Posted on 04/27/2006 6:26:15 PM PDT by spanalot
Was General Patton's death the result of a traffic accident or was he the victim of an assassination plot? (By Stalin)
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I suggest we stop bothering with spanaots lies, no one else beleives them anyway, its the penultimte straw man.
Yes, someone is home.
However, since any response I give, no matter how truthful, however historically accurate, however logical, will be met with a tirade of inanity, willful stupidity, and propaganda and nothing approaching informed, serious counter-argument.
So why bother?
I have better things to do than argue with idiots.
Good day.
"Can you explain to us how a Ukrainian nationalist allegedly had information that Stalin wanted Patton killed, and did nothing to prevent it?"
You are clearly mistaken. Here are the facts:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:6jef4036KzYJ:www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1996/409612.shtml+patton++assassination+ukrainian&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8
Skubick's actions were also documented on the Fox special that is the subject of this post.
And yes, the Ukrainian Freedom Fighter Stepan Bandura who you accuse of being a nazi was in fact a Concentration Camp Survivor.
My personal details are available on a need to know basis.
Idiot?
That's interesting coming from someone who can't make up his mind wheter he lives in NY or Charlotte - a historian who has no knowledge of the chain of command of Allied Forces during WWII, and no understanding of the scale of Genocide unleashed by Potsdam, er I mean Yalta.
A military enthusiast who thinks the most feared general of the war was a facade created by the press.
Excuse my inquiry re: Senator Joe McCarthy but I thought you might have been good for another "unique" interpretation.
Let's see, believe a "Ukrainian Weekly" or archival documents located at NARA in the US.
"My personal details are available on a need to know basis."
If so, why would you make such ludicrous and unbelievable claims. Interrogated by the KGB, come on, you don't really expect us to believe that the KGB somehow got a hold of you in the US and interrogated you? OR, perhaps, on one of your visits to your handlers at the Soviet Embassy you were forced to prove your loyalty to them via an interrogation.
Your funny. And provide me with plenty of entertainment. Please keep publishing your fiction.
Bandera was a concentration camp survivor and so was Erich Honeker. Both criminals who ran afoul of the Nazis. Bandera for not following their orders after he was collaborating with them and after his people killed thousands of Jews in Lvov. Honeker because he was a communist.
"Brigadier General Reinhard Gehlen
Chief of the Third Reich's "Foreign Armies East."
Gehlen worked with many secret fascist organizations, including:
Stepan Bandera's "B Faction," Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
Romania's Iron Guard
the Ustashe of Yugoslavia
the Vanagis of Latvia
Vlasov's "Army" in Russia."
I served with an old SSGT who had been pretty badly injured in a crash that he swore was a rehersal for the crash a week later that killed Patton. I have no reason to doubt his credibility.
Was this the crash with the oxcart?
I can't remember the details, he told me about it in 1972.
My, how childish.
Where I live doesn't make the slightest difference, but if you must know, I live in NY, but we spend considerable time around Charlotte, which is where Mrs. Wombat is from. We have recently moved back to my home town so that I could work with more regularity. We still summer in the Carolinas (from where this is being written, incidentally).
As for the chain of command, just what, specifically, are you referring to? If you refer to my mistake about Yalta, I corrected it. Unlike you, I can admit mistakes and then make an effort to correct them. Do you mean the Marshall-Eisenhower-Bradley-Patton chain, or what? Please, no non-sequitors presented as refutation of my points. Be specific.
As for genocide, which genocide do you refer to? The slaughter of the Jews, gypsies and Slavs that took place prior to Potsdam at the hands of the Nazis, the great purges of Stalin which took place before the war (as well as during and after it), the deliberate starving of the Kulaks, the forced migrations at he hands of the NKVD and Soviet Army, the Cultural Revolution of Mao which is totally unreleated to Patton? How about the Rape of Nanking, or are we not talking about Japanese genocide here, which took place before Patton came to prominence? The killing fields of the Khmer Rouge which has nothing at all to do with Patton? While we're at it, why don't you make the argument that Patton being given his head would've been enough to prevent the Genocide in Darfur and the slaughter of Rwanda? If you want to blame someone for the existance of Soviet Communism and it's horros, why not blame the Czarist policies that created the movement in the first place, which is where the blame lies, and not attempt to re-write history by making it a WESTERN problem that went unsolved because of a lack of guts.
Genocide is as old as the human race. Sometimes it's preventable, sometimes not. That is a fact of life. The Second World War was not the first time, nor will it be the last time, we ever see mass murder on the industrial scale as practiced by the worst regimes of the 20th century.
