The pint in eighteenth-century Paris was equivalent to 0.93 liters, whereas in Seine-en-Montane it was 1.99 liters and in Precy-sous-Thil, an astounding 3.33 liters. The aune, a measure of length used for cloth, varied depending on the material (the unit for silk, for instance, was smaller than that for linen) and across France there were at least seventeen different aunes. […]
Virtually everywhere in early modern Europe were endless micropolitics about how baskets might be adjusted through wear, bulging, tricks of weaving, moisture, the thickness of the rim, and so on. In some areas the local standards for the bushel and other units of measurement were kept in metallic form and placed in the care of a trusted official or else literally carved into the stone of a church or the town hall. Nor did it end there. How the grain was to be poured (from shoulder height, which packed it somewhat, or from waist height?), how damp it could be, whether the container could be shaken down, and finally, if and how it was to be leveled off when full were subjects of long and bitter controversy. […]
Thus far, this account of local measurement practices risks giving the impression that, although local conceptions of distance, area, volume, and so on were different from and more varied than the unitary abstract standards a state might favor, they were nevertheless aiming at objective accuracy. This impression would be false. […]
A good part of the politics of measurement sprang from what a contemporary economist might call the “stickiness” of feudal rents. Noble and clerical claimants often found it difficult to increase feudal dues directly; the levels set for various charges were the result of long struggle, and even a small increase above the customary level was viewed as a threatening breach of tradition. Adjusting the measure, however, represented a roundabout way of achieving the same end.
The local lord might, for example, lend grain to peasants in smaller baskets and insist on repayment in larger baskets. He might surreptitiously or even boldly enlarge the size of the grain sacks accepted for milling (a monopoly of the domain lord) and reduce the size of the sacks used for measuring out flour; he might also collect feudal dues in larger baskets and pay wages in kind in smaller baskets. While the formal custom governing feudal dues and wages would thus remain intact (requiring, for example, the same number of sacks of wheat from the harvest of a given holding), the actual transaction might increasingly favor the lord. The results of such fiddling were far from trivial. Kula estimates that the size of the bushel (boisseau) used to collect the main feudal rent (taille) increased by one-third between 1674 and 1716 as part of what was called the reaction feodale. […]
This sense of victimization [over changing units of measure] was evident in the cahiers of grievances prepared for the meeting of the Estates General just before the Revolution. […] In an unprecedented revolutionary context where an entirely new political system was being created from first principles, it was surely no great matter to legislate uniform weights and measures. As the revolutionary decree read “The centuries old dream of the masses of only one just measure has come true! The Revolution has given the people the meter!”
James C. Scott, Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, 1998.
May 1, 2019
QotD: Standardized measurements, feudalism, and revolution
April 30, 2019
QotD: Successful “democracies” in history have usually been disguised oligarchies
Thus we get the “Revolutions” in America and France, where educated and newly politicised chattering classes try to find a simplistic solution to all the world’s problems. Their solution being to adopt a system which fits their preferred world order, and seems to give them an advantage that will allow them to force people into their way of thinking.
Humans being what they are, it didn’t work of course.
The American Revolution, supposedly about ‘equality for all’ – if you want to fall for idealistic propaganda – was actually a tax rebellion by Northern states (who also wanted to get rid of the English government’s treaties that kept them out of Indian land), and the Southern states (who wanted to block the English anti-slavery legislation from spreading to their nice comfy system). It was never really about equality, and all the exclusions of people from voting on the basis of colour, race, sex, religion, immigration status, etc., should have made it clear to anyone that what was being considered was really an Oligarchy. Similar in fact to the Ancient Greek and Roman slave-based societies, where some special and limited classes shared rights no one else had.
Actually all “successful” democracies in history have always been Oligarchies. The 1,000 year old “Sublime Republic of Venice” – on which large parts of the US constitution were based – for instance, being limited to a certain number of families that had the vote. Similarly the “Republics” of Ancient Greece or Rome, and modern Switzerland or Israel, being based on vote by military service – another way of ensuring the voters might put national interests above selfish ones.
