Quotulatiousness

December 3, 2021

French Breakout Attempt During The Siege of Paris 1870 – Battle of Villiers-Champigny

Filed under: France, Germany, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Real Time History
Published 2 Dec 2021

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The Siege of Paris has been going on for months in November 1870 and the population is starving. The French Army has previously tried and failed to break out but this week they are starting their biggest attempt yet — not knowing that it has been doomed from the start.

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» LITERATURE
Arand, Tobias: 1870/71. Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg erzählt in Einzelschicksalen. Hamburg 2018

Ders.: “Rogerowski oder Rasumowsky? Überlegungen zur nationalen ‘Meistererzählung’ in Fontanes ‘Kriegsgefangen’“, in: Fontane-Blätter 105 (2018). S. 61-86

Ders.: “‘… dazu find ich keine Worte’ – Der Blick auf den Krieg von 1870/71 in Erinnerungsbüchern deutscher Veteranen“, in: Nation im Siegesrausch. Württemberg und die Gründung des Deutschen Reichs 1870/71, hrsg. u. bearb. von W. Mährle. Stuttgart 2020. S. 85-98

Bourguinat, Nicolas and Gilles Vogt: La guerre franco-allemande de 1870. Une histoire globale. 2020

Gouttman, Alain: La grande défaite. 1870-1871. Paris 2015

Lecaillon, Jean-François: Les Femmes et la Guerre de 1870/71. Histoire d’un engagement occulté. Paris 2020

» SOURCES
Hérisson, Maurice d’: Journal d’un officier d’ordonnance. Paris 1885

De Trailles, Paul et Henry: Les femmes de France pendant la guerre et les deux sièges de Paris. Paris 1872

Fontane, Theodor: Der Krieg gegen Frankreich. Bd. 3. Berlin 1874

Fontane, Theodor: Kriegsgefangen. Erlebtes 1870. Briefe 1870/71. Berlin (Ost) 1984

Kühnhauser, Florian: Kriegs-Erinnerungen eines Soldaten des königlich bayerischen Infanterie Leibregiments. Partenkirchen 1898

N. N. (Hrsg.): Bismarcks Briefe an seine Gattin aus dem Kriege 1870/71. Stuttgart, Berlin 1903

Schikorsky, Isa (Hrsg.): “Wenn doch dies Elend ein Ende hätte”, Ein Briefwechsel aus dem Deutsch-Französischen Krieg 1870/71. Köln, Weimar, Wien 1999

Wöllwarth, Julie von: Unter den Verwundeten von 1870/71. Aufzeichnungen aus einer großen Zeit. o.O, o.J. (1890)

Zola, Émile: La Débacle. Paris 1892

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A bureaucratic mandate for never-ending intervention — induced offensensitivity

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Business, Europe, Politics, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Theodore Dalrymple notes the increasing reach of the bureaucracy in policing everyday language in a supposed attempt to protect the easily offended feelings of minority groups, but really in yet another way to increase the role of bureaucrats (and their staffing and budget allocations):

Original infographic from Treetopia – https://www.treetopia.com/Merry-Christmas-vs-Happy-Holidays-a/304.htm

Underlying the bureaucratic desire to reform language are two assumptions: first that it is the duty of bureaucrats to prevent offense to people occasioned by the use of certain words, and second that they know what words will give offence to people.

Of course, there are only certain categories of people who needed to be protected from taking offence: that is because, in the estimate of their would-be and self-appointed protectors, they are very delicate and can easily be tipped into depression or states of mind even worse than depression.

Whether it is flattering, condescending or downright insulting to consider people so delicate that they cannot hear certain words that were hitherto considered innocuous, I leave to readers to decide. For myself, I think that to regard people as psychological eggshells is demeaning to them, but other may think differently.

But the question still arises as to whether the people supposedly in need of bureaucratic intervention actually do take offence at the allegedly offensive words, such as Christmas, when they are uttered.

This is not as straightforward a question as might at first appear, for people can be taught or encouraged to be easily offended, especially if they will derive certain advantages, political, social or even financial, from being, or claiming to be, offended. If you pay someone to be ill, he will be ill; if you pay someone to be offended, he will be offended.

