What are you currently reading ?

[fsn]

Just downloaded "Fallen Giants: The Combat Debut of the T-35A Tank" (Francis Pulham) and the first of the "Hammer's Slammers" volumes.

Can't decide which to read first. 

[KTravlos]

Partly read Murat Akan's book "The politics of secularism" a comparative account of the politics surrounding questions of secularization in the French Third Republic, current French politics, the Kemalist Turkish Republic 1945-1980s, and the AKP period of dominance.

This is a very dense book, and due to time constraints I only focused on the introduction, literature review and the French Third Republic and Kemalist Turkish cases. It is dense because Akan does something really cool. He makes his argument by using directly the words of political decision makers during crucial institutional debates (parliamentary speeches). He lets the politicians speech for themselves, which is really cool.

While in general very interesting, it validate some suspicions I had for Turkish politics. Essentially a true laicism period only existed in the 30s. Out of it the state always tried to control the Muslim faith, via state support for institutions. This entanglement became much higher in the Cold WAR, when Islam was seen as a tool to be used against the Left and Communism (A similar argument was made by civil-religionists in the Thrid Republic vs. Socialism and Anarchism).This culminates in the 1980 Kemalist Army coup that essentially renders Islam a tool of the state and integrates religious leaders into the system (for example Fettulah Gulen). I wish I had the time to delve in his Fifth Republic and AKP period cases. A hard book to read but well worth reading.

[KTravlos]

finished Justin McCarthy's "Death and Exile".

The good: 1) This is very readable. I read all 368 pages in a couple of days.

2) None of the everybody lived in peace and love propaganda you read in other books looking at events from the Ottoman Part. A more proper localist perspective, which brings forth a lot of areas (like Zeytun) were Christian vs. Muslim violence was endemic from at least the 1820s, and probably before. Considering how much of a pro-Ottoman McCarthy is (based on his other work and meeting him personally) this was pretty cool.

3) The story he tells is staggering in amount and one that one does not usually hear. He claims at least 5 million Muslim deaths from the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1923. Now I have serious reasons to doubt his number, but even if you take a 30% over-count, that is still a formidable and terrible figure.

4) I know have a better understanding of the defense policies of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkan War. If the prime goal was population protection then the defend everything strategy make sense.

5) I knew the Armenians killed a lot of Muslims in their attempt to create an Armenian state, but even with my 30% over-count cut, the numbers are still very bad, even if they are probably dwarfed by Armenian deaths.

The bad:

1) You know how if you grow up in Greece you learn that all Greek crimes in war were reprisals (like the sack of Tripolitsa) for earlier attacks ? Well for McCarthy all Muslim massacres and crimes were reprisals. And I mean literally all. I just do not buy it. I can buy it at a local level, but at other localities I am sure the first action might had been Muslim. This is the case with Greeks, Serbs, Armenians, Bulgarians etc. Some of their crimes were the result of reprisals for previous crimes. But others were probably motivated by other factors.

2) Just like Greek books discount any Ottoman sources and only count Greek, McCarthy discounts most non-Ottoman, non-Turkish sources, and heavily trust Turkish Nationalist and Ottoman sources. At some point even claiming that the Turks are not capable of using propaganda....

3) I just felt he played fast and loose with numbers. I just do not trust goverment sources of any kind enough to be able to say that the difference between pre-war censi and post-war censi give any inclination of population loss. My guess is that a good number of people survived but where never counted. Not enough to eradicate the huge population loss.

4) He bloody plays with his own numbers in disingenuous ways. In page 164, he notes that there are 642408 potential(my word) Muslim dead from the 1st and 2nd Balkan Wars. But in Table 30, page 339, he lists 1450000 potential (my word) Muslim dead from the 1st and 2nd Balkan Wars. Were the frack does this huge difference come from?

