Tag: European History

Does Anyone Remember The Cambridge 5?

A History Sunday……

Probably only UK visitors will be the only ones that will remember and then only those that are aging….like me.

The Cambridge Five were the most notorious of all the spies who worked for the Soviet Union. This British quintet were exceptional for a number of reasons: while they worked independently, they knew the identities of one another; they spied at a critical time (during the Second World War and the early Cold War); the content of their espionage complemented each other, as each worked in different parts of the government. And the amount of information they provided was unsurpassed.

The five were recruited while students at the University of Cambridge in the 1930s and each would go on to have successful dual careers as British civil servants and Soviet spies. Kim Philby (1912–88) spent most of his career working for the British intelligence agency MI6, including a period as head of Soviet counterespionage and as MI6 liaison officer to the CIA in Washington DC. Donald Maclean (1913–83) had a successful career in the Foreign Office, working on atomic and military matters. Guy Burgess (1911–63) worked briefly for MI6, but also spent some time in the Foreign Office, working in London on propaganda, and then in the British Embassy in Washington.

From the mid-1930s through the early 1960s, the Soviet Union benefited from the services of five British traitors. Reams of classified documents transferred from British files and offices to those of the Soviet’s. During the height of World War II and the Cold War which followed, classified information shared between the United States and Great Britain received an eager welcome from the Soviets. The traitors sent so much information to their Soviet handlers that some in the NKVD/KGB questioned its value. Others were simply overwhelmed by the amount of data received and had insufficient time to properly analyze it all. Much of the damage done by the group originally labeled the Cambridge 4, later expanded to 5 when another traitor’s activities came to light, remains unknown.

This Spy Ring Betrayed the US and British to Soviet Intelligence

These spies did some major damage to the US and the UK in their sell-out to the Soviets.

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The Armenian Genocide?

One hundred and six years Armenians have been waiting.

During the night of 23–24 April 1915, at the orders of Talat Pasha, hundreds of Armenian political activists, intellectuals, and community leaders—including many of Talat’s former political allies—were rounded up in Constantinople and across the empire. This order, intended to eliminate the Armenian leadership and anyone capable of organizing resistance, resulted in the torture and eventually murder of most of those arrested, who were forced to confess to a nonexistent Armenian conspiracy against the empire.

And so it began!

And some say 1.5 million Armenians died on this  removal.

Since the end of World War One the Armenians have been trying to get acknowledgement of the atrocities that were committed against the Armenian people…

For those that are scratching their heads over that statement…..https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/timestopics/topics_armeniangenocide.html

For a hundred years American presidents have given the situation lip service….appears the Pres. Biden is about to change from lip service to action…..

As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to declare the slaughter of more than a million Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire a genocide but failed to do so as president. President Biden made the same promise on the campaign trail, and sources tell the New York Times and CNN that he plans to keep it. The Times‘ sources say Biden plans to make the announcement on Saturday, when Armenians worldwide will mark the 106th anniversary of the beginning of a series of massacres and forced marches that killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, mostly in what is now Turkey. Measures recognizing the 1915-1923 killings as genocide passed the Senate unanimously and the House by a 405-11 vote in 2019.

If Biden does use the word genocide, it will be certain to anger Turkey, which maintains that the killings were not genocide and estimates the number of deaths at 300,000. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said this week that “if the United States wants to worsen ties, the decision is theirs.” Insiders say that while Biden might still change his mind before Saturday’s declaration, he has apparently decided that demonstrating America’s commitment to human rights is worth potentially damaging ties with Turkey. Dozens of other countries, most of them in Europe, have already declared that what happened was genocide.

Turkey will get all butt hurt over this decision by Biden…..and how will that effect the situation in the Middle East….is the next question.

Biden wants to show that the US stands up for human rights….well except in Israel….I say stand up for human rights for all or sit the Hell down and shut up.

But will this acknowledgement by the US be enough?

Thoughts?

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The Day America Saved The World

Let me state in the onset that this is a propaganda piece to try and change the history of World War One…..Now I am not saying that this piece is wrong in its entirety….

The American role in the First World War is one of the great stories of the American Century, and yet it has largely vanished from view. Most historians tell us that the U.S. Army arrived too late on the Western Front to affect the war’s outcome, an outcome determined by Allied grit, better tactics, the British blockade of German ports, and, ultimately, German exhaustion and revolution.

