Tea at Trianon: The Invasion of Poland, 1939

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, September 5, 2014

The Invasion of Poland, 1939

Photos from Life magazine. To quote:

On Sept. 1, 1939, one week after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact, more than a million German troops—along with 50,000 Slovakian soldiers—invaded Poland. Two weeks later, a half-million Russian troops attacked Poland from the east. After years of vague rumblings, explicit threats and open conjecture about the likelihood of a global conflict—in Europe, the Pacific and beyond—the Second World War had begun.

The ostensible aim of Germany’s unprovoked assault, as publicly stated by Hitler and other prominent Nazi officials, was the pursuit of lebensraum—that is, territory deemed necessary for the expansion and survival of the Reich. But, of course, Hitler had no intention of ending his aggression at Poland’s borders, and instead was launching a full-blown war against all of Europe. (On Sept. 3, both England and France declared war on Germany—but not on the USSR.)

The invasion—during which German troops, especially, drew virtually no distinction between civilians and military personnel and routinely attacked unarmed men, women and children—lasted just over a month. Caught between two massive, well-armed powers, the Polish army and its Air Force fought valiantly (contrary to legend, which has the Poles surrendering quickly, with barely a whimper). In the end, Poland’s soldiers and aviators, fighting on two fronts, were simply overwhelmed.

In the weeks and months after the invasion, a German photographer named Hugo Jaeger traveled extensively throughout the vanquished country, making color pictures of the chaos and destruction that the five-week battle left in its wake. Here, on the 75th anniversary of the start of World War II, LIFE.com presents a series of Jaeger’s pictures from Poland: portraits of a country subjugated not by one enemy, but by several. (Read more.)