Nigel Farage: Revisionist History And WW1

30 Replies to “Nigel Farage: Revisionist History And WW1”

1. Many years ago I read extensively on WW1 and WW2. WW1 was a war that should never have been fought. A waste of human lives with the end result being WW2.

   1. Exactly. Monarchies and industrialists who could not compete with German production and technology excluded Germany from global resources and markets. That resulted in German aggression. WW I was a massive failure in European politics and Canada was sucked into sending her youth to fight their battles. With the massive loss of life the Euros then doubled down to punish Germany to such an extent that Hitler became almost inevitable. Again, Canada sent another generation to fight. Canadians should honor the fallen but also reflect on why they were there.

      1. The reason they were there was to fight for our freedom.

         At least that’s what everyone says over and over again mindlessly.

         Kaiser Wilhelm II really hated freedom in Canada I guess.

         1. “The reason they were there was to fight for our freedom. ”

            Germany was the only European power without a major empire, just a few African colonies. The vast majority of the people ruled by Germany were German. That cannot be said about the United Kingdom, France, or Russia. Who exactly were the British fighting to free?

            1. So Germany felt free to invade Belgium and France because they didn’t have an empire? How does that make sense? Most of the best and freest places in the world right now are what is known as the Anglosphere.

            2. Thomas – I didn’t say it was right. I only said Germany was the most homogeneous of the bunch. Why does that bother you?

            3. I am “bothered” by inaccurate thinking and judging of the past through the lens of today. Even though I do it myself when I criticize the general staff but they apparently learned nothing from the past. The British, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, Indians and eventually the Americans were fighting to keep themselves free. In the process, they saved the French and the Belgians among others. Britain was and is a constitutional monarchy with long standing rights and freedoms. The German Empire and empire it was had no such history and norms.

            4. “So Germany felt free to invade Belgium and France because they didn’t have an empire?”

               Thomas, Alsace and Lorraine are GERMAN provinces full of GERMAN people that just happen to be under French rule.
               These provinces are in N.E France just under Belgium. It also happens that if Kaiser Wilhelm II wanted to ‘liberate’ them from France then going through Belgium was the easiest way to do it. One Volk,… eh. It’s a common theme among the Germans.

            5. Well, I have relatives who fled the tyranny in Germany and came to America.

               It’s easy to pick sides. The problem is that in 19th century Europe, pretty much every leader was suffering from hubris.

         2. You look at pictures of Wilhelm with his cousin, the King of England, George V and they look like brothers instead of 1st cousins. Royalty of Europe were an incestuous bunch.

            Did you know that Wilhelm toured western Canada and rode the train thru the interior of BC? Like all members of Euro monarchy they lacked direction and were very spoilt.

            Do you think he ssaw my uncle stacking rail tyes in Yahk at 14 years old to help feed his family? If so do you think he really cared?

      2. Who could not compete? Who won? I’ll agree that The Treaty of Versailles was indeed stupid and may have led to WWII but the Germans were not innocents. As Farage rightly points out, the Germans attempted to take advantage of the things you mention in order to expand their empire. And if Hitler, fascism, communism were inevitable, as Farage points out, why didn’t Britain and the west succumb to the siren call? I believe that we are way better off with a British parliamentary form of government than whatever the Germans had in mind. It’s easy and very tempting to oversimplify things from a distant perspective.

         1. The more time that passes the less successful British parliamentary forms of government appear.

            Look where we are….look where we’re going…

         2. ” And if Hitler, fascism, communism were inevitable, as Farage points out, why didn’t Britain and the west succumb to the siren call?”

            They are now. It’s was inevitable that the Germans would get there before the Commonwealth.
            After all, Karl Marx was a German.

   2. The First World War was a meat-grinder.

      Look no further than Beaumont-Hamel.

2. While I might agree with Farage that the Allies had no choice but to stop Germany, to me, a bit of a military historian myself, the major take away that I get from the WWI is the horrible tactics used by the Allied militaries and the absolute waste of men. The complete disregard for the men who fought. The American Civil War should have taught the generals and politicians that massed armies walking into fortified positions defended by modern armaments was suicidal. That massed artillery was ineffective at destroying these positions if the enemy had time to dig in and created strong redoubts. That losing tens of thousands of men to gain 100 yard was tactically stupid. Doing it over and over and over hoping for different results was insane. It wasn’t until these tactics changed that any success was realized. I’m very proud that it was Canadians who led in this regard. God bless them all.
   I’d like to see this film though.

   1. Kate – great clip and timing.

      Thomas – agree with “horrible tactics” comment. I hadn’t read about Canada leading the change in tactics in WWI. I found this under the Canadian War museum web site:

      “By 1917, the Canadians had learned that the key to success in battle was the close coordination of artillery and infantry, as well as tanks, machine-guns, combat engineers, chemical weapons, the supply system, and aircraft.

      This ‘combined arms’ approach helped Canadian troops overcome the inherent advantages of terrain and position enjoyed by Germans fighting for most of the war on the defensive”.

      Most history buffs are more familiar with the giant leap in tactics implemented under Blitzkrieg and the Pincer Movement (Pincer goes all the way back to Sun Tzu):

      The Pincer Movement “developed into a complex, multidisciplinary endeavor that involved fast movement by mechanized armor, artillery barrages, air force bombardment, and effective radio communications, with the primary objective of destroying enemy command and control chains, undermining enemy troop morale and disrupting supply lines. During the Battle of Kiev (1941) the Axis forces managed to encircle the largest number of soldiers in the history of warfare. Well over half-a-million Soviet soldiers were taken prisoner by the end of the operation”.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pincer_movement

      1. At the end of the day, it always comes down to a brave man with a sharp stick but intelligent, responsible leadership must not stupidly waste this resource. Mistakes will be made and can be forgiven but repeating them over and over is hard to fathom. Maybe you had to be there. Thanks to all of them, most of us have never had to be.

