Thursday, October 26, 1972. "We believe that peace is at hand".

So stated Henry Kissinger publicly, and just eleven days prior to the 1972 Presidential Election.

Kissinger, Nixon and Alexander Haig at Camp David in 1972.

Nixon did not approve as he felt that Kissinger was hogging the limelight through the announcement, however Kissinger noted that the North Vietnamese had already published the text of the draft agreement.

Unbeknownst to the public, neither Nixon or Kissinger believed that the Republic of Vietnam had any chance of holding out long term against North Vietnam, and they were putting heavy pressure on the South Vietnamese, who had little faith in their abilities themselves to cooperate.

Igor Sikorsky, aviation giant and developer of helicopters, died on this day at age 83.

Sikorsky was born in Kyiv to Russian parents.  His father was an internationally known psychiatrist and his mother a physician, meaning he was born into an unusual family for the era.  He was drawn to aviation very early in his life and studied in Paris.  He worked in Paris during World War One and did not return to Russia due to the Russian Revolution, immigrating to the United States in 1919.  His first wife accordingly divorced him, as she remained in Russia with their daughter.  

Sikorsky's pioneering work in helicopters would end up being of enormous benefit to his adopted country, and his company still is a leader in heavy helicopters.

Thursday, June 8, 1922. The Show Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries

In part of what would end up being a decades long process, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union began to the massacre of its fellow travelers. The Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries began.

Scene from the trial.

The Socialist Revolutionaries were a left wing Russian Party that were pro-democracy and had participated in Kerensky's government.  Indeed, the Socialist Revolutionaries out polled the Bolsheviks in the 1917 election for a Constituent Assembly, and only the Bolshevik's illegal seizure of power precluded a democratic body from forming.  By 1922, they had been crushed, but Lenin's government opted for a show trial anyhow, resulting in death sentences for the party figures who were tried.

It turned into a pr disaster, with the victims of the show trial becoming a cause célèbre among non Communist radicals.  Marxist, but anti Bolshevik, Karl Kausky said about the event:

The Bolsheviki were first to use violence against other socialists. They dissolved the Constituent Assembly not by way of resistance against any violence on the part of the Socialists-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, but because of their realization of their own inability to obtain the support of a majority of the peasants and workers by means of free propaganda. This was the fundamental cause of the Bolshevist coup d'etat against the representatives of the revolutionary workers and peasants. Hence, the abolition of all rights of all other socialists who refused to submit to the crack of the Bolshevist whip. Hence, the establishment of a political regime which leaves but one form of open political action for the opposition — civil war.... The real crime of which the Socialists-Revolutionists are guilty before the Bolsheviki at the present moment is not in the preparation of terroristic acts and armed uprisings, but in that...[they] are acquiring in ever increasing measure the confidence of the toiling masses of Russia. This bids fair to bring about the complete isolation of the Bolsheviki in a short time.

The results of the trial were that Central Committee of the SRP were found guilty, of course, and sentenced to death.  The Communists position was still sufficiently tenuous that disquiet over the results meant the sentences were commuted. All twelve were later murdered during Stalin's purges, of course.

While this trial was a well known event, and while mass killings were already a feature of Soviet rule, Stalin's later purges overshadowed these to such a degree that they're often treated as something uniquely Stalinesque.  In truth, the Communist Party everywhere featured the murder of its rivals as a norm, once in power, and murdering those who were closest to it in views, but not wholly their views, was not unusual at all.  In some ways, therefore, Stalin's murder of party members was a mere continuation to what had become the blood soaked norm already, different only in degree and that it was typically based on nothing at all.

Lex Anteinternet: The Punitive Expedition: The Battle of Parral. Cpl. Tannous

Lex Anteinternet: The Punitive Expedition: The Battle of Parral. A...:       

The Punitive Expedition: The Battle of Parral. April 12, 1916

 Corporal Richard Tannous, 13th Cavalry, wounded at Parral.

More on Tannous:  Tannous.

Tuesday September 30, 1941. Operation Typhoon commences.

On this day in 1941, the Germans launched Operation Typhoon, an offensive aimed at the capture of Moscow (some sources put the date as October 2, with others this date, including the official Russian histories).

German armor advancing towards Moscow, October 1941.

Also on this day, the SS finished its murders at Babi Yar and buried the victims in mass graves.

The Germans sank the Russian cruiser Aurora, which was well past its prime and whose guns had been removed to be used in the defense of Leningrad.  The Aurora is claimed to have fired the first shot of the October Revolution.  She was later raised and is a museum ship today.

Churchill delivered a speech on the state of the war.

In June last I deprecated the making of too frequent expositions of Government policy and reviews of the war situation by Ministers of the Crown. Anything that is said which is novel or pregnant will, of course, be studied attentively by the enemy and may be a help to him in measuring our affairs. The House will have noticed how very silent the Nazi leaders have fallen. For seven months Hitler has said nothing about his war plans. What he blurted out in January and February certainly proved helpful to us.

"In the spring," he said, "our submarine warfare will begin in earnest, and our opponents will find that the Germans have not been sleeping. The Luftwaffe and the entire German defence forces will, in this way or that, bring about the ultimate decision."

And again:

"In March and April naval warfare will start such as the enemy never expected." We were, therefore, led to expect a crescendo of attacks upon our lifeline of supplies. Certainly the Germans have used an ever larger force of U-boats and long-range aircraft against our shipping. However, our counter measures, which were undertaken in good time on the largest scale, have proved very successful. For reasons which I have explained very fully to the House, we have since June abandoned the practice of publishing statements at regular monthly intervals of our shipping losses, and I propose to continue this salutary practice. But, apart from anything that may happen during this afternoon, the last day of the month, I may make the following statement to the House. The losses from enemy action of British, Allied and neutral merchant ships during the quarter July, August and September have been only one-third of those losses during the quarter April, May and June. During the same period our slaughter of enemy shipping, German and Italian, has been increasing by leaps and bounds. In fact, it is about one and a half times what it was in the previous three months. So we have at one end a reduction in average monthly losses of about a third and a simultaneous increase in the losses inflicted upon the enemy of half as much again.

These important results enable us to take a more expansive view of our important programme. Very few important ships carrying munitions have been lost on the way. Our reserves of food stand higher than they did at the outbreak of war, and far higher than they did a year or 18 months ago. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Food, who has a pretty tough job, now finds himself able to make some quite appreciable improvements in the basic rations of the whole country, and in particular to improve the quantities and varieties of the meals available for the heavy worker during the coming winter. There will be better Christmas dinners this year than last, and at the same time more justification behind those dinners. It seems likely now that we shall bring in several million tons more than the import total which I mentioned in private to the House earlier in the year, which total was itself sufficient to keep us going. We are now within measurable distance of the immense flow of American new building, to which, together with our own construction, we look to carry us through and on progressively till the end of the war.

