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

Erin Go Brath

Fratton Fred wrote:

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?

Ok, so it was necessary to completely destroy Dresden, among other cities then Lets canonize him instead of taking his good name :rolleyes:

This policy of bombing cities indiscriminately killing many thousands of people who mostly would have been ordinary civilians, women and children was both cowardly and unnecessary. War or otherwise what gives anybody the right to do this???

Capt'n Midnight

Fratton Fred wrote:

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.

How wide was the channel at the harbour mouth ?
how about sinking a blockship

or jus tmining the entrance heavily using a mine laying submarine

threatening air raids

The point being they didn't have to blockade it for long.

maybe do the fleet in Alexanderia first ...

all it did was alienate the French, 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, would have been handy for a few things.

Lets imagine the allies could have got them on board, (The incident took place on 3 July 1940.) Think of all the stuff that could have been different. The Italian fleet was matched to the UK or the French fleet , but against both would - the convoys to North Africa would have been very different and the invasion of Greece / Crete might not have happened.

Then there is the knock on effect of the battle of the atlantic and it would also have freed up more warships to go to the pacific at the start of 1942.

Let's not forget there was fighting in other french colonies too that could have been avoided by a lot of diplomacy. De Gaulle arriving in Madagascar in a Battleship would have been an inducement to the local powers.

jmayo

Civilians were targets for Allied bombing because they were located in cities where industry was also located. There were no smart bombs that could take out one building and leave the one next door standing.
The civilians were working keeping the thrid reich afloat. Some of these civilians would have ened up fighting the allied armies when they arrived in Germany. After all Hitlers idea was that all Germans would fight to the death and there would be a scorced earth policy.

The thing about Dresden is it would not have been as costly on the Germans but for the fact that it was the perfect raid from an operational perspective.
The weather was good and clear, nearly the rest of Germany was covered in cloud, the bombers did not have the defences of Berlin to deal with, the pathfinders had a good run into target, the first wave found the target and the second wave used the fires from the incendaries to locate the target.
You ended up with one gigantic firestorm that sucked the oxygen out of the air.

Even though Ireland was Catholic we might have been treated as the Poles rather than the Croats. It would also depend on whether Ireland was used to try and control Britain?
Strategically we would not have been independent for sure.

Regarding the French fleet, what were the prospects the commanders would go with Vichy or jump to Free French?

On scale of 10, I think Hitler, Stalin were at the top and there would be a good few ahead of Churchill, e.g Pol Pot, Mao, and many of the African leaders over the last half century.

O'Leprosy

Fratton Fred wrote:

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.

Thank you F.F. By slipping in the 'united Catholic Ireland' bit you confirmed exactly what I suspected - your just typical Paisley's spawn trolling. And not the only one on the forum either. "united white catholic Ireland. With all non-white catholics rounded up and gassed". It's the emphasis on that Catholic bit gives you away Trevor. The mask always slips with you crowd. Didn't know the Nazi's were quicker to kill Protestants than Catholics, never heard of anyone been selected for a concentration camp by been asked whether they were Protestant or Catholic. But the Catholic/Protestant angle was introduced by William because he suffers from typical unionist biogtry and paranoia, "those dirty taigs are planning to slaughter us in ours beds if we ever treat them like human beings and they get an inch". BTW, before everyone starts accusing me of being the secterian bigot, I'm not a Catholic myself !!! What I am so strongly against is the ideology of british Imperialism, a supremacist ideology of which unionism is one of it's children.

Also, you still have'nt explained how " Britain alwys fancied it's chances against either France or Germany " Anyway, you crowd sat it out during the war, leaving it to the people of England, Scotland, Wales to do the fighting as your feet were too sore from all the orange marching

county

O'Leprosy wrote:

Thank you F.F. By slipping in the 'united Catholic Ireland' bit you confirmed exactly what I suspected - your just a typical unionist scumbag trolling. And not the only one on the forum either. "united white catholic Ireland. With all non-white catholics rounded up and gassed". It's the emphasis on that Catholic bit gives you away Trevor. The mask always slips with you crowd. Didn't know the Nazi's were quicker to kill Protestants than Catholics, never heard of anyone been selected for a concentration camp by been asked whether they were Protestant or Catholic. But the Catholic/Protestant angle was introduced by William because he suffers from typical unionist biogtry and paranoia, "those dirty taigs are planning to slaughter us in ours beds if we ever treat them like human beings and they get an inch". BTW, before everyone starts accusing me of being the secterian bigot, I'm not a Catholic myself !!! What I am so strongly against is the ideology of british Imperialism, a supremacist ideology of which unionism is one of it's children.

