Max Levitas obituary

Max Levitas at a demonstration in 2015

Deep-dyed British communist who was a comrade of Jeremy Corbyn and one of the last survivors of the Battle of Cable Street

On September 7, 1934 The Times ran a report about a 19-year-old who had been arrested in Trafalgar Square, London, at 4am and fined £5 for daubing “All out against fascism” (and variations thereof) on three sides of the plinth of Nelson’s Column. The graffiti artist was called Max Levitas and he was a member of the Young Communist League. He was only caught because he and his friend went back to admire their handiwork after they had had a cup of tea. His plea of innocence was undermined somewhat by the item he had sticking out of his overcoat pocket: a still-wet paintbrush.

There was more daubing to come, two years later on October 4, 1936, in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street. This time it was “No Pasaran” (“they shall not pass”) that Levitas chalked on the walls, a slogan borrowed from Republicans fighting in the recently begun Spanish Civil War. A number of British “reds”, including Max Levitas’s brother Morry, would go and fight with the International Brigades in Spain over the next three years, but for now the fight was closer to home.

Wilfred Owen obituary

News of the poet’s death reached his family as the bells rang out in celebration of the armistice and received only a passing mention in the long lists of casualties. The Times now publishes his obituary

Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen in 1916, the year he was commissioned into the Manchester Regiment

His subject was war, and the pity of war. Wilfred Owen’s preface to his poetry was found among his papers in an unfinished condition; he had hoped to publish his work in 1919. “All the poet can do today is to warn,” he added. “That is why the true poets must be truthful.”

Owen had experienced at first hand the pain inflicted by war and knew of what he wrote. “Red lips are not so red/As the stained stones kissed by the English dead,” are the opening lines to Greater Love, in which he describes in graphic, violent detail the “piteous mouths that coughed” and “hearts made great with shot”.

Much of Owen’s poetry was written in a creative burst while he was a patient at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, where the cries of traumatised patients echoed in the corridors. It was there that he met other men who would become known as poets of the Great War: Siegfried Sassoon, who introduced him to the idea of the “protest poem”, and Robert Graves, whom Owen described as “a big, rather plain fellow”. Like Milton, Owen was keen that his poetry should not merely be a passive witness to events, but rather an active response to the suffering he had seen and endured.

Lest we forget: Private Harry Patch, the last man to have gone over the top – obituary

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/0/lest-forget-private-harry-patchthe-last-man-have-gone-top/

This obituary has been republished as part of The Telegraph's commemoration of the end of the First World War. As well as the generals who planned missions and the poets who immortalised them, many ordinary British men and women helped bring about the Armistice on November 11 1918. Here, we remember them

Private Harry Patch, who died on July 25 2009 aged 111, was believed to be the last surviving British soldier to have gone into action on the Western Front, an experience about which he retained bitter memories.

As the last Tommy, the last British trench fighter of the Great War, the last man to have gone over the top, and latterly and briefly - after the death a week ago of Henry Allingham - Britain’s oldest man, Patch bore his celebrity with bemused dignity. “Why I’m still here,” he remarked at the age of 108, “I can’t fathom.”

When the television documentary makers started to interview the small corps of centenarian veterans at the turn of the 20th century they found that several retained vivid memories of the trenches. But Patch was the one who burned with the strongest indignation - at the constant danger, the noise, the rats, the lice and the biscuits that were too hard to eat at Passchendaele.

Agincourt - 3

https://chestnut-ah.livejournal.com/976009.html

Wallace Collection влаштувала невеличку виставку з нагоди 600-ліття перемоги під Азенкуром. Зовсім-зовсім невелику - але ж три зали зброї нікуди не ділися, і можна "добрати" в них (Нарешті побачив сагайдак до куші, із болтами, кінець 15 ст., який чомусь не виставлено у сталій експозиції)

Agincourt - 2

http://nuk-tnl-deck-prod-static.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/projects/a597e50502f5ff68e3e25b9114205d4a.html Battle of Agincourt, 1415, from the 'St. Alban's Chronicle' (vellum) Battle of Agincourt, 1415, from the 'St. Alban's Chronicle' (vellum)

The battle of Agincourt (Azincourt was and remains the French spelling) was one of the most remarkable events of medieval Europe, a battle whose reputation far outranked its importance. In the long history of Anglo-French rivalry only Hastings, Waterloo, Trafalgar and Crécy share Agincourt’s renown.

