Category Archives: Italy

by Joel | 2 October 2026 · 4:47 am

Japan Celebrates, 1941

From Japan, 1941: Countdown to Infamy, by Eri Hotta (Vintage, 2013), pp. 20-21, 24:

In the early-morning hours of a frosty day, December 8, 1941, the Japanese nation woke to astonishing news. It was announced, shortly after seven, that Japan had “entered into a situation of war with the United States and Britain in the Western Pacific before dawn.” Though no specifics were given, by then the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, on Oahu, had been successfully attacked—the first wave of planes was dispatched at 1:30 a.m., Japanese time, and the surprise operation was completed by 5:30 a.m. When news of the attack arrived at 11:30 a.m., the nation was electrified. This was soon followed by Japan’s formal declaration of war on the Allies and the report of its further military successes in British Malaya and Hong Kong. (The Malayan operation actually preceded the Pacific offensive by almost two hours.) Throughout the day, the public broadcasting network, NHK, aired twelve special news reports in addition to six regularly scheduled ones for the millions of Japanese glued to their radios. On what, because of the time difference, had been December 7 in Hawaii, the air force division of the Imperial Japanese Navy had sunk or damaged numerous ships, aircraft, and military facilities. About twenty-four hundred people were killed in the raid or died shortly afterward from their injuries. The devastating attack was carried out without a formal termination of diplomatic relations by Japan, let alone a declaration of war, a heavy, infamous legacy for the nation. But such tactical details did not interest ordinary Japanese citizens on December 8. The immediate public reaction was one of celebration.

When Japan sent planes to attack Pearl Harbor, it was mired in economic and political uncertainties. A sense of helplessness pervaded its population as the state took more and more control of public life. From the beginning of Japan’s war with China in mid-1937, its people were led to believe a swift, decisive victory was imminent. Despite all the announcements of Japanese victories in China, however, the Guomindang (a.k.a. Kuomintang, frequently referred to as the Nationalist Party) leader Chiang Kai-shek was not about to give up. Similar to Napoleon’s army in Russia, the Japanese forces were drawn far too deep into harsh, unfamiliar terrain to carry out an effective operation. The jingoistic tone of Japan’s media coverage continued regardless, but people were privately beginning to question why the war had not ended. Though largely ignorant of the true state of Japanese diplomacy, they had been told that Nomura Kichisaburo, a navy admiral and former foreign minister, had been dispatched to Washington, D.C., in early 1941 to negotiate a peaceful solution to Japan’s international isolation. But no good news was forthcoming, and its absence made people fearful. Many knew the United States was upset over recent Japanese initiatives—such as allying with Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy and occupying first northern and then southern French Indochina—and seemed intent, unless a diplomatic settlement could be reached soon, on crippling Japan with economic sanctions.

…

But December 8, 1941, changed everything. The gloom of the national impasse that had arisen over the past couple of years turned almost instantly into euphoria as most Japanese cheered the successful attack. A man who was a second grader at the time of the attack, whose father owned a radio shop in Tokyo, recalled his surprise at the sight of a long line forming in front of his father’s store. People were waiting to get their radio sets repaired, in anticipation of more special government announcements. He never saw his father do so much business in one day before or after.

There was very little of the famous Japanese reserve. Strangers congratulated each other on the street. Others gathered at the public square outside the Imperial Palace in the heart of Tokyo, falling to the ground and thanking the emperor for his divine guidance of their nation. Aboard an overcrowded train that evening, the diarist Kafu detachedly observed “a fellow making speeches in shrill voice,” apparently unable to contain his excitement over the day’s news. This outpouring of emotion stood in stark contrast to the many contrived victory celebrations orchestrated by the government over the previous few years in an effort to rouse support for its lingering war in China.

Men of letters were not immune to the Pearl Harbor spell. One of the most distinguished poets of twentieth-century Japan, Saito Mokichi, fifty-nine at the time, recorded in his diary: “The red blood of my old age is now bursting with life! … Hawaii has been attacked!” The thirty-six-year-old novelist Ito Sei wrote in his journal: “A fine deed. The Japanese tactic wonderfully resembles the one employed in the Russo-Japanese War.” Indeed, that war started with Japan’s surprise attack on Russian ships in Port Arthur on February 8, 1904, two days before Japan’s formal declaration of war. Japan won that war.

Even those Japanese who had previously disapproved of their country’s expansionism in Asia were excited by Japan’s war with the West. In an instant, the official claim, gradually adopted by the Japanese government over the preceding decade, of liberating Asia from Western encroachment gained legitimacy in their eyes. Until then, the innately self-contradictory nature of fighting an anti-imperialist war for Asia against fellow Asians in China had tormented them.

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Filed under China, economics, France, Germany, Hawai'i, Italy, Japan, military, nationalism, Southeast Asia, U.S., USSR, war

by Joel | 29 September 2026 · 5:53 am

Some Polish Nobles on the Grand Tour

This week’s edition of Culture.pl has an interesting historical article by Jakub Zarzycki, titled The Grand Tour, or the ‘Great Journey’ Through Europe, first published in 2023 and translated from Polish by Michał Pelczar. Here are some more excerpts.

Grand Tour of a Polish Nobleman

Such a trip was in Polish sometimes referred to as a peregrination (peregrynacja) or a voyage (wojaż), and its participants were called peregrines or voyagers (peregrynanci and wojażerowie, respectively). German terms were also used, such as Kavalierstour (for ‘bachelor tour’) or Kavaliersreise.

It is worth noting geographic and social differences between nations. The English, being mostly Protestants, came to the continent, which involved a physical crossing of the English Channel and a stay in countries with a different – that is, Roman Catholic – religion (such as France and particularly Italy). Meanwhile, for Poles, among whom Catholics predominated, it was a trip to lands not so religiously different from theirs.

