Naturally the pond was alert to the reptiles' coverage of the onion muncher this day … and there were plenty of photo opportunities …
The pond is a keen, devoted follower of the onion muncher, and a claim "Western front our win" and "Western front our victory" seemed entirely typical of his grasp of history … but when it got into it, the pond suspected that he might have been fitted up by click-bait trolling Oz reptiles ...
Well Australian forces did play a significant role in the western front, but that's hardly claiming the the western front as "our victory", which would be particularly foolish and egregious, given the number of other armies involved in the fighting …
The pond ploughed on ...
Well yes Amiens was a significant victory, and Monash played a significant role in the planning, even if, at the end …
Of course the Canadians tend to get more agitated about Vimy Ridge but Amiens was something of a joint venture.
That said, at the end of the day, the onion muncher might only be accused of aggrandising attention-seeking in his usual way.
His talk of Australia playing a disproportionate one, of punching above its weight, is canny, and it seems it was the reptiles who decided to turn that canny talk into the pure, undiluted, mindless blather and nonsense of "Western front our win" and "Western front our victory" …
And so to other matters troubling the reptiles this day.
The pond wonders whether it will ever pluck up the courage to endure nattering "Ned" rabbiting on about the first world war and "cultural appropriation of the past" …there are many sacrifices to be made, but is this the right one?
Dame Slap had joined the reptile horde, and turned on the corporates ...
But the pond reeled away wondering if the reptiles had joined a post-modernist, anarchist world where anything was permitted, including an uncapitalised letter after a question mark.
The pond is aware that this was a stylistic thing that was allowed way back when, but since when have the reptiles gone the full Queen Victoria and adopted this? apparently when preparing headers.
The pond is aware that there are some exceptions to the rule, as when the following sentence lacks a verb, but isn't 'first earn our trust' a sentence with a verb? who knows …
Meanwhile, there was considerable agitation about the dandruff gathering ways of the Donald …
On this day of days, suddenly he was elevated to the top of the digital page ...
It was simply too much for the reptiles to bear ...
And to think that the pond only a short time ago was feasting on WSJ yarns about how it was the dangerous elites that were the problem, and not the Donald ...
Chaotic, dysfunctional …
Some days the lizard Oz is beginning to sound like Fairfax, and all that redemptive talk of the Donald once again hits a rocky shore …
Stewart: "...the administration has embarrassed Australia and treated it like a second-hand ally"
ReplyDeleteSecond-hand ally ? What exactly does that mean - that maybe the USA bought a much used Australia cheaply from the British, perhaps ? Do any of us think the thickhead might actually have meant second-rank (or even maybe second-rate) ?
If so then perhaps the fact that Australia is, at best, a second-rank ally to he USA needs wider recognition. Does anybody really believe that, in a crisis, the USA would actually come to Australia's defence ?
Though it is kinda funny that more Americans have resettled in Australia (nearly 100,000 or so by now) than Australians have resettled in America. And that Australia is the only country in the world for which this 'more yanks here than us there' is true.
https://medium.com/migration-issues/why-americans-are-leaving-for-the-land-down-under-75bad6dfba39
Didn't the Bromancer recently laud the appointment of HH to Australia as a sign of the wisdom of the Trump administration and the high regard it held for the US-Australian relationship? Can't wait to read your rationalisation for the change in arrangements, Bro! No doubt he'll claim that we're bound to get a replacement who'll be even better than Harry - important figures will have assured him of that......
ReplyDeleteGB, since my post on that earlier thread seems to have disappeared into the ether, and since it's relevant to the onion muncher's comments about "our victory", you commented earlier regarding a turning point. Villers-Bretonneux was not it, as it merely confirmed the exhaustion of an offensive which has already run its course. Amiens was not it, either (though both were praiseworthy victories). This was. The French, with help from the Americans, the British and the Italians (but no Australians, so it probably didn't happen if you are a reptile), firstly stopped cold the German attack to break the French Army, and then counterattacked, destroying the last faint German hopes of victory. This was the point at which "if" became "when", three weeks before the victory at Amiens (which, like all victories, had many fathers - it was just as much Foch's, who proposed it in March while the Germans were still advancing). To paraphrase Churchill's comment about a Second World War battle - Before the Marne we never had a victory, after the Marne we never had a defeat.
ReplyDeleteAs to the endlessly repeated "black day of the German Army", that was a retrospective judgement, but in fact Ludendorff repeatedly used the phrase to describe reverses in the last six months of the war, some major, some fairly inconsequential. He was becoming increasingly unstable at this time, showing (in my inexpert judgement) symptoms of some sort of bipolar disorder, where he swung wildly between estimations even more pessimistic than Germany's actual (dire) position, to absurd overoptimism about their chances of hanging on, or even winning. Only the stability of his nominal boss, Hindenburg, stopped him from throwing in the towel on several occasions.
The muncher's estimation of Monash as "the best allied General of the Great War" is riveting, though I doubt he could name more than three or four of the literally hundreds encompassed by that sweeping bit of received wisdom. It might be true, but it is completely worthless, graced as it is by a lack of any actual knowledge of the subject. I can tell Haig from Haking, and both from Humbert, but I would not rush to such a definitive claim, despite Monash's considerable talents. As Pope says:
"There shallow drafts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again."
Yes, I do appreciate the perils of just a little learning. (The whole thing of the Dunning-Kruger Effect depends on it). And I think I will never be able to put in the effort to make a serious attempt to personally understand WWI and Monash's part in it. And the reptiles haven't, and won't, either which is why their 'understanding' is so visibly simplistic.
ReplyDeleteSo thanks for your input, FD.
But it was indeed a real war - for the first ever time millions of combatants involved over an extended period of widespread combat, and with great use of very deadly long range weaponry (amongst other things such as tanks).
However, it does remind me strongly of the so-called 'bell curve' and its universal applicability: the very capable and the totally ineffectual at opposite ends of the curve with most of us spread out somewhere in between. And not only 'average' in overall ability but also in respect of every single thing we do - even the brilliant can be stupid sometimes.
But eventually, I guess, the totality of Allied resources prevailed - aided, I expect, by naval blockade. Also aided and abetted, of course, by some at least competent leadership as exhibited by those you've mentioned. The 'bell curve' was satisfied once again.