Agincourt’s fame could just be an accident, a quirk of history reinforced by Shakespeare’s genius, but the evidence suggests it really was a battle that sent a shock wave through Europe. For years afterwards the French called 25 October 1415 la malheureuse journée (the unfortunate day). It had been a disaster.
Yet it was so nearly a disaster for Henry V and his small, but well-equipped army. That army had sailed from Southampton Water with high hopes, the chief of which was the swift capture of Harfleur, which would be followed by a foray into the French heartland in hope, presumably, of bringing the French to battle. A victory in that battle would demonstrate, at least in the pious Henry’s mind, God’s support of his claim to the French throne, and might even propel him onto that throne. Such hopes were not vain when his army was intact, but the siege of Harfleur took much longer than expected and Henry’s army was almost ruined by dysentery.

Agincourt - 1

Extract from Campaign 9: Agincourt 1415 by Matthew Bennett
Once in position the archers began to shoot at the enemy. Just imagine for a moment that you are an archer in the English army. You are famished, cold and wet and suffering from diarrhoea or worse from the effects of your diet of unclean water and nuts and berries. You expect to die in the forthcoming battle. For the men-at-arms there will be ransoms and often cosy  captivity at the hands of men of their own class, related by birth or known to them personally. As a despised and feared footman, all you can expect is to be slaughtered by men so well-armoured as to be almost invulnerable or, if captured, to be mutilated so that you may not ply your craft again. The King has just reminded you that you can expect to lose three fingers from your right hand. However rousing his speech, you are most fortified by despair. At first it seems impossible that the French can be beaten. Then as you advance it becomes apparent that they have been careless – that they do not know what they are doing!

English Crossbowmen, Archers and Infantrymen Illustration taken from Men-at-Arms 85: Armies of Agincourt by Christopher Rothero

Mary Midgley, moral philosopher who took on Richard Dawkins – obituary

Mary Midgley in 2010

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2018/10/12/mary-midgley-moral-philosopher-took-richard-dawkins-obituary/

Mary Midgley, who has died aged 99, was one of Britain’s leading moral philosophers, though she was more effective in wielding philosophical objections to other people’s beliefs than promoting a coherent philosophical viewpoint of her own.

She challenged the various reductionist fundamentalisms or myths – religious, political, social, but particularly scientific – which people use to interpret the world and as a basis for moral rules. Instead, she argued, we should accept that we must understand ourselves and the world from many different perspectives, which make it impossible to reduce moral questions to one simple synthesis.

This Week in History - The Battle of Hastings (9-17 Oct 1066)

https://ospreypublishing.com/thisweekhistory/

Click on Essential Norman Conquest for a day-by-day reconstruction of the days between William’s landing at Pevensey on 28 September and his victory at Hastings. This website includes animated maps, 360 degree panoramas of the battlescene, 3D Norman and Saxon soldiers and 11th century soundbites.

Further reading

Essential Histories 12: Campaigns of the Norman Conquest (extract below) places the battle in its full historical context.

Campaign 13: Hastings 1066 (Revised Edition)  describes the campaign and battle in greater detail.

Warrior 1: Norman Knight AD 950–1204 explores the recruitment, training and lifestyle of the invaders.

Men-at-Arms 85: Saxon, Viking and Norman examines the equipment and lifestyle of the defenders.

Elite 9: The Normans expands on the crucial and formative effect that the Normans had on Britain and Europe.

Major-General Sir John Swinton obituary

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/major-general-sir-john-swinton-obituary-d6vkzjmfc

Distinguished Scots Guardsman who wanted his daughter Tilda to marry a duke but watched her become an Oscar-winning actress

October 9 2018, 12:01am, The Times

• Armed Forces
• Defence

Swinton while commanding the Scots Guards in 1970

The only misadventure John Swinton’s false lower leg encountered during 34 years of active military service after the war was when its owner’s eight-year-old son fired a .22 shot through it by mistake during a shoot. Indeed, Willie Swinton succeeded where Malayan insurgents and Greek-Cypriot terrorists had failed during John Swinton’s distinguished postwar military career.

The guardsman’s lower left leg had been severed by a mortar splinter in the last days of the Second World War, but his return to active service was not long delayed. The outbreak of the insurrection in Malaya in 1948 called for urgent reinforcements of infantry to counter the campaign of murder and extortion launched by the communist terrorists.

