How anti-semitism influences our music taste?
(1791–1864). The archetypal composer of French grand opera. Meyerbeer's huge extravaganzas such as Les Hugeunots and Le Propheta were immensely popular in their day. All the great opera singers sang in his opera's at the time when he was a great celebrity. 1678 Antonia Vivaldi's works were never known until the Four Seasons was played in the 20C and then his other compositions which might only have been known in Venice were discovered. Meyerbeer was well known till WW1 and extremely famous till his memory was deliberately erased while Vivaldi was accidently forgotten. Meyerbeer died in Paris and a special train and pomp with royalty took him back to the Prussian capital Berlin for burial. Frederick William II King of Prussia 1786- 1798 liberalized the country to develop the economy and allowed Jews rights. Meyerbeer was educated in Hebrew studies by a Haskala supporting private tutor, and he remained a Jew all his life. 1814-1815 His first opera launch in Vienne was badly timed as Beethoven Fidelio had just had its premier. He spent 9 years in Italy and there took on the name Geocoma from Rossini. He was commissioned to write 2 operas for La Scala 1820. 1923 Rossini invited him to Paris, Where the put on Italian Opera. his music influence Belzan and Alexander Duma pere used some of his ideas in the Count of Monty Cristo. In France he produced operas in French. Robert and Clara Schumann were such anti-Semites and spoke against him while Franze Liszt who wrote piano compositions based on Meyerbeer’s grand operas and went out of his way to defend his honor. Mendelsohn exhibited many examples of anti-Semitism embarrassed of having a Jewish grandfather. Richard Wagner was such a prominent musician and an anti-Semite that critics wouldn't contradict him of what he said about Meyerbeer’s music, he knew how to use antisemitism of others to promote his aims and music. Meyerbeer's got the reputation of music in bad taste.This blog is about the History books that I have read and notes on new interesting facts that I have learned. This is not a book review.
Friday, December 17, 2021
Geocoma Meyerbeer: The deliberately forgotten Composer by David Faiman 2020 215pg 1/8/21
Monday, August 9, 2021
Frozen Hell: The Russo- Finnish War of 1939-40 by William R. Trotter 2000 270pg
The Winter War 9/8/21
Between the Gulf of
Finland and Lake Ladogo lies the Karelian Isthmus.
1703 May Peter the Great
selected the swampy, bug infested Delta to build a new Capital St. Petersburg.
More than 100,000 died
during the 10 years to build this city and now a quarter million Russians and
25,000 Fins died because Leningrad was so close to the Finish border.
1809 Finland was under
Swedish suzerainty till then. Military
service was a favorite rout of young Finns in the Tsarist army. Finland
as a part of the Russian Empire 1809–1917. Nicholas II in 1894 appointed Bobikov as Governor of
Finland and after that Finns could be conscripted unwillingly.
Sibelius’s Finlandia
roused nationalist fever and in 1904 Bobikov was assassinated on the steps of
the Senate in Helsinki.
1915-1916 Finns got
professional military training in Germany.
1917 Finish parliament
assumed responsibility for their affairs and Lenin who lacked troops recognized
Finnish neutrality. With German help the Reds in Finland surrendered and
the 1920 treaty of Tartu a state of peace was formally recognized between the
USSR and Finland.
The White Finnish Government
had allowed both Russian Whites and the British Navy to attack Bolshevik on the
Finnish coast. In the Petsamo region the Finns gave the British Empire
consortium a nickel mining concession. Both the Soviets and Germany
supported Scandinavian neutrality
1931 Finland’s various
Communist parties were outlawed, and by 1932 Finland’s flirtation with fascism
was over.
The Finns felt Stalin's
demands were a start for further appeasement. General Mannenheim tried to
make the politician see the truth. Stalin wanted land as a buffer zone. Such a
concession would surrender the Mannerheim line making Finland more vulnerable
to attack. Leningrad was the cultural heart of the communist state and
revolution as well as a major industrial center.
1939 Nov 26 First shots
fired.
Gustav Mannenheim was a
Swedish aristocrat in Finland and went to the Finnish corp of Cadets, but was
expelled from the corps for AWOL so he crossed the border to the Tsars Cavalry
School and became a lieutenant in 1989. He fought in the Russo- Japanese war.
Later was sent on a 9000 expedition to collect information on the topography of
the southern border and in that time he went to Lhasa and met the Dalia Lama.
He fought in WW1 and
hurt his leg and was in Odessa to recovery while the unit he was in was wiped
out.
He returned to Finland
when the Bolsheviks took over in Russia. He was “The Bloody Baron" against
Red supporters in Finland 80,thousand were rounded up and put
in a concentration camp. 10 thousand died in 6 months and 8 thousand were
executed by firing squad as part of the White Terror. His defeat of the Bolsheviks
got him an Iron Cross from Kaiser Wilhelm II.
