“Éire ar phingin agus cá bhfuil an phingin?” Ireland for a penny and where’s the penny?(So near and yet so far)
“An rud is annamh is iontach.” What’s rare is beautiful
“Ní neart go cur le chéile.” No strength until we come together
“Briseann an dúchas trí chrúba an chait.” The true nature of the cat breaks through from its claws
“Téann íseal agus uasal chuig tórramh.” High and low alike end up in the ground
“Tiocfaidh an lá go fóill a mbeidh gnó ag an bhó dá heireaball.” The day will come when the cow finds a use for its tail (Unlikely things may eventually come in handy)
“Is maol gualainn gan bhráthair.” A shoulder is bare without a companion’s hand (People need friends)
“Is maith leis an chat iasc ach ní mhaith leis a chrúba a fhliuchadh.” The cat likes fish but does not like to get its claws wet
“Ní hé lá na báistí lá na bpáistí.” A rainy day is not a day for children
“Shíl mé gur den bhaisteadh é.” I thought it was part of the baptism (I thought it was supposed to happen)
“Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile.” A beetle recognises another beetle (Takes one to know one)
“Níl luibh ná leigheas in aghaidh an bháis.” There is no cure for death
“Is fearr lúbadh ná briseadh.” It is better to bend than to break
“Chonaic mé cheanna thú, mar a dúirt an cat leis an bhainne bhruite.” “I’ve seen you before”, as the cat said to the boiling milk (Once bitten, twice shy)
“Múineann gá seift.” Need teaches a plan (Necessity is the mother of invention)
“Is doiligh corrán maith a fháill do dhrochbhuanaí.” It’s hard to get a good sickle for a bad reaper (The poor workman blames his tools)
“Gáire maith agus codladh fada, an dá leigheas is fearr i leabhar an dochtúra.” A good laugh and a long sleep, the two best medicines in the doctor’s book
“Giorraíonn beirt bóthar.” Two shorten the road (Company makes the journey go quicker)
“Bíonn gach tús lag.” Every beginning is weak
“Ar mhaith leis féin a bhíonn an cat ag crónán.” The cat purrs for itself (People do things for their own benefit, not altruism)
“Ní scéal rúin más fios do thriúr é.” It’s not a secret if three people know it
“Fásann níos mó i ngort ná mar a chuirtear ann.” More grows in the field than is planted there (Not all is inherited, nature is built upon)
“Cad é a dhéanfadh mac an chait ach luch a mharú?” What would the cat’s son do but kill mice? (Don’t expect beings to act against their nature)
When Nazi Germany and her allies attacked the USSR on the morning of June 22nd 1941, Soviet frontline forces were taken completely by surprise and quickly decimated. Precise surgical strikes obliterated command & control before ground units advanced in a great surge, overwhelming the dazed defenders. Red Army anti-aircraft batteries were under strict instructions not to fire on Axis planes, and as a result the Luftwaffe achieved total control of the skies above the invasion area; they destroyed almost 2,000 aircraft for a loss of well under a hundred. Stalin himself reacted with disbelief when told of the assault, even initially suspecting that it had been carried out without Hitler’s approval. The fact that the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union came as any sort of surprise to him is nothing short of mind-boggling.
As early as July the previous year, the Red Army Chief of Staff Boris Shaposhnikov produced a projection of what a German attack might look like. His preliminary three-pronged assault was remarkably prescient, strongly resembling the eventual invasion. In August, mere weeks after Hitler had informally approved Barbarossa, British intelligence had received multiple hints of the plans, and they warned the Soviets accordingly. While Stalin, ever paranoid, distrusted the information and believed that it was a ruse to bring the USSR into the war on Britain’s side, he also ignored corroboration by Cambridge Five spy Kim Philby. Stalin was well-aware of the Nazi desire for lebensraum spelled out in ‘Mein Kampf’, and in December told his generals that the USSR would “try to delay the war for another two years”.
The Soviet Union’s man in Japan, Richard Sorge, an outstanding German spy, used his embassy contacts to obtain documents spelling out Barbarossa in almost its entirety. In May 1941 he sent an explicit warning to Moscow, stating with “95 percent” certainty that the Nazis were about to invade. It has even been rumoured that he provided the exact date of the attack, though this has never been substantiated by the historical records. That same month, Georgy Zhukov called for a pre-emptive strike against Germany. American intelligence services, too, were regularly and repeatedly giving the USSR information about an impending invasion.
