Quotulatiousness

April 30, 2021

The Horrors of Partisan Warfare – WAH 033 – April 1942, Pt. 2

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Germany, History, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 29 Apr 2021

April 1942 sees bombing campaigns in Germany and Britain, as well as German anti-partisan actions in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

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Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Spartacus Olsson
Written by: Spartacus Olsson and Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Miki Cackowski and Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory​)

Colorizations by:
Klimbim https://www.flickr.com/photos/2215569…​
Mikołaj Uchman
Spartacus Olsson
Daniel Weiss

Sources:
IWM MH 24764, HU 36196, Q(HS) 256, D 16649
Yad Vashem 48AO3, 953, 86FO2, 3116/71
Bundesarchiv
Tito giving a speech in Foča, courtesy of Музеј Старе Херцеговине
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
Star of David, courtesy of Jacek Proszyk https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…​
Picture of Gustav Braun von Stumm, courtesy of Thomas Föhl https://www.geni.com/photo/view/60000…​

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Wendel Scherer – “Defeated”
Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
Jon Bjork – “Disposal”
Christian Andersen – “Barrel”
Wendel Scherer – “Growing Doubt”
Jon Bjork – “For the Many”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Gavin Luke – “Drifting Emotions 3”
Jon Bjork – “Icicles”
Gunnar Johnsen – “Not Safe Yet”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com​.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Update: TimeGhost had to repost a censored version of this episode and provided this explanation:

World War Two
1 hour ago (edited)
The original version of this video was age restricted by YouTube for containing pictures of dead bodies. We do not feel that it is correct to document these events by finessing history and self censoring, but YouTube has left us no choice. We have several problems with these age restrictions, but let’s start off with what an age restriction means on YouTube. In theory it simply restricts the video from anyone who isn’t over 18 and logged in to the YouTube platform, but in effect it does much more than that;

1. It takes the video out of most subscribers’ feeds and notification lists
2. In some countries like for instance South Korea, for legal reasons it is not accessible at all, for anyone
3. YouTube ranks it lower in their recommendation engines sending out recommendations to view to only a fraction of the ‘normal’ recommendations
4. It can no longer be viewed off YouTube as an embedded video – meaning that it won’t display even on our own website
5. It gets a boiler plate informing the viewer that the content has been “identified by the community as offensive to some viewers”
6. On many mobile devices it cannot be shared with the YouTube app
7. In countries were legal proof of age is required for adult content you have to provide a driver’s license, or credit card proving you are over 18

In effect that means that YouTube is soft censoring the video from a large section of potential viewers. The result is that we get around half, or less of the views on videos that are age restricted. And we should note that according to YouTube’s own system more than 90% of our viewers are over 18, so it’s not just an effect of losing underage viewers.

Now, this content is without any doubt hard to watch, but it’s educational content based on solid facts, documented through crystal clear academic research. It is about the crimes against humanity during WW2. It documents events that are to this day in 2021, denied by sympathizers of extreme ideologies. Because of the special importance for new generations to learn about these events, many countries, especially in the EU and North America, do not require in their youth protection laws or media regulation that this kind of content shall be for 18+ only. To the contrary many countries have these topics, told just as graphically as we document them on their school curriculum for ages 13 and above. Moreover, YouTube has in their own community guidelines a provision that allows for displays of violence, dead bodies, and so on in an educational context also for under 18s.

So in effect YouTube is here choosing to restrict, even censor content of high educational importance although they are not legally required to do so, and they have their own provisions to allow it to be unrestricted. Why do they do that? Well, we can’t read their minds, but we have some indications that;

A) they ere on the side of caution to avoid ANY legal risk.
B) They fear any kind of content that has to do with extremism, even when unmasking it after the advertising boycotts they faced a couple of years back.
C) when the community complains they put extra weight on those complaints

It is item C that troubles us the most. We have over 500 videos on our channels – very many of them contain graphic images of death and violence for reasons of the topics we document. Among these videos, a few dozen have been age restricted, while the rest have not. The common denominator between the age restricted videos is that they document events, or phenomena that unmask extremism by historical Communists, Nazis, and Imperialists. Its is difficult to not see the common interest by sympathizers of these groups and YouTube. If you want something suppressed, and there’s an easy way to just get it suppressed by just pressing a button – is it not reasonable to assume that you would use that button? We’re not conspiracy mythologists, we don’t believe there is a conspiracy here, but just by creating a simple path to fulfill different, but in effect common interests YouTube has made it easy for deniers of crimes against humanity, and war crimes to suppress information about these events.

