Russo-Polish War (1654)

The Russo-Polish War (1654) was a long and vicious armed conflict between Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth over the Byelorussian and the Ukrainian territory. The main cause of the war was the increasing tension between the two countries in the 1640’s, especially after the outbreak of the War of the Liberation of the Ukrainian People from Polish rule (1648–54). Until 1654, a growing class struggle in Russia during the 1648–51 period, precarious finances, and military unpreparedness had postponed active Russian intervention on the side of the Ukrainian people. On October 1, 1653, the Zemskie Sobory (Russian Assembly) had agreed to receive the Ukraine under Russian rule. This was tantamount to an official declaration of war on Poland. During the Russo-Polish War, Czar Alexis I, Romanov, was on the throne in Russia.

The main Russian army was composed of more than 41,000 men, including artillery. Led by Prince Yakov Cherkassky, Nikita Odoevsky, and Prince Temkin-Rostovsky, the Russian forces launched an early offensive and took Belaia and Dorogobuzh in July, 1654, also laying siege to Smolensk. However, the Russian Army could not storm and capture Smolensk, because Janusz Radziwill’s Lithuanian army of about 11,000 men attacked from the vicinity of Orsha. This action forced Prince Cherkassky to send troops to meet the threat. The Polish attack was hindered and the Russian captured Orsha, routing Radziwill's forces at Shklov. On September 23, Russian troops finally managed to captur Smolensk.

In the autumn of 1654 the Russian Army launched an offensive against the fortresses of Livland Województwo in the Polish Commonwealth, taking Lucyn (now Ludza), Pzeżyca (now Rēzekne), and Łuża. At the same time, combined Russo-Ukrainian forces, under Bohdan Khmelnitsky and A. V. Buturlin launched an offensive from the vicinity of Fastov and captured Ostrog, Mezhireche, Rovno, and other cities. In the winter and spring of 1654–55, Polish-Lithuanian troops under Radziwill, Gąsiewski, and other commanders invaded the liberated regions of Byelorussia, relieved Staryi Bykhov, and captured Kopys’, Dubrovno, and Orsha. In the Ukraine, the Poles and their Tatar allies defeated the Russian and Ukrainian troops at Zhashkov. However, an unsuccessful three-month siege of Mogilev and the defeat of the Polish and Tatar armies at Akhmatov (January 1655) by Sheremetev and Khmelnitsky frustrated the Commonwealth’s offensive. Cherkasskys army and Zolotarenko’s forces took Minsk on July 3, 1655, and the main Russian army captured Wilno (Vilnius) on July 31 and Kovno (Kaunas) and Grodno in August.

In the summer of 1655, Sweden opened hostilities against Poland. Swedish troops captured Poznań and Kalisz in July, Warsaw in August, and then Kraków, and, in the Baltic region, Dynaburg (Daugavpils, Dünaburg). The Swedish victories drastically altered Russia’s foreign policy. In an attempt to prevent total Swedish domination of the Baltic, the Russian government in late 1655 began preparing for war with Sweden. It brought its military actions against Poland to a halt and in the spring of 1656 opened negotiations with the Polish government. However, the only result was an agreement, on October 23 (Nov. 2), 1656, to suspend military operations and to resume the negotiations after one year. In May 1656, Russia declared war on Sweden.

After a cease fire, the Russo-Polish War resumed in 1658. Between 1658 and 1659, the Russian troops overcame the szlachta’s treachery in Byelorussia and thus retained most of the territory they had previously liberated. In December 1659, Russian troops look Staryi Bykhov. the Russian troops overcame the szlachta’s treachery in Byelorussia and thus retained most of the territory they had previously liberated. In December 1659, Russian troops look Staryi Bykhov.

