#During the Middle Ages Spain and France did nothing but fighting

[jikimo-world]

What was supposed to be just a walk a little further from home, turned out to be an unexpected encounter with the past...

(At some point, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476)

(The poor boy's heart is breaking for not knowing enough, but soon he'll be getting some more awful news)

[sixth-light]

The Crusades: A Fandom Primer

Like many of you, I am very excited to see a whole lot of fic about everybody’s favourite new Crusades-era Muslim/Christian immortal warrior husbands! However, a preliminary reading indicates that fandom is a bit hazy on what actually happened during the Crusades. Or where. Or why. They’re a much-mythologised piece of history so this isn’t surprising, but at popular request – ok like five people that counts – I’m here with a fandom-oriented Crusades primer.

Please bear in mind that I’m not a historian and this primer is largely based on my notes and recollections from several undergraduate history courses I took in the mid ‘00s. I expect the field has moved on somewhat, and I welcome corrections from people with more up-to-date knowledge! There’s also this very good post by someone who is a lot less lazy about links than I am.

Where did they take place?

The Crusades, broadly, describe a series of invasions of the Eastern Mediterranean (modern Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Beirut, Jordan, Cyprus, and parts of Turkey and Greece) by (mostly) Western European armies, religiously justified by their belief that the city of Jerusalem should be part of ‘Christendom’, i.e. ruled by a Christian monarch. In the first expression of European settler colonialism, nobles from the area of modern France and Germany founded four Crusader Kingdoms (aka ‘Outremer’, ‘overseas’) – the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and County of Tripoli.

  After a first unexpected wave of success in the First Crusade (1096-1099), which surprised everybody including the participants by conquering Jerusalem, the Crusaders were gradually driven and the last part of Outremer was lost to European control with the fall of the city of Acre in 1291. Crusades after that still nominally aimed to take Jerusalem but rarely got very far, with the Fourth Crusade famously sacking the city of Byzantium, their nominal Christian allies, in 1204. During this whole period activity that can be considered part of the ‘Crusades’ took place around the Eastern Mediterranean.

The most important thing to remember is that modern national boundaries didn’t exist in the same way; Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and the UK were not unified nations. Most of the southern Iberian peninsula (modern Spain) was ‘al-Andalus’, Muslim kingdoms ruled by nobility originally from North Africa. Sicily had been an Emirate up until very recently, when it had been conquered by Normans (Vikings with a one-century stopover in France). Italy and Germany in particular were a series of city-states and small duchies; Genoa, if you’re curious about it for some reason, ;), was a maritime power with more or less a distinct language, Genoese Ligurian (their dialect had enough of a navy to qualify). England had recently become part of the Anglo-Norman Empire, which ruled most of England (but not Wales or Scotland) and also large parts of modern France, particularly Normandy.

The Muslim world was similarly fragmented in ways that don’t correspond to modern national boundaries - there were multiple taifa states in Iberia, the Almoravid Caliphate in Morocco, the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt, and (nominally) the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, one of the great cities of the era, although the Seljuq Turks were the major power in Anatolia (modern Turkey) and what we describe as the ‘Middle East’. 

The largest Christian unified power in the wider European/Mediterranean region was the Byzantine Empire, centered on the city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul), which quite fairly considered itself the direct continuation of the Roman Empire, the capital having been moved there by the Emperor Constantine in 323. In fact, the really big political and religious question of the time for Christians was who got to be considered the centre of Christendom (there was no real concept of ‘Europe’ at this point) – the Orthodox Church, the Byzantine Emperor, and the Patriarch of Constantinople in Constantinople, or the Holy Roman Emperor (er…dude in nominal charge of a lot of German and Italian principalities) and the Roman Catholic Church led by the Pope in Rome. The Orthodox Church in Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church had agreed to disagree in 1054 in the Great Schism, so in 1096 this issue was still what you’d call fresh.

Onto this stage of East-West disagreement and the heritage of Rome crashed the Seljuq Turks, a Muslim group from Central Asia who swept through Anatolia (modern Turkey), Byzantium’s richest province, culminating in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 which wiped out Byzantium as an independent military force. The southern provinces had fallen under Muslim rule long ago, during the era of the first Umayyad Caliphate – including Jerusalem, famous as the birthplace of Christianity and a holy site for Judaism and Islam as well, but also a fairly uninteresting provincial town. Until...

Until…what?

Here’s why all the geography matters: It is generally accepted that the First Crusade kicked off largely because Alexios I Comnenus, the then-current Byzantine Emperor, requested aid from Western Europe against the Muslim Seljuq Turks. Byzantium often recruited mercenaries from Western Europe; the Normans (aka the Vikings), who had settled Normandy and southern Italy in the past century were frequent hires. Hence those runes in the Hagia Sophia.

Meanwhile in Western Europe, the Pope – Urban II – was having difficulty with the current Emperor, and was eager to heal the Schism and establish the primacy of the Roman church. He declared that an expedition to aid the Byzantines would have the blessing of the church, and that a new kind of pilgrimage – an armed pilgrimage – was religiously acceptable, if aimed against the enemies of Christendom.

Pilgrimages (travelling to holy sites, such as churches that held saints’ relics) were a major part of European Christianity at the time and many people went on pilgrimage in their lives, so this was a familiar concept. Western Europe was also somewhat overpopulated with knights – don’t think plate armour, this is 1096, think very murderous rich men with good swords – who could always use forgiveness, on account of all the murder. The Roman Catholic church, unlike the Eastern Orthodox church, also subscribed to the concept of ‘just war’, that war could be acceptable for the right reasons. And so a whole lot of nobles from the area of modern France, Belgium, England, Germany, and Italy decided that this new Crusade thing was something they wanted in on – and they took several armies with them.

I’m going to skip over a bunch of stuff involving the People’s Crusade (a popular movement of poorer people, got literally slaughtered in Anatolia), the massacres of Jews in Eastern Europe, and a lot of battles, but the takeaway is this: Alexios probably thought he was getting mercenaries. He got a popular religious movement that, somewhat unfortunately, actually achieved its goal (Jerusalem), did next to nothing to solve his Anatolia problem, and gave a succession of Popes a convenient outlet for errant knights, nobles, and rulers: going on Crusade.  

How many were there?

Official Crusades that anybody cares about: Nine, technically. Crusade-like military events that immortal soldiers might have got involved with, plus local stoushes in Outremer: way more. WAY more.

The First Crusade (1096-1099): First and original, set a frankly (heh) terrible precedent, founded the Crusader States and captured Jerusalem. Only regarded as a clash of civilisations by the Western Christians involved. For the local Muslims it was just another day at the ‘Byzantium hires Frankish mercenaries to make our lives difficult’ office.

The Crusade of 1101: Everybody who peaced out on the First Crusade hurried to prove they were actually up for it, once the remaining First Crusaders took Jerusalem. Didn’t do much.

The Second Crusade (1147-1150): The County of Edessa falls, Eleanor of Aquitaine happens (my fave), the only winners are the people who semi-accidentally conquer Lisbon (in Portugal) (but from Muslim rulers so that…counts?).

The Third Crusade (1189-1192): You all know this one because it has RICHARD THE LIONHEART and SALADIN. Much Clash of Civilisations, very Noble, did enough to keep the remaining Crusader kingdoms going but access to Jerusalem for Christian pilgrims was obtained by treaty, not conquest. Indirectly responsible for the Robin Hood mythos when Richard gets banged up in prison on the way home and is away from England for ages.

The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204): Aims for Jerusalem, ends up sacking the Eastern Orthodox city of Constantinople, just not a great time for anybody, more or less the eventual cause of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453.  

The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221): Still going for Jerusalem, starts with Cairo instead, does not get anywhere it wants to even after allying with the Anatolian Sultanate of Rum, making the whole ‘Christians vs Muslims’ thing even murkier than it already was post the Fourth Crusade.

The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229): Somehow these things are still going. Nobody even does very much fighting. Access to Jerusalem is negotiated by treaty, yet again.

The Seventh, Eight, and Ninth Crusades: Seriously nobody cares anymore and also nobody is trying very hard. Kings have better things to do, mostly. People end up in Egypt a lot. We covered these in one lecture and I have forgotten all of it.

The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229): Why take a three-year trip to the Holy Land to fight pagans when you can fight the ones in your own backyard (southern France), AND take their stuff? Famously the source of the probably apocryphal ‘Kill them all, God will know His own’ quote, regarding the massacre of most of a city harbouring Cathars (a Christian sect deemed heretical).

Can we circle back to that ‘massacres of Jews’ bit? WTF?

Crusades, historically, were Not A Good Time for Jewish communities in Europe; when Christians were riled up to go and Fight The Infidel, it was a lot quicker to massacre local Jews than travel to the Holy Land. Also, then you could take their stuff. I will note here that it is VERY TACKY to use historical pogroms as backdrops for your non-Jewish main characters so keep this in mind but, like, use with extreme caution in fanfic, okay? Generally life was a lot easier for Jewish communities in Muslim-ruled states in this period, which is why so many Hispanic Jews ended up in Turkey after they were expelled from Spain. 

What were they really about, then?

Historians still Have Opinions about this. Genuine religious fervour was absolutely a key motivator, especially of the First Crusade. The ability to wage war sanctioned by the Church, or to redeem your local sins by going and fighting against the pagans, was part of that, too. Control of key trade routes to the East was probably not not a part of it. The Crusader States were definitely Baby’s First Experiment With Settler Colonialism, and paved the theological and rhetorical ground for the colonisation of the Americas. But many individuals on the Christian side would absolutely have believed they were doing God’s work. The various Muslim rulers and certainly the local Christian, Jewish, and Muslim inhabitants of the Holy Land itself were mostly just getting invaded by Franks. As time wound on the Crusades became more and more political (frequently featuring intra-religious violence and inter-religious alliances) and less and less about their forever nominal goal, control of Jerusalem.

How’s Wikipedia on this?

Basically not too bad but I’m not totally confident on some of the bits about motivation (see: white supremacists love this period, ugh.)

Why did they stop?

The prospect of re-taking Jerusalem vanished entirely as the Ottoman Empire centralised and took a firm hold over most of the Levant (and made inroads into Europe, as far as Austria, taking Constantinople in 1453 and finally ending the continuous Roman Empire), the Spanish Reconquista and various intra-European conflicts (the Hundred Years’ War, for example) absorbed military attention, and then the Reformation happened and half of Europe stopped listening to the Pope and started stabbing each other over who was the right kind of Christian. But the concept lingered; white supremacists love the Crusades. Which is why it is a very good idea to be sparing with Crusader imagery around Niccolò in fanfic set in the modern era, and please for fuck’s sake stop with the ‘crugayders’ tag, Yusuf wasn’t a Crusader.  

What other fun facts should I keep in mind re: Nicky | Nicolò and Joe | Yusuf?

·        Genoa is not the same as Italy; Nicolò is Nicolò di Genova and would have spoken Genoese (Ligurian) and considered himself to be Genoese. Italian as a language didn’t really exist yet. The language he and Yusuf would most likely have had in common was the ‘lingua franca’ (Frankish language, literally) of the Mediterranean trading region, a pidgin based heavily on maritime Italian languages. Yusuf 300% would have thought of him as a ‘Frank’ (the generic term for Western Christians) and probably annoyed him by calling him that until at least 1200 or so.

·        Yusuf is apparently from ‘Maghrib’, which I assume means al-Maghrib/the Maghreb (as his actor is IIRC of Tunisian descent), i.e. North Africa. He could have had relatives in al-Andalus (southern modern Spain), he may have spoken languages other than Arabic natively (Mozarabic or Berber), his native area had universities before Europe did. Basically: this is as useful as saying he’s ‘from Europe’, do better backstory writers.

·        Taking the whole ‘Nicky used to be a priest’ backstory at face value: being a priest in 1096 looked pretty different to how it did even 200 years later. They were still working on the celibacy thing. The famous monastic orders were still forming. Some priests could and did hold lands and go to war (this wasn’t common but it happened, especially if they were nobles by birth). Nicolò di Genova would not necessarily have seen a conflict between going on Crusade and being a priest, is what I’m getting at. If he was ALSO trained as a knight, he was from a wealthy family; it took the equivalent several villages to support a knight.

·        ‘Period-typical homophobia’ is going to look very different for this period. They are NOT getting beaten up for holding hands. Or sharing a bed! Or even kissing, depending on the circumstances! I am not an expert on Islamic sexual mores of the era but Christian ones were heavily on the side of ‘unsanctioned sex is bad, sanctioned (marital) sex is slightly less bad’, and there was no concept of ‘being gay’. An interfaith relationship would be in some ways more of a problem for them than the same-sex one (and in some ways less difficult to navigate than a heterosexual interfaith relationship.) The past is another country.

·        Look just no more fanfics where Yusuf is trying to learn ‘Italian’ in the early twelfth century I am BEGGING you all

[star-anise]

I would enjoy it greatly if you would rant about the White People Smile thing, because ever since that post, I've noticed how much I do it

Okay this one is gonna be a deep dive.

For the uninitiated, I’m explaining why white people do what they do. This refers less to the actual amalgamated experiences of every person with pale skin and European descent ever, and more the aspirational model of whiteness held up as the cultural ideal in former British colonies.The gap between these two concepts is left for the audience as an instructive lesson on how useful racial stereotypes are in predicting the experiences and behaviour of individual people of that race.

Previously, while explaining why guest towels are often not meant to be used by guests, I dipped into the white propensity to never let someone know when they’re making a mistake–to smile awkwardly and say nothing when a person is being rude or offensive–before going back to talking about the unique properties of linen and terrycloth. This is a further look at the subject.

So, I can’t explain this for every person ever. And I’m gonna take a different tack than I normally would, which would normally be to talk about trauma and the fight/flight/freeze response to stress. Instead, I’m going to talk about my research into the cultural moment centuries ago when this response started to be advocated, and how connecting to long-lost European martial arts helped me unlearn this response.

Tl;dr it emerged as an alternative to stabbing people

I said once that I was a frustrated medievalist, fitting in my history education around other concerns, and therefore ended up studying, more than anything else, how the middle ages disappeared? This is one of those cases–the only vaguely relevant history class I could get into that semester was  Early Modern England, which focused on the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, 1485-1649. That’s the period right after the Middle Ages are said to have “ended” in Britain.

At the time I was also very active in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a living history group. I did rapier fencing, using the long, light swords that were intended specifically for person-to-person combat in civilian settings. They’re duelling swords, at a time the duel was becoming a separate institution from the battlefield. They were used in Spain, Italy, and France earlier, but this time period was about when they became popular in England, so I decided to use the class as a lens to study duelling in England. My prof was very receptive to this, partly because it meant he had one student whose papers weren’t about the political machinations of someone named Thomas and/or Cromwell.

So, duelling is an inherently aristocratic system. To understand it, you have to understand that “privilege” literally means “privi lege”, Latin for “private law”. It meant that the laws that applied to nobles were different from laws that applied to commoners. Commoners were not generally allowed to carry weapons or kill people; if the average commoner killed somebody, he would be tried for murder before a jury of his peers and executed for murder. But the nobility fell under the privilege of the sword; they were the class of society whose job it was to carry weapons and kill people, police and army by hereditary right. Nobles were judged by juries of their peers, other nobles; other nobles accepted that sometimes they were 100% correct in killing people. And if you’re like, “Whoa that’s fucked up, it’s like police deciding if a police officer was right to kill a civilian,” DING GOLD STAR FOR YOU. It’s why Robin Hood, the anti-aristocratic hero whose archenemy was a sheriff, is such a popular folk figure in England.

So nobles could kill commoners without serious consequences, and nobles were also allowed to kill other nobles, so long as they followed a code of combat known as chivalry. That included things like: Don’t attack someone who’s unarmed or defenceless; don’t attack from behind or without warning; bow to him before you begin fighting; blah blah blah blah. They were always more ideals than realities during times of war, but when artillery showed up on northern European battlefields in the 1400s, they became deeply impractical in warfare.  (Redacted: detailed explanation of why this is.) The ideal of a fair fight between matched foes stuck around in the duel, but it became a civil affair, not a military strategy.

Okay okay so. Why did duels happen? More than anything, they were about honour, prestige, and respect. Nobles had a certain way they expected to be treated, a code of politeness and manners with which people had to treat them. A commoner who failed to treat them this way could be punished with limited ability to resist, but other nobles had to be treated according to the same chivalric values of the fair fight. They had to be challenged to a duel.

So duels occurred over all kinds of shit. Failing to give someone precedence or jostling them in the door; having an affair with somebody’s wife; insulting someone’s favourite religious figure; behaving in an unchivalric manner; accusing someone else of behaving in an unchivalric manner; anything. People could make tutting sounds over duels being fought for the stupidest shit, but that didn’t necessarily stop them from being fought.

So the duel and the culture of politeness were really intertwined. You were polite to people because if you weren’t, they could stab you and get away with it. It’s funny how the word “gentle” started out a thousand years ago meaning someone from a particular lineage, how that lineage was the only people with social permission to perpetuate huge amounts of violence, but now means restraint from violence–but that’s what happened. A lot of courtly manners among the nobility were really like… intense high-stakes peace negotiations with everyone, all the time. 

So like, imagine current Tumblr callout culture, except if somebody called you out, you had to let them try to kill you.

Many monarchs of this era HATED duelling culture. Countries like England and France had histories of war between nobles and the Crown, so the Crown hated their nobility being really strong powerful military leaders. Powerful nobility had the pesky tendency of refusing to obey monarchs they didn’t like, or even kicking them off the throne. This pushed those monarchies towards a principle of absolute royal authority over which nothing and no one had precedence. Privilege, so far as these monarchs were concerned, ought to belong to the CROWN, and then people the Crown specifically deputized. You can’t just have people running all over and killing each other whenever they wanted! So the monarchs all started, slowly, to place restrictions on duelling and noble privilege, trying to consolidate that power.

Part of how that was done in Britain specifically was to reach out to the common people. Well, the rich common people. The merchant class. You may also know them as the bourgeoisie. One of the ways the monarchs of this era got extra money their nobles didn’t want them to have was by selling rights to colonial enterprise and writs of nobility. If you had enough money, you could become a baronet! Or own land in Ireland! Or go trade fur in North America! Which led to the social mobility I’ve mentioned before–while the crown was squeezing down the rights of the nobility, it was also opening up to the concept of common people becoming nobles. 

Here’s the thing about European racism: In places where there weren’t as many people of colour around to be racist at? They just narrowed down their concept of race. Nobles genuinely believed they constituted a separate race of people from commoners, and that they were physically different and genetically superior to common people. So this kind of class mobility was an existential threat. How can someone with no noble blood become a marquis?!

(Spoiler: In previous centuries there had been much more class mobility, before the medieval concept of “nobility” fully formed, so it was in fact as bullshit as most other racial constructs. And as the noble/common divide blurred, race had to be defined in more comprehensive ways: English against the inferior Irish, until the Irish could be assimilated into whiteness and defined in opposition to black Africans. When there have in fact been black English people for as long as there has been an England. Really truly honestly, race is constructed bullshit.)

Anyway, when the British Crown prohibited duelling in the 17th century, they tried to justify it by saying to their nobles: Hey look, here are all these commoners dressing and acting like you! And duelling like you! How droll! Don’t they look ridiculous and stupid, fighting over the littlest thing? Wouldn’t you say duelling is a little gauche? A little bourgeois?  You wouldn’t treat them like your equals, as though they deserved to be treated with the rules of chivalry, would you? No, that would be silly.

So in former times, if someone breached the standards of politeness, they’d be called out and expected to apologize or fight. But now, calling someone out would be affording them noble status when they didn’t merit the racial construct of nobility. And also, like I said before–if a commoner who was trying to break into high society made a mistake, and people pointed it out to them, then they’d learn to correct that mistake and fit in better. And then they might MARRY a noble, and DILUTE the BLOODLINES and POLLUTE the shades of PEMBERLY and MASS HYSTERIA, CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER.

So now, the nobility slowly came to believe that ~taking the high road~ was the better response: Refuse to dignify bad manners with a response, just let the awkward silence hang there so everyone can see how badly-behaved they were. Well-bred people will just know the secret unwritten rules of society. Then you can quietly exclude the rubes from your parties without ever letting them know they’re being excluded. And anyway, if you did duel someone, you’d have to do it in dead secret and if you actually did kill them, you might have to flee the country or else the Crown would arrest you and try you for murder and it’s not nice to get your dwindling noble privilege rubbed in your face.

So that’s the birth of the British response of “When someone fucks up, smile, look constipated, and say nothing.” It was especially strong in noblewomen, who wouldn’t be able to duel anyway, so might as well make a brave face of the only option that feels possible. By the time Jane Austen was writing in the late 1700s and early 1800s, society was leaning further and further to “true politeness means never expressing disapproval of someone else’s bad behaviour.” Partly because pointing out someone’s lapse in manners came to mean you thought they were stupid and hadn’t been properly enculturated into your class, which was of course the worst thing ever.

Across the centuries, the threads holding all the pieces together have rotted, so we forget why we define politeness this way; it’s just The Way Things Are Done. It’s just #verybritishproblems. It’s just the lower-class belief that if someone offends or insults you, you should punch them in the nose; it’s just the anxious privileged liberal belief that violence is wrong and we should just wring our hands about it. The most aware I’ve seen people from former colonies be on the topic is Australians, who know that they don’t subscribe as much to British manners and ideals because they were a prison colony, largely settled by poor people who got there by breaking the rules.

My grandmother, born 1929, totally aspired to that level of class and gentility, even though she was raised dirt poor; being a white settler in Canada meant that theoretically, if you worked hard and went to church and improved yourself through cleanliness and education, you could join the new ruling class. She aspired to the heights of Calgarian society, for whatever that was worth. And she has this specific way of sucking her breath in that means “Oh GOD, granddaughter, you have just something TERRIBLY gauche. Think about everything you are doing, wearing, and being at this moment, and magically intuit which of them is incorrect!” She’s also the one who made my mom learn to do pulled-thread embroidery, and taught me how to lay a place setting of silverware for a four-course meal, and basically strove to turn herself into a living model of aspirational whiteness. When my mom and I go into family therapy, we usually end up talking about how much we want to reject her ideals.

How did I unlearn this?

I am not a good fencer. I love the idea of swordfighting, but in addition to my weakness and disability, I have a really timid posture and way of moving. When I was a kid, I made it a game to see if, by turning sideways or flattening myself against a wall, I could navigate through a crowd quickly without ever needing anyone to move or notice I was there.  I really connected with the idea of Arya, in Game of Thrones, learning how to be a silent ghost, learning to catch cats. 

Then, in fencing, I had to learn entirely new responses. I’ve traditionally flinched and frozen when physically threatened; now I had to train myself to assess an incoming threat and fend it off. I had to learn to stand upright, to hold my core strong and solid, to respond to an attack and then to attack in return. It’s really physical, and in turn, really emotional. When I’ve taught teenage girls in turn, I’ve had to ease them through the process of laughing in discomfort when they land a hit on someone, crying when they hit someone out of fear and shame because they’re not supposed to DO that. Those are stages I’ve had to go through as well. I was pretty affected by a book I acquired through SCA channels, The Armored Rose, about the experiences of modern women learning to do historical combat. It’s a feminist analysis and it felt true to me, but now, a few decades later, I think it’s not really about “women” so much as “people who have been socialized to never be violent”–there are a lot of men I’ve taught who have been just as likely to freeze, who needed to overcome emotional hesitation before responding assertively, and women who had no hesitation at all.

But one lesson that really left an impression on me was learning from a doña, an acknowledged master of the form, who was helping me fine-tune the way I held myself when I fought. “Pull in your core,” she said, encouraging me to bunch my muscles up so that when I uncoiled it would be even more powerful and positive. “Hold a little bit of ferocity. You gotta be a little mad at your opponent.”

“Anger gets in the way of clear thinking,” my usual teacher, an older man, said.

“Too much, yeah,” she said. “But in the women I’ve taught, the problem is usually not enough anger, not too much.”

I can still call that feeling up very clearly–legs tense and coiled, body held upright, ready to respond to an attack with a counterattack of my own. IIt felt good. I loved fencing, loved the sense of accomplishment I got learning how to respond to attacks and defeat them.

As a child and teenager I was hideously socially anxious, and had been bullied for most of my life. When people were socially aggressive towards me, it was incredibly hard not to just freeze up. Fighting back was impolite. Resistance was futile. I would either physically or metaphorically tuck myself into a ball and wait for them to stop hitting me, get bored and go away. In my late teens and early twenties I started getting medication and therapy to deal with my problems, and that meant learning to be socially assertive. To say, “No, you didn’t hear me right, what I really meant was–” and “No, I’d rather not go,” and “Excuse me, I’d like to be included in this discussion.” And a lot of the time, when I did that, I could physically feel the scrape of another sword against mine as a ghost in my mind. I’d put my feet into a fencer’s position before difficult conversations, to give me courage.

And after writing my final paper on duelling, I thought a lot about what it would be like to live in a duelling culture. How weird, how foreign would it be, to believe that somebody else deserved to die for treating me badly? How did you summon up enough anger to fight someone for insulting you? What kind of emotion would be necessary to drive a real sword into them, and not a blunted one? 

What would it be like if I treated myself like someone whose feelings and experiences mattered, whose integrity was worth defending?

I mean, it was not a quick, easy, or complete fix. Years after, I’d still do things like get assaulted and take a year before telling anyone about it because the guy who assaulted me was friends with all my friends and I didn’t want to make them choose a side. But as much as I did change, that was how. And that enabled me to have richer relationships with a lot of different people. Before, people would hurt me without knowing it, and never know why I was later too scared of them to talk. I took a long time to trust people, to feel comfortable enough to connect with them. That fragility made it hard for me to help people, to do the kind of jobs that I wanted. The sturdier I got, the better at defending my boundaries and expressing myself, the wider the array of people I could talk with, get to know. 

And since what I really wanted was to be a therapist focused on complex trauma, and a huge proportion of the people with complex trauma in Alberta are First Nations, Métis, and Inuit, that put me in situations where we had to talk about colonization and decolonization, and people started to ask me, “Hey, white girl, why do white people have so much stuff in their houses you’re not allowed to touch or use? Why are white people like this?” and could explain social niceties like “Yeah, this is a weird random thing white people do that seems really rude or stupid to you? But if you’re applying to a job and want a white person to hire you, they’ll judge you for not paying attention to it.”

I also learned, later, as training for a job, another form of martial art. Specifically, nonviolent martial arts–what to use when an impaired or intoxicated person attacks you, and you want to defend yourself without harming them, and how to render them safe if they’re hurting themselves. That job left me alone for 48 hours with teenagers with serious behavioural problems, who would do things like flail their hands in the direction of my face when I was helping them with basic hygiene. 

They didn’t mean to hurt me, and it wasn’t aggressive, but still, their nails would sometimes draw blood and it frequently left me feeling frightened and angry, because I’d been physically hurt. And it’s actually really hard to convince your monkey hindbrain that they didn’t intend to hurt you, to make that adrenaline and fear go away. It made it really hard to care for them when I didn’t feel safe, because it was hard to summon up compassion, gentleness, and empathy with my heart going a hundred miles an hour. So that training helped a lot. After that, I could catch and deflect their hands before I risked getting hurt. We could have a better relationship because I felt confident and safe around them. 

It’s filed in my brain next to the time I was playing with my nephew when he was a toddler, when I discovered that he stopped blithely using me as a climbing post when I said “Ow!” when he stepped on my boob. Once I let myself vocalize pain, he realized that he was causing me pain. He asked me about it, and when I said that it hurt me when he stepped on me, he apologized, gave me a hug to make it better, and played more gently after that. He hadn’t realized he hurt me; letting him know when he was too hard let him know how to be kind to me.

Those two are physical memories I call to mind when I’m dealing with someone who’s really upset and lashing out at me: sometimes the kindest thing you can to for someone else is deny them the ability to hurt you. To let them know the effect they’re having on you, so they can stop.

Okay. Dive’s over. I just felt my ears pop.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

The military salute

So I was having dinner with a dear American friend who I have mentioned before in a previous post on the British evacuation of Dunkirk I think. He was Exeter and Harvard educated before a stint in the US Marines Corps and now living and working in Paris. As always we get into interesting diversionary conversations about our comparative military experience. Somehow the issue of saluting came up.

He said that when he was growing up he was always told by family that showing the palm is a sign of subordination and submissiveness, and that only a military who has lost a war salutes with palm up. So he was surprised the first time when he received a salute from a passing British army soldier at some military event.

This is obviously untrue but it’s a mystery how that view persisted.

It’s true that both Britain and the US salute differently as do other nations. A soldier will never notice the way he salutes to a superior officer or on formal occasions (like raising the flag) until he/she were thrown in with other officers and soldiers of other allied countries to see the differences.

The origin of the military salute

As with many protocols, there’s a secret language to the salute and different expressions of the act of saluting. At the very basis of the salute is something worth pondering at a time when the public debate is trying to sort out what kind of accommodations ought to be made at citizenship ceremonies.

