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Milestones

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Gibbs505 said:
I find it interesting that exactly four years prior, the evacuation of the british and french troops was completed!!
Did Churchill some how engineer this?

Cheers
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Planning of the landings depended on tide and weather. Every month, there was a suitabe tide window, but weather had to be favourable. Orignally, the landings were scheduled for early May 1944, but postponed due to bad weather.
 
7th June 1099: The 18th siege in the history of Jerusalem begins (if we count the siege and the capture of the city that was then called Jebus, by King David).
This time, the crusaders of the 1st crusade were in the assault on the city, and the defenders were the Caliphate of the Fatimids. The crusaders won (38 days later). To date, 3 more sieges and 3 more battles for the control of the city have been recorded.
 
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PeterVl said:
7 June 1099: The 18th siege in the history of Jerusalem begins (if we count the siege and the capture of the city that was then called Jebus, by King David).
This time, the crusaders of the 1st crusade were in the assault on the city, and the defenders were the Caliphate of the Fatimids. The crusaders won (38 days later). To date, 3 more sieges and 3 more battles for the control of the city have been recorded.
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The crusades were some of the biggest medieval battles ever if I believe as it was half of the European dynasties against the Muslim world
 
Mikerytel said:
The crusades were some of the biggest medieval battles ever if I believe as it was half of the European dynasties against the Muslim world
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Mmm, not really. The First Crusade was lead by senior nobility not royalty and was a response to a call by the Pope and the Byzantine Emperor to free the recently conquered Holy Land from infidels. The Byzantines hoped to get easily manipulated westerners to fight for them, but the whole thing took off and became an act of faith, at least in principal. In practice it was a convenient way to ship off surplus warriors to the east to do good deeds and find themselves some treasure.

The First Crusade succeeded in part because the Muslim world itself was divided, The Turks having not long arrived on the scene and disrupted the traditional Middle Eastern power balance, providing the Crusaders with a succession of independent city states to swallow up on the way to Jerusalem.

Subsequent crusades did have royal backing but on an individual basis. Barbarossa led a huge army but didn't even make it to the Holy Land. Most of the time the crusader states were left to themselves to defend what they had with their local forces and a regular trickle of adventurers from the west.

PeterVl said:
It turned out that they were also against the Eastern Roman Empire, in several cases, risking their very existence. Aged and foolish civilizations I believe (including the Eastern Roman Empire).
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The Fourth Crusade was a special kind of mess, basically a dynastic struggle within the Empire where one party called in a passing Crusade to help, with the inevitable disastrous result. The crusade never made it to Jerusalem, and Byzantium never recovered.

It's a fascinating period, rich with the mix of east and west culture, and medieval and remnant ancient culture.
 
phlebas said:
Mmm, not really. The First Crusade was lead by senior nobility not royalty and was a response to a call by the Pope and the Byzantine Emperor to free the recently conquered Holy Land from infidels. The Byzantines hoped to get easily manipulated westerners to fight for them, but the whole thing took off and became an act of faith, at least in principal. In practice it was a convenient way to ship off surplus warriors to the east to do good deeds and find themselves some treasure.

The First Crusade succeeded in part because the Muslim world itself was divided, The Turks having not long arrived on the scene and disrupted the traditional Middle Eastern power balance, providing the Crusaders with a succession of independent city states to swallow up on the way to Jerusalem.

Subsequent crusades did have royal backing but on an individual basis. Barbarossa led a huge army but didn't even make it to the Holy Land. Most of the time the crusader states were left to themselves to defend what they had with their local forces and a regular trickle of adventurers from the west.



The Fourth Crusade was a special kind of mess, basically a dynastic struggle within the Empire where one party called in a passing Crusade to help, with the inevitable disastrous result. The crusade never made it to Jerusalem, and Byzantium never recovered.

It's a fascinating period, rich with the mix of east and west culture, and medieval and remnant ancient culture.
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Thanks for the info phlebas :)
 
phlebas said:
"The Byzantines hoped to get easily manipulated westerners to fight for them..."
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The Muslims did not threat only the "Byzantines" (the term is wrong but that is another matter). Their spread (combined with dissolving factors in the Christian world like the Great Schism) presented a much wider threat, indicating that the westerners in general (and Pope Urban II in particular) were not so naive after all.
 
