1910 Russia... That was about as good as it was going to get for about a decade, and even then life was likely shit for them. It was just going to get so much worse.
The revolution actually improved the lives of most Russians, at the expense of making the lives of non-Russians quite a bit worse.
Then Stalin came to power and promoted the "science" of a guy named Trofim Lysenko. Millions starved to death, and then the Soviets exported the flawed science to China in what had to have been a psyop, and millions more starved.
Which just lends more weight to the theory that the Soviets, and Stalin in particular, were fond of weaponizing famine, because it happened again and again, always at the expense of people who were not ethnically Russian.
Would you believe me if I told you these people are lucky and probably some of the wealthier? Even by 1910 the Russian empire had shifted from serfdom, to effectively share cropping. And former pestants not working on farms means they managed to earn enough to purchase back freedom
Mm. By 1910, payments for remission of serfdom had ended, and mining is generally not what people move on to when they have a reasonable choice. For that matter, they may only be mining as a supplement to their farmwork, as many pre-modern populations did.
I just read the Wikipedia article and this dog has led a more useful and fulfilling life than many people. Apparently he would alert the soldiers of incoming artillery shells because he could hear them coming before anyone else. Who knows how many soldiers this dog has saved.
Also he never went through an official training programme and was just a random mutt who was smuggled into the France by his owner who was a soldier. The dog was initially allowed to stay because his owner had taught him how to salute
Oh god... Imagine the horse bolting after hearing the gunshot and you're falling from your own height plus the height of the horse. I bet a lot of necks were broken from this experiment before they cancelled it.
What makes you say it was an ‘experiment’? Guns were shot from horseback for centuries. Germany used cavalry throughout the entire WW2, as did most countries.
There some reason they were getting ready to instantly fall off if the horse spooked instead of just shooting while sat in the saddle like every other mounted firearms unit has done since firearms cavalry became a thing?
I’m theory: Height advantage. Stand up to engage over high cover. In reality, horseback gun fights were extremely uncommon, especially in the European theatre. Japan and China had some. Cavalry was more commonly used as mounted infantry or in support rules such as couriers, military police or escorts for motorized/mechanized combat assets. WW2 was an intense transitional period for equestrian warfare, maybe even more so then WW1 was shortly before.
Still, traditional exercises such as shown in the picture serve a purpose. Getting both horse and rider familiar and disciplined with a variety of unfamiliar situations, so they can hopefully react well to unexpected intense encounters.
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