Childress

A true story.
In the mid-sixties I was hospitalized with persistent flu in a small town in upstate New York, these days such a relatively minor sickness is generally handled at home unless the patient is elderly. I was 13 or 14 and shared the room with a strikingly handsome fellow, fortyish and blond turning to grey. The days passed but he never spoke a word to me despite our forced intimacy- our beds were separated by less than six feet. 
Apart from the bustle of the nurses, silence reigned. Finally, my father came to visit bringing one of my hobbies, a war game equipped with a board and tiny military figures. As we rolled the dice we saw that my co-patient was observing us with utter contempt, as if such childish frivolity was beneath him. Dad noticed his attitude and asked him his name. "Werner", he had a pronounced German accent. "Were you in the war?" "Yes". That's all he needed, he was off to the races.
He related his experiences in the war under Patton, notably in North Africa and Sicily. A sergeant, he recalled in the Battle of the Kasserine Pass a mate had his head clean off by a shell. He had been standing next to him. He expatiated on the chaos of the US Army bureaucracy, for example, inoculating both his arms with the same vaccination on multiple occasions and standing in line for grub only to run out and join another queue. Werner brightened: "The Wehrmacht was just like that!". The two began trading war stories (Werner's were vague) until Dad made a fatal faux-pas: "It's terrible about with happened to the Jews." Uncomfortable silence. Finally, Werner erupted "who cares about the Jews!" From his bed, he turned his back and never spoke to either of us again.
Several months later my mother found an entry in the local newspaper that Werner had been arrested for sexual assault on a minor, whether a boy or girl was unknown. Dad knew that was him from his surname that was displayed on his bedside plaque. And in our small town German nationals- or any foreigners- were exceedingly rare.
The 55-year-old encounter lay dormant in my consciousness until Dad passed away in the late 1990s. Werner, if alive, is well into his 90s; aside from the apparent child abuse, he was clearly a victim of a rabid ideology. But forgiveness has its limits.
(From Substack)
 

What a fascinating discussion! There's an apt historical anecdote I'd like to share.

In 1820, the whaler Essex was repeatedly rammed, and ultimately sunk, by an enormous enraged sperm whale, ultimately inspiring the Melville novel Moby Dick. The story of what happened after the skipper, John Pollard, and crew took to the lifeboats is, for want of a better description, serially gruesome.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/essex-ship

But what came in the aftermath (forget where I read it) was in some ways worse. At a Nantucket party the mother of one of the crewmen who didn't make it it approached the former skipper and said: "I believe you knew my son" and named him, to which he replied: "Why know him, ma'am, I et him."

Ref the OP, here, also, we find people being killed as food, not dying and then being used as food. At least in this case, lots were drawn.

Regards,

John Kettler

 

If one nitpicks Napoleon's blunders one can make him look a bad commander enough; but you know that he also won a lot of campaigns and he won them against Armies and States that, at the time, were considered the best in the world. Moreover, he won them with a level of success that was unprecedented (e.g. the magnitude of Napoleon's smashing of Austria in 1805 and 1809 was something that Frederick the Great could only have dreamed of).
To say that the best commander is the one that is never defeated puts too much weight on chance. Had Napoleon died for natural causes  in, say, 1810, according to your metrics you should have rated him one of the best commanders ever (if not the best). Also in sports, the best team is not the one that has never lost a match (especially if plays only with sub par adversaries in a single season) but is the one that routinely confronts and beat other top tier teams. So, in this respect, I do think that Napoleon was a superb commander.
Having said this, I admit that, yes, the 1812 Russian Campaign was a strategic blunder and this error eventually lead to the loss of his Empire. But even if his conquest were ephemeral, it was the personal fate of the individual named Napoleon Bonaparte that was defeated, not what he was actually fighting for: he eventually lost but managed to win enough to make the conquests of Revolutionary France shape the future of Europe, and not the pseudo-feudal institutions of most of the old monarchies that opposed him. In this respect, Napoleon's fate was in somewhat similar to Alexander the Great's one: he died, his Empire fell apart, his son died young and was never on a throne. But what he did influenced for centuries the future of the territories he had "lost".

In very broad terms, he was a great general, but an average Emperor. Most Emperors succumb to their own delusions of grandeur at some point.

I saw Lieut. Grant. He has altered very much: he is a short thick man with a beard reaching halfway down his waist and I fear he drinks too much but don't you say a word on that subject.
-John Lowe, Grant's West Point classmate during the Mexico campaign.

The genetic component of alcoholism these days is now considered settled science. Ulysses S. Grant's father was a teetotaler but his grandfather, Noah, was not. His drinking caused him to squander a comfortable estate and leave the youngest children to be adopted by neighbors. Grant's son was arrested by George Custer for chronic drunkenness during the Black Hills expedition in 1874. 

It was during Grant's outstanding service in the Mexican War, a conflict punctuated by many long periods of inactivity and boredom, that Grant realized that he might have "a problem". After his marriage to Julia, in 1848, he was assigned as an officer at a post near Ontario. At that cold and isolated outpost he resorted to booze, but always self-aware he decided to quit altogether in 1851. He wrote Julia: "I have become convinced that there is no safety from ruin by liquor except by abstaining from it altogether." 

Grant joined the Sons of Temperance, a precursor of Alcoholic Anonymous. It didn't last; his next military assignment to the Pacific Coast would break his solemn vow. His roommate: "I would hear him once or twice, sometimes more, open the door quietly and walk softly over the floor, so as not to disturb him; then I would hear the clink of the glass and a gurgle." Grant was forced to resign. 

After his separation from the army, Grant returned to Missouri with Julia and their four children; they led a hardscrabble life. He sold firewood door-to-door and he was often compelled to borrow money from her slave-owning father, a humiliation, and he began again to resort to the bottle. But Grant's father came to his rescue; he proposed that he join his brothers' leather shop in Illinois. There he was able to pay off his debts to Julia's father and during that time it appears he was sober. Nevertheless, Grant felt unfulfilled and following Fort Sumter, he jumped at the chance to become a colonel in the 21st Illinois Volunteers. The rest is history.



