Film's Recreation Of Ve Day

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2623277/The-day-young-Princess-Elizabeth-celebrated-jubilant-nation-Trafalgar-Square-awash-flags-recreation-VE-day-exactly-69-years-real-thing.html

I will look forward to this film, depicting a great nation's people rejoicing the end of the war in Europe.

Some great photos on that event, spoiled only by this Polish reader's comments:

/// Let's not forget. We and the other brave nations won the war for you. Polish mathematicians cracking the Enigma, Polish and Czech pilots defending your skies, Sikh and Maori soldiers. The bravest ones, invincible ones. The Poles, fought for you from Narvik to Tobruk , from Arnhem to Leningrad. And what were you doing ? Drinking tea and in Yalta stabbed us in the back saying " we do not need them anymore" ! You betrayed all those who helped you. I am assuring you, as history is the best teacher, we won't fight for your backsides again. ///

*** Britain decided to go to war with Germany after Germany invaded Poland. Britain had issued an ultimatum to Germany to withdraw her troupes from Poland but Germany did not comply. France also declared war on Germany for the same reason. ***

I ask you what gratitude?

[Zeuhl]

We didn't go to war to protect Poland aog

The invasion of their country was simply the treaty based catalyst - just as we didn't enter WW1 because we were annoyed about the Archduke's assassination.

If we had gone to war to help the Poles it didn't actually work out too well did it?

They lost a lot of people defending themselves, a lot of their people came and fought with us and then they were finally liberated

5 years later

by the Soviets!

[jim360]

That Polish reader goes too far, but there are certainly aspects of the way the Polish were treated that those of the time ought to feel unimpressed by. At Russia's request, many of the Eastern European nations who fought for the Allies, especially the Poles, were excluded from the celebrations and various marches. And in particular during the Battle of Britain and, yes, the Enigma code, the Polish contribution was immense.

It's something of a shame that, for example, Marian Rejewski's contribution to cracking Enigma has been rather overlooked, in favour in particular of Alan Turing (although even his role is a recent "discovery", since the whole thing was suppressed as a military secret for decades). But the absence of Polish pilots from the VE-day celebrations was a shameful attempt to appease the Soviets.

See, for example, this article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9594403/Poles-launch-campaign-for-Enigma-code-breaking-recognition.html

On another historical note, while the War may have started after the Invasion of Poland, it took the full length for Poland to be "liberated" -- and then fall under the control of Russia. I don't know if there's much we could have done to change this, but to chastise the Poles for showing lack of gratitude seems a bit mean. The Allies of the West (France, Britain) never liberated Poland. So what, exactly, should they thank us for?

[andy-hughes]

I agree Zeuhl - that's akin to saying that America invaded North Vietnam because it cared a jot about the North Vietnamse people.

The two conflicts began because of the provocation involved, and the inference of what would happen next - germany's ongoing anexation of European territory, and the Americans' perception of the spread of Comunism throughout the world.

Hindsight tells is that the first was probably justified, the second was fatally flawed - and set up a template for American foreign policy that lasts to this day.

But to return to the original point - you will always get someone who will see a different point of view.

[anotheoldgit]

Labour who had many communist sympathisers were in power at the time of the Victory Parade.

Winston Churchill gave a speech to The House of Commons, three days before the Victory Parade, stating the exclusion of Polish forces was wrong.

[Gromit]

Good to see we have learned the lessons from history, and that our brave fight to save the people of Afghanistan has indeed been a huge success. I'm sure, unlike this Pole, they are eternally greatful to us.

[Zeuhl]

/Labour who had many communist sympathisers were in power at the time of the Victory Parade./

East-West relations were in transition with Uncle Joe and the Soviets moving rapidly from 'brave allies' in the defeat of Germany to 'Cold War adversary'.

And it was a sensitive time as US and UK governments were in effect negotiating with Stalin for him to rein in the Communist Parties in France, Italy and Holland (who were major players in the Resistance) in return for being given carte blanche in eastern Europe.

That's why we supported and helped into power the equally 'ungrateful' De Gaulle.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// Good to see we have learned the lessons from history, and that our brave fight to save the people of Afghanistan has indeed been a huge success. I'm sure, unlike this Pole, they are eternally greatful to us. ///

What has Afghanistan got to do with the VE celebrations.

I have been recently heavily accused of introducing inappropriate diversions into certain threads, can you now give your reason for introducing your usual anti-British rhetoric into this thread?

[mushroom25]

//Labour who had many communist sympathisers were in power at the time of the Victory Parade. //

the Churchill war ministry didn't end until 23rd may 1945, when Churchill resigned. Labour did not assume power until 26th July 1945.

