David Fletcher is back! Join him as he discusses the FV601 Saladin — a six wheeled armoured car developed by Crossley Motors and later produced by Alvis. The Saladin has had a long service life and despite its dated design, is still in service with some countries.
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From inspiring their subjects to plotting international strategy, the world’s monarchies still have a crucial role to play in their country’s war effort during the Second World War. As you’ll find out, some sovereigns are much more successful at this than others.
Sources:
– National Archives NARA
– National Portrait Gallery
– FDR Presidential Library & Museum
– Imperial War Museums: HU 55966, H 1971,
– Girl Guides of Canada
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– Australian War Memorial: AWM 4067471
Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
– “Other Sides of Glory” – Fabien Tell
– “London” – Howard Harper-Barnes
– “Break Free” – Fabien Tell
– “Last Point of Safe Return” – Fabien Tell
– “Weapon of Choice” – Fabien Tel
– “Please Hear Me Out” – Philip Ayers
– “Disciples of Sun Tzu” – Christian Andersen
– “Dragon King” – Jo Wandrini
– “Remembrance” – Fabien Tell
– “Ominous” – Philip Ayers
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
1 day ago (edited)
With recent events surrounding the death of Prince Phillip, the British Royal Family has been front-and-center of the worldwide news cycle as of late. In 2021, it is rare for the royals to be at the center of people’s lives, but this wasn’t the case in the days of World War Two. Even though the age of kingdoms was largely over when war came around, sovereigns still had a role to play in their country’s war effort all over the world.
In this episode, we are taking a closer look at the role royalty played during the war. Is there still a monarchy where you live and if so, what is your experience with it? We would love to hear about that in the comments!
[Orwell’s] major work remains canonical, and cited on a daily basis in virtually every context imaginable, appropriately or otherwise. It seems unlikely that virtually any well-read man or woman is a stranger to his two most famous novels, which have established him, even seven decades after his death, as one of the bestselling writers in the English language. But once-popular works such as The Road to Wigan Pier are now in danger of falling into obsolescence, as the social circumstances that Orwell describes seem less and less relevant to a 21st-century readership, and even his great work of Spanish Civil War reportage Homage to Catalonia might be dismissed as a period piece, written with undeniable fire and conviction but saying little to a contemporary audience.
This would be a harsh and rather glib judgement, but many writers have faced worse. The book that suggested Wigan Pier, JB Priestley’s English Journey, was once hugely influential, even being credited with winning Labour the 1945 election, and is now regarded as a quaint piece of social commentary. That Priestley conducted his travels from a chauffeur-driven car, while Orwell willingly subjected himself to filthy evenings in slum bed and breakfasts and hostels, is a telling distinction between the two writers and their approaches: it is also undeniably true that Priestley died at 89, a grand old man of letters, and that Orwell’s premature death was one brought on by the tuberculosis that had affected him for years before his death. Yet Priestley is now remembered mainly for An Inspector Calls, and Orwell remains an iconic figure, beloved by millions. His canonisation was made explicit by a statue of him by Martin Jennings being erected outside Broadcasting House in 2017, complete with the phrase “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.
Yet it is doubtful that many of his admirers have read his earlier novels, namely Burmese Days, A Clergyman’s Daughter, Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Coming Up For Air. All four were brought out by the left-wing publisher Victor Gollancz, between 1934 and 1939, and each of them is autobiographical in nature. Burmese Days draws on Orwell’s faintly unlikely time in Burma in the Twenties with the Indian Imperial Police, and A Clergyman’s Daughter uses both his life with his family in Southwold (which appears faintly disguised in the novel as “Knype Hill”) and his days tramping for its narrative. Keep the Aspidistra Flying finds Orwell mining his experiences in the lower reaches of the London literary scene, including his time working in a bookshop in Hampstead, and Coming Up For Air, written while Orwell was recuperating in Marrakesh, is suffused with an intense nostalgia for an England that may never have really existed, but is of a piece with the fascination, and repulsion, for the tenets of “Englishness” that Orwell wrote about over and over again in his essays and reportage.
After last week’s Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, pretty much the entire Japanese fleet is sent out looking for American ships. They do not find them, but the enormous amount of radio traffic they generate is a treasure trove for Allied codebreakers to work on. The Allies ship 46 British Spitfire planes to Malta … and all of them are destroyed by the Axis within 48 hours. Germany begins bombing tourist and cultural destinations in Britain, and to make things even worse for the British this week, they realize they can’t hold Burma and are now making tracks for India, with the Japanese Army in hot pursuit.
Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)
Colorizations by:
– Mikołaj Uchman
– Daniel Weiss
Sources:
– National Portrait Gallery
– Naval History and Heritage Command
– Book by Rob Crosswell, Arrow by 4B Icons – from the Noun Project
– Russian International News Agency
Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
– Rannar Sillard – “Easy Target”
– Jo Wandrini – “Dragon King”
– Howard Harper-Barnes – “Underlying Truth”
– Edward Karl Hanson – “Spellbound”
– Craft Case – “Secret Cargo”
– Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
– Andreas Jamsheree – “Guilty Shadows 4”
In the aftermath of the Boer War, the British military needed to address critical issues of practical marksmanship with its troops. The Long Lee rifles it had deployed to South Africa suffered significant problems in making real-world hits on the battlefield. In addition to investing in better musketry training, the military chose to radically change its rifles.
In place of the Lee rifles and carbines, a single short rifle pattern would be issued for all branches of service (cavalry, artillery, and infantry). A stripper clip loading system was introduced to speed reloading and a full-length handguard for improving bayonet handling and reducing sight mirage. A windage adjustable rear sight was mandated, and a stout full protective hood added around the front sight. A new nosecap design was implemented to put the weight of the bayonet onto the stock, and not on the barrel where it would impact the rifle’s zero.
Two different patterns of rear sight were considered. The A pattern design was a tangent type sight like a Mauser, pinned at the front. The B pattern used a ladder sight, pinned at the rear. Five hundred of each were made, and put through a rigorous set of remarkably practical field trials. The testing involved not just static shooting for accuracy, but also shooting against timed disappearing targets, camouflaged targets, and snap shooting. The trial winner was the A pattern design, and it went into mass production in 1904 as the Short, Magazine, Lee Enfield Mark I — the first SMLE.
As adopted a few minor changes were made from the trials rifles, most notably a change from a full front sight hood to a pair of stout protective wings, to allow more light onto the sight. In addition, the design was almost immediately updated to a MkI* pattern, with a stronger rear sling swivel, rounded corners on the receiver, and a storage trap added to the buttplate.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
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The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 17 Aug 2017
The History Guy remembers the Washington Naval Conference, a watershed in diplomacy.
The episode discusses events and shows some artwork depicting warships, which some viewers may find disturbing. All events are described for educational purposes and are presented in historical context.
The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration.
The History Guy: Five Minutes of History is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.
Awesome The History Guy merchandise is available at:
teespring.com/stores/the-history-guy
The episode is intended for educational purposes. All events are presented in historical context.
#ushistory #thehistoryguy #militaryhistory
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… any observer of that British class system will know that it is indeed a little different from that in other places.
The aristocracy have always looked down upon the middle class. That gross and inelegant disdain for trade for example. The insistence that actually doing something for a living – even professionally – just isn’t as good as doing nothing off a rent roll.
From the other end we’ve that very bolshie – in the colloquial sense – insistence that the middle class are just parasites upon the toil of the workers. This being what also informs – misinforms – that idea that we’d be better off if we had much more manufacturing. Men in flat caps doing something physical etc.
That is, much of the society dislikes the very existence of the middle class. Actually, more than dislikes, from above they’re – we’re – despised and from below hated to the point that we bourgeoisie should be eliminated as a class.
The surprise that fewer claim to be of that section of the hierarchy than are is thus, well, it’s a surprise, right?
In our continuing series on the development of the British Lee Enfield rifles, we are looking at the CLLE conversions today. In 1907 the British adopted a new universal short rifle (the SMLE) that used charger (aka stripper) clips. Previous models of the Lee in British service had to be loaded one round at a time by hand. In order to make use of the hundreds of thousands of “Long Lee” (and Metford) rifles already manufactured, the British instituted a program to update them with charger guides. The began in 1908 and ran to 1914, although the majority were done in 1909 and 1910. In addition to removing the dust cover and fitting the charger guide, the front sight, rear sight, magazine, and volley sights were all updated. The new sights were windage-adjustable on both front and rear, and calibrated for Mk VI ammunition (although many were later updated again and re-re-calibrated for Mk VII ammunition).
These CLLE rifles would serve as second-line rifles in World War One and even through the end of World War Two.
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
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There are at least five advantages to having two separate islands on the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. But the main reason for such a design can only be found below the deck. Enjoy!
