So now we have our entire “campaign community” of men, women and animals. And so it might be worth doing some quick calculations to get a sense now of exactly what a community of this size is going to require. For a general sense of scale, we’ll consider the demands of a standard Roman army of the Middle Republic: two legions plus matching allied detachments, totaling around 19,200 soldiers (16,800 infantry, 2,400 cavalry).
Let’s deal with animals next. Each contubernium (“tent group”) of six soldiers likely had its own mule, so that’s 3,200 mules for the army, plus some additional number for the siege train and any army supplies; perhaps around 5,000 total (see Roth, op. cit. on this). On top of this we have horses for the cavalry; this will be rather more than 2,400 since spare horses will have been a necessity on campaign. Judging by Roman barley rations for cavalrymen (presumably intended to feed the horse) it seems a good guess that each cavalryman had one spare; for later medieval armies the number of spares would be substantially higher (at least three per rider). But for our lean army of Romans, that’s just 4,800 horses. An early modern army might require quite a few less mules (replacing them with wagons), but at the same time it is also probably hauling both field artillery and siege guns which demand a tremendous number of draft animals (mostly horses). My sense is that in the end this tends to leave the early modern army needing more animals overall.
Next the non-combatants. The mules will need drivers and the cavalrymen likely also have grooms to handle their horses, which suggests something like 3,400 calones [slaves or servants] as an absolute minimum simply to handle the animals. Roth (op. cit., 114) figures one non-combatant per four combatants in a Roman army, while Erdkamp (op. cit. 42) figures 1:5. Those figures would include not merely enslaved calones but also sutlers, slave-dealers, and women in the “campaign community”. Taking the lower estimate we might then figure something like 4,000 non-combatants for a “lean” Roman army, with many armies being more loaded up on non-combatants than even this. And while estimating the number of non-combatants for Roman armies is tricky, we actually have some figures for pre-modern armies to give a reference. Parker (op. cit. 252) notes units of the Army of Flanders (between 1577 and 1620) as high as 53% non-combatants, including women in the campaign community; one Walloon tercio in 1629 was 28% camp women on the march. It is tempting to compare these but caution is necessary here – both Roth’s and Erdkamp’s estimates are heavily informed by more modern armies so the argument would be circular: the estimates for the Romans look like later armies because later armies were used to calibrate estimates for the Romans.
That gives us an army now of 19,200 soldiers, 4,000 non-combatants, 5,000 mules and 4,800 horses. Roman rations were pretty ample and it seems likely that many of the calones did not eat so well but the ranges are fairly narrow; we can work with an average 1.25kg daily ration per person normally, with the absolute minimum being the 0.83kg daily grain ration following Polybius (Plb. 6.39.12-14, on this note Erdkamp op. cit. 33-42) if the army was short on supplies or needed to move fast eating only those buccelatum [hardtack] biscuits. That’s a normal consumption of 29,000kg per day for the humans, with the minimum restricted diet of 19,256kg for short periods. Then we need about 2.25kg of feed for each mule and about 4.5kg of feed for each horse (we’re assuming grazing and water are easily available), which adds up to 11,250kg for the mules and 21,600kg for the horses.
And at last we now have the scale of our problem: our lean army of 19,200 fighting men consumes an astounding 61,850kg (68.18 US tons) of food daily. It also consumes staggering amounts of water and firewood. In order to move this army or sustain it in place it is thus necessary to ensure a massive and relatively continuous supply of food to the army. Failure to do that will result in the army falling apart long before it comes anywhere close to the enemy.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2022-07-15.
March 18, 2026
QotD: Feeding a Roman Consular army
March 17, 2026
How Germans were propagandized into supporting the National Socialists
I’ve read a fair bit about the rise of Hitler after the First World War, beginning when I was in middle school and did a history project on the topic. Yet one aspect of the political success of Hitler’s fascist movement always puzzled me: how such blatant crude propaganda persuaded so many Germans to see things the Nazi way. Over the last five years in Canada, as our legacy media have fallen directly into the clutches of a single political party, I now understand all too well how millions of people getting their world view informed by a single point of view can create and maintain a movement. When all the mainstream media tell effectively the same story in 2026 and go out of their way to praise the government — especially the leader — and belittle and denigrate the opposition parties, it’s easy just to believe what you’re being told and not make waves.
