Category: History Of France

How Did Napoleon Become A Hero In France – A character of the 18th century has a particularly marked French Heroes History, it is about Napoleon Bonaparte I. Like Che Guevara, Napoleon Bonaparte made history but by breaking edge logic: many military conquests, battles… However, he is also known for his many accomplishments.

How Did Napoleon Become A Hero In France?

How did napoleon become emperor of France ? Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769, in Corsica, and died in 1821, in the United Kingdom. He is the first French emperor, from May 18, 1804, to April 6, 1814, and from March 20, 1815, to June 22, 1815.

When did napoleon become a general ? Bonaparte was also a general of the armies of the Revolution commander-in-chief in the war between the armies of Italy and the East.

Was Napoleon A Hero – He came to power in 1799 by a coup and he was also the first consul until 1802, then consul for life until 1804. Finally, Bonaparte was crowned emperor in the Notre Dame Cathedral of Paris on December 2, 1804, by Pope Pius VII.

How Did Napoleon Become A Hero In France

Was napoleon a hero In France? In the survey, 14 out of 20 respondents said that a historical figure could be considered a hero even if his story is controversial. Napoleon is then a perfect example, as we will see in the second part, he can be considered as an anti-hero, but some of his actions make that Napoleon is also and above all a classical hero.

Indeed, this is explained by the fact that Napoleon is the founder of many reforms that have helped to make France what it is today. A great reform ends on the 1st of May 1802 and leads to the creation of high schools. So we can say that it is thanks to Napoleon that the french people nowadays can access to an education of good quality.

In April 1803, he instituted a new currency which is the Franc Germinal, which follows the logic of the creation of the Bank of France 3 years before. This currency which replaced the previous golden coins is much easier to use with its decimations, its centimes, and its thousandths, and at the time, it was immediately adopted by the public.

This currency is stable, and soon it circulates throughout the empire. Thus, one can suppose that Napoleon contributed greatly to the prominence of France on the economic level by endowing France with a powerful institution.

Finally, Bonaparte will transform the French judicial system. Indeed, by the law of May 19, 1802, he establishes the Legion of Honor, awarded to the military and civilian persons that the State wishes to reward by this distinction, as a service rendered. This Legion of Honor, as we all know, still exists today.

At The End

Is Napoleon considered a hero in France ? And this actually How Did Napoleon Become A Hero In France, we think that Napoleon Bonaparte can be considered as a character who has made history, and a hero in the eyes of the French. Napoleon Bonaparte is, therefore, a historical French hero.

The Foremost French Poet Composer Of 14th Fourteenth Century In France And Of The Ars Nova Was Guillaume De Machaut – Who was born in Machault, around 1300 and died in Reims in 1377, is the most famous French composer and writer of the fourteenth century.

He led a life in the secular world, in the service of patrons and in close ties with the King of France, and an ecclesiastical life as the archbishop of Reims. A literate scholar and master of the arts, he has marked European artistic production for at least a century.

Was Who The Foremost Composer Of Fourteenth-Century France “Guillaume De Machaut”

In 1324, he composed his first work, the motet Bone Pastor Guillerme dedicated to the new archbishop of Reims Guillaume de Trie.

He was employed as secretary from 1323 to 1346 by John I of Bohemia, with whom he acquired the love of falconry, chivalry, and adventures. He accompanied John I in his various journeys (mainly military expeditions) through Europe (especially to Prague), participating in the campaigns of Silesia, Poland (1327) 2, Lithuania (1329), and Italy (1330). )

These various journeys are recounted in his works The Comfort of Friend and The Taking of Alexandria. Machaut speaks of John of Bohemia as an ideal king: a courageous and generous man.

Thanks to his protector, he successively obtained canonical prebends at Verdun in 1330, Arras in 1332, Reims in 13333, and Saint Quentin.

 Guillaume de Machaut Facts Songs Music and Most Famous Compositions

Guillaume de Machaut Facts Songs Music and Most Famous Compositions – Music and poetry were intimately linked in the composer. His operatic work includes nearly 400 poems whose writing preceded the composition.

Who is the foremost poet-composer of the ars nova ? Guillaume de Machaut was the most important figure of Ars nova, who introduced polyphonic writing into musical art. Although his poetry is less well known, Guillaume de Machaut was nevertheless considered The Foremost Composer Of Fourteenth-Century France.

Being both a palace poet and individual poet, a private individual who writes masterpieces of courtly poetry like The Book of Sitting says.

In the year 1330, he became a canon at Reims Cathedral, which gave him great freedom to compose. Emerging from the monody of the troubadours to go towards polyphony, enlarging the plainchant whose motifs he developed and diversified, Machaut wrote complex motets of great worth.