Stalin believed that the Red Army was not yet ready to fight a major war, and in this he was correct. However, he did practically nothing to address this aside from adopt an attitude of total disbelief when confronted with clear evidence that the Nazis were set to invade. Indeed, rather than act to rectify the situation, he made the Soviet armed forces weaker with a series of purges. In fact, once finally convinced that there was indeed an invasion taking place, his immediate response was to have several commanders arrested and shot; scapegoats for his colossal blunder.
Stalin did not beat Hitler. Such an idea is a holdover from the Great Man Theory of history. The Soviet people defeated the Axis powers in spite of Stalin, not because of him. They are the ones who deserve all the credit – and all our gratitude.
This is the story of an Imperial Power and its Colonial Possession.
The people in the Possession, did not want to be possessed. The Power wanted to possess these people at all costs. A very simple conflict, when described in such simple terms.
The Possession demanded that the Power hand over command of the armed forces within the hitherto-possessed territory – the Special Troops. The Power was reluctant to do so, because if they acquiesced then their authority over the people of the Possession would be, in effect, no more. The Power even intercepted a message that revealed in no uncertain terms that the Possession knew this too; “When we have the army, [the Power] will be nothing in our country”
Unrest began to take hold in the land of the Possession. In one major city, a dispute between local police and the Power’s gendarmes as to which held jurisdiction over a railway station turned violent. The officers of the Possession seized artillery and armoured cars from an opposing relief column, the Power retaliated by mortaring, machine-gunning and bombing the town.
The war truly began two days later. The Power began their bombardment of the Possession’s capital with simultaneous artillery and machine-gun fire all across the city, with heavy shelling and mortar rounds following soon afterwards. Within minutes, in the words of one observer; “Pandemonium reigned.”
Members of the Possession Government tried desperately to find out what was going on, but the telephone lines had been cut. Soldiers of the Power fired artillery point blank at the Parliament buildings, then used machetes to butcher any surviving guards. Elsewhere, witnesses described fighting of unparalleled ferocity; one, a Russian who had endured the epic battle of Stalingrad, claimed that he had “never been through such an experience as this”
At this point, a Rival Empire stepped in. In what amounted to an ultimatum, the Power was ordered to immediately cease fire and withdraw troops to their barracks. To cheers from the people of the Possession’s capital, tanks and armoured cars belonging to the Rival rolled into the city centre that same afternoon.
In three days, hundreds of people had been killed and the damage caused was extensive. A large area had been destroyed by fire, and streets were pitted with shell holes, broken glass and chunks of masonry. Twenty missing Possession gendarmes were found in a mass grave at the Power’s nearby aerodrome; they had been mutilated before being murdered. The President of the erstwhile Possession said soon afterwards, “This generation…will not tolerate seeing one [citizen of the Power] walk through the streets”
The Power, for their part, left their Rival with these ominous words: ‘Hodie mihi, cras tibi.’ It was a Latin proverb often found on grave headstones: Today me, tomorrow you.
Solidarity, brothers & sisters…
*Taken from slash inspired by Chapter 25 of ‘A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East’ by James Barr
There once was a tailor in Dresden. He had three sons; Wilhelm, Herbert and Hans. The tailor was a Lutheran, and whether by accident or design, the values this faith instilled in him were in turn absorbed by his boys. Values like equality, social justice, freedom from want.
The trio joined the Communist Party. They wrote, organised and agitated for a workers’ revolution, a new Germany where labour would not be exploited by those who possessed the means of production. They even served time in prison for their subversive activities, but were undeterred. Their solidarity was unshakeable. Their belief in the cause, ineffable.
Then the Nazis came. The eldest brother continued his work in Berlin, but had to do so in clandestine fashion, using the codenames ‘Friedrich’ and ‘Waldau’. For this he was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo – yet he would not break. Another of the boys joined the International Brigades fighting fascism in Spain, while the youngest went even further afield to begin rallying comrades for the inevitable global conflagration being stoked by the forces of darkness.
Wilhelm was executed in 1937 at Plötzensee Prison. Herbert died travelling to Mexico in 1941. Hans was killed working with the French Resistance in 1942.
They are remembered with a street name in Oberschöneweide, south-east Berlin.
Once upon a time I was an avid devotee of FPS games set in the Second World War; Hidden & Dangerous, Day of Defeat, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Call of Duty, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Hidden & Dangerous 2, Call of Duty 2, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Call of Duty: World at War… I played – and loved – them all. Along with many of their add-ons & expansion packs to boot! Playing CoD: WW2 is like a graphically-remastered greatest hits of all the aforementioned…only with the experience substantially more bland than you remember.
Wait. Back up. What’s the point of posting an excoriating take-down of something that came out 3 years ago? Well, for whatever reason, Sony decided to make it one of their PS Plus Monthly Free Games for June. As I have PS Plus, I took the opportunity to play it. Let’s just say that I was glad not to have purchased it full-price at launch.
