Tea at Trianon: F.D.R. and Pearl Harbor

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, July 27, 2007

F.D.R. and Pearl Harbor

I thought it was common knowledge that F.D.R. knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor ahead of time. My grandmother, who was in the Philippines when it happened, always told me that the people there were expecting the Japanese to first bomb Manila. They all realized that there was going to be an a attack but they were not certain where it would be. Now there is a new book which details what was going on politically behind the scenes. Share

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: The U.S. and England knew that the Japanese wanted the Hawaiian Islands as a coaling station for their ships. Also Germany and Russia were eyeing them. That is why the U.S. took over The Islands in order to keep that from happening, however the Japanese had not given up on their desire for that strategic location. The attack on Pearl Harbor was not a surprise attack in that our government knew it was inevitable, it just was not expected so soon, so in that respect it was a surprise attack.; July 28, 2007 at 1:31:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: That is exactly how my grandmother explained it, too.; July 28, 2007 at 8:04:00 AM EDT