Anyway, back to interwar Germany and their more absolute control of the newspapers and radio stations was used to mould and shape popular opinion:
In the run-up to the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, most people in Germany believed what was being put about both on radio and in the state-controlled press, namely that the Poles were committing all kinds of atrocities to former Prussians living in Poland, that they were war-mongering and using threatening language, and that not only was the Danzig corridor rightfully part of Germany, it was the duty of the Reich to defend those subjects living there.
Eighteen year-old Heinz Knocke was from Hameln in central Germany and typical of many of his age. He had absolute faith in the Führer and the rightness of the German cause. Planning to join the Luftwaffe as a pilot, he had had his preliminary examinations and was hoping that with war imminent, his call-up would be accelerated. “The Polish atrocities against the German minority make horrible reading today”, he scribbled in his diary on 31st August. “Thousands are being massacred daily in territory which had once been part of Germany.”
Oberleutnant Hajo Herrmann, a twenty-four year-old pilot with the bomber group III/KG4, also thought the Poles had brought war upon themselves. As far as he was concerned, the Danzig issue was one of principle. It had been German before 1919, was still inhabited mostly by Germans, and since the Poles had rejected any peaceful solution, what did they expect? “The anger that I felt inside at their unreasonableness”, he noted, “matched my sacred conviction: that of German rightness”. For Oberleutnant Hans von Luck, on the other hand, an officer in the 7th Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment, the escalating situation had brought a sudden recall from leave just a few days’ earlier. He had found everyone at the garrison in Bad Kissingen near Schweinfurt in high spirits. Neither he nor his friends believed a word of Goebbels’ propaganda about the Poles, but they did believe Danzig and the corridor should be part of Germany once more. “We were not hungry for war”, von Luck noted, “but we did not believe the British and French would come to Poland’s defence”. How wrong he was; for while von Luck may have understood that going to war was not a matter to be taken lightly, even he had blindly accepted Hitler’s assurances that Britain and France were bluffing. It was a feature of Hitler’s rule that he frequently said one thing with immense conviction and authority but quite another once events had been proved him wrong. Such was his grip on the German people, however, almost no-one ever questioned this, and certainly not his inner circle or anyone in the German media. At any rate, all three of these young men had believed parts of the nonsense that had been spouted by Nazi propaganda, whether it be false claims about the Poles, the justness of the Nazi cause for invasion, or Hitler’s assurances the British and French were bluffing. Such was he power of Nazi disinformation.
[…]
Both the Imperial Japanese and the Nazis dominated the new forms of media communication emerging in the 1930s. Propaganda had been a key component of Nazi politics from the outset, and while there were some who had not been persuaded, it had been unquestionably hugely effective, not just within the Reich but around the world too. To a large degree, this was due to Dr Josef Goebbels, the Reich Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, and Gauleiter — administrative leader — of Berlin, an old Frankish term that had been resurrected by the Nazis. A former failed journalist and one of the first Nazis, he was utterly devoted to Hitler, so much so he had even given up an affair with a Czech film star with whom he was deeply in love because the Führer asked him to. Although the son of a shop assistant, Goebbels was highly intelligent and despite those humble beginnings had attended several universities and gained a doctorate. Marriage to Magda Quant, a society divorcee, gave him the kind of money and status he needed to help him climb up the Nazi ladder. He had become Propaganda Minister in 1933, the year Hitler became Chancellor, and had immediately announced his prime goal was to achieve the “mobilisation of mind and spirit” of the German people. “We did not lose the war because our artillery gave out”, he said of defeat in 1918, “but because the weapons of our minds did not fire”.
In many ways, Goebbels was as responsible for Hitler’s position as Hitler was himself and he was the man who had largely shaped the Nazi’s public image. It was he [who] had insisted on draping swastikas – the bigger the better – from as many places as possible; it was he who taught Hitler how to whip a crowd into a frenzy; it was also Goebbels who had elevated Hitler into a demigod in the eyes of many. He knew all about manipulation theories, orchestrated heavy-handed mob violence, and in the 1933 election created the “Hitler over Germany” campaign; it was the first time, for example, that aircraft had been used to take a candidate around a country in an effort to reach more people. It worked spectacularly well.