Many historians assert that Grant’s penchant for binge drinking was kept in check by his teetotaler adjutant, Colonel John Rawlins, but rumors that he was intoxicated during and after battles swirled around him for most of the war. These rumors may be exaggerated, however, Grant did suffer occasional relapses although he would go cold turkey during very long periods. But a reporter from the Herald Tribune was stunned to find the General in a state of intoxication during the bloody battle of Shiloh in 1862. Also, there's strong evidence that during the siege of Vicksburg- a tedious, long drawn out affair- he occasionally fell off the wagon. (1) 

Grant was never a mean or obnoxious drunk but, in the words of the historian, Ron Chernow, liquor reduced him to a “babbling, childlike state", something that unnerved his lieutenants during his rare lapses while prosecuting the war. They also observed that after one glass of liquor, Grant's speech would become slurred and two or three would make him stupid. Their strong reservations about the General reached the unperturbed Lincoln who remarked  “Tell them you’re going to find out what brand he drinks, and then send a case to all your other generals." (2)  

SUMMARY

The preponderance of evidence tells us that Grant was an alcoholic, albeit a functioning one. In the 19th century, most people drank far more than today; Americans over the age of 15 consumed on average seven gallons of alcohol — generally whiskey or hard cider — each year. (3) However, at headquarters, officers were expected to hold their liquor. Grant couldn't and he knew it, when the craving came upon him he would imbibe alone,

Today we understand that alcoholism is a disease. One of the most frustrating factors in dealing with alcoholism is it is almost always accompanied by a phenomenon known as denial—a refusal to admit the truth or reality of the condition. Grant was an exception to that rule, he was fully aware of his devil within thus his successful career may be attributed to pure will.
 
1- But Grant had a critical asset, his wife, Julia, who with his oldest son were often present at headquarters. With her, he stayed sober.
2- Another version: “for if it made fighting generals like Grant, I should like to get some of it for distribution.”
3- (lost link)

Grant was 5'8, 2 inches above the average height of the time, and during the war, his weight was a svelte 130lbs. However, he was physically powerful; while working for his father-in-law in Galena neighbors were stunned to watch him toss 100lb burlap bags onto a wagon. Some other interesting factoids:
*He was not especially studious at West Point and read a lot of novels available to him in the library. It was said of him that he never read a lesson over more than twice and did not actually "study" it. He excelled in mathematics.
*In the heat of battle, when his staff officers were full of anxiety, Grant calmly smoked his cigar and never lost his composure. His nerves of steel were a wonder to all around him. He could write dispatches while shells burst around him and never flinch. 
*Grant was very thin during the war, weighing only one hundred and thirty-five pounds. He was a very sparse eater. He abhorred red meat of any kind, and the sight of blood made him ill.
*He had a superstition of retracing his steps.
*Grant did not believe in holding formal councils of war. He felt that they "divided a responsibility that would at times prevent a unity of action." He listened to the advice of his staff, and then, upon reflection, made the final decision himself. No one knew of his decision until it was put into effect.
*Grant was tone deaf and could not recognize any of the light airs of the time; military music was especially annoying to him.
*During his lifetime General Grant suffered intense migraine headaches which were sometimes reported as bouts of drunkenness.
*Reticence has long been associated with Ulysses Grant. Although he was an avid listener, in the relaxed company of friends, he could actually be a raconteur.
https://libguides.css.edu/usgrant/home/upclose
Quote Share

What a great thread! Quote Investigator looked into the alleged Lincoln quote and turned up all sorts of goodies. LOng piece, but thoroughly documented and well worth the read!

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/18/barrel-of-whiskey/

On a separate note, I feel safe in asserting that no one could top Winston Churchill when it came to incredible alcohol consumption daily coupled with equally incredible high functioning. Here's an analysis from one Scott Alexander on Quora. The analysis concludes Churchill consumed almost twice as much in a day as the NHS recommended for a week!

https://www.quora.com/How-much-alcohol-did-Winston-Churchill-drink-per-day?share=1
 