1920 he set up the
Mannenheim Child Welfare and became chairman of Finnish Red Cross.
1931 became chairman of
the Finnish Defense council and in 1939 when he said they should give in
to Stalin’s demands was asked to retire but the war started before he stepped
down and appointed commander in chief.
He was born Swedish
speaking was fluent in Russian and French, could converse in English , Polish,
German but only started learning Finnish at the age of 50.
The Finnish campaign was
an embarrassment to the Russian officer class and 50 years later there is very
little of it written in Russian print. Russia planned to solve the war in 12 days;
she had the equipment to have her own version of a blitzkrieg. In the Red army
using individual unitive could lead to going to a gulag, and fighting was
overseen by inexperienced party ideologues. Into some of the densest forest
without accurate maps with heavy useless amour and their tanks were not painted
to suit the environment. Merekovs troops had to clear out the Finns in 2 weeks before
the subarctic winter could ruin the timetable
The Finns were made up
of troops from local areas similar to what they knew from childhood.
Mannenheim set ups his
headquarters in Mikkeli (St.Michael) from where he had run the war against the
Reds.
The Finns had a defense
Navy of 13 thousand men but Turku harbor was icebound at this time.
O W Kuusman was to be
Stalin puppet government to be head of Finland and he signed a treaty giving
Stalin every concession he asked for.
Tanks attacked without
infantry and got stuck on the defense rocks, and brave Finns could attack bombs
to the soft underbellies or attack them with. The Finns supply of guns and
weapons were limited and they had to use all sparingly. Thousands of civilians
of the Karelian isthmus had to be evacuated and their homes destroyed so as not
to provide the enemy with shelters. Buoyance charges were set to blow up the
ice below the tanks, which began to avoid the lakes which is what the Finns
wanted. The Finns laid large stretches of cellophane on the lakes so they
looked unfrozen. From the border to the Mannenheim line was 12 to 30 km
with troops and obstacles set up.
4 days before Christmas
was Stalin birthday he was not happy. Long slow trains, windows covered were
arriving in Leningrad full of maimed, starving, frostbitten Red Army troops.
They swamped the hospitals and the schools were used for the overflow. Voroshilov
said "you are the one to blame you killed the best Generals. 3 quarters of
the experienced professional leadership had been purged.
Samyon Timoshenko with
Georgi Zhukov his chief of staff were appointed to take over. 2,600
medals were awarded to the earlier troops. New tanks were brought in including
43 tons tanks with 76mm guns. Tanks were no allowed to outrun the infantry and
massing artillery to fire on concrete blockhouses. Russian forces could
be rotated when fatigued the Finns could not. The Russians broke through
with heavy fighting on 16 Feb 1940
The Finns were hoping to
hold out till the spring thaw turning the advance area into quagmire giving
them a greater negating position.
There were 8 thousand
Swedish volunteers and 800 Norwegians and Danes. From fascist Hungary a battalion
came. 350 Finnish Americans arrived via a Norwegian port. Sweden wanted to help
but her neutrality was very precarious. Fascist Italy gave a lot of moral
support
In NY Mayor le Guardia
held a "Help Finland" rally. Both Stokowski and Toscanini conducted benefit
concerts all of Sibelius music.
From refusing to meet Stalin’s
demands Finland paid a high price, they lost the Karelian Isthmus and the Rybachi
peninsula. The 105 day war, 24,923 Finns killed and 43557 wounded.
420,000 Finns lost their homes. The entire population at this time was under 4
million.
5000 Russain POW were
repatriated and sent to a Gulag by the White Sea, many interrogated and
then shot. Russia lost perhaps 270 thousand men and 300 thousand were wounded.
The Soviets reviewed the role of political commissars and reduced their
authority in battle.
In the Continuation War
Finland fought on the side of the Nazis. Thinking that Germany would be the
winner and they could regain their lost land. Mannenheim only allowed them to
advance to the old border. Both the Germans and the American believed that
Russia would collapse under the Germans in about 90 days, having seen the
example of the Red Army ciaos.
1944 Mannenheim
Became President of Finland. He died in 1951
Marshal Timoshenko later
showed Khrushchev they had detailed maps of the Mannenheim line made
before the war by the intelligence dept. but nobody bothered to ask for
them.
Thursday, August 5, 2021
Odessa: Genius and death in a City of Dreams by Charles King 2011 282pg
A very different Russian City 5/8/21
1876 Mark Twain saw Odessa and considered that it could be a US well run city with a multinational population. Only a few years later there was horrific anti-Semitic violence at that time a third of the population was Jewish. This ended up with the holocaust with the planned killing by the help of Nazi ally Romania.
Languages spoken Yiddish,
Greek, and Italian were the core with a Russian veneer over it.
1794 it was founded and
nurtured intellectuals and artists like Alexander Pushkin, Isaac Babel.