The first few French republics (those squeezed in around the inevitable dictatorships and emperors that are the result of such systems) were also based on a limited franchise. In their case not a race or religion or sex one like the US, but a straight property qualification that saw a small percentage of both sexes as voters.
Unsurprisingly the Oligarchical Republics of the 18th and 19th centuries were some of the most internally violent (US Slavery, Civil War, Indian Wars, the Terror, multiple revolts and “communes”, Lynchings, Jim Crow laws, etc), and externally aggressive (Napoleonic Wars, Spanish–American Wars, “Interventions” in Central America, Occupations of Hawaii, Philippines, etc.) governments in history. Rivaling the Greek and Roman republics for their aggressive expansionism by land and sea, and certainly being no less effective than more traditional military (Russia and Germany) or trade (Britain and Netherlands) expansionist states.
(And here I would note that the one of the mitigating factors in the idea that German Nationalism was a problem in WWI, was that the populist Navy Leagues and Colonial Leagues of the newly enfranchised voting classes did in fact push Nationalism to dangerous extremes. The Kaiser was a dangerous loon, but he was a dangerous loon responding to the fervor of the dregs of the petit bourgeois who had been enfranchised in his nation, not a man with Napoleonic capabilities in his own right.)
Nigel Davies, “The Solution is… European Union/Multiculturalism/Communism… Name your poison!”, rethinking history, 2015-12-26.
April 29, 2019
QotD: Prostitution
I had a few patients who were prostitutes. I remember one well-dressed lady in her 40s, whose profession I asked in the course of my history-taking.
“Dominatrix,” she said.
She was obviously very good at it because she had an international clientele, including, for example, a judge in Alabama. She told me that she never went anywhere in her car without her kit, for she might receive an emergency call at any time from Hong Kong or South Africa. You might have thought that being whipped by one woman in black fishnet stockings was as good as being whipped by another, but apparently this was (and I presume still is) not so: It’s the words and gestures that go with the whipping that count as well.
This activity of hers gave her a very good living (her car was far better than mine); she was sending her daughter to private school. I admired her enterprise and thought of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Was she or the judge in Alabama to blame? Was either of them to blame at all?
Of course, she wasn’t typical of the profession, and hard cases, as they say, make bad law. But I am not at all sure that I saw the poor prostitutes in my street as merely victims, as the new French law would have them. Not everyone with their life history becomes a crack-taking prostitute. This does not mean that I did not pity them for what they had become. If we can truly sympathize only with those who have done nothing to contribute to their own fate, we shall have very restricted sympathies indeed.
Theodore Dalrymple, “Turning Tricks Into Sympathy”, Taki’s Magazine, 2016-04-09.
April 28, 2019
QotD: Innovations in taxation
The door-and-window tax established in France [in the 18th century] is a striking case in point. Its originator must have reasoned that the number of windows and doors in a dwelling was proportional to the dwelling’s size. Thus a tax assessor need not enter the house or measure it, but merely count the doors and windows.
As a simple, workable formula, it was a brilliant stroke, but it was not without consequences. Peasant dwellings were subsequently designed or renovated with the formula in mind so as to have as few openings as possible. While the fiscal losses could be recouped by raising the tax per opening, the long-term effects on the health of the population lasted for more than a century.
James C. Scott, Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, 1998.
April 26, 2019
QotD: European jokes about the neighbours
… it is also the Finns who snicker at overbearing Swedes (“What’s the difference between the Swedes and the Finns? The Swedes have got nice neighbours”); and the Portuguese, who mock Spanish arrogance (“In a recent survey, 11 out of 10 Spaniards said they felt superior to the others”).
There are the Irish, who joke about buttoned-up Brits (“What’s the English definition of a thrill? Having an After Eight at 7.30”); and the Poles, who have a go at the Germans for pretty much anything (“German footballers are like German food: if they’re not imported from Poland they’re no good”).
