- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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Meanwhile, even more comedy down in the Indian Ocean, at the Chagos Islands. The remote (and subsequently infamous) British colony of Diego Garcia receives a rare visit from a naval cruiser, and they dutifully give it all the welcome and honours that its station demands. Unfortunately for them, the cruiser is SMS Emden. The colony is so remote that it has no radio, and therefore no means of communication with the outside world. Nobody's dropped by to check on them in the last few months. They have no idea that they're supposed to be at war with the friendly German sailors, and for some strange reason Captain Muller is not in a hurry to correct this impression. Instead, they spend a pleasant week repairing Emden's damage, careening her hull, providing her with coal, and selling odds and sods to the crew.
This is fantastic.
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Oct 6, 2014 15:41
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May 13, 2024 14:42
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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There's also Franziska Scanagatta, who apparently never got caught.
Ages ago, I was researching women who served in disguise in the American Civil War, and one thing I seem to remember coming up a lot in the articles I came across was that it was way easier for them to remain undiscovered that you'd think just because none of the men around them expected to find a woman in the ranks.
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Oct 13, 2014 23:11
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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What are some good books to read on the Napoleonic Wars? Is there a Napoleonic equivalent to Wilson? How did my life lead me to a place where I know more about the 30YW than the Napoleonic Wars?
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Oct 14, 2014 20:35
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100.273972602739726 Years Ago
Same excuse as last time. Anyway, it's a busy old day. The front doesn't move that much, except for the vital German capture of a coastal bridgehead that can be used to threaten Nieuport and the entire Belgian line. This all is giving the Engineers vital time to do a poo poo-ton of digging all over the place, which will soon become very important. Also it's a bad-taste day in the Daily Telegraph, as German citizens in Britain discover what a "concentration camp" is, and hopefully as the war wears on I'll find time to talk more about prisoners and internees (particularly in terms of those being held by the Allies, it's a relatively neglected subject).
I'm catching up on the last few days and holy moley:
quote:
On page 5, Gamages (an enormous and now-closed department store) announces its latest sale with the slogan “TREMENDOUS SLAUGHTER…in prices!”
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Oct 24, 2014 16:34
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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I wonder what a meeting between the Emperors Maximilian and Norton would have been like...
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Nov 4, 2014 22:34
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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Both my grandfathers were in the US Navy during WWII. My maternal grandfather was an officer on the USS Bunker Hill. We have his diary from the war-- I should try to find it and scan it in or something, but the main thing I remember is that after this happened, he apparently spent days and days doing paperwork in the aftermath of the attack as the ship was slowly towed back to port.
My paternal grandfather was an enlisted sailor and I think he was in the Atlantic, but I don't really know much about it.
Going further back-- a few people on the maternal side of my family fought for the Union in the American Civil War. One guy was an army doctor, and we have some spoons that were purportedly made from him melting down some of his pay money as a keepsake, which is (apparently?) something they did back then then.
Even more vaguely, apparently some of that side of the family was kicking around back in the Revolution, but I don't know who they were or what they were up to, or if they even existed and aren't just a figment of our imagination.
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Dec 22, 2014 18:57
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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I feel like coming up with punishments worse than just having to continue to live in a trench as a WWI soldier must have been pretty tricky.
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Jan 6, 2015 22:53
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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Somehow, I feel like all of our adventures in history would be a lot less Lest Darkness Fall and a lot more The Man Who Came Early, if you know what I mean.
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Jan 9, 2015 21:47
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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Here are some of my favorite Hapsburgs, in some...I guess time-lapse pictures. These people had a lot of portraits done, so you can see them live and grow, almost year by year.
Philip II had two daughters. Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia was born in 1566, and Infanta Catalina Micaela/Catherine Michelle was born in 1567.
Isabella Clara Eugenia is on the right, Catalina Micaela is on the left. This picture is from approx. 1568. Note that the two are already in miniature (and absurdly adorable) versions of adult clothing; they are already being trained to be what they are, even though the younger girl can't really walk yet.
