Centenaries - whole and half

[GUT]

In fact I'm not sure that many realise what I big day it is.

Generally it is seen as Australia's "coming out" as a nation, remember we had only been a nation for 13 years at Gallipoli.

The other thing many seem to not realise is that whilst seen as a total disaster it actually wasn't those brave men held that worthless strip of beech for 9 months against overwhelming opposition who literally held the high ground. And the number of dead and wounded is pretty much equal.

The withdrawal was a ripe for disaster but was actually puled off pretty smoothly.

But back on track while most people in Australia regard Easter and Christmas and New Years and even Australia day as an excuse for a weekend away a BBQ and a bit of a booze up, ANZAC day is seen as something special, however in the 1980s it was falling by the wayside, it seems that the bi-centenary bought life back as national pride started to flare.

[Mayerling]

In fact I'm not sure that many realise what I big day it is.

Generally it is seen as Australia's "coming out" as a nation, remember we had only been a nation for 13 years at Gallipoli.

The other thing many seem to not realise is that whilst seen as a total disaster it actually wasn't those brave men held that worthless strip of beech for 9 months against overwhelming opposition who literally held the high ground. And the number of dead and wounded is pretty much equal.

The withdrawal was a ripe for disaster but was actually puled off pretty smoothly.

But back on track while most people in Australia regard Easter and Christmas and New Years and even Australia day as an excuse for a weekend away a BBQ and a bit of a booze up, ANZAC day is seen as something special, however in the 1980s it was falling by the wayside, it seems that the bi-centenary bought life back as national pride started to flare.

G'Day again GUT,

Years ago I read Alan Moorehead's account of the battle, and it really upset me. When Winston Churchill planned the idea in 1914-15 he was trying to cut a closer link to Russia through the Dardanelles Straight, and take Constantinople. It was an interesting idea, and Moorehead tried to make the case that the ensuing disaster was not Churchill's but the fault of the British and French Admirals and Generals who botched it, like Sir Ian Hamilton. No doubt people like Hamilton did not help matters, but Churchill always had this blind spot regarding grand strategies. He'd look at a map of Europe and figure what was the fastest looking route to an objective and under-estimate the problem about it. In this case he considered the Mediterranean the "soft underbelly" of Europe. It isn't, and never has been. The most frequent source of volcanic activity in modern times was in Italy and Sicily (Vesuvius, Etna). Most of the "soft underbelly" is mountainous. He didn't note this in 1915. In 1941 he would not note this again, when he demanded British units maintain control of the isle of Crete. Again there was a massive bloodbath. It does not matter that in both cases both sides suffered - the attacks or fighting did not need to occur at either time!

The battle did have one good effect for both sides: Australia had already shown it's nationalistic spirit in the Boer War (although it was angered by the affair of Breaker Morant's sacrificial court-martial and execution). Now it renewed it's sacrifice and was joined by New Zealand by the thousands of men lost at Suva Bay and other locations in the campaign. And the Turks gained a sense of self-sacrifice and self-respect, in particular their Turkish commander Mustapha Kemal. Kemal was there for most of the fighting, and noticed the sacrifice of his own men in keeping the Allies on those horrid beaches they were on. He also noticed (and was angered by) the blasé treatment of his men's sacrifice by the Germans "over him" such as Liman von Sanders.

Recently I went to a book signing on a book about the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and Kemal does not look all that good regarding that - but he makes up a small bit for it here. He never forgot that the Turks won the battle, not the Germans. He never forgot that to the Germans the Turks were cannon fodder only. This is why, as the Nazis rose in power in the 1930s, he refused to follow any "sentimental" crap and become their ally. He rightly considered them thoroughly dangerous, as did his friend and successor Inanu, and both agreed that in any Nazi inspired war Turkey would be neutral. It was probably the wisest action of his life.

There is a follow-up regarding the sacrifice of Aussies and New Zealanders at Gallipoli. It involves the Canadians who sacrificed themselves at Vimy Ridge, and the ex-Boers under Jan Smuts who conducted anti-German operations throughout Africa while the British were busy in Europe. In 1919, when Lloyd George was at Versailles for the negotiation for the peace, the leaders of these Imperial states told him that because of their sacrifices they would sign the treaty separately from him (i.e., Britain did not fully represent them anymore) and they would each have a separate delegate at the League of Nations. Lloyd George had to accept this change in the relationship between the home country and her colonial offsprings. Yes, Gallipoli is the start of true self-governing statehood for Australia and New Zealand, and similar battlefields freed Canada and South Africa.

Jeff

[AlanG]

Fifty years ago, March 24 of 1958, Terence Cooney stabbed Alan Johnson to death in an Essex County (UK) dance hall. It was over nothing but a turf dispute. Cooney got a life term. Does anyone know he's still alive and inside? He was born in 1939.

A month after Marwood’s death, 19 year old Terrence Cooney stabbed Allan Johnson at the Woodward Hall in Barking in the course of a similar gang fight. Cooney was a member of the “Dagenham Boys” gang and Johnson was a member of “The Canning Town Boys”. Cooney got a life sentence although did not spend the rest of his life behind bars.