Scott Alexander Williams , former Volunteer Coordinator at Volunteer Edinburgh (2014-2017) Updated 3 years ago · Author has 64 answers and 184.2K answer views How was it possible for Winston Churchill to drink so much and still function at such a high level? He was very likely a high-functioning alcoholic, judging by his daily intake.
Churchill, like most Prime Ministers, had a fairly rigid daily routine that he stuck to as closely as possible. The reason for this is fairly straightforward, as PM he had to make hundreds of decisions (most of which were quite important ones too) every day, as well as react to events pretty much as they occurred. In such a situation, it’s quite possible for you to be too busy thinking about how to respond to the latest inelligence report to decide what you want for breakfast, and if you aren’t careful you’ll be running behind schedule before the morning newspapers arrive. This is a phenomenon called decision fatigue, where the more decisions you make in quick succession, the poorer their quality gets. In a job as serious and stressful as running a country, it’s important to eliminate as many unnecessary decisions as possible from the day to day routine, so you don’t waste precious brain power on things that are irrelevant in the bigger picture.
In Churchill’s case, he rather famously took this to extremes, which often made him look quite eccentric - for example, when asked by the White House Butler what he wanted for breakfast each morning, he asked for the same thing to be served every day - a tumbler of sherry waiting for him when he woke; followed by a breakfast of fruit, orange juice, a pot of tea, “something hot” and “something cold” when he was ready. It’s rather telling that he had little concern for the food (provided the quantity was sufficient) but had very clear opinions on what drinks should be served. His drinking followed a fairly regular schedule, with specific drinks at particular intervals throughout the day:
7:30am - the aforementioned glass of sherry when he woke. Around 10–11am - whisky (Johnny Walker preferred) and soda, mixed very weak to begin (only about a thimbleful of whisky in the bottom of the tumbler) but topped up over the course of the morning (and likely getting progressively stronger) until shortly before lunch. 1pm - Churchill would drink a pint of champagne (Pol Roger by preference) with his lunch (usually 3–4 courses) or claret, if champagne wasn’t available. He would often finish his meal with a digestif of brandy (90-year old cognac was his preference). 3:30pm - 5pm - more whisky and soda, to the same method as above, in advance of his daily siesta. 6:30pm - he would awaken to more whisky and soda while he got ready for dinner. 8pm - dinner (nearly always with company) usually meant an aperitif of sherry, with wines paired to each course, or champagne as a default fallback, followed by a digestif of brandy or port. 10pm - after dinner, he would usually enjoy drinks with his dinner guests - typically the same port or brandy enjoyed at the and of the meal. 2am - one last glass of cognac as a nightcap before bed. Looking at the above list then, in a typical day, Churchill might consume:
2 glasses of sherry = 1.8 units 4–5 shots of whisky = 4 units 2 pints of champagne or equivalent wine = 13.5 units 3 glasses of brandy = 4 units 2 glasses of port = 1.8 units Total = 25.1 units That’s almost DOUBLE the recommended maximum WEEKLY intake according to the NHS (14 units). With a daily intake that high sustained for such a long period, he was almost certainly an alcoholic.
But the question wasn’t about what he drank (which is something the questioner presumably already knew) but how he continued to function in spite of such a high intake. There are a few reasons for this, and the timetable above is relevant to it - but first we need to discuss the nature of alcoholism.
Alcoholism is a physical addiction to alcohol - this is different to many other commonly cited addictions that are psychological in nature, e.g. gambling or sugar. Alcoholism results in significant, measurable changes to the body’s biochemistry, an alcoholic’s body literally becomes dependent on a regular alcohol intake to function. Withdrawal symptoms can be extremely serious, including depression, anxiety, irritability, tremors, sweating, nausea, poor coordination, hallucinations and even seizures. Meanwhile, as with most physical addictions, the body’s ability to filter out and process the drug improves over time, meaning that increasingly higher doses are needed to obtain the same positive effects from ingestion - this is what leads most alcoholics to continue drinking more and more until they either stop drinking, get hospitalised or die.
Churchill’s solution seems to have been quite basic - it is the same kind of approach taken by smokers who are attempting to quit. You see, the biggest problem with any kind of drug dependency is that the withdrawal symptoms are generally so severe they can incapacitate you, and leave you unable to function normally. However, for most long-term addicts, the dose required to feel the drugs effects is also high enough to severely incapacitate due to the negative physiological side-effects of the drug. When people are trying to quit, then, they need to be slowly weaned off the drug, with enough of the drug in their system to prevent the side-effects from being too bad, but without reaching a sufficiently high level to feel the high either. This is the basic idea behind nicotine patches, which help smokers to quit by releasing a steady, low-level supply of nicotine into the bloodstream. This isn’t supposed to be sufficient to deliver the “hit” that smoking a cigarette would, but instead keep just enough nicotine in the bloodstream to stave off the withdrawal symptoms. The idea is that the addict starts off with a higher level of the drug and slowly reduces it over time, allowing their body to slowly adjust to lower levels of the drug being present in their system.
Looking back to Churchill’s routine then, we can see that he mostly spaced out his drinking evenly throughout the day, with higher levels accompanying meals and before bed. This is pretty much the kind of thing you would see from a smoker using the “patch and inhaler” method for quitting. The whisky and soda is the patch - providing a constant low background level of alcohol to keep him from experiencing withdrawal symptoms, and higher levels with meals to counter the effect of food, which can delay the introduction of alcohol into the bloodstream by absorbing it in the stomach. This constant supply over the course of the day would have continuously supplied his body with alcohol at least as quickly as his liver was able to process it, thus keeping any withdrawal symptoms at bay. The only time he’d have been likely to feel the effects of alcohol withdrawal would have been immediately after waking, as his body would likely have been able to purge most of the alcohol out of bloodstream overnight. This explains his insistence on taking a sherry first thing in the morning before breakfast (i.e. on an empty stomach) to get a quick burst of alcohol and stave off any negative withdrawal symptoms.
This explains the lack of withdrawal symptoms, but what about the opposite problem - why wasn’t he drunk all of the time? Surely most people with that level of alcohol intake would be completely soused?
Actually, the only reason we might regard his intake as being particularly high is because we generally lack any frame of reference. Nowadays we’re used to the idea of consuming alcohol in single sittings, but this is a fairly modern concept. Historically, the idea of going out on a Friday or Saturday night and drinking half your bodyweight in alcoholic drinks would have seemed simply barbaric and uncivilised. Alcohol was popularised in Europe as it was generally safer to drink than most water supplies, and it was cheap and easy to produce pretty much anywhere in the continent. It was often much less concentrated than it is nowadays, and was served with almost every meal, as well as being consumed between meals too. It wasn’t until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the importance of sanitation became fully understood, and reliable clean water supplies became widespread, that the traditional approach to alcohol consumption began to decline, and it began to be seen more as something pleasant to be enjoyed in its own right, akin to smoking, rather than a normal part of daily life. Churchill’s life straddled the boundary between these times - for him, alcohol would have been present in his life from an early age, but already by then it was no longer the necessity it once was. He would certainly have been no stranger to the idea that controlled drinking throughout the day was less likely to result in drunkenness, which would have been seen as irresponsible and foolish behaviour, if not quite as socially stigmatised as it has become nowadays. Indeed Churchill was once famously accused by Bessie Braddock of being drunk in the House of Commons, inviting his infamous reply “Bessie, you are ugly. But tomorrow I will be sober, and you will still be ugly.”
So Churchill’s drinking wasn’t always sufficient to keep him sober, but equally, it was rarely copious enough for him to be thoroughly drunk. Between the increased tolerance he no doubt had due to his high consumption, and the fact that he spread his drinking out so evenly throughout the day, it’s unlikely that he was routinely drinking enough to be impaired. In fact, in a rather amusing account, a Telegraph columnist by the name of Harry Wallop once tried to emulate his drinking[1], but surrendered by 9:30pm, concluding that “I wasn’t roaringly drunk at all, but I was feeling queasy.” So it is quite probable that after a lifetime of maintaining this routine, Churchill actually felt considerably more able to function with his daily intake than he did while sober. Certainly there are accounts that he gave up drinking at various times in his life - mainly to prove to himself and others that he could - although accounts vary as to how successful he was at this.
So yes - he was likely a high-functioning alcoholic, meaning that by all outward appearances, he functioned better with alcohol than he would have without it: although I doubt the same could be said for his liver.
EDIT (12/02/18): having read some of the other answers and comments, I think there’s also an important distinction to be made here between a “drunkard” and an “alcoholic”. A drunkard is a person who drinks too much, either as a one-off, or out of habit, generally to the point of inebriation (“drunkenness”). An alcoholic is a person who has a physical addiction to alcohol. Many drunkards are alcoholics - but not all of them. Similarly, many alcoholics are drunkards - but not all. In fact, I would be very surprised if there was more than a 50% overlap between these two groups. Someone who drinks solely to get drunk is certainly a drunkard, but if they only do it once a month and have no addiction to alcohol (i.e. don’t experience symptoms of withdrawal throughout the remainder of each month) then they are clearly not an alcoholic.
A high-functioning alcoholic, almost by definition, will generally have coping mechanisms in place that avoid drunkenness as much as possible, due to its negative social connotations. The stereotypical image of the red-nosed sot with a mostly empty bottle in hand just doesn’t apply to these people -it isn’t who they are, and it undermines our understanding of what’s really going on with them. Churchill was almost certainly not a habitual drunkard - like many he enjoyed being tipsy in good company now and then, but for the most part he controlled his drinking in a way that ensured it wasn’t noticeable to those who didn’t see him with a glass in his hand. There was almost certainly a degree of myth-building around him too - he knew that a rumour that he could drink like a fish wouldn’t harm his reputation provided he took care not to appear drunk in public (saving the Commons apparently, although PMQ’s does tend to have an air of last orders on a Saturday night about it). However, even a “light” day usually saw him consuming more than the current NHS recommended weekly maximums, meaning he was almost certainly an alcoholic - it’s simply incredible to think that couldn’t have developed a dependency with so high an intake.
High-functioning alcoholics aren’t actually that uncommon, as the body can adapt to the higher background levels of blood alcohol easily enough, provided the person in question doesn’t go straight from being teetotal to consuming their recommended weekly maximum every single day. The problem is the unseen damage that slowly builds up. Just because someone isn’t drinking enough to make them drunk, doesn’t mean that they are fine either. Leaving aside cancer and pulmonary risk factors which steadily increase over time, cirrhosis of the liver can take decades to reach the point where it begins having an adverse effect on the rest of the body, largely due to the liver’s amazing degree of redundancy and resilience compared to most of our organs (although considering one of its main purposes is to clean random toxins out of our blood as quickly as possible, this is probably an essential evolution). This is a double-edged sword though, as it means that by the time problems begin to emerge, the organ can be on the verge of complete failure. As a result, high-functioning alcoholics can be at greater risk, as the very coping strategies that help them to hide the severity of their problem from others can make it harder to reach them in order to provide the targeted help they desperately need.

