[quote]dhickey wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Does anyone have any suggestions on good books on WW1. I haven’t found anything that gives conclusive evidence on what actually started WW1. From what I’ve read it appears to be a bit of a mystery and that seems bizzar to me.
Finding out what really happens is difficult or impossible. Mainstream historians won’t say anything outrageous, even if true, since it would lead to ridicule from colleagues/no tenure/no publication. Look what happens to scientists who even mention Intelligent Design.
Sometimes, the truth does leak through. In Churchill’s autobiography, he talks about arranging things so American sailors would be deliberatly put at risk to hopefully bring America into WWI. He talked about charging surfacing subs, to force German crews to always fire from underwater, so they’d hopefully make a mistake and hit an American vessel. He was a criminal.
I’ve gathered this much and am not a Churchill fan. He sure played Wilson like a fiddle though.
…[/quote]
And Churchill played Wilson exactly when? I suppose Churchill wrote the Zimmerman telegram, too? Certainly WIlson as not fiddled according to the score trumped up by HH, since the truth has not “leaked through” to him. (Recall that Churchill was disgraced after Gallipoli and was not back, in George’s war cabinet until late 1917)
As for WWII, and Churchill, and a clear rebuttal of Buchanan’s biases, you may be otherwise persuaded by reading the first 2 volumes of his The Second World War.
I saw a History Channel special on that and wondered if it was true. Do you have any articles about it? [/quote]
Actually that is where I first learned of it myself. There was some speculation in the show, but didn’t somebody validate the documents? I read something somewhere else about it, but cannot remember where. My source for the uranium was just a quick google search, but that story is much more well known.
The History channel had another show about an attempted coup in Japan to prevent Japan’s surrender after the second bomb dropped.
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
dhickey wrote:
In Churchill’s autobiography, he talks about arranging things so American sailors would be deliberatly put at risk to hopefully bring America into WWI. He talked about charging surfacing subs, to force German crews to always fire from underwater, so they’d hopefully make a mistake and hit an American vessel. He was a criminal.
Please post the citation for me from “Churchill’s autobiography.” Not from a screwy website. It should be in the public domain, say in Gutenberg.
Title and page number will do nicely.
Thank you.[/quote]
Sadly, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read Churchill’s autobiography, but here are a few tidbits that, while not confirming Headhunter’s allegations, at least support them.
On February 10, 1915, the British Admiralty ordered all British merchant ships to ram German U-Boats whenever possible. The Germans became aware of these orders five days later, and announced that they would consider any vessel flying the British flag to be a warship. This is according to Lusitania by Colin Simpson, and The Lusitania Disaster by Thomas Bailey and Paul Ryan. I admit I haven’t been able to locate the source documents.
In any case, shortly thereafter, In a letter to Walter Runciman, president of the English Board of Trade, Churchill stated that it was “most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hope especially of embroiling the U.S.A. with Germany. For our part, we want the traffic, the more the better, and if some of it gets into trouble, better still.”
The Lusitania, steaming out of New York carrying 4,200 cases of Remington .303 rifle cartridges (a thousand rounds per box), 1,250 cases of shrapnel shells, eighteen cases of fuzes, and 1,200 civilian passengers, ran into trouble on May 7.
About this incident, Churchill had this to say: “In spite of all its horror, we must regard the sinking of the Lusitania as an event most important and favourable to the Allies. The poor babies who perished in the ocean struck a blow at German power more deadly than could have been achieved by the sacrifice of a hundred thousand fighting men.” (News of the World, 1937)
Surely Niccolo Machiavelli would agree.
One more quote of Churchill’s, which has no bearing on the Lusitania incident, but seems appropriate nonetheless:
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
[quote]Sifu wrote:
orion wrote:
Sifu wrote:
orion wrote:
Funny that the actual historians at that site treat Buchanan’s book with much more respect than you do.
One thing I learned when I lived in Germany is you Germans put a lot of value on titles. Just because I am not an “actual historian” does not mean that I can’t use the knowledge I have gained from studying history to formulate my own opinions and reach my own conclusions.
There is a real problem with trying to second guess history like Buchanan is doing. There were bad things that happened in WW2 but there is some good that came out of it also. ie It is bad that millions of people died, but it really gave us something to think about during the cold war.
What would have been the result of the war not being fought then? How would Roosevelt have been able to finance and develop the Mahattan project in secrecy without the war going on? The peace that Buchanan suggests we would have enjoyed might have seen Germany become armed with atomic weapons and rockets to deliver them with and the US with nothing to match them with.
Especially the story of Munich is so incredibly wrong it is often laughable, and so is this remember Munich BS.
Do you remember Woodrow Wilson the guy that lead the US into WWI to make the world safe for democracy?
Well, part of his involvement in WWI was that the Germans in CS had the RIGHT to vote whether they wanted to join Germany or not.
I thought Czechoslovakia was a new country that was carved out of Austria Hungary at the end of World War 1. The Sudetenland was never a part of Germany. So you aren’t making much sense here.
There was no question how they would vote.
Not only that, noone had the military capacity to stop Germany.
So what should they have done?
