THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 3, 2022
Op-Ed: History Redux on the Eve of WWIII
Special Opinion to the Mirror by Paul Plante.
Seventy-nine (79) years ago now, in 1943, the year after Joe Biden made world history by being born on November 20, 1942, a man named Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, the Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University wrote what I consider to an excellent and well-documented contemporary history of what was happening in the world in the years before the outbreak of World War II, that book being titled World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900, and in the Preface, he wrote as follows:
Since the events herein have taken place within the memory of living men, this book may be regarded as contemporary history.
To some historians such a description in itself is sufficient to read no further; others, sensitive to the momentous character of these years of turmoil, believe it not only permissible but desirable to chronicle the present, and even to dub what they have written, “history.”
The writer, it is evident, is sympathetic to their point of view.
He is, of course, aware that much of what he has written is not definitive.
On the other hand the revolutionary tempo of this present hour and the bitter death of young men everywhere in this global maelstrom are facts which need recording by one who breathes the atmosphere of 1943.
end quotes
Facts which need recording by one who breathes the atmosphere of 1943!
Powerful words I thought when I first read them, and not only are they still powerful, but they are directly relevant to us today, everyone in the world, not just in the USA, as we all are forced to have to breathe the toxic atmosphere of 2022, which takes us to facts needing recording today by one who breathes that toxic atmosphere, in this case, that being myself, which in turn takes us to March 6, 2014, this being seventy-one (71) years after those words in the Preface to World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 were written, and when Joe Biden was Hussein Obama’s executive deputy president, and an Associated Press article titled “Clinton slams Putin, a day after her Hitler remark” wherein we had as follows from Hillary, an imp up from Hell bent on the destruction of our civilized world if there ever was one, to wit:
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says Russian President Vladimir Putin is a tough but thin-skinned leader who is squandering his country’s potential.
Clinton’s comments came Wednesday, a day after she likened his actions on the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine to those of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
Putin has said he was protecting ethnic Russians by moving troops into Crimea.
Clinton said Tuesday at a closed fundraising luncheon in Long Beach that Putin’s actions are similar what happened in the Nazi era in Czechoslovakia and Romania.
“Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,” Clinton said, according to the Press-Telegram of Long Beach.
“Hitler kept saying, ‘They’re not being treated right.'”
“‘I must go and protect my people.'”
“And that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.”
Responding to a question submitted at the UCLA talk, Clinton said she was not making a comparison although Russia’s actions were “reminiscent” of claims Germany made in the 1930s, when the Nazis said they needed to protect German minorities in Poland and elsewhere in Europe.
“The claims by President Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into eastern Ukraine because they had to protect the Russian minorities, that is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe,” she said.
“I just want everybody to have a little historic perspective.”
“I am not making a comparison, certainly.”
“But I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before,” she said.
end quotes
And since I do have more than a little historic perspective on that matter of the Sudeten Deutsch as they were called, with the courtesy of the Cape Charles Mirror, what I would like to do is share that history as it was written in 1943 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, the Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University, in World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900, and as it is comprehensive the way the author presents it, I will break it up into installments that are more bite-sized, to make it easier for the reader of today to absorb and comprehend, because like Hillary, I too see comparisons between the Sudeten Deutsch in Czechoslovakia just prior to WWII, and the ethnic Russians in Ukraine today, on the eve of WWIII if Joe Biden has his way, to wit:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
The Czechs had watched with anxious eye, as well they might, the submergence of their southern neighbor in the German Reich.
Not only did they have Nazis to the north of them and Nazis to the south of them, but within their own border was a clamorous German minority, the redemption of which might be sponsored any day by Adolf Hitler.
That minority had received more consideration than that given to any other minority in the post-war world.
It had full parliamentary representation and equal educational opportunities – in fact, there were more German secondary schools in Czechoslovakia in proportion to the population than there were schools for Czechs.
On the other hand, that German minority had just cause for complaint: Public officials were generally Czechs; and minor officials, such as postmen and ticket agents, were apt to pretend that they could not understand German.
The great estates in Czechoslovakia before the war (World War I) had been owned by German landlords who were dissatisfied with the compensation paid them when the lands were subdivided after the war among the peasants.
More important yet, the condition of the German workingmen in the industrial districts was deplorable.
The Czechs were not responsible for the world economic depression of the nineteen-thirties, but they might have been more generous in the relief given to the stricken areas.
At one time there were nearly a million unemployed in this little country, and over a half were Germans!
Until 1935 most of the Germans in Czechoslovakia cooperated with the Czechs in carrying on parliamentary government, but in that year, Konrad Henlein’s Sudetendeutsch Partei, intransigent and dissaffected, captured sixty percent of the German vote.
This party, the S.d.P., was not originally allied with the German Nazis.
It did, however, stress certain German principles: hatred of democracy, devout obedience to a Fuehrer – Henlein – and racial particularism.
The S.d.P.’s demands now increased, one of them being “full liberty for Germans to proclaim their Germanism and their adhesion to the ideology of Germans,” and another a demand that Czechoslovakia should renounce its treaties with France and Russia, the former calling for the military support of the Third Republic should Germany threaten invasion, the latter promising Russian aid, provided France aided the threatened state first.
Neither of these demands could safely be granted by the Czech majority; to accede to the first would invite open propaganda against democracy in a democratic state; to accede to the second would make Czechoslovakia defenseless in case of attack.
War was narrowly averted in the month of May, 1938.
A frontier incident resulted in the death of two Germans; Hitler promptly cut off negotiations with the Czechs and hastened troops to the border.
Czechoslovakia as promptly mobilized and rushed 400,000 men to the German frontier.
France affirmed her support for Czechoslovakia and that meant that Russia must follow suit.
Britain agreed to support France, and Hitler withdrew his troops.
But he did not change his intentions, nor did the Czechs their resolution to fight for their country.
What did take place during the four succeeding months was the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by France, aided and abetted to no little degree by England.
end quotes
And with that last sentence about the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by France, aided and abetted to no little degree by England hanging there before us, as just a bit ago, on 26 March 2022, Joe Biden was in Poland and was quoted in the transcript of his address to the Polish president as saying “I’m confident that Vladimir Putin was counting on being able to divide NATO, to be able to separate the eastern flank from the West, be able to separate nations based on past histories,” and “But he hasn’t been able to do it,” and “We’ve all stayed together,” and finally, “And — and so, I just think it’s so important that we — Poland and the United States — keep in lockstep in how we’re proceeding” (keeping in lockstep with Joe Biden on this issue could well prove fatal for Poland), let me stop here to let the import of that about how not to count on your friends in a time of crisis sink in, and then I will be back with installment two.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... i/#respond
HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
Re: HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 3, 2022 AT 6:19 PM
Paul Plante says:
And with respect to Joe Biden leading us into WWIII so that as a part of his fantastic legacy, he can be called the greatest war president there ever was, or will be, which means Joe desperately needs a war, it is interesting to note that seventy-nine (79) years ago now, in 1943, the year after Joe Biden made world history by being born on November 20, 1942, when Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, the Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University wrote an excellent and well-documented contemporary history of what was happening in the world in the years before the outbreak of World War II, that book being titled World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900, there was no country known as Ukraine.
To the contrary, it was known as “The Ukraine,” which was a region of the Soviet Union, like “The Crimea.”
The first mention we find of “The Ukraine” in World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 is at p. 144, where we have as follows:
The difficulties which confronted Stalin were enormous.
