Battle of Segale

The Battle of Segale took place in Ethiopia on this day in 1916.  Negus Mikael of Wollo marched on Addis Ababa in support of his son, the Emperor Designate Iyasu V.  His forces were defeated by  Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis which secured the throne for Empress Zewditu.

 Empress Zewditu of Ethiopia, Empress from 1916 to 1930.  The defeated Iyasu V outlived her but never returned to power.

A Mid Week At Work Blog Mirror: Kit Up; Trails Found: Training SOF to Operate on Horseback

Trails Found: Training SOF to Operate on Horseback.

Standards of Dress: The high school graduation

 High school students, Pennsylvania, 1942.

I originally started this thread at the time of my son's high school graduation.  Like a lot of threads around here that get sort of started, it marinated a long time and I'm only know just getting back around to it.

Indeed, as an aside, I'll note that some marinate so long they spoil, and are discarded.  I usually have about 100 draft posts, some up to two years old, that are lingering around.  I shouldn't do that, as the older they get, the less likely it is that they'll ever be finished.

Anyhow, what I started to note here is that during the recent high school graduation I was surprised by how dressed down the crowed was, and I don't mean the students.  They were generally better dressed than many of the adults.  There are truly no standard in dress anymore.

Outdoor graduation, 1941.

Even as late as the 1960s a crowd of adults here turned out for a high school graduation would have been well dressed. . . nice dressed for the women, and suits and ties for the men.  Not any longer. T-shirts adorned a lot of the adults.

I'm not much better, I'll note. I think I wore a polo shirt in the school colors.

This probably isn't good, in all sorts of ways. For one thing, it  pre loads an assumption in the minds of the young.  Things here aren't the same as they are everywhere.  Indeed, I was recently in Houston in a business hotel and the men lining up for the early breakfast each day were definitely dressed.  Maybe our standards locally have declined more than they have elsewhere, which means when our kids end up in that environment, which seems to be the direction society is engineered to send them, there will be a bit of a learning curve.

Crowd of parents and well wishers at a segregated high school, Georgia, 1941.

Out of curiosity, if you've been to an event like this recently, how were people dressed?

On the occasion of the commencement of the 2016 World Series

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

Field of Dreams.

Matters of preception: The old and the new?

This late 1910 issue of Puck really shows us some interesting things about conditions and preceptions of little over a century ago.

Viewing Milestone

Sometime yesterday this blog went over the 200,000 views mark.  Pretty remarkable in some ways.

On the other hand, this blog has been around for quite awhile, so perhaps not.   While there are a few postdated entries here, the actual first post came on May 1, 2009.  200,000 views in seven years isn't exactly an Internet sensation by any means.  Of course, early on the blog was very inactive and therefore its not surprising that it received little in the way of readership. 

It's readership has picked up a lot this year.  It has ups and downs, but starting in March it really picked up. That was the anniversary of the Punitive Expedition and we started posting a lot on that.  Searches on that, perhaps, might explain it.  The frequent insertion of newspapers from 1916 also seems to have had a marked impact.  Given that we were basically running some things in "real time", so to speak, we also started linking some of those threads into Reddit's 100 Years Ago Today subreddit, which also had quite an impact.

Indeed, an impact of 100 Years Ago today is that the longstanding list of most viewed threads changed nearly completely.  Only one of the threads on the all time top ten, the one on hats, was on that list before Reddit impacted the list and changed it nearly completely.  Posts on Arminto, Wyoming, young Queen Elizabeth II in Canada and the Niobrara County courthouse left the top ten, presumably for all time.  Most of those thread would have about half of the views they'd need to be on the top ten list, even though some of them had been on it for years.

Indeed, some of the newer threads on the list have gone over 1,000 views in a day, pretty remarkable when we consider that getting about 500 used to guarantee that the thread would be on the top ten list.  Right now, the site gets over 15,000 views per month.  Prior to March of this year, the all time high had been September 2014 which had seen 5,000 views that month.  In February 2015 the number was back down to a little over 2,000 per month.  March of that year brought it back up to a little over 4,000 and it hovered around that for a long time.  March 2016 brought it back up to nearly 5,000.  Last month in had a little over 19,500.  It's had just over 16,000 this month, with the month nearly over, so my guess is that September 2016 will be a peak for some time.

