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I love how Fraser sells the utter terror that anyone would feel in the circumstances.
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Jul 24, 2020 07:44
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Beefeater1980 posted:I love how Fraser sells the utter terror that anyone would feel in the circumstances. His WWII memoirs, Quartered Safe Out Here, is highly recommended to anyone reading this thread.
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Jul 24, 2020 08:20
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Flashman posted:I wondered if I should plead my belly, so to speak In case anyone doesn't know, "pleading your belly" was a plea in court that you were pregnant so shouldn't be sentenced to death.
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Jul 24, 2020 11:39
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More specifically, it allowed executions to be postponed until after the mother gave birth; the judge was still required to sentence her to death and hope that the sometimes-capricious system for granting pardons or commuting sentences under the Royal Prerogative functioned appropriately. It wasn't until 1931 that the law was changed so that expectant mothers were sentenced to life imprisonment.
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Jul 24, 2020 12:11
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Trin Tragula posted:More specifically, it allowed executions to be postponed until after the mother gave birth; the judge was still required to sentence her to death and hope that the sometimes-capricious system for granting pardons or commuting sentences under the Royal Prerogative functioned appropriately. It wasn't until 1931 that the law was changed so that expectant mothers were sentenced to life imprisonment. A lot of them got transported instead, as I understand it, but I don't know the statistics.
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Jul 24, 2020 12:35
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I seem to remember that the Thin Red Line is one of those famous warped quotations that have entered history differently to their original form. What William Russell wrote was a "thin red streak topped with a line of steel".
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Jul 24, 2020 13:31
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Of a minor note - Russian and English sources seem to agree the Highlanders fired twice, at 800 and 500 yards. The Russians wheeled off precisely because a point blank shot would have been utterly devastating.
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Jul 25, 2020 09:52
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Campbell turns back to Flashman once the danger has passed. quote:“I’ll add a line to my message for Lord Raglan,” says he, and looks at me. “Ye’ve mair colour in yer cheeks now, Flashman. Field exercises wi’ the Ninety-third must agree wi’ ye.” Flashman watches the Russian cavalry retreat and notices that despite their defeat there, they seem to be better riders than he'd thought. quote:“Poor management,” says he. “They’ll no’ come this way again. In the meantime, I’ve said to Lord Raglan that in my opeenion the main Russian advance will now be directed north of the Causeway, and will doubtless be wi’ artillery and horse against our cavalry. What it is doin’ sittin’ yonder, I cannae—but, hollo! Is that Scarlett movin’? Hand me that glass, Cattenach. See yonder.” Flashman sees that the Heavy Brigade, under General Scarlett, is turning toward Balaclava. Campbell tells him to head back to Raglan, and if he sees Scarlett or Lucan, he should tell them to hold their ground and be ready for an attack from the north. quote:I needed no urging. The farther I could get from that plain, the better I’d be suited, for I was certain Campbell was right. Having captured the eastern end of the Causeway Heights, and run their cavalry over the central ridge facing us, it was beyond doubt that the Russians would be moving up the valley north of the Heights, advancing on the plateau position which we occupied before Sevastopol. God knew what Raglan proposed to do about that, but in the meantime he was holding our cavalry on the southern plain—to no good purpose. They hadn’t budged an inch to take the retreating Russian cavalry in flank, as they might have done, and now, after the need for their support had passed, the Heavies were moving down slowly towards Campbell’s position. Flashman rides through the oncoming Heavies, finding Scarlett and his staff among them. He gives Scarlett the message from Campbell. Scarlett says Lucan has told him to support the Turks in case the Russians come toward Balaclava, but Flashy says there aren't any Turks left, and Campbell expects trouble from the north. Scarlett thinks it over and decides he trusts Campbell's judgement – he'll hold the Heavy Brigade where they are and see what happens. quote:I was already measuring the remaining distance across the plain westward; once in the gullies I’d be out of harm’s way, and could pick my way to Raglan’s head-quarters at my leisure. North of us, the ground sloping up to the heights through an old vineyard was empty; so was the crest beyond, but the thump of cannon from behind it seemed to be growing closer to my nervous imagination. There was an incessant whine and thump of shot; Beatson was scanning the ridge anxiously through his glass. "Whistling Dick" was a small cannon used to launch heavy, high-arc shots, which whistled as they fell. Here's a contemporary photo of a similar gun (at right) in the Sevastopol fortifications.  The officers immediately start trying to turn the Heavies to face the Russians and giving orders to brace themselves against the oncoming downhill charge. But Scarlett isn't having it. quote:“Sir, they have the slope of us!” Beatson was gripping Scarlett by the sleeve, rattling urgently in his ear. “They outflank us, too—I reckon that line’s three times the length of ours, and when they charge they can sweep round and take us flank, both sides, and front! They’ll swallow us, sir, if we break—we must try to holdfast!” The Russians are starting to slowly advance down the hill, gathering speed, as the Heavies get turned, and Beatson is still trying to convince Scarlett to hold position, unsuccessfully. quote:He lugged out his sabre and waved it. “Ready, Greys? Ready, old Skins? Remember Waterloo, you fellas, what? Trumpeter—sound the…the thing, whatever it is! Oh, the devil! Come on, Flashman! Tally-ho!” The Heavies and the Russians slam together, slashing with sabers, while Flashman clings to the side of his horse (“Cheyenne fashion”), keeping his head down and shooting his revolver whenever he sees the color of a Russian uniform near him. quote:I suppose it lasted five or ten minutes; I don’t know. It seemed only a few seconds, and then the whole mass was struggling up the hill, myself roaring and blaspheming with the best of them; my revolver was empty, my hat was gone, so I dragged out my sabre, bawling with pretended fury, and seeing nothing but grey horses, gathered that I was safe. The Charge of the Heavy Brigade wasn't all that bloody – only about 50 Russians killed. (Flashman says that the Heavies found it hard to cut through the thick Russian tunics with their sabers.) However, it broke the Russian cavalry advance, and British artillery fire forced them into a retreat. The Light Brigade, nearby, might have been able to pursue the Russians to inflict further damage, but it didn't move from its position, which is the fault of Cardigan or Lucan, depending on whose version of the story you believe. Tennyson wrote a poem about this incident too, but it didn't become as famous as his other poem based on the events of that day.  James Yorke Scarlett was 55 years old and a lifetime chair-warmer who had managed to make his way from cornet (junior lieutenant) to colonel without seeing any action, and was finally made a major-general for Crimea. The Charge of the Heavy Brigade remained his solitary military achievement until his death (at home) in 1871. Still, there are worse things to be remembered for.
