Pamir, a four-masted barque, was one of the famous Flying P-Liner sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz. She was the last commercial sailing ship to brave the notorious rounding of Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, the barque had been out-dated by modern bulk carriers and was by then unable to operate at a profit.
The French surrendered to the Germans on June 22, 1940. The terms of the capitulation were unusual. The Germans permitted the new French administration, under Marshall Petain, to establish itself in the city of Vichy in the south and central France. From there, unoccupied independent Vichy France governed over half of the French landmass in the south of France whilst retaining their overseas colonies and their navy.
100 years ago, in November 1920, the White Guards evacuated from the Crimea. Off media radar is one of the most horrific holocausts to stigmatise the half-human race. The proud Cossack had long suffered stigmatisation, hate and horror by the Bolsheviks. On November 14, 1920 one of the largest flotillas in European history was moored off the bay at Sevastopol in Crimea. The rescue by armada included 150 ships of every size and type imaginable. Most but not all were ships of Imperial Russia.
The history of Barrel organs’ creation extends back over several hundred years. Historians from different countries are still arguing about where and how this mechanism and its design was invented.
The date of this event is unique for each year. It was usually celebrated on the penultimate Sunday of November. In 2020, this date is on November 15th. Volkstrauertag (Day of National Mourning) is a national day of memory in Germany. It is celebrated in mid-November and is now a reminder of the need for reconciliation, understanding and peace. The history of this day is complex and ambiguous.
My tribute’s for the doctors,
Who fix the broken hearts,
When doctors are for living,
Who needs a dying art?
On November 11, 1918, the Compiègne Agreement was signed in northern France, which ended the First World War (1914 – 1918), or, as it was then called, the Great War. For that time, it was the most massive and bloody military conflict of all the previous 15 thousand conflicts known: 38 states, having mobilized 68 million people, fought for economic dominance and territory for more than four years.
The armed forces have used animals in their armed conflicts since ancient times. Horses and dogs come to mind first. Horses were exploited in all wars, up to the middle of the 20th century. During World War II, the Soviet cavalry almost attacked the tanks of the Reich’s armed forces.
The post comes to us nightly, we hail the post with glee –
For now we’re not as many as once we used to be:
For some have done their fighting, packed up and gone away,
And many lads are sleeping – no sound will break their sleeping;
Brave lusty comrades sleeping in their little homes of clay. ~ Irish poet Patrick MacGill.
I make no apologies for spurning the pomp and pageantry that bull-horns its way through Remembrance Sunday held at thousands of cenotaphs. There is much about war that knows no political or national boundaries. War is a monument to human frailty and duplicity, profiteering, individual acts of heroism and stupidity, but not strength.
Michael Walsh Stories and Books 
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