Treaty of Andrusov

The war would continue inconclusively, with attacks and counterattacks, with both armies capturing towns and cities in Byelorussia and Ukraine. However, the domestic situations both in Poland and Russia had deteriorated, with internal conflicts. Thus, the two countries entered into negotiations, which would be inconclusive and led nowhere. Finally, after a series of military action, the two nations resumed the negotiations in April 1666. Thus, forced by mutual exhaustion, Russia and Poland signed the Treaty of Andrusov of 1667, through which Poland recognized the annexation of all the Ukrainian territory lying to the east of the Dnieper River. On the other hand, Russia recognized all the territory located to the west of this European river as Polish territory. Also Kiev and its surrounding tract of land were ceded to Russia.

Above, a late 17th century painting depicting the Cossack forces attacking the Polish Army's rear during the Russo-Polish War.

Battle of Tsushima

The Battle of Tsushima was a decisive, naval engagement of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). It was fought between the Russian Second Pacific Squadron, under Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky, and the Japanese Combined Fleet, led by Admiral Togo Heihachiro, on May 27 and 28, 1905. It took place in the Tsushima Strait, between the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea. It was the geopolitical rivalry between Russia and the Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea that had led to this armed conflict in 1904, and the Battle of Tsushima was the most important one in terms of losses and the number of warships involved. The result of this military encounter was a thorough Japanese victory over the Russians.

The Imperial Japanese Navy's Combined Fleet was composed of 5 battleships, 23 cruisers, 20 destroyers, and 16 torpedo-boats. Admiral Togo was the commander in chief and he was on battleship Mikasa, the flagship. On May 26, 1905, these warships sailed in a single column, with Mikasa leading them in front, as a spearhead, into the Tsushima Strait, where they would wait for the Russians. Behind the flagship, and next in line, came the battleships Shikishima, Fuji, and Asahi, with the armored cruisers and torpedo-boats stringing out behind in a long line. Although it was a pre-dreadnought battleship, Mikasa was an advanced war vessel, which had been built in the United Kingdom by the British ship-building firm Vickers.

The Second Pacific Squadron, on the other hand, was the Russian Baltic Fleet that had been reinforced; it consisted of 11 battleships, 9 cruisers, and 9 destroyers. The Russian commander, Zinovy Rozhestvensky, led the expeditionary force on the battleship Knyaz Suvorov, the flagship. This fleet had left the Baltic port of Reval (today Tallin - Estonia) on October 16, 1904. Their mission was to break the Japanese blockade of Port Arthur (today Lushunkou - China), and join the Far East Russian fleet stationed on the port of Vladivostok.

By the time the Russian Second Squadron reached the East China Sea, Port Arthur had already fallen in Japanese hands on January 2, 1905. Thus, the Russian commander decided to keep on sailing to Vladivostok. In order to reach this port, the Russians had two alternative routes; they could go through either the Korea Strait or the Tsushima Strait. Admiral Rozhestvensky chose the latter one to sail through, simply because it was wider, with more space to maneuver around if his fleet was attacked as his Borodino-class battleships were three knots slower than the Japanese vessels.

Summary

At around 04:00 hours, on the morning of May 27, 1905, a Japanese auxiliary scout cruiser Sinanu Maru discovered the presence of the Russian fleet looming in the mist in the Tsushima Strait. At 13:30 hours, the commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet was able to watch the enemy vessels; he had laid a trap for the Russians. As three Japanese ships maneuvered around to lure the enemy, the Russians opened fire and moved in pursuit. However, the Japanese battleships armor withstood the shell impact without perforation and damage. Admiral Togo's warships had already taken position and waited, then they fired their 305-mm naval guns on the Russian vessels.

In this first daylight encounter, the Russian battleship Oslyabya was hit hard several times and was seriously damaged and then it sank. A couple of hours later, the Russian battleship Borodino would also be struck hard by shells fired from the Japanese battleship Fuji; there was an explosion, and then it sank, too. Not only were the Japanese battleships and armored cruisers able to deliver lethal blows on the Russian fleet, but also the torpedo-boats were able to sink Russian vessels. The Battle of Tsushima raged on through the night. The Russian flagship, the battleship Knyaz Suvorov would also be sunk by the Japanese.

