Remembering PRESTAGS

'The Principles of War' - interesting website

The Principles of War website - https://theprinciplesofwar.com/ 

Australian content and contributions

 

When a landscape artist goes to war

Python went to the Streeton exhibition at the NSW Art gallery earlier this month. Arthur Streeton was a brilliant, impressionist landscape painter who never really made it overseas. When he was in Britain, World War 1 broke out. He was not accepted into the army, but late in the war managed to get a posting as a war artist.

I was struck by this peaceful picture of the French countryside. However, the plumes of smoke are from four allied barrage balloons a German fighter had just shut down. A close examination shows only two parachutes. The drama of the scene is completely obscured by they relaxed use of colours and setting.

he will be remembered for his Australian landscapes. This is where Python grew up in Sydney.

What were they thinking?

2017 was a very good year for me at the office. I had successfully brought my Manila posting to the originally requested outcome and received my best bonus ever for my development work. I had also written a product that falls into the top five best products I have ever written - largely unsung at the time, it has become a major selling feature late last year. In recognition of my hard work, I knew a deserved a lovely piece of crockery in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the kitchen is brimming with lovely pieces of crockery such that they have overflowed into the dining room cupboards, which are also now full. This left me on the horns of a dilemma, so I had to go with my third option (the second being membership to the art gallery, but when would I find the time!), a subscription to everything coming out of Strategy and Tactics press, at an eye watering US$1000 for two years.

Reviewing it now, I think it was a good decision - I had many evenings of pleasant reading and some great maps and counters to review. From top to bottom:

• the venerable Strategy and Tactics, now up to issue #314,
• Modern War, that provides interesting insights into the current tensions of the world, mostly from a military perspective, which you rarely find the in the news
• World at War, which tries to be S&T but for only World War 2, so perhaps the least interesting of the set, but perhaps the most believable of the games
• Strategy and Tactics Quarterly, the new kid on the block, with a lot of articles on just one topic, no games, but a poster.

A feast of new games, and the anticipation of finding room in the attic for 18 more in 2019. I have failed in one respect, I have not punched the counters of any of them last year. I resolve to so this year. Let the readers of this auspicious blog pausing their eating and spider hunting to hold me so accountable.

The observant would ask why there is a gap? The answer is simple: if a US Civil War game arrives in your mail box, there is a board room I know of where it can be swapped for a Scotch, for some people simply cannot have enough US Civil War games!

And the winner is

I think the best read of them was the Quarterly of Caesar, and how a Roman of modest means, but the highest ambition, can break into the Cursus Honorum. (The article on that was fascinating - young aristocrats were expected to move from government post to post building up an understanding of how the Roman state worked until they reached the role of consul. It gave the state a large pool of experienced leaders to fall back on in times of emergency, and something to consume the energies of the young. The article went to far as to suggest that Rome's resilience during the second Carthaginian War was due to this.) The poster showed Caesar's marches during the Gallic Wars and the Civil war, and is on my wall.

The magazine about Stalingrad was a close second. I do not read a lot of WW2 history, but had heard of this one (and watched the excellent "Enemy at the Gates" with Spetz). Stalingrad was never the objective of the the drive into the Caucasus. The original plan was to get close enough so Germany artillery could interdict the railway and interfere with Stalin's transfer of troops and oil. One of the reasons given for the diversion was that Hitler had become a drug addict. There was a doctor for the German elite who used to mix his own remedies for the wealthy who felt they had lost their vim. These remedies contained stimulants and narcotics. Hitler had appointed him as a personal physician at the time, and soon developed an obsession that a capture of Stalingrad would equate to a defeat of  Stalin.

It was matched with a World at War article where you can attempt to replay the the campaign. You have all that lovely oil to the south and boring Stalingrad to the north. However, the action chits you have to pull each turn keeps pulling you south. I like the action chit idea as it adds a lot of colour to otherwise boring Panzer corps and Guard armies.

An honourable mention goes the World War 3 Quarterly for all the bits that happened when I was little that nearly resulted in me not growing big. I am still reading that one.

Puti-phobia

Puti features in two of the Modern War series. There is much interest in his possible future actions, but the general consensus is that he is more interested with disrupting the US Hegemony to create a series of Russian based alliances, than territorial acquisitions. There is more fear about these alliances backfiring and drawing Russia into a war they did not intend and the US into it. This game, Puti Moves South, looks at the Stans south of Russia and north of Persia and Afghanistan. There is oil and gas there that mostly travels through Russia so disruption to that supply could draw in the Russian army. Interestingly with this game, at the start of each game you roll a die for each power to decide whether it is in the Russian Coalition or US/NATO aligned. Every game would be very different. The latest Modern War, The War on Terror, does the same in the Middle East. It means that every play of the game would be quite different. I think this is one of the games I should set up.