Russia was poor, desperately poor, yet he could not carry out the five-year program without hiring expensive scientists and engineering specialists from Germany, the United States, and elsewhere.
At the same time it was necessary to import machinery and tools of precision.
All this would take money, and the capitalistic world was chary of granting credit to Russia.
It demanded ready money and this could only be had by Russian exports, either or merchandise, or gold.
Then too, laborers had to be secured from somewhere and trained as skilled workmen, millions of them.
They had to be drafted from the Russian peasantry (there was no other source of supply) and this at a time when the peasants were inevitably irritated by the revolution pending in agriculture whereby they were to be ordered to give up their individual land holdings and forced to join cooperative farm groups.
Compulsion would be necessary; the peasants could not be enticed by high wages, for all available money would have to be spent for materials, tools, and foreign experts.
Yet economy would be impossible.
The expenses of the Red army were increasing, not diminishing.
Between the threat of Japanese invasion in the Far East and the enmity of the capitalistic West, Stalin did not dare diminish his army.
In Lenin’s day there was no danger threatening from Germany; but as Stalin came to power a wild-eyed agitator, Adolf Hitler, was inflaming his countrymen with bitter hate of Communists.
Hitler might well become a serious menace.
England, Italy and the United States were hostile.
There was need for haste as well as for money, so Stalin thought.
On the industrial front the principal center of activity was in the Ukraine, in the valley of the Don, in the Caucasus, the Urals, and in Western Siberia.
In the Ukraine a great dam providing for the largest hydroelectric plant in Europe had already been projected.
This, the Dnieprostroi dam, was completed in 1932, making the Dnieper River navigable for 1500 miles and providing 750,000 horsepower.
At Kharkov, also in the Ukraine, a tractor plant was established which is short order was manufacturing 37,000 tractors a year, and near it was a plant for turbine generators and electrical equipment which by 1939 employed 40,000 men.
At Rostov on the Don and at Stalingrad on the Volga mammoth steel plants, specializing in tractors and other agricultural equipment were erected, and so great was the industrial advance of this southeastern region that it, together with other sections of Russia, had topped by 1939 the entire agricultural machine production of the United States.
end quotes
The only other mention of the Ukraine comes at p. 366, as follows:
Long before German pressure on the central front (Red army) slowed down it was felt in the Ukraine in southern Russia and at Leningrad in the north.
The black earth of the Ukraine, the mineral wealth of the Donets basin, and the rich oil-fields of the Caucasus lured on the Nazis.
From early August to late November they kept advancing.
By-passing Kiev, they raced for the Black Sea coast and reached; they then dived at Kiev from the east, and that capital of the Ukraine fell into their hands.
All through October Teutonic victory-waves flowed east and south.
They swept to the Sea of Azov; they submerged Stalino on the Don and Kharkov, the Ukraine’s second largest city.
Then they abated somewhat, finally seeping into Rostov at the mouth of the Don, a good eight hundred miles from the old Russian frontier.
The Ukraine, Russia’s granary and main center of heavy industry was now entirely in German hands.
The blow was heavy, but the Red armies remained intact.
end quotes
So who does the Ukraine really belong to from a historical perspective?
Zelensky and Joe Biden?
And given this history of Russia, which Joe Biden should know cold along with his lackey Tony Blinken and his lickspittle Jake Sullivan with his thin-head and goofy look on his face, like Alfred E. Newman from Mad magazine after his head got caught in a hydraulic press, what are all these “crippling sanctions that have been laid on Russia since the weak sister Obama was in power going to do?
Send Russia back to the stone age?
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-592358
Paul Plante says:
And with respect to Joe Biden leading us into WWIII so that as a part of his fantastic legacy, he can be called the greatest war president there ever was, or will be, which means Joe desperately needs a war, it is interesting to note that seventy-nine (79) years ago now, in 1943, the year after Joe Biden made world history by being born on November 20, 1942, when Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, the Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University wrote an excellent and well-documented contemporary history of what was happening in the world in the years before the outbreak of World War II, that book being titled World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900, there was no country known as Ukraine.
To the contrary, it was known as “The Ukraine,” which was a region of the Soviet Union, like “The Crimea.”
The first mention we find of “The Ukraine” in World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 is at p. 144, where we have as follows:
The difficulties which confronted Stalin were enormous.
Russia was poor, desperately poor, yet he could not carry out the five-year program without hiring expensive scientists and engineering specialists from Germany, the United States, and elsewhere.
At the same time it was necessary to import machinery and tools of precision.
All this would take money, and the capitalistic world was chary of granting credit to Russia.
It demanded ready money and this could only be had by Russian exports, either or merchandise, or gold.
Then too, laborers had to be secured from somewhere and trained as skilled workmen, millions of them.
They had to be drafted from the Russian peasantry (there was no other source of supply) and this at a time when the peasants were inevitably irritated by the revolution pending in agriculture whereby they were to be ordered to give up their individual land holdings and forced to join cooperative farm groups.
Compulsion would be necessary; the peasants could not be enticed by high wages, for all available money would have to be spent for materials, tools, and foreign experts.
Yet economy would be impossible.
The expenses of the Red army were increasing, not diminishing.
Between the threat of Japanese invasion in the Far East and the enmity of the capitalistic West, Stalin did not dare diminish his army.
In Lenin’s day there was no danger threatening from Germany; but as Stalin came to power a wild-eyed agitator, Adolf Hitler, was inflaming his countrymen with bitter hate of Communists.
Hitler might well become a serious menace.
England, Italy and the United States were hostile.
There was need for haste as well as for money, so Stalin thought.
On the industrial front the principal center of activity was in the Ukraine, in the valley of the Don, in the Caucasus, the Urals, and in Western Siberia.
In the Ukraine a great dam providing for the largest hydroelectric plant in Europe had already been projected.
This, the Dnieprostroi dam, was completed in 1932, making the Dnieper River navigable for 1500 miles and providing 750,000 horsepower.
At Kharkov, also in the Ukraine, a tractor plant was established which is short order was manufacturing 37,000 tractors a year, and near it was a plant for turbine generators and electrical equipment which by 1939 employed 40,000 men.
At Rostov on the Don and at Stalingrad on the Volga mammoth steel plants, specializing in tractors and other agricultural equipment were erected, and so great was the industrial advance of this southeastern region that it, together with other sections of Russia, had topped by 1939 the entire agricultural machine production of the United States.
end quotes
The only other mention of the Ukraine comes at p. 366, as follows:
Long before German pressure on the central front (Red army) slowed down it was felt in the Ukraine in southern Russia and at Leningrad in the north.
The black earth of the Ukraine, the mineral wealth of the Donets basin, and the rich oil-fields of the Caucasus lured on the Nazis.
From early August to late November they kept advancing.
By-passing Kiev, they raced for the Black Sea coast and reached; they then dived at Kiev from the east, and that capital of the Ukraine fell into their hands.
All through October Teutonic victory-waves flowed east and south.
They swept to the Sea of Azov; they submerged Stalino on the Don and Kharkov, the Ukraine’s second largest city.
Then they abated somewhat, finally seeping into Rostov at the mouth of the Don, a good eight hundred miles from the old Russian frontier.
The Ukraine, Russia’s granary and main center of heavy industry was now entirely in German hands.
The blow was heavy, but the Red armies remained intact.
end quotes
So who does the Ukraine really belong to from a historical perspective?
