Saturday, February 4, 1922. Ford buys Lincoln.

An illustration by Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle graced the cover of The Saturday Evening Post on this day in 1922.

Ford Motors announced it had purchased the financially distressed Lincoln Motor Company.  The purchase out of receivership was for $8,000,000.

Japan agreed to withdraw troops from Shandong, restore German interests, surprisingly, in Qingdao, and given the Jinan railway back to China.

A mob in British India burned down a police station in Chauri Chaura killing 22 policemen. The action had been sparked by police killing protesters some time earlier.

The family of newly elected Congressman John. L. Cable posed for this photograph:

Sailor suits for boys remained popular at the time, as this photo demonstrates.

December 4, 1971. Smoke On the Water

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

This day in history is recalled for a tragedy, that being the destruction of the Montreux Casino in Switzerland during a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert. 

The event was the topic of Deep Purple's song, Smoke on the Water.

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground

Smoke on the water
A fire in the sky
Smoke on the water

They burned down the gambling house
It died with an awful sound
Uh, Funky Claude was running in and out
Pulling kids on the ground
When it all was over
We had to find another place
But Swiss time was running out
It seemed that we would lose the race

Deep Purple in 1968.

Deep Purple had planned to record there, but had to find another venue.

On the same day, McGurk's Bar, a Catholic tavern in Belfast, was bombed, killing fifteen people, including two children.  And the Indian Navy attacked the Pakistani Navy at Karachi.

What about Pakistan?

 

As the Biden Administration conceded, whether it needed to or not, defeat in Afghanistan, there's been a lot of talk, here and elsewhere, about could we have won the war.

Hardly any of it has touched on Pakistan.

As pointed out on a list I subscribe to elsewhere, it needs to be considered.  

And the reason is that Pakistan effectively operated as a Taliban ally over the past twenty years, whether we wished to openly acknowledge that or not.

Indeed, Osama bin Laden, is well known, was killed in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, and was living in a compound only two miles from a Pakistani army base.  Maybe the Pakistani government didn't know that.  We won't know for years.  There's some suggestion that the location of Bin Laden's compound may have come from a Pakistani army source.  Indeed, it's not unreasonable to assume that the Pakistani army was actually complicit in arranging for the raid that killed Bin Laden.  Indeed, its not unreasonable to believe that Bin Laden's whereabouts were known and tolerated, and that they tipped the US off as well.

What the heck?

Well, Pakistan is following Pakistan's interests, not the US's. The problem is that its really hard to figure out exactly what those are.  Whatever they are, what is clear is that Pakistan was a safe harbor for the Taliban for the past 20 years, and for Al Queada to some extent as well.  Members of the Taliban, moreover, were educated in Pakistani Islamic schools, not Afghani ones.

And all that does mean that over the past 20 years, while we were fighting the Taliban, Pakistan was at least operating as a safe harbor for them, and even fostering their recruitment by tolerating it.

Looking at the Central Intelligence Agency map from above probably helps explain Pakistan's point of view, and its cynical game, to an extent.  And what it shows is that Pakistan is, essentially, a false country.

Indeed, Afghanistan is as well, and so is nearby neighbor Indian. That is, none of these countries are nation states, but rather assembled nations that were put together by the British.  There really are no "Afghanis" any more than there are Pakistanis.  India is practically the exception to the rule as British colonialism was so successful that the enormous number of tribes in India did in fact come together, form a national identity, and emerge with a functioning democracy.

Even at that, however, its notable that Indian once included Pakistan and Bangladesh.  However, upon independence the Muslim regions of India rebelled and successful separated.  East Pakistan later rebelled against Pakistan, in 1971, and became its own country.  Pakistan is a democratic country with Islam as the state religion, but it's a shaky one with the army always in the background as a potential power broker, or power seizer.

Pakistan has never really accepted the demarcation line that was drawn between it and India, and frankly India hasn't either.  Pakistan's problem, however, is that some of its people have latent loyalties that do cause it concern.