Rise of the Solitaire games

Six of these games are solitaire. I should set up a few this year. I have played a couple in the past, but the issue is that there is no marvellously clever play you can make to give you the game. You are grinding through taking objectives that weaken the strength of the enemy play system, while having some flexibility for random events. That said, I should try them as some game systems are brilliant. Perhaps there is a new John Michael Young other there.

The most intriguing of the game is submarine warfare in the Pacific. Unlikely the Atlantic, submarines featured in navel battles. This game lets you play as the Japanese or the US.

Perhaps this article is better named "What was I thinking?" I stand deprived of a new piece of crockery in my kitchen by pure obsession!

 

Anzac Day 2018 - Canberra Dawn Service

Carl and I were just near the steps to the actual memorial entrance. A very large crowd. Took a few photos, only 3 near passable - in focus shots handheld in the dark are a challenge.

Very good addresses from the services chaplain and the retired army surgeon. Very good sermon from Fr Leung at Requiem Mass later on in the morning.

Looking South a few minutes before the start. all those big street lights were turned off for the event.

 

Kiwi flag at half mast.'

Last Post and Reville from top of memorial.

Food For Special Occasions

A Friday night favourite, freshly steamed prawn dumplings:

A birthday feast - roast lamb, roast vegetables, steamed vegetables and thick gravy. If Python looks closely he will see his contribution:

A cake for the aged hobbly one:

ANZAC cookies straight out of the oven on ANZAC day:

 

Hard decisions

Paul insisted that I buy "To end all wars", so I have does so. I have joined a game at the club and find myself as the western entente. For first choice - how to defeat Germany in 6 weeks.

Striking due east is the obvious choice. Perhaps too obvious.

Sitting back in my fortresses and letting the dreaded Hun march over is not on. Most un-French and also likely to antagonise the Russians.

Marching through the Ardennes sounds much more like it. Very close to Napoleon's indirect march on Austria that forced the capitulation of Ulm in 1805.

WTF? Drive north through Belgium with 3 measly armies hoping to brush aside a hostile Belgian army and crash through 6 German armies near Koblenz. Sounds insane and pointless. Why not invade Spain too while I am at it.

I chose a march through the Ardennes!

First thoughts on Civilization VI

I have had a three games of Civilization VI - twice on warlord level to learn the system and once at prince level to get more challenge. In summary, it is a much easier game to win at but very entertaining all the way to the end.

Easier to win at because I won each game. However, each victory was a cultural victory. At the easier levels, you get more wonders and all the culture from them pushes you over the line. In the chart below you can see I am leading on all metrics except religion - I failed to prioritise founding a religion early enough - but cuulture is half way full while the rest are fingernails (see how much the Sumerian circle is filled in from the bottom on each case.

While a victory is a victory, you do not get a high score for a cultural victory.

Taking cities remains super tricky in this invocation of Civilization. However, as none of the AI opponents bother to upgrade their armies, it becomes straight-forwards from the Napoleonic era onwards.

What makes the game quite captivating is how many things you can do. Unlike previous Civ game, not every city builds the same enhancements. You tweak you city towards what you want to achieve: Arts and Culture in the centre near you capital, and Industry and Military towards the border, where you need them. Notice below my capital is far from the border so has a Colosseum, a Forbidden palace, and Entertainment district and the Theatre district, but the obligatory Ziggurat (cos I'm Sumerian).

There are now two research charts - civics and science, but they cross over a lot. What is super cool is that to get a step up on a research project, you get a practical exercise. if you can do that, you cut the research time in half. Force example, if you win a battle with a slinger, you get a leg up on archer. If you build three musket armies, you get a leg up on rifling. You can't possibly get all the leg ups, but you find yourself desperately looking for iron to mine, or a space port to build at certain times of the game. These sub-projects are fun, and often get you into trouble, which make things interesting.

Tip for new players: If you enter a village, you can get a bonus leg up. The Sumerians treat every barbarian encampment as a village, and there are no shortage of those, so Sumerians are a good power for your first game. You build a mobile army early and wander around the map hunting barbarians to get leg ups!

Also note down the bottom you can see where you are relative to everyone else. The English (Victoria) are trailing badly, but me taking their capital did not help!

There are also other project you can get into. You can collect books, art, relics and curios for your libraries and museums. I did not do much this last game as I did not want to win a cultural victory too quickly.

I was annoyed at not having a religion, so took the capital of someone who did and proselytised for them, but the game did not pay that. I think it should. After all, who owns Jerusalem!

