After the definitive tome by Shirer on the subject, one may wonder why someone would bother writing on the subject again - so the title, and the cover page, of this book provide the key; the material isn't new, it's the attempt to put a twist on it to suit an agenda that's pro German, pro nazi and pro colonial empires, pro white male supremacy and anti allied forces of the two wars, anti France (because of her liberte, egalite, fraternite?), and, in a not too successfully covert way, an attempt to malign the U.S. presidents who were the towering heroes during the two wars and hope of the trampled of the world, particularly of Europe.
Ridiculous and stupid book with farfetched arguments that wither when seen with reason, but then, what could one expect with such a title, other than a follower of nazi thought attempting to blame everyone else, much like a defence lawyer for a rapist and a murderer attempting to blame the victim and the family and the law forces?
Or was this a junior high school thesis where the teacher assigned the devil's advocate side to this guy? And he thought it might be a lark to publish it in a book form?
One may wonder why republicans lie, or are they stupid; but then one has to see this book to know, its because they are aligned with nazis, and falsehood characterises nazism.
At the end, Buchanan gives credit to Reagan for "defeat of communism" and so on, claiming he didn't go to war. Buchanan copies paki lies there, since terrorist jihad in Afghanistan was funded from U.S., but nevertheless, he's also being false in not giving credit where it is due - to Gorbachev who opened up his country instead of going to war head on, as another leader would have done. U.S. after all did have such a leader post new millennium in curtailing freedom in U.S..
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One has to wonder if this book is a result of the republicans taking up pro nazi thinking to create a votebank out of the U.S. population with German ancestry and affiliations - German language lost to English by a small margin when decision about primary official language of U.S. was decided - or it's something far more base.
Republican presidents of U.S., after Abraham Lincoln, have for the most part been either nondescript, or ridiculed with good reason, or out and out bordering goons; meanwhile several Democrats have been the opposite in the same position, and the illustrious list towers above with only an Abraham Lincoln to match the stature of the likes of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, and more, in not only popularity but very good reasons to be respected in the world.
So it seems to be a major republican occupation to slash at their stature sideways, by character assassination using either their private lives, or simply a turnabout in politics to hit them, such as this book. Want to bring down President Wilson and FDR, say U.S. was wrong to fight Germany, or even better, say it was fault of Churchill who got excited which is why German monarch or dictator were forced to attack the rest of Europe.
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................................................................................................The author begins with a quest of how and why West, specifically western man, lost the position - he barely stops short of calling it god given mandate - of supremacy of ruling the world.
"In a single century, all the great houses of continental Europe fell. All the empires that ruled the world have vanished. Not one European nation, save Muslim Albania, has a birthrate that will enable it to survive through the century. As a share of world population, peoples of European ancestry have been shrinking for three generations. The character of every Western nation is being irremediably altered as each undergoes an unresisted invasion from the Third World. We are slowly disappearing from the Earth."
Continental Europe lost most monarchies post WWI, which began with an assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, in quest of the very right to self determination that Buchanan deplores; perhaps he wouldnt see it, since he - like many in West, especially men - see colonisation of all other lands and people as a right of every European nation, completely different from the question of Austria colonising neighbourhood or Germany finding lebensraum in Europe around Germany as nazis sought to do, or USSR assuming right to govern the nations in neighbourhood; very different from British empire or U.S. policing the globe, Buchanan's ilk would have no doubt.
But take away racism, and no it isn't different. Right to independence of Poland and Czechoslovakia and Ireland are no more and no less than same rights of people of Asia and Africa, or - and this is what he must fear - natives of the continent's occupied by Europeans without admission of colonisation of the people who loved there, with little if any compunction much less admission of guilt about the havoc wrought on their cultures, including massacres and more.
The paragraph quoted above has him rue the said West - he refrains sometimes, not always, from saying lands of white men - overrun by "unresisted invasion from the Third World", without a breath to catch up with the cause.
It was Europe that invaded other lands, which he celebrates, calling it a glory for four centuries. He finds it surprising and lamentable that people so invaded and colonised would pay a return visit, and since thry are working migrants unlike the European invaders who looted, massacred and more, they have no guilt about the migration.
"When Mussolini invaded Abyssinia in October, 1935, Churchill staunchly defended him: The Abyssinians were as primitive as the Indians and deserved to be conquered."
And that last bit is why Britain lost, and deserved to lose, the empire.
Buchanan wrote this book in quest of how Britain lost her empire, and why migrants are crowding West while "white" men are losing power. Perhaps he's a fellow traveller of KKK, and is nostalgic about the confederate South, seeking to bring back the slavery era for U.S. as much as the empires for the Europeans.
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"Were it not for Britain, India would not be the world’s largest democracy,"
If he assigns credit to British empire for virtues of India, an ancient land with her culture still living unlike Egypt or Persia or many more, then the very least Buchanan must admit is the responsibility of the same British empire as creators of a new nation - by dividing India, without regard for welfare of people, with thinly veiled reason never admitted being that of convenience of military bases for West for use against Russia - in turning this new nation into a terrorist factory by the very act of cutting it away from mother India in the first place.
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"“[T]he transplanted culture of Britain in America,” wrote Dr. Russell Kirk, “has been one of humankind’s more successful experiments.”"
Ask the natives of the land, who incidentally are not connected to India in any way, but still fraudulently termed Indian by most in West, since their very names are diminutised and their land is renamed after a minor Portuguese sailor without asking them, their nsme for their land suppressed if not completely wiped out.
Better yet, ask the "aborigines" of the other colony, a continent and a nation, similarly renamed, this one mistakenly as a southernmost continent.
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"But while the fall of the British Empire was inevitable, the suddenness and sweep of the collapse were not. There is a world of difference between watching a great lady grandly descend a staircase and seeing a slattern being kicked down a flight of stairs."
Buchanan's breeding exposed herewith, in the last ten words or so - hed be incensed, no doubt, if he were to be kicked down a flight of stairs and be stuck with the abusive epithet, but he'd think the very idea ridiculous, since his breeding imprinted on him the status of hunter and ruler who'd kick and abuse, due to a couple of physical characteristics - not mind or heart, but things easily lost.
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"But while the fall of the British Empire was inevitable, the suddenness and sweep of the collapse were not. There is a world of difference between watching a great lady grandly descend a staircase and seeing a slattern being kicked down a flight of stairs."
Buchanan's breeding exposed herewith, in the last ten words or so - hed be incensed, no doubt, if he were to be kicked down a flight of stairs and be stuck with the abusive epithet, but he'd think the very idea ridiculous, since his breeding imprinted on him the status of hunter and ruler who'd kick and abuse, due to a couple of physical characteristics - not mind or heart, but things easily lost.
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"WHAT HAPPENED TO GREAT BRITAIN? What happened to the Empire? What happened to the West and our world—is what this book is about."
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"For it was the war begun in 1914 and the Paris peace conference of 1919 that destroyed the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires and ushered onto the world stage Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler. And it was the war begun in September 1939 that led to the slaughter of the Jews and tens of millions of Christians, the devastation of Europe, Stalinization of half the continent, the fall of China to Maoist madness, and half a century of Cold War."
Germany began the two wars, actively, while denying it, because Germany sought to find her rightful place in the world as equal of British and French, who had the said empires; ask any German! That Germany preferred to have their empire right in Europe rather than troubling finding another new continent to settle, or half a dozen countries in other continent's to invade, is the German characteristic historically - while France and Britain went crusading to Jerusalem, Germans found a shortcut crusade in butchering everyone in Prussia and occupying the land as owners, as per a history volume published by Cambridge.
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"For it was the war begun in 1914 and the Paris peace conference of 1919 that destroyed the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires and ushered onto the world stage Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler. And it was the war begun in September 1939 that led to the slaughter of the Jews and tens of millions of Christians, the devastation of Europe, Stalinization of half the continent, the fall of China to Maoist madness, and half a century of Cold War."
Germany began the two wars, actively, while denying it, because Germany sought to find her rightful place in the world as equal of British and French, who had the said empires; ask any German! That Germany preferred to have their empire right in Europe rather than troubling finding another new continent to settle, or half a dozen countries in other continent's to invade, is the German characteristic historically - while France and Britain went crusading to Jerusalem, Germans found a shortcut crusade in butchering everyone in Prussia and occupying the land as owners, as per a history volume published by Cambridge.
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"And it was Britain that turned both European wars into world wars. Had Britain not declared war on Germany in 1914, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and India would not have followed the Mother Country in. Nor would Britain’s ally Japan. Nor would Italy, which London lured in with secret bribes of territory from the Habsburg and Ottoman empires. Nor would America have gone to war had Britain stayed out. Germany would have been victorious, perhaps in months. There would have been no Lenin, no Stalin, no Versailles, no Hitler, no Holocaust."
Closet nazi, just outed? Or was there any closet, even? What next, England had no business making a treaty with Poland, because Germany had a right to butcher all of East Europe?
Where does right of Germany to find ever more lebensraum - for the state encouraged large scale reproduction - stop, or does it, short of the authors own gates?
"About the justice of the causes for which Britain fought, few quarrel. And those years from 1914 to 1918 and 1939 to 1945 produced days of glory that will forever inspire men and reflect greatly upon the British people. Generations may pass away, but men will yet talk of Passchendaele and the Somme, of Dunkirk and El Alamein. Two-thirds of a century later, men’s eyes yet mist over at the words “Fighter Command,” the men and boys in their Hurricanes and Spitfires who rose day after day as the knights of old in the Battle of Britain to defend their “island home.” And in their “finest hour” the British had as the king’s first minister a statesman who personified the bulldog defiance of his people and who was privileged by history to give the British lion its roar. In the victory over Nazi Germany, the place of moral honor goes to Britain and Churchill. He “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle,” said President Kennedy, when Churchill, like Lafayette, was made an honorary citizen of the United States."
The place of moral honour is not of Britain and Churchill alone, but is rightfully shared between Russia, Britain and FDR, equally.
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Easiest lie is by twisting a fact using an interpretation unintended; here's how Buchanan does it:-
"In his memoirs, Churchill, who led Britain to victory in World War II, wrote:
"One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once, “The Unnecessary War.” There never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the previous struggle."
Buchanan interpreters it to suit his thesis, copied from Hitler, which is, Britain need not have gone to war at all, and allowed Kaiser and Hitler, especially the latter, butcher Europe freely, without interruptions.
Churchill obviously never meant anything within that universe inhabited by Buchanan or Hitler, or even Kaiser. No one forced him, or Britain, to stand firmly by the treaty with Poland, and they could have let Poland go the way of Rhineland, Ruhr, Austria and Czechoslovakia. That they chose not to, was inevitable under the circumstances, which were, Hitler needed to be stopped unless he was to be allowed to enslave the rest of the world and starve it to death while working for German occupation of lands to be the lebensraum for future reproduction of Germany. This was Hitler's plan, in accord with German history. Invasion of Britain was merely delayed to secure East by finishing off Russia first, after Poland, Scandinavia, France, Baltics and Balkans, and next would be U.S., a hop skip and jump from Dakar - as is obvious to anyone familiar with geography and history.
Britain was done tolerating after Prague was destroyed, and Churchill came to replace Chamberlain when war was inevitable, by being elected for the purpose. He could gave capitulated when France did, instead of rescuing nearly a million at Dunkirk and giving his resolve in the famous speech about fighting on the beaches. The war was begun by Germans, both times, fought through by allies, both times, and won when U.S. marched in at the end. Britain was the spine, both times. Without Russia fighting grimly through during WWII, Britain alone couldn't have, either, not so soon to victory. And without FDR with his clear vision, Britain and Russia together wouldn't have done so well so fast.
No, when Churchill called it an unnecessary war, he meant the obvious, which is, France and Britain should have stopped the crazy demon in the very first place, the Rhineland occupation, when it was merely swatting a fly; and in any case not have allowed Czechoslovakia to fall, but fought right there instead, rather than making it a gift on a gold platter to Hitler, which gave him the rest of Europe in a stroke. It cost a huge war to stop him because they didn't sweat the fly when they ought to have done.
Remember, Churchill alone stood against pacification of Hitler ad a means to achieve peace in their lifetime, as Chamberlain and almost everyone else seemed to then think, from French leaders to Times to most of British parliament to people crying with relief in streets of London after Munich treaty, and more.
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Easiest lie is by twisting a fact using an interpretation unintended; here's how Buchanan does it:-
"In his memoirs, Churchill, who led Britain to victory in World War II, wrote:
"One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once, “The Unnecessary War.” There never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the previous struggle."
Buchanan interpreters it to suit his thesis, copied from Hitler, which is, Britain need not have gone to war at all, and allowed Kaiser and Hitler, especially the latter, butcher Europe freely, without interruptions.
Churchill obviously never meant anything within that universe inhabited by Buchanan or Hitler, or even Kaiser. No one forced him, or Britain, to stand firmly by the treaty with Poland, and they could have let Poland go the way of Rhineland, Ruhr, Austria and Czechoslovakia. That they chose not to, was inevitable under the circumstances, which were, Hitler needed to be stopped unless he was to be allowed to enslave the rest of the world and starve it to death while working for German occupation of lands to be the lebensraum for future reproduction of Germany. This was Hitler's plan, in accord with German history. Invasion of Britain was merely delayed to secure East by finishing off Russia first, after Poland, Scandinavia, France, Baltics and Balkans, and next would be U.S., a hop skip and jump from Dakar - as is obvious to anyone familiar with geography and history.
Britain was done tolerating after Prague was destroyed, and Churchill came to replace Chamberlain when war was inevitable, by being elected for the purpose. He could gave capitulated when France did, instead of rescuing nearly a million at Dunkirk and giving his resolve in the famous speech about fighting on the beaches. The war was begun by Germans, both times, fought through by allies, both times, and won when U.S. marched in at the end. Britain was the spine, both times. Without Russia fighting grimly through during WWII, Britain alone couldn't have, either, not so soon to victory. And without FDR with his clear vision, Britain and Russia together wouldn't have done so well so fast.
No, when Churchill called it an unnecessary war, he meant the obvious, which is, France and Britain should have stopped the crazy demon in the very first place, the Rhineland occupation, when it was merely swatting a fly; and in any case not have allowed Czechoslovakia to fall, but fought right there instead, rather than making it a gift on a gold platter to Hitler, which gave him the rest of Europe in a stroke. It cost a huge war to stop him because they didn't sweat the fly when they ought to have done.
Remember, Churchill alone stood against pacification of Hitler ad a means to achieve peace in their lifetime, as Chamberlain and almost everyone else seemed to then think, from French leaders to Times to most of British parliament to people crying with relief in streets of London after Munich treaty, and more.
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Buchanan merely wishes to confuse the issue, he isn't serious about any stance other than his favouring rule of white male through the world. Else how dies he square his criticism indicting Churchill for WWII with his own supporting the two bushes of U.S. laying into Iraq, who after all merely occupied the tiny neighbour Kuwait, much further away from U.S. than Poland was or is from Britain? Or did Buchanan go on a hunger strike until death when the bushes devasted Iraq?
No, it's about the right of U.S. and Germany to occupy and enslave the world as preached by nazis of U.S., that Buchanan is seeking to establish. Unless he's confused. Or he's an honorary paki as described by Ms Clinton when she said, you never know if they know they're lying.
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"There has arisen among America’s elite a Churchill cult. Its acolytes hold that Churchill was not only a peerless war leader but a statesman of unparalleled vision whose life and legend should be the model for every statesman. To this cult, defiance anywhere of U.S. hegemony, resistance anywhere to U.S. power becomes another 1938. Every adversary is “a new Hitler,” every proposal to avert war “another Munich.” Slobodan Milosevic, a party apparatchik who had presided over the disintegration of Yugoslavia—losing Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia—becomes “the Hitler of the Balkans” for holding Serbia’s cradle province of Kosovo. Saddam Hussein, whose army was routed in one hundred hours in 1991 and who had not shot down a U.S. plane in forty thousand sorties, becomes “an Arab Hitler” about to roll up the Persian Gulf and threaten mankind with weapons of mass destruction."
Good point, but in opposing this, Buchanan makes the same mistake, which amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Part about Churchill is at least half correct, and U.S. interventions in parts of the world where genocides are known to be in progression is certainly a worthy attempt; but in criticising U.S. mistakes if and when they are mistakes, it's pretty silly to conclude that Churchill should have allowed Hitler to establish a German empire across the world with all other people meant to be treated as Russian, Polish, Jewish and other occupied people were, by intentions declared to the German military by Hitler well in advance of the said occupation.
Thinking fresh takes a little more effort than fitting square pegs in round holes, but the latter course is stupid, lazy, and likely to lead to disaster, as only wrong thinking can. Criticise U.S. interventions Buchanan could have done, but claiming Britain shouldn't have fought wars begun by Germans in Europe is excellent example of why Trump clearly isn't the worst choice if U.S. had to have a republican president!
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"There has arisen among America’s elite a Churchill cult. Its acolytes hold that Churchill was not only a peerless war leader but a statesman of unparalleled vision whose life and legend should be the model for every statesman. To this cult, defiance anywhere of U.S. hegemony, resistance anywhere to U.S. power becomes another 1938. Every adversary is “a new Hitler,” every proposal to avert war “another Munich.” Slobodan Milosevic, a party apparatchik who had presided over the disintegration of Yugoslavia—losing Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia—becomes “the Hitler of the Balkans” for holding Serbia’s cradle province of Kosovo. Saddam Hussein, whose army was routed in one hundred hours in 1991 and who had not shot down a U.S. plane in forty thousand sorties, becomes “an Arab Hitler” about to roll up the Persian Gulf and threaten mankind with weapons of mass destruction."
Good point, but in opposing this, Buchanan makes the same mistake, which amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Part about Churchill is at least half correct, and U.S. interventions in parts of the world where genocides are known to be in progression is certainly a worthy attempt; but in criticising U.S. mistakes if and when they are mistakes, it's pretty silly to conclude that Churchill should have allowed Hitler to establish a German empire across the world with all other people meant to be treated as Russian, Polish, Jewish and other occupied people were, by intentions declared to the German military by Hitler well in advance of the said occupation.
Thinking fresh takes a little more effort than fitting square pegs in round holes, but the latter course is stupid, lazy, and likely to lead to disaster, as only wrong thinking can. Criticise U.S. interventions Buchanan could have done, but claiming Britain shouldn't have fought wars begun by Germans in Europe is excellent example of why Trump clearly isn't the worst choice if U.S. had to have a republican president!
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"After 9/11, the Churchill cult helped to persuade an untutored president that the liberation of Iraq from Saddam would be like the liberation of Europe from Hitler."
Whatever the necessity or virtues of removing a despot in an Arab or a southeast Asian country, the case about Iraq after WTC wasn't about Churchill or liberation of Iraq; it wasn't about an untutored president of U.S., it was rather about a low minded bunch of goons taking advantage of a hurt and vulnerable U.S. public to get a war sanctioned against a country that had nothing to do with the attack on U.S. or the perpetrators of that attack; in fact, that bunch of goons did it for personal profit, while allowing the said perpetrators to go scot free, and funding the terrorist factory that supported the perpetrators, thereby allowing the terrorist factory to carry on a war against civilian population in neighbourhood by using terrorism and lying, while U.S. funded it to the hilt, to the tune of billions of dollars, unaccounted for.
It was the next President of U.S., Barack Obama, who took care of the perpetrators' mastermind, and the racist population of U.S. didn't pay him accolades for his competence.
Churchill cult had nothing to do with any of it, other than those supporting war against Iraq after 2001 using name of Churchill for their purpose - fraudulently.
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Buchanan is false, deliberately, in saying "German-Polish war of 1939."
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Buchanan is false, deliberately, in saying "German-Polish war of 1939."
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First chapter, very well put together, in most part. It's mostly facts of history of relationships between U.S., various nations of Europe and Asia, and their effects, beginning at the turn of nineteenth century into the twentieth century, with perspectives past as and when needed.
But Buchanan does keep giving it a slant that's not only very pro - German, but very anti England to say the least.
But Buchanan does keep giving it a slant that's not only very pro - German, but very anti England to say the least.
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"BY 1914 THERE WAS a war party in every country. In May of that year, Col. Edward Mandell House, the eminence grise of the White House, whom Wilson once described as “my second personality … my independent self,” visited the great capitals of Europe to take the temperature of the continent.76 House came home with a chilling assessment:
The situation is extraordinary. It is jingoism run stark mad. Unless someone acting for you [Wilson] can bring about a different understanding, there is some day to be an awful cataclysm. No one in Europe can do it. There is too much hatred, too many jealousies. Whenever England consents, France and Russia will close in on Germany and Austria."
"Yet, as the summer of 1914 began, no one expected war. The naval arms race had ended in 1913 when Tirpitz conceded British superiority by telling the Reichstag Budget Committee he was ready to accept a 60 percent rule, a sixteen-to-ten ratio in favor of the Royal Navy. Germany could not sustain a buildup of both her army and the Kaiser’s fleet. In the end, the High Seas Fleet had nothing to do with Britain’s decision to go to war, but everything to do with converting Britain from a friendly power aloof from the alliances of Europe into a probable enemy should war come.
"On June 23, 1914, the Second Battle Squadron of the Royal Navy, including four of its newest dreadnoughts, Audacious, Courageous, Ajax, and King George V, sailed into Kiel. And this time, unlike 1906, there was no “invasion scare,” no panic in Kiel. A large and excited crowd awaited. The British officers were received at the Royal Castle by Crown Prince Henry and Princess Irene. Admiral Tirpitz arrived the following day from Berlin, boarded his flagship Friedrich Karl, and invited all senior British officers to his cabin for a briefing on the High Seas Fleet. That afternoon, every British and German warship in Kiel fired a twenty-one-gun salute as the royal yacht Hohenzollern entered the harbor. The British admiral and his captains were invited aboard by the Kaiser, who donned the uniform of a British Admiral of the Fleet and inspected King George V.
"That day, the Kaiser’s yacht regatta began. British and German naval officers visited one another’s warships and attended parties together. Tensions between the two nations had eased. On June 28, the Kaiser was aboard his racing yacht Meteor when an urgent telegram was brought out. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne of the octogenarian Emperor Franz Josef, whose only son had committed suicide, and his wife Sophie had been assassinated in Sarajevo.
"“The character of Kiel Week changed,” writes Massie. “Flags were lowered to half-mast, and receptions, dinners and a ball at the Royal Castle were canceled. Early the next morning, the Kaiser departed, intending to go to Vienna and the Archduke’s funeral.” As the British warships sailed out of Kiel, the masts of the German warships flew the signal “Pleasant Journey.” King George V responded with a wireless message,
"Friends Today
"Friends in Future
"Friends Forever"
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"THE AUSTRIANS DID NOT want a European war. Vienna wanted a short, sharp war to punish Serbia for murdering the heir to the throne and to put an end to Serb plotting to pull apart their empire. For they suspected that Belgrade’s ambition was to gather the South Slavs into a united nation where Serbia would sit at the head of the table.
"The Austrian ultimatum had been drafted in anticipation of certain rejection, to justify an Austrian declaration of war. But on July 26, Serbia accepted nine of Austria’s ten demands, balking only at Vienna’s demand to send a delegation to Belgrade to oversee the investigation and prosecution of the conspirators who had murdered the archduke. Yet, even on this point, the Serbs agreed to refer the matter to the International Court of Justice.
"The Kaiser was relieved and elated. Austria had scored a brilliant diplomatic coup and he could not see what more she wanted. “It was a capitulation of the most humiliating sort,” exclaimed the Kaiser. “With it disappears every reason for war.”
"But when the Austrian ambassador in Belgrade received the Serb reply, he picked up his packed bags, boarded the first train out, and, once over the frontier, telephoned Vienna. When news hit that Serbia had failed to submit to all ten Austrian demands, crowds were in the streets clamoring for war. On July 27, the Austro-Hungarian empire declared war. On the twenty-eighth, Belgrade was shelled from across the Danube. But in London, writes the historian Robert Massie, “even after Austria declared war and bombarded Belgrade, few in Britain had an inkling that within seven days, England would enter a world war. The man in the street, the majority in the Cabinet and House of Commons still saw the crisis as a distant furor over ‘Serbian murderers.’”"
Here again Buchanan begins his clever lies, by hiding how Germany set the dominoes crashing, and instead writes about Churchill was excited about prospects of war, and then giving his history after a short quote about how the Kaiser Wilhelm tried to avoid it.
In reality, if Germany had stayed out of it, so would have France and Britain; but Austria began it on a pretext - pretext, since Serbia had accepted nine and a half clauses of the Austrian ultimatum. Russia was bound by treaty to defend Serbia, and Germany could have stayed out of it. Once, however, Germany was involved, the treaty clauses between Russia and France ensured France stepping in and then Britain had to, too, since British had treaties with both.
Buchanan's thesis seems to be that Britain did it just to butcher Germany for the pleasure of it, instead of letting Germany butcher France and devastate Russia while watching on the sidelines. This, basically, is Hitler's position in ever event - anyone opposing his attack or defending his victims was the warmonger. He too saw Russia and Poland as undeserving of aid by Britain, and same was true of all of East Europe.
Buchanan writes about how Germany saw war as inevitable and unavoidable (WHY?), and preferred to have it sooner, and the Schlieffen plan required going through Belgium to destroy France by taking Paris, and crushing Belgium if there was resistance; he writes about how Germany did not expect Britain to step in, and welcomed such a possibility with confidence of their being crushed too. In all this he nevertheless retains the very hitleresque pose of blaming Britain for the war, as if Germany was merely opening her umbrellas in crushing several countries in the neighbourhood by striking the first blows and beginning the war that he, Buchanan, blames Britain for!
"The Germans had forgotten Bismarck, who warned that preventive war is “like committing suicide out of fear of death.”"
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"BY SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, Russia had begun to mobilize and Germany and France were on the brink."
"By that evening, Germany had declared war on Russia, which had refused to halt its mobilization, and on France, which had refused to declare neutrality. Sunday morning, Grey convinced a Cabinet majority to agree that the Royal Navy would block any move by the High Seas Fleet into the Channel to attack French shipping or bombard the coast."
It should be clear to all but a follower of nazi mindset that Germany need not have declared war, ot begun it.
Buchanan, perhaps, ignores the key vital factors in seeing this as a war Churchill forced Britain into, or attempts fraudulently to make any ignorant readers believe this, and it's unclear if he's ignoring the said vital factors due to his ignorance or worse. He attempts to sidestep it, speaking of Germany.
"Napoleon had said of Prussia that it “was hatched from a cannon ball.” By 1914, the cannonball was the heart of a nation of seventy million, stretching from France to Russia and the Baltic to the Alps, that produced 15 percent of the world’s goods to Britain’s 14 percent—and twice as much steel. Germany was the most powerful nation in Europe and, after Russia, the most populous. In 1870, Germany had crushed France in six weeks. Her army was the greatest fighting force on earth. But Germany was virtually friendless, and the arrogance and bellicosity of the Kaiser and his haughty countrymen were among the causes. In his travel notes Crown Prince Henry wrote, “Our country is not much loved anywhere and indeed frequently hated. Writes German historian Andreas Hillgruber:
"Public opinion in other European nations slowly came to sense a threat, less because of the goals of German policy per se than the crude, overbearing style that Germany projected on the international stage. Without this background, one cannot understand the truly radical hate for Germany and all things German that broke out in the Entente countries with the war of 1914."
Germans still behave this way, and aren't popular abroad, even in Europe. But this unpopularity didn't have others attacking Germany, as Buchanan would have his ignorant readers infer from his writing. Germany began the two wars in first half of the twentieth century, in reality. Without Germany declaring war on Russia, it would be limited to Austria and Serbia, with possible help for latter by Russia.
But the key is perhaps in the nesting description of WWI as war between cousins, waged by Kaiser Wilhelm because he wasn't seated at the first table at the prior gathering of royals in England.
Germany at this time was ruled by Kaiser Wilhelm, the eldest son of Queen Victoria, who did not think his cousins and other relatives were respectful enough. He'd been spurned by another cousin, Alix of Hesse, who'd also rejected her grandmother Queen Victoria's wish that Alix marry the British royal Prince who was first cousin of Alix, and had instead chosen Nicholas of Russia, who she'd fallen in love with - mutually. Queen Victoria wasnt happy about it, but cousin Willy was furious at being rejected, and inficted the Battenberg relatives with demeaning treatment at royal occasions he hosted, despite his brother being married to a sister of Alix.
So it's unclear if his sending Lenin on a German train into Russia, deliberately to disrupt the country with a civil war, was a personal revenge he knew would end up in brutal massacre of his cousin and her children. But it's quite clear that he need not have declared war on Russia, knowing France and Britain would be bound to step in, unless he intended to massacre them all. And having declared war, he need not have marched through Belgium, unless complete domination and destruction of Europe was his aim.
"BY 1914 THERE WAS a war party in every country. In May of that year, Col. Edward Mandell House, the eminence grise of the White House, whom Wilson once described as “my second personality … my independent self,” visited the great capitals of Europe to take the temperature of the continent.76 House came home with a chilling assessment:
The situation is extraordinary. It is jingoism run stark mad. Unless someone acting for you [Wilson] can bring about a different understanding, there is some day to be an awful cataclysm. No one in Europe can do it. There is too much hatred, too many jealousies. Whenever England consents, France and Russia will close in on Germany and Austria."
"Yet, as the summer of 1914 began, no one expected war. The naval arms race had ended in 1913 when Tirpitz conceded British superiority by telling the Reichstag Budget Committee he was ready to accept a 60 percent rule, a sixteen-to-ten ratio in favor of the Royal Navy. Germany could not sustain a buildup of both her army and the Kaiser’s fleet. In the end, the High Seas Fleet had nothing to do with Britain’s decision to go to war, but everything to do with converting Britain from a friendly power aloof from the alliances of Europe into a probable enemy should war come.
"On June 23, 1914, the Second Battle Squadron of the Royal Navy, including four of its newest dreadnoughts, Audacious, Courageous, Ajax, and King George V, sailed into Kiel. And this time, unlike 1906, there was no “invasion scare,” no panic in Kiel. A large and excited crowd awaited. The British officers were received at the Royal Castle by Crown Prince Henry and Princess Irene. Admiral Tirpitz arrived the following day from Berlin, boarded his flagship Friedrich Karl, and invited all senior British officers to his cabin for a briefing on the High Seas Fleet. That afternoon, every British and German warship in Kiel fired a twenty-one-gun salute as the royal yacht Hohenzollern entered the harbor. The British admiral and his captains were invited aboard by the Kaiser, who donned the uniform of a British Admiral of the Fleet and inspected King George V.
"That day, the Kaiser’s yacht regatta began. British and German naval officers visited one another’s warships and attended parties together. Tensions between the two nations had eased. On June 28, the Kaiser was aboard his racing yacht Meteor when an urgent telegram was brought out. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne of the octogenarian Emperor Franz Josef, whose only son had committed suicide, and his wife Sophie had been assassinated in Sarajevo.
"“The character of Kiel Week changed,” writes Massie. “Flags were lowered to half-mast, and receptions, dinners and a ball at the Royal Castle were canceled. Early the next morning, the Kaiser departed, intending to go to Vienna and the Archduke’s funeral.” As the British warships sailed out of Kiel, the masts of the German warships flew the signal “Pleasant Journey.” King George V responded with a wireless message,
"Friends Today
"Friends in Future
"Friends Forever"
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"THE AUSTRIANS DID NOT want a European war. Vienna wanted a short, sharp war to punish Serbia for murdering the heir to the throne and to put an end to Serb plotting to pull apart their empire. For they suspected that Belgrade’s ambition was to gather the South Slavs into a united nation where Serbia would sit at the head of the table.
"The Austrian ultimatum had been drafted in anticipation of certain rejection, to justify an Austrian declaration of war. But on July 26, Serbia accepted nine of Austria’s ten demands, balking only at Vienna’s demand to send a delegation to Belgrade to oversee the investigation and prosecution of the conspirators who had murdered the archduke. Yet, even on this point, the Serbs agreed to refer the matter to the International Court of Justice.
"The Kaiser was relieved and elated. Austria had scored a brilliant diplomatic coup and he could not see what more she wanted. “It was a capitulation of the most humiliating sort,” exclaimed the Kaiser. “With it disappears every reason for war.”
"But when the Austrian ambassador in Belgrade received the Serb reply, he picked up his packed bags, boarded the first train out, and, once over the frontier, telephoned Vienna. When news hit that Serbia had failed to submit to all ten Austrian demands, crowds were in the streets clamoring for war. On July 27, the Austro-Hungarian empire declared war. On the twenty-eighth, Belgrade was shelled from across the Danube. But in London, writes the historian Robert Massie, “even after Austria declared war and bombarded Belgrade, few in Britain had an inkling that within seven days, England would enter a world war. The man in the street, the majority in the Cabinet and House of Commons still saw the crisis as a distant furor over ‘Serbian murderers.’”"
Here again Buchanan begins his clever lies, by hiding how Germany set the dominoes crashing, and instead writes about Churchill was excited about prospects of war, and then giving his history after a short quote about how the Kaiser Wilhelm tried to avoid it.
In reality, if Germany had stayed out of it, so would have France and Britain; but Austria began it on a pretext - pretext, since Serbia had accepted nine and a half clauses of the Austrian ultimatum. Russia was bound by treaty to defend Serbia, and Germany could have stayed out of it. Once, however, Germany was involved, the treaty clauses between Russia and France ensured France stepping in and then Britain had to, too, since British had treaties with both.
Buchanan's thesis seems to be that Britain did it just to butcher Germany for the pleasure of it, instead of letting Germany butcher France and devastate Russia while watching on the sidelines. This, basically, is Hitler's position in ever event - anyone opposing his attack or defending his victims was the warmonger. He too saw Russia and Poland as undeserving of aid by Britain, and same was true of all of East Europe.
Buchanan writes about how Germany saw war as inevitable and unavoidable (WHY?), and preferred to have it sooner, and the Schlieffen plan required going through Belgium to destroy France by taking Paris, and crushing Belgium if there was resistance; he writes about how Germany did not expect Britain to step in, and welcomed such a possibility with confidence of their being crushed too. In all this he nevertheless retains the very hitleresque pose of blaming Britain for the war, as if Germany was merely opening her umbrellas in crushing several countries in the neighbourhood by striking the first blows and beginning the war that he, Buchanan, blames Britain for!
"The Germans had forgotten Bismarck, who warned that preventive war is “like committing suicide out of fear of death.”"
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"BY SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, Russia had begun to mobilize and Germany and France were on the brink."
"By that evening, Germany had declared war on Russia, which had refused to halt its mobilization, and on France, which had refused to declare neutrality. Sunday morning, Grey convinced a Cabinet majority to agree that the Royal Navy would block any move by the High Seas Fleet into the Channel to attack French shipping or bombard the coast."
It should be clear to all but a follower of nazi mindset that Germany need not have declared war, ot begun it.
Buchanan, perhaps, ignores the key vital factors in seeing this as a war Churchill forced Britain into, or attempts fraudulently to make any ignorant readers believe this, and it's unclear if he's ignoring the said vital factors due to his ignorance or worse. He attempts to sidestep it, speaking of Germany.
"Napoleon had said of Prussia that it “was hatched from a cannon ball.” By 1914, the cannonball was the heart of a nation of seventy million, stretching from France to Russia and the Baltic to the Alps, that produced 15 percent of the world’s goods to Britain’s 14 percent—and twice as much steel. Germany was the most powerful nation in Europe and, after Russia, the most populous. In 1870, Germany had crushed France in six weeks. Her army was the greatest fighting force on earth. But Germany was virtually friendless, and the arrogance and bellicosity of the Kaiser and his haughty countrymen were among the causes. In his travel notes Crown Prince Henry wrote, “Our country is not much loved anywhere and indeed frequently hated. Writes German historian Andreas Hillgruber:
"Public opinion in other European nations slowly came to sense a threat, less because of the goals of German policy per se than the crude, overbearing style that Germany projected on the international stage. Without this background, one cannot understand the truly radical hate for Germany and all things German that broke out in the Entente countries with the war of 1914."
Germans still behave this way, and aren't popular abroad, even in Europe. But this unpopularity didn't have others attacking Germany, as Buchanan would have his ignorant readers infer from his writing. Germany began the two wars in first half of the twentieth century, in reality. Without Germany declaring war on Russia, it would be limited to Austria and Serbia, with possible help for latter by Russia.
But the key is perhaps in the nesting description of WWI as war between cousins, waged by Kaiser Wilhelm because he wasn't seated at the first table at the prior gathering of royals in England.
Germany at this time was ruled by Kaiser Wilhelm, the eldest son of Queen Victoria, who did not think his cousins and other relatives were respectful enough. He'd been spurned by another cousin, Alix of Hesse, who'd also rejected her grandmother Queen Victoria's wish that Alix marry the British royal Prince who was first cousin of Alix, and had instead chosen Nicholas of Russia, who she'd fallen in love with - mutually. Queen Victoria wasnt happy about it, but cousin Willy was furious at being rejected, and inficted the Battenberg relatives with demeaning treatment at royal occasions he hosted, despite his brother being married to a sister of Alix.
