Quotulatiousness

August 17, 2019

History Summarized: Malta

Filed under: Architecture, Britain, Europe, France, History, Humour, Middle East, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published on 16 Aug 2019

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Malta, the Island of A Dozen Empires, chilling in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, is one of the most social butterflies in History. Having played host to or fought against every major power in the Mediterranean, this island bears a gorgeous architectural and linguistic record of its past, and is still a treasure to behold in the modern day. I’ve covered a lot of nations and empires in my time here, but between the rich cultural blends, the overflowing artistic treasures, and the Still-In-One-Piece-ness of it all, Malta may have one of the strongest claims to being the Winner of History in my book. What’s so special about Malta? Watch and find out!

NOTE on 7:00 – 7:08 — I’m cheating the time-scales a little here. This church, the Rotunda of Mosta, was actually built mid 1800s. Malta’s lavish church construction continued nearly unabated from C. 1565 to the modern day, so I use this example here — but St Paul’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, shown from 6:27-6:33 is a better example of pure original Baroque construction. Honestly, all of the churches in Malta deserve a look if you’re curious.

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May 10, 2019

Operation Pedestal: The Convoy That Saved Malta

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Historigraph
Published on 6 Apr 2019

If you enjoyed this video and want to see more made, consider supporting my efforts on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/historigraph

Join the Historigraph Discord: https://discord.gg/vAFTK2D

#OperationPedestal #Historigraph

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Sources:

Jonathan Dimbleby, The Battle of the Atlantic.
Correlli Barnett, Engage the Enemy More Closely
James Holland, The War In the West Volume 2
naval-history.net

Music:

“Rynos Theme” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…

October 19, 2018

Webley Model 1911 Stocked .22 Single-Shot Target Pistol

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

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 29 Sep 2018

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

The Webley Model 1911 is a single-shot, self-ejecting target pistol made only for a few years. It was fitted with a long barrel to increase sight radius and also a detachable shoulder stock for those who wanted a bit more stability when shooting. Mechanically, the piece must be loaded manually, and it will then open the slide and eject the empty case automatically when fired, leaving the slide open for the shooter to load the next round. These were manufactured until 1914, with the final batch of pistols sold in 1919 from remaining parts stocks.

I am at the range with this example on Malta, thanks to the Association of Maltese Arms Collectors and Shooters. I thought it would be interesting to compare shooting with and without the stock, although my biggest takeaway was that I need more practice time on the range!

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
PO Box 87647
Tucson, AZ 85754

August 8, 2018

Malta’s Hand-Hewn Bomb Shelter Tunnels

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

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 7 Aug 2018

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

During World War Two, the Grand Harbor in Malta was the most-bombed place in the world, under aerial bombardment for two full years because of its position as a central Mediterranean base for British air and sea forces. While these attacks were focused on the harbor facilities, most of the island’s population lived right in the same area, and civilian casualties during the war were substantial. In an effort to safeguard the population, a vast number of underground bomb shelter tunnels were dug.

The island of Malta is mostly relatively soft limestone, and the Maltese are quite experienced in working it, after millenia of quarrying limestone to build structures and digging it out to make cisterns and wells. This allowed an otherwise enormous project to be successful – using mostly hand tools, enough shelters were dug to safely house the entire at-risk population. Many of these shelters and shelter complexes are open to the public today, including the system under the Malta At War Museum, which we are visiting today…

I am grateful for the Malta Tourism Authority’s assistance in helping to make this visit and video possible!

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

July 30, 2018

Forgotten History: World’s Biggest Black Powder Cannon – a 100-Ton Gun

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

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 10 Jul 2018

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

The largest muzzleloading black powder cannons ever built were the Armstrong 100-ton guns which saw service with the Italian Navy and with British coastal fortifications on Malta and Gibraltar. They were purchased by the Italians first, to outfit a pair of new super battleships, each vessel having two turrets with two of these guns in each. To avoid being outclassed, the British ordered two guns for installation to protect the Grand Harbor of Malta and two more to protect Gibraltar. Today one survives at each location, and we are visiting the Rinella Battery in Malta, which was built to house one of the Maltese guns.

These guns had a maximum range of 8 miles, and was capable of piercing 15 inches of iron armor at 3 miles. It had a 17.7 inch (45cm) bore fired a 2000 pound (900 kg) shell with a 450 pound (200kg) charge of black powder. The gun itself weighed approximately 102 tons, and with its cradle and a shell the whole assembly came in at 150 tons.

Aside from the massive scale of the piece, the most interesting part of its design is actually the loading machinery. Because of the titanic size of the gun and ammunition, Armstrong designed a fascinating hydraulic reloading facility which makes up the body of the fortress in which the gun is set. A pair of steam engines drove a pair of hydraulic accumulators, which provided hydraulic pressure to move the gun on its carriage, to douse the barrel after firing, to hoist ammunition into position for loading and power a 60-foot (18m) ramrod to mechanically ram the charge and shell into place. Two mirror-image reloading galleries under the fortification operated in turn, giving the gun a sustained rate of fire of 1 round every 6 minutes – at least until its 120-round barrel life was exhausted.