Also, you still have'nt explained how " Britain alwys fancied it's chances against either France or Germany " Anyway, you crowd sat it out during the war, leaving it to the people of England, Scotland, Wales to do the fighting as your feet were too sore from all the orange marching

you really come across as a hateful bigoted nob and quite the troll

O'Leprosy

county wrote:

you really come across as a hateful bigoted nob and quite the troll

A good example of the supremacist ideology of the british ruling class - Churchill in 1937: "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race, has come in and taken their place." Could Hitler put his contempt for other humans better ?

Can'nt see how been strongly against the supremacist ideology of british Imperialism and it's offspring unionism makes me a bigot ??? Biggoted against bigotry that's what I am, and since unionism is the main manifestation of biogtry in this country, I'm 100% against those insulting thrashbags.

What has hurt Fratton "unionist' Fred and his fellow unionist trolls, is I dared suggest the simple remark - "Was Churchill one of the worst war criminals of all time ? " Never said,jmayo - " Churchill was euqivalent to Hitler " or Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin etc I asked Was he ONE of the worst war criminals. Which he undoubtably was.

PHB

Lads, come on, just avoid the personal insult, that way there will be no bannings. Much more fun if we just keep to the debate

Capt'n Midnight

jmayo wrote:

Civilians were targets for Allied bombing because they were located in cities where industry was also located. There were no smart bombs that could take out one building and leave the one next door standing.
The civilians were working keeping the thrid reich afloat. Some of these civilians would have ened up fighting the allied armies when they arrived in Germany. After all Hitlers idea was that all Germans would fight to the death and there would be a scorced earth policy.

Civilians were targets of RAF night time area bombing.
The USAAF on the other hand tried day time precision bombing of military / industrial / infrastructure targets in Europe.

Admittadely they gave up on that approach in Japan and went to area bombing in 1945.

O'Leprosy

PHB wrote:

Lads, come on, just avoid the personal insult, that way there will be no bannings. Much more fun if we just keep to the debate

But what alerted me to this unionist person was his posting related to a street named after Bobby Sands " I would like it if they named a urinal after him, so I can piss on him whenever I get the urge." Typical Portadown/Shankill Road corner boy secterianism. Oh don't worry, their's plenty in the Nationalist arsenal to reply with, Le Mon, Enniskillen, Mountbatten etc. But as this individual is a unionist, then let him show the true face of unionism and not hide behind some mask pretending he's English to insult and denegrate people.
And besides, I only posed the question "Was Churchill one of the worst war criminals of all time" was a moderate enough statement to make.

If the same arguments, "Civilians were targets for Allied bombing because they were located in cities where industry was also located " and "Actaully most people died from the lack of oxygen due to firestorms and weren't directly killed by bombs dropping on them." were put foward to justify the Rwandin genocide, Pol Pot etc these people would be called RASCIST. But when it's carried out by 'the Allies' some call it saving humanity ????

Unfortunately as purple'n'gold stated " You are only a war criminal if you are on the loosing side. The winners make the rules. " And since Britain, who was not the only member of the Allies to have war criminals, ended up on the winning side thanks mainly to the Soviets ( where most of the German losses were ) and America, Churchill, 'Bomber' Harris etc did not end up in a war criminal court.

PHB

Ok, any more personal insults will be given a one week ban. Discuss the issues, place people into categories, but it's easy to call someone a wanker just to make your point seem better, but I've got a surprise for you, it just makes you seem silly.

