German History – Page 6 – General History

Victoria, the Queen Empress

I am lucky enough to have a wife who found an almost complete collection of early Victorian lithographs in a back street of Lymington. They are dated and signed by the lithographer, and the date is 1840. The series starts with William Duke of Normandy and First of England, and ends with rather a pretty portrait of a sad-looking girl. A guest saw this and exclaimed, “This cannot be Queen Victoria you fool! Much too young; she was an old, fat woman with a disagreeable expression.” So much for the study of history; the lithograph was made just three years after Victoria became queen in 1837 at the age of nineteen. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:30:13+00:00 December 11th, 2013|British History, Commonwealth of Nations, English History, German History, History of India, World History|0 Comments

The last King of Poland

Poland is one of the European countries whose peoples have suffered terribly throughout the centuries simply because of the country’s geographical position on the map, or because of their religion (strictly Roman Catholic), or because of hatred of them by the people of neighbouring states. Poland’s last King was a Poniatowsky – Stanislaw II, born in 1732.

When he was just twenty-three, he was working as a diplomat for the British ambassador in Catherine the Great’s St. Petersburg, and he caught the eye of this extraordinary Empress. Through her influence and that of his father, another Stanislaw, he was elected King of Poland in 1764 at the age of thirty–two. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:32:15+00:00 November 12th, 2013|A History of Poland, Austrian history, German History, Russian history, World History|0 Comments

The Treaty of Trianon (1920) and its effect on Hungary

This treaty is another good example of the collateral damage to be expected when states join in wars with the express intention of gaining territory, though the war in question has nothing or little to do with them. In the First or Great War of the 20^th century, Hungary, because of its alliances with Austria, fought against the Western allies. Romania, sensing a chance to do well out of it, declared for the allies.

The Treaty of Versailles decreed that Hungary, among the states which fought for the loser, Germany, should share the blame and pay the price. After the four terrible years spent mostly advancing and retreating over the trenches were over, Hungary became a Republic, but a Communist revolt established a Communist administration in 1919. This failed, and a monarchical regime (in name only) was introduced with a new constitution, under the leadership of Admiral Horthy. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:32:46+00:00 October 24th, 2013|Austrian history, Czech History, EU History, German History, History in The Balkans, History of Czechoslovakia, Romanian History, Russian history, Today, World History|0 Comments

That Special Relationship

This is a favourite (or favorite term) used mainly by British social commentators and diplomats to describe what they like to see as special Anglo-American relations. The term reflects language ties as well as cultural ones; shared values and interests. There is no truth in it: it is nothing but a very large dose of wishful thinking on the part of wistful British statesmen. There is an astonishing lack of realism in this romantic idea of a ‘special relationship’ between the United States and Britain.

At the end of the nineteenth century and up to the beginning of the Great War in 1914, Americans regarded Great Britain’s astonishing Empire (more than a sixth of the world’s land surface) with jealousy. Many US presidents wondered openly how they could wrest it away from the Limeys, and perhaps form their own, even bigger Empire. A wonderful opportunity arose when Europe caught fire following the killing of the Austrian arch-duke and his wife in Sarajevo. War broke out in Europe in 1914, but the enormous might and weight of the States did not enter it until 1917, after three years of slaughter, when it was calculated that Britain, France and indeed Germany were so exhausted physically and economically that they could do no more. This was the moment when Uncle Sam got there, and her commanders reversed the maps to their advantage. It was indeed a ‘special relationship’. The pathetic Brits breathed a sigh of relief; they lost on average one man (or boy fresh from the classroom) from every family in the most savage and futile war that has ever been fought. ‘The Yanks are Here!’ they sang, having little or no idea of the harshness of all international relations. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:33:41+00:00 October 18th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, French History, German History, History of Egypt, Philosophy, Today, US History, World History|2 Comments

Switzerland and the Swiss Guards

Originally named Helvetia, this is a landlocked democratic European republic, with boundaries to the east with Liechtenstein and Austria, to the south with Italy; the west by France and finally to the north with Germany. The official name now is the Swiss Federation.