Most Famous Guillaume de Machaut Songs

The most famous of Guillaume de Machaut Songs was indeed his stunning Mass of Our Lady, one of the first to be created by a single composer, brought to the genre a masterful artistic dimension, including the sophistication of his polyrhythmic writing that gave birth to the poetry of great purity.

The subtle arrangements of Machaut still bear the trace of timeless modernity whose originality was greeted several times by Pierre Boulez just before his death.

He contributed to the development of orchestral music in his rondeaux, ballads, and motets. His famous Mass of Our Lady in five parts, composed between 1360 and 1365, is considered, in the current state of knowledge, as the first complete choral mass written by a single author.

His isorhythmic motets with 3 or 4 voices illustrate the rhythmic innovations of the Ars Nova, made possible by the evolution of musical notation.

In technical terms, Machaut was a master of elaborate rhythmic patterns. In this, he is a forerunner of the “great rhetoricians” of the fifteenth century. From a musical point of view, he also masters the rhythmic (in) complex modes.

Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut Compositions – For F. Autrand, Guillaume de Machaut, poet, brought to his summits the so-called “courteous international” style. His narrative work is dominated by the so-called poem, which, as the name suggests, was not meant to be sung.

These narrative poems all written in octosyllabic couplets with flat rhymes, like the novel of the same period generally follow the conventions of the Roman de la Rose, such as the use of the dream, characters allegorical, and the situation of the narrator: a lover seeking to return to his lady or to satisfy her.

Machaut is also the author of a poetic chronicle of warlike exploits (the Capture of Alexandria) and poems of consolation and moral philosophy.

At the end of his life, Machaut wrote a poetic treatise on his profession (his Prologue) which gives a posteriori unity to the whole of his lyric work.

Machaut’s poetry has directly influenced many writers, such as Eustache Deschamps, Jean Froissart, Christine de Pizan, Rene I of Naples, and Geoffrey Chaucer. He acts as an intermediary between his century and the next century by his modernity and his concern for technical precision.

The first questions about the genesis of the French language appear in the sixteenth century when it already has five centuries of existence. From origins to its official recognition in 1539, here is the Brief History Of Origin And Evolution Of The French Language, one of the most romantic languages on earth.

Brief History Of Origin And Evolution Of The French Language

The origins of the French language: Roman Gaul

To understand the origins of the French language, we must go back two millennia. At the end of the Gallic Wars (from 58 BC to 51 BC), the territories south of the Rhine became Roman provinces. The development of cities and commerce increases the horizontal communication between the Gauls and the Romans: for five centuries, spoken Latin, called vulgar (vulgus: the people), which is a Celtic language.

However, the Gaulish is not a written language, so it is difficult to maintain, especially in the more Romanized south. Today, out of the 100,000 records in Le Grand Robert, a hundred words still bear the trace of their Gallic origin. They are mainly relative to farming, such as omble, bruyère, chêne, if, route, galet, ruche, mouton, tonneau.

List Of Countries With French As An Official Language & Places That Speak French

Our ancestors the Franks

From the fourth century, many Franks are already established in the north-east and assimilated to the Roman armies. In the fifth century, when the Western Roman Empire gave way under the pressure of barbarian invasions, the Franks remained around the Rhine.

After several victories, Clovis unified the Frankish people who allied themselves with the support of the great Gallo-Roman families. For this, they adopt their language, Gallo-Romanesque, and their religion, Catholicism.

Because of the Germanic origin of the Franks, the pronunciation and the melody of the language are modified. They introduce new sounds (like [œ] sound of “fleur” and sound [ø] of “noeuds”) and a number of words. But above all, the Germanic people will give their name to future France.

A political birth

At the end of the eighth century, education collapsed. The people no longer understand Latin spoken by clerics. At the end of the Council of Tours in 813, Charlemagne imposes to pronounce the homilies in the “rustic Romance language”, in other words, in local slang.

This decision marks the first recognition of the spoken language. But the real act of birth of French will take place three decades later: at the time of dividing the empire, tensions are felt between Lothaire and his two brothers, Charles the Bald and Louis the Germanic and they join forces against their brother.

In 842, Charles and Louis took an oath, each speaking in the language that his brother’s troops could understand: Charles in “Tudesque” (ancestor of German) and Louis in “Novel” (ancestor of French). Transcribed by a witness of the scene, the oaths of Strasbourg are thus both the birth certificate of the German language and the French language.

By moving from oral to written, the French language, still very close to the local Latin. In short, we spoke French from the moment we started writing it.

