The real Sir William Wallace
Statue of William Wallace in Aberdeen, Scotland / en.wikipedia.org Some years ago the anglophobe film star and director Gibson made a Hollywood-backed movie called Braveheart. This tasteful work of art purports to be [...]
The American Federation of Labor
Samuel Gompers / britannica.com ‘Socialism’ or ‘Socialist’ are unclean words in the United States. This is why the other part of their two-party political system is called ‘The Democratic Party’ as opposed to [...]
Action Française (1899)
Charles Maurras / lactionfrancaise. net In one of our recent posts we described the case of Alfred Dreyfus, and discussed how much the prevalent anti-Semitism at the end of the 19th century influenced [...]
Mensheviks
Julius Martov, a leader of the Mensheviks / en.wikipedia.org The word means ‘members of the minority’; Mensheviks were another revolutionary party in Russia, similar in their aims, but not as radical as the [...]
What was ‘The March on Rome’?
Mussolini thinking / people.opposingviews.com (a) The end of Rome as an empire. (b) An asssault by angry unelected popes. (c) An attempt to seize power by the fascists of Mussolini. Those of our [...]
The travails of Manuel Godoy
Godoy seen by a French artist in 1790 / es.wikipedia.org This astute man was born in 1767, in Extremadura, a well-named rocky wilderness bordering Portugal, with the vastness of Andalucía to the south. [...]
Stalin’s Five Year Plans
/ historiasyvidas.com By the year 1928 Josep Stalin was firmly in the saddle in the Sovietized Russia. The dictator was determined to add Russia to the list of world powers – the USA, [...]
The case of Alfred Dreyfus
Dreyfus / biografíasyvidas.com Dreyfus was born into a Jewish family in France in 1859. The fact of his Jewishness was to prove a main factor in his future. He chose the army as [...]
What was Laissez-faire?
/ words on images.com Some writers have incorrectly translated this French phrase as Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, and attributed it (among others) to Prime Minister Walpole. But this doctrine means much more: it [...]
The Austro-Prussian War (1866)
Otto von Bismarck / en.wikipedia.org Though it has been put into the shadow by the Franco-Prussian War, this was one of the most important conflicts in the 19th century, because it overturned the [...]
Kashmir
This trouble spot is naturally one of the most beautiful places on earth / sticholidays.com 1947/48 saw the biggest break-up in the disgraceful dismemberment of the British Empire, whose most important ‘colony’ was [...]
National Guards (France and USA)
Artist’s impression of members of the French National Guard / eclatdebois.org The National Guard in France was founded in July, 1789 to replace the royal soldiers who had been forbidden entry to Paris. [...]
Three battles at Ypres (1914, 1915 & 1917)
/ the guardian.co.uk Ypres is a place in Belgium, known mainly by Great War enthusiasts who are taken on guided tours. In October and November of the first year of the war a [...]
Jomo Kenyatta, Nelson Mandela & Archbishop Makarios
Archbishop Makarios / en.wikipedia.org These three names (and the persons themselves) are connected by the historical fact that each was imprisoned as penalty for their nationalism, and each became President of their country. [...]
François Mitterand
/ redwiretimes.com Mitterand was a life-long Socialist who served in the brief French military resistance to German might between 1939 and 1940, and is then said to have co-operated with the rather spare [...]
What is the ‘Code Napoléon?
Napoleon in his study in the Tuileries, a study by David /es.wikipedia.org Napoleon Bonaparte gave his name to the civil code of 1804. Subsequent battles – Trafalgar, Waterloo etc. did not affect [...]
Who was this fellow Clausewitz?
It is a fair bet that many readers have noticed a reference to ‘Clausewitz’ in the history books they are reading, or even in novels; it is a name they know, though they are not [...]
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