Thanks go out to everyone who reads the blog.  Special thanks go out to everyone who has commented on a thread.  This blog remains mostly a learning exercise, so i particularly enjoy any engagement we receive.

Wyoming National Guard M1917 Helmet

A Wyoming National Guard M1917 helmet.

Neat!

No doubt painted in this fashion after the war.  Generally, it's maintained that US units didn't paint unit insignias on their helmets until after the war.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Westward Ho the Wagons

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Westward Ho the Wagons: I can remember many years ago watching or listening to  various programs that ended with some form of the phrase – “and the rest is history...

Spillway forms, Keechelus Dam, Yakim River, Washington, October 24, 1916.

LOC Caption:  Photographic copy of photograph, photographer unknown, 24 October 1916 (original print located at U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Upper Columbia Area Office, Yakima, Washington). "Spillway forms." - Keechelus Dam, Spillway, Yakim River, 10 miles northwest of Easton, Easton, Kittitas County, WA

The Big Picture. Inspecting the ore docks.

Members of American Iron and Steel Institute inspecting the ore docks, Cleveland, Oct. 23, 1915

Lawrence meets Feisal for the first time, October 23, 1916

While we've been looking at the Punitive Expedition, momentous occurrences have been going on in the Middle East and more were about to occur.

It was on this date, October 23, 1916, that T. E. Lawrence, then a Captain in the British Army, first met  Emir Feisal, son of Sherif Hussein of Mecca.  As recounted by Lawrence in Seven Pillars of Wisdom:

He led me to an inner court, on whose further side, framed between the uprights of a black doorway, stood a white figure waiting tensely for me. I felt at first glance that this was the man I had come to Arabia to seek – the leader who would bring the Arab Revolt to full glory. Feisal looked very tall and pillar-like, very slender, in his long white silk robes and his brown head-cloth bound with a brilliant scarlet and gold cord. His eyelids were dropped; and his black beard and colourless face were like a mask against the strange, still watchfulness of his body. His hands were crossed in front of him on his dagger.I greeted him. He made way for me into the room, and sat down on his carpet near the door. As my eyes grew accustomed to the shade, they saw that the little room held many silent figures, looking at me or at Feisal steadily. He remained staring down at his hands, which were twisting slowly about his dagger. At last he inquired softly how I had found the journey. I spoke of the heat and he asked how long from Rabegh, commenting that I had ridden fast for the season.

"And do you like our place here in Wadi Safra?"

"Well; but it is far from Damascus."

The word had fallen like a sword in their midst. There was a quiver. Then everybody present stiffened where he sat, and held his breath for a silent minute. Some, perhaps, were dreaming of far off success: others may have thought it a reflection on their late defeat. Feisal at length lifted his eyes, smiling at me, and said, "Praise be to God, there are Turks nearer us than that". We all smiled with him; and I rose and excused myself for the moment.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: St. Hubert's Catholic Church, Kaycee-Sussex Road

Churches of the West: St. Hubert's Catholic Church, Kaycee-Sussex Road:

This Catholic Church, served by the Parish in Buffalo, is a truly rural church being located on the highway leading east out of Kaycee, Wyoming, which goes to Sussex. The small church is just off the highway, in an area that's otherwise agricultural.

Exposing the foolishness of transfering the public lands

The much anticipated study, sponsored by the legislature, to examine the costs of transferring the public lands to Wyoming reveals. . . we can't afford it.

Or that's what it basically reveals.

The costs would be really high, and we just can't bear the cost.

That this would be the case, and that the same result has been arrived upon in other studies, elsewhere, is no surprise.

Also no surprise is that one legislative sponsor of this much disliked proposal won't concede the evidence. And that should give us pause.

