Russell Grenfell, R.N. (Retired Captain in the British Navy) wrote a lucid book on the insanity of British foreign policy “experts” that led the British into two disasterous wars (World War I and II) which ruined the British Empire and impoverished the British people. Capt. Grenfell carefully diagnosed British policy before the 20th century, and he presented a clear view of European diplomatic history from the time of the Franco-Prussian War through the 1950s. Grenfell’s brief but careful diagnosis gives readers a good background to both British and European History that causes one to think.

Grenfell provided a concise understanding of European events leading to German unity. Grenfell demolishes the myth of the Germans being “The Butcher Boy” of European History. For example, he cites the numerous incidents of French, British, Russian, etc. engaging in numerous wars of imperialism and/or Euroepan conflicts such as the Crimean War (1854-1856)during which the Germans did not participate.

Those who cite Frederick William I’s (1862-1888) and Bismarck’s wars of German unity as examples of German “aggression” do a bad day’s history. Bismarck knew that German disunity was the reason why the Germans were constantly facing invaders from the 16th century through part of the 19th century. For example, when Napolean I’s forces invaded Germany in 1806, the Germans were divided into over 300 political units including dukedoms, dutchies, principalities, free cities, etc. Bismarck also knew that such division could make the Germans vulnerable to future foreign intrusions. The Prussians, who eventually united the Germans, were involved in three small wars to unite Germany between 1863 and 1871. The combined time of these wars was less than a year. These wars for German unity were part of other wars and military actions for political unity in Europe and in North America. For example, the U.S. Civil War was a war of the North’s successful attempt to crush the Confederate attempt at succession. The Russians crushed Polish attempts at independence in 1830-1831 and again in 1863. The Italians were united for the first time since the disintegraion of the Ancient Roman Empire. German efforts at political unity were of shorter duration and less bloody than their European counterparts. One must notice the British bloody supression of the Sepoy Rebellion in India in 1857.

Grenfell made a very good case that as long as the British stayed out of European wars and focused on the Empire, British policy made sense. However, when Lord Grey who was the British Foreign Minister from 1906 to 1916 made secret agreements in 1906 and 1911 to commit British military forces to support the French against the Germans, he committed the British to disaster. Lord Grey made the incredibly stupid remark that if the British stayed out of the war, they would be despised. Once the British got into the war, they were dispised by the French anyway. One British commander stated that he and his fellow officers were derided by the French for not doing enough even though British troops died in droves fighting for France.

The official British excuse for declaring war on the Germans in late summer of 1914 was due to alleged German “aggression” in invading “neutral” Belgium. The facts are the British and French were in negotiations with the Belgium authorities to use Belgium as a point of invading the Germans. Once the Belgium authorities entered those negotiations, they were no longer neutral. The spark that provoked World War I was the mobiliation of the huge Russian army on Germany’s borders which the British encouraged highly encouraged knowing full well that this would start a general European war.

When World War I was over, the “victors” used the Franco-Prussian War as an example of alleged German aggression. They were embarrassed when the French ruler, Napolean III (1852-1870)openly admitted the French started that war, and in fact the French were the first to declare war. Documents do have a way of underminning conventional history. The Versailles Treaty (1919)was a stupid treaty which many on “the winning side” were quick to notice.

British and U.S. crusading before and during World War II showed the emptiness of British policy and Churchill empty rhetoric about conquering World Sin. The British made a guarantee to the Polish in 1939 which any sane man knew the British could not keep. Yet, such a guarantee was made, and neither the British nor the French did anything to help the Polish whom they had promised so faithfully to help.

After World War II was over, the British Empire collapsed. The British impoverished themselves fighting German Sin and now were subordinate to the Americans to fight Red Sin. During World War I, the British went from a creditor nation to a debtor almost overnight. When World War II ended, the British and still are an American welfare state.

What is amusing about British conditions after World War II is that Churchill promised that the British would fight and die for the Yugoslavians if they were invaded by the Soviets. How the British were going to do this when they could not even maintain law-and-order in Nortern Ireland is beyond comprehension. If such a war erupted, the Yugoslavians would have been the victims of the same kind of help the Polish got in 1939.

Grenfell made poignant comments about diplomats protecting their people’s interest. Yet, after World War II, the defeated West Germans were living better and eating better than the British who were part of the “winning side” and were now subsidizing their previous enemies. This says a lot about stupid foreign policy. Once German Sin was defeated, the British were facing the much greater threat from Soviet Red Sin. To demonstrate just how stupid British policy was, the British helped arm the Soviets to the teeth during World War II. One wonders just as Grenfell did in this book just how insane is any foreign policy that crusades for Heaven on Earth at any cost including the destruction of the planet.