Regards,

John Kettler

I saw Lieut. Grant. He has altered very much: he is a short thick man with a beard reaching halfway down his waist and I fear he drinks too much but don't you say a word on that subject.
-John Lowe, Grant's West Point classmate during the Mexico campaign.

The genetic component of alcoholism these days is now considered settled science. Ulysses S. Grant's father was a teetotaler but his grandfather, Noah, was not. His drinking caused him to squander a comfortable estate and leave the youngest children to be adopted by neighbors. Grant's son was arrested by George Custer for chronic drunkenness during the Black Hills expedition in 1874. 

It was during Grant's outstanding service in the Mexican War, a conflict punctuated by many long periods of inactivity and boredom, that Grant realized that he might have "a problem". After his marriage to Julia, in 1848, he was assigned as an officer at a post near Ontario. At that cold and isolated outpost he resorted to booze, but always self-aware he decided to quit altogether in 1851. He wrote Julia: "I have become convinced that there is no safety from ruin by liquor except by abstaining from it altogether." 

Grant joined the Sons of Temperance, a precursor of Alcoholic Anonymous. It didn't last; his next military assignment to the Pacific Coast would break his solemn vow. His roommate: "I would hear him once or twice, sometimes more, open the door quietly and walk softly over the floor, so as not to disturb him; then I would hear the clink of the glass and a gurgle." Grant was forced to resign. 

After his separation from the army, Grant returned to Missouri with Julia and their four children; they led a hardscrabble life. He sold firewood door-to-door and he was often compelled to borrow money from her slave-owning father, a humiliation, and he began again to resort to the bottle. But Grant's father came to his rescue; he proposed that he join his brothers' leather shop in Illinois. There he was able to pay off his debts to Julia's father and during that time it appears he was sober. Nevertheless, Grant felt unfulfilled and following Fort Sumter, he jumped at the chance to become a colonel in the 21st Illinois Volunteers. The rest is history.



Many historians assert that Grant’s penchant for binge drinking was kept in check by his teetotaler adjutant, Colonel John Rawlins, but rumors that he was intoxicated during and after battles swirled around him for most of the war. These rumors may be exaggerated, however, Grant did suffer occasional relapses although he would go cold turkey during very long periods. But a reporter from the Herald Tribune was stunned to find the General in a state of intoxication during the bloody battle of Shiloh in 1862. Also, there's strong evidence that during the siege of Vicksburg- a tedious, long drawn out affair- he occasionally fell off the wagon. (1) 

Grant was never a mean or obnoxious drunk but, in the words of the historian, Ron Chernow, liquor reduced him to a “babbling, childlike state", something that unnerved his lieutenants during his rare lapses while prosecuting the war. They also observed that after one glass of liquor, Grant's speech would become slurred and two or three would make him stupid. Their strong reservations about the General reached the unperturbed Lincoln who remarked  “Tell them you’re going to find out what brand he drinks, and then send a case to all your other generals." (2)  

SUMMARY

The preponderance of evidence tells us that Grant was an alcoholic, albeit a functioning one. In the 19th century, most people drank far more than today; Americans over the age of 15 consumed on average seven gallons of alcohol — generally whiskey or hard cider — each year. (3) However, at headquarters, officers were expected to hold their liquor. Grant couldn't and he knew it, when the craving came upon him he would imbibe alone,

Today we understand that alcoholism is a disease. One of the most frustrating factors in dealing with alcoholism is it is almost always accompanied by a phenomenon known as denial—a refusal to admit the truth or reality of the condition. Grant was an exception to that rule, he was fully aware of his devil within thus his successful career may be attributed to pure will.
 