The state's economy is the thing he cites, which means in the long term , or maybe not even the long term, one simple thing.

They'd sell the land off, or end up dong so, and essentially destroy the character of the state.

Politicians holding this view should be held accountable.  If you hunt, fish, or hike, you need to change their minds.

Poster Saturday: Seven Samurai

The Best Posts of the Week for the Week of October 16, 2016

Maybe you "can't go home again". . .but you sure don't have to keep traveling in the same stupid direction.

Best Posts of the Week for the Week of October 16, 2016

Rail Transportation and the Punitive Expedition (and ultimately, in World War One).

 

Fifty-Fifty Reased, October 22, 1916

If Prudence the Pirate didn't strike your fancy, Fifty-Fifty was released on this day in 1916 as well.

The plot involves an intended divorce, a rival female suitor, and a wise family court judge.

1916 at the movies: Prudence the Pirate released

Released on this date.

And you haven't seen it.  It's a lost film.

Apparently the plot entailed the protagonist's Aunt attempting to get her to marry the self centered John Astorbilt, but she turns down his refusal, and takes to a life of piracy.

Jihadi attacks in the US.

InsideGov | Graphiq

Maybe you "can't go home again". . .but you sure don't have to keep traveling in the same stupid direction.

"You can't go home again"

Thomas Wolfe, from the novel by the same name.*

"Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."

Adulterated version of a statement by George Santayana.**

"You are going home again."

Holscher's First Law of Human Behavior

The other day (actually quite a few days ago now), I published this rant:

Lex Anteinternet: How dense we've become. Denver Topless Day, How g...: This is, I'll confess, a full blown rant. Which means, perhaps, that I shouldn't publish it at all.  If I do, it means I've o...

Since that time I've published what might perhaps be an ancillary rant on a related topic.  And I've had to endure and endless number of political debates and Facebook posts on the current election, a lot of which are based on assumptions of a necessary straight line progression from point A to point B, with perhaps the only question being where point B is, although it's pretty evident that a lot of the debaters aren't very aware of where point A was.

It's time to rethink a lot of this.

It might at first blush (assuming that modern Americans are capable of even blushing, given that a sense of decency has declined to shocking level that the "cow town" city of Denver Colorado now features stoners on the street (and airport) and an annual Topless Day) seem that Denver Topless Day, local baloonification surgery, and political debates have nothing to do with the express purpose of this blog, as related in our very first post.  In that, of course, we claimed:

The intent of this blog is to try to explore and learn a few things about the practice of law prior to the current era. That is, prior to the internet, prior to easy roads, and the like. How did it work, how regional was it, how did lawyers perceive their roles, and how were they perceived?

But maybe it actually does.

As readers of this blog know, this blog focuses on the period of about 1890 until about 1920, although it strays a lot. Recently there's been a lot of threads on the year 1916 (which are on point, I'd note) which is due to the centennial of the Punitive Expedition.  Indeed, this year has featured a lot more posts than prior years, and in no small part due to that centennial.

One of the purposes of the blog was, as noted in the first post, was to look at life a century ago. And in doing that, we've learned a lot about that era in a way that we wouldn't necessarily have known otherwise.  I can't say that it's become on obsession, but once you learn stuff its hard to ignore it.  And it's hard not to draw conclusions and make some comparisons.

Now, I have no intent of romanticizing the past, which I've posted about before. The past wasn't really all that romantic and it had plenty of problems.  In 1916, rather obviously, there was a titanic problem in the works in the form of World War One, which any way you look at it is a war which doesn't really leave a person feeling all that nifty about it.  What was it about?  Even now, there's lots of answers to that question, but there's no real agreement on any of them.  Yesterday, as a recent example, we learned of the tragic loss of life on Lake Erie in a storm, much of which can be attributed to nonexistent, nearly, weather reporting in that era combined with a complete lack of ship to shore, or ship to ship, communications.  Those men died alone, as nobody could have known what was happening to the.

Pretty grim.

