Good point Snowy.

Whichever political side you are on the soldiers are sent to do their bit, which quite often involves their death or maiming. The Generals don't like it when something like this happens.....



Christmas Eve in 1914
Stars were burning, burning bright
And all along the Western Front
Guns were lying still and quiet.
Men lay dozing in the trenches,
In the cold and in the dark,
And far away behind the lines
A village dog began to bark.

Some lay thinking of their families,
Some sang songs while others were quiet
Rolling fags and playing brag
To while away that Christmas night.
But as they watched the German trenches
Something moved in No Man's Land
And through the dark came a soldier
Carrying a white flag in his hand.

Then from both sides men came running,
Crossing into No Man's Land,
Through the barbed-wire, mud and shell holes,
Shyly stood there shaking hands.
Fritz brought out cigars and brandy,
Tommy brought corned beef and fags,
Stood there talking, singing, laughing,
As the moon shone on No Man's Land.

Christmas Day we all played football
In the mud of No Man's Land;
Tommy brought some Christmas pudding,
Fritz brought out a German band.
When they beat us at football
We shared out all the grub and drink
And Fritz showed me a faded photo
Of a dark-haired girl back in Berlin.

For four days after no one fired,
Not one shot disturbed the night,
For old Fritz and Tommy Atkins
Both had lost the will to fight.
So they withdrew us from the trenches,
Sent us far behind the lines,
Sent fresh troops to take our places
And told the guns "Prepare to fire".

And next night in 1914
Flares were burning, burning bright;
The message came along the trenches
Over the top we're going tonight.
And the men stood waiting in the trenches,
Looking out across our football park,
And all along the Western Front
The Christian guns began to bark.


There are many who will tell you that this never happened or that if it did it was wildly exaggerated, but there are so many accounts of the incident in writings of the time that only the wilfully blind would doubt the truth.
The First World War has dominated my imagination since I was a child. The stupidity of all wars was here made doubly stupid by the ineptitude of leaders who were prepared to see men die in millions in the mud, facing each other across a few hundred yards of barbed-wire and shell holes. Two great industrial nations had strutted on the stage of Europe striking warlike postures for so long that when a crazed student assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo it was too late for the fools to back down. And so the whole crazy steamroller got under way, supported as ever by the profiteers, the racketeers and the arms manufacturers.
Between 1914 and 1918 a whole generation was killed, gassed and maimed. Anzac troops were slaughtered at Gallipoli, Sikhs were blown to pieces on the Somme, Canadians were massacred at Verdun, Americans shot to bits at Passchendaele, volunteers from both the north and south of Ireland were killed in their thousands. And boys from villages and towns in every comer of England, Scotland and Wales were waved off at the station by mothers, wives and sweethearts never to retum, and if they did they were often mutilated, gassed or shell-shocked so that their lives were ruined.
When you see the old men at the Remembrance Day services it's difficult to see them as the sixteen-year-old boys who lied about their age so that they could join with their pals in the Great Patriotic War. Like all wars, it produced heroism and courage on an incredible scale. While the fat brigadiers and generals were safe behind the lines, VCs and MCs were won by young boys and men facing the most unbelievable horrors.
The war produced an outpouring of literature, poems, novels and plays. The poems of Wilfred Owen with their quiet unsentimental concern that the truth be told contrast greatly with all the jingoistic trollop that was appearing in the Boy's Own paper and Young England. While the comfortable warmongers safe at home were hurrying the young men on to the troop trains, Owen was telling it like it was.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we fumed our backs
And towards the distant rest began to trudge.

The Great War for Civilisation brought forth a whole body of literature from the poetry of men like Isaac Rosenberg, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen to the accounts of life at the front such as Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That and Henry Williamson's The Patriot's Progress. But there was a sub-literature of the war, too, diaries and journals that were kept by the ordinary footsloggers and Old Contemptibles. They give a picture of life in the trenches from the viewpoint of the common soldier. These diaries and journals are tremendously valuable for their sheer immediacy and for the light they throw on the Old Sweats' way of life and death in the trenches. Three such journals that are well worth reading are Old Soldiers Never Die by Frank Richards, The Bells of Hell by Eric Hiscock and Tom Green's Joumal, to be found in the Imperial War Museum (when, oh when are we going to have a peace museum?).
The story of the first Christmas of 1914 that inspired me to write the song was one I found in Frank Richards's book. The generals denied that it ever happened, fearful that the desire for peace might spread like an epidemic along the trenches, but the diaries and journals of the men who were there and the photographs that were taken on that historic occasion when men said 'no' to war and embraced their enemy prove beyond doubt that it did indeed happen.