Note also their eyes: both of them have eye sockets that are...a little out of true. The right one's lower than the left, and this shows up in almost every painting of them. They're also redheads, like every Hapsburg on earth. I'd like to see their DNA tests, except that I wouldn't.
I can't find a date for this, but it's by a woman, Sofonisba Anguissola, who also painted The Prado Philip II. Catalina Micaela is so over this. Did you know that womens' corsets at the time are metal cages? She does.
Here they are in a Book of Hours that belongs to Catherine de Medici, approx 1570:
Isabella is 4, but she looks older:
Catalina is 3, and ditto. Was this book misdated?
Coello Antonio Sanchez, approx 1575. Isabella is 9, and Catalina Micaela is 8. Neither of them are doing very much with their lives yet, but they're both quite intelligent. Also, Hapsburgs look like clones (except Catalina's hair is curly--you can see that in every picture, including the one where she's about a year old and has a little fluff of baby hair).
Sanchez again, 1579. Isabella at 13. Waistlines are dropping, and little top hats are in.
As young women, both of them were strikingly beautiful. Here's The Notorious I.C.E, making the Hapsburg jaw look good:
Little top hats are definitely in.
And here's Catalina. We've finally gotten rid of the little Tudory sleeve puff things.
They're both highly capable. Isabella is the only person Phillip II trusts to handle his paperwork with him. Catalina was described as intelligent and arrogant. She became the Duchess of Savoy when she married Charles Emanuel I, and was resented for trying to introduce Spanish court ceremony (which is tedious) to that country. However, according to Wikipedia, "she soon gained respect because of her political and diplomatic skill, which she also used to defend the autonomy of Savoy against Spain." Eat it, cousins.
But here their stories diverge, because the smart, arrogant Catalina, who exchanged loving letters with her father after she moved away, died in 1597. She was thirty years old.
Isabella Clara Eugenia lived. Her face gets heavier year by year...in fact, she begins to look a lot like her father.
Hats get bigger, ruffs stay small.
In 1599 Isabella marries her cousin (lol) Archduke Albert. They are joint sovereigns of the Spanish Netherlands, and she's waaaaay more intelligent than he is. Albert was also the Archbishop of Toledo before the marriage, but fuckit, release him from his commitments because we have a dynasty to expand. Shortly before Philip II died, he renounced his rights to the Netherlands in favor of the pair.
When Isabella gains a little more weight, she no longer looks as much like her dad, but the resemblance is still there. Also, ruffs get bigger.
Franz Pourbos the Younger. There's rich, and then there's earrings in your hair rich.
Not sure who painted this, c. 1600.
Rubens painted this; maybe it was restored poorly? Photographed badly? The faces look lovely. Ruffs: still huge. Little top hats: no longer trendy. The Netherlands: ceasefire at the moment, but a resounding feh to all of it.
Philip II died on 13 September 1598. Once he got sick, Isabella took care of him personally for years.
Upon Albert's death in 1621 Isabella took vows as a lay Franciscan.
She was also appointed Governor of the Netherlands. The glory of the victory at Breda (1626) went to her.
She died in 1633, at the age of 67.
This is so cool.
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Jan 10, 2015 19:28
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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Good Alternate History
Books:
The Man in the High Castle
Pavane
TV:
Fatherland
Movies:
How are we talking about good AH without mentioning The Yiddish Policemen's Union?
The Plot Against America was also a really good book, although I guess speaking strictly in terms of alternate history everything kind of snaps back to actual history in a distracting way towards the end.
Oddly, all good AH seems to be from people who aren't known as ~*~*~alternate history authors~*~*~.