Ignore the narrative that had lead to the US joining WWI? Suddenly declare that people had the right to choose their own fate unless they did not like the outcome?
Munich was sensible diplomacy and the only one who did not like the result was Hitler.
I would not like to know who would have won the war when it had started 1-2 years earlier and all of Germany up and in arms because they were denied to vote whether or not the German Sudetes were to join Germany.
It would have gone badly for the Germans. The Czech had fortresses built into the mountains that the Germans would have had to fight uphill against. They would have made the Germans pay dearly for vitory. If the British and French had gotten in on it while the Germans were slugging it out with the Czechs it would have been bad for the Germans.
The actual scarier prospect would have been how things would have gone if the was had started a year later. That one year would have meant that the Germans would have had jets operational sooner in the war. The benefits to the navy of an extra year or two of peace would have been significant also. The Bismark and Tirpitz would have been operational sooner along with one or two sister ships and the follow on class of ships that was bigger and more advanced would have been building. More importantly they would have had at least one aircraft carrier which would have been a gamechanger.
The logical conclusion is there are way too many variables to second guess the war with any accuracy. To be as adamant as Buchanan is that it would have worked out wonderfully if we had stayed out of the war is illogical.
The Sudetes were undeniably German. Whether they ever had been part of Germany or not is not the issue, the issue is that the narrative for the US entry in WWI was that people could choose their own fates.
According to the treaties after WWI minorities had the right to vote on to which state they wanted to belong to, that happened in Austria twice.
So the Sudetes had every right to join Germany, by the very conditions the winners of WWI had forced upon Austria and Germany.
Then noone in Europe was ready to fight a war, except for the Germans.
Germany practically routed the Polish in days and defeated France and the British expedition force in weeks.
To think that an ethnically and politically divided country with a large German minority would have been able to stop the German juggernaut is a fantasy, given that fascist organizations were only to eager to revolt at the first sign of a German attack.
The Sudetenland was very strategic because it is a mountainous area. It is extremely difficult to fight uphill against an entrenched enemy. Watch the movie Hamburger hill sometime and you will how hard it is going up a mere hill. The invasion of Italy is another good example. The seige of Monte Casino was brutal for the allies. Neither of those examples was against purpose built fortresses.
The German juggernaut was only a juggernaut against those who were caught unprepared and thrown into a headlong retreat and even then they weren’t unstoppable. Against those who were not intimidated and who were willing to stand up to them the German juggernaut failed. ie The Siberians defeated the sixth army at Stalingrad, The Desert Rats defeated the Afrika corps, The Airborne at Bastogne. Even the Poles were starting to stabilize their position and take a toll just before the Russians blindsided them.
The Germans might have defeated the Czechs but they would have paid a very heavy price getting through the defenses of the Sudetenland. [/quote]
You are missing the main point!
Who would have fought?
Certainly not the Sudetes, very likely not the Slovaks so the Czechs would have had to practically occupy the Sudetes which would have ended Czechoslovakia’s unity anyway.
You are fighting an hypothetical war with an army that did not exist at that time.
[quote]orion wrote:
Sifu wrote:
orion wrote:
Sifu wrote:
orion wrote:
…
Who would have fought?
Certainly not the Sudetes, very likely not the Slovaks so the Czechs would have had to practically occupy the Sudetes which would have ended Czechoslovakia’s unity anyway.
You are fighting an hypothetical war with an army that did not exist at that time.
[/quote]
If I am not mistaken, from many sources, the Czechs had in the mid-'30’s the second largest standing army in Europe–second to France, if you will excuse the irony.
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
If I am not mistaken, from many sources, the Czechs had in the mid-'30’s the second largest standing army in Europe–second to France, if you will excuse the irony.[/quote]
And the Polish cavalry was also the finest in the world at the time.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
If I am not mistaken, from many sources, the Czechs had in the mid-'30’s the second largest standing army in Europe–second to France, if you will excuse the irony.
And the Polish cavalry was also the finest in the world at the time.[/quote]
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
dhickey wrote:
In Churchill’s autobiography, he talks about arranging things so American sailors would be deliberatly put at risk to hopefully bring America into WWI. He talked about charging surfacing subs, to force German crews to always fire from underwater, so they’d hopefully make a mistake and hit an American vessel. He was a criminal.
Please post the citation for me from “Churchill’s autobiography.” Not from a screwy website. It should be in the public domain, say in Gutenberg.
Title and page number will do nicely.
Thank you.
Sadly, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read Churchill’s autobiography, but here are a few tidbits that, while not confirming Headhunter’s allegations, at least support them.
On February 10, 1915, the British Admiralty ordered all British merchant ships to ram German U-Boats whenever possible. The Germans became aware of these orders five days later, and announced that they would consider any vessel flying the British flag to be a warship.
This is according to Lusitania by Colin Simpson, and The Lusitania Disaster by Thomas Bailey and Paul Ryan. I admit I haven’t been able to locate the source documents.
In any case, shortly thereafter, In a letter to Walter Runciman, president of the English Board of Trade, Churchill stated that it was "most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hope especially of embroiling the U.S.A. with Germany.
