Posted on 05/17/2015 5:07:17 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Thanks for that cogent and helpful overview.
Nobody has studied this counter-factual history, nor made the case more cogently than Patrick Buchanan, whose book on it I have:
Buchanan 2008: "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War -- How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World"
Buchanan argues that had Britain made peace with Germany, it could have kept the Empire while Germany ruled Europe.
The world's dominant values would then be German imperial rather than American anti-colonial.
I don't agree with Buchanan on much, but if we are going to consider counter-factual hypotheses, his makes as much sense as any.
I would much prefer to consider a counter-factual history where Patton continued on to destroy Russia, claimed the Middle East and instituted Pro-American capitalist regimes throughout the world. Buchanan is an embarassment to conservatism.
Agreed, but the question here is whether Britain's loss of empire was, more-or-less, inevitable.
The answer is: yes, given history as it actually happened.
But can we imagine a history where that did not happen?
The answer is: yes, according to Buchanan, if Britain had made peace with Germany, then it could keep it's empire forever.
Germany was, after all, all about building empire, and with Britain as their partner, unlike Americans, would never make empires, as such, more difficult to maintain.
Pure hypothetical speculation, but the larger subject is "loss of western civilization" and I'm merely making the point that if by "western civilization" you mean "the British Empire", well then, the alternative choices are not very attractive, regardless of Patrick Buchanan.
B-29 bomb bay with napalm cluster bombs. The napalm incindiaries are the long bound cluster in the photo.
Each of the bound tubes held bags of napalm. When released the cluster covers popped off from a small charge. Descent was slowed by long streamers. Japanese reported the slow descent looking like silvery streamers reflecting the light of fires, a glittering rain. Foreign observers from Europe recalled them looking like Christmas tree tinsel.
On impact another small charge sent the napalm bags flying out to become fiery blobs that stuck to everything. Nothing could put the napalm fires out.
Thanx ... I didn’t know ... I always thought napalm was a post WW2 development
Napalm Factoid
The then president of Harvard, Conant, along with DuPont and others developed napalm. Napalm-b added polystyrene iirc and other elements to make it stickier.
I never read the book, but I suspect I'd disagree with a lot in it. Even if they hadn't fought on alone in WWII, the Brits were on precarious financial footing after having financed WWI. Even with an alliance with Germany, I think they still would have lost India. I doubt Canada and Australia would have been real happy about such an accommodation.
I think I'll just stop before being jailed under henkster's law.
I conclude that God worked through some men to bring about a general cessation, at least until the Great Tribulation begins, which should be in several decades at most. Indeed, He used those horrors not of His own making for His purposes, among other things as a prelude to the reestablishment of Israel, which was necessary to His previously announced plan before He could introduce the End Times.
My nose crinkles up and my upper lip curls back when discussing Pat Buchanan’s notions of history. His crimes are the type that led to the promulgation of henkster’s law.
The contention that the British Empire would have lasted “forever” if they’d cut a deal with the Germans is ludicrous. As though an alliance with Germany would somehow have made Ghandi not be Ghandi, or would have convinced all the nascent nationalist movements in the various corners of the Empire to stay under the Crown. Historical forces other than World War I and World War II were going to end the British Empire, but those two events certainly hastened its demise.
Also, his very notion of a British alliance with Hitler is a flagrant violation of henkster’s law. For at least two centuries, British foreign policy was composed of two core elements: 1) Freedom of commerce on the high seas guaranteed by the world-wide supremacy of the Royal Navy, and 2) Balance of Power in Europe preventing any one power gaining Continental hegemony. Those twin pillars of foreign policy were mutually supportive and rationally based. Both were essential to the maintenance of the British Empire and her international position. The rise of the German Empire in the late 1800s caused Britain to switch her long standing relationships of friendship toward Prussia and enmity to France in the pursuit of the prevention of hegemony. The costly naval race with Germany merely accelerated the about face. That naval race meant Germany was clearly the threat to both pillars of British Foreign policy.
Those memories were quite fresh in 1939. Anyone care to recall what it was that Neville Chamberlain waved around at Heathrow airport after Munich? Yes, it was the deal dismembering Czechoslovkia, but that wasn’t all. It was also the Anglo-German naval treaty he claimed brought “peace in our time.” Munich was supposed to prevent hegemony by the promise of “no further demands,” and the naval treaty was intended to preserve the supremacy of the Royal Navy. Chamberlain came home convinced he had successfully pursued Britain’s twin policies. Of course, Hitler didn’t intend to honor the former, and had no intention of challenging the latter at that time. But for the British to accept Continental hegemony meant sooner or later there would be a naval challenge, and they had to prevent it from happening. Thus, they went to war over Poland in pursuit of both policies.