The salute is thought to have originated as a method of demonstrating benign intention. The story goes that public officials in ancient Rome required people approaching them for an audience to raise their right hand to show that they weren’t concealing a weapon. I would imagine it was a field day for left-handed assassins.

The truth is the origin of the military salute is uncertain.

A possible explanation has its origin in the Middle Ages, 

Knights adopted a method of assuring other travellers that they meant them no harm. This assurance was transmitted by the raising of the visor on a helmet. Typically, the right hand would rise and lift the metal shield so that the face could be viewed. The right hand was used as it demonstrated that the weapon hand was engaged; the left hand was occupied holding the reins. In time, visors would be modified to have a small metal projection that could be easily lifted to effect this salutation.

This practice evolved to become what we know as the salute: Salute derives from both the Middle English and Old French meaning respectful greeting. You were, in essence, showing yourself.

The simple act of saying, “Hey, it’s just me; nothing to worry about here,” became the way that people in official capacities acknowledged one another. The military adopted salutes as a method of conveying respect and order. Each country found its own unique expression of this message.

However there is a drawback to having this explanation is that if the military salute had a medieval origin, it would have been used to a greater or lesser extent for centuries, but the reality is that it is a rather recent salute, which extended into the Contemporary Age.

Another explanation, more likely, points out that centuries ago there was a habit of saluting a superior by raising his hat. In the 18th Century the ordinances of the British Army suppressed the obligation to uncover the head to greet a superior. Instead, the custom of grabbing the end of the hat was established as if one were to remove the hat, a gesture that would have given rise to the military salute we know today.

Perhaps that explains a detail: as a general rule, in almost all armies, soldiers are exempt from military salutes if they do not wear any headgear. a British order book from 1745 dictates “men are ordered not to pull off their hats when they pass an officer, or to speak to them, but only to clap up their hands and bow as they pass.”

The two main types of military salutes

Currently, and with a few exceptions that I will point out below, in the world military salutes are divided into two main types: with the palm down and with the palm forward. The salute with the palm down consists of raising the arm leaving it at right angles to the body, then stretching the forearm toward the right temple, with the hand extended and the palm of the hand facing the ground.

This salute is the one used in the armed forces of the USA, Russia, China, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Turkey and practically all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and in all the countries of Central and South America, and also in the naval forces of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and others.

The other most usual military salute is with the palm in front. The procedure is the same as with the palm down, with the difference that in this case the palm of the hand is left facing the front and perpendicular to the ground. This military salute is used in France (where it is called “raquette”) and in many of its former colonies. The open palm salute is more identifiable in the public imagination (thank you Hollywood) with the armies and air forces of Britain and the Commonwealth countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and other ex-colonies.

The origin of the American armed forces

According to the Armed Forces History Museum, today’s standard salute  - right hand touching the brim of the head cover with the palm down  - was in place by 1820. The museum says the palm down portion of the salute may have been influenced by the salute style of the British Royal Navy at the time.

Why did the Americans follow the British Royal Navy? The US copied the British naval salute because they would more commonly encounter the British navy than the British army. So that's the one that got copied; thus the prevalence of palm down salute in the American military.

The origin of the different salutes in the British armed forces

Already stated above, in the United Kingdom and in the Commonwealth countries the two salutes are used: with the palm down in the case of the Royal Navy, and with the palm in front in the rest of the army and Royal Air Force.

What is this about? 

There is an anecdote that could explain it: on one occasion Queen Victoria visited a warship and a sailor greeted her with his palm in front, his hand rather dirty. The Queen had then decreed that the crew salute with the palm down, because by the work of the ships, it was more frequent that the sailors had their dirty hands and it was bad to salute like that.

The Polish military salute with two fingers

One of the most peculiar military salutes is the Polish, known there as “salutowanie dwoma palcami”, that is, salute with two fingers. The name is because the salute is done as in other nations, but extending only the index finger and the middle, and bending the ring finger and little finger, closing them with the thumb.

The Polish salute has another peculiarity: the main purpose of the salute is to point out the white eagle, the national emblem of Poland, which is why Polish soldiers always wear the eagle in their headwear – with some exceptions – on the front in the center, even when wearing a beret. Currently, the Polish salute is done like French, that is, with the palm facing forward.

Perhaps the custom of saluting with the palm to the front extended in the Polish Army because many soldiers of that country ended up fighting framed first in the French Army and then in the British.

Incidentally, the Polish two-finger salute caused some complaints of British officers during the Second World War, as they considered it a lack of respect, as he thought that the Poles were giving them the Boy Scout salute (which is identical to the Polish, but extending three fingers instead of two). For this reason, the Polish soldiers in the British Army used to make the British salute with the palm in front, at least in the presence of British officers.

The origin of the Polish salute is as uncertain as the rest of the military salutes. The most common legend in Poland locates its origin in the Napoleonic Wars, when a military courier was hit by shrapnel, in spite of which he fulfilled his mission and when arriving before Prince Józef Poniatowski, he greeted him with the three remaining fingers of the hand, dying later. Poniatowski, admired by the bravery of the soldier, would have adopted the military salute for the Polish forces. However, other sources indicate that the salute did not appear until 1863 and would be of Russian origin, being adopted by Marshal Józef Piłsudski after the recovery of Polish independence in 1918, at which time the two-finger salute was made official.

The Albanian chopping salute

Known as the Zogist Salute. King Zog the First of Albania came up with a salute that is executed by placing your hand over your heart with your palm down with a sort of chopping motion.

The Zogist salute is big in Mexico and South America. Our RCMP salute in the manner of the British military, with the palm forward. In Germany, the reviled “heil Hitler” straight-arm salute can land you in jail for up to three years under their current criminal code. Rising from the fact that so many pilots were trained in the air force, airline ground crew tend to salute the pilots of outgoing flights.

Saluting tradition

There are so many ways of communicating via gestures enshrined in tradition: the handshake, the tip of the hat — all intended as acts of friendship. None of the salutes imply obeisance; each is designed to convey respect. In the British tradition, a salute isn’t for the individual but acknowledges the royal commission of the individual: it’s the job, and not the person, who’s being saluted. And the respect is always reciprocated with the salute being returned.

There’s more in a salute than you might think. Their initial impulse was to offset trepidation and inspire confidence; literally and figuratively, to disarm. The gesture went on to indicate respect everywhere from service people at arms and even the Boy Scouts. But the convention of showing oneself to defray concern and offer assurance is genuine and ancient and widespread. There is something in us that wants to see the hand and the face.

[freifraufischer]

Evil Canadians

[[This is an excerpt of an alternate history role playing game that involved psychics, wizards, and a cold war that never ended I wrote in between 2002-2004.  This is an edited part of the section about Canada that several Canadian friends asked to see...]]

Canada is the world’s second largest country and occupies most of the North American Land mass, sharing with the United States of America what was once the world’s longest undefended border.  Though not extensively militarized until the Russo-American War, going as far back as the early 1990s many of the border provinces coming under control of the Dominion Unity Party (DUP) began paramilitary patrols to augment the official border crossing points.  Canada was settled as British and French colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries.   France surrendered to Britain its colony of New France, an area that composes present-day Quebec and Ontario at the Treaty of Paris in 1763.  

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The Ungava Incident

            For almost forty years United States Air Force Strategic Air Command (SAC) nuclear-armed bombers flew armed over Canadian territory near the Arctic Circle on routine patrols.  These aircraft, by the 1980s aging B-52s with a host of electrical problems, flew from bases within the Continental United States, looped over the northern reaches of Canada, and than landed again at their bases in middle America.  Twice in the 1960s SAC B-52 on similar routes crashed with nuclear weapons on foreign soil. The first occurred on January 17, 1966 near Palomares, Spain during an in-flight refueling accident, three bombs were scattered over farmer’s fields and one in the ocean.  All four were recovered and the residents of the small Spanish town paid nearly $800,000 in compensation.  Just over two years later on January 22, 1968 another B-52 crashed near Thule Air Force Base, Greenland after a fire broke out in the navigator’s compartment.  Three hydrogen bombs were scattered across the ice, and one melted through and sunk to the bottom of Baffin Bay, unrecoverable.  The incident over Greenland, a Danish possession, caused massive protests in Denmark, and briefly strained relations between the two countries.

           These were nothing in comparison to the December 12, 1984 explosion of at least one (though some theorize that it may have been as many as three) hydrogen bomb over the Ungava Peninsula, in northern Quebec. The explosion vaporized the B-52 that the bombs were believed to have come from, killing the crew, and making investigation of the cause of the explosion nearly impossible.  Because the region was sparsely populated, mostly by isolated fishing villages, no one knows exactly how many people died, though estimates by both the Canadian and United States governments place the direct death toll from the explosion to be around 450.  This does not include the thousands of cases of radiation poisoning from fallout in Quebec, the Hudson Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as fisheries in the North Atlantic and as far away as western Europe.

           The United States Air Force immediately sent teams to help relocate survivors and those in the worst affected areas, but the estimated $4,000,000 in compensation has been considered inadequate and insulting by many Canadians and some of those eligible for settlements have refused them in favor of civil suits filed in American courts against the Air Force. The Department of Defense has attempted to have the suits thrown out citing national security concerns, but several Federal judges have kept it alive, even after decades of delay.  The mysterious deaths of one of those judges, and of a prominent Ungava survivors advocate are widely suspected to be the result of U.S. military covert operatives.  

           The Reagan administration dismissed concerns that the incident might permanently soured relations with the northern neighbor. Other American observers wondered though, as nearly fifty percent of Canadian Air Force personnel were recalled from joint programs such as the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).  Though many of those same officers returned in the following years, but military cooperation between the neighbors has never been the same.  Polls carried out in the United States ten and twenty years after the incident show close to forty percent of the American people did not even know that it had occurred, and listed Canada as one of the United States’ closest allies around the world.

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 The Friendly Dictatorship?  

 The Prime Minister of Canada has what are often considered extraordinary powers in comparison to other western leaders. Because of a system of strict party discipline within the Canadian House of Commons, an elected member faces great difficulty in voting against the party line (set by the Prime Minister). If any member of the Prime Minister’s governing party votes against any new legislation, he or she may be expelled from the party.  An expelled member must sit as an independent, without the right to ask a question, raise any issue before the Parliament, and stands little chance of winning re-election without the party’s resources. These measures mean that members of the governing party almost always follow the will of the Prime Minister. This was best exemplified by former Prime Minster, Pierre Trudeau, who referred to the backbenchers of the (than ruling) Liberal party as “trained seals” and the opposition backbenchers as “noblies when they are fifty yards away from the House of Commons.” The lack of checks and balances as theoretically seen within the US system has lead some to question such power, especially with the unexpected term of Walter Bechmann’s Dominion Unity Party, which has held the office since 2003

The major counterbalance to the power of the Prime Minster of Canada are near autonomous powers of the provincial premiers.  They are required to agree to any constitutional change, and must be be consulted over new domestic initiatives within their area of responsibility. Unsurprisingly, traditionally the most difficult primeir to deal with has been the Priemer of Quebec.

 The Rise of the DUP

            Traditionally there have been two major national parities within Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada, the Conservative Party of Canada (or predecessors under other names), with a large regional party the Bloc Québécois following behind.  None of these players took much notice as a small upstart, the Dominion Unity Party (DUP), began to win power on the provincial level in Saskatchewan and Alberta.  Rising out of the movements collectively known as “Prairie Socialists” the DUP advocated traditional values, wide ranging social programs, a strong military, and a resistance to what they characterized as the cuddling of the Quebec separatists by Ottawa.  

           The economic and ecological disaster that was the Ungava Incident, the lack luster American response, and Ottawa’s inability to force the issue lead to a growing sense that Canada had seeded too much of its responsibilities to the United States.  If Ottawa would not keep the French in line, or Washington from walking all over the country, than someone would.  And that someone, the DUP claimed, was them.  Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s the DUP gained control of all of Western Canada on the Provincial level, and became the official opposition party after the collapse of the Progressive Conservatives.  

Who done it?

           The leak of the incriminating file on Liberal Party funding to the CBC have become the Deep Throat of Canadian political history.  Both their origins and even their authenticity have been vigorously questioned (and denied).  Some leading theories include:

           That the deputy prime minister leaked the documents in an effort to force Chrétien to resign in favor of former finance minister Paul Martin.  He was taken by surprise when Martin did not win the election and has dropped out of public life.

           The Bloc Québécois leaked them after obtaining them by means unknown. Thinking that they would have an easier time working with a Conservative government, or at least a better chance of winning the next independence referendum, it blew up in their face when instead of getting the Tories they ended up with their worst nightmare.

           One of the Canadian intelligence or security services leaked the document—the finger is usually pointed at the FSS—either out of patriotism or out of cynical and very illegal manipulation of the political process.  

           One thing is clear to those that are familiar with Jean Chrétien.  Few believe that he actually knew about the dirty dealings with the American companies. If the documents were legitimate to begin with.

 ----

           The government of Jean Chrétien came under fire in 2003 as documents began to surface in the press linking the Liberals to campaign funding directly by American corporations with ties to the Department of Defense.  The implication being, though never quite proven, that an agreement was in the works to arrange for the Ungava lawsuits to be settled or dropped entirely in return for the illegal funds.  The exact origins of the leaked documents have never been established. So angry was the Canadian electorate that not only were the Liberals swept from power, but the Conservatives also took a major loss, leaving the last man standing, the quiet and boring former Premier of Saskatchewan, Walter Bechmann.

           Following the election night carnage as the Liberals went from holding a long-standing majority to six seats, barely half what would be needed for official party recognition on the federal level.  Still weakened from their collapse under Kim Campbell in 1993, the Conservatives held only 20 seats.  And with the effective merger of the New Democratic Party into the DUP, the official opposition party was the separatist Bloc Québécois.  Given the DUP’s strong anti-French stances it has made for ugly fighting in Parliament, but with little effect on Prime Minister Bechmann’s policy goals.  

           Most observers speculate that after years of Liberal rule with virtually no other option, the image of the effective, hard working, non-flaboyant man from Saskatchewan has endeared Beckman with the Canadian people. While the more conspiracy minded suggest that the inability of the other national parties to organize may be linked to more sinister interference.  The Bloc, always willing to scream about government and DUP misdoings, points to the Canadian Federal Security Service, which had long been battling Quebec nationalists and had closely allied themselves with the DUP on its rise.

The French Question

            Conflict between Canada’s Francophone minority and Anglophone majority is hardly new, though the extensive efforts made on behalf of the federal government to help preserve the French language and French Canadian culture is relatively recent.  Unfortunately equalizing language and granting Quebec some special status has not stopped an upswing in separatist activity, violent and non-violent. The first eruption of what have been several decades of sustained violence began on October 5, 1970 with a string of bombings, kidnappings, bank robberies, and attempted assassinations, all the work of a Marxist-Leninist group, Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ).

           Like many similar groups, West Germany’s Red Army Faction, Italy’s Red Brigade, and the American Weather Underground, the FLQ was made up primarily of middle class born again radicals who would not hesitate to attack the class structure as much as the Anglos.  Two weeks into the emergency Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau ordered the Army into the streets to enforce Martial Law in Quebec under the controversial War Measures Act.  The overwhelming force, mass arrest of those associated with the FLQ (and their families), and the stretching of the organization’s resources beyond what they could handle for all practical purposes destroyed the organization.  The deaths of some of the detainees in the custody of the army and RCMP, and the disappearance of others have left a sinister note over the ending of the emergency.  Rumors still surface decades later of prominent Quebecois, made to disappear during the period, in the custody of particularly vindictive elements of the government.

           The next wave of extreme violence occurred in 1990 when a new group, calling itself the Armée de Libération du Québec (ALQ) and trading on the reputation of their similarly named predecessor began targeting Java Works, a nation wide specialty coffee chain which like many corporations continued to use its English name in Quebec.  Well-dressed young people, of an age to be university students, used automatic rifles to commit mass murder of the patrons and employees at one Saint-Georges shop.  Similar attacks followed within days, with brutality and efficiency associated to a particular terrorist leader soon identified as Amanda Legardeur, the daughter of an upper class Montreal family.

           Though relatively brief, the spree lasted just over a month; the brutality displayed cleared the fence sitters out of the way, leaving only those who would clearly choose between a sovereign and independent Quebec, and a united Canada.  That was of course, what Legardeur had intended, and the cultivation of a young woman who looked similar to her so that she could shoot her in the head to fake her own death was a small price to pay in her game.  It took CSIS and FSS nearly a decade to agree that she was indeed, still alive, though once they had, her legend grew even more.  Today she is the most wanted woman in Canada, believed to be not only armed, but possessing the organization and leadership skills to make her a one person national security threat.

           In response to the perceived failure of the moderates, the increasing violence of the extreme separatists, and what many particularly among the rank and file of the ruling DUP see as excessive allowances to the French, there has been a backlash.  With only the exception of the United States, the primary focus of the Canadian Federal Security Service—the most ruthless, and effective of the competing agencies—has been what is internally called “the French Question.” Some wonder though, if repressive and often highly illegal methods will only divide the country more, just as they did for the British in Northern Ireland.  

           The federal government believes—not without reason—that the violent separatists are being backed by east bloc communist countries that would use an independent Quebec as a base of operations on the Americans doorstep.  Unwilling to see the country torn apart, or to be used by either superpower in cynical games of brinksmanship, the Canadian government has begun to look at solving all their problems on a larger scale.

American Relations

            The Canadian government, and to some extent the Canadian people, have understood the true form of the American government longer than any other county in the world.  For them it is like having a window on the great superpower, seeing more up close in American news and American television—not to mention in frequent visits to the states to avoid high Canadian taxes—than anyone in the United Kingdom or the Europe ever does.  And certainly more than anyone ever gets to see of the Americans’ rival the Soviet Union.    

           Over the years though, at least from the American side, this familiarity has bread contempt.  Washington sees Ottawa, and more importantly in the Americans case, the Pentagon sees them as a joke.  The quaint socialist country to the north whose military is more focused on tracking down stray penguins and who police and intelligence services can be characterized by The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show’s Dudley Do-Right.  The fact that there are no penguins in Canada has not entered into the American’s calculations.  The American public’s view is not much more nuanced, seeing their continental neighbors as unerringly polite, and with the firm belief that every Canadian citizen can kill, skin, and gut a grizzly bear with their bare hands.

           The view south from Ottawa is quite a bit more nuanced, though the Canadians have learned a hard lesson about the sometimes friendly sometimes vicious pit-bull they have been planted next to.  The the view has been common enough going all the way back to repeated American invasions during the War of 1812, it came to a nasty point when the indifference which the American military seemed to treat the accidental nuking of their country.  As one Strategic Air Command general at the Ungava Board of Inquiry commented to another when he did not know that his microphone was on, “All they have are trees and rocks up there, what’s the big deal?”

           A firm belief has developed, especially among the security and intelligence communities (with the notable exception of CSIS, who have a close working relationship with the Americans) that there is indeed a major military and security threat to Canada, the Canadian way of life, and even the lives of every Canadian citizen.

           Their neighbors to the south.

 A Fair Deal, an Even Playing Field, a Slippery Slop—The Canadian Psychic Experiments

            Like many countries around the world the Canadians are intimately familiar with the uses and abuses of the paranormal within the intelligence community.  As a commonwealth country they have long been familiar with the sorcerer viziers that have advised the crown for centuries.  However as with many things that come with the British heritage, the mother country has far more use of the community than the former imperial possessions.  

           The ruling DUP have an innate distrust of sorcerers owing to a distrust of anything supernatural that gives one man an advantage over another.  It is a political, philosophical, and religious distrust that has placed the country’s small sorcerer community at odds with the government… though not yet at war.  The leading wizard in the country is the queen’s representative, and a master of the mysteries of the mind, Karen Clarke.  She has focused primarily on checking the power of Prime Minister Beckmann and the agenda that most people have not yet discovered behind the party and by extension the government’s actions.

           The difficulties between the sorcerers and the government are nothing though, in comparison to the outright war that has been declared on psychic talent within the Dominion.  The idea that among the citizens exist a population—small as it may be—who can commit the worst violations on a person’s mind and body without any control by rule or law offends the prairie socialists very nature.  In the view of the party psychics are to be monitored, controlled, and eventually eradicated from society as a threat to the rest of the human race.

           Most within the power structure would chose to do this through “curing” the afflicted, many of whom themselves would gladly submit at first for any chance to lead a normal life.  The main arm of this goal, like so many other things within the party’s plans, has been the Canadian Federal Security Service (FSS).  The service itself though, has mixed feelings about the mission.  Those that know the ultimate goal also know that enemy countries, particularly the communist nations, have been using their own psychics against Canada.  The cleverest among them have begun to play both sides against the middle.  

           Section C of the FSS has been responsible for the beginnings of an extensive tracking network that will eventually use the DNA markers to identify psychics.  Or so they hope.  One problem they have discovered—and one that the Soviets have been independently finding at the same time—is that the genes that control psychic gifts are not in the same place for each subset of gifts.  The genetic code that turns on a telepath’s ability to read minds is not the same gene that allows a remote viewer to see beyond his body or a pyrokinetic’s ability to set the world ablaze.   Complicating matters even farther, some suspect that multiple genes can trigger psychic powers.  

           In addition to the genetic studies, extensive drug trials have been carried out in an attempt to dampen or control psychics so that they can be returned to society and not imprisoned for life.  Unfortunately, as the Americans discovered almost half a century before, psychoactive drugs are themselves a tricky business.  It is difficult to determine outside of the subject’s self-reporting if the drug has dampened the powers.  The only way of independently determining any drugs affects has been testing on pyrokinetics and telekinetics, whose powers manifest physically. This can be very dangerous, as many test subjects react badly to the conditions within Section C’s hospitals. If not outright killed by the psychics (which usually results in the death of the psychic), the staff often report frightening and wild displays of power as the scared and often mentally ill telekinetic or pyrokinetic looses the concentration and control needed to keep their world together.  

           As of now, there is no effective drug therapy to control psychic talent.

 Those Who Serve

           A relative few Canadian psychics are employed by the FSS to battle those of other nations in order not to leave the country vulnerable to attack.  This was made abundantly clear during the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics when several east bloc psychics were brought into the country in order to give their athletes an edge in the medal count.  The scheme was discovered when a West German coach who had escaped the East recognized a Stasi colonel who had tortured his brother to death among the East German Olympic Committee’s figure skating staff.  After a confrontation the night before the figure skating long program, both the West German coach and the East German psychic were expelled from the country.

           Unlike the Americans, who rarely use government psychics and have left the practice entirely to corporations and other private enterprises, and the Soviets who have fostered a system of the widespread utilization of psychics, the Canadians keep their mental attack dogs on a very short leash.  Each psychic has a strong willed normal agent, known within the community as a Controller (telepaths often have two to prevent one from falling under the spell of their charge).  This officer is responsible for all operations that the psychic is used in, and in the field has the authority to summarily eliminate any that become impossible to control.  As could be expected, a physical psychic (telekinetics and pyrokinetics) or a mental specialist like a telepath is much harder to control than even the most powerful remote viewer or precognitive.  

 The Personalities Involved

 Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Karen Mendelsen-Clarke, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief in and over Canada.  A Vancouver born academic with impeccable credentials, her recent appointment by the Queen as her representative in Canada caused a near constitutional crisis as it went against the advise of Prime Minister Bechmann. The Queen’s growing concern about Bechmann’s politics and leadership of the country led her to appoint Clarke, a Cambridge educated sorcerer with a specialization in the powers of the mind. Publicly she is polite and friendly to the PM, but privately she has been hard nosed and difficult, threatening to withhold royal consent from legislation and implying that she might dismiss several of his ministers.  In an unprecedented step, she has also formed her own guard battalion for protection after a suspicious car accident nearly took her life.   With the traditions of the reactivated Black Watch (Royal Highlanders of Canada), they are seen by the DUP as her private army and viewed with great suspicion. She is divorced with no children.

 The Right Honorable Walter Bechmann, Prime Minister of Canada, Leader of the Dominion Unity Party. A long time provincial politician in his home province of Saskatchewan, he served for nearly a decade as a Progressive Conservative backbencher in the provincial assembly before recognizing a wave of political change in time to ride it to the top.  He ended up sweeping the Provincial Party elections when the DUP was first created and then surprisingly took the DUP to the top spot in Saskatchewan.  Eventually the Party attained national membership, and gained power in other provinces.  After several years as the Premier of Saskatchewan, he retired from politics briefly, before coming back for Federal politics to become the national leader for the party.  Often seen in the press as bland and dense, he is actually an astute observer and can be very charismatic when he wants to be.  And he usually wants to be charismatic in private.  During Question Period many a young MP have learned to underestimate the old man at their peril.  He has a wife and three daughters.  

 David Cherier, Premier ministre du Québec, leader of the Parti Libéral du Québec.  A lawyer by trade, David Cherier specialized in defending those swept up in various federal anti-terrorism sweeps.  He was first elected to Parliament as Progressive Conservative before returning to Quebec to become the Minister for Natural Resources.  Hard work, competence and charm brought him to the head of his party and with the PLQ’s win in elections to the position of Quebec Premier. Though not a separatist himself, he is a strong Quebec nationalist, and has fought vigorously against the policies of Walter Bechman in his attempt to roll back concessions made to Quebec. His sometimes ally in this has been Governor General Clarke, but she has also sided with the prime minister when it suited her.  He is generally considered a good man, if relatively unsophisticated when matching wits with the PM.  There have been three assassination attempts on Cherier’s life, one when he was Minister for Natural Resources, presumably by separatist groups such as the ALQ, though they have not claimed responsibility.  

[janiedean]

Sine you are knowledgeable about history, I wanted to ask you is this accurate? /watch?v=guXBTgAxhIw

okay let’s watch it stay tuned

right this ended up being WAY FUCKING LONG so I’m just cutting it at the first wiki screenshot 

first: cramming 1400 years of islamic history in five minutes is kinda idiotic but nvm let’s go on especially if she used to hate history

god her voice is grating but nvm

‘western civilization is different from islam’ YEAAAAAAH TOO BAD THAT EARLY ISLAM AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION DURING THE MIDDLE AGES WERE CLOSELY TIED AND HAD A LARGE CULTURAL EXCHANGE AMONG WHICH THEY HANDED US, UH, THE DECIMAL NUMBERS AMONG THE REST

k let’s go on this is already gonna be painful

‘prophet mohammed started borrowing a lot from the old testament’ lady not to be that person but like islam, christianity and judaism all have the same roots because it’s different interpretations of the same mythology ie the old testament making it pass like it’s something special when you could say the same about christianity is fairly lulzy I mean ffs the virgin mary is the holiest of women according to islam are we srs

judaism and islam are similar because they have the same roots in the old testament ksjhgkjdshgsklkjg it’s a lot more complicated than what she’s saying oh god I’m at like five minutes and I already am facepalming all over

also because she doesn’t make sense because if the jews didn’t accept him and he turned against them and drove him out and he went there to get support how the hell he was powerful enough to send them away according to her own logic? (obv it was a lot more complicated than how she’s putting it)

‘convert or stay alive’ k the exact same thing that happened to jews in europe during the middle ages or the reinassance it’s not news whatsoever nor specific to islam as a religion but okaaay

also why is she spending five minutes explaining that other religions were considered second class citizens under islamic rule like wow exactly how every religion that’s not the main one is second class in a non-secular society same as it was in europe before the protestant/christian religion wars I mean she’s making it sound like it’s just islam guys it’s not

re the yellow star:

the wiki page is a lot longer but tldr: our amazing lovely western christian culture did the exact same thing. but I don’t see her mentioning it??? like??? okay but it doesn’t make them especially worse than us??

also idk if this person has ever read the old testament but like is she aware of how everyone not jewish is described in the old testament?? XDDD I mean again this idea that chosen religion = saved people and everyone else is second-class is ingrained in the mythology and you can like it or not but passing it as if it’s just islam is... lol no

also this is not *islamic history* it’s ‘some facts + how barbaric are the muslims when it’s stuff that every monotheistic semitic religion has in its holy book’

also LMAO THAT’S WHY THE CRUSADES HAPPENED HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAH

LMAO NO

THE CRUSADES WERE A LOT OF THINGS AMONG WHICH A POLITICAL OPERATION SANCTIONED BY THE POPE BECAUSE JERUSALEM BEING NOT CHRISTIAN WASN’T EXACTLY GOOD FOR THE ****HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE**** IF THIS PERSON THINKS THAT ONLY FAITH WAS BEHIND THE CRUSADES THEY’RE SO FAR OFF THE MARK LIKE LMAO I’M CRYING

I mean, without even going deep into it this is just the opening wiki paragraphs. OPENING:

OKAY SURE THAT WAS JUST ABOUT THE MUSLIMS CONQUERING JERUSALEM AND NOT ABOUT THE VERY COMPLICATED RELIGIOUS AND TERRITORIAL POLITICS OF EUROPE IN THE MIDDLE AGES NOR ABOUT THE RELATIONS WITH THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE -

never mind that.

blah blah blah blah blah k jerusalem blah blah blah blah man also the crusaders could not win against ‘islam’, maybe they couldn’t win against the muslims they fought which were not all of islam but honestly this is so simplicistic I wanna shoot myself I mean there’s the BOSNIAN crusade, the reconquista (which didn’t fail) is also counted as such, all christianization of northern europe IS CONSIDERED UNDER THAT BANNER but k sure it was just the muslims this person has no business saying anything but let’s go on

‘they went all the way to *central europe*’ k man I didn’t know germany and france were muslim or that poland was, that’d be eastern europe maybe and if she doesn’t even know that the most they got was getting to vienna where they *lost*... also again, it’s nothing new, the romans had the roman empire?? fighting to conquer new lands has happened since forever? like I’m still failing to see what makes islam any worse than about any other damned religion or empire in history according to her reasoning anyway

‘spain’ OH GOD she’s showing that she has no fucking clue of what she’s saying because the conquering of spain was centuries before the crusades like ffs the conquest of spain was in 711 AD and the crusades started from the 11th century onwards more or less like the islamic conquering of europe ie spain/sicily was years before the crusades how the fuck do you put that after you talked about the crusaders failing to get jerusalem back? dksjhgfjsdkghjsdjgdlks

also SHE MENTIONS VIENNA NOW LIKE SHE’S COMPLETELY OFF HER TIMELINE, THE VIENNA BATTLE WAS IN 1683 AND IT WAS YEARS AFTER THE RECONQUISTA OF SPAIN WAS OVER IN 1492 and like it stopped the OTTOMAN empire (not islamic, ottoman, because she doesn’t even know the fucking difference) from trying to get further into europe but guess what muslims had been driven out of spain and italy and most other places that weren’t eastern-european for years at that point like she’s mixing the years up so badly I’m embarrassed

also islam =/= THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

............ man I absolutely have no force or strength to address all the reasons why the battle of vienna’s result had nothing to do with the industrial revolution which was a thing that had started in britain and britain sure as hell wasn’t the reason why that battle was one and more to do with the fact that the polish army was better than everyone else put together + the ottoman army which was fairly terribly assembled but like pls read the wiki article here and like

man I can 100% assure you that britain never was part of the holy roman empire like no

other than that, IT’S NOT FUCKING TRUE THAT THE CHRISTIANS THREW MUSLIMS OUT OF EUROPE COMPLETELY BECAUSE EASTERN EUROPE AND THE MIDDLE EAST STILL WERE UNDER OTTOMAN RULE UNTIL THE 19TH CENTURY, GREECE WAS TOO OR DID THIS IDIOT MISS THAT LORD BYRON DIED IN THE GREEK-OTTOMAN WAR nvm the whole part about greek independence being seen as a duty because THE CRADLE OF WESTERN CULTURE UNDER MUSLIM RULE but the great european powers weren’t exactly too big on raising shit with the ottoman empire for greece when no one gave a shit about greece which is the history of europe until now tbh -

yeah, right. and also according to this person the balkans are not in europe anymore, or the balkans do not exist, but then again do americans remember the balkan war from the end of the 20th century - right, never happened. LET’S MOVE ON.

god man I’m at 7.20 and it’s 16.37 idk how long I can go on here

the islamic empire ended in 1924 = THE *OTTOMAN* EMPIRE GOOD FUCKING GRIEF I CANNOT EVEN WITH THE FACT THAT SHE THINKS ALL ISLAM = THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

never mind that it ended in 1923 not 1924

also it wasn’t ataturk who ended the ottoman empire all on his own, it was.....