The French and British were barely hanging on in 1918. By year-end 1917, France had lost 3 million men in the war, Britain 2 million. The French army actually mutinied in 1917, half of its demoralized combat divisions refusing to attack the Germans. The British fared little better in 1917, losing 800,000 casualties in the course of a year that climaxed with the notorious three-month assault on the muddy heights of Passchendaele, where 300,000 British infantry fell to gain just two miles of ground.

By 1918, French reserves of military-aged recruits were literally a state secret; there were so few of them still alive. France maintained its 110 divisions in 1918 not by infusing them with new manpower – there was none – but by reducing the number of regiments in a French division from four to three. The British, barely maintaining 62 divisions on the Western Front, planned, in the course of 1918 – had the Americans not appeared – to reduce their divisions to thirty or fewer and essentially to abandon the ground war in Europe.

https://time.com/5406235/everything-you-know-about-how-world-war-i-ended-is-wrong/

I kinda think that not all people will agree with this assessment…..only Americans may be the only ones that see it this way.

Please let me know what you think.

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Those Marauders From The Sea

The weekend begins and since I am dealing with many personal issues I will defer my posts this weekend to historical stuff….at is unless something major comes about.

My daughter is a huge fan of the History Channel’s “Vikings”…..she learned a bunch about them from this semi-fiction account of one of the clans…..like she did not know that they attacked and captured the city of Paris (France not Texas)…..and this got me to thinking about these people….what do most people know about the Vikings other than they were blood-thirsty killers that raid Northern Europe for about 500+ years……other than that what do we know?

Vikings history is as extensive as the people it studies. The seafaring Vikings (in Danish, the Vikinger) were a group of people that came from the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. They made an enduring name for themselves in the 8th through the 11th centuries for being tactical warriors, smart traders, and daring explorers. In fact, they arrived in America 1,000 years before Columbus ever did, and archeologists have found some of their remnants scattered as far east as Russia.

When the quiet monks on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne saw the dragon ships approaching, they didn’t know what was coming. They were fully unprepared for the ferocity of the warriors, armed with sword, axe and shield. The attack and plunder of Lindisfarne, a rich and unprotected monastery, echoed throughout the next 300 years of European history. The Viking Age had begun.

Historians use the term the Viking Age to describe the turbulent expansion of the Scandinavian people into Europe and Russia. Beginning in A.D. 793 with the Lindisfarne raid, Norwegians, Swedes and Danes set to raiding. Any unprotected community was a target. Vikings attacked places all along the coasts of Scotland, England, Ireland, France, Italy and inland Russia. They terrorized, plundered, traded, explored and finally settled and farmed all over the lands they encountered.

Simply put, the Vikings were Norwegians, Swedes and Danes, men who were usually farmers, traders, blacksmiths, and craftsmen. For various reasons, they took to raiding towns, churches and monasteries. Many of the places they attacked were on the coasts as they were easiest to reach. With their swift and easily landed ships, the Vikings could quickly swarm over the communities, killing and looting, and just as fast return to their ships and leave. They were gone before any defense or counter-attack could be made.

Strangely enough, for most of the men who went a-viking, it was only part time. When a Viking wasn’t busy farming, planting crops, for instance, they left their farms and went raiding. They often returned in time for harvest in the fall. Raiding was very profitable, however, and many farmers became full time pirates and raiders.

The people called Vikings were also fearless explorers who actually reached North America, making them the first Europeans to discover America. They settled Iceland and tried to colonize Greenland. They were also shrewd and competent traders and merchants. They traded all the goods of the north – furs, amber, iron and timber – for all the goods of the south – silver, gold, silks and spices. And all along the trade routes, the Vikings traded in slaves. Read our articles to explore these aspects of the incredible culture of these intrepid and dangerous men.

Vikings History: An Overview of the Culture and History of the Viking Age

Now you know.

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18 March

I know the day after St. Patrick’s Day….the cabbage has been eaten and the green beer is gone…..why not hurt your head with some history?

It is Women history month and since I do enjoy my history and today is the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune, 18 March 1871.

The Paris Commune was a popular-led democratic government that ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. Inspired by the Marxist politics and revolutionary goals of the International Workingmen’s Organization (also known as the First International), workers of Paris united to overthrow the existing French regime which had failed to protect the city from Prussian siege, and formed the first truly democratic government in the city and in all of France. The elected council of the Commune passed socialist policies and oversaw city functions for just over two months, until the French army retook the city for the French government, slaughtering tens of thousands of working-class Parisians in order to do so.

