News / American soldier saved Polish officer's life [13]


Abbreviation of Commonwealth.


You're right, though I wasn't particularly referring to him when saying this. In any event, I'm not familiar with the condition(s) precedent for having the medal conferred, but I'm sure what SSGT Ollis did would tick one of the boxes.

News / American soldier saved Polish officer's life [13]

It can, it has and (whilst I don't speak for Poland) should. I think too Poland should give consideration to some of the Cth pilots who flew and died during the Warsaw airlift, as well as perhaps John Ward.

There should in my view be no distinction between a Pole fighting for Poland and a foreigner doing the same - it is the action, not the individual, that attracts the meaning and conferral of this award.

History / Is Jozef Pilsudski the king of modern Poles? [138]


I agree. Had Pilsudski still been head of state of Poland before and during WW2, I think the sheer force of his personality and his prestige could have caused different paths to have been taken in the crucial stages of WW2 that ultimately effected Poland.

No doubt Pilsudski's presence would have solidified the London Government and I'm fairly confident the liberties HMG took with the Poles would not have occurred. Whether for good or bad, Pilsudski, when ascertaining the depth and perfidy of HMG's betrayal, would have cancelled Polish support of the Allied war effort and focussed attention on Poland fighting for Poland's freedom, rather than someone else's, and with no prospect of support in kind.

Teheran would not have occurred because Pilsudski would not have let it occur. He would have demanded to be present or to have it made known what were the terms of the agreement in principle reached between the Powers there. If Poland was treated as an unpaid wh*re by the Allies, Pilsudski, at the very least, would have been the pimp beating down doors demanding payment and recognition for services rendered.

The Promethean principle promulgated by Pilsudski too could have gained better purchase just prior to the commencement of WW2. Whilst it engendered some revulsion, it was inherently sound and a common sense proposal for that region of Europe at that time, having regard to the fact that the region was bordered by two of the most bloodthirsty regimes in modern European history. Could the Cold War and Poland being left to the Soviets after WW2 have been averted as a consequence of the Promethean principle? Probably, but we'll never know.

Would Anders have been released from HMG's servitude had Pilsudski exerted pressure on Churchill? Again, most likely. Sikorski was a great man but I think he was too "nice". Pilsudski, I think, had a better grasp of realpolitik - this is what was needed for a leader of Poland through WW2.

A Pole fighting for someone else evinces praise as being the 'gallant Pole'. When the Pole passes the cap around searching for some help in kind, the comment is usually 'that quarrelsome Pole' trying to undo the established order. Europe has never understood Poland, and whilst Poland has understood in part how Europe works, it has rarely grasped the correct manner to deal with Europe. Pilsudski understood the dynamic well, and, more importantly, knew just how to play the game. He was mostly a man of honour and chivalry, but also understood that honour and chivalry won't stop a German or Russian bullet, nor would it compel Poland's 'Allies' to stick to their word.

Of course, the above is pure speculation, but the possibilities could have been far different.


With respect, incorrect. Pilsudski did not join the Whites because, amongst other things, he foreshadowed Denikin's absolute intolerance to Polish Independence, not to mention Denikin's position that Ukrainian independence would have been tolerated even less. Pilsudski in part saw the resurgent Whites as more of a threat than the Bolsheviks too.

He decided to let them fight it out amongst themselves whilst building on Poland's strength for the coming showdown with the victor. Both were anathema to Poland, and Pilsudski had no obligation to help.

Realpolitik as practiced by Pilsudski.

News / American soldier saved Polish officer's life [13]


Thanks for bringing this to our attention mate. I think nothing less than the Virtuti Militari is due and owing to this heroic soldier. May he Rest in Peace.


Have some respect. This thread is for the memory of this hero, not for snide comment about God.

History / A query on Polish sabres (which resembles the Karabela style) [4]

Thanks mate, I have googled, but what I really wanted to know was whether Polish sabres have some characteristic maker's mark if made in Poland or an import mark or similar if made elsewhere (ie the blade, which were usually Persian, Spanish or German). Unfortunately I didn't take a piccy as I didn't have my mobile on me as it was a "family outing", but I remember it fairly well. It seems a good price at about $660 odd.

