Dimitri > Recent Status Updates

The Paleocene survivors were smaller than most of the Cretaceous mammals. Their teeth indicate that they had generalist, omnivorous diets. Our eutherian ancestors were holding much better cards in Earth's casino. They could hide easily, eat many things, they lived over wide areas, they were numerous. No one feature secured victory, but together they won the pot. Dinosaurs had the dead man's hand.

"On 26 August 1278 the army of Rudolf of Habsburg, the German king [ Holy Roman Emperor ?] defeated the forces of Otakar, king of Bohemia, near Dürnkrut on the Marschfeld, north-east of Vienna. Marchfelt was a majour turning point in Austrian history, for it made the Habsburgs rulers of Austria. From then until 1918, its history is inseparable from the career of this paragon of dynastic politics."

Fate took another turn in June 1246. Duke Frederick II was killed fighting the Hungarians. Crucially he had no male heir. The "privilegium minus" provided for succesion through the female line but that was also unclear. The Babenbergs had committed the cardinal sin of European feudal politics. To end the crisis, Austrian nobles invited Otakar, king of Bohemia, but German nobles elected their own candidate ...

"The Japanese war machine, checked and forced to change its plans for the first time at the Coral Sea and decisively repelled at Midway, was now forced to go into reverse by its failure on Guadalcanal and simultaneously in Papua. From now on it was the United States and its allies who were strategically on the offensive, in the air, on the ground, and at sea."

At one junction, we found we had to make a decision. Hiroshima or Nagasaki? The nearer to Hiroshima was the nearer to Tokyo. I was afraid that we might run into some party of bomb assessors. Nagasaki, remoter from MacArthur, seemed safer.

What Lends the outcome of the fight for the Coral Sea such great interest psychologically is that such light losses for such an apparently aggressive belligerent as the Imperial Japanese Navy caused it to recoil to sharply. Indeed, in most people's terms it had won: one small carrier lost, compared to one heavy U.S. flattop and one damaged out of four avaliable in the Pacific... But the southward advance was halted.

Wer sich für Rheinländer hielt, lernte binnen zweier Generationen als Deutscher zu gelten [aber zs gab immer ] das multinationale Haus Habsburg, lebensmüde wie sein Kaiser, der jeden Krieg verlor, dennoch nicht seine Gefangenen freigab. Eine Union von Boden, Blut und Staat mit Gewalt herzustellen wollte allerdings erst ausprobiert sein. So in etwa verstanden es Princip und seine Genossen.

April '42: The defensive perimeter could reasonably be extended by adding the western Aleutians & Midway to the chain of occupied islands; if this brought the US fleet out, the Combined Fleet would be happy to oblige.
Finally there was Port Moresby in (Australian) eastern New Guinea, defended by just 1 Army brigade. From there, Australia's coasts could be attacked by land-based bombers as often as necessary.

"Het blaadje veroorzaakte onder de notabelen van Leipzig veel beroering, als bruispoeder in de nachtspiegel van een burgergezin"

HAHAHA!

Mijn relatie met het fenomeen geld was nogal ongewoon, want ik maakte me nooit zorgen over mijn chronisch gebrek daaraan. Toch ben ik van nature eigenlijk een vrek en dat ben ik altijd geweest; mijn uitspattingen mogen niet te veel kosten.

"having made their hero, they were stuck with him" [MacArthur]

The overall Nimitz-MacArthur job divide in the Pacific also satisfied the political need to control Army-Navy service rivalry, or so Van Der Vat claims ?

Ik weet dat dit zo zal blijven tot aan mijn dood. Ik hoor bij niemand. Er is geen mens ter wereld van wie ik de aanwezigheid langere tijd kan verdragen. Er is geen menselijke gemeenschap of klasse waarin ik mezelf zou kunnen onderbrengen. Wat levensbeschouwing, leefwijze en geesteshouding betreft ben ik een burger, maar ik voel me overal sneller thuis dan onder burgers.

"ABDA proved much better at producing acronyms than scoring points off the rampaging Japanese"

"Whereas Nimitz could have done King's job, King could not have done Nimitz's so well" [by temperament]

"it was as if their leaders, including Yamamoto, who was as least as responsible for the imminent attempt by the Japanese to overreach themselves, did not exist unless they were on the attack: I strike, therefore I am"

A bitter dispute developed whether the planned third assault should go in. Yamamoto backed the veto. Thus were the fuel tanks and other vital shoreside facilities of Pearl Harbor saved from all but incidental damage. They were to have been the prime target of wave number three. Their destruction would have rendered the base useless & forced the US Navy back to the West coast, over 2.000 miles to the East.