The Word Environment Comes From An Old French Word Meaning …

The Franc legacy

In the 10th century, Gallo-Roman took hundreds of forms. Under the influence of Frankish, a group of languages ​​is formed in the north: these are the languages ​​of oïl. In the Romanesque south, it is the languages ​​of oc that develop (“oïl” and “oc” mean “yes”).

The languages ​​of oïl include among others the expressions of Picard, Walloon, Burgundy or Francilien, while the languages of the oc group included Limousin, Auvergnat, Provençal, Languedoc …

From the French language, we have about a thousand words, like nouns starting with an aspirated H: hache, haine, hêtre, héron or words like guerre, gâter, garder,etc.

Some appendices also mark the Francic origin, as well as different prefixes such as mé- (incompréhension, inadvertance) or certain syntactic rules, such as subject-verb inversion in an interrogative sentence.

Ancient French (Xth-XIIIth century)

Latin remains the language of religion, education, and legislation, but little by little literature in the vernacular is developing.

By the end of the 11th century, the troubadours to the south and the northern poets composed their poems in different dialects. The Song of Roland, written in Oïl language, is one of the most typical examples of the literature of this period.

However, there are great disparities between the texts: the dialects are many, free from strict rules, and the grammar, under the pen of facetious copyists, it is random.

In the twelfth century, the kingdom is still split between oïl and oc. However, the gradual extension of royal power from the Île-de-France allows kings to impose their authority. The language (oïl) becomes an instrument of power and a unifying factor of the kingdom.

Basic French Words For Food Search

The affluent history of the french language

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, France witnessed dark times: the Black Death and the Hundred Years War decimate the population; the monarchical authority is on the edge. The texts of François Villon, written in the Middle French, reflect this troubled period.

For the modern reader, the language is more readable. Thanks to the loss of both declensions, the place of words has been established. The language is precise. Some graphs lend to beam (soques, pluye or oyseaulx). The letter Y is popular; on the other hand, K and W, doomed to be limited as Latin is now subdued.

The fifteenth-century witnessed the birth of the Italian Renaissance and the printing press; the ancient texts are rediscovered and the invention of Gutenberg allows a rapid spread of knowledge. To edit books in quantities, the language must be arranged. The native languages ​​then gain recognition.

The challenge is twofold: religious (the Bible is published in German in 1522) and used politically. By the ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, in 1539, French became the language of law and administration to the detriment of Latin. By this political act, Francis the 1st wanted to “address France”.

A linguistic evolution of the french language

In order to give the French language a legitimacy and offer it its nobility, some hypotheses, sometimes complicated, are put forward: French would come from the sacred languages, that is to say from classical Latin, from Greek or even from Hebrew!

The first linguists lay the groundwork for a secular debate: should we privilege apply or contemplate the language? Paragon of this linguistic emulation, Joachim Du Bellay publishes Defense and illustration of the French language in 1549.  The authors of the Pleiades, of which he is the member, who played the role of theoreticians and lexicographers.

The language is again Latinized, sometimes even wrongly. Words considered “barbaric”, that is to say non-Latin, are censored from the lexicon. To respond to new facts, writers resort to more than 2,000 borrowings from other languages ​​and neologisms, giving rise to lexical doublets. For example, “Écoute” and “ausculter” share the same root (auscultate).

Banking Words in French and Phrases

Linguistic centralism

Enjoying a double political and literary impulse, French is, therefore, a language that comes “from above”. However, the share of speakers speaking the King’s language does not exceed 10 to 20% in the sixteenth century. This situation evolves only very slowly, whereas the use of French extends into European courts and as far as the other side of the Atlantic.

French is a language of paradoxes, struggling to eliminate the “barbarian” in it, which is nevertheless a part of its identity. Between the shadows, the hazardous hypotheses and even a hint of bad faith, the diachronic study of the language thus inform us on the history of France, always wavering between its strong desire for a unit often fool and the fact of its diversity.

Avignon History And Culture – The Palace of the Popes, the bridge of Avignon, the ramparts are classified world heritage of Unesco. Cardinal’s liveries, churches and convents perfect the architectural richness coming largely from the pontifical legacy.

Avignon History And Culture

Capital of the Christian world in the Middle Ages, Avignon has preserved an outstanding heritage: the Palace of the Popes, the world-famous bridge, the World Heritage-listed walls by Unesco.

Before the power of the papacy, the town heritage has also been there for long: a hundred solid houses, crenellated, dominated by the cathedral Notre-Dame des Doms, characteristic of the Provençal novel and enclosed in strong ramparts, convents of great powerful rulers (preachers, Cordeliers, Carmes, Augustins), and on the impetuous and violent Rhone, a bridge with 22 arches, built between Lyon and the sea, built by the small shepherd Bénézet at the end of the 12th century.

