James Altucher wrote the following thoughtful Memorial Day reflection.
As you'll notice as you read it, he railed against the stupidity of every war he mentions, and found none of them "worth it." I won't argue with him there.
He also says, incidentally, that he dislikes the fact that making this anti-stupidity point might make him seem like a "pro-peace" person. Being pro-peace, he said, is "not what this is about."
I wasn't the only reader of his reflections who wondered why he would insist on a distinction between railing against war and being pro-peace. Doesn't opposing anything usually entail holding out some hope for an alternative? I thought I had come up with an adequate explanation for what he meant, but then started reading the comments section to find my explanation up-ended.
You'll also see, if you go rather deep into the comments thread, that "dinosaurtrader" asks him about this matter too. "Why hate feeling like a 'pro-peace' person? What's so bad about that?"
He replied that this was a good point, and that perhaps a "shame factor" entered into his use of that expression.
That's where I jumped in, and I'll just reproduce here my own comment.
As to the difference between being pro-peace and being anti-stupidity-of-war, I thought you were making a valuable distinction. After all, in 1938 Gandhi wrote a rather fatuous essay on the ongoing persecution of Jews in Germany (which was of course still, as we can say in hindsight, in early stages), and I submit that his essay to which I will link you in a moment shows the limitations of what it means to be a peace person. He said: "But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing death has no terror."
click.
If THAT is pro-peace, then pro-peace is pretty stupid., I think in retrospect at least there might be a lot more Jews in the world today than there are had there been more resistence: two, three, four, a dozen Warsaw uprisings.
On the other hand, the wars that you reference don't have a lot to do with the Warsaw ghetto uprising. So, yes, I saw your point (if this was your point) in dissassociating yourself from sentiments like that on one hand, while opposing the stupidity of war on the other.
I hope you don't abandon that distinction entirely.
Showing posts with label military affairs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military affairs. Show all posts
04 June 2011
04 September 2008
Not in real time
This and the next few posts have been prepared in advance.
I'm traveling and won't be spending a lot, if any, time on the net. So this and the next seven posts on this blog were actually composed days ago. It's neat how blogger lets me pre-schedule the day and time of posting.
Allow me today [?] to recommend to you a recent work of military/social history,
LENINGRAD: State of Siege, by Michael Jones.
Mr. Jones is a fellow of the World Historical Society, and this is his fourth book. Each of his four books has focused on a particular battle, two of them medieval (Bosworth and Agincourt). He is also the author of STALINGRAD: How the Red Army Triumphed.
He's made quite a jump, then, from writing about 15th century battles at the western end of Europe to writing about 20th century battles in its east.
I haven't read the other three but his latest is a rippin' good yarn.
I'm traveling and won't be spending a lot, if any, time on the net. So this and the next seven posts on this blog were actually composed days ago. It's neat how blogger lets me pre-schedule the day and time of posting.
Allow me today [?] to recommend to you a recent work of military/social history,
LENINGRAD: State of Siege, by Michael Jones.
Mr. Jones is a fellow of the World Historical Society, and this is his fourth book. Each of his four books has focused on a particular battle, two of them medieval (Bosworth and Agincourt). He is also the author of STALINGRAD: How the Red Army Triumphed.
He's made quite a jump, then, from writing about 15th century battles at the western end of Europe to writing about 20th century battles in its east.
I haven't read the other three but his latest is a rippin' good yarn.
22 November 2007
Patton and the Press
A certain radio program aired on November 21, 1943 -- so yesterday was its anniversary -- and I think it is worth acknowledging for the way it reflects upon contemporary events.
That August, General Patton had slapped an American GI in a field hospital. Actually, there were two such incidents -- one on August 3, one on the 10th -- which popular memory has melded into one.
So far as I can tell, everyone who has studied the incidents agrees on this: neither of the slap recipients was a malingerer. Each was in fact a deserving recipient of medical attention, and Patton was acting like a jerk.
Question: how did the incident(s) become common knowledge? The reporters covering the war for the US papers were in no hurry to run stories that discredited US officers. By some accounts, several reporters knew of the slaps yet didn't think them worthy of print.
That's how matters remained for three months, until columnist Drew Pearson learned of it and ran it on his radio program. That program aired on November 21, 1943, which is why I'm writing this today.
It's a big moment in the history of combat coverage. Was Drew Pearson right to do what he did? Would he be a hero or a goat if he did the same today, if a commanding officer in Iraq did the slapping?