End Point: I can see why this study was ground-breaking when it came out. And it would not be unfair to state that 3 to 4 million muslims died as a result of the wars of Ottoman Disintegration between 1820 and 1923. But I can also see why he received criticism, and in no way can you get a fair picture of the human costs of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire by adding his work to the work of Greek, Serbian ,Armenian, Bulgarian etc scholars. The definitive and holistic work would have to be fair and look at the costs of the Creation, Maintenance and Destruction of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to 20th centuries (probably including the Cyprus and Kurdish conflicts). It is yet to be written. But this book is a good book in order to keep in mind the potential human toll paid by Muslims for the imperialism of distant ancestors and the nationalism of once subject peoples.

PS: Using his system of counting I came to the following numbers of Greek and Muslim civilians potentially dead due to Greek-Ottoman/Turkish conflicts 1821-1923

Totals 1821-1923
Greeks: Low:550000
Muslims: Low: 612000

Greeks: High:750000
Muslims: High: 852000

[kipt]

Finished Volume 81, number 4 of"the Journal of Military History".  Comes out quarterly.

Articles include:
"The Real Controller of the battle: The Importance of Studying Tactical Battalion Command-A Case Study"
"Coco Solo Submarines: Protecting the Panama Canal, 1941-1942"
"The Formation of the Commonwealth Division, 1950-1951"

Also many book reviews.

[paulr]

"The Real Controller of the battle: The Importance of Studying Tactical Battalion Command-A Case Study"

I'm guessing its not the Fat Controller

[KTravlos]

Finished Dionysios Tsirigiotis "The Greek Strategy in Asia Minor 1919-1921" (in Greeks). This is a recent effort (2010) and tries to analyse the grand strategy of both the Venizelist goverment of 1918- November, 1920 and November Royalist governments (1920-1922) using as a theoretical framework the "Thucididean Paradigm" (essentially a locally greek academic variation of the International Relations paradigm of "Realism" -Waltz, Morgenthau, E.H. Carr etc).

One of the claims of both Greek and American academic "Realists" is that if one uses their theoretical framework one will be able to conduct value-free analysis. This is of course all hgowash as Brian Cox explained 40 years ago. And it shows in this analysis. To put it mildly the auhtor has strong Venizelist biases which are not restrained by his theoretical framework. He does do a good job of supporting his arguments with recourse to primary sources, and the book is worth reading for this at least. However, his choice of periods to cover and compare (Venizelos going to Smyrna, All post-1920 Royalist governements) provides a easy test for Venizelos. The end result of his analysis is that Venizelos followed a rational, low risk strategy, while the Royalists did not. He refuses to make the connections between the weak points of Venizelos policies and the policies followed by the Royalists by refusing to engage in counterfactual (he cites Carr is defense a but ignores the many defenses of the use of counter-factuals as for example Fearon's).

Thus this reinforces my belief that Llewellyn-Smith's "Ionian Vision" remains the most honest, and least biased (not biased) look at the Greek decision making in 1918-1923. I am afraid all the Greek authors I read to date are still fighting the National Schism. 

That said Tsirigiotis does a great job at locating two key decision points for the Royalists that made their effort extremely hard, and raising (inadvertently it must be said) the key impact of domestic politics on the Greek decisions, both Venizelist (my work on progress for Salvation and Catastrophe explore taht more deeply)and Royalists.


The the two main greatest mistakes of the November Governments was
a) bringing Constantine back
b) refusing allied mediation during the London Conference (February-March 1921)

He assigns blame for this to parochial political interests of the royalists (while presenting all Venizelist interests as national. Since I do not live in a world were Wolfer's and Cox's critiques do not exist, I do not believe in such fantasies).

More correctly we can say that like Venizelos, the Royalists sought a decisive victory in the National Schism via the attainment of the Megali Idea as expressed in the Treaty of Sevres.Since a central testament of the Royalist position was the restoration of Constantine as the King of all Greeks the idea of separating his restoration from attainment the Megali Idea, by doing the restoration referendum after a victiroius outcome of military operations, was not one that could easily be considered by the Royalist.