I deprecate premature rejoicings over these considerable facts, and I indulge in no sanguine predictions about the future. We must expect that the enemy U-boat warfare, now conducted by larger numbers of U-boats than ever before, supported by scores of Fokke wolves, will be intensified. The U-boats will be beaten, and kept beaten, only by a corresponding intensification of our own measures and also, to put it very plainly, by that assistance which we are receiving in increasing degree from other quarters. We must not, I repeat, relax for an instant; nevertheless, the facts that I have stated must be regarded as not entirely unsatisfactory, and certainly they are most stultifying to Hitler, who so obligingly warned us of his hopes and plans. This is, I think, an apt illustration of the dangers which should prevent those who are engaged in the high conduct of the war from having to make too many speeches about what they think is going to happen or would like to happen or what they intend to try to do. All the more is this habit important when we have to deal not only with our own affairs but with those of other great Allied or associated nations.

Here I may perhaps be pardoned for making an observation of a somewhat encouraging character. We are no longer alone. Little more than a year ago we seemed quite alone, but, as time has passed, our own steadfast conduct, and the crimes of the enemy, have brought two other very great States and nations into most intimate and friendly contact and concert with us. Whether we look to the East or whether we look to the West, we are no longer alone. Whether we look at the devoted battle lines of the Russian Armies or to the majestic momentum of United States resolve and action, we may derive comfort and good cheer in our struggle which, nevertheless, even if alone, we should carry on inflexibly, unwearyingly, and with steadily increasing resources. The fact, however, that at every stage we have to consider the interests of our Russian Ally and also the outlook, wishes and actions of the United States, makes it all the more necessary, imperative even, that I and my colleagues should be particularly careful about any pronouncements, explanations or forecasts in which we might otherwise be tempted to indulge. I feel sure that the House of Commons, which is the solid foundation of the British war effort and which is resolved to prosecute the war as sternly and implacably as did our forerunners in bygone days, will expect and require from the Ministers who are its servants a particular measure of caution and restraint in all their utterances about the war.

We have climbed from the pit of peril on to a fairly broad plateau. We can see before us the difficult and dangerous onward path which we must tread. But we can also feel the parallel movement or convergence of the two mighty nations I have mentioned, Russia and the United States. We feel around us the upsurge of all the enslaved countries of Europe. We see how they defy Hitler's firing parties. Far away in the East we see the faithful, patient, inexhaustible spirit of the Chinese race, who too are battling for home and freedom. We are marching in company with the vast majority of mankind, all trending, bearing, forging, steadily forward towards a final goal, which though distant, can already be plainly seen.

When we reflect upon the magnitude of modern events compared with the men who have to try to control or cope with them, and upon the rightful consequences of those events on hundreds of millions, the importance of not making avoidable mistakes grows impressively upon the mind.

For those reasons I could not attempt to discuss at the present time questions of future strategy. They are discussed every day in the newspapers, in an exceedingly vivid and often well-informed manner, but I do not think that His Majesty's Government ought to take any part just now in such Debates. Take, for instance, the question of whether we should invade the Continent of Europe in order to lift some of the weight off Russia, whether we ought to take advantage of the lull now that Hitler is busy in Russia to strike him in the West. I shall be guilty of no indiscretion if I admit that these are questions which have several times occurred to those responsible for the conduct of the war. But what could I say about them that would be useful? If I were to throw out dark hints of some great design, no one would have any advantage but the enemy. If, on the other hand, I were to assemble the many cogent reasons which could be ranged on the other side, I should be giving altogether gratuitous reassurance to Hitler.

Such confidences are not reciprocated by the enemy. They have told us nothing since Hitler's speech in February. We are in complete ignorance at this moment about what he is going to do. We do not know how far he will attempt to penetrate the vast lands of Soviet Russia in the face of the valiant Russian defence, or how long his people will endure their own calamitous losses, or, again, whether he will decide to stand on the defensive and exploit the territory of immense value which he has conquered. Should he choose this last, we do not know whether he will turn a portion of his vast armies Southwards, towards the Valley of the Nile, or whether he will attempt to make his way through Spain into North-West Africa, or whether, using the great Continental railways of Europe and the immense chains of airfields which are in excellent order, he will shift his weight to the West and assemble an extensive army with all the special craft that he has constructed for an attempted invasion of the British Isles. It would certainly be in his power, while standing on the defensive in the East, to undertake all three of these hazardous enterprises, on a great scale, together, at one time.

The enemy's only shortage is in the air. This is a very serious shortage, but, for the rest, he still retains the initiative. We have not the force to take it from him. He has the divisions, he has the weapons, and on the mainland of Europe he has ample means of transport. If he does not tell us his plans, I do not see why we should tell him ours. But I can assure the House that we study and ponder over these dangers and possibilities and on how best to dispose our resources to meet them every working day, and all days are working days, from dawn to far past midnight. We also have the advantage of following very closely all the arguments which are used about it in the public Press and of considering every helpful suggestion which reaches us from any quarter. More than that I really cannot say, and I feel sure that the House would reprove me if I were by any imprudence or desire to be interesting to say anything which afterwards was seen to be harmful.

There is, however, one matter upon which I may speak a little more freely, namely, the material assistance in the way of munitions and supplies which we and the United States are giving to Russia. The British and United States Missions are now in conference with the chiefs of the Soviet at Moscow. The interval which has passed since President Roosevelt and I sent our message from the Atlantic to Premier Stalin has been used in ceaseless activity on both sides of the ocean. The whole ground has been surveyed in the light of the new events, and many important supplies have already been despatched. Our representatives and their American colleagues have gone to Moscow with clear and full knowledge of what they are able to give to Russia month by month from now onward. The Soviet Government have a right to know what monthly quotas of weapons and supplies we can send and they can count upon. It is only when they know what we can guarantee to send, subject, of course, to the hazards of war, that they themselves can use their vast resources and reserves to the best possible advantage. It is only thus that they can best fill the gap between the very heavy losses sustained and the diminution of munitions-making power which they have suffered on the one hand and the arrival of really effective quantities of British and American supplies on the other. I may say at once, however, that in order to enable Russia to remain indefinitely in the field as a first-class war-making power, sacrifices of the most serious kind and the most extreme efforts will have to be made by the British people and enormous new installations or conversions from existing plants will have to be set up in the United States, with all the labour, expense and disturbance of normal life which these entail.

