Africa and the early years of the Union of South Africa 28/4/19
After the Armistice he met Botha and Smuts in London and they told him that they need him when he returns to SA.
President Wilson was unpopular in the States as he was involved in Versailles without a mandate from the US population. " France had fought for Glory, Britain for more land and America for Souvenirs".
His great grandfather got to the Cape in 1791 and had been a Dutch naval officer in the battle of Doggerbank of 1781 where Britain objected to Dutch merchantmen carry good to the Americas. Voortrekkers left the Cape not so much they hatred of the British but any rule.
Transvall Boer Republic founded 1852, Orange Free State 1854. His father and brothers were born in the Cape and sent to study in Edinburgh while his mother was Swedish. 1889 on the death of John Brand his father Francis Reitz became president of the OFS till 1896. The Jameson Raid was a harbinger of war. Botha founded the South African Party in 1910 with Union.
he became Prime Minister, 1919 Smuts took over on Botha death
Alexander Bay on the SA side of the border opposite Oranjemund on the Namibia side where the Orange river reaches the sea. Hans Merensky found diamonds here in 1925
Lemuel Colaine was a spy for the British and was executed by Smuts, during the Boer War del la Ray and Deneys Reitz werewitnesses in the Cape.
Christian de Wet had supported the Maritz rebellion and was jailed till released by Smuts in 1910
Poison used to kill locust killed cattle.
Bulhoek massacre occurred on 24 May 1921, led by a preacher Enoch Majjima of the Fingo, Xhosa tribe
The 1922 miners uprising led by Australians Fisher and Spendiff took their own lives. 700 people were hurt and 5 leaders were executed including Taffy Long a veteran soldier of Gallipoli.
Bontebok park was set up when only about 16 animals were left near Cape Arugulas.
Kruger had set aside land to be a game park and nobody owned it but only in 1926 was it declared the Kruger National Park.
When the Boer War broke out a foundry was set up by Kruger and Italian artisans were brought to run it. Many of them smoked cigarettes and perhaps that caused the ammunition factory to explode.
1928 the South African flag was designed so with the Union Jack there were now 2 flags.
An academic wrote that the Okavango used to flow into the Kalahari and got blocked up. He went there and saw the abundance of wild life and was against building a canal to let the water flow south. In Uganda he felt it has the largest bicycle population in Africa. South African Parlement felt that Edward VIII should abdicate if he married Wallace Simpson. On a German ship to South America the author was not popular as he told them he disliked Hitler and Nazi terror.
When it was obvious there would be war Herzog refused to give his views. On 1 Sept 1939 he tried to keep SA neutral but parliament happened to be in session to deal with a technical matter and the cabinet split in half and a parliament voted to fight for Britain. 130 000 volunteered of total of 200000 SA soldiers. He felt the British navy was important to protect the Cape as other predator nations would come. Ossewa Brandwag based on Nazi method developed as they believed that Britain was being destroyed. There was fear of Italy invading Kenya from Ethiopia.
Groot Schuur was bequeathed to the Union in 1902 as Prime Minister house. by Rhodes but the Union only came about in 1910.
Graf von Spree and 2 sons died in the Battle of the Falklands in WW1 on a German ship. The ship Graf von Spree was scuttled in the Plata River Dec 1939.
He went to England to coordinate military and in Ireland he told de Lavera that Ireland should have got an autonomy under the British crown that way it would have remained united. He is taken to the Maginot line and says that Germany will just bypass it.
In Portugal he meets Salazar and Dr Saldanha whose ancestors were the first to climb Table Mountain. Travelling back through Spain he sees dozens of destroyed towns and thousands of abandoned cars of people who fled. He saw evidence of how cruel both sides were to each other. In Madrid he was told that Marshal Petain was a defeatist as he thought France was rotten to the core and needed a Fascist leader.
The British navy intercepted several ships on the Madagascar route and 600 French troops were interned on Robben Island.
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Saturday, March 28, 2020
The Great North Road by Lawrence Green 1961 230pg
East Africa when it was German and British.13/8/19
This writer wrote about 35 books mostly on travelling around South and Central Africa that are out of print. These books are considered Afrikaner Classics.
He describes Northern Rhodesia and that the natives had copper and Collier killed a Roan Antelope and saw copper ore there in 1902.The start of the copper mines.
In Tanganyika van Lettow's Germans carried on fighting till 2 days after Armistice Day of WW1 as they had not heard the news and were about to attack Northern Rhodesia. 2 Scots brothers John and Fred Moir set up Mandala (spectacles name the native called the brothers) stores to help the natives after hearing about slavery from Livingstone.
Northern Rhodesia north is the Kalambo Falls which plunge 705 feet from Lake Tanganyika into the Kalambo River. It is not that wide but is taller than Victoria. The Aughrabis fall of the Orange river is also a impressive one. There are traces here of stone age man and both Dr. L Leakey and Dr. Desmond have investigated.
N Rhodesia, Lake Bengweulu has island that were used as a refuge against Arab slavers, these island are actually formed from ant hills. The natives are scared to go in their open dugouts away from the shore. Papyrus roots made into a white flour on this island.
JH Paterson wrote "The Man Eaters of Tsavo" as well as "With the Zionist at Gallipoli". In building the Mombasa, Nairobi railway 130 Africans or Indians were killed by lions. In Northern Rhodesia in 1909 a single man eater killed 90 natives. A record of a hunter killing 7 lions in one shooting.
Port Mpulungu southern point of Lake Tanganyika in N. Rhodesia and the steamer would arrive every 3 weeks bring goods to the white traders. This lake today is shared by Tanzania, Congo, Ruandi , Burundi. 100 years before Arab dhows would come here. The steamer Good News was brought in parts by missionaries to navigate the lake was destroyed by the Germans in 1915. Later the German ship Gotzen which they had scuttled was salvaged and became the Liemba. In 1961 students from Oxford, Bonn and Sweden were on this steamer in search of new plants and animal species. In 1885 at Karema the Whites Fathers took over freed the slaves, the set up a fortress and a convent for the White Sister they all wore white habits.
The Tobora sovereign was minted from gold there while the Germans army were holding out, to pay the troops and became a collectors item.
In 1891 Germany took possession of German East Africa. Before this Sultan Mkwawa of the Wahebe tribe was a Black Napoleon and defeated the Arabs then the Masai , he controlled a vast piece of territory till the Germans decided he had to be defeated.
Ujiji was the base that Livingstone stayed at but after the Lake Tanganyika level dropped Kigoma developed on the lake. Here the Nile and West African long nosed Crocodile meet. Crocodiles killed hundred of people specially women who came to get water. Very big crocodiles and elephants were recorded in the past but later when scientific recording were done the big ones had disappeared. Eventually they were hunted for their leather and this reduced their numbers vastly.
Lake Tanganyika is land cleave apart in the rift valley and is extremely deep but narrow and 673km long, longest in the world.
The Maji Maji rebellion broke out in 1905 because the Germans treated the population so badly. All the tribes attacked except the Wahehe tribe. The German now used a scorched earth policy and vast area were denuded of population through starvation possibly more than 100 000 died as a result.
1909 Paul Greatz a Germen drove a car across Africa from Tanganyika and a trip that should have taken 6 weeks took almost a year and cost a fortune , there were no roads and it was crazy.
Sangiro or Andries Pienaar whose family moved to German East Africa in 1907 returned to study in Stellenbosch and wrote "Uitt oerwoud en vlagte" a very important Afrikaans writing.
There are some very bad witch doctors but many know the use of different plants as drugs and some of these were in use and worked long before European medicine arrived. By 1961 records already showed that the snows on Mt Kilimanjaro were receding.
The railway from Mombasa to Uganda came to a plain which resulted in Nairobi before it started going up a gradient towards Limuru which would have been more suitable for a capital city so in 1899 Nairobi began. Tea and coffee grew in this area. The city grew very quickly and by 1961 a third of Kenya whites lived there.
The Afrikaners were considered the restless children of Africa and moved after the Boer War into German Tanganyika, being under the Germans was not to their liking, but also the Rhodesia's and Kenya. The town of Thomson Falls had a large enough community that the van Riebeek school had 150 pupils in Afrikaans medium. Many had children who returned to SA and got degrees.WW1 veterans were given land here also.
Uasin Gishu was a remote plateau offered to the Zionist. by the British. Afrikaans trekkers under Jansen van Rensburg after sending scouts there arrived in 1908 with 70 Afrikaans families.
We get an explanation about the Swahili language which means Coast Language and was developed by Arab slavers but it has Portuguese, Amharic and many of the local dialects in it as well as English words.
Gedi is a mysterious lost city about 30 km from Mombasa well developed building with jungle grown into them, an archaeologists delight discovered in 1929 as the local were scared to go near as it was haunted. A stone has the date in Arabic of 1399
This writer wrote about 35 books mostly on travelling around South and Central Africa that are out of print. These books are considered Afrikaner Classics.
He describes Northern Rhodesia and that the natives had copper and Collier killed a Roan Antelope and saw copper ore there in 1902.The start of the copper mines.
In Tanganyika van Lettow's Germans carried on fighting till 2 days after Armistice Day of WW1 as they had not heard the news and were about to attack Northern Rhodesia. 2 Scots brothers John and Fred Moir set up Mandala (spectacles name the native called the brothers) stores to help the natives after hearing about slavery from Livingstone.
Northern Rhodesia north is the Kalambo Falls which plunge 705 feet from Lake Tanganyika into the Kalambo River. It is not that wide but is taller than Victoria. The Aughrabis fall of the Orange river is also a impressive one. There are traces here of stone age man and both Dr. L Leakey and Dr. Desmond have investigated.
N Rhodesia, Lake Bengweulu has island that were used as a refuge against Arab slavers, these island are actually formed from ant hills. The natives are scared to go in their open dugouts away from the shore. Papyrus roots made into a white flour on this island.
JH Paterson wrote "The Man Eaters of Tsavo" as well as "With the Zionist at Gallipoli". In building the Mombasa, Nairobi railway 130 Africans or Indians were killed by lions. In Northern Rhodesia in 1909 a single man eater killed 90 natives. A record of a hunter killing 7 lions in one shooting.
Port Mpulungu southern point of Lake Tanganyika in N. Rhodesia and the steamer would arrive every 3 weeks bring goods to the white traders. This lake today is shared by Tanzania, Congo, Ruandi , Burundi. 100 years before Arab dhows would come here. The steamer Good News was brought in parts by missionaries to navigate the lake was destroyed by the Germans in 1915. Later the German ship Gotzen which they had scuttled was salvaged and became the Liemba. In 1961 students from Oxford, Bonn and Sweden were on this steamer in search of new plants and animal species. In 1885 at Karema the Whites Fathers took over freed the slaves, the set up a fortress and a convent for the White Sister they all wore white habits.
The Tobora sovereign was minted from gold there while the Germans army were holding out, to pay the troops and became a collectors item.
In 1891 Germany took possession of German East Africa. Before this Sultan Mkwawa of the Wahebe tribe was a Black Napoleon and defeated the Arabs then the Masai , he controlled a vast piece of territory till the Germans decided he had to be defeated.
Ujiji was the base that Livingstone stayed at but after the Lake Tanganyika level dropped Kigoma developed on the lake. Here the Nile and West African long nosed Crocodile meet. Crocodiles killed hundred of people specially women who came to get water. Very big crocodiles and elephants were recorded in the past but later when scientific recording were done the big ones had disappeared. Eventually they were hunted for their leather and this reduced their numbers vastly.
