Utopia, you are standing in it!

As the year 1917 drew to its close, the Allied war effort rested almost solely on the shoulders of the United Kingdom and its empire — a situation serious enough to persuade the British prime minister to once again address the question of peace negotiations. His speech to the British Trade Union Congress of 5 January 1918 followed a peace feeler by the German secretary of state, Richard Kühlmann. Under what came to be known as the ‘Kühlmann Peace Kite’, the Berlin government was willing to accept terms favourable to Britain. Belgium and Serbia were to be restored, Alsace-Lorraine to be returned to France, and there would be colonial concessions to Britain. As there was no reference to Russia, the Germans obviously expected compensation at Russia’s expense. The Kühlmann Peace Kite soon turned out to be another diversionary manoeuvre, like the German peace talk a year earlier, but the possibility…

What talent to choose from and some truely great players have missed out. The West Indians have a role in New Zealand’s cricket history through being the opposition in New Zealand’s first test win at Eden Park in 1956 but, it was on their Australian Tour in 1961 that they first really came to my attention – remember the first ever tied test in Brisbane. Then of course in the late 70’s and early 1980’s they dominated world cricket under the captaincy of Clive Lloyd, with a strong batting line up and a battery of fast bowlers.

Have a look at my best ever team:

1. Gordon Greenidge
2. Conrad Hunte
3. George Headley
4. Everton Weekes
5. Viv Richards
6. Garfield Sobers
7. Jeffrey Dujon
8. Joel Garner
9. Michael Holding
10. Wesley Hall
11. Lance Gibbs

George Headley, known in his day as `the black Bradman’ would be Captain with Roger Harper 12th Man.

It says much for the…

The fort at Housesteads on Hadrian’s Wall, during winter. The wall is on the right side.
1 = the commandant’s house
2 = the hospital
3 = the headquarters building
4 = the granaries (where grain was stored to make bread)
5 = the barracks (where the soldiers slept)
6 = one of the gateways into the camp
7 = the small town outside the camp

Foraging in enemy territory was essential but always dangerous, especially if the men were separated and laden down with what they had collected; it was essential to send a foraging party out with other troops whose sole job was to guard them and maintain vigilance. Pompey had been dispatched with an army to defeat Sertorius, the rebel governor of Spain. But when the legion concerned was out foraging, Sertorius saw his chance to strike. The whole legion was ‘cut to pieces’, along with all…

Histories of the Battle of the Atlantic universally fail to appreciate the impact that the introduction of the snorkel had on the evolutionary shift in U-boat operations at the end of the war.

German U-boat histories of the Second World War are dominated by the period 1940–43 and written by, or about, veterans that never saw a single operational patrol in a snorkel-equipped U-boat. Out of the top twenty-five U-boat aces of the war, only one – Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock – commanded an operational snorkel-equipped U-boat. However, he did not take part in the inshore campaign during this cruise. Well-known U-boat commanders including Kretschmer, Lüth, Topp, Merten, Prien, Schepke, Witt and Lemp never experienced a patrol on a snorkel-equipped U-boat nor had any understanding of its potential.

Lothar-Günther Buchheim, author of the popular anti-war book Das Boot, never sailed on a snorkel-equipped U-boat. Yet he disparaged the device in his follow-on…

This war will support itself

Cato the Elder instructs his men to take what they need

The impact of the Roman army on the environment was gigantic, at least by the standards of the ancient world. The construction of forts and fortifications was only the start. Peacetime activities also included participation in significant mining and engineering projects, often involving soldiers in supervision and management.

The arrival of the Roman army in a frontier zone, especially a temperate area where trees were widely available, automatically resulted in colossal quantities being felled and prepared. Clearance must have been undertaken on a grand scale. Each turf and timber fort required vast amounts of wood for building and maintenance; felling and transporting it was a task so arduous that it helped provoke a mutiny in AD 14 amongst the forces in Germany. The army also required wood for day-to-day heating, cooking and metalworking. The…

Yet Saxon raids continued. The Yorkshire signal stations came under attack at least twice, Huntcliff and Goldborough being savagely destroyed. Hadrian’s Wall ceased to function as an effective barrier. Forts remained in use but each may have organized its own defence. The soldiers had always been paid in coinage sent from Rome that then filtered through the population as goods were bought outside the forts. Coins from Roman mints began to cease after about AD 402. This cessation of money being sent from Rome or from the mints may have been because transporting coinage may have become too difficult and risky when crossing Gaul. Cash was also required elsewhere in the empire and Stilicho may just have stopped payments, believing it was a waste to send coinage to Britain. Local mints did not supply coins either because of the lack of good metal or because of difficulties in production. Whatever…

Last September, I shared some very encouraging data showing how extreme poverty dramatically has declined in the developing world.

And I noted that this progress happened during a time when the “Washington Consensus” was resulting in “neoliberal” policies (meaning “classical liberal“) in those nations (confirmed by data from Economic Freedom of the World).

In other words, pro-market policies were the recipe for poverty reduction, not foreign aid or big government.

Sadly, the Washington Consensus has been supplanted. Bureaucracies such as the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are now pushing a statist agenda based on the bizarre theory that higher taxes and more spending somehow produce prosperity.

To add insult to injury, some people now want to rewrite history and argue that free markets don’t deserve credit for the poverty reduction that already has occurred.

Esteban…