We have just had a symbolic Tank Week for Russia, and it has, I feel--in fact, I know--given an added sense of the immediate importance of their work to the toiling men and women in our factories. The output of Tank Week is only a very small part of the supplies which Britain and the United States must send to Russia, and must send month after month upon a growing scale and for an indefinite period. It is not only tanks, the tanks for which we have waited so long, that we have to send, but precious aircraft and aluminum, rubber, copper, oil and many other materials vital to modern war, large quantities of which have already gone. All these we must send and keep sending to Russia. It is not only the making and the giving of these commodities, but their transportation and reception which have to be organised. It may be that transportation rather than our willingness or ability to give will prove in the end the limiting factor. All this is now being discussed and planned with full authority and full knowledge by our representatives and the American representatives in conclave in Moscow with Premier Stalin and his principal commanders. It would certainly not be right for me in public Session, or even in Secret Session, at the present time to make any detailed or definite statements upon these subjects. The veriest simpleton can see how great is our interest, to put it no higher, in sustaining Russia by every possible means.

There are, however, other interests which have to be remembered at the same time. In some respects the problems we now have to face are similar to those which rent our hearts last year, when we had, for instance, to refuse to send away from this country for the help of France the last remaining squadrons of fighter aircraft upon which our whole future resistance depended; or again, they remind one of the occasion when, rightly judging Hitler's unpreparedness for invasion in the summer of 1940, we took the plunge of sending so many of our tanks and trained troops all round the Cape to the Valley of the Nile in order to destroy the Italian Armies in Libya and Abyssinia. If it is now thought that we solved those problems correctly we should hope that there might be grounds for confidence that in these new problems His Majesty's Government and their professional advisers will not err either in the direction of reckless improvidence or through want of courage. Anyone who, without full knowledge, should attempt to force the hands of those responsible would act without proper warrant and also--I say it with great respect--would not achieve any useful purpose, because in the discharge of the duties which the House has confided to us we are determined to make our own decisions and to be judged accordingly.

Here I must say a few words about the British Army. There is a current of opinion, which finds frequent expression, that the brass hats and Colonel Blimps and, of course, the much abused War Office, are insisting on building up a portentous, distended and bloated mass of soldiers in this island at the expense of the manufacture of those scientific weapons and appliances which are the main strength of victory in modern war. The truth is far different. We have never had, and never shall have, an Army comparable in numbers to the armies of the Continent. At the outbreak of war our Army was insignificant as a factor in the conflict. With very great care and toil and time, we have now created a medium sized, but very good Army. The cadres have been formed, the battalions, batteries, divisions and corps have taken shape and life. Men have worked together in the military units for two years. Very severe training was carried out all through last winter. It will continue all through this winter. The Army is hardened, nimble and alert. The commanders and staff have had opportunities and are having opportunities of handling large scale movements and manoeuvres.

Our Army may be small compared with the German or Russian armies. It has not had the repeated successful experiences of the German army, which are a formidable source of strength. Nevertheless, a finely tempered weapon has been forged. It is upon this weapon, supported by nearly 2,000,000 of armed and uniformed Home Guard, that we rely to destroy or hurl into the sea an invader who succeeded in making a number of successive or simultaneous lodgments on our shores. When I learned about the absolutely frightful, indescribable atrocities which the German police troops are committing upon the Russian population in the rear of the advance of their armoured vehicles, the responsibility of His Majesty's Government to maintain here at home an ample high-class force to beat down and annihilate any invading lodgment from the sea or descent from the air comes home to me in a significantly ugly and impressive form. I could not reconcile such responsibilities with breaking up or allowingly to melt away the seasoned, disciplined fighting units which we have now at last laboriously and so tardily created.

As our Army must necessarily be small compared with European standards, it is all the more necessary that it should be highly mechanised and armoured. For this purpose a steady flow of skilled tradesmen and technicians will be required in order to use the weapons which the factories are now producing in rapidly increasing numbers. There is no question of increasing the numbers of the Army, but it is indispensable that the normal wastage--considerable even when troops are not in contact with the enemy--should be made good, that the ranks should be kept filled and that the battalions, the batteries, and the tank regiments should be at their proper strength. Above all, we cannot have the existing formations pulled to pieces and gutted by taking out of every platoon and section trained men who are an essential part of these living entities, on which one of these fine or foggy mornings the whole existence of the British nation may depend.

I hope, indeed, that some of our ardent critics out of doors--I have nothing to complain of here--will reflect a little on their own records in the past, and by searching their hearts and memories will realise the fate which awaits nations and individuals who take an easy and popular course or who are guided in defence matters by the shifting winds of well-meaning public opinion. Nothing is more dangerous in war-time than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling one's pulse and taking one's temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture. If today I am very kindly treated by the mass of the people of this country, it is certainly not because I have followed public opinion in recent years. There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe to be right. That is the only way to deserve and to win the confidence of our great people in these days of trouble.

Our hearts go out to our British Army, not only to those who in the Mediterranean and in the East may soon have to bear the brunt of German fury and organisation, but also to the splendid, but not too large, band of men here at home whose task is monotonous and unspectacular, whose duty is a long and faithful vigil, but who must be ready at any hour of any day to leap at the throat of the invader. It may well be the occasion will never come. If that should be the final story, then we may be sure that the existence of the kind of army we have created would be one of the reasons why once again in a war which has ravaged the world our land will be undevastated and our homes inviolate.

Of course we strive to profit from well informed criticism, whether friendly or spiteful, but there is one charge sometimes put forward which is, I think, a little unfair. I mean the insinuation that we are a weak, timid, lethargic Government, usually asleep, and in our waking hours always held back by excessive scruples and inhibitions, and unable to act with the vehemence and severity which these violent times require. People ask, for instance, "Why don't you bomb Rome? What is holding you back? Didn't you say you would bomb Rome if Cairo were bombed?" What is the answer? One answer is that Cairo has not yet been bombed. Only military posts on the outskirts have been bombed. But, of course, we have as much right to bomb Rome as the Italians had to bomb London last year, when they thought we were going to collapse, and we should not hesitate to bomb Rome to the best of our ability and as heavily as possible if the course of the war should render such action convenient and helpful.

Then there is the case of Persia. I see complaints that we have acted feebly and hesitatingly in Persia. This surprises me very much. I do not know of any job that has been done better than that. With hardly any loss of life, with surprising rapidity and in close concert with our Russian Ally, we have rooted out the malignant elements in Teheran; we have chased a dictator into exile, and installed a constitutional Sovereign pledge to a whole catalogue of long-delayed sorely-needed reforms and reparations; and we hope soon to present to the House a new and loyal alliance made by Great Britain and Russia with the ancient Persian State and people, which will ratify the somewhat abrupt steps we were forced to take, and will associate the Persian people with us not only in their liberation but in the future movement of the war. It must, indeed, be a captious critic who can find a pretext to make a quarrel out of that. The Persian episode, so far as it has gone, would seem to be one of the most successful and well conducted affairs in which the Foreign Office has ever been concerned. It ill deserves the treatment it has received from our natural and professional crabs.

