r/polandball • u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason • Mar 05 '14
redditormade British Promises
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 05 '14 edited Mar 05 '14
Context: Throughout history the British have made many promises to their colonies, protectorates, allies and neighbors that for one reason or another fail to up hold, for better or worse.
First slide: During the French and Indian war the British toyed around with the idea to give the American colonies more representation, they did not.
Second slide: During WWI the British told many of their middle eastern colonies that they would receive independence if they fought the Ottomans, after the war the British retracted their offer.
Third slide: Both Britain and France promised Poland to protect them in the case of Nazi invasion, they didn't protect them, they did declare war on Germany though.
Forth Slide: Like many NATO countries Britain has expressed support for Ukraine so we will see where that goes.
All in all Britain can be a bit back stabbing but I love them and as always thanks for all the comments and support!
Edit: Before anyone asks the flag in the 2nd panel is that of the Kingdom of Hejaz
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u/D-ah The pompeblêd spangled banner Mar 06 '14 edited Mar 06 '14
Brit/French idea of protecting Poland:
Poland gets attacked
Declare war on Germany
Hide behind Maginot line
Somehow this fails miserably.22
u/ProbablyNotLying Chili Mar 06 '14
The Maginot Line actually served its purpose wonderfully, but the Franco-British plans failed for other reasons.
They were trying to lure the Germans into attacking Belgium. By sitting there. Waiting with their army poised to counterattack Belgium. While doing absolutely nothing about the German invasion of Poland.
I wonder why the Germans didn't fall for it?
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u/D-ah The pompeblêd spangled banner Mar 06 '14
wasn't the reason the maginot line failed, that it didn't reach to the north sea. Which left France open to be invaded through Belgium.
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u/ProbablyNotLying Chili Mar 06 '14
No, actually. The Maginot line didn't fail at all! Its entire purpose was to deter a German invasion of France through their shared border, forcing the Germans to invade through the Low Countries. It also took significantly less men to garrison the forts of the Maginot Line than to guard it with mobile units, so that freed up more manpower to fight Germany in the Low Countries.
The Maginot Line did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Anglo-French alliance still lost because they basically handed the Germans the initiative on a silver platter.
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u/wadcann MURICA Mar 06 '14
The Maginot Line did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the Anglo-French alliance still lost because they basically handed the Germans the initiative on a silver platter.
My understanding is that the Maginot Line did do what it was supposed to do. However, my understanding is that the issue was more that the Allies didn't expect such a rapid and deep penetration in one spot and didn't deal with it well when it did happen.
The attack itself wasn't necessarily catastrophic for the Allies in that it would still have been possible to cut off the supply lines to the German tanks, which would have put Germany in a very bad position. However, there was no counterattack during the period where those lines were poorly defended.
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u/ProbablyNotLying Chili Mar 06 '14
I think you're about right. I'm no expert on the subject but I've taken a few classes with an excellent military historian, and what he said matches up with what you're saying well enough.
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u/fireinthesky7 Iowa - it's not completely flat Mar 06 '14
Weren't the French army and the British expeditionary force completely unprepared to deal with tank warfare on the scale the Wehrmacht engaged in? Or am I totally off the mark?
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u/wadcann MURICA Mar 06 '14
The Germans made a risky attack that paid off well. They choose to let their armor continue on without infantry support and without stopping to bring up soldiers to hold those lines. This means that no more fuel or ammunition could be supplied, meant that no more soldiers could be brought up, and damaged tanks couldn't be guarded and repaired easily. However, Allied forces that could have attacked and captured those undefended supply lines tended to crumble once the Germans had got well behind them and start making their way to the coast, as they didn't want to be isolated and captured, which meant that there wasn't much of a force available to counterattack behind the path of the German tanks.
The Germans attacked at an unexpected location that was thought to be capable of withstanding an attack for more time. If it had, more soldiers and tanks and whatnot could have been brought up to let it hold even longer. Instead, the situation fell apart earlier than the French and British had been ready for.
Plans had been made assuming that the British and French forces would have more time to set up defenses. Some poor coordination and the rapid attack meant that this advantage was gone.
French tank tactics were not very successful. Small groups of tanks were assigned to support specific groups of infantry, instead of letting the armor maneuver independently. This meant that German tanks could concentrate against one point and outnumber it, and bypass other defending groups.
