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Tomn posted:THE war, not war in general. Like, they think war in general is OK but war against the Mexicans in particular for the reasons the government is pushing is bad. Be like a career officer in 2003 saying "Look, I'm OK with war to stop Nazi Germany or to hunt down terrorists or whatnot, but this whole invasion stinks of bullshit." See: Why I'm not in the Army, I chucked my intent to commission paperwork when we ignored the war we should have been fighting in favor of fighting Daddy's last enemy.
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Nov 14, 2014 14:39
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Rhymenoserous posted:See: Why I'm not in the Army, I chucked my intent to commission paperwork when we ignored the war we should have been fighting in favor of fighting Daddy's last enemy. Funnily, a lot of the soldiers, Irish particularly, were promised that the US would come to blows with the British over the border dispute in Canada, and they'd get a chance to fight the British! Instead they got dragged down south to beat up on those awful Catholics, and got to read all about the evils of those horrid papists and simian Irish in the newspapers. I'm still amazed the US had an army by the time the war started.
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Nov 14, 2014 16:05
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HEY GAL posted:The supposed justification for the Mexican American war was some bullshit. Pretty much, almost the same amount of bullshit that was the incident that sparked The Spanish American War.
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Nov 14, 2014 17:08
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SeanBeansShako posted:Pretty much, almost the same amount of bullshit that was the incident that sparked The Spanish American War. And yet, it was still a lesser amount of bullshit than the Anglo-Zulu War.
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Nov 14, 2014 17:13
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Slavvy posted:It amazes me that, despite the internet and the massive proliferation of information and so on that we have as an advantage over people from those times, the same poo poo goes on. It's almost counter-intuitive; you'd think it would be harder to get away with nowadays, yet in reality, it's easier. If anything the internet and all makes it easier to isolate yourself from things that don't disagree with what you believe.
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Nov 14, 2014 17:23
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100 Years Ago Another day much like yesterday. The Germans continue to do well at Lodz, and less well at Ypres, where the rain continues to hammer down. With little new action, I'm taking the opportunity to talk a little about my favourite of all trench-stories. The details may be somewhat doubtful, but even if the story was made up out of whole cloth, it still has value. For me, it simply and efficiently sums up all the main elements of how historiography has chosen to represent Tommy Atkins in the Great War, and far more memorably so than any academic essay ever could. And really, how could it be about anyone other than The Man with the Tea? (Also, tucked away near the end of today's newspaper, a loudmouthed Italian deputy has apparently made an after-dinner speech where he declares Italy to be in sympathy with the Entente. This is in no way, shape or form a dramatic piece of foreshadowing.)
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Nov 14, 2014 18:04
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SeanBeansShako posted:Pretty much, almost the same amount of bullshit that was the incident that sparked The Spanish American War. I like the Spanish American War because its proof that American news reporting has always sucked.
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Nov 14, 2014 18:31
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:And yet, it was still a lesser amount of bullshit than the Anglo-Zulu War. But just as rascist.
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Nov 14, 2014 19:02
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HEY GAL posted:Yeah but German chocolate is god dammned delicious. German wartime substitutes for chocolate and coffee (made from acorns) probably don't range high up in the taste scale.
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Nov 14, 2014 19:03
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Part of me actually wants to try ersatz cornlate. I think I am weird.
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Nov 14, 2014 19:04
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JaucheCharly posted:German wartime substitutes for chocolate and coffee (made from acorns) probably don't range high up in the taste scale.
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Nov 14, 2014 19:06
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JaucheCharly posted:German wartime substitutes for chocolate and coffee (made from acorns) probably don't range high up in the taste scale.
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Nov 14, 2014 19:55
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tonberrytoby posted:There is a higher quality coffee wartime substitute (made from figs) that was advertised a lot by bio-stores a few years ago. It was supposed to be very healty and tasty if mixed with real coffee. I never got around to buying some. To be fair, I doubt fig trees grow in Germany...
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Nov 14, 2014 20:27
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They do in Italy though. I have literally picked them from trees while sitting at a bus stop in Sienna. Because they were there. And I was hungry. And figs are awesome. Don't judge me.
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Nov 14, 2014 20:29
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HEY GAL posted:Wasn't our Civil War where New Orleans developed the taste for chicory? They still drink that stuff, I've heard. The best part about that is that it has wrapped back around to being a boutique item, so that outside NO Cafe du Monde style coffee, aka "50% chicory filler because we have to get costs down and hey at least it's not dirt", goes for like double the price of 100% Colombian. Actually the best part is how good it is, even though it's 50% chicory filler.
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Nov 14, 2014 20:35
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OneTruePecos posted:The best part about that is that it has wrapped back around to being a boutique item... Hipster Blockade is the title of my new Vice article HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Nov 14, 2014 |
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Nov 14, 2014 20:38
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Pettuleipä or pine bark bread is a Nordic bread made with some of the flour substituted with phloem (the innermost layer of bark) of pine to get by great famines that kept occuring to the 19th century, and its use might go back to the dawn of agriculture in the region. Contemporaries thought pettu had close to nil nutritional value and would only help with getting some sense of satiation, although this is not all true. Modern nutritionists claim that up to a quarter of the flour can be pettu before starvation gets into play (presumably foul taste comes far before that). Nowadays some 300 phloem harvesters work in Finland who collect 15 tonnes of the stuff per anno for organic pettu flours consumed by Central European health fanatics paying a premium price for it. Like, €200/kg.
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Nov 14, 2014 21:44
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feedmegin posted:To be fair, I doubt fig trees grow in Germany... I have one in my garden, but wartime fig coffee is most likely little more than a marketing gag. Well, maybe relevant in Greece or Italy.
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Nov 14, 2014 21:48
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Nenonen posted:Nowadays some 300 phloem harvesters work in Finland who collect 15 tonnes of the stuff per anno for organic pettu flours consumed by Central European health fanatics paying a premium price for it. Like, €200/kg. JaucheCharly posted:I have one in my garden, but wartime fig coffee is most likely little more than a marketing gag. Well, maybe relevant in Greece or Italy.
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Nov 14, 2014 22:11
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So I've heard a lot of discussion about "Longstreet's Option" on the last day of Gettysburg, but up until reaching it in Foote's narrative, I'd never heard of his alternative to the campaign itself. I wonder if going to relieve Vicksburg with Longstreet's Corp and others from around the Confederacy would have stood a better chance than Lee's offensive maneuver. It's an option I've never seen discussed in anything else I've read on the subject and it intrigues me.
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Nov 14, 2014 22:39
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:So I've heard a lot of discussion about "Longstreet's Option" on the last day of Gettysburg, but up until reaching it in Foote's narrative, I'd never heard of his alternative to the campaign itself. I wonder if going to relieve Vicksburg with Longstreet's Corp and others from around the Confederacy would have stood a better chance than Lee's offensive maneuver. It's an option I've never seen discussed in anything else I've read on the subject and it intrigues me. The best possible strategy for the Confederacy was always to use interior lines to concentrate against and defeat isolated Union offensives. The fact that Lee squandered his strength repeatedly on aimless trips North whereas Grant on taking charge made sure that the Union armies exerted simultaneous pressure on all fronts is the difference between the two.
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Nov 14, 2014 22:54
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Alchenar posted:The best possible strategy for the Confederacy was always to use interior lines to concentrate against and defeat isolated Union offensives. The fact that Lee squandered his strength repeatedly on aimless trips North whereas Grant on taking charge made sure that the Union armies exerted simultaneous pressure on all fronts is the difference between the two. Confederates didn't have an overall commander of the military, right? Even the Union didn't have one until 1864, so the only one that could order a general offensive for the CSA would have been Davis.
