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JaucheCharly posted:Schützenvereine are something for the common man. There's still lots of them on the countryside. If they have a brass band, they will also have a Schützenverein. That doesn't mean though that they shoot high powered rifles there. Most of the time it's air pistols/rifles, crossbows or 22s. Do keep in mind as well that these Schützenvereine have been around for a very long time. One of the clubs in my home town was founded in 1590. Sports shooting is drat close to a traditional sport in some parts of Europe.
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# ? Aug 24, 2014 17:53 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 05:14 |
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JaucheCharly posted:Schützenvereine are something for the common man. There's still lots of them on the countryside. If they have a brass band, they will also have a Schützenverein. That doesn't mean though that they shoot high powered rifles there. Most of the time it's air pistols/rifles, crossbows or 22s. Today? Sure. That's a product of modern German gun laws (which in turn are a direct result of the post-WW2 military occupation). Prior to 1945 they shot full sized rifles all the time. There was an entire family of competition guns called Wehrmannsgewehre that were specifically designed to mimic the WW1 issue G98 in most ways, only be more accurate and generally have much nicer competition sights installed on them. This wasn't just a nazi-era thing either having to do with rearmament and the general paramilitarization of society, full size rifle competition goes back pretty much as far as private firearms ownership in German-speaking countries. There are also Swiss and Austrian analogues, although they're a touch different in the particulars and I haven't looked into what their history was like in the 18th and 19th centuries.
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# ? Aug 24, 2014 18:53 |
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e: nvm
Bacarruda fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Aug 25, 2014 |
# ? Aug 25, 2014 01:55 |
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Bacarruda posted:Actually, the opposite was largely true. In 1940 56.5% of the United States was urban. You realize you answered a comment about WWI with reference to US demographics in 1940 and WWII interviews, right?
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 02:14 |
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Alchenar posted:The Entente on the hand end up leveraging their massive production capacity in shells and tanks and stuff to throw absolutely overwhelming force on small segments of the line and then 'bite and hold' bit by bit until they force a withdrawal to a more tenable position. I wanted to add some additional detail to this! 'Bite-and-hold' as practiced by the Entente was a reaction to a change in German defensive doctrine. After Ludendorff managed to oust Falkenhayn and take command of the Western Front, he instituted a new defensive plan where instead of concentrating the majority of men on the first, most-outward set of trenches and then counter-attacking with reserves, he instead drew up a three-layer defense where the first line was thinly held with machine gun bunkers and strongpoints, and then you don't get the extensive trenches and manpower allocations until the second and third defensive belts. The idea behind this was so that you could man the line with less men overall, something that Germany needed, and to cut down on losses from artillery bombardment because now most of your men either are too far away to be hit or cannot be spotted easily. The British 'countered' the new strategy by attacking the first line, then immediately taking over the strongpoints and digging in furiously. The Germans expected that any Entente offensive would try to push for a penetration/breakthrough that would play into the second and third defensive lines, but if instead the Entente stopped after taking a little bit of ground and immediately fortifying it, then the German follow-up with a counter-attack would fail because then they'd be facing a dug-in enemy instead of an advancing one. The Germans eventually had to abandon this new strategy and go back to the old "strongly held first line" bit, after sacrificing a non-trivial amount of territory and effort to set it all up.
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 02:29 |
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ulmont posted:You realize you answered a comment about WWI with reference to US demographics in 1940 and WWII interviews, right? Ah, you're right. Consider me the idiot.
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 02:46 |
Bacarruda posted:Ah, you're right. Consider me the idiot. I liked the well thought out sourced explanation though for WW2 keep it!
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 02:51 |
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Chillyrabbit posted:I liked the well thought out sourced explanation though for WW2 keep it! Sure! Bacarruda on another forum posted:At least initially, Germans regarded British and American soldiers (especially Americans) as somewhat amateurish. German certainly saw shortcomings in the Allies’ use of infantry. One German veteran of Monte Cassino criticized the Allies’ poor use of camouflage, saying: "they [Allied infantry] are very negligent about seeking concealment, and therefore can be seen most of the time.” He also pointed out flaws in Allied uniforms, noting that: "the net cover on the helmets of Allied soldiers permits us to see the outline of the helmet distinctly, and at a considerable distance, in the daytime.” The soldier felt German camouflage discipline, with some notable exceptions, was usually better. Bacarruda on another forum posted:It's also worth discussing German reactions towards Allied firepower. German soldiers were consistently impressed with American and British artillery and airpower.
