Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Waterloo: France victorious in defeat
The Times ^ | February 18, 2003 | Adam Sage

Posted on 02/17/2003 3:36:10 PM PST by MadIvan

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-39 next last
Happygal (who is on the phone to me) presumes that in terms of a French desire for Napoleonic figures, they mean someone that anyone larger than a leprechaun can look down on.

Apart from that, we can presume from this article that the French are totally crazy. Especially their government.

Regards, Ivan


1 posted on 02/17/2003 3:36:10 PM PST by MadIvan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: kayak; LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR; keats5; Don'tMessWithTexas; Dutchy; Focault's Pendulum; Clive; ...
Bump!
2 posted on 02/17/2003 3:36:25 PM PST by MadIvan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan; mhking; Miss Marple
There is not a day that goes by without me inhaling the perfume of the discreet violet” — the flower that symbolised loyalty to Napoleon.

Get the rubber room ready.....this guy is a loon.

3 posted on 02/17/2003 3:41:54 PM PST by Dog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
BUMP
4 posted on 02/17/2003 3:44:12 PM PST by RippleFire (Hold mein bier!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
My God, Ivan, I think I fianlly understand why the French love Saddam Hussein so - they're just as insane as he is.
5 posted on 02/17/2003 3:44:14 PM PST by CFC__VRWC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
Happygal (who is on the phone to me)

Name dropper. :-)~

6 posted on 02/17/2003 3:44:31 PM PST by Sir Gawain
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
I've read that Napoleon's pursuit of glory led to the death of one million Europeans. Fitting that this fool celebrates him.
7 posted on 02/17/2003 3:45:46 PM PST by jalisco555
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
What we have called the "British tradition" was made explicit mainly by a group of Scottish moral philosophers led by David Hume, Adam Smith, and Adam Ferguson, seconded by their English contemporaries Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke, and William Paley, and drawing largely on a tradition rooted in the jurisprudence of the common law. Opposed to them was the tradition of the French Enlightenment, deeply imbued with Cartesian rationalism: the Encyclopedists and Rousseau, the Physiocrats and Condorcet, are the best-known representatives. [...]

Though these two groups are now commonly lumped together as the ancestors of modern liberalism, there is hardly a greater contrast imaginable than that between their respective conceptions of the evolution and functioning of a social order and the role played in it by liberty. The difference is directly traceable to the predominance of an essentially empiricist view of the world in England and a rationalist approach in France. The main contrast in the practical conclusions to which these approaches led has recently been well put, as follows: "One finds the essence of freedom in spontaneity and the absence of coercion, the other believes it to be realized only in the pursuit and attainment of an absolute collective purpose"; and "one stands for organic, slow, half-conscious growth, the other for doctrinaire deliberateness; one for trial and error procedure, the other for an enforced solely valid pattern." It is the second view, as J.L. Talmon has shown in an important book from which this description is taken, that has become the origin of totalitarian democracy.

The sweeping success of the political doctrines that stem from the French tradition is probably due to their great appeal to human pride and ambition. But we must not forget that the political conclusions of the two schools derive from different conceptions of how society works. In this respect the British philosophers laid the foundations of a profound and essentially valid theory, while the rationalist school was simply and completely wrong.

- F.A. Hayek, "The Constitution of Liberty"

8 posted on 02/17/2003 3:47:42 PM PST by jdege
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jalisco555
"I've read that Napoleon's pursuit of glory led to the death of one million Europeans. Fitting that this fool celebrates him."

You said it.
9 posted on 02/17/2003 3:50:45 PM PST by Sofa King (-Do the world a favor: BOMB FRANCE)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
These people really ARE crazy! Gimme a break!
10 posted on 02/17/2003 3:51:27 PM PST by Cookie123
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
That Napoleonic stuff is hilarious. But that is all the French have. The big elephant in the room is France's appeasement of Hitler and the French army's collapse in May 1940. If I had that level of shame in my history, I would go back to Moses for glorification!
11 posted on 02/17/2003 3:52:50 PM PST by LarryM
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jdege
Therefore, the EU will be impossible to maintain at its core?
12 posted on 02/17/2003 3:54:21 PM PST by Paraclete
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
While smelling his violets, M. Villepin should remember Napoleon was of Italian (Corsican) descent, not French.

Perhaps this perfumed papillon should be sniffing garlic instead.

Leni

13 posted on 02/17/2003 3:54:36 PM PST by MinuteGal (Escape to FReeper Island on "FReeps Ahoy" cruise. Register today or weep later!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan


14 posted on 02/17/2003 3:57:08 PM PST by Cicero
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MinuteGal
LOL!!!!!
15 posted on 02/17/2003 3:57:21 PM PST by Dog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
Napoleon symbolizes everything that is wrong with the French. Although he was certainly one of the great military geniuses of all time, Napoleon simply refused to train his subordinates so that they could operate independently of him. In effect, Napoleon believed absolutely in central command and control through one man -- him. As a result, in order for French troops to be victorious, Napoleon had to be on the scene. And this unwillingness to properly train subordinates so that they could general on their own eventually led to the defeat of the French because Napoleon simply wore out. Even he could not be at all places at all times.

After the Napoleonic Wars ended, the Germans saw how harmful it had been to the French that Napoleon had been unwilling to properly train his people and to then provide them with the support and authority they in order need to win. The German response was to create one of the most successful instititutions of the 19th century, which was the German General Staff. And the reason the German General Staff was so successful was the that its creators saw first hand how important it was to identify and then properly train officers who could carry out operations on their own.

16 posted on 02/17/2003 4:00:46 PM PST by vbmoneyspender
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jdege
Wonderful excerpt from Hayek, thanks.
17 posted on 02/17/2003 4:07:10 PM PST by tictoc
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
I was watching Ollie North doing War Stories last night on Fox. When the allies invaded North Africa our first opposition was the French Navy at Casa Blanca. They scuttled their ships and surrendered within hours and have been blaming the American citizen Humphry Bogart ever since.
18 posted on 02/17/2003 4:09:40 PM PST by tubebender (?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
Happygal (who is on the phone to me)


19 posted on 02/17/2003 4:12:19 PM PST by tictoc
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan
Get your daily dose of France-bashing here.
20 posted on 02/17/2003 4:12:30 PM PST by John Farson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-39 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson