What are we reading?

Started by Martok, March 05, 2012, 01:13:59 PM

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MetalDog

No need for a fractious debate.  I just wanted to see how you stood.  And now I have.  Thanks for answering,.
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

airboy

You are welcome.  Hope I did not make you or others angry.  My grandparents remembered Reconstruction and all of the poverty prior to WW1.

Sir Slash

Yes, and Lincoln wanted NO retribution against the South of any kind, remember his second Inauguration Speech, "With Malice toward none..." The South was not fighting to keep slavery. They were defending their homes and towns from invasion by those bent on destroying everything they had, like Sherman did in Georgia and elsewhere. Even Northern Abolitionists would have done the same. And would've been right to.
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Martok

"Like we need an excuse to drink to anything..." - Banzai_Cat
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"At our ages, they all look like jailbait." - mirth

"If we had lines here that would have crossed all of them. For the 1,077,986th time." - Gusington

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airboy

Lets table this discussion or move it to R&P.  I don't want to refight this war in What are we reading?

JasonPratt

Quote from: MetalDog on June 29, 2020, 05:07:59 PM
Again, in all seriousness, I get that on some level, the South was making war to be able to live the life they chose, but, the victors write the history books and the winners impose the penalties.

As an aside, and kind of back on topic for the thread ;), one of the reasons the Grant book and miniseries were made at all, is because the losers DID start writing the history books (long ago back around the turn into the 20th century), and did their best to present the South's perspective of the war -- including the deprecation of US Grant.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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Gusington

Just started Early US Armor: Armored Cars 1915-40 by Steven Zaloga and Felipe Rodriguez (Osprey).


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We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

JasonPratt

Oooh! ^ ^

Just finished WW1 with Churchill, and I'm about 5% into his epilogue volume Aftermath, which digs hard into the post-war socio-political situations (and kicks off near the beginning with an idealized fantasy version of how the Big Three Leaders of the time might have teamed up together to create the world peace hoped for by the League of Nations.)

Currently I'm at the chapter talking about the rationales, and lack thereof ;) , in the reparations debate for post-War Great Britain, which is opening up a whole new economic/logistic vista for me (drowned by very understandable political pressures feeding on emotional tidal waves) on why even from GB the treaty turned out so worthlessly fatal for a peaceful German Republic.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Gusington

Did Churchill want to punish Germany or was he more about rebuilding and reconciliation? I have always read it was the French who continually pushed to cripple the Germans, over and over, until they got their way.


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We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

JasonPratt

#5079
Ideally Churchill just wanted the German government replaced with a functional Republic; and a fair reparation scheme based mostly on land acquisition (already made by the victorious allies) plus the agreement to work as a military jumping point for removing the Communists and ending the Russian Civil War.

Since that couldn't be done, he was in very much of a puzzle about what could realistically be done. He was willing to go for 2 billion pounds sterling in financial reparations (to GB), to be paid out in a reasonable time as not to cripple Germany's ability to pay back, but popular politics in Britain quickly surged for six and seven times that amount more quickly -- so Britain did contribute to the push, at the level of popular politics, to cripple the Germans. (He notes that the women, who had just been given seven million more votes in suffrage, were the most bitter and vocal at demanding punishment.)

Churchill was stumping for MP re-election in his home district when the 2 billion sterling plan was drafted, and he knew that within a few days people would be pushing for much more than this, so he did his best to frame the proposal in such a way that people would accept it popularly, and hoped for the best. "We're going to make them pay!" {applause} "We're going to make them pay through the nose!" {applause} "We're going to make them pay ten times what they forced France to pay at the end of the Franco-Prussian war!" {prolonged applause!} "200 millions x 10 = 2000 millions" {applause!}

He stuck to his guns on this, but did qualify it soon with "Of course, if we can get more than that, we will!" But he didn't think it was prudent or good for the German people to push for more than that.

Another popular push during the new elections was for material reparations, replacing lost manufactured items and especially shipping tonnage, as well as raw materials where available like coal.

However, what the people demanding this sort of thing didn't realize, was that Germany's industrial strength (which had hardly been touched by the war, and if anything had greatly increased from picking up 40 percent of Russia's material and industry from Lenin's treaty) was so massive that in five years they could have replaced every ton of lost shipping plus all the material and goods lost in the shipping (mostly from the UBoat scourge in 1917 of course), and then having cleared their bill they would emerge from paying their debt as the masters of all commerce on Earth!  :D This type of reparation plan would have allowed them to corner the world markets on all item production, and to have destroyed all competition by (in effect) ruthless underbidding.

That's an important context that I hadn't noticed before, because it sets up part of the explanation for why the reparation demands were eventually set up to be so crippling to German industry: the other nations (including GB) didn't want Germany to be the undisputed rulers of the world's economy after finishing their payback. As it happened, the coal reparations nearly sunk GB's coal industry anyway (for example).
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Gusington

If there weren't such punishing reparations after WWI then perhaps the Nazis would not have gained control in Germany.

Which leads me to quote my grandfather, who, despite only a 6th grade education was a smart guy. And he fought through the entirety of WWII in the US Army. He said: "You know what? After everything, the Germans and Japs [sic] really won the war."

Versailles and the reparations from the First World War were some of the biggest mistakes of the 20th century and definitely led to WWII.

But the joke may be on all of us, since Germany, as the biggest economy in Europe now and a world leader through the EU, ultimately got what it was looking for since unification in 1871.

Japan obviously in a different situation now because of their economy and the recent rise of China, but I think, ultimately, they also got what they wanted - to be taken seriously on the world stage.

But I guess there was no way for Churchill to see how damaging the reparations would be post-WWI. If anyone could possibly see it, I would think it would be him but's that probably expecting a lot, even for a historical titan.


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We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

SirAndrewD

It's funny.   I work in publishing and haven't read a danged thing outside the internet in three years.  That's irony.
"These men do not want a happy ship. They are deeply sick and try to compensate by making me feel miserable. Last week was my birthday. Nobody even said "happy birthday" to me. Someday this tape will be played and then they'll feel sorry."  - Sgt. Pinback

Gusington

I worked in publishing from 1996-2006. My first job out of school was at a romance publisher, where one of my responsibilities was answering Fabio's fan mail. My best friend worked along my side me at the time and I wound up sleeping with his boss. And it was because of that same publishing company that I met The Wife in 1997 - NOT the best friend's boss, thank God. Good times!


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

airboy

Quote from: Gusington on July 01, 2020, 07:55:11 PM
I worked in publishing from 1996-2006. My first job out of school was at a romance publisher, where one of my responsibilities was answering Fabio's fan mail. My best friend worked along my side me at the time and I wound up sleeping with his boss. And it was because of that same publishing company that I met The Wife in 1997 - NOT the best friend's boss, thank God. Good times!

How many Fabio fan letters came with fan photos?  Apparel?  Marriage proposals?

Feel free to exaggerate if the truth is too boring!

Gusington

Every day, boxes of letters. Hundreds per week. I was instructed to ignore the marriage proposals and the pictures. Most of the pictures were true horrors anyway. This was around the same time that Fabio did his commercials for I Can't Believe It's Not Butter so he was at the height of his...popularity.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd