Quote of the Day 17th June 2015

 
The above words were said by Wellington at the Duchess of Richmond's Ball on the eve of the battle of Quatre Bras, itself two days before the battle of Waterloo, when he discovered that Napoleon's army had moved.

Fortunately due to the heroism of the British, Dutch, and Hanoverian troops who held off greatly superior French forces at the Quatre Bras crossroads, the Allies won back that time.

Otherwise there might have been no victory at Waterloo.

I would have posted these words on Monday, 200 years after they were first spoken, except that that was also the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta, and I already had three quotes for that day relating to the great charter!

So I'm taking Wellington's words from the eve of the warmup battle and quoting them on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the main battle of Waterloo itself, which was 200 years ago tomorrow.

Comments

Jim said…
I often think when i watch the recreations of these battles, even the fantastic Sharpe films, what an era it was.

Think about it, in a modern day battle, soldiers go to the ultimate degree in camouflage, ensuring the enemy never know where you are is the top priority for survival.

For Wellington though things were different, Lets wear bright red tunics, wave giant Colours, and just to be extra certain the front row don't even get a rifle, they get a drum to bang on instead!
5:37 pm
Jim said…
Mind you Wellington did have one advantage, one very big advantage, Wellington did not have UKIP on "his side".

Dont get me wrong, Kippers are very welcome to the NO campaign as people, just not as Kippers. There is nothing so frustrating as knowing you can rip the enemy to shreds, but you cant get there for the "friendly fire". if ever there was a time for UKIP to forget party and put nation first its now, will it happen.......well i can hope.
7:25 pm
Jim said…
One other thing i did note on the "Battle of Purdah", it seems to have been deferred until autumn. Oh, ok.

The only thing that really came from the debate on the bill is that the government committed to not holding the referendum in may 16

Yes thats right, the government committed to something everyone with any sense knew the government never had any intention of doing.

well that was a debate well spent then.....
7:31 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more