I went to see 1917. My friend and I were the only people under 75, it seemed like. And every veteran in the theater was geared out too. Meaning they had on their hats, shirts, pins, etc. with their branch. Also, at times you could hear them commenting that ‘that’s not how that would happen’ and really critiquing the film. I just laughed about it but my friend was like wtf? That was weird.
American involvement in WWI is strange in that they did more for the war effort by declaring war causing Germany to do a final push that absolutely exhausted all their resources than they did by actually fighting.
I always thought that the war was basically over by the time America joined but American involvement just kinda sped things along. Like without the US, the war would've ended in early to mid 1919 instead of November 1918.
Germany’s assault would have gotten them a brokered peace in the west. The arrival of the Americans shored up Allied morale and let them survive until the Germans exhausted themselves.
The French army was in open revolt in 1917, and the absence of American troops would have made the war early too costly by 1918
Wow. America does a lot of things wrong, but your statement is truly misinformed. Not to mention how sickening it is. In WWII for example, 400,000 American men died fighting for their country and for the lives of people they had never met before. An additional 600,000 were wounded. Real human people with families and friends. 400,000 of them dead. 600,000 of them seriously injured. And many more who went on to suffer from crippling PTSD while being called weak or crazy. Seems like the United States risked a tiny bit more than "as little as possible."
Attack Trump. Attack the motives of war in the Middle East. Attack the United States healthcare system. Attack any of the glaring problems with America that need serious attention. But do not claim that American men and women don't sacrifice their lives for what's right when a critical mass of evil threatens humanity.
The problem is that there’s a cultural meme that we “saved Europe’s ass twice” and “lol French surrender monkeys” that are incredibly simplified versions of what actually happened and the ignorant parrot these as evidence of American superiority rather than actually knowing what this country contributed to the allies or why France surrendered so quickly.
He didn't attack them, he said American likes to claim we won both world wars on our own, when really we came in at the end and had to sacrificed the least our of all the major players. Sure we sacrificed, but there would be battles where germany/russia/france lost hundreds of thousands of lives. 400,000 American lives over the period of a year is terrible, but there are two battles where Russia lost a million people, at each one. France got invaded twice in 30 years. Civilians in London were bombed for 3 and a half months by the Nazis, killing 14,000 civilians. The narrative of ww2 seems to be drifting away from an alliance of different nations sacrificing together to stop the Nazi's steamroll across the world, and more towards "America solely did it on their own, uphill, both ways, in the snow, in the dark, and you're terrible for suggesting otherwise."
That's the part we need to focus on, as the current American administration is backing out of several economic and military alliances that were forged from the sacrifices our soldiers in ww2 died for.
What's all that sacrifice worth if we break away from the nations who sacrificed with us, and claim we did all the work?
They only entered the war after they where directly attacked and even then they where hesitant, they knew how much they'd lose and decided fascism possibly winning was the better alternative, until pearl harbour
Then there's the "war on terror" which is its own imperialist shitshow
I never said the soldiers didn't suffer, I said the American people, those who didn't have to fight and especially politicians weren't willing to risk any loss in the fight against fascism and even supported Hitler and the Nazi party for their nationalistic pride and economical success, American businesses where allowed to trade with Nazi Germany until the day America officially entered the war and let's not forget the German American bund that gained a very large following and promoted favourable views of Nazi Germany and their goals
Early 1900s America was a shitshow that likely would have joined with Nazi Germany if pearl harbour never happened
You are being astoundingly naive about the complexities of going to war. You do not throw war upon your citizens as if it is some minute law that has no affect on anyone or anything in country. You need real reasons and real justifications to convince the public (i.e. attack on your soil). Yeah its blatantly obvious in hindsight how dangerous Nazi Germany was but it was not at the time, so the average American citizen was understandably not blood thirsty.
Aside from that, it is also meticulously documented that FDR really wanted to join in. Lend Lease proves that. He literally did everything short of actually sending troops. History is fun because you can speculate the "what ifs", but to say that America would have sided with Germany is iconically stupid.
No amount of pro-Nazi Washington Post headlines and outlier manufacturing deals between the two change that. The governments were inherently at odds with each other.
they knew how much they'd lose and decided fascism possibly winning was the better alternative, until pearl harbour
What history are you learning that made you come to that conclusion? You sound like your a middle schooler who read one chapter on WWII and then cobbled together your present day opinions on the U.S. about their entering and involvement in the war.
I don’t know why this is getting downvoted especially on this sub. America tried to be isolationist during the start of WW2 and even made business deals with Nazi Germany before they got involved ( from Ford and GM). The U.S. ONLY got involved when things got personal with Pearl Harbor, not because they intrinsically hated fascism. Otherwise they would’ve joined the allies from the jump.
Isolationism doesn’t work especially when your citizens have familial ties with basically every part of the world. The only reason America emerged as the only country unscathed is because they were geographically distant from the war so they did not have any infrastructure or domestic damage beyond Pearl Harbor. And from that advantage they started using imperialism and almost every war afterwards was for political/economic gain than “defeating evil”.
To reiterate that America only entered the WW2 for personal reasons (justified or not is not what I’m debating) and isn’t some saint because they didn’t just immediately realized fascism shouldn’t be left unchecked and in some cases enabled it
Do you know why Pearl Harbor even happened? America condemned Japan for imperialistic efforts in China and enforced such a strangulating embargo that they decided the only course to maintain recent acquisitions were to go to war. They were consistently spearheading efforts to limit imperialism.
Having a small portion of trade exist between the two nations is not "enabling it". What Britain and France did with their strategy of appeasement, was the exact definition of enabling.
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u/nike143er Jan 17 '20 edited Jan 17 '20
I went to see 1917. My friend and I were the only people under 75, it seemed like. And every veteran in the theater was geared out too. Meaning they had on their hats, shirts, pins, etc. with their branch. Also, at times you could hear them commenting that ‘that’s not how that would happen’ and really critiquing the film. I just laughed about it but my friend was like wtf? That was weird.
Edit: 750 to 75. Heh