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Jan 22, 2015 07:00
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100 Years Ago
This is going to take a moment. Here's a quick link to today's entry. It's a bit of a departure from the usual routine, so:
The last 15 years or so have seen a growing contingent of historians who are trying to re-evaluate the First World War and its context. I've referred to the conclusions they often end up with, possibly slightly unfairly, as the Sheffield-Gove view, after its most prominent member, Dr Gary Sheffield, and the oiky politician who more recently brought revisionist thinking to a wide audience. I like a lot of what's been done by revisionists. There's a lot of extremely useful research been done by them, on all kinds of subjects. Addressing myths like "the blokes spent years in the firing line", "we shot thousands for cowardice", "the generals were all morons who learned nothing in four years", "the Somme was a complete disaster", the list of things is as long as your arm. Unquestionably, a lot of their work puts the war in a more nuanced and interesting light.
(Sheffield's book Forgotten Victory is the quickest, cheapest, most widely-available revisionist text - all the major themes are in there.)
And then they start talking about what it was all for. For some reason, revisionists have this urge to show that going to war was the morally right thing to do, and that Britain in particular faced the same kind of existential threat that had to be combated. Sheffield's Grauniad piece prefers to refer to "Britain", in rather the same way that "England" was widely used in 1915 to stand for either the UK or the Empire as a whole. It's extremely telling that his only reference to the Empire is as "Britain and its empire", as though the Empire were some gauche black-sheep distant Took cousin to Britain's respectable, reasonable Baggins family. Of course, he's happy to talk about the aggressive, militaristic, expansionist policies of the German Empire, without speculating how they might have come about in the first place...
So this is why today's entry is about Malawian national hero John Chilembwe (he's on their money), who is just about to lead an uprising against the white settlers in (as-was) Nyasaland. It's also about some of the features of British Empire rule in Nyasaland that have brought him to this point. Spoilers: there isn't much liberal democracy to be found here.
I really like how you're showing that WWI wasn't just a European conflict, both in terms of covering the experience of troops pulled from the colonies and sent to fight in France and in terms of how the war's affecting the parts of the world under colonial occupation when their imperial rulers all decided to try to blow one another up.
(Also, Sheffield drives me up the loving wall, holy poo poo.)
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Jan 23, 2015 16:49
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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Did the different belligerents have different styles of trenches, or did the British, Germans, French, et al all converge on the same general trench philosophy?
EDIT:
As far as I know nobody got sufficiently desperate to put their blokes on rafts and float them into the middle of a trench system, which if nothing else is a highly amusing thought. (I'm sure Winston Churchill would have tried it if there were any water near Plugstreet.) If it's only a small brook or stream, it wasn't unknown for engineers to try to dam it and then divert its course somewhere else so the bed would run dry and they could fill in the gap. This is possibly one of the things Alex Letyford was trying to do at the start of the month to keep the water out of his trenches.
It is a pretty Good Idea, isn't it?
Empress Theonora fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jan 25, 2015
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Jan 25, 2015 02:19
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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More thoughts on
Completely different. The basic problem of the Western Front on December 1 1914 is like this. Zee Germans are sitting on large and valuable parts of northern France (plenty of good aggercultural land, rich coal-mining country, and regional manufacturing centres), and almost all of Belgium. They've seen how difficult attacking is. They don't have to do jack poo poo. They're already in a massively advantageous position In strict military terms, they can just sit there and wait for the Entente to try to buy them off at the negotiating table while they get stuck into the Russians. (Like so many other things in the war, it nearly worked!)
Therefore, they are going to sit on every hill, butte, hillock, mesa, ridge, rise, height, and knoll that they can possibly find, dig deep, and then put up a noticeboard on the wire saying "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough". They're building positions to hold indefinitely. Lines upon lines upon lines. Four lines deep, five lines deep, six lines deep. With another reserve trench system a few hundred metres behind it, half-prepared, ready to be dug out properly at a few hours' notice. Barbed-wire forests in front, ten metres deep at least. At some time soon, some clever bastard is going to invent a defensive arrangement that I can best describe as "A weaponised haha with barbed wire in the bottom that advancing troops can't see until they nearly fall in it." Dugouts far deeper than any shell can reach. Dugouts with electricity in, often installed as soon as October or November 1914. Their trenches are also relatively wide so the Entente can't just drive a tractor or an armoured car over the top of them. (There's a lot of people thinking very literally, and trying to invent some sort of bridging machine.)