If I can tear myself away from work and get out there again I'll take some but I wouldn't have a clue how to download the pic onto the forum.

History / What do Poles owe to Russians? [193]


Argumentum ad passiones.

I read your argument, I repeated it to you, and I countered with my argument, which obviously disagreed with yours. You offered nothing in further support of your argument, or in counter to mine, except to repeat the mantra that I'm apparently idealistic and shouldn't be listened to whereas you're a realist and ought to be. To me, that is senseless.

Now that I've cleared the air, would you like to tell us how the downfall of Poland (particularly the Partitions) could have occurred but for the avarice of Poland's neighbours?


If you wish to talk about 'realistic politics', then fine, but don't do so whilst peering through the lens of hindsight because anyone can be wise after the fact.

As you know, the thrust of Poland's Constitutional/Legal/Monarchical position, commencing in the Medieval period (but really bonding in the C16), was placed, and indeed postulated, against the background of Poland's immediate neighbours, and somewhat having regard to places such as England etc. These 'other' countries had, generally, two key areas of longstanding difficulty that Poland saw, and wished to avoid, namely lack of religious tolerance, and despotic/autocratic rule (I acknowledge there were others though).

Poland, in seeking to avoid the Despotism of Muscovy, the Divine Royalty of England and the Enlightened Imperialism of the HRE, fostered three key concepts that transposed themselves from ideals into reality by virtue of becoming enshrined in legislation - the right to vote for the king, the right to rebel against the king, and the principle of unanimity.

These concepts, let alone being legally enshrined rights and obligations, were a stupendous victory (having regard to what was happening elsewhere in Europe) for democratic rule over arbitrary and unilateral rule. They were not vices - they were virtues.

Turning to religion, you mention Skarga - he was somewhat sagacious in his counsel, but he also advocated for reining in religious tolerance, and for that, he falls down, because religious tolerance, at the time, was key to fostering a stable and peaceful society. He was not listened to because what he advocated smacked too much to the szlachta of turning to the realities of the unilateral and arbitrary rule that I mentioned above, and this was unacceptable having regard to what the szlachta saw happening in the said countries.

If you wish to advocate 'reality' over 'idealism', then rather than going half-way and saying the szlachta should have paid taxes and the 'elites' should have done something, then you would advocate that the Cth. should have afforded the king absolute power over raising taxes, absolute power over dictating foreign policy, absolute power over the Army, Star Chamber justice for those szlachta who resisted, and a foreign policy of invasion and occupation of the HRE, Muscovy, Sweden and so on. After all, if the reality was 'dog eat dog', the Cth. had several ample opportunities to crush any one or all of these nations, and for the purposes of staving off a potential threat, or simply for the purposes of aggrandisement.

Poland, and later the Cth., chose a different path. Whilst it had its obvious failings and aberrations, it was far better in terms of equity and justice than the models adopted by other European countries. That it was later scorned by its critics (Carlyle called it a marvellously luminous rot heap) is not a measure of its success or otherwise, but rather the propaganda of apologists of other nations who were at the time waging war in Europe over the preferred way to decorate a church, burning and torturing women for being different, and locking up and subjecting to summary execution dissidents who did not believe that one person should have the right to rule over others without being held to account.

Perhaps King Zygmunt said it best when he quipped "It is not a question of religion, but a question of liberty" and "permit me sir, to be the king of the goats as well as the sheep".

That some of the said countries took advantage of the Cth. in consuming it like an artichoke is not a matter that warrants blame being placed on the Cth., but is a matter that warrants attention in terms of discussing how dissimulation and propaganda can successfully be applied in fooling some into believing that Colonialism, Imperialism, Occupation and Partitioning is the fault of the nation being subject to same.



As to the above comments, the scorn of silent reproach is the only worthy and deserving response.

