Countless times as you read books and learned pamphlets on history, you will meet the French words Ancien Régime. It is an easy bet that many of us only half know what these two simple words signify. The translation is easy: in English – traditional method of government by royalty; in Spanish – el antiguo regimen.
I have not mentioned the air traffic controllers ‘strike’ because the media has talked of nothing else since the dreadful weekend at the beginning of December, when all air traffic over Spanish territory was cancelled at the orders, apparently, of AENA, the government-controlled body that manages Spain’s far too numerous airports (47 at the last count, many virtually unused, but the Ministry of Development is building more at towns you may never have heard of, like Teruel).
The ‘Schlieffen Plan’ / schoolhistory.co.uk
General Count von Schlieffen (1833 – 1913) was Chief of the German General Staff from 1891 until he retired in 1905. As a testament to his work for Germany, he finished an operational plan with which Germany could successfully attack France.
With certain modifications, the ‘Schlieffen Plan’ as it became known, was used as the basis for the massive German attack in 1914. Schlieffen believed a number of things, based on his military knowledge, and general awareness of exactly what was what and what could be done, or not done: