Mark Mains
Published on 16 Apr 2011This stirring music first appeared as “March of the Men of Harlech” in Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards (Edward Jones, London 1784). The song was also used in the movie Zulu (1964). To learn more visit: http://www.rorkesdriftvc.com/myths/my… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_of_H…
July 11, 2018
Men of Harlech
Comments Off on Men of Harlech
July 10, 2018
Mountain Combat In The Vosges – The Battle For Alsace-Lorraine I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 9 Jul 2018The Battle for Alsace-Lorraine in the Vosges was unforgiving and brutal. Both the French and the German troops were fighting in extreme conditions for a extremely symbolic stretch of land.
Comments Off on Mountain Combat In The Vosges – The Battle For Alsace-Lorraine I THE GREAT WAR Special
Operation Husky with the “D-Day Dodgers”
On this day in 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily as their first step toward knocking Italy out of the war. It was the first major allied operation (other than the abortive Operation Jubilee in 1942) in which a major formation of the Canadian Army took part. The 1st Canadian Infantry Division under the command of Major General Guy Simonds was part of General Montgomery‘s Eighth Army, which landed on the southeast coast of the island.
The Canada History Project describes the Canadian participation in Operation Husky:
The men were young, of course, many just 18 to 24 years old. The roads were narrow dirt tracks switchbacking over steep, volcanic mountains. Temperatures hovered around 37 degrees, turning water bottles into hot water bottles, as one soldier put it. Three dry and dusty weeks into the campaign, there was a five-hour downpour, and all the troops relished the chance to shower off the dirt caked to their skin. By this time they were well into the middle of the island where their enemy was the fierce Hermann Goering division of the German army.
For six weeks, from July 10th to August 17th 1943, the Canadians, fighting as an independent unit for the first time, slogged through the interior of Sicily as part of Operation Husky, the first stage of taking back Europe from the Nazis after four years of war. Meanwhile, the Americans skirted the more level western coastline of the island and the British came up the east side, each competing with the other for glory.
American General Patton wrote in a letter, “This is a horse race in which the prestige of the US Army is at stake…we must take Messina before the British.”
That may be the way the generals saw it. For the soldiers, pushing through, village by village, mountaintop by mountaintop, it was no game.
Sicily, a rural mountainous island known for its orange groves and almond orchards, olives and the Mafia, sits strategically in the Mediterranean off the foot of Italy. The Canadian contingent was 25,000 strong. All men and materials were brought in by sea, making it the largest amphibious operation yet, though D-Day, a year later, would be bigger still.
In the first few days the Canadians passed through an area that is now a Unesco World Heritage site. Today tourists come to this southeast corner of Sicily to see the restored baroque architecture. But the young Canadian lads were eyeing the pillboxes, watching for snipers and lookouts. In the early days many Italian soldiers surrendered without too much resistance and the local people gave them grapes and oranges to quench their thirst in the scorching heat.
[…]
Operation Husky did succeed in gaining back the first European soil for the Allies. In the midst of it, Mussolini resigned and soon after Italy surrendered, another goal of the campaign. It started a second front forcing Hitler to back off his aggressive attack on our ally, Russia. And it provided a rehearsal for the larger amphibious landing on the beaches of Normandy, France in June of 1944. As well, it was the first time Canadians had fought as an independent unit. Their young commander was Guy Simonds. 1200 Canadians were wounded in Sicily and 562 died there. 490 of them are buried in the Canadian cemetery at Agira.
For their efforts, the soldiers fighting in Sicily and Italy became known as the “D-Day Dodgers”, a careless epithet supposedly delivered by Lady Astor, but embraced by the soldiers themselves who, with some sarcastic humour, turned it into the song, “We are the D-Day Dodgers, in sunny Italy…”
The Canadian part of the campaign from canadiansoldiers.com:
Sailing secretly at the end of June, the Division took its place on the left flank of General Bernard Montgomery’s famed Eighth Army for the Sicilian landings. The amphibious attack against Pachino peninsula was an unqualified success. The defenders were surprised and overrun with very few Allied casualties, and so began a controversial 38-day campaign. General Simonds’ troops advanced inland under difficulties:
The weather was extremely hot, the roads extremely dusty, and there was little transport; the troops were fresh from a temperate climate and a long voyage in crowded ships; and even though for a time there was scarcely any opposition, mere marching was a very exhausting experience under these conditions.