Lazairus

look , its my own personal view that Churchill was not war Crinimal ,yes he had faults , but he did singlehandedly save the western world from Nazism , the scum of the earth


but i do agree that the bombing of Dresden was a disgrace and similar occurrences also,


but you got to put your self in his shoes , he was facing huge odds , people like chamberlain and many Nazi sympathetic people would have sued for peace in '42 , so Churchill faced huge challenges from every angle ,home and abroad,>>>>> getting N. America into the war , defeating the nazi's and holding off criticism from home .

the real question and it will be my next post , who was worse ,

Hitler or Stalin?

now theres a good post

Capt'n Midnight

Lazairus wrote:

look , its my own personal view that Churchill was not war Crinimal ,yes he had faults , but he did singlehandedly save the western world from Nazism , the scum of the earth

LOL - you've been watching this again haven't you

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0359078/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill:_The_Hollywood_Years

Cast list

Christian Slater ... Winston Churchill

Bob Mortimer ... Potter
Vic Reeves ... Bendle

Neve Campbell ... Princess Elizabeth

Harry Enfield ... King George VI
Leslie Phillips ... Lord W'ruff
Rik Mayall ... Baxter

Antony Sher ... Hitler
Miranda Richardson ... Eva Braun

Tchocky

O'Leprosy wrote:

I asked Was he ONE of the worst war criminals. Which he undoubtably was.

Oh, OK.

We can close the thread then.

Erin Go Brath

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

LOL - you've been watching this again haven't you

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0359078/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill:_The_Hollywood_Years

Cast list

Christian Slater ... Winston Churchill

Bob Mortimer ... Potter
Vic Reeves ... Bendle

Neve Campbell ... Princess Elizabeth

Harry Enfield ... King George VI
Leslie Phillips ... Lord W'ruff
Rik Mayall ... Baxter

Antony Sher ... Hitler
Miranda Richardson ... Eva Braun

I think a few people on this thread have been watching this film recently
Churchill saves the world, hoorrrraaaaayyyyyyy!!!

vesp

Fratton Fred wrote:

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.

Good point. If it was not for Churchill, what would Europe be like now ? It was Churchill and the many millions of brave people who he inspired and led - people from many different backgounds, nationalities and religions - which helped defeat Nazism in western Europe. Many people gave their lives and many others suffered horiffic injuries so we may live like we do today

Fratton Fred

O'Leprosy wrote:

But what alerted me to this unionist person was his posting related to a street named after Bobby Sands " I would like it if they named a urinal after him, so I can piss on him whenever I get the urge." Typical Portadown/Shankill Road corner boy secterianism. Oh don't worry, their's plenty in the Nationalist arsenal to reply with, Le Mon, Enniskillen, Mountbatten etc. But as this individual is a unionist, then let him show the true face of unionism and not hide behind some mask pretending he's English to insult and denegrate people.
And besides, I only posed the question "Was Churchill one of the worst war criminals of all time" was a moderate enough statement to make.

ROTFLMFAO

Tchocky

Arrghh

Half of the posts here are "well he said this"...."if Churchill had ordered the Holocaust ye wouldnt object"..."it's only because winners write the history"

aaargh

O'Leprosy - Titling a post "And the prize for the stupidest posting goes to .....", then quoting a post, without any rebuttal or discussion doesn't lend you much credibility.

Fratton Fred

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

How wide was the channel at the harbour mouth ?
how about sinking a blockship

or jus tmining the entrance heavily using a mine laying submarine

threatening air raids

The point being they didn't have to blockade it for long.

maybe do the fleet in Alexanderia first ...

all it did was alienate the French, 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, would have been handy for a few things.

Lets imagine the allies could have got them on board, (The incident took place on 3 July 1940.) Think of all the stuff that could have been different. The Italian fleet was matched to the UK or the French fleet , but against both would - the convoys to North Africa would have been very different and the invasion of Greece / Crete might not have happened.

Then there is the knock on effect of the battle of the atlantic and it would also have freed up more warships to go to the pacific at the start of 1942.

Let's not forget there was fighting in other french colonies too that could have been avoided by a lot of diplomacy. De Gaulle arriving in Madagascar in a Battleship would have been an inducement to the local powers.

I kind of take it for granted that these questions were asked at the time. The french Fleet would have been a huge asset to the Allies, so sinking them made no sense, unless they had to.

As I said, the logical thing would have been for the French to immediately join their allies and set about liberating their home country, anything else is surely questionable.

Tchocky

The attack at Mers el-Kebir resulted from French intransugence and British inflexibility.