By the end of the battle on May 28, a total of 6 Russian battleships and 14 cruisers and destroyers had been sunk, with 5,000 dead sailors and officers. The Russians also suffered the loss of 7 more capital ships, which were captured by the Japanese. Meanwhile, Admiral Togo lost only three torpedo-boats and 117 men. It would take years for the Russian Navy to recover from this defeat.

Above, the Japanese battleship Mikasa; the flagship during the Battle of Tsushima.

A map showing the exact location of the Battle of Tsushima, marked in red.

Above, the Russian battleship Orel, which was captured by the Japanese. Notice a 12-inch gun was torn off during the fighting.

Battle of Jutland

The Battle of Jutland was a naval combat action of World War I. It was fought between the British Grand Fleet, under Admiral John Jellicoe, and the German High Seas Fleet, led by Admiral Reinhard Scheer, from May 31 to June 1, 1916, in the North Sea, off the coast of the Jutland peninsula (Denmark). By May 1916, the stalemate of the static trench warfare had been the status quo of the conflict, with the Battle of Verdun raging on. So was the naval warfare, with the supremacy of sea being balanced and each of the imperial naval power hoping to destroy the other. Although there had been great development and advance in naval weaponry, with powerful 12 and 15-inch long-range naval guns and self-propelled torpedoes, the result of the battle was inconclusive as neither side could claim a clear and decisive victory.

The backbone of the fleets that took part in the Battle of Jutland was made up of Dreadnought-type battleships, battlecruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers, plus a few submarines and auxilliary vessels. The German commander, Admiral Scheer, had first planned to stage a raid on Sunderland, hoping to lure part of the British fleet out onto the high seas where the submarines and the rest of the German fleet would be lying in wait ready to attack. However, bad weather prevented zeppelin reconnaissance, and Scheer would not move without it for fear of falling into an ambush and having to face off against the whole British Grand Fleet. Therefore, on May 30, 1916, he fell back on an alternative plan; instead of bombing Sunderland, the German scouting force was to sail northward, from Wilhelmshaven as if it were to attack British shipping off the Danish and Norwegian coasts.

At 01:00 hours, on May 31, the German cruiser scouting group, under Admiral Hipper, began to make their way in a northeastward direction, while the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet was already sailing to a rendezvous that would result in one of the greatest naval battles of all time. At 14:30 hours on May 31, a Hipper's scouting group cruiser, which approached a Danish freight steamer, encountered a British counterpart, and opened fire on the enemy war vessel. As the heavy and light cruisers of the opposing scouting forces engaged each other in combat, the British Grand Fleet was heading for the battle at full speed. Meanwhile, the German battleships and battlecruisers headed northward to the site of engagement.

When the two fleets met, all hell broke loose. The warships maneuvered and veered around to fire their heavy naval guns on the enemy vessel broadsides. Although the Germans had sustained heavy losses, by 04:30 hours on June 1, they had also inflicted serious damage on the British, whose Grand Fleet had lost three battlecruisers (Queen Mary was one of them), three light cruisers, and eight destroyers, with two badly damaged battleships. Meanwhile, the Germans had lost eleven warships: one battleship, one battlecruiser, four light cruisers, and five destroyers.

Above, a German battlecruiser SMS Derfflinger fires her 305-mm (12-inch) guns on a British vessel.

The British Grand Fleet sail at full steam to meet the German warships off the coast of Jutland.

The map shows the geographical point of the Battle of Jutland. It is marked with a red X.

Battle of Savo Island

The Battle of Savo Island was a naval armed encounter of World War II Pacific Theater. It was fought between the Allied Task Force 62, under Admiral Richmond K. Turner, and a Japanese fleet, led by Gunichi Mikawa, on August 8 and 9, 1942, off the coast of Savo Island, during the Guadalcanal Campaign, which had just begun on August 7. Savo is a tiny land mass which is part of the Solomon Islands. It lies 15 km (9.4 miles) north of Guadalcanal, the landing on which marked the beginning of the Allied Island-Hopping Campaign of the Pacific Theater of Operations. Result: Japanese victory.

