Before I was side-tracked yesterday by the heart-rending news of klan deportations from Spain, I was immersed in this outstanding piece of work.
Although I would suggest it should be required reading for every school student in Britain, it is a tough read.
Although first published in 2006, I had not heard of it until I read Peter Hitchens The Phoney Victory (2018).
His chapter Gomorrah, which dealt with the British bombing offensive that deliberately targeted German civilians from February 1942 onwards, is forensic in its examination for the rationale behind the campaign.
Because of the Third Reich’s unparalleled criminality, the Allies’ war crimes had been rather overlooked lost in the post-War shock of just what had been agreed at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942.
A month later, Arthur “Bomber” Harris got his way, and the deliberate killing of German civilians could begin.
In Britain’s ex-colonies, it is still an appalling vista to look at the strutting self-congratulatory of British exceptionalism.
The Brits, it would appear, were always the good guys.
That stance is sometimes met from Aden to Amritsar and from Kerry to Kenya with a cynical chuckle.
However, for those who lived through British atrocities, like my grandmother in Mayo, it was simmering anger that never truly went away.
The campaign against innocent civilians in Germany was not a new approach for the RAF.
Indeed, when it was created out of the Royal Flying Corps at the end of the Great War, its first operation was to…ahem…” subdue” the Kurds by means of aerial bombing.
The people who gave the world Saladin had been shoehorned by the British into an artificially created state (Iraq) based on a cynical sectarian headcount.
Sound familiar?
It was for the benefit of the British Empire who needed oil for their navy.
The title of the chapter Phone Victory was taken from the name of the raid on Hamburg in July 1943
It was the first time that the RAF had deliberately created a firestorm.
A.C. Grayling covers the reality of that raid in nightmare-inducing detail.
AC Grayling calmly dismantles the apologists’ arguments for the Allied bombing campaigns against German and Japanese civilians.
Quite simply, these offensives contributed little if anything to the final defeat of the Axis powers.
In Germany, their school children are taught about the crimes of the Third Reich.
They even have a word for it.
Vergangenheitsbewältigung.
However, in Japan, no such process of revisionism has been undertaken since 1945.
Hence the shameful approach of successive Japanese governments to the case of the “Comfort Women”, an appalling euphemism for the sex slaves in the Japanese imperium.
This is still a raw wound in South Korea.
In that sense, the parallels between Britain and Japan are stark.
Both island nations have a martial culture, heavily socially stratified, and a predatory expansionist history.
Perhaps that is why they are often generally distrusted and indeed hated by those they conquered in the past.
Indian historian and politician Shashi Tharoor has brilliantly laid out what Britain’s…ahem…golden age actually meant for millions of men, women and children in the subcontinent.
Laurie Penny was totally correct when she said that young Brits had no idea of this litany of imperialist criminality.
“ the graphic facts of what the British did around the world…the crimes that we did over four hundred years of pillage and conquest are something we don’t like to think about, and yet it is everywhere…”
Chapeau Ms Penny.
Chapeau.
Of course, there is no need to travel to India to be on the site of British genocidal crimes.
The historian AJP Taylor said that the famine turned Ireland into “a Belsen”.
A decade after the British troops liberated that awful place, the same very army was guarding their own such facilities in Kenya.
Sinning quietly is something of a British speciality.
How many British schoolchildren learned of these crimes against humanity that happened in the lifetime of your humble correspondent?
I would wager very few indeed.
Ian Cobain’s excellent books are there to be included on school reading lists in Britain.
The first examines Britain’s history as a torturer.
The second looks at how adept they are at covering up their crimes.
Regular readers will be aware that the Concentration Camp was a British invention first used in another part of the African continent to deal with another pesky colonial insurgency.
I doubt if many Brits are familiar with Simon Webb’s excellent examination of this shameful part of their history.
The Kaiser’s boys were so impressed with this new technique, and they immediately deployed it themselves in South West Africa against the Herero people.
Does any of this matter in 2021?
Well, it did in 2016.
After the Brexiteers won the referendum, there was much breathless chat about “Empire2.0”.
I think that if the Post-Suez British had faced up to their past and their diminished status in the world, then they might have been better Europeans and, indeed, better neighbours.