The Paris Commune was formed on the heels of an armistice signed between the Third Republic of France and the Prussians, which had laid siege to the city of Paris from September 1870 through January 1871. The siege ended with the surrender of the French army to the Prussians and the signing of an armistice to end the fighting of the Franco-Prussian War.

At this period in time, Paris had a considerable population of workers—as many as half a million industrial workers and hundreds of thousands of others—who were economically and politically oppressed by the ruling government and the system of capitalist production, and economically disadvantaged by the war. Many of these workers served as soldiers of the National Guard, a volunteer army that worked to protect the city and its inhabitants during the siege.

More on the background of the uprising……https://www.thoughtco.com/paris-commune-4147849  and  https://www.counterfire.org/articles/history/21095-the-paris-commune-150-when-workers-ran-a-city

Among the leaders of this uprising were many women….among them was Louise Michel…..

During the Paris Commune, women organised as never before. There were women caring for the wounded, women bringing food to the fighters and women fighting – some doing both. Women’s organisations and meetings were set up to improve the role of women in society. But of all the many women who took part in these activities, including prominent political thinkers and organisers, such as Elizabeth Dmitrieff, Andre Leo, and Nathalie Lemel, the name which is remembered most in association with the Commune is that of Louise Michel.

This is probably because Michel, as her biographer, Edith Thomas, says, was everywhere at once: in the political clubs and on the battlefield, in the 61st Montmartre battalion (noted for fighting like devils, and for her energy in particular), on committees and in the ambulance stations she helped to organise. Soldier, ambulance nurse, orator, her courage and audacity meant she was at Clamart, Neuilly, and Issy Les Moulineaux, with a rifle in her hands. She also proposed going in person to Versailles to assassinate Thiers. When told she would not be able to get that far, she disguised herself and got within reach of Versailles.

https://www.counterfire.org/articles/history/22143-louise-michel-the-revolutionary-woman-who-led-the-paris-commune

These are events that you probably have never heard of or the women who were a vital part of this historic event…..and that is why I am here.

An interesting time and a fascinating historic event…..

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Time For The Fall Ball

It is October and Halloween approaches….some Americans use to have costume parties or as they were called masquerade balls.

It is the weekend and once again FYI will prevail….and in doing so I get to use some history to inform and entertain.

So just where did the idea of a “masquerade ball” come from and when?

Keep in mind they were not always the elegant matters that we see in the movies…..

Dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, the Masquerade Ball began as part of Europe’s carnival season. Less high society and more cirque du célébration, villagers would gather in masks and costumes to take part in elaborate pageants and glamorous processions.

Quickly spreading across France like wildfire, some of the most notorious balls of the day would be held to celebrate Royal Entries: the grand occasion of welcoming kings and queens into their cities.

In fact, so audacious were the masked balls that in 1393, Charles VI of France held the first ever “Bal des Ardents”. Translated as “Burning Men’s Ball”, the event transformed the more orthodoxly decadent costume ball into a night of intrigue and risk.

In celebration of the marriage of the queen’s lady in waiting, King Charles and five of his bravest courtiers dressed in masks and flax costumes and danced the night away as wildsmen of the woods.

The only catch was that if your sashaying edged you too close to one of the many flaming torches that lined the dance floor, your look would be smoking–and not for the right reasons.

The Glamorous And Gruesome History Of The Masquerade Ball

This “Ball” season may not be all it should be thanks to the pandemic and people avoiding crowds to protect themselves and their families.

Now you know where this idea originated and when……

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Has The Amber Room Been Located?

I have watched about a ga-zillion TV docs that try to say they are on the track of the Russian Amber Room looted by the Nazis in 1942…..wait!

What the Hell is the Amber Room?

Construction of the Amber Room began in 1701. It was originally installed at Charlottenburg Palace, home of Friedrich I, the first King of Prussia. Truly an international collaboration, the room was designed by German baroque sculptor Andreas Schlüter and constructed by the Danish amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram. Peter the Great admired the room on a visit, and in 1716 the King of Prussia—then Frederick William I—presented it to the Peter as a gift, cementing a Prussian-Russian alliance against Sweden.

