Georges Bidault Quotes
If we had not been dealing with the devil in person, we could have saved Algeria.
Bidault, Georges. Resistance: The Political Autobiography of Georges Bidault. Praeger, 1967.
Expressing distress that the British were involved in one war after another in the Middle East that she thought never would have occurred if Britain had a foreign policy instead of "Muddling Through". Bell was responsible for setting most of the borders and geographical distributions of peoples in the Middle East, She did the best she could without any strong policy to guide her. A Century later, the Middle Eastern nations were still fighting over those borders, but they remained essentially intact.
The moral imperative of submission rather than allowing a war started by the aggressor, logical for Pizarro and Church leaders of the time, is the same logic of aggressors from Adolf Hitler to Saddam Hussein.
It was the beginning of the Zulu War.
He was a German physician and explorer who had converted to Islam. Nonetheless, he was caught up in the Arab uprising of the Madhists, who had conquered much African territory.
He reversed the Spanish policy of keeping guns from the American Indians. He provided arms with the express intention that they destroy each other. This policy almost worked for the Indians of California but several Indian tribes were exterminated.
The king was making his judgment that the English whites did not have the “gut” to kill the number of people and perpetuate the other cruelties to forcibly convert Black Africans to Christianity, and even if they did, it would be inconsistent with the moral tenets of the religion. He was not familiar with the Reformation persecutions of previous generations, nor did he anticipate the effect of colonialism by which large parts of Africa were culturally and religiously converted.
See {613496} for the origin of the “thrashing a cannibal” phrase.
At the time there were relatively few natives left. The remainder were hunted and exterminated. Only 75 were left at the end of the “Black War” where there had been about 5,000 at the beginning. See {618042}.
Georges-Augustin Bidault was a French politician. During World War II, he was active in the French Resistance. After the war, he served as foreign minister and prime minister on several occasions. He joined the Organisation armée secrète however he always denied his involvement.