With the Nazis in power, Goebbels had also done much to stoke up the virulent anti-Semitism that lay at the heart of Nazi ideology and had done much to turn Nazism into a form of surrogate religion, in which, again, drawing on nostalgia, they had harked back to a “purer” Aryan past to help bind the people both together and behind the Party and, more importantly, the Leader. Goebbels’ influence – his genius – should never be underestimated.
Update, 18 March: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substack – https://substack.com/@nicholasrusson that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.
Corned Beef and Cabbage Recipe | St. Patrick’s Meal | Food Wishes
Food Wishes
Published 13 Mar 2009Get the full story! Visit http://foodwishes.com to get the ingredients, and watch over 200 free video recipes. Leave me a comment there. If you have questions, ask on the website. Thanks!!
Full recipe here – https://www.allrecipes.com/Recipe/236601/Chef-Johns-Corned-Beef-and-Cabbage/
March 16, 2026
Preparing for Operation Veritable – First Canadian Army’s biggest battle of WW2
On Patreon, Project ’44 has posted an extensive article on the setup and preparation for Operation Veritable in February 1945, with the First Canadian Army under General Crerar preparing to attack into the Reichswald as part of Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army Group:
Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges (US First Army); General Harry Crerar (First Canadian Army); Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (21st Army Group); Lieutenant General Omar Bradley (12th Army Group); and Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey (British 2nd Army), 21/08/1944 (Taken by Sgt. John Morris, No. 5 AFPS-AFPU, B9473).
In the early hours of the 8th of February 1945, the combined weight of the First Canadian Army and 21st Army Group’s massed artillery unleashed an immense orchestration of firepower, shattering any semblance of a peaceful morning and pounded German positions across the Reichswald. Massed in unprecedented density, with dump piles exceeding half a million shells, some 1,034 field, medium, heavy, super-heavy, and multi-barrelled rocket launcher platforms opened in concert. In accordance with their detailed fireplans this combined artillery effort was tasked with destroying enemy headquarters; severing lines of communication; disrupting road networks and infrastructure; rendering enemy defensive positions inhospitable; and, plainly, reducing the enemy’s force as much as possible, leaving survivors in a state of “shell happiness”. As the guns opened fire at 0500hrs, they quickly formed part of the largest artillery bombardment undertaken by Commonwealth forces since the battle of El Alamein in 1942.
This impressive symphony of artillery, along with the days of preliminary bombardments by both artillery and heavy bombers that preceded it, marked the very beginning of the month-long “Operation Veritable”. This operation was the 21st Army Group’s northern pincer movement, aimed at permitting a crossing of the river Rhine and, subsequently, a drive into Western Germany by dislodging and rupturing the German position between the rivers Mass and Rhine in the lower Rhineland.
Conceived by Canadian General Harry Crerar (commanding the First Canadian Army), part of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, Veritable was set to be General Crerar’s largest and most complex undertaking of the war – and for that matter, Canada’s too. At its height, the First Canadian Army commanded almost half a million personnel, with the majority of its formations British in origin, and its personnel strewn from Canada, Britain, Poland, and the Netherlands. Though 450,000 personnel would not be involved in Operation Veritable, it would still come to command the entirety of the British XXX Corps and Canadian II Corps.
Veritable would not be the rapid breakthrough many had envisaged it to be, especially not in the style of operations the year prior. Instead, it would evolve into a month-long, multi-operation offensive fought over some of the most arduous terrain in northwestern Europe. Advancing across deep mud, inundated lowlands, and through dense forests and urban centres, against an often-fanatical enemy manning prepared defensive structures, Veritable was quickly turned into a troublesome slog.
As Sergeant Alex Troy of the 5th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery would write:
they [the Germans] fought really tough because the enemy had always before been fighting in some other poor devil’s country; now he was defending his own land.