So it's unclear if his sending Lenin on a German train into Russia, deliberately to disrupt the country with a civil war, was a personal revenge he knew would end up in brutal massacre of his cousin and her children. But it's quite clear that he need not have declared war on Russia, knowing France and Britain would be bound to step in, unless he intended to massacre them all. And having declared war, he need not have marched through Belgium, unless complete domination and destruction of Europe was his aim.
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As for anyone contending that this is naive, that it's stuff of fiction, that men don't go to war due to lust or revenge, that Kaiser was a peaceful guy forced by Churchill's excitement and Russian mobilisation - the last is nazi attitude and pose about every war Germany inflicted on everyone else; and the rest, check out The Brass Check by Upton Sinclair where he states that in The Moneychangers he'd described J. P. Morgan in every detail, that everyone knew it, and knew the details to be true. Did anyone sue Upton Sinclair for libel? Not for this. And as powerful as was J. P. Morgan, surely no one imagines that Kaiser Wilhelm thought he wasn't that powerful?
But Buchanan, like a gossip journalist or a man slandering a rape victim who speaks out against him, goes on and on about oscillation of Lloyd George regarding resignation and it's career aspect, as if Germany attacking Belgium was a natural disaster Britain should have watched from ringside, while Germany couldn't possibly have an option of not declaring war on France and Russia after Russia disobeyed Germany in not mobilising.
Germany attacked, before anyone else, after Germany having declared war, before anyone else did.
Buchanan, like all nazis, blames everyone else, other than Germany or Kaiser Wilhelm. One can safely bet he intends to blame everyone else for Hitler's actions too, whether WWII or genocides.
It simply wasn't possible for Russia to defend Poland or Romania or another East European country from Germany, without Russian armies crossing the said country. France and Britain could open the West front, but Russia didn't have thst alternative.
Common sense, Buchanan!
"British were now in the box Chamberlain had sought to avoid. Men of honor, they could not let Stalin, whose record of mass murder far exceeded Hitler’s as of 1939, march into the Baltic countries. That would surrender millions of innocent people to a terrorist regime, a crime far worse than Munich."
On the contrary, they were negotiating with Moscow, weren't they? For defence treaties involving East Europe, Red Army was the only certainty to defend against Hitler. And no, that last sentence belongs to a post McCarthy U.S., not to diplomacy of Europe before WWII commenced. Terrorist regimes were the fascists of West Europe including but not only Hitler's, while Russian regime was totalitarian but it's atrocities had been known against white Russians and not general civilians, until then anyway. The memoirs of survivors certainly are far more favourable to Russian occupation.
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"Nor could Britain commit to war to defend a Bolshevik state whose very reason for existence was the destruction of Christianity and Western civilization."
This is bible belt sentiment, not British diplomacy of 1939. Hitler by the way had persecuted churches and sent priests to Dachau, Buchanan either is ignorant or pushing it under the rug. Nor was he much for western civilisation, he admired the prophet and his ways, including doing away with dissenters.
Hypocrisy, they name is republican, or most anyway. Funding the terrorist factory to the tune of billions while ignoring the mastermind of terror living in the country that has been the so called friend of U.S., defence of "Christianity and Western civilization", was that? While the said mastermind intended to keep attacking until the two were destroyed?
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"Britain and France took months to negotiate with Molotov and Voroshilov. They got nowhere. Ribbentrop and Molotov negotiated the most famous (and infamous) pact in history in twenty-four hours."
The first part is due largely to Poland refusing to allow Red Army on Polish soil, which made it impossible for Russia to fight off any attack against, or invasion of, Poland by Germany; and for the rest, Russia was more than willing, but Britain sent high level officers instead of a foreign secretary, or PM, for so important a treaty, and while the officer sent was perfectly well versed in Russian and was competent enough for the discussions, Russians felt Britain wasn't eager enough.
Germans played games with Moscow, making them wait until Hitler was suddenly desperate enough to give everything they wanted. Which is when the twenty four hours Buchanan mentions happened. Molotov knew they were lying to him too, which they were in so absurd a fashion, Shirer is worth reading just for that.
So the Buchanan claim about the pact being negotiated within twenty four hours can be said of almost everything - just pick the specific twenty four hours!
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" ... Polish plenipotentiary in Berlin on August 30 could have stopped the invasion. Had Poland formally received the offer, Chamberlain would have insisted it be taken up in negotiations. Hitler would then have had his excuse for calling off the invasion. His generals, up to the hour they crossed the frontier, believed Hitler would find a way to retrieve Danzig and avoid war. But the Poles refused to send a negotiator. They had confidence in themselves as a warrior people and trusted in their British guarantee."
No, Poles knew the invasion would happen anyway, and they weren't willing to be blackmailed and threatened into signing away their country, as others before them had been forced to do with Hitler throwing tantrums and screaming at the cornered plenipotentiary. They knew, too, that any overtures or offers from Hitler had no other meaning whatsoever. He had proved it often enough.
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"Had there been no war guarantee of March 31, there would have been no British declaration of war on September 3, and there might have been no German invasion of France in May 1940, or ever. For there was nothing inevitable about Hitler’s war in the west."
That's a lie direct from Hitler; whether Buchanan is lying, or merely stupid, and therefore ignorant, is not clear, but swallowing Hitler's lies is convenient for anyone racist and willing to side with nazi thought.
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"British and French statesmanship had been outmaneuvered by Soviet. What could easily have been a German thrust against the Soviet Union had been deflected against the West.”"
That's the pro nazi revision of history, falsifying reality. The maneuver was by nazis in giving Moscow everything demanded for the treaty, not by Soviets who didn't trust Hitler any more than any other East European country did, and for very good reasons.
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"THE BRITISH-FRENCH WAR GUARANTEE to Poland would result in defeat and disaster for all three nations. But there would be one great beneficiary."
Of such lies, with suitable quotes strewn from sources who may or may not agree with his theme, is this book made up. For Buchanan merely sets up a selected moment to define defeat, instead of looking at the complete course of events. This could be said, too, of Mongol conquest of Europe. And not just over some three nations.
The above is not true even if Time had ended as Hitler's occupying Europe was complete, for neither Britain nor population of other two ever gave in. Resistance only grew in each until Germany was defeated and beaten more thoroughly than any nation in history.
As much as Buchanan is at pains to paint Germany as victim of Britain and Hitler as just someone who set out to right the wrongs and Stalin as the real villain who was seeking to invade, fact remains that it was Hitler who did long before his power declare his agenda and intentions, did plan conquest of Europe and war with West as well as East, had extensive policies about massacres of large numbers of people East and of turning all invaded people into slave labour for benefit of Germans, did exact horrendous punitive levees from all invaded nations, and wiped out and destroyed the national identities of several.
USSR did liberate East Europe from nazis, and in contrast to Hitler, neither wiped out their national identities nor set up or carry on with the concentration camps of Hitler in those countries. Punitive measures against political opponents and other such in even Stalin's regime, if compared with racist atrocities in U.S. against natives or slaves and later against interns of camps during WWII, do bear comparison in every aspect but one - U.S. did not transport those victims to Alaska. That wasn't a deliberate kindly act, especially in case of churches filled with congregation being set on fire and locked from outside as was done to ex slave population by KKK. That latter compares with some Nazi actions against some of their concentration camp inmates while Germany was close to defeat.
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"USSR was isolated from the Western democracies, hated and feared by its neighbors, and threatened by Nazi Germany and by Japan in the Far East."
Is Buchanan unaware of the Soviet-Japan treaty that each honoured in face of all pressure from Hitler when he invaded Russia? As to the neighbours, everybody including the neighbours and allies were quite well aware that only the Red Army could defend them against Hitler in East, and while Poland's refusal to allow Red Army on Polish soil kept Russia out of the tripartite treaty, which would have been far more effective if it were inclusive of Russia, it was also true that the Red Army that later defeated Hitler so thoroughly could, before Hitler turned East, have already occupied all of East Europe.
Buchanan's accusations against USSR in East Europe compare well against U.S. in Mexico and various countries South of Panama, where not only regimes that looked after people their own weren't left alone to do so, but even archbishop Romero and the nuns who looked after people were murdered by the fascist military junta supported by powers in the region and with no protest even by Vatican. Those that did condone this have no moral ground to speak about western civilisation or religion, much less about USSR influence in East Europe.
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" ... Stalin knew: After Poland, his turn would come. That would mean a Nazi-Bolshevik war in which he must face Germanic power alone."
Did someone forget to tell Buchanan what did actually happen when Hitler attacked Russia, and Russia faced "Germanic power alone"? Is he unaware of who beat who, or just picking the siege of Moscow as his favourite moment, before the tide turned?
And the tide turned before Hitler's armies had set foot in either Moscow or the other city that was capital, St Petersburg, both of which Hitler had planned to destroy completely with their residents massacred. Napoleon had managed, on the other hand, to reside in Kremlin before leaving. His armies were beaten on the way out, not before they left, unlike Hitler's panzer divisions supported by bomber fleets massacring civilians everywhere along the way.
Hitler's greatest defeat was in Russia, and that was because of his own self - he'd issued instructions about how conquered people were to be treated, which turned even those displeased with repression of Stalin against Germany, and they chose Stalin when it came to it; Hitler had expected that Russian government would fall at the advent of his armies, but instead Stalin was able to throw divisions after divisions that fought back with a bitter resolution nazis had never expected, and did not slacken when chasing Hitler's armies back to Berlin when routed.
As much as Britain holding on, not giving in, counted, as much as perception of truth by FDR helped allies - it was Stalin's support from his people on ground, all the way, that began Hitler's end, from defeats at three major cities of Russia all the way back to Berlin.
And for all that Buchanan paints Hitler as only regressing German grievances while Stalin as one feared by all of East Europe because "they'd heard the screams of his victims", fact is, when it came to it Stalin's people could have opted to support Hitler, but chose to fight Hitler all the way to his annihilation; while German people themselves did not want the wars Hitler began, and his Generals conspired against him all the time. Hitler wasnt even elected to power, but elevated to it by machinations while his party had less than 42 percent, more often less than 40 percent majority. And his armies parading in Berlin weren't cheered by Germans.
And East European refugees fled East to escape Hitler, but only Germans fled West at the advent of the Red Army.
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"On March 31, 1939, came deliverance. Britain and France declared they would fight for Poland, the buffer state between Russia and Germany. British Tories had become the guarantors of Bolshevism. Moscow had been given free what Stalin would have paid a czar’s ransom for."
Most of that paragraph is garbage, in fact all but the date and the second sentence. Hitler had managed to create a horror far more abhorrent than Bolshevik terror, and Tories were one with rest of Britain in fighting the greater one.
Hitler had made a pact with Stalin giving him everything he asked for, and if anyone outside Russia is to be credited with guaranteeing Bolsheviks control over East Europe it must be Hitler. But that was in acvor with Kaiser having let Lenin loose deep in Russia, and thus made Bolshevik revolution and regime possible at all, so Germany is responsible for Bolsheviks regime and Hitler is responsible for East Europe being in control of USSR - after all but for hitler attacking Russia, Red Army wouldn't be chasing nazis back to Berlin, and if Hitler really was as good as Buchanan claims rather than the most despicable horror of history until then, East Europe would be happy serving him as slaves - which even Germans weren't, except all opposition was murdered by nazis swiftly, and not saluting or shouting with them was offence enough.
As to the last bit, since Red Army was obviously capable of taking and keeping control of East Europe and didn't begin arming only after Hitler attacked, Buchanan's last sentence is a complete lie. For if Stalin had wanted to occupy East Europe, he could have taken and kept it long before Hitler was out of Vienna, and he needn't pay a penny much less a Tsar's ransom. And again, from the memoirs of survivors, East European refugees fled East to escape Hitler, but only Germans fled West at the advent of the Red Army.
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" ... Allies had given a war guarantee to Rumania. Now any German attack through Poland or Rumania, against Russia, would cause Britain and France to declare war on Germany before Hitler could reach him."
Buchanan really does paint himself a fanatic nazi so blind with hatred born of racism he won't look reality in face. Immediately after Czechoslovakia, Hitler had planned, and instructed his top brass about, invasion of Poland, and the genocide and general destruction thereof; this was around holidays before 1939 arrived. Date of invasion was set and precisely executed. His overtures to Russia had been set in motion but held back because allies were trying their own selves, and Hitler had no plans at any time to attack Russia before taking the rest of Europe. He quite methodically secured Moscow, invaded East Europe, and then turned West after securing North sea by invading Norway and Denmark. He did not attack Russia before taking all channel ports and debated long with himself between invading Britain versus invading Russia, and chose to invade Russia because he needed the farmlands, raw materials he planned to access in and via Russia, and slaves. Invading britain was a matter of ego and prestige, and he preferred to bring Britain to her knees by bombing and so on.
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"And war between Nazi Germany and Britain and France would weaken all three and fertilize the ground for Communist revolution in all three nations. Stalin’s relief and joy can only be imagined."
Complete idiot, Buchanan. He's imagining Europe and her wars as a mirror image of U.S. civil war, and workers of Europe as slaves running loose because their owners are shooting one another instead of riding around with whips to make them work.
Stalin's relief and joy? About his land to be invaded by Hitler's nazi goons? Grow up, Buchanan. Stalin's people rallied to his call to fight for Russia, unlike Hitler who threw millions after millions of Germans he claimed to champion, to death, in trying to destroy Stalingrad and rule Russia.
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"Had Britain never given the war guarantee, the Soviet Union would almost surely have borne the brunt of the blow that fell on France. The Red Army, ravaged by Stalin’s purge of senior officers, might have collapsed. Bolshevism might have been crushed. Communism might have perished in 1940, instead of living on for fifty years and murdering tens of millions more in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. A Hitler-Stalin war might have been the only war in Europe in the 1940s. Tens of millions might never have died terrible deaths in the greatest war in all history."
Hypocrisy extreme from a republican candidate, after Nixon befriended China's most repressive regime, and U.S. markets are hard to shop in if one refuses to buy Chinese products. China does hold the top slot regarding genocide in both Tibet and China, with the other related friend of U.S. a close second having massacred three million in East Bengal while they were still citizens their own.
Also, communism is living long after the fifty years Buchanan credits it, both China and Russia still communist, and Albania too, perhaps.
But the rest of the paragraph is a complete lie, since Hitler intended and planned invasion of rest of Europe before he attacked Russia. "Soviet Union would almost surely have borne the brunt of the blow that fell on France" is a total lie, Hitler wasn't going to leave France free of his boot, and in fact intended to destroy Paris. Communism didn't perish when Hitler attacked Russia, because it had worked to sustain people. Hitler's invading Russia didn't encourage Russians to cheer and throw flowers at nazi military, they fought back.
As disappointing as Buchanan might find truth, and looking at his lies strewn thick through the book he certainly does, most of the world does find fascism far more repugnant than communism, as far as totalitarian regimes go; and like it or not, social security and public schools (of U.S., not U.K.) are a couple of steps in socialist world by a capitalist nation.
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Buchanan does accounting in chapter 12, and giving a short shrift to the millions dead, not even mentioning holocaust and genocides by Hitler, proceeds to describe the real tragedy according to him as he tallies the loss of various empires ruled by "white" man.
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"Poland, trusting in her war guarantee, suffered hundreds of thousands of dead resisting the Nazi-Soviet onslaught in September 1939. The Polish officer corps would be massacred by Stalin’s NKVD in killing fields like Katyn Forest. Poland would be occupied five years by Nazis and become the site of such horrors as Treblinka and Auschwitz. Poland’s Home Army, at the urging of the Red Army on the far side of the Vistula, would rise in Warsaw in 1944. And as that Red Army looked on, refusing to help, the Polish Home Army and Warsaw’s civilian population would suffer losses as heavy as 9/11 every day for two months, and finally be annihilated by the Wehrmacht and the SS."
Everything, except Warsaw rising in 1944 and actions of Red Army, was planned by Hitler as soon as he had invaded Czechoslovakia, and the only thing that could have stopped it wasn't Poland giving in to Hitler's demands, but Poland allowing Red Army passage for defending Poland against Hitler. Not allowing it was why Poland was devastated by nazis. BY DESIGN, planned before 1939.
Buchanan is so antisemitic, so racist that he mentions not Warsaw ghetto uprising, when Jews of the ghetto fought back nazi occupying forces, but only Home Army uprising.
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"The British-French war guarantee of March 31, 1939, that brought Britain, France, and Poland into an alliance against Germany ended in calamity for all three. Britain would have to be rescued and France liberated by the Americans. Poland would be abandoned, first to Hitler then to Stalin."
Usual delusion prevalent in those ignorant amongst the U.S. - it wasn't Britain rescued by U.S. but a truly tripartite victory aided by French resistance and expatriate militaries of several nations operating from Britain.
For if Russia and Britain had given in, instead of fighting Hitler with every means possible, there would be no U.S. - Hitler did intend to take his conquest across the Atlantic, and Dakar is a hop from Brazil. FDR was far seeing and wise in opposing Hitler, but it wasn't only for charity to downtrodden of Europe.
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"Within weeks of Hitler’s taking power came the Reichstag fire, which led to Dachau and the other camps to hold enemies of the regime."
Reichstag fire was theatre arranged and executed by nazis precisely so that the repression could go suddenly in high gear and all opposition, all political parties other than nazi could be exterminated. Antisemitism was, too, intentional, and all repression of Jews planned to lead to extermination of all Jews. Any claims to the contrary are simply lies.
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Buchanan claims that most of German Jews had left before invasion of Poland, and mass deportations and executions only began after invasion of Russia. Whether he's fudging or not, the Jews living in countries occupied or ruled by nazis faced laws prohibiting them from trade, public places including transport and parks and street sidewalks, education, and any other possibility of earning a living or buying food. Their homes were taken, as were their properties, and they had to pay huge sums for exit permits, no guarantee of not being murdered.
Buchanan claims that but for British treaty with Poland, genocide of Jews would not have happened. He lies.
Hitler's plans to invade and occupy Poland and thereafter most of Europe had been set in motion long before British talked with Poland about a defence guarantee. So were his plans to use non Germans, especially Jews and East Europe, but not excepting French, under occupation by nazis, as slaves worked to death in starvation conditions.
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"Was the sacrifice of the empire done willingly as an act of martyrdom? Or was it rather the result of British blundering on a colossal scale?"
Whether it was sacrifice with consciousness of the possibility, or simply a chain of events, concatenation after but unrelated to war, it was definitely not a blunder. Buchanan can argue about whether Lincoln was really about human rights, but that doesn't change the fact of slavery being wrong, and same is true of colonisation, fascism and empires.
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Buchanan ends the empire chapter with
"Where did Hitler declare his determination to destroy the British Empire and “rule the earth”? How was a nation of Germany’s modest size and population to conquer the world? Was there no way to contain Hitler but declare a war in which, as Chamberlain told Joe Kennedy, millions must die? What were Hitler’s real ambitions?"
Frankly, his lies and garbage are tiring, and it's unclear why one should inflict this pain on oneself any further. But yes, Hitler did intend conquest and enslavement of the world beginning with Europe, and Poland was the major planned step after Czechoslovakia.
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Buchanan provides some informative material - about bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, amongst that - and devotes a chapter each to the two men he's writing his revisionist book about, and his chapter on Hitler attempting to whitewash him as just another powerful leader who cared for his people is complete balderdash. His chapter on Churchill has more facts, but he's beating an imaginary fiend - people were never unaware of the particular aspects he's trying to throw limelight on, and while Churchill was at the best amongst those available to lead during the very crucial year when hour looked dark with no light on horizon, Britain knew enough to elect a Clement Attlee as soon as it was looking at end of war. Any view about necessity of nipping another Hitler in the bud is not about vilifying a hero of 1940 or worshiping him, it's simply about inoculation.
"Eisenhower believed the demand for an unconditional surrender at Casablanca extended the war by years and cost countless lives."
Wonder who made Ike believe that Hitler was going to accept a ceasefire without a gift of the Europe he'd conquered by 1941? He didn't even allow his generals to regroup to meet up for a better fight position at Stalingrad, much less withdraw from a city they had devastated completely before they were surrounded and were now about to lose lives of hundreds of thousands of German soldiers in if they obeyed Hitler's orders to not withdraw, but fight to the end.
It's all very well republicans trying to vilify heroes who were President of U.S. who happened to be democrats, since republicans haven't had heroes after Lincoln but have had Nixon and Reagan and so forth - but get real. Chamberlain didn't get peace by giving Hitler Czechoslovakia, what makes anyone think that unconditional surrender was forced on Germany by allies, even if they said that those were the terms?
Hitler wasn't going to allow a defeated Germany as long as he could find anyone at all to fight, despite all the allied bombings - he did push barely teen and elderly males into fighting towards the end, and only killed himself (or so the world has been led to believe, until the recent documentary on television questioning that assumption) because he didn't relocate to Berghof or to his fortress near Berchtesgaden while he could have done so. If he weren't averse to being captured or could have conducted the war from a safe sanctuary, he had every intention of not giving up until Germany was finished.
The recent documentary on television had evidence, from testimonies and physical evidence across the world, that he was flown out of Berlin to Canaries to be transported across South Atlantic via submarine, and lived in a safe hidden private estate on an island still guarded fiercely, that had every feature one would imagine needed to guard such a secret.
Various Germans travelling to various countries across South Atlantic for no particular reason do give one the impression that they think they are covering a high mission.
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"Churchill seemed not to have thought long or deeply over the fate of the continent if Germany, Europe’s ancient barrier to Oriental despotism and barbarism, were annihilated."
Even apart from the racism and fraud there - which is the underlying assumption that Europe wasn't barbaric, or that Europeans hadn't been barbaric in their invasions or colonisation or migrations to other continent's, all of which is so fraudulent an assumption it's ridiculous - anyone thinking nazis had not surpassed every barbarism of past until then, is demented and racist, or just lying.
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Buchanan sings paens of glory of U.S. presidents who, according to him, did nothing when various European nations were repressed within the iron curtain, because they were wise.
"Yet America never went to war with the Soviet Union."
He forgets the covert war waged against USSR by some, using terrorists - labelled otherwise - rented from a "friend" country and provided arms and ammunition procured from still other countries, while U.S. press went on about how USSR was godless and thus invoking wrath of the pious. This was useful in ultimate breakup of various satellites from Russia, which the said pious terrorists took as personal victory and soon were on a rampage with ever widening radius of their realm of activities. U.S. did not object, until they attacked the target that was a turning point, but still the "friend" terrorist factory was funded to the hilt, long after the terror masterminds had been established in security of the west point of the so called friendly nation.
A new revolution in U.S. politics brought in a President that had hackles of all racists go up, and spate of racist attacks and murders across the country; he faced hostility even after he had discovered and quietly removed the terror mastermind, before informing the world.
Buchanan meanwhile probably presents his predecessor - the guy who aallowed an attack to proceed and protected the masterminds relatives even as everyone else in the world was subjected to increasingly hostile treatment by his legislation and procedures copied everywhere - as a model who attacked a third country that did not host terrorists who attacked in U.S. neighbourhood.
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Collection of photographs at the end, with Buchanan quips disguised as quotes.
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As for anyone contending that this is naive, that it's stuff of fiction, that men don't go to war due to lust or revenge, that Kaiser was a peaceful guy forced by Churchill's excitement and Russian mobilisation - the last is nazi attitude and pose about every war Germany inflicted on everyone else; and the rest, check out The Brass Check by Upton Sinclair where he states that in The Moneychangers he'd described J. P. Morgan in every detail, that everyone knew it, and knew the details to be true. Did anyone sue Upton Sinclair for libel? Not for this. And as powerful as was J. P. Morgan, surely no one imagines that Kaiser Wilhelm thought he wasn't that powerful?
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But Buchanan, like a gossip journalist or a man slandering a rape victim who speaks out against him, goes on and on about oscillation of Lloyd George regarding resignation and it's career aspect, as if Germany attacking Belgium was a natural disaster Britain should have watched from ringside, while Germany couldn't possibly have an option of not declaring war on France and Russia after Russia disobeyed Germany in not mobilising.
Germany attacked, before anyone else, after Germany having declared war, before anyone else did.
Buchanan, like all nazis, blames everyone else, other than Germany or Kaiser Wilhelm. One can safely bet he intends to blame everyone else for Hitler's actions too, whether WWII or genocides.
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Buchanan gives reasons why Britain wasn't going to war to honour treaty with Belgium, and those reasons amount to two - one, keeping Germany out of Belgium, and two, preventing destruction of France by Germany.
"If war came, Churchill was determined to violate Belgian neutrality himself by ordering the Royal Navy to blockade Antwerp to prevent its becoming a port of entry for goods destined for Germany."
"As early as 1911, during the second Moroccan crisis, Churchill had confided to Lloyd George his real reason for committing himself morally and secretly to bringing Britain into any Franco-German war.
"It is not for Morocco, nor indeed for Belgium, that I would take part in this terrible business. One cause alone should justify our participation—to prevent France from being trampled down & looted by the Prussian junkers—a disaster ruinous to the world, & swiftly fatal to our country."
None of which amounts to Britain either destroying France or Belgium or attacking Germany, but which all amounts to protecting Britain by protecting her immediate neighbours across the channel and not allowing German war machine to get closer or to destroy the said nrighbours.
"Late Sunday, word came of Berlin’s ultimatum to Brussels. Asquith ordered mobilization. By Monday morning, Lloyd George had deserted the anti-interventionists and enlisted in the war party. Two years later, he would replace Asquith and lead Britain to victory."
So it was Kaiser Wilhelm and his regime that issued ultimatums left and right, to Russia and to Belgium, and declared wars. Buchanan's thesis, of course, isn't that they didn't - it's that British empire made Germany do it - which is not that different from the usual defence every rapist and his lawyers present if and when caught and indicted instead of being lauded and celebrated, to claim that the victim was either making them do it or making it easy.
Buchanan describes, with quotes, how British people's mood changed overnight with the ultimatum Germany served to Belgium, how crowds cheered for war, and were jubilant when Britain declared she wouldn't allow Germany to destroy Belgium and France. How does that lead him to blame Churchill for the war? It cannot. So he takes little peeps, showing the then British PM Asquith, and Lloyd George, both sombre and in tears; then he describes Churchill being exhilarated, jubilant.
This - continuing the parallel - is akin to blaming Accused on the defence lawyer, for her being not blinded in tears as she fought for the rape victim.
Buchanan quotes Sir Edward Grey:-
"“If we are engaged in war, we shall suffer but little more than we shall suffer if we stand aside.”
And pronounces his judgement:-
"Sir Edward was tragically mistaken."
He is not merely unjustified in this judgement, he's plain asinine. For, who and what guarantees that if Britain had allowed Germany to take West Europe and East, crush Russia and Balkans, and unite formally with Austria or to subjugate even that, then Britain would be safe?
Buchanan gets ridiculous enough, smug enough to state
"For it was the British decision to send an army across the Channel to fight in Western Europe, for the first time in exactly one hundred years, that led to the defeat of the Schlieffen Plan, four years of trench warfare, America’s entry, Germany’s collapse in the autumn of 1918, the abdication of the Kaiser, the dismemberment of Germany at Versailles, and the rise to power of a veteran of the Western Front who, four years after the war’s end, was unreconciled to his nation’s defeat. “It cannot be that two million Germans should have fallen in vain,” cried Adolf Hitler in 1922. “No, we do not pardon, we demand—vengeance.”"
Right - so if only Britain had allowed Germany to take France, Russia and rest of Europe, without lifting a finger to object, then Germany would have learned humility and humanity, and not wanted revenge against any subjects for any imaginary or otherwise injuries? Not quite justified, is that, as assumptions go? What crime had Poland or Prussia committed before Germans went "crusading" East of their homeland, massacred everyone and took over the lands, while French and British crusaders were fighting - in Jerusalem?
Buchanan opines
"If Britain must go to war, Liberals believed, better that they lead her and conclude the peace. The Liberal Imperialists steered their country to war, and, rather than risk the loss of power, the Little Englanders went along."
"Little Englanders"???????? Hallooooo, didn't the book begin with a preface lamenting loss of the British empire, much praised by Buchanan? Or is he contending that England would have grown to swallow the rest of the world, if only they'd allowed Germany to trample continent of Europe and subjugate it for good?
Buchanan gives British "Germanophobia" as a point to indict Britain for going to war - again, bringing readers to question, is he forgetting Germany issued ultimatums, attacked, worse (- sent Lenin on a German train deep into Russia, which caused a chain of events leading to not only fall of the Romanovs but massacre of hundreds of them, all closely related to Kaiser Wilhelm -), none of which was either due to how British or anyone else felt about Germany, nor was it calculated, exactly, to change that phobia?
He repeats that after asserting that Britain was seeking to profit while France and Russia bore the cost of fighting Germany:-
"For Britain, World War I was not a war of necessity but a war of choice. The Germans did not want war with Britain, nor did they seek to destroy the British Empire. They feared a two-front war against a rising Russian Empire and a France resolute upon revenge for 1870 and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Berlin would have paid a high price for British neutrality."
Again, who gave such guarantees to Buchanan or to anyone, and what price such guarantees from a man like Kaiser Wilhelm who caused the Romanovs massacre apart from millions of soldiers, and deliberately set forth a chain of events in Russia that he knew would lead to such devastation? Leftists would of course not indict him for setting lenin loose in Russia after transporting him securely in a German train deep into Russia, since they'd argue this set workers free in Russia - but then they would be forgetting conveniently that he did this to Russia, not to his own kingdom, where serfdoms were still in place in eastern part, and what's more, hitler fully intemded to extend the serfdom to include all europe in service of Germans, eventually extending the serfdom to the whole world.
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Buchanan heads a section "WHY LIBERALS WENT ALONG", describing how the mood changed "suddenly", and everyone in Britain thought this was a moral war that had to be fought.
"Once Belgium became Britain’s cause, Liberals who had opposed war only hours before enthusiastically joined the crusade. Three days after war was declared, H. G. Wells wrote in the Liberal Daily News, “Every sword drawn against Germany is a sword drawn for peace.… The defeat of Germany may open the way to disarmament and peace throughout the earth ….” The Daily News echoed Wells, “We have no quarrel with the German people … no, it is not the people with whom we are at war, it is the tyranny which has held them in its vice.” To the News, the Germans were a good people; it was the “despots and diplomatists” who had brought on the war. Writes historian Correlli Barnett:
"The shameful war out of which Britain must at all costs keep had thus swiftly changed its nature to a war of Good against Evil. Spiritual exaltation was now manifested at a temperature not seen since the religious transports of the original evangelical movement of the early nineteenth century. As a writer in the Daily News put it in September 1914, “Humanity is going to pay a great price, but not in vain … [T]he reward is its liberty and a larger, nobler life.”"
One gets the idea - the reader is supposed to join in the ridicule of such thinking, and wonder how the "liberals" went so wrong!
Where in the "liberal" handbook is it printed that one must watch the rest of the world being butchered without lifting one's finger in anything but a peaceful protest? Or, not even that, since a Hitler or a Kaiser Wilhelm might just be provoked into massacring another twenty million due to that little finger you raised in protest?
Buchanan claims liberals had no power:-
"Despite their sudden enthusiasm for war when Belgium was invaded, the Liberal Party and the people had no vote in Britain’s decision to enter the bloodiest conflict in Western history. Writes Taylor,
"[T]he war came as though King George V still possessed the undiminished prerogatives of Henry VIII. At 10:30 P.M. on 4 August 1914, the king held a privy council at Buckingham Palace which was attended by only one minister and two court officials. This council sanctioned the proclamation of a state of war from 11 P.M. That was all. The Cabinet played no part once it had resolved to defend the neutrality of Belgium. It did not consider the ultimatum to Germany, which Sir Edward Grey … sent after consulting only the Prime Minister, Asquith, and perhaps not even him. Nor did the Cabinet authorize the declaration of war.… The parliament … did not give formal approval to the government’s acts until it voted a credit of (100) million (pounds)… on 6 August."
To begin with, this is twisting the parliamentary system of Britain and her monarchy that's formal - liberals could have changed it next working day in the parliament if - IF - they thought the king was wrong, or had gone too far; as to his signing at ten p.m. with only a couple of ministers in attendance, surely Taylor or Buchanan aren't claiming he should have waited to call a session of the parliament or the Liberals, or worse, woken them up and insisted they arrive to watch him sign?
They'd brought it for him to sign, it wasn't he who'd twisted their elbows, but perhaps Taylor and Buchanan counted on ignorant readership that can be confused about the difference between Kaiser versus British monarchy.
And Henry the VIIIth isn't known for wars with Germany. So presumably invoking his name was a calculated move to discredit the British government's fighting Germany by making it seem comparable to what Henry the VIIIth is known most for, as far as those gullible enough to swallow Taylor-Buchanan thesis goes.
"“More astonishing, when viewed though modern eyes,” writes David Fromkin, were the reflexive decisions of the Dominions, thousands of miles from Europe, to send their sons to fight and die in a war against an enemy that had neither attacked nor threatened them or the British Empire."
Hm. Is it Buchanan's contention, or David Fromkin's, that a war proclaimed by any other nation, since or before, has been by general public vote, with anyone objecting or pacifist allowed to stay out? For that matter, is every citizen of any country allowed to have a say in exactly how much tax one would pay, and exactly what proportion of that can be spent on war, say, against an Asian country?
No, they're - as usual - counting on a lazy and ignorant readership taking cue from thrir attitude to look down smugly at the British empire. Ever ask how natives of the land feel about the invasion by Mayflower and subsequent killers of the so called "New world"? Did they vote for it? Have no illusions, the so called New world isn't discovered, it's colonised by Europe after massacre of natives, no different from what Germany did to Poland and Prussia.
Oh, now one gets why Buchanan is arguing for free hand for Germany colonizing Europe without British interference!
Buchanan gives reasons why Britain wasn't going to war to honour treaty with Belgium, and those reasons amount to two - one, keeping Germany out of Belgium, and two, preventing destruction of France by Germany.
"If war came, Churchill was determined to violate Belgian neutrality himself by ordering the Royal Navy to blockade Antwerp to prevent its becoming a port of entry for goods destined for Germany."
"As early as 1911, during the second Moroccan crisis, Churchill had confided to Lloyd George his real reason for committing himself morally and secretly to bringing Britain into any Franco-German war.
"It is not for Morocco, nor indeed for Belgium, that I would take part in this terrible business. One cause alone should justify our participation—to prevent France from being trampled down & looted by the Prussian junkers—a disaster ruinous to the world, & swiftly fatal to our country."
None of which amounts to Britain either destroying France or Belgium or attacking Germany, but which all amounts to protecting Britain by protecting her immediate neighbours across the channel and not allowing German war machine to get closer or to destroy the said nrighbours.
"Late Sunday, word came of Berlin’s ultimatum to Brussels. Asquith ordered mobilization. By Monday morning, Lloyd George had deserted the anti-interventionists and enlisted in the war party. Two years later, he would replace Asquith and lead Britain to victory."
So it was Kaiser Wilhelm and his regime that issued ultimatums left and right, to Russia and to Belgium, and declared wars. Buchanan's thesis, of course, isn't that they didn't - it's that British empire made Germany do it - which is not that different from the usual defence every rapist and his lawyers present if and when caught and indicted instead of being lauded and celebrated, to claim that the victim was either making them do it or making it easy.
Buchanan describes, with quotes, how British people's mood changed overnight with the ultimatum Germany served to Belgium, how crowds cheered for war, and were jubilant when Britain declared she wouldn't allow Germany to destroy Belgium and France. How does that lead him to blame Churchill for the war? It cannot. So he takes little peeps, showing the then British PM Asquith, and Lloyd George, both sombre and in tears; then he describes Churchill being exhilarated, jubilant.
This - continuing the parallel - is akin to blaming Accused on the defence lawyer, for her being not blinded in tears as she fought for the rape victim.
Buchanan quotes Sir Edward Grey:-
"“If we are engaged in war, we shall suffer but little more than we shall suffer if we stand aside.”
And pronounces his judgement:-
"Sir Edward was tragically mistaken."
He is not merely unjustified in this judgement, he's plain asinine. For, who and what guarantees that if Britain had allowed Germany to take West Europe and East, crush Russia and Balkans, and unite formally with Austria or to subjugate even that, then Britain would be safe?
Buchanan gets ridiculous enough, smug enough to state
"For it was the British decision to send an army across the Channel to fight in Western Europe, for the first time in exactly one hundred years, that led to the defeat of the Schlieffen Plan, four years of trench warfare, America’s entry, Germany’s collapse in the autumn of 1918, the abdication of the Kaiser, the dismemberment of Germany at Versailles, and the rise to power of a veteran of the Western Front who, four years after the war’s end, was unreconciled to his nation’s defeat. “It cannot be that two million Germans should have fallen in vain,” cried Adolf Hitler in 1922. “No, we do not pardon, we demand—vengeance.”"
Right - so if only Britain had allowed Germany to take France, Russia and rest of Europe, without lifting a finger to object, then Germany would have learned humility and humanity, and not wanted revenge against any subjects for any imaginary or otherwise injuries? Not quite justified, is that, as assumptions go? What crime had Poland or Prussia committed before Germans went "crusading" East of their homeland, massacred everyone and took over the lands, while French and British crusaders were fighting - in Jerusalem?
Buchanan opines
"If Britain must go to war, Liberals believed, better that they lead her and conclude the peace. The Liberal Imperialists steered their country to war, and, rather than risk the loss of power, the Little Englanders went along."