The Dnieper, Bug and
Danube river run into the Black Sea, and the origin population were Greco Scythian
tribes. Italian towns and cities flourished built on Greek foundations
and there were Tartars, Circassians, Georgians and other peoples, with Genoan
sailors and Florentine financiers and adventurers like Marco Polo passed
through.
The Tartars were the
remnants of Genghis Kahn’s empire.
Before it became Odessa
it was Khadjibey and parts were ceded to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
1453 The Ottomans
marched into Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire melted away and they also
took the Balkans. Khadjibey citizens didn't know that they were Ottoman
subjects.
1690 Peter the Great
tried to get the area for Russia without success.
1768 to 1774 Catherine the great in a series of wars took the area and massive ship building program was started.
Under George III of England 13 colonies were lost while Catherine was colonizing the Black Sea.
Potemkin engineered the
coup and Catherine deposed her husband the ineffective Tsar Peter III. Potemkin
established Black Sea arsenals along the coast and Sebastopol which remains the
seat of the Black Sea port. Germans, Albanians and Greeks were given privileges
to establish trading ports like Kerson and Nikolayev.
1787 the Ottomans wanted
the return of Crimea. The Russians hastily pressed and army including Jewish
lancer.
In the Russian navy John Paul
Jones the American hero volunteered but never spoke a foreign language and was
not very effective he ended up in Paris in pecuniary. Jose Ribas an
Italian noble from Naples that was under the bourbons dynasty,also fought for
Russia and became an admiral in their navy, he translated for Jones and is
mentioned in a Lord Byron poem.
1795 the town called
Khadjibey is named Odessa after Odysseus, the main road De'ribas'ovskaya name
after Ribas. Founded 3 years after Washington, DC. As an organized city, with a
theater and public schools. He became the Mayor of Odessa . 1801Tsar Paul who
was unpopular died in a palace coup and regicide he was followed by Nicholas 1
who wanted to drag Russia into modernity. The Napoleonic wars resulted in a
demand for all Black Sea grains.
Armand duc de Richelieu
the grandson of Cardinal Richelieu who had been Louis XIII chief minister fled
the revolution eastwards and 1803 named administrator of Odessa by the Tsar.
1812 large scale plague
cholera, whereas in the Rhineland Jews were blamed for the infectious
outbreaks, egalitarian Odessa took steps to deal with this. Italian was
the lingua franca and street signs were put up in Russian and Italian a tradition
that lasted long after Richelieu who retired in 1814.
1823 Mikhail Vorontsov
as a child went to London as his father was the Russian ambassador there bought
up estates near Odessa and was appointed Governor of New Russia.
1814 Greek patriots set
up Philika Hetairia to rally for Greek independence from the Ottomans. Dozens
of secret societies could operate in Odessa freely.
1821 Moldova and
Wallachia sparked a Christian uprising against the Ottomans in Balkans wars.
1827 Russia joined in a
destroyed the Ottoman - German fleet in the Battle of Navarino.
1840s by this time the
city had over 100 schools and private schools and 5000 students, founded by
Greek , German , Jewish and Armenian communities.
1854 Crimean War Britain
and France against Russia.
Odessa was a magnet for
Jews from other parts of Eastern Europe and Russia. Till the Nazi's it never
had a Jewish Ghetto or distinct Jewish quarter but wealth rather than religion
and ethnicity determined your neighborhood. By the 1860 there were 17000 Jews
about a quarter of the population. 90% of the grain traders were Jewish.
From the Pale, Jewish migration to other parts of the Russian Empire was
prohibited. This Yiddish speaking community had no great Rabbis, learned
scholars or mythical preachers.
Mendel Mocher-Sforim1836
to 1917, born in Minsk and got to Odessa in 1981 part of the Haskalah. Because
of the Russian Government lax enforcement on residency restrictions also
resulted in Jewish enlightenment here not the Judaism of the Pale. Maskilim
made their way to Odessa especially from Brody, Galicia.
1772 Galicia became part
of Austria and Brody was a free city except from many taxes and in Odessa they
established private schools that taught also Russian math’s, geography
bookkeeping. The maskilim took control Jewish affairs and their shul brought
about new cantorial lithergies.
Between 1790 and 1830
there were 5 separate outbreaks of plague.
1847 France Liszt gave a
series of piano recitals and Nikolai Gogol had a premier of his new play
"The Inspector General" in Odessa.
1908 Ilya Mechnikov at
was a university of Odessa and he later shared with Paul Erlich the Nobel Prize
for Physiology and Medicine.
1860 Ratzvet The first
Russian- Jewish periodical in the whole Empire.
1880 2/3 of registered
merchant and traders were Jewish, 3/4 of public houses, 2/3 veterinarians and
pharmacists
1871 1881 pogrom’s
against the Jews at a time when the city’s population was exploding and more
peasants were moving into the city, laws with a retreat from the
liberalism. Resulting in emigration and utopian movements of Zionism and
Russian social democracy.