Task Force 62, under Turner, was composed of a landing force and a screening group. The screening group was led by British Admiral Sir Victor Crutchley. It was a flotilla composed of 6 heavy cruiser, 2 light cruisers, and 15 destroyers. They had the task of protecting the Allied landing force at Guadalcanal. However, they had been weakened as Admiral Frank J. Fletcher had withdrawn his aircraft carriers from the area, leaving them without air cover. The Japanese 8th Fleet, commanded by Mikawa, consisted of 5 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers and only one destroyer. Thus, both fleet avoided direct confrontation in daylight.

With the mission of destroying the Allied landing force at Guadalcanal, Gunichi Mikawa ordered the Japanese warships to attack the British screening force on the night of August 8, 1942. Although Crutchley had deployed two radar-equipped destroyers to give early warning for any approaching enemy warships, Mikawa's vessels were able to sail undetected towards Savo Island and the Guadalcanal area. The Japanese ships approached in a single, 3-km column, which was led by heavy cruiser Chokai, followed by Aoba and Kako. With enemy floatplanes dropping flares for better visibility, the Imperial Japanese 8th Fleet's heavy cruisers suddenly opened fire out of the blue.

The Japanese naval assault was relentless, with the Allied ships maneuvering around to avoid major damage. Thus, the Battle of Savo Island basically took place in two areas; a combat action between Guadalcanal and Savo, which was the most ferociously fought, and a naval encounter north of Savo. By the end of the battle, at 05:00 hours on August 9, the Japanese had sunk three US Navy's heavy cruisers, and had seriously damaged an Australian cruiser, which would be scuttled hours later. A fifth Allied cruiser also sustained heavy damage as well as two US destroyers. The Japanese 8th Fleet, on the other hand, did not lose any ship, with three vessels being only damaged. However, the Allied transport and landing ships were not sunk and came out unscathed of the battle.

Among the Allied warships sunk by the Japanese were the USS Vincennes (CA-44), USS Astoria (CA-34), USS Quincy (CA-39), and the HMAS Canberra.

Above, HMAS Canberra damaged and listing to port. It would be scuttled on August 9.

Map of Solomon Islands showing the location of both Guadalcanal and Savo Island. The site of the battle is marked by a red arrow.

Above, the heavy cruiser USS Astoria, a couple of days before the Battle of Savo Island took place.

Battle of Le Cateau (1914)

The Battle of Le Cateau was a military engagement of World War I. It was fought between the British Expeditionary Force, under Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, and the Imperial German Army, on August 26, 1914, near Le Cateau-Cambresis, France. Although the British infantry fought bravely, trying to stop the German advance, they were forced to fall back and abandon their positions to the enemy. Thus, the result of the battle was a German victory, with the British suffering 8,100 casualties. It took place right after the Battle of Mons, which had been fought on August 23.

The German 1st Army's IV Corps, led by Friedrich Bertram Sixt von Armin, launched a vicious assault on the British and French positions on August 26, 1914. To cover the retreat of the Anglo-French troops, the BEF's II Corps, under the command of Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, counter-attacked to delay the German offensive. The British II Corps was composed of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th division, which had been deployed at the center, on the left, and on the right flank respectively, in a sector between Le Cateau and Cambrai.

To stop the German infantry, the British made massive use of their artillery units, with their ordnance firing shrapnel shells that rained down on the advancing enemy. However, the German howitzers undertook counter-battery action, attacking the positions of the British artillery pieces. This action allowed the German IV Corps to keep advancing. Although the troops of German IV Corps had already taken part in the Battle of Mons three days before, their attack was powerful and unrelenting.

Although they managed to hold their positions at the beginning, by early afternoon the British front line had already started to cave in, with several gaps having been torn out by the ferocious German attack. At sunset, when it was getting dark, the British were ordered to retreat to Saint-Quentin.

Above, a map shows the German IV Corps attack (in red arrow) on the British II Corps positions between Cambrai and Le Cateau (printed in red).

