian Revolution, which would be consummated by November of that year. Russia pulls out of the war, and, although not decisive, Russia's withdrawl does complicate the picture for Britain and the Allies (and JP Morgan), something which Rockefeller had hoped to accomplish.

So the picture that emerges is that when all the dust settled at the end of WWI, the British (and JP Morgan) were in control of the Mideast oil, while Rockfeller was in control of the Soviet Oil. The Brits and Americans would continue to fight it out (sometimes brutally) over control of especially the Soviet fields, or at least they did until 1924 when Stalin entered the picture and threw both corporations (BP and Standard) out of Russia. This act (the unexpected rise of Stalin in the Soviet Union) is what forced an alliance between Morgan and Rockefeller, and by definition the United States and Britian, an alliance that remains in place to this time. By 1927, the Morgan and Rockefeller (and British Royal and American) interests had buried the hatchet, pledged to work together (see the "Red Line Agreement" of 1927), and focused their energy on how to get Stalin out of power so that they could divide up Russia's vast mineral wealth for themselves. The plan they devised called for rebuilding Germany as a vast military power, and sending their stooge, a man known to history as Adolf Hitler, charging into Russia to overthrow Stalin and reclaim all that oil for Morgan/Rockefeller. This is why at this period, the elite in both countries (UK and US) were heaping lavish praise upon Hitler, why everyone from the Fords to the Rockefellers to the Harrimans to the Bushes to the British Crown were financing and building up Adolf Hitler.. it was b/c Hitler was their "last hope" for reclaiming the oil fields that Stalin had seized control of ..

Of course Hitler, like most insane dictators, proved intractable (largely b/c by the mid- to late-1930s, he stopped using loans from the Bank of England to finance Germany, and instead decided to just print currency for himself), and this in turn caused a "change" in the immediate war plans for WWII.. Hitler had become a bigger threat than Stalin was. Once WWII was over, through, it was necessary to keep going w/ a Cold War until Stalin was out of power and Standard Oil stooge Khrushchev was safely in power. By 1953, w/ Khrushchev in power in Russia (at least, in power of the Communist Party.. I don't think he became premier until 1958 or so) and the US-"friendly" Shah in power in Iran, construction began on a pipeline from the Russian Capsian Sea down through Iran and into the Persian Gulf, so that Standard Oil could export and market Russia Baku oil as West Texas Sweet Crude, and all was back to normal. The Rockefellers controlled Russia oil, which was their original plan even before WWI.

Does that answer your questions? I hope so.. 8)

[psholtz]

thundertaker wrote: psholtz wrote:
Britain deliberately started the war to knock out the Baghdad-Berlin Railway, a goal they were willing to pay price to attain..

Please try to keep up w/ the rest of us.. :wink:

Willing to destroy Britian's position as the world's most powerful nation and be supplanted by the United States, whom she would be heavily indebted to?!?

Cui Bono Psholtz?
Besides, Britain *still* emerged from WWI as the world's most powerful nation state.. The debt to JP Morgan notwithstanding, Britain was still a far more powerful position than the US was in 1918.. (as far as nation states go) :wink:

[euro]

Snow Patrol wrote: euro wrote: Snow Patrol wrote: euro wrote: Britain and France weathered the storm beginning to end and commited huge wads of military resources absolutely essential to the defeat of Germany. Russia did its bit by fighting off troops that would have otherwised allowed Germany to overrun France (i.e. Austria-Hungary), and by mobilizing much faster than Germany had thought possible. American troops had been vital in 1918 at stopping the Germay Spring Offensive which managed to swing around to withing 100kms of Paris.

Essentially however Germany lost WWI 14 days into it at Liege when they abandoned the Schlieffen plan, and the internal political disunity within Germany did not help either.
I don't understand your Austro-Hungarian reference, it seems completly out of context to me.

Also, of the people voting for the US, anyone care to justify why, without getting confused with WW2? :wink:

Well Austria-Hungary sent its troops into the Baulkans and then to the Russian Empire, if Russia had not entered the war the Baulkans would have been crushed and Austria-Hungary's troops would have been used on the Western Front.
If Russia hadn't entered the war, then France wouldn't have entered either. Since there would be no German invasion of Belguim, Britain wouldn't have been involved, meaning there would have been no western front for the Austro-Hungarians to enter.