Patton may have given the Germans nightmares (because they understood his kind of soldier), but all-in-all he is mostly the creation of the American Press more than he is the product of stunning and brilliant military campaigns. Take a really good, long look at the Sicilian campaign, the failure to take the Brittany ports, the slaughters at Verdun and Metz, and that tells you all you need to know about George S. Patton; in campaigns that were "thrust upon" him by higher command, and not the brainstorm of his own fevered imagination, he drags his feet, made tactical errors, underestimated his opponents, and does not take a personal interest, because THOSE campaigns are not where the glory is. The glory was in the thrill of the chase, like the old cavalryman he was, not in attacking Germans in fixed fortifications full of skillful defenders that cut his infantry to pieces. The best your "genius" could do in these cases was to make frontal assaults against strong positions and get his men killed in numbers so great, that Bradley finally put an end to it by coming to the belated decision that the ports suddenly lost their allure and utility (and Patton called Bradley a "1918 mind"!).
Your entire premise througout this thread has been that Patton would have been the only man who could do the impossible (conquer the Soviet Union). If you're one of those who will then turn around and say "But Patton didn't need to physically conquer the Soviet Union, only dfeat it's armies in the field", then I remind you that this was the ORIGINAL German strategy behind Operation Barbarossa. When the Germans couldn't defeat the Soviet armies in the field (and thus end the war), they had to occupy every square inch of territory they conquered as best as possible, and they ultimately failed. And that's with superior tanks, intial air supremacy, better troops, and bigger numbers (the order of battle for Barbarossa entailed over 3 million men), than Patton could ever hope to see.
The "We-had-the-atomic-bomb" theory of this argument holds no water: there were no bombs, or at least not enough in number to have made any signifigant difference. The only strategy that would have worked (assuming you get past the manpower shortages, the logisitcal problems and the terrain) would have been to be in PHYSICAL possession of the Soviet Heartland with the corresponding destruction of the Communist system under American auspices.
Since Patton could never realistically accomplish even the minimuum required to see this happen, your argument is pure fantasy. I don't care how much Ukrainian Nationalist propaganda you post, you can't put a new shade of lipstick on this pig and call it the Prom Queen. You simply assume way too much.
AllI'm going to say about McCarthy is that he was an extremely petty and vain man, who never caught a Red Spy, but who did destroy many lives. He surrounded himself with proven liars, like Roy Cohn and Bobby Kennedy, who were every bit as ambitious, power hungry and had their own skeletons to hide, and thus, took to attacking others to distract people. In the end, it was two true American heroes (Ronald Reagan and Joseph Welch) who stopped the nonsense. As for your thinly-disguised reference to the Venona Intercepts, I remind you that the "secret" of the atomic bomb was not the science behind it, but the technical means of construction and delivery. The Soviet Union was more than capable of producing a bomb on it's own (the fact that it did so very quickly tells you that there WAS a Soviet nuclear program prior to Hiroshima), and that being in possession of the German scientists (who had actually been working on H-bombs, not the puny A-weapons of Hiroshima) who also worked on the German version, would have practically guarenteed a Russian bomb in more or less the same time frame. The Russians are not stupid people, regardless of what you think, having produced more Nobel-winning physicists, mathemeticians and other scientists (pre-war)than ony other country on the planet, except Germany. I remind you that the American development of "Stealth" technology, for example, is largely based upon the published theories of a Russian mathemetician. Did we steal that idea in the same way the Russians "stole" the bomb? A country that has that kind of scientific capital can do just about anything it wants to, given time, resources and a focusing of will.
So, you're argument falls flat on several grounds:
1. Patton is not God. Patton would have suffered defeat, and insistence otherwise does not change this. His "genius" is more than countered by the vast numbers and distances with which he would have to contend with. Even G.S. Patton could not re-write the ancient axioms of warfare in this regard. Although he might think it, G.S. Patton is not the re-incarnation of Alexander the Great. Ordering Patton to go into battle against the Soviets over Eastern Europe is a suicide mission. Your hero would have died a much more heoric death, but still be dead and buried anyway, and for little gain.
