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Subject: Are the British the best trained army in the world?
Britain_patriot    4/13/2005 2:03:23 PM
your views please cheers
 
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Herald1234       7/3/2007 1:35:41 PM

i've seen the map agreed to as defining us territory and fort detroit is a long way outside those limits.

 

and what you seem to consider traitors we view as patriots.  i expect your views on that to be a mirror image of mine.

 

i really doubt anything we say to each other will change each others minds an iota so shall we part company each firmly convinced of our victory and moral propriety.


Just to be clear about this I'm referring to the fortified British trading post that is NOW Detroit, Micigan.
Are you trying to say that was Canadian territory?
 
Traitors from my viewpoint may be patriots to you, but in practical terms by anyone's viewpoint, they were behaving as BANDITS.
 
Herald
 
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Ehran       7/4/2007 3:19:14 PM
Just to be clear about this I'm referring to the fortified British trading post that is NOW Detroit, Micigan.
Are you trying to say that was Canadian territory?
 
Traitors from my viewpoint may be patriots to you, but in practical terms by anyone's viewpoint, they were behaving as BANDITS.
 
herald detroit is what a hundred miles outside the territory agreed to be american at the end of the war.  further building forts and runnning up flags was the approved way to stake a claim to land so yeah i'm gonna say that detroit michigan was british turf at the time even without the usa reneging on the treaty of paris.
 
bandits eh.  guess selling guns to your allies to defend themselves from invading hordes is a problem for you somehow.  guess the brits trying to keep the indians from going on the rampage was the wrong thing to do.  the real problem was the american settlers expanding into indian territories and doing the enthnic cleansing thing. 
 
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dirtykraut       7/5/2007 8:21:49 PM
Theres a lot of if's involved in every war ehran. What if this, what if that. What if the US in the revolutionary war had more than one tenth the resources Great Britain did during the War of Independance (due to the fact that Britain owned the colonies). What if the US army was not full of pirates and farmers trying to make a living in a depressed economy. I wouldn't get your prick in a knot over the what if's. As far as ethnic cleansing of natives goes, I do recall it was the British and Spanish who gave them the first disease infested blankets. The natives weren't too happy about that. But the truth about the natives is, they were not peace loving people who had every intention of sharing their land. And the reason the natives massacred European settlements is because they did not like foreigners on thier lands. Who could blame them? The truth was that the wars with the Indians were not one sided, and the only reason we talk about the poor opressed Indians is because white men brought guns. If the situation was reversed, we'd be talking about those poor white men. The only reason the British sided with the Indians was to use them as a buffer against the colonists/Americans, and the Indians are xenophobic to this day because after every war the British dropped them like a hot potato and fullfilled not one of their promises.
 
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Ehran       7/6/2007 12:52:29 PM

But the truth about the natives is, they were not peace loving people who had every intention of sharing their land.
 
And the reason the natives massacred European settlements is because they did not like foreigners on thier lands. Who could blame them? The truth was that the wars with the Indians were not one sided, and the only reason we talk about the poor opressed Indians is because white men brought guns.
 
just for curiousity dk what makes you think the indians were obliged to share their land with encroaching white settlers.  especially the kind who move in and then start shooting indians on sight.
if you look at who was killing who, indians killing whites got a lot of attention paid to it but indian villages getting wiped out was ignored pretty much.  the truth dk is that the indian wars were pretty one sided affairs with the indians getting the warm brown end of the stick.
 
you really really don't want to start comparing the british and american record of dealing with their indians.
 


 
 
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dirtykraut       7/9/2007 3:09:25 PM
They were not obliged to share their land with the settlers. That was my point. But why should they have been obliged to share their land with the British, who, like I said, were the first to give them disease infested blankets. I mean let's be honest here, during the time of the indian wars, the colonists were mostly British or of British ancestry. It may be a surprise to you that the vast majority of modern Americans do not trace their ancestors back to those settlers. I certainly don't. Why were Indians from India obliged to share their land with the British, or the Australian aboriginals obliged to share their land with the British? They weren't. But the reason we talk of Indians being a persecuted minority is for one simple reason: The white men brought guns. And when you ask to compare how each treated their Indians, do you mean in just North America? Because if I recall, the British weren't exactly saints in their little expeditions around the world. The British are famous for hunting indigenous people all around the world for sport. Did you notice that natives in Canada are an almost non existant numerical monority, or the Australian aboriginols are also an almost non existant numerical minoirty? I think that is uncontested proof that the British did not often invite their Indians to tea.
 
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dirtykraut       7/9/2007 3:18:41 PM
"indians killing whites got a lot of attention paid to it but indian villages getting wiped out was ignored pretty much."
 
Why does this surprise you? I'm sure you know history is written by the victors? But that does not mean that the vanquished were persecuted innocents. And the North American natives were most certainly not innocent. Hell, study their history before white men came. They were, much like white people, nasty and vindictive who would do anything for a land grab.
 