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Jul 29, 2020 21:58
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Who the hell puts a guy who has never seen action in charge of an entire brigade?! Come to think of it, didn't Britain fight a ton of colonial wars throughout the 19th century? I found multiple wars in India and the First Opium War with just a Google search. Where are all of the experienced officers from those wars? Or were they too socially inferior to get posted to a war with European power?
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Jul 30, 2020 05:11
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Better to be lucky than good and all that.
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Jul 30, 2020 05:48
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Viola the Mad posted:Who the hell puts a guy who has never seen action in charge of an entire brigade?! Those "wars" were mostly skirmishes with inferior forces. Crimea was the first real war with another military power that Britain had had since Napoleon, forty years ago, so the officer corps was very short of battlefield experience. Also, promotion in the military back then was frequently a matter of who you knew, what your title was, and how much you could afford. The kinds of soldiers who got sent overseas to fight were, by and large, not the kinds of soldiers who ever ascended to influential positions. Remember the discrimination against "Indian officers" back in Flashman? As for Scarlett, he seems to have gotten his promotions because he was a nice guy who everyone liked. And he was at least sensible enough to surround himself with more experienced officers, which not everyone was smart enough to do, hello Raglan.
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Jul 30, 2020 14:22
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Selachian posted:
It's also worth noting that several of those wars were fought largely or entirely by the East India Company's army, the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars for example.
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Jul 30, 2020 16:48
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Flashman finally makes his way up to Raglan on Sapoune Hill, being sure to casually display his bloody saber (and not mentioning that it's blood from a dead horse). He explains what he's seen so far to Raglan. quote:“Gad, Flashy, you have all the luck!” cries Lew, slapping his thigh, and Raglan clapped me on the shoulder. Flashman settles down with the rest of the staff, starting to relax but still suffering from internal distress. He comments that some of what he's said about the Thin Red Line and the Charge of the Heavy Brigade might not agree with what military historians have recorded, but he's going by what he remembers. On the other hand, what happened in the afternoon: quote:Anyway, I have it all clear; not only what happened, but what caused it to happen. I know, better than anyone else who ever lived, why the Light Brigade was launched on its famous charge, because I was the man responsible, and it wasn’t wholly an accident. That’s not to say I’m to blame—if blame there is, it belongs to Raglan, the kind, honourable, vain old man. Not to Lucan, or to Cardigan, or to Nolan, or to Airey, or even to my humble self: we just played our little parts. But blame? I can’t even hold it against Raglan, not now. Of course, your historians and critics and hypocrites are full of virtuous zeal to find out who was “at fault”, and wag their heads and say “Ah, you see,” and tell him what should have been done, from the safety of their studies and lecture-rooms—but I was there, you see, and while I could have wrung Raglan’s neck, or blown him from the muzzle of a gun, at the time—well, it’s all by now, and we either survived it or we didn’t. The book includes a small map here:  Flashy and Raglan's staff sit up on the Sapoune Heights, watching the action while Nolan carps endlessly about how mismanaged the battle has been so far. Nolan has particular venom for Cardigan and Lucan's failure to use the Light Brigade to pursue the retreating Russians, and Raglan's unwillingness to press the initiative after having driven back the first Russian attacks. quote:The Sapoune, on which we stood, is a great bluff rising hundreds of feet above the plain. Looking east from it, you see below you a shallow valley, perhaps two miles long and half a mile broad; to the north, there is a little clump of heights on which the Russians had established guns to command that side of the valley. On the south the valley is bounded by the long spine of the Causeway Heights, running east from the Sapoune for two or three miles. The far end of the valley was fairly hazy, even with the strong sunlight, but you could see the Russians there as thick as fleas on a dog’s back—guns, infantry, cavalry, everything except Tsar Nick himself, tiny puppets in the distance, just holding their ground. They had guns on the Causeway, too, pointing north; as I watched I saw the nearest team of them unlimbering just beside the spot where the Heavies’ charge had ended. Flashman can see the cavalry, both Heavy and Light, now positioned at the near end of the North Valley, and can even spot Cardigan, Lucan, and Scarlett among them. They're all sitting and doing nothing, and it's clear to Flashy that the Russians are in no hurry to advance up the valley toward the Sapoune; they're just moving artillery and infantry around among the positions they've taken from the Turks on the southern side of the Causeway Heights. Raglan is getting impatient with Lucan's unwillingness to move the cavalry, and keeps sending messengers to them, but his orders don't have any effect. Lucan seems to be waiting for the 1st infantry division, under the command of the Duke of Cambridge, to come up and provide support before he moves. This only