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Nov 15, 2014 00:40
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sullat posted:Confederates didn't have an overall commander of the military, right? Even the Union didn't have one until 1864, so the only one that could order a general offensive for the CSA would have been Davis. Yeah, but Davis specifically had plans submitted by both Beauregard and Longstreet for a concentration of Confederate forces to thwart Grant's activities near Vicksburg. Beauregard wanted to move against the Union center in the Ohio region, then swing west and drive off or destroy the now isolated Grant. Longstreet wanted to move more directly against Grant and his base of supply in Memphis. Davis asked for Lee's opinion and Lee for various reasons suggested that the main focus be a drive into the North by his army. Coming off of Chancellorsville, Lee pretty much automatically got the course of action he advised endorsed and he rode off towards Pennsylvania. But Davis was entertaining the notion of concentrated action against Grant, so if Lee hadn't opposed there's a decent chance something would have happened in that direction.
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Nov 15, 2014 01:03
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Alchenar posted:The best possible strategy for the Confederacy was always to use interior lines to concentrate against and defeat isolated Union offensives. The fact that Lee squandered his strength repeatedly on aimless trips North whereas Grant on taking charge made sure that the Union armies exerted simultaneous pressure on all fronts is the difference between the two. I don't think that I've ever found myself defending Lee before, but I'd hardly call his Northern offensives aimless. They had clear political objectives: To bring the war home to the Union, to inspire the secessionist supporters in both the North and the South, and to impress upon British observers the idea that the Confederacy was a real and independent power. The reality is that the Confederacy could never have forced a military victory over the Union, and that eventually they'd have fallen one way or the other. But if Lee had been successful in the Gettysburg Campaign, he'd have demoralized the Union cause and laid the groundwork for an electoral loss for Lincoln the following year - which would have quickly been followed by peace terms. In retrospect you might be right, that the best strategy would have been to simply drain Union motivation to fight and avoid any chance of an upset, but at the time Lee's decision to invade made quite a bit of sense.
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Nov 15, 2014 05:03
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SeanBeansShako posted:Part of me actually wants to try ersatz cornlate. I think I am weird. Eh I've made homemade hardtack a couple of times on a whim while reading Foote's trilogy.
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Nov 15, 2014 05:37
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Kaal posted:I don't think that I've ever found myself defending Lee before, but I'd hardly call his Northern offensives aimless. They had clear political objectives: To bring the war home to the Union, to inspire the secessionist supporters in both the North and the South, and to impress upon British observers the idea that the Confederacy was a real and independent power. The reality is that the Confederacy could never have forced a military victory over the Union, and that eventually they'd have fallen one way or the other. But if Lee had been successful in the Gettysburg Campaign, he'd have demoralized the Union cause and laid the groundwork for an electoral loss for Lincoln the following year - which would have quickly been followed by peace terms. In retrospect you might be right, that the best strategy would have been to simply drain Union motivation to fight and avoid any chance of an upset, but at the time Lee's decision to invade made quite a bit of sense. I agree. I'd rate the Gettysburg campaign as a risk that the Confederacy couldn't afford to lose, but the same could be said about pretty much everything the Confederacy did. By the time Hooker's army withdrew from Chancellorsville, Grant was halfway to Jackson. By the time Lee's army was in good enough shape to march out from Fredericksburg to head north, Vicksburg had been under siege for two weeks and would fall in another four. Longstreet and Beauregard recognized that the west was in serious danger, but their proposals would have taken several weeks to carry out under the best of circumstances- it took two weeks to move two of Longstreet's divisions to Georgia prior to Chickamauga.
