History questions not worth their own thread III

[BuckyRea]

What kind of reaction did the Great White Fleet elicit, both politically and from individual citizens in ports of call?

There's a recent book out about it, The Imperial Cruise. It's somewhat controversial as it takes a really hard line on some of Teddy Roosevelt's racial views & parenting skills, all while giving him "credit" for kick starting Japanese militarism in the Pacific. Worth a read, so long as one reads at least one other book that's not out for his blue blood, just as a balancer.

 

[LegioCorvus]

Anyone know why the word Romance has come to be related to love? What little research I could find has shown that it first came to mean "court as a lover" as recently as 1942, and only came to mean a "love affair" circa 1916. All I got were dates, and not context. Though with those dates I would assume a connection with the two world wars.

I'm also entirely sure how the word Romance came to mean heroic adventure, it's previous definition, but it seems a fairly easy connection to make between the tales of courtly romance of the high/late medieval period and likely being written in Latin by the court chaplains. If that's incorrect, please correct me.

 

[Samez]

Did the US build sub-pens during WWII? This is mostly related to the pacific theater as chance of air-raids was quite small on the east coast (At least compared to pacific islands). Or was it just not necessary (frontline moving too fast or US air superiority)?

 

[BuckyRea]

Anyone know why the word Romance has come to be related to love? What little research I could find has shown that it first came to mean "court as a lover" as recently as 1942, and only came to mean a "love affair" circa 1916. All I got were dates, and not context. Though with those dates I would assume a connection with the two world wars.

I'm also entirely sure how the word Romance came to mean heroic adventure, it's previous definition, but it seems a fairly easy connection to make between the tales of courtly romance of the high/late medieval period and likely being written in Latin by the court chaplains. If that's incorrect, please correct me.

As you probably know, the word roman means "novel" in some language (the book format, not in the sense of being original & new). The derivation of the word began as a callback to the high flying adventure tales of knights in the countries using the Romance languages. It started as an adjective ("a romance tale") but turned into a noun. Hence, stories of passion and adventure turned into romances. Because the English speaking countries tend to think of l'affairs d'amour as icky and frenchlike, the term romance then transferred over to love stories.

cf http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=romance

 

[Quackers]

So why did socialism fail to take root in the United States in the European fashion in the late 19th and 20th century?

 

[Cutlass]

Did the US build sub-pens during WWII? This is mostly related to the pacific theater as chance of air-raids was quite small on the east coast (At least compared to pacific islands). Or was it just not necessary (frontline moving too fast or US air superiority)?

I don't recall ever hearing of one. They wouldn't really have been needed anywhere in the Pacific any more than in the Atlantic. The US submarines were built for long ranges, and so could be resupplied at sea or from bases beyond the range that the Japanese had a practical range to strike. The Germans really didn't have an option but to base submarines within aircraft striking distance. It was difficult to base in the Baltic and then operate in the Atlantic. The US could base all the way back to Pearl Harbor, which the Japanese couldn't reach again after Midway, or Australia and operate anywhere there were Japanese targets.

And, IIRC, anti-submarine warfare was something of a lower priority for the Japanese. Where it was a very high priority for the US and Britain.

 

[BuckyRea]

So why did socialism fail to take root in the United States in the European fashion in the late 19th and 20th century?

The lack of paternalistic governmental traditions made Americans more squeamish about centralized authorities taking responsibilities for the personal business of private citizens. More to the point, it made them more responsive to the laissez-faire message & the myth of rugged individualism that were in circulation during the romantic era.

 

[Agent327]

So why did socialism fail to take root in the United States in the European fashion in the late 19th and 20th century?

Basically un unanswerable question, since socialism did take root in the US just as it did in Europe. The difference is it never gained the kind of mass support it did in Europe. Why is that? Well, one mustn´t forget that around 1900 the US were the mainstay of capitalism, firmly rooted in government support - which kind of undermines the argument expressed below. Just as in Europe trade unions emerged, but these by and large weren´t socialism-inspired or controlled. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between ´US capitalism was able to beat sprouting socialism´ and the fact that the American dual party system automatically locks out any would-be third party (but the UK has a somewhat similar system and harbours a quite large socialist-inspired party)... At any rate, that ´Americans [are] more squeamish about centralized authorities taking responsibilities for the personal business of private citizens´ is largely a myth: one can´t have a world power without a world power style government, and accordingly the US government/bureaucracy has been growing, not shrinking, continuously throughout the 20th century, which is reflected in its ever-growing budget (both under Democratic as under Republican administrations).

Anyone know why the word Romance has come to be related to love? What little research I could find has shown that it first came to mean "court as a lover" as recently as 1942, and only came to mean a "love affair" circa 1916. All I got were dates, and not context. Though with those dates I would assume a connection with the two world wars.

I'm also entirely sure how the word Romance came to mean heroic adventure, it's previous definition, but it seems a fairly easy connection to make between the tales of courtly romance of the high/late medieval period and likely being written in Latin by the court chaplains. If that's incorrect, please correct me.

