Erich von Manstein / amantesdelahistoriabelica.blogspot.com
The future field marshal was born in 1887, destined for the Army because of his Junker background. When World War II started Manstein was Chief of Staff to General von Rundstedt, and it was he who drew up plans for the invasion of France. Hitler accepted them, the armies set out, and the invasion was successful from the start. (more…)
Spectator sports they are called, presumably because they are designed for watching by spectators. Soccer, cricket, boxing, tennis, rugby and athletics were nursed, improved and nurtured in hundreds of independent (public) schools in Victorian Britain. Some, like boxing and athletics, had existed in the time of the original Greek Olympics, but they would have become forgotten relics of the past if it had not been for ‘sportin’ instincts’ of young people from the British Isles. (more…)
Douglas Haig / therooms.ca
Despised he was by most historians, many journalists, more idealists, and especially pacifists, Douglas Haig was born in 1861. He served under Kitchener at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, and continued successful fighting in the colonial South African War. (more…)
It was a system of colonial administration, mainly British, by which colonial powers ruled through local chiefs. The concept was not new, as it stemmed from the fact that great African empires had been run this way too. The Asante for instance ruled their conquered territories via local indigenous chiefs. The Dutch absorbed native dynasties and ruled the Dutch East Indies using them.
The British employed indirect rule in India, two-thirds of which was ruled by Indian princes. Indirect rule was first used by the British in Africa in Buganda, developed it in Northern Nigera, later extending it to other colonies in Africa. The Uganda Agreement (sic) of 1900 clarified that Bugandans were to be governed by hereditary rulers. These made laws in accordance with the British Governor. (more…)
Jean Monnet / lewebpedagoguique.com
Monnet (1888 – 1979) was, if not the progenitor, at least the clever uncle of the European Union. He was an able administrator and economist who devised and became the chief commissioner of a project that bears his name, whose object was to restore the French economy by means of a centralised planning system. But he was also an internationalist who was forever campaigning for European unification.
Monnet it was who worked out the details of the Schuman Plan, before French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman put it forward. The Plan aimed (at first) to pool the resources of the coal and steel industries of France and (what was then) West Germany, following a common authority that other European nations might join. It was 9 May, 1950; this was the first indication of what should have been a mutually beneficial European common market. (more…)
I suppose we are about half way through the London Olympics of 2012 – sad for some, radiant news for others. I suppose I will be accused of being a dry old stick (if not something much worse) but I used to enjoy the Olympic Games when in order to take part you had to be amateur. The moment the Committee plumped for professionals the Games gained a little glamour but lost all interest; for me anyway, and a few more like me.
And now the British Royal Mint makes gold coins to celebrate the Games. The coins’ designer explains that his inspiration was the first Games held ‘in ancient Greece, where athletes pledged their allegiance to the gods of Olympia’. Oh dear me no! There weren’t any ‘gods of Olympia’.
The real Laurence, later he wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ / luisantoniodevillena.es
Thomas Edward Laurence was born in 1888, the son of Thomas Chapman, a member of a distinguished Anglo-Irish family. Thomas had eloped with his daughter’s governess, and settled in Oxford after adopting the name of Laurence. His son gained a First Class Degree in History at the University, and became an enthusiastic archaeologist wen he undertook to make excavations in Syria and Mesopotamia between 1910 and 1914. He learned desert lore from the many Arab friends he made on these scientific expeditions. (more…)
France´s surrender / learning.blogs.nytimes.com
For many, if not all, of our seasoned history-lovers, the fact that the Second World War might have been over by the middle of 1940 is unknown. But for the dogged determination of certain European nations, Hitler’s Germany could have been the military victor of the War, not just, as has indeed happened, the political and economic leader it has become. The United States need never have entered the War at the end of 1941. Russia could have stayed Russia instead of being under the Soviet yoke until the fall of the Berlin Wall. German could have been the obligatory second language in all European schools. Berlin might have been the capital of a different kind of European Union. To find the reasons why this did not happen we must look at France. (more…)
Constant blockade of the ports: the Continental System / xtimeline.com
When I was a schoolboy (the Punic Wars q.v.), Bonaparte’s genial idea was called ‘The Continental System’, a good name but implying a kind of applied plan to Continental economics, rather than a sustained attempt by him to ruin the British nation economically, and force it to sue for peace. In this sense the word ‘blockade’ is more appropriate. It is surprising however, that such a violent word, in these days of euphemism and political correctness, should emerge in the most modern history books – when the word ‘system’ appears infinitely more euphemistic and more politically correct. (more…)
Well, very soon we will know what it is. And I might add it is a great pity there is not more of it around. Loss of it caused the Korean and Vietnam wars; too much of the opposite caused Britain, France and Israel the opportunity to deal practically with the Middle Eastern Question. Far too much of the lack of it allowed the United States to enter, and encourage others to enter, an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. But these are merely examples. (more…)