Continuing over the rocky terrain, they had their first fight with the Germans at Grammichele on 15 July. Three days later they captured Valguarnera. Both were rear-guard actions by a withdrawing enemy, and the first real tests came on the July 20 at Assoro and Leonforte. At the former, the 1st Brigade launched a surprise attack at night against an ancient Norman stronghold on the summit of a lofty peak. They seized and held their place in the face of fierce counter attacks, the records for the 15th Panzer Grenadier Division afterwards revealing generous tributes to the fieldcraft (Indianerkrieg) of the Canadians. Leonforte, an equally difficult situation, was captured by the 2nd Brigade after a bitter fight. These three days cost the Division about 275 casualties.
The advance then turned the east towards Adrano, at the base of Mount Etna. In their path stood Agira, “one of the most imposing of Sicily’s innumerable hill-towns,” and in the neighbouring hills the enemy put up a stubborn resistance. Both the 1st and 2nd Brigades were heavily engaged during the last week of July. The operations were, however, effectively supported by Canadian tanks and by the divisional artillery, reinforced by units of the Royal Artillery. General Simonds also had temporarily under his command the 231st British Infantry Brigade (the Malta Brigade), which threatened German communications from the south. After a bitter struggle Agira was captured on the 28th. Between Agira and Adrano the Hermann Goering Division made a stand at Regalbuto, using tanks as pillboxes in the debris of the town. While part of the 1st Division loosened the enemy’s grip on this town, the 3rd Brigade, temporarily under the command of the British 78th Infantry Division, assisted that formation in the Dittaino Valley.
American encircling operations in the western and northern districts of the island, combined with steady British pressure north of the Catania Plain, forced the enemy out of the defences based on Etna, and the campaign ended when the Allies entered Messina on 16-17 Aug. The 1st Division had performed all of its allotted tasks and had acquired valuable battle experience at a total cost of 2,155 casualties. The measure of the achievement was contained in General Montgomery’s statement: “I now consider you one of my veteran Divisions.”
The Division passed from XXX Corps to XIII Corps on 10 Aug, and moved to a concentration area in the rear on 11-13 Aug, relieved of operational responsibilities. Divisional headquarters moved to Francofonte. During the battle of Sicily they had travelled 120 miles, over largely rough and mountainous terrain.
Comments Off on Operation Husky with the “D-Day Dodgers”
QotD: Epicurean philosophy
Epicurus was born in 341 B.C., only six years after Plato’s death. He was 18 when Alexander the Great died. This event conventionally separates the classical Greece of independent city-states from the Hellenistic period, when Alexander’s generals and their dynasties ruled vast kingdoms in the former Persian Empire. He set up his school in a Garden in the outskirt of Athens. There is very little that survived from his many books. But fortunately, the work of his Roman disciple Lucretius, who lived in the first century B.C., De Rerum Natura, or On the Nature of Things, was rediscovered in the 15th century.
Through this work, Epicureanism had a major influence on the development of science in the following centuries. Epicurus had borrowed and refined the atomic hypothesis of earlier philosophers, and De Rerum Natura was studied and discussed by most scientists and philosophers of the West. The physics of Epicureanism, which explains that worlds spontaneously emerge from the interaction of millions of tiny particles, still looks amazingly modern. It is the only scientific view coming out of the Ancient World that one can still read today and find relevant.
Those influenced by Epicureanism include Hobbes, Mandeville, Hume, Locke, Smith, and many of the British moralists up to the 19th century. They not only discussed the Atomic theory, but Epicurean ethics, his views on the origin of society, on religion, his evolutionary account of life, and other aspects of his philosophy.