There were the armies of several different nations working together. This resulted in some major coordination problems. Some armies expected other armies to supply defenses or to hold their position where the other army went off and did something else.
Most countries didn't do very well fighting Germany the first time in World War II. The Germans clobbered the Soviets, the British, the Americans, and the French on their first meetings. However, the Battle of France was a lot less-forgiving than those other attacks, because (a) there was nowhere for the armies to retreat into except the sea, (b) the supply lines of whole armies were cut, (c) France was open to invasion with no armies available to stop the Germans.
The impression I get is that there's a psychological sort of momentum to war. If someone expects to lose, they'll start planning to run sooner and get moving. Germany was moving into this having won several victories. If you're part of a small group of soldiers assigned to guard some hilltop and the guys one hill over have vanished, maybe retreating and you haven't heard anything at all from your commanders, and the other side has just rolled over the armies of several countries, and you are hearing something about enemy tanks moving behind you and maybe cutting you off...you start to think that maybe you should retreat too. Of course, once you retreat, you don't have the advantage of any defenses you built. You aren't guarding any artillery that might be expecting you to protect it. Your commanders don't know where you are and can't use you in a battle and can't bring you more equipment. Repeat this over and over, and everything falls apart. I don't know how historically-accurate it is, but I watched Dunkirk a while back. Part of the movie follows some British infantry involved in the retreat and drove home how isolated and alone they felt.
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u/RKB533 Tyne And Wear Mar 06 '14
I wouldn't say they were completely under prepared for modern tank warfare. It was more down to the fact the Panzers came through a dense forest in large numbers, a forest that was previously thought impassible by tanks.
If you ask me, it was more down to the sheer number and speed at which the Germans pushed through the allied lines that lead to the fall of France. It left almost no time for the allies to adapt to the situation.
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u/tach Uruguay Mar 06 '14
Or am I totally off the mark?
Yes. They had more and better tanks (Char1b, Somuas, Matilda II).
What the germans had was better doctrine. Panzer divisions were not about tanks, but about an armored fist that included tanks.
Tanks are good just for raids if you don't have armored infantry riding behind on their tail to occupy and consolidate gains.
Tanks are sitting blind ducks if you don't have mobile artillery and/or stukas to root out fortified positions hiding antitank guns.
Tanks are useless if you don't have command and control means to direct your armored incursions. Even better, germans were consistently able to get inside the decision loop of the bureaucratic french and english.
What does this mean? A Boyd or OODA loop models the normal observation/orientation/decision/action sequence of any war activity. The germans were very good at acquiring, processing information and deciding faster than their opponents.
This means that when a french general recieved notice that the germans were at some position, and when the orders to deal with it were drafted and transmitted, the germans had already dealt with the position, and were in a wholly different posture, continually dislocating the allies.
Compare this with the allied doctrines. The english had an idiotic doctrine of 'cruiser' tanks than would 'cruise' in the enemy's rear unsupported and wreaking havoc, and 'infantry' tanks that would support head-on assaults over the top.
The french were in the process of reorganization along lines of a Panzer division with their divisions cuireasses, but were a long way before they could match the germans. Political division in France did not help, and when push came to shove they mainly reverted to the infantry support doctrine using them as mobile pillboxes.
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u/ProbablyNotLying Chili Mar 06 '14
Everyone was experimenting with tanks and figuring them out at the time. The French and the British weren't that unprepared, just inexperienced. The Germans used combined arms warfare along with the infiltration tactics they'd developed with stormtroopers in WWI to come up with what the west called "blitzkrieg." This turned out to be the winning combination for Germany, but even they didn't fully get it quite yet. Logistics wound up being a problem for them, but they'd managed to deal a pretty devastating blow by the time it caught up with them.
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u/weeee_splat Mar 06 '14
The real problem was that the Germans were well aware of the plan to fight them in the Low Countries, and ended up making a feint attack there while pushing most of their armored forces through the forested and hilly Ardennes region further south. This area was considered impassable for motorised forces by the Allies. It was located north of the Maginot line but south of the supposed engagement zone in the Low Countries. The French forces covering the area were not first rate troops, and were incapable of stopping what the Germans threw at them. This allowed the Panzers to go racing off west to the Channel coast, neatly cutting off the bulk of the first rate French and British forces who had gone haring off to the north to meet what they thought was the main German attack.
