Dean Swift

The battle of Austerlitz

Map of the Battle of Austerlitz

Anyone living at the beginning of the nineteenth century might have thought that the battle of Trafalgar, fought in October 1805 would be enough to topple Napoleon Bonaparte from his imperial pretensions and intensely Corsican gut-feeling that he should rule the world, starting with all Europe. But Trafalgar as we know was a sea battle, a crucial one too, but it did not take place between armies on land. Austerlitz, however, did, and it was Bonaparte’s greatest victory, planned almost as if on a model of the battlefield though – that field was in his brain. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-01T12:05:25+00:00 April 1st, 2013|Austrian history, Czech History, French History, History of Czechoslovakia, Russian history, World History|0 Comments

Field-Marshal Radetzky

Radetzky von Radetz / en.wikipedia.org

Josef Wenzel, Count of Radetz was born in Austria in 1766. He became a soldier aan fought the Turks at the age of twenty-two in one of those interminable Balkan wars. In 1800 he was wounded charging with the cavalry against Napoleon at the battle of Marengo, but had recovered enough to take part in the battle of Wagram in 1809, again against the French, but with a more senior rank. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-30T11:19:38+00:00 March 30th, 2013|Austrian history, French History, Italian History, World History|0 Comments

The Roman emperor who died in Britain

Septimius Severus, died at York / heritagedaily.com

A few of you clever bloggers will deny it, but it is a fair bet that nobody knew that a Roman emperor died in Britain. Everybody knows that Hadrian, Julius Caesar and even Co-Clo-Claudius visited Britain, but Lucius Septimius Severus Pertinax, a.k.a. Septimius Severus (146 – 211 AD) breathed his last there. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-29T12:12:17+00:00 March 29th, 2013|British History, History of Rome, World History|0 Comments

The Radical Republican Party (PPR) of Spain

Alexandro Lerroux (es.wikipedia.org

Since they were given the chance to do so, the Spanish people have preferred to vote for left-inclined political parties. After the new Constitution of 1978, signed by all parties three years after the death of Franco, there have been thirteen years of PSOE rule under Felipe González, and nearly eight years of the same party in power with Zapatero as titular head. The Popular Party, founded by conservative Manuel Fraga and others, is not conservative or right-wing at all. It is a pure Social Democratic Party under another name. So is the Spanish Workers’ Socialist Party (PSOE): the two principal parties are social democrats but cannot learn to live or work together. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-29T10:33:13+00:00 March 29th, 2013|Spanish History, World History|0 Comments

The US Supreme Court and homosexual marriage

Alexander, 3 state marriages and one lifetime lover he could not marry /alexanderhephaistion.com

Just now the US Supreme Court is busy debating the rights and wrongs of legalizing in federal terms the joining together in sacred or civil marriage of two people, both of the male sex, or the female. Several, thirteen I believe American States have already made homosexual marriage legal, while several more are not sure, and over thirty of the remaining states have turned the idea down again and again. Meanwhile, powerful lobbies, social platforms, societies and even violently inclined bands are hard at work across the world explaining the urgent need for matrimony between members of the same sex. They will brook no argument. You are with us or against us. You are a decent, compassionate supporter of gay rights including marriage, or you are a homophobe, a queer-basher and, worst of all, ancient and old-fashioned. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-28T09:52:34+00:00 March 28th, 2013|English Language, Philosophy, Today, US History|0 Comments

Popular Myths and the Conspiracy Theory: ‘the stab in the back’ 1918

Friedrich Ebert did not believe in the Allies’ victory / en.wikipedia.org

Learnéd, and sometime not so learnéd people have started myths right down through the centuries almost since the human race was ‘uncivilized’. King Alfred ‘burning the cakes’, ‘Robin Hood and Maid Marian’, Richard III ‘murdering his nephews’, changelings occupying thrones in Europe, what lay behind the sinking of the Titanic, foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor, was the Russian royal family killed in a cellar in Siberia? Plus a long line of etceteras. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-27T11:07:10+00:00 March 27th, 2013|A History of North America, A history of the motor car, British History, English History, German History, Philosophy, Spanish History, The Arab races, Today, US History, World History|0 Comments

The Ottoman Empire

Kemel Ataturk / es.wikipedia.org

Time and again the Ottoman Empire has been mentioned in general-history.com but an in-depth article has so far no been attempted. We will try to remedy that: (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-26T10:57:43+00:00 March 26th, 2013|Greek History, History in The Balkans, History of Turkey, World History|0 Comments

Metternich

Prince Metternich painted by Laurence / en.wikipedia.org

Of all the great statesmen and diplomats whose many different names have managed to confuse so many history students in the last century or two, this one is perhaps the most important, because of the significance of what he achieved before he finally failed. We have dealt with most of them in this general-history blog – John of Gaunt, Cardinal Richelieu, Thomas Cromwell, von Bismarck, both William Pitts, Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli – the list is long indeed. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-25T11:46:47+00:00 March 25th, 2013|Austrian history, EU History, French History, German History, Russian history, World History|0 Comments

The battle of Blood River ( Natal, 1838)

The battle at Blood River / sahistory.org.za

The ‘Great Trek’ was the massed movement of Boer (Dutch/Africans) farmers to the north out of the Cape Colony into the Orange Free State, Natal and Transvaal in the 1830s. The Boers had resented the British ever since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when they took over the Cape from the Dutch settlers. They disliked new laws which prevented them from buying or keeping slaves, and they equally disliked what they saw as soft treatment of black people in the courts. Therefore trekboers wanted not only to get away from British rule but also to find more land – and new sources of labour; several thousand people migrated northwards across the Orange River and into lands still controlled by blacks. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-21T10:18:40+00:00 March 21st, 2013|African History, British History, Dutch History, World History|1 Comment

The Kaiser (Wilhelm II of Germany)

All in the family; Wilhelm II with, among other, George V and Alfonso XIII. All pictured here are cousins and descendents of Queen Victoria

The future King of Prussia and German Emperor was born in 1859, the eldest son of the then Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia (he later became Emperor Frederick III) and his wife, daughter and namesake of Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Empress of India. This made George V, against whom Wilhelm went to war his first cousin – an embarrassment to say the least. He was born with a semi-paralysed left arm, several inches shorter than the right one. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-03-19T17:38:38+00:00 March 19th, 2013|British History, Dutch History, English History, French History, History of the Low Countries, Russian history, Spanish History, World History|0 Comments

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