3rd September

This was the day in 1939 when Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany. An apprehensive Britain crowded around their wireless sets to listen to the Prime Minister's announcement. They needn't have worried, though. As Alan Bennett pointed out in 40 Years On, 3 September was also the date of Cromwell's great victory over the Scots [Battle of Dunbar 1651, but you knew that already I am sure] but Hitler didn't know that. But then there were a lot of things Hitler didn't know (have you read Mein Kampf?).

In other news ...
Richard Plantagenet became Richard I of England today after years of fighting with his father, Henry II and brothers Geoffrey and John over the succession. Bearing in mind that this rather unpleasant psychopath spent only 6 months of a 10 year reign in this country, one wonders why.

23rd August

Napoleon wrote to his adopted son Eugene de Beauharnais today in 1810, saying 'My principle is: France before everything.'
Well, everything except grabbing everybody else's country, selling his own troops down the river, Creole women and, as the great Sellar and Yeatman put it in 1066 And All That, 'standing like that.'

In other news ...

Alaric and his Visigoths destroyed Rome today in 410, ending seven centuries of culture and civilization. Actually, that's not quite true. There was a great deal of culture and civilization outside the Roman Empire and in terms of their cruelty and rapacious greed for territory, the Romans were the Nazis of the ancient world.