The Allied Situation:
By early December 1944, the German force opposing Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army Group had been dealt a series of important blows, none more recent than its forceful uprooting from the west bank of the river Maas as far south as Maeseyck. In that, the German position was believed to be, notably by Montgomery, strong – but undermined by a lack of equipment, trained troops, and suffering from rampant logistical shortages.
HQ Twelfth Army Group situation map, 6th December 1944. Produced by the Army Group Headquarters, 12 Engineer Section.
During a meeting on the 6th of December, Field Marshal Montgomery directed General Crerar to plan an offensive to the southeast of Nijmegen, and to support this transferred XXX (30) Corps to his command. Over the days that followed, two major operations were conceived. In the south, the British 2nd Army was to clear the triangle between Sittard, Geilenkirchen, and the river Roer as part of Operation Shears; whilst in the north, the First Canadian Army, as part of Operation Veritable, was to advance into the Reichswald, securing the settlements of Xanten, Geldern, and Sonsbeck, before taking charge of the river Rhine’s western bank.
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 1979
Real Time History
Published 24 Oct 2025Christmas 1979. Soviet armor pours across the Afghan border towards Kabul as helicopters secure the mountain passes through the Hindu Kush mountains. In Moscow, the Politburo has decided to save Afghanistan’s communist government from collapse. Afghan rebels have taken up arms against the unpopular regime and control most of the countryside. But the Red Army leadership doubts it can pacify the country – so why did the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan?
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March 15, 2026
Killing CAESAR – the Ides of March and the conspiracy against Julius Caesar
Adrian Goldsworthy. Historian and Novelist
Published 12 Mar 2025With the Ides of March a few days away, we take a look at the final months of Julius Caesar’s life and the conspiracy led by Brutus and Cassius. Both had fought against Caesar at the start of the Civil War, but later surrendered and were treated well by him. They were joined by men who had served Caesar in Gaul and during the Civil War, like Decimus Brutus and Trebonius and Sulpicius Galba. Why did they want to kill Caesar and how was the plot organised?
How to Go From President to King – Death of Democracy 07 – Q3 1934
World War Two and Spartacus Olsson
Published 14 Mar 2026In Q3 1934, Adolf Hitler completed the transformation of Nazi Germany from a dictatorship into an absolute Führer state. In this episode of Death of Democracy, we examine the aftermath of the Night of the Long Knives, the destruction of the SA leadership, and the consolidation of Hitler’s personal rule after the death of President Paul von Hindenburg.
From the creation of the People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof) to the rise of the SS under Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi regime tightened its grip on the state, the press, and everyday life. Meanwhile, propaganda, economic control under Hjalmar Schacht’s New Plan, and growing antisemitic persecution reshaped German society.
Using contemporary voices from Victor Klemperer, Luise Solmitz, and other witnesses, this episode explores how Hitler’s popularity soared even as terror and repression intensified. Watch the full Death of Democracy series to understand how the Nazi regime consolidated power step by step — and how ordinary societies can slide into dictatorship.
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QotD: The Roman Empire “worked” for centuries because it was run like the Roman army
A Roman legion is technically a “manipular phalanx”. A phalanx — that is, a tactical formation — that can detach parts of itself to pursue smaller tactical objectives. As far as I know, the Legion was an administrative unit, not a tactical one — the largest tactical formation was the cohort — but it doesn’t really matter. The point is, the Romans were accustomed to independently-operating tactical units. So long as they maintained formation, the sub-commanders had very broad latitude to do whatever they needed to do. They were expected to be able to command what we’d call “combined arms” (a vexillation). Ancient Auftragstaktik.
They ran their Empire the same way. So long as the sub-commanders (the Governors) “held formation”, they could pursue the agreed-upon tactical objectives (peace, revenue maximization) as they saw fit. They could put together what amounted to an administrative vexillation, using whoever was available at the time. The Emperor basically dealt with personnel problems, like a general — he had his broad policy objectives, but most of the stuff he ruled on boiled down to personnel matters; he’d direct his sub-commanders to fix a problem in whatever way seemed best to them.
