French History – Page 11 – General History

Charles M. Talleyrand-Périgord (‘Since the masses are always eager to believe something, for their benefit nothing is so easy as to arrange the facts.’

Talleyrand / wikipedia.com

The French statesman was born in 1754 with a club-foot, a piece of bad luck he shared with Kaiser Wilhelm II and Lord Byron. None of the three allowed their pronounced limp to impede an upwardly mobile career. Byron, a poet who loved boxing, swam the Hellespont, an act of physical courage most athletes with both feet intact would shy away from. The Kaiser thought his kingly first cousins found his limp funny and mimicked it. He was thus only too anxious to have a world war, and achieved that ambition. Charles Talleyrand found the French army closed to him, so he became a priest instead. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-05-27T11:51:44+00:00 May 27th, 2013|A History of North America, Austrian history, British History, Church history, French History, German History, World History|0 Comments

Caustic Congresses III: the Peace of Utrecht (1713)

Great men conferring / dailykos.com

Of all the peace conferences that turned caustic almost at the moment of signing, the Peace of Utrecht which ‘ended’ the War of the Spanish Succession (q.v.) wins a prize. The year was 1713; the comparatively peaceful eighteenth century was just beginning. The seventeenth had been full of blood and thunder.

The Congress met at Utrecht in the Low Countries without the presence of Austria. Philip V (Felipe Quinto) stayed as King of Spain but had to renounce his claim to the French throne, and to accept the loss of Spain’s European empire. Later, Austrian emperor Charles VI found he could not carry out his plans for expansion without allies, and accepted the terms of Utrecht at Rastadt and Baden in 1714, one year later. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-05-24T10:46:19+00:00 May 24th, 2013|African History, Austrian history, British History, Dutch History, French History, German History, History of the Low Countries, Spanish History, World History|0 Comments

Caustic Congresses II: the Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles / AKJ Images/Imperial War Museum

This treaty has been blamed by many historians as a more than indirect cause of the Second World War. It was supposed to be a treaty made between the Allies and Germany to be signed on 28 June, 1919, but negotiations continued until 1923. Germany however did not take part in the debates aired before the actual signing. Most intelligent Germans therefore thought it was a dictated agreement for peace, which could not be morally binding. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-05-23T10:35:44+00:00 May 23rd, 2013|A History of North America, A History of Poland, Austrian history, British History, French History, German History, Philosophy, Russian history, US History, World History|0 Comments

Caustic Conferences

Wars are expensive, brutal and finally useless, as long as human beings will kill others in an argument over territory or sovereignty. The longer they last the worse, it seems, the agreements invented in the ‘peace treaties’ are. This is the first of a series of analyses of famous Congresses or Peace Treaties which left a decidedly nasty taste in the mouth on both sides. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2019-01-15T18:33:01+00:00 May 22nd, 2013|Austrian history, British History, Dutch History, French History, German History, History of Finland, History of the Low Countries, History of Turkey, Italian History, Russian history, Scandinavian history, World History|0 Comments

The campaign in North-West Europe (September 1944 – May 1945)

This campaign was the advance of the Allies through France following the successful invasion of D-Day. It is important because it contains the blindest and most incomprehensible mistake made by a commander-in-chief in all History. But we will come to that later.

The Durham Light Infantry moving up / durhamlightinfantry.webs.com

Combined with the Soviet invasion of Germany from the east, the campaign would lead to the end of the Second World War and the inevitable Treaties. Following the Normandy invasion most German armies were withdrawn from France, though not all. British and Commonwealth troops entered Brussels on 3 September, 1944, and Antwerp was relieved one day later. The port could not be used immediately because pockets of German resistance had been left behind in the mouth of the Scheldt, and had to be dealt with. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-05-14T09:53:40+00:00 May 14th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, Commonwealth History, Dutch History, French History, German History, History of New Zealand, History of the Low Countries, Russian history, Today, US History, World History|0 Comments

