Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: MDriver1981 on 23/02/2009 01:55:11
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Of all civil wars, which one (in your opinion) was the most interesting?
My opinion: The English Civil War. The way Charles I did not fear death and had a strong sense of duty. remarkable. Oliver Cromwell was a butcher. OH well.
My great-great grandfather (Old man, sitting on chair with mustache) fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War when he was 17-19.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi208.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fbb251%2FMDriver1981%2FFehrFamily.jpg&hash=7ab2ceacd93e37d0f0c2b526bfb426e4)
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There have been so many civil wars about most of which I know very little. Certainly the English & American civil wars probably had more influence on the way I now live.
The Spanish civil war can be viewed as a war by proxy between the Soviet Union and the fascists of Germany & Italy.
Or how about Iran? Would you call that a war or just an uprising? There is no doubt that the outcome has had a drastic effect in the Western and Islamic Worlds.
Then, of course, there was the French Revolution - a civil war in all but name. The history of Europe may have been very different had it not happened or the outcome been different.
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So so it is.
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I believe Cromwell was born of parents within wedlock. I don't get the impression this view crosses your mind much Mr Driver, but I may be wrong...
"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken." - Oliver Cromwell
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What about the Industrial Revolution of the Queen Victoria's days?
No fighting involved either.
When I was at school, I'd studied the French Revolution for a project, I think that was
different not that I agree with the guillotine, I do not.
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What about the Industrial Revolution of the Queen Victoria's days?
The question was about civil wars. I don't think the Industrial Revolution falls into that category.
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What about the Industrial Revolution of the Queen Victoria's days?
The question was about civil wars. I don't think the Industrial Revolution falls into that category.
But it did change their lives completely. Anyway there are still civil wars elsewhere in the world now. Sort of in the middle eat,
in Iraq and so on.
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When I called Cromwell a bastard, I did not mean that in the literal sense. He was a brutal man.
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I don't think wars, on the whole, are very civil. If people could learn to co-operate and get on, now that would be interesting.
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When I called Cromwell a bastard, I did not mean that in the literal sense. He was a brutal man.
I guessed that really. But actually it is very important to view historical characters as they would be seen at the time. He was a very complex character and should not be summed up in such a way. He got bad press in the mid twentieth century when it was fashionable to regard the royalists as romantic cavaliars and the roundheads as ignorant scum. Actually far from the truth. He had a revival in the latter part of the century with him being regarded as a man of the people against an oppressive upper class. Also not an accurate analogy.
He had a very strong religious conviction and believed that every man had a right to read and interpret the bible and was a puritan: a concept much followed by the founding fathers of the USA. He was an outstanding general that men would follow to the death and drilled his "model army" to a very high level of discipline and devotion. He certainly could be brutal (not uncommon for the time), though was accused of acts of savagery in Ireland for which he was not directly responsible - he had returned to England. He had some of his own soldiers executed (for example) for committing offences against the local populace. He certainly acted brutally at times but often to show an example to make sure that others would think twice before fighting his army. A lesson that seems to have been copied right through to today (Gaza for example). He was a reluctant leader who tried his best to impose on himself a limit to his time as "Lord Protector" but there was a lack of anyone to take over from him.
To get a more sympathetic look at Cromwell via contemporary writings I would recommend the book "God's Englishman" by Christopher Hill.
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This one deserves the sepia treatment ...
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It's funny, but it seems to me that old photos look better in sepia tones. I guess it is only become a convention to use a grey scale and it was a limitation in processing technology that meant the old photos were sepia.