Such a trip was to happen only once, because later the young nobleman entered adult life. Initially, the peregrines were therefore between the ages of 16 and 20; later, from the 18th century, older people went. It happened that brothers of similar age traveled together. Jan (later king) and Marek Sobieski, departing in 1646, were 17 and 18, respectively. Janusz Antoni and Michał Serwacy Wiśniowiecki, starting their journey in 1695, were 17 and 15 years old. Later, they held high offices, as Janusz became the castellan of Kraków, while Michał became the voivode of Vilnius and the great hetman of Lithuania.

The journey (sometimes combined with study) could last from one to four years, sometimes longer. Both the young Sobieskis and the Wiśniowieckis left Poland for a total of two years. The grand tour of the brothers Jan Stanisław and Aleksander Jan Jabłonowski, sons of Stanisław Jan, the grand crown hetman and the commander of the Polish hussars during the Battle of Vienna, lasted longer – they stayed abroad for over five years – from September 1682 to January 1688.

As a side note, it can be remarked that their father also spent part of his youth abroad – the period of his studies in Prague and the Grand Tour, spent primarily in France, were in the years 1648 to 1650.

The time spent in each city was not divided equally. It was assumed that one could spend up to a year in Paris (combining this stay with studies), and only a few weeks would be left for Madrid. This is what the Jabłonowskis, for example, did. The Sobieskis also spent most of their trip in the French capital, while the Wiśniowieckis lived there for almost a year.

The trips were, of course, carefully planned, and the most important element of preparation was the choice of a guardian. Young people did not leave alone but under the supervision of a preceptor, also called a mentor, governor or tutor. As Antonii Mączak, the precursor of research on travel in modern times, wrote in the book Everyday Life in Traveling Around Europe in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Życie Codzienne w Podróżach po Europie w XVI i XVII Wieku) that this guardian had to be

a thoroughly competent person who knows the countries he visits, speaks languages and treats the care provided during a foreign trip as a profession. Such a tutor was valuable, as he ensured the young man used his experience and made it possible to trust that he would avoid unnecessary risks. Such specialists were passed on by fathers through letters of recommendation. They would often become authors of widely read and useful guides.

One such professional preceptor was Lassels, the author of the term Grand Tour, who traveled in this manner five times in total. The young Jabłonowskis had two tutors – Jan Michał Kossowicz and Szymon Ignacy Gutowski. The Wiśniowieckis were looked after by Jan Kamocki, and the Sobieskis by Sebastian Gawarecki. During such trips, preceptors could complete their own studies and, of course, visit previously unknown places with the young peregrines.

The task of the preceptor was primarily to make sure that the whole trip proceeded in accordance with the parents’ instructions, i.e. that the young men learned, made appropriate contacts, and also engaged in sightseeing. It was the preceptor who had the money allocated for the trip and regularly informed the parents in letters about what was happening to their sons. Mentors would also write diaries if the peregrines were too young. Gawarecki wrote one for the Sobieskis, and Kossowicz for the Jabłonowskis.

In addition to the guardians, servants were also taken along, which was so obvious that they were not even mentioned in the travel accounts unless they became the protagonists of some particular story.

Itineraries, Diaries & Manuals

Our knowledge about Polish voyagers and their experiences comes from the few remaining travelers’ records of a specific type. Most of them were not published (their authors did not intend to do so), and they circulated among the relatives and friends of the diarist only in the form of manuscripts, helping in the preparation of subsequent trips.

The first type of such a document was the itinerary. As Adam Kucharski noted:

[it was] simply a list of visited cities, arranged in the chronological order of their visit. Thence originated the specific type of itineraries, such as the Old Polish ones, that constituted a kind of guide for travelers. They provided an outline of the road separating the destination points, specifying the distance between the start and the finish of the peregrination. The distance was given in various units of length (usually miles as measured in a given country). Possible obstacles on the way, such as rivers or mountains, were also specified.

The second type was a diary, i.e. an account of the expedition; their authors were referred to as diarists. It was a travel journal in chronological order, with the author’s opinions and impressions about the places he visited. It contained comments on history, geography, politics but also descriptions of the sights and observations on the customs prevailing in each given country. It also included practical information. Diaries are the most valuable documents for us today, because on their basis not only can we reconstruct the routes of the journeys but we can also get to know the impressions and opinions of the peregrines. Particularly interesting are those fragments in which the authors describe not so much something typical but rather something that deviated from the norm they were accustomed to.

Yet another document was parental instructions – guidelines in which fathers (more often) and mothers (less often) wrote down their instructions: what and how peregrines were to study, how to behave, what to avoid. These were often based on the earlier experiences of fathers-voyagers. Moral admonitions and practical advice also appeared in the texts themselves. Such an instruction was written, for example, by Jakub Sobieski for his sons, Jan and Marek.

Places Visited

France – including Paris and Versailles – was undoubtedly a special place for the participants of the Grand Tour, often being its main destination. As we read in Stanisław Wierzbowski, who took his ‘bachelor tour’ in the 1680s:

I do not describe Paris, because there are so many volumes written about it. I only add that the city is full of all delicacies. Want to be a saint? You can, because you will find so many opportunities and people whose example of holiness you can follow. There are so many temples of the Lord, pious monasteries, school libraries. The Sorbonne itself gives you a doctorate. Want to be bad? There also you will more likely find the type of company to corrupt your soul and body. Do you want to delight your eyes? You have beautiful people, palaces, gardens, haberdashery, exquisite paintings, splendid and delicate works, and a subtlety of comedies and operas – especially operas and the Versailles garden – these two seduce a man’s memory.

As was already mentioned, Italy was also a permanent destination for the expeditions. Italy aroused interest due to the accumulation of works of art and the role of Rome as the capital of the Christian world. In addition, the universities in Bologna and Padua were highly esteemed. Venice was visited especially keenly during Carnival. The Apennine Peninsula was often the last stage of the Grand Tour – after that, one headed north towards the borders of the Republic of Poland.

