rockershovel

To be realistic about this, the Prussians had waged a series of short wars in Europe between 1860 and 1870, including a conclusive defeat of France within 6 weeks. They would also defeat France, together with the BEF within 6 weeks in 1940 using a largely horse-drawn army armed with rifles which (apart from its Armoured spear-heads and air support) was little different from 1914. The planners of 1914 were working from experience. They had the example of the American Civil War, but those armies had single-shot muskets or rifles, no modern rifled artillery, no viable machine-guns (the Gatling gun found little use in its homeland, indeed apart from occasional use in colonial warfare it wasn't much use at all)

... and to a considerable extent subsidised by Auto Trader

The Germans expected the Soviet Union to collapse under its own internal stresses following Barbarossa. They were very nearly right. Had they held to their actual plan, of striking through the Caucusus to the Caspian and Iran, thereby cutting of oil supplies to USSR and British Empire then they would have won the war by preventing their opponents from fighting on. Montgomery's victory at El Alamein would have been for nothing; Stalingrad, an isolated garrison like the British and German troops stranded on the French coast at various times.

It was well known in London that the British Empire could not survive, far less win another conflict such as 1914-18. It was also politically impossible to openly discuss, far less espouse a policy of war against Germany to defend France. The "appeasement" policy of the 1930s has to be seen in that light. Hitler built upon the work of the "Old Right" and financial and industrial complex in securing Germany against Bolshevism. The Japanese were feeling pretty hard-done-by after 1919. In their view they had "stepped up to the plate" as a modern, industrial power and deserved to be treated as such; they certainly didn't have the resources to stand still. America was NOT going to open its doors to mass immigration from the Pacific. This led to the conclusion that war against the weak, chaotic China was inevitable, and hence conflict with the European Empires. The great "what if" is the German declaration of war against the USA. This makes no sense, strategically or politically.

MacArthur correctly identified at least as early as 1944 that the continuation of the Japanese Emperor was essential if any sort of control was to be exerted over Japan. The problem was that the Emperor was only a figurehead. This meant that the militarist faction controlling the Japanese government had to be ousted first.

The US had a whole pipeline of them. Its just that they couldn't produce another air strike quickly. Anyway, the tactical use of nuclear weapons was still unresolved. There was an alternative plan (with the added attraction of ending the firebombing campaign) of using them as tactical devices in support of the invasion.

The Allies - meaning, by then the USA - had a fiendishly complex challenge to resolve in the Pacific - defeat the Japanese in their homeland. This was being pursued through the hugely expensive B29 programme with a conventional invasion of hideous cost and scale being planned - bring about the surrender of the Japanese in Manchuria. This was effectively a self-contained country.. the USSR effected this, but couldn't hold it - bring about the surrender of numerous Japanese garrisons around the Pacific - bolster the failing Nationalist regime in China, which would fall to the Communists between 1945 and 1950 - contain Communist expansion in SE Asia, which would remain a flash point into the 1970s - reorganise Japanese society completely post-War - prevent Soviet expansion into the Japanese home islands The conclusion was that a show of overwhelming force was the preferred solution, hence the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. When that didn't produce immediate results, Nagasaki followed. There was NO Plan B, because the US couldn't field ANOTHER viable nuclear device at that time....

My late father fought in Ethiopia - which was the original Italian debacle, the origin of the myth of Italian military excellence, in which an under-motivated, under-equipped Italian army was comprehensively defeated by a fully professional British regular force. Stories of mobile officers' pleasure houses and silk uniform shirts mostly date from this period, along with the wonderfully nicknamed General "Electric Whiskers" Bergonzoli (sp?) Dad was never in Europe before 1944 AFAIK.

All of the above, really - the "rolling broadside" issue isn't wrong, it's a related issue - Napoleonic-era Men-o'-War fired a limited number of rounds before becoming over-heated and liable to premature detonation. Same for field artillery - Nelson would seek to "cross the T" and intersect the opposing fleet, firing "raking" broadsides along the length of the enemy fleet while minimising their own exposure. This means only firing when the guns actually have a target. - field artillery didn't seek to fire by broadside but for practical reasons would fire by volley, more or less. - Men-o'-War would seek to fire consistently "on the rise" or "on the fall" because otherwise the ranges achieved varied greatly. Obviously the closer they were, the less this mattered. - ballistics wasn't an exact science then, but much time was spent chipping the rust from iron shot, smoothing the profiles and generally "improving" loads to increase consistency. Master Gunners would have detailed records of the performance of different calibre guns vs range and would conduct testing of individual batches of powder. It was well known that "the glass" (air pressure, as recorded by a barometer), wind and humidity/rainfall affected performance; Wellington's and Napoleon's gunners both achieved high consistency at Waterloo under poor weather conditions and naval gunners operated on wind-powered vessels. - the "rolling barrage" was a feature of rifled artillery using factory-made, jacketed shot with cordite or ammonal type propellants in quantities, and over ranges unimaginable to black-powder gunners of an earlier era. They operated by line-of-sight on very short ranges - Union artillery of the American Civil War period operated muzzle loading howitzers to fire indirectly over long ranges but this was restricted to fixed installations such as marine defence forts and siege works such as Vicksburg

Didn't Thucydides say something similar around 400 BC? Certainly Siborne's attempt to produce a definitive history of Waterloo by interviewing participants foundered upon the same rocks in the 1820s.

We are not quite talking about the same thing. A "rolling broadside" is as you describe. Smooth bore field artillery would be taught to fire at a predetermined rate, with guns in line, because that's the safest and most effective way to use them. A "rolling barrage" is a much later innovation by which rounds are fired to a predetermined range or target line. Then, at a specified time the range is increased and the infantry advance behind the advancing curtain of fire.

