Book Review: Battle Tactics of the Western Front by Paddy Griffith

Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army`s Art of Attack, 1916-18 by Paddy Griffith is a very interesting book. The premise is that despite what many historians have said about the inertia of the British Army in WWI and it’s resistance to tactical change, that is not true and the British were committed to innovation throughout the war in an effort to break the deadlock of the trenches. The book itself is not long, 219 pages of text including appendices. There are extensive endnotes and the bibliography is fairly extensive as well. The book is organized topically and though it purports to only deal with the developments of the … More after the Jump…

Women in Combat-Part 3

This is an issue I feel strongly about so every time there is a development I will be posting updates. The DoD has now announced there is a plan in place to see most jobs in the military that are currently barred to women opened by 2015.  Military plans would put women in most combat jobs  There was a briefing held on 18 June about the implementation plan; the transcript is here and video is below. . It seems that the US is going to push ahead with this plan.  My only hope is that it is implemented smartly without lowering standards in order to achieve some kind of quota of … More after the Jump…

Barbarossa/Eatern Front Timeline in WWII

Over the past few days I have had an email conversation with Mr. George Toomes, one of my readers, and he brought up a very interesting question. It started with asking if I had or knew where to find a map of the Russian counter-attack outside Moscow in the winter of 1941. In a follow up he mentioned that he was trying to get an idea of when and where the Germans and Russians stopped in their various offensives and counter-offensives in the war in the East. I don’t think I have ever seen a video or graphic that lays out the back and forth of the eastern front in … More after the Jump…

D-Day 69th Anniversary

Just a reminder for everyone to stop today and take a moment to reflect on the events that happened 68 years ago today on the shores of Normandy in France.   This is the day that the Allies opened up the long-awaited Second Front against Hitler’s Germany.   The invasion took place along almost 50 miles of French coast using five named invasion beaches.   From south to north the beaches were named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.   The first days objectives were not reached over most of the front and in many places it would take weeks to reach objectives that were supposed to have been taken … More after the Jump…

Book Review: July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin

I have probably read 30-40 books exploring the origins of World War I in the past 5-6 years and I thought that just about everything relevant there was to be known about the events of the month leading up to the war were known and historians have just been stirring the ashes and finding trivia in trying to determine a more accurate chain of causation. July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin disabused me of that notion.  This work has made me aware of several things about the critical month between the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the outbreak of World War I that I am amazed have not … More after the Jump…

Book Review: Death in the Baltic by Cathryn J. Prince

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author for purposes of reviewing it. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] The Wilhelm Gustloff was a German built pleasure ship built by the Nazis to bolster their public image both at home and abroad in the late 1930’s.  It is remembered today because when it was sunk by a Soviet submarine in early 1945 as it was evacuating civilians and wounded military personnel from East Prussia to Kiel its sinking became the ship sinking with the highest loss of life in recorded history.  Nobody knows for sure but … More after the Jump…

Margaret Thatcher Passes away

Margaret Thatcher  the famous Iron Lady of 1980’s Britain and only female Prime Minister in English History has passed away in London from an apparent stroke.  She will be remembered as one of the most effective Prime Ministers in British history.  Not least among her accomplishments was her steadfast opposition to the Soviets in partnership with Ronald Reagan and most notably to me her refusal to bow to Argentina and the way in which she prosecuted the 1982-1983 Falklands War to regain the islands after the Argentine’s invaded and seized them. I hope the British realize what a treasure they have lost and remember her fondly. May she Rest in Peace

Book Review: Dresden: A Survivor’s Story by Victor Gregg

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I received my copy of this book free from the author. I was not paid for this review and the opinion expressed is purely my own] Victor Gregg’s Dresden: A Survivor’s Story is a short work describing the author’s experience as  POW who got caught in Dresden in February, 1945 when the Allies bombed the city in what would become known as the Firebombing of Dresden.  The attack essentially destroyed the city center and killed an estimated 25,000 German’s.  Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the attacks that also discusses the controversy surrounding them that has grown up since the war.  To sum up the controversy, general anti-war people claim they were a crime and … More after the Jump…

Similarities Between the 1920’s and Today?

I am currently reading The Origins of the First World War (3rd Edition), during a pause in my reading I started thinking about not the origins of WWI but its results.  To say that the peace of Versailles was flawed is an understatement.  Given the unsettled economic situation of the Euro and the recently announced renunciation of deposit guarantees by the government of Cyprus I started to wonder if there are parallels between then and now despite the lack of a just concluded titanic war on the continent.  I think that the economics are similar, even to the extent of the various crises being self-inflicted wounds. There were many things wrong with the Treaty of Versailles but … More after the Jump…

Truth in Education and the Vietnam War

This post is a direct result of my frustration with the garbage spouted by history teachers in the modern education system.  The subject is a photo taken during the Vietnam War and the lies that have grown up around the events leading to the picture.  The Photo is named “The Terror of War” and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 in the Spot News Photography category. Along with the 1968 photo “Saigon Execution” (another post their as well), this is one of the most iconic images to come out of the Vietnam War.  What started this is when my son came home from school and asked me about the photo.  He was told by his history teacher that the … More after the Jump…

Women in Combat Part 2

Pentagon announces decision to lift ban on women in combat roles: How prescient I now feel given that less than a week after I posted about this the Defense Secretary announces an end to the female combat exclusion.  I wish I had been wrong.

A couple of examples of the reaction in the press (I will only note in passing that most of those praising this decision have never served in the military or if they have were not Combat Arms): Women in combat: Let’s get real, Women will add combat strength: editorial, Women in combat — the controversy that wasn’t, Editors’ Roundtable: Women in combat?, Women in combat a dangerous experiment, Our View: Women in combat, Women in combat - The generals defer to political fashion in the Age of Obama, Women Have No Business in Combat.

Finally, the transcript of the SecDef’s Press Briefing where he announced the policy change.

 

Image credit CNN.com
Image credit CNN.com

Women in Combat

The role of women in combat has been much in the military press and civilian papers recently because of a lawsuit filed by several women who claim the military’s ban on women in combat positions is discriminatory.   There are folks who argue that women belong in combat  although those arguments generally boil down to it ain’t fair and it it’s sexists that women cannot be in combat.   The amount of intellectual dishonesty around this debate is amazing and should stun any thinking person. I will take the above pro-women in combat piece and debunk it as it is full of the kind of drivel that gets tossed around by … More after the Jump…

Stormin’ Norman passes away.

The architect of the whirlwind coalition victory against Saddam Hussein in the 1990 Gulf War, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf has passed away from complications related to pneumonia at age 78.  He will be remembered by military historians for the way in which he designed the air and ground campaign that resulted in what has come to be called the 100 Hour War.  He also had some very memorable press conferences during the war. Our thoughts are with his wife and children in their time of grief.  May he Rest in Peace. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, coalition forces leader during Persian Gulf War, dies

Stasi Museum – Leipzig, Germany

The Stasi Museum in Leipzig, Germany.  For those who have never heard of it, the Stasi was the East German Little brother to the Russian NKVD internal security Secret Police.  The Stasi maintained a network of informers within both East and West Germany during the Cold War and also maintained dossiers on almost every German, even many in the West.  In East Germany (GDR) the Stasi was the government organ responsible for internal security and ferreting out dissidents to the regime.  They did this by doing some things that made the  Nazi Gestapo look like amateurs. Below are some of the photos I took in our hasty tour of the museum before it closed.