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I still think she was a disaster.

According to Wiki (so it's got to be true) her favorite record

the irony.

Bollocks!

Wiki
"Only You", their debut single, was the UK Christmas number one in 1983 spending a total of five weeks at the top, and also doing well around Europe and in Canada, where it hit #17 in the spring of 1984. Despite the radical Socialist politics of The Flying Pickets then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher proclaimed to much amusement that it was her favourite record. [2]

2, Anderson, D. (1991) 'Bums on Seats: Parties, Art, and Politics in London's East End' TDR vol. 35 (1) p.55.

I think you'll find it was the Argentinians who did that, you can't invade your own territory. Spare us the student union debating society theory of geo-political machinations, I can get the same view from an old episode of 'The Young Ones' when Rick is spouting off about Thatch, it's just become a tiresome cliche for all those who let some Dave Spart clone teacher/lecturer/shop steward who used their heads as a waste paper basket for their tiresome grudges.

My post was probably changed and you know what I meant anyway. She sent the troops to the Falklands to fight for a piece of land we didn't even know we owned and it won her the election, which was her aim.

This has to be a complete wind up or OO has forgotten to put his brain cell in.

Just for the record; the Union flag flew over Stanley until the Argies jackboots arrived. As for what it was really about, look up a guy called Major Patricio Dowling, a rabid anti British torturer of Irish Argentine extraction who utilised his well practiced interrogation skills on British people in the Falklands.

Sorry, you didn't know we owned, I was well aware of the fact... what would you have advocated, meaningful discussions with the corn beef cowboys?

On the subject of Dowling and his ilk, take a look at this website, http://www.yendor.com/vanished/junta.html

These are the people who led the invasion of the Falkland Islands and the occupation of 2000 odd British people.

Fact is, if anyone 'invaded' the Falklands to win an election it was Galtieri, but let's not let the facts get in the way of a good old political grudge.

"Major Patricio Dowling, an Argentine of Irish origin who hated all things British, became the chief of police. He frequently over-stepped his authority, ignoring instructions to treat the islanders with respect, and quickly became known throughout the islands for his tendency to resort to violence. Dowling imposed a regime of arbitrary house searches, arrests and questioning. His actions came to the attention of Comodoro Carlos Bloomer-Reeve who recommended to Brigadier-General Menéndez that he be removed and he was subsequently sent back to the mainland in disgrace.

Comodoro Carlos Bloomer-Reeve in conjunction with Major Barry Hussey were instrumental in protecting the Falkland Islanders and avoiding conflict with the Argentine military. Bloomer-Reeve had previously lived on the islands when he ran the LADE operation in Stanley and had great affection for the islands. Despite their political differences, the humanity and moral courage of both men earned them the enduring respect and affection of many islanders

No wholesale confiscation of private property occurred during the occupation (all goods obtained from the Islanders were paid for), but had the Islanders refused to sell, the goods in question would have been taken anyway, as is normal in military situations. However, Argentine officers did expropriate civilian property at Goose Green following the detention of the civilian population, although they severely punished any conscripts that did the same.

There was no widespread abuse of the population; indeed after the war it was found that even the Islanders' personal food supplies and stocks of alcohol were untouched, and Brigadier-General Menéndez, the Argentine governor of the Islands, had made it clear from the start that he would not engage in any combat in Stanley itself. Private Santiago Carrizo of the 3rd Regiment described how a platoon commander ordered them to take up positions in the houses and "if a Kelper resists, shoot him", but the entire company did nothing of the kind."

Seems to me Dowling did wrong and was despatched by the Junta as a result. And it also appears the troops acted with some measure of respect.

regardless of how they behaved, they should not have been there and were not entitled to be there.

"he did wrong" a bit of an understatement that. He tortured British children for fuck sake!!

As for Bloomer Reeve and Carlos Busser, perfectly honourable blokes who I had no problem shaking hands with when I was in Buenos Aires a few years ago.

I found no evidence of that.

You were there to look were you? Didn't see you down there at the time!

One victim is a girl called Corina Goss. 9mm pistol in her mouth at four years old in an attempt to force information from her father. I've spent a few evenings at their house, Simon - her father - is still extremely traumatised. His loft is like the SBS armoury. (just in case they come back)

Well that is not very nice.

Which bit ?

All of it.

