Churchill to Hitler

[Pinkkgaga]

So it’s trending on Twitter that people are comparing Churchill to Hitler and saying he was just as bad.
Absolutely disgusting imo, but I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on it.

Me too - this binary mentality is very wearing - where did it start?

I think it started on social media. Particularly Twitter. Not 100% sure on that, but I am sure it hasn't helped.

and bombed the French navy to stop it falling into German hands.

it's worth researching that a bit ... the commander of that fleet (who refused to meet any British officer below a certain rank. And we think English are snobs ...) refused to evacuate the port or hand the ships over.

Even on the day, Churchill was greatly disturbed ...

"This was the most hateful decision, the most unnatural and painful in which I have ever been concerned"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-Kébir

Personally I think it's something that should be much more widely known in Britain.

But the bottom line is terrible awful horrific things happen in war. Hence the saying "War is hell", and the reason any decent, sane individual would want to do all in their power to avoid any form of war at all costs.

I agree too. I think the issue just now is the realisation of how sterilised the history of the British empire has been, and how we were taught.

If by "we" you mean people alive today then I have to disagree.

I'm middle aged and I was taught at school about empire, slavery and US civil rights. Empire was most certainly not taught as something sterile. We did learn the downsides of it, both for people in other countries and in our own country.

People are fed up of other histories being erased because British people are so desperate to believe that Churchill equals hero, end of story.

I think part of the problem is that history is not a compulsory subject anymore.

Anyone young with just a passing interest in it, tends to not appreciate that history is the study of events by primary and secondary sources and that those events or historical people, must be placed within the context of the times.

It should not be something to cherry pick to prove a modern political point in a debate. This happens with both political sides tòo often now. Soundbites and short edited quotes used as debating fodder, slung back and forth

Oh dear, seems to be bash the British week doesn’t it? All those other countries and citizens ... so perfect.

Oh the French Admiral at Mers El Kebir was a complete Twonk. Refused to receive a French-speaking RN officer because he was only a Lieutenant.

Gave them all the options; sail to the French Caribbean, join the RN in UK ports, scuttle, etc, but reply came there none.

I'm fairly certain that right now the discussion and debate about historical figures isn't exclusive to Britain.

@TripleLampshade

Oh dear, seems to be bash the British week doesn’t it? All those other countries and citizens ... so perfect.

Whose bashing ? Discussing history, maybe. Bringing some unpleasant facts to light.

James Baldwin applies ....

....Yes, do they have to deal with this in Portugal, over five hundred years in Africa, or in the Netherlands, the Dutch in the Cape and the Indies were absolute bastards.

There is definitely a massive reluctance of the British (English?) to confront the more painful elements of their history.
It does need to be a nuanced examination, things were contextually very different, not not this knee-jerk rage at any suggestion that people like Churchill were flawed or did awful things.
I also dislike the suggestion that we just move on and focus on the future. That's essentially just shut up and dkmt say things I don't like hearing.
I think it's about time things were dragged kicking and screaming into the open. It'll all keep festering otherwise.

There are a lot of nasty, unpleasant facts in wartime. Nobody is denying that. There are also a lot of incredibly difficult decisions that have to be made.
So nice to pontificate from a comfy chair in your secure little world.

@MockersGuidedByTheScience

That was commonplace among the higher ranks of all armed forces worldwide at the time. Prudence dictates that you don't willingly surrender your entire fighting force on the promise of a rank who you can't be sure can cash the cheques his mouth is writing. It happened at several other junctures in the war in Europe as well, most notably to George S Patton, and to a British lieutenant who tried to negotiate the bloodless liberation of Bruges.

Besides, the fleet anchored at Mers was technically the possession of a non-combatant, neutral nation. They were under no obligation to do anything the British force requested.

now they see a commonality

@dreamingbohemian

Do you have any concept at all what is happening in Kenya? 2020 started with a plague of locusts, the worst for 70 years. Then Covid hit. The response was draconian including forcibly confining people to quarantine centres, washing people with bleach, curfews, meaning desperately poor people selling stuff on the street faced starvation. Slums have been demolished leaving people homeless and triggerng riots. People are shot in the street. You think the people facing this horror show caused by Covid and the response to it are able to join a global Western BLM movement? Which planet are you on? Do you have any idea how hollow your platitudes sound? And how Western centric?

www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/04/fury-kenya-police-brutality-coronavirus-curfew-200402125719150.html

I'm middle aged and I was taught at school about empire, slavery and US civil rights. Empire was most certainly not taught as something sterile. We did learn the downsides of it, both for people in other countries and in our own country.

I’m not quite middle-aged and grew up in and around Inverclyde (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the importance of Inverclyde in this conversation) - I could count on one hand the number of times slavery was mentioned in the entire time I was at school.

