World War Two
Published 1 Jan 2023This war is massive. Our chronological coverage helps give us an understanding of it, but sometimes statistics help us understand the bigger picture.
(more…)
January 3, 2023
1943 in Numbers – WW2 Special
Comments Off on 1943 in Numbers – WW2 Special
January 1, 2023
Canadians Take Little Stalingrad – WW2 – 227 – December 31, 1943
World War Two
Published 31 Dec 20221943 reaches its end with no end in sight for the war. In Italy, the Canadians take Ortona after bloody close fighting, the US Marines advance on New Britain, and a new Soviet offensive makes huge gains in the USSR. This isn’t enough for the Allies, though, who have a big shake up in their European Command to help prepare for future attacks.
(more…)
Comments Off on Canadians Take Little Stalingrad – WW2 – 227 – December 31, 1943
December 30, 2022
Stalin Deports An Entire Ethnicity – War Against Humanity 093
World War Two
Published 29 Dec 2022The last week of 1943 is a busy one. Stalin deports the Kalmyk minority from Kalmykia, the escapees from Fort IX get away, and the US President moves to found the post-war UN.
(more…)
Comments Off on Stalin Deports An Entire Ethnicity – War Against Humanity 093
December 28, 2022
The Myth of the Nazi Police State – WW2 Documentary Special
World War Two
Published 27 Dec 2022The popular image of the Gestapo is as black leather-jacketed fiends whose spies keep the nation under constant surveillance. They are so powerful that the terrified population has no choice but to sell out its family and friends. But how true is this? Are all Germans living in fear of the Gestapo all the time?
(more…)
Comments Off on The Myth of the Nazi Police State – WW2 Documentary Special
What we still don’t know about historical European swordfighting
I was for many years a member of the SCA partly for the attraction of the historical period and partly for the swordfighting. The Society developed a (mostly) safe simulation of (some) medieval combat styles and later introduced (some) renaissance rapier combat as well (initially borrowing equipment standards from modern sport fencing). Around the time the SCA began to consider expanding from high medieval sword-and-shield styles, separate organizations in Europe and the United States sprang up to be more consciously historical in how they recreated historical blade combat, these groups are often collectively referred to as Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) or Western Martial Arts (WMA). The foundation documents for HEMA and other historical combat enthusiasts are the various surviving manuals of swordmasters and fencing school owners which cover a kaleidoscope of weapons, techniques, advice, and how-to illustrations … some of which appear to be physically impossible for ordinary human beings:
MS Thott.290.2º f.87r.
The ultimate experts in medieval sword fighting were the “fight masters” – elite athletes who trained their disciples in the subtle arts of close combat. The most highly renowned were almost as famous as the knights they trained, and many of the techniques they used were ancient, dating back hundreds of years in a continuous tradition.
Little is known about these rare talents, but the scraps of information that have survived are full of intrigue. Hans Talhoffer, a German fencing master with curly hair, impressive sideburns and a penchant for tight body suits, had a particularly chequered past. In 1434, he was accused of murdering a man and admitted abducting him in the Austrian city of Salzburg.
Fight masters worked with a grisly assortment of deadly weapons. The majority of training was dedicated to fencing with the longsword, or the sword and buckler (a style of combat involving holding a sword in one hand, and a small shield in the other). However, they also taught how to wield daggers, poleaxes, shields, and even how to fight with nothing at all, or just a bag of rocks (more on this later).
It’s thought that some fight masters were organised into brotherhoods, such as the Fellowship of Liechtenauer – a society of around 18 men who trained under the shadowy grandmaster Johannes Lichtenauer in the 15th Century. Though details about the almost-legendary figure himself have remained elusive, it’s thought he led an itinerant life, travelling across borders to train a handful of select proteges and learn new fencing secrets.
Other fight masters stayed closer to home – hired by dukes, archbishops and other assorted nobles to train themselves and their guards. A number even set up their own “fight schools”, where they gathered less wealthy students for regular weekly sessions.
