"Why do the British always win every war" Topic

This is one for dibble and co, me thinks? Well the first one anyway. Not sure what they'll make of the Roman and America episodes? LOL

It is a TV series: Al Murray: Why Do the British Always Win Every War.

It contains 6 episodes. The first one is France-Napoleonic Wars.

2nd Ep: Roman Conquest
3rd Ep: Germany
4th Ep: America
5th Ep: The Vikings
6th Ep: Scotland vs England (sounds like a football game?)

A very odd way of broadcasting the episodes. You would have thought they would have done it chronologically. And where is the Normans episode?

Anyway, might worth a view (or not)

1st Episode: 6m: Saturday 23rd October on the Skyshowcase channel. At the moment it looks like only two episodes (1 and 3) are being shown on Virginmedia? Of course, this might depend on the bundle you subscribe to>

Looking forward to, I think! LOL

Looking forward to it.

Reminded me of an old performance of his that probably sums up his series in under 4 minutes…

youtu.be/_x2ovlPr2IE

They didn't. Was the American War of Impendence a win for Britain?
Perhaps it depends what you mean by "win"?

I would not have taken the Roman Conquest to be a British win, nor having about 40% of the country turned into the Danelaw. I also find it hard to focus on the English conquest of Scotland involved in placing a Scots ruling dynasty on the throne of England.

Al Murray is a comedian not a historian. Don't expect too much history but he can be a laugh sometimes.

@Glengarry5

Of course the Brits won the AWI. If they hadn't spun off the US, it would never have become the industrial power house they would end up needing in the 20th century.

A millennia after Hastings, the UK is all about the long game.

Best alllies?

You know, I have to give HMS Exeter a point – would the UK really like to try to govern the US? Plus what would the industrial base look like? I suspect that a British Empire controlled North America would not have been nearly as aggressive or effective in acquiring Mexican territory as the US was

I don't know; when you think what the British were doing in in northwest India in the 1840s.

I guess the Brits did win in 1776, or at least the Brits living in North America did :D :P And of course the whole 1776 thing did lead to the downfall of France so a win-win :D ;D

There's the First Boer War 1881, not a great episode..usually we can manage to win the LAST battle which is the one that counts but not that time.

Post AWI I've always felt it was due to the deep manpower and resources pool provided by their colonies, but that's a poor and simplistic reason as well. Keen to watch this.

GildasFacit: Al Murray is quite a passionate WW2 buff,he presents a podcast with James Holland "we have ways…"
Apparently quite well respected as an amateur historian.

But yes, I'm sure he is mostly there as an enthusiastic (and at times sardonic) presenter

Al Murray has a degree in Modern History from Oxford University.

@ robert piepenbrink'I would not have taken the Roman Conquest to be a British win, nor having about 40% of the country turned into the Danelaw'

Ah- but the Romans only conquered the _southern_ half of the island, and the Danelaw only occupied a portion of ENGLAND…

I suspect it will be mainly comedy, with some valid historical points coming in under the radar. Not a bad thing, but don't expect footnotes. I hope it will be good TV.

"Why do the British always win every war"

The easy answer is: they don't.

The British army has a talent for winning battles and losing campaigns. Even Wellington failed in his campaigns, such as Talavera and Burgos.

Guys, comedy based on popular history. Lighten up.

But Brechtel, neither battles nor campaigns are wars. Yes, they lost some of those too, but don't change the parameters.
"Why were the British quite successful in a range of conflicts, but not so good in others" doesn't work so well as a title.

If the US lost the American War of Independence Napoleon would never have sold the Louisiana Purchase to the UK, there would have been at least three sets of colonies, UK along the Atlantic Coast, French colonies along the Mississippi watershed and Spanish colonies on in the SW.

because of the stiff upper lip.

A.A. Gill wrote about the exceptional English capacity for both rage and violence, perhaps this gives them an edge in martial affairs?

link

Used to enjoy his restaurant reviews:

Wikipedia – A A Gill

Now brown bread – toes pointing up.

