Quotulatiousness

September 20, 2020

Our World 100 Years Ago – September 1920 I THE GREAT WAR

Filed under: Africa, Britain, Europe, France, History, Japan, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The Great War
Published 19 Sep 2020

Let’s take a look at our world 100 years ago, in September 1920.

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»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (https://www.patreon.com/Zalezsky)
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2020

September 11, 2020

Ecuadorian-Peruvian War: The War That Had Nothing to do with World War Two – WW2 Special

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

World War Two
Published 10 Sep 2020

While the Second World War grows ever more destructive, some nations take advantage of the global chaos to settle old disputes. In Peru and Ecuador, long standing territorial disputes turn violent.

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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: Indy Neidell
Written by: Francis van Berkel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Marlon William Londono and Lewis Braithwaite
Edited by: Mikołaj Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)

Colorizations by:
Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations, https://www.instagram.com/blaucolorizations
Mikolaj Uchman

Sources:
David Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries
ecured.cu
From the Noun Project: Artillery by Creative Mania, engineer by Eucalyp, company soldiers by Andrei Yushchenko, Horse by RIZCA

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Rannar Sillard – “March Of The Brave 4”
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”
Fabien Tell – “Last Point of Safe Return”
Reynard Seidel – “Deflection”
Philip Ayers – “Trapped in a Maze”
Johannes Bornlof – “Deviation In Time”

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

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

August 23, 2020

QotD: Herbert Hoover and the American tourists

Filed under: Britain, France, Government, History, Quotations, USA, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Count up the victims of World War I, and American tourists will be pretty far down the list. But victims they were. When the conflict broke out, thousands of Americans were overseas visiting the cathedrals of Florence or the museums of London. They woke up one morning to find the ships that were supposed to take them back had been conscripted into the war effort, or refused to sail for fear of enemy fire. The banks that were supposed to cash their travelers’ checks were panicking, or devoting all their funds to the war effort, or dealing with a million other things. The hotels that were supposed to house them were closed indefinitely, their employees rushing to enlist out of patriotic fervor. And so thousands of frantic Americans, stuck in a foreign continent with no money and nowhere to stay, showed up at the door of the US Embassy in London and said – help!

The US Consulate in London didn’t know how to solve these problems either. But Herbert Hoover, still high on his decision to pivot to philanthropy and public service, calls them up and asks if he can help. They say yes, definitely. Hoover gets in touch with his rich friends, passes around the collection plate, and organizes a Committee For The Assistance Of American Travelers. Then he gets to work, the way only he can:

    Within 24 hours, Hoover’s committee had its own stationery, and within forty-eight it was operating a booth in the ballroom of the Savoy Hotel as well as three other London locations. Through his business connections, Hoover managed to bypass restrictions on telegraph service and open a transatlantic line to allow Americans to wire money to stranded friends and relatives. In a city suddenly flooded with refugees, he reserved for American travelers some two thousand rooms in hotels or boardinghouses. He issued a press release proclaiming that his Residents’ Committee was assuming charge of all American relief work in the city, and that in doing so it had the blessings of its honorary chairman, Walter Hines Page, the US ambassador to London.

… which is totally false. Hoover is starting to display a pattern that will stick with him his whole life – that of crushing competing charities. He begins a lobbying effort to get the US Embassy to ban all non-Hoover relief work, focusing on the inefficiency of having multiple groups working on the same problem. When the US Assistant Secretary Of War arrives in London to coordinate a response, he is met on the dock by Hoover employees, who demand he consult with Hoover before interfering in the US tourist issue. Eventually the Embassy, equally exasperated by Hoover’s pestering and impressed with his results, agrees to give him official control of the relief effort.

After two months of work, Hoover and his Committee have repatriated all 120,000 US tourists, supporting them in style until it could find them boat tickets. All of its loans and operating costs have been repaid by grateful tourists, and its budget is in the black. The rescued travelers are universal in their praise for Hoover, partly because Hoover has threatened to ruin any of them who get too critical:

    Other complainants were received with less patience, including a hotheaded professor of history from the University of Michigan, who wrote to accuse the Residents’ Committee of mistreatment. Hoover refuted his charges indignantly and comprehensively, copying his response to the president of the university and its board of regents. After a meeting with his employer, the professor returned Hoover an abject retraction and apology.

Scott Alexander, “Book Review: Hoover”, Slate Star Codex, 2020-03-17.

August 21, 2020

Geography works against CANZUK ever happening

Filed under: Australia, Britain, Cancon, Economics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Ted Campbell is a big fan of the CANZUK scheme (Canada-Australia-New Zealand-United Kingdom) to create an “anglosphere” power alongside the current economic big-hitters on the world stage like the United States, China and the European Union. I agree it has historical, nostalgic appeal, but as Aris Roussinos points out, geography is a big stumbling block to it ever being much more than an idea:

Since losing the empire, Britain has notoriously struggled to find a role on the world stage. Initial attempts to piggyback on the power of our successor as global hegemon, the United States, by acting as a guiding force — a Greece to America’s Rome, in Harold Macmillan’s phrase — faltered due to the total absence of interest ever shown in this arrangement by any American administration.

The subsequent attempt to remould Britain as a European power acting in concert with its continental neighbours through the European Union was an unhappy marriage, and has ended in a rancorous divorce whose final settlement is still to be determined. Adrift on the world stage, we are in need of good ideas.

Instead, we are offered CANZUK, a reheated Edwardian fantasy of a globe-spanning Anglosphere acting as a world power which excites the enthusiasm of a small coterie of neoliberal and neoconservative ideologues, if no one else.

In a recent piece for the Wall Street Journal, the historian and Churchill biographer Andrew Roberts argued that the CANZUK nations — Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK — ought to establish “some form of federation among them” as a “second Anglospheric superpower” combining “free trade, free movement of people, a mutual defense organization and combined military capabilities” , which would “create a new global superpower and ally of the U.S., the great anchor of the Anglosphere”.

One cannot fault Roberts for the grandeur of his vision, even if the details of how this would actually work are left to others to fill in. Instead, we are reassured, this would not be a centralising project like the hated EU; rather, “its program for a loose confederal state linking the Westminster democracies would be clearly enunciated right from the start.” Already, we see the harsh hand of reality ready to crush this initially appealing vision. On the one hand, CANZUK is a globe-spanning superpower ready to be born; on the other, it is merely a loose grouping of separate national governments, which would, like all national governments, act according to their own interests above all.

By totting up the different GDP figures of the various CANZUK nations, Roberts claims that his proposed Empire 2.0 “would have a combined GDP of more than $6 trillion, placing it behind only the U.S., China and the EU,” while “with a combined defense expenditure of over $100 billion, it would also be able to punch above its weight”.

Yet the flaws of this argument are obvious. As other critics have noted, only a minuscule proportion of the CANZUK nations’ trade is with each other, save New Zealand, an economic satellite of Australia. Australia is a great East Asian trading power, and will remain so. Canada is enmeshed in the greater North American trading sphere, as are we with Europe, whatever Brexiteers may wish. As always, the simple matter of geography trumps the affective bonds between far-flung kith and kin, whatever their emotional appeal.

August 16, 2020

Greco-Turkish War – Treaty of Sèvres I THE GREAT WAR 1920

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, Greece, History, Italy, Military, Russia, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The Great War
Published 15 Aug 2020

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While the Greco-Turkish War was still raging, the last of the peace treaties between the Allies and the Central Powers was finalized in Paris. But the Turkish Nationalist Movement under Mustafa Kemal would not accept the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres – even though the Ottoman government had signed it.

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» SOURCES
Halide Edib Adivar, The Turkish Ordeal: Being the Further Memoirs of Halidé Edib, (Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2012)

John Darwin, Britain, Egypt and the Middle East, (London: Macmillan Press, 1981)

M.L. Dockrill and J. D. Goold, Peace Without Promise: Britain and the Peace Conferences, 1919-1923, (Connecticut: Hamden, 1981)

T G Fraser, Andrew Mango and Robert McNamara, The Makers of the Modern Middle East, (London: Gingko Library, 2015)

Phillip S Jowett, “Armies of the Greek-Turkish War: 1919-1922”, Men at Arms, no 501, (2015)

Michael Llewellyn Smith, Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922, (London: Allen Lane, 1973)

Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, (London: Macmillan, 2019)

A.E. Montgomery, “The Making of the Treaty of Sèvres of 10 August 1920”, The Historical Journal Vol. 15, No. 4 (December, 1972)

