World War Two
Published 8 Dec 2022Japanese planes bomb Calcutta when it is still being crushed by the weight of the Bengali famine. Adolf Hitler and Albert Speer are obsessively trying to increase war production so Germany can begin launching its vengeance weapon against Britain. The wars of resistance continue across the Balkans with continued brutality and a new resistance force emerges in Italy.
(more…)
December 9, 2022
V-1: Hitler’s Deluded Revenge Plan – War Against Humanity 090
Comments Off on V-1: Hitler’s Deluded Revenge Plan – War Against Humanity 090
December 8, 2022
Is the Luftwaffe Defeated in 1943? – WW2 Documentary Special
World War Two
Published 7 Dec 2022Outnumbered and outproduced, the once mighty Luftwaffe is battling to hold its own across three fronts. Every month brings new pain for the force. But the Luftwaffe still has a few tricks up its sleeves and can make the Allies bleed heavily. If only Hitler and the Nazi leadership weren’t sabotaging its chances …
(more…)
Comments Off on Is the Luftwaffe Defeated in 1943? – WW2 Documentary Special
December 5, 2022
Edmund Burke
At Samizdata, Niall Kilmartin republishes part of a much older post out as background on Edmund Burke (who I haven’t yet read):
Portrait of Edmund Burke (1729-1797), circa 1770-1780 after a painting of 1774 by James Northcote.
Original in the Royal Albert Museum & Art Gallery via Wikimedia Commons.
When I first started reading Edmund Burke, it was for the political wisdom his writings contained. Only many years later did I start to benefit from noticing that the Burke we know – the man proved a prophet by events and with an impressive legacy – differed from the Burke that the man himself knew: the man who was a lifelong target of slander; the one who, on each major issue of his life, gained only rare and partial victories after years or decades of seeing events tragically unfold as he had vainly foretold. Looking back, we see the man revered by both parties as the model of a statesman and thinker in the following century, the hero of Sir Winston Churchill in the century after. But Burke lived his life looking forwards:
- On America, an initial victory (repeal of the Stamp Act) was followed by over 15 years in the political wilderness and then by the second-best of US independence. (Burke was the very first member of parliament to say that Britain must recognise US independence, but his preferred solution when the crisis first arose in the mid-1760s was to preserve – by rarely using – a prerogative power of the British parliament that could one day be useful for such things as opposing slavery.)
- He vastly improved the lot of the inhabitants of India, but in Britain the first result of trying was massive electoral defeat, and his chosen means after that – the impeachment of Warren Hastings – took him 14 years of exhausting effort and ended in acquittal. Indians were much better off, but back in England the acquittal felt like failure.
- Three decades of seeking to improve the lot of Irish Catholics, latterly with successes, ended in the sudden disaster of Earl Fitzwilliam’s recall and the approach of the 1798 rebellion which he foresaw would fail (and had to hope would fail).
- The French revolutionaries’ conquest of England never looked so likely as at the time of his death in 1797. It was the equivalent of dying in September 1940 or November 1941.
It’s not surprising that late in his life he commented that the ill success of his efforts might seem to justify changing his opinions. But he added that, “Until I gain other lights than those I have“, he would have to go on being true to his understanding.
Burke was several times defeated politically – sometimes as a direct result of being honest – and later (usually much later) resurged simply because his opponents, through refusing to believe his warnings, walked into water over their heads and drowned, doing a lot of irreversible damage in the process. Even when this happened, he was not quickly respected. By the time it became really hard to avoid noticing that the French revolution was as unpleasant as Burke had predicted, all the enlightened people knew he was a longstanding prejudiced enemy of it, so “he loses credit for his foresight because he acted on it”, as Harvey Mansfield put it. (Similarly, whenever ugly effects of modern politics become impossible to ignore, people like us get no credit from those to whom their occurrence is unexpected because we were against them “anyway”.)
Lastly, I offer this Burke quote to guide you when people treat their success in stealing something from you (an election, for example) as evidence of their right to do so:
“The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least, it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar judgments – success.”
Comments Off on Edmund Burke
The sinking of HMS Courageous, 17 September, 1939
The Northern Historian
Published 5 Feb 202117th September 1939, just two weeks after Britain had declared war on Germany, aircraft carrier HMS Courageous was on patrol off the west coast of Ireland. Unbeknown to her, she was being stalked by a hidden predator. Within 20 minutes of being attacked she had slipped beneath the Atlantic surface, taking with her the lives of over 500 men. She became the first British naval casualty of World War Two.
She began her life as a light cruiser during World War One as part of the Courageous class of cruisers. They were a trio of ships comprising HMS Courageous, HMS Glorious, and HMS Furious. These ships were designed and built to support Admiral Lord Fisher’s Baltic project.
Following heavy losses at The Battle of Jutland, HMS Courageous became the flagship of the 1st Cruiser Squadron and took part in the 2nd Battle of Heligoland.
Following World War 1 and due to the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, limiting new ship constructions, HMS Courageous along with her sisters HMS Glorious and HMS Furious were converted into aircraft carriers and became the Courageous class of aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy.