In conclusion, let me once again repeat to the House that I cannot give them any flattering hopes, still less any guarantee, that the future will be bright or easy. On the contrary, even the coming winter affords no assurance, as the Russian Ambassador has candidly and shrewdly pointed out, that the German pressure upon Russia will be relaxed; nor, I may add, does the winter give any assurance that the danger of invasion will be entirely lifted from this island. Winter fog has dangers of its own, and, unlike last year, the enemy has now had ample time for technical preparation. We must certainly expect that in the spring, whatever happens in the meanwhile, very heavy fighting, heavier than any we have yet experienced in this war, will develop in the East, and also that the menace to this island of invasion will present itself in a very grave and sharp form. Only the most strenuous exertions, a perfect unity of purpose, added to our traditional unrelenting tenacity, will enable us to act our part worthily in the prodigious world drama in which we are now plunged. Let us make sure these virtues are forthcoming.

The British withdrew their early model B-17s from combat service on this day due to problems they were experiencing with it. The B-17s used by the US during the war were principally later models.

Today in World War II History—September 30, 1941

As noted in the item above, the Japanese suffered a defeat in China at the Second Battle of Changsha.

Pic magazine, featuring a cheesecake photo of a young female tennis player, also had a cover story on "What Lindbergh's hometown thinks of him."

Today In Wyoming's History: Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor.

Today In Wyoming's History: Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor.: 

Reviewing the Wounded Knee Medals of Honor.

Sgt. Toy receiving the Medal of Honor in 1891.  Sgt. Toy was cited for "bravery while shooting Indians" at Wounded Knee.  He is known to have shot two during the engagement, which is about all that his citations and the supporting material relates.

 Tribes Want Medals Awarded for Wounded Knee Revoked.

While this isn't a Wyoming item per se, the Battle of Wounded Knee has been noted here before, as its a regional one.

It would likely surprise most readers here that twenty Medals of Honor were awarded to soldiers who participated in the actions at Wounded Knee.  The odd thing is that I was under the impression that the Army had rescinded these medals long ago, and I'm not completely certain that they haven't.  Having said that, I can't find that they were, so my presumption must have been in error.

To put this in context, the medals that were rescinded, if any were, weren't rescinded because Wounded Knee was a massacre.  They were rescinded because they didn't meet the post April 1917 criteria for receiving the award.

The Medal of Honor was first authorized in 1861 by the Navy, not the Army, following the retirement of Gen. Winfield Scott, who was adamantly opposed to the awarding of medals to servicemen, which he regarded as a European practice, not an American one.  The award was authorized by Congress that year, at the Navy's request.  The Army followed in 1862 in the same fashion.  The medals actually vary by appearance, to this day, depending upon which service issues them, and they've varied somewhat in design over time.

During the Civil War the award was generally issued for extraordinary heroism, but not necessarily of the same degree for which it is today.  Because of this, a fairly large number of Medals of Honor were conferred after the Civil War to servicemen who retroactively sought them, so awards continued for Civil War service for decades following the war.  New awards were also issued, of course, for acts of heroism in the remaining decades of the 19th Century, with Army awards usually being related to service in the Indian Wars.  Navy awards, in contrast, tended to be issued for heroic acts in lifesaving, a non combat issuance of the award that could not occur today.  Indeed, a fairly large number were issued to sailors who went over the sides of ships to save the lives, or attempt to, of drowning individuals, often with tragic results to the sailors.

At any rate, the period following the war and the method by which it was retroactively issued may have acclimated the Army to issuing awards as there are a surprising number of them that were issued for frontier battles.  This does not mean that there were not genuine acts of heroism that took place in those battles, it's just surprising how many there were and its clear that the criteria was substantially lower than that which would apply for most of the 20th Century.

Indeed, in the 20th Century the Army began to significantly tighten up requirements to hold the medal. This came into full fruition during World War One during which the Army made it plain that it was only a combat medal, while the Navy continued to issue the medal for peacetime heroism.  In 1917 the Army took the position that the medal could only be issued for combat acts of heroism at the risk of life to the recipient, and in 1918 that change became official.  Prior to the 1918 change the Army commissioned a review board on past issuance of the medal and struck 911 instances of them having been issued.  I'd thought the Wounded Knee medals had been stricken, but my presumption must be in error.

Frontier era Medals of Honor, as well as those issued to Civil War era soldiers after the Civil War, tend to be remarkably lacking in information as to why they were conferred.  This has presented a problem for the Army looking back on them in general.

Indeed, the Wounded Knee medals have this character.  They don't say much, and what they do say isn't all that useful to really know much about what lead them to be awarded.  There is a peculiar aspect to them, however, in that they don't reflect what we generally know about the battle historically.  

Wikipedia has summarized the twenty awards and what they were awarded for, and this illustrates this problem.  The Wounded Knee Wikipedia page summarizes this as follows

·         Sergeant William Austin, cavalry, directed fire at Indians in ravine at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Mosheim Feaster, cavalry, extraordinary gallantry at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Mathew Hamilton, cavalry, bravery in action at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Joshua Hartzog, artillery, rescuing commanding officer who was wounded and carried him out of range of hostile guns at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Marvin Hillock, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant Bernhard Jetter, cavalry, distinguished bravery at Wounded Knee for "killing an Indian who was in the act of killing a wounded man of B Troop."

·         Sergeant George Loyd, cavalry, bravery, especially after having been severely wounded through the lung at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant Albert McMillain, cavalry, while engaged with Indians concealed in a ravine, he assisted the men on the skirmish line, directed their fire, encouraged them by example, and used every effort to dislodge the enemy at Wounded Knee;

·         Private Thomas Sullivan, cavalry, conspicuous bravery in action against Indians concealed in a ravine at Wounded Knee;

·         First Sergeant Jacob Trautman, cavalry, killed a hostile Indian at close quarters, and, although entitled to retirement from service, remained to close of the campaign at Wounded Knee;

·         Sergeant James Ward, cavalry, continued to fight after being severely wounded at Wounded Knee;

·         Corporal William Wilson, cavalry, bravery in Sioux Campaign, 1890;

·         Private Hermann Ziegner, cavalry, conspicuous bravery at Wounded Knee;

·         Musician John Clancy, artillery, twice voluntarily rescued wounded comrades under fire of the enemy;

·         Lieutenant Ernest Garlington, cavalry, distinguished gallantry;

·         First Lieutenant John Chowning Gresham, cavalry, voluntarily led a party into a ravine to dislodge Sioux Indians concealed therein. He was wounded during this action.

·         Second Lieutenant Harry Hawthorne, artillery, distinguished conduct in battle with hostile Indians;

·         Private George Hobday, cavalry, conspicuous and gallant conduct in battle;

·         First Sergeant Frederick Toy, cavalry, bravery;

·         Corporal Paul Weinert, artillery, taking the place of his commanding officer who had fallen severely wounded, he gallantly served his piece, after each fire advancing it to a better position

For quite a few of these, we're left without a clue as to what the basis of the award was, at least based on this summation. But for some, it would suggest a pitched real battle.  A couple of the awards are for rescuing wounded comrades under fire.  Others are for combat actions that we can recognize.

