History Is Written By The Victors... So What Do The Losers Teach?

Question to countries that have suffered serious military defeats in major wars - I've always wondered how the history of these conflicts is taught in your countries.

Having attended primary school in both the Northern and Southern United States I can say from experience I learned very different version of the history of the American Civil War - the Northern version being more focused on slavery and atrocities committed by the Confederacy like Camp Sumter and the Battle of Fort Pillow, while the Southern version was more focused on the long buildup of tensions between the North and South, the Confederacy's views on the rights of states, and atrocities committed by the Union like Camp Douglas and the Lawrence massacre. The Vietnam War, on the other hand - though not, strictly speaking, a military loss for the US - is generally taught in every part of the country as being a needless war that usually takes a dim look on US involvement in the conflict.

So my question to Brits, Germans, Japs, and every other country that's ever been on the losing or 'wrong' side in a major war, is how is that conflict taught and discussed in your country? What is the perception of your country's motives, actions, and defeat (in public as well as privately)? And to US anons, feel free to discuss your own experiences with the same kind of thing.

I always found it strange how WW2 is said to have just began out of no where, what happended with the German civil war of 1918 that was started by the Communists trying to do a repeat of 1917 in Russia. The whole of Weimar Germany just seems to have been ignored.

I imagine a lot of it comes down to
A) Time, schools are pressed for time enough as it is, so the decades of buildup to WWII or the Civil War or a lot of major conflicts is probably written off as something better left to a college or grad course in history.

B) How uncomfortable we are with portraying the opposing side in war (regardless of how objectively good or bad they may have been) in any kind of sympathetic or understanding light. Which is one of the reasons I was interested in starting this discussion.

Or it's said that it started when Hitler invaded Poland who we had to defend. Yet Poland was subsequently given up to the Soviets. Then began the 'Cold War', which was essentially justification for an arms race and perpetual global conflict benefiting the usual suspects. Patton could have ended it all before it even began, but he was murdered. All wars seem to have flimsy pretexts and what we are taught does not reflect reality. That there are people that want perpetual war. They don't teach that Hitler made countless peace offers to Britain. Rudolf Hess even flew personally to Britain to make a deal with British nobility but he was captured and imprisoned for the rest of his life. WW2 never had to happen. 80 million Europeans died for Jewish bankers who couldn't stand to see a country defy their banking systems because they knew their example would be followed.

We learn how great was iberian islamic invasion and how awful was spanish conquest of América. And that II Republic was a democratic paradise destroyed by the evil fascist. In Spain we always learn the defeated side version

In light of the holiday, I'd be curious to know how Brits view the American Revolution

sometimes I think we would be better off if we didn't revolt against England.

certainly whiter...

What about the Napoleonic Wars?

I dunno, man, have you London lately?

"unfortunately we Australians lived in a different and more hostile climate. most australians at the time were misguided, and extremist calls for extermination boiled to a full blown war; a war the racist nationalist bigots lost. luckily we have collectively put aside our short sighted differences, and emus are now fairly treated in social and political enviromnents."

t. Australian school

every city in a european country is pretty fucked. but even the country of lots of america is getting fucked

What major war did Britain lose?

If you meant the war of 1775, that's not considered a major war over here.

More American loyalists and German mercenaries fought for the British in the war of 1775 for a combined force of under 100,000 men. Meanwhile the British had a 1,000,000 man garrison in India to successfully ward off the Dutch, Spanish and the French.

If you want to know how a country covers a defeat in a major war just look at how you were taught Vietnam. A war in which 6x as many US soldiers died as did British in the war of 1775.

kek

We were taught that the majority of British forces that came to reinforce once war actually broke out were prisoners whose sentence was military servitude. Any thoughts on that?

It was a war over industry, tariffs, trade, and federalism. Slavery is the post modern interpretation, the Jew washing of our history. Both sides had slaves, the North had slaves throughout the conflict. The Emancipation Proclamation was a political move aimed to "free" only Southern slaves, Lincoln didn't want to risk losing border states with slaves to the CSA.

The North is still shit to this day, that's why they all move down here and not vice versa.

t. South Carolina

We learn that Spain was a religious zealot country figthing against the ligth and reason of France. But as Napoleón was a white conqueror they don't talk much about it.

>If you meant the war of 1775, that's not considered a major war over here.
Interesting.

We move down there because the weather mostly desu...

When I was taught about the Civil War it was all slavery, plain and simple. But something was wrong - the focus on the Civil War was short, and basically the narrative was "blacks and yanks fought against a bunch of confederate racists to end slavery."

It was state's rights. Slavery was a part of it, but there was so much more at play. 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War to free 400,000 slaves? Nah.

Nothing wrong with this, I love Emus. They even monitor Sup Forums apparently..

Military service was always presented as an alternative to imprisonment. And given the high attrition rates of simply travelling over seas back then its not likely they would've sent their best and brightest especially when they underestimated their opponents in such a way, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were convicts.

I think for a defeat to be a major one it has to change the losing party's geo-political position for the worse. But all that the war of 1775 showed was that we could defeat the combined might of our European neighbours. The 1800's was still the British century.

>A war in which 6x as many US soldiers died as did British in the war of 1775.

wow so you're saying that modern weapons are more lethal than those in 1775?

Look at the Vietcong causality rate, it's atrociously high.

The losers don't teach, they get cucked.

Iron rule of history: Victors write history, losers are used as mere boipucci

It's not the weather that brings you it's the taxes, namely property taxes. All the old Yankee boomers are bringing their nest eggs down

>History Is Written By The Victors... So What Do The Losers Teach?

I don't know. Ask the democrats.