Was Churchill one of the worst war criminals of all time ?

purple'n'gold

You are only a war criminal if you are on the loosing side. The winners make the rules.

Boston

Erin Go Brath wrote:

Winston Churchill quote during WW1:

"Perhaps the next time round the way to do it will be to kill women, children and the civilian population."

Churchill cared about one thing, and one thing only, victory. His scant disregard for civilian human life, I find quite sickening.

Indiscriminate bombing of civilians was explicitly outlawed under the 1922 Washington Treaty and the targeting of non-combatants was also prohibited under the Geneva Convention.

Hitler and Churchill both defied these and both should have been tried as War criminals.

Was there a single party to the war that didn't?

Erin Go Brath

purplengold wrote:

You are only a war criminal if you are on the loosing side. The winners make the rules.

Absolutely! Winston Chuchill: "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

boston wrote:

Was there a single party to the war that didn't?

Probably not. Overly blood thirsty leaders, who ever they are should be held accountable for their armies actions. The indiscriminate killing thousands of civilians during the war is inherently immoral, and winning doesnt justify it. Its a sad state of affairs when many thousands of innocents lose their life because some leader feels he has the right to drop bombs in cities and kill tens of thousands of women and children. The Dresden bombing, and the A-bombs dropped in Japan are two of the worst atrocities. The Allies may have won the war, but they covered themselves in shame!

Zambia

Once warfare became total in the 20th century this is the effect

Cities are bombed relentlessly , every aspect of the enemy is attacked.

If the major nations of the world went to war again 635,000 would be a miracle figure to walk away with. If Germany had the means to cause this damage in 1940 to a british City would they have refrained from doing so?

As regards the British in 1920 Iraq. I reckon the soldiers on the ground given the option of hand to hand fighting with the enemy or sitting in base while the RAF dwindled them down would have no trouble deciding.

As for Churchill being a racist , most people where racist back then Irish included.

IMO Winston churchill was not a war criminal.

johnnyskeleton

Boston wrote:

Was there a single party to the war that didn't?

The Greeks? The Poles? The Danish? The French? The Sweedes? The Australians? The Kiwis?

The Russians, bad as they were, didn't firebomb cities or drop nuclear bombs on cities, AFAIK.

jhegarty

johnnyskeleton wrote:

The Russians, bad as they were, didn't firebomb cities or drop nuclear bombs on cities, AFAIK.

They didn't have a nuclear bomb... .i am quite sure if they had there would be a smoky hole where Berlin used to be...

Zambia

johnnyskeleton wrote:

The Greeks? The Poles? The Danish? The French? The Sweedes? The Australians? The Kiwis?

Minimal air force, Minimal air force , Minimal air force , Minimal air force, Minimal air force, Minimal air force.

The Russians did not have the bombers to perform these operations either.

O'Leprosy

Zebra3 wrote:

Churchill was protecting the British people by murdering and occupying the Middle East?

Pity his love of freedom for the British didn't extend to a love of freedom for the Arab 'dogs'. :mad:

Yeah, thats the thing about the British view of their great empire, for them to throw their weight around, invading and occupying countries etc is something they are proud of perversly, but for anyone to do that to them is the crime of the all time.

O'Leprosy

Zambia232 wrote:

As regards the British in 1920 Iraq. I reckon the soldiers on the ground given the option of hand to hand fighting with the enemy or sitting in base while the RAF dwindled them down would have no trouble deciding.

See your from Belfast. Obviously unionist values. We can murder as many as we like, but so long as our poor little boys are ok then it's all right.

jhegarty

O'Leprosy wrote:

See your from Belfast. Obviously unionist values. We can murder as many as we like, but so long as our poor little boys are ok then it's all right.

attack the post , not the poster....

Zebra3

Erin Go Brath wrote:

The Allies may have won the war, but they covered themselves in shame!

More Anglo-American propaganda. "We won the war and our leaders aren't war criminals". :rolleyes:

Capt'n Midnight

Erin Go Brath wrote:

The Dresden bombing, and the A-bombs dropped in Japan are two of the worst atrocities. The Allies may have won the war, but they covered themselves in shame!

Don't forget Hamburg and the firebombing of japanese cities in general. The raid on Tokoyo that killed more than the A bombs.

Doenitz was found guilty of war crimes and was sent to prison for 10 years for the same sort of stuff the American submariners were doing to the Japanese.

