Mystics & Statistics

A blog on quantitative historical analysis hosted by The Dupuy Institute

Richthofen’s Cavalry Fight at Virton

Source: https://www.thebicyclingguitarist.net/studies/colorphotos.htm

 

Around the 22nd of August, Lt. Manfred von Richthofen with 15 Uhlans advanced into a woods near Virton, Belgium and when they got the other side of the woods, fell into a French ambush.

According to his account in his autobiography (pages 53-56), the horses of two of his Uhlans leaped the barricade blocking the path and and rode towards the French because the horses were in panic of the sound of all the gunfire.

His orderly’s horse was shot and fell down, trapping the orderly beneath it.

Richthofen and the rest of the Uhlans retreated back through the woods. The orderly returned two days later minus one of his boots, which was trapped under the horse. Richthofen claimed that there were about 100 rifles opposing them and they were firing from 50 to 100 yards. The orderly claims that “At least two squadrons of French cuirassiers had issued from the forest in order to plunder the fallen horses and brave Uhlans.”

This sentence gets my attention, as it tends to indicate that there were additional Prussian casualties besides the two men and horses who jumped the barricade and the orderly’s horse. As Richthofen’s autobiography was probably censored, it is possible that any reports of German killed might have been removed. Yet the sentence “…plunder the fallen horses and brave Uhlans” strongly indicates that there were indeed additional losses among the Uhlans and their horses that were not detailed in this book.

Has anyone examined this engagement in depth, checked the unit records, etc. and determined what actually occurred and what were the losses?

Continued Protests in Belarus – Week 5

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko greets officials upon his arrival Sept. 14 at an airport in Sochi, Russia. (Belta/Reuters)

This story remains invisible in a lot of the U.S. news, but there were another 100,000+ protestors on the streets of Minsk on Sunday. According to the French 24-hour News this was a little bit smaller protest than last week. The Belarus police arrested at least 250 people yesterday. Still, this level of activity is much less than it was in the first two weeks of the protests, where thousands were arrested. This appears to be a waiting game… or a waiting out game.

Meanwhile today, the president of Belarus, Aleksander Lukashenko was in Sochi meeting with Vladimir Putin, president of Russia. This has got to an interesting and awkward discussion.

It still appear that the protests are not going away, Lukashenko does not want to bring in Russia to help put down the protests (Putin has offered), and……

War Crimes and Richthofen’s autobiography

Source: https://www.thebicyclingguitarist.net/studies/colorphotos.htm

In 1917, Manfred Albrecht Baron von Richthofen (1892-1918), sometimes known as the Red Baron, wrote an autobiography. At that time he was Germany’s leading ace with 52 claimed kills. He later claimed 80 kills before he was shot down.

His autobiography was almost certainly reviewed and censored by German authorities, although to what extent is hard to say.

I was re-reading it recently (I last read it when I was a kid) and a few passages stood out to me. These all occurred while he was serving with the Uhlans first in Russia and then in France at the start of the war.

On pages 47-48 for their operations at the border village of Kieltze in Poland (part of the Russian Empire), probably around 2 August 1914, Richthofen writes:

What should I do in order not to be noticed by the villagers? My first idea was to lock up the “pope.” [Russian priest] We fetched him from his house, to his great surprise. I locked him up among the bells in the church tower, took away the ladder, and left him sitting up above. I assured him that he would be executed if the population should show any hostile inclinations. A sentinel placed on the tower observed the neighborhood.

and five days later, only Richthofen and one other man were in the village:

…for the street swarmed with Cossacks…Most of them had lanterns, and they acted very incautiously and were very noisy. I estimated that they were from twenty to thirty. One had left his horse and gone to the “pope. whom I had let off the day before. Immediately it flashed through my brain, “Of course we are betrayed!…After having rested a few hours, our visitors rode away.

It is not stated if the “pope” went away with the Cossacks or if anything was done after the Cossacks left.

On pages 52-53 while they were at Arlon, Belgium in August 1914 Richthofen writes:

At Arlon I climbed the steeple in accordance with the tactical principles which we had ben taught in peace time…When I came down again I was surrounded by a crowd of angry young men who made hostile eyes, and who talked threateningly in undertones. My bicycle had, of course, been punctured, and I had to go on foot for half an hour. This incident amused me. I should have been delighted had it come to a fight. I felt absolutely sure of myself with a pistol in my hand.

 

Later on I hear that the inhabitants had behave very treacherously several days previously toward our cavalry, and later on towards our ambulances. It had therefore been found necessary to place quite a number of these gentlemen against the wall.

 

I assume the most negative interpretation of “against the wall” is correct. According to Wikipedia on Arlon: “Arlon was one of the first victims of the German invasion in 1914 as 121 inhabitants were executed on 26 August, on the orders of Colonel Richard Karl von Tessmar.” and in the Wikipedia article on Tessmar: “On 26 August, 121 Belgian civilians were executed at Arlon railway station on his order.”

On page 57 while they on Virton on or after 22 August 1914 Richthofen writes:

So both Loen and I had quarters for ourselves and our men…The monks were extremely amiable. They gave us as much to eat and to drink as we cared to have, and we had a very good time…We settled down as if we were on manoeuvres, and as if we were in the house of a delightful host and friend. At the same time it should be observed that thee days later we hanged several of our hosts to the lanterns because they could not overcome their desire to take a hand in the war. But that evening they were really extremely amiable.

This last one is significant as there were several major war crimes conducted by the German Army in that area. Dinant with 674 executed by Saxon troops being the largest. According to Wikipedia article on Virton “On August 22, 1914, at the onset of World War I, hundreds of inhabitants were summarily executed by the invading German army…” This is worth looking at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Belgium

So I assume I am correct in reading this account as an open admission that he knew of and participated in war crimes and then published them in a censored wartime autobiography?

Coronavirus in the DC area – update 23

Latest weekly update of this coronavirus post. This week it has increased by 3,132 new cases. Last week week there were 3,828 new cases. This is still not great. In contrast, Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the epicenter of the European outbreak, is reporting 1,369 new cases yesterday. They are dealing with some new outbreaks as are a lot of countries that appeared to have the virus under control.

The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 ten weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 9:28 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week……Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….14,077…..14,362………..611
Arlington, VA……………..237,521………3,569…….3,679……….143
Alexandria VA……………160,530………3,415……3,546………….62
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795…….18,606.…19,177………..566
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772…………..66………..66………..…7
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.………..121………126…………..7
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850..…..…6,053.…..6,273……….118
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011..…….10,944.…11,364………188
Manassas…………………..41,641……….1,813……1,842………..24
Manassas Park………….…17,307..……….571.……..587…………7
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……….1,729.…..1,799………..13
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144.….…….486……….511…………4
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567…….20,190..…20,766……..828
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308…….26,428……27,102…….803
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425…..108,068….111,200…..3,381

This is a 3% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 3.04%, which is high, but has been steadily declining over the last few weeks. The population known to have been infected is 2.07% or one confirmed case for every 48 people.

Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This includes James Madison at Harrisburg, UVA at Charlottesville and Virginia Tech at Blacksburg. UVA is opening up for students this weekend. The other two universities opened up for students two or three weeks ago. They have both had problems.

Harrisonburg, VA is reporting 1,989 cases (1,496 last week) and 34 deaths, while Rockingham County, where the city resides, is reporting 1,183 cases (1,0808 last week) and 20 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located. Last week they sent home 6,000 students who were in the dorms (which I think is a mistake). They originally decided to do in-person classes and did not test their students before they arrived. The end result was a fiasco.

Albemarle County, VA has 1,101 confirmed cases (1,052 last week) and 19 deaths and Charlottesville, VA which has 819 confirmed cases (699 last week) and 24 deaths. This is where UVA is located. They tested their students before admission, opened up campus two weeks later and are not doing in-person classes.

UVA had a covid tracker which is worth looking at: https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker

What is interesting is that they tested 18,215 students before admission and ended up with 65 cases (0.36% or one in every 280 students).

Further south, Montgomery County, VA has 1,073 cases this week (600 last week) and 4 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) itself is not doing well, running around a thousand new cases a day right now (834 cases yesterday) and it has been for the last few weeks.

Dare County, North Carolina, a beach area in the outer banks, has had 254 cases (242 last week) and 2 deaths.

Continued Protests in Belarus – week 4

Another 100,000+ people protesting in Minsk. This is the third Sunday in a row with over 100,000 protestors. Again, not sure how Lukashenko rides this one out, although this does appear to be his plan. He does not have a lot of other good options. I suspect if he seriously cracks down he will probably be overthrown, and I gather he understands that. If he called Russia for aid, then they may never leave. If things get too disorderly, Russia may use that as an excuse to intervene. So, it appears that he is just trying to hang on and hope that this somehow wears itself out. As we saw with the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, this is probably a vain hope. They went on for 3 months, under sniper fire and in the middle of winter.

Anyhow, watching and waiting. These are the types of events that make people like Putin and Xi Jinping nervous, and they do have reason to be in the age of coronavirus and declining economies.

Soviet Artillery in Proportion

A miniature wargaming website in the UK came to my attention because he quoted from my Kursk book (actually probably from my blog). The link is here:

https://notquitemechanised.wordpress.com/

Now, this was one of the many asides that I developed during the writing of the book and I felt one of the more significant discussions in the book. I am always concerned that a number of major points in that book were drowned in the 1,662 pages. I am glad he was able to identify and pull that one out.

The quote is in his blog post, but for the battle we estimated that the Germans fired 51,083 tons of ammunition while the Soviets fired 21,867 tons. I don’t think anyone else have made such a calculation.

For the Soviet rocket launchers (Katyushas) they fired an estimated 2,422 tons of ammo, while for the German rocket launchers (Nebelwerfers) they fired 5,916 tons of ammo.

This is subject that probably could be the basis of a complete stand-alone study or book. I suspect if this was the case at Kursk, where the Soviet army had three months to prepare and stockpile, then it is very much an issue for other, especially more mobile, operations.

 

P.S. The complete quote is also in this earlier blog post:

German versus Soviet Artillery at Kursk

Coronavirus in the DC area – update 22

Latest weekly update of this coronavirus post. This week it has increased by 3,828 new cases. Last week week there were 3,044 new cases. This is definitely heading in the wrong direction. In contrast, Italy, the epicenter of the European outbreak, is reporting 975 new cases yesterday. They are dealing with some new outbreaks as are a lot of countries that appeared to have the virus under control.

The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 nine weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 11:28 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week……Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….13,684…..14,077…..…..608
Arlington, VA……………..237,521………3,415.……3,569…..….141
Alexandria VA……………160,530………3,309.……3,415…….…62
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795……..17,784.…18,606.……..561
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772…………..66.………66…..…..…7
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.…………106.….…121…..……..7
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850..………5,769……6,053……….118
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011..…….10,470….10,944……….187
Manassas…………………..41,641……….1,769……1,813…………24
Manassas Park………….…17,307..……..…554………571……….…7
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……….1,612…….1,729………..11
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144.….…….455…..….486……….…5
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……..19,599…..20,190………821
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……..25,648..…26,428..……796
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425……104,240…108,068……3,355

This is a 4% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 3.11%, which is high, but has been steadily declining over the last few weeks. The population known to have been infected is 2.01% or one confirmed case for every 50 people.

Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This included James Madison at Harrisburg, UVA at Charlottesville and Virginia Tech at Blacksburg. UVA is opening up for students this weekend. The other two universities opened up for students two or three weeks ago. They have both had problems. James Madison is now reporting over 500 cases on campus and have moved their classes to being online. Virginia Tech is now reporting at least 178 new cases on campus. Will UVA be next?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/james-madison-university-online-coronavirus/2020/09/01/2ebc9036-ecac-11ea-ab4e-581edb849379_story.html?ocid=uxbndlbing

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/total-number-of-virus-cases-at-virginia-tech-rises-to-178/ar-BB18ykh7

Harrisonburg, VA is reporting 1,496 cases and 33 deaths, while Rockingham County, where the city resides, is reporting 1,080 cases and 20 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.

Albemarle County, VA has 1,052 confirmed cases (975 last week) and 18 deaths and Charlottesville, VA which has 699 confirmed cases (592 last week) and 20 deaths. This is where UVA is located.

Further south, Montgomery County, VA has 600 cases this week (392 last week) and 4 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.

Virginia itself is not doing well, running around a thousand new cases a day right now and has been for the last few weeks.

Dare County, North Carolina, a beach area in the outer banks, has had 242 cases (233 last week) and 2 deaths.

Continued Protests in Belarus

Well, we are now in the third week of protests in Belarus and they do not seem to be abating. They had over 100,000 protesting in Minsk yesterday, and there are regularly protests in other towns.

In a previous post, I had spelled out a number of possible outcomes.

Events in Belarus

The first was that Lukashenko manages to remain in power (implying by his own means and his own forces). I have no particular expertise or knowledge of Belarus or the situation, but these protests do seem 1) sizable, 2) widespread and 3) have continued for a while. Added to that, it seems like his police tried to crack down on them heavily at first, and that seemed to just increase the size and virulence of the protests. It appears that the police have backed off now, to some extent. He clearly has decided he will not/can not use more force, like using snipers on the crowds like Yanukovich did in Ukraine during the successful Euromaidan protests in 2013-2014.

I am leaning towards concluding that Lukashenko is not going to be able to just ride this one out as it. I am thinking that the first option I gave: which is that “Lukashenko manages to remain in power” is increasingly less likely. At this point I think the three most likely options are:

  1. Lukashenko is overthrown and replaced by a democratic government (I am always somewhat of an optimist).
  2. Russian intervenes
    1. To prop up Lukashenko, possibly in exchange for signing a treaty that surrenders some or much of their sovereignty (Putin has already publicly discussed sending forces to Belarus)
    2. Russian annexes Belarus.
  3. Lukashenko forms a combined government with the opposition so as to head off Russian intervention (Lukashenko is now discussing a referendum on constitutional reforms).

Watching this with great interest. This has the distinct possibility of becoming a map-changing event.

Coronavirus in the DC area – update 21

Latest weekly update of this coronavirus post. This week it has increased by 3,044 new cases. Last week week there were 3,568 new cases. So things are slowly improving. In contrast, Italy, the epicenter of the European outbreak, is reporting 876 new cases yesterday. They are dealing with some new outbreaks.

