Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Today I Found Out" channel.

@MrLeedebt You mean apart from the cigarettes supplied to servicemen on a daily basis in Ration packs, I assume? If you must make something up, at least make sure it can't be checked first.
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@ostrich67 What about Bengal? Surely you don't believe the nonsense put about by Indian Nationalist historians and the 'Churchill was to blame for everything since the extinction of the dinosaurs' brigade in the UK? Actually, the Bengal Famine had a number of causes, among which were the number of refugees from Japanese held areas, the inability to import food from those same areas, stockpiling by hoarders and, perhaps worst of all, the Bengal administration, which tried to minimise the crisis. The worst that could be said of Churchill was that he should have known what was taking place, but didn't. After all, in 1943, he had little else to worry about. You could also add the refusal of FDR to allow the transfer of merchant shipping, by the way. What is without dispute, except by those who choose to blame Churchill for everything since the Black Death, is that once he did find out, he transferred food distribution to the British Indian Army, and had grain convoys diverted from Australia to India. Seriously, 2.5 million Indians joined the Allied armed forces during WW2, without conscription. Was Churchill really going to risk driving them into open insurrection?
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@helenamcginty4920 Why are you making things up? My father served in 8th Army, and I took him to many Reunions after war. Montgomery was admired and indeed adored by these veterans. And this :- 'Montgomery went to Dover where my Dad was stationed when invasion was on the cards to give the soldiers a morale boosting talk. He dressed in his half this and half that mess of a uniform.' That is demonstrably an outright lie. Montgomery only began to wear his later distinctive garb after being appointed to command of 8th Army in August, 1942. Prior to that, every photograph of him shows him wearing the conventional military uniform of a Major-General/Lieutenant General of the period. 'After his speech Dad said soldiers were saying they weren't inclined to lay down their lives for the likes of him.' Odd, then, that many did? Seriously, if you must invent such claims, at least try to ensure that they are not checkable.
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@colinhunt4057 I doubt that the British government, or indeed the leaders of the Congress Party and the Muslim League, ever thought that a peaceful Partition was possible. Attlee had installed Mountbatten as Viceroy on 2 June, 1947, with instructions to end British involvement by mid August. The leader of the Muslim League, Muhammed Ali Jinnah, had already called for ‘direct action’ to create a Muslim state, in 1946. Partition was not the policy of the British, but the demand of those who became the leaders of India & Pakistan. Especially the latter.
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@susanbooth6793 Churchill's best known comment about Montgomery was ' In defeat, unbeatable: in victory, unbearable.'
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@colinhunt4057 You don't think Jinnah might have played a part?
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@susanbooth6793 So was mine. He thought the world of Churchill (and Montgomery, by the way), and isn't it odd how the supposed footage of Churchill being booed in North Africa has somehow, deviously, gone missing?
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@aunalisadikot9541 The Partition of Ireland was inevitable, because the majority, Protestant, population of the north simply would not accept becoming part of a united Ireland. Michael Collins was intelligent enough to accept this. The relationship between Winston Churchill and Michael Collins has often been characterised as one of mutual respect and rapport which significantly influenced Anglo-Irish relations. The Partition of India was not something sought by the British. It was a result of the activities of Muhammed Ali Jinnah, leader of The Muslim League, who refused to accept a united India under majority Hindu control.
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Churchill was out of office from early July, 1945, before the war had ended. Your claim, therefore, that ' Churchill was far too slow to bring the troops home for demob. He was despised at the end of the war. It took decades for the media to rebuild and reinstate his reputation' is either based on ignorance or intentional bias. Years to reinstate his reputation? What happened in 1951 then? Look it up.
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Actually, no he didn't. He was in London for the Blitz, and indeed for most of the war. Even his worst political opponents never doubted his personal courage, athough clearly ignoramuses like you do.
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Why do you people never look beyond 1945? At 1951, for example?
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He was born in 1874. Many of his opinions would not be appropriate today. The same might be said of Gandhi, who believed Africans to be an inferior form of human.
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'BTW you fail to mention that Churchill did not merely ask his general staff to draw up plans to defeat any Sovirt incursion, but to actually launch an unprovoked attack on Soviet forces, together with rearmed Nazi troops.' As it wasn't true, it was wise not to mention it. Operation Unthinkable was a staff study of the likely result of a war with the Soviet Union, and reached the obvious conclusion. Moreover, where did you get this fantasy about re-arming German troops? Not confusing Churchill with George Patton, are you?
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'he brought asiatic communist dictatorship into Europe.' Did he? You don't think Uncle Joe might have played a more significant role in that?
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@kasegiyabu5030 So, the voters who voted Conservative in 1951 did not know that Churchill was their leader. Is that what you are saying?
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Oh dear. Another comment by an intellectual. Full of reasoned agument.
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You do know that they were still dead in 1951, when he was re-elected?
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'The British people were voting for the party that promised a new start with the peace.' Perhaps they did, but how would you explain 1951?
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@pshehan1 The Liberal vote. Why do you think most of it went to the Tories? Why do you think is stayed there for 13 years? Moreover, why did these people turn away from Labour so quickly.