We have explained to YouTube that inadvertently they are supporting the exact kind of hateful extremism they are fighting against with their other sword arm. We have implored them to lift the age restrictions in the interest of what society has decided: that content like this needs to be freely accessible in the public space. Despite an otherwise good and healthy relationship to the platform operators who are after all our distribution partners,, we have been met with standard replies, and a denial for our request.

Once again we express our dismay, sadness, and disappointment that YouTube chooses to restrict access to content that should serve a greater good; that we do not forget the victims of atrocities and extremism so that we can learn from our past and improve our societies.

Never Forget.

Period drama costume designers these days

Filed under: Europe, History, Humour, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Karolina Żebrowska
Published 15 Aug 2019

Piero Tosi died last week and it made me really sad. he was one of the first to understand how staying close to history can actually make the film costumes fascinating, not boring. sadly, I’m beginning to think he was also one of the last — today’s mainstream cinema is all about “making things relatable for the modern viewer”.
________
My Instagram: https://bit.ly/2Qo9rrI
My nudes: https://bit.ly/2KypPpn
My merch: bit.ly/2CCq5jE

QotD: The battle of Bannockburn

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

The Scots were now under the leadership of the Bruce (not to be confused with the Wallace), who, doubtful whether he had slain the Red Comyn or not, armed himself with an enormous spider and marched against the English, determined if possible to win back the Great Scone by beating the English three times running.

The fact that the English were defeated has so confused Historians that many false theories are prevalent about the Bannockburn Campaign. What actually happened is quite clear from the sketch map shown above. The causes of the English defeat were all unfair and were:

  1. The Pits. Every time the Wallace saw some English Knights charging at him he quickly dug one of these unnatural hazards into which the English Knights, who had been taught to ride straight, galloped with flying colours.
  2. Superior numbers of the English (four to one). Accustomed to fight against heavy odds the English were uneasy, and when the Scots were unexpectedly reinforced by a large body of butlers with camp stools the English soldiers mistook them for a fresh army of Englishmen and retreated in disgust.
  3. Foul riding by Scottish Knights. This was typified even before the battle during an exhibition combat between the Brace and the English Champion, Baron Henry le Bohunk, when Brace, mounted on a Shetland pony, galloped underneath the Baron and, coming up unexpectedly on the blind side, struck him a foul blow behind and maced him up for life.

W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.

April 29, 2021

Tank Chats #105 | Saladin | The Tank Museum

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

The Tank Museum
Published 4 Sep 2020

David Fletcher is back! Join him as he discusses the FV601 Saladin — a six wheeled armoured car developed by Crossley Motors and later produced by Alvis. The Saladin has had a long service life and despite its dated design, is still in service with some countries.

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April 28, 2021

The Royals at War – WW2 Special

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

World War Two
Published 27 Apr 2021

From inspiring their subjects to plotting international strategy, the world’s monarchies still have a crucial role to play in their country’s war effort during the Second World War. As you’ll find out, some sovereigns are much more successful at this than others.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Astrid Deinhard
Written by: Fiona Rachel Fischer
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Fiona Rachel Fischer
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory​)

Colorizations by:
– Daniel Weiss
– Mikołaj Uchman
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/​
– Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/​
– Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man) – https://instagram.com/artistic.man

Sources:
– National Archives NARA
– National Portrait Gallery
– FDR Presidential Library & Museum
– Imperial War Museums: HU 55966, H 1971,
– Girl Guides of Canada
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– Australian War Memorial: AWM 4067471

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
– “Other Sides of Glory” – Fabien Tell
– “London” – Howard Harper-Barnes
– “Break Free” – Fabien Tell
– “Last Point of Safe Return” – Fabien Tell
– “Weapon of Choice” – Fabien Tel
– “Please Hear Me Out” – Philip Ayers
– “Disciples of Sun Tzu” – Christian Andersen
– “Dragon King” – Jo Wandrini
– “Remembrance” – Fabien Tell
– “Ominous” – Philip Ayers

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com​.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
1 day ago (edited)
With recent events surrounding the death of Prince Phillip, the British Royal Family has been front-and-center of the worldwide news cycle as of late. In 2021, it is rare for the royals to be at the center of people’s lives, but this wasn’t the case in the days of World War Two. Even though the age of kingdoms was largely over when war came around, sovereigns still had a role to play in their country’s war effort all over the world.

In this episode, we are taking a closer look at the role royalty played during the war. Is there still a monarchy where you live and if so, what is your experience with it? We would love to hear about that in the comments!

