World War Two
Published 29 Nov 2025This episode, Rommel sets up a “Cannae, modern style” at Mechili, a three-pronged encirclement with Wechmar pressing from the west, Schwerin/Ariete and MG 8 driving up from the south, and Olbrich’s panzers meant to close the center. A Ghibli, fuel chaos and delays upset the timing, but Ponath cuts the Derna road and captures Generals Neame and O’Connor. And after failed breakout attempts against Fabris, the Bersaglieri and Streich, Gambier-Parry surrenders about 1,700 men and Mechili falls, opening the road to Tobruk.
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November 30, 2025
North Africa Ep. 10: Rommel’s Desert Cannae – The Trap at Mechili
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Canada’s growing Islamist problem
At Juno News, Joe Adam George points to the problems Britain is having with their well-established Muslim extremists and says Canada has exactly the same issues here:
When 35-year-old Jihad al-Shamie terrorized a Manchester synagogue last month on Yom Kippur pledging allegiance to ISIS, few were shocked by what investigators later uncovered. He attended a Salafi-inspired mosque where extremist rhetoric was routine. His father had praised Hamas’s October 7 attackers as “Allah’s men on earth”. Years of indoctrination taught him that violence was virtue, resistance was glory, and terror was faith.
What unfolded in Manchester is a warning to Canada, where similar currents of Islamist radicalism have been manifestly gathering strength. Across Canadian cities, extremist narratives are taking root among young people through community networks, activist circles, and online echo chambers.
A prominent Shia mosque in Windsor, Ontario, recently held a memorial service for slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah — for the second year running — where youths eulogised the notorious terrorist as a “hero” and “martyr”. The Toronto Metropolitan University’s arts faculty funded a research paper which argues that Canada’s designation of Islamist groups as terrorist organizations is deeply flawed because of “systemic Islamophobia” and racism. Such episodes do not merely glorify violence; they sanctify terrorism and rebrand militancy as a necessity.
Earlier this year, Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, warned it was “increasingly concerned” about the threat of ISIS-inspired attacks. That concern is well-founded. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police reported a staggering 488 per cent rise in terrorism-related charges between April 2023 and March 2024, much of it driven by ISIS-motivated youth radicalisation. In the same period, antisemitic incidents surged by more than 670 per cent. An ISIS-inspired teenager was arrested in Montreal in August for terrorism offences. These are not isolated events but symptoms of a cultural shift — where extremism masquerades as activism and hate is sold as justice.
Since the breakout of the Israel-Hamas war, unrestrained radicalisation has seeped into mosques, schools, charities, and universities — often protected by Canada’s own liberal frameworks. Islamist networks have mastered the art of exploiting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to propagate radical ideologies while deflecting scrutiny. Wrapped in the language of “human rights” and “anti-racism”, they advance intolerance behind a façade of moral virtue.
As former FBI agent and counter-terrorism expert Lara Burns noted, it’s a tactic that echoes the Muslim Brotherhood’s “sabotage strategy” in North America — infiltrating institutions to steer public debate and soften attitudes toward Islamist causes.
Campaigns to institutionalize so-called “anti-Palestinian racism” (APR) is turning Canada’s classrooms and government offices into laboratories for grievance politics. Marketed as anti-discrimination, APR in reality brands any criticism of Palestinian militancy as racism, giving extremists a moral shield and silencing dissent. Even Canada’s Islamophobia czar, Amira Elghawaby, has been accused of abusing her taxpayer-funded post to conjure up Islamophobia and APR where none existed. During a visit to London in June, she reportedly met officials shaping the UK’s own Islamophobia legislation — a troubling sign of cross-pollination between partisan ideologues.
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November 28, 2025
CZ247: Experimental Swivel-Action SMG
Forgotten Weapons
Published 16 Jul 2025The CZ247 was developed for Czechoslovakia’s post-war submachine gun trials, where it was pitted against the ZB47. It was a simple blowback 9x19mm SMG with a number of interesting elements, most notably the ability to fire with the magazine either vertical or horizontal. In theory, this made the gun more compact for use in a jungle sort of environment (vertical) or to allow a shooter to get much lower to the ground when shooting prone (horizontal). In practice, it really isn’t very important, and requires a bit of extra complexity in the gun’s design. The CZ247 also has a neat safety mechanism for preventing unintended firing and a stripper clip guide built into the stock (both of which would be incorporated in the vz.48 SMG that was eventually adopted).
