Let's Put Cliffs of Dover in Context.
 

The Battle of Britain was the first defeat of Hitler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq_Rs...eature=related

This is not just a game.

As Churchill said in 1940:

'We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be...

We shall fight on the beaches,

We shall fight on the landing grounds,

We shall fight in the fields and in the streets,

We shall fight in the hills,

We shall never surrender'.




Just a thought,
MB_Avro.

'And if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle. Until, in God's good time, the New World, with all it's power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.'

Avro, you're worse than me mate. :)

http://imageshack.us/a/img822/4434/2...5image0150.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img717/7036/unionjack2.jpg

Cheers from the New World.

First, as is obvious in this speech, Winston consumed at least a bottle of whiskey per day in his entire adult life. The man was never sober. And secondly he never fought for freedom and liberty of mankind in the world, he fought for the British Crown and the tyranny of its dominions. After the war they had to fight to free themselves from the Britt's at a great cost in human life's.
Viking

And most of those countries turned into hell holes. :eek:

Any discussion of this subject absent John H. Mather MD, who has spent a decade researching Churchill's medical history, will be only that - a discussion. But here is a summary of what we know and why we know it.

Most historians reject the commonly held belief that Churchill was an abuser of alcohol. Perhaps "abuser" is a too broad a word. Professor Warren Kimball of Rutgers, editor of the WSC-FDR correspondence and several erudite books on the two leaders, maintains that Churchill was not an alcoholic -"no alcoholic could drink that much!"- but "alcohol dependent," citing his occasional glass of hock with his breakfast(!) and his heavy imbibing at mealtimes. A doctor attending him after he was knocked down by a car New York in 1931, Otto C. Pickhardt, actually issued a medical note that Churchill's convalescence "necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits especially at mealtimes," specifying 250 cc per day as the minimum (FH 101:51). Still, if he were truly dependent, it seems he would have had a hard time winning his 1936 bet with Rothermere that he could abstain from hard spirits for a year (FH 108:24) - which apparently he did.

The story of what his daughter calls the "Papa Cocktail" (a smidgen of Johnnie Walker covering the bottom of a tumbler, which was then filled with water and sipped throughout the morning), is confirmed by so many observers that it could hardly be untrue. WSC's observation that he learned this habit as a young man in India and South Africa (in My Early Life) appears to be literally true: the water being unfit to drink, one had to add whisky and, "by dint of careful application I learned to like it." The concoction he grew to like was, Jock Colville said, more akin to mouthwash than a highball. It barely qualifies as "scotch and water."

Where he did put away copious amounts of alcohol was at meals (see for example A.L. Rowse's description of his lunchtime visit to Chartwell, FH 81:9). Perhaps this was Churchill's secret to sobriety and health. (Dr. Mather, speaking in Boston recently, reported that WSC's blood pressure was 140/80 well into his eighties, asking his rather younger audience if they would mind numbers like those.) Churchill did not nurse a bottle, as an alcoholic would, and occasionally remarked to those who took whisky neat, "you are not likely to live a long life if you drink it like that," or words to that effect. Drinking at meals may be less deleterious than drinking at random, but in any case no colleague who can be taken seriously ever reports seeing Churchill the worse for drink. Thus WSC's famous quip, "I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."

Judging the degree of his "dependence" is obfuscated by his own contradictory remarks. On the one hand he amused himself by allowing people to think he had a bottomless capacity. (There was his famous declaration to the King of Saudi Arabia that his absolute rule of life required drinking before, during and after meals.) At the same time in his writings you catch indications that he knew his limit: the drinking stories with the Russians were exaggerated, he wrote in The Second World War ("I was properly brought up"). Elsewhere he remarked, "my father taught me to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk." He remarked that a glass of Champagne lifts the spirits, sharpens the wits, but "a bottle produces the opposite effect." When encountered by Bessie Braddock MP with the famous "you're drunk" remark in 1946, his bodyguard, Ron Golding, was with him at the time, insisted that Churchill was not drunk, just tired and wobbly - hence his famous, devastating response. It would appear that his affinity to the bottle was at least partly a prop - like his cigars, which were often allowed to go out, rarely smoked beyond a third, and usually discarded after being well-chewed. Nevertheless he had a formidable capacity.

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/lear...alcohol-abuser

Legend has it that when Abraham Lincoln was told that Grant drank a bottle of whiskey every night, he replied "Then find out what brand he drinks and send a case to every one of my generals"

Who gives a crap if Churchill drank to much? He was the right man in the right place at the right time. The communists here like to use the same tactics of bringing up useless and irrelevant points to cloud the issue at hand. Shall we start on the private life of your buddy uncle Joe?

Now please stop quoting Viking everyone, so that I'm never again subject to his drivel. I wish there was a way to make the quotes disappear with the ignore button too.

As for Avro: It kinda is just a game for many, just sayin'


I'll go back in my hole now.