"Little Englanders"???????? Hallooooo, didn't the book begin with a preface lamenting loss of the British empire, much praised by Buchanan? Or is he contending that England would have grown to swallow the rest of the world, if only they'd allowed Germany to trample continent of Europe and subjugate it for good?
Buchanan gives British "Germanophobia" as a point to indict Britain for going to war - again, bringing readers to question, is he forgetting Germany issued ultimatums, attacked, worse (- sent Lenin on a German train deep into Russia, which caused a chain of events leading to not only fall of the Romanovs but massacre of hundreds of them, all closely related to Kaiser Wilhelm -), none of which was either due to how British or anyone else felt about Germany, nor was it calculated, exactly, to change that phobia?
He repeats that after asserting that Britain was seeking to profit while France and Russia bore the cost of fighting Germany:-
"For Britain, World War I was not a war of necessity but a war of choice. The Germans did not want war with Britain, nor did they seek to destroy the British Empire. They feared a two-front war against a rising Russian Empire and a France resolute upon revenge for 1870 and the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Berlin would have paid a high price for British neutrality."
Again, who gave such guarantees to Buchanan or to anyone, and what price such guarantees from a man like Kaiser Wilhelm who caused the Romanovs massacre apart from millions of soldiers, and deliberately set forth a chain of events in Russia that he knew would lead to such devastation? Leftists would of course not indict him for setting lenin loose in Russia after transporting him securely in a German train deep into Russia, since they'd argue this set workers free in Russia - but then they would be forgetting conveniently that he did this to Russia, not to his own kingdom, where serfdoms were still in place in eastern part, and what's more, hitler fully intemded to extend the serfdom to include all europe in service of Germans, eventually extending the serfdom to the whole world.
................................................................................................
Buchanan heads a section "WHY LIBERALS WENT ALONG", describing how the mood changed "suddenly", and everyone in Britain thought this was a moral war that had to be fought.
"Once Belgium became Britain’s cause, Liberals who had opposed war only hours before enthusiastically joined the crusade. Three days after war was declared, H. G. Wells wrote in the Liberal Daily News, “Every sword drawn against Germany is a sword drawn for peace.… The defeat of Germany may open the way to disarmament and peace throughout the earth ….” The Daily News echoed Wells, “We have no quarrel with the German people … no, it is not the people with whom we are at war, it is the tyranny which has held them in its vice.” To the News, the Germans were a good people; it was the “despots and diplomatists” who had brought on the war. Writes historian Correlli Barnett:
"The shameful war out of which Britain must at all costs keep had thus swiftly changed its nature to a war of Good against Evil. Spiritual exaltation was now manifested at a temperature not seen since the religious transports of the original evangelical movement of the early nineteenth century. As a writer in the Daily News put it in September 1914, “Humanity is going to pay a great price, but not in vain … [T]he reward is its liberty and a larger, nobler life.”"
One gets the idea - the reader is supposed to join in the ridicule of such thinking, and wonder how the "liberals" went so wrong!
Where in the "liberal" handbook is it printed that one must watch the rest of the world being butchered without lifting one's finger in anything but a peaceful protest? Or, not even that, since a Hitler or a Kaiser Wilhelm might just be provoked into massacring another twenty million due to that little finger you raised in protest?
Buchanan claims liberals had no power:-
"Despite their sudden enthusiasm for war when Belgium was invaded, the Liberal Party and the people had no vote in Britain’s decision to enter the bloodiest conflict in Western history. Writes Taylor,
"[T]he war came as though King George V still possessed the undiminished prerogatives of Henry VIII. At 10:30 P.M. on 4 August 1914, the king held a privy council at Buckingham Palace which was attended by only one minister and two court officials. This council sanctioned the proclamation of a state of war from 11 P.M. That was all. The Cabinet played no part once it had resolved to defend the neutrality of Belgium. It did not consider the ultimatum to Germany, which Sir Edward Grey … sent after consulting only the Prime Minister, Asquith, and perhaps not even him. Nor did the Cabinet authorize the declaration of war.… The parliament … did not give formal approval to the government’s acts until it voted a credit of (100) million (pounds)… on 6 August."
To begin with, this is twisting the parliamentary system of Britain and her monarchy that's formal - liberals could have changed it next working day in the parliament if - IF - they thought the king was wrong, or had gone too far; as to his signing at ten p.m. with only a couple of ministers in attendance, surely Taylor or Buchanan aren't claiming he should have waited to call a session of the parliament or the Liberals, or worse, woken them up and insisted they arrive to watch him sign?
They'd brought it for him to sign, it wasn't he who'd twisted their elbows, but perhaps Taylor and Buchanan counted on ignorant readership that can be confused about the difference between Kaiser versus British monarchy.
And Henry the VIIIth isn't known for wars with Germany. So presumably invoking his name was a calculated move to discredit the British government's fighting Germany by making it seem comparable to what Henry the VIIIth is known most for, as far as those gullible enough to swallow Taylor-Buchanan thesis goes.
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It would be ridiculously easy to smash this idea that George V had such powers as to ride roughshod over his people and their representatives. Just one pointer would do.
Less than five years down the line, there was a possibility and an opportunity to save the lives of the Romanov couple who were, each, his first cousins, and their children; it wasn't that means were lacking, it was that George V backed down, afraid it could lead to a revolution in his nation.
If he'd had one thousandth of the power U.S. handed a president when the nation felt attacked, George V could have brought the Romanov family - even the whole clan, for that matter - brought over, treated royally, and set up nicely in a colony, safe; for that matter, for a fraction of the power Buchanan attributes him, he could have taken over Russia and sent Lenin packing.
It would be ridiculously easy to smash this idea that George V had such powers as to ride roughshod over his people and their representatives. Just one pointer would do.
Less than five years down the line, there was a possibility and an opportunity to save the lives of the Romanov couple who were, each, his first cousins, and their children; it wasn't that means were lacking, it was that George V backed down, afraid it could lead to a revolution in his nation.
If he'd had one thousandth of the power U.S. handed a president when the nation felt attacked, George V could have brought the Romanov family - even the whole clan, for that matter - brought over, treated royally, and set up nicely in a colony, safe; for that matter, for a fraction of the power Buchanan attributes him, he could have taken over Russia and sent Lenin packing.
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They go further."“More astonishing, when viewed though modern eyes,” writes David Fromkin, were the reflexive decisions of the Dominions, thousands of miles from Europe, to send their sons to fight and die in a war against an enemy that had neither attacked nor threatened them or the British Empire."
Hm. Is it Buchanan's contention, or David Fromkin's, that a war proclaimed by any other nation, since or before, has been by general public vote, with anyone objecting or pacifist allowed to stay out? For that matter, is every citizen of any country allowed to have a say in exactly how much tax one would pay, and exactly what proportion of that can be spent on war, say, against an Asian country?
No, they're - as usual - counting on a lazy and ignorant readership taking cue from thrir attitude to look down smugly at the British empire. Ever ask how natives of the land feel about the invasion by Mayflower and subsequent killers of the so called "New world"? Did they vote for it? Have no illusions, the so called New world isn't discovered, it's colonised by Europe after massacre of natives, no different from what Germany did to Poland and Prussia.
Oh, now one gets why Buchanan is arguing for free hand for Germany colonizing Europe without British interference!
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Buchanan asserts:-
"NEITHER THE KAISER NOR Chancellor Bethmann is blameless for what the Great War historian Jacques Barzun calls the “blow that hurled the modern world on its course of self-destruction.”93 But neither entered it with the “zest” of the First Lord."
Based on
"A European war, the Kaiser believed and hoped, could still be avoided. He implored his cousin, the Czar, to rescind his order for full mobilization, as Russian mobilization meant German mobilization, and under the Schlieffen Plan, that meant immediate war on France if she did not declare neutrality. And that meant marching through Belgium, which risked war with Britain and her worldwide empire."
Which implies that Kaiser Wilhelm couldn't control his own regime, that his military plans were stone tablets that coukdn t be displaced much less erased, and they had to be obeyed and more by not only Germany but Russia and France as well, else, he was as bound to attack them as a beast provoked would attack without further thought.
Hence the blame lies, as per Buchanan, because Britain had a Churchill excited at the prospect of war, while Germany only had a sad Kaiser Wilhelm who had to attack everyone who didn't obey his orders, including every other royal?
Are we discussing, in Kaiser Wilhelm, a head of a European government, of twentieth century, or violent sadist man who blames his wife when he's broken her bones, for not obeying him and thus forcing him to throw her off the roof? If, in attacking her, he is injured and later imprisoned for a murderous assault, is then his vengeance in attempting to kill her after his release, her fault for not having lied to the law, never mind medical testimony or eyewitnesses?
How primitive this author, but then what else were or are nazis!
Buchanan asserts:-
"NEITHER THE KAISER NOR Chancellor Bethmann is blameless for what the Great War historian Jacques Barzun calls the “blow that hurled the modern world on its course of self-destruction.”93 But neither entered it with the “zest” of the First Lord."
Based on
"A European war, the Kaiser believed and hoped, could still be avoided. He implored his cousin, the Czar, to rescind his order for full mobilization, as Russian mobilization meant German mobilization, and under the Schlieffen Plan, that meant immediate war on France if she did not declare neutrality. And that meant marching through Belgium, which risked war with Britain and her worldwide empire."
Which implies that Kaiser Wilhelm couldn't control his own regime, that his military plans were stone tablets that coukdn t be displaced much less erased, and they had to be obeyed and more by not only Germany but Russia and France as well, else, he was as bound to attack them as a beast provoked would attack without further thought.
Hence the blame lies, as per Buchanan, because Britain had a Churchill excited at the prospect of war, while Germany only had a sad Kaiser Wilhelm who had to attack everyone who didn't obey his orders, including every other royal?
Are we discussing, in Kaiser Wilhelm, a head of a European government, of twentieth century, or violent sadist man who blames his wife when he's broken her bones, for not obeying him and thus forcing him to throw her off the roof? If, in attacking her, he is injured and later imprisoned for a murderous assault, is then his vengeance in attempting to kill her after his release, her fault for not having lied to the law, never mind medical testimony or eyewitnesses?
How primitive this author, but then what else were or are nazis!
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" ... if France, with a population of 39 million, was maintaining an army the size of Germany’s, which had seventy million people, which of the two nations was the more militaristic?"
Germans had a history since over a thousand years that repeated the attack, massacre, take over land, reproduce, populate, crowd, and repeat mode; France and Russia, and every country on the continent, had reason to fear Germany looking their way for a bit more lebensraum - and if one meets Germans today, one still hears them complaining about how much empty space france has, how crowded Germany is, how much German people need more land .... if they think you are unlikely to know anything, and wouldn't connect such pleading with holocaust.
So yes, France had every reason to have military strength to match that of Germany. In Switzerland in fact, military service was historically compulsory, with good reason. And one of the reasons Russia did not succumb in WWII was, nazis were surprised by Russian military strength, over and over.
Germans had a history since over a thousand years that repeated the attack, massacre, take over land, reproduce, populate, crowd, and repeat mode; France and Russia, and every country on the continent, had reason to fear Germany looking their way for a bit more lebensraum - and if one meets Germans today, one still hears them complaining about how much empty space france has, how crowded Germany is, how much German people need more land .... if they think you are unlikely to know anything, and wouldn't connect such pleading with holocaust.
So yes, France had every reason to have military strength to match that of Germany. In Switzerland in fact, military service was historically compulsory, with good reason. And one of the reasons Russia did not succumb in WWII was, nazis were surprised by Russian military strength, over and over.
................................................................................................
"Grey’s reason for tying Britain’s destiny to France was fear that a German victory would make Belgium, Holland, and Denmark vassals, give the High Seas Fleet a berth on the Channel coast, and make the Kaiser “supreme over all the Continent of Europe and Asia Minor.” “[But] was that really the German objective? Was the Kaiser really Napoleon?” asks Ferguson."
Has Ferguson, or Buchanan, tried facing a caged beast at lunchtime, or tried grappling with a man twice their size while he is poised with a huge knife and is as automatically set in motion as Buchanan's much loved Schlieffen plan, while they, Ferguson or Buchanan, have no weapons to fight, but simply stand their ground as the beast or armed giant springs? After all, they haven't read a notarized testimonial asserting he is happy to attack, and he could very well be roaring with his deep anguish at them forcing him to devour them, so the Buchanan 2.0 and Ferguson 2.0 could blame them for not obeying the beast. After they've been mauled, that is.
"On July 31, in the last hours before war, the Kaiser wired his cousins, Czar Nicholas II and King George V, in desperation and near despair:
"It is not I who bears the responsibility for the disaster which now threatens the entire civilized world. Even at this moment the decision to stave it off lies with you. No one threatens the honour and power of Russia. The friendship for you and your empire which I have borne from the deathbed of my grandfather has always been totally sacred to me … [T]he peace of Europe can still be maintained by you, if Russia decides to halt the military measures which threaten Germany and Austro-Hungary."
Notice the hitleresque blaming others, and assuming everyone else would agree that Germany attacking was only natural in view of Russia "mobilising", which is far short of attacking? Russian forces mobilising could be answered by Germans mobilising, IF Germany was threatened by Russia, which never was the case; Russia mobilised precisely to defend Serbia against Germany joining Austrian attack on Serbia. If Kaiser Wilhelm didn't want the war, he could just say no, tell his military to hold on and stand ready, until further orders, instead of everyone assuming that Germany attacking was a law of nature. Are we discussing civilised humans?
Or is Buchanan really defending kkk burning down black churches on Sunday with congregations locked inside, using code language of Kaiser and Churchill?
................................................................................................
Buchanan argues strenuously to the effect that Germany was not out to conquer, and was not belligerent - and then gives the paltry demands set forth as Germany attacked France, having decided to annex Northern France:-
"A) A war indemnity from France for fifteen or twenty years to prevent her rearmament and a commercial treaty giving German products equal access to French markets.
"B) An economic association of France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria-Hungary, Poland, and perhaps Italy, Sweden, and Norway, led by Germany; a customs union, not a political union.120 Fifteen years earlier, the Kaiser had proposed a United States of Europe to challenge America for world economic supremacy.
"C) Cession to Germany of territories to enable her to unite her African colonies into a single bloc.
"D) A Holland independent, but united economically with Germany, and perhaps a defensive alliance.
"E) Poland and the Baltic states to be extracted from Russia with Poland becoming independent. The Baltic states would either be given independence or be annexed by Germany or Poland."
This sounds like not subjugation of Europe to anyone not Nazi? What exactly is left out, salad dressing of the cooked goose being demanded?
................................................................................................
"“[E]ven in anticipating a military victory,” writes American historian David Calleo, “Germany’s actual territorial expansion in Europe was to be relatively modest.”122 Would these war aims have posed a threat to Britain?
"“Did they imply a Napoleonic strategy?” asks Ferguson.
"“Hardly. All the economic clauses of the September Programme implied was the creation—some eighty years early, it might be said—of a German-dominated European customs union.… Germany’s European project was not one with which Britain, with her maritime empire intact, could not have lived.”
"German objectives, had Britain remained out, would not in fact have posed a direct threat to the Empire; the reduction of Russian power in Eastern Europe, the creation of a Central European Customs Union, and acquisition of French colonies—these were all goals that were complementary to British interests."
Funny, do they - Buchanan and those he quotes - forget the story about the guy who was silent when "they" had come for others, until there was no one left to protest when "they" came for him? They being Gestapo.
And do Buchanan and his guys think that a Germany with all of Europe under control, would then find it difficult to invade Britain?
Are they trying to fool only others? Or are plain dishonest?
"Grey’s reason for tying Britain’s destiny to France was fear that a German victory would make Belgium, Holland, and Denmark vassals, give the High Seas Fleet a berth on the Channel coast, and make the Kaiser “supreme over all the Continent of Europe and Asia Minor.” “[But] was that really the German objective? Was the Kaiser really Napoleon?” asks Ferguson."
Has Ferguson, or Buchanan, tried facing a caged beast at lunchtime, or tried grappling with a man twice their size while he is poised with a huge knife and is as automatically set in motion as Buchanan's much loved Schlieffen plan, while they, Ferguson or Buchanan, have no weapons to fight, but simply stand their ground as the beast or armed giant springs? After all, they haven't read a notarized testimonial asserting he is happy to attack, and he could very well be roaring with his deep anguish at them forcing him to devour them, so the Buchanan 2.0 and Ferguson 2.0 could blame them for not obeying the beast. After they've been mauled, that is.
"On July 31, in the last hours before war, the Kaiser wired his cousins, Czar Nicholas II and King George V, in desperation and near despair:
"It is not I who bears the responsibility for the disaster which now threatens the entire civilized world. Even at this moment the decision to stave it off lies with you. No one threatens the honour and power of Russia. The friendship for you and your empire which I have borne from the deathbed of my grandfather has always been totally sacred to me … [T]he peace of Europe can still be maintained by you, if Russia decides to halt the military measures which threaten Germany and Austro-Hungary."
Notice the hitleresque blaming others, and assuming everyone else would agree that Germany attacking was only natural in view of Russia "mobilising", which is far short of attacking? Russian forces mobilising could be answered by Germans mobilising, IF Germany was threatened by Russia, which never was the case; Russia mobilised precisely to defend Serbia against Germany joining Austrian attack on Serbia. If Kaiser Wilhelm didn't want the war, he could just say no, tell his military to hold on and stand ready, until further orders, instead of everyone assuming that Germany attacking was a law of nature. Are we discussing civilised humans?
Or is Buchanan really defending kkk burning down black churches on Sunday with congregations locked inside, using code language of Kaiser and Churchill?
................................................................................................
Buchanan argues strenuously to the effect that Germany was not out to conquer, and was not belligerent - and then gives the paltry demands set forth as Germany attacked France, having decided to annex Northern France:-
"A) A war indemnity from France for fifteen or twenty years to prevent her rearmament and a commercial treaty giving German products equal access to French markets.
"B) An economic association of France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria-Hungary, Poland, and perhaps Italy, Sweden, and Norway, led by Germany; a customs union, not a political union.120 Fifteen years earlier, the Kaiser had proposed a United States of Europe to challenge America for world economic supremacy.
"C) Cession to Germany of territories to enable her to unite her African colonies into a single bloc.
"D) A Holland independent, but united economically with Germany, and perhaps a defensive alliance.
"E) Poland and the Baltic states to be extracted from Russia with Poland becoming independent. The Baltic states would either be given independence or be annexed by Germany or Poland."
This sounds like not subjugation of Europe to anyone not Nazi? What exactly is left out, salad dressing of the cooked goose being demanded?
................................................................................................
"“[E]ven in anticipating a military victory,” writes American historian David Calleo, “Germany’s actual territorial expansion in Europe was to be relatively modest.”122 Would these war aims have posed a threat to Britain?
"“Did they imply a Napoleonic strategy?” asks Ferguson.
"“Hardly. All the economic clauses of the September Programme implied was the creation—some eighty years early, it might be said—of a German-dominated European customs union.… Germany’s European project was not one with which Britain, with her maritime empire intact, could not have lived.”
"German objectives, had Britain remained out, would not in fact have posed a direct threat to the Empire; the reduction of Russian power in Eastern Europe, the creation of a Central European Customs Union, and acquisition of French colonies—these were all goals that were complementary to British interests."
Funny, do they - Buchanan and those he quotes - forget the story about the guy who was silent when "they" had come for others, until there was no one left to protest when "they" came for him? They being Gestapo.
And do Buchanan and his guys think that a Germany with all of Europe under control, would then find it difficult to invade Britain?
Are they trying to fool only others? Or are plain dishonest?
................................................................................................
"Germany, as the most powerful nation in Europe, aligned with a free Poland that owed its existence to Germany, would have been the western bulwark against any Russian drive into Europe. There would have been no Hitler and no Stalin. Other evils would have arisen, but how could the first half of the twentieth century have produced more evil than it did?"
What's to guarantee that when you allow the beast to feed on your neighbours and their children, it will not turn on yours?
In 1918,
"Arriving in Paris with a mandate for no mercy, Lloyd George found his resolve to impose a harsh peace more than matched by Georges Clemenceau, “the Tiger of France,” whose ravaged nation had lost 1.3 million of its sons.
"The Tiger had one great love—France; and one great hate—Germany. As a young man of twenty-nine he had seen Paris under the heel of the German invader, and the smoke billowing up from the brutal burning of the palace at St. Cloud. As an old man of seventy-two, he had seen the gray German hosts pour into his beloved France. He was determined that it should not happen again. Motivated though he was by this great hate, he was not so vindictive as Marshal Foch or President Poincaré."
So Upton Sinclair, in the World's End series, was incorrect, blaming it all on France - British population, too, had demanded that Germany pay for the war she began, after all.
"Only on the insistence of Lloyd George, who reportedly said he would no more transfer Upper Silesia to the Poles “than he would give a clock to a monkey,” was a plebiscite held in those lands that had been under German sovereignty for centuries. In the plebiscite, 60 percent of the people voted to stay with Germany, but five-sixths of the industrial area and almost all the mines were ceded to Warsaw. A disgusted British observer, Sir Robert Donald, called the plebiscite a “tragic farce” and the stripping of Upper Silesia from Germany “robbery under arms.”"
Notice the "lands that had been under German sovereignty for centuries", in other words, invaded and occupied, with land owners massacred and natives subjected to serfdom. Notice the calling Poles "a monkey" by Lloyd George, a denigration of the over sixty percent of population of Silesia that was of course in accord with German racism. And notice the "In the plebiscite, 60 percent of the people voted to stay with Germany" not mentioning if the Poles had voted for Germany under duress, believing they'd be kicked out from the ancestral lands their familes had lived on and worked for millennia, and lose their poor dwellings, unless they voted for Germany.
"The Hanseatic League port city of Danzig, German for centuries, was declared a Free City and placed under League of Nations administration and Polish control. East Prussia was separated from Germany by a “Polish Corridor” that put a million Germans under Warsaw’s rule."
Never mind the prior millennia when, before Germans invaded, the region was not German, but only think of centuries when it was German? In line with justifying the invasion of "New worlds" by Europe, isn't it, never mind massacres of natives, taking their lands, penning them in a corner like a zoo, ....
And yes, this adherence to recent centuries serves antisemitism well in forgetting Roman atrocities against jews in driving them out after centuries of persecution during Roman occupation, persecution which included thousands of crucifixion, and justifying Arab hatred of Israel because they've only sold the land, which isn't as good as Germans massacring populations to acquire ownership of lands East!
And while speaking of "million Germans under Warsaw’s rule", how about the majority on the same land that was the poor, therefore unconsidered, Polish several millions who worked the lands, while the million Germans supervised and prospered on fruits of serf labour?
Most of all, notice these precisely are all excuses Hitler gave justifying his vengeance, which are presented here so later Buchanan can exonerate him while blaming Churchill for - what exactly? That Hitler survived, unlike the millions he used his "final solution" to finish off, after robbing them of everything including food, clothes, teeth, hair and life, never mind properties and jobs and families?
In Germany one can still meet people blaming scientists who "did not help Germany because he was friend of Einstein", implicitly giving the visitor to understand that being a friend of Einstein was a criminal aberration, of course!
"Versailles stripped from Germany one-tenth of her people and one-eighth of her territory."
Notice him not mentioning that the said territory was annexed by Germany for a lebensraum and occupied by Germans who lorded, while natives worked; and that Germans had migrated from heart of Germany to populate these lands taken from others.
"Germany’s overseas empire, the third largest on Earth, was wholly confiscated. All private property of German citizens in German colonies was declared forfeit."
And yet one meets Germans, in Germany, justifying WWII "because Germany never had colonies, British and French had colonies". Of course, they say this to thise they expect to be ignorant because German racism, taught by nazis to obedient people who havent given it up, makes them firmly believe intellectual virtues, too, adhere to Hitler's model of desirable looks.
They forget Hitler praised German looks, but did not approve of knowledge or intellect.
"Germany’s African colonies were divided among South Africa, Britain, and France. Germany’s rivers were internationalized and she was forced to open her home market to Allied imports, but denied equal access to Allied markets."
Wasn't this merely the model Germany had demanded France agree to, as cost of Germany not attacking, except in reverse? As mentioned by other writers on the topic, terms of Versailles were far less brutal than those imposed by Germany from opponents in any treaty after Germany won any war, or even Brest-Litovsk for that matter.
"Keynes, who was with the British delegation, would return home to write The Economic Consequences of the Peace, the savage book charging the Allied leaders with having crafted a vindictive peace that must, by crushing Germany with debt, set the stage for a new war."
Germany wasn't crushed, Germany was spending millions in gold marks towards provoking French workers into violent unrest while spreading propaganda about German babies starving, and as to disarmament, Germany hid arms and ammunition in monasteries, to come out for helping nazi battles against socialist and other workers, years later. As to reparations, again, Germany spent gold marks in millions for propaganda about allied vengeance and German inability to pay, but didn't pay; however, Germany looted lands occupied by nazi Germany to horrendous billions, including food and manufactured goods and art, gold and gems and furniture, just everything possible.
"Forcing the Germans to confess to a historic crime and agree to a lie—that they alone were to blame for the war—was as foolish as it was unjust."
That sentence is a lie, as is the last sentence in the same paragraph:-
"Though he had foolishly given the Austrians a blank check to act against Serbia, when the Austrian archduke was murdered by Serb nationalists on June 28, 1914, by the last days of July, no monarch in Europe was trying more desperately to arrest Europe’s plunge to war."
Lies, because Germany gave ultimatums to Russia and France and Belgium, demanding they obey, alternative being Germany attacked. To claim Kaiser did all he could to avoid war, is to accept that Germany had a right to order every European nation and attack those that would not be servile; and Buchanan, whether he accepts this explicitly or not, is certainly seeking to impose this on the readership.
Such servitude was expected towards "white" males by all females and all non"white" races, once, and this era is what he laments as having passed, whether in U.S. or in the world. Hence he seeks to find where this loss of authority of "white" males occurred, and he sees Germany as the epitome of the "white", and Europe disobeying German diktat and blaming Germany for attacking the disobedient neighbours as " as foolish as it was unjust".
"Today, men do not appreciate what Versailles meant to the Germans, who, triumphant in the east, believed they had laid down their arms and accepted an armistice and peace in the west based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points. British Labour leader Sir Roy Denman offers this analogy:
"These terms are difficult to bring home to British readers. But, supposing that Britain had lost the U-boat war in 1917 and Germany had imposed an equivalent peace; it could have meant British recognition that its policy of encirclement [of Germany] had caused the war; confiscation of British colonies and the British merchant fleet; Dover and Portsmouth occupied; the Royal Navy reduced to half a dozen destroyers; south-east England demilitarised; Liverpool a free port, with a corridor under German rule to Harwich; crippling reparations. No post-war British government would have accepted this indefinitely."
For one, try Ulster instead of Liverpool and Harwich, and that would be a fair comparison - Poland, Silesia and Prussia were invaded and occupied by Germans, however long. Returning part of those back amounts to returning Ulster to Ireland, which is only fair.
For the rest, if Britain had attacked Germany instead of only sending 100,000 soldiers to defence of France, and moreover had attacked Belgium and Russia, before any other nation attacked Britain, and only because those nations disobeyed British demands of their accepting British supremacy, then yes, the scenario above describing British defeat would be fair, and that would be so even if it was not a powerful Germany but a tiny Luxembourg imposing those sanctions.
"Germany faced invasion and death by starvation if she refused. With her merchant ships and even Baltic fishing boats sequestered, and the blockade still in force, Germany could not feed her people. When Berlin asked permission to buy 2.5 million tons of food, the request was denied. From November 11 through the peace conference, the blockade was maintained. Before going to war, America had denounced as a violation of international law and human decency the British blockade that had kept the vital necessities of life out of neutral ports if there were any chance the goods could be transshipped to Germany. But when America declared war, a U.S. admiral told Lord Balfour, “You will find that it will take us only two months to become as great criminals as you are.”
"U.S. warships now supported the blockade. “Once lead this people into war,” Wilson had said in 1917, “and they’ll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance.”30 America had forgotten. The blockade was responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women, and children after the Germans laid down their weapons and surrendered their warships. Its architect and chief advocate had been the First Lord of the Admiralty. His aim, said Churchill, was to “starve the whole population—men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound—into submission.” On March 3, 1919, four months after Germany accepted an armistice and laid down her arms, Churchill rose exultant in the Commons to declare, “We are enforcing the blockade with rigour, and Germany is very near starvation.”"
Obviously it wasn't the responsibility of Germany to feed Germans, it was up to the rest of the world! So how did a nation that would starve to death due to a neighbour nation merely "blockading" in one direction, North, go to war with the whole neighbourhood, attacking Russia in East and France and Belgium in west? Was it because they attacked?
No, they merely got ready, expecting Germany to declare war and attack; Germany did attack first, assuming Germany would succeed in invading all of Europe. Who forced it on Germany? Nobody, except the assumption that Germany must attack first. Who held that assumption? Germany.
"Even the entreaties of “brave little Belgium” for whom the British had gone to war fell on deaf ears. Herbert Hoover, who would be credited with saving a starving Belgium, “spent as much time arguing with the British as with the Germans about getting food to the Belgians,” writes U.S. historian Thomas Fleming.
"The “poor little Belgium” of British propaganda meant little to the British admirals and bureaucrats who were sure the Germans would make off with the victuals.… Churchill, who favored letting the Belgians starve and blaming the Germans, called Hoover “a son of a bitch.”"
And anyone who's so convinced that any food allowed to reach Belgium would have saved any lives of any Belgium people, instead of being confiscated by Germans whether they then used it to feed German civilians or merely let it go to waste, do swear it with one hand on the old testament and another on everything you possess that can feed you.
Germany wasn't short of funds or gold, but preferred to spend it on disrupting France even after the war, instead of paying reparations or even feeding German civilians. True, German civilians did die of starvation, but shouldnt German government be held responsible for this, for doing everything else including going to war, refusing to pay damages, and spending the money on propaganda to disrupt french law and order, instead of feeding Germans?
The war took place on not German soil, but France, Belgium and in the East, Poland and Russia. Those were the lands and civilians that suffered, not only financial losses and disruption of peace but of farmlands and forests, work and family, deaths and more. Buchanan and co seem to think French and Belgian losses matter not at all, nor do Russian or Polish.
"Americans “have been brought up not to kick a man in the stomach after we have licked him,” said Hoover."
Obviously he meant only "white" man. Others living on the same land as Hoover had suffered plenty of what he described.
"Germany, as the most powerful nation in Europe, aligned with a free Poland that owed its existence to Germany, would have been the western bulwark against any Russian drive into Europe. There would have been no Hitler and no Stalin. Other evils would have arisen, but how could the first half of the twentieth century have produced more evil than it did?"
What's to guarantee that when you allow the beast to feed on your neighbours and their children, it will not turn on yours?
................................................................................................
In 1918,
"Arriving in Paris with a mandate for no mercy, Lloyd George found his resolve to impose a harsh peace more than matched by Georges Clemenceau, “the Tiger of France,” whose ravaged nation had lost 1.3 million of its sons.
"The Tiger had one great love—France; and one great hate—Germany. As a young man of twenty-nine he had seen Paris under the heel of the German invader, and the smoke billowing up from the brutal burning of the palace at St. Cloud. As an old man of seventy-two, he had seen the gray German hosts pour into his beloved France. He was determined that it should not happen again. Motivated though he was by this great hate, he was not so vindictive as Marshal Foch or President Poincaré."
So Upton Sinclair, in the World's End series, was incorrect, blaming it all on France - British population, too, had demanded that Germany pay for the war she began, after all.
................................................................................................
"When German representatives were summoned to Paris to receive the terms of the Allies, they were stunned at the amputations to be forced upon them. Eupen and Malmédy were to be taken from Germany and given to Belgium. Alsace and Lorraine were to be reannexed by France."
Why, because Germany annexing territories of others was crusade, while being forced to return them was unthinkable for anyone?
................................................................................................
"When German representatives were summoned to Paris to receive the terms of the Allies, they were stunned at the amputations to be forced upon them. Eupen and Malmédy were to be taken from Germany and given to Belgium. Alsace and Lorraine were to be reannexed by France."
Why, because Germany annexing territories of others was crusade, while being forced to return them was unthinkable for anyone?
................................................................................................
"Only on the insistence of Lloyd George, who reportedly said he would no more transfer Upper Silesia to the Poles “than he would give a clock to a monkey,” was a plebiscite held in those lands that had been under German sovereignty for centuries. In the plebiscite, 60 percent of the people voted to stay with Germany, but five-sixths of the industrial area and almost all the mines were ceded to Warsaw. A disgusted British observer, Sir Robert Donald, called the plebiscite a “tragic farce” and the stripping of Upper Silesia from Germany “robbery under arms.”"
Notice the "lands that had been under German sovereignty for centuries", in other words, invaded and occupied, with land owners massacred and natives subjected to serfdom. Notice the calling Poles "a monkey" by Lloyd George, a denigration of the over sixty percent of population of Silesia that was of course in accord with German racism. And notice the "In the plebiscite, 60 percent of the people voted to stay with Germany" not mentioning if the Poles had voted for Germany under duress, believing they'd be kicked out from the ancestral lands their familes had lived on and worked for millennia, and lose their poor dwellings, unless they voted for Germany.
"The Hanseatic League port city of Danzig, German for centuries, was declared a Free City and placed under League of Nations administration and Polish control. East Prussia was separated from Germany by a “Polish Corridor” that put a million Germans under Warsaw’s rule."
Never mind the prior millennia when, before Germans invaded, the region was not German, but only think of centuries when it was German? In line with justifying the invasion of "New worlds" by Europe, isn't it, never mind massacres of natives, taking their lands, penning them in a corner like a zoo, ....
And yes, this adherence to recent centuries serves antisemitism well in forgetting Roman atrocities against jews in driving them out after centuries of persecution during Roman occupation, persecution which included thousands of crucifixion, and justifying Arab hatred of Israel because they've only sold the land, which isn't as good as Germans massacring populations to acquire ownership of lands East!
And while speaking of "million Germans under Warsaw’s rule", how about the majority on the same land that was the poor, therefore unconsidered, Polish several millions who worked the lands, while the million Germans supervised and prospered on fruits of serf labour?
Most of all, notice these precisely are all excuses Hitler gave justifying his vengeance, which are presented here so later Buchanan can exonerate him while blaming Churchill for - what exactly? That Hitler survived, unlike the millions he used his "final solution" to finish off, after robbing them of everything including food, clothes, teeth, hair and life, never mind properties and jobs and families?
In Germany one can still meet people blaming scientists who "did not help Germany because he was friend of Einstein", implicitly giving the visitor to understand that being a friend of Einstein was a criminal aberration, of course!
"Versailles stripped from Germany one-tenth of her people and one-eighth of her territory."
Notice him not mentioning that the said territory was annexed by Germany for a lebensraum and occupied by Germans who lorded, while natives worked; and that Germans had migrated from heart of Germany to populate these lands taken from others.
"Germany’s overseas empire, the third largest on Earth, was wholly confiscated. All private property of German citizens in German colonies was declared forfeit."
And yet one meets Germans, in Germany, justifying WWII "because Germany never had colonies, British and French had colonies". Of course, they say this to thise they expect to be ignorant because German racism, taught by nazis to obedient people who havent given it up, makes them firmly believe intellectual virtues, too, adhere to Hitler's model of desirable looks.
They forget Hitler praised German looks, but did not approve of knowledge or intellect.
"Germany’s African colonies were divided among South Africa, Britain, and France. Germany’s rivers were internationalized and she was forced to open her home market to Allied imports, but denied equal access to Allied markets."
Wasn't this merely the model Germany had demanded France agree to, as cost of Germany not attacking, except in reverse? As mentioned by other writers on the topic, terms of Versailles were far less brutal than those imposed by Germany from opponents in any treaty after Germany won any war, or even Brest-Litovsk for that matter.
"Keynes, who was with the British delegation, would return home to write The Economic Consequences of the Peace, the savage book charging the Allied leaders with having crafted a vindictive peace that must, by crushing Germany with debt, set the stage for a new war."
Germany wasn't crushed, Germany was spending millions in gold marks towards provoking French workers into violent unrest while spreading propaganda about German babies starving, and as to disarmament, Germany hid arms and ammunition in monasteries, to come out for helping nazi battles against socialist and other workers, years later. As to reparations, again, Germany spent gold marks in millions for propaganda about allied vengeance and German inability to pay, but didn't pay; however, Germany looted lands occupied by nazi Germany to horrendous billions, including food and manufactured goods and art, gold and gems and furniture, just everything possible.
"Forcing the Germans to confess to a historic crime and agree to a lie—that they alone were to blame for the war—was as foolish as it was unjust."
That sentence is a lie, as is the last sentence in the same paragraph:-
"Though he had foolishly given the Austrians a blank check to act against Serbia, when the Austrian archduke was murdered by Serb nationalists on June 28, 1914, by the last days of July, no monarch in Europe was trying more desperately to arrest Europe’s plunge to war."
Lies, because Germany gave ultimatums to Russia and France and Belgium, demanding they obey, alternative being Germany attacked. To claim Kaiser did all he could to avoid war, is to accept that Germany had a right to order every European nation and attack those that would not be servile; and Buchanan, whether he accepts this explicitly or not, is certainly seeking to impose this on the readership.