1- But Grant had a critical asset, his wife, Julia, who with his oldest son were often present at headquarters. With her, he stayed sober.
2- Another version: “for if it made fighting generals like Grant, I should like to get some of it for distribution.”
3- (lost link)

They never expected a lengthy war.  Parallels with the Nazis...  Doomed if in a long term war due to economic realities and superior production and manpower of their enemies.  And also Lincoln was very worried that he could easily lose the 1864 election and an appeaser would get in and settle with the Confeds.
"The Democrats were divided between the Copperheads, who favored immediate peace with the Confederacy, and War Democrats, who supported the war. The 1864 Democratic National Convention nominated McClellan, a War Democrat, but adopted a platform advocating peace with the Confederacy..."

It's a movie made by guys with pretensions of fidelity but is really fairly by-the-numbers American Action-Melodrama. The action sequences in it are certainly problematic-but I think the biggest problem is that they're not very exciting and are badly planned. Why are the Germans in X treeline? What's the reason for approaching them head on? When I watched interviews with the Director and Producer years ago they both seemed to have a very foggy idea about the kind of film they wanted to make. In the end the whole film really just feels like recordings of re-enactors fighting mock battles you could see at...well...your local re-enactment group. 
By comparison Saving Private Ryan and Thin Red Line are both way better movies in just about every sense-with Directors who understood that their first objective was a compelling drama merely backgrounded by-the Second World War. That's where Fury just totally fumbles to me. It's a movie that's trying to be about World War 2...a subject far too dense to confront with a 135 minute film by itself. This confusion of setting for story and story for setting is the underline to me. 

Last month, February 6, was the birthday of Eva Braun; it passed unnoticed. The Braun family might have celebrated but their members are extinct; Eva's father died in 1964 and the final member, Gretl, died in 1987. She had named her daughter Eva, in honor of her sister, who was born on the very day of the Nazi capitulation. That Eva committed suicide in 1975 after her boyfriend was killed in a car accident. The star-crossed family leaves one with a sense of futility, all that drama and turbulence gone like a brief summer breeze.



Eva Braun was born in 1912 into a lower-middle-class Bavarian family and she was educated in Catholic schools. Her grades were mediocre but she excelled in sports; swimming and skiing. In 1929 she was employed as a saleswoman and model in the shop of Heinrich Hoffman, Hitler’s photographer, and in this way met the rising politician. Eva was not initially impressed, she confided to a sister calling him "a gentleman of a certain age [Hitler was 23 years older]  with a funny mustache and carrying a big felt hat.” But Hitler, a constant visitor to the shop, was persistent, showering her effusive compliments. She surrendered. After the controversial death of Geli Raubal, Hitler’s niece, Eva became his mistress, living in his Munich flat and trying acting despite the fierce opposition of her father. In 1936, Hitler decided to move her to the Berghof on the Obersalzberg, concerned about her stability; the year before, suspecting female rivals, she had made a second suicide attempt. There she remained until the Bunker and Götterdämmerung.

Goodness is as banal as evil and may exist in the most unlikely people: even Hitler's mistress.
-Angela Lambert

At the Berghof Eva acted as a hostess; she was gracious with the constant guests and kind to the help. Although an ardent proponent of German victory, she never joined the Nazi party and no one heard her utter an anti-Semitic word. (1) She shared with Hitler a love of dogs. Eva was a prolific photographer; her folksy home movies at the Berghof have left us rich historical documents. 

But, the frivolity... Eva spent most of her time exercising, brooding, reading cheap novelettes, watching romantic films, or concerning herself with her own appearance, particularly her weight. She was addicted to fashion and changed her clothes several times a day. Needy, she obsessed over Hitler's attentions or lack thereof; Dr Morell claimed that she asked her to give Hitler drugs to boost his sexual appetite. In her diary, Eva boasted "I am the mistress of the greatest man in Germany and in the world." However, she resented that they rarely appeared in public together and that few Germans even knew of her existence. 

 According to Albert Speer's memoirs, Eva approached Hitler in "high indignation"; Hitler quietly instructed Speer, who was armaments minister at the time, to allow limited availability of women's cosmetics and luxuries rather than instituting an outright ban, Speer later said, "Eva Braun will prove a great disappointment to historians."

Eva had her other moments of defiance. She was the only person who would dare to declare, “I’m going to bed!” during one of Hitler’s endless nighttime monologues. And she made it clear that she was repelled by his vegetarian diet. "I can't eat that stuff". 

Was Eva a victim of Hitler's manipulative, Svengali-like wiles? It seems she was carefully selected and groomed by him as a symbol of unthreatening and devoted (and blond) German womanhood. The extent of their sexual life is veiled in mystery. There is no doubt that she would have had led an entirely different, and probably happier, life if the meeting in the photography shop had never happened.

As the Reich began to crumble in late 1944, she invited her cousin Gertraud Weisker to visit her at the Berghof. Decades later, Weisker recalled that although women in the Third Reich were expected not to wear make-up, drink, or smoke, Braun did all of these things. "She was the unhappiest woman I have ever met," 

Eva Braun's diary:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/eva-braun-s-diary

1- There is some controversy over Braun's awareness of the Holocaust

I wrote my law dissertation on this case!
There's lots of subtext that gets missing from most reports, but long story short they probably lied and it's unconvincing that the dead kid actually grew weaker much faster than the others.  Custom of the sea was you were supposed to draw lots, they didn't, that's why they went on trial.
The trial judge was a bit of a crusader who basically forced the jury into a factual verdict, then stacked the appeal court so that the answer to the facts was 'this is murder'.  
 

