Talk:World War II/Archive 11

message: I realize the names that the United Kingdom and its related states call themselves are complex and vary over time.  However, at the time and in most history books, it was acceptable to refer to the group let by Winston Churchill as simply "Britain".  All this talk of the "British Empire" or "Commonwealth" doing this and that is misleading and anachronistic, because right or wrong places such as India and Canada were not really calling the shots and the leadership was in London.  One does not talk of the "Battle of the UK" either.  Britain was and is the term used by most English-speakers, except for a small community of nitpickers on Wikipedia.  Please just let us use it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.93.100.179 (talk • contribs) 
:: How strange. I have never ever heard of the AIF being referred to as British. And if Britain was 'calling the shots' (it was to a great degree admittedly) the AIF would not have been releived in Tobruk, and would have gone to Burma in 1942 rather than returning to Australia. It is not appropriate to call Commonwealth forces British, and it simply isn't done in any history book I have read. I don't know how Indian or Canadian history books handle it. But I understand the confusion of my American friends...there are places further west than California that aren't Europe. The group led by Winston Churchill as you put it is regularly referred to as the Allies. aussietiger 15:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would tend to agree with aussietiger. Britain was not entirely 'calling the shots'. Australia, Canada etc. all joined the war by their own decision and had the right to move their troops where they saw fit. It's insulting to say "Britain did this" when it was done by a Commonwealth country. We should say "Britain" when we mean Britain, "Allies" when we mean all the Allies including the US and Soviets, and "Commonwealth" when we need to refer to all the Commonwealth countries collectively. I guess to avoid confusion we should make sure we say "British Commonwealth" the first time the term is used, to make it clear we don't mean the Commonwealth of Virginia. DJ Clayworth 15:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the Commonwealth of Virginia? Do you mean the Commonwealth of Australia? Wallie 20:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you click on the link? That tells you what it is. Hope that helps! --Habap 21:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Name of Britain

message: i've revised the opening of the article to include a recognition of the british war effort as a collective action by the empire & commonwealth as well as the home country;  i admit the wording is less that perfect, but the british war effort was absolutely dependant on the efforts of the empire & commonwealth taken as a whole;  with the major countries being canada, australia (& nz), south africa, & india;  all of them except for india being effectively separate powers & independant allies, & even india having some significant degree of autonomy.
without the combined war effort, britain itself could not have continued the war, & possibly might not have even entered into it.
canada particularly deserves recogniton as being a separate power, entering into alliance agreements with the untied states on matters such as the defence of north america (even before the formal entry of the usa into the war), separate from its ties with britian (as did australia, where the american military effectively replaced the british as the leading allied power in the region), canada also was involved more closely in the american efforts to produce atomic weapons, among other things, and canada was included in the representation of most major allied war conferences, certainly  the "all powers" ones; with the canadian prime minsiter being included in the churhcill-roosevelt photos of the quebec conference..
also re: nitpickers....   i would assume that you are including winston spencer churchill among the nitpickers, as he spoke of "britian and her empire", "the empire", and "the british empire and it's commonwealth of nations" as a matter of common practice, particularly in discussing the war effort
& made a specific effort to do so DURING the war.
I recognize that the issue of the commonwealth countries is somewhat problematic as they are simultaneously independant allies, and affiliates of britian; but they were recognized as separate powers, responsible for their own declarations of war (unlike in ww1), and had recogniton as such on the major legal documents relating to the war.
I haven't listed tham all (major empire/commonwealth countries) in the intro to the article as this would take too much space, but i do feel that the unusual nature of the "british" war effort as including more than just the "home/mother country" does deserve some kind of specific recognition.
I wuold also like to point out the subtle difference between "britian" as it might have been understood to include the empire & commonweath to a reader in the ww2 era, and "britian" as it is understood to be today (ie: just the uk & close territorial possesions such as the channel islands, isle of manx, etc.; or simply "britain" as being just great britian itself, & specifically excluding northern ireland;  i admit that occasionally the few remaining colonies are included, although the practice of including any outside parts of the empire in the terms 'britain" or "british" has pretty much fallen from common usage;)
It is both disprespectful & inappropriate to simply lump the empire/commonwealth cuontries all together as "british" without at least adding this caveat.