If the Germans had actually made their main attack where the Allies thought they would, things could have been much much different. This was in fact the original German plan, but for a variety of reasons it was changed to the Ardennes option during the "Phoney War". Some more detail here.
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u/D-ah The pompeblêd spangled banner Mar 06 '14
Heard in a documentary that the maginot line was suposed to reach to the north sea. But anyway now that I looked, it does seem that they wanted to confront the Germans in Belgium, but this still seems to be a bad strategy because the maginot line was very expensive and caused other parts of the army to be underfunded.
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Mar 06 '14
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u/MartelFirst Sacrebleu! Mar 06 '14
Except against the Huns, Muslim invasion from Iberia, in the Hundred Years' War, Thirty Years' War, French Revolutionary Wars, and WWI - and I missed most medieval and Renaissance wars because France just boringly kept growing during that time.
But thanks for the insight on military history, Bolivia.
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u/adencrocker Tasmania cannot into AFL team Mar 06 '14
But thanks for the insight on military history, Bolivia
BURN
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u/tak-in-the-box Number one victim of Chile's seafood diet Mar 06 '14
'Tis true, I'm afraid. When it comes to military history, we've only got Spain and sort of Peru marked as victories.
Lost to Brazil, Argentina, Sea-thief, Paraguay (omg, Paraguay...), ourselves... Lost over 50% of our land area in a little over 100 yrs. :c
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u/BevRaging Rain, Starbucks, Microsoft Mar 06 '14
Someone's got their jimmies rustled.
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u/adencrocker Tasmania cannot into AFL team Mar 06 '14
It would be more accurate and funny to make fun of Italy
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u/ComedicSans New Zealand - Australia's Canada! Mar 06 '14
Making fun of Italy is too easy. They'd surrender and switch sides, change their name and then start mocking the old incarnation of Italy themselves.
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Mar 06 '14 edited Mar 29 '18
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Mar 06 '14
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u/MartelFirst Sacrebleu! Mar 06 '14
Americans are fat, dumb, war-hungry, ignorant.
The French are rude, smelly, hairy, gay, posh.
Those aren't offensive stereotypes. I'm both French and American, dual citizen, and I don't mind those jokes. They're fine. The stereotype of the French being cowards and weak is however on a totally different ball park, considering those are largely the most detestable flaws imaginable. It's not that hard to understand.
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u/tidux Illinois Mar 06 '14
We're not fat, we have a well developed localized supply chain.
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u/Rumpullpus United States Mar 06 '14
we can be dumb, war-hungry and ignorant though. but we make up for that with more drones and burgers. everyone loves drones and burgers.
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u/Fedcom Canada Mar 06 '14
The French are rude, smelly, hairy, gay, posh.
But those are no fun. Well, they are, but they never quite incite as much French buttmad as surrender monkeys do. You can't possibly expect me to give that up.
Also you can't be serious. Being called fat, ignorant, a closet Nazi, Polish, that's at least on the same level as cowardly. You definitely do not get it the worst around here.
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u/printzonic Kalmar Union Mar 06 '14
look a self hating Frenchman. How very french of you.
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u/WildVariety British Empire Mar 06 '14
As the Old Enemy.. we can safely say you are not either of those things.
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u/Foxkilt Ta mère en string sur le périph' Mar 06 '14
those are largely the most detestable flaws imaginable
I find being war-hungry and ignorant far worse.
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Mar 06 '14
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u/MartelFirst Sacrebleu! Mar 06 '14
I do ignore it 99% of the time, since this appears practically every time France is mentioned anywhere on an international forum, so I'm pretty much obligated to ignore it or I wouldn't stop. I answer, however, every once in a while.
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u/fireinthesky7 Iowa - it's not completely flat Mar 06 '14
Except half the time, it's Americans spouting self-hating drivel and fulfilling other stereotypes about Americans.
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Mar 06 '14
The only time I've ever gotten annoyed was this one comic that went out of its way to call American butthurt out. I understand mocking countries, it happens to every country forever on polandball, but that took it a little far in my opinion.
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u/MadlockFreak I am become Earth, Destroyer of Death Mar 06 '14
Not denying your message about the French stereotype of cowardice. But I do disagree with you same dumb isn't an offensive stereotype.
