I have not read the book.
I had not heard of the book.
I thought I should watch the show.
So I DVRed the PBS show last week and watched it.
And I was amazed. Certainly Mr. Niall Ferguson has the credentials and education. I have studied the history of WWII, but not with the intensity with which I would hope a tenured academic would.
My, uh, conclusion would not be the same.
Mr. Fergeson begins the “documentary” with a 30 minute dissertation on how bad the Nazis were. In my mind it was nothing new. The “lebensraum” of the Third Reich, the horrors of the Final Solution, the Blitzkrieg and the Soviet-Nazi secret pact. He included the fact that Stalin’s regime thought they had an agreement with Hitler.
No big surprise.
Mr. Ferguson’s real surprise came next when he said that WWII was, ” …a matter of Evil versus Lesser Evil.”
He seems to think that the US, the UK, France, and all other allies had to resort to those same things that the Axis did on a regular basis in order to win. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that was done on a national basis, certainly from the top levels.
He showed a film of Marines summarily executing Japanese soldiers. Now, I don’t disbelieve this at all. There was not a whole hell of a lot of prisoner taking in the western Pacific. Just not the case. Look at Bataan. Look at captured US Submariners and Aviators.
When men fight, the rules of civilization go out the door. Man killing man is not natural. The desire for instant revenge and retribution are strong. Very strong.
Mr. Fergeson discusses that Allied troops were conditoned to kill.
In fact they were not. The data indicates that only 2% of infantrymen actually fired their rifles. Not necessarily killed the enemy, but just fired their weapons. Following WWII, the US Army took Lord Moran’s studies to heart and developed methods in which our soldiers would “dehumanize” the enemy. Because that is the only way in which we can have a truly effective fighting force which will kill without thinking. Not that the killing won’t affect those involved in it, because it does. Not the point of his show however…only the racial implications.
It finishes up with the question of who really won the war, which I really don’t quite see how he got there. Seems he thinks the US and the UK completely ignored what Russia was all about. It seems he thinks we should maybe have been better served had we started a war with the Soviet Union at the writhing throes of WWII.
The final episode is this coming week, so I will have to see how he views the Cold War. More to follow.
Well it is quite clear that the US and UK regarded the Soviets as only the lesser of two evils, particularly Churchill. As the war was drawing to a close Churchill continually advocated for the UK and the US to maintain a strong fighting force in Europe that would immediately take action to drive the Soviets from Eastern Europe. He also advocated a policy of US and UK forces “conquering” as much territory as possible in Europe as a means of limiting Soviet control in those areas. The US was opposed, as were the rest of the Allies, and the proposals and exhortations went unheeded, and Churchill’s Conservative government was voted out in favor of Labour and Clement Atlee almost immediately after V-E Day.
As for atrocities, I should think that a better example from the perspective of the creator of that documentary would be the fire bombing of Dresden as an example of concerted efforts on the part of the Allies to act in a quid pro quo manner as to bombing civilians in an indiscriminate manner. However, with the V-1 and V-2 attacks on Britain that continued, again, indiscriminately through the later stages of the war, as well as the memory of the Blitz of ’40 and ’41 (not to mention the military aim of preventing reinforcements of German divisions travelling East to combat a renewed Russian offensive by sending streams of refugees headed West…) although a terrible act, potentially a necessary one. As to the actions of individual soldiers on the ground, it would seem that in a war that featured quite literally millions of men under arms, the sheer numbers would suggest that occaisional crimes or atrocities would be committed that could be more readily attributable to inviduals under stress than to governmental or even military policy. The US and UK certainly did not participate in the systematic genocide of millions of people, as a matter of governmental policy. Nor did France, but remember that France was in a state of near civil war as regards Vichy v. Free France, which oftentimes, of course, harbor some of the worst war behaviors.
As for the USSR, quite possibly Churchill’s advice (like his constant sounding of the alarm throughout the ’30s that was scoffed at and ridiculed as alarmist and war-mongering) should have been heeded during the time when we had “the Bomb” and they did not.
Well, on one hand I kind of agree with him. I just don’t consider it “lesser evil”.
There’s a quote by Tom Barry, who was the OC of the 3rd West Cork Brigade during the Anglo-Irish war. I often think of it regarding things during the current war, but it would apply here too: “They said I was ruthless, daring, savage, blood thirsty, even heartless. The clergy called me and my comrades murderers but the British were met with their own weapons. They had gone in the mire to destroy us and our nation and down after them we had to go”
Ferguson’s problem is that he views ALL violence as evil. When it isn’t. Depends on what you’re using it for. The way I see it, if the Japanese soldiers didn’t want to be summarily executed by US Marines, perhaps they shouldn’t have summarily executed people. That’s not evil, then. It’s justice.
Don’t confuse the Left with facts.
It conflicts with their stupid theories…
I see where history is being re-written on a daily basis. We live in a age of guilt filled intellectuals who are trying to make them selfs look good or paint their predecessors as ignorant peoples.
thebronze is right, facts do not matter anymore.
I began watching it, but then switched it off after about 10 minutes.
I’m an open-minded person, but I’m losing my stomach for “new and improved” versions of history.
Revisionism is not my cup of tea.
GregS
I don’t think Ferguson realises what murky waters he is setting out on, with a revisionist view like the one described (living out here in Australia I must admit I haven’t seen the documentary yet… I might reserve full judgement for when I do).
It’s usually only one step from that sort of revisionism to the denial stuff of David Irving and his ilk. As Orwell used to say, no idea is so silly you can’t get some academics somewhere to agree to it… is Ferguson one of them I wonder?
All part of the ongoing Leftist project to delegitimize ANY American military enterprise, even the so-called “good war”. By God, we won, and our enemies were evil racist war criminals, but we were evil racist war criminals, too, so there! Don’t you dare feel good about anything the American military ever did, dammit!