Origins and Characteristics of Wars - incl Futility

[Tsar] Nicholas was looking out for an excuse to attack Turkey, and in the summer of 1853 he found his excuse at Bethlehem. The Church of the Nativity there, traditionally built over the stable where Christ was born, was the scene of violent clashes between monks of the Orthodox Church, supported by Russia, and monks of the Roman Catholic Church, supported by France; and since Palestine was in the Turkish Empire, the police in the church were Turkish Mohammedans.

The Orthodox denied the right of the Roman Catholics to place a silver star over the manger and to possess a golden key to the church door, and this summer of 1853 a serious riot took place; the Roman Catholics succeeded after a prolonged struggle in placing their star over the manger, but not before several Orthodox monks had been killed. The Tsar instantly asserted that the Turkish police had deliberately allowed the Orthodox monks to be murdered, and marched into the Danubian provinces of Turkey, proclaiming himself the protector of the Orthodox Christian subjects of the Sultan from Turkish persecution. By October 1853 Turkey and Russia were at war.

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England remained neutral. But when on November 30th the Russian fleet sailed out of Sebastopol, took the Turkish fleet by surprise at Sinope and wiped it out, the English were transported with rage, and angry mobs paraded the London streets. By the end of January 1854 war was plainly inevitable. ***

Meanwhile, an extraordinary bellicosity had seized [England]. Grave doubts were entertained in well-informed quarters on the wisdom and the probable outcome of the war—the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, was against it. The Times was against it, the Queen and the Prince Consort were uncertain. But the people were intoxicated. Memories of past victories went to their heads, the names of Waterloo and Trafalgar were on every lip, crowds paraded the streets delirious with excitement, inflated with national pride. ‘When people are inflamed in that way they are no better than mad dogs,’ wrote Cobbett and so in March 1854, shouting, cheering, singing, the nation swept into war.

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On March 27th the Queen's message of war was read in the Commons, and next day war was declared. The precise causes and objects of the war remained obscure.

It was puzzling to find the British nation fighting on the side of Mohammedans against Christians, even if Palmerston was right when he said that that had nothing to do with the question. Mr Disraeli’s explanation did not seem much more satisfactory: he remarked that he thought we were going to war to prevent the Emperor of all the Russias from protecting the Christian subjects of the Sultan of Turkey. And John Bright told the House of Commons that he could see no adequate reason for the conflict. The voice of the people, however, found expression in a less distinguished member, a Mr John Ball, who assured the House that the real justification of the war was vast, high and noble: ‘the maintenance in civilized society of the principles of right and justice’.

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How two men so completely arrogant and inept came to a position of power in the British Army is shocking, especially when one considers that it was widely known that neither man was fit to command cavalry squadrons, let alone brigades and divisions.

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Cecil Woodham-Smith's story of the Charge of the Light Brigade is the biography of two men: Lords Lucan and Cardigan; brothers-in-law whose hatred for each other was surpassed only by arrogance and ineptitude as officers. Woodham-Smith's book is the story of two men cradled by an absurd system of rank and class, who came together as two of the highest-ranking officers in one of the worst-run campaigns in British military history, which resulted in one of the most legendary blunders in all of military history.

In the lifetimes of Lucan and Cardigan (the late eighteenth and early nineteeth century), the best way to get ahead in the British Army was to purchase your rank. The purchase system, as it was called, was basically a way for England's wealthy classes to keep the most powerful positions in the army for themselves, and exclude those individuals who were not of the same social stratum.

This system was supported by Britain's greatest military mind, the Duke of Wellington, who, it is explained, somehow managed to hide the deficiencies of the system behind his military brilliance. However, by the time Lucan and Cardigan came into a position of authority, Wellington had long since passed away, none of the high officers involved in the Crimean campaign had heard a shot fired in anger, and the only combat-experienced officers in the British Army (those who had served in India) were unwanted.

The biography portion of the book gets a little bit cumbersome at times, especially for those of us who aren't entirely familiar with the British nobility system, but it provides an interesting backstory to the disaster in the Crimea. How two men so completely arrogant and inept came to a position of power in the British Army is shocking, especially when one considers that it was widely known that neither man was fit to command cavalry squadrons, let alone brigades and divisions.

Ultimately, Woodham-Smith's argument is effective: the purchase system, coupled with the British class system, was ripe for a disaster. By allowing incompetency to buy its way up the ranks while more competent solders were bypassed and more experienced soldiers were shunned, it was only a matter of time until the British experienced a debacle such as Balaclava and the entire Crimean Campaign. Unfortunately for the British, it took two spectaculary arrogant and stupid men to breed such a disaster, and when it finally happened, it happened in spectacular fashion.