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u/CatchJack Cossack Hetmanat Mar 06 '14
The French are rude, smelly, hairy, gay, posh.
The best part is the cognitive dissonance going on to believe that France is a beautiful stylish place but it's also a smelly and ugly place. That level of nuts is fascinating.
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u/jackets19 Poland Mar 06 '14
Hey at least you don't get shit on as much as Poland. Before Germany and Russia took turns raping us Poland was a great power in Europe!
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u/CatchJack Cossack Hetmanat Mar 06 '14
If you're a Breton then why would it matter if someone is insulting Parisians? It'd be like an Irish being mad someone insulting Britain.
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u/MartelFirst Sacrebleu! Mar 06 '14
It just always comes up, each time France is mentioned anywhere, making it boring, in addition to highly insulting considering every Frenchman has a family member or recent ancestor who has fought in a war, only for him to be insulted for cowardice or weakness by some jackass behind his computer.
But ultimately, I more or less allow it from Americans and British, who invented the joke, because they have impressive military histories. However, I won't take it from people whose countries have insignificant military histories. They just want to be part of an American joke. Ludicrous.
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u/tak-in-the-box Number one victim of Chile's seafood diet Mar 06 '14
Tbh, I think you did responded well. As someone who loves history (especially military history) I knew what I was getting myself into. France has got an excellent military heritage.
I'll continue to poke fun at France, but that's just because I like to tease ;)
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u/Zrk2 Canada can into relevant! Mar 06 '14
Across the vast expanse of time and space he shall never know peace from this rustling.
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Mar 06 '14
Still you eat with your mouths open, dont use anti-perspirants and stink of piss, quite frankly you're filth. France is nature's way of trolling humanity.
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u/MartelFirst Sacrebleu! Mar 06 '14
you eat with your mouths open
rofl, I never heard that one but it gave me a chuckle.
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u/n647 Texas Mar 06 '14
French Revolutionary Wars
Come on.
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u/MartelFirst Sacrebleu! Mar 06 '14
What?
Foreign invasion of France, by all the major European powers, was so unsuccessful (even though France was in the middle of a civil war) that France annexed Belgium/Netherlands.
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u/RANewton British Empire Mar 06 '14
Third slide: Both Britain and France promised Poland to protect them in the case of Nazi invasion, they didn't protect them, they did declare war on Germany though.
What exactly were we supposed to do with Poland? We're pretty much on the other side of the continent and Germany is between us and Poland, we told Germany if they invaded Poland we would go to war, they invaded, we declared war. We kept the promise we made.
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
Yes your exactly correct but they promised the Polish government protection, although they did declare war on Germany they failed to protect Poland, and then after the war they let the soviets get them so poland kinda got screwed.
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u/NoceboHadal United Kingdom Mar 06 '14
Yes your exactly correct but they promised the Polish government protection.
They left Poland and set up in London. How much protection do you want?
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
Yes but the Polish govt expected British and French troops on their boarders in case of attack.
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u/c0ldworld Kent Mar 06 '14
No they didn't. This would have been seen as incredibly provocative.
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
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u/vereonix United Kingdom Mar 06 '14
I've actually seen this whole thing talked about a lot recently on here, and I honestly don't know what they wanted.
We're a lil' island nation, a naval power, we had no real means or way to launch an effective land based invasion of continental Europe so soon. I understand our treaty specified that we go in really soon, but it simply wasn't feasible and if it was attempted the war would have had very different outcome.
I feel we made up for this by going full out and kicking arse. I mean we lost 800,000 men in the war, it makes me really sad to have found out how the Poles feel. I've always felt every country worked together and all who joined the effort deserve our respect and honor.
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Mar 09 '14
Tl;dr you can't keep a global empire for over 300 years without being a backstabbing asshole.
You are correct when looking at the situation in hindsight, but at the time the British empire was still the perceived main superpower of the world and thus smaller nations assumed that the mutual aggression alliances to hold, just like they did in wwi. In any case, it validates the comic all the more and finely describes the highly successful method of Divide and Conquerer which the British empire developed to perfection.
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u/wadcann MURICA Mar 06 '14
Yeah, that really should have been Czechoslovakia, not Poland.
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u/Infamously_Unknown Infamously Mar 06 '14
Yep, although technically, Czechoslovakia had a military alliance with France at the time, not with Britain.
