Historic surrenders

Oddly we have posters who beleive that Zelenski should have surrended to save lives.

I admit to wondering the same, but so many of his people follow him so faithfully, I think he must be right.

But how have surrenders worked in the past.

Sigapore surrended in ww2 to save loss of life, with the result that the British POW's were just worked to death by the Japanese.

Cosacks were shamefully offered to stalin at the end of ww2 to be bruteally shot.

An early English King kept paying off the Vikings who kept the money & killed him

The German commander of Paris in WW2 surrended Paris to the allies, which was wise saving Paris & the population.

On balance I think Zelenski is a hero (although not perfect)
 

Ashtree

Member
Not military in his heroism, but Shackleton must be pretty close to it, before he hit the bottle... 😐
Indeed. Those men of that time, in those expeditions, were made of true character.
Tom Crean, a Kerryman who worked with both Scott and Shackleton, is another man who‘s likes don‘t come around too often.
 

Danllan

Member
Location
Sir Gar / Carms
Indeed. Those men of that time, in those expeditions, were made of true character.
Tom Crean, a Kerryman who worked with both Scott and Shackleton, is another man who‘s likes don‘t come around too often.
I'm only aware of him - his name - from having read it and brief mentions of him in the explorations, and have read nothing biographical about him... until now, just looked at Wikipedia. Bloody hell! Even the photo' shows character pouring out. What a life, a sad end.

It always seems a cliche, and I don't think it is wholly true, really, but when one comes across characters like this, and Shackleton and some others, it always brings the thought that they really don't make them like that anymore. :(
 
Last edited:

Bongodog

Member
I'm only aware of him - his name - from having read it and brief mentions of him in the explorations, and have read nothing biographical about him... until now, just looked at Wikipedia. Bloody hell! Even the photo' shows character poring out. What a life, a sad end.

It always seems a cliche, and I don't think it is wholly true, really, but when one comes across characters like this, and Shackleton and some others, it always brings the thought that they really don't make them like that anymore. :(
I think the thing is that these days we all have an expectation of a long life ahead of us, years ago this just wasn't the case. If you thought you had no realistic prospect of living to an old age, you would be far less risk adverse than anyone now.
Take my father in law, his father lost two wives by the time he was 60, had a son who was long term sick and barely outlived him, and lost a step son at the age of 6. Death was a constant factor in his life he lived to around 65 and probably though he had done well to reach that.
Also we are far too comfortable these days, if we headed off as these people did we would be leaving a lot behind, they weren't leaving much behind at all.
 

Danllan

Member
Location
Sir Gar / Carms
I think the thing is that these days we all have an expectation of a long life ahead of us, years ago this just wasn't the case. If you thought you had no realistic prospect of living to an old age, you would be far less risk adverse than anyone now.
Take my father in law, his father lost two wives by the time he was 60, had a son who was long term sick and barely outlived him, and lost a step son at the age of 6. Death was a constant factor in his life he lived to around 65 and probably though he had done well to reach that.
Also we are far too comfortable these days, if we headed off as these people did we would be leaving a lot behind, they weren't leaving much behind at all.
I see what you mean, but the last bit did make me smile as I remembered myself alone on a run-down farm in the arse end of Zim, with old cans as furniture and my 'bedroom' acting as the seed store because it was the - theoretically - least verminous place I had, lonely as hell over Christmas and the party-line down... and I was thinking 'What the f^ck am I doing here?' Character-building... :unsure: :banghead: :ROFLMAO:
 
On balance I think Zelenski is a hero (although not perfect)


Notice that Zelenski, Putin, Boris, Westminster, Brussels & Washington have all suffered zero deaths.

Yet the very same advocate War & Death.

Meanwhile ordinary peope die in their 10,000s.

I wouldn't call that anywhere near "Heroic". In hind sight what would have been heroic would be for a peace pact 8 years ago that still held today.

Personally I find Zelenski immensely disingenuous.
 
Notice that Zelenski, Putin, Boris, Westminster, Brussels & Washington have all suffered zero deaths.

Yet the very same advocate War & Death.

Meanwhile ordinary peope die in their 10,000s.

I wouldn't call that anywhere near "Heroic". In hind sight what would have been heroic would be for a peace pact 8 years ago that still held today.

Personally I find Zelenski immensely disingenuous.
I speak to many East Europeans in a week & every single one of them has hatred for the old USSR & still hate Hitler.

You mention peace when the next door neighbour is a liar, thief, mass murderer & wants that land for himself.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
I speak to many East Europeans in a week & every single one of them has hatred for the old USSR & still hate Hitler.

You mention peace when the next door neighbour is a liar, thief, mass murderer & wants that land for himself.
He has a point, when it comes to war non of these leaders actually lead any more.
They probably wouldn't be so keen if they had to
 

Danllan

Member
Location
Sir Gar / Carms
He has a point, when it comes to war non of these leaders actually lead any more.
They probably wouldn't be so keen if they had to
This is just bloody stupid; what do you expect any of them to do, pick up a gat and head for the front? And then they get topped and both functioning government and the democratic process is shafted, very sensible. And if they survived, no matter what, some tw@ thinking himself clever would then accuse them of grandstanding. :banghead:

Their job at the moment is to finance, supply and arm Ukraine, as well as all the usual domestic stuff at home. And once it's over, their job will be to finance, supply, arm and help rebuild Ukraine, as well as all the usual domestic stuff at home.

I bet there isn't an opposition leader here or anywhere in Europe that isn't phenomenally glad he / she isn't in government at the moment.
 
Notice that Zelenski, Putin, Boris, Westminster, Brussels & Washington have all suffered zero deaths.

Yet the very same advocate War & Death.

Meanwhile ordinary peope die in their 10,000s.

I wouldn't call that anywhere near "Heroic". In hind sight what would have been heroic would be for a peace pact 8 years ago that still held today.

Personally I find Zelenski immensely disingenuous.
So do you have examples of surrender that have worked out well?

A German Field Marshall surrended his task force to the Russians in WW2, they marched them to death. At the time fair point, Russians had been treated as sub human.

Churchill never surrended when German bombs rained down on London, Biringham, Coventry, Hull, Sheffield, Leeds, Hull, Glasglow & many more. Was he wrong maybe the death rate must have been huge.

I suppose white South Africa surrended, good idea but not turned out that well.

We surrended our Empire that has mostly gone well.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
You would all do well to read Hagues piece in The Times.

Ukraine can be neutral but not defenceless​


An acceptable peace deal would have to offer Kyiv a Swiss-style model with its own army and links to western economies​

William Hague

Monday March 21 2022, 5.00pm, The Times
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-can-be-neutral-but-not-defenceless-c506v0d0q
The current peace talks between Russia and Ukraine take me back to June 2012, when I was sitting in Geneva with Sergey Lavrov, Hillary Clinton and others, drafting an agreement to end civil war in Syria. Whenever agreement was near, Lavrov’s phone would ring, and a sharp voice would bark instructions to him. “Putin!” he would exclaim as each call ended: Lavrov is more a lawyer who has to please a nightmare of a client than a foreign minister running his own brief.

These dictatorial interjections did not help matters, but far more ominous for today’s catastrophic situation for innocent Ukrainians is what happened next. We reached agreement, convened a peace conference with the Syrians, and then the Russians failed to honour their side of the deal — to deliver the Assad regime into sharing power with their opposition. Moscow chose to step up its own murderous intervention instead. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that they were always stringing us along.


The same might well be true of the present talks. It suits Putin to have negotiations in progress, allowing him to look reasonable, blame the Ukrainians for intransigence, even though he has invaded their country, soothe domestic public opinion and give China an excuse for not taking any peace initiative of its own. At the very same time he is stepping up the bombardment of civilians and attempting to regroup his forces for further offensives.



Play Video
William Hague: Russian sanctions have unified the West
Even in the unlikely scenario that Putin’s intentions in pursuing talks are genuine, the issues are formidably difficult to resolve and will only become more so as the horrors, and indeed war crimes, add up to create an enmity that will last for generations. The future status of Crimea and of Donetsk and Luhansk — not to mention the boundaries of the latter two — are already intensely divisive. Add in a few more weeks of war and the list of near-insoluble issues only lengthens. If Russia takes Mariupol, establishing a land-bridge to Crimea, would it ever agree to give that up? Who pays for the damage to Ukrainian infrastructure, running at tens of billions of dollars a day? How are the lives lost, and the millions of families uprooted from their homes, to be reflected in a peace deal?
President Zelensky is proving an extraordinary war leader, and his own sincerity in seeking peace is not in doubt. He has used history with powerful effect in his addresses to western parliaments. But his statement last week that “All wars end in agreements”, understandably designed to reassure his citizens, is sadly not an accurate one. Many wars end in the collapse or annihilation of one side, or in a stalemate that defines new borders, or in an agreement made unwillingly under extreme duress.

ADVERTISEMENT​


This is what Putin will have in mind. Even he can probably see that his objective of only a month ago, to bring all of Ukraine and its people under his sway, is now unattainable. But he probably believes that a second-best goal, of stripping Ukraine of key territory and leaving it less defensible and more neutralised, is still in play. For that, he is prepared to lay waste many more of Ukraine’s towns and cities.
Therefore, while it will be a very pleasant surprise if the talks being hosted by Turkey produce a breakthrough, it is more likely that a peace deal will become no nearer as the weeks go by. The West must be ready for the consequences of that: finding more sanctions to impose, adapting to energy and commodity shortages, increasing the flow of lethal aid to Ukraine, and welcoming even greater numbers of refugees. It is quite probable that the second phase of the war will be the bloody stalemate predicted by many military experts in recent days.
Yet western capitals also have to prepare in the background for what will be a vital part of any peace deal that ever does emerge: Ukrainian neutrality. This is the issue that has offered negotiators some hope. Putin demands a neutral Ukraine, and Zelensky, given that Nato remains closed to him, is offering that. Neutrality may be the foundation stone of a sustainable peace for Ukraine, but it is no simple solution. It can easily be a trap, an illusion or, at worst, a tripwire for wars to come.
The Russian version of Ukrainian neutrality is that it would be something like Austria in the Cold War, with strictly limited armed forces, no foreign bases, guaranteed by the big powers — in effect, at the mercy of the military blocs in close proximity to it and relying on their mutual deterrence. It is easy to see why this approach might work for Russia. A weak Ukraine would live next door to a powerful Russia, hoping for support in a crisis from distant friends.

SPONSORED​



Austria stayed out of Nato but joined the EU, one aspect of this model that might appeal in Kiev. Since then, however, the EU has expanded a common security and defence policy, so the question of whether an EU application is compatible with neutrality could be a stumbling block in future talks.
In any case, neutrality that relies on enforcement by outside powers is illusory if they lack the military capability or political determination to go to war to protect it. While current talks seem to hold out the prospect of a guarantee by the five UN Security Council members, plus Germany and Turkey, that would really mean that a violation of neutrality would bring the two of those countries with the full means to intervene — the US and Russia — into military confrontation with each other. There would be an echo of Belgian neutrality, pre-1914, when Germany’s misreading of Britain’s resolve to uphold it added to the miscalculations that produced the First World War.
The neutrality that might work best for Ukrainians is neither Austrian nor Belgian, but Swiss, albeit on a bigger scale: integrated into western economies and societies but with the means to defend themselves. Other models will leave them open to Russian bullying, relying on leadership in Washington never wavering, destined either to be let down one day or become the spark for an even greater conflagration. The failure of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, when they gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for promises, underlines the point.
By their valiant resistance, Ukrainians have more than earned the right to choose their own destiny. They have also learnt, for all the help we are giving them, that their peace and security ultimately depends on their own resilience. Neutrality might be the best option for a country in their geographic position. But they will need a muscular, self-reliant, ruggedly independent neutrality if they are ever to sleep easily in the future.



Global politics
Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky
 

Danllan

Member
Location
Sir Gar / Carms
You would all do well to read Hagues piece in The Times.

Ukraine can be neutral but not defenceless​


An acceptable peace deal would have to offer Kyiv a Swiss-style model with its own army and links to western economies​

William Hague

Monday March 21 2022, 5.00pm, The Times
Share
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-can-be-neutral-but-not-defenceless-c506v0d0q
https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?te...-can-be-neutral-but-not-defenceless-c506v0d0q
https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sha...-can-be-neutral-but-not-defenceless-c506v0d0q
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-can-be-neutral-but-not-defenceless-c506v0d0q
Save
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-can-be-neutral-but-not-defenceless-c506v0d0q
The current peace talks between Russia and Ukraine take me back to June 2012, when I was sitting in Geneva with Sergey Lavrov, Hillary Clinton and others, drafting an agreement to end civil war in Syria. Whenever agreement was near, Lavrov’s phone would ring, and a sharp voice would bark instructions to him. “Putin!” he would exclaim as each call ended: Lavrov is more a lawyer who has to please a nightmare of a client than a foreign minister running his own brief.

These dictatorial interjections did not help matters, but far more ominous for today’s catastrophic situation for innocent Ukrainians is what happened next. We reached agreement, convened a peace conference with the Syrians, and then the Russians failed to honour their side of the deal — to deliver the Assad regime into sharing power with their opposition. Moscow chose to step up its own murderous intervention instead. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that they were always stringing us along.


The same might well be true of the present talks. It suits Putin to have negotiations in progress, allowing him to look reasonable, blame the Ukrainians for intransigence, even though he has invaded their country, soothe domestic public opinion and give China an excuse for not taking any peace initiative of its own. At the very same time he is stepping up the bombardment of civilians and attempting to regroup his forces for further offensives.



