Hedgerows - Bocage.

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Normandy. 1944. Bocage. Hedgerow.

See from various Internet web sites descriptions of the battle in the hedgerows, Normandy, 1944. Particularly to item # 1. 

1. "First Action in the Hedgerows of Normandy"

2. "Hedgerow warfare in Normandy"

3.  "Combat in Normandy’s Hedgerows"

4. "The war of the hedgerows - Learning in Action"

Finally thanks to You Tube video. I recommend highly without qualification or reservation.

"Hedgerows - the Normandy Bocage An introduction and visual guide to the famous Normandy Bocage. We look at the different types of hedgerow that exist, the reduction in number since 1944 and their impact on Allied and German tactics during the fighting."

Hedgerows of Normandy rated as number # 2 most suitable terrain for conducting a defensive operation. Bocage as exceeded only by the cave and tunnel complexes of the Pacific islands during WW2. Neither the attacker [U.S. Army] or the defender [German] even hardly appreciating the advantage [defender] or disadvantage [attacker] of the bocage. 

Tactics of both sides to a large extent ad hoc? In this regard the German response superior to that of the American combatants? German weaponry most suitable for the bocage combat. Mortars, sub-machine gun, general-purpose machinegun rapid fire MG42. American superior firepower to a large extent negated. Close-air combat support and heavy artillery not so useful.

DEFENSE THE STRONGER FORM OF COMBAT. EASIER TO DO AND YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH MORE WITH LESS. AS IN THE BOCAGE.

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Rendlesham.

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Always looking for material of the paranormal variety with the military connection. 

Here one more instance. 

UFO. Great Britain. Cold War, nuclear weapons. Rendlesham forest. Restricted area. Etc. Soup to nuts. 

Devoted readers to the blog I recommend this You Tube video highly.

Within the realm of Unidentified-Flying-Objects [UFO] and observations of the paranormal kind this event can be deemed extraordinary and possessing great validity? UFO observed by many military personnel including senior officers. UFO as even approached and TOUCHED? Military trained observers their veracity during such phenomenon less subjected to question. Reports and documentation of the event evidently still exist and can be accessed. All very strange indeed!

See additionally an entire Internet web site article devoted to RAF Bentwaters. RAF Bentwaters adjacent to Rendlesham forest. RAF Bentwaters now a Cold War relic and apparently a museum?

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Gela WW2.

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Here thanks to yet one more Mark Felton You Tube video another example of Italian courage on the battlefield during World War Two. "Italian Armoured Death Ride - Sicily 1943".

Italian armor unit Battle of Sicily [WW2] attacking the allied [American] landing force Gela. Lightly armored and lightly gunned Italian army unit using captured French tanks R35/40 demonstrating admirable and unmistakable elan'. Attack not succeeding but the effort had TRY!

American ranger units Gela as attacked actually in a degree of peril. A concerted effort by the Italian armor and the allied landing-force might have been in great danger. Troops of lesser quality than the rangers might have panicked with tank-fright the consequences for the invasion force dire.

ITALIANS AS WITH OTHER MILITARY COMBATANTS LEADERSHIP  THE KEY TO SUCCESS.

See an additional blog entry with many links discussing Italian courage and bravery during both world wars:

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2017/01/bravery-courage.html

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Polisario.

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Courtesy the Internet web site Small Wars Journal and the article by Joseph Hammond.

"Polisario Front Renews War in Western Sahara"

"The United States should pay careful attention to the brewing conflict in the Sahara which if left unchecked could contribute to destabilizing forces across North Africa and the Sahel."

HEY, I THOUGHT THESE INSURGENTS [POLISARIO] WERE DEFEATED A LONG TIME AGO! IF NOT AN OUTRIGHT DEFEAT A STEADY TRUCE EVEN IF SHAKY SOMETIMES.

Polisario an African insurgency: "a Sahrawi rebel national liberation movement aiming to end Moroccan presence in the Western Sahara."