Zelensky and Joe Biden?
And given this history of Russia, which Joe Biden should know cold along with his lackey Tony Blinken and his lickspittle Jake Sullivan with his thin-head and goofy look on his face, like Alfred E. Newman from Mad magazine after his head got caught in a hydraulic press, what are all these “crippling sanctions that have been laid on Russia since the weak sister Obama was in power going to do?
Send Russia back to the stone age?
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-592358
Re: HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 4, 2022 AT 5:45 PM
Paul Plante says:
And getting back to the Associated Press article titled “Clinton slams Putin, a day after her Hitler remark” wherein we had Hillary, an imp up from Hell bent on the destruction of our civilized world if there ever was one, speaking at a closed fundraising luncheon in Long Beach that Putin’s actions are similar what happened in the Nazi era in Czechoslovakia and Romania, telling the crowd of her paying supporters, “Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,” that according to the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, and
responding to a question submitted at the UCLA talk, Clinton said she was not making a comparison although Russia’s actions were “reminiscent” of claims Germany made in the 1930s, when the Nazis said they needed to protect German minorities in Poland and elsewhere in Europe, telling her audience of rapt listeners, “The claims by President Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into eastern Ukraine because they had to protect the Russian minorities, that is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe,” and “I just want everybody to have a little historic perspective” and “I am not making a comparison, certainly,” although she actually was making a comparison, and following that up by saying, “But I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before,” let’s all do ourselves a favor by really taking a hard look at “that tactic” Hillary, who has a coveted Juris Doctor degree from Yale, which is almost as good as one from Harvard, has said has been used before, by going to pp. 311-313, World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, as follows:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
It is very difficult to fathom what lay behind French and British policy in the crisis of 1938.
Mile by mile the two governments gave way to Hitler’s threats and bombast, until finally there was nothing left of Czechoslovakia except a completely disillusioned and discouraged little rump of a country, which could not fight if it wanted to, and which was occupied without a shot by the Fuehrer the following spring.
Czechoslovakia was by no means defenseless in the summer of 1938.
She had a good country, a mountainous frontier, defended by a Maginot line reputed stronger than even the famous line of that name in France.
Near Prague were the strategic Skoda munitions works, the largest in all Europe, owned by a resolute people, protected not simply by their natural frontiers but by the pledged word of France.
In addition, Czechoslovakia was a member of the Little Entente, and both Yugoslavia and Rumania were sworn to aid her.
True, Yugoslavia might stand aside for fear of Mussolini, and Rumania was not a dependable ally.
But the Rumanians presumably would at least permit the passage of Soviet troops through their territory to aid the Czechs if they were attacked.
With France, England, and Russia behind them it seemed improbable that Mussolini would give any active aid to Hitler in order that the latter might occupy Prague.
Nevertheless, the British and the French between them opened the mountain passes to the Bohemian plain, permitted Nazi troops to pass through unopposed, and thus made sure of a war in which they would not have Czechoslovakia as their ally, and Hitler would have Skoda.
The feeble and inept behavior of Britain and France during the last six months of 1938 is incredible.
It began to be in evidence when the British sent Lord Runciman to Prague as a kind of unofficial advisor to the Czechs.
The Czechs did not ask for him; they did not want him; but they were afraid if they did not accept him Britain would wash her hands altogether and persuade France to do likewise.
Chamberlain had blown neither hot nor cold.
He had refused a definite guarantee of Czechish independence, but at the same time he had intimated that British policy was not to be interpreted as one of non-intervention under all circumstances.
Plainly, they had better accept Runciman.
The Czechs, urged on by his Lordship, now offered generous concessions to the S.d.P. and Henlein.
They agreed to a cantonal division of Czechoslovakia on the Swiss model.
“All nationalities should share proportionately in all state offices and in state enterprises, monopolies, institutions and other organizations.”
Autonomy in all local matters was assured the Sudetendeutsch, and a large sum of money was to be granted for their economic relief.
This was fair enough, but not sufficiently fair for the London Times.
It proposed that Czechoslovakia cede its border districts to Germany.
The Times, of course, was not an official organ of the British government, but the Nazis had good reason to believe that it flew the Chamberlain kite.
Hitler took the cue.
A few days later, September 12, he addressed a huge meeting of Nazis and said that he intended to come instantly to the relief of his oppressed racial comrades in Czechoslovakia and announced simultaneously that the most impregnable defenses ever built by man were being rushed to completion on the western frontier of Germany.
On September 13 there were uprisings among the Sudenten Germans (acknowledged later by Runciman to have been stirred up by Nazi agitators) and the instant reply of Benes, President of Czechoslovakia, was to proclaim martial law.
One day later Chamberlain announced that he would go by airplane to consult with Hitler.
This was to be the first of three trips by air to Canossa which the Prime Minister of England was to take – successive steps, all of them, in humiliating subservience to the will of the German dictator.
The first flight was to Berchtesgaden, where he was told by Hitler that Germany insisted on the instant inclusion of the Sudeten Germans in the Third Reich, even at the cost of general war.
Time would be given Chamberlain to consult with his ministers; no other concession was offered.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-592863
Paul Plante says:
And getting back to the Associated Press article titled “Clinton slams Putin, a day after her Hitler remark” wherein we had Hillary, an imp up from Hell bent on the destruction of our civilized world if there ever was one, speaking at a closed fundraising luncheon in Long Beach that Putin’s actions are similar what happened in the Nazi era in Czechoslovakia and Romania, telling the crowd of her paying supporters, “Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,” that according to the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, and
responding to a question submitted at the UCLA talk, Clinton said she was not making a comparison although Russia’s actions were “reminiscent” of claims Germany made in the 1930s, when the Nazis said they needed to protect German minorities in Poland and elsewhere in Europe, telling her audience of rapt listeners, “The claims by President Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into eastern Ukraine because they had to protect the Russian minorities, that is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe,” and “I just want everybody to have a little historic perspective” and “I am not making a comparison, certainly,” although she actually was making a comparison, and following that up by saying, “But I am recommending that we perhaps can learn from this tactic that has been used before,” let’s all do ourselves a favor by really taking a hard look at “that tactic” Hillary, who has a coveted Juris Doctor degree from Yale, which is almost as good as one from Harvard, has said has been used before, by going to pp. 311-313, World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, as follows:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
It is very difficult to fathom what lay behind French and British policy in the crisis of 1938.
Mile by mile the two governments gave way to Hitler’s threats and bombast, until finally there was nothing left of Czechoslovakia except a completely disillusioned and discouraged little rump of a country, which could not fight if it wanted to, and which was occupied without a shot by the Fuehrer the following spring.
Czechoslovakia was by no means defenseless in the summer of 1938.
She had a good country, a mountainous frontier, defended by a Maginot line reputed stronger than even the famous line of that name in France.
Near Prague were the strategic Skoda munitions works, the largest in all Europe, owned by a resolute people, protected not simply by their natural frontiers but by the pledged word of France.
In addition, Czechoslovakia was a member of the Little Entente, and both Yugoslavia and Rumania were sworn to aid her.
True, Yugoslavia might stand aside for fear of Mussolini, and Rumania was not a dependable ally.
But the Rumanians presumably would at least permit the passage of Soviet troops through their territory to aid the Czechs if they were attacked.