But we also have to admit that in some ways the past compares very favorably with the present, and there are definitely lessons to be learned. . . and applied.

Santayana actually said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"  That is undoubtedly true and there's plenty of evidence of that.  Some, or Americans any way, are fond of quoting Thomas Wolfe in the fashion quoted above, which came from a novel (making the utility of the quote at least somewhat questionable).  His actual expanded line, from the novel is:  "You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory."

Well, maybe you can't go home again (or maybe you really can, in part). . . but you sure don't have to keep going in the same stupid direction.

 Straight line to somewhere, but where?  History doesn't have to work this way.

That often seems to be the lesson that people take away. That is, the opposite one.  In other words, if you can't go home again, which may not be an accurate statement in the first place, you have to keep on keeping on in the direction you are going.

Even if you don't like it.

And there's plenty of evidence that people actually aren't all that keen on the direction that the country and society is heading.

The country was never prefect by a long shot but what we can seemingly tell is that people did like the slower and much more rural aspect of American society in prior eras. As we've gotten away from that, and have been told that we had to, we've developed what seems to be a national psychosis.  Depression is rampant, a large number of Americans have to be medicated just to tolerate their daily lives and work lives.  Estimates are that up to, and even over, 70% of Americans don't like their jobs.  And it also seems fairly clear that the decay in social standards, which is encouraged by the political left on the country,  has not liberated anyone, but rather made quite a few miserable and many more confused.  The Justice Kennedyesque Utopia promised to be around the corner, hasn't been.

Huh. . . Utopia wasn't there. . . but maybe its off these tracks?

We're like the polar bear at the Denver Zoo.  It knows that Denver in the summertime isn't the high Arctic and there's nothing you can do to fool it.  Even putting in your employee cafeteria and exercise room isn't going to do it, just as it isn't doing it for the bear.

 

I'm not picking on the Denver Zoo.  But it knows that this isn't the Arctic and this isn't where it's supposed to be.  But maybe we know that a little too?

And yet we keep on keeping on in this direction.

We really don't have to.

There's no reason that, in 2016, we need to keep this direction going.  We don't need to become more urban. We really don't have to have an ever expanding population in order to support the old, an endgame which has a curious result at some point, and require people to be ever and ever tighter packed in terminally same cities. We really don't need to keep favoring larger and larger centralized entities over smaller and more local ones.  We don't really need to pretend that people don't have an ingrained natural nature, and that, in our imperfect world, many of us don't quite match it, but ignoring it in the name of diversity or equality is going to bring perpetual personal and connubial bliss.  We don't have accept that everyone everywhere can, or is even capable of, defining a personal reality that's separate from, well, reality.

We just seem to assume that we do.

Well, we don't have to.

And we shouldn't, the evidence seems clear, as its pretty clear that the Humanistic Millennial Age will, in fact, not be arriving.  And indeed, we can at least suspect that those prior generations at some point, perhaps in the era we focus on here, or perhaps slightly later, might actually have been more content, at least while not fighting in wars or struggling on sinking ships.

But it is also clear that to do nothing, is to elect to keep traveling the same direction we already are.

G.K. Chesterton: The real evil of our party system.

The real evil of our Party System is commonly stated wrong. It was stated wrong by Lord Rosebery, when he said that it prevented the best men from devoting themselves to politics, and that it encouraged a fanatical conflict. I doubt whether the best men ever would devote themselves to politics. The best men devote themselves to pigs and babies and things like that. And as for the fanatical conflict in party politics, I wish there was more of it. The real danger of the two parties with their two policies is that they unduly limit the outlook of the ordinary citizen. They make him barren instead of creative, because he is never allowed to do anything except prefer one existing policy to another. We have not got real Democracy when the decision depends upon the people. We shall have real Democracy when the problem depends upon the people. The ordinary man will decide not only how he will vote, but what he is going to vote about

G.K. Chesterton: The Voter and the Two Voices.

And posted here after having read it on the G. K. Chesterton blog.  Emphasis added by me.