The entire region bordering Afghanistan is one of those areas.  Its really popular to believe that the British "lost" both of their wars with Afghanistan, but the British were really good at constructing defeats to their advantage.  In reality, after the Second Anglo Afghan War, the British incorporated what is really part of Afghanistan into Pakistan, and that makes up about 1/5th of Pakistan today.  The demarcation was geographic, not ethnic, as that suited the British.  Added to that, the Punjab people are ethnically related to the Pashtuns, which doesn't make them the same people, but which does create complications.  Pakistan has never accepted that the Punjab region of Indian shouldn't be in Pakistan, but when making an argument like that, you nearly have to concede that the Pashtun region of Pakistan should be part of Afghanistan.

Now, nobody is arguing the latter, as far as I know, but it does mean that if you are the Pakistani government you really don't want to anger the Pashtuns too much. The majority of the Taliban are Pashtuns, even if most Pashtuns aren't supporters of the Taliban.

And the government is also an Islamic parliamentary democracy.  Indeed, the only reason for Pakistan's existence is Islam, as that's why it and Bangladesh didn't want to be part of India.  So you also don't want to be suppressing Islamic schools, if you are the Pakistani government.

And you don't really want the US in the neighborhood either.

The US generally wants countries to get along.  It wants India to get along with Pakistan, and Pakistan to get along with India, and China to get along with both.  None of those nations is really willing simply to lay down their claims to the territories they view as theirs across each other's borders. The US, from their prospective, is really annoying in this regard.

And indeed, both Pakistan and India, traditionally, regard themselves as the major regional power broker, not the US, and not Russia (or the USSR in former days).  The Indians don't get along with the Chinese either, and the Pakistani's sometimes don't, and sometimes do, depending upon how it suits them.  And their major countries, not third world backwaters, whose opinions really have to be taken into account.  All of them possess nuclear weapons, for that matter.

So, cynically, from Pakistan's point of view, harboring the Taliban made some sense.  It served to push out of the region, ultimately, and they emerge, in some ways, the real victor.  At the same time, however, they can only go so far, as they don't want a Pashtun insurgency either.

So could we have won under these circumstances?

I think so yes, but it's a real difficulty, to say the least, as the examples of this prove.

Indeed, in a way, this is what the Germans faced in 1940 as the US operated as a sort of safe harbor for the British war effort.  The Germans were not really able to do anything about.  This example, of course, isn't really perfect, but as we've been discussing it here, I've noted it.

A better example would be the situation faced by France in the Franco Algerian War.  Algerian insurgents had refuge in recently independent Tunisia.  The French tried to address it by fencing and patrolling the border and conducting air raids near it, that sometimes accidentally crossed over the border, all of which proved completely ineffective.

The United Nations faced this to a degree as well during the Korean War, with China being the safe harbor.  This proved so frustrating to the US that there were repeated suggestions that the US Air Force raid China, something the Chinese apparently feared, but which the Administration, wisely, wouldn't allow.

And for the US, the classic example is the Vietnam War, during which North Vietnam was the safe harbor that expanded that harbor into Laos and Cambodia.  The US conducted covert operations in Laos as a result in and in 1971 it invaded Cambodia to attempt to end it.  The Republic of Vietnam invaded Laos later that same year and again later, all to no avail.

So the examples are not great.

Now, invading Pakistan would be out of the question, so that's off the table.  The US did conduct drone strikes over Pakistan, and the raid on bin Laden.  Much more than that, openly, would have been far to risky.

So what could we have done.

Well, weathering the storm for another 20 years probably would have accomplished things.  At some point really reinforcing the border, with Afghan troops, would have been necessary.

And perhaps leaning more towards India.

Indeed, India, for really the first time in its history, was pretty friendly to the US during the Trump administration as its leader is also a populist.  The US has no real interest in Central Asian border disputes, so leaning towards the country, simply as a country, would have to be in that fashion, but leaning pretty hard would have created a problem for Pakistan.  And as we can see, at the point that something becomes too big of a problem for Pakistan, it tends to act in its own interest.

