Quotulatiousness

January 22, 2022

World War Zero – The Russo Japanese War

Filed under: China, History, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published 21 Jan 2022

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The Russo-Japanese War is nicknamed World War Zero – it was a clash between two world powers that foreshadowed war on an industrial scale as seen just 10 years later again. Gigantic land battles like the Battle of Mukden showed the true cost in manpower and materiel when modern armies clashed and the naval side of the war showed the strategic importance of modern navies.

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» BIBLIOGRAPHY
Akiyama Saneyuki, Gundan (Tokyo: Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, 1917)

Atsuo Yokoyama; Toshikatsu Nishikawa & Ichō Konsōshiamu, Heishitachi ga mita Nichi-Ro sensō, (Tokyo: Yūzankaku, 2012)

Corbett, Julian S., Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905, Volume I, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2015)

Corbett, Julian S., Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905, Volume II, (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2015)

Деникин А. И. Путь русского офицера. (Нью-Йорк: Изд. им. А. Чехова, 1953)

Forczyk, Robert, Russian Battleship vs Japanese Battleship: Yellow Sea 1904-05, (Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd, 2009)

Hamby, Joel E, “Striking the Balance: Strategy and Force in the Russo-Japanese War” Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2004)

Hosokawa Gentarō, Byōinsen Kōsai Maru kenbunroku (Tokyo: Hakubunkan Shinsha, 1993)

Ivanov, A & Jowett P, The Russo-Japanese War 1904-05, (Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd, 2004)

Jacob, Frank, The Russo-Japanese War and its Shaping of the Twentieth Century, (London: Routledge, 2017)

Jukes, Geoffrey, The Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905, (Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd, 2014)

Kowner, Rotem (ed), Rethinking the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-5, Volume 1: Centennial Perspectives, (Folkestone: Global Oriental, 2007)

Lynch, George & Palmer, Frederick, In Many Wars By Many War Correspondnets, (Tokyo: Tokyo Printing Co. 1904)

Mozawa Yusaku, Aru hohei no Nichi-Ro Sensō jūgun nikki (Tokyo: Sōshisha, 2005)

Murakami Hyōe, Konoe Rentai ki (Tokyo: Akita Shoten, 1967)

Paine, S. C. M., The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017)

Steinberg, John W; Meaning, Bruce W; Schimmelpennick van der Oye, David; Wolff, David & Yokote, Shinji (eds.), The Russo-Japanese War in Global Perspective: World War Zero, (Leiden: Brill, 2005)

Stille, Mark, The Imperial Japanese Navy of the Russo-Japanese War, (Oxford: Osprey Publishing Ltd, 2016)

Takagi Suiu, Jinsei hachimenkan (Tokyo: Teikoku Kyōiku Kenkyūkai, 1927)

van Dijk, Kees, Pacific Strife: The Great Powers and Their Political and Economic Rivalries in Asia and the Western Pacific, 1870-1914, (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2015)

Warner, Denis & Warner, Peggy, The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905, (London: Angus & Robertson, 1974)

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Jose Gamez
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig
Channel Design: Yves Thimian

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2022

“China’s statistics remain in the hands of officials who carefully do everything possible to make sure China’s image remains unblemished”

Filed under: China, Government, Health — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

I’ve been a disbeliever in official Chinese statistics for many years — one of the first repeat topics on the blog in 2004 was the unreliable nature of Chinese government statistics on economic growth. As a result, I find it very easy to believe that the Chinese statistics on deaths due to the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic are unreliable, as John Horvat explains:

Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Wikimedia Commons.

As the latest wave of COVID cases surges in the West, all is quiet in the East. It has always been quiet. Millions have died from the coronavirus epidemic as it sweeps the world. However, few consider it strange that the nation where the virus first appeared amid an entirely unprotected public of 1.3 billion people should record a mere 4,636 fatalities over the past three years.

China’s statistics remain in the hands of officials who carefully do everything possible to make sure China’s image remains unblemished. They claim that low numbers are due to the communist nation’s brutal “zero tolerance” policies. China is presented as a model for the West.

Some voices are appearing that dispute this claim. One expert says the fatality figures are likely closer to 1.7 million. This figure would put China in the same camp as the rest of the world. It would also point to the failure of the world’s strictest lockdown and explain the recent shutdowns of whole cities and regions due to the virus, which supposedly kills no one in China.

[…]

Communist parties have always used statistics as a tool and weapon to advance their agenda. Officials feel free to change the numbers to reflect well upon the state, which controls everything. Truth is whatever furthers the fortunes of the party. If statistics must be changed as a result, there is no problem. Hence the notorious unreliability of communist statistics.

