Or rather, a collective name for codes of conduct used by the Japanese warrior class.
Misconceptions We Learn in School.
- Thread starter Fr8monkey
- Start date
Or rather, a collective name for codes of conduct used by the Japanese warrior class.
Sanacja was not (originally) right wing. The putsch was made by a socialist politician, with support of communists in fact, against a right-wing gouverment. It wasn't right-wing at all at the start, although it did evoluate in this direction with time. But the situation was described well: the gouverment was becoming more and more authoritarian as years passed.
Still there was more freedom than after 1948.
another bs from cheezy. Pilsudski actually proposed a preventive war against Hitler when he created a gouverment, or so was believed at this time.
After Pilsudski died, certain politicians of Sanacja flirted with fascism and Germany, but even they didn't want an alliance with them.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
I meant on a personal level, not an official one.
Desmond Hawkins
Deity
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Of course the French apparently rejected the idea in 1934! Not that I am French-bashing. They get an unfair treatment by (Anglo-Saxon?) history.
Here are two really annoying WWII misconceptions that everyone I know was taught:
1) The Manhattan Project produced just 2 atomic weapons with no more to come, and thus Truman was bluffing about the "rain of ruin" he would visit on Japan if it didn't surrender. I've even seen a history book calculate the cost of Little Boy and Fatman by dividing the total cost of the Manhattan project by 2, implying they were impractical weapons at the time.
2) That Japan surrendered with the condition that the Emperor would keep his position, and further that Japan had offered surrender with just that condition before the Atomic Bombings, with the implication that said bombings were tragically unnecessary.
1) The Manhattan Project produced just 2 atomic weapons with no more to come, and thus Truman was bluffing about the "rain of ruin" he would visit on Japan if it didn't surrender. I've even seen a history book calculate the cost of Little Boy and Fatman by dividing the total cost of the Manhattan project by 2, implying they were impractical weapons at the time.
2) That Japan surrendered with the condition that the Emperor would keep his position, and further that Japan had offered surrender with just that condition before the Atomic Bombings, with the implication that said bombings were tragically unnecessary.
That Indonesia's declaration of independence was this:
Rather than the far better:
How this came about is rather simple. George McT. Kahin was given a copy of the full declaration independence in 1948 which he put with his other papers. When the Dutch attacked Yogyakarta in that same year he was incarcerated, then deported to Batavia (Jakarta) and his papers were seized by the Dutch military police. The papers were recovered for him by the Indian Consul in Yogya a few weeks later. Unfortunately the Dutch had been less than careful and some of the papers had bee misplaced. When Kahin went to write his magisterial Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia he couldn't find the misplaced original and instead used an abbreviated copy provided to the media. All the original copies had in the meantime been lost when the Republic's civilian government was overrun at the same time as Kahin was bailed out of Yogya. Neither Sukarno or Hatta for reasons unknown ever bothered to say that the original proclamation had been somewhat longer. The fault was only discovered in 2000 just before Kahin's death when he again went through his papers and stumbled once more upon the now sole remaining original.
The second great myth of the Indonesian National Revolution is that the Republic was declared under Japanese tutelage. The Dutch particularly played up in the aftermath of the Second World War and tried, with some success, to paint the Republic as a Japanese puppet gone rogue with little public support. There is a grain of truth in this accusation. Admiral Maeda the principle naval attaché to the army zone in the East Indies was supportive of Indonesian nationalist aspirations. He however had no formal power as he was operating outside of his jurisdiction and in contradiction to stated naval policy to boot. All he did was offer a safe house for prominent nationalists and later after Sukarno and Hatta were abducted, by student radicals, he managed to help extricate them. When the declaration of independence was made Maeda was promptly arrested by the Kempeitai. There is a bit of suspicion that Maeda may have had Socialist leanings as he was said to be very familiar with the writings of Marx. He was also convinced like many of the younger officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy that they would return in a few years at the head of a socialist revolution. Otherwise the army was eager to keep Indonesian nationalist rumblings under control at least until they left to return home in line with the terms of the surrender a desire to keep themselves alive in the meantime. This didn't exactly eventuate...