The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 eight weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 7:28:08 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week……Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445……..13,354……13,684………..604
Arlington, VA……………..237,521………3,293………3,415……….138
Alexandria VA……………160,530………3,165………3,309…………61
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795……..17,230……17,784………..547
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772…………..63…………66………..…7
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.…………103…….…106…………..7
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850..………5,580…..…5,769……….115
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011..…….10,034.…..10,470………183
Manassas…………………..41,641……….1,729….…1,769…………23
Manassas Park………….…17,307..…………542……….554……….…7
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960………..1,543….…1,612………..10
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144.….……..431………..455…………4
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……..19,180……19,599……..815
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……..24,949……25,648……..780
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425……101,196….104,240…..3,301

This is a 3% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 3.17%, which is high. The population known to have been infected is 1.94% or one confirmed case for every 51 people.

Also, of interest to me is Albemarle County, VA with 975 confirmed cases (921 last week) and 16 deaths and Charlottesville, VA which has 592 confirmed cases (566 last week) and 17 deaths. Further south, Montgomery County, VA has 392 cases this week (337 last week) and 3 deaths. These two areas are the home of UVA (Charlottesville) and Virginia Tech (Blacksburg), two large universities located in a more rural environment. UVA delayed the movement of students into the dorms from 19 August until 5-8 September. On the other hand, VT and most other Virginia universities are opening up last week and are housing students. We shall see if there is a difference. Virginia itself is not doing well, running around a thousand new cases a day right now.

Dare County, North Carolina, a beach area in the outer banks, has had 233 cases (216 last week) and 2 deaths.

Coronavirus and Government Turnover

Some countries have done a better job than others in addressing and dealing with the coronavirus. This is reflected in the number of cases per capita and the number of deaths per capita, if the statistics by country are reliable and reported in the same manner. Dealing with the coronavirus also has a huge economic impact. I am not sure people have fully evaluated the economic impact of this disease which appears like it is going to be an issue until at least the end of 2021.

Needless to say, a government that has not done a good job of containing the coronavirus is going to be hit twice, once from criticism of how it dealt with the virus and a second time from the economic impact of having to deal with it over an extended time. This is magnified if they have to again shut down because of a failure to control the first wave, or a resurgent first wave, and fail to address a second wave. The ideal situation is that the virus is identified, brought under control and then kept under control. This is the case with Italy, even though it was initially the worse hit of the European countries. The cases by day for Italy are below:

As can be seen, even Italy is dealing with a resurgence in cases, although a lot less than some other countries.

The leadership of a country that fails to contain the virus is going to obviously come under considerable criticism and of course, they also have to deal with a declining economy in the process. Usually, in democratic countries, a declining economy means that the government gets voted out. In non-democratic countries, the situation is a little more complex, but often dictatorships are challenged when the economy declines. While I don’t have the current economic statistics for Belarus at hand, I do have their current reported coronavirus statistics. For a country of 9.4 million people, they have a reported 70,645 cases and 646 deaths. This is an infection rate of 0.75 percent or one case per 133 people and a death rate of 0.007 percent or one case per 14,551 people. This is assuming these report numbers are correct. It does report a death rate of those infected of less than 1%, which makes one suspicious that the number of deaths is being underreported.

The graph of daily cases looks like this:

If this is true, then it looks like they have brought the virus under control. This was done without any requirements nationwide for isolation or wearing mask. There is considerable suspicion that these statistics are not correct.

Just for comparison, the United States has an infection rate of 1.75 percent or one case per 57 people and a death rate of 0.05 percent or one case per 1,852 people.

So, just to compare the countries in the area:

……………………..Percent infected…………..Percent killed

Belarus……………0.75………………………….0.007

Russia……………..0.65………………………….0.01

Ukraine……………0.26…………………………..0.006

.

Poland…………….0.16…………………………..0.005

Lithuania………….0.10…………………………..0.003

Latvia………………0.07…………………………..0.002

.

United States……..1.75………………………….0.05

 

Now there are reasons not to entirely trust the numbers coming out of Russia. There may also be reasons not to trust the numbers coming out of Belarus, especially as Lukashenko has not be supportive of the efforts to control and contain the virus. It is clear that the virus is a bigger problem for Belarus (and Russia) than it is for some of their neighbors, even if their reported statistics are not as bad as the United States.

Therefore, if the virus is still a major problem in Belarus (which I gather it is) and the economy is in trouble because of it (which I assume it is), then these are two issues that Lukashenko must deal with that are potentially crippling to his chances of staying in power. He may not be the only leader in danger of being ousted because of their failures to address the virus.

 

P.S. Data is from 6:28:02 PM on 24 August 2020 drawn from Johns Hopkins CSSE