Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) by Thomas Lawrence, circa 1815-1816.
Wikimedia Commons.The phrase “duke it out”, meaning “fight”, appears to derive ultimately from a nickname of one of the Great Captains, the Duke of Wellington (1769-1852).
It seems that the Duke had a rather prominent nose, so distinctive, in fact, that his troops often referred to him as “Old Nosey”. So the word “duke” soon became a synonym for “nose” in working class English slang, attested during Wellington’s own lifetime. That, in turn, led to the rise of the threat “bust your duke”, meaning “punch your nose”, and thus to “duke buster” as slang for “fist”, which was soon shortened to “duke”.
By further evolution, the phrase “put up your dukes” developed as an invitation to fight and “duke it out” became slang for “fight”.
While some etymologists apparently do not agree with this derivation, it’s worth noting that there is in London a mini-monument to the ducal proboscis, suggesting how notable it was.
Al Nofi, “Al Nofi’s CIC, Issue 472”, Strategy Page, 2019-06-01.
July 29, 2019
QotD: Put up your dukes!
July 28, 2019
Joan of Arc – Thy Kingdom Come – Extra History – #4
Extra Credits
Published on 27 Jul 2019Join us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon
City after city surrendered to Joan of Arc without a fight. Her mission was complete… or was it?
“Fantasy Fleet” notions for the RCN
I hate to use the term “fantasy fleet” when linking to a Ted Campbell article … he’s far from being an obsessive who loves amassing lists of cool, gosh-wow hardware, as he’s a retired former army officer who actually does know what he’s talking about on military matters. I apply the term because no matter how sensible and practical these suggestions are (and I largely agree with them on those terms), there is no chance the current government or even a Conservative government under the Milk Dud could stand the political heat they’d take for devoting the kind of ongoing investment a fleet renewal and expansion like this would generate:
The Kingston-class Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel (MCDV) HMCS Moncton in Baltimore harbour for Sailabration 2012.
Photo by Acroterion via Wikimedia Commons.
… Canada’s 25 years old Kingston class vessels have a range of up to 5,000 nautical miles and can carry unmanned aerial vehicles, but they are slow and are designed for underwater warfare, being fitted with specialist payloads to look for mines and other things on the seabed … The Royal Canadian Navy has said, in the past, that it needs 25± surface combatants (the Navy uses the term “bottoms” when it means surface ships) and Canada has, now, 12 of the 30-year-old (but still lethal) Halifax class frigates and we also have, right now, 12 very useful little Kingston class ships, too. Canada plans (hopes?) to have 12 of the new Type 26 ships in the future, plus 5 of the very large (6,500+ tons) Harry DeWolf class Arctic patrol ships … so we are going from 24 down to 17?
A Chilean navy boarding team fast-ropes onto the flight deck of RCN Halifax-class frigate HMCS Calgary (FFH 335) during multinational training exercise Fuerzas Aliadas PANAMAX 2009.
US Navy photo via Wikimedia Commons.
My guesstimate is that a proper Canadian Navy needs, in addition to supply/support ships, at least:
- 2 or 3 large (25,000± tons) helicopter carrying “destroyers,” (in fact, small aircraft carriers) perhaps like the modern Japanese Izumo-class multi-purpose “destroyers” (pictured below) to conduct multi-purpose operations, including carrying combat-ready specialized amphibious warfare trained soldiers, on a global basis;
JS Izumo DDH-183
- 8 to 12 Type-26 destroyer-frigates (below) ~ I believe (guess) they will also be named for Canadian provinces, cities or rivers or something;
Type 26 Global Combat Ship
(BAE Systems, via Flickr)- 6 to 10 modern corvettes (a modern Dutch design is pictured below), 1,500-ton to 2,500-ton vessels, with a 5,000± nautical mile range, each able to carry a helicopter or, at least, a large unmanned aerial vehicle;
KRI Diponegoro (pennant number 365) of the Indonesian navy. The Sigma (Ship Integrated Geometrical Modularity Approach) class is a Dutch modular design that can be built in OPV, corvette, or frigate variants. In 2019, ships of this class are in service with Indonesia, Morocco, and Mexico.