Actually no, let’s not just say that. Let’s say more things: The title conveys an impression that we will get a broad view of the greatest conflict in history…but what we get is a piddling 11 months of action, from D-Day to the Bridge at Remagen. Less than a year, from a war that spanned at least 4 (if you date it from the launch of Operation Barbarossa), 6 (if you date it from the invasion of Poland), or even 8 (if you date it from the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War). Hell, you could, if you so wished, consider the roots of the global conflagration to be in the Spanish Civil War, which erupted in 1936 – nine years before Japan’s ultimate surrender in the autumn of 1945!
So, hardly ‘WW2’. Not the vast majority of it, at any rate. Maybe, like in those early CoD titles, we’ll get to sample some different stories from those 11 months? Pfft, barely. One of the best missions sees you control a resistance member while she sneaks into a Nazi HQ to plant some bombs…but you’re quickly put back in control of farmboy dullfuck Daniels, surrounded by his crappy cadre of tedious chums. You get a pretty boring fly-and-shoot affair as a Thunderbolt pilot, but it’s over extremely quickly and bears very little relation to the central plot…to the point that you wonder why on earth it was even put in there. Then there’s a citybound tank encounter, which is fine albeit with just the most sluggish & unresponsive controls, but again this is a once-off.
The presence of these jaunts is just baffling; if we are focussing entirely on the ‘gripping’ story of protagonist Daniels, why are we jumping into the shoes of these other no-names? On the other hand, if we are trying to get a more expansive view of the war, why in the name of Ike’s ghost are we not getting a more exciting picture? Where is Westerplatte, Dunkirk,Stalingrad, Monte Cassino, Kursk, Iwo Jima, River Plate, Oran, Guadalcanal, Burma, El Alamein, Tobruk, Dieppe, Anzio…?
Interesting characters though, right? HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAH-ahem. No. These are the most unrealistic, hackneyed, glory-hunting assholes you are ever likely to behold. You would honestly think that Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan never happened…were it not for the fact that every fire-fight from those releases is unimaginatively aped at various stages. Presumably the writers just fast-forwarded through the boring quiet parts. Ya know, where characterisation happened. Not for CoD: WW2 the unassuming, dedicated, human soldiers of depictions past; this time we’re looking at brash, quipping types who wish to win medals & the like.
But the worst thing, the absolute worst thing of all, is the plagiarism. Literally everything here has been done before, and better. The central conflict between a gruff sergeant and his more empathic lieutenant? Barnes and Elias in Platoon. Hitting the beach at Normandy, leaping outta the machine-gunned landing-craft before dodging mortar fire & blowing a hole in the defences with Bangalore torpedoes? MoH:AA – only that title had the wisdom to put that highlight in the middle of its campaign, not right at the start. Fighting off the Ardennes Offensive in the freezing cold? CoD: United Offensive. Smashing up the enemy in your Allied armour? The Polish campaign in CoD 3. Oh, excuse me, these aren’t evidence of plagiarism, silly me…these are homages. Well, whatever you call them, it’s derivative, half-baked mush. This is actually why I didn’t buy the game at launch; the lack of originality just sapped any enthusiasm. We’re playing as the Americans – and only the Americans – again? Great.
There are so many stories to be told about World War Two via the medium of video games. For some, utterly stupid reason the decision-makers at Activision & Sledgehammer Games decided to tell a story we have already experienced, in a way that is uninspired, lacklustre and insulting.
When the dust settled on the Third World War, the entire framework of global politics had been utterly reshaped. Just as in 1945 & 1918, the outcome of cataclysmic conflict was a devastated arena of battle along with borders unrecognisable to the pre-war population. The whole paradigm of economic, social and international affairs had experienced a revolution. Only question was, would the survivors be able to make the most of the opportunities presented?
Climate catastrophe and medical crises presaged the outbreak of war, so amidst all the shooting were concurrent scenes of flooding, sicknesss and starvation. Armies demanded and received the lion’s share of resources, thus every non-violent disaster became progressively worse as hostilities developed. Famines of previous centuries were rendered insignificant by the kinds of drought and decimation of crops wrought by the combination of human nature and mother nature.
Emerging as the dominant powers, the four confederations could scarcely believe their good fortune. The East African Federation had largely avoided the kind of deprivation suffered by other parts of the world, and had even seen their economy grow by virtue of being home to the most vital minerals required by the belligerents. Similarly, the geostrategic irrelevance of most territories in the Pacific Islands Alliance resulted in their avoiding the desperate struggle while providing their manufacturing industries with a huge boost.
