Wednesday, March 14, 2023. International cartographers

By Krzysztoflew, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2394054

The Conference of Ambassadors of the League of Nations, deciding unresolved claims from the Polish Ukrainian War, 1918-1919, awarded Eastern Glacia to Poland including Lviv, Stanyslaviv (Ivano-Frankivsk) and Tarnopol (Ternopil).  Ukraine had, by that time, functionally ceased to exist. Following World War Two, the Soviet Union would redraw the border to give them to Ukraine and move the Poles west, and likewise move Germans west as well, redrawing the German frontier as well.

Millions of people found themselves moving, or if they'd already been refugees, unable to return home.

By Spiridon Ion Cepleanu - History Atlases available., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17831314

To a large extent, this reflected both the mixed national boundaries of empire and the sharpening of nationalism following World War One.  The Poles and the Ukrainians blended into each other on the western fringes of the Russian Empire, and some Polish populations remain in Ukraine today.  Lviv, for its part, had a significant Jewish population before the Second World War resulted in their extermination.  The Poles, as a people, extended much further East before the Soviet Union forcibly redrew its border after World War Two.  Russia also redrew Ukraine's border after 1919 to Russia's favor.

Paris Peace Conference map of Ukraine.  Note that its borders were considerably larger, and that it does in fact include Crimea.  And in this map, Moldova was largely Romanian.

Of note today, Ukraine once extended further north, and further east.  Russia effectively sits today on land that it started occupying in the 1920s that had been Ukrainian.  Today, however, it should not be presumed that Russian territory originally claimed by Ukraine retains a Ukrainian population.

Also of note, Ukraine today sits pretty much within a smaller version of its original claimed modern borders.  A large section of Poland ended up within it following World War Two, but about 60% of that had been claimed by Ukraine right after World War One, reflecting in part the mixed Polish Ukrainian population in that region at the time.

Wednesday, February 21, 1923. Time travel.

Greece made its final use of the Julian calendar, thereby going from today, which was February 15 on the Julian, to March 1 the following day, reflecting the switch to the Gregorian calendar.

President Harding signed the Smoot-Burton Act compromising the British war debt somewhat.

France deported the policemen in Bouchum and Herne away from their cities.

Thursday, February 15, 1923. Forbes quits from long distance, Veterans gather, Greece compounds the injustice.

Gathering at USS Maine memorial on the 25th anniversary of its sinking.

Charles R. Forbes, the Director of the U.S. Veteran's Bureau, resigned the position from his self-appointed refuge of Europe, following suspicions that he had been selling surplus supplies at huge discounts to contractors for kickbacks.  His confrontation with Harding on the matter had resulted in a physical altercation, with Forbes reportedly begging Harding to be allowed to depart for Europe prior to resigning.

The Scottish born Forbes had lived a colorful life, having been a Marine Corps musician at age 16, an engineer, a soldier in the Army charged with desertion and ultimately discharged as a Sergeant First Class after only eight years of service, employed in the construction field, and a Lieutenant Colonel in World War One.

He'd be prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud the Federal Government and end up serving 20 months in prison.  He'd live until 1949, dying at age 74.

Greece expropriate additional dwellings from the Albanian Cham Muslims in order to free up dwelling space for expelled Greeks from Turkey, thereby compounding the injustice.

Albanians had nothing to do with Greece's situation and the event signals out how Greece, in some ways, set the table for the disaster it was experiencing.  Turkey was being barbarous to the Anatolian Greeks, but the Greeks had not been kind to the Anatolian Muslims.

And this also demonstrates how something that began in World War One with good intention, independent nation states comprised of free peoples, was morphing into expelling minorities from lands they'd occupied for eons.

Margaret Lindsey Williams, working on her portrait of President Harding.

Tuesday, January 30, 1923. Forced Relocation of Greeks and Turks

The treaty between Greece and Turkey which resulted in the forcible relocation more than 1.6 million people based on ethnicity and religion, 1,221,489 Turkish-born Greek Orthodox Christians and 400,000 Greek residents of Istanbul and Muslim Turks on the Greek side of the divided area of Thrace, were exempt, although many people relocated anyway.

The treaty was the first of the massive ethnic and religion based movements of peoples that would become a feature of the mid 20th Century, and which were a perversion of one of Wilson's Fourteen Points.  By the end of, and following, World War Two this would be conducted on a massive scale, particularly in Eastern Europe.

All of the imperial powers that had gone into World War One were multiethnic, at least to some degree.  The Germans, for example, had a large Polish population that was not only in what we'd regard as Poland, but also in areas which had a mixed Polish/German, population, and populations of ethnic Germans were present in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, the USSR,and elsewhere.  In what became Poland after World War One, there remained populations of Ukrainians and other peoples, and Ukraine also included populations of Poles.  Ukrainians extended out into what was then and now regarded as Russia.  Finns remained in areas that Russia retained.  And what was left to Turkey of the Ottoman Empire included not only Turks, but Armenians, Greeks and Kurds.  The concept that all nations had to be nation states, a perversion of nations getting states as envisioned by Wilson, was a direct cause of World War Two. 

Exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II visited with monarchist Germans in Nijmegen about a possible return to the German throne, but decided the time was not ripe.  It never would be.

Department of Agriculture Poultry Club.

Thursday, January 25, 1923. Auf Widersehen

The remaining U.S. troops in Europe, fresh off occupation duty in Germany, abandoned, most likely, their German sweethearts, girlfriends and good beer, and boarded the U.S. Navy transport the St. Mihiel, which departed thereafter from Antwerp following a simple ceremony.

The St. Mihiel, AP-32.  The ship would serve through World War Two, becoming a hospital ship.

Ah well, what could go wrong with the US turning its back on Europe, eh?

For those who might consider my initial comment too flippant, most US occupation troops in Germany were very late war conscripts, although not all of them were, who notoriously had a difficult time grasping the Germans as having been enemies.

French troops on the same day battled mobs in the Ruhr and dealt with a regional railway strike.

The Asahi Graph (アサヒグラフ, Asahi Gurafu, The Asahi Picture News) founded.  The photo magazine ran until 2000.

Issue from 1937.

The Japanese, like the Germans, took a very early interest in photography and the magazine had a reputation of being sort of a Japanese version of Life.