Such servitude was expected towards "white" males by all females and all non"white" races, once, and this era is what he laments as having passed, whether in U.S. or in the world. Hence he seeks to find where this loss of authority of "white" males occurred, and he sees Germany as the epitome of the "white", and Europe disobeying German diktat and blaming Germany for attacking the disobedient neighbours as " as foolish as it was unjust".
"Today, men do not appreciate what Versailles meant to the Germans, who, triumphant in the east, believed they had laid down their arms and accepted an armistice and peace in the west based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points. British Labour leader Sir Roy Denman offers this analogy:
"These terms are difficult to bring home to British readers. But, supposing that Britain had lost the U-boat war in 1917 and Germany had imposed an equivalent peace; it could have meant British recognition that its policy of encirclement [of Germany] had caused the war; confiscation of British colonies and the British merchant fleet; Dover and Portsmouth occupied; the Royal Navy reduced to half a dozen destroyers; south-east England demilitarised; Liverpool a free port, with a corridor under German rule to Harwich; crippling reparations. No post-war British government would have accepted this indefinitely."
For one, try Ulster instead of Liverpool and Harwich, and that would be a fair comparison - Poland, Silesia and Prussia were invaded and occupied by Germans, however long. Returning part of those back amounts to returning Ulster to Ireland, which is only fair.
For the rest, if Britain had attacked Germany instead of only sending 100,000 soldiers to defence of France, and moreover had attacked Belgium and Russia, before any other nation attacked Britain, and only because those nations disobeyed British demands of their accepting British supremacy, then yes, the scenario above describing British defeat would be fair, and that would be so even if it was not a powerful Germany but a tiny Luxembourg imposing those sanctions.
................................................................................................
"Germany faced invasion and death by starvation if she refused. With her merchant ships and even Baltic fishing boats sequestered, and the blockade still in force, Germany could not feed her people. When Berlin asked permission to buy 2.5 million tons of food, the request was denied. From November 11 through the peace conference, the blockade was maintained. Before going to war, America had denounced as a violation of international law and human decency the British blockade that had kept the vital necessities of life out of neutral ports if there were any chance the goods could be transshipped to Germany. But when America declared war, a U.S. admiral told Lord Balfour, “You will find that it will take us only two months to become as great criminals as you are.”
"U.S. warships now supported the blockade. “Once lead this people into war,” Wilson had said in 1917, “and they’ll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance.”30 America had forgotten. The blockade was responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women, and children after the Germans laid down their weapons and surrendered their warships. Its architect and chief advocate had been the First Lord of the Admiralty. His aim, said Churchill, was to “starve the whole population—men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound—into submission.” On March 3, 1919, four months after Germany accepted an armistice and laid down her arms, Churchill rose exultant in the Commons to declare, “We are enforcing the blockade with rigour, and Germany is very near starvation.”"
Obviously it wasn't the responsibility of Germany to feed Germans, it was up to the rest of the world! So how did a nation that would starve to death due to a neighbour nation merely "blockading" in one direction, North, go to war with the whole neighbourhood, attacking Russia in East and France and Belgium in west? Was it because they attacked?
No, they merely got ready, expecting Germany to declare war and attack; Germany did attack first, assuming Germany would succeed in invading all of Europe. Who forced it on Germany? Nobody, except the assumption that Germany must attack first. Who held that assumption? Germany.
"Even the entreaties of “brave little Belgium” for whom the British had gone to war fell on deaf ears. Herbert Hoover, who would be credited with saving a starving Belgium, “spent as much time arguing with the British as with the Germans about getting food to the Belgians,” writes U.S. historian Thomas Fleming.
"The “poor little Belgium” of British propaganda meant little to the British admirals and bureaucrats who were sure the Germans would make off with the victuals.… Churchill, who favored letting the Belgians starve and blaming the Germans, called Hoover “a son of a bitch.”"
And anyone who's so convinced that any food allowed to reach Belgium would have saved any lives of any Belgium people, instead of being confiscated by Germans whether they then used it to feed German civilians or merely let it go to waste, do swear it with one hand on the old testament and another on everything you possess that can feed you.
Germany wasn't short of funds or gold, but preferred to spend it on disrupting France even after the war, instead of paying reparations or even feeding German civilians. True, German civilians did die of starvation, but shouldnt German government be held responsible for this, for doing everything else including going to war, refusing to pay damages, and spending the money on propaganda to disrupt french law and order, instead of feeding Germans?
The war took place on not German soil, but France, Belgium and in the East, Poland and Russia. Those were the lands and civilians that suffered, not only financial losses and disruption of peace but of farmlands and forests, work and family, deaths and more. Buchanan and co seem to think French and Belgian losses matter not at all, nor do Russian or Polish.
"Americans “have been brought up not to kick a man in the stomach after we have licked him,” said Hoover."
Obviously he meant only "white" man. Others living on the same land as Hoover had suffered plenty of what he described.
................................................................................................
"ON MAY 7, 1919, at Trianon Palace Hotel, Clemenceau, Wilson beside him, handed the Germans the terms of peace: “The hour has struck for the weighty settlement of your account,” said Clemenceau. “You have asked for peace. We are ready to give you peace.”
As the German foreign minister Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau read his reply to Clemenceau, he refused to stand:
"We can feel all the power of hate we must encounter in this assembly.… It is demanded of us that we admit ourselves to be the only ones guilty of this war. Such a confession in my mouth would be a lie. We are far from declining any responsibility for this great world war … but we deny that Germany and its people were alone guilty. The hundreds of thousands of non-combatants who have perished since 11 November by reason of the blockade were killed with cold blood after our adversaries had conquered and victory had been assured to them. Think of that when you speak of guilt and punishment."
This is typical shifty logic by the arrogant who are guilty - akin to a murderer claiming equality with the judge for pronouncing death penalty.
If the German government or military cared about their own, they should have stopped sooner. Did the allies have any guarantees that, if Germany had food, they wouldn't simply resume the war? Could anyone trust Germany? The answer is, no, it wasn't sensible, or prudent. As was proved amply, when Hitler was allowed yet one more, time after time.
"Still, the Germans refused to sign. “What hand would not wither that binds itself and us in these fetters?” said Chancellor Philip Scheidemann. He resigned his office.
"But with families starving, Bolshevik uprisings in Munich, Cologne, Berlin, and Budapest, Trotsky’s Red Army driving into Europe, Czechs and Poles ready to strike from the east, and Foch preparing to march on Berlin at the head of an American-British-French army, Germany capitulated."
Else they'd have gone on forever, instead of the couple of decades of interval.
"By forcing German democrats to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which disarmed, divided, and disassembled the nation Bismarck had built, the Allies had discredited German democracy at its birth."
Of course, allies ought to have presented Germany a free gift of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, France, Scandinavia and Finland, with an option of a takeover of Russia up to Urals, to celebrate Germany trying democracy however fraudulently, and offered to install Bismarck in allied churches for the occupying of lands around.
"The Germans felt utterly betrayed—and blamed America."
Who did Germany not blame? Switzerland?
And is that why Buchanan wrote this book equating Churchill with Hitler in the title, so FDR is automatically brought down in subconscious of readers to levels abused by Hitler?
What low hell of perfidy and falsehood are republicans down to, where they'd worship hitler just so they get to abuse a most sterling gold democrat leader their own nation had, without saying anything!
"Francesco Nitti, the prime minister of Italy when Versailles was signed, in his book The Wreck of Europe, expressed his disgust at the injustice.
"In the old canon law of the Church it was laid down that everyone must have a hearing, even the devil: Etiam diabolus audiatur (Even the devil has the right to be heard). But the new democracy, which proposed to install the society of the nations, did not even obey the precepts which the dark Middle Ages held sacred on behalf of the accused."
He really thought anyone burnt at stake by church had had a fair hearing? Jean d'Arc had had a hearing? How fraudulent can they get!
................................................................................................
"France had lost 1,375,000 soldiers and millions more were wounded, maimed, or crippled. She demanded full compensation for the ruination of a fourth of the country and terms of peace that would guarantee that Germans would never again attempt what they had done in 1870 and 1914."
That was only fair.
"Clemenceau wanted to detach all German lands west of the Rhine and create a “Rhenish Rhineland,” a buffer state—and to occupy the east bank of the river with Allied troops for thirty years. Poincaré, a Lorrainer, wanted to annex all 10,000 square miles of the Rhineland, as did Foch, who warned, “If we do not hold the Rhine permanently, no neutralization, nor disarmament, nor any kind of written clause can prevent Germany … from sallying out of it at will.”"
If only France had done that!
"Annexing the Rhineland would have put five million Germans and much of Germany’s industrial plant under permanent French control. Lloyd George was adamant that no German land be annexed by France. He feared a spirit of revenge would be created in Germany like that created in France by the 1871 loss of Alsace and Lorraine. Wilson also recoiled at so flagrant a violation of his principle of self-determination. But as the French negotiator André Tardieu argued, to France, such measures were matters of national survival:
"For France, as for Great Britain and the United States, it is necessary to create a zone of safety.… This zone the naval Powers create by their fleets, and by the elimination of the German fleet. This zone France, unprotected by the ocean, unable to eliminate the millions of Germans trained to war, must create by the Rhine, by an inter-allied occupation of that river.
"What the Channel and Royal Navy were to Britain, what the Atlantic and U.S. Navy were to America, the Rhine and French army were to France, the moat and sword of national survival. “To ask us to give up the occupation [of the Rhine],” said Tardieu, “is like asking England and the United States to give up their fleets of battleships.”"
Tardieu was right, Wilson wrong, and Lloyd George was looking out for Britain rather than for sensible borders on continent.
"France was forced to settle for a fifteen-year occupation. But the price Clemenceau exacted for giving up any claim to the Rhineland was high: an Anglo-American-French alliance. Under a Treaty of Guarantee, America and Britain were to be obligated to come to France’s aid should Germany attack her again."
Only fair.
"There was also a huge element of impracticality about the Treaty of Guarantee. As the war had demonstrated—when U.S. troops had not begun to enter Allied lines in great numbers until a year after war had been declared—no U.S. army could be raised, trained, and transported across the Atlantic in time to stop a German invasion. The Treaty of Guarantee thus entailed a permanent commitment by the United States to liberate France. No Senate in 1919 would approve such a commitment, as no U.S. vital interest was involved. President Grant had never thought to intervene when France was invaded in 1870, and, from 1914–1917, as Germans occupied the northeast of France, America had remained neutral. Even Theodore Roosevelt, an enthusiast of U.S. intervention in the war, wrote in 1919, in an article published after his death, “I do not believe in keeping our men on the other side to patrol the Rhine, or police Russia, or interfere in Central Europe or the Balkan peninsula.… Mexico is our Balkan peninsula.”"
So France was left open to invasion and massacre by Germany as soon as Germany chose. Which happened soon enough.
"Lloyd George had cooked up this scheme, but built into it an escape hatch. If either the Senate or Parliament refused to approve the Treaty of Guarantee, the other nation was absolved of its commitment. Without a dissenting vote the House of Commons and House of Lords issued France the war guarantee. But the Senate never even took up the treaty. Britain was off the hook. France was left with no security treaty and no buffer state, only a fifteen-year occupation of the Rhineland.
"Both banks of the Rhine were to remain demilitarized in perpetuity. But, after 1935, when the occupation was to end, the sole guarantee of their permanent demilitarization would be the French army."
So Buchanan blaming Churchill instead of Lloyd George must really be because Buchanan is a Nazi.
"ON MAY 7, 1919, at Trianon Palace Hotel, Clemenceau, Wilson beside him, handed the Germans the terms of peace: “The hour has struck for the weighty settlement of your account,” said Clemenceau. “You have asked for peace. We are ready to give you peace.”
As the German foreign minister Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau read his reply to Clemenceau, he refused to stand:
"We can feel all the power of hate we must encounter in this assembly.… It is demanded of us that we admit ourselves to be the only ones guilty of this war. Such a confession in my mouth would be a lie. We are far from declining any responsibility for this great world war … but we deny that Germany and its people were alone guilty. The hundreds of thousands of non-combatants who have perished since 11 November by reason of the blockade were killed with cold blood after our adversaries had conquered and victory had been assured to them. Think of that when you speak of guilt and punishment."
This is typical shifty logic by the arrogant who are guilty - akin to a murderer claiming equality with the judge for pronouncing death penalty.
If the German government or military cared about their own, they should have stopped sooner. Did the allies have any guarantees that, if Germany had food, they wouldn't simply resume the war? Could anyone trust Germany? The answer is, no, it wasn't sensible, or prudent. As was proved amply, when Hitler was allowed yet one more, time after time.
"Still, the Germans refused to sign. “What hand would not wither that binds itself and us in these fetters?” said Chancellor Philip Scheidemann. He resigned his office.
"But with families starving, Bolshevik uprisings in Munich, Cologne, Berlin, and Budapest, Trotsky’s Red Army driving into Europe, Czechs and Poles ready to strike from the east, and Foch preparing to march on Berlin at the head of an American-British-French army, Germany capitulated."
Else they'd have gone on forever, instead of the couple of decades of interval.
"By forcing German democrats to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which disarmed, divided, and disassembled the nation Bismarck had built, the Allies had discredited German democracy at its birth."
Of course, allies ought to have presented Germany a free gift of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, France, Scandinavia and Finland, with an option of a takeover of Russia up to Urals, to celebrate Germany trying democracy however fraudulently, and offered to install Bismarck in allied churches for the occupying of lands around.
"The Germans felt utterly betrayed—and blamed America."
Who did Germany not blame? Switzerland?
And is that why Buchanan wrote this book equating Churchill with Hitler in the title, so FDR is automatically brought down in subconscious of readers to levels abused by Hitler?
What low hell of perfidy and falsehood are republicans down to, where they'd worship hitler just so they get to abuse a most sterling gold democrat leader their own nation had, without saying anything!
"Francesco Nitti, the prime minister of Italy when Versailles was signed, in his book The Wreck of Europe, expressed his disgust at the injustice.
"In the old canon law of the Church it was laid down that everyone must have a hearing, even the devil: Etiam diabolus audiatur (Even the devil has the right to be heard). But the new democracy, which proposed to install the society of the nations, did not even obey the precepts which the dark Middle Ages held sacred on behalf of the accused."
He really thought anyone burnt at stake by church had had a fair hearing? Jean d'Arc had had a hearing? How fraudulent can they get!
................................................................................................
"France had lost 1,375,000 soldiers and millions more were wounded, maimed, or crippled. She demanded full compensation for the ruination of a fourth of the country and terms of peace that would guarantee that Germans would never again attempt what they had done in 1870 and 1914."
That was only fair.
"Clemenceau wanted to detach all German lands west of the Rhine and create a “Rhenish Rhineland,” a buffer state—and to occupy the east bank of the river with Allied troops for thirty years. Poincaré, a Lorrainer, wanted to annex all 10,000 square miles of the Rhineland, as did Foch, who warned, “If we do not hold the Rhine permanently, no neutralization, nor disarmament, nor any kind of written clause can prevent Germany … from sallying out of it at will.”"
If only France had done that!
"Annexing the Rhineland would have put five million Germans and much of Germany’s industrial plant under permanent French control. Lloyd George was adamant that no German land be annexed by France. He feared a spirit of revenge would be created in Germany like that created in France by the 1871 loss of Alsace and Lorraine. Wilson also recoiled at so flagrant a violation of his principle of self-determination. But as the French negotiator André Tardieu argued, to France, such measures were matters of national survival:
"For France, as for Great Britain and the United States, it is necessary to create a zone of safety.… This zone the naval Powers create by their fleets, and by the elimination of the German fleet. This zone France, unprotected by the ocean, unable to eliminate the millions of Germans trained to war, must create by the Rhine, by an inter-allied occupation of that river.
"What the Channel and Royal Navy were to Britain, what the Atlantic and U.S. Navy were to America, the Rhine and French army were to France, the moat and sword of national survival. “To ask us to give up the occupation [of the Rhine],” said Tardieu, “is like asking England and the United States to give up their fleets of battleships.”"
Tardieu was right, Wilson wrong, and Lloyd George was looking out for Britain rather than for sensible borders on continent.
"France was forced to settle for a fifteen-year occupation. But the price Clemenceau exacted for giving up any claim to the Rhineland was high: an Anglo-American-French alliance. Under a Treaty of Guarantee, America and Britain were to be obligated to come to France’s aid should Germany attack her again."
Only fair.
"There was also a huge element of impracticality about the Treaty of Guarantee. As the war had demonstrated—when U.S. troops had not begun to enter Allied lines in great numbers until a year after war had been declared—no U.S. army could be raised, trained, and transported across the Atlantic in time to stop a German invasion. The Treaty of Guarantee thus entailed a permanent commitment by the United States to liberate France. No Senate in 1919 would approve such a commitment, as no U.S. vital interest was involved. President Grant had never thought to intervene when France was invaded in 1870, and, from 1914–1917, as Germans occupied the northeast of France, America had remained neutral. Even Theodore Roosevelt, an enthusiast of U.S. intervention in the war, wrote in 1919, in an article published after his death, “I do not believe in keeping our men on the other side to patrol the Rhine, or police Russia, or interfere in Central Europe or the Balkan peninsula.… Mexico is our Balkan peninsula.”"
So France was left open to invasion and massacre by Germany as soon as Germany chose. Which happened soon enough.
"Lloyd George had cooked up this scheme, but built into it an escape hatch. If either the Senate or Parliament refused to approve the Treaty of Guarantee, the other nation was absolved of its commitment. Without a dissenting vote the House of Commons and House of Lords issued France the war guarantee. But the Senate never even took up the treaty. Britain was off the hook. France was left with no security treaty and no buffer state, only a fifteen-year occupation of the Rhineland.
"Both banks of the Rhine were to remain demilitarized in perpetuity. But, after 1935, when the occupation was to end, the sole guarantee of their permanent demilitarization would be the French army."
So Buchanan blaming Churchill instead of Lloyd George must really be because Buchanan is a Nazi.
................................................................................................
"Czecho-Slovakia, which had emerged as a new nation in 1918 under Thomáš Masaryk, ... The Big Four did not heed Smuts and Coolidge. They listened instead to Eduard Beneš, the Czech foreign minister who was promising to model Czechoslovakia on the Swiss federation, where minorities would enjoy equal standing and cultural and political autonomy. On the eve of Munich, 1938, Lloyd George would charge Beneš with having deceived the Allies at Paris."
Smuts, South Africa leader, country that was known throughout the century for apartheid and atrocities; Coolidge, republican; Munich 1938, Hitler wreaking havoc against Czechoslovakia by intention and plan, despite promises to not touch anything more in Europe after taking Sudetenland. Good company, overall. Only thing missing, jihadists who extend same disdain to everyone, as these three that Buchanan favours do to slavs and other races they look down on.
"Hungarian bitterness at the Wilsonian peace was as deep as it was in Germany."
Weren't Hungarian atrocities against Jews, towards tail end of WWII, the infamous bit involving not only German nazi supervision but indigenous viciousness as well?
"The Little Entente, on which the Czechs, with French encouragement, had tried to base their security, had seemed to me an artificial, unwise arrangement founded in the quicksands of the vengeful, emotional, and unrealistic spirit that dominated French policy in the years just after World War I."
Recall that France was attacked by Germany because Austria was determined to wreak havoc against Serbia because an heir to throne was murdered by someone seeking freedom for Serbia from yoke of Austria-Hungary; that France lost well over a million men with a comparable number wounded, apart from thousands of square miles of forests and farmlands wrecked by German armies; and Germany did not pay reparations, never agreed to have caused damage, but these pro Germans that Buchanan goes on quoting never cease to stick the "vengeful" label to France.
So to make them see reason, France should have not stopped but gone into Germany and paid a return visit, wreaking havoc on forests and villages and farms? Or were European nations who defeated Napoleon not vengeful? If Napoleon hadn't returned from Moscow but had instead brought a few million French settlers, would Europe rightfully belong to France in a few centuries?
Or are Buchanan and his favourites quoted by him merely Nazi lovers? That they won't apply the same logic if things were reversed?
"As for the newborn nations baptized at Paris, they were almost as multiethnic as the Habsburg Empire, but lacked her history, lineage, and moral authority."
Baptized? Moral authority? Lineage?
So Hungary had moral authority because of baptism by more appropriate authorities, such as Roman empire?
Wasn't U.S. an upstart nation, non existent before Columbus set forth on the voyage he returned from claiming he'd succeeded?
Or is it merely about slavs being lesser race, so ethnic Germans living in an equal status relationship was the unthinkable horror?
"So it was that the men of Paris redrew the maps of Europe, and planted the seeds of a second European war."
Of course, if you throw babies to the wolf, there are no more babies left and the wolf wouldn't attack in the same direction; so in taking the babies and locking the door on the wolf, you are responsible for the next attack by the wolf when it returns the next night for the same babies - yours and your neighbours, not wolves', of course. Any step you take, according to Buchanan, makes you guilty for the wolf attack. Except compliance on your part to wolf's demands, that is.
"When Wilson came home with a peace that denied the defeated their right of self-determination, made a mockery of his Fourteen Points, honored the secret treaties he denounced, and enlarged the British, French, Italian, and Japanese empires by a million square miles and tens of millions of subjects, Americans concluded that their 116,000 sons died for nothing."
Notice the sleight of language that makes this description a falsehood, out right - it isn't the "defeated", it's the aggressors who were defeated, that had no right to say, any more than Napoleon had a right to keep all of Europe. As for the British and French, they were the defence in the war, Germany and Austria-Hungary having been aggressors.
"Versailles had created not only an unjust but an unsustainable peace. Wedged between a brooding Bolshevik Russia and a humiliated Germany were six new nations: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The last two held five million Germans captive. Against each of the six, Russia or Germany held a grievance. Yet none could defend its independence against a resurrected Germany or a revived Russia. Should Russia and Germany unite, no force on Earth could save the six."
Buchanan hereby justifies the whole Hitler action to come - the only way to not be guilty in his judgement, Europe should have accepted all of Kaiser Wilhelm's demands, accepted Germans as rulers of Europe and be done with.
"Czecho-Slovakia, which had emerged as a new nation in 1918 under Thomáš Masaryk, ... The Big Four did not heed Smuts and Coolidge. They listened instead to Eduard Beneš, the Czech foreign minister who was promising to model Czechoslovakia on the Swiss federation, where minorities would enjoy equal standing and cultural and political autonomy. On the eve of Munich, 1938, Lloyd George would charge Beneš with having deceived the Allies at Paris."
Smuts, South Africa leader, country that was known throughout the century for apartheid and atrocities; Coolidge, republican; Munich 1938, Hitler wreaking havoc against Czechoslovakia by intention and plan, despite promises to not touch anything more in Europe after taking Sudetenland. Good company, overall. Only thing missing, jihadists who extend same disdain to everyone, as these three that Buchanan favours do to slavs and other races they look down on.
"Hungarian bitterness at the Wilsonian peace was as deep as it was in Germany."
Weren't Hungarian atrocities against Jews, towards tail end of WWII, the infamous bit involving not only German nazi supervision but indigenous viciousness as well?
"The Little Entente, on which the Czechs, with French encouragement, had tried to base their security, had seemed to me an artificial, unwise arrangement founded in the quicksands of the vengeful, emotional, and unrealistic spirit that dominated French policy in the years just after World War I."
Recall that France was attacked by Germany because Austria was determined to wreak havoc against Serbia because an heir to throne was murdered by someone seeking freedom for Serbia from yoke of Austria-Hungary; that France lost well over a million men with a comparable number wounded, apart from thousands of square miles of forests and farmlands wrecked by German armies; and Germany did not pay reparations, never agreed to have caused damage, but these pro Germans that Buchanan goes on quoting never cease to stick the "vengeful" label to France.
So to make them see reason, France should have not stopped but gone into Germany and paid a return visit, wreaking havoc on forests and villages and farms? Or were European nations who defeated Napoleon not vengeful? If Napoleon hadn't returned from Moscow but had instead brought a few million French settlers, would Europe rightfully belong to France in a few centuries?
Or are Buchanan and his favourites quoted by him merely Nazi lovers? That they won't apply the same logic if things were reversed?
................................................................................................
"As for the newborn nations baptized at Paris, they were almost as multiethnic as the Habsburg Empire, but lacked her history, lineage, and moral authority."
Baptized? Moral authority? Lineage?
So Hungary had moral authority because of baptism by more appropriate authorities, such as Roman empire?
Wasn't U.S. an upstart nation, non existent before Columbus set forth on the voyage he returned from claiming he'd succeeded?
Or is it merely about slavs being lesser race, so ethnic Germans living in an equal status relationship was the unthinkable horror?
"So it was that the men of Paris redrew the maps of Europe, and planted the seeds of a second European war."
Of course, if you throw babies to the wolf, there are no more babies left and the wolf wouldn't attack in the same direction; so in taking the babies and locking the door on the wolf, you are responsible for the next attack by the wolf when it returns the next night for the same babies - yours and your neighbours, not wolves', of course. Any step you take, according to Buchanan, makes you guilty for the wolf attack. Except compliance on your part to wolf's demands, that is.
"When Wilson came home with a peace that denied the defeated their right of self-determination, made a mockery of his Fourteen Points, honored the secret treaties he denounced, and enlarged the British, French, Italian, and Japanese empires by a million square miles and tens of millions of subjects, Americans concluded that their 116,000 sons died for nothing."
Notice the sleight of language that makes this description a falsehood, out right - it isn't the "defeated", it's the aggressors who were defeated, that had no right to say, any more than Napoleon had a right to keep all of Europe. As for the British and French, they were the defence in the war, Germany and Austria-Hungary having been aggressors.
"Versailles had created not only an unjust but an unsustainable peace. Wedged between a brooding Bolshevik Russia and a humiliated Germany were six new nations: Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The last two held five million Germans captive. Against each of the six, Russia or Germany held a grievance. Yet none could defend its independence against a resurrected Germany or a revived Russia. Should Russia and Germany unite, no force on Earth could save the six."
Buchanan hereby justifies the whole Hitler action to come - the only way to not be guilty in his judgement, Europe should have accepted all of Kaiser Wilhelm's demands, accepted Germans as rulers of Europe and be done with.
................................................................................................
"The total number of fatalities for the British empire as a whole was 921,000..."
"The highest casualty rate had been among young British officers, striking home with all the leaders of Britain’s great parties."
"“A generation had been decimated on the battlefields of Europe,” Mee continued. “No one had seen the likes of such slaughter before: the deaths of soldiers per day of battle were 10 times greater than in the American Civil War,”"
"Then there was her loss of moral authority. How could British and Europeans, who had just concluded four years of butchering one another with abandon, assert a moral superiority that gave them the right to rule other people? With the Turks’ defeat of the British at Gallipoli, word had gone out to Asia and the Arab world, as it had after Adowa and Tshushima: Europeans were not invincible. Awe of Western military prowess and power had been irreparably damaged in the eyes of subject peoples. The myth of Western invincibility had been destroyed."
Buchanan is still as confused as the Europeans who went invading, looting, massacring and colonising other lands - he confuses success in such activities, which amount to theft and murder on large scale, with moral authority. This is the source of his anguish about "white" men losing power throughout the world - he thought they had the right to colonise the world. Fact is, it was gun and gunpowder, latter in fact brought from China, that gave them physical power to crush others, which does not constitute moral power any more than raping and selling a rape victim into white slavery would.
"Also, Wilson’s sermons on “self-determination” and Lloyd George’s hymns to the “rights of small nations” had been heard beyond the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires. The genie of nationalism was out of the bottle. Balfour had promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine. To defeat the Turks, T. E. Lawrence had stirred up the smoldering embers of Arab nationalism. Not a day passed that some popular leader did not arrive in the lobby of Wilson’s hotel to plead for independence for a province or colony he had never heard of."
That's the reason Buchanan argues British were wrong to fight Germany - if Germany had no right to do to Europe what was done to India, or to the "New World" natives whether across Atlantic or in Australia, then the latter acts of colonisation by Europe were questionable too. Cherokee have rights too, no less than Balkans or Hungary or Belgium.
"The right of all peoples to self-determination, to which the Allies paid homage at Paris, was an ax that would strike the roots of every Western empire. By the time Lloyd George returned to London, Ireland was in revolt. Rebellions had broken out in Egypt, Iraq, and India."
Buchanan is as ignorant as it gets. India never did stop fighting for independence, whether likes of Buchanan recognise it or not, due to their blinders limiting such recognition. Even before the Indian independence war of 1857, which preceded the U.S. civil war, there were umpteen struggles and battles through India, which never did belong to any invaders, no matter how long or how brutal the massacres and the occupation, how repressive the regimes of any foreigners.
"While Germany had been diminished, a more formidable rival had arisen. World financial leadership had passed to a United States that had profited from selling to the Allies while avoiding heavy combat until the summer of 1918. America had shown herself to be a mighty military power, perhaps the greatest. From three hundred thousand men in arms in 1917, she had raised an army of 4 million and transported two million soldiers to France, where they had been decisive in the final victory."
U.S. is the giant child of Britain that U.S. separated from, giant due to sheer size, variety and richness of land; Germany is no comparison. Latter had determination to invade, kill, settle and rule, while lacking much else, such as being able to feed her own if there was a navel blockade in North sea. U.S. is comparable to Europe or India, not to Germany or Austria or Hungary.
"Disillusionment with the treaty Wilson brought home would deepen in the 1920s and 1930s, as all the Allied powers, save Finland, defaulted on their war debts and America fell deep into Depression."
So allied powers defaulting is held criminal, but France and Britain demanding reparations from the country that caused millions of deaths and losses to lands is vengeful?
"And the next time Britain rang for help, America would take her time answering the call. The Yanks would not be “coming over” until after France had been overrun and Britain thrown off the continent at Dunkirk."
U.S. had come in at the last minute in WWI too, and sooner in WWII because Japan destroyed Pearl Harbour, not because FDR who saw truth could get his country to see it. Problem wasn't British empire, it was German population of U.S. across Midwest.
"The Russia of the Romanovs was gone. Atop the largest nation on earth sat a grisly gang of Bolshevik terrorists committed to world revolution and the destruction of all the Western empires and nations."
Like Soviet Russia or not, like the fact or not, fact is, it was Germany that had brought the Bolshevik revolution about, by transporting Lenin in a sealed German train deep into Russia, to make sure Russia was attacked from within and disintegrated into the chaos of civil war.
"Churchill had perceived the real threat: Germany was now so prostrate she could no longer fulfill her ancient duty—to keep the Russians out of Europe."
So, as per Buchanan, Europe not perpetrating before Germany in total submission was wrong, because Russia might take over? This can only be racism, of Goths seen as mandated by heavens to rule slavs! What else is a nazi?
................................................................................................
"Correlli Barnett calls Smuts’s characterization of Versailles as a Carthaginian peace “sentimental nonsense.” Henry Kissinger, too, regards German complaints over Versailles as “self-pitying nonsense”:
"Germany had ignored the Fourteen Points as long as it thought that it had a chance of winning the war, and had … imposed a Carthaginian peace on Russia at Brest-Litovsk, violating every one of Wilson’s principles. The only reason Germany finally ended the war had to do with pure power calculations—with the American army involved, its final defeat was only a question of time.… Germany was exhausted, its defenses were breaking, and Allied armies were about to drive into Germany. Wilson’s principles in fact spared Germany much more severe retribution.
"Undeniably, there is truth here. For while the stories of raped nuns and Belgian babies being tossed about on bayonets were propaganda lies, the German army in Belgium and France had behaved less like Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia than Sherman’s army in Georgia. At Brest-Litovsk, Berlin had imposed far more extensive surgery on a Russian empire that was stripped of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, White Russia (Belarus), and the Caucasus. One-third of Czarist Russia’s population, half of her industry, three-fourths of her iron ore, nine-tenths of her coal mines were gone, and the nation was made to pay an indemnity of six thousand million marks."
All true.
"To understand the German outrage, one must view Versailles through German eyes. As of November 11, 1918, Germans did not see themselves as defeated. German armies were in retreat in the west, but no Allied soldiers stood on German soil. “At the moment of the November 1918 ceasefire in the West,” writes German historian Andreas Hillgruber, in the east,
"newspaper maps of the military situation showed German troops in Finland … down through Pskov-Orlov-Mogilev and the area south of Kursk, to the Don east of Rostov. Germany had thus secured the Ukraine.… In addition, German troops held the Crimea and were stationed in smaller numbers in Transcaucasia."
So the problem was, allied forces hadn't their boot on Germany, unlike WWII when allies finished the job left undone in WWI.
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Here's a typical twisting by Buchanan, either deliberately falsifying or simply stupidity:
"On April 8, 1945, when Hitler was holed up in his bunker, Germany was smashed and ablaze, and Stalin was at the gates of Berlin, Vienna, and Prague, Churchill, too, in a memo to the Foreign Office traced the origins of the unnecessary war back to Versailles—and Woodrow Wilson:
"This war should never have come unless, under American and modernizing pressure, we had driven the Habsburgs out of Austria and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany. By making these vacuums we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl out of its sewer onto the vacant thrones. No doubt these views are very unfashionable.
"The men of Versailles had brought home the peace of vengeance the people wanted. Their children would pay the price for their having failed to bring home a peace of justice. That price would be 50 million dead in the war that would come out of the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles."
The third paragraph there completely twists Buchanan's pro Nazi thesis, but what Churchill clearly states there is, Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs should have been kept on throne, not allowed to be brought down, under pressure of U.S. democratic principles or the revolts by their subjects.
But they didn't mind bringing Romanovs not only down but massacred, in fact ensured it by Germany sending Lenin deep in Russia in a sealed German train, and Kaiser Wilhelm thus getting his cousins massacred, all because cousin Nicholas didn't obey him.
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"Australian prime minister W. H. “Billy” Hughes:
Look at the map and ask yourselves what would have happened to that great splash of red down from India through Australia down to New Zealand, but for the Anglo-Japanese Treaty. How much of these great rich territories and portions of our Empire would have escaped had Japan been neutral? How much if she had been our enemy?… Had [ Japan] elected to fight on the side of Germany we should most certainly have been defeated."
Typical of Buchanan to quote this, post WWII when it's proven to be not entirely correct, with Japan as hostile and strong as it could get and U.S. no help to British empire until Pearl Harbour. Yes, Japan was huge trouble, but when U.S. did finally come in to complete the allies it wasn't Japan who defeated allies, even with Germany.
After the definitive tome by Shirer on the subject, one may wonder why someone would bother writing on the subject again - so the title, and the cover page, of this book provide the key; the material isn't new, it's the attempt to put a twist on it to suit an agenda that's pro German, pro nazi and pro colonial empires, pro white male supremacy and anti allied forces of the two wars, anti France (because of her liberte, egalite, fraternite?), and, in a not too successfully covert way, an attempt to malign the U.S. presidents who were the towering heroes during the two wars and hope of the trampled of the world, particularly of Europe.
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Chapter 8 is surprisingly good, up to the point where the author asks "WHY MUNICH?"; then it becomes clear why he has been quite so good until then. It's because he's up to no good subsequently, and promptly butcher's Czechoslovakia to suit Hitler.
"At Paris, 3.25 million German inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia had been transferred to the new Czechoslovakia of Tomás? Masaryk and Eduard Beneš in a flagrant disregard of Wilson’s self-proclaimed ideal of self-determination. Asked why he had consigned three million Germans to Czech rule, Wilson blurted, “Why, Masaryk never told me that!”
"H. N. Brailsford, England’s leading socialist thinker on foreign policy, had written in 1920 of the Paris peace: “The worst offence was the subjection of over three million Germans to Czech rule.” Austrian historian Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn describes the polyglot state the men of Paris had created:
"The Czechs numbered 47 percent of the population of Czechoslovakia. It was only by “annexing” the Slovaks, much against their expressed will, into a hyphenated nation which had never existed historically that they suddenly became a “majority.” In fact, there were more Germans (24.5 percent) in Czechoslovakia than Slovaks. But by clever gerrymandering devices the Czechs maintained a parliamentary majority and exercised an oppressive rule which drove the German minority (inexactly called “Sudeten Germans”) into a rebellious and disloyal nationalism that would evolve into national socialism."
Why is this fraud? Because neither Germany nor Austria-Hungary were free of this polyglot character Buchanan presents as abominable, except Germanic people were in charge and that suits the racist mindset; Germans living in a situation where others rule is the horror part for them.
Hence his - and Hitler's - real grudge against Czechoslovakia and Poland after 1919, where there were a German minority in a region bordering Germany. That there were other populations in the same region, so giving them to Germany would merely reverse it, is apparently all right with Buchanan and Hitler - the former couldn't care less, and the latter ordered Czechs to leave, without any possessions (which is exactly what terrorists ordered non muslims in Kashmir in 1990, as per the millennium and half old islamist jihadist tradition). Yugoslavia was another such polyglot nation, and Hitler crushed it too, later, but being without the sizable German minority that Czechoslovakia and Poland had, it didn't merit drama, apparently. Also, Czechoslovakia was the key to Europe, and Hitler required no permissions to occupy and bulldoze the Balkans.
