Dimitri > Recent Status Updates

Trooper William Baker of the Natal Carabiniers escaped Isandwana on horse via a rugged 6 mile long fugitive trail to the swollen river, where on both banks Zulus killed survivors. It nearly won him a Victoria Cross.

Prior poses that if the politicians could control the next Flanders offensive by the phase, they had the power to abort the next advance based on poor returns. At the same time, Indecision more than inevitability seems his password on such political strategic control. No alternative to a sustained mode of attack in France could be judged suitable...

Haig was not a supreme commander or military dictator; he was 'merely' commanding a task force under the supervision of a civilian democracy. Lloyd George was not politically isolated or too weak to resist Haig's Flanders focus when he wanted to. Neither was "Big Ypres 3" inevitable. Contrary, operations with limited objectives seemed to start paying off, such as Arras or the recapture of Verdun ground by Nivelle.

Haig & Rawlingson disputed over extent of the attack front, need for a deception attack, whether to inflict indirect bombardment on the German 2nd line, invisible to British spotters, & relative merits of a bite-&-hold approach vs. the Big Push. Rawlingson yielded over the Somme because Haig had protected him from dismissal by John French in '15, but these tactical-strategic twist apples will resurface in Flanders

The Somme planning predates Verdun so there is no true causal relation (a popular misconception) but it did reveal the vital role of artillery, rather than manpower. P&W paint a languid picture of civilian decision making [..but I wonder, couldn't Lloyd George have sped up ammo production?] The only true concession to Verdun was that the British needed to bear the brunt of the joint offensive.

The pheripheral strategy of striking at Germany's allies let nowhere. The Ottomans proved too resilient in battle & the Habsburgs too well protected by the Balkan, where the cautious politics of the newly independent states foreclosed any alliance, let alone a front.
Prior & Wilson thus also demolish the notion that the seaborne British Empire had the leisure to project its power across the globe at will.

Focus on West.Front was inescapable necessity on political-logistical grounds. 1 France was senior partner;had shouldered the German opening offensive; continued to hold most front, so her strategic plans carried weight. 2 Only N.France possessed geographical proximity&well-developed infrastructure for massive material build-up accumulating in offensive strong enough to breach the principal weapon of Central Powers.

This negative view of a military-only Chantily I conference (december '15) as a structural cause of the Somme slaughter dates back to the "lions led by donkeys" philosophy. Prior & Wilson fortunately do not adhere to this, recognizing the formulation of war aims as the prerogative of the civilian government, in line with David Stevenson. While the politicians weren't in the room, they were present in spirit.

Did military commanders keep their civilian counterparts out of the decision making, leading to senseless slaughter (in a marked contrast with WWII) ? The Chantilly conference of december 1915, shaping a concerted attack w/ Italy&Russia, was indeed attended only by the brass, not the top hats, & is marked as the genesis of the Somme campaign.

Reason why Austria needed German support in case of war w/ Serbia was plain as day: Russia might intervene. True, it hadn't in either of the Balkan Wars b/c both times Serbia was winning & Vienna did nothing; there had been no need to bail out Belgrade, unlike in the case of invasion.. Only with German backing could the Austrians even entertain the idea of going to war in the Balkans, lest they be easily bested.

That Conrad was keen to crush Serbia was the worst kept secret in Europe. As Cato the Elder had signed off his speeches with the Reminder 'Carthago esse delendam" so he had been consistently urging his colleagues to "solve the Serbian Question once & for all" since the First Bosnian Crisis of 1908-1909 ; he pushed for a declaration of war 25 times in 1913 alone. [& not just to impress his mistress]

American firepower at company level was inferior to that of the Germans. A German company carried 15 MG42s against 2 BARs, limited by a 20 round magazine, whereas the fast-firing MG42 was generally belt-fed with 200 rounds.

WTF ?? "The formal announcement of the Anglo-Polish alliance on 25/08/39 came about because Britain had abandoned her policy of appeasing German expansionism. London failed to accommodate Hitler's demands & push Nazi aggression towards the USSR, hoping for the mutual destruction of National Socialism & Communism."

the famous "motti" tactic of the Finns was born out of necessity: the war spread much further north than anticipated, into Lapland, where a convential army was totally road-bound. A motti seldom entailed physical destruction: an immobilised Soviet column quickly established a perimeter heavily defended with its tanks & guns, like pioneers in a wagon circle. A slow strangle by starvation & cold was the best answer.

Why did a modest Kansan rise to become Supreme Commander & later a two-term president? He had no pretentions. He was prepared to shoulder the blame if things went wrong.