I am grateful for the Malta Tourism Authority’s assistance in helping to make this visit and video possible, and would also like to give special thanks to Simon, our awesome reenactor guide!

If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! http://www.youtube.com/InRangeTVShow

April 2, 2018

QotD: Is Danish following the same path as Maltese?

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

… while I was in Denmark I kept tripping over odd facts that pointed to a possibly disturbing conclusion: though the Danes don’t seem to notice it themselves, their native language appears to me to be dying. Here are some of the facts that disturbed me:

  1. I was told that Danish phonology has been mutating so rapidly over the last 50 years that it is often possible to tell by the accent of an emigre returning to Denmark what decade they left in.
  2. The Dane with whom I was staying remarked that, having absorbed spoken Danish as a child, he found learning written English easier than learning written Danish.
  3. Modern Danish is not spoken so much as it is mumbled. Norwegians and Swedes say that Danes talk like they’ve constantly got potatoes in their mouths, and it’s true. Most of the phonemic distinctions you’d think ought to be there from looking at the orthography of written Danish (and which actually are there in Norwegian and Swedish) collapse into a sort of glottalized mud in contemporary spoken Danish.
  4. At least half the advertising signs in Denmark – and a not inconsiderable percentage of street signs – are in English. Danes usually speak passable English; many routinely code-switch to English even when there are no foreigners involved, in particular for technical discussions.

The overall picture I got of Danish was of a language in an extreme stage of phonological degeneration, extremely divergent from its written form, and functionally unnecessary to many of its younger speakers.

I contemplated all this and thought of Maltese.

Maltese originated as a creole fusing Arabic grammar and structure with loanwords from French and Italian. I have read that since 1800 (and especially since WWII) Maltese has been so heavily influenced by bilingual English and Maltese speakers that much of what is now called “Maltese” is actually “Maltenglish”, rather more like a Maltese-English fusion, with “pure” Maltese only spoken by a dwindling cohort of the very old and very rural. Analysis of this phenomenon is complicated by the fact that the Maltese themselves tend to deny it, insisting for reasons of ethno-tribal identity that they speak more Maltese and less Maltenglish than they actually do.

Based on what I saw and heard in Denmark, I think Danish may be headed down a similar diglossic road, with “pure” Danish preserved as an ethno-tribal museum artifact and common Danish increasingly blending with English until its identity is essentially lost except as a source of picturesque dialect words. For a look at a late stage in this sort of process, consider Lallans, the lowland Scots fusion of Scots Gaelic and English.

Eric S. Raymond, “Is Danish Dying?”, Armed and Dangerous,2009-05-17.

March 6, 2018

Cannon loading in the eighteenth century

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

Lindybeige
Published on 24 Sep 2015

In Fort Rinella. Kalkara, Malta, every day, they put on a show of loading and firing cannons, and members of the public are invited (for a fee) to fire them off.

The cannon shown are eighteenth century barrels mounted on more modern carriages. The uniforms worn by the crew do not match those worn by eighteenth century artillerymen, but these same men were just minutes before performing a Victorian infantry drill, and are still dressed for that.

The loading process shown here is not complete, because it lacks the vital stage of ramming in the ball and wadding. The carriages each have a stopper behind them, securely fixed down into the ground, so that they do not recoil backwards dangerously, and since no heavy ball is being fired, there is not nearly so much recoil as there would be in a battle.

See also: http://www.fortrinella.com

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

May 19, 2016

Suleiman the Magnificent – VI: Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques – Extra History

Filed under: History, Middle East — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 16 Apr 2016

Suleiman’s decisions came back to haunt him, starting with the Knights of Malta (once Rhodes). He tried to kick them off their island again, but failed. He launched a new campaign to take Vienna and prove the might of his empire. But he was so old…

A messenger disrupted Suleiman in his reverie. He brought news from Malta…

Suleiman had outlived both his friends and his rivals. Charles V had passed, but his throne had passed to a son who proved just as vexing. An ardent Catholic, Philip II set his ships to harass Ottoman fleets in the Mediterranean and emboldened others to dispute Suleiman’s mastery of the sea. The Knights of Malta, whom Suleiman had defeated at Rhodes and allowed to leave peacefully, once again gave safe habor to these Christian ships. Suleiman sent a force to take their island, but his commanders argued with each other and Christian Europe united against him in a way that it could not when he’d been a younger man. The Knights Hospitallier withdrew into their forts. His army struggled for three weeks to take just one of them, and although they succeeded, Suleiman’s commander died and the Christian reinforcements had time to join the remaining two forts. At last, faced with yet another fleet of reinforcements, Suleiman’s commanders decided to withdraw.

Back in his garden, Suleiman knew that this defeat would destroy the invincible image of his empire. He resolved to prove that the Turks were still a force to be feared, and organized a campaign to take Vienna. He would lead them himself. They left in 1566 with great fanfare, but they were immediately greeted by torrential rains that slowed their advance and cost them materiel. Suleiman spent the whole trip confined to a carriage, and when they finally arrived to siege Szeged, he had to retreat a sickbed in his tent. He died while the battle still raged outside, never to know his empire’s fate.

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