Forgetting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_entente

I see ..

[Angela]

It's really impossible to answer this question:
France mobilized the largest Allied army and suffered the highest casualties among the western countries (between 4 and 5 millions out of 10 mobilized) and pretty much held the western front alone until 1916

Great Britain blockaded the Central powers, mustered the 2nd largest Allied army, since the 2nd half of 1916 conducted almost all the offensive operation on the Western Front, without its participation France would have probably collapsed in 1916.

Russia: the Eastern front absorbed the largest part of the Austro-Hungarian Army and between 40 and 100 German Divisions until 1917. Without Russia the war would have ended in 1914.

USA: Without their intervention the war would have probably ended in a stalemate and a with peace: Germany was starving but both the French and British army were bled white and the Spanish Flu was coming.

Italy: The Italian Front, while often neglected played an important role. Between 30 and 60 Austro-Hungarian divisions (and a few Germans too) had to be diverted from the Russian Front . With those divisions the fall of the Russian Empire would have probably happened earlier and the Central powers would have had about 100 divisions more on the western front in 1917.

[Jehan]

psholtz wrote: It's interesting that Teddy's first act in office was to throw a lavish party for his sponsor, JP Morgan. It's also interesting that Teddy's next act in office was to break up and destroy Standard Oil, something that Rockefeller's arch-nemesis Morgan had been long keen on doing.

BS. it was the Taft Administration, not T.R., who broke up Standard Oil. Get yer facts straight.

[Angela]

Wasn't TR the first president to actively employ the Sherman act dividing the Northern Securities?

[Jehan]

Angela wrote: Wasn't TR the first president to actively employ the Sherman act dividing the Northern Securities?

Indeed he was. :-D

[psholtz]

Jehan wrote: psholtz wrote: It's interesting that Teddy's first act in office was to throw a lavish party for his sponsor, JP Morgan. It's also interesting that Teddy's next act in office was to break up and destroy Standard Oil, something that Rockefeller's arch-nemesis Morgan had been long keen on doing.

BS. it was the Taft Administration, not T.R., who broke up Standard Oil. Get yer facts straight.
Standard Oil was finally broken up in 1911 during the Taft Administration, but it's not like a president can just snap his fingers and magically dissolve a company the size of Standard overnight. The litigation in a case like that takes years and years and years. The final decision was rendered in 1911, yes, but the Justice Department began prosecuting Standard Oil under Teddy Roosevelt..

Just as an example, the Microsoft monopoly rulings have spanned two very presidential adminisrtations (Clinton and Bush II)..

[psholtz]

Jehan wrote: psholtz wrote: It's interesting that Teddy's first act in office was to throw a lavish party for his sponsor, JP Morgan. It's also interesting that Teddy's next act in office was to break up and destroy Standard Oil, something that Rockefeller's arch-nemesis Morgan had been long keen on doing.

BS. it was the Taft Administration, not T.R., who broke up Standard Oil. Get yer facts straight.
One of many references you'll find concerning Teddy Roosevelt's attitude toward Standard Oil:

Quote: He (Teddy Roosevelt) hurled forth antitrust suit after antitrust suit after antitrust suit that led to indictments, including a heavy blow at John D. Rockefeller Sr.'s mammoth Standard Oil Co. "Darkest Abyssinia never saw anything like the course of treatment we received," cried Standard Oil's John D. Archbold.

http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/troosevelt_related5.html

[Aaron]

I would have to say Britain did to most to defeat Germany. I say this because it was Britain in the first place that intercepted the message sent from Germany to Mexico asking for Mexico to attack America and Join the war. That is what brought the USA into the war including the sinking of an American ship by a German U Boat. Also Britain or T.E. Lawrence if you want to be specific got the middle east to wipe out the ottoman empire. But I would have to say that I don't understand why you put Russia up there because Russian probably contributed about a fraction of .1% into the war because first off Russia suffered the most casualties because there army wasn't trained and they were armed with basically torches and Pitch Forks. Also because they pulled out of the war early because of the revolution between the Czar and Vladimir Iliyce Lennin.