Friedrich Alder shot and killed Austrian Minister President Count Karl von Stürgkh

Socialist revolutionary Friedrich Alder shot and killed Austrian Minister President Count Karl von Stürgkh on this day in 1916.

 von Stürgk

Alder was a Socialist radical who took his extreme beliefs to the extreme of killing the Austrian Minister President, an act disavowed by other Austrian Socialist.  His death sentence was commuted and he lived until 1960.  He lived in the United States during World War Two, having left Austria after its incorporation into Nazi Germany but returned to Europe to live in Switzerland after the war, having retired from politics.

Black Friday Storm, 1916

Surface map from Saturday, October 21, 1916 with the track of 1916 Atlantic Hurricane 14 included.  The storm was impacted by the remnants of 1916 Atlantic Hurricane 14, which technically had ended its hurricane status the prior day.

The  James B. Colgate, Marshall F. Butters, D.L. Filer, and Merida sank in the tremendous storm on Lake Erie. The loss of life from these vessels was heavy.   Only the captain of the James B. Colgate, hauling coal, was rescued on the 22nd, after spending two days on a life raft that flipped twice, two other occupants having drowned as a result.

The Marshall F. Butters crew fared better, with all if its men surviving, some being rescued from a life boat by nearby ships and the captain and a crew member being rescued by another ship.  Interestingly that one poured "storm oil" on the water, a heavy oil which in fact operated to "calm troubled waters"  The ship was a wooden vessel and broke up.

The wooden coal hauler D. L. Filer had been two days in heavy seas and wind when it sank at the mouth of the Detroit River.  It's crew took refuge on two masts, but one broke and six out of the seven men on it drowned.  The seventh man swam to another mast where the captain had taken refuge, but as a rescue vessel approached the next day he slipped from mast and drowned.  Only the captain survived.

The Merida was a Canadian steamer that sank during the night.  Her entire crew of 23 men was found floating, dead, in the lake the following day.

Chemistry Building Burns at Montana State University, October 20, 1916.

It was a bad day at Montana State University, 100 years ago.



The Chemistry Building burned.

The Photo above is "embedded and from MSU's website.  The full caption reads:

• Title: Chemistry Building Fire, October 20, 1916
  Creator: unknown
  Date: October 20, 1916
  Description: Distance view of Chemistry Building, taken from the northwest, showing the building on fire with billowing smoke pouring from the windows and rising to the sky. Spectators visible on snow covered surrounding grounds. Montana Hall also visible. Very similar to image 1451 but with different smoke clouds
  Notes: The Chemistry Building burned on October 20, 1916 and was extensively photographed during and after the event.
  Physical Description: Photo print - Black and White
  Subjects: Chemistry Building I Montana Hall Montana College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts--Fire, October 20, 1916
  Keywords: fires, snow, campus views, spectators, buildings
  Photograph ID: parc-001452

Please don't copy the photograph, it's MSU's.

As is the following:



As well as this:



Fighting a fire in the snow. . . how miserable.

Think Big? Nah. . . just think natural. You are fine, the way you are.

How silly can we be?

Around here there's been a series of billboard for cosmetic surgery.

Now, let me be frank, I'm not keen on cosmetic surgery.

At least not where it addresses some medical need.  People who were burned, or had surgery, or something, I get it. There trying to restore their appearance to its pre incident norm.  I'm in favor of that, and I agree that's a medical treatment.

But just because you want to meet somebody's definition of beautiful?

So the existing billboard made me uncomfortable.  But they were subtle.  You couldn't really tell what the beautiful people. . . did I say people. . . beautiful women were having done, or had done.  Okay, so I felt uncomfortable, but not icky.

Then I saw the new billboard that stated "Think Big".

Hmmm.

And on that billboard was a naked woman.

Now, she's not all visible.  She's not visible from the waste down, and the middle section of her torso is where the Think Big logo is, so we see nothing there.  But her mid drift is, and she's quite think, and her head neck and shoulders are, and she's a very good looking, and very dolled up, woman.