History / What do Poles owe to Russians? [193]


Absolutely fine with me mate.


No need for the snide parting shot Pawian. If you need a time out to gather your thoughts, that's cool, but just don't try to pretend that you're walking away as the person with the superior or more convincing argument.


Thanks for the vote of confidence mate.

Life / Etiquette in a Store and Market Queues in Poland [146]


Mate, it happens here in Australia all the time. I was at the servo yesterday buying fuel. I went to the counter to pay, then turned around and there was a bloke standing right behind me, not more than 30cms. There was no-one else in the queue! At that same servo a few days earlier I was actually trapped when I turned around to leave. A guy was right behind me and a lady was right behind to my left. All three of us had to engage in an idiotic side step manoeuvre for me to be able to leave the counter.

What really annoys me is when you go to type in your pin number for eftpos and some goose is standing just behind and to your side. If I sense this I'll turn around with a frustrated look and a really loud, frustrated sigh, then shake my head as I face the counter again. It also gets me when you're at the counter or checkout paying for your stuff and the dill behind you reaches around you to pick up some chewy or a lolly on display, when all they had to do was wait til they were next and pick it up from right in front of them.

History / What do Poles owe to Russians? [193]


Ok, let's hear how it is right then. The floor is yours Pawian...


I'm not pretending at all. You never said anything about avarice of neighbours, nor was your proposition that Poland failed to create a strong country by virtue of the actions of the elites - you said words to the effect that Poland shouldn't blame the Russians but blame themselves. This is incorrect.


Why profess mock indignation? It is true. But for the avarice of her neighbours, Poland would not have fallen. Feel free to argue how Poland's partitions would have happened otherwise - I'm all ears.


That may be, but your argument was that the smaller fish ought to blame itself for being consumed because it was smaller. This is a nonsense.


No, not naïve at all. Naivety in this context is to put forward an argument that the conqueror's 'justifications' for conquest shouldn't be debated or pointed out because this would in some way be unhelpful to the conquered. And please, don't try any straw man arguments on me Pawian.

Off-Topic / Modern parenting = bad parenting? [20]


I agree with you here. I'm guilty of taking this option sometimes, and letting the kids get away with things because it's simpler to just ignore it. That said, sometimes it is difficult to know which 'battle' to pick and which to let go - this is because I don't want to have the kids growing up and resenting me for trying to dominate and micro-manage every aspect of their behaviour. It's also difficult sometimes to draw the line between what constitutes boisterous behaviour and bad behaviour - I'd like to say I'm getting better at it!


Congratulations Amathyst. I hope your little boy grows up happy and healthy. First child?

History / What do Poles owe to Russians? [193]


Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Any proposition that "Poles" made their country "weak" and that such weakness caused Poland to be conquered is simply wrong. The inherent weakness that Poland is 'guilty' of is failing to reconcile and legislate what was to happen in the event of the Liberum Veto being applied (in limited circumstances), with such application hamstringing the passing of other legislation and/or being used by interests or powers contrary to the Cth's bests interests and/or sovereignty.

The cause of the Cth's downfall was the avarice of her neighbours. Absent the actions of her neighbours and Poland would not have fallen - indeed, at the time of the Partitions, she was remedying the inherent deficiencies in her society and legislature. What you're saying is like saying that the assault victim should blame themselves for being unable to fight off their attacker, and that their inability to fight off the attacker was the cause of their injuries.

Similar notions were used by the Colonial/Imperial powers when conquering other nations or peoples, with the dogma that such conquered people deserved it by virtue of various nebulous justifications such as their purported inability to govern themselves, racial inferiority and so on - these are not reasons or causes, but merely propaganda propounded by the victor so as to try to give some form of legitimacy for their actions.

News / Adolf Hitler is still a citizen of Szczecin [15]


Respectfully, it might be an idea to clearly set out in your post that the article you refer to in your post was written by you and that you own the online newspaper in which it was featured.