Sadly, post-Brexit, Britain seems to be travelling down the path of more self-gratifying xenophobia.
I take hope from the fact that all of the authors that I have referenced in this piece are British.
They have created the tools for future generations to finally face up to what Britain did around the world and, especially, on the neighbouring island.
It will be hugely beneficial for young Brits to learn what their country did when it dominated and plundered the planet.
Of course, those days are gone, and they’re not coming back.
That inconvenient fact might just enter the consciousness of an Ibrox person as the Guardia Civil takes him to the airport in Malaga.
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It was Vonnegut, writing about Dresden, “The Florence of the Elbe” that first made me aware. A book I read off my own back, as a youngster. That there is no mention of the UK state’s crimes against humanity on the curriculum is, in itself, a crime. ☹️
I read “Slaughterhouse Five” as a teenager.
Timeless masterpiece against war.
I am surprized that you find Hitchens book so compelling. Churchill himself described the fall of Singapore as the greatest humiliation in Britain’s military history. I remember my father explaining to me that the Japanese were great jungle fighters. They actually were not, their soldiers actually rode bicycles to their destination largely unhindered. The incompetence cannot be “spun”. India, the famine, South Africa are less well-known granted and absolutely inexcusable. As for Dresden, the casualties were 20-25,000 not the figures quoted by Goebbels. Or later by David Irving. It was horrific, but no worse than the German destruction of Belgrade or Warsaw in terms of casualties. The bombing of Dresden occurred during peak British/American casualties on the Western front. More Americans alone died in that week than were killed at Dresden. Germany was not yet beaten. Bomber Command casualties in WW2 were 57,000. Dead, 45% of their total strength. It rises to 60% when you add wounded and those taken prisoner. The Americans lost about 45,000 dead in their equivalent of bomber command. WW2 was horrific and a close run thing. Bomber Command was not the east India Company
The entire war was a sham conceived & engineered by the US military industrial machine, with the full support of both the British & German governments.
The Guardian covers the details of it here
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
You might also want to watch this as a counterbalance to the misinformation elsewhere
https://youtu.be/-zT9pa5AOuE
NO ONE knows how many died in the Dresden bombings. There were tens of thousands of refugees, retreating German soldiers and deserters fleeing the Soviet advance, in the city. NONE of these people were registered ANYWHERE.
Why, if it was an such important strategic target, had it not previously been bombed one single time in the course of the war.
There was a genuine fear among the British and U.S. High Commands, that the Soviet Union would not stop at Germany and would attempt to sweep across Western Europe. There was no stomach among either the British or Americans for another conflict and I personally believe that the main purpose of the Dresden bombings was to serve as a warning to the Soviets. A display of the awesome bombing power that the U.S. and Britain were capable of unleashing. The message being very simple, “This far and no further.”
‘What about the German civilians who died’. This was my reply to those who looked down on me when I refused to stand or wear a blood red emblem of British imperialism. I once gave money to a old soldier standing in the shop, he asked why I didn’t take a poppy, I replied it was the wrong colour.
Thanks for some more reading material Phil, as I would repeat to my boys, when they asked why I read boring books, ‘knowledge is power’.
Keep at them Phil
TAL
I don’t remember being taught Scottish history at school: nothing about the creation of the country, the Scottish monarchy, historical wars with the English – or even The Clearances.
As a reasonably educated person, I was shocked to learn for the first time – in my 40’s – about the Red Clydesiders and the events around George Square. I only learned about the Iolaire tragedy in the run up to its 100th anniversary.
I do hope Scottish schools today teach more about our own history?
They don’t, unfortunately.
Phil, as bad as the Brits were, they come a poor second to our American cousins. I’m currently reading Chomsky’s Necessary Illusions, did you know that, according to the US press the US is STILL waiting on an apology from Vietnam for dragging them into a war and making them drop thousands of bombs and chemical weapons on them so that they might embrace democracy!!!!
Is it any wonder the US refused to hand over maps of their minefields to those ungrateful Vietnamese? Unlike the Soviets who handed over their minefield maps when they left Afghanistan.
Brilliant Phil thanks for the education
Can I also recommend “Empireland” by Sathnam Sanghera ? The author explains the feeling that the British are exceptional and can go it alone, be it Brexit or a global pandemic.