It is in the interests of bureaucracies that the population should become hypersensitive, for then it will run to the bureaucrats for so-called protection from offensiveness.

A hypersensitive population creates endless work for the bureaucrat to do: he will have constantly to adjudicate between the claims of those who have taken, and those who have allegedly given, offence. Conflict and stoked-up anger are to him what fertilizer is to corn.

For much of the population, hypersensitivity becomes a duty, a pleasure and a sign of superiority of mind and moral awareness. In addition, it is an instrument of power. And, of course, habit becomes character. What may have started out as play-acting becomes, with repetition, deadly sincerity.

People who have had to be taught what microaggressions are because they have not noticed them eventually come to believe in their reality and that that they have been subjected to them. Then they start to magnify them in their minds until they seem to them very serious: they become self-proclaimed victims.

There are two things that victims seek in our law-saturated world: revenge and compensation. Neither of these things can be achieved without the aid of a large apparatus of bureaucrats (civil-litigation lawyers are bureaucrats of superior intelligence who are usually endowed also with a modicum of imagination).

Australian-American War of 1942 – The Battle of Brisbane

Filed under: Australia, Britain, History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 2 Dec 2021

America shares a language and large parts of its culture with Britain and Australia. But when tens of thousands of US troops arrive in 1942, things will be far from smooth. While the alliance remains firm, their soldiers will spend almost as much time fighting each other as they do the Axis.
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“Power corrupts and absolute power …” is something governments are not eager to give up, post-pandemic

Filed under: Australia, Britain, Europe, Government, Health — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Miguel Castaneda quotes Lord Acton’s famous aphorism (which I truncated in my headline) and warns of the consequences of giving governments too much power:

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The words of Lord Acton, a fierce opponent of state power, are sadly no less relevant today than they were at his time of writing.

Over the past 20 months, the authoritarian approach of Western leaders has been justified by our representatives as a necessary response to a global emergency. Whether that’s true or not is up for discussion, however, one thing remains clear: such attitudes have handed governments a level of power that, left unchecked, severely curtails individual rights.

This path is not unique to the UK, nor is it unique to Europe. We’re seeing a near global normalisation of state overreach. Lockdowns in many liberal democracies have been brought in suddenly and without thorough scrutiny.

In this country, at no point were other methods to address the pandemic tested. They were barely even suggested. And with little counter from the mainstream media, the UK and others have normalised shutting down the country for the purpose of virus control.

It was only a few months ago that Australia locked over 5 million people after identifying a single case. A severe overreaction which likely contributed to the dramatic fall in Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrisson’s approval ratings of the handling of the pandemic, which fell from 85 per cent at the start of the pandemic to 47 per cent in the latest poll in August.

A commonly overlooked consequence of these authoritarian practices is the precedence it sets for how governments can and should act when faced with novel challenges. It has been predicted that future pandemics will become more frequent, and perhaps more deadly. Are we going to react again by shutting entire populations in their homes?

Looking to the continent, the ease at which governments are bringing in authoritarian measures should be an international scandal. Take Austria, where a national lockdown has just been extended until at least December 11th. Or Germany, which has announced today a de facto lockdown for the unvaccinated, and is debating bringing in a policy of mandatory vaccinations.

This extreme way of thinking is a new virus spreading across the Western world. Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Australia have all seen similar policies introduced.

The Battle of the Trebia River (218 B.C.E.)

Filed under: Africa, Europe, History, Italy, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Historia Civilis
Published 12 Jun 2015

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Music is Beethoven’s “Sonata No. 11 in B Flat Major Op. 22” – I. Allegro con brio. Performed by Daniel Veesey

December 1, 2021

The Titanic Struggle for Reunion Island – WW2 Special

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 30 Nov 2021

It might only be tangentially relevant to the war as a whole, but the Battle for Reunion Island is not only interesting in and of itself, it serves as a microcosm for the war for the French in general. Check it out!
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Polling bias in a time of pandemic

Filed under: Britain, Government, Health, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

At The Daily Sceptic, Mike Hearn looks at the often incredible poll results turned up by YouGov that seem to indicate that well over half the population of Britain are budding medical fascists who want nothing more than a full-on pandemic tyranny from now to the end of time:

Recently YouGov announced that 64% of the British public would support mandatory booster vaccinations and another polling firm claimed that 45% would support indefinite home detention for the unvaccinated (i.e., forced vaccination of the entire population). The extreme nature of these claims immediately attracted attention, and not for the first time raised questions about how accurate polling on Covid mandates actually is. In this essay I’m going to explore some of the biases that can affect these types of poll, and in particular pro-social, mode and volunteering biases, which might be leading to inaccurately large pro-mandate responses.

