Розсмикані думки: мова

Українська є моєю першою мовою – тому, що нею розмовляли в нашій сім’ї. І мій батько, і мама, і бабусі. Дідусів я не знав, вони обидва загинули на війні, і я якось вважав, що це начебто звичний стан речей (я колись, малий зовсім, спитав у батька – сам я не пам’ятаю цього, знаю лише з його слів – «Папа, а чому ми всі живемо у одній кімнаті, та ще й з Марьєю Івановною (ми жили в двокімнатній комуналці), а в (наших хороших знайомих) трикімнатна квартира?»; батько відповів, що «у тебе обидва діда загинули на війні, а у них ні», і двірничка, що почула це, вилаяла батька, що, мовляв, хіба ж можна так розмовляти з рибйонком) – так от, діди теж розмовляли українською.

Як був малий, то я навряд чи віддавав собі звіт, що от є українська, а от російська. Знав, звичайно, що по телевізору є Перша програма, де йде «Вечерняя сказка» (чи як вона тоді називалася), і є Друга пограма, по якій іде «Надобраніч, діти» (із дідусем Панасом в тому числі). У дитячому садочку розмовляли російською, то ж і я навчився, не особливо напружуючися – діти взагалі швидко вчаться. Але вдома – вдома це українська. Так воно змалечку й встановилося, українська для домашнього вжитку, російська назовні, для публічного. Хоча пам’ятаю, як прибиральницю в дитсадку дуже, страшенно втяшило, як я їй розказував, що «у бабусі серденько болить» (ну як я від неї почув, так і ретранслював – як я зараз розумію, тій дівчині (молодій – хоча для мене тоді вона, як і всі дорослі, була просто «дорослого віку») посто сподобалося, що «городська» дитина – а знає її рідну говірку.

А як інакше, бо до того, як мене віддали в дитсадок, гляділа мене бабуся Наця, що хоч і могла в суржик (бо ж вдова офіцера – і якби дід Іван не загинув капітаном у 1941 році, а дослужився б хай не до генерала, а до полковника – то напрактикувалася б бабуся й російською по різним гарнізонам (а от цікаво, в дідовій 2-й дивізії Червоного козацтва яка була командна мова?)), але вдома на нього не переходила. От не треба їй було нікому доказувати, що вона «городська». І мамі не треба було, і батькові – тим більше що вони цілком добре знали російську, а як інакше після університета?

Хоча акцент у мене був, коли я говорив російською, і це я знаю абсолютно точно. Бо коли в першому класі ми вчили дзвінкі й глухі приголосні, то як треба було на уроці російської підібрати глуху пару до Г (Ґ тобто) – в мене виходило лише Х, і коли Паола Йосипівна, моя перша вчителька, сказала, що ні, правильно К, я добре пам’ятаю відчуття когнітивного дисонансу – ну як ще К, коли Х! Г – Х, просто ж усе начебто. Ну запам’ятав і взяв до уваги на майбутнє.

Єслічо, я в курсі, що мій особистий досвід (як в принципі будь-який індивідуальний досвід) є нетиповим. Що мені пощастило навчатися у хороших школах, де практично не було поколів із якістю викладання, і де не було для абсолютної більшості однокласників проблем із мотивацією до навчання. Українська мова й література не була (незважаючи на те, що школа була з російською мовою викладання) віднесена до другорядних та неважливих предметів, і дуже мало хто був звільнений від її вивчення (лише ті, хто переїхали з місць, де не було української в шкільних програмах – а щоб, як кажуть, хтось був звільнений «за станом здоров’я», то реально я з таким не стикався ні разу, але охоче вірю, що десь могло бути)

Я до чого веду? Всі однокласники володіли практично однаково добре і російською, й українською, і якби хтось сказав, що не розуміє української, то його б точно не зрозуміли та поставили б під сумнів його ментальні здібності. Ні в кого не було проблем обговорювати на уроках української мови чи літератури (у старших класах була лише література – власне, курс історії літератури з невеликими домішками літературознавства; у 9 класі – література післяшевченкового періоду, у 10 класі – радянського; оскільки весь 9 клас був фактично присвячений творам про життя селян (ну хіба що за винятком Франка із його Бориславом, що сміється) – гарний контрапункт, до речі, до «панської» літератури з курсу російської літератури – то сяк-так ми, хоч і міські діти, щось собі уявляли про життя нашого села) – а ті, хто вчився в школах з українською мовою викладання (я в такій був з 4 по 6 клас) то могли вільно говорити й на теми точних, природничих та суспільних наук. При тому я б не сказав, що перехід до практично виключно російськомовної (за деякими екзотичними винятками) вищої освіти становив якісь труднощі.

Коротше, моє оточення було все функціонально двомовним, при чому обидві мови мало на рівні вищому за побутове спілкування. І якщо між друзями я говорив виключно російською, то хіба що через звичку. До речі, було цікаво реалізовувати, наскільки багато з них були україномовними вдома – знову ж таки, українська для власногоб персонального, світу, російська для назовні. При цьому я неодноразово стикався з випадками, коли інші ровесники ставилися до української мови зневажливо. У 80-ті досить часто почали переводити середні школи з української мови викладання на російську – «за вимогами батьків». Не знаю, чи такі вимоги були, чи це таке було стандартне формулювання – але чомусь не пригадую у знайомих мені українських школах масового невдоволення мовою навчання