There was no way, ever, under any circumstances, that Britain was going to abandon both of these long held and essential policies in 1939 or 1940, and make a deal with Hitler on Hitler’s terms.
For his deliberate and premeditated violation of henkster’s law with aggravating circumstances, the Court now Orders that the defendant, Pat Buchanan, be sentenced to banishment for life beyond the fringes of accepted historian status.
Without having read ol' Pat's tome, I assume it features disparagement of Churchill's prosecution of the war, and to me that is a distinct disservice to a man who, willingly or not, heartily did God's bidding. Indeed, it is a wonder that Churchill held up under it and strongly suggests to me that he could not have done so without divine support. I wonder whether Buchanan has ever bothered to consider any of this from God's perspective.
Americans often forget the time horizon of the British. Churchill and his other senior leaders would recall the Napoleonic Wars when Britain, often alone, outlasted and eventually defeated Boney. In what we call the French and Indian War it was Britain and Prussia against most of the rest of Europe. Or, how about Churchill's direct ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, who with the Dutch and some hired Germans defeated the greatest power in Europe, the French?
The British ruling class knew how to fight and win such wars. And who has heard of Pat Buchanan lately?
I don’t know what Churchill’s theology was, but he was one of if not the greatest figure of the 20th Century.
I thoroughly agree. He and CS Lewis sweep the century for the British, and for the Lord, in my book.
Hope your dad had a peaceful and happy life after serving his country under very difficult and dangerous conditions. From what I have been told by guys who were there, life on those WWII era subs was no stroll in the park. One navy vet who I worked with a couple of decades after the war served on a Navy long range patrol boat operating out of an Alaska port. He said a US sub that he boarded while it was in port for some reason or other that I don't remember stunk so bad he almost tossed his cookies before he could get back off.
I think I may have been mistaken in #55 about the stench from a WWII sub, my navy vet co-worker may have been referring to the stench below deck of the patrol boat he served on.
Hey guys, I'm old, my little gray memory cells don't work like they used to, and it's been a long time since I worked with that WWII navy vet, so gimme a break please.
(But even so I'm pretty sure those old subs really did stink up the entire port when they opened the hatches after a long cruise. OTOH I never served on a sub or any other Navy ship so I'm no expert on that sort of thing.)
henkster: "My nose crinkles up and my upper lip curls back when discussing Pat Buchanan’s notions of history.
His crimes are the type that led to the promulgation of henkster’s law."
I bought & read Buchanan's book the year it was published, 2008, so my memories of it today are quite vague.
But I did highlight and mark interesting passages, and just to pick one example, you'll note here that Buchanan is both historically accurate and interesting:
On Chamberlain at Munich:
"On October 2, Chamberlain wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 'I sincerely believe that we have at last opened the way to that general appeasement which alone can save the world from chaos'.
"To Western peoples, familiar with shuttle diplomacy, Chamberlain's journey to Germany may seem routine.
But as Graham Stewart writes:
"Not all joined the celebration.
The Daily Telebraph was caustic and cunning: 'It was Mr. Disraeli who said that England's two greatest assets in the world were her fleet and her good name.
Today we must console ourselves that we still have our fleet.'
Duff Cooper resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty.
'This is hell,' Harold Nicolson said to Churchill, who muttered in reply, 'It is the end of the British Empire.'.
Listening in Parliament as Chamberlain was feted as the Prince of Peace, Churchill was heard to say in a sarcastic aside, 'I never knew Neville was born in Bethlehem.'
"On October 5, Churchill rose in the House.
'We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat,' he began.
'Nonsense!" cried Lady Astor.
Churchill continued with an address of great forboding:
'This is only the beginning of the reckoning.
This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we rise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden times.'
"Yet Churchill could not contain his awe and envy at Hitler's audacity and nerve.
On October 4, one day before his mighty address to the Commons, he wrote of Britain's need to replicate, 'the spirit of that Austrian corporal' who had bested the British statesmen at Munich..."
Yes, I do recommend Buchanan's book.
You will find all of it interesting, will agree with much of it, and what you disagree with will force you to think deeply about just exactly why.
So, having served on Homer's "staff" now all these years, I think I'll take my own advice and re-read, exactly what are the points Buchanan makes that I agree & disagree with...
A practice too seldom undertaken generally to actually be a practice. Let us know your findings.
My Dad is 91 now, reads the paper everyday and watches all the news about the NE Patriots. He joined the Navy on Dec 8, 1941. He never saw combat, he was on the Marlin most of the war, which was a training sub. He went to the Irex, when it was a new sub.
He was in the Panama Canal going to Pearl Harbor when the war ended.
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