"May you live in interesting times."

        - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Well behaved women rarely make history.
        - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

After you've heard two eyewitness accounts of an auto accident it makes you wonder about history.

It’s a great historical joke that when the Spanish met the Aztecs, it was a blind date made in
serve-you-right heaven. At the time, they were the two most unpleasant cultures in the entire world, and richly deserved each other. Still, the story of how stout Cortes blustered, bullied and bludgeoned his way to collapsing an entire empire with a handful of contagious hoodlums is astonishing.
        - AA Gill, reviewing "The Last Aztec", "The Guardian"

The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.

"Now that their long war was over, they could get on with the proper concern of all civilised nations, which is to prepare for the next one."

"The Second World War is the greatest story ever. It's about the triumph of good over evil. It takes place all over the world. It has the ultimate baddy, who dies at the end in a squalid bunker. What's more, we won and it's always nice to read about a war we won."
        - Guy Walters, on the popularity of WW2 books in Britain

There is an invariable rule in men's battles, it states: An ugly, macho guy can never beat an intelligent, popular, slender and handsome hero. Your fate was sealed when you showed up with your ugly face.

"An Iranian moderate is an Iranian who has run out of ammunition."
        - Henry Kissinger

"Lincoln would be just like me. He wouldn't know what the hell to do."
        - Senator George Norris, when asked how Lincoln would have handled the Great Depression

Civil War Enthusiasts Burn Atlanta To Ground.
        - Headline seen on "The Onion"

Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography.

        - David Frum

In general, life is better than it has ever been, and if you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word : "Dentistry".

        - Bryan Ward-Perkins, "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization"

When I heard about the French Revolution, my reaction was that I was against it.

        - Jeffrey Hart

Starting the Crusades with Christians coming to the Holy Land is about the same as them making a series that has WWII starting with the invasion at Normandy.
        - Quote seen on History Channel forum

The first humans to come to Canada were the Indians. There is some mystery as to where the Indians came from. Some experts say that they came from the same place as the Eskimo. This doesn't help much because nobody knows where the Eskimo came from either. (Except the Eskimo, and they aren't talking.)

        - Eric Nicol, "Canada Explained"

Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

"Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now when it's worked so well?"
        - Sir Humphrey,"Yes Minister"

"No we can't have alphabetical seating in the abbey, we'd have Iraq and Iran next to each other, plus Israel and Jordan all sitting in the same pew. We'd be in danger of starting World War III. I know Ireland begins with an I but no. Ireland doesn't make it any better, Ireland doesn't make anything any better."
        - Bernard in "Yes, Prime Minister"

"Of course we do what we can, but there's many calls on the public purse you know, inner cities, schools, hospitals, kidney machines."
"Tanks? Rockets? H-Bombs?"
"Well we can't really defend ourselves against the Russians with a performance of 'Henry V'."
        - Jim Hacker, in "Yes, Prime Minister"

"East Yemen, isn't that a democracy?"
"Its full name is the Peoples' Democratic Republic of East Yemen."
"Ah I see, so it's a communist dictatorship."
        - Sir Humphrey and Sir Richard, "Yes, Prime Minister"

British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the Question.
        - W. C. Sellar, "1066 and All That"

"We need a war every 10 years, so we can stay match fit in case the Germans try again."
        - Al Murray, English Pub landlord

In the aftermath of Falklands victory, the reporters celebrated excessively in the pub in Port Stanley, the Upland Goose. One of them, a Scotsman with a grievance against Max Hastings, later the editor of this paper, for his brilliant, scene-stealing reports in the Evening Standard, allegedly threatened him with a bayonet. A brave Yorkshire journalist wrestled the Scot to the ground, shouting: "This is neither the time nor the place to kill Max Hastings." Quite right: Max's role in the triumph had been as significant as that of the Servicemen.
        - Charles Moore, "The Spectator"

"The empire is in grave peril!"
"You're probably too young to know, but the empire is always in some kind of peril."
        - Allan Quartermain, in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"