Хоча всім було зрозуміло, що українська має дуже-дуже сильно другорядний статус, і якби вона раптом зникла, «нагорі» не плакали б за нею. І це мені й багатьом іншим не подобалося, просто мабуть тому, що наша мова була частиною нашої ідентичності. У всякому разі, якщо в дитячому садку ми ще гралися «в войну» за «рускіх», то в середній школі чітко розрізняли російське й радянське. Ми були частиною одного (вимушено, бо куди дітися), але не іншого. І нам на підсвідомому рівні було зрозуміло, що можна не бути росіянином навіть розмовляючи російською мовою

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-fresh-advance-in-belgium-k6tn6gwkj

september 28, 1917

The fresh advance in Belgium

Although in the last two or three days the fighting in Belgium has probably been fiercer than at any period in that area since the first battle of Ypres, the renewal of the struggle has resulted in valuable progress. Our attack on Wednesday morning was made on a front of six miles, from Tower Hamlets to the ground east of St Julien, and it met with substantial success. Just north of the Ypres-Menin road English and Scottish battalions had some of the hardest fighting, for after they had attained their objective the Germans counter-attacked repeatedly until night fell. In last night’s bulletin Sir Douglas Haig says there were seven such counter-attacks.
On the whole, it was a fine and satisfactory day’s fighting, and it brings us much nearer the completion of the task of clearing the last of the ridges. There is more in all this stubborn fighting than the relation of local successes may seem to imply. The best evidence of the stake involved is found in the determination with which the enemy are resisting our advance. They know very well the kind of winter they are likely to spend in the flat plains beyond the ridges, and we know it even better, for our troops stood for three trying winters in the low ground around Ypres.
The enemy will not yield lightly, and there is more desperate work ahead. The Germans are throwing in their reserves with a recklessness which suggests that they are drawing freely on their Russian front. Some of the public are, we gather, puzzled by the frequency and violence of the counter-attacks, in view of assertions that the German rank and file show signs of deterioration. The explanation is fairly simple. About a third of the German forces are probably as good material as any we have yet encountered. These are the stout men who hold most of the “pill-boxes”, and who are thrown in when a counter-attack is delivered. The rest of the enemy’s troops are of inferior quality, and they are the units who so often surrender or break before the impetuous onslaught of our regiments.
So long as the Germans, from whatever cause, can maintain such resolute opposition as they are showing this week, we must continue to take them seriously, and not jump to the conclusion that they are at the end of their resources.

100 Years Ago - Izonzo

INFANTRY IN A TRENCH NEAR JAMIANO

INFANTRY ATTACK

THE VALLEY OF THE ISONZO AND THE MOUNTAINS ON THE EASTERN SIDE FROM MONTE KUK TO MONTE SAN GABRIELE

A FERRY ON THE ISONZO.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/opening-of-the-offensive-dbn3czcrl?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_September%2027,%202017&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2318043_118

Opening of the offensive

The whole Italian front is spectacular to an extraordinary degree, and it is generally possible to get views of an action, or even wide panoramas, such as are rarely visible to an observer in modern war

May 17, 1917

An Italian offensive on a big scale started on Monday after a preliminary bombardment of 56 hours, and by yesterday evening considerable results had been obtained. The bombardment extended along a front of over 25 miles from Tolmino to the sea, and the Austrian positions were very heavily pounded. The enemy seemed to expect the main Italian effort to be made on the Carso and the hills east of Gorizia, and on this front had massed at least 1,600 guns. His policy hitherto has always been to reserve his artillery fire until the Italian infantry attack developed, but on this occasion he displayed greater activity - to the south of Gorizia at least. There was relatively little counter battery fire, but he devoted considerable attention to the Italian observation posts, and occasionally searched the roads with shrapnel. To the north of Monte Sabotino the Austrian batteries spoke seldom.

The whole Italian front is spectacular to an extraordinary degree, and it is generally possible to get views of an action, or even wide panoramas, such as are rarely visible to an observer in modern war. The last few days were no exception to this rule, and I had a perfect view of the chief Italian attack, which took place on the Plava sector. In this region the Isonzo runs down swiftly between steep bills, and the enemy held the entire left bank with the exception of the Plava bridgehead, which was seized by the Italians in the first weeks of the war.

The bridgehead is of very limited extent. Repeated attempts to enlarge it had been met by very stubborn resistance, and the position till two days ago had remained little changed. By Sunday night the very accurate fire of the Italian big guns and trench mortars had smashed up the Austrian positions. Raiding parties had gone in the first line trenches and brought back handfuls of stunned and hungry prisoners. On Monday morning the Isonzo was bridged below Plava almost opposite Zagora, and at 11.15 the infantry began to cross. The narrow gorge of the Isonzo filled at once with shrapnel clouds, and big shells began to fall all about the crossing place, but the stream of infantry never ceased, though often it slackened, and for a moment almost failed. At 11.30 the Italian trench mortars redoubled their efforts. Half an hour later their metallic bang ceased to dominate the uproar, but a new note was added to the clamour of the guns and the whistle and rumble of shells that sailed overhead. Machine-guns broke into a furious clatter as the Italians launched their attack.

