← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Faust
Thread ID: 2374 | Posts: 15 | Started: 2002-09-01
2002-09-01 07:16 | User Profile
"They" do hate General George S. Patton.
A "Liberal" rants on Amazon.com
Patton: A Genius for War by Carlo D'Este
Excellent!, April 17, 2000 Reviewer: A reader from Boston USA Though I still consider the Patton Papers 1 & 2 as the definitive biography of the General nonetheless A Genius For War merits a deserved place in the library of any military historian. Superbly researched. Particulary interesting were the conflicts with Eisenhower and Bradley, especially the later, also some glimpses into a rather erratic personal life (such as relationship with niece). The bottom line here however remains is that regardless of how well done a biography this is, we are left with a portrait of a profane abusive bully who did not deserve to wear the uniform of the United States Army. Unfortunately through his own personal failings he never achieved the greatness that he coveted...he should have been relieved in Sicily after the slapping incident for starters and yet again prior to Normandy - saved only by George Marshall. His letters and diary reflect contempt and disloyalty to his superiors and peers alike and the Hammelburg raid was a sickening use and waste of soldiers lives for his own personal gain another offense which should have justified relief. And his constant and vile Anti-Semitic rantings again in diary and letter (covered in more detail by Blumenson) make him more fit to wear the Nazi than the American uniform. I will take my generals in the mold of Stilwell Ridgway and Truscott and Gavin not the likes of a boorish brute obsessed with his own destiny and and endless litany of bizarre beliefs (reincarnation) and behavior. Perhaps the most telling comment of this book is how it shows how weak the US Army was at senior levels prior to D-Day when Patton was retained ONLY because he was needed for post-invasion command. I see absolutely nothing to admire other than an aggressive war fighting spirit however any positive aspects of that are unfortunately eclipsed by serious shortcomings. To summarize, a worthy portrait of a bizarre figure not worthy of personal or professional admiration, though nonetheless an important figure in WW2.
url: [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060927623/qid=1030863193/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/104-2915183-4215908]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006...2915183-4215908[/url]
The "Jewish Threat": Anti-Semites in the U.S. Army [url=http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php?act=ST&f=11&t=2974&s=89418658c00c5cf2bb3fcad9e24af37c]http://forum.originaldissent.com/index.php...b3fcad9e24af37c[/url]
2002-09-01 08:28 | User Profile
Faust,
What jackass wrote this? To tell you the truth, Im surprised the Multi**Cultists** havent gone after Patton with a vengence. I can only accredit that to his achievements throughout his long career of service to America. Still, I do expect the day to come when they figure that they have people dumb down enough to try this. At the end, they are bound and determine to re-write American History in such a manner that we will be just anothe cowed little province in the evil known as the New World Order.
2002-09-01 15:02 | User Profile
Patton's reputation as a general has increased in the light of post-war historical analysis. His plan for a focused strike through the center of the Reich would have certainly shortened the war by months. The German General Staff admitted to such in postwar interviews as they admitted not to having had the means to blunt such an offensive. Patton was rumored to have had a relationship with his wife's niece(no blood relationship) but real proof can not be shown. Patton was distrustful of Jewish political influence and did not generally like Jews on a personal basis. the same could be said of Montgomery and others in the Allied military heirarchy. But what natural law requires anyone to like a political faction or group?
2002-09-01 19:35 | User Profile
Good points Solutrian,
This is exactly why liberalism/leftism can not win in the long run. As you noted about the review, Patton's worth as a general is not contingent upon his ability to prosecute war but rather soley on his allegiance to leftist ideological constructs. The same theory holds true with all other fields of human endeavor. Under a leftist regime, all authoritative institutions eventually become dominated by inept, but ideologically reliable people. As a consequence, the managerial government on which their movement greatly depends will always be horribly mismanaged and ineffecient. This was the Soviet Union's insurmountable problem and the modern left is no different.
2002-09-01 23:09 | User Profile
Sertorius:
General George S. Patton was a great man. Let us also not forget about his work to protect POWs and the refugees in Europe after the War was over. It was protection of German POWs and German civilians that seems to be what the "Liberals" hate most about General George S. Patton. It is these acts of kindness that they hate most.
What jackass wrote this? He did not leave name, he just called himself a "A reader from Boston USA" in Review he left on Amazon.com, remember anyone can post a Review.