The countries of the Reich (particularly Vienna) were also visited for political reasons – after all, a pro- or anti-Habsburg orientation was one of the vectors of Polish foreign policy at that time. Prague, then part of the Reich, was a popular choice as a place of study. Other countries were also traveled to, such as England, the Netherlands and Spain, but their importance or the time devoted to visiting them could not compare to France or Italy.

Typical Activities of a Polish Peregrine

What the young man was supposed to do during the Grand Tour was already planned by his parents in the aforementioned instructions. Peregrines combined sightseeing with studies – for example, the Jabłonowskis studied in Prague and Paris, in the latter city the subject being philosophy at the Jesuit college.

The Sobieskis, while in Paris, even had their typical days planned by their father (Jakub Sobieski). As Joanna Orzeł writes in the text The Grand Tour of Marek and Jan Sobieski (Grand Tour Marka i Jana Sobieskich), it was:

five hours of study a day: an hour in the morning, stylistic exercises in Latin; the next half hour, their correction under the supervision of a professor; an hour-long lecture by the professor, reading with a commentary on Roman history; half an hour, individual reading (a total of three hours in the morning); in the afternoon, two hours of learning French combined with French history. Paris was also where they studied fencing. Their father additionally recommended riding lessons and playing ball (on their days off). In addition, young men could decide on their own to learn to dance and play instruments.

It is worth noting that studies were perceived slightly differently than today – they did not have to be complete, regular semesters spent in one place and ending with exams, but rather listening to lectures by the most eminent professors and participating in disputes. Students often studied for several months, moving between specific academic centers.

Practical studies related to the military were an important element, which was particularly essential for the subsequent career of a young nobleman in the First Polish Republic. Anna Markiewicz, in the text Hercules Gallicus: The Educational Journey of Jerzy Stanisław Dzieduszycki (Hercules Gallicus: Podróż Edukacyjna Jerzego Stanisława Dzieduszyckiego), explained why the young man, who was traveling in the early 1790s, left Paris for the Netherlands:

The attractiveness of the country was usually associated with the possibility of convenient observation of many fortifications and territorial reinforcements located in this area, making it easier for the young nobility to acquire practical skills in the field of military art. The convenience of observing military maneuvers during numerous clashes that took place there was a practical supplement to reading and theoretical classes held at prestigious Parisian academies.

Military interests weren’t exceptional – for example, the already mentioned Wiśniowieckis pursued them. Learning foreign languages was also indispensable. For example, Jabłonowski, the father, put emphasis on this, so his sons wrote letters to him from Paris in Latin and French, which was supposed to showcase their progress in mastering these languages.

Of value apart from studying was establishing contacts, i.e. audiences at royal courts and getting to know other young people from noble and aristocratic families. In May 1685, the Jabłonowskis were introduced to Louis XIV in Versailles. They also observed the audience granted by the King of France to the Doge of Genoa, or the solemn entry of the Muscovite envoy.

On the other hand, liaising with other Polish noblemen in the specific conditions provided by staying abroad and the young age of the people getting to know each other created bonds between them, which were maintained and paid off later in life. The common experience of youth, e.g. studying in the same place, often brought strangers closer together.

These trips were also connected with … shopping. In addition to souvenirs, the newest books were purchased but also works by classical authors, which later enriched magnate libraries. In Italy, especially in the 18th century, works of art were bought, both antique and contemporary. Cityscapes depicting Italian cities, so-called vedutas, are worth mentioning here. The popularity of this genre developed especially in Venice, where these were eagerly bought by English visitors to the city. They treated them as a special souvenir – these works, after returning to London, for example, were to be a reminder of the Grand Tour taken to Italy back in their day.

Grand Tour – What For?

Preceptors’ letters to parents often contained polite requests to send money; fathers, writing to their children’s guardians, in turn pointed out that the costs of the expedition were constantly rising. We may wonder – why send young people on such expensive expeditions? The educational aspect was undoubtedly important, but the peregrine was supposed to watch, experience and gain an understanding of something – and these are very intangible experiences.

As the popularity of the Grand Tour phenomenon among the Polish elites of the 17th and 18th centuries shows, this journey was indispensable and considered worth its price. Its main assumptions have survived, in changed forms of course, to this day.

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Filed under Austria, Czechia, education, France, Italy, language, Poland, religion, travel

by Joel | 28 September 2026 · 5:58 am

Polish Nobles on the ‘Grand Tour’: Intro

The concept of a Grand Tour was introduced in the 1770s by an Englishman, Richard Lassels, to describe a journey serving to supplement education, develop aesthetic taste, acquire practical skills, broaden the knowledge of foreign languages and acquire general refinement by young noblemen – this was one of the most important social and cultural phenomena in the 17th and 18th centuries. Young Polish nobles also made such journeys.

As noted by Anna Markiewicz in the book Educational Journeys in the Times of Jan III Sobieski: Peregrinationes Jablonovianae (Podróże Edukacyjne w Czasach Jana III Sobieskiego: Peregrinationes Jablonovianae), Richard Lassels ‘included in this term the meaning of the journey – it was grand because of the duration and length of the route, but it was also supposed to be a grand event, a journey of a lifetime’. In the 17th and 18th centuries, such journeys were very popular, if not common, among the richest stratum of the European and Polish nobility. From this designation, other terms were also coined, which still function today – the English ‘tourist’ being someone taking part in a Grand Tour.

The very premise of the Grand Tour was very simple. As Markiewicz wrote, the following were visited:

France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and England. A great foreign trip was then the last stage of education of European elites, undertaken in order to gain knowledge, skills, to get to know the world, foreign countries, their cultures, customs and language. Young people visited foreign universities, courts, academies and military camps.