Excellent piece of work.
It was added to my bookshelf recently.
Unfortunately, Churchill’s decision to unleash Bomber Harris, and in particular the move to bomb Berlin, was a factor in his attempt to ensure the British public continued to support the war. It was only after the RAF bombed Berlin that the Nazis started to bomb civilian centres in the UK. This reluctance to bomb civilian targets was perhaps because key Nazi personnel believed a peace treaty with Britain was still possible, and would lay the foundation for a concerted war against Soviet Russia (think Rudolf Hess and his peace mission to Eaglesham). The author Len Deighton specifically highlighted Churchill’s role in deciding to bomb civilian populations in order to strengthen public support for an air war which Britain was losing, as the Luftwaffe bombed south coast RAF bases with impunity. Indeed, close analysis of the Battle of Britain, the culmination of this phase of the air war, suggests a draw rather than an overwhelming British victory. The bombing campaigns continued, with civilian populations targeted by Bomber Command, and the Nazi response ensured unquestioning support for Churchill’s war.
The bombing of civilian centres did, therefore, contribute to the prosecution of the war, at a time when endemic anti-Semitism would have perhaps precluded any appeal to higher principles to smash the Nazi war machine and halt the industrialised killing of at least six million Jews.
Britain gives it’s children a balanced education in history and the horror of war.
Having these books in the system would be tantamount to brainwashing kids from a particular viewpoint.the books are available if anyone wants to dig deeper.
I voted remain and followed the brexit debate closely, I’ve never heard any mention of Empire 2, how would that happen? .
An empire is a group of countries controlled by one body or country .
Britain has just left the modern EU Empire , might not use military muscle but uses economic muscle, just ask the people of Greece about the economic poverty imposed on them by th EU.
Ireland gets rid of the Brits, then pays the EU to Lord over them The EU gives Ireland a veto when it suits them and only if they promise not to use it.
Vaccine blockaids, talk about tyranny.
Germany has achieved with the EU what it failed to do on 2 wars.
Native Americans would argue with you about the original constructors of concentration camps.
So the solution to addressing these atrocities from decades if not Centuries ago is to guilt trip young children who had absolutely nothing to do with any of it?
Are the kids in the Republic taught about the numerous atrocities carried out in the North of Ireland over the past forty years or so?
What about telling the kids in Protestant Belfast about the antics of Lenny Murphy and his gang of cut throats?
I can’t stand jingoism or cherry picking history in equal measure myself but I think we really should be teaching our children the benefits of tolerance and equality rather than giving them yet more shit to feel bad about?
You may or may not be aware but there seems to be a pandemic of mental health issues in the young generation?
There are plenty sources out there if a young person wishes to learn about such things these are not guarded National Secrets that require top level clearance to access them.
Shitty people in powerful office made some pretty shitty decisions resulting in some horrendous practices in the name of Empire.
Horrendous things that THEY are SOLELY accountable for.
There are good and bad in all walks of life,from the top echelons of Society to bottom feeding knuckle draggers.
This is the way it always was and unfortunately will continue to be unless we change the attitude in our Children.
As for Brexit?
12.5m more people voted to leave the EU than live in Ireland.
We as a Country didn’t join an all controlling Superstate we joined a Common Market in order to trade with our neighbours in Europe.
Now we have rejected that Superstate by means of a democratic decision.
Yes we have our issues that have arisen from that decision but like everything else in life change is seldom straightforward or easy.
Far too much blood has been spilled on this Earth in the name of Nationalism and yes much of it by the now defunct British Empire (thank God) but let us not burden our future generations with the weight of past mistakes.
I hope Ireland is United without another drop of innocent blood being shed,I also hope that both Islands prosper in the future and forge some sort of positive relationship after that occurs.
You are a fool however if you think the upper echelons in Europe look at Ireland other than some backwater in which to plunder as much as they can.
After all that is the Globalist Capitalist end game.
An Economic Empire controlled from the motherland in Brussels and Frankfurt.
Until that is it all falls apart as it surely will at some point.
They borrowed €1Trillion ( at favourable rates) from Central Bank early last year ,however those repayments only stay favourable so long as they are being met.
A developing story you might say 😉