Re: Modern History and the Brzhona, etc.

[raybrown@macline.co.uk (Raymond A. Brown)]

At 15:14 25/6/98, Padraic Brown wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>
>> At 10:27 24/6/98, Padraic Brown wrote:
>> [......]
>> >
>> >WWII is essentially caused by Mr Hitler's mucking about in Poland,
>> >Czeckoslovakia, Rhineland, Saarland, etc. and otherwise making a big
>> >nuisance of Germany. The USA was dragged into it (not completely
>> >unwillingly, as the country had the Depression to get out of) through
>> >unremembered mechanisms
>>
>> Er - I thought it was something to do with a little incident at Pearl
>> Harbor when some of Mr Hitler's allies got a bit uppity.  Or have I been
>> misinformed for the past 50 years?
>
>Well duh!  Perhaps you could tell me what our War with Japan had to do
>with our War with Germany (aside from the fact that J&G were allies, these
>were essentially two different wars -- different leaders, different
>objectives, different V-days, etc.).

Quite a lot! Remember, please, that we Brits were involved with Japan
rather before Pearl Harbor IIRC.  I have known Brits - now dead - who had
rather unpleasant memories of the Japanese in WWII.

> What I'm not remembering is how and
>why the USA got entangled in the _European_ end of things.

Because you got yourselves involved in what was by that time a *global*
war, whether the US wanted it that way or not.  It wasn't confined to
Europe & the Pacific areas only.  Quite a large part of Asia had become
involved, as well as Australasia & certainly north Africa. Once in, I don't
see how, however isolationist the US might have been (and thankfully it
wasn't), it could've have avoided the European scene altogether.

>You'll notice
>I had not mentioned the Pacific end of things at all.  It's _Europe_ we're
>dealing with here, not Asia.
>
>It's all moot anyway, if there be no USA *there*; and that's the whole
>reason for the discussion anyway!  If we're trying to figure out the
>history of modern *there*,

Do what you will with the history *there* (tho it strikes me that if there
is no USA, the history of the modern world will be very different) - I
confess 'alternate histories' are not things that I can get excited about.
It's the language that got me interested in Brithenig.

Ray.