Bleeding Edge

EUROPEAN HOLIDAYS

There are parallels between the Second Greek-Persian War fought between the free and democratic Greek City States and the Autocratic Despotic Persians of two thousand years ago — and the Second World War, fought between England and her Allies, arrayed against Germany and her Axis of Evil allies. This is somewhat similar to the parallels between the Second Cold War that we are presently prosecuting against the North Koreans, and their puppet masters, the Chinese communists, and the inter-war years between the First and the Second World Wars of this past century when we were fighting the Soviet Communists and their Allies.

We always like to think in Historical terms, because we are all changing and think that we are different and that our times are unique, yet while today it is the Chinese Communists who attempt to disguise their military buildup and their blood-red ideology, with a sheen of a free market economy, and soft power pretenses at dialogue — it is ourselves who are falling asleep to that old lullaby too Pacifism, that soothed us and put us to sleep, during the times of those earlier crises. Yet we all know today that the Chinese promote the fake Peace initiatives, as their Belt & Road infrastructure plans, and their economic development plans in the Third World, along with their Soft Power infusions, just in order to guide all the people to fall for their fakery. And they need to do this, in order to mask their militaristic ambitions, their communistic flavor of central economic planning, their central command, and the totalitarian single party system of governance — but above all else, in order to appease their Western critics. And they do it in the same way and with the same success as Hitler did back when he was the quietly rearming Germany while appeasing all her critics, and even using the Royal families of Europe and even by recruiting the failed King of England. Hitler with Von Ribbentrop managed the Duke of Windsor, like putty in their hands, and spread their message of Fake Pacifism, which gained them enough valuable time, and resources, in order to fully rearm, and go on to destroy Europe, and the whole of the world, all over again.

And all that led to bloody mayhem and destruction just two short decades after the First World War bloodbaths the Huns had unleashed upon the sleepy ancient continent of Europe…

That is why I am saying now that any relaxation of our vigilance in support of Liberty, means that the Chinese tyrannical & illiberal system will continue to work well at our expense. And that is why leaders like President Xi and the members of the Chinese Politburo, or the Russian Vladimir Putin and his intimate circle, or the Islamic state militants and the ISIS caliphate losers, and all the others who worship cultures of submission and subjugation of the human spirit to the level of the ants, see war as a need. Or at least they see it as a nice vehicle to reach “Paradise” but ultimately it is a vast trouble and at times an irrelevancy to the Free Spirit and the Free Will, we share at the Anglo-Saxon world, and to the Free Will, that we are endowed with, through the Greco-Roman Christian tradition.

As for today’s hue and cry about the “Reds” inside our Republic of the United States is nothing more than a fake news story about the “hacking” of our elections during the pseudo-fight between the political correctness brigade of the DNC plantation politics conceived from leaders of the Democratic party of Evil exclusively for snowflakes — and also about the stupidity of the Republican party, the party of those who can’t shoot straight.  Still for the sane of us, thank God we have Donald Trump who is somewhere in the middle too… And Thank God that Trump comes across as another good “shopkeeper” like President Truman who likes the Liberty of Free Minds, and Free Markets. And thus the free minded, and free thinking Peoples of the Free World, have finally gotten a Leader who can offer some measure of respite from their oppressors of both political parties inside America, and of all other appeasers and oppressors worldwide.

The winds of change blow as the sands of time shift and fall through the bottle neck in the hourglass of History.  Yet indeed it is this hourglass of History that defines the amazing bottleneck of change, same as every time an “Appeaser” tries to block the comic change by obfuscating the flow and the course of the sands of time. And this is exactly when we suffer that terrible traffic jam of the blocked sands of time, that invariably results in horrible bloodshed and mayhem, for humanity.

Mark my words on this, and if you test the veracity through the historical record, you might find why ideologies die like those moths circling the candle light in the midst of summer. And especially mark my truthfulness if you are one of those “moths” and the snowflakes, who come close to the flames of reality and catch fire and then go down with wings alight, like a doomed airplane.

Yet this is the cauldron of fire that our ideologies always go through too… and that’s how we separate the true gold form the fool’s gold too.

Because political ideologies, get smelly and go bad, just as fast as the fish sitting out at the fishmongers’ shopfront marble slab, do. Surely, some more vintage issue ideologies stay fresh a bit longer, but most of them still come up short, and go out to the trash-heap of history. Sure they get recycled, with the frequency of the seasonal fashion changes as seen upon the semi-annual runways of Milan and Paris, showcasing the slender clothes-hangers walking up and down the runways of the famed houses of “Haute Couture” in the capitals of fashion and vogue — and they carry about as much weight as they do. That is … not very much.

Only the truly foundational principled ideals that are based on Humanity’s useful core beliefs, can stand the test of time. Contrast that to the popular ideologies of today like Socialism recycled from Hitler’s national socialism, that rhapsodize the masses, and their impact on our lives, and realize that You and Yours, don’t matter as much, as a worker ant.

Yet it is these ideologies that gain spectacular appeal like Bernie Sanders in the US and then go out like an asteroid impacting our atmosphere. Hopefully they go out like pop songs, that get forgotten in the 8track cassette libraries of yore, and not like the asteroids that leave an impact like that which wiped out the dinosaurs.

Therefore don’t trust ideologies and ideologues because they too change with the prevailing winds and weather patterns, but do trust the True Leaders of Men who work hard with courage in their hearts and go on to write History for the rest of you…

That’s how the Camelot was born and is carried on to this day…

And because history is a fickle mistress, very much like the lady fortune, and the personal fortitude required in order to be able to write it — we need something more than what the run of the mill Leaders of Men can bring along to the fight. We need visionary leadership and the skills of Statesmanship in action, in order to have solid leaders who can write History large, in the battlefield of honor, and in the battleground of ideas, even using their own blood as ink and their courage as their pen. This is how history is fueled through the courage of leading the brigades of thought and action. Still the key ingredient is Vision, because only visionary Leaders truly see ideology as subservient to the historical moment. And indeed only this type of Man or Woman can rise up to become the leader that takes the chestnuts out of the fire, and through their life risking charge at distinction and honor, can truly change the flow of history and the route of the time they live in.

So whether we compare Lenin to George Washington, or we compare Mao to Stalin, and in more recent times, we compare Putin to Trump — we should always be keen to seek the truth without ideological lenses blinding us to the light. It has to be an assessment that will hopefully reveal the real human beings behind the facade. Because we need to discover who are the Men and Women behind the cultivated images of “canonization” and “sainthood” cultivated specifically by the image makers and the propagandists for the position they occupy, as heads of state, and as leaders. Yet we can truly see the essence, only when totally bereft of any ideology that they might have espoused and used as a vehicle to reach the pinnacle of success.