Ruined by the onslaught of the river, unused since the seventeenth century, it is now universally known by the song “On the bridge of Avignon”.

When Avignon becomes the heart of Christendom, the city offers a very convenient place to stay for consecutive pontiffs. Then rise the imposing mass of one of the most beautiful buildings in Europe, the Palace of the Popes: work of French architects, but decorated largely by Italian painters of the famous Sienese School of Trecento, headed by Matteo Giovannetti of Viterbo.

Cardinal’s liveries, churches, convents, are built according to the tortuous lanes, and the urban and architectural aspect is modified. New ramparts are being built, constituting one of the most beautiful lines of medieval fortifications in Europe. The pontifical legacy is enormous and the City of Avignon is honored by devoting a large part of its restorations.

The HistoPad Palace of the Popes: the increased visit for everyone in Avignon!

This is the unique experience of diving in the past, in the heart of the largest gothic palace in Europe, The Palace Of The Popes…

By calling on History, a start-up labeled “La French Tech”, specialized since 2013 in the exploitation of augmented visits solutions to enhance the monuments, the City of Avignon reinforces the attractiveness of the extraordinary heritage of Avignon History And Culture

To offer each visitor to the Palais, the interactive tablet HistoPad, is to offer the best of modern museography, allow the first-time visitors to discover the monument even better, and encourage those who already know it to rediscover it

All you have to do is cross the “Portes du temps” to enjoy a unique tour of the various rooms of the Palais des Papes and find yourself immersed in the past.

A real revolution that will resolutely transform the way to discover Avignon History And Culture: it is now a fun, educational and interactive visit for guests. Much more than discover a building, go from room to room, read or listen to a text, it is then that on the tablet they will be equipped with 3D technologies and augmented reality, they will be able to discover at 360 ° what the places looked like 800 years ago, and how they evolved, as well as their history.

Far from being a simple gadget, the Histopad proposes developments built on historical and cultural content giving to see spectacular historical reconstructions, entirely elaborated by a scientific committee.

Discover the reconstituted palace at the time of the pontifical court

Symbol of the influence of the Church on the Christian West in the fourteenth century, the Palace of the Popes preserved its medieval history its monumental stone, preserved in its integrity. Inside the monument, the expanded visit with the HistoPad makes it possible to discover striking reconstructions of the spaces such as they could be at the time of the “City of the Popes”.

The original splendor of the interiors and the richness of the decorations are thus restored in the Consistory, the Big Treasury, the Lower Treasury, the Camera Chamber, the Pope’s House, the Grand Tinel, the Great Chapel, and the Great Hall. Visitors can thus obtain detailed explanations in their language throughout the tour, and better understand the works still visible on the walls, in particular in the Chamber of the Stag, and in the Saint-Martial Chapel, or the St John’s Chapel.

The Histopad for a unique and unforgettable visit

At any time, visitors can orientate themselves and organize their visit thanks to an interactive geolocated plan. He also has the opportunity to extend his experience by leaving a comment in the digital guestbook and can get a digital souvenir of his visit by email. Children and their families are invited to a treasure hunt in search of papal coins hidden in 3D objects, to manipulate in each reconstituted space.

How To Go The Extra Miles In Developing And Maintaining Avignon History And Culture

Since 1995, the City of Avignon has been inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The region concerned represents an area of ​​8.2 ha including the Rocher des Doms, the Petit Palais, the Notre Dame des Doms metropolis and the Saint-Bénézet bridge.

This wonderful heritage that is the pride of all Avignon depends on several institutional factors: the State, the PACA Region, the Department of Vaucluse and the City of Avignon. All have gathered for twenty years still it is now necessary to go further and establish a real management plan for this World Heritage site.

A management plan that integrates all elements of a global strategy combining scientific and cultural project, conservation, didactic presentation of the site, social and economic valorization for the benefit of the Avignonnais. Thus, a convention is established between the various actors which define the commitments of each one. Concerned about its classified heritage, the City will also create and finance a senior staff position that will be in charge of monitoring the management plan, for a better valorization of the properties inscribed on UNESCO’s heritage.

Edmund Burke Reflections On The Revolution In France Summary – Published on November 1, 1790, this Irish-British politician and philosophy manifesto against the Radicality of the French Revolution sparked a debate that lasted more than two centuries. The work has had considerable influence, particularly in conservative and liberal societies.