The third myth is that the Dutch could have won the Indonesian Revolution and that it was only because the United States threatened to suspend Marshall Aid and a loss of political will at home that 'our' Indies were lost. This is patent nonsense. While the Republic had been overrun, the civilian administration incarcerated and a multiplicity of puppet states had been set-up the Dutch position was still untenable. Essentially, the Dutch lacked the troops to do much more than hold isolated enclaves - usually, the larger towns and cities - while the Republic controlled everything else. The situation had become so dangerous towards the end that many of the Dutch enclaves had to be supplied by air because the roads had been rendered unsafe. The final Indonesian push against the Dutch had already been prepared in the form of Abdul Haris Nasution's Siliwangi division which was heavily armed and was in the final stage of preparations to attack a number of isolated Dutch positions in the hope of drawing them into a battle of attrition which the supply starved Dutch couldn't hope to win.
Earlier attempts to force this kind of confrontation had been largely successful forcing the Dutch to extricate their forces with what limited armoured forces they had available. The best example of this was the counter-attack against the Dutch in Yogya where the Republic's forces came close to retaking the city. Dutch resistance at one stage was confined to within four blocks of the city centre. It was only when relief troops arrived that Republican forces had withdrawn. A later attack made it right into the city centre before the attack again stalled in the face of Dutch armour. Amusingly, Kahin was in the city during the latter attack and had been sleeping in the objective itself, the Hotel Merdeka. He hadn't realised that the fighting itself had reached right up to the hotel door itself where a Republican squad had tried to lay dynamite to knock the building down. (He later met the lieutenant who had been in charge of the operation who apologised about the incident noting that there had been no ill will directed at Kahin personally). The next attack on the Dutch would have come in substantially more force than had been previously exerted with the hope of forcing the Dutch into the aforementioned battle of attrition. The Dutch themselves were eager to try and break the back of the Republican army but lacked the men and material to actually achieve it even when a decisive engagement was presented. It had all the promise of Dien Bien Phu.
Rather than the far better:
How this came about is rather simple. George McT. Kahin was given a copy of the full declaration independence in 1948 which he put with his other papers. When the Dutch attacked Yogyakarta in that same year he was incarcerated, then deported to Batavia (Jakarta) and his papers were seized by the Dutch military police. The papers were recovered for him by the Indian Consul in Yogya a few weeks later. Unfortunately the Dutch had been less than careful and some of the papers had bee misplaced. When Kahin went to write his magisterial Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia he couldn't find the misplaced original and instead used an abbreviated copy provided to the media. All the original copies had in the meantime been lost when the Republic's civilian government was overrun at the same time as Kahin was bailed out of Yogya. Neither Sukarno or Hatta for reasons unknown ever bothered to say that the original proclamation had been somewhat longer. The fault was only discovered in 2000 just before Kahin's death when he again went through his papers and stumbled once more upon the now sole remaining original.
The second great myth of the Indonesian National Revolution is that the Republic was declared under Japanese tutelage. The Dutch particularly played up in the aftermath of the Second World War and tried, with some success, to paint the Republic as a Japanese puppet gone rogue with little public support. There is a grain of truth in this accusation. Admiral Maeda the principle naval attaché to the army zone in the East Indies was supportive of Indonesian nationalist aspirations. He however had no formal power as he was operating outside of his jurisdiction and in contradiction to stated naval policy to boot. All he did was offer a safe house for prominent nationalists and later after Sukarno and Hatta were abducted, by student radicals, he managed to help extricate them. When the declaration of independence was made Maeda was promptly arrested by the Kempeitai. There is a bit of suspicion that Maeda may have had Socialist leanings as he was said to be very familiar with the writings of Marx. He was also convinced like many of the younger officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy that they would return in a few years at the head of a socialist revolution. Otherwise the army was eager to keep Indonesian nationalist rumblings under control at least until they left to return home in line with the terms of the surrender a desire to keep themselves alive in the meantime. This didn't exactly eventuate...
The third myth is that the Dutch could have won the Indonesian Revolution and that it was only because the United States threatened to suspend Marshall Aid and a loss of political will at home that 'our' Indies were lost. This is patent nonsense. While the Republic had been overrun, the civilian administration incarcerated and a multiplicity of puppet states had been set-up the Dutch position was still untenable. Essentially, the Dutch lacked the troops to do much more than hold isolated enclaves - usually, the larger towns and cities - while the Republic controlled everything else. The situation had become so dangerous towards the end that many of the Dutch enclaves had to be supplied by air because the roads had been rendered unsafe. The final Indonesian push against the Dutch had already been prepared in the form of Abdul Haris Nasution's Siliwangi division which was heavily armed and was in the final stage of preparations to attack a number of isolated Dutch positions in the hope of drawing them into a battle of attrition which the supply starved Dutch couldn't hope to win.
