Talk:J. F. C. Fuller

BRITISH FACIST

THIS ARTICLE SHOULD MAKE MENTION OF FULLER'S INVOVLVNEBT IN THE UNION OF BRITISH FACISTS

No need to shout! :o) Yes, Fuller was a fascist. Worse, from his early manhood on he was a convinced satanist (is there a link?). But then, nobody's perfect... The wondrous thing about wikipedia is you can improve the article yourself if you like!

No, no - Fuller was not Christian, and was an Occultist, but not a Satanist. He was an early and vocal advocate of Thelema, until a scandal implicationg his mentor, Aleister Crowley, in (most likely true) allegations of sodomy (then still a criminal offense in Great Britain) caused him to publically distance himself from the controversial magician. My suspicion is that, as a military man, Fuller was anxious to avoid any possible question of his own sexuality.

Which begs the question: did Fuller ever marry? What is known biographically about his personal life? Was he homosexual? Some of his Occult poetry contains strikingly homoerotic imagery. 72.213.144.148 (talk) 18:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

MWAK--84.27.81.59 11:33, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Fuller also was an honored guest at Hitler's 50th birthday, and blamedd ww2 on the international jew, and called the soviets mongoloids.

I agree. I read Fuller's "History of the Decisive battles of the Western World" and grew a little uneasy at the tone in places. But when you get to the third volume it becomes incredibly racist and fascist. This should be mentioned.Steve3742 14:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Someone just added a section entitled The Holocaust, which althought interesting, doesn't really fit in with anything. I think we need a proper section on Fuller's Fascist sympathies, with citations, because it's important and interesting to know. However this section isn't it, veering into "original research" territory. --Rodneyorpheus (talk) 22:04, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Fascism, as a whole, is not uniform. To give you some examples: Wolfgang Altgeld tends to focus on the differences between Italian Fascism and German Nazism (whereas Wolfgang Schieder rather sees their similarities), like the PNF having Jewish members and coming up with racist laws later than the NSDAP, the latter being more oppressive and totalitarian than the former, and Mussolini saying there could be no such thing as a fascist dogma. (Even one single party could be heterogeneous. Rainer F. Schmidt divides the NSDAP into three groups: the imperialists |like Göring], the so-called leftist wing [like the Strasser brothers] and those into racialist theories [like Rosenberg].)

Thus, we should not take it as granted that a fascist holds antisemitic positions, and Fuller’s The Secret Wisdom of the Qabalah: A Study in Jewish Mystical Thought (through which I first heard about this person) does, as far as I have read it, not make the impression of being yet another antisemitic pamphlet. The article also claims that such views had an impact on his military theories, so I may claim this is not an irrelevant point.

Steve3742 wrote Fuller’s History of the Decisive battles of the Western World ‘becomes incredibly racist and fascist’. An analysis of Fuller’s views on fascism, racism, and Jews would be welcome. --2003:F5:FF0B:1400:598:8B4E:2CC7:D029 (talk) 13:33, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Full list of works by ORIGINAL publication year?

Hello! I've been reading unpublished autobiographical works of a woman (a very distant relative) which cover the period from approximately the turn of the century up until the Russian Revolution. In these works a note is made of a book by "Fuller" entitled "Total Warfare". While the titled could either been changed or could have instead have been the subject of the work, I'm assuming that it is THIS "Fuller" that is being spoken of. Does anybody know where I could find a full list of works by ORIGINAL publication year? The book supposedly deals, in part, with military strategy of striking behind the front lines at civilians or non-combatant military units.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank You, Konstantin G. A.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Konstantin3307 (talk • contribs)

Fuller's comment at Hitler's birthday

I have read about Fuller's comment at Hitler's birthday (about children growing up so fast that you do not recognize them) in the book "Military Anecdotes". I always assumed that this was just that, an anecdote and not a correct quote. I think we need a reference. I have failed to find this quote in online dictionaries of quotations. There are too many erroneous citations around without wikipedia further contributing to them. -Sensemaker

There's a source now, but it's a general book from 2006. We need an original source for where this quote came from, as some people say Fuller was at the party and some say he was invited but didn't attend. If anyone has that Max Boot book currently listed as a source could they please check what source - if any - Boot uses. If he doesn't use one then the Boot book should be removed as a source. Retinalsummer (talk) 14:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Contribution of Fuller to German Military Doctrine:

This is a fallacy. While Fuller and Liddell-Hart were known in Germany prior to WWII, Guderian admitted post-war that he agreed to modify the first English-Language edition of "Panzer Leader" with statements that attribute some of his ideas to the pre-war British theorists like Liddell-Hart and Fuller. They were friends at the time; the two British authors had a vested interest in receiving this endorsement from Guderian in order to promote sales of their own works; Guderian needed their endorsement of his own book so that his reputation would be "rehabilitated" as a former member of the Wehrmacht writing about German military prowess in the immediate post-WWII era.

In fact, the "Blitzkrieg" (and this wiki article implies that this was its proper name, although this was a British popular invention) owes much more to the mechanization of German tactics pioneered at the end of WWI (the so-called "von Hutier" tactics) than any British-inspired ideas. Fuller and Liddell-Hart's theories were flawed, relying too heavily on tanks at the expense of the other members of the combined arms team (infantry, engineers, artillery, etc) and were not, in fact, adopted by the Wehrmacht.

In short, the German mechanized tactics of WWII were much more a "home-grown" invention than this article incorrectly leads one to believe, resulting from a sound existing doctrine that was enabled through mechanization and proven through experimentation.