In the 1730s, Stanisław Lubomirski explained the goals of such an expedition to his sons Aleksander and Jerzy: ‘One should [become familiar with] anything about [the functioning of] a good institution, polish wit and good spirit, and comprehend all wisdom and decorum.’

The point was therefore to see what principles of a foreign system (political or social) could be useful in Poland, to acquire knowledge and skills indispensable in public life, and also to acquire refinement and a certain ability to ‘be in the world’.

Trips in the 17th century – which needs to be emphasized – were, for social, moral and financial reasons, reserved only for young men from wealthy noble families.

However, in the 18th century, the Grand Tour underwent changes – the educational aspect (i.e. gaining specific knowledge) becomes less important, and what matters most is developing the right taste, which is why Italy becomes the most important destination. As Marek Bratuń notes in the article Grand Tour: Birth – Development – Dusk (Grand Tour: Narodziny – Rozwój – Zmierzch): ‘The main purpose of the Grand Tour in the 18th century are the broadly understood arts that contribute to the development of good taste, the most perfect forms of which were preserved under the Italian sky.’ It is also connected with the archaeological excavations of the times, in Pompeii (1738) and Herculaneum (1748), bringing a new wave of interest in the art of antiquity.

The activity of Johann Joachim Winckelmann and his work devoted to the history of ancient art, published in 1755, was also significant. The proof of this influence is the work published in 1815, titled On the Art of the Ancients, or Polish Winckelmann (O Sztuce u Dawnych czyli Winkelman Polski) by Stanisław Kostka Potocki, one of the pioneers of Polish archeology and aficionado of ancient art.

Marek Bratuń also adds that ‘it is the primacy of aesthetics in the Italian Grand Tour of the second half of the 18th century […] that will effectively transform the original educational journey into an aesthetic and tourist journey, without a preceptor; in the footsteps of the departing gentlemen, the braver ladies would also follow.’

This tendency is also noticed by Agata Roćko in the article Polish Grand Tour of ‘Fashionable Ladies’ (Polski Grand Tour ‘Dam Modnych’), writing that ‘Polish ladies have already followed on the beaten track of the Grand Tour, just like the ladies in Europe, even though their journeys were not educational and cognitive, but rather aesthetic and touristic.’ Among Polish travelers, one can mention, for example, Izabela Lubomirska née Czartoryska (she went to Italy with Kostka Potocki in the years 1785 to 1786) or Teofilia Konstancja Morawska née Radziwiłł (author of Diary of a European Journey in the Years 1773-1774 [Diariusz Podróży Europejskiej w Latach 1773-1774]).

The trips themselves over the course of time ceased to be reserved only for the aristocracy, becoming in the 19th century also available to the moderately wealthy nobility and the wealthier bourgeoisie. Thanks to this, the phenomenon has been permanently recorded in the history of the Old Continent, because it is then that modern travel around Europe begins to take shape as a typical activity consisting in going to a foreign place and visiting it, completely unrelated to a specific reason (e.g. pilgrimage, a diplomatic deployment or commercial mission). In a way, the idea of such an ‘uninvested’ trip (because its purpose was to see art and visit interesting places) continues to this day – this type of tourism is a typical cultural activity of the European middle class, and a trip to Italy remains its quintessence.

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Filed under education, Europe, France, Italy, language, Poland, travel

by Joel | 28 June 2026 · 12:59 am

Polish Realia: Italian Pizza

Here are some informative paragraphs from the placemats at Tutti Santi, home of “legendary Italian pizza” in Kielce, Poland.

Włosaka pizza to setki lat historii. Na to, jak smakuje, ma wpływ jakość produktów, ale tez wiele lat poszukiwan, odkryc i zaangażowania ludzi, dla których pizza stała się życiową pasją. Zamów swoją ulubioną pizzę i rozsmakuj się w tej wyjątkowej historii.
Italian pizza embodies centuries of history. Its taste is shaped not only by the quality of the ingredients but also by years of exploration, discovery, and the dedication of people for whom pizza has become a lifelong passion. Order your favorite pizza and savor this unique story.

Włoskie Rzemiosło Italian Craftsmanship
Przepis na prawdziwą, włoska pizzę to tajemnica, do której dostęp mają tylko nieliczni. Tutti Santi to jedyna restauracja w Polsce, w której spróbujesz pizzy według receptury Mistrza Włoch i Europy Valerio Valle. Ciasto jego autorstwa jest delikatne, cienkie i lekko chrupiące.
The recipe for authentic Italian pizza is a secret accessible to only a few. Tutti Santi is the only restaurant in Poland where you can taste pizza made according to the recipe of Italian and European Champion Valerio Valle. The dough he created is delicate, thin, and slightly crispy.

Cierpliwość Patience
Ciasto według autorskiej receptury Mistrza Valerio Valle wymaga czasu i cierpliwości. Dojrzewanie ciasta trwa 48 godzin, w tym czasie zachodzą w nim niezbędne procesy, dzięki którym zawsze jest pyszne i lekkostrawne.
The dough, based on Master Valerio Valle’s original recipe, requires time and patience. The dough undergoes a 48-hour maturation process, during which essential changes occur that ensure it is always delicious and easy to digest.

Pomidory Tomatoes
Pomidory nie zostały odkryte we Włoszech, ale to Włosi odkryli ich potencjał i zamienili je w symbol włoskiej kuchni. Nasz sos tworzymy tylko z włoskich pomidorów, które dojrzewają w gorącym słońcu południa, co daje im wyątkową słodycz.
Tomatoes were not discovered in Italy, but it was the Italians who discovered their potential and turned them into a symbol of Italian cuisine. We make our sauce exclusively from Italian tomatoes ripened in the hot southern sun, which gives them exceptional sweetness.

