Charles Gravier Quotes

As a young man, upon the death of his father in 1856, he tried to sieze the throne from his older brother upon the advice of the French. The British Consul with a detachment of Royal Marines put down the coup, but saved his life by not turning him over to his brother. Later he assumed the throne and tended to follow the British line.

Although the French were great Admirers of American idealism, and Benjamin Franklin was extremely popular in France, one of the major French motivations for helping the Americans was to vex their arch enemy, England. French diplomats and agents watched the coming of and the progress of the American Revolution very carefully.

See {636935}for the policy decision that triggered this order.

He was acting as French Foreign Secretary at the time.

Many of his colleagues were concerned that there were relative power changes in the world and argued that no change should be tolerated by England. However, change is always in process although often it is not noticed until it has advanced and changed the balance of power. The rise of China, India and Brazil in the beginning of the 21st century are an example.

De Gaulle was a very difficult ally. He was ashamed that so many of his countrymen collaborated with the German invaders including fighting against the allies and the collapse of the French Army which, although it was larger than the German invader, had exhibited much cowardice. His way of dealing with this shame was to exaggerate the positive role that the loyal French and the serious Free French Fighters and to deny the extent of the negative behavior. He was always demanding that the small Free French Army be included in all military operations, and when successful, they be given equal credit along with the British, Americans, and Russians even though the French only contributed a tiny proportion of the effort. De Gaull’s ego, personal and national was enormous and Churchill had just as great a national ego. Hence for De Gaulle, Churchill was a kind of enemy. The “Channel” referred to the English Channel.

This is a fascinating historical quotation. The English Foreign Minister and sent a draft of his proposed policy of English involvement to make Spain more democratic to counteract the influence of France which was then England’s arch enemy. The French had a military-oriented right wing government. The Queen, although only 27 years old at the time, had a brilliant grasp of foreign policy and the sagacity of an elder statesman. (And women in the United Kingdom could not even vote.) She realized that once England was involved in nation building and backing one party in Spain, England would be responsible for whatever that party ended up doing, and yet England really could not control the situation. Corruption, violations of civil rights, impoverishment all might occur, and England would have to defend those things lest the French who would then support the opposition would gain an upper hand in a proxy war. The situation was very similar to the United States getting involved in Vietnam and supporting the South Vietnam government which, despite U. S. efforts to the contrary, was totally corrupt, inept, religiously discriminatory, and totally inept in providing good government to the people. A similar situation occurred with the American intervention in Afghanistan where the President operated a totally corrupt and inept government and we were forced to support him. On other occasions she goes even further and actually writes new copy of policies personally. Note that the formality of the time required that the Queen refer to herself in the third person and not the first.

3rd Viscount Palmerston. Afghanistan geographically is in a very strategic place, and for centuries major powers have wanted to either control it or have a very friendly government there. The highly independent Afghans are fierce fighters and have repulsed all the major powers who have tried to colonize it. The same independence makes governing the country very difficult, and there has not been a competent government that could control the country at any time in history.

They were both children of Queen Victoria of England.

Americans who had emigrated to California—a Mexican territory—were agitating to break away from Mexico and become an independent state or join the United States. In the confusion and turmoil in California, the situation was ripe for England, who controlled Canada to get involved and establish their own presence in California. Buchanan was then Secretary of State and this letter was so secret that the courier had to memorize the letter and destroy it as he was to go through Mexico to get to California and if something happened to him, it would be devastating for the ontents to b made puplic as th Unitd states was in the process of wresting Californai away from Mexico which violated major norms of international relations and could be considered and act of war against Mexico.