And the reason that we do this, is only because we get to know the person that writes the history without caring so much for the elevated vestiges of the authority and the coloration of the flag that this person carries, or even the ideological banner they support and the people they serve.

The eternal proof of this is in the pudding, as when we compare Winston Churchill as a leader and a person to Adolf Hitler when seen in the context of their titanic contest. This is the comparison that would not have been written if these two men were not “who” they truly were defined in their conflict with each other.

Of course Winston Churchill had prophesied that “A Leaders of the type of Hitler” would arise out of Germany after the humiliating Versailles Treaty that was forced upon the German people, at the end of the First World War. He had predicted this “eventuality” on the eve of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, ending the First World War in his usual musings that came to sound like another Delphic oracle, and he shared this with his intimates and friends, same as he delivered this in his Parliamentary speeches on numerous occasions when the Versailles Treaty was discussed in the British Parliament. This was the Vision that Winston processed because Churchill saw the Allies as being niggardly and not magnanimous in Victory. And indeed that was surely the case after the First World War, and that is why Winston Churchill called for a degree of magnanimity during the one sided negotiations of the Paris Peace Conference. Because at that pivotal time only Winston Churchill and his friend the economist John Maynard Keynes, seemed to fully understand the long term repercussions of an “Iron Treaty” forced upon Germany. And they truly predicted the Hitlerian outcome, at the Versailles Treaty negotiations on Paris, because the terms were too harsh for any country to bear, and they became a “Carthaginian-Peace-Treaty” instead of a rebuilding tool, for Europe and for the vanquished German people.

Yet Churchill and Keynes cooperated and both men tried hard to have an impact on the Paris Peace Conference — they failed to sway any conferees to their point of view, that inevitably the massive reparations forced upon Germany were so excessive and counter-productive, that would soon lead Europe to another devastating war. For us to understand this point of view today, and to see how far the victorious Allies were out of sync with reality — we ought to recall that the Allied side with French Marshal Ferdinand Foch at it’s helm, criticized the Versailles Peace Treaty as “treating” Germany too leniently. And to get a further measure of how wrong the French can be on occasion, when they truly want to be wrong — today we have French President Macron negotiating with President of Russia Vladimir Putin at the same Palace of Versailles where he insists that France is a good destination for travel for the Russian people as if inviting the Russian mechanized divisions to come pay a visit to Paris…. Why not say what Mr Putin probably thinks: “Peter the Great visited Paris, and so can I.” Yet he must be thinking that he might bring along a million soldiers and his war toys, along with tanks, and air cover, just to see what kind of fun he can have when his Russian comrades start liberating Paris from their German overlords, once again…

Yet at the time of the Versailles Treaty, it was only the Americans, through President Woodrow Wilson that had put forward Fourteen Points of interest, that represented the liberal position of Winston Churchill at the Paris Peace Conference. And although this move helped shape world opinion in opposition to the disgraceful Treaty of Versailles — it remained a simple strategy initiative. Sadly the fourteen points came to be viewed as mere suggestions, simply because President Wilson failed to have any real impact on the Conference’s eventual outcome. And this was mainly because Wilson was being far too partisan in his efforts on behalf of safety, security, and a long term peace, for Europe. Yet although he failed — he was correctly concerned with rebuilding the European economy, encouraging self-determination, and promoting free trade. Wilson wanted to accomplish all this, by creating appropriate mandates for former colonies, and above all else, by creating a powerful League of Nations that would ensure the peace. He failed in delivering any of this magnificent vision, due to his wildly partisan and divisive position amongst the American public, and also amongst the European leaders.

The US President Wilson however, alone amongst the convened leaders, had seen the “Vision” and thus supported Winston Churchill’s correct position, in total opposition to the harsh treatment of Germany. This was because President Wilson very much like Churchill correctly saw the rebuilding of Germany towards becoming a strong nation again, as a deterrent to the newly erected Soviet Communism. This was the proper identification of a threat, that the newly inaugurated Soviet Communism represented for the Free World, and both men understood the need to make every effort that would pacify Europe over the long term by creating the necessary balances of powers. Yet the Wilsonian and Keynes-Churchill position, was quickly out-manoeuvered by those leaders of the Allies, who wanted to appease Britain and France’s bellicosity of their National Leaders, that were now in the position of victory against the vanquished German foe, and wanted to extract their “pound of flesh.”

But this was not a play and a pound of flesh extracted from a nation in whole is not at all like the Merchant of Venice Shakespearian theatre might have been. This was a looming disaster of a Peace Treaty that would perpetuate the imbalances that had brought War to Europe in the First place. A war that had indeed grown to include the whole world although it started as a European war of economic and military imbalances…

So the Versailles Peace Treaty was a singular failure, and maybe this failure was President Wilson’s fault, because in the Paris Peace Treaty negotiations, he was not forceful, since he only brought with him his top Democratic party intellectuals as advisors, and refused to include any prominent Republicans or Conservatives in the American delegation. This political error made all his efforts seem partisan, and one sided and this caused the defeat of the Treaty in the US and that is why in due turn it failed to get ratified by Congress, and also his position failed to get any traction in the Paris Peace Conference.

This situation is truly similar to what is going on today with the partisan “Paris Accord” o Climate Change that President Trump cannot abide by because his predecessor used a vastly partisan machinery to get the United States to become part of this surely one sided deal that was fashioned hastily and that does not serve the interests of the United States nor does it serve the interests of the Planet and it’s Peoples.

The Paris Climate Accord is just as much a silly deal as the Versailles Treaty was. Take my word on that because I ought to know rather well what this idiotic Paris Agreement contains, having been the head of the Environmental Parliament for more than two decades, and having participated in the whole series of the United Nation Conferences Of the Parties, that led to this faulty agreement. Amongst all the Conference of the Parties “COP” efforts over the last twenty plus years, towards reaching a global Climate Change agreement – only the Copenhagen Accord was a stand out. But today is easy to see that anything would have been better that this travesty called the “Paris Accord” save for that “Treaty of Versailles” that is long under the bridge and maybe we can get it resurrected some day, as an example to never be followed, and as an educational tool for future leaders of how far groupthink can take us down the wrong rabbit hole.

Yet when we examine the Treaty of Versailles, the result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the Victors of the First World War, was a terrible compromise that left no one content. Germany was neither pacified nor conciliated, nor was it permanently weakened. The problems that arose from the treaty would lead to the Locarno Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other European Powers, and the re-negotiation of the reparation system resulting in the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and the indefinite postponement of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932.