Think Big, means, big boobs.  The price is between $5,000 and $6,000 (I didn't catch it). And there's at least two of these billboards up.

Well, miss, don't think big. Think natural.

Your boobs are just the size their supposed to be.  Nobody needs surgery to make them any bigger.  It's unnatural and its weird.

Think natural.

Why would a person go under the metaphorical knife for this? For goodness sake, its unnecessary and its vain.

Just say no.

You are fine, just the way you are.

And that applies to your rear and your nose as well.  Just don't.

And what's that say about us? A society so wealthy, and vain, that people would undergo surgery for this? 

Rail Transportation and the Punitive Expedition (and ultimately, in World War One).

We've been recently posting a selection of items about the transportation of the Wyoming National Guard to Camp Cody, New Mexico, in 1916.  This touches on a topic that we've posted on before, but which is really emphasized by these posts.  The complete dependency on rail transportation for anything significant in the United States prior to mid 20th Century.

From our companion blog Railhead: Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming. This depot was a 1916 addition to the City of Casper, Wyoming.  You can't board a train there anymore, as we have no passenger service and haven't for decades.  But a lot of people passed through those doors and on to a train in back for decades, including a lot of soldiers from 1916 through the 1950s.

I was in the Wyoming Army National Guard, as I recently noted in another post, from 1981 through 1987.  I covered a lot of miles as a Guardsmen.  Mostly by truck and Jeep, but some by air, and of course some by foot.  I never rode a train however.

This isn't to say that the Guard never employed trains in any capacity during this time.  They did.  Heavy items like howitzers aren't easy to move long distance, so if something like that was going a really long ways, it went the first part of that way by train.  But I never boarded a train myself.  And neither did most of the Guardsmen I served with.

New York Guardsmen, in a photo we've run previously, boarding the train.  They would have entrained in New York and have detrained in Texas or New Mexico.

Guardsmen in 1916 sure did.

For that matter, so did soldiers in the Regular Army.  They had since trains first penetrated into the Frontier.  And they would at least up in to the 1950s.  In this country, as in most, if you were going a long ways, you got there by train.

Now, we think of the Punitive Expedition in the context of the horse, about which we've already written.  Some of us might also think of it in the context of the truck, it being the first American expedition featuring any sort of truck transportation, and we've written about that as well.  But everything got to the border by rail, unless it was already at the border to start with.  The expedition into Mexico was a horse powered endeavor, one way and another, but up to the border, it was steam powered.

Note the caption.  But. . . note the rail line snaking through the camp.

And things were steam powered in Mexico too, even if the American military expedition was largely conducted on horse.  We think, of course, as the Mexican revolution and everything about as a romantic event on horseback, but even with that the popular imagination of the revolution has included the train, and for good reason.

The train was the only way to cover long distances quickly. And it was the only method which didn't require the direct participation of those being moved.  I.e., if you move a long distance by horseback, you are involved directly in that very physical activity.  If you are on foot, well. . . that speaks for itself of course.  But on a train, unless you are part of the crew, this isn't true.

No wonder then, rail lines were critical to a nation's defense and for that matter to the success of an advancing force. This had been known at least as long ago as the American Civil War, during which both sides made extensive use of rail.  Indeed, when Sherman's large advancing force began it march through the South, which as a large advancing, and foraging, army it was able to do largely without rail, it made sure to deprive the South of mobility by destroying the rail lines as it progressed.  

Union forces under Sherman heating a rail line to turn it into a "Sherman Necktie", i.e., twist it into a loop and render it useless.

And during the post Civil War struggle on the Frontier, the American Army ended up depending heavily on rail, which allowed a very small force to multiple its effectiveness.  Prior to the 1870s the Army nearly always had to engage in a very long field expedition any time there was trouble on the Frontier. As rail penetrated the country, however, this was no longer true and units in, for example, the Southwest could be moved to the Northern Plains in just a few days, and put in the field.  