New York Times, “Turk Nationalists Capture Beicos” (July 6, 1920) https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/time…

George Riddell, Lord Riddell’s Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After: 1918-1923, (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1933)

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»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (https://www.patreon.com/Zalezsky)
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Yves Thimian

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2020

Churchill and Roosevelt vow to destroy all Nazis – WW2 – 103 – August 15, 1941

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

World War Two
Published 15 Aug 2020

Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt issue a charter that lays out their thoughts for the future, the Soviets are in trouble on two fronts, and Adolf Hitler repeats his orders to those who failed to heed them the first time.

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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: Joram Appel
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:
– Daniel Weiss
– Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/
– Cassowary Colorizations – https://www.cassowarycolor.com/
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
– Denis Marinov from Wikimedia

Sources:
– Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0: Bild_146-2005-0030, Bild_146-1971-070-61
– Imperial War Museum: E 1416, E 7014, E 3450E, E 7008, E 3438E, E 15023
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– Mil.ru
– egor7 from Wikimedia

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

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
3 days ago
Although the US has been steadily edging towards more and more support for the Western Allies since outbreak of war almost two years ago, it is this week that an active involvement in WW2 by the United States starts taking form. Let’s be clear though: both the US public, and the US administration are still staunchly opposed to sending in troops and becoming an active belligerent. But the tone of public and political discourse has begun to change, as it becomes increasingly obvious exactly how horrendous the threat is that humanity faces from Naziism.

August 11, 2020

Napoleon’s greatest foe

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, History, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Lindybeige
Published 18 Jan 2018

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Possibly I did too much research for this one. Trying to stay on-topic when the subject is so vast and so interesting was not easy, hence the rather long video. I didn’t mean to say quite so much about what an utter £$%&*! Napoleon was, but he was so thoroughly vile that it proved impossible not to include some details about the man who won his promotion in the army by mowing down civilian protesters in the streets of Paris with grapeshot from his artillery batteries. Anyway, here are tales of bravery and virtue, as well as horrendous some of brutality, lies, and death.

Correction: The battle against the Russian fleet is called Svensksund (Swedish sound, as in channel), not Svenksund. I missed out an S in my haste.

Buy the music – the music played at the end of my videos is now available here: https://lindybeige.bandcamp.com/track…

Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.

▼ Follow me…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lindybeige I may have some drivel to contribute to the Twittersphere, plus you get notice of uploads.

website: http://www.LloydianAspects.co.uk

August 10, 2020

Donald MacLean: The First of the Cambridge Five

Filed under: Britain, Government, History, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Cold War
Published 22 Jun 2020

Our historical documentary series on the history of the Cold War continues with a video on the famous Cambridge Five and Donald Maclean in particular — a real Cold War-era spy story

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#ColdWar #Maclean #CambridgeFive

July 29, 2020

What was TEKOI?

Filed under: History, Military, Russia, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

CGP Grey
Published 28 Jul 2020

## Related Videos

Exploring Tekoi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABMV4…

Defeated by Tumbleweeds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FeXP…

## Special Thanks

Gregory Waltz

## Crowdfunders

Steven Snow, Bob Kunz, John Buchan, Nevin Spoljaric, Donal Botkin, BN-12 , Chris Chapin, Richard Jenkins, Phil Gardner, Martin, Steven Grimm, سليمان العقل, Elliot Lepley, Colin Millions, David F Watson, Saki Comandao, Ben Schwab, Jason Lewandowski, Bobby, rictic, Marco Arment, Shallon Brown, Shantanu Raj, emptymachine, George Lin, Jeffrey Podis, Ben Delo, Henry Ng, Thunda Plum, Awoo, David Tyler, Fuesu, iulus, Jordan Earls, Joshua Jamison, Nick Fish, Nick Gibson, Tyler Bryant, Zach Whittle, Oliver Steele, Kermit Norlund, Derek Bonner, Derek Jackson, Mikko, Orbit_Junkie, Ron Bowes, Tómas Árni Jónasson, Andrew Bereza, Rebecca Wortham, Bryan McLemore, Bear, chrysilis, David Palomares, Emil, Erik Parasiuk, Esteban Santana Santana, Freddi Hørlyck, John Rogers, ken mcfarlane, Leon, Maarten van der Blij, Peter Lomax, Rhys Parry, ShiroiYami, Tristan Watts-Willis, Veronica Peshterianu, Dag Viggo Lokøen, Essa omar, Ryan Richards, Alex Simonides, Felix Weis, John Lee, Maxime Zielony, Melvin Sowah, Elizabeth Keathley, Christopher Mutchler, Giulio Bontadini, Paul Alom, Ryan Tripicchio, Scot Melville, Kyle Wayman, Julien Dubois