makes Nolan more agitated. quote:“Why doesn’t Raglan make ’em move, dammit?” says he, coming over to Billy Russell and me after reporting back to Raglan. “It’s too bad! If he would give ’em one clear simple command, to push in an’ sweep those fellows off the Causeway—oh, my God! An’ he won’t listen to me—I’m a young pup green behind the ears. The cavalry alone could do it in five minutes—it’s about time Cardigan earned his general’s pay, anyway!” Flashman silently agrees, fantasizing about the possibility of Cardigan getting into action where he could be “hit between the legs and so have his brains blown out.” One of the other officers points out the Russians are moving captured artillery out of the Turkish emplacements on the Causeway, starting to drag them back to the main body of the Russian army. quote:Raglan stared at it through his glass, his face working. (“Jim the Bear” was a nickname given to Cardigan by his men -- the ones who actually liked him.) Nolan grabs the message and gallops off to find Lucan, with Raglan calling out that he must tell Lucan “at once.” And now we come back to the scene at the start of the book: just as Nolan rushes out of sight, Raglan once again hesitates and gives Flashman a second message to carry: quote:“Flashman,” says Raglan, “Nolan must make it clear to Lord Lucan—he is to behave defensively, and attempt nothing against his better judgment. Do you understand me?” Selachian fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Jul 31, 2020 |
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Jul 31, 2020 03:30
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In case anyone was wondering about The Thin Red Line, I saw this photo that alleges to be some 72nd Highlanders who would have served in Crimea. Note that those coats are fire-engine red. https://imgur.com/gallery/oWFlauR Not to be hosed with IMO.
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Aug 1, 2020 01:09
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Flashman is a more skilled rider than Nolan, and manages to catch up with him before he can find Lucan. As they gallop together side by side, Flashman relays the new message to Nolan, who compares it to the message he's already carrying.quote:“What the hell does it mean in the first place?” cries he. “It says here, ‘advance rapidly to the front’. Well, God love us, the guns ain’t in front; they’re in flank front if they’re anywhere.” As they pass through the cavalry, Flashman slows to let Nolan ride ahead (“I’d no wish to be dragged into the discussion that would inevitably ensue with Lucan, who had to have every order explained to him three times at least.”), and pauses to chat with a cousin of his, Lord George Paget, while he watches Nolan hand the message to Lucan. Then he hears Lucan shouting, and rides closer: quote:And then I heard Lucan’s voice, clear as a bugle. “Guns, sir? What guns, may I ask? I can see no guns.” Nolan rides away, and when Flashy asks, he says yes, he told Lucan to act defensively. Lucan is talking with Cardigan, and calls Flashman over. quote:Now what, thinks I, and my belly gave a great windy twinge as I trotted over towards them. Lucan was snapping at him impatiently, as I drew alongside: Lucan isn't having it. He's given his orders, and he expects to be obeyed. As he rides off, Flashy protests to Cardigan, who sourly tells him that he doesn't want Flashy there either but an order is an order. Flashman's account agrees with the historical causes of the Charge of the Light Brigade: 1) Raglan sent unclear orders in the first place. 2) Lucan was further confused by not being able to see the guns on the south side of the Causeway that Raglan wanted him to go after. 3) Nolan added to the confusion by waving vaguely at the Causeway instead of pointing out the exact location. 4) Nobody, from Lucan on down, thought to ask Raglan for clarification -- possibly because Raglan had been nagging Lucan all day and he'd finally had enough. Cardigan rides off to reorganize the Light Brigade for the attack as Flashman's innards start acting up wildly again as he considers the prospect of having to attack the Russian infantry. Cardigan rides back to address the troops, and: quote:All was still, five regiments of cavalry, looking down the valley, with Flashy out in front, wishing he were dead and suddenly aware that dreadful things were happening under his belt. I moved, gasping gently to myself, stirring on my saddle, and suddenly, without the slightest volition on my part, there was the most crashing discharge of wind, like the report of a mortar. My horse started; Cardigan jumped in his saddle, glaring at me, and from the ranks of the 17th a voice muttered: “Christ, as if Russian artillery wasn’t bad enough!” Someone giggled, and another voice said: “We’ve ’ad Whistlin’ Dick—now we got Trumpetin’ Harry an’ all!” Flashman is at least feeling some relief as the Light Brigade stirs into motion. He's trying to figure out what the plan is – perhaps a charge with a right turn toward the redoubts on the Causeway. quote:Oh, God, how had I landed in this fix again—three times in a day? It wasn’t fair—it was unnatural, and then my innards spoke again, resoundingly, and perhaps the Russian gunners heard it, for far down the Causeway on the right a plume of smoke blossomed out as though in reply, there was the crash of the discharge and the shot went screaming overhead, and then from all along the Causeway burst out a positive salvo of firing; there was an orange flash and a huge bang a hundred paces ahead, and a fount of earth was hurled up and came pattering down before us, while behind there was the crash of exploding shells, and a new barrage opening up from the hills on the left. The Light Brigade, along with Cardigan and Flashman, is now heading down into the valley and coming up to the first Russian artillery emplacement just as Nolan comes rushing