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Winston Churchill: Bulldog or bigot?

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Nick1986 View Drop Down
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Winston Churchill: Bulldog or bigot?
    Posted: 30-Aug-2011 at 09:46
Europe owes its freedom to Zhukov, not Churchill. It was the Red Army that broke the back of the Nazi war machine and enabled the Allies to advance on Berlin. Stalin and Churchill are equally blameworthy: Stalin for his greed and Churchill for his betrayal. The British and Americans seemed to be able to support anticommunist factions in Greece in 1946 while ignoring the countries whose pilots tipped the balance in the Battle of Britain: Poland and Czechoslovakia
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  Quote Karalem Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Aug-2011 at 10:32
It was Russia that took back Eastern and Central Europe, not Churchill, so I don't see how could he sell something that was not his. Poland and Hungary and other EE countries were liberated from Germans by the Red Army. I saw a film about Churchill and Stalin sitting together and adjusting post war borders  in central Europe with the help of cigarette matches, putting them on a map. Churchill placed a match on some river between Poland and Germany to show where he sees the new border, and Stalin tapped him on the shoulder to OK it. He may have run out of matches and couldn't explain how he saw new political configuration in Poland.
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  Quote Ollios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30-Aug-2011 at 17:53
I know that, he was the one of best leader which worked to defeat Hitler BUT;

"I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes ... to spread a lively terror"- Winston Curchill

I don't know he did it or not but sentence which is above, makes him a candidate for chemical war criminal. Exclamation

In the War cabinet, he offered to use gas on Turk in Gallibolu Thumbs Down

He is a leader just in his time Big smile



Edited by Ollios - 30-Aug-2011 at 17:56
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  Quote dave Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2011 at 11:00
Originally posted by Ollios

I know that, he was the one of best leader which worked to defeat Hitler BUT;

"I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes ... to spread a lively terror"- Winston Curchill

I don't know he did it or not but sentence which is above, makes him a candidate for chemical war criminal. Exclamation

In the War cabinet, he offered to use gas on Turk in Gallibolu Thumbs Down

He is a leader just in his time Big smile


The full text explains:


Winston S. Churchill: departmental minute (Churchill papers: 16/16) 12 May 1919 War Office

I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.

I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.

 

from Companion Volume 4, Part 1 of the official biography, WINSTON S. CHURCHILL, by Martin Gilbert (London: Heinemann, 1976)


That doesn't really read like something that Chemical Ali would've preached.  The poisonous gas he's talking about is tear gas (formerly known as lachrymatory gas).  







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  Quote dave Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Dec-2011 at 11:02
Originally posted by Nick1986

My grandparents never forgave him for selling Poland to the Russians. During the elections they only voted for the Tories because they didn't trust Labour

You really should take a look at the Yalta Conference and see how weak Britain's position was compared to the Soviet's. At Yalta, Roosevelt failed to acknowledge Churchill’s preoccupation with Poland.  Failing to exercise himself and create an Anglo-American front for a democratic Poland, he conceded to Soviet interests in Eastern Europe.  Whilst determined to ensure Soviet membership to the UN and assistance in the Pacific theatre against Japan, Roosevelt accepted the rather slack assurance of free elections as an appeasement of American public opinion.  Accepting that Poland’s eastern borders would need revision in favour of the Soviet Union, Britain, having gone to war over the unfortunate Poles, wanted to ensure a democratic government in Warsaw.  But Churchill made a serious error in pleading that France should be returned to great-power status (but not given a place amongst the ‘big three’).  Stalin was not inclined to agree, particularly with France having capitulated so readily in 1940.  Churchill bought his support by stating that French ‘friendship’ to Britain was similar to Polish ‘friendship’ to the Soviet Union.  This Stalin seems to have understood and sympathised with.  But what might he have taken from this? It seems likely that the Georgian saw a similar move of realpolitik that the Englishman had brought to Moscow in October 1944.  Churchill’s concern for France was a search for camaraderie in facing the bulk of the Soviet Union.  Roosevelt’s intimation that Congress would not allow the US army to remain in Europe for any period of time once Germany had been defeated worried Churchill.  

So, sure, he gaffed, but he did spend a large part of 1944 and 1945 trying to get the best for the Poles that he possibly could.  

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  Quote Sixteen String Jack Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Apr-2013 at 14:05
Originally posted by Nick1986


The British schools have long taught us that Churchill was a hero who singlehandedly beat the Nazis. They ignore his betrayal of Poland and his incompetent handling of Gallipoli in 1915. There are many quotes proving Churchill was a racist and supporter of eugenics: before the war he suggested sterilising "morally degenerate" Britons to "prevent the decline of the British race." Interestingly, fascist groups like the BNP use his likeness on their posters: ironic considering their claims not to be a racist organisation
The costs of war
 
Most British supporters of eugenics in the 1930s and around that time were of the Left, not the Right.
 
And the BNP, by the way, are not Fascists, although I would much rather be ruled by a Fascist organisation than a lefty Marxist organisation.  The Marxists are much worse although, for some reason, Marxists (like Ed Miliband) seem to be accepted in modern Britain but Fascists aren't.


Edited by Sixteen String Jack - 15-Apr-2013 at 14:09
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