Indeed, one historian that I know, and probably only because I know him, has noted the citations in support for "it was a real battle", taking the controversial, albeit private, position that Wounded Knee was a real, pitched, engagement, not simply a slaughter.  This isn't the popular view at all, of course, and its frankly not all that well supported by the evidence either.  But what of that evidence.

A popular thesis that's sometimes presented is that Wounded Knee was the 7th Cavalry's revenge for the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Perhaps this is so, but if it is so, it's would be somewhat odd in that it would presume an institutional desire for revenge rather than a personal one, for the most part.  Wounded Knee was twenty four years after Little Big Horn and most of the men who had served at Little Big Horn were long since out of the service.  Indeed, some of the men who received awards would have been two young for service in 1890, and while I haven't looked up all of their biographies, some of them were not likely to have even been born at the time.  Maybe revenge was it, but if that's the case, it would demonstrate a 19th Century retention of institutional memories that vastly exceed the 20th and 21st Century ones.  Of course, the 7th Cavalry remains famous to this day for Little Big Horn, so perhaps that indeed is it.

Or perhaps what it reflects is that things went badly wrong at Wounded Knee and the massacre became a massively one sided battle featuring a slaughter, something that the Sioux on location would have been well within their rights to engage in. That is, once the things went wrong and the Army overreacted, as it certainly is well established that it did, the Sioux with recourse to arms would have been justified in acting in self defense.  That there were some actions in self defense which would have had the character of combat doesn't mean it wasn't combat.

And that raises the sticky moral issues of the Congressional efforts to rescind the medals.  Some of these medals are so poorly supported that the Army could likely simply rescind them on their own, as they have many others, and indeed, I thought they had.  Some seem quite unlikely to meet the modern criteria for the medal no matter what, and therefore under the practices established in 1917, they could be rescinded even if they were regarded as heroic at the time.  Cpl. Weinert's for example, unless there was more to it, would probably just merit a letter of commendation today.

Indeed, save for two examples that reference rescuing wounded comrades, I don't know that any of these would meet the modern criteria. They don't appear to.  So once again, most of these would appear to be subject to proper unilateral Army downgrading or rescission all on their own with no Congressional action.

But what of Congressional action, which has been proposed. The Army hasn't rescinded these awards and they certainly stand out as awards that should receive attention.  If Congress is to act, the best act likely would be to require the Army to review overall its pre 1917 awards once again.  If over 900 were weeded out the first time, at least a few would be today, and I suspect all of these would.

To simply rescind them, however, is problematic, as it will tend to be based neither on the criteria for award today, or the criteria of the award in 1890, but on the gigantic moral problem that is the Battle of Wounded Knee itself.  That is, these awards are proposed to be removed as we regard Wounded Knee as a genocidal act over all, which it does indeed appear to be.

The problem with that is that even if it is a genocidal act in chief, individual acts during it may or may not be. So, rushing forwards to rescue a wounded comrade might truly be heroic, even if done in the middle of an act of barbarism.  Other acts, such as simply shooting somebody, would seem to be participating in that barbarism, but here too you still have the situation of individual soldiers suddenly committed to action and not, in every instance, knowing what is going on.  It's now too late to know in most cases.  Were they acting like William Calley or just as a regular confused soldier?

Indeed, if medals can be stricken because we now abhor what they were fighting for (and in regard to Wounded Knee, it was questioned nearly immediately, which may be why the Army felt compelled to issue medals to those participating in it, to suggest it was a battle more than it was), what do we do with other problematic wars?

Eighty six men, for example, received the Medal of Honor for the Philippine Insurrection.  In retrospect, that was a pure colonial war we'd not condone in any fashion today, and it was controversial at the time.  Theodore Roosevelt very belatedly received the Medal of Honor for leading the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry up Kettle Hill during the Spanish American War, and he no doubt met the modern criterial, but the Spanish American War itself is morally dubious at best.  

Of course, none of these awards are associated with an act of genocide, which takes us back to Wounded Knee.  As noted above, maybe so many awards were issued there as the Army wanted to to convert a massacre into a battle, and conferring awards for bravery was a way to attempt to do that.

Certainly the number of awards for Wounded Knee is very outsized.  It's been noted that as many awards have been issued for heroism at Wounded Knee as have been for some gigantic Civil War battles.  Was the Army really more heroic at Wounded Knee than Antietam?  That seems unlikely.

Anyway a person looks at it, this is one of those topics that it seems clear would be best served by Army action.  The Army has looked at the topic of pre 1917 awards before, and it removed a fair number of them.  There's no reason that it can't do so again. It was regarded as harsh the last time it occurred, and some will complain now as well, but the Army simply did it last time.   That would honor the medal and acknowledge the history, and it really shouldn't be confined to just Wounded Knee.

Dead men and horses at Wounded Knee following the conflict.

So, circling back to our focus, timewise, in 1916, when troops were being called up and deployed for the Punitive Expedition (was Lex Anteinternet: The Military and Alcohol. U.S. Army Beer 1943-1946). . .

what was the situation?

The law of the Officer's Club at Ft. Meyer, VA, being mowed by a mule drawn lawn mower.  This photo dates from early in the 20th Century at which time Congress had technically made the sale of alcohol illegal on Army bases, but at which point the Army chose to define beer and wine as not being excluded.

This follows from this post here:

Lex Anteinternet: The Military and Alcohol. U.S. Army Beer 1943-1946: Patrons of a bar and grill in Washington D.C. in 1943.  The man on the left is drinking a glass of beer, and it appears the woman is as well...

Let me explain.

In 1982 when I was stationed as a recruit at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, there came a time when us boots could go to the 1-2-3 Club, a sort of combination cheap fast food/beer/high school hangout, type club.  It wasn't great, but if you had nowhere else to go, and we had nowhere else to go, it was okay*.  

The 1-2-3 Club had 3.2% beer, which I guess actually no longer is brewed by anyone, save perhaps by Guinness, as draft Guinness is only 3%.  Nobody brews it in the context of its earlier days, in which it was brewed in order to comply with certain laws. It's history goes back to 1933 as Prohibition was being repealed.  Prohibition never completely dried up the supply of legal alcohol, contrary to what people imagine it did.  Alcohol remained legal for "medicinal" purposes and extremely low alcohol beer, i.e., "Near Beer" was legal.  In 1933, prior to Prohibition being officially repealed, the legal alcohol limit for beer was increased up to 3.2%.  

