Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 October 30

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October 30

Semicartograms

How can I see them? Where only latitude or longitude gets stretched but not both. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:23, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

cartogram indicates a number of methods to produce them. None of these sees to care to respect latitude or longitude, and I suspect this would produce weird, ugly, hard to understand results. Gem fr (talk) 10:08, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Is that the classic Mercator projection that nobody uses for world maps any more because it distorts areas so much once you're away from the equator? 67.164.113.165 (talk) 05:48, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

No it's like a map of the US where each centidegree of longitude is stretched or compressed till longitude is measured in people instead of degrees and latitude is left alone. Or vice versa. It can be plate caree or conic projection or whatever is a good projection for that country or planet and population or post offices or pig exports or anything else you can do with a cartogram. Google doesn't show anything for this so the name must be wrong. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:44, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

UK general elections

Is there a procedure in UK elections for what happens if a party wins the election with a majority but the leader of the party loses his seat. I note that Boris Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat may be vulnerable to the Liberal Democrat’s, and that this hasn’t happened before. Who becomes PM in the period between winning the election and electing a new leader? The chancellor? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrandrewnohome (talk • contribs) 10:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Prime_Minister_of_the_United_Kingdom#Modern_premiership may be of help Gem fr (talk) 10:24, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Likely, the party would hold an internal election for a new Party leader, who would then go to the Queen for Royal assent as the new Prime Minister. It should be noted that there are no legal, constitutional requirements for the Prime Minister; only tradition and convention establish the procedures by which they are chosen. In many other countries "We have to do it this way because that's what is written in the Constitution" is how it works. The Constitution of the United Kingdom works much more like "We do it this way because that's how we've come to do it". The Prime Minister doesn't have to be in Parliament (though tradition and convention establishes that they pretty much always are). So, the likely procedure is for the party in power to just elect a new leader. But that is not the required procedure. --Jayron32 11:10, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

One method that has been used in other countries that use the British parliamentary model, if the party wants to keep its - now unelected - leader, is that one elected member with a safe seat will resign and the leader will run in a by-election for that seat (and hopefully be elected, this time). It means that the leader is outside parliament for a few months, but if his party has won a majority, it's not a huge deal. In the case of a minority government, it would be a lot trickier, however. I recall that there was a reference desk question on this a couple of years ago. Xuxl (talk) 12:50, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

There's also the possibility of a member of the House of Lord's being PM. This article does a good job of explaining why it's very unlikely that the UK will ever again have a PM in the Lords, but it's clearly possible. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 13:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Also, I just realized the OP's main question is "Who becomes PM in the period between winning the election and electing a new leader?" The answer is "no-one". The UK will work just fine for a few days while they work all of that out. There is no PM equivalent of "The king is dead, long live the king!", in the sense that there is no requirement that a new PM starts his/her job instantaneously upon the resignation/death/whatever of the old one. The UK State is a large, self-sufficient bureaucracy and does not need a Prime Minister to function in the short term. Nothing particularly problematic happens over that short time period when there is not a PM. There are procedures in place, likely very secretive, for handling things like authorizing the use of nuclear weapons for which we aren't going to be able to provide concrete details because they are a secret, but I'm 100% sure that it's been thought of how to handle those things when there isn't a Prime Minister.--Jayron32 13:13, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Indeed. Besides, UK is officially a monarchy, and while in effect the PM is in power, all is done in the name of the Queen/the Crown. It surely can work without a PM, or even a parliament Gem fr (talk) 14:08, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

In any event, this all assumes that the PM ceases to be PM upon the election taking place or upon losing his/her seat. This isn't the case. Someone who has been appointed PM by the monarch continues to be PM until he/she resigns, is dismissed, or dies. In practice, a PM will generally not resign until the succession is clear. For example, Labour lost its majority in the 2010 general election, and it was clear on 7 May (the day after the election) that this had happened. Nevertheless, with no party now having a majority, it was not clear who would be able to form a government, and negotiations took several days; Gordon Brown continued to be PM until his resignation on 11 May, only resigning when the Conservatives had managed successfully to negotiate a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Brown tendered his resignation to the Queen, and recommended that she appoint David Cameron as his successor, which she immediately did. Proteus (Talk) 15:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

The example of Sir Alec Douglas-Home is relevant. The 13th Earl of Home was Foreign Secretary in Harold Macmillan's government when the latter fell ill in 1963 and after some debate, Lord Home was chosen as a compromise successor. He renounced his titles and took over the running for a safe seat in Scotland which he duly won but "For twenty days, Douglas-Home was Prime Minister while a member of neither house of Parliament, a situation without modern precedent". Alansplodge (talk) 20:30, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

20 days? Peanuts! Here in Canada, John Turner was Prime Minister for 79 days during which he was not a member of either house of Parliament. (He was elected as an MP in the general election, but resigned as PM before Parliament met.) --76.69.116.4 (talk) 04:38, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

It's not like he resigned magnanimously. His party was crushed in the 1984 Canadian federal election. They lost 95 seats (out of a prior 135). Ironically, his victory was one of the only seats the Liberals took from the Conservatives (I think possibly the only seat). --Jayron32 15:09, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Is there any precedent for London seceding from the UK?

