Friday, November 30, 2012

The Unborn King

Sounds exactly like the title to a fantasy novel, doesn't it? BUT, it isn't. No, no, I decided to do some Googling after seeing this post* on Tumblr. Someone mentioned that Mexico once had a president who only served for forty-five days and for whatever reason, I got the idea in my head to find out who the youngest monarch ever was. Yeah, I don't know how I made that jump either. In any case, my Google-Fu was on point tonight and I found this post on Mental Floss listing just what I was looking for, and that's how I found out about an unborn king named Shapur II and holy hell, this guy's story is a doozy.

Basically, his dad, Shapur I died before he was born and Persian nobles, for whatever reason, blinded one brother, killed another, and imprisoned the last one, clearing the path for Shapur to take the throne as the ninth king of the Sassanid Empire. Apparently him still being in the womb wasn't an issue to these nobles and they crowned him before he was even born. He would go on to rule for seventy years and did well enough at the job to be given "The Great" appended to his name. I tell ya, history is both awesome and weird as hell, man.

*Fair warning, my Tumblr is NSFW, so use caution if you decide to go exploring.

Elmer E. Ellsworth and John J. Williams, the first and last to die in the American Civil War


Ellsworth was one of Lincoln’s broheims back in Illinois and at the start of the Civil War (May 24, 1861), offered to capture an oversized Confederate flag from atop a hotel in nearby Alexandria, Virginia. Abe agreed and Ellsworth lead his men, the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment into the town. It was going well until the hotel owner shot him in the chest with a shotgun (the owner was then promptly shot by one of Ellsworth’s men).

Williams was killed at a battle at a place called Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas on May 13, 1865. Technically, this battle happened right after the Civil War ended, but its close enough that Williams is generally considered the last soldier to die in the War.

I actually have no idea why I think this is interesting, but knowing who the first and last people to die in a war just is. Another point of interest is the fact that they eleven days apart. How freaky would it have been if Ellsworth and Williams had died on the same day, but four years apart?

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Awesome video: USS Monitor vs. CSS Virginia

So apparently back in like 1991, a TV movie came out that focused on the first battle between ironclad warships called Ironclads. The battle scene itself is quite good.

This is my favorite era of naval warfare, the transition from wind-powered, wooden hulled warships to steam-powered, metal hulled warships. I should do some posts about that.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Damn, Lincoln looks like a good movie

Tommy Lee Jones looks weird with that hair, but any movie with him in it tends to be good. Daniel Day-Lewis might be the greatest living actor today and certainly one of the greatest ever. The movie won't focus on Lincoln's entire life or presidency, but the last months of his life. Who knows, if the movie is a big enough success, maybe Spielberg will make prequels covering the rest of Lincoln's life.

Friday, November 2, 2012

British Empire, circa 1921

A fairly interesting map showing the empire's territorial holdings in the years between the world wars.

What I think is interesting (and amusing) is the size disparity between the UK itself and some of its colonies and dominions. The disparity becomes even bigger when you consider that Africa is the second largest continent and its size was often decreased (while the UK's was increased).

Actually, Belgium has the UK beat when it comes to size difference. The Belgian Congo was so much bigger than the Kingdom that controlled it, it looked like somebody gave Rhode Island control of a territory the size of China.

The Soviet Union, though, holy freaking crap.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

206 years ago today, over 5,000 Prussian soldiers surrender to 800 French soldiers

Cripes, how downtrodden do you have to be to surrender to Frenchies? :P
But in all seriousness, that's pretty mind-blowing, but not at all surprising, given the circumstances. I mean, the Prussians had just suffered a tremendous defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt and what was left of their army was being hunted down and taken out. Damn, though, 5,300 surrender to 800? Even the peasants from Warcraft II were that defeated.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Damn, where were these guys during WWII?

Saw this on Tumblr and it boggled my mind: Operation Dingo. Look at the casualties.

Click to embiggen.
The Rhodesian forces managed to inflict 8,000 casualties, while only suffering eight of their own. On the downside, the Rhodesian military belonged to a white minority government that was attempting to maintain control over an African country, so the praise is limited. On the other hand, Robert Mugabe is one of the worst dictators currently alive.