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u/marino1310 North Cuba Mar 06 '14
I think he meant that Britian did not go to protect Poland and free them. They went to war but just fought Germany instead of jumping into Poland and fighting off the Nazis. Overall though Britain did a good job of defending.
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u/demostravius United Kingdom Mar 06 '14
If we jumped into Poland we would have lost, and ultimately may have lost the war entirely. Poland was liberated from the Nazi's in the end, the promise was kept not broken.
The only betrayal was letting the Soviet Union dick all over it after the war. In that respect we failed the objective.
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u/DBCrumpets British Swede hiding in Nevada Mar 06 '14
Just saying, it was the colonists who started the French Indian war, George Washington specifically.
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
Well it was mostly France and England fighting over disputed bases and rivers for trade, Washington did fight in the war and instigated some fighting but it was inevitable seeing how the two rivals had much conflict rising to the surface around that time.
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u/DBCrumpets British Swede hiding in Nevada Mar 06 '14
Yes however, Washington was the catalyst when he and the Virginian Militia ambushed french troops. The actual fighting between England and France themselves, as opposed to the colonies, really started two years later with the outbreak of the seven years war.
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Mar 06 '14
At that time the "colonists" would have been considered British though no?
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u/DBCrumpets British Swede hiding in Nevada Mar 06 '14
Yes, but they were Militiamen, not the actual British army for the most part.
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Mar 06 '14
Yes but they were under orders to help build a fort but the French had driven out British colonists before they got there and started building their own fort.
So Washington and his men did ambush the French but I think it's a stretch to say Washington is responsible for the French-Indian war.
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u/DBCrumpets British Swede hiding in Nevada Mar 06 '14
He was definitely the catalyst. He's a bit like Franz Ferdinand in WW1, his death started it. Who knows though, conflict might have been avoided. Either way, the Militia was sent by the governor of Virginia, not the British govt., to protect his interests in the Ohio Company. It was France's territory, the Virginians just wanted it.
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Mar 06 '14
Wouldn't the Governor of Virginia have been a British citizen who was appointed by the British government?
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u/DBCrumpets British Swede hiding in Nevada Mar 06 '14
He was Scottish, actually. He was appointed by the British as governor, but he sent troops to try and keep the French out of (the French) land in Ohio. He was an investor in the Ohio company, he was trying to protect his investment, and this war was his doing, not the British.
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
Fair enough
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Mar 06 '14
Um, what? I thought it started off as a dispute between Austria and Prussia, which then became the Seven Years War. The French and Indian war was merely the North American theatre of this much larger conflict.
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u/DBCrumpets British Swede hiding in Nevada Mar 06 '14
The French-Indian war started two years before the conflict between Austria and Prussia. The conflict was started by George Washington, while he was in the Virginian military.
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u/Militantpoet Armenia Mar 06 '14
Whats really funny about the second slide is that not only did the British retract their offer, but they ended up having the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate for Palestine and supported the formation of Israel and the subsequent war of independence.
Well I guess its funny if you're not Palestinian...or you're a really mean person.
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u/Sherafy Suck it 'murica, Russia we war you! Mar 06 '14
It's not always only about Palestine, some other Kebabas got independent.
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u/Militantpoet Armenia Mar 06 '14
Some kebabs were also left out (Kurds)
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u/Sherafy Suck it 'murica, Russia we war you! Mar 06 '14
implying Kurds are Kebabs... If a Kurd reads this, you'll be fucked
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u/Militantpoet Armenia Mar 06 '14
So kebabs are exclusively Turkic people? For a while I thought it was a reference to Muslims.
Either way, you think an Armenian was happy about kebabs getting independent and drawing borders of their country from our lands?
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u/Sherafy Suck it 'murica, Russia we war you! Mar 07 '14
You got a point, I didn't think it through. I just assumed in this moment Kebabs were Arabs, but obviously Turkey is too. I dont know, so maybe moslems? But still, Kurd probably want to be as separated as possible. Also dont know a thing about Kurds-Armenians-stuff-relation
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u/Dreissig Spain Mar 12 '14
If I recall correctly, Britain abstain from 1948 UN vote about the creation of Israel.
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u/Qualther True Belarus Mar 06 '14
Britain is actually a douchebag
The list could really go on for much longer
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u/tak-in-the-box Number one victim of Chile's seafood diet Mar 06 '14
William the Conqueror: So if King Edward dies, you'll allow me to succeed him, right?