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Nov 15, 2014 06:15
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Alchenar posted:The best possible strategy for the Confederacy was always to use interior lines to concentrate against and defeat isolated Union offensives. The fact that Lee squandered his strength repeatedly on aimless trips North whereas Grant on taking charge made sure that the Union armies exerted simultaneous pressure on all fronts is the difference between the two. Perhaps in theory, but in practice it wasn't that simple. Just moving Longstreet's corp for Chickamuga took two weeks and even then not all of it arrived in time. Moving the rest of it would have taken even longer. Could you really strip Virginia of troops for a month or more? Washington to Ruchmond is only a few day's march. The South was trying to defend a massive piece of land, with bad roads and railroads. At the same time, they obviously couldn't get away with saying "Virginia is easy to defend, let's hole up there and let the Yankees have the rest." Edit: beaten by everybody. To have some content, it's remarkable (to me) that all the South's successes were negative. That is, they fought off Union offensives, but they never took anything back once the Union had it. BurningStone fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Nov 15, 2014 |
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Nov 15, 2014 06:20
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HEY GAL posted:Do you have to wrap it in the winter? My grandfather wrapped his fruit trees when he started growing them in New York. Not to derail any further, but yes, once it dropped all the leaves and before the first frost sets in.
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Nov 15, 2014 11:32
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BurningStone posted:The South was trying to defend a massive piece of land, with bad roads and railroads. Being a technological backwater reliant on treating people as non-human farm animals has its disadvantages: poo poo rail and poo poo road because you moved your slave goods by barge and had little need for more than wagon trails outside the handful of urban centers. The South's expectation was similar to Germany in WWI and Japan in WWII. Plan on winning an early, decisive battle or two, then chill out. Turns out that the 19th century like the 20th finds America perfectly happy to have a war.
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Nov 15, 2014 11:46
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Hunterhr posted:Eh I've made homemade hardtack a couple of times on a whim while reading Foote's trilogy. Did you age it for the full experience?
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Nov 15, 2014 15:24
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FAUXTON posted:The South's expectation was similar to Germany in WWI and Japan in WWII. Plan on winning an early, decisive battle or two, then chill out. Turns out that the 19th century like the 20th finds America perfectly happy to have a war. Though this is with the benefit of hindsight. Especially during the opening stages of the civil war, Lincoln had a huge problem on selling the necessity of the war to the Congress and the general public. Of course, then Sumter happened.
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Nov 15, 2014 15:49
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BurningStone posted:Perhaps in theory, but in practice it wasn't that simple. Just moving Longstreet's corp for Chickamuga took two weeks and even then not all of it arrived in time. Moving the rest of it would have taken even longer. Could you really strip Virginia of troops for a month or more? Washington to Ruchmond is only a few day's march. The story I've read of how Longstreet got to Chickamauga is hilarious as an indictment of States' Rights in general. Stuff like how each state had its own track gauge, so no train could cross a border. They had to line up a new troop train, unload all the men and materiel, then reload the next train before they could continue on. Also stuff like having to send runners to the state capital to get permission to cross the border. All in all, a logistical nightmare the direct result of not having a strong central government running the show.
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Nov 15, 2014 15:55
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Kemper Boyd posted:Though this is with the benefit of hindsight. Especially during the opening stages of the civil war, Lincoln had a huge problem on selling the necessity of the war to the Congress and the general public. Of course, then Sumter happened. We should also recall that the election of 1864 was no sure thing. Without the victory in Mobile Bay and the capture of Atlanta, there were good reasons to believe that McClellan was not only going to win the election over Lincoln, but that he'd win in a landslide.
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Nov 15, 2014 16:02
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100 Years Ago The British 8th Division arrives at the front in force, and the BEF prepares to redeploy away from Ypres, which is something quite a lot of people don't realise. The place is so closely associated with Britain, but here we find the BEF preparing to hand over the entire salient to the French Army. Meanwhile, the Spectator continues to combine amazing far-sightedness and spectacular cobblers; this week, warnings about the war lasting a long time yet and predictions of a German redeployment to the Eastern Front collide with a large-yet-patronising boner for the Russian peasant-soldier, and an appeal to Britain's domestic servants to know their place and be proud of being in service to their betters. These editorials really do make truly fascinating reading.