QotD: George Orwell’s other novels

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

[Orwell’s] major work remains canonical, and cited on a daily basis in virtually every context imaginable, appropriately or otherwise. It seems unlikely that virtually any well-read man or woman is a stranger to his two most famous novels, which have established him, even seven decades after his death, as one of the bestselling writers in the English language. But once-popular works such as The Road to Wigan Pier are now in danger of falling into obsolescence, as the social circumstances that Orwell describes seem less and less relevant to a 21st-century readership, and even his great work of Spanish Civil War reportage Homage to Catalonia might be dismissed as a period piece, written with undeniable fire and conviction but saying little to a contemporary audience.

This would be a harsh and rather glib judgement, but many writers have faced worse. The book that suggested Wigan Pier, JB Priestley’s English Journey, was once hugely influential, even being credited with winning Labour the 1945 election, and is now regarded as a quaint piece of social commentary. That Priestley conducted his travels from a chauffeur-driven car, while Orwell willingly subjected himself to filthy evenings in slum bed and breakfasts and hostels, is a telling distinction between the two writers and their approaches: it is also undeniably true that Priestley died at 89, a grand old man of letters, and that Orwell’s premature death was one brought on by the tuberculosis that had affected him for years before his death. Yet Priestley is now remembered mainly for An Inspector Calls, and Orwell remains an iconic figure, beloved by millions. His canonisation was made explicit by a statue of him by Martin Jennings being erected outside Broadcasting House in 2017, complete with the phrase “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.

Yet it is doubtful that many of his admirers have read his earlier novels, namely Burmese Days, A Clergyman’s Daughter, Keep the Aspidistra Flying and Coming Up For Air. All four were brought out by the left-wing publisher Victor Gollancz, between 1934 and 1939, and each of them is autobiographical in nature. Burmese Days draws on Orwell’s faintly unlikely time in Burma in the Twenties with the Indian Imperial Police, and A Clergyman’s Daughter uses both his life with his family in Southwold (which appears faintly disguised in the novel as “Knype Hill”) and his days tramping for its narrative. Keep the Aspidistra Flying finds Orwell mining his experiences in the lower reaches of the London literary scene, including his time working in a bookshop in Hampstead, and Coming Up For Air, written while Orwell was recuperating in Marrakesh, is suffused with an intense nostalgia for an England that may never have really existed, but is of a piece with the fascination, and repulsion, for the tenets of “Englishness” that Orwell wrote about over and over again in his essays and reportage.

Alexander Larman, “The lesser-known Orwell: are his novels deserving of reappraisal?”, The Critic, 2021-01-07.

April 27, 2021

QotD: Modern Vienna

Filed under: Europe, History, Quotations — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:00

There are four ages of modern Vienna. Before the First World War, it was cultured and rich; from 1918 until the Anschluss with Nazi Germany, it was cultured and poor; from 1938 to the end of the Allied occupation, it was just poor; and from 1955 to the present, it has just been rich.

Daniel Johnson, “The broken circle”, The Critic, 2021-01-09.

April 25, 2021

Allied Intelligence cracks Japanese codes! – 139 – WW2 – April 25, 1942

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Japan, Military, Pacific, Russia, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 24 Apr 2021

After last week’s Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, pretty much the entire Japanese fleet is sent out looking for American ships. They do not find them, but the enormous amount of radio traffic they generate is a treasure trove for Allied codebreakers to work on. The Allies ship 46 British Spitfire planes to Malta … and all of them are destroyed by the Axis within 48 hours. Germany begins bombing tourist and cultural destinations in Britain, and to make things even worse for the British this week, they realize they can’t hold Burma and are now making tracks for India, with the Japanese Army in hot pursuit.

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Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
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Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory​)

Colorizations by:
– Mikołaj Uchman
– Daniel Weiss

Sources:
– National Portrait Gallery
– Naval History and Heritage Command
– Book by Rob Crosswell, Arrow by 4B Icons – from the Noun Project
– Russian International News Agency

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
– Rannar Sillard – “Easy Target”
– Jo Wandrini – “Dragon King”
– Howard Harper-Barnes – “Underlying Truth”
– Edward Karl Hanson – “Spellbound”
– Craft Case – “Secret Cargo”
– Johan Hynynen – “Dark Beginning”
– Andreas Jamsheree – “Guilty Shadows 4”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com​.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

The First SMLE Trials Rifles: Lessons From the Boer War

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

Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Jan 2021

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

https://www.floatplane.com/channel/Fo…

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg…

In the aftermath of the Boer War, the British military needed to address critical issues of practical marksmanship with its troops. The Long Lee rifles it had deployed to South Africa suffered significant problems in making real-world hits on the battlefield. In addition to investing in better musketry training, the military chose to radically change its rifles.