As the term ´courtly´ romance already indicates the essence of the word is romance, not being courteous. Romance originates from the romance/novel, meaning a story not written in Latin, but in the native tongue, i.e. literally a more popular genre than the classical tracts written by medieval scholars. So the romance as a genre is directly linked with the emergence of the use of national tongues rather than the hitherto ubiquitous Latin in later medieval times. That´s one. Another is the emergence of Romanticism around 1800, a rather wild style of literature/music (consider Frankenstein, which was written by a Romantic) and the diluted late-19th century (neo-)Romanticism, which is closer to our modern perception of what´s considered romantic. So originally there was no relation between romance and romantic love at all - unless the romance described a romantic adventure, obviously.

 

[say1988]

Basically un unanswerable question, since socialism did take root in the US just as it did in Europe. The difference is it never gained the kind of mass support it did in Europe. Why is that? Well, one mustn´t forget that around 1900 the US were the mainstay of capitalism, firmly rooted in government support - which kind of undermines the argument expressed below. Just as in Europe trade unions emerged, but these by and large weren´t socialism-inspired or controlled. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between ´US capitalism was able to beat sprouting socialism´ and the fact that the American dual party system automatically locks out any would-be third party (but the UK has a somewhat similar system and harbours a quite large socialist-inspired party)... At any rate, that ´Americans [are] more squeamish about centralized authorities taking responsibilities for the personal business of private citizens´ is largely a myth: one can´t have a world power without a world power style government, and accordingly the US government/bureaucracy has been growing, not shrinking, continuously throughout the 20th century, which is reflected in its ever-growing budget (both under Democratic as under Republican administrations).

I would also guess that the differing impact of WWII played a part in keeping socialists weakened in the US, with the US seeing minimal destruction as compared to Europe and emerging as a superpower rather than a shadow of its former self.

 

[Cutlass]

I've also seen the argument that the lack of formalized class structure in the US, compared to the class structure that goes back far longer than capitalism in Europe, was also a factor. The depth of the hatred just wasn't the same. And the degree of class separation just wasn't the same.

 

[SeekTruthFromFacts]

An analysis of the factors of production might help to explain why socialism didn't gain mass support in the 19th century US.

This tool says that economic production requires land, capital, labour and entrepreneurship. In Europe, land and capital tended to be in the hands of the same narrow elite. As a result, labour got squeezed hard in bargaining negotiations. Radical action seemed the only alternative.

By contrast, land was relatively widely held in the 19th century US. The rural masses held both labour and some land, while the urban proletariat often had the option of going west and gaining land. So the economic bargaining was fairer.

This is obviously very simplistic - perhaps others can eliminate/elaborate on it....

 

[Masada]

I'm familiar with the model, but it fails to explain New Zealand and Australia all that well

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I recently watched the HBO-series "The Pacific" - which is about WW II in the pacific. Now I know that American WWII entertainment has the tendency to make the Americans look smarter in comparison to the enemy than they really were. But in this case the Japanese didn't just not act very smart - they would simply keep running directly into the fire of machine guns only to be mowed down. One after one.
My question now is: Did the Japanese really behave suicidal like that? I mean I have heard of their suicidal tendencies during the war - but how far did this really go?

 

[Cutlass]

In some cases at least, pretty damned far. In some cases, the Japanese used nearly WWI attacking tactics. With the WWII weapons, that meant a slaughter. But in many other cases the Japanese attacked at night, often trying to use deception or stealth infiltration. And on the defense they dug in deep and hard and were very difficult to dig out.

 

[Dachs]

In some cases at least, pretty damned far. In some cases, the Japanese used nearly WWI attacking tactics.

No, not really. The basics of attacking a heavily defended position were well developed by European armies by the time the First World War rolled around, with heavy indirect fire support, small-arms covering fire, short and sudden attacking waves, and use of battlefield cover all prescribed by German, French, British, American, Japanese, and even Russian regulations. American and Prussian-German staffs had led the way initially with implementation (with men like Emory Upton devising American regulations on the matter in the wake of the success-disaster at the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania, and Fürst von Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen adding measures like this to the artillery manuals after witnessing the Prussian Guard get butchered at Gravelotte-St.-Privat), but other armies followed suit by the 1880s, although IIRC the British didn't really do anything as far as regs went until after 1900, as only theoretical authors really noticed the Continental shift in emphasis on the shock attack. Even the Japanese themselves employed very modern fire-support tactics in Manchuria against entrenched Russian positions armed with machine guns (see Shaho, Sandepu, Mukden). The basics of the so-called infiltration tactics of Aleksei Brusilov and Oskar von Hutier were already being used by both sides during the First Ypres campaign of 1914 and by the Germans during a particularly celebrated assault on a Russian-occupied village at Tannenberg earlier in the same year.

The problem was less in the regulations or the tactics than in their implementation by reserve officers who weren't really aware of proper tactics - on both sides. Overeager reservists can be said to have accounted for the overwhelming number of casualties during the war's initial bloodletting in 1914, and as armies expanded and the mass industrialized war sucked in more and more conscripts, the problem of poor dissemination of tactical logic was only exacerbated. In general, Echevarria (2001) is useful here.

