On the 17th of October, 1781 – General Charles Cornwallis offers his surrender to the Americans at Yorktown, Virginia. Let's raise a glass and listen along to the song that brings such cheer.
To our old opponents across the pond, can you call off your former Deputy PM, Sir Nick Clegg? All that suppression of news he's conducting as VP at Facebook is interfering in our election. Maybe you can ask him what involvement he had with GCHQ and Mr. Steele while you are at it. To our allies in France, thank you for sending Admiral de Grasse and General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau and the ships and men they commanded.
Happy Aniversary to Victory at Yorktown.
There are many good resources on the war, here's a recent book I found interesting; and a short write up here. A number of our French allies who were killed in combat are still buried here, where they are honored by our people.
Here's to victory!
Cheers,
Fred
How about that 18 year old Chechen teen in France, granted 10 year residency status in March(despite his sister having joined IS in 2014, and who knows how many other members of his clan), who shows up at a school to behead a high school teacher who had incorporated the Muhammad cartoons in his lesson on free speech, to the outrage of the local muslims? Moments before the chechen was shot to death he posted to Twitter an HD image of the teacher’s head cut off(mask still half on) with the caption:
« Au nom d’Allah, le tout miséricordieux De Abdullah, le serviteur d’Allah, à Marcon, le dirigeant des infidèles, j’ai exécuté un de tes chiens de l’enfer qui a osé rabaisser Muhammad, calme ses semblables avant qu’on ne vous inflige un dur châtiment… »
« C’est mr paty. »
Serge,
I don’t recall any 18 year old Chechan’s at Yorktown. Wiser men were involved in international affairs then, such as the Sultan of Morocco, Mohammed Ben Abdellah al-Khatib.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroccan%E2%80%93American_Treaty_of_Friendship
President Macron of France had a statement about the terrorist attack you bring up. Of course the NYT covering is only on page 4 of the google results, which ought to tell you something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx6WDesPjf4
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/paris-teacher-killed-beheaded-after-allegedly-showing-muhammed-caricatures/
All
Color Sergeant Amos Hall, 7th Connecticut Line, my 3rd great grandfather, was present at Cornwallis’ surrender to the American and French forces. He was 21 years old and was from Stonington, Connecticut, a town that his ancestors and mine had helped found.
Fred – I’d forgotten that our Mr Clegg ended up over your way. You’ll find him a great asset. Brilliant contacts with the EU. Solid contacts in Westminster. Just please don’t send one of your own progs back in return. We’re adequately stocked up already.
Er, congratulations on the Anniversary. Says he sourly.
….and Cornwallis then went to India as Commander in Chief, where his first act was to stop fraternisation and intermarriage between the Indian upper classes and his countrymen – to forestall the development of an anglo indian ruling class with primary loyalty to India. He had learned something from his American experience.
Walrus,
We were his countrymen. Primary loyalty? You forget all the loyalists, like Ben Franklin’s son who was the Royal Governor of New Jersey and a loyalist throughout the war. India? It was a patchwork of princely kingdoms before the permanent settlement and other judicial reforms Cornwallis and his successor put into place.
Fred,
Maybe not chechens, but there were certainly muslim slaves that saw action during the period. For an instance where documentary evidence is available, Bilali Mohammed comes to mind.
Serge,
I’m certain there were slaves in the British Colony of Georgia in 1