Tuesday, January 16, 1923: Work on cattle ranch, Z/T Ranch, Pitchfork, Wyoming

A truly great photograph.

Also regarding Wyoming, Harry Ford Sinclair testified in front of a Congressional committee investigating the Teapot Dome lease his interest held.

The Klaipėda Revolt ended with an agreement to transfer Memelland to Lithuania.  It was under French administration at the time with its ultimate ownership up until that point uncertain.

Wednesday January 10, 1923. The Klaipėda Revolt.

 Delegates to the Near East Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, voted to accept a Turkish proposal to "exchange" the Greek and Turkish populations of the two countries.

This would result in the expulsion of 600,000 Greeks from Anatolia, where they had been since ancient times, and in which the Turks were originally an invader, for 450,000 Turks in Greece.  An exception was made for 200,000 Greeks in Constantinople, a city identified with the Greeks since ancient times, and 300,000 in Western Thrace.

Irrespective of the inequities, and even barbarism, of the Greek advances in Anatolia following World War One, the result was inhumane and effectively completed a process that the Ottoman invasion had started centuries ago.  Greek overreaching following World War One was responsible for a lot of what occurred, but it's a tragedy by any measure.

Only about 2,500 Greeks remain in Turkey today.

The French staged near Essen in preparation for intervening in the Ruhr.

Participants in the revolt.

Lithuanians rebelled in the Klaipėda Revolt in Memelland.  Lithuanian troops intervened in support of the insurrection.  The goal of the revolt was to join Memelland to Lithuania, and it met with little resistance from German troops, stationed on what had been German territory, and French occupation forces.

Both the French and the Germans had other things to worry about on this day other than Memelland.

The population of the region was about 45% German. The remaining population was Memellandish and Lithuanian.  Having said this, the ethnic composition of Memelland was complex in every fashion, with Memmelandish being a dialect of German, and the Lithuanian population of the region being predominantly Lutheran, whereas in Lithuania the vast majority of the population was Roman Catholic, a trait they shared with the Poles.  It was a mixed border region, in other words, but the border had been stable since 1441.

President Harding ordered U.S. troops withdrawn from Germany.

From Reddit's 100 Years Ago Today.

This was, of course, because it appeared that France was about to enter the Ruhr, which in fact it was.

From Reddit's 100 Years Ago Today.

Sultan Said bin Taimur of Oman was compelled to sign an agreement with the United Kingdom to provide for pre-approval by the British High Commissioner in India of any contracts between oil exploration companies and Oman.

The Sultan Said was born in 1910 and had attended Mayo College at Ajmer in Rajputana, India.  Following that it was suggested that his education be furthered in Beirut, but it was not as his father feared he'd be influenced by Christianity.  He remained in power until 1970, when he was deposed by his son.

His technical rule of the country, arranged by the British, did not happen until 1932.  He died in the United Kingdom in 1972 at the age of 62.

Tuesday, January 9, 1923. Belgium and France take a hard line.

The Allied Reparation Commission found Germany in willful default on its coal delivery requires pursuant to the Versailles Treaty, thus setting the stage for the French occupation.  On the same day, France and Belgium's commissioners voted to occupy the Ruhr. The United Kingdom opposed the measure.  The U.S. had already bowed out.

The Ruhr is an industrial region of Germany and was traditionally a coal mining region, drawing quite a few ethnic Poles at one time due to their experience in coal mining.  Locally, quite a few of those from the region refer to it as "Pott", which is a derivate of "Pütt", a derivative of "pit", or mine.  By 1925, the Ruhrgebiet had around 3,800,000 inhabitants including Eastern Europe immigrants, but also including immigrants from France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.  Today the region is part of North Rhine-Westphalia, a British creation during the post World War Two British occupation, which merged the Rhineland with Westphalia.  Oddly, it's been preserved since that time, although at least some distantly descended Westphalians might wonder why.

A U.S. Federal board charged with studying vocational education found that 1,700,000 children dropped out of school prior to the 8th grade, and thereby impairing their occupational opportunities.

The Gorakhpus Sessions Court in Indian returned verdicts on a February 5, 1922, burning of a police station that resulted in 22 police deaths. Forty-seven people were acquitted, 107 were found guilty of various charges, with nineteen being sentenced to death and fourteen to life imprisonment.

Friday, January 5, 1923 Frances overflies the Ruhr.

French air force roundel.

France sent aircraft over the Ruhr in preparation for entering it.

Czechoslovak Finance Minister Alois Rašín was shot by an anarchist.

A white mob destroyed Rosewood, Florida.  We reported on the start of these events a few days ago.

In Sofia, Bulgaria, an explosion of surplus artillery shells sold to a junk dealer by the Interallied Disarmament Commission killed twelve.

Thursday, December 28, 1922. Communists delegates meet to give their nations up into tyranny.

Deluded Bolshevik delegates met in Moscow to surrender their region's sovereignty to the Russian dominated Moscow based Communist Party in a single evil state. The acolytes of this barbarity were from Russia, the Transcaucasia, Ukraine and Belorussian, thereby providing a vehicle for the reassembly of the Russian Empire in an even more malignant form, with repercussions that live to this day.

Chances are fairly good that most of the delegates later met brutal ends at the ends at the hands of the Communist Party itself during Stalin's period of leadership.

Henry Cabot Lodge read a message from President Harding that the United States would not consider the cancellation of war debt as a precondition to participating in a world economic summit.

The legendary cartoonist Stan Lee was born.

The first Conference of Senior Circuit Judges met, with Chief Justice William Howard Taft presiding.

Tuesday, December 26, 1972. Harry S. Truman dies, Operation Lineback II resumes, the Soviet Union changes Chinese sounding names.

Harry S. Truman died at age 88.

His health had been in steady decline since 1964, when he sustained a fall.

The former President and his wife Bess held the first and second Medicare Cards, conveyed upon them by President Johnson in honor of their support for government health care, something he was far ahead of his time on, and depending upon your views, something that the country still has not caught up with.

220 American aircraft hit targets over North Vietnam over a fifteen-minute period.  A missile assembly facility together with airbases and radar installations were destroyed.

Truman was the last U.S. President who did not hold a university degree.  He had a fairly difficult early life, in no small part due to the economic conditions that prevailed in Missouri and his humble beginnings.  His service in World War One, which he entered through the Missouri National Guard and in which he became an officer, started his rise to later office.  Indeed, in no small way, the Missouri artilleryman of World War One would not have become President but for that experience.