Two aspects of the Polisario COIN [counter-insurgency] odd. 1. The building of an enormous sand berm [wall] greatly restricting the cross-border movement of mobile Polisario units. 2. Autopsy of slain insurgents revealing uncircumcised men as combatants. For a part of the world where nearly 100 %  of the population Muslim the presence of such individuals found as most strange. 

Who are these guys?

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Biplane?

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Biplane? World War Two? Biplane? 

Consider within context of the recent blog entries as seen here and here the warring parties employing biplane fighter aircraft.

1. Gloster Gladiator.

"The Gloster Gladiator was already made obsolete by the time of its inception, yet the type soldiered on through 1944."

AND AS FLOWN BY THE RAF ACE OF ACES MARMADUKE PATTLE. [THIS MAKES THE COMBAT ACHIEVEMENTS OF PAT PATTLE EVEN MORE SIGNIFICANT?]

2. Fiat CR.42. Fiat Cr.42 Falco (Falcon).

"The Fiat CR.42 was designed off the successes of the CR.32, with Italy still believing in the capabilities of biplane aircraft. [as compared to the single wing monoplane.]

ITALIAN COMBAT FIGHTER PILOTS FLYING THE CR.42 DURING THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN [1940] WITH VERY POOR RESULTS.

See two Internet web site comparing the plus and minus of the biplane [two wings] as compared to the monoplane [one wing].

https://airplaneacademy.com/biplanes-vs-monoplanes-6-factors-compared/

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/july-1930/48/monoplane-or-biplane

Here also an oddity and curiosity. The jet powered biplane. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL_M-15_Belphegor

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Marmaduke.

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The British Royal Air Force [RAF] combat fighter pilot during the Second World War [WW2] was: "the most capable - - the most aggressive!" - - Gunther Rall.

Rall, of course, the esteemed German Luftwaffe fighter pilot from WW2. Rall  possessing a very distinguished combat record on all fronts, against all opposition. 

Here is the RAF pilot during the Second World War that was among the "most capable - - the most aggressive!"

Marmaduke Pattle. Indeed. Pattle it can be very reasonably suggested the BEST of the BEST!!

"Marmaduke Thomas St. John "Pat" Pattle DFC & Bar . . . was a South African-born World War II Flying ace for the Royal Air Force. He was an ace with a very high score, and is sometimes noted as being the highest scoring British and Commonwealth pilot of World War II. He has been unofficially credited with about 50 victories . . . Pattle did all his scoring in a period of nine months, against Axis opponents who outnumbered the RAF fighter contingent at all times"

Even more remarkable Pattle flying during his various aerial combats an antiquated warplane, the Gloster Gladiator.

Pattle after making such a significant contribution to the war effort losing his life  - - shot down and killed in aerial combat.

I am impressed. Not the  plane! The man behind the controls of the plane!

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John Finn.

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From just less than a week ago:

"US successfully intercepts ICBM with ship-launched missile in historic test"

"The U.S. now has another defense system defending against North Korean ICBM’s". 

"In a first-of-its-kind test, the United States has successfully used a small ship-fired missile to intercept a target Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), according to the Missile Defense Agency. The successful test shows the U.S. military now has another missile defense system capable of defending against North Korean ICBM’s aimed at the United States." 

An animation of the intercept. SM-3 IIA missile still in the developmental stage. Ballistic missile as the target fired toward the mainland USA. Ballistic missile intercepted on a down-ward trajectory? Normally these anti-ballistic missile systems ship-carried attempt to intercept during the boost phase rather than the terminal phase of flight.

Read additionally an appraisal by our good friend Commander Salamander:

"Bit by Bit, an ABM Capability Grows"

THE FIRST THOUGHT I HAD WAS THIS WAS A SIGNAL THINLY-VEILED TO THE CHINESE THAT THE MUCH TOUTED CHINESE ANTI-SHIP BALLISTIC-MISSILE NOW HAS A COUNTER.