Lake Tanganyika is land cleave apart in the rift valley and is extremely deep but narrow and 673km long, longest in the world.
The Maji Maji rebellion broke out in 1905 because the Germans treated the population so badly. All the tribes attacked except the Wahehe tribe. The German now used a scorched earth policy and vast area were denuded of population through starvation possibly more than 100 000 died as a result.
1909 Paul Greatz a Germen drove a car across Africa from Tanganyika and a trip that should have taken 6 weeks took almost a year and cost a fortune , there were no roads and it was crazy.
Sangiro or Andries Pienaar whose family moved to German East Africa in 1907 returned to study in Stellenbosch and wrote "Uitt oerwoud en vlagte" a very important Afrikaans writing.
There are some very bad witch doctors but many know the use of different plants as drugs and some of these were in use and worked long before European medicine arrived. By 1961 records already showed that the snows on Mt Kilimanjaro were receding.
The railway from Mombasa to Uganda came to a plain which resulted in Nairobi before it started going up a gradient towards Limuru which would have been more suitable for a capital city so in 1899 Nairobi began. Tea and coffee grew in this area. The city grew very quickly and by 1961 a third of Kenya whites lived there.
The Afrikaners were considered the restless children of Africa and moved after the Boer War into German Tanganyika, being under the Germans was not to their liking, but also the Rhodesia's and Kenya. The town of Thomson Falls had a large enough community that the van Riebeek school had 150 pupils in Afrikaans medium. Many had children who returned to SA and got degrees.WW1 veterans were given land here also.
Uasin Gishu was a remote plateau offered to the Zionist. by the British. Afrikaans trekkers under Jansen van Rensburg after sending scouts there arrived in 1908 with 70 Afrikaans families.
We get an explanation about the Swahili language which means Coast Language and was developed by Arab slavers but it has Portuguese, Amharic and many of the local dialects in it as well as English words.
Gedi is a mysterious lost city about 30 km from Mombasa well developed building with jungle grown into them, an archaeologists delight discovered in 1929 as the local were scared to go near as it was haunted. A stone has the date in Arabic of 1399
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Escape from Camp 14: – 2013 by Blaine Harden
Escape from North Korea read4/5/16
This book is more than just the story of Shim's escape it explains the history of North Korea which is not a communist state as such, but the worst of totalitarian regimes badly run by the "Kim dynasty."
The reality is it is more a medieval feudal society with a system of castes; those closest to the ruler live in privilege in and around Pyongyang and their children get a proper education. Those who have shown any form of disloyalty to the regime or have family in South Korea at the bottom or even kept locked in gulag type camps and their children are also prisoners worked to death as the total untouchables.
1948 to 1994 Kim Il Sung
1994 to 2011 Kim Jung Ill
2011 onwards Kim Jung Un
The book gives examples of a scam how N. Korea took reinsurance and then claimed money for millions and Lloyds of London and a Swiss Insurance lost out but once only. To the starving people corn and pickled cabbage was the cheapest food available the better off could afford rice. In summer they managed to gather mushrooms and berries in the forest, rats was one of the sources of some protein but most people are malnourished, uneducated and shorter than the S. Koreans and not equipped for modern society.
There was a severe famine in the 1990 and the Americans sent food without the chance to see that it was distributed to the starving. Instead government officials sold it to merchants and this resulted in a market developing beyond the government control.
The book describes dam building as hand work of thousand and after he finished school was sent to work on a pig farm and later became a sewing machine repairer and trained a person Kemp into the job. Kemp was from the political elite who had fallen out of favour and told Shim about the outside world but what interested Shim was that there was plenty of food abroad. The border crossing to China had become an industry to many officers and soldiers taking bribes but most of the money came from families in South Korea. Even transport which was supposed to be government owned was an industry with bribes taken by government officials.
South Korea has world trade 255 time of that of the North The South pays a lot to absorb Northern defectors and tries to appease the North to keep peace. If the North were united to the South it would cost 2 and a half time what West Germany paid to absorb their East.
The South has a population of 51 million while the north has 24 million.
The South has a GDP of $36 000pp while the north it is as little as $1 800pp
This book was extremely interesting in trying to explain a closed society of which we know so little of and how destructive it is to its own people.
This book is more than just the story of Shim's escape it explains the history of North Korea which is not a communist state as such, but the worst of totalitarian regimes badly run by the "Kim dynasty."
The reality is it is more a medieval feudal society with a system of castes; those closest to the ruler live in privilege in and around Pyongyang and their children get a proper education. Those who have shown any form of disloyalty to the regime or have family in South Korea at the bottom or even kept locked in gulag type camps and their children are also prisoners worked to death as the total untouchables.
1948 to 1994 Kim Il Sung
1994 to 2011 Kim Jung Ill
2011 onwards Kim Jung Un
The book gives examples of a scam how N. Korea took reinsurance and then claimed money for millions and Lloyds of London and a Swiss Insurance lost out but once only. To the starving people corn and pickled cabbage was the cheapest food available the better off could afford rice. In summer they managed to gather mushrooms and berries in the forest, rats was one of the sources of some protein but most people are malnourished, uneducated and shorter than the S. Koreans and not equipped for modern society.
There was a severe famine in the 1990 and the Americans sent food without the chance to see that it was distributed to the starving. Instead government officials sold it to merchants and this resulted in a market developing beyond the government control.
The book describes dam building as hand work of thousand and after he finished school was sent to work on a pig farm and later became a sewing machine repairer and trained a person Kemp into the job. Kemp was from the political elite who had fallen out of favour and told Shim about the outside world but what interested Shim was that there was plenty of food abroad. The border crossing to China had become an industry to many officers and soldiers taking bribes but most of the money came from families in South Korea. Even transport which was supposed to be government owned was an industry with bribes taken by government officials.
South Korea has world trade 255 time of that of the North The South pays a lot to absorb Northern defectors and tries to appease the North to keep peace. If the North were united to the South it would cost 2 and a half time what West Germany paid to absorb their East.
The South has a population of 51 million while the north has 24 million.
The South has a GDP of $36 000pp while the north it is as little as $1 800pp
This book was extremely interesting in trying to explain a closed society of which we know so little of and how destructive it is to its own people.
Monday, March 23, 2020
The World that made New Orleans by Ned Sublette 2009 320pg
Why jazz originated New Orleans
This book tells us the history of the Mississippi delta which is very different from that of the rest of the USA. When the French occupied New Orleans they could not get French settlers to live there so brought African slaves. They allowed slaves to buy their own freedom so you developed a society of free blacks. Where Catholic men had illegitimate children by slaves the Church recognized them as Catholic and they were born free and in most cases recognized by their fathers. This was seen particularly under the 30 years that New Orleans was ruled by the Spanish. Blacks were allowed to dance and play drums plus the Spanish always had military bands for ceremonies. The tradition of the music funeral only comes from NO no other place in the States has it. The important thing about NO is that African music and dance was preserved there and then spread northward to become , jazz and rock as we know it today. This vibrant culture there resulted in the first opera house in north America was opened there in 1796
The term Dixie originated here as the local bank issued Ten $ bill and one side was in French with the word Dix, Dixie later referred to all the Confederate States south of the Mason Dixie line.
Part of the French Revolution that in not mentioned in the history books, is the slave revolt on the French Dominican which became Haiti, 1791 to 1804 This colony Haiti had brought so much sugar and wealth to France that once she lost it there was no longer a purpose in keeping Louisiana and France knew she couldn't defend it. The Americans were thinking of occupying Louisiana in any case and were able to purchase it from Napoleon instead of going to war in 1803, for $15 million in gold.
Virginia had been a big producer of agricultural goods but the soil was no longer very productive. By 1808 the importation of slaves from Africa was stopped and so Virginia became a breeding place for slaves that were in short supply in the sugar growing Louisiana. Many slaves were brothers or children of usually Protestant slave owners and states that stood against abolition wanted to protect this privilege of concubinage.
Under the Spanish, Havana was the centre of trade and ships would assemble there to take conveys of gold and silver back to Spain. Pirates and privateers would attack these ships. Also pirates would capture Spanish slave ships and sell their contraband in NO.
In Florida, escaping slaves took refuge in Semoline Indians villages and integrated into their communities till the US authorities went in and rounded them up and moved them to reserves in other states.
Haiti was the first independent country in the Americas and the USA recognized it hoping to repatriate ex slaves there, the same it true for Liberia in Africa.
In 1917 the Federal Government ordered the closing of saloons causing Jazz to move northward to New York ,Chicago and Detroit,
This book tells us the history of the Mississippi delta which is very different from that of the rest of the USA. When the French occupied New Orleans they could not get French settlers to live there so brought African slaves. They allowed slaves to buy their own freedom so you developed a society of free blacks. Where Catholic men had illegitimate children by slaves the Church recognized them as Catholic and they were born free and in most cases recognized by their fathers. This was seen particularly under the 30 years that New Orleans was ruled by the Spanish. Blacks were allowed to dance and play drums plus the Spanish always had military bands for ceremonies. The tradition of the music funeral only comes from NO no other place in the States has it. The important thing about NO is that African music and dance was preserved there and then spread northward to become , jazz and rock as we know it today. This vibrant culture there resulted in the first opera house in north America was opened there in 1796
The term Dixie originated here as the local bank issued Ten $ bill and one side was in French with the word Dix, Dixie later referred to all the Confederate States south of the Mason Dixie line.
Part of the French Revolution that in not mentioned in the history books, is the slave revolt on the French Dominican which became Haiti, 1791 to 1804 This colony Haiti had brought so much sugar and wealth to France that once she lost it there was no longer a purpose in keeping Louisiana and France knew she couldn't defend it. The Americans were thinking of occupying Louisiana in any case and were able to purchase it from Napoleon instead of going to war in 1803, for $15 million in gold.
Virginia had been a big producer of agricultural goods but the soil was no longer very productive. By 1808 the importation of slaves from Africa was stopped and so Virginia became a breeding place for slaves that were in short supply in the sugar growing Louisiana. Many slaves were brothers or children of usually Protestant slave owners and states that stood against abolition wanted to protect this privilege of concubinage.
Under the Spanish, Havana was the centre of trade and ships would assemble there to take conveys of gold and silver back to Spain. Pirates and privateers would attack these ships. Also pirates would capture Spanish slave ships and sell their contraband in NO.
In Florida, escaping slaves took refuge in Semoline Indians villages and integrated into their communities till the US authorities went in and rounded them up and moved them to reserves in other states.
Haiti was the first independent country in the Americas and the USA recognized it hoping to repatriate ex slaves there, the same it true for Liberia in Africa.
In 1917 the Federal Government ordered the closing of saloons causing Jazz to move northward to New York ,Chicago and Detroit,
The English by Jeremy Paxman 1998 216pp
What we don't know about the English? 26/3/17
This book explains that the English have always felt themselves to be the best happiest nation and believe the foreigners would want to be English. The closest foreigners are the French and you get French letters, French disease and other negative concepts about them.
The rest of the world is overseas. Germany could not invade because of this and there was resistance to LeManch the tunnel under the channel as a result.
1777 the last Cornish native speaker. Manx 1974, Deeside Gaelic 1984. In Ireland political prisoners learn Irish for political reasons.
Andrew Bonner Law a Scottish Ulsterman was born in New Brunswick Canada and was the only foreign born Prime Minister between 1922/1923.