Play Video
William Hague: Russian sanctions have unified the West
Even in the unlikely scenario that Putin’s intentions in pursuing talks are genuine, the issues are formidably difficult to resolve and will only become more so as the horrors, and indeed war crimes, add up to create an enmity that will last for generations. The future status of Crimea and of Donetsk and Luhansk — not to mention the boundaries of the latter two — are already intensely divisive. Add in a few more weeks of war and the list of near-insoluble issues only lengthens. If Russia takes Mariupol, establishing a land-bridge to Crimea, would it ever agree to give that up? Who pays for the damage to Ukrainian infrastructure, running at tens of billions of dollars a day? How are the lives lost, and the millions of families uprooted from their homes, to be reflected in a peace deal?
President Zelensky is proving an extraordinary war leader, and his own sincerity in seeking peace is not in doubt. He has used history with powerful effect in his addresses to western parliaments. But his statement last week that “All wars end in agreements”, understandably designed to reassure his citizens, is sadly not an accurate one. Many wars end in the collapse or annihilation of one side, or in a stalemate that defines new borders, or in an agreement made unwillingly under extreme duress.

ADVERTISEMENT​


This is what Putin will have in mind. Even he can probably see that his objective of only a month ago, to bring all of Ukraine and its people under his sway, is now unattainable. But he probably believes that a second-best goal, of stripping Ukraine of key territory and leaving it less defensible and more neutralised, is still in play. For that, he is prepared to lay waste many more of Ukraine’s towns and cities.
Therefore, while it will be a very pleasant surprise if the talks being hosted by Turkey produce a breakthrough, it is more likely that a peace deal will become no nearer as the weeks go by. The West must be ready for the consequences of that: finding more sanctions to impose, adapting to energy and commodity shortages, increasing the flow of lethal aid to Ukraine, and welcoming even greater numbers of refugees. It is quite probable that the second phase of the war will be the bloody stalemate predicted by many military experts in recent days.
Yet western capitals also have to prepare in the background for what will be a vital part of any peace deal that ever does emerge: Ukrainian neutrality. This is the issue that has offered negotiators some hope. Putin demands a neutral Ukraine, and Zelensky, given that Nato remains closed to him, is offering that. Neutrality may be the foundation stone of a sustainable peace for Ukraine, but it is no simple solution. It can easily be a trap, an illusion or, at worst, a tripwire for wars to come.
The Russian version of Ukrainian neutrality is that it would be something like Austria in the Cold War, with strictly limited armed forces, no foreign bases, guaranteed by the big powers — in effect, at the mercy of the military blocs in close proximity to it and relying on their mutual deterrence. It is easy to see why this approach might work for Russia. A weak Ukraine would live next door to a powerful Russia, hoping for support in a crisis from distant friends.

SPONSORED​



Austria stayed out of Nato but joined the EU, one aspect of this model that might appeal in Kiev. Since then, however, the EU has expanded a common security and defence policy, so the question of whether an EU application is compatible with neutrality could be a stumbling block in future talks.
In any case, neutrality that relies on enforcement by outside powers is illusory if they lack the military capability or political determination to go to war to protect it. While current talks seem to hold out the prospect of a guarantee by the five UN Security Council members, plus Germany and Turkey, that would really mean that a violation of neutrality would bring the two of those countries with the full means to intervene — the US and Russia — into military confrontation with each other. There would be an echo of Belgian neutrality, pre-1914, when Germany’s misreading of Britain’s resolve to uphold it added to the miscalculations that produced the First World War.
The neutrality that might work best for Ukrainians is neither Austrian nor Belgian, but Swiss, albeit on a bigger scale: integrated into western economies and societies but with the means to defend themselves. Other models will leave them open to Russian bullying, relying on leadership in Washington never wavering, destined either to be let down one day or become the spark for an even greater conflagration. The failure of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, when they gave up nuclear weapons in exchange for promises, underlines the point.
By their valiant resistance, Ukrainians have more than earned the right to choose their own destiny. They have also learnt, for all the help we are giving them, that their peace and security ultimately depends on their own resilience. Neutrality might be the best option for a country in their geographic position. But they will need a muscular, self-reliant, ruggedly independent neutrality if they are ever to sleep easily in the future.



Global politics
Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky
Who the hell is William Hague to tell the Ukrainians what is and isn't 'acceptable'? :mad: :yuck:

This seems a rather long apology for not wanting to do any more for Ukraine than the bare minimum that will look like something is being done, and yet won't 'provoke' Putin. Neither NATO nor the EU pose any threat to Russia at all; Ukraine being a member of NATO and / or the EU poses no threat to Russia at all.

The threat that all this poses, and it is a very real one, is to Vladimir Putin; he can't have a prosperous democracy next to him, because it will simply be a screaming, blazing demonstration to the Russian people of how poor and oppressed they are, and how bad a 'leader' Putin really is. And everyone knows this.

If the Ukrainian people democratically express a genuine wish for neutrality, that's their call. But if they want to retain their self-determination, and choose to join NATO or the EU - long paths though they may need to reach them - we should do everything we can to facilitate them, and not humour this ridiculous little dictator.
 

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