2. The "genocide of millions" was a natural outgrowth of totalitarian governments, which had been going on prior to the war, and has continued long after it. You assume way too much when you say that this or that event "would never have happened" because such events don't usually have a single cause or reason for being (if you knew anything about history, you'd know this). Had Communism or Nazism not come along to give a "reason" for mass killing, human beings would have found quite a few more on their own. Human nature is digusting that way. I remind you that the ancient Aztecs slaughtered millions (by hand, no less!) for ritual sacrifice. Anti-semitism was rampant in Europe for 1,500 years prior to the arrival of Hitler, and pogroms and slaughters of Jews litter European history prior to 1939-45 like autumn leaves on your front lawn. The Roman-Catholic (and Nazi-allied) Croatian Ustachi in Yugoslavia killed Serbian Christians by the barnful, and usually by methods that made the hardened SS wretch with disgust. Do you find it hard to conceive that a human being is not capable of finding reasons other than the political for killing if it suits his needs? Get real.
3. That once the USSR had been "subdued" by the defeat of it's armies, that there would have been no post-War revolutionary/civil movements within the former USSR. You expect that a country that had been subjugated by brutal central government, had suffered centuries of political repression, was strained by ethnic hatreds, would just peacefully resolve it's internal differences because Patton was there (see post-War Germany, post-War Yugoslavia, post-War Greece, post-war Iraq, etc, etc for details)? After the "big-dog" on the block has been chained or killed, the little dogs ALWAYS come out of the woodwork and fight for supremacy. To assume a peaceful conclusion to a Patton conquest of the USSR is extremely dubious thinking.
4. You do not take into consideration the enormous change in the American mindset that would have had to have taken place to justify a continuation of the war against a country that had just been our ally. And an ally against what American propaganda had painted (rightfully) as the most dangerous regime on earth (i.e. Nazi Germany).You've been reading way too much Orwell; the ability to swing and shape public opinion in such a way (automatically and without logical, intellectual or political contradictions making themselves obvious) is something that even your Leviathan Soviet Union was unable to accomplish with an all-pervasive police state. If you can give me one,solitary example of how this could have been accomplished (or where it has been), then I will nominate you for whatever prize they give out for such things. Sorry, but the mind-control regime which you assume "would have" existed to accomplish this task simply does not exist, nor has it ever. One thing Stalin and Hitler never had to contend with was an informed populace, with democratic means to bring pressure to bear on their elected leaders who had abused power or acted in ways against the (usualy selfish) self-interest of the population.
6. Where do all the soldiers for Patton's invasion-that-never-was come from? You make the point that American factories were still producing armaments at record numbers, but are they producing the men who will use those armaments? Of course not. One of the most glaring errors of the campaign across France was the severe lack of trained infantrymen available to Allied commanders. Part of this had to do with the perceived nature of modern warfare at the time(that mechanized forces were the key, therefore, infantry was not needed in the same numbers, or even of the same quality, as before), and part of it is plain demographics. Sixteen million Americans were already under arms at one time or another between 1941-45, and there were no more men to be had. Especially with Japan still undefeated and the Allies in possession of half the major island groups in the Pacific. This thinking is still prevalent, and is costing us lives in Iraq, where there is insufficient infantry to secure the country. No ally was going to be able to make up the manpower shortfall for us, and so Patton is already fighting with one hand behind his back in your scenario. It was Patton himself who began the practice of disbanding rear-area units and converting them to ad-hoc infantry after the breakout from the Bocage country.
Of course, this does not take into account that the Soviets had a 3 million-man army in Germany (to Patton's realistically-speaking 750,000 or so) and Eastern Europe proper, and that Soviet factories were churning out armaments just as quickly (and often in excess of) American factories. Like the Germans, you are making the assumption that the Russians are a cardboard army, and that the initial attack will translate into a short war in which Russian amries will be easily defeated. The German timetable (Barbarossa) was for subjugation fo the Soviet Union from the Vistula to the Urals, from the Baltic States to the Crimea, in six months. Instead, Germany was embroiled in a meat grinder for the better part of 4 years, and which cost 5 million Germans their lives, even with enoprmous Soviet casualties on the order of 15-to-1.
You assume way too much when you believe Patton would have fared any better.
7. Everything we have discussed thus far has been discussed in hindsight. In 1945 you will find very few in political or military leadership circles thinking in terms of "Cold War" or "Berlin Wall" type ways. A few did, and perhaps Patton was one of them (although his hatred of Bolshevism seems to have a more personal origin: his own pocketbook -- which was threatened by a strike at a factory his wife's family owned in Massachusetts), but not enough people did to make your scenario a reality. And of those who did see it, many recognized a bad gamble (i.e. taking on the Soviets) when they saw it. To men like Patton and Curtis LeMay, defeat of the Soviet Union was a simple proposition: kill enough Russians, lay waste to enough territory, and the job was done. Wars do not often follow these simple rules (see Clauswitz for how badly an "expert" can be wrong). To believe that any forsaw the Cold War with the same level of clarity (and even that is questionable)that we can now is illogical. To believe that it was merely a matter of American guts over Soviet brawn, is similarly illogical. We cannot magically transport today's facts to yesterday's circumstances, and then re-write history according to our fantasies.