In the tenth century Switzerland was a small part of the Holy Roman Empire (q.v.) but the Swiss Confederation was established in 1291, when the ‘cantons’ or regions of Uri, Schyz and Unterwalden formed a mutual league for defence. There was a brief period of Austrian domination, producing among other things the ‘William Tell Incident’ in which a Swiss archer of note was supposed to have shot an arrow through an apple balanced (how?) on his son’s head and followed this remarkable feat by putting a second arrow through an Austrian official’s heart. The stuff of dreams, perhaps, but the Swiss believe it. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:33:43+00:00 October 16th, 2013|Austrian history, French History, German History, Italian History, Swiss History, World History|0 Comments

The tragedy of Lidice

Lidice was a Czechoslovak mining village not far from Prague. As a community it had no importance, but the Nazis needed to make an example of somewhere, following the assassination in May of Reinhardt Heydrich by Czech resistance fighters. Heydrich and his driver and car were blown up on a street in Prague in 1942. Czechoslavakia had been the first state to be invaded and occupied by Hitler’s armies, and Heydrich, a brute, was Prague’s military governor and head of the Gestapo secret police. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:33:59+00:00 October 8th, 2013|Czech History, German History, World History|1 Comment

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph-Marie de Gaulle was born in 1890. His family was privileged and conservative, as can be denoted by the de in his name; also devoutly Roman Catholic. He was naturally educated at a Jesuit school and went straight to the French military academy at St-Cyr. As a junior officer he fought with distinction and valour in the Great War.

Probably because of his superior attitude, never popular with senior officers, he was still a colonel in 1940 when he was already fifty years old. He wrote a number of important treatises on military and historical subjects, and was a great admirer of the tank as a promising method of waging war. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:34:03+00:00 October 7th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, French History, German History, World History|0 Comments

Alexander II (killed) & Alexander III (survived) of Russia

Alexander II, the second son of Nicholas I was born in 1818. It is true but sad to say that the only significant reforms made in Russia in all the nineteenth century were carried out by him; yet his reward at the age of seventy-one was to be murdered.

As a boy and young man he liked to imitate his father’s admiration for autocracy, and announced that he had not the least intention of allowing any of the Czar’s powers to be diverted into a popularly elected parliamentary assembly, when he, too, became Czar. The surprising reforms probably came about because of the unsuccessful Crimean War (q.v.), which clearly showed the world that Russia was not the all-powerful military nation she aspired to be. Chiefly, there was the lack of money, a direct result of a ‘serf-based’ economy in a largely agricultural state. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:35:23+00:00 September 26th, 2013|A History of Poland, Austrian history, Church history, French History, German History, History of Afghanistan, History of Finland, History of Turkey, Jewish History, Russian history, World History|0 Comments

Bavaria and the War of the Bavarian Succession

Bavaria is an almost painfully beautiful area in the south-easternmost part of Germany. It is also one of the oldest existing political entities in Europe, though it has changed in structure (and size) over the centuries.

It first appears as a duchy under domination by the Franks in the sixth century A.D., when it included large tracts of what is now Austria. It has been ruled by a succession of famous dynasties, including the Guelphs. By 1180 however, the Wittelsbachs seem to have taken over. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2014-04-01T13:35:47+00:00 September 23rd, 2013|Austrian history, German History, World History|0 Comments

Appeasement

A bit of a dirty word since 1938 but it shouldn’t be. There is enough appeasement going on now over the disgusting situation in Syria to fill the Golden Bowl with appeasers eager to keep Assad Junior happy. It is all rather puzzling. With one Bush, America went with its cautious allies to war against Iraq because Saddam invaded Kuwait. Firepower won, of course, but Saddam’s government remained! Then Bush Jr. went to war with Iraq with equally cautious allies, beat him up, and permitted the locals to lynch Saddam in a particularly horrible way. Now in Syria the Assad boy kills hundreds of fellow citizens every day, even using poison gas to do it, and the world’s committees sit expensively around asking themselves what to do. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2019-01-15T18:37:20+00:00 September 18th, 2013|A History of Poland, Austrian history, British History, Czech History, English History, EU History, French History, German History, Greek History, History in The Balkans, History of Czechoslovakia, History of Japan, History of the Far East, Italian History, Jewish History, Philosophy, Romanian History, Russian history, Spanish History, US History, World History|0 Comments