The end comes suddenly (for a cultural victory). You are just about to make you next attack when a movie starts. (One of many nice animated sequences in the game. I paricularly love the "construction of a wonder" sequence.)

The chart shows that I pretty much lead from the Medieval period. Time to try a higher level of difficulty. I don't need to sleep!

A bit of World War 1 history I did not know of

S&T: World War I

Python was only just asking whether the latest S&T had arrived. Today S&T #294 (Sep-Oct 2015) arrived. It includes a strategic wargame of World War I which looks quite interesting.

This game is a remake of the original World War I game from S&T #51 (published in 1975 and hence a true PRESTAGS era game) which I'm sure Python and I played back in the day. I also have a recollection of playing the original game solitaire.

The game does not have separate counters for Australian troops (it is very strategic, there being only 30 counters for the Germans). However there is one British counter titled "Imp Ex" which is described in the unit abbreviations as "IEC. Imperial Expeditionary Corps (various elite units from the British Empire: ANZACS, Canadians, Indians, South Africans etc)". We are therefore part of one counter!

There is also a good article about fortifications in the American Civil War.

This game certainly has three player Boys Weekend potential.

ANZAC DAY - 100 Years After Gallipoli

I remembered today by attending a Requiem Mass at Maternal Heart, Lewisham. It was a sung High Mass, very solemn, and well attended.

I looked around but could not find any photos of a Mass being said at Gallipoli in 1915. I did find a photo of a Mass on the Champagne Front in Eastern France in 1915. This is pretty amazing - 100 years ago.

Animae eorum et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum per misericordiam Dei requiescant in pace. Amen.

 

Gallipoli

GMT Games have a system called the P500 system where they propose a wargame, and then if 500 people pledge to buy it they proceed to produce the game.

I notice that a monster game of Gallipoli is now in the P500 system, and as of today there are 347 pledges. Part of me wants to pledge, given the significance of this campaign to Australian military history. Part of me wonders whether it is possible for the Aussies to win this game, given that it is a simulation of a Churchillian ill prepared brain explosion.

The pledge price is US$69. The regular price will be US$105.

The specs for this game are impressive, and when it says 2 to four players I am thinking BOYS WEEKEND material.

So, what is the verdict? Do we pledge?

 

Merry Christmas from Python and Family

A month on the western front

As mentioned earlier, I had set up the S&T game Reinforce the Right during a quiet spot, and today, during Pask sa Pilipinas, I played a few turns. I think it is quite a good game as the rules are quite straightforward - you are only needing to reference the rules for the VP table as units were eliminated.

Unlike most games, it does not have advance after combat. What it does have is a second move and second attack for any units near an HQ. This means that in the first turn everyone clusters around the HQ and then exploits in the second turn. It also means that HQs are casualites as they get to close to give as many units as possible a second move. In 4 turns, the Germans lost 2 and the French 1, but probably will lose a couple more next turn.

It started in early August with the German's infiltrating the Ardennes. The French and Belgians were caught flat footed. The Germans cleverly did not attack the Belgian fortesses, which left the French in the dark as to their intentions (game rule - French activiate when a fortress is attacked).

Unfortunately, the German Fifth Army commander had not followed the script. He attacked between the French 2nd and 3rd armies making good inroads and destroying the French 3rd army HQ.

The French 1st Army tried to create a front to the south, but the Gremans managed to quickly replace losses via their rail network.

While the Belgians crumbled, the French could do nothing (perhaps the Germans cleverly left the telegraph lines so the Belgian fortresses only reported skirmishing). The German 5th Army launched a major attack on the French right flank and rolled a blood bath and were decimated. So the French 6th army, being slow to mobilise (remember historically they saved Paris) chose to mobilise in Verdun and hit the German right flank and made good progress.

The German Right Wing annihilated the Belgian army and swung down for the decisive battle. With fortresses failing, the French left woke up and smelled the nitrite.

A brave German counter attack by the 6th army saw the French 6th badly handled and the 2nd Army almost annihilated. The French countered by mobiling their 9th army in Verdun and with the extra troops, encircled the Germans wiping out the 5th and6th Army HQ.

The French 1st Army realised the fun was happening elsewhere and retreated to exploit the huge gap where the German 6th army once stood. The German 7th Army will obviously be racing them there.

I stopped the game here as many lessons had been learned and too many mistakes had been made. Victory points showed a slight edge to the Entente 123-111, but the game was still anyone's.

Overall, well done to S&T for yet another fine, playable and interesting simulation.

Remembrance Day

Here is my grandfather in World War 1.