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Blitz WW2.

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Blitz [1940] Italian style.

Again the topic the Italian military enigma. The Italian military during both World Wars their ineptness and poor performance marked in contrast to the military forces of other warring nations.

Another Mark Felton You tube video, the topic the Italian contribution to the Battle of Britain [1940. Thanks to the outstanding Internet web site of Bruce G. Charlton for the tip.

Italian contribution to the Battle of Britain 1940 rather scant and apparently ineffective at best. Warplanes bombers and fighter escort both antiquated models and easy targets for the RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires.

The poor performance and apparent marked incompetence of the Italian military during World War Two having many exceptions. See my previous blog entries the Italian on a number of occasions comporting themselves on the battlefield with elan' unmistakable:

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2017/06/italy-ww2.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2019/05/johnny.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2017/01/bravery-courage.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2016/08/folgore.html

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Urine.

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From the Internet web site "West Hunter" and thanks to same.

"National Greatness"

Penicillin the anti-biotic as arriving in the nick of time as they say.  Many allied lives saved during World War Two. Treatments prior to penicillin rather crude and ineffective.

"At first, penicillin was largely reserved for US and British military needs.  Later, it became available to US and British civilians, and soon after for general usage."

Correct. Until industrial production of penicillin "ramped-up" the wonder drug having to be rationed and quite so in an appropriate manner, allied military men first.

"But there was a  time window of several months in which American-produced penicillin was available for American wounded but not for French casualties. Fortunately, it happens that penicillin is rapidly excreted in urine.  It can be recovered.  Between January and April 1945, Rhône-Poulenc extracted penicillin from the urine of wounded American servicemen being treated in hospitals around Paris, penicillin which was then used to treat the wounded of the French Army.  They typically recovered about 100 doses from 300 liters [one liter equal about one U.S. quart] of urine."

Penicillin as obtained from urine of wounded American troops made available to the First French Army?

American servicemen to the rescue of the French and in a manner they could have hardly thought possible.

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Blackburn.

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Consider this a new one on me. Bio-warfare era of the American Civil War.

An idea to infect major cities of the North during the American Civil War with yellow fever considered. Measures to implement the plan taken but nothing substantive ever achieved.

The culprit and main [?] conspirator Dr. Luke P. Blackburn.

"Blackburn supported the Confederate cause during the Civil War. In the early days of the war, he acted as a civilian agent for the governments of Kentucky and Mississippi. By 1863, he was aiding Confederate blockade runners in Canada. In 1864, he traveled to Bermuda to help combat a yellow fever outbreak that threatened Confederate blockade running operations there. Shortly after the war's end, a Confederate double agent accused him of having carried out a plot to start a yellow fever epidemic in the Northern United States that would have hampered the Union war effort. Blackburn was accused of collecting linens and garments used by yellow fever patients and smuggling them into the Northern states to be sold. "

NEFARIOUS PLOT NEVER HAD A CHANCE. YELLOW FEVER TRANSMITTED BY MOSQUITO BITE AND NOT BY SOILED CLOTHING AS WORN BY INFECTED PATIENTS. BUT THE INTENTION AND WILL WAS THERE TO MAKE THE CONSPIRACY SUCCEED.

Dr. Blackburn his medical professional status post-war not hindered or hampered in any manner by his association with the Confederate cause. Also achieving high political office, Governor of Kentucky.

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Shahid Roudaki.

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Iranian global naval reach?

The commercial sea-going merchant vessel converted to a warship?

Thanks to You Tube for the video.

Attack helicopters [greatly resembling the American Huey Cobra gunship], fast-attack patrol vessels, drones and apparently containerized cruise missiles presumably of the Lora or Club-K variety. Ship defense some sort of surface-to-air missile system?

The armed merchantman. A concept normally only strictly a war-time measure. Not any more evidently?

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Spitfire.

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A propeller-driven plane supersonic? A propeller-driven plane? Supersonic?

Close but not quite!