Most Valuable Currency in History

The most valuable currency in history has not been the US dollar, nor has it been the British pound, nor the Euro. And if you are thinking about metals, like the 16th century Spanish Real, gold and silver coins were not the strongest currencies in history either, for the Spanish Empire declined and fell no matter how much gold its absolute kings hoarded. Neither is it today's the bitcoin the most valuable monetary unit, which is a virtual currency promoted by psychopathic billionaires to slowly take control of the world's economy and establish their own psychological government to control the population of the planet.

All the known currencies have not been the most highly-appraised by the population of any given country, for the value of these government-issued monetary units depends on political and financial stability, and that stability depends on decisions made by politicians, many of whom do not practice the virtue of crystal-clear transparency, for they rather take the crooked path that leads to the obscure and secret worlds of awry political and financial ventures and deals. When most of the politicians of the whole political spectrum get involved in murky financial affairs, it means that their behavior is perhaps a reflection of the country's cultural fabric, rendering a nation undeveloped, with their people bogged down in the squalor of poverty, and, sometimes, in a state of anarchy.

Objectively speaking, money, especially the material it is made of, has very little and insignificant value, for it does not nourish your body tissue and organs if you eat it, nor is it good material to make a house or a bridge, or to protect your body from harsh weather conditions. It is not even good enough to make a fire and keep you warm in winter; in this regard, wood is a lot better than the paper a currency is printed on as it lasts longer. However people still use it, because money's real worth is intangible and invisible. A currency is worth because human beings give it value. Therefore, it has no intrinsic worth. It is granted to it by people.

Money's worth is symbolic and abstract, and it is the people who imbue it with a psychological value as they make it circulate from hand to hand in the wheel of transactional trade and exchange of necessary and vital goods to establish and/or maintain a civilization. Therefore, the most valued currencies in the history of mankind have been honesty, trust, faith, human intelligence, will, and empathy.

Crystal-clear honesty simultaneously gives rise to trust; and this to faith, with human intelligence and empathic feelings helping to propagate the ripples of material growth and abundance as inherent byproducts. The people must trust any given political system for them to make the government-issued bills and coins flow throughout the arteries of a nation. Honesty and trust give worth and life to a rectangular piece of paper that makes goods move around, from place to place, to supply the demand and human needs, sparking new enterprises and economic activities. But when trust is broken and faith flickers out in the cold wind of disappointment, people stop investing, buying, and making projects; you have an economic slump first, then, if the negative circumstances persist, a deep depression.

Trust only emerges in the heart of human beings when their political and social leaders are instilled with honesty, which is the human virtue of telling the truth, of never embezzling the public money, and never betraying the nation, which is the people and their cultural fabric, politically organized under a sovereign State. And in order to be 100% honest, a human being must have mental integrity, which is the psychological capacity of being one indivisible whole. Only an idiot would trust a criptocurrency, which is the brainchild of greedy psychopaths who lack empathy and integrity. Only a moron would trust a currency printed by a sovereign country whose corrupt and lying politicians made an alliance with lunatic and deviant billionaires to enslave the people and violate the Constitution (which guarantees political stability), resorting to schemes and mass media pseudo-science stories of a fictional virus and disease to control the population through fear.

Honesty, trust, faith, human intelligence, and empathy are the most valuable currencies. It is not paper money, nor is it gold.

Instead of promoting patterns of thinking and behavior based on honesty, integrity, empathy and mutual trust, billionaires and corrupt politicians in the USA and Europe use mass media to promote deep-seated fear of germs, social alienation, hidden awry behavior, and distrust from one another to break and tear apart the traditional fabric of the Western Civilization, which has been based on liberty, not on tyranny; on freedom of speech, not on censorship and deletion of creative thoughts. They also start and make wars to keep nourishing their already obese fortunes.