## Music

David Rees: http://www.davidreesmusic.com

Update: CGP Grey posted a corrected version of this video here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCeMCwxayp0
He also posted the Director’s Commentary video (originally intended only for his Patrons) here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufsYK3Eecw4
There is also a video explaining how the whole process worked and how the error was missed, if you’re interested.

July 24, 2020

War Diplomats, Japanese/Soviet Neutrality, and why not Sweden? – WW2 – OOTF 015

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

World War Two
Published 23 Jul 2020

What happened to Allied ambassadors? And how did Hitler react to the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact? And why didn’t he invade Sweden? Once again, Indy is in the Chair of Infinite Knowledge answering all your exciting questions about World War Two!

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 @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_two_realtime
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

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

Colorizations by:
Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man), https://instagram.com/artistic.man?ig…
Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com/
Daniel Weiss

Sources:
Bundesarchiv
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
Portrait of Charles Howard Smith, courtesy National Portrait Gallery

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Howard Harper-Barnes – “London”
Fabien Tell – “Other Sides of Glory”
Johannes Bornlof – “The Inspector 4”

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

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

July 6, 2020

Cold War Two is upon us, but it’s not all Trump’s fault (believe it or not)

Filed under: China, Economics, Government, Military, Pacific, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Niall Ferguson on the rapid drop in temperature in US/Chinese relations in the last eight years:

President Donald Trump and PRC President Xi Jinping at the G20 Japan Summit in Osaka, 29 June, 2019.
Cropped from an official White House photo by Shealah Craighead via Wikimedia Commons.

“We are in the foothills of a Cold War.” Those were the words of Henry Kissinger when I interviewed him at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing last November.

The observation in itself was not wholly startling. It had seemed obvious to me since early last year that a new Cold War — between the U.S. and China — had begun. This insight wasn’t just based on interviews with elder statesmen. Counterintuitive as it may seem, I had picked up the idea from binge-reading Chinese science fiction.

First, the history. What had started out in early 2018 as a trade war over tariffs and intellectual property theft had by the end of the year metamorphosed into a technology war over the global dominance of the Chinese company Huawei Technologies Co. in 5G network telecommunications; an ideological confrontation in response to Beijing’s treatment of the Uighur minority in China’s Xinjiang region and the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong; and an escalation of old frictions over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Nevertheless, for Kissinger, of all people, to acknowledge that we were in the opening phase of Cold War II was remarkable.

Since his first secret visit to Beijing in 1971, Kissinger has been the master-builder of that policy of U.S.-Chinese engagement which, for 45 years, was a leitmotif of U.S. foreign policy. It fundamentally altered the balance of power at the mid-point of the Cold War, to the disadvantage of the Soviet Union. It created the geopolitical conditions for China’s industrial revolution, the biggest and fastest in history. And it led, after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, to that extraordinary financial symbiosis which Moritz Schularick and I christened “Chimerica” in 2007.

How did relations between Beijing and Washington sour so quickly that even Kissinger now speaks of Cold War?

The conventional answer to that question is that President Donald Trump has swung like a wrecking ball into the “liberal international order” and that Cold War II is only one of the adverse consequences of his “America First” strategy.

Yet that view attaches too much importance to the change in U.S. foreign policy since 2016, and not enough to the change in Chinese foreign policy that came four years earlier, when Xi Jinping became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Future historians will discern that the decline and fall of Chimerica began in the wake of the global financial crisis, as a new Chinese leader drew the conclusion that there was no longer any need to hide the light of China’s ambition under the bushel that Deng Xiaoping had famously recommended.

June 27, 2020

Canada’s “Gang of 19” urges abject surrender and hostage exchange with China

Filed under: Cancon, China, Government, Law, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

As Canadian political life continues to revolve more and more around the Chinese model, we now have our very own political “gang”, just like China did!