8. And not only am I a "military enthusiast", but I come from a Military family. I, myself, spent 12 years in the United States Navy (both active duty and reserve) and three generations of Wombats before me were all Marines, having fought at Chateau Thierry, Guadalcanal and Peleliu, and Khe Sanh. I know what war is, and I know (from first-hand accounts) what personal combat is all about. That doesn't include the Wombat uncles (by marriage) who drove a tank in West Germany c. 1973 or the one who stood post on the 38th parallel in the 1960's. Don't tell ME about war or things military, Son, I'll bury you in first-hand knowledge.
You question my qualifications as a historian, fine. If you must know, I received my BA (European History)from the University of Connecticut in 1989. After building a career as a computer programmer, I began takling correspondance courses at Stanford in the summer of 2000 (the internet is a godsend in this regard!), finally emerging with my MA (Western Civilization)in 2004. I am currently working on my doctorate, which might (possibly) one day be completed before I die (I still have to work sometimes). Between my time studying and serving my country, I have been employed as an automation programmer (currently as a private contractor), which means I think about and develop ways for computers to put pea-brains like you out of work. If you need an example of my work, then I advise you to log on to your online stock account and make a trade; there is absolutely no human intervention between the time you press "Enter" and when the trade is executed -- it's all executed electronically. I'm one of the people who made that happen. I don't expect you to thank me for it, or even acknowledge it.
If the best you can do to torpedo my points is to pick apart one mistake (quickly corrected, mind you) and try to use that to discredit me, then you are a smaller and even more obnoxiously stupid man than I originally gave you credit for. Perhaps one day medical science will identify the genetic defect that creates bullet-proof idiocy, the promulgation of fantasy as fact, the repeated posting of obviously-biased propaganda as Bible truth, and the inability to first make and then connect logical statements into something resembling argument, and your progeny will live happier, more productive lives.
I'm beginning to have my doubts, though.
While I'm at it, let's poke a few more holes in the "Invincible Patton" theory:
1. Patton NEVER faced the "A-List" German commanders (Rommel, Guderian, Manstein, etc), while his contemporaries (Montgomery, Alexander, Zhukov, Zhdanov, Rossikovskiy, and even DeGaulle!) had. He is pitted against many capable German commanders in his fights, but never of the same caliber as the three mentioned above. In a straight-up fight on equal numbers, I believe Patton would have been hard-pressed against these German, and particularly the Soviet, commanders who had the experience of the Eastern Front and truly mobile warfare at their command.
2. The British strategist (and father, along with J.F.C Fuller and Le Q. Martel, of modern armored combat -- according to the Geremans, no less!) Liddel-Hart interviewed Patton and discussed tactics, strategy and politics with him on three occasions. Liddle-Hart found Patton boorish, childish, contradictory, dismissive of anything that didn't conform to his pre-conceived notions, and all-in-all undeserving of his reputation. He also found him to be a complete political naif, which was a major liability in the Second World War and the direct aftermath. Liddle-Hart, for those who are not familiar with him, is the theorist who brought us "the indirect approach" to mobile warfare, which was to serve MacArthur so well in his campaigns across the Pacific.
3. Patton had become such a distasteful figure among the Allied high command by late 1944 that Eisenhower and Bradley considered relieving him AGAIN. His repeated criticisms (often veiled, but still reported by the American press) of Ike, Brad and Monty was beginning to revive the original knock on Patton: he was a pompous ass whose verbosity was threatening the cohesion (and morale)of the Western Alliance. It was only his actions in the relief of Bastogne that saved his bacon. Later, when the shooting was over and administration was the order of the day, Patton was singularly unable (or unwilling) to adhere to the official policies of De-Nazification, and guilty of the crimes of a) sticking his foot in his mouth too often and b)threatening to continue a war which was officially over.