Edmund Burke Reflections On The Revolution In France Summary

 “Reflections on the French Revolution” by Edmund Burke

THE THESIS

Written to answer François Depont, a young French patriot who had asked his opinion on the events in his country, the Reflections on the Revolution of France (1790) were in fact addressed to British readers: two years after the centenary of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Burke feels that it is urgent to discredit the English radicals, who, from the summer of 1789, saw in the French Revolution the opportunity to finish the work left unfinished a hundred years earlier. Understanding the dangers of possible transmittal across the English Channel, Burke writes a manifesto without detours, aiming to isolate the French Revolution as a monstrosity of human history.

Thinking that it is possible to change nature with the ideas of philosophy, the French, he says, destroyed the traditions that men have on the contrary the duty to preserve. Convinced that it is possible to reduce the diversity and uniqueness of human societies to uniform “human rights”, these French people put down the ancestral balances, based on the guarantee of property, religious traditions, and affinities.

According to Burke, believing in liberation, the French actually unleashed the most uncontrollable violence. Burke then raises the threat of a new Cromwell: sooner or later, these troubles will make him want a return to order and bring another tyrant into power, threatening the peace of Europe.

Edmund Burke Reflections On The Revolution In France Summary

WHAT IT REMAINS

Success is immediate because it responds to the anxieties caused by the French Revolution: Reflections are translated into French and German; 30,000 copies are sold by Burke.

If this intellectual charge is passionate, it seems to justify those who, in Europe and America, criticized the devastating effects of the Enlightenment and especially radical thought.

His success is also due to the fact that the attack does not come from the camp, often French, of the defenders of absolute power, but of that of the conservative Liberals: if Burke is quickly designated as the ideologue of the entire Counter-Revolution, in fact, those who, such as Joseph de Maistre or Louis de Bonald, espouse much tougher theocratic or organicist conceptions, will be inspired by very little.

Finally, the shock wave is also due to the “revolutionary controversy” that then divides Europe and provides a favorable ground for the book’s acceptance: from 1790 to 1795, patriots like Thomas Paine or Mary Wollstonecraft publicly defend radicalism of the French Revolution.

Since the end of the twentieth century, at the cost of distorting his thinking, Burke’s work has inspired new American and British conservatives in their moral justification for political and social inequalities, as well as in their opposition to universalism of rights of humanity.

MORE ABOUT EDMUND BURKE

Irishman Edmund Burke (1729-1797) has been sitting among the Liberal Whigs since 1766 in the House of Commons of the British Parliament when the Revolution broke out in France.

Opposing absolutism, convinced of the virtues of bicameralism stemming from the Glorious Revolution of 1688, an advocate of the political, religious and commercial freedom of the Irish colony, it is in the name of liberalism that it faces the more conservative Tories. , led by William Pitt. But it is also as a liberal that he reproves the principles advocated by the American insurgents, based on the ideals of republic and sovereignty of the people, and that he fights against the theses of the French Revolution, which he considers to be too democratic and universalist.

It is still in the name of this refusal that he supported, in the 1790s, the severe crackdown on British radicals.

How Did France and Great Britain respond to the Emancipation Proclamation after Lincoln issued it  – France and Britain responded to the Emancipation Proclamation by declining to acknowledge the Alliance. Announcing their support for slavery in the South, Building a trade association with the Confederacy, and Assigning representatives to settle the Civil War.

How Did France and Great Britain respond to the Emancipation Proclamation after Lincoln issued it

• • • • • • • By refusing to recognize the confederacy
            • Declaring their support for slavery in the south
            • Forming a trade alliance with the confederacy
            • Sending ambassadors to settle the civil war.

Originally, the North engaged in the Civil War with the South to prevent secession from the South and preserve the Union. Ending slavery was not a goal. This changed on September 22, 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln issued his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that the slaves of those states or parts of the state still in rebellion as of January 1, 1863, would be enfranchised. One hundred days later, a proclamation of emancipation was promulgated by Lincoln declaring “that all persons held as slaves” in rebel areas “are and must henceforth be free.”

This bold move by Lincoln was a military step in which he hoped to encourage the slaves of the Confederation to support the cause of the Union. Because it was a military measure, the proclamation was limited in many ways.

It applied only to States that had seceded from the Union and maintained slavery in border States. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation did not put an end to slavery, it fundamentally transformed the nature of war. From now on, each progress of the federal troops grew the scope of freedom.

In addition, the proclamation announced the acceptance of black men in the Union’s army and navy. By the end of the war, nearly 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and for their own freedom.

How It All Started – The Emancipation Proclamation &

Why did european nations such as Britain and France distance themselves from the confederate war effort after the emancipation proclamation? 

