MetaFilter posts tagged with prussia Posts tagged with 'prussia' at MetaFilter. Thu, 09 Jan 2014 12:05:00 -0800 Thu, 09 Jan 2014 12:05:00 -0800 en-us 60 The Giants of Potsdam "The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but <a href="">tall soldiers</a>—they are my weakness." Thus confessed <a href="">Frederick William</a>, second king of Prussia, whose passion compelled the creation of <a href="">an elite regiment of six-foot-plus grenadiers</a>. Recruitment, diplomatic gifts, and the occasional abduction of a spindly peasant or acromegalic tradesman supplied thousands of "giants" for the ranks; experiments with breeding programs and stretching machines were somewhat less successful. Frederick II, Frederick William's son and successor, dispersed the regiment when he succeeded to power in 1740. The Potsdam Giants had never actually seen combat, the main part of their duty having been to drill and parade before their enraptured king. Frederick II ("The Great") was himself one of his father's experiments in military formation. <a href="">Wikipedia</a>:<blockquote>As a small child, Fritz was awakened each morning by the firing of a cannon. At the age of 6, he was given his own regiment of children to drill as cadets, and a year later, he was given a miniature arsenal. Fritz was beaten for being thrown off a bolting horse and wearing gloves in cold weather...After the prince attempted to flee to England with his tutor, <a href="">Hans Hermann von Katte</a>, the father had Katte executed before the eyes of the prince, who himself was court-martialled.</blockquote>,2014:site.135479 Thu, 09 Jan 2014 12:05:00 -0800 Iridic WWI in Color <a href="">World War I in Color</a> is a documentary designed to make the Great War come alive for a 21st-century audience. The events of 1914-18 are authoritatively narrated by Kenneth Branagh, who presents the military and political overview, while interviews with historians add different perspectives in six 48 minute installments annotated within. <blockquote><a href="">"Catastrophe"</a> This first episode looks at the fact that between 1914 and 1918, 65 million men took up arms. Ten million were killed and 20 million were emotionally and physically incapacitated. The war ushered in new terminologies, new and massive weapons, and a scale of artillery barrages never before imagined. <a href="">"Slaughter in the Trenches"</a> This episode looks at trench warfare on the Western Front, which was at stalemate in 1915. Communications proved to be a major drawback for both sides, as messages were sent by runners - who invariably faced death. Two simultaneous battles to push back the Germans were launched at Artois by the French, and by the British at Festubert in May 1915. Both failed and brought the realisation that such massive casualties could not be sustained. With a need for more troops, Lord Kitchener went about a recruitment campaign that amassed some one million volunteers. The new volunteer soldiers lacked the discipline of the regulars, and were regarded with some disdain. <a href="">"Blood in the Air"</a> In the battles of WWI a new theatre of war was to emerge -- the sky. This new warfare was to prove just as deadly as the trenches, where pilots flew into battle with as little as five hours flying experience, with an average life expectancy of 11 days in 1914. Initially the aircraft replaced hot air balloons as a reconnaissance device, spying and photographing deep behind enemy lines, but in 1915 aviation pioneer Fokker revolutionised the aircraft as a weapon when he synchronised a machine gun with a propeller -- allowing German pilots to annihilate French and British planes. <a href="">"Killers of the Sea"</a> In this episode we discover that there was only one major clash of fleets in World War 1. Instead, the war at sea was one of blockades and sinkings and a small but feared U-boat. By August 1914 Germany and Britain were building massive and expensive warships - the dreadnoughts. The British controlled the North Sea, and built up supplies by commandeering all goods heading for Germany. Britain's survival depended on keeping her trade routes open, and for this reason Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare on merchant shipping. <a href="">"Mayhem on the Eastern Front"</a> When war broke out in 1914 the Eastern Front campaign moved swiftly. Austrian troops invaded Serbia, and Russia, as Serbia's ally, invaded both Germany and Austria. The Austrians quickly retreated, demoralised by the success of the Russian advance. Yet against the Germans, 50,000 Russians were killed or wounded at the battle of Tannenberg. German Generals Hindenberg and Erich von Ludendorff, spurred on by their easy victories against the Russians, dreamed of an extended German empire to the East. <a href="">"Victory and Despair"</a> For the Allies, 1918 proved to be the costliest year of the war. On the Western Front 2 million British and 3 million French were either captured, wounded or killed - over a few miles of French and Belgian mud. On 21 March 1918, General von Ludendorff attacked along a 64-mile front which was to be the greatest attack yet seen in modern industrialized warfare. The Germans advanced 20 miles in 14 days, and von Ludendorff set his sights on Paris and victory. Field Marshall Haig rallied his British troops to fight to the end. Casualties ran at 350 000 for both sides, and the toll taken on von Ludendorff's troops had overstretched his war machine.</blockquote>,2013:site.133382 Thu, 31 Oct 2013 03:50:45 -0800 Blasdelb "Not for the weak of stomach" The <a href="">Siege of Paris</a>, during the Franco-Prussian War, lasted from <a href="">September 1870 to January 1871</a>. As the Prussian army blockaded the city, Parisians turned to ever more <a href="">desperate</a> food <a href=""> sources</a>. Like <a href="">the zoo animals</a>. And <a href="">other animals not normally eaten</a>.,2013:site.127988 Sat, 11 May 2013 13:06:55 -0800 the man of twists and turns They always did tend towards having the snappiest uniforms American military planners are fascinated with German/Prussian military history. <a href="">Busts of Von Clauswitz adorn American military academies</a> where <i><a href="">On War</a></i> is taught, often with <a href="">the misperception that Von Clauswitz viewed war as a controllable science</a>. <a href="">Shock &amp; Awe</a> is just the idea of <a href="">Blitzkrieg</a> with better weapons. Endless exhortations about unit cohesion (<a href="">a complex, multi-layered idea <i>with no military definition</i> that is nonetheless used to keep gay soldiers from openly serving</a>) comes from <a href="">admiration for the Wehrmacht</a>, their discipline and courage on the battlefield. So too the idea of a <a href="">military culture separate and more honorable than the civilians they protect</a>, advancing the <a href="">professional warrior</a> model at the expense of the <a href="">citizen-soldier model</a>. But to quote author <a href="">military/adventure author Tom Clancy</a>, “<a href=""><i>Why do people have a fixation with the German military when they haven’t won a war since 1871?