This set the stage, combined with airstrikes over the next three days, for a return by North Vietnam to the Paris Peace Talks.

The Soviets changed the name of nine cities in Siberia that had been seized by Imperial Russia from China in the 1860. The prior names, the Soviets thought, sounded too Chinese.

Tuesday, December 26, 1922. Minnie

The Allied Reparations Committee's delegates voted 3 to 1 to declare Germany to have voluntarily defaulted in its Great War reparations, this stemming from a delayed timber delivery to France.

Only the United Kingdom dissented.

Mussolini ordered that Italian coinage be redesigned to bear the fasces.

Fasces.

And this:  1922: Minnie, the the RMS Cedric Ship Cat Who Saved Her Christmas Kittens

Friday, November 25, 1922. Trotting Turkey

Country Gentleman came out with a Thanksgiving themed cover by illustrator Frederick Lowenheim.

In France, for St. Catherine's saint's day, the Catherinettes were out on the streets:

From John Blackwell's Twitter feed on the topic.

We noted this custom in 2020:

The day is also St. Catherine's Day,, the feast day for that saint, which at the time was still celebrated in France as a day for unmarried women who had obtained twenty-five years of age.  Such women were known as Catherinettes. Women in general were committed since the Middle Ages to the protection of St. Catherine and on this day large crowds of unmarried 25 year old women wearing hats to mark their 25th year would gather for a celebration of sorts, where well wishers would wish them a speedy end to their single status. The custom remained strong at least until the 1930s but has since died out.

We should also note that the plight of unmarried French women, and British ones as well (and probably German ones) had grown worse since 1914.  Due to the combat losses of young men in the Great War, their marriage prospects in an era when being an unmarried woman was somewhat grim, had greatly declined.  The youngest of these women had been 21 when the war ended, meaning that they were of marriageable age when most young men were fighting in the war.  As the war killed men in that demographic, it meant that some would never marry.  The war also meant that the surviving men had disproportionate options.

I'm sure there's a study of this somewhere, but it can't help be noted that it must have had long-lasting social impacts, and it probably also explains the significant number of "war brides" brought home from France by US servicemen after the war and occupation, as well as the same population brining home some German brides, and Russian brides.

The Italian Chamber of Deputies granted Mussolini full power over economic matters for a year.

On the Rebel Streets of Cork. . . 

Wednesday, November 22, 1922. Unintended Consequences.

 Tampa Bay Times, November 22, 1922.

A mine explosion in Dolomite, Alabama killed 90 people.

Wilhelm Cuno.

Businessman Wilhelm Cuno was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Friedrich Ebert.  It was an appointment, not an elective, commission.

An independent politician, Cuno would serve in the role for less than a year and then retire from politics.  He'd become an economic advisor to Hitler in 1932, which he didn't do long either, given his death in 1933.

Tuesday, November 21, 1922. The Conference of Lausanne opens, Harding discusses the Merchant Marine.

The Conference of Lausanne opened in Switzerland on the topic of a formal peace between Turkey and Greece, and the respective borders it would result in.  On this day at the conference, Mussolini angered the other Western Ally delegates by stating that Italy would support Turkish demands that Russia participate in the conference, an irony given that in twenty years Italy would be participating in the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union.

The New York Times featured a headline stating: "New Popular Idol Rises In Bavaria", regarding one Adolf Hitler

Military sports were in evidence on the Potomac.

Polo on mules on Camp A. A. Humphreys.  The installation later became Ft. Humphreys and then Ft. Belvoir in 1935.  A current Camp Humphreys is a major U.S. installation in the Republic of Korea.

President Harding addressed the House of Representatives.  His topic was the Merchant Marine.  He stated:

Members of the Congress:

Late last February I reported to you relative to the American merchant marine, and recommended legislation which the executive branch of the Government deemed essential to promote our merchant marine and with it our national welfare. Other problems were pressing and other questions pending, and for one reason or another, which need not be recited, the suggested legislation has not progressed beyond a favorable recommendation by the House committee.

The committee has given the question a full and painstaking inquiry and study, and I hope that its favorable report speedily will be given the force of law.

It will be helpful in clearing the atmosphere if we start with the frank recognition of divided opinion and determined opposition. It is no new experience. Like proposals have divided the Congress on various previous occasions. Perhaps a more resolute hostility never was manifest before, and I am very sure the need for decisive action—decisive, favorable action—never was so urgent before.

We are not now dealing with a policy founded on theory, we have a problem which is one of grim actuality. We are facing insistent conditions, out of which will come either additional and staggering Government losses and. national impotence on the seas, or else the unfurling of the flag on a great American merchant marine commensurate with our commercial importance, to serve as carrier of out cargoes in peace and meet the necessities of our defense in war. There is no thought here and now to magnify the relation of a merchant marine to our national defense. It is enough to recall that we entered the World War almost wholly dependent on our allies for transportation by sea. We expended approximately three billions; feverishly; extravagantly, wastefully, and unpractically. Out of our eagerness to make up for the omissions of peace and to meet the war emergency we builded and otherwise acquired the vast merchant fleet which the Government owns to-day.

In the simplest way I can say it, our immediate problem is not to build and support a merchant shipping, which I hold to be one of the highest and most worthy aspirations of any great people; our problem is to deal with what we now possess. Our problem is to relieve the Public Treasury of the drain it is already meeting. Let us omit particulars about the frenzied war-time building. Possibly we did full as well as could have been done in the anxious circumstances. Let us pass for the moment the vital relationship between a merchant marine and a commercially aspiring nation. Aye, let us suppose for a moment the absurdity that with one $3,000,000,000 experience, and with the incalculable costs in lives and treasure which may be chargeable to our inability promptly to apply our potency— which God forefend happening again—let us momentarily ignore all of these and turn to note the mere business problem, the practical question of dollars and cents with which we are confronted.

