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Churchill didn't invent the phrase, he suggested a concept of confrontation to the Soviet Union, it's previous ally, and the resulting post-war division of Europe.
Churchill didn't invent the phrase, he suggested a concept of confrontation to the Soviet Union, it's previous ally, and the resulting post-war division of Europe.
The first recorded occasion on which Churchill used the term "iron curtain" was in a 12 May 1945 telegram he sent to U.S. President Harry S. Truman regarding his concern about Soviet actions, stating "[a]n iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind."
This was after WW2. Even if they used it before the war, it didn't have the same meaning of course. Iron Curtain is not a new term. It consists of two commonly used words. I think it's ok to say he invented it. Or just coined the phrase for this new era.
This was after WW2. Even if they used it before the war, it didn't have the same meaning of course. Iron Curtain is not a new term. It consists of two commonly used words. I think it's ok to say he invented it. Or just coined the phrase for this new era.
I agree. It was certainly a commonly used term for a long time before Churchill used it. Still, he is the one that applied it to describe the situation in post-WW2 Europe and that is what the phrase has come to almost universally be associated with.
While most Americans think that the USA was the deciding factor in the European War when we sent troops, we were not that much of a factor. We had just over 300,000 troops in that war.
At one time or another during the course of WWII 16 million Americans served in uniform. 400,000 of them never returned home alive. The USA was most surely the deciding factor in the war. Had America remained completely neutral the outcome would have been very different, and geopolitics today would not be the same. While history is loaded with "what ifs", to imply that America played only a supporting role in the Second World War is revisionism, pure and simple.
While history is loaded with "what ifs", to imply that America played only a supporting role in the Second World War is revisionism, pure and simple.
There seems to be a trend today to downplay the role of The United States (and Britain) in defeating Germany. Some of this is a useful pendulum swinging reaction to Americans having downplayed Russia's role but I think some is posturing and an attempt to be "in the know"; historically hep so to speak.
There seems to be a trend today to downplay the role of The United States (and Britain) in defeating Germany. Some of this is a useful pendulum swinging reaction to Americans having downplayed Russia's role but I think some is posturing and an attempt to be "in the know"; historically hep so to speak.
lol. I don't think anybody implied this. But the matter of fact is that they successfully defended themselves. I was never talking about entire Europe or North Africa, like others here have. I realize that would not have been possible. I've said this several times now.
But, I do not believe the British would have been able to defeat them on their own ( there's a difference between defending your own country and trying to help the rest ). Don't think this is "downplaying", if that's what you mean.
And if somebody had stopped the Soviets from occupying Eastern Europe for a half a century, Poland and Hungary and Romania and Croatia would all be speaking Russian. Let's see---who was it who stopped the Russians?
How long do the Americans have to occupy Puerto Rico, before they speak English?
What is the point of historians even existing, if the general public continues to believe old wives tales that conquerors impose their language on the conquered?
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