Challanging The British Historian

Originally posted by Brian J Checco Well, we read a lot of their histories too, since they also had Empires. German scholarship has always been considered remarkably fine here in the West, and the French Sorbonne University produces some of the finest scholarship in the world. I guess more what I was shooting for (excuse my nationalistic outburst) is that we tend to understand our histories from our own cultural perspectives. Since the USA now, and Britain before, have been the most powerful countries in the world for the past few centuries, with the rest of Western Europe coming in close second, people at home and in the far flung colonies have looked towards their own country's historians and histories to produce their cultural understanding of world events. That being said, when Azerbaijan rises up and conquers an empire, Their historians will be the ones the world looks to for official, definitive portraits of history.

Well, that's more an effect of quantity rather than necessarily one of quality. And of familiarity.

As for "official, definitive portraits of history", do these even exist? Or, when there seems to be one, it might not be a healthy situation; history become a national monument more likely.

Originally posted by Brasidas "and also how he was able to defend his country while being the lone Allied Power�in Europe during WWII." � � This is an innacurate statement! � The Greeks during WWII maintained a fighting Army and Navy! They were the only occupied country that did so! The Greeks also fought in El Alamein in North Africa. This was only 2 months after Greece was occupied by Germany.� Not even the "mighty" French can claim such a thing. The only thing they did was have a resistance. � Greece unfortunately is always overlooked with its involvement in the war. This was due to its small size and lack of any influence in international politics. This is the way history has always worked. If it wasn't for Greece's defeat of the Italians and the neccessity of Hitler to send large numbers of troops to Greece, his plans for the invasion of Russia would have proceeded on time and the war would have had a very different outcome. Instead the Germans suffered heavy losses to its elite Paratroopers Corp in Crete and it delayed their plans by 3 weeks. � This caused him to have to regroup before he invaded Russia. The delay caused his campaign to run well into the winter and the eventual defeat of the German army there. This was the same mistake Napoleon made when he invaded Russia. � One must also remember that England was being supplied by the U.S and it would have never survived without that aid! � � This is somewhat the same situation with Rudolph Gulliani in New York. They give him way too much credit for doing exactly what any other New York governor would have done, but yet he is hailed as a great hero for doing his job. � The old saying goes, 'History is written by the victors!' �

The Greek certainly did their part considering the circumstances. But so did others.
There were Polish divisions fighting on both the eastern front and in North Africa and later Italy all through the war.

As for the French, Vichy made the situation one confused mess, and the Free French in 1940 may have gathered no more than several thousand. But ot got better. By D-day the French army fighting under allied command numbered 400.000. The allied landing in the south of France to complement Normandy was 2/3 French. It also tends to get neglected a lot. Maybe because it was mostly a piece of French military action?
By wars end there was a reconstituted French army about 1,5 million strong enthusiastically barging into Germany in an independant offensive of their own.

IM getting very sick and tired of British bias by British historians. Churchill was a great politician, figurehead and man. But not even close to being the greatest hero in the 20^th century. What was Churchill doing that was heroic during the second world war, sleeping in a comfortable bed and enjoying the perks of being a prime minister. If anything the real heroes of WW2 were the men of the 101st airborne who had 2 live through hell at Bastogne without food, ammo, or warm clothes and still won the battle.

As a Brit I can and will set up Churchill as one of our great heroes. He led us in our darkest times, his faith never wavered, he provided inspiration to us and gave us a resolve to continue no matter how bad the odds. This in turn provided inspiration to all those who resisted Hitler and the Nazis, giving them hope to continue when they would otherwise have been crushed. Heroic qualities indeed.

I have no idea who John Keegan is, but should i ever feel the need to barf, i'll give his book ago.

Originally posted by Patch Standing up to Nazi Germany and leading Britain to victory over one of the most evil and dangerous regimes ever makes him the greatest hero of the 20th century.  A lessor man would have made a deal with Hitler but he had the forsight and guts to see lead us to victory and the charisma to motivate the fainthearted.

Keegan is an awesome guy.