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treefrog said:

Charge! ..........my/your/his/her imaginary friend is with you.

only contribution to this one 20/20 is to pin up the Macquarie Concise Dictionary's primary definition of religion near the starting blocks.

"1. The quest for the values of the ideal life, involving three phases, the ideal, the practices for attaining the values of the ideal, and the theology or world view relating the quest to the environing universe."

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Religion has been defined in a wide variety of ways. Most definitions attempt to find a balance somewhere between overly sharp definition and meaningless generalities.

Some sources have tried to use formalistic, doctrinal definitions while others have emphasized experiential, emotive, intuitive, valuational and ethical factors. Definitions mostly include:

2. a notion of the transcendent
3. a cultural or behavioural aspect of ritual, liturgy and organized worship, often involving a priesthood, and societal norms of morality (ethos) and virtue (arete)
4. a set of myths or sacred truths held in reverence or believed by adherents

5. Sociologists and anthropologists tend to see religion as an abstract set of ideas, values, or experiences developed as part of a cultural matrix.

For example, in Lindbeck's Nature of Doctrine, religion does not refer to belief in "God" or a transcendent Absolute. Instead, Lindbeck defines religion as, "a kind of cultural and/or linguistic framework or medium that shapes the entirety of life and thought… it is similar to an idiom that makes possible the description of realities, the formulation of beliefs, and the experiencing of inner attitudes, feelings, and sentiments.”[6] According to this definition, religion refers to one's primary worldview and how this dictates one's thoughts and actions.

6. .... Religion may be defined as the presence of a belief in the sacred or the holy. For example Rudolf Otto's "The Idea of the Holy," formulated in 1917, defines the essence of religious awareness as awe, a unique blend of fear and fascination before the divine.

7. Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as a "feeling of absolute dependence."

8. The Encyclopedia of Religion defines religion this way:[7] ... Religion is the organization of life around the depth dimensions of experience ”” varied in form, completeness, and clarity in accordance with the environing culture."

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10. Other encyclopedic definitions include: "A general term used... to designate all concepts concerning the belief in god(s) and goddess(es) as well as other spiritual beings or transcendental ultimate concerns"[8] and "human beings' relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine."[9]

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11. A religion is a set of common beliefs and practices generally held by a group of people, often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law. .... shared conviction.

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nioka said:

I ticked "other". There was no box for " all of the above"
The war in IRAQ would have to have been the result of all of them.

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ithatheekret said:

Stubborn enough for relatives to send nations to war , cousins fighting cousins , the Yanks went one better , brother fighting brother .

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The Price in Blood!
Casualties in the Civil War

At least 618,000 Americans died in the Civil War, and some experts say the toll reached 700,000. The number that is most often quoted is 620,000. At any rate, these casualties exceed the nation's loss in all its other wars, from the Revolution through Vietnam.

The Union armies had from 2,500,000 to 2,750,000 men. Their losses, by the best estimates:

Battle deaths: 110,070
Disease, etc.: 250,152
Total 360,222

The Confederate strength, known less accurately because of missing records, was from 750,000 to 1,250,000. Its estimated losses:

Battle deaths: 94,000
Disease, etc.: 164,000
Total 258,000

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And two uncomfortable truths about it - the fact that it was a civil war (perhaps 100,000 loyalists fled abroad at its end), and that it was also a world war (the Americans could scarcely have won without French help) - are often forgotten

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The American War of Independence: The Rebels and the Redcoats
By Professor Richard Holmes

Richard Holmes reviews the course of the American Revolutionary War, and discusses whether American independence was inevitable from the moment that the first shots were fired.

Introduction
The War of Independence plays such an important part in American popular ideology that references to it are especially prone to exaggeration and oversimplification. And two uncomfortable truths about it - the fact that it was a civil war (perhaps 100,000 loyalists fled abroad at its end), and that it was also a world war (the Americans could scarcely have won without French help) - are often forgotten.

'The War of Independence plays such an important part in American popular ideology...'
Here, however, I have done my best to describe this long and complex war in terms that people will find readily comprehensible, but that avoid some of the Hollywood-style simplifications and inaccuracies that have gained so much currency over the years.

