Mobilisation Iteration!

Not What You're Thinking

Currently there's a lot of clips floating around social media about the Ruffians trying to mobilise reservists, who seem to be middle-aged alcoholics to a man.  However, you can thank the M8s and the Teutons for the whole process of mobilisation, which has it's roots in conscription.  Art!

Go on.  Call them 'Cheese-eating surrender monkeys.'  I dare you.

     After the French Revolution, the M8s were at war with basically the rest of Europe, whose monarchy and nobility felt a neck-twinge or two thanks to the guillotine.  So they needed a big army, which was a problem because they didn't have one.

     Enter the 'Levee En Masse'.  This was a law that meant every man from 18 to 25 was liable for service in the army, whether they wanted to be or not.  National Conscription, as we British would call it.  This generated a huge army of not-very-good soldiers, who were not quite bad enough to perform poorly on the battlefield.  

     The process of conscription was almost universally adopted across Europe, allowing even a third-rate military like that of Serbia to put more men in the field, and a lot quicker, than Britain, who sniffily maintained a purely volunteer force.  The Russian army when mobilised was bigger than the population of some of Europe's smaller nations.  Art!

Prussian tourists at play

     Then we come to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, where the Prussians used a highly-developed and controlled railway network to amass their various armies on the French border, where they surprised the French generals with 1) their size and 2) the speed with which they appeared on the borders - 460,000 men within 18 days.  Art!

M8s and Teutons having a bit of a spat

     This exemplifies what South Canadian General Forrest said about winning a battle - "Get there first with the most".

     By the time the First Unpleasantness broke out, mobilisation had become an unstoppable beast, with minutely-planned schedules for trains arriving at stations to collect troops, whose numbers would include freshly-arrived reservists, and then delivering them to the border by the million.  One British general, 'touring' Europe before the outbreak of war, noticed German railway stations with enormous platforms capable of handling thousands upon thousands of - er - 'passengers', out in the middle of nowhere, but by sheer coincidence right next to the French or Belgian border.  Art!

     These mobilisation plans were utterly inflexible.  The hapless Hapsburg Emperor wanted only to mobilise against Serbia, and was sternly admonished that such a ridiculous notion was impossible, and mobilisation against Ruffia WOULD go ahead.  Plus, once a single European nation began to mobilise, a domino effect took place as their opponents also mobilised, because failing to do so left one in peril of being overwhelmed.  Art!

Dream on

     Jake Broe, a Youtube vlogger, compiled a series of clips showing Ruffian mobilisation, including this one.  Art!

     That's right, accommodation in the open air.  In late September.  "The quartermaster sold all the tents to camping shops" no doubt.  Then there's one reservist who came aboard the bus clutching valuable supplies.  Art!

"Vanya had a drinking problem.  He could never get enough."

     And there's these three stalwarts.  Art!

     All staggeringly drunk.  Von Moltke would cry into his sauerkraut if he could see this lot.  Ruffian mobilisation: organised by Monty Python.

The Return Of Rober

Mark Rober, that is, the mechanical engineer who was developing ways to beat arcade games.  This time it was 

GAME FOUR: Air Hockey

Conrad enjoys playing this game because all it requires is brute force.  Art!

     Mark came up with a build that includes a scanning camera and micro-computer, which was able to analyse the puck's direction and work out how to counter it.  Art!

     The backpack is stabilised by a pair of neodymium magnets, which essentially weld it to the deck when powered on.  Art!

     Well, it worked but remains pretty dull.  Next!

GAME FIVE: The Punching Bag

Ah yes, the classic one that men cannot resist, because they have to prove who is the Alpha Male, especially if there has been any gin involved.  Art!

Problem?

Solution!

     In fact it was rather a let-down, because even though it punched a lot harder than unadulterated Mark, his big beefy assistant managed to still do better.  This is where Mr. Rober got devious, because he worked out how the machine calculated force and came up with a work-around.  You see, there is a beam-break sensor that works out how fast a gap travels past it; the harder the punch, the shorter the time and the greater the force calculated.  Art!

     FYI that's a headless Pez dispenser with a cutaway card.  Mr. Rober calculated that when the Pez dispenser retracts, it will do so with sufficient speed to confuse the sensor into thinking it's been punched by Superman - so he substituted his gimmick and - Art?

     It worked.

"The Sea Of Sand"

We had cut back to Albert and Professor Templeman, who had arrived back at Mersa Martuba just as the Italian Sahariana company puts in an attack.

"Is that another battle with the aliens and their weapons?" asked Albert.

     "How on earth should I know!" growled the Professor angrily.  "We'll just have to sit and wait it out until daylight and see what's going on at the depot."

     Without a weapon, he felt like adding, before realising that a Webley revolver had little chance of stopping one of the big glass tank vehicles that had killed Bourgebus.  Of all the things to happen to him!  Physical proof that intelligent life existed elsewhere in the universe, one of the biggest discoveries in the history of the human race, let alone science, and he couldn't communicate the facts elsewhere, couldn't research further -

     "Professor!" interrupted Albert, tugging on the other man's arm.  "I asked, what can we do?"

     "Eh?  Oh, sorry Albert, I was a million miles away."  He sighed.  "As I said before, we need to wait and see, and we can't see anything until daylight."

     Albert nodded, then started in alarm as the Professor burst out laughing.

     " 'A million miles away'!  I think I accidentally made a joke."

     The laughter stopped as abruptly as it started.

     "Sorry, Albert.  I - I think seeing Pierre killed was more of a wrench than I realised."

     The Professor slumped back in his seat, pinching the bridge of his nose.

     Albert sighed.  The night, he felt, was going to be a long one.

No More Astronomy Photographs

Actually there was one, which looked dull and boring so I'm not putting it up.

     However!  There are still lots of crossword clues for that Lord Peter Wimsey crossword as dreamed up by Ol' Dot.  Here's another baffling one.  "More than mind discloses and more than men believe; (A definition by man whom Pussyfoot doth grieve" (5).

     And the solution?  SCENT.

     No, I don't understand it either.  I think Dot was worried about how clever she'd been because she explains it's from a poem by G.K. Chesterton.  Art!

"The War Illustrated"

Recall, if you will, that the cover date for Issue 164 was October 1st 1943.  The events within came from almost a month previously, thanks to both Operational Security and the duration of travel from the Med to This Sceptred Isle.  Art!

     The invasion of Italy took place on 3rd September 1943, with the Italian government deposing Mussolini and declaring unconditional surrender.  This was an unpleasant surprise to the Teutons, who had suspected that their partner was up to mischief but had no proof of just how perfidious they were.

     It was also a major problem for the Teutons, as the Italian occupation forces in the Balkans and Greece went home, or in some cases joined Yugoslav partisans.  The Teutons then had to find men to fill these gaps, and also to rush them south in Italy to halt the Allied advance.

Finally -

Time for lunch!

That is all.