Charles Saatchi's Great Masterpieces: sackcloth, syphilis and the birth of modern art

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/charles-saatchis-great-masterpieces-sackcloth-syphilis-birth/

 

Detail of Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? by Paul Gauguin Credit: Hulton Fine Art Collection/Getty

Gauguin was disappointed on arriving in Tahiti, expecting an untouched, primal paradise. Instead, he found that a hundred years of Western influence had somewhat tarnished his idealised expectation of the island.
Until his thirties he had worked as a broker at the Paris Stock Exchange, having taken up painting simply as a hobby about 10 years earlier. Once in Tahiti, his paintings allowed him to create his fantasised version of the island, and one designed to intrigue Parisians.
“He’s not a seer, he’s a schemer,” Gauguin’s early mentor Pissarro said bitterly, on hearing of the warm response to the Tahitian pictures. He argued that Gauguin hadn’t lost his stockbroker’s instinct or lust for capitalist gain, knowing that his titillating visions of an exotic idyll would arouse and inspire the French art world.
Another of Gauguin’s jealous rivals referred to him as a “syphilitic paedophile” – he had several wives in Tahiti, whom he had married when they were just 13 or 14. A highly sexual man, he had probably been drawn to Tahiti not only by a yearning for a calmer, more primitive way of life, but also by the women, who were rumoured to be much freer with their affections than their prudish Western counterparts. His paintings certainly often portrayed the native women living their lives in hedonistic relaxation, sharing the pleasures of singing and lovemaking.
His most famous works feature the young beauties of the island, who are painted as gentle and unerotic – but in reality they were used as the artist’s sex slaves.

This Week in History - The Korean War (28 September-9 October)

https://ospreypublishing.com/thisweekhistory/


Having forced the North Korean forces out of Seoul, the capital of South Korea, by 27 September, the US Army then pursued the North Korean Army north. On 7 October following a UN resolution, the US forces crossed the 38th parallel, the line dividing North and South Korea. In response to the actions of the US and UN, the Chinese, backed by the Soviet Union, entered the Korean War in force on 25 November 1950. MacArthur's aim of total victory was no longer an option after this date. Instead, a bitter war of attrition, on land, sea and in the air, and costing many lives, continued until the ceasefire agreement in 1953.

 Głosowanie w Radzie Bezpieczeństwa ONZ w sprawie Korei, 25 czerwca 1950 r.

Samoloty Vought F4U Corsair nad lotniskowcem USS „Boxer”, 1951 r.

Wyładunek wojska i sprzętu pod Inczhon, 15 września 1950 r.

Marines lądują pod Inczhon

Dowódcy wojsk ONZ w zdobytym Inczhon – w środku gen. MacArthur, 16 września 1950 r.

Marines podczas odwrotu pod Czhongdzin, grudzień 1950 r.

USS „Missouri” podczas ostrzału pozycji północnokoreańskich

100 Years Ago - Passchendaele 2

STRETCHER-BEARER PARTY COMING THROUGH THE MUD

A DUCKBOARD TRACK THROUGH THE WATERLOGGED GROUND

NORTH-COUNTRY TROOPS AWAITING IN RESERVE TRENCHES THE ORDER TO ATTACK VELDHOEK

YORKSHIRES MOVING UP IN THE TWILIGHT


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ypres-1917-and-1914-8hsg02lpf?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_September%2020,%202017&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2293964_118

Ypres - 1917 and 1914

The struggle for the ridges is assuredly not yet over. We have still to eject the Germans from the villages of Gheluvelt and Becelaere and Passchendaele

October 8, 1917

The successes won in the Battle of Broodseinde on Thursday have proved to be solid and enduring, and the enemy have not recovered any portion of the valuable positions which were torn from them. They have not seriously tried to do so. Since their unsuccessful counter-attacks near Gravenstafel and north-east of Langemarck, and also south-east of Polygon Wood, on the afternoon of the battle, the German infantry have remained inactive.
It is refreshing to hear of a British raid “south-east of Broodseinde” on Saturday night, because it means “the other side of the hill”. Nevertheless if the enemy’s infantry are quiet, their guns are busy enough. They are pouring shells upon our new positions on the ridge from Broodseinde southwards, by night and by day, and a strong artillery duel is evidently in progress.
The struggle for the ridges is assuredly not yet over. We have still to eject the Germans from the villages of Gheluvelt and Becelaere and Passchendaele, as well as from the Keiberg spur, east of Broodseinde. The isolated “heights” of Zandvoorde and Kruiseecke and Moorslede have also to be reckoned with, and will doubtless receive attention at the right moment. If the weather is favourable there will probably be further heavy fighting, because every yard now relinquished by the enemy adds to the ultimate peril of their western front.
On the Somme and beyond Arras they could make fresh lines in their rear with some amount of confidence, but in West Flanders they have to think constantly of the thirty miles of coast on which their whole position in the West very largely depends. Since July 31 they have been steadily driven from the ridges on which their defensive operations rest, and we are glad to note the new and general recognition that here, as in nearly every other theatre of the war, the bulk of the work has been done by English troops.
The enemy have for some time been engaged in spreading the ridiculous fiction that the English have left the Scots and the Irish and the rest of the Empire to do the fighting. The omissions in the official reports have tended in the past to give currency to this preposterous slander. An official return just published explodes it altogether. Of the troops engaged in these great operations on the Ypres front 70 per cent are English, 16 per cent are from overseas, 8 per cent are Scots, and 6 per cent are Irish. As to casualties, the English have had even more than their share. The proportions are: English, 76 per cent; Oversea, 8 per cent; Scottish, 10 per cent; and Irish, 6 per cent. The fact is that the purely English contribution in manpower (and in money) in this war has been so greatly preponderant and all-pervasive that almost insensibly it became the complimentary custom to dwell chiefly upon the achievements of the other nations which make up the Empire. The share of the English was taken for granted.

