Yes David f, when ever I see films of MacArthur I always wonder just how many tens of thousands had to die, so he could create the I will Return legend. They could easily have bypassed them as they did with so many in Rabaul.

Hi there DAVID F...

As always you bring an entirely different perspective to the table, in this case the peddling of weapons of war. It's often said, those who start war, are never those who have to fight them, for they merely stand by and determine how well their weapons of destruction went? Somehow I think that's an over simplification of the issue? In the case of WWll, it was a case of Britain's treaty with Poland I think that's what brought GB into the war.

As far as developing and selling arms to foreign markets I believe both Britain, the United States and to a lesser degree Australia, are all engaged in selling arms abroad. So I hardly think it fair that we here in Oz should shoulder all the blame?

I do agree with you, by us manufacturing of military hardware, does nothing but perpetuate the proliferation of the Arms industry, for the purpose of waging war(s). Thank you DAVID F for your sage contribution.

In 1923 Germany made a deal with the Soviet. Germans trained in panzers and aircraft on Russian soil. They built factories on Russian soil to produce these instruments of war. In return for the Soviet helping in the rearmament of Germany the Germans gave technical expertise to the Soviets helping the Soviet economy. This cooperation lasted until 1933. It resumed with the Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939 and lasted until Germany invaded the Soviets in June, 1941. The Allies could have taken action in the 1920s to deal with this, but the will was lacking. If the Allies had taken action World War 2 would have been prevented. By the time Germany invaded Poland in 1939 the time had been passed for effective preventive action.

Prometheus books has a book on the subject.

Well many thanks for that DAVID F I wasn't aware of any of this. Obviously your scholarship far surpasses anything I can offer on the Topic of the true catalyst of WWll. And how easily it could've been prevented had the Allies taken some action in a timely manner, when they were first made aware of it, back in 1923.

That being the case, would it have saved tens of thousands of Jewish Poles, who were destined to be sent to the Warsaw Ghetto and later, to the various extermination camps? If the Allies had interceded back in 1923?

Thanks DAVID F. for your contribution.

The book telling the story of German Soviet collaboration is “The Red Army and the Wehrmacht” by Yuri Dyakov & Tatyana Bushuyeva published by Prometheus.

The nations involved in WW1 rushed headlong into war thinking it would be a short affair with a clear cut victory instead of a long, bloody slaughter. The churches in most of the countries blessed the armies and supported their governments instead of working for peace.

The Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade by Philip Jenkins tells that story.

“The Great and Holy War offers the first look at how religion created and prolonged the First World War. At the one-hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the war, historian Philip Jenkins reveals the powerful religious dimensions of this modern-day crusade, a period that marked a traumatic crisis for Western civilization, with effects that echoed throughout the rest of the twentieth century.

The war was fought by the world's leading Christian nations, who presented the conflict as a holy war. Thanks to the emergence of modern media, a steady stream of patriotic and militaristic rhetoric was given to an unprecedented audience, using language that spoke of holy war and crusade, of apocalypse and Armageddon. But this rhetoric was not mere state propaganda. Jenkins reveals how the widespread belief in angels and apparitions, visions and the supernatural was a driving force throughout the war and shaped all three of the major religions—Christianity, Judaism and Islam—paving the way for modern views of religion and violence. The disappointed hopes and moral compromises that followed the war also shaped the political climate of the rest of the century, giving rise to such phenomena as Nazism, totalitarianism, and communism.

Connecting numerous remarkable incidents and characters—from Karl Barth to Carl Jung, the Christmas Truce to the Armenian Genocide—Jenkins creates a powerful and persuasive narrative that brings together global politics, history, and spiritual crisis as never before and shows how religion informed and motivated circumstances on all sides of the war.”

Physically I get up early and attend the local 6am Service held in the park, with a few hundred others. On a personal level, as a pacifists, I see it as a moment to reflect on the utter folly of war, remember those, not just Australians, but all, combatants, non-combatants, allies and enemies who made the needless sacrifice for something that one day will hopefully be nothing but a distant memory for mankind.

I have a dislike for those that drag us into wars, the politician, the fanatics, the power seekers, the money hungry, etc etc. always for the wrong reasons, but never stated. Some would think as an old antiwar war protester from the Vietnam days I would have a hatred for those that directly engage in war, the poor cannon fodder, I do not, and never have. I view the combatants as being as much a victim of war as those innocent men, women and children they kill. Deluded like most of the population into to believing they are fighting for some noble cause that requires the death of millions, being the ideals of freedom and democracy, when the real reasons are much more dishonourable, power and money. Unfortunately while ever there is war there will be innocent victims.