LIKEEEEEE

IT’S 

MORE

COMPLICATED THAN THAT

let’s go on sigh

the whole thing about ataturk being jewish is like conspiracy but like guys of course someone makes a secular government in a place where until then there wasn’t and people will find someway to discredit him like come the fuck on

the islamic state is not the same as califfate or empire BUT NEVER MIND THAT THIS IS WHY YOU CAN’T PUT 1400 YEARS OF HISTORY IN TEN MINUTES

‘inserts millions of people killed by the *ottoman* empire*

OKAY.

'how many people knew this history in this room’ I suppose no one because who studies history of the ottoman empire in the US, but sure as hell I didn’t because 90% of what she says is complete garbage and it never happened but okay

‘WE IN AMERICA HAVE FAILED TO EDUCATE OUR CHILDREN ABOUT HISTORY’: I can hear it, because you totally failed to educate yourself too

‘we still have our WWII walking among us’ okay but you’re talking about islam which has nothing to do with WWII get your head of your ass woman

‘things that happened in the last century made islamists able to resurrect the califfate’ nvm that we’re talking about like TEN DIFFERENT NATIONS and isis isn’t like the ottoman empire, is the lady aware that the US are directly responsible for 90% of those things or what

given what she just said about saudi oil it’s 100% plain obvious that she’s not aware like ‘we were stupid enough to let them nationalize it’ WOW SAUDI RESOURCES ON SAUDI SOIL AND THEY COULDN’T EVEN DRILL IT FOR THEMSELVES LIKE AMERICAN IMPERIALISM AT ITS FINEST

and whose fault is it that khomeini came into power?

yeah well you guessed right also ‘khomeini in iran and THE OIL IN SAUDI ARABIA GAVE ISLAMICS MEANS TO GO BACK INTO POWER’ like okay because the muslim world is just iran and saudi arabia and no one else exists and -

god my brain is fucking hurting and I have like 6 minutes left or this idk if I can take it

............. this woman has no fucking clue of the splits in between muslim sects but never mind I have no patience for it either suffices you to know that the answer is NO

‘infidels can’t step foot in Mecca, not you, not me, not president Obama!!!’ well it’s their sacred city who even gives a damn I personally wouldn’t care to visit so why the hell should you?

‘we are filth!’ welcome to how you’re treated if you don’t belong to religion X in a place where X is the main religion and there’s no freedom of religion nor secularism I mean why does she make it sound as if it’s just muslims doing that *SHRUUUGGG*

isis is the same as the islamic empire = NO IT’S NOT but nvm she still doesn’t know the basic difference in between ottoman empire, regular islam and so on but whateveeeerrrr

and isis happened just thanks to US policy in the middle east but okay then

idk enough about the swearing on the q’ran thing but I mean lady in the UK in the 19th century atheists couldn’t be witnesses in trials because they were considered untrustworthy for not swearing on the bible or because it wasn’t considered valid AGAIN WHAT’S YOUR POINT

mohammed’s military tactics: I still fail to see what’s so different between that and about like every other military commander in existence 

‘this is how people made money, without working’ I want to shoot myself

about mohammed’s treaty: have you ever heard of the words trojan horse lady, because if you haven’t....

oh jesus USING THAT TO SAY ANYTHING SIGNED WITH IRAN MEANS NOTHING TO THEM DSGJDSLKGJSLG IRAN IS NOT 8TH CENTURY SAUDI ARABIA AND SDLKGJDLKSJGKLSDGJDLS NO LISTEN I CANNOT HONESTLY DEAL WITH THIS CRAP COME ON

also because again iran is the way it is because of US intervention but kkkkkk let’s like conveniently omit that

........ the whole part about arafat is like so simplicistic and so completely out of this world and not taking into account so many variants I just - guys. no. please. go read about the thing from more decent sources than this idiot but like..... no. the second intifada had way different reasons to exist than arafat just felt like it dslkgjdslkgsjl good lord

no okay listen I had to shut it off after that because I honestly can’t take this bullshit anymore, but if the above wasn’t obvious, tldr: this video is 10% actual facts drowned in 90% complete bullshit, she doesn’t know how to even establish a timeline, the industrial revolution thing is completely bonkers, she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about and she doesn’t even know that in the middle ages contact with the muslim/islamic culture was fundamental to the development of european culture/literature/thought because without the muslims philosophers/thinkers we wouldn’t have the treatises upon which fucking WESTERN MONKS STUDIED and thomas aquinas wouldn’t have been able to do a thing if not for the commentaries on aristotle from muslim thinkers, that the cultural mixing led us to adopt fundamental things ie mathematics wouldn’t exist without the so-called ARABIAN NUMBERS which reached europe because the muslims got to india and then got to europe and that’s just like the first thing coming into mind??? like you cannot just delete centuries of profitable cultural exchange among the rest like this, because it’s a lot more fucking complicated than she thinks it is, and for that matter women under early islam were better off than they were before in the same area and better off than some women in europe for that matter, and like........ good lord I personally have a healthy dislike for any religion but this is completely fucking bollocks.

like my issue with islam nowadays is that it’s the only large/huge religion in the planet that has not undergone the secularism treatment and I think theocracies need to die regardless of which religion is ruling, but assuming that historically islam was any worse than like, everyone else who came before or after especially when we’re bringing in the crusades fought by people under the banner of the HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE is like, preposterous, ahistorical, dumb af and completely missing the point, never mind that if you think islam is purposefully stealing from the old testament in order to make itself more palatable to jews/christians then also christianity is doing the exact same thing because both christianity and islam are interpretations of the old testament/of the same mythology (because sorry guys the fact that we’re in western culture and we’re all christian blah blah doesn’t make it any less of a mythology, if you believe it then it’s a religion but if you don’t, that’s what it is objectively) and it’s really fucking hypocritical.

even more tldr: please don’t take these videos for granted or as any decent sources because they’re not.

[prince-darkleboop]

14, 33, and 48 for the oc asks!

I’m going the TF2 OCs route.

14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory  

... oh

You know, I occasionally talk about one particular trans BLU Spy, Lazare. Drink knows the full story about him (just about, there’s little tidbits that are split and vary depending on plotlines, but Lazare is A Mess(TM))

Welp, let’s get started! (Imma suggest people press j/scroll past if they don’t want to read about transphobia and all sorts of abuse. I mean it, like primarily physical, but there’s some sprinkles of heavy implied sexual, emotional, and all the other abuses you could think of)

So he’s born as the ‘daughter’ of a merchant and banker in what’s called the Pyrénées-Atlantiques area, likely in Lower Navarre (so he’s French and Basque), so he fits somewhere in the middle class. He’s got a younger sister, a mom, a dad, and a couple of random ass family members and very good friends that typically make up a family of nine (usually). He’s got black hair, and heterochormia irridium: one eye green, one eye blue (used to be just green but I apparently like bi colored eyes for him)

He always knew he was a boy. Too bad his mom wasn’t very amused, heated up a spoon and burned it on his hand when he was about... 9 (It’s either 8 or 9 but pretty sure it’s 9)

During the war (he’s roughly 14~16 during this period of time), his father is dead (he was told dubious things), his mother and younger sister flee to Britain (limited transport, could only do two), and he’s with his uncle he doesn’t really like. That’s kinda okay, he’s around two really friendly priests that were friends of his father. Good ol’ Father Mendoza and Father Maxime, was really great friends with his father and became great friends with him. Stayed around during the war, despite how it might’ve been more than a little dangerous (since they’re really close to Basque and visit once a week from Basque, they’re likely Catholic) 

Too bad his uncle’s a fascist.Who knows what the uncle’s reasoning was. Lazare already disliked his uncle because said uncle followed through with his mother’s stringent requests (post collapse, it’s likely a French based middle class family would have had time to arrange themselves into a semi-comfortable position, but Lazare recalls a lot of cooking and gardening and a lot of women’s tasks that used to be left to the servants). It likely got worse post German occupation. The intention was resistance fighters got in the way, and the uncle was going to teach Lazare what happens to those who rebel.

Lazare got to him first, purely because the utter betrayal of his home and country (twice) made him angry. Besides, Lazare knew he could take risks.

Recall the father I barely mentioned? And his good friends Father Mendoza and Father Maxime?They’re all First World War Spies. Lazare didn’t know the Spy bit, but because of where he lived at, his father insisted that everyone know Spanish, Basque, and French. His father thought Lazare was slacking in Spanish.Nope, Lazare was just your typical rebellious kid who had too much a penchant for listening in on secrets. Well, Lazare knew that his father supported “the Monastery” and there were all sorts of religious terms used to talk. But Lazare wasn’t actively encouraged to read the Bible until it suddenly became banned by his uncle.And all the quotes started to make sense in a “this is a code” way.

And those rebel fighters included a mishmash of people, including who would become his best friend, Dima Rishmawi (who later became known under the codename Nube (though I’ve constantly misspelled it as Nuba, gj me))Dima’s got her own story so just know two things 1. she’s around Lazare’s age and 2. she’s a sniper (her papa was a sniper and taught his twin daughters)

Dima stayed behind because she realized Lazare had nothing and they essentially had to make sure stuff was unusable. Helped that Father Maxime and Father Mendoza come over and help. They were a little upset at the two, but figured it would happen (damned fascists). Well, sometimes the best spies are ones that have to be tossed in blindly. Not to say Father Maxime and Father Mendoza didn’t help, but both Dima and Lazare took massive risks.

But I will say that this is likely when Lazare is 16 (and Dima’s a year older, roughly). This is... roughly 1941~1942 (which does account for resistance fights and the like, but tf2 world is weird anyhow so I do fumble around with years). His primary Spying is 1943~1946(ish). He’s young.The main reason I accent this, is his worst enemy and influence is Father Mendoza. This is a man who partially flayed his arm, because Lazare didn’t have the stomach to flay one of his enemies. And it’s not the worst done to Lazare.The barest I will say, because while I want people to understand that Mendoza is horrifying, but at the same time tumblr is a crapshot and I can’t quite put tagged warnings (there’s probably a way that I do not know).. Mendoza deserves worse than what he will ever get.

but Mendoza trains him as does Maxime, and he learns a lot of tips from The Monastery (I will explain this in a bit). Lazare and Dima wander the countryside, Lazare with new knife skills and a Dead Ringer, Dima with her sniper rifle. They trade secrets for bullets and rations. Lazare becomes known as the mysterious nun, often uses the modifier ‘The Queen of Navarre’ as a signature (it’s a bit of a joke). Their luck runs out 1945, when they were captured by Italian fascists (so the event was they were being paid better than normal to find out what the fuck was going on at some outpost that agency Spies couldn’t sort out. In short: bad shit.)

An assortment of things happen, and a mixture of contrivance and someone’s mercy let them live.Only Lazare is pregnant. He’s genuinely Catholic aligning, does not believe in abortion period. He’s miserable, but he’s having that baby.

Aside from being forced into semi-retirement (he knows a lot of things and that gets him from a hospital in Italy back to Basque, because the Monastery could help him), he encounters a different problem.

Agency Spies.

So this is essentially when the War starts calming the fuck down, but there’s still key people that need taking down and out. The Monastery is a ‘monastery’ full of First World War spies that kinda had nowhere to go. A bunch are old agency Spies that were left by the wayside. Some are missing limbs or an eye or are too stricken with PTSD and other illnesses that make Spying too difficult (impossible by agency standards). Some may have made a questionable decision that sent them to an early retirement, instead of climbing the ranks of the agency. Some more than likely should be dead (for whatever reason). Very few are horrible people, Mendoza is the exception because he’s good at hiding. So you’ve got the Monastery, and likely they’re not the only collection of non-agency Spies. There is an agreement between the Agency (as a whole) and the Monastery. The Monastery wants to be left the fuck alone because they’ve been abandoned, and it’s better to have non-agency Spies in your pocket, than have a group of very disgruntled Spies that may decide revenge over the good of nations.

You’ve also got the Agency. There’s a bunch, some nations have multiple (think the US), but many just have one within a nation. The agency in France regained control and they needed people. The agency in Spain was always in control, at the cost of many men and women.

See, they’ve heard about the Queen of Navarre, and Lazare could not hide his eyes. So. He gets harassed by both, while pregnant. Almost gets kidnapped once.Essentially Lazare knows the game: he’s going to get offered a contract. It’s not gonna be good. It’d essentially demand him until he dies (or he stops being good at being a Spy, but hah, that’s essentially death). Also noting that Lazare is 20~21, and pregnant. Lazare knows the stories from the Monastery Spies, the outcome is not gonna be good for the little one. Likely would become a Spy too, when the little one is really young. Younger than Lazare young.

Thankfully, the Monastery kept that from being a horrifying reality. And Father Maxime and Father Mendoza. Lazare does get to have a relatively peaceful birth and a couple months with his daughter (names her Teresa, there’s some French play he took inspiration from). Then, he had to leave. It was a tough decision, and he left for an assortment of them. But post giving birth, the Agencies gave him space, but they didn’t leave him alone.

So he leaves Teresa with Father Maxime (who honestly always wanted a family of his own so it works out) and Lazare and Dima go out.

Life does turn up for Lazare. He gets back at the people who wronged him and Dima. He gets to transition (took a bit, but he does do so). Eventually gets the Agencies off his damn back (transitioning helped a bit). Life is good as a small time fraud organizer and cooperate Spy (let’s just say some of his info includes businesses that were ill gotten and he influenced a bunch of closures and purchases and fractures because fuck those who profited off pain). But most his fraud was tax havens. He had a lot of businesses: taxi scams, hookah bars, tea houses, restaurants, even a mechanic’s shop he eventually pivoted to a legitimate business.

hell his religious conviction does lead to his name: Lazare. He sees himself as reborn. (I do think he’s had a crisis of faith at times, but he’s generally still Catholic leaning)

Ah, but how did he join MannCo?

So there was a small city in France (I picked Grenoble for some reason), a bunch of politicians were getting off a massive crime. It triggered an emotional response in Lazare, and he killed them. In public.there he was, in prison. likely was going to get sentenced to death for his crime there.And along came Miss Pauling.

(in terms of how it goes from there, I do have a written part that was based around gallows humor in AO3, but like, what happens is kinda up in the air, depends on what kind of plot in MannCo I shove him in. But mostly he’s in an unfavorable contract that’s got some basis of being half decent and like a prison sentence. Like a 10 year contract long. He gets signed on at 35~38, typically. This is kinda where things depend on plot.)

also a RED Medic took off his head and may or may not have done other unscrupulous things (depends on the plot, the Sniper/Spy one that’s on hold is a “likely a lot happened”. The Medic/Spy one was more a “just the head and the rest was mild, all things considering”)

33. Your shyest OC?

Someone I actually would like to toss around more into RP plots it’s a trans Sniper. Ah Lawrence. Generally not a people person, somehow manages in the Australian Army (mostly a translator, but he did have sniping skills)

48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure

My trans female Scout, Justine. She just wants to live her life, and wants her uncle Lazare, who adopted her as a niece, to be happy because lord knows he deserves it. (I actively want to write more centering around her. When senior thesis isn’t killing me, I’ll write all the Christmas stuff)

[thephoenix-hq]

☞ NAME: Marlene McKinnon. ☞ AGE: Nineteen (09.20.1959). ☞ BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood. ☞ HOUSE: Former Slytherin. ☞ GENDER: Cis-female. ☞ FACECLAIM: Ana de Armas.

+ THE STORY SO FAR +

The first Slytherin in a long line of Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, Marlene stood out right from the start of her little life. The only girl of seven children in a pureblooded family, she was given expectations the moment she exited the womb. In her formative years, she fought her mother to play like her sons did, a trail of cut ribbons and muddy footprints. The older she got, however, the stricter the woman became. She was in ballet and piano lessons from the time she could walk and comprehend on her own right up until she left for school. A brutally Spanish woman with a big family prior to making one of her own, aptly named Maria was slightly disgruntled by the idea of Hogwarts and preferred her daughter to attend Académie de Magie Beauxbâtons where all the Castillo women before her graduated.

Marlene had other ideas, however, and begged her father, an incredibly Scottish chap named Balgair, to convince her mother to allow her to attend school with her brothers. Going off to Hogwarts had been the lucid dream Marlene wished for her entire childhood. By then, however, her need for control was already a viscous beast clawing at the inside of her skull. She became a master of disguise, fooling almost everyone she met within the grounds of school that she was a picture perfect dream, untouchable in every way.

In the middle of her sixth year, things began to fall within her life. More and more, her house mates were disappearing from school, taking part in a war she, at the time, wanted nothing to do with. She didn’t speak her mind on the matter because it never matched. She started a downward spiral that ravaged her brittle bones and paper-thin skin, turned the whirling mess of her mind into a hurricane. Just before Christmas of her Seventh year, she was pulled from school.

Only three people know what really happened, though everyone could see how sickly she had grown. She would never return to Hogwarts, but instead (after spending nine months recuperating) be sent to France to finish her schooling at Beauxbatons. Her mother, though delighted that her only daughter would be attending her Alma mater, eased her grip on Marlene and began to treat her as her own being instead of the doll she had been trying to sculpt before. Aside from the three individuals who know the real story, there is a lot of speculation as to why Marlene left the school only to finish a semester later than her peers in another country.

-  J U N E  1 9 7 9  -

Despite being of pureblood descent, Marlene’s father (unbeknownst to the ministry of magic) worked in a muggle hospital while her mother was a very successful auror in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Knowing this, Albus Dumbledore recruited their systematically manipulative daughter feeling that her position (and previous positions) made her the perfect candidate for the Order of the Phoenix. Her answer was simple and firm. “I’ll do it,” because despite what she grew up around and the turmoil she faced in her younger days, Marlene knew right from wrong - and she longed to fight for magic and the muggles around her. At her heart of hearts, the girl who once longed for nothing more than something to control was good.

←  C O N N E C T I O N S  →

← Remus Lupin

At the beginning of her sixth year, Marlene had been minding her own in an empty train compartment when a Gryffindor she knew but had never truly met trudged in on her with ink dripping from his shoe. She was fascinated by this handsome, bumbling boy messing up all the carpets. They both had scars but only his were visible, and yet even from that first moment, she felt like he could see hers. She was porcelain on the surface, her insides as marred and beaten as his exterior. Due to a fateful prank between Sirius Black and Severus Snape, Remus distanced himself from his closest friends for a while and in that, grew closer to the Slytherin girl they all seemed very much against for no real reason other than her affiliation and opportunistic timing. Perhaps the first person to truly get to know her in her most genuine moments, Remus was someone Marlene found equally compelling and terrifying. Shortly before her departure from school, they had a moment together that changed everything - something that crossed her mind from time to time even years later. They were hindered from discussing whatever could-have-been (perhaps gratefully) by her swift and tumultuous departure. He is one of three people that know why she truly left Hogwarts in December of 1976. She knows without a doubt that he will have been someone Dumbledore wanted to recruit and would be far too noble and tragic to turn him down. The idea of seeing him again after two and a half years is, ironically, both compelling and terrifying.

→ Lily Evans

Marlene had been friends with Severus Snape once, and in this she met perhaps the most lively witch there ever was. Their relationship was never particularly deep, but they were always pleasant. Moreover, when Remus and Marlene grew close in their sixth year, Lily was there for it, also growing close with Marlene being that she was the only Gryffindor that didn’t see it as a terribly bad idea. Marlene could feel Lily’s faith in her and though it was akin to her childish faith in Severus when they were children, it wasn’t quite the same. Marlene couldn’t help feeling like Lily knew who she truly was. She could see the pure heart that sank beneath layers of pretending. When Marlene fell victim to her own mind, Lily had been there swiftly and fiercely. From the hospital wing to the Slytherin’s house in Inverness to Beauxbaton’s school, Spain and all the places in between, they stayed in touch over the years and through parchment have a strong kinship that outlasted the years.

← Dorcas Meadowes

Sheer dumb luck is what brought Dorcas Meadowes to Marlene’s side that night. They were in the same year, even shared a table a time or two in herbology or transfiguration, or something. It had been mortifying for Marlene, an almost stranger seeing her at her absolute worst. She was the girl who remained put together, always. The Slytherin Siren; pretty like a doll, charming like a friend, but manipulative and impersonal where it really counted. Dorcas Meadowes, though she resented her for it for a time, saved Marlene’s life. She’d sent her an owl eventually, perhaps a little too long afterwards, thanking her for being in the right place at the wrong time. If she hadn’t, Marlene feared to think what might have happened otherwise. Though they hadn’t seen each other in person since, she would always hold a special place in Marlene’s mind.

→ Amelia Bones

Maria McKinnon and Derek Bones were partners in the auror department and had been for years. Their families had been close most of their childrens’ lives, but it wasn’t until the older girl spent a travel year in France during Marlene’s year at Beauxbaton’s that they truly developed a close-knit understanding of each other. Having an equal love for coffee and sweets, old French artists, and staying out late, their casual kinship was a breath of fresh air for the both of them in some of their darkest times.

MARLENE MCKINNON IS CURRENTLY CLOSED FOR APPLICATIONS.

[godssea7-blog]

“We do possess a European symbol which belongs to all nations equally. This is the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which embodies the tradition of Charlemagne.” —Otto von Habsburg

By the early eighth century, Catholicism was well established as the most dominant religion in Western Europe. Despite its significant spiritual and cultural penetration, the Vatican was still a long way from uniting Europe politically and fulfilling its supreme ambition of resurrecting the Roman Empire. To do that, Rome would need a military and political partner.

Rome still had an alliance with Byzantium. But the Byzantines were under pressure from Islam and not in a position to be a Roman Catholic weapon. Rome needed a new partner.

Within a few decades, the Vatican had found its man. He was an exceptional military leader and an astute leader. He adored the legacy of ancient Rome and was enthusiastic about its restoration in Europe. Most importantly, he was an avid Roman Catholic.

His name was Charles. He would soon be called Charlemagne—Charles the Great.

Although he died well over a thousand years ago, the life and work of this eighth-century Frankish king are revered to this day. The Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, created by Otto the Great in the late 10th century, is called the Crown of Charlemagne. Napoleon was hailed as “Charlemagne reborn.” Adolf Hitler was a faithful student of Charlemagne’s vision of Europe, and even built his famous Eagle’s Nest next to the mountain where, according to legend, Charlemagne is sleeping and will someday rise again. Out of adoration for the ancient monarch, European leaders, when deciding how to create a single currency, met in Aachen, Charlemagne’s capital. Each year, the city of Aachen awards one prominent individual for “distinguished service on behalf of European unification” with one of Europe’s most illustrious honors: the Charlemagne Prize.

Why the fascination with a long-dead emperor? Who was he? What was the true nature of his achievements? Most importantly, considering that contemporary European Union leaders want to emulate his accomplishment, how did Charlemagne unite the divided Continent?

A Political Alliance

Before Charlemagne’s emergence, Europe was fragmented. The territory that is now France, Germany and the Low Countries was split among many tribes. Much of Italy was occupied by the Lombards. Byzantium was recognized as the successor to the eastern region of the old Roman Empire.

In northwestern Europe, the region of France today, the Franks had been the first tribe to embrace Catholicism. The Franks first did so for political gain rather than for religious reasons. Mostly of Germanic origin, the Franks exploited the support of the Catholic Church to further their expansionist policies. Never one to miss an opportunity, the Vatican relied on Frankish rulers for protection. It was a union based on politics alone.

The seeds of Charlemagne’s relationship with the Catholic Church were sown by his grandfather, Charles Martel. The relationship essentially began in a.d. 732, after Martel defeated the Muslim armies of Abdul Rahman al-Ghafiqi that were attempting to invade Europe through Spain. Following Martel’s victory in the Battle of Tours-Poitiers, the Vatican hailed Charles as the savior of Christendom, despite the fact that he had seized land and money from the church. The Vatican saw Martel’s victory over the Muslims as an opportunity.

Charles Martel, despite his power as ruler of the Franks, was more of a tribal ruler than a king. That changed with his son Pepin. It is a fact long forgotten, but the Vatican was the indispensable power behind the rise of Charlemagne’s Frankish kingdom. Pepin became king after he wrote the pope and asked whether or not the Frankish King Childeric iii was truly the rightful king. The pope ruled that Childeric’s kingship was illegal, thereby giving Pepin the spiritual cover needed to imprison the man—in a monastery, no less.

In 751, with papal endorsement, Catholic bishops anointed Pepin king of the Franks in a ceremony copied from the coronations of kings David and Solomon. Three years later, the pope personally repeated the ceremony. For the first time in European history, the Roman Catholic Church claimed the authority to make kings. Later it would be emperors.

It is hard to overstate the impact of the relationship between the Vatican and the Frankish kingdom under Charlemagne and his forbearers. “Phrases like ‘revolutionary happenings,’ a ‘decisive moment in European history’ are easy to write, less easy to justify,” writes historian Donald Bullough in his book The Age of Charlemagne. “Yet the direct involvement of the bishop of Imperial Rome in a change of royal dynasty among a Germanic people, the association of a religious ceremony with the making of a king, and the unavoidable political consequences of a closer link between the papacy and the largest of the Romano-Germanic kingdoms, surely warrant such language even if the son and successor of Pepin had not turned out to be the man he was.”

By ordaining Pepin king of the Franks, the church had secured an ally. And under Pepin’s son Charlemagne, this alliance would forever ensure that Europe was a Catholic continent—through violence and war yet unprecedented in that land.

The Rise of Charlemagne

In 755, at the pope’s request, King Pepin led his Frankish army into Italy. Pepin quickly defeated the Lombards, and in the process secured Vatican territory and removed the Lombard threat against the pope. Pepin died soon after, and his empire was divided between his two sons, Charlemagne and Carloman. Three years later, Carloman died, leaving Charlemagne the sole king of the Franks.