forward, yelling for Cardigan to wheel around, he's going the wrong way – and Nolan is hit by an artillery shell, killing him. (In the real world, Nolan did ride ahead of the Light Brigade and was one of the first killed, but we don't know if he was trying to stop them.) quote:I turned to look for Cardigan; he was thirty yards ahead, tugging like damnation to hold his charger in, with the shot crashing all about him. “Stop!” I screamed. “Stop! For Christ’s sake, man, rein in!” For now I saw what Lew had seen—the fool was never going to wheel, he was taking the Light Brigade straight into the heart of the Russian army, towards those massive batteries at the valley foot, that were already belching at us, while the cannon on either side were raking us from the flanks, trapping us in a terrible enfilade that must smash the whole command to pieces. As Flashman desperately clings to his horse Cardigan comes riding by, yelling for the brigade to hold steady. Looking back, he can only see a string of panicked, riderless horses, and a couple dozen bloodied riders from the 17th and 11th. The guns at the end of the valley are only a hundred yards away now, and then they're suddenly through the line and behind the guns, with amazed Russian gunners and Cossacks staring at them. The remaining Light Brigade riders burst through, and assault the gun crews with desperate savagery. Flashman gets knocked out of the saddle, but George Paget spots him and pulls him up onto a fresh horse. While the Light Brigade managed to kill some of the Russian gunners, they had been thoroughly mauled by the ride down the valley, with 118 dead and 127 wounded out of 670, and another 60 were captured after the fighting. They couldn't hold the position and had to retreat back up the valley. Lucan had planned to bring the Heavy Brigade after them himself, but stopped once he saw what had happened to the Light. Flashman has already had enough and spurs his horse on, intending to ride back up the valley and out of the fight. But after what he's just went through, his sense of direction is a bit confused: quote:I heard George bawling behind me: “Halt! No, Flash, no!” and thought, carry on, George, and be damned to you. I fairly flew over the turf, the shouting died behind me, and I raised my head and looked—straight at what appeared to be the entire Russian army, drawn up in review order. In reality, Flashy collapses from his horse and drops his saber. quote:I just lay there, gasping like a salmon on the bank, waiting for the lance-points to come skewering down on me, and babbling weakly:
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Aug 1, 2020 01:17
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Lobster God posted:It's also worth noting that several of those wars were fought largely or entirely by the East India Company's army, the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars for example. Selachian posted:Those "wars" were mostly skirmishes with inferior forces. Crimea was the first real war with another military power that Britain had had since Napoleon, forty years ago, so the officer corps was very short of battlefield experience. So what I'm getting out of all of this is that the only reason why the British conquered a quarter of the world is because "we have the Maxim, and they have not." How much of this bullshit was still applicable come World War I? I know that in popular memory every single general can be represented by General Melchet, but for the life of me I can't recall the actual competency of the staff. I did all my reading/listening on that war years ago, and most of what stuck was the stomach-churning descriptions of trench warfare and Dan Carlin reading wrenching letters from the front.
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Aug 1, 2020 06:40
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Viola the Mad posted:So what I'm getting out of all of this is that the only reason why the British conquered a quarter of the world is because "we have the Maxim, and they have not." It took a while, but the Crimean fuckups did eventually push Britain toward making some military reforms in the 1870s. The biggie was abolishing the system of purchasing officers' commissions, so the Cardigans and Lucans of the world couldn't just buy their way into command.
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Aug 1, 2020 07:23
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In no particular order: 1. Nolan was pretty good with the whole horse thing so Flashman being good enough to overtake him (while Nolan is in a hurry to get to the action) is a touch unlikely. 2. "Kamerad!" is of course what stereotypical surrendering German troops would shout during WWI. I get the impression that it has become a sort of byword for cowardice of the dirty, sneaking sort - happy enough to snipe at our brave fellows from safety, but surrendering once the going gets rough. Just right for our Flashy, in other words. 3. WWI competence is a knotty issue. The whole "pointless war, stupid generals sending their men off to be massacred from the comfort of their mansions" take was a bit one sided... but revisionism, much as it made some logical points about everyone doing the best they could with what information and tech they had, gradually circled back to the same takes that the initial sources (generals and governments fighting the war) had, justifying everything they've done. I've recently read "Mud, Blood and Poppycock", which was fairly convincing, despite being filled with lies even I could spot. Trin Tragula is the resident WWI expert, and could probably elaborate further. 4 Commissioned officers were at least better than what came before - paying a lot of money for your position meant that committing treachery or loving up to the extent that you're kicked out of the army was a bad idea (note that "what came before" is outright feudalism.