There’s evidence that polling bias on COVID topics can be enormous. In January researchers in Kenya compared results from an opinion poll asking whether people wore masks to actual observations. They discovered that while 88% of people told the pollsters that they wore masks outside, in reality only 10% of people actually did. Suspicions about mandate polls and YouGov specifically are heightened by the fact that they very explicitly took a position on what people “should” be doing in 2020, using language like “Britons still won’t wear masks”, “this could prove a particular problem”, “we are far behind our neighbours” and most concerning of all – “our partnership with Imperial College”. Given widespread awareness of how easy it is to do so-called push polling, it’s especially damaging to public trust when a polling firm takes such strong positions on what the public should be thinking and especially in contradiction of evidence that mask mandates don’t work. Thus it makes sense to explore polling bias more deeply.

[…]

Given the frequency with which large institutions say things about COVID that just don’t add up, it’s not entirely surprising that people are suspicious of claims that most of their friends and neighbours are secretly nursing the desire to tear up the Nuremberg Code. But while we can debate whether the chat-oriented user interface is really ideal for presenting multi-path survey results, and it’s especially debatable whether YouGov should be running totally different kinds of polls under the same brand name, it’s probably not an attempt to manipulate people. Or if it is, it’s not a very competent one.

When I was much younger, I’d very occasionally get a call on our land line from a polling firm. I’d sometimes take part in the poll, although I don’t recall every seeing any of the polls I took part in being published later. After a few years, I stopped taking part and now I hang up as soon as it’s clear that the call is from a polling company. Apparently I’m far from alone in this learned aversion to dealing with polls:

Online panel polling solves the problem of low phone response rates but introduces a new problem: the sort of people who answer surveys aren’t normal. People who answer an endless stream of surveys for tiny pocket-money sized rewards are especially not normal, and thus aren’t representative of the general public. All online panel surveys face this problem and thus pollsters compete on how well they adjust the resulting answers to match what the “real” public would say. One reason elections and referendums are useful for polling agencies is they provide a form of ground truth against which their models can be calibrated. Those calibrations are then used to correct other types of survey response too.

A major source of problems is what’s known as “volunteering bias”, and the closely related “pro-social bias”. Not surprisingly, the sort of people who volunteer to answer polls are much more likely to say they volunteer for other things too than the average member of the general population. This effect is especially pronounced for anything that might be described as a “civic duty”. While these are classically considered positive traits, it’s easy to see how an unusually strong belief in civic duty and the value of community volunteering could lead to a strong dislike for people who do not volunteer to do their “civic duty”, e.g. by refusing to get vaccinated, disagreeing with community-oriented narratives, and so on.

In 2009 Abraham et al showed that Gallup poll questions about whether you volunteer in your local community had implausibly risen from 26% in 1977 to a whopping 46% in 1991. This rate varied drastically from the rates reported by the U.S. census agency: in 2002 the census reported that 28% of American adults volunteered.

Tank Chats #134 | Centurion | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published 20 Aug 2021

David Fletcher is back with another Tank Chat on one of the most successful post-war tank designs, Centurion. It was the primary British Army main battle tank of the post-World War II period.
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November 30, 2021

Dynamite Luke Dillon and the Welland Canal

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History, Law, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 29 Nov 2021

Around 7 in the evening on April 21, 1900 two large explosions rocked the hamlet of Thorold, Ontario. It was an act of terrorism, an attempt to breach the locks of the Welland canal — a ship canal connecting Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, allowing ships to bypass Niagara Falls. Three men were arrested, but who were these “dynamitards”? It would be two years before the identity of their notorious leader would be revealed.

This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

You can purchase the bow tie worn in this episode at The Tie Bar:
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All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.