It is worth noting, in a nod to history, that yesterday Mr Putin met with Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister of the unified Germany, in the palace of Versailles for bilateral talks under the auspices of the new French President Mr Macron who sees himself as a Europeanist and a resistor to the “Pax Americana”  newly re-strengthened under the Trump presidency. Yet in reality Mr Macron is not a resistor but just a transistor of the wishes of Berlin and Brussels who helped install him in the French Presidency so he can continue assuring the domination of today’s Germany over the European and the French people. Because today’s French president Emmanuel Macron, acts like a useful puppet of the German deep state, and a terrible appeaser of the revanchist German mighty machine of European conquest. Yet in favor of the French people, that appeaser president will soon be shaken off the back of the French people like another blood sucking flea, scratched-off a dog’s back. We can see that playing out, in this weeks’ animated G7 conference of 2017 that took place in Taormina Sicily where Trump was seen squaring off to Macron’s and the other European leaders’defeatist attitude towards Russia’s president Putin. Back in 1945 the “Versailles Conference” saw the “Big Four” meetings taking place in a Spirit of animosity and revenge, that was not befitting Leaders of Men. That is why Europe reaped what it had itself sowed, in the next decades of unrest, that saw the coming of the Weimar Republic and Hitler’s rise to power.

A lot of that bloody and sometimes brilliant nonsense could have been avoided if we had acted as leaders when Winston Churchill extolled us to perform our duty of magnanimity towards the defeated foe. Because Churchill had himself fought in the killing trenches of the Somme, and had seen the carnage of warfare up close and personal. Because during the first World War, on 5 October 1914, Churchill went to Antwerp, which the Belgian government proposed to evacuate. The Royal Marine Brigade was on its way there and at Churchill’s urgings the 1st and 2nd Naval Brigades were also committed. He returned on 7 October, but Antwerp fell on 10 October. 2,500 British men, many of them barely trained, were taken prisoner or interned in the neutral Netherlands. At the time he was attacked for squandering resources. Churchill maintained that his actions prolonged the resistance by a week (Belgium had proposed surrendering Antwerp on 3 October) and that this time enabled the Allies to secure Calais and Dunkirk.

Churchill was involved with the development of the tank, which was financed from the Navy budget. In February 1915 he appointed the Landships Committee, which oversaw the design and production of the first British tanks. However, he was also one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous Gallipoli landings in the Dardanelles. He took much of the blame for the fiasco, and when Prime Minister Asquith formed an all-party coalition government in late May 1915, the Conservatives demanded his demotion as the price for entry.

For several months Churchill served in the sinecure of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. However, on 15 November 1915 he resigned from the government, feeling his energies were not being used. Although remaining a member of parliament, on 5 January 1916 he was given the temporary British Army rank of lieutenant colonel and served for several months on the Western Front, commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. While in command at Ploegsteert he personally made 36 forays into no man’s land.

Winston Churchill went reconnoitering in the killing fields of the No-Man’s Land, between the British and the German trenches were legendary. For thirty six times he went where at the “Golgotha” as if seeking his “Maker” crawling about in the place of Death where the exposed bodies of the fallen soldiers lay unburied for many days and until a temporary cease fire could be negotiated by the mortuary corps from both sides, in order to collect the dead.

Just visualize Winston Churchill in the muddy trench warfare where he willingly went to fight on this bloody No-Mans-Land thirty six different times — crawling on his belly and making plenty of noise yet still escaping the buzzing hornets, that the enemy bullets represented for him. He always find back sparingly in order to not reveal his position by the muzzle flash of his gun, but he gave as good as he got and he dispatched a number of enemy soldiers with his accurate mark-manship from his standard issue long rifle. His kill rate was the highest amongst all officers on that front, but his fellow soldiers were always mortified that he would be instantly killed in every single sortie Winston made against the enemy’s positions, due to his XL size, and predisposition for giving orders in a loud voice. Winston Churchill made about as much noise as a baby elephant walking about in the woods, when he was going out to No-Man’s-Land. This level of noise from Winston crawling about, often times attracted the enemy’s fire and caused a quick conflagration with bullets flying both ways, and even long distance cannon getting involved — so that these bloody engagements came to be remembered as Winston’s daily battles. Sadly many of his comrades perished in these forward engagements but Winston Churchill somehow remained unscathed, save for wear and tear and a few bullets grazing his head, and drilling holes in his kit, his uniform, and his gear-pack. Even his helmet had gotten drilled a couple of times and to his eternal credit he showed so much courage that his people were all invigorated through his heroism.

In March 1916, after all this “fun and games,” on the Western Front, Winston Churchill was recalled and returned to England after he had become so restless in France that his superiors thought he had a Death Wish, and didn’t want to carry him on their consciousness. Yet this was a good time to return because Churchill also wished to speak again in the House of Commons and alert them about what is coming down the pike.

Winston Churchill wrote to his friend Lloyd George a succinctly inimical to the War letter because by that time Winston had seen so much carnage that he had come to hate war and it’s grim reaper menace for the youth of the British and indeed of all the European families. And then the future prime minister David Lloyd George wrote back to Winston who was communicating from the bloody trenches that: “You will one day discover that the state of mind revealed in your letter, is the reason why you do not win trust even where you command admiration. In every line of it, national interests are completely overshadowed by your personal concerns.”

And that is when Winston Churchill’s anti-war stand came to die… and he became again a staunch supporter of the Militaristic perspective of his time and age. In quick succession, in July 1917, Churchill was appointed Minister of Munitions, and in January 1919, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. Thankfully at the time he became the Secretary of War, the First World War had just ended…. So he focused on other things and he came to become the main architect of the Ten Year Rule, a principle that allowed the Treasury to dominate and control strategic, foreign and financial policies, because at that time, he correctly had convinced the British government of Appeasers that they were operating under the assumption that “there would be no great European war for the next five or ten years”.

Although right about now Winston Churchill was seen as a cad, similar to his father, he was quite the opposite and instead of “playing” with his many lady friends, and female admirers, he was solely focused on his work and family fully.  He had even supported the right of women to vote and proposed that universal Suffrage be brought up to a vote in the House of Commons, So the ladies loved him but he chose to not be the Austin Powers of the British Parliament and instead of endlessly “shagging” the beauties, he endlessly agonized at his desk, and in his bath. Indeed his major preoccupation during his tenure in the War Office, was the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, because Churchill was a staunch advocate of foreign intervention in that conflict, for principled reasons. Mainly because Winston Churchill had correctly declared that Bolshevism (Communism) must be “strangled in its cradle” and not be allowed to infect the rest of the world with it’s bloody hateful ideology of totalitarian misery, perpetual state of war, and despotic corruption.

