Tea at Trianon: The Battle That Saved The Civilization

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

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

The Battle That Saved The Civilization

From War History:

The end of summer in the 16th century for Hungary was marked by one of the bloodiest sieges of their history. The Habsburg Monarchy suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of the Ottomans. The siege of Szigetvár, however, successfully halted the Ottoman expansion towards the city of Vienna. The Ottoman victory was a Pyrrhic one. The death toll on the Turkish side counted above tens of thousands in just a month.

The Habsburg Monarchy ruler at the time was Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. The Ottomans were ruled by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who also led the invasion itself. Szigetvár’s defense was in the hands of Nikola Zrinski, a Croatian noble and a seasoned general. Zrinski had a flourishing military career and was also one of the most powerful landlords in the Croatian Kingdom. (Read more.)