For our part, we want the traffic, the more the better, and if some of it gets into trouble, better still."
The Lusitania, steaming out of New York carrying 4,200 cases of Remington .303 rifle cartridges (a thousand rounds per box), 1,250 cases of shrapnel shells, eighteen cases of fuzes, and 1,200 civilian passengers, ran into trouble on May 7.
About this incident, Churchill had this to say: "In spite of all its horror, we must regard the sinking of the Lusitania as an event most important and favourable to the Allies.
The poor babies who perished in the ocean struck a blow at German power more deadly than could have been achieved by the sacrifice of a hundred thousand fighting men." (News of the World, 1937)
Surely Niccolo Machiavelli would agree.
One more quote of Churchill’s, which has no bearing on the Lusitania incident, but seems appropriate nonetheless:
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
[/quote]
He also wrote that he “slept the sleep of angels” after Pearl Harbor, knowing Britain was saved. I admire Churchill, and Headhunter’s stuff is unhinged, but Sir Winston was looking out for the British Empire first. Would that our politicians had the same attitude.
This ones for Varqinir, this is how and why merchantmen got involved ith fighting the U-boats.
World War I
In the First Battle of the Atlantic, by 1915, Britain was in desperate need for a countermeasure against the U-boats that were strangling her sea-lanes.
Convoys, which had proven effective in earlier times (and would again prove effective during World War II), were rejected by the resource-strapped Admiralty and the independent captains.
The depth charges of the time were very primitive, and thus the only method of sinking a submarine was by gunfire or by ramming while on the surface. The problem was luring the U-boat to the surface.
One solution to this problem was the creation of the Q-ship, one of the most closely-guarded secrets of the war. Their codename referred to the vessels’ home port, Queenstown, in Ireland[1]. These would be known to the Germans as a U-Boot-Falle (“U-boat trap”).
The Q-ship would pose as an easy target for the U-boat but in fact carry hidden armament. A typical Q-ship would be an old-looking tramp steamer calmly sailing alone near an area where a U-boat was reported to be operating.
By posing as a suitable target for the use of the U-boat’s deck gun, the Q-ship would encourage the U-boat captain to bring his vessel to the surface rather than use one of his expensive torpedoes, which were in short supply.
The cargoes of the Q-ships would be wooden caskets and wood (e.g., balsa or cork) so even if torpedoed they would stay afloat, encouraging the U-boat to surface and use its gun. If necessary the crew could even stage an “abandon ship” routine.
Once the U boat was in a suitable position the Q-ship would change rapidly, false panels would drop to reveal the hidden guns which would start firing. At the same time the White Ensign (Royal Navy flag) would be raised. With the element of surprise the U-boat could be quickly overwhelmed.
The first victory of a Q-ship occurred on June 23, 1915, when U-40 was sunk near Aberdeen by the submarine HMS C24, cooperating with the decoy vessel Taranaki, commanded by Lieutenant Frederick Henry Taylor CBE DSC RN.
In August of that year, an even smaller converted fishing trawler named His Majesty’s Armed Smack Inverlyon successfully destroyed U-4 near Great Yarmouth.
The Inverlyon was an unpowered sailing craft fitted with a small 3 pounder (47 mm) gun. The British crew put 9 rounds from the 3 pounder and small arms fire into U-4 at close range sinking her with the loss of all 15 crew, despite the attempt of the Inverlyon’s skipper to rescue one German submariner.
On August 19, 1915, Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert RN of the HMS Baralong sank U-27 which had been preparing to sink a nearby transport ship.
About a dozen of the sailors survived and swam towards the merchantman; Herbert, fearing that they would scuttle her, ordered them to be shot at as they swam towards the transport and sent a boarding party which killed the German sailors who reached her; this became known as the “Baralong Incident”.
Lieutenant-Commander William Edward Sanders VC, DSO, a New Zealander commanding HMS Prize, won the Victoria Cross for an action on 30 April 1917 with U-93, which was severely damaged. Sanders waited, while his ship sustained heavy shellfire, until the submarine was within 80 yards, whereupon the White Ensign was hoisted and the Prize opened fire.
The submarine appeared to sink. Unbeknownst to Sanders, the submarine did not sink and struggled back to port. With his ship identified by the survivors of U-93, Sanders and his crew were killed when they were attacked by U-43 on 14 August 1917.
Despite some spectacular actions and a great deal of romanticization, Q-ships were not particularly successful (see HMS Dunraven). In the course of 150 engagements they destroyed 14 U-boats and damaged 60, at a cost of 27 Q-ships lost out of 200.
Q-ships were responsible for only about 10% of all U-boats sunk, ranking them far below the use of mine fields in overall effectiveness. Neither of the German Q-Boats, Möwe and Wolf, had any success in destroying enemy submarines.
Then Orion. At the time of Munich, Czechoslovakia had the 11th largest economy in the world and heavy industrial base. The Skoda works was the largest industrial complex in the world. Skoda was bigger than Henry Fords River Rouge complex and it was bigger than Krupps.
Škoda Works (Czech: Škodovy závody; today Škoda Holding, a.s. plus a variety of small companies in the Czech and Slovak republics whose names still contain the name Škoda) was the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states. It was also one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Europe in the 20th century.