Indeed, so important had rail become to a country's military structure that in Germany, which perhaps had the most advanced military infrastructure of the era, the railroads were under the jurisdiction of the Army.  German mobilization was completely based on moving troops, horses and equipment by rail, and in order to make sure that could be done effectively the Army had been given authority over the railroads.

So it should come, of course as no surprise that rail lines were heavily contested for during the Mexican Revolution. All sides sought to capture, hold and use rail lines for the rapid movement of troops. Even the US did that to some extent during the Punitive Expedition.

Indeed, rail transportation itself figured in the origins of the Punitive Expedition as it was Woodrow Wilson's allowance to Carranza to transport troops across southern Texas by rail that sparked Villa's anger.  That rapid movement, across our territory, to go into action in his, was too much from his point of view.

The Mexican Revolution saw something that would likewise soon be seen in the wilder portions of Eastern Europe during World War One, the armored train.

Almost inconceivable to us today, and certainly vulnerable as it depended upon rail, armored trains nonetheless sprung up everywhere there were rail lines, but not static battle lines.  Mexico was one example, but it was far from the only one.  They also saw fairly notable use in Russia as that country descended into anarchy.

 Armored train of the Czech Legion, which fought all the way across Russia in 1917 to emerge on the Pacific Coast so that they could be sent back into action in Western Europe.

Indeed, the armored train would figure in the Russian Civil War and then go on to see use on the Eastern Front during World War Two, a fairly amazing late appearance of that item.

Morse significantly, of course, everything of every type generally moved by rail during World War One.  Unlike World War Two, when the US and Britain would pioneer truck transport, during the Great War, all the armies relied on rail for any significant moves of men and equipment.

A "40 and 8" French boxcar, the type of rail car remembered by nearly every American doughboy during the Great War.  So strong were these in the memory of the troops that France later donated examples of them to American veterans groups, such as this example that is outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming's American Legion post.

Railroads are still with us, of course, but with air travel and good road travel, they aren't what they once were.  So, while still militarily important, they aren't dominant in the way that they were in the Teens and even into the Forties.

 Casper Wyoming Burlington Northern Depot today.This is the Burlington Northern Depot in Casper.  It was built in 1916, which would place this building solidly in the era of the petroleum and livestock fueled economic boom that happened in Casper during World War One.

Burlington Northern Depot viewed from a Ford Tri Motor

In that era, however, they were vital, and made all the difference.

Mid Week At Work: "Wig wag girl" of the Woman's Defense League in the camp near Washington, D.C." 1916.

LOC Title:  "Wig wag girl" of the Woman's Defense League in the camp near Washington, D.C.

Movies In History: The Siege of Jadotville

This very recent release premiered in the United States on Netflix.

The movie concerns a September 1961 battle which pitted a company of Irish Army United Nations Peacekeepers against forces fighting for the breakaway province of Katanga in the Congo.  A more or less forgotten event in the United States, the 1960s were a time of intense turmoil in the former Belgian colony.  Mineral rich Katanga took a run at separating from the Congo in this time frame, with the economic aspect of it being a distinct aspect of the attempt, as the Congo nationalized its mineral wealth.  The Katangan forces were a mix of local gendarme and European mercenaries and made a very serious run at separating the province. The United Nations opposed the efforts which descended into outright war.

The Irish unit was a lightly armed infantry company sent by the Republic of Ireland as part of its peacekeeping mission. There was no thought to the unit being engaged in a full scale siege, but following the decline of the situation this is exactly what occurred and the unit fought for over three days against a mixed Katangan/mercenary force which grossly outnumbered it, surrendering only when the Irish unit had completely expended all of its ammunition. During the course of the battle not a single Irish soldier was killed while over 500 of the attacking force were.

This film was recently made with an Irish cast and based upon a novel on the topic.  While based on a novel, at least based on what little I know of the battle, the movie is quite faithful to the history of the event.  I'll confess, however, that I'm not an expert on this historical episode by any means.

