A Seymour and a Dudley, not exactly saints
Edward VI, sickly son of Henry VIII / nndb.com Seymour (pronounced ‘Seemer’) is a name that rings bells throughout British history. There is still a Seymour Marquess of Hertford living at Ragley Hall [...]
The Battle of ‘the Bulge’
American infantry moving in the Battle of the Bulge / wikipedia.org I happened to see a new DVD of an old film with this title last night. It was a typical Hollywood presentation, [...]
The ‘good’ old days
The first half of the 19th century saw the population of Britain expand more rapidly than was healthy. Thanks to huge medical advances, more hygiene and better food, and because more children survived (out of [...]
A Hohenzollern for Spain?
Queen Isabel II of Spain, unhappy daughter of Fernando VII Isabel II was the daughter of Fernando VII, possibly the worst monarch Spain ever had; her reign contained two unpopular regencies and the [...]
Missing or misdirected: $13,000 million for Haiti
Only two years after the catastrophic earthquake that almost destroyed the island of Haiti, killing many (200,000 is one estimate) and leaving more homeless, it would not be incorrect to ask what has happened [...]
What was ‘Apartheid’?
Nelson Mandela / theclinic.cl The word itself is Afrikaans or South African Dutch and means ‘separateness’. In the 50s of the last century a morbid joking pun was made in [...]
Civilization 2013
The science of allowing mankind to live in its immediate society as free, courteous, unselfish, educated and rational individuals is called civilization. It is a science that has been almost unknown throughout the existence of [...]
Monarchist Republics (or Republican Monarchies)
French Marshal Macmahon / wikipedia.org At first sight our title might seem a misnomer, rather like ‘Benevolent Dictator’ or ‘Historical Novel’. But one was set up and lasted for eight years in [...]
Heydrich and the massacre at Lidice
Heydrich /wikipedia.org My new wife and I settled into our new home in a country lane at Santa Úrsula on the island of Tenerife in 1980. In a small cottage on the other [...]
Who was Florence Nightingale?
Wounded soldiers called her ‘The Lady of the Lamp’ / telegraph.co.uk Sufficiently immortal in England’s history to appear in 1066 And All That under the comic names of ‘Florence MacNightingown’ and [...]
America’s Supreme Court
The Supreme Court building / becketfund.org Most developed countries have a Supreme Court, which means what it says.* It is the maximum legal authority a third branch of the government, independent however of [...]
The Terror in France (1792 – 4)
A crucial moment arrived in France when the much-sought revolution seemed to be petering out. Those who had staked everything on it, their fortune, their families, properties and reputations, stood in danger of failure [...]
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 [...]
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.) [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Erich Ludendorff
Erich Ludendorff / commons.wikimedia.org Germany is a country of tradition, contrast and discipline mixed with a craving for modernity and change. The actual Chancellor is a lady from the Centre/Right who [...]
Recent Comments