And once Constantine was back on the throne, he could not be associated with the retreat from the Megali Idea that a mediation would bring, because that would associate the Royalists with defeat, and thus undermine their position in the struggle for the National Schism.

Of course there is the question if a Greek acceptance of Major Power mediation in 1921 would had really changed the results (would the Kemalist had rejected mediation? If they had would the rejection have any impact of the hands-off attitude of France and Britain?).

But one thing that comes out of it is that Constantine bears a lot of personal responsibility. Since it was impossible for his partisans to separate the prosecution of the Megali Idea from his rise to the throne, he should had saved us all in 1921 and refused to take the throne. This would had probably meant that the November governments might have had a much better international environment in their struggle with Mustafa Kemal. This does not mean that the Megali Idea as expressed in Sevres survives, but it does probably mean that the historical result also does not happen. Whatever the result, the avoidance of a Disaster as big as historically happened would probably had permitted the monarchy to survive, and given at least a generation upper hand to the Royalists . That Constantine could not see this is indicative of his weak character.

[Terry37]

I have started hte final book in the Extinction series title "War". This has been a great series to read if the post apocalypse appeals to you. The I will start the final book in hte Tracker series that was just released.

Terry

[paulr]

KTravlos, thanks for a brief glimpse into a fascinating period of history

[kipt]

Finished a very good book, "The Early Morning of War; Bull Run, 1861" by Edward Longacre.

Lots of background and then highly detailed accounts of the battle. The author has several other ACW books to his credit, all great.

[Westmarcher]

Just finished reading Osprey's "Monmouth Courthouse 1778." This is the battle which was fought when the American Army tried to prevent Clinton's withdrawal from Philadelphia to New York and in which Major General Charles Lee was notoriously relieved by Washington of his command mid-battle and court-martialled thereafter. Historians tend to portray Lee as vain, bad mannered and egotistical but he was also a witty conversationalist and (some say) a more capable general than Washington. I've therefore been indoctrinated not to like him. However, having read this account, I must say I feel a bit sorry for Lee and questions should have been asked of the conduct of some of his subordinates who wouldn't carry out his orders and/or took it upon themselves to retreat from the fight. He clearly got up the noses of Washington and his acolytes and basically, the court martial looks as if it was a stitch-up to get rid of him. To summarise, intercepted by Clinton, part of the British force turned back, repulsed the Americans (even with Washington in command) and continued on their march.

The book is from Osprey's Campaign series which as fellow "forum'ers" will know, is a pretty good series for providing an introduction to various battle and campaigns throughout history.  Typically, these publications include an account of the events leading up to the campaign and the battles involved as well as information about the  opposing armies and commanders, orders of battles, photographs and illustrations portraying various events, etc. They also famously include 3D maps.

Somewhat annoyingly, these always seem to be thrown in at random. Does anyone else get annoyed by that?

You'll be reading the book, turning a page and all of a sudden you're on to a 3d map, which is slap bang in the middle of a section with no natural break. What do you do? Do you continue reading until you come along to the end of that section or chapter, or stop and study the 3D map? Personally, I like to stop reading at a natural break then go back to the map. Which is what I did on meeting the first 3D map in this book. Then, suitably armed with an idea in my mind of how that part of the action unfolded and ended, I then returned to the main narrative. This continued .... and continued. I then encountered a second 3D map. I stopped at this one. This started by stating "Washington relieves Lee" ... but as this had yet to happen in the narrative, I carried on. I then encountered a third 3D map ... but still no mention in the narrative of Washington relieving Lee. Finally, TWENTY pages after the first 3D map and TEN after the second, the narrative stated, "Washington takes command!" 

This is not good enough, Osprey. I really wish they would put more thought into where they place maps, etc. Does anyone else get annoyed with this. How do you deal with 3D maps in the middle of the narrative? Do you stop and study these or go back to them later?

[fred.]

I always look at the pictures first!

Just after receiving a book about a Harrier pilot in the Falklands from my sister-in-law, I flicked through the photos. She asked if this would spoil the story. I was a bit surprised at this as it was history.