Making fun of our best enemies, said Romain Seignovert, who has just published a book on the jokes Europeans tell about their neighbours, is a great European tradition. “We are a big, diverse community with a centuries-long common history of highs and lows, and our humour reflects that,” he says.
[…]
There is a deeper point. Ultimately, Seignovert said, laughing at our neighbours is “recognising, even celebrating, our particularities. It shows we’re not indifferent. Europe isn’t just political and economic, it’s also cultural – about all these nations, living together. The EU hasn’t made enough of that.”
That may be true. But Seignovert, remember, is French, so what he says should clearly not be taken too seriously. In the words of one particularly fine Belgian quip: “How does a Frenchman commit suicide? By shooting 15cm above his head, right in the middle of his superiority complex.”
Jon Henley, “‘Crude, but rarely nasty’: The jokes Europeans tell about their neighbours”, The Guardian, 2016-05-08.
April 23, 2019
David Warren’s musings on the Notre-Dame de Paris fire
There have been other incidents since the fire, most pressingly the horrific bombing attacks on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka, but David Warren would still like us to remember what happened a week ago in Paris:
A week has passed since the fire in, or on, Notre Dame de Paris; let me be the last to comment on a story that is stale-dated by any meejah standard. It dominated international mindwaves for only two days, but left images that viewers may be able to recall many decades from now.
“The church is on fire,” is a commonplace thought, when a church is visibly on fire, and I who am commonplace was thinking that while turning to the news. As an old meejah hack, who happens to know a little about Gothic architecture, I was prepared to discount the “fake news” that would be disseminated in “live time.” For instance, when told that the roof had collapsed, with strong hints that the building was now a write-off, I reflected that the roof is a hat, only. Stone vaulting lies underneath it, except the circle much of the spire fell through (as burnt offering onto the altar). Stone doesn’t burn easily; and even fallen vaulting can be repaired, having been erected with technology we would consider primitive today.
A spectacle: to see the ancient oak timbers, of great girth, burning up like matchsticks. But the craft masons of Notre Dame — far, far in advance of our modern Lego builders — expected fire and lived in a time so simple that they knew oak doesn’t burn without help. It isn’t big matchsticks. The idea that you need some serious accelerants to make it burn, and that only the accelerants would flame like that, was among my initial thoughts. We’ll see what comes of investigations. I also recalled two recent attempts to torch the cathedral, associated with terrorism.
Instead, the explanation of a clumsy accident by restoration workers was immediately accepted by the talking heads, and even Fox News hung up on a guest who had another theory. In favour of the politically correct, plausible account, I learnt that a fire alarm had sounded 23 minutes before the blaze itself was spotted. Paradoxically, this showed the ruinous consequences of depending exclusively on modern technology: the computers directed the first responders to the wrong place, away from the actual heat source.
I can easily believe in electrical short circuits as a fire hazard, especially since having had myself to flee a building where a cost-cutting landlord was having an elevator repaired by what I characterized as “a Romanian comedy team.” (They buzz-sawed through a live electrical cable, then themselves fled the scene of their handiwork as smoke shot up the shaft through the building. Luckily this smoke warned all tenants to evacuate; the building’s siren alone would have been taken by everyone as yet another false alarm.)
April 22, 2019
QotD: Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier
It was surprising how much I did not know about Lavoisier; and of how little importance it was. He is Saint George killing the dragon of Phlogiston in this account. Father of modern chemistry, &c. Student of heat and respiration; improver of gunpowder; hyper-efficient tax collector in the bureaucracy of the French Old Regime; academician; weekend geologist; dreamer in agriculture and economics; aristocratic gardener whose works around his Château de Frechines might plausibly be described as an experimental farm; social climber and assiduous self-promoter, whose fame could not hide him from the glinting blades of Robespierre.