Mąka – Sekret Ciasta Flour – Secret to the Dough
Wyselekcjonowaliśmy specjalny rodzaj włoskiej mąki o odpowiedniej zawartości białka. Mąkę sprowadzamy prosto z włoskich młynów, które od blisko 200 lat należą do jednej rodziny, gdzie przez pokolenia przekazuje się najlepsze tradycje i wielowikowe doświadczenie.
We have selected a special type of Italian flour with the appropriate protein content. We source our flour directly from Italian mills that have belonged to the same family for nearly 200 years—mills where the finest traditions and centuries of experience have been passed down through generations.

Naturalny Ogień Natural Fire
Nasze pizze wypiekamy w specjalnych kopułowych piecach opalanych drewnem. Od czterech pokoleń są one produkowane przez jedną rodzinę Valoriani. Od ponad 100 lat specjalizuje się ona w tradycyjnych piecach chlebowych, wykorzystując moc ognia, właściwości lawy wulkanidznej i widzę na temat rzemieślniczych metod wypieku ciasta.
We bake our pizzas in special wood-fired dome ovens. For four generations, they have been produced by the Valoriani family. For over 100 years, they have specialized in traditional bread ovens, harnessing the power of fire, the properties of volcanic lava, and expertise in artisanal baking methods.

Unikalne Smaki Unique Tastes
Do przygotowania każdej pizzy w Tutti Santi wykorzystujemy selektywnie wybrane produkty, które sprowadzamy bezpośrednio z Włoch od regionalnych, rzemieślniczych producentów. W naszym menu znajdziecie m.in. szlachetną szynkę San Daniele, Mozzarellę di Bufala z mleka bawolego, sery Stracchino, Provolone i wiele innych regionalnych produktów!
To prepare every pizza at Tutti Santi, we use carefully selected products imported directly from Italy from regional, artisanal producers. Our menu features, among other things, premium San Daniele ham, buffalo milk Mozzarella di Bufala, Stracchino and Provolone cheeses, and many other regional products!

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Filed under food, Italy, language, Poland

by Joel | 2 March 2026 · 6:51 pm

Polish Culture Shock, 1956

From Travels with Herodotus, by Ryszard Kapuscinski (Vintage, 2009), Kindle pp. 12-13:

The confrontation between East and West took place not only in the military realm but in all other spheres of life as well. If the West dressed lightly, then the East, according to the law of opposites, dressed heavily; if the West wore closely fitting clothes, then the East did the reverse—everything had to stick out by a mile. One did not have to carry one’s passport around:—one could see at a distance who was from which side of the Iron Curtain.

We started making rounds of the shops, accompanied by Mario’s wife. For me, these were expeditions of discovery. Three things dazzled me the most. First, that the stores were full of merchandise, were actually brimming with it, the goods weighing down shelves and counters, spilling out in towering, colorful streams onto sidewalks, streets, and squares. Second, that the salesladies did not sit, but stood, looking at the entrance doors. It was strange that they stood in silence, rather than sitting and talking to one another. Women, after all, have so many subjects in common. Troubles with their husbands, problems with the children. What to wear, one’s health, whether something burned on the stove yesterday. And here I had the impression that they did not know each other at all and had no desire to converse. The third shock was that the salesclerks answered the questions posed to them. They responded in complete sentences and then at the end added “Grazie!” Mario’s wife would ask about something and they would listen to her with sympathy and attention, so focused and inclined forward that they looked as if they were about to start in a race. And then one heard that oft-repeated, sacramental grazie!

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Filed under economics, Italy, Poland, travel

by Joel | 21 February 2026 · 5:34 am

Mincemeat and Mussolini

From Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre (Crown, 2010), Kindle pp. 291-293:

The most significant victim in the fallout on the Axis side was Mussolini himself. From the first Allied footfall in Sicily, Il Duce was doomed, though he refused to acknowledge it. Goebbels noted: “The only thing certain in this war is that Italy will lose it.” The Pact of Steel was cracking up. By July 18, the Allied front line had moved halfway up Sicily. That day, Mussolini sent an almost defiant cable to Hitler: “The sacrifice of my country cannot have as its principal purpose that of delaying a direct attack on Germany.” The Führer summoned him to an urgent meeting. Il Duce did not care to be summoned anywhere but went meekly. The two fascist leaders met in Feltre, fifty miles from Venice, where Hitler launched into a long harangue, lambasting the “inept and cowardly” Italian troops in Sicily and insisting: “What has happened now in Sicily must not be allowed to happen again.” In the midst of the tirade, an aide interrupted to inform Mussolini that Rome was under massive air attack, the first time the capital had been targeted. Mussolini sat impassively through the two-hour monologue. The great Italian bull seemed to be fatally gored, diminished, and distant. At the end of the excruciating meeting, he said simply: “We are fighting for a common cause, Führer.” It sounded more like an epitaph than a statement of solidarity. On July 22, Palermo fell to Patton’s American troops. Three days later, Mussolini was outvoted by the Fascist Grand Council, summoned by King Victor Emmanuel III to a private audience, and toppled. “It can’t go on any longer,” said the king: Mussolini must resign at once, to be replaced by Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the former chief of the armed forces. Italy’s deposed dictator left the royal Villa Savoia hidden in an ambulance, and the new government in Rome began the secret task of extracting Italy from the war and Hitler’s poisonous embrace. In Badoglio’s words: “Fascism fell, as was fitting, like a rotten pear.” The next day, Rommel was recalled from Greece to defend northern Italy.

