Dr Philip W Blood Profile picture
Mar 10, 2022 8 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Another tweet is dreadful analogy. This is worse than the absurd analogies that followed 9-11. This latest descent into absurdity is to refer to George Washington and a future the Ukrainian insurgency.
A better alternatives: Mosby as a similar style of raider guerrilla as Sidor Kovpak, the famous Ukrainian partisan leader.
Perhaps a better reference point, for an American view analogy, might have been this book. Closer to the kind of conflict Americans pursued for a large part of their history. The relevance here being the brutal conflict that is escalating in the Ukraine.
Perhaps more insightful to the actualities of Russian insurgency warfare and the Ukraine. The first was published by @USArmyCMH in the 1950s. The follow up Armstrong edition cost the State Department millions of dollars and indirectly led to the greater intervention in Vietnam.
A dubious option, but given the US interest, could have been to have recommended the more recent publications about COIN or the ‘surge’ from Iraq. We of course know how those winnable COIN wars worked out in the end.
Instead Twitter masses are offered a totally irrelevant book. Please note Page 338 clearly explains why this book and its contents are not relevant or helpful in analysing the present conflict in Ukraine.
Evidence shows the Ukrainian resistance is far from being an effective insurgency. The scale of destruction is destroying the Ukrainian capability for rendering insurgent resistance except at local level. There is no George Washington scenario.
Correction* Another tweet of dreadful analogy’ apologies.

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More from @HistorianBlood

Aug 2, 2023
#WarsawUprising - a short thread about the German command.

First a map that illustrates the full extent of Operation Bagration, the Red Army offensive.

Map - Zentrum für Militärgeschichte und Sozialwissenschaften der Bundeswehr
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20 July 1944 Guderian became Chief of the General Staff, Himmler - chief of the reserve army. On 30 July Himmler met Bach-Zelewski had been inspecting East Prussian defences. On 31 July they both met Guderian and Bronislav Kaminski.
@BundesarchivD


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The group were planning the defence and security of the Reich, post July plot and had received intelligence that an uprising was planned. Guderian bitterly denied this meeting took place during the postwar war crimes investigations.
Read 10 tweets
Jul 21, 2023
During the Second World War, the Germans adopted different types of Kampfgruppe to address command decisions, whether in defence or attack. Institutionally, the concept was used by the police, the army, the Luftwaffe, the SS and the navy during military operations. Image
Kampfgruppe could be small, company size, or an enlarged brigade. They could include all arms - tanks, infantry, artillery, or air units, or marine, or all of them. There were specialist Kampfgruppe, organised by engineers with some armour support, or infantry with assault guns. Image
The most famous have been written about like Kamfgruppe Peiper or Kampfgruppe Walther but they don’t explain the cultural story of the this form of battlefield organisation. Image
Read 18 tweets
Mar 18, 2023
The tale of two histories: #cultureofwar

1. 110,000 Latvian volunteer fought bravely as nationalists against Soviet oppression.
Or
2. About 42,000 Latvians of our legion served in the SS-Police units and joined Einsatzgruppen killing actions against Jews, socialists and Poles.
In 1944 another 123,000 men were conscripted but only 16,000 front fighters. The rest were committed to combating Soviet, Polish and Latvian partisans.
Latvian volunteers were assigned to HSSPF - North SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln. He devised the ‘sardine packing’ method of mass killing. Jewish victims were forced to stand on the previous killed. The most vile method during the Holocaust by bullets.
Wiki picture
Read 26 tweets
Jan 30, 2023
OTD - 30 January 1943 - 11.00am Berlin. Hermann Göring was about to give a speech commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nazis coming to power. Since referred to as the eulogy for the 6th Army in Stalingrad. He was rudely interrupted. (Picture: VB 31.1.1943)
3 RAF Mosquitos, led by Squadron Leader Ted Sismore, on a daylight raid - the first on Berlin. The German public heard the air raid sirens (dubbed Meier’s Forest Horns) sound just as Göring was being introduced and the speech was delayed.
Another trio of Mosquitos attacked Rostock forcing Goebbels (aka the poison dwarf) off the air. 18 days later he would give his total war speech. (Picture @BundesarchivD )
Read 6 tweets
Sep 20, 2022
1. Consider the Holocaust by Bullets, which you wilfully ignore.
The war in the east had been raging since June 1941. Hitler’s war against the Jews was in full progress from July 1941. Hitler had argued in 1940 that defeating Russia would isolate Britain.
2. Weeks before the attack on Soviet Russia. Hitler and the SS were issuing killing orders known as the Barbarossa directives. The killing units, the Einsatzgruppen, were raised weeks before the invasion. America had no influence on these preparations.
3. The letter. The Heydrich-Göring letter signed on 31 July 1941, initiating the final solution, and it’s direct impact on the everyday killings.

A page from Birds of Prey, in which I focused on the killing actions of German soldiers.
Read 10 tweets
Jun 22, 2022
OTD - 1941 - Operation Barbarossa - Nazi Germany’s invasion of Soviet Russia. A thread about different German photo collections and sources.

Warning: some people might find some of the content in this thread distressing.

#CultureofWar
Hitler’s war of extermination unleashed a militarized genocide and the Holocaust. From the outset, German soldiers inflicted the ‘Holocaust by Bullets’ on several million people. The legacy has deeply scarred Europe.
Photography played a very important part in the campaign. The official newsreels, newspapers and journals all carried photographs. They were essential in the visualisation of ideological enemies - to be exterminated under Hitler’s directives.
Images: @USNatArchives @BundesarchivD
Read 11 tweets

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