A very clever man was our Lavoisier, the more charming the farther one got away from him (often I read between the lines); whose pleasure, once he took offices in the Arsenal at Paris, with a budget to do largely as he pleased, was to conduct violent experiments on anything that was lying around. His revolution in chemistry consisted of quantifying it all.
When a child, I had the evil of Phlogiston brought to my attention. It was, not from the Dark Ages as popularly supposed, but only from the end of the seventeenth century, the prevailing “settled science” on the combustible principle in the air, and other substances. It was pure theory, and surprisingly easy to kick over with a few methodical tests; notwithstanding the scientific establishment of the day kicked, screamed, and desperately resisted every attempt to displace it. Lavoisier (and Priestley in England) burnt or blew up one thing and another until Lavoisier had discovered and named Oxygen.
And so we advanced from Phlogiston to Oxygen, and incidentally to ascending in hot air balloons. Good show!
David Warren, “Phlogiston”, Essays in Idleness, 2016-05-31.
April 21, 2019
QotD: High Modern city design as a tool to control the populace
Scott notes that although citizens generally didn’t have a problem with earlier cities, governments did:
Historically, the relative illegibility to outsiders of some urban neighborhoods has provided a vital margin of political safety from control by outside elites. A simple way of determining whether this margin exists is to ask if an outsider would have needed a local guide in order to find her way successfully. If the answer is yes, then the community or terrain in question enjoys at least a small measure of insulation from outside intrusion. Coupled with patterns of local solidarity, this insulation has proven politically valuable in such disparate contexts as eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century urban riots over bread prices in Europe, the Front de Liberation Nationale’s tenacious resistance to the French in the Casbah of Algiers, and the politics of the bazaar that helped to bring down the Shah of Iran. Illegibility, then, has been and remains a reliable resource for political autonomy
This was a particular problem in Paris, which was famous for a series of urban insurrections in the 19th century (think Les Miserables, but about once every ten years or so). Although these generally failed, they were hard to suppress because locals knew the “terrain” and the streets were narrow enough to barricade. Slums full of poor people gathered together formed tight communities where revolutionary ideas could easily spread. The late 19th-century redesign of Paris had the explicit design of destroying these areas and splitting up poor people somewhere far away from the city center where they couldn’t do any harm.
Scott ties this into another High Modernist creation: the collective farms of the Soviet Union. This was a terrible idea and responsible for the famines that killed millions (tens of millions?) during Stalin’s administration. The government went ahead with them because the non-collectivized farmers were too powerful and independent a political bloc. They lived in tight-knit little villages that did their own thing, the Party officials who went to these villages to keep order often ended up “going native”, and the Soviets had no way of knowing how much food the farmers were producing and whether they were giving enough of it to the Motherland.
The collectivized farms couldn’t grow much, but people were thrown together in artificial towns designed to make it impossible to build any kind of community: there was nowhere to be except in bed asleep, working in the fields, or at the public school receiving your daily dose of state propaganda. The towns were identical concrete buildings on a grid, which left the locals maximally disoriented (because there are no learnable visual cues) and the officials maximally oriented (because even a foreigner could go to the intersection of Street D and Street 7). All fields were perfectly rectangular and produced Standardized Food Product, so it was (theoretically) easy to calculate how much they should be producing and whether people were meeting that target. And everyone was in the same place, so if there were some sort of problem it was much easier to bring in the army or secret police than if they were split up among a million tiny villages in the middle of nowhere.
Confronting a tumultuous, footloose, and “headless” rural society which was hard to control and which had few political assets, the Bolsheviks, like the scientific foresters, set about redesigning their environment with a few simple goals in mind. They created, in place of what they had inherited, a new landscape of large, hierarchical, state-managed farms whose cropping patterns and procurement quotas were centrally mandated and whose population was, by law, immobile. The system thus devised served for nearly sixty years as a mechanism for procurement and control at a massive cost in stagnation, waste, demoralization, and ecological failure.