On the other hand, Bolivariana’s headfirst jump into battle sent their economy into overdrive. The vast landmass of the Americas became, eventually, their prized possession and the source of their great power. Not to far behind were the Eurasian Collective – a decentralised and intensely localistic body, but nonetheless a combination that was more than the sum of its parts.
This was the new world order. On an Earth rapidly running out of food, fuel and even water, would the 22nd Century finally see an egalitarian and ecological restructuring of human society?
Try as they might, the exhausted troops of the U.S. First Army could not understand what purpose was being served by their presence in this god-forsaken forest. For almost 2 months, the men had endured horrendous conditions as they desperately fought to push the Wehrmacht out of the dense foliage – to no avail. Initially taken by surprise, the German forces had regrouped quickly, offering fierce resistance from well-entrenched defensive positions. As well as the tenacious enemy soldier, the Americans had to deal with terrain that was hardly conducive to attacking operations; narrow paths, fire breaks and undulating hills made ambushes a terrifying regularity.
It seemed obvious to the bruised and battered frontline infantry that their commanders had seriously underestimated the combat readiness of their opponents. After the breakout at Normandy, the encirclement of the Falaise Pocket, and the great swan across France in pursuit of retreating remnants, it must have appeared to even the most cautious brass that Germany’s will to fight had completely collapsed. Not a bit of it, on this evidence.
At battalion and regiment level, officers quietly confided in each other that the battle plan made no tactical or strategic sense. The dense Hürtgen Forest completely negated the immense superiority of Allied airpower and artillery, as well as making armoured thrusts essentially impossible. Why not avoid the area entirely, circumnavigating it to the south and thereby breaking out into open valley – where those military advantages could be pressed home to the maximum extent? Instead, they were forced to watch the men under their command become pinned down and suffer casualty after casualty.
On the 2nd of November began a desperate attempt to break the bloody impasse. The 28th Division attacked in three directions simultaneously, but their opponents had been expecting such an assault and had prepared formidable defences. After an advance of just 300 yards, the vanguard units of the 109th Infantry Regiment found themselves stranded in a minefield dubbed the ‘Wilde Sau‘ (Wild Sow) by the engineers who had laid it. Following 2 days of intense mortar fire, incessant artillery strikes and inexorable counter-attacks, the Americans had scarcely managed to push forward a mile. After that, the situation did not get much better.
The battered and bloody 109th passed the baton to the 4th U.S. Infantry Division’s 12th Regiment, but before these replacements were able to get their bearings they too were on the end of heavy fire. At Midday on the 10th of November, the Germans began a half-hour long artillery barrage, signalling their latest attempt to force the Allied forces from the forest. The fortunes of the opposing sides see-sawed wildly over the next 48 hours, with the strategically-vital ‘Försterhaus’ (Forestry House) changing hands several times.
Enter Friedrich Lengfeld. Commander of the 275th Infantry Division’s 2nd Company throughout the battle, it was here that he took actions that will go down in history for their humanity, compassion, and selflessness. His frontline troops reported hearing cries for help in the direction of the Wilde Sau, and it was apparent that the source was at least one wounded American. Without hesitation, Lengfeld gave the order to refrain from firing on any U.S. infantry who might attempt a rescue, in the hope that this would enable the stricken soldier to get the medical assistance he so clearly needed.
Alas, no aid was forthcoming. Nonetheless, Lengfeld refused to let the matter lie and, as the anguished calls from no man’s land continued, he assembled a rescue squad composed of his own paramedics. Apparently without a thought for his own safety, he led the ad hoc unit through their own minefield in an attempt to save the life of an enemy; a man they had been trying to kill not 12 hours earlier. As the group closed on the badly-wounded American, Lengfeld attempted to cross over to his side of the street…and set off an S-Mine.
‘Fortune favours the brave’, the famous saying goes. It did not favour Lengfeld, whose bravery was by now surely unquestionable. Though he survived the initial detonation, the shrapnel tore through his body and left him with multiple internal injuries. Despite the valiant efforts of his men, themselves nursing wounds caused by the explosion, who rushed to a field hospital as fast as they could carry him, Friedrich Lengfeld was pronounced dead on arrival.
While he now rests in Düren-Rölsdorf cemetary, in 1994 the Veterans Association of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division’s 22nd Regiment erected a monument in Lengfeld’s honour at the Hürtgen Forest war graves. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the American soldier who lay crippled and calling for help; to this day, his fate is uncertain.
The inscription on the memorial to Friedrich Lengfeld is a quote from the Gospel of St. John:
“No man hath greater love than he who layeth down his life for his enemy.”
Only Came to See Eboue 