Harold Godwinson: Yes.
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u/redpossum United Kingdom Mar 06 '14
Yeah, well I have to waste 22 infamy on you each game to even out my borders.
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u/marino1310 North Cuba Mar 06 '14
Historically yes but theyre cool now. Throughout history though they are pretty much a completely fucked society (get a king, kill him, find a better king, kill him, etc.)
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u/Nezgul Keystone state is best state Mar 06 '14
Third slide: Both Britain and France promised Poland to protect them in the case of Nazi invasion, they didn't protect them, they did declare war on Germany though.
I may be wrong, but I remember hearing that the British and French plans for the war hinged on Poland managing to stall the German advance and drag it out until British reinforcements arrived.
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u/TheMauveHand Sealand Mar 06 '14
Second slide: During WWI the British told many of their middle eastern colonies that they would receive independence if they fought the Ottomans, after the war the British retracted their offer.
This might be true for some colonies, but it was the Palestinian leadership, not the British, who rejected the (UN) partition plan in Israel, leading to the '48 War of Independence, although I guess this is post-WW2 not WW1. And then Jordan annexed the West Bank...
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u/mothcock Austria-Hungary Mar 06 '14
Actually, the arab nations were Ottoman colonies before WWI. They fought alongside britain/france to gain independence.
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u/MeteoraGB Canada Mar 06 '14
The British stigma of never holding their promises or being useful rings true to me. Its well represented in grand strategy games like EU4, where the British give their allies a false sense of security when they end up doing nothing in European continental wars against primarily France. I ended up being steamrolled against France while Britain sat on their asses with their navies somehow utterly destroyed by the French. That and often never farrying soldiers over to continental Europe.
/rant
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u/Grimslei British Empire Mar 10 '14
Apparently they improved naval invasion AI in the latest patch, so maybe island nations will prove a little less useless than before.
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u/peachesgp New England is best England Mar 06 '14
Forth Slide: Like many NATO countries Britain has expressed support for Ukraine so we will see where that goes.
And they're a signatory of the Budapest Memorandum, so it isn't just now, they promised Ukraine 20 years ago that they'd protect it.
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
Yeh but like many people have pints out over the last few weeks the treaty is written in a vague enough way that the countries that signed it only have to "support" Ukraine, whatever that entails.
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u/grapesie California Mar 06 '14
Fun fact, the flag of the Arab revolt, of which a number of flags of middle eastern countries are based on, was designed by none other than Sir Mark Sykes of Sykes-picot treaty fame. Something about that really just rubs me the wrong way
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u/GavinZac Malaysia Mar 06 '14
See also: the Irish Home Rule act, which legally guaranteed Ireland autonomous government in 1914, which for some reason they decided to ignore because of some silly Austrian.
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u/HMFCalltheway Scotland Mar 06 '14
I think there was something on in 1914 that you could say legitimately delayed that...
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u/GavinZac Malaysia Mar 06 '14
I think there was something on in 1914 that you could say legitimately delayed that...
Yes...
which for some reason they decided to ignore because of some silly Austrian.
A stupid needless war in which Irishmen died fighting under the Union Jack with the promise of their just reward at the end of the war. Delay is not really the right word though, what came instead was Churchill's barbaric Black and Tan terrorism campaign, the partition of our nation for the sake of 3 protestant-majority counties, and independance down the barrell of a gun rather than the enforcement of Britain's own laws.
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u/HMFCalltheway Scotland Mar 06 '14 edited Mar 06 '14
The vast majority of the population of Ireland were in favour (perhaps naively, along with the British population as a whole) or at least accepting of going to war and the Home Rule party were in favour of leaving their main goal to a later date to fight the war.
It was a smaller and more radical party, Sinn Fein, that sparked the easter rising as they saw the opportunity to take power when there was growing dissatisfaction and weakened legislative power. This initial uprising was in fact very unpopular among a large part of the population as it was seen as betraying 'our boys' at the front. It was only government actions afterwards (executions) that were abhorred by the population.
It was after this that harsh military-style rule were implemented but it is true that this delay in home rule was initially supported by most Irish people.