Roman occupation was a great benefit to England while Wales and Scotland were left out of this. The English Race is basically German. For almost 900 years after 1066 the English population stayed stable while the borders in Europe kept changing. Beside Celt blood in the 14th and 16C immigrants arrived from Flanders 17C, Huguenots from France and later Jews from Eastern Europe.
When Prince Phillip married Elizabeth II he had to renounce claim to the Greek throne.
In 1900 half the ships on the high seas were registered in the UK and a third of world trade. By 1995 this had fallen to 5%
English is the language of the 3rd Millennium and it no longer belongs to England.
Battle of Omdurman Sudan 1896 using Maxim guns 28 British were killed to 11000 Dervishes.
In the colonies" To be an Englishman" was to belong to the most exclusive club. Anyone who is born in the UK to parents that arrived legally gets citizenship unlike 7 million Turk aliens in Germany.
Most dark immigrants have integrated into England and there is no neighborhood that is totally black like in US inner cities.
Under Henry VIII the Anglican Church took over the Catholic churches they destroyed all mediaeval art in England till 120 years later with the death of Cromwell and this is the point that English cultural tradition cut itself off from Europe. So the visual was replaced by the verbal and writing developed not painting. The King James Bible came out in 1611 the same period as Shakespeare.
Home ownership is high and the English are very homebound and don't easily invite visitors. With the Channel tunnel the French state easily set up the fast track while on the English side they slowly had to deal with the land owners on the way and they track was only ready in 2007.
The king or states have never been powerful. Property rights developed while Europe was still feudal.
In Rupert Brook’s famous sonnet he hopes that where he is buried will always be a piece of England. He imagined rural fields and hedges but by 1850 was the first country in the world to have half its population in urban centres.
Blake’s "New Jerusalem” was put to music in 1916 for the war effort. England does not have a national anthem.
Whereas France had city planning in England it came about. The wealthy classes want the rural areas preserved while poor people in the country are unable to modernize.
While the French Lyceum taught book subjects the English Public School emphasized sport. The English are mediocre and no ism ever succeeded there.
Rudyard Kipling arranged a commission for his only son who died in WW1.
1877 the first Wimbledon tennis match. The English don't support a cricket team they follow it!
While England developed incrementally Germany went from monarchy to republic, to Reich then partition between capitalism and communism and finally reunification, giving the society quite a challenge.
At the end of WW2 the England replaced bombed out parts of cities with worse structures. Germany took Marshal Plan money and reinvented their cities.
Women were only accepted in Cambridge in 1948 before that to become doctors they went to Edinburgh or went abroad.
Today England has the highest divorce rate or single mothers in Europe.
People go to pubs to drink and are a happy class when they are drunk, unlike cafes in Europe where you have a drink then coffee and sit and read a paper or discuss. Soccer and drink and violence go together in England.
Food traditionally was tasteless and even though the English spread all over the colonies and saw different food it did change home cooking until immigrants brought restaurants.
The rest of the world is overseas. Germany could not invade because of this and there was resistance to LeManch the tunnel under the channel as a result.
1777 the last Cornish native speaker. Manx 1974, Deeside Gaelic 1984. In Ireland political prisoners learn Irish for political reasons.
Andrew Bonner Law a Scottish Ulsterman was born in New Brunswick Canada and was the only foreign born Prime Minister between 1922/1923.
Roman occupation was a great benefit to England while Wales and Scotland were left out of this. The English Race is basically German. For almost 900 years after 1066 the English population stayed stable while the borders in Europe kept changing. Beside Celt blood in the 14th and 16C immigrants arrived from Flanders 17C, Huguenots from France and later Jews from Eastern Europe.
When Prince Phillip married Elizabeth II he had to renounce claim to the Greek throne.
In 1900 half the ships on the high seas were registered in the UK and a third of world trade. By 1995 this had fallen to 5%
English is the language of the 3rd Millennium and it no longer belongs to England.
Battle of Omdurman Sudan 1896 using Maxim guns 28 British were killed to 11000 Dervishes.
In the colonies" To be an Englishman" was to belong to the most exclusive club. Anyone who is born in the UK to parents that arrived legally gets citizenship unlike 7 million Turk aliens in Germany.
Most dark immigrants have integrated into England and there is no neighborhood that is totally black like in US inner cities.
Under Henry VIII the Anglican Church took over the Catholic churches they destroyed all mediaeval art in England till 120 years later with the death of Cromwell and this is the point that English cultural tradition cut itself off from Europe. So the visual was replaced by the verbal and writing developed not painting. The King James Bible came out in 1611 the same period as Shakespeare.
Home ownership is high and the English are very homebound and don't easily invite visitors. With the Channel tunnel the French state easily set up the fast track while on the English side they slowly had to deal with the land owners on the way and they track was only ready in 2007.
The king or states have never been powerful. Property rights developed while Europe was still feudal.
In Rupert Brook’s famous sonnet he hopes that where he is buried will always be a piece of England. He imagined rural fields and hedges but by 1850 was the first country in the world to have half its population in urban centres.
Blake’s "New Jerusalem” was put to music in 1916 for the war effort. England does not have a national anthem.
Whereas France had city planning in England it came about. The wealthy classes want the rural areas preserved while poor people in the country are unable to modernize.
While the French Lyceum taught book subjects the English Public School emphasized sport. The English are mediocre and no ism ever succeeded there.
Rudyard Kipling arranged a commission for his only son who died in WW1.
1877 the first Wimbledon tennis match. The English don't support a cricket team they follow it!
While England developed incrementally Germany went from monarchy to republic, to Reich then partition between capitalism and communism and finally reunification, giving the society quite a challenge.
At the end of WW2 the England replaced bombed out parts of cities with worse structures. Germany took Marshal Plan money and reinvented their cities.
Women were only accepted in Cambridge in 1948 before that to become doctors they went to Edinburgh or went abroad.
Today England has the highest divorce rate or single mothers in Europe.
People go to pubs to drink and are a happy class when they are drunk, unlike cafes in Europe where you have a drink then coffee and sit and read a paper or discuss. Soccer and drink and violence go together in England.
Food traditionally was tasteless and even though the English spread all over the colonies and saw different food it did change home cooking until immigrants brought restaurants.
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand 2001, 399pg
American History and Horse Racing 21/5/19
In 1938 with war looming in Europe the articles that filled the US press most was about the racing horse Seabiscuit.
Lou Gehrig leading baseball player for the Yankees. Died in 1941 aged 38 was a smaller press story.
Charles Howard had set up a bicycle shop but people who had just bought cars never knew how to fix them and so came to him. He got a Buick dealership from Will Durand in Detroit and had 3 cars.
1906 April 18 the great earthquake/fire of San Francisco and the horses panicked but his 3 cars were used as ambulances. To advertise he became a car racer. He gave free lesson on driving to buyers and took horses are a trade in and got GM dealership and was the biggest car seller in the world.
1928 after his son died in an accident, paid for a hospital to be build in Willits.
1920 Prohibition and all closed on Sundays so people crossed the border to Mexico to Tijuana.
1933 Wagering on horses legalized in California
1900 Tom Smith had made a good living taming mustangs and selling them to the British cavalry for the Boer War.
Red Pollard loved horses and literature and had Shakespeare and poetry books with him but was too active to do formal studying. Many of the jockeys were underage orphans either abandoned or ran away from their families. Few had decent schooling. They had to starve themselves to keep their weight down and many wrecked their health through malnutrition as a result, and their mental stability. They had not health care many got hurt and had no friend to get them to hospital. If they fell off a horse they could be crushed by those following. The boss would look at a teenagers foot size as he did not want to invest into somebody who would grow too big.
1934 In Tijuana an enormous pile of muck taken out of the stable and never removed was flooded into the race course destroying it. At the same time Mexico stopped horse racing where a long time revolution was still going on.
Smith recognised that Seabiscuit sired by Hard Tack was a leading racer that nobody could control and were terrified of , he immediately brought in Pumpkin to be a companion and worked on him. Most horses can lock their knees and sleep standing up not this horse that slept on the bedding. Grog was also an offspring of Hard Tack and acted as a Seabiscuit double to distract the press. In one race a stone shot up from a horse hoof hit Reds right eye and he became blind there but kept it a secret.
Before 1936 people who owned radios in rural areas spent a lot on batteries but after1936 electrification was brought to these areas, also cars had radios and radios became cheap so 90% of the population were connected by 1939.
1937 Samuel Riddler was the most important horse owner with Man-O-War but when it was 3 years old he refused to allow it to run with an impost/handicap and used it to breed War Admiral. Alfred Vanderbilt heir to the Railway company as well as the Bromo Seltzer fortune. His father died on the torpedoed Lusitania 1915. He used his fortune to get controlling share of Pimlico Race Course Baltimore.
There was supposed to be a race where Seabiscuit would be against War Admiral but it was wet and Red road a horse suited to a slow course. there was an accident and he was run over and broke ribs and shoulder. Woolf took over as Jockey lacked the fine skill for this peculiar horse and came 2nd. Red recovered and returned to the job did a friend a favour by taking his horse for a run and this horse bolted and caused Red to break his leg badly.
A race was set up between Seabiscuit and War Admiral. It was a low wager and not in the starter stall but using a bell. Red told Woolf you get ahead and the let Seabiscuit see the other horses eye and he will make sure he wins and he did by 4 lengths. The whole country took sides and rumours filled press. War Admirals jockey said I got him to look at the Seabiscuit's eye but it did not help, instead it upset the horse.
Horses win a race by a nose, a head, a neck or half length, length which is approximately 8 feet or 2.4 meters an approx. measurement from nose to tail. Seabiscuit was retired in 1940 at the age of 6 most race horses don't run beyond 5 years. None of Seabiscuits offspring were very good racers.
Only later did the Jockeys organize a fund for hurt members and Red suffered from pain and alcoholism and lived to the age of 70.
In 1938 with war looming in Europe the articles that filled the US press most was about the racing horse Seabiscuit.
Lou Gehrig leading baseball player for the Yankees. Died in 1941 aged 38 was a smaller press story.
Charles Howard had set up a bicycle shop but people who had just bought cars never knew how to fix them and so came to him. He got a Buick dealership from Will Durand in Detroit and had 3 cars.
1906 April 18 the great earthquake/fire of San Francisco and the horses panicked but his 3 cars were used as ambulances. To advertise he became a car racer. He gave free lesson on driving to buyers and took horses are a trade in and got GM dealership and was the biggest car seller in the world.
1928 after his son died in an accident, paid for a hospital to be build in Willits.
1920 Prohibition and all closed on Sundays so people crossed the border to Mexico to Tijuana.
1933 Wagering on horses legalized in California
1900 Tom Smith had made a good living taming mustangs and selling them to the British cavalry for the Boer War.
Red Pollard loved horses and literature and had Shakespeare and poetry books with him but was too active to do formal studying. Many of the jockeys were underage orphans either abandoned or ran away from their families. Few had decent schooling. They had to starve themselves to keep their weight down and many wrecked their health through malnutrition as a result, and their mental stability. They had not health care many got hurt and had no friend to get them to hospital. If they fell off a horse they could be crushed by those following. The boss would look at a teenagers foot size as he did not want to invest into somebody who would grow too big.
1934 In Tijuana an enormous pile of muck taken out of the stable and never removed was flooded into the race course destroying it. At the same time Mexico stopped horse racing where a long time revolution was still going on.