In 774, with the Frankish kingdom firmly consolidated, Charlemagne made a brief trip to Italy to aid the pope. After safeguarding the Vatican, Charlemagne and his army set off to conquer Europe. He spent the next 25 years pursuing his goal of subjugating the tribes of Europe and forging Europe into a united Catholic continent.

“The first three decades of Charlemagne’s reign were dominated by military campaigns,” Encyclopedia Britannica explains, “which were prompted by a variety of factors: the need to defend his realm against external foes and internal separatists, a desire for conquest and booty, a keen sense of opportunities offered by changing power relationships, and an urge to spread Christianity” (emphasis added throughout).

One by one the tribes of Europe fell to Charlemagne and his Catholic hammer. But one tribe held out against the Catholic crusaders. Situated in north-central Europe, the Saxons clung to their faith and refused to acquiesce to Charlemagne as he tried to impose Roman Catholicism.

Charlemagne was enraged. His determination to convert the Saxons to Catholicism intensified. For years the Saxons resisted, fighting the Catholic armies whenever and wherever possible. In one conflict, Charlemagne executed 4,500 Saxon prisoners. But his barbarism only strengthened the Saxons’ fortitude.

During Charlemagne’s reign, tens of thousands of Saxons were forced to be baptized into the Catholic faith. Strict laws enforcing Catholic worship were enacted throughout Charlemagne’s European empire. The penalty for cremating someone, the old pagan way, was death. In contrast, the penalty for murder was to pay compensation to the man’s family—provided, of course, the murdered man wasn’t a priest. All children had to be baptized before they were a year old. Unauthorized public meetings were outlawed—making it illegal to keep the Sabbath on Saturday.

Over the course of more than 30 years, many thousands of Saxons were executed for their religious beliefs. It took at least 18 conquests, but Charles finally prevailed: The Saxon people were forced to either convert to Catholicism and subject themselves to Charlemagne and the pope, or be killed.

As emperor of the “Holy” Roman Empire, Charles considered it his duty to spread the Christian faith employing whatever instruments necessary. Encyclopedia Britannica says, “The violent methods by which this missionary task was carried out had been unknown to the earlier Middle Ages, and the sanguinary [bloody] punishment meted out to those who broke canon law or continued to engage in pagan practices called forth criticism in Charles’s own circle” (15th edition). The scale of violence Charlemagne used to enforce Catholicism on his subjects was simply unknown in earlier empires. His empire may have had distinct ties to the ancient Romans, but it was certainly not “holy,” even if there was a great church guiding it.

Is this the legacy to which modern Europe aspires?

The Vatican’s Ally

In 774, at the request of Pope Adrian i, Charlemagne entered northern Italy and conquered the Lombard Kingdom. In 799, Pope Leo iii was kidnapped, brutally beaten and thrown into prison by a band of conspirators. After being rescued by two Frankish clerics, he fled to Charlemagne, who escorted him back to Rome. On December 23, 800, with the military backing of Charles and his Frankish troops, the pope was exonerated of all wrongdoing and reinstated to his ecclesiastic office.

Just a few days later, in Rome, while Charlemagne was kneeling in prayer during a Christmas celebration inside old St. Peter’s Church, the pope placed a crown on his head, pronouncing him “the 73rd emperor of the fourth world empire.”

Notice: This Catholic pope recognized Rome as the “fourth world empire.” (We will discuss the biblical significance of this fact in Chapter 9.)

“After the Empress Irene had her son Constantine vi blinded in 797, both easterners and westerners regarded the imperial throne as vacant,” states The Mainstream of Civilization. “Why not, they asked, resurrect the Roman Empire with Charles [Charlemagne] as emperor?” Charlemagne’s empire was nothing new: It was a resurrection of what had gone before—just as the Bible prophesied.

But Charlemagne’s coronation also contained the seeds of a dispute that would plague the Holy Roman Empire for centuries to come. Who was the ultimate authority? Was it the pope, “God’s representative on Earth”? Or was it the king, the one with the armies? Charlemagne knew that the pope’s seal of approval gave him his legitimacy. But he didn’t want to owe his crown to the pope alone. That made him subservient and dependent. The pope gained the upper hand early in this struggle by placing the crown on Charlemagne’s head, asserting himself as the king’s superior. But the king did not approve. When Charlemagne’s son was made emperor, Charlemagne himself did the crowning.

The Bible describes this great false church as a whore—a prostitute (Revelation 17:1-5). She gives herself to others in exchange for benefits. Even the historians see this. Paul Johnson writes that the Roman church formed an “unseemly marriage between church and state.” He asks, “[D]id the empire surrender to Christianity, or did Christianity prostitute itself to the empire?” (A History of Christianity).

With the rise of Charlemagne, this harlot left the employ of the Byzantine Empire and instead served the Franks. She gave Pepin and Charlemagne legitimacy as kings, and supplied them an efficient system of administration. Without her backing, they couldn’t have united Western Europe in a new Roman Empire. What did she get in return? Converts, for one. Political power for another. But the reign of Charlemagne also cemented Rome’s position as head of the “Christian” world.

Creating a Catholic Continent

Prior to Charlemagne, in each of the various regions of Europe, the local Catholic Church celebrated Sunday services with its own local customs. When Charlemagne arrived, he made it policy to use the liturgy from Rome. Throughout his empire, the Sunday service was observed in the same way it was at Rome. Now that Western Europe was united under one empire, the emperor could ensure that “Christianity” was practiced uniformly.

Under the pope’s direction, Charlemagne streamlined the observance of Catholicism throughout Europe, ensuring it was looking to Rome. He also relied on the church to regulate the lives of his subjects. “Bishops, abbots, priests and monks were the king’s chief agents,” wrote Johnson. “Royal officials were selected from among the higher clergy, and Charlemagne and his successors expanded and developed the use of church councils as legislative and executive organs. … Through the church, the Carolingian age legislated in enormous detail on every aspect of conduct, especially on economic, family and sexual relationships” (ibid).

Despite Charlemagne’s wars and violence, his reign was not one of brutality and barbarism alone. Historians speak of the “Carolingian Renaissance”—a revival of arts and learning that took place under Charlemagne. “His thirst for knowledge was tremendous; he was curious to know and understand everything,” wrote Robert Folz in The Coronation of Charlemagne. “His political genius likewise enabled him to see the need for promoting culture if his kingdom was to acquire the splendor and prestige of the ancient world.”

The culture, politics and educational systems endorsed and promoted by Charlemagne, however, were distinctly Catholic creations.

The emperor exhorted the Catholic clergy to become better educated. He then instructed them to teach the general population and raise up schools throughout the empire. He encouraged and patronized liberal arts education, bringing in Catholic teachers from Italy, Ireland and England.

“His aim,” Johnson explained, “especially in the last decades of his life, was enormously to expand the literate manpower of empire, to create a clergy capable not only of evangelizing the new Christians he had brought under his rule, but of deepening the knowledge of Christianity everywhere” (op cit).

To many, the image of an enlightened ruler promoting culture and education for all seems incompatible with a violent warrior converting thousands by the sword. But Charlemagne’s example teaches us an important lesson: Culture and peace do not always go together. Modern Europe may appear to be a cultured and sophisticated group of nations. But as history reveals, that does not mean it is immune to Charlemagne’s style of violence.

In fact, part of the reason Charlemagne worked so hard on education was because of his conquests. He needed trained clergymen to teach his new subjects the Catholic religion. All the new churches needed new books, which required more experts.

Charlemagne also reformed Europe’s currency, minting standardized silver coins all over his empire. His coins helped spur trade, but most importantly, they gave Europe a sense of unity. “[H]is portrait coinage,” writes historian Joanna Story, “sent an impressive and influential message of imperial status and power throughout the Frankish world—and beyond” (Charlemagne: Empire and Society). Indeed it did: Charlemagne’s coins replaced crude locally made coins that bore the name of a local ruler. They were deliberately modeled after Roman coinage, bearing a portrait of the emperor for the first time since the fall of Rome.

Much like the euro today, Charlemagne’s common currency was a tool for uniting the Continent.

‘The Spirit of Charlemagne’

In December 1978, then French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt held a summit in Aachen, the main seat of Charlemagne’s authority, to hash out the details of the European Monetary System, the precursor to the euro. “The symbolism was heavily underlined in both France and Germany,” wrote Bernard Connolly in The Rotten Heart of Europe. “The two leaders paid a special visit to the throne of Charlemagne and a special service was held in the cathedral; at the end of the summit, Giscard remarked that: ‘Perhaps when we discussed monetary problems, the spirit of Charlemagne brooded over us.’”

This is the spirit European leaders wish to recapture: one that used currency to unify and control a squabbling bunch of nations while it increased its power abroad by torturing people to conversion.

Even Catholic historians recognize the centrality of Catholicism to Charlemagne’s legacy. The Catholic Encyclopedia, for example, says the heritage Charlemagne left was essentially “the idea of a Europe welded together out of various races under the spiritual influence of one Catholic faith and one vicar of Christ ….”

Paul Johnson summarizes Charlemagne’s empire this way: “It laid the foundations for the complementary concepts of Christendom and Europe. It projected, in broad outline, the directions which European institutions and culture would take. And it determined in embryo many of the aspects of the world we live in now. We are right to regard the total Christianity of the Carolingian age as one of the great formative phases of human history” (op cit).

It remains a mystery to most people today, but when political and religious leaders talk about reviving the spirit of Charlemagne, this is what they are talking about: a single empire united under one leader and one church. The question is, how far are Europe’s leaders willing to go to resurrect the legacy of Charlemagne?

[twruniversity-blog]

Accepted America!

...Guess we’re not going to have to pay for air conditioning anymore.

Try not to freeze your roommate. Vita isn’t going to want to fill out the paperwork.

OOC;

Name: Realm Age: Under 18 Pronouns: Any! Activity: 3 Contact: its-altin-or-altout (tumblr) marching-man (other tumblr) Ships for Muse: I ship Alfred with common sense. 👌 RusAme FiteTP B) and er. Yea. Common sense. (Germany,South Italy South Korea, Prussia, France– those could be options. Maybe Spain or Ned or Belgium or Belarus or… ;) I’m open to trying most lol) I shy away from UsUk and AmeCan, gomen. Timezone: GMT-8 Triggers/Sensitive Subjects: None Any Concerns?: lol my activity apologies in advance

IC;

Character: America Full Name / Preferred Name: Alfred Finnegan Jones Age: 18 Birthday: July 4 Gender: Male Pronouns: he/him Housing: Toutouwai Village- Shared (pls give this boi a roommate he will die without one) Pets: none

IC - In Depth;

[ Trigger Warning: Abandonment Issues ]

Magical Branches: Fire & Ice

Ahurei (Unique Ability): Ice Mimicry- Alfred’s ahurei is something he prefers to keep under wraps as he hasn’t quite learned to control it. It’s something like the Hulk except instead of turning into an angry, green guy he turns into a living blizzard. Think ice golem combined with Elsa levels of suppression, and bam, there’s Alfred.

Major/s: Law, Aerospace Engineering Minor/s: Fire, Political Science Type of Degree: Bachelor’s

Clubs: Science Society, Politics Society, Engineering, Dueling, Science Fiction Films, Football, Tennis

Appearance:

Muscular and tall at 6’0” Alfred is a well built, attractive young man. He’s well aware of the fact that he can turn heads, and he’s practically the definition of a poster boy. His hair is typically neat sans the stubborn cowlick that sticks up to the side no matter what he does. Its golden blonde color only adds to his magazine cover appearance, and frankly, the cowlick only serves to enhance his appearance by giving him an almost endearing look. His eyes are a clear blue, and he wears black framed glasses over them during all waking hours. His skin tone is nearly always a perfect tan, and his smile is blindingly white.

Alfred has dimples on both sides, and he can almost always be found smiling, the edges of his eyes crinkling up. His facial features are nicely set, darker eyebrows and straight nose. His face is surprisingly thin though he’ll adamantly deny this if it’s ever mentioned. His jaw isn’t as square as one might expect. Instead it tends to come to a sharper point. His jaw line definitely still defined. It just isn’t as square as he’d like to think.

Alfred is fairly built, all broad shoulders and defined muscle. His body shape is something like a ‘V’, muscular chest and narrow hips. Around his middle he does still have some baby fat, but don’t let it fool you. He’s stronger than he looks, and this boy looks strong. His choice of attire consists of various superhero, video game and meme t-shirts with shorts or jeans and some sort of sweatshirt if it’s chilly out. He actually can dress up nicely if he wants to, and he knows how to pick out things that match. It’s just that usually he prefers to be lazy. In fact, if it was up to him he’d walk around wearing nothing, but, of course, that’s illegal, and Alfred doesn’t particularly fancy getting arrested anytime soon.

Headcanons:

He hates being alone. Due to an unfortunate incident that occurred when he was younger Alfred represses ahurei. Because of this when he’s not in the same room, or at least fairly close, to where other people are, he’ll begin to go cold. It tends to cause frost to form around him and the temperature of the air surrounding him to dip. It’s essentially his body’s way of releasing all the energy he bottles up by refusing to use his ahurei. Part of the reason why this happens consistently when he’s alone is because his insecurities tend to push themselves to the forefront of his mind without any people around to distract him as well as the subconscious sense that it’s mostly safe to let go without other people nearby.

He’s a total adrenaline junkie. He needs new, exciting thing 24/7 because his attention span (unless he’s scheming) is smaller than a pea.

He’s got some lowkey abandonment issues. Just lowkey.

Alfred can actually cook fairly well. He knows how to whip up a good ol’ southern meal as well as some nicer things. His dad and his aunt and uncle taught him how. Though be forewarned, the things he likes to combine in food tend to be questionable.

He can play guitar.

Aliens are a thing. Don’t tell him otherwise. He will fight you.

Personality:

Alfred would say the best word to describe him would be heroic. Truthfully he might say loud. Others might tell you he’s a meme or ridiculous or insensitive. In reality it might be bold or clever or resilient, but in the end there’s really only one way to sum up everything in a single word, and that word would have to be eccentric. Alfred isn’t your typical guy with a hero complex larger than the empire state building and a very strange set of priorities. He’s defiant, independent, extremely opinionated, analytical, brave even– but Alfred has somewhat questionable morals and a mouth that tends to run for longer than it should.

While he is always for establishing justice he does find interesting ways to go about it. It’s extremely likely he’ll take anything that goes astray into his own hands. He seems to think that he can do anything, and the list of things he won’t do to fix an issue is a small one. He’s a quick thinker and probably lowkey ADHD. He’ll have a plan set up for things he deems necessary to be accomplished, but appear to be goofing off as per usual. It’s always hard to tell whether or not he really meant something or not, or if he cares or not, but Alfred usually does.

He’s a little hyperactive and slightly controlling, but he does mean well. He loves people, and while he does have a bad habit of pointing out every little thing he notices with little regard for other people’s feelings, he does care for his friends. His shiny ‘hero’ act might be something he does believe in, but he is fairly sensitive, and he is a thoughtful person. He tries to do his best when it comes to understanding people, but he has a bad habit of assuming everyone else is like him, and while he himself will go around insulting people, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to hear someone he cares about demean him is one of the worst things for his mental state.

Abandonment issues might be something that come into play, making him prone to being clingy and overly affectionate. He’s already a needy guy, but because of the side effects of suppressing his ahurei he must be around people at all times. Alfred is a little too loud, a little too presumptuous, but he’s bright, he smiles, and he really does want the best for his loved ones.

Strengths: Determined, Sociable, Affectionate, Well Intentioned, Natural Leader

Weaknesses: Impatient, Presumptuous, Insensitive, Defiant, Controlling

Backstory:

Alfred grew up in New York City born to an actress and physics professor. His father was a soft spoken, good natured man, always considerate, always caring. He doted on Alfred endlessly, taking him for donuts on a weekly basis, bringing him to his office, taking him to museums, buying him superhero capes and playing with face paint. He did everything he could for his son while he desperately tried his hardest to conceal his attempts at saving his marriage with Alfred’s mother from the young boy.

For the first few years everything had been happy and perfect. His mother was a beautiful, charismatic, vivacious woman. She was rich, gorgeous– When she met the quiet, mouse of a man Alfred’s father was she practically swept him off his feet, dragging him with her wherever she went. So yes, there was a time when they were happy with their baby boy, nice home, lovely jobs, but as life so often shows perfection never lasts. It wasn’t long after Alfred’s birth that tensions started to rise, and Alfred’s mother changed.

She went from the lively, generous woman she had been to a cynical, violent alcoholic prone to outbursts and harsh words. Alfred never found out exactly why she became like this because when he asked his father he’d just smile tiredly and apologize because he didn’t know. If he did and didn’t want to say Alfred never found out, and of course, his mother would never say. His parents split when he was six, and his father gained full custody.

His father became even more reserved, but for Alfred there was always a smile, a hug, an outpouring of praise and hair ruffles. Sometimes Alfred wondered why his mother had left, but eventually he accepted it. It was when he became twelve and puberty hit that his ahurei began to develop into something far more powerful than just a boy sized flurry of snowflakes. Spikes in emotions brought on by the influx of hormones triggered episodes where he’d lose control. The harder he tried to hide it the worse it got.

Eventually the inevitable occurred when he was around the age of fourteen. When awoken from a nightmare by his father, he lost control, spinning into full blizzard and freezing him and the room. When everything settled his father was long gone, the bedroom a disaster and the glass in the window shattered. He was devastated.

His mother took him in, and while she never hit him she was inclined to scream and tear him apart with her words. Alfred found comfort in his friends, and for the most part, managed to block out the nightmares that happened every couple months at home. He didn’t see much of her for the year he lived with her. She left, telling Alfred he was a burden, and it had been a mistake to even try to keep him around, that he’d never amount to anything. He hasn’t seen her in person since.

So when he was fifteen he moved again to live with his aunt and uncle in Georgia. They were kind to him, and he was happy again after recovering from the initial shock. Though it wasn’t long before he decided he needed to leave before another accident could occur. He found Te Wānanga Ruānuku and hopes to find a home and a community of people who might be able to help him and hide his power from the rest of the world.

Sample RP:

Absentmindedly, Alfred drummed his fingers against the counter in time to the music flowing into his ears from his headphones. The other patrons of the cafe threw glances in his direction, seeming irritated by his ceaseless tapping, but he was oblivious, appearing engrossed in whatever webpage he had pulled up on his laptop and the upbeat tunes in his ears. Either that, or he just didn’t care which Alfred would’ve agreed with as likely option had someone suggested it. He simply didn’t have time to deal with people like them. There were other things on his mind, and much more important matters to be dealt with. Like Space. Always space.

The vast expanses of the heavens had always held a certain intrigue for Alfred. There was something about the swirling galaxies, the pinpricks of light painting pictures in the sky, the planets, and all the rest of the celestial bodies that appeared at night, that drew him in. The thought that there might be someone else up there, that there might be hope for more adventure, for more change, was intoxicating. Alfred had known from the start that this was where his heart was. He was meant to fly. He knew he wasn’t just meant to touch the heavens. They were his home.

So that might have been why he chose to major in it. It might’ve been why he was reading an article on the latest discovery in his field. Maybe it might’ve even explained the reason why the normally hyperactive boy could sit on a grassy knoll, just watching the starry spread, without making a sound for hours on end back when he’d been small. He knew there was a reason the stars were there, and he would find it. He just needed a little more time, but soon, it would be soon. He’d find it soon. If he didn’t he knew it wouldn’t be long before everything crumbled to pieces. At least that was one thing Alfred was sure of. He needed that escape.

[awesometheauthor]

                       The Ancestry of Ponce de Minerva and the Browne.                                                                   1.

John J. Browne y Ayes

Copyright 2018, All Rights Reserved, National And International.

This last weekend, the wind and the rain pelted our home and almost flooded the property. It was nothing to worry about because a while back I had worked very hard to set up a good drainage system on the property. Cement tiles had been set into the ground on a precise angle to allow for drainage from the back of the house to the front. Dirt had been piled and leveled to perform in the same way.

I logged on today to share what I had accomplished this weekend. After 25 years of gathering documentation and data on my ancestors, I have finally finished the ancestry of Ponce de Minerva and the Browne who were my father's ancestors.

Throughout my work on my genealogy, I have come to realize how small this planet is and I have also come to realize that we who have been living upon this little rock in the middle of nowhere, are heavily connected to one another by blood ties.

As I have written in the past, Ponce de Minerva's parents were of royal blood. His mother, Cecile was a French princess and his father was of the noble Pons lineage who had fought, bled and died during the Crusades fighting on behalf of a faceless god in a vain attempt to recapture Jerusalem away from the Saracens.

Living back in those days was horrible. No electricity, no clean running water and the food you ate had to be consumed right away to avoid getting deathly sick from food poisoning. Life for humankind was very short. If you lived beyond 50 years of age, you were considered ancient. I can imagine people gathering around this ancient being asking questions on how they survived so long. Life was hard and full of danger every day. Petty wars between landholders, disease, and starvation took their toll on human life. If you were a soldier in some king's army your life was even shorter. If you got wounded in battle you could develop lockjaw and blood poisoning from infection. There were no antibiotics and medical help was still in the stone ages.

Getting back to the ancestry of the Browne and the Ponce de Minerva. It is known historically that the Browne's originated in France and their original surname used to 

                                                                                                                                                                                       2.

be LeBrun. Until now, little was known about who was the specific individual who was the founding father of this clan. It was known that the LeBrun came over to what is now the Brittish Islands during the invasion of the Normans around ten hundred AD.

My research took me to Scotland during the year of 1140 where I found a Guillaume LeBrun de Lusignan. He was the son of Hugh VII LeBrun de Lusignan and Sarazine de Lusignan. He was born 1140 in Lusignan, Vienne, Aquitaine-Limousin-Poitou-Charentes, France and died in 1199 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Early in his life, Guillaume married Lady Lucy Browne of Aberdeenshire which is in Scotland. The name LeBrun is odd because it means, someone who is either bearlike or who fights with the fury of a bear. Perhaps the surname might even have to do with a specific "Brown color." But I doubt that. You see, the French came to the islands as invaders and conquerors Back then they were called Normans. Any lands and that they acquired had to be legitimized by marrying the daughter of an entitled lord of the manor. Thus, the name LeBrun through legitimate marries became the surname Browne. As always, there are many variations to the surname LeBrun and those changes in the name came about through the languages spoken within a specific location. LeBrun became Bruin.

As I traced this lineage I found the given name "John" repeated for 9 generations from 1425 back to 1220. Five of these were knighted as Sir John. Between 1159 and 1208 I discovered Guillaume - William De Bruin living in Scotland with the family name "De Bruin". I then find traced the lineage with names such as Hugh XI. de Lusignan Comte de la Marche et d'Angouleme, and residing in France. A few generations further back we have Hugues IX 'Le Brun' de Lusignan Seigneur of Lusignan, and continuing further back, Hugues Hugh VIII Le Brun Seigneur De Lusignan, Hugh VIII Le Brun Count De La Marche Seigneur De Lusignan, Hugh De Lusignan, Hugh VI "The Devil" de Lusignan, HUGH "The Fair" Lusignan V and Hugues Hugh IV (Brunus, the Bear) Seigneur de Lusignan. With this individual born 987 AD we have the introduction of the animal, "Bear" into his surname and hence the family name. Prior to this, we have HUGH III Albus "The White" de Lusignan, Hugues II Carus, Lord de Lusignan Le Cher La Melusine and finally, Hugh I The Venator or Hunter de Lusignan. But wait ... We have a problem. 

                                                                                                                                                                                               3.

Beyond this, there are conflicting and impossible dates so we end our research at this point for now.

The family was deeply involved in the crusades. Hugues XI was killed in Crusade Battle, at Faruskur, Egypt. Hugh IX died at Dumyat (Damietta), Egypt. Hugh VIII died in Aleppo, Outre-Mer, Syria.

There were many prominent and powerful members of the House of Lusignan. All of them were the ancestors of today's Browne clan.

An important point of bloodline connection was discovered within the lineage of the counts of Lusignan. Hugh the V d' Lusignan was born 1016 Toulouse Haute Garonne, France. He was the son of Hugh IV LeBrun de Lusignan and lady Aldearde

Hugh V was married to Almodis de la Marche who was born 1011 - 1015 AD in Marche, Limousin, Poitou, France. She was the Countess of Limoges, Grevinne, and the Countess of Barcelona.

This woman had been married three times and each time she was married she had received doweries of land as well as entitlement. This is where it got very interesting. As always, her marriages were very prolific and there were many half brothers and sisters created in those lineages.

She was married to Hugh who was the founder of the LeBrun-Browne's. She was married to Raimon d' Berenguer I who founded another illustrious lineage. He last marriage was to the Count of Toulouse, Pons I de Toulouse aka "El Vell, - The Old. Pons was born 991 AD in Barcelona, Spain and died during the year of 1060 AD. He was buried in Saint Sernin.

By the way, he was one of the direct ancestors of Ponce d' Minerva! 

Here are some facts,

Noble family House of Rouergue

                                                                                                                                                                                        4.

Spouse(s) Lady Majore

Almodis de La Marche

Father William III of Toulouse

Mother Emma of Provence

Pons (II) William[1] (991 '96 1060) was the Count of Toulouse from 1037. He was the eldest son and successor of William III Taillefer and Emma of Provence. He thus inherited the title Marchio Provincæ. He is known to have owned many allods and he relied on Roman, Salic, and Gothic law.

Already in 1030, he possessed a lot of power in the Albigeois. In 1037, he gave many allodial churches and castles, including one half of that of Porta Spina, in the Albigeois, Nimois, and Provence as a bridal gift to his wife Lady Majore.

In 1038, he split the purchase of the Diocese of Albi with the Trencavel family. In 1040, he donated property in Diens to Cluny. In 1047, he first appears as count palatine in a charter donating Moissac to Cluny.

Pons married the first wife, Lady Majore (d.1044),[2] in 1022. His only child by Lady Majore; Pons the Younger, did not inherit his county or march. In 1045, Pons the older married, Almodis de La Marche, former wife of Hugh V of Lusignan, but he too repudiated her in 1053 because the church had excommunicated them because of consanguinity issues. (By the way, Almodis had committed bigamy twice).

They had:

William IV, Count of Toulouse

Raymond IV, Count Saint-Gilles,[3] succeeded his brother.

Hugh, abbot of Saint-Gilles.

Almodis, married the Count of Melgueil.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                             5.

Pons died in Toulouse and was buried in Saint-Sernin, probably late in 1060 or early in 1061.

Notes

Raymond Pons was "Pons I." In Latin is Pontius or Poncius and Ponce in Spanish.

Speculated to have ancestry within Lady Mayor's lineage, daughter of Sancho III of Navarre.

Sources:

The Chanson D'Antioche: An Old French Account of the First Crusade, transl. Susan Edgington and Carol Sweetenham, (Routledge, 2011), 391.

Source

Lewis, Archibald R. The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718'961050. University of Texas Press: Austin, 1965.

Medieval Lands Project: Toulouse.

In any case, as I have written, I have finished working upon the ancestry of Ponce de Minerva. In the process, I have broken through the speculation and have confirmed without a doubt that Pons' ancestry does indeed go back to Dona Mayor's lineage.

Beyond that lineage Pons-Ponce ancestry goes back to King Childerbert III and his wife Habibai Natronai David, she was born about 669 Pembeditha, Babylon Persia. Her lineage is a rich one.

Also known as, Theodorich, Theodoric. Also known as Makir. Theuderic Makir (David) Jud de Narbonne. He was one of the first Exilarchs of Babylon. For the first time, the early generations of this line have been revised to reflect Judeo Christian ancestry. Makir who married the daughter of Charles Martel, was a Judiarch of Narbonne, a 

                                                                                                                                                                                      6.

ranking Jewish leader. Makir Judiarch was son of Habi Bai Ben Natronai, (Per the Austustan Society). Born 771 died 793. Judiarch of Narbonne, (Septimania) Source, Royalty for commoners, Roderick W. Stuart, p234.

From there we go back to a time that was very dark. It was a time of legend and superstition.

Marcomir was King of Franks. He was born in 128. He married Athildis, daughter of Coilus or Coel, King of Britain (Old King Cole, ca. 125, built Coel-Castra, or Colchester) and a daughter of Cyllin, King of Siluria. Among the children of Marcomir and Athildis was Clodomir IV, King of Franks. Marcomir died in 149. Athildis died in 170. [Coilus was the son of Marius. Marius’ father was Arviragus, and his mother was Venissa Julia. Venissa Julia was a daughter of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, Emperor of Rome. Tiberius Claudius Caesar’s mother was Antonia, daughter of Mark Anthony. On his mother’s side, Coilus was the grandson of Boadicea, or, in Latin, Victoria, British queen who poisoned hereself in 62 A.D. after being defeated in battle by the Romans. Boadicea’s husband was Prasutagus.]

Macomir, had a son, Pharamond, who was king of all Franks.

Pharamon] or Faramund (c. 365 '96 430) is a legendary early king of the Franks, first referred to in the anonymous 8th-century Carolingian text Liber Historiae Francorum, also known as the Gesta regnum Francorum. In this work, which is customarily dated to 727, the anonymous author begins by writing of a mythical Trojan origin for the Franks. The emphasis of the Liber was upon "construct[ing] a specific past for a particular group of people."

