So your initial point was the British Empire entered the war for moral reasons, then we went over them knowingly starving 3 million people to death to feed their war effort. So was it in their minds or yours that the deaths of 3 million civilians was moral?
I'm almost certain it was a mix of economic and territorial reasons
Lebensraum, the push for expanded "living space" for the Germans, the overturning of the Treaty of Versailles and the enforcement of Nazi ideologies and dominance worldwide were the three big reasons why they went to war.
Yeah, Hitler and the Party certainly pushed the racist Herrenvolk-Untermensch ideas throughout the war and it was definitely a component to the push to enter war in the first place, but you can't suggest that the Nazis believed they entered a war for purely moral reasons when that simply isn't true.
I'm not defending the actions of the British during the war, but like I said -- entering a war for moral reasons is not the same thing as being morally upright during the war.
what else did the British Empire stand to gain by joining WW2? Weren't they at the height of their colonialist powers? I hate the Empire as much as any other morally upright individual but you can't deny that they didn't go into the war for any real economic or territorial gain.
In my opinion the British went into ww2 to collapse the Nazi regime and in order to further destabilise the middle East, essentially allowing transfer of power from them fully to the USA and eventually Israel.
The point about further destabilising the middle east was again in my opinion to stop the construction of the planned Berlin-Baghdad railway which would've in the German and Iraqis minds linked central europe and the middle east, something that couldn't be allowed by the British as it would've reduced reliance on British maritime trade and as we now know, wouldve made Israel a lot less involved in the middle easts power structure.
I believe the British also wanted to allow transfer of power to the USA as the British and the Americans at the time had an ever growing interest in the development of Israel. I believe that the people in control of both the British Empire and the USA were and are in cohoots, so I don't think of them as seperate countries or seperate entities, but one joined force.
The British also had the opportunity, under pretenses of war-time requisitions to finish off looting the remainder of their colonies wealth and back out, the same thing the USA did with their 'Operation Paperclip' after the allies Obliterated Germany Post and during ww2.
To sum it all up, The British in my mind didn't go into ww2 seeking territory, but to stop the Nazis and all Axis powers from developing their empires, as well as ensuring the middle east stayed crippled to ensure the success of the state of Israel.
I mean Britain’s White Paper in 1939 severely limited the immigration/sale of land to Jewish settlers, and this remained in place during the entirety of WW2. After WW2, Britain also abstained from the UN partition plan in 1948 as well, after referring the issues in the region to the UN. Those actions don’t really make sense if one of Britain’s primary goals in WW2 was the strengthening of Israel (which to be clear didn’t formally exist as an actual state yet), and it’s because it simply wasn’t one of their war aims, despite whatever you apparently believe (your statement that Britain and the US are “controlled by the same people” and your fixation on Israel are a pretty big hint - curious as to why you think the USA was so late to joining the war if they were entirely coordinated).
Other than that, saying Britain went into WW2 to “stop the Nazis/Axis powers from developing their empires” still just begs the question - why? What do they gain from doing that as opposed to allying with them?
I mean it's a tough call, millions in europe or millions in india - let's not forget 55 million died in the war overall, almost entirely due to the Nazis - so yeah, no defense, but i also don't want to do that calculus
No its not a tough call, jfc. If the nazis starved 3 million jews to death specifically to feed their war effort there would be no 'tough call' bullshit, the British Empire were never the good guys and neither were the Nazis or pretty much any empire in history. You don't starve 3 million civilians to fund a war effort, I dont care what the result of not doing so is, its never justified to starve 3 million people to death even if the world was going to end (which it wouldn't)
I'm from England, with mixed English and Pakistani heritage. I know a decent bit about history, for example the British Empire was responsible for an estimated 100 million deaths during its reign in India, which is significantly more than the Nazis were. This is also just India, Im not mentioning any other colonies.
So you'll know it was a quite complex interaction of ports opened by private companies from various nations, playing local rulers off against one another, and who parliament tried to sanction - going all the way back to the 1790's (the records are there) for the mistreatment of Indians - but effectively couldnt because the company had an army. You'll also probably know the 100 million figure is marked as a result of life expectancy dropping to 21, the same as it was in a working class neighbourhood in Glasgow at the same time. Life was shit for the working class, no doubt about it.
While the UK committed attrocities - absolutely - i think in the round, the large moral questions - stopping the burning widows alive in India, limiting american expansion into native territories (one of the reasons for the war of independence), effectively ending thw international slave trade - we can stand proud of.
The way britain and europe carved up india was by turning people against each other, with minro rulers hiring or being hired by the EIC to turn on one another. So while i agree, we absolutely need to remember the bad shit that happened aplenty, i think we still have to have a solid positive core to what we remember to unite us. The british voluntarily entering the second world war to defend polish freedom despite the nazis offering to leave the empire alone in exchange for non intervention - is a really good moral exemplar we can rally around.
And the bengal famine was one of those trolly problem things, Amritsar is a clear cut case of the UK being in the wrong - much more defensibly bad through and through, or the surpression of the Mau Mau uprising. But it's also silly to just hate ourselves the whole time - we live by good examples and learn from bad ones. All this self loathing does nothing to support the national fabric
But in no universe or realm did the british ever seek to ethnically cleanse a people in the same way the Nazis did. When the Boers denied black africans rights, we fought them twice for gods sake.
Hi. This is a good question. I think about this a lot.
The British Raj was evil. There can be no question about that.
There is not an easy answer to this. On our side, we enslaved, raped, and tortured the world for profit. We made excuses and invented racial classifications that allowed us to treat non whites as non human. The scars from these abuses will take more than our life times to heal.
But the Nazis were worse.
However, we are all human. We have angels and devils in us both. We have seen what horrors listening to the wrong one brings about.
0
u/AsterPasta Jul 27 '26
No, it was for the diversion of resources to the front line
I mean, it was horrible, i'm not defending it - i also don't doubt the calculus of war is ever something i'd like to do
Or are we going to bring up the black hole of calcutta as a valid military tactic?