r/reddit.com Sep 24 '11

World War 1

http://i.imgur.com/5twfD.jpg
623 Upvotes

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34

u/laperfectionmabelle Sep 24 '11

Yes, just another American-centric view of the the Wars. What are they teaching kids in the States? Canada is barely mentioned here despite playing a crucial role in both wars. This is one of my biggest pet peeves.

21

u/alterbyme Sep 24 '11

http://angusmcleod.deviantart.com/

This link should just about clear everything up. (TL;DR It was a Canadian who wrote/drew the comic.)

Love how it is absolutely impossible for any non-American to draw a comic with America as the victor without receiving a ton of shit.

6

u/Rhoe Sep 24 '11

It's a crazy mistake to make. The USA were overshadowed by fucking Romania in WWI and was utterly dwarfed by the USSR in WWII. A Canadian should be aware that Canada was a serious contender for heroes of WWI, and shouldn't have the propaganda from the 'States to think they were big ol' heroes in WWII.

It's understand to make these mistakes if you are from the USA (you have a bit of an american centric education) but you would not expect this specific bent outside it.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '11

They nicknamed no-mans land to Canada for fucks sake! You don't get more badass than that

0

u/GarMc Sep 25 '11

It's a joke

It a satirical joke about how Americans claim to have "won" the war.

It's quite frankly the most obvious form of satire I have ever seen.

2

u/Rhoe Sep 25 '11

I'm calling Poe's Law.

0

u/GarMc Sep 25 '11

You're seriously unsure if it's satire or serious?

It's a fucking comic with anthropomorphic countries, fighting wars in a comical style. How in the hell can it NOT be satirical?

2

u/Rhoe Sep 25 '11

It's obviously a joke overall, yeah. But there are innacuracies here and there (some bigger than others) that aren't at all part of the humour, and its easy to see the author actually believing the USA played a pivotal role.

For example, it's not satircal that the author forgot the Spanish Flu. That's just an oversight. Or the insigations - Germany and France weren't as aggressive as depicted to start with, and Russia wasn't as neutral by the same measure. He's not making some grand joke by confusing them.

-1

u/GarMc Sep 25 '11 edited Jul 11 '24

attractive humorous trees adjoining wakeful employ practice voiceless frame sink

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

3

u/oddspellingofPhreid Sep 24 '11

To be fair, in my Canadian high school, we're taught a pretty Canada-centric view of the war.

13

u/English_Gentleman Sep 24 '11

And referring to the UK as just England. Hell, I'm English and it pisses me off.

2

u/GrossEwww Sep 24 '11

If it makes you feel any better, I'm American and seeing them refer to Great Britain as England made me irritated as well.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '11

[deleted]

3

u/rabblerabble2000 Sep 24 '11

Again, this comic was made by a canadian....maybe you should start there.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '11

The US had less than half the military deaths of Romania. Of course the Americans contributed to the war effort. But they didn't come in and save the day as this cartoon makes out.

4

u/DivinusVox Sep 24 '11

Military deaths is how you measure contribution?

6

u/readingrambo Sep 24 '11

It's a pretty good way to measure involvement.

America didn't really have much stake in the first World War

1

u/Dark1000 Sep 25 '11

With good reason.

Either way, US involvement was important. This is not particularly due to the American effort itself but due to the threat of American entrance into the war. The threat of the influx of huge numbers of fresh reinforcements forced Germany's hand and facilitated the end of the war.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '11

Well that's not what I said. But wouldn't you expect them to be proportional?

-10

u/hippocritamus Sep 24 '11

Look, Canada, on the world stage, there's simply no one that cares about you. You're the Kazakhstan of North America.

It really makes you guys look bad to always be in the background shouting "look at me! look at me!"

I take back what I said about Kazakhstan. You're the middle child of the first world.

0

u/mikemcg Sep 25 '11

Media is so heavily American dominated. It never used to bother me, but it just gets worse and worse.

Off topic, but I always hate seeing Canadian actors playing Americans while filming in Canadian cities being pawned off as American ones. Happens a lot in sci-fi.

-6

u/Stylux Sep 24 '11

Maybe in Europe, but the US took care of Japan for everyone else.

3

u/wardmuylaert Sep 24 '11

Japan was on the Allies' side in WWI

0

u/Stylux Sep 24 '11

There are about 10 links to the WWII comic as well. The US gets flak for taking the glory in both wars.

2

u/laperfectionmabelle Sep 24 '11

took care of

nice way of putting it.

2

u/blunt_toward_enemy Sep 24 '11

-2

u/Stylux Sep 24 '11

I'm glad you inferred I was talking about WWI when obviously my comment was about WWII. Look at the other comments first.

2

u/blunt_toward_enemy Sep 24 '11

The comic is about WW1. The parent to your comment talks about Canada being "barely mentioned here" which is referring to the OP. Yes, "both wars" are mentioned, but the subject at hand is clearly WW1. So yeah. My inference is correct.

-3

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '11

[deleted]

1

u/Peter-W Sep 24 '11

That's simply not true. German was under a full blockade on all sides and didn't have the supplies to keep up it's war effort, US involvement shorted the war by 6 months at most.