On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln decreed the Proclamation of Emancipation. When it came into effect on January 1, 1863, the executive order legally released about 4 million slaves in the rebel-held southern areas of the United States.

How was the emancipation proclamation tied to European and English attitudes toward the civil war?

The Emancipation Proclamation turned the civil war into a social revolution. It transformed the struggle, led by the North, to preserve the Union as it existed in 1860, a war for the destruction of slavery and the social and political order in which it ceased.

Given its historical content and Lincoln’s well-deserved reputation as a master of prose, the modest and legal style of the document might seem surprising. The decisive section appears only in the middle, where Lincoln writes: “On the first day of January, in the year 1863 of our Lord, in any State or any designated part of a State holding slaves, these will then be in rebellion against the United States, and will be from now on, and forever be free. “

The modest style did not weaken the revolutionary content of the Proclamation. “Lincoln is an unusual person in the annals of history,” observed Karl Marx on October 9, 1862, in Die Presse. “The most formidable decrees – which will forever remain remarkable historical documents – which he has thrown into the face of the enemy all resemble, and are made to coincide, routine injunctions that a lawyer would address to a solicitor. from the opposite side. ”

The “preliminary” Emancipation Proclamation, as it is sometimes called, referred to the possibility that if the rebellious states returned to the Union during the 100 days between September 22, 1862, and January 1, 1863, and they accepted a plan for the gradual enfranchisement of slaves, they can be spared from expropriation. In this initial version, Lincoln even raised the possibility that a settlement plan “on this continent or elsewhere” would be implemented for freed slaves.

Lincoln did not believe that these incentives would bring revolutionary states back into the Union. Their inclusion in the document (Lincoln did not mention plans for colonization in the Final Proclamation) was intended to appease the border slave states that had remained in the Union (Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, West Virginia, and Maryland) as well as a section of voters in the North, where the population was overwhelmed by relentless propaganda from the press and Democratic Party politicians regarding the “race-to-race” and “servile insurrection” objectives of the “Black Republican Party”.

After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation great Britain and France ….

Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a military order and as commander-in-chief. He invoked his powers of war to circumvent the opposition of the Democratic Party to emancipation. It was for this reason, as well as the existence of constitutional clauses enshrining slavery, that the Proclamation applied only to areas in rebellion.

However, there was little doubt at the time that the document meant the end of slavery. The President of the Confederation, Jefferson Davis, raved that the Proclamation was “an invitation to the widespread assassination … of the masters”.

In fact, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery in the United States, was passed by both congressional chambers controlled by the Republicans before the end of the war and formally decreed in December 1865.

Lincoln’s personal opposition to slavery was well known. He was perceived by both his friends and his enemies as an anti-slavery politician, even though he was not an abolitionist. “I would not wish to be a slave, and I would not wish to be a master. That’s my conception of democracy, “said Lincoln.

However, the Republican Party had won the 1860 election by promising that slavery would not be abolished where it already existed, but only in new territories. Although the elite in the South had vehemently opposed this position through seceding and war, the Lincoln administration led the Civil War in 1861-1862 with the goal of restoring the status quo ante.

Even on August 22, 1862, Lincoln published a letter in Horace Greeley’s anti-slavery newspaper, The New York Tribune, in which he seemed to reaffirm his position. He wrote: “If I could save the Union by not releasing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by releasing part of it, I would do it too. “

Why Did France Fall So Easily To The Nazis In WW2 – Hitler Stalin 1939 … Western propaganda claimed that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were “allies”. The Second World War was entirely their fault, while France, Great Britain, and Poland were innocent victims of totalitarianism.

Historians interpret and reinterpret history. This is a normal process … except when politicians are reinterpreting. Their interests are not intellectual but rather political. They seek to justify their politics by evoking the past, history as they need it to be.

Why Did France Fall So Easily To The Nazis In WW2

The origins and conduct of the Second World War are of particular interest to Western politicians, past and present. It was true, even from the beginning. In December 1939, the British government decided to produce a white paper on the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations in the spring and summer of this year, with the aim of organizing an alliance to fight against Hitler’s Germany.

Foreign Ministry officials carefully selected a hundred or so documents to show that they and the French had been serious about organizing an anti-German alliance and that the USSR was primarily responsible for the failure of the negotiations. At the beginning of January 1940, the white paper was in the testing stage. Almost everyone in London was eager to publish it.

All that was needed was the approval of France and the Polish government in exile. To the surprise of British officials, France opposed the publication of the white paper, as did the Polish government in exile. This may surprise today’s readers.