The three English sailors were not alone in resorting to cannibalism by necessity. The Donner Party indulged as well.

As their supplies dwindled, the Donner emigrants stranded at Truckee Lake resorted to eating increasingly grotesque meals. They slaughtered their pack animals, cooked their dogs, gnawed on leftover bones and even boiled the animal hide roofs of their cabins into a foul paste. Several people died from malnutrition, but the rest managed to subsist on morsels of boiled leather and tree bark until rescue parties arrived in February and March 1847. Not all of the settlers were strong enough to escape, however, and those left behind were forced to cannibalize the frozen corpses of their comrades while waiting for further help. All told, roughly half of the Donner Party’s survivors eventually resorted to eating human flesh.
-History.com

And more recently, in 1972, the plane crash of the Uruguayan rugby team. A survivor: '‘I will never forget that first incision’.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news ... gbooktalk/

However, in both cases, they reserved their victims for the already dead unlike the crew of the Mignonette.

Subject pops from time to time through recent history, when ingrained cultural norms are put to one side in exceptional and desperate survival situations.
I remember reading as a young teen Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors -about the rugby team who chomped their travel mates 
Later on Julian Barnes A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters exploring the story behind Theodore Geriault's Raft of the Medusa 
French Royal Navy frigate the Medusa, which ran aground off the coast of Senegal. Because of a shortage of lifeboats, some 150 survivors embarked on a raft and were decimated by starvation during a 13-day ordeal, which descended into murder and cannibalism. Only a handful remained when they were rescued at sea.
And recently Franklin's lost expedition to find the NW passage which also likely resorted to cannibalism.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/franklins-doomed-arctic-expedition-ended-gruesome-cannibalism-180956054/
 

Napoleon was an incredible military leader, sure. However, you can't expect any one person to be a genius at everything. He is a classical tale of an overly ambitious micromanager, who too often overlooked delegation. It is obvious hindsight that his strategy did not work, but why?
Battle of the Nile was a decisive defeat against the French Army, not just the French Navy. He was forced to capitulate all his Middle East gains, and was confined to the continent. His counter-blockade of British shipping to Europe set him on a collision course with Portugal, Spain and Russia. Napoleon was neither an admiral, nor a diplomat. He would often rage and threaten heads-of-state, if they had any mixed feeling of his occupation of the continent. 
Napoleon's tactical judgement was also obscured by his ambition, at times. Barclay de Tolly's forces were numerically inferior at the start of the invasion of Russia (more so than in 1941). Through mobile small unit tactics, he managed to even the score before the Battle of Baradino. Barclay de Tolly had powerful delegates, like Bagration -- who took the initiative and began organizing partisan opposition. Set piece battles were Napoleon's forte, and he was too self-absorbed to consider more flexible tactics.
Comparisons to Hitler are inescapable, but there are key differences. Napoleon was a military officer, not an ideologist. If Hitler showed up at the gates of Berlin, like Napoleon did in Paris, after his exile -- would all the fighting men accept his return to Fuhrer? Hitler delegated well in early war. His diplomacy landed him easy victories and his Admirals plagued the seas for some time.

I have similar thoughts to SimpleSimon on this.  I read this excellent book by Andrew Roberts on Napoleon (link below).  In the very first pages he contends that it is grossly unfair to equate Napoleon w Hitler, and his book makes this case very well IMO.  Napoleon was not out to exterminate or enslave people.  Hitler's plans would require the extermination, banishment, or enslavement of dozens (hundreds?) of millions of people.  Nap's not some bleeding heart nor is he a bloodthirsty lunatic; nor is he all that much worse than many (most?) of the monarchs ruling Europe at the time.
But he was really, really good at war most of the time.
https://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Andrew-Roberts-audiobook/dp/B00OSF1O44/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=napoleon&qid=1593731336&sr=8-4

Fascinating article.
I am struck by how time changes people's perspectives on who is a hero or villain, who can be admired and glorified and who vilified.
Eg:  From the above: 
"He left a lasting imprint upon his contemporaries who speak of his iron will, power of concentration, and near inhuman work ethic not to mention a charismatic charm that we still fell today. ***********'s soldiers adored him; at times it seemed they... were eager to die for him. "
"In his early years, ************ was an innovator; his tactical maneuvering was dazzling. These innovations were refined and reached their height during the battles of ********, ******** and ******** in the period of **********. 

The army corps system, with its flexibility and limitless variation, gave ********** an early advantage over his opponents. His motto: speed and more speed. His indirect approach... descended at the critical moment to decide the battle. He used it- among other grand tactical maneuvers- dozens of times with great success. One hitch: as the years passed his enemies successfully copied these tactics.

Given ************’s domination in the period up to (arguably) ********** why do we see an erosion in his powers leading to his final downfall in *********, X years later? Some historians attribute the decline to several factors: the increased efficiency of his opponents; the decreasing quality of his own troops; and the limitations of his subordinates. Or simply hubris on the part of ***********.  Certainly, after ********* there were still many victories for ************ to win, but it was after this period that his judgment gradually declines. In the field of grand strategy, he became prone to make incredibly gross blunders. The most egregious of them, the campaigns in... Russia, sealed his fate."
Question:  Who is being discussed?  Napoleon or Hitler?

Probably the most effective answer to both controlling the spread of the virus and keeping the global economy at a reasonable idle is the answer leaders are under increasing pressure to divert from, which is the current course of action. Discourse is quickly turning into a false dilemma on either releasing restrictions entirely or clamping down more. Probably the course we're on is the most appropriate one at this time but you wouldn't know it from the slippery slopes being dropped by both sides demanding the most extreme measures of either end probably neither of which are appropriate. 
Release restrictions and the infections will shoot up again, clamp down more and you risk shutting down critical infrastructure and supply flows that many people may well be barely subsisting on as is. We shouldn't forget either that rigidly enforced stay-at-home orders and draconian travel restrictions enter into some very dangerous political territory posing lots of questions that will need good answers one day, if not tomorrow, then someday. 
Other than that, my own opinion is that unless the European Union takes some seriously unilateral action it will be the most prominent casualty of the crisis on its current course. I don't want to sound too narrow about that from my own American perspective, but Brussels did not set a very strong precedent during the Eurozone Crisis in 2010 and a lot of that rolled out in the long run to things like Brexit. Nothing will happen right away I think, but without some kind of entirely self-owned action I can see the European Union reduced to effectively League-of-Nations status by 2030 if it's still around at all. 