Britain and France have no intention of trying to settle; the cost of buying the invaders off will be far too great, they have the blockade, etc. So they have to try to remove them by force.
Problem 1: In order to attack the Germans, you must be right up under their noses (100 yards or less, for preference, or at least close enough to sap jumping-off trenches to that distance). If they're on a hill, you therefore need to be at the bottom of the hill. It's no good sitting 800 yards away so the blokes can have a smoke in safety and avoid all the water running downhill when it rains. You'll never cross No Man's Land in enough time when you attack. Which you will do. This all obliges you to dig your trenches on ground that is, ahem, less than entirely favourable.
Problem 2: What's the point of building a really nice trench, and then having the Big Push and leaving it a few miles in your rear? The French continued this philosophy so far that they didn't really bother with things like building any facilities for the blokes in their rear areas until 1916; they were quartered in villages if they were lucky, or left in the open air if not. Also, it was thought digging in properly might affect the blokes' offensive spirit (insert hollow laughter). Dugouts (or even sandbags) were often hard to come by, zig-zagging could be more a suggestion than a requirement, etc. British philosophy was basically the same, but even in early 1915 they built generally better trenches for the meantime (since any idiot can be uncomfortable, and having proper defences saves lives so you can have more people to attack), and the brass hats preferred to bolster offensive spirit by encouraging plenty of patrolling and raids between battles. ("This is the question every platoon commander should ask himself: am I as offensive as I might be?")
This is the killer photo. No prizes for guessing where Zee Germans are.
Whoa, that aerial photo is nuts.
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Jan 25, 2015 22:57
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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quote:
Here is an incident from Hungary. We had a trophy German "letuchka" (light maintenance truck). We had penetrated into the German rear in column. We were going along a road and our light truck had fallen back. Then another light German truck, just like our own, attached itself to the back of our column. A while later our column halted. I was walking down the column, checking vehicles. "Is everything in order?" Everything was fine. I approached the last vehicle in the column and asked, "Sasha, is everything OK?" In response I heard "Vas?" What was this? Germans! I immediately jumped to the side and cried out "Germans!" We surrounded them, a driver and two others. We disarmed them and only then did our own light truck come up the road. I said, "Sasha, where were you?" He responded, "We got lost." "Well, look," I said to him, "Here is another light truck for you!"
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Jan 27, 2015 21:03
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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This owns and the narrator seemed way too patronizing about it.
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Feb 2, 2015 00:53
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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31 January: I'm short-changing the Eastern Front quite a bit at the moment, but that's what happens when the major English-language work is still one written in 1975. With that in mind, I happily ignore all the details of the Battle of Bolimow in favour of talking about the Germans' failed attempt at using tear gas there. Meanwhile, Herbert Sulzbach is skiving off work in Metz, and Louis Barthas is stitching the English up in Annequin.
Louis Barthas posted:
Squad by squad we were going to reclaim our customary billets, when we were very badly received by the townspeople, a large part of whom had returned. They accused us of having looted and pillaged their houses, and called us the worst names. Not feeling especially charitable ourselves, we put the blame on the English, who were occupying part of the village.
Oh, that lovable scamp!
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Feb 6, 2015 20:11
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100 Years Ago
February 6th: Speaking of ridiculous, it's back to the Western Front for the tale of the Purple Horse, and I'm running out of turns of phrase to deploy when describing extremely silly happenings.
This is fantastic.
