History Forum / General / General Topics / May 2004

For all you cats over in soc.culture.german and soc.history, let me explain:

Tony Gaza, who just posted the above message as "choral reef", just got his a.s
handed to him on at his home group of rec.arts.movies.past-films, so now he's
decided to go back to his holding pattern of asking idiotic questions and
cross-posting them to r.a.m.p-f. Do a search on Google Groups for
"Gaza-Spotting" and you'll find more than you ever wanted, or cared, to know.

Kevin "Hints From Heloise" Cogliano

Why would he be presented as evil?  The French were the ones that
declared war on Germany and caused the Franco-Prusian war.  The French
had for centuries conducted a foreign policy of diplomacy, intrique
and warfare designed to keep the Germans states divided, poor and
themseleves the big Gorilla.   Under Napoleon and the Jocobins they
invaded Germany on the usual pretext of "liberating" it while
plundering, raping and murdering their way through the German states.
(Beethoven removed the dedication of the 9th Symphony when he found
out what they were really like).  The wars actualy started by Bismarck
killed only around 1000 people.

Even Bismarck was more bark than bite.  In all the wars (and he had
some real threats to deal with) that he started perhaps only 800 to at
most 2000 people died.  (I've read his Biography).  Indeed he
blustered to AVOID war.

Here is a proof:
Dealing in Hate: The development of anti-German propaganda

http://64.143.9.197/books/connors/dealinginhate.html

It has been estimated that there were "about twenty-six hundred
important battles involving European states" in the 460 years between
1480 and 1940. Of these, France participated in forty-seven percent,
"Germany (Prussia)" in twenty-five percent, and England and Russia in
twenty-two percent each.6 The Prussian record can hardly be described
as uniquely warlike on the basis of such evidence! It might also be
added that geographic factors, like Britain's insular position and
Russia's remoteness from the mainstream of European history during the
period, doubtless helped considerably to reduce their percentage of
involvement.

Professor Quincy Wright offers this further statistical evidence for
the same period, that is, 1480-1940:

Of the 278 wars involving European states during this period, the
percentage of participation by the principal states was: England, 28;
France, 26; Spain, 23; Russia, 22; Austria, 19; Turkey, 15; Poland,
11; Sweden, 9; Netherlands, 8; Germany (Prussia), 8; Italy
(Savoy-Sardinia), 9; and Denmark, 7.7

In the circumstances, one is compelled to assent to Dr. Wright's
conclusion that "attribution of a persistently warlike character to
certain states ... seems not to have been based upon a comparison of
any objective criteria of warlikeness."8

These are some of Bismark's sayings:

1 The Herzegovina question is not worth the bones of a Pomeranian
Soldier.
 [Fr., L'affaire Herzegovinienne ne vaut pas les os d'un fusilier
pomeranien.]
     - [War]

2 some damn fool thing in the Balkans
[his prediction of what would ignite the next major European
war]

3 "Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying
on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war."

4 Beware of sentimental alliances where the consciousness of good
deeds is the only compensation for noble sacrifices.
[Otto von Bismarck, Bismarck and the German Empire by Erich Eyck]

5 "When you want to fool the world, tell the truth."
-Otto Von Bismarck

6 "Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially
denied."
-Otto Von Bismarck

7 When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.

8 People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an
election.
-Otto von Bismarck

9 Never believe in anything until it has been officially denied.

10 You see things; and you say, "Why"; But I dream things that never
were; and I say, "Why not?"
(obviously plagiarised by Kennedy)

*PLONK*