I know nothing about Drew Pearson, but I would assume absent evidence that there wasn't any isolationist motive to his action that November. He was likely fully convinced of the rightness of the war effort. Furthermore, the "Patton" of legend, the Patton who would be played in the classic George C. Scott movie, hadn't yet made his appearance on the battlefield. He'd create that legend in France, later in the war.
Patton's actions were a court martialable offense. Reporters, then as now, often prided themselves upon taking the ordinary rank-and-file soldier's point of view, and sharing that soldier's grievances against the brass. Surely it must have been a tempting story for some ink-stained wretches during that three-month period.
Were they wrong to agree to sit on the story? I think there is a case to be made that things worked out for the best. The in-theatre reporters (the "embedded" ones as we would say) who knew first, are the ones who have to play ball with their sources. Pearson was no party to whatever gentleman's agreement they had made. So possibly everybody was doing the right thing.
How would it play out today?
Oh, and one more thing -- happy Thanksgiving to all.
That August, General Patton had slapped an American GI in a field hospital. Actually, there were two such incidents -- one on August 3, one on the 10th -- which popular memory has melded into one.
So far as I can tell, everyone who has studied the incidents agrees on this: neither of the slap recipients was a malingerer. Each was in fact a deserving recipient of medical attention, and Patton was acting like a jerk.
Question: how did the incident(s) become common knowledge? The reporters covering the war for the US papers were in no hurry to run stories that discredited US officers. By some accounts, several reporters knew of the slaps yet didn't think them worthy of print.
That's how matters remained for three months, until columnist Drew Pearson learned of it and ran it on his radio program. That program aired on November 21, 1943, which is why I'm writing this today.
It's a big moment in the history of combat coverage. Was Drew Pearson right to do what he did? Would he be a hero or a goat if he did the same today, if a commanding officer in Iraq did the slapping?
I know nothing about Drew Pearson, but I would assume absent evidence that there wasn't any isolationist motive to his action that November. He was likely fully convinced of the rightness of the war effort. Furthermore, the "Patton" of legend, the Patton who would be played in the classic George C. Scott movie, hadn't yet made his appearance on the battlefield. He'd create that legend in France, later in the war.
Patton's actions were a court martialable offense. Reporters, then as now, often prided themselves upon taking the ordinary rank-and-file soldier's point of view, and sharing that soldier's grievances against the brass. Surely it must have been a tempting story for some ink-stained wretches during that three-month period.
Were they wrong to agree to sit on the story? I think there is a case to be made that things worked out for the best. The in-theatre reporters (the "embedded" ones as we would say) who knew first, are the ones who have to play ball with their sources. Pearson was no party to whatever gentleman's agreement they had made. So possibly everybody was doing the right thing.
How would it play out today?
Oh, and one more thing -- happy Thanksgiving to all.
01 November 2007
The Day of Battle
The title of this blog entry is that of a new book by historian Rick Atkinson, about the war in Sicily and Italy in 1943 -- 44.
This is the middle part of a projected trilogy on the Anglo-American armies and the liberation of (western) Europe.
The first book, An Army at Dawn, discussing the liberation of North Africa, was very highly praised -- and won the Pulitzer Prize.
The third book will of course start with Normandy and end at the Elbe.
But let's get to it: the first sentence of the second book reads: "She could be heard long before she was seen on that foggy Tuesday morning, May 11, 1943."
The "she" in question, it soon transpires, is a ship -- the Queen Mary -- which on thatdate brought Winston Churchill into New York harbor. He was coming, with a sizeable retinue of staff and generals, to argue with Roosevelt and his retinue about the next step in the war, as well as to offer Congress a first-hand taste of his oratorical skills.
At that time, the American high command was very wary of moving up the boot of Italy. Thegenerals' preference was to mass forces in England in preparation for a Cross-Channel landing on the presumption that when Hitler fell, Mussolini would be just a mop-up operation. They didn't expect that the cross-channel invasion could happen until another year had passed, but they figured there was enough to do in the Pacific and Asian theares during that intervening year anyway.
Churchill was an enthusiast of an Italian campaign, a strike at what he called the "soft underbelly" of Europe. At best, it might inspire the Italians to change sides quickly, and the assist their new allies in a quick war-winning strike north, across the Alps, to Berlin, making a cross-Channel action unnecessary. At worst, it would pressure Hitler to send troops south, relieving pressure on the Russians.
