François Mitterand
/ redwiretimes.com Mitterand was a life-long Socialist who served in the brief French military resistance to German might between 1939 and 1940, and is then said to have co-operated with the rather spare [...]
What is the ‘Code Napoléon?
Napoleon in his study in the Tuileries, a study by David /es.wikipedia.org Napoleon Bonaparte gave his name to the civil code of 1804. Subsequent battles – Trafalgar, Waterloo etc. did not affect [...]
Who was this fellow Clausewitz?
It is a fair bet that many readers have noticed a reference to ‘Clausewitz’ in the history books they are reading, or even in novels; it is a name they know, though they are not [...]
J.R. Dalhousie – Governor-General of India
Not all governors-general, or ‘viceroys’ of India were touched with brilliance, like Lord Curzon. One of them, the last, gave the most important part of the British Empire away as if he were presenting the [...]
The beginnings of Soviet Russia
The February Revolution (1917) / en.wikipedia.org It is easy enough to say that the origin of the Revolution in Russia was mainly due to the unpopularity of the Tsar; but that would preclude [...]
François P. G. Guizot
/ es.wikipedia.org This French Protestant intellectual and statesman was born in 1787; he was an infant when the revolutionaries guillotined his father during The Great Terror (q.v.). When the Revolution was over and [...]
Louis Philippe, King of the French
/ en.wikipedia.org He was a descendant of Louis XIII (the king in The Three Musketeers), and the eldest son of the Duke of Orléans. Both father and son openly supported the French Revolution, [...]
Who was the dreaded Mosley?
The Mosleys in retirement / en.wikipedia.org I doubt if more than a handful of today’s teenagers have ever heard of Sir Oswald Mosley, or if they have, he is but a shadowy figure [...]
Helmuth von Moltke
/ en.wikipedia.org Born in Prussia in 1800, Moltke lived to the astonishing age of ninety-one, almost spanning the nineteenth century. He was born to be a soldier, being Prussian, and became Chief of [...]
The French Radical Republic (1899 – 1940)
Aristide Briand ( en. wikipedia.org) The essential difference between a (strictly) democratic republic and a monarchy is that the first is a government elected by people who have the correct age and the [...]
Second thoughts on General Pinochet
/ the guardian.com He was another military dictator who was and is still hated by almost everybody, even after his death, except a substantial portion of the Latin American population. He ran foul [...]
Second thoughts on General Franco
Franco & Doña Carmen enjoying some Spanish football / insidespanishfootball.com I am not a revisionist. My views on the character and actions of Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell have not changed in fifty [...]
What was the British ‘Raj’?
Last splendours of the ‘Raj’; Mountbatten after his swearing-in as Viceroy / en wikipedia.org Raj is Hindi for ‘rule’. The East India Company (always known as The Company) had opened up this vast [...]
The Paris Peace Conference 1919/1920
/ black discountcenter.com On 20 June, 1919 the Treaty of Versailles was signed – a dictated treaty which left most parties dissatisfied but brought the Great War to an end as far as [...]
Commodore Perry & the ‘Unequal Treaties’
The Commodore meets the Shogunate / mickmc.tripod.com Matthew Galbraith Perry was born into the American ruling class in 1794. He entered the Navy in his teens and was soon a naval officer. It [...]
How did the Tudors do it?
Imaginative re-construction of the marriage of Catherine and Own Tudor / womenshistory.about.com The ‘gentry’ in English history were and are middle to upper class folk, untitled except for the odd baronet or hastily-dubbed [...]
Don’t forget to read books!
Don't neglect your reading! Expert or inexpert, millions of people read blogsites, blogspots, online books, political pamphlets etc. The offer is endless using the Internet. But one should NOT forget the good old book . [...]
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