Smith recognised that Seabiscuit sired by Hard Tack was a leading racer that nobody could control and were terrified of , he immediately brought in Pumpkin to be a companion and worked on him. Most horses can lock their knees and sleep standing up not this horse that slept on the bedding. Grog was also an offspring of Hard Tack and acted as a Seabiscuit double to distract the press. In one race a stone shot up from a horse hoof hit Reds right eye and he became blind there but kept it a secret.
Before 1936 people who owned radios in rural areas spent a lot on batteries but after1936 electrification was brought to these areas, also cars had radios and radios became cheap so 90% of the population were connected by 1939.
1937 Samuel Riddler was the most important horse owner with Man-O-War but when it was 3 years old he refused to allow it to run with an impost/handicap and used it to breed War Admiral. Alfred Vanderbilt heir to the Railway company as well as the Bromo Seltzer fortune. His father died on the torpedoed Lusitania 1915. He used his fortune to get controlling share of Pimlico Race Course Baltimore.
There was supposed to be a race where Seabiscuit would be against War Admiral but it was wet and Red road a horse suited to a slow course. there was an accident and he was run over and broke ribs and shoulder. Woolf took over as Jockey lacked the fine skill for this peculiar horse and came 2nd. Red recovered and returned to the job did a friend a favour by taking his horse for a run and this horse bolted and caused Red to break his leg badly.
A race was set up between Seabiscuit and War Admiral. It was a low wager and not in the starter stall but using a bell. Red told Woolf you get ahead and the let Seabiscuit see the other horses eye and he will make sure he wins and he did by 4 lengths. The whole country took sides and rumours filled press. War Admirals jockey said I got him to look at the Seabiscuit's eye but it did not help, instead it upset the horse.
Horses win a race by a nose, a head, a neck or half length, length which is approximately 8 feet or 2.4 meters an approx. measurement from nose to tail. Seabiscuit was retired in 1940 at the age of 6 most race horses don't run beyond 5 years. None of Seabiscuits offspring were very good racers.
Only later did the Jockeys organize a fund for hurt members and Red suffered from pain and alcoholism and lived to the age of 70.
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Captain Bligh’s Portable Nightmare by John Toohey 1998 , 214pg
Captain Bligh was an importand part of British Naval History. 26/8/17
With the Mutiny of the bounty Captain Bligh was forced into a boat 1789. They had come from Tahiti where they got breadfruit plants to take to the slave islands
Now we read about Bligh’s experience background that he was ships Master under Captain Cook because he was an excellent cartographer. Up till then many exploration ships had gone out and few had returned till Cook took out the Discovery. On the Bounty was a 23 feet long sloop for research into rivers designed to carry 10 but the mutineers put all 19 that they did not like. To measure the boats speed you through out a log with a knotted string thus the terms log and knots. On this launch was the most skilled part of the crew. They calculated to get to their destination it would take 42 days. Plain sailing can be at the equator where the world map is square between longitude and latitude but further north or south the quadrants have a different shape. They travelled from Tofoa to Timor 3400 miles past the Great Barrier Reef.
John Ruskin painted a portrait of Bligh. He had a wife and 4 daughters, and was not interested in the free women on the islands. Cook was of Scottish background he and Bligh were connected to the great thinkers of the time like Bentham.
The diet in England was so bad as well as alcoholism, so that when sailors were only a few days on the ships they suffered scurvy. The 18 survivors had had a healthy diet and were not suffering from bad nutrition only hunger. Much of the journey it rained which was better than being dry as they had water. By soaking cloths in sea water it dries out quicker. When a big bird landed on their mast and they caught it the captain divided it up in equal portions, one person faces away and allocates the pieces blindly to each person so that nobody can argue that they lost out. They stopped at an island where they were able to replenish their water and found mussels and birds that they ate and left it before the warring natives arrived. They eventually arrived at Timor where Bligh met the Dutch governor who was dying of tropical disease and in a worse state than him. They took a ship to Batavia (Jacarta today) and waited for a Dutch convey of ships who travelled through the pirate infested strait and returned to Europe. A few of the survivors died of tropical diseases in Batavia.
Very few other men at he time had the skill to navigate and survive a journey like this. This was a period when there were a number of mutinies in the British Navy and at the time of the French Revolution.
On the 2nd breadfruit voyage Mathew Flinders learned from Bligh and he followed up developing cartography of Tasmania. The breadfruit projects failed.
1810 Flinders wrote the Voyage of Terra Australis .
1801 Bligh later commanded a ship at the Battle of Copenhagen against Norway/Denmark
1806 was governor of New South Wales to clean up the rum trade. The Bounty story is very much part of the history of the British Navy and of exploration of he world.
With the Mutiny of the bounty Captain Bligh was forced into a boat 1789. They had come from Tahiti where they got breadfruit plants to take to the slave islands
Now we read about Bligh’s experience background that he was ships Master under Captain Cook because he was an excellent cartographer. Up till then many exploration ships had gone out and few had returned till Cook took out the Discovery. On the Bounty was a 23 feet long sloop for research into rivers designed to carry 10 but the mutineers put all 19 that they did not like. To measure the boats speed you through out a log with a knotted string thus the terms log and knots. On this launch was the most skilled part of the crew. They calculated to get to their destination it would take 42 days. Plain sailing can be at the equator where the world map is square between longitude and latitude but further north or south the quadrants have a different shape. They travelled from Tofoa to Timor 3400 miles past the Great Barrier Reef.
John Ruskin painted a portrait of Bligh. He had a wife and 4 daughters, and was not interested in the free women on the islands. Cook was of Scottish background he and Bligh were connected to the great thinkers of the time like Bentham.
The diet in England was so bad as well as alcoholism, so that when sailors were only a few days on the ships they suffered scurvy. The 18 survivors had had a healthy diet and were not suffering from bad nutrition only hunger. Much of the journey it rained which was better than being dry as they had water. By soaking cloths in sea water it dries out quicker. When a big bird landed on their mast and they caught it the captain divided it up in equal portions, one person faces away and allocates the pieces blindly to each person so that nobody can argue that they lost out. They stopped at an island where they were able to replenish their water and found mussels and birds that they ate and left it before the warring natives arrived. They eventually arrived at Timor where Bligh met the Dutch governor who was dying of tropical disease and in a worse state than him. They took a ship to Batavia (Jacarta today) and waited for a Dutch convey of ships who travelled through the pirate infested strait and returned to Europe. A few of the survivors died of tropical diseases in Batavia.
Very few other men at he time had the skill to navigate and survive a journey like this. This was a period when there were a number of mutinies in the British Navy and at the time of the French Revolution.
On the 2nd breadfruit voyage Mathew Flinders learned from Bligh and he followed up developing cartography of Tasmania. The breadfruit projects failed.
1810 Flinders wrote the Voyage of Terra Australis .
1801 Bligh later commanded a ship at the Battle of Copenhagen against Norway/Denmark
1806 was governor of New South Wales to clean up the rum trade. The Bounty story is very much part of the history of the British Navy and of exploration of he world.
Putin’s and the Rise of Russia by Michael Stuermer 2008 228pp
Putin and his Russia 16/3/17
Putin was born in Leningrad in 1952.
1999 Secretary of Security, 2000 appointed Premier and the President.
2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine
2008 Medvedev become President.
Russia has a population of 140 million of them 20 million are Muslims.
Churchill 1940 " I cannot forecast to you the actions of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery , inside an enigma- The key is the national interests of Russia.
In 2007 Putin stated that while the Russian were in turmoil the West took advantage, taking over Eastern Europe and NATO moved in. Russia gave support to the west on 9/11. Russia was always the protector of the Serbs against the Moslems. Putin did not like the missiles in Chzeck Republic and Poland but encouraged missiles in Azerbaijan as the same missiles that could threaten Israel could hit Russia. Russia considers herself European and would prefer the US as a partner to the growing threat of mainland China. Russia is traumatized by 10 years’ war in Afghanistan and jihadist from Chechnya.
Putin after university joined the KGB and was able to travel abroad. He was in Dresden in 1985 and saw the East German state crumbling and knew the same forces that tore the Warsaw Pact apart would affect the Soviets.
East Germany "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"
In 1982 East Germany asked and received a billion Deutschmark loan.
Between 1992 and 1994 the Russian currency lost a third of its value. The public wanted democratization and reform but were not ready for the transitional hardship.
In 1997 the Russian coffers were empty and the price of oil fell very low. You had the Serbian crises with NATO getting involved and the problems of northern Caucuses. Luckily the price of oil recovered in 1999 saving Russia. Chechen Rebels wanted to make an Islamic State there and with all these crises Putin was needed as a savior.
In 2000 at a think tank in Germany, Putin spoke of the 20 million Russians on the wrong side of the borders in Ukraine and this is a causes belli. Russia’s strength is in gas and oil but that it's a weakness also. For Putin democratization is destabilization. Most men in Russia die in their mid-50s of alcoholism or work accidents from alcoholism.
Putin’s PhD is in Russia’s oil security. The Tsarist symbols have returned as well as uniforms of the Presidential guards and Putin considers the communist period as wasted years.
In 1982 in the Lebanon War, Israel shot down over 70 Russian Migs,
In 1985 with the Iran Iraq war, America persuaded Saudi to open the oil flow and once oil was cheap Iran had to sue for peace as she could not finance the war.
Every chapter starts with an epigraph taken from the Marquis de Custine's classic travelogue. “Russia is where you can do the greatest things with the most insignificant results.
In 2000 when the Kursk submarine exploded the admirals tried to hide the truth from the Kremlin, then the families, then the public or the world. Russia today has to reduce her army from a mass conscription one to a high tech one and its biggest enemy is terrorism. If the Orthodox church gets an official position then Islam will also revive itself.
Gazprom get 60% of its revenue from Europe, 30% from the CIS 10% it also has shares in the pipelines between Belgium and Britain and Netherlands. It is a secretive company and as a monopoly is risky for foreign companies. Western companies bought oil fields in Siberia at a time when the Soviets were weak. Now the Kremlin pushed them out . Gas is in big demand as it is clean energy. Gazprom is building a pipeline to China and India.
Gazprom operated Zenit St Petersburg football club. It controls newspapers, TV and even internet. After the Orange Revolution in Ukraine they put the price up of gas and got Europe worried not only for Ukraine but European gas security. Energy could be used as an instrument to punish unwilling neighbours, or discounts for co-operation. Energy is a political tool. Gazprom and Rosneft have to be state monopolies as energy prices fluctuate. A cartel has been formed with Algeria and Katar perhaps Iran also.
The Stalinism period is not discussed publicly yet, by neither the victims nor the perpetrators only privately.
In a country where the treasury is filled by oil revenues and not much by taxpayers democracy can’t work. Russian businessmen try investing abroad as they don't feel secure with what Putin’s government might extort from them.
The 3 day war against Georgia has shown that NATO and the EU will have to keep their distance and Putin has drawn a red line. The gas pipeline through Georgia won't be built and Putin can deal with Europe each country separately. The EU's economic clout does not translate into political power.
Putin was born in Leningrad in 1952.
1999 Secretary of Security, 2000 appointed Premier and the President.
2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine
2008 Medvedev become President.
Russia has a population of 140 million of them 20 million are Muslims.
Churchill 1940 " I cannot forecast to you the actions of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery , inside an enigma- The key is the national interests of Russia.