[…]
For all their beauty, the hand-drawn works could also be decidedly bloodthirsty. In Talhoffer’s 1467 manual, neat sequences of moves that look almost like dancing end abruptly with swords through eye-sockets, violent impalings, and casual instructions to beat the opponent to death. Some signature techniques even have names – chilling titles like the “wrath-hew”, “crumpler”, “twain hangings”, “skuller” and “four openings”.
Despite passing through countless generations of owners, and – in some cases – centuries of graffiti, burns, theft, and mysterious periods of vanishment from the historical record, a surprising number survive today. This includes at least 80 codexes from German-speaking regions alone.
Impossible moves and missing clues
But there’s a problem. Many of the techniques in combat manuals, also known as “fechtbücher“, are convoluted, vague, and cryptic. Despite the large corpus of remaining books, they often offer surprisingly little insight into what the fight master is trying to convey.
“It’s famously difficult to take these static unmoving woodcut images, and determine the dynamic action of combat,” says Scott Nokes, “This has been a topic of debate, research and experimentation for generations.”
On some occasions these manuals seem to depict contortions of the body that are physically impossible, while those that attempt to convey moves in three dimensions sometimes give combatants extra arms and legs that were added in by accident. Others contain instructions that are frustratingly opaque – sometimes depicting actions that don’t seem to work, or building upon enigmatic moves that have long-since been lost.
Oddly, the text is often written as poetry, rather than prose – and a few authors even made it hard to interpret their works on purpose.
Lichtenauer recorded his instructions in obscure verses which remain almost incomprehensible today – one expert has gone so far as to call them “gibberish”. According to a contemporary fight master he trained, the grandmaster wrote in “secret words” to prevent them from being intelligible to anyone who didn’t value his art highly enough.
Even when it is possible to decipher what a combat manual is describing or demonstrating, some experts suspect that crucial contextual information is always missing.
Comments Off on What we still don’t know about historical European swordfighting
QotD: Collective guilt
As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behaviour of another person or a collective of persons. Since the end of World War Two I have not become weary of publicly arguing against the collective guilt concept. Sometimes, however, it takes a lot of didactic tricks to detach people from their supersitions. An American woman once confronted me with the reporach, “How can you still write some of your books in German, Adolf Hitler’s language?” In response, I asked her if she had knives in her kitchen, and when she answered that she did, I acted dismayed and shocked, exclaiming, “How can you still use knives after so many killers have used them to stab and murder their victims?” She stopped objecting to my writing books in German.
Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 1946.
Comments Off on QotD: Collective guilt
December 26, 2022
The Battle of Ortona with Jayson Geroux
OTD Canadian Military History
Published 21 Dec 2022Join me as I welcome Jayson Geroux to the OTD channel to discuss the Battle of Ortona. We will be discussing the urban combat that took place in Ortona in December 1943. [The discussion of the actual battle begins around the 6 minute mark.]
(more…)
Comments Off on The Battle of Ortona with Jayson Geroux
December 25, 2022
Stalin’s Christmas Surprise – Major Offensives to Come – WW2 – 226 – December 24, 1943
World War Two
Published 24 Dec 2022Twas the night before Christmas and the war was grinding on. The Moro River Campaign continues in Italy with Canadian infantry pushing past the Gully and into “Little Stalingrad”. Generally, the Allied advance to Rome is turning into a stalemate though, but Winston Churchill still believes an amphibious landing is the way to break this. Joseph Stalin also has some pretty big plans to bring the USSR back to its pre-Barbarossa borders. In the Pacific, there is attrition over Rabaul and stalemate on Bougainville.
(more…)
Comments Off on Stalin’s Christmas Surprise – Major Offensives to Come – WW2 – 226 – December 24, 1943
December 23, 2022
A Jungle Miracle – War Against Humanity 092
World War Two
Published 22 Dec 2022Two escapes, one from the Nazis in Kovno (Kaunas) Lithuania, from the prison at Fort IX, and one from Japanese terror on Panay in the Philippines this week, will help to document the crimes of the Axis powers.