Would it have fallen so fast, or rotted so quickly, without Operation Mincemeat? The invasion of Sicily was a far from perfect military operation, bedeviled by poor planning and personal rivalries between selfish and powerful men. A relatively small contingent of German troops successfully held up the advance of an Allied host seven times larger and then evacuated the island to continue the battle up mainland Italy. The fight for Sicily was grim, bitter, and costly. But how much worse would it have been had the Nazi high command been prepared for it? What if, say, the full-strength, battle-tempered First Panzer Division, instead of being dispatched to Greece to await an imaginary invasion, had been deployed along the coast at Gela?

It is impossible to calculate how many lives, on both sides of the conflict, were saved by Operation Mincemeat, or exactly how much it contributed to hastening the end of the war and the defeat of Hitler. The Allies had expected it would take ninety days to conquer Sicily. The occupation was completed on August 17, thirty-eight days after the invasion began. Looking back after the war, Professor Percy Ernst Schramm, keeper of the OKW war diary, left no doubt that the fake documents had played a critical role: “It is well known that under the influence of the letters, Hitler moved troops to Sardinia and southern Greece, thereby preventing them from taking part in the defence against [Husky].” In September, Italy formally surrendered, although the war in Italy would not end until May 1945.

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by Joel | 20 February 2026 · 3:02 am

Nazi Intelligence Failure in 1943?

From Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory, by Ben Macintyre (Crown, 2010), Kindle pp. 229-232:

The first full German intelligence assessment of the documents was written on May 11 and signed by Baron von Roenne himself. It was addressed to the OKW Operations Staff, or Wehrmachtführungsstab, headed by General Alfred Jodl, and entitled, portentously, “Discovery of the English Courier.” It began: “On the corpse of an English courier which was found on the Spanish coast, were three letters from senior British Officers to high Allied Officers in North Africa. … They give information concerning the decisions taken on the 23rd April, 1943, regarding Anglo-American strategy for the conduct of the war in the Mediterranean after the conclusion of the Tunisian campaign.” Major Martin is described as “an experienced specialist in amphibious operations.”

Von Roenne went on to lay out, point by point, the misinformation prepared by Cholmondeley and Montagu. “Large scale amphibious operations in both the Western and Eastern Mediterranean are intended. The proposed operation in the eastern Mediterranean, under the command of General Wilson, is to be made on the coast round Kalamata, and the section of the coast south of Cape Araxos. The code name for the landings on the Peloponnesus is ‘Husky.’ … The operation to be conducted in the Western Mediterranean by General Alexander was mentioned, but without naming any objective.” Von Roenne, however, had picked up on the reference to sardines. “A jocular remark in this letter refers to Sardinia,” he wrote. “The code name for this operation is ‘Brimstone.’” The attack on Sardinia, he surmised, must be “a minor ‘commando type’ since Mountbatten had requested the return of Major Martin after the operation. This indication points to the invasion of an island rather than of a major undertaking. … This is another point in favour of Sardinia.”

Just as important, Von Roenne relayed the news that Sicily was not a real target for the Allies, but a decoy: “The proposed cover operation for ‘Brimstone’ is Sicily.” That lie would sit, immovably, at the center of German strategic thinking over the coming months: the attacks would come in the east, in Greece, and in the west, most probably in Sardinia; evidence of any planned assault on Sicily could safely be dismissed as a hoax. The only uncertainty, von Roenne warned, was that of timing. If the two divisions identified in Nye’s letter—the Fifty-sixth Infantry attacking Kalamata and the Fifth Infantry Division aimed at Cape Araxos—were deployed at less than full strength, then the “operation could be mounted immediately” and the offensive might start at any time. However, the Fifty-sixth Division, von Roenne noted, had two brigades “still in action” at Enfidaville. If the entire division was to be used in the assault, these troops “must first be rested and then embarked. This possibility, which necessitates a certain time lag before the launching of the operation, is, judging by the form of the letters, the most likely.” In von Roenne’s mature estimation, Germany still had “at least two or three weeks” to reinforce the Greek coast before the attack.

That was also enough time for the British to change their plans, which they might well do if they knew the information had reached the Germans. Von Roenne now turned to this important consideration. “It is known to the British Staff that the courier’s despatches to [sic] Major Martin fell into Spanish hands,” he wrote, but “it is not perhaps known to the British General Staff that these letters came to our notice, since an English Consul was present at the examination of the letters by Spanish officials.” The letters had been reinserted in the envelopes and returned to the British, and a senior officer of the Madrid Abwehr station had personally inspected the resealed envelopes before they were returned to Alan Hillgarth. The British might suspect but would have no proof that the letters had been read, let alone passed to the Germans and copied. “It is, therefore, to be hoped that the British General Staff will continue with these projected operations and thereby make possible a resounding Abwehr success.” In order to convince the British that their secrets were still safe, von Roenne suggested that the Germans mount their own deception: they should give no indication that they feared simultaneous attacks in the eastern and western Mediterranean and instead “initiate a misleading plan of action which will deceive the enemy by painting a picture of growing Axis concern regarding Sicily.” The Germans should pretend to reinforce Sicily, while doing nothing of the sort.

Von Roenne ended with a security warning. “News of this discovery will be treated with the greatest secrecy, and knowledge of it confined to as few as possible.” The baron’s assessment was remarkable in many ways: it hauled on board every single aspect of the deception and even launched a corresponding deception plan to reinforce it. But perhaps most astonishing of all was the ringing endorsement that accompanied the appraisal: “The circumstances of the discovery, together with the form and contents of the despatches, are absolutely convincing proof of the reliability of the letters.” The army’s chief intelligence analyst, from the outset, utterly dismissed the possibility of a plant.

This was, to say the least, strange. The analysts of FHW usually distrusted uncorroborated information emanating directly from the Abwehr, knowing the inefficiency and corruption of that organization, and tended to be skeptical of Abwehr revelations “unless these were clearly corroborated by more tangible evidence.” Von Roenne’s natural caution seems to have deserted him. He knew only what the Madrid Abwehr station had told him about the discovery of the body, which was secondhand information derived through Adolf Clauss. The report detailing the results of the second meeting with Pardo on May 10 had not yet reached Berlin. No additional checks had been made, the body had not been examined, and the original documents had remained in German hands for only one hour, far too short a time for forensic testing. And yet he chose to describe the documents as incontrovertibly genuine.