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Aug 1, 2020 08:46
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Viola the Mad posted:So what I'm getting out of all of this is that the only reason why the British conquered a quarter of the world is because "we have the Maxim, and they have not." I think that summary is over-simplistic. The British won colonial wars because they had a powerful organisation behind them. The army may have been shown up as deficient on many occasions, but they did have discipline, training in cohesion and marksmanship, logistic support, dedicated engineering and artillery, etc. These are all things that gave an insurmountable advantage, not just the maxim gun, which was invented in 1884. During this early victorian period I believe the small arms were still muzzle-loading, and as we've just read, the cavalry didn't even carry carbines. The firepower advantage enjoyed by the British over colonial opponents tended to lie in accurate artillery and the musketry drill of the infantry. This series will eventually take Flashman to the Sikh wars, where the British (and Company) forces didn't, on the balance, have much organisational advantage over the Sikh state, and prevailed in a bloody and close fought conflict. Don't assume that because commanders and the institution as a whole hosed up the Crimean War (and many others) that the whole institution was incompetent at everything it did. While some of their assumptions and traditions seem absurd today, the British army had a 'hard school' in India along the Northwest Frontier, and as you would expect, many officers, soldiers, regiments and generals devoted serious effort to their profession. You are right that an army which won its experience mostly against non-peer opposition was unprepared for a larger European conflict. But what made the Crimean War worse was that the experienced, competent-at-what-they-did army in India wasn't brought to bear. A European war was the chance for Napoleonic relics and officers who had spent their whole career in Britain to gently caress things up. The skill and discipline of officers and soldiers at regimental level (where I believe there was more Indian experience floating about) was, after all, sufficient to beat the Russian army at Alma, at Inkerman, and to end the siege overall, even in the face of such poor command and supply. There's a wider theme through the 19th century of firepower advancing with technology and tactics miserably failing to catch up. That culminated in the massive blunders of the First World War. It's a big subject, but the idea of 'Lions Led by Donkeys' is mostly seen as a myth now. The British general staff and command echelons, like all the other combatant nations, massively misunderstood the tactical realities at the start of the war. Their understanding did improve, as did tactical and operational methods, through the war. 1918 was probably the high point of the British Army, ie it had a decent claim to be the most professionally accomplished force in the world at that time.
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Aug 1, 2020 09:07
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Viola the Mad posted:How much of this bullshit was still applicable come World War I? I know that in popular memory every single general can be represented by General Melchet, but for the life of me I can't recall the actual competency of the staff. I did all my reading/listening on that war years ago, and most of what stuck was the stomach-churning descriptions of trench warfare and Dan Carlin reading wrenching letters from the front. The Cardwell reforms had put an end to people buying themselves commands; it became a lot harder (though not impossible) for silly asses to rise through the ranks by force of inertia and the Peter principle. 1). There were a few Melchetts knocking about, the likes of Hunter-Weston and Stopford and Hamilton and Townshend. They generally served outwith the Western Front and the people who put them in their commands generally had some reservations about them, but in the face of the Empire getting balls deep into the literal first-ever world war, they needed warm bodies to fill the positions and had to make do with who was available; the system of the time wouldn't have countenanced "just pension them off and take a chance on twenty untested field officers to suddenly get promoted to general rank". 2). Most of them were well-meaning and had some understanding after the battles of 1914 that this was a different kind of war and things needed to be done differently, but lacked the mental flexibility (or the moral courage) to fully appreciate just how different. Their greatest flaw was not that they were military idiots, but that they weren't military geniuses; and the whole point about geniuses is they're exceptional and don't come along very often. People shouldn't be condemned for being average people in a situation that's beyond them. Most of the best-known hate figures like Haig actually belong in this category; it's not his fault he happened to be on a very short list of people with the qualifications to be commander-in-chief on the Western Front in 1916, and although he got there slower than a military genius might have done, he did get there in the end. It is impossible to fully reckon with this sort of thing without coming to terms that the Battle of the Somme was planned chiefly by Sir Douglas Haig and executed chiefly by Sir Henry Rawlinson as his principal army commander; and then the Battle of Albert in 1918, the first in the series of overwhelming victories that would eventually end the war almost by accident, was planned chiefly by Sir Douglas Haig and executed chiefly by Sir Henry Rawlinson, having finally learned the appropriate lessons from a lot of painful nearly-but-not-quite tactical-victories-but-strategic-defeats. 3). There were a few exceptional men knocking around; the only one who gets near the category of "military genius" is Ferdinand Foch, whose writings in the decade before the war were responsible for birthing the French cult of the offensive and the shrapnel-repelling properties of elan and red trousers; and yet almost immediately after the first battles of 1914 he was going "poo poo, I was completely wrong, this is going to need a complete revolution before we can get anywhere"; many of the innovations that led to victory can be traced back to something Foch started experimenting with or provided patronage to while he was an unfashionable army or army group commander. Below his level there are quite a few men who are not particularly well-known (with the exception of when people are trying to exaggerate the credentials of people like Monash and Currie to make nationalistic points) and in a war with a better general (ahaha) level of generalship would be unremarkably competent, but of course we know what is said about the status of the one-eyed man on holiday. 4). The feats of supply performed by all sides were in a different universe compared to the supply efforts of 70 years before; the things Wully Robertson did as Quartermaster-General of the BEF were so stupendous that they managed to get a man who'd joined the army as a private soldier appointed as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, which would have been kind of like allowing the heir to the throne to marry a fishwife. (He is still, and probably always will be, the only man to rise from private to Field Marshal). Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Aug 1, 2020 |
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Aug 1, 2020 12:08