16 August 1819: Militia massacres protesters at ‘Peterloo’

Dominic Sandbrook explores this big day in history



When the people of Manchester awoke on Monday, 16 August 1819, it was already shaping up to be a fine, hot day. By mid-morning thousands of people were streaming past the mills and chimneys towards St Peter’s Field in the town centre. To the watching townsfolk they presented an extraordinary spectacle. Each local village had sent its own contingent, but far from being the disorderly rabble of press hysteria, they seemed remarkably well turned out. Many were women, dressed all in white. And everywhere were flags and banners, woven in bright silk. “No Corn Laws”, they read, “Annual Parliaments”, “Universal Suffrage”, “Vote by Ballot”. The only banner that survives today was carried by Thomas Redford of Middleton. “Liberty and Fraternity” read the message on one side, picked out in gold letters. “Unity and Strength” it read on the other.

This Week in History - Bosworth 1485 (18-24 August)

Bosworth 1485 (18-24 August)

'Give me my battle-axe in my hand,
Set the crown of England on my head so high!
For by Him that shape both sea and land,
King of England this day I will die!'

("The Ballad of Bosworth Field", the work of an unnamed supporter of the Plantagenets
from northern England, written sometime during the ten years after the battle)

With the battle threatening to turn against him, Richard staked all on a heroic charge with Henry Tudor the objective. He personally killed Henry's standard bearer with his lance, then swept a second defender out of his saddle with a blow of his axe and was very close to his goal. But the momentum of the charge was spent and Richard with his household were gradually overwhelmed. After his horse, already wounded, became trapped in some marshy ground Richard fought on to die bravely on foot. The Tudor victory did not bring the Wars of the Roses to an immediate end. Following his coronation on 30 October, Henry had to deal with a number of real threats and challenges. The last military action took place in 1497 and the last serious plot was eliminated in 1499. The traditional image of Richard III as monstrous king was a Tudor creation motivated by the need to justify the illegitimacy of Henry VII's accession. In truth, Richard served his brother Edward IV and his country well both in peace and war; he was a good and brave soldier. Indeed he seems to have been no worse and was quite possibly a rather better man than his peers, whether friends or enemies.

Further reading

Campaign 66: Bosworth 1485 The Last Charge of the Plantagenets (extract below) is a detailed reconstruction of this pivotal battle and the events and actions immediately preceding it. To place Bosworth in the context of the whole war, Essential Histories 54: The Wars of the Roses 1455-1485 is a compact account of the entire dynastic struggle, which spanned nearly all of the second half of the 15th century as well as the background to the war, and the consequences. Campaign 120: Towton 1461 England's bloodiest battle is a study of the longest and bloodiest battle of the War of the Roses, and another crucial battle of the wars, Tewkesbury, will be covered in Campaign 131: Tewkesbury 1471 The last Yorkist victory to be published in October.

Men-at-Arms 145: The Wars of the Roses. It also surveys the arms and armour, livery and badges of the opposing sides. Warrior 35: English Medieval Knight 1400-1500, (extract below) by the same author and illustrator as Campaign 66, describes the life and experiences of the 15th-century knight from his training as a squire to his involvement in battles in England and France. It also closely examines his dress and weaponry and explores the social mechanisms that attached systems and great families to each other.

This Week in History - The Armada Campaign (8 August 1588)

https://ospreypublishing.com/thisweekhistory/

Early on 8 August, Lord Howard's fireship attack drove the Spanish Armada from its anchorage off Calais. Most ships had to abandon their best and heaviest anchors as they manoeuvred rapidly to escape the threat and so were unable to return to the French coast where it had been planned that the Duke of Parma's invasion force would board. The Spanish were now widely scattered with the English fleet poised to windward and about to engage for the final, decisive battle of Gravelines. Superior English gunnery and a change in the wind ultimately overcame determined resistance and the Armada was driven up into the North Sea to sail home round Scotland. It was still intact as a fleet and a threat for the future, but in September Atlantic storms sweeping onto the west coast of Ireland destroyed around 45 of the 110 ships that had set sail from Lisbon five months earlier. Philip II did plan a second attempt to invade England with a new Armada, but, in 1596 and 1597, bad weather again defeated him and preserved the Reformation.

Further reading

Campaign 86: The Armada Campaign 1588 The Great Enterprise against England (see extract) is a detailed and gripping account of the 10 days of action between the first sighting of the Armada off the Devon coast and the battle at Gravelines and also covers the build-up to the invasion and the aftermath of its failure, all in the context of the national and religious politics of the time, and naval technology, tactics and strategy. Elite 15: The Armada Campaign 1588 focuses on the organisation, troops and equipment of the opposing sides while Elite 70:Elizabethan Sea Dogs 1560-1605 (extract below) goes into more detail on the swashbuckling English sea captains of the era, notably Drake, Grenville, Hawkins and Frobisher who were all involved in the action against the Armada. It also includes background on the Elizabethan art of war and on the ships that defeated the Armada. 