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Feb 10, 2015 00:38
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100 Years Ago
Herbert Sulzbach is in chipper mood as his battery helps to stymie the French advances at First Champagne. The Anglo-French fleet is now heading for the Dardanelles with malice aforethought. In the BEF's rear areas, Lt Charles Tennant is itching to see some action, but a friendly general has recently promised him that he might not have to wait much longer. Oh, and there's a truly fantastic advert for Pianola pianos.
I'm so bowled over by that Pianola ad, I'm losing my mind.
quote:
"Obtain a 'Pianola' Piano on the SPECIAL WAR TERMS and spend your evenings, not in absorbing harrowing details of German threats retailed by vague correspondents in Copenhagen, but in personally playing the music that will lift your mind above the influence of such unproductive fare."
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Feb 19, 2015 00:04
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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If I were king of the U.N. for a day I would strike "Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group" and " Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" from the definition of genocide, because they really do not belong in the same definition as mass murder and death marches.
Jesus Christ.
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Feb 26, 2015 02:02
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100 Years Ago
Another day of disappointing news for the Entente. Herbert Sulzbach gets some reinforcements, IEF "D" cops another kicking in Mesopotamia, even the official naval history thinks the Dardanelles campaign is being bungled, and the men in Glasgow go back to work, but they're working to rule until they get their wage increase.
We've also got the "In March 1915..." round-up: the BEF (finally!) starts to introduce a Medium Mortar, Roland Garros is experimenting with shooting a machine gun through reinforced propellors, South Africa is about to invade German-held Namibia, and the blockade of Germany tightens its grip to include food. Oh, and apparently the Michelin Man knows the value of a strong, pure rubber as he swims grinning towards thankful Britannia with a phallic German torpedo in his hand and cigar in his mouth, presumably doing his bit to alleviate food shortages by keeping the birth rate down.
These ads just keep on getting weirder and weirder.
("TREMENDOUS SLAUGHTER... in prices!" will still be my favorite forever, though. Holy Toledo.)
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Mar 4, 2015 03:02
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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All military wear was downhill from landsknechts, really.
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Mar 4, 2015 03:08
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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French cuirassiers in plate armour, 1914: 
The pop culture myth is that guns made armour obsolete, when in fact they coexisted on the battlefield. The big factor that led to plate armour's decline was the use of pike and shot. When the socket bayonet was invented in the late 17th century, it led to the decline of pikes because now everyone had a miniature pike on his musket. Napoleon used cuirassiers as elite troops because the round musket balls of his time couldn't reliably penetrate a breastplate and sword bayonets weren't effective either. By World War I, everyone was using cylindrical jacketed ammunition with far more penetrating power, so the French quickly learned that breastplates were no longer bulletproof.
This reminds me of something I've been wondering about for a while-- where's a good place to find images of the uniforms and equipment of the early war, before all the stuff we associate with iconic WWI soldiers (stalhelms, brodie helmets, etc.) came into use?
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Mar 4, 2015 23:49
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100 Years Ago
In France, some of the Friendly Feldwebel's comrades do their bit to reinforce the German army's reputation for oafishness. Winston Churchill gets to report yesterday's action at the Dardanelles to the War Council, lucky him. Does it matter if the story about the Ottoman forts running out of ammo is true or not? The Telegraph still doesn't seem to have published a casualty list from Neuve Chapelle, and the various British industrial disputes continue.
https://youtu.be/ujpnXoMeXmY?t=1m13s
These Dardanelles posts have been really good.
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Mar 20, 2015 16:03
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100 Years Ago
A (very) brief introduction to General Birdwood, the ANZAC commander, who is mildly less boring than most generals. The Michelin Man and his huge...cigar are back to hawk more tyres, the Siege of Przemysl draws to an end before I can find a chance to talk about it properly, General Joffre has been invited by the Council of Ministers to an interview without coffee, and a British gunner does his bit to combat the dastardly threat posed by the villainous Hun. In this case, it's by dropping some shells on his head as he tries to enjoy his morning cup of coffee. (It's also some interesting insight into how exactly an artillery piece gets fired.)