2002-09-04 22:36 | User Profile
PATTON AND HIS ENEMIES
As I have written, a man may be judged by his enemies.> **When Americans reflect on war in Europe the man most often thought of is George Patton, and most regrettably this Patton has been George Scott's caricature in the motion picture of the same name. Recent books purporting to be serious history of war have made reference to the movie rather than to the man. Perhaps the most grievous assault on Patton was perpetrated by Andy Rooney, the odious troll of 60 Minutes, a highly rated news entertainment show. On a purported documentary reviewing the war in Europe and while sitting next to retired General H. Norman Schwartzkopf, television personality Mr. Rooney sulked and accused Patton of not knowing what it was to be shot at and not knowing what it was like in the front lines. That Patton of all the senior American officers had the most experience in fighting war did not seem to concern Mr. Rooney. The Patton of World War I led his men into combat and was wounded. This violent invasion of the human body cannot be forgotten by those who were maimed. What became apparent was that Mr. Rooney was criticizing the Patton of the movie. In his memoir of World War II he admitted to having nothing but contempt for General Patton. Mr. Rooney had worked for the GI newspaper, The Stars and Stripes, and obviously was one of those who could be around a battlefield for a hundred years and not know what it was like. Unlike the mules of Hannibal of two thousand years ago, Mr. Rooney has not known enough to shut his mouth.
There was the Patton who was a serious student of international politics and warfare and had the best historical sense of any of the American high command. There was also the Patton parading his patriotic sense of the duty of the citizenry to be a soldier and to be a good one: "The highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one's country". Perhaps, Mr. Rooney was upset with Patton's statement that "battle is much more exigent than football" and believed otherwise
Above all was the accolade afforded George Patton by his foremost adversary, Field Marshal von Rundstedt. After the war von Rundstedt told the British historian, Liddell Hart, that the two best battlefield commanders the Allies had were Patton and Montgomery. One would like to think that the German military professional was a far superior judge of things military than the pouting pansy of American entertainment, Mr. Rooney.
**
PAUL FUSSELL ATTEMPTS TO SET WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY STRAIGHT> **Fussell set for himself the almost impossible task of changing the recall of his war by the sentimental, the loony patriotic, the ignorant, the bloodthirsty, and the Hollywood film. While attempting to explain to William F. Buckley on his Firing Line, television interview show, Mr. Fussell first expressed how irked he was by his countrymen seeing World War II as a great source of virtue for their country and how he hoped grown-ups did not get their sense of history from movies. Then he had the audacity to reveal his contempt for the portrayal of George Patton by George C. Scott, and he stated he believed Scott's depiction about as much as he believed in Rambo saving the western world. Mr. Buckley hesitatingly challenged Mr. Fussell by asking if General Patton really was not as Scott portrayed him. Mr. Fussell revealed to Mr. Buckley that he heard Patton speak and found him to be a very different person than the one Scott depicted. General Patton was a very small person with a very small head. General Patton impressed Mr. Fussell as being a very likeable high school teacher and a much more complicated person than the one shown by the movie. **
George Patton must be judged the best American battlefield commander of the 20th century. His critics are ankle biting creeps who supposedly revere the American constitution and perhaps believe that they and their words would have prevailed over the Wehrmacht. That smirking little sh*t Andy Rooney fits that definition very well.
2002-09-05 02:38 | User Profile
Here is why "they" hate Gen. Patton: [url=http://www.natvan.com/national-vanguard/assorted/patton.html]http://www.natvan.com/national-vanguard/as...ted/patton.html[/url]
... Despite his disagreement with official policy, Patton followed the rules laid down by Morgenthau and others back in Washington as closely as his conscience would allow, but he tried to moderate the effect, and this brought him into increasing conflict with Eisenhower and the other politically ambitious generals. In another letter to his wife he commented: "I have been at Frankfurt for a civil government conference. If what we are doing (to the Germans) is 'Liberty, then give me death.' I can't see how Americans can sink so low. It is Semitic, and I am sure of it."
And in his diary he noted:, "Today we received orders . . . in which we were told to give the Jews special accommodations. If for Jews, why not Catholics, Mormons, etc? ...
Go to the link and read the entire article and quotes from Patton's letters. To say it is interesting would be the height of understatement.
2002-09-17 15:23 | User Profile
I always thought Gen Patton realized the evils of Bolshevism more and more towards the end of WWII and did want the US to invade Russia while we had the opportunity being Russia was decimated after the war. Then Patton dies "accidently" in a Jeep crash? Can any of you expand on these thougths, and also Patton's mysterious death??
2002-09-17 18:14 | User Profile
Often I wonder what would have happened if we had sent sent today's coddled youth in all of its colorful multicultural diversity "over there" to fight the Wehrmacht under the command of Colon Bowel instead of the segregated U.S. Army under General Patton.
2002-09-17 22:10 | User Profile
xmetalhead
Those who think the US army could have prevailed over the Soviet Army at the end of World War are often found late at night. guarding the barstools at the VFW. God is on the side of the big battalions. The Soviets had far more armor and battle tested troops around Berlin than we did. If Patton really believed that (I doubt it), the French and British would not have been with us. The Germans had lost their taste for war and would not have helped, or so I believe.