The war construction and the later completion of war contracts, where completion was believed to be the greater economy to the Public Treasury, left us approximately 13,200,000 gross tonnage in ships. The figures arc nearer 12,500,000 tons now, owing to the scrapping of the wooden fleet. More than half this tonnage is Government-owned, and approximately 2,250,000 tons are under Government operation in one form or another. The net loss to the United States Treasury—sums actually taken therefrom in this Government operation—averaged approximately $16,000,000 per month during the year prior to the assumption of responsibility by the present administration. A constant warfare on this loss of public funds, and the draft to service of capable business management and experienced operating directors, have resulted in applied efficiency and enforced economies. It is very gratifying to report the diminution of the losses to $4,000,000 per month, or a total of $50,000,000 a year; but it is intolerable that the Government should continue a policy from which so enormous a Treasury loss is the inevitable outcome. This loss, however, attends operation of less than a third of the Government-owned fleet.

It is not, therefore, a question of adding new Treasury burdens to maintain our shipping; we are paying these burdens now. It is not a question of contracting an outlay to support our merchant shipping, because we are paying already. I am not asking your authorization of a new and added draft on the Public Treasury; I am appealing for a program to diminish the burden we are already bearing.

When your executive Government knows of public expenditures aggregating fifty millions annually, which it believes could be reduced by half through a change of policy, your Government would be unworthy of public trust if such a change were not commended, nay, if it were not insistently urged.

And the pity of it is that our present expenditure in losses is not constructive. It looks to no future attainments. It is utterly ineffective in the establishment of a dependable merchant marine, whereas the encouragement of private ownership and the application of individual initiative would make for a permanent creation, ready and answerable at all times to the needs of the nation.

But I have not properly portrayed all the current losses to the Public Treasury. We are wearing out our ships without any provision for replacement. We are having these losses through deterioration now, and are charging nothing against our capital account. But the losses are there, and regrettably larger under Government operation than under private control. Only a few years of continued losses on capital account will make these losses through depreciation alone to exceed the fifty millions a year now drawn to cover losses in operation.

The gloomy picture of losses does not end even there. Notwithstanding the known war cost of three billions of dollars for the present tonnage, I will not venture to appraise its cash value to-day. It may as well be confessed now as at some later time that in the mad rush to build, in establishing shipyards wherever men would organize to expend Government money, when we made shipbuilders overnight quite without) regard to previous occupations or pursuits, we builded poorly, often very poorly. Moreover, we constructed without any formulated program for a merchant marine. The war emergency impelled, and the cry was for ships, any kind of ships. The error is recalled in regret rather than criticism. The point is that our fleet, costing approximately three billions, is worth only a fraction of that cost, to-day. Whatever that fraction may be, the truth remains that we have no market in which to sell the ships under our present policy, and a program of surrender and sacrifice and the liquidation which is inevitable unless the pending legislation is sanctioned, wilt cost scores of millions more.

When the question is asked, Why the insistence for the merchant marine act now? the answer is apparent. Waiving every inspiration Which lies in a constructive plan for maintaining our flag on the commercial highways of the seas, waiving the prudence in safeguarding against another $3,000,000,000 madness if war ever again impels, we have the unavoidable task of wiping out a $50,000,000 annual loss in operation, and losses aggregating many hundreds of millions in worn- out, sacrificed, or scrapped shipping. Then the supreme humiliation, the admission that the United States—our America, once eminent among the maritime nations of the world—is incapable of asserting itself in the peace triumphs on the seas of the world. It would seem to me doubly humiliating when we own the ships and fail in the genius and capacity to turn their prows toward the marts of the world.

This problem can not longer be ignored, its attempted solution can not longer be postponed. The failure of Congress to act decisively will be no less disastrous than adverse action.

Three courses of action are possible, and the choice among them is no longer to be avoided.

The first is constructive—enact the pending bill, under which, I firmly believe, an American merchant marine, privately owned and privately operated, but serving all the people and always available to the Government in any emergency, may be established and maintained.

The second is obstructive—continue Government operations and attending Government losses and discourage private enterprise by Government competition, under which losses are met by the Public Treasury, and witness the continued losses and deterioration until the colossal failure ends in sheer exhaustion.

The third is destructive—involving the sacrifice of our ships abroad or the scrapping of them at home, the surrender of our aspirations, and the confession of our impotence to the world in general, and our humiliation before the competing world in particular.

A choice among the three is inevitable. It is unbelievable that the American people or the Congress which expresses their power will consent to surrender and destruction. It is equally unbelievable that our people and the Congress which translates their wishes into action will longer sustain a program of obstruction and attending losses to the Treasury.

I have come to urge the constructive alternative, to reassert an American "We Will." I have come to ask you to relieve the responsible administrative branch of the Government from a program upon which failure and hopelessness and staggering losses are written for every page, and let us turn to a program of assured shipping to serve us in war and to give guaranty to our commercial independence in peace.

I know full well the hostility in the popular mind to the word "subsidy." It is stressed by the opposition and associated with "special privilege" by those who are unfailing advocates of Government aid whenever vast numbers are directly concerned. "Government aid" would be a fairer term than "subsidy" in defining what we are seeking to do for our merchant marine, and the interests are those of all the people, even though the aid goes to the few who serve.

If "Government Aid" is a fair term—and I think it is—to apply to authorizations aggregating $75,000,000 to promote good roads for market highways, it is equally fit to be applied to the establishment and maintenance of American market highways on the salted seas.

If Government aid is the proper designation for fifteen to forty millions annually expended to improve and maintain inland waterways in aid of commerce, it is a proper designation for a needed assistance to establish and maintain ocean highways where there is actual commerce to be carried.

But call it "subsidy," since there are those who prefer to appeal to mistaken prejudice rather than make frank and logical argument. We might so call the annual loss of fifty millions, which we are paying now without protest by those who most abhor, we might as well call that a "subsidy." If so, I am proposing to cut it in half, approximately, and to the saving thus effected there would be added millions upon millions of further savings through ending losses on capital account—Government capital, out of the Public Treasury, always remember—and there would be at least the promise and the prospect of the permanent establishment of the needed merchant marine.

I challenge every insinuation of favored interests and the enrichment of the special few at the expense of the Public Treasury. I am, first of all, appealing to save the Treasury. Perhaps the unlimited bestowal of Government aid might justify the apprehension of special favoring, but the pending bill, the first ever proposed which carries such a provision, automatically guards against enrichment or perpetuated bestowal. It provides that shipping lines receiving Government aid must have their actual investment and their operating expensed audited by the Government, that Government aid will only be paid until the shipping enterprise earns 10 per cent on actual capital employed, and immediately that when more than 10 per cent earning is reached, half of the excess earnings used must be applied to the repayment of the Government aid which has been previously advanced. Thus the possible earnings are limited to a- very reasonable amount if capital is to be risked and management is to be attracted. If success attends, as we hope it will, the Government outlay is returned, the inspiration of opportunity to earn remains, and American transportation by sea is established.