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 03:58 |
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HEY GAL posted:Although, there are stories from the 30YW about rural people using fowling pieces to very good effect, not only because they had practice in shooting them but because those weapons were usually better than muskets. If Seven Samurai is a documentary (and I'm p. sure it is) than this complete enmity transcends cultures.
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 04:13 |
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago: This is a great post, thanks. I didn't realize how close the Germans had come to breaking the lines and winning the war in the early months; my idea of the war narrative was "Cult of the Offensive tells Germans to attack, Western Front attacks inevitably get bogged down in trench warfare."
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 05:22 |
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:This is a great post, thanks. GhostofJohnMuir posted:If Seven Samurai is a documentary (and I'm p. sure it is) than this complete enmity transcends cultures. Edit: But how creepy is that scene? They have you surrounded, and one by one you leave the forest and never come back. Edit 2: Peter Hagendorf got caught outside the walls of the city he was staying in once, alone and drunk. But the civilians just beat him up (I think they took his shoes as well, but I don't remember) and when he made it back in, a cavalryman laughed at him which, honestly, he deserved. It's a really noob rule to never go anywhere alone. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Aug 25, 2014 |
# ? Aug 25, 2014 10:47 |
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Aw, thanks. Have another one! A lot of the "but why the gently caress would they do X????" completely baffling questions I used to have about this stupid war suddenly became a lot more explicable once I found out some things about what exactly happened in 1914, and the ideas that they lodged in people's heads. 100 Years Ago: As the retreat continues, II Corps proves to be particularly hard-pressed, with the weight of the enemy opposite them. They've lost contact with the Fifth Army (cue 100 years of arguing about General Lanrezac) and are barely keeping in touch with I Corps (who have suddenly and unexpectedly found their own battle to fight at Landrecies). A number of desperate rearguard actions have been fought, often by impromptu groups of stragglers and randoms thrown together by on-the-spot subalterns acting on their own intiative. Smith-Dorrien's subordinates are unanimous. Their men physically cannot continue to retire as fast as their pursuers are pushing them. They must have some rest; and since that means the Germans will be upon them, why not take the opportunity to fight a more controlled battle than the earlier rearguard actions, and buy some time for the rest of the army to rest and then continue moving? French insists that the army continue retiring. Smith-Dorrien disobeys the order and, in the evening, II Corps arrives at Le Cateau and begins digging in as best they can (which isn't much; most of the men are too tired to do anything than collapse and sleep). It soon becomes obvious that there will not be nearly enough time for the guns to take cover, and they will have to operate in classical fashion, firing at targets they can see over open sights. So here's another reason to think again about John French: it would have been very easy for him to instruct a few days ago that the BEF should retire from Framieres to the Gallic fortress town of Maubeuge and use its extensive prepared defences to make a stand on the River Sambre; the defences were strong enough and extensive enough that both they and the French garrison might possibly hold out long enough for Joffre to send help. He recognised that occupying a static position would give the Germans an opportunity to encircle them (the German intent during this period was always to outflank the BEF, rather than chase them down the road), and also that a chance for the BEF to reorganise and resupply was a chance for the enemy to do exactly the same thing, and so ordered the retirement to continue to Bavai and then Le Cateau. (IIRC he later claimed that he recalled what had happened at Metz in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War.) Even stopping to make this stand could spell trouble; if I Corps gets its flank turned in the meantime, or if the Germans can punch a gap between the two Corps, that could well be curtains for the BEF. The French garrison was surrounded at about the time II Corps were on the road to Le Cateau, besieged without hope of relief as the French army disappeared over the horizon, and was forced to surrender a fortnight or so later, after extensive bombardment from guns taken from the Belgian fortresses at Liege and Namur. gradenko_2000 posted:The British 'countered' the new strategy by attacking the first line, then immediately taking over the strongpoints and digging in furiously. The Germans expected that any Entente offensive would try to push for a penetration/breakthrough that would play into the second and third defensive lines, but if instead the Entente stopped after taking a little bit of ground and immediately fortifying it, then the German follow-up with a counter-attack would fail because then they'd be facing a dug-in enemy instead of an advancing one. Of course, it took quite a while for bite-and-hold to go anywhere; IIRC (the details of generals' squabbles with each other aren't my strong point) General Plumer was a huge fan of it, and was its primary advocate, but he could only do so much because he was never more than a corps and army commander, and both the Chiefs didn't like bite-and-hold because it was a far less offensive strategy than the big push, which could theoretically "force a decision" (for some reason, lots of people and Haig in particular loved using this phrase to mean "end the war") very soon thereafter.