He was a spotlight boy for an Alpini Regiment, which meant that he was on top of a mountain with a search light that he would shine down on the Austrian trenches so that the Italian snipers could see something to shoot at. The Austrians of course, could only see one thing to shoot at - the great big light next to my grandfather!

I quote the following from my father's family history

"This road reminds me of the narrow mountain roads along which we used to have to take our trucks during the Great War. War is a terrible, terrible thing. They put me in charge of a flat car with two powerful searchlights, one at each end, powered by a generator. We were up in the Dolomites, no-mans land below us, the Austrians dug in on the mountain ranges across the valley. We had to patrol the roads on our side of the front line at night, stopping at strategic points, shining the search lights across the valley to check for any movement of enemy troops. Inevitably, two or three minutes after we had turned on the search lights, the Austrians would aim their artillery towards us and open fire. My orders were to turn off the lights, get back in the truck and move up or down the road to a new spot, then repeat the whole operation. The Austrians would then have to take a new aim with their cannons, and we could search the valley for another two or three minutes, till the next shells arrived. Fortunately we were never hit, though shells did explode not far from us."

"On my nineteenth birthday", he continued, "I received the gift of life. I was in a truck carrying troops. We needed to make a U-turn on a narrow road at night, the mountain on one side and a deep ravine on the other. I got out of the truck to help the driver maneouver back and forth, it had to be a multi-point turn, 'Forward... forward... slowly... stop... now back... back... slowly... stop...' Then something happened, the truck slid backwards on the slippery road, the rear wheels left the road on the side of the ravine, and the truck fell down hundreds of metres. It was terrible. There were men down there, moaning, in pain, dying... and I was alive and unable to help them... It was the night of the nineteenth birthday."

 

Remembrance Day

We remember.

At 11 am on 11 November 1918 the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years continuous warfare.

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month has now attained a special significance. The moment when hostilities ceased on the Western Front is universally associated with the remembrance of those who had died in the First World War, and indeed all wars. The first modern world conflict commencing 100 years ago in 1914 had brought about the mobilisation of over 70 million people and left between 9 and 13 million dead, perhaps as many as one-third of them with no known grave.

Despite nationalistic propaganda, which continues to this day, the First World War was not about good vs evil or right vs wrong. It was a devastating and unnecessary war instigated by ruling class elites to fulfil their own motives for power and wealth. What an evil waste of so many young lives, ordinary decent folk on both sides of the war.

The bravery of the Australian and New Zealand solders at Gallipoli is now the stuff of legends, as are the exploits of the Light Horse in Egypt and Palestine. However these battles cannot compare to the scale of conflict on the Western Front. In July 1916 Australian infantry were introduced to combat at Fromelles, where they suffered 5,533 casualties in 24 hours. By the end of the year about 40,000 Australians had been killed or wounded on the Western Front. In 1917 a further 76,836 Australians became casualties in battles, such Bullecourt, Messines, and the four-month campaign around Ypres, known as the battle of Passchendaele.

I honour  and respect the bravery and sacrifice of all these soldiers, and I never question their sincere loyalty or motives. They were heroes. But I refuse to respect the leadership of the nations that fought this war, and I despise the "Empire" that devoured the youth of our own nation, which was not yet even 15 years old.

For our own country, the First World War remains the most costly conflict in terms of deaths and casualties. From a population of fewer than five million, 416,809 men enlisted, of which over 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner.

These numbers are staggering. We are indeed fortunate not to have lived in such times.

My great grandfather in Victoria could have been sent to the war. However, he had a Dutch name which the authorities thought was a German name so they would not let him in the armed services. I should be grateful the authorities were so ignorant, or I may never have existed.

This EDEE game is a bit reminiscent of the end of WW1

Paul's advances in this game are terrifying. He can pick the cities my transports are hiding in with unswerving accuracy. In the next game, soon to begin, he will be a most formidable adversary. But this game is running more and more like the end of WW1. Germany's advvances were spectacture. Its subgugation of Russia undeniable, it industrial might unquestioned. But one by one the little allies fell leaving her alone and fighting on too many fronts.

On the right is an island that was all green four short turns ago. Star Lord's troops have now landed on his big land mass, perhaps it is his home land. Retreat is turning into rout. The Sultan is learning how to translate the Turkish word for surrender. The next game will start very soon!

Great unit art quality in the latest Strategy and Tactics game

Paul was curious to see more units from the latest game. I note that the graphics art, when blown up with a scanner, is very impressive and catches quite a level of detail.

