Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
Do you mean the Western, Latin-speaking half of the empire, or the eastern, Greek-speaking half?
Both to an extent. As I understand it, the Eastern Empire had its own problems with internal strife.
Do you mean the Western, Latin-speaking half of the empire, or the eastern, Greek-speaking half?
Half the people who died in the holocaust died because of negligence not because the Nazi's wanted to spare them. Just that they were so incompetent they killed the poor souls before they could exterminate them. Though, I'm not sure why this is a controversial take as I'm not denying the holocaust happened.
Depends which part of the Holocaust you mean. The Extermination Camps I could definitely entertain, but in the case of the Einsatzgruppen SS, I couldn't disagree more. The Nazis could be chillingly efficient killers.
True in general they didn't do the best job but when they did what was asked of them...well stuff like Cowpens and Kings Mountain happendAs I'm on a mostly American site, let me drop the mother load of controversial opinions.
The militia and minutemen of the War of Independence are hilariously overrated. They got lucky at Lexington and Concord, but whenever they went up against British Light Foot, they got mulched as I understand it. Besides, this near obsession with the militia, of the common man standing up to the tyrannical British (who were such mustache twirling villains that we only wanted you to pay the Tea Tax), does a great disservice to the professional soldiers of the continental army.
As I'm on a mostly American site, let me drop the mother load of controversial opinions.
The militia and minutemen of the War of Independence are hilariously overrated. They got lucky at Lexington and Concord, but whenever they went up against British Light Foot, they got mulched as I understand it. Besides, this near obsession with the militia, of the common man standing up to the tyrannical British (who were such mustache twirling villains that we only wanted you to pay the Tea Tax), does a great disservice to the professional soldiers of the continental army.
They didn't get lucky at Lexington and Concord, instead the brits were (By Concord) hilariously outnumbered, by like 4 to 1, with a horrible job (walk though and back enemy territory using a known path). They were nearly surrounded at one point, then the relief force from Boston saved them with a cannon.They got lucky at Lexington and Concord
They didn't get lucky at Lexington and Concord, instead the brits were (By Concord) hilariously outnumbered, by like 4 to 1, with a horrible job (walk though and back enemy territory using a known path). They were nearly surrounded at one point, then the relief force from Boston saved them with a cannon.
That's not true at all. They took massive casualties, destroyed almost no munitions (e.g. the musketballs they tried to destroy by throwing into a swamp were actually dredged out, IIRC), had large casualties, and then were strategically bottled up in Boston until Evactuation day afterwards.At the end of the day, the British regulars accomplished everything they set out to do, taking relatively minimal casualties despite being massively outnumbered by colonial forces. The militia was generally only successful in skirmishing and was absolutely unable to actually *block* the movement of the British formations so long as discipline was maintained, although to be fair they nearly *did* succeed in wearing the initial British force down to breaking out of complete exhaustion.
No, Those were large casualties. The british sent out 700 troops (followed by a later 800, but this is very near the end), and lost 126 dead an missing with another 174 wounded, for a total casualty count of 300. That's about 42% of the initial force, and 20% of the combined force (and after the combined force they was little further battle, so the real battle caused much closer to 40% casualties than 20%). Without the relief force (and cannon), the British would have been surrounded out.Lexington and Concord were British losses in the strategic sense, because the entire point of seizing the militia supplies was to force a de-escalation of the situation; instead, they sparked the war. But they were still British victories in the tactical scale. While the British certainly took more casualties than the colonials did, that number of casualties was relatively trivial relative to the size of the units involved. Those were absolutely not "massive" casualties by period standards, and they don't change the fact that the British did in fact accomplish what they set out to do.
THough small, the French Resistence was still a decently powerful force helping during the Normandy campaign,and should not be called surrender monkeys.
Not all NAZIs were bad, and that the normal military could not disagree with Hitler. They had pride in their nation, not the party leading it.
As much as we rip the mickey out of the French, almost all the local countries involved in the European war agree that the French Resistance were heroic, tough and never stopped fighting even at the risk of their live. They did have their reasons for surrendering that many can't empathise with, but they still fought for their homes both during and after both invasions in 1940 and 1944.
CdG is seen as an arse by just about everyone including the french themselves, he was dismissive of anyone that fought to feee the french including his own colonial troops. There's a story where the famous 'french troops entering Paris' film/photos are mostly German POWs dressed up in french uniforms so they didn't have to march in coloured colonial forces. Also demanding that his people be the first in the city even though other allied units were closer and better equipped.There were French who surrendered, and French who fought on.
I am reminded though of how when Charles de Gaule demanded that all American soldiers be removed from France, general Eisenhower coldly asked if that included those buried there.
CdG is seen as an arse by just about everyone including the french themselves, he was dismissive of anyone that fought to feee the french including his own colonial troops. There's a story where the famous 'french troops entering Paris' film/photos are mostly German POWs dressed up in french uniforms so they didn't have to march in coloured colonial forces. Also demanding that his people be the first in the city even though other allied units were closer and better equipped.
Thank Arxxy, I went by old reports I had read a few years ago which indicated what I had said. Its still bloody stupid though given the number of coloured soldiers in all militaries back then that fought for the 'home countries'. Although it kind of went against a lot of what happened in the UK at the time regarding segregation given it didn't really exist in most units. In fact more than one punch up between US and UK soldiers happened because of it.