Deception is a sort of seduction. In love and war, adultery and espionage, deceit can only succeed if the deceived party is willing, in some way, to be deceived. The betrayed lover sees only the signs of love and blocks out the evidence of faithlessness, however glaring. This unconscious willingness to see the lie as truth—“wishfulness” was Admiral Godfrey’s word for it—comes in many forms: Adolf Clauss in Huelva wanted to believe the false documents because his reputation depended on believing them; for Karl-Erich Kühlenthal, any intelligence breakthrough to his credit, no matter how fantastic, made him safer, a Jew among anti-Semitic killers. Von Roenne, however, may have chosen to believe in the fake documents for an entirely different reason: because he loathed Hitler, wanted to undermine the Nazi war effort, and was intent on passing false information to the high command in the certain knowledge that it was wholly false and extremely damaging.

It is quite possible that Lieutenant Colonel Alexis Baron von Roenne did not believe the Mincemeat deception for an instant.

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by Joel | 18 February 2026 · 5:58 am

Benedictions in Polish & Italian

Błogosławieni, którzy z wiarą znoszą cierpienia, jaki zadają im inni, i z serca przebacają;
błogosławieni, którzy patrzą w oczy odrzuconym i usuniętym na margines okazująć im bliskość;
błogosławieni, którzy rozpoznają Boga w każdym człowieku i walczą o to, aby i inni to odkryli;
błogosławieni, którzy chronią i obają o wspólny dom;
błogosławieni, którzy rezygnują ze swojego dobrobytu dla dobra innych;
błogosławieni, którzy modlą się i pracują na rzecz pełnej jedności chrześcijan…
Wszyscy oni są nosicielami miłosierdzia i czułości Boga i na pewno otrzymają od Niego zasłużoną nagrodę.

Beati coloro che sopportano con fede i mali che altri infliggono loro e perdonano di cuore;
beati coloro che guardano negli occhi gli scartati e gli emarginati mostrando loro vicinanza;
beati coloro che riconoscono Dio in ogni persona i lottano perche anche altri lo scoprano;
beati coloro che proteggono e curano la casa comune; beati coloro che rinunciano al proprio benessere per il bene degli altri;
beati coloro che pregano e lavorano per la piena comunione dei cristiani…
Tutti costoro sono portatori della misericordia e della tenerezza di Dio, e certamente riceveranno da Lui la ricompensa meritata.
Papież Franciszek

Google translation from Polish:
Blessed are those who endure with faith the sufferings inflicted on them by others and forgive from the heart;
blessed are those who look into the eyes of those who are rejected and marginalized, showing them closeness;
blessed are those who recognize God in every person and fight for others to discover it;
blessed are those who protect and care for our common home;
blessed are those who give up their own well-being for the good of others;
blessed are those who pray and work for the full unity of Christians…
All of them are bearers of God’s mercy and tenderness, and they will surely receive from Him the reward they deserve.

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by Joel | 1 February 2026 · 9:46 am

Bengal Famine, 1943

From Burma ’44: The Battle That Turned World War II in the East, by James Holland (Grove Atlantic, 2024), Kindle pp. 112-114:

Most Bengalis lived an extremely precarious existence. Some ten million were utterly dependent on agriculture, but of these more than half held less than 2 acres of land and many none at all. There was charity and relief but no social welfare; they had to fend for themselves. Through the first half of 1943 food prices had increased dramatically. … This was due in part to the shortages in Bengal but also to increased demand for the feeding of troops in India, as well as demand from around the world. It was artisans who suffered first, because as poverty increased so the money available for goods dried up. Then the shortages hit the wider Bengali population, many of whom left the country for the cities. By the time Tom Grounds was on leave in Calcutta, the city was bursting with the influx of impoverished families searching for food.

Yet while the cost of food was certainly a factor, the biggest problem now facing the authorities was how to get food to Bengal and urgently. The state had already been an importer of food for over a decade and most of it had come from Burma, now closed to India. The loss of Burma had been disastrous for Bengal’s fragile economy and the subsequent cyclone had made it catastrophic. Where else could it be sourced? North America and South America were the obvious places, but the amount needed was enormous and would have required a major diversion of shipping at a time when the demands on such seaborne transport had never been greater.

That August, Churchill was not prepared suddenly to release shipping to take food to Bengal; however draconian that may seem, far away in Britain the problems of the Bengalis seemed less pressing than the urgent need to maintain supplies at a crucial moment in the war. Britain and America were fighting in Sicily – an island that could be supplied effectively only by ship; they were about to invade mainland Italy, which also required an amphibious operation and supply; they were preparing for the invasion of north-west Europe; and they were fighting the Japanese throughout the Pacific. Was Churchill really expected to interrupt the war effort, and current operations, with millions of lives at stake in theatres of war around the world? Who was to say what effect such a diversion of shipping would have on the eventual length of the war, with its implications for further loss of life? In any case, ships could not be diverted from the far side of the Atlantic, for example, at the drop of a hat. Churchill was not to blame.

Not all India was facing famine – only Bengal and the north-east. One problem was that in 1935 the government had ceded considerable central power to the provinces, where the regional governments were all democratically elected. The previous year, 1942, these had all agreed to introduce trade barriers between one another. The central government of India now announced there should be free trade in grain, but plans to send relief to Bengal had been obstructed by local government officers, police and other officials who feared their own provinces risked suffering a similar fate to that of Bengal. Wavell, in one of his first acts as Viceroy-Designate, had forced the issue by threatening legal and even military action, and by August substantial amounts of grain had finally begun to arrive in Bengal. It was, however, too little too late to bring a swift end to the humanitarian disaster rising horrifically throughout the region. Relief kitchens hastily set up in Calcutta and elsewhere were simply not enough. With malnutrition came disease; those not dying of starvation were just as likely to succumb to typhus, malaria or cholera, and there were not enough hospitals or medical care to cope.