Photo by Wim Kosten via Wikimedia Commons.- 6 to 10 special purpose, ocean-going (i.e. with a range measured in thousands, not hundreds of nautical miles) underwater warfare vessels to replace the Kingston-class ships; and
The lead vessel of the Orca-class in the Gulf Islands on officer training in August, 2007. She is not a commissioned naval ship, so does not bear the HMCS designation. Orcas are not generally armed, but the foredeck has been strengthened to allow an M2 12.7mm machine gun to be mounted if necessary.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons.- 8 to 12 armed “training” ships, about 250 tons (about the same as the Finnish Hamina class) to replace the (fairly new) Orca class vessels, which are not warships. These ships would be, primarily, training vessels, for which there is, always, a pressing need but they could, in emergencies, be used for coastal, constabulary patrol and search and rescue duties, too. The important thing is that they would be real warships, in commission, armed about as well as the Harry DeWolf class ships (which would enhance their training value, too) and, therefore, able to “fight.”
FNS Hanko, a Finnish Hamina-class missile boat.
Photo by kallerna via Wikimedia Commons.
In his ideal world (i.e., not the one we’re living in at the moment), that would be the RCN’s combat fleet. Submarines, logistical support vessels, and (lots of) helicopters would also be required, which would further put this shopping list out of consideration for a Canadian peacetime government.
One thing to keep in mind for most of us civilians, is that warships operate in very rough environmental conditions even in peacetime, and require much more in the way of maintenance and service than your car or pleasure boat. This is why, even if you have a dozen ships “in commission”, you’ll likely only have eight of them available for deployment as the others will be in various states of maintenance and repair. For operations far from home, you really need three ships for each one actually deployed on active service, to account for the back-shop work to keep the ships afloat, fully staffed, and fully capable, plus transit time for the ship itself getting to and from the area of operations, and adequate leave and out-of-combat rest and recreation for the crews.
No Deal… Herr Hitler! – WW2 – 048 – July 27 1940
World War Two
Published on 27 Jul 2019Hitler searches for ways to force Britain out of the war, but the British sit safely behind their cliffs, their channel and their Royal Navy. Engaging the navy and invading Britain would require a major air-superiority. As a result, the Germans plan to knock the British out of the skies. This is the Battle of Britain.
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Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
1 week ago (edited)
World War Two is a very complex topic, and even with one or more videos a week, there is a lot of information or context that we don’t get to cover on this channel. That’s why are doing series on the interwar years (1919-1939) called “Between Two Wars” on our TimeGhost History channel. We’re currently in 1929, and we’ll be making generally two thematic episodes for each year of the interwar period. If you want to understand what led up to this massive and destructive conflict, do make sure to check the channel out here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLfMmOriSyPbd5JhHpnj4NgCheers,
Joram
Sea Lion: Why not just invade the UK in 1940?
Military History Visualized
Published on 13 Oct 2017Quite often people remark Hitler should just have finished off the UK before attacking the Soviet Union. Well, there are many problems with that assumption.
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» paypal donation – https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr…Military History Visualized provides a series of short narrative and visual presentations like documentaries based on academic literature or sometimes primary sources. Videos are intended as introduction to military history, but also contain a lot of details for history buffs. Since the aim is to keep the episodes short and comprehensive some details are often cut.