In place of the Lee rifles and carbines, a single short rifle pattern would be issued for all branches of service (cavalry, artillery, and infantry). A stripper clip loading system was introduced to speed reloading and a full-length handguard for improving bayonet handling and reducing sight mirage. A windage adjustable rear sight was mandated, and a stout full protective hood added around the front sight. A new nosecap design was implemented to put the weight of the bayonet onto the stock, and not on the barrel where it would impact the rifle’s zero.

Two different patterns of rear sight were considered. The A pattern design was a tangent type sight like a Mauser, pinned at the front. The B pattern used a ladder sight, pinned at the rear. Five hundred of each were made, and put through a rigorous set of remarkably practical field trials. The testing involved not just static shooting for accuracy, but also shooting against timed disappearing targets, camouflaged targets, and snap shooting. The trial winner was the A pattern design, and it went into mass production in 1904 as the Short, Magazine, Lee Enfield Mark I — the first SMLE.

As adopted a few minor changes were made from the trials rifles, most notably a change from a full front sight hood to a pair of stout protective wings, to allow more light onto the sight. In addition, the design was almost immediately updated to a MkI* pattern, with a stronger rear sling swivel, rounded corners on the receiver, and a storage trap added to the buttplate.

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N. Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85740

April 24, 2021

This Insane Helicopter Was The Largest Ever Built: The Mil V-12 Story

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

Mustard
Published 10 Sep 2020

Sign up for an annual CuriosityStream subscription and you’ll also get a free Nebula subscription (the new streaming platform built by creators) here: http://CuriosityStream.com/mustard

Research and writing in collaboration with Tomás Campos.

The Soviets built some of the largest and most technically advanced helicopters in the world. By 1957, the Mil Mi-6 had already emerged as the largest helicopter ever built, far out-sizing helicopters built in the west. But for the Soviet Union, the need to build a helicopter far larger than even the Mi-6, soon became a matter of national security.

By 1960, American U-2 spy planes conducting high altitude reconnaissance flights over the Soviet Union were beginning to uncover the location of the country’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) sites. These first generation R-7 Semyorka ICBMs were being deployed throughout the Soviet Union as fast as possible, but their enormous size and weight meant they could only be delivered to launch sites using trains. The need to build rail lines to launch sites made the ICBM sites easy to spot in U.S. reconnaissance photos.

Keeping the missile sites hidden was a matter of national security. The Soviets devised a bold plan to airlift ICBMs into the vast and remote Soviet wilderness, thereby eliminating the need for rail lines or even roads. This would make it virtually impossible for spy planes to track down missile sites hidden in over twelve million square kilometres of forests. But to make the plan work, the Soviets would need to build a helicopter with at least twice the lifting power of the Mi-6.

Design studies for the new enormous helicopter began in 1959, with the Soviet Council of Ministers formally approving development in 1962. But development of such an ambitious helicopter would progress slowly, as various configurations (single rotor, tandem and transverse) were studied. Construction of testing-rigs, transmission systems and mock-ups began in 1963, and construction of the first prototype started in 1965. The new prototype would be designated as the Mil V-12 (with plans to designate the production version as Mil Mi-12). The first test flight in 1967 ended in failure as the V-12 crashed back to earth sustaining minor damage due to oscillations caused by control problems. A second test flight a year later proved the helicopter’s airworthiness.

The V-12 would go on to break numerous world records for lifting capacity, but its fate had already been sealed by a rapidly changing strategic situation. The introduction of spy satellites, and the development of new lighter and mobile ICBMs made hiding nuclear missiles strategically irrelevant.

In 1970, the Soviet Air Force refused to accept the V-12 into state acceptance trials, due to a lack of need. Although a second V-12 prototype would be constructed in 1972, there were simply too few scenarios that would require such a large and complex helicopter. In 1974 development of the V-12 was cancelled and the Mil Design Bureau shifted efforts to designing the Mil Mi-26, the largest helicopter to enter service.