Though differing in detail, it. is not more in proportion to their population and capacity than other great nations have done in aiding the establishment of their merchant marines, and it is timely to recall that we gave them our commerce to aid in their upbuilding; while the American task now is to upbuild and establish in the face of their most active competition. Indeed, the American development will have to overcome every obstacle which may be put in our path, except as international comity forbids. Concern about our policy is not limited to our own domain, though the interest abroad is of very different character. I hope it is seemly to say it, because it must be said, the maritime nations of the world are in complete accord with the opposition here to the pending measure. They have a perfect right to such an attitude. When we look from their view-points we can understand. But I wish to stress the American viewpoint. Ours should be the viewpoint from which one sees American carriers at sea, the dependence of American commerce, and American vessels for American reliance in the event of war. Some of the costly lessons of war must be learned again and again, but our shipping lesson in the World War was much too costly to be effaced from the memory of this or future generations.

Not so many months ago the head of a company operating a fleet of ships under our flag called at the Executive Offices to discuss a permit to transfer his fleet of cargo vessels to a foreign flag, though he meant to continue them in a distinctly American service. He based his request for transfer on the allegation that by such a transfer he could reduce his labor costs alone sufficiently to provide a profit on capital invested. I do not vouch for the accuracy of the statement nor mean to discuss it. The allusion is made to recall that in good conscience Congress has created by law conditions surrounding labor on American ships which shipping men the world over declare result in higher costs of operation under our flag. I frankly rejoice if higher standards for labor on American ships have been established.

Merest justice suggests that when Congress fixes these standards, it is fair to extend Government aid in maintaining them until world competition is brought to the same high level, or until our shipping lines are so firmly established that they can face world competition alone.

Having discussed in detail the policy and provisions of the pending bill when previously addressing you, I forbear a repetition now. In individual exchanges of opinion not a few in House or Senate have expressed personal sympathy with the purposes of the bill, and then uttered a discouraging doubt about the sentiment of their constituencies. It would be most discouraging if a measure of such transcending national importance must have its fate depend on geographical, occupational, professional, or partisan objections. Frankly I think it loftier statesmanship to support and commend a policy designed to effect the larger good of the nation than merely to record the too hasty impressions of a constituency. Out of the harmonized aspirations, the fully informed convictions, and the united efforts of all the people will come the greater Republic. Commercial eminence on the seas, ample agencies for the promotion and carrying of our foreign commerce, are of no less importance to the people of Mississippi and the Missouri Valley, the great Northwest, and the Rocky Mountain states, than to the seaboard states and industrial communities building inland a thousand miles or more. It is a common cause, with its benefits commonly shared. When people fail in the national viewpoint, and live in the confines of community selfishness or narrowness, the sun of this republic will have passed its meridian, and our larger aspirations will shrivel in the approaching twilight.

But let us momentarily put aside the aspiring and inspiring viewpoint. The blunt, indisputable fact of the loss of fifty millions a year under Government operations remains; likewise the fast diminishing capital account, the enormous war expenditure, to which we were forced because we had not fittingly encouraged and builded as our commerce expanded in peace. Here are facts to deal with, not fancies wrought out of our political and economic disputes. The abolition of the annual loss and the best salvage of the capital account are of concern to all the people.

It is my firm belief that the combined savings of operating losses and the protection of the capital account through more advantageous sales of our war-built or war-seized ships, because of the favoring policy which the pending bill will establish, will more than pay every dollar expended in Government aid for twenty-five years to come.

It should be kept in mind that the approximate sum of five millions annually paid for the transport of ocean mails is no new expenditure. It should be kept in mind that the loan fund to encourage building is not new; it is the law already, enacted by the essentially unanimous vote of Congress. It is only included in the pending bill in order to amend so as to assure the exaction of a minimum interest rate by the Government, whereas the existing law leaves the grant of building loans subject to any whim of favoritism.

It should be kept in mind, also, that there are assured limitations of the Government aid proposed. The direct aid, with ocean carrying maintained at our present participation, will not reach twenty millions a year, and the maximum direct aid, if our shipping is so promoted that we carry one-half of our deep-seas commerce, will not exceed thirty millions annually. At the very maximum of outlay we should be saving twenty millions of our present annual operating loss. If the maximum is ever reached, the establishment of our merchant marine will have been definitely recorded and the Government-owned fleet fortunately liquidated.

From this point of view it is the simple, incontestable wisdom of businesslike dealing to save all that is possible of the annual loss and avoid the millions sure to be lost to the Government's capital account in sacrificing our fleet. But there is a bigger, broader, more inspiring viewpoint, aye, a patriotic viewpoint. I refer to the constructive action of to-day, which offers the only dependable promise of making our war-time inheritance of ships the .foundation of a great agency of commerce in peace and an added guaranty of service when it is necessary to our national defense.

Thus far I have been urging Government aid to American shipping, having in mind every interest of our producing population, whether of mine, factory, or farm, because expanding commerce is the foremost thought of every nation in the world to-day.

I believe in Government aid becomingly bestowed. We have aided industry through our tariffs; we have aided railway transportation in land grants and loans. We have aided the construction of market roads and the improvement of inland waterways. We have aided reclamation and irrigation and the development of water power; we have loaned for seed grains in anticipation of harvests. We expend millions in investigation and experimentation to promote a common benefit, though a limited few are the direct beneficiaries. We have loaned hundreds of millions to promote the marketing of American goods. It has all been commendable and highly worth while.

At the present moment the American farmer is the chief sufferer from the cruel readjustments which follow war's inflations, and befitting Government aid to our farmers is highly essential to our national welfare. No people may safely boast a good fortune which the farmer does not share.

Already this Congress and the administrative branch of the Government have given willing ear to the agricultural plea for postwar relief, and much has been done which has proven helpful. Admittedly, it is not enough. Our credit systems, under Government provision and control, must be promptly and safely broadened to relieve our agricultural distress.

To this problem and such others of pressing importance as reasonably may be dealt with in the short session I shall invite your attention at an early day.

