Dimitri > Recent Status Updates

Military defeat, cracking the armour of German invincibility, coupled with hideous manias which mutilated any realistic policies, automatically doomed the collaborators. Vlasov himself during his Smolensk tour strenously resisted the idea that he was being used as a German dupe, his aim by his own definition was to school Russians in resistance to Stalin, but Soviet counter propaganda cut the ground from under him.

The strategic objective for summer '43 was smashing Germany's "Eastern Wall" back to a line from Smolensk to the Sozh & lower Dnieper river lines. The main SW thrust would liberate the Kuban, Eastern Ukraine & the industrial region of the Donbass. A second offensive aimed due West to liberate Eastern Belorussia & to destroy Armeegruppe Mitte.

"The Stavka was a personal staff which served Stalin as Supreme Commander & the General Staff in turn served the Stavka as an operational planning group."

"At the least Roosevelt and Churchill could have responded to Stalin's bullying over Katyn by placing conditions on future military aid or demanding that he join the war against Japan " ( instead the official US position on Katyn as a Nazi crime remained on the books until 1951)

"Hopkins was confident that Roosevelt could use the bully pulpit of the presidency to bulldoze his way through [public opinion about military aid to Stalin]

Only those who have actual experience can realise what it is like to be boxed up in a narrow engine gondola with the engine roaring in his ears for 24h on end. In addition one must take into consideration the extreme cold & difficulty of working in the rarified atmosphere of 20.000 ft (7+ km) under conditions our bodies are not accustomed to. The effects of Oxygen shortage causes mountain sickness, lassitude etc.

By the second half of November, the Japanese fleet was ready to sail in secret while "according to the latest reports, three carriers are stationed at Pearl Harbour and move in and out of the area like the other ships of Kimmel's command." and the US State Department grasped at every straw with Marshall's blessing - to avoid war to complete defensive preparations in the Philippines.

Could there be a calculated British undercurrent to the fleet rivalry where every expensive battleship to be bottled up outside the Atlantic means one less Army on land?

Wat Lindemann ook probeerde met zijn schroeven, de wind en de golven zorgden samen met de geblokkeerde roeren dat het schip steeds weer met de kop in de wind in de richting van de achtervolgende vijand kwam te liggen.

"all warfare is based on deception", wrote Sun-Tzu around 500 BC in that Chinese classic The Art of War. He had further words of wisdom: "if the enemy leaves a door open, you must rush in" At the psychological moment the US had left a door ajar & Tokyo hastened to thrust a foot over the treshold. (the midsummer economic freeze had immobilized Japanese commercial shipping, with passenger vessels stranded on the US.)

The new cabinet under Tojo conferred vaguely about changes in national policy, without touching Pearl Harbour. The Army was informed of the operation & between October 20-25, Hirohito himself.

Prague does not quote a verbal reaction but inserts the mental phrase "The Emperor's shield had become the Emperor's sword". (Traditionally, the Fleet fought in its own waters, protecting the home islands.)

the only law of history is that there aren't any others, but there are a handful of near-certainties. Here is one: empires expand as long as they have the power to do so.

Training shallow water torpedo attacks in Kagoshima Bay meant flying over the namesake city rooftops at forty meters (!) Even the red light district dispaired that "those Navy pilots were becoming unusually fresh." Most of the pilots conjectured that they might be training for an attack on Singapore. Fushida rather encouraged this convenient red herring.

A few field guns, cleverly sited in ruins & behind hedges, had knocked out at least a dozen tanks. The infantry, bereft of tanks, had been unable to advance. It had been a stubborn & skillful defence. (Both from the west and the east) Flesquieres was surrounded with derelict tanks, like a boar at bay with dead hounds.

Few people have ever seen the spectacle of a full admiral and a full general squirming like sheepish schoolboys. Add to them an angry Emperor of Japan and you have a truly memorable scene.

So it went on 5 September, when Hirohito turned his unfanthomable dark eyes upon them about "placing war preparations first and diplomatic negations second".

"With that confidence do you say 3 months?" [About a Pacific conquest]

"Als we Indië kwijtraken is Nederland failliet!"

de opbrengsten van de koloniale export heropstarten was belangrijk voor het naoorlogs herstel. Manu militari de productiefste gebieden omvormen tot deelstaatjes van een Indonesische federatie die een meer practische economische unie met het moederland aanhielden was een idee.