Thanks to the BBC and the article by Stephen Dowling. 

"The Spitfires that nearly broke the sound barrier"

"A handful of British Spitfire pilots cheated death in high-speed dives that helped pave the way towards supersonic flight."

The single greatest impediment to a propeller-driven aircraft achieving supersonic speed the propeller itself. A propeller creating  too much "drag, buffeting and noise".

Even with the advent of the jet engine research continuing into the development of a high-speed propeller-driven aircraft. A warplane not able to exceed the sound barrier but close. 

Warning! The following You Tube video contains a slight amount of material of an adult and risque' nature some may find offensive. View at your own discretion. You have been warned! Additionally turn down the volume level on your speakers prior to viewing the video.

See also from another Internet web site further research into the propeller-drive supersonic warplane. XF-88 Voodoo. Once more a concept that was "fly-able" but never placed into production or service.

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DAG.

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Where the Russian mercenary Wagner Group has failed the Dyck Advisory Group [DAG] will not?

More Mozambique stuff. Insurrection succeeding seemingly unchecked. Bad guys unstoppable?

See previous blog entry [with many additional links] the topic the Islamic State insurrection Mozambique.

"Colonel Dyck And The Fight For Northern Mozambique"

Thanks to the Internet web site "Africa Unauthorized and the article by Hannes Wessels large portions of this blog entry copied in entirety and unashamedly so.

DAG now involved in COIN [counter-insurgency] operations Mozambique? Target the Islamic State insurgents. Devoted readers to the blog invited to read the entire article.

According to Colonel Dyck:

“'The stakes are extremely high,' . . . 'but the Mozambique Defence Forces are unprepared and under-resourced and we have to move fast. Some of the atrocities committed are unlike anything I have seen before and I’ve seen a lot of wars, in a lot of different places. The massacre that followed the attack on Quissanga Police Post involved the mutilation of bodies, severing of limbs and we believe the attackers ate some of the body-parts. Despite this barbarism, this enemy is organised, motivated and well equipped. If we don’t get on top of this, it’s going to spread south fast and that will be a catastrophe for the entire region.'”

“We have discovered it’s a nasty mix of old, well organised, criminal networks involved in ivory, rubies and emeralds but the big, billion-dollar business is heroin being moved through the area and distributed north and south. This has now taken on an Islamic face and it’s a highly effective combination with strong external support.”

DAG operating on a "shoe-string" evidently and hardly it seems able to counter the opposition. 

Dyck is operating on a shoe-string. With one helicopter having been shot down and destroyed, he has two Gazelle gun-ships flying, two ‘Bathawk’ microlights with front-guns, an old Allouette armed with 20 mm canon and two fixed wing aircraft. With a total compliment of less than 30 men, he has almost no ground-forces and his intelligence gathering capability is very limited."

HEY, NOBODY EVER SAID THIS WAS GOING TO BE EASY, DID THEY?

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Zukunft.

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From the Internet web site "We Are The Mighty" an article from over two years ago an aspect of naval warfare in the arctic I had never thought about.

An icebreaker a warship? An icebreaker?

"Coast Guard commandant warns of cruise missile-equipped Russian icebreakers"

"Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Paul Zukunft has one very clear message: The country needs more icebreakers."

SURFACE naval warfare in the arctic a possible? It is so if you have icebreakers. 

Russia their icebreaker fleet forty-one vessels. 

AND NOW SOME RUSSIAN VESSELS EQUIPPED WITH CRUISE MISSILES?

The USA has: “'one-and-a-half” operable icebreakers . . . the heavy icebreaker Polar Star and the medium icebreaker Healy, which are in the Coast Guard’s fleet."

POLAR STAR "ARMED" WITH TWO FIFTY-CALIBER MACHINE GUNS AND NOTHING FURTHER!

Icebreakers and presumably any merchant vessels accompanying an icebreaker into arctic waters capable of carrying containerized cruise missiles of the Lora or Club-K variety.