The Doolittle Raid is just a little bombing raid over Tokyo that doesn’t do that much physical damage. It does, however, have big repercussions — partly in terms of future offensive plans for the Japanese fleet, and partly in terms of the thousands of Chinese lives taken in reprisals for allowing the US bombers to land in China. There is small scattered action on the Eastern Front, more Japanese advances in Burma, and a French VIP escapes captivity in Germany and heads for Switzerland and freedom.
Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)
(Edit: Tungsten carbine is, of course *denser* than steel, not lighter. Sorry.)
I have done several previous videos on the Boys antitank rifle, but never actually fired one — until today! We’re out at the range with a MkI Boys and five rounds of its .55 Boys ammunition. So let’s see if it’s as painful to shoot as people say …
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740
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Maldivian media outlets this morning published as fact a satirical Telegraph news blog citing “unconfirmed rumours” that the 14th edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World will omit the Maldives, Tuvalu, “and major parts of Bangladesh” as a statement on global warming.
The blog post, written by climate change skeptic James Delingpole who describes himself as “a writer, journalist and broadcaster who is right about everything”, features comments by a “Times Atlas spokesman” David Rose.
In a UK press scandal this year, “David Rose” was found to be a psuedonym used by left-wing Independent journalist and climate change writer Johaan Hari to edit his own Wikipedia entry, advocate his own position and attack his critics.
Rose, who in Delingpole’s article holds “a doctorate in Cambridge in Climate Change and Sinking Islands Studies so I know what I’m talking about, and if you don’t believe me, ask my friend Johaan Hari who taught me everything I know”, acknowledges that it “may not be strictly geographically accurate to say the Maldives and Tuvalu will definitely have disappeared in about ten years time when our next edition appears.”
“But did you see that picture of the Maldives cabinet holding a meeting underwater? If the Maldives government says the Maldives are drowning, they must be drowning. And frankly I think it’s despicable, all those deniers who are saying it was just a publicity stunt, cooked up by green activist Mark Lynas, to blackmail the international community into giving the Maldives more aid money while simultaneously trying to lure green Trustafarians to come and spend £1500 a night in houses on stilts with gold-plated organic recyclable eco-toilets made of rare earth minerals from China. Why would a government lie about something as serious as climate change?”
Rose goes on to state that “I’m pleased to say that this is a view of the world shared by my colleagues at Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World. They understand that maps based on accurately recorded geographical features belong in the Victorian age of child chimney sweeps. What we need now is maps that change the world, transforming into something which it isn’t actually yet but might be one day if we don’t act NOW!”
Sky Gilbert responds more than adequately to a demand to “Cancel Shakespeare” that also appeared in The Line recently:
This was long thought to be the only portrait of William Shakespeare that had any claim to have been painted from life, until another possible life portrait, the Cobbe portrait, was revealed in 2009. The portrait is known as the “Chandos portrait” after a previous owner, James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos. It was the first portrait to be acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 1856. The artist may be by a painter called John Taylor who was an important member of the Painter-Stainers’ Company. National Portrait Gallery image via Wikimedia Commons.
Allan thinks that Shakespeare’s language is difficult and old fashioned, and that students today find analyzing the complexities of his old-fashioned rhetoric boring and irrelevant. Yes, Shakespeare essentially writes in another language (early modern English). And reading or even viewing his work can be a tough slog. Not only did he invent at least 1,700 words (some of which are now forgotten today), he favoured a befuddling periodic syntax in which the subject does not appear until the end of a sentence.
But a study of Shakespeare’s rhetoric is important in 2021. There is one — and only one — exceedingly relevant idea that can be lifted from Shakespeare’s congested imagery, his complex, sometimes confusing metaphors — one jewel that can be dragged out of his ubiquitous references to OVID and Greek myth (references which were obviously effortless for him, but for most of us, only confound). And this idea is very relevant today. Especially in the era of “alternate facts” and “fake news.”
This idea is the only one Shakespeare undoubtedly believed. I say this because he returns to it over and over. Trevor McNeely articulated this notion clearly and succinctly when he said that Shakespeare was constantly warning us the human mind “can build a perfectly satisfactory reality on thin air, and never think to question it.” Shakespeare is always speaking — in one way or another — about his suspicion that the bewitching power of rhetoric — indeed the very beauty of poetry itself — is both enchanting and dangerous.
