'IS THIS HOW WAR ALWAYS HAS TO BE"
-Joank asked."If men were aware, and thought about what they were doing instead of just following what their country told them, would they fight?"
Yes, I think they would have to,
JOANk. An army must had teamwork, order, plans, strategies in order to be an effective fighting force. Once begun it is a battle to win at all costs.
No,
JOANP, I don't see the affair of Room 40 as a series of miscommunications. I quote again: "The Admiralty also harbored the persistent fear that Germany might attempt a full-scale invasion of Britain, Clearly any advance warning of German naval actions would be of critical importance." They didn't want Germany to learn of the code-breaking and revise it before the full-scale attacks came..( Already Germany had been bombed by zeppelins (can't find the reference now to quote.)
Room 40 still surprises me with its policies: I quote:
"information as to movements of submarines, minefields, minesweeping, etc. But the Staff was obsessed with the idea of secrecy; ..........keep the knowledge up our sleeves for a really great occasion such as the German Fleet coming out in all their strength to throw down the gage in battle. In other words .....the information would be used defensivelyl and not offensively."
What a hard decision to make! I can understand both points of view, but could I have followed orders and kept the knowledge secret for when the Germans attacked the country and let the individual ships arriving be hunted down and torpedoed?
Were they right or wrong?