QotD: Anglo-Italian relations, 1922-1940
Orwell’s press card portrait, 1943
The history of British relations with Mussolini illustrated the structural weakness of a capitalist state. Granting that power politics are not moral, to attempt to buy Italy out of the Axis — and clearly this idea underlay British policy from 1934 onwards — was a natural strategic move. But it was not a move which Baldwin, Chamberlain and the rest of them were capable of carrying out. It could only have been done by being so strong that Mussolini would not dare to side with Hitler. This was impossible, because an economy ruled by the profit motive is simply not equal to rearming on a modern scale. Britain only began to arm when the Germans were in Calais. Before that, fairly large sums had, indeed, been voted for armaments, but they slid peaceably into the pockets of the shareholders and the weapons did not appear. Since they had no real intention of curtailing their own privileges, it was inevitable that the British ruling class should carry out every policy half-heartedly and blind themselves to the coming danger. But the moral collapse which this entailed was something new in British politics. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British politicians might be hypocritical, but hypocrisy implies a moral code. It was something new when Tory M.P.s cheered the news that British ships had been bombed by Italian aeroplanes, or when members of the House of Lords lent themselves to organized libel campaigns against the Basque children who had been brought here as refugees.
When one thinks of the lies and betrayals of those years, the cynical abandonment of one ally after another, the imbecile optimism of the Tory press, the flat refusal to believe that the dictators meant war, even when they shouted it from the house-tops, the inability of the moneyed class to see anything wrong whatever in concentration camps, ghettos, massacres and undeclared wars, one is driven to feel that moral decadence played its part as well as mere stupidity. By 1937 or thereabouts it was not possible to be in doubt about the nature of the Fascist régimes. But the lords of property had decided that Fascism was on their side and they were willing to swallow the most stinking evils so long as their property remained secure. In their clumsy way they were playing the game of Machiavelli, of “political realism”, of “anything is right which advances the cause of the Party” — the Party in this case, of course, being the Conservative Party.
All this “Cassius” brings out, but he does shirk its corollary. Throughout his book it is implied that only Tories are immoral. “Yet there is still another England,” he says. “This other England detested Fascism from the day of its birth… this was the England of the Left, the England of Labour.” True, but only part of the truth. The actual behaviour of the Left has been more honourable than its theories. It has fought against Fascism, but its representative thinkers have entered just as deeply as their opponents into the evil world of “realism” and power politics.
“Realism” (it used to be called dishonesty) is part of the general political atmosphere of our time. It is a sign of the weakness of “Cassius”s position that one could compile a quite similar book entitled The Trial of Winston Churchill, or The Trial of Chiang Kai-shek, or even The Trial of Ramsay MacDonald. In each case you would find the leaders of the Left contradicting themselves almost as grossly as the Tory leader quoted by “Cassius”. For the Left has also been willing to shut its eyes to a great deal and to accept some very doubtful allies. We laugh now to hear the Tories abusing Mussolini when they were flattering him five years ago, but who would have foretold in 1927 that the Left would one day take Chiang Kai-shek to its bosom? Who would have foretold just after the General Strike that ten years later Winston Churchill would be the darling of the Daily Worker? In the years 1935-9, when almost any ally against Fascism seemed acceptable, left-wingers found themselves praising Mustapha Kemal and then developing tenderness for Carol of Rumania.
George Orwell, “Who are the War Criminals?”, Tribune, 1943-10-22.
July 26, 2019
“Attero Dominatus” – The Battle of Berlin – Sabaton History 025 [Official]
Sabaton History
Published on 25 Jul 2019The Sabaton song “Attero Dominatus” is about the Soviet advance on Berlin in the last months of World War Two. As the Soviets approach Berlin, two commanders, General Zhukov and General Konev, try their best to be the one to take the centre of the German capital. Meanwhile, thousands of Germans are raped or murdered by the Soviets in retaliation to the atrocities that the Germans committed in the east.
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Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
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Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editing by: Marek KaminskiEastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.
Sources:
Colored portrait of W. Wenck by Ruffneck88
Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation
Photos of Helmuth Weidling from ww2gallery on Flickr© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.
QotD: Preparing for war
A nation that does not prepare for all the forms of war should then renounce the use of war in national policy. A people that does not prepare to fight should then be morally prepared to surrender. To fail to prepare soldiers and citizens for limited, bloody ground action, and then to engage in it, is folly verging on the criminal.