Much has been made of the tech difference, but I think the important thing was that the pox crushed Aztec society, and that they had made lots of enemies, whom the Spanish skillfully rallied to their cause.

We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure. - Cortes
Hernán Cortés was born in Medellin in 1485, the son of a minor noble. At the age of 19 he left Spain, abandoning a promising legal career, to seek his fortune in the newly-discovered Western Hemisphere.  He arrived in Hispaniola, a recent Spanish acquisition, in 1504 and spent several years as a gentleman farmer and a local Don Juan. Following the conquest of Cuba, he married the sister of the governor of Cuba, Diego Velasquez, who appointed him mayor of Santiago.

Cortés as a young man
Expeditions to the Yucatán had returned to Cuba with small amounts of gold, and tales of a more distant land where that metal was said to be abundant. Cortés eagerly sold or mortgaged all his lands to buy ships and supplies and arranged with Velázquez to lead an expedition, officially to explore and trade with the new lands to the west.
Cortés was forbidden to colonize, but calling on his legal studies and his formidable powers of persuasion, he tricked Velázquez into inserting a clause about emergency measures, ‘in the true interests of the realm’. At the last minute Velasquez, increasingly troubled by his son-in-law’s over-weaning ambition, changed his mind.
He attempted to reverse his order but it was too late to stop the highly motivated Cortés who arrived on Good Friday, 1519, at the present Mexican city of Veracruz. He brought 11 ships, 13 primitive hand guns. 10 cannon, 16 horses, 32 crossbows and 550 men. Cortés soon met a native woman he named Dona Marina, her knowledge of the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs- and later Spanish- proved a crucial asset. She became his concubine and gave birth to a son, Martin, perhaps the first Mestizo.
 Demographers estimate that the country's population at the time was approximately 20 million. Some of his troops were disheartened by the odds so, before marching inland so Cortés ordered the burning of the fleet (1). They would perish or triumph.

Tenochtitlán
The Aztecs presided over a wealthy tribute-empire, their capital, Tenochtitlan an island city accessed by causeways, was ideal for defense. While human sacrifice was common throughout Mesoamerica the Aztecs brought this practice to an unprecedented level. In 1487, on the re-consecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan, they reported that they had sacrificed 80,000 prisoners over the course of four days. Strictly organized and advanced given the time and place, the Aztec confederation seemed at first glance far from being a pushover; it was able field of an estimated half million fanatical warriors. The Spaniards faced odds of 100 to 1.
Soon after arrival, Cortés learned that the Aztecs had a great capital that lay inland and that they were hated by much of the non-Aztec population, many of whom had been captured and slain in the Aztecs’ hideous rituals. Advancing into Mexico the Spaniards met stiff resistance from other tribes but Cortés succeeded into turning them into allies.

An artist’s conception of Moctezuma 
The Aztec ruler, Moctezuma , planned a surprise attack on the Spaniards but Cortés struck first, massacring thousands of them at Cholula and he entered Tenochtitlán in 1521 without opposition. He was diplomatically received by the Emperor, uncertain of the Spaniards’ motives, determined to learn the intruders’ vulnerabilities and crush them later.
Cortés and his men were lavished with gold and quartered in sumptuous apartments. But Cortés remained uneasy—the Spaniards were vastly outnumbered so he decided to imprison Moctezuma and make him a puppet. It seemed that the conquest was complete. (2)
But another Spanish force, under Panfilo de Narvaez, arrived on the coast with orders to arrest Cortés. The conquistador left a garrison in the Capital and raced the greater part of his men to the coast where he defeated Narvaez. Always the consummate salesman, he persuaded the survivors to join him dazzling them with rich prospects.
By the time Cortés returned to Tenochtitlán Pedro de Alvarado, his lieutenant  left in charge, had antagonized the Aztecs beyond endurance and, suffering heavy casualties, Cortés and the remnant of his army were forced to retreat in the rain-soaked Noche Triste. (3) While Cortés and his troops were planning their hasty retreat a lieutenant failed to fully inform Spaniards located in another part of the city. The group of around 270 men were sealed in their positions, starved, and eventually sacrificed to the Aztec gods. The Spanish managed to get some of the treasure out of the city, but most of the loot- estimated at eight tons of gold and silver- was lost and never recovered.
Cortés returned with additional troops and laid siege to Tenochtitlán; the fighting was fierce with no quarter given. At one point, he and his men watched from a distance as captured Spanish soldiers were forced to perform a ghostly dance in the torch-lit Aztec palace before being tortured, dismembered and eaten. After hideous carnage Cortés ordered the building of boats, bypassing the deadly causeways. The army re-entered the island capital after three months.
After that, Spanish control of Mexico was reasonably secure. Tenochtitlán was rebuilt in the Spanish style and renamed Mexico City, becoming the capital of New Spain. Never in the annals of warfare had so few conquered so many. Cortés’ startling achievement remains, in terms of American film, the Greatest Story Never Told. (3)
MILITARY ASPECTS
Spanish soldiers had recently expelled the Muslims from Granada after centuries of bitter struggle; they were hardened and battled-tested; in the 16th century their Tercios were the most feared formation in Europe. Spanish armor and swords, made in Toledo, were among the finest in the world. Man for man, they were likely the toughest hombres of the era.