History
The company was founded by the noble family Waldstein in 1859 and was bought by Emil Å koda in Plze�? in 1869. It soon established itself as Austria-Hungary’s leading arms manufacturer.
It produced among others heavy guns for the navy, mountain guns or mortars as well as locomotives, aircraft, ships, machine tools, steam turbines and equipment for power utilities.
Before and during WWII
Panzer 35(t) tankÅ koda manufactured the world’s first triple-barrelled gun turrets for the Tegetthoff class of battleships of the Austro-Hungarian navy. Prior to World War II Å koda also produced LT-35 and LT-38 tanks, which are better known under their German labels Panzer 35(t) and Panzer 38(t).
These tanks were originally produced for the Czechoslovak army and their production continued during the occupation by Nazi Germany. They were used extensively by the Wehrmacht in the Polish campaign, the Battle of France and also in German invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Czech army had decent weaponry. The Bren gun which the British used extensively was a Czech design. The Czech’s had a large army entrenched in fortresses built into the sides of the mountains.
The Czech defenses were way more formidable than the Atlantic wall or the Maginot line. The German army would have been chewed to pieces getting through those defenses.
It would have been a very sobering experience for the Germans. The only down side is it might have taught the Nazi’s a little humility, which might have saved them from overplaying their hand later in the war.
Giving all that industrial base to Hitler without a fight was stupid. The only good thing that came out of it is Prague survived the war fiarly intact.
Thanks, Sifu. That was very entertaining. I remember being quite impressed by the Q-ship story when I read about it as a teenager.
Oh, and my post was not an indictment or even a critique of Churchill. As GDollars mentioned, his interest was the Empire first and foremost, and he had the balls to say so.
I think George W Bush’s writers borrowed heavily from this speech of Sir Winston’s in October 2001, when the President declared war on terror:
[i]We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.
You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime.” That is our policy.
You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: “Victory” - victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.[/i]
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
DrSkeptix wrote:
dhickey wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
dhickey wrote:
In Churchill’s autobiography, he talks about arranging things so American sailors would be deliberatly put at risk to hopefully bring America into WWI. He talked about charging surfacing subs, to force German crews to always fire from underwater, so they’d hopefully make a mistake and hit an American vessel. He was a criminal.
Please post the citation for me from “Churchill’s autobiography.” Not from a screwy website. It should be in the public domain, say in Gutenberg.
Title and page number will do nicely.
Thank you.
Sadly, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read Churchill’s autobiography, but here are a few tidbits that, while not confirming Headhunter’s allegations, at least support them.
On February 10, 1915, the British Admiralty ordered all British merchant ships to ram German U-Boats whenever possible. The Germans became aware of these orders five days later, and announced that they would consider any vessel flying the British flag to be a warship.
This is according to Lusitania by Colin Simpson, and The Lusitania Disaster by Thomas Bailey and Paul Ryan. I admit I haven’t been able to locate the source documents.
In any case, shortly thereafter, In a letter to Walter Runciman, president of the English Board of Trade, Churchill stated that it was "most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hope especially of embroiling the U.S.A. with Germany.
For our part, we want the traffic, the more the better, and if some of it gets into trouble, better still."
The Lusitania, steaming out of New York carrying 4,200 cases of Remington .303 rifle cartridges (a thousand rounds per box), 1,250 cases of shrapnel shells, eighteen cases of fuzes, and 1,200 civilian passengers, ran into trouble on May 7.
About this incident, Churchill had this to say: "In spite of all its horror, we must regard the sinking of the Lusitania as an event most important and favourable to the Allies.
The poor babies who perished in the ocean struck a blow at German power more deadly than could have been achieved by the sacrifice of a hundred thousand fighting men." (News of the World, 1937)
Surely Niccolo Machiavelli would agree.
One more quote of Churchill’s, which has no bearing on the Lusitania incident, but seems appropriate nonetheless:
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
[/quote]
The reason, Friend V, that you have missed reading Churchill’s autobiography is that there is no such thing,unless you count “Malakand,” which is irrelevant here, or “The World Crisis,” which I guess I need to re-read if I can find that dusty tome.
I ws pointing out to HH that screwy websites quote things out of context or in the wrong era, and simply screw together a conspiracy. For example, Walter Runciman and Churchill were, by no means, lifelong friends, but early enemies. And Runciman was president of the board of trade twice, pointedly, 1916-1919 and again before WWII.
And he was also part of the Chamberlain cabinet when Churchill was very much in the wilderness. So, if I accept your quoted letter as true and authentic, when ws it written? And why?
It may very well be a post-hoc explanation of decisions made in 1915. Was the purpose of Churchills policy primarily to suffer innocents, just so America could come in to the war? I am not convinced; US entry was desirable–even that was arguable in 1916–but CHurchill’s prime objective was feeding and arming Britain.
What conspiracy in that? (The other quote is one of the shockers that WSC liked to lay, 2 decades later, to prepare for the next war. We may find it shocking, but was it Churchill’s Machiavellian purpose to kill babies? ((He is praising them, at a time when Bloomsbury intellectuals had already surrendered.)) HH thinks so, but I think the historical evidence is specious.)