With France, England, and Russia behind them it seemed improbable that Mussolini would give any active aid to Hitler in order that the latter might occupy Prague.
Nevertheless, the British and the French between them opened the mountain passes to the Bohemian plain, permitted Nazi troops to pass through unopposed, and thus made sure of a war in which they would not have Czechoslovakia as their ally, and Hitler would have Skoda.
The feeble and inept behavior of Britain and France during the last six months of 1938 is incredible.
It began to be in evidence when the British sent Lord Runciman to Prague as a kind of unofficial advisor to the Czechs.
The Czechs did not ask for him; they did not want him; but they were afraid if they did not accept him Britain would wash her hands altogether and persuade France to do likewise.
Chamberlain had blown neither hot nor cold.
He had refused a definite guarantee of Czechish independence, but at the same time he had intimated that British policy was not to be interpreted as one of non-intervention under all circumstances.
Plainly, they had better accept Runciman.
The Czechs, urged on by his Lordship, now offered generous concessions to the S.d.P. and Henlein.
They agreed to a cantonal division of Czechoslovakia on the Swiss model.
“All nationalities should share proportionately in all state offices and in state enterprises, monopolies, institutions and other organizations.”
Autonomy in all local matters was assured the Sudetendeutsch, and a large sum of money was to be granted for their economic relief.
This was fair enough, but not sufficiently fair for the London Times.
It proposed that Czechoslovakia cede its border districts to Germany.
The Times, of course, was not an official organ of the British government, but the Nazis had good reason to believe that it flew the Chamberlain kite.
Hitler took the cue.
A few days later, September 12, he addressed a huge meeting of Nazis and said that he intended to come instantly to the relief of his oppressed racial comrades in Czechoslovakia and announced simultaneously that the most impregnable defenses ever built by man were being rushed to completion on the western frontier of Germany.
On September 13 there were uprisings among the Sudenten Germans (acknowledged later by Runciman to have been stirred up by Nazi agitators) and the instant reply of Benes, President of Czechoslovakia, was to proclaim martial law.
One day later Chamberlain announced that he would go by airplane to consult with Hitler.
This was to be the first of three trips by air to Canossa which the Prime Minister of England was to take – successive steps, all of them, in humiliating subservience to the will of the German dictator.
The first flight was to Berchtesgaden, where he was told by Hitler that Germany insisted on the instant inclusion of the Sudeten Germans in the Third Reich, even at the cost of general war.
Time would be given Chamberlain to consult with his ministers; no other concession was offered.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-592863
Re: HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 5, 2022 AT 7:44 PM
Paul Plante says:
So by looking carefully at what really was happening back then, as if that was all Hitler causing WWII, with no aid or assistance from either France or England, which was far from the truth of the matter, we see things are a bit more complex than what Hillary, who has a coveted Juris Doctor degree from Yale, which is almost as good as one from Harvard, made them out to be in a March 6, 2014 speech to her paying customers at a closed fundraising luncheon in Long Beach, which takes us back once again to that story from pp. 313-314 of World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, to wit:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
What was to be done?
The British cabinet was divided; so was the French.
The premier of France and his foreign secretary flew to London and a decision was reached without consulting Prague.
Czechoslovakia was told by England and France that she must deliver “the districts mainly inhabited by the Sudeten Germans” to Germany.
If this was done there would be guarantees of her future independence.
This was selling the pass, for the districts to be ceded lay along the frontier where the Czechs had their fortifications.
England and France were now offering Hitler all that he demanded.
Benes and his cabinet begged for reconsideration.
Czechoslovakia had, they said, a treaty of arbitration with Germany.
Why not invoke it?
Runciman, meanwhile, made his formal report.
It proposed not only to give Germany all that Hitler had demanded but a little more, for he suggested not only that parts of Czechoslovakia be ceded Germany but also that the rump which remained should renounce all treaties of defense with other countries, suppress all anti-German agitation, and enter into close economic relations with the Reich.
The Runciman report was followed by sharp insistence at Prague on the part of the French and British ambassadors that Benes agree to the Anglo-French proposals.
Benes asked that the demands be given him in writing; he was refused.
Would the Czechs yield or not?
If France fought on their side they had a good chance, but even so there were German divisions to the south of them in Austria and their own Maginot line was in the north.
They would, in any case, be subject to a severe bombardment from the air.
But France had now repudiated her word, and without France, Russia was under no obligation.
Benes and his colleagues decided to yield – with the understanding, they said, that Britain and France would guarantee the future independence of what was left of their country, and that the land transferred to Germany would not be occupied by German troops until the new frontiers had been delimited.
Whereupon followed Chamberlain’s second flight to Canossa, this time to the little German town of Godesberg.
To his surprise he found Hitler in a towering rage.
The German army was going to march on October first, roared the Fuehrer, and nothing could stop it.
There might be “subsequent corrections” in the boundaries suggested, and perhaps plebiscites.
But Germany was going to take by force what was hers by right and would listen to no one.
Hitler presented Chamberlain with a map showing what districts Germany was going to annex immediately, and Chamberlain received it, agreed to present it to the Czechs without recommendation, and flew back to London.
The Czechs indignantly rejected the Godesberg ultimatum, the British mobilized their fleet, the French their army.
It looked like war.
Trenches were dug in London streets, tanks and trucks rolled through Berlin on their way south, and gas masks were distributed in Paris.
The British foreign office gave categorical assurance to France that Britain would come to her assistance if she took military action against Germany in the event of that country’s invading of Czechoslovakia – a much stronger guarantee than Britain gave France on August 2, 1914.
Seemingly, Hitler must give way or the second World War would break.
Paul Plante says:
So by looking carefully at what really was happening back then, as if that was all Hitler causing WWII, with no aid or assistance from either France or England, which was far from the truth of the matter, we see things are a bit more complex than what Hillary, who has a coveted Juris Doctor degree from Yale, which is almost as good as one from Harvard, made them out to be in a March 6, 2014 speech to her paying customers at a closed fundraising luncheon in Long Beach, which takes us back once again to that story from pp. 313-314 of World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, to wit:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
What was to be done?
The British cabinet was divided; so was the French.
The premier of France and his foreign secretary flew to London and a decision was reached without consulting Prague.
Czechoslovakia was told by England and France that she must deliver “the districts mainly inhabited by the Sudeten Germans” to Germany.
If this was done there would be guarantees of her future independence.
This was selling the pass, for the districts to be ceded lay along the frontier where the Czechs had their fortifications.
England and France were now offering Hitler all that he demanded.
Benes and his cabinet begged for reconsideration.
Czechoslovakia had, they said, a treaty of arbitration with Germany.
Why not invoke it?
Runciman, meanwhile, made his formal report.
It proposed not only to give Germany all that Hitler had demanded but a little more, for he suggested not only that parts of Czechoslovakia be ceded Germany but also that the rump which remained should renounce all treaties of defense with other countries, suppress all anti-German agitation, and enter into close economic relations with the Reich.
The Runciman report was followed by sharp insistence at Prague on the part of the French and British ambassadors that Benes agree to the Anglo-French proposals.
Benes asked that the demands be given him in writing; he was refused.
Would the Czechs yield or not?
If France fought on their side they had a good chance, but even so there were German divisions to the south of them in Austria and their own Maginot line was in the north.
They would, in any case, be subject to a severe bombardment from the air.
But France had now repudiated her word, and without France, Russia was under no obligation.