Following the end of Prohibition, some states restricted beer sales based on the 3.2% amount, and Oklahoma was one of them.  Generally, if you were below a certain age you could buy 3.2%.  You couldn't buy beer with a higher alcohol content than that.  This was, of course before "Light Beer", which generally has around 4% ABV.  Coors, which is pretty light to start with, introduced Light Beer prior to World War Two, far earlier than many people might suppose, and relaunched it in 1978.  Millers Lite actually came out in 1967, prior to the Coors relaunch, but as Gablingers Diet Beer, a market name doomed to failure. The recipe was later sold to Millers.

I never really did grasp why Coors would market light beer.  Coors is pretty light to start with and there were already all those 3.2% beers around.  Oh well, my view obviously isn't the clever marketing one, as light beers became a pretty big deal.

Anyhow, in 1982 you could buy 3.2% beer at the 1-2-3 Club on Ft. Sill, or 3.2% beer downtown in Lawton, Oklahoma.  Obviously, Ft. Sill also had a NCO Club, or clubs, and an Officer's Club, or clubs.

Camp Guernsey had a NCO Club and an Officers Club as well.  Camp Humphreys, Korea had them as well and I had a nice bulgogi there for lunch while there.

I guess this is somewhat of a thing of the past now, to my surprise.  The Army has completely done away with Officers Clubs and now there are unitized clubs.  Privates can go to the same club that officers can, although 1-2-3 Clubs remain.  Without knowing for sure, I suspect that not only is the culture of such clubs now radically different, but probably a lot of more senior officers and NCOs rarely show up at the club.  This is part of the current culture in which we do not wish to recognize any differences at all in the social status of anyone, but frankly, I think this likely a mistake, although one reflecting the current military culture.   The current military is small compared to the giant Cold War Army that followed the giant World War Two Army, and its much more selective than its been at any prior point in history.  There are certainly problems in the current U.S. military, to be sure, but one current feature of it is that the up and out and selective nature of it means that the guys were sort of fit the definition of a "working man" that were sung about by Tennessee Ernie Ford aren't really in the service anymore.  That may have some negative aspects to it as well, but its a fact.  Anyhow, given the current make up of the currently fairly small army, the traditional separation in all things between enlisted men and officers has been much reduced and the clubs are gone.

So what was the situation in 1916?

Starting in 1890, about the time that the temperance movement was really gaining cultural steam, the Army banned the sale of hard alcohol at military posts that were located in areas that had Prohibition. So, for example, if you were stationed in a county that was dry, the Army post was as well, sort of.  The Army barred the sale only of hard alcohol, so beer and wine was still sold and you could still consume them at the post canteen.

In 1901, however, Congress entered the picture with the Canteen Act of 1901 which prohibited the sale of any intoxicating beverage including beer and wine.  This was pretty clearly intended to make all alcoholic beverages a thing of the past on post, but in practice the Army simply chose to define "intoxicating" beverages to mean those having a pretty stout alcohol content.  So, once again, no Kentucky bourbon on post, but beer was probably okay.  

This continued to be the practice up  until May 18, 1917, when the Selective Service Act stretched the military prohibition beyond the base to include a five mile alcohol exclusion zone and, moreover, it was made a crime to sell alcohol to a uniformed soldier anywhere.  Congress, recalling the end run the Army did with the 1901 act, defined "intoxicating" to be anything containing 1.4% alcohol or more, a very low threshold.

To complete the story, when Prohibition ended the 1901 statute remained in effect and the Army, at this point, continued to enforce the 1.4% limit.  Halfway through the Second World War, however, the Army changed this allowed 3.2%, the figure that had been created earlier when Prohibition was lifted.  This standard remained in place until 1953 when a legal ruling determined that the entire Canteen Act of 1901 had been repealed by the 1951 amendments to the Universal Military Training and Selective Service Act.

So, going back to our query about 1916, in 1916 a soldier stationed almost anywhere in the U.S. was probably able to buy beer at the post canteen.  Beyond the post fence, there would have undoubtedly been saloons catering to soldiers that sold everything.  The scene of a night of leave in 1941 Honolulu depicted in From Here To Eternity in that regard was likely pretty accurate on occasion.  And at that point, in some of the US, the "saloon trade" was unrestricted.  Having said that, in some locations Prohibition had already come in.

Footnotes

*There were other places to go, to be sure. Ft. Sill had a swimming pool open to privates, but I never went there.  The one time I had on base free time when we could have gone, I had a horrible case of progressing pneumonia and no interest in going to a pool.

I did once go to the library, as odd as that may seem, simply because I was sort of tired of the intellectual quality of my stay at Ft. Sill and because I hoped it to be quiet.  It was quiet, and very nice.  I looked like a fish out of water there, however, and I simultaneously froze and fell asleep there.  The freezing due to my having acclimated to the 100F+ Oklahoma summers and the sleep due to simply being exhausted. 

Time is a lot shorter than we imagine.

In looking at the old newspapers I sometimes put up here, I saw in a local paper that the building that I work in was sold this past week. . . 100 years ago.  It made the front page as it was one of the few "skyscraper" buildings in town at the time.  Maybe the only one.

That is, news of that sale hit the front page on December 31, 1920.   The building was 103 years old at the time. The new owner soon changed the name of the building to what it is today.

Yesterday I had a man in the office who was 93 years old. He asked about some details of the building and lawyers who had practiced in it in the past.  We spoke about the sidewalk out front and that some odds and ends.  He noted that out in front, on the street, "there were probably horses back then".  

No doubt there were some.

He was ten years old when this building was 13 years old. That struck me at the time.

The building was built in 1917 and first occupied in 1918.  I don't know when he first saw it, but it would have been in its early history.  That's stuck with me.  I can recall things easily back when I was ten.  He may have recalled this building when it was only a little over 20 years old, maybe even earlier than that.

For that matter, I recall this building being here, and my father having business in it, over 40 years ago, maybe 50 years ago, when the building was less than 50 years of age itself.

I've worked in the building for 30 years.  It was 73 years old when I started working here.  The man I was talking to was 63 then.  My father would have been 59, two years older than I am now.  He died at age 62.

Time just gets away from us.

The last dialogue from True Grit.

The anniversary of nuclear strikes on Japan. Was it justified and moral?

I'll be frank, I don't think it was.

Hiroshima let, Nagasaki right.

I find all of the arguments that are used to support the use of atomic weapons against Japan to be unconvincing.  For that matter, I find some of the counter arguments also unconvincing.  At the end of the day, what convinces me is that it was a deliberate use of a weapon calculated to cause mass loss of life against civilians.

The United States went to war in 1917 as it was horrified by the German targeting of ships indiscriminately.  But by the end of the First World War we seemed to have gotten over such things.  The U.S. kept up attacks in November 1918 right until the last moment of the war, causing the loss of life and losing lives that didn't need to die with an Armistice about to take effect.  Pershing made statements making it clear that his view was that killing Germans right up to the end was a laudable goal as they posed such a danger to peace.  Some would argue that the events of 1939 to 1945 proved him right, but the reality of it is that those November 11, 1918 deaths, were just deaths. They didn't make the world any safer.