1903 Kishinev pogroms in Maldavia.
1935 Jabotinsky wrote
The Five in Odessa in Russian which was translated into Hebrew in the
1940s but only in 2005 to Hebrew. Which portrays this movement against
liberalism. In the Moldovanka neighborhood he organized a storeroom in a house
with revolvers, crowbars and kitchen knives for Jews to fight back next time.
The Russo Japanese war
meant that the grain markets in the Far East dried up. This caused a decline in
the importance of Odessa to the Empire and the world. However many
soldiers and sailor came through the city to take ship to the battle in Japan.
1905 Mutinous Battleship
Potemkin
Shalom Aleichem, the Jewish
Russian historian Simon Dubnov and Leon Pinsker all lived near each other.
Isaac Babel the writer's father had a warehouse in Moldavanka , Odessa
was brought up on Talmudic reasoning and later moved to St. Petersburg where
he worked for Maxim Gorky. It was only found out during Gorbechov's glasnost
that he was shot in a Stalin Gulag in 1940.
1890s The Odessa
Committee was set up to support Jewish settlers in Palestine. It helped to establish Rehoboth and Hadera and rehabilitate Mismar Hayarden,
It was run by Leon Pinsker. It had as many as 4000 members and supported Hoveve
Tzion and closed in1913.
1911 -1913 2 Balkan
Wars. Sergei Eisenstein was not from Odessa but is known for the Odessa steps
even though the real massacre did not take place there.
1921 After the
revolution Chaim Bialic was hounded by the authorities he was a great pioneer
of Hebrew poetry and came to Palestine.
1929 Trotsky who had
been at St Paul’s school Odessa left from the city for exile, having gone from
revolutionary prophet to disgraced enemy of Stalin.
1937 to 1941
19361 Odessans workers, intellectuals and government officials were
arrested and a third of them were shot in the Stalinist purges.
1941 The NKVD
headquarters in Odessa was blown up by Stalin's secret police this killed
General Ion Glogojano and the Romanian occupation forces there, this was
the area of Romanian, Transnista over 220000 Jews were killed by Romanians on
the way to the ghettoes and concentration camps set up in Soviet Russia. There
was no large scale removal of Jews from Romania itself but Bessarabia and
Transnistia this was something else. In this area the Romanian recruited police
amongst the local ethnic Germans.
Gheorghe Alexianu was
an obscure professor and Romania Nationalist and he was decorated by the
Papal Nuncio for his diligent management overseeing the deportations in this
new Romanian province. His job was to Romanize it.
As the Russians fled and those who knew what to expect of the Germans fled with them. Odessans were spread
as far afield as Uzbekistan. Even the trolley cars from Odessa were found to be
working in Romania.
1944 with th Soviets
pushing westwards the Romanian king Mihai overthrew Ion Antonescu and declared
Romania accession to the Allies. Where the Romanians withdrew from Odessa the
Germans took over.
Odessa was under
occupation for 907 days before the Soviet return, and the former
"fascist" enemy Romania became a socialist friend.
1947 the Soviet, installed the communists and king Mihai was forced to surrender his throne and
flee.
1950s synagogues that
reopened after the war were closed by the Soviets.
Leningrad held out
against the German siege for 2 and a half years, Sevastopol , 9 months
and Stalingrad eventually crushed the German army and these were
considered "hero cities"
Tashkent film Studios
became home of filmmakers and actors who evacuated.
1903 and 1905 As a result of the pogrom’s Jew emigrated to mostly the US and Brighton Beach was just developing and they went there instead of Delancy Street and the Lower East Side. Briton Beach theater which had vaudeville acts and specialized in Yiddish plays with Jacob Adler, Jenny Goldstein , David Kessler, composer Joseph Rumshinsky. After the holocaust further immigrants of Russian speaking Jews arrived and they are was called Little Odessa.
Wassily Kandinsky the
artist and Daniel Oistrakh the violinist were both raised in Odessa.
With the fall of the
Soviets the bust of Marx was substituted for the founder Catherine the
Great.
There were up to 70
thousand Jews in the Odessa region in 1989 most emigrated today perhaps 36
thousand left.
Saturday, July 17, 2021
The Duke : 100 Chapters on the life of Prince Phillip by Ian Lloyd 2021 300pg
Read only his background till he married Princess Elizabeth 80 pages 17/7/21
He worked in public life from 1952 to retirement in 2017 accompanying the Queen. In that time she made 266 visits to 116 countries.
1913 His
grandfather George I was assassinated in Greece.
Tragedy 1. In 1930 his
mother Princess Alice suffered from manic depression and was separated from her
only son for 7 years and his father left for the south of France with his
mistress.