Find The History Guy at:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheHistoryGuy
Please send suggestions for future episodes: Suggestions@TheHistoryGuy.net

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered 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.

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Script by THG

#history #thehistoryguy #Canada

The Elgin Marbles

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Greece, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In The Critic, Zachary Hardman outlines the history of the Elgin Marbles and why the Greek government is re-opening the campaign to retrieve them from the British Museum:

Some of the sculptures in the Elgin Marbles collection on display in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum.
Photo by Paul Hudson via Wikimedia Commons.

Last week, the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis was in London, with only one thing on his mind: the return of the so-called “Elgin Marbles” to Athens. 2021 is the two-hundredth anniversary of Greek independence, when the country liberated itself from the yoke of the Ottoman Empire and, for Athens, there would be no better birthday present than the restitution of the lost marbles.

The dispute about their rightful ownership is as old as the modern Greek state. In the early 19th century, the British Ambassador Lord Elgin was granted permission by Athens’ Ottoman rulers to remove half the remaining marble sculptures from a frieze on the Parthenon, the ruined ancient temple, which still adorns the Acropolis, the rocky outcrop overlooking the city.

Elgin had the marbles shipped to Britain. The journey, though, proved difficult. They were transported via Malta where, following a shipwreck, they spent a brief sojourn at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. The rescue mission was ruinously expensive. Elgin intended to furnish his ancestral Scottish home with the marbles. On second thoughts, though, he cut his losses and sold them to the British Museum.

Public opinion was divided. Lord Byron wrote two poems denouncing Elgin. His supporters, meanwhile, claimed the marbles were saved from further damage at the hands of warring Greeks and Turks, who didn’t appreciate them anyway. The Greeks, understandably, took a dim view of this. Since the 1980s they have waged a sustained PR offensive for the return of the marbles. An impasse, though, remains.

To break it, Mitsotakis would do well to consider the insights of the ancient rhetoricians. Athens, of course, was the birthplace of not only democracy, but rhetoric: the art of persuasion. The philosopher Aristotle, who wrote the original guidebook on the subject, said it was about identifying “the means of persuasion in any given case”. It is the task of modern Athens to work out who it must persuade and what of.

The fresh campaign began with the Government. In Downing Street, after all, lives a man Mitsotakis regards a “true philhellene”. The return of the marbles, the Greek Prime Minister said, after a meeting with Johnson, would be a “coup” for “global Britannia”. Flattery, however, has its limits. The British Government is unwavering in its support for the Museum. Mitsotakis, however, was undeterred.

The Surprising and Forgotten History of Helium

Filed under: Britain, History, Science, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 28 Jun 2019

Humanity didn’t recognize the second most abundant element in the known universe until the nineteenth century. A significant source on earth wasn’t discovered until 1903. The discovery and understanding of the element helium played a central role in some of the most important scientific discoveries of the modern era, and helium continues to change the world today.

This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As images of actual events are sometimes not available, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.

All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.

Find The History Guy at:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheHistoryGuy

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered 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

Script by THG

#thehistoryguy #helium #science

November 29, 2021

A Historical Tour of Hagia Sophia

Filed under: Architecture, Europe, History, Religion — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

toldinstone
Published 28 Nov 2020

You’ve heard about Hagia Sophia‘s famous dome. But what about the miraculous column, the Viking graffiti, and the portrait of Byzantium’s worst emperor?

For more on Roman art and architecture, check out my book Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants: Frequently Asked Questions about the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Statues-…

If you’re so inclined, you can follow me elsewhere on the web:

https://www.patreon.com/toldinstone
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:49 Justinian and his church
2:55 Construction of Hagia Sophia
4:11 Exterior
4:49 Exonarthex
5:14 Narthex
5:51 Vestibule of the Warriors
6:36 Imperial Gate
7:53 The Nave and Dome
10:37 Omphalos
11:12 Apse Mosaics
12:00 Column capitals
12:25 Weeping Column
13:07 Galleries
13:42 Gates of Heaven and Hell
14:01 Deësis mosaic
14:29 Tomb of Dandolo
15:14 Imperial mosaics of the South Gallery
17:28 Nordic runes
17:50 Alexander mosaic
18:26 Conclusion

Thanks for watching!