We run our polities like bureaucracies — businesses, not armies. The Army’s basic problem is how to keep itself occupied in peacetime — it assumes that it exists, and always will exist, because it’s necessary; should the Army cease to exist, so will the State. Business’s basic problem is to generate enough output to keep itself in existence — a very different proposition, requiring a very different mindset.
A State bureaucracy is the worst of both worlds — it assumes it always will exist, like the Army, so it needs to find a way to keep itself occupied during “peacetime”; but that means it needs to produce enough output to justify itself in “peacetime”, because it’s never not peacetime — the business mentality.
Severian, commenting on “Means and Ends”, Founding Questions, 2025-09-04.
March 14, 2026
Belgian Aces in Exile – Belgian Fighter Aces – WW2 Gallery 10
World War Two
Published 12 Mar 2026Belgium might have been quickly overrun by the Germans in 1940, but many Belgian airmen continued the fight by flying with Britain’s RAF, and quite a few of them were good enough to score five or more aerial victories and become Flying Aces. Here are a few of their stories.
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March 13, 2026
The Raj – a cut-and-dried case of plunder?
Celina considers the claim that the period of British rule over India was a period of British plunder of Indian resources:
The historical evaluation of the British Raj has increasingly become a battleground for competing political and academic narratives. In the 21st century, the discourse has shifted significantly toward an oppression narrative that characterises the period from 1757 to 1948 as one of singular depredation. This perspective, popularised by public intellectuals such as Shashi Tharoor and economic historians like Utsa Patnaik, posits that British rule was defined by systematic deindustrialisation, engineered genocide, the intentional dismantling of educational systems, and the looting of wealth on a scale that defies standard economic modelling.1 However, when subjected to the rigours of aggregate statistical data, comparative institutional analysis, and a sense of historical proportion, these claims frequently reveal themselves as founded on misleading anecdotes and founding myths rather than objective economic realities.2 To accurately understand the trajectory of India under British influence, it is essential to move beyond evocative stories, such as Winston Churchill’s peevish marginal notes and examine the underlying population trajectories, industrial output figures, and the structural transition from a traditional to a constructed capitalist economy.3
“Political Map of the Indian Empire, 1893” from Constable’s Hand Atlas of India, London: Archibald Constable and Sons, 1893. (via Wikimedia)
Chronology and the Context of the Great Divergence
A critical assessment must begin with a precise periodisation of Indian history. The interaction between Europe and the subcontinent can be divided into four distinct phases: the pre-European period (before 1505), the era of initial coastal contact and Portuguese outposts (1505–1757), the transition under the East India Company (1757–1818), and the era of English domination and formal Raj rule (1818–1948).4 The central contention of modern critics centers on the final period, arguing that India’s share of the global economy collapsed from approximately 24.4% in 1700 to roughly 4.2% by 1950.5
While these proportions are grounded in data, most notably the work of Angus Maddison, the interpretation of this decline as evidence of absolute impoverishment is a fundamental statistical fallacy. The decline in India’s share of world GDP was not the result of a shrinking absolute economy, but rather the consequence of the Great Divergence. During this period, Western Europe, North America, and eventually Japan experienced explosive, intensive growth through the Industrial Revolution, while India remained largely stationary.6
Between 1850 and 1947, India’s absolute GDP in 1990 international dollar terms actually grew from $125.7 billion to $213.7 billion, representing a 70% increase.7 The stagnation in per capita terms, GDP per capita was approximately $550 in 1700 and $619 in 1950, reflects a classic Malthusian trap.8 The unprecedented population growth stimulated by the introduction of Western medicine, increased land cultivation, and the relative political stability of the Raj absorbed almost all economic gains.9 Far from being genocided, the Indian population expanded from 165 million in 1700 to nearly 390 million by 1941.10
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shashi_Tharoor%27s_Oxford_Union_speech
- https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/tharoor-inglorious-empire/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/l9nve2/he_peevishely_wrote_on_the_margins_of_the_file/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_India
- Ibid
- https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/tharoor-inglorious-empire/
- https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/
- Ibid
- https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/tharoor-inglorious-empire/
- https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/
What did ordinary Tudors do for work? Inside the 16th-century daily grind
HistoryExtra
Published 4 Nov 2025From sunrise in the fields to the heat of the brew house, Ruth Goodman reveals the untold story of how the Tudors really worked.
