Military Misconduct Quotes
The Greeks committed many atrocities in their war with Turkey. See {584483}
There is disagreement amongst historians as to whether or not the atrocities attributed to the retreating British troops were actually true. There are two other possibilities. First, this report was made only a week after the battle itself and less than that since the alleged atrocities would take place as the British retreated. There were certainly all kinds of rumors with information passed from person to person with no modern means of documentation. The Provisional Congress may have sincerely thought that all the events occurred but they may have been the result of inadvertent exaggeration. Then there is the possibility that in order to fire up the Americans to join the war, some or all of the atrocity reports were deliberately fabricated. It would only take two or three delegates to agree on such a strategy and they could “confirm” each other’s accounts of the happenings. Of course it might all be true. However, as the British retreated to Boston where they had reinforcements, they did not have a lot of time for malicious atrocities. All along the route, Minutemen, local farmers and townspeople continued the attack against the British. By the time the British soldiers reached Boston, 73 British solders were dead and 174 more were wounded. In war truth does not have the respect that it usually does. See {626632}.
The newly developed M-16 rifle was resisted by the army brass who did not want to give up their old WWII weapons. There was even cases of army sabatoge of tests to avoid changing weapons. Ironically 40 years later, when the M-16 had been technologically eclipsed by the Russians who had twice the firepower rate and the Israelis who developed a more accurate weapon both more reliable, the army did not want to abandon the M-16 and its shortened version M-4.
The Germans had comitted some terrible war crimes in Belgium at the begiining of WWI. They had torpedoed passanger ships with some Americans getting killed, Public opinion was such that Wilson worried that some atrocity by any small german detachment could pressure his administration to enter WWI to satisf American public opinion.
See {637209} for an example. There was no government policy to commit war crimes nor was there any suggestion from the military command. Most of the worst cases were volunteer militia groups from the same geographic area. The political propaganda from President Polk, an inveterate racist, and other government and Congressional leaders created a classic atmosphere where soldiers get out of control. Specifically, that the enemy is a lesser human being not deserving the full rights and sympathies of a white man.