None of this is really applicable to the gyokusai human-wave assaults of the Second World War, which were generally mounted as a last-ditch effort to avoid capture and not as any sort of planned attempt to take a position. I don't have any numbers on whether volunteers or conscripts were more willing to engage in these than were professional soldiers, but I suspect that the Japanese regulars might have shied away from that sort of thing.

 

[r16]

immediately after the war when liberalization of the Japanese mind under American supervision the military was accused of sending "volunteers" on Kamikaze missions while the regulars were kept alive by assigning them to escort of the said planes . But then as time went on and Kamikaze attacks established as the norm and not single once in a lifetime operations the regulars were also in it , to the detriment of the Japanese war effort . ( This does not suppose the volunteers were good.) And while ı will agree on the last ditch death wish notion attacks which were always led by katana wielding officers if they were alive , the Japanese tactics were actually "fond" of the charge . Japanese machine guns were given bayonets so that immediately after using their maybe 30 round magazine the gunners were expected to join in the fun of bayonet fighting with a 10 kg weapon , historians find this somewhat over the top. And those who could not charge found other ways to die . ı think on Attu maybe up to 500 Japanese killed themselves with grenades after they charged but failed to break the American lines .

 

[Laurwin]

immediately after the war when liberalization of the Japanese mind under American supervision the military was accused of sending "volunteers" on Kamikaze missions while the regulars were kept alive by assigning them to escort of the said planes . But then as time went on and Kamikaze attacks established as the norm and not single once in a lifetime operations the regulars were also in it , to the detriment of the Japanese war effort . ( This does not suppose the volunteers were good.) And while ı will agree on the last ditch death wish notion attacks which were always led by katana wielding officers if they were alive , the Japanese tactics were actually "fond" of the charge . Japanese machine guns were given bayonets so that immediately after using their maybe 30 round magazine the gunners were expected to join in the fun of bayonet fighting with a 10 kg weapon , historians find this somewhat over the top. And those who could not charge found other ways to die . ı think on Attu maybe up to 500 Japanese killed themselves with grenades after they charged but failed to break the American lines .

actually on Attu island, the fighting was pretty fierce, initially the Japanese dug-in on the high ground and managed to cause pretty high US casualties. As a last ditch effort, the Japanese launched one of the biggest banzai charges in the war, this attack penetrated the American lines up to their rear- echelon troops, and the Japanese went down fighting to the last man.

Then again, Japanese ground troops were also quite outmatched in comparison to the Americans primarily because the Japanese lost the battle of the logistics in pretty much every island battle they fought. Overall, you could probably compare the logistical support behind a single infantryman in the field, how much supplies are allocated to an operation per soldier, US tops the floor in this category, especially against Japan.

I mean, when the Americans invaded North Africa, they actually brought a Coca-Cola bottling plant with them to support the troops. In my opinion that pretty much says it all, considering how lesser war-fighting countries and economies had strict rationing of essential goods such as fuel, food, luxuries (such as coffee) etc... America was fighting the good fight and living the good life!

Germany was also fighting the poor man's war just like Japan, they primarily relied on horses for transport of artillery and such on the eastern front, their economy overall wasn't very self sufficient and healthy in terms of war production, not to mention the lack of fuel. (other than synthetic.)

Guadalcanal became known as the island of death because the Japanese ran out of food and had to resort to cannibalism, most of the Japanese troops simply just couldn't survive on that island.

US troops were also a little bit under-supplied which lead to increased sickness rates (dysantery, malaria), especially after the US fleet off of Guadalcanal "abandoned" the Marines and the vicinity of the island.

Cut off from fresh water sources, food and medical supplies, with limited ammunition available (even with hidden stockpiles), encircled from all sides by massively powerful US navy task forces bombarding down on them with battleship guns and airplane bombs. There was only so much a Japanese soldier could do.

 

[ParkCungHee]

None of this is really applicable to the gyokusai human-wave assaults of the Second World War, which were generally mounted as a last-ditch effort to avoid capture and not as any sort of planned attempt to take a position. I don't have any numbers on whether volunteers or conscripts were more willing to engage in these than were professional soldiers, but I suspect that the Japanese regulars might have shied away from that sort of thing.

Not to mention Japanese Army doctrine outside of the gyokusai was very different from WWI.
The idea of highly mobile, lightly equipped infantry units able to support themselves when isolated from larger forces and supply lines using directed mass rifle fire, and human carried artillery doesn't sound very WWIish.

 

[Racsoviale]

Germany was also fighting the poor man's war just like Japan, they primarily relied on horses for transport of artillery and such on the eastern front, their economy overall wasn't very self sufficient and healthy in terms of war production, not to mention the lack of fuel. (other than synthetic.)

I thought it was because the russian railsystem was different from the german, so they had to completly rebuild a lot of trains to get a proper logistics network up and running. Hence the lack of any modern modes of transport.

 

[Omega124]

How come the internal combustion engine defeated the steam engine (I'm assuming the raw power, but I'm not sure)? How could the steam engine possibly win?