Quote of the day 20th March 2022

 









The war which the generation of my grandfather (who fought in it) called the Great War is normally referred to today as the first world war, but that is not strictly an accurate name,

The first true global conflicts took place in the 18th century and there is a strong argument that the first real world was that known in Europe as The War of the Austrian Succession, in Britain as the war of Jenkins' ear, in India as the first Carnatic War, and in the USA as the Third French and Indian war. It had different names in different theatres but it was a genuinely global series of confrontations.

And it was the first of those wars which led the British historian Thomas Babington MacAulay Macaulay, analyzing the successive wars of annexation waged by Frederick II of Prussia, (called by some "Frederick the Great,") to write that "his selfish rapacity gave the signal to his neighbours  . . . .  His example quieted their sense of shame." 

The historian proceeds:

"On the head of Frederick is to be placed all the blood which was shed in a war that raged during many years and in every quarter of the globe  . . . .  The evil produced by his wickedness was felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown; and in order that Frederick might rob a neighbour whom he had sworn to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America."


Remind you of anyone|?

The world community must make sure that no sign of apparent success signals to Russia's potential imitators that we will look the other way as the success of Prussia did in the 18th century.

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