I have chosen to confine myself to the specific problem of dealing with our merchant marine because I have asked you to assemble two weeks in advance of the regularly appointed time to expedite its consideration. The executive branch of the Government would feel itself remiss to contemplate our yearly loss and attending failure to accomplish if the conditions were not pressed for your decision. More, I would feel myself lacking in concern for America's future if I failed to stress the beckoning opportunity to equip the United States to assume a befitting place among the nations of the world whose commerce is inseparable from the good fortunes to which rightfully all peoples aspire.

November 9, 1922. Hedging bets

The French Chamber of Deputies approved Raymond Poincare's policy of France abstaining on paying its war debts unit it had received reparations due from Germany.

Former White Russian General Viktor Pokrovsky, age 33, died while resisting arreste by Belgian authorities. They were conducting a murder investigation.

Monday, November 6, 1922. Appointment Clerks.

A group of Federal appointment clerks.

This, obviously all male, occupation was exactly what it sounded like.  Clerks who took appointments and handled the same.  Sort of the equivalent of a secretary/receptionist.

As late as the Second World War, in government service this occupation was a male one.  And, as the fine clothing in the photo demonstrates, one that paid a decent living to its occupants.

Indeed, every man here is wearing a three-piece suit of good quality.

Also of note, at least two are smoking cigars, not even taking time out from tobacco consumption to appear without one. When was the last time you were in an office and somebody was smoking a cigar?

A coal mine explosion in Spangler, Pennsylvania, killed 79 miners.

Ali Kemal, age 53, who we mentioned the other day, was lynched on his ways to the gallows by a mob.

By the way, in the long odds category, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a direct descendant of Ali Kemal.  I.e, not a cousin, Kamal is BoJo's Great Grandfather.

Released this day in 1922.

Monday, October 16, 1922. The Greek tragedy in Anatolia, Racism in Children's Books and Toys.

Former Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos proposed a mandatory population exchanged between Greece and Turkey to the League of Nations.  The proposal was for Orthodox Christians in side of what was to become or had become Turkish territory would come to Greece, and Muslim populations inside of Greece would go to Turkey.   The proposal would be adopted and carried out that following year, with 1,221,489 Greek and other Orthodox Christians going to Greece and about 400,000 Muslims going to Turkey.  The relocation was compulsory.

The net result would be the loss of a large Christian and Greek presence in Anatolia for the first time since the Apostolic Age, which of course Anatolia was principally Greek.  The Greek population of Istanbul was exempt from the exchange, but the Istanbul Pogrom of 1955 would cause many of them to leave.  The population today is growing, but still remains at only about 110,000.  Further repression of the Greek minority in the country would follow in 1964.

By Alexikoua - Own work, data taken from:*Kamouzis Dimitrios, The Constantinopolitan Greeks in an era of secular nationalism, mid-19th century to 1930, 2010, University of London. King's College. Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, p. 32.*Darja Reuschke,Monika Salzbrunn,Korinna Schönhärl, The Economies of Urban Diversity: Ruhr Area and Istanbul, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, ISBN 9781137338815, p. 117-122.*Σάββας Τσιλένης. Η μειονότητα των Ορθόδοξων Χριστιανών στις επίσημες στατιστικές της σύγχρονης Τουρκίας και στον αστικό χώρο.*Dundar Fuat, Turkiye Nufus Sayimlarinda Azinlikar. Doz, 1999, ISBN 9756876123. 9789756876121, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33989120

It's almost impossible to imagine a nation suggesting that members of co-ethnic communities in another country be forcibly expelled into itself now, but the Greek government feared, with good reason, that Greeks in Anatolia would be exterminated there.  The forced relocation removed a Greek presence in Anatolia that went back to antiquity, as well as operating to help complete the end of an Armenian one that was, if anything, even older.

It should be noted that Turkish oppression of the Armenians in modern times went back to the closing days of the Ottoman Empire, but it had really ramped up in regard to the Greeks due to the Greco Turkish War during which the Greeks had committed atrocities of their own, and had grossly overplayed their hand in trying to seize Turkish territory. The Ottoman parliament had been willing to accept that, but the Young Turks had not.  Had the Greeks not so overreached, the following tragedy may very well not have occured.

The U.S. Bureau of Prohibition seized the Canadian schooner Emerald 8 miles off the coast of New Jersey, resulting in a British protest.

Florence Kate Upton died on this day following surgery.  The British children's book author was 49.

She was also the inventor of the "Golliwog" dolls, which are truly beyond comprehension today.

The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a "Golliwogg", 1895.

The dolls were popular at the time, but are shocking today, and for good reason.  Indeed, we hesitated to post this at all, but given as this blog is supposed to be exploring an earlier time (which we're actually somewhat beyond in these 1922 posts), I've put them up.  An example of deeply ingrained racists views from the time.

Tuesday, October 10, 1922. Iraq created, the beginning of the end of the IRA.

Lillian Thompson and her dog, on this day in 1922.

The United Kingdom and Iraq signed the Anglo-Iraqi Treat of 1922, creating "Irak".  It only obtained limited self-government through the treaty, and the UK controlled its foreign relations.

Irish Catholic Bishops condemned the Irish Republican Army and issued an order denying them the sacraments.  This began to cause a collapse in IRA membership.

Physicians riding in Washington, D. C., 10/10/22.

Wars and Rumors of War, 2022. The Russo Ukrainian War Edition, Part Seven

September 1, 2022

Sasha, age 9, with prosthetic giving the Ukrainian trident salute.  She lost her arm due to a Russian attack.Whatever Russia's excuses for invading a neighboring country that doesn't wish to be part of it may be, taking off the arms of children as part of the cause is beyond any excuse. Live URL Link from: https://twitter.com/DefenceU

Russian propaganda is attempting to portray Ukraine's long anticipated offensive has having already failed, which it has not.

The Ukrainian government, in contrast, is observing operational silence, and requesting that media sources abstain from predicting Ukrainian moves.

September 2, 2022

• Afghanistan

The Taliban has arrested a woman for defamation for accusing her husband, the former Taliban interior minister, of forced marriage and rape.

The charge by the entity which the United States allowed to take power due to Donald Trump's Doha agreement followed by our withdrawal under President Biden was based on the Taliban position that nobody is allowed to defame the Taliban.

September 2, cont

Israel struck a Syrian runway yesterday.

