George S. Patton Quotes
I don't know what you think you're trying to do, but the krauts ought to pin a medal on you for helping them mess up discipline for us.
“Krauts” was a derogatory term for Germans. The American GIs loved Mauldin’s cartoons. However, much of the humor was directed at the Officers who were not as enthusiastic about the cartoons. The War Department didn’t agree with Patton and other officers who wanted the Mauldin Cartoons censored. They had determined that the cartoons were terrific for morale, and hence they printed them and distributed them to our troops the world over. See {629515} for Mauldin’s view of Patton.
George S. Patton, 1885-1945, U.S. Army General, Meeting with Bill Mauldin, complaining about his "Willy and Joe" cartoons, March 1945;
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
During WWII, Mauldin was at the front lines and in the fox holes with the troops getting ideas for his cartoons most of which were drawn on the battle field. Much of that experience was with Patton’s Third Army. While Mauldin’s cartoons were wildly popular with the troops, some of the officers thought that the humor undermined discipline. Patton was one of those. See {629523}. Patton was somewhat mentally unbalanced with attitudes that were unacceptable to most Americans, but he was one of America’s greatest fighting generals of WWII.
The confusion of dissent and dissidence and loyalty has plagued many political parties and nations throughout time. The Communists neither originated the concept and certainly were not the last to operate by it, but under Stalin, it took on a virulence that was later emulated by the American McCarthyism.
History is replete with instances of military coups. In the final analysis, in every country at all times, there is no force in a society that could cope with a military which decides to act on its own. The Founding Fathers were very conscious of this reality and history, hence the firm civilian control of the military in America.
Kleinst, one of the guilty war criminals, is here quoted with the defense that most Nazi war criminals uses—namely that they were obeying orders. But international law makes no distinction between military and political orders, and it is the obligation of a soldier to refuse to obey an illegal military order and the orders he obeyed were illegal and contrary to International law—an order to kill babies and young children can never be legal for example.
He was shot in 1944 for his involvement in an attempt to kill Hitler
Referring to Mohandas K. Gandhi, 1869-1948:
Although it seems incredible to us today, thousands of people were arrested and prosecuted under the Espionage Act. The government particularly targeted leftists such as Eugene V. Debs, Bill Haywood, J. Philip Randolph, Victor Berger, John Reed, Max Eastman, and Emma Goldman. Debs was sentenced to 20 years in prison for criticizing the Act itself.
Washington was not a fan of the militia. It was however preferred by much of Congress who favored local institutions rather than national ones. Competence gave way to politics then as often it does in modern times. See {613015}, {613016}, {613022}, {613027}, {621987}, {621988}, {613030}, {613033}, & {613056}.
Eisenhower was then Supreme Allied Commander.
An irony is that Timosheko used German Prussian traditional military strategy to successfully defend against the German invasion of Russia.
This was an incredible order not allowing any Russian Army unit to retreat or surrender. However, it worked. The Russians, with American help of arms, held off the mighty German invading Army. However the German invasion cost the Russians a staggering 22 million lives, mostly civillian.
Eggleston was an accomplished writer who had served in the Confederate army of the Civil War. 20 year after the war he wrote a series of articles for the prestigious Northern Atlantic Monthly trying to convey the war from the Southerner’s point of view.
During WWII, the Japanese militarists maintained what they euphemistically described as “brothels” of “comfort women.” They Japanese forced 200,000 Korean Women to become sex slaves for the Japanese Troops in addition to Dutch and other white civilians interned by the Japanese in Asia. For years after the war, the Japanese Governments denied this or maintained a discrete silence. Finally some of the Korean women demanded an apology and restitution and it became a world-wide scandal. Unlike Germany which went through a public nationwide assessment of their WWII atrocities, Japan’s apologies for their war crimes have always been very muted and discrete and Japanese students are not even taught about the Japanese atrocities. Worse, nationalist Japanese politicians have either denied the facts about the sex slavery or as in this quotation, attempted to justify the horrid behavior. See {632770} for an American approach to the same problem.
Some southerners had gotten out of the Confederate chain of command and were attacking civilian steamboats killing Southerners as well as “Yankees”. See {633900} . While Sherman had trouble with some of his own men on parts of his March Through Georgia, at this time, it was Southerners who were acting independently and improperly. Legally, the Confederates were responsible for any people committing terror. Sherman tried to persuade the Confederate commanders with letters like this, but was very quick to retaliate for every violation. He also complained to some Union officers that they were not moving quickly enough to retaliate and prevent future behavior--{584048}
- Born: November 11, 1885
- Died: December 21, 1945
- Nationality: American
- Profession: Soldier
George Smith Patton Jr. was a general in the United States Army who commanded the Seventh United States Army in the Mediterranean theater of World War II, and the Third United States Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.