De zaak is dat Nederland het Huis van Oranje voor een poos missen kan & de Republiek rijp is voor een eerste stadhouderloze regering. In niets wezenlijks zal Jan De Witts aanstaande politiek van die verschillen welke casu quo door Willem II zou gevolgd zijn.

aan de andere kant had toen De Groot verscheen Europa sedert Machiavelli zovele oorlogen aaschouwd en was de wens naar een minder barbaarse orde van zaken zo levendig geworden dat een nieuwe handleiding welkom moest zijn.

In de grond der zaken bestaat er geen verschil tussen de gereformeerde theologie van de 17e eeuw en de middeleeuwse scholastiek. In beide tijdvakken ziet men mensen met macht van redenen en van gewijde teksten een van te voren vaststaande waarheid verdedigen, of zij putten uit Aristoteles, uit Calvijn of rechtstreeks uit de Bijbel.

"Er is in Europa voor de uitvinding der boekdrukkunst even vlijtig gelezen als in de eerste tijd daarna. Slechts kost het ons meer moeite dit aan te nemen omdat de boeken, zo zij in de smaak vielen, vervangen werden door herdrukken, terwijl de handschriften deels werden vernietigd, deels eenlingen bleven"

"[Dat] onze landgenoten op het gebied van de kerkbouwkunst geen voorgangers of uitvinders geweest zijn. Zij hielden meer van hun dijken dan van hun kerken, omdat hun dijken een schepping waren van hun eigen brein, hun kerken slechts een van buiten geleerde les"

Ondanks 2vNederduitse hoofdstukken kruistochten met een snuifje Froissart komt Huet met zijn Nederlandsche volksaard inderdaad pas op dreef in de 16e eeuw...

The unfortunate commander [C-inC Scott] experienced the deep humiliation of being adjuged incompetent by the North, whose cause he had unnaturally espoused, whose armies he had sent into the field as invaders of the land of his birth. The retribution was righteous. No penalties of fortune were too severe for a general who had directed an army to trample upon the graves of his sires & despoil the homes of his kindred.

The financial complications of Mr. Lincoln's government were in striking contrast with the abundant & easy means which the Southern Confederacy had at least so far been able to carry on the war. The latter had been reduced to a paper currency but it had for the basis the great staple of cotton [ 3.70 out of 4.68 milion bales, supplying 80% Of England's consumption]

Pollard does not give the value of this 1860 crop

"Fraglos war sechs Wochen später die Landung in Halbinsel Alsen ein noch größerer Erfolg als die Erstürmung der Schanzel von Düppel am 18. April.

Die Bestürzung im Ausland um die Kanonade auf Sonderburg war groß. Der Kronprinz sah sich veranlasst in einem geharnischten Brief an Victoria "über die kindischen Attacken der Britischen Presse".. Hätte Friedrich Wilhelm gewusst dass seine königliche Schwiegermutter seit Beginn der dänischen Kreise alles unternommen hatte, ihre Regierung zu Mäßigung gegen die Deutschen zu drängen, wäre sein Schreiben wol höflicher.

So lange die Marine nicht eine Landung auf Seeland ermögliche um den Frieden in Kopenhagen selbst zu diktieren, bleibe Preußen nur die Okkupation der jütischen Halbinsel.

The uprising had spread to neighbouring tribes by the end of July & word was spreading throughout the Middle and Lower Euphrates that the "Ingliz" had been defeated , too weak to withstand the rebel forces, clearly in the process of relinquishing control over the country.

the siege of Rumaytha was just the beginning. in a little over a month the number of insurgents would swell to over 100k, with British forces compelled to withdraw from every town except Hilla/Kufa/Samawa, all surrounded. the great revolt, inevitable outcome of the incoherent policy of Britain since 1918, had begun.

So far, one mini revolt in the Mosul area, scattered by the usual arial bombardment & one mass deportation at Tal'Afar.

As yet (june 1920) it seemed the only disturbances likely to threaten British rule in Iraq during the coming mobths months wiuld emanate from Damascus, with its sheming Ottoman officers, or from Bolshevik agents infiltrating from Persia.

Within a mere six weeks all that would change.

The battle of Shu'ayba is probably the least known battle in the least known theatre of the First World War. But it was significant for two reasons. Firstly the strategic one, because if the British had lost, Basra would almost certainly have fallen & with it their whole bridgehead in Iraq. Secondly.. the majority of combatants on the Ottoman side were irregular Arab tribesmen. The call to Jihad worked this time.

The Navy was now building more oil-fired ships but the great battleships of the fleet remained coal-burning. Fisher continto campaign for these super weapons of the day to be fuelled by oil. This would increase their speed from an average of 20 knots to a world-beating 25.

After the evacuation of Somalia, an advance on Nairobi was seriously contemplated, but coordination with the army out of Lybia fell through with the first British advance out of Egypt.