That's rather less than entirely correct. 1790s artillery was completely incapable of delivering a "rolling barrage", being smooth-bore muzzle loaders firing mostly solid shot on virtually flat trajectories over open sights, or no sights at all. Hence the numerous references to men being struck by cannon-balls ricocheted from the ground. These pieces were fired in volleys to minimise the risk to adjacent crews. The interval between rounds was a well known phenomenon which Bonaparte would have been familiar with

That's correct, my late father amongst them - he had been wounded in Italy and rejoined 7th Armoured in Europe. The point was that the 8th Army was pretty much the only reservoir of experienced troops available. The catastrophic defeats of 1940-42 meant that huge numbers of soldiers had been lost.

So, the funeral went well enough, all things considered. I did some research (which was just as well. I found I had conflated him with another uncle regarding his military service, for one thing). I was offered the suggestion that if I used the general terms outlined above, without the specifics then most likely, few if any would understand; depressingly, this proved to be true. - one of his grandchildren thanked me for emphasising his devout views and strength of conviction, remarking that as a humanist they had no such pillar of faith... to which I could only reply "no, I don't suppose you do". - the American son-in-law came up trumps with a small, but very elegant crossed-staff arrangement of Old Glory and the Union Flag (from his VFW branch, I find he was a Viet Nam veteran who married the daughter in his 50s) and a USB drive carrying a recording of his grandchildren's class singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" which I included in the proceedings. Americans respect veterans. Another of life's pitfalls negotiated...

It ticks the box of having been issued. Arco isn't the cheap rubbish supplied by some suppliers, to be fair.

Stukas were in limited use in Normandy. An uncle of mine sometimes referred to encountering them there, and he certainly wasn't serving in 1940, having been called up in 1944. The Germans used them extensively as tank-busters on the Russian Front and in the desert campaigns. I have been thinking of him lately having just passed away at a great age. He was one of the few veterans who would discuss his experiences, possibly because his active service was quite short - a matter of weeks, and he suffered a wound which kept him from front line service afterwards. Interestingly enough he regarded the 8th Army troops he encountered as "fought out", in the parlance of the day - tired, nervous and a source of many disciplinary problems. They absolutely did not intend to be killed at this late stage and crept forward under heavy artillery support, or not at all. He more than once remarked that French farmers soon learned to give them a wide berth.

I'd say rugby union has become more socially polarised than ever. It WAS the game of choice in Grammar Schools, but so few now exist that it has become focused in fee paying schools

The Great Northern Hotel at Peterborough is rapidly becoming one. It was taken over by one of the chains (Best Western? It seemed like a BW sort of place) but closed during the first lock-down and never re-opened. The development of Bourges Boulevard as a sort of permanent traffic jam, plus the loss of its own parking killed off its "garden msrquee" trade. Business travellers and short family excursions use the multiple chains which have colonised the town centre. There was a brief local scandal about it being used as a migrant hotel, but this seems to be off the menu for the moment (local opinion attributes this to the forthcoming GE).

From what I've seen of RL over the years the British game (there are no "Home Nations" sides) seems distinctly second-class, playing the role of Italy in the World Cup and 4 Nations. There is an annual Cup Final at Wembley, in which pies feature prominently for some reason.

I watched the Cup Final recently. Seems to consists entirely of run-and-collide over short distances. Passes are short and multiple phases of play, unknown. Elbows to the head seem so common as to pass unnoticed. Every five tackles the flow of play reverses. I'd suspect that injury studies are not carried out. It rather looks as though the wrestling to the ground which passes for tackling limits head contact, although that isn't its purpose.

Interesting stuff.

I think he gets a bye for that, under the circumstances....

Another thing the RFU should do, but won't is look at instilling some proper pride in the team. I don't mean by this, abasing themselves to the ideological obsessions of the moment as was done a while ago, to general derision from the "cheap seats". These days, any fixture involving England is preceded by a government-sponsored frenzy of abuse (I mean the quasi-government of our Northern neighbours and tax recipients, that is) The players come out foaming at the mouth (the English-speaking ones, anyway; don't know if they get an Afrikaans translation) and the crowd are beside themselves. I'd like to propose a Flanders and Swann Festival, in conjunction with the re-institution of the verse about General Wade in the National Anthem for all persons involved in the national team..

What would happen then? Most likely, any orchestrated action at an EGM would be in conjunction with a carpet-bagging raid by the Prem clubs, intent on raiding the Test Match cash-box for their own reasons. The government cannot keep its own house in order. It is facing a GE which it is widely expected to lose heavily, to an administration still obsessed with the abolition of fox-hunting. The idea that a complete melt-down at the RFU would magically produce "proper governance" after the RFU is fantastic, in the proper sense of the word.

The problem with that is that the RFU is not a plc; there is no effective means of getting rid of the lame and lazy, useless and self-interested. It is possible to force people out, as they did to an innovative CEO a few years ago, but only by ganging up on him so he resigned. This is why it is so utterly and intrinsically dysfunctional - there is no common sense of purpose or mission. There is also the chronic conflict of interest with the clubs. The RFU dropped this ball right at the start and have never looked like recovering it. Even with the clubs in complete disarray and near-insolvency, the RFU cannot act. I suspect their "1997 moment" is near; one of those times when two factions which are both exhausted but which cannot imagine the world without them, find they are both eminently dispensible. I suspect the clubs will blink first. They do not have the huge fixed assets of Twickenham, the media presence, the goodwill of the greatest tournament in the game. Someone will seize control of that, probably by taking over the media rights and then set about kicking the clubs into line - like it or not.