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-scots-at-buzancy-nf6zvbw5z

AUGUST 2, 1918

The Scots at Buzancy

A week ago I suppose there was hardly a soul in Scotland who had heard of Buzancy, which is one of the gates of the plateau on its western side. Today there is no prouder name borne on the colours of the eight famous regiments by which it was stormed. The Scottish Division has done no harder fighting during the war. The violence of the struggle was frightful. A great deal of it was hand-to-hand fighting in the streets. At the end of the day two bodies were found locked together in death. One was a German officer, in his hand the revolver with which he had shot his opponent. Our man was still holding the rifle with which he had bayoneted the officer as he fired the shot which killed him. The village and the sandstone caves were stiff with machine-guns. At one place there was a high wall which had to be crossed. Our men got over it by climbing on each others’ shoulders, and dropping on the other side in face of a terrible fire. The enemy showed no trace of the failing moral which is too freely talked about. Almost to a man they resisted to the very last, and after the battle several German machine-guns and one Tank were found with the men dead at their posts, and a ring of our dead and wounded close up to them.

The division had already had a strenuous time. They were brought back from Arras after seven months in the line, entrained at 2 in the morning and then moved to their new quarters in motor-omnibuses and, at the end of a 10-miles march, ordered to attack at daybreak. After a great fight, though exposed to galling machine-gun fire on their flanks, they reached their objective, consolidated their position, and held it till the morning of the 26th. Next day came the order for the attack on Buzancy and the high ground beyond, and by midday on the 28th the first wave was through and the objectives attained. Then, however, there was a hitch, as the troops on the right, in spite of the most gallant efforts, could not advance, and were compelled to fall back.

The difficulty about the position is that it is enfiladed by German heavy batteries. The valleys behind the lines are doused with gas, and as, except in the caves, there is almost no shelter, the troops have need of philosophy, as well as courage, to stick it as they do. The whole countryside is horribly devastated.

Kenneth Ohlson obituary

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/kenneth-ohlson-obituary-6hqdb3pld

Lloyd’s underwriter who won the Military Cross after leading 32 comrades to safety when they came under heavy fire in 1945

Ken Ohlson’s mantra was: “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” Whether as an after-dinner speaker or in everyday conversation, he was an engaging raconteur, and a persistent practical joker, occasionally with unintended consequences.

His wife, responding to a telephone call from a travel agent informing her that their imminent two-week holiday in Italy had been cancelled, invoked the response: “Ha ha, very funny, darling!” The Thomas Cook representative had to call four times before the sad reality dawned that the call was genuine.

This Week in History - Salamanca (22 July 1812)

https://ospreypublishing.com/thisweekhistory/

Francuska szabla lekkiej kawaleri AN IX

Francuski karabin Corriege AN IX, wersja dragońska

Bagnet do karabinu Corriege AN IX

Francuski pistolet AN IX

Żelazny książę - Arthur Wellesley, książę Wellington (1769 - 1852)

Campaign 48: Salamanca details all aspects of the Peninsular War’s most decisive battle, including the opposing forces, commanders, aftermath and the battlefield today. It includes the following dramatic account of Wellington’s resistance of the French counterattack:

The repulse of the 4th Division and Pack’s brigade left a yawning gap in the centre of Wellington’s position, and despite the hammering the French had taken elsewhere on the battlefield, Clausel (now in command following successive wounds to Marmont and Bonnet) was presented with the opportunity to salvage something from the wreckage of the day’s fighting, perhaps even a French victory. It was certainly a critical point in the battle. Clausel decided to grasp the opportunity with both hands and go for victory, even though behind him Leith and Pakenham were driving everything before them. Having decided upon this bold course of action Clausel threw his division into the gap, supported by three of Bonnet’s regiments and by three regiments of Boyer’s dragoons.

The ground to the west of the Greater Arapil was soon covered with the dark, dusty masses of Frenchmen launched by Clausel to save the day. In front of them Cole’s division reeled backwards towards the Lesser Arapil, while Pack’s broken brigade streamed away behind them. Ellis’s brigade was pushed back, almost to the Lesser Arapil, while Stubbs’s brigade, alongside it, was forced to form a square in order to protect itself from French dragoons who nevertheless got in among some of them. In fact, some French cavalry swept round and got as far as the 6th Division, Wellington’s reserve line, which had been brought forward to support the 4th Division.

Wing Commander Tom Neil obituary

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/wing-commander-tom-neil-obituary-mtw75zvpd

Last-but-one Battle of Britain fighter ‘ace’ who downed 14 enemy aircraft, most of them when he was 19

Neil photographed by Cecil Beaton at RAF North Weald

The fighter pilot Tom Neil hated being called “Ginger”, but revelled in his other nickname, “Hawkeye”, bestowed for his unerring ability to sense the presence of enemy aircraft, identify the most vulnerable in a formation and move in ruthlessly.