Scott Alexander, “Book Review: Seeing Like a State”, Slate Star Codex, 2017-03-16.
April 20, 2019
The damage to (and the PR spin about) Notre-Dame de Paris
At Never Yet Melted, some quick analysis from Matthew Keogh (posted originally to Facebook) are quoted on the carefully curated public information made available about Notre-Dame de Paris, even while firefighters were still busy trying to contain the blaze:
Notre Dame Cathedral Fire, a few facts you should know courtesy of the mainstream media:
1. The exact cause of the blaze is still unknown.
2. The exact cause of the blaze is still unknown, but it has been ruled an accident (despite the fact that the exact cause of the blaze is still unknown).
3. The exact cause of the blaze is still unknown, but Islam is the real victim here.
4. The exact cause of the blaze is still unknown which means the damage has not been thoroughly assessed, but it’s not arson.
5. The exact cause of the blaze is still unknown which means the damage has not been thoroughly assessed, but Macron is setting up an international appeal for funding to rebuild despite not knowing how much is needed because the damage has not been thoroughly assessed.
This is the sort of information you get when journalists are in bed with the politicians.
April 17, 2019
Some good news in the aftermath of the Notre-Dame de Paris fire
Mark Steyn, who is not normally noted for his habit of bringing good news, actually has some good news to share as the authorities in Paris evaluate the damage to the cathedral after the fire of April 15th:
The north rose window of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, in a photo from 22 August, 2010. This and the other two rose windows are reported to have survived the fire of 15 April, 2019.
Photo by Julie Anne Workman. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Twenty-four hours after Notre Dame de Paris began to burn, there is better news than we might have expected: More of the cathedral than appeared likely to has, in fact, survived intact – including the famous rose windows, among the most beautiful human creations I’ve ever seen. The “new” Notre Dame will be mostly high up and out of sight, which is just as well given that modern man prides himself on having no smidgeonette of empathy with his flawed forebears and thus the chances of historic recreation of the animating spirit of 1160 are near zero.
There is an architectural debate to be had, I suppose, about whether a reconstructed twelfth-century cathedral requires nineteeth-century appurtenances such as its spire. But the minute that starts you risk some insecure dweeb like Macron, on whose watch the thing went up in smoke, getting fanciful ideas about bequeathing to posterity some I M Pei pyramid on the top of the roof. France’s revolution, unlike America’s, was aggressively secular, and it ultimately found expression in the 1905 law on the separation of churches and the state. Since then the French state has owned the cathedral, and thus it will be Macron who ultimately decides what arises in its place.
Beyond that are the larger questions: When the iconic house of worship at the heart of French Christianity decides to mark Holy Week by going up in flames, it’s too obviously symbolic of something … but of what exactly? Two thousand churches have been vandalized in the last two years: Valérie Boyer, who represents Bouches-du-Rhône in the National Assembly, said earlier this month that “every day at least two churches are profaned” – by which she means arson, smashed statutes of Jesus and Mary, and protestors who leave human fecal matter in the shape of a cross. This is a fact of life in modern France.
As it is, there is no shortage of excitable young Mohammedans gleefully celebrating on social media. In 2017 some inept hammer-wielding nutter yelling “Allahu Akbar!” had a crack at Notre Dame, and a couple of years before that the historian Dominique Venner blew his brains out on the altar to protest same-sex marriage. I love France but, in recent years, it’s hard not to pick up on the sense that it’s coming apart – and that, when the center cannot hold, the things at that center, the obsolete embodiments of a once cohesive society, are a natural target.
In addition, the authorities’ eagerness to assure us that it was an accident at a time when such a conclusion could not possibly be known – and when their own response to the emergency was, to put it politely, somewhat dilatory – was itself enough to invite suspicion: “Sure, it might be an accident. But, even if it weren’t, they’d still tell us it was…”
So, precisely because Paris is full of people who would love to burn down Notre Dame four days before Good Friday, it seems bizarrely improbable that it should happen by accident: that a highly desirable target should be taken out by some slapdash workman leaving a cigarette butt near his combustible foam take-out box – the lunchpack of Notre Dame – and letting the dried-out twelfth-century timbers do the rest.