Forget silk-clad courtiers – most people in the 16th-century toiled from dawn to dusk just to keep food on the table. Men ploughed, hedged, and hauled in the fields while women brewed ale, milked cows, churned butter, and raised children – often all at once. Every Tudor household was a finely balanced machine of survival.
In this episode of her new series on Tudor Life, historian Ruth Goodman explains how every pair of hands mattered. It wasn’t as simple as “men’s work” and “women’s work”. You’ll hear how the two worlds were completely intertwined. And what about those who were unable to work? This video sheds light on an innovative 16th-century welfare scheme that made all the difference.
Filmed on location at Plas Mawr – an Elizabethan townhouse in Conwy, North Wales, now in the care of Cadw – this series with Ruth looks beyond the royals who often dominate the headlines, and considers the everyday routines of those living in England and Wales in the Tudor era.
00:54 How did Tudors earn money?
03:20 Where did men work?
08:15 What if you were unable to work?
March 12, 2026
QotD: Roman armies of the middle and late Republic
It is hard to tell if the Roman triple-line (triplex acies) fighting system created the demand for synchronized discipline or if the Romans, having already developed a tradition of drill and synchronized discipline, adopted a fighting style that leveraged that advantage. Probably a bit of both, but in any event our evidence for the Roman army before the very late third century is very poor. By the time we truly see the Roman army clearly (c. 225 BC) the system seems to already [have been] in place for some time.
A Roman consular army was a complex machine. It was composed of an infantry line of two legions (in the center) and two socii “wings” (alae) to each side, along with cavalry detachments covering the flanks. Each of those infantry blocks (two legions, two alae) in turn was broken down into thirty separate maneuvering units (called maniples, generally consisting of 120 men; half as many for the triarii), which were in turn subdivided into centuries, but centuries didn’t really maneuver independently. In front of this was a light infantry screening force (the velites). So notionally there were in the heavy infantry of a standard two-legion consular army something like 120 different “chess pieces” that notionally the general could move around on their own and thus notionally the legion was capable of fairly complex tactical maneuvers.
You may have noted that word “notionally” because now we get into the limits of drill and synchronized discipline, because this isn’t a system for limitless tactical flexibility of the sort one gets in video games. Instead, recall that the idea here is to create coordinated movement and fighting (the synchronized discipline) through rigorous, repeated practice (drill). Of course one needs to practice specific things. Some of those things are going to be obvious: a drill for marching forward, or for turning the unit or for advancing on the charge.
In the Roman case, a “standard” battle involved the successive engagement and potentially retreat of each heavy infantry line: first the hastati (the first line) formed a solid line (filling the gaps) and attacked and then, if unsuccessful, retreated and the next line (the principes) would try and so on. Those maneuvers would need to be practiced: forming up, then having each maniple close the gap (we don’t quite know how they did this, but see below), the attack itself (which also involved usually throwing pila – heavy javelins), then retreat behind the next line if things went poorly. It’s also pretty clear from a battle like Cynoscephelae (197) or Bibracte (58) that individual maniples or cohorts (the Romans start using the larger 480-man-cohort as the basic maneuver unit during the second century BC) could be “driven” over the battlefield to a degree so there were probably drills for wheeling and turning.
Now even in this “standard” battle there is a lot of movement: maniples need to open and close gaps, advance and retreat and so on. This is what I mean by saying this army is a complex machine: it has a lot of moving parts that need to move together. The men in a maniple need to move together to make that mutually-supporting line and the maniples need to move together with each other to cover flanks and allow retreats. In terms of how the individual men moved, I’ve tended to think in terms of a “flow” model akin to this video of South Korean riot police training, rather than the clunkier Spartacus (1960) model.
