For Rasmus

[Die Fledermaus]

Hi from Rodent Retreat,

So, I got so sick of the place Saturday, and the weather was great; hence, off I finally went to Fort Tilden. Subway first? Nope. Shuttle bus first as my local train was not running typical weekend construction and repairs. That to the subway, and then another subway to the Brooklyn College stop where I checked the big Target store (no new Forces of Valor tanks or planes I wanted), and then I took the bus past Floyd Bennett Field across the bridge to Riis Park, part of the Gateway National Park facility, as is FBF and more.

Riis Park is right across the bridge in the Rockaway part of Queens
and has a large bathhouse/visitor center thing with two very distinctive tall towers and a big upright clock and a few other unusual things. And of course the beach. My father used to take me there as a kid, but I have zero recollection of any of it - other than sand down my trunks, sunburn, the heat of the parking lot, etc.

West of Riis Park (named after Jacob Riis, an important urban reformer) is Fort Tilden. So, I walked on the beach and then over some sand dune with cute yellow flowers into Fort Tilden.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Tilden

www.geocities.com/fort_tilden/

Basically, although very large, it is mostly overgrown with shrubbery and stunted trees, 12-20 feet high, and all of it with colorful splashes of the first touches of Autumn - many red and yellow flowers; very pretty. I passed many derelict old Army buildings and rusting barbed wire.

Most all the smaller batteries such as smaller anti-personnel guns
and the missile silos are somewhere off the paths and covered in flora. See the second link above for the main 16" (biggest the Army or Navy ever had) gun casemate (the concrete embrasure) - one photo shows it with one of the two guns. There were two of these. The shoreline was about a hundred yards away which could not be seen from the now empty casemate: observatories on the top of the hill, and airplanes, would spot targets at sea which could be reached beyond the horizon. A battleship in WW II would not even try to attack.

With the Sandy Hook Fort Hancock on the other side of the entrance to the bay the approach was totally covered. Harbor defenses moved south of Manhattan and to these locations are artillery improved: Castle William and Castle Clinton in the upper bay gave way by the Civil War to Fort Wadsworth and fort Hamilton at the Narrows. Etc.

The casemate had an interesting protruding top for protection. I could see in a closed area behind the location of the 16" guns the tunnels leading to the former ammunition magazines. That was at Fort Tilden.

See this link

www.harbordefensemuseum.com/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hamilton

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Wadsworth

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_Weed

A battery (as above) at water level was always great for sinking ships as cannonballs could skim the water at the ship's waterline causing flooding.

- - - - - - -

back to the PM. . .

>> Wow. Neighbourhood-war. I'm so dull as to be on nodding- and pleasant small-talk-terms with my neighbours. <<

It is better now. When a crackpot moved next door and colluded with the landlord there was serious harassment, as I mentioned. She is gone now, in large part thanks to my retaliation!

>> That's odd. I thought it would be a moot point by now. I only hear Americans refer to the US as their country, not to their particular state. <<

True. But some (a minority) despise the federal government and its constant accumulation of power (going on even today), and. being Libertarians, they seek minimal government. They extrapolate on this concept by being sympathetic to "states rights", as if slavery was not the main cause of the Civil War. I have no love for Federal governmental power (I am convinced government is by nature inefficient - at best), but they take it too far, and entirely misread the Civil War as they try to fit it into their current political views.

>> I saw a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm II in a uniform (probably from the unit you mentioned) with a large Death's Head on the head-gear. It looked almost exactly like the SS cap-sign. <<

These guys:

Death's Head Hussars

>> The Danish army is still a draftee-army for the most part. But it is rather ridiculous by now. The budget has been slashed so much, that the draftee's are only in for three months <<

And there is no follow up training, later? Well, at least it gets them off the streets for 90 days!

>> the show was very TV-theatre-like. <<

Not exactly high budget, was it? Favorite quote: "Drusilla!! I'm dying!!". Also said by the same person, to Macro, "I cured his cough". You likely recall.

