Weaponized Drones and Wyoming Oil

In the Clancy book Red Storm Rising an Islamic terrorist in Russia starts the globe off towards World War Three by sabotaging the oil terminal in which he works.

In 1941, the Japanese, cut off from American oil, launched attacks that brought the United States (and Japan) into World War Two.

In 1973 the OPEC nations, upset over American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War, embargoed the shipment of oil, making a weakened American economy spiral into inflation and wrecking the economy for half a decade.

Of course, the first item noted is fiction, but well studied fiction. The second two are history and, to add to it, the 1941 event boosted oil production in Wyoming, which was already being boosted by the September 1939 event, the German invasion of Poland which started the Second World War in Europe. The 1973 event resulted in a massive boom in Wyoming.

This past weekend an attack was launched on Saudi oil process facilities. They were carried out by ten drones.  They were so effective that they'd destroyed, on a no doubt temporary basis, 5% of the world's oil output.

What does that mean?

Well, maybe, indeed probably, less than we might suppose.

To start off with, let's just look at the impact. The attacks pushed the price up, but not because they'll result in an oil shortage. There's an oil glut right now and American production remains so high that the real economic impact is at best muted.  It pushed the price of oil up to $63.00/bbl, which is over the Wyoming economic viability line, but still only barely.  Oil back a couple of decades ago was well over $100 bbl.  In 2008 at one point it spiked up to $145 bbl. We're a long ways from that.

And because of the oil glut, we probably won't be seeing a massive rise in price any time soon.

Now for the second part.  And that may impact things. Who is responsible for this Middle Eastern drone Pearl Harbor?

Well, it's still being debated.

Saudi Arabia is fighting in the Yemeni civil war, along with the UAE, against Houthi rebels. The rebels took responsibility for the attacks and at a bare minimum, my guess is that the Houthi were at least made aware of it at some point, perhaps after it occurred, and at a bare minimum were happy to take responsibility. 

The war in Yemen hasn't gotten much press here, as nothing that happens in Yemen does.  Yemen is a backwards state on the Arabian peninsula that has oddly been prey to the twists and turns of global movements in various ways.    It was divided into two states following the British departure in which South Yemen, which the British had controlled, becoming a Communist state, showing the influence of the Cold War in the third world at the time.  North Yemen became a monarchy. The two countries did not get along and fought, but in 1990 they united in a troubled republic that has more or less been in a civil war since that time.

The war is along tribal and religious lines, with the Houthis controlling most of what had been the former kingdom in the north.  Most of them are members of a branch of the shiia sect of Islam.

Which is why the Saudi's likely don't want them to win and are backing the government.  Iran is backing the Shiia's, not surprisingly.

The Houthi's, as noted, claim responsibility. But the flight path would be 1,000 kms. That's a lot for rebels that are fighting with a lower level of military technology.  It's not impossible, and it could be accomplished with a fair amount if Iranian help, of course.  And they have used Iranian built drones before.

Or perhaps the Iranians pulled it off themselves, which is what the U.S. is claiming.

The Saudi's aren't claiming that.  Perhaps that's because they're not sure. And perhaps because that does seem extraordinarily risky, even for Iran. A drone strike is a clear act of war that can't be ignored.  If its the Houthi's, the Saudis are already fighting in that war and a dramatic air response will be likely. 

If its the Iranians, the Saudi's might choose to view it as the Houthi's, particularly if the strike was launched from Yemeni territory.  Iran taking a direct role in regional wars from inside the territory of the warring nations isn't anything new at all, and even though this would be a dramatic escalation of it, it would have a precedent and therefore the response would as well.

If, on the other hand, if the drones were launched from Iran, that's another matter.

My guess is that they were launched from Yemen with a lot of Iranian technical assistance.  That will mean that some Houthi positions are going to get completely blasted off the face of the earth.  It might mean that the Saudis will simply invade the Houthi region, which they are perfectly capable of doing, and then turn it over the to government, after which a lot of Houthi rebels will never be heard from again.

But that's not the only possible outcome, and some possible ones would have a big impact on the price of oil.

It's interesting to note, in all of this, that John Bolton is now gone.  His absence probably helps to prevent one of those other options from becoming immediately in the forefront.

April 2, 1919. Revolt Everywhere, women obtain the franchise in New Brunswick.

The New York Times featured Egypt on the cover of their mid week pictorial (but ran a photo of an American sentry in Germany) during a week in which not only was there discord in Egypt, but also in Germany, Russia, Poland, India and Mexico, among other locals.

In New Brunswick, women obtained the full franchise.

January 10, 1919. German Government turns to the Freikorps, Arabs take Medina, Rioting in Argentina.