Here's the ultimatum that was delivered to the French Admiral. It was refused.

It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German enemy. We are determined to fight on until the end, and if we win, as we think we shall, we shall never forget that France was our Ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Germany. Should we conquer we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of France. For this purpose we must make sure that the best ships of the French Navy are not used against us by the common foe. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government have instructed me to demand that the French Fleet now at Mers el Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives;

(a) sail with us and continue the fight until victory against the Germans.

(b) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. The reduced crews would be repatriated at the earliest moment.

If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile.

(c) Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against the Germans unless they break the Armistice, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port in the West Indies — Martinique for instance — where they can be demilitarised to our satisfaction, or perhaps be entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated.

If you refuse these fair offers, I must with profound regret, require you to sink your ships within 6 hours.

Finally, failing the above, I have the orders from His Majesty's Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German hands.

Took me 4 seconds to find that

Zambia

I think any leader would have gone to these lengths to prevent the germans usin g those ships against them. If they didnt they should have.

Oleprosy there are 101 threads where you can air your anti-unionist sentiment can we leave it out of this one.

You asked a decent question and I think the only thing that has been proved by all agruments is war is a nasty business. After which no-one really is left looking that well.

As for what would have happened to Ireland in a German dominated Europe well that will be a question we will never know. However I cant see Ireland being left as a landing pad for a American Europe invasion. However Ireland as a nation took the cowards way out via neutrality. Its people however joined the british forces in droves and more than contributed there fair share. (This is another neutrality thread I will start this week once I get a few hard facts)

So despite the opinion on Churchills distastful acts fact is without the UK holding out the war or occupation could have lasted years longer.

TerrorFirmer

Zambia232 wrote:

However Ireland as a nation took the cowards way out via neutrality. Its people however joined the british forces in droves and more than contributed there fair share. (This is another neutrality thread I will start this week once I get a few hard facts)

So despite the opinion on Churchills distastful acts fact is without the UK holding out the war or occupation could have lasted years longer.

Now that is just plain silly. Cowards way out? What would you expect Ireland to do - a new independant country with a miniscule military and practically no equipment. It would not be a joke to say the German army could have destroyed the Irish one in totality in literally an afternoon. You could go on about Britian lending practical aid but it wouldn't have made awhole lot of difference. Britain on its lonesome was extremely short of equipment as it was. Ireland could not have taken any decisive part in any war, and it would have only resulted in a widescale destruction of Irish towns and cities. Nobody wanted that, and certainly nobody saw it, generally, as a cowards way out.

Personally Churchill ordered alot of distasteful things in the war but he is no more a war criminal then any of the other leaders, who at one stage or another made bad judgements or authourised certain actions etc. After all, one crime is a crime - you dont have to go to extreme lengths to be validated as a war criminal, but some people seem to think that because Hitler was 'so' bad, that since allied war crimes are on such a small scale in comparison that they don't count or aren't significant enough to count as war crimes....Technically, nearly every head of state during the war was a war criminal as laid down by the Geneva convention. If Germany had won the war, no doubt they would have held courts convicting Allied leaders of war crimes.

Zambia

HavoK wrote:

Now that is just plain silly. Cowards way out? What would you expect Ireland to do - a new independant country with a miniscule military and practically no equipment. It would not be a joke to say the German army could have destroyed the Irish one in totality in literally an afternoon. You could go on about Britian lending practical aid but it wouldn't have made awhole lot of difference. Britain on its lonesome was extremely short of equipment as it was. Ireland could not have taken any decisive part in any war, and it would have only resulted in a widescale destruction of Irish towns and cities. Nobody wanted that, and certainly nobody saw it, generally, as a cowards way out.

It's not really but I will debate it with you on another thread its too off topic here. Apart from that I pretty much concur with your next pionts.

Tchocky

I think our refusal to help out with the Battle of The Atlantic was disgraceful

Hitler couldn't invade Britain, so Ireland would have been very much out of the question.