But once an army has practiced all of these drills, it creates the opportunity for great improvisation and more complex tactics as well. Commanders, both the general but also his subordinates, can tell a unit to perform a particular maneuver that they have drilled, assuming the communication infrastructure exists in terms of instruments, standard shouted commands and battle standards (and note [that] Roman methods of battlefield communication were relatively well developed). That, for instance, allowed Aemilius Paullus to give orders to his first legion at Pydna for each of those maneuver units to either push forward or give ground independently, presenting the Macedonian phalanx with a tactical problem (an unevenly resisting line) it did not have a good solution for (Plut. Aem. 20.8-10). Having good junior officers […] was required but it wasn’t enough – those officers needed units which were already sufficiently drilled so that their orders (to press hard or retreat and reform in this case) could actually be carried out by soldiers for whom the response to those calls had become natural through that very drill.
At the same time I don’t want to give the wrong impression: even for the Romans battles where there was this sort of on-the-field improvising led by the general were uncommon (though not extremely rare). For the majority of battles, the legionary “machine” simply pushed forward in its standard way, even when – as at Cannae (216) – pushing forward normally proved to be disastrous. Just because an army can fight flexibly doesn’t mean it will or even that it should.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: Total Generalship: Commanding Pre-Modern Armies, Part IIIa”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2022-06-17.
March 11, 2026
Britain’s reputation in the Near East just cratered
On Substack Notes, Earl explains why the inexplicable delay in getting a Royal Navy warship out to protect Gulf allies from Iranian missiles is having serious negative impact on Britain’s longstanding relations with the targeted nations:
A MASTERCLASS IN MILITARY INCOMPETENCE
The Starmer administration’s handling of the Iranian crisis is being whispered about in the corridors of Whitehall as a historic “cock up” of the highest order. Despite receiving a formal request from the Americans on 11 February — a full 17 days before the offensive actually commenced — the British government appears to have spent that critical window in a state of paralyzed indecision. The U.S. request was not an invitation for Britain to join the initial “decapitation strikes”, but rather a plea for the Royal Navy to help shield vulnerable Gulf allies from the inevitable Iranian retaliation. Instead of stepping up to protect the 240,000 British citizens living in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the Ministry of Defence oversaw a period of baffling inaction that has left regional partners feeling utterly betrayed.
The diplomatic fallout has been described by insiders as nothing short of catastrophic, with Middle Eastern allies expressing “undiluted fury” at the lack of British support. A former minister with deep ties to Amman reports that Jordan is “fking furious”, while leaders in Kuwait and the Emirates are openly questioning whose side Britain is actually on. The Cypriots are reportedly “incandescent” after learning that military assets were actually withdrawn from their vicinity just as the threat level spiked. Only this week did it emerge that HMS Dragon would finally deploy — nearly three weeks after the initial American SOS — a timeline that military experts say is far too little and far too late to restore trust.
Strategic failures have been compounded by what veteran commanders call a total lack of foresight regarding naval positioning. The only available Astute-class submarine was permitted to continue its journey toward Australia, despite having passed through the Gulf just weeks ago when it could have been held as a vital contingency. Security officials now warn that the Trump administration is viewing the UK’s “free riding” with growing contempt. There is a palpable fear in the MOD that the Americans, tired of London’s dithering, will simply cut Britain out of the loop entirely and strike a direct deal with Mauritius to secure the long-term use of Diego Garcia for future operations.
Inside the government, the situation is being described as “incoherent” and “unconscionable”. By allowing the United States to utilize British bases like RAF Fairford for strikes while simultaneously refusing to participate in the missions themselves, Starmer has managed to achieve the worst of both worlds. Critics say they have invited the risk of being targeted by Tehran without the benefit of having any say in the coalition’s strategic direction. One former defence chief has branded this policy “reprehensible”, arguing that Britain has effectively surrendered its seat at the table in exchange for a front-row seat to its own strategic irrelevance.
The sobering reality in Whitehall is a growing sense that the UK no longer has the capacity to shape events in the Middle East. A former Downing Street adviser noted that the “intensity of Labour’s feelings” on the conflict is now matched only by their lack of influence. Allies have stopped listening because they no longer believe Britain can — or will — deliver on its security promises. As the Trump administration continues its high-tempo campaign to dismantle the IRGC, the United Kingdom finds itself sidelined, watched with suspicion by its friends and emboldened by its enemies, all due to a fortnight of inexcusable hesitation.
