AGINCOURT is today.
David Davis
The post below has this link. I’m not sure what other papers have picked it up as I have not time, and am ill, but it may be a few.
The slaughter at Agincourt, as has been well-known for some centuries, in fact from day-1, was terible. Juliet Barker’s 2005 book published by Abacus, a must-read even if you know all the other well-researched acounts, goes into astonishingly minute and also rather gory detail.
There were, fistly, all sorts of “issues” going on. The English, tired, depleted by adventures at Harlfeur and by dysentery (inevitable then) were with their backs to the wall: pooing what was left of their pants into the mud, hungry, cold, and not of a mind to surrender, since the political consequences would have been unbearable for decades if not longer. Whether their subsequent adventures and attempts to hold onto Englsih territory on the European Mainland were wise or not, history has shown.
The French, enraged rightly or otherwise by this impertinent fleabite of an attack on their sovereignty and amour-propre – triggered as it was by imperfectly-interpreted and imperfectly-drafted State-succession-case-Law, which was at best ambiguous, would inevitably wipe out this rump of an invading force if they could ride it down (and they planned to.) If the Oriflamme was shown (it was) then there “would be no quarter given”.
The issue was tactically settled on the day by the Longbowmen, largely – and by careful and intelligent choice of ground and cover, as well as the weather! The French were faced with ground and confinement of their front which would have been difficult in the best conditions, without having to endure the archers on top. Their fate was simply terribly unfortunate. Furthermore, if they had not tried to mount a flanking attack on the English baggage-train, or looked as if they were going to, then a number of prisoners would not have been killed out-of-hand (some were.)
There had been plenty of years since Crecy or even earlier, for them to learn the art of archery with the longbow, and to encourage their peasantry to use it and own it: the same trees were even available to them. Other nations’ failure to adopt the logical and cheapest antidote to this medieval equivalent of a thermonuclear device can thus only be put down to destructive xenophobia and the wrong kind of conservatism. Or perhaps they feared its distribution in their populations?
No. This is what’s happening now: English liberal (which is to say, conservative) civilisation looks weak right now – weaker than at any time I can remember, having been under constant and probably co-ordinated attack since the 19th century. This latest jab, by French “revisionist” historians (with nobody else invited) is but one more way to bully and twist the tail of an already wounded beast, which unlike real beasts of the Wild happens unconditionally to be in the moral right.
The problem of how to preserve a polity, together with its historical and philosophic canon on which it is based, that can, or could nurture liberalism and libertarianism in the end, ought to be a keytone.
How do we make the world safe for liberty?
This does not, moreover, even begin to address the problem we have of how we initiate (or, worse, have to re-initiate) liberty, in conditions where it has been expunged. Like modern Britain?
These small events and attacks may individually be but pinpricks. But, whether or no, we MUST treat them as co-ordinated, for they ultimately are, in a Gramscian sense. While yet having grand conferences (ours is going on right now) to decide the broad strategy for the defence and extensions of liberty, we MUST defeat these attacks IN DETAIL.
If we do not, then because the fascist lefties currently control the terms of discourse, ground lost becomes ground we don’t any more occupy in public in front of the undecided – and THAT is what matters.
By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
– George Orwell ‘1984’
[…] Here’s my later posting, to save you the trouble. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Reflections on the Great War of 1914: David Davis responds to Sean GabbWhere Did Our Liberty Go? […]
Agincourt?
What about the famous 1351 French “chiralvic” event the Battle of the Thirty wherein 30 knights on each side fought a battle to avoid a full conflict after the French broke a truce, ambushed and murdered Thomas of Dagwood?
It was to be fought on foot, but as the English were winning, the French charged the line with a war horse.
They them captured and put to death the English knights.
Breach of truce, cheating, and cold blooded murder.
The French idea of Chivalry ?
[…] a few clues here, cunningly not very well hidden in the post I wrote in rather a hurry […]
I am very amused that the arrogant frogs mentioned the word WAR! Do they know what it means? I think not!
Some years ago the idiot garlic eaters complained about the English mainline train station Waterloo! Yes, they lost that battle to
[…] my post the other day, on the true importance and meaning of revising history with regard to Agincourt (and why what the French revisionist historians are doint is TOTALLY relevant to the fight… what the Forestry-gauleiters are up to is yet another little detailed skirmish in the long retreat […]
English liberal (which is to say, conservative)
Since when has liberalism been conservative?
Conservatism is the enemy of liberalism and liberty, except when they are the established order (which they have never been).
The Conservative Party arose out of factions dedicated to maintaining their power over the people.
Today’s conservatives are those who seek to preserve the welfare-warfare state and the military-industrial-parliamentary complex.
Liberalism and libertarianism revolutionary not conservative, all that happened was some conservatives decided they could play the liberty card against another bunch of authoritarians (to try and preserve their power).
I am useing “liberal” and “conservative” in the senses which would have been understood one or two centuries ago. Seen from today’s perspective, both a Gladstonian and a Salisburian administration would have been what we would wish to call “liberal”.
Moreover, I do NOT mean “liberal” to be taken as “Liberal” which is what the “Democrats” call themselves.
I would like lots of quite ordinary people in the end to read this blog. Although we are right to be, they are not concerned with the fineries of meaning of many political terms, and they will be happy just with a smaller State if we can help to bring it about.
If I take short cuts, express stuff somewhat crudely sometimes, and appear to be painting a wall with a 6-foot-yard-broom and not a OOO-point-brush, it is deliberate.
Dave:
The value of any discussion is inversely proportional to the effort spent discussing the meaning of words.
I have here a copy of Hayek’s “The Constitution of Liberty”, inscribed to me personally by Hayek.
The closing chapter is titled “Why I am not a conservative.” And I suggest you look at the origin of “Whig” before you start claiming Hayek as a liberal. Hayek’s thought is essentially reactive. Read his “The Sensory Order.”
Why are you attempting to straddle this impossible divide?
Political ideology is a cover for unconfessable interests. In his book “The Triumph of Politics”, Reagan’s Budget Director Dvid Stockman describes how he was summoned before Reagan’s “Kitchen Cabinet”, led by Justin Dart. They wanted him to come up with a “free-market” gloss on some handouts for the rich that they wanted to push through.
Forget the rhetoric: look at the facts. Read Keesing’s Contemporary Archives for the actual events and figures. The history of Reagan and Thatcher bore no relationship to their rhetoric.
Did liberals and conservatives put police states in place in Britain and America?
And we have Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze to thank for pulling down the Berlin Wall and freeing the Soviet colonies.
You have somehow bought into this fatuous nonsense about the “enemy class.” I can tell you that every single member of the “enemy class” I’ve ever met is a damn sight more liberal than Reagan or Thatcher ever were.
The correlation between authoritarianism and conservatism is proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
And why do you harp on about Peter Mandelson?? Because he’s gay? Jewish? Intelligent? >:-}
Best,
Tony
I just don’t like him, Tony. I think he’s a shifty bugger up to no good for the rest of us (and it’s nothing to do with him being Jewish or gay or as crafty as a waggon-load of monkeys.)
I don’t care if he’s a Jew. Good fellow: Jews are (generally) good stuff: I’m half Lebanese as you well know.
Dave:
Which do you think would make for a more interesting evening: having Peter Mandelson round for dinner; or having David Cameron round?
I don’t think of you as ‘half Lebanese’ — I think of you as entirely human! (Maronite?)
Best,
Tony
No. My old mum was what she called a “French Presbyterian”. I never was able to work out what that was, nor could she explain. I guess, owing to her attitude to me as a young boy being reluctant to go to Church every Sunday, that she was some kind of Calvinist or archaic Puritan. (Willuk! (It’s unfathomably rude apparently, almost a swear-word, but I don’t know) if you do “nuttt” go, Gooord will one day SMITE you!!!!) She despised the Maronites, thinking them to be fascists, and was a Vichy-supporter in the war. She wanted “The Brrrittish” out of the Middle East entirely, the Jews out of Israel (willuk! The Jews took “our orange-groves!!!”) and the Americans, preferably in the person of the UN, into Pan-Arabia everywhere. She was pooing herself with worry on the mornig of Suez, I remember, in front of the Sound Wireless, saying over and over:- “Yi! Yi! Yi! Haraaam! Yi! (it’s pronounced with a very very short, aspirant “i”.)The poor Egyptians, the poor Egyptians!” She was rocking back and forth too. I was quite embarrassed as a 4-yo. I thought the British were good.
Well, that’s that out of the way.
I’d rather have Mandelperson than Cameron of course, wouldn’t you? Then I could grill him and find out what the bugger’s up to…