The story is told of the election of the first Frankish king. It says that after the death of Sunno, his brother Marcomer, leader of the Ampsivarii and Chatti, proposed to the Franks that they should have one single king, contrary to their tradition. The Liber adds that Pharamond, named as Marcomer's son, was chosen as this first king (thus beginning the tradition of long-haired kings of the Franks), and then states that when he died, his son Chlodio was raised up as the next king. The work says no more of him.

 

                                                                                                                                                                               7.

Because there is no reference in any source prior to this work to this figure named Pharamond, who is placed prior to Chlodio (that is, before ca. 428), scholars consider him a legendary rather than historical figure. As a matter of fact in several sources, for example, Gregory of Tours, multiple kings are attested to rule simultaneously in later times. It is thus a dubious matter to assume that, even if Pharamond existed, he was ever recognized as sole king. The first king of the Franks who may have been close to this position was Clovis I, but after his death, his empire was divided again amongst his sons, who ruled again simultaneously.

The myth of Pharamond has led to new legends and romances in later times. In past times this has led to attempts to falsely write Pharamond into Prosper Tiro. Martin Bouquet at a much later date invented an entire history of Pharamond.

Historical sources

Gregory of Tours, in his Annales Francici notes in 420 "Pharamond reigns in France" ("Pharamundus regnat in Francia" - Annales Francici, page 151)

Sigebert of Gembloux names him as King of the Franks between Marcomer and Chlodio ("Post Marcomirum filius ejus Faramundus fuit, rex crinitus, a quo Franci crinitos reges habere coeperunt. Post quem Clodius filius ejus regnans Francis a Thoringia advectis Gallias invasit, et capta urbe Tornaco Cameracum usque progressus multos Romanorum in Galliis peremit" . He keeps the mythical origin for Marcomer.

Saint Gregory wrote about a group of Trojans that escaped to the Maeotian marshes, then into Pannonia, becoming the Sicambri (a subdivision of the Franks), who inhabited the region along with the Alans. The Alan presence in Pannonia is historical around 370, as part of their migrations to Gaul, and later to Hispania, where they ruled until the arrival of the Visigoths. He says that later, the Franks migrated to Germania led by Marcomer, and established themselves along the Rhine. After Marcomer's death, Pharemundus, or Faramundus succeeded him as chieftain.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                              8.

It is quite obvious that Saint Gregory was quite ignorant of ancient history. The Trojans lived hundreds of years before Marcomir and his son was born. Then again the church believed that the world was flat.

In Gesta Francorum (c.1100), chapter 8 describes how the Franks changed their laws under Pharamond . page 229)

I've printed out this genealogy and the book is close to 300 pages. Now I have to decide if I really want to work upon it and publish it so the world can learn who were the real ancestors of the Ponce de Leon!

The crowned rampant lion image on the shield was granted to our ancestors, the Comtes d' Lusignan by Richard the Lionhearted.

[topworldhistory]

Royal brothers and sisters have squabbled through the ages—often leading to war.

When family members are also co-workers, things can get messy. This is never truer than in royal families, where the interplay of private passions and public displays of affection or dissatisfaction are broadcast on an international stage. While some royal feuds remain minor, others in history have become so dysfunctional, they’ve led to major wars.

Cleopatra's Family Feuds

Cleopatra

By the time the legendary Cleopatra VII was born into the ruling Ptolemy dynasty of Egypt around 69 B.C., the family already had an incestuous, murderous history. For generations, sisters had killed brothers, mothers had gone to war with their children, and sons had murdered their parents. 

“After a while the butchery came to seem almost preordained,” writes Stacy Schiff in Cleopatra: A Life. “Cleopatra’s uncle murdered his wife, thereby eliminating his step-mother (and half-sister) as well.”

The last of their line, Cleopatra and her three siblings continued this bloody family tradition. On the death of their father around 51 B.C., Cleopatra and her brother, Ptolemy XIII, were married and assumed the Egyptian throne as co-rulers. This forced partnership quickly fell apart, and by 48 B.C., Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra were engaged in a brutal civil war against each other. In the midst of the madness, their younger sister, Arsinoe IV, also claimed the throne for herself.

Cleopatra did not take her sister’s betrayal lightly. “It is unlikely that she underestimated her 17-year-old sister,” writes Schiff. “Arsinoe burned with ambition; she was not the kind of girl who inspired complacency.”

Arsinoe soon banded together with Ptolemy XIII and together the siblings launched the Siege of Alexandria against Cleopatra in the winter of 48 B.C. But Cleopatra then gained a secret weapon—the all-powerful Roman leader Caesar, with whom she began a personal and professional relationship. Together, they routed her siblings at the Battle of the Nile, in 47 B.C.

Ptolemy XIII

Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile shortly after his defeat. Arsinoe was captured and paraded through Alexandria in golden shackles, before being exiled to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.

Her triumphant sister, Cleopatra, now in control of Egypt and Caesar’s heart, soon married her younger brother Ptolemy XIV.  Ptolemy XIV then died in 44 B.C., likely poisoned by Cleopatra, and the queen made her infant son co-ruler with her as Ptolemy XV Caesar.

But there was still the problem of Arsinoe. According to Schiff, Cleopatra’s younger sister rallied enough support in Ephesus to have herself proclaimed queen of Egypt. “Her feat speaks both to her tenacity and to the fragility of Cleopatra’s position outside her country,” Schiff writes, “certainly the two sisters despised each other.”

This prolonged family feud finally ended in 41 B.C., when Cleopatra’s great love Mark Antony ordered Arsinoe killed on the steps of the Temple of Artemis. “Now,” wrote one chronicler, “Cleopatra had put to death all her kindred, till no one near her in blood remained alive.”

William the Conqueror's sons

There is only one civil war in history that can trace roots to a chamber pot.

When William the Conqueror, the first Norman King of England, died in 1087, he left Britain to his middle son William Rufus instead of his eldest son Robert. William had long been in conflict with the charming, combative and dissipated Robert (known as Robert Curthose, perhaps for his short legs).

William Rufus

According to an account by Orderic Vitalis, a Benedictine monk who wrote chronicles of 11th and 12th centuries, Robert had been at odds with his father since 1077, when William Rufus and their younger brother Henry had dumped a full chamber pot over his head. A brawl ensued, and their father broke it up, but refused to punish William Rufus and Henry. Robert was furious and staged a failed attack on the castle of Rouen in retaliation.

This family feud lasted for years, with Robert fleeing to Flanders, fighting his own father in combat. They were finally reconciled in 1080, but not surprisingly, their relationship was strained, and Robert spent most of his time abroad. When his father died, Robert was left the lesser prize of Normandy. He gathered a rebellion against his brother, now King William II, but it failed when Robert failed to appear in England.

Instead, he went off to crusade in the Holy Land. On his way back in 1100, he was informed that King William II had died—and that his young brother Henry I had claimed the crown.

Robert Curthose

From Normandy, Robert raised an army and headed across the channel in July 1101. “Robert headed towards London and was intercepted by Henry at Alton in Hampshire,” writes historian Richard Cavendish. “Henry persuaded Robert to renounce his claim to England in return for a pension of 3,000 marks a year and the abandonment of any claim on Henry’s part to Normandy. It was agreed that no action would be taken against the Duke’s supporters.”

But Robert had been deceived. His brother stopped sending the pension and invaded Normandy, restless after years of Robert’s mismanagement. In 1106, Henry beat his brother at the Battle of Tinchebray. Robert was imprisoned for the next 28 years. “Woe to him that is not old enough to die,” he wrote during this long captivity.

Robert finally died in 1134, in Cardiff Castle, at the ripe old age of 80. Henry I died the following year, victorious over his brother even in death.

Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots

When Mary I finally inherited the throne of England in 1553, she had endured a lifetime of disappointments, heartbreaks and slights. The only child of King Henry VIII and the Catholic, saintly Catherine of Aragon, she had been the beloved heir to her father’s throne for much of her childhood. 

Mary Queen of Scots

But after Henry’s passionate affair and subsequent marriage to the Protestant-leaning Anne Boleyn, her world was destroyed. She was ripped away from her mother, stripped of her royal title and forced to curtsey to her new half-sister, a small redheaded baby—Princess Elizabeth.

Her new stepmother was particularly cruel to young Mary, and the impressionable teenager stored away these insults for the rest of her life. After Anne Boleyn’s execution in 1536, Mary’s status was restored, and she appeared to become fond of her now motherless half-sister Elizabeth.

READ MORE: The Wildly Different Childhoods of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots

But their tortured familial history was only part of what would make this ceasefire temporary. “Relations between elder and younger sisters are often difficult—particularly when there is an age gap of seventeen years, as there was to be between Mary and her half-sister Elizabeth,” writes David Starkey in Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne. “But fate also cast them as opposites in appearance and character and opponents in religion and politics.”

With the vehemently Catholic Mary’s accession in 1553, all her old bitterness rose to the surface. Though Elizabeth had ridden into the city of London with Mary for her coronation, their relationship quickly soured. Elizabeth was now the “second person” in the kingdom—young, charismatic, confident and Protestant.

READ MORE: What Inspired Queen 'Bloody' Mary's Gruesome Nickname?

Elizabeth I

In 1554, the Wyatt Rebellion was launched in reaction to Mary’s unpopular plan to marry the Catholic King Philip of Spain. Leaders of the rebellion planned to put Elizabeth on the throne, and Mary believed that her sister had been part of the plot. Elizabeth was arrested and sent to the ominous Tower of London, the same place her mother had been executed decades before. “Oh Lorde!” she cried. “I never thought to have come in here as prisoner!”

Once in the tower, Elizabeth wrote her sister a frantic, rambling letter, her usual composure lost to fear:

I pray to God the like evil persuasions persuade not one sister against the other, and all for that they have heard false report, and the truth not known. Therefore, once again, kneeling with humbleness of heart, because I am not suffered to bow the knees of my body, I humbly crave to speak with your Highness, which I would not be so bold as to desire if I knew not myself most clear, as I know myself most true.

The letter did not have its intended effect. Mary was further enraged by this letter, feeling that it lacked the respect she deserved. However, she did let her sister out of the Tower after three weeks, and Elizabeth was sent to Woodstock under house arrest. Here, she etched a short poem into the window of her prison with a diamond:

Much suspected by me,

Nothing proved can be,

Quoth Elizabeth prisoner

Elizabeth was finally pardoned a year later, and the sisters resumed a strained but cordial public relationship. Only four years later, in 1558, Mary died during an influenza epidemic, and Elizabeth started her glorious reign.

Viciousness at Versailles

Louis XVI

From childhood, the clumsy, well-meaning Louis XVI of France was often overshadowed and outmaneuvered by his malicious younger brothers. Stagnant and bored at the court of Versailles, Comte de Provence and Comte d’Artois spent much of their time stirring up gossip about their hapless older brother.

Left to their own devices, the brothers often engaged in petty arguments, occasionally in view of the whole court. Soon after Louis’s marriage to the young Marie Antoinette in 1770, the former Austrian archduchess—from a large family of brothers and sisters—found herself frequently breaking up embarrassing fracases between the brothers.

“With her experience of family life,” Antonia Fraser writes in Marie Antoinette: The Journey, “Marie Antoinette began to act as peace-maker between the sparring royal brothers, Louis Auguste and Provence. On one occasion when the clumsy Louis Auguste broke a piece of porcelain belonging to Provence and the younger brother flew at him, Marie Antoinette actually interrupted the fight...”

Louis XVIII, Comte de Provence

With their accession to the throne in 1774, Louis and Marie Antoinette’s inability to produce an heir became fodder for his brothers’ taunts. After his own marriage, Provence was also unable to consummate his union. “None of this,” writes Fraser, “stopped the wily Provence from dropping hints about his wife’s condition whenever he could most conveniently bait his brother and his Austrian wife with their own failure.”

The brothers also encouraged the rumor that the graceful, fun-loving Marie Antoinette was having an affair with the equally high-spirited Artois, a complete fabrication. This assault on their brother’s fertility reached a breaking point in 1778, with the birth of Princess Marie-Therese. According to Fraser, at the child's baptism, the Comte de Provence argued that the "name and quality" of the parents had not been formally given. 

"Under the mask of concern about correct procedure, the Comte was making an impertinent allusion to the allegations about the baby’s paternity," Fraser writes. 

As tensions rose in France, his brothers’ increasingly conservative, reactionary politics caused constant problems for the moderate, placating Louis XVI. Both Provence and Artois escaped France with their families during the revolution. After their brother’s death, both men eventually got what they had perhaps always longed for—the chance to be king. After the fall of Napoleon, Provence reigned as Louis XVIII from 1814 to 1824. Artois followed as Charles X from 1824 to 1830, before he was deposed.

Napoleon's Relations

"My relations," Napoleon once said, "have done me more harm than I have done them good."

The fallen Emperor had reason to be bitter. In Napoleon’s eyes, he had raised his large Corsican brood, consisting of Joseph, Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline and Jerome, to the status of royalty. He had given them titles, put them on the thrones of kingdoms, and made them rich. In return, Napoleon had expected blind loyalty from his siblings. He should have known better.

From the start, not all of Napoleon’s brothers and sisters held him in high regard. His younger brother Lucien hated him from childhood, believing that he was a bully and a megalomaniac. Writing to his older brother Joseph in the early 1790s, he listed all Napoleons faults, noting, "He seems to me to have a strong liking for tyrannical methods; if he were king, he would be a tyrant, and his name, for posterity and in the ears of sensitive patriots, would be a name of horror."

The brothers and sisters of Napoleon Bonaparte his Consecration in 1804.

Once Napoleon took power in France, Lucien was banished to Italy for marrying a woman whom his brother did not approve. The rest of the Bonapartes continued to bicker—united in little but their hatred of Napoleon’s wife, Josephine. In response, Napoleon taunted them with the honors he bestowed on Josephine and her children. One night at dinner, he continually addressed his stepdaughter Hortense as Princess, just to anger his sisters. According to Theo Aronson, author of The Golden Bees: The Story of the Bonapartes, "Caroline burst into tears. Elisa, who had a better grip on her emotions, resorted to shafts of biting sarcasm and long haughty silences."

The dysfunction reached a fever pitch in 1804, when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor. His sisters and sisters-in-law were appalled that they would have to carry the hated Josephine’s train in the ceremony at Notre Dame. Joseph said he would move to Germany if his wife was so dishonored. Eventually, the women begrudgingly agreed—only if their trains were also carried.

The siblings were also jealous of each other. Napoleon made Joseph King of Italy and Sicily, Jerome King of Westphalia, and Louis King of Holland. Upon learning that Elisa had been given the principality of Piombino, Caroline quipped, "So Elisa is a sovereign Princess, with an army of four privates and a corporal."

After his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon turned against much of his family. "I love no one, no, not even my brothers," he once said. "Joseph, perhaps a little; and if I do love him, it is from habit, and because he is my elder." 

Stewing in exile on Saint Helena he realized he had made a mistake by putting his siblings in positions of power. "If I made one [of my brothers] a king,” he muttered, according to Aronson's account, “he imagined that he was king by the grace of God. He was no longer my lieutenant; he was one enemy more for me to watch."

from Stories - HISTORY https://ift.tt/2Nb51Fd January 10, 2020 at 09:12PM

[networkingdefinition]

Europe Quotes

Official Website: Europe Quotes

  • A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood… A day will come when we shall see… the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas. – Victor Hugo • A relatively small and eternally quarrelsome country in Western Europe, fountainhead of rationalist political manias, militarily impotent, historically inglorious during the past century, democratically bankrupt, Communist-infiltrated from top to bottom. – William F. Buckley, Jr. • Accordingly the Northern races of Europe found their inspiration in the Bible; and the enthusiasm for it has not yet quite faded away. – Lafcadio Hearn • Africa north of the Sahara, from a zoological point of view, is now, and has been since early Tertiary times, a part of Europe. This is true both of animals and of the races of man. – Madison Grant • After being boxed in by man and his constructions in Europe and the East, the release into space is exhilarating. The horizon is a huge remote circle, and no hills intervene. – Jacques Barzun • All black people who are even minimally conscious, black people who have ever experienced Europe’s technological power crusading in the vanguard of a civilizing mission, have profound feelings of inferiority and bitterly regret the fact that the Industrial Revolution did not agreeably commence in Dahomey or Dakar. Nothing is achieved by concealing this fact. – Lewis Nkosi • And everything stopped quite rapidly because I knew that nobody in Europe was able to go to space. It was the privilege of being either American or Russian. – Philippe Perrin • Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere in the world. We are losing our first-line antimicrobials. Replacement treatments are more costly, more toxic, need much longer durations of treatment, and may require treatment in intensive care units. – Margaret Chan • Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. – Eleanor Roosevelt • As an observer of markets – whenever everyone focuses on one thing – like Greece and Europe – maybe they miss issues that are far more important – such as a meaningful slowdown in India and China. – Marc Faber • Asia’s crowded and Europe’s too old, Africa is far too hot and Canada’s too cold. And South America stole our name, let’s drop the big one. – Randy Newman • Aside from rabid Islamists, no one who wishes to be taken seriously can publicly say anything bad about the old Jews of Europe without sounding like reactionary troglodytes. – Jacob T. Schwartz • Asking Europe to disarm is like asking a man in Chicago to give up his life insurance. – Will Rogers