Czechoslovakia of Tomás Masaryk and Eduard Beneš, and to some extent Austria before Dollfuss and Hungary too, were in fact truly democratic, with equality and freedom and rights - not just from the writings of William Shirer and Upton Sinclair, but from the various memoirs of the holocaust survivors. And this precisely is anathema to nazis and their fellow travellers.
So when Buchanan says
"Czechoslovakia was a multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural, Catholic-Protestant conglomerate that had never before existed.",
He's lying of course, out and out; for, not only Austria-Hungary was just such a state, as was Yugoslavia, U.S. itself has always - but of course - has been so, with migrants from everywhere in the world having followed those from Europe who massacred and crowded out a number of native tribes with separate languages, and all these migrants have brought their own languages, cultures, cuisines and more. The diversity existed before, was multiplied by European migrants and hasn't been wiped out by imposing merely one official language but only veiled.
A melting pot merely makes everything a brown stew. Leave a salad dish alone to let the rainbow hues and flavours mingle or stay separate, and it's an exquisite smorgasbord palette of languages and cultures and cuisines.
Impose a uniformity and you get goose stepping Nazi robotic inhuman death machines, reproducing by state order to populate the conquered lands after indigenous peoples are massacred and enslaved.
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False assertions galore here:-
"The triggering event occurred two months after Anschluss, while Hitler was still celebrating. Rumors began to fly of an imminent German invasion of Czechoslovakia. The rumors were false, and there is reason to believe the Czechs had planted them with the knowledge of Beneš, who ordered mobilization. As the rumors ricocheted around Europe, London warned Berlin that Britain would not sit still for an invasion. Paris and Moscow renewed their commitments to Prague. Hitler was suddenly in a major crisis not at all of his own making."
Hitler in fact planned his invasions, including that of Czechoslovakia, well ahead, and his rage at Czechoslovakia was that of Waterman in The Moneychangers, modelled on J. P. Morgan according to Upton Sinclair in The Brass Check, denied by a paltry entity he desired - Czechoslovakia in case of Hitler, Lucy Dupree in case of Waterman. That rage was turned into a determination to destroy Prague, but the invasion was planned well ahead. Refer to Shirer.
Again, "As the British saw the German demands as reasonable," is false, while rest of the paragraph heaping abuses on Czechs is simply Nazi sentiment, while the only fact about Britain or France in the situation was they were not ready to go to war again with millions of deaths and Hitler was more than ready - his whole regime was geared to war and nothing but war, and they knew it, but needed time to stand up to him.
As for "Many British believed justice was on the German side.", that's true of the Cliveden Set, and other Nazi fellow travellers.
And
"The brutal truth: The Sudeten Germans wanted to be reunited with their kinsmen and could not forever be denied."
Is again false - for it wasn't at any time about the German minorities of any lands, else why wasn't there a similar clamour from Hitler for acquiring Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio, and more? He wasn't in love with people of German ethnicity as such, after all he not only had millions die in war for his lust of world conquest but a sizable part of a million die in Stalingrad due to his orders to not withdraw.
Czechoslovakia was invaded, not for Sudetenland Germans, but, apart from the strategic location of the country that was central to Europe and key to Mediterranean and Balkans, it was about Skoda and other industrial wealth of Czechoslovakia that Hitler intended to acquire for his goal of conquest of Europe towards world domination.
Buchanan keeps repeating the lie, as per Hitler doctrine:-
"The British people, too, wished to right the wrongs of Versailles."
And more along the same lines. Obviously Versailles did not take away Austria - or any part of it - from Germany, and to say that "The British people, too, wished to right the wrongs of Versailles.", in the context of hitler invading Austria or Czechoslovakia, is as huge a lie as Hitler approved to make it believable.
This particular paragraph, perhaps rest of the chapter and even the book, has very little else other than the same repetead argument about German grievances - mostly either racist or fraudulent - and justifications of Hitler's actions or lies about his being provoked by others, apart from lies about British people and so forth sympathetic to his grievances or wishing to make reparations about Versailles, and thereby make it seem strange that Britain not kowtow to Hitler when Poland was butchered.
"Appeasement of a Germany they now believed to have been wronged was broadly supported."
That's a lie Buchanan repeats several times in different words, but a whopper it is. Such sympathies don't turn overnight as the British people did between Czechoslovakia and Poland, and this wasn't a love of one more than other, it was simply an effort to avoid another world war and deaths of millions, with appeasement for hope of it being enough to keep peace.
Czechoslovakia was the last straw, especially when Munich treaty was violated by Hitler by not stopping at Sudetenland, and not only taking Czechoslovakia and dismembering it, but destroying Prague with a vengeance. This turned British people from hoping for peace to a determination of not allowing it any more, and that is why British carried on, not giving in and surrendering in face of the huge threat, when nazis were established across the channel for years and bombarding cities of England, including London and more, massacring civilians.
Buchanan ends chapter 8 with
"The casus belli of World War II emanated from a decision, six months later, that would drag England into a six-year death struggle at the wrong time, in the wrong place, for the wrong reason. That decision would prove the greatest blunder in British history."
This obviously is referring to the tripartite treaty Britain and France made with Poland, and it was no mistake under the circumstances. Horrors of German occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia were now known, Hitler having by then repeatedly broken his promises about wanting no more, and obviously he was getting ready to butcher Poland. British and French were deliberate about the treaty and about honouring it, however difficult it was for France.
And the reason Buchanan insists on his summing up as a mistake by Britain was end of the colonial era, post WWII, which, juxtaposed with the end of most monarchies of Europe after WWI, seems like a causal relationship between the wars and the losses.
But this resulting in calling the war a mistake amounts to Buchanan being on the side of colonisation at any cost, which implies too that he, perhaps republicans in general, are of the opinion that the U.S. civil war was a mistake, slavery should have been enshrined as white man's right at any cost, and citizens rights of equality are wrong when applied to races other than German and British.
That, in succinct terms, is the Nazi view.
"On March 29, Ian Colvin, a twenty-six-year-old News-Chronicle correspondent in Berlin with excellent sources inside Hitler’s regime, came to London with “hair-raising details of [an] imminent [Nazi] thrust against Poland.” Like Tilea’s report, Colvin’s was a false alarm."
On the contrary, Colvin seems to have had the correct information with only the date of invasion lacking. Buchanan, do read! Hitler's plans were ready, not merely intentions declared but detailed plans, communicated to top brass, had been so for a while by then.
"Halifax and Chamberlain believed Colvin and feared that Beck might cut a deal with Hitler, which was what Hitler had in mind—a deal, not a war."
Which simply meant he preferred to use every trick before he was forced to use war, but a takeover of Poland was fully intended, and invasion date was planned well in advance - and executed as per plan, eventually.
"The Polish Guarantee was the surest way to produce an early explosion, and a world war. It combined the maximum temptation with manifest provocation. It incited Hitler to demonstrate the futility of such a guarantee to a country out of reach from the West, while making the stiff-necked Poles even less inclined to consider any concession to him, and at the same time making it impossible for him to draw back without “losing face.”"
All that would be true if Hitler were really a man controlled by emotions and by reacting to others, but as Shirer as shown with evidence galore, Poland invasion was planned well in advance, long before this British guarantee to Poland. Britain could have made a midsummer gift of it - Xmas would be too late for Hitler's Poland plans - instead of declaring intentions to fight for it, but other than that, Hitler's intentions towards Poland or anything else were so far completely unaffected by others.
The actions thst would have affected - such as France marching in and taking Rhineland, Britain and France standing firm to fight with Czechoslovakia - had not been even attempted. They'd have stopped him, even toppled him. Poland on the other hand was the last possible moment to defend civilisation, and this Britain did not miss.
Buchanan quotes a great many Brits, and one from his own country, heaping abuses on the polish guarantee; he quotes Churchill at length in effect calling it madness. But he's covering all bases, whether he realises or not, when he quotes Churchill explaining :-
"[I]f you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves."
If that needs explaining, and seeing the stupidity the book is steeped in one expects it does, Churchill means, that it would have been easy to win Rhineland without bloodshed, and Czechoslovakia would have been sure and not too costly; but alternative to fighting for Poland was world enslaved to Germany, rather to nazis, and end of civilisation.
"Churchill’s 1948 depiction of Britain’s situation on the day of the war guarantee to Poland is absurd. On March 31, 1939, Britain was not facing a “precarious chance of survival.” Hitler had neither the power nor desire to force Britons to “live as slaves.” He wanted no war with Britain and showed repeatedly he would pay a price to avoid such a war. It was the Poles who were facing imminent war with “only a precarious chance of survival.” It was the Poles who might end up as “slaves” if they did not negotiate Danzig. That they ended up as slaves of Stalin’s empire for half a century, after half a decade of brutal Nazi occupation, is a consequence of their having put their faith in a guarantee Chamberlain and Churchill had to know was worthless when it was given."
First and foremost, unless Buchanan is Hitler reborn with every detail of past memories intact - which is far from the case unless it's a Divine incarnation, and obvioulsly this would be exactly opposite - Buchanan cannot guarantee Hitler's lack of intentions against Britain, and at that, invasion of West Europe- which was all planned, already, as well - wasn't exactly reassuring for Britain. Hitler's speeches declaring peace intentions were always lies to lull everyone while he was not yet ready, that's all. He did attempt to destroy London with the blitz, killed thousands of civilians, and intended worse via his V-1 and V-2 and more, and did hit Britain with a few, stopped not because he didn't intend to do more but because allies were by then successful.
But later in the paragraph Buchanan's objections to Britain not kowtowing to Hitler becomes clear. Buchanan finds it abhorrent that USSR controlled East Europe, not because he loves freedom, but because he is racist and loves fascism which guarantees his white male status keeps him above. He would have preferred world enslaved by nazis, just so all others could die working for his race, as nazis ensured millions did in lands they occupied.
Which would have been for not half a century but at least a millennium, as per declared objectives of Buchanan's beloved Hitler.
Thank heaven, Britain fought Hitler.
The quoting of abusive lies continue, and one wonders of academia is really so disgusting a level in history departments throughout the world, or is it only in U.S. that there is a Nazi resurrection for some reason.
" ... writes Tansill. As for Colonel Beck, “By turning his back on Hitler he invited a swift destruction that no European power could avert.”"
Oh, so if Poland had instead giftwrapped itself to Hitler, the destruction would have been not so swift?
Reminds one of Oprah Winfrey advising young girls to fight back, and never get into a vehicle with someone attacking - Buchanan and co would deplore that advice, presumably, and implore the victims to not resist their attackers, whatever the intentions of the latter.
Buchanan quotes Henderson:-
"Henderson wrote in his memoir:
[A]fter Prague no nation in Europe could feel itself secure from some new adaption of Nazi racial superiority and jungle law. In twelve months Germany had swallowed up Austria, the Sudeten Lands, and Czechoslovakia. Verbal protests were so much waste paper; and a firm stand had to be taken somewhere and force opposed by force; otherwise, in the course of the intoxication of success, Hitler, in the course of another twelve months, would continue the process with Poland, Hungary, and Rumania. The principles of nationalism and self-determination, which had served Hitler to create Greater Germany … had been cynically thrown overboard at Prague and world dominion had supplanted them. If peace were to be preserved, it was essential that it should be made crystal clear what limit Germany would not go without provoking England to war."
And continues his abuses and lies:-
"Nothing in this passage explains why it was Britain’s duty to fight and die for Poland, which, as Churchill reminds us in his war memoir, had joined in the rape of Czechoslovakia. Henderson himself, in the last days of August, would urge a deal on Danzig. And while Poland had reason to fear “Nazi racial superiority and jungle law,” Britain did not. She had no vital interest in Eastern Europe to justify a war to the death with Germany and no ability to wage war there. A German march to the east might imperil Stalin’s Russia; it did not imperil Chamberlain’s Britain. And if preserving peace was Britain’s goal, was a threat to set Europe ablaze if Hitler clashed with the Poles the way to preserve it?"
On the contrary, it takes a deliberate denial to say Henderson is unclear. Abusing Poland or pointing out how Czechoslovakia was deserving defence more than Poland is accepting Hitler had every right, as is most of the rest of Buchanan's argument there.
Why is Buchanan going to so much pain to justify Hitler, and crucify Britain for thwarting Hitler's attempted enslaving of the world? Is there a resurrection of nazism coming to attempt once again to enslave the world, and if so, is Buchanan their Unity Mitford or her brother in law who had been the son in law of Curzon? Is this book an attempt to prepare the world to succumb to a nazi conquest of the world?
Buchanan spends the rest of the chapter arguing, and quoting others, to the effect that Britain should have written off East Europe and seen to defense of West, particularly channel ports of France.
None of these idiots recall that the situation was far more serious than the comfy scenario they imagine, of Hitler satisfied with taking East and staying far away. They imagine, again, that Hitler invaded France only because British and French had declared war. If they aren't fools, they must be nazis out to change the world now to worship Hitler.
France was invaded, as were Norway and Denmark in Scandinavia, low countries on the way to France, and Balkans on Hitler's way to West Asia, because it was all fully intended and planned. The only thing Hitler did not plan was not winning his invasion of Russia. Russia surprised him, shocked him and began to give him defeats.
"Paris was receiving its own intelligence that Rumania was next on the Nazi menu and an attack imminent."
Didn't Buchanan argue not too many pages ago, that Hitler had no intentions and no plans against Romania? Does he not reread and think over, or merely never read?
"Chamberlain explained that he did not think it important to distinguish among states being guaranteed or to make calculations about whether a particular state could be protected by Britain and France. “The real issue,” he said, “was that, if Germany showed signs that she intended to proceed with her march for world domination, we must take steps to stop her.… We should attack Germany not in order to save a particular victim but in order to pull down the bully.”"
Buchanan comments:-
"Chamberlain here makes three assumptions. The first is that any further German attempt to reclaim lost peoples or provinces meant a “march for world domination.” The second is that it was Britain’s duty to “stop” Hitler in Central and Eastern Europe, where no British army had ever fought before. The third is that Britain had the strength “to pull down the bully.”"
Notice the completely nazi tone and stance there. Not too different from German derision of more recent times, post 2000, to the effect that British air was polluted by industries, and so forth - Germany, after all, was fed on Marshall plan, while the erstwhile allies of U.S. were self respecting enough to refuse it with thanks and stand on their own, however long that took.
"Poles put their trust in their war guarantee and security pact with Great Britain. They were repaid for that trust with abandonment and half a century of Nazi and Soviet barbarism."
It's impossible to imagine exactly what planet Buchanan and his sort live on, since they seem to think Poland in particular and East Europe in general would have had any other possibility at the point other than slavery to Germany coupled with starvation to death, if Britain hadn't declared war on Germany.
And if they think East Europe would have been better under Hitler than, as it turned out, behind the iron curtain, they've certainly received nazi indoctrination from sources South of equator in their hemisphere, getting ready slowly this time with propaganda such as this book.
" ... the nations wedged between Russia and Germany feared a Red Army rescue more than a German invasion. They had heard the screams of Stalin’s victims."
The last sentence there is nonsense intended to gather ignorant readership in U.S. in horrified agreement and sympathy. While those looking askance at Bolsheviks might have had their strong reservations about Soviet help, fact that emerges for various memoirs of survivors is that - as regions were forced to undergo occupation by first German, then Russian, then Germans at war with Russian and finally Russian chasing German back, the German occupation had been always horrible, but the first Russian occupation had been so different that many locals took up the offers by Russian army to go as refugees in Russian military transports when Germany turned to attack East.
It was only after the war that the Russian occupation was unfriendly, since survivors were suspected of Nazi affiliation, which was correct often enough in non Jewish case - Ukrainians that joined Germans, as guards and security forces, were far more horrible than Germans in their dealings with civilians, for example.
As for the screams, why Buchanan thinks nobody heard Germans scream under Hitler is only because his being Nazi prevents him from counting German victims of nazis.
"The total number of fatalities for the British empire as a whole was 921,000..."
"The highest casualty rate had been among young British officers, striking home with all the leaders of Britain’s great parties."
"“A generation had been decimated on the battlefields of Europe,” Mee continued. “No one had seen the likes of such slaughter before: the deaths of soldiers per day of battle were 10 times greater than in the American Civil War,”"
"Then there was her loss of moral authority. How could British and Europeans, who had just concluded four years of butchering one another with abandon, assert a moral superiority that gave them the right to rule other people? With the Turks’ defeat of the British at Gallipoli, word had gone out to Asia and the Arab world, as it had after Adowa and Tshushima: Europeans were not invincible. Awe of Western military prowess and power had been irreparably damaged in the eyes of subject peoples. The myth of Western invincibility had been destroyed."
Buchanan is still as confused as the Europeans who went invading, looting, massacring and colonising other lands - he confuses success in such activities, which amount to theft and murder on large scale, with moral authority. This is the source of his anguish about "white" men losing power throughout the world - he thought they had the right to colonise the world. Fact is, it was gun and gunpowder, latter in fact brought from China, that gave them physical power to crush others, which does not constitute moral power any more than raping and selling a rape victim into white slavery would.
"Also, Wilson’s sermons on “self-determination” and Lloyd George’s hymns to the “rights of small nations” had been heard beyond the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires. The genie of nationalism was out of the bottle. Balfour had promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine. To defeat the Turks, T. E. Lawrence had stirred up the smoldering embers of Arab nationalism. Not a day passed that some popular leader did not arrive in the lobby of Wilson’s hotel to plead for independence for a province or colony he had never heard of."
That's the reason Buchanan argues British were wrong to fight Germany - if Germany had no right to do to Europe what was done to India, or to the "New World" natives whether across Atlantic or in Australia, then the latter acts of colonisation by Europe were questionable too. Cherokee have rights too, no less than Balkans or Hungary or Belgium.
"The right of all peoples to self-determination, to which the Allies paid homage at Paris, was an ax that would strike the roots of every Western empire. By the time Lloyd George returned to London, Ireland was in revolt. Rebellions had broken out in Egypt, Iraq, and India."
Buchanan is as ignorant as it gets. India never did stop fighting for independence, whether likes of Buchanan recognise it or not, due to their blinders limiting such recognition. Even before the Indian independence war of 1857, which preceded the U.S. civil war, there were umpteen struggles and battles through India, which never did belong to any invaders, no matter how long or how brutal the massacres and the occupation, how repressive the regimes of any foreigners.
"While Germany had been diminished, a more formidable rival had arisen. World financial leadership had passed to a United States that had profited from selling to the Allies while avoiding heavy combat until the summer of 1918. America had shown herself to be a mighty military power, perhaps the greatest. From three hundred thousand men in arms in 1917, she had raised an army of 4 million and transported two million soldiers to France, where they had been decisive in the final victory."
U.S. is the giant child of Britain that U.S. separated from, giant due to sheer size, variety and richness of land; Germany is no comparison. Latter had determination to invade, kill, settle and rule, while lacking much else, such as being able to feed her own if there was a navel blockade in North sea. U.S. is comparable to Europe or India, not to Germany or Austria or Hungary.
"Disillusionment with the treaty Wilson brought home would deepen in the 1920s and 1930s, as all the Allied powers, save Finland, defaulted on their war debts and America fell deep into Depression."
So allied powers defaulting is held criminal, but France and Britain demanding reparations from the country that caused millions of deaths and losses to lands is vengeful?
"And the next time Britain rang for help, America would take her time answering the call. The Yanks would not be “coming over” until after France had been overrun and Britain thrown off the continent at Dunkirk."
U.S. had come in at the last minute in WWI too, and sooner in WWII because Japan destroyed Pearl Harbour, not because FDR who saw truth could get his country to see it. Problem wasn't British empire, it was German population of U.S. across Midwest.
"The Russia of the Romanovs was gone. Atop the largest nation on earth sat a grisly gang of Bolshevik terrorists committed to world revolution and the destruction of all the Western empires and nations."
Like Soviet Russia or not, like the fact or not, fact is, it was Germany that had brought the Bolshevik revolution about, by transporting Lenin in a sealed German train deep into Russia, to make sure Russia was attacked from within and disintegrated into the chaos of civil war.
"Churchill had perceived the real threat: Germany was now so prostrate she could no longer fulfill her ancient duty—to keep the Russians out of Europe."
So, as per Buchanan, Europe not perpetrating before Germany in total submission was wrong, because Russia might take over? This can only be racism, of Goths seen as mandated by heavens to rule slavs! What else is a nazi?
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"Correlli Barnett calls Smuts’s characterization of Versailles as a Carthaginian peace “sentimental nonsense.” Henry Kissinger, too, regards German complaints over Versailles as “self-pitying nonsense”:
"Germany had ignored the Fourteen Points as long as it thought that it had a chance of winning the war, and had … imposed a Carthaginian peace on Russia at Brest-Litovsk, violating every one of Wilson’s principles. The only reason Germany finally ended the war had to do with pure power calculations—with the American army involved, its final defeat was only a question of time.… Germany was exhausted, its defenses were breaking, and Allied armies were about to drive into Germany. Wilson’s principles in fact spared Germany much more severe retribution.
"Undeniably, there is truth here. For while the stories of raped nuns and Belgian babies being tossed about on bayonets were propaganda lies, the German army in Belgium and France had behaved less like Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia than Sherman’s army in Georgia. At Brest-Litovsk, Berlin had imposed far more extensive surgery on a Russian empire that was stripped of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, White Russia (Belarus), and the Caucasus. One-third of Czarist Russia’s population, half of her industry, three-fourths of her iron ore, nine-tenths of her coal mines were gone, and the nation was made to pay an indemnity of six thousand million marks."
All true.
"To understand the German outrage, one must view Versailles through German eyes. As of November 11, 1918, Germans did not see themselves as defeated. German armies were in retreat in the west, but no Allied soldiers stood on German soil. “At the moment of the November 1918 ceasefire in the West,” writes German historian Andreas Hillgruber, in the east,
"newspaper maps of the military situation showed German troops in Finland … down through Pskov-Orlov-Mogilev and the area south of Kursk, to the Don east of Rostov. Germany had thus secured the Ukraine.… In addition, German troops held the Crimea and were stationed in smaller numbers in Transcaucasia."
So the problem was, allied forces hadn't their boot on Germany, unlike WWII when allies finished the job left undone in WWI.
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Here's a typical twisting by Buchanan, either deliberately falsifying or simply stupidity:
"On April 8, 1945, when Hitler was holed up in his bunker, Germany was smashed and ablaze, and Stalin was at the gates of Berlin, Vienna, and Prague, Churchill, too, in a memo to the Foreign Office traced the origins of the unnecessary war back to Versailles—and Woodrow Wilson:
"This war should never have come unless, under American and modernizing pressure, we had driven the Habsburgs out of Austria and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany. By making these vacuums we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl out of its sewer onto the vacant thrones. No doubt these views are very unfashionable.
"The men of Versailles had brought home the peace of vengeance the people wanted. Their children would pay the price for their having failed to bring home a peace of justice. That price would be 50 million dead in the war that would come out of the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles."
The third paragraph there completely twists Buchanan's pro Nazi thesis, but what Churchill clearly states there is, Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs should have been kept on throne, not allowed to be brought down, under pressure of U.S. democratic principles or the revolts by their subjects.
But they didn't mind bringing Romanovs not only down but massacred, in fact ensured it by Germany sending Lenin deep in Russia in a sealed German train, and Kaiser Wilhelm thus getting his cousins massacred, all because cousin Nicholas didn't obey him.
................................................................................................
"Australian prime minister W. H. “Billy” Hughes:
Look at the map and ask yourselves what would have happened to that great splash of red down from India through Australia down to New Zealand, but for the Anglo-Japanese Treaty. How much of these great rich territories and portions of our Empire would have escaped had Japan been neutral? How much if she had been our enemy?… Had [ Japan] elected to fight on the side of Germany we should most certainly have been defeated."
Typical of Buchanan to quote this, post WWII when it's proven to be not entirely correct, with Japan as hostile and strong as it could get and U.S. no help to British empire until Pearl Harbour. Yes, Japan was huge trouble, but when U.S. did finally come in to complete the allies it wasn't Japan who defeated allies, even with Germany.
................................................................................................
One may wonder why republicans lie, or are they stupid; but then one has to see this book to know, its because they are aligned with nazis, and falsehood characterises nazism.
One has to wonder if this book is a result of the republicans taking up pro nazi thinking to create a votebank out of the U.S. population with German ancestry and affiliations - German language lost to English by a small margin when decision about primary official language of U.S. was decided - or it's something far more base.
Republican presidents of U.S., after Abraham Lincoln, have for the most part been either nondescript, or ridiculed with good reason, or out and out bordering goons; meanwhile several Democrats have been the opposite in the same position, and the illustrious list towers above with only an Abraham Lincoln to match the stature of the likes of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, and more, in not only popularity but very good reasons to be respected in the world.
So it seems to be a major republican occupation to slash at their stature sideways, by character assassination using either their private lives, or simply a turnabout in politics to hit them, such as this book. Want to bring down President Wilson and FDR, say U.S. was wrong to fight Germany, or even better, say it was fault of Churchill who got excited which is why German monarch or dictator were forced to attack the rest of Europe.
One may wonder why republicans lie, or are they stupid; but then one has to see this book to know, its because they are aligned with nazis, and falsehood characterises nazism.
................................................................................................
One has to wonder if this book is a result of the republicans taking up pro nazi thinking to create a votebank out of the U.S. population with German ancestry and affiliations - German language lost to English by a small margin when decision about primary official language of U.S. was decided - or it's something far more base.
Republican presidents of U.S., after Abraham Lincoln, have for the most part been either nondescript, or ridiculed with good reason, or out and out bordering goons; meanwhile several Democrats have been the opposite in the same position, and the illustrious list towers above with only an Abraham Lincoln to match the stature of the likes of Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, and more, in not only popularity but very good reasons to be respected in the world.
So it seems to be a major republican occupation to slash at their stature sideways, by character assassination using either their private lives, or simply a turnabout in politics to hit them, such as this book. Want to bring down President Wilson and FDR, say U.S. was wrong to fight Germany, or even better, say it was fault of Churchill who got excited which is why German monarch or dictator were forced to attack the rest of Europe.
................................................................................................
Britain chose to let go of the treaty with Japan, opting instead for a four power pact between U.S., U.K., France and Japan, to resort to diplomatic routes in case of differences, and in the bargain agree to the Hughes plan of keeping the naval forces of U.S., U.K. and Japan at 5-5-3 ratio, which amounted at the time to U.S. building up their naval strength while Britain reducing hers, scuttling much and building no new naval ships for a decade.
"Why did Britain capitulate to Harding, Hughes, and the Americans?
"Much of the British elite was in thrall to the myth of the Americans as cousins who saw their destiny as one with the Mother Country. This idealized view overlooked a century of hostility—from the Revolution to the Chesapeake affair, the burning of Washington, the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson’s hanging of the British subjects Arbuthnot and Armbruster on his foray into Florida, the Aroostook War over the border between New Brunswick and Maine, the Trent affair, which brought the nations near to war in 1861, Britain’s building of Confederate blockade runners and raiders like the Alabama, Fenian assaults on Canada, and the 1895 U.S.–British confrontation over Venezuela.
"In 1888, when the British minister in Washington, Sir Lionel Sackville-West, was tricked into writing favorably of President Cleveland, this probably cost Cleveland the election and certainly cost Sackville-West his post. To win the Irish-American vote in 1896, the Republicans published a pamphlet, How McKinley Is Hated in England.30 In its 1900 platform, the Republican Party had come close to inserting a pledge to annex Canada.
"British elites tended to overlook the tens of millions of Americans of Irish, German, Italian, and East European descent, to whom England was not the Mother Country and the British Empire was no revered institution."
That last paragraph hides much, by using a whole lot more nationalities as bushes, while the real root of the stance behind this book and other similar pro Germany, anti British attitudes is the republicans seeking to get not merely votes but a votebank with strong loyalty out of some Irish, mostly Germanophile affiliations of parts of U.S. population. That certainly does not include those of ancestry from East Europe, and unlikely to include Italians as a bloc either.
................................................................................................
And yet the author is real about actual fascists and nazis.
"The Night of the Long Knives was the first act of state terror of the Third Reich and revealed the character of Hitler and his regime. To the Nazis, murder was a legitimate weapon to deal with political enemies. Between 150 and 200 people died. Mussolini was shaken. Reading of how Hitler relished the role of executioner of former comrades, Mussolini
"burst into a room in which his sister Edvige was sitting and waved a bundle of newspapers: “He is a cruel and ferocious character and calls to mind legendary characters of the past: Attila. Those men he killed were his closest collaborators, who hoisted him into power. It is as if I came to kill with my own hands, Balbo, Grandi, Bottai … ”
"Il Duce now knew that the Hitler he had considered a buffoon in Venice was a decisive, ruthless, menacing, and formidable figure, unlike any European statesman with whom he had dealt in a decade in power.
"Six weeks after Hitler’s visit to Venice, 150 Austrian Nazis stormed the chancery in Vienna. Most of the Cabinet, warned in advance, had fled. But the gritty little Dollfuss refused to run. From six inches away, he was shot in the throat. As the celebrating Nazis went on national radio to announce his resignation, Dollfuss, ignored by his killers, bled to death, the only European leader to die a martyr’s death resisting Nazism."
"Hitler was right to be nervous. Mussolini, who had been hosting Dollfuss’s family and had to break the news of his assassination to his wife, was enraged and ordered four divisions to the Brenner. Il Duce sent word to Vienna: If Germany invades, Italy will go to war. In a show of support, Mussolini departed for Austria, where he vented his disgust at Hitler and the Nazis to vice chancellor Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg: “It would mean the end of European civilization if this country of murderers and pederasts were to overrun Europe.”"
"Mussolini hoped Britain and France would recognize the danger and form a united front:
"Hitler will arm the Germans and make war—perhaps even in two or three years. I cannot stand up to him alone.… I cannot always be the one to march to the Brenner. Others must show some interest in Austria and the Danube basin.… We must do something, we must do something quickly.
"While Italy had mobilized troops, Britain and France had done nothing. Mussolini was confirmed in his convictions about the decadence of the democracies and “resolved petulantly that he would not again attempt to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the West.”"
"On March 9, 1935, Hermann Göring informed a correspondent of the London Daily Mail that the Luftwaffe would become an official branch of the armed forces. The next Saturday, the Nazis announced that Germany was reimposing conscription and calling up 300,000 men to create an army of 36 divisions. This was the first formal breach of Versailles. Hitler reassured the French ambassador he had no designs on the West as he delivered a blazing tirade against Stalin and Bolshevism. The French envoy was soothed. Paris appealed feebly to the League of Nations against this brazen violation of the 1919 peace treaty that had been crafted with France’s security foremost in mind.
"Britain and France now began to believe Mussolini might be right. With German rearmament under way, and the murder of Dollfuss and the failed Austrian coup in mind, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and French prime minister Pierre Flandin and Foreign Minister Pierre Laval agreed to meet with Mussolini in Stresa on Lake Maggiore from April 11 to 14.
"Passed over by many historians, this was a crucial meeting in the interwar period. For in 1935, as Oxford’s R. B. McCallum has written, “Italy, with her military force and strong and virile Government, held the balance of power in Europe.” At the end of the Stresa conference a communiqué was issued denouncing German rearmament as a violation of Versailles and affirming the three nations’ commitment to the principles of Locarno."
"THE LOCARNO TREATY OF MUTUAL Guarantee—negotiated in that Swiss town and signed in London in 1925—was the brainchild of German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann. He had suggested to the British that, rather than siding with France against a friendly and democratic Germany by guaranteeing France’s border, Britain should guarantee the borders of both nations. As described by historian Correlli Barnett, the Locarno pact was a group of treaties:
"Germany, Belgium and France bound themselves to recognize as inviolable not only their existing mutual frontiers, but also the demilitarisation of the Rhineland. Thus Germany now voluntarily accepted in respect of the Rhineland and her western frontiers what had been imposed on her at Versailles. The three countries further pledged themselves that in no case would they attack, invade or resort to war against one another. All these obligations were guaranteed by Italy and England; in other words, the guarantors were immediately to intervene against a power which broke the treaty by violating the frontier of another.… [T]hey were similarly to intervene if Germany violated the demilitarised zone.
"Locarno was crucial. For it represented the voluntary acceptance by Berlin of what had been imposed upon Germany at Versailles. On October 16, 1925, a democratic Germany accepted the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, the inviolability of its borders with Belgium and France, and the permanent demilitarization of the Rhineland, and undertook to apply for membership in the League of Nations.
"At Locarno, however, the borders of Eastern Europe had gone unmentioned. For no German statesman could accept, in perpetuity, the loss of Memel, Danzig, the Corridor, and the Sudetenland to Lithuania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, and survive. Writes Taylor:
"This was an impossible condition for the German government. Most Germans had acquiesced in the loss of Alsace and Lorraine; few of them even raised the question until after the defeat of France in 1940. The frontier with Poland was felt as a grievance. It might be tolerated; it could not be confirmed."
Notice the racism there. France and Belgium and Holland and Denmark, West Europe and Scandinavia, acceptable to Germans; Poland, or anything East. Not so much. This can only be explained by racial attitude of looking down on Slavic people.
"One statesman, however, did favor an “Eastern Locarno” that would commit the nations of Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia, backed by Britain and France, to act jointly to stop any German attempt to undo the borders laid down at Paris. He was Louis Barthou of France. In 1934, French policy toward Hitler’s Reich was in the portfolio of this tough-minded foreign minister and “last survivor of the staunch old republican politicians of the stripe of Clemenceau and Poincaré, who had helped guide the country to victory over Germany.”
"Barthou supported an understanding with Italy, the restoration of France’s alliance with Russia, and firmness toward Hitler. He had helped to bring the Soviet Union into the League of Nations. Where Ramsay MacDonald was willing to concede equality of armaments to Germany, Barthou declared that France would refuse to legalize any German rearmament contrary to the terms of Versailles, adding, “France will assure her security by her own means.”
"Tragically, Barthou was riding beside Yugoslavia’s King Alexander in Marseilles on October 9, 1934, when that monarch was assassinated by a Macedonian terrorist who also shot and wounded Barthou. The king was in France on the first day of a state visit to cement their alliance against Germany. While the king was being attended to, Barthou, ignored, bled to death."
Buchanan must think he's clever not mentioning the murder was act of nazi origin, in every way.
................................................................................................
"NOW, AT STRESA, ten years after Locarno, Britain, France, and Italy had agreed to support the independence and integrity of Austria. But there was a worm in the apple of accord. The British were double-dealing. Mussolini and the French had come prepared to form a united front. But MacDonald and Foreign Secretary John Simon had assured Parliament they would make no commitments at Stresa that would bind Britain to act against Germany.
"MacDonald and Simon had both opposed British entry into the war in 1914 and were unwilling to commit Britain to defend any nation in Central or Eastern Europe, or to act with Italy and France, should Hitler commit a new violation of Versailles. As Mussolini biographer Jasper Ridley writes, “In all the discussions between Britain, France and Italy as to how to react to Hitler’s breach of the Treaty of Versailles, Simon was the most pro-German and Mussolini the most anti-German.”"
"Two days after the Stresa conference ended, however, on April 17, a British-French-Italian resolution condemning German rearmament and conscription as a breach of Versailles was passed by the Council of the League of Nations. The condemnation of Germany was unanimous, with only Denmark abstaining. A committee of thirteen, including Russia, was set up to consider sanctions. The Third Reich was diplomatically isolated."
Hitler went on peace offensive, declaring he wanted nothing, Germany needed peace, and offered to make a naval pact with Britain.
"On June 18, 1935, an Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed permitting Germany to construct a fleet 35 percent of the Royal Navy and a submarine force equal to Great Britain’s. Writes historian Evans, “This rode a coach and horses through the Stresa agreement, concluded only a few months before, and was a major diplomatic triumph for Hitler.”
"Ribbentrop returned home to a hero’s welcome. Paris was as stunned as Moscow. Stalin believed Britain had just given Hitler a green light to build a Baltic fleet strong enough to attack him. From Rome came reports that “Mussolini had nearly gone through the roof of the Palazzo Chigi when he heard about the Anglo-German Agreement,” believing that the “British government were so frightened of Hitler that they had lost faith in the League of Nations’ ability to prevent war.”"
"Churchill thought the Anglo-German treaty a rotten bargain:
"The League of Nations has been weakened by our action, the principle of collective security has been impaired. German treaty-breaking has been condoned and even extolled. The Stresa front has been shaken, if not, indeed, dissolved."
................................................................................................
"“Ramsay MacDonald and Simon could have issued a stern warning to Mussolini at Stresa against Abyssinian aggression,” writes Brody. “They chose silence.… Simon had the opportunity to warn Mussolini in unmistakable terms. He did not choose to take the opportunity.”
"As he signed the Stresa communiqué, Mussolini loudly repeated the words of his amendment to the final draft, “peace in Europe.”66 MacDonald and Simon looked at each other and said nothing. Mussolini took this as a signal of Allied assent to his plans for conquest in Africa.67 Thus did Britain miss an opening that could have saved its alliance with Italy."