By 1914, the royal families of Europe were inbred to the point of pantomine. You feel about them as you do about koalas. Nothing so stupid has any right to exist on the planet. On the other hand, they are rather cute, and in grave danger of extinction due to their specialised needs.
        - Nancy Banks Smith, "The Guardian"

The development of 'Balance Of Power' reminds me if the use of paratroops in WW2. After much trial and error, the strategists eventually learned that the real value of paratroops lay in their powers to motivate regular troops to fight to rescue the paras. Its difficult to inspire soldiers to risk their lives to win a patch of ground, but when they know that their comrades are just ahead, surrounded by the enemy, counting on the regular troops to save them, the regular troops will fight with unparalled determination. Paratroops, then, allow the commander to set a clear and tough goal for his troops to reach. Using paratroops is like putting yourself in a deep hole to see if you can dig yourself out of it.
        - Chris Crawford, "Balance Of Power"

K is for KENGHIS KHAN. He was a very nice person. History has no record of him. There is a moral in that, somewhere.

Boundary, n : In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.

Alliance, n : In international politics, the union of two theives who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third.

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

        - Stanley Kubrick

"It's like Vietnam and the Nazis rolled into one."

        - from "Beer Money"

Everyone once in a while, declare peace, it confuses the hell out of your enemies

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.

Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.

I'm not a trained killer. I lead trained killers.

I'm not a mercenary - killings more of a hobby with me.

"Hello, my name's Adolf, and I enjoy painting and visiting foreign countries, preferably with 10 armoured divisions at my back"

Normally the patterns of history are reassuring. To hear of Tsarist Russia pressing for warm-water ports or 18th century England fighting hegemony on the continent or Ming China clashing with Japan over the fate of Korea is to feel a continuity, a comprehensibility, in human affairs. But in "The Jewish War" (a History of the Jewish Revolt in AD 60) the shock of recognition is just a shock. Here, sixty generations ago, is nearly the same cast of characters engaged in exactly the same onsessive, vicious and fatal behaviour for the same terrifying reasons on the same cursed, reeking, ugly chunk of land.
        - PJ O'Rourke, "Give War A Chance"

The historical record shows that the chronology of "ownership" of what is now Israel is as follows: The Jews got it (via UN Mandate) from the British in 1948,  who took it in 1917 from the Ottomans, who took it in 1517 from the Egypt-based Mamluks, who in 1250 took it from the Ayyubi dynasty (descendants of Saladin, a Kurd ), who in 1187 took it from the Crusaders, who in 1099 took it from the Seljuk Turks, who ruled it in the name of the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, which in 750 took it from the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, which in 661 inherited it from the Arabs of Arabia, who in 638 took it from the Byzantines, who in 395 inherited it from the Romans, who in 63 BC took it from the last Jewish kingdom, which in 140 BC took it from the Hellenistic Greeks, who under Alexander the Great in 333 BC took it from the Persian empire, which in 639 BC took it from the Babylonian empire, which under Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC took it from the Jews (the Kingdom of Judah), who — as Israelites — took it in the 12th and 13th centuries BC from the Canaanites, who had inhabited the land for thousands of years before they were dispossessed by the Israelites. There is no evidence that today's Arab Palestinians are descended from the Canaanites who were completely wiped out in ancient times.
        - Tony Allwright

Hitler:  "I don’t want war! All I want is Peace! Peace! Peace!
(Sings) A little piece of Poland, a little piece of France,
A little piece of Portugal, and Austria perchance.
A little slice of Turkey and all that that entails.
And then a piece of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales."
        - W.C.Sellar and R.J.Yeatman, "1066 and All That"

"The monster has escaped Elba!"
"The tyrant has landed at Cannes!"
"Bonaparte meets the troops."
"Napoleon approaches Paris."
"His Imperial Majesty has entered the capital."
        - Headlines in French newspaper Le Moniteur in 1814 (as recounted by David Frum)

"I don't think we poisoned him. That's not the way we do things. We stifle people, we blow them up, but we don't poison them."
        - Briton Alistair Horne, on the mysterious death of Napoleon

"Memmius would only be useless to him for a short time, but that he would remain useless to himself and the Republic forever."
        - Rome's Scipio, on having to serve with an inept colleague