The problem is complicated by anxious officials who must report good news to party leaders or face the consequences of their failures, including death. Zero tolerance numbers may be statistically impossible and even absurd, but most officials prefer their survival over inconvenient truths.

Also disturbing is the complicity of Western media that repeat the cooked numbers of communist regimes. Few dare to question impossible figures or “follow the science” when leftist prestige is involved. During the long Cold War, the West presented the Soviet Union as the second-largest economy. When the Berlin Wall fell, the actual size of the economy was found to be significantly less.

Even in a centrally planned socialist state, incentives matter. In the west, failing to meet expected standards may get you fired (unless you work for the government), but in authoritarian states like China it can get you shot or exiled to a remote labour camp for years or decades. The top statisticians know that the numbers they work on are … massaged … at every stage even before they are aggregated for regional or national reporting, but there is literally no point in telling the truth and there is much to be gained by “scenario-ing them rosily” because your bosses will only accept good news regardless of reality.

1842 Retreat From Kabul

Filed under: Asia, Britain, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 22 Sep 2021

On January 13, 1842, a single man on horseback approached the British garrison at Jalalabad, where soldiers were waiting for a retreating army of several thousand. Exhausted, the man had part of his skull shaved off by a sword and his horse was so exhausted that it would soon perish. As he was brought into the walls of the city the lone man was asked where the rest of the army was. “I am the army,” he replied. Thus ended a disastrous retreat from Kabul, where a British force of some 4,500 soldiers and thousands of civilians was almost entirely destroyed.

This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

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All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.

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Script by JCG

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January 19, 2022

Triumph by Sea, Tragedy by Land – Supplying Guadalcanal – WW2 Special

Filed under: History, Japan, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 18 Jan 2021

Tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers were fighting over the jungles and beaches of Guadalcanal. To supply them with food, ammunition and medicine, the Japanese Navy had to resort to a series of daring supply runs — nicknamed the “Tokyo Express”. In the face of overwhelming American air superiority, the Tokyo Express had to find a tactic to overcome their enemy’s advantage, or it would doom its soldiers stranded on the island.
(more…)

January 18, 2022

Ishapore No6 Jungle Carbine SMLE Prototype

Filed under: Britain, History, India, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 21 Nov 2018

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In 1943, the British government began a program to develop a shortened and lightened version of the No1 SMLE rifle, for production in India and Australia — where the national ordnance factories had not converted to production of the No4 rifle. This prototype is the first pattern produced by the Ishapore Arsenal for testing. Its barrel is cut down to 16.5 inches (plus a 2.8 inch long conical flash hider), it has a unique 3-position flag style of rear aperture sight, and has had its sling swivels repositioned. This rifle was tested in the UK, and some modifications were recommended. A second pattern from Ishapore was then provisionally approved as the No6 MkI on September 1st, 1944, but cancelled before production could begin. The Australian pattern of No6 was approved a year late in September 1945, but then declared obsolete before it could be put into production. With the end of World War Two and Indian independence in 1947, the funding and impetus for a new short rifle were lost, and instead Ishapore would end up converting its production to No1 pattern rifles in 7.62mm NATO a few years later.

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January 16, 2022

Food for Leningrad, Breaking the Siege! – WW2 – 177- January 15th, 1943

Filed under: Africa, Germany, History, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 15 Jan 2022

Soviet attacks are launched this week to destroy the Hungarians, all while the German desperation at Stalingrad and Velikie Luki continues, but in the far north the Soviets have broken through the siege of Leningrad after 16 months. And the Casablanca Conference begins, a meeting to guide the war’s future progress.
(more…)

January 14, 2022

People who tell “noble lies” are still liars who should not be trusted

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, China, Government, Health, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In Spiked, Matt Ridley considers why so many scientists went along with the disinformation campaign to obscure or discredit the lab-leak theory on the origins of the Wuhan Coronavirus:

Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Wikimedia Commons.

In August 2007 there was an outbreak of foot-and-mouth virus on a farm in Surrey. It was a few miles from the world’s leading reference laboratory for identifying outbreaks of foot and mouth. Nobody thought this was a coincidence and sure enough a leaking pipe at the laboratory was soon found to be the source: a drainage contractor had worked at the lab and then at the farm.
In December 2019 there was an outbreak in China of a novel bat-borne SARS-like coronavirus a few miles from the world’s leading laboratory for collecting, studying and manipulating novel bat-borne SARS-like coronaviruses. We were assured by leading scientists in China, the US and the UK that this really was a coincidence, even when the nine closest relatives of the new virus turned up in the freezer of the laboratory in question, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Now we know what those leading scientists really thought. Emails exchanged between them after a conference call on 1 February 2020, and only now forced into the public domain by Republicans in the US Congress, show that they not only thought the virus might have leaked from a lab, but they also went much further in private. They thought the genome sequence of the new virus showed a strong likelihood of having been deliberately manipulated or accidentally mutated in the lab. Yet later they drafted an article for a scientific journal arguing that the suggestion not just of a manipulated virus, but even of an accidental spill, could be confidently dismissed and was a crackpot conspiracy theory.