4. Patton's pursuit of the fleeing Germans after Falaise was greatly aided by the invasion of southern France (Operation Dragoon), led by General Jake Devers. Instead of facing only one Army Group to their direct west, the Germans had instead to contend with TWO army groups in Southern/Central France, one to the West and another to the Southeast. Patton is facing a German foe who has two flanks to cover instead of one, and in the defense, still managed to inflict horrendous casualties on the attacking allied armies.
5. Your precious General Patton is the architect of the internment of Japanese Americans living in Hawaii (which was later extended throughout the West Coast). In 1935, as G-2(Intelligence) of the Hawaiian Department, Patton formulated the plan (incorporated into Plan Orange) of declaring martial law in the islands, arresting (complete with a list of 128 people to be detained immediately) prominent Japanese-Americans (33 of whom either served on one civil, territorial or federal court or another, and four who later became members of Hawaii's congressional delegation), and the possible execution of same, should the circumstances dictate it (the circumstances being decided by Patton, of course). We rightly curse Stalin and Hitler for their cavalier attitudes, or outright diregard, of basic human and civil rights, and Patton somehow gets a pass?
6. The notion of Patton as Armored Warfare genius is somewhat shaky. It is clear (I recommend "General Patton:A Soldier's Life by Stanley P. Hirschon) that Patton, up untilt he time of the Blitzkreig on Poland and France, had vacillated on the issue of what use tanks could be in the modern army, and spent the majority of his time in service up to this point trying to save the traditional horse cavalry within the framework of the Army. Despite his experience of armorewd warfare in France (including running the American Armored Warfare School in France), the practical experience of peacetime manuevers in Louisiana, the Carolinas and California, Patton was still not convinced of the efficacy of massed armoerd attacks until Guderian and Rommel PROVED their efficacy. At this point, Patton ceased his vacillation and abandoned the horse altogether as a weapon of war. His primary contribution to armored warfare is changing the American mindset (promulgated by the Infantry Armor School at Fort Benning, and commanded at one time or another by Bradley and Marshall) that the tank was an infantry support weapon, more or less mobile artillery at the infantry commander's command.
Still, it is my belief that despite his faults, Patton was still a great commander, but not of the caliber that would be required to do what you wish he had done: liberate Eastern Europe and the Soviet Empire, because he lacked the skill, the diplomacy and the manpower to do it.
Let's move on to something else, this time concerning FDR, while we're at it, since I fully expect you to throw up Alger Hiss and Harry Hopkins when discussing Joe McCarthy:
It is my belief that FDR was a socialist in everything but name, but of the rich-man-Socialism-for-thee-but-not-for-me type that is exemplified in today's world by the Kennedy's and John Kerry. FDR's "New Deal" is lifted (almost in it's entirety) from a book (the title of which escapes me atthe moment, but I can dig it out) written by FDR's uncle (ironically, named Coolidge) who was a member of the Fennian Society. It outlines, in detail, how Socialism can be introduced to the United States, and the plan by which it will be implemented. It has been dismissed in many academic and political circles as mere speculation, but Quod Erat Demonstrandum (the facts speak for themselves). It contains the beginnings of Social Security, treatesises on Unemployement Insurance, and massive government projects as a means of reducing unemployment (it is, in effect, a Soviet Five-Year plan dressed up in Red, White and Blue).
The Fennian Society, in case you don't know what it was, was an international organization of Socialists advocating a system of World Socialism. Among it's members were such world luminaries as George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, for example.
It is only common sense that FDR would surround himself with men of like mind as President, but hardly conceivable that FDR was in full knowledge to the extent to which such men as Hiss and Hopkins were involved in the cause of World Socialism. This is because FDR himself was a dilletante who believed in some of the ideals promulgated by socialism, but who was well aware of just how far he could go in shoving Socialism down American's throats. The emergency of the 1930's made Socialism more palatable for many Americans (because it promised so much), and it was a powerful, but subtle, political force in domestic US politics of the 1920's through 50's, which was resucitated in the 1960's among the "Free Love" and drug culture of today's American political "elite", given academic respect as a viable system and progressively advanced under the covers to most Americans (who's selfishness very often outweighs their faculties for clear thought).
I do not believe the pharoahs were bloody tyrants for the most part.
The argument can be made vis-a-vis the Pharohs. They may not have been the bloody murderers of the Hitler/Stalin-esque type (and I did not mean to make that implication), but they did have the power of life and death over their subjects (often at whim), did command huge slave-based economies, and the majority of the output of the Eqyptian economy of the era was tied up in either their self-aggrandizement (the building of huge monuments and tombs to their glory) or in maintaining their personal power on a level that no absolute monarch of Europe could ever dream of, prior to the Industrial Revolution.