The game is an ambitious one. It starts with the begining of the German offensive and lasts to the end of the war. Germany has to try to knock France or England out for the war in the first weeks. Failing that, it has to hold on until the end of the year. Time is not on the German side. The extra number on the US unit is the arrival turn.

The maps are even more ambitious - there are two maps covering most of the western front. I'll need to borrow the dining room table is I ever play this.

Related articles

2014: A Century Since 1914

Who am I

I am on the latest Strategy and Tactics issue. Below are my mates. Who am I and what era?

---

The Answer

 

ANZAC Day 2014

I remembered in Canberra.

 

Blessed are the war-mongers?

There was an interesting article in this week's New Scientist arguing that war makes us peaceful....

The key premis of the article was the comparison of skeletons from differing time periods to currently recorded death rates from violence. In the New Stone Age, evidence of violent death appears in 10-20% of remains. This drops down to about 2% during the period of ancient empires and then back to 3-5 % during the barbarian invasions and collapse of empires. It came back to 2% when the Europeans began the process of exporting gun powder based war around the world. In the last century, 100 million people died in the two World Wars. That came out of be 1.5% of the population. This century the rate is 0.7% and dropping.

The article proposes that during the times of most lawlessness (New Stone Age and Barbarian invasions), if you had a grudge with your neighbour, you went out and killed him to ensure things did not get further out of hand. Certainly reading the Penteteuch seems to match that view. However, when empires formed, the elite gained little from killing the conquered, preferring instead to live off their labour. Thus successful states "pacified" the conquered, forcing them to life within the rule of law and policing them to comply.

So perhaps the ultimate role of wars is to end war.... The propagandist of WW I did not get it too wrong!

2014: A Century Since 1914

This year will mark the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. Already in the UK they are planning events for August and the propaganda machine has begun its work. The Tory Education Minister, an idiot called Michael Gove, described the war as "a just war for freedom" and he even criticized Black Adder for painting an unpatriotic view of the war.

What a load of rubbish. I am going to get in early and state my view: The First World War was a war perpetrated by the ruling classes for their own interests, imperial territory and power. It was not about freedom. England was not the good guy and Germany the bad guy. It is an absolute tragedy that so many were slaughtered, including so many Australians, for a war that did not have a just cause.

I really hope propaganda does not defeat the real history of this war as various ceremonies are undertaken around the world. So far I have not heard anything idiotic from an Australian politician but it is probably just a matter of time.

In response to Gove's remarks in the UK, Seumas Milne made a number of excellent comments in the Guardian (9/1/14) which I applaud:

"Unlike the second world war, the bloodbath of 1914-18 was not a just war. It was a savage industrial slaughter perpetrated by a gang of predatory imperial powers, locked in a deadly struggle to capture and carve up territories, markets and resources".

"Germany was the rising industrial power and colonial Johnny-come-lately of the time, seeking its place in the sun from the British and French empires. The war erupted directly from the fight for imperial dominance in the Balkans, as Austria-Hungary and Russia scrapped for the pickings from the crumbling Ottoman empire. All the ruling elites of Europe, tied together in a deathly quadrille of unstable alliances, shared the blame for the murderous barbarism they oversaw. The idea that Britain and its allies were defending liberal democracy, let alone international law or the rights of small nations, is simply absurd".

"It's not just that most men and all women in Britain were still denied the vote in 1914 – unlike Germany, which already had full male suffrage – or that the British empire was allied with the brutal autocracy of tsarist Russia. Every single one of the main warring states was involved in the violent suppression of the rights of nations throughout the racist tyrannies that were their colonial empires. In the decades before 1914, about 30 million people died from famine as colonial officials enforced the export of food in British-ruled India, slaughtered resisters in their tens of thousands and set up concentration camps in South Africa".

"Britain was supposed to have gone to war to defend the neutrality of "plucky little Belgium" – which had itself presided over the death of 10 million Congolese from forced labour and mass murder in the previous couple of decades. German colonialists had carried out systematic genocide in what is now Namibia in the same period. As to international law, Britain's disdain for it was demonstrated when Germany had asked by what right it claimed territory in Africa a few years before. London refused to reply. The answer was obvious: brute force. This was the "liberal" global order for which, in the words of the war poet Wilfred Owen, the ruling classes "slew half the seed of Europe, one by one".

"In reality, it wasn't just the seed of Europe they sacrificed, but hundreds of thousands of troops from their colonies as well. And in case there were any doubt that all the main combatants were in the land-grabbing expansion game, Britain and France then divvied up the defeated German and Ottoman empires between them, from Palestine to Cameroon, without a thought for small nations' rights, laying the ground for future disasters in the process".

What a terrible and depraved war. Completely senseless. And how much were the seeds of later atrocities - nazism and communism - sown in the First World War.