While neutral Sweden filtered through as much non-belligerent help as legally justifiable & Danish volunteers brought enough airplanes with them to make straffing possible, Anglo-French promises never materialised. [true!] Suspicions ran of plans to cut off Germany from its ores by using Nordic Europe as the main battlefield.

The first Russian attacks were in 14-18 style, easy to kill infantry & tanks separately. Phase 2 saw massive artillery/armour attacks; the final barrage lasted until the very minute of the 11 a.m. peace. Unfortunately, Johansen gives no insight here how aspects of the Deep Penetration tactics have survived the purge among the Red Army's theorists.

"Thus in less than two weeks after the victory at [fort] Donelson, the two leading generals in the army were in correspondence as to what disposition should be made of me, and in less than three weeks I was virtually in arrest and without a command."

The first intruiging What If amidst familiar generality
"Given his lamentable lack of combat experience, Dollmann was the worst possible choice anyone could've made for senior command on a potential invasion coast. He shoulders the blame for 7th army's lack of training, poor defeences & hopeless reaction to D-Day. A 7th army with almost anyone else at the helm would've given the Allies a much harder fight on 6 june."

3-4 airborne divisions were avaliable for operations on D-Day. The challenge was the amount of transport aircraft & gliders avaliable, and the number of qualified pilots who would be trained in time. Air lift resources, as with sea lift, would prove an effective brake on the aspirations of the Allied commanders.

There was, in short, some routine army traffic up & down the road past the Drift that faithful day. For those moving along it, chance alone dictated whether they were present when the battle unfolded.[It also explains the latitude for false claimants a bit] Chard was a recent arrival & Bourne knew only his own regiment well; neither has a 100% accurate list & we have no originals of either for a fresh reconstruction.

...Back then, there had been no clear objective & now there was no clear plan.
I disagree. Were limitations on “linear” support such a bad idea? For one thing, the British army’s concept of defense in depth had matured nicely along with German tactics. For another, stormtroopers and the follow-up infantry couldn’t keep swallowing strongpoints forever.

The German counterattack at Cambrai certainly triggered a lot of debate about non-intervention by heavy artillery under corps command to help beleaguered divisions. In light of what would happen in March, the 55th division on the demarcation line between III & VII corps was a likely victim of what according to Travers was a lenient attitude reminiscent of the Somme & Passendaele....

"From the POV of the future March offensive the German counterattack on 30/11 was actually the most significant aspect of the Cambrai battle since the BEF could've recognized that the opponent was using new tactics. Cambrai stalled in the center after 48 w/no significant reserves but "each level of command blaming the other; the further each level was away from the front line the less urgency there appeared to be"

The replacements of Joffre&Asquith by Nivelle&Lloyd George respectively had little effect, but Nivelle did have the better idea to drain Germany, rather than to drain Austria by diverting resources to Italy as LLoyd George lobied. Meanwhile, the successfull Battle of the Scarpe (Arras, 8-12/04/17) owed much to the artillery density (3x the Somme) but all kept underestimating how hard an ideal start is to replicate.

Two contrast basic numbers:
2 months of Red Terror killed 15.000
The last century of Romanov rule ruled 6321 executions.

"In their first 2 months of power, the Bolsheviks had not so much won over the Russian people as harassed & bludgeoned them into submission. A Parliament was an impossible scam as long as the whole country rose up. Lenin however, had an ace in the hole: he who could bring peace might carry all before him. It was time to play the German card."

Moscow was a bloodier affair [than St. Petersburg] against strong government forces, storming the Kremlin after a point-blank artillery duel.

To the Dustbin of history: the Mensheviks & Socialist revolutionaries leave the Second all-Russian Congress of Soviets, while Lenin APPROPRIATES their slogan "Peace, Land and Bread".

Officials resisted, banks refused to open their vault, so they went after private deposits...

"Jefferson personified this revolutionary transformation. His ideas about liberty&democracy left such a deep imprint on the future of his country that, despite attempts to discredit his reputation, as long as there is a United States, he will remain the supreme spokesman for his nation's noblest ideals&highest aspirations."

Wood shows his true (anti-Federalist) colours, but without the plural "are" United States.

Still, expelling aliens&stopping the flow of scurrilous writing via resp. the Alien&Sedition Acts were only part of a larger Federalist program for saving the Republic from the scourge of Jacobinism, imported by radical Republicans to import a French Revolution. The Republicans on their side were as frightened by what they described as the Federalist moves towards Monarchy, including a standing army&war w/France.