The famine had certainly been exacerbated by the war and by the fact that the Indian government had prioritized combatting the Japanese above all other matters. Yet the authorities, although slow to react, were certainly not immune to the horrors unfolding and, of course, while the tragedy of human suffering was truly appalling, the famine was yet another massive problem for the Allied command to overcome. It stretched already overstretched lines of supply, pushed the limited medical services to breaking point, affected food supplies to the troops, further sapped the morale of those who witnessed the starving, dying and dead throughout Bengal, and damaged the reputation of the British even more, and all at a time when there was a new Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief.

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Filed under Bangladesh, Britain, Burma, disease, food, Italy, Japan, migration, military, Pacific, U.S., war

by Joel | 23 December 2025 · 4:02 am

Forging Ahead for the Postwar

From Victory ’45: The End of the War in Eight Surrenders, by James Holland and Al Murray (Grove Atlantic, 2025), Kindle pp. 52-54:

While, on the face of it, Wolff appeared to be one step ahead of Kaltenbrunner in his contacts with the Allies, the RSHA chief had been stockpiling immense amounts of cash for a post-war world in which money could well buy him out of trouble. Twenty miles north-west of Bolzano, down a long Alpine valley, lay Merano, a small spa town popular before the war for its mountain sports, which had been home to a number of Jews, most of whom had since been arrested and deported. Since early the previous year, it had also been the headquarters of an outrageous money-laundering operation. In fact, there were warehouses next to Merano’s racecourse now stuffed with boxes full of counterfeit British and US banknotes.

The location of Merano – between Innsbruck and Austria to the north, Switzerland to the east, and with Verona, Lake Garda and Bologna all as local satellites – made the town the ideal place from which to run a money-laundering operation. To launder money, the ability to distribute it and spread it to the four winds was essential, but equally important was to keep the enterprise away from too many prying eyes. Kaltenbrunner was mostly in Berlin, but Merano was surrounded by mountains and isolated. Here another of his creatures could mastermind the entire operation with comparative impunity.

Forging British banknotes had originally been devised by the SD back in 1940, although the counterfeiters initially struggled and by the time of Heydrich’s assassination in Prague in June 1942 the operation had already been wound down. Under Kaltenbrunner, however, counterfeiting British notes was revived as Operation BERNHARD. The aim was no longer to flood the British economy but rather to use the money to finance secret intelligence operations. And this time the counterfeiters were of an entirely higher calibre: Jewish prisoners at Sachsenhausen concentration camp to the north of Berlin who were superb at the art of forging banknotes. By 1943, some 140 prisoners were producing tens of millions of pounds’ worth of notes from six flat-bed printing presses. By May 1944, Kaltenbrunner ordered them to start producing US dollars as well, not exactly for intelligence operations but for his own personal use, whether that might be a last stand in the Alpine redoubt – certainly his cover story – or, more realistically, to accumulate a vast private fund for a rainy post-war day.

Running the laundering of this extraordinary counterfeiting operation was another unscrupulous rogue called Friedrich Schwend, part of the mosaic of corruption, criminality and deceit that marked the Nazi regime. Like Kaltenbrunner, Schwend had been only too willing to cast ideology aside in favour of looking after number one and was proving adept at adapting his skills to self-preservation. Schwend was thirty-eight, a former pre-war car engine salesman and a smooth-talking charmer who had been working for the Abwehr, the Wehrmacht’s intelligence service – rather than the SS-run RSHA – at the start of the war. Repeatedly getting himself into trouble, he was caught out by his superiors selling unauthorized but bogus German U-boat plans to the British for cash, captured by Italian secret intelligence agents, turned back over to the Germans at the Brenner Pass and flung in prison at Klagenfurt in the Austrian Alps.

Kaltenbrunner learned about Schwend from none other than Wilhelm Höttl, who suggested this canny rogue as just the man for overseeing a money-laundering operation. That Schwend had fallen foul of the Abwehr was no disqualification for working for Kaltenbrunner; quite the opposite, in fact. Releasing Schwend from his incarceration, the RSHA boss instructed him to run the entire laundering operation of forged banknotes, giving him, frankly, astonishing levels of latitude so long as he successfully and swiftly spread the notes as far and wide as possible. Incredibly, Schwend even negotiated for himself a 33.33 per cent cut of every pound sterling he brought into circulation.

In very swift order, Schwend established his small operation under the entirely fake name of ‘Stab. 4 Deutsches Panzerkorps’, initially at Abbazia and Trieste before realizing that Merano offered a considerably better, more discreet location. Taking over the Schloss Labers, a grand – but not too grand – villa perched among vineyards on a hill overlooking the town, and protected by a small squad of SS police troops, Schwend got down to building a fortune. With the forged notes he bought houses, hotels, ships, cars and shares in a number of companies. Some of it was used for bribes and he also sent plenty to vaults in Zurich. He developed a dense network of couriers and agents, including Jews. Jack Van Herten, for example, was a Dutch Jew operating under the cover of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In reality, he was smuggling Jews to the Middle East but at the same time passing on laundered money for Schwend. And Schwend also took over those warehouses at the Merano racecourse, hiding counterfeit notes in race boxes that were then distributed to Holland, France, Denmark and elsewhere. It was a huge operation and Schwend was making millions. But Kaltenbrunner was making even more. And right under the nose of the Höchster SS und Polizeiführer in Italy, Karl Wolff.