Don't mention the war?

Don't mention the war?
I feel that in this country, we're still a bit obsessed with WWII. There's at least one documentary a week on TV about it, endless newspaper articles, references in television programmes and whatever. Are other European countries like this? I am not saying that we should forget the war and the events leading up to it but sixty years on it does start to get a bit cringeworthy that documentary makers can't seem to find anything else to make programmes about. Moreover, it suggests - truthfully, I suspect - that Britain hasn't, as a country, done much to be proud of ever since which is why we keep parping on about it. THoughts?

The problem is that there is more stock footage of this event than any war Britain ever fought in. So when chanel 5 need to fill the slot between 'Britains 10 worst celebrity bikini lines' and 'Turn your Trash into Cash - Simpsons memorabilia special'. They go for 'How we won WWII single handed and unaided in any way by any other nation except for the USA who's sole contribution was nylons, chewing gum, jitterbugging and Glen Miller ( note there will especially be no mention of the Soviet Union and the eastern front at all ). There are some good documentaries and there are still aspects of that war that are not fully understood but the majority of these programmes do nothing to fill in the gaps.

Heh. Over here it's "How we helped those Europeans win the war, with the help of the brave and stiff-upper-lip Brits who went through the Blitz without a peep, and those really good-looking guys in the RAF, but with no help at all from those cheese-eating surrender monkeys, the French, except for the ones who were in the Resistance (which is not nearly as many as they'd have you believe)." We also don't mention the Soviets much.

Here we mainly mention the Soviets, but the Germans as little as possible, and when we do, it is almost always about the last part of the war we fought to drive the former allies out. Part of the comments are of the "yahoo, this tiny nation held back the Russians singlehandedly during the Winter War" or then wallowing in that that is just about the only victory we have ever had. Little mention is made of the megalomaniaical ideas of taking even more land from the Russians during the Contiuation War. Oh, and the "war children" (who were sent to Sweden) memories are becoming quite popular.

LOL Russia was in the war?! Say it ain't so! An especially popular variant of these documentaries lately has been the 'WWII' - in colour! Which is essentially all the documentaries you've ever seen before but in lurid technicolour. It was news to me .. I thought everything was black and white back then..

It was news to me .. I thought everything was black and white back then.. Then this will really suprise you.

Of course there are plenty of wars we don't mention. Britains troop deployment during the Korean War is utterly fogotten ( as are the British dead ). The Suez crisis is hushed up. The British troops fighting the Greek Aoka rebels on Cyprus has long been forgotten. We almost never mention the British troops who fought against the Israeli settlers after WWII ( but just to balance things out the Israelis never let us forget ). However we did win the World Cup in 1966 and the Falklands War so there is still plenty to show on TV.

And then there's the Boer War, incorrectly labeled as the" Last Honourable" war fought before the drastic mechanization of war seen in the First World War. Really I don't believe I've seen an international documentary cover this war.

I've seen a few about the Boer war though they naturally tend to favour the British side of the argument ;).

I've seen a few about the Boer war though they naturally tend to favour the British side of the argument ;). Just out of curiosity how did they paint Kitchener? Or the concentration camps?

I don't recall in sufficient detail to be able to answer really .. in fact have never HEARD of any concentration camps, tell me more?

I don't recall in sufficient detail to be able to answer really .. in fact have never HEARD of any concentration camps, tell me more? The concentration camps is a sore issues for many white South Africans. There is still a division of sorts between the English white South Africans and the Afrikaans South Africans mostly because of these camps. In recent years things are starting to get better but I doubt the relationship would ever fully heal. England managed to seize the Transvaal and Free State Boer Republics. As text-book wars go, it was relatively easy. But it was only the beginning when Boer Generals (De Wet, Cronje & Delarey) began a guerilla war, blowing up Block Houses, Train tracks and ambushing patrols. This was costing the British tax-payers millions of pounds, so they sent Lord Kitchener to handle the situation. The concentration camps were already established by his arrival and were actually set up as a humanitarian institution to care for women and children who have been displaced by the war. They were not prison camps or extermination camps. When Kitchene issued a scorched earth policy, he demanded that whenever there was an attack on a patrol and a block-house by the guerillas then every farm in a 10 mile radius should be dynamited and the occupants sent to a concentration camp. Because of this the concentration camps began overflowing with refugees. Soon resources were running low. Because most camps could only afford to give one bucket of water per family (for drinking, cooking & sanitary needs) and because families were oversized back in those days there wasn't enough. People began dying of dysentry, starvation and exposure. But these were the concentration camps for whites. The black concentration camps were in worse condition. Some blame should fall on the Boer Gurillas for the deaths in the concentration camps - they extended the war severely. Off course their compulsion was patriotic but still they are partly to blame. It has been established that Kitchener knew about the conditions and did nothing, possibly to get a psychological handle on the Boer guerillas. He only began to do something about it after the war ended. When a British lady named Emily Hobouse tried to do something. For her efforts she was attacked in England by the press (who supported the war) and was deported to England when she tried to bring aid to South Africa (2nd visit). At most 48 000 civilians died in the concentration camps (aprox 28 000 white, 20 000 black), most of them children. (note - the number of the 20 000 blacks are in dispute mostly because of a lack of proper records, but it is an estimation) Off course those numbers may look small (if compared to the Armenian holocaust and the Jewish Holocaust, or the 20 million prisoners who died in Stalin's Gulag), but still for a small developing nation it was a deathblow - especially if you consider that only about 7 000 Boer troops died in battle. Sorry, this turned out rather long.

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