None of that would have been quick, however.

Saturday, June 21, 1941. Revealing open secrets

On this day in 1941 mine layers of the German navy, the Kreigsmarine, deployed from Finland's Archipelago  Sea and deployed to large marine minefields across the Gulf of Finland, followed by the Luftwaffe mining Leningrad's harbor that night. 

While German troops would not commence operations until 0300 the following morning, Operation Barbarossa was effectively on, although Finland itself would not commence offensive operations until July, and after the Soviets had conducted air operations against Finnish targets.

Finnish troops in July 1941.

Earlier in the day in 1941 Hitler informed Mussolini that Germany would invade the Soviet Union the following day, although he claimed that the decision would be held until 7:00 p.m. Berlin time.  In doing so, he stated:

I earnestly beg you, therefore, to refrain, above all, from making any explanation to your Ambassador at Moscow, for there is no absolute guarantee that our coded reports cannot be decoded. I, too, shall wait until the last moment to have my own Ambassador informed of the decisions reached

Mussolini seems to have already known somehow, probably due to Italian intelligence and certainly on troop movements, that a German invasion of the Soviet Union was immanent.  None the less, one can only image what he must have felt knowing that his only solid ally was about to commit to an invasion that, historically, had a bad chance of working out.

Italy would also sustain a loss of its consulates in the US, a reprisal for it joining Germany in closing its, which was in reaction to the US closing of German consulates.

On the same day, the Vichy forces were defeated at Damascus.  Vichy, however, also limited its Jewish university population to 3% of the overall total.

Churchill relieved Wavell and replaced him with Auchinleck.  Wavell went to India, replacing Auchinleck there.

November 2, 1920. Harding sweeps the race, Racial violence sweeps African American Ocoee out of existence

Cox only did well in the South, which at the time was solidly Democratic.

Harding barely mentioned Cox during the race, choosing instead to campaign against his predecessor, Wilson and to promise a "return to normalcy".  The strategy was a success for Harding in a nation that was tired of the events that occured from 1912 to 1920, which had included constant turmoil and strife.

Warren G. Harding.

Harding hadn't really started out wanting to be President, however.  He was talked into it by party leadership following the race that developed after Theodore Roosevelt's January 1919 death.  Roosevelt, at that point, didn't really have his heart in the race either, but he would have run and, but for his death, would almost certainly have won as a Progressive Republican.  Harding won promising that things would return to normal.

He wouldn't live out his term, dying in office from a heart attack in 1923.  At the time of his death he was a well liked President.   Scandals later associated with Harding were not known during his lifetime, including the story of his two mistresses, one former and one ongoing, which had resulted in the birth of his only child in 1919.

KDKA broadcast election results from Pittsburg, the first time that a radio station had done so.  KDKA, which was owned by Westinghouse, is regarded as the world's first commercial radio station, although that claim can be disputed.

Voting on this day resulted in the Ocoee Massacre, an assault on African American voters. The assault resulted in the deaths of at least 30 black Floridians and the destruction of the black quarters of the town. Survivors were driven from the town.

Voting related death, of a sort, also came to James Daly, an Irish born solder of the Connaught Rangers who had figured in a mutiny in India earlier that year.  For his role in the mutiny he was executed by the British Army.  While nineteen soldiers of the unit received the death sentence for their role an effort that was obviously doomed from the onset, Daly's was the only one carried out.

第二帝国 (The Second Reich). China Channels Kaiser Wilhelm II and Enters The Turn Of The Prior Century.

From the German reunification in 1870 up into World War One Germany, a continental power seeking to enter the colonial game just as the game was ending the pieces were starting to spill on the floor, built an aggressive navy and acted like a spoiled brat baby towards all its neighbors.