Demonstrators outside Parliament rarely wear togas and brandish placards written in classical Greek. They did this week. The reason was a decision by education bureaucrats to drop a national history exam for 18-year-olds. If the protest naught avails, ancient history will no longer be taught in English schools, for the first time since the original Dark Ages. The decision to axe the A-level was taken hurriedly and in secret, without consulting the schools that teach ancient history or the universities that like it. And it comes at a time when the decline in classics in schools has reversed. A recent book on Latin grammar, “Amo, Amas, Amat”, became a surprise best-seller. The number of state schools offering basic Latin has risen from 200 in 2003 to 459 today. Though some of the Thucydides-loving demonstrators were from elite private schools, others were from grungy further-education colleges. As they waited for Boris Johnson, the Tory education spokesman, to address them (in Latin), the pupil-protesters chanted "Long live Athens! Down with Sparta". Fine sentiments. But remember what happened to Athens.
        - from "The Economist" (May'07)

If we're worried about our exam students not always being up to scratch, just consider this genuine case from across the water: A student sitting the equivalent of our Leaving Cert had a problem with a question about the Spanish Armada, the fleet that King Philip II of Spain sent to attack England in 1588. In beautifully flowing prose, he recounted how the "ill-fated Spanish Armada", which had orders from the "mad fascist dictator Franco to destroy his hated English foe", sailed towards England to accomplish its deadly mission. Franco was confident of victory, he wrote, but half way across the English Channel the Armada was "attacked by wave upon wave of Spitfires, Hurricanes, and heavy bombers." Despite losing many planes to sustained anti-aircraft fire from the Armada, the RAF managed to sink most of the Spanish ships. The remaining ones turned tail and limped back to Spain. This was a great victory for the RAF, the student wrote, and General Franco never fully recovered from it. If marks had been awarded for sheer creativity this fellow would have cleaned up.
        - a letter to "The Irish Independent" on a creative English history student

WASHINGTON, DC: A team of leading historians and psychiatrists issued a report Wednesday claiming that the United States was likely the victim of abuse by its founding fathers and motherland when it was a young colony. "In its adulthood, the U.S. displays all the classic tendencies of a nation that was repeatedly mistreated in its infancy—difficulty forming lasting foreign relationships, viewing everyone as a potential enemy, and employing a pattern of assault and intimidation to assert its power," said Dr. Howard Drexel, the report's lead author. "The U.S. is characteristic of an abused nation in that, even decades after noisily pushing away from Britain, it still maintained close contact with the motherland, took care of it, even giving it financial aid — all the while fearing disapproval even though the parent country is now old, decrepit, and powerless," said Yale University psychology professor John Bauffman, a prominent contributor to the fourth edition of the Democratic Symptoms Of Maltreatment handbook, or DSM-IV. "On the other hand, Canada, which was raised in the very same continent by the same mother country, only exercised small-scale resistance, remaining loyal well into its maturity. Though some see Canada as cold and remote, it has, unlike the U.S., managed to lead a peaceful, reasonably healthy existence."
        - from "The Onion"

# TRIVIA

Crown Prince Rupprecht, the heir to the throne of Bavaria who commanded the army group facing the British at the Somme, was the senior direct lineal heir of James Stuart, the Old Pretender of 1715. Had there been any Jacobites left in Britain in 1916, they would have had to regard this south German prince as their rightful king.
        - David Frum, "National Review"

In 1940 British civilians were told that in the event of an invasion they should lay soup-plates upside-down in the streets, so that the Germans would mistake them for anti-tank mines.
        - Noel Malcolm, reviewing Geert Mak's "In Europe", "The Telegraph"

Long ago (so I have forgotten the precise details) I read one of those books by a British soldier who escaped from a German prisoner-of-war camp in the second world war. He had managed to pinch a German uniform and was making his way across the Fatherland disguised as an Oberleutnant or something. Suddenly he was confronted by a company of the victorious, advancing British troops. How could he instantly convey to them that he was English, and so avoid being shot? He had a brainwave. He shouted out the filthiest English swear-words he could think of. The soldiers lowered their rifles: few Germans would know those words, and the accent was right.
        - Bevis Hillier, "The Spectator"