On March 9th, The Guardian reported that HMS Dragon will sail “in the next couple of days”, heading to Cyprus to take over duties from French, Greek and Spanish ships in providing missile defence to the British air base at Akrotiri. YouTube channel Navy Lookout posted footage of HMS Dragon leaving Portsmouth here.
CDR Salamander looks back at the naval “special relationship” that appears more and more to be just a fading memory:
We need to stop pretending we have a Royal Navy we knew in our youth or even that of two decades ago. No, we have something altogether different. Something shrunken. Something weaker. Something that is, in the end, really sad. A symptom of a nation who has lost an enthusiasm for herself or even an understanding of her national interest and led by a ruling class that seems uninterested in stewardship.
The state of the Royal Navy — a condition that took decades of neglect to manifest into its form today and will take decades to repair if there is ever the will to do so — has become, as navies can often do, a symbol of the state of the nation it serves.
There is a lesson here, not just for the United States, but all nations who consider themselves a naval power.
If you fail over and over to properly fund, develop, train, and support your navy, you can coast for quite awhile on the inertia of the hard work and investment of prior generations, but eventually that exhausts itself, and you are left with the husk of your own creation.
Yes, I’m looking at you, DC.
March 10, 2026
Austria’s Inbred Emperor who Demanded Dumplings – Marillenknödel
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 9 Sept 2025Apricots wrapped in a soft dough with a crunchy exterior and sprinkled with powdered sugar
City/Region: Austria
Time Period: 1858Ferdinand I of Austria was emperor in name only. Incredibly inbred, Ferdinand had various disabilities and ailments that affected his ability to rule, though it’s said that he spoke five languages and was very witty. As the empire was run by others, not much is written about Ferdinand’s rule, but one thing that he did do as emperor was to demand dumplings at every meal.
And I can see why; they’re absolutely delicious. The apricots are sweet and juicy, the dough is soft, and the crunchy exterior of breadcrumbs, butter, sugar, and cinnamon is wonderful.
Apricot and Plum Dumplings With quark dough.
You mix 4 deciliters flour and 20 decagrams quark with 3 yolks to make a soft dough. Roll out fairly thick, cut into large pieces, enough to wrap a plum [or apricot], then seal them well … Boil the dumplings in salted water. Lift them out carefully with a spoon so they don’t stick to the bottom, then transfer with a slotted spoon into hot butter in a dish. Let them brown on one side. In the butter, you can first brown some sugar and breadcrumbs…coat with sugar, cinnamon, and brown breadcrumbs.
— Die Süddeutsche Küche by Katharina Prato, 1858
QotD: The slave trade
Brett Pike @ClassicLearner
The Ottoman slave trade, the trans Saharan slave trade, the trans Indian slave trade, lasted for thousands of years and enslaved millions of people … Yet school children are led to believe that slavery was a uniquely European activity.Now why do you think that is?
The Arabs, Turks, and Indians collectively enslaved three times as many people as Europeans, their slave trades lasted three times as long, and the only reason they ended was that Europeans — in particular the British — used military power to force them to stop.
Yet we get the exclusive blame for slavery.
Why?
Simple.
We’re the only ones who felt bad about slavery.
Even at the height of the slave trade it was morally controversial. It never sat right with us. We’re genuinely ashamed of it.
No one else feels bad about it. At all.
And they know this. They know that the European soul is profoundly empathetic in a way that their own petty, clannish chauvinism is not. And in that universalizing empathic conscience they smell weakness, and in weakness, opportunity.
They remind us endlessly of the role we played in continuing slavery, knowing full well that we will be either too courteous, or too distracted by guilt, to point to the much larger role that they played.
By pressing on that sore nerve they sustain a moral assault on our conscience that they then exploit for financial benefits: welfare parasitism, preferment in admissions and hiring, open borders.
The slave societies have found a way to take their revenge for the end slavery, enslaving us with our own conscience.
And they don’t feel the slightest twinge of guilt about that, either.
John Carter, The social media site formerly known as Twitter, 2025-12-08.