Enter China, the new Second Reich, adopted whole from the prior one, with all its vices.

Let's hope that the inevitable Chinese fall doesn't involve the same process that the Imperial German one did.

And the People Republic of China will fall.  It's only a question of when.

In the meantime, while we're diverted in self absorption of all kinds, China, looking out at us, has concluded that 1) we're so distracted that this is a good time to mess around aggressively in the region and 2) Western society is probably in its "late stage" anyhow and can't muster the strength to throw a rock at a rabbit.

So, in recent weeks its pretty much declared the intent to put an end to Hong Kong's temporary autonomy.  That was going to come to an end in the distant future anyway, but the thought was at the time that the British arranged for this one country, two systems, solution that China would be an adult nation by that time. Now that's over and the Chinese do not believe that anyone is going to do anything about that, and they might well be right.

China has also been militarily demonstrating against Taiwan, or "Nationalist China", which they of course view as theirs.  The U.S. has been demonstrating back, which as been mostly missed by the news, focused on us as it is.

And now the Chinese are acting aggressively against India.

The US military has been taken note of this, and the Marine Corps is preparing for war with China, something again largely missed by the press.  This should all be taken extremely seriously, to say the least There's no sign that the Chinese Communist government is going to change its amplified behavior and that behavior will result in just one thing, sooner or later. That thing can be deterred or joined, depending upon when it occurs.  We best be paying attention.

May 3, 1919. New wars and loans for concluded ones.

The Country Gentleman ran a second Rockwell illustration on a youthful fishing trip.  The first one had run the prior Saturday.

The Saturday Evening Post, which people tend to associate with Rockwell now, ran a spring themed illustration.

In Central Asia, the Afghan army crossed the Indian Frontier, over the Khyber Pass into what is now Pakistan, and attacked the town of Bagh, starting the Third Afghan War.

Afghan King Amanullah Khan.

Afghanistan was surprisingly assertive in those days. . . and oddly more modern than it is now.

In the U.S., the Victory Loan campaign continued on.  This one was struggling in comparison with prior efforts, now that the war was over.

Victory Loan drive scene in Seattle.

April 13, 1919. Funerals after assassinations and massacres.

Emiliano Zapata's funeral was held, which was a bit odd as it was held on a Sunday.

Lots of funerals were about to be held in the British Indian punjab region following a British commanded massacre of protesters at Jallianwallah Bagh in that region.

The area of the massacre some months later.

The British action was a gross overreaction to the gathering of a protest.  Native troops of various ethnicities were ordered to fire on the collected protesters and continued to do so for about ten minutes.  The protesters were trapped in a public garden area as all exists had been sealed off.  Death estimates vary, but somewhere between 370 to 1,600 people were killed.

Not surprisingly, the details are somewhat sketchy.  The protest was at least initially peaceful and had gathered to protest the deportation of two Indian national leaders.  The crowd may have grown defiant.  At any rate, things went grossly wrong.

Abandoned French huts in use by French returnees at Equancourt, France.

Some random observations

1.  My tower computer at home, which I use for nearly all of these posts has been ill.

I was just going to not post while it was being repaired (which it now is, I just need to pick it up), but as I've had my laptop at home this week, I've made a few entries on it. 

I've found that as good as the laptop is, it's really the pits to use as your solo computer.  I could remedy that in various ways, but as this is temporary, I'm not going to.

2.  Readership has really started to fluctuate here on a daily basis, with the general direction being down.  I predicted that earlier, even though I've kept up with a lot of century delayed real time posts. . That was predictable.  As the story of the immediate post World War One world starts to dominate, it looses its appeal for many.

Indeed, it's hard to follow.  Right now, for example, a century ago, Germany had quit fighting the Western Allies but was fighting the Poles to some degree and was also fighting the Red Army, the latter due to the requirements of the Allies who had not been able to fully field forces in the Baltic's.  So the war had never really ended for the Germans, even though they'd been required to partially demilitarize, and even as they were fighting among themselves with arms that had been bought by the Imperial German government for its army but which were now in use by everyone against each other.