They keep calm and carry on whilst wearing superbly impractical uniforms.

(And building bizarre blobby tanks that look like somebody's 3D printer was interrupted by a power outage.)

I think the comedy revolves around how wrong he is – I see he's not covering the Hundred Years War, 116 and a bit years of trying and we had our arse handed us on a plate.

"Napoleon would never have sold the Louisiana Purchase to the UK"

Presumably a typo. The Spanish transferred their trans-Mississippi territories east of the Rockies and north of the Arkansas to the French who then sold them to the fledgling US at a knockdown price.

Al Murray isn't even a good comedian, spends most of his time sneering at ordinary working class folks…

Tea and cricket.

Because they are scrappy.

From A.A Gill's book "The Angry Island: Hunting the English":

"As I wandered along Hadrian's Wall, I thought about how the Victorians had rewritten the English identity. Far from being a fair-minded people with a strong sense of history, the English are an angry race, much given to a bold assertion of a past rather than one that stands the test of argument. And I shall leave it at that."

Uncanny, almost as if he participated on a wargaming website…

***A little freaked out, Au pas de Charge uneasily looks around the room with one eyebrow raised***

Island nation. Nobody could get at them.

Plenty tried and more than you would think actually succeeded.

We even got raided by the Barbary Corsairs a few times and once by Americans (OK, twice if you count WW2). Compared to the number of places we 'got at' though, the number that 'got at' us is pretty insignificant.

Island nation. Nobody could get at them.

The Normans certainly did and took over England…

Just like his "why does everyone hate the English", it is entertainment with some facts thrown in for good measure.

It's target audience isn't the very knowledgeable (about a certain conflict). It challenges the false history that is commonly believed: that the British won every war that they ever fought in.

Shame there isn't an episode that challenges the 'facts' in the Ladybird book on Cromwell – that he was abducted by a monkey as a baby, that he and Charles fought as children.

I caught the second half of the first episode, it was entertaining, I didn't shout at the TV once, it seemed pretty fair and balanced. I shall be watching the rest of the series.

I remember reading that not just the British but Europeans were different than the rest of the worlds cultures because they had an outsized obsession both with naming/cataloging things and imposing their will on nature. Eventually that lead to the development of both gunpowder and the gun before other cultures could do the same. This advantage allowed them to colonize the world and that dominance lead to a subsequent feeling of inherent superiority and even destiny. It could be something like this is at work with British armies.

It interesting. Throughout the middle ages that were series of successful dynastic 'coups' mounted from abroad, the last resulting in the deposition of James II and the annexation of the crown by his daughter and her husband William of Orange, but none after the union of crowns in 1707 that created the United Kingdom.

Subsequent Jacobite risings failed. John Paul Jones' raids in the Solway Firth and on the coast of Fife had aspects of farce. The French landings in Wales and Ireland were abject failures, as was the United Irishmen rebellion that prompted the latter, although there was considerable loss of life.

I can't think of any episodes other than Charles Edward Stuart's march to Derby that represented a serious threat to the realm. I was disappointed to learn that the tale of the monkey hung for a French spy is not true.

Rudolf Hess caused a bit of a stir but I imagine Zeppelins, the Luftwaffe, and the V.1 and V2 rockets probably take the prize for the most serious breaches of the scept'red isle's integrity and consequent injury to life and limb of the citizenry.

Surviving external threats, and winning wars, may not be quite the same issue, but once we finished our own civil wars and dynastic conflicts, we were happily not Belgium or Poland or anywhere else traditionally right in the path of everyone else's ambitions.
Losing 19th century battles far away from Europe caused embarrassment but no risk to the homeland.
Being an island nation in WW2 not only made it able to see off the threat of invasion in 1940, but made it possible to fight on the margins in North Africa and keep some water between us and the main German land forces until the time was right.
Arguably we did something similar with Napoleon by making the main effort in the Peninsula, and not Germany.