When the CZ247 failed to win the military trials, CZ got government permission to sell it on the export market. A contract for 10,000 guns was quickly obtained from Egypt, but before the guns could be shipped the export permission was cancelled by the government. Czechoslovakia opted to support Israel in its declaration of independence in 1948, and the government decided to not send weapons to Egypt which might be used against Israel. This left the guns sitting in CZ warehouses, and the basically all stayed there for a few decades. Eventually most were sold to Nigeria in 1967 and Ethiopian in 1977 — and as a result they show up occasionally in African and Middle Eastern conflict zones to this day.
Thanks to CZ for giving me the opportunity to take this example out to film and also to shoot for you!
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QotD: Life is not a race to some arbitrary “finish line”
On a friend’s Facebook page I left the following comment about the claim of the writer Abi Wilkinson (in the Guardian!) that inheritance should be confiscated by government to fund the UK’s welfare state. What could possibly go wrong?
I wrote:
The hostility to inheritance also comes from a mistaken sense of fairness. As Robert Nozick argued in Anarchy, State and Utopia (I quote from memory), people wrongly think life resembles an athletics race, where the racers compete to hit the finishing line. As a result, those “lucky” athletes endowed by nature/god whatever with stronger muscles etc must be handicapped by having weights in their shoes, for example. Just as a child of rich parents must be deliberately held back to give poor kids a more “fair” chance of winning. But as Nozick said, life isn’t like that. It is about people exchanging goods, services and ideas with one another. There’s no fixed end-point to which we are all racing.
Also, the idea that there is some “prize” that humans compete for implies that someone or some entity has created that “prize” in the first place. But that’s smuggling in a sort of communitarian assumption into the actions of individuals. In an open society, the prizes on offer are varied and multiply constantly.
I should add that the second section of Nozick’s renowned book dissects and ultimately rejects forced redistribution for egalitarian or other forms of “patterned” notions of justice, and he robustly defends what he calls an “entitlement” concept of justice.
One of the approaches that the late Prof. Nozick used was the thought experiment, such as the example referenced above about a fictitious athletics race in which the entrants are hampered/favoured to make the race more “even”, and then assuming that society in general should be like this. A race, held by people who know the rules and seek to abide by them, is not like an open society. “Open” is the key word here: there is no single end to which persons are heading, such as winning the race.
And yet a lot of the metaphors one comes across around discussions around equality, including equality of opportunity as well as outcome, seem to borrow, perhaps unwittingly, from this “race competition” worldview. To give another example, I remember reading some months ago about a university professor (Warwick) who suggested that when parents read stories to their children, this is a form of privilege. This also plays to the idea that life has a fixed end-measure of success, so that anyone giving a value to someone else is giving the latter an unfair “head start” on someone else. It would require a State to exercise totalitarian control of our actions from the moment we wake up to go to sleep lest our actions unfairly advantage/hamper someone in the “race” they are considered, by this worldview, to be on. (It also, by the way, shows that today’s Higher Ed. is full of certifiable fools and worse.)
Johnathan Pearce, “The assault on inheritance and the assumptions that drive it”, Samizdata, 2025-08-21.
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November 27, 2025
Operation Catapult: The Royal Navy’s day of infamy?
Lindybeige
Published 28 May 2025Operation Catapult took place on July 3rd 1940 at Mers El Kebir on the Algerian coast. It remains a point of controversy in the relations between the British and the French. Who was to blame for the sinking of the French ships and deaths of French sailors? You be the judge.
Erratum: Acting Rear Admiral Onslow, captain of the aircraft carrier Hermes, was not “Rodney” Onslow as I named him, but Richard Francis John Onslow, M.V.O., D.S.C. (29 March, 1896 – 9 April, 1942).
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QotD: Honor, homage, and fealty in Game of Thrones
To refer to a distinction introduced in Wayne Lee’s talk [here] – Tywin cannot rely on force (do it because I will kill you if you don’t), he has to use power (do it because you think you ought). Because the apparatus of the state here is very limited, that power is largely generated through personal relationships – you ought to fight for your liege because you have a personal relationship with him. You see him fairly often, you swore loyalty to him (in person!!), he (or his ancestors) have helped resolve your problems in the past and most importantly, because he has kept faith with you in the past.
