Modern History
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Modern History’
In the year that Ranjitsinhji put aside his bat to concentrate on being the Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, journalist A. G. Gardiner looked back on his dazzling career.
In 1907, Sir Ranjitsinhji Vibhaji Jadeja (1872-1933) triumphantly ascended the throne of Nawanagar (Jamnagar) in India, twenty-three years after the bitter disappointment of seeing a rival displace him. It was not part-time work, so in 1912 Ranji called ‘stumps’ on his spectacular career in English cricket, and A. G. Gardiner of ‘The Star’ bade him an affectionate farewell.
On the day that the Unknown Warrior was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey, ‘Alpha of the Plough’ wondered if the country would prove worthy of him.
Like other correspondents for London’s newspaper ‘The Star,’ Alfred Gardiner took a nom-de-plume from astronomy, choosing ‘Alpha of the Plough.’ In this extract, written on November 11th, 1920, he reflected on the burial of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey that same day, and wondered if the people of Britain really understood what had happened.
John Adams, the second President of the USA, told army officers in Massachusetts that the Constitution he had helped to draw up could not guarantee them liberty.
On October 11th, 1798, President John Adams told officers of a Massachusetts militia brigade that the United States’ historic Constitution (which he had helped to write) was never about centralised Power. Unlike politicians over in Europe, he said, he would not promise to conjure up order out of a selfish, thoughtless and pleasure-seeking society.
Events in Italy and Austria seemed to be bringing the day ever closer when a European democracy would vote herself into oblivion.
The United Kingdom is not a simple democracy; she is a democratic and parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Just as well, thought Irish historian and Unionist MP William Lecky. The kind of democracy they had on the Continent pandered to grievance groups, extremists and slick campaign strategists, and he feared it would soon become a screen for dictatorship.
As William Lecky watched the rapid spread of socialism across the European Continent, he was struck by a powerful sense of déjà vu.
For William Lecky, a contemporary of Karl Marx, ‘Socialism’ meant a politics in which the things that were properly the responsibility of individuals and families were snatched away and dictated by the supposedly wiser Government. Such a politics, he said, was no different to the tyrannies of the past; it merely replaced the arrogance of king or sultan with the arrogance of the politburo.
When Horatio Nelson stepped aboard HMS Victory in September 1805, the great Admiral knew he had every reason to stay on dry land.
At dawn on Sunday 15th September, 1805, Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson gave the order for his flagship HMS Victory to weigh anchor. Never had Nelson’s duty to go to sea been greater; never had his reasons to stay ashore been stronger. His diary recorded his feelings on the previous Friday night, as his chaise rattled towards towards Portsmouth, and again in the moments before the Battle of Trafalgar.