[quote]Sifu wrote:
This ones for Varqinir, this is how and why merchantmen got involved ith fighting the U-boats.
…
Then Orion. At the time of Munich, Czechoslovakia had the 11th largest economy in the world and heavy industrial base. The Skoda works was the largest industrial complex in the world. Skoda was bigger than Henry Fords River Rouge complex and it was bigger than Krupps.
Škoda Works (Czech: Škodovy závody; today Škoda Holding, a.s. plus a variety of small companies in the Czech and Slovak republics whose names still contain the name Škoda) was the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states. It was also one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Europe in the 20th century.
History
The company was founded by the noble family Waldstein in 1859 and was bought by Emil Å koda in Plze�? in 1869. It soon established itself as Austria-Hungary’s leading arms manufacturer.
It produced among others heavy guns for the navy, mountain guns or mortars as well as locomotives, aircraft, ships, machine tools, steam turbines and equipment for power utilities.
Before and during WWII
Panzer 35(t) tankÅ koda manufactured the world’s first triple-barrelled gun turrets for the Tegetthoff class of battleships of the Austro-Hungarian navy. Prior to World War II Å koda also produced LT-35 and LT-38 tanks, which are better known under their German labels Panzer 35(t) and Panzer 38(t).
These tanks were originally produced for the Czechoslovak army and their production continued during the occupation by Nazi Germany. They were used extensively by the Wehrmacht in the Polish campaign, the Battle of France and also in German invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Czech army had decent weaponry. The Bren gun which the British used extensively was a Czech design. The Czech’s had a large army entrenched in fortresses built into the sides of the mountains. The Czech defenses were way more formidable than the Atlantic wall or the Maginot line.
The German army would have been chewed to pieces getting through those defenses. It would have been a very sobering experience for the Germans. The only down side is it might have taught the Nazi’s a little humility, which might have saved them from overplaying their hand later in the war.
Giving all that industrial base to Hitler without a fight was stupid. The only good thing that came out of it is Prague survived the war fiarly intact.
[/quote]
Ditto.
The Czech army was big, well-armed, short logistics well-trained. It only serves us poorly to think that they were powerless; they required only allies, better than those at Munich, who would not sell them out. Now that was a hypothetical.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
This ones for Varqinir, this is how and why merchantmen got involved ith fighting the U-boats.
World War I
In the First Battle of the Atlantic, by 1915, Britain was in desperate need for a countermeasure against the U-boats that were strangling her sea-lanes.
Convoys, which had proven effective in earlier times (and would again prove effective during World War II), were rejected by the resource-strapped Admiralty and the independent captains. The depth charges of the time were very primitive, and thus the only method of sinking a submarine was by gunfire or by ramming while on the surface. The problem was luring the U-boat to the surface.
One solution to this problem was the creation of the Q-ship, one of the most closely-guarded secrets of the war. Their codename referred to the vessels’ home port, Queenstown, in Ireland[1]. These would be known to the Germans as a U-Boot-Falle (“U-boat trap”).
The Q-ship would pose as an easy target for the U-boat but in fact carry hidden armament. A typical Q-ship would be an old-looking tramp steamer calmly sailing alone near an area where a U-boat was reported to be operating.
By posing as a suitable target for the use of the U-boat’s deck gun, the Q-ship would encourage the U-boat captain to bring his vessel to the surface rather than use one of his expensive torpedoes, which were in short supply.
The cargoes of the Q-ships would be wooden caskets and wood (e.g., balsa or cork) so even if torpedoed they would stay afloat, encouraging the U-boat to surface and use its gun. If necessary the crew could even stage an “abandon ship” routine.
Once the U boat was in a suitable position the Q-ship would change rapidly, false panels would drop to reveal the hidden guns which would start firing. At the same time the White Ensign (Royal Navy flag) would be raised. With the element of surprise the U-boat could be quickly overwhelmed.
The first victory of a Q-ship occurred on June 23, 1915, when U-40 was sunk near Aberdeen by the submarine HMS C24, cooperating with the decoy vessel Taranaki, commanded by Lieutenant Frederick Henry Taylor CBE DSC RN.
In August of that year, an even smaller converted fishing trawler named His Majesty’s Armed Smack Inverlyon successfully destroyed U-4 near Great Yarmouth. The Inverlyon was an unpowered sailing craft fitted with a small 3 pounder (47 mm) gun.
The British crew put 9 rounds from the 3 pounder and small arms fire into U-4 at close range sinking her with the loss of all 15 crew, despite the attempt of the Inverlyon’s skipper to rescue one German submariner.
On August 19, 1915, Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert RN of the HMS Baralong sank U-27 which had been preparing to sink a nearby transport ship. About a dozen of the sailors survived and swam towards the merchantman; Herbert, fearing that they would scuttle her, ordered them to be shot at as they swam towards the transport and sent a boarding party which killed the German sailors who reached her; this became known as the “Baralong Incident”.
Lieutenant-Commander William Edward Sanders VC, DSO, a New Zealander commanding HMS Prize, won the Victoria Cross for an action on 30 April 1917 with U-93, which was severely damaged.
