Friday, March 20, 2009

Today In History: 1815

Today In History: 1815

In an effort to kill some time I will tell you what happened today in 1815. Napoleon I Bonaparte, former First Consul of the Republic, Emperor of the French, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine escaped his prison-kingdom at Elba and landed in northwest France, where the whole country rose to follow him, beginning the 'Hundred Days' of his restoration which were only ended by decisive force on the part of the reactionary Congress powers.


Actual size

NAPOLEONFACTS

- probably saved the Revolution, even though he 'betrayed' it, there's no way the Republic could have stood up to another Coalition
* created the code of civil law most often imitated across the world in non-Anglo countries, the code napoléon
- kicked the shit out of an army 1.5 times his size at Austerlitz, with casualty levels of 6000 vs 36000
- did it again at Jena, 8000 vs 27000
- made France the master of Europe and imposed enlightenment ideals on an unwilling aristocracy at the point of a sword


So big that he had Ice Cream named after him

Basically whenever people say that the french are pussies or suck at war just let them know that it literally took every single major country in the world ganging up on France to beat it, and because of it popular sovereignty was dead in Europe until 1848 when there was open class warfare in the streets. Fuck The Congress Powers.

Keep in mind that during the French Revolution the streets ran with blood. Americans just threw a bunch of tea in a bay. Shit, the French one even spawned sequels. So it clearly did gang busters in terms of box office numbers if it was a major motion picture. But then the numbers would crash with the whole Russia thing... Seriously though why do European countries try to invade russia that shit is like a death trap


Oh great, tourist!

So why talk about the French today? Well, I just dropped my parents off at the airport where they'll take a trip to France. Good for them, I say. Then again, they've been there at least a half dozen times already. So it's nothing new but it's at least people traveling.

It's a shame that the French get such a bad name. We even changed the name of French fries during the whole stupid war on terror because we wanted to be... I dunno.. stupid? The french didn't even frakkin have anything to do with the creation of that.



Perhaps we should stop the French bashing as it's really not going to get us anywhere. At the worse we'll alienate ourselves from the rest of the world. At the least we'll be perpetuating a stereotype and thus not encouraging Americans to visit what is one of the most beautiful places with delicious foods.

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