Nor should it be forgotten that these low ridges on which our troops are fighting are already hallowed ground to the old British Army, as they will also be consecrated henceforth in the eyes of Australia and New Zealand, of Canada and Newfoundland. On these very slopes fifty thousand men of the original Expeditionary Force laid down their lives or were wounded in the epic conflict of October, 1914. The German plan was shattered at the Marne, but if the first Battle of Ypres had not been afterwards won the Marne would have been fought in vain. To France belongs the chief glory of the Marne, to Great Britain the deathless pride of Ypres - but to both nations the two victories are a common heritage, for if the little British Army joined in the immortal advance at the Marne, French units were flung into the strife around Ypres, and French artillery helped to stem the tide of the German invasion.

We were fighting in those days, as now, for an issue which directly concerned both countries in almost equal degree. Had the Germans broken the line and reached Boulogne, Paris would once more have been endangered and the war in the west might have taken a different course; while the use which the Germans have made of the Belgian coast shows quite clearly how deep would have been the menace to Great Britain if the French Channel ports had gone. The two successive Commanders in Chief upon the Western front share in the renown of those great days. It was Lord French who made the desperate decision to leave the rest of his weak line unsupported, and to throw in the First Corps on the left of the battered Seventh Division in order to prevent his flank from being turned. It was Sir Douglas Haig who struck with the First Corps towards Passchendaele and Poelcappelle, and stanchly held the line from Gheluvelt through Zonnebeke and beyond, the very ground where he is fighting now; and it was he who dammed the flood and broke the final attack of the Prussian Guard north of the Menin road.
The world still knows far too little about the first battle of Ypres, in which British forces which never numbered more than 150,000 men, helped by unconquerable French troops and by the Belgians on the coast defeated, in a conflict which lasted for many days, an army of over 600,000 Germans. The critical day, when for a few hours it seemed as though the Germans must break through, was October 31, 1914, a day on which the British Empire was in greater peril than it has ever been before or since. How many people know the story of the 2nd Worcesters, who filled the hole in the dyke at Gheluvelt at a moment when all seemed lost? How many have heard of Brigadier-General FitzClarence, killed twelve days afterwards, “the man who turned the tide” by ordering on his own responsibility the attack by the Worcesters which saved the line? The story of Ypres is full of such episodes. Even India had a share in it, and the adventures of the Ferozepore Brigade are as marvellous as the rest.
Is it not time that the country did something to bear annually in remembrance the deeds of the heroes who in 1914 made Ypres a name which will shine forever in our history! The battle may be said to have lasted from October 21 to November 11, but the day of days, the day to commemorate with thanksgiving, is October 31. We agree with Lord Selborne, who said not a word too much when he declared at Birmingham last Wednesday that “the 31st of October, 1914, was the day of our fate, and not only of our Empire, but of the whole world.” Now that we are beginning at last to take notice of our national achievements, it is an anniversary which should be worthily celebrated.

100 років тому

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/a-smashing-blow-h6vzn8wms

september 21, 1917

A smashing blow

Today we have dealt the enemy another of those smashing blows which he must be coming to dread. The long period of preparation and suspense is over. We have struck, and, so far as can be seen at present, with shattering force and complete success. We did not seek to go far. The extreme depth to which we sought to penetrate was about one mile, but that mile we have overrun, and grasped, and hold. Already the enemy has been counter-attacking. He is counter-attacking now.
It is rash to prophesy, but I have been this morning where the wounded and prisoners were coming along the roads and have talked with some scores of our men, and victory is in the air. The advance included all that blood-soaked region along the Menin road with the dominating spur on the northern and southern slopes of which are Glencorse Wood and Inverness Copse and other high ground beyond. The Germans have, doubtless rightly, held this high ground to be the supreme strategic point in this section of the front, and been willing to make any sacrifice to hold that one commanding point. Here it is that they have flung no less than 16 divisions, all of which have utterly failed to drive us back. We in these last seven weeks have made no, or very little, progress, but we started this morning from slightly in advance of the line to which we won on the first attack, and no praise can be too high for the English troops who have held that ground through these last 50 days. while behind them was maturing the blow which we have just delivered.
The attack was delivered shortly before 6 o’clock this morning. After a bright but windy day yesterday, clouds blew up in the afternoon, and about 9 o’clock it began to rain. It seemed incredibly cruel that the rain should interfere with our attack, and happily, though it rained more or less all night, the ground was surface-dry and no great harm was done. The rain stopped before the hour of attack, though the sky remained black and overcast, so that it was darker than it ought to have been, and none too easy going among the shell-holes. All shell-holes are full of water. Every man I saw was coated with mud, some only to the knees, but many to their very throats, and it is to be feared that some wounded must slip into the holes and never get out again.

This Week in History - Nicopolis (22-28 September)

https://ospreypublishing.com/thisweekhistory/


The battle of Nicopolis was the end of the crusades, but also the first encounter between the Ottoman Turks and the soldiers of western Europe. During the second half of the 14th century, the rapid spread of Ottoman Turkish conquests, and particularly the Ottoman threat to Hungary, was causing great consternation in western Europe. Further provocation was provided by the siege of Constantinople, the last remnant of the Byzantine Empire, in 1391 by Sultan Bãyazîd I 'The Lightning'. Pope Boniface IX preached a crusade and soon an army of English, French, Germans, Italians and Knights Hospitallers under the leadership of John of Nevers, son of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy marched east towards Constantinople, joining a Hungarian army under King Sigismund of Hungary on the way. They advanced deep into new Turkish territory, but were halted at the town of Nicopolis, which resisted the Crusader siege for over two weeks.

Sultan Bãyazîd decided to march to the town's rescue. He chose a defensive position straddling the road to the city with his flanks protected by ravines. Sigismund advised a cautious approach, but the western crusaders would have none of that. Instead, they charged straight at the Ottomans. After a fierce battle, the Ottomans were victorious. It was a devastating loss for the Crusaders, particularly as Bãyazîd, enraged by his heavy losses, slaughtered most of his prisoners the next day.