I am with Black Adder 100%.

Kiwis Still Make Toy Soldiers

For Christmas I received a nice suprise: a toy soldier which was an officer from the Wellington Battalion, New Zealand Infantry, Gallipoli 1915. The officer is in the middle of this group.

What impresses me is that there is a company in New Zealand which manufactures hand painted toy soldiers. While it is possible to get Australian toy soldiers from some of the international manufacturers, I am not aware of any Australian companies that still make toy soldiers.

The website for Regal Enterprises is here.

Great Non Battle Between the Lemongrass Boys and Silly Satay

The great Maginot Line, sections north, central and south.

Will history repeat itself? If so, who are the Germans and who are the French?

Remembrance Day

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae (1872–1918)

Australia is covered with war memorials, most in remembrance of the First World War and the Second World War. In a Burwood park next to one of the main shopping centres near my home is a war memorial that was opened on Remembrance Day 1922. That is 91 years ago. This memorial now remembers 9 wars up to Vietnam.

Even on my own street, a few minutes walk from my house, is a row of olive trees that is actually a war memorial to the Rats of Tobruk. Most people would drive past these trees without realising what they signify.

I remember.

Known Unto God

One of the first things Tony Abbott's new government did has not received much publicity, although it was an excellent decision.

In the dying days of the former labor government, the governing council of the Australian War Memorial (led by the War Memorial's director, former liberal leader Brendan Nelson) decided to remove the words "Known Unto God" from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. These words were to be replaced with words from a speech by former labor prime minister Paul Keating: "He is one of them, and he is all of us".

Our new prime minister Tony Abbott, and the new Veterans' Affairs Minister Senator Michael Ronaldson, intervened and there will now be no change to "Known Unto God".

I would like to see Brendan Nelson and every member of the council that attempted to remove the reference to God sacked immediately. I have had an absolute gutful of the political correctness (which is a tool of the evil that never sleeps) editing out God at every opportunity, and even creeping into sacred places like the War Memorial.

The stupidity of this whole episode is that the words "Known Unto God" were written by Rudyard Kipling and chosen by the generation of diggers themselves. Although the words were added in 1999 these are the words the diggers had placed on thousands of crosses around the world to mark the graves of their comrades who were unable to be identified.

The Australian War Memorial exists through the efforts of First World War veterans and their vision of how to remember their mates: "Here is their spirit, in the heart of the land they loved; and here we guard the record which they themselves made" (Charles Bean, 1st World War Official Historian). Precisely. Who are we in our modern corrupt pathetic society of 2013 to change the way the war veterans themselves want to be remembered.

I agree with radio broadcaster Michael Smith's view about the current governing council: "The people who made the plan to remove the historical words used by our diggers are vandals. They have no place as stewards of our most sacred national memorial".

I grew up in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and one of my favourite places was, and still is, the Australian War Memorial. These days the ACT is a hotbed of leftist extremism, perversion and social engineering. The War Memorial has had a narrow escape, although no doubt the God haters will be back. Perhaps they will try and remove actual items from the War Memorial that offend their evil master, such as the Long Tan Cross.

I have never had much time for Paul Keating, and his words have no place in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Hall of Remembrance. However, Keating did use words in parliament once that I believe are a good description of the vandals and anti Christians that wage a continuous assault on our nation: "Scumbags of dog's vomit; sleazebags of pigswill; maggot-infested buckets of pus; crims; grubs; boudoir bandicoots; box-heads; liars; lice; maggots; in and out of a cat's arse; like a dog returning to it's vomit". Yes, that was our former prime minister speaking. He had a turn of phrase, but was not Rudyard Kipling.

 

In Memoriam: J R R Tolkien

There have been a number of posts recently about my favourite author, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE.

Today is the anniversay of Tolkien's death. He died 40 years ago, on 2 September 1973, aged 81.

Both PythonMagus and Thygocanberra are also fans of Tolkien, and of his great books "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The trilogy consists of "The Fellowship of the Ring", "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King". Much has been written about Tolkien and his works, and I have read most of it. On this day I offer some random thoughts about Tolkien and my life.

When I was a young boy I used to travel to Albury to visit my grandparents. One of my oldest and happiest memories is staying in bed all morning, reading "The Lord of the Rings" for the first time, while my grandfather brought me cups of tea and bread & butter.

I also remember as a boy being intrigued by the Middle Earth alphabets in the appendices at the end of "The Return of the King". My favourite was the Dwarvish runes - the Angerthas - and I had hours of fun writing messages using these runes. I can't resist now grabbing my old copy of "The Return of the King", yes my original 1974 edition with a nice musty smell, and providing a copy of The Angerthas from Appendix 3 for any budding students of Dwarvish languages.