In 2007 Putin stated that while the Russian were in turmoil the West took advantage, taking over Eastern Europe and NATO moved in. Russia gave support to the west on 9/11. Russia was always the protector of the Serbs against the Moslems. Putin did not like the missiles in Chzeck Republic and Poland but encouraged missiles in Azerbaijan as the same missiles that could threaten Israel could hit Russia. Russia considers herself European and would prefer the US as a partner to the growing threat of mainland China. Russia is traumatized by 10 years’ war in Afghanistan and jihadist from Chechnya.
Putin after university joined the KGB and was able to travel abroad. He was in Dresden in 1985 and saw the East German state crumbling and knew the same forces that tore the Warsaw Pact apart would affect the Soviets.
East Germany "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us"
In 1982 East Germany asked and received a billion Deutschmark loan.
Between 1992 and 1994 the Russian currency lost a third of its value. The public wanted democratization and reform but were not ready for the transitional hardship.
In 1997 the Russian coffers were empty and the price of oil fell very low. You had the Serbian crises with NATO getting involved and the problems of northern Caucuses. Luckily the price of oil recovered in 1999 saving Russia. Chechen Rebels wanted to make an Islamic State there and with all these crises Putin was needed as a savior.
In 2000 at a think tank in Germany, Putin spoke of the 20 million Russians on the wrong side of the borders in Ukraine and this is a causes belli. Russia’s strength is in gas and oil but that it's a weakness also. For Putin democratization is destabilization. Most men in Russia die in their mid-50s of alcoholism or work accidents from alcoholism.
Putin’s PhD is in Russia’s oil security. The Tsarist symbols have returned as well as uniforms of the Presidential guards and Putin considers the communist period as wasted years.
In 1982 in the Lebanon War, Israel shot down over 70 Russian Migs,
In 1985 with the Iran Iraq war, America persuaded Saudi to open the oil flow and once oil was cheap Iran had to sue for peace as she could not finance the war.
Every chapter starts with an epigraph taken from the Marquis de Custine's classic travelogue. “Russia is where you can do the greatest things with the most insignificant results.
In 2000 when the Kursk submarine exploded the admirals tried to hide the truth from the Kremlin, then the families, then the public or the world. Russia today has to reduce her army from a mass conscription one to a high tech one and its biggest enemy is terrorism. If the Orthodox church gets an official position then Islam will also revive itself.
Gazprom get 60% of its revenue from Europe, 30% from the CIS 10% it also has shares in the pipelines between Belgium and Britain and Netherlands. It is a secretive company and as a monopoly is risky for foreign companies. Western companies bought oil fields in Siberia at a time when the Soviets were weak. Now the Kremlin pushed them out . Gas is in big demand as it is clean energy. Gazprom is building a pipeline to China and India.
Gazprom operated Zenit St Petersburg football club. It controls newspapers, TV and even internet. After the Orange Revolution in Ukraine they put the price up of gas and got Europe worried not only for Ukraine but European gas security. Energy could be used as an instrument to punish unwilling neighbours, or discounts for co-operation. Energy is a political tool. Gazprom and Rosneft have to be state monopolies as energy prices fluctuate. A cartel has been formed with Algeria and Katar perhaps Iran also.
The Stalinism period is not discussed publicly yet, by neither the victims nor the perpetrators only privately.
In a country where the treasury is filled by oil revenues and not much by taxpayers democracy can’t work. Russian businessmen try investing abroad as they don't feel secure with what Putin’s government might extort from them.
The 3 day war against Georgia has shown that NATO and the EU will have to keep their distance and Putin has drawn a red line. The gas pipeline through Georgia won't be built and Putin can deal with Europe each country separately. The EU's economic clout does not translate into political power.
Friday, March 20, 2020
The Brigade: An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and WWII by Howard Blum 2002 260pg
The Jewish Brigade in WW2 18/1/17
We read a narrative given by 3 soldiers Israel Carmi, Johanan Peltz and Arie Pinchuk woven into the story of the Jewish Brigades 5000 soldiers recruited in Palestine. Ben Gurion wanted Jews to learn the skills of war but the British saw a problem and only after Normandy did Churchill arrange for them to go into battle in Europe. They were kept training in Benghazi and at the time realized that the British were more interested in keeping Jewish fighters out of Palestine until the were shipped to Italy.
In central Italy they were based in Fiuggi for winter and training Bernard Caspar was the army chaplain there, he later became chief Rabbi of South Africa. From Ravenna, River Sieno they were on the front against the Germans who were under Kesselring's command.
Haim Laskov was one of the officers there later became the 2nd Chief of Staff of IDF. Italy capitulated and later Germany and they were based in Tarvisio from where they met Jewish refugees coming out of Austria and reporting on the holocaust. Carmi and Peltz describe going into Austria and later Germany and must have executed about 300 Nazis.
Abba Kovno leader of the Vilna partisans and later Hebrew poet wanted to mass murder Germans and they met him in Tarvisio Italy. Moshe Sharett visited them also he later became the 2nd Israeli PM
They now started working with the Jewish agency to bring refugees to Italy and from there on to Palestine, while the British tried to stop them. The brigade was now transferred to Belgium to get them away from helping the refugees but they were still involved as well as gun running. The British decided to return the Brigade home in June 1946. Carmi organized that 138 refugees would be trained and took papers of Brigade soldiers thus becoming their doubles and put on the ships to Palestine. Those left behind got new documents from the Hagana. Soldiers returned home were ready to fight in Israel's War of Independence.
We read a narrative given by 3 soldiers Israel Carmi, Johanan Peltz and Arie Pinchuk woven into the story of the Jewish Brigades 5000 soldiers recruited in Palestine. Ben Gurion wanted Jews to learn the skills of war but the British saw a problem and only after Normandy did Churchill arrange for them to go into battle in Europe. They were kept training in Benghazi and at the time realized that the British were more interested in keeping Jewish fighters out of Palestine until the were shipped to Italy.
In central Italy they were based in Fiuggi for winter and training Bernard Caspar was the army chaplain there, he later became chief Rabbi of South Africa. From Ravenna, River Sieno they were on the front against the Germans who were under Kesselring's command.
Haim Laskov was one of the officers there later became the 2nd Chief of Staff of IDF. Italy capitulated and later Germany and they were based in Tarvisio from where they met Jewish refugees coming out of Austria and reporting on the holocaust. Carmi and Peltz describe going into Austria and later Germany and must have executed about 300 Nazis.
Abba Kovno leader of the Vilna partisans and later Hebrew poet wanted to mass murder Germans and they met him in Tarvisio Italy. Moshe Sharett visited them also he later became the 2nd Israeli PM
They now started working with the Jewish agency to bring refugees to Italy and from there on to Palestine, while the British tried to stop them. The brigade was now transferred to Belgium to get them away from helping the refugees but they were still involved as well as gun running. The British decided to return the Brigade home in June 1946. Carmi organized that 138 refugees would be trained and took papers of Brigade soldiers thus becoming their doubles and put on the ships to Palestine. Those left behind got new documents from the Hagana. Soldiers returned home were ready to fight in Israel's War of Independence.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
In Enemy Hands, South African POWS in WW2 by Karen Horn 2015 257pg
WW2 South Africans Prisoners of War in Germany 11/3/18
The memories of the Boer war 1900 still divided the country with some "bittereinders" (bitter enders) moving off to Patagonia and the States, Tanganyika . The hansoppers (capitulators) were prepared to be a British Dominion.
WW1 Smuts and Botha drove the Germans out of SWA.
Oswald Pirow the Minister of Defence was pro Nazi and SA exported wool to Germany and bought Junker planes for SA Airways. Robey Leibbrandt was a SA Olympic boxing champion 1936 recruited by Germany to assassinate Smuts.
By the end of the WW2, 334 324 soldiers had served in the Union of South Africa Defense Force of them 16 430 were captured or reported missing. Because of the tensions of Afrikaner nationalism all South Africans were volunteers.
They ended up in the army for a number of reasons, some it was a job and they never thought they would leave SA, others affected by the depression found their farms did not pay others because friends had volunteered. Volunteers wore a red tab that was called "rooiluis" by those against the British in the end the UDF was almost equally divided by the 2 language groups. They had signed up to fight in Africa to defend SA.
When they arrived in the Italian colonies Eritrea , Somalia, Abyssinia they won the battles easily their biggest problem was the sand and flies. When later on in Libya they fought the Germans they realized their lack of experience. The soldiers taken directly to Libya had even less experience. Auxiliaries were volunteer coloureds running a kitchen who had been given captured Italian rifles for self defense this was objected to by the authorities.
1942 General Dan Pienaar was in a plane that crashed returning to SA after he had driven out the Italian, he had the potential to be Smut's successor.
--
They fought with outdated weapons and tactics against a highly organized Afrika Corp. Even the Germans knew about the Smuts or Hertzog affiliates. S A General Klopper was in charge of Tobruk but under Atchinleck with indecision taking its toll losing the battle. Even when they capitulated the soldiers didn't know it, they could have tried to escape and would not have been deserters. Here a third of the captured were South African. We read about the thirst, hunger marches and crowded POW camps in Bengazi with dysentery. Kloppers was exonerated and later head of the SA Army. Sir Villiers de Graaf was also captured.
---
They were shipped to Italy and arrived with few warm cloths and lots of lice. Without Red Cross parcels they would have starved, their Italian guards did not eat much better than the POWs.
As prisoners there was resentment to the SA soldiers when it was heard that Grobbler capitulated at Tabruk but this really came across from the German propaganda as it was a time Germany were losing at Stalingrad.
When Italy capitulated POWs were free to escape but were told to wait in the camps. This appears to have been false German information. Over 700 escaped into Switzerland , others met up with the invading forces at Anzio.
The POWs were loaded onto trains and taken through the Bremen Pass to Landsdorf, Upper Silesia which today is part of Poland. SA prisoners were chosen to work in agriculture as they were more adapt to it and so were able to get some food out in the fields.
When the Russians started attacking from the east they were marched westwards for weeks and saw the Allied planes carpet bombing German cities before the Americans arrived.
They travelled in Britain and a compound was set up for S. Africans near Briton. They were given a free train pass to have a tour as it took about 4 months to organize ships to get them home.
Back home returning Afrikaans soldiers had very poor recognition especially POWs some returned to Ossawabrandwag neighbourhoods, so their stories were not told.
The Nationalist Party came to power in 1948 and Smuts died in 1950
The memories of the Boer war 1900 still divided the country with some "bittereinders" (bitter enders) moving off to Patagonia and the States, Tanganyika . The hansoppers (capitulators) were prepared to be a British Dominion.
WW1 Smuts and Botha drove the Germans out of SWA.
Oswald Pirow the Minister of Defence was pro Nazi and SA exported wool to Germany and bought Junker planes for SA Airways. Robey Leibbrandt was a SA Olympic boxing champion 1936 recruited by Germany to assassinate Smuts.
By the end of the WW2, 334 324 soldiers had served in the Union of South Africa Defense Force of them 16 430 were captured or reported missing. Because of the tensions of Afrikaner nationalism all South Africans were volunteers.
They ended up in the army for a number of reasons, some it was a job and they never thought they would leave SA, others affected by the depression found their farms did not pay others because friends had volunteered. Volunteers wore a red tab that was called "rooiluis" by those against the British in the end the UDF was almost equally divided by the 2 language groups. They had signed up to fight in Africa to defend SA.
When they arrived in the Italian colonies Eritrea , Somalia, Abyssinia they won the battles easily their biggest problem was the sand and flies. When later on in Libya they fought the Germans they realized their lack of experience. The soldiers taken directly to Libya had even less experience. Auxiliaries were volunteer coloureds running a kitchen who had been given captured Italian rifles for self defense this was objected to by the authorities.