Further reading

For the full story of the last crusade, Campaign 64: Nicopolis 1396 The last Crusade (extract below) is a detailed account. Campaign 132: The First Crusade 1096-99 Conquest of the Holy Land is a new book giving the account of the very first crusade, three hundred years previously. To set Nicopolis against its background of three centuries of crusading, Essential Histories 1: The Crusades gives an overview of the entire period, and discusses the causes, context and consequences of the Crusades. For the Ottoman perspective of Nicopolis, turn to Essential Histories 62: The Ottoman Empire 1326-1699. Finally, for more information about Hungary in the last Crusade, and the subsequent fortune of Eastern Europe, Men-at-Arms 195: Hungary and the fall of Eastern Europe 1000-1568 is a detailed study.

Men-at-Arms 75: Armies of the Crusades, Elite 19: The Crusades, Men-at-Arms 155: Knights of Christ, and Men-at-Arms 125: The Armies of Islam 7th-11th Centuries cover the various armies involved in the crusading period. For information about the specific armies at Nicopolis, turn to Warrior 41: Knight Hospitaller (2) 1306-1565, Men-at-Arms 144: Armies of Medieval Burgundy 1364-1477 and Men-at-Arms 140: Armies of the Ottoman Turks 1300-1774.

Charles Saatchi's Great Masterpieces: Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa was a plea for justice

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/what-to-see/charles-saatchis-great-masterpieces-theodore-gericaults-raft/

It was at the 1819 Paris Salon that Théodore Géricault first exhibited The Raft of the Medusa to the public. Put into today’s context, it went viral – word spread instantly, much like a titillating story on the internet. As Géricault knew, once the painting appeared on the walls at the Académie, it would be stirringly controversial. He saw it as the perfect opportunity to launch both a political storm, and his career.
The Raft of the Medusa was certainly more than a painting of the aftermath of a shipwreck. It was immediately viewed as a social and political protest, a direct poke at the French government. It was the first sign of Géricault’s growing obsession with the ideas of life and death.
The background behind this remarkable painting is a tragedy that gripped the nation. In 1816, the French frigate Méduse ran aground and was badly damaged on a journey to Senegal. Unable to free the ship, the passengers and crew attempted to travel the rest of the journey on lifeboats. However, there were insufficient small boats to carry them all, so a large raft was fashioned from the wooden decks of the vessel. It was intended to be towed by the lifeboats but, cruelly, the lines joining it to the boats were severed, and the raft drifted off.
It held 150 men but, by the time it was sighted 17 days later, only 15 had survived. Tales of murder and cannibalism soon began to circulate, and the French government was accused of having appointed an incompetent captain, who was considered a favourite of King Louis XVIII.

Польські кавалерійські бригади 1939 частина 2

Початок: http://chestnut-ah.blogspot.com/2017/09/1939-1.html


Історію полків, що входили до складу польських кавбригад, що перед війною 1939 року дислокувалися на західноукраїнських землях, розглянемо на прикладі двох — 12 полку Подільських уланів і 14 полку Язловецьких уланів.

12 полк міжвоєнного часу веде родовід (це ми не торкаємося попередників наполеонівських часів) від створеної в Святошині (зараз у межі Києва хто не знає) «Першої польської кірасирської корогви» у 1917 році із вояків Першого гвардійського кірасирського полку. Ця частина кілька раз перейменовувалася, і коли Третій Польський корпус, куди вона входила, капітулював 10 червня 1918 року, вже називалася «7 кавалерийським полком». Відносини з місцевим населенням були погані, у сутичках з селянами частина понесла втрати, в тому числі загинув командир полку.


(Ілюстрації в цій частині — із колекції Інституту Сікорського в Лондоні)

Але офіцерське ядро 7 полку під кінець 1918 року створило Група офіцерів полку пізніше створила «Ескадрон оборони Львова кінноти Варшавського воєводства», який остаточно і отримав назву 12 полку Подільських уланів».

Польські кавалерійські бригади 1939 частина 1

П'ять років тому я написав оцю невеличку компіляцію по польській кавалерії 1939 року. Недавня некругла річниця - нагода не гірша від інших, щоб перевикласти її тут.


Так що вмощуйтеся зручненько, та й слухайте уважненько, як казав колитсь дідусь Панас.


Досвід Другої світової війни показав, що кавалерійські з'єднання можуть себе добре проявити лише якщо вони відносно великі, тобто розміру дивізій чи корпусів, і включають в себе легкі танки та моторизовану піхоту - як це було в СРСР. Але в міжвоєнній Польщі пішли іншим шляхом - ліквідували кавалерійські дивізії та створили менші за чисельністю вояків бригади.






На теренах Західної України формувалося й дислокувалося три кавалерійські бригади:

Wojsko Polskie w Drugiej wojnie swiatowej

Вереснева кампанія 1939 року в малюнках додатків до Rzeczpospolita

100 Years Ago - Passchendaele

TELEPHONE EXCHANGE WITHIN 500 YARDS OF THE GERMANS.