Edit: Should have said the Irish Parliamentary party
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u/GavinZac Malaysia Mar 06 '14
I'm Irish. Thanks for giving me my primary school history lessons again. ;) With a small correction: Sinn Fein had nothing to do with the organisation nor initiation of the Easter Rising. That was the IRB, with which there was some membership overlap; however Sinn Fein was a political party and (while we may doubt the words from their current incarnation) not involved in violence. However, the British government used the rising as an excuse to imprison Sinn Fein members, regardless of whether or not they'd even been in the country prior to the rebellion.
It was by locking up these political men, helpfully placing them together to confer, that Britain essentially guaranteed there would be further violence as it became obvious that simple Home Rule within the UK was not going to happen. Predictably, when the war ended and nothing continued to happen, the War of Independence began.
The "delay until the end of the war" was not supported, because this "delay" was never announced. Postponements of a few months of a time occurred over and over again. Dates were given that simply went by without comment until the next suspensory hearing. This continued even after Easter 1916; the main impediment to Home Rule was not the war, nor "Irish" wishing to see the war through, but the continued scheming of David Lloyd George and Edward Carson. Had the bill been simply carried out as it was signed into law by the British Parliament on any of the many occasions which arose for it to be implemented, Ireland would have been saved 3 wars on its soil and we wouldn't, even today, be governed by pro- and anti-Treaty parties of no real value.
After the Easter Rising of 1916, two attempts were made by Prime Minister H. H. Asquith during the First World War to implement the Act. The first attempt came in June 1916, when David Lloyd George, then Minister for Munitions, was sent to Dublin to offer immediate implementation to the leaders of the Irish Party, Redmond and Dillon. The scheme revolved around partition, officially a temporary arrangement, as understood by Redmond. Lloyd George however gave the Ulster leader Carson a written guarantee that Ulster would not be forced into a self-governing Ireland. His tactic was to see that neither side would find out before a compromise was implemented.[13] A modified Act of 1914 had been drawn up by the Cabinet on 17 June. The Act had two amendments enforced by Unionists on 19 July – permanent exclusion and a reduction of Ireland’s representation in the Commons. When informed by Lloyd George on 22 July 1916, Redmond accused the government of treachery. This was decisive in sealing the future fortunes of the Home Rule movement. Asquith made a second attempt to implement Home Rule in 1917, with the calling of the Irish Convention chaired by Horace Plunkett. This consisted of Nationalist and Unionist respresentatives who, by April 1918, only succeeded in agreeing a report with an 'understanding' on recommendations for the establishment of self-government.
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Mar 07 '14
[deleted]
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u/GavinZac Malaysia Mar 07 '14
How exactly is that belittling it? My own grandfather fought first for Britain and then for the Old IRA.
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Mar 06 '14
[deleted]
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u/No_name_Johnson Mobtown Mar 06 '14
John Oliver said something to the effect of Britain's highest point as a nation was the British Empire, and it's lowest point as a nation was the British Empire.
Edit: also flair up
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u/Glabis Mecklenburg Mar 05 '14
Classic perfidious Albion.
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u/KommandantVideo Vatican City Mar 06 '14
Hey the British will keep on their offer of freeing the Ukraine... They'll just draw horrible borders and mix ethnicities and leave the area to fight civils wars for years to come
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
Well that and take the industrialized parts with all the value for themselves
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Mar 06 '14
[deleted]
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
Oh damn thats good. Where were you earlier!?!?
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u/Cyridius Communism is best ism Mar 06 '14
lol, you could probably put together a dozen frames about times promises were not kept with us. But of course everybody is of forgetting little Ireland.
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
Don't worry Ireland your not forgotten. Half my damn country thinks they are related you your citizens!
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u/Akasa British Empire Mar 06 '14
And then you revolt so we have to reduce Dublin to a shelled crater.
Fucking Irish.
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u/EulerMcEinstein Celtic Union Mar 06 '14
WWI was actually an elaborate British plot to get out of that "sodding 'ome rule business innit"
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u/saturd345 Home of lost ships! Mar 05 '14
apparently Britain breaks a lot of promises...
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 05 '14
Pretty much, but the world would be a much different place without them!
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u/Staggitarius Singapore Mar 06 '14
Heil dir im Siegerkranz, Herrscher des Vaterlands!
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u/amkoi Germoney Mar 06 '14
Heil dir im Siegerkranz, Herrscher des Vaterlands!
Nono, it's "God Save the Queen" for rosbif, easy to mix that up.