[AlanG]

sorry thats the link

http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/rmarwood.html

[sdreid]

700 year ago - 1315 April 30 - Enguerrand de Marigny, a French government official, is publically hanged for sorcery. The charge was trumped up by a political rival.

[sdreid]

100 years ago - 1915 May 3 - The mutilated body of Charles Murray, 4, is found stuffed under some stairs in the N.Y.C. apartment building where he had lived with his parents. Charles is the second known victim in a series of child murders. Earlier today, a little girl escaped a man who was believed to be the killer. She described him as a well dressed man complete with a derby hat and sporting a dark mustache. An individual thought to be the murderer, sent mocking letters, signed "H.B. RICHMOND -- JACK-THE-RIPPER", to people involved in the case, including the families of the victims. A suspect was eventually arrested but he was later released when the letters continued during his confinement. At this stage, the slayings apparently ceased and the case remains unsolved.

[sdreid]

150 years ago - 1865 May 5 - Australian bushranger Ben Hall is shot and killed by lawmen in an ambush. Policemen had essentially been granted license to hunt down and execute Hall and the members of his gang.

[GUT]

150 years ago - 1865 May 5 - Australian bushranger Ben Hall is shot and killed by lawmen in an ambush. Policemen had essentially been granted license to hunt down and execute Hall and the members of his gang.

Rotten troopers.

[GUT]

May 5 is also the anniversary of "Fair Dinkum" appearing in print fot the frst time in the Bulletin. Just thought since we were on Australia I'd throw that one in.

[Mayerling]

May 5 is also the anniversary of "Fair Dinkum" appearing in print fot the frst time in the Bulletin. Just thought since we were on Australia I'd throw that one in.

G'Day GUT,

Fair enough. By the way, since I mentioned a spoof by Stephen Leacock on Sherlock Holmes and Watson on another thread just now, let me remind all good Sherlockians yesterday was the 124th anniversary of the fight at the Reichenbach Falls between Holmes and Professor Moriarty.

Jeff

[GUT]

G'Day GUT,

Fair enough. By the way, since I mentioned a spoof by Stephen Leacock on Sherlock Holmes and Watson on another thread just now, let me remind all good Sherlockians yesterday was the 124th anniversary of the fight at the Reichenbach Falls between Holmes and Professor Moriarty.

Jeff

G'day Jeff

Fair Dinkum?

Couldn't resist

[sdreid]

150 years ago - 1865 May 10 - Confederate guerilla fighter William Quantrill is shot in an ambush by U.S. Army troops in Kentucky. He was hit in the back and paralyzed from the chest down. Quantrill lingered for a few weeks then died of the wound.

[Mayerling]

150 years ago - 1865 May 10 - Confederate guerilla fighter William Quantrill is shot in an ambush by U.S. Army troops in Kentucky. He was hit in the back and paralyzed from the chest down. Quantrill lingered for a few weeks then died of the wound.

Quantrill had left Missouri in late February headed to Washington, D.C. His intention was to kill Abraham Lincoln. On the way he committed various thefts and murders for himself and his small band. Some of these were against Union troops, but he willingly did the same against civilians. In April he had reached Kentucky when he heard of Lincoln's Assassination by John Wilkes Booth. He decided to return to Missouri, but was caught by the Union troops and mortally wounded.

PLEASE NOTE: Although technically a war atrocity (though in it's day it was considered murder on the high seas by people like Theodore Roosevelt), today is the 100th Anniversary of the torpedoing of the RMS Lusitania off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, by U-Boot 20 under command of Kapitan Walter Schweiger. The submarine is recorded as having fired only a single torpedo, but there appears to have been a second internal explosion. Whether due to boilers, to a cargo including some ammunition, or to coal dust that caught fire from the torpedo detonation, the "Lusitania" sank within 18 minutes, and with the loss of between 1,198 and 1,201 men, women, and children (only four children survived out of 39). One hundred and fourteen Americans were among the dead, including millionaire Alfred Guynne Vanderbilt, Broadway producer Charles Frohman, novelist and dramatist Justin Miles Forman, librettist (for Sousa's "El Capitan") and dramatist Charles Klein, and Marie de Page (wife of the U.S. ambassador to Belgium). The Anglo-Irish art collector, Sir Hugh Lane, also died in the disaster. Captain William Turner of the "Lusitania" survived. Schweiger would rise as the Imperial German Navy's sixth highest submarine ace (in terms of sinking allied tonnage) until his death in 1917 when his then command hit a mine and sank with no survivors.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Today, May 11, 2015 was the two hundred and third anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in the old House of Commons by John Bellingham, a ruined merchant who felt the British government failed to sustain his claims against the Tsarist Government in Russia leading to his being ruined. I was reading the Wikipedia article about Perceval, and noted two interesting points.

The current House of Commons did not put up a plaque in honor of the approximate spot of the shooting until the last couple of years.

A collateral descendant of the assassin, Henry Bellingham, is a Tory M.P. in Parliament today.

Jeff

[sdreid]

50 years ago - 1965 May 17 - Jean Welch, 33, is found murdered in the Maryland apartment she shares with her husband. She had been beaten with an unknown instrument and strangled then drowned in a tub of water. The attacker's motive was suspected as being an attempted sexual assault. Mrs. Welch's two little daughters were present but not harmed. This murder is still unsolved.