For transmitting orders from observation officers to batteries

THE ADVANCED LINE: ZONNEBEKE IN THE DISTANCE

MULES CARRYING WATER OVER CORDUROY TRACKS THROUGH BOGGY LAND

OFF TO CLEAH. UP THE FLOODED ROADS


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-smashing-blow-xllzdzp78?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_September%2013,%202017&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2268165_118

A smashing blow

Every man I saw was coated with mud, some only to the knees, but many to their very throats, and it is to be feared that some wounded must slip into the holes and never get out again

September 21, 1917

Today we have dealt the enemy another of those smashing blows which he must be coming so thoroughly to dread. The long period of waiting, of preparation, and of suspense is over. We have struck, and, so far as can he seen at present, with shattering force and complete success. We did not seek to go far. The extreme depth to which we sought to penetrate was about one mile, but that mile we have overrun, and grasped, and hold. Already the enemy has been counter-attacking. He is counter-attacking now: and will go on, and the more he counter-attacks the better we shall be pleased.
It is rash to prophesy, but I have been this morning where the wounded and the prisoners were coming along the roads and have talked with some scores of our men, and victory is in the air. We have seized what we aimed to seize, and what we have won we shall hold. The advance included as the heart of the attack all that blood-soaked region along the Menin road with the dominating spur on the northern and southern slopes of which are Glencorse Wood and Inverness Copse and other high ground beyond.
You already know how the Germans have, and doubtless rightly, held this high ground here to be the supreme strategic point in all this section of the front. As their way is, they have been willing to make any sacrifice to hold that one commanding point. Here it is that, as I have told you before, they have flung no less than 16 divisions. All their divisions have utterly failed to drive us back. We in these last seven weeks have made no, or very little, progress, but we started this morning from slightly in advance of the line to which we won on the first attack, and no praise can be too high for the English troops who have held that ground through these last 50 days. while behind them was maturing the blow which we have just delivered.
STUBBORNLY CONTESTED GROUND.
Since the middle of August alone, on a narrow front here, besides constant minor skirmishes and continuous shelling, the Germans have made seven formal attacks, in which some 24 battalions have been used, and used up. The ground which we have won today was in places literally heaped with their dead. By far the majority of our wounded today were walking cases, and they were the most hilarious and jubilant lot of wounded that I ever saw. Not one of them but knew that the attack, as far as he was able to stay with it, had gone as one man said, “like a blinking charm,” and all knew that when they could no longer follow they had seen our men go romping on. All alike shouted with laughter as they told of the Germans surrendering (”not knowing whether to dance or stand on their heads,” said one) as they streamed out of their concrete shelters.
Today’s operation was on a wide front. Along the Menin road itself we have pushed through lnverness Copse, some 100 yards to the east of it, and on the high ground about halfway to Gueluvelt. North of here we are in the western side of Polygon Wood. Above here again our men swept over all that hideous country studded with fortified farms and concrete redoubts to nearly a mile due east of Frezenberg. This region is crowded with fortresses, which have swept all the ground before our line with their machine-guns, and the garrisons of all those fortresses are now either dead or prisoners in our hands.
Premen and Zonnebeke Redoubts, Schuler Farm, Iberian Farm, Beck House, Borry Farm, Vampire Farm, and Potsdam Redoubt, each one of these with many more have been the scene of fierce action today. Farther south we have rushed all the dreadful country about Dumbarton Lake and Shrewsbury Forest. There is not one of these names which will not be famous in the histories of this war.
It is early yet to make a full category of our gains, but they are ample. How many prisoners we have taken it is impossible to say. I have seen some two or three hundred of the 7th, 60th, 56th, and 15th Regiments from the north and centre of the attack, and of the 19th, 6th, and 395th from farther south. These, however, were only the advance guards, and by tonight they will surely be nearer 4,000 than 200. And everywhere our men were confident that the enemy casualties had been very heavy, while ours, as always in the most successful attacks, were not. The German defence was almost entirely machine-gun defence from concrete fortifications, and, as experience has abundantly shown, the proportion of serious wounds among machine- gun casualties is always small.
MEN’S STORIES.
One sergeant with a tattered band told as a huge joke against himself how when a “pill-box” would not surrender he had slipped up by crawling on his stomach and slipped a bomb through the orifice. “But they sent my hand out quicker than I wanted,” he said, for a machine-gun bullet had torn a finger away. Another man had climbed on top of the pill-box and was sliding down the roof on the other side as the shortest way to reach the back door when a bullet from some unseen place caught him in the shoulder. He seemed to think it funny. Another told how, right at the start, he had been buried by a shell and, according to his tale, he had lain for three hours, being alternately buried and unburied by following shells. He thought 300 shells had fallen within 20 yards. (You cannot help these exaggerations.) But “Lord, Sir, the beggars just could not hit me.” When congratulated on his luck he said, “Luck! Well, I should say I’ve been wounded five times already in this war [which was true] and they can’t kill me.”
Men of one battalion were joyfully proud to tell how they had been led clear through by their colonel. Two Germans were running away along the railway line, and the colonel took a rifle from a man and “dropped ‘em both as pretty as you ever saw.” Those men were evidently proud of their colonel, who, said one, “was still going when I left all right.” One hopes he is going yet, to get the honour which he deserves.
A man who is fairly new to this front, having served in the German South-East African Campaign, had his life saved by his pocket-knife, which he carried most illegitimately in his gasmask slung on his chest. The knife was dented nearly double, and he opined that in hospital (for he had another bullet in his arm, of which he thought little) they could take his watch, or his money, or anything they pleased from him, but they were not going to have that little souvenir knife.
But one can tell as many tales as one pleases about these men, and nothing will ever give the real picture of their courage, their temper, and the stoutness of their hearts.
THE ATTACK
The attack was delivered shortly before 6 o’clock this morning. After a bright but windy day yesterday, clouds blew up in the afternoon, and about 9 o’clock at night it began to rain. It seemed incredibly cruel that the rain should interfere with our attack, and happily, though it rained more or less all night, the ground was surface-dry and no great harm was done. The rain stopped before the hour of attack, though the sky remained black and overcast, so that it was darker than it ought to have been, and none too easy going among the shell-holes. All shell-holes are full of water. Every man I saw was coated with mud, some only to the knees, but many to their very throats, and it is to be feared that some wounded must slip into the holes and never get out again.
The ground was worst among the woods, where the fighting had already been savage and the shelling very heavy, but everywhere it was hard travelling. Yet, in spite of it, the attack at every point swept on even faster than the anticipated time, so that our foremost positions were seized and firmly held before 10 o’clock this morning. All the men speak in terms of the utmost admiration of our artillery work, both before and during the attack.
In my message yesterday I hinted as much as discretion would allow at the splendid work our guns have done during the last five or six days, so that by hurricane counter-battery work and with gas shells they had fairly smothered the enemy’s guns wherever they could be reached, which was in as few places as the enemy could manage. The result was that, while our preliminary bombardment this morning was terrific and the barrage behind which our men advanced most admirable, the German artillery reply was generally feeble. We know that he was not entirely surprised. Prisoners tell us that at one point in his lines a regimental order came down at one o’clock this morning that an attack was imminent. About that time, or a little later, he shelled parts of our line fairly heavily, but with little effect, and when the time came our men went over in the grey dawn in splendid spirits. Our aeroplanes have during the last few days done magnificent work, and their observation during the battle, in spite of the thick air in the earlier part of the day, has been very good. A curious story comes of a new German trick of camouflaging, or somehow disguising, their aeroplanes so as to be almost invisible.
DOG MESSENGER’S MESSAGE
A detail of the battle is that this morning we caught a German dog messenger with a message tied round its neck, with instructions to the guns to prepare to cover a counter-attack. At the last reports one counter-attack had been delivered on part of the line, and had been repulsed, and elsewhere the enemy troops were massing anew. Though our men were irresistible, and tell most comic tales of the terror of the Germans when they surrendered, yet it is evident that at many places the enemy fought in his concrete shelters to the very last. Many concrete pill-boxes were found shattered by our big shells, but only a direct hit from the largest guns, 12in or upwards, is effective.
The great majority of shelters survive the bombardment. The German now has these shelters grouped in geometric patterns making strong fortified positions. As for instance seven pillboxes in two parallel lines of three, each running straight away from our advance lith one midway in the middle. This was intended to prevent our men from going round and reducing them from the rear, but it is only a question of going a little farther round and these clusters are reduced en bloc, and in cases which I heard of this morning from ten to twenty prisoners came from each.
I heard many stories of very young prisoners not more than 16 years old, but I saw none. Those I saw were all mature, especially the Prussians, though they were not first-class material.
It is too early yet to mention individual troops engaged in the attack, but they were from all parts of the British Isles, with some oversea contingents, and they have all done magnificently. The preparations for the attack and our information as to the enemy troops appear to have been beyond criticism, and at the moment the victory seems complete.