This Week in History - The Battle of Britain (10 July)

https://ospreypublishing.com/thisweekhistory/

An extract from Aircraft of the Aces 18: Hurricane Aces 1939-40 celebrates the majority of the legendary ‘few’ and the Hawker Hurricane, the Royal Air force’s first monoplane fighter, the backbone of the desperate British defence against the Luftwaffe. In this extract two aces describe the bold but effective tactic they favoured for dealing with large bomber formations – 

Head on attacks

A great proponent of this method of attack was Flt Lt ‘Pete’ Brothers who, whilst serving as a flight commander firstly with No 32 Sqn and then No 257 Sqn, scored ten kills during the Battle of Britain;

‘The urgent thing was to get at the bombers before they dropped their bombs, and if you were short of the height you wanted to carry out a stern or beam attack, the best thing was to take them head-on and go straight through the formation. I always dived underneath the bombers short of impact because I always thought that the instinctive thing for pilots to do was pull up rather than push down when faced with collision, and the last thing I wanted was to meet a Dorner or Heinkel at close quarters. This manoeuvre also produced additional speed, thus enabling me to pull the Hurricane around once clear of the bombers and turn back into them again for a more conventional stern attack.

‘Head on shots were the easiest of the lot to perform because there was no deflection needed whatsoever. I would press home the attack until I thought a collision was almost inevitable. In many respects this was the best from of attack, as most bombers had less protection from both guns and armour at the front. It was often very difficult to confirm whether you had inflicted mortal damage to an aircraft after a single pass, however, as once you had turned back into the bombers the formation had often scattered in response to your initial assault. With a stern attack you would usually look to set an engine on fire, thus denoting some success for your endeavours.’ 

Another great proponent of the head-on attack was No 253 Sqn’s OC, Sqn Ldr G R ‘Gerry’ Edge, who had earlier perfected his technique with No 605 Sqn over the Dunkirk beaches whilst achieving ace status. Indeed, he got so proficient at tackling bombers as the summer months wore on that of the 11 kills (added to his 71/2 over France) he claimed between 7 and 15 September, no less than five of these were Ju 88s (four claimed on 9 September alone), four He 111s and one a solitary Do 17. In the following passage, he describes the intricacies of his favoured method of attack; 

‘If you left it till your last hundred yards to creak away from a head-on attack, you were in trouble. With practice, you got to judge when to break. But once you knew how, a head-on attack was a piece of cake. When you opened fire, you’d kill or badly wound the pilot and the second pilot. Then you’d rake the line of them as you broke away. On one attack, the first Heinkel I hit crashed into the next Heinkel. There was a lot of crashing between the bombers we attacked head-on.’

This Week in History - Battle of Bunker Hill (16 June 1775)

https://ospreypublishing.com/thisweekhistory/

Today visitors enjoy a leisurely walk around a five-acre park on a peaceful hilltop. This is all that remains of the ground that became a raging battlefield and the venue of the first, and arguably the bloodiest, full-scale battle of the Revolutionary War. It was at the top of this hill, on the night of 16 June 1775, that the acrimony between the British and many American colonists boiled over into savage fury, while the nearby wooden buildings of Charlestown, Massachusetts, burned from artillery fire by British warships.

This significant Revolutionary War battle, through time, was acknowledged to have been fought on Bunker Hill, but it actually took place on nearby Breed’s Hill. The campaign gained the British a narrow victory, but at the same time it inspired the colonists to continue to fight. The battle served to prove to the American people that the British Army was not invincible. It became a symbol of national pride and a rally point of resistance against British rule.

---

Extract from Essential Histories Specials 7: Liberty or Death – Wars that forged a nation

Outbreak – Shot heard round the world

The year 1775 marked the formal outbreak of hostilities between the British and Americans. A small skirmish in Lexington led to a larger confrontation in Concord, and the British withdrawal from Concord sparked a savage fight for survival and the beginning of outright conflict. The battle of Breed’s Hill (Bunker Hill), in June, was the first pitched battle of the war. This was followed by a bold American attempt, in December 1775, to seize and conquer Canada. After these events there could be no turning back. It was war.

73 Years Ago

Elthon Palace

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eltham_Palace


Кажуть, саме тут стався відомий випадок, після якого був заснований Орден Підв'язки


Взагалі - незвичне поєднання 14 століття з 20-м