September 3, 2022

• China/Taiwan

The United States is selling $1,100,000,000 in arms to Taiwan

September 5, 2022

• Russo Ukrainian War

The Ukrainians liberated Vysokopilla in Kherson Oblast.  Gains were also made in the Donetsk Oblast.   The Ukrainians have had a news blackout on their operations, and it appears clear that the announced successes are just part of a collection of wider successes they have not yet felt comfortable in publicly stating.

September 6, 2022

Russia has postponed a referendum on Kherson joining Russia for "security reasons".

September 7, 2022

Russia is getting ready to purchase rockets and artillery shells from North Korea.

The fact that Russia is in the position of buying this sort of ordinance suggest that it is either seriously depleted its stocks of the same, or that it is worried about doing so and seeking to use up newly purchased stores so as to have a reserve ammunition supply for other contingencies, real or imagined.

Ukraine retook territory near Kharkiv.

September 9, 2022

While it's not at all clear what's going on, it suddenly seems to be the case that the Ukrainians are advancing all over the front.  Fighting has been hard in Kherson, but there are reports today of advancing in the north and the center, with some of these reports coming from Russian sources.

It's too early to really predict what's going on, but if this keeps up, the Russians are in a very bad spot. 

September 10, 2022

What seemed to be promising local advances a couple of days ago is developing into open field running by the Ukrainians, who are now outsmarting and outfighting the Russians darned near everywhere.

Ukraine has retaken Izium in the Kharkiv region, with the Russians openly retreating and admitting as much.  This region of Ukraine wasn't even imagined to be the focus of what is turning out to be an effective broad front offensive.  They're closing on Sievierodonetsk, whose loss in June was regarded as a major Ukrainian defeat.  Some reports had the Russians deploying helicopters to intercept their own fleeing men as they attempted, and failed, to reinforce Izium.

It's still too early to tell, but things are beginning to take on an appearance of a systemic Russian collapse.

September 11, 2022

Situation as of September 11, 2022.  By Viewsridge - Own work, derivate of Russo-Ukraine Conflict (2014-2021).svg by Rr016Missile attacks source:BNO NewsTerritorial control sources:Template:Russo-Ukrainian War detailed map / Template:Russo-Ukrainian War detailed relief mapISW, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115506141

Further reports now reveal that the Russian withdrawal from Izium is a disorderly route, with retreating troops mixing with an attempt to reinforce the southern Donbas.  Ukraine has retaken Velikiy Burluk which puts them with 15 kilometers of the Russian border.

September 13, 2022

• Russo-Ukrainian War

Russia has suspended sending volunteer units into Ukraine, apparently being concerned that they are not dependable.

Ukraine is making advances in the Kherson Olbast.

29 additional municipalities have signed a petition asking Putin to resign, making the number 47.

• Armenia/Azerbaijan

The countries have fought two prior wars over areas they assert a right to control, with the last one going badly for Armenia.  Yesterday there were clashes between their forces.

September 14, 2022

The Russians are engaging in some serious spin, acknowledging defeat in northern Ukraine while also attempting to blame anyone other than Putin.

Russian authorities in Crimea have urged their families to flee Crimea, and there have been home sales and family evacuations by Russian authorities there.

September 16, 2022

Pope Francis in interview on September 15 regarding providing weapons to Ukraine by third party powers:

This is a political decision which it can be moral, morally acceptable, if it is done under conditions of morality … Self-defence is not only licit but also an expression of love for the homeland,. . .  Someone who does not defend oneself, who does not defend something, does not love it. Those who defend . . .  love it.”

September 17, 2022

Ukrainian advances into territory that has been occupied by Russia has revealed evidence of torture and murder by the Russians.

Putin has threatened increased attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure in retaliation for Ukrainian partisan attacks on Russian property in the territory occupied by Russia, taking a page, more or less, out of Hitler's book, to the extent he's not already operating from it.  He might want to skip to the last chapter and see how that worked out for Hitler.

Ukraine is warning of false flag operations in Russian occupied areas over the next few days.

September 18, 2022

Ukrainian troops continue to advance in the north.

By Viewsridge - Own work, derivate of Russo-Ukraine Conflict (2014-2021).svg by Rr016Missile attacks source:BNO NewsTerritorial control sources:Template:Russo-Ukrainian War detailed map / Template:Russo-Ukrainian War detailed relief mapISW, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115506141

September 21, 2022

A long feared mobilization of Russian forces may be starting to occur in the wake of recent Russian defeats.

What's held Russia back from full mobilization, a step urged by Russian milbloggers and some parliamentarians, isn't known, but it may be the fear that Russian reservists just won't show up, or that the move will spark large scale discontent.  

300,000 reservists will be called into active Russian service.

Putin also vaguely threatened to use nuclear weapons if Ukraine continues its efforts to reclaim its territory.

And Putin is also holding "referendums" in the territory which Russia occupies nearly immediately, which will have the guaranteed result of resulting in Russian annexation of the same.

This step takes the world deeper into the war, not further from it. Essentially, Putin is placing Russia in a position in which it will be committing its reserves to an effort which will now be claiming to defend its own territory. Putin, and maybe Russia itself, will not be able to back out of this, and Ukraine and the rest of the non toady world will not be able to recognize it.

It'll be interesting to see what the mobilization accomplishes.  It's effectively a massive admission of Russian military weakness.  Russia has the numbers, but the numbers haven't worked in their favor so far.  With discontent on the war growing inside of Russia, Putin may be going down the same path as Czar Nicholas II.

September 22, 2022

It now appears that the Russian call up of reservists shall be in stages and will not have an immediate effect on the war in Ukraine, as long as Ukraine continues to act swiftly. That is, the impact shall not be for many months.

While at the 300,000 level, this should raise some questions on whether the call-up is to offset losses.  It really isn't clear what Russia's combat loss has been.

Russia, like many other countries, only requires a year of service for conscripts.  While this practice is common, for the most part it leaves those trained in that fashion with incomplete military skills that wane fairly quickly.  Called up reservist, therefore, are likely to need months of training if they're to be combat worthy troops, although Russia has certainly seemed to be willing to commit troops with less than adequate combat skills.

The British Ministry of Defense has stated that Russia has run out of willing volunteers.

Protests in Russia resulted in 1,200 arrests.  Reports have held that flights out of the country have received an enormous boost as men eligible to be called into service have sought flights out.

