As Marshal Foch said in 1919 at Versailles - quote" This is a twenty year armistice not peace" He was out by 65 days! Aye MalcolmII
Surely - for "Europe" to have a "civil war"...Europe would have had to be united as a single entity??? Bit of an odd opinion given the number of "extra" European nations that Versailles created! Also - Adolf didn't seem to have had the same opinion either - he regarded the victory over France as victory over "the old enemy"... Hardly a civil war if one party at least to it regarded it as the resolution of unfinished business from other, earlier wars...? ( On a purely legal note - the fact that at the IMT in 1945, charges of making illegal war" could be brought against various Nazi war criminals for their breach of Hague III I.E. the proper declaration of war between nations...argues that it wasn't a civil war - as the Hague Conventions didn't apply within nations, only BETWEEN nations ) For an academic, he seems to be wrong on more than a few levels!
The "civil war" idea is absurd. Special definitions allow anything to be anything else. But they're just a stunt, not history.
Thus exposing my little rant from earlier. I still think it's a daft concept. Though I do have some acceptance of the 'WW1 & WW2 were one big war with a 20 year hiatus' hypothesis, which seems to have been picked up & drafted in alongside this Civil War idea by some.
If the presumption of the author of the summation paragraphs was that the Second World War "began" on 1st September 1939 when Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, then the term "European civil war" seems eccentric and not really very helpful..."with an initial European focus" perhaps...and then if ignoring the ongoing Japanese campaigns. It should be noted that it is being used as part of a teaser for the magazine's May 2013 review of the impact of El Alamein and the capitulation of German/Italian forces in Tunis, and encapsulating the "end of the beginning" phrase (coined in Nov 1942), and then moving to a British centric review of the impact of war time mass mobilisation on social outlooks and thence to Beveridge, and the post war settlements...I suppose.
It was Marshall Foch's view of the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919 which I tend to agree with. I think a ' civil war ' a daft concept also. Aye MalcolmII
Would anyone mind if I said I think what the Bishop of London said is utter rubbish calling it a 'European Civil War' ?(see I didnt swear) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/10113694/Take-less-bishop-tells-baby-boomers.html
The man markets a recycled Middle Eastern fairy-tale for a living. A little further historical inaccuracy is unlikely to bother him... Have I broken any forum rules ? I shall march off whistling 'Colonel Bogey'.
I don't think anyone on this forum is going to like this much but...The French museum of the First World War in Meaux has the words "Disunited Europe" written on the floor of the gallery on the pre war alliances.
The European Civil War is a term used by some historians that brings together WW1 and WW2 in one historical period. They discribe the conflicts as a period in which Europe was shaped, nationalities created and dissappered etc. The term and the period is still under debate. The term was first used by Historian Ernst Nolte who discribed it as Der europäische Bürgerkrieg 1917-1945. He stated the First WOrld War started out as a 'normal' classical war between great powers, but became a civil war when the Soviet Revolution took place. The revolutionairy idea spread out over Europe and had its influence in the events that followed, right up to the Spanish Civil War and WW2. In many European countries the revolutionairy ideas led to revolutions and uprising. Beceause of this, some add the period of the cold war to the European Civil War, due to the events like the Greek Civil War and even the Korean, Vietnam, Angolan and Afghan (1979-1989) War. In these thoughts the European Civil War ended with the deviding of the SOviet Union in 1991, which let the European Civil War coincide with the excistence of the Soviet Union.
Read the Foreword by Gavin Stamp in 'Lutyens and The Great War'' by Tim Skelton & Gerald Gliddon & went ''ARRGGGHHHH!!!'' Who is Gavin Stamp? I had to Google him. What made me go ''Argh!'' This quote from the Foreward. ''- although the monument is covered in names : names of just some victims of the European civil war , the orgy of industrialised slaughter we call the Great War.'' In that quote he was referring to the memorial to the missing at Thiepval , he wrote a book on it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Memorial-Missing-Somme-Wonders-World/dp/1861978960 I wont bother reading it cos of the 'European Civil War' quote above, can't take him seriously now at all.
I think that viewpoint comes from German complaints about how unfair everything was to them. The correct framing is that (from Germany's viewpoint) an Austrian-Serbian LOCAL conflict became a CONTINENTAL conflict because of Russia, and became a WORLD conflict because of Britain. I think that's wrong on several points. Apparently the defining characteristics of WORLD conflict to Germany was 1) can't beat France in and Russia in a few months 2) undergo a naval blockade 3) have to face an enemy with substantial overseas resources. All rather shakey. To my mind a WORLD conflict is simply a geographic spread, and since going to war with France is not that much less than going to war with Britain in regard to spanning the globe, I think the real expansion to a WORLD war where extra-European fighting goes on at a respectible amount is due to TURKEY entering the war.
Looked for a reference to the European Civil War (s) in the OED,no such reference.I have to say that I have always thought that the term originates from those looking in and not those in Europe but the way we look at history is always subject to revision. Interestingly the amount of new content referenced in the December 2014 OED update is quite numerous and indicates how the English language is is subject to continual change.
Looking at all the sites which provide a Definition of a CIVIL WAR, WW1 and WW2 cannot possibly be called a Civil War. Most quotes are like this one provided by Wiki which perhaps provides more Information than most. "A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly united state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war Regards Tom