The idea of 'London independence' comes up now and then in the British media, usually in vague terms. Is there any historical precedent for an ancient national capital breaking away to become fully independent? Lfh (talk) 14:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Sort of. Paris Commune could qualify. The government moved to Versailles as the de facto Capital, and war ensued.

In such situation, war always ensue. And a side win: either the capital takes back the country, or the country takes back the capital :Gem fr (talk) 14:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

In Europe one of the closest examples in the last 120 years would be the Republic of Central Lithuania which involved the capital of Lithuania, mostly ethnic Polish, seceding. However, the result was basically a puppet state of Poland and after a year and a half it joined Poland. So whether that was fully independent is dubious. Valenciano (talk) 14:19, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

There was a plan to make the city of Jerusalem a semi-independent city-state, distinct from both the Palestinian State and the Israeli State, under the terms of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, known as the Corpus separatum (Jerusalem), but it never came to fruition. --Jayron32 16:21, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

How about Vatican City effectively seceding from Italy? Actually Italy took over the Papal states, so the Vatican seceded. They'd probably say that the Vatican is the papal state, what's left of it. deisenbe (talk) 17:52, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

But the Vatican was never the capital of Italy. It just happened to be located inside the capital, Rome. I suppose you could draw a really long bow and say a part of the capital seceded from the country, but that's not really telling it like it was. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

As a related matter, the City of London is in some measures its own country sitting in the middle of London, the way Vatican City sits inside rome. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 04:49, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Invasion of Switzerland

Was there ever a plan from the Central Powers to invade/occupy/annex Switzerland during WWI? Something like the later Nazi Operation Tannenbaum. Thank you. --2.37.200.57 (talk) 14:41, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Competent enough military would have had such plan, and German military WERE competent. Just in case. You never know. When some event require such a move, you will need map, topography, major bridge, railroads, place etc. and you cannot gather that just out of google map (even nowadays). Whether you want to overthrow the Swiss government, or want to help it after it asked, you need a plan.

For instance, it is known that France had plans to move into Belgium and Netherlands in WWII, fairly detailed; it was supposed to be at the request of their gov, but would had worked pretty much the same without. We know that because these were somewhat used during the Blitzkrieg, and would not have known otherwise.

Sometimes the plan is very old, long not updated for some reason, but it always exist.

And obviously, Swiss people also have plan to counter such move, however unlikely [[1]] (

Now, was invasion of Switzerland seriously considered in WWI? We have no hint of that, and it is hard to find any rationale. Hitler wanted to incorporate in his III Reich any people even remotely German (Dutch, for instance); no such motive existed in WWI. Gem fr (talk) 15:35, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Geography has historically made invading Switzerland too difficult to consider. That is, they control the high ground already, and attacking up the sides of mountains is very costly. By WW2, paratroopers could be used to reduce that advantage, but large scale paratrooper ops weren't an option in WW1. Besides, the Central Powers had more than enough adversaries without opening up another front. (Of course, the same could be said of Nazi Germany in WW2, but that didn't stop Hitler from foolishly invading the Soviet Union, then declaring war on the US following the Pearl Harbor attack.) SinisterLefty (talk) 17:10, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Invading Switzerland was not only considered, it was actually and successfully done. The fact that invading Russia actually failed doesn't mean it had to fail and was foolish. Gem fr (talk) 18:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

There's some kind of a point there. Not that it was not foolish, but the Germans did not face disproportionate losses before Stalingrad. --Askedonty (talk) 19:50, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. However, it's difficult to see how Germany could have beaten the Soviet Union, as they had a massive amount of land to conquer and then hold. Even taking Moscow wouldn't have put an end to the war there. SinisterLefty (talk) 19:58, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

It is difficult to see to you because hindsight bias, which seems strong in you, but it is actually very easy to build alternate history scenarios with Germany winning; you need few and not very strong if. Gem fr (talk) 04:36, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Don't forget that the Germans had successfully invaded the Russian Empire in 1917. They were expecting the same sort of collapse: "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down" (Albert Speer quoting Hitler, 1941). Alansplodge (talk) 20:01, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

That rather depends on how you define success. I'm sure their goal wasn't to replace the czar with a communist dictatorship. SinisterLefty (talk) 20:23, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