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After cooling his heels under guard in a tent for a while, Flashman is taken to see the Russian commander, General Liprandi, and the first thing Liprandi does is smell his breath. The Russians are convinced that the Light Brigade must have been drunk to make a charge like that. quote:“Will you perhaps enlighten us, colonel, what was the explanation of that…that extraordinary action by your light cavalry an hour ago? Believe me,” he went on, “I seek no military intelligence from you—no advantage of information. But it is beyond precedent—beyond understanding. Why, in God’s name, did you do it?” The Russians are tremendously impressed by Flashy's calm, manly courage, and cheer for him, bringing brandy to toast “Thee Light Brigedde!” He's given fresh clothes and has a fine dinner with the general, and gets happily drunk, half hoping that he doesn't get sent back to Sevastopol right away in a prisoner exchange. After that, Flashman is stashed in a cottage in Yalta a couple of weeks. The Russians claim they can't find an officer of equal value to trade for him, which seems a bit dubious, but Flashy doesn't really care – he's enjoying his little vacation. At last, he's told that he will be sent to mainland Russia, where he will be placed on a country estate until they decide what to do with him. Before he leaves, though, the Russians let him visit the other prisoners from the Light Brigade. They're being kept in a large shed, and almost all of them are injured, some close to death. quote:The moment I went inside I wished I hadn’t come—it’s this kind of thing, the stale smell of blood, the wasted faces, the hushed voices, the awful hopeless tiredness, that makes you understand what a hellish thing war is. Worse than a battle-field, worse than the blood and the mud and the smoke and the steel, is the dank misery of a hospital of wounded men—and this place was a good deal better than most. Flashman goes around shaking hands while he chats with Ryan, the sergeant in charge, who's already getting ideas. quote:“(T)here’s ‘arf a dozen of us sound enough ‘ere to be worth twenty o’ these Ruski chaps. If you was to say the word, sir, I reckon we could break our way out of ‘ere, grab a few sabres, an’ cut our way back to th’Army! It can’t be above twenty mile to Sevasto-pool! We could do it, sir! The boys is game fer it, an’—” Another trooper from the 11th lets Flashman know that Cardigan made it out alive – unfortunately, from Flashy's point of view. quote:“Well,” says I. “Good-bye, Ryan. Good-bye, all of you. Ah—keep your spirits up. We’ll all be going home soon.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKI4GQ4c9g0 Flashman's journey now takes him across Crimea to the port of Kertch, where he sails across the Azov Sea to Taganrog, where they join an imperial courier heading the same way, riding in telegas, unsprung open wagons. Progress is slow because the roads are terrible, and the local serfs have to be turned out to repair the roads for the courier every step of the way. Flashy finds the serfs unnerving – “much smaller, and ape-like by comparison” to the Russians he's already met. quote:Of course, what I didn’t realize then was that these people were slaves—real bound, European white slaves, which isn’t easy to understand until you see it. This wasn’t always so; it seems that Boris Godunov—whom most of you will know as a big fellow who takes about an hour and a half to die noisily in an opera—imposed serfdom on the Russian peasants, which meant that they became the property of the nobles and land-owners, who could buy and sell them, hire them out, starve them, lash them, imprison them, take their goods, beasts and womenfolk whenever they chose—in fact, do anything short of maiming them permanently or killing them. They did those things, too, of course, for I saw them, but it was officially unlawful. Flashman also finds the Russian landscape offputting: quote:I’ve seen big countries before—the American plains on the old wagon-trails west of St Louis, with the whispering grasses waving away and away to the very edge of the world, or the Saskatchewan prairies in grasshopper time, dun and empty under the biggest sky on earth. But Russia is bigger: there is no sky, only empty space overhead, and no horizon, only a distant haze, and endless miles of sun-scorched rank grass and emptiness. The few miserable hamlets, each with its rickety church, only seemed to emphasize the loneliness of that huge plain, imprisoning by its very emptiness—there are no hills for a man to climb into or to catch his imagination, nowhere to go: no wonder it binds its people to it.
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Aug 2, 2020 00:55
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Nice writing there
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Aug 2, 2020 01:09
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Sick diss on Wales outta nowhere!
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Aug 2, 2020 01:11
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Thanks for the write-ups about WWI, folks, I really appreciate it. I'll probably toddle around back to the subject eventually in one of my history book binges, and it'll be good to have a bit more of a grounding when I dive in. But to get a little more on topic: Flashy posted:Oh, it was a cheery place, all right, this great empire of Russia as I first saw it in the autumn of ’54—a great ill-worked wilderness ruled by a small landed aristocracy with their feet on the necks of a huge human-animal population, with Cossack devils keeping order when required. It was a brutal, backward place, for the rulers were ever fearful of the serfs, and held back everything educational or progressive—even the railway was discouraged, in case it should prove to be revolutionary—and with discontent everywhere, especially among those serfs who had managed to better themselves a little, and murmurings of revolt, the iron hand of government was pressing ever harder. The “white terror”, as they called the secret police, were everywhere; the whole population was on their books, and everyone had to have his “billet”, his “ticket to live”—without it you were nobody, you did not exist. Even the nobility feared the police, and it was from a landlord that I heard the Russian saying about being in jail—“Only there shall we sleep sound, for only there are we safe.” This bit hit me hard. I took a few classes on the Soviet Union back in college, and what stuck with me the most was the blithering reactionary stupidity of the Romanovs in the face of modernity. Granted, the class only covered the last few tsars before jumping into the Soviet Union proper, so it's hard to say how much that applied to the era of the Crimean War. What little I know about Russia during this time period, though, has not exactly contributed towards a favorable opinion. But then again, I'm an Ashkenazi Jew. I literally grew up on stories about how "Great-grandma Lena fled over the border with the tsar's bullets whizzing over her head," and it wasn't until my teens that I learned that "Cossack" was not a synonym for "pogromnik." Tsarist Russia (and Eastern Europe in general, if I'm being honest) was very much the hellish Old World that Your Ancestors fled from in the communal memory, and being a history nerd who was deeply immersed in the Jewish community, that perspective left its mark on me. I can't pretend to be unbiased.
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Aug 2, 2020 04:09
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Viola the Mad posted:Thanks for the write-ups about WWI, folks, I really appreciate it. I'll probably toddle around back to the subject eventually in one of my history book binges, and it'll be good to have a bit more of a grounding when I dive in. It's kind of bad to recognize that the U.S.S,R, with all its corruption, inefficiencies and outright horrors (Stalin) was still something of an improvement over what had come before it.