Benes and his colleagues decided to yield – with the understanding, they said, that Britain and France would guarantee the future independence of what was left of their country, and that the land transferred to Germany would not be occupied by German troops until the new frontiers had been delimited.
Whereupon followed Chamberlain’s second flight to Canossa, this time to the little German town of Godesberg.
To his surprise he found Hitler in a towering rage.
The German army was going to march on October first, roared the Fuehrer, and nothing could stop it.
There might be “subsequent corrections” in the boundaries suggested, and perhaps plebiscites.
But Germany was going to take by force what was hers by right and would listen to no one.
Hitler presented Chamberlain with a map showing what districts Germany was going to annex immediately, and Chamberlain received it, agreed to present it to the Czechs without recommendation, and flew back to London.
The Czechs indignantly rejected the Godesberg ultimatum, the British mobilized their fleet, the French their army.
It looked like war.
Trenches were dug in London streets, tanks and trucks rolled through Berlin on their way south, and gas masks were distributed in Paris.
The British foreign office gave categorical assurance to France that Britain would come to her assistance if she took military action against Germany in the event of that country’s invading of Czechoslovakia – a much stronger guarantee than Britain gave France on August 2, 1914.
Seemingly, Hitler must give way or the second World War would break.
Re: HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 6, 2022 AT 10:49 PM
Paul Plante says:
And while that is going on between Hitler and Chamberlain and France, which is the selling out of Czechoslovakia by England and France, our “allies” today in Joe Biden’s death struggle with Russia, let us go over to Russia and see what Stalin was thinking about as all this other business was going down:
From pp. 320-321, World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, to wit:
Joseph Stalin pondered deeply.
He hated and distrusted Hitler; he also hated and distrusted Chamberlain.
If the Germans drove through Poland or across the Baltic states and attacked Russia, guarantees were needed of armed support from France and Britain.
But suppose these two countries failed him at the last hour; suppose they consented to a second Munich whereby Poland fell a prey to Germany and the Wehrmacht stood on the borders of the Ukraine.
France and England had ignored Russia in 1938; Stalin had not been invited to Munich; the protests of his representative, Litvinoff, had been ignored at Geneva; the two western powers had abandoned, apparently, the whole idea of collective security.
There seemed to be more than an even chance, so Stalin thought, that they would not be displeased at a German-Russian war from which they would stand aloof.
The inept and temporizing character of Franco-British diplomacy did much to heighten his suspicions.
Chamberlain three times had flown to Germany to placate Hitler, and Chamberlain, accompanied by Lord Halifax, secretary of state for foreign affairs, had visited Mussolini; but to Moscow at the height of the crisis the British had accredited as their special envoy an under-official of the foreign office, without prestige, without authority.
Nevertheless, Stalin stood ready to make a hard and fast military alliance with France and Britain, provided that it included not only guarantees for Poland but for all six small countries on the western Russian frontier, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Rumania; guarantees not only against external but also against internal aggression.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-593871
Paul Plante says:
And while that is going on between Hitler and Chamberlain and France, which is the selling out of Czechoslovakia by England and France, our “allies” today in Joe Biden’s death struggle with Russia, let us go over to Russia and see what Stalin was thinking about as all this other business was going down:
From pp. 320-321, World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, to wit:
Joseph Stalin pondered deeply.
He hated and distrusted Hitler; he also hated and distrusted Chamberlain.
If the Germans drove through Poland or across the Baltic states and attacked Russia, guarantees were needed of armed support from France and Britain.
But suppose these two countries failed him at the last hour; suppose they consented to a second Munich whereby Poland fell a prey to Germany and the Wehrmacht stood on the borders of the Ukraine.
France and England had ignored Russia in 1938; Stalin had not been invited to Munich; the protests of his representative, Litvinoff, had been ignored at Geneva; the two western powers had abandoned, apparently, the whole idea of collective security.
There seemed to be more than an even chance, so Stalin thought, that they would not be displeased at a German-Russian war from which they would stand aloof.
The inept and temporizing character of Franco-British diplomacy did much to heighten his suspicions.
Chamberlain three times had flown to Germany to placate Hitler, and Chamberlain, accompanied by Lord Halifax, secretary of state for foreign affairs, had visited Mussolini; but to Moscow at the height of the crisis the British had accredited as their special envoy an under-official of the foreign office, without prestige, without authority.
Nevertheless, Stalin stood ready to make a hard and fast military alliance with France and Britain, provided that it included not only guarantees for Poland but for all six small countries on the western Russian frontier, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Rumania; guarantees not only against external but also against internal aggression.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-593871
Re: HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 7, 2022 AT 6:25 PM
Paul Plante says:
In 1966, that being twenty-three (23) years after World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 was written by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University in 1943, which in turn was after the US formally entered the European Theater of World War II on December 11, 1941, only days after the events of Pearl Harbor, when Germany declared war on the United States, Senator J. William Fulbright wrote a book titled book The Arrogance of Power, this as the Viet Nam war, itself an outgrowth of unresolved and perhaps unresolvable conflicts left over from WWII, was just starting to get really hot, and in the section titled “The Power Drive of Nations,” the author wrote as follows, as if speaking to us today from across the gulf of time between that war and this one, to wit:
When the abstractions and subtleties of political science have been exhausted, there remain the most basic unanswered questions about war and peace and why nations contest the issues they contest and why they even care about them.
end quotes
And in here, by studying this history as it was happening, we get to see that all it takes to start a world war, and this is something we need to give serious thought to, today, is a mere handful of people!
Nations don’t go to war unless there is some leader to take them there, and get them there.
Yes, people, as history more than amply demonstrates, a mere handful of weaklings and fools have the power to destroy the world for the rest of us, which takes us back to the selling out of Czechoslovakia by England and France in the run-up to WWII, where we have more as follows from pp. 314-315, World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, to wit:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
The Fuehrer gave no indication of yielding.
Within five days his Germans were to march.
He had no qualms, he said, against Poland or France.
“After the Sudeten German question is regulated,” he asserted, “we have no further territorial claims to make in Europe.”
But October first was the deadline, and to prove that he meant business, German divisions were concentrated on the Czech frontier, and German workmen labored day and night on the “Westwall.”
To frighten the democracies he even took another step: “German action” (whatever that meant), he told the British ambassador, would commence the next day at 2 P.M., namely, on September 28.
The democracies, on the other hand, did give signs of yielding.
The French newspapers deliberately minimized as unofficial the British guarantee of standing by France; and Chamberlain, in a most ambiguous speech, showed that he was of two minds – he spoke of Czechoslovakia as a “far-away country” for whom it seemed almost impossible that England would be fighting, and the general tenor of his remarks in the House of Commons sounded more like Hamlet than Pitt or Palmerston.
Then, just as the last sands were running out of the hour-glass, the Fuehrer, at the request of Mussolini, postponed mobilization twenty-four hours and invited Daladier and Chamberlain to a conference with the Duce and himself at Munich.
Chamberlain accepted, and for the third time made a journey to Canossa.
This Munich conference was still another victory for the dictators.
Czechoslovakia was an uninvited onlooker as the four statesmen carved up that unhappy country in accordance with the Godesberg ultimatum.
Minute concessions of no importance were made by which England and France might save face.
Four zones were to be occupied by the Germans “in four rapid bites instead of one.”
A fifth zone was created in which there were supposed to be plebiscites.
