Treaty 1814 / ebay.com
Just eighteen months separate two important agreements reached in the city of Paris. After the Allies (Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia) had at last defeated Napoleon, a pact was made with France which, considering the awful damage done to most of Europe, was perhaps over-generous. (more…)
Lord Salisbury / gatesofvienna.blogspot.com
Kind Hearts and Coronets is probably the best and blackest of the British 1950s comedies written for the screen. The film tells the story of an illegitimate boy who grows up determined to become a Duke, because his biological father is an aristocrat who refuses to help or even recognise the boy’s poor mother. And become a Duke Dennis Price does, by killing off eight members of a ducal family (all played by a spectacular Alec Guinness) who must be dispatched for him to acquire the title. Each of his victims is called ‘Gascoyne’. It is very likely that the film’s screenwriter was thinking of a certain marquesate when he wrote this name, precisely the Gascoigne-Cecils, one of whom was called Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoigne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. (more…)
William II, Emperor of Germany (the Kaiser) came on a visit to England in 1908, and stayed for a while with Colonel Stuart-Wortley. After one of their conversations the latter wrote a letter/ article for the Daily Telegraph newspaper revealing what the Kaiser had said to him, no doubt after a fulfilling luncheon. (more…)
Count Camilo Cavour / nndb.com
Camilo Benso Cavour was born in 1810, a Piedmontese aristocrat whose name and mother language were French. It is interesting to note that both Cavour and Garibaldi (q.v.) spoke incorrect Italian. Trained in journalism, Cavour was editor of the newspaper Il Risorgimento by the time he was thirty-seven. (more…)
This is a pinkish Spanish glossy magazine published with great success throughout Spain. It mostly deals with ‘celebrities’ whatever they are; it is not in my list of great reads. In April of this year that sheet chose to congratulate the Queen of England on her eighty-seventh birthday, running seven colour photographs of Elizabeth II taken at various ages. There was a bit of text too, and in its single paragraph Lecturas managed to place its foot firmly in its own gob as per usual. (more…)
What Grand Fleets used to look like / en.wikipedia.org
Why ‘curious’? Because the first was agreed between Britain and Germany only fourteen years before the outbreak of a world war, the first of its kind. And the second was signed only four years before the next one. (more…)
A scene from the withdrawal / litestraboen.blogspot.com
Not everybody realises that in the First World War Italy fought on the Allied side. In the second ‘war to end all wars’ Italians were persuaded by Mussolini to side with Adolf Hitler, and this decision cost them dear. The battle of Caporetto also cost them dear, for they were fighting against Austro-German forces for nearly a month in the last months of 1917. (more…)
Lord Randolph / brooklyneagle.com
Lord Randolph H.S. Churchill was born in 1849, the third son of the then Duke of Marlborough. In character more similar to his grandson Randolph than his son Winston, he got into the House of Commons for the family borough (and almost fief) of Woodstock in 1874. I say ‘fief’ because near Woodstock stands Blenheim Palace, presented to John Churchill Ist Duke of Marlborough by a grateful Queen and Nation after his military successes. The building was designed by a retired playwright called John Vanbrugh, and the massive park was designed by Vanbrugh himself aided by Queen Anne’s gardener Henry Wise, with later additions by ‘Capability’ Brown. (more…)
In the middle of a battle / planetdiecast.com
Much of the 19th century in Africa was spent in wars between the Ashanti and an enemy tribe, the Fante, and the British, who made up in ferocity what they lacked in numbers. The Asante (as it was called) was a rich and powerful state, becoming more so in the 18th and 19th centuries in what is now called Ghana. The population was between five and three million. (more…)
Prince Rupert of the Rhine / ntprints.com
He might have been invented by Daphne du Maurier or Rafael Sabatini. He was outlandishly handsome and a lover of women; he was an aristocrat of the best blood, which he shed from other men’s veins in floods, as he was a soldier. He lived to old age and died in his bed. (more…)