Most heinous British war crime?

[summerisle]

Can you have a non heinous war crime ? Anyway, the Irish potato famine.

 

[ryanbeno80]

Nothing quite like Dresden. Most other bombings had a tactical reason, or were lesser in intensity. Dresden just seemed to be done out of pure spite, and the issue with it was that it didn't have to be done, as it was late in the war and of notably minor tactical value.

Hamburg was worse in terms of death Toll for starters, I know it is a major port but Dresden had it's rail links.. both excuses for terror bombing designed to target civilians, strike fear into the German people and cause the German people to loose faith in the leadership.

There were many other terror bombing like this where thousands of civilians were killed, not just Dresden.

What the Germans did to our civilian areas was minute compared to what we did too, but it had to be done in my opinion.

 

[Gladystweet]

Sorry, but the words of Arthur Harris on this come from an inherent position of bias. Dresden hadn't been touched prior to that raid because it was not of particular strategic value - it was terror bombing, pure and simple, and acknowledged as such by Churchill.

You could say the same about any bombing raid on Britain where civilians were killed. No strategic importance other than to demoralise the population and knock us out of the war.
Dresden, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, might have been unnecessary in some eyes but ultimately brought the end of the war that bit closer and ultimately saved allied lives.
It's a nasty business war and sometimes revenge and retribution play a part.

 

[pornpimol2]

They don't call it the Butchers apron for nothing, Take your pick. Over the last few hundred years we've invaded or been at war with over 200 countries or around 90% of the world. No wonder everyone thinks we're bad bells.

Where does the name Butchers apron name come from Nev?

 

[Gladystweet]

Anyways. Why British war crimes specifically? Why not a world heinous war crimes?

 

[Paul w]

just that moment, asking hundreds of the british army to walk accross no mans land in the eye of a machine gun.

It was essentially ordered murder.

Agree mate but how brave were those men to do that,unbelieve those men.

 

[Huyton Layne]

Creating Israel.

 

[peteblue]

Two off the top of my head, the Bombing of Dresden and Bloody Sunday.

What are yours?

Neither of which were war crimes......

 

[marnie]

Can you have a non heinous war crime ? Anyway, the Irish potato famine.

Maybe they just forgot where they planted them.

 

[peteblue]

If not, it was certainly close to one.

It was fueled by retribution rather than strategy. Which is a pretty dark way to kill 20 thousand civilians.

How do you know. The strategy may have been to completely undermine the German populations belief and support to continue the War and may have been designed to raise morale in the bombed out cities of the UK........

 

[peteblue]

Anyways. Why British war crimes specifically? Why not a world heinous war crimes?

Perhaps there is an agenda......

 

[peteblue]

Bloody Sunday, easy.

Which war was that in........

 

[wm02]

Lord Kitchener in the Boer War. Indiscriminate killing, concentration camps

 

[Lowste]

What ever shores we landed at we committed war crimes

 

[RaleighBlue]

How do you know. The strategy may have been to completely undermine the German populations belief and support to continue the War and may have been designed to raise morale in the bombed out cities of the UK........

That's a fine view to take. Whether it is a war crime to attack civilians with this strategic intent - to terrorize the populace - is, as I said, a semantic issue.

Decisions taken at the height of wartime are very hard to fairly morally judge after the fact (especially generations afterwards) due to the total lack of emotional context. Was Hiroshima a war crime? If not - was Nagasaki?

When I look at what happened in Dresden and flip the tables to remove a clear personal bias to the Allies, Dresden looks an awful lot like a war crime simply due to it's strategic importance to the war effort (little outside of terror) and the generally accepted definitions of war crimes, which include attacking civilians for the purpose of spreading terror.

Please understand I am not passing moral judgement on the decision makers of the Dresden bombings, as there is a lens through which it can be viewed as an acceptable use of force. Which is also why I personally feel the actions in the Boer war are more 'heinous' because they fit the definition of war crime far more cleanly.

The Opium Wars, for example, are not often thought of as a war crime in general, but I find them morally reprehensible. Those two things do not necessarily always line up cleanly due to changing values and hindsight. Dresden is morally reprehensible given the lens through which I view it. If I was a high level officer in February of 1945 (a scant two months before VE day - the war was already won), I may feel very differently.