Still, Dingo was brilliantly executed. The reason the casualties on the ZANLA side were so high is because of clever trickery on the part of the Rhodesians. They had a DC-8 plane fly over ZANLA's base of operations prior to the initial air attack, which caused the rebels to lower their guard. When the Canberra bombers began their attack runs, the latter group assumed that the DC-8 was performing another fly over and didn't bother running for cover.

Needless to say, they were wrong. The bombers dropped anti-personnel bombs and their attack was followed up by the other aircraft. Meanwhile, the two hundred Rhodesian soldiers surrounded the camp and went about their rather distasteful business. It actually would have been even more of a bloodbath if the Rhodesians had had more men to encompass the camp more.

The amazing thing is that of the two dead on the government side, only one was a soldier. The other was a pilot who was killed when his Vampire fighter jet was shot down.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Francis II, King of France and possible 16th century pimp

"Bitch better have my money."
I regret nothing about this post. Nothing.

Picture via Wikipedia. Questionable fashion decisions by Francis II of France.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Holy crap, this B-17 ticked off the wrong German

I don't think duct tape is going to fix that...
And I didn't notice until now, but there's a Browning M2 .50 cal hanging from the plane like a chunk of meat hanging from a flap of skin. Holy crap. According to the caption that went with this picture on Wikipedia, the bombardier didn't survive the mission. Well, duh. Wolverine from the X-Men probably wouldn't have survived that. But in all seriousness, I can't believe that the pilot and co-pilot survived such a hit. No wonder they called them Flying Fortresses.

Picture via Wikipedia.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Paraguay still has M3 Stuart tanks

So, it all started with a post on The Wars of Pooch about a game of Flames of War involving New Zealanders in Italy against Germans. Well, the Kiwis were using three M3 Stuart Light Tanks and as is my want, I ended up on Wikipedia reading about the Stuarts. I already knew about them. Not a lot, but they weren't new to me. That's when I saw something that made me do a double take. Apparently, Paraguay's army still uses Stuarts and M4 Shermans. At first, I thought it was BS, since that bit of info had a [citation needed] tagged on at the end, so I looked up the article about the Paraguayan Army and that's when I facepalmed. They do indeed have twelve Stuarts (of which, only six still work) and three Shermans.

M3 Stuart Light Tank.
Holy crap. I know a lot of third and second world countries rely on older military vehicles, since they can't afford more up-to-date stuff, but Stuarts from World War II? Tanks from World War II? I did some checking and according to Wikipedia, a T-72 tank costs like one or two million dollars and their military budget is about $248 million. Maybe Paraguay can do a fundraiser on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo and raise money to buy tanks that aren't over sixty years old?

God, I hope they don't expect those things to actually hold up against an invasion. Paraguay, guys, be nice to your neighbors! Then again, I just read that they've only ever been in two wars, the last of which was the Chaco War in the 30s, so they should be okay.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Happy Independence Day!

Though, I'm not entirely sure why they made a holiday in honor of that movie. Personally, I thought it was sub-par.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Currently reading

Barnes & Noble.

I decided to take a break from my usual reading and checked Robert Asprey's The Reign of Napoleon Bonaparte from the local library. I hadn't actually planned to check this out, since it was the second book in Asprey's duology and the library lacked the first, but I started reading the first chapter and the next thing I knew, I was already into the second. To continue the Napoleonic theme, I also picked up Mark Urban's The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes.

Barnes & Noble.
The book is about George Scovell, who worked as a codebreaker in the British Army during the Napoleonic War, breaking both codes used by the French, including the formidable Great Paris Code.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Welp, here we are

Welcome to A Matter of Expedients, a blog with a focus on military history and warfare. I used to run the now defunct History Nerd blog, but after noticing that the majority of my posts were of a military nature, I decided to replace it with a blog focused on that subject. The title itself comes from a variant of a quote by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, an officer who served in both the Prussian and later, the German militaries. The original quote goes:
Strategy is a system of expedients; it is more than a mere scholarly discipline. It is the translation of knowledge to practical life, the improvement of the original leading thought in accordance with continually changing situations.
The variant I used is "War is a matter of expedients."

With this blog, I'll try and cover all eras of warfare, military figures, battles, weapons, etc. I hope you'll enjoy.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

A quick note on the future of this blog

No, I'm not killing it. In fact, I plan on doing the exact opposite and *gasp* post more often! Shocking, I know. Take a moment to collect your wits.