T.R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness, 1963.
July 24, 2019
Sinking Ship Simulator: The Royal Navy’s Damage Repair Instructional Unit
Tom Scott
Published on Sep 7, 2015http://tomscott.com – with many, many thanks to the Royal Navy and everyone at HMS Excellent! http://royalnavy.mod.uk
How do you train sailors to save a sinking ship? Sure, you can teach them the theory, but there’s no replacement for having to hammer softwood wedges into deck and bulkhead splits that are spraying cold, high-pressure water in your face.
At HMS Excellent in Portsmouth sits Hazard, a Royal Navy Damage Repair Instructional Unit (DRIU). Every Navy recruit who’s going out to sea will have to go through something like this — and on a much harder level than we did! But then, they’ll have had months of training and teamwork beforehand…
DIRECTED BY Matt Gray: http://mattg.co.uk – @unnamedculprit – see behind-the-scenes video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwlnb…
WITH:
Paul Curry – @cr3
Melinda Seckington – http://missgeeky.com – @mseckingtonAnd again, with many thanks to all the Navy team who were so generous with their time and effort: http://royalnavy.mod.uk – http://twitter.com/royalnavy
QotD: The failure of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War
Orwell’s press card portrait, 1943
The backbone of the resistance against Franco was the Spanish working class, especially the urban trade union members. In the long run — it is important to remember that it is only in the long run — the working class remains the most reliable enemy of Fascism, simply because the working-class stands to gain most by a decent reconstruction of society. Unlike other classes or categories, it can’t be permanently bribed.
To say this is not to idealize the working class. In the long struggle that has followed the Russian Revolution it is the manual workers who have been defeated, and it is impossible not to feel that it was their own fault. Time after time, in country after country, the organized working-class movements have been crushed by open, illegal violence, and their comrades abroad, linked to them in theoretical solidarity, have simply looked on and done nothing; and underneath this, secret cause of many betrayals, has lain the fact that between white and coloured workers there is not even lip-service to solidarity. Who can believe in the class-conscious international proletariat after the events of the past ten years? To the British working class the massacre of their comrades in Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, or wherever it might be seemed less interesting and less important than yesterday’s football match. Yet this does not alter the fact that the working class will go on struggling against Fascism after the others have caved in. One feature of the Nazi conquest of France was the astonishing defections among the intelligentsia, including some of the left-wing political intelligentsia. The intelligentsia are the people who squeal loudest against Fascism, and yet a respectable proportion of them collapse into defeatism when the pinch comes. They are far-sighted enough to see the odds against them, and moreoever they can be bribed — for it is evident that the Nazis think it worth while to bribe intellectuals. With the working class it is the other way about. Too ignorant to see through the trick that is being played on them, they easily swallow the promises of Fascism, yet sooner or later they always take up the struggle again. They must do so, because in their own bodies they always discover that the promises of Fascism cannot be fulfilled. To win over the working class permanently, the Fascists would have to raise the general standard of living, which they are unable and probably unwilling to do. The struggle of the working class is like the growth of a plant. The plant is blind and stupid, but it knows enough to keep pushing upwards towards the light, and it will do this in the face of endless discouragements. What are the workers struggling for? Simply for the decent life which they are more and more aware is now technically possible. Their consciousness of this aim ebbs and flows. In Spain, for a while, people were acting consciously, moving towards a goal which they wanted to reach and believed they could reach. It accounted for the curiously buoyant feeling that life in Government Spain had during the early months of the war. The common people knew in their bones that the Republic was their friend and Franco was their enemy. They knew that they were in the right, because they were fighting for something which the world owed them and was able to give them.