To me, Epicureanism is the closest thing to a libertarian philosophy that you can find in Antiquity. Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, were all statists to various degrees, glorified political involvement, and devised political programs for their audiences of rich and well-connected aristocrats. Epicurus focused on the individual search for happiness, counselled not to get involved in politics because of the personal trouble it brings, and thought that politics was irrelevant. His school included women and slaves. He had no political program to offer and one can find no concept of collective virtues or order or justice in his teachings. On the contrary, the search for happiness implied that individuals should be as free as possible to plan their lives. To him, as one of his sayings goes “natural justice is a pledge guaranteeing mutual advantage, to prevent one from harming others and to keep oneself from being harmed.”
Martin Masse, “The Epicurean roots of some classical liberal and Misesian concepts“, speaking at the Austrian Scholars Conference, Auburn Alabama, 2005-03-18.
July 8, 2018
Postal Service – Trench Deployment – US Air Force I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
The Great War
Published on 7 Jul 2018Chair of Wisdom Time!
Comments Off on Postal Service – Trench Deployment – US Air Force I OUT OF THE TRENCHES
Swedish home defence
Last week, Strategy Page took a look at Sweden’s home defence arrangements, including their first surprise mobilization of the Hemvärnet – Nationella skyddsstyrkorna (Home Guard) in over 40 years:
Swedish Home Guard soldiers in Kungsträdgården, Stockholm on 6 August, 2001.
Photo by Peter Fristedt, via Wikimedia Commons.
On June 4th Sweden held its first nationwide, unannounced mobilization of the Home Guard since 1975. This is another effort to prepare Sweden to deal with the renewed Russian threat. The Home Guard consists of reservists and volunteers whose job is local defense and maintenance of order in a national or local emergency. The Home Guard currently has about 22,000 members organized into 70 infantry battalions (each with 2-5 companies) that are assigned to areas where their part-time soldiers work and live. The Home Guard was created in 1940 and now depends on volunteers who are either former full time or reservist personnel who have at least three months of basic training. Twice a year Home Guard personnel two four day long training exercises. These four-day events involve practicing mobilization and doing what they are expected to do in wartime or a major emergency. In addition, most Home Guard companies (about 70 troops each) hold weekend training sessions ten times a year.
The unannounced mobilization of the Home Guard serves to find out how well the Home Guard as a whole would function. The Home Guard is voluntary and members can leave the force any time they choose to. Since 2014 there have been more volunteers and the Home Guard units could be more selective in who they accepted. The Home Guard mobilization is but the latest effort by Sweden to rebuild its traditional defense. The Home Guard take their training and readiness very seriously, especially when there is an obvious threat. In 1940 it was the Germans but after 1945 it was the Russians, at least until 1991. Now the Russians are once more a threat and the government had to agree that the Home Guard required more attention, resources and training.
Yet the Home Guard is more a police and emergency services than a military one. While the guardsmen are armed they are not expected to be a primary defense against invaders. This point was made when the people of Gotland Island recently pointed out that the local Home Guard was not enough to protect areas like Gotland from a surprise attack. The resulted in the government taking action to put a military garrison back on Gotland.
The Home Guard is not the only component of Swedish military readiness being tested. In late 2017 Sweden held its largest military exercises since the 1990s. Some 19,000 full-time soldiers and reservists were involved and the exercise was based on Russia attempting to seize and hold the island of Gotland after a surprise attack. The defense of Gotland has been an issue in Sweden ever since conscription was ended in 2010. Since the 1990s the military budget and number of full-time troops were cut. That led to the elimination of the Gotland garrison, a small force of full-time soldiers to watch for a Russian surprise attack and alert the reserve forces on the island to mobilize. With the end of conscription, it proved impossible to attract enough volunteers from Gotland to sustain the traditional force of military reservists, who would quickly mobilize and confront the invaders.
Comments Off on Swedish home defence
Western Approaches – the bunker from which they won the war
Lindybeige
Published on 17 Jun 2018The command bunker ‘Western Approaches’ is now a museum in Liverpool. I was invited to take a look before it re-opened.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LindybeigeThe Museum’s website: http://www.liverpoolwarmuseum.co.uk
Many thanks to Richard MacDonald for inviting me and showing me around (you saw him plugging the big fuse in).
