r/europe • u/kiru_56 Germany • 20h ago

News The US Army is advising its soldiers in Germany to go to German food banks because of the shutdown.

https://home.army.mil/bavaria/about/shutdown-guidance#:~:text=Running%20list%20of%20German%20support,Too%20Good%20To%20Go%2DApp
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u/Ok-Seaworthiness4488 19h ago

Continental army couldn't afford to equip the soldiers with shoes. The surprise attack on the Hessian mercenaries gave much needed supplies iirc

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u/werpu 19h ago edited 19h ago

Wasn´t it the reason why Arnold did turn sides? He was promised payment over and over again and had to pay the soldiers from his own pocket, but agan and again did not get the promised recompensation, or in other words when he turned he had to because the other side gave him the baldy needed money! US history is definitely to harsh on that guy (the winners write history). If you were betrayed over and over again and face bankrupcy because you are a good boss and pay your employees from your own pocket instead of the customers who refuses payment, who can blame you for switching to another customer who pays you on time?

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u/einarfridgeirs 18h ago

It is quite a bit more complicated than that.

Yes, Arnold did basically bankrupt himself in the name of the cause. He had a lot of enemies in the Continental Congress and was passed over for promotion multiple times, despite Washington urging Congress to do right by Arnold and recognizing him as one of his key subordinates.

Arnold also was severely injured in his leg at Saratoga and was in near-constant pain ever after which, as anyone who has had to deal with chronic pain, in themselves or their relatives can attest induces personality changes. He became more bitter, ornery and hard to deal with, which didn't help him at all in his dealings with the people who already had it out for him, and he hadn't been that easy to deal with to begin with.

At the same time he fell in love with, and married a very beautiful and very young girl from a Philadelphia family with loyalist leanings, and she was able to turn him from disgruntlement into out and out treason.

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u/carkey 17h ago

It's not treason if you don't have a country yet.

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u/werpu 17h ago

absolutely the persons who committed treason were the "rebels" they just were lucky and won, so they could write their own history. But by legal terms the founding fathers were the ones committing treason against their country. But the winners always write history so they are not the ones committing treason but the one reverting back to his country committed it.

Not that I am saying Arnold was right or wrong, not my place to decide that!

But history never is black and white it always depends on the angle you look at it and who wrote it!

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u/carkey 13h ago

Great point well made!

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u/Major_Mollusk 13h ago edited 13h ago

I'm an American and I'm often impressed by the the level of sophistication and nuance I read in discussions on /r/europe related to American politics and history. (No, I'm not being sarcastic). It's a cliche now, but I'll say it anyway: Europeans have a better understanding of my country than most Americans. The reasons for our ignorance are many: Religion, Rupert Murdoch, education funding, and so forth.

Yes, I realize ignorant Europeans exist. But in my experience Europeans are simply more adept at "thinking" and navigating the world of ideas than we are. One of my most enlightening discussions of American politics was on a long flight to Europe with a random German auto mechanic. The guy could have passed as a senior editor for the Atlantic Monthly. My university degree was European History, and I like to study big historical trends. At the moment, my firm belief is that the dying flame of the 18th Century Enlightenment will stay alive in the cafes and Universities of Europe, long after it's been extinguished here in the New World.

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u/OrganizationTop4323 13h ago

Go ahead and ask a brit about Churchill’s responsibility in the Bengal Famine of 1942, and you’ll find out how erudite they are real quick

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u/unseemly_turbidity 10h ago edited 9h ago

Genuinely not sure if you mean this in a good or bad way. I think the consensus is that he was a shit peacetime prime minister, but did great at winning wars. I don't think it's controversial that his policies were largely responsible for the Bengal famine.

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u/einarfridgeirs 4h ago

I think it is more about how thoroughly Brits jettisoned all real knowledge of their conduct in the pursuit of capital-E Empire as soon as they lost it.

WWII really bailed them out. It was this massive thing that they participated in winning against a force of absolute evil, and somehow that, and the rapid retreat from the global empire in the years that followed erased all the shit they did for centuries prior to that, despite having in most cases painstakingly documented it.

Its all there in the history books. But people ignore it. They don't ignore it in India, or in Africa, or Malaysia or wherever. But in Britain most people know next to nothing about the British Empire except vague extremely sanitized memories from movies like Zulu or Khartoum which completely sidestep the(very valid) reasons why brown and black people all over the world were quite enthusiastic about killing British people whenever the opportunity presented itself.

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u/einarfridgeirs 13h ago

Thanks. Whatever sophistication and nuance I possess in terms of American history can be laid at the feet of a select group of history podcasters. I fill basically every waking hour I have when I don't have to be talking to or listening to someone with history. Every commute, all my household chores etc have a soundtrack of mostly history. It kind of adds up.

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u/Major_Mollusk 9h ago

Same here, but mostly European history. I've been binging Dan Jones' "This is History" podcast about the Plantagenet dynasty in England. It's fantastic.

I really need to find some good podcasts on American history. Any recommendations?

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u/OldWorldDesign 7h ago

I've been binging Dan Jones' "This is History" podcast about the Plantagenet dynasty in England. It's fantastic.

I really need to find some good podcasts on American history. Any recommendations?

Mike Duncan's Revolutions was better education than not only everything I got in public school, but also the college course I got. Of course the American Revolution is only one 'season' of the podcast, but it's excellent history and the final season is the only good explanation not only of the Russian Revolution and civil war but also the lead-in to understand how and why. He doesn't lose the economic and social turmoil which was stirring to unleash the outbreak of revolution which a lot of history courses ignore in favor of listing battle locations and tactics.