The Amber Room was shipped to Russia in 18 large boxes and installed in the Winter House in St. Petersburg as a part of a European art collection. In 1755, Czarina Elizabeth ordered the room to be moved to the Catherine Palace in Pushkin, named Tsarskoye Selo, or “Czar’s Village.” Italian designer Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli redesigned the room to fit into its new, larger space using additional amber shipped from Berlin.

Now you know and there have been treasure hunters looking for it since the end of the war, that is WW2…..some say it was destroyed by Russian artillery barrage….others think it is somewhere in a cave in Western Poland….and others think it was shipped to Germany and stored for later plunder.

This last story that I recall was that it was in a cave and that some “hunters” using the top notch equipment have located it…..

Third Reich scientists used the cave complex during the war – but all records of just what went on there have mysteriously vanished from local archives.

Now homeopath Leonhard Blume, 73, scientist Günter Eckardt, 67, and georadar specialist Peter Lohr, 71, believe they know where the treasure lies.

Lohr used specialist radar imaging to detect underground booby traps and what appear to be bunkers under the soil.

He scanned the hill in September after Lohr claimed a “reliable source” told him of the missing treasure’s whereabouts in 2001.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4724263/amber-room-germany-mountains-nazi-loot/

That was three years ago and so far no news that the artifact has been located.

That is in a cave…but recently news has been leaking out that it may be located on a Nazi shipwreck……

Divers say they have found a shipwreck that could solve one of World War II’s most enduring mysteries: The fate of the dazzling Amber Room looted from a Russian palace by Nazi soldiers. The Polish divers say they have found the wreck of the Karlsruhe, a cargo steamer that was sunk with a heavy cargo in 1945 after leaving Koenigsberg, the last known location of the dismantled chamber, reports Reuters. Records show that the Karlsruhe left the port in a hurry during the evacuation of East Prussia. It was sunk by Soviet warplanes off the coast of what is now Poland. Diver Tomasz Stachura says the wreck is almost intact. “In its holds we discovered military vehicles, porcelain and many crates with contents still unknown,” he says.

“The history and available documentation show that the Karlsruhe was leaving the port in a great hurry and with a large load,” says diver Tomasz Zwara, per UPI. “All this put together stimulates the imagination,” he says. “Finding the German steamer and the crates with contents as yet unknown resting on the bottom of the Baltic Sea may be significant for the whole story.” It’s not clear when divers plan to return to the site. The room, donated to Tsar Peter the Great by a Prussian king in 1716, was looted from St. Petersburg’s Catherine Palace in 1941. A reconstruction at the palace was completed in 2003.

For more info…..https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2020-10-06/Could-Nazi-shipwreck-discovery-solve-World-War-II-mystery–UlIpFdVU9a/index.html

Still NO concrete evidence that it has been located….but these treasure hunters just want to keep hope alive.

As long as we are talking about “legend”….is it possible that Nessie has been located in the Loch?

The object picked up by sonar technology is said to be ‘solid and pretty big’ sonar contact.

It measures around 10m and was detected by a boat owned by Cruise Loch Ness, in Fort Augustus, Scottish Highlands.

The mystery creature is likely to feed on trout and eels at the bottom of the loch, which has the largest volume of freshwater in Britain.

Director Ronald Mackenzie, 48, said: “Who knows what it is, there is quite a lot of fish at the bottom of the loch, there is carnivorous trout and eels.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/loch-ness-monster-found-sonar-22801900

Whatcha think?

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Those Damn Crusades

There is lots of opinions about the Crusades…..BTW there were 8 total but there were many minor battles that some could call Crusades.

We in the West know mostly about those Crusades that were successful…..for no one here wants to admit failure…..

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by Christian powers in order to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control. There would be eight officially sanctioned crusades between 1095 CE and 1270 CE and many more unofficial ones. Each campaign met with varying successes and failures but, ultimately, the wider objective of keeping Jerusalem and the Holy Land in Christian hands failed. Nevertheless, the appeal of the crusading ideal continued right up to the 16th century CE, and the purpose of this article is to consider what were the motivating factors for crusaders, from the Pope to the humblest warrior, especially for the very first campaign which established a model to be followed thereafter.

https://www.ancient.eu/article/1249/the-crusades-causes–goals/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/crus/hd_crus.htm

Can anyone name the first clash of Muslim-Christian forces in the First Crusade?