De inzet van de "7 December" divisie in het laatste kwartaal van '46 leidde tot grote verdeeldheid onder de gewone Nederlandse bevolking; de Vereniging Nederland-Indonesië waarschuwde dat dit het wantrouwen aan Indonesische kant juist zou vergroten, maar ook dat er geen enkele waarborg was dat de troepen enkel voor het officieel aangegeven doel [burgerbescherming] zouden optreden [& niet als Heroveraars]

De Aziatische specerijen die de Portugezen in Lissabon aanvoerden werden al jarenlang door Nederlandse kooplieden verder verhandeld.

De combinatie na 1580 van de hegemonie van Spanje over Portugal en de Opstand ontzegde hun de toegang tot de Portugese havens & gaf impuls aan een rechtstreekse handelsroute met de specerijeneilanden.

"War is never romantic because emergencies which might be adventures come only when the soldier is stale and tired"

The Suez canal was not the ONLY means of transportation for troops & supplies from the Raj or the Antipodes, but any attack would slow the flow. If Djemals 4th Army could achieve surprise & take even a portion of the canal's length for a mere two or three days, he could sink a number of blockships.

With Habsburg power restored, Francis Joseph now ruled as advised, disregarding traditional centres of power, abolishing the provincial noble estates & relying solely on the power of his bureaucracy and army to impose his imperial will. This was to be radical absolutism without Baroque niceties, but also to be a modern form with a modernizing imperative, NEO absolutism.

The single track made by the Tanks was obliterated by a squadron of cavalry following at once, these being followed by several agricultural harrows drawn by artillery horses. Such precautions were always taken as the wood [near Neuve Église] was within easy enemy shell fire. Within the wood the Tanks under their camouflage.

The year 1848 attested not to the weakness of the Habsburg monarchy, but to its surprising tenacity. Its nationalist diversity made any coherent ideology almost impossible for the INSURGENTS, leading to vast conflicts of interests & opinions that beset relations within the monarchy,. Once the Habsburg authorities regained their equilibrium, it proved relatively easy to exploit these divisions.

DIVIDE ET IMPERA

The Counter Reformation was introduced in 1620 in its most brutal form; Czech culture disappeared. Bohemia became the main engine of Austrian Habsburg power. Federinand II urged on by his Sanish & Bavarian allies, expanded the war to the Empire. His ruthless campaign against the Palatinate rallied the Protestant forces & turned a DOMESTIC crisis into an Empire-wide war.

All things considered, with the closing of Japanese consulats in the balmy month of May, without confirmation on the in-or-out position of the Pacific Fleet on X-Day the whole idea of striking at Pearl Harbor could have passed from the realm of reality back into the shades of fantasy whence Yamamoto had recently managed to lift it.

In dispatches between Tokyo & other adresses than Washington the Japanese came out from behind their fans & showed the real face of agression.
Japan wanted the resources of SE Asia so badly it would fight any combination of powers to secure them: the bear, the lion and the eagle while still entwined in the dragon's tail.
Because the State Department had access through Magic, it had a good idea of Japans intentions.

"Any marked advance by the US Navy would be more likely to deter Japan from going to war than the maintenance of the present very large fleet at Hawaii"
A remarkable British opinion: the Japanese navy danced to no tune of Hitler's & its government was infinitely less concerned about serving German interests than the United States was about bolstering Britain.

"The net effect was to reduce Naval Intelligence to a collecting and distributing clearinghouse. Even more serious, Stark's decision placed the responsibility for evaluating Japanese intentions in the hands of officers who did not know Japan, its language or its armed forces as did those in ONI"

The Pacific fleet had only 11 tankers, 4 capable of fueling at sea. To get an idea of the needs: "a single destroyer at full speed went dry in 30-40h"
[ how many carrier group hours can a tanker ship?].

Every teaspoon of oil had to be shipped across 2.000 miles, stored in plain sight above ground. The possibility of a tank catching fire accidentally or by enemy action was a recurring Navy nightmare.

Here was the bedrock of American naval policy at the time. No illusions about the Japanese tiger, but let's not poke him into action while Hitlers killer sharks infest the Atlantic. Keep Britain above water -that was the prime objective.

On the other hand, all things considered, the view from a mountain was much more important than the establishment of an efficient radar screen for the detection of an approach.