Portuguese Timor

[AHK]

Since Portugal was neutral, how did it react to Japanese invasion of Feb,1942. Does anyone have an OB of the Portuguese garrison. How did this affect Portuguese/Japanese relations for the rest of the war?

Thanks,
AHK

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Not to be rude, Gentlemen, but the Portuguese part of Timor was invaded by the British on 17 Dec. 1941.
It's typical of the Anglosaxon hypocrisy to invade the first claiming they are doing so only for democracy love, while when their enemis do the same THEY and only they are pure evil.
After the war you remember, in the popular histories, only the enemy enterprise fogetting your one and voilà, everything is fixed forever.
Bye EC

[AHK]

Thanks for the reply, I was unaware of the British takeover. I read that there was a Portuguese garrison on the island at the time of Japanese invasion and more troops were on the way from Mozambique.

AHK

[nino]

Hi,

it's not British, but the Dutch-Australian troops, Enrico Cernuschi. Try to look Klemen L. great site at http://www.geocities.com/dutcheastindies/

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

What is your source for the proposition that the Anglo-Saxons occupied the Dili enclave claiming they were doing so for love of democracy?

And where do you get the idea that Western Allied proposed and actual violations of neutrality are unknown? There is nothing secret about the proposed Anglo-French violation of Norwegian and Swedish neutrality to aid the Finns in 1939-40. There is nothing secret about the seizure of the Altmark in Norwegian territorial waters. There is nothing secret about the Anglo-French overflights of the USSR's Caucasus oil fields. There is nothing secret about the attempt to demolish the Iron Gates Canal in Romania in 1940. There is no secret about the occupation of Iceland. There is no secret about the use of Turkish territorial waters and territory to evacuate some of the garrison of the Dodecanese Islands in 1943. The list goes on and on.

You are right that these things happened, but you are wrong that they are unknown to popular publications.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

I beg your pardon, Sid, but I think that your scientific way to approach these subjects is quite a particoular one.
The common opinion I have got from some History Channel shows, videos and journalist, like Richard Newbury and Denis Mack Smith, very popular here in Italy (God'd only know why), is that ther's not a great development in UK from the old propaganda days: pure jingoism wrote by a plotoon of Colonel Blimps able only to whistle Rule Britannia all the time. The same production of serious author like Prof Keegan paid, during the last twenty years, a very hight price at the popular demands wasting so the previous capital of sound scholarship achieved with worls like The Face of the Battle. Correlli Barnett, too, suffered such an involution (The price of Admiralty is a toy in comparison of the Swordbearers, it's enough to do a confrontation about the Jutland matter between the two books to appreciate how the hard taste of the public and the necessities of the publishers to follow their customers will ruined thos source too). Ther's always David Irving, a fantastic sub cheaser of documents, but he was reduced a paria by an establishment who loves only to listen at the old songs I must consider the British history paramount as a desolate one, indeed.

Bye EC

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

I agree that the likes of Keegan and Corelli Barnett peaked several decades ago.

I also agree that Irving is a dedicated chaser of original documentation and got to a lot of sources first. However, as later researchers began to use the same material, his selective interpretation of some of this documentation was revealed as questionable. There was a time when Irving felt able to correct some of his errors, such as over the inflated Dresden casualty figures he originally gave. This was to his credt. However, in more recent decades he seems inacapable of admitting error and this is what made him something of a pariah. I still value his books, but Irving is another who peaked several decades ago.

There has been enormous development in British historiography since the wartime propaganda days. In some areas, such as the "Holocaust", British wartime popaganda actually massively underplayed things. Indeed, one of the problems nowadays is that, due to modern technology, any and every deviant view can make it into print and it becomes very difficult for the layman to differentiate between well founded historical fact and these fantasist historical fictions masquerading as history.

Colonel Blimp was, of course, a fictitious character. Similar characters existed in reality, but they weren't running Britain's war effort, which was essentially a modern, very un-Blimplike, hi-tech exercise. If you base your estimates of Britain on comic fictitious characters, you are unlike to reach a very good understanding.

British violations of neutrality are no secret, but if you think there are any that have been kept entirely hidden I would be happy to check for you.

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

To drift even further off what was an interesting subject:

Colonel Blimp was a self created image. The film was made during the war, and so may be regarded as part of British propaganda output, but it was also very subtle. You may find it quite surprising what values its Colonel Blimp valued:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/2003/revie ... p/text.htm

Cheers,

Sid.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hi Sid,
thank you for the Blimp lesson, it was a charming exercise and i'll try to get the movie too.

Coming back at our mountons (this is French, is there anything similar in English?) I can submit the following items:

British sanctuary in Kenya for Ethiopian guerrilla bands, 1936-1938

The Alabanian Major Abuas Kapi activities against the Italian occuping forces from Greece in may and June 1939 with British help

Col. Sandford's coloumn entering Ethiopia from Sudan in May 1940

Abus Kapi again, now from Yugoslavia, in March and April 1941. The Italians were able to catch his British paying officier with 6.000 gold pounds in strips.

The covered (but not very much) Royal Navy activities in Greek waters during Summer 1940 confirmed by Adm. Cunningham in his memories with the support of the Athens government.

The little Greek steamer Hermione sinking by HMS orion in Aug. 1940 when the Metaxas government was trying to come back, under the Italian pressures and menaces, to a more honest neutral attitude.

The recruiting of Spanich republicans in the M.E. Commandos during Summer 1940 with the promise: today against Mussolini, tomorrow against Franco.

The penny pockets old Red fighters teams sent against Spain since 1943 until the beginning of the Fifties (ther ewas even a movie, with Gregory Peck and Anthony Queen!).

The burning of some Spanish warships during Spring 1943 just to help the still reluctant conduct of Madrid towards the Anglosaxons.

The same system (burning) aginst some Swedish men-of-war in the same period with the same purpose ("Ther's a method in this folly", Hamlet, Shakespeare).

Renewed bombing raid (by accident), RAF courtesy, against Switzerland and Yugoslavia in 1940 and the beginning of 1941.

Waiting your broadside.


Bye EC

[redcoat]

Not to be rude, Gentlemen, but the Portuguese part of Timor was invaded by the British on 17 Dec. 1941.
It's typical of the Anglosaxon hypocrisy to invade the first claiming they are doing so only for democracy love, while when their enemis do the same THEY and only they are pure evil.
After the war you remember, in the popular histories, only the enemy enterprise fogetting your one and voilà, everything is fixed forever.
Bye EC

The Portuguese while it never entered the war against the Axis, wasn't truly neutral.
Portugal and Britain have been Allies since the 1300s, and have the longest unbroken treaty of alliance in Europe.
In fact in early 1941 the Portuguese government invoked the treaty of military assistance in order to offer the British the right to base ASW aircraft in the Azores in return for the British supplying up to date military aircraft to the Portuguese air force. This was done and from early 42 both British and US* aircraft operated from the Azores.



* Due to the fact that the US wasn't part of the Treaty, their aircraft were required to fly with RAF insignia, as well as US.