Why would the French and Polish officials oppose a publication considered as “good propaganda” by the British to blacken the reputation of the Soviet Union?

Let the French ambassador in London explain it in his own words: “The general impression that emerges from reading [the white paper],” he writes in a memorandum dated January 12, 1940, “is that the Russian government has never stopped insisting, from beginning to end, to give the agreement [currently being negotiated] the maximum scope and effectiveness. Whether sincere or not, the Soviet Government’s determination to effectively cover all the possible routes of German aggression appears throughout the negotiations but met with Franco-British reluctance and the clear intention of the two governments to limit the scope of the negotiations. Russian intervention. ”

The French ambassador did not stop there. He observed that critics who felt that the USSR had been forced into an agreement with Nazi Germany because of Anglo-French “reluctance” to make real commitments in Moscow, would find in the white paper “a number of ‘arguments in their favor’. The language used here conformed to the best traditions of diplomatic euphemisms, but the Foreign Office received the message.

Especially since there was still the irritating fact for Gallic sensibilities that the documents chosen for the white paper failed to show that they, the French, had been more worried to conclude with Moscow than their British allies.

What would happen, the French wondered if the Soviet government published its own collection of documents in response to a white paper? Who would public opinion believe? The French were not sure of the answer.

As for the Poles in exile, they could not insist much, but they too preferred that the white paper should not be published. Even in the first days of their exile, the Poles were unwilling to make known their responsibilities in the origins of the war and their blazing defeat against the Wehrmacht.

In fact, the three governments, the British, the French, and the Polish, had much to hide, and not only their conduct in 1939 but during the whole period after the accession of Adolf Hitler to power in January 1933. The government Soviet had been quick to sound the alarm of danger and to propose a defensive anti-Nazi alliance to France and Great Britain. And yes, Moscow also made overtures to Poland. The Soviet Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Maxime Litvinov, even hoped to attract Fascist Italy to an anti-Nazi coalition. In Bucharest, the Soviet government developed concerted efforts to obtain Romanian participation in a broad anti-German alliance evoking the Entente coalition of the First World War.

Were all these Soviet efforts a ruse to fool the West, while Soviet diplomats secretly negotiated with Nazi Germany?

Not at all, the Russian archives seem conclusive on this point. The Soviet overtures were serious, but its so-called allies hesitated, except for Poland, which at no time had considered joining an anti-Nazi alliance with the Soviet Union.

Commissioner Litvinov saw that the so-called allies of the Soviets were trying to deal with Nazi Germany. Poland constantly obstructed Soviet policy, and Romania, under Polish and German pressure, gave up better relations with Moscow. A Soviet ambassador even recommended that the Soviet government not break all relations with Berlin in order to send the message, especially to Paris and London, that the USSR could also deal with Nazi Germany. The four most important French diplomats in Moscow during the 1930s repeatedly warned that France must protect its relations with the USSR or risk seeing it reconcile with Berlin.

In Paris, these reports disappeared in the files and finally remained ineffective. The greatest blow to collective security came in September 1938, when France and Great Britain concluded the Munich Agreement, which sanctioned the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Neither Czechoslovak diplomats nor Soviet diplomats were invited to the negotiations. As for Poland, it allied itself with Nazi Germany. “If Hitler obtains the Czechoslovak territories,” said the Polish diplomats before Munich, “then we will have our share too. ”

Is it surprising that after about six years of futile attempts to organize an anti-Nazi front, the Soviet government is losing all confidence in the French and British governments and is making an agreement with Berlin to stay out of the war, that all world-recognized as imminent?

This was the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, signed on August 23, 1939. As for the Poles, in their arrogance and blindness, they mocked the idea of ​​an alliance with the USSR until the first day of the war…

The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was the result of the failure of six years of Soviet policy to conclude an anti-Nazi alliance with the West and not the cause of this failure. The British ambassador in Moscow accused the Soviet government of “bad faith,” but it was only the hospital that made fun of Charity. Even during the last days of peace, the British and French governments sought to escape the war. “Although we can not, under these circumstances, avoid declaring war,” declared a British minister, “we can always write the letter declaring war without immediately going there. In fact, France and Great Britain barely raised a finger to help Poland, when it was invaded on September 1, 1939. After bringing the disaster upon itself, the Polish government fled Warsaw after the first days of combat, its members passing in Romania to be interned there.

If France and Britain did not help the Poles in their moment of despair, could Joseph Stalin reasonably have calculated that the British and the French would have done more to help the Soviet Union if it had entered the war? September 1939?