"As the British Empire controlled almost every other piece of real estate in East Africa, Italy’s annexation of part or all of Ethiopia posed no threat to Great Britain. And with British flags flying over Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, Burma, India, Ceylon, Pakistan, southern Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, the Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Rhodesia, South Africa, Southwest Africa, Togo, the Gold Coast, and Nigeria—not all acquired by peaceful purchase—for Britain to oppose Italy’s annexation of Ethiopia might seem hypocritical. To aspiring imperial powers like Italy and Japan, it did. Yōsuke Matsuoka, who had led the Japanese delegation at Geneva, had commented about the centuries-old practice of imperialism: “The Western powers taught the Japanese the game of poker but after acquiring most of the chips they pronounced the game immoral and took up contract bridge.”"
Just what the Germans are thinking, when they speak of British empire in context of German attempted conquest of Europe in an effort to establish an empire right in the neighbourhood. When in U.S., German tourists used to make a point to tour Harlem and take photographs. Not out of love of people living there, but a silent - in U.S. - point made about hypocrisy of people of U.S. with their complete lack of equality in racist practices then criticising holocaust.
"When a Frenchwoman accosted Churchill to argue that Italy was only doing in Ethiopia what British imperialists had done for centuries, Churchill replied, “Ah, but you see, all that belongs to the un-regenerate past, is locked away in the limbo of the old, the wicked days. The world progresses.”70
"Mussolini believed that, as the British-French Entente of 1904 had put Egypt in Britain’s sphere and Morocco in France’s, Italy, a Stresa partner of the Allies, should be given a free hand in Abyssinia. Moreover, Abyssinia was no ornament of civilization, but
"was itself an empire, ruling subject and often migratory populations by force and terror, behind shifting or indeterminate frontiers.… Abyssinia was a primitive African monarchy which practiced slavery; not a modern state at all. It should not have been in the League. The notion that the League had to guarantee its frontiers was an excellent illustration of the absurdity of the covenant which led Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and his friends to reject it. The League should also have been scrapped after the 1931 Manchurian fiasco.
"But the League had not been scrapped, Ethiopia was a member, and Wilsonian idealism now had a powerful hold on the British upper class and the national imagination.
"How had an African empire that practiced slavery qualified for the League?
"Paradoxically, Ethiopia had been brought into the League by Italy in 1923. Rome suspected Britain had designs on the country and wanted to keep it out of the Lion’s paws. Indeed, British newspapers had been clamoring for intervention in Ethiopia to abolish slavery, and Britain had been among the least enthusiastic members of the League about admitting so reactionary a state. Ethiopia, upon its admission, had pledged to end slavery, but had never done so."
Funny, that question about "how an African empire that practiced slavery qualified for the league" - even apart from the actual slavery in U.S. that only ended in formal slave trading ceasing to exist, but not so much in the degree of equal rights, there are not only various countries and populations practicing slavery among the islamist countries even now, but that two major members of the then League - Britain and France - each had empires with subjects certainly not on par with the "white"s back home.
And while British limited the subjugation to holding every colonial person or practice beneath that of England, French went much further and held anything not in accord with French culture or law as things abominable, abhorrent, and to be ruthlessly wiped out. This continues to date, whether in France or elsewhere - even where it isnt about security. Hindu women and Sikh males have been known to be severely at receiving end of horrible treatment for no reason whatsoever, not only in France, but at Alliance Francaise in their own country.
Britain chose to let go of the treaty with Japan, opting instead for a four power pact between U.S., U.K., France and Japan, to resort to diplomatic routes in case of differences, and in the bargain agree to the Hughes plan of keeping the naval forces of U.S., U.K. and Japan at 5-5-3 ratio, which amounted at the time to U.S. building up their naval strength while Britain reducing hers, scuttling much and building no new naval ships for a decade.
"Why did Britain capitulate to Harding, Hughes, and the Americans?
"Much of the British elite was in thrall to the myth of the Americans as cousins who saw their destiny as one with the Mother Country. This idealized view overlooked a century of hostility—from the Revolution to the Chesapeake affair, the burning of Washington, the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson’s hanging of the British subjects Arbuthnot and Armbruster on his foray into Florida, the Aroostook War over the border between New Brunswick and Maine, the Trent affair, which brought the nations near to war in 1861, Britain’s building of Confederate blockade runners and raiders like the Alabama, Fenian assaults on Canada, and the 1895 U.S.–British confrontation over Venezuela.
"In 1888, when the British minister in Washington, Sir Lionel Sackville-West, was tricked into writing favorably of President Cleveland, this probably cost Cleveland the election and certainly cost Sackville-West his post. To win the Irish-American vote in 1896, the Republicans published a pamphlet, How McKinley Is Hated in England.30 In its 1900 platform, the Republican Party had come close to inserting a pledge to annex Canada.
"British elites tended to overlook the tens of millions of Americans of Irish, German, Italian, and East European descent, to whom England was not the Mother Country and the British Empire was no revered institution."
That last paragraph hides much, by using a whole lot more nationalities as bushes, while the real root of the stance behind this book and other similar pro Germany, anti British attitudes is the republicans seeking to get not merely votes but a votebank with strong loyalty out of some Irish, mostly Germanophile affiliations of parts of U.S. population. That certainly does not include those of ancestry from East Europe, and unlikely to include Italians as a bloc either.
................................................................................................
And yet the author is real about actual fascists and nazis.
"The Night of the Long Knives was the first act of state terror of the Third Reich and revealed the character of Hitler and his regime. To the Nazis, murder was a legitimate weapon to deal with political enemies. Between 150 and 200 people died. Mussolini was shaken. Reading of how Hitler relished the role of executioner of former comrades, Mussolini
"burst into a room in which his sister Edvige was sitting and waved a bundle of newspapers: “He is a cruel and ferocious character and calls to mind legendary characters of the past: Attila. Those men he killed were his closest collaborators, who hoisted him into power. It is as if I came to kill with my own hands, Balbo, Grandi, Bottai … ”
"Il Duce now knew that the Hitler he had considered a buffoon in Venice was a decisive, ruthless, menacing, and formidable figure, unlike any European statesman with whom he had dealt in a decade in power.
"Six weeks after Hitler’s visit to Venice, 150 Austrian Nazis stormed the chancery in Vienna. Most of the Cabinet, warned in advance, had fled. But the gritty little Dollfuss refused to run. From six inches away, he was shot in the throat. As the celebrating Nazis went on national radio to announce his resignation, Dollfuss, ignored by his killers, bled to death, the only European leader to die a martyr’s death resisting Nazism."
"Hitler was right to be nervous. Mussolini, who had been hosting Dollfuss’s family and had to break the news of his assassination to his wife, was enraged and ordered four divisions to the Brenner. Il Duce sent word to Vienna: If Germany invades, Italy will go to war. In a show of support, Mussolini departed for Austria, where he vented his disgust at Hitler and the Nazis to vice chancellor Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg: “It would mean the end of European civilization if this country of murderers and pederasts were to overrun Europe.”"
"Mussolini hoped Britain and France would recognize the danger and form a united front:
"Hitler will arm the Germans and make war—perhaps even in two or three years. I cannot stand up to him alone.… I cannot always be the one to march to the Brenner. Others must show some interest in Austria and the Danube basin.… We must do something, we must do something quickly.
"While Italy had mobilized troops, Britain and France had done nothing. Mussolini was confirmed in his convictions about the decadence of the democracies and “resolved petulantly that he would not again attempt to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the West.”"
"On March 9, 1935, Hermann Göring informed a correspondent of the London Daily Mail that the Luftwaffe would become an official branch of the armed forces. The next Saturday, the Nazis announced that Germany was reimposing conscription and calling up 300,000 men to create an army of 36 divisions. This was the first formal breach of Versailles. Hitler reassured the French ambassador he had no designs on the West as he delivered a blazing tirade against Stalin and Bolshevism. The French envoy was soothed. Paris appealed feebly to the League of Nations against this brazen violation of the 1919 peace treaty that had been crafted with France’s security foremost in mind.
"Britain and France now began to believe Mussolini might be right. With German rearmament under way, and the murder of Dollfuss and the failed Austrian coup in mind, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and French prime minister Pierre Flandin and Foreign Minister Pierre Laval agreed to meet with Mussolini in Stresa on Lake Maggiore from April 11 to 14.
"Passed over by many historians, this was a crucial meeting in the interwar period. For in 1935, as Oxford’s R. B. McCallum has written, “Italy, with her military force and strong and virile Government, held the balance of power in Europe.” At the end of the Stresa conference a communiqué was issued denouncing German rearmament as a violation of Versailles and affirming the three nations’ commitment to the principles of Locarno."
"THE LOCARNO TREATY OF MUTUAL Guarantee—negotiated in that Swiss town and signed in London in 1925—was the brainchild of German foreign minister Gustav Stresemann. He had suggested to the British that, rather than siding with France against a friendly and democratic Germany by guaranteeing France’s border, Britain should guarantee the borders of both nations. As described by historian Correlli Barnett, the Locarno pact was a group of treaties:
"Germany, Belgium and France bound themselves to recognize as inviolable not only their existing mutual frontiers, but also the demilitarisation of the Rhineland. Thus Germany now voluntarily accepted in respect of the Rhineland and her western frontiers what had been imposed on her at Versailles. The three countries further pledged themselves that in no case would they attack, invade or resort to war against one another. All these obligations were guaranteed by Italy and England; in other words, the guarantors were immediately to intervene against a power which broke the treaty by violating the frontier of another.… [T]hey were similarly to intervene if Germany violated the demilitarised zone.
"Locarno was crucial. For it represented the voluntary acceptance by Berlin of what had been imposed upon Germany at Versailles. On October 16, 1925, a democratic Germany accepted the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, the inviolability of its borders with Belgium and France, and the permanent demilitarization of the Rhineland, and undertook to apply for membership in the League of Nations.
"At Locarno, however, the borders of Eastern Europe had gone unmentioned. For no German statesman could accept, in perpetuity, the loss of Memel, Danzig, the Corridor, and the Sudetenland to Lithuania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, and survive. Writes Taylor:
"This was an impossible condition for the German government. Most Germans had acquiesced in the loss of Alsace and Lorraine; few of them even raised the question until after the defeat of France in 1940. The frontier with Poland was felt as a grievance. It might be tolerated; it could not be confirmed."
Notice the racism there. France and Belgium and Holland and Denmark, West Europe and Scandinavia, acceptable to Germans; Poland, or anything East. Not so much. This can only be explained by racial attitude of looking down on Slavic people.
"One statesman, however, did favor an “Eastern Locarno” that would commit the nations of Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia, backed by Britain and France, to act jointly to stop any German attempt to undo the borders laid down at Paris. He was Louis Barthou of France. In 1934, French policy toward Hitler’s Reich was in the portfolio of this tough-minded foreign minister and “last survivor of the staunch old republican politicians of the stripe of Clemenceau and Poincaré, who had helped guide the country to victory over Germany.”
"Barthou supported an understanding with Italy, the restoration of France’s alliance with Russia, and firmness toward Hitler. He had helped to bring the Soviet Union into the League of Nations. Where Ramsay MacDonald was willing to concede equality of armaments to Germany, Barthou declared that France would refuse to legalize any German rearmament contrary to the terms of Versailles, adding, “France will assure her security by her own means.”
"Tragically, Barthou was riding beside Yugoslavia’s King Alexander in Marseilles on October 9, 1934, when that monarch was assassinated by a Macedonian terrorist who also shot and wounded Barthou. The king was in France on the first day of a state visit to cement their alliance against Germany. While the king was being attended to, Barthou, ignored, bled to death."
Buchanan must think he's clever not mentioning the murder was act of nazi origin, in every way.
................................................................................................
"NOW, AT STRESA, ten years after Locarno, Britain, France, and Italy had agreed to support the independence and integrity of Austria. But there was a worm in the apple of accord. The British were double-dealing. Mussolini and the French had come prepared to form a united front. But MacDonald and Foreign Secretary John Simon had assured Parliament they would make no commitments at Stresa that would bind Britain to act against Germany.
"MacDonald and Simon had both opposed British entry into the war in 1914 and were unwilling to commit Britain to defend any nation in Central or Eastern Europe, or to act with Italy and France, should Hitler commit a new violation of Versailles. As Mussolini biographer Jasper Ridley writes, “In all the discussions between Britain, France and Italy as to how to react to Hitler’s breach of the Treaty of Versailles, Simon was the most pro-German and Mussolini the most anti-German.”"
"Two days after the Stresa conference ended, however, on April 17, a British-French-Italian resolution condemning German rearmament and conscription as a breach of Versailles was passed by the Council of the League of Nations. The condemnation of Germany was unanimous, with only Denmark abstaining. A committee of thirteen, including Russia, was set up to consider sanctions. The Third Reich was diplomatically isolated."
Hitler went on peace offensive, declaring he wanted nothing, Germany needed peace, and offered to make a naval pact with Britain.
"On June 18, 1935, an Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed permitting Germany to construct a fleet 35 percent of the Royal Navy and a submarine force equal to Great Britain’s. Writes historian Evans, “This rode a coach and horses through the Stresa agreement, concluded only a few months before, and was a major diplomatic triumph for Hitler.”
"Ribbentrop returned home to a hero’s welcome. Paris was as stunned as Moscow. Stalin believed Britain had just given Hitler a green light to build a Baltic fleet strong enough to attack him. From Rome came reports that “Mussolini had nearly gone through the roof of the Palazzo Chigi when he heard about the Anglo-German Agreement,” believing that the “British government were so frightened of Hitler that they had lost faith in the League of Nations’ ability to prevent war.”"
"Churchill thought the Anglo-German treaty a rotten bargain:
"The League of Nations has been weakened by our action, the principle of collective security has been impaired. German treaty-breaking has been condoned and even extolled. The Stresa front has been shaken, if not, indeed, dissolved."
................................................................................................
"“Ramsay MacDonald and Simon could have issued a stern warning to Mussolini at Stresa against Abyssinian aggression,” writes Brody. “They chose silence.… Simon had the opportunity to warn Mussolini in unmistakable terms. He did not choose to take the opportunity.”
"As he signed the Stresa communiqué, Mussolini loudly repeated the words of his amendment to the final draft, “peace in Europe.”66 MacDonald and Simon looked at each other and said nothing. Mussolini took this as a signal of Allied assent to his plans for conquest in Africa.67 Thus did Britain miss an opening that could have saved its alliance with Italy."
"As the British Empire controlled almost every other piece of real estate in East Africa, Italy’s annexation of part or all of Ethiopia posed no threat to Great Britain. And with British flags flying over Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, Burma, India, Ceylon, Pakistan, southern Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, the Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika, Rhodesia, South Africa, Southwest Africa, Togo, the Gold Coast, and Nigeria—not all acquired by peaceful purchase—for Britain to oppose Italy’s annexation of Ethiopia might seem hypocritical. To aspiring imperial powers like Italy and Japan, it did. Yōsuke Matsuoka, who had led the Japanese delegation at Geneva, had commented about the centuries-old practice of imperialism: “The Western powers taught the Japanese the game of poker but after acquiring most of the chips they pronounced the game immoral and took up contract bridge.”"
Just what the Germans are thinking, when they speak of British empire in context of German attempted conquest of Europe in an effort to establish an empire right in the neighbourhood. When in U.S., German tourists used to make a point to tour Harlem and take photographs. Not out of love of people living there, but a silent - in U.S. - point made about hypocrisy of people of U.S. with their complete lack of equality in racist practices then criticising holocaust.
"When a Frenchwoman accosted Churchill to argue that Italy was only doing in Ethiopia what British imperialists had done for centuries, Churchill replied, “Ah, but you see, all that belongs to the un-regenerate past, is locked away in the limbo of the old, the wicked days. The world progresses.”70
"Mussolini believed that, as the British-French Entente of 1904 had put Egypt in Britain’s sphere and Morocco in France’s, Italy, a Stresa partner of the Allies, should be given a free hand in Abyssinia. Moreover, Abyssinia was no ornament of civilization, but
"was itself an empire, ruling subject and often migratory populations by force and terror, behind shifting or indeterminate frontiers.… Abyssinia was a primitive African monarchy which practiced slavery; not a modern state at all. It should not have been in the League. The notion that the League had to guarantee its frontiers was an excellent illustration of the absurdity of the covenant which led Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and his friends to reject it. The League should also have been scrapped after the 1931 Manchurian fiasco.
"But the League had not been scrapped, Ethiopia was a member, and Wilsonian idealism now had a powerful hold on the British upper class and the national imagination.
"How had an African empire that practiced slavery qualified for the League?
"Paradoxically, Ethiopia had been brought into the League by Italy in 1923. Rome suspected Britain had designs on the country and wanted to keep it out of the Lion’s paws. Indeed, British newspapers had been clamoring for intervention in Ethiopia to abolish slavery, and Britain had been among the least enthusiastic members of the League about admitting so reactionary a state. Ethiopia, upon its admission, had pledged to end slavery, but had never done so."
Funny, that question about "how an African empire that practiced slavery qualified for the league" - even apart from the actual slavery in U.S. that only ended in formal slave trading ceasing to exist, but not so much in the degree of equal rights, there are not only various countries and populations practicing slavery among the islamist countries even now, but that two major members of the then League - Britain and France - each had empires with subjects certainly not on par with the "white"s back home.
And while British limited the subjugation to holding every colonial person or practice beneath that of England, French went much further and held anything not in accord with French culture or law as things abominable, abhorrent, and to be ruthlessly wiped out. This continues to date, whether in France or elsewhere - even where it isnt about security. Hindu women and Sikh males have been known to be severely at receiving end of horrible treatment for no reason whatsoever, not only in France, but at Alliance Francaise in their own country.
................................................................................................
"On November 1, in Milan, Mussolini proclaimed the Rome-Berlin Axis. In 1937, Italy would adhere to the Anti-Comintern Pact of Germany and Japan, established to resist subversion by the Comintern, or Communist International, centered in Moscow. For the League of Nations, the crisis in Abyssinia was the end of the line. A.J.P. Taylor writes,
"Fifty-two nations had combined to resist aggression; all they accomplished was that Haile Selassie lost all his country instead of only half. Incorrigible in impracticality, the League further offended Italy by allowing Haile Selassie a hearing at the Assembly; and then expelled him for the crime of taking the covenant seriously. Japan and Germany had already left the League; Italy followed in December 1937.… When foreign powers intervened in the Spanish civil war, the Spanish government appealed to the League. The Council first “studied the question” then expressed its “regrets” and agreed to house the pictures from the Prado … at Geneva."
"Writes Churchill biographer Robert Payne,
"With an unusual blindness, even in those times when the blind were leading the blind, Churchill continued to hold Mussolini in high esteem. The man he was later to call “Hitler’s utensil” belonged to the company of “great men” to be admired, placated and helped on their way. When Mussolini invaded Abyssinia in October, 1935, Churchill staunchly defended him: The Abyssinians were as primitive as the Indians and deserved to be conquered."
And that last bit is why Britain lost, and deserved to lose, the empire.
Buchanan wrote this book in quest of how Britain lost her empire, and why migrants are crowding West while "white" men are losing power. Perhaps he's a fellow traveller of KKK, and is nostalgic about the confederate South, seeking to bring back the slavery era for U.S. as much as the empires for the Europeans.
"Two years after Mussolini had embraced Hitler, Churchill was still proclaiming the genius of Rome’s Fascist dictator: “It would be a dangerous folly for the British people to underrate the enduring position in world-history which Mussolini will hold; or the amazing qualities of courage, comprehension, self-control and perseverance which he exemplifies.”101 In December 1940, when Britain was at war with Italy, Churchill, in an address to the Italian people, again said of Mussolini, “That he is a great man I do not deny.”
"A.J.P. Taylor, looking back at the fraudulence of Fascism and the “vain, blundering boaster without ideas or aims” Mussolini had been, wondered at the character of British statesmen, Churchill included:
"Ramsay MacDonald wrote cordial letters to Mussolini—at the very moment of Matteoti’s murder; Austen Chamberlain and Mussolini exchanged photographs; Winston Churchill extolled Mussolini as the saviour of his country and a great European statesman. How could anyone believe in the sincerity of Western leaders when they flattered Mussolini in this way and accepted him as one of themselves?"
How? Because they weren't that different?
Churchill did cause death of millions in India, not only by taking away the harvest, but explicitly declaring that millions dying in India was not merely no concern, it was good; so much so, he refused to allow ships filled with grain specifically sent by FDR to aid India at that time, to proceed further than Australia.
"On November 1, in Milan, Mussolini proclaimed the Rome-Berlin Axis. In 1937, Italy would adhere to the Anti-Comintern Pact of Germany and Japan, established to resist subversion by the Comintern, or Communist International, centered in Moscow. For the League of Nations, the crisis in Abyssinia was the end of the line. A.J.P. Taylor writes,
"Fifty-two nations had combined to resist aggression; all they accomplished was that Haile Selassie lost all his country instead of only half. Incorrigible in impracticality, the League further offended Italy by allowing Haile Selassie a hearing at the Assembly; and then expelled him for the crime of taking the covenant seriously. Japan and Germany had already left the League; Italy followed in December 1937.… When foreign powers intervened in the Spanish civil war, the Spanish government appealed to the League. The Council first “studied the question” then expressed its “regrets” and agreed to house the pictures from the Prado … at Geneva."
"Writes Churchill biographer Robert Payne,
"With an unusual blindness, even in those times when the blind were leading the blind, Churchill continued to hold Mussolini in high esteem. The man he was later to call “Hitler’s utensil” belonged to the company of “great men” to be admired, placated and helped on their way. When Mussolini invaded Abyssinia in October, 1935, Churchill staunchly defended him: The Abyssinians were as primitive as the Indians and deserved to be conquered."
And that last bit is why Britain lost, and deserved to lose, the empire.
Buchanan wrote this book in quest of how Britain lost her empire, and why migrants are crowding West while "white" men are losing power. Perhaps he's a fellow traveller of KKK, and is nostalgic about the confederate South, seeking to bring back the slavery era for U.S. as much as the empires for the Europeans.
................................................................................................
"Two years after Mussolini had embraced Hitler, Churchill was still proclaiming the genius of Rome’s Fascist dictator: “It would be a dangerous folly for the British people to underrate the enduring position in world-history which Mussolini will hold; or the amazing qualities of courage, comprehension, self-control and perseverance which he exemplifies.”101 In December 1940, when Britain was at war with Italy, Churchill, in an address to the Italian people, again said of Mussolini, “That he is a great man I do not deny.”
"A.J.P. Taylor, looking back at the fraudulence of Fascism and the “vain, blundering boaster without ideas or aims” Mussolini had been, wondered at the character of British statesmen, Churchill included:
"Ramsay MacDonald wrote cordial letters to Mussolini—at the very moment of Matteoti’s murder; Austen Chamberlain and Mussolini exchanged photographs; Winston Churchill extolled Mussolini as the saviour of his country and a great European statesman. How could anyone believe in the sincerity of Western leaders when they flattered Mussolini in this way and accepted him as one of themselves?"
How? Because they weren't that different?
Churchill did cause death of millions in India, not only by taking away the harvest, but explicitly declaring that millions dying in India was not merely no concern, it was good; so much so, he refused to allow ships filled with grain specifically sent by FDR to aid India at that time, to proceed further than Australia.
If Hitler had stopped at conquering Poland, or even West Europe and Scandinavia, would Churchill have reconciled to him too?
................................................................................................
Here's an example of how Buchanan lies, mixing some facts with some lies, typical liner strategy.
"AMERICA IGNORED HITLER’S MOVE because she had turned her back on European power politics. Americans had concluded they had been lied to and swindled when they enlisted in the Allied cause in 1917. They had sent their sons across the ocean to “make the world safe for democracy,” only to see the British empire add a million square miles. ..... They had given America’s word to the world that the peace imposed on Germany would be a just peace based on the Fourteen Points and Wilson’s principle of self-determination, then watched the Allies dishonor America’s word by tearing Germany apart, forcing millions of Germans under foreign rule, and bankrupting Germany with reparations."
Buchanan repeats "America", when he shouldn't even be saying U.S., the more correct word for the country rather than the continent from pole to pole. It would be closer to facts if he said the republicans or the pro German part of the population of U.S., a not insignificant proportion. But of course it's hypocrisy to claim U.S. general public was antipathic about French or British empires extending their sovereignty - U.S. is a nation that consists of land acquired by Europeans from the natives of the land, by invading and massacring, and further more of the same, apart from wars between various Europeanpowers or between those powers and U.S., to acquire even more of the same.
As for reparations, Germany cried foul from day one about it, not because Germany had not attacked France or cause deaths of close to a million soldiers and similar number severely wounded and loss of forests and farmlands due to German armies devastating them in France, but because Germany considers such atrocities perpetrated by German armies or citizens against other lands a divine mandate from heaven to Germany, and not a mere non sequitur as Europe thinks it has across the globe. Germany had the money to pay reparations, but spent it on surreptitious war against France by spending on propaganda; and disarmament was entirely flouted, of course. German bankruptcy was the way out of having to pay damages to France, which Germany had forced Russia for example to pay.
Same about Germans forced to live under other rules - Germany has never had a problem invading, massacring, occupying and enslaving others, as evident at the beginning of this chapter when Buchanan mentions Germany's "ancient 'drang nach Osten'", drive East to occupy more land and settle it with Germans.
It's hardly likely that U.S. was all pro German and anti French enough to adopt uniformly such attitudes as Buchanan claims.
He does the same speaking of British reaction to Hitler occupying and familiarizing Rhineland:-
"The British had concluded that Keynes and the other savage critics of Versailles had been right in accusing the Allies of imposing a Carthaginian peace on Germany in violation of the terms of armistice. Britain was now led by decent men with dreadful memories and troubled consciences, who were afflicted with guilt over what had been done.
"No one wanted another European war. The horrors of the Western Front had been described in the poems and memoirs of those who had survived the trenches. The crippled and maimed were still visible in British cities, begging in the streets. The graves and war memorials were fresh."
And
"Tears stood in [Baldwin’s] eyes as he confessed that the British had no forces with which to support France. In any case, he added, British public opinion would not allow it. This was true: there was almost unanimous approval in Great Britain that the Germans had liberated their own territory. What Baldwin did not add was that he agreed with this public opinion. The German reoccupation of the Rhineland was, from the British point of view, an improvement and a success for British policy."
Notice the two separate, unrelated parts juxtaposed in both - fact is, England had suffered loss of manpower to a horrendous degree, and it was horrible with wounded soldiers begging or all but - selling pencils - in streets in London. Fact also is, British had no doubts Germany had caused it, had attacked, and might again, but they were simply exhausted and wanted to avoid it as far as possible, unlike Germans who'd not only reproduced enough but had a leader driving them to war, whether they liked it or not, wanted it or not.
Another lie, at least by Buchanan, quoting:-
"Behind the king’s anguish, writes Andrew Roberts, was a sense that it was “considered axiomatic that another war would spell doom for the British Empire.”"
Which is intended to have less informed readership think the British were cowardly and just wanted to keep the throne and empire, especially the royals. Their conduct, in Europe especially, during the wars, gives lie to the veiled allegation, while as to loss of colonies, no one ever thought it likely until it actually suddenly was on, with nothing related to Europe as cause.
A much more blatant, layered, multiple lie:-
"Also, many in Britain now believed that France and her huge army were a greater threat to the balance of power than Germany. Some even welcomed Hitler’s buildup—to check France."
"In an interview with the News-Chronicle on his return to England, Lloyd George assured his countrymen, “Germany has no desire to attack any country in Europe … Hitler is arming for defence and not for attack.”"
That doesn't mean it was true, or that Lloyd George was pro German and against France; it simply means Lloyd George was one of those that got deceived by the false man, as many did before and after.
Later, Buchanan quotes Churchill and sums it up more accurately:-
"Since the Allies are unwilling to use military power to enforce the terms of Locarno, Churchill is saying here, Hitler should do the noble thing voluntarily: withdraw all troops from the Rhineland, and thereby earn the goodwill and gratitude of the civilized world."
................................................................................................
"IT IS FRANCE’S CONDUCT that is inexplicable."
Buchanan means, about France not going to war over Rhineland. He is merely seeking to blame France for being cowardly, just as he blames France for being vengeful in demanding reparations. In truth neither is correct and its merely a very pro nazi attitude.
France suffered the two wars, especially the first, far more than Britain. Just as Britain was hoping to avoid another, so was France, with very good reason. Moreover France was now isolated if they'd fought over Rhineland, with U.S. again isolationist and Britain reluctant. Hitler was good, until Poland, at deceiving people, and fraudulent drama. Blaming France is merely convenient trick a la blaming a rape victim.
................................................................................................
"As the immensely tall Halifax was driven up to Berchtesgaden, he could only see, looking down out of the window of his car, the shiny patent-leather shoes and black-trousered pants legs of the man at his car door. Emerging from his limousine, Lord Halifax started to hand his hat and coat to the footman. Only after an agitated Neurath had hissed in his ear, “Der Fuehrer! Der Fuehrer!” did Halifax realize this was Adolf Hitler.
"A diplomatic debacle had been narrowly averted.
"Throughout the meeting, Hitler remained in a foul mood. After lunch, Halifax brought up his experiences as viceroy of India, where he had urged a policy of conciliation. Hitler, who had just related how Lives of a Bengal Lancer was his favorite film, and compulsory viewing for the SS to show “how a superior race must behave,” rudely interrupted him.
"“Shoot Gandhi!”
"A startled Halifax fell silent, as Hitler went into a rant:
"“Shoot Gandhi! And if that does not suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of Congress; and if that does not suffice, shoot 200 and so on until order is established.”"
................................................................................................
Buchanan claims that Halifax conveyed a message from Chamberlain to the effect that Britain was willing to concede everything Germany wanted, including Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Danzig corridor and the Baltics, if only done in gentlemanly fashion without unnecessary disturbance.
This certainly isn't supported by the extensive Shirer work on the subject and era, based exclusively on documents, including minutes of meetings and testimonies at Nuremberg and other interviews, and private diaries.
Buchanan says this, probably to fortify his claim that Churchill was the villain in the story who denied it to Hitler by not succumbing like the others.
But fact is, Neville Chamberlain's peace offering at Munich was the last bit that the allies Britain and France could endure, and they were very aware that another step from Germany would mean there was nothing short of enslaving all of Europe as a first step towards conquering the world that Hitler was going to stop at; and meanwhile the atrocities against his subjects were becoming known.
Churchill came to power on the platform of putting a stop to this, as the elderly Neville Chamberlain gave up heartbroken, seeing the failure of his last effort to keep peace in their lifetimes for Britain and for Europe.
It wasn't that Britain was willing to give everything Hitler wanted, it was only that Britain tried her best to avoid war.
Here's an example of how Buchanan lies, mixing some facts with some lies, typical liner strategy.
"AMERICA IGNORED HITLER’S MOVE because she had turned her back on European power politics. Americans had concluded they had been lied to and swindled when they enlisted in the Allied cause in 1917. They had sent their sons across the ocean to “make the world safe for democracy,” only to see the British empire add a million square miles. ..... They had given America’s word to the world that the peace imposed on Germany would be a just peace based on the Fourteen Points and Wilson’s principle of self-determination, then watched the Allies dishonor America’s word by tearing Germany apart, forcing millions of Germans under foreign rule, and bankrupting Germany with reparations."
Buchanan repeats "America", when he shouldn't even be saying U.S., the more correct word for the country rather than the continent from pole to pole. It would be closer to facts if he said the republicans or the pro German part of the population of U.S., a not insignificant proportion. But of course it's hypocrisy to claim U.S. general public was antipathic about French or British empires extending their sovereignty - U.S. is a nation that consists of land acquired by Europeans from the natives of the land, by invading and massacring, and further more of the same, apart from wars between various Europeanpowers or between those powers and U.S., to acquire even more of the same.
As for reparations, Germany cried foul from day one about it, not because Germany had not attacked France or cause deaths of close to a million soldiers and similar number severely wounded and loss of forests and farmlands due to German armies devastating them in France, but because Germany considers such atrocities perpetrated by German armies or citizens against other lands a divine mandate from heaven to Germany, and not a mere non sequitur as Europe thinks it has across the globe. Germany had the money to pay reparations, but spent it on surreptitious war against France by spending on propaganda; and disarmament was entirely flouted, of course. German bankruptcy was the way out of having to pay damages to France, which Germany had forced Russia for example to pay.
Same about Germans forced to live under other rules - Germany has never had a problem invading, massacring, occupying and enslaving others, as evident at the beginning of this chapter when Buchanan mentions Germany's "ancient 'drang nach Osten'", drive East to occupy more land and settle it with Germans.
It's hardly likely that U.S. was all pro German and anti French enough to adopt uniformly such attitudes as Buchanan claims.
He does the same speaking of British reaction to Hitler occupying and familiarizing Rhineland:-
"The British had concluded that Keynes and the other savage critics of Versailles had been right in accusing the Allies of imposing a Carthaginian peace on Germany in violation of the terms of armistice. Britain was now led by decent men with dreadful memories and troubled consciences, who were afflicted with guilt over what had been done.
"No one wanted another European war. The horrors of the Western Front had been described in the poems and memoirs of those who had survived the trenches. The crippled and maimed were still visible in British cities, begging in the streets. The graves and war memorials were fresh."
And
"Tears stood in [Baldwin’s] eyes as he confessed that the British had no forces with which to support France. In any case, he added, British public opinion would not allow it. This was true: there was almost unanimous approval in Great Britain that the Germans had liberated their own territory. What Baldwin did not add was that he agreed with this public opinion. The German reoccupation of the Rhineland was, from the British point of view, an improvement and a success for British policy."
Notice the two separate, unrelated parts juxtaposed in both - fact is, England had suffered loss of manpower to a horrendous degree, and it was horrible with wounded soldiers begging or all but - selling pencils - in streets in London. Fact also is, British had no doubts Germany had caused it, had attacked, and might again, but they were simply exhausted and wanted to avoid it as far as possible, unlike Germans who'd not only reproduced enough but had a leader driving them to war, whether they liked it or not, wanted it or not.
Another lie, at least by Buchanan, quoting:-
"Behind the king’s anguish, writes Andrew Roberts, was a sense that it was “considered axiomatic that another war would spell doom for the British Empire.”"
Which is intended to have less informed readership think the British were cowardly and just wanted to keep the throne and empire, especially the royals. Their conduct, in Europe especially, during the wars, gives lie to the veiled allegation, while as to loss of colonies, no one ever thought it likely until it actually suddenly was on, with nothing related to Europe as cause.
A much more blatant, layered, multiple lie:-
"Also, many in Britain now believed that France and her huge army were a greater threat to the balance of power than Germany. Some even welcomed Hitler’s buildup—to check France."
"In an interview with the News-Chronicle on his return to England, Lloyd George assured his countrymen, “Germany has no desire to attack any country in Europe … Hitler is arming for defence and not for attack.”"
That doesn't mean it was true, or that Lloyd George was pro German and against France; it simply means Lloyd George was one of those that got deceived by the false man, as many did before and after.
Later, Buchanan quotes Churchill and sums it up more accurately:-
"Since the Allies are unwilling to use military power to enforce the terms of Locarno, Churchill is saying here, Hitler should do the noble thing voluntarily: withdraw all troops from the Rhineland, and thereby earn the goodwill and gratitude of the civilized world."
................................................................................................
"IT IS FRANCE’S CONDUCT that is inexplicable."
Buchanan means, about France not going to war over Rhineland. He is merely seeking to blame France for being cowardly, just as he blames France for being vengeful in demanding reparations. In truth neither is correct and its merely a very pro nazi attitude.
France suffered the two wars, especially the first, far more than Britain. Just as Britain was hoping to avoid another, so was France, with very good reason. Moreover France was now isolated if they'd fought over Rhineland, with U.S. again isolationist and Britain reluctant. Hitler was good, until Poland, at deceiving people, and fraudulent drama. Blaming France is merely convenient trick a la blaming a rape victim.
................................................................................................
"As the immensely tall Halifax was driven up to Berchtesgaden, he could only see, looking down out of the window of his car, the shiny patent-leather shoes and black-trousered pants legs of the man at his car door. Emerging from his limousine, Lord Halifax started to hand his hat and coat to the footman. Only after an agitated Neurath had hissed in his ear, “Der Fuehrer! Der Fuehrer!” did Halifax realize this was Adolf Hitler.
"A diplomatic debacle had been narrowly averted.
"Throughout the meeting, Hitler remained in a foul mood. After lunch, Halifax brought up his experiences as viceroy of India, where he had urged a policy of conciliation. Hitler, who had just related how Lives of a Bengal Lancer was his favorite film, and compulsory viewing for the SS to show “how a superior race must behave,” rudely interrupted him.
"“Shoot Gandhi!”
"A startled Halifax fell silent, as Hitler went into a rant:
"“Shoot Gandhi! And if that does not suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of Congress; and if that does not suffice, shoot 200 and so on until order is established.”"
................................................................................................
Buchanan claims that Halifax conveyed a message from Chamberlain to the effect that Britain was willing to concede everything Germany wanted, including Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Danzig corridor and the Baltics, if only done in gentlemanly fashion without unnecessary disturbance.
This certainly isn't supported by the extensive Shirer work on the subject and era, based exclusively on documents, including minutes of meetings and testimonies at Nuremberg and other interviews, and private diaries.
Buchanan says this, probably to fortify his claim that Churchill was the villain in the story who denied it to Hitler by not succumbing like the others.