Seriously, Dowling is one of the few Argies that most islanders would kill without a second thought. I've heard of people travelling over to Argentina trying to track him down with exactly that intention. The ironic thing is, if his location was known they would be at the back of a long queue behind several thousand Argentines. What he did in the Falklands was nothing compared to what he did in his own country.

The thing is, you're not taught this stuff at school. You have a great knowledge on the subject for obvious reasons.

True, but there again not much of it is recorded. I never knew any of it myself until I went back in 2002. Mind you, it stands to reason that one of the most brutal regimes in post war history would not use kids gloves all the time. The Falkland Islanders were very very very fortunate that Bloomer Reeve and Carlos Busser were around at the time and not some of the more vicious Argie commanders.

Howay Irrelevant: stop taking the wind out of protesters' sails.

I think this is educational.

agreed, and also enlightening, hopefully.

Going sideways for a second, not completely off the topic but related.

With a very few exceptions, the entire country was behind the recovery of the islands at the time. Not because of Maggie and not because of oil but because British people and British territory had been violated. Historically, our military expeditions have been supported by Britain when we were kicking out invaders. With the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan we are in the uncomfortable position of being the invaders rather than booting them out.

I don't think its a coincidence that both wars are unpopular.

But it doesn't get away from the fact her politics at home were very unpopular and the war made her popular.

I agree unquestionably that she won the 82 election eiding in on the back of the Falklands victory. Thats a matter of historical fact. What I do not accept is that it was in her mind when he task force was planned, she was more worried about casualties. Don't forget this could so easily have backfired. Under every military theory that ever existed we had no chance of victory. Every other country expected us to get a kicking.

Fortunately, defeat never crossed our minds. Thats not bluster, it was always a matter of how long it would take us to win rather than if.

They reckon that beach landings are one of it not the most dangerous things for armed forces to undertake, never mind doing it thousands of miles from home and your nearest friendly bases.

OK admitting she won in '82 on the back of that victory, on whose back did she win in '87?

Eight years into her reign of terror she was still plebiscited by the British. How does that work then?

Labour's ineptitude?

To be 'plebiscited' surely she would have to have had the majority of the vote. The way that the British voting system works, the winner usually only has 40% or less of the total vote cast.

Yup. But as she got more than anyone else she was a hell of a lot more plebiscited than Labour.
Come on now - she must have been sussed out by then, surely.

Ssshhh, you'll upset the blinkered unwashed masses who think that she was sent by Satan.

Didn't they vote for her?

Maybe the Argies felt they had a right to invade considering the Falklands were taken by force by the British in 1833, mind it wasn't a smart move by the Argies considering it was inevitable we would send a rescue force across the seas to get them back.

One aspect of the war which maggie will always have blood on her hands for was the Belgrano, the ship which was heading out of the british imposed exlusion zone when it was sunk on thatchers orders.

You're obviously just out fishing aren't you.

Unless for some namby pamby reason you think that a fully armed battleship within spitting distance of our task force was?

It was retreating to be fair.

It had thrown it's weapons into the sea?

Or its rudder had broken and it was physically incapable of turning around again?

It was heading back to the Argentinian mainland, surely you don't kick a man when he is down , but I do remember the pro-conservative newspaper at the time announcing a headline of "GOTHCA" a sickening way to describe loss of over 300 lives.
Mind, the Argie government did announce some time later that it was an legitimate act of war, I guess that announcement was part of some deal thatcher demanded in the surrender of the falklands.

Any loss of life is unfortunate, however a fully armed enemy battleship capable of inflicting severe human and operational casualties is still fair game during a war even if it does happen to be facing the other way at the time.

Or would you rather the English papers were reporting about large numbers of dead British armed forces?

In 1994 the Argentine government conceded that the sinking of the Belgrano was "a legal act of war".

Yeah but it wasn't a threat was it, it was heading away Also Peru had put together a peace process which apparently had reached Thatcher before she gave orders for the sinking of the Belgrano, she did of course deny this!
Don't let your love of thatcher get in the way of the bad things she did to the country, you were probably not at the age to understand the evil bitch she really was!!!

Read this thread again and where do you find my love for Thatcher? I hated her. But it seems she did have her good points.

It was heading away? So just for clarity you are saying that it had dumped its weapons and couldn't possibly turn around?





An agreement had been signed, sealed and delivered or had been proposed?

I can just see the shit on the fan now, if the Belgrano had been allowed to sail away on that basis only for the Argies to reject any proposal, turn the ship around and wipe out our task force. The way that some people go on it is as though they would have preferred that to happen just so that they could really criticise the PM of the time.

Sorry, I was referring to Ripper