Melting Glaciers Uncover WWI Remains

Monty Python got some good alliterative mileage out of that term in their movie “And Now For Something Completely Different.”  One sequence in the movie is a fake WWII British newsreel, in black and white, with suitably bombastic narration that includes the opening line “Yes, the war against the Hun continues – and as Britian’s brave boys battle against the Boche…”  By the standards of genuine WWII newsreels, that’s actually not as over-the-top as it sounds to modern ears.  And during a real WWII deception operation, the fake letter from General Nye to General Alexander which was the centrepiece of the “Mincemeat” disinformation scheme used such phrases as “We have had recent information that the Boche have been reinforcing and strengthening their defences in Greece and Crete…”

@Imperious:

This is why Tsingtao is a really good beer. it’s originally a German factory, taken by the Japanese then China in 1945.

It would be great to drink a beer with all you guys.

Right on CWO.  Way cool read. I read of this in Forsythe’s “The Afgan”. It didn’t have many details though.

That was one major explosion. In recent times their was a ammo dump that went up in iraq. It was claimed no foul play but I’ve always wondered.

That  Masurian Lakes photo is absolutely haunting.

Thank you Marc. Interesting indeed. No nothing of Harding, so nice to hear this story.

“Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway.” Oh gawsh that part had me rolling.

This is another great one: http://www.collegehumor.com/post/6650094/facebook-news-feed-history-of-the-world-world-war-i-to-world-war-ii

Thank you for the WWI topic.

I think most of the backing came due to two facts:
(1) the USSR needed reforms, that was obvious.
Still, they probably wanted a long term leader that could be influenced => a younger one, after the two short reigns of Andropov and what-was-his-name… Probably, the influentials wanted some change, but surely not that much that it would threaten their power-base, one of the reasons for the coup that failed due to Jelzins help for Gorbachev.
(2) The general secretary and all the other positions he fills made him the most powerful man in the USSR. Probably, whoever put Gorbachev into place, underestimated him. Pretty much the same underestimation that Hitler faced when he was appointed Chancellor, but luckily Gorbachev used that to reform positively, and i consider the new freedom of information, the right to ask wether the party is right and that the crucial reform.

So, I don’t think that there was “real” backing, i believe Gorbachev was kind of a compromise candidate, kind of a makeshift. Of course, once he was into power, you ccouldn’t remove instantly, that would have meant that the party made a mistake (which was not “allowed” before Gorbachev). And he was clever enough to stay into power, and use his popularity at the beginning (which soon, after the economy started to collapse openly, was reduced to more or less nothing) to enforece the reforms.