Select footage courtesy the AP Archive:
AP Archive website: http://www.aparchive.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/aparchive and https://www.youtube.com/c/britishmovi…

Special thanks to Nick Arehart for helping clean up our audio:
https://twitter.com/airhrt_

Link to the Mustard Store:
teespring.com/stores/mustard-store

Music used in this production (reproduced under license):

Intro Song: “Space Cinematic”- https://www.pond5.com/royalty-free-mu…

Song 2: “Yet Another Chase” – https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/X…

Song 3: “The Board Is Set” – https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/g…

Song 4: “Grim March” – https://www.pond5.com/royalty-free-mu…

Song 5: “Like the Wind” – https://www.pond5.com/royalty-free-mu…

Song 6: “Synthwave Industrial Technology” – https://audiojungle.net/item/synthwav…

Thanks for watching!

April 23, 2021

Taiwan Under Occupation, Axis Solidarity, and U-Boats in the Med – WW2 – OOTF 022

Filed under: China, Europe, Germany, History, Japan, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 22 Apr 2021

Ever wonder what life was like in Taiwan during the Second World War? Or if German U-Boats were active in the Mediterranean? You can find out the answers in this episode of Out of the Foxholes!

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Ian Sowden, Lewis Braithwaite, Timothy Smith
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Ian Sowden, Lewis Braithwaite, Timothy Smith
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Miki Cackowski and Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory​)

Sources:
David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries
Chapman University Digital Commons

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Yi Nantiro – “Watchman”
Max Anson – “Ancient Saga”
Skrya – “First Responders”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com​.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Treaties and War, The Washington Naval Conference

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Italy, Japan, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 17 Aug 2017

The History Guy remembers the Washington Naval Conference, a watershed in diplomacy.

The episode discusses events and shows some artwork depicting warships, which some viewers may find disturbing. All events are described for educational purposes and are presented in historical context.

The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration.

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

The History Guy: Five Minutes of History is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.

Awesome The History Guy merchandise is available at:
teespring.com/stores/the-history-guy

The episode is intended for educational purposes. All events are presented in historical context.

#ushistory #thehistoryguy #militaryhistory

QotD: Why the British despise the middle class

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

… any observer of that British class system will know that it is indeed a little different from that in other places.

The aristocracy have always looked down upon the middle class. That gross and inelegant disdain for trade for example. The insistence that actually doing something for a living – even professionally – just isn’t as good as doing nothing off a rent roll.

From the other end we’ve that very bolshie – in the colloquial sense – insistence that the middle class are just parasites upon the toil of the workers. This being what also informs – misinforms – that idea that we’d be better off if we had much more manufacturing. Men in flat caps doing something physical etc.

That is, much of the society dislikes the very existence of the middle class. Actually, more than dislikes, from above they’re – we’re – despised and from below hated to the point that we bourgeoisie should be eliminated as a class.

The surprise that fewer claim to be of that section of the hierarchy than are is thus, well, it’s a surprise, right?

Tim Worstall, “Sociologist Can’t Do Sociology”, Continental Telegraph, 2021-01-19.

April 22, 2021

The Winter War

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, Russia, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In Quillette, Sean McMeekin outlines the disaster of the first Soviet offensive against Finland in the opening battles of the 1939-40 Winter War:

While Finland, with a tiny population of scarcely 3.5 million, could hardly have threatened the Soviet colossus, it had fought fiercely for independence during the Russian Civil War, conquering Helsinki in April 1918 and dealing the Reds a series of painful blows. The Finnish White Guards — as the Bolsheviks referred to the forces then commanded by the redoubtable Gustaf Mannerheim — had also, Stalin remembered, worked with German troops and collaborated with the British Baltic fleet. Had Mannerheim’s connections with the Germans not been so strong, the British might have lent his Finnish guards more support in the critical days of fall 1919, when Petrograd nearly fell to the Whites. But this was small consolation to Stalin, who mostly remembered the humiliation of losing Finland and Finnish double-dealing with outside powers. The fear that Finland might once again invite in a power hostile to the USSR, whether Britain or Germany, was never far from Stalin’s mind.

When Molotov summoned a Finnish delegation to the Kremlin on October 12th, 1939, Stalin made a personal appearance to heighten the intimidation factor, and he handed the Finns a brutal ultimatum demanding, among other things, “that the frontier between Russia and Finland in the Karelian Isthmus region be moved westward to a point only 20 miles east of Viipuri, and that all existing fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus be destroyed.” Stalin made it clear that this was the price that Finland had to pay to avoid the fate of Poland.