The guy who played Macro much later played Gimli in LotR.

>> they would have been so covered in lime that the water never touched the lead. <<

So if not that, what? (Crazy emperors). I assume you've read Suetonius on Tiberius and his "little fishes".

>> I hope I pass. <<

I will let you know after I read it.

>> Didn't the Union-generals think the same? <<

Even if they did the Union generals had many more troops, and a much larger population base, to deal with; plus. the Union was on the offensive strategically requiring more attacks.

I would say Confederate generals made on average more unnecessary attacks - and useless frontal ones, such as Corinth and Malvern Hill, factoring the strategic realities the South faced. They wasted too many men needlessly, keeping in mind all they had to do was survive to win (as a viable Confederacy).

>> Dybbøl evolved into a cauldron-battle. I'm not familiar with the exact conditions, but they weren't good - of that I'm sure. <<

I will look into that more.

>> I read somewhere, that what he really said was something like: "It isn't proper to cut the throat of a sleeping man." <<

That is a kind of dumb thing to say. It has an entirely different meaning. I will check on that. (Yamamoto).

>> the Danish economy was never strong enough to let them become anything else. So they remained small, few and far between - ending up being more of a economic burden than a boon. <<

Ah. Caribbean plantations were supposed to be profit-making.

>> Don't you think that in order to fight a hopeless battle, there ought at least to be some point beyond the wish for a heroic death? <<

Was it hopeless? A Nazi takeover was clearly inevitable with no resistance, so why not some symbolic resistance at least instead of a rollover? They also handed over much valuable stuff to the Nazis - from the intact Skoda Works to many fine tanks the Germans used to help invade France in 1940, and that was inexcusable.

>> Again, it seems to me to be a question of how many people should be sacrificed to satisfy your honour. <<

Apparently none satisfied Czech honor. The Poles never would have gone for that. Even limited symbolic resistance would have been something.

>> at the time many people saw the war as yet another stupid power struggle between the great powers. <<

Ah! No conception of the true menace of Hitler!

>> the best course of action was seen as keeping the country as intact and unharmed as possible. So in hindsight, yes, we should have resisted - but in hindsight the whole world should have declared war on Hitler in 1939, or even earlier. <<

I once helped run a Military Symposium, and we once did "what if War in 1938?". Hitler would have backed down as he would have been in much poorer position fighting France and Britain (and Poland too?) as opposed to 1940 (when he also has so much nice stuff courtesy of the Czechs).

>> The war in Poland in 1939 weren't a war of extermination either - that came later. <<

Christian Poles were being shot almost at random from the beginning; civilian casualties were huge, and the repression extreme. What happened to the Jews was worse.

>> Longstreet stands out as the lone voice of reason - the one person who saw the issue right; who knew what was going to happen and who was completely vindicated. <<

In this battle I believe Longstreet was right, totally. McLaws hated him though for stuff on Day Two, but that was personal. The criticisms of him being dilatory are invalid in my opinion.

>> I think that's what I felt was lacking in the movie. Just a hint that even Longstreet weren't right all the time. <<

I think he could be criticized for not being more active just before and during the attack, although he could not have done much. he also should have asked he for support on the flanks and more brigades to hold the ridge if taken. They all seemed delusional to think Pickett's tired men after heavy loses could hold it against counterattacks. And they knew the largest Corps in the Army of the Potomac, VI, was totally unengaged as of afternoon Day Three.

Those Forces of Valor models here in NYC range from $15 to a little over 20. Surprisingly cheap for the detail, and they are metal.

>> *feels like standing outside the examination-room as the examiner and censor (probably not what they're called in English) deliberates* <<

I merely have not had time to get to it yet and want you to know I will.

See you

Tom

[Rasmus]

Hi Tom

Sorry it took me this long to reply. Been a little busy lately.

So... Discussing military history on an animal forum are we? ;D Well, why not. (Don't see any quote function though. I'll just borrow your system)

>>West of Riis Park (named after Jacob Riis, an important urban reformer)<<

That sounds very much like a Danish name.

>>So, I got so sick of the place Saturday, and the weather was great; hence, off I finally went to Fort Tilden<<

Looks interesting. So, what was Fort Tilden guarding? The sea lanes along the coast or the approaches to New York. With such firepower, there must have been an important function.

We have a couple of early Cold War shore battery-fortresses in Denmark (equipped with the main guns of the German battleship Gneisenau), but I've actually never taken the time to visit either. Too far off the beaten path, and me without a car. They were meant to help bottling up the Soviet fleet in the Baltic in case of war.

>>True. But some (a minority) despise the federal government and its constant accumulation of power (going on even today), and. being Libertarians, they seek minimal government. They extrapolate on this concept by being sympathetic to "states rights", as if slavery was not the main cause of the Civil War. I have no love for Federal governmental power (I am convinced government is by nature inefficient - at best), but they take it too far, and entirely misread the Civil War as they try to fit it into their current political views.<<

But they're not actively secessionist then? That was the thing I couldn't really imagine in this day and age.

>>Not exactly high budget, was it? Favorite quote: "Drusilla!! I'm dying!!". Also said by the same person, to Macro, "I cured his cough". You likely recall.<<

Caligula. Yeah he was a piece of work. My favourite line of his, both in the series and in real life (if the sources are to be believed) was his comment, when the Roman crowd at the amphitheatre booed one of his decisions: "I wish you had but one throat, that I might cut it."

>>The guy who played Macro much later played Gimli in LotR.<<

John Rhys-Davies. An old favourite of mine. Also played Sallah in the Indiana Jones-movies, and Rodriguez in Shogun.

And let's not forget Patrick Stewart as Seianus. With hair!

>>So if not that, what? (Crazy emperors). I assume you've read Suetonius on Tiberius and his "little fishes".<<

Suetonius was a chronic gossip and scandal-monger. I always take anything he says with a hefty dose of salt. Always remember, that many of the written sources about the emperors were written by people who despised them, often because of their republican sympathies. For example Nero, whom the elite hated and tried to present as a monster (which is how he has been passed down to us), was well-loved by the ordinary people, so much so that many refused to believe he was dead and some even claimed to be him. (One false Nero led a rebellion against the Flavian emperors).

In the ancient history department at the university we had a joke: "There were no bad emperors, only bad press." All right, it is a joke, but with a kernel of truth. I think the mental instability of the Roman emperors have been grossly exaggerated. That doesn't mean they didn't do horrible things, but I think that was a result of the old adage about absolute power corrupting absolutely, not insanity (in most cases).

>>I would say Confederate generals made on average more unnecessary attacks - and useless frontal ones, such as Corinth and Malvern Hill, factoring the strategic realities the South faced. They wasted too many men needlessly, keeping in mind all they had to do was survive to win (as a viable Confederacy).<<

Do you think they could have won the war by staying on the defensive? Northern manpower and industrial might would have ground them down eventually, unless the voters didn't have the stomach for it.

>>That is a kind of dumb thing to say. It has an entirely different meaning. I will check on that. (Yamamoto).<<

But more in keeping with bushido than the rather defeatist statement he is normally credited with, I think. The meaning here is that he didn't think it was honourable to launch a sneak-attack like that.

>>Ah. Caribbean plantations were supposed to be profit-making.<<

Not always. It required a strong economy and fleet (merchant and military both) and an ability to keep the slaves under control. The last part proved difficult in the Danish Westindies. But of course; some merchants and industrialists were able to make a profit. The late 1700's were particularly good for Denmark, since the other major naval powers were almost continually at war and our ships could attract a lot of customers thanks to Danish neutrality. But this wealth (along with Norway) was lost during Denmark's disastrous involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, prompting the Danish king to lament in 1814, that: "Denmark is an impoverished, tiny country."

>>Was it hopeless? A Nazi takeover was clearly inevitable with no resistance, so why not some symbolic resistance at least instead of a rollover? They also handed over much valuable stuff to the Nazis - from the intact Skoda Works to many fine tanks the Germans used to help invade France in 1940, and that was inexcusable.<<

A lot of hindsight again here. In 1938 the Czechs faced a seemingly unanimous front of all the great powers in Europe, who had decided that the Sudetenland should be yielded to avoid a larger war. By not resisting, they had a small hope that Hitler would be satisfied and the rest of their country would be spared. But in so doing, they lost their border defences and only chance of at least slowing down the Wehrmacht. Then in 1939, when Hitler forced his ultimatum onto a mentally fragile president Hacha, would the Czechs have any reason to believe that anyone would come to their aid? Everybody believed in the theories of general Douhet in those days, so any resistance were seen as to inevitably result in the complete destruction of every major city by air-attack - and for no purpose, since they didn't believe anyone would go to war against Germany.

Did they make the wrong decision? Was there a right decision? I see my job as an historian to try to understand the reasons behind the historical decisions, not to pass moral judgment on them.

>>Ah! No conception of the true menace of Hitler!<<

That is undoubtedly true. But I don't think anybody truly had Hitler's measure until 1945, when the holocaust became known.

>>I once helped run a Military Symposium, and we once did "what if War in 1938?". Hitler would have backed down as he would have been in much poorer position fighting France and Britain (and Poland too?) as opposed to 1940 (when he also has so much nice stuff courtesy of the Czechs).<<

If Hitler had fought in such circumstances, he would have lost quickly, and the whole horror of the world war could have been avoided. But this presupposes that Britain, France and Poland joins in on the side of the Czechs. After Munich, Czechoslovakia stood alone.

>>In this battle I believe Longstreet was right, totally. McLaws hated him though for stuff on Day Two, but that was personal. The criticisms of him being dilatory are invalid in my opinion.<<

All right. I'm not going to argue. I don't have any beef with Longstreet (in fact I like him), and I don't know enough about the specifics of the Civil War. I just wondered if the movie portrayed him completely objectively, but apparently it did. That's nice to know.

Going straight to the next post, so see you there.

Rasmus

[Die Fledermaus]

Hi Rasmus,

>> Sorry it took me this long to reply. Been a little busy lately. <<

Doesn't matter. I too am awfully busy. Ugh. Internet PMs relax me.
But by now e-mails and forum posts here and there get irritating occasionally.

>> So... Discussing military history on an animal forum are we? <<

We have over 9,000 non-animal posts in the Members Only forum.
There are also other secret forums!

>> Don't see any quote function though. <<

There is one. Just click on "quote" instead of "reply". I do not care for it as the fonts show up too small. I am over three feet from the computer screen, so small fonts vex me.

I also just switched from Firefox to SeaMonkey as the former tends to crash on me.

>> That sounds very much like a Danish name. <<

It is. >> Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 - May 26, 1914), a Danish-American muckraker journalist, photographer, and social reformer, was born in Ribe, Denmark <<

Very important in American history especially here in NYC.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Riis

>> So, what was Fort Tilden guarding? The sea lanes along the coast or the approaches to New York. <<

Along with Fort Hancock in New Jersey their guns covered the approaches to NY harbor. They were the last of the various and improving NYC coastal fortifications - a whole long topic. It also involved submarine nets and minefields. Missiles eventually replaced
the guns, and then no one cared about coast defenses as the Navy could pound any opposing navy before it got within a thousand miles, so they were superfluous, and were turned into recruiting stations and museums such as Fort Hamilton: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hamilton, or Fort Wadsworth: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Wadsworth. I live on the other side of Wadsworth across the Narrows.

This fort was on the other approach to NYC, from Long Island Sound and is named after my MA thesis topic: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Slocum.

Unfortunately, little is left of the above fort. There are others from the early 19th century close around Manhattan island.