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Nov 15, 2014 18:31
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Deteriorata posted:The story I've read of how Longstreet got to Chickamauga is hilarious as an indictment of States' Rights in general. Stuff like how each state had its own track gauge, so no train could cross a border. They had to line up a new troop train, unload all the men and materiel, then reload the next train before they could continue on. Also stuff like having to send runners to the state capital to get permission to cross the border. All in all, a logistical nightmare the direct result of not having a strong central government running the show. Why was the North different in terms of its track gauges? Did they standardize their gauges before the war in order to improve their industrial infrastructure (which just so happened to make their military logistics convenient, later on), or did the Federal government force them to standardize their gauges shortly after the outbreak of the war to prevent logistical snafus like that?
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Nov 16, 2014 01:43
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Tomn posted:Why was the North different in terms of its track gauges? Did they standardize their gauges before the war in order to improve their industrial infrastructure (which just so happened to make their military logistics convenient, later on), or did the Federal government force them to standardize their gauges shortly after the outbreak of the war to prevent logistical snafus like that? The Confederacy did not have a well-developed railroad system before the war. Most of it was local, short run stuff to get cotton or other agricultural products to a port. Thus it was largely intra-state without much organization or overall planning. The notion of traveling from Virginia to Mississippi in one train wasn't really a priority before the war, and was pretty much impossible for most of its duration. The Union, on the other hand, had a well developed interstate railroad system for both freight and passengers, due to both higher populations needing more resources from far away and smaller states. Lincoln continued work on the Transcontinental Railroad throughout the war.
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Nov 16, 2014 01:54
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Deteriorata posted:The Confederacy did not have a well-developed railroad system before the war. Most of it was local, short run stuff to get cotton or other agricultural products to a port. Thus it was largely intra-state without much organization or overall planning. The notion of traveling from Virginia to Mississippi in one train wasn't really a priority before the war, and was pretty much impossible for most of its duration. Is that really an indictment on the problems with States' Rights, then? It sounds like the difference in organization was down to differing economic models and priorities, rather than any difference between a strong or weak central government - after all, the same central government that oversaw the Northern railway organization would have seen the Southern railway organization, wouldn't it have? Or did the Federal government keep trying to get the South to standardize their gauges before the war, with the South thumbing its collective noses and yelling "States' Rights!"? The bit about needing to send runners to get permission to cross interstate borders definitely sounds like some horseshit, though. What, were they worried that the dastardly South Carolinians regiments were secretly planning to annex North Carolina in passing on their way to the war in Virginia?
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Nov 16, 2014 02:01
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Tomn posted:Is that really an indictment on the problems with States' Rights, then? It sounds like the difference in organization was down to differing economic models and priorities, rather than any difference between a strong or weak central government - after all, the same central government that oversaw the Northern railway organization would have seen the Southern railway organization, wouldn't it have? Or did the Federal government keep trying to get the South to standardize their gauges before the war, with the South thumbing its collective noses and yelling "States' Rights!"? The runners thing was very real. It was about respecting the state's sovereignty and not crossing the border without permission. It appeared in other areas, as well. When Bragg was in Chattanooga, for example, criminals learned they could get away by crossing the state line into Georgia. Bragg would not cross the border in pursuit of them without permission from Atlanta, which often took several hours to days, by which point the criminals were long gone.
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Nov 16, 2014 02:04
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Deteriorata posted:The runners thing was very real. It was about respecting the state's sovereignty and not crossing the border without permission. It appeared in other areas, as well. When Bragg was in Chattanooga, for example, criminals learned they could get away by crossing the state line into Georgia. Bragg would not cross the border in pursuit of them without permission from Atlanta, which often took several hours to days, by which point the criminals were long gone. Sorry, I meant "horseshit" in the sense of "Man, that is dumb as hell," not in the sense of "I call shenanigans!" Did anybody in the Confederate military ever try to complain about it or get it changed?
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Nov 16, 2014 02:09
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Tomn posted:Sorry, I meant "horseshit" in the sense of "Man, that is dumb as hell," not in the sense of "I call shenanigans!" Did anybody in the Confederate military ever try to complain about it or get it changed? There's a lot of stuff about the Confederacy that didn't make much sense. They obviously hadn't thought through a lot of this stuff beforehand.
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Nov 16, 2014 02:22
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