The difference between Ancient Egypt and 20th centruy Europe is that Ancient Egypt is (for the most part) an isolated, closed society, with little to fear from it's neighbors until the dawn of the Iron Age. The evidence for the attendent "problems" of later European politics (anti-Semitism, Socialism and Communism, the rise Nation-State and concomitant rise and proliferation of racial theory), do not exist in the Egypt of the Pharoahs.
In this regard, Egypt under the Pharoahs is every bit as powerful, every bit as pernicious and every bit as pervasive as the Soviet machine complete with Stalin and the KGB, only the figurehead is a God and his priests have the police state powers.
But then again, I'm applying Western (really Greek) notions of freedom and personal rights to a non-Western, pre-industrial society that did not live under the same circumstances as we (the collective "We") did c. 1939-45.
There is no argument that the Pharoahs were more powerful in some ways than the modern totalitarians but even they were not all powerful and were often under the control of the priesthoods. Most of the monumental buildings were built for religious purposes and the Wonder of the World Pyramid at Giza was never a burial monument. It was far more than that. Nor is there much evidence that it was built by slaves.
Eygpt under the Pharoahs was like America generally peaceful and prosperous and led the world in scientific achievements some of which would be hard pressed by the engineers of today. It was a unique civilization and the source for much of the progress in the ancient world.
No argumenmt from me on these points, I merely point out that many of the same properties or abilities we use to denounce Stalin, Hitler or Mao were also possessed by,and used by, the leadership of ancient civilizations that we hardly consider "totalitarian" in the same sense.
The major differences are industrialization, communications and technical progress, in terms of degree of control and ability to promulgate massacre, but you cannot argue that the Pharohs, Xerxes, the Acheamenid Persians, or Montezuma exerted less power than either Hitler or Stalin. Progress only made the dictator's job easier, it didn't change it's fundamental nature.
Congress was fully informed wrt the Ports deal. The whole explosion was a carefully orchestrated Treason Media/Party of Treason plot to get Bush. It worked beautifully as GOPers fell in behind the most anti-American forces in the nation to condemn the President and a valuable ally.
No one really expects the Treason Media to inform the sheeple about the wonderful things our military is doing on a daily basis in Iraq. It is committed totally to the ruin of the GOP and nothing will stand in its way. Our soldiers tell us what they are doing though and it is exactly what you are saying. It is so successful that the killers are attacking those who have contact with our men to frighten away others.
Then there are the examples of the tombs found wherein the entire court peacefully walked into them lay down and died at the biers of their masters. What could be more controlled than that?
"Then there are the examples of the tombs found wherein the entire court peacefully walked into them lay down and died at the biers of their masters. What could be more controlled than that?"
My point exactly. There were Germans (and Russians and Japanese) who sacrificed their lives in similar fashion. In that fundamental way (complete power over life and death exerted by the Leader) ancient Egypt, et. al., are just as "nasty" to modern Western sensibilities as Nazi germany or the USSR. The difference, again, is technical progress and culture.
For example, Hitler could promulgate laws forbidding the mixing of the races, and even to the extermination of segments of the population. How does this differ from (for example) Cteswayo's (the Zulu King) ability to forbid his warriors from marrying at will or without his permission, or to take their property or lives on a whim, or even Montezuma's ability to command his own citizens to willingly go to the knife (and apinful, public, bloody death) on behalf of the community at large? All thee examples bump up against an incovenient premise: human nature, and still, they were not only enforced, but often embraced and celebrated. So, in the end, they differ not all that much at all, the major differences revolving around technical means and the ability to dive into archives and investigate the extent to which such things occurred.
The similarities all revolve around the subjugation of human nature in service to the state (such as it is). The end to which that harnessed energy is directed is varied across history, but it is a common thread; The Egyptian pharoahs built monuments, the Nazis built a system of industrialized mass murder. Both require a population willing to make the sacrifices necessary to make it happen, and under the control of a supreme, unquestionable authority to "keep them on the reservation".
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for all the fact and information you have brought to this thread. Those willing to have learned a lot from your efforts. Particularly since they so strongly contrast with the non-stop nonsense from Spamalot.
Thanks for your kind words. It's a genuine pleasure for me because I basically love this stuff. Especially the "what if?" scenarios that often crop up here. I learn just as much from them because there's always a Freeper lurking out here has a piece of the puzzle I don't.
Provided the exchange is always of the give-and-take-reasonable-argument type, they always have value.
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