Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 June 22

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June 22

Second World War

Our article Phoney war relates that there was virtually no action until the spring of 1940. The winter of 1939/40 was the coldest since 1893/4. Was this the underlying cause of the inactivity? 94.195.147.35 (talk) 09:30, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

There is no reason for some idea which the article about it does not consider at all to be in any way relevant. Why should anyone be keen on escalating a war so soon after the first world war? Chamberlain for instance was keen on finding some peaceful agreed solution. Dmcq (talk) 10:27, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It was certainly a factor but a) the campaign in Poland had shown up some weaknesses in the German forces, and much equipment had been lost or damaged,. Rectifying these issues took time in an economy not yet fully geared-up for war. b) The Allies, the UK and France, planned an offensive in the west in the spring of 1941 when they would have built up their forces somewhat. In the meantime, it was hoped that the British naval blockade would weaken the German economy. The Germans were good at finding ways round the blockade, chiefly through Scandinavia, hence the Norwegian Campaign of April 1940. Although there was considerable naval activity, see Battle of the River Plate, the RAF's large bomber arm limited themselves to dropping propaganda leaflets, for fear of provoking German retaliation against British cities. Alansplodge (talk) 10:42, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I think the article is pretty clear: the French and the Germans spent eight months staring at each other from two massively fortified lines, the Maginot and Siegfried. World War I had ground down to a virtual stalemate in its day, and now they had deluxe trenches that had been built up for decades. So I doubt anybody was all that eager to blow the whistle and send their men into the kill zone... they might need them later. Then on May 10, you have two separate things happen: a) Churchill takes over from Chamberlain, and b) the Germans invade via Belgium. I don't know which prompted which, but after that there was no longer any diplomatic no-go zone keeping the armies apart away from the trenches. Wnt (talk) 12:45, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

The resignation of Chamberlain and the appointment of Churchill are unconnected with the start of the Battle of France, the former lost the confidence of Parliament over the failure of the Norwegian Campaign. Nobody in the west knew about Case Yellow until the day it happened. The Siegfried Line was much less formidable than the Allies thought (propaganda photographs of the fortifications were actually taken in Czechoslovakia), but even so, they lacked the wherewithal for a full-scale offensive in 1940 and thought they could just bide their time.

For the Germans, Hitler had wanted to attack France on 25 October 1939, but it could not be organised in time. Various plans were considered by the German OKH (general staff) between October and January 1940 but on 10 January 1940, part of the plans fell into Allied hands (the Mechelen incident) requiring the whole thing to be re-planned. Alansplodge (talk) 17:38, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

It seems like a remarkable coincidence that Britain would switch to a hard-liner on the same day as the Germans attacked. I have to be suspicious that in some way, someone had to know something was up, even if they didn't want to admit they had foreknowledge of the coming attack to avoid recriminations. Wnt (talk) 12:17, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, coincidence it is. Churchill was second choice after the moderate appeaser Lord Halifax had declined the job. Churchill was not everybody's favourite at that time, since he had been heavily involved in the Norwegian debacle, perhaps more than Chamberlain. According to Lord Beaverbrook; "Chamberlain wanted Halifax. Labour wanted Halifax. Sinclair wanted Halifax. The Lords wanted Halifax. The King wanted Halifax. And Halifax wanted Halifax." Only the last sentence was incorrect, however; Halifax did not want to become Prime Minister (from our article on Halifax). It's ammunition for the alternative history writers, since Halifax was advocating an armistice with Hitler a few weeks later. Alansplodge (talk)

While the north-western European winter is unsuited for offensive warfare (the western Allies got bogged down in 1944/45 and one of the many reasons why the German offensive in the Battle of the Bulge failed was the weather), a major contributor to the 'Phoney War' is that both the British and French needed time to prepare their militaries for war: they simply weren't in a condition to go on the offensive, as was demonstrated by the debacle in France and Belgium in May 1940. Nick-D (talk) 00:24, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Results of French legislative elections before 2002

I'm beginning a project to clean up and correct old French election articles and have been having some trouble locating results of old elections. Right now I'm attempting to locate results of the 1973 legislative election; data.gouv.fr has 473 out of 490 constituencies, with the source being the CDSP. These numbers also correspond to the totals on the france-politique archive (hobbyists). The National Assembly also has published results for the 1973 legislatives which differ from the above, but I can't find the original source it cites. What is more, neither the French nor English articles on the topic seem to cite sources for the numbers they use (inserted into their articles in 2006) – which differ from both of the previous. Any help locating complete results (by nuance, with seat numbers, etc.) would be greatly appreciated. Mélencron 12:48, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Literary device like a nested metaphor

I remember reading about a type of writing that is like a nested metaphor but I can't find what it was called. It was sort of absurd and there was an example on the Wikipedia page where the first layer was like: "her eyes were an ocean." Then the second layer might have been: "her eyes were an ocean, glittering sapphires of azure" then the third absurdist layer was like: "her eyes were an ocean, glittering sapphires of azure draped around the neck of a middle aged Manhattanite whose nicotine stained fingertips combed through her platinum blonde hair like the whiskers of a manatee delicately prodding the seafloor.

Maybe they weren't metaphors? Anyway I just remember that they kept going deeper to the point where it was effectively nonsense.

EDIT: Figured it out, it was a pataphor.

204.28.125.102 (talk) 20:16, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Resolved

StuRat (talk) 00:41, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

190 Personnel LLC

I'm looking for sources on the company "190 Personnel LLC". Benjamin (talk) 22:51, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Why not contact the owner? His name and address are listed on just about every business listing, such as this one [1]. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 11:51, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

That wouldn't be a reliable source, would it? Benjamin (talk) 21:43, 26 June 2017 (UTC)