As to the issue, I suspect nothing short of the Polish Sejm enacting some form of retrospective legislation would compel the Prosecutor to act. I'm not sure why the Prosecutor is involved though - I would have thought that it would have been some form of civil issue, not requiring a citizen to chase the matter up.

Polonia / Is Holland antipolish? [29]


Positive. As I said, if the admiration the Dutch show towards the Poles who fought for their liberation is anything to go by, he'll be ok, provided as well that the OP makes sure he fits in etc. I'm sure your dad, like mine, did all these things and blended in perfectly in Australia. Perhaps some of the Poles of today who emigrate would do well to learn from what the post-WW2 émigré Poles did and didn't do in their host nations when they first arrived.

Polonia / Is Holland antipolish? [29]


Hardly any, if the Dutch admiration and respect of Poles who fought there in WW2 is anything to go by. In 2006 the Dutch Queen herself bestowed Honours and Awards upon General Sosabowski and the Polish Para. Brigade. As with all immigrants, if you fit in, learn the language quickly, make friends with the locals, don't criticise your hosts, and try to be more Dutch than the Dutch themselves, you should be ok. Good luck mate!

History / Massacre of Polish Soldiers at Winniza in WW2? [5]


Thanks Chris.

The document reported on the Soviets taking Polish Priests to a mass grave, and showing purportedly Russian soldiers who had been murdered by the Germans. Polish Officers reported that the dead were actually their colleagues, dressed up in someone else's uniform.

I'll try and dig up the document. It was on the net.

History / Moniuszko Street, Warsaw, during the Rising [5]

Thanks a lot for your help Grzegorz and Warszawski. Much appreciated.

Australia / Poles in Australia - money for start, chances for a job, costs of living (Brisbane, Bunbury) [50]


Mate, what about Alice, Darwin and Hobart or Launceston?

Waiting for excitement in those towns is like leaving the porch light on for Harold Holt!

Classifieds / D&D Group for Expats in Warsaw needs one more player... [69]


We used to do the same thing. If you rolled a 20 for the attack, that was a critical hit. You then rolled a 20 again, and we had a table from 1 to 20 with corresponding multipliers or benefits depending on the further number rolled and the enemy struck. For example, the higher you roled on the second roll, the better the damage or result, such as from double damage, triple and so on, up to an instant kill/severing of limb etc.

If you rolled a 1, that was what we called a fumble, and had a similar table but with bad things happening ranging from dropping or breaking the weapon to seriously hurting yourself. This became interesting when I DM'd and introduced black powder weapons, where a fumble was from between 1-5.

We also used to allow players to get to -10 HP. If a player was down to between 0 to -10, they were unconscious. If it was zero or below, every round you would drop one more HP. If you went below -10, you were dead. You had the chance to be revived by potion or spell whilst unconscious, so if you were on -9 HP, you had 2 rounds to be revived back to positive HP and so on. This created another level in that if the party was close and of good alignment, a lot of effort was placed during an encounter to 'rescue' a downed PC or NPC, often with interesting results and infighting sometimes.

We had one very interesting scenario where one of the players supposedly died right at the end of a gaming session and whose body was taken by the enemy. It turned out this player had a private briefing with the DM after the game and his character was resurrected by the enemy and tasked with a mission. Next session, out pops the 'dead' character whilst we're travelling with a fantastic tale of survival and tracking us down to rejoin. Turns out he (the character) was given the choice of dying or assassinating me and taking a magic item I had that was wanted or that I had peeved of some higher power that wanted me killed. He bungled the assassination attempt, but killed me anyway and took all my stuff, never to be seen again.

Sometimes, I'd just make the players roll a dice when they were doing something or waiting somewhere, for no good reason other than to keep them on their toes, and make them think something was happening, about to happen, or was not to happen, based on their rolls. The looks you get when a PC rolls, tells you the number, and you just smile evilly and nod then do your own rolls behind your own screen are priceless.