Yet after all his big efforts, Winston only managed to secure the intensification and prolongation of the British involvement beyond the wishes of any major group in Parliament or the nation. He was dealing with a divided and loosely organised Cabinet and in the face of the bitter hostility of Labour — that was all the help for the Russian Nationalist that Churchill could muster against the Communists. Yet in 1920, the government recalled even that skeleton force and after the last British forces had been withdrawn, Churchill was instrumental in having arms sent to the Poles when they invaded Ukraine, and helped the last ditch effort of the Russian nationalists to resist the Communists. Winston was also instrumental in arming other para-military forces, in many other places where people fought oppression, like when he was helping arm the “Black and Tans” and the “Auxiliaries” who intervened in the Irish War of Independence.

Still it is worth noting that women loved him… like another Austin Powers.

Whoever said that Winston wasn’t a romantic heartthrob?

When Winston Churchill became Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1921 and was a signatory of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, which established the Irish Free State — he celebrated because although people thought him an imperialist, he was a staunch supporter of a self ruled Ireland. Churchill was involved in the lengthy negotiations of the treaty and, to protect British maritime interests, he engineered part of the Irish Free State agreement to include three Treaty Ports—Queenstown (Cobh), Berehaven and Lough Swilly—which could be used as Atlantic bases by the Royal Navy. In 1938, however, under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreement, the bases were returned to Ireland.

In 1919, though, when Britain and the United States signed a treaty of alliance with France which the United States Senate refused to ratify, thus turning the proposed Anglo-Franco-American alliance into a stillborn — later Churchill argued at the Imperial conference of Dominion prime ministers, that despite the rejection by the American Senate of the alliance with France, Britain should still sign the military alliance with France in order to guarantee post-war security and stability in Europe.

Winston Churchill further argued that at the Paris peace conference the Americans and the British had successfully pressured the French to downgrade their post-war ambitions and their plans to annex the Rhineland in exchange for the military alliance. He said that this created a moral commitment for the British Alliance with France, because the French had given up the demand for the Rhineland in exchange for an Anglo-American security guarantee that they did not get at the end of the day…

Still Churchill’s idea about an Anglo-French alliance was rejected at the conference because it was judged that the British public opinion and even more, the Dominions’ public opinion, was fully against the idea of the “continental commitment.” Still Winston soldiers on and on the 4th of May 1923, Churchill spoke in favour of the French occupation of the Ruhr, which was extremely unpopular in Britain saying: “We must not allow any particular phrase of French policy to estrange us from the great French nation. We must not turn our backs on our friends from the past”.

Churchill knew that the industrial region of Ruhr was the key to prevent the rearmament of Germany and he wanted to have the French act as territorial constabulary to supervise the German industry and keep it honest for a while longer by preventing them from turning their massive production capabilities towards the making of the war machines and armaments. And that the Anglo-French Alliance was the key to continued safety and security in a well balanced European power game.

That is incontrovertible proof of the extent of his brilliant Statesmanship… as exhibited early on and it was the singular knowledge of these ideas of balance and harmony that distinguished him and made him the winning Prime Minister of the Second World War.

Still back in the days of the Anglo-French Alliance Treaty — there was no US support because the US Congress having been soured by President Wilson’s terribly partisan treatment of the Paris Peace Conference negotiations and the passage of the Treaty of Versailles over American objections, they took out their wrath at the American-ANglo-French Alliance Treaty. Thus the American Alliance Treaty with France was doomed as another Wilsonian partisan idea, but Churchill having seen the clouds of war amassing over Europe once again, he persisted and at least managed to secure the Anglo-French Alliance part of it, thus giving hope to the French people for the next few years. at the very least. Still his mechanism kept the peace in Europe for two decades and that’s nothing to scoff at…

But we didn’t listen to Churchill then, same as we don’t listen to his “Voice” today, and instead we chose to lull ourselves to sleep, under the sweet lullaby of the appeasers, and the soft voices of the peaceniks — till we feel the serrated knife slashing at our throat…

Maybe we need another Hitler to wake us up today and methinks that the little boy Dictator of Pyongyang just might be the Dictator we need to galvanize against today, same as we needed evil Adolf in the 1940’s and the Pearl Harbor disaster to wake us up from our slumber party.

Surely, in that sense, Churchill also “needed” Hitler, just as much as Hitler needed the vengeful European leaders of France, and the unjust Treaty of Versailles (French: Traité de Versailles), in order to justify his emotional appeal to the German people and his despotic rise to power through hook & crook, and through galvanizing his people using virulent hate, evil means, and the primal need for revenge against the Allies who had humiliated them for far too long… using the Versailles Treaty as the scapegoat for all his wrathful anger when speaking to the German people at the giant rallies of millions of young Germans in places like Nuremberg and Berlin.

And when Adolf Hitler accepted the capitulation of France, as the Conquering Fuhrer, he designed the ceremony of the French surrender to take place and to be signed in the same railroad car that French General Fochs had gotten the Germans to sign their own surrender in Versailles two decades earlier…

Somehow when we look at history we can’t fail to notice that the Free World and certainly Winston Churchill needed Hitler in order to manifest their brilliance much like an uncut chunk of coal/diamond ore, needs a good smithy, a good diamond cutter to cut out the crap, and bring out the brilliant light from chiseling the stone to within a millimeter with amazing precision to create a great diamond. This is what i mean when I say that Churchill needed Hitler and vice versa. They needed each other in order to prove who is the Diamond and who is the dirty piece of black coal.

Similarly, Hitler “needed” the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in order to have a useful fool that can help him appease his major enemies, the English speaking people, along with all their European Allies, and the Americans, so that Hitler can remain unmolested in his pursuit of conquest and usurpation of all power throughout Europe. Hitler truly needed the appeasers like Neville Chamberlain and all the other European leaders who failed to check his powerful thrusts, and cutting attacks, and who saw his voracious appetite for blood and conquest, as a simple affirmation of the old hunting proverb that “The Wolves Must Eat Too” and so we must step back and allow Hitler to fulfill his appetites.

French General Foch’s private car became the Treaty of Versailles memento, because although it was signed in the Hall of Mirrors at the palace of Versailles, it was a peace treaty, where the delegation of German negotiators had arrived to meet the Allied negotiators in Marshal Foch’s special railway car at Rethondes, a railroad station in the forest of Compiègne, on November 8th 1918. Only after the Germans were forced to formally request an armistice, did Foch hands over the terms of the Treaty that included that Germany must evacuate from Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, and Luxemburg within 14 days, the German Army must turn over about one-third of its artillery and about one-half of its machine guns, Germany must evacuate the west bank of the Rhine River, and give the Allies bridgeheads to the east side of the Rhine at Köln (now Cologne), Mainz and Coblenz (now Koblenz), German troops must pull back from the Rhine to create a 24.8-mile-deep neutral zone, and the Allied naval blockade would continue to insure German compliance with the armistice.