I agree history should be compulsory, actually - I guess the issue what kind of history we get.

No requirement to surrender. They were asking him to weigh anchor and sail. It's something that's often seen when military men of all ranks fail to make the necessary paradigm shift from peace to war.

And regards British Guilt, even the Shia pilgrims of Najaf must think our capacity for autoflagellation is a bit over the top.

@TripleLampshade

Oh dear, seems to be bash the British week doesn’t it? All those other countries and citizens ... so perfect.

And this attitude is just my least favourite thing in the post-Brexit vote. No encouragement to be the best, just ‘at least we’re not as bad as North Korea’. Always pitching to the bottom.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that what the British did was inexcusable, or that they did not give sufficient warning of their intent, only that for me it's not quite as clear cut as an act of stupid pig-headedness on the behalf of French command.

They had only just freshly signed an Armistice with Germany. Any collusion with the Brits would have violated that, and I'm not sure that enraging a genocidal madman when his armed forces are already camped on your front lawn and yours are utterly destroyed is a particularly sensible course of action either.

It's nuanced, but I think the outcome at Mers was probably the most prudent for all concerned, even though it encompassed an illegal act of belligerence, and the deaths of sailors from a neutral, non-combatant nation. Had the French simply sailed away, I think it likely a great many more French people would have paid the price in mainland France.

Churchill was never universally regarded as a hero though. In South Wales he was absolutely loathed for sending in the troops when he was Home Secretary during the miners strike.

I remember my grandad (who would have been a boy at the time) and others of his generation having the sort of hatred of Churchill that Thatcher later drew upon herself.

@MaxNormal

There is definitely a massive reluctance of the British (English?) to confront the more painful elements of their history. It does need to be a nuanced examination, things were contextually very different, not not this knee-jerk rage at any suggestion that people like Churchill were flawed or did awful things. I also dislike the suggestion that we just move on and focus on the future. That's essentially just shut up and dkmt say things I don't like hearing. I think it's about time things were dragged kicking and screaming into the open. It'll all keep festering otherwise.

You are only taking about a proportion of British (English?) People though, aren't you. I dunno how many of the people who tore down that statue in Bristol were British/English, but evidently those who were aren't too worried about having a reappraisal. I suspect the rabid "no surrender" Churchill adherents you mention aren't in the majority.

@TinklyLittleLaugh

Churchill was never universally regarded as a hero though. In South Wales he was absolutely loathed for sending in the troops when he was Home Secretary during the miners strike.

I remember my grandad (who would have been a boy at the time) and others of his generation having the sort of hatred of Churchill that Thatcher later drew upon herself.

Exactly - as evidenced by the Labour landslide in 1945.

Churchill was also hated in the East End after the Siege of Sydney Street when he brought in the Scots Guards and the Royal Horse Artillery to nick a couple of "Russian" anarchists.

(They were Lithuanian)

The World At War TV series has witnesses who described the replies when he came down to the docks and proclaimed that "We" could take it. They told him where he could take it.

I haven't read the whole thread so maybe this has already been said. The comparison is useless. What this thread does highlight, however, is the terrible curriculum within this country. Children should be taught that Churchill was racist, that Queen Victoria perpetuated the notion of British exceptionalism, that Sir Francis Drake was, in fact, a pirate... maybe then those children can grow up and actually engage in conversation about how this country has subjugated other cultures for hundreds of years.

Maybe then posters on mumsnet would be less 'disgusted' by such comparisons and may actually try to challenge their own thinking.

Churchill split with the Conservative over the Aliens Act of 1905 designed to curb jewish immigration arguing the act would , “ appeal to insular prejudice against foreigners and to racal prejudice against Jews” , preferring “ the old tolerant and generous practice of free entry and asylum to which this country has a long adhered, and from which it has so greatly gained”.

He then stood against the Conservatives and under Asquith championed prison reform and workers rights, the introduction of a social security system and legal rights for Trade Unions. For this he was attacked for radicalism of the reddist kind.

But you wont read that in the Guardian or hear it on the BBC.

Sir Francis Drake was, in fact, a pirate

Only if you accept the authority of Pope Alexander VI to rule that all the land west of the Azores belonged to Spain and Portugal.

Drake, Hawkins and Co were exercising their rights to take ships on the high seas, which by dint of exercising control over them belonged to England. Britannia Rules the Waves and all that.

And where do you suppose the Spanish got all that gold and silver?
Argos? Elizabeth Duke?

But you wont read that in the Guardian or hear it on the BBC.

Er, Ian Hislop covered it in his BBC documentary:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08w2cvq

Churchill isn't particularly loved by Scots either. Secretary of State for War when the cabinet decided to quell strikers by rolling tanks into George Square, and also seen as completely aloof and disinterested in local concerns while an Member of Parliament for Dundee.