1942 General Dan Pienaar was in a plane that crashed returning to SA after he had driven out the Italian, he had the potential to be Smut's successor.
--
They fought with outdated weapons and tactics against a highly organized Afrika Corp. Even the Germans knew about the Smuts or Hertzog affiliates. S A General Klopper was in charge of Tobruk but under Atchinleck with indecision taking its toll losing the battle. Even when they capitulated the soldiers didn't know it, they could have tried to escape and would not have been deserters. Here a third of the captured were South African. We read about the thirst, hunger marches and crowded POW camps in Bengazi with dysentery. Kloppers was exonerated and later head of the SA Army. Sir Villiers de Graaf was also captured.
---
They were shipped to Italy and arrived with few warm cloths and lots of lice. Without Red Cross parcels they would have starved, their Italian guards did not eat much better than the POWs.
As prisoners there was resentment to the SA soldiers when it was heard that Grobbler capitulated at Tabruk but this really came across from the German propaganda as it was a time Germany were losing at Stalingrad.
When Italy capitulated POWs were free to escape but were told to wait in the camps. This appears to have been false German information. Over 700 escaped into Switzerland , others met up with the invading forces at Anzio.
The POWs were loaded onto trains and taken through the Bremen Pass to Landsdorf, Upper Silesia which today is part of Poland. SA prisoners were chosen to work in agriculture as they were more adapt to it and so were able to get some food out in the fields.
When the Russians started attacking from the east they were marched westwards for weeks and saw the Allied planes carpet bombing German cities before the Americans arrived.
They travelled in Britain and a compound was set up for S. Africans near Briton. They were given a free train pass to have a tour as it took about 4 months to organize ships to get them home.
Back home returning Afrikaans soldiers had very poor recognition especially POWs some returned to Ossawabrandwag neighbourhoods, so their stories were not told.
The Nationalist Party came to power in 1948 and Smuts died in 1950
_____________________________________
My father's memoir "HIllies War from Rommel to Patton" by Hillel Feldman is on Amazon, covered this whole period, there were a lot more stories he told us but did not mention in the book that he heard about from others.. My father actually saw Rommel who spoke to them in a good English and later saw Patton going past.
1)A ship San Sabastian was torpedoed and the Italian sailors abandoned it, prisoners went into the galley and enjoyed good food while the ship eventually reached a Greek beach.2) A few Russians escaped their camps and were hidden amongst the S. Africans. 3)Soldiers sent off to be recruited into the German Army had some good food and suffered lesson on Nazi dogma and then were returned to their Stalag.VIIB at Landsdorf. He said these were mostly Irish.
My father's memoir "HIllies War from Rommel to Patton" by Hillel Feldman is on Amazon, covered this whole period, there were a lot more stories he told us but did not mention in the book that he heard about from others.. My father actually saw Rommel who spoke to them in a good English and later saw Patton going past.
1)A ship San Sabastian was torpedoed and the Italian sailors abandoned it, prisoners went into the galley and enjoyed good food while the ship eventually reached a Greek beach.2) A few Russians escaped their camps and were hidden amongst the S. Africans. 3)Soldiers sent off to be recruited into the German Army had some good food and suffered lesson on Nazi dogma and then were returned to their Stalag.VIIB at Landsdorf. He said these were mostly Irish.
___________________________________________________
A Soldier and his Diary by Harris Green 2020 190pg 3/12/23
This is a diary written by (Solly) Solaman Green of the Third Field Engineers of the S. African Army. In was written from January 1942 to May 30th 1942. Born in Cape Town to Harris and Leah in 1911 to Polish Jewish parents who had arrived there in 1902. The author knew about this diary and years later edited this book from it.
The SA army at the time consisted of 5,353 regulars and another 14,000 Active Citizen Force. Mostly volunteers 135,000 Whites fought in the North African Campaigns. Another 70,000 non whites served as laborers transport driver and stretcher bearers.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has records of 11,023 SA soldiers who died in WW2. that is more than 5% of those enlisted. In 1939 Solly volunteered to served and was trained at Zonderwater, near Pretoria.
From South Africa the troops were taken by ship north along the East Coast of Africa to Egypt. Then traveled westwards along the Mediterranean coast of Egypt to Bug Bug, Sallim, Halfafa pass, Mersa Matruh,Sidi Barrani, Fort Capuszzi, Then in Libya Acroma Derna, Bardia, El adem . Bomba, Tobruk, Bir Hakeim and finally Gazala
1942,1st June during the Battle of Gazala he had to detonate a minefield and accidently suffered sever injuries. He was evacuated and via Tobruk and Cairo and put on a hospital ship Llandovery Castle back to South Africa. Gazala is on the coast 60 km west of Tobruk.
Once Rommel defeated the British at this battle Tobruk fell to him later. This was the greatest achievement of Rommel and he was made Field Marshal from this victory.
Harris was discharged from service Jun 1943. He returned to his old job at a lower salary as he was not the same man that left. Later a friend hired him "for what he is and not for what he was."
The Woolworth Diary has adverts of the well know products sold in SA at the time Describes The Union of South Africa as a British Dominion with a population of 6,530,649. Most of the other soldiers with Solly were taken prisoner and spent time in Italy as POWs.
Most history books are written by historians and are based on research by statesmen and career officer, they saw the war from the top down while the fighting soldier saw it from the bottom up
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
A novel history of Egypt The Photographers Wife by Robert Sole 1996 312pg
The Photographers Wife by Robert Sole 1996 312pg written in French 31/5/19
This is an extraordinary novel in that it gives the historic backround to Egypt in this period, with well researched facts.
Milo Touta meets Dora on vacation at the beach in Alexandria and the marry and live in Cairo in 1891.They were both Syrian Christians living in Egypt. Dora was an artist and Milo askes her to colour some of the portraits. At first she rejects the idea but as she has little else to do takes it up. She reads up all she can of photography, starts on landscapes. These families Syrian Christian, Aramaic speakers and took on French rather than Arabic at the time.
Napoleon set up French rule in Egypt but not Upper Egypt 1798 to 1801. In 1882 the British took control there. Whereas French language and culture was looked up to the British and English language were not.
1867 to 1914 Khedivate of Ottomans (viceroy) Taxes were paid to Turkey.
1805 to 1848 Mohommad Ali
1879 to1892 Tewfiq. British came in to keep him in power against rebels. Died of renal failure.
In late 1895 Oresto Baratieri led a force of 20,000 Italian troops and Eritrean Ascari are overwhelmed by Ethiopian forces.
The book teaches us about photography at its early stages and why photos were always posed.
1892 till 1914 Abbas HilmeII educated in Vienna. On a tour the young Khedive said that the Egyptian army parade was a disgrace and Kitchener threatened to resign as a result, the Khedive made a apology and the problem was solved. Sir Evelyn Baring - Earl of Cromer was the British Consul.
Gordon had been sent to evacuate Kartumn but got their too late and made a 9 month stand and was defeated as reinforcement never arrived. The Mahdi ruled Sudan and they discus that Britain will have to take over there as a foreign power there can control the Nile. Sir Reginald Wingate a Scot, fought there. Orde Wingate was a cousin once removed of his.
You had the British Army and the Army of Occupation controlled by the British.
Rudolf Slatin an Austrian who fought for Britain in Sudan and surrendered to the Mahdi in1883 and escaped in 1995.got title Slatin Pasha and fought under Kitchener against the Mahdi. He wrote a book on these 12 years.
1894=1896 Hamidian Massacres. Under Sultan Abdul Hamid ll mainly Armenians but also Assyrians and other Christians were massacred by the Ottomans in Turkey.
1894 Dreyfus trial is talked about.
1895 Tram system installed in Cairo by a Belgium company.
Railway track build in Sudan by the British to join the 2 loops of the Nile to bring supplies for war against the Mahdi. Locals who are in clans against the Mahdi are hired and slave girls are found them as wives. British slowly work along and destroy the Dervishes.
1898 Captain Jean Batiste Marchant with 20 French officers and 130 Senegalese troops -the Fashado incident. Kitchener arrived with 5 ships of troops and the French had to back down. France was very preoccupied in the Dreyfus scandal and they were already worried about Germany.
Dora becomes a superb photographer and the business begins to flourish she has 3 daughters but her role as a professional women is problematic. His family have an annual photo together and he takes one then she does - her less formal one is far better. A portrait of hers is entered in a Paris competition and wins. Dora manages to get a picture of Nonna (Milo's mother) and she likes it. The Kedive sends a message for them and they take his photo and are allowed to market it. Then Lord Cromer the Consul (the real ruler of Egypt) invites her to take his photo which surprisingly they manage to market.
Milo feels overshadowed by his successful wife. She has a friend Isis who is French woman doctor and they have a lot in common. Miro now has a mistress a French woman.
Milo comes home drunk they have an argument and she takes the girls to her family and she takes the job that she been offered previously as a photographer of the Semaphore to report on Sudan. Kitchener has gone south to fight the Boer War and Reginald Wingate is in charge. Her friend William is in the Sudan and she meets up with him. Her pictures are seen in the Cairo press. Nonna the family matriarch dies. The book ending is not clear, but Milo and Dora really did love each other
We read that Khartoum was destroyed when Gordon was defeated in 1883. Across the river at Omdurman the Mahdi set up his capital where he died. Kitchener had to destroy his tomb otherwise he would have been considered scared of the dead Mahdi. The British redesigned Khartoum and Syrian and Greek merchants were already there. Wingate took over as Governor of Sudan.
In Paris the Metro is opened 1900 for the Paris World Fair
Cod :the fish that changed the world by Mark Kurlansky 1997,238pg
Fishing and how it influenced history 14/9/19
This starts in Newfoundland fishing in Petty Bay or Pettit from the French. Once there were so many fish it was free for all then, licences were introduced and gill nets banned but less and less cod was available also other fish vanished and whales stopped feeding in the area. This was the nearest part of America to Ireland and north of the river with Irish Catholics while south Protestants but now they cross the bridge and integrated. The fishermen were doing research on cod and caught 100 fish that weighed 365 pound 10 years earlier a hundred fish would have weight many times more and of the 100 only 2 were 7years old and ready to breed.
The book describes the Basques who live in 4 Spanish and 3 French provinces and went out and found a source of ready dried cod which must have been Newfoundland before Columbus as well as the discovery of Greenland. Cod is white because it is passive and only has enough energy to grab a piece of food. When caught they don't have energy to wriggle. Of a million eggs only about 2 survive and they shelter in the bottom close to shore. They live where the cold Atlantic current meet warmer water along the Great Banks and the are omnivorous. Because of the Catholic church eating fish on Friday and lent that is about 100 non meat days in the year. This resulted in a market for fish throughout Europe. Stock (stick) fish was dried in the winter cold. Salt fish came about where they had access to salt.
In the battle for Quebec both the British James Wolfe and French Marquis de Montcalm died in the Battle of Abraham Plains and the French were defeated. After this the British allowed France to keep the Isle of Guadeloupe but did not want them in North America, ended in Peace of Paris 1863.
They only allowed them to use the north of Newfoundland to land their fishing. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia never developed as they had scarce population and summer was the fishing season so they could not do agriculture at the same time. The result that New England became wealthy. The sugar islands needed food to feed slaves and they bought salted cod and paid in sugar molasses and rum till rum was produced in Boston.