(more…)
Comments Off on The sinking of HMS Courageous, 17 September, 1939
December 4, 2022
Operation Overlord Confirmed at Teheran – WW2 – 223 – December 3, 1943
World War Two
Published 3 Dec 2022The Teheran Conference is in full swing and the Allied leadership and plan for a cross channel invasion of Europe is agreed upon by Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt. There are new Allied attacks across Italy, but at Bari a German air raid releases deadly poison gas.
(more…)
Comments Off on Operation Overlord Confirmed at Teheran – WW2 – 223 – December 3, 1943
L39A1: British Service Target Rifle Before the L42A1
Forgotten Weapons
Published 5 Aug 2022The story of the conversion of the Lee Enfield to 7.62mm NATO would not be complete without the L39A1. This is essentially the civilian competition version of what would become the L42A1. It was actually in British service as a target rifle — not intended for combat. It followed the L8 (the first British military attempts at a 7.62mm precision version of the Enfield) and the L42A1. It was basically a copy of the conversions done by civilian competition shooters in the British NRA.
Sights were made by several different companies, as the rifles were not issued with sights — they were obtained by the unit they went to, whatever particular model that unit preferred. This example has Parker Hale diopter sights. The L39A1 also used a .303 caliber magazine, as they were intended for slow-fire, single-loaded competition but the magazine was used as a loading tray. The .303 magazine will not reliably hold 7.62mm cartridges, but 7.62mm conversion magazines can be put in the L39A1 and will then work just fine. They also sometimes are fitted with .303 extractors. The stock here has a semi-pistol grip a bit less substantial than the L8 .22 rifle, although most had standard No4 stocks.
The original sights were removed, and remarked as L39A1. They were made in 1969, 1970, and 1972, with a single serial number range used for the L39A1, the pretrial trials examples of the L39, and the “7.62 Conv” rifles. A total of 1,213 L39A1 rifles were made, with the other types accounting for about 28 additional rifles.
(more…)
Comments Off on L39A1: British Service Target Rifle Before the L42A1
December 3, 2022
“The Valley of Death” – The Battles of Doiran – Sabaton History 115
Sabaton History
Published 1 Dec 2022The Bulgarian defenses in the Lake Doiran region were pretty much the best defenses any country had anywhere in the Great War, which the Entente forces discovered as they tried time and again and failed time and again — to break the front.
(more…)
Comments Off on “The Valley of Death” – The Battles of Doiran – Sabaton History 115
This Is What A British Sailor Ate In Nelson’s Royal Navy!
History Hit
Published 23 Oct 2021‘This Is What A British Sailor Ate In Nelson’s Royal Navy!’
200 years ago, Britain’s Royal Navy was the most technologically advanced and supremely efficient force in the history of naval warfare.
But what was it like to live and work on board these ships? What did the men eat? How did the ships sail? What were the weapons they used?
In our latest documentary on History Hit TV, to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar, Dan Snow explores what life would have been like for those whose served in the Nelson’s Navy.
(more…)
Comments Off on This Is What A British Sailor Ate In Nelson’s Royal Navy!
December 2, 2022
Bombing Berlin with Ed Murrow of CBS – War Against Humanity 089
World War Two
Published 1 Dec 2022Ed Murrow accompanies the RAF on a bombing raid on Berlin, and files one of his most iconic broadcasts with CBS. In Teheran, Winston Churchill walks out on a dinner with Joseph Stalin, after the USSR Premiere suggests mass murdering German officers.
(more…)
Comments Off on Bombing Berlin with Ed Murrow of CBS – War Against Humanity 089
December 1, 2022
Medieval Table Manners
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 19 Jul 2022
(more…)
Comments Off on Medieval Table Manners
November 30, 2022
Victorious Italians, Swedish Turnips, and Battlefield Songs – OOTF 29
World War Two
Published 29 Nov 2022Rommel disliked Italian officers, but how bad were the troops during the North Africa Campaign? DID German pilots use skip-bombing in the Atlantic? AND what kind of wartime songs did soldiers sing? Find out in this episode of Out of the Foxholes!
(more…)
Comments Off on Victorious Italians, Swedish Turnips, and Battlefield Songs – OOTF 29
James Gillray
In The Critic, James Stephens Curl reviews a new biography of the cartoonist and satirist James Gillray (1756-1815), who took great delight in skewering the political leaders of the day and pretty much any other target he fancied from before the French Revolution through the Napoleonic wars:
During the 1780s Gillray emerged as a caricaturist, despite the fact that this was regarded as a dangerous activity, rendering an artist more feared than esteemed, and frequently landing practitioners into trouble with the law. Gillray began to excel in invention, parody, satire, fantasy, burlesque, and even occasional forays into pornography. His targets were the great and good, not excepting royalty. But his vision is often dark, his wit frequently cruel and even shockingly bawdy: some of his own contemporaries found his work repellent. He went for politicians: the Whigs Charles James Fox (1749-1806), Edmund Burke (1729-97), and Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (1751-1816) on the one hand, and William Pitt (1759-1806) on the other. Fox was a devious demagogue (“Black Charlie” to Gillray); Burke a bespectacled Jesuit; and Sheridan a red-nosed sot. But Gillray reserved much of his venom for “Pitt the Bottomless”, “an excrescence … a fungus … a toadstool on a dunghill”, and frequently alluded to a lack of masculinity in the statesman, who preferred to company of young men to any intimacies with women, although the caricaturist’s attitude softened to some extent as the wars with the French went on.