Shakespeare lived at the nexus of a culture war. The Western world was gradually rejecting the ancient rhetorical notion that “truth is anything I can persuade you to believe in poetry” for “truth is whatever can be proved best by logic and science.” Shakespeare was fully capable of persuading us of anything (he often does). But his habit is to subsequently go back and undo what he has just said. He does this so that we might learn to fundamentally question the manipulations of philosophy and rhetoric — to question what were his very own manipulations. Shakespeare loved the beautiful hypnotizing language of poetry, but was also painfully aware that it could be dangerous as hell.
In fact, Shakespeare’s work is very dangerous for all of us. That’s why students should — and must — read it. Undergraduates today hotly debate whether The Merchant of Venice is anti-Semitic, or whether Prospero’s Caliban is a victim of colonial oppression. Education Week reported that “in 2016, students at Yale University petitioned the school to ‘decolonize’ its reading lists, including by removing its Shakespeare requirement.”
It’s true that Shakespeare is perhaps one of the oldest and whitest writers we know. (And sometimes he’s pretty sexist too — Taming of the Shrew, anyone?). But after digging systematically into Shakespeare’s work even the dullest student will discover that for every Kate bowing in obedience to her husband, there is a fierce Lucrece — not only standing up to a man, but permanently and eloquently dressing him down. (And too, the “colonialist” Prospero will prove to be just as flawed as the “indigenous” Caliban.) William Hazlitt said: Shakespeare’s mind “has no particular bias about anything” and Harold Bloom said: “his politics, like his religion, evades me, but I think he was too wary to have any.”
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Malta and British cities are victim to German bombs, while the Japanese advance in Burma causes a refugee crisis. In the Philippines, 80,000 Allied POWs walk the Bataan Death March.
Sources:
IWM C 4743, CL 2377
Bundesarchiv
From the Noun Project: Watchtower by Eliricon
Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
Fabien Tell – “Weapon of Choice”
Wendel Scherer – “Defeated”
Philip Ayers – “Trapped in a Maze”
Cobby Costa – “From the Past”
Cobby Costa – “Flight Path”
Wendel Scherer – “Growing Doubt”
Jon Bjork – “For the Many”
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
3 days ago (edited)
Under our previous episode I told you about how YouTube has been age restricting these videos, effectively censoring them and turning the format into an echo chamber that doesn’t reach beyond the viewers who already know about it. As I explained we feel that it’s a great disservice to education and remembrance, and it has affected me deeply personally making me question why we do this. Two things happened:
1. You collectively gave us the most amazing reception and reminded us of how important the work we do is. I can’t thank you enough for the amazing comments, many of them where kind, supportive, and motivating far beyond what I feel we deserve. You lifted my spirits and brought me out of the slump I was in, cementing, and confirming that what we do matters. In the name of the entire team: thank you so much, it is an immense honor to have you all with us.
2. YouTube did not age restrict the video, and even cleared it for monetization, leading to that it once again reached a viewership like before the string of age restrictions we were struck with. We haven’t heard any explanation from YouTube and we won’t. Furthermore, I am painfully aware that these decisions depend completely on the whims of the individuals at Google who review the videos. We also know that these individuals are different for every video, so I fear that that this state of affairs will not remain. Already, this video was judged as “not suitable for all advertisers” and will therefore be recommended to viewers less often in YouTube’s system. Hence, although it pains us, and is against the principles we stand for, we have also prepared a version of this video with all images documenting the atrocities we expose blurred out – we can only hope that we don’t need it.
I’d like to end with an anecdote out of my motivation to create this series. Many, many moons ago, when I was in senior high at boarding school in Sweden, Elie Wiesel – author, chronicler of the Holocaust, and survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald came to our school. It was in 1986, the same year that he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, and if I remember correctly he had connected a lecture tour to his reception of the award.
In any case — I had the privilege of speaking to Mr. Wiesel in a small group. He explained something that has stayed with me ever since. To him, his experiences were not defeating, the entire Holocaust was not a defeat, not only had humanity been victorious in the end, but he and others had survived to tell the tale — which to him was a special kind of victory that came with the responsibility of sharing and educating.
Mr. Wiesel, a kind, warm hearted man, full of humor and life despite the horrors he had lived, passed five years ago. It is for him, for the other survivors of every ethnicity faced by any kind or terror, and for those who didn’t make it through that we do this — to celebrate their life and continue turning their suffering from defeat into victory by remembering even after they are gone.
Yours,
Spartacus
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