Done? Good. While I plan on being more active, that in itself doesn't warrant a post. What does, however, are some changes I have in mind. First up, I'm altering the subject of this blog a bit, refocusing it towards military history and war. The reason is simply because I'm more interested in those subjects. I also have plans for a project that will involve history and I want to use this blog to catch the overflow. Second, I'm going to change the name of this blog to something else. History Nerd was always a placeholder until I could come up with a better name. As a result of my planned shift in focus, I want to give it a more appropriate name. I haven't thought of one yet, but when I do, I'll let you know.

I won't merely change the name and URL though, since that would be too disruptive. Instead, I'll create a new blog, transfer everything over to it, then delete everything on here and leave a notice pointing to the new one for two weeks before deleting it.

So, any suggestions on what the new name should be?

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Twenty WWII spitfire fighters discovered in Burma

Holy moly guacamole, this is awesome!

A British farmer spent 15 years and a metric buttload of money to look for the stalwart planes and finally managed to locate them in an underground bunker in Burma. Apparently, the British buried them there near the end of the war both because they were obsolete and to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Japanese. Another thing that's interesting is that the planes were never taken out of the crates they were shipped over in.
...Of course, enthusiasts of WW2 “Warbirds,” military history buffs and action figure collectors are all equally excited about this stunning discovery, especially after learning that yes, the buried planes were still INSIDE their shipping crates, tarred, lubed and sealed up tight.
This find is pretty important because the number of working Spitfires in the world is only 35, so these twenty will go a long way towards ensuring their survival. Spitfires are an important part of not just British history, but world history. These are the planes that helped defend England during the Blitz and fought the forces of Fascism in Europe and Asia. Plus, they're just pretty to look at. Pre-jet engine military aircraft have an elegance and beauty that their successors their lack.

h/t to The Joe Report and The Lair of the Evil DM.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Robert Conroy's 1862

Note: This is a cross-post from my primary blog, Giant-Size Nerd-Thing!.

I'll write a review tomorrow, but suffice to say that this was a pretty good book. The premise is simple: In 1862, a U.S. Navy ship stopped a British mail ship, named the Trent and removed two representatives of the Confederate States of America bound for England and France. Now in real life, it was a debacle that almost brought Britain and the U.S. to war, but diplomacy (and more than a little butt kissing) avoided that fate. In Robert Conroy's book, however, those overtures fail and England goes to war. This is all part of a plan hatched by the Prime Minister of England, Lord Palmerston, to remove the United States as a economic and military rival by ensuring a divided America. What happens is far from what is expected.

Like I said, it was a good book and if you like reading alternative history, then check it out.

Picture via Barnes & Noble.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Did you know shrapnel came from a guy named Henry Shrapnel?

Because I didn't until just now. Henry Shrapnel was an officer in the British Army that invented a new type of exploding cannon shell back in 1780s. Nasty weapon, actually - it was designed to explode overhead of an enemy army and rain metal down on them. Thus, the word shrapnel was born. I always thought it was one of those loanwords from a foreign language that was just assimilated into the English vocabulary. Learn something new everyday.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Nero had a neckbeard, that explains everything

He ruled with an iron fist ironically.
Nero wasn't just a tyrant and an evil bastard in general, but something worse: A HIPSTER! You know that apocryphal story of him playing a fiddle while Rome burned? It probably wasn't a fiddle, but dubstep! It's a good thing he committed suicide before he started building Starbucks and Whole Foods everywhere.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go into hiding, lest actual historians find and flay me alive for this post.

Picture via Wikimedia.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Your argument is invalid, so here's a picture of Greece's King George I's awesome mustache

You have to hand it to the men of the nineteenth century, they knew how to grow incredible facial hair. George I, King of the Hellenes (Greeks) was an interesting historical figure. First of all, he wasn't even Greek, but Danish. His predecessor Otto was likewise not Greek, but from Bavaria. Why was Greece ruled by two non-Greeks? Because Britain, France, and Russia said so. You see, Greece had for several hundred years been part of the Ottoman Empire. By the early 19th century, however, the Ottomans had weakened to the extent that the Greeks could rebel and a war of independence was launched.