World War Two
Published 24 Feb 2024This week the Battle of Iwo Jima begins and American forces raise the Stars and Stripes on Mount Suribachi. Elsewhere, the Allies fight the stiff Japanese defences in Manila. The Red Army continues fighting through East Prussia and Pomerania as Stalin plans the next stage of the advance on the Reich. There are Allied advances in Western Europe and Italy too.
00:01 Intro
00:54 Recap
01:16 Iwo Jima Begins
06:32 The war in the Philippines
07:56 The Battle of Manila
11:12 Fighting in Burma
12:14 Operation Grenade
13:46 Operation Encore
14:38 Soviet plans for new offensives
21:28 Moscow Commission Meets
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February 25, 2024
Iwo Jima! – WW2 – Week 287 – February 24, 1945
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February 18, 2024
German Counterattack in Pomerania – WW2 – Week 286 – February 17, 1945
World War Two
Published 17 Feb 2024The Germans finally launch a counterattack into the Soviet flanks, but it does not go as well as was as hoped. The Siege of Budapest comes to an end, also not well for the Germans. The Soviets have now also surrounded Breslau. In Burma, the Allies cross the Irrawaddy River, in the Philippines the fight for Manila continues, and in the Pacific preparations are underway for an American invasion of Iwo Jima Island.
01:50 The fight for East Prussia
04:08 German counterattack in Poland
07:00 Breslau Surrounded
07:57 The Siege of Budapest
09:14 Operation 4th Term in Italy
10:07 Operation Veritable Continues
11:36 Allies cross the Irrawaddy
14:43 The Fight in the Philippines
17:52 Preparations for Iwo Jima
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February 11, 2024
The Battle of Manila Begins – WW2 – Week 285 – February 10, 1945
World War Two
Published 10 Feb 2024The American advance on Luzon has reached the Philippine capital, and it looks like they have a real fight on their hands with the Japanese there. There are supposed to be two new Allied operations starting in Western Europe, but one is delayed by flooding. The Allies do manage to eliminate the Colmar Pocket in the west, though. On the Eastern Front, there are new Soviet attacks in Pomerania and East Prussia, as well as out of the Steinau Bridgehead to the south, and in Budapest, it looks like the Soviet siege might soon end in victory.
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January 28, 2024
Himmler Takes Command – WW2 – Week 283 – January 27, 1945
World War Two
Published 27 Jan 2024A new German Army Group has been formed, tasked with protecting the Reich from the east and commanded by none other than Heinrich Himmler, who has never held such a command. The Soviets are really on the move in the east and have even begun reaching the prewar German border. In the west the Allies have cleared the Roer Triangle and are also working hard to eliminate the Colmar Pocket. In the Far East the Americans are advancing on Luzon, and in Burma the Allies have success on the Arakan and the Shwebo Plain, and finally manage to re open the Burma Road with China.
01:27 Soviet advances in East Prussia
09:23 Hungary and the fight for Buda
11:19 Operations Nordwind, Cheerful, and Blackcock
14:23 Block 5
16:14 American advances on Luzon
18:55 Allied successes in Burma
22:06 Summary
22:26 Conclusion
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November 9, 2023
Remembering Weimar
In The Critic, Darren O’Byrne reviews some recent books on German society between the Armistice of 1918 and the rise of Hitler, including Frank McDonough’s The Weimar Years: Rise and Fall 1918–1933.
One of the latest additions to the canon is Frank McDonough’s The Weimar Years (1918–33). A prequel to his two-volume narrative history of the Third Reich, The Hitler Years, it sets out to explain the Nazis’ rise to power by examining the reasons why democracy failed in Germany. Like the earliest histories of the period, the Republic is not examined on its own terms but rather as a kind of backstory to what followed, the numerous crises that befell it being used to explain the ultimate catastrophe.
Structured chronologically, the book provides a devastating, play-by-play account of why, for McDonough, democracy stood little chance in Germany. Defeat in World War I, the Kaiser’s abdication and the humiliating terms of the Versailles treaties challenged the legitimacy of the Republic from the start, as did its failure to contain political violence. Crippling inflation and mounting government debt, exacerbated by the obligation to pay reparations to the Allies, hampered German economic recovery from the start and threatened to wipe out the middle classes.
A degree of economic stability did return in the mid-1920s, but the country experienced its second “once-in-a-lifetime” economic crisis in the early 1930s, causing further instability and ultimately paving the way for Hitler. It’s a well-known story, skilfully retold for a contemporary audience by one of the foremost authorities on modern German history.
Does McDonough tell us anything we didn’t already know? The answer, in short, is no. In comparison to other recent histories of the period, more attention is paid here to high politics than Weimar’s cultural achievements, which are mentioned, but this tends to disrupt the flow of what is otherwise a high-paced, edge-of-the-seat political history of Germany’s first democracy. Despite being nearly 600 pages in length, the book’s focus is quite narrow, with little attention paid to what was happening below the national level in the federal states.