It's hard to follow.

3.  A newspaper that keeps claiming its circulation hasn't gone down because of its electronic presence really ought to have an electronic version that really fully works.  Yes, it should.

I"ve been reading that electronic version this week as the weather has been bad which has kept the newspaper from being trucked up early from Cheyenne.  Late delivery has been pretty common, not occasional like the Tribune claimed it was going to be.

4.  One advantage of using the laptop is that I can type this stuff out from the kitchen island, which means that my view is of the sunrise.  Not the basement wall.  I like that.  Due to my short stature and the general view, the view is really of the skyline, not so much of the houses across the highway.  I like that as well. 

5.  When I'm really busy, I'm really irritable.

Perhaps that's why I found myself irritated by some American neo Gandhite spouting off about the novelty of a March "fast for peace", which is apparently a monthly thing.

I don't know that much about Gandhi, but if you are a member of the one of the Apostolic faiths, which have always fasted, the neo hip American mis-discovery and misunderstanding of Eastern religions is irritating.  I know something about the independence of India and its' worth noting that on this day in 1919 the British government in India extended the proclamation of the wartime declaration of emergency specifically because it was concerned about Indian independence movements.  Gandhi, fwiw, supported the British effort in World War One.  During World War Two there was an active independence movement in India which was ineffectual  but which allied with the Japanese and which formed an army under Japanese control to fight the British.  Independence following the war was an inevitability, already agreed upon prior to the war as a fact but not as to date, and would have occurred with or without Gandhi.  British withdrawal from India was one of several really good examples of the British extracting themselves from their collapsing empire in a really brilliant fashion in which it looks like they were pushed out, but they were basically running out.  Appearing to be pushed out looks better, frankly, from an immediate and historical prospective.

Since independence, Indian has not been a model of pacific behavior.  It's fought wars with its former territorial fellow, Pakistan, and its fought a border was with China.  During the early Cold War period it flirted with being a buddy with communist movements here and there which weren't in its own democratic long term interest. 

6.  The United States could go nearly 100% carbon neutral in less than a decade simply by mandating nuclear power plants be built and vehicles be carbon neutral, which would mean largely electric.

Nuclear power is completely safe, or at least as safe as other power generating methods, and is proven.  It'd work easily.  It won't be done as the greens have a non scientific fear of nuclear power.

Indeed, in real terms, the Western world's fear of nuclear power is the global power generating equivalent of being a no vaccine advocate.  It's non scientific and harmful  A person can't be a real green in any meaningful sense and oppose nuclear power.

The Italians advance at high altitude. The Battle of San Mateo. August 13, 1918.

On this date in 1918, the Italian Army launched a small scale, but very high altitude, assault on Austrian positions in the Italian Alps.

Italian mountain troops, Alpini, launched a company sized attack on Austrian Jägers at San Mateo, taking the 3678 meter high peak (the Austrians would take it back a few weeks later on September 3). In doing this, they managed to seize a position that was used for artillery to control nearby passes.

The battle was the highest battle on record until a 1999 conflict between India and Pakistan would surpass it. 

The battle is interesting for a variety of reasons, including the use of specialized troops on both sides, and featuring an Italian assault that is a monument to mountaineering.  While it was a small scale battle, the loss of face to Austria was significant and they dedicated an inordinate amount of forces to take it back, even though the Italians regarded holding the position as impossible and didn't really attempt to do so.  The September 3, 1918 recapture of the peak is regarded as the last successful Austrian operation of the war, but it was a Pyrrhic one both because Austrian fortunes in the war, now that the 1918 German Spring Offensive had failed, were becoming increasingly and obviously rather poor, and because the Italian counter bombardment was so bloody that losses to the Austrian forces were excessive.

The battle serves as a grim reminder of the war to this day. As recently as 2004 the bodies of a few Austrian soldiers were recovered from a nearby glacier.

