Guys and guns and the book list

The Reading List for 14 Jul 23

You were expecting Bastille Day?

You know. July 14.

How about Napoleon, then, which is close enough.

A little French story to start off.

The promos dropped this week for Ridley Scott’s new film about Napoleon. The captions “He came from nothing. He conquered everything.” sparked some debate in both French and English audiences for different reasons.

Royal Navy fanboys talked about the naval fight between England and France. A few redcoats brought up the Peninsula.

And in France, there were those who took exception to the idea that Napoleon came from nothing. The French posters are identical in meaning to the English ones. Napoleon was from a family of nobles on Corsica they pointed out and therefore from something.

Little bit of quibbling on that one since his family were from Corsica, which was not exactly considered the greatest place in France at the time. Bit like in Canada and coming from … take your pick… Mississaugua. or New*found*lund.

But the real point is that it’s just feckin’ marketing hyperbole, the lot of you.

Exaggeration for effect.

Get over it.

Or in this case, prove how effective the marketing can be to get a buzz going about the film.

Besides, they’ve likely been hiding Russell Crowe, who would naturally play Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, in what would be a casting tie-in to that other Ridley Scott/ Joaquin Phoenix masterpiece called Gladiator. The character is conspicuously absent from the cast list, especially so given that they’ve got someone playing Marshall Blucher. And what a way to end the movie, with a rematch between a nutjob emperor-wannabe and the avenging General who, having defeated him in a spectacular campaign in Spain and Portugal brings him to final defeat at Waterloo.

Not gonna happen though. There’s no sign of any of that in the trailers.

Oh well.

Napoleon was a gunner, by the way.

Artillery officer.

This week, a Canadian artillery officer - these days running the personnel shop for the Canadian Army - shared with his online followers a thread about American plans to ramp up production of 155 millimetre artillery shells most of which will be going to Ukraine, most likely. Nice link. Factual information, including the mention that Canada will be expanding its production of shells that the Canadian Army uses as well.

The thing that stood out, the dud round if you will, was the offhand comment he made in the process connecting the story of increased American production to the 1915 Shells Crisis in Britain during the Great War.

Literally, the *only* connection between the two is that both stories involved artillery shells. The rest is nothing the same.

The British entered what became the First World War with ideas about the next war that were quickly demolished by the war. despite some preparation, especially on the political and bureaucratic side, the country lacked a great many critical things things including a mobilization scheme and an industrial scheme to produce all the bits, bobs, and bombs that armies and navies need.

The armies of europe assumed the war would be one of movement, such that the challenge facing them would be one of transportation, of getting the shells to where the armies were. Instead, the prolonged siege war that developed by late 1914 created a problem of supply of shells themselves. The gunners could run through all the ammunition on hand very quickly as they battered away at the other side.

The British and Germans felt the pinch by November 1914. That is, they had a crisis within four months of the outbreak of fighting. The French started to run low in early 1915. All the armies had problems in supply but in Britain, the failure to produce shells brought down one coalition government and led to the formation of another immediately afterward with David Lloyd George responsible for ware materials production. It took until the fall of 1915 to get the private sector involved as well as properly organize war production across the Empire. It was really not until 1916 that the British were producing enough shells of proper quality.

The American scheme is a natural response both to the need to feed the Ukraine and to meet any other challenges like one potentially posed by China. The Western Alliance has been aware of Ukraine’s ongoing need for war equipment for some time and has met the need both by depleting its own stockpiles and now ramping up its own production.

There’s an incredibly superficial parallel to the British situation in that the Americans need to bring new private manufacturers into what has been to now an exclusively government-run business but that’s where the similarities end. The Americans, the British, and everyone else have been doing this sort of thing ever since 1915. They’ve got experience adding private sector production to the mix when needed. And while this is apparently the first time since Korea the Americans have gone this big, *that* is really a sign of how serious things are.

Make no mistake, ramping up artillery shells production is also a very loud warning to potential adversaries around the globe like China. It’s a reminder to the chattering classes in the West that the West has its act together. Plus, it’s also a big kick in the shins to countries like Canada that have been more than a bit reluctant to adapt its foreign and defence policy to the reality of the times. The other thing you do to countries like Canada in the current context is literally put them on the margins of a group-shot of NATO heads of government. The players are at the centre. Justin Trudeau’s in the bits you can cut off and no one will notice he’s gone.

Anyway, the Army personnel guy has enough problems with recruiting to be bothered that his historical analogies are way wide of the mark. No surprise, gunners are either on time or on target but never both. This was his “on time” moment.

With that bit of levity and gunner-nerd stuff, onward to the weekly list of interesting stuff, this time on the US Supreme Court, trends in media and government communication, and a lack of financial accountability from government about the impact of COVID.

Monday, it will be an update on some energy issues.