This may seem like an inane criticism. Who, after all, would demand to read more about Buckinghamshire in a political history of interwar Britain? However, the Weimar Republic, like Germany today, was a federation. Understanding what was happening in states like Prussia, which contained three-fifths of Germany’s population, is crucial to understanding the country as a whole.
Indeed, McDonough places some of the blame for Weimar’s collapse on the Social Democrats, who he argues should have participated in more national governments. Prussia was governed by an SPD-led coalition for most of the Weimar years, though, yet the Republic still fell. McDonough sees another reason for this fall in the failure to purge the military and civil service of hostile elements.
Again, Prussia replaced a considerable number of these officials with others loyal to the new democratic order, yet the Republic still fell. The book’s rigid focus on high politics, in short, obscures an understanding of the more structural reasons why democracy failed.
Unlike most history books, however, The Weimar Years is a genuine page-turner, full of lessons for those who want to learn something about the present from the past. It’s also a beautiful book to hold, full of period photos that help bring the story alive. This all makes the book worth reading, even if there’s not much in it that can’t be found in other histories of the period.
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February 11, 2023
Napoleon’s Downfall: Why He Lost the Battle of Nations
Real Time History
Published 10 Feb 2023After the brief summer 1813 cease fire, Napoleon’s campaign in Germany resumes. Surrounded by the Allies — which also manage to slowly turn the tide at Großbeeren, Dennewitz, Kulm, and Dresden — his only remaining option is the ultimate battle which takes place in October 1813 at Leipzig: The Battle of Nations.
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February 9, 2023
On Clausewitz
Bruce Gudmundsson’s Tactical Notebook Substack has covered a lot of WW1-era artillery unit organization since I started subscribing, but on Tuesday he offered some notes on how to approach the life and work of Carl von Clausewitz for the non-professional-soldier audience:
Carl von Clausewitz by Alexander Becker, circa 1867.
The beginning of wisdom where Clausewitz is concerned is to realize that he was the professional soldier with a great deal of trigger time under his belt. If you doubt this, crack open one of the two fine biographies that are readily available to English-speaking readers. Indeed, even if you need no convincing on the subject of the active service of the Philosopher of War, a biography is a good place to start your engagement with this extraordinarily interesting man.
For reasons of style and sentiment, I prefer the older of the two biographies. Composed by popular historian Roger Parkinson in the days before Clausewitz was cool, Clausewitz: A Biography devotes nine of its seventeen substantive chapters (the three-page epilogue doesn’t count) to tales of active service. It is, moreover, the sort of book that was written to be read, for edification and enjoyment, by intelligent members of the general public.
Clausewitz: His Life and Work, is the product of our own times, one in which a great deal of military history is written by people with doctoral degrees, and people with doctoral degrees teach at war colleges. Though afflicted with both of these aforementioned handicaps, author Donald J. Stoker has managed to produce a work as readable as that of Parkinson. Better yet, he has succeeded in devoting even more attention to periods when Clausewitz was more concerned with the immediate possibility of enfilade and defilade than the distinction between “nature” and “character”.
Once you have learned a bit about Clausewitz the soldier, you will be ready to embrace Carl the lover. For this stage of your journey, you will have but one companion, Vanya Eftimova Bellinger’s Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War.
Fear not, while this biography of the remarkable Frau von Clausewitz is a love story, it has little in common with what passes for romance these days. Neither is it, as the subtitle suggests, largely about the posthumous assembly of the various fragments of On War into the work that made its author famous. (Professor Bellinger tells that tale in less than five pages.) Rather, Marie von Clausewitz is largely a tale of the books, ideas, culture, and politics of the times and places in which the heroine and her husband lived.
If you wish to delve further into the aforementioned milieu, you should read all three of the books of Peter Paret that have “Clausewitz” in their titles. In sharp contrast to his partner in translation, Professor Paret was much more interested in the ideas that influenced Clausewitz than the way that people of subsequent generations reacted to the products of his pen. (While the greatest, by far, of all American Clausewitz scholars, Paret was, first and last, a student of the great reform movement that took place in Prussia after the disaster of Jena-Auerstadt.) If, however, you wish a more direct route into the military mind of the subject of this piece, then the next step in your journey should consist of a long visit with Gerhard von Scharnhorst.
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December 19, 2022
Napoleon’s Downfall: German Wars of Liberation 1813
Real Time History
Published 16 Dec 2022After Napoleon’s defeat in Russia in 1812, the situation on the European continent is rapidly shifting. Prussia and Austria are leaving their unhappy alliance with the French. Prussian general Yorck even pledges his support to the Russian Army which is on the move towards Berlin. At Lützen and Bautzen Napoleon still manages to beat the new coalition, but his losses from Russia put him on the backfoot.