Sanders waited, while his ship sustained heavy shellfire, until the submarine was within 80 yards, whereupon the White Ensign was hoisted and the Prize opened fire. The submarine appeared to sink.
Unbeknownst to Sanders, the submarine did not sink and struggled back to port. With his ship identified by the survivors of U-93, Sanders and his crew were killed when they were attacked by U-43 on 14 August 1917.
Despite some spectacular actions and a great deal of romanticization, Q-ships were not particularly successful (see HMS Dunraven). In the course of 150 engagements they destroyed 14 U-boats and damaged 60, at a cost of 27 Q-ships lost out of 200.
Q-ships were responsible for only about 10% of all U-boats sunk, ranking them far below the use of mine fields in overall effectiveness. Neither of the German Q-Boats, Möwe and Wolf, had any success in destroying enemy submarines.
Then Orion. At the time of Munich, Czechoslovakia had the 11th largest economy in the world and heavy industrial base. The Skoda works was the largest industrial complex in the world. Skoda was bigger than Henry Fords River Rouge complex and it was bigger than Krupps.
Škoda Works (Czech: Škodovy závody; today Škoda Holding, a.s. plus a variety of small companies in the Czech and Slovak republics whose names still contain the name Škoda) was the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states. It was also one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Europe in the 20th century.
History
The company was founded by the noble family Waldstein in 1859 and was bought by Emil Å koda in Plze�? in 1869. It soon established itself as Austria-Hungary’s leading arms manufacturer. It produced among others heavy guns for the navy, mountain guns or mortars as well as locomotives, aircraft, ships, machine tools, steam turbines and equipment for power utilities.
Before and during WWII
Panzer 35(t) tankÅ koda manufactured the world’s first triple-barrelled gun turrets for the Tegetthoff class of battleships of the Austro-Hungarian navy. Prior to World War II Å koda also produced LT-35 and LT-38 tanks, which are better known under their German labels Panzer 35(t) and Panzer 38(t).
These tanks were originally produced for the Czechoslovak army and their production continued during the occupation by Nazi Germany. They were used extensively by the Wehrmacht in the Polish campaign, the Battle of France and also in German invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Czech army had decent weaponry. The Bren gun which the British used extensively was a Czech design. The Czech’s had a large army entrenched in fortresses built into the sides of the mountains. The Czech defenses were way more formidable than the Atlantic wall or the Maginot line.
The German army would have been chewed to pieces getting through those defenses. It would have been a very sobering experience for the Germans. The only down side is it might have taught the Nazi’s a little humility, which might have saved them from overplaying their hand later in the war.
Giving all that industrial base to Hitler without a fight was stupid. The only good thing that came out of it is Prague survived the war fiarly intact.
[/quote]
I do not deny that they had an army and the weaponry. I say that
a) Their little alpine forts were in the Sudete mountains which were German.
If you want to fight a guerrilla war the people are supposed to help you, not fight you.
b) this was the time of rampant nationalism. Czechoslovakia consisted of Slovaks, Czechs, Hungarians and Germans.
Czechoslovakia was NOT Switzerland. They did not want to fight united, in fact nationalist parties were on the rise and demanding independence from Czechoslovakia.
Even after Czechoslovakia was reformed after WWII it fell apart almost immediately after Sowjet pressure no longer forced it together.
What makes you think that they were ever ready to fight for a central government they perceived as oppressive?
You seem to forget that Germans were more often than not greeted with flowers in the European East, they were considered to be the better alternative.
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
Sifu wrote:
This ones for Varqinir, this is how and why merchantmen got involved ith fighting the U-boats.
…
Then Orion. At the time of Munich, Czechoslovakia had the 11th largest economy in the world and heavy industrial base. The Skoda works was the largest industrial complex in the world. Skoda was bigger than Henry Fords River Rouge complex and it was bigger than Krupps.
Škoda Works (Czech: Škodovy závody; today Škoda Holding, a.s. plus a variety of small companies in the Czech and Slovak republics whose names still contain the name Škoda) was the largest industrial enterprise in Austria-Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia, one of its successor states. It was also one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Europe in the 20th century.
History
The company was founded by the noble family Waldstein in 1859 and was bought by Emil Å koda in Plze�? in 1869. It soon established itself as Austria-Hungary’s leading arms manufacturer.
It produced among others heavy guns for the navy, mountain guns or mortars as well as locomotives, aircraft, ships, machine tools, steam turbines and equipment for power utilities.
Before and during WWII
Panzer 35(t) tankÅ koda manufactured the world’s first triple-barrelled gun turrets for the Tegetthoff class of battleships of the Austro-Hungarian navy. Prior to World War II Å koda also produced LT-35 and LT-38 tanks, which are better known under their German labels Panzer 35(t) and Panzer 38(t).
These tanks were originally produced for the Czechoslovak army and their production continued during the occupation by Nazi Germany. They were used extensively by the Wehrmacht in the Polish campaign, the Battle of France and also in German invasion of the Soviet Union.