If it wasn't their goal, then they shouldn't have packed the infamous Sealed train full of Bolsheviks, and given it passage through to Russia. The Germans got pretty good value for their sealed-train gambit -- the Bolsheviks betrayed Russia's war allies (Britain and France) and favored Germany (Treaty of Brest-Litovsk). Immediately after WWI, the Soviets attacked Poland -- also in Germany's interests. Not to mention the Treaty of Rapallo (1922). Saying that Lenin was a German agent may be a little extreme, but German and Bolshevik interests were pretty clearly aligned from 1917 to at least 1926, and Lenin wasn't the least bit reluctant about exploiting this to the maximum degree that he could. Of course, whether German and Russian interests were aligned, was quite another question... AnonMoos (talk) 21:29, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Creating chaos by sending Lenin home might have been a goal, but not changing a government somewhat similar to their own into one diametrically opposed to, and dedicated to the overthrow of, their type of government and economic system. SinisterLefty (talk) 22:12, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Any conventional regime in Russia, whether tsarist, white military, or attemptedly democratic, would have largely been motivated by Russian nationalism and patriotism. Germany derived great advantage to itself for basically 10 years by helping install a regime in Russia which was NOT motivated by Russian nationalism and patriotism. I'm sure that Kaiser Wilhelm II was not particularly personally sympathetic to Communism (though there was more in common than you might think between the government-directed German war economy and Soviet central planning), but the Germans got great "return on investment" by facilitating the rise of Communism in Russia... AnonMoos (talk) 08:40, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

The aim of all that shenanigans was only to knock Russia out of the war, which allowed Germany to move 50 divisions to the Western Front for Operation Michael, the Spring Offensive in April 1918. Note that they also destabilised the UK by sponsoring the Easter Rising in Dublin, while self-determination for ethnic minorities was definitely not in the interest of the German Empire. Alansplodge (talk) 10:02, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Of course, the goal was to win WW1, and that failed, plus that may have been why their enemies were so angry and they got such bad surrender terms. And, in the case of Russia, the communist regime turned out to be a far worse enemy in WW2 (probably by executing all their opponents, so they didn't have strong internal enemies). So, overall, this meddling in other nations' internal politics was an unbridled disaster for Germany. SinisterLefty (talk) 16:30, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

For comparison, I can see several ways the US Confederacy could have remained independent in the 1860s, by avoiding the US Civil War entirely, or by going all-out and taking Washington at the start, before the North could mobilize, or by denying the North victories just a little bit longer, so public opinion in the North would turn against the war. SinisterLefty (talk) 06:03, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

see this question from awhile ago.—eric 18:58, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Also Switzerland during the World Wars#World War I which has most of the answers. In both wars, Switzerland made itself useful to Germany and her allies as a financial centre independent of Britain and the USA. The article contains a redlink to Plan H, a proposed French invasion of Switzerland, but Google isn't finding any more details for me. Alansplodge (talk) 16:05, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Giant squid quote

I was reading a blog post about giant squid (source), which included the line "Many whales are found with scars from the suckers of giant squid tentacles, remnants of tremendous battles we can only imagine, fought far down in the lightless world of the ocean deep". That line sounds familiar to me. Is it a quote (or paraphrased quote) from somewhere more famous? Iapetus (talk) 16:25, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

It's very David Attenborough. I can't prove it, but it's the sort of thing you'd hear him saying in your head. I wouldn't even begin to know which of the stupidly-large number of nature documentaries he's written and narrated it would be in, but I would start there. Just a guess, but it's my best guess. --Jayron32 16:50, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Or is it H.P. Lovecraft or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Both mention giant squids and would use that purple style, but I can't find the exact quote in either. We do have an article: Giant squid in popular culture. Xuxl (talk) 19:00, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

For some reason it feels like I read it in Herman Melville's Moby Dick but I can't find any reference for that. I wonder where the Owlcation website got it. MarnetteD|Talk 19:08, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

many results from "squid whale battle". No surprise you find it familiar. Gem fr (talk) 19:11, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Moby Dick and 20,000 Leagues were my initial thoughts, given that they both feature whales and/or giant squid, and the style of prose is very similar (especially Moby Dick), but I've searched the texts of both on Project Gutenberg, and can't find it or similar. I suppose Lovecraft would be another possibility, but I don't think the style quite fits (not quite purple enough, and not horrified enough). Iapetus (talk) 12:13, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Probably not what you're looking for, Iapetus, but I was reminded of Tennyson's "The Kraken", "Below the thunders of the upper deep / Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea ..." ---Sluzzelin talk 21:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you are on to something Sluzzelin. It fits with this part of that sites title "The Real Kraken Sea Monster" MarnetteD|Talk 21:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)