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 12:00 |
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Regarding Hegel's Cromwell post, what the heck is a firelock? Does that mean a matchlock?
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 21:24 |
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Regarding Hegel's Cromwell post, what the heck is a firelock? Does that mean a matchlock? I've heard the term firelock used to describe matchlocks, wheellocks, and flintlocks. It's a broad term that I guess could be used to separate those types from hand cannon or later firearms.
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 21:32 |
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MrYenko posted:I've heard the term firelock used to describe matchlocks, wheellocks, and flintlocks. It's a broad term that I guess could be used to separate those types from hand cannon or later firearms. Non-matchlock firearms. In this case, probably some sort of snaphance.
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 21:39 |
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HEY GAL posted:Non-matchlock firearms. In this case, probably some sort of snaphance. All right fancyhose, what's a snaphance then?
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 22:38 |
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FAUXTON posted:All right fancyhose, what's a snaphance then? It's got a lock with a flint in it, but it's not a flintlock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snaphance
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 22:44 |
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HEY GAL posted:It's got a lock with a flint in it, but it's not a flintlock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snaphance That is indeed some serious poo poo. It's a proto-flintlock!
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# ? Aug 25, 2014 22:59 |
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Every now and then a few of those show up on IMA, but those guys price poo poo on age, so they're normally expensive piles of poo poo
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 03:58 |
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100 Years Ago In Africa, a British-French force completes a successful invasion of the German colony of Togoland, which is later partitioned. So, things I learned from 1914: This holds true for all wars, but due to the unique circumstances of this one (vastly increased weapons range, but radio not yet being a mature enough technology to be of much use), it's particularly relevant and will crop up time and time again. During a war, lots of people make lots of decisions, many of them at a very senior level, based on imperfect information, and over the course of a war, both sides end up making a truly humungous level of gently caress-ups. The side that wins tends to be the side that fucks up the least, and makes the best use of the information it does have. II Corps, supported by a French cavalry corps somewhere on its left, is making its stand at Le Cateau. Both their flanks are dangling in air; both the 5th Army and I Corps are disinclined to be of any help and continue retiring. Unlike Mons, the battle proves to be an artillery duel, the British guns turning all around and about to interdict the Germans as they try to outflank the Corps in both directions, while taking merciless counter-battery fire. Somehow, with tireless support from the French, they hold out, and then get out. Somehow, the Germans fail to realise how precarious the Corps' position is, and quite how easy it would be to outflank them. The order to break off and continue retiring comes at 2pm, and a vital day of rest has been bought for everyone who's not gone into action. It takes the order an hour or more to reach a lot of units; and for more, they never receive it at all. Some of those eventually retire on their own intiative, having to fight their way back through Germans who have advanced past them, but plenty more hold their positions and are either captured or destroyed. The Corps is intact, but only just. Some companies of 250 officers and men have been reduced to 50 or fewer, and are frequently in the charge of subalterns or NCOs. Off they plod towards St Quentin, sure that the Germans will be after them again soon enough. But they're not, and somehow, improbably, over the next few days the BEF is able to slip away entirely. Exactly why this occurred is a Matter of Some Debate, but from what I can make out, it goes something like this. German intelligence was poor, and it vastly overestimated the strength of the force opposing them. This is where people usually start to mention the probably-apocryphal stories that the BEF's rifle fire was so intense that German officers reported being opposed by vast armies bristling with machine guns; probably an exaggeration, but the basic truth that the Germans overestimated the strength of the Allied left flank is just that. They also blundered in predicting that the BEF would think of saving itself above all else, and retreat to defend the Channel ports, its lines of supply, and its quickest route home. Instead, they were retreating with the French, back towards Paris, to defend it if need be. Alternate lines of supply ran to Le Havre and St Nazaire. And so, the Germans angled further westwards, looking to find and turn a flank that wasn't really there any more, while the BEF continued south and escaped. Rearguard actions continued (particularly involving I Corps on the far left, who were still out of contact with II Corps and, being further north than them, didn't have as much breathing room as they did), but the gap widened over the next few days, as Joffre continued retreating his left flank (the 4th and 3rd armies have now been compelled to retreat alongside the 5th) in search of a good place to turn and fight, and the BEF was left with no option but to continue heading further and further back into France. The Germans may have got there firstest with the mostest; however, since leaving Mons the BEF has hosed up the littlest and the leastest, and the immediate danger has passed. But the Allies haven't won anything, they've just succeeded in not losing, yet. Germans are still advancing deeper and deeper into France, relatively unchecked, and still broadly in agreement with the Schlieffen plan.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 11:24 |