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PeterVl said:
The Muslims did not threat only the "Byzantines" (the term is wrong but that is another matter). Their spread (combined with dissolving factors in the Christian world like the Great Schism) presented a much wider threat, indicating that the westerners in general (and Pope Urban II in particular) were not so naive after all.
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Romaioi, then :)

As far as western Christians were concerned in 1099, the Muslim threat was contained. Charlemagne had halted them at Tours years before, and by the time of the First Crusade the tide was going the other way in Spain and in Italy, in fact many of those on the crusade had experience of these wars. The early tide of Islam had stalled.

The threats you speak of come from the consolidation of power by those incomers of the 11th century, the Turks, who injected fresh life into the Muslim world and created a new empire to threaten eastern Europe.
 
phlebas said:
The Fourth Crusade was a special kind of mess, basically a dynastic struggle within the Empire where one party called in a passing Crusade to help, with the inevitable disastrous result. The crusade never made it to Jerusalem, and Byzantium never recovered.
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Basically, the Fourth Crusade had gone broke before it even had started. To pay the debts, The Venetian doge Dandolo proposed to sack Byzantium, thereby also eliminating a strong competitor in the maritime trade in the Mediterranean.
 
Loxuru said:
Basically, the Fourth Crusade had gone broke before it even had started. To pay the debts, The Venetian doge Dandolo proposed to sack Byzantium,
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To pay Venice, essentially, for transporting them to the Holy Land. First Dandolo had them attack a city under the protection of the Catholic king of Hungary. So they were already off course morally and geographically.

Then Dandolo used the machinations of the Byzantine court by backing Prince Alexios Angelos and his deposed father in a competition for the crown, and justifying the attack on Constantinople.

PeterVl said:
I also link here, a not-so-biased study IMHO, regarding the motives of the 1st Crusade.
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I'll have a read when I have a moment. I note it comes out of the US military and is written in the context of America's wars in the Middle East, so I suspect that this will influence its take on the 1st Crusade.
 
She's died ....... I cried ...

video.lefigaro.fr

Françoise Hardy en 10 chansons cultes

Depuis de trop long mois, déjà, on ne parlait plus d’elle que pour sa maladie et son désir, exprimé publiquement, d’en finir. Françoise Hardy est morte le 11 juin, à 80 ans, a annoncé son fils Thomas Dutronc sur ses réseaux sociaux.
video.lefigaro.fr video.lefigaro.fr


Though that I didn't know her in the sixties, my father made me discovered her : and since, I'm a fan of this "Grande Dame" of the french variety'song ...
 
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Anniversary of the popular uprising in the GDR on June 17, 1953!​
The people in the GDR rose up against state arbitrariness and oppression. What initially began as an uprising of the Internal link: workers
and with unrest in the countryside developed into nationwide, spontaneous mass protests against the GDR government. The Link has preview popupInternal link: Socialist Unity Party (SED)
violently suppressed the demonstrations with the help of the Soviet military. The popular uprising on June 17, 1953 was the first mass uprising in the Soviet sphere of influence.
The Soviet occupying forces declared a state of emergency in 167 of the 217 rural and urban districts on the afternoon of June 17. Martial law thus prevailed and the Soviet Union assumed supreme command. Demonstrations and meetings were banned. With the help of the GDR police, the Soviet military violently suppressed the uprising. There was a nationwide curfew between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. The Western powers did not intervene.

17-juni-in-jena-100~1920x1080.jpeg 17-juni-jena-edited.jpeg In Jena, the nearest larger city.
 
That prompted Bertolt Brecht to compose this gem:

Die LösungThe Solution
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da
Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung
Löste das Volk auf und
Wählte ein anderes?		After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee
Which stated that the people
Had squandered the confidence of the government
And could only win it back
By redoubled work [quotas]. Would it not in that case
Be simpler for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
 
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