The world of Middle Earth created by Tolkien is so deep and so vivid that it remains in the mind like a real memory. Whereas the contents of other books fade, my imagining of Middle Earth still lives in me as fresh as it ever was. Perhaps I prefer Middle Earth to the world we live in now, and perhaps I keep Middle Earth alive by visiting it frequently in my mind.

Tolkien is one of the lucky soldiers who went to the trenches in World War I and returned. He created a code he could use in correspondence with his wife Edith to avoid the British army's postal censorship. This is pure Tolkien. He went on to invent entire languages and alphabets for the races of Middle Earth. When one thinks of the creative energy and achievements of Tolkien, only one returned soldier, the enormous tragedy of the loss of 10 million military personnel comes into perspective. The total number of casualties including wounded and civilians exceeded 37 million.

My father is an avid reader but he has never liked Tolkien's works. I wonder whether Tolkien is an author that you either love or hate. Or perhaps it is the fantasy genre that you love or hate. Tolkien has been described as the father of 'high fantasy' but I don't even know what that is. I have always been much more of a science fiction buff than a reader of fantasy novels. To me, Tolkien's creation is so unique that it deserves a category, even a genre, all of its own.

I have always admired the 'Catholicity' of Tolkien's works. For over two decades now I have attended the Traditional Latin Liturgy (the Tridentine rite, now the Extraordinary Form) and fought the good fight against modernism, and other heresies and uglinesses in the Catholic Church. Only recently I found out that Tolkien's grandson Simon Tolkien had offered the following recollection: "I vividly remember going to church with him in Bournemouth. He was a devout Roman Catholic and it was soon after the Church had changed the liturgy from Latin to English. My grandfather obviously didn't agree with this and made all the responses very loudly in Latin while the rest of the congregation answered in English. I found the whole experience quite excruciating, but my grandfather was oblivious. He simply had to do what he believed to be right". This is fantastic: Tolkien was a traditionalist like me!

When I was at university in the 1980s I rembering thinking how great it would be if there was a movie of "The Lord of the Rings", but I thought it would be impossible to ever translate the book to the screen. I was wrong. Special effects and computer graphics and Tolkien fans rising in the ranks of movie making all came together in 2001-2003 when Peter Jackson released the amazing trilogy of Lord of the Rings movies. Jackson was, in my opinion, largely faithful to Tolkien and he managed to capture the magic of Middle Earth. The casting, the music, the cinematography, the script - it was all amazing and most Tolkien fans were not disappointed.

The Lord of the Rings movies depicted some things exactly as I had imagined: Strider / Aragorn, Gandalf, the inside of hobbit holes, and the Argonauth. I'm sure every Tolkien fan has their own list. There was only one chapter in the whole "The Lord of the Rings" that I never really warmed to, being chapter VII in "The Fellowship of the Ring": 'In the House of Tom Bombadil'. Jackson left this out of the movies and I agree with this decision. However, I don't agree with leaving out chapter VIII of "The Return of the King": 'The Scouring of the Shire'. This is one of my favourite chapters.

Last year Peter Jackson released the first of the Hobbit movies, 'An Unexpected Journey'. While it was not as serious as the Lord of the Rings movies (and neither was Tolkien's book) the movie was great fun.

Just as Tolkien interesects with many happy childhood memories, so the movies intersect with newer happy memories. I remember seeing 'The Fellowship of the Ring' with my sister on one of her rare 10 year home visits from her religious order. My memories of 'An Unexpected Journey' are associated with my daughters, and a new generation of Toklien fans.

Tolkien was happily married to Edith for over 50 years, and they had four children. Tolkien and his wife share a grave in Oxford, which includes the inscription 'Edith Mary Tolkien, Luthien, 1889-1971' and 'John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892-1973'. In Middle Earth lore, Luthien was a princess who forsook her immortality for her love of the mortal warrier Beren.

Tolkien lives on, in his great books, and in the movies.

Toy Soldiers

I notice that Peter Nathan Toy Soldiers, in his small shop on the top floor of the Queen Victoria Building (QVB), has some nice Australian Light Horse on display in the front window.

I took a quick snap on my mobile phone when I walked past at lunchtime.

Notwithstanding that "toy soldiers" are described as "elite military miniatures", it has always amazed me how this little shop survives amongst all the top end fashion shops in the QVB where the rent must be out of this world. I have done my bit by purchasing most of the confederate generals over the years, and PythonMagus has been known to make some purchases.