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Yo hegel, where do we do pike talk? Here or the medieval thread? I have some info on the use of the pike in Ireland in the 1580's to the 1600's that that one other guy might find interesting
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 14:14 |
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Here please!!! *goes back to lurking*
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 14:23 |
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Rabhadh posted:Yo hegel, where do we do pike talk? Here or the medieval thread? I have some info on the use of the pike in Ireland in the 1580's to the 1600's that that one other guy might find interesting It doesn't matter. Hell, crosspost if you want.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 14:28 |
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So, here's a question for you guys: How did logistics during the Crusades work? Actually scrounging up enough supplies to keep thousands of men fed on a long ocean journey and then keeping up a pipeline the whole way through sounds like it's way out of the reach of the administrations of the time. Did they just contract transport and supplies from Italian merchants? Rely largely on local plunder and the appropriation of fiefs in the Holy Land? Were soldiers and lords expected to handle their own supplies, or did the kings in charge try to organize poo poo to keep everyone fed? And whatever arrangements they tried to make, how well did those arrangements actually work?
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 14:41 |
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Tomn posted:So, here's a question for you guys: How did logistics during the Crusades work? Actually scrounging up enough supplies to keep thousands of men fed on a long ocean journey and then keeping up a pipeline the whole way through sounds like it's way out of the reach of the administrations of the time. Did they just contract transport and supplies from Italian merchants? Rely largely on local plunder and the appropriation of fiefs in the Holy Land? Were soldiers and lords expected to handle their own supplies, or did the kings in charge try to organize poo poo to keep everyone fed? And whatever arrangements they tried to make, how well did those arrangements actually work? Foraging which is a kind way of saying "Robbery". Crusade logistics really would have been an "individual lord" thing.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 15:17 |
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Great war chat: A nice writeup of Austria-Hungary's first foray into Serbia. Shocker: It goes poorly.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 18:37 |
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brakeless posted:Great war chat: A nice writeup of Austria-Hungary's first foray into Serbia. quote:Vienna might have been spared Putnik’s plan as the sixty-seven year old general was on Habsburg soil when the war broke out, taking the cure at a Bohemian spa. Putnik was briefly interned, but was soon released as a soldierly gesture by Emperor Franz Joseph, a stickler of the old school who thought it dishonorable to detain Putnik under such circumstances, thus allowing him to return home to defeat the Habsburg Army. Real solid work Franz, couldn't have done it without you.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 18:51 |
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this is fantastic
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 19:14 |
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brakeless posted:Great war chat: A nice writeup of Austria-Hungary's first foray into Serbia. quote:rumors were rife of knife-wielding women hacking apart Habsburg wounded Habsburg propaganda was full of stuff like this. Instead of encouraging soldiers to fight to the end, in resulted in mass atrocities over Serbian civilians, both in Serbia and AH, and broke morale of AH troops whenever they'd end up in a disadvantaged position. Here's a part of an interesting article about the war in Serbia, written by a Swiss in 1915: (link) quote:With this object the Austro-Hungarian Press, faithfully supported by the German Press, commenced a systematic campaign of slander against the Serbians. Anyone who read the Austro-Hungarian papers would think that there was no people more barbarous or more execrable than the Serbians. Savages, thieves, regicides al ready, these detested Serbians were now committing massacres. They were cutting off the noses and ears of their prisoners, putting out their eyes ; and mutilating them. Even serious papers repeated such statements as these.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 19:21 |
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago I absolutely love this post. Keep 'em coming as appropriate!
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 19:26 |
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brakeless posted:Great war chat: A nice writeup of Austria-Hungary's first foray into Serbia. Related: https://archive.org/stream/howaustriahungar00reis#page/n1/mode/2up Pamphlet by a Swiss observer about the atrocities committed by the Austrians in 1914. For some images of the wounds caused by explosive bullets and dead bodies.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 19:48 |
uPen posted:Related: https://archive.org/stream/howaustriahungar00reis#page/n1/mode/2up quote:I mention in an interesting detail that when the officers returned in the evening they undressed and put on Madame Petrovitch's dresses. Pillagers and perverts!
