Skip to main content

Home/ History Readings/ Contents contributed and discussions participated by oliviaodon

Contents contributed and discussions participated by oliviaodon

Simple Middle Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics
oliviaodon

Russian Women Muster for a 'Battalion of Death' - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-for-a-battalion-of-death.html

history

shared by oliviaodon on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • “When at last in the fever of change the Russian Revolution made anything possible,” the Mid-Week Pictorial reported 100 years ago, “a band of girls of adventurous disposition and endowed with the high courage of youth came forward and joined a ‘Battalion of Death’ to try to infuse the Russian Army with a new desire for victory.”
  • Their commander was Maria Bochkareva (spelled “Botchkareva” by The Times). Already a decorated soldier, she met in May 1917 with Alexander Kerensky, the head of the provisional government. To solve the problem of rampant desertion she proposed the creation of all-women battalions that “would shame the men into continuing the fight,”
  • It has been found that there is absolutely no kind of work, skilled or unskilled, that women cannot do; and it has been amazing how they have learned in months trades which were formerly supposed to require years to learn
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Three years later, after ratification of the 19th Amendment, universal suffrage was a reality.
oliviaodon

The Sodden, Haunted Fields of Flanders - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...aunted-fields-of-flanders.html

war history

shared by oliviaodon on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Taken the previous winter, it showed a graveyard near the town of Nieuwpoort after the dikes had been opened by the Belgians in an effort to stall the Germans’ advance across their country.
  • “The territory around the Yser Canal has been the scene of some of the most sanguinary fighting which has taken place during the three years of hostilities,” The Times said, “and it is no exaggeration to say that whole army corps have been annihilated at different times in the struggle to gain control of this little waterway and the marshy meadows on either side.”
  • The contrast with the cover photo could scarcely have been more jarring. “Goodbye, Broadway; Hello, France!” was the headline, as if the men of the 69th Infantry Regiment of New York were off on some late-summer spree.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The changing scale of warfare was evident elsewhere in the magazine, which published a photo of the 280-foot-long Vulkan, a German “submarine mother ship,” which could tend to U-boats on either side of the hull or in the center of the vessel. Such “mother ships,” The Times said, “play an essential part in the present submarine campaign waged by Germany.”
oliviaodon

Détente, Over a Cigarette - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...detente-over-a-cigarette.html

war Culture kindness

shared by oliviaodon on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • “A wounded German getting a light for his cigarette from a British soldier,” the caption in The New York Times Mid-Week Pictorial. “The German was left behind when his comrades were forced to retire.” The setting was Flanders, Belgium.
oliviaodon

You're in the Army Now. (Now Being the Year 5678.) - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...w-now-being-the-year-5678.html

war Culture

shared by oliviaodon on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • Men of the Jewish faith from New York, who have just been drafted into the national Army, attending a religious service during the Jewish New Year holidays in a cantonment building assigned to them for the purpose
  • Resplendent in chapeaux, our cover subjects 100 years ago were Maj. Gen. Tasker H. Bliss, the Army chief of staff, and his predecessor, Maj. Gen. Hugh L. Scott. Are you surprised that a uniform should look so quaintly ornate in an era of aerial bombing and chemical warfare? The chapeaux proved surprisingly resilient. “Although for all intents and purposes it died with the United States’ entry into World War I, the chapeau was not finally and officially dropped as an item of officers’ dress until 1936,” Edgar M. Howell wrote in “United States Army Headgear 1855-1902.”
  • With almost every issue of the Mid-Week Pictorial, the camera was proving more adept as a chronicler of war at its decisive, spontaneous moments. The caption of the photograph below read, “Remarkable snapshot of a scene during the retreat of the Russians, showing the first mad rush after the cry was raised that ‘the German cavalry have broken through!’ ”
oliviaodon

America's Forever Wars - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...americas-forever-wars.html

war america

shared by oliviaodon on 25 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The United States has been at war continuously since the attacks of 9/11 and now has just over 240,000 active-duty and reserve troops in at least 172 countries and territories.
  • While the number of men and women deployed overseas has shrunk considerably over the past 60 years, the military’s reach has not. American forces are actively engaged not only in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen that have dominated the news, but also in Niger and Somalia, both recently the scene of deadly attacks, as well as Jordan, Thailand and elsewhere.
  • There are traditional deployments in Japan (39,980 troops) and South Korea (23,591) to defend against North Korea and China, if needed, along with 36,034 troops in Germany, 8,286 in Britain and 1,364 in Turkey — all NATO allies. There are 6,524 troops in Bahrain and 3,055 in Qatar, where the United States has naval bases.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • America’s operations in conflict zones like Africa are expanding
  • Still, it’s a very real question whether, in addition to endorsing these commitments, which have cost trillions of dollars and many lives over 16 years, they will embrace new entanglements of the sort President Trump has seemed to portend with his rash threats and questionable decisions on North Korea and Iran.
  • For that reason alone, it’s time to take stock of how broadly American forces are already committed to far-flung regions and to begin thinking hard about how much of that investment is necessary, how long it should continue and whether there is a strategy beyond just killing terrorists. Which Congress, lamentably, has not done. If the public is quiet, that is partly because so few families bear so much of this military burden, and partly because America is not involved in anything comparable to the Vietnam War, when huge American casualties produced sustained public protest. It is also because Congress has spent little time considering such issues in a comprehensive way or debating why all these deployments are needed.
« First ‹ Previous 81 - 85 of 85
Showing 20▼ items per page