History Archives - Page 5 of 6 - The Casual Observer

Sidney Reilly – The Greatest Spy in the annuals of Espionage

By Dean McCleland in History, Opinion Pieces 16 October 2014 4 Comments

Sidney Reilly has had few if any peers in the annuals of espionage. Born Georgi Rosenblum, a Jew, in Odessa in 1873, Sidney was an adventurer par excellence. His story is a testament to his laudable courage and overweening chutzpah. Like most spies, they are the only source of their often vaulting claims as the facts are mostly unsubstantiatable from other sources.

In spite of his Russian heritage, Sidney Reilly was imbued with a sense of duty to the British. Be that as it may but Sidney was an incorrigible rogue with perhaps a misguided sense of duty. Unlike the outdated British Secret Service, still wedded to a bygone era of chivalry and fair-play, Sidney obtained the results that they required through a ruthless uncompromising streak even if it meant breaking a number of female hearts or even killing in the process. Dubbed the Ace of Spies, Reilly’s sobriquet was apt.

The Spy who confused Fantasy and Real Life

By Dean McCleland in History, Opinion Pieces 10 October 2014 0 Comment

The most successful spies are those who live the role that is assigned to them: the fewer the lies, the less the chance of a mishap. In the case of Lotz, a Mossad spy in Cairo, he took the role too much to heart

The game of spy craft is not James Bondesque with glitz and glamour. Champagne breakfasts, socialising and the luxurious idyll do not normally form part of the Job Description. Rather one operates in the shadows being unrecognisable and unremembered little grey men.

Main picture: Wolfgang Lotz and Waltraud

Hermann Goering: “At Least I had 12 Decent Years”

By Dean McCleland in History, Military History 7 October 2014 4 Comments

That is how Hermann Goering, the Reichsmarshal and Nazi Party number two, classified the years from 1933 when the Nazis ascended power to its demise in May 1945. This is an understatement. They could rather be referred to as his halcyon days.

Hermann Goering, the morphine addict, who required 5 shots per day to remain functional, was the archetypal playboy or “The Renaissance Man”as he liked to refer to himself. Even when the Third Reich faced a catastrophic situation such as at Stalingrad, his focus was elsewhere: buttressing his image as the Reich’s foremost jaegermeister [Hunting Master], topping-up his art and diamond collection or having more medals and awards bestowed upon himself.

Stalin’s Duplicity and Perfidy during WW2

By Dean McCleland in History, Military History 5 October 2014 0 Comment

Stalin played a very cynical and cunning game during WW2. Having deliberately killed millions of kulaks in Russia what more could the West expect when dealing with this brute of a man, a murderer of more people – his own Russians – than the Germans in total.

The full extent of Stalin’s duplicity and perfidy during WW2 was purposely understated or even whitewashed during WW2 by the British and the Americans. The reason for attaching little importance to these heinous crimes, for that is what they were, was the need to defeat the Nazis.

Adolf and Eva: A Highly Unusual Relationship

By Dean McCleland in History, Military History 28 September 2014 1 Comment

Eva was a naïve youngster when Hitler, who was 22 years her senior, locked eyes with hers in a Munich shop. Such was her insularity from the major events of the period that in 1931 she was unable to connect the interested older man with the prominent moustache with Hitler.

In no ways could this be considered a partnership of equals. In every respect it can be considered that Hitler required a mistress and that is what Eva became: nothing more and nothing less.

Should Speer also have been sentenced to death at Nuremburg?

By Dean McCleland in History, Military History 7 September 2014 0 Comment

Of all the Nazis in Hitler’s inner circle, only Albert Speer escaped the hangman’s noose. How was he able to achieve this when the armaments’ industry used slave labour on an epic scale?

Unlike most of Hitler’s circle, Albert Speer and Hermann Goering were not regarded as archetypal Nazi thugs. Most such as Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy until his arcane mission to Britain in 1941, were wastrels and professional thugs in keeping with their narrow-minded views on society and the solutions to social problems. If there had to be a psychological attribute for being a member of the Nazi inner circle, that trait would be sociopathy.

Shocking Images of the Israeli-Gaza Conflict

By Dean McCleland in Historical, History, Military History 9 August 2014 0 Comment

These shocking images illustrate not only the destruction of property in Gaza but also the impact upon the people who reside there. These images are both graphic and disturbing and highlight the futility of war.

As this war is unlikley to resolve any of the underlying issues driving this tension, this battle will be proceeded by yet more wars as the cycle of violence never abates. Hatreds based upon religion, dispossession and culture are indubitably intractable and not subject to facile solutions.

Why were 19,240 British soldiers killed on Day 1 of the Somme Battle?

By Dean McCleland in History, Military History 20 July 2014 0 Comment

After 7 days of bombardment, the British expected to walk across no man’s land and overrun the Germans without a fight. Instead they were mowed down in their thousands. What went wrong?

Prologue

On the morning of the 1^st July 1916, the British soldiers would climb up their wooden ladders, clamber over the sandbagged parapets of their trenches and then move towards the German lines. The exact instruction as regards their motion was given as walk: not run, not practice fire and movement but walk. The British High Command expected a docile German force dazed and shell-shocked after 7 days of continuous bombardment not to respond at all or if they did, not with alacrity. Amongst many others, this would become a cardinal error of this battle.

Instead, in short order, the British forces were pinned down and massacred.

Did the Exploits of Mata Hari justify her Execution?

By Dean McCleland in History, Military History 10 July 2014 0 Comment

For me, the exploits of spies have always held an enduring fascination as espionage exerts a powerful hold over my imagination. Mata Hari falls into that category.

Why write a blog about Mata Hari and not Sydney Reilly the self-proclaimed Ace of Spies? For me that fascination revolves around the fact that Mata Hari was a woman.

Mata Hari, the archetype of the seductive female spy was ultimately convicted for espionage. This culminated in her execution by a French firing squad at Vincennes outside of Paris.

How a lowly Russian Political Officer prevented a Nuclear Armageddon

By Dean McCleland in History, Military History 20 June 2014 0 Comment

If not for courageous actions of Vasily Arkipov, the Cuban Missile Crisis would have become known as the Cuban Missile War

History is normally portrayed from the viewpoint of the person in charge: the King, the President or the Commander-in-Chief. Their memoirs – and more importantly history – are recorded from their point of view – the strategic level. I can well imagine a Montgomery or an Eisenhower gently sipping their 20 year old red wine in a plush air-conditioned mobile home 150 miles from the front while the ordinary soldier was enduring temperatures of minus ten degrees somewhere in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium during December 1944 at the height of the Battle of the Bulge.

The Opinion Pieces are an eclectic bunch on current affairs & history often with a human interest aspect. The Movie/DVDs reviews are mainly on documentaries with a smattering of movie reviews.

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