Tragedy 2. George VI
died at the age of 56 so after only 4 years their marriage, Phillip had to give
up his navel career. 40 % of polled readers objected to Princess Elizabeth
marrying someone foreign, despite him having spent the whole of WW2 in the
British navy. He was called Phil the Greek even though he had not a drop of
Greek blood.
He was born Prince
Phillipos of Greece on the Island of Corfu. His father was Prince Andrew of
Denmark.
1967 Greek Royal family
were overthrown. His mother was 36 when he was born.
His mother Princess
Alice of Battenberg was Queen Victoria's daughter. Phillips family was royalty
on all sides whereas Elizabeth mother was a commoner. In childhood he
spoke English, French and German.
His aunt Princess George
was involved studying psychoanalysis, friendly with Sigmund Freud and paid
to send Phillip and his sisters to private schools in Paris.
1907 Marie married
Phillips uncle Prince George who had in 1891 saved Prince later Tsar Nicholas
II from being assassinated in Otsu Japan with his walking stick.
1919 -1920 As a result
of the Greek Turkish War his father Prince Andrew was exiled from his
homeland.
1937 Phillips sister
Cecile, husband, 2 sons died in an air crash. Phillip was at the funeral with
his 3 remaining sisters and brother in laws and a man in a SS uniform and other as a storm
trooper. Herman Goring was in the procession. Philip’s younger sister Sophie
was married to Prince Christoph of Hesse and friends of Goring. A number of
relatives were members of the Nazi party.
1948 Phillips 3
sisters were not invited to the wedding but in 1953 were invited to the
Coronation and sat in the Royal box with their mother Princess Alice behind the
Queen mother and Princess Margaret.
Louis Mountbatten was murdered
2 years before Charles married Diana Spencer
From 1933 aged 9 to 1947
aged 28 Phillip had no permanent family home.
1941 March Italy's
greatest defeat in WW2 off Cape Mattapan was Prince Phillip greatest hour. In 5
minutes Admiral Cunningham’s crews sunk 3 heavy Italian cruisers, 2
battleships, 2300 Italian troops killed and 1015 captured. Bletchley Park
had tipped them off and the British had radar that the Italian did not have.
1942 Prince Arthur was
the last of Victoria’s sons, her 7th child who died at the age of 91, he had
been in the navy for 40 years.
1945Phillip was on HMS
Wager that was next to the USS Missouri where Japan signed the surrender.
1947 King, Queen and 2
princesses returned from their tour of South Africa.
1947 July official announcement
of Phillip Elizabeth engagement.
Monday, July 5, 2021
Alone Britain Churchill and Dunkirk: Defeat into Victory by Michael Korda 2019 462pg
Michael Korda was a child of 7 when the war began, he writes on the Korda family and their relationship with Churchill in the period when Britian fought Germany alone. 5/7/21
All wars occur from a succession of mistakes. Alexander Korda was a famous film director and producer his wife Merle Oberon a major movie star. Because they had come from Hungary which was under a dictator Miklos Horty's fascist regime, they had no difficulty understanding what Hitler stood for. There was a constant flow of refugees towards America with Alexander Korda's help.
His father was Vincent
Korda, screen designer and mother Gertrude Musgrove a London stage actress. The
third brother who worked with them was Zoltan. Alexander had a studio in Paris
and those who worked there also worked for M16. Alexander's years in Berlin
were his most productive and his friends included the pro-Nazi Leni Riefenstahl
and General Ernst Udet as well as anti-Nazis like Marlene Dietrich and Lotte Lenya.
Who married Kurt Weil who died in 1950. Otto Preminger and Billie Wilder were
part of the German film industry move to Paris then London then Hollywood.
French Filmmaker Georges Perinal and Rene Clair. Fleeing French Car Licenses showed how
far the German had advanced. The French air force disintegrated at once as
predicted by French political circles. German airplanes were immediately based
behind their troops. Petain was a pessimist, vain and disliked the British.
Mussolini calculated
that Germany would win the war and had to join to get the spoils.
The British army has no
term Private it has guardsman, gunners, sappers and rifleman or fusiliers. A
rifle or pistol are never called a gun.
Destroyers went to Ijmuiden
and brought the Dutch Royal Family as well as the gold reserves and a large
stock of diamonds from the Netherlands
Captain W. G Tennant was
sent to be the SNO at Dunkirk in charge of evacuation. Dunkirk survivors later
go a patch on their sleeve with the word Dunkirk. SS Totenkopf troops executed
French Moroccan troops.
Litvinov was a Jew
married to an English women and it would have been impossible for him to
negotiate with Hitler so Molotov was appointed by Stalin.
1939 August 23 Molotov Ribbentrop
Treaty. WW1 had cost France 1.35 million lives, so the Maginot line
and French Army was to prevent a war not win one, but this did not protect the
Ardennes Forest. France could mobilize 3 and a half million men. Birgen
Dahlerus a Swedish diplomat was supported by British to negotiate between
Poland and Germany, they did not know he had a German wife and was a friend of
Goring.