[Gromit]

AOG
In May 1945 we were still being governed by the Conservative led coalition. Attlee was not elected until July of that year.

The Labour Party then still had socialist sympathisers in it, but we had Russia as an ally during the war, and would be now speaking German if it wasn't for them.

[mushroom25]

just to clarify, the victory parade was on 10th August. having come to power barely more than 2 weeks previously, there's no way that labour could have led the organization of the parade.

[anotheoldgit]

*** After these complaints, 25 pilots of the Polish fighter squadrons in the Royal Air Force, who had taken part in the Battle of Britain, were invited to march together with other foreign detachments as part of the parade of the Royal Air Force. The government said this was a necessary compromise due to the political circumstances of the day. Also, after the public criticism in Britain, last-minute invitations were sent by Foreign Minister Bevin directly to the Chief of Staff of the Polish Army, General Kopanski, who was still in post in London, and to the chiefs of the Polish Air Force and the Polish Navy and to individual generals. ***

*** These invitations were declined, and the airmen refused to participate in protest against the omission of the other branches of the Polish forces.The Soviet-backed Polish government, in turn, chose not to send a delegation, and later cited the invitation to the pilots as its reason to stay away. In the end, the parade thus took place without any Polish forces. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia also stayed away. ***

[Peter Pedant]

Sorry AOG as so often - the Pole is right and you are wrong

The Yalta meeting was an absolute disaster for the Eastern Europeans.
Roosevelt who was by then dying, thought Stalin was a 'man with whom he could do business'.... oooooooops and R also marginalised Whurchil

and the upshot was .... Americans and Brits agreed that the borders would at Victory be set back to Sep 1939.

See The Minister and the Massacres by one of the Tostoys

The unlucky ones ( Cossaks who had joined the German army ) were sent back. Some were shot immediately and others went straight to Gulags. No one was free.

The lucky ones walked across Europe in the chaos and lost their nationalities ( Displaced persons ) and clustered in places like Chard in Somerset. And enjoyed a forty y exile.

Topol starred in turkey on this subject
in which he ends up getting given back to the Russians
Heavily criticised as being obviously untrue - it was all about the betrayal of Yalta - xc if you were brought up in a place like Chard.


Yalta is not part of English history the kids get taught about nowadays

[Peter Pedant]

I agree Zeuhl - that's akin to saying that America invaded North Vietnam because it cared a jot about the North Vietnamse people

andie for chrissakes the land of the free never invaded North Vietnam - altho they bombed the hell out of it - back to the stone age as Curtis E LeMay said. He had historically organized the flattening of Japan in 1945

North Korea perhaps

[Gromit]

AOG
You forgot to post the preceeding patagraph from wikipedia, which puts the two paragraphs you posted into context...

// The parade caused political controversy in the UK and has continued to be criticised because of the lack of representation of Polish forces. During the war, more than 200,000 members of the Polish Armed Forces in the West had fought under British High Command. These were loyal to the Polish government-in-exile, were opposed to the Soviet Union since the time of the Nazi-Soviet pact and hoped to return to a democratic, non-communist Poland after the war. However, by 1946, the British government changed its diplomatic recognition from the pro-democracy Poles in exile to the new communist-dominated Provisional Government of National Unity in Poland, where, according to Winston Churchill and others, totalitarian control was being established. //

[jno]

at the Yalta conference in 1945, "Stalin stipulated that Polish government-in-exile demands were not negotiable: the Soviet Union would keep the territory of eastern Poland they had already annexed in 1939, and Poland was to be compensated for that by extending its western borders at the expense of Germany. Comporting with his prior statement, Stalin promised free elections in Poland despite the Soviet sponsored provisional government recently installed by him in Polish territories occupied by the Red Army."

It seems Churchill and Roosevelt took his promise seriously, which was perhaps not a sensible thing to do.

Yes, Britain had a lot of help.

[royfromaus]

Britain had issued an ultimatum to Germany to withdraw her troupes from Poland



Quite right too. No country on the planet should have to put up with Oompah Bands. (Plus they were a month early)

[Peter Pedant]

Isnt Yalta where R asks S what he will do with the returned peoples and he says something like I will shoot them all.

and R says oh, 50 000 ! should be enough....

and churchill says I dont think you realise he is being serious

and R says - Oh no It was a joke...obviously a joke.


Also in Yalta ( maybe Tehran or both ) Churchill finds out that R and S are having secret midnight meetings....

The reason why the eastern peoples were consciously betrayed is that the Russians were over running the eastern allied POW camps and it was feared that the Russians would liberate the English and damned Yankees dirctly into a gulag.

There was a secret treaty concluded whereby the allied camps liberated by the Russians if nevessary would be entrained to Odessa and then shipped west. Only one camp did this - makes a good read.