When, in 1862, Abraham Lincoln had federal fiat paper money printed for the first time, the people of the northern States decided to trust the greenback, because it was issued by a government they trusted. They trusted the Republican government because they saw in Abraham Lincoln a man of crystal-clear honesty, moral integrity, courage, and steel will to keep the nation in one whole piece. He was a man of action, not a man of pompous speech. He did not care about political correctness. He cared about the freedom and well-being of the people. He promised the people union and freedom, and the people trusted him, making the greenback circulate from hand to hand.

In 2020, the principles of social equality and the inalienable rights of man and of the citizen were put in the pillory of tyranny and boundless greed. Only rational men of psychological completeness and mental stability can smell the stench and see the whole necrotic picture woven by the corrupt to take over the world. In 2020, mankind was put behind a surgical mask that hides away and smother humanity. In every country, a warm smile was cloaked and sealed behind the iron curtain of a mask, in every country except Sweden, where they decided not to lockdown the population and enforce the mask, for their authorities abided by the laws of the Swedish sovereign State that guarantee individual freedom and human rights.

The essay published above was written by Carlos Benito Camacho, from Tucuman, Argentina. Carlos is a friend of mine and he is living in dire straits now, in extreme poverty due to Javier Milei's awry economic policy, which is aimed at the destruction of Argentina's local industry. If you want to help him, you can do it via PayPal. His email is carlosbenitocamacho@gmail.com - his cel phone # +54381-6264880.

Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a political and philosophical current of the 18th century in Europe. It advocated social equality, individual freedom, and the use of reason and science to solve man's problems. Not only was it a rational but also a humane and empathic approach to social reality and the human condition. This philosophical movement was the main ideological cause of the French Revolution, which established the French First Republic, and the American Revolutionary War and their republican government.

The Enlightenment was a the period of transition from absolute monarchism to constitutional democratic republican governments. It is often associated with the struggle of the nascent bourgeoisie and the popular masses against the nobility privileges and social inequality. This intellectual and philosophical movement was so broad and influential that even its contemporaries believed that the “dark ages” had given way to an age of Enlightenment (in French, siècles des lumières, in German, Zeit der Aufklärung).

The term “Enlightenment,” which is encountered in the writings of Voltaire and J. G. von Herder, was definitively established after the publication of Kant’s article “What Is the Enlightenment?” in 1784. Historical and philosophical scholarship of the 19th century characterized the Enlightenment as an age of boundless faith in human reason (“the age of reason,” “the age of philosophers”), an age of belief in the possibility of rebuilding society on rational foundations, and the age of the downfall of theological dogmatism and the triumph of science over medieval Scholasticism and the obscurantism of the church.

The ideologists of the Enlightenment, such as Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Montesquieu, posed the question of the practical structuring of the society of the future. Because they viewed political freedom and civil equality as the cornerstone of society, as they directed their criticism against the despotism of the absolute monarchy, as well as that of the church. They were opposed to the entire feudal system, with its privileges for certain social estates. Lenin noted that the representatives of the Enlightenment were inspired by “a violent hostility to serfdom and all its economic, social, and legal products.

Above, Jean-jacques Rousseau, one of the main thinkers of the Enlightenment.

The philosophical views of the Enlightenment, which took shape in conformity with contemporary science, were permeated with the anti-feudal ideology. Many Enlightenment thinkers developed materialist doctrines that matter is the only reality, endowed with an infinite diversity of properties. In their polemics against the theistic doctrine that god created the world, the Enlightenment thinkers argued that nature is a primordially organized whole, bound together by a chain of natural causal ties and laws. In their theory of knowledge, the representatives of the Enlightenment developed a sensationalist orientation that denied the existence of innate ideas (including the idea of god) and asserted that sensations and perceptions (the result of the influence of the external world on man) are the source of human knowledge.

Enlightenment thinkers subordinated the social structure to objective empathic reason, as well as state institutions, which, in their opinion, had to serve the “common good”, and social mores and customs. The feudal system and its institutions were regarded as “unnatural” and “unreasonable.” In their attitude toward social development, the representatives of the Enlightenment were idealists. Their theories, based on reason and common sense, and not on prejudiced religious medieval ideas.