See the following:

House, Jonathan M., "Toward Combined Arms Warfare: A Survey of 20th-Century Tactics, Doctrine, and Organization"

Edge Gibbons, Colonel, Infantry US Army —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.217.253.246 (talk) 18:11, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

The British Army was entirely mechanised by 1939 while the German army, outside of the panzer divisions, remained almost entirely horse-drawn till 1945, medieval style, so no, the Germans clearly didn't follow British doctrine except in the use of tanks, which were a British invention. In addition, British doctrine didn't restrict the air force to the role of close support for the army, which German doctrine did, with unfortunate consequences for the Luftwaffe, which found itself under-equipped for the actual war that developed after the 1940 Blitzkrieg left Britain in the game as a combatant and doomed Germany to a losing war on two fronts. Khamba Tendal (talk) 17:22, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Magick & Mysticism

I've added a new section on Fuller's involvement with Crowley and magick. --Rodneyorpheus (talk) 22:07, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Just realised I made a ton of edits while not logged in - those recent ones on Magick & Mysticism were by me, in case anyone is wondering! --Rodneyorpheus (talk) 22:11, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Nice work, the section and edits were really needed in this article. Have linked Fuller's page to the Thelema template. Aleister Wilson (talk) 23:59, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

This could still be improved, at least the part linked, according to the article, to his military theories. The section on the latter contains the following sentence: ‘Cabalistic influences on his theories can be evidenced by his use of the “Law of Threes” throughout his work.’ This is not exactly informative, so sould someone add information on how these ‘can be evidenced’ in Fuller’s military theories? Besides, in English (not necessarily in other languages), the orthography Cabala beginning with a C usually implies Christian Kabbalah (obviously following Latin orthography), whereas Qabalah (as in ‘he would write about topics such as the Qabalah and yoga’) implies Hermetic Qabalah, the latter being mire likely in Fuller’s case. (In a Jewish context, one would rather expect Kabbalah, if we exclude Semitic philologists using Q for ק since K might imply the letter כ.) Thus, one should be careful and use the orthography fitting the system one writes about. --2003:F5:FF0B:1400:598:8B4E:2CC7:D029 (talk) 13:33, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Fuller's history during and after World War 2?

As someone who's only previous knowledge of Fuller was his 1960s book on Caesar, it would be interesting to know what his personal history was after 1939, which is not explored in the article, was. Did he, like Mosley, stick with adherence to fascism or did he come around to support of the Allied war effort? Tom Cod (talk) 21:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Excellent question - I just added some stuff on Fuller's theories, will try to get round to updating the bio sometime soon if no-one else beats me to it. --Rodneyorpheus (talk) 18:44, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The Holocaust section

I have removed this section as it does not add anything to the article. The product description of the book, quoted below from amazon, quite clearly notes that grand strategy and grand tactics is the focus of the book, hence the lack of mention of the holocaust seems appropriate. If the section is attempting to make some sort of point in regards to Fuller’s views of the holocaust, then it needs better referencing.

Product Description Fuller's biographer, Bryan Holden Reid, has described The Second World War as "an analysis of the breakdown, as Fuller saw it, of the vital relationship between grand strategy and grand tactics--the end and the means...Too often books on the Second world War detail the movements of formations about the battlefield and give space to strategical commentary without assessing the manner in which the war was actually fought. On the tactical level, The Second World War can still be read with profit. " Fuller himself characterized the book, however, as "in part a least a psychological study of the folly of man. " Expertly combining detailed military history and analysis with Clausewitzian insights based on his own theories of warfare, Fuller produced a modern military masterpiece in The Second World War. - Amazon EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 16:14, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Cambrai role

"He planned the tank attack at Cambrai in 1917 and the tank operations for the autumn offensives of 1918." Not true. Despite what Fuller says in his writings, Gen. Byng planned the attack at Cambrai, combining and adapting separate plans put to him by Hugh Tudor and Fuller. It is possibly true to say that Fuller "was given the responsibility of planning the tank element of Cambrai". His original idea was for an entirely different attack in a different place. The description of Cambrai as "a tank attack" is often contested. It was what would later become known as an all-arms attack. Hengistmate (talk) 22:14, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Seriously??

On 20 April 1939 Fuller was an honoured guest at Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday parade and watched as "for three hours a completely mechanised and motorised army roared past the Führer." Afterwards Hitler asked, "I hope you were pleased with your children?" Fuller replied, "Your Excellency, they have grown up so quickly that I no longer recognise them."[3] Which script writer came up with that. The whole idea that two rather obscure gus like Fuller and Liddel Hart were at the time deeply influenced german doctrine and thus the Anglos invented the higly mobile socalled Blitzktrieg doctrine is absurd. Those two guys had pretty much cero influence as is shown by the fact that neither the british nore the french did organize their armies along these lines.--Tresckow (talk) 03:43, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, seriously. This has been widely reported by several notable sources. Can you come up with citations to verify your opinion stated above? --Rodneyorpheus (talk) 07:30, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Reference to Fuller's views on Haig et al.

I don't doubt that Fuller wrote that, but when? The chronology doesn't seem right here. It doesn't seem appropriate or relevant to introduce his post-war thoughts in the middle of a description of his rise to prominence in the Tank Corps during the war. I think this should be incorporated further down the article, closer to the time of writing, if the date is known. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.135.41.44 (talk) 17:21, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

WW2

...he was the only officer of his rank not invited to return to service during the war.

I don't see how this can be accurate. There must have been many other retired generals who were not invited to return, on grounds of age. Valetude (talk) 14:43, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Childhood

After moving to Lausanne with his parents as a boy, he returned to England at the age of 11 without them.

Needs explaining. Was there a death or a divorce? Or does it just mean he attended boarding-school in England, and spent the school holidays in Lausanne? Valetude (talk) 14:47, 9 November 2021 (UTC)