What they adopted -- an Italian campaign coupled with continued plans for the cross-channel invasion the following years -- might or might not have been the best thing militarily. If it was, the fact was an accident. The compromise wasn't a result of a strategic breakthrough but was a political deal to paper over the profoundly different perspectives of the allies, and Atkinson explains the wheeling and dealing that went into this quite well.
This is the middle part of a projected trilogy on the Anglo-American armies and the liberation of (western) Europe.
The first book, An Army at Dawn, discussing the liberation of North Africa, was very highly praised -- and won the Pulitzer Prize.
The third book will of course start with Normandy and end at the Elbe.
But let's get to it: the first sentence of the second book reads: "She could be heard long before she was seen on that foggy Tuesday morning, May 11, 1943."
The "she" in question, it soon transpires, is a ship -- the Queen Mary -- which on thatdate brought Winston Churchill into New York harbor. He was coming, with a sizeable retinue of staff and generals, to argue with Roosevelt and his retinue about the next step in the war, as well as to offer Congress a first-hand taste of his oratorical skills.
At that time, the American high command was very wary of moving up the boot of Italy. Thegenerals' preference was to mass forces in England in preparation for a Cross-Channel landing on the presumption that when Hitler fell, Mussolini would be just a mop-up operation. They didn't expect that the cross-channel invasion could happen until another year had passed, but they figured there was enough to do in the Pacific and Asian theares during that intervening year anyway.
Churchill was an enthusiast of an Italian campaign, a strike at what he called the "soft underbelly" of Europe. At best, it might inspire the Italians to change sides quickly, and the assist their new allies in a quick war-winning strike north, across the Alps, to Berlin, making a cross-Channel action unnecessary. At worst, it would pressure Hitler to send troops south, relieving pressure on the Russians.
What they adopted -- an Italian campaign coupled with continued plans for the cross-channel invasion the following years -- might or might not have been the best thing militarily. If it was, the fact was an accident. The compromise wasn't a result of a strategic breakthrough but was a political deal to paper over the profoundly different perspectives of the allies, and Atkinson explains the wheeling and dealing that went into this quite well.
18 September 2007
The Great War
Here's one way to look at it. The war we know in retrospect as World War I, the one that was known in its day simply as The Great War, broke out as a culmination of competing imperial powers and their long struggle to carve out zones of control and influence through the continent of Africa.
In 1904, for example, France reached agreement with both Spain and Great Britain that they wouldn't challenge French dominion in Morocco.
Kaiser Wilhelm had been kept in the dark about these negotiations and when the agreement was announced, he was ticked off. The countries/imperial seats to his west were, it seemed, uniting to freeze him out of northern Africa. The Kaiser then announced support for Moroccan independence. Things spiralled almost -- but not quite -- out of hand in the following months. In December 1905, Germany mobilized its army reserves. In January 1906, France moved troops to the border.
Why didn't a general European War break out over that crisis? In part, I suspect, because the Germans simply weren't ready yet. Part of that unreadiness was the public-relations job, the psychological mobilization of a population. The German population wasn't sufficiently whipped up about fighting for free trade with Morocco.
Part of the reason, too, was alliance management. Austria-Hungary would have to watch Germany's back in any general war, and the Austria's had no dog in the African pit. Now, if there were a crisis in which, say, a member of Austria's royal family had been killed, that calculation would be different....
So the Germans backed down, and by April 1906 accepted French control there.
That was just one of many incidents in the rivalry for control of Africa, a rivalry that extended all the way from the banks of the Mediterranean to the Transvaal.
In 1904, for example, France reached agreement with both Spain and Great Britain that they wouldn't challenge French dominion in Morocco.
Kaiser Wilhelm had been kept in the dark about these negotiations and when the agreement was announced, he was ticked off. The countries/imperial seats to his west were, it seemed, uniting to freeze him out of northern Africa. The Kaiser then announced support for Moroccan independence. Things spiralled almost -- but not quite -- out of hand in the following months. In December 1905, Germany mobilized its army reserves. In January 1906, France moved troops to the border.
Why didn't a general European War break out over that crisis? In part, I suspect, because the Germans simply weren't ready yet. Part of that unreadiness was the public-relations job, the psychological mobilization of a population. The German population wasn't sufficiently whipped up about fighting for free trade with Morocco.
Part of the reason, too, was alliance management. Austria-Hungary would have to watch Germany's back in any general war, and the Austria's had no dog in the African pit. Now, if there were a crisis in which, say, a member of Austria's royal family had been killed, that calculation would be different....