One has to remember this to see the Spanish war in its true perspective. When one thinks of the cruelty, squalor, and futility of War — and in this particular case of the intrigues, the persecutions, the lies and the misunderstandings — there is always the temptation to say: “One side is as bad as the other. I am neutral”. In practice, however, one cannot be neutral, and there is hardly such a thing as a war in which it makes no difference who wins. Nearly always one stands more or less for progress, the other side more or less for reaction. The hatred which the Spanish Republic excited in millionaires, dukes, cardinals, play-boys, Blimps, and what-not would in itself be enough to show one how the land lay. In essence it was a class war. If it had been won, the cause of the common people everywhere would have been strengthened. It was lost, and the dividend-drawers all over the world rubbed their hands. That was the real issue; all else was froth on its surface.
George Orwell, “Looking back on the Spanish War”, New Road, 1943 (republished in England, Your England and Other Essays, 1953).
July 23, 2019
How Does It Work: Direct Gas Impingement
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 21 May 2019Interested in small arms history? Make sure to pre-order a copy of my book, Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866 – 2016:
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Direct gas impingement is an operating system that has been used only in a few production guns (all of them rifles). It is extremely simple, although perhaps not well suited to adjustability. It is also not the operating system of the AR series of rifles – we will cover those in a separate video.
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July 22, 2019
Joan of Arc – The Maid of Orleans – Extra History – #3
Extra Credits
Published on 20 Jul 2019Join us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon
When Joan met the army of Orleans, they weren’t exactly keen on her idea to just GET ‘EM and go completely offensive — thinking she would have more use as a mascot. But both they, and she, would be in for many surprises…
FAL in the North: The Canadian C1A1
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 19 Jul 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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Canada was the first country to adopt the FAL rifle, purchasing trials rifles from FN within weeks of the formal standardization of the 7.62mm NATO cartridge. Canada acquired production rights to the rifle along with the technical package from FN, and spent 18 months converting the drawings into 1st-angle inch pattern (which would be used by the rest of the Commonwealth nations subsequently). Both a C1 rifle pattern and a C2 LMG pattern were made, although today we are looking at just the C1.
The first production was a run of 20 toolroom prototypes, one of which we have in today’s video. After a few changes were made – most distinctively to the rear sight – full-scale production commenced. Over the following years, a few minor changes were made, and a slightly improved C1A1 pattern adopted. These would service the Canadian military until eventually replaced with the C7 rifles.
Contact:
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July 21, 2019
Good People on Both Sides? – WW2 – 047 – July 20 1940
World War Two
Published on 20 Jul 2019Peace seems to slowly return to the European mainland, but not for long, as the Germans move their airplanes to the French coast to Battle Britain in the skies while they make invasion plans, and the Soviets are entering the Baltics after ‘elections’ invited them to.
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Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
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Post production director:Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
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Map animations: EastoryColorisations by Norman Stewart and Julius Jääskeläinen https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/
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Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
July 19, 2019
“Long Live the King” – Swedish King Karl XII – Sabaton History 024 [Official]
Sabaton History
Published on 18 Jul 2019The Sabaton song “Long Live the King” is about the aftermath of the Battle of Poltava in June 1709. The future of Sweden lay in the hands of the parliament at home while the King was in voluntary exile with the Ottomans. What followed was a dark time in Swedish history where everything was uncertain, with an unexpectedly dark ending.
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Listen to Carolus Rex (where “Long Live the King” is featured):
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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editing by: Marek KaminskiEastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.
Sources:
– Photo of the bullet
– Bairuilong on Wikimedia Commons,
– Swedish National Museum© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.
From the comments:
Sabaton History
2 days ago
THREE MORE NIGHTS! I think that most of you expected this episode to be from the new album that will be released next Friday, but as we all like a little unexpected Sabaton every now and then, we went with the 18th century instead. While we (of course) will continue with these videos, it feels like we have been working towards the 19th of July ever since we started this channel in February this year. Thank you all for being a part of this journey! We mean it when we say that this wouldn’t have been possible without all of you who watch our videos and especially those who support us on Patreon!
