#OTD in 1812 the French army began into retreat from Russia. This came as a surprise to the Russian commander Kutuzov since the French won the previous day’s battle at Maloyaroslavets and Kutuzov expected them to continue to March on Kaluga. But on the night of the 24th
Napoleon held a rare Council of War with his marshals. Marshal Bessières suggested a retreat from Russia and Napoleon agreed. This was followed by a (not the first) fierce quarrel between marshals Davout and Murat. Davout suggested a retreat via Madyn and Smolensk. It was the
shorter route and had not been affected by the war. Murat attacked this view (the two marshals now hated each other thoroughly) and suggested going back by the same route the French used on the way to Moscow, via Mojaisk. Napoleon supported Murat, in a fateful decision, which is
today viewed by most historians as a grave mistake. (Extract from John Gallaher’s biography of Marshal Davout “The Iron Marshal”.)
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# OTD in 1741 Maurice de Saxe
gains European fame by capturing Prague during the War of the Austrian succession by a spectacular coup de main, of the kind other generals can only dream about.
Maurice was an illegitimate son of AugustusII "The Strong" , King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, and a famous Swedish beauty and wit, countess Maria Amore of Königsmark. His great grandfather was the Swedish general Königsmark, who in 1648 commanded a bloody siege of Prague,
which was cut off by the Peace of Westphalia. Maurie was to accomplish what his great-grandfather's nearly did, but more successfully and with much less spilling of blood.
France’s former Chief of the Defence Staff, general Pierre de Villiers stated in an interview with BFM TV that Turkey is no longer a secular state. He said :
““Erdogan's Turkey now, according to his own statements,
follows a strategy to restore the Ottoman Empire. And Turkey carries out this manifesto with corresponding military actions. For example, the extermination of Kurds in Syria, their actions in Nagorno-Karabakh, "the general said.
"One day the international community, and France in particular, must put an end to this. We cannot permit Turkey, to continue such with such rhetoric and actions to remain a NATO member," - emphasized de Villiers.
Here is a translation of a fragment of Latynina’s “Kod Dostupa” from two days ago. I can think of nothing that shows better the attitude of Russian authorities to the population than this story.
“I want to tell a wonderful story that really struck me hard recently. You've probably noticed that we have a lot of telephone scammers who are trying to get people to transfer money to them by means of their ATM cards. The problem has taken on the character of a major
disaster. It has been growing exponentially since 2018. These "ringers" - as they are called in the jargon - have supplanted virtually all other banking fraud schemes.
It’s pretty irritating to see people referring to “herd immunity” as if it was some idea from an old horror film invented by a mad German scientist. In fact, the epidemic will only end when we achieve herd immunity, which will happen sooner or later and the only question is by
what means. Of course the best way would be to reach it through an effective vaccine (and that’s precisely what a vaccine does, because we don’t need to vaccinate everyone and the vaccine need not be effective in 100% of cases precisely because of this “herd” effect).
Without a
vaccine herd immunity will also be reached - though at a much higher cost in health and life, as happened many times in the past. It’s possible that making an effective and safe vaccine will take a long time (some vaccines may be effective but not safe, others safe but not
Piontkovsky on Putin and Erdogan’s clash in the Caucasus.
This is not Merkel’s “Putin verstehen”, Macron’s “we need a dialogue with Putin”, Trump’s “Putin thinks me a great politician”. In Transcaucasia Putin has for the first time met with an opponent much
more dangerous than Merkel, Trump, Macron and so on, Erdogan has no desire for “Putin verstehen”, nicht verstehen!. Erdogan only wants to put Putin in his place, once and for all, and show who is the master in the Caucasus. And this is only a tiny model exercise for Russia’s
leadership. Because if tomorrow, and even if, they are only not using full voice, there appears not Erdogan but Comrade Xi? What will then happen to Putin? Putin has been spoilt by all those Macrons, Merkels, Trumps, Obamas, Kerrys, by their complete indecisiveness. It’s not even
Here is another fragment of the interview with Ivantchik
- Does anyone play this historical card?
- Yes, everyone always plays it in ethnic conflicts. To begin with, I'll tell you how it was played before.
There was a scholar called Igrar Aliyev - an excellent scholar of the older generation, the same age as my teachers. He was a real, honest scholar, an expert on ancient history of Iran and the Caucasus.
Then in all the Soviet republics, those where the ethnic issue was especially important, as in the Caucasus, their versions of history were formed, including the ancient one. The versions were nationalistic and often scientifically pretty wild.