Yes Yes Yes
Conrad is entirely aware that his title is not grammatically correct, for am I not foremost in the ranks of the Grammar Nazis? However - the word that crops up in every blog - it does rhyme, which means forgiveness above all, and because it's my blog. Art!
This rusting carcass is one of the trains that the scholarly bandit T E Lawrence blew up way back in 1917, the rails that it travelled upon being completely obscured, so a double failure.
For Lo! I am about to re-visit the theme I mentioned yesteryon, being a discourse upon logistics, strategy, tactics and mutton. Before we do, a bit of cinematic analysis. Art!
The Arabs, directed by El Aurens, ambush a Turkish troop train. At bottom port you can see the bulk of Mister Vicker's slayer of millions: a Vickers machine gun. Above that - Art!
These are Brownings of Second Unpleasantness vintage, a good twenty years before their time. Not only that, Lawrence also had British troops handling both Lewis guns and Stokes mortars with him on ambushes, which Mister Lean has left out.
ANYWAY I would like to bring in a couple of exhibits to illustrate my thesis for today. Art!
It's rather hard to make out because the Ottoman cartographers were mad keen on making their map as 'busy' as possible, yet there is a railway in there somewhere. Conrad, recalling reading an Official History last year, dug out an 'Official History: Egypt And Palestine' map-case and yes, there was a railway map of the Ottoman dominions. Art!
British railways in red, Turkish in black. You'll have to forgive the creases, there is every possibility this map has not been read since it was printed in 1929.
Let us get a couple of close-up of the Hejaz, at bottom starboard. Art!
This is the old, now long-abandoned Hejaz railway, the Hejaz being what is now Western Saudi Arabia. This railway had it's terminus at Medina, the second-most holy city in Islam, and it had been intended to continue it all the way to Mecca, the primary holy city in Islam, except a little thing called the First Unpleasantness interrupted.
Unfortunately for the Ottomans, Emir Hussein of the Hashemite Arabs was the sherif of Mecca, which stayed soundly under his control, two hundred miles distant from Medina. The Ottomans, well aware that they had a key religious and propaganda symbol in their occupation of Medina, were determined to hold it come what may and not gamble on losing it by denuding the garrison for any adventures. Art!
A initial Arab attempt to seize the town early in 1916 failed, with heavy casualties. This emboldened the Turks, who built up the original garrison of 3,000 and by 1917 it mustered 14,000 men, including artillery, cavalry and camel units.
This is where Perfidious Albion comes into play. Lawrence, well aware of how logistics worked in the Hejaz, saw Medina not as a garrison or a threat, but a prison.
Allow me to explain. The Arab armies were composed of irregular light cavalry, lacking discipline, drill, organisation or heavy weapons. They were utterly unsuited to a formal siege of Medina, as 1916 had proved, and would lose badly if they indulged in a stand-up fight with the far better-organised Turkish garrison at Medina. So, rather than pick a fight he couldn't win, Lawrence instead turned to the extremely long and vulnerable supply route into Medina: the Hejaz railway, where his Arab irregulars could swoop in, mount an ambush and be gone long before any Turkish riposte came. His analogy was that of a 'gas', floating hither and yon. Art!
Osmanli Men with Moustaches!
Except, with all the cunning of a fox, Lawrence determined to not-quite cut off supplies to the Hejaz Expeditionary Force in Medina, reasoning that the Ottoman Empire would gladly suffer hardship in keeping their garrison supplied, such was the status of the town. 'Hanging on in quiet desperation' is how Roger Waters aptly described it. If you examine that picture of Medina above you will notice a distinct lack of anything to scrounge outside the town's walls. After all, if their supplies ran too low they might evacuate and move to reinforce their army in Palestine.
Conrad reckons you'd need about 5,000 gallons of water per day to keep the human garrison supplied adequately with water, plus at least 6 gallons per day per horse. Not just the cavalry but any draught animals, too, for this was not a motorised army in the least. Then there is forage - each horse needs about 10 pounds of hay per day, and camels 15 pounds. There were wells in Medina, but that was it, forage had to come in by train. Ammunition would need to be replenished, medicines might be supplied (a bit hazy on the specifics here), men sent back and forth on leave, wood was essential for heating and cooking, tinned and fresh food (mutton on the hoof) provided, new uniforms, boots, harnesses, hooves, the list goes on. Art!
Medina today
It worked, too. Medina didn't surrender to the Arabs until after the formal end of the First Unpleasantness. Clever old Ned*!
The Boyars From Company D
Another tale of WoE ('What on Earth', the SFW version) from Mordorvia, as related by Big. K on his "Inside Russia" Youtube channel. These have been getting progressively worse. Art!
Company D is - or was - a medical supply company. In Ruffia the renovation of old hospitals and the construction of new ones stopped in 2024. That picture you see above of ENKA is from construction in 2021 and 2022, before the You-Know-What began.
It was expected that the construction dearth would be resolved in December 2024, which is when new construction contracts are issued. Alas, no. There were some tenders in Moscow and that was it, because there is no money left in the federal budget for healthcare. Company D is now laying people off. Art!
Richest embezzler in world not bothered
As You Know, Conrad Thinks With His Stomach
I have recently organised all my notebook recipes into alphabetical order, since that's the kind of person I am. Now, I have just ordered a cookbook that ought to put into easily readable bound form all those scratchy hand-written recipes. Art!
One presumes that these will be similar to Ruffian and Polish and Bulgarian recipes, except the titles will be a tad different. They tend to be hearty peasant fare, with buckets of sour cream - Ukrainians put sour cream on everything, even sour cream.
Making A Date
I scoffed my last slice of fruit gingerbread today, a cake I've enjoyed making last. Perhaps overdoing the 'last' part as I had to bin a slice when it got stricken with mould, a risk one takes with moist cakes in hot climes as they have been.
Imagine my horrified surprise that we have no dried dates left. I had my eye on a 'Spiced Date Cake', which has gone bye-the-bye, so have noted 'DATES' on the shopping list for tomorrow. Also 'SULTANAS' as there is a 'Sultana Cake' recipe on the preceding page that I have fond memories of. Conrad unsure if we still have that 7" deep square cake tin and if not will have to calculate surface areas of the tins we do have. Art!
Conrad's stomach is in the driving seat now
Finally -
This is Thursday's blog that I'm finishing on Tuesday, proving that indeed I can be a 'sooner-sooner' if I put my mind to it. Having done so, I've got a few Youtube vlogs to chase up on matters of serious import, which mostly involve eating popcorn and watching Artem, "The Russian Dude" roll his 'r's melodramatically, and wonder if I can afford over an hour perusing Perun, Powerpoint Presentation Professor of Primacy.
Laterz!
* TEL's nickname at home
No comments:
Post a Comment