Chris Bellamy starts this mammoth history with a reference to one of the least obvious environmental effects of the conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union: 20 years after the siege of Stalingrad, escaping rabid wolves and foxes reached the English Channel... Given that the Red Army was destroyed between one and one and a half times over, it required reinforcement and "force generation" on a massive scale. The decision to recruit women, something the Nazis scrupled at, was crucial, with between one and two million on active service in 1944. For example, there was the all-female 46th Guards Night Bomber Regiment - known by the Germans as the "night witches" because they cut their engines and glided in to attack their targets, thereby outfoxing air defences, with "a whooshing sound, like a witch's broomstick in the night". In token recognition of their femininity, women under arms received 100 grams more soap than the men.
        - Christopher Silvester, reviewing "Absolute War", "The Telegraph"

The "Pig War" was a confrontation in 1859 between American and British authorities, resulting from a dispute over the boundary between the United States and British North America. It is so called because the war was triggered by a pig and the only casualty was said pig.
        - Wikipedia entry

There was a letter in 'The Times' on August 16 urging the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan. That may not seem too surprising given the scale of the challenge but this was a letter which appeared on August 16, 1880, when the worry in Whitehall was not the resurgence of the Taliban nor instability in Pakistan but the threat of invasion by Russia. Back in 1880, Britain had 55,000 troops committed in Afghanistan. Today, the figure is only around 7,000 but even that is proving a burden too far.
        - Nicholas Leonard, "The Independent" (Aug'07)

#  HISTORY IN POPULAR CULTURE

"He's got a knife!"
"Of course he's got a knife. You've got a knife. I've got a knife. We've all got knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!"
        - Prince John and Eleanor of Aquitaine, "The Lion In Winter"

"The midwife of history is violence."
        - Emperor Franz Josef, "The Fall of Eagles"

"God preserve us from middle class intellectuals."
        - Alexander Helphand, "The Fall of Eagles"

In many ways the American Revolution was a continuation of a long argument over how Britons should be ruled, the second round, if you like, of the seventeenth century civil war in England. Yes, the troops sent across the Atlantic by (German) George III were sent packing — but it was by folks called Washington, Gates and Pickens. It hurt at the time, but when we British consider our history, a defeat only counts when it's to people with names like Schmidt, Watanabe or Depardieu. In the Revolutionary War, you see, we Brits essentially lost to ourselves, and that's not so bad. We just won't mention that Lafayette fellow. So in "The Patriot", you watch two opposing armies, both of which march under the red, white and blue — the English of the Philadelphia regime against the English of the London government. In the end, the better Englishmen won. The away team, my team, left the pitch at Yorktown and went off to establish a second, wider, empire — a remarkable achievement, Mel, for such a feeble race. The victors, meanwhile, went on to build a country that has inspired the world. So, this year, as I always do, I'll celebrate the fourth of July. Drink in hand, I'll toast the men who made this possible, the founding fathers who wrote, in that Declaration of Independence, some of the finest words that have ever been written in the English language. Yes, that's right, the English language. My language.
        - Briton Andrew Stuttaford reviews "The Patriot" for "National Review"

With their own record of killing 12 million American Indians and supporting slavery for four decades after the British abolished it, Americans wish to project their historical guilt on to someone else.
        - Andrew Roberts, after watching Mel Gibson's risible "The Patriot"

"The Japanese couldn't have been all bad during World War II. Look at all the movies Hollywood was able to make on account of them. The Indians weren't the only bad guys. Thanks to the Japanese and Geronimo, John Wayne became a millionaire."
        - Pat Morita, interviewed in the U.S. military's "Stars and Stripes" (1967)

In the twelfth century the Basque fishermen of Biarritz used to hunt whales with deadly efficiency. When the whales sensibly moved away, the Basques chased them further and further, with the consequence that the fishermen of Biarritz discovered America before Columbus did. This is a matter for local pride but on a larger view it is not quite so stunning, since with the possible exception of the Swiss everybody discovered America before Columbus did.
        - Clive James, in "Flying Visits: Postcards from the Observer"