The Jeep to receive competition from the Ghost of Jeeps Past?

Folks who stop in here from time to time know that I not only drive a Jeep, I'm on my third Jeep now and I use the Jeep I currently have, the best one I've ever had, as my daily driver.  I love it.

Which hasn't stopped me from lamenting the sad abandonment of the 1/4 ton 4x4 truck by the automobile industry such that what were once a proud assortment of semi dangerous off road utility vehicles is down, now, to just the Jeep.  Indeed, the SUV has gone from a collection of off road vehicles to a bunch of wimpy urban soccer transporters.  Bleh.  And Chrysler Fiat, having a really great product where it's the only one in the field, actually was pondering last year selling the product line to a Chinese fan, which might kill it with fickle Jeep owners.

Well, perhaps a slight turn of events has occurred as the Jeep is now getting competition from. . .itself.

Eh?

Yes, truly.

One of the oddities of the 4x4 around the world is that there are actually a fair collection of really rugged 4x4s made globally that never see the light of day in the US for a variety for reasons.  As, contrary to what people in the Western World think, the entire globe isn't made up of a bunch of Hollywood influenced narcissists in touch with their feelings as long as that doesn't take them much past the city park and transporting sissypooh hounds with vegan dog treats, there's a real market in a lot of places.  Toyota, fwiw, has a lot of that market sewed up globally with vehicles that it doesn't offer here, less it make the tight trouser crowed cry, but they aren't the only ones.

Indeed, one of the oddities of the 4x4 story around the world is that American military vehicles of the 40s, 50s, and 60s received a lot of local production and they still do.  We just don't think of them here.  Included in that production are Japanese and Indian versions of the Jeep.

Well, now Mahindra, an Indian company, has determined to open up a production line in the United States to sell the Mahindra Roxor.  The Roxor is a diesel engined M38A1. . the early CJ5 to most of you.

Being sold as "off road only", it will only get up to 45 mph. . . but then early Jeeps were slow and the diesel Jeeps used by various armies were not speedy.

I hope it does well.  It's taking on a titan. . even if a wounded one.

Roshanara, and Ratan Devi on March 17, 1917 in Manhattan

 

Everything was tumbling into war, but entertainment hadn't stopped.  Roshanara (Olive Katherine Craddock), and Ratan Devi (Alice Coomara) on March 17, 1917 in Manhattan.

Olive Craddock was an Anglo Indian woman who grew up in India and learned to dance Indian dances there. She later made a career of it, even copyrighting ten of her dances.  Alice Coomara, aka Alice Ethel Richardson Coomaraswamy, nee Richardson, was English but had learned Indian music while living with her husband in India and performed under the stage name Ratan Devi.

Sunday, April 4, 1914. Sad Sunday in Newfoundland, Newfoundlander reaches Siberian Coast.

Crowds gathered at St. John's, Newfoundland, to meet the SS Bellaventure as it brought back the dead and injured from its disastrous experience of several days prior.

Bartlett

Captain Robert Bartlett and Katakovik of the Canadian Arctic Expedition reached the Siberian coast after weeks of searching for the other members of the expedition that had departed the Wrangle Island camped.  They followed sled tracks that lead them to a Chukchi village where they were given food and shelter.

Bartlett was a Newfoundlander.

Merchant fisherman Baba Gurdit Singh chartered the Japanese vessel Komagata Maru to pick up 165 British Indian passengers in Hong Kong for a voyage to Vancouver, in defiance of Canadian exclusion laws.

German-born lumber giant Friedrich (Frederick) Weyerhäuser died at age 79 in California.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 2, 1914 Villista victory at Torreón, Disaster on the ice, Cumann na mBan, birth of Alec Guiness.

1910s, 1914, actors and actresses, baseball, Battle of Torreón, Disaster, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Pancho Villa, Protestant, religion, Sports, Venustiano Carranza