Excuse me sir! I find the drinking habbits of a man irrelevant in this case. Your second point you are correct. :-P

Who cares about his drinking habits? As for the colonial stuff, so what. It wasn't as bloody as you suggest and most have found out that self-government isn't any better. In a lot of places it's worse unless you siphon off all the cash of course.

I love the Brit bashing on these boards. I guess some people can't see beyond their own prejudices.

Hood

Funny you mention that.
Why cant we apply the same theory on a different outcome of WW2?;)

:) This thread has the potential of high entertainment if not out right hillarity.

You can if you believe in Nazi ideology. Or stupid. I'm presuming you're neither but are just being inflammatory. I doubt a ban will follow.

This thread is already hilarious. I bow to Avro's mastery in teasing out funny responses.

Hood

The word "Nazi" doesn't automatically invoke Godwin's Law. Read and understand the context first O erudite one.

Hood

ps I'm hoping this thread is locked but if it isn't we could have days of fun.

I think there should be a law about people mentioning Godwins law everytime Nazi's are mentioned.

Hehe let's try and agree a definition.


Farber's Law

The posting of a quote and a link to Godwin's Law as evidence that the post quoted is evidence of Godwin's Law, said posting intended to obtain some cultural or moral high ground.

Nice try but theres no wiki page... :-P

Sorry guys but times have changed... This is no longer true...

http://safalra.com/other/british-emp...empire-map.png

Here is some more info for you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8X...3&feature=plcp

Amazing isn't it that one little country ruled so much and that so many non-British and non-colony people dislike it so much.

That youtube video is the best explanation I've ever seen about the constituents of the British.

Hood

Godwin's Law is just a subset of the general ad hominem fallacies that arise all the time in internet arguments.

Nazis are the benchmark of evil. Like it or not. They are the yardstick by which every other thing is measured.

I find that amusing, while quite true. It's amazing that the same is not true for communists, who have killed far more people than the Nazi's ever dreamed of. (though I might have to concede that the Nazis were more efficient)

I guess it's because neo-intellectuals can still come up with drivel in their defense, while the Nazi drivel is obvious even to the sheep.

Thanks. That was the angle I was going for. ;)

You do?
You don't?
You wish:confused:
For what?

Love or hate Sir Winston, he was the only leader in Europe to properly understand the threat posed by Nazi Germany, and the only leader that could have held The Empire together as the rest of Europe fell. His understanding of the Ameican people and our political system also helped before and after we came in to the war in December of 1941.

Neville Chamberlain simply would have capitulated after the fall of France.

Those of you, who by your posts, seem to think you would have been better off under the successors to either Hitler or Stalin are either incredibly naieve or insane, I've not quite figured out which yet.

I'd say insanely naive...

So we're only talking about western europe then?
What about the east, let's just ignore it?
They were left to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea - well, actually they never had a choice but, anyway.
On the other hand I absolutely do understand your pride you successfully defended your country from an invader - all very fine.
Just don't sell it like you saved the whole planet, thx.

Btw, back in the 90's, when the EU was getting stronger, my old man used to say:
"See, it looks like the Krauts are going to win the war after all".

Good post. He was a man of his time.

And Churchill by my DNA calculations was half American.

Indeed he was sir.

Rubbish!

Sorry, just did the same and you are right that drivel doesn't deserve quoting.

Viking what history are you following as I would say you need to buy a different book.

Avro, you've done it again, you really are the master!

Just a few things to add to the pot.

Neville Chamberlain gets far to much bad press, one thing that many people ignore or don't know is that in history books, written after the 30 year rule on official secrets rather than before, is that he was instrumental in the rearming of Britain after Munich, indeed in Oct '38 straight after Munich he told the cabinet, and i quote "It would be madness for the country to stop rearming until we were convinced that other countries would act in the same way. For the time being, therefore, we should relax no particle of effort until our deficiencies had been made good"

It is a fact that by the time war broke out, the RAF in particular was in a much much better position to fight, than in 1938. Munich bought much needed time. In fact it was Chamberlain from as early as 1935 that pushed for the RAF to be strengthened realising that Britain's traditional bulwark, the English Channel, was no defence against air power.

He was also the person who pushed for the treaties with Poland, getting France involved.

As for Churchill, there is no doubt that he was the right man for the job during the war years, but do not forget, that the same British people that loved him, unceremoniously booted him out of office at the wars end in a landslide victory for Clement Attlee.

I never new that about Chamberlain! I shall have to return to my history books!

As for Winston's end, Themistocles much? History does tend to repeat itself, dunnit?

Interesting speech on arming the forces:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkPptevWftw

I heard another of his speeches the other day in a documentary. He was warning Germany very strongly about the consequences of their planned expansion. I am trying in vain to remember which programme it was shown in (I saw it in England).

They had a plan!?

yep, attack Russia and loose.

Russia was doable, not with with US support though.

Not a hope in hell, with or without US support and Hitler realised this by Christmas 1941.

Possible with the support of recently liberated Soviet occupied countries like the Ukraine who were not particularly fans of Stalin. However the NSDAP agenda did not endear the German's to these recently liberated potential allies and instead they antagonized the local population and faced partisan warfare.