But what they do achieve is to demonstrate how the First World War had changed the view of western, and largely Christian, society.  By 1918 we were used to the concept of death from above and below, and by means of chemical and fire.  In the interwar years people worried, and frankly assumed, that a future war would mean airborne attacks upon cities.  The Germans had in fact paved the way with this, as with so many other things, by shelling Parish with long range rail artillery. That had no tactical goal and the strategic one was terror.

By 1920 and throughout the 30s it was assumed that cities would be bombed in a future war and that came to be truly fairly early in World War Two.  All sides kept to to targeting only military targets at first, but during the Battle of Britain the Germans began targeting cities, something they at first did accidentally but soon did intentionally.  Ironically, that change in targets aided the British as it provided relief to industrial targets and served only to give the British people resolve.

The British retaliated with nighttime raids on Germany which were ostensibly aimed at industrial targets but nighttime accuracy was so bad that large scale civilian deaths were inevitable.  When the United States entered the war it attacked targets in Europe during the day in order to be more accurate, but wide scale civilian deaths still occurred.  Targeting civilians, however, was never the goal of the USAAF in Europe.

In the war against Japan it became one as the US grew frustrated with Japanese stalwart resistance to US advances and good sense.  Japan's industrial base was minor compared to other combatants and ultimately the still controversial decision to fire bomb Japanese cities was made by the US with the intentional goal of making Japanese workers homeless. No home, no work, was the concept. Whatever the logical merits of that argument are, the results are inescapable  Civilians were targeted in a way that would result in fiery death.

It is at that point, it seems to me, that we crossed into the clearly immoral.  By the time that action was taken Japan's industry was already destroyed and we were acting to a degree in frustration.  Even to the extent it wasn't, targeting people in their homes for death isn't a legitimate military action of any kind.

Nor is simply blasting a city into oblivion.  No matter what Nagasaki and Hiroshima contained in the way of military targets, that was the goal.  We thought that Japan simply wouldn't surrender and it was an attempt to teach them a lesson so they would.  It seemed to work.

We know retrospectively that by August 1945 the Japanese were looking for a way out of the war, but we didn't know that then, and we still don't know if they would have found it. Even after the two atomic strikes some Japanese military figures were against surrender and the Japanese military was not above using force to get their way.  They might not have surrendered.

And that might have meant a bloody campaign in Japan in 1946.

But, as horrific as it is to say, that would have been a military campaign, and a just one.  It wouldn't have been a campaign against civilians with the idea of killing a lot of them in order to force our point.

And it wouldn't have left us with the legacy of being the only nation in the world to use an atomic bomb, and the only one to have used atomic bombs against cities.

That doesn't mean that most of our role in World War Two, and indeed the roles of the Allies in general, wasn't just.  It was.  And that doesn't take away the legacy of the servicemen who fought in the war. They deserve to be remembered.  And it doesn't discount the fact that World War Two was so horrific that we can't even imagine a war like that today.  It's simply beyond us.

Rather, it should remind us that in times of stress and strain, it's easy to forget our better selves.  And later, it's easy to discount actions we've taken, if taken overall all in the context of a noble goal.

The Grim Measure of Force.

Yesterday, tragedy struck Beirut, Lebanon, a city that's had more than its fair share of misery.



As has been reported, the explosion was caused by a fire that spread and detonated a very large quantity of nitrate fertilizer stored at a warehouse on the docks.  The explosion was of a gigantic magnitude.  So large, in fact, that some Lebanese authorities at first wondered if they'd been hit by an atomic device.  That speculation, ironically enough, was strangely timely, as today is the 75th anniversary of the American use of an atomic device on Hiroshima.

So how does this historic event compare to other such blasts?

Should we even make that comparison for that matter? Well, we will, simply because perhaps such things are important to know.

As big as the blast was, and it was really huge, it still doesn't replace the accidental blast that's oddly analogous that occured at Halifax on December 6, 1917.  We marked the centennial of that tragedy here:

Roads to the Great War: Halifax: A Tragedy with a Unique Dimension

Roads to the Great War: Halifax: A Tragedy with a Unique Dimension: By most measures, the greatest non-nuclear explosion in history occurred in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in December 1917. The approximate casual...

Halifax was a 2.9 kiloton explosion.  Absolutely massive, and actually now larger than the lowest low yield atomic weapons in terms of their potential, but thankfully unexploited, yields. 

In contrast, the Beirut blast seems to be about 2.04 kt.  Massive, but still 1/3d less than the huge Halifax detonation.  Still, that yield is below the lowest, low yield nuclear weapons, although weapons in that class could legitimately be regarded as extremely low yield, in context.

Indeed, that's what makes them dangerous.  As big as the Beirut explosion was, it so far below Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which we'll mention below, that there's no comparison. That fact is what might tempt the use of a very low yield nuclear weapon. . .which might provoke use of higher yield ones.

Hiroshima's mushroom cloud taken some minutes later and from a distance of six miles.

Hiroshima, whose 75th anniversary is today, was a 15kt atomic bomb.

Imagine that.  It was seven times as powerful as the blast in Beirut earlier this week.

Blog Mirror: Great Northern Rwy's Mansfield Branch Line (1909-1985) and the Waterville Railway Co. (1910-1954): Heading Off to War

Great Northern Rwy's Mansfield Branch Line (1909-1985) and the Waterville Railway Co. (1910-1954): Heading Off to War: Local boys pose for one last photo before heading off to fight in WWI. Photo taken at the Waterville Depot on Rainier St. in 1917. ...

March 1, 2020. Railroads Revert To Civilian Control, Caroline Lockhart hits the Screen.

On this day in 1920, the railroads, which had been taken over by the U.S. Government during World War One reverted to civilian control.

The country's rail had been nationalized during the war and then run by the United States Railroad Administration as the system was proving to not be up to the tasks that were imposed upon it due to the crisis of World War One.  Additionally, concerns over pricing and labor unrest called for the action.  Following the war there was some serious consideration given to retaining national control over the lines, which labor favored, but in the end the government returned the system to its owners.

While U.S. administration of the railroad infrastructure was a success, it was not repeated during the Second World War when the rail system was just as heavily taxed by an even heavier wartime demand.  There proved to be no need to do it during World War Two.

Not too surprisingly, the news featured prominently on the cover of Laramie's newspapers, as the Laramie was, and is, a major Union Pacific Railroad town.

Union Pacific Depot in Laramie, Wyoming.

On the same day a movie featuring Wyoming as the location (which doesn't mean it was filmed here), was released.

The 1916 vintage Burlington Northern depot in Casper, Wyoming.

Likewise, the reversion was big news to the double railhead town of Casper.