It's also inaccurate.
i'm not looking to start a war here,  but the matter is too important to just let it pass.
also, the british seat on the UN security council was originally meant as a "british empire" seat;
the addition of a second permanent/veto seat for a commonwealth country would have been seen as unacceptablle to some of the other powers & it would have been somewhat problematic as australia (or aus/nz) & canada both had populations too small & india was too poor too troubled & too non-white to be considered; i believe there was a fair amount of discussion of these issues @ the time the UN was being formed, but there's rly not a good compromise option that offers itself...  a "commonwealth seat"?  an aus/nz/ca seat?  As with so many things about the UN, including only one "british" seat was the "political" & somewhat unsatisfactory compromise that was reached.
the subsequent falling away of the other commonwealth countries from britain has changed the preception of the british seat on the sec. coun. from empire to just home country & it certainly nvr really worked as being representative of the empire & commonwealth as a whole. currently there is good reason to argue that neither britian nor france rly deserves a permanent/veto sec. coun. seat anymore, and that the membership/structure/voting powers of the UN should be changed to better reflect current world realities & perhaps democratic prinicples, but changing it  has proved to be rather difficult (yes off-topic i know, i digress...  but i'm not the only one who does...).
the "big 5"  representation included both a france that had been defeated in 1940 & who's subsequent (or total) contributions to the allied war effort, while not completely negligible, were rather less than those of the major commonwealth countries, and chiang-kai-chek's kuomintang "republic of china"  which did not represent the entire chinese nation, or effectively govern the whole of "free" (non japanese occupied) chinese territory.  while china certainlly did contribute (& suffer) greatly during the war against japan, arguably the communist chinese were the more effective "ally" in the actual fighting (as well as eventually decicively wining the chinese civil war against chiang & the kmt), & on the whole they did not receive the recognition they deserved from the western powers, particulary in subsequent & later UN politcs.
long story short: the UN seats were given out for laregely political reasons & they do not accurately reflect the relative conributions and/or significance of allied nations in WW2.
as a candian i'll quietly point out that @ the end of world war 2, if you were to make a list of the "great powers"  the ranking would be something like:
usa & ussr as the 2 superpowers, then it's something of a toss-up between canada & china; the chinese having a larger army, but far less advanced technologically & less well equipped, & split btwn 2 major factions already engaging in the beginning of the end-phase of the chinese civil war; canada having a more technologically advanced & far better equipped military, although somewhat unbalanced as it was geared to serve as part of a combined western allied force, rather than a stand-alone power. 
...germany & japan not being counted, having of course been defeated & italy being in the somewhat awkward position of having tried to change sides in the middle of the war & having thoroughly disproved its status as a great power with its combat record. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.93.100.179 (talk • contribs) 
:: I think we agree on a lot of things.  Canada, India, Australia etc. all made significant contributions.  Churchill is possibly the greatest world leader in history.  On how to write a quick introduction to WWII, I guess we disagree.  In my mind, the WWII term "Britain" is loose shorthand for the UK, India, Canada, NZ, Australia, mandates, parts of Africa, random islands, etc., with the understanding that most of the important decisions were made in London.  Churchill had to be careful in his speeches not to underplay anyone's importance, and therefore used stilted terms that still sound unusual.  He also talks about "Britons" and "Our Island".  The BBC thinks "Britain" is ok.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/.  Roosevelt writes about "Great Britain and Ireland" http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/WorldWar2/fdr3.htm.  If people from the non-UK regions have such a problem with being called "British", then what is the problem with acknowledging Britain as the leader of this group?  Do you really think that Ottawa was leading the war?  If so, then how many other "leaders" do we have to count up before we can say we are being fair?
::Let's compromise... I'll leave the intro alone as long as you promise not to go through the article and mangle every sentence that uses the words "Britain" or "British". Haber 22:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If Canada was such an influence, then why wasn't their prime minister included in "The Big Three" to become, "The Big Four?" Oyo321 23:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeh. Love it. Big four. Could be big five... Poland fancies itself as some sort of a superpower like Canada too. Seriously, folks. Canada is not in the league of Britain, USA or the Soviet Union. We all have to know our pecking order... As far as the use of "British" is concerned, there is nothing special about Canada. England would have missed India more than Canada. Remember that Canada is just another country in the British Commonwealth..... OK. Canada was handy as a base/staging post for transport planes and stuff from the USA in the earlier parts of WW2. Think I saw a film about this with James Cagney once, with a whole lot of Canadian pilots in a very very smokey room. Wallie 21:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  the british empire & its commonwealth of nations