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Ehran       7/10/2007 12:54:55 PM
the british record isn't perfect but it's so far ahead of any other colonial or imperial power that any arguments would be about who was the 2nd best.  the british ruled with a very light hand and mostly with the consent of the people they ruled.  after all if the british were prone to abusing their people i don't think an army of 200k (at it's height) men would have been sufficient to occupy such a huge swath of territory around the world for centuries with so little trouble.
 
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Ehran       7/10/2007 1:11:21 PM

the British, who, like I said, were the first to give them disease infested blankets.
given the lack of germ theory when that happened it's hard to sell that as a deliberate attempt to spread a plague amongst the indians.  the british track record at dealing with the indians was utterly superior to the american record.  we were able to settle the west without any of the drama/trauma you put yourselves through.  as an example after sitting bull's destruction of part of the 7th cav he took many of his people to canada.  he was met at the border by all of 4 mounties who talked with him about the rules for living in canada.  they knew there wasn't a military force anywhere near them capable of restraining them and yet they behaved just fine because that handful of mounties told them they would be treated fairly if they obeyed the law and even indians from south of the border knew that was true.  if the british were so evil to their natives can you tell me why the nez pearce made their run for the canadian border?

 
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dirtykraut       7/11/2007 1:44:39 PM
Like I said ehran they used the North American natives as a buffer against the colonists. They saw the North American Indians as useful. They weren't allied with them out of the goodness of their hearts. But the British track record around the world dealing with indigenous people is not benign. You need to visit the blog "Why Britain forget's it's holocausts". You defend an empire that is probably only second to the Soviet Union in body counts. I don't think the indigenous people of Tasmania thought too highly of the British when they were being hunted by them, for example. Are you suggesting that the British brought the Indians blankets to keep them warm, not knowing they were infested small pox? I'm sorry but they knew exactly what they were doing. It's kind of cute how you think the British can do no wrong ehran, but they did indeed start the massacre of the North American indigenous peoples. The British may have been lenient towards those who would obey, but they were quite nasty to people who rebelled. The only reason the Indians and the British were not killing each other in droves is because the British realised that they would have to fight pesky colonists if they wanted that land to the south of Canada.
 
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Ehran       7/12/2007 3:53:53 PM

Like I said ehran they used the North American natives as a buffer against the colonists. They saw the North American Indians as useful. They weren't allied with them out of the goodness of their hearts.
 
 But the British track record around the world dealing with indigenous people is not benign. You need to visit the blog "Why Britain forget's it's holocausts". You defend an empire that is probably only second to the Soviet Union in body counts.
 
It's kind of cute how you think the British can do no wrong ehran, but they did indeed start the massacre of the North American indigenous peoples.
 
The British may have been lenient towards those who would obey, but they were quite nasty to people who rebelled. The only reason the Indians and the British were not killing each other in droves is because the British realised that they would have to fight pesky colonists if they wanted that land to the south of Canada.


the british allied with some indians to fight the french others just to keep peaceable relations with the neighbours.  you should remember the british didn't value north america much so they didn't worry about it nor expend a lot of effort on it.
the british track record is pretty benign especially by the standards of the day.  there is a reason after all that such a big chunk of the world today are fairly happy members of the commonwealth.  had the british been such villains the commonwealth would be a rather smaller organization than it is.  nor could the british have held their empire with an army well under 200k men for virtually all their history other than by the widespread consent of the ruled.
 
to accuse the british of running up a body count 2nd only to the soviets is to shoot yourself squarely in the credibility nards.  type british empire atrocities into google and be amazed at the drivel that makes the top ten.  not a credible report in the top ten and by credible i mean agrees with any history i've read.     
 
cute is a word only my mother has ever applied to me before now btw.  how do you figure the british started the massacre of the native people in north america?  the spanish killed hundreds of thousands perhaps millions while the british were getting some traction in virginia.  hell man one of the reasons for the revolution was the british gov't attempts to restrain settlers from crowding into indian lands.  doesn't exactly sound like eager oppressors does it.
 
dk look at the history of british settlement in north america with your eyes open.  the english didn't fight with the indians much at all.  the english french problems got merged with the iroquois/huron war that had been going on long before we showed up.  once the iroquois managed to wipe out the hurons that was pretty much the end of the english fighting the indians anywhere.  in the revolution the indians that got involved were on the side of the english.  in the war of 1812 the indians that got involved were on the side of the english, in the riel rebellion the indians were begged to come in on the side of the metis but chose to honour their treaty with england.  there were no indian wars in the canadian west.  you seeing a pattern in this yet dk?
were the british perfect nope i can think of a few whoppers along the way.  were the british the colonial masters of choice hell yeah.  compare the way anyone else treated the locals after they ran up the flag and you'll see why you've built your case for the evil brits on very shaky ground indeed.
 
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