The Actions in Progress section just won't be the same without the Siege of Przemysl around.
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Mar 22, 2015 03:45
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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I saw the Hiroshima museum back in 2005 and I still feel kind of hosed up over it.
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Mar 23, 2015 16:20
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100 Years Ago
We're stepping away from the trenches for today. In France, they're holding trials for a prototype landship. What's more, it even looks vaguely like a tank! Meanwhile, back in Blighty, a new Territorial Army recruit unwisely complains about doing guard duty, and tells us about the side benefits of one of the other duties in the town where he's been stationed. (It involves fish and chips.)
It's kind of endearing that they just drew gun ports onto the Frot-Laffly.
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Mar 28, 2015 19:31
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100 Years Ago
There's another of those maps that I know y'all love so much as the French launch the Battle of Woevre. (Just guess what happens.) Sir Ian Hamilton spends some quality time with his diary, as his subordinates write to him with extremely pessimistic appraisals of the situation. The Colonel of the Sportsman's Battalion shows that there's nothing new under the sun by complaining about the lack of patriotism being shown by football players, and we're looking at some stories of officers' training. Or, as it turns out, the lack of same.
Finally, do you need a typewriter? If so, then boy, this is the update for you!!!
Lieutenant Guy Chapman posted:
When the Major, as president of the court, turned to me to demand my sentence, I replied, “Oh, death, sir, I suppose.”
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Mar 30, 2015 16:56
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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The lesser-known "Clean Sturmabteilung" argument.
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Apr 1, 2015 01:38
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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100 Years Ago
It's a pretty stacked day. The Friendly Feldwebel has lost his commanding officer to politics. The Ottomans are massing in force at Shaiba, to threaten Basra. The Legion of Frontiersmen leaves for Africa, prompting casual racism from one officer already in theatre. The French make an important decision for their future tank development. Herbert Sulzbach goes back to Les Petites Armoises. The Italians move a big step closer to joining the war. The French plan to renew the Battle of Woevre. And Avon tyres come up with the best war-themed advert since "Enormous Slaughter in Prices".
Just confirming that there will be an ersatz 100 Years Ago post when the fighting's done. With plenty of testimony from the blokes on the ground, natch. "On the ground" being the operative phrase.
I think about "Enormous Slaughter in Prices" constantly.
That last bit about Sulzbach was interesting, since I've never really known much about the civilians in the parts of France Germany was occupying. How was the territory run in general?
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Apr 11, 2015 02:56
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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It's a neglected subject, but here, someone's kindly written a free article all about it that I in no way plan to shamelessly rip off later. With some luck and friendly units billeted on you most of the time you'd probably be okay, although you wouldn't have much of anything; but like an awful lot of things, it would undoubtedly be remembered better if the Nazis hadn't happened twenty years later.
quote:The German government had the, initially, rather vague hope to win over the Flemish population of Belgium by supporting Flemish activist groups, who had been at a constant quarrel with the Belgian government before the war, fighting for more rights and the recognition of Flemish culture and language emancipation.[6] The German Flemish policy reached a climax in 1916, when the occupier reopened the University of Ghent as an exclusively Flemish-speaking institute, and culminated in the administrative splitting of Belgium into the two separate regions of Flanders and Wallonia in March 1917. This step was not only aimed at the Flemish population, but was also meant as an incentive for the Walloon movement, which the German occupiers very irrationally hoped to convince of their cause too by promising close post-war ties between an independent Wallonia and Germany.
A Well Thought-Out Scheme™.
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Apr 12, 2015 03:19
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- Empress Theonora
- Feb 19, 2001
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She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
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Unpopular opinion: I'm kind of glad HBO's Rome ended before it wound up overlapping with my beloved I, Claudius.
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Apr 16, 2015 07:52
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May 13, 2024 14:42
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Oct 6, 2014 15:41