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@pshehan1 Didn't you say? 'The British people were voting for the party that promised a new start with the peace.' Seems you are moving the goal posts. Or even changing the game. You are aware that there was a Tory government for 13 years thereafter, I suppose?
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@pshehan1 There was a Tory Government for 13 years after 1951, which was what I wrote. Certainly there was a general belief in 1945 that the future was with Labour, and that Churchill was a fine war leader but not the man to supervise the posr war reconstruction of Britain. The Labour campaign (Cheer Churchill, Vote Labour) was a masterstroke in this regard. However, it seems after five years Shangri-La was as far away as ever. By the way, the last time a party was elected with over 50% of the popular vote was in 1931.
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@pshehan1 Actually, little chap, I explained why Labour won in 1945, and then pointed out how quickly this soured. Perhaps you disregard comments with which you disagree. If you cannot understand that the 1945 election cannot be regarded as an event taken in isolation, then I hope you never try to debate anything publicly.
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@pshehan1 'My public debating skills are good enough to present scientific arguments in talks at international scientific conferences and answer questions from the floor and in written form my presentation of an argument good enough to have had dozens of papers published in the peer reviewed scientific literature.' How absolutely wonderful for you! I have a First in Modern History, an an active Naval Historian, and have also spoken at conferences and had numerous books and articles published. I am two inches taller, by the way. I suspect that you would have come off second best in any line out.
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How did Clem. serve in Gallipoli fot 'several years?' The campaign lasted eleven months. Churchill served at Omdurman, in the Boer War, and as a battalion commander on the Western Front. How is this relevant to either of them?
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It sounds like the left has taken over your educational system as effectively as it has the British one.
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@suekennedy1595 No, it wasn't. The Russians had approached Herbert Kitchener asking for British help to relieve the threat from the Ottoman Empire on their Southern Flank, Kitchener discussed the request with the First Lord of the Admiralty, and Churchill proposed using the Royal Navy to attack Turkey. The theory behind this was :- 1). It was a means of forcing Turkey out of the war, and largely avoiding the unfolding carnage on the Western Front. 2). It would answer Russian concerns. 3). It might influence neutral Eastern European states to commit to the war, against the Central Powers, and thus put military pressure on the Hapsburg Empire. Churchill argued the case with Asquith, who authorised the operation. After that, the planning and execution was the responsibility of Anglo-French military & naval planners who, frankly, fouled up the whole thing. Someone needed to take the blame, and Churchill was a convenient scapegoat, as of course that could not be Asquith. David Lloyd George was well aware of this, and brought Churchill back into government as soon as he replaced Asquith in December, 1916. Ironically, Mustafa Kemal (Kemal Ataturk) was later, after the war, to say that the Ottoman government was on the verge of collapse, and would probably have done so if the naval pressure had continued a little longer.
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@veenamishra8950 Odd, then, that 2.5 million Indians, without the threat of conscription, joined the Allied cause and fought so gallantly in North Africa, Italy, and Burma, isn't it?
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The government in WW2 was a Coalition. The Government from July 1945 was a Labour one.
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My daughter has just finished at secondary school, before going on to university. The sum total of her teaching about what was laughingly called 'history' consisted of The Depression, Roosevelt's New Deal, Evacuation of Children in WW2, and the Vietnam War. This was at an English school, by the way. 'The American Revolution?' Most kids leaving school in the UK today have no knowledge of any history at all.
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When do you think Churchill ever sent tanks to quell a strike in Scotland? Very imaginative.
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@jon-paulfilkins7820 I have seen the famous photograph of a tank confronting demonstrators in George Square in January, 1919. Which is actually a photograph of a tank ( named 'Julian' I believe) at a fundraising event in 'Tank Week' of January, 1918, however. This event seems to have acquired the same mythic status as the (imaginary) use of troops at Tonypandy. Try reading the .Edinburgh University Press article, “There’s a lot of mythology about these events”: unreliable narrators of the Battle of George Square' of 24 Febrduay, 24, 2020, for a brief description of what actually happened. You might also read 'Mythologies 2: ‘Churchill sent English troops and tanks into George Square, Glasgow, in 1919, to crush a strike / stop a revolution’ Written by Gordon Barclay on 12 January 2021. Perhaps the Demon Churchill was also Jack the Ripper as a teenager?
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Er, 1951?
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@Theactivepsychos Very goos. 1951 was six years after 1945. But what happened after 1951? Were Labour immediately re-elected? Didn't you, in defiance of facts, just write 'No way was a Tory candidate getting in with those feelings rife' or am I wrong?
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Care to comment on 1951, then?
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@dalebrown325 Things which never existed often go missing, at least in the minds of some.
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Explain 1951, please.
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Twice, actually. Both on matters of principle.
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You do know that they promptly brought him back in 1951, do you?
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Define 'non combative citizen.' Explain how a civilian who helps to make a tank, ship, aircraft, or the weapons any of these use, or even helps grow the food that the military consumes, is any less of a combatant than the men who actually used the weapons. The reality is that, since around 1900, the idea of 'non combative citizen' has ceased to exist.
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