Which is a way of saying that this system runs on trust and reputation, and that runs both ways. Even as Tywin watches his vassals for signs of disloyalty, his vassals are watching him. Is he true to his word? Can I trust him? Because if the answer is no – I best start hedging my bets. And that bet-hedging is going to come in ways Tywin does not want – I might refuse to come out and fight, or redirect my efforts to fortifying my own holdings, or even switch over to another liege. And in the very early seasons, key characters – most notably Tywin and Tyrion – know this and act accordingly. Tywin talks a good game about lions and sheep, but when it comes down to it, he knows his reputation matters – what the sheep say about the lion matters a great deal, it turns out. Robb Stark’s failure to handle the Karstarks, Tullys and Freys is his eventual undoing. Tyrion berates Cersei on returning to King’s Landing for her actions which might call the Lannister reputation into question (“that bit of theatre will haunt our family for a generation”.)
What is unusual here is how frequently key characters deviate from the norms these societies need to function – Westerosi nobles are stunningly treacherous for people who rely on systems based in trust for survival. In a system which runs on trust and reputation, elites tend to value trust and reputation. They produce literature extolling it (as, indeed, do most “mirrors for princes” – guidebooks on how to be a good ruler – from the Middle Ages do; see, for instance, Book 3 of Dhouda’s Liber Manualis (9th cent.), which goes on and on about trustworthiness) and refine its practice. The sort of eye-popping treachery so common in Game of Thrones was far rarer in the actual historical Middle Ages for exactly the reason Game of Thrones would lead you to believe: it is almost always self-defeating.
The problem here comes in the later seasons and how they re-contextualize all of this concern. That problem has a name, and it is Cersei. Cersei breaks all of these rules. Even early on, she has her soldiers (who recall – are not paid mercenaries, but likely vassals of her house who can very much take their skills elsewhere if they don’t like their current employer) demonstrate her own capricious untrustworthiness on Lord Baelish (she has also, I will note, mistaken violence for power). She humiliates Barriston Selmy in court, a spectacle her own future vassals might have remembered. She incinerated her own family – by blood and marriage – along with her erstwhile allies. Cersei is endlessly treacherous, often foolishly and obviously so, and yet …
And yet it doesn’t matter. The Lannister bannermen in the penultimate episode mount the walls to fight a doomed battle for her anyway. Not only is that behavior inexplicable, it hardly seems possible. Who, after all, is raising and leading these men? Who is coordinating supplies and grain shipments to the capital? Remember, the reason for this distributed system of political leadership is that the central state does not have the administrative apparatus to raise armies or feed cities on its own – it has to outsource that to vassals. Vassals that Cersei has murdered or alienated, almost to a man. Cersei is defeated because dragons are unstoppable monsters, but she should have been defeated because she would have simply been incapable of raising an army at all.
Bret Devereaux, “New Acquisitions: How It Wasn’t: Game of Thrones and the Middle Ages, Part III”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2019-06-12.
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November 26, 2025
The RCAF needs either F-35s or Gripens … not both
Although the Trump provocations are a unique situation for the Royal Canadian Air Force to find itself dealing with, the long-delayed decision on what the replacement for our current CF-18 fleet can’t be realistically put off for much longer. The government has committed to paying for the first 16 aircraft of an 88-plane order, but many pundits are crying out for the government to cancel the remaining portion of the order and instead purchase different aircraft … the leading contender being the Swedish Gripen. This might be the worst of all worlds for the RCAF, in needing to support two different airframes with zero parts compatibility. This two-fleet “solution” would make life much more difficult for RCAF training and logistics, but it’d be a performative eLbOwS uP to Trump, so there’s a strong chance it’ll happen despite military and economic reality. Bryan Moir makes the argument for the Gripen on his Substack:
Mark Carney loves the big phrases. “Build Canada strong.” “Rewire the economy.” “Generational investments.”
It’s good branding. But slogans don’t build nations — decisions do. And right now, one decision matters more than the rest:
Will Canada assemble the Saab Gripen fighter on Canadian soil — or will we lock ourselves into permanent military dependence through the F-35?
Let’s start with the truth no one in Ottawa wants to say out loud.
The F-35 is a 56% aircraft in a 100% environment.
The F-35 fleet’s mission-capable rate sits at 55–56%. That means a country buying 16 aircraft can expect maybe eight airborne on a good day. Eight jets to defend the Northwest Passage, the Arctic archipelago, and a coastline longer than Russia’s.