The severity of war on the Eastern Front.> **The Russian death rate of over 57 percent in German camps should be compared with the death rate of about 4 percent for Americans and British captured by the Germans. For those Red Army soldiers fortunate to have survived the Nazis the ultimate degradation was further incarceration by the Soviet Union for having been captured and possibly being a spy. After the war the United States in a highly developed moralistic and legalistic manner knowingly turned many of these men over to Soviet control and subsequent death. George Patton was deeply concerned with the 100,000 White Russians who wanted to surrender to the Third Army as he was fully aware they probably faced death if turned over to the Red Army. [Harry Semmes, Portrait of Patton, p256, (Paperback Library, 1955)]
The Russians did not measure up to the standards set by the Germans in maltreatment of enemy prisoners, but they did not lag too badly. The Russians took over 3,155,000 Germans as prisoners during the war, and more than one-third, more than a million, died in captivity. [Richard Evans, In Hitler's Shadow, p61 (Pantheon Books, 1989)] **
Sympathy for Germans> At the conclusion of the war General George Patton issued his victory proclamation to the Third Army. Patton using long accepted bombast of the military imagination congratulated all forces from the XX Tactical Air Command to the thirty-nine divisions which once had been part of his Third Army. Patton lauded his troops for killing or wounding 500,000 enemy soldiers and capturing 956,000 others. After the necessary boast to his troops, he penned a more thoughtful letter to his wife in which he observed: "The Germans are all trying to surrender to us so that the Russians will not get them. There are hundreds of thousands of them all without food". [Semmes, op cit, pp256-7]
Irish did not like Patton> **An Irish newspaper, the Sunday Independent, maintained government censors prevented publication of an article praising American General George Patton, but did permit the publishing of one praising Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. [NYT, p8, May 14, 1945] **
Patton on loyalty> The elder Patton wrote that loyalty was a two-way street, but in the World War II Army loyalty had become a one way street with loyalty being expected from the bottom upwards. The much rarer quality of loyalty extending from the top downwards was much more needed for all good armies. [George S. Patton, War As I Knew It, p314 (Houghton, Mifflin, 1947)] The general of World War II wrote of his belief that the highest obligation and privilege of the citizen was bearing arms for his country.
Jesse Jackson did not like Patton and accused him of sacrificing black troops> Mayor Dinkins did not confine himself to the print media. He had lent his august presence to Reverend Jesse Jackson's television program during which the omniscient Mr. Jackson had claimed that during World War II General George Patton had placed black troops on the front line so they could be killed. [Jesse Jackson "Both Sides", Dec 19, 1992 (on CNN)] Mr. Dinkins said nothing to contradict Reverend Jackson. Awkward facts that few blacks died in combat in Europe during World War II have never deterred Mr. Jackson.
I distinctly remember at the end of the above TV program that Jesse Jackson, Mayor Dinkins of NYC talking with Vernon Jordan and agreeing that the American victory in the Gulf War was not due to Schwartzkopf, but to his black deputy. I was stunned.
2002-09-18 04:51 | User Profile
The Soviet was a much battered combatant at the end of the war: the Americans had just gained a head of steam. Moreover strategic air power , along with the nukes would have dealt quickly with the Soviet should that course of action been taken. There also were overtures on the part of Soviet Military leaders to the West calling for a combined war to oust the communist regime. This subject has been the point of much specualtion, but it seems to have substance to it. Patton was one of the Generals so approached.
2002-10-03 19:16 | User Profile
solutrian Posted on Sep 18 2002, 05:51
I have been meaning to write something for weeks. But I have been very busy and do not have reference material at hand. The Russians had far more tanks than we did, and they were much better. Their quality of artillery was much greater and better than ours. War then was won on the ground. The Soviet Air Force was much better than commonly believed in the West. The Soviet Infantry prided itself on night-attacks with bayonets. This style of fighting is one in which Americans never have been very good.
I believe the only atomic weapons we had were the two we used on Japan. Please correct me if I am wrong. The war was won on the Eastern front.
2002-10-03 20:11 | User Profile
Considering Patton's ideal of having the honor of fighting for his country, but keeping in mind his seeming decision after the war to resign rather than retire - due to what he evidently believed to be treasonous behaviour on the part of American politicians, I've often wondered how such a man would have reacted to the war, at it's onset, if he had already come to the conclusion he seemed headed toward at the time of his death, that the war was in pursuit of the furtherance of Judeo-communism rather than for the defense of his country.
I admire Patton's character very much, and I wonder whether he would have submitted to being "a good soldier", regardless, or whether the image of a George Washington, rebel that he was, might have appealed to him.
The conflict between duty, honor, and country, when they don't seem to coincide, combined with the character of a Patton...
Do any of you learned folks have an opinion on this?
Thanks
2002-12-22 06:11 | User Profile
On this day in 1945: American General George Patton dies after a car crash.
2002-12-24 07:22 | User Profile
I have never been a fan of Patton. I think he was quite the overrated General.
He was mostly talk, all bark, and very little bite. I lean towards more methodical Generals. Men who do their job and go home. Silent professionals :)
No doubt I will get a verbal shilaking for slandering one of America's greatest "Generals".