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October 14, 2022
When Potatoes were Illegal
Tasting History with Max Miller
Published 7 Jun 2022
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September 27, 2022
The War That Made Germany Prussian – Austro-Prussian War 1866
Real Time History
Published 23 Sep 2022After settling the Schleswig-Holstein question in 1864, Austria and Prussia are uneasy allies. Both are the biggest players in the German confederation. In Bismarck’s dream of a united Germany, he sees Prussia as the only leader and wants to force the so called “small German solution” without Austria. And so, in 1866 a war between Austria and Prussia (plus other German states like Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Saxony, Hanover) breaks out to settle this question once and for all.
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September 3, 2022
Napoleon Defeats Russia: Friedland 1807
Epic History TV
Published 28 Sep 2018Napoleon brings his war against Russia and Prussia to an end with victory at Friedland, leading to the famous Tilsit conference, after which Napoleon stood at the peak of his power.
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August 27, 2022
Prussia’s Rise & Denmark’s Decline: The Schleswig Wars 1848-1864
Real Time History
Publisheed 26 Aug 2022The two Schleswig Wars of 1848-51 and 1864 mark an important period in European History. Intertwined with the 1848 revolutions, the First Schleswig War’s settlement tries to uphold the European status quo. But the unhappy belligerents soon find themselves at war again in 1864 when Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck uses the Second Schleswig War as a first step towards German unification.
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May 31, 2022
The Crusades: Part 9 – The Other Crusades
seangabb
Published 18 Mar 2021The Crusades are the defining event of the Middle Ages. They brought the very different civilisations of Western Europe, Byzantium and Islam into an extended period of both conflict and peaceful co-existence. Between January and March 2021, Sean Gabb explored this long encounter with his students. Here is one of his lectures. All student contributions have been removed.
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April 4, 2022
The Congress of Vienna (Part 2) (1814 to 1815)
Historia Civilis
Published 2 Apr 2022Patreon | http://historiacivilis.com/patreon
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Website | http://historiacivilis.comSources:
Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848
Adam Zamoyski, Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna
Richard J. Evans, The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914
Wolfram Siemann, Metternich: Strategist and Visionary
A. Wess Mitchell, The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire
Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War
Adam Hochschild, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves
Harry Dickinson, Public Opinion and the Abolition of the Slave Trade | https://bit.ly/2XRMLJC
The History of Parliament: The 5th Parliament of the United Kingdom | https://www.historyofparliamentonline…Music:
“Past,” by Nctrnm
“While She Sleeps (Morning Edit),” by The Lights Galaxia
“Mell’s Parade,” by Broke For Free
“Day Bird,” by Broke For Free
“Thomas Neutrality,” by Enrique Molano
“Infados,” by Kevin MacLeod
“The House Glows (With Almost No Help),” by Chris Zabriskie
“Hallon,” by Christian Bjoerklund
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March 25, 2022
All-Out War Against Napoleon – The Grand Manifesto of Alexander I
Real Time History
Published 24 Mar 2022Get Nebula and CuriosityStream in a great bundle deal: https://curiositystream.com/realtimeh…
In the beginning of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, the Russian Tsar Alexander I was under pressure to rally his people. A month into the campaign he declared the The Patriotic War (Отечественная война) to fight back Napoleon — who was already having serious supply issues and a deteriorating logistics network.
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Boudon, Jacques-Olivier. Napoléon et la campagne de Russie en 1812. 2021.
Chandler, David. The Campaigns of Napoleon, Volume 1. New York 1966.
Clausewitz, Carl von. Hinterlassene Werke des Generals Carl von Clausewitz über Krieg und Kriegsführung. Siebenter Band, Der Feldzug von 1812 in Rußland, der Feldzug von 1813 bis zum Waffenstillstand und der Feldzug von 1814 in Frankreich. Berlin 1835.
Geschichte der Kriege in Europa seit dem Jahre 1792 als Folgen der Staatsveränderung in Frankreich unter König Ludwig XVI., neunter Teil, 1. Band. Berlin 1839.
Hartwich, Julius von. 1812. Der Feldzug in Kurland. Nach den Tagebüchern und Briefen des Leutnants Julius v. Hartwich. Berlin 1910.
Holzhausen, Paul. Die Deutschen in Russland 1812. Leben und Leiden auf der Moskauer Heerfahrt. Berlin 1912.
Lieven, Dominic. Russia Against Napoleon. 2010.
Mikaberidze, Alexander. “The Lion of the Russian Army”: Life and Military Career of General Prince Peter Bagration 1765-1812. PhD Dissertation, 2003.
Rey, Marie-Pierre. L’effroyable tragédie: une nouvelle histoire de la campagne de Russie. 2012.
Robson, Martin. A History of the Royal Navy: the Napoleonic Wars. 2014.
Tagebuch des Königlich Preußischen Armeekorps unter Befehl des General-Leutnants von Yorck im Feldzug von 1812. Berlin 1823.
Zamoyski, Adam. 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow. 2005.
Безотосный В. М. Россия в наполеоновских войнах 1805–1815 гг. (Москва: Политическая энциклопедия, 2014)
Отечественная война 1812 года. Энциклопедия (Москва: РОССПЭН, 2004)» OUR STORE
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