One of the weaknesses of Grenfell’s book is that he omits Soviet diplomacy during the late 1930s. Grenfell could have enhanced his book by reporting Polish invasions of Lithuania and Czechoslovakia in 1938 which were reported in the U.S. press. He could have also exploited Russian and German moves in Eastern Europe in the late 1930s and Eastern European fears of Big Communism.

Yet, Grenfell wrote a solid book. The above mentioned omissions can be corrected by any alert reader who refers to books mentioned in Grenfell’s work. Grenfell gives a clear view of events leading to World War I and World War II which should be in textbooks but are not. Grenfell also makes logical sense out of complex diplomatic history which most current historians cannot or will not do.

To say that Hitler never wanted war with Britain is like saying that Stalin never wanted war with the West, except it’s even less on target.

Hitler wanted a continental empire and all the fruits of victory whether or not he actually wanted war with Britain. And it could pretty much be expected that Britain, which had gone to war with Louis XIV, Napoleon, and the Kaiser, probably with even less reason, would go to war with Nazi Germany.

Britain’s established policy was to prevent a single power from conquering all of Europe of force. If Britain went to war against less obnoxious tyrants, what grounds were there for exepting that they’d make an exception for the particularly noxious Nazi regime?

People will argue about Churchill and his role in history. But the way he’s used as a kind of plaster saint to sanctify people’s own beliefs is offensive. That goes for neocons who use Churchill to justify foreign interventions, but also for their opponents who seize on some comment of Churchill’s like “the unnecessary war” or “”America should have minded her own business.” Not everything Winston Churchill said or did was correct or made sense. Those arguing against his most important decision ought to recognize that.

Most recently, “The Pearl Harbor Myth” , George Victor, and “Human Smoke” , Nicholson Baker, added to my knowledge of real history — quite different from what I was taught in school decades ago.

I’ve also delved into the real WW1 story, and though I have but a secondary reference, the “Memoirs, Vol. 2″ of William Jennings Bryan, allegedly has a copy of the secret treaty that Col. House organized with the British in 1916, to get the U.S. into that debacle. It’s interesting that two ‘great American presidents’ both campaigned for re-election on the basis of keeping America out of a foreign war.

And remembering that the peacetime draft began in 1940 makes one wonder, What for?

But then, the embargoes and provocations by FDR against the Japanese does throw some light on the matter. And that’s not the least of it — using American military personnel and ships to assist the British in hunting U-boats, and that an American plane with American pilot (but British crew) was the one which targetted the Bismarck before the U.S. was ‘drawn’ into war …

One really has to feel bad for Short and Kimmel in Hawaii and MacArthur in the Phillipines, none of whom were warned of the impending attack, though it was known to everyone except the American people. That story of the Western Union messenger bicycling around Pearl Harbor on a Sunday, trying to get some military official to sign for the message from George Marshall, is true.

It’s easy to see how “Saddam’s WMD” was sold so easily. And how despite all past history, how someone believes they can prevail in Afghanistan.

Here is what the US “says” it was thinking at the time, and it also makes interesting reading.

http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/events/index.html

The question I always come back to, is:

“If we were attacked by Japan in Pearl Harbor, in dec 1941, and if Auschwitz had 6 working ovens, and 15 more on order some months before that…”

“…then can *anyone prove* that we didn’t know about the holocaust plans?”

I raise this question, *not* to refute you, but to ask what I think is a legitimate point. That is, how do we go about *proving* the non-existence of classified documents? The thinking of many people is that we keep this matter classified to reduce our liability as to “who knew what and when, and how long was it, before we began to act on it?”

I mean, saying Winston Churchill caused WWII, is like saying George Soros accidently ignited the world wide financial crisis while trying to manipulate oil and corn futures, to arrange the famous Democratic October Surprise.

Of course, I’m just pointing out one fallacy out of many. I could go on: like, most of the tens of millions that died in WWII were Russian or Polish or Chinese: somehow, I don’t think that Churchill could have prevented those deaths – except by much _earlier_ military action against Hitler, say in 1933. Because Hitler was determined to invade, conquer, and enslave the East, just as Japan was determined to conquer and enslave China. We didn’t plant that idea in their pointy heads: they came up with it themselves.

Which is course what Churchill meant when he called it an unnecessary war: determined action by the Western Allies could easily stopped Hitler and caused his overtthrow in the early days.

Judging from the evidence, looking on the one hand at the people who think that a few ragheads are an existential threat to Western civilization, on the other at those that don’t believe that Hitler was worth fighting, it’s apparent that common sense is the rarest thing on Earth.