This isn’t speculation; it’s physics, logistics, and accounting.
Meanwhile, the United States fields 54 F-35s at Eielson AFB in Alaska — backed by billions in supporting infrastructure: software hubs, spares depots, rapid part cycling, and multiple layers of maintenance and training.
They can sustain the F-35 in the Arctic.
Canada cannot.
And pretending that we can — or worse, pretending that it doesn’t matter — is not national defence. It’s denial.
Gripen was designed for the world Canada actually lives in.
Gripen’s core design features are the ones Canada pretends the F-35 also has:
- Cold-weather resilience
- Short runway and road-base operations
- Minimal crew requirements
- Quick turnarounds
- Low maintenance footprint
- Sovereign sustainment
Gripen isn’t just compatible with Canada.
It was built for countries whose geography forces them to be independent.
November 25, 2025
Roller Delay in France: The H&K 33F (Trials & Export Models)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 14 Jul 2025When France was looking to replace the MAS 49/56 rifle for military service in the 1970s, it tested all of the major rifle options available. These included the Colt M16, FN CAL, and HK33. The HK required some modification to meet French military requirements, specifically the capability to launch rifle grenades. The model 33F was developed specifically to meet these requirements — first as a modified standard HK33, and later as a factory production run. The modifications made include a reinforced magazine well, 4-position fire control gourd (including 3-round burst), a reinforced stock attachment, grenade range rings on the barrel, and a mounting bracket for a rifle grenade sight.
Apparently the HK33F performed very well in trials, but it was ultimately deemed politically unacceptable to adopt a German rifle for the French Army (a policy which has changed now, 50 years later …). Instead, the domestic FAMAS was chosen, along with the SIG-Manurhin 540 purchased in limited numbers for the Foreign Legion.
A second type of 33F came about from the program, however. Berlin police wanted HK33 rifles, but treaty prohibited West German arms from entering Berlin in East Germany. The loophole found was to send the parts to MAS in France, where they were assembled and marked HK33F, thus making them French origin gun which could be sent to Berlin. These rifles had none of the French grenade launching adaptations, and were completely standard HK33s except for the use of heavy barrels. MAS eventually added the G3, HK33, and MP5 to its export catalog in the late 1970s and sold quantities to a number of small countries in the French sphere of influence (including Haiti, Burkina Faso, Lebanon, and others).
Many thanks to the IRCGN (Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) for allowing me access to film these rather rare HK variants for you!
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QotD: British Socialism in the 1930s
George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)
November 24, 2025
Algeria: France’s War It Refused to Name – W2W 054
TimeGhost History
Published 23 Nov 2025This episode tracks how the doctrine “Algeria is France” — departments, settler power, and forced assimilation — breeds dispossession, mass violence, and a new Algerian nationalism: from conquest and the Sétif massacres to the FLN’s launch in 1954 and Philippeville in 1955. As Paris doubles its forces and passes Special Powers, Suez intertwines with the war, bombings in Algiers begin, and Lacoste hands police powers to General Massu — opening the Battle of Algiers and a system of torture.
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What is Spotted Dick?
Boiled pudding with plenty of currants and a simple butter and brown sugar sauce
City/Region: England
Time Period: 1854While the name “spotted dick” makes us giggle today, its likely origins are just an amusing circumstance of language evolution. The Old English word for dough is dāg (sounds very similar to dog), which probably led to a version of the word that sounds like dick. Funnily enough, another name for spotted dick is spotted dog. So in all likelihood, the name is a holdover from Old English meaning spotted dough.
Whatever you call it, this boiled pudding is really good. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, with an almost crumbly texture and is very moist. The butter and brown sugar sauce isn’t necessary for it to be tasty, but it’s so easy and delicious that I highly recommend making it.
Spotted Dick.
Put three-quarters of a pound of flour into a basin, half a pound of beef suet, half ditto of currants, two ounces of sugar, a little cinnamon, mix with two eggs and two gills of milk; boil in either mould or cloth for one hour and a half; serve with melted butter, and a little sugar over.
— A Shilling Cookery for the People by Alexis Soyer, 1854
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November 23, 2025
North Africa Ep. 9: Rommel tightens the Noose around Cyrenaica
World War Two
Published 22 Nov 2025April 1941, North Africa. The British forward line at Mersa Brega has collapsed, 2nd Armoured Division is in retreat, and Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps is on the move. What was supposed to be a cautious blocking force has turned into a fast-moving desert offensive threatening Benghazi, Mechili, and all of Cyrenaica.
