History

summerisle said:
Geo-politics has always been a factor in the propaganda of nation states. The seemingly billions of war films the UK produced in the 50s and 60s barely mention the Soviet Union. A fine example is the current D Day commemorations, barely a peep about them. Of course, films need to make money, so seeing grizzled Russians in the snow is not exactly a selling point.
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Of course, good example here in our region is Gavrilo Princip, guy that shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and start of WW1.
During time of Yugoslavia, Princip was hailed as hero who shot foreign occupator and brought end to hated Austria-Hungary and Habsburgs.

Yugoslavia has collapsed and now (at least here in Croatia) Gavrilo Princip is teached as Serbian terrorist and precursor to Milosevic while old Austrian Empire is glorified in lot of way as "good old, empire", despite in reality they treated us as some colony they didn't give two shits about.
 
stipe said:
Of course, good example here in our region is Gavrilo Princip, guy that shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and start of WW1.
During time of Yugoslavia, Princip was hailed as hero who shot foreign occupator and brought end to hated Austria-Hungary and Habsburgs.

Yugoslavia has collapsed and now (at least here in Croatia) Gavrilo Princip is teached as Serbian terrorist and precursor to Milosevic while old Austrian Empire is glorified in lot of way as "good old, empire", despite in reality they treated us as some colony they didn't give two shits about.
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I read somewhere recently that somebody put up a statue of Princip. I'll see if I can find it, after my tea. :)
 
stipe said:
Of course, good example here in our region is Gavrilo Princip, guy that shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and start of WW1.
During time of Yugoslavia, Princip was hailed as hero who shot foreign occupator and brought end to hated Austria-Hungary and Habsburgs.

Yugoslavia has collapsed and now (at least here in Croatia) Gavrilo Princip is teached as Serbian terrorist and precursor to Milosevic while old Austrian Empire is glorified in lot of way as "good old, empire", despite in reality they treated us as some colony they didn't give two shits about.
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Found it.

www.dw.com

Serbia unveils monument to WWI assassin – DW – 06/29/2015

Serbia has unveiled a monument to the man who sparked the chain of events leading to World War I. Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 has a divisive legacy in the Balkans.
www.dw.com www.dw.com
 
summerisle said:
I read somewhere recently that somebody put up a statue of Princip. I'll see if I can find it, after my tea. :)
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They are very touchy on that subject over there in Serbia, they still claiming they didn't have anything with assassination (despite Serbian secret service armed and trained the assassins).
Though of course it was just a excuse for Vienna, they were itching to invade for years at that point.
 
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stipe said:
Of course, good example here in our region is Gavrilo Princip, guy that shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 and start of WW1.
During time of Yugoslavia, Princip was hailed as hero who shot foreign occupator and brought end to hated Austria-Hungary and Habsburgs.

Yugoslavia has collapsed and now (at least here in Croatia) Gavrilo Princip is teached as Serbian terrorist and precursor to Milosevic while old Austrian Empire is glorified in lot of way as "good old, empire", despite in reality they treated us as some colony they didn't give two shits about.
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But that's not unreasonable. Serbia was driven by the Greater Serbia unification plan, Princip as a Black Hand member had signed up to advance that cause.

Serbia triumphant would have been a disaster for Croatia, her culture and people.

Princip acted as a state sponsored agent of terror. He was armed by Serbia, smuggled by the Serbian state and assassinated the heir to an empire that had laid claim (without occupying) Bosnia for close to thirty years.
 

Bohemian Toffee said:
But that's not unreasonable. Serbia was driven by the Greater Serbia unification plan, Princip as a Black Hand member had signed up to advance that cause.

Serbia triumphant would have been a disaster for Croatia, her culture and people.

Princip acted as a state sponsored agent of terror. He was armed by Serbia, smuggled by the Serbian state and assassinated the heir to an empire that had laid claim (without occupying) Bosnia for close to thirty years.
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Princip was just 18 yrs old idealist who came from extreme poverty. He personally probably believed in unified free Yugoslavia as good thing and end of foreign rule.
But as usually happens he was used by certain people from Serbia who wanted Yugoslavia as nothing more than extension of "Greater Serbia".