“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army is the great school of Mao Zedong Thought”, 1969.
A poster from the Cultural Revolution, featuring an image of Chairman Mao.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.

A former leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada. A former Conservative foreign minister. Two former Liberal foreign ministers. Four former Canadian ambassadors to the United Nations, under Liberal and Tory governments. Two former Canadian ambassadors to the United States, under Liberal and Tory governments. A former Supreme Court justice. A former Liberal justice minister. A former Conservative senator. A flock of name-brand diplomats. Former CBC host Don Newman, for some reason.

This is the panoply of 19 elite opinion-makers that gathered in the Laurentian Boardroom at an online hotel and drafted a letter, released Wednesday, calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to intervene in the extradition process, set Huawei CFO Meng Wangzhou free, and thereby secure the release of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

China, last seen denying the two men’s detention had anything to do with Meng, had changed its tune just hours earlier on Wednesday: Freeing her might “open up space for resolution to the situation of the two Canadians,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

And who stands in the way? A prime minister who was perfectly happy to stick his thumb on the scales of justice to save a cherished member of Quebec Inc. from the indignity of prosecution for rather flamboyant alleged corporate malfeasance in and concerning Gaddafi-era Libya (or to “save jobs,” if you prefer, although it emerged no one in Justin Trudeau’s government had bothered to inquire how many jobs might actually be lost if SNC-Lavalin were convicted).

You can hardly blame China for noting the precedent. And it’s sorely fitting that the Gang of 19 addressed their letter to Trudeau rather than to the fellow who would actually have to give the order: Justice Minister David Lametti. We all know who calls the shots in that particular relationship. Perhaps it’s best we just admit it.

Colby Cosh also finds the advice proffered to the Prime Minister to be … less than admirable:

Screen capture of a BBC News report on Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor facing espionage charges in China.

I wanted to discuss the letter written by the 19 geriatric Canadian worthies who encouraged the Prime Minister to trade Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, in Canadian custody fighting extradition to the U.S., for the “two (Canadian) Michaels” detained on ill-defined espionage charges in China. Colleague Chris Selley has gone over the ground, but that’s show biz for you. Selley concluded his overview by pointing out that the letter argues perversely for “surrender, then victory.” With the Meng-Michaels standoff out of the way, the various ex-diplomats and superannuated politicians argued, Canada could use the opportunity for a fresh foreign-policy start, deciding what “tough steps” ought to be taken against China. If any.

The letter, part of a campaign on the two Michaels’ behalf led by ex-Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour and ex-justice minister Allan Rock, is self-refuting in parts. Yielding “to bullying or blackmail” is “repugnant,” the authors admit, while advising just that. But “resisting China’s pressure is no guarantee that it will never be applied again in the future … China might well decide that next time it will need to escalate by detaining more than two Canadians.”

The implication, if this argument is to have any force, is that actively rewarding China’s abduction of our citizens is a jim-dandy way of making sure it never happens again. The problem with this reasoning is obvious, but the authors are also careful not to define victory too precisely. They say that letting Meng go and getting Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor back would permit Canada to “declare its position on Huawei’s involvement in the deployment of 5G technology in Canada,” a decision “that has been postponed time and again.”

Sooo … the authors think we should slam the door on Huawei, whose CEO is Meng’s father? They don’t say so! They only say that settling this quarrel would make it easier for us to decide. And they are only slightly clearer on issues of human rights in China and Hong Kong, which our current government and foreign service are allegedly being shy about “so as not to make the situation worse for the Canadian prisoners.”

June 14, 2020

The Treaty of Trianon – The Most Controversial of the Peace Treaties I THE GREAT WAR 1920

Filed under: Britain, Europe, France, History, Italy, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published 13 Jun 2020

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The last of the big peace treaties signed in Paris that finalized the borders in Europe was the Treaty of Trianon. Even at the time, Hungarians considered it a historic injustice while nations such as Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia were quite happy with the result. We examine how the treaty was signed and negotiated.