'"Napoleon would never have sold the Louisiana Purchase to the UK"

Presumably a typo. The Spanish transferred their trans-Mississippi territories east of the Rockies and north of the Arkansas to the French who then sold them to the fledgling US at a knockdown price.'
Not at all. the first sentence started with "If the US lost the American War of Independence…" in which case there would be no USA, only British colonies and Napoleon would not have sold the Mississippi River valley to his rival.

A little ambiguous but obvious now you explain.
C'est tout clair.

Interesting and contrasting viewpoints. It will also be interesting to see what people post after they've seen the episodes.

And still, as yet, no reason for oddly missing out the Norman conquest. I wonder why?

Um, Afghanistan . .

Cheers,
John

Not just John Paul Jones, 42nd: the crew of the "Chasseur" proclaimed a blockade of Great Britain in 1814. And made it back to Baltimore to boast about it.

Had the Revolution failed, we would all be Canadians in outlook and attitude. Canada is, culturally, the bridge between the US and the UK- as a Canadian naval officer once put it, "explaining the Americans to the British and the British to the Americans." The cultural traits that derive from space, population density, and the geographic qualities of the American continent are virtually the same in both countries; the significant differences arise out of our differing attitudes toward European colonization and our very different relationships with the Old World.

But all that aside, what's the over/under on this thread? My guess is three pages, 2 dawghousings.

"explaining the Americans to the British and the British to the Americans."

Although, has either party noticed?

You would have enjoyed Baltimore's bicentennial celebration of the defense of Ft McHenry, 42F. Not only was it enlivened but any number of reenactors dressed as British and American sailors, soldiers, riflemen, and Marines, but the Canadians sent down a contingent from Parks Canada to set up a little booth explaining the Canadian side of the conflict, and drum up tourism at some of their very nice national parks. The staff were as friendly and polite as, in my experience, Canadians generally are, but they did have a number of discussions with Americans who were persuaded, as strongly as the Canadians were, that their side had won the war.

I don't know that they ever resolved it.

neither battles nor campaigns are wars.

They are decisive component parts of warfare and wars in general.

Generally, battles are fought to win campaigns, and campaigns are waged in order to win wars.

@9lb "You would have enjoyed Baltimore's bicentennial celebration of the defense of Ft McHenry"

I would indeed. Were there nice snacks?

Definitely. Say what you like about Baltimore (and by the time I left, after thirteen years, I had said plenty), it's hard to find a bad meal there.

For the avoidance of any doubt, Al Murray is a comedian, who has for about the last 20 years been most famous for his comic persona The Pub Landlord, who is a satirical depiction of British (in this case English) nationalists, the whole Broken Britain thing and the views and opinions often espoused therein. It is quite an affectionate portrayal, and his work is often very funny.

Obviously the British don't always win wars, far from it, but there is a certain sort of twisted logic to the way that certain historical events are remembered. Hence why Agincourt (eventual French victory), Waterloo (Allied victory) or Dunkirk (military retreat) have become part of our national identity (for good or ill).

I'm hoping for a series explaining the actual events of each subject, and a look at the cultural legacy surrounding them.

Watched the Napoleonic episode. Not funny. Not serious. Not anything to be honest. I'm not sure if I want to waste any more time watching other episodes, although I will try to catch the America one. I think it might involve Al Murray choking on his pint. After all, he is er, a comedian or so some people claim! LOL

@newwarch

I think the key to the Agincourt, Waterloo, Dunkirk/Battle of Britain mythos -let's throw in the 'Invincible Armada' for good measure, might be the notion of 'having our backs to the wall/ up against it" – (quietly forgetting that the campaigns of the "100 Years War" so-called, were in pursuance of 'Plantagenet' claims to the throne of France*). Perhaps it's something to do with being a small island realm that has tended to box above its weight.

(*It is possibly no accident that the Arthurian myth with its depiction of a king of Britain defending the realm against invaders, reached full maturity in the 15th century when the contemporary reality had been a succession of 'Plantagenet' kings and their kin making war on the continent. Hence the irony of Henry Tudor, the 'Welshman' who seized the throne backed by an invading army from the Continent, naming his first-born son Arthur.