Apropos of nothing, here is a photo I took at Grant's Tomb on the general's birthday in April. That is the U.S. Sec. of the Interior speaking to USMA cadets.
inlinethumb17.webshots.com/42832/2528008060102813037S425x425Q85.jpg

>> We have a couple of early Cold War shore battery-fortresses in Denmark (equipped with the main guns of the German battleship Gneisenau), <<

Wiki: >> One of the 38 cm guns intended for her rearmament exists today at the museum of Hanstholm in Denmark. This gun was planned as part of the German coastal battery "Tirpitz" at Oksby, Denmark, not far from the Blåvand lighthouse on the southwest coast of Jylland. The original 38 cm guns at Hanstholm (numbers 70,71,74 and 75) were destroyed during the 1950s. Her 28 cm guns from the turret called Anton were removed and sent to the Netherlands for use there; the turrets called Bruno and Cäsar and their guns were sent to Norway for coastal defence artillery there.

Her aft main turret, called Cäsar, was converted to a coastal battery named Austråt fort in Ørland near Trondheim, Norway, and it still exists today as a museum. The second turret called Bruno was stationed as a coastal battery at Fjell fortress near Bergen. Only the concrete base still stands. In Denmark, at the former "Stevnsfort" near Rødvig, two twin 15 cm turrets from her secondary armament still exist. In the Netherlands, parts of the guns of turret Anton are on display at the former "Stichting Fort", Hoek Van Holland. <<

I wonder if my Army friend knows this.

Quick! What happened to the Prinz Eugen? Hint: same thing as happened to Yamamoto's first flagship (which was not the Yamato).

>> But they're not actively secessionist then? That was the thing I couldn't really imagine in this day and age. <<

Very very few are. And many of those that do it are flexing political juice; they have no viable expectations of secession. And where it occurs is not the South. Over 60% of Staten Islander a few decades ago voted for secede from the other four boroughs of NYC. That too was an example of political discontent. It is all unconstitutional unless NY State OK.d it. On a Federal level it of course is not Constitutional. Even an arch-Libertarian conceded that saying that ratifying the Constitution was a great mistake.

>> I wish you had but one throat, that I might cut it. <<

Yea, good one!

The movie "Caligula" was pretty sick.

>> Rodriguez in Shogun. <<

When my friend Jerry died last June among the stuff of his I grabbed
were two cassettes with all of "Shogun" on it! I was looking for that. Sad though, when he died, his two cousins and two friends grabbed stuff. I even saved two big portraits of his parents lest they get trashed.

I can put all that stuff in the basement storeroom which is very big.
Only I (and the super) have a key in this building of 65 units. the previous landlord kicked us all out, Grrr. But later I found out that was illegal and I forced the new landlord to give me a key. So it is like a second apartment. but without running water!

>> And let's not forget Patrick Stewart as Seianus. With hair! <<

Sejanus. We have two big ST fans on Rodent Retreat - see "Resistance is Futile" thread.

>> Suetonius was a chronic gossip and scandal-monger. I always take anything he says with a hefty dose of salt. <<

All true!

>> Nero, whom the elite hated and tried to present as a monster (which is how he has been passed down to us), was well-loved by the ordinary people, so much so that many refused to believe he was dead and some even claimed to be him. <<

Reminds me of Pugachev (as Peter III). You surely saw Peter Ustinov as Nero: "But I never asked to be a monster!". That is a more thought-provoking than one might at first think.

>> I think that was a result of the old adage about absolute power corrupting absolutely, not insanity (in most cases). <<

But I assume Caligula was insane.

>> Do you think they could have won the war by staying on the defensive? <<

I meant they were on the tactical offensive needlessly and foolishly.