Capt'n Midnight

Zambia232 wrote:

As regards the British in 1920 Iraq. I reckon the soldiers on the ground given the option of hand to hand fighting with the enemy or sitting in base while the RAF dwindled them down would have no trouble deciding.

it was economics,
the RAF said they could do it cheaper than soldiers on the ground

Capt'n Midnight

jhegarty wrote:

They didn't have a nuclear bomb... .i am quite sure if they had there would be a smoky hole where Berlin used to be...

casualties in the battle of Berlin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Berlin

[Russian]
Archival research
81,000 dead or missing (including 2,800 Polish)
280,000 sick or wounded
Total casualties 361,367 men[5]

[german]
Estimates:
150,000–173,000 killed
200,000 wounded
134,000 captured

not too sure how reliable this exact number is but is sounds like numbers I've read elsewhere. A nuke would have killed less. German civilian casualties are hard to ID since IIRC they didn't distinguish military and civilian ones in the records.

TerrorFirmer

Zambia232 wrote:

Minimal air force, Minimal air force , Minimal air force , Minimal air force, Minimal air force, Minimal air force.

The Russians did not have the bombers to perform these operations either.

The Russians did not bomb Berlin but they pounded it with possibly the greatest force of artillery the world has ever seen, for many successive days from when Berlin came into range until the end of the war. What difference does it really make where it comes from...

Fratton Fred

Eric Cantona talked about sea gulls following a trawler, I think that means all great men have people around trying to pick off scraps.

Churchill was no saint, but he was what was needed at the time.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055056671&referrerid=&highlight=

county

O'Leprosy wrote:

See your from Belfast. Obviously unionist values. We can murder as many as we like, but so long as our poor little boys are ok then it's all right.

well from that out of order post we can see you quite the bigot

Zambia

O'Leprosy wrote:

See your from Belfast. Obviously unionist values. We can murder as many as we like, but so long as our poor little boys are ok then it's all right.

Actually your wording is silly but you have the right idea.

In warfare the idea is to defeat the enemy or achieve your objective with as little damage to your forces as possible.

That would not be a unionist view it would be a military one and mine.

War is something that if it starts you dont fight it with one hand behind your back.

Zambia

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

it was economics,
the RAF said they could do it cheaper than soldiers on the ground

I would be inclined to agree

Zambia

county wrote:

well from that out of order post we can see you quite the bigot

thanks for that but its ok , I dont consider the word Unionist or Republican an insult.

jmayo

Bomber Harris did what he was asked. In the early years of the war the only way the Allies and Britain could take the fight to Germany was thourgh bombing.
Yes this continued, the idea in a war is you destroy the enemy. I think you will find most of those civilians helped the German war machine.

Now some German historian complains that the Allies killed 635,000 innocent German civilians in the last mnonths of the war.
He seems to forget how many Russians, Poles, Yugoslavs, etc, etc were slaughtered at the hands of the Germans and their proxies.
That is not even counting all the civilian Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, mentally ill patients, etc, etc, etc.

For instance Dresden is always called up as example and Bomber Harris was shoved to background after war because it was seen as bit of an embarrassment.
From operations point of view it was the perfect raid, everything came together. Actaully most people died from the lack of oxygen due to firestorms and weren't directly killed by bombs dropping on them.

What I do hold Churchill and Roosevelt responsible for was selling out Eastern Europe and also not hitting the rail lines that were leading the death trains to Auswitz and the other deaths camps. That's were they were to blame.

The french fleet had to be destroyed, Britain had no idea what they were going to do due to Vichy state and they could not risk the fleet falling into German hands.
Churchhill was a pompous old colonialist but he was what Britain needed to stop Hitler.

Fratton Fred

jmayo wrote:

The french fleet had to be destroyed, Britain had no idea what they were going to do due to Vichy state and they could not risk the fleet falling into German hands.

If the French navy had been taken over by Germany, the German fleet would have potentially outnumbered the British, therefore making an invasion of Britain more likely. It would have also made the battle of the Atlantic harder.

Britain alwys fancied it's chances against either France or Germany, but not both which one of the reasons why Britian rushed into defend France in WW1

O'Leprosy

.

jmayo wrote:

Bomber Harris did what he was asked. In the early years of the war the only way the Allies and Britain could take the fight to Germany was thourgh bombing.
Yes this continued, the idea in a war is you destroy the enemy. I think you will find most of those civilians helped the German war machine.

Now some German historian complains that the Allies killed 635,000 innocent German civilians in the last mnonths of the war.
He seems to forget how many Russians, Poles, Yugoslavs, etc, etc were slaughtered at the hands of the Germans and their proxies.
That is not even counting all the civilian Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, mentally ill patients, etc, etc, etc.

For instance Dresden is always called up as example and Bomber Harris was shoved to background after war because it was seen as bit of an embarrassment.
From operations point of view it was the perfect raid, everything came together. Actaully most people died from the lack of oxygen due to firestorms and weren't directly killed by bombs dropping on them.

What I do hold Churchill and Roosevelt responsible for was selling out Eastern Europe and also not hitting the rail lines that were leading the death trains to Auswitz and the other deaths camps. That's were they were to blame.