"Well, I'm no stranger to the land of scoff. Perhaps you'd like to explain why it is that every major battle in history has been won by the side with the shortest hair cut. "
"Oh, surely not sir. "
"Think about it, why did the US Cavalry beat the Indian nation? Short back and sides verses girlie Hippy locks."
"The Cavaliers and the Roundheads? One-nil to the Pudding basins."
"Vietnam, crew cuts both sides, no score draw."
        - Rimmer discusses his view of history with Kryten, "Red Dwarf"

The Edwardians do make exceedingly good television: Galsworthy’s Forsytes, Jules Verne, HG Wells, the Bloomsberries, the invention of expressionism, abstraction, modernist design and great hats. And the Edwardians had sex: unlike the Victorians, they didn’t have to die of shame afterwards. For their brief, elegant, indulged moment, they enjoyed the overripeness of all that Victorian probity and hard work and the beginning of a new century, with its liberty, its new art, new science, new psychology and new ways of being. The first 10 years of the 20th century were the most intellectually and artistically pyrotechnic of any decade in history.
But we don’t care about any of that. The reason we like the Edwardians on television is because they’re doomed. Their existence is just a prelude to Passchendaele. They had that long, last, languid summer, then they all got machine-gunned or died of flu. We like the Edwardians because they don’t know what’s coming but we do, and they’re going to get their just deserts. We may also like the Edwardians because they’re a distant mirror. We, too, are at the beginning of a new century, enjoying a spurt of scientific and cultural dynamism. Charles is not unlike a thin, pointless Edward VII; Blair, not a million miles from Ramsay MacDonald. And we are having our long, hot summer before catastrophe.
        - AA Gill, "The Times"

[From Blackadder - Why did World War One Start]
Baldrick: No, the thing is: The way I see it, these days there's a war on, right? and, ages ago, there wasn't a war on, right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right? and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is: How did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?
Edmund: Do you mean "How did the war start?"
Baldrick: Yeah.
George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous empire- building.
Edmund: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.
George: Oh, no, sir, absolutely not. (aside, to Baldrick) Mad as a bicycle!
Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry.
Edmund: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.
Baldrick: Nah, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir.
Edmund: Well, possibly. But the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort *not* to have a war.
George: By God this is interesting; I always loved history -- The Battle of Hastings, Henry VIII and his six knives, all that.
Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way there could never be a war.
Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
Edmund: Yes, that's right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
George: What was that, sir?
Edmund: It was bollocks.

# ROME

"Our men must win or die. Pompey's men have... other options."
        - Julius Caesar, unfazed by being outnumbered, "Rome"

"When confronted by a hungry wolf, it is unwise to goad the beast, as Cato would have us do. But it is equally unwise to imagine the snarling animal a friend and offer your hand, as Pompey does."
"Perhaps you would have us climb a tree!"
        - Cicero and Pompey, "Rome"

"Please go on, make your threats. I don't like to submit to mere implication."
        - Cicero to Mark Anthony, "Rome"

"A ferocious little c**t — with a pen."
        - Mark Anthony about Octavian, "Rome"

"You've been avoiding me."
"I thought it best — to avoid any awkwardness."
"...I think if you did actually love me as you said you wouldn't mind *any* amount of awkwardness."
        - Octavia and Agrippa, "Rome"

"If a marriage was to happen between our two houses no one could doubt that all is well."
"I don't care if all Italy burns... I'll not marry him."
        - Attia and Mark Anthony, with a tongue in cheek dig at Octavian, "Rome"

"You'll not turn to drink will you?"
"No sir."
"You stoic types often do, when disappointed in life."
        - Mark Anthony and Vorenus, "Rome"

"I would go with you to Hades — to Britain even."
        - Agrippa to Octavia, "Rome"

"It's a damn good place to die, at any rate. It could have been a ditch in Gaul."
        - Mark Anthony, in Alexandria, "Rome"

"Is he a good man?"
"Define 'good'."
        -  Cleopatra and Vorenus, discussing Pullo, "Rome"

#

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