We are going back to the old days of the armed merchantman? A commercial sea-going vessel in time of war equipped with a fighting capability. Stranger things have occurred. Technology makes this all very possible.

Mr. President. We must prevent an icebreaker gap!!

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Christmas II.

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"If everything goes according to plan, some of the boys might be home for Christmas."

As is germane to a previous blog entry and presented in chronological order.

"Esper [SECDEF USA] memo warned conditions weren't met for withdrawal from Afghanistan"

Article from CNN by Jake Tapper, Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent and thanks to same.

"(CNN) Then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper sent a classified memo earlier this month to the White House asserting that it was the unanimous recommendation of the chain of command that the US not draw down its troop presence in Afghanistan any further until conditions were met, sources familiar with the memo tell CNN."

And additionally from the tweet by Derick Waller from only yesterday:

@wallerABC7

"Per @ABC: A US official confirms that they are expecting orders by the end of this week to reduce troop levels to 2,500 in Afghanistan and in Iraq by mid-January."

"There are currently 4,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and 3,000 in Iraq."

11:23 AM · Nov 16, 2020

End ENDLESS wars  Or making a pretense of ending an ENDLESS war. The devoted readers to the blog must decide for themselves.

coolbert.

Victory.

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Azerbaijan si, Armenia no?

The three "T's". 

"Technology, Tactics, And Turkish Advice Lead Azerbaijan To Victory In Nagorno-Karabakh"

Thanks to RFE/'RL and the article by Ron Synovitz.

[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty]

"It took Azerbaijan just 43 days to win back its territory around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh -- seven districts of mountains and foothills that were occupied by Armenian separatists since Baku’s humiliating battlefield failures of the early 1990s."

THE FIGHTING BETWEEN ARMENIA AND AZERBAIJAN IS OVER AND THE LATTER HAS WON?

Read previous blog entries [with additional embedded links] the conflict between the warring parties the topic of discussion:

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2020/10/slow.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2020/10/explain.html

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Invasion ROC II.

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ROC = Republic of China. Taiwan.

See this You Tube video courtesy the iconoclastic USMC officer Major Carlton Meyer. [current status USMC Carlton Meyer not clear]

"China Will Not Invade Taiwan"

ALSO see previous blog entry the same topic another You Tube video all thanks to Binkov.

"For seven decades, the world has been told that an invasion of Taiwan is imminent. The American military-industrial-congressional complex needs threats to justify wartime budgets, and China provides one excuse. American warships and aircraft routinely operate just off China’s coast. If China complains, the world is warned that China is threatening military action. The good ole 'China will soon invade Taiwan' tale is a perpetual favorite. In reality, China lacks the naval power to invade Taiwan and attempting to conquer this large island would prove bloody, devastate the Chinese economy, lead to domestic unrest, and may not succeed."

ONCE MORE THE BENCHMARK IS THE NORMANDY INVASION OF 1944!

ROC safe? Nothing to worry about? All is well?

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Canines.

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UNLEASH the dogs of war??

From the Internet web site War is Boring and thanks to same.

"Tyndall Air Force base to receive military’s first robot dogs"

"TYNDALL — Tyndall Air Force Base is living up to its motto as 'Base of the Future,' with the integration of state-of-the-art, four-legged robots for security use — a first in the Department of Defense.

Mission surveillance of the base perimeter so it seems. Robot dogs controlled by a remote human operator and additionally having the capability to operate autonomously. 

I must say I am impressed that the robot dogs DO move in the manner of the dog!

Will this idea fly? We shall see.

coolbert.

Reconstructions.

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Reenactment.

"re•ën•act•ment - - n. The repetition of an earlier (usually historic) event, as a performance or social event."

