Seventeen years before the Nazis opened their first concentration camp at Dachau, Britain had provided the pattern for such an establishment at a remote location in Wales
Now THAT was interesting. A couple of comments: you refer to the English Government at one point. I don't think there has been an English Government for at least three hundred years. And "Alternatively, they could stay on the front line and face the likelihood of being killed by the Germans." Well, the possibility rather than likelihood. And they could have ended up in a real PoW camp in Germany which would have made Frongach seem like a holiday camp. One of my grandfathers was called up at the age of 40 years and 7 months - a married man with four young children - and was to be captured and spend over 18 months in a camp. The German guards used to spit in their bowls of whatever watery concoction they were given as food. Ireland was a part of the UK at this time and they had representation in Parliament so the Irish were damned lucky to be excused the conscription which was imposed on everyone else.
Simon, it is the Monday of a short week before Easter and I should be working on a dozen half-completed tasks. Please stop distracting me with these concise, fact-filled and illuminating little histories! I really do not know how you manage your prodigious output. Yet, of course, thank you again.
From this essay, and others recently, I notice that Western powers rarely label captives prisoners of war, only here, as you write, when it suited the victor's purposes. 'Enemy combatants' I think was the chosen label for those taken alive by US forces in the 1980s and onwards. Come to that, when was the last time we heard a head of state declare war in those words. Neville Chamberlain famously said '... a state of war now exists with Germany.' And FDR said something more. Yet few countries want to declare war, even though that is what they have done, even when defensively. I suspect the reason is that they are acting on lawyers' advice. Never commit irreducibly to any position. It could be costly.
Now THAT was interesting. A couple of comments: you refer to the English Government at one point. I don't think there has been an English Government for at least three hundred years. And "Alternatively, they could stay on the front line and face the likelihood of being killed by the Germans." Well, the possibility rather than likelihood. And they could have ended up in a real PoW camp in Germany which would have made Frongach seem like a holiday camp. One of my grandfathers was called up at the age of 40 years and 7 months - a married man with four young children - and was to be captured and spend over 18 months in a camp. The German guards used to spit in their bowls of whatever watery concoction they were given as food. Ireland was a part of the UK at this time and they had representation in Parliament so the Irish were damned lucky to be excused the conscription which was imposed on everyone else.
Also, a few of your sources would be useful.
Simon, it is the Monday of a short week before Easter and I should be working on a dozen half-completed tasks. Please stop distracting me with these concise, fact-filled and illuminating little histories! I really do not know how you manage your prodigious output. Yet, of course, thank you again.
From this essay, and others recently, I notice that Western powers rarely label captives prisoners of war, only here, as you write, when it suited the victor's purposes. 'Enemy combatants' I think was the chosen label for those taken alive by US forces in the 1980s and onwards. Come to that, when was the last time we heard a head of state declare war in those words. Neville Chamberlain famously said '... a state of war now exists with Germany.' And FDR said something more. Yet few countries want to declare war, even though that is what they have done, even when defensively. I suspect the reason is that they are acting on lawyers' advice. Never commit irreducibly to any position. It could be costly.
A least the government back in that day had the questionable excuse of "it's wartime".
The current miserable bunch of curs has no such excuse, they just carry on attempting to deceive the taxpayer by every means possible.