Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackBerry
Nazi is nazi.
IN HUMAN BEING HISTORY, THE FIRST MASS BOMBING OF CIVILLIANS IS GUERNICA.
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Hardly. Guernica was a propaganda stunt of the anti-fascist powers, inflating
Also mass bombing of civilians preceeded Guernica by decades. The Italians excercised it in their Ethiopian campaign, the British bombed arab villages to terrorize the population in Iraq, the French bombed Damascus in 1925, and there are the Zeppeling raids.
Damascus in flames as the result of the French air raid on October 18, 1925. / French officers inspecting the damage
Quote:
Guernica was a quiet village. The nearest military target of any consequence was a factory on the outskirts of the town, which manufactured various war products. The factory went through the attack unscathed. Thus, the motivation of the bombing was clearly one of intimidation. Furthermore, a majority of the town's men were away as they were fighting on behalf of the Republicans. Thus, the town at the time of the bombing was populated mostly by women and children.[14]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_(painting)
"Well done", German bombers, and their fans 70 years later.
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"Quiet village"? With pastors and lambs and stuff like that?
Get real.
Sure, it was a perfectly normal little town, in the frontline, with two Basque battalions in it.
The Germans and Italians simply bombed a strategic chokepoint, and attempted to block the roads leading in and out of the city, and thus trapping the Republican forces.
Regrettably about four hundred innocents died in the process (the exact number was never really established though, nobody kept record how many died in the bombing, how many in the fighting and how many 'suspicious ones' were executed as typical in this civil war).
Allied and Soviet press boosted this again tenfold, up to 6000 dead were claimed.
Military situation
Advances by Nationalist troops led by Generalísimo Francisco Franco had eaten into the territory controlled by the Republican Government. The Basque Government, an autonomous regional administrative body formed by Basque nationalists and leftists, sought to defend Biscay and parts of Guipuzcoa with its own light Basque Army. [b]At the time of the raid, Guernica represented a focal strategic point for the Republican forces./b] It stood between the Nationalists and capture of Bilbao. Bilbao was seen as key to bringing the war to a conclusion in the north of Spain. Guernica also was the path of retreat for the Republicans from the northeast of Biscay.
Prior to the Condor Legion raid, the town had not been directly involved in the fighting, although
Republican forces were in the area; 23 battalions of Basque army troops were at the front east of Guernica. The town also housed two Basque army battalions, although it had no static air defences, and it was thought that no air cover could be expected due to recent losses of the Republican Air Force.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing...tary_situation