“But the final result was worse for the Czechs than Godesberg would have been.”
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-594312
Paul Plante says:
In 1966, that being twenty-three (23) years after World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 was written by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University in 1943, which in turn was after the US formally entered the European Theater of World War II on December 11, 1941, only days after the events of Pearl Harbor, when Germany declared war on the United States, Senator J. William Fulbright wrote a book titled book The Arrogance of Power, this as the Viet Nam war, itself an outgrowth of unresolved and perhaps unresolvable conflicts left over from WWII, was just starting to get really hot, and in the section titled “The Power Drive of Nations,” the author wrote as follows, as if speaking to us today from across the gulf of time between that war and this one, to wit:
When the abstractions and subtleties of political science have been exhausted, there remain the most basic unanswered questions about war and peace and why nations contest the issues they contest and why they even care about them.
end quotes
And in here, by studying this history as it was happening, we get to see that all it takes to start a world war, and this is something we need to give serious thought to, today, is a mere handful of people!
Nations don’t go to war unless there is some leader to take them there, and get them there.
Yes, people, as history more than amply demonstrates, a mere handful of weaklings and fools have the power to destroy the world for the rest of us, which takes us back to the selling out of Czechoslovakia by England and France in the run-up to WWII, where we have more as follows from pp. 314-315, World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, to wit:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
The Fuehrer gave no indication of yielding.
Within five days his Germans were to march.
He had no qualms, he said, against Poland or France.
“After the Sudeten German question is regulated,” he asserted, “we have no further territorial claims to make in Europe.”
But October first was the deadline, and to prove that he meant business, German divisions were concentrated on the Czech frontier, and German workmen labored day and night on the “Westwall.”
To frighten the democracies he even took another step: “German action” (whatever that meant), he told the British ambassador, would commence the next day at 2 P.M., namely, on September 28.
The democracies, on the other hand, did give signs of yielding.
The French newspapers deliberately minimized as unofficial the British guarantee of standing by France; and Chamberlain, in a most ambiguous speech, showed that he was of two minds – he spoke of Czechoslovakia as a “far-away country” for whom it seemed almost impossible that England would be fighting, and the general tenor of his remarks in the House of Commons sounded more like Hamlet than Pitt or Palmerston.
Then, just as the last sands were running out of the hour-glass, the Fuehrer, at the request of Mussolini, postponed mobilization twenty-four hours and invited Daladier and Chamberlain to a conference with the Duce and himself at Munich.
Chamberlain accepted, and for the third time made a journey to Canossa.
This Munich conference was still another victory for the dictators.
Czechoslovakia was an uninvited onlooker as the four statesmen carved up that unhappy country in accordance with the Godesberg ultimatum.
Minute concessions of no importance were made by which England and France might save face.
Four zones were to be occupied by the Germans “in four rapid bites instead of one.”
A fifth zone was created in which there were supposed to be plebiscites.
“But the final result was worse for the Czechs than Godesberg would have been.”
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-594312
Re: HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 9, 2022 AT 4:44 PM
Paul Plante says:
Does history repeat itself?
Or is that a myth cooked up by the Republicans to embarrass Joe Biden?
And more to the point, is it possible for just one man, in this case, Joseph R. Biden, who believes that it is he who now rules the world and all nations and their leaders must bow to him, or else out, as if he were indeed a modern day Hitler or Augustus Caesar, out of all the world’s population, to start a world war or world revolution, or more properly a world upheaval and conflagration that takes civilization out of the world and replaces it with brute barbarity?
And my goodness, people, if history is any kind of reliable guide, of course it is, which takes us back to pp. 315-316, World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, where we have more relevant history to consider, as follows:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
The international commission supposedly in control of plebiscites was a farce.
The Germans took what they wanted, marched to within forty miles of Prague, and absorbed about 750,000 Czechs in the new Germany.
As they did so the Poles invaded Teschen, annexing about 80,000 Poles and 120,000 Czechs.
Hungary then advanced on the helpless Czechs from the south, crossed the Danube, took Bratislava, and would have divided Ruthenia and perhaps Slovakia with Poland had she been permitted to by the all-powerful Germans.
The latter, together with the Italians, decided everything.
All French and British guarantees vanished into thin air.
“I return from Germany,” said Chamberlain to cheering thousands, “bringing peace with honor.”
He brought back neither.
Peace the Prime Minister might have envisaged, but how about honor?
We are too close to these events to write now with assurance of the motives which underlay them.
Perhaps some day history will show that the French were more to blame than the British, for it was France, not England, that guaranteed the independence of Czechoslovakia, and England had simply guaranteed to help France.
Nevertheless, the British had joined the French in pressing on Czechoslovakia the Franco-British plan which the Czechs accepted, and from that moment Britain was bound by implication to defend those who took her advice and yielded at her insistence.
Why did the British give way all along the line?
Several explanations have been offered.
A number of journalists asserted that the British Tories were bluffing from the beginning, that the mobilization of the fleet was a blind and a fake, carried on to deceive the simple, the real intent of the Tories being to support Hitler so that he might become strong enough to be ultimately victorious over Soviet Russia, or at least strong enough to act as their agent in staving off the Red menace.
This is pure assumption and a rather silly one, for it lays too much emphasis on economic determinism and suggests an altogether too complicated and subtle a plot.
The Tories, afterall, were British citizens, and to impugn their patriotism and common sense without evidence is, to say the least, not being historically minded.
Another conjecture was that Britain was profoundly pacifistic, unwilling to fight in any cause which did not directly concern land over which flew the Union Jack.
In this there was probably an element of truth, but not a great deal.
Pacifistic or otherwise, the sons of John Bull presumably had not been transformed in less than a generation into gentle Quakers.
Two other reasons for Chamberlain’s stand come closer to the truth.
He knew that, arrogant and boastful though Hitler might be, he had a good talking point in demanding the inclusion of Sudeten Germans in the Reich on the grounds of self-determination.
Bohemia had been a part of the old Austria, not a part of the old Germany, but that could not offset altogether the argument for self-determination.
Might not Hitler be content with just annexing Germans?
Perhaps there was a possibility that he would be.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-595228
Paul Plante says:
Does history repeat itself?
Or is that a myth cooked up by the Republicans to embarrass Joe Biden?
And more to the point, is it possible for just one man, in this case, Joseph R. Biden, who believes that it is he who now rules the world and all nations and their leaders must bow to him, or else out, as if he were indeed a modern day Hitler or Augustus Caesar, out of all the world’s population, to start a world war or world revolution, or more properly a world upheaval and conflagration that takes civilization out of the world and replaces it with brute barbarity?
And my goodness, people, if history is any kind of reliable guide, of course it is, which takes us back to pp. 315-316, World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, where we have more relevant history to consider, as follows:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
The international commission supposedly in control of plebiscites was a farce.
The Germans took what they wanted, marched to within forty miles of Prague, and absorbed about 750,000 Czechs in the new Germany.
As they did so the Poles invaded Teschen, annexing about 80,000 Poles and 120,000 Czechs.
Hungary then advanced on the helpless Czechs from the south, crossed the Danube, took Bratislava, and would have divided Ruthenia and perhaps Slovakia with Poland had she been permitted to by the all-powerful Germans.
The latter, together with the Italians, decided everything.
All French and British guarantees vanished into thin air.
“I return from Germany,” said Chamberlain to cheering thousands, “bringing peace with honor.”