The french fleet had to be destroyed, Britain had no idea what they were going to do due to Vichy state and they could not risk the fleet falling into German hands.
Churchhill was a pompous old colonialist but he was what Britain needed to stop Hitler.

O'Leprosy

Fratton Fred wrote:

If the French navy had been taken over by Germany, the German fleet would have potentially outnumbered the British, therefore making an invasion of Britain more likely. It would have also made the battle of the Atlantic harder.

Britain alwys fancied it's chances against either France or Germany, but not both which one of the reasons why Britian rushed into defend France in WW1

Fancying your chances against Germany ? Give us a laugh, what planet do you come from . They ran with their tails between their legs, evr hear of that debacle called the retreat to Dunkirk ? ( but I suppose that will be all the French's fault somehow ). They wouldn't have put their big toe back on the continent without the Americans.

Here we go, the birtish version of WW2 -
(1)Britain retreats after been underminded by the useless frogs and the cruel ugly krauts overrun the continent.
(2) Britain reinvades and beats the krauts practically on our own, with just a little help from the yanks, and the odd skirmish on the eastern front. :rolleyes: Indeed, if it hadn't been for the yanks, the most professional, fairest and greatest fighting men in the world, Britain, would have been in Berlin months before those peasents from Russia. Trust the yanks to hold britain back ( not to forget the neutrality of Eire also).

Capt'n Midnight

jmayo wrote:

For instance Dresden is always called up as example and Bomber Harris was shoved to background after war because it was seen as bit of an embarrassment.
From operations point of view it was the perfect raid, everything came together. Actaully most people died from the lack of oxygen due to firestorms and weren't directly killed by bombs dropping on them.

everything except that it wasn't a militarily important target.

The french fleet had to be destroyed, Britain had no idea what they were going to do due to Vichy state and they could not risk the fleet falling into German hands.

No it didn't.
At Mers-el-Kebir, 1,297 French sailors were killed
And later on that fleet was scuttled. The French destroyed 3 battleships, 7 cruisers, 15 destroyers, 13 torpedo boats, 6 sloops, 12 submarines, 9 patrol boats, 19 auxiliary ships, 1 school ship, 28 tugs and 4 cranes. 39 small ships were captured, most of them sabotaged and disarmed. None of the scuttled ships was salvageable.

In comparison the way it should have been done was by blocking the harbour and cutting off food like Cunningham did.
The French ships in Alexandria under command of Admiral René-Emile Godfroy, including the old battleship Lorraine and four cruisers, were blockaded by the British in port on 3 July and offered the same terms as at Mers-el-Kébir. After negotiations, the French Admiral agreed on 7 July to disarm his fleet and stay in port until the end of the war. They stayed there until they eventually joined the Allies in 1943.

Fratton Fred

O'Leprosy wrote:

Fancying your chances against Germany ? Give us a laugh, what planet do you come from . They ran with their tails between their legs, evr hear of that debacle called the retreat to Dunkirk ? ( but I suppose that will be all the French's fault somehow ). They wouldn't have put their big toe back on the continent without the Americans.

Here we go, the birtish version of WW2 -
(1)Britain retreats after been underminded by the useless frogs and the cruel ugly krauts overrun the continent.
(2) Britain reinvades and beats the krauts practically on our own, with just a little help from the yanks, and the odd skirmish on the eastern front. :rolleyes: Indeed, if it hadn't been for the yanks, the most professional, fairest and greatest fighting men in the world, Britain, would have been in Berlin months before those peasents from Russia. Trust the yanks to hold britain back ( not to forget the neutrality of Eire also).

Dad, is that you?

Fratton Fred

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

everything except that it wasn't a militarily important target.

No it didn't.
At Mers-el-Kebir, 1,297 French sailors were killed
And later on that fleet was scuttled. The French destroyed 3 battleships, 7 cruisers, 15 destroyers, 13 torpedo boats, 6 sloops, 12 submarines, 9 patrol boats, 19 auxiliary ships, 1 school ship, 28 tugs and 4 cranes. 39 small ships were captured, most of them sabotaged and disarmed. None of the scuttled ships was salvageable.

In comparison the way it should have been done was by blocking the harbour and cutting off food like Cunningham did.
The French ships in Alexandria under command of Admiral René-Emile Godfroy, including the old battleship Lorraine and four cruisers, were blockaded by the British in port on 3 July and offered the same terms as at Mers-el-Kébir. After negotiations, the French Admiral agreed on 7 July to disarm his fleet and stay in port until the end of the war. They stayed there until they eventually joined the Allies in 1943.

I disagree, A blockade was out of the question as the size of the French fleet was too big and would have tied up too many British ships.