Giovanni Gentile, “the ideological father of Fascism”

Filed under: Europe, History, Italy, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Emmanuel Rincón on the Italian philosopher who created the ideological underpinnings of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist movement:

Giovanni Gentile
Undated photograph probably before 1930 via Wikimedia Commons.

Giovanni Gentile, a neo-Hegelian philosopher, was the intellectual author of the “doctrine of fascism”, which he wrote in conjunction with Benito Mussolini. Gentile’s sources of inspiration were thinkers such as Hegel, Nietzsche, and also Karl Marx.

Gentile went so far as to declare “Fascism is a form of socialism, in fact, it is its most viable form.” One of the most common reflections on this is that fascism is itself socialism based on national identity.

Gentile believed that all private action should be oriented to serve society. He was against individualism, for him there was no distinction between private and public interest. In his economic postulates, he defended compulsory state corporatism, wanting to impose an autarkic state (basically the same recipe that Hitler would use years later).

A basic aspect of Gentile’s logic is that liberal democracy was harmful because it was focused on the individual which led to selfishness. He defended “true democracy” in which the individual should be subordinated to the State. In that sense, he promoted planned economies in which it was the government that determined what, how much, and how to produce.

Gentile and another group of philosophers created the myth of socialist nationalism, in which a country well directed by a superior group could subsist without international trade, as long as all individuals submitted to the designs of the government. The aim was to create a corporate state. It must be remembered that Mussolini came from the traditional Italian Socialist Party, but due to the rupture with this traditional Marxist movement, and due to the strong nationalist sentiment that prevailed at the time, the bases for creating the new “nationalist socialism”, which they called fascism, were overturned.

Fascism nationalized the arms industry, however, unlike traditional socialism, it did not consider that the state should own all the means of production, but more that it should dominate them. The owners of industries could “keep” their businesses, as long as they served the directives of the state. These business owners were supervised by public officials and paid high taxes. Essentially, “private property” was no longer a thing. It also established the tax on capital, the confiscation of goods of religious congregations and the abolition of episcopal rents. Statism was the key to everything, thanks to the nationalist and collectivist discourse, all the efforts of the citizens had to be in favor of the State.

Why was the Roman Legionary’s equipment so good?

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Epimetheus
Published 3 Nov 2019

Arms & Armor of the Imperial Roman Legionary

The Ancient Roman legionary’s clothing, arms, armor, and equipment (Top 10 items) mini-documentary
#Legionary #documentary #Rome

This video is sponsored by my patrons on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/Epimetheus1776

From the comments:

Epimetheus
1 year ago (edited)

Check Out my video on Republican Roman Infantry:
https://youtu.be/APuh6rokd_w

Additional info/and sources
Rounded metric Conversion for units mentioned:
Typical March: 20-30 miles(32-48 km) in a day
Training march distance and load: 22 miles = 35 km, 45 pounds = 20 kg
Full campaign max carried load per Legionary: 65-100 lbs = 27-45 kgs

One thing I wrote in the script, recorded and edited out by accident was that … when a Roman Legionary was dishonorably discharged (thrown out of the legion for bad behavior) his belt was confiscated by the legion which did not want him to be associated with the Roman State.

Sources:
Roman Military Clothing by Graham Sumner
Greece and Rome at War by Peter Connolly
Roman Legionary by Ross Cowan
The Legionary by Peter Connolly
The Gladius (The Roman short sword) by MC Bishop
Warfare in the Classical World by John Warry
Caesar’s Legions by Sekunda, Northwood and Simkins

Misspelled Inches as inces and Cohort as Chohort

QotD: The law

Filed under: Britain, Law, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in “the law” as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.

It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like “They can’t run me in; I haven’t done anything wrong”, or “They can’t do that; it’s against the law”, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else. One sees it in prison-books like Wilfred Macartney’s Walls Have Mouths or Jim Phelan’s Jail Journey, in the solemn idiocies that take place at the trials of Conscientious Objectors, in letters to the papers from eminent Marxist professors, pointing out that this or that is a “miscarriage of British justice”. Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory.

George Orwell, “The Lion And The Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius”, 1941-02-19.

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