He brought back neither.
Peace the Prime Minister might have envisaged, but how about honor?
We are too close to these events to write now with assurance of the motives which underlay them.
Perhaps some day history will show that the French were more to blame than the British, for it was France, not England, that guaranteed the independence of Czechoslovakia, and England had simply guaranteed to help France.
Nevertheless, the British had joined the French in pressing on Czechoslovakia the Franco-British plan which the Czechs accepted, and from that moment Britain was bound by implication to defend those who took her advice and yielded at her insistence.
Why did the British give way all along the line?
Several explanations have been offered.
A number of journalists asserted that the British Tories were bluffing from the beginning, that the mobilization of the fleet was a blind and a fake, carried on to deceive the simple, the real intent of the Tories being to support Hitler so that he might become strong enough to be ultimately victorious over Soviet Russia, or at least strong enough to act as their agent in staving off the Red menace.
This is pure assumption and a rather silly one, for it lays too much emphasis on economic determinism and suggests an altogether too complicated and subtle a plot.
The Tories, afterall, were British citizens, and to impugn their patriotism and common sense without evidence is, to say the least, not being historically minded.
Another conjecture was that Britain was profoundly pacifistic, unwilling to fight in any cause which did not directly concern land over which flew the Union Jack.
In this there was probably an element of truth, but not a great deal.
Pacifistic or otherwise, the sons of John Bull presumably had not been transformed in less than a generation into gentle Quakers.
Two other reasons for Chamberlain’s stand come closer to the truth.
He knew that, arrogant and boastful though Hitler might be, he had a good talking point in demanding the inclusion of Sudeten Germans in the Reich on the grounds of self-determination.
Bohemia had been a part of the old Austria, not a part of the old Germany, but that could not offset altogether the argument for self-determination.
Might not Hitler be content with just annexing Germans?
Perhaps there was a possibility that he would be.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-595228
Re: HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 10, 2022 AT 5:44 PM
Paul Plante says:
Going back to March 6, 2014, for the moment, that being seventy-one (71) years after World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 was written, and that being a time when Joe Biden, now the autocratic LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD, was Hussein Obama’s executive deputy president, and Hillary Clinton, claimed by some to be a Wonk, although she comes across more as Wanker here, was posturing for a run at the presidency, and toward that end, was quoted in an Associated Press article titled “Clinton slams Putin, a day after her Hitler remark” wherein Hillary, an imp up from Hell bent on the destruction of our civilized world if there ever was one, was quoted as saying that Putin’s actions at that time were similar what happened in the Nazi era in Czechoslovakia and Romania, telling her audience of political donors, “Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,” and “The claims by President Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into eastern Ukraine because they had to protect the Russian minorities, that is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe,” by studying the actual history of those times as we are doing here, we can see that far from being Wonkish, Hillary was really a shallow thinker without any real grasp of history, because being Hillary, she was never challenged.
Back then, Hillary said “I just want everybody to have a little historic perspective,” and that is precisely what we are getting in here, some much-needed historical perspective, as we sit perched on the eve of WW III, waiting for Joe Biden’s next provocation of Putin, which takes us back in time once again to pp. 316-318 of World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, as follows:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
And finally, and perhaps most important of all, was the military argument.
Russia was an uncertain factor.
The Soviets were said to have promised 200 airplanes for the defense of Czechoslovakia, but on the border of that country were 1,000 German planes that probably would sweep over it before France, England, and Russia could do anything.
Stalin had but recently put to death so many generals that Chamberlain might well have questioned the importance of any help Russia might provide, even if she honored her treaty with France.
The French were well prepared with their Maginot line for defense, but how could they reach Czechoslovakia to rescue that country from Hitler’s maw?
And if the French could not, how about England?
His first duty was to secure the safety of his own country.
He knew that Germany was better prepared for air battles than Britain, and it is possible that he had reliable information that the Reich had a two-to-one superiority in the air.
Could he afford to risk a war under such circumstances?
Possibly Hitler was bluffing; but on the other hand, possibly he was not.
Chamberlain’s role in this affair certainly was not brilliant, but that does not necessarily mean that it was absurd.
Perhaps he had some right to feel that Baldwin and MacDonald were more responsible in the long run than himself, for it was they who neglected for so many years to make ready against the day when no argument could prevail against Hitler’s lawless will unless backed by superior force.
The triumphant Germans, meanwhile, had won two astonishing diplomatic victories in less than six months, since without any fighting at all not only Austria but also the mountain bastions of Bohemia lay in their hands.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-595717
Paul Plante says:
Going back to March 6, 2014, for the moment, that being seventy-one (71) years after World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 was written, and that being a time when Joe Biden, now the autocratic LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD, was Hussein Obama’s executive deputy president, and Hillary Clinton, claimed by some to be a Wonk, although she comes across more as Wanker here, was posturing for a run at the presidency, and toward that end, was quoted in an Associated Press article titled “Clinton slams Putin, a day after her Hitler remark” wherein Hillary, an imp up from Hell bent on the destruction of our civilized world if there ever was one, was quoted as saying that Putin’s actions at that time were similar what happened in the Nazi era in Czechoslovakia and Romania, telling her audience of political donors, “Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,” and “The claims by President Putin and other Russians that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into eastern Ukraine because they had to protect the Russian minorities, that is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe,” by studying the actual history of those times as we are doing here, we can see that far from being Wonkish, Hillary was really a shallow thinker without any real grasp of history, because being Hillary, she was never challenged.
Back then, Hillary said “I just want everybody to have a little historic perspective,” and that is precisely what we are getting in here, some much-needed historical perspective, as we sit perched on the eve of WW III, waiting for Joe Biden’s next provocation of Putin, which takes us back in time once again to pp. 316-318 of World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, as follows:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
And finally, and perhaps most important of all, was the military argument.
Russia was an uncertain factor.
The Soviets were said to have promised 200 airplanes for the defense of Czechoslovakia, but on the border of that country were 1,000 German planes that probably would sweep over it before France, England, and Russia could do anything.
Stalin had but recently put to death so many generals that Chamberlain might well have questioned the importance of any help Russia might provide, even if she honored her treaty with France.
The French were well prepared with their Maginot line for defense, but how could they reach Czechoslovakia to rescue that country from Hitler’s maw?
And if the French could not, how about England?
His first duty was to secure the safety of his own country.
He knew that Germany was better prepared for air battles than Britain, and it is possible that he had reliable information that the Reich had a two-to-one superiority in the air.
Could he afford to risk a war under such circumstances?
Possibly Hitler was bluffing; but on the other hand, possibly he was not.
Chamberlain’s role in this affair certainly was not brilliant, but that does not necessarily mean that it was absurd.
Perhaps he had some right to feel that Baldwin and MacDonald were more responsible in the long run than himself, for it was they who neglected for so many years to make ready against the day when no argument could prevail against Hitler’s lawless will unless backed by superior force.
The triumphant Germans, meanwhile, had won two astonishing diplomatic victories in less than six months, since without any fighting at all not only Austria but also the mountain bastions of Bohemia lay in their hands.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-595717
Re: HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 11, 2022 AT 5:09 PM
Paul Plante says:
Does history repeat itself?
Or is it more of a case that history recurs in a pattern such that we think it is repeating?