See my previous blog entries reenactments USA 

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2017/09/rockford-usa.html

https://militaryanalysis.blogspot.com/2017/04/ww1-rockford.html

The Russians do it too. Reenactments [USA] call reconstructions in Russia. Apparently quite popular. See links of Russian reconstructions all quite well done. Thanks to the Internet web site English/Russia.

https://englishrussia.com/2014/01/29/military-reconstruction-liberation-of-leningrad/

https://englishrussia.com/2012/06/05/civil-war-in-russia-reconstruction/

https://englishrussia.com/2012/03/14/reconstruction-to-celebrate-the-end-of-the-winter-war/

https://englishrussia.com/2011/10/17/reconstruction-of-the-wwi-battle-in-ukraine/

https://englishrussia.com/2011/08/17/the-reconstruction-of-one-bloody-battle-of-1942/

In some quarters these reenactments [or reconstructions whatever you prefer] controversial? Seems so. Especially those reenactments where participants dress in the uniform of German troops from the era of WW2, especially those of the Waffen SS.

Controversial or harmless fun? Devoted readers to the blog let me hear your thoughts on the matter.

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Great Powers.

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"A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale."

From the archives the Internet web site Mad Monarchist [now apparently inactive] and as extracted.

"The Austrian Empire and the Confederacy" [??]

"The American Civil War was the bloodiest conflict ever fought in the western hemisphere of the world and, as such, attracted a great deal of attention from other powers. Previously, I [Mad Monarchist] have discussed on these pages how a war between two factions of republicans [Union versus the Confederacy] actually had a tremendous impact on the monarchist cause in the Americas. Most of the ‘Great Powers’ of Europe had an interest in the War Between the States. The British Empire had an economic interest with southern cotton feeding the textile mills of England while the industrial centers of the northern states were major competitors. Indeed, only a few decades after the war ended with the north victorious, the United States of America surpassed Great Britain as the world’s largest economy and has remained so ever since. The tentative steps of the Kingdom of Spain to rebuild the Spanish Empire in Latin America, the French-backed restoration of the Mexican Empire and the French plans for a 'Kingdom of the Andes' in South America all depended on the Confederacy being victorious"

The AUSTRIAN connection Maximilian. At the behest of Napoleon III the Archduke of Austria assuming the role of puppet emperor of Mexico.

At least from my perspective Max seems to have an amiable dunce. Got in way over his head with the expectation he might achieve big things. His final fate rather standing before a firing squad.

See also previous blog entry with additional embedded links the possible intervention of Imperial Russian in the American Civil war on the side of the Union.

coolbert.

Tiger.

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"between October 9, 1944 and September 2, 1945: at Manila and at other places in the Philippine Islands, while a commander of [the] armed forces of Japan at war with the United States of America and its allies, [he] unlawfully disregarded and failed to discharge his duty as commander to control the operations of the members of his command, permitting them to commit brutal atrocities and other high crimes against people of the United States and of its allies and dependencies, particularly the Philippines; and he, General Tomoyuki Yamashita, thereby violated the laws of war."

THE INDICTMENT, TRIAL, CONVICTION AND EXECUTION OF THE JAPANESE GENERAL YAMASHITA [THE  TIGER OF MALAYA] IN THE AFTERMATH OF WW2 CONTROVERSIAL AT THE TIME [1945] AND REMAINING A CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC.

Yamashita NOT having ordered the massacres of Filipino civilians nor in contact with the troops that perpetrated the atrocities. 

It is worth noting however that during the Malayan Campaign troops under the  command of Yamashita did commit atrocity, prior and in the aftermath of British surrender.

 * Sook Ching Massacre.

* Parit Sulong Massacre.

* The Alexandra Hospital Massacre.

This too. Sikh soldiers of the British Indian Army captured by the Japanese at Singapore used for target practice. Post-surrender!

"SIKH AND DESTROY Shocking execution pics show Japanese troops using British Sikh POWs for target practice in WW2"

A JAPANESE ARMY PATTERN OF ATROCITY OBVIOUS DURING THE ENTIRE WAR AND EVEN BEFORE PEARL HARBOR. STILL THE YAMASHITA CASE PROBLEMATIC?

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