Here for students of history is a plan of events between the naval battle of Trafalgar and the final battle in the European conflict against Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo. The career of Arthur Wellesley, the boy from Eton who became Duke of Wellington marches alongside the campaigns. (more…)
Definition: a social democrat is a usually suscription-paying member of a left-wing, ex-communist or centre-left political party that combines basically socialist aims with constitutional methods, plus a general acceptance (or tolerance) of some of the basic tenets of the capitalist system. The present system in China springs to mind as an unequalled example of an ex-communist country embracing a good many of the principles of social democracy. A bad example would be Cuba, where the system is wholly totalitarian, and the methodology of early sovietism in Soviet Russia is commonplace. (more…)
Lord Palmerston / yalebooks.wordpress.com
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston was born in 1784. George Canning was born in 1770. Neither man saw much point in the other, and the difference of fourteen years in their age did not prevent them from internecine conflict. (more…)
Victoria, the ‘grandmother of Europe’ / britroyals.com
Nearly all the royal families in Europe – those remaining – are related to each other. This is not a coincidence, and it is worth considering, as many countries formerly loyal to the reigning family have either become republican, or having second or third thoughts about the monarchy. It is perfectly possible that our grandchildren will only read about kings, queens, their consorts and their often troublesome children in a book or on a plasma screen. (more…)
Wilhelm II / telegraph.co.uk
Prussia as a separate State merged, with many other Germanic kingdoms, grand dukedoms and principalities into a united Germany. But Prussia had a great deal of history beforehand. Just one example – if Prussia in the form of Marshall Blucher and his Prussian troops (qv.) had not arrived in the nick of time in 1815, the Battle of Waterloo might well have been won by Napoleon Bonaparte (qv.) and the whole history of Europe after the battle would have been radically different. (more…)
It is a much-noted historical fact (not a notion) that countries seeking empires require violent methods to keep them – once formed. Great Britain has not been backward in this respect. She may have been less violent than the Romans, more tolerant than the Spanish, less deluded than Bonaparte, but her 19th century wars in Afghanistan and Burma were, as a contemporary historian said, ‘a disgrace fraught with understandable reasons’. (more…)
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (also known as the Soviet Union) used to occupy all the northern part of Asia, and a substantial part of Eastern Europe. Under that name, what was before, and is now again Russia lasted from 1936 to 1991. It comprised fifteen constituent republics. (more…)
Despite being Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796, Catherine was not Russian. She was a German princess, Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst. She made a royal marriage of convenience in 1745 with the future Emperor Peter III. This prince seemed to be that usual lethal Russian cocktail of half-insanity mixed with extreme cruelty.
In 1762, only six months after he had succeeded as Emperor, Peter was murdered. As Catherine was proclaimed Empress by the soldiers who had formed his personal guard, historians have not found it difficult to attribute guilt for the assassination to Catherine herself. To judge by contemporary accounts and court diaries, it seems that the lady was well rid of her obnoxious husband.
Catherine ruled Russia for forty-four years. She was an intelligent, ambitious woman who corresponded with French philosopher and nuisance Voltaire. Amazingly for Russian royalty (even by marriage) she was considered a bit of a liberal, even enlightened. (more…)
Paul I of Russia
Paul was born in 1754, as son and successor to Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia. Almost from birth he was seen by courtiers as mentally unstable (the modern, distilled version of that last word is ‘challenged’). Nevertheless, Paul became the Tsar in 1796 at the age of forty-two.
He was soon involved in foreign affairs: Russia entered the War of the Second Coalition for one year only (1798-9), before Paul I insisted on Russia’s changing sides to join the French (1800). However mad Paul was, he managed to become responsible for the first clear Russian law of succession to the throne of Russia, which had to come, now, through the male line only. Historians with a bent towards psychology will no doubt trace this draconian move to a dislike for his mother the Empress. (more…)
V.I. Lenin / elcomercio.com
While the present Spanish government is Stalinist in concept, and Leninist in its leaders’ outlook, it might be as well to examine the biography of Lenin, whose actual family name was Ulyanov. Vladimir was born at Simbirsk on the middle Volga in Russia, the son of a school inspector. When the young man was only sixteen he suffered the death of a brother, hanged for his complicity in a conspiracy to kill the Tzar of All the Russias. (more…)