The strategic benefits of abandoning a cordon defense of the Confederacy and launching an offensive somewhere early in the war can be considered. Circling and cutting off Washington? Into Ohio? Perhaps. Feasible? Maybe. But that does not mean you launch frontal attacks on prepared positions - as Lee (of Malvern Hill and Pickett's Charge) was going to do on a much superior force, well entrenched, at Fredericksburg. But the Federals had withdrawn, and I say lucky for Lee. Hooker had more troops unengaged in the battle than Lee had in his army, and, worse, 30,000 of those troops would be soon going home as their enlistments were ending.

>> Northern manpower and industrial might would have ground them down eventually, unless the voters didn't have the stomach for it. <<

Exactly why a cordon defense (as they had) was problematic in the long run. Such a defense may have been the only option owing to lack of cooperation from state governors who exercised great power in the "states rights" South.

>> The meaning here is that he didn't think it was honourable to launch a sneak-attack like that. <<

Well, he did not want to as he wanted and was very concerned about the U.S. being informed at least half an hour before - in part for that reason and in part as it would get the U.S. he knew so well so very mad.

>> The late 1700's were particularly good for Denmark, since the other major naval powers were almost continually at war and our ships could attract a lot of customers thanks to Danish neutrality. <<

Interesting.

>> But this wealth (along with Norway) was lost during Denmark's disastrous involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, prompting the Danish king to lament in 1814, that: "Denmark is an impoverished, tiny country.<<

Well, "impoverished"? He should check out Haiti for real poverty!
Why did they join the war?

>> Everybody believed in the theories of general Douhet in those days, so any resistance were seen as to inevitably result in the complete destruction of every major city by air-attack - and for no purpose, since they didn't believe anyone would go to war against Germany. <<

Ever see an old movie "Things to Come"? From H.G. Wells. 1936. Air power was all powerful! They even had a "gas of peace" where they dropped these canisters out and then some unarmed paratroops to peacefully take over.

I wonder how the Czech air force shaped up in 1938. The Soviets said they would back the Czechoslovaks. Many wanted to fight; their government did not.
>> It had a big air force before the Second World War. "There are nearly 2500 pilots and 1514 aircrafts in six corps in their air force."<<
www.angelfire.com/journal/czsairforce/

I think the Germans would have found Czechoslovakia a tough nut to crack, one that would have screwed up Hitler's subsequent plans.

>> I see my job as an historian to try to understand the reasons behind the historical decisions, not to pass moral judgment on them. <<

Czechoslovakia not fighting is not a moral issue. Hitler, Stalin and Mao, for example, being mass murderers of tens of millions may in part be moral and I will indeed pass judgment on them especially with one of them still being honored by 1.3 billion Chinese. And I have no problem casting moral opinions on what they are up to in Tibet, for example.

>> That is undoubtedly true. But I don't think anybody truly had Hitler's measure until 1945, when the holocaust became known. <<

I wonder how many read "Mein Kampf" by then which detailed his plans, or how many heard any number of threats against the Jews.
Hitler made things clear, him and Goebbels, and Striecher, and all of them.

>> After Munich, Czechoslovakia stood alone. <<

And they had a fair chance to stop the still developing Wehrmacht, and by making a stand shame France and Britain into doing something, and getting the Soviets involved who has said they'd help the Czechs (this being pre-Pact). I think most of the citizenry was ready to fight, but not the leaders.

>> I just wondered if the movie portrayed him completely objectively, but apparently it did. That's nice to know. <<

I see no problem with it. I saw no problem with the depiction of any general in that movie including Buford. The closest thing to a problem was that the guy who played Hood was almost twenty years too old. Little touches in the film were nice, such as Col. Vincent holding a riding crop. Such an item was in fact given to him by his wife before leaving for war. The guy who played A.P. Hill in a cameo role was and is a very pro-Confederate member of the NY Civil War Roundtable - itself a surprisingly pro-Confederate group (why I quit).

>> Going straight to the next post, so see you there. <<

Not tonight!! Whew. Gotta go. Cat Show in NY tomorrow.
www.cfa-iams-cat-championship.org/welcome.html

Tom

[Rasmus]

Hiya

>>There is one. Just click on "quote" instead of "reply". I do not care for it as the fonts show up too small. I am over three feet from the computer screen, so small fonts vex me.<<

Hmm. I best go back to your system then. I don't want to vex you.

>>Along with Fort Hancock in New Jersey their guns covered the approaches to NY harbor. They were the last of the various and improving NYC coastal fortifications - a whole long topic. It also involved submarine nets and minefields. Missiles eventually replaced the guns, and then no one cared about coast defenses as the Navy could pound any opposing navy before it got within a thousand miles, so they were superfluous, and were turned into recruiting stations and museums such as Fort Hamilton.<<

Interesting information. Thanks. Pretty impressive level of protection for New York. Was that standard all along the coast or was it a special case?

>>Apropos of nothing, here is a photo I took at Grant's Tomb on the general's birthday in April. That is the U.S. Sec. of the Interior speaking to USMA cadets.<<

Gotta love old-fashioned uniforms. Thank God for the military's love of tradition and continuity.

>>In Denmark, at the former "Stevnsfort" near Rødvig, two twin 15 cm turrets from her secondary armament still exist.<<

Oops. My mistake. I thought it was the main armament. But I guess that would have been overkill for the rather narrow waterways they were guarding.

>>Quick! What happened to the Prinz Eugen? Hint: same thing as happened to Yamamoto's first flagship (which was not the Yamato).<<

A severe case of radiation-poisoning, if I recall No more lucky ship then.

>>Over 60% of Staten Islander a few decades ago voted for secede from the other four boroughs of NYC. That too was an example of political discontent. It is all unconstitutional unless NY State OK.d it.<<

Yeah. Nothing new in people talking about 'independence' as a political gimmick to make a point. We've had some of that in Denmark as well - the most absurd being a tiny island in a lake inside the capital of Copenhagen. ;D

>>The movie "Caligula" was pretty sick.<<

I never saw it. For a reason. I've heard more than enough. The strange thing was, that they got a lot of prominent actors to be in it. I've heard they weren't told what the movie was going to be like in the end.

>>When my friend Jerry died last June among the stuff of his I grabbed were two cassettes with all of "Shogun" on it! I was looking for that. <<

Love Shogun. But it is only recently that I found out, that it was based on a true story (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams_(sailor)). Mifune's Toronaga is a stand-in for the real life Tokugawa.

>>You surely saw Peter Ustinov as Nero: "But I never asked to be a monster!". That is a more thought-provoking than one might at first think.<<

Yes. Another classic. I also love his line, when he talks about himself pleading to the gods as he prepares to step on to the world stage: "Let it be wonderful. Or let it be awful. As long as it is not common!" Also one to make you think.

>>But I assume Caligula was insane.<<

Sure. If you believe the stuff that was written about him! Welcome to the wonderful life of an ancient historian. Nothing can ever be said with absolute certainty. ;D

>>I meant they were on the tactical offensive needlessly and foolishly.<<

Ah, I see. That was Longstreet's point throughout Gettysburg, wasn't it?

>>Well, "impoverished"? He should check out Haiti for real poverty!<<

In 1814 Denmark wasn't that far from Haiti. We'd just experienced a state-bankruptcy.

>>Why did they join the war?<<

As I've said, I think that Denmark brought most of the calamities of 1864 upon itself through stupid policies. But I can't help feeling that Denmark got a really raw deal during the Napoleonic Wars. The country was determined to keep neutral again and grow even fatter on trade. We even joined the League of Armed Neutrality with the Swedes and the Russians around 1800. But it was pissing Britain off, because Danish ships were sailing to French ports with goods, ruining their blockade. That let to a short, inconclusive war with Britain in 1801 (The Battle of Copenhagen, when Nelson famously put his telescope to his blind eye). The Danish fleet was defeated, but we won at the negotiation-table, getting of lightly by just leaving the League of Armed Neutrality.

So Denmark carried on its neutral policy for some years, but when Napoleon and Czar Alexander signed the treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Britain started to worry about having all of Europe aligned against her. They feared that Napoleon would force Denmark into the alliance and thus gain control of the powerful Danish navy - not an unreasonable fear I suppose. So the British decided on a pre-emptive strike, giving the Danish government an ultimatum: To hand over the entire Danish navy to Britain or face war. The British called it a temporary measure, and said they would deliver the ships back when the situation warranted it, but the Danish crown prince (regent at the time) and his government wouldn't hear of it. So the British landed troops in Zealand (under the command of Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington - this was when he got his horse Copenhagen, which carried him during the Battle of Waterloo) and surrounded Copenhagen by land and by sea. When further negotiations didn't bear fruit, the British resorted to a terror-bombardment of Copenhagen with guns and rockets - deliberately targeting the civilian population and forcing the garrison commander, Peymann, to surrender. After that they made off with all the ships gathered in Copenhagen, almost the entire Danish navy, with no intentions of ever giving them back. Denmark’s day as a sea power had ended.

As you might imagine, this didn't sit well with the Danes, and out of pure spite and frustration, we joined Napoleon's cause (he loved to be the one to stand up for the underdog against injustice for once) and kept fighting the British for the next seven years (The Gunboat War - because that was all we had left). As Napoleon went down in flames after Russia and Leipzig, he dragged Denmark with him, and at the Congress in Vienna, it was decided that Denmark should hand over Norway to Sweden, reducing us to a puny nation. So this was not a war of Denmark's choosing, but one the government felt they had to fight to the bitter end. A little spinelessness ala 1940 in 1807 might have saved Norway for Denmark.

>>Ever see an old movie "Things to Come"? From H.G. Wells. 1936. Air power was all powerful! They even had a "gas of peace" where they dropped these canisters out and then some unarmed paratroops to peacefully take over.<<

I've always wanted to see that, but I never had the opportunity.

>>Czechoslovakia not fighting is not a moral issue. Hitler, Stalin and Mao, for example, being mass murderers of tens of millions may in part be moral and I will indeed pass judgment on them especially with one of them still being honored by 1.3 billion Chinese. And I have no problem casting moral opinions on what they are up to in Tibet, for example.<<

What I meant by 'moral judgment' was sitting here, 70 years distant and deciding what was the right thing and what was the wrong thing to do.

My knowledge of the Czech situation isn't broad enough to make my point here, so I'll use the example of Denmark in 1940 in stead.

The Danish government decided to yield to the German ultimatum. That meant that the Germans could use Denmark as a base of operations against Norway with no problems, which was a bad thing for the Allied war effort. But it also meant that the Germans didn't take control of Denmark but left the democratically elected Danish government in place to run the country. Thus, despite German pressure, there was never made any moves against the Danish Jews until 1943, when the policy of collaboration collapsed and the Germans took direct control of the country - and by that time the resistance movement had grown to the point, when it could assist more than 90 % of the Jews to get to safety in Sweden. So the Danish acceptance of German terms in 1940 saved the Jews, which all should agree was a good thing. I don't see it as my job to decide whether it would have been better to sacrifice the Jews in order to throw a spanner in the works for the Wehrmacht in 1940. I should just present the pros and the cons of the two options (to resist and to yield) to help people understand the dilemma the Danish government faced. I truly don't think there was a 'right' decision, just a decision as to which was the lesser evil - one that is easy to double-guess after the fact.

Sorry if I got carried away or sounded belligerent here.

>>I wonder how many read "Mein Kampf" by then which detailed his plans, or how many heard any number of threats against the Jews. Hitler made things clear, him and Goebbels, and Striecher, and all of them.<<

I think a lot of people had read it. But I doubt many people really believed that he wanted to go through with it - it just seemed to preposterous.

Well, that's all for now.

Take care

Rasmus

[Die Fledermaus]

I am going to answer these tomorrow in a new thread lest this become so long loading become problematic.

Catch you then!