The Czech army had decent weaponry. The Bren gun which the British used extensively was a Czech design. The Czech’s had a large army entrenched in fortresses built into the sides of the mountains.
The Czech defenses were way more formidable than the Atlantic wall or the Maginot line. The German army would have been chewed to pieces getting through those defenses. It would have been a very sobering experience for the Germans.
The only down side is it might have taught the Nazi’s a little humility, which might have saved them from overplaying their hand later in the war.
Giving all that industrial base to Hitler without a fight was stupid. The only good thing that came out of it is Prague survived the war fiarly intact.
Ditto.
The Czech army was big, well-armed, short logistics well-trained. It only serves us poorly to think that they were powerless; they required only allies, better than those at Munich, who would not sell them out. Now that was a hypothetical.
[/quote]
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Thanks, Sifu. That was very entertaining. I remember being quite impressed by the Q-ship story when I read about it as a teenager.
Oh, and my post was not an indictment or even a critique of Churchill. As GDollars mentioned, his interest was the Empire first and foremost, and he had the balls to say so.
I think George W Bush’s writers borrowed heavily from this speech of Sir Winston’s in October 2001, when the President declared war on terror:
[i]We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.
You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime.” That is our policy.
You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: “Victory” - victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.[/i][/quote]
The Czech army was big, well-armed, short logistics well-trained. It only serves us poorly to think that they were powerless; they required only allies, better than those at Munich, who would not sell them out. Now that was a hypothetical.
See my reply to Sifu.
[/quote]
Yes, and a reasonable reply it was. But maybe so, maybe not so.
(BTW Germans may have been greeted with flowers, typically in those slavic states subject to Greater Russian or Soviet dominance, and in Austria, where legs could not swing wide enough for the Germans; but this was not the case everywhere Eastern Europe.)
And unfortunately for your reasonable reply, the dominance of Germany in a Czech conflict is not exactly a “given fact.” For a lot of facts and details, on Czech strength and German weakness in the summer of 1938, read , yes, Churchill, The Second World War Vol 1. The Gathering Storm , pp 278-288.
But one need not believe me or Churchill, but read what the leaders of the Reichswehr believed at that time. They were fearful of any conflict with Czechoslovakia. Hitler deposed Beck for objecting to the CS plans.
Halder, his successor, let a delegation of the General Staff present to the Chancellery an 18 page memo outlining Germany’s deficiencies and CS’ strenths (p 281). This document “affirms that less thana fifth of the officersof the Reichswehr believed inthe possibility of a victory for Germany” against CS.
The military appraisal affirmed that CS, without its allies, could hold out for three months, and that Germany wold have to withdraw from the French and Polish frontiers. Even Admiral Raeder appealed to Hitler to relent, and here “Hitler wavered.” (p 282)
Even in retrospect, at the Nuremberg trials, the frailty of Hitler’s plan and the German military was not doubted. When put the question, “would the Reih have attacked CZ in 1938 if the Western Powers had stood by Prague?”, Marshall Keitel answered: "Certainly not!
We were not strong enough militarily. The object of Munich was to get Russia out of Europe, to gain time and to complete the German armaments."
Worked–didn’t it?–through the acquiescence of the Western Powers. (I have no idea what Buchanan has to say to all this, and frankly, I doubt if it matters.)
So was not Churchill justified when he concluded:
“There is however one helpful guide, namely for a nation to keep its word and to act inaccordance with its treaty obligations to its allies. This guide is called honour…the moment came when honour pointed the path of duty, and when also the right judgment of the facts at that time would have reinforced its dictates.”
The Czech army was big, well-armed, short logistics well-trained. It only serves us poorly to think that they were powerless; they required only allies, better than those at Munich, who would not sell them out. Now that was a hypothetical.
See my reply to Sifu.
Yes, and a reasonable reply it was. But maybe so, maybe not so.
(BTW Germans may have been greeted with flowers, typically in those slavic states subject to Greater Russian or Soviet dominance, and in Austria, where legs could not swing wide enough for the Germans; but this was not the case everywhere Eastern Europe.)
And unfortunately for your reasonable reply, the dominance of Germany in a Czech conflict is not exactly a “given fact.” For a lot of facts and details, on Czech strength and German weakness in the summer of 1938, read , yes, Churchill, The Second World War Vol 1. The Gathering Storm , pp 278-288.
But one need not believe me or Churchill, but read what the leaders of the Reichswehr believed at that time. They were fearful of any conflict with Czechoslovakia. Hitler deposed Beck for objecting to the CS plans.
Halder, his successor, let a delegation of the General Staff present to the Chancellery an 18 page memo outlining Germany’s deficiencies and CS’ strenths (p 281). This document “affirms that less thana fifth of the officersof the Reichswehr believed inthe possibility of a victory for Germany” against CS.
The military appraisal affirmed that CS, without its allies, could hold out for three months, and that Germany wold have to withdraw from the French and Polish frontiers. Even Admiral Raeder appealed to Hitler to relent, and here “Hitler wavered.” (p 282)
Even in retrospect, at the Nuremberg trials, the frailty of Hitler’s plan and the German military was not doubted. When put the question, “would the Reih have attacked CZ in 1938 if the Western Powers had stood by Prague?”, Marshall Keitel answered: "Certainly not! We were not strong enough militarily.
