Christmas at the Front

Merry Christmas to all!

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Toulon 1793

Admiral Samuel Hood
Admiral Samuel Hood, later the first Viscount Hood, who had also served in the American War of Independence for His Britannic Majesty, commanded the forces of the Royal Navy in the Siege of Toulon, teaming up with French royalists against the revolutionary republic.


The Royal Navy bombards Toulon
The Kingdom of France had contributed largely to the fall of monarchic rule in what was now those United States of America, but apparently His Britannic Majesty was the bigger man. The Royal Navy was employed against the revolutionary republic, and the Siege of Toulon – from September 18, 1793 to December 18, 1793 – was one such employment.

Those were indeed other days than when the British Empire under the leadership of the likes of Herbert Henry Asquith and David Lloyd George teamed up with the revolutionary republic – and also later the former rebels across the pond – in the quest to “make the world safe for democracy.”

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Christmas 1914-1915

Merry Christmas to all!

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The War of 1812

200 years ago.

Elsewhere: Wilson Revolution Unplugged

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Christmas and the Great War

Merry Christmas to all!

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The Battle of Naseby

June 366 years ago – on the 14^th in the old calendar, 24^th in the new – the Battle of Naseby was fought.

The Battle of Naseby

The Parliamentarian New Model Army defeated the Royalist Army.

Memorial at the battlefield in Naseby

It was a decisive victory in Oliver Cromwell's rise to power, the Cromwell tyranny, and the Commonwealth of England.

Not to be amused by. Cromwell's rule is not to be amused by.

Balance of power may be a good thing, but that is certainly not what we have now.

The English Civil War may be seen as the first step on a road to an absolute democracy, an absolute, omnipotent House of Commons.

Not to be amused by.

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Québec City 1775

On New Year's Eve 235 years ago His Britannic Majesty's Québec City stood off against the rebels.

As we go on into the new decade, Happy New Year!

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Christmas of 1915

Daniel O'Donell sings of Christmas in 1915:

The same song by Celtic Thunder:

More at Wilson Revolution Unplugged...

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Battle of Britain Remembered

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall attend a service in London's Westminster Abbey to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, 19 September 2010. The Prince is Patron of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association, an organisation for former airmen who took part in the Battle of Britain in 1940, and their families.


The Prince of Wales, in his role as Patron of the Battle of Britain Fighter Association, takes the salute at the Battle of Britain March Past following a Service in Westminster Abbey to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.


The Prince of Wales meets a veteran of the Battle of Britain after attending the National Commemorative Service for the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain at Westminster Abbey.
© Press Association

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The Battle of Naseby

June 365 years ago – on the 14^th in the old calendar, 24^th in the new – the Battle of Naseby was fought.

The Battle of Naseby

The Parliamentarian New Model Army defeated the Royalist Army.

Memorial at the battlefield in Naseby

It was a decisive victory in Oliver Cromwell's rise to power, the Cromwell tyranny, and the Commonwealth of England.

Read More »»

The Battle of Quebec

Remembering the defeat of the rebels on this day in 1775.

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Men of Harlech

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The Siege of Toulon

Admiral Samuel Hood
Admiral Samuel Hood, later the first Viscount Hood, who had also served in the American War of Independence for His Britannic Majesty, commanded the forces of the Royal Navy in the Siege of Toulon, teaming up with French royalists against the revolutionary republic.


The Royal Navy bombards Toulon
The Kingdom of France had contributed largely to the fall of monarchic rule in what was now those United States of America, but apparently His Britannic Majesty was the bigger man. The Royal Navy was employed against the revolutionary republic, and the Siege of Toulon – from September 18, 1793 to December 18, 1793 – was one such employment.

Those were indeed other days than when the British Empire under the leadership of the likes of Herbert Henry Asquith and David Lloyd George teamed up with the revolutionary republic – and also later the former rebels across the pond – in the quest to “make the world safe for democracy.”

Read More »»

Wolfe and Montcalm

Je me souviens reads the National Assembly of Quebec just below two life-size statutes of General Wolfe and the General Montcalm, who were both killed on the Plains of Abraham at the Battle of Quebec 250 years ago today. That both of these men, not just Montcalm, are given central place above the main doors of the Assembly is telling.