The Germans were given 72 hours to accept or reject the conditions for a truce. On November 10th, with Kaiser Wilhelm in Holland, the German Army headquarters authorized the German delegation in Compiégne to sign an armistice.

When armistice negotiations were resumed at 02:35 am, General Foch had somewhat reduced the harsh terms, allowing the German army to retain more armaments, giving the Germans more time to withdraw from the territory they had taken, reducing the east bank of the Rhine neutral zone depth to 6.2 miles, and allowing German troops to stand fast in the east (to oppose the spread of Bolshevism) until the Allies request their withdrawal. The armistice was signed at 05:10 am. Before departing, the German negotiators read a letter of protest that suggested the harsh terms threatened Germany with “anarchy and famine.” No handshakes were exchanged. News that the armistice was to begin at 11:00 (the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918) was broadcast at 05:40 am.

It is worth noting is that the First World War carnage continued until the very last moment, and that the killing and the spilled blood continued unabated, with casualties from both sides on the last day of World War One, numbering 10,944, of whom 2,738 dead and 8,206 seriously wounded in the course of that one last day of the war.

Just imagine that…

And now let’s jump two decades forward and see what happens in the same place…

Hitler unleashes his blitzkrieg invasion of the Low Countries and France with a fury on May 10, 1940 using his new Blitzkrieg. Within three weeks, a large part of the British force, accompanied by some of the French defenders, is pushed to the English Channel and compelled to abandon the continent from the port of Dunkirk.

The German advance continues to sweep southward driving before it not only the retreating French army, but an estimated 10 million refugees fleeing for their lives.  The French abandon Paris, declaring it an open city. This allows the Germans to enter the French capital on June 14 without resistance.

The French government continues its flight southward to Bordeaux where it disintegrates. A new government is formed with World War I hero Marshall Petain at its head. On June 17 the aging warrior announces in a broadcast to the French people that “It is with a heavy heart that I tell you today that we must stop fighting.”  This is the final straw that breaks the back of the French resistance to the German invasion. The French government calls on the Germans for an armistice that will end the fighting.

Hitler dictates that the French capitulation take place at Compiegne, a forest north of Paris. This is the same spot where twenty-two years earlier the Germans had signed the Armistice ending World War I. Hitler intends to disgrace the French and avenge the German defeat. To further deepen the humiliation, he orders that the signing ceremony take place in the same railroad car that hosted the earlier surrender.

The Armistice is signed on June 22. Under its terms, two thirds of France is to be occupied by the Germans. The French army is to be disbanded. In addition, France must bear the cost of the German invasion.

(Hitler’s face) “is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph.”

“The time is now three eighteen p.m. Hitler’s personal flag is run up on a small standard in the centre of the opening.

Also in the centre is a great granite block which stands some three feet above the ground. Hitler, followed by the others, walks slowly over to it, steps up, and reads the inscription engraved in great high letters on that block. It says:

Hitler reads it and Goring reads it. They all read it, standing there in the June sun and the silence. I look for the expression on Hitler’s face. I am but fifty yards from him and see him through my glasses as though he were directly in front of me. I have seen that face many times at the great moments of his life. But today! It is afire with scorn, anger, hate, revenge, triumph. He steps off the monument and contrives to make even this gesture a masterpiece of contempt. He glances back at it, contemptuous, angry – angry, you almost feel, because he cannot wipe out the awful, provoking lettering with one sweep of his high Prussian boot. He glances slowly around the clearing, and now, as his eyes meet ours, you grasp the depth of his hatred. But there is triumph there too – revengeful, triumphant hate. Suddenly, as though his face were not giving quite complete expression to his feelings, he throws his whole body into harmony with his mood. He swiftly snaps his hands on his hips, arches his shoulders, plants his feet wide apart. It is a magnificent gesture of defiance, of burning contempt for this place now and all that it has stood for in the twenty-two years since it witnessed the humbling of the German Empire.

…It is now three twenty-three p.m. and the Germans stride over to the armistice car. For a moment or two they stand in the sunlight outside the car, chatting. Then Hitler steps up into the car, followed by the others. We can see nicely through the car windows. Hitler takes the place occupied by Marshal Foch when the 1918 armistice terms were signed. The others spread themselves around him. Four chairs on the opposite side of the table from Hitler remain empty. The French have not yet appeared. But we do not wait long. Exactly at three thirty p.m. they alight from a car. They have flown up from Bordeaux to a near-by landing field. … Then they walk down the avenue flanked by three German officers. We see them now as they come into the sunlight of the clearing.

Hitler celebrates before the ceremony

…

It is a grave hour in the life of France. The Frenchmen keep their eyes straight ahead. Their faces are solemn, drawn. They are the picture of tragic dignity. They walk stiffly to the car, where they are met by two German officers, Lieutenant-General Tippelskirch, Quartermaster General, and Colonel Thomas, chief of the Fuhrer’s headquarters. The Germans salute. The French salute. The atmosphere is what Europeans call “correct.” There are salutes, but no handshakes.

Now we get our picture through the dusty windows of that old wagon-lit car. Hitler and the other German leaders rise as the French enter the drawing-room. Hitler gives the Nazi salute, the arm raised. Ribbentrop and Hess do the same. I cannot see M. Noel to notice whether he salutes or not.

Hitler, as far as we can see through the windows, does not say a word to the French or to anybody else. He nods to General Keitel at his side. We see General Keitel adjusting his papers. Then he starts to read. He is reading the preamble to the German armistice terms. The French sit there with marble-like faces and listen intently. Hitler and Goring glance at the green table-top.

The reading of the preamble lasts but a few minutes. Hitler, we soon observe, has no intention of remaining very long, of listening to the reading of the armistice terms themselves. At three forty-two p.m., twelve minutes after the French arrive, we see Hitler stand up, salute stiffly, and then stride out of the drawing-room, followed by Goring, Brauchitsch, Raeder, Hess, and Ribbentrop. The French, like figures of stone, remain at the green-topped table. General Keitel remains with them. He starts to read them the detailed conditions of the armistice.

Hitler and his aides stride down the avenue towards the Alsace-Lorraine monument, where their cars are waiting. As they pass the guard of honour, the German band strikes up the two national anthems, Deutschland, Deutschland uber Alles and the Horst Wessel song. The whole ceremony in which Hitler has reached a new pinnacle in his meteoric career and Germany avenged the 1918 defeat is over in a quarter of an hour.”