         1. I have a colleague who was in a civil war in the middle east as a civilian. He saw people shot and the blood ran out like sticking a pin in a plastic bag full of liquid. He said it was horrific. Most WWII vets I talked to did not want to discuss the war. For good reason.

         2. “Mistakes will be made and can be forgiven but repeating them over and over is hard to fathom.”

            Back then, the way to get a field commission in the British Army was to be an upper crust Eton man who bought his commission.
            They didn’t know the asses from their elbows tactically.

   2. I have to agree wholeheartedly with this:

      “..WWI is the horrible tactics used by the Allied militaries and the absolute waste of men. The complete disregard for the men who fought. The American Civil War should have taught the generals and politicians that massed armies walking into fortified positions defended by modern armaments was suicidal…”

      To me the senseless slaughter of millions of young men lays entirely at the feet of the General Staff(s).
      Beyond sad.

   3. Those Generals were still living in the days of Waterloo. Most should have been replaced after the Boer War.
      One idiot had the idea of attaching shiny metal discs to the backs of the infantrymen. So he could better observe their movements through No-Man’s land, he claimed. On the retreat, the Huns used the discs for targeting.

   4. Years of elitism had created a ruling class that was completely out of touch with the rest of humanity.

      This created a lot of sociopaths who thought the peasantry were mor or less expendable.

      The ones who were rightfully horrified by the war either went the way of appeasement, or decided that a strong military was the only real defense. It turned out Churchill was right.

      This is why America was so late to join in, we always had a more or less citizen army. We were reluctant to send our sons to fight. The military industrial complex that uses war for profit moved from Europe to America after WWII, leading to the mess we are currently in.

3. What I do disagree with is how Prince Charming in England tries to have this sport for Disabled Vets…
   Hey, isn’t that the guy blew my leg off and now we are suppose to be bossom buddies?
   Because you guys now have a truce or treaty or some other political game…

4. I was fortunate enough to know a Great War vet who lived next door growing up. I remember them coming to my school for Armistice Day ceremonies. Incredible that them and almost all the World War II vets are all gone.

5. I am almost finished reading “How the Scots Invented the Modern World”. The Scottish soldier, merchant, teacher, doctor and missionaries all made the British Empire possible (in the video, Nigel Farage touched on how many people came from the British Empire for WW1).
   On another note, it is always a pleasure to listen to Nigel Farage speak, as he is a thoughtful man who knows his subject and does not stutter his way through as so many politicians do (I am looking at you Prime Minister Trudeau).

6. “48 British generals killed in WWI”
   Sort of blows a hole in that argument that WWI was nothing but the rich sending the poorer boys into battle to be used as canon fodder while they drank expensive wine and lived the good life a safe distance away from the front.

7. As an arm chair historian myself, I’ve read a few books dealing with the lead up to, conduct of, and aftermath of WWI including, “The Guns of August” by Barbara Tuchman, “The First World War” by John Keegan, and “Paris 1919” by Margaret MacMillan which are some of the marquis readings on the subject. I’ve also attended numerous lectures and watched numerous programs about it. I don’t think my time invested has been wasted since my views on several elements of it have changed over the years. On the big issues my current thoughts are: 1. the war was in no way inevitable and indeed arose from a tragicomedy of errors arising from the fallout from the assassination of Ferdinand at Sarajevo; 2. the allied generals of the western front, Haigh in particular, were not the ossified, bone-headed, aristocratic sticks-in-the-mud they’re made out to be especially in popular culture; they were confronting a new form of warfare with absolutely primitive technology for communication forward of the front line, and with the invention of the tank, the development of combined arms tactics, and as Farage points out, the rapid advances of the “hundred days” demonstrated they could innovate and adapt with energy and ingenuity; 3. the task before the delegates to the Versailles conference, namely the placating of the ethnic and nationalistic forces unleashed at the end of the war was effectively insurmountable, and while it’s easy to blame ham-fisted “diplomacy” for the train-wreck which was the Versailles treaty, it’s doubtful any other solution existed which could have done anything more to prevent the subsequent outbreak of WWII in its aftermath; and 4. the true villains of the war were Kaiser Willhelm by virtue of his bungling stupidity in creating the perfect conditions for its outbreak but even more so, Ludendorf who cynically used Europe as his military chessboard (along with other members of the German general staff: “the trains are in motion” — in fact they could have been easily recalled or paused) to test his military theories.

8. Thanks Kate for posting this today. I don’t know how I missed the film 1917. Nigel Farage in my opinion is the best politician in Britain who has NOT been Prime Minister.

   1. 1917 is worth watching, but don’t agree that it is the masterpiece that a lot of people think it is. It is relatively accurate, avoids CGI (or it’s so well done that I don’t see it), and has the big advantage of not having been made by Hollywood (hence the previous points).

      Some parts seem a little far-fetched, such as the behavior of the german pilot (won’t say more if you haven’t seen it).

      On Nigel Farage, I have to agree. I saw another video of him delivering a speech about Winston Churchill. He really knows his history and can talk about it in an engaging manner.

   2. Farage recommends Brits cross into Northern France and Belgium and visit the memorials and battle sites. Not expensive to do. I’ve visited Ypres for world war 1 and France for WW 2. Oradour sur Glane is amazing to see.