The U.S. Bureau of Fisheries sat for a group portrait on this day in 1919.

This would prove to be a momentous day for post war Germany.

Faced with an ongoing and increasingly effective Communist rebellion in Berlin, which the German Army had not been able to put down, the German socialist government turned to the Freikorps and they went into action.

The arrangement had actually been made the prior day, January 9, and it signaled the beginning of a strange development in which the left of center provisional government was forced to seek the help of the paramilitary right, which was largely controlled and aided by the German army. The Freikorps was well equipped and indeed some units had adopted uniforms that were a bit more modern than the German Army's itself.  Large numbers of discharged lost Frontsoldaten had joined them and they were, at this point, a combat element that rivaled the Germany army in effectiveness.

They did not, as would soon be evident, rival the army in the degree to which they were controlled.

This latter fact means that in modern parlance the Freikorps is associated with what would become the German radical right. But the Freikorps as a revolutionary era institution was not new and dated back to Napoleonic times, which Germans had formed such units in opposition to Napoleon. They had a track record of being undisciplined at that time but were looked back upon heroically.  In some instances, Freikorps units in post World War One Germany made intentional associations with their earlier predecessors as a result.

Elsewhere, the Arab Revolt took Medina.

Countdown on the Great War, October 30, 1918: French reach the Aisne, Central Powers collapse in the Balkans, Revolution in Hungary, the war stops in the Middle East

1.  French forces reached the Aisne River.

2.  In the Balkans the Italians and French took Shkoder Albania, while the Serbs took Podgorica, Montenegro.

3.  Combat stopped in the Middle East with the formal surrender of the Ottoman Empire.

In Cheyenne they learned of the Ottoman's quitting. . . and also the residence problems of the former Governor Osborne.

They learned the same in Laramie. . . where nurses were being called due to the flu and the next conscription cohort was being notified.

4.  Hungarian revolutionaries seized public buildings and King Charles IV was forced to recognize the success of the coup.  Austro Hungaria as a political entity was effectively over.

Countdown on the Great War, October 30, 1918: The Ottomans quit.

Officers and men of the U.S.S. Mount Vernon, October 30, 1918.

1.  The Armistace of Mudros was signed which would bring the war with the Ottoman Empire to an end the following day.

The conditions of the treaty basically required the Ottomans to give up their empire.

The treaty was negotiated solely by the British for reasons that remain unclear.  This caused displeasure with the French.  It also meant that the treaty was harsher than it had to be, as unbeknownst to the Ottomans, the British demands, nearly all of which were accepted, and which gave the right to interfere in Anatolia, were more than the British really would have agreed to.  Having said that, the Ottomans would have accepted nearly any term proposed and the treat could have been harsher.

The treaty was unpopular in Turkey and would provide part of the reasons for the Turkish revolve of the following year which would result in a regional conflict once again involving some of the Allied powers.

While the surrender would take place the following day, some Ottoman forces reacted by surrendering on this day.  And at least Yemen dates its independence to this day.

Countdown on the Great War. October 26, 1918:

1.  The last engagement between the British and the Ottomans during World War One occurred at Haritan when the British Indian 5th Cavalry Division charged the Ottoman Yildriim Group.

This can be a bit deceptive, however, as the British would continue to fight the Turks post war on the fringes of the Turkish world for the next several years.  This is one of many examples of the end of World War One not being the end of a regional war.

2. The Mid European Union released the Declaration of Common Aims for Europe's new sovereign nations from Philadelphia's Independence Hall.

Countdown on the Great War: October 25, 1918. Aleppo taken.

1.  The Arab Rebellion entered Aleppo.

2.  The British captured Le Cateau on the Selle.

Countdown on the Great War: October 23, 1918

1.  Jozef Swiezynski was appointed Prime Minister of Poland as part of the process of establishing the independence of that country.

2.  The British dispatched a task-force from Baghdad with the goal of clearing Ottoman forces from what is now Iraq.

3. The Aghios Gerasimos was sunk by the German submarine UC-74 in spite of the Germans having officially called of the U-boat war.

Countdown on the Great War, October 22, 1918: The British reach the Schelt. The Atlantic is Quiet. A Hollywood Starlet becomes a victim of the Spanish Flu.

1. There were no shipping losses at all on this day, which is remarkable in and of itself.

2.  The British reached the Schelt River in Belgium.

3.  The British also reached Khan al-Sahbil, Syria. This was the first time in the Pursuit to Haritan in which the British made visual contact with the Otttoman's once again.

Myrtle Gonzalez.