Jeremy Farrar – who organised the call on 1 February with Patrick Vallance, Francis Collins, Anthony Fauci and a Who’s Who of virology – had already spilled a few of the beans in his book, Spike, published last year. He wrote that at the start of February 2020 he thought there was a 50 per cent chance the virus was engineered, while Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute was at 60-70 per cent and Eddie Holmes of Sydney University put it at 80 per cent. But some time after the call they all changed their mind. Why? They have never troubled us with an answer.

Now, however, we have an email from Farrar, sent on Sunday 2 February to Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, and Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It recounts the overnight thoughts of two other virologists Farrar had consulted, Robert Garry of Tulane University and Michael Farzan of the Scripps Research Institute, as well as Farrar’s own thoughts. Even after the call, their concern centred on a feature of the SARS-CoV-2 genome that had never been seen in any other SARS-like coronavirus before: the insertion (compared with the closest related virus in bats) of a 12-letter genetic sequence that creates a thing called a furin cleavage site, which makes the virus much more infectious.

The Revenge Bombing of Germany – WAH 050 – January 1943, Pt. 1

Filed under: Britain, China, Europe, Germany, History, India, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 13 Jan 2022

While Nazi Germany keeps on escalating its War Against Humanity, the United Nations alliance decides that they will escalate their war on Germany.
(more…)

January 13, 2022

Sniper Rifles of 1942 – WW2 Special

Filed under: Germany, History, Japan, Military, Russia, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 12 Jan 2022

Even the best sniper needed a reliable and accurate rifle. During the Second World War, all warring nations fielded designated sniper and marksman rifles, but different manufacturers had different ideas, from optical sights to breech-loading mechanisms, to gas-piston systems. Some preferred traditional bolt-action, others favored the new semi-automatic approach.
(more…)

How A Village Keeps India’s Handmade Shuttlecock Industry Alive | Still Standing

Filed under: Business, India, Sports — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Business Insider
Published 10 Sep 2021

Jadurberia village is the shuttlecock capital of India where workers have been making badminton birdies for generations. But the rise of mechanized assembly lines and the popularity of synthetic shuttlecocks are threatening to shut down small factories like the Niyogi family’s Dodo Shuttles.

For more information, visit http://www.dodoshuttles.com/.

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How A Village Keeps India’s Handmade Shuttlecock Industry Alive | Still Standing

January 9, 2022

A Soviet Offensive Along the Entire Front? – WW2 – 176 – January 8th, 1943

Filed under: Germany, History, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 8 Jan 2022

Things look grim for the Germans, surrounded at Velikie Luki and Stalingrad and with no real help of relief. The Soviets are, in fact, making plans for attacks all along the front, as are the Americans to push the Japanese off of Guadalcanal.
(more…)

January 6, 2022

Chinese Spymasters – The New Warlords? – WW2 – Spies & Ties 12

Filed under: Britain, China, History, Japan, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 5 Jan 2022

During World War Two, China was ripped up by many different warring parties, all of which were also playing spy games with crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses.
(more…)

January 2, 2022

And Now It’s 1943 … – WW2 – 175 – January 1st, 1943

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 1 Jan 2023

The attrition cannot continue so the Japanese decide they will evacuate Guadalcanal, conceding the Solomon Islands to the Allies. The Allies are also conceding the Caucasus, and a naval battle in the far north convinces Hitler that he should scrap the entire German surface fleet. 1943 begins ominously for the Axis.
(more…)

December 31, 2021

Let the Hunger Games Begin – WAH 049 – December 1942, Pt. 2

Filed under: China, Europe, Germany, History, India, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 30 Dec 2021

The world learns more details of the War Against Humanity in Occupied Poland, while in China and India starvation looms.
(more…)

December 26, 2021

A Red Christmas – WW2 – 174 – December 25, 1942

Filed under: Britain, France, Germany, History, Japan, Military, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 25 Dec 2021

The Soviet offensive Operation Mars is over; it has failed, but Operation Little Saturn has been such a success that the Axis are forced to cancel their own Operation, Winter Storm, which was to relieve the troops trapped in Stalingrad. They remain trapped because Adolf Hitler has now forbidden them from trying to break out. The Allies run into tough Axis defense in both Tunisia and on Guadalcanal, and a French bigwig is assassinated.
(more…)

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