Pyotr Alexeevich Romanov, Пётр I Алексеевич, also known as Peter the Great, Czar of all Russia, and them Emperor of All Russia, died at age 52.
He is recalled for having carried out a policy of aggressive Westernization, not all of which stuck (he attempted to introduce the Julian calendar) and expansion that transformed the Tsardom of Russia into the Russian Empire. He regarded the Russian people, his subjects, with some degree of contempt, finding them to be rude primitives. Born into a reign that was closely united with the Russian Orthodox Church, he had an unusual interest in Russian Quakers and Dissenters and held Orthodoxy in some degree of contempt, which showed the degree of his power in that he was able to get away with it.
He was married three times, once to Eudoxia Lopukhina, when he was only 16. She was a wife his mother had found, in the tradition of the Romanov monarchy, He later divorced her, something allowed in the Orthodox faith, and forced her to join a convent, although the couple did have three children before then. He later married Marta Helena Skowrońska, the daughter of a Polish-Lithuanian peasant, whom had been his mistress for some time prior in 1724. She converted from Catholicism in order to marry him. He later married Catherine, who was crowned crowned as Empress. He had a total of fifteen children.
Was he great? Well, probably. He engaged in constant warfare but was a success in expanding the Russian Empire.
Was he admirable, not in my book.
Funny thing about him is that the people for whom he was great, he didn't particularly admire, a trait he shared with Prussian Frederick the Great.
"Members of the 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Division, march into Butgenbach, Belgium. 25 January, 1945. 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. Photographer: Pfc. Fred Linden, 165th Signal Photo Co."
While other dates are also used, this is generally regarded as the end of the Battle of the Bulge. The 3d Army was across the Clerf and advancing.
German advances in the Ardennes had been completely eliminated by this date.
The US sustained, 19,000 kia, 47,500 wia and 23,000 mia. The British suffered 200 killed and 1200 other casualties. The Germans sustained 100,000 total losses.
Volksturm in East Prussia, January 20, 1945. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R98401 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5368820
The Red Army reached the Baltic north of Elbing, cutting off Army Group North. The greatest mass evacuation in human history begins with the Germans removing 1.5M to 2M people from the region with 40 large passenger ships and other vessels.
Hitler relieved General Reinhart and appointed General Rendulic to what was renamed Army Group North.
The Germans blue up the Wolf's Lair.
This is a good place to interject a couple of things, which I was pondering on how to interject.
Starting with the evacuation of East Prussia, it was a monumental human tragedy. One the Germans brought on themselves, but tragic nonetheless. The character of the fighting at this point began to radically change as the Germans fought on their own ground. That was in due in part to the character of the Red Army's troops, which we will get to below. German troops of all types fought tooth and nail at this point, and not simply because they were servants of a monstrous dictatorship that didn't care if they lived or died. They were fighting to give time to their families to get out of the way of the Red Army.
The Red Army was an armed mob and quite frankly crap. That's a really controversial opinion, but its hte case. The Imperial Russian Army had been crap, the Red Army was also crap, and the current Russian Army is crap. It was tactically bereft of the most part and simply relied upon having a lot of men to get killed, and it didn't care if they lived or died.
That can be said about the Germans as well, but the Soviets had a lot more troops to get killed.
A very early edition of the excellent podcast We Have Ways addresses this (I think its Episode 13, Our Russian Allies). In truth, the myth that has come down of the Soviets doing more to win the war than the Western Allies is simply wrong. The difference between the two is that the Western Allies used technology and intelligence and didn't spend the lives of its mean. Most in uniform in the Western armies weren't even combat troops. Most in the Red Army were cannon fodder. As that episode explains, had the feared post war war between the West and the USSR actually broke out, the Western Allies would have defeated the Soviet Union.
One of the characteristics of the troops of the Red Army mob was that by this point it was a murderous band of rapist. There's no two ways about. They raped thousands of women, and often killed them immediately thereafter, leaving their ravished bodies by the side of the road. The modern Russian Army has never really gotten over this, and remains criminal in its behavior.
This leaves us with an awkward situation in regard to the late war fighting. There was really nothing admiral about the Red Army at all, save for a few exceptional leaders and a few exceptional pieces of equipment. As much as people hate to admit it, but for Western support during the war, the Soviets would have brokered a peace with the Germans in 1943.
It can, perhaps, be said that the Soviet's soldier capacity for enduring horrific conditions was admirable, although in no small part that helped turn them into a mob. Most of the men in the Red Army had grown up in deprivation and brutality and were therefore somewhat acclimated to suffering making them unique as combatants. The Soviet failure to control their men once past the borders of the Soviet Union, however, is unforgivable. Often missed, they weren't just mass rapist in Germany, but also at least in Hungary.
The other difficult portion of this is that late war German resistance to the Soviets was at this point such that its almost hard not to regard it as heroic. A person doesn't however, as the Germans had brought this disaster upon themselves and acted like monsters inside the USSR. At this point in many places they fought to the death for the German people, but upon reflection if they'd fought the onset of fascism in the 1930s none of this would have ever occurred.
The British land on Chedube Island south of Ramree in Burma.
The 37th Infantry Division occupies a large portion of Clark Field in the Philippines.
Grand Rapids Michigan became the first city in the United States to fluoridate their water.
Trump nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a wackadoodle, has suggested that Donald Trump will push to remove fluoride from drinking water. Nuts have always thought fluoride was bad, even though its revolutionary effect on dental health is well demonstrated. Trump tends to support whatever floats through his head, so we'll see.
Cavalrymen of the 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps approaching Allenstein, Prussia, now Olsztyn, Poland. January 22, 1945. A least a few of these horses appear to be panjes, Russian peasant ponies. Allenstein dates back to 1334, when it was founded as a military outpost by the Teutonic Knights. It rebelled against those knights in 1454 and joined the Kingdom of Poland. Nicholas Copernicus, famous scientist and Catholic Deacon, lived there from 1516 to 1521. It became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1772 during the First Partition of Poland. Given this, in reality, the post World War Two result simply returned it to what it had originally been, Polish.
The Red Army took Insterburg, Allenstein and Deutsch Eylau in Prussia as well as Gneizo.
The British Army took St. Joost and other towns near Sittard. The US 1st Army attacked all along the front between Houffalize and St. Vith.
Kriegsmarine torpedo boats attacked a convoy north of Dunkirk while other torpedo penetrated into the Thames Estuary.
The British IV Corps took Htilin in Bruma and the Battle of Hill 170 began. The British also took Tilin.
M4 Sherman of the 19th King George's Own Lancers, Burma, 22 January 1945
The Royal Air Force destroyed a liquid oxygen factory in Alblasserdam in a Spitfire raid. The oxygen was used for rockets.
The 1st Corps engaged the Japanese in heavy fighting near Carmen and Rosario on Luzon.
The Imperial Russian Army, commanded by the unlikely named Johann von Michelsohnen, an Estonian of very obvious German descent, and serf rebels, led by Yemelyan Pugachev contested at what is now Volograd, with the outnumbered Imperial Russian Army not surprisingly prevailing. Pugachev escaped, for a time, but hsi revolution fell apart thereafter.
The Red Army crossed the River Scheshule and raised the Soviet flag on German soil. Sgt. Alexander Belov took the honors. He survived the war and died in 1960.
Interestingly, the Red Army entered East Prussia on the same day that the Imperial Russian Army had during World War One.
German forces in Lithuania launched counterattacks along their entire line.
Statue of St. Joan d'Arc in Orleans, August 17, 1944.
The Canadian Army took Falaise. The city was in ruins. A gap of a few miles exists thereafter between the British lines and the American ones.
The US Third Army took Saint-Malo.
In Southern France, almost no resistance to Allied advances is offered and the US captured St. Raphael, St. Tropez, Frejus, Le Luq and St. Maxime.
Third Infantry Division troops advancing on August 17, 1944, in southern France. Troops are wearing the new M1943 combat boots.
Hitler dismissed Field Marshal Kluge as commander of Army Group B and replaced him with Model.
The Battle of Biak, which had been going on since May 27, ended in an Allied victory. American forces advanced near Aitape. The length of these battles gives testament to how hard the Japanese were fighting.
I am firmly convinced that the Reformation of the sixteenth century was as near as any mortal thing can come to unmixed evil. Even the parts of it that might appear plausible and enlightened from a purely secular standpoint have turned out rotten and reactionary, also from a purely secular standpoint.
By substituting the Bible for the sacrament, it created a pedantic caste of those who could read, superstitiously identified with those who could think. By destroying the monks, it took social work from the poor philanthropists who chose to deny themselves, and gave it to the rich philanthropists who chose to assert themselves. By preaching individualism while preserving inequality, it produced modern capitalism. It destroyed the only league of nations that ever had a chance. It produced the worst wars of nations that ever existed. It produced the most efficient form of Protestantism, which is Prussia. And it is producing the worst part of paganism, which is slavery.
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.
Siberian girls pose for camera, February 2, 1920. Their world was in a state of massive change at the time this photograph was taken.
Monday, February 2, 1920, saw the implementation of changes here and there. Some great, some small, in context, and others temporary.