But fact is, Neville Chamberlain's peace offering at Munich was the last bit that the allies Britain and France could endure, and they were very aware that another step from Germany would mean there was nothing short of enslaving all of Europe as a first step towards conquering the world that Hitler was going to stop at; and meanwhile the atrocities against his subjects were becoming known.
Churchill came to power on the platform of putting a stop to this, as the elderly Neville Chamberlain gave up heartbroken, seeing the failure of his last effort to keep peace in their lifetimes for Britain and for Europe.
It wasn't that Britain was willing to give everything Hitler wanted, it was only that Britain tried her best to avoid war.
................................................................................................
Buchanan devotes pages to quoting Churchill praising Hitler, and now
"Lord Halifax, reported his friend Henry “Chips” Channon, had “liked all the Nazi leaders, even Goebbels, and he was much impressed, interested and amused by the visit. He thinks the regime absolutely fantastic.”"
These quotes are from times before facts about the real atrocities were known. Much like the fairy tale wolf luring in the forest, Hitler and his selection knew how to charm or threaten or blackmail, and were together a theatre, so no wonder visitors they entertained were amused. Unless the said visitors knew the realities behind.
But even if the visitors gave a carte Blanche for the atrocities it does not justify them, nor does it deny those once charmed the right to be horrified at the crimes against humanity perpetrated and further intended by the nazis.
"For seven years, Austria ceased to exist and became the Ost-mark, the East Mark, the ancient bulwark of Europe against the hordes of Asia."
Buchanan isn't quoting when he says that. Racism is his own, however much shared by however many including nazis.
Buchanan devotes pages to quoting Churchill praising Hitler, and now
"Lord Halifax, reported his friend Henry “Chips” Channon, had “liked all the Nazi leaders, even Goebbels, and he was much impressed, interested and amused by the visit. He thinks the regime absolutely fantastic.”"
These quotes are from times before facts about the real atrocities were known. Much like the fairy tale wolf luring in the forest, Hitler and his selection knew how to charm or threaten or blackmail, and were together a theatre, so no wonder visitors they entertained were amused. Unless the said visitors knew the realities behind.
But even if the visitors gave a carte Blanche for the atrocities it does not justify them, nor does it deny those once charmed the right to be horrified at the crimes against humanity perpetrated and further intended by the nazis.
................................................................................................
"For seven years, Austria ceased to exist and became the Ost-mark, the East Mark, the ancient bulwark of Europe against the hordes of Asia."
Buchanan isn't quoting when he says that. Racism is his own, however much shared by however many including nazis.
................................................................................................
"In the Commons debate of March 14, Churchill called for a warning to be sent to Hitler that if he invaded any other country, Britain would intervene to stop him.67 On March 24, he rose in Parliament and in a speech full of foreboding—“a kind of terror,” Robert Payne writes—spoke of the retreat of British power since the rise of Hitler:
"I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine, broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends. A little farther on there are only flagstones, and a little farther on still these break beneath your feet.… Now the victors are vanquished, and those who threw down their arms in the field and sued for an armistice are striding on to world mastery."
................................................................................................
"In the Commons debate of March 14, Churchill called for a warning to be sent to Hitler that if he invaded any other country, Britain would intervene to stop him.67 On March 24, he rose in Parliament and in a speech full of foreboding—“a kind of terror,” Robert Payne writes—spoke of the retreat of British power since the rise of Hitler:
"I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine, broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends. A little farther on there are only flagstones, and a little farther on still these break beneath your feet.… Now the victors are vanquished, and those who threw down their arms in the field and sued for an armistice are striding on to world mastery."
................................................................................................
After the definitive tome by Shirer on the subject, one may wonder why someone would bother writing on the subject again - so the title, and the cover page, of this book provide the key; the material isn't new, it's the attempt to put a twist on it to suit an agenda that's pro German, pro nazi and pro colonial empires, pro white male supremacy and anti allied forces of the two wars, anti France (because of her liberte, egalite, fraternite?), and, in a not too successfully covert way, an attempt to malign the U.S. presidents who were the towering heroes during the two wars and hope of the trampled of the world, particularly of Europe.
................................................................................................
Chapter 8 is surprisingly good, up to the point where the author asks "WHY MUNICH?"; then it becomes clear why he has been quite so good until then. It's because he's up to no good subsequently, and promptly butcher's Czechoslovakia to suit Hitler.
"At Paris, 3.25 million German inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia had been transferred to the new Czechoslovakia of Tomás? Masaryk and Eduard Beneš in a flagrant disregard of Wilson’s self-proclaimed ideal of self-determination. Asked why he had consigned three million Germans to Czech rule, Wilson blurted, “Why, Masaryk never told me that!”
"H. N. Brailsford, England’s leading socialist thinker on foreign policy, had written in 1920 of the Paris peace: “The worst offence was the subjection of over three million Germans to Czech rule.” Austrian historian Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn describes the polyglot state the men of Paris had created:
"The Czechs numbered 47 percent of the population of Czechoslovakia. It was only by “annexing” the Slovaks, much against their expressed will, into a hyphenated nation which had never existed historically that they suddenly became a “majority.” In fact, there were more Germans (24.5 percent) in Czechoslovakia than Slovaks. But by clever gerrymandering devices the Czechs maintained a parliamentary majority and exercised an oppressive rule which drove the German minority (inexactly called “Sudeten Germans”) into a rebellious and disloyal nationalism that would evolve into national socialism."
Why is this fraud? Because neither Germany nor Austria-Hungary were free of this polyglot character Buchanan presents as abominable, except Germanic people were in charge and that suits the racist mindset; Germans living in a situation where others rule is the horror part for them.
Hence his - and Hitler's - real grudge against Czechoslovakia and Poland after 1919, where there were a German minority in a region bordering Germany. That there were other populations in the same region, so giving them to Germany would merely reverse it, is apparently all right with Buchanan and Hitler - the former couldn't care less, and the latter ordered Czechs to leave, without any possessions (which is exactly what terrorists ordered non muslims in Kashmir in 1990, as per the millennium and half old islamist jihadist tradition). Yugoslavia was another such polyglot nation, and Hitler crushed it too, later, but being without the sizable German minority that Czechoslovakia and Poland had, it didn't merit drama, apparently. Also, Czechoslovakia was the key to Europe, and Hitler required no permissions to occupy and bulldoze the Balkans.
Czechoslovakia of Tomás Masaryk and Eduard Beneš, and to some extent Austria before Dollfuss and Hungary too, were in fact truly democratic, with equality and freedom and rights - not just from the writings of William Shirer and Upton Sinclair, but from the various memoirs of the holocaust survivors. And this precisely is anathema to nazis and their fellow travellers.
So when Buchanan says
"Czechoslovakia was a multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural, Catholic-Protestant conglomerate that had never before existed.",
He's lying of course, out and out; for, not only Austria-Hungary was just such a state, as was Yugoslavia, U.S. itself has always - but of course - has been so, with migrants from everywhere in the world having followed those from Europe who massacred and crowded out a number of native tribes with separate languages, and all these migrants have brought their own languages, cultures, cuisines and more. The diversity existed before, was multiplied by European migrants and hasn't been wiped out by imposing merely one official language but only veiled.
A melting pot merely makes everything a brown stew. Leave a salad dish alone to let the rainbow hues and flavours mingle or stay separate, and it's an exquisite smorgasbord palette of languages and cultures and cuisines.
Impose a uniformity and you get goose stepping Nazi robotic inhuman death machines, reproducing by state order to populate the conquered lands after indigenous peoples are massacred and enslaved.
................................................................................................
False assertions galore here:-
"The triggering event occurred two months after Anschluss, while Hitler was still celebrating. Rumors began to fly of an imminent German invasion of Czechoslovakia. The rumors were false, and there is reason to believe the Czechs had planted them with the knowledge of Beneš, who ordered mobilization. As the rumors ricocheted around Europe, London warned Berlin that Britain would not sit still for an invasion. Paris and Moscow renewed their commitments to Prague. Hitler was suddenly in a major crisis not at all of his own making."
Hitler in fact planned his invasions, including that of Czechoslovakia, well ahead, and his rage at Czechoslovakia was that of Waterman in The Moneychangers, modelled on J. P. Morgan according to Upton Sinclair in The Brass Check, denied by a paltry entity he desired - Czechoslovakia in case of Hitler, Lucy Dupree in case of Waterman. That rage was turned into a determination to destroy Prague, but the invasion was planned well ahead. Refer to Shirer.
Again, "As the British saw the German demands as reasonable," is false, while rest of the paragraph heaping abuses on Czechs is simply Nazi sentiment, while the only fact about Britain or France in the situation was they were not ready to go to war again with millions of deaths and Hitler was more than ready - his whole regime was geared to war and nothing but war, and they knew it, but needed time to stand up to him.
As for "Many British believed justice was on the German side.", that's true of the Cliveden Set, and other Nazi fellow travellers.
And
"The brutal truth: The Sudeten Germans wanted to be reunited with their kinsmen and could not forever be denied."
Is again false - for it wasn't at any time about the German minorities of any lands, else why wasn't there a similar clamour from Hitler for acquiring Wisconsin and Michigan and Ohio, and more? He wasn't in love with people of German ethnicity as such, after all he not only had millions die in war for his lust of world conquest but a sizable part of a million die in Stalingrad due to his orders to not withdraw.
Czechoslovakia was invaded, not for Sudetenland Germans, but, apart from the strategic location of the country that was central to Europe and key to Mediterranean and Balkans, it was about Skoda and other industrial wealth of Czechoslovakia that Hitler intended to acquire for his goal of conquest of Europe towards world domination.
Buchanan keeps repeating the lie, as per Hitler doctrine:-
"The British people, too, wished to right the wrongs of Versailles."
And more along the same lines. Obviously Versailles did not take away Austria - or any part of it - from Germany, and to say that "The British people, too, wished to right the wrongs of Versailles.", in the context of hitler invading Austria or Czechoslovakia, is as huge a lie as Hitler approved to make it believable.
This particular paragraph, perhaps rest of the chapter and even the book, has very little else other than the same repetead argument about German grievances - mostly either racist or fraudulent - and justifications of Hitler's actions or lies about his being provoked by others, apart from lies about British people and so forth sympathetic to his grievances or wishing to make reparations about Versailles, and thereby make it seem strange that Britain not kowtow to Hitler when Poland was butchered.
"Appeasement of a Germany they now believed to have been wronged was broadly supported."
That's a lie Buchanan repeats several times in different words, but a whopper it is. Such sympathies don't turn overnight as the British people did between Czechoslovakia and Poland, and this wasn't a love of one more than other, it was simply an effort to avoid another world war and deaths of millions, with appeasement for hope of it being enough to keep peace.
Czechoslovakia was the last straw, especially when Munich treaty was violated by Hitler by not stopping at Sudetenland, and not only taking Czechoslovakia and dismembering it, but destroying Prague with a vengeance. This turned British people from hoping for peace to a determination of not allowing it any more, and that is why British carried on, not giving in and surrendering in face of the huge threat, when nazis were established across the channel for years and bombarding cities of England, including London and more, massacring civilians.
Buchanan ends chapter 8 with
"The casus belli of World War II emanated from a decision, six months later, that would drag England into a six-year death struggle at the wrong time, in the wrong place, for the wrong reason. That decision would prove the greatest blunder in British history."
This obviously is referring to the tripartite treaty Britain and France made with Poland, and it was no mistake under the circumstances. Horrors of German occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia were now known, Hitler having by then repeatedly broken his promises about wanting no more, and obviously he was getting ready to butcher Poland. British and French were deliberate about the treaty and about honouring it, however difficult it was for France.
And the reason Buchanan insists on his summing up as a mistake by Britain was end of the colonial era, post WWII, which, juxtaposed with the end of most monarchies of Europe after WWI, seems like a causal relationship between the wars and the losses.
But this resulting in calling the war a mistake amounts to Buchanan being on the side of colonisation at any cost, which implies too that he, perhaps republicans in general, are of the opinion that the U.S. civil war was a mistake, slavery should have been enshrined as white man's right at any cost, and citizens rights of equality are wrong when applied to races other than German and British.
That, in succinct terms, is the Nazi view.
................................................................................................
"Some historians claim Kristallnacht, shocking, revolting, and stupid as it was, evoking only disgust and contempt for Germany in the West, was not ordered by Hitler but was the work of Goebbels, his propaganda minister. But moral responsibility rests with Hitler. For those who carried out the rampage were not punished, Goebbels was not fired, and the German Jews were forced to pay a billion marks to clean up the damage."
Splitting hair about whether Hitler ordered it or Goebbels did, is fraud in that Hitler's agenda was much more antisemitism and hatred of others than love of Germans, and he made no secret of his racist doctrines, but imposed them everywhere his regime occupied in control, whether in Germany or later throughout most of Europe.
"Mistreatment of the 1.5 million Germans still living in the Corridor was bitterly resented."
There was mistreatment of Germans in Germany, on a huge scale; the resentment about Poland was about germans who saw themselves as racially superior having to live in Poland which they saw as fit only to serve Germans in abject poverty in capacity of serfdom, as the Poles living in Silesia had done. This is no different from Sudetenland question. The fact that Germany did not agitate about Germans living in other countries such as U.S. or it's neighbours in countries South of Mexico, says much - it bring all about racism.
Buchanan claims that in 1939,
"Hitler wanted Poland in his Anti-Comintern Pact."
This again is false if meant as a serious statement rather than a comment about surface manoeuvres Hitler routinely used for drama and cheating; for, as presented with ample evidence by Shirer, Hitler's not only intentions but his whole plan for invading and occupying Poland was set in motion as soon as Sudetenland was occupied, and the strategies about occupation of Poland regarding dealing with Poles had been explicitly set forth in written instructions too, about murdering all intelligentsia and all landowners class, and using the rest as slave labour for benefit of Germans. His plans were executed to the date of invasion he'd set, no matter the interim drama, and so was the occupation.
The following
" ... after their 1920 victory over the Red Army, the Poles considered themselves a Great Power. They were not. Writes A.J.P. Taylor,
"[T]hey … forgot that they had gained their independence in 1918 only because both Russia and Germany had been defeated. Now they had to choose between Russia and Germany. They chose neither. Only Danzig prevented cooperation between Germany and Poland. For this reason, Hitler wanted to get it out of the way. For precisely the same reason, Beck kept it in the way. It did not cross his mind that this might cause a fatal breach."
tells more about the absolute racism of Buchanan and Taylor both, then about reality. They opine that Poland being not occupied was an aberration and had to opt for domination by one neighbour or other, since historically it had been so. It doesn't occurr to them that a slave traded between two neighbouring bullies might nevertheless deserve freedom, equal rights and want it so.
"Indeed, of all the German claims to lost lands, the claim to Danzig was strongest. It had always been a German city. Its population was 95 percent German."
Germans had historically invaded eastern regions of Poland and Prussia during crusades, preferring to occupy lands by murdering populations and using them to settle Germans who then reproduced and so on; Danzig was, had been, one of the ancient Hanseatic free cities. As for population, at what level does that apply is a good question. Why were non German regions then occupied by Hitler, such as Czechoslovakia or Poland, and the rest, and why were Jewish neighbourhoods subjected to genocides instead of granting them the same autonomy demanded for Germans of Sudetenland and Silesia? Because it's all about Nazi doctrines of racism and about Germans being destined rulers of the world, a doctrine no different from that of Mongols who'd invaded Europe repeatedly. British call Germans Hun with good reason.
"On Danzig, the basic British and German positions were almost identical. Both wanted its peaceful return to Germany."
Had that been true, British would have negotiated that as they did Sudetenland, instead of which they went actively to create and sign a tripartite treaty with Britain and France guaranteeing Poland. So that's another Buchanan lie.
"Ribbentrop “hinted very heavily” to Beck “that Polish concessions over Danzig could be compensated at Slovakia’s expense”"
Which would violate German promises and guarantees to Slovakia about Germany ensuring Slovakia's freedom; so of course Poland had no reason to believe in German offers and promises - nobody did, by this time.
"So matters stood in March 1939, when the rump state of Czechoslovakia suddenly began to collapse and fall apart, as Hitler had warned Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden it would. By Chamberlain’s own notes of that first meeting, Hitler had said that, once the Sudeten Germans were free of Prague, the Hungarians, Poles, and Slovaks left inside the multiethnic state would also secede. Indeed, agents of the Reich were stoking the fires of secession, subverting the Czech state."
Again, prevarication there - it wasn't "falling apart" and it wasn't a few stray "agents" merely "stoking fires", but Hitler as per his intentions, even before he agitated about Sudetenland, destroying Czechoslovakia by actively encouraging every possible move by citizens and neighbours. That included Hitler actively encouraging Slovakia to separate, and Hungary, Poland and others to demand pieces of Czechoslovakia. It did not "happen" any more than genocides of Jews did, it was actively perpetrated.
Again, Taylor as saying, and Buchanan in quoting Taylor, as following
"All the world saw this as a culmination of a long-planned campaign. In fact, it was the unforeseen by-product of developments in Slovakia; and Hitler was acting against the Hungarians rather than against the Czechs. Nor was there anything sinister or premeditated in the protectorate over Bohemia. Hitler, the supposed revolutionary, was simply reverting in the most conservative way to the pattern of previous centuries. Bohemia had always been a part of the Holy Roman Empire; it had been part of the German Confederation between 1815 and 1866; then it had been linked to German Austria until 1918. Independence, not subordination, was the novelty in Czech history ….
"Hitler took the decisive step in his career when he occupied Prague. He did it without design; it brought him slight advantage. He acted only when events had already destroyed the settlement of Munich. But everyone outside Germany, and especially the other makers of that settlement, believed that he had deliberately destroyed it himself."
are each independently justifying colonisation, enslavement and slavery as principles, apart from lying to justify Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia and his destroying that country, which he'd fully intended, planned and executed as per his schedule.
"The German Army was anxious to replace the long, straggling German-Czech frontier, with a short easily-held line straight across Moravia from Silesia to Austria. The German Air Force was eager to acquire new air bases in Moravia and Bohemia. The seizure of Czech Army stocks and of the Skoda arms works, second only to Krupp’s, would represent a major reinforcement of German strength."
Another lie there, in that German army and so on had no independent will by this time; it merely executed Hitler's designs.
"For little gain, Hitler had burned his bridges to the political leaders of a British Empire he had sought to befriend and who were prepared to work with him for redress of grievances from Versailles."
It's really unclear if Buchanan is naive and takes Hitler seriously, or is going along with the falsehoods deliberately. The Versailles grievances were merely a convenient weapon to forever guilt those of Germany's opponents who could be fooled, as was the question of Germans living in countries across borders. It never was about that and nor was it about German lands taken or reparations having been excessive and caused starvation, since Germany imposed several times that amount whenever Germany deal with another country defeated, occupied or seeking a ceasefire treaty.
It was always about German right to own, rule and enslave, much like islamist jihad since or before; most grievances are merely a useful tool for both of these to guilt others into conceding their demands, before they turn wolves to take the rest. For in both cases, they dont have a record of treating thrir own well enough, much less deal with others decently.
"Some historians claim Kristallnacht, shocking, revolting, and stupid as it was, evoking only disgust and contempt for Germany in the West, was not ordered by Hitler but was the work of Goebbels, his propaganda minister. But moral responsibility rests with Hitler. For those who carried out the rampage were not punished, Goebbels was not fired, and the German Jews were forced to pay a billion marks to clean up the damage."
Splitting hair about whether Hitler ordered it or Goebbels did, is fraud in that Hitler's agenda was much more antisemitism and hatred of others than love of Germans, and he made no secret of his racist doctrines, but imposed them everywhere his regime occupied in control, whether in Germany or later throughout most of Europe.
"Mistreatment of the 1.5 million Germans still living in the Corridor was bitterly resented."
There was mistreatment of Germans in Germany, on a huge scale; the resentment about Poland was about germans who saw themselves as racially superior having to live in Poland which they saw as fit only to serve Germans in abject poverty in capacity of serfdom, as the Poles living in Silesia had done. This is no different from Sudetenland question. The fact that Germany did not agitate about Germans living in other countries such as U.S. or it's neighbours in countries South of Mexico, says much - it bring all about racism.
Buchanan claims that in 1939,
"Hitler wanted Poland in his Anti-Comintern Pact."
This again is false if meant as a serious statement rather than a comment about surface manoeuvres Hitler routinely used for drama and cheating; for, as presented with ample evidence by Shirer, Hitler's not only intentions but his whole plan for invading and occupying Poland was set in motion as soon as Sudetenland was occupied, and the strategies about occupation of Poland regarding dealing with Poles had been explicitly set forth in written instructions too, about murdering all intelligentsia and all landowners class, and using the rest as slave labour for benefit of Germans. His plans were executed to the date of invasion he'd set, no matter the interim drama, and so was the occupation.
The following
" ... after their 1920 victory over the Red Army, the Poles considered themselves a Great Power. They were not. Writes A.J.P. Taylor,
"[T]hey … forgot that they had gained their independence in 1918 only because both Russia and Germany had been defeated. Now they had to choose between Russia and Germany. They chose neither. Only Danzig prevented cooperation between Germany and Poland. For this reason, Hitler wanted to get it out of the way. For precisely the same reason, Beck kept it in the way. It did not cross his mind that this might cause a fatal breach."
tells more about the absolute racism of Buchanan and Taylor both, then about reality. They opine that Poland being not occupied was an aberration and had to opt for domination by one neighbour or other, since historically it had been so. It doesn't occurr to them that a slave traded between two neighbouring bullies might nevertheless deserve freedom, equal rights and want it so.
"Indeed, of all the German claims to lost lands, the claim to Danzig was strongest. It had always been a German city. Its population was 95 percent German."
Germans had historically invaded eastern regions of Poland and Prussia during crusades, preferring to occupy lands by murdering populations and using them to settle Germans who then reproduced and so on; Danzig was, had been, one of the ancient Hanseatic free cities. As for population, at what level does that apply is a good question. Why were non German regions then occupied by Hitler, such as Czechoslovakia or Poland, and the rest, and why were Jewish neighbourhoods subjected to genocides instead of granting them the same autonomy demanded for Germans of Sudetenland and Silesia? Because it's all about Nazi doctrines of racism and about Germans being destined rulers of the world, a doctrine no different from that of Mongols who'd invaded Europe repeatedly. British call Germans Hun with good reason.
"On Danzig, the basic British and German positions were almost identical. Both wanted its peaceful return to Germany."
Had that been true, British would have negotiated that as they did Sudetenland, instead of which they went actively to create and sign a tripartite treaty with Britain and France guaranteeing Poland. So that's another Buchanan lie.
"Ribbentrop “hinted very heavily” to Beck “that Polish concessions over Danzig could be compensated at Slovakia’s expense”"
Which would violate German promises and guarantees to Slovakia about Germany ensuring Slovakia's freedom; so of course Poland had no reason to believe in German offers and promises - nobody did, by this time.
"So matters stood in March 1939, when the rump state of Czechoslovakia suddenly began to collapse and fall apart, as Hitler had warned Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden it would. By Chamberlain’s own notes of that first meeting, Hitler had said that, once the Sudeten Germans were free of Prague, the Hungarians, Poles, and Slovaks left inside the multiethnic state would also secede. Indeed, agents of the Reich were stoking the fires of secession, subverting the Czech state."
Again, prevarication there - it wasn't "falling apart" and it wasn't a few stray "agents" merely "stoking fires", but Hitler as per his intentions, even before he agitated about Sudetenland, destroying Czechoslovakia by actively encouraging every possible move by citizens and neighbours. That included Hitler actively encouraging Slovakia to separate, and Hungary, Poland and others to demand pieces of Czechoslovakia. It did not "happen" any more than genocides of Jews did, it was actively perpetrated.
................................................................................................
Again, Taylor as saying, and Buchanan in quoting Taylor, as following
"All the world saw this as a culmination of a long-planned campaign. In fact, it was the unforeseen by-product of developments in Slovakia; and Hitler was acting against the Hungarians rather than against the Czechs. Nor was there anything sinister or premeditated in the protectorate over Bohemia. Hitler, the supposed revolutionary, was simply reverting in the most conservative way to the pattern of previous centuries. Bohemia had always been a part of the Holy Roman Empire; it had been part of the German Confederation between 1815 and 1866; then it had been linked to German Austria until 1918. Independence, not subordination, was the novelty in Czech history ….
"Hitler took the decisive step in his career when he occupied Prague. He did it without design; it brought him slight advantage. He acted only when events had already destroyed the settlement of Munich. But everyone outside Germany, and especially the other makers of that settlement, believed that he had deliberately destroyed it himself."
are each independently justifying colonisation, enslavement and slavery as principles, apart from lying to justify Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia and his destroying that country, which he'd fully intended, planned and executed as per his schedule.
"The German Army was anxious to replace the long, straggling German-Czech frontier, with a short easily-held line straight across Moravia from Silesia to Austria. The German Air Force was eager to acquire new air bases in Moravia and Bohemia. The seizure of Czech Army stocks and of the Skoda arms works, second only to Krupp’s, would represent a major reinforcement of German strength."
Another lie there, in that German army and so on had no independent will by this time; it merely executed Hitler's designs.
"For little gain, Hitler had burned his bridges to the political leaders of a British Empire he had sought to befriend and who were prepared to work with him for redress of grievances from Versailles."
It's really unclear if Buchanan is naive and takes Hitler seriously, or is going along with the falsehoods deliberately. The Versailles grievances were merely a convenient weapon to forever guilt those of Germany's opponents who could be fooled, as was the question of Germans living in countries across borders. It never was about that and nor was it about German lands taken or reparations having been excessive and caused starvation, since Germany imposed several times that amount whenever Germany deal with another country defeated, occupied or seeking a ceasefire treaty.
It was always about German right to own, rule and enslave, much like islamist jihad since or before; most grievances are merely a useful tool for both of these to guilt others into conceding their demands, before they turn wolves to take the rest. For in both cases, they dont have a record of treating thrir own well enough, much less deal with others decently.
................................................................................................
Tilea, ambassador of Romania in London, came to British government saying Germany planned to do to Romania what they'd done to Czechoslovakia.
"Berlin had no border with Rumania or any quarrel with Rumania, and was negotiating a trade treaty to be signed in a week. Consulted by London, Bucharest emphatically denied it had received any ultimatum and refused to back up its ambassador."
There goes Buchanan again, defending Hitler and blaming everybody all over again. Did he expect to find a stone monument in Berlin with a capital lettered heading "ultimatum to Romania, with design to invade and destroy"? Yes, there would be documents to the effect, and Germans kept them meticulously, and most weren't destroyed before collapse of Nazi regime, but if Germany had seemed a trade treaty with Romania immediately after invading and destroying Czechoslovakia, Romania wasn't wrong in interpretation thereof, and events did prove Tilea correct, after all, didn't they?
Or does Buchanan go on to blame everyone who sneezed or looked up, for being tortured to death by nazis?
As for borders, Buchanan seems to think he could guarantee Hitler would limit himself to borders of Germany as understood by allies, forgetting Hitler had just invaded Czechoslovakia and therefore did very much have borders with Romania. And the rest of Balkans.
Unless there was reason to suppose Hitler wouldn't touch Hungary, or trans Carpathian Ruthenia part of Czechoslovakia, or any other neighbour of Romania such as Yugoslavia. There never was such a reason.
Buchanan goes whole hog, blaming Tilea:-
"The British government believed Tilea.
"Writes Manchester, “It was Tilea who suggested that Britain’s position might be strengthened if Poland joined them as a third ally. Halifax and Chamberlain found the prospect appealing.”
"On March 17 came the first sign of a major policy shift. In a speech in his home city of Birmingham, Chamberlain, to rising applause, charged Hitler with “a flagrant breach of personal faith.” Bitterly reciting Hitler’s words at Munich—“This is the last territorial claim I have to make in Europe.… I shall not be interested in the Czech state anymore and I can guarantee it. We don’t want any Czechs any more”—Chamberlain declaimed: “Is this the last attack upon a small state or is it to be followed by another? Is this in fact a step in the direction of an attempt to dominate the world by force?”"
This is typical Nazi technique, seeking an excuse to blame somebody for something only to be naturally expected, since the lies until that point do not hold up. Buchanan has been perpetrating the Nazi lie about German grievances and righteousness of the Hitler cause, and also about British being in sympathy, but it's all lies, especially about British agreeing with nazis and thinking it was only right that Hitler should have yet another land in Europe.
So he now blames Tilea for British turn in attitude, when in fact it was only to be expected - Czechoslovakia was the last straw, and Britain had every reason to feel guilty about not keeping the treaty, but any more concessions and appeasement would be amounting to Britain justifying Hitler takeover of Europe, England and the world.
And he's already mentioned that various Britons at this point did say on record that Chamberlain must now either reverse his policy of appeasement or resign. Why then continue a pretense that Chamberlain turning around was a fault that someone else must be blamed for?
Writing about appeasement after Buchanan wrote of Munich, he's gone to great lengths to explain that appeasement has come to mean something quite different from the original sense, which is related to redressal of grievances; he forgets that this change in meaning came about precisely due to Hitler's falsehoods and frauds, so that instead of addressing grievances it has since come to mean an abject giving in to a fraudulent bully and a goon who is threatening, blackmailing and intends to go do his worst in any case.
Chamberlain might not have admitted to himself, until it was too late, but the desperate attempt for peace and the pathetic joy believing they'd got it, wasn't about redressal of grievances - it was about going to greatest possible lengths to avoid a war that would take millions of lives again, as WWI had.
But Czechoslovakia was the last straw, and Britain knew it, as did everybody else except the German regime. They were too arrogant, by then, to take a moment to stock and realise that they'd gone as far as they could, and they'd only make enemies here on unless they stopped and consolidated, and established an exemplary nation, not one known for the then regime inflicting torture and worse on civilians. They, on the contrary, were far too arrogant, far too confident to care, and believed they could bulldoze their way to conquest of Europe by panzer and bombers. Which they did, but not for the thousand year length they proclaimed - less than five years, and losing millions of lives of the same Germans that Hitler claimed to love and work for.
Tilea, ambassador of Romania in London, came to British government saying Germany planned to do to Romania what they'd done to Czechoslovakia.
"Berlin had no border with Rumania or any quarrel with Rumania, and was negotiating a trade treaty to be signed in a week. Consulted by London, Bucharest emphatically denied it had received any ultimatum and refused to back up its ambassador."
There goes Buchanan again, defending Hitler and blaming everybody all over again. Did he expect to find a stone monument in Berlin with a capital lettered heading "ultimatum to Romania, with design to invade and destroy"? Yes, there would be documents to the effect, and Germans kept them meticulously, and most weren't destroyed before collapse of Nazi regime, but if Germany had seemed a trade treaty with Romania immediately after invading and destroying Czechoslovakia, Romania wasn't wrong in interpretation thereof, and events did prove Tilea correct, after all, didn't they?
Or does Buchanan go on to blame everyone who sneezed or looked up, for being tortured to death by nazis?
As for borders, Buchanan seems to think he could guarantee Hitler would limit himself to borders of Germany as understood by allies, forgetting Hitler had just invaded Czechoslovakia and therefore did very much have borders with Romania. And the rest of Balkans.
Unless there was reason to suppose Hitler wouldn't touch Hungary, or trans Carpathian Ruthenia part of Czechoslovakia, or any other neighbour of Romania such as Yugoslavia. There never was such a reason.
Buchanan goes whole hog, blaming Tilea:-
"The British government believed Tilea.
"Writes Manchester, “It was Tilea who suggested that Britain’s position might be strengthened if Poland joined them as a third ally. Halifax and Chamberlain found the prospect appealing.”
"On March 17 came the first sign of a major policy shift. In a speech in his home city of Birmingham, Chamberlain, to rising applause, charged Hitler with “a flagrant breach of personal faith.” Bitterly reciting Hitler’s words at Munich—“This is the last territorial claim I have to make in Europe.… I shall not be interested in the Czech state anymore and I can guarantee it. We don’t want any Czechs any more”—Chamberlain declaimed: “Is this the last attack upon a small state or is it to be followed by another? Is this in fact a step in the direction of an attempt to dominate the world by force?”"
This is typical Nazi technique, seeking an excuse to blame somebody for something only to be naturally expected, since the lies until that point do not hold up. Buchanan has been perpetrating the Nazi lie about German grievances and righteousness of the Hitler cause, and also about British being in sympathy, but it's all lies, especially about British agreeing with nazis and thinking it was only right that Hitler should have yet another land in Europe.
So he now blames Tilea for British turn in attitude, when in fact it was only to be expected - Czechoslovakia was the last straw, and Britain had every reason to feel guilty about not keeping the treaty, but any more concessions and appeasement would be amounting to Britain justifying Hitler takeover of Europe, England and the world.
And he's already mentioned that various Britons at this point did say on record that Chamberlain must now either reverse his policy of appeasement or resign. Why then continue a pretense that Chamberlain turning around was a fault that someone else must be blamed for?
................................................................................................
Writing about appeasement after Buchanan wrote of Munich, he's gone to great lengths to explain that appeasement has come to mean something quite different from the original sense, which is related to redressal of grievances; he forgets that this change in meaning came about precisely due to Hitler's falsehoods and frauds, so that instead of addressing grievances it has since come to mean an abject giving in to a fraudulent bully and a goon who is threatening, blackmailing and intends to go do his worst in any case.
Chamberlain might not have admitted to himself, until it was too late, but the desperate attempt for peace and the pathetic joy believing they'd got it, wasn't about redressal of grievances - it was about going to greatest possible lengths to avoid a war that would take millions of lives again, as WWI had.
But Czechoslovakia was the last straw, and Britain knew it, as did everybody else except the German regime. They were too arrogant, by then, to take a moment to stock and realise that they'd gone as far as they could, and they'd only make enemies here on unless they stopped and consolidated, and established an exemplary nation, not one known for the then regime inflicting torture and worse on civilians. They, on the contrary, were far too arrogant, far too confident to care, and believed they could bulldoze their way to conquest of Europe by panzer and bombers. Which they did, but not for the thousand year length they proclaimed - less than five years, and losing millions of lives of the same Germans that Hitler claimed to love and work for.
................................................................................................
On the contrary, Colvin seems to have had the correct information with only the date of invasion lacking. Buchanan, do read! Hitler's plans were ready, not merely intentions declared but detailed plans, communicated to top brass, had been so for a while by then.
"Halifax and Chamberlain believed Colvin and feared that Beck might cut a deal with Hitler, which was what Hitler had in mind—a deal, not a war."
Which simply meant he preferred to use every trick before he was forced to use war, but a takeover of Poland was fully intended, and invasion date was planned well in advance - and executed as per plan, eventually.
"The Polish Guarantee was the surest way to produce an early explosion, and a world war. It combined the maximum temptation with manifest provocation. It incited Hitler to demonstrate the futility of such a guarantee to a country out of reach from the West, while making the stiff-necked Poles even less inclined to consider any concession to him, and at the same time making it impossible for him to draw back without “losing face.”"
All that would be true if Hitler were really a man controlled by emotions and by reacting to others, but as Shirer as shown with evidence galore, Poland invasion was planned well in advance, long before this British guarantee to Poland. Britain could have made a midsummer gift of it - Xmas would be too late for Hitler's Poland plans - instead of declaring intentions to fight for it, but other than that, Hitler's intentions towards Poland or anything else were so far completely unaffected by others.
The actions thst would have affected - such as France marching in and taking Rhineland, Britain and France standing firm to fight with Czechoslovakia - had not been even attempted. They'd have stopped him, even toppled him. Poland on the other hand was the last possible moment to defend civilisation, and this Britain did not miss.
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Buchanan quotes a great many Brits, and one from his own country, heaping abuses on the polish guarantee; he quotes Churchill at length in effect calling it madness. But he's covering all bases, whether he realises or not, when he quotes Churchill explaining :-
"[I]f you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves."
If that needs explaining, and seeing the stupidity the book is steeped in one expects it does, Churchill means, that it would have been easy to win Rhineland without bloodshed, and Czechoslovakia would have been sure and not too costly; but alternative to fighting for Poland was world enslaved to Germany, rather to nazis, and end of civilisation.
"Churchill’s 1948 depiction of Britain’s situation on the day of the war guarantee to Poland is absurd. On March 31, 1939, Britain was not facing a “precarious chance of survival.” Hitler had neither the power nor desire to force Britons to “live as slaves.” He wanted no war with Britain and showed repeatedly he would pay a price to avoid such a war. It was the Poles who were facing imminent war with “only a precarious chance of survival.” It was the Poles who might end up as “slaves” if they did not negotiate Danzig. That they ended up as slaves of Stalin’s empire for half a century, after half a decade of brutal Nazi occupation, is a consequence of their having put their faith in a guarantee Chamberlain and Churchill had to know was worthless when it was given."
First and foremost, unless Buchanan is Hitler reborn with every detail of past memories intact - which is far from the case unless it's a Divine incarnation, and obvioulsly this would be exactly opposite - Buchanan cannot guarantee Hitler's lack of intentions against Britain, and at that, invasion of West Europe- which was all planned, already, as well - wasn't exactly reassuring for Britain. Hitler's speeches declaring peace intentions were always lies to lull everyone while he was not yet ready, that's all. He did attempt to destroy London with the blitz, killed thousands of civilians, and intended worse via his V-1 and V-2 and more, and did hit Britain with a few, stopped not because he didn't intend to do more but because allies were by then successful.