[Jehan]

psholtz wrote: Jehan wrote: psholtz wrote: It's interesting that Teddy's first act in office was to throw a lavish party for his sponsor, JP Morgan. It's also interesting that Teddy's next act in office was to break up and destroy Standard Oil, something that Rockefeller's arch-nemesis Morgan had been long keen on doing.

BS. it was the Taft Administration, not T.R., who broke up Standard Oil. Get yer facts straight.
One of many references you'll find concerning Teddy Roosevelt's attitude toward Standard Oil:

Quote: He (Teddy Roosevelt) hurled forth antitrust suit after antitrust suit after antitrust suit that led to indictments, including a heavy blow at John D. Rockefeller Sr.'s mammoth Standard Oil Co. "Darkest Abyssinia never saw anything like the course of treatment we received," cried Standard Oil's John D. Archbold.

http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/troosevelt_related5.html


You'll find that Teddy Roosevelt had a dislike for ALL monopolies. I remember seeing on a History Channel documentary that Roosevelt crippled Morgan's monopoly on the railroad business. I'll look for something more concrete and then get back to you.

Here's some interesting quotes on his opinion of big businesses:

"We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we will submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages over business rivals."

"I believe in corporations. They are indispensable instruments of our modern civilization; but I believe that they should be so supervised and so regulated that they shall act for the interest of the community as a whole."

[superskippy]

If I recall my history correctly the Germans had just released hundreds of thousands of troops from the Eastern Front and moved them West, this coincided with the American entry to the war. Also if I remember right the reason the final campaign was a success was because of newly applied American manpower to the German lines.

I think without American entry Germany could have fought to a stalemate, with the new soldiers on the front and no pressure from the East everything focused on several hundred miles of French territory.
The Americans were the most vital part to winning the war, but not by a long shot the biggest contributers to victory. If you know what I mean. The biggest contributer to victory was probably the British, though the French bore the most casulties that does not equate to contributing the most, in fact it lessens. England fought just as long as France did and on a wide range of fronts. England attained more victories whether in Africa, or the Middle East or Europe and they took far less casulties. To me that show's a greater level of contribution than being able to tout casulties. With the invention of the Tank the Brit's changed the face of warfare.

Got to say England.

[y_not_peace?]

i havent read this entire thread and i dont plan on doing so, but anyways if Russia hadent defeated Germany in the battle of Stolen, then we propbaly would not be typing right now. Russia suffered 28 million soldiers. 28 MILLION! It pisses me off when people say it was all America. NO. America suffered 15,000 soldiers.

It also pisses me off when americans hate on russia for saving the world.

[superskippy]

uhhh way off there buddy, Russia lost 1,700,000 men, Germany lost 2,037,000, France England and Austria all suffered dead in the 900,000-1.3 million range, The Americans lost 126,540 dead in a year of war on the Western Front.

Russia did not save crap, they got whipped in the Eastern Front and ceded to German demands. They almost lead to a different outcome of the war, but hundreds of thousands of fresh (Albeit Inexperianced) American soldiers arrived to boost the flagging morale and numbers of the English and French. I also don't knwo what battle your talking about did you mean The Battle of Stalluponen?

Your conclusion is absurd.

[y_not_peace?]

Quote: uhhh way off there buddy, Russia lost 1,700,000 men, Germany lost 2,037,000, France England and Austria all suffered dead in the 900,000-1.3 million range, The Americans lost 126,540 dead in a year of war on the Western Front.

Russia did not save crap, they got whipped in the Eastern Front and ceded to German demands. They almost lead to a different outcome of the war, but hundreds of thousands of fresh (Albeit Inexperianced) American soldiers arrived to boost the flagging morale and numbers of the English and French. I also don't knwo what battle your talking about did you mean The Battle of Stalluponen?

Your conclusion is absurd.

uhhh stop mocking buddy, Russia lost 28 million like i said. Germany's army was so much bigger that 2 million (ITS WAS ALL OF EUROPE, besides england, which therefore prooves that it was way over 2 million)

The battle where the Red Army faced Hitlers army...where Russia kicked their bootays.

[superskippy]

Oh I see whats wrong, you got the wrong war :roll: :lol: :-D , were discussing World War 1, not World War 2.

If you want a debate about World War 2 you should open a seperate thread, or feel free to throw the dice in on this one.