All Quiet On The Western Front. . .

(All Quiet On The Western Front. . .)

Happy Veterans' Day. November 11th, 1918 the Armistice that ended the First World War went into effect at 1100 hours. The line where the combatant armies had ceased hostilities lay some distance to the east from the actual "Western Front," which had been a snaking line of trenches some 470 miles long that stretched from the English Channel to the Swiss Border. The opening rounds of August 1914 as armies maneuvered for position became a stalemate by the end of the year and, as Allied and German armies dug-in, an elaborate system of defenses, had been created. By the time the Germans launched what would be their last offensive of the War in the Spring of 1918, both German and indeed Allied trench systems had been fully developed. Cuts in the ground can still be seen in Belgium and France. The area that lay between the lines was called no-mans' land.


The horrific quality that had been World War I combat was that Allied and German generals who had been schooled in Napoleonic concepts of operational art were not prepared for the trench system where the correlation of forces for the defense proved imminently superior to any offensive action; mines, barbed wire, machine guns and so on. That being said, both the Allies and the German attempted such actions. The British on the Somme. the Germans at Verdun and the French in the so-called Nievelle Offensive. Casualties had been severe, the French Army mutinied. The pattern continued till the end of the War and it was the Germans that finally collapsed. On November 11th. 1918, the German high command OHL, sent a single message: 

***ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT***


The reason the stalemate materialized in the first place is because the Central Powers (Germany. Austro-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey) and the Allies (Britain, France, Russia and eventually the U.S.) had unreasonable timetables. That apparently was also the case with these last Mid-Terms. Republicans came up short in expectations. There will be a minimum GOP in the House and the Senate looks like it will be 50-50 again. Status-quo ante. Ms. Harris once more the deciding vote. So, all that Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) can do is limited and will be unable to fill whatever mandate the new Republican House will have.


The border will remain open. There will be no new drilling or permit reform. Investigations into Hunter Biden and possible links to the President can continue but that would be akin to the costly operations that made the First World War "the War to end all wars." Like what was so common in the War 1914-1918, there was never enough troops to make a decision. There were plenty of veterans. however. 

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