4. Myrtle Gonzalez, the American movie industries first Hispanic movie star, died of the Spanish Influenza at age 27 at her parents home in Los Angeles.  She had acted in 78 films.  In spite of her young age, she was retired at the time having married actor and direct Allen Watt the year prior.  It was her second marriage Watt had been commissioned in the Army and the couple lived for a time at Ft. Lewis, Washington, but her frail health due to a heart ailment demanded her return to Los Angeles and Watt was released from the service to care for her.  She left a son, age seven, from her first marriage.

Countdown on the Great War, October 21, 1918: Germany calls a halt to the U-boat war, Fatigue and Illness catch up with the Desert Mounted Corps

Maj. General Peter E. Traub, C.O. 35th Division, learning a few points about moving picture camera from 1st. Lieut. E.W. Weigle. Location: Sommedieu, Meuse, France. Date: October 21, 1918. Taken by: Pvt. Price, SC. NARA Ref#: 111-SC-51079

1.  The U-boat war ends as Germany suspends submarine warfare and orders the boats to return to port.  Before it receives the order, the UB-94 sank the British coaster Saint Barchan.  Eight of her crew died in the sinking.

Saint Barchan wasn't the only ship lost that day.  The USS Cero was destroyed by fire in Narragansett Bay, being a casualty to an accident as so many things and people did during the war.  The MMML 561, a British motor launch, was lost at sea. The British cargo ship Moscow was scuttled by the British at Petrograd to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Reds.  The German UB-89 collided with the SMS Frankfurt at Keil, to the loss of seven lives.

2.  Allenby is forced to reorganize the Desert Mounted Corps due to illness and exhaustion in his troops.

Countdown on the Great War, October 16, 1918. British advance everywhere, Dumas struck by lightening, the Kaiser abdicates?, Flu advances.

The front as to Belgium and part of France, October 16, 1918.

1.  The British crossed the Lys.

2.  The British occupied Homs, Lebanon.

3.  The Allies took Durres, Albania.

4.  German submarines sunk the cargo ships Pentwyn and War Council while the British sunk the German submarine UB 90.  The American SS Dumaru, nearly new wooden steamship, was struck by lightening off of Guam and her cargo of munitions caught fire.  Her crew evacuated two two lifeboats and a raft, with the five passengers of the raft being rescued several days later.  One lifeboat drifted to the Philippines over a course of three weeks. The other badly provisioned lifeboat had to resort to cannibalism of the dead in order for the survivors to live.

SS Dumaru

5.  Wild rumors of the Kaiser abdicating and Germany capitulating were starting to circulate.

6.  The Flu Epidemic was undeniable.

The Cheyenne State Leader was correct in this assessment of the Spanish Flu.

Hmmm, do these two newspapers seem rather similar?  Must have been a morning and evening edition of the same newspaper.  Both were reporting that the Flu Epidemic had become just that in the state.

Countdown on the Great War. The British take Tripoli, the Germans decimate a Greek shipping column, Poles maneuver for independence.

1.  British occupy Tripol without resistance.

2.  The German U-boat U-23 sunk nine Greek vessels in a single day.  An Egyptian vessel in the Mediterranean was sunk on the same day by an unknown German submarine.

3.  Poles in Austrian Galatia declare the Republic of Zakopane.  Zakpane is a resort city in southern Poland that was at that time part of the Austrian Empire. The goal of the act was to push for a unified post war Poland.

Countdown on the Great War: The Flu Marches On, The German Navy Quits the Air but not the Sea, The British start Demobilizing in the Desert. October 12, 1918.

Women marching in a Liberty Loan Campaign.

1. General Pershing relieves himself as commander of the 1st Army and turns command of it over to Gen. Hunter Liggett. This occurred as the 2nd Army had been formed on October 10 and Pershing was the overall commander of the AEF, which had now grown to two armies.

Scene at advanced first aid station of the 325th Inf. Wounded arriving on stretchers, while in the background a German munitions dump is burning at Marcq. American Red Cross north of Fleville, Ardennes, France

2.  The Imperial German Navy flew its last airship mission of World War One.  The German navy commanded the Zepplin fleet that had been used to bomb targets in Great Britain.

3.  The Imperial German Navy remained active in the Atlantic, however and damaged the USAT Amphion and sank the Norwegian cargo ship Laila and the Italian ship Tripoli II.  The Swedish ship Ohio collided with another ship in a British escorted convoy and also sank.

4.  Shipping wise, the RMS Niagra docked in New Zeland brining the Spanish Flu with it.

5.   Fire ignited by railroad sparks destroyed Cloquest Minnesota and resulted in the deaths of 453 people.

6.  While there was no official talk of there being a Central Powers collapse, the British began to demobilize its forces in the Middle East in light of the Otttoman collapse there.