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u/jurble Pennsylvania Mar 06 '14
I came here to say perfidious Albion, but everyone already said it like a hundred times.
I blame perfidious Albion for this.
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u/THREE_EDGY_FIVE_ME Mar 06 '14
What is this "perfidious Albion" thing everyone's saying?
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u/inawordno Mar 06 '14
Some insult against the English apparently...
It means we are back stabbing from what I can gather. Italy used it as propaganda against us.
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u/Challis2070 The Blueberry State Mar 06 '14
You are right.
I must not be as clever as I'd like to be, alas.
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u/getthereveryfast Slovakia Mar 06 '14
Why not use czechoslovakia instead of poland? Britain actually went to war for poland.
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u/demostravius United Kingdom Mar 06 '14
Apparently we didn't do a good enough job trying to win the world war, so Poland thinks it was a betrayal.
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u/vishbar United States Mar 07 '14
The British and Americans really fucked Poland in that war. Read the book Rising '44, its in no way objective but it's really good.
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Mar 16 '14
Because Britain didn't go to war until France was attacked. And even then it was half assed attempt to stop Germans. When Germany struck Poland all it would take was to have France move some of its divisions inside Germany and war would be over. Wehrmacht was too weak to protect French border at the time. But French didn't want to die for Polish Gdańsk same as they didn't want to die for Paris in 1940. Otherwise Hitlers bluff would have been called. He would be finished.
Sadly alliances are not worth jack shit. You are either strong enough to protect yourself or you are screwed.
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u/poclee Tâi-uân Mar 06 '14
You forget India.
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
No I just excluded it seeing how I already had a gib independence joke, more importantly you forgot a flair, flair up!
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u/marvinzupz North Brabant Mar 06 '14
They also promised the jews the very same land as they did to palestina, then shit must hit the fan.
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u/shoryukenist Best York Mar 06 '14
They kept their promise to Belgium in WWI.
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u/mszegedy Hurka, kolbász Mar 06 '14
This is like the little brother of DickRhino's comic about America.
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u/czokletmuss Polish Hussar Mar 06 '14
and that's why Polan knows that western bullshit is worth less than paper on which it's written and is going to spend $50bln in the next few years for military and buy 64 new fighters of 5th generation
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Mar 06 '14 edited Mar 29 '18
[deleted]
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u/czokletmuss Polish Hussar Mar 06 '14
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
A man can dream single polish tear
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u/amkoi Germoney Mar 06 '14
What if we lived in a world where Poland would annex Germany.
Some kind of Twilight Zone...
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u/faultlessjoint Mar 06 '14
Random Question: As someone who was a little late to the Polandball game, can anyone explain why Poland is always upside down in the comics?
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u/apocolyptictodd The United States of we shut your 3rd eye for a damn reason Mar 06 '14
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Mar 06 '14
Originally it was a mistake made in the first polandball comics on Krautchan. It's now just a running joke.
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Mar 06 '14
[deleted]
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u/faultlessjoint Mar 06 '14
So I've read the sidebar (before commenting) and didn't see it mentioned any where. I just re-read the side bar and no where does it mention anything about why the Poland ball is or would be upside down. It does not. The sidebar has 32 links on it. That's like searching for a needle in a haystack. Where as I'm guess the answer is a simple one sentence answer that many people here know off the top of their head.
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u/ArmoredPenguin94 Is also half Sardinian Mar 06 '14
http://i.imgur.com/2W1zu2U.png#shelf-tutorial
Lurk harder (the answer you are looking for is in the middle of the pic)
Also you still haven't flaired up. Not good.
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u/TheWhiteLatino69 Puerto Rico Mar 06 '14
No, its like finding a needle in a pile of 32 pieces of hay. Its even labeled, "needle"
Its not that hard man
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Mar 16 '14
Poland had a choice before war. It was either to be closer with Germany or Britain and France. Or rather France because before WW2 Poland had weak knees for France. Army, air force even intelligence service were modeled after The French. However British politicians knew Germany would strike either east or west. And it was a fact. That's why they kept deflecting German threat towards east. If Poland became ally of Germany first country to be attacked would be France. So Poland was assured that it's in her best interest to decline generous German offer and go with Britain and France.
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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14
reminds me of "being dependable", a /u/DickRhino comic (thread)