The Malayan Campaign and Emergency

Ge, Sir Gerald Templer / allmalaysia.info

Gen. Sir Gerald Templer / allmalaysia.info

The campaign was a military action in South-East Asia between December 1941 and August, 1945 during the Second World War. General Tomoyuki secured free passage through Thailand because of an agreement with the Vichy administration in France (pro-German). He then invaded northern Malaya in December 1941 while his companions were assaulting Singapore with great success. While Japanese aircraft bombed the city, British, Indian and Australian troops retreated to the south. It was a failure, as they were then taken prisoner after the fall of Singapore in February 1942. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-05-05T11:03:19+00:00 May 5th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, Commonwealth of Nations, French History, History of China, History of India, History of Japan, History of the Far East, US History, World History|0 Comments

Knights Hospitaller & Knights Templar: the difference

The difference is simple, and not very subtle; the Templars ceased to exist, and the Hospitallers certainly exist right now, working for the sick. Originally the latter were of a military order, the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. The name comes from the dedication to St. John the Baptist of their headquarters in Jerusalem.

These are not their only names: from 1310 they were the Knights of Rhodes, and from 1530 the Knights of Malta, but they were established themselves first in (or around) 1070 with Muslim permission, managing a hospital for sick pilgrims in Jerusalem. They only became a formal order of knights when the city fell to the first Crusaders in 1099.

They wore a black habit, with a white eight-pointed Maltese Cross. They elected a Master and under him were at first purely military, in an order which spread quickly across Europe. In questions of order and discipline they followed Augustinian rules (q.v.) and divided themselves into three classes or ranks: knights, chaplains and serving brothers.

Driven out of Jerusalem by Saladin himself they moved to Acre, from which they were expelled a century later, transferring to Cyprus. In 1310, however, they captured the island of Rhodes and remained there until 1522. Then Emperor Charles V made them a present of the island of Malta, which they had to defend by force against the Turks, but they could not deal in a similar fashion with Napoleon: by this time the Order had lost its influence and supporting voices. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-05-01T17:39:55+00:00 May 1st, 2013|Church history, French History, History of Turkey, The Arab races, Today, World History|14 Comments

King George’s War & King William’s War

The assault on Cape Breton Island was successful / louisbourghistory.blogspot.com

The War of the Austrian Succession in Europe actually saw a component part in North America, the first time such a thing should happen. Up until 1744 Europeans fought each other in the New World regularly, but not many expected the taking of Louisberg on Cape Breton Island by a combined British Navy/New England force commanded by W. Pepperell in 1745. Thus it was that a British army was able to see for itself what American colonists were capable of. Pepperell’s report is favourable. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-30T08:24:27+00:00 April 30th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, English History, French History, US History, World History|0 Comments

What really happened to William II (Rufus) in 1100?

Rufis falls dying, struck by an arrow that ‘bounced off’ a stag / daviddarling.info

William the ‘Red-faced’ was the second son of William, Duke of Normandy and William I of England, a.k.a. the Conquerer (q.v.). He was bad-tempered, wily and unpopular, and certainly not a chip off the old block. His father had made himself King of England, turning out the Saxon dynasty and replacing their language with Norman French, which was used officially in local and national government almost up to the time of Geoffrey Chaucer. Latin was universally used in the Church. When the Conquerer died, Rufus succeeded but not without considerable opposition from the barons of England, led by his own uncle, Odo Bishop of Bayeux, who wanted the older brother Robert on the throne. The Bishop’s rebellion was crushed first in 1088, as was a second attempt in 1095. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-27T11:06:24+00:00 April 27th, 2013|British History, Church history, English History, English Language, French History, Today, World History|0 Comments

Gunboat diplomacy

It might well have been Lord Palmerston (twice Prime Minister of Britain, 1855- 58, 1859- 65, q.v.) who concreted this term, though gunboat diplomacy in its various forms has been with us for centuries. The term implies diplomacy backed up by the threat of force (a gunboat for example) between countries, one state half-drawing a sword from its scabbard while talking in measured terms with another. It is all about imposing the will, and GD as I will call it was the accepted political force mostly in the nineteenth century.

British myself, I am resigned to the fact that it was Great Britain which used this kind of diplomacy to the greatest effect until the beginning of the First World War, simply because she had a superior navy, which could coerce smaller, weaker nations – sometimes big ones – to bend to her will. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2013-04-26T09:37:38+00:00 April 26th, 2013|A History of North America, British History, French History, German History, Greek History, History of China, History of Egypt, History of the Cinema, US History, World History|2 Comments