Re:Discovering WW1 tunnel of death hidden in France for a ce...
by fork1 on Monday March 15, 2021 @08:35AM
(#26465275)
In WW1, the rape of Belgium might have been used by propaganda and some parts fabricated, but was still pretty real. And it was not an isolated incident, but a policy.
Re:Discovering WW1 tunnel of death hidden in France for a ce...
by ben_w on Monday March 15, 2021 @10:38AM
(#26466575)
Interesting — and, surprisingly, not covered in my UK history GCSE — but besides the point.
I’m emphatically not saying “yay Central powers!”, I’m saying “WW1 Allied powers (not WW2! Just WW1!) also bastards”.
I may have to reevaluate this belief — GCSEs aren’t good qualifications, they’re what UK pupils do at 16 — it’s just that my current belief is everyone looked bad in the first war.
Re:Discovering WW1 tunnel of death hidden in France for a ce...
by fork1 on Monday March 15, 2021 @08:07PM
(#26471144)
I know you weren't, just providing some background information.
If you were a local living in the colonies, any of the imperial powers were going to treat you rather poorly.
But in continental Europe, the treatment of occupied Belgium/France would prefigure WW2 behavior of the German troops. In either cases putting entire villages and their inhabitants to the torch and sword was rather normal.
Re:Discovering WW1 tunnel of death hidden in France for a ce...
by kergonath on Monday March 15, 2021 @11:19AM
(#26467024)
There is some truth in that, though I would not say both were equivalent. Western powers were also imperialistic and morally dubious (people like Joffre were straight up war criminals and utter bigots with no more consideration for their troops than for their enemies). Of course Belgians have a very different opinion.
For WW1, the reason I consider Allied and Central powers to be equivalent has more to do with the flaws of the Allies in that era than with the actions of the Central powers.
With WW2 and Axis/Allies, even though I’m not at all sure how to judge the relative behaviour of Stalin (Allied) vs Hitler (Axis) — there’s too much propaganda for me to filter though — the British and Americans were unambiguously more moral than the Axis powers.