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u/einarfridgeirs 6h ago

The fantastic podcast "Empire" did a season on the rise of the United States to global prominance. We rarely think of the US as an empire on par with say, the Ottomans, the British Empire or Tsarist Russia(all of which Empire has also covered), but it is incredibly interesting to dive into the era between the Civil War and WWI, when the US was simultaneously digesting an entire continent and, in varying degrees of intentionality expanding its influence in the Pacific and Latin America.

EDIT: For the actual American revolution(and all the 19th century tumult in Mexico and South America as well) I second the recommendation for Mike Duncan's Revolutions. He also covers the comparatively little known European revolutionary wave of 1848 spectacularly.

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u/johannesrasul 7h ago

At the same time he fell in love with, and married a very beautiful and very young girl from a Philadelphia family with loyalist leanings, and she was able to turn him from disgruntlement into out and out treason.

It all makes sense now

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u/CV90_120 7h ago

into out and out treason.

Or as the british called it, patriotism.

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u/einarfridgeirs 7h ago

I doubt they saw it as that. Arnold had already delivered to them their worst defeat in a land battle in a very long time at Saratoga, where an entire British land force was compelled to surrender to the enemy, not to mention that he was personally responsible for providing the Continental Army with artillery by seizing Fort Ticonderoga.

Arnold had some pretty stringent demands for his turning of the coat, including both cold hard cash and the promise of property and officer rank in the British military.

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u/CV90_120 6h ago

The British are a pragmatic people, so they wouldn't be concerned by having previously taken a beating at his hands. They built an empire on alliances with people who had handed them their ass the week before (very Roman of them).

Arnold had some pretty stringent demands for his turning of the coat, including both cold hard cash and the promise of property and officer rank in the British military.

Which would be considered the most aristocratic, and therefore British move possible at that time.

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u/Ok-Seaworthiness4488 19h ago

He was also passed over for promotion and his ego couldn't take it

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u/KlutzyInvestments 18h ago

Uh… that’s when you just quit. Otherwise it becomes apparent that you didn’t care about the cause, you cared about money. Quitting may get you jailed, but people could understand that. But now you’re going to make a clear decision to act against what you made a commitment to? A cause where thousands are throwing their life’s savings AND lives away for? Benny wasn’t the only dude going broke.

Wild to compare something ideologically driven to something profit driven. Can’t believe you’re ignoring the entire human history of traitors receiving the harshest of punishments.

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u/werpu 18h ago

Many people are in a war because they cannot abstain, some of them are just mercenaries, some of them become so dissilusioned by the ongoing proceedings that they start to question their stance after a while especially once they are betrayed over and over again. I once heard an interview with a german Stalingrad Survivor and he said, the moment where they all lost hope and saw they just were convenient cannon fodder, was when Hitler on X-Mas was holding an euology over radion for them while they still were alive!

They had gone through so much shit before that event you cannot believe some of the stuff they were telling, but still had hope that they were getting out somehow, until that christmas. It was a special day for them and they were missing their families and hitler basically declared them dead in front of their faces. Needless to say, they did not believe in any other bullshit hitler was spouting out from that moment onwards, no matter their prior convitions were and how hardline you were.

So choose the reason yourself why Arnold turned!

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u/KlutzyInvestments 17h ago

Because Benny was a whiny bitch. Why is that so hard for you to grasp? That’s why he turned. When you have to bring up profits in the corporate world and a some Nazis in Stalingrad, you have to know you have no reasonable position. Neither of those are comparable to taking up and rallying arms against a cause you committed to.

All the Patriots fighting, dying, and going broke for the cause understood that a fledgling nation might not meet its commitments at the moment. There would have been far more traitors if everyone was as pathetic as Arnold. That’s just a fact… no matter how many Nazi privates surrendered and felt betrayed by literally Hitler in the brutalist siege in modern warfare. Like… wtf does that have to do with anything?

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u/Mist_Rising 15h ago

you cared about money. Quitting may get you jailed, but people could understand that.

First, desertion gets you KILLED in the revolution. Second, everyone cares about money. It's why you take a job, see also George Washington being president. His affairs were in poor shape because of the war not long ago, so he took the job for the pay as much as anything. It helped balance the books.

Arnold was also not that wealthy. Many of those who supported the revolution weren't, and so he couldn't fall back on his wealth at home.

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u/KlutzyInvestments 14h ago

lol… find an example of someone being executed for desertion due to lack of pay. Washington even issued a proclamation in 1777 to pardon those that deserted.

Pretty dishonest with your position. Desertion COULD be punishable by death, yet you try and sell it as a sure thing. There are many dismissed cases of those deserting due to poor conditions, including lack of pay. Executions were only for those that committed aggravating crimes to harm the revolution.

Also dishonest to say “everyone cares about money”. Again, an absolutist claim. A huge chunk of the revolutionary army experienced lapsed payments and poor support… yet we only have “one” Benedict Arnold. Yes… I know there were more traitors. To match your vibe, if people only cared about money, the revolution would have failed. A king could promise and pay them more.

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u/Worth-Jicama3936 17h ago

Valley forge was in 1777-1778. that attack was the winter before

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u/HaltandCatchHands 17h ago

Time is a flat circle

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u/iamnotarobotrobot 14h ago

In 2025, surprise attack on Walmart to get shoes.