6th Australian light-horse regiment leaving Jerusalem for demobilization camp. Oct. 12th, 1918.

7.  Flu deaths were now undeniably rising.

Countdown on the Great War. October 10, 2018. Disaster at sea.

U.S. field artillery, 155 mm gun of A Bttry, 324Bn, 158th Rgt.  October 10, 1918.

1.  The RMS Leinster sunk in the Irish Sea by the UB-123 with the loss of over 500 lives including Canadian nurses.

2.  British take Baalbek, Lebanon.

Countdown on the Great War. October 8, 1918: Sgt. Alvin York and the Battle of Hill 223. The Second Battle of Cambrai. A Scout Gets Through. The Desert Mounted Corps Takes Beirut. The Spanish Flu Closes Everything.

1.  On this day in 1918 Sgt. Alvin York preformed the deeds that would make him a household name in the United States and the most famous American veteran of WWI other than, perhaps, Gen. Pershing.

York was a from the Tennessee hill country and one of eleven children of a very poor family.  With virtually no education at all, he had been supporting his family for some time because of his father's early death.  A devout Evangelical Christian, York was a reformed drinker and fighter who had grown up in a family that depended upon hunting to put food on the table.  He was an extremely skilled woodsman and marksman at the time he reluctantly entered the Army due to conscription. He was also seeking conscientious objector status at that time, but reconsidered his position due to the urging of his military superiors.  He proved to be a good soldier and was assigned to the 82nd Division, seeing combat first in the St. Mihel Offensive.

On October 8 his battalion was assigned to capture Hill 223 north of  Chatel-Chéhéry, France.  During the battle Corporal York took on machinegun positions while the remainder of his party guarded captured prisoners.  York took those positions on first with his rifle, a M1917 Enfield, and then ended up killing six charging Germans with his M1911 pistol after his rifle was empty.  Ultimately a large party of Germans surrendered to York and York and seven other enlisted men marched to the rear with 132 German prisoners.  During the battle York killed 25 Germans.  His Medal of Honor citation reads:

After his platoon suffered heavy casualties and 3 other noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Cpl. York assumed command. Fearlessly leading seven men, he charged with great daring a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machine gun nest was taken, together with 4 officers and 128 men and several guns.

York would go on to be promoted to the rank of Sergeant before the war was over and he became the most decorated American soldier of World War One.  He was commissioned in the Signal Corps during World War Two and obtained the rank of Major, but his health had declined severely and he was used in a moral boosting role.  In spite of ill health he would remain in the Tennessee National Guard until 1951, retiring at the rank of Colonel.  He was famously the subject of a movie in which Gary Cooper portrayed him.

As noted, York was undoubtedly the most famous enlisted man of World War One, and he was truly heroic.  It's worth noting however that his accomplishments weren't entirely unique and there were several other instances of single American servicemen taking large numbers of prisoners under heroic circumstances, one of which we read about here just the other day.  In some ways the difference with York was that he was of very humble origin and not a career soldier, where as the actions by soldiers like Michael B. Ellis, whom we read about the other day, were accomplishments of men from the Regular Army.  These stories have a common aspect to them, however, in that they were undertaken by men who had extraordinary combat skill nearly singlehandedly, which was admirable but which also tends to show that the American Army was so green at the time that it proved to be necessary for extremely heroic men to undertake actions that were nearly suicidal in order to address the combat situation with which they were faced, rather than relying on coordinated unit actions.  In York's case, a lifetime in the woods had prepared him for battle in a unique way.

2.  On the same day that York's action earned the Medal of Honor, the same could be said of James Dozier.

Dozier started his military career in the South Carolina National Guard and had served on the Mexican boarder with that unit.  When it was called into service for World War One he was commissioned an officer and was a 1st Lieutenant on this day when he took over his company when its commander was wounded, even though he also was.  He commanded the unit over the next several hours, personally rushing one machinegun pit with the aid of a lieutenant.  The men under his command took 470 prisoners.

He stayed in the South Carolina National Guard becoming its AG in the 1920s and retired in 1959 as a Lieutenant General.

3.  On this day in 1918 British Empire forces launched a massive assault on the Germans near Cambrai.  In two days they captured the towns but the over matched Germans nonetheless slowed the advance to the point where it needed to be halted.

That says something about the tenacity of the Germans even at this late stage of the war.  The Germans had 180,000 men committed to the defense in this battle. The British Empire forces numbered 630,000. The British assault was a success, but the Germans none the less managed to require the British advance to halt.

Canadian troops on the Cambrai road, 1918.