[paulr]

We tend to forget how little history most people know

[fsn]

I've given up on Hammer's Slammers. Trying to put my finger on why and am having difficulty. Partly it's because I find it very difficult to believe that a 90 ton tank held up on blowers isn't going to create a duststorm that will make it a target for every ranged weapon in the area. Partly because in the stories I read, the Slammers were never faced with a credible opposition, partially because of the way the volune I was reading was presented there were no characters to get to know properly. My boat remained firmly un-floated.

I've skimmed the last bit of the T35 book. It's a fantasticlly detailled piece of work about every T35 there ever was, and I think it includes every photo of a T35 ever taken. When you read the fate of most of these behemoths, it includes the workds "broken down" and "abandoned".  

Whilst painting my Tumbling Dice a/c I listened to the Xeneophon's Anabasis on Librivox. (https://librivox.org/) If you haven't tried it, Techno, Librivox is a free audiobook website. The books are all public domain, so you're not going to get the latest JK Rowling, but you will get the classics plus lots of WWI and ACW memoires, SF, Fantasy (like Conan) and lots of other good stuff. This weekend I'm planning to listen to the Aeneid. Librivox is very good for listening to whilst you're doing something creative like painting or sculpting.

Meanwhile, I have re-downloaded the Alexiad of Anna Comnena, an everyday story of Byzantine Imperial folks, onto my Kindle.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

The Live Ship Trilogy by Robin Hobb
Picked up as a kindle freebie a while back, took a while to get into, but I'm really enjoying it now.

[KTravlos]

Currently commute reading Nick Lloyd's "Hundred Days". Pretty good.
Research reading Venizelo's published papers. I hate Katharevousa (a constructed version of greek done in the 19th century with the goal of giving a language as close as possible to ancient greek. It was the official Greek of the Old Kingdom up to the 1910s.)

[kipt]

Finished "Refighting the Last War: Command and Crisis in Korea, 1950-1953" by D. Clayton James.

Chapters on the Senior commanders; Truman, MacArthur, Ridgeway, Joy and Clark.  Also the key command decisions: Sending Americans to fight in Korea, Inchon, the liberation of North Korea, MacArthur's relief, armistice and limited war.

Interesting book but at a more strategic level.  No descriptions of combat.

[pierre the shy]

Read "Sydney - Cipher and Search" by Captain Peter Hore while I was away.

A really excellent book which explains how the Finding Sydney Foundation was able to finally locate the wrecks of the German raider Kormoran and HMAS Sydney, both of which were sunk in an action off the West Coast of Australia in November 1941.

The wrecks were finally located in 2008.

Captain Hore takes the reader on a journey through many phases and places around the world, tracking down survivors of the Kormoran (No one from the Sydney survived) and decrypting copies of the Kormoran captain's after action report that he wrote while in Australian POW camps to find the actual position of the naval action so the FSF search knew almost precisely where to look.

In the end they found the wrecks within the 15km radius that the researchers had predicted.

A masterpiece of bringing together many strands to get to the desired answer to solve the hitherto unknown fate of the Sydney.
   



 

[Westmarcher]

Looks like a fascinating read (an added dimension for me is that the ship that ended the voyage of the Emden in The Great War was also named .... HMAS Sydney!).

Anyhoo, not reading any particular book at present but have ordered Osprey's skirmish(?) wargame rules, The Pikeman's Lament. I had absolutely no intention of ordering any books this month but 2 offers coincided to push me into making this somewhat 'frivolous' purchase (the Renaissance is not currently one of the periods I game). Osprey are currently offering up to 70% off and Paypal have offered me £5 off my next purchase. So, The Pikeman's Lament will cost me £4.89 including UK postage - less than 2 pints of good ale at any of my local hostelries - whilst both the beer and the book will make me feel good, at least I'll still have the book for posterity! Both offers expire this month.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Good investment in the book !

[Steve J]

That's damned good value and a great set of rules.