"Cursitor Doom" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 24 May 2021 03:29:57 +1000, "Rod Speed"
wrote:



"Cursitor Doom" wrote in message
. ..
On Sun, 23 May 2021 08:24:43 -0700 (PDT), fred
wrote:

John le Carre quote

To hear Brexiters claiming that Britain won the war
single-handedly is, he says, "emetic". "The wonderful
rightwing military historian Max Hastings points out
that we were bad fighters, that we were extremely
badly organised, and our contribution in terms of
blood and wealth and material was - I can't say
trivial, but tremendously small by comparison to
the sacrifices of the other major powers. Russia
lost, what, 30 million men? And in treasure, heaven
knows what. We didn't win the war in that sense.
We were on the winning side by the end, but we
were really quite minor players."

I beg to differ. If Britain had done **** all against Hitler,
the world would be a very different place today.

Certainly if Britain had agreed to a truce after Dunkirk as Hitler
had wanted it likely would be today. Less clear what would have
happened with Russia tho, it isnt certain that Germany would
have prevailed there or that the USA would have just yawned
and let the europeans rip each others throats out again.

Even if one accepts the niggardly remarks of le Carre
that Britain's contribution was minimal, it was at the
very least a drain on Germany's resources

Not really. It wasn't called the nothing war
for nothing until the yanks got involved.

and an unwelcome distraction to their war effort.

That's not right either. They went thru europe like
a hot knife thru butter until they got to the channel.

Likewise, the terrible winter the Germans encountered
in their invation of Russia contributed to their defeat
as much as the defending Red Army's efforts.

Yes, but they turned on Russia long after they
went thru europe like a hot knife thru butter.

Hitler was a briliant political scientist but
an utterly hopeless military commander.

That's not true either when they went thru
europe like a hot knife thru butter. It was his
generals that claimed that wouldn't work.

It did anyway.