(more…)
Comments Off on A Jungle Miracle – War Against Humanity 092
December 21, 2022
The Nazi Quest for Thor’s Hammer – WW2 Documentary Special
World War Two
Published 20 Dec 2022Books, films, and comics are filled with Nazi scientists and explorers travelling the globe to get their hands on ancient artifacts or summoning daemons with black magic. But how much of it is grounded in reality? Well, some of it. In the neo-pagan religion invented by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the world can only be explained through the occult.
(more…)
Comments Off on The Nazi Quest for Thor’s Hammer – WW2 Documentary Special
December 19, 2022
Napoleon’s Downfall: German Wars of Liberation 1813
Real Time History
Published 16 Dec 2022After Napoleon’s defeat in Russia in 1812, the situation on the European continent is rapidly shifting. Prussia and Austria are leaving their unhappy alliance with the French. Prussian general Yorck even pledges his support to the Russian Army which is on the move towards Berlin. At Lützen and Bautzen Napoleon still manages to beat the new coalition, but his losses from Russia put him on the backfoot.
(more…)
Comments Off on Napoleon’s Downfall: German Wars of Liberation 1813
December 18, 2022
A Super Bomber to Break Japan – WW2 – 225 – December 17, 1943
World War Two
Published 17 Dec 2022This war has now lasted as long as the Great War did, but there’s no signs of it slowing. The Soviets have three offensives going on on the Eastern Front, in Italy the Allies are attacking at San Pietro and over the Moro River, in the Pacific there are Allied landings on New Britain, but in Pacific Command, the big talk is all about a new super bomber.
(more…)
Comments Off on A Super Bomber to Break Japan – WW2 – 225 – December 17, 1943
December 17, 2022
The RAF’s Worst Day of the War – War Against Humanity 091
World War Two
Published 15 Dec 2022The United Nations Allies has some success bombing the Nazi German Reich, but it comes at a heavy price. In the village Kalavryta in Greece, the Wehrmacht massacre hundreds of men and boys.
(more…)
Comments Off on The RAF’s Worst Day of the War – War Against Humanity 091
December 15, 2022
Kraut Space Magic: the H&K G11
Forgotten Weapons
Published 25 Dec 2018I have been waiting for a long time to have a chance to make this video — the Heckler & Koch G11! Specifically, a G11K2, the final version approved for use by the West German Bundeswehr, before being cancelled for political and economic reasons.
The G11 was a combined effort by H&K and Dynamit Nobel to produce a new rifle for the German military with truly new technology. The core of the system was the use of a caseless cartridge developed in the late 60s and early 70s by Dynamit Nobel, which then allowed H&K to design a magnificently complex action which could fire three rounds in a hyper-fast (~2000 rpm) burst and have all three bullets leave the barrel before the weapon moved in recoil.
Remarkably, the idea went through enough development to pass German trials and actually be accepted for service in the late 1980s (after a funding shutdown when it proved incapable of winning NATO cartridge selection trials a decade earlier). However, the reunification with East Germany presented a reduced strategic threat, a new surplus of East German combat rifles (AK74s), and a huge new economic burden to the combined nations and this led to the cancellation of the program. The US Advanced Combat Rifle program gave the G11 one last grasp at a future, but it was not deemed a sufficient improvement in practical use over the M16 platform to justify a replacement of all US weapons in service.
The G11 lives on, however, as an icon of German engineering prowess often referred to as “Kraut Space Magic” (in an entirely complimentary take on the old pejorative). That it could be so complex and yet still run reliably in legitimate military trials is a tremendous feat by H&K’s design engineers, and yet one must consider that the Bundeswehr may just have dodged a bullet when it ended up not actually adopting the rifle.
Many thanks to H&K USA for giving me access to the G11 rifles in their Grey Room for this video!
(more…)
Comments Off on Kraut Space Magic: the H&K G11
December 14, 2022
The Polish Armed Forces in Exile
World War Two
Published 13 Dec 2022The Polish state was the first to fall in this war, yet across the globe Polish soldiers are fighting on land, air, and sea as part of the United Nations alliance. The story of the tens of thousands of men and women fighting for Polish liberation is equal parts hope and hardship as they battle the enemy and even sometimes their own allies.
(more…)
Comments Off on The Polish Armed Forces in Exile