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/two-great-attacks-rgkg6v6lm?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_September%2006,%202017&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2240732_118

Two great attacks

The central feature of the day’s successes was the capture of Langemarck and the positions half a mile east of the village

August 17, 1917

In the last forty-eight hours two great and successful attacks have been delivered by the British forces on the Western front. At dawn on Wednesday the Canadians advanced on a wide front north of Lens, and carried the famous Hill 70 and the mining suburbs of Cite St Emile, Cite St Laurent, and Cite St Elizabeth. They also destroyed the bulk of the 4th Division of the Prussian Guard while it was making a counter-attack in close formation. Yesterday English and Irish units in Flanders, with the French on their left, attacked on a front which extended from the neighbourhood of the Polygon Wood, east of Ypres, to the border of the flooded area beyond Bixschoote. Much ground was gained, and the British captured the coveted site of the village of Langemarck. Meantime the French advanced on the heights north of the Aisne and west of Craonne, and took important German positions.
It will be seen that the operations now in progress in the west are steadily developing, and that the offensive initiated at the end of July before Ypres is evidently part of larger plans. The attack north of Lens on Wednesday, in which the Canadians fought so brilliantly, recalled the battle of Loos in September, 1915, for part of the conflict occurred on the samo ground. It was the 46th Brigade of the 15th Scottish Division which stormed the slope of Hill 70 in 1915. It was supported when it reached the summit by portions of the 44th Brigade and of the 47th London Division, both of which had passed through the town of Loos. Groups from these gallant units rushed down the farther slope and vainly tried to take Cite St Laurent, and they clung to the hill until it was strewn with their dead. The Canadians on Wednesday avenged their fate.
The enemy have had nearly two years in which to score the height with trenches and defensive works, but the garrison yielded almost at once to the impetuous assault of the men of Canada. The Canadians swept on to Cite St Auguste, where they found themselves confronted by further formidable defences. By their seizure of the mining suburbs already named they have tightened the grip on the main town of Lens, which is now held in a very close vice, although the flooded ground beyond Avion probably remains a serious obstacle on the southern side.
Our Special Correspondent explains and analyses today the system of rapid counter-attacks which the Germans have now devised. It appears to be conspicuously wasteful of men, and though it leads sometimes to the temporary recovery of lost ground, experience seems to show that it produces no permanent results. The quick massing of strong reserves for early counter-attacks can doubtless be practised best when an offensive limited to one area has to be met. When, however, our troops begin almost simultaneous attacks at widely separate areas, a much heavier strain is placed upon the dwindling resources of Germany. How great that strain has become is indicated by the discovery of numbers of German boys of the 1919 class in the battle-line. Such an example of the heavy simultaneous attack at two points was furnished yesterday, when the third battle of Ypres was renewed on an extensive scale.
The central feature of the day’s successes was the capture of Langemarck and the positions half a mile east of the village. This advance represents perhaps the most notable gain yet effected in the whole of the Ypres operations. Langemarck has a memorable place in the British annals of the war, for it was there that the Third Brigade crushed a formidable attack in November, 1914, and disposed of 75 par cent of its assailants. The advance yesterday was made under very difficult conditions, for the ground is reported to be exceptionally swampy.
On our left the French made admirable progress in conformity with our own movement. They are pushing out from Bixschoote, the scene of their triumph on the first day of the battle, and are moving in the direction of the Forest of Houthulst. Like ourselves, they are well across the Steenbeek brook.
Farther south in our line various strong local points have been taken north and east of St Julien. There has evidently been very bitter fighting east of Westhoek, but our troops aro drawing nearer to the Polygon Wood. Oux Correspondent records the universal praise of the work of the British artillery, which has never been more admirable in its cooperation with the infantry attack. The broad results of the last two days are most inspiriting, and they give ample promise of further developments.
We are now in the principal stage of the summer campaign in the West, and the enemy are being subjected to a pressure which exceeds anything they have known this year. Our advances are methodical and are carefully defined beforehand. There is no expectation of attaining overwhelming results by a sudden rush, but it is reasonable to assume that the full fruits of the present series of projects have still to be gathered. Much hangs upon the fate of Lens, which has held out so long; its fall might bring very extensive changes in all that part of the line.
Progress is necessarily slow around Lens, for the countryside is covered with little mining villages, while the slag-heaps furnish an interminable series of defensive points. At Lens and before Ypres great issues are in the balance, but Sir Douglas Haig’s plans are steadily moving towards attainment. If the British and French Armies can register such definite advances when the Germans are only fighting on one front, we may claim that the character of the war is undergoing yet another perceptible and most hopeful change.