And although as I write this piece, the second Gulf War has only recently ended, and although the Vietnam analogy comes to mind often, I have deliberately avoided reflecting too much on recent American politics. No: what I have tried to do is to give readers the most balanced and objective view I can of a war that has done much, as my television screen reminds me as I write, to shape the world we live in.

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In United States history, carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved to the South during Reconstruction between 1865 and 1877. They formed a coalition with Freedmen (freed slaves), and Scalawags (Southern whites who supported the Reconstruction) in the Republican Party, which in turn controlled ex-Confederate states for varying periods, 1867–1877.

"Carpetbaggers" was coined from the carpet bags used as inexpensive luggage. It was originally a derogatory term, suggesting an exploiter who does not plan to stay. Although the term is still an insult in common usage, in histories and reference works it is now used without derogatory intent. Since 1900 the term has also been used to describe outsiders attempting to gain political office or economic advantage, especially in areas (thematically or geographically) to which they previously had no connection.

In the United Kingdom, the term is often used informally to refer to those who attempt to force a mutual organization, such as a building society, to demutualise ”” to list on a stock exchange, solely for personal pecuniary advantage.

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"Let me issue and control a Nation's money and I care not who makes its laws".

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numbercruncher said:

Wars ? Lets follow the money trail and so called "conspiracys" which look more like truths.

Some of the strongest proponents of the Fractional reserve banking system, names like Rothschild ,Rockefeller have financed both sides of most major Wars.

Amsel (Amschel) Bauer Mayer Rothschild, 1838

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Bikini Atoll (also known as Pikinni Atoll) is an uninhabited 2.3-square-mile (6.0 km²) atoll in one of the Micronesian Islands in the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands. It consists of 36 islands surrounding a 229.4-square-mile (594.1 km²) lagoon. As part of the Pacific Proving Grounds it was the site of more than 20 nuclear weapons tests between 1946 and 1958, including the first test of a practical dry fuel hydrogen bomb in 1952.

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War uses up more materials more quickly than most anything else on earth. In war expensive equipment doesn't wear out slowly, it gets blown up. (It's interesting to note that during the 119 year period from the founding of the Bank of England to Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, England had been at war for 56 years, while the rest of the time preparing for it. In the process the money changers had been getting rich.) So there it was, the newly formed Federal Reserve poised to produce any money the U.S. Government might need from thin air with each dollar standing to make a healthy interest. Nine days after its formation the Federal Reserve founders were wishing each other a Happy New Year. What good fortune might 1914 bring?

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WORLD WAR I (1914-1918)

The Germans borrowed money from the German Rothschilds bank, the British from the British Rothschilds bank, and the French from the French Rothschilds.

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2020hindsight said:

nc, So are you suggesting that the populace are so ignorant, and so easily hood-winked -
...
and have been subjected to so many "history books re-written by the victor" ...

that we can be talked into a (modern) war for others to benefit from?
shame on you !! lol.

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The war created problems for the royal family because of its German background. Owing to strong anti-German feeling in Britain, it was decided to change the name of the family from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.
..........
Edward's relationship with Simpson created a great deal of scandal. So also did his political views. In 1934 he made comments suggesting he supported the British Union of Fascists. Wallis Simpson's reputation was also hurt by rumours that she was also having an affair with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Ambassador to Britain. She was also known to hold pro-Nazi political views.

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One of the biggest public relations hoaxes ever perpetrated by the British Crown, is that King Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne in 1938, due to his support for the Nazis, was a ``black sheep,'' an aberration in an otherwise unblemished Windsor line.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The British monarchy, and the City of London's leading Crown bankers, enthusiastically backed Hitler and the Nazis, bankrolled the Führer's election, and did everything possible to build the Nazi war machine, for Britain's planned geopolitical war between Germany and Russia.

Support for Nazi-style genocide has always been at the heart of House of Windsor policy, and long after the abdication of Edward VIII, the Merry Windsors maintained their direct Nazi links.

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... To ...truly understand the Windsors today, it is useful to start with Prince Philip. Not only was he trained in the Hitler Youth curriculum, but his German brothers-in-law, with whom he lived, all became high-ranking figures in the Nazi Party......

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numbercruncher said:

Theres lots of uncanny and little known Nazi links , thats why i see money supply as the most common denominator.

another Nazi link, Yasser Arafats uncle the Grand Mufti (of Jerusalem), Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini was the head on the Nazi Hansar division , interesting line of research with direct connections, lineage, Ideaology to people like Saddam Hussein, The Muslim brotherhood > Al Qaeda etc ....

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