@Dawn's Meta I could interpret almost every you wrote auf Deutsche. Ist das eine "regrezzion" to a former Aryan reptile hood?

#1.1.3.1.1 Beste Wünsche für eine bessere Gesundheit und eine gute Erholung. Es tut mir leid für mein schreckliches Deutsch.

@JtC
Orwell wrote about life and politics in the trenches during the three months he spent with the Anarchist POUM militia during the Spanish Civil War. In Chapter Three, there's this wonderful portrait of how megaphones are more important than bullets. But the most powerful weapon of all was the promise of buttered toast:

There seemed no hope of any real fighting. When we left Monte Pocero I had
counted my cartridges and found that in nearly three weeks I had fired just
three shots at the enemy. They say it takes a thousand bullets to kill a man,
and at this rate it would be twenty years before I killed my first Fascist. At
Monte Oscuro the lines were closer and one fired oftener, but I am reasonably
certain that I never hit anyone. As a matter of fact, on this front and at this
period of the war the real weapon was not the rifle but the megaphone. Being
unable to kill your enemy you shouted at him instead. This method of warfare is
so extraordinary that it needs explaining.

Wherever the lines were within hailing distance of one another there was
always a good deal of shouting from trench to trench. From ourselves: 'Fascistas
--maricones!' From the Fascists: ''Viva Espana! Viva Franco!'--or, when they
knew that there were English opposite them: 'Go home, you English! We don't want
foreigners here!' On the Government side, in the party militias, the shouting of
propaganda to undermine the enemy morale had been developed into a regular
technique. In every suitable position men, usually machine-gunners, were told
off for shouting-duty and provided with megaphones. Generally they shouted a
set-piece, full of revolutionary sentiments which explained to the Fascist
soldiers that they were merely the hirelings of international capitalism, that
they were fighting against their own class, etc., etc., and urged them to come
over to our side.

This was repeated over and over by relays of men; sometimes it
continued almost the whole night. There is very little doubt that it had its
effect; everyone agreed that the trickle of Fascist deserters was partly caused
by it. If one comes to think of it, when some poor devil of a sentry--very
likely a Socialist or Anarchist trade union member who has been conscripted
against his will--is freezing at his post, the slogan 'Don't fight against your
own class!' ringing again and again through the darkness is bound to make an
impression on him. It might make just the difference between deserting and not
deserting.

Of course such a proceeding does not fit in with the English
conception of war. I admit I was amazed and scandalized when I first saw it
done. The idea of trying to convert your enemy instead of shooting him! I now
think that from any point of view it was a legitimate manoeuvre. In ordinary
trench warfare, when there is no artillery, it is extremely difficult to inflict
casualties on the enemy without receiving an equal number yourself. If you can
immobilize a certain number of men by making them desert, so much the better;
deserters are actually more useful to you than corpses, because they can give
information. But at the beginning it dismayed all of us; it made us fed that the
Spaniards were not taking this war of theirs sufficiently seriously.

The man who did the shouting at the P.S.U.C. post down on our right was an artist at the
job. Sometimes, instead of shouting revolutionary slogans he simply told the
Fascists how much better we were fed than they were. His account of the
Government rations was apt to be a little imaginative.' Buttered toast!'--you
could hear his voice echoing across the lonely valley--'We're just sitting down
to buttered toast over here! Lovely slices of buttered toast!' I do not doubt
that, like the rest of us, he had not seen butter for weeks or months past, but
in the icy night the news of buttered toast probably set many a Fascist mouth
watering. It even made mine water, though I knew he was lying.

_____________

I believe you too, JtC, are such an artist.

#3.1.2.1.1
that I'm almost always measurably vague in these meta essays. That's my style. These (meta essays) usually have a cathartic effect in opening up discussion among the membership as is in full display in these threads.

I do admit that sometimes I may come off as being a jerk, which is many times true, but that's OK by me if it leads to the membership talking it out among themselves.