100 Years Ago - Ypres

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-attacks-at-bullecourt-56kd2cb5l?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsletter_118&utm_medium=email&utm_content=118_August%2009,%202017&CMP=TNLEmail_118918_2146825_118

The attacks at Bullecourt

The Australians carried all their ground at great speed, getting through and beyond the second line trenches of the Hindenburg system in less than an hour’s fighting

May 7, 1917

The long spell of fine weather was broken yesterday afternoon by a gale, accompanied over part of the battle area with thunder and rain. Today is bright and clear again, but colder, and the wind is very high. Another day has passed without any important movement, though there has been some sharp fighting in the north just below Lens, in the La Coulotte area, where we gained some ground and made 30 prisoners, and in the south about Bullecourt, where the situation remains very interesting.
As already explained, here we have broken through the Hindenburg line and hold positions below Bullecourt well to the east of the village and on the Riencourt road. In the village itself we are also in the Hindenburg line, and have apparently got some foothold in the village, but the whole place is very obstinately defended. In the original attack the Australians carried all their ground at great speed, getting through and beyond the second line trenches of the Hindenburg system in less than an hour’s fighting. English troops broke into the village, and at one point on the north side well beyond it. The village, however, was full of machine-guns, and these troops were unable to hold all the ground gained.
The Australians on the right thus held a salient into the German lines, with both flanks practically unprotected, and in this position they were subjected to a rapid quadruple counter-attack with heavy forces from Queant, from Riencourt, and from Bullecourt village. They beat off the attacks with the help of the artillery, in praise of whose work they are enthusiastic, and the ground won they still hold, and have even improved their positions somewhat by bombing along the Hindenburg line eastwards. In their attack the Australians got two minenwerfer, which they have been using against the enemy, and a hundred prisoners from the Third Guard Division, which was in Bullecourt village, and the Second Guard Reserve Division, which was on the Queant side. To these the English troops have added 30 prisoners of the 120th Regiment of Grenadiers. The officers among the prisoners captured speak of Bullecourt as untakeable, saying that we shall get it only when the Germans choose to give it up, but the Germans have said the same thing many times of positions which soon became ours without any visible willingness on the enemy’s part.
A curious companion picture to the German Corpse Utilization Factory is the experiment which the Germans are now making with a new artificial fodder for horses, made from animal offal, bones, and undigested food extracted from the stomachs of dead animals. This appetizing forage is known as Fleischfuttermehl, and certain regiments are now experimenting with it, but whether they are also experimenting in eating the flesh of horses fed on it is unknown.

100 Years Ago

Charles Saatchi's Great Masterpieces: why Hitler couldn't resist Vermeer's most treasured work

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/art/artists/charles-saatchis-great-masterpieces-hitler-couldnt-resist-vermeers/

Detail of Vermeer's Art of Painting or The Allegory of Painting (1668)

Johannes Vermeer lived in an almost permanent state of financial desperation. As a young man he barely managed to scrape by as he learned to paint. Because no records have surfaced concerning his apprenticeship, it is thought his family might have been too poor to afford any formal training, and that he may have taught himself.

At the age of 21 he married Catharina Bolnes, but the newly-weds were so strapped for cash that they couldn’t raise the funds to leave Catharina’s paternal home – which was most humbling for young Vermeer in those times. They remained there for the majority of their adult lives, but this did not inhibit the couple from producing no fewer than 11 children, all of whom remained under this one roof.
Vermeer’s decision to pursue life as an artist was no easy one, particularly within his district of the Netherlands. The area around Delft teemed with painters, all of whom seemed to be offering the newly prosperous bourgeoisie the same product – images of everyday life, or commissioned portraits of genteel families.