There is a website for Peter Nathan Toy Soldiers and good luck to him.

Is this Hymn Heretical?

The famous hymn "I Vow to Thee My Country" is often sung at Remembrance Day services in Commonwealth countries. The words were written by Cecil Spring-Rice in 1908, and the music is by Gustav Holst who adapted music from a section of Jupiter from his suite 'The Planets'. Holst harmonised the tune to make it usable as a hymn, and it was first published in 1921.

The first and second verses are usually taken to refer to the United Kingdom and the sacrifice of those who died during the First World War. The third verse is a reference to heaven, and the final line is based on Proverbs 3:17.

I have always loved the music, and admired the clever lyrics. I believe Remembrance Day services are very important and the sacrifices of fallen soldiers, especially ordinary decent men thrown into wars, deserve to be honoured.

However, I am no fan of the British Empire, and I despise their monarchy and their ruling class. I have always been uncomfortable with the 'religious love' for Britain in this hymn. Only recently I learned that this hymn had been described as "totally heretical" by the Anglican Bishop of Hulme because in his view the hymn placed national loyalties above religious ones and promoted an unquestioning support of governments. Perhaps it takes a heretic to know a heresy, but I think the Bishop of Hulme has hit the nail on the head. He has well described why I have always been a bit uncomfortable with this hymn.

The middle verse is often omitted because it is regarded as "inappropriate". There is another clue in this omission: the government wants unquestioning loyalty but not a clear reminder of the consequences, of "the dying and the dead" in wars in foreign countries.

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,

Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;

The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,

That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;

The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,

The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

I heard my country calling, away across the sea,

Across the waste of waters she calls and calls to me.

Her sword is girded at her side, her helmet on her head,

And round her feet are lying the dying and the dead.

I hear the noise of battle, the thunder of her guns,

I haste to thee my mother, a son among thy sons.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,

Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;

We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;

Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;

And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,

And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

There are a number of different versions of I Vow to Thee My Country on YouTube, including this typical British pomp and ceremony version, with Royalty, without the middle verse:

 

Darkest Hour - a review

Last month I saw a WW1 game called Darkest Hour for $5. (It is now $10? http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-DHHOIG/darkest-hour-a-hearts-of-iron-game) I have been playing it a lot, often until past midnight. It is awesome.

I started as Austria Hungary to make my mistakes. It went well until the Germans collapsed on the Western Front and I lost my capital. Second time I played as Germany and opted to ignore France. I left three full armies on that border and sent everyone else East. I has a ball as the Russian hordes were not up to my armies. Best of all, since I left Belgium alone, Britain decided to stay neutral. I had the East sewn up by 1916 and France and Italy gone by 1917.

Last time I tried the Schieffen plan in full. I let the Russians have eastern Prussia and focused on Paris. It almost did not work. I got to historical positions by the end of 1914, but in 1915 I took Paris and forced France out of the war. Meanwhile my subs kept Britain so busy I did not see their navy, so was able to use mine to bombard the shores of France. However, France surrendered only just in time. My armies on the East were at the point of collapse, down to 25% strength. As I was training my victorious forces East, Austria Hungary surrendered. Anyway, I hit Russia so hard, that a neutral Austria was not a problem. Somehow the Italians did not think to attack through Austria. I am not sure if that was a bug. Ultimately the Americans got sick of my subs and declared war. However, they could not reach me through a neutral France and Austria, so I bulldozed Russia out of the war and accepted a white peace from Britain when offered. Strange map at the end. Similar to history, but no Soviet Union and a big Germany.

When playing I found that battles take about a month. This allows reserves to flow in, so when you attack 8 French divisions with 40 German divisions, after two weeks, it is 20 to 40 and are a month it is 45 to 40. At this point, although the odds are still in your favour, your divisions are decimated. The way around is to launch two huge attacks at once, so they can only reinforce one. Alternatively, timing a counter attack after one of their attacks fails works too.

Planes are fun, but mostly useful for recon. Bombing enemy units has only a minor effect.

War weariness is the real enemy. Once the war has been running for a few months, it is very hard to keep dissent down. Loss of major cities, loss of soldiers or just nasty journalists hammer your nation's will to fight. Several times you turn off all normal production and pump all your resources into improving the economy. After I knock a country out of the war, I see rebels all over their territory (these happen when dissent gets about 20%), so it is tough for the AI too.

Finally, technology is lots of fun. There are lots of cool directions you can take (Zeppelins, Subs, Tanks, Infantry, Artillery). You can enhance your best units with extra brigades of armour, artillery, engineers, cavalry etc, to get shock troops. Oh, and loading subs with enhanced torpedos is very satisfying!