Comments by "TIKhistory" (@TheImperatorKnight) on "The Great War" channel.

  1. Another great episode! I'm glad you mentioned Józef Piłsudski. For anyone who doesn't know who he was - He played a decisive role after the war at the Battle of Warsaw in 1920. His counter-attack defeated the Soviet forces at the gates of the city and prevented Lenin's dreams of spreading revolution into Germany and the rest of Europe.
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  2. So why did Haig keep his job?
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  3. Once again, great episode! I'm glad you touched upon the alliances that were in place before the start of the war. It's worth mentioning that these alliances weren't set in stone. Incidents like Fashoda and the fact that Britain's excuse for aiding France was over the "scrap of paper" which was the Treaty of London (1839) proves that the war could have been completely different. France and England were long standing rivals. Had Anglo-German relations not soured due to the First and Second Moroccan Crisis and the building of the German fleet, Britain may have chosen not to sign the Entente Cordiale with France and could have stayed neutral as she had during the Franco-Prussian War. Equally, had the Entente Cordial not been signed, the Triple Entente may not have been. Arguably, had Germany not felt the need to launch a preemptive strike on France in the event of war with Russia, the war could have been confined to the East. But it was the Franco-Russian Alliance and the Triple Entente that caused them to come up with the Schlieffen Plan to attack France first, which then dragged Britain in also. It stands to reason that the set of shaky alliances developed prior to the war were the reason (or the excuse) that the war became so big so quickly.
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  4. Love that you revisited and answered a question from 2 years ago. Fantastic!
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  5. Great animations! Definite improvement
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  6. I've watched every episode so far, and every single one has been great. I can't wait until this series has finished and we can re-watch it all from start to finish. By my (extremely rough) calculations, I'm guessing this series will be around 2000 minutes long at completion!
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  7. I'm studying Rommel at the moment, and the reason Rommel was respected by the West after WW2 (according to books like "Rommel: the End of a Legend" ) was because they wanted to lionize a German general to justify German rearmament against the Soviets during the Cold War. Once the Cold War was over, the politics changed again and Rommel myth is now no longer needed. Now he's being linked back to the National Socialist regime. Politics...
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  8. Black Adder is a good series :) thanks for recommending Jomini, I'd not heard of him before.
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  9. Loved this episode! Would like to see more on small unit tactics like this
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  10. Thanks BigGuy (never thought I'd say that phrase). Been watching this channel since it started, although I'm more of a WW2 guy, as you probably already realise
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  11. The Great War excellent! Looking forward to it :)
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  12. Reggie Buffat He didn't support a coup against Hitler. "In reality, Erwin Rommel was not a member of the 20 July conspiracy, abhorred assassination, was only superficially connected with the anti-Hitler Resistance and, therefore, it is highly improbable that he would have actively aided the coup d'etaton 20 July if he had not been incapacitated." Rommel: A Reappraisal. Beckett goes on to explain that Rommel's alleged involvement in the plot came after the war and stems from two of Rommel's friends. And then, mainly from the one who was actively involved in the plot and therefore has a motivation to paint the picture that Rommel was involved too, since the plot was highly controversial in post-war Germany. Rommel sort-of knew some group was maybe trying to resist Hitler and end the war. But the evidence isn't conclusive as to how much he knew. Rommel was linked with the plot because the Gestapo had failed Hitler and desperately needed scapegoats. Von Kluge (Rommel's superior) was linked to it, but committed suicide before he could be tried, so Rommel got the blame too... even though he and Von Kluge didn't get on.
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  13. Reggie Buffat I'm glad you think so. We have a nice little discussion going on here :) You're possibly right though. As I said, I'm still reading up on it. What's interesting is that in "Field Marshal: Life and Death of Erwin Rommel" Butler comes to the conclusion that whatever evidence was presented to Hitler about Rommel must have been little because Hitler's initial reaction was "mild". If there had been more, he argues Hitler's response would have been far more swift. Instead, Butler says it only provided a pretext to what happened later. His house was under surveillance for weeks whilst others were being executed for the plot. Only in September did the Gestapo come for him. Butler argues that it was Rommel's increasing defeatism, his belief that the war should be over in 1944, and that he didn't know how to keep "his mouth shut", that lead directly to Hitler giving him the "choice" to take his own life, and not his alleged involvement in the July plot.
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