Trevor Nunn Quotes

1776 at the Battle of Bunker Hill This was the first formal battle of the American Revolution. The British officers perceived the American colonials as a rag-tag collection of men with no experience or skill at arms. Looking for glory they led from the front and if nothing else the Colonials were superb marksmen who picked the officers off easily. After that battle, British officers were more prudent and respectful of the revolutionaries.

President Roosevelt had brilliantly judged the ability of England, Russia, and Yugoslavia to fight the Germans, but as this quotation and {641676} shows, he listened to the wrong people. He had been sold a “bill of goods” by the China Lobby, the Soongs and Chiang Kai-shek.

There was deep hostility and suspicion between Germany and England for several years before WWI. See {642066}.

1914 was the outbreak of WWI in which all the belligerents had very different interests and reasons for war—even allies on the same side greatly differed as to their motivation for fighting.

Dreadnoughts were huge battleships. Britain had the dominant navy of the world and controlled the seas. A European war would be a land war where a navy would be of little use. Hence, Britain would not want to get involved in such a war where she could not use her greatest military strength. He was wrong about this and so much else. Britain entered WWI when Germany invaded Belgium fulfilling her treaty obligations. The Germans intelligence operators and analysts were well aware of the treaty obligations, but had little understanding of English culture and tradition. The German aggression against a small power like Belgium was morally offensive to many in Great Britain, and Britain had a tradition of fighting for moral principles. The Germans would never militarily disadvantage themselves for the sake of a treaty obligation to a small nation, and they did not believe that the British would be so different and fulfill their treaty obligations even though their strongest military asset—their navy would not be very helpful.

Everyone could see the First World War coming, but the government leaders and diplomats were not able to prevent it.

The Russian motivation for going to the aid of Serbia when the Austro-Hungarian Empire attacked that country was religious affinity. Both were of the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Slaves had historically been attacked by the Roman Catholic Teutons. Russia had exercised hegemony over regions outside of Russia where there were Christian Orthodox co-religiouists.

The Germans did not believe the British would send land troops. See {642105}.

1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon. The first published version of this prescient quotation appeared.

The Boers had just a few years before lost their war with the British who were then in control of South Africa. However, the British did not treat the Boers harshly in defeat and most Boers were at the time farmers and land owners who were a major force in democratic South Africa and had much invested in the nation. Others were still resentful of the British. The Boers sided with the British and fought the Germans who had troops and colonies in Africa. Like the Irish, culturally, they were always up for a good fight.

The French had made a series of major military misjudgments and blunders allowing the German troops to reach the interior of France and threaten to rout the French. General French’s forces were called upon to prevent such a rout and did so costing British casualties and diverting British Armies from their desired offensive operations. Then the British Expeditionary Force was again called upon to come to the aid of the French for the second time. General French pushed back but the British really had no other alternative lest their ally could be enfeebled for the rest of the war. The French military leadership and General Staff was terrible at that point.

This quotation illustrated a military phenomenon whereby leading military commanders are important as long as they have and control many military assets. Therefore, they avoid serious battles where the might lose. Preserving assets becomes more important than the war objectives and honor and reputation trumps contribution to the war effort. History remembers well military leaders who battle and win. It also remembers leaders who control many assets and who do not lose or win. But the losing military leaders are consigned to the “dustbin of history”.

English foreign and military policy had been so effective that English citizens had been completely sheltered from all the British military hostilities throughout the world. Keyserlingk and other German military planners, observing the effect that home public opinion had on war policies and practices, placed a high priority on bringing war to the British civilians and sinking merchant ships was the one way they had technologically open to them. Latter, in WWII, the same objective was achieved by the bombing of the Blitz—bombing of London and other cities with planes and rockets.

In the first year of WWI, the British Fleet kept the German Fleet bottled up in port. As a result, the British had a very successful sea embargo against the Germans who rarely challenged the British fleet even though they had some major, powerful, capital ships. See {642234}. Meanwhile, the German ships were in no position to harass much less destroy Allied (French, Russian or English) shipping.

The concept of race then was not what it is today where it is, if anything, a genetic or anthropological distinction. Then race was a combination of blood (genetics) and culture. Wittgenstein, an Austrian by nationality, considered himself German racially. This concept of race was common in 1914 and rose to be absolute in the Nazi era. So the absorption of Austria by Germany did not seem to most Austrians a diminution of anything but a natural recognition of the unity of one people—the German race. Wittgenstein was not alone among intellectual “Germans” who believed the English “race” superior. Their ability to operate a democracy without a powerful leader was considered a great strength as was the diffusion of power and control were both admirable accomplishments which some German intellectuals envied.

The Southern states were illegal rebels. A confederacy had always meant a voluntary association of otherwise independent entities. However technically the Southern states were not independent but in a state of illegal rebellion against the United States. Lincoln, a lawyer, could not being himself to refer to the South by their preferred name—the Confederacy. So this was how he and many in his administration referred to the South.

Hopkins was a social worker with no military of political experience. But the President trusted him implicitly. Most American military officers and Ambassador to England Joseph P. Kennedy, a Nazi sympathizer & father of JFK, believed that England could not stand up to Hitler. Any military aid we gave England would fall into the hands of the Germans. Everyone was shocked when Roosevelt sent Hopkins to England to make a military recommendation. Hopkins, FDR’s closest advisor made this powerful and moving statement to Churchill and other British leaders. The combination of the first Biblical phrase with the second recognition of the possibility of failure, was inspirational for the British—just the effect Roosevelt sought.