Former Great Northwestern Depot in Casper.

The Fighting Sheperdess was the story of just that, a fighting female sheep rancher was was struggling to keep her sheep ranch against raiding cattlemen.

In reality, the sheep wars in Wyoming had largely come to an end by this time, although it was definitely within living memory.  The Spring Creek Raid of 1909 had only been a decade prior, and there had been two more raids in 1911 and 1912, although nobody had been killed in those two latter events.  The peace was, however, still an uneasy one, perhaps oddly aided by a massive decline in sheep, which still were vast in number, caused by economic conditions during the 1910s.  By 1914, the number of sheep on Wyoming's ranges had been cut 40% from recent numbers. World War One reversed the decline, and then dumped the industry flat, as the war increased the demand for wool uniforms and then the demand suddenly ended with the end of Germany's fortunes.  Colorado, however, would see a sheep raid as late as this year, 1920.

The novel the movie was based on was by author, Caroline Lockhart, a figure who is still recalled and celebrated in Cody, Wyoming.

Illinois born Lockhart had been raised on a ranch in Kansas and was college educated.  She had aspired to be an actress but turned to writing and became a newspaper reporter in Boston and Philadelphia before moving to Cody, Wyoming in 1904 at age 33, where she soon became a novelist.  During the war years she relocated to Denver, but was back in Cody shortly thereafter, until she purchased a ranch in Montana, showing how successful her writing had become.  She ranched and wrote from there, spending winters in Cody until she retired there in 1950.  She passed away in 1962.

The Fighting Shepherdess was her fifth of seven published novels, the last being published in 1933.

Meanwhile. . . in Russia, Putin plots to control the strings and his cabinet resigns.

And that's phenomenal.

Poor Russia.  It has no history of democracy and both of its efforts over a century have failed.  The first one, in 1917, collapsed when Socialists of the hard left proved to be more loyal to their wacky theories than to Russia.  In that brief republic, moderate Socialist pulled down most of the votes, but the hard lime loonytunes drove it under and the country into a bloody civil war from which bloody Communism emerged.

In the second attempt, a democratic government and constitution emerged, but like the Reichstag of the 1910s, the duma of 2020 has only enough power as to not be capable of being completely ignored by the nation's autocratic ruler, who is now working for parliamentary changes that would allow him to effectively rule once he leaves his current office.

The cabinet resigning is a sign of a type of power struggle.  If democrats succeed, in a few years, and Putin has that long to plot against democracy, democratic rule might return to the nation.

But I wouldn't be optimistic.

Putin, we might add is one of those figures who is bizarrely convinced of his own self importance.  Like Franco in Spain or DeGaulle in France, he apparently can't imagine a Russia without himself at the head.  Added to that, Russia's role in the world is outsized and based on the fact that it retains a Cold War nuclear arsenal and a collective global recollection of the role of the collapsed USSR.  And perhaps most significantly, it sells massive amounts of natural gas to a Europe which prides itself on being "green" but bases that green position on Russia's petroleum marketing.  But for those things, Russia would be vast, and important, but not the bete rouge that it has been under Putin.

Well, here's hoping that Russia gives real democracy a third try and it sticks this time.

1917

I happened to catch this movie on opening day.  Off hand, I can't recall having ever seen a movie on opening day.

This film, opened on limited release just a few weeks ago and already subject to wide acclaim, is an English film that's expected to have a wide theater run in the U.S., making it one of a series of war pictures produced in the UK recently that have done well or are expected to do well in the U.S.  This would suggest that the widely held belief that Americans won't watch movies that aren't about themselves, or at least war pictures that aren't about Americans, is obsolete.  The recent films Dunkirk, The Darkest Hour and the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old have all done well in US releases.

This film, as its name indicates, takes place in 1917.  More specifically, the film takes place in April 1917, at which time the British were engaging in an offensive, and it is focused on two British soldiers who are dispatch runners.  In the movie's opening scenes the two young Lance Corporals (a single stripe in the English Army) are assigned the task of running an order from a General to a Major whose unit that is advancing rapidly in order to order that Major to halt his men before they are committed to an assault which areal reconnaissance has revealed will be a trap.

Running just under two hours long, this scenario sets up a tense journey for the men that I'll forgo detailing, as it would involve discussing elements of the plot that would constitute spoilers. And that's not really the purpose of our reviews here in any event. We will note that the film develops its plot very well, including doing an excellent job of character development in a fairly short period of time.

Indeed, we'll go so far as to say that this is the best World War One movie since Paths Of Glory, the epic 1957 film focusing on a real event in the French Army.  The two films are directly comparable other than that the trench scenes in both and the trench fighting scenes are remarkably well done.

If this film, this is aided by the technique of using one long shot, something rarely attempted in film but something that makes this movie uniquely personal.  As the film is a two hour long, single shot, the viewer is uniquely participating with the characters and never departs from the singular focus of the major protagonist, which is of course how people actual experience any significant events themselves.

The film is unique for a World War One film in that its not sympathetic with the Germans at all, which has tended to be the post 1950 view of the Great War.  Because it is a long shot, and because the film is focused directly on the protagonist, there wouldn't be an opportunity to do otherwise, but the film makes no attempt to do so.  Because of this, the movie has received some criticism from those who want to suggest its unduly patriotic or that it approaches the Great War too unilaterally.  That criticism fails to take into account the cinematography but frankly it also fails to take into account that the Germans in World War One were already exhibiting some of the conduct that they're uniformly criticized for in the Second World War and that such comments given World War One Germany a lot more credit than it deserves.

Concerning material details, this film is remarkably excellent.  Details of British uniforms are exact.  Trenches are, I'm informed, correctly done.  It's an amazing effort.  Particularly notable is the correct depiction of the use and nature of the British SMLE rifle of the time.  Also notable, however, may  be the correct depiction of the really slow nature of period aircraft, which is rarely accurately depicted.  A bit of a shock, from an American prospective, is the depiction of an army of the period which incorporated English blacks, as during this period the American military was strictly segregated.

We can criticize a few details and so we'll do so here.  On a large scale tactical level, during this period there would have been an effort to inform an advance element of a change of orders by air.  That isn't shown here, but it probably should have been addressed.  For those familiar with battlefield movements of the Great War of this period that sticks out.  It could have been explained easily enough as such efforts were frequently ineffective.

On another matter, in at least one scene one of the messenger soldiers turns into a sniper to engage him and in another the soldiers clear a farmstead.  Those familiar with actual message running will find this to be surprising as the delivery of the message is always paramount and messengers avoid engagement if at all possible.  In both instances the encounters seem unnecessary to the mission (a similar thing is done in Saving Private Ryan), although in the instance of the sniper it can be explained if the path is the only immediate one available.  If that's assumed, the soldiers action in engagement and the method of engagement is correct.

All in all, this is an excellent movie.