The Rose Window was spared! pic.twitter.com/D5NjepKzh3
— The French History Podcast (@FrenchHist) April 16, 2019
April 16, 2019
The fire at Notre-Dame de Paris
The central Paris landmark has been severely damaged by a fire that broke out beneath the roof of the cathedral early in the evening of April 15th. Here are a few images from the Wikimedia Commons page on the fire:
Officials were quick to announce that the fire was not the result of terrorist action … while the fire was still raging (that is, before anyone could have made any scientific determination on the cause), which only made those inclined to suspect terrorist activity even more suspicious. Conspiracy theorists gotta theorize, after all. Robert Harris discusses this aspect of the story at the New English Review:
Ruling out any cause other than accidental fire, at such an early stage, did seem to be an assumption made with [undue] rapidity, not least because it occurred within a week of Easter when such a religious landmark would be a prime target within a city and a nation that has suffered more than its share of acts of Islamist terrorism, and especially at a time when numerous French churches have been targeted.
The international media was similarly unanimous in describing the cause of the blaze, with some carrying critical coverage of Youtube’s automated topical descriptors linking the event with 9/11. Even Fox News’ Shepard Smith was rather more than simply unwilling to entertain the speculations of one French interviewee that tried to note some of the above surrounding circumstances.
Prima facie, it might have also been thought that it was peculiar that such a serious fire became so advanced during a time of day when the cathedral would have been in use by public visitors. There have been numerous serious fires during periods of restoration, as the mainstream media rightly noted, but less mentioned was the likely fact that such work would have ceased some hours before smoke became visible.
[…]
The prospect of a terrorist act rears but there is perhaps some reason to assume a non-terrorist motive because there doesn’t seem to have been any claims of responsibility. It may be thought that any Islamist organisation linked with the blaze of such a major Christian/Western landmark would be very keen to boast about the deed on social media when the story hit the international news. Alternatively, the inferno could have been caused by a lone-wolf terrorist attack but such individuals commonly swear allegiance to a particular group and/or make some sort of public statement before a given attack.
If religiously motivated terrorism can be deemed to be unlikely at this stage, obvious alternatives still remain, such as an act of criminal arson or non-religious terrorism in which the perpetrators might be less keen to voice their involvement with the crime. For example, the blaze could have been an act of secular quasi-terrorism/arson/vandalism by the left-wing ‘Black-Bloc’, which has been responsible for much of the recent violence within the ‘Yellow Vest’ protest movement. It may therefore be suggested that the French authorities came to an unduly prompt reaction, given the surrounding circumstances.
April 15, 2019
QotD: De Gaulle and the BBC
Above all he loved France, or the idea of it. He saw in the defeat of 1940 a danger that his country would simply disappear, having failed to defend itself and having fled from the battle without properly drawing its sword. This was not a foolish fear. Great civilizations can and do vanish, and one of the best ways of doing so is to abandon the struggle to survive.
He must have greatly resented the fact that he owed so much to Britain. He was intelligent enough to know that Britain, a country few Frenchmen can ever fully trust, was his best hope and only refuge. He understood, as many French patriots could not, that the terrible attack on the French fleet by the British Navy at Mers-el-Kébir in 1940 was in fact necessary, in case its great ships fell into the hands of the Germans. He would have done the same himself had the position been reversed, and he knew it. It was this generosity of mind that made him great. But how he must have loathed being dependent on the British Broadcasting Corporation for his access to the French people. For it was the BBC that made him. Until he finally appeared for the tumultuous, ecstatic liberation of Paris in 1944, he was only a voice, heard fleetingly on illegal broadcasts. Almost nobody in France had the faintest idea what he looked like. But all had a certain idea of de Gaulle, the spirit of France that refused to surrender. And when they finally saw this towering, fearless figure walking calmly down the Champs-Élysées amid the snipers’ bullets, he did not disappoint them. He was, it turned out, a giant so tall that one could imagine ice forming on his upper slopes when—as so often happened—he was annoyed or impatient with his people. His great height set him apart from the beginning. He once complained, “We giants are never at ease with others … the armchairs are always too small, the tables too low, the impression one makes too strong.”