4.  Pvt. Abraham Krotoshinsky made his way through enemy lines to inform the American Army of the situation concerning the "Lost Battalion".  He would lead troops back to the besieged soldiers.

Pvt. Krotoshinsky was a Polish Jew who had emigrated to the United States in 1912 to avoid service in the Imperial Russian Army. Following World War One he emigrated to Palestine but failed as a farmer and returned to the United States.  Like Michael Ellis, discussed the other day, he was rescued from unemployment by President Coolige who ordered that he be provided with a job in the United States Postal Service.

5.  The Desert Mounted Corps entered Beirut where they took 600 Ottoman troops without resistance.

6.  Laramie and Casper closed public meeting places of all types:

Countdown on the Great War: October 4, 1918

1.  President Wilson receives the diplomatic note composed by the newly installed Chancellor Prince Maximilian of Baden proposing peace based upon Wilson's Fourteen Points.

2.  The 100 Days Offensive, Meuse Argonne Second Phase: October 4 through October 28, 1918.

U.S. Marines, part of the U.S. 2nd Division, advancing during the Meuse Argonne Campaign.

 3.  The British occupy Tyre.

4.  The T. A. Gillespie munitions plant in New Jersey exploded killing approximately 100 people and injuring about the same number.

5.  Philadelphia closed its saloons, effective 7:00 p.m., due to the Spanish Flu.

Countdown on the Great War: October 3, 1918

1.  Prince Max of Baden, head of the German government, sends his first note to Woodrow Wilson seeking peace.  It stated:

Berlin, October 3, 1918.
The German government requests that the President of the United States of America take the initiative in bringing about peace, that he inform all the belligerent states of this request, and that he invite them to send plenipotentiaries for purposes of beginning negotiations. The German government accepts as the basis for peace negotiations the program stated by the President of the United States in his speech to Congress of January 8, 1918, and in his subsequent pronouncements, particularly in his speech of September 27.
In order to avoid further bloodshed, the German government requests the immediate conclusion of an armistice on land, at sea, and in the air.
Signed: Max, Prince of Baden, Chancellor 

Price Faisal, the field head of the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire and later unfortunate King of Iraq.

2.  The Arab Revolt enters Damascus.

3.  The "Pursuit to Haritan" rapid advance in the Middle East commences.

4.  The U.S. Army's 2nd and 36th Divisions commence the Battle of Blanc Mount Ridge in the Champagne region of France which would lead to its clearing.

5.  King Ferdinand I of Bulgaria abdicates his thrown.

The Influenza Epedemic Abating? The Casper Daily Tribune, September 24, 1918.

The horrible disaster of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic was just starting to hit the front pages of Wyoming newspapers and here it's reported as abating.

Technically, it might have been. The flu had valleys and peaks, the epidemic rose and fell and then rose again.  It might actually have been in a declining state, but far from gone, in September 1918.

And a call went out for fruit pits to help counter poison gas. . .

The Global Collapse of the Central Powers. The news of September 23, 1918

Because we've been dealing mostly with the American effort in France, we've ceased keeping readers here up to date on other theatres.  If we did, this would read as an even lengthier treatise than it already risks becoming.

But there was a lot going on.  Specifically, in the Macedonian Front the Central Powers were going into a headlong collapse. . . as were the Turks in the Middle East where some pronounced mounted warfare was gaining significant advances.

One of Cheyenne's papers, remarkably up to date (as many of these World War One papers were, they were on time and pretty close to being on target, frequently), was reporting the Serbs gaining ground against the Austro Hungarians and the collapse of the Turks.  It also noted that the Russian Whites had exhumed the bodies of the Czar and his family and reinterred them.

William Jennings Bryan, received the cold shoulder in Cheyenne.

And, yes, once again, there was a clash on the Mexican border.

In Laramie readers of one of the town's two local papers also learned about the events in the Middle East.  In spite of what would seem to have been the obvious signs of a complete Central Powers collapse, the paper noted that the planning was for the war to go on into 1919, which was universally believed among the Allies.

And snow was coming to high altitude Laramie. . .

Casper readers of one of Casper's two papers found a really busy front page.  Events in Macedonia lead the headlines but the Turk's fate figured prominently as well.

The clash on the Mexican border and the exhumation of the Czar and his family also figured prominently and Casperites were informed that men were going to be released from non essential industries so that they could go into the Army.  Their place would be taken by women.

And the Casper paper reported that Catholic Archbishop John Ireland was in failing health and likely to pass away.  Ireland was a towering figure at the time.

A victory against the Turks . . . and the Flu spreads. Casper Daily Tribune, September 21, 1918.