Chief Clerk R.M. Reese of the Dept. of Agriculture administering the oath of office to Edwin T. Meredith the new Sectary today. On Mr Meredith's right is Mr Houston former Sectary. Meredith is wearing a decidely modern type of suit showing how the patterns of Edwardian suits were taking a modern form. The U.S. was slipping into a major depression lead by a major decline in the agricultural section as this photo was snapped.
A new Secretary of Agriculture was sworn in for the United States.
While she was earlier a "girl", we now know that she was a member of the British Women's Auxiliary service, a type of wartime British quasi military body formed to relieve men of some of the service roles they held normally, thereby relieving them for service elsewhere. That more easily explains how Lt. Spiker and Miss Knowles met, and as we learned from the entry the other day, it would also explain how she met the man she would, a year later, leave Guy Spiker for, and also abandon her association with her infant as a result of that. So she turns out, at least, not to be as young as we might fear.
The Casper paper also reported on a perennial problem, that being that graduates of the high school in Casper were expressing a desire to take off as soon as they graduated. Wyoming continues to suffer this problem today.
In far off Central Asia the Russian protectorate Khanate of Khiva came to an end when its last hereditary ruler abdicated.
The deminished Khiva in 1903
It had existed since 1511.
Khiva (Karasm) in the 18th Century.
Khiva had fallen to Russian aggression in the early 18th Century after which it became a protectorate, becoming increasingly smaller, until the Soviets just wiped it out as an entity entirely.
On the same day as the last Khan resigned in Khiva, the Soviets recognized the independence of Estonia.
Signing of the treaty recognizing Estonian independence.
The Soviets would get over that in 1940.
In the same region, under the Treaty of Versailles, the French occupied Memel, the eastern most region of East Prussia.
Memel was effectively the German frontier in the Baltic's and had long had a mixed population. Given the German influence in the Baltic's, that in and of itself was a problem of sorts. The French occupation would have given some time for these issues to be sorted out and in fact an Memel independence movement, an odd thought given its small size, developed during the brief French occupation. However, in 1923 it became Lithuanian by way of a Lithuanian revolt in the region which the French did not suppress. Indeed, the French were on their way out due to their occupation of the Ruhr at the time. The region would become German again in March 1939 when the Nazi German state demanded its return and the Lithuanians acquiesced. It changed hands again as a result of World War Two and it remains Lithuanian today, with its formerly significant German population having been largely expelled by the Soviets following the war.
Princess Alexandra of Hanover, age 19, has been removed from the British Royal Line of Succession.
Will outrages never cease?
Okay, you've never heard of Princess Alexandra and I hadn't until yesterday, but she was distantly in the line of succession to the crown of the United Kingdom. Distantly. She's the daughter of the Princess Caroline of Monaco and Prince Ernst August of the House of Hanover. King George III, as you will recall, was King of Hanover as well as King of England, Scotland, Walesa and Ireland. William IV was the last English king to also be the King of Hanover, as when Queen Victoria became that, it separated the lines and Ernst August. . . an earlier one who was the son of King George III, became the King of Hanover. It backed the wrong side in the wars with Prussia and was later absorbed by it, and of course all the German monarchies bit the dust in 1918.
So she'll never been Queen of Hanover.
But she could have been Queen of England but for her deciding to convert to her mother's faith, Catholicism. She was baptized as a Lutheran, like her father, but changed her faith's and was just recently confirmed a Catholic. So now she's out of the running.
The epic Battle of Tannenberg began on the Eastern Front.
Up until it, the Imperial Russian Army had been doing well. That was soon to change.
The Russians halted the Austro Hungarian army at Komarów
The French Army of Alsace was recalled and disbanded, ended their successful defense at Mulhouse. The Battle of Lorraine also ended in a French victory, although an extremely costly one.
British and French forces retreated from Le Cateau to Saint Quentin.
The French Second Army prevented the Germans from advancing past Charmes.
Venustiano Carranza and his supporters entered Mexico City to set up a new Mexican left wing Constitutionalist government, backed by Álvaro Obregón. Residents of the city turned out in mass to see the procession head to the Presidential Palace.
The Germans entered Brussels.
The Siege of Namur began. So did the Battles of Sarrebourg, Morhange and Gubinnen.
The Germans ordered the evacuation of East Prussia.
St. Pope Pius X died. His last words were "Together in one: all things in Christ," referencing his motto.
Born in an Italian speaking region of the Austro Hungarian Empire which is now part of Italy he was a strong opponent of modernist interpretation of theology, he initiated the preparation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. He was responsible for the lowering of the age for First Communion and promoted a Thomist approach to philosophical inquiry in Catholic institutions.
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