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 20:04 |
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I didn't say it was an unbiased pamphlet.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 20:06 |
That is a really spot on summary. Plus the cartoons are cute, despite the horror of it all.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 20:11 |
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uPen posted:Related: https://archive.org/stream/howaustriahungar00reis#page/n1/mode/2up Lovely document. Published by French academics in 1915 so it's far from being impartial, but that just adds to its historicity. And just the cover offers us tidbits like this: Durkheim was one of, if not the father of sociology whose landmark study was Suicide. quote:The outbreak of World War I was to have a tragic effect on Durkheim's life. His leftism was always patriotic rather than internationalist—he sought a secular, rational form of French life. But the coming of the war and the inevitable nationalist propaganda that followed made it difficult to sustain this already nuanced position. While Durkheim actively worked to support his country in the war, his reluctance to give in to simplistic nationalist fervor (combined with his Jewish background) made him a natural target of the now-ascendant French Right. Even more seriously, the generations of students that Durkheim had trained were now being drafted to serve in the army, and many of them perished in the trenches. Finally, Durkheim's own son, André, died on the war front in December 1915 — a loss from which Durkheim never recovered. Emotionally devastated, Durkheim collapsed of a stroke in Paris in 1917. He was buried at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 20:32 |
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Tomn posted:So, here's a question for you guys: How did logistics during the Crusades work? Actually scrounging up enough supplies to keep thousands of men fed on a long ocean journey and then keeping up a pipeline the whole way through sounds like it's way out of the reach of the administrations of the time. Did they just contract transport and supplies from Italian merchants? Rely largely on local plunder and the appropriation of fiefs in the Holy Land? Were soldiers and lords expected to handle their own supplies, or did the kings in charge try to organize poo poo to keep everyone fed? And whatever arrangements they tried to make, how well did those arrangements actually work? I know they occasionally contracted out with Venice and I think the other Italian merchant republics, who would dedicate their trading fleets to transporting dudes to wherever it was they needed to go. This also seems to include the provisions they would require while on the ships. Once they got to wherever they were going, I'm sure they just 'foraged'. Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago Seriously, keep doing this.
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# ? Aug 26, 2014 22:12 |
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I can't help but wonder just how much of the peasantry's food surpluses could be readily concentrated into the stockpiles of the nobility.
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# ? Aug 27, 2014 03:32 |
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SeanBeansShako posted:That is a really spot on summary. Plus the cartoons are cute, despite the horror of it all.
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# ? Aug 27, 2014 04:34 |
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100 Years Ago: This is where we start to come up against the limits of what I feel I know enough to talk about. The main action today would be on the Eastern front, where a prolonged period of heavy skirmishing in Prussia finally coalesces into the Battle of Tannenberg; over the next six days, the German 8th Army gives the Russians, and particularly their 2nd Army, one of the more comprehensive kickings ever dealt out. German casualties are a shade under 14,000 (five digits); the Russians suffer 170,000 (six digits) killed, wounded and captured, and are also relieved of some 350 guns. And all this despite a Russian paper advantage of 80,000 men at the start of the affair. Anyone know a bit more about it? About all I know is that it was a huge kicking, and that none of the fighting happened anywhere near Tannenberg, the name being chosen for propaganda reasons. Another major Eastern battle had begun on the same day as Mons between the Russians and Austro-Hungarians; it's one of those things so large that it can be divided into several distinct phases and goes by several different names. I've seen "Lemberg" and "Galicia" used at different times by different people. And finally in poo poo I Know Little About, a combined British/Japanese force begins laying siege to the German-controlled port of Tsingtao in China. Back in France, the BEF fights a vigorous rearguard action at Etreux, in which two guns and three rifle companies of the 2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers keep the entire German 1st and 2nd Armies going absolutely nowhere for some fourteen hours, outnumbered six to one at the sharp end, while I Corps makes good its escape behind them. It's a much smaller affair than Le Cateau, but arguably just as important for the retreat in general. Of an initial strength of 800, 240 men and four officers survive longer than their ammunition does. They have no option but to surrender with dignity, and many later accounts report the Germans congratulating them on their fighting spirit. Perhaps, once the retreat is finally over, this war will soon provide ample opportunity for daring and glory on the offensive?
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# ? Aug 27, 2014 10:56 |
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# ? Jun 5, 2024 05:14 |
Arquinsiel posted:I love that the tank at 3:13 is a Land Raider. "You drat well know what those arrows mean!" Haha. Oh .
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# ? Aug 27, 2014 11:08 |