In this episode of our WW2 in Real Time – North Africa miniseries, we follow:
- Rommel as he ignores Hitler’s orders and pushes east after Mersa Brega
- The chaotic British retreat and fuel-starved tanks abandoning the desert
- The fall of Benghazi without a fight
- Wavell’s misjudgements and late reactions from Middle East Command
- The race for Mechili, a vital crossroads and supply dump
- The brutal reality of desert logistics – where sand and distance destroy more vehicles than enemy shells
While Rommel drives his reconnaissance units toward Benghazi and Mechili, British commanders try to trade ground for time and avoid encirclement. At the same time, Italian commanders warn Rommel about overstretch, and German divisional leaders complain about fuel and breakdowns – warnings he largely ignores.
By the end of this week in 1941, the Desert Fox is deep inside Cyrenaica, the British are burning their own supply dumps, and both sides are racing for the next key position. A clash at Mechili is imminent – and so is a showdown at the Er Regima pass with the “Devil’s Own” Australians waiting in ambush.
This is Episode 9 of our North Africa 1941 miniseries – part of our larger effort to cover WW2 week by week, in real time.
If you want to support this work and get deeper into the war in the desert and beyond, join the TimeGhost Army at timeghost.tv or patreon.com.
Excelsior!
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Battle for the Mediterranean, 1940
Real Time History
Published 4 Jul 2025In the summer of 1940, the British Empire faces German attacks against the home islands a new Italian adversary in the Mediterranean Sea, the lifeline to its colonies around the globe. In a series of campaigns the British beat back the Italians and eliminate parts of the French fleet. But the service of its overseas subjects won’t come for free.
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November 22, 2025
“Whig history”
If you’ve read any history books written before the Second World War (aside from explitly Marxist interpretations), you’ll probably recognize the worldview which, subtly or overtly, informed the stories being told (and those not mentioned). On her Substack, Mary Catelli discusses “the Whig interpretation of history”:
Among the many perils of viewpoint that lurk in your path when you read history, one of the nastiest is the Whig Interpretation of History, and its variants, and other teleological views.
The original interpretation, popular in British history writing of the 19th century, was that all of history had been aiming for the wonderfully wonderful wonder that was 19th century Britain. And if it was not quite so smooth as a train ride gliding over well-laid tracks, it was unnecessary to point out minor details.
The most disastrous effect, for the reader, is that the things of the past are described for their presumed effect on the progress toward that aim. They were not described for their actual effect on the era, or how they appeared to the people of that era (possibly more important for the fiction writer), which is what a reader using them for that era needs. Down to and including excluding vital details as unimportant.
(Obviously, “development of what they regard as progress” books are more or less resistant to this, though they can press some very odd things into the service of their thesis, and sandpaper off quite a bit of things they deem anomalies. It is when it colors works about something else — or nominally about something else — that the peril really arises.)
Plus of course any coloring the viewpoint gives them in regarding the people of the era as stepping stones toward the ideal future. In particular, the heroes and villains are assigned not for the moral character of their deeds but whether they sped history along the right path. Frequently enough, any openly and clearly stated motives by the historical figures will be breezed over for the “real” motives according to the historian’s agenda. Some quote the primary source and not even apparently noticing that it contradicts the agenda before writing as if the historical figures’ intentions matched the agenda.
H. G. Wells, in The Outline of History, gets all starry-eyed about any attempt, or success, at union between countries because he’s looking forward to the beneficent World State, regardless of how the union was imposed, and what its consequences were, and again looking with a jaundiced eye on any division regardless of how justified.
It would be easier if the issue were limited to the historians of that school, but, of course, anyone who regards history in light of a progress toward the wonderful present — or future — will have the same issues. World War I hit the original Whig interpretation quite hard, but the Marxist interpretation kept roaring along, and is not quite dead yet.
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Why did the US Enter WW1?
The Great War
Published 11 Jul 2025In early 1917, the United States was still neutral in the First World War. Meanwhile, German leaders were getting desperate — if they couldn’t find a way to break the war of attrition on the Western Front, the Allies would probably defeat them. The result was multiple gambles that staked everything on a quick victory with the risk of drawing the US into the war.
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