Peter Hitchens, “A Certain Idea of France”, First Things, 2019-04.
April 12, 2019
Fields of Verdun – The Battle of Verdun – Sabaton History 010
Sabaton History
Published on 11 Apr 2019One of the bloodiest battles in the history of humankind was fought out on the hills in Northern France. Verdun was a tactical and symbolical city with great value to France. In 1916, the German army launched a massive attack, accompanied by a tremendous artillery bombardment, upon which the French defenders put their foot down, stating that “on ne passe pas!” — they shall not pass.
Check out the trailer for Sabaton’s new album The Great War on which “Fields of Verdun” will be featured right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCZP1-JsD0M
Support Sabaton History on Patreon (and possibly get a special edition of ‘The Great War): https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory
Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
Official Sabaton Merchandise Shop: http://bit.ly/SabatonOfficialShopHosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski© IWM (Q 56546), (Q 23760), (Q 23892), (Q 69971), (Q 87751), Q 87757), (Q 23878).
Battle Of Verdun, Uploaded by RV1864 on Flickr.Eastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.
© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.
From the comments:
Sabaton History
1 day ago (edited)
Last week we announced our upcoming album The Great War which will release on July 19 this year. This week, we’re covering a song from that album. “Fields of Verdun” is about the Battle of Verdun 1916 and will be featured on the new album. Since Indy hosted “The Great War” for over four years, the episode is very personal for everyone involved. Thank you all very much for your support and positive reactions to the trailer release. Haven’t seen the trailer? You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCZP1-JsD0MCheers and Rock on!!
April 2, 2019
QotD: The legacy of the soixante-huitards
It is one of the theses of this lucid book that the generation of May 1968 — or at any rate its leaders — has arranged things pretty well for itself, though disastrously for everyone else. If it has not been outright hypocritical, it has at least been superbly opportunist. First it bought property and accumulated other assets while inflation raged, paying back its debts at a fraction of their original value with depreciated money; then, having got its hands on the assets, it arranged for an economic policy of low inflation except in the value of its own assets. Moreover, it also arranged the best possible conditions for its retirement, in many cases unfunded by investment and paid for by those unfortunate enough to have come after them. They will have to work much longer, and if ever they reach the age of retirement, which might recede before them like a mirage in the desert, it will be under conditions much less generous than those enjoyed by current retirees.
It matters little whether this was all part of a preconceived plan or things just fell out this way, for that is how things now are. The result is that what was always a class society is in the process of becoming a caste society, in which only children of the already well-off have a hope of owning their own house.
Theodore Dalrymple, “Beneath Paris”, Taki’s Magazine, 2017-01-07.
March 31, 2019
Allies Plan to Hit the Nazis Where it Hurts – WW2 – 031 – March 30 1940
World War Two
Published on 30 Mar 2019Newly appointed French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud and his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain spend the week looking for ways to harm the Germans. Not just by targeting their direct opponent directly, but also by exploring the idea of expanding the war into much bigger territory. In the meantime, the French prepare for the expected invasion and the Allies are laying the foundations of what might one time become a weapon of mass destruction.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: EastoryColorisations by Norman Stewart
Eastory’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.comA TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
9 hours ago (edited)
If the Allies and the Germans follow through with all their plans, the phoney war will surely soon come to a close. But who knows what will happen. If one thing is certain, it is that they all have made plans before that never made it into reality.A community member of ours set up a new Discord Channel. Come over to discuss the war, say hi to the community or share some memes. You can join right here: https://discord.gg/D6D2aYN