As the son of a soldier who had been partly disabled fighting the French, Gillray’s depictions of the excesses of the Revolution were ferocious: one, A Representation of the horrid Barbarities practised upon the Nuns by the Fish-women, on breaking into the Nunneries in France (1792), was intended as a warning to “the FAIR SEX of GREAT BRITAIN” as to what might befall them if the nation succumbed to revolutionary blandishments. The drawing featured many roseate bottoms that had been energetically birched by the fishwives. He also found much to lampoon in his depictions of the Corsican upstart, Napoléon.
[…]
Some of Gillray’s works would pass most people by today, thanks to the much-trumpeted “world-class edication” which is nothing of the sort: one of my own favourites is his FASHIONABLE CONTRASTS;—or—The Duchefs’s little Shoe yeilding to the Magnitude of the Duke’s Foot (1792), which refers to the remarkably small hooves of Princess Frederica Charlotte Ulrica Catherina of Prussia (1767-1820), who married Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (1763-1827) in 1791: their supposed marital consummation is suggested by Gillray’s slightly indelicate rendering, in which the Duke’s very large footwear dwarfs the delicate slippers of the Duchess.
“In 1791 and 1792, there was no one who received more attention in the British press than Frederica Charlotte, the oldest daughter of the King of Prussia, whose marriage to the second (and favorite) son of King George and Queen Charlotte, Prince Frederick, the Duke of York set off a media frenzy that can only be compared to that of Princess Diana in our own day.”
Description from james-gillray.org/fashionable.htmlAll that said, this is a fine book, beautifully and pithily written, scholarly, well-observed, and superbly illustrated, much in colour. However, it is a very large tome (290 x 248 mm), and extremely heavy, so can only be read with comfort on a table or lectern. The captions give the bare minimum of information, and it would have been far better to have had extended descriptive captions under each illustration, rather than having to root about in the text, mellifluous though that undoubtedly is.
What is perhaps the most important aspect of the book is to reveal Gillray’s significance as a propagandist in time of war, for the images he produced concerning the excesses of what had occurred in France helped to stiffen national resolve to resist the revolutionaries and defeat them and their successor, Napoléon, whose own model for a new Europe was in itself profoundly revolutionary. What he would have made of the present gang of British politicians must remain agreeable speculation.
Comments Off on James Gillray
QotD: The rise of liberalism
Liberalism, in its own turn, came out of the accidents of European reformations, revolts, and revolutions, in an existing polity of hundreds of more or less independent political units, such as the Dutch cities in their Golden Age, or the Kleinstaaterei of German polities even after 1648. The success of the accidents made people bold — not necessarily and logically, but contingently and factually. For example, the Dutch Revolt 1568–1648 imparted the idea of civic autonomy against the hegemon of the time, Spain, and by analogy against other hegemons international and local. For another example, the initial successes of the English Civil War of the 1640s made ordinary people think they could make the world anew. For still another example, the Radical Reformation of Anabaptists, Mennonites, Congregationalists, and later the Quakers and Methodists let people take charge of their own religious lives, and by analogy their economic lives. The tiny group of English Quakers made for Lloyd’s insurance, Barclay’s bank, Cadbury’s chocolate. It was in the religious case not the doctrines of Calvinism as such (not the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism) but a flattened church governance that mattered for inspiriting people.
In sum, as one of the Levellers in the English Civil War of the 1640s, Richard Rumbold, said from the scaffold in 1685, “there was no man born marked of God above another, for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.” It was a shocking thought in a hierarchical society. In 1685 the crowd gathered to see Rumbold hanged surely laughed at such a sentiment. By 1885 it was a solemn cliché.
Dierdre McCloskey, “How Growth Happens: Liberalism, Innovism, and the Great Enrichment (Preliminary version)” [PDF], 2018-11-29.
Comments Off on QotD: The rise of liberalism
November 29, 2022
Tank Chat #159 | Warrior | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published 29 Jul 2022Join David Willey for a new Tank Chat on Warrior.
(more…)
Comments Off on Tank Chat #159 | Warrior | The Tank Museum
November 28, 2022
Mulberry Harbours – Rhinos, Whales, Beetles, Phoenixs and Spuds against the Axis
Drachinifel
Published 13 Jul 2022Today we take a look at the artificial harbours designed, built and then installed on the Normandy beaches in 1944.
Many thanks to @Think Defence for finding and collating so many images and letting me use them! Follow them on Twitter or on their website for more interesting articles!
(more…)
Comments Off on Mulberry Harbours – Rhinos, Whales, Beetles, Phoenixs and Spuds against the Axis