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
Comments Off on Western Approaches – the bunker from which they won the war
July 6, 2018
The First Modern Battle – The Battle of Hamel I THE GREAT WAR Week 206
The Great War
Published on 5 Jul 2018Meet us at the Tank Museum: http://bit.ly/TankMuseumFanMeeting
The Battle of Hamel is considered as the first modern battle. Masterminded by Australian general John Monash, it included meticulous planning and integrated tanks, artillery, airplanes and infantry into one cohesive strategy.
Comments Off on The First Modern Battle – The Battle of Hamel I THE GREAT WAR Week 206
Funny British Army Recruitment Video
Matsimus
Published on 9 Jun 2018
Some old school British Army recruitment video which was very well made but also just hilarious lol!Hope you enjoy!!
(DISCLAIMER: This video is for entertainment purposes only. The views and opinion come from personal experience or information from public accessible sources.)
Comments Off on Funny British Army Recruitment Video
July 5, 2018
Tales of Cromwell tanks
Lindybeige
Published on 6 Apr 2016War memoirs are filled with amazing anecdotes. Here I relate two, and ramble a bit about British WW2 tank units.
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LindybeigeI am likely to return to this topic – anecdotes from war memoirs. It is a rich vein of stories. These come from Troop Leader by Bill Bellamy, which describes the author’s time commanding a trio of fast Cromwell tanks in World War Two, when fighting the Germans in Holland.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
Comments Off on Tales of Cromwell tanks
July 4, 2018
The War of 1812 on the frontier
Danny Sjursen on what he calls the “Forgotten and Peculiar War of 1812”, specifically the odd situation on the US/Canadian border:
A lithograph based on an E.C. Watmough painting titled “Repulsion of the British at Fort Erie, 15 August 1814.” It depicts an attack that occurred at the U.S.-Canadian border during the War of 1812.
Image via AntiWar.com
“The acquisition of Canada, this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching.” —Thomas Jefferson (1812)
“People speaking the same language, having the same laws, manners and religion, and in all the connections of social intercourse, can never be depended upon as enemies.” —Baron Frederick de Gaugreben, British officer, in 1815
No one seems to know this (or care), but the United States had long coveted Canada. In two sequential wars, the U.S. Army invaded its northern neighbor and intrigued for Canada’s incorporation into the republic deep into the 19th century. Here, on the Canadian front, the conflict most resembled a civil war.
Canada was primarily (though sparsely) populated by two types of people: French Canadians and former American loyalists — refugees from the late Revolutionary War. Some, the “true” loyalists, fled north just after the end of the war for independence. The majority, however, the “late” loyalists, had more recently settled in Upper Canada between 1790 and 1812. Most came because land was cheaper and taxes lower north of the border. Far from being the despotic kingdom of American fantasies, Canada offered a life rather similar to that within the republic. Indeed, this was a war between two of the freest societies on earth. So much for modern political scientists’ notions of a “Democratic Peace Theory” — the belief that two democracies will never engage in war. Britain had a king, certainly, but also had a mixed constitution and one of the world’s more representative political institutions.
In many cases families were divided by the porous American-Canadian border. Loyalties were fluid, and citizens on both sides spoke a common language, practiced a common religion and shared a common culture. Still, if and when an American invasion came, the small body of British regular troops would count on these recent Americans — these “late” loyalists — to rally to the defense of mother Canada.
And came the invasion did. Right at the outset of the war in fact. Though the justification for war was maritime and naval, the conflict opened with a three-pronged American land invasion of Canada. The Americans, for their part, expected the inverse of the British hopes — the “late” loyalists, it was thought, would flock to the American standard and support the invasion. It never happened. Remarkably, a solid base of Canadians fought as militiamen for the British and against the southern invaders. Most, of course, took no side and sought only to be let alone.