• Be advised that there is no parking in Europe. – Dave Barry • Being and working in America, it’s very important to work hard, work smart and work in a certain way. France and Europe has, with the tradition and culture, it’s slow-moving and it’s not always good. – Mireille Guiliano • Being away from home gave me the chance to look at myself with a jaundiced eye. I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something I had always tried to hide, and I came home glad to start in here again with a love for Europe that I am afraid will never leave me. – Jackie Kennedy • But Maastricht was not the end of history. It was a first step towards a Europe of growth, of employment, a social Europe. That was the vision of Francois Mitterrand. We are far from that now. – Laurent Fabius • But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. – Edmund Burke • But, I’ve made films in Japan, in Yugoslavia, all over Europe, all over the United States, Mexico, but not Hollywood. – Sydney Pollack • Certainly the existence of these huge nuclear force was important for the ultimate confrontation, let’s say, over western Europe. You just can’t use them to deal with a situation like Afghanistan. – Lloyd Cutler • Civilization – and by this I do not mean talking cinemas and tinned food, nor even surgery and hygienic houses, but the whole moral and artistic organization of Europe – has not in itself the power of survival. It came into being through Christianity, and without it has no significance or power to command allegiance … It is no longer possible, as it was in the time of Gibbon, to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis on which it rests … Christianity … is in greater need of combative strength than it has been for centuries. – Evelyn Waugh • Companies in Europe should stop trying to do the U.S. version of a European idea. – Guy Kawasaki • Croatia did not want Europe to be divided as to the start of Croatia’s EU entry talks. – Stjepan Mesic • Does this boat go to Europe, France? – Anita Loos • Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe. – Jackie Mason • Europe and the U.K. are yesterday’s world. Tomorrow is in the United States. – Tiny Rowland • Europe cannot confine itself to the cultivation of its own garden. – Juan Carlos I of Spain • Europe cannot survive another world war. – Christian Lous Lange • Europe extends to the Alleghenies; America lies beyond. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Europe has a long and tragic history of mostly domestic terrorism. – Gijs de Vries • Europe has to address people’s needs directly and reflect their priorities, not our own preoccupations. – Peter Mandelson • Europe has united, China is growing speedily and Russia possesses immense power in terms of fuel resources. The US administration cannot do anything about it. – Vladimir Zhirinovsky • Europe has what we [Americans] do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life’s possibilities. – James A. Baldwin • Europe is a collection of free countries. – Douglas J. Feith • Europe is and will be a Union of States. – Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero • Europe is good at many things, which is why we are the largest exporter in the world. Thirty million people in Europe are employed in making our exports of goods and services. Just under 900 thousand of them are in Sweden. – Cecilia Malmstrom • Europe is so much the home of Horror, with its myths of vampires, werewolves, witchcraft and the undead, yet it’s like those myths were exported to Hollywood, leaving Europe the room to develop a new tradition as a way of processing its traumas, particularly the two world wars. – Mark Gatiss • Europe itself is an embodiment of this diversity. – Ulrich Beck • Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility. – Napoleon Bonaparte • Europe to me is young people trying to appear middle-aged and middle-aged people trying to appear young. – Mike Myers • Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy. – Margaret Thatcher • Ever since the Crusades, when Christians from western Europe were fighting holy wars against Muslims in the near east, western people have often perceived Islam as a violent and intolerant faith – even though when this prejudice took root Islam had a better record of tolerance than Christianity. – Karen Armstrong • Every time Europe looks across the Atlantic to see the American Eagle, it observes only the rear end of an ostrich. – H. G. Wells • Fascism is the result of the collapse of Europe’s spiritual and social order… catastrophes broke through the everyday routine which makes men accept existing forms, institutions and tenets as unalterable natural laws. They suddenly exposed the vacuum behind the facade of society. – Peter Drucker • For years, European leaders have pointed out that Europe is an economic giant, but a military pygmy. – George Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen • For years, we’ve grown dependant on American consumers as the world’s spenders of last resort. They’ve kept Europe out of recession, allowed China to industrialise, and prevented global deflation. But at the same time, they’ve not been looking after their own futures. – Evan Davis • France and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing, though, is that people there know how to live! In America they’ve forgotten all about it. I’m afraid that the American culture is a disaster. – Johnny Depp • From the dome of St. Peter’s one can see every notable object in Rome… He can see a panorama that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and more illustrious in history than any other in Europe. – Mark Twain • Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence. – Benjamin Franklin • Germany is probably the richest country in Western Europe. Yet they wouldn’t take any television with Duke and Ella, their reaction being that people weren’t interested in it. – Norman Granz • Greater inequality in Europe has made people less happy. – Derek Bok • Guy Peellaert was to Europe what Andy Warhol was to America – except Guy had more talent! – Jim Steranko • He is not someone who went off to play in Europe and only a few Americans follow. He has the potential to be on magazine covers and more newspaper coverage. – Lamar Hunt • Hot, dry katabatic winds, like the south foehn in Europe, the sharav in the Middle East, and the Santa Ana of Southern California, are all believed to have a decided effect on human behavior and are associated with such health problems as migraines, depression, lethargy, and moodiness. Some scientists say that this is a myth. – Tim Cahill • I am a committed European; a united Europe is Romania’s future. – Victor Ponta • I am busy touring all over Europe, Japan, and Australia. – Suzi Quatro • I am not 100% English, I am actually part Italian and even part Hungarian. Therefore I feel very much part of Europe both in my upbringing and outlook. – Bruce Bennett • I am proud of the fact that women have been recognised as being as capable, as able to do the senior jobs in Europe as any man. – Catherine Ashton • I am very proud to be a part of the Livestrong Foundation. I am maybe only a member but I give everything I can to be sure that people understand that cancer is a disease for everybody – not only in France, in Europe, in Asia, it is all over the world. We must fight together, we must make something to fight the cancer, we must Livestrong. – Gregoire Akcelrod • I believe only in French culture and consider everything in Europe that calls itself ‘culture’ a misunderstanding, not to speak of German culture. – Friedrich Nietzsche • I believe that Europe without Britain at the heart will be less reform-driven, less open, less international Europe. – Jose Manuel Barroso • I can only paint in India. Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque India belongs only to me. – Amrita Sher-Gil • I come from a small town and I come from a background where we didn’t have money to travel. I thought I’d have to join the military to get to Europe. So I’m thrilled to travel. – Chris Isaak • I defy anyone – and I have said this to the Germans – to build a solid, articulated, and viable Europe without France’s consent. – Pierre Laval • I enjoyed the two years I was with Clannad. I enjoyed touring. We toured a lot in Europe. – Enya • I expect that my readers have been to Europe, I expect them to have some feeling for a foreign language, I expect them to have read books – there are a lot of people like that! That’s my audience. – Alan Furst • I feel fully decided that we should all go to Europe together and to work as if an established Partnership for Life consisting of Husband Wife and Children. – John James Audubon • I got the travel bug when I was quite young. My parents took me and my sisters out of school and we travelled all over Europe. It was an eye-opening experience and, although I love Norway, I also enjoy visiting new countries. I don’t get homesick. – Magnus Carlsen • I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from. – Eddie Izzard • I had always been fascinated by the whole idea that Australia was this different ecology and that when rabbits and prickly pears and other things from Europe were introduced into Australia, they ran amok. – David Gerrold • I have to come to terms with the paternalism of American business. Companies are expected to take on so many social responsibilities which are the province of the state in Europe. – Nick Denton • I have visited some places where the differences between black and white are not as profound as they used to be, but I think there is a new form of racism growing in Europe and that is focused on people who are Middle Eastern. I see it. – Montel Williams • I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. – Susan Sontag • I haven’t travelled that much before so this is the first time I get to see the big cities of Europe. I’ve never even been to US. – Ville Valo • I just went off for two months traveling around Europe on a motorcycle and pretty much turned my phone off. I did 5,000 miles with my dad. We went through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Italy… and then I did Spain and France by myself. – Michael Fassbender • I learned that you can make a sci-fi film that is satisfying overseas. European people have everything in check. I’d make every sci-fi film in Europe. They only work 14 hours a day. After that, it’s overtime. – Michelle Rodriguez • I might have played a little bit more in Europe than I have in Japan. – Billy Higgins • I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. – Henry David Thoreau • I notice that teams are now more interested in Japanese players than when I first went to Europe. – Hidetoshi Nakata • I said, yet again, for Germany, Europe is not only indispensable, it is part and parcel of our identity. We’ve always said German unity, European unity and integration, that’s two parts of one and the same coin. But we want, obviously, to boost our competitiveness. – Angela Merkel • I saw what Purple meant to people and I still hear it now when I’m in Europe. I’m always shocked that I’m still asked about Purple because it was such a long time ago. – David Coverdale • I started writing and photographing for different publications and finally ended up being the correspondent in South Asia, for the Geneva-based Journal de Geneve, which at one time used to be one of the best international newspapers in Europe. – Francois Gautier • I still get invitations from all over Europe to speak at dinners, and it’s an honour that promoters and charities can use me to create income. – Frank Bruno • I think it does work. The fact that the law is there and injustices can be rectified, I think has a lot to do with the fact that the people in this country aren’t as frustrated as they are in some of these places in Eastern Europe and don’t resort to violent revolution. – Harold H. Greene • I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, Al Qaeda is still a threat. – Barack Obama • I think that after Church got his Ph.D. he studied in Europe, maybe in the Netherlands, for a year or two. – Stephen Cole Kleene • I think the race went as well as it could and I drove well to finish sixth. The chassis is working better and through the corners we are more or less there; we’ll move onto Europe and see if we can get further up the grid and keep improving. The weekend went pretty smooth for me until the end of the race, I don’t know what happened, but the team will have a look at it. – Daniel Ricciardo • I turn my eyes to the schools & universities of Europe And there behold the loom of Locke whose woof rages dire, Washed by the water-wheels of Newton. Black the cloth In heavy wreaths folds over every nation; cruel works Of many wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic Moving by compulsion each other: not as those in Eden, which Wheel within wheel in freedom revolve, in harmony & peace. – William Blake • I want the whole of Europe to have one currency; it will make trading much easier. – Napoleon Bonaparte • I was in Europe and it was at this stage that I fell in love with Americans in uniform. And I continue to have that love affair. – Madeleine Albright • I was with a folk trio back in ’63 and ’64, and we traveled all across North Africa, Israel, and Europe. – Creed Bratton • If Berlin fell, the US would lose Europe, and if Europe fell into the hands of the Soviet Union and thus added its great industrial plant to the USSR’s already great industrial plant, the United States would be reduced to the character of a garrison state if it were to survive at all. – Dwight D. Eisenhower • If Ireland is to become a new Ireland she must first become European. – James Joyce • If it was Europe that gave us on the coast some idea of our history, it was Europe, I feel, that also introduced us to the lie. – V. S. Naipaul • If Russia shuts off central Asia and the Caspian Sea from Europe, the European allies of the United States will be totally dependent on Russian gas and energy. – Mikhail Saakashvili • If there is one thing Britain should learn from the last 50 years, it is this: Europe can only get more important for us. – Tony Blair • If you look at most of the Royal Houses in Europe, the inbreeding was pretty outstanding. – Nikolaj Coster-Waldau • I’m not prepared to have someone tell me there is only one view of what Europe is. Europe isn’t owned by any of them, Europe is owned by all of us. – Tony Blair • Important as economic unification is for the recovery of Germany and of Europe, the German people must recognize that the basic cause of their suffering and distress is the war which the Nazi dictatorship brought upon the world. – James F. Byrnes • In 1990 we ran across Europe through 13 countries and covering 7,130 miles. – Dennis Banks • In 2012, the far-right Golden Dawn won 21 seats in Greece’s parliamentary election, the right-wing Jobbik gained ground in my native Hungary, and the National Front’s Marine Le Pen received strong backing in France’s presidential election. Growing support for similar forces across Europe points to an inescapable conclusion: the continent’s prolonged financial crisis is creating a crisis of values that is now threatening the European Union itself. – George Soros • In a few hundred years you have achieved in America what it took thousands of years to achieve in Europe. – David McCallum • In America, they shoot budgets and schedules, and they don’t shoot films any more. There’s more opportunity in Europe to make films that at least have a purity of intent. – Paul Bettany • In Europe and Australia, there is something called the Tall Poppy Syndrome: People like to cut the tall poppies. They don’t want you to succeed, and they cut you down – especially people from your own social class. – Mark Burnett • In Europe you learn not to fail, and in America you fail to learn. You need failure. – Hartmut Esslinger • In Europe, where human relations like clothes are supposed to last, one’s got to be wearable. In France one has to be interesting, in Italy pleasant, in England one has to fit. – Sybille Bedford • In Hamburg, there are three major orchestras, an opera house, and one of the great concert-hall acoustics in Europe at the Laeiszhalle, in a town a fifth the size of London. And that’s not unusual. In Germany, there are dozens of towns with two or three orchestras. The connection with music goes very, very deep. – Jeffrey Tate • In London it had seemed impossible to travel without the proper evening clothes. One could see an invitation arriving for an Embassy ball or something. But on the other side of Europe with the first faint tinges of faraway places becoming apparent and exciting, to say nothing of vanishing roads and extra weight, Embassy balls held less significance. – Robert Edison Fulton, Jr. • In Old Europe and Ancient Crete, women were respected for their roles in the discovery of agriculture and for inventing the arts of weaving and pottery making. – Carol P. Christ • In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945. – Queen Elizabeth II • In the beginning, New York and I had kind of a love-hate relationship. It seemed so abrasive compared to Europe. But the transformation here in recent years is really something. I don’t think I would have seen as much change if I’d lived in any other city in the world. – Shalom Harlow • In the last quarter of the eighteenth century bourgeois Europe needed to emancipate itself from that combination of feudalism and commercial capitalism which we know as mercantilism. – C. L. R. James • In the villages in Europe, there are still healers who tell stories. – Yannick Noah • In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world – in America first but also in Europe – has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance. – Wim Wenders • In this country, the health concerns and the environmental concerns are as deep as in Europe. All the surveys show that. But here, we didn’t have the cultural dimension. This is a fast-food culture. – Jeremy Rifkin • Information and inspiration are everywhere… history, art, architecture, everything an illustrator needs. Europe is, after all, the land that has generated most of the enduring myths and legends of Western culture. – John Howe • Internal protectionism in Europe would be deadly, really a disaster for European economies. – Jose Manuel Barroso • It does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along the shore. – Margaret Fuller • It is hard to imagine that, having downgraded the US, S & P will not follow suit on at least one of the other members of the dwindling club of sovereign AAAs. If this were to materialise and involve a country like France, for example, it could complicate the already fragile efforts by Europe to rescue countries in its periphery. – Mohamed El-Erian • It is in order that France may find her place in the new Europe that you will respond to my appeal. – Pierre Laval • It is not to save capitalism that we fight in Russia … It is for a revolution of our own. … If Europe were to become once more the Europe of bankers, of fat corrupt bourgeoisies we should prefer Communism to win and destroy everything. We would rather have it all blow up than see this rottenness resplendent. Europe fights in Russia because it [i.e., Fascist Europe] is Socialist. what interests us most in the war is the revolution to follow The war cannot end without the triumph of Socialist revolution. – Leon Degrelle • It may be said that modern Europe with teachers who inform it that its realist instincts are beautiful, acts ill and honors what is ill. – Julien Benda • It’s been President Clinton’s dream that we’ll have finally a fully integrated Europe. – Warren Christopher • It’s hard to explain why I like Europe so much. – Broderick Crawford • It’s like night and day… to do business, in Europe, there is no bull, they are pretty straightforward. – Caprice Bourret • It’s monstrous that Europe, which is fighting for human rights, refused seriously sick Slobodan Milosevic treatment. – Vladimir Zhirinovsky • I’ve always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany’s taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too. – Paul Keating • I’ve always liked traveling around Europe and seeing the architecture. The buildings in capital cities have been there for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Some look better than the new ones. – Joe Elliott • I’ve never really taken more than four days off, so it was a lot for me to go away for three-and-a-half months. I went all over Europe. I walked on a whole bunch of beaches and I did a lot of thinking. – Puff Daddy • I’ve worked behind counters serving food, and I’ve lived on the circus train, and I’ve led bicycle tours in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and Russia. I’ve been a key liner for a newspaper, I’ve done typesetting. Oh, all sorts of things. – Bonnie Jo Campbell • Japanese architecture is very much copied in this country and in Europe. – Minoru Yamasaki • Jesus was not a white man; He was not a black man. He came from that part of the world that touches Africa and Asia and Europe. Christianity is not a white man’s religion and don’t let anybody ever tell you that it’s white or black. Christ belongs to all people; He belongs to the whole world. – Billy Graham • Kosovo today is closer to Europe than other countries in the region of South Eastern Europe. – Ibrahim Rugova • Leisure was the sine qua non of the full Renaissance. The feudal nobility, having lost its martial function, sought diversion all over Europe in cultivated pastimes: sonneteering, the lute, games and acrostics, travel, gentlemanly studies and sports, hunting and hawking, treated as arts. – Mary McCarthy • Maimed but still magnificent… Europe’s mightiest medieval cathedral. – R. W. Apple • Many upscale American parents somehow think jobs like their own are part of the nation’s natural order. They are not. In Europe, they have already discovered that, and many there have accepted the new small-growth, small-jobs reality. Will we? – Daniel Henninger • Margaret Thatcher was fearful of German unification because she believed that this would bring an immediate and formidable increase of economic strength to a Germany which was already the strongest economic partner in Europe. – Douglas Hurd • Maybe this will be the beginning of a trend? Flat taxes, cutting foreign aid, a referendum on Europe, grammar schools. Who knows? – Nigel Farage • Modern Existentialism… is a total European creation, perhaps the last philosophic legacy of Europe to America or whatever other civilization is now on its way to supplant Europe. – William Barrett • Morality in Europe today is herd-morality – Friedrich Nietzsche • More and more do I see that only a successful revolution in India can break England’s back forever and free Europe itself. It is not a national question concerning India any longer; it is purely international. – Agnes Smedley • More than 95 percent of both legal and illegal immigration into the United States is non-white. Because of the way immigration law is structured, the highest-skilled nations on earth – those of Europe – are allowed only a tiny percentage of immigrants, while the third world nations such as Mexico are dumping their chaff onto American shores at the highest rate in history. – David Duke • More than any other in Western Europe, Britain remains a country where a traveler has to think twice before indulging in the ordinary food of ordinary people. – Joseph Lelyveld • Most Americans will be horrified that President Obama is compromising our deterrent to chemical and biological attacks on this country. Our allies will also be troubled by his aspiration to eliminate U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. – Frank Gaffney • Mother’s taste was eclectic and ranged from the ancient world to the contemporary from Europe to the U.S. – David Rockefeller • Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! – Ronald Reagan • Much of America is now in need of an equivalent of Mrs. Thatcher’s privatization program in 1980s Britain, or post-Soviet Eastern Europe’s economic liberalization in the early Nineties. It’s hard to close down government bodies, but it should be possible to sell them off. And a side benefit to outsourcing the Bureau of Government Agencies and the Agency of Government Bureaus is that you’d also be privatizing public-sector unions, which are the biggest and most direct assault on freedom, civic integrity, and fiscal solvency. – Mark Steyn • Obviously, there is diversity, but Europe is a union of diversity. – Jean-Pierre Raffarin • Of course, the simple explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act of man’s life in Europe or America, and that everything depends upon it. – Lafcadio Hearn • Only recently, during the nineteenth century, and then only in Europe, do we meet forms of the state which have been created by a deliberate national feeling. – Christian Lous Lange • Playing Chelsea is as tough a test as you’ll get in Europe these days. – Michael Carrick • Political union means transferring the prerogatives of national legislatures to the European parliament, which would then decide how to structure Europe’s fiscal, banking, and monetary union. – Barry Eichengreen • Purity of race does not exist. Europe is a continent of energetic mongrels. – H. A. L. Fisher • Recalling some of the most spectacular horrors of history – the burning of heretics and witches at the stake, the wholesale massacre of heathens, and other no less repulsive manifestations of Christian civilization in Europe and elsewhere – modern man is filled with pride in the progress accomplished, in one line at least, since the end of the dark ages of religious fanaticism. – Savitri Devi • Remember one thing – that Sweden is performing better than the rest of Europe. – Goran Persson • Romania will always defend the Roma’s right to move freely in Europe. They are European citizens and as long as there is no evidence they broke the law they should enjoy the same rights of any European citizen. – Traian Basescu • Russia will occupy most of the good food lands of central Europe while we have the industrial portions. We must find some way of persuading Russia to play ball. – Henry L. Stimson • Since creation of the E.U. a half century ago, Europe has enjoyed the longest period of peace in its history. – John Bruton • Since Europe is dependent on imports of energy and most of its raw materials, it can be subdued, if not quite conquered, without all those nuclear weapons the Soviets have aimed at it simply through the shipping routes and raw materials they control. – Barbara Amiel • Since the web is totally worldwide, we need a set of behavioural rules, laws they are commonly called, that are accepted worldwide. There is a big difference as to how things are treated in the U.S. and Europe and Asia. – Robert Cailliau • Smart, sustainable, inclusive growth is the key to job-creation and the future prosperity of Europe. – Jose Manuel Barroso • So Europe’s a big driver. And at one point, if the euro hadn’t devalued, they would have been making as much money as the US with half the stores. Returns were higher. – Jim Cantalupo • So perhaps the most worrying single remark made by a responsible banking official during the current crisis came from Jochen Sanio, the head of Germany’s banking regulator BaFin. He warned on Aug. 1 that his country could be facing the worst banking crisis since 1931 – a reference to the collapse of Austria’s Kredit Anstalt, which provoked a wave of bank failures across Europe. – Martin Walker • Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. – Steven Chu • Southern Europe has not done enough to enhance its competitiveness, while northern Europe has not done enough to boost demand. Debt burdens remain crushing, and Europe’s economy remains unable to grow. – Barry Eichengreen • Spain and southern Italy, in which Catholicism has most deeply implanted its roots, are even now, probably beyond all other countries in Europe, those in which inhumanity to animals is most wanton and unrebuked. – William Edward Hartpole Lecky • Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe. – Edmund Burke • Systems of religious error have been adopted in times of ignorance. It has been the interest of tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates to maintain these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to vanish and the people grew more enlightened, there was no other way to keep them in error but to prohibit their altering their religious opinions by severe persecuting laws. In this way persecution became general throughout Europe. – Oliver Ellsworth • Talking about a materialistic thing, I get about 13 times more royalties from Europe than I do from America. – Elliott Carter • Taming the financial markets and winning back democratic control over them is the central condition for creating a new social balance in Germany and Europe. – Sigmar Gabriel • Terrorism is an evil that threatens all the countries in Europe. Vigorous cooperation in the European Union and worldwide is crucial in order to meet this evil head on. – Jan Peter Balkenende • That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil war impossible among the various peoples which make up the European family, only a single course lies open: to constitute the United States of Europe – Mikhail Bakunin • The 1992 crisis proved that the existing system was unstable. Not moving forward to the euro would have set up Europe for even more disruptive crises. – Barry Eichengreen • The best performers in Europe are those who use their welfare states to help people adjust to change. – John Monks • The British have been more up for it than the Americans were, particularly with respect to nudity in the show. In Europe there are adverts that show the breasts, so people are less frightened of that aspect of the show. Americans can withstand incredible violence on TV shows – which, as I come from England and Canada, I find difficult to stomach – but they are more puritanical when it comes to nudity on screen. – Kim Cattrall • The children are taught more of the meanest state in Europe than of the country they are born and bred in, despite the singularity of its characteristics, the interest of its history, the rapidity of its advance, and the stupendous promise of its future. – Henry Lawson • The Christian missionary may preach the gospel to the poor naked heathen, but the spiritual heathen who populate Europe have as yet heard nothing of Christianity. – Carl Jung • The construction of Europe is an art. It is the art of the possible. – Jacques Chirac • The Drafters of the Constitution were intent on avoiding more than 100 years of religious intolerance and persecution in American colonial history and an even longer heritage of church-state problems in Europe. – John M Swomley • The driving force behind the liberal counter-offensive in Europe has been a reaction against irresponsibility. – Jacques Delors • The electronic media introduced this idea to the larger audience very, very quickly. We spent years and years and years meeting with activists all over Europe to lay the groundwork for a political response, as we did here. – Jeremy Rifkin • The EU Constitution is something new in human history. Though it is not as eloquent as the French and U.S. constitutions, it is the first governing document of its kind to expand the human franchise to the level of global consciousness. The language throughout the draft constitution speaks of universalism, making it clear that its focus is not a people, or a territory, or a nation, but rather the human race and the planet we inhabit. – Jeremy Rifkin • The European Borders Agency in Warsaw has been created to help border forces in Europe cooperate more. – Gijs de Vries • The European Union, which is not directly responsible to voters, provides an irresistible opportunity for European elites to seize power in order to impose their own vision on a newly socially regimented Europe. – Maggie Gallagher • The first time I ever saw people of any color was when D-Day left from my hometown in England, to go and free Europe from the war. And there was every color you could imagine, and I’d not seen that in England. – Richard Dawson • The fortress of Europe with its frontiers must be held and will be held too, as long as is necessary. – Heinrich Himmler • The great mistake about Europe is taking the countries seriously and letting them quarrel and drop bombs on one another. – Edmund Wilson • The immense popularity of American movies abroad demonstrates that Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof – Mary McCarthy • The military superiority of Europe to Asia is not an eternal law of nature, as we are tempted to think, and our superiority in civilization is a mere delusion. – Bertrand Russell • The more you travel, the better you get at it. It sounds silly, but with experience you learn how to pack the right way. I remember one of my first trips abroad, travelling around Europe by rail, fresh out of high school. I brought all these books with me and a paint set. I really had too much stuff, so I’ve learnt to be more economical. – Roman Coppola • The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe. – Arthur Erickson • The new century demands new partnerships for peace and security. The United Nations plays a crucial role, with allies sharing burdens America might otherwise bear alone. America needs a strong and effective U.N. I want to work with this new Congress to pay our dues and our debts. We must continue to support security and stability in Europe and Asia – expanding NATO and defining its new missions, maintaining our alliance with Japan, with Korea, with our other Asian allies, and engaging China. – William J. Clinton • The poor are the blacks of Europe. – Nicolas Chamfort • The primary goal of collectivism – of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America – is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals’ lives. This is done in the name of equality. People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. – George Will • The principle of evil in Europe is the enervating spirit of Russian absolutism. – Lajos Kossuth • The Romans spent the next 200 years using their great engineering skill to construct ruins all over Europe. – Dave Barry • The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. – Alfred North Whitehead • The separation of church and state is extremely important to any of us who holds to the original traditions of our nation. . . . To change these traditions . . . would be harmful to our whole attitude of tolerance in the religious area. If we look at situations which have arisen in the past in Europe and other world areas, I think we will see the reason why it is wise to hold to our early traditions. – Eleanor Roosevelt • The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf. – Lewis Mumford • The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages. – Freeman Dyson • The territorial state is such an ancient form of society – here in Europe it dates back thousands of years – that it is now protected by the sanctity of age and the glory of tradition. A strong religious feeling mingles with the respect and the devotion to the fatherland. – Christian Lous Lange • The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history – the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. – Josiah Strong • The tragedy of 9/11 galvanised the American superpower into action, leaving us in Europe divided in its wake. – Douglas Hurd • There are 20 million unemployed and what does the Constitution offer us in the Europe of 25, 27 and soon to be 30: policies of unrestricted competition to the detriment of production, wages, research and innovation. – Laurent Fabius • There are some great divers in Europe and I’m really excited about going to Eindhoven. – Tom Daley • There are the countries of the north of Europe taking decisions and the countries of the south of Europe that are living under intervention. This division exists. – Jose Maria Aznar • There is a grace of life which is still yours, my dear Europe. – Charles Olson • There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Dont you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers! – Winston Churchill • There is an enormous difference between Russia and Western Europe. – Herman Gorter • There is no better protection against the euro crisis than successful structural reforms in southern Europe. – Mario Draghi • There is no desire from the new British players. They say their coach doesn’t travel with them so it’s hard, but I played hundreds of players from Eastern Europe and Russia who had no facilities at all. – Tim Henman • There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House. – Herman Melville • They have some pretty tough gun laws in Japan, as they do in any other civilized country in the world, and they’re not killing each other off with firearms. You have very violent films in Europe, yet it’s not causing the mayhem we see in our streets routinely here. – Michael D. Barnes • This film business, perhaps more so in America than in Europe, has always been about young sexuality. It’s not true of theatre, but in America, film audiences are young. It’s not an intellectual cinema in America. – Jacqueline Bisset • This revision of the Constitution will not be perfect. But at least the Constitution will not be inflexible. It will be a step towards the Social Europe which we wish. – Laurent Fabius • To be in Florence is to reflect on Europe’s intricate diversity – and its lost creativity. – Timothy Garton Ash • To enter Europe, you must have a valid passport with a photograph of yourself in which you look like you are being booked on charges of soliciting sheep. – Dave Barry • To persuade thinking persons in Eastern Europe that Central American Marxists – the Sandinistas, the guerillas in El Salvador – are in absurd and tragic error is not difficult. Poles and Czechs and Hungarians can hardly believe, after what they experienced under socialism, that other human beings would fall for the same bundle of lies, half-truths, and distortions. Sadly, however, illusion is often sweeter to human taste than reality. The last marxist in the world will probably be an American nun. – Michael Novak • To the chefs who pioneered the nouvelle cuisine in France, the ancienne cuisine they were rebelling against looked timeless, primordial, old as the hills. But the cookbook record proves that the haute cuisine codified early in this century by Escoffier barely goes back to Napoleon’s time. Before that, French food is not recognizable as French to modern eyes. Europe’s menu before 1700 was completely different from its menu after 1800, when national cuisines arose along with modern nations and national cultures. – Raymond Sokolov • To understand Europe, you have to be a genius – or French. – Madeleine Albright • Today, Germany is on the borders of Europe everywhere. – Heinrich Himmler • We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed, to forget the feuds of a thousand years and work for the larger harmonies on which the future depends. – Winston Churchill • We are the country that has attracted the biggest volume of foreign investment in southeastern Europe in the past few years. Romania doesn’t need to beat itself, believing that it is a second-class citizen. – Traian Basescu • We cannot calculate the numbers of people who left, fled or were fished out of Europe just ahead of the Holocaust. – Gene Tierney • We don’t mind having sanctions banning us from Europe. We are not Europeans. – Robert Mugabe • We go to Europe to be Americanized. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe. – Dan Quayle • We must rid this nation of the United Nations, which provides the communist conspiracy with a headquarters here on our own shores, and which actually makes it impossible for the United States to form its own decisions about its conduct and policies in Europe and Asia. – John T. Flynn • We stayed in some pretty shabby places in Europe. – Phil Collins • We swear we are not going to abandon the struggle until the Last Jew in Europe has been exterminated and is actually dead. It is not enough to isolate the Jewish enemy of mankind – the Jew has got to be exterminated! – Robert Ley • Well, I have concerns about the effectiveness of Europe to compete. – John Major • Well, what there ought to be is an international labor organization, a confederation of the trade unions of all the countries speaking for the workers who are competing with one another, and talking about the difference in wage levels between, say, Europe and Indonesia. – Richard Rorty • What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy. – Margaret Thatcher • Whatever else may divide us, Europe is our common home; a common fate has linked us through the centuries, and it continues to link us today. – Leonid Brezhnev • When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time. – Michael Tilson Thomas • When I go to farms or little towns, I am always surprised at the discontent I find. And New York, too often, has looked across the sea toward Europe. And all of us who turn our eyes away from what we have are missing life. – Norman Rockwell • When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don’t like it you can change it. – Tony Benn • When I search for Man in the technique and the style of Europe, I see only a succession of negations of man, and an avalanche of murders. – Frantz Fanon • When I’ve seen my operas in Europe, they have always struck me as more American than when I hear them here. I can’t tell you what that phenomenon is. – Carlisle Floyd • When we fled from the oppressions of kings and parliaments in Europe, to found this great Republic in America, we brought with us the laws and the liberties, which formed a part of our heritage as Britons. – Caleb Cushing • Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos. – Adolf Hitler • Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong: it is a geographical expression. – Otto von Bismarck • With Christianity, freedom and equality became the two basic concepts of Europe; they are themselves Europe. – Peter Drucker • With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. – Lee Kuan Yew • With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right – it does look like that. – David McCullough • Without Britain, Europe would remain only a torso. – Ludwig Erhard • Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world. – Charles de Gaulle • You either believe in Europe at any price: in other words we have to be in Europe at any price because you can’t survive without it, or you don’t. If you don’t it tends to suggest there is a price which you are not willing to pay. – Liam Fox • You, the Spirit of the Settlement! … Not understand that America is God’s crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here, you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. – Israel Zangwill • Your map of Africa is really quite nice. But my map of Africa lies in Europe. Here is Russia, and here… is France, and we’re in the middle – that’s my map of Africa. – Otto von Bismarck

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Europe Quotes

Official Website: Europe Quotes

  • A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood… A day will come when we shall see… the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas. – Victor Hugo • A relatively small and eternally quarrelsome country in Western Europe, fountainhead of rationalist political manias, militarily impotent, historically inglorious during the past century, democratically bankrupt, Communist-infiltrated from top to bottom. – William F. Buckley, Jr. • Accordingly the Northern races of Europe found their inspiration in the Bible; and the enthusiasm for it has not yet quite faded away. – Lafcadio Hearn • Africa north of the Sahara, from a zoological point of view, is now, and has been since early Tertiary times, a part of Europe. This is true both of animals and of the races of man. – Madison Grant • After being boxed in by man and his constructions in Europe and the East, the release into space is exhilarating. The horizon is a huge remote circle, and no hills intervene. – Jacques Barzun • All black people who are even minimally conscious, black people who have ever experienced Europe’s technological power crusading in the vanguard of a civilizing mission, have profound feelings of inferiority and bitterly regret the fact that the Industrial Revolution did not agreeably commence in Dahomey or Dakar. Nothing is achieved by concealing this fact. – Lewis Nkosi • And everything stopped quite rapidly because I knew that nobody in Europe was able to go to space. It was the privilege of being either American or Russian. – Philippe Perrin • Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere in the world. We are losing our first-line antimicrobials. Replacement treatments are more costly, more toxic, need much longer durations of treatment, and may require treatment in intensive care units. – Margaret Chan • Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. – Eleanor Roosevelt • As an observer of markets – whenever everyone focuses on one thing – like Greece and Europe – maybe they miss issues that are far more important – such as a meaningful slowdown in India and China. – Marc Faber • Asia’s crowded and Europe’s too old, Africa is far too hot and Canada’s too cold. And South America stole our name, let’s drop the big one. – Randy Newman • Aside from rabid Islamists, no one who wishes to be taken seriously can publicly say anything bad about the old Jews of Europe without sounding like reactionary troglodytes. – Jacob T. Schwartz • Asking Europe to disarm is like asking a man in Chicago to give up his life insurance. – Will Rogers

