Category: History

Good Eggers

Count Egmont was a 17th century Dutch freedom fighter seeking independence from the Spanish Empire in the Low Lands in what became known as the Eighty Years War (1568  – 1648). His story was romanticised by Goethe in his 1787 play, Egmont.

Why Didn’t the Germans Win the War?

The Second World War and indeed the First – capital letters are an inadequate acknowledgement to the lives lost – are wars in which some of the combatants are known to me and probably you as family and friends. As a Pandemic Plus I’ve gained an incomplete insight into WW II.

Published
Categorised as History

The Creations

After my ancestor, Patrick Bellew, was created Baron Bellew in the Peerage of Ireland in 1848 only three more Irish Peerages were handed out. That doesn’t sound quite right, but you know what I mean; namely Lord Fermoy (1865), Lord Rathdonnell and the Duke of Abercorn (both 1868).

Between the Wars

You may recall that Alan Brooke was frustrated by Alexander’s lack of strategic vision in the North African and Italian campaigns in the Second World War (Trials and Tribulations). Was he being unfair?

Published
Categorised as History

Gimcrack

Last month I alluded to two new “Bonking Biogs” and human nature being what it is, read the shorter of the two first: Gimcrack, A Rake’s Progress by Tony Scotland.

Who Won the War?

Who won the war? There is a strong argument that without massive American production of ships, ‘planes, guns and munitions (materiel), Germany would have won the war; even Stalin thought so.

Published
Categorised as History

Bertie Goes to Bungay

Only one’s closest friends welcome Bertie as an overnight guest. This is his fourth time away, and two of the previous stays were in France. So far, it has gone well.

Franklin and Winston

Reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s magisterial (no other word could do it justice) No Ordinary Time, I am struck by the similarities and differences between Franklin and Winston during the war.

Cork and Orrery

In September 1941 after supper at the White House, “a jolly party”, Franklin Roosevelt asked his guests to name four outstanding leaders. Eleanor chose: Anne Hutchinson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Dickinson and Carrie Chapman Catt. Franklin nominated: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and the Earl of Orrery.