Earlier attempts to force this kind of confrontation had been largely successful forcing the Dutch to extricate their forces with what limited armoured forces they had available. The best example of this was the counter-attack against the Dutch in Yogya where the Republic's forces came close to retaking the city. Dutch resistance at one stage was confined to within four blocks of the city centre. It was only when relief troops arrived that Republican forces had withdrawn. A later attack made it right into the city centre before the attack again stalled in the face of Dutch armour. Amusingly, Kahin was in the city during the latter attack and had been sleeping in the objective itself, the Hotel Merdeka. He hadn't realised that the fighting itself had reached right up to the hotel door itself where a Republican squad had tried to lay dynamite to knock the building down. (He later met the lieutenant who had been in charge of the operation who apologised about the incident noting that there had been no ill will directed at Kahin personally). The next attack on the Dutch would have come in substantially more force than had been previously exerted with the hope of forcing the Dutch into the aforementioned battle of attrition. The Dutch themselves were eager to try and break the back of the Republican army but lacked the men and material to actually achieve it even when a decisive engagement was presented. It had all the promise of Dien Bien Phu.
Any proof for that?
sydhe
King of Kongs
I've not heard #1, except to the extent that a third weapon wasn't ready at the time of the Nagasaki bombing. Surely they would have had more in short order.
There were 3. 1 test, 2 used on Japan, and anything more was possible, but only with a time lag. I don't recall how long that lag would have been.
At the time of the Nagasaki bombing, there was a second Little Boy style gun-type bomb shell...but no uranium core for it, and enough plutonium for another implosion-type bomb, but no actual bomb. The third plutonium bomb (that is, after Trinity and Nagasaki) was apparently ready by the time Japan surrendered, with the target being Kokura, the main target for Fatman that escaped due to cloud cover.
At the time, the Hanford complex was producing at the rate of 1 bomb's worth of plutonium every 10 days out of 3 reactors (of an eventual 9). The Oak Ridge complex was far less efficient, taking around 3-4 months to enrich enough uranium for a single bomb.
LightSpectra
me autem minui
Bit of a generalization there, isn't it? "European medieval weapons" can refer to anything from daggers to trebuchets.
Besides that, heaviness is relative; hence the term "heavy cavalry," which doesn't necessarily imply that the armor was impractical.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Interestingly enough, the Knight typically people think of with the elaborate heavy plate armor that covers both him and horse is actually a product of the Renaissance.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
30 lbs is not an outrageous weight. They aren't meant to be wielded by seven year olds.
However, you are correct that European weaponry reached extremes not really found in the rest of the world. This is partly due to the "bash it with something heavy" mentality surrounding hand weapons. There is a famous, but untrue story that illustrates the differences in mentality between Medieval European and, for example here, Middle Eastern:
During the Third Crusade, Saladin and Richard, Coeur de Lion meet for negotiations. The two get into traditional boasting about, among other things, their weaponry. Richard boasts that his sword can break a table in half with a single stroke. Saladin does not believe this, and has a table brought in. Richard draws his sword and cleaves the table in two with a single stroke. Saladin, not to be outdone, boasts that his sabre can cut a falling silk handkerchief in two without disrupting its flight. Richard is incredulous, but throws his silk scarf into the air. Saladin unsheathes his sabre and slices the scarf in two, and the pieces float down to the ground.
The largest European swords, like the notorious zweihanders, could be as long as six feet from pommel to blade tip. And of course the famous bearded axes, which were as tall as a man with a blade the size of your face!
So are the "Dark Ages". :3
sophie
Break My Heart
nothing ever happened in the dark ages rome is so great! :3
I've never heard of a war sword heavier than eight or so pounds
Most European one handed swords were under 4lb.!
that seems hard to believe. but apparently the Roman gladius was about 3.5 lbs.
. no self-respecting broadsword, maybe a rapier ?
Serutan
Eatibus Anythingibus
Calling the entire 476-1400 period that is indeed wrong. But calling
the 476- (8-1000, depending if you think Charlamange represents the beginning of
European recovery) period 'Dark Ages' is IMO not too far off.
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