Reinhardt Heydrich SS
orchestrated Kristallnacht and in 1938 rounded up Jews after the Anschluss.
Chamberlain would fall
unless he could announce a ultimatum had been sent to Germany, the French also
did 2 hours later after trying to get Mussolini to intervene. Poland was
defeated in 8 weeks and the Phony War lasted 8 months
1941 Dec Hungary only
then joined the war. On the Axis side.
Belgium, Netherland were
neutral so foreign troops could not come to help till war was declared.
1939 March. Germany
occupied Prague, so Britain started war preparation.
Danzig had its own
currency, postage stamps and anthem.
In the Katyn forest 20,000 Polish officers were killed by the Soviets. Germany's program was to depopulate Poland and turn it into a German agricultural colony.
There was a air defense gun near
the London studio and Vincent used to go chat to the Polish manning it in his
Miklosdeutch. After the war a list was made public of the British citizens that
the Germans intended to round up immediately including the Korda family. When
the brothers argued in Hungarian nobody was informed what the conversation
was about.
Chamberlain had been
shamed into declaring war while the French were bullied to follow suit.
Churchill “History will judge me kindly for I shall write it". Hitler and Mussolini
did not live to write memoirs, Roosevelt and Stalin chose not to.
Professor Frederich
Lindman a scientist worked and advised Churchill directly.
1939 The British navy
was still the world largest and most powerful. 1700 letters written between
Churchill and Roosevelt during the war. De Gaul’s book on armored warfare
sold less than 700 in France while over 7000 in Germany. The tank a British
invention was not developed due to lack of funds and government policy to avoid
a continental war. German tanks had been tried out in the Spanish Civil War.
German tank warfare was
developed by Heinz Guderian, the crews must be able to communicate and receive
orders. Tanks had to keep moving at all costs as stationary they were
targets for artillery and airplanes.
Germany defeated Poland
by superior numbers 1and a half million against 950,000.
The French army was over
5 million strong under commander in chief Maurice Gamelin. His worst judgement
was that it would take the Germans 2 weeks to cross the Ardennes forest. The
Germans attacking Belgium, Holland automatically brought Britain into the war.
As neutral the Belgium and Dutch could not begin mobilizing their armies till
attacked. In 1914 Belgium had declared war on Germany slowing down their
advance by 3 weeks leading to the French victory at Marne. During the
occupation then, the Germans had deliberately burned down the University
liberary of Louvain.
The British liked French
General Georges but he had never fully recovered the wound received being next
to King Alexander of Yugoslavia’s assassination in Marseilles 1934.
The German attack had 3
and a half million men 3000 tanks and 3000 aircraft, the infantry followed
using half a million horses.
Since 1856 when the
Victoria Cross was given only1,358 recipients.
The RAF had no aircraft
suitable for dive-bombing nor pilots trained for it. 1940 was one of the
coldest winters in 100 years; the French army had a lack of enthusiasm for war
and were indifferent to sanitation and lived in filth. British troops were
better paid and looked after than the French and also had sports equipment to
keep healthy. Because of the widespread presents of prostitution condoms were
sold in the army canteen and soldiers were instructed how to use them. The
British Pioneers were convicts let out of jail to go to war they were not
trained or given rifles but brought to dig trenches.
Nearly half of Germanys
iron or came from Lulea and was transported to the Norwegian port of Narvik and
shipped to Germany.
In France Daladier was
replaced by Paul Reynaud. Both had mistresses and bitter rivalry between them.
In 48 hours every main
Norwegian port were in German hands. It had cost Germany10 destroyers and 3
warships damaging heavily the German navy. Pro German fascist government was
set up in Norway under Major Vidkun Quisling.
In WW2 Switzerland
Sweden Spain Portugal were neutral and the US until Dec7 1941.
Chamberlain had a
majority of 200 seats. He was criticized for missing the bus on Norway; this
lost him the loyalty of the party.
Leo Amery a Jew was one
of 4 conservative who protested on Chamberlain going to Munich. Chamberlain was
told to resign to be an example of the sacrifice to come.
1940 10 May phony war
ended with Germany's attack on Belgium Holland France. Holland opened the dykes
to flood the land and slow the Germans.
W.H. Thomson had been
Churchill bodyguard since 1921. It had taken Churchill 41 years in politics to
become PM. Sir Henry Strakosch was a SA Jewish banker financier, pushed against appeasement.
Churchill had supported
Edward VIII in marrying Mrs. Simpson and had not yet been forgiven by the Queen
1941 May 21 the German
ship Bismarck was sunk. After this the German specialized in Uboats.
German militaristic
boastful propaganda movies were never played in America.
In Belgium civilian
refugees were fleeing the fighting slowing down the advance of the British and
French armies while the Luftwaffe attacked them mercilessly. The French dependence
on telephones rather than radio cost hem dear.
The Belgium King had
been educated in Eton but failed to make a good impression on the English. The
lack of British Fighter aircraft would become a French explanation for the
failure. It was thought it would take the Germans 3 weeks to reach the Dyle
River they arrived in 4 days and they reached Sedan through the Ardennes in 2
days. The Meuse is north of the Dyle and this is where a stand was taken.
Rommel was neither a Nazi nor a Prussian. His breakout of the Ardennes was
north and not towards Paris as expected. Almost half the tanks used were taken
from Czechoslovakia. With the bridges destroyed on the Meuse soldiers could
walk across the weir but if it had been destroyed the upstream level would
have been fordable by the Germans.
1940 May 15 the
Netherlands surrendered. In Rotterdam 900 civilians killed and a firestorm
destroyed the city centre making 90,000 homeless. Belgium has 300 years of wars
with British graves left behind.
Ralph Richardson and Lawrence
Olivier became pilots till Churchill asked them to return to
acting. France lost most of her aircraft trying to bomb the bridges that
the German engineers were building. Britain had to keep her fighter squadrons
to fight the war alone. François Darlan never ceased to reminding people that
his grandfather had been killed by the English at Trafalgar, he later supported
the Vishy regime with people who admired Hitler. Joan of Arc was killed by the
English.
The Luftwaffe lost 1266
aircraft during the entire campaign 300 of them by accidents. US Ambassador
Joseph Kennedy was a tea totaler but owned a liquor company gave bad reports of
Churchill drinking, but these were ignored.
Germanys priority was
defeating the French army rather than dealing with the "pocket of the BEF. British Expedition Force.
The British counterattacked at Arras to get behind the tanks and in the gap and insert a wedge in the infantry
and this shocked Rommel, thinking it was a full scale counterattack, but Lord
Gort withdrew before British forces were surrounded.
4 VCs were awarded in
the Dunkirk retreat. Where circumstances put French and British together they
all fought bravely. Most British entered France through Boulogne, Calais and
Dunkirk so by the late 19C these all had signs in English and English style
pubs. The Dover Strait is 21 miles at its narrowest. Le Harve, Cherbourg or
Brest had bigger harbours. To Protect Dunkirk the Calais forces
under Brigadier Nicholson would not be withdrawn. Victory has
a hundred fathers defeat is an orphan.
The French divisions
behind the Maginot could have been flung against the Germans at this
point.
Vice Admiral Sir Bertram
Ramsey was in charge of Dover a month before he had all private boats
registered for "minesweeping duty" He later became Eisenhower
trusted planner in North African 1942 and Sicily 1943 and Normandy 1944.
He was brought out of retirement as a friend of Churchill. He gave thought to
the rescue of the BEF long before Lord Gort. The British Morris armored
car had been designed for warfare against dessert tribes. The French General
Waygand and Lord Gort failed to meet to agree on a plan.
If the German invaded
England, Dover would be attacked. During the war public were supposed to
use the phones as little as possible to leave the lines open for official use.
Robert Vansittart in the
Foreign Office was the most anti appeaser. Churchill “The nations which went
down fighting rose again, those who tamely surrendered were finished.
Sir Oswald Mosely -
British Fascist Party would be Hitler’s puppet, if Germany invaded. The
Fuhrer was a witness to his weddding to Diana Mitford in Berlin. They were both
imprisoned for much of the war.
At Dunkirk bad weather
and black smoke diminished the accuracy of the air attacks, and the beach sand
absorbed the bomb explosions. Many officers took the first chance to get boat
leaving soldiers unorganized. There was 12 miles of beach.
Both French and British
defenders kept the thin line of defense for 5 days. The navy lost 2 destroyers.
The wounded were embarked from the eastern mole of the harbour. Life
boats were formed into “trots” and towed out by a tug that avoided minefields
and taken right up to the beaches and load 30 soldiers and take them to bigger
boats and spent 3 days and night doing this till they were towed to Ramsgate.
The Dover Straits are shallow with sandbanks not suitable for U-boats to
hunt.
The French Vice Admiral
Jean Marie Abrial in Dunkirk was evacuated and returned to became a
collaborationist to Petain. Lord Gort got a firm order to return to England and
Major General Alexander took over, the one who later became a Field Marshall.
Hundreds of packets of cigarettes littered the NAAFI stores in Dunkirk. 860 vessels
of all kinds were used. 10% of privately owned boats were lost Navy seamen
"pull" oars while civilian "row" oars.
198 thousand British and
140 thousand French were evacuated except for 3000 French who chose to fight
for De Gaul the rest were repatriated to fight and ended up as POWs The ships
returned to get French defending soldiers but due to poor discipline, the
missed the ships and the ships missed them.
Hitler though that the
political crises would cause the right people to come to power in Britian that
would make peace.
Halifax was sent to be Ambassador
in Washington, Sir Samuel Hoare to Madrid and the Duke of Windsor (Edward
VIII)1 to the Bahamas to get rid of the remaining appeasers. 569 trains were
sent to collect the troops in Dover and most were routed around London.
1940 June 14, fall of Paris. The war cost France 90,000 dead, 2 million French became POW slave workers for 5 years about 10% of the male population .
1940July 4 the
destruction of the French fleet at Maers el Kebir in Morocco showed that
Churchill had decisive power.
1940 July to Sept the
Battle of Britain
Churchill and M16 wanted
Alexander Korda to produce movies that would be an American product and would
cause sympathy for the British cause. Both Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh
were under contract to Korda and made the movie "The Hamilton
Woman" At the London studio more workers were called up for military
service.
1941 Where Alexander
worked both his Vincent and uncle Zoltan worked and this was exactly the time
that the plan to evacuate children in the belief that they faced gigantic air
raids.
Operation Pied Piper.
Nearly 3 and a half million people were evacuated out of cities a scale better
suited to totalitarian regimes. Moved to places they were not wanted. Churchill
disliked this scheme. The writer's mother felt ashamed to be moving to Hollywood as if a
coward. Over 17000 children were sent by
their parents abroad (including historians Martin Gilbert,
Alistair Horne)when U boats were lurking around and 2 of these ships were
torpedoed. Anne Freud concluded that the separation of children and parent was
a worse shock for the children than the bombing.
1941 June 22, Hitler attacked the Soviets but till then
Britain stood alone.
1941 Dec Japan attacked
the USA. Hitler declared war on the USA.
Monday, June 14, 2021
A time to kill a time to heal by Yotam Degan 2021 178pg + notes on Start Up Nation
This is the story of the
Israeli SEAL fighters on Sea Air and Land.
The story starts on Kibbutz
Maagan Michael where in March 1978the terrorists entered Israel from the
beach killed Gail Ruben they walked past Yotam who remained hidden; he knew
that something was wrong as Israeli soldiers did not carry AK47. They hijacked
a bus and were eventually stopped in a shootout at the Country Club junction.
This was the Coastal Road massacre 1978 to derail the Begin Sadat talks and led
to the Litany War.
As a kid he spent a few years
in the States and so had full mastery of English and Hebrew.
Shayetet 13 is the
Israel navy Seals. The Israeli navy was set up to smuggle refugees from Europe
into Palestine under the British. The Ayalon Institute near Rechovot produced 4
million 9mm rounds produced clandestinely under the British, and this was vital
for the War of Independence after that they set up Maagan Michael and the fish
ponds in the swampy land near the beach.
You cannot used air
tanks when doing military diving as you bubble trail will be seen so you use a
rebreather, where chemicals filter out he CO2.
2 divers have a line
joining them so that if one is in stress the other can help but in rough sees
this line can break
1991. He left the army and did private diving
work but was called back when the gulf war began .
1999 studied and became
a clinical psychologist as the navy needed him in that role, he realized he had
to heal himself also and many soldiers become affected by post trauma syndrome.
He recommended that in
screening of new recruits less trainees and get a better success rate than the
30% who succeeded.
The Palmach founded by
the British Army, was the core of what later became the IDF and the always were
innovating.
The navy was involved in
Operation Moses to bring Ethiopian Jewry to Israel from a holiday base in
Sudan.
1974 Hostage crises
negotiation started to deal with the Maalot terrorist attack. 25 hostages
including 22 children were killed.
2000Oct till mid 2022
over 100 suicide bombers exploded in Israel.
2002 Apr the army attacked
the terrorist stronghold in Jenin where the suicide material was made and got
266 terrorist to surrender.
When you ascend from a
disable submarine one must just slowly empty your lungs otherwise you get
barotrauma and can burst your lungs. Training has to be done for this.
He dealt with the US
army veterans where more ex-soldiers died by their own hands than in battle
against the enemy from post trauma.
He happened to be
studying in Boston when the Marathon was attacked and was involved in helping
people in stress from the attack. When he was in the States he was involved
with traumatized people from the mass shooting, the nightclub in Orlando Florida
2017 and the Church in San Antonio 2018. He was asked to give an opinion
on Gun control he said a trained soldier does not go into a minefield.
Setting up NATAL in
Israel. Proactive Intervention for trauma.
The book ends in 2020
when they deal with people who lost loved ones in the Covid epidemic
A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr 2008 602 pgs.
16/4/24 This book is a social History of Britain from the end of the WW2 till the book was written. . I only made notes on the period en...
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Anglo American Palestine Commission of 1946 12/8/18 This book is both as history and tour or Eretz Israel at the time. In reading this...
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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 w...
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This is the story of the Israeli SEAL fighters on Sea Air and Land. 14/6/21 The story starts on Kibbutz Maagan Michael where in March 19...