June 21st 1940: on a lovely summer day in the Compiegne Forest at Rethondes about 50 miles northeast of Paris, Hitler arrives at 15:15 for the presentation of armistice terms to the French. This is to take place in a railroad dining car (the “wagon-lit”), taken from a French museum and placed in the exact location where the Germans signed the World War One Armistice.

While walking to the dining car, Hitler comes to a large granite block with an inscription in French. The inscription is translated for Hitler: “Here on the Eleventh of November 1918 succumbed the criminal pride of the German Empire – Vanquished by the free people it tried to enslave.”

The French delegation of four arrives, not knowing beforehand that the armistice terms would be presented in the Wagon-Lit. Looking shattered but composed, they enter the railcar to find Hitler sitting in the same seat at the middle of the table that had been occupied by Marshal Foch for the World War One Armistice signing.

After General Keital reads a statement that is a revisionist version of history (probably drafted by Hitler), Hitler leaves the dining car after instructing General Keital that the armistice terms are not negotiable. The harsh terms are intended “to provide Germany with the guarantees require for the enforced pursuit of the war against Britain” and “reparation of the wrongs inflicted by force on the German Reich.”

June 23rd 1940: at 1730, the French delegation was given the ultimatum to sign the armistice by 1830 or the armistice talks would end and fighting would begin again. After talking with the French Cabinet in Bordeaux, the French delegation signs the document at 1850. The armistice is not to go into effect until six hours after the French sign an armistice with Italy.

After signing, the French delegation was driven to Paris and flown to Rome to sign an armistice with the Italians. The next day, the French World War One victory monument was blown up and the “wagon-lit” was taken to Berlin for display, arriving on July 8th. The historic railroad car would be destroyed later in the war during Allied bombing attacks on Berlin.

After the end of the war and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, during the 1920s, Churchill supported the idea of a “reconciliation” between Germany and France with Britain serving as the “honest broker” for the reconciliation” and beginning in 1931, when he opposed those who advocated giving Germany the right to military parity with France, Churchill spoke often of the dangers of Germany’s rearmament.

In 1931, Churchill said: “It is not in the immediate interest of European peace that the French Army should be seriously weakened. It is not in British interests to antagonize France.” He later wrote in “The Gathering Storm” portraying himself as being for the time, a lone voice calling on Britain to strengthen itself to counter the belligerence of Germany.

In 1932, Churchill accepted the presidency of the newly founded “New Commonwealth Society” a peace organisation which he described in 1937 as “one of the few peace societies that advocates the use of force, if possible overwhelming force, to support public international law” and that gives us the essence of Churchillian Doctrine if such an oxymoron could even ever exist…

And in February 1936, when Churchill, holidaying in Spain the Germans reoccupied the Rhineland in February 1936, returned to a divided Britain. The Labour opposition was adamant in opposing sanctions and the National Government was divided between advocates of economic sanctions and those who said that even these would lead to a humiliating backdown by Britain as France would not support any intervention. Winston Churchill offered a speech on the 9th of March that was measured, and well received by all in Parliament, and garnered the praise even of the head Appeaser Neville Chamberlain who saw it as a first for Winston declaring it an unusually constructive speech. But within weeks Churchill was passed over for the post of Minister for Co-ordination of Defence in favour of Attorney General Sir Thomas Inskip. This was later called this “an appointment rightly described as the most extraordinary since Caligula made his horse a consul.” At the time insiders were less worried, because Duff Cooper was opposed to any appointment for Churchill, whilst General Ellison wrote that he had only one comment to make, and that is “Thank God we are preserved from Winston Churchill.”

On 22 May 1936, Churchill was present at a meeting of Old Guard Conservatives, the group that included Austen Chamberlain, Geoffrey Lloyd, Leopold Amery and Robert Horne, at Lord Winterton’s house at Shillinglee Park, to push for greater rearmament of Great Britain. This meeting prompted PM Baldwin to comment that it was “the time of year when midges came out of dirty ditches.” Neville Chamberlain was also taking a growing interest in foreign affairs, and in June, as part of a power-bid at the expense of the young and pro-League of Nations Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, he demanded an end to sanctions against Italy. This is what Winston Churchill referred to as “the very midsummer of madness.”

In June 1936, Churchill organised a deputation of senior Conservatives to see Prime Minister Baldwin, along with visiting Inskip and talking to Lord Halifax. There had been demands for a Secret Session of the House and the senior ministers agreed to meet the deputation rather than listen to a potential four-hour speech by Churchill. He had tried to have delegates from the other two parties and later wrote, “If the leaders of the Labour and Liberal oppositions had come with us there might have been a political situation so intense as to enforce remedial action.” Rhodes James writes that this is “not quite the impression” given by the documentary record of the meetings of 28–29 July, and another meeting in November. Churchill’s figures for the size of the German Air Force Luftwaffe, leaked to him by Ralph Wigram of the Foreign Office, were less accurate than those of the Air Ministry, and he believed that the Germans were preparing to unleash thermite bombs “the size of an orange” on London. Ministers stressed that Hitler’s intentions were unclear, and the importance of maximising Britain’s long-term economic strength through exports, whereas Churchill wanted 25-30% of British industry to be brought under state control for purposes of rearmament. The PM Baldwin argued that the important thing had been to win the election to get “a perfectly free hand” for rearmament. The meeting ended with Baldwin agreeing with Churchill that rearmament was vital to deter Germany.

On 12 November, Churchill returned to the topic. Speaking in the Address in Reply debate, after giving some specific instances of Germany’s war preparedness, he said: “The Government simply cannot make up their mind or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful for impotency. And so we go on preparing more months, more years, precious perhaps vital for the greatness of Britain for the locusts to eat.” Robert Rhodes James called this one of Churchill’s most brilliant speeches during this period, Baldwin’s reply came sounding rather weak and disturbing for the House. The publicly humiliating exchange for the Prime Minister Baldwin, gave new encouragement to the “Arms and Covenant” Movement.

Surely, “the wolves must eat too” but Hitler needed to eat the whole world, and to accomplish that end he used the appeasers first and foremost, when he started secretly rearming the German forces, and especially when he was secretly building the all powerful “Luftwaffe” the magnificent German Air force, and when he took over the industrial Ruhr and the Rheinland and he started turning all industries to a war footing, while he sought the unification of all German territories and their German speaking minorities, in central and eastern Europe, to a large “Heimat”. Hitler needed the “Appeasers” far more than they needed him, and the people would already know this, because in is early stage of the ascendancy of the German Reich — he was weak in the knees, and wanted to create “fait Accompli” events in his rapid conquest before the World’s opinion turned against him.  Because only by false bravado and fake optimism Hitler had whipped up the German “Volk” through his rousing speeches, full of hate, histrionics, and honour.