So the Germans backed down, and by April 1906 accepted French control there.
That was just one of many incidents in the rivalry for control of Africa, a rivalry that extended all the way from the banks of the Mediterranean to the Transvaal.
28 May 2007
The origin of "taps" -- fact and fiction
It's such a simple and yet haunting bugle call, and always breaks some of us down at a military funeral. There was bound to be a myth about its creation.
The facts behind it are straightforward. It was created during the Peninsular Campaign of the Civil War, in the late spring and early summer of 1862. This was some of the toughest fighting of the war. The Union forces under McClellan had inched their way from Yorktown to the gates of Richmond before Davis made the inspired move of putting Robert E. Lee in charge of the army that stood in McClellan's way. Lee immediately took the offensive, within days driving the Army of the Potomac back to its boats.
During that period, one of the generals under McClellan (Brig. Gen'l Daniel Butterfield) decided that his men could use a "lights out" signal, so he asked his buglar to work up a call. That buglar was Oliver W. Norton. He apparently devised the now-famous melody by revising an older call, with the odd name of Scott Tattoo. It was soon adopted by the rest of the army and, indeed, quickly crossed the lines as Confederate buglars picked up on it. The funereal use was a natural enough extension.
The legend most often told about Taps is somewhat different. It is said that a Union captain named Ellicombe discovered his son dying on the field at the end of a day of battle. He wasn't aware his son had even enlisted. What was more shocking -- his son was wearing grey.
The dying child was musically gifted (he had left his family shortly before the war broke out to study music in Richmond) and there was one final composition in his uniform pocket as he passed away. That was Taps.
Okay, that isn't true. There isn't even any record of the existence of a Captain Ellicombe. But it's a fine story, often tripped out in a variety of further sentimental detail, and it does no harm so long as history and mythology are kept distinct.
The facts behind it are straightforward. It was created during the Peninsular Campaign of the Civil War, in the late spring and early summer of 1862. This was some of the toughest fighting of the war. The Union forces under McClellan had inched their way from Yorktown to the gates of Richmond before Davis made the inspired move of putting Robert E. Lee in charge of the army that stood in McClellan's way. Lee immediately took the offensive, within days driving the Army of the Potomac back to its boats.
During that period, one of the generals under McClellan (Brig. Gen'l Daniel Butterfield) decided that his men could use a "lights out" signal, so he asked his buglar to work up a call. That buglar was Oliver W. Norton. He apparently devised the now-famous melody by revising an older call, with the odd name of Scott Tattoo. It was soon adopted by the rest of the army and, indeed, quickly crossed the lines as Confederate buglars picked up on it. The funereal use was a natural enough extension.
The legend most often told about Taps is somewhat different. It is said that a Union captain named Ellicombe discovered his son dying on the field at the end of a day of battle. He wasn't aware his son had even enlisted. What was more shocking -- his son was wearing grey.
The dying child was musically gifted (he had left his family shortly before the war broke out to study music in Richmond) and there was one final composition in his uniform pocket as he passed away. That was Taps.
Okay, that isn't true. There isn't even any record of the existence of a Captain Ellicombe. But it's a fine story, often tripped out in a variety of further sentimental detail, and it does no harm so long as history and mythology are kept distinct.
27 May 2007
Memorial Day
Memorial Day began as Decoration Day. Like the haunting bugle call "Taps," it has its origin in the American civil war.
In 1868, General John Logan, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued Order No. 11.
"The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit."
Over time the day of commemoration shifted to the final Monday of May, and the commemorated sacrifices likewise expanded, to include the American dead of all wars, and the dead of both sides of the war Gen'l Logan had in mind. Both sides, after all, saw their own soldiers as fighting and dying "in defense of their country," though they understood that differently.
Taps, both as a lights-out signal and as a funeral dirge, originated during the Civil War -- specifically during the Peninsular Campaign. More on this tommorrow.
In 1868, General John Logan, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued Order No. 11.
"The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit."
Over time the day of commemoration shifted to the final Monday of May, and the commemorated sacrifices likewise expanded, to include the American dead of all wars, and the dead of both sides of the war Gen'l Logan had in mind. Both sides, after all, saw their own soldiers as fighting and dying "in defense of their country," though they understood that differently.
Taps, both as a lights-out signal and as a funeral dirge, originated during the Civil War -- specifically during the Peninsular Campaign. More on this tommorrow.
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