Living in perpetual state of warfare, Aztec males were forced to provide mandatory military service. They were trained from childhood in the expert use of clubs, bows, spears, and darts- but they needed a lucky shot to bring down a (partially) armored Spaniard. The elite troops, the Jaguars, wore padded cotton for protection useless when facing Toledo steel. The Aztecs fielded a variety of colorful formations; the Spanish were stunned by the sheer pageantry.
Rather than killing the Aztecs focused on the entrapment of their enemies. Once seized these were delivered up to their warrior-priests for ritual sacrifice, their beating hearts ripped out while still conscious. The Spaniard who discarded his armor in the tropical heat risked a horrific end, and many did.
Did the Spanish firearms give them an overwhelming tactical advantage? Not really. The primitive guns of the time had a limited range and took a long time to reload, they made a terrifying noise but were often less effective than good bows and arrows. The Indians had never encountered horses but these were few and vulnerable on narrow mountain passes. The Spanish cannons did prove useful notably during the siege of Tenochtitlán but the vast majority of the Aztecs were killed, mano a mano, by pike and sword.
Leadership, experience and determination, rather than weaponry, were the main factors in victory. Cortés enjoyed good luck but, as the saying goes, fortune favors the brave.
Perhaps the Spaniards’ most potent, if inadvertent, weapon was smallpox that began spreading out to the indigenous population. Spanish explorers probably carrying the virus had arrived decades earlier; the Indians possessed no immunity. By the time the Spanish began their final assault on Tenochtitlán, bodies bearing the tell-tale rash lay scattered over the city. The relative absence of Spanish plague victims reinforced the conquerors’ conviction that Heaven was watching over them.
According to Aztec lore a god had, in the distant past, instructed them in agriculture, metallurgy and agriculture; he had been tall, with white skin, and a flowing beard. To Moctezuma, it seemed Cortés was the returning god, and this belief seems to have influenced his behavior. Certainly his initial reactions to the invasion were indecisive.
THE CHARACTER OF CORTÉS

Cortés in later life
That Cortés was greedy and ambitious is beyond doubt but he proved a superb diplomat when dealing with the Indians (at first) and recalcitrant troops. He was also a product of the era. He and his soldiers believed they were fighting under the banner of the Cross, more than once, Cortés imperiled the success of the expedition by heavy-handed attempts to convert the Indians.
Cortés was a womanizer on a grand scale and his secret weapon was a teenage Indian girl he acquired before marching on Tenochtitlán. Invaluable as a translator she became one his (many) mistresses. ‘La Malinche’ alerted Cortés when treachery was afoot, saving the Spanish bacon on more than one occasion from Aztec plots. 

Malinche and Cortés . A modern mural by Jose Clemente Orozco
In 1522, after finally conquering the Aztec Empire, Cortés received an unexpected visitor: his wife, Catalina, whom he had left behind in Cuba. Catalina could not have been pleased to see her husband shacking up with a dusky mistress. On November 1 Cortés hosted a party at his home and Catalina angered him by making disparaging comments about the Indians. (4) She died that very night, and Cortés put out the story that she had a bad heart but servants discovered bruises on her neck.
Detractors described Cortés as haughty, under-handed and quarrelsome but he had admirable qualities as well; he was courageous, intelligent and shrewdly observant; in contrast to his illiterate successor, Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of the Incas, he wasn’t wantonly cruel. Cortés inspired loyalty, he understood men, and his leadership was never questioned. At the end Pizarro’s disgruntled officers assaulted him; dying in the dirt he traced a cross and uttered ‘Jesus’ before expiring.
In his will, Cortés pondered the justice of owning Indian slaves requesting his son to consider the matter carefully, an attitude utterly alien to Pizarro or Columbus. He died an embittered but wealthy man in 1547 having spent his last seven years in Spain vainly trying to restore his authority in the New World.
FOOTNOTES
1-   Some historians maintain that Cortés scuttled the ships, permitting water to fill the hulls. Same result.
2-   The fate of Moctezuma  is unclear; he was either killed during a skirmish or stoned to death while pacifying the city’s population during the Spanish occupation.
3-   But….
Amazon Studios has green-lighted ‘Cortés ’, a four-hour miniseries based on the epic saga of Hernán Cortés starring Oscar winner Javier Bardem (<i>No Country for Old Men</i>) in the title role. The series, from three-time Oscar winner Steven Spielberg and Amblin Television, is created for television and written by Spielberg’s Oscar-winning <i>Schindler’s List</i> writer Steven Zaillian based on a 50-year old script by Dalton Trumbo 
-Deadline Hollywood, April 18, 2018
 

The context was that many Germans felt justified in starting wars because they were treated unfairly (true, they were).  But they really had no morale high ground, no right to play the victim, because that they showed worse behavior to a fallen Russia the previous year. 

Though normal expectation would be for the bottle to shatter on impact, in this instant of klutziness, it didn't, and the outcome was a fine physics demonstration on many fronts.


Regards,
John Kettler

Yes, Hitler had a passion and technical skills for drawing buildings. But you can't really get into art school if that's basically all you want to draw, there's more to it than that. Art is something that is used to transmit emotions or otherwise some kind of meaning, and Hitler's disinterest in that pretty much sealed his fate.

Childress,
What an informative post! I agree with DerKommissar that Hitler's art was certainly good enough to rate admission to the art school. Indeed, what I've seen of his art is much better, in my view, than lots of stuff I've seen in museums that allegedly is art. Am certainly in the multitude wishing he'd gotten to go to art school and that Stalin had become a Pushkin or similar. Did Mao have stymied artistic aspirations, too?

Returning to Stalin, the more I watch Russian movies about the GPW and read about him and his generals, the more impressed I am about Stalin's real mastery (as opposed to Hitler's pseudo-mastery) of running a gigantic war effort in an almost intimate way. What I've seen of his message traffic is fascinating.  He was a super man in terms of hard work, routinely keeping extraordinary hours so grueling I can recall reading he killed three generals from overwork. Believe his handling of the war, admittedly imperfect at times, was still astonishing for someone who, to my knowledge, had never  been a soldier or a street fighter. From what I recall, Stalin was first a criminal (a thief, I believe), an agent for the Tsar's secret police (maybe a double serving it and the opposition to the Tsar), then got entrenched in the upper echelons of the Bolshevik party. This is probably incomplete, but my main point is someone with no paramilitary or military experience was running a war, war production, logistics, etc. on a scale far greater than was Hitler, and overall doing it well, not to mention accomplishing a whole series of geo-strategic successes too.
Regards,
 
John Kettler