9 November, 1938. The Germans called it Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass”, Reichspogromnacht or simply Pogromnacht. Elisheva Avital tells the story of a photo album from that terrible event that came into her grandfather’s possession at some point during World War 2:
November 13, 2018
THE GREAT WAR IS NOT OVER
The Great War
Published on 12 Nov 2018The Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/thegreatwar
The following information — basically the same as what Flo discusses in the video above — was sent out to Patreon supporters:
July 14, 2014 was our first day with The Great War project. 4 1/2 years later, and we managed to not miss a single Thursday to bring you the latest weekly update from 100 years ago. We could not have done this without your support on Patreon. We are not exaggerating when we say that our show would have been cancelled several times if we had to rely on YouTube revenue alone. For that we, and the rest of the production team want to say: “Thank you!”
Now, in the last few weeks we were rather quiet here on Patreon but also on Social Media in general. The main reason for that was that we, the team who researched big parts of this project, who edited, animated and published all the episodes and we who responded to your questions and criticisms over the years needed to figure out what we want to do after 11/11/18.
We quickly realised that we want to continue working in the field of historical film production and with that in mind we will start our own company in early 1919, pardon 2019. So far, we were employees of Mediakraft, the company that initially financed this channel and kept it afloat before you all started supporting us on Patreon. But now we want to stand on our feet.
And the great news is, that The Great War will stay with us and with you in the future. We reached an agreement with Mediakraft that we can continue working on the channel and publish more content. For this content, we still need your support and we hope that you trust our capabilities based on the past 4 1/2 years.
From a historical perspective, 11/11/1918 may have marked the end of hostilities in the First World War but it certainly didn’t usher in an era of world peace – quite the contrary. New wars, more revolutions, difficult peace negotiations and the attempts to create a new world order all were pivotal moments in our world history and we want to continue to tell these stories on The Great War channel.
But, there is always a but, that doesn’t mean that we won’t change things up behind the scenes and on the channel. The first, and for you probably most important point, is that Indy has moved on to new projects (and we wish him all the best for that) which means we will be looking to find a new host. This won’t be easy and I know you will be nervous, but we are sure that we can find someone that can fill these shoes over time.
Moreover, we will probably move away from the weekly episode format that was also accompanied by two extra weekly uploads for the past years. This incredible high output meant that we couldn’t always focus on topics as much as they deserved and we know from the numbers on YouTube that it was an overwhelming amount of content for a lot of our fans, too. Instead we will probably move to less uploads but longer episodes with more detail, more polish, better animations and just overall try to take it to the next level.
To wrap this long post up, I want to kindly ask you to trust in our abilities, to be open for this new direction and most importantly to continue to support us here on Patreon as now independent creators. Over the next few weeks, I will send out more updates on this evolution of The Great War. Right now we want to publish the first new episode in early January. In the meantime, you can enjoy the epilogue episodes with Indy that we will put up in the future.
And if you have any questions or ideas, feel free to put them in the comments of this post, we will try to answer them to the best of my ability.
Flo & Toni
Producers of The Great War
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General Sir Charles Napier lived in vain
Douglas Murray on the Asia Bibi case:
All of this is to say that the latest news from the U.K. is both thoroughly predictable and deeply disturbing. Readers of National Review will be familiar with the case of Asia Bibi. She is the Christian woman from Pakistan who has been in prison on death row for the last eight years. Her “crime” is that a neighbor accused her of “blasphemy.” […]
Her case has had ramifications throughout Pakistani society in the years since. For instance, it provoked the statement by the brave governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, which led to his own murder by one of his own bodyguards. In the days since her release from jail, there have been mass protests in Pakistan where thousands of enraged fanatics have called, literally, for Asia Bibi’s head. The case has amply demonstrated the type of country that Pakistan is these days. But who would have guessed that her case would also throw so much light on the type of country Britain now is?
There are clearly international efforts underway to get Bibi out of Pakistan. If anybody in the world deserves asylum it is her. And any civilized country should be queuing up to give asylum to her and her family. Among those reported to have done so is the Netherlands.
But today there are reports that the British government has said that it will not offer asylum to Asia Bibi. The reason being “security concerns” — that weasel term now used by all officialdom whenever it needs one last reason to avoid doing the right thing. According to this report, the government is concerned that if the U.K. offered asylum to Bibi it could cause “unrest among certain sections of the community.” And which sections would that be? Would it be Anglicans or atheists who would be furious that an impoverished and severely traumatized woman should be given shelter in their country? Of course not. The “community” that the British government will be scared of is the community that comes from the same country that has tortured Asia Bibi for the last eight years.
So what’s the tie-in with General Sir Charles Napier? He was the governor of Sindh from 1843 to 1847. During his time in that office, he had opportunity to challenge certain long-established barbaric cultural practices:
Napier opposed suttee, or sati. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. Sati was rare in Sindh during the time Napier stayed in this region. Napier judged that the immolation was motivated by profits for the priests, and when told of an actual Sati about to take place, he informed those involved that he would stop the sacrifice. The priests complained to him that this was a customary religious rite, and that customs of a nation should be respected. As recounted by his brother William, he replied:
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”
Britain could use another General Napier.
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The Maginot Line: Actually a Good Idea
Historigraph
Published on 13 Oct 2018If you enjoyed this video and want to see more made, consider supporting my efforts on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/historigraph
My old video on the invasion of France in 1940, which is useful for background info to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4-l0…
Check out my Norway 1940 series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
► Twitter: https://twitter.com/historigraph
Sources:
James Holland, The War in the West – A New History Vol. 1: Germany Ascendant 1939-1941 (kindle edition)
Lloyd Clark, Blitzkrieg: Myth, Reality and Hitler’s Lightning War – France, 1940.
Alistair Horne, To Lose a Battle: France 1940.
Charles River Editors, The Maginot Line: The History of the Fortifications that failed to protect France from Nazi Germany during World War II.
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QotD: Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain
The first date in English History is 55 B.C., in which year Julius Caesar (the memorable Roman Emperor) landed, like all other successful invaders of these islands, at Thanet. This was in the Olden Days, when the Romans were top nation on account of their classical education, etc.
Julius Caesar advanced very energetically, throwing his cavalry several thousands of paces over the River Flumen; but the Ancient Britons, though all well over military age, painted themselves true blue, or woad, and fought as heroically under their dashing queen, Woadicea, as they did later in thin red lines under their good queen, Victoria.
Julius Caesar was therefore compelled to invade Britain again the following year (54 B.C., not 56, owing to the peculiar Roman method of counting), and having defeated the Ancient Britons by unfair means, such as battering-rams, tortoises, hippocausts, centipedes, axes, and bundles, set the memorable Latin sentence, “Veni, Vidi, Vici“, which the Romans, who were all very well educated, construed correctly.
The Britons, however, who of course still used the old pronunciation, understanding him to have called them “Weeny, Weedy, and Weaky”, lost heart and gave up the struggle, thinking that he had already divided them All into Three Parts.
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.
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