Dimitri > Recent Status Updates

This weakness was the Federalist dilemma. They believed that they&their kind had a natural right to rule. All history said so. the Revolution had largely been about securing the right of the natural aristocracy. But if their wealth was insufficient for them to govern? Would that justify opening opportunities for new ordinary men who seemed less scrupulous in using government to promote private interests & make money?

Storming the Winter Palace in 1917 was a dream fullfilled of seizing power while barely breaking a sweat: 5 casualties. The spirited reconstruction for Eisenstein's 1928 movie "Oktober" wounded more people...

On one side stood Lenin pushing a program sharp&clear: end the war now, all power to the Soviets! On the other side stood.. not clear exactly who, a loose coalition of anyone opposed to hostile Bolshevik takeover of Russia's remnant army&government. Kerensky was their leader without followers. His departure left the door wide open. Lenin didn't even have to "kick in the door" like Hitler but could simply walk in.

During most of the 18th century most elites had condenscendingly dismised popular rites&rituals as "the rabble letting off steam" In fact the awe of personal&social authority had compelled commoners to restort to mock ceremonies as means of dealing with their resentments, brief saturnalian transgressions of society rules to release in a controlled fashion their pent-up anger.

Kerensky decided to let the Bolsheviks off the hook so as to fight the phantom menace of "Kornilovism" but this ruined his credit with the rank-and-file just as Operation Albion opened the way to Petrograd. So the Bolesheviks , still officially charged with treason, returned smoothly from the wilderness to take center stage again, with a strategic majority in the Petrograd & Moscow Sovjets.

By 1917 "bite & hold" could take German-held high ground."the Allies' ability to destroy German divisions in the field faster than they could be reconstructed, in combination with moral exhaustion & material degradation would bring victory" Foch nibbled multifold, but unlike Ludendorff never tried a strategic victory via tactical rupture. His genius was to kick & punch the line back in diminishing waves.

Chelmsford's double mistake [make shitty camp, then chase campfires] came up for questioning once the royal support & press clamour winded down. Colonel Glynn, first officer on the scene responsible for the lay-out of the camp at Isandlwana, was unsuccesfully scapegoated, but his remaining years were nevertheless overshadowed by the memory of his lost regiment.

Isandlwana has its odd secrets. Lieutenants Coghill & Melvill, who rode the Queen's Colours to safety but were hunted down at the river, came with two extra bodies, both Rankers. One may be a Sgt. Cooper, based on a letter retrieved from his pocket, a rare personal object which commonly doubled as ID tag for non-commissioned officers. A major of 1/24th Foot wrote his sister based on the return adress.

Haig felt after 2.5 month slog the time was riper than usual for a Big Push on his ambitious cavalry maps now that the Germans were worn, his armies were refreshed & combined arms were a thing: the first tanks needed to be battle tested, the infantry was trained in assault & artillery spotting was sharp, especially in 6th Army...

The ordeal of the 24th wasn't dispelled instantly by the 700 ghostly apparitions of Chelmsford relief column out of the Natal morning mist.
Weeks spent in rain & mud bred endemic dystentery & "fevers" for which neither Victorian or 21st century medicine could identify the numerous underlying diseases. Muddy mealie sacks served as replacement jackets. Worse for historiography; there's no paper for written orders.

September sparked a fresh round of Haig vs. Rawlingson, the strategic vs. the tacitcal view, to break all 3 German lines in 1 go or to breach them 1 by 1 in the French style... Philpott incorporates a lot of anti-Gary Sheffield and anti - Prior & Wilson remarks here... I put a fat pencil mark IMPORTANT HISTORICAL DEBATE POINTS...

On September 12th, 6th Army was posed to carry its 5 divisions as far as the Mont St.Quentin itself, but their initial breakthrough got plugged while the tandem British Battle of Flers-Coulette to capture villages on the Bapaume-Péronne road also lost momentum.
Wet autumn weather&shorter daylight were regulary starting to affect the follow-up dimension anchored on logistics, as well as overall coordination.

Rumours of a compromise peace were unwelcome for the Allied planners on the Somme, who sensed a tipping point in September. The 4th Army attacked in "Fayolle" style; sector by sector behind a creeping barrage that was more in tune with a peculiar stretch of ground, instead of a one-speed-fits-all jump barrage preceding a general attack like on July 1. Deville Wood fell & Péronne almost but Thiepval not..

The issue of the spent ammo - with only 1 case unopened - is forever lost in the mud. Donald Morris' classic number of 20.000 bullets, based upon regulations, works out to 40 per Zulu but Stossel doesn't cite alternatives, she just credits more bayonet kills.