A hundred years before the American Revolution, Boston was selling cod and trading directly with the French both in the Carribean and Europe as the Bristol merchants could not take all the cod. This was given as an example of free trade by Adam Smith. There was clandestine dealing in immoral slave trade as part of a fish, sugar, slave triangle but this was kept out of records.
During the Amreican Revolution, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia developed as cod came directly from them to England. The American troops had a good supply of food but not sufficient boots and clothes while the British troops were well clad but short of food.
The fishing was the most dangerous job at the time as men went out on dory boat from the main ship and got lost in fog, fell overboard or lost toes and fingers to frostbite. While the fish season was on they worked so many hours that they lacked sleep. Only after WW2 that fishing was really modernized with factory ship and mechanical engines instead of sails.
In 1946 Clarence Birdseye mastered the technique of blast freezing and then then factories started freezing fillets and sawing them up into fish fingers. This led to an enormous demand and salt fish was no longer wanted. Huge factory trawlers with nets dragged along by 2 boats resulted in the sea floor turning into a dessert and many undesirable fish were simply returned to the sea dead.
Aldous Huxley believed that the more you fished the more fish would replace them but by 1902 the British saw they had less fish and boats went to Icelandic shores. Iceland fishing methods had not advanced and most fishing was done off parts of the coast without harbours.
Governments encourage fishing fleets as they trained sailors and with WW2 the fishing fleet was taken to serve the war effort. For 6 years very little fishing was done and Iceland became the only supplier of fish as well as cod liver oil that was given out at schools , was used till 1970. In 1944 Iceland negotiated independence from Denmark and after the war declared and extra 2 mile fishing territory. The 3 mile limit had been establish in 1822 the rest of the sea was considered free for all. Iceland now was a wealthy country also mentioned by WH Auden the poet who taught there.
In 1945 Harry Truman declared that the continental shelf belong to the USA to protect US oil but most fishing takes place on continental shelves.
The book tells us it was Jews who started selling take away fried fish but later on the working man's meal was fish and chips either cod or haddock till this ended in about the 1980s when the price went up.
Eventually a 200 mile fishing zone was declared and Iceland controlled her fishing. Canada and Newfoundland the authorities never had the will to close down fishing and quotas did more harm than good as cheaper fish were thrown back but were already dead. There were always years when the cod disappeared possibly to move to the changing zone where the hot and cold water meet but would return. Suddenly they never returned and other species have replaced them. In 1933 the filleting machine was invented and fish that in the past that were dumped were now marketed. US fishing moved to the Pacific and Alaska.
There can be a number of reason for the permanent disappearance of cod on the Grand Banks, the ecology changed other predators replace them or ate their eggs. Cod farming has been tried but salmon is far more successful. However this leads to a problem that the farmed fish have a different genetic make up to the natural surviving fry.
Iceland and Britain had 3 Cod Wars 1958,1972,1975 Nobody was killed but the Iceland Navy cut off nets of trawlers and boarded ships and impounded them. Both countries were NATO members and Iceland won the battle. Hull, Grimsby and Fleetwood were the most affected towns and fishermen were laid off and paid out compensation in England. Fish and chip shops ended and collagen sausage casing were invented to become the replaced cheap food.
From Gloucester Mass. near Cape Cod fishermen turned to other trades like taking tourist out to see whales.
This starts in Newfoundland fishing in Petty Bay or Pettit from the French. Once there were so many fish it was free for all then, licences were introduced and gill nets banned but less and less cod was available also other fish vanished and whales stopped feeding in the area. This was the nearest part of America to Ireland and north of the river with Irish Catholics while south Protestants but now they cross the bridge and integrated. The fishermen were doing research on cod and caught 100 fish that weighed 365 pound 10 years earlier a hundred fish would have weight many times more and of the 100 only 2 were 7years old and ready to breed.
The book describes the Basques who live in 4 Spanish and 3 French provinces and went out and found a source of ready dried cod which must have been Newfoundland before Columbus as well as the discovery of Greenland. Cod is white because it is passive and only has enough energy to grab a piece of food. When caught they don't have energy to wriggle. Of a million eggs only about 2 survive and they shelter in the bottom close to shore. They live where the cold Atlantic current meet warmer water along the Great Banks and the are omnivorous. Because of the Catholic church eating fish on Friday and lent that is about 100 non meat days in the year. This resulted in a market for fish throughout Europe. Stock (stick) fish was dried in the winter cold. Salt fish came about where they had access to salt.
In the battle for Quebec both the British James Wolfe and French Marquis de Montcalm died in the Battle of Abraham Plains and the French were defeated. After this the British allowed France to keep the Isle of Guadeloupe but did not want them in North America, ended in Peace of Paris 1863.
They only allowed them to use the north of Newfoundland to land their fishing. Newfoundland and Nova Scotia never developed as they had scarce population and summer was the fishing season so they could not do agriculture at the same time. The result that New England became wealthy. The sugar islands needed food to feed slaves and they bought salted cod and paid in sugar molasses and rum till rum was produced in Boston.
A hundred years before the American Revolution, Boston was selling cod and trading directly with the French both in the Carribean and Europe as the Bristol merchants could not take all the cod. This was given as an example of free trade by Adam Smith. There was clandestine dealing in immoral slave trade as part of a fish, sugar, slave triangle but this was kept out of records.
During the Amreican Revolution, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia developed as cod came directly from them to England. The American troops had a good supply of food but not sufficient boots and clothes while the British troops were well clad but short of food.
The fishing was the most dangerous job at the time as men went out on dory boat from the main ship and got lost in fog, fell overboard or lost toes and fingers to frostbite. While the fish season was on they worked so many hours that they lacked sleep. Only after WW2 that fishing was really modernized with factory ship and mechanical engines instead of sails.
In 1946 Clarence Birdseye mastered the technique of blast freezing and then then factories started freezing fillets and sawing them up into fish fingers. This led to an enormous demand and salt fish was no longer wanted. Huge factory trawlers with nets dragged along by 2 boats resulted in the sea floor turning into a dessert and many undesirable fish were simply returned to the sea dead.
Aldous Huxley believed that the more you fished the more fish would replace them but by 1902 the British saw they had less fish and boats went to Icelandic shores. Iceland fishing methods had not advanced and most fishing was done off parts of the coast without harbours.
Governments encourage fishing fleets as they trained sailors and with WW2 the fishing fleet was taken to serve the war effort. For 6 years very little fishing was done and Iceland became the only supplier of fish as well as cod liver oil that was given out at schools , was used till 1970. In 1944 Iceland negotiated independence from Denmark and after the war declared and extra 2 mile fishing territory. The 3 mile limit had been establish in 1822 the rest of the sea was considered free for all. Iceland now was a wealthy country also mentioned by WH Auden the poet who taught there.
In 1945 Harry Truman declared that the continental shelf belong to the USA to protect US oil but most fishing takes place on continental shelves.
The book tells us it was Jews who started selling take away fried fish but later on the working man's meal was fish and chips either cod or haddock till this ended in about the 1980s when the price went up.
Eventually a 200 mile fishing zone was declared and Iceland controlled her fishing. Canada and Newfoundland the authorities never had the will to close down fishing and quotas did more harm than good as cheaper fish were thrown back but were already dead. There were always years when the cod disappeared possibly to move to the changing zone where the hot and cold water meet but would return. Suddenly they never returned and other species have replaced them. In 1933 the filleting machine was invented and fish that in the past that were dumped were now marketed. US fishing moved to the Pacific and Alaska.
There can be a number of reason for the permanent disappearance of cod on the Grand Banks, the ecology changed other predators replace them or ate their eggs. Cod farming has been tried but salmon is far more successful. However this leads to a problem that the farmed fish have a different genetic make up to the natural surviving fry.
Iceland and Britain had 3 Cod Wars 1958,1972,1975 Nobody was killed but the Iceland Navy cut off nets of trawlers and boarded ships and impounded them. Both countries were NATO members and Iceland won the battle. Hull, Grimsby and Fleetwood were the most affected towns and fishermen were laid off and paid out compensation in England. Fish and chip shops ended and collagen sausage casing were invented to become the replaced cheap food.
From Gloucester Mass. near Cape Cod fishermen turned to other trades like taking tourist out to see whales.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
John Muir The ice that started a fire by Kim Heacox 2016 212pg
John Muir; The great American Naturalist 22/10/18
.This book is about the glaciologist, explorer, conservationist and writer John Muir and gives the background to the subject and interesting aspects of American history. Also our first cruise was to Alaska and I now understand what I saw better.
William Seward had been Lincoln Secretary of State and now he held the post under Andrew Johnson, He bough Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million under Alexander 2nd as Russia knew she could not defend the territory and needed the money after the Crimean War and the 1861 emancipation of serfs. The US was in a state of Reconstruction after the Civil War and were hard pressed for money and the sea otter for furs had mostly been hunted out leaving the territory little values and it was called Seward's Folly.
(1838 -1914)John Muir was born in southern Scotland in where there was a very literate population. The family moved to Wisconsin where from the age of 12 he worked the family farm and his father forced the bible on the family. This is about the first Alaska explorer with the missionary Young
Wordsworth's romantic poetry influenced them and showed God in nature. He influenced the preservation of the Lake District in England.
1871 Ralph Waldo Emerson met Muir at Yosemite and influenced him, in the same way as Emerson had met John Adams the 2nd President who had mentored him at Braintree in 1825.
1582 Edinburgh University had been established and in the Scottish Enlightenment of 18C had more students than Oxford Cambridge combined.
1619 Descartes Principia Philosophae was that man was above nature that must be subdued.
Francis Bacon " the world is made for man, not man for the world,
1620 The Mayflower arrived in New England and 200 years later most hardwood forests had been felled.
1770 James Cook circumnavigated the Antarctic.
1823 James Fenimore Cooper first novel The Pioneers followed by other novels on the early settlers of the East Coast.
1804 to 1806 Lewis and Clark expedition to that crossed to the Pacific Ocean.
1826 George Catlin an artist in the west commented on the destruction of the Indians and bison.
1843 John James Audubon wrote about the destruction of the bison.
1863 the Civil war had killed 625 000 Americans, and the whole Southern way of life had been destroyed. Lincoln had explained that the whole country had profited from slavery now the trend was to conquer the west.
1872 Yellowstone made a national park under Ulysses Grant.
1883 Glacier Bay Alaska attracted tourists on ships.
1890 Yosemite made a national Park by President Benjamin Harrison to stop sheep grazing there and felling the trees.
1891 Boone and Crocket club set up in NY with Teddy Roosevelt to preserve the wild.
1892 Sierra Club set up in Berkley
Svante Arrhenius a Swedish scientist speculated on the "hydrocarbon Problem" and the CO2 effect on the air. He won the Noble Prize for science in 1903 for work on conductivity.
1893 Chicago World Fair the hamburger and Ragtime music of Scot Joplin, a smallpox epidemic, internal combustion engine alternate current, originate here.
Fredrich Turner wrote a thesis titled "With the American Frontier gone'.
1896 Klondike Gold Rush portrayed by Jack London. John Nordstrom a Swede made money here and set up department stores all over the USA.
1899 Edward Harriman (father of Averell Harriman) wealthy road and rail magnet chartered a ship George W Elder and took American greatest scientists including John Muir on a 2 month expedition to Alaska - it took these scientist years to document what they had studied there. After an earthquake later that year Glacial Bay was inaccessible due to ice that had broken off. The lengthening and receding of glaciers is understood today to be relevant to sea temperature.