</i></a></i>” <a href="">Previously</a>,2010:site.98110 Thu, 02 Dec 2010 09:18:58 -0800 Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey The Lithuanian Press Ban, 1864-1904 From 1864 to 1904, the Russian Empire tried to quelch the nationalism of Lithuanians by ordering all Lithuanian texts to be printed with Cyrillic characters instead of in the Latin-derived Lithuanian or Polish alphabets. But they didn't count on the Knygnešiai - <a href="">the Booksmugglers</a>. Working in Lithuanian-speaking areas of East Prussia, now the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and parts of the Polish voivodeship of Warmia and Masuria, and with texts printed locally and sometimes from as far away as the United States, many <a href="">thousands</a> of <a href="">people</a> over the decades worked to transmit books, leaflets, journals, and other written works over the heavily guarded border, risking imprisonment and exile to Siberia; over three thousand people were caught. A harrowing recollection of what it was like to dodge the military patrols can be found <a href="">here</a>. The movement also was assisted by a network of clandestine "village" lessons in the language outside the school system, organized through local churches and civic organizations. The Lithuanian National Movement, active before independence, <a href="">used the language to resist Russification</a> and, later, promote the cause for an independent state. When Lithuania became independent again in the early 1990s, the back of the 5-lita banknote featured an <a href="">image</a> of a sculpture of a woman teaching a child to read Lithuanian in defiance of the press ban. The anti-Lithuanian language effort had been part of Tsar Alexander II's Russification campaign across all of the lands Russia had absorbed through the <a href="">partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth</a>. After the <a href="">Uprising of 1863</a>, St. Petersburg attempted to create a divide between the Polonized Catholic nobility, the <a href="">szlachta</a>, and the Lithuanian-speaking rural populations in order to allow Russian language and culture to supplant the Catholic, Latin heritage left behind by the Commonwealth. Today, Lithuanian is spoken by between four and five million people, has made a cameo appearance on <a href="">CSI: New York</a>, and, like everyone these days, <a href="">has a podcast</a>. Lithuanian has also been the focus of much attention in linguistics circles for its links to Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the theoretical progenitor to all the Indo-European languages. Some early texts in Lithuanian can be found at the University of Texas at Austin's Linguistics Research Center <a href="">here</a>. Check out some Indo-European roots yourself with <a href="">this</a> Google Books preview of the <em>American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots</em>. And this year, <a href="">Vilnius hosts the European Capital of Culture</a> title together with Linz, Austria. It's a quick hop from most of Europe and an amazing destination for anyone into the culture and history of the region.,2009:site.83198 Sun, 12 Jul 2009 12:17:27 -0800 mdonley All The Best People. <a href="">Indeed, all three of Hitler’s prized leather whips were presents from high society ladies.</a> : Christopher Clark reviews <em>High Society in the Third Reich </em>by Fabrice d’Almeida in the London Review Of Books.,2009:site.80640 Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:33:47 -0800 The Whelk Prussian black One day in 1999, Alex Sabac el Cher, a retired German textile salesman opened his door to a historian who had a painting to show him and a few questions. <a href="">Preu&#0223;isches Liebesgl&#0252;ck</a> ("Prussian love bliss"), a 1890 painting of two lovebirds, an African officer of the German imperial army and his young red-headed bride, was perhaps an allegory of (color-)blind love, but also an actual moment of happiness in the <a href="">Sabac el Cher family history</a>, that started in 1836 with the gift of a <a href="">young Nubian boy nicknamed August "Good morning"</a> to an exiled princely murderer and <a href="">became interwoven</a> with <a href="">German history</a>. Bonus: <a href="">First 10 minutes </a> (in French) of a <a href="">documentary about the Sabac el Cher</a>.,2008:site.69795 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:26:16 -0800 elgilito Europa &#0252;ber alles? <a href="">Von der Maas</a> <a href="">bis an die Memel</a>,<br> <a href="">Von der Etsch</a> <a href="">bis an den Belt.</a><br> <s><a href="">Deutsch<a><a href="">land</a>, <a href="">Deutschland</a></a></a></s> Europa, Europa &#0252;ber alles, &#0220;ber alles in der Welt!,2007:site.67603 Thu, 20 Dec 2007 05:55:26 -0800 orthogonality Kaliningrad <a href="">Kaliningrad</a> is the name of the little dot between Poland and Lithuania which lights up when you select "Russia" in the <a href=>Axis Applet</a>. It turns out to be a <a href=>Special Economic Zone</a> entirely surrounded by newly-minted EU members. <br><br> But before it was gobbled up by Russia in the wake of World War II, it was named <a href=>Konigsberg</a>. Founded in 1255 by <a href=>Ottocar II</a> (Not related to the <a href="">Ottokars of Syldavia</a>) of Bohemia, Konigsberg was the inspiration for the problem of the <a href=>7 Bridges</a> and the name of two <a href=>famous</a> <a href=>warships</a>.,2003:site.23099 Sun, 26 Jan 2003 22:33:31 -0800 hob