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Aug 2, 2020 11:25
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I'm not exactly a huge fan of the glorious Romanov dynasty, but it's important to note Fraiser is only expressing disgust with the dreary landscapes of the Russian empire and its ape-like common folk because that's the political enemy du jour. Had he lived to present day, he would just as happily be castigating the barbarous and cunningly cruel Arabs, who would menace Flashman with the scimitars and kidnap his lady for their harem.
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Aug 2, 2020 16:08
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Xander77 posted:I'm not exactly a huge fan of the glorious Romanov dynasty, but it's important to note Fraiser is only expressing disgust with the dreary landscapes of the Russian empire and its ape-like common folk because that's the political enemy du jour. Had he lived to present day, he would just as happily be castigating the barbarous and cunningly cruel Arabs, who would menace Flashman with the scimitars and kidnap his lady for their harem. Fairly sure that’s a plot point in a later book! Although there might not have been that much kidnapping involved come to think of it.
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Aug 2, 2020 16:32
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Viola the Mad posted:Thanks for the write-ups about WWI, folks, I really appreciate it. I'll probably toddle around back to the subject eventually in one of my history book binges, and it'll be good to have a bit more of a grounding when I dive in. A left-field WWI book recommentation for you: The Enemy at his Pleasure, by S. Ansky. One of the many epic and compelling war stories that isn't given nearly as much attention as it deserves by the Anglosphere because just about nobody involved spoke English or produced records in English for the convenience of Anglophone historians.
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Aug 3, 2020 01:09
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Trin Tragula posted:A left-field WWI book recommentation for you: The Enemy at his Pleasure, by S. Ansky.
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Aug 3, 2020 08:51
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Ansky wrote in Yiddish; the introduction translates his original title as "The Destruction of Galicia". The translation's title is from a translation of Anna Akhmatova's "July 1914":quote:Beware of terrible times...the earth
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Aug 3, 2020 13:11
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Ah. Apparently it was never completely translated into Russian.
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Aug 3, 2020 15:30
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Trin Tragula posted:A left-field WWI book recommentation for you: The Enemy at his Pleasure, by S. Ansky. One of the many epic and compelling war stories that isn't given nearly as much attention as it deserves by the Anglosphere because just about nobody involved spoke English or produced records in English for the convenience of Anglophone historians. S. Ansky? As in the anthropologist/folkorist who wrote The Dybbuk? Holy poo poo, I didn't realize he had written histories, too. Gonna have to check this out.
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Aug 3, 2020 22:20
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Xander77 posted:I'm not exactly a huge fan of the glorious Romanov dynasty, but it's important to note Fraiser is only expressing disgust with the dreary landscapes of the Russian empire and its ape-like common folk because that's the political enemy du jour. Had he lived to present day, he would just as happily be castigating the barbarous and cunningly cruel Arabs, who would menace Flashman with the scimitars and kidnap his lady for their harem. Maybe? This is one of the early books, hes discussing Imperial Russia not the Soviet system and hes British which was a bit more chill about the Soviets postwar than the US was. I wouldn't assume hes going vintage chud on this for certain.
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Aug 3, 2020 23:03
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Lobster God posted:It's also worth noting that several of those wars were fought largely or entirely by the East India Company's army, the First and Second Anglo-Sikh Wars for example. Note that these specific guys are not available for the Crimean war as suggested earlier because they still belong to the East India Company. They are a private army, not the British government's (till the Mutiny a few years later. Which of course Flashman is involved in).
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Aug 3, 2020 23:20
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If you're in for a fairly CSPAM view on British Imperialism you can do worse than The Warlord of the Air, by Moorcock - it has a rockribbed thin red line british soldier becoming unstuck in time and and ricocheting through history and meeting Lenin et al. Pulpy but good.
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Aug 3, 2020 23:33
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A bit late, but as we went through the charge of the light brigade, obligatory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G5rfPISIwo Fun fact is that this song is actually longer than the length of the duration of the entire charge
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Aug 4, 2020 04:34
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ManlyGrunting posted:A bit late, but as we went through the charge of the light brigade, obligatory That's kind of sad and hilarious at the same time.