1901 Teddy Roosevelt becomes president and received Booker T Washington as the first black guest to the White House.
1903 in Florida the first Bird Preserve made. Wright Brothers aeroplane, trans Atlantic radio transmissions.
John Muir toured India and Egypt but avoided the Holy Land as there was a cholera epidemic.
1906 American Antiquities Act protected the Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon Park, Olympus National Park
Earthquake destroys San Francisco.
1919 Grand Canyon becomes a national park
A kilo of oil can produce twice the energy of a kilo of coal.
Mark Twain lived from Haley's Comet in1835 to Haley's Comet 1910 75 years
1980 Jimmy Carter made large parts of Alaska a national park.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
.This book is about the glaciologist, explorer, conservationist and writer John Muir and gives the background to the subject and interesting aspects of American history. Also our first cruise was to Alaska and I now understand what I saw better.
William Seward had been Lincoln Secretary of State and now he held the post under Andrew Johnson, He bough Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million under Alexander 2nd as Russia knew she could not defend the territory and needed the money after the Crimean War and the 1861 emancipation of serfs. The US was in a state of Reconstruction after the Civil War and were hard pressed for money and the sea otter for furs had mostly been hunted out leaving the territory little values and it was called Seward's Folly.
(1838 -1914)John Muir was born in southern Scotland in where there was a very literate population. The family moved to Wisconsin where from the age of 12 he worked the family farm and his father forced the bible on the family. This is about the first Alaska explorer with the missionary Young
Wordsworth's romantic poetry influenced them and showed God in nature. He influenced the preservation of the Lake District in England.
1871 Ralph Waldo Emerson met Muir at Yosemite and influenced him, in the same way as Emerson had met John Adams the 2nd President who had mentored him at Braintree in 1825.
1582 Edinburgh University had been established and in the Scottish Enlightenment of 18C had more students than Oxford Cambridge combined.
1619 Descartes Principia Philosophae was that man was above nature that must be subdued.
Francis Bacon " the world is made for man, not man for the world,
1620 The Mayflower arrived in New England and 200 years later most hardwood forests had been felled.
1770 James Cook circumnavigated the Antarctic.
1823 James Fenimore Cooper first novel The Pioneers followed by other novels on the early settlers of the East Coast.
1804 to 1806 Lewis and Clark expedition to that crossed to the Pacific Ocean.
1826 George Catlin an artist in the west commented on the destruction of the Indians and bison.
1843 John James Audubon wrote about the destruction of the bison.
1863 the Civil war had killed 625 000 Americans, and the whole Southern way of life had been destroyed. Lincoln had explained that the whole country had profited from slavery now the trend was to conquer the west.
1872 Yellowstone made a national park under Ulysses Grant.
1883 Glacier Bay Alaska attracted tourists on ships.
1890 Yosemite made a national Park by President Benjamin Harrison to stop sheep grazing there and felling the trees.
1891 Boone and Crocket club set up in NY with Teddy Roosevelt to preserve the wild.
1892 Sierra Club set up in Berkley
Svante Arrhenius a Swedish scientist speculated on the "hydrocarbon Problem" and the CO2 effect on the air. He won the Noble Prize for science in 1903 for work on conductivity.
1893 Chicago World Fair the hamburger and Ragtime music of Scot Joplin, a smallpox epidemic, internal combustion engine alternate current, originate here.
Fredrich Turner wrote a thesis titled "With the American Frontier gone'.
1896 Klondike Gold Rush portrayed by Jack London. John Nordstrom a Swede made money here and set up department stores all over the USA.
1899 Edward Harriman (father of Averell Harriman) wealthy road and rail magnet chartered a ship George W Elder and took American greatest scientists including John Muir on a 2 month expedition to Alaska - it took these scientist years to document what they had studied there. After an earthquake later that year Glacial Bay was inaccessible due to ice that had broken off. The lengthening and receding of glaciers is understood today to be relevant to sea temperature.
1901 Teddy Roosevelt becomes president and received Booker T Washington as the first black guest to the White House.
1903 in Florida the first Bird Preserve made. Wright Brothers aeroplane, trans Atlantic radio transmissions.
John Muir toured India and Egypt but avoided the Holy Land as there was a cholera epidemic.
1906 American Antiquities Act protected the Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon Park, Olympus National Park
Earthquake destroys San Francisco.
1919 Grand Canyon becomes a national park
A kilo of oil can produce twice the energy of a kilo of coal.
Mark Twain lived from Haley's Comet in1835 to Haley's Comet 1910 75 years
1980 Jimmy Carter made large parts of Alaska a national park.
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Sunday, March 15, 2020
Crazy Horse and Custer: The parallel lives of 2 American Worriers by Steven E Ambrose.2014 490pg
Crazy Horse and Custer: American History15/3/20
Both Custer and Crazy Horse were recognized as leaders by the age of 24, neither were drinkers and both were avid hunters. They met only twice - on the banks of the Yellowstone in 1873 and at Little Bighorn in 1876.
In the great plains grasses send down roots 24 inches to withstand the drought, and provide nutritious plant food and the buffalos provided an inexhaustible supply of meat. Kansas alone had 12 million and they provided meat, clothing and shelter and droppings fed campfires. Horses only arrived in the south US in 1690 and till then Indians lived sedentary lives on corn squash and beans.
With their endurable pintos they could make a travois and move around the plains. The Sioux only acquired horses in 1776, it also became a medium of exchange and wealth. Pemmican was made from buffalos meat. Whiskey dominated the fur trade but they also wanted coffee, metal and guns.. Indians fought for prestige and loot.
James Fenimore Cooper gave a romantic view of the red man.
1839 George Armstrong Custer born in New Brumley, Ohio where there was a big mix of immigrants and Calvinism had a great influence. Nowhere was success as great as in America where a mans property was secure in law and customs. Anything in the way of progress had to be destroyed, first the forest for agriculture and then the Indians. Free land was of central importance to the American way of life and taking the continent was their manifest destiny and the Bible went hand in hand with ambition.
1840.Oregon Trail opened. Public education was set up in Ohio. With American history, the Revolution and Constitution emphasised. Custer's favourite reading was military fiction and got into Westpoint getting free higher education. Navel collage was an alternate for boys without money.
1857 Custer aged 17 arrived in Westpoint the most advance engineering school in the US and graduated in July1861. This way a poor boy mixed in circles like the Vanderbilt's and du Ponts. Some southerners resigned to join the Confederates.
1845 the first white soldiers seen on Sioux country and by 1849 cholera , smallpox, measles arrived. Indians spoke different dialect but had a common sign language. At fort Laramie you had Indians receiving supplies annually to pacify them.
The Oregon Trail was the road west and Indians attacked wagon caravans and stagecoaches. During the 4 civil war years the army was not in this area and the Oglalas Sioux and the Shoshonis and had the finest hunting season and they stayed mostly in the Powder River region and kept out of the way of whites and European sicknesses .. Everyone who wanted to avoid the civil war headed west along the Holy Road (Oregon Trial) Even though young braves wanted goods and they could steal and big American horses, guns and cattle.
Only the worst officers left over from the Civil War were sent to serve on the Plains, and they ended up killing friendlies making the rest more hostile. Indians knew the terrain, could live off the country, were more mobile and had the inactive.
1865 Gold had been found in Montana and whites wanted the shortest road there the Bozeman Trail.
A peace treaty was signed letting Americans open roads in the Powder River country. In Washington it was thought that it would be cheaper through bribery than war but no hostile Sioux signed.
1861 Custer was with Mc Dowel in the Battle of Bull Run. He always had amazing good health.
1862 Custer was under Mc Clellen in the army of the Potomac who was replaced by Burnside.
1863 June, Robert E Lee invaded the north As the battles go fiercer political appointees dropped out an West Pointers took their places.
1863 Sep. Custer was pictured on Harpers Weekly as a national hero.
He led a Brigade in the Battle of Gettysburg and cut his way out of the battle of Brandy Station. At the end of the war he was in the van of the force that cut Lee off from his supplies.
Custer was only 25 at Appomattox for him the war had been fun, and he fraternized with his rebel friend now.
1864 He married Libby Bacon in Monroe who devoted 12 years of married life to Custer and then 57 years of widowhood to her husbands legasy She wrote Boots and Saddles: life in Dakota with General Custer. To satisfy her father he pledged not to drink or swear and he kept this pledge. He now became a major general.
Discipline is what makes an army and civilization.
During the Civil War 267 soldiers of Union Army were executed a third of them for rape the others for desertion.
Sherman was sent to protect the railways and it was cheaper to buy their way out of a war with the Indians but not enough money was allocated. Only the Powder River Sioux were an obstacle and the army started building forts before they had a peace treaty and Red Cloud stormed out of the council at Fort Laramie. Red Cloud between 1866-68 allied Indian forces for a 3 year campaign.
Fettleman was enticed by decoys to Lodge Trail Ridge and ambushed killing 81 soldiers.
1867 Custer got his first command on the Great Plains his first post war assignment had been to accompany Sheridan to Texas where the last rebel force surrendered and to deal with Emperor Maximilian's French troops in Mexico.
Wild Bill Hickock taught Custer a lot about the Indians. Many of the men who joined the army did it to get free tranport west and then deserted to work on mines. The unemployed in the cities were recruited by the army so drunks criminals and deadbeats. Henry Morton Stanley was a leading reporter in this area. Later known for finding Livingstone in Africa.
Sherman ordered Custer to kill Indians and bring in women and children. Sherman's contribution to the Civil War was cutting off the enemies resources and the coming of the railways would meant the end of the Indian way of life. In 10 year the number of buffalo were reduced from 50 million to less than 1000 by 1888. Buffalo hunters not the army cleared the Indians off the plains. Whites could think of only 2 solution civilization or extermination of the Indians. They di not follow a policy of genocide.
The government provide them with ploughs wagons, oxen and the Sioux agreed to education of their children between ages 6 and 16 to Christianize and modernize them.
Custer was successful in attacking the Indian camps in winter but extended winter campaigning was impossible as the horses had no food.
1870 When Red Cloud was taken to Washington and NY her was awestruck and put away his worrier clothing.
1869 till 1877 Ulysses Grant was a Republican President.
1876 the Cheyenne's and Sioux came to the closest united front against the whites under Crazy Horse. He defeated Lieutenant George Crook who survived at the Battle of the Rosebud as he was expecting them to attack and flee and not counterattack.
The Indians moved the camp to Little Bighorn Valley, Montana. Later Custer Cavalry were armed with 1873 model of the Springfield .45-70s Custer took the 7th Cavalry 611 men and wanted to get the Indians before they fled so left the heavy Gatling guns behind. He did not want to share his glory and wanted to be the Democratic candidate for president.
Crazy horse had 3000 warriors the movement of the Indian camps and the marks of the travois looked like a wide stretch of ploughed fields. Custer ended up doing exactly as the Indians expected him to do. Reno and his troops were meant to charge from the flank but did not and Crazy Horse knew no to chase them. 1 in 5 Indians had Winchesters. In 20 minutes the Indians wiped out Custer and 225 soldiers who had been marching all night. Custer was not only outnumbered, outflanked but outgeneraled. Sioux losses were 40 dead. Thus Crazy Horse had defeated Fetterman, Crook and Custer.
The next winter was extremely cold and with no hunting territory left the Indians had to come in and the Indian agent were now controlled by the army.
1877 Crazy Horse was stabbed to death in Fort Robinson while with Little Big Man. Controversial about wanting to escape?
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