To empathize or not

I am reading “When William came” by Saki, an English author. In the book, the narrator - Yeovil is in Poland  on a tour and he has been told in Russian language  that some Tsar has defeated some other Tsar. It took him some time to realize that English king is defeated by German ruler.

Yeovil is devastated. He returns back to England and realizes that the life in his home land screams the defeat and hopelessness. There are German boards everywhere along with English. The taxi drivers speak only in German. And he needs to make a declaration to the government that he has returned from where, for what purpose etc.

Now normally you identify yourself with the hero in a book and feel very upset when he is facing adversity. But in this situation I was not. How do I feel sad for an Englishman for his country’s defeat, when the English had ruled us for hundreds of years   ( and continue to do so. See My blog is in their language ) and have oppressed so many people all over the world, enslaved so many and destroyed their cultures. 

But on the other hand, I am doing exactly what I ridicule  - what-aboutery and raking up the past.

So for some time let me be Yeovil and hate Germany and feel sad, worried about my country.

On a related note - a late night show host was saying something good about Hitler. He told the one good thing Hitler did was to kill Hitler.