September 23, 2022

Russia's partial mobilization is spawning domestic discontent and protests, which in turn has caused the Russians to conscript protesters as part of its reaction.  Rather obviously, the tactic of conscripting those bold enough to protest against the war isn't likely to produce combat worthy troops.  Indeed, at some point, it has the effect of arming and training those who are likely to turn their guns on their government.

Russia has also gone beyond calling trained reservists into service in other ways, now conscripting men who have never served and actually, in at least one instance, using a press-gang university on students to drag them directly from classes for services, something directly contrary to a statement exempting students from this levy and a shocking reversion to very primitive conscription methods.

In response, some Russian federal regions are passing laws prohibiting reservists from leaving their places of permanent residence in order to attempt to keep men from fleeing service.  Reports also indicate that the Russians are disproportionately conscripting non Russians.

All of this would suggest a Russia much more at trouble at home, and with much wider opposition to the war, than previously expected.  The chances of building an effective replacement army under these circumstances is slight.  Moreover, this must be obvious to Russia's allies, such as China, demonstrating the nation is rotting from the edifice.

September 28, 2022

Russia's sham elections were held in the last couple of days with the predictable results being that votes in the Russian occupied portions of Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk supposedly were overwhelmingly in favor of annexation into Russia. That will now occur within the next couple of days.

It won't end the war, certainly, but now Russia will have legal cover for deploying conscripts into the war.  Conscription, however, is going very badly.  Oddly enough, Russia is conscripting outright opponents to the war, which is not likely to result in willing soldiers.

Two undersea explosions occurred on the idled Nord Stream pipeline.  

Accomplishing an underwater strike such as this would require some expertise to pull off and there are suspicions, not yet proven, that Russia itself did it.  Ukraine has claimed just that. The hard thing to figure out, however, is what the goal of such an attack would be.

September 29, 2022

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukrainian forces are about to take Lyman and are generally advancing, although not necessarily rapidly, everywhere along the front.

Russian forces are now so depleted that they're being supplied with replacements out of the newly called up men who have very little training.  In one instances of this that hit the news, a Russian commander informs his troops they'll be given a uniform, body armor, and a rifle, and nothing else, including no medical supplies.

The U.S. is providing an additional $1.1B in aid to Ukraine.

Additional leaks have been found in the Nord Stream pipeline, which is now more or less officially viewed as having been hit by sabotage.  German sources feel the damage is irreparable although, due to subsequent pipeline construction elsewhere, the loss may not be as significant as it might at first appear.

The mystery of the destruction remains, given the illogic involved in hitting it.  For the most part, most of the attention is focused on the Russians, but some conspiracy theorist of various stripes have accused the US, which certainly did not do it.  U.S. right wing commentator Tucker Carson basically took the Russian line and suggested, if not outright stated, that the U.S. was responsible for the act, and on the same day, Donald Trump absurdly offered to attempt to broker a peace.  Not too surprisingly, loyal Trump rank and file accolades praised the former President's ridiculous offer and some have adopted the absurd U.S. did it thesis.

Iraq/Iran

The Iranian air force struck Kurdish targets in Iraq in retaliation for Kurdish support of Iranian women protestors.  

The protests in Iran broke out after a young woman was killed after Kurdish Iranian Mahsa Amini died in police detention after being taken into custody for wearing her hajib incorrectly.  Iran has religious police that enforce the Iranian interpretation of Islam's religious behavior rules, something that is not unique to Iran in the Islamic world.  Women in Iran have chaffed for years under the strict rules applied in Iran and have now engaged in days of protests over the event.  Protestors have openly defied the rules in their protests, and some have now called for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

At the same time, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been absent from the public, fueling speculation that he may not be able to return to his duties following bowel surgery in early September.

September 30, 2022

NATO declared the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines sabatage and warned that it would regard any attacks upon the infrastructure of its member states as an attack upon the member nations.

Ukrainian forces have enveloped Lyman.

October 1, 2022

Russia declared itself to have annexed Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia yesterday.  In his speech he engaged in nuclear saber rattling.

Ths move grossly complicates finding a peaceful solution to the war as Russia, which is losing, will now claim that its defending its own territory even though it will be largely alone in the world in recognizing its claims.  Putin will not be able to give up ground he's annexed, so at this point the war can largely only really end with Putin deposed.

The current borders in Europe, it might be noted, are those that largely came into existance post World War Two.  Ukraine's post 1917 borders were larger than the current ones by a signficant extent:

By Spiridon Ion Cepleanu - History Atlases available., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17831314

As the map above demonstrates, the real territorial growth of Ukraine was at the expense of Poland, post Second World War, but that change also featured the Soviets expelling Poles to the west, and in what is now Poland, expelling Germans also to the west.  And the territory Ukraine aquired at that time was in fact largely claimed by Ukrainians in 1918.  Indeed, that region of Ukraine had been fought over between the two countries, with the Poles also seeking to claim quite a bit of land to its post 1918 eastern boundaries.  The only signficant part of modern post Soviet collapse Ukraine that had not been part of Ukraine until after World War Two is Crimea, which traditionally had neither a Ukrainian or Russian population, something the Russians changed through heavy migration into the region.  Ukraine did claim it, however, in 1917.

Ukraine did claim lands much to the east of its current boundaries following 1917, and indeed even much further to the east of what this map shows based on Ukrainian settlements of Russian regions to the east.

While it won't do it, Ukraine would have just about as much right to annex the territories it lost to the Soviet Union as its own as Russia does to do the reverse.

Russia is also blaming the US for the Nord Stream gas severance event, a baseless conspiracy theory.  Russia is the nation most likely to have sabataged the line.

October 1, 2022

The Russians have withdrawn from Lyman.

Below, by the way, is a map that's linked in to its original source showing the percentages of the vote in current Ukraine that voted for independence from Russia in 1991.

As shown, even Crimea had over 50% of its population wanting out of Russia.

It's also worth remebering that the newly free Ukraine was a nuclear state.  It gave those weapons up following a Western promise to guaranty its freedom.

October 3, 2022

It appears that the Ukrainians may have broken through at Kherson.

While, once again, its too early to tell, this is beginning to have the apperance of being a generalized Russian collapse.

Last prior edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2022. The Russo Ukrainian War Edition, Part Six