I don't mind praying to the eternal Father, but I must be the only man in the country afflicted with an eternal mother.
Here you can see a statue of Edward VII, who would have to be one of the most-statued dudes (that's the technical term for "subject of statues") going around. You know about the Edwardian period, the start of a new century, lots of sunshine and frolicking, significant changes in technology and society yada yada yada.
His work in trying to get everyone in Europe to just get along earned him the soubriquet of the Peacemaker. Fair enough. The trouble is, I’m not sure how much he deserves it.
I mentioned before about the whole “war that was supposed to end all wars but really just ended a bit inconclusively at the cost of something like 37 million casualties, then became a diplomatic shambles, then fostered resentment, fed into a volatile international financial and political scene, then led to a whole bunch of small wars, then one ruddy great war that had an estimate 72 million casualties”.
Yeah that one.
Anyway, I’m not sure that the King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and the Emperor of India really did earn that tag of Peacemaker. I think that sounds like a deliberately paradoxical nickname for some cowboy’s six-shooter anyway.
So this post has occurred in solidarity with the blogging fraternity over at Theme Thursday. Can you guess the theme for this week?
Comments
No doubt covered in snow.
To put it into perspective (and give you an idea of the incestuous absurdity of the monarchy Edward VII was related to nearly every other European monarch. The German Emperor and Russian Tsar were Edward's nephews; the Queens of Spain, Sweden, Romania, Greece and the Empress of Russia were his nieces; the King of Norway was both his nephew by marriage and his son-in-law; to top that off, the Kings of Greece and Denmark were his brothers-in-law; the Kings of Belgium and Portugal, as well as the Tsar of Bulgaria and Queen of the Netherlands were his cousins.
That said, and Peacemaker or not, he didn't like nephew Wilhelm II (Kaiser Bill), and his reputation can't escape the fact that his firming up Britain’s relationship with France (and by association, Russia) and attempted isolation of Germany kind of had something to do with the whole World War One business.
I’m sure that he thought all this Great Power nonsense would assure peace, but I would suggest that it pretty much guaranteed war on a massive scale, as was proven.
Objectivity is bunk!
Thanks for visiting my Blog. Having once worked in print media, I know that objectivity is pretty much bunk, however, I think presenting as many sides of an issue as one can is as interesting for those who write as for readers.
As for incestuous royalty, I recently viewed a PBS programme on the illigitimate children of royals and their descendents, many of whom, living in present-day UK or the States, were unaware of this lineage until experts from the UK knocked on their doors to inform them. History is certainly provacative at times. Please visit again and nice to meet you.
Thanks for dropping by.
Unstatuesque: Beautiful photo of you and your son in the sidebar.
*hangs head in shame*
But it's there now. Great picture!
hmm War and peace...I wonder how many works of art there are out there portraying the theme...too many to be counted I believe.
take care
peace and love (see even my greeting:-)
xoxo
If you were the leader of a powerful country, and you knew that 72 million people will be killed in a war you will wage against another country, but that at the end of this war, there will be peace will for 80 billion people, will you wage that war?
(I'm only happy I don't have to make a choice like that!)
Theme Thursday: Statue!
excellent contribution....
it is amazing how often a word like 'peacemaker' can be twisted and attributed to something or someone quite opposite .... and of course I'm having flashing of the u.s. recent experience with g.w.b....argh...
peace....really!