Feck off. I'm not attacking you, I know you have fair play.Originally Posted by former wesleyan
I've just sent them an email. Calm down ffs.
It would seem to be very sloppy on the journalist's part. Professor/Senior Lecturer is nothing but a bruise on somebody's vanity, but the wrong Department - it being the hinge of the argument in lending validity to the man's estimation - is very suspect to me.
I suspect that someone who writes a mono " Were we ever Tudors " has some background in History though.
Because it's their motives which matter, not the ones ascribed to them. The convenient hindsight observation is reserved for those who use these events to cobble together lame arguments re Irish unity or indeed the States stance during WWII.
With respect, this is far from certain, and I have met lecturers in Early Modern or Elizabethan Literature.
Besides that, it would be akin to giving a platform to launch verbal estimations on the Zhou Dynasty to an expert on Early Modern France.
To an extent, yes. If a such a deserter were to say that he would never have considered serving in the armed forces of any country that might go to war with Ireland, I would consider it a point in his favour. I would not excuse him automatically of course, but I would take it as mitigation.
It's his expertise in English that worries me.
"I'd estimate that 60% of the population expected or indeed hoped the Germans would win"
Expected or indeed hoped? He makes it sound as if the latter is a variation of the former.
He also suggests that the measure was introduced to prevent civil unrest which is nonsense.
There was an issue to be addressed in the the fact that the end of the war meant that around 4000 people who had left the Irish army to join British , or indeed other forces could have been open to prosecution for desertion if they all returned. This would have proved to be an administrative nightmare. It should be said that the order specified the amount of time AWOL rather than where the person went or what they did but in practice that meant mostly those who joined other services.
Those involved could have faced periods of imprisonment if found guilty by the normal procedures of a court martial.
An executive order was perhaps a reasonable approach to dealing with the problem - the terms it was framed in were not.
the argument would not have been a legal one, its kind of splitting hairs. it also opens the door to excusing the Russians for say shooting soldiers who retreat, If your only moral compass is military convenience then the line drawing becomes arbitrary.
These deserters should have been executed upon returning.
They deserted the defence forces at a time when the state faced the possibility of a very real invasion from both the Allies and the Axis.
In retrospect it may seem harsh that these men were court-martialled etc. but this has to be judged in the context of the time. They were undoubtedly deserters. It is not as if they were executed, which is what the British and Germans did in the 1914-18 war, and of course it has been demonstrated that Irish soldiers in the British army were more likely to be executed than soldiers of other nationalities if they were found guitly of desertion.
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