Obviously no. The USSR should turn to its own defenses. No one should be surprised then that a few months later, the French and the Poles in exile are opposed to the publication of a white paper that could open the Pandora’s box of questions about the origins of the war and their failure to join an anti-Nazi alliance. It is better not to wake the sleeping dog and hope that the government archives will not be open for a long time.

After the war, however, the failure surrounding the British White Paper was long forgotten. The sleeping dogs woke up and began to bark. The West launched a campaign accusing Stalin of being Hitler’s “ally”. In 1948, the US Department of State published a collection of documents under the title of Soviet-Nazi Relations 1939-1941, to which the Soviet government responded with falsifiers of history. The war of propaganda was unleashed, as was especially the American attempt to attribute to the USSR an equal responsibility to Nazi Germany in the provocation of the Second World War.

American propaganda was absurd, given the history of the 1930s as we know it today, from various European archives.

Was there ever a greater act of ingratitude than the US accusations blaming the USSR for the origins of the war and hiding the immense contribution of the Red Army to the common victory against Nazi Germany?

Nowadays, the role of the Soviet people in the destruction of Nazism is virtually unknown in the West. Few people are aware that the Red Army fought almost alone for three years against the Wehrmacht while calling for the opening of a second front to its Anglo-American allies. Few people know that the Red Army inflicted more than 80% of the losses of the Wehrmacht and its allies and that the Soviet people are suffering so much loss that no one knows exactly how many, though they are estimated to 26 or 27 million civilians and soldiers. The Anglo-American losses were insignificant in comparison.

Ironically, the anti-Russian campaign of falsification of history intensified after the dismantling of the USSR in 1991. The Baltic States and Poland led the charge. Like the tail that moves the dog, they dragged all the well-disposed European organizations, such as the OSCE, the European Parliament and Assembly in Strasbourg, into ridiculous statements about the origins of the Second World War.

It was the triumph of the ignorance of politicians who knew nothing or who calculated that the few who knew something of the war would not be heard.

After all, how many people have read diplomatic papers in the various European archives detailing Soviet efforts to build an anti-Nazi alliance during the 1930s?

How many people know the responsibilities of London, Paris, and Warsaw in obstructing the common European defense against Nazi Germany?

“Not much,” must have been the conclusion of European governments. The few historians and informed citizens who knew or know the truth could easily be fooled, marginalized, or ignored.

So Hitler and Stalin had become accomplices, the two friends, and the two “totalitarians”. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were “allies”. World War II was entirely their fault.

France, Great Britain, and Poland were innocent victims of totalitarianism. The OSCE and the European Assembly issued resolutions to this effect in 2009, declaring August 23 as a day in memory of the victims of the “alliance” of the Nazis and Soviets, as if the non-aggression pact signed this that day had fallen from heaven and had no other context than totalitarian evil.

In 2014, after US and EU support for the coup in Kyiv, a fascist junta seized power in Ukraine, and the campaign of propaganda to falsify history intensified. Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, like Stepan Bandera, were crowned national heroes. Ukrainian paramilitary forces called the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UUN / UPA), who fought alongside the Wehrmacht and the SS, were similarly transformed into liberation forces.

In October this year, the Polish and Ukrainian legislatures passed resolutions blaming Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for the Second World War. Given Poland’s role in collaborating with Nazi Germany and obstructing Soviet efforts to create an anti-Nazi alliance in the 1930s, this resolution is surrealistic.

Equally perverse is the equivalent Ukrainian resolution, by a government celebrating the collaboration with the Nazis during the Second World War.

Ironically, the Law and Justice Party have their own problems in its “alliance” with fascist Ukraine. These Ukrainian collaborators who fought with the Nazis and committed atrocities against Soviet citizens also perpetrated mass murders in Poland during the latter part of the war.

Even if Poland tries hard to falsify history, it can not hide the atrocities of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators against the Poles, recalled in a recent Polish hit movie, Volhynia. It sounds like a surrealist quarrel between brigands who have to bury the history of Ukrainian fascism and Nazi collaboration in order to unite against the common Russian enemy.

If only the many Ukrainians living today in southern Poland stopped erecting illegal monuments to commemorate Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. The poor Poles are caught between the hammer and the anvil. It is equally unpleasant for them to recall that the Red Army has liberated Poland and put an end to the atrocities of Nazi collaborators.

Will Russia and Poland finally bury the hatchet to get rid of the new wave of fascist Ukrainians in their territories?

It’s unlikely. The Polish government also had to choose in the 1930s, between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. He chose collaboration with Nazi Germany and rejected an anti-Nazi alliance with the Soviet Union. It is not surprising that history must be falsified. There is so much to hide for Western governments and Poland.