It turned out the invading Americans found few friends in Canada and often alienated the locals with their propensity for plundering and military blunder. Though the war raged along the border — primarily near Niagara Falls and Detroit — for nearly three years the American campaign for Canada proved to be an embarrassing fiasco. Defeats piled up, and Canada would emerge from the war firmly in British hands. In the civil war along the border, the Americans were, more often than not, the aggressors and the losers.
[…]
The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, changed nothing. There was no change of borders, and the British said nothing about impressment — the purported casus belli! So just what had those thousands died for?
Certainly it was no American victory that forced the British to the peace table. By 1814 the war had become a debacle. Two consecutive American invasions of Canada had been stymied. Napoleon was defeated in April 1814, and the British finally began sending thousands of regular troops across the Atlantic to teach the impetuous Americans a lesson — even burning Washington, D.C., to the ground! (Though in fairness it should be noted that the Americans had earlier done the same to the Canadian capital at York.) The U.S. coastline was blockaded from Long Island to the Gulf of Mexico; despite a few early single ship victories in 1812, the U.S. Navy was all but finished by 1814; the U.S. Treasury was broke and defaulted (for the first time in the nation’s history) on its loans and debt; and 12 percent of U.S. troops had deserted during the war.
The Americans held few victorious cards by the end of 1814, but Britain was exhausted after two decades of war. Besides, they had never meant to reconquer the U.S. in the first place. A status quo treaty that made no concessions to the Americans and preserved the independence of Canada suited London just fine.
Northern theatre of the War of 1812 (note that Ottawa was not founded until 1826 and shouldn’t appear in this view, and the Niagara River is shown at least 45 degrees off its actual course)
Image via Wikimedia Commons
Comments Off on The War of 1812 on the frontier
Tank Chats #32 Cromwell | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 24 Feb 2017The thirty second in a series of short films about some of the vehicles in our collection, presented by The Tank Museum’s historian David Fletcher MBE. The Second World War, British, Cromwell tank was one of the fastest tanks of the war.
Comments Off on Tank Chats #32 Cromwell | The Tank Museum
July 3, 2018
French North Africa in World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Great War
Published on 2 Jul 2018Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco were all part of French North Africa before and during World War 1. They all contributed in material and men to the war effort and the French colonial soldiers were praised for their bravery.
Comments Off on French North Africa in World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special
The Animals – The House of the Rising Sun
José Antonio
Published on Sep 3, 2010By José Antonio…. Because the original version of this video, has low quality in both audio and video, I took the trouble to improve with better sound, better image quality, better zoom and better edition with the best of intentions, thanks.
En vista de que la versión original de este video, tiene baja calidad tanto en audio como en video, me tomé la molestia de mejorarlo con mejor sonido, mejor calidad de imágen, mejor zoom y mejor edición con la mejor de las intenciones, gracias.
Comments Off on The Animals – The House of the Rising Sun
July 2, 2018
Mark Steyn on 49th Parallel
His annual Canada Day post this year featured a World War 2 British film about Canada intended for Americans:
The film stars, in order of billing, Leslie Howard, Laurence Olivier, Raymond Massey, Anton Walbrook, Eric Portman “and the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams”, which gets an above-the-title credit – as well it should. Vaughan Williams’ score is an integral part of the picture and, if not especially Canadian (save for a very short evocation of Calixa Lavallée’s “O Canada” right at the beginning), accompanies the country’s physical landscape beautifully, particularly in the opening travelogue, mostly shot by Freddie Young leaning out of a plane with a hand-held camera and edited back in England by David Lean. (Lean and Young, of course, subsequently worked together on Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Ryan’s Daughter.) And, if you’re thinking that (with one exception) none of these participants seems terribly Canuck, well, if it’s any consolation, the English also get to play all the Nazis, too. The Canadians are largely relegated to small roles and extras – like the real seamen who play the survivors of the Canadian ship torpedoed in the Gulf of St Lawrence at the opening of the picture. “So,” pronounces the German U-boat commander, “the curtain rises on Canada.”