And as we read about Hitler on the eve of WWII summoning the Brit Chamberlain like he was a trained dog, and as we consider RULER OF THE WORLD Joe Biden today, on the eve of WWIII, summoning the head of India, Modi, into his presence to force Modi to have to take sides, chose either Joe Biden or Putin, and face the consequences for making the wrong decision, does history recur because nature guarantees that every so often, another Hitler, or Oliver Cromwell, or Napolean and Charlemagne is going to come along, in our case today in the person of Joseph R. Biden?
As we ponder that, let us once again go back to the eve of WWII by going to pp. 318-319 of World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, as follows:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
Hitler had solemnly pledged himself to go no farther, but he had not the slightest intention of keeping his word.
Having swallowed somewhat more than one-third of the area of Czechoslovakia, and somewhat less than one-third of the population, he was still greedy for more.
What was left of the Republic of Czechoslovakia soon found that it was independent in name only and that it must look to Berlin for guidance.
The Germans demanded and obtained a corridor across the country for a military highway; they demanded and obtained the right to decide on the destinies of Slovakia and Ruthenia, not only in respect to government but also in respect to how much land should be ceded to Poland and Hungary.
And when Hacha, the last president of the republic, protested against Germany’s high-handed interference, he, like Schuschnigg, was summoned to Hitler’s presence.
His going to Germany was a formality.
Even before he reached Berlin, the German army had started south again.
Hacha, berated and browbeaten by Hitler, signed away the independence of his country, and almost simultaneously with his so doing, the Germans entered Prague, none resisting.
A few snowballs were thrown at the Teutonic invader; that was all.
Czechoslovakia was made a German protectorate, and Hitler could boast of adding still more military booty, to say nothing of much needed gold, to Germany’s store.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-596185
Paul Plante says:
Does history repeat itself?
Or is it more of a case that history recurs in a pattern such that we think it is repeating?
And as we read about Hitler on the eve of WWII summoning the Brit Chamberlain like he was a trained dog, and as we consider RULER OF THE WORLD Joe Biden today, on the eve of WWIII, summoning the head of India, Modi, into his presence to force Modi to have to take sides, chose either Joe Biden or Putin, and face the consequences for making the wrong decision, does history recur because nature guarantees that every so often, another Hitler, or Oliver Cromwell, or Napolean and Charlemagne is going to come along, in our case today in the person of Joseph R. Biden?
As we ponder that, let us once again go back to the eve of WWII by going to pp. 318-319 of World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, as follows:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, continued …
Hitler had solemnly pledged himself to go no farther, but he had not the slightest intention of keeping his word.
Having swallowed somewhat more than one-third of the area of Czechoslovakia, and somewhat less than one-third of the population, he was still greedy for more.
What was left of the Republic of Czechoslovakia soon found that it was independent in name only and that it must look to Berlin for guidance.
The Germans demanded and obtained a corridor across the country for a military highway; they demanded and obtained the right to decide on the destinies of Slovakia and Ruthenia, not only in respect to government but also in respect to how much land should be ceded to Poland and Hungary.
And when Hacha, the last president of the republic, protested against Germany’s high-handed interference, he, like Schuschnigg, was summoned to Hitler’s presence.
His going to Germany was a formality.
Even before he reached Berlin, the German army had started south again.
Hacha, berated and browbeaten by Hitler, signed away the independence of his country, and almost simultaneously with his so doing, the Germans entered Prague, none resisting.
A few snowballs were thrown at the Teutonic invader; that was all.
Czechoslovakia was made a German protectorate, and Hitler could boast of adding still more military booty, to say nothing of much needed gold, to Germany’s store.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-596185
Re: HISTORY REDUX ON THE EVE OF WWIII
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR APRIL 13, 2022 AT 6:20 PM
Paul Plante says:
Or is it that history contains parallels, such that events that occurred in one generation, in this case the WWII generation, appear to repeat in another generation, in this case, the one we are in now?
Do the thoughts assigned to one world ruler for his actions, in this case, Hitler in Europe, end up being assigned to another, in this case Putin, in another generation, as we saw Hillary Clinton doing on 6 March 2014 where she was indeed comparing Putin’s actions in Ukraine today to Hitler’s actions in Czechoslovakia in the run-up to WWII?
To consider that comparison, let us go to p. 319 of World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, to see what we can see on the subject, to wit:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, concluded …
In somewhat characteristic vein, he boasted of other things, and especially of the first German Reich, which had been born again.
That German Reich had been the Holy Roman Empire, reaching far across the Rhine into France and across the Alps into the heart of Italy.
Mussolini knew this as well as Hitler, knew that Florence and Milan had been part of that Reich.
The Duce said nothing, but one suspects he made note of these new boasts of the German Fuehrer.
It was not tactful for Hitler to speak thus.
And he spoke of other things as well, this fateful month of March, 1939.
It was not self-determination that Hitler emphasized now, but rather the idea of a German Lebensraum, a living space, which he now in the process of gaining for the Third Reich.
How large was that living space to be, and where beyond Czechoslovakia was it to be extended?
Always until March, 1939, there had been explanations of Nazi diplomacy based upon the iniquity of Versailles and of the violations by the Allies of the sacred right of self-determination.
But the demise of Czechoslovakia could not thus be explained.
Quite evident it now seemed to thoughtful men that, unless Hitler was stopped somewhere by force, a large part of eastern Europe would fall speedily under his control.
And after that, what about Alsace-Lorraine, and French, Belgian, Dutch and British colonies; and for all anybody knew, the coast of the English Channel?
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-597186
Paul Plante says:
Or is it that history contains parallels, such that events that occurred in one generation, in this case the WWII generation, appear to repeat in another generation, in this case, the one we are in now?
Do the thoughts assigned to one world ruler for his actions, in this case, Hitler in Europe, end up being assigned to another, in this case Putin, in another generation, as we saw Hillary Clinton doing on 6 March 2014 where she was indeed comparing Putin’s actions in Ukraine today to Hitler’s actions in Czechoslovakia in the run-up to WWII?
To consider that comparison, let us go to p. 319 of World Wars and Revolutions – The Course of Europe Since 1900 by Walter Phelps Hall, Ph.D, Dodge Professor of History, Princeton University, copyright 1943, to see what we can see on the subject, to wit:
CZECHOSLOVAKIA, concluded …
In somewhat characteristic vein, he boasted of other things, and especially of the first German Reich, which had been born again.
That German Reich had been the Holy Roman Empire, reaching far across the Rhine into France and across the Alps into the heart of Italy.
Mussolini knew this as well as Hitler, knew that Florence and Milan had been part of that Reich.
The Duce said nothing, but one suspects he made note of these new boasts of the German Fuehrer.
It was not tactful for Hitler to speak thus.
And he spoke of other things as well, this fateful month of March, 1939.
It was not self-determination that Hitler emphasized now, but rather the idea of a German Lebensraum, a living space, which he now in the process of gaining for the Third Reich.
How large was that living space to be, and where beyond Czechoslovakia was it to be extended?
Always until March, 1939, there had been explanations of Nazi diplomacy based upon the iniquity of Versailles and of the violations by the Allies of the sacred right of self-determination.
But the demise of Czechoslovakia could not thus be explained.
Quite evident it now seemed to thoughtful men that, unless Hitler was stopped somewhere by force, a large part of eastern Europe would fall speedily under his control.
And after that, what about Alsace-Lorraine, and French, Belgian, Dutch and British colonies; and for all anybody knew, the coast of the English Channel?
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ent-597186