The object of Munich was to get Russia out of Europe, to gain time and to complete the German armaments."
Worked–didn’t it?–through the acquiescence of the Western Powers. (I have no idea what Buchanan has to say to all this, and frankly, I doubt if it matters.)
So was not Churchill justified when he concluded:
“There is however one helpful guide, namely for a nation to keep its word and to act inaccordance with its treaty obligations to its allies. This guide is called honour…the moment came when honour pointed the path of duty, and when also the right judgment of the facts at that time would have reinforced its dictates.”
[/quote]
Tiso’s Slovakian state did fight side by side with the Germans in WWII. And bear in mind two things about the Wehrmacht: many were not keen about war with France either, and post-war Nuremburg admissions were going to be colored by a desire to blame Hitler the warmonger for everything.
The Czech army was big, well-armed, short logistics well-trained. It only serves us poorly to think that they were powerless; they required only allies, better than those at Munich, who would not sell them out. Now that was a hypothetical.
See my reply to Sifu.
Yes, and a reasonable reply it was. But maybe so, maybe not so.
(BTW Germans may have been greeted with flowers, typically in those slavic states subject to Greater Russian or Soviet dominance, and in Austria, where legs could not swing wide enough for the Germans; but this was not the case everywhere Eastern Europe.)
And unfortunately for your reasonable reply, the dominance of Germany in a Czech conflict is not exactly a “given fact.” For a lot of facts and details, on Czech strength and German weakness in the summer of 1938, read , yes, Churchill, The Second World War Vol 1. The Gathering Storm , pp 278-288.
But one need not believe me or Churchill, but read what the leaders of the Reichswehr believed at that time. They were fearful of any conflict with Czechoslovakia. Hitler deposed Beck for objecting to the CS plans.
Halder, his successor, let a delegation of the General Staff present to the Chancellery an 18 page memo outlining Germany’s deficiencies and CS’ strenths (p 281). This document “affirms that less thana fifth of the officersof the Reichswehr believed inthe possibility of a victory for Germany” against CS.
The military appraisal affirmed that CS, without its allies, could hold out for three months, and that Germany wold have to withdraw from the French and Polish frontiers. Even Admiral Raeder appealed to Hitler to relent, and here “Hitler wavered.” (p 282)
Even in retrospect, at the Nuremberg trials, the frailty of Hitler’s plan and the German military was not doubted. When put the question, “would the Reih have attacked CZ in 1938 if the Western Powers had stood by Prague?”, Marshall Keitel answered: "Certainly not! We were not strong enough militarily.
The object of Munich was to get Russia out of Europe, to gain time and to complete the German armaments."
Worked–didn’t it?–through the acquiescence of the Western Powers. (I have no idea what Buchanan has to say to all this, and frankly, I doubt if it matters.)
So was not Churchill justified when he concluded:
“There is however one helpful guide, namely for a nation to keep its word and to act inaccordance with its treaty obligations to its allies. This guide is called honour…the moment came when honour pointed the path of duty, and when also the right judgment of the facts at that time would have reinforced its dictates.”
Tiso’s Slovakian state did fight side by side with the Germans in WWII. And bear in mind two things about the Wehrmacht: many were not keen about war with France either, and post-war Nuremburg admissions were going to be colored by a desire to blame Hitler the warmonger for everything.[/quote]
Ok. Tiso assumed power after Benes fled CS. His puppet government was subsequently reinforced by the Nazis.This however was not a factor in the Germans’ own admitted weaknesses and strength.
The 18 page memo of which I write was submitted in Sept 1938, and not at the Nuremburg trials. These were German Generals decrying the poor state of readiness and strategic weakness against CS. Keitel’s admission in Nuremburg stands on its own; he knew, as we know, that blaming Hitler was not going to get him off. It corroborates the rest of the story in a very direct way.
My point stands:
It was not necessarily German military might alone in 1938, but the abandonment of CZ by its allies at Munich, which allowed the fulfillment of Germany’s goals, as stated simply by Keitel.
Does anyone have any suggestions on good books on WW1. I haven’t found anything that gives conclusive evidence on what actually started WW1. From what I’ve read it appears to be a bit of a mystery and that seems bizzar to me.[/quote]
“No Man’s Land” by John Toland…
Does anyone have any suggestions on good books on WW1. I haven’t found anything that gives conclusive evidence on what actually started WW1. From what I’ve read it appears to be a bit of a mystery and that seems bizzar to me.
“No Man’s Land” by John Toland…
[/quote]
Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” is the classic account. There was a decent chapter called something like “The Iron Dice” in a book on why wars start by John Stoessinger, read it as an undergrad.
For the operational and tactical side of it, “Stormtroop Tactics” by Bruce Gudmundsson is very good, and Gordon Corrigan’s “Mud, Blood and Poppycock” is very readable, although I thought he was kind of making an argument that’s already becoming the consensus among academic military historians. If you really want to wade in, American military historian Robert Doughty has a new book that is supposed to be fantastic, but I haven’t read it yet.