I don't understand why they French Navy didn't just agree to jon the Allies which would have prevented the whole thing.

jmayo

So O'Leprosy my post is the stupidest post?
I would see that as a compliment since it came from you after your comment about unionists.

Why is it a stupid post, because it doesn't back up your opinion that anything Britain does is wrong and that Churchill was euqivalent to Hitler?

Try and come up with a counter arguement rather than just bland statements.

It appears you would rather if Britain had recieved a bloody nose, was defeated and Germany had won the war.
Why do some sections of Irish opinion believe that we would have been united and freed by Germany once they had conquered Britain. I think our fate would have been that of some Eastern European nations.

Why were the Allies meant to go easy on Germany in 1945?
She still would not surrender, Hitler was still in power and she was still a threat, although a limited and diminishing one. Remember the Battle of the Bulge only finished in Jan/Feb 1945.
Of course it was difficult to find a NAZI after the war who had backed Hitler. But of those 635,000 odd civilians, how many were directly or indirectly contributing to Hitler continuing the war, how many were still supporters of the fuhrer?

The idea in a war is to inflict as much damage on the enemy and lose as few of your own forces, but some people appear to have missed that point.

I would be the first person to agree that what Britain did in different countries around the world was reprehensible. But France, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain also carried out their share of atrocious acts.

Yes Churchill was also an ass, and managed to have scant regard for some nations and peoples. Just ask the ANZACs on that score as they were needlessly slaughtered in Gallipoli and then left to fend for themselves while the Japanese charged into Borneo in second world war.

But to compare Churchill to Hitler or Stalin just shows your slanted view of a certain near neighbour.

Erin Go Brath

jmayo wrote:

Why do some sections of Irish opinion believe that we would have been united and freed by Germany once they had conquered Britain. I think our fate would have been that of some Eastern European nations.

Its one possibility. We can only speculate what would have happened.

jmayo wrote:

Why were the Allies meant to go easy on Germany in 1945?
She still would not surrender, Hitler was still in power and she was still a threat, although a limited and diminishing one. Remember the Battle of the Bulge only finished in Jan/Feb 1945.
Of course it was difficult to find a NAZI after the war who had backed Hitler. But of those 635,000 odd civilians, how many were directly or indirectly contributing to Hitler continuing the war, how many were still supporters of the fuhrer?

The idea in a war is to inflict as much damage on the enemy and lose as few of your own forces, but some people appear to have missed that point.

Inflicting damage on your enemy, yes. The Allies deliberately targeted civilians though, thereby contravening the Washington Treaty and Geneva convention. Yet the Nazis are the only War Criminals. There was War Criminals on both sides!

jmayo wrote:

I would be the first person to agree that what Britain did in different countries around the world was reprehensible. But France, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain also carried out their share of atrocious acts.

Agree completely with you there.

jmayo wrote:

Yes Churchill was also an ass, and managed to have scant regard for some nations and peoples. Just ask the ANZACs on that score as they were needlessly slaughtered in Gallipoli and then left to fend for themselves while the Japanese charged into Borneo in second world war.

But to compare Churchill to Hitler or Stalin just shows your slanted view of a certain near neighbour.

Your average homicidal maniac looks like a boyscout when you put him standing beside Hitler. In terms of being villians, I'd give Hitler 10/10, Churchill about 8.5/10.

Will we ever see Allied War Criminals brought to justice? Sadly, I don't think so.

Fratton Fred

Erin Go Brath wrote:

Its one possibility. We can only speculate what would have happened.

but it would be a pretty good estimate to say that there would have been a united white catholic Ireland. With all non-white catholics rounded up and gassed.

Still, Sean Russell is a hero so we won't smear his good reputation.:rolleyes:

Erin Go Brath wrote:

Inflicting damage on your enemy, yes. The Allies deliberately targeted civilians though, thereby contravening the Washington Treaty and Geneva convention. Yet the Nazis are the only War Criminals. There was War Criminals on both sides!

half right. Factories producing weapons are usually staffed by civilians, so to prevent the manufacture of arms, you unfortunately target civilians

Erin Go Brath wrote:

Agree completely with you there.

and proving their point as well;)

Erin Go Brath wrote:

Your average homicidal maniac looks like a boyscout when you put him standing beside Hitler. In terms of being villians, I'd give Hitler 10/10, Churchill about 8.5/10.

Will we ever see Allied War Criminals brought to justice? Sadly, I don't think so.

There were many many war criminals during WWII, on both sides, only the main ones were brought to justice. Churchill could see the mistakes made after WWI and wanted a strong Germany to effectively act as a buffer between the Soviet Union and the west, He also referred to the war against Hitler and the Nazis, he even called Germany the Mighty Germanic nation. Why then would he want to target civilians unless it was necessary?