U-37 decides to flee to Hudson’s Bay to evade the RCAF and RCN patrols looking for it. Six Germans are put ashore to scout for supplies. But, even as they set foot on land, they hear the swoop of planes and look back to see Canadian bombers destroying their submarine. In order to lend verisimilitude to the scene, Michael Powell destroyed a real – or real-ish – sub, built for him in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The RCAF gave him two thousand-pound bombs to make it look good, and he put them on “U-37” and was cunning enough to neglect to tell the actors, lest it made them nervous. The sub was then towed to the Strait of Belle Isle between Labrador and Newfoundland to be blown sky high. That was Powell’s only mistake. Notwithstanding that he named the film after Canada’s southern border, the director’s grip on the country’s eastern border was a little hazier. He had forgotten that Newfoundland was not (yet) in Canada but was a British possession in its own right. So HM Customs impounded “U-37” and Powell had to go directly to the Governor to get it back.
Other than that, he and Pressburger didn’t put a foot wrong. The location footage was impressive in its day, and still striking in ours; Pressburger’s script is subtle and humane; and the episodic structure allows for plenty of variety. Following the loss of U-37, the six Germans are now beached in northern Canada and have to figure out a way to get to safe, neutral America. They make their way to a Hudson’s Bay trading post, where the factor (played by the great Scots actor Finlay Currie) is welcoming back an old friend who’s spent the last eleven months hunting in the wilds and so has no idea Canada is at war. Johnny is a French-Canadian trapper played by – who else? – Laurence Olivier. We first meet him in the bath tub singing “Alouette”, and, as often with Olivier, the attention to detail on the accent is so good that it becomes oddly intrusive: “Diss is one big country, but verra few pipple. Ever-wan know ever-body. You can’t make goosestep trew it widdout da police fine out,” he tells the senior German officer (Eric Portman).
The window shot Michael Powell uses to get the Nazis into the factor’s small cabin is cool and clinical and all the more chilling for it. The six Germans enter and announce that they’re now in control. When you’ve just come in off the tundra after eleven months and you want to have a soak in the tub and unwind, the Master Race showing up is a bit of a downer. “Okay, you are German. Why yell about it? I am Canadian,” says the Frenchie. “He is Canadian” – he points to the Scots factor – “and he is Canadian” – and to the smiling eskimo lad: French, English and Inuit all with the same unhyphenated label “Canadian”. That’s a lot simpler than the fractious diversity at Parliament Hill earlier today.
The Nazi lieutenant attempts to beguile his captives with a copy of Mein Kampf, but Trapper Johnny isn’t interested. “What’s the matter with Negroes?” he asks.
“They’re semi-apes,” explains the German. “One step above the Jews.” This is something of a remote concern at a Hudson’s Bay trading post. The Nazis seems as enraged by their prisoners’ geniality as by anything else. As they depart, one tears a portrait of the King and Queen off the wall and carves a swastika into the space.
Pressburger’s plot follows as you’d expect: There are six Germans, and soon there will be five, and then four, three, two… From Hudson’s Bay, they commandeer a seaplane that crashes near a Hutterite community in Manitoba, where a young pre-Mary Poppins Glynis Johns is sweetly trusting of them. They make their way to Indian Day in Banff National Park, for a rather Hitchcockian scene, and thence to a camp in the Rockies, where an arty pacifist (Leslie Howard) is discoursing on Thomas Mann. The tone is set by Olivier’s Frenchie coming in from the bush: He may not be interested in war, and nor is Glynis Johns or Leslie Howard. But war is interested in them. This was the purpose of the film, as the British Ministry of Information saw it: That’s why they wanted it set in Canada, rather than in, say, England, across the Channel from Occupied Europe. These trappers, Hutterites, and pacifists didn’t come looking for trouble. But, even five thousand miles from the fighting, trouble came looking for them – in big, empty, peaceable Canada. And the implicit message to America was: In the end, it will come for you, too. There is no 49th Parallel. Whichever side of it you’re on, it’s the same side.
Comments Off on Mark Steyn on 49th Parallel