Despite the hotheaded comments of some Quebec nationalists, the anniversary passed respectfully enough and went by calme comme Montcalm. Whilst most Quebeckers naturally don't view Wolfe as "the hero of Quebec", they do respect him probably as much, if not more, than English-speaking Canadians, who can't even be bothered to remember much of their nation's own history.

The Wolfe Montcalm story has always been central theatre to the identity and vision of French-speaking Quebec inside Canada, the idea that the country was really founded by two European peoples - British and French. It's a vision frustrated by political and historical reality, however, for constitutionally speaking, Canada is a confederation of ten provinces, not two peoples. The initial union between Lower and Upper Canada in the 1840s lent some credence to this historical vision, but then two became four in 1867, and by 1949 four had become ten with the inclusion of Newfoundland. Quebec's relative power has diminished over time, it never aspired to be a mere province in the first place, and does not really accept the notion that Canada is a nation or a people - a state, yes, but not a nation.

There is considerable merit to this belief, for the embryonic British nation set in motion in North America by General Wolfe 250 years ago has largely wiped away the old heraldry. The Maple Leaf flag is remarkable for its boldness, cleanliness and distinctiveness, for its deliberate excising of the past. There is no Je Me Souviens in Canada.

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The Plains of Abraham

Well, here we are gentlemen. 250 years to the day. Enjoy.

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The Hero of Québec

Major General Wolfe.
Who, at the Expence of his Life, purchas'd immortal Honour for his Country,
and planted, with his own Hand, the British Laurel, in the inhospitable Wilds of North America, By the Reduction of Quebec, Septr. 13th. 1759.

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Here Died Wolfe Victorious

Apropos "Kipling's" post below, the inscription on the obelisk at Quebec City, erected to commemorate the battle on the Plains of Abraham no longer reads: "Here Died Wolfe Victorious." Now it simply reads: "Here Died Wolfe."

The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West. Oil on canvas, 1770.
The site where Wolfe purportedly fell is marked by a column surmounted by a helmet and sword. An inscription at its base now reads, in French and English, "Here died Wolfe - September 13th, 1759." It replaces a large stone which had been placed there by British troops to mark the spot.

Wolfe's defeat of the French led to the British capture of New France, and his "hero's death" made the Wolfe name a legend. The Wolfe legend led to the famous painting above and the opening line of the patriotic Canadian anthem, "The Maple Leaf Forever", it too all but wiped from English Canadian memory to accommodate (appease) French Canadians insided a united Canada.

Historian Francis Parkman described the death of Wolfe this way:

They asked him [Wolfe] if he would have a surgeon; but he shook his head, and answered that all was over with him. His eyes closed with the torpor of approaching death, and those around sustained his fainting form. Yet they could not withhold their gaze from the wild turmoil before them, and the charging ranks of their companions rushing though the line of sire and smoke.

"See how they run." one of the officers exclaimed, as the French fled in confusion before the leveled bayonets.

"Who run?" demanded Wolfe, opening his eyes like a man aroused from sleep.

"The enemy, sire," was the reply; "they give way everywhere."

"Then," said the dying general, "tell Colonel River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge. Now, God be praised, I die contented," he murmured; and, turning on his side, he calmly breathed his last breath.

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Paths of Canadians

The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West. Oil on canvas, 1770.
The CBC shocks us all.

Canada's national broadcaster will mark the 250th anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham with a documentary on the decisive British-French conflict, months after threats from hardline separatists forced the cancellation of a planned re-enactment in Quebec City.

The one-hour documentary, set to air during prime time next Thursday, is already ruffling the feathers of those who opposed the real-life re-enactment

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, like a broken clock. To our American readers, let me put this in perspective. Imagine if a bunch Southerners demanded that a re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg be cancelled, because the battle recalled painful memories of defeat, and you begin to understand the absurdity of the protests of Quebecois nationalists. One can take two perspectives about landmark events like Gettysburg and the Plains of Abraham. It's big history that deserves to be remembered, regardless of the respective merits of each side. The other approach is honouring the values the respective sides were fighting to uphold. On both counts Gettysburg and Quebec were major events whose outcomes changed their respective nations for the better. While there is no moral comparison between New France and the Confederacy, slavery was a peripheral issue in Canada though it did exist, 1759 was ultimately a lucky break for les Canadiens.