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Aug 4, 2020 12:23
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Trin Tragula posted:The translation's title is from a translation of Anna Akhmatova's "July 1914":
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Aug 4, 2020 14:21
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After a long trip, they stop at a military camp near the estate Flashy is heading for so the local registrar can check his papers. The registrar decides to demonstrate his hatred of the English, ranting and raving at Flashman – until an army officer, standing nearby, cuts him across the face with a riding crop, and again and again. quote:“This offal,” says he, and to my amazement he spoke in English, “requires correction. With your permission, I shall reinforce the lesson.” He looked at the blubbering, bleeding registrar crawling out of the wreck of his chair, and rapped out a string of words in that level, chilly whisper; the stricken man changed course and came wriggling across to my feet, babbling and snuffling at my ankles in a most disgusting fashion, while the officer lit another cigarette and looked on. Even a veteran bully like Flashman is chilled. The man introduces himself as Captain Count Nicholas Pavlevich Ignatieff. quote:I thought, hollo, this is another of those momentous encounters. You didn’t have to look at this chap twice to remember him forever. It was the eyes, as it so often is—I thought in that moment of Bismarck, and Charity Spring, and Akbar Khan; it had been the eyes with them, too. But this fellow’s were different from anything yet: one was blue, but the other had a divided iris, half-blue, half-brown, and the oddly fascinating effect of this was that you didn’t know where to look, but kept shifting from one to the other. Ignatieff explains that Flashman is bound for an estate caled Starotosk, which is owned by Colonel Count Pencherjevsky, and that there's already another English prisoner of war being kept there. While he's faultlessly polite, Flashman finds him disturbing. quote:It left me shaken, that little encounter. Some people are just terrible, in the true sense of the word—I knew now, I thought, how Tsar Ivan had earned that nickname: it implies something far beyond the lip-licking cruelty of your ordinary torturer. Satan, if there is one, is probably a Russian; no one else could have the necessary soulless brutality; it is just part of life to them.  Despite Flashman's intimidated response to Ignatieff, he was still a young man at this time, over a decade younger than Flashy, and had been an officer for only five years. He had not yet begun his diplomatic career. After departing the camp, Flashy asks his escorts about Ignatieff, but no one wants to talk about him. They arrive at Starotosk soon afterward: quote:(A)great, rambling timbered mansion with double wings, and extensive outbuildings, all walled and gated, and the thin smoke of a village just visible beyond. We bowled up a fine gravel drive between well-kept lawns with willow trees on their borders, past the arched entrance of a large courtyard, and on to a broad carriage sweep before the house, where a pretty white fountain played. Flashman decides this will definitely do as a place to sit out the war. Especially after the servants lead him inside and he spots a pretty girl coming down the stairs. quote:She was so unexpected, I must have goggled at her like poor Willy in the presence of his St John’s Wood whore. The servant leads Flashman to his room, which he will be sharing with the other prisoner. quote:A man of about my own age, who had been reading on the bed, looked up in surprise, swung his legs to the ground, stood up, and then sank back on the bed again, gaping as though I were a ghost. He shook his head, stuttering, and then got out: Who? Harry “Scud” East is another character from Tom Brown's Schooldays. There, he's Tom's best friend and sidekick, and also a frequent victim of Flashman's bullying. Tom Brown's Schooldays posted:There's nothing for candour like a lower-school boy, and East was a genuine specimen—frank, hearty, and good-natured, well-satisfied with himself and his position, and choke-full of life and spirits, and all the Rugby prejudices and traditions which he had been able to get together in the long course of one half-year during which he had been at the School-house. As they get over the astonishment, East tells Flashy he was captured at Silistria, a few months ago. He's now an infantry major, and says that he was out in “the Sikh campaign” as well. East waves off their previous relationship as “boys will be boys.” quote:God knows, Scud East had no cause to love me, and the sight of him had so taken me back to that last black day at Rugby that I’d momentarily forgotten we were men now, and things had changed—perhaps even his memories of me. For he did seem pleased to see me, now that he’d got over his surprise—of course, that could just be acting on his part, or making the best of a bad job, or just Christian decency. I found myself weighing him up; I’d knocked him about a good deal, in happier days, and it came as a satisfaction to realize that I could probably still do it now, if it came to the pinch; he was still smaller and thinner than I. At that, I’d never detested him as much as his manly-mealy little pal, Brown; he’d had more game in him than the others, had East, and now—well, if he was disposed to be civil, and let bygones be bygones…We were bound to be stuck together for some months at least. After they get over reminiscing, Flashman asks about the house and Count Pencherjevsky. East tells him that the Count is “splendid,” while pointing out a tiny grille in the paneling next to the stove, and then invites him out in the gardens for a walk. Once they're outside, East explains that it's a concealed speaking tube. He says he knows about things like that because he was “on the political side,” suggesting he might have been in intelligence; while he wasn't a spy, the Russians might have an interest in finding out what he says or does. Flashman asks if he's ever heard of a Count Ignatieff, and East says that yes, he was one of those who investigated him when he first arrived in Russia. East quickly fills in Flashman on the details of the house so they don't spend too long outdoors and make the Russians suspicious: Count Pencherjevsky is an old-fashioned Cossack who rules his estate like a tyrant, but has so far been friendly to East. He even lets East ride around the estate, because there's nowhere to run away to – and the Count has a bunch of his old Cossack buddies on his staff, who can catch anyone on horseback. Naturally, Flashy is also interested in finding out about the girl he saw. quote:He went red as a poppy, and I thought, o-ho, what have we here, eh? Young Scud with lecherous notions—or pure Christian passion, I wonder which?
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Aug 5, 2020 16:08
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Selachian posted:(Flashman drops a couple of references in the early going of this book to having taken part in the Second Anglo-Sikh War, which ran from April 1848 through March 1849. This is the same rough time frame as the last section of Royal Flash and Flash for Freedom!, so there's no way Flashy could have been involved – in particular, the battle of Chillianwala, which he mentions above, was January 13, 1849, around the same time that Flashy was arriving in Memphis with Cassy. Either Flashman is exaggerating his accomplishments for his papers, despite his promise to be completely honest, or Fraser didn't look closely enough at his notes. I only remember two major continuity errors in these books (though it's been decades since I read most of them), our recent acquaintance Mrs. Mandeville being one. In Flash For Freedom he mentions that he meets her again in the Civil War, but then he brings her back in Angel of the Lord. The other being Uncle Bindley who in one book is of the Flashman stock and hates the hoity-toity Paget side of Harry's family, while in another book he is a Paget who can't stand the common Flashman side.
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Aug 7, 2020 11:28
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