But later in the paragraph Buchanan's objections to Britain not kowtowing to Hitler becomes clear. Buchanan finds it abhorrent that USSR controlled East Europe, not because he loves freedom, but because he is racist and loves fascism which guarantees his white male status keeps him above. He would have preferred world enslaved by nazis, just so all others could die working for his race, as nazis ensured millions did in lands they occupied.
Which would have been for not half a century but at least a millennium, as per declared objectives of Buchanan's beloved Hitler.
Thank heaven, Britain fought Hitler.
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Buchanan continues heaping abuses on Britain after quoting various historians and other authors - such as Liddell Hart, Gene Smith, Niall Ferguson, Luigi Villari, Paul Johnson, Donald Cameron Watt and Graham Stewart - to support his thesis that Britain should have not fought Hitler and definitely not opposed Hitler's taking Poland:
"Thus did the British government, in panic over a false report about a German invasion of Poland that was neither planned nor prepared, give a war guarantee to a dictatorship it did not trust, in a part of Europe where it had no vital interests, committing itself to a war it could not win. Historian Johnson’s depiction of Chamberlain’s decision as reckless and irrational is an understatement."
And it's unclear if he never actually read Shirer's work or hopes to catch those who didn't, but since Buchanan has quoted from the same work of Shirer - Rise and Fall of The Third Reich - he's obviously lying, throughout and especially in the paragraph above.
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Buchanan continues heaping abuses on Britain after quoting various historians and other authors - such as Liddell Hart, Gene Smith, Niall Ferguson, Luigi Villari, Paul Johnson, Donald Cameron Watt and Graham Stewart - to support his thesis that Britain should have not fought Hitler and definitely not opposed Hitler's taking Poland:
"Thus did the British government, in panic over a false report about a German invasion of Poland that was neither planned nor prepared, give a war guarantee to a dictatorship it did not trust, in a part of Europe where it had no vital interests, committing itself to a war it could not win. Historian Johnson’s depiction of Chamberlain’s decision as reckless and irrational is an understatement."
And it's unclear if he never actually read Shirer's work or hopes to catch those who didn't, but since Buchanan has quoted from the same work of Shirer - Rise and Fall of The Third Reich - he's obviously lying, throughout and especially in the paragraph above.
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The quoting of abusive lies continue, and one wonders of academia is really so disgusting a level in history departments throughout the world, or is it only in U.S. that there is a Nazi resurrection for some reason.
" ... writes Tansill. As for Colonel Beck, “By turning his back on Hitler he invited a swift destruction that no European power could avert.”"
Oh, so if Poland had instead giftwrapped itself to Hitler, the destruction would have been not so swift?
Reminds one of Oprah Winfrey advising young girls to fight back, and never get into a vehicle with someone attacking - Buchanan and co would deplore that advice, presumably, and implore the victims to not resist their attackers, whatever the intentions of the latter.
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Buchanan quotes Henderson:-
"Henderson wrote in his memoir:
[A]fter Prague no nation in Europe could feel itself secure from some new adaption of Nazi racial superiority and jungle law. In twelve months Germany had swallowed up Austria, the Sudeten Lands, and Czechoslovakia. Verbal protests were so much waste paper; and a firm stand had to be taken somewhere and force opposed by force; otherwise, in the course of the intoxication of success, Hitler, in the course of another twelve months, would continue the process with Poland, Hungary, and Rumania. The principles of nationalism and self-determination, which had served Hitler to create Greater Germany … had been cynically thrown overboard at Prague and world dominion had supplanted them. If peace were to be preserved, it was essential that it should be made crystal clear what limit Germany would not go without provoking England to war."
And continues his abuses and lies:-
"Nothing in this passage explains why it was Britain’s duty to fight and die for Poland, which, as Churchill reminds us in his war memoir, had joined in the rape of Czechoslovakia. Henderson himself, in the last days of August, would urge a deal on Danzig. And while Poland had reason to fear “Nazi racial superiority and jungle law,” Britain did not. She had no vital interest in Eastern Europe to justify a war to the death with Germany and no ability to wage war there. A German march to the east might imperil Stalin’s Russia; it did not imperil Chamberlain’s Britain. And if preserving peace was Britain’s goal, was a threat to set Europe ablaze if Hitler clashed with the Poles the way to preserve it?"
On the contrary, it takes a deliberate denial to say Henderson is unclear. Abusing Poland or pointing out how Czechoslovakia was deserving defence more than Poland is accepting Hitler had every right, as is most of the rest of Buchanan's argument there.
Why is Buchanan going to so much pain to justify Hitler, and crucify Britain for thwarting Hitler's attempted enslaving of the world? Is there a resurrection of nazism coming to attempt once again to enslave the world, and if so, is Buchanan their Unity Mitford or her brother in law who had been the son in law of Curzon? Is this book an attempt to prepare the world to succumb to a nazi conquest of the world?
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Buchanan continues this tirade of heaping abuses on Britain and France by, first, going on about Poland accepting British terms "between two flicks of ash" of cigarette smoked by the Polish representative in London - as if every other treaty across the world is signed accompanied by holy communion administered personally by holy trinity - and then go in on and on ascribing every possible motive except the obvious one, that of stopping Hitler's conquest of Europe by standing up to him, and claims that they did not want Poland to accept Hitler's terms is the reason they guaranteed a nation they could not defend.
He must think Poles were all idiots, apart from stating flat out thst Britain and France wanted Poland destroyed and "such was the morality" of those.
He forgets Poles were free to compromise with or sign treaties with anyone they chose, and the guarantee signed by British and French was pretty much one sided. Whether or not they could save Poland from invasion must have been as obvious to them as anyone else with 20-20 hindsight.
What Buchanan repeatedly pushes under the rug is that nobody by this time trusted Hitler, that it was clear to everyone he was out to invade, trample, loot and enslave all of Europe - which he did, far more thoroughly than Mongols - and that poland being sweet to him would simply have meant accepting all this without a fight. Which wouldn't have meant less savagery, as obvious from Shirer's work, quoting plans and intentions and explicit instructions about butchering Poland and all of East of Europe, including Russia, that German armies had received directly from Hitler, to be executed under SS supervision.
Other than maligning the stupendous fight put up by British and Russian people and forces, the even harder fight by resistance in Europe from France to Poland to Italy, including Germany, and above all maligning the heroes of the two wars - Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Churchill and the British royals who are to be commended for their part too - Buchanan's book has no other point but a bootlicking he gives Hitler.
But the stupidest of all is Buchanan's insistence that Britain and France couldn't have possibly saved Poland from being invaded - as if it's a matter of Poland's virginity being lost irretrievably, rather than the reality of saving Poland from being wiped out as intended by Hitler. The reason Hitler lost was his fighting on two, rather more than two, fronts; and that too is why he abused France for having treaties in East Europe, which would have worked if only France had fought for Rhineland or for defending Czechoslovakia.
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Buchanan claims thst the treaty wasn't to guarantee Poland's integrity, only her independence, and it was a message to Hitler that he could negotitiate Danzig and the corridor, but not invade as he did Czechoslovakia; Buchanan claims that this diplomatic subtlety was lost on Hitler.
"To Hitler this was a virtual ultimatum: If you try to take back Danzig, you will be at war with Britain."
Again, Buchanan is either unread and ignorant or lying. Shirer's work was published in sixties, and is based on German documents. Hitler fully intended to invade and destroy Poland, massacre leaders and intelligentsia and landowners, and allow only menial labour slavery for Polish for benefit of Germans. Extensive and explicit plans and instructions had been set and communicated to army long before the tripartite treaty Britain and France made with Poland, date of invasion had been fixed, and it went as per schedule, wuth hitler doing theatre of innocence and outrage for benefits of idiots and goons whether then or of posterity.
Buchanan continues this tirade of heaping abuses on Britain and France by, first, going on about Poland accepting British terms "between two flicks of ash" of cigarette smoked by the Polish representative in London - as if every other treaty across the world is signed accompanied by holy communion administered personally by holy trinity - and then go in on and on ascribing every possible motive except the obvious one, that of stopping Hitler's conquest of Europe by standing up to him, and claims that they did not want Poland to accept Hitler's terms is the reason they guaranteed a nation they could not defend.
He must think Poles were all idiots, apart from stating flat out thst Britain and France wanted Poland destroyed and "such was the morality" of those.
He forgets Poles were free to compromise with or sign treaties with anyone they chose, and the guarantee signed by British and French was pretty much one sided. Whether or not they could save Poland from invasion must have been as obvious to them as anyone else with 20-20 hindsight.
What Buchanan repeatedly pushes under the rug is that nobody by this time trusted Hitler, that it was clear to everyone he was out to invade, trample, loot and enslave all of Europe - which he did, far more thoroughly than Mongols - and that poland being sweet to him would simply have meant accepting all this without a fight. Which wouldn't have meant less savagery, as obvious from Shirer's work, quoting plans and intentions and explicit instructions about butchering Poland and all of East of Europe, including Russia, that German armies had received directly from Hitler, to be executed under SS supervision.
Other than maligning the stupendous fight put up by British and Russian people and forces, the even harder fight by resistance in Europe from France to Poland to Italy, including Germany, and above all maligning the heroes of the two wars - Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Churchill and the British royals who are to be commended for their part too - Buchanan's book has no other point but a bootlicking he gives Hitler.
But the stupidest of all is Buchanan's insistence that Britain and France couldn't have possibly saved Poland from being invaded - as if it's a matter of Poland's virginity being lost irretrievably, rather than the reality of saving Poland from being wiped out as intended by Hitler. The reason Hitler lost was his fighting on two, rather more than two, fronts; and that too is why he abused France for having treaties in East Europe, which would have worked if only France had fought for Rhineland or for defending Czechoslovakia.
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Buchanan claims thst the treaty wasn't to guarantee Poland's integrity, only her independence, and it was a message to Hitler that he could negotitiate Danzig and the corridor, but not invade as he did Czechoslovakia; Buchanan claims that this diplomatic subtlety was lost on Hitler.
"To Hitler this was a virtual ultimatum: If you try to take back Danzig, you will be at war with Britain."
Again, Buchanan is either unread and ignorant or lying. Shirer's work was published in sixties, and is based on German documents. Hitler fully intended to invade and destroy Poland, massacre leaders and intelligentsia and landowners, and allow only menial labour slavery for Polish for benefit of Germans. Extensive and explicit plans and instructions had been set and communicated to army long before the tripartite treaty Britain and France made with Poland, date of invasion had been fixed, and it went as per schedule, wuth hitler doing theatre of innocence and outrage for benefits of idiots and goons whether then or of posterity.
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Buchanan spends the rest of the chapter arguing, and quoting others, to the effect that Britain should have written off East Europe and seen to defense of West, particularly channel ports of France.
None of these idiots recall that the situation was far more serious than the comfy scenario they imagine, of Hitler satisfied with taking East and staying far away. They imagine, again, that Hitler invaded France only because British and French had declared war. If they aren't fools, they must be nazis out to change the world now to worship Hitler.
France was invaded, as were Norway and Denmark in Scandinavia, low countries on the way to France, and Balkans on Hitler's way to West Asia, because it was all fully intended and planned. The only thing Hitler did not plan was not winning his invasion of Russia. Russia surprised him, shocked him and began to give him defeats.
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"Within hours, he had ordered up plans for Case White, the invasion of Poland."
Wrong, false, fraudulent. It had been done as soon as he'd invaded Czechoslovakia, if not before - it had been communicated to top brass then. British treaty with Poland merely brought the communications regarding invasion of Poland into open, comparatively.
Read, Buchanan. And stop lying, if you have read Shirer.
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"Within hours, he had ordered up plans for Case White, the invasion of Poland."
Wrong, false, fraudulent. It had been done as soon as he'd invaded Czechoslovakia, if not before - it had been communicated to top brass then. British treaty with Poland merely brought the communications regarding invasion of Poland into open, comparatively.
Read, Buchanan. And stop lying, if you have read Shirer.
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"Paris was receiving its own intelligence that Rumania was next on the Nazi menu and an attack imminent."
Didn't Buchanan argue not too many pages ago, that Hitler had no intentions and no plans against Romania? Does he not reread and think over, or merely never read?
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"Chamberlain explained that he did not think it important to distinguish among states being guaranteed or to make calculations about whether a particular state could be protected by Britain and France. “The real issue,” he said, “was that, if Germany showed signs that she intended to proceed with her march for world domination, we must take steps to stop her.… We should attack Germany not in order to save a particular victim but in order to pull down the bully.”"
Buchanan comments:-
"Chamberlain here makes three assumptions. The first is that any further German attempt to reclaim lost peoples or provinces meant a “march for world domination.” The second is that it was Britain’s duty to “stop” Hitler in Central and Eastern Europe, where no British army had ever fought before. The third is that Britain had the strength “to pull down the bully.”"
Notice the completely nazi tone and stance there. Not too different from German derision of more recent times, post 2000, to the effect that British air was polluted by industries, and so forth - Germany, after all, was fed on Marshall plan, while the erstwhile allies of U.S. were self respecting enough to refuse it with thanks and stand on their own, however long that took.
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"“While Chamberlain was busily engaged in extending promises of aid that he could not possibly deliver,” wrote Tansill, “Hitler was preparing for war.”"
Wrong again - Hitler had been preparing German nation and armies for war from the day he took over, six years before Poland; his party's various wings had trained goons to be auxiliary forces, and he had been training children in his youth programs to do it. Industries had been geared up to war and disarmament, never actually done, had been flouted quite openly after he took over. His war plans had been ready since before Rhineland takeover, including invading Europe completely.
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"“While Chamberlain was busily engaged in extending promises of aid that he could not possibly deliver,” wrote Tansill, “Hitler was preparing for war.”"
Wrong again - Hitler had been preparing German nation and armies for war from the day he took over, six years before Poland; his party's various wings had trained goons to be auxiliary forces, and he had been training children in his youth programs to do it. Industries had been geared up to war and disarmament, never actually done, had been flouted quite openly after he took over. His war plans had been ready since before Rhineland takeover, including invading Europe completely.
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"Poles put their trust in their war guarantee and security pact with Great Britain. They were repaid for that trust with abandonment and half a century of Nazi and Soviet barbarism."
It's impossible to imagine exactly what planet Buchanan and his sort live on, since they seem to think Poland in particular and East Europe in general would have had any other possibility at the point other than slavery to Germany coupled with starvation to death, if Britain hadn't declared war on Germany.
And if they think East Europe would have been better under Hitler than, as it turned out, behind the iron curtain, they've certainly received nazi indoctrination from sources South of equator in their hemisphere, getting ready slowly this time with propaganda such as this book.
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" ... the nations wedged between Russia and Germany feared a Red Army rescue more than a German invasion. They had heard the screams of Stalin’s victims."
The last sentence there is nonsense intended to gather ignorant readership in U.S. in horrified agreement and sympathy. While those looking askance at Bolsheviks might have had their strong reservations about Soviet help, fact that emerges for various memoirs of survivors is that - as regions were forced to undergo occupation by first German, then Russian, then Germans at war with Russian and finally Russian chasing German back, the German occupation had been always horrible, but the first Russian occupation had been so different that many locals took up the offers by Russian army to go as refugees in Russian military transports when Germany turned to attack East.
It was only after the war that the Russian occupation was unfriendly, since survivors were suspected of Nazi affiliation, which was correct often enough in non Jewish case - Ukrainians that joined Germans, as guards and security forces, were far more horrible than Germans in their dealings with civilians, for example.
As for the screams, why Buchanan thinks nobody heard Germans scream under Hitler is only because his being Nazi prevents him from counting German victims of nazis.
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"Moscow was demanding the right to impose protectorates over Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia and to march into Poland and Rumania to meet the German army. No European nation would agree to this."
"Moscow was demanding the right to impose protectorates over Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia and to march into Poland and Rumania to meet the German army. No European nation would agree to this."
It simply wasn't possible for Russia to defend Poland or Romania or another East European country from Germany, without Russian armies crossing the said country. France and Britain could open the West front, but Russia didn't have thst alternative.
Common sense, Buchanan!
"British were now in the box Chamberlain had sought to avoid. Men of honor, they could not let Stalin, whose record of mass murder far exceeded Hitler’s as of 1939, march into the Baltic countries. That would surrender millions of innocent people to a terrorist regime, a crime far worse than Munich."
On the contrary, they were negotiating with Moscow, weren't they? For defence treaties involving East Europe, Red Army was the only certainty to defend against Hitler. And no, that last sentence belongs to a post McCarthy U.S., not to diplomacy of Europe before WWII commenced. Terrorist regimes were the fascists of West Europe including but not only Hitler's, while Russian regime was totalitarian but it's atrocities had been known against white Russians and not general civilians, until then anyway. The memoirs of survivors certainly are far more favourable to Russian occupation.
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"Nor could Britain commit to war to defend a Bolshevik state whose very reason for existence was the destruction of Christianity and Western civilization."
This is bible belt sentiment, not British diplomacy of 1939. Hitler by the way had persecuted churches and sent priests to Dachau, Buchanan either is ignorant or pushing it under the rug. Nor was he much for western civilisation, he admired the prophet and his ways, including doing away with dissenters.
Hypocrisy, they name is republican, or most anyway. Funding the terrorist factory to the tune of billions while ignoring the mastermind of terror living in the country that has been the so called friend of U.S., defence of "Christianity and Western civilization", was that? While the said mastermind intended to keep attacking until the two were destroyed?
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"Britain and France took months to negotiate with Molotov and Voroshilov. They got nowhere. Ribbentrop and Molotov negotiated the most famous (and infamous) pact in history in twenty-four hours."
The first part is due largely to Poland refusing to allow Red Army on Polish soil, which made it impossible for Russia to fight off any attack against, or invasion of, Poland by Germany; and for the rest, Russia was more than willing, but Britain sent high level officers instead of a foreign secretary, or PM, for so important a treaty, and while the officer sent was perfectly well versed in Russian and was competent enough for the discussions, Russians felt Britain wasn't eager enough.
Germans played games with Moscow, making them wait until Hitler was suddenly desperate enough to give everything they wanted. Which is when the twenty four hours Buchanan mentions happened. Molotov knew they were lying to him too, which they were in so absurd a fashion, Shirer is worth reading just for that.
So the Buchanan claim about the pact being negotiated within twenty four hours can be said of almost everything - just pick the specific twenty four hours!
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" ... Polish plenipotentiary in Berlin on August 30 could have stopped the invasion. Had Poland formally received the offer, Chamberlain would have insisted it be taken up in negotiations. Hitler would then have had his excuse for calling off the invasion. His generals, up to the hour they crossed the frontier, believed Hitler would find a way to retrieve Danzig and avoid war. But the Poles refused to send a negotiator. They had confidence in themselves as a warrior people and trusted in their British guarantee."
No, Poles knew the invasion would happen anyway, and they weren't willing to be blackmailed and threatened into signing away their country, as others before them had been forced to do with Hitler throwing tantrums and screaming at the cornered plenipotentiary. They knew, too, that any overtures or offers from Hitler had no other meaning whatsoever. He had proved it often enough.
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"Had there been no war guarantee of March 31, there would have been no British declaration of war on September 3, and there might have been no German invasion of France in May 1940, or ever. For there was nothing inevitable about Hitler’s war in the west."
That's a lie direct from Hitler; whether Buchanan is lying, or merely stupid, and therefore ignorant, is not clear, but swallowing Hitler's lies is convenient for anyone racist and willing to side with nazi thought.
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"British and French statesmanship had been outmaneuvered by Soviet. What could easily have been a German thrust against the Soviet Union had been deflected against the West.”"
That's the pro nazi revision of history, falsifying reality. The maneuver was by nazis in giving Moscow everything demanded for the treaty, not by Soviets who didn't trust Hitler any more than any other East European country did, and for very good reasons.
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"THE BRITISH-FRENCH WAR GUARANTEE to Poland would result in defeat and disaster for all three nations. But there would be one great beneficiary."
Of such lies, with suitable quotes strewn from sources who may or may not agree with his theme, is this book made up. For Buchanan merely sets up a selected moment to define defeat, instead of looking at the complete course of events. This could be said, too, of Mongol conquest of Europe. And not just over some three nations.
The above is not true even if Time had ended as Hitler's occupying Europe was complete, for neither Britain nor population of other two ever gave in. Resistance only grew in each until Germany was defeated and beaten more thoroughly than any nation in history.
As much as Buchanan is at pains to paint Germany as victim of Britain and Hitler as just someone who set out to right the wrongs and Stalin as the real villain who was seeking to invade, fact remains that it was Hitler who did long before his power declare his agenda and intentions, did plan conquest of Europe and war with West as well as East, had extensive policies about massacres of large numbers of people East and of turning all invaded people into slave labour for benefit of Germans, did exact horrendous punitive levees from all invaded nations, and wiped out and destroyed the national identities of several.
USSR did liberate East Europe from nazis, and in contrast to Hitler, neither wiped out their national identities nor set up or carry on with the concentration camps of Hitler in those countries. Punitive measures against political opponents and other such in even Stalin's regime, if compared with racist atrocities in U.S. against natives or slaves and later against interns of camps during WWII, do bear comparison in every aspect but one - U.S. did not transport those victims to Alaska. That wasn't a deliberate kindly act, especially in case of churches filled with congregation being set on fire and locked from outside as was done to ex slave population by KKK. That latter compares with some Nazi actions against some of their concentration camp inmates while Germany was close to defeat.
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"USSR was isolated from the Western democracies, hated and feared by its neighbors, and threatened by Nazi Germany and by Japan in the Far East."
Is Buchanan unaware of the Soviet-Japan treaty that each honoured in face of all pressure from Hitler when he invaded Russia? As to the neighbours, everybody including the neighbours and allies were quite well aware that only the Red Army could defend them against Hitler in East, and while Poland's refusal to allow Red Army on Polish soil kept Russia out of the tripartite treaty, which would have been far more effective if it were inclusive of Russia, it was also true that the Red Army that later defeated Hitler so thoroughly could, before Hitler turned East, have already occupied all of East Europe.
Buchanan's accusations against USSR in East Europe compare well against U.S. in Mexico and various countries South of Panama, where not only regimes that looked after people their own weren't left alone to do so, but even archbishop Romero and the nuns who looked after people were murdered by the fascist military junta supported by powers in the region and with no protest even by Vatican. Those that did condone this have no moral ground to speak about western civilisation or religion, much less about USSR influence in East Europe.
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" ... Stalin knew: After Poland, his turn would come. That would mean a Nazi-Bolshevik war in which he must face Germanic power alone."
Did someone forget to tell Buchanan what did actually happen when Hitler attacked Russia, and Russia faced "Germanic power alone"? Is he unaware of who beat who, or just picking the siege of Moscow as his favourite moment, before the tide turned?
And the tide turned before Hitler's armies had set foot in either Moscow or the other city that was capital, St Petersburg, both of which Hitler had planned to destroy completely with their residents massacred. Napoleon had managed, on the other hand, to reside in Kremlin before leaving. His armies were beaten on the way out, not before they left, unlike Hitler's panzer divisions supported by bomber fleets massacring civilians everywhere along the way.
Hitler's greatest defeat was in Russia, and that was because of his own self - he'd issued instructions about how conquered people were to be treated, which turned even those displeased with repression of Stalin against Germany, and they chose Stalin when it came to it; Hitler had expected that Russian government would fall at the advent of his armies, but instead Stalin was able to throw divisions after divisions that fought back with a bitter resolution nazis had never expected, and did not slacken when chasing Hitler's armies back to Berlin when routed.
As much as Britain holding on, not giving in, counted, as much as perception of truth by FDR helped allies - it was Stalin's support from his people on ground, all the way, that began Hitler's end, from defeats at three major cities of Russia all the way back to Berlin.
And for all that Buchanan paints Hitler as only regressing German grievances while Stalin as one feared by all of East Europe because "they'd heard the screams of his victims", fact is, when it came to it Stalin's people could have opted to support Hitler, but chose to fight Hitler all the way to his annihilation; while German people themselves did not want the wars Hitler began, and his Generals conspired against him all the time. Hitler wasnt even elected to power, but elevated to it by machinations while his party had less than 42 percent, more often less than 40 percent majority. And his armies parading in Berlin weren't cheered by Germans.
And East European refugees fled East to escape Hitler, but only Germans fled West at the advent of the Red Army.
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"On March 31, 1939, came deliverance. Britain and France declared they would fight for Poland, the buffer state between Russia and Germany. British Tories had become the guarantors of Bolshevism. Moscow had been given free what Stalin would have paid a czar’s ransom for."
Most of that paragraph is garbage, in fact all but the date and the second sentence. Hitler had managed to create a horror far more abhorrent than Bolshevik terror, and Tories were one with rest of Britain in fighting the greater one.
Hitler had made a pact with Stalin giving him everything he asked for, and if anyone outside Russia is to be credited with guaranteeing Bolsheviks control over East Europe it must be Hitler. But that was in acvor with Kaiser having let Lenin loose deep in Russia, and thus made Bolshevik revolution and regime possible at all, so Germany is responsible for Bolsheviks regime and Hitler is responsible for East Europe being in control of USSR - after all but for hitler attacking Russia, Red Army wouldn't be chasing nazis back to Berlin, and if Hitler really was as good as Buchanan claims rather than the most despicable horror of history until then, East Europe would be happy serving him as slaves - which even Germans weren't, except all opposition was murdered by nazis swiftly, and not saluting or shouting with them was offence enough.
As to the last bit, since Red Army was obviously capable of taking and keeping control of East Europe and didn't begin arming only after Hitler attacked, Buchanan's last sentence is a complete lie. For if Stalin had wanted to occupy East Europe, he could have taken and kept it long before Hitler was out of Vienna, and he needn't pay a penny much less a Tsar's ransom. And again, from the memoirs of survivors, East European refugees fled East to escape Hitler, but only Germans fled West at the advent of the Red Army.
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" ... Allies had given a war guarantee to Rumania. Now any German attack through Poland or Rumania, against Russia, would cause Britain and France to declare war on Germany before Hitler could reach him."
Buchanan really does paint himself a fanatic nazi so blind with hatred born of racism he won't look reality in face. Immediately after Czechoslovakia, Hitler had planned, and instructed his top brass about, invasion of Poland, and the genocide and general destruction thereof; this was around holidays before 1939 arrived. Date of invasion was set and precisely executed. His overtures to Russia had been set in motion but held back because allies were trying their own selves, and Hitler had no plans at any time to attack Russia before taking the rest of Europe. He quite methodically secured Moscow, invaded East Europe, and then turned West after securing North sea by invading Norway and Denmark. He did not attack Russia before taking all channel ports and debated long with himself between invading Britain versus invading Russia, and chose to invade Russia because he needed the farmlands, raw materials he planned to access in and via Russia, and slaves. Invading britain was a matter of ego and prestige, and he preferred to bring Britain to her knees by bombing and so on.
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"And war between Nazi Germany and Britain and France would weaken all three and fertilize the ground for Communist revolution in all three nations. Stalin’s relief and joy can only be imagined."
Complete idiot, Buchanan. He's imagining Europe and her wars as a mirror image of U.S. civil war, and workers of Europe as slaves running loose because their owners are shooting one another instead of riding around with whips to make them work.
Stalin's relief and joy? About his land to be invaded by Hitler's nazi goons? Grow up, Buchanan. Stalin's people rallied to his call to fight for Russia, unlike Hitler who threw millions after millions of Germans he claimed to champion, to death, in trying to destroy Stalingrad and rule Russia.
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"Had Britain never given the war guarantee, the Soviet Union would almost surely have borne the brunt of the blow that fell on France. The Red Army, ravaged by Stalin’s purge of senior officers, might have collapsed. Bolshevism might have been crushed. Communism might have perished in 1940, instead of living on for fifty years and murdering tens of millions more in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. A Hitler-Stalin war might have been the only war in Europe in the 1940s. Tens of millions might never have died terrible deaths in the greatest war in all history."
Hypocrisy extreme from a republican candidate, after Nixon befriended China's most repressive regime, and U.S. markets are hard to shop in if one refuses to buy Chinese products. China does hold the top slot regarding genocide in both Tibet and China, with the other related friend of U.S. a close second having massacred three million in East Bengal while they were still citizens their own.
Also, communism is living long after the fifty years Buchanan credits it, both China and Russia still communist, and Albania too, perhaps.
But the rest of the paragraph is a complete lie, since Hitler intended and planned invasion of rest of Europe before he attacked Russia. "Soviet Union would almost surely have borne the brunt of the blow that fell on France" is a total lie, Hitler wasn't going to leave France free of his boot, and in fact intended to destroy Paris. Communism didn't perish when Hitler attacked Russia, because it had worked to sustain people. Hitler's invading Russia didn't encourage Russians to cheer and throw flowers at nazi military, they fought back.
As disappointing as Buchanan might find truth, and looking at his lies strewn thick through the book he certainly does, most of the world does find fascism far more repugnant than communism, as far as totalitarian regimes go; and like it or not, social security and public schools (of U.S., not U.K.) are a couple of steps in socialist world by a capitalist nation.
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Buchanan does accounting in chapter 12, and giving a short shrift to the millions dead, not even mentioning holocaust and genocides by Hitler, proceeds to describe the real tragedy according to him as he tallies the loss of various empires ruled by "white" man.
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"Poland, trusting in her war guarantee, suffered hundreds of thousands of dead resisting the Nazi-Soviet onslaught in September 1939. The Polish officer corps would be massacred by Stalin’s NKVD in killing fields like Katyn Forest. Poland would be occupied five years by Nazis and become the site of such horrors as Treblinka and Auschwitz. Poland’s Home Army, at the urging of the Red Army on the far side of the Vistula, would rise in Warsaw in 1944. And as that Red Army looked on, refusing to help, the Polish Home Army and Warsaw’s civilian population would suffer losses as heavy as 9/11 every day for two months, and finally be annihilated by the Wehrmacht and the SS."
Everything, except Warsaw rising in 1944 and actions of Red Army, was planned by Hitler as soon as he had invaded Czechoslovakia, and the only thing that could have stopped it wasn't Poland giving in to Hitler's demands, but Poland allowing Red Army passage for defending Poland against Hitler. Not allowing it was why Poland was devastated by nazis. BY DESIGN, planned before 1939.
Buchanan is so antisemitic, so racist that he mentions not Warsaw ghetto uprising, when Jews of the ghetto fought back nazi occupying forces, but only Home Army uprising.
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"The British-French war guarantee of March 31, 1939, that brought Britain, France, and Poland into an alliance against Germany ended in calamity for all three. Britain would have to be rescued and France liberated by the Americans. Poland would be abandoned, first to Hitler then to Stalin."
Usual delusion prevalent in those ignorant amongst the U.S. - it wasn't Britain rescued by U.S. but a truly tripartite victory aided by French resistance and expatriate militaries of several nations operating from Britain.
For if Russia and Britain had given in, instead of fighting Hitler with every means possible, there would be no U.S. - Hitler did intend to take his conquest across the Atlantic, and Dakar is a hop from Brazil. FDR was far seeing and wise in opposing Hitler, but it wasn't only for charity to downtrodden of Europe.
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"Within weeks of Hitler’s taking power came the Reichstag fire, which led to Dachau and the other camps to hold enemies of the regime."
Reichstag fire was theatre arranged and executed by nazis precisely so that the repression could go suddenly in high gear and all opposition, all political parties other than nazi could be exterminated. Antisemitism was, too, intentional, and all repression of Jews planned to lead to extermination of all Jews. Any claims to the contrary are simply lies.
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Buchanan claims that most of German Jews had left before invasion of Poland, and mass deportations and executions only began after invasion of Russia. Whether he's fudging or not, the Jews living in countries occupied or ruled by nazis faced laws prohibiting them from trade, public places including transport and parks and street sidewalks, education, and any other possibility of earning a living or buying food. Their homes were taken, as were their properties, and they had to pay huge sums for exit permits, no guarantee of not being murdered.
Buchanan claims that but for British treaty with Poland, genocide of Jews would not have happened. He lies.
Hitler's plans to invade and occupy Poland and thereafter most of Europe had been set in motion long before British talked with Poland about a defence guarantee. So were his plans to use non Germans, especially Jews and East Europe, but not excepting French, under occupation by nazis, as slaves worked to death in starvation conditions.
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"Was the sacrifice of the empire done willingly as an act of martyrdom? Or was it rather the result of British blundering on a colossal scale?"
Whether it was sacrifice with consciousness of the possibility, or simply a chain of events, concatenation after but unrelated to war, it was definitely not a blunder. Buchanan can argue about whether Lincoln was really about human rights, but that doesn't change the fact of slavery being wrong, and same is true of colonisation, fascism and empires.
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Buchanan ends the empire chapter with
"Where did Hitler declare his determination to destroy the British Empire and “rule the earth”? How was a nation of Germany’s modest size and population to conquer the world? Was there no way to contain Hitler but declare a war in which, as Chamberlain told Joe Kennedy, millions must die? What were Hitler’s real ambitions?"
Frankly, his lies and garbage are tiring, and it's unclear why one should inflict this pain on oneself any further. But yes, Hitler did intend conquest and enslavement of the world beginning with Europe, and Poland was the major planned step after Czechoslovakia.
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Buchanan provides some informative material - about bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, amongst that - and devotes a chapter each to the two men he's writing his revisionist book about, and his chapter on Hitler attempting to whitewash him as just another powerful leader who cared for his people is complete balderdash. His chapter on Churchill has more facts, but he's beating an imaginary fiend - people were never unaware of the particular aspects he's trying to throw limelight on, and while Churchill was at the best amongst those available to lead during the very crucial year when hour looked dark with no light on horizon, Britain knew enough to elect a Clement Attlee as soon as it was looking at end of war. Any view about necessity of nipping another Hitler in the bud is not about vilifying a hero of 1940 or worshiping him, it's simply about inoculation.
"Eisenhower believed the demand for an unconditional surrender at Casablanca extended the war by years and cost countless lives."
Wonder who made Ike believe that Hitler was going to accept a ceasefire without a gift of the Europe he'd conquered by 1941? He didn't even allow his generals to regroup to meet up for a better fight position at Stalingrad, much less withdraw from a city they had devastated completely before they were surrounded and were now about to lose lives of hundreds of thousands of German soldiers in if they obeyed Hitler's orders to not withdraw, but fight to the end.
It's all very well republicans trying to vilify heroes who were President of U.S. who happened to be democrats, since republicans haven't had heroes after Lincoln but have had Nixon and Reagan and so forth - but get real. Chamberlain didn't get peace by giving Hitler Czechoslovakia, what makes anyone think that unconditional surrender was forced on Germany by allies, even if they said that those were the terms?
Hitler wasn't going to allow a defeated Germany as long as he could find anyone at all to fight, despite all the allied bombings - he did push barely teen and elderly males into fighting towards the end, and only killed himself (or so the world has been led to believe, until the recent documentary on television questioning that assumption) because he didn't relocate to Berghof or to his fortress near Berchtesgaden while he could have done so. If he weren't averse to being captured or could have conducted the war from a safe sanctuary, he had every intention of not giving up until Germany was finished.
The recent documentary on television had evidence, from testimonies and physical evidence across the world, that he was flown out of Berlin to Canaries to be transported across South Atlantic via submarine, and lived in a safe hidden private estate on an island still guarded fiercely, that had every feature one would imagine needed to guard such a secret.
Various Germans travelling to various countries across South Atlantic for no particular reason do give one the impression that they think they are covering a high mission.
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"Churchill seemed not to have thought long or deeply over the fate of the continent if Germany, Europe’s ancient barrier to Oriental despotism and barbarism, were annihilated."
Even apart from the racism and fraud there - which is the underlying assumption that Europe wasn't barbaric, or that Europeans hadn't been barbaric in their invasions or colonisation or migrations to other continent's, all of which is so fraudulent an assumption it's ridiculous - anyone thinking nazis had not surpassed every barbarism of past until then, is demented and racist, or just lying.
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Buchanan sings paens of glory of U.S. presidents who, according to him, did nothing when various European nations were repressed within the iron curtain, because they were wise.
"Yet America never went to war with the Soviet Union."
He forgets the covert war waged against USSR by some, using terrorists - labelled otherwise - rented from a "friend" country and provided arms and ammunition procured from still other countries, while U.S. press went on about how USSR was godless and thus invoking wrath of the pious. This was useful in ultimate breakup of various satellites from Russia, which the said pious terrorists took as personal victory and soon were on a rampage with ever widening radius of their realm of activities. U.S. did not object, until they attacked the target that was a turning point, but still the "friend" terrorist factory was funded to the hilt, long after the terror masterminds had been established in security of the west point of the so called friendly nation.
A new revolution in U.S. politics brought in a President that had hackles of all racists go up, and spate of racist attacks and murders across the country; he faced hostility even after he had discovered and quietly removed the terror mastermind, before informing the world.
Buchanan meanwhile probably presents his predecessor - the guy who aallowed an attack to proceed and protected the masterminds relatives even as everyone else in the world was subjected to increasingly hostile treatment by his legislation and procedures copied everywhere - as a model who attacked a third country that did not host terrorists who attacked in U.S. neighbourhood.
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Collection of photographs at the end, with Buchanan quips disguised as quotes.
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