In terms of material details the movie is superb.  Indeed, it's surprisingly accurate.  Taking place, as it does, in 1961 it involves a point in military history when armies were just switching over from bolt actions to automatic rifles.  The film correctly depicts the Irish troops mostly armed with World War Two era weapons, such as Lee Enfield bolt action rifles, a Bren gun and a Vickers machine-gun.  A few FAL's appear, but they would have been brand new at the time.  Madsen submachineguns (at least I think they are Madsen's) also appear in Irish hands.  Likewise, the Katangan forces have a few FALs but are mostly armed with Mauser 98 rifles, which would likely also have been correct. A few French submachineguns are shown in use.

Accuracy even extends out to odd things like vehicles and the single example of a Katangan jet aircraft, which is accurately shown to be a Fouga Magiste, a fairly obscure trainer of the period.  I certainly would not have expected that level of accuracy out of any film.  This is not to say it is perfect, a particularly glaring example of the opposite being the use of a Bren gun for a sniping shot in one episode but all in all, this film gets very high marks.

Indeed, it gets high marks in every respect.  Well worth seeing.

Armour Rations

A look at chow in the field in the time frame we've been dealing with:  Armour Rations.

Lex Anteinternet: The Shoshone - Arapaho Disagreement comes to a head...

I reported on this event back on October 10, when it first hit the news:

Lex Anteinternet: The Shoshone - Arapaho Disagreement comes to a hea...: There's a truly odd spectacle playing out in Fremont County, Wyoming, but it's getting little attention. As has been noted her...

There's been no news on it since, and I wondered what was going on.

Well, today the Tribune has a followup article, and there's been no resolution of the crisis.  Indeed, it's even odder than originally reported.

In terms of news, this matter is actually going before the Tribal Court this Wednesday.  The issue will be whether the court can be dissolved by the Joint Business Council if only the Shoshones are recognizing the council.  The Court has already issued a preliminary order that it cannot, and in fact has held the sitting Shoshone members of the JBC in contempt at the rate of $150 a day for attempting to dissolve it and cease funding it. The Arapahos, who had asked the BIA to fund separate institutions including a court, as they no longer participate in the JBC, are ironically now funding the Tribal Court.   The JBC has asked for the BIA to restore a BIA court, which it threatened to do, but which it has not.

It's hard to see a resolution to this occurring, or at least one that doesn't involve the Federal courts.   And indeed there's a case in Federal court right now about whether or not the Arapahos can demand separate treatment from the Federal government in light of its independent sovereignty.  Those who argue against it, at least on practical grounds, note that its tough to have two separate bodies of law in the same geographic area, including two separate courts and two separate game and fish codes.

USS Arizona Commissioned

The USS Arizona was commissioned on this date in 1916.

She was a Pennsylvania Class battleship that had been two years in construction at the time.  She would serve, of course, until December 7, 1941.

Her memorial:

The USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor Hawaii

The raised anchor of  the USS Arizona.

The memorial wall on the USS Arizona memorial listing the crew-members who lost their lives on December 7, 1941.

The crew-members who have chosen to be interred with their shipmates since December 7, 1941.

The USS Arizona.

Oil leaking from the Arizona, the "tears" of the ship.

This is a section of the memorial wall again, which I've posted due to the surprise of noting the name of one of the sailors.

 The oil leaking from the USS Arizona is estimated at the very small amount of five quarts per day.  None the less, the oil streak is clearly visible from the USS Missouri, which is docked some distance away.

 The USS Missouri as viewed from the USS Arizona memorial.

I last saw the USS Arizona memorial in about 1975, when I went to Oahu with my mother.  We went there to visit her Great Aunt Christine, who was born and raised in Hawaii, and who was an eyewitness to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor.

At that time, the memorial was administered by the U.S. Navy, and those going to view it entered by small vessel through the mouth of Pearl Harbor.  The boat was boarded in Honolulu Harbor.  It was very dignified, and I recall a uniformed sailor was present at all times.

The U.S. Park Service now administers the site, and they do a nice job, particularly with a related facility nearby which commemorates the entire battle.  It remains a moving and somber site.