Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
The Poles beg to differ.
The UK declared war because it had guaranteed Polish sovereignty - a promise broken two weeks later when it didn't declare war on the Soviet Union for its invasion of Eastern Poland. Churchill traded away Polish sovereignty completely to Stalin in iirc Jalta 1943.
The UK had a mission creep away from the original goal and reason of WW2 - and there's a good reason to expect the same kind of "win" in AFG and Iraq. The Crimean War had a similar kind of "win" for the British.


Btw, I personally dislike the inflationary use of "victory" in history books.
How could a nation be a "winner" if it took more damage than it had advantages because of its involvement in a war? Most "victories" in war sound rather like "enemy defeated" to me, not like actual "winning".
Fuchs, its called a Pyrrhic victory

Origin:
A Pyrrhic victory is so called after the Greek king Pyrrhus , who, after suffering heavy losses in defeating the Romans in 279 B.C., said to those sent to congratulate him, "Another such victory over the Romans and we are undone."

Yes and WW1 was such a Pyrrhic victory as well as the Germans and British had ripped the guts out of each other and as if that were not enough they had another go at it in WW2 which totally ripped out what was left out of each other.

A bankrupt Britain then had to borrow from the US to keep solvent (the debt having only been paid off in the last 5 years I think) and had to dismantle her empire post haste whatever the consequences and the end of rationing did not happen until 1954 when meat rationing was finally lifted. So yes some victory that was.