Aggressive and insulting as the Soviet demands on Finland were, Stalin and Molotov fully expected them to be accepted. As the Ukrainian party boss and future general secretary Nikita Khrushchev later recalled, the mood in the Politburo at the time was that “all we had to do was raise our voice a little bit and the Finns would obey. If that didn’t work, we could fire one shot and the Finns would put up their hands and surrender.” Stalin ruled, after all, a heavily armed empire of more than 170 million that had been in a state of near-constant mobilization since early September. The Red Army had already deployed 21,000 modern tanks, while the tiny Finnish Army did not possess an anti-tank gun. The Finnish Air Force had maybe a dozen fighter planes, facing a Red Air armada of 15,000, with 10,362 brand-new warplanes built in 1939 alone. Finnish Army reserves still mostly drilled with wooden rifles dating to the 19th century. By contrast, the Red Army was, in late 1939, the largest in the world, the most mechanized, the most heavily armored, and the most lavishly armed, even if surely not — because of Stalin’s purges — the best led.

[…]

Just past dawn on November 30th, Stalin’s undeclared war against Finland began with a furious artillery barrage on all fronts, followed by the scream of warplanes overhead. The only difference between the bald acts of territorial aggression in Finland and Poland was that the Soviet blitzkrieg was less efficient. Soviet medium bombers — mostly SB-2s cautiously dropping one-ton payloads from heights of 3,000 feet or more — weren’t especially accurate. In Helsinki, Russian bombers failed to knock out a single docking bay, airfield runway, Finnish warplane, or oil tank (although one airport hangar was destroyed). A stray bomb hit the Soviet legation building. According to eyewitnesses, Red fighter pilots strafed Helsinki suburbs as well, “machine-gunning women and children who had fled their houses to the fields.” Similar scenes of horror were repeated in Viipuri (Vyborg), as well as in provincial towns such as Lahti, Enso, and Kotka.

Meretskov’s landward assault on the Karelian Isthmus fared poorly. During the interval between the border incident of November 26th and the Russian onslaught early on November 30th, Mannerheim had wisely evacuated most of the civilian population. A series of clever booby traps were set for the invaders, including “pipe mines” — steel tubes crammed with explosives buried in snowdrifts and set off by hidden trip wires. The most effective defense of all was the Molotov cocktail, first used in Spain but ingeniously updated by the Finns, who would fill liquor bottles with a blend of gasoline or kerosene, tar, and potassium chloride. In fits of derring-do, Finnish soldiers on skis would drop these into the turrets of advancing tanks, ram branches or crowbars into the tank treads, or slice holes in the ice to sink them. Despite boasts in the Russian high command that the campaign would be over in 12 days, by mid-December, most of the Soviet Seventh and Thirteenth Armies were still blundering along short of the Mannerheim Line. On December 17th, in fact, the Thirteenth Army actually went into reverse, retreating after bloody losses in a clash at Taipale. By then, even the tiny Finnish Air Force of old Dutch Fokker fighters had joined the rout, knocking down Soviet bombers — one Finnish ace took out six in four minutes — and doing wonders for the morale of the Finns below. Further north, the Soviet Ninth Army was nearly destroyed in a battle near a burned-out Suomussalmi on December 9th. One Finnish ski sniper, a farmer named Simo Häyhä, personally killed, according to (improbable) legend, more than 500 Russians[*]. Wounded Russians overwhelmed the hospitals of Leningrad. One overworked Soviet surgeon complained in early December that he was dealing with nearly 400 wounded Red Army soldiers every day.

* The story of Simo Häyhä was set to music by Sabaton in their song “White Death” on the Coat of Arms album. Indy Neidell discussed the history behind the music in a Sabaton History video in 2019.

Charger-Loading Lee Enfields: The CLLE MkI* and MkII

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 6 Jan 2020

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In our continuing series on the development of the British Lee Enfield rifles, we are looking at the CLLE conversions today. In 1907 the British adopted a new universal short rifle (the SMLE) that used charger (aka stripper) clips. Previous models of the Lee in British service had to be loaded one round at a time by hand. In order to make use of the hundreds of thousands of “Long Lee” (and Metford) rifles already manufactured, the British instituted a program to update them with charger guides. The began in 1908 and ran to 1914, although the majority were done in 1909 and 1910. In addition to removing the dust cover and fitting the charger guide, the front sight, rear sight, magazine, and volley sights were all updated. The new sights were windage-adjustable on both front and rear, and calibrated for Mk VI ammunition (although many were later updated again and re-re-calibrated for Mk VII ammunition).

These CLLE rifles would serve as second-line rifles in World War One and even through the end of World War Two.

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