Erin Go Brath

Zambia232 wrote:

As for what would have happened to Ireland in a German dominated Europe well that will be a question we will never know. However I cant see Ireland being left as a landing pad for a American Europe invasion. However Ireland as a nation took the cowards way out via neutrality. Its people however joined the british forces in droves and more than contributed there fair share. (This is another neutrality thread I will start this week once I get a few hard facts)

Very controversial! We can only take it that you are pro-war by this statement! You don't need me to point out Irelands sad and bloody history. When we did finally win our freedom, the majority of people wanted no part of any war. Whats wrong with that??? I for one, am glad we didn't align ourselves with Churchill and the like!

brianthebard

Tchocky wrote:

I think our refusal to help out with the Battle of The Atlantic was disgraceful

Hitler couldn't invade Britain, so Ireland would have been very much out of the question.

Could you clarify please, why couldn't Germany invade Ireland?

Fratton Fred

I think Dev got it right. I know he got a lot of grief from London for his decision, but in reality, what would it have contributed in the overall scheme of things.

Sure helping the Allies would have been of Benefit to the UK and the USA, but he had a lot of political pressure and as you say, the last thing Ireland needed was men going off to war.

The policy of returning allied airmen to the UK whilst giving German aircrews "free board and lodgings" for the duration was pretty good as well, it maintained Irelands neutrality yet helped the right cause.

It does piss me off that Sean Russell got the hero's treatment though, but I believe his statue in Glasnevin has taken the full brunt of the anti nazi feeling in Ireland.

csk

Fratton Fred wrote:

It does piss me off that Sean Russell got the hero's treatment though, but I believe his statue in Glasnevin has taken the full brunt of the anti nazi feeling in Ireland.

In fairness to Seán Russell he took part in 1916 and the War of Independence and should be remembered for that.His later efforts to gain aid from the Nazis was in the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mode. The Irish people have a long history of being forced to look for aid from Britain's enemies.

As for Churchill, the label war criminal is rather subjective as people have pointed out and who knows what way he would have been remembered if things had have turned out differently. Anyway he was an unapologetic Imperialist and as far as I can see a symbol of everything that was wrong with Britain and her despicable empire, which is enough to condemn him.

Tchocky

brianthebard wrote:

Could you clarify please, why couldn't Germany invade Ireland?

Well, I'm basing this off Operation Sealion, the planned landing against England.
The Kriegsmarine was nothing compared to the Royal Navy, they had lost many destroyers in the Norwegian campaign and a brand new cruiser, the Blucher.

Germany had no landing craft to speak of, the plan against England called for river barges to be towed across the Channel carrying troops. Bloody unrealistic when you consider that a much larger army with thousands of purpose-built craft had to fight damn hard to get off of the Normandy beaches, faced with Polish captives.

Germany needed total air and naval superiority for invasion, they had neither for England and Ireland would have been impossible. Taking off from Cap-Gris-Nez, the closest French airfield to England, German fighters had fuel enough for ten minutes of fighting over London, never mind Dublin. Germany had very few long-range fighters, the ones they had were easy meat for Spitfires/Hurricanes.

A German landing here, although militarily impossible, would have been beaten back by invading British forces. Without air cover or any sort of heavy naval escort, the Germans would have been hard pressed to survive.

Fratton Fred

csk wrote:

In fairness to Seán Russell he took part in 1916 and the War of Independence and should be remembered for that.His later efforts to gain aid from the Nazis was in the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mode. The Irish people have a long history of being forced to look for aid from Britain's enemies.

a reason, maybe, why Britain was always so hard on the Irish "Rebels"? (That is a genuine question rather than a statement)

csk wrote:

As for Churchill, the label war criminal is rather subjective as people have pointed out and who knows what way he would have been remembered if things had have turned out differently. Anyway he was an unapologetic Imperialist and as far as I can see a symbol of everything that was wrong with Britain and her despicable empire, which is enough to condemn him.

He was definately an unapologetic imperialist, but you have to admire the way he was not afraid to fight for what he believed in and although you can question his principles, he was without a doubt a man who stuck by them.

If Churchill had been born to Irish parents in Cork, he would have a statue in Glasnevin.

Capt'n Midnight

Tchocky wrote:

A German landing here, although militarily impossible, would have been beaten back by invading British forces. Without air cover or any sort of heavy naval escort, the Germans would have been hard pressed to survive.

Unless they captured the airfields like they did in Crete. As a diversion it might have been useful. As a way to bottle neck the ports especially Liverpool it might have had merits.