They couldn't bring down Austria alone (country of more than 50 million people at the time) but they probably hoped for greater war and Russia coming to the rescue, exactly like it happened.
They payed heavy price though, if i recall correctly quarter of Serbia population died as result of Austrian occupation from 1914-18.
 
summerisle said:
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For me, there's a stark difference between who contributed the most to the winning war, in terms of finances or men, and a contribution to allowing a victory.

The Soviets and the US won the war - you'd be an idiot to say otherwise - but without the resilience in '39 to '41, there wouldn't have been the opportunity.

While the UK may have been a small part in the wider success, nonetheless it was an important part.
 
PhilM said:
For me, there's a stark difference between who contributed the most to the winning war, in terms of finances or men, and a contribution to allowing a victory.

The Soviets and the US won the war - you'd be an idiot to say otherwise - but without the resilience in '39 to '41, there wouldn't have been the opportunity.

While the UK may have been a small part in the wider success, nonetheless it was an important part.
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One of the most astounding parts of the war is how Red Army was so unprepared for German attack in 1941, yeah, yeah, Stalin expected/hoped for rerun of WW1 and Germans and French/Brits mauling each other for years.

But after fall of France i genuinely don't understand how Stalin didn't prepare better for what was coming, writing was on the wall, fricking Hitler had his entire plan printed in Mein Kampf years earlier about Slavs "untermensch" and Generalplan Ost (genocide of Soviet population). Your intelligence warned him, his spies warned him, but he still didn't believe it.
 
stipe said:
One of the most astounding parts of the war is how Red Army was so unprepared for German attack in 1941, yeah, yeah, Stalin expected/hoped for rerun of WW1 and Germans and French/Brits mauling each other for years.

But after fall of France i genuinely don't understand how Stalin didn't prepare better for what was coming, writing was on the wall, fricking Hitler had his entire plan printed in Mein Kampf years earlier about Slavs "untermensch" and Generalplan Ost (genocide of Soviet population). Your intelligence warned him, his spies warned him, but he still didn't believe it.
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Antony Beevor talks a lot about this in a few of his books, and it's a prime of example of....

giphy.gif
 
Odd that there is no option for anyone to vote Germany for the side that did most of the work to defeat the Germans.

In terms of grasping defeat from the clutches of victory, some of the big decisions made seem consecutively catastrophic.
 

Rita_Poon said:
Odd that there is no option for anyone to vote Germany for the side that did most of the work to defeat the Germans.

In terms of grasping defeat from the clutches of victory, some of the big decisions made seem consecutively catastrophic.
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In the end of the day alliance with Japan and Italy cost them much more then it brought any benefit.
They found itself in war with America cause of Japan, alliance with Italy forced them to send troops to Balkans and North Africa and stretch them even more..

Italians were not capable to defeat Greece on their own, quite a contrary, Greeks defeated initial Italian invasion and counter-invaded them in Albania, forcing Germans to send hundreds of thousands of troops to the rescue.
North Africa of course, another Italian disaster.
 
PhilM said:
For me, there's a stark difference between who contributed the most to the winning war, in terms of finances or men, and a contribution to allowing a victory.

The Soviets and the US won the war - you'd be an idiot to say otherwise - but without the resilience in '39 to '41, there wouldn't have been the opportunity.

While the UK may have been a small part in the wider success, nonetheless it was an important part.
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Exactly. We (the Royal we) knocked out most of their Navy (especially the big ships) and destroyed a lot of aircraft. We were able to assist Russia with necessary supplies to help them win the battle on the eastern front and gave the allies a base to be able to launch an assault on Europe.

On top of that we were able hamper the German war efforts by attacking their industrial heartlands, breaking the Enigma code and play the biggest role in winning the North Africa campaign, as a precursor to opening up the invasion of Sicily and then on to the mainland.

If we had of just rolled over as per the other European countries and not given the Germans something else to contend with whilst they were pushing into Russia, then the whole picture might have ended up very different!
 

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