With character generation and stats, we found the 4d6 discard the lowest option the best, because if you stuck to the rules, you got crappy stats, and who wants a hopeless character. The characters are meant to be out of the ordinary, and feeble characters have no hope of advancing against high level enemies unless they're significantly bolstered by magic items. Is that how you deal with low stats (giving them magic items)?

Cheers mate.

Classifieds / D&D Group for Expats in Warsaw needs one more player... [69]


Des, your ability to turn mundane matters into Shakespearean prose, whilst at the same time artfully taking the **** without anyone realising it, almost always gives me a good chuckle mate! Did you mean "Owlbear"? - nasty creatures those.


For generation of attributes like strength, dex etc?

We used to roll 4d6 for each attribute and discard the lowest, which usually gave some pretty good stats. Let's face it, who wants to play a character with crap stats?

We did use 1st edition, but mainly for the classes like assassin, monk, cavalier (or was that Unearthed Arcana?) and so on, plus the extra spells offered in the 1st ed. Player's Handbook.

Something that was fun that we used to do was allow each PC one chance during their "life" to pray to their deity and ask for whatever they wanted on a roll of 2 20's on 2 d20's. It happened once!

Do you use miniatures? We used to use them for battle scenarios as it was a lot easier to visualise what everyone was doing, and made it a lot more fun.

Cheers.

Classifieds / D&D Group for Expats in Warsaw needs one more player... [69]


Man, wish I could join you guys. Haven't played AD&D in years. I used to play as a teen in the 90's (we played 2nd ed), every Saturday and twice on Sundays. I made some great friends during those good times but sadly the core crew of 8 drifted apart geographically and we stopped. I agree that D&D really fosters long lasting friendships, fertile imaginations and quick thinking. What edition do you play mate?

History / RAAF aircrew who died during the Warsaw Rising [8]


A variety of sources by googling terms like RAAF, pilots, killed, warsaw, 1944 and so on. There wasn't much that popped up. I think Fl/Lt Hammett's mention was from an aviation forum I looked at, though I see he is not mentioned either in the Australian War Memorial website "Roll of Honour", so it could be a mistake that he was KIA - nevertheless, he was in Sqd Ldr Liversidge's crew, so you can follow the bouncing ball from there if you wish to delve further.

There is an excellent and extensive list of pilots KIA and so on during WW2 sorties (mainly covert operations/drops etc) on the Harrington Museum website. I would recommend this as it is in chronological fashion and sets out in great detail dates, circumstances, crew and so on. It is several hundred pages long (PDF).

History / Poland's Roads in the 17th Century [19]


No I can't but a google reveals: Guillame Le Vassuer De Beauplan.

If you use google image, I see there are several maps of his showing.

I would try to source the book on him I read, as I recall his observations were quite detailed, but I can't recall if he specifically mentioned roads - defo worth a shot though. Let me know how you go.

Another primary source may be the reports of English Ambassadors to Poland, and similar plenipotentaries. There could even be sources from Scottish people of that time, bearing in mind the large influx of Scots to the Commonwealth at that time.

Although later, my readings on the Napoleonic Wars viz campaigns in Poland all point towards a shocking road system. Perhaps memoirs of Napoleonic veterans, then reverse engineer from there? How about similar but for the Great Northern War?

Cheers.

History / How I blew a 6 figure grant for my charity because of my appreciation of Polish history... [77]


Thanks mate. I had no idea of its genesis.

History / Query regarding AK casualty list for the Warsaw Rising [3]

Thanks again for all your help Iron!

History / Poland's Roads in the 17th Century [19]


Hi Anders,

I think perhaps your best source of information (potentially) would be the memoirs and diaries of military persons such as Hetman Zolkiweski, JC Pasek and so on, with Pasek probably the most relevant. There may be some snippets of road conditions/construction in such journals. Both were alive during the C17.

The Frenchman Beauplan too may be even more relevant. He was an Engineer who served in the Crown Army in the mid C17. I read many years ago (in English) his notes on various Polish towns and fortifications in the C17 and he drew quite a few maps. There may be legends on such maps detailing roads, but I can't recall.

All the best!