The Battle of Dorylaeum, fought on July 1, 1097, marked the first full-scale military clash between the Christian armies of the West and the Muslim armies of the East. As such, it would prove to be an educational experience for both armies, one whose final outcome would have an extreme influence on the course of the First Crusade.

Dorylaeum: The First Christian-Muslim Clash of the Crusades

All the blood and death….were the Crusades a success or not?

To answer the question is this link to a book…..https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/168393

For those allergic to the printed word and reading…I have a short video for your education….

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23 August 1939

On this day in history was a turning point for Europe only a mere 20 years after the end of the Great War (WW1)…..this situation is all but forgotten unless you watch the Hitler Channel….but most Americans have NO idea what this “Pact” actually meant or did……

On this day in 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact….called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact…..

On August 23, 1939, representatives from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union met and signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (also called the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact), a mutual promise made by the two leaders guaranteeing that neither would attack the other.

With the imminence of World War II becoming ever clearer, signing the pact guaranteed Germany protection against the necessity of fighting a two-front war. The Soviet Union was awarded land in return, including parts of Poland and the Baltic States, as part of a secret addendum.

The pact was broken when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union less than two years later, on June 22, 1941.

https://www.thoughtco.com/nazi-soviet-non-aggression-pact-1779994

Vyacheslav Molotov, Russian foreign minister, signs the non-aggression pact negotiated between Soviet Russia and Germany, at the Kremlin, Moscow. Standing behind him is his German counterpart Joachim von Ribbentrop (left), and Joseph Stalin (centre), 23 August 1939.

Germany and the Soviet Union have agreed to conclude a pact of non-aggression. The surprising announcement was made in Berlin last night by the official German news agency. It was added that Herr von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, is flying to Moscow to-morrow to complete the negotiations. Early this morning the Russian Tass Agency issued a similar statement.

The news was completely unexpected. There had been rumours in Berlin of a meeting at Berchtesgaden yesterday between Herr Hitler, Herr von Ribbentrop, and Her von Papen, who had recently visited Moscow, but that was all.

The decision to sign the pact is announced only the day after the signing of a commercial treaty was made known. The Russian press yesterday, suddenly changing its tone towards Germany, warmly welcomed the commercial agreement as being likely to lead to better political relations – “eventually,” they said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/from-the-archive-blog/2019/jul/24/molotov-ribbentrop-pact-germany-russia-1939

Neither party had any intention of keeping this pact…Poland was the prize that both wanted in their spheres….

This was an important event that leads up to September 1939 and the invasion of Poland.

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The Paris Commune

No not the one in 1871….but rather the one that was formed shortly after the storming of the Bastille…..that date was 10 August 1792…

In case you are confused….this is the Paris Commune of 1871……

The Paris Commune was a popular-led democratic government that ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. Inspired by the Marxist politics and revolutionary goals of the International Workingmen’s Organization (also known as the First International), workers of Paris united to overthrow the existing French regime which had failed to protect the city from Prussian siege, and formed the first truly democratic government in the city and in all of France. The elected council of the Commune passed socialist policies and oversaw city functions for just over two months, until the French army retook the city for the French government, slaughtering tens of thousands of working-class Parisians in order to do so.

https://www.thoughtco.com/paris-commune-4147849

As you would suspect…yes I have written about the Paris Commune of 1871 here on IST……..https://lobotero.com/2011/03/28/birth-of-the-paris-commune/

Now for the first and some say the most important of these “Communes”…..and the subject of today’s post……

The Paris Commune was the municipal government of Paris during the French Revolution. It was formed during the insurrection of July 1789. The Commune played an important role in the life of the capital. Not only did it provide civic functions like tax collection, services and public works, the Paris Commune was also a democratic assembly where the ordinary people of Paris were represented. This gave the Commune a great deal of sway.

Membership of the Commune council reflected the political will of the people of Paris – moderate from July 1789, radical from August 1792. In its first three years the Commune was dominated by the urban bourgeoisie and liberal-moderates like Jean-Sylvain Bailly. But after the journée of August 10th 1792, control of the Commune was seized by radical Jacobins like Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins and Jacques Hébert.

From this point, the Commune became directly representative of the Paris sections and sans culottes. The actions of this radical Commune challenged the authority of the national government and shaped the violence of 1792-94.

The Paris Commune

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