The New France of the mid-eighteenth century was much like old France, quasi-feudal and dominated by a Catholic Church far enough away from grasping the need for the separation of church and state. While the Enlightenment was in full swing in the salons and coffee shops of Paris, its values and attitudes had yet to trickle down to the average Frenchmen in the fields. Only a tiny landed elite along the St. Lawrence would have begun to come to grips with the implications of figures like Voltaire and Diderot. For the generation of Quebec nationalists who emerged after the Quiet Revolution, 1759 was both humiliation and lost opportunity. Had French colonial rule lasted Quebec might have become a modern independent liberal nation, just as Canada and the United States had.

The narrative implies that English speaking Canada helped prop up Quebec's ancien regime. Having about one quarter of the population of Canada stuck in the seventeenth century, for the first hundred years after Confederation, was a significant encumbrance. Something polite opinion has steadily ignored for decades. Quebec was strategically vital to the existence of Canada, yet its basic values were more statist and collectivist than those of the ROC ("Rest of Canada"). For all the celebration of the coureur des bois, the state and clergy preferred les habitant to stay on the farm. The province's educational system famously churned out priests and lawyers, just as schools in English speaking North America were beginning to turn out business graduates and engineers.

The hope that Quebec might have modernized sooner had it remained within France's orbit, omits the bloody history of the metropole after 1789. Five republics, two Empires, three major military defeats and a near coup as late as 1962, modern France modernized slowly and often by force. The France of the 1950s might have been nominally more secular that contemporary Quebec, yet it suffered from many of the same structural setbacks. What Quebec had enjoyed was two centuries of peace, security and relatively more freedom than his French counterpart. The Battle of Quebec was the inception of Canada. For the Quebecois it was the moment they came into the orbit of a liberal and modern government. That alone should be enough to commemorate.

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The Battle of Waterloo

I have it on especially good authority that this work is a must buy.

A friend writes: "Heartily recommended - perhaps the best work of military history I've ever read, and bar none the best battle account. When you're through with this one you'll understand in the core of your bones the strategy and overarching issues, the tactics and look, smell and feel of battle at Waterloo."

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The 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Minden

The 250th Year of the Victories: The Battles of Minden and Québec

The Seven Years War took place from 1756 to 1763. England and Prussia were allied against France and Austria. On the 1st of August 1759 the allied Forces of some 41,000 men under the command of a Prussian, Prince Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, assembled in the vicinity of Minden, Germany. Outnumbered and outgunned, British, Prussian, Hanoverian and Hessian regiments fought against some 51,000 French troops under the command of Marshal Contades near the River Weser, in an effort to reopen lines of communication with Hanover.

The Allied victory was only achieved thanks to a confusion in orders which resulted in a brigade of British and Hanoverian infantry marching forward into a hail of fire and attacking the French cavalry - the first recorded incident of this kind in military history. By rights, the infantry attack should have ended in disaster, but their discipline and courage won the day, repelling three cavalry charges. Despite very heavy losses, the infantry, supported by two batteries of Artillery, continued their attack and forced the French to retreat. The victory was marred by the refusal of Lord George Sackville to lead the British cavalry in an attack that would have turned the French retreat into a rout; he was subsequently court-martialled and dismissed from the Army.

The fields and hedgerows on that day near Minden were full of wild red and yellow roses, which the British soldiers picked and placed on their hats after the victory. All "Minden Regiments" still celebrate the 1st of August by wearing roses in their regimental headdress, and have the word "Minden" embroidered on their Colours and Battle Honour. "The Battle of the Roses" or "Minden Day" is still celebrated in Great Britain and North America and the tradition is kept alive in various ways. Numerous places with the name Minden in Canada and the United States show the enduring significance of this victorious battle on North American - and indeed, world - history.

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