Posted on 09/28/2010 6:49:01 AM PDT by C19fan
World War One finally ends for Germany on Sunday - 92 years after the guns fell silent and nearly nine million men lay dead - as it pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies. A final payment of 69.9 million euros, or £59.3 million, writes off the crippling debt which was the price for one world war - and laid the foundations for another.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Thank you.
It’s an amazing mental gyration that NEUTRAL American ships have a god given right to right to conduct commerce with one belligerent (England) but not the other. (Germany)
The same people fainting dead away at the unrestricted sinking of ships trading with England, were fully prepared to sink any neutral ship that dared to try to make a German Port.
Well, it was also intended to destroy the South's ability to wage war, by destroying property rather than killing people. This was a laudable goal, the people who starved due to the destruction of property notwithstanding.
Well, they lost their empires, and Africa lost what little bit of civilization it had absorbed. Or... wait, maybe the brutality of the Africans was learnt at the hands of their masters the british, french, and belgians. And dutch.
When I argue with the America haters I always remind them that if we were going to lose a million men conquering the mainland, they were probably going to lose FOUR MILLION Japanese, many by their own hands, so against that back drop getting out for one or two hundred thousand was by far the best and most humane option for all. And it sent a necessary message to the rest of the world.
Correct. Basically to show that Union troops could supply themselves from the land just as well as the Confederates could.
It also demonstrated that the people of the Confederacy had plenty to eat, despite the near-starving condition of their soldiers in 1864.
This was a laudable goal, the people who starved due to the destruction of property notwithstanding.
No one starved due to the march.
As most soldiers on the march noted, there was more food than they could eat or carry. They made it a point to destroy cotton gins and to roast up any livestock they found, as well as wrecking railroads. According to army estimates, the soldiers seized about a quarter million bushels of grain and more than 5,000 tons of hay as well as 15,000 head of cattle and 10,000 mules and horses.
But all these numbers are tiny fractions of the South's resources.
Truth be told, the march was about 250 miles long and about 60 miles wide - one-quarter of one state. It involved 62,000 troops and lasted 5 weeks.
There was not enough men or time to even really skim the surface - a quarter million bushels was less than 1% of grain production in 1860 Georgia.
The main effect was psychological - "A Yankee can walk up to my home in the heart of the Confederacy, steal all my hams, roast up my cattle, take my silverware and my best clothes, run off my slaves, drink my liquor, take my horses and burn my stable - and just get away with it?"
They were expecting (and perhaps deserved) that we would do to them what they did to China. Imagine their shock when, instead of industrialized rape and mass murder - our GI’s wanted to trade chocolate bars and nylons and/or money for sex - and no mass executions were forthcoming.
Australians and New Zealanders also fought and died for the British Empire, but their governments also put people in concentration camps just because of their ancestry, namely immigrants from Austria-Hungary, including those who would have eagerly signed up to fight against Austria or had sworn allegiance to their adopted country.
On a side note, it is worth mentioning that the British mining of the North Sea (which began in 1914 before sub warfare) was just as much an act of war against the U.S. in a legal sense met with at best feeble protests by Wilson.
Yeah but I don’t think there were ever a “fleet” there to attack until 1940.
Where do you think we had our Pacific fleet in 1914 if not near, around, going to and from Naval Shipyards like Pearl Harbor?
I just remember Barbara Tuchman mentioning it as a historic curiosity that the Kaisers agents suggested that the Japanese attack our Naval fleet in the Pacific, including Pearl Harbor, during WWI.
I was referring to your comment and merely pointing out that our fleet was not based at Pearl Harbor at that time.
Either way, your comment was incorrect that it was a minor target at that time. It was a Naval Shipyard as of 1908, thus a major target, if not THE major target.
“if you can name a target, a military target, then name the system.”
I'll say it once more & then I'll drop it... you said the Japanese were encouraged to attack our fleet at Pearl Harbor during WWI, which was impossible because our fleet was not there at the time.
I'm not saying its your error, I'm just saying our fleet was not there.
BTW Japan was a member of the Entente powers from August 1914, when the British were urging them to attack German possessions in the Pacific.
Must have been something like ‘attacked our Naval Shipyard at Pearl Harbor’ which I misremembered as “attack our Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor” which was an anachronism, as you pointed out, because our Pacific fleet was not stationed out of Pearl Harbor at that time. But there was a Naval Shipyard there, and the Kaiser's agents did recommend that the Japanese attack us there.
My apologies for the mistake and my intransigence! ;)
I guess all of those abandoned artillery emplacements found today around Oahu must’ve been meant to counter a threat from somebody.
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