Indeed Hitler began occupying the minds and the hearts of the German Common Man and of all the European easily impressed “Vol” before he drove them to begin occupying all the surrounding countries in their entirety, and to commit untold atrocities like a pied piper leading mindless children to their slaughter…

Yet even when Hitler truly started his European conquest by annexing Austria and the Czechoslovak republics and going halfsies in conquering Poland — split between himself and his new “buddy” Marshal Stalin, and thus ejecting the appeasing Brits, who had an Alliance Treaty with Poland that guaranteed their mutual defense, that the appeasing Brits failed to honor at that time…

And it is exactly because of the protection afforded him by the Peaceniks and by the Appeasers in the English Parliaments and in all the liberal Democracies of Europe and by the Wilsonian doctrine of Isolation in America — that Hitler saw the power vacuum, and took massive advantage of it by filling it with his fast moving mechanized divisions. Hitler’s diversionary tactics and his propaganda machine is similar in many ways to what China, North Korea, the Islamists of ISIS, and even the Russians have been doing on the back of the appeasing American administrations of the last five Presidents who sought Peace with dishonor. That is how the Russian President Vladimir Putin took over Crimea and all eastern parts of Ukraine while US president Obama was puffing the “herb” and secretary Clinton was sloshing in her breakfast wine coolers and going blotto before lunch, all the while communicating from her bathroom based email server, that was open to the whole world to read whatever secrets ever came to pass through the State Department’s communications infrastructure.

Clearly when your enemy reads all of your emails every day — they must know how to pre-empt any actions that you might be thinking of deploying against them. That’s how the world and especially American lack of strong leadership and compete lack of Statesmanship, enabled President Putin to lord it above all in Europe and in the World. The fault lays with us because by simply having the American administration asleep at the wheel, and the Powers to be, tolerating those losers at the helm if the White House and the State department — we gave up on any pretense of power.

Back in his day, Hitler, just attacked Poland in a Blitzkrieg, and took the half of Poland where some Germans had lived as his vital “Heimat” leaving the other half to the other hungry “Wolf,” Marshal Stalin. How’s that different form Putin’s annexation of Crimea today?

I would call this action a high stakes “Heist” and a true war against Europe and against NATO, yet back when Hitler was riding high on the shoulders of the appeasers, who carried him for the formative Ten years of his Worldwide conquest dreams during the build-up of his forces to that awesome military perfection of the well oiled machine — we called it inevitable. These are the same poorly chosen words that Secretary Clinton and President Obama used to describe the Russian invasion and Annexation of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. Words have meaning and when leaders use them to describe and validate the naked grab of another country’s territory by an enemy that threatens the balance of power in Europe — we must be careful where we use them. Because today no private conversation remains private for too long… and if the President of the United States and the Secretary of State describe an attack on a sovereign state as inevitable it sucks. It sucks even worse when the new President o France Emmanuel Macron describes the ISIS attacks in Paris as the inevitable result of our own Islamophobia… but that another matter…

Thus indeed in short order Hitler declared the whole of Europe as a German fiefdom. He called it an expanded “Heimat” by fiat of his Aryan superior race, and on behalf of his racial description of Aryan DNA, based on principles of “Eugenics” seen in his foundational document, the “Mein Kampf.”  The fascist term Heimat, included the  “blood and soil” essential reading of the National Socialists, since it is relatively easy to add this dimension to the positive feelings for the New Reich. Heimat is indeed a rejection of anything foreign, or that which was not necessarily there in the first place. It was conceived by the Nazis that the Volk community is deeply rooted in the land of their Heimat through their practice of agriculture and their ancestral lineage going back hundreds and thousands of years. The Third Reich was regarded at the deepest level as the sacred Heimat of the unified Volk community—the national slogan was “One Reich, One Volk, One Führer.” Those who were taken to Nazi concentration camps were those who were officially declared by the SS to be “enemies of the volk community” and thus a threat to the integrity and security of the Heimat…

So the imaginary construct of a scientific and nationalistic intellectual case, for the exclusion of the invalids, the foreigners, the minorities and especially of the Jews — became the new Common Sense for all Germans, through the use of relentless propaganda. No longer it was questioned whether the nice German Jew Doctor that treated your children, or the corner greengrocer, and the Jewish shopkeeper, had a right to exist amongst the German “Volk.” They all had to go, along with their families, because they clearly did not belong there. The German “Heimat” would not tolerate anyone different and that was final. The final solution was never debated amongst the Good Germans or even the ethical Methodists, and the diligent Protestants whose Christianity took a big hit because of their complicity in the extermination of many millions of innocent people in acts of savagery never before seen in this God’s good earth.

In “Mein Kampf” his 1925 autobiographical book, the Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, describes the process by which he became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and his future plans for Germany. Hitler called Europe a federation with “Deutchland Uber Alles” as a precursor to what Germany has accomplished today through economic despotism by maintaining the long term stated goal of turning the European Union into a federation of states subservient to Germany’s Centralized power to lead the serfs to cultivate the German fields in Ukraine or act as waiters for the German Masters in Greece, or be as willing and obedient serfs serving the German Overlosrds in their One Billion people dark fiefdom of German led Europe.

An evil dystopian vision for Europe that has now unfortunately come to pass, and that only the English people have now woken up to and are running away for the exit…

Yet back in the second world war, Hitler was able to accomplish all that evil plan swiftly, due to strength of arms and conviction of belief. And even though we see his work today as a failure, let’s be honest and really see his meteoric rise to power over twenty years of continued successes, because only then we can understand whose plan is Germany still playing out today — and then we might give him a measure of respect for his strategic genius and for the utmost tenacity of the German deep state carrying on a long distance domination plan for Europe and the World…

Hitler also tested the resolve of all European leaders and found them greatly wanting. That is why he attacked the Republicans of Spain and installed Generalissimo Franco to power, who in turn acted as a proxy for Hitler for the duration of the war, although his country was ostensibly “neutral” because for Hitler Spain was a very important geographical ally in order to test the resolve of the liberal democracies of Europe, but also in order to be able to control the Straits of Gibraltar for the long term, via proxy, and most importantly in order to check whether the Allied leaders had a pulse.
So when he found they had none — he continued unabated to divide Poland with Stalin, to take over the Sudeten-lands, and to annex Austria and Czechoslovakia, as a prelude to an all out conquest of Europe, and the World, very much in the mold of a modern day Chenghis-Han.

Adolf Hitler without the appeasers of the early twentieth century Europe would not have been anything like the furious Führer of the Third Reich, the Hitler we have come to know through his historical achievements.