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» SOURCES
Isaiah Bowman, The New World-Problems in Political Geography, (Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book Company, 1921)

Francis Deák & Dezsó Ujváry, Paper and Documents Relating to the Foreign Relations of Hungary, Volume 1; 1919-1920, (Budapest: Royal Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1939)

Conan Fischer, Europe between democracy and dictatorship, 1900-1945, (Chichester: Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011)

Mike Gyula (ed.), Magyar Statisztikai Zsebkönyv, 1940 [Hungarian Statistical Pocket Book 1940], (Központi Statisztikai Hivatal: Budapest, 1940)

Róbert Győri & Charles W.J. Withers, “Trianon and its aftermath: British geography and
the ‘dismemberment’ of Hungary, c.1915-c.1922”, Scottish Geographical Journal, 135:1-2 (2019)

Michael Károlyi, Memoirs of Michael Károlyi: Faith Without Illusion (London: Jonathan Cape, 1956)

Jörn Leonhard, Der überforderte Frieden: Versailles und die Welt 1918-1923, (Bonn: bpp, Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung, 2019)

C.A. Macartney, Hungary and her successors: the treaty of Trianon and its consequences 1919-1937, (London: Oxford University Press, 1937)

Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, (London: Macmillan, 2019)

Arnold Suppan, The Imperialist Peace Order in Central Europe: Saint-Germain and Trianon, 1919–1920, (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2019)

Miklós Zeidler; Thomas J. DeKornfeld; Helen DeKornfeld, “Ideas on Territorial Revision in Hungary, 1920-1945”, East European Monographs, 717, (2010)
Miklós Zeidler, Trianon, (Budapest, Osiris, 2003.)

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»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (https://www.patreon.com/Zalezsky)
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold

A Mediakraft Networks Original Channel

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2020

June 2, 2020

Who were the Hittites? The history of the Hittite Empire explained in 10 minutes

Filed under: History, Middle East — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Epimetheus
Published 30 Nov 2018

Who were the Hittites? (The Hittite Empire explained in 10 minutes) Animated history

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May 30, 2020

The Spanish Flu Influenza Pandemic 1918 – 1920 I THE GREAT WAR 1920

Filed under: Health, History, Military, USA, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Great War
Published 29 May 2020

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It was far deadlier than even the global war that had preceded it: The Influenza pandemic or Spanish Flu that hit the world between 1918 and 1920 in multiple waves.

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» SOURCES
Barry, John M. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, (New York : Penguin Books, 2018)
Byerly, Carol R. ‘The U.S. Military and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919’ Public Health Reports; 125 Supplement 3 (Apr. 2010)
Crosby, Alfred W, America’s forgotten pandemic : the influenza of 1918, (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Hoover, Irwin Hood, Forty-two years in the White House, (New York : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1934)
Killingray, David & Phillips, Howard, (eds.) The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19: New Perspectives, (London : Routledge, 2011)
Johnson, NP & Mueller J, ‘Updating the accounts: global mortality of the 1918-1920 “Spanish” influenza pandemic’ Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 76(1) (Spring 2002)
Dock, Lavinia et al., History of American Red Cross Nursing (1922)
Macdonald L. The Roses of No Man’s Land. (London : Penguin Books, 1993)
Robertson, John Dill, ‘Spanish Influenza — The Flu’ The Public Health Journal Vol. 9, No. 10 (Oct 1918)
Rosner, David, ‘”Spanish flu, or whatever it is…”: The paradox of public health in a time of crisis’ Public Health Reports, 125 Supplement 3, (Apr. 2010)
Stanford University, ‘The Influenza Pandemic of 1918’ https://virus.stanford.edu/uda/
“Surgeon General’s Advice to Avoid Influenza”: Washington Evening Star, (Sept. 22, 1918)
Wever, Peter C & van Bergen, Leo, ‘Death from 1918 pandemic influenza during the First World War: a perspective from personal and anecdotal evidence’ Influenza Other Respiratory Viruses, 8(5), (Sept 2014)
https://www.lefigaro.fr/livres/2008/1…

» SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram: https://instagram.com/the_great_war
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WW1_Series
Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/TheGreatWarChannel

»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Toni Steller
Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com
Maps: Daniel Kogosov (https://www.patreon.com/Zalezsky)
Research by: Jesse Alexander
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Alexander Clark
Original Logo: David van Stephold

A Mediakraft Networks Original Channel

Contains licensed material by getty images
All rights reserved – Real Time History GmbH 2020

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