Out of the frying pan & into the fire: Chard rode up to Isandlwana for fresh orders but received none, and rode back just in case "something were to happen" under his command . His authority was appointed, by the way, there was no comparison of commissions with Bromhead.

the Drift covered a very small area about the size of 3 tennis courts. The defensive measures taken aren't detailed here, but they were not as ad hoc as in the movie (thank you, regulations) it was Dalton who upped the existing walls with extra boxes&bags. The big pyramid was a last hour addition. No word on whether the bag wall through the middle of the kraal was also a hurried improvisation [I think yes]

"Personal losses which provoked the most intense civilian engagement with events in France had to be rationalized in terms of the Greater Cause. Individual suffering&grief had to be mediated through a narrative of purpose&sacrifice, of nobility&bravery amid the tragedy of battle"

Sixth Army was made the sword arm out of the August impasse: with Foch's methodical method, it could outflank Péronne via the Péronne-Bapaume Road. Yes, ye good ol' outflank !

By ordering an offensive & sending a Bolshevik-infected unit to the front, Keresky had forced Lenin to show his hand. Now it was up to Kerensky to show his own. The Okhrana had a field day fielding documents&witnesses. In the wake of the July coup a "overpatriotic" realignment to the right occured: Kerensky cleaned the cabinet of its last Kadets (moderates) to become the (needed?) Liberal Russian Strong Man.

Worse, the Provosional Government published proof of Lenin's German deal. He shaved his beard & slipped away from his HQ while Stalin negotiated terms of surrender from the Peter-Paul fortress & loyal troops poured into Petrograd. The Pravda's presses were smashed... If Kerensky made the charges stick in a public trial, the Bolsheviks were finished.

The Zulus followed up their semi-spontaneous victory (restraining the younger Impis had been difficult, but the Horn drill paid off) with mandatory rituals: they devoured the gall bladder and/or disembowled the corpses to release its Spirit, which is visibly 'trapped' by expanding gas.

Less than 10 miles distant, visible to the north from Isandlwana mountain, lay the Drift....

15.000 Zulus poured on, throwing themselves flat to minimize the effects of artillery rounds* at 300 yards, volley fire came into play. In spite of 40°C heat & on an empty stomach, the redcoats were in high spirits. But after 3 volleys the black powder cloud 10 feet in front acted as a tenebrous smokescreen for both Horns.
Zulu casualties: 300 dead, 5000 badly wounded out of 30.000

*not specified: schrapnel, other?

This core evolution continued into 1917: "Bloody April" over Arras was another sacrifice in favour of anti-battery fire. Other novelties matured: wire contact fuses, topgraphical & sound range shooting, smoke shells, short barrages. By 1918, British gunnery had reached the adulthood that the next generation inherited at El Alamein & Caen.

Tactics on the Somme were slow to advance also. German counterattacks - in spite of all the stormtroop business - were usually as thickheaded as the British, whose uneven, piecemeal progress forced them to disentangle themselves before the next attempt under a creeping barrage - adopted by the French 6th Army as the new standard. Such redress was intransigent to trench warfare...

"Under the precept of amphibious doctrine, the naval strike force commander retains full responsibility for the assault until the landing force commander [ 2nd Marine division] is securely established ashore".
Under the precept of Japanese doctrine, the army was the egg for the proverbial omelette. A week of pin-down attrition by the (reinforced) Tarawa Garrison was to be followed by a 1905 style naval stroke.

The Air War distinguished the South Pacific from the Central Pacific. In the South, land-based air support was always used & large land masses could be struck at undefended points. In Central, you brought your own carrier planes & entire logistics in a "sea-going Blitzkrieg" as Nimitz named it. Nobody did it better than Spruance, of Midway fame.

In August, things looked equally frustrating on the ground as on the map:

With the British locked around Thiepval on one bank & the French around Péronne, Mont St. Quenton towered Sauronesque behind. The French 6th Army scored some sluggish success against a dispersed & deepened second line between Maurepas & Cléry.

In 1940, French infantry would grumble that they never saw any of their aircraft in the skies: in 1916, the boot was on the other foot. An aggressive strategy that added bombing, straffing & dogfights in protection of friendly spotter planes to the classic passive balloon defence proved succesful, at the price of many sorties per day & high losses.

Finnish Nationalism was strong in 1940. The Civil War had pitted Red Finns against White Finns, but the extreme right enjoyed [generally] a good consensus with the parties on the Left.
Neither could answer the nationalist question: are we Nordic, or Baltic? Baltic looked increasingly bad (see: Russian pressure) while a "Nordic NATO" could've kept the whole of Scandinavia out of WWII in retrospect.

"Quoi qu'on fasse, on perd beaucoup de monde" (gen. Mangin) but artillery was both the major casualty causer & major tech-drive. Already in 1916, High British RFC losses against the Albatros, equipped with Fokker's MG mechanism*, were to keep enemy spotters away & thus protect the heavy guns from anti-battery fire.

*copied from a Swiss concept, not romantically based upon his native windmill stone-throwing game!