• Be advised that there is no parking in Europe. – Dave Barry • Being and working in America, it’s very important to work hard, work smart and work in a certain way. France and Europe has, with the tradition and culture, it’s slow-moving and it’s not always good. – Mireille Guiliano • Being away from home gave me the chance to look at myself with a jaundiced eye. I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something I had always tried to hide, and I came home glad to start in here again with a love for Europe that I am afraid will never leave me. – Jackie Kennedy • But Maastricht was not the end of history. It was a first step towards a Europe of growth, of employment, a social Europe. That was the vision of Francois Mitterrand. We are far from that now. – Laurent Fabius • But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. – Edmund Burke • But, I’ve made films in Japan, in Yugoslavia, all over Europe, all over the United States, Mexico, but not Hollywood. – Sydney Pollack • Certainly the existence of these huge nuclear force was important for the ultimate confrontation, let’s say, over western Europe. You just can’t use them to deal with a situation like Afghanistan. – Lloyd Cutler • Civilization – and by this I do not mean talking cinemas and tinned food, nor even surgery and hygienic houses, but the whole moral and artistic organization of Europe – has not in itself the power of survival. It came into being through Christianity, and without it has no significance or power to command allegiance … It is no longer possible, as it was in the time of Gibbon, to accept the benefits of civilization and at the same time deny the supernatural basis on which it rests … Christianity … is in greater need of combative strength than it has been for centuries. – Evelyn Waugh • Companies in Europe should stop trying to do the U.S. version of a European idea. – Guy Kawasaki • Croatia did not want Europe to be divided as to the start of Croatia’s EU entry talks. – Stjepan Mesic • Does this boat go to Europe, France? – Anita Loos • Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe. – Jackie Mason • Europe and the U.K. are yesterday’s world. Tomorrow is in the United States. – Tiny Rowland • Europe cannot confine itself to the cultivation of its own garden. – Juan Carlos I of Spain • Europe cannot survive another world war. – Christian Lous Lange • Europe extends to the Alleghenies; America lies beyond. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Europe has a long and tragic history of mostly domestic terrorism. – Gijs de Vries • Europe has to address people’s needs directly and reflect their priorities, not our own preoccupations. – Peter Mandelson • Europe has united, China is growing speedily and Russia possesses immense power in terms of fuel resources. The US administration cannot do anything about it. – Vladimir Zhirinovsky • Europe has what we [Americans] do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a sense of life’s possibilities. – James A. Baldwin • Europe is a collection of free countries. – Douglas J. Feith • Europe is and will be a Union of States. – Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero • Europe is good at many things, which is why we are the largest exporter in the world. Thirty million people in Europe are employed in making our exports of goods and services. Just under 900 thousand of them are in Sweden. – Cecilia Malmstrom • Europe is so much the home of Horror, with its myths of vampires, werewolves, witchcraft and the undead, yet it’s like those myths were exported to Hollywood, leaving Europe the room to develop a new tradition as a way of processing its traumas, particularly the two world wars. – Mark Gatiss • Europe itself is an embodiment of this diversity. – Ulrich Beck • Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility. – Napoleon Bonaparte • Europe to me is young people trying to appear middle-aged and middle-aged people trying to appear young. – Mike Myers • Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy. – Margaret Thatcher • Ever since the Crusades, when Christians from western Europe were fighting holy wars against Muslims in the near east, western people have often perceived Islam as a violent and intolerant faith – even though when this prejudice took root Islam had a better record of tolerance than Christianity. – Karen Armstrong • Every time Europe looks across the Atlantic to see the American Eagle, it observes only the rear end of an ostrich. – H. G. Wells • Fascism is the result of the collapse of Europe’s spiritual and social order… catastrophes broke through the everyday routine which makes men accept existing forms, institutions and tenets as unalterable natural laws. They suddenly exposed the vacuum behind the facade of society. – Peter Drucker • For years, European leaders have pointed out that Europe is an economic giant, but a military pygmy. – George Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen • For years, we’ve grown dependant on American consumers as the world’s spenders of last resort. They’ve kept Europe out of recession, allowed China to industrialise, and prevented global deflation. But at the same time, they’ve not been looking after their own futures. – Evan Davis • France and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing, though, is that people there know how to live! In America they’ve forgotten all about it. I’m afraid that the American culture is a disaster. – Johnny Depp • From the dome of St. Peter’s one can see every notable object in Rome… He can see a panorama that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and more illustrious in history than any other in Europe. – Mark Twain • Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence. – Benjamin Franklin • Germany is probably the richest country in Western Europe. Yet they wouldn’t take any television with Duke and Ella, their reaction being that people weren’t interested in it. – Norman Granz • Greater inequality in Europe has made people less happy. – Derek Bok • Guy Peellaert was to Europe what Andy Warhol was to America – except Guy had more talent! – Jim Steranko • He is not someone who went off to play in Europe and only a few Americans follow. He has the potential to be on magazine covers and more newspaper coverage. – Lamar Hunt • Hot, dry katabatic winds, like the south foehn in Europe, the sharav in the Middle East, and the Santa Ana of Southern California, are all believed to have a decided effect on human behavior and are associated with such health problems as migraines, depression, lethargy, and moodiness. Some scientists say that this is a myth. – Tim Cahill • I am a committed European; a united Europe is Romania’s future. – Victor Ponta • I am busy touring all over Europe, Japan, and Australia. – Suzi Quatro • I am not 100% English, I am actually part Italian and even part Hungarian. Therefore I feel very much part of Europe both in my upbringing and outlook. – Bruce Bennett • I am proud of the fact that women have been recognised as being as capable, as able to do the senior jobs in Europe as any man. – Catherine Ashton • I am very proud to be a part of the Livestrong Foundation. I am maybe only a member but I give everything I can to be sure that people understand that cancer is a disease for everybody – not only in France, in Europe, in Asia, it is all over the world. We must fight together, we must make something to fight the cancer, we must Livestrong. – Gregoire Akcelrod • I believe only in French culture and consider everything in Europe that calls itself ‘culture’ a misunderstanding, not to speak of German culture. – Friedrich Nietzsche • I believe that Europe without Britain at the heart will be less reform-driven, less open, less international Europe. – Jose Manuel Barroso • I can only paint in India. Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque India belongs only to me. – Amrita Sher-Gil • I come from a small town and I come from a background where we didn’t have money to travel. I thought I’d have to join the military to get to Europe. So I’m thrilled to travel. – Chris Isaak • I defy anyone – and I have said this to the Germans – to build a solid, articulated, and viable Europe without France’s consent. – Pierre Laval • I enjoyed the two years I was with Clannad. I enjoyed touring. We toured a lot in Europe. – Enya • I expect that my readers have been to Europe, I expect them to have some feeling for a foreign language, I expect them to have read books – there are a lot of people like that! That’s my audience. – Alan Furst • I feel fully decided that we should all go to Europe together and to work as if an established Partnership for Life consisting of Husband Wife and Children. – John James Audubon • I got the travel bug when I was quite young. My parents took me and my sisters out of school and we travelled all over Europe. It was an eye-opening experience and, although I love Norway, I also enjoy visiting new countries. I don’t get homesick. – Magnus Carlsen • I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from. – Eddie Izzard • I had always been fascinated by the whole idea that Australia was this different ecology and that when rabbits and prickly pears and other things from Europe were introduced into Australia, they ran amok. – David Gerrold • I have to come to terms with the paternalism of American business. Companies are expected to take on so many social responsibilities which are the province of the state in Europe. – Nick Denton • I have visited some places where the differences between black and white are not as profound as they used to be, but I think there is a new form of racism growing in Europe and that is focused on people who are Middle Eastern. I see it. – Montel Williams • I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. – Susan Sontag • I haven’t travelled that much before so this is the first time I get to see the big cities of Europe. I’ve never even been to US. – Ville Valo • I just went off for two months traveling around Europe on a motorcycle and pretty much turned my phone off. I did 5,000 miles with my dad. We went through Holland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Italy… and then I did Spain and France by myself. – Michael Fassbender • I learned that you can make a sci-fi film that is satisfying overseas. European people have everything in check. I’d make every sci-fi film in Europe. They only work 14 hours a day. After that, it’s overtime. – Michelle Rodriguez • I might have played a little bit more in Europe than I have in Japan. – Billy Higgins • I must walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that way the nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progress from east to west. We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. – Henry David Thoreau • I notice that teams are now more interested in Japanese players than when I first went to Europe. – Hidetoshi Nakata • I said, yet again, for Germany, Europe is not only indispensable, it is part and parcel of our identity. We’ve always said German unity, European unity and integration, that’s two parts of one and the same coin. But we want, obviously, to boost our competitiveness. – Angela Merkel • I saw what Purple meant to people and I still hear it now when I’m in Europe. I’m always shocked that I’m still asked about Purple because it was such a long time ago. – David Coverdale • I started writing and photographing for different publications and finally ended up being the correspondent in South Asia, for the Geneva-based Journal de Geneve, which at one time used to be one of the best international newspapers in Europe. – Francois Gautier • I still get invitations from all over Europe to speak at dinners, and it’s an honour that promoters and charities can use me to create income. – Frank Bruno • I think it does work. The fact that the law is there and injustices can be rectified, I think has a lot to do with the fact that the people in this country aren’t as frustrated as they are in some of these places in Eastern Europe and don’t resort to violent revolution. – Harold H. Greene • I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, Al Qaeda is still a threat. – Barack Obama �� I think that after Church got his Ph.D. he studied in Europe, maybe in the Netherlands, for a year or two. – Stephen Cole Kleene • I think the race went as well as it could and I drove well to finish sixth. The chassis is working better and through the corners we are more or less there; we’ll move onto Europe and see if we can get further up the grid and keep improving. The weekend went pretty smooth for me until the end of the race, I don’t know what happened, but the team will have a look at it. – Daniel Ricciardo • I turn my eyes to the schools & universities of Europe And there behold the loom of Locke whose woof rages dire, Washed by the water-wheels of Newton. Black the cloth In heavy wreaths folds over every nation; cruel works Of many wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic Moving by compulsion each other: not as those in Eden, which Wheel within wheel in freedom revolve, in harmony & peace. – William Blake • I want the whole of Europe to have one currency; it will make trading much easier. – Napoleon Bonaparte • I was in Europe and it was at this stage that I fell in love with Americans in uniform. And I continue to have that love affair. – Madeleine Albright • I was with a folk trio back in ’63 and ’64, and we traveled all across North Africa, Israel, and Europe. – Creed Bratton • If Berlin fell, the US would lose Europe, and if Europe fell into the hands of the Soviet Union and thus added its great industrial plant to the USSR’s already great industrial plant, the United States would be reduced to the character of a garrison state if it were to survive at all. – Dwight D. Eisenhower • If Ireland is to become a new Ireland she must first become European. – James Joyce • If it was Europe that gave us on the coast some idea of our history, it was Europe, I feel, that also introduced us to the lie. – V. S. Naipaul • If Russia shuts off central Asia and the Caspian Sea from Europe, the European allies of the United States will be totally dependent on Russian gas and energy. – Mikhail Saakashvili • If there is one thing Britain should learn from the last 50 years, it is this: Europe can only get more important for us. – Tony Blair • If you look at most of the Royal Houses in Europe, the inbreeding was pretty outstanding. – Nikolaj Coster-Waldau • I’m not prepared to have someone tell me there is only one view of what Europe is. Europe isn’t owned by any of them, Europe is owned by all of us. – Tony Blair • Important as economic unification is for the recovery of Germany and of Europe, the German people must recognize that the basic cause of their suffering and distress is the war which the Nazi dictatorship brought upon the world. – James F. Byrnes • In 1990 we ran across Europe through 13 countries and covering 7,130 miles. – Dennis Banks • In 2012, the far-right Golden Dawn won 21 seats in Greece’s parliamentary election, the right-wing Jobbik gained ground in my native Hungary, and the National Front’s Marine Le Pen received strong backing in France’s presidential election. Growing support for similar forces across Europe points to an inescapable conclusion: the continent’s prolonged financial crisis is creating a crisis of values that is now threatening the European Union itself. – George Soros • In a few hundred years you have achieved in America what it took thousands of years to achieve in Europe. – David McCallum • In America, they shoot budgets and schedules, and they don’t shoot films any more. There’s more opportunity in Europe to make films that at least have a purity of intent. – Paul Bettany • In Europe and Australia, there is something called the Tall Poppy Syndrome: People like to cut the tall poppies. They don’t want you to succeed, and they cut you down – especially people from your own social class. – Mark Burnett • In Europe you learn not to fail, and in America you fail to learn. You need failure. – Hartmut Esslinger • In Europe, where human relations like clothes are supposed to last, one’s got to be wearable. In France one has to be interesting, in Italy pleasant, in England one has to fit. – Sybille Bedford • In Hamburg, there are three major orchestras, an opera house, and one of the great concert-hall acoustics in Europe at the Laeiszhalle, in a town a fifth the size of London. And that’s not unusual. In Germany, there are dozens of towns with two or three orchestras. The connection with music goes very, very deep. – Jeffrey Tate • In London it had seemed impossible to travel without the proper evening clothes. One could see an invitation arriving for an Embassy ball or something. But on the other side of Europe with the first faint tinges of faraway places becoming apparent and exciting, to say nothing of vanishing roads and extra weight, Embassy balls held less significance. – Robert Edison Fulton, Jr. • In Old Europe and Ancient Crete, women were respected for their roles in the discovery of agriculture and for inventing the arts of weaving and pottery making. – Carol P. Christ • In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945. – Queen Elizabeth II • In the beginning, New York and I had kind of a love-hate relationship. It seemed so abrasive compared to Europe. But the transformation here in recent years is really something. I don’t think I would have seen as much change if I’d lived in any other city in the world. – Shalom Harlow • In the last quarter of the eighteenth century bourgeois Europe needed to emancipate itself from that combination of feudalism and commercial capitalism which we know as mercantilism. – C. L. R. James • In the villages in Europe, there are still healers who tell stories. – Yannick Noah • In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world – in America first but also in Europe – has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance. – Wim Wenders • In this country, the health concerns and the environmental concerns are as deep as in Europe. All the surveys show that. But here, we didn’t have the cultural dimension. This is a fast-food culture. – Jeremy Rifkin • Information and inspiration are everywhere… history, art, architecture, everything an illustrator needs. Europe is, after all, the land that has generated most of the enduring myths and legends of Western culture. – John Howe • Internal protectionism in Europe would be deadly, really a disaster for European economies. – Jose Manuel Barroso • It does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature. Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along the shore. – Margaret Fuller • It is hard to imagine that, having downgraded the US, S & P will not follow suit on at least one of the other members of the dwindling club of sovereign AAAs. If this were to materialise and involve a country like France, for example, it could complicate the already fragile efforts by Europe to rescue countries in its periphery. – Mohamed El-Erian • It is in order that France may find her place in the new Europe that you will respond to my appeal. – Pierre Laval • It is not to save capitalism that we fight in Russia … It is for a revolution of our own. … If Europe were to become once more the Europe of bankers, of fat corrupt bourgeoisies we should prefer Communism to win and destroy everything. We would rather have it all blow up than see this rottenness resplendent. Europe fights in Russia because it [i.e., Fascist Europe] is Socialist. what interests us most in the war is the revolution to follow The war cannot end without the triumph of Socialist revolution. – Leon Degrelle • It may be said that modern Europe with teachers who inform it that its realist instincts are beautiful, acts ill and honors what is ill. – Julien Benda • It’s been President Clinton’s dream that we’ll have finally a fully integrated Europe. – Warren Christopher • It’s hard to explain why I like Europe so much. – Broderick Crawford • It’s like night and day… to do business, in Europe, there is no bull, they are pretty straightforward. – Caprice Bourret • It’s monstrous that Europe, which is fighting for human rights, refused seriously sick Slobodan Milosevic treatment. – Vladimir Zhirinovsky • I’ve always held the view that great states need strategic space. I mean, George Washington took his space from George III. Britain took it from just about everybody. Russia took all of Eastern Europe. Germany’s taken it from everywhere they can, and China will want its space too. – Paul Keating • I’ve always liked traveling around Europe and seeing the architecture. The buildings in capital cities have been there for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Some look better than the new ones. – Joe Elliott • I’ve never really taken more than four days off, so it was a lot for me to go away for three-and-a-half months. I went all over Europe. I walked on a whole bunch of beaches and I did a lot of thinking. – Puff Daddy • I’ve worked behind counters serving food, and I’ve lived on the circus train, and I’ve led bicycle tours in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and Russia. I’ve been a key liner for a newspaper, I’ve done typesetting. Oh, all sorts of things. – Bonnie Jo Campbell • Japanese architecture is very much copied in this country and in Europe. – Minoru Yamasaki • Jesus was not a white man; He was not a black man. He came from that part of the world that touches Africa and Asia and Europe. Christianity is not a white man’s religion and don’t let anybody ever tell you that it’s white or black. Christ belongs to all people; He belongs to the whole world. – Billy Graham • Kosovo today is closer to Europe than other countries in the region of South Eastern Europe. – Ibrahim Rugova • Leisure was the sine qua non of the full Renaissance. The feudal nobility, having lost its martial function, sought diversion all over Europe in cultivated pastimes: sonneteering, the lute, games and acrostics, travel, gentlemanly studies and sports, hunting and hawking, treated as arts. – Mary McCarthy • Maimed but still magnificent… Europe’s mightiest medieval cathedral. – R. W. Apple • Many upscale American parents somehow think jobs like their own are part of the nation’s natural order. They are not. In Europe, they have already discovered that, and many there have accepted the new small-growth, small-jobs reality. Will we? – Daniel Henninger • Margaret Thatcher was fearful of German unification because she believed that this would bring an immediate and formidable increase of economic strength to a Germany which was already the strongest economic partner in Europe. – Douglas Hurd • Maybe this will be the beginning of a trend? Flat taxes, cutting foreign aid, a referendum on Europe, grammar schools. Who knows? – Nigel Farage • Modern Existentialism… is a total European creation, perhaps the last philosophic legacy of Europe to America or whatever other civilization is now on its way to supplant Europe. – William Barrett • Morality in Europe today is herd-morality – Friedrich Nietzsche • More and more do I see that only a successful revolution in India can break England’s back forever and free Europe itself. It is not a national question concerning India any longer; it is purely international. – Agnes Smedley • More than 95 percent of both legal and illegal immigration into the United States is non-white. Because of the way immigration law is structured, the highest-skilled nations on earth – those of Europe – are allowed only a tiny percentage of immigrants, while the third world nations such as Mexico are dumping their chaff onto American shores at the highest rate in history. – David Duke • More than any other in Western Europe, Britain remains a country where a traveler has to think twice before indulging in the ordinary food of ordinary people. – Joseph Lelyveld • Most Americans will be horrified that President Obama is compromising our deterrent to chemical and biological attacks on this country. Our allies will also be troubled by his aspiration to eliminate U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. – Frank Gaffney • Mother’s taste was eclectic and ranged from the ancient world to the contemporary from Europe to the U.S. – David Rockefeller • Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! – Ronald Reagan • Much of America is now in need of an equivalent of Mrs. Thatcher’s privatization program in 1980s Britain, or post-Soviet Eastern Europe’s economic liberalization in the early Nineties. It’s hard to close down government bodies, but it should be possible to sell them off. And a side benefit to outsourcing the Bureau of Government Agencies and the Agency of Government Bureaus is that you’d also be privatizing public-sector unions, which are the biggest and most direct assault on freedom, civic integrity, and fiscal solvency. – Mark Steyn • Obviously, there is diversity, but Europe is a union of diversity. – Jean-Pierre Raffarin • Of course, the simple explanation of the fact is that marriage is the most important act of man’s life in Europe or America, and that everything depends upon it. – Lafcadio Hearn • Only recently, during the nineteenth century, and then only in Europe, do we meet forms of the state which have been created by a deliberate national feeling. – Christian Lous Lange • Playing Chelsea is as tough a test as you’ll get in Europe these days. – Michael Carrick • Political union means transferring the prerogatives of national legislatures to the European parliament, which would then decide how to structure Europe’s fiscal, banking, and monetary union. – Barry Eichengreen • Purity of race does not exist. Europe is a continent of energetic mongrels. – H. A. L. Fisher • Recalling some of the most spectacular horrors of history – the burning of heretics and witches at the stake, the wholesale massacre of heathens, and other no less repulsive manifestations of Christian civilization in Europe and elsewhere – modern man is filled with pride in the progress accomplished, in one line at least, since the end of the dark ages of religious fanaticism. – Savitri Devi • Remember one thing – that Sweden is performing better than the rest of Europe. – Goran Persson • Romania will always defend the Roma’s right to move freely in Europe. They are European citizens and as long as there is no evidence they broke the law they should enjoy the same rights of any European citizen. – Traian Basescu • Russia will occupy most of the good food lands of central Europe while we have the industrial portions. We must find some way of persuading Russia to play ball. – Henry L. Stimson • Since creation of the E.U. a half century ago, Europe has enjoyed the longest period of peace in its history. – John Bruton • Since Europe is dependent on imports of energy and most of its raw materials, it can be subdued, if not quite conquered, without all those nuclear weapons the Soviets have aimed at it simply through the shipping routes and raw materials they control. – Barbara Amiel • Since the web is totally worldwide, we need a set of behavioural rules, laws they are commonly called, that are accepted worldwide. There is a big difference as to how things are treated in the U.S. and Europe and Asia. – Robert Cailliau • Smart, sustainable, inclusive growth is the key to job-creation and the future prosperity of Europe. – Jose Manuel Barroso • So Europe’s a big driver. And at one point, if the euro hadn’t devalued, they would have been making as much money as the US with half the stores. Returns were higher. – Jim Cantalupo • So perhaps the most worrying single remark made by a responsible banking official during the current crisis came from Jochen Sanio, the head of Germany’s banking regulator BaFin. He warned on Aug. 1 that his country could be facing the worst banking crisis since 1931 – a reference to the collapse of Austria’s Kredit Anstalt, which provoked a wave of bank failures across Europe. – Martin Walker • Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. – Steven Chu • Southern Europe has not done enough to enhance its competitiveness, while northern Europe has not done enough to boost demand. Debt burdens remain crushing, and Europe’s economy remains unable to grow. – Barry Eichengreen • Spain and southern Italy, in which Catholicism has most deeply implanted its roots, are even now, probably beyond all other countries in Europe, those in which inhumanity to animals is most wanton and unrebuked. – William Edward Hartpole Lecky • Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe. – Edmund Burke • Systems of religious error have been adopted in times of ignorance. It has been the interest of tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates to maintain these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to vanish and the people grew more enlightened, there was no other way to keep them in error but to prohibit their altering their religious opinions by severe persecuting laws. In this way persecution became general throughout Europe. – Oliver Ellsworth • Talking about a materialistic thing, I get about 13 times more royalties from Europe than I do from America. – Elliott Carter • Taming the financial markets and winning back democratic control over them is the central condition for creating a new social balance in Germany and Europe. – Sigmar Gabriel • Terrorism is an evil that threatens all the countries in Europe. Vigorous cooperation in the European Union and worldwide is crucial in order to meet this evil head on. – Jan Peter Balkenende • That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil war impossible among the various peoples which make up the European family, only a single course lies open: to constitute the United States of Europe – Mikhail Bakunin • The 1992 crisis proved that the existing system was unstable. Not moving forward to the euro would have set up Europe for even more disruptive crises. – Barry Eichengreen • The best performers in Europe are those who use their welfare states to help people adjust to change. – John Monks • The British have been more up for it than the Americans were, particularly with respect to nudity in the show. In Europe there are adverts that show the breasts, so people are less frightened of that aspect of the show. Americans can withstand incredible violence on TV shows – which, as I come from England and Canada, I find difficult to stomach – but they are more puritanical when it comes to nudity on screen. – Kim Cattrall • The children are taught more of the meanest state in Europe than of the country they are born and bred in, despite the singularity of its characteristics, the interest of its history, the rapidity of its advance, and the stupendous promise of its future. – Henry Lawson • The Christian missionary may preach the gospel to the poor naked heathen, but the spiritual heathen who populate Europe have as yet heard nothing of Christianity. – Carl Jung • The construction of Europe is an art. It is the art of the possible. – Jacques Chirac • The Drafters of the Constitution were intent on avoiding more than 100 years of religious intolerance and persecution in American colonial history and an even longer heritage of church-state problems in Europe. – John M Swomley • The driving force behind the liberal counter-offensive in Europe has been a reaction against irresponsibility. – Jacques Delors • The electronic media introduced this idea to the larger audience very, very quickly. We spent years and years and years meeting with activists all over Europe to lay the groundwork for a political response, as we did here. – Jeremy Rifkin • The EU Constitution is something new in human history. Though it is not as eloquent as the French and U.S. constitutions, it is the first governing document of its kind to expand the human franchise to the level of global consciousness. The language throughout the draft constitution speaks of universalism, making it clear that its focus is not a people, or a territory, or a nation, but rather the human race and the planet we inhabit. – Jeremy Rifkin • The European Borders Agency in Warsaw has been created to help border forces in Europe cooperate more. – Gijs de Vries • The European Union, which is not directly responsible to voters, provides an irresistible opportunity for European elites to seize power in order to impose their own vision on a newly socially regimented Europe. – Maggie Gallagher • The first time I ever saw people of any color was when D-Day left from my hometown in England, to go and free Europe from the war. And there was every color you could imagine, and I’d not seen that in England. – Richard Dawson • The fortress of Europe with its frontiers must be held and will be held too, as long as is necessary. – Heinrich Himmler • The great mistake about Europe is taking the countries seriously and letting them quarrel and drop bombs on one another. – Edmund Wilson • The immense popularity of American movies abroad demonstrates that Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof – Mary McCarthy • The military superiority of Europe to Asia is not an eternal law of nature, as we are tempted to think, and our superiority in civilization is a mere delusion. – Bertrand Russell • The more you travel, the better you get at it. It sounds silly, but with experience you learn how to pack the right way. I remember one of my first trips abroad, travelling around Europe by rail, fresh out of high school. I brought all these books with me and a paint set. I really had too much stuff, so I’ve learnt to be more economical. – Roman Coppola • The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe. – Arthur Erickson • The new century demands new partnerships for peace and security. The United Nations plays a crucial role, with allies sharing burdens America might otherwise bear alone. America needs a strong and effective U.N. I want to work with this new Congress to pay our dues and our debts. We must continue to support security and stability in Europe and Asia – expanding NATO and defining its new missions, maintaining our alliance with Japan, with Korea, with our other Asian allies, and engaging China. – William J. Clinton • The poor are the blacks of Europe. – Nicolas Chamfort • The primary goal of collectivism – of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America – is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals’ lives. This is done in the name of equality. People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. – George Will • The principle of evil in Europe is the enervating spirit of Russian absolutism. – Lajos Kossuth • The Romans spent the next 200 years using their great engineering skill to construct ruins all over Europe. – Dave Barry • The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. – Alfred North Whitehead • The separation of church and state is extremely important to any of us who holds to the original traditions of our nation. . . . To change these traditions . . . would be harmful to our whole attitude of tolerance in the religious area. If we look at situations which have arisen in the past in Europe and other world areas, I think we will see the reason why it is wise to hold to our early traditions. – Eleanor Roosevelt • The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf. – Lewis Mumford • The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. Nobody knows who invented hay, the idea of cutting grass in the autumn and storing it in large enough quantities to keep horses and cows alive through the winter. All we know is that the technology of hay was unknown to the Roman Empire but was known to every village of medieval Europe. Like many other crucially important technologies, hay emerged anonymously during the so-called Dark Ages. – Freeman Dyson • The territorial state is such an ancient form of society – here in Europe it dates back thousands of years – that it is now protected by the sanctity of age and the glory of tradition. A strong religious feeling mingles with the respect and the devotion to the fatherland. – Christian Lous Lange • The time is coming when the pressure of population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter upon a new stage of its history – the final competition of races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. – Josiah Strong • The tragedy of 9/11 galvanised the American superpower into action, leaving us in Europe divided in its wake. – Douglas Hurd • There are 20 million unemployed and what does the Constitution offer us in the Europe of 25, 27 and soon to be 30: policies of unrestricted competition to the detriment of production, wages, research and innovation. – Laurent Fabius • There are some great divers in Europe and I’m really excited about going to Eindhoven. – Tom Daley • There are the countries of the north of Europe taking decisions and the countries of the south of Europe that are living under intervention. This division exists. – Jose Maria Aznar • There is a grace of life which is still yours, my dear Europe. – Charles Olson • There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Dont you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers! – Winston Churchill • There is an enormous difference between Russia and Western Europe. – Herman Gorter • There is no better protection against the euro crisis than successful structural reforms in southern Europe. – Mario Draghi • There is no desire from the new British players. They say their coach doesn’t travel with them so it’s hard, but I played hundreds of players from Eastern Europe and Russia who had no facilities at all. – Tim Henman • There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House. – Herman Melville • They have some pretty tough gun laws in Japan, as they do in any other civilized country in the world, and they’re not killing each other off with firearms. You have very violent films in Europe, yet it’s not causing the mayhem we see in our streets routinely here. – Michael D. Barnes • This film business, perhaps more so in America than in Europe, has always been about young sexuality. It’s not true of theatre, but in America, film audiences are young. It’s not an intellectual cinema in America. – Jacqueline Bisset • This revision of the Constitution will not be perfect. But at least the Constitution will not be inflexible. It will be a step towards the Social Europe which we wish. – Laurent Fabius • To be in Florence is to reflect on Europe’s intricate diversity – and its lost creativity. – Timothy Garton Ash • To enter Europe, you must have a valid passport with a photograph of yourself in which you look like you are being booked on charges of soliciting sheep. – Dave Barry • To persuade thinking persons in Eastern Europe that Central American Marxists – the Sandinistas, the guerillas in El Salvador – are in absurd and tragic error is not difficult. Poles and Czechs and Hungarians can hardly believe, after what they experienced under socialism, that other human beings would fall for the same bundle of lies, half-truths, and distortions. Sadly, however, illusion is often sweeter to human taste than reality. The last marxist in the world will probably be an American nun. – Michael Novak • To the chefs who pioneered the nouvelle cuisine in France, the ancienne cuisine they were rebelling against looked timeless, primordial, old as the hills. But the cookbook record proves that the haute cuisine codified early in this century by Escoffier barely goes back to Napoleon’s time. Before that, French food is not recognizable as French to modern eyes. Europe’s menu before 1700 was completely different from its menu after 1800, when national cuisines arose along with modern nations and national cultures. – Raymond Sokolov • To understand Europe, you have to be a genius – or French. – Madeleine Albright • Today, Germany is on the borders of Europe everywhere. – Heinrich Himmler • We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed, to forget the feuds of a thousand years and work for the larger harmonies on which the future depends. – Winston Churchill • We are the country that has attracted the biggest volume of foreign investment in southeastern Europe in the past few years. Romania doesn’t need to beat itself, believing that it is a second-class citizen. – Traian Basescu • We cannot calculate the numbers of people who left, fled or were fished out of Europe just ahead of the Holocaust. – Gene Tierney • We don’t mind having sanctions banning us from Europe. We are not Europeans. – Robert Mugabe • We go to Europe to be Americanized. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe. – Dan Quayle • We must rid this nation of the United Nations, which provides the communist conspiracy with a headquarters here on our own shores, and which actually makes it impossible for the United States to form its own decisions about its conduct and policies in Europe and Asia. – John T. Flynn • We stayed in some pretty shabby places in Europe. – Phil Collins • We swear we are not going to abandon the struggle until the Last Jew in Europe has been exterminated and is actually dead. It is not enough to isolate the Jewish enemy of mankind – the Jew has got to be exterminated! – Robert Ley • Well, I have concerns about the effectiveness of Europe to compete. – John Major • Well, what there ought to be is an international labor organization, a confederation of the trade unions of all the countries speaking for the workers who are competing with one another, and talking about the difference in wage levels between, say, Europe and Indonesia. – Richard Rorty • What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy. – Margaret Thatcher • Whatever else may divide us, Europe is our common home; a common fate has linked us through the centuries, and it continues to link us today. – Leonid Brezhnev • When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time. – Michael Tilson Thomas • When I go to farms or little towns, I am always surprised at the discontent I find. And New York, too often, has looked across the sea toward Europe. And all of us who turn our eyes away from what we have are missing life. – Norman Rockwell • When I saw how the European Union was developing, it was very obvious what they had in mind was not democratic. In Britain, you vote for a government so the government has to listen to you, and if you don’t like it you can change it. – Tony Benn • When I search for Man in the technique and the style of Europe, I see only a succession of negations of man, and an avalanche of murders. – Frantz Fanon • When I’ve seen my operas in Europe, they have always struck me as more American than when I hear them here. I can’t tell you what that phenomenon is. – Carlisle Floyd • When we fled from the oppressions of kings and parliaments in Europe, to found this great Republic in America, we brought with us the laws and the liberties, which formed a part of our heritage as Britons. – Caleb Cushing • Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos. – Adolf Hitler • Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong: it is a geographical expression. – Otto von Bismarck • With Christianity, freedom and equality became the two basic concepts of Europe; they are themselves Europe. – Peter Drucker • With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. – Lee Kuan Yew • With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right – it does look like that. – David McCullough • Without Britain, Europe would remain only a torso. – Ludwig Erhard • Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world. – Charles de Gaulle • You either believe in Europe at any price: in other words we have to be in Europe at any price because you can’t survive without it, or you don’t. If you don’t it tends to suggest there is a price which you are not willing to pay. – Liam Fox • You, the Spirit of the Settlement! … Not understand that America is God’s crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here, you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. – Israel Zangwill • Your map of Africa is really quite nice. But my map of Africa lies in Europe. Here is Russia, and here… is France, and we’re in the middle – that’s my map of Africa. – Otto von Bismarck

[templarsandthecrusades-blog]

✠⚔️CRUSADES PART 1

Following their disastrous defeat at Battle of Manzikert (in Armenia), the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus appealed to the Frankish west for help in turning back the Turkish invaders. This appeal made to Pope Urban led to the sermon at Clermont, where the Pope called upon the military class of western Europe (Christendom) to put aside their petty squabbles and unite in a holy endeavor: drive the “infidels” (Muslims) from the Holy Land where Christ and his Apostles had walked.

Thus was put in motion the First Crusade.

The response was far greater than either the Pope or the Emperor expected. While Alexius had requested military aid in the form of fighting-men to be enlisted as mercenaries in Byzantine service, his call for help set in motion nothing less than a mass movement. Not only did many of the great lords of France and the Holy Roman Empire march east, leading their own vassals and household warriors; a “People’s Crusade” of peasants and minor nobles, led by Peter the Hermit, actually set out in April 1096 months ahead of the departure of the great lords. From the highest to the lowest, the men and women of western Europe were filled with crusader zeal.

This First Crusade was not about aiding Byzantium in its struggle with the Turks, though that may have been Pope Urban and the emperor Alexius’ original intent. To the men (and no few women) who embarked across a continent this was about regaining the Holy Land, occupied by Muslims since the 7th century, for “Christendom”. Secondarily, it was about the maltreatment of Christian pilgrims by the Seljuks. It was in this cause, and with promises of spiritual reward in the afterlife that Pope Urban excited the knights of Christendom to travel to the Holy Land and defend both pilgrims and the holy places from the Turks:

“The Turks, an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God… has invaded lands of Christians and his depopulated them by the sword, pillage and fire… On whom therefore is the labor of avenging the wrongs of recovering this territory incumbent, in not upon you?”

But far from being an unprovoked act of aggression against the “peaceful” Muslim peoples and lands of the Middle East, as it is often portrayed in college history courses today, the First Crusade was a much-belated response to centuries of Islamic attacks upon and conquest of Christian lands. Lands which included most of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. It was also in response to Turkish banditry and to protect and keep open the pilgrim routes from Europe to the holy places.

“The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God’s battalions” [1] 

In response to the sermon at Clermont many of the leading princes of the day “took the cross”. They came, for the most part, inspired by religious duty. These were not penniless adventurers looking to enrich themselves (another politically correct myth). Many were among the wealthiest and most powerful men in Western Europe, who had much to loose on such a far-flung venture. Europe in the 11th century was a place of conflicting loyalties and allegiances, questionable borders, of old feuds and ancient grudges. Leaving one’s lands unattended invited rival claimants to seize them from the absentee. Only a deep belief in the righteousness of their cause and a chance to be part of one of the great movements of history motivated the powerful princes of Europe to leave behind their domains and march east.

THE LEADERS

Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lower Lorraine (later called the Low Countries), was a descendant of Charlemagne. Tall, blond and handsome he was considered the perfect Christian knight. Godfrey mortgaged or sold outright most of his lands to finance his participation in the Crusade. With this he outfitted a force of several thousand knights and footman. As a commander he was indifferent at best, and wisely followed the counsel of more apt captains, such as Bohemond and Raymond. He traveled in the company of his brothers, Baldwin and Eustace Count of Boulogne, and was effectively leader of the men of the Low Countries and northeastern France.

Raymond of St Gilles, Count of Toulouse (also known as the Count of Saint-Gilles), Margrave of Provence and Duke of Narbonne was one of the wealthiest men in Europe. A great magnate of both the Holy Roman Empire and France, he was the oldest of all the leaders and the one most favored by the Papacy for the role of leader of the Crusade. However, he was unable to gain acceptance in this role, and  instead was a leading voice in the council of commanders that led the crusading contingents. He traveled to Constantinople in the company of the Papal Legate, Ademar, and led the south French contingents.

Baldwin of Boulogne was Godfrey’s younger brother. Even taller than his brother, he was an accomplished knight and proved a better commander than any of the other Crusader leaders except (perhaps) Bohemond. He would lead the future Kingdom of Jerusalem to  victory in later years.

Robert Duke of Normandy, called “Curthose” (“Short-Pants”, presumably because of his shorter-than-normal legs) was the eldest son of William the Conqueror and commanded the paramount warriors of Europe, the Normans. Like other leaders he mortgaged his duchy to his brother William Rufus, the King of England, for the sum of 10,000 marks to finance his participation in the Crusade. He came with his cousin, Robert Count of Flanders and his brother-in-law, Stephen Count of Blois (father of the future king of England of that name). Though nominally leader of all the Normans, Bretons, and Flemings he was a weak leader and in practice let Bohemond of Taranto take command of the Normans.

Of all the leaders of this First Crusade only Bohemond Prince of Taranto, son of Robert Guiscard and leader of the Crusading Normans of Italy, was not particularly wealthy and intended from the start to carve out a principality in the Holy Land. Unusually tall and well-built, he was a warrior’s-warrior. An experienced and able commander, he had warred in the past against the Byzantine Emperor Alexius during his father’s war in Greece. As commander of the Normans of Italy he led perhaps the most effective contingent of the Crusader army, with the most experience in warfare in the east. He was accompanied by his nephew, the wily Tancred. As the Crusade progressed he became the leader of all the Norman contingents.

Adhemar, Bishop of Le Puy was the Pope’s legate and representative on the Crusade. Of a noble family, he was a fighting cleric as well as a skilled diplomat. A skilled tactician, he advised Count Raymond and may well be the brains behind the successful flanking attack at Dorylaeum. He did much to keep the rival leaders at peace with each other throughout the crusade.

Far from being more backward and “barbaric” than their Muslim enemies, as is often claimed, the Crusading princes of Europe and most of their knights were in nearly every way on a cultural and intellectual par with their foes; and in the case of the Turks somewhat more civilized. These were the cultured elites of Europe, and though perhaps not as refined  or educated as a Byzantine or Muslim grandee they were far from “barbarians”.

THE COMBATANTS

The Seljuk Turks were a hardy but savage people only newly arrived off of the steppes of central Asia. They had converted to Islam in the 9th century, and quickly became the shock troops of the Abbasid Caliphate. Soon, like the Roman Praetorians, they came to dominate their masters. Under Alp Arslan they had expanded their realm from the Halys River to the Oxus. Their empire had recently fallen into chaos and disunity following the death (or assassination) of Malik-Shah I in 1092. By the end of the 11th century independent Seljuk emirs controlled the various Muslim petty-states from the Aral Sea to the Bosporus.

Though ruling over cities and highly developed agricultural areas, the Turks had not wholly abandoned their nomadic lifestyle. Many still lived in clan groups, herding their sheep from pasturage to pasturage. These  lived in yurts, spent most of their life in the saddle, and (according to Western chroniclers) were, like most nomadic peoples, extremely unhygienic in their personal habits (even by the standards of the day). On the other hand some at least had settled down on the conquered lands, taking feudal fiefs from their emirs, to whom they owed loyalty and military service. Far from the savages they were painted as in the west, the Turkish emirs of the great cities were as cultured as any in the world.

Militarily the Turks fought primarily as light horsemen. Their main weapon was the short composite bow. Like all horse archers throughout the ages, their principle tactic was that of a swarm of bees, stinging their enemies from a safe distance with a rain of arrows. When their enemy attempted to close the distance and fight at close quarters (where the Turks lack of heavy armor and small ponies would put them at a disadvantage) the Turks would merely turn their mounts and flee to a safe distance, all the time continuing to shoot at their enemies over their horse’s rump. Only once the enemy had fallen into disorder or were in flight would the Turks put aside their bows and charge home with saber, mace, or belt-axe.

The Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt was the other enemy of the Crusader army (though belatedly so). Their army was comprised of both Turkish mercenaries (and slave-soldiers, called ghulams) and native Egyptian and Sudanese forces. They relied less upon the skirmish tactics of the Turks and had a large and formidable infantry component. During the First Crusade they wrested control of Jerusalem from the Turks. They had been at war with their Seljuk neighbors for over a generation and the Crusade caught them unprepared for the Crusader’s onslaught.

In contrast to the light-cavalry skirmishers that were the backbone of the Turkish armies, the Crusading Franks (as western Europeans were collectively known in the east) relied on the charge of the their heavy cavalry to bring them victory. The Medieval western knight was the armored battle tank of his age. Riding the largest horses available (and stallions at that) and armed with a 10′-12′ lance, their primary tactic was a thundering charge. This was delivered in tight formation, with the stirrup of each knight touching that of his comrade to either side. It was said that the charge of a Frankish knight could “make a hole through the walls of Babylon!”[2]

The Frankish knights on the First Crusade were supported by large numbers of foot soldiers, many of which were crossbowmen. Though their rate of fire was slower than the composite bow of their Turkish enemy, they fired a more powerful shot that could pierce armor at close range. The most useful infantry, however, proved to be dismounted knights and sergeant-at-arms. The large European chargers were vulnerable to the hot arid conditions of the Middle East, as well as to Turkish horse archery. On the Crusade the knights and mounted sergeants had trouble finding remounts. However, fighting on foot they provided the infantry (many of which were nothing more than religiously-motivated peasants or townsmen) with a stiffening of professional soldiers; and gave the remaining mounted troops a solid base to maneuver around. Being dismounted proved a blessing also in that  it prevented the sort of impetuous charges that the Turks were all so adept at evading and luring into ambush; a problem many later crusaders would encounter fighting the Turks.

Throughout the Crusades, from the first to the last, victory in battle came to the side able to force the other to “fight his fight”. If the Franks were able to close with the Turks or Arabs they usually won the day. Alternately, if the Turks or “Saracens” (the collective name given to non-Turkish Muslim warriors of the Middle East) could keep a safe distance while wearing down the Franks with missile weapons (or allowing the searing Middle Eastern sun to do that work for them), then they usually won the day. While Western mail was nearly “proof” against the short, light Turkish arrows the knight’s  unarmored horses were vulnerable to wounding and maiming.

THE FIRST CRUSADE

In August of 1096 the crusading princes marched east, leading individual armies which, according to Crusader military historian David Nicolle, amounted to approximately 35,000 fighting men (of which 5,000 were cavalry).

They followed in the wake of the “People’s Crusade“, a movement of common folk who mistakenly believed that “the Lord” would provide both sustenance and victory over the Turk. In both of these they were disappointed, and this “Crusade” met disaster and destruction at the hands of the Turks upon their first encounter in Anatolia, near Nicaea in Bithynia.

The arrival of the prince’s armies at Constantinople caused no small amount of nervous apprehension within the unprepared Byzantine court.  The Crusader forces were in far greater number than the Emperor Alexius ever imagined, and the proud and prickly Frankish princes who led them poised a very real threat to the city and the Empire should they get out of hand. It was only 15 years since the Normans of Apulia under Robert Guiscard had invaded the empire in an attempt to grab as much as they could lay hands upon, and the memory was still fresh. The Crusaders, for their part, found the Byzantines “oily” and untrustworthy, and in their dress and manner all too like the “Saracen” enemy they had come to fight. To prevent misunderstanding and suspicion from turning into violence, the emperor had the Crusaders quickly transported across the straits into Asia.

Once they had crossed over the Byzantines provided the Crusaders with guides, engineers and much needed supplies of food and fodder to the near starving armies. But not before the Emperor Alexius extracted oaths from each of the Crusader leaders (except for Raymond, who refused) that they would turn back over to the empire such towns and territories that they liberated from the Turk. The Frankish leaders considered this oath binding as far as any reconquered territory in Anatolia. But as the “Holy Land” (Syria and Palestine) had been for centuries under Muslim rule[3] the Frankish leaders did not consider these as rightfully Byzantine lands, and were thus not oath-bound to return to the emperor. This would be a “bone of contention” that would cause discord between the future Crusader states and their Byzantine neighbor.

Marching (literally) over the bones of the People’s Crusade the army passed through Bithynia and laid siege to the Turkish citadel closest to and threatening Constantinople, Nicaea. This strong place was captured only after a 5 week siege and a failed attempt by the Seljuk Sultan, Kilij Arslan, to relieve the city. Nicaea surrendered in the end on June 18, 1097 to the Byzantines, rather than to the Crusaders; in order to avoid the inevitable sack if stormed by the Franks. Disgruntled at the loss of potential booty and what they saw as a betrayal by the Byzantines, the Crusade marched on at the end of June with a small Byzantine force of 2,000 light cavalry under the veteran Turkopole commander Tatikios to guide them.

Passing through the foothills of the western Anatolian mountains, the army marched in two (or perhaps three) divisions. The vanguard division was commanded by Bohemond of Taranto, and was composed of the Normands of Normandy (under their Duke Robert) and Bohemond’s of Italy; plus other north French contingents under Stephen Count of Blois and Robert Count of Flanders, as well as the Byzantine guides under Tatikios. Marching some 5 kilometers behind this van was the “main” under Godfrey of Bouillon, followed closely by the rearguard commanded by Raymond of Toulouse and the south French.

Marching towards ruined Dorylaeum along a tributary of the Sangarius, on July 1, 1097 the vanguard reached a bend in the river where it joined the Nana Dere. In the open valley beyond, Bohemond and his men beheld the army of the Sultan Kilij Arslan awaiting them, lining the low hills.

Kettle drums boomed from amongst the Turkish ranks, echoing from the surrounding hills and signally the largest battle to be fought between Christian and Turk since Manzikert.

Bohemond knew he could not fight them alone, with just the vanguard, but must hold until the rest of the Crusader army arrived. He ordered his foot to establish a “defensive camp”, while he and the mounted knights and sergeants formed up between them and the Turks to buy them time.

NEAR DISASTER AT DORYLAEUM

The Frankish foot and camp-followers set up the tents beside the stream, with a marshy meadow protecting its rear and the stream its flank; with the mounted contingent standing to arms between them and the Sultan’s forces.

Kilij Arslan, smarting from his repulse at Nicaea, had come this time with allies: the Danismendid Turks, a rival power in central Anatolia alarmed as the Seljuks were at the coming of the Frankish Crusaders. Contemporary accounts put his numbers as high as 360,000 warriors, “all on horses and armed with bows”.[4]  The actual number was more likely a fraction of this inflated figure. However, they were highly aggressive and their tactics, new to the Franks, caused dismay as they pressed in on Bohemond’s defending knights and sergeants. Loose swarms of mounted Turks rode close to unleash a barrage of arrows, before wheeling their ponies and scampering away. Meanwhile, dismounted Turks crept around the left flank of the mounted guard, and assailed the foot setting-up the camp:

“The Turks crept up, howling loudly and shooting a shower of arrows. Stunned and almost dead, and with many wounded, we immediately fled. And it was no wonder, for such warfare was new to us all.” [5]

Only the maze of tents, stacks of supplies and equipment, and the obstacle provided by guy-wires helped keep the Turks from overrunning the camp in these confusing moments early in the battle.

 While Frankish mail was for the most part “proof” against the light arrows of the Turks, their horses were not so fortunately protected. This would ever prove a problem for Franks fighting against Turkish horse archers: while their armor often rendered them relatively safe, their mounts were wounded or killed. To charge against their enemy was a natural response for western knights. But Turks on their light ponies would merely scamper away, all the while firing over their horse’s rump, till the knight’s charger was wounded or exhausted, and stumbled to a halt. At which point the Turks, like a pack of wolves would close in  for the kill.

Bohemond seems to have understood this and to have convinced his fellow leaders, Duke Robert and Count Baldwin of Flanders, to follow the lead of his Norman-Italians, dismounting their knights and standing with shield in front of their mounts, protecting the horses from Turkish arrows.  Standing firmly but idly against such assault took great discipline, and it is a testament to the Normans and to Bohemond as a leader that the knights did not attempt to mount and charge to disperse their tormentors. This would have been precisely what the Sultan hoped for, and would surely have led to disaster.

Meanwhile, another detachment of Turks swept around the Bohemond’s right, crossing to the opposite side of the stream in a likely attempt to surround the Crusader force. The camp, pitched now behind Bohemond’s troops, prevented this (as well as the marshy meadow, unsuitable for horsemen). But this force were able to intercept and slaughter Frankish stragglers attempting to rejoin their comrades. Some of these escaped back the way they had come, and making their way to the second division warned Duke Godfrey of the vanguard’s peril.

Kilij Arslan thought that he had the entire Frankish army trapped; and seems to have been unaware of the other two divisions approaching. This lack of scouting, even on the part of light horsemen like the Turks, was a common failing of armies throughout history. Soldiers tend to concentrate on the enemy in front of them, forgetting to scout their flanks or protect their rear. The immense clouds of dust that are thrown up during battle on a dry plain, particularly when large numbers of horses are involved, likely has a great deal to do with the tactical blindness exhibited by so many armies in history.

Whatever the reason, this lack of awareness was to lead to disaster for the Turks at Dorylaeum.

Focused on Bohemond the Sultan was surprised when Godfrey’s mainbody came up on his left, and deployed itself on the right of Bohemond’s line. Thus supported, the two Frankish leaders held fast against the Turkish attack.

Worse was to come for the Turks.

The rearguard, comprised of the south French under Raymond of Toulouse (advised by Bishop Adhemar, the Papal Legate), made its way by secret through the hills on the Turkish left. Debouching in the Turkish rear, the south French charged the Turks from behind. Giving the order to mount,  Bohemond and Godfrey then charged the Turks from the front as well.

Caught in this pincer movement, Turkish morale and resistance collapsed. The Crusaders didn’t pursue far (Tatikios may well have warned them that the Turks were most dangerous when they appeared to be fleeing). But thousands of Turkish dead littered the field, and the victorious Franks captured the Sultan’s baggage train, a rich haul indeed.

The Battle of Dorylaeum opened the way through Anatolia. For the next decade, the Turks treated Frankish armies with respect and caution. But it was “a near run thing”, and could well have ended in disaster, as later Crusades would under very similar circumstances. But for now, the Franks were able to continue on toward their objective: the Holy Land.

ANATOLIAN ORDEAL 

After their victory at Dorylaeum, the Crusaders marched south into central Anatolia. Once the breadbasket of the Byzantine Empire, two decades of Turkish depredation had reduced the area to a desert. Gone were the farms that once supported the hardy Eastern Roman soldier-peasant who had been the backbone of the armies of the old themata. The Turks had systematically destroyed the farmland and turned it into pasturage for the their sheep. These, in turn, had devoured what grass remained till only dry soil was left to bake in the harsh Anatolian sun.  Across this scorching plain the Crusaders passed in August and September. Many baggage animals perished, along with the priceless destriers whose size and strength gave the Frankish knights an added advantage in combat.

Buoyed only by by faith and Tatikios’ assurance that conditions would improve, the Crusaders pushed on. East of Heraclea, the army divided. The mainbody turned east into Cappadocia; while a smaller force under Bohemond’s resourceful nephew,  Tanced and Godrey’s brother Baldwin pushed directly south though the Cilician Gates.

In Cappadocia, the Crusaders defeated a local Turkish chieftain near a place called Augustopolis. Pushing on, they came to a town in a fruitful valley, likely Pinarbasi, famous for its healthy water springs; under siege by the local Turks.

“Going out of Cappadocia we came to a certain very beautiful and exceedingly fruitful city which the Turks had besieged for three weeks before our arrival but had not conquered. Immediately upon our arrival there it straightway surrendered into our hands with great pleasure.” [6]

As with many isolated Christian towns and cities throughout Anatolia, this one had not yet fallen to the Turks after Manzikert, and was only too happy to surrender to a Christian army. Like others the Franks captured in Anatolia, it was turned over to the Byzantines and soldiers from Tatikios escort were left to protect it.

The Crusade then turned south at Caesarea Mazaca (modern Kayseri), formerly capital of the Byzantine Theme of Charsianon, but now held by the Danismandid Turks. The Crusaders moved on through the Taurus and Anti-Taurus  mountains. Here the local Armenians welcomed their fellow Christians, and the Franks were resupplied before continuing on.

However, in the mountains between Göksun and Maraş (Germanicia Caesarea in Roman times), the Crusade came to terrible grief crossing the high passes. The anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum recounts:

“We entered a diabolical mountain… which was so high and steep that none dared try passing another on the narrow trail… horses fell headlong, and one pack animal pushed over another.”

Celebrated historian Sir Steven Runciman wrote: “The mountains… took more live than ever the Turks had done.” It was an exhausted and depleted force that marched on to Antioch.

Meanwhile, the detached force under Tanced  and  Baldwin had pushed directly south from Iconium though the Cilician Gates, capturing the various towns and ports of the Cilician plain and clearing the Crusades’ western flank of Turkish garrisons. Among those towns captured was ancient Tarsus, in Roman times a great city and seat of the provincial governor (and birthplace of St. Paul the Apostle).

At Tarsus the two leaders fell out, their forces nearly coming to blows. Tancred withdrew in a fury, returning to rejoin the main Crusader army via Alexandretta (Iskenderun); arriving in time to join the siege of Antioch in October. Baldwin, for his part, received an invitation from Thoros, Armenian ruler of Edessa in northern Mesopotamia. There Baldwin was adopted as Thoros’ son and successor.

1. Stark, Rodney: “God’s Battalions”, 2009, Harper One publishing

2. Anna Comnena

3. Though Byzantine forces had recaptured much of the Syrian coast during the 10th century, they had lost it again after the disaster at Manzikert. Antioch, in particular, was a point of contention between the empire and the Crusaders, as till Manzikert it had been the second city of the empire.

4. Fulcher of Chartres

5. Idid

6. Gesta Francorum

7. When Thoros was assassinated in March of the following year, Baldwin became the first Frankish Count of Edessa, soon marrying Arda, the daughter of Thoros. He was ruling Edessa when called to Jerusalem to succeed his dead brother, Godfrey as king in 1100.

Some of the artwork in this article has been reproduced with the permission of Osprey Publishing, and is © Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

www.ospreypublishing.com

SOURCE: https://deadliestblogpage.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/the-crusades-a-politically-incorrect-history/

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What Love Taught Me About Blackness

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What Love Taught Me About Blackness

A year in Paris and a complicated relationship — with a man and with my hair.

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Jenny Chang/BuzzFeed

It was spring of 2010, the end of my freshman year of college abroad in Paris, and I let a man convince me to leave my hair behind. It wasn’t the fact that Omar claimed he was not French but actually Senegalese, even though he had a French passport, French driver’s license, and French minor crime record. It wasn’t because he had lived in banlieues, complicated neighborhoods on the outskirts of Paris, all his life and had a sort of streetwise charm to him.

Or that I often found myself mesmerized when he pursed his lips around a joint, with an amused look in his eyes when I always said no. Stop. It was not that he towered six inches above my 5-foot-5-inch frame as he spoke a little too enthusiastically about Allah, God’s mercies, the importance of Ramadan, and the beauty of Islam, with tiny bits of spit flying from his mouth to the tip of my nose. It definitely wasn’t when he giggled like a small girl, shoulders shaking, and nestled my mane of hair into his chest when I pointed out that he barely visited the mosque and drank too much Hennessey to be a good Muslim.

Maybe it started with the brief bout of college-age rebellion I felt that night when my mother called and shot horrified questions at me, after I told her I had been on a few dates with a 24-year-old man. I imagined her pacing up and down her office in the dusty, small town of Arusha, Tanzania, phone in hand, eyes hard behind her rimless glasses and immaculately braided hair, treading the line between the mother she was at home and the lawyer she was in the courtroom.

She just wanted to care, the right way, even though she was on another continent, trying to lasso a leash onto a lost child, heaving her voice all the way from Tanzania to my small studio in the heart of Paris. “Did you have sex with him?” After all, I needed to remember that I was Christian. We could not be together. If we were, there would be a price to pay. I kept silent. “You know he’s too old for you, and you never know, people might have AIDS. You just don’t know.” After all, we weren’t the same type of “black” or “African” that went together, and she wasn’t the type of mother who believed in romantic bullshit. He was muscular, dark, scraping lower middle class with a low-paying administrative job, and francophone; I was short, baby-faced, and fresh from a Long Island Christian boarding school, with an upper-middle-class family, a Zimbabwean passport, and British tendencies. “Are you there doing work? You know we sent you there to do well.”

I didn’t know what I was doing. But I pretended I did. That year, I refused to be naked for anyone. I wanted to be a serious writer, the kind who went to war zones, Marie Colvin-style, with an African twist. Not the kind who wrote about not knowing what to do with boys, or what to do with their own hair. I wanted to be my mother with a pen – the woman who held her faith close enough to her heart for it to mean something, but the same woman with an incisive brain and logic that carried her from the rural farm life in Buhera District, Zimbabwe, to a trial room at the U.N. I wanted to end the phone call, but she did first, with a prayer that left me with guilt that sat at the bottom of my conscience like dregs of bad wine.

But it was never about sex. It was about the divided soul I didn’t know I had, the one that struggled to let Omar touch my hair. For years, I had pretended that it was “just hair” and shrugged when boys asked why I didn’t get my “hair did” well enough. At boarding school, I hid it under dozens of weaves that made my skin itch, heavy extensions that would latch onto my fragile front strands, and hair relaxers that burned and left scabs on my sensitive scalp. In my hair’s natural state, I was almost as ashamed of it as I was of my chubby feet, which swelled out of my shoes during hot weather because of my mild lymphedema. When Omar would wait a little too long after walking me to a hair salon, I would squirm in my seat, hoping he would leave before the stylist started complaining about my crazy hair. He never did.

But as my hair shed when he gingerly unknotted it with his long fingers and combed it out in my apartment, my guard went down as well. My awkward problems, the ones I didn’t want to say out loud — being the only black student in my classes, feeling like the only one lost for words and conjugations on the streets of Paris — disappeared for hours at a time as he tried to sing along to pop songs in English blaring from my laptop, occasionally lifting the comb from my hair to his lips.

Beyond the hair, our problems with blackness were still embarrassing — like the times taxis wouldn’t stop for him but would stop for me if I stood a few feet away from him and pretended not to know him. The complications of blackness in Paris came in layers and genders and classes and accents. We laughed about it, but it stung. We laughed almost as hard as we did at my bad French between yassa and fish at his favorite Senegalese restaurant. Almost as hard as the time purple bissap juice oozed out of my nostrils in front of everyone.

On many weekends, we tried to do some of the iconic “Parisian” things I’d read about in high school textbooks. We planned to go to Père Lachaise cemetery, where people like Oscar Wilde were buried, and where couples supposedly left letters at the foot the tomb of Abelard and Heloise — two doomed lovers from the Middle Ages. Omar met me at the Gambetta Metro station near my apartment and declared last minute that we needed to go to a happier place. We took the train to the Latin Quarter instead and ate too much bread in a small bistro. We planned to go up the Eiffel Tower hand-in-hand but never made it there. We attempted to visit the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay but it rained before we even got to the train, and we ended up in my apartment eating soggy falafel. There was never a candle-lit dinner with very old wine at a very expensive restaurant. We were never that kind of pair.

As my French got better, he listened as I recalled the day I left Zimbabwe when I was 10, not knowing that the home as I knew it was gone forever. I listened to his stories about the women he had dated, the police chase he had escaped in Spain, and the time when he was 17 and got caught with a bag of cocaine at the airport. He said all this slowly, unraveling, sometimes lowering his eyes in shame, as if I would be there forever. He detangled my hair and swept the floor and unclogged the shower drain too many times, with too much patience, as if I would not be leaving, as if our souls were not divided, as if this was that story about that deep black love I’d always heard about.

And I thought leaving would be much easier than staying. At the end of spring, I had promised Omar there would be no grand speeches of deep friendship the night before my departure, no talk about what could have been or never was. No long, lingering hugs after loading my luggage into the taxi and no crying in public when I got my boarding passes. He was not to see me off at the airport. The day before, I walked two of my favorite footbridges across the River Seine alone, as if I had shown them to myself. I gazed forward as I checked in my bags at Charles de Gaulle, spoke fast and casually as if I were ordering a meal from a fast-food joint. When the plane left the runway and took off, I went to sleep as if my heart didn’t hurt.

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Fall moved slower in New York than it did in Paris, as I sat in parks, phone card in hand, watching yellow leaves lick the pavement, and wondering how much longer the calls would last. The calls got rationed: once a week, then once a month. Soon I ignored the foreign number. When I did summon the courage to answer, often after another bad fling with a college boy, too often after said boy had asked why I didn’t get my rowdy “hair did” for the date, Omar would shoot questions at me in frustrated, fast French. “You don’t want to talk anymore?” Silence. “Could you please make sure to find someone good?” Silence. “Someone who really knows you and wouldn’t want sex from you?” Silence. “Someone who knows the difference?”

The calls broke me. He was there, I was here. Even if I were there, same language, same god, no hair, we would always be in a state of away-ness, where I overthought everything and knew how to express nothing. I was the writer who didn’t know how to talk about feelings. Even at 19, I knew my feigned aloofness was crippling. I couldn’t help it. We would fail. As usual, I stopped answering — somehow thinking my silence would postpone the hurt.

I knew it was the end when I started thinking about the beginning. Since Paris, I had been more at peace with my hair, letting it be and grow out the way Omar had encouraged me to. I stopped straightening and frying it until it lay limply to the side. I cut all the lifeless ends off. I shot back confidently when, on a date, a boy asked me to get a hair relaxer. And when I washed my hair — which I had grown to love for the first time since elementary school — I stupidly played the first scene of that journey over and over again, as if it were the only song I had left.

It was the time I first met Omar in the Metro station during my first few weeks in France. My hair was a mess, as usual, even with tiny braids at the roots, there to fight the power of late-summer sweat and heat until I got it together. My bra strap hung to the side under my sleeve and my sneakers were slightly torn at the right toe, but I didn’t care. I had only a two-euro coin in my pocket, a stupid ploy to stop me from spending money on pastries between school and my apartment, but just enough for a train ride home. Omar, seeing the foreign mess that I was, offered, in a broken mixture of French and English, to take me out for dinner. He said he liked my hair.

Read more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/florencemadenga/what-love-taught-me-about-blackness