But for our needs of true historical comparison in this season of tepid wars, and the gravitational forces that want to drag us either towards a really “Hot-War” or a truly Second “Cold-War” we ought to travel back about two millennia to a time when the King of Persia Darius had died in 485 B.C. before he could launch another assault on Greece, so it fell upon his son Xerxes that due to dynastic succession rules, had to set out and assault the Greeks by conquering the principal Free and Democratic States of Athens and Sparta in order to complete his fathers ambition of the empire of Persia conquering Greece. Because in stark contrast to the despotic dark Persian method of governance, the Greeks stood on their way, as the only bulwarks of Human liberty amidst the nations of the whole World. Athens and Sparta being the leaders of the ancient Commonwealth of Greek federated city-states members of the Delphic League, stood to fight a war of Civilization akin to the one we are fighting today against the forces of Evil from many comers.

So here comes the Second Persian War, after the first Greek Persian war had turned in favor of the Greeks in the decisive battle of Marathon under

Persian King Xerxes feared for his fleet and he treated her like an expensive toy to not be played with… and in consequence he protected her from any engagements that could result in the Persian fleet sustaining any damage from man for nature. He went so far s to keep the fleet out of imaginary harm’s way by building a canal that took him three years to complete in order to avoid passing through the Athos peninsula of Northern Greece, should a storm arise, as was usual in thee waters. Clearly the was a giant fleet made for tepid waters with untrained and unworthy sailors and commanders that owed their position to nepotism and nothing resembling merit or capacity for leadership.

Indeed Xerxes plan was to go through Northern Greece, with his fleet providing protection, and reach central Greece with both army and navy unmolested by any engagement with the enemy.

However the Spartan king Leonidas with his 300 military men was awaiting him at Thermopylae the place where many years later Winston Churchill would come to take his hot baths au-naturel at this natural hot water springs that served as a Spa and a place of Retreat and Healing in everlasting memory of Leonidas and his fallen comrades. The hot gates Leonidas guarded, is the village of Thermopylae that to this day serves that solemn yet largely forgotten duty, in the minds of those amongst the Greeks who still stand

At the time of Xerxes innovation, most of the Greek city states’ leaders had met in the city of Corinth to work out a common defence. It was agreed that there would be a combined army and navy which would be under Spartan command, but with Themistocles, the Athenian leader, providing the strategy.

Though all of the men were fine soldiers, they were hugely outnumbered by the Persians. This time though, they numbers were even more against them. It was this fact that Themistocles based his strategy on.
Leonidas, the Spartan King, led the army to a pass at Thermopylae, which is known today as Lamia. This pass was the main passage into central Greece from the north. The plan was to trap the Persian army in this bottle-neck, where the fact they were vastly outnumbered would have little influence on the outcome.

This went according to plan, until a traitor showed the Persian army a footpath behind the lines as a way for the Persians to bypass the defensible position and descend upon the Spartans from the mountains falling upon the flank of the Greek defenders.

Inevitability, the Greeks were forced to retreat along with their fleet with was stationed just of the island of Evia, but Leonides, along with about 300 troops remained and fought for two days until they were all killed to the very last man

Persia now controlled northern Greece, and were able to march down into Athens and take control over the whole of Greece . Themistocles had predicted that Athens would soon be taken over by the Persians so he ordered the women and children of Athens to evacuate to the island of Salamis, whilst the men were sent to sea to join with the Athenian fleet.

When the Persians did reach Athens, they swiftly attacked and took over the city and the citadel along with the Acropolis, and after killing all the defenders, they destroyed the city ad burned down all the temples and all the public buildings and they even destroyed and burned down to the ground all the houses.

The vengeful Persian King, was so barbaric and bent in total destruction, that he orders his army to burn down the houses and even the temples to their own eastern gods that the Athenians had included in the Greek pluralistic and multi-religious permissive view of the world, in their Pantheon of Gods, as a gesture of solidarity and plurality of thought and religion, and also as a practical way to cater to the spiritual needs for the number of Persian and Eastern people, who lived amongst the Athenians.

Had the Athenian Leader Themistocles not evacuated the city, it would have been a singular disaster, as the few defenders who were left back to stand lie Leonidas in Thermopylae experienced through their death trying to stop the far too numerous barbarians from destroying the beloved Athenian city. Now the only hope of defeating the Persians was for the Athenian fleet to perform some kind of miracle…

Themistocles however decided against a battlmade up of smaller vessels throughout…e in the open sea, because his fleet was much smaller than the Persian fleet and . By sending out a fake message, the Persian fleet was enticed into the small strait of Salamis.

The Persian fleet fell for the plan and many of the larger ships were trapped in the narrow waters surrounding Salamis.The smaller and more mobile Greek ships were able to surround the Persian ships and destroy them.

Xerxes watched this destruction from the shore, and returned back to Persia in disgust at what he had witnessed. Xerxes left most of his army behind, under the command of Mardonius, with the specific orders of conquering the rest of Greece.

In 479 B.C. the battle at Plataea took place where, under the Spartan general Pausanias, the Spartans forced their way through the Persians and left the Greeks victorious. During the land battle, the Greek fleet simultaneously sailed over the Aegean and obliterated the remains of the Persian fleet.

Ironically, the Ionic Greeks, who started the revolt which lead to the Persian wars, choose to join the Greeks instead of the Persian army which they were forced to do, and fought in the final battles of the Persian war.
Athens becomes the Leader of Greece

With the Persian Empire defeated, mainly due to the Spartan army, many believed that Sparta would continue to act as leader for Greece . However, the Spartans were more interested in the Peloponesse. Sparta attempted to create a fleet as large as the Athenians and also to prevent the rebuilding of the city walls around Athens. However, when they failed on both of these objectives, it was accepted by all that Athens should become the main city of Greece.

In order for Athens to start rebuilding Greece and also to protect it from future invasion, an alliance was formed. This was the Delian League, named due to the fact that the treasury was keep on Delos, a very sacred island. As well as the alliance consisting of the main city-states in Greece , many islands in the Aegean and the Ionic and Aeolian colonies in Asia Minor were involved. It was agreed that if and when an attack arises, all the cities had to help and support one and other.

When time arose for the Eygptians to revolt against the Perisans, Athens decided to help and sent over a fleet of about 200 ships. A large portion of he Athenian fleet was destroyed as well as the Persians suppressing the revolt.

After another battle between the Greeks and Persians in Cyprus, in which the Greeks were victorious, a formal agreement between the two took place in which the Persians would not attack Greece or its colonies in Asia Minor, and that Greece would never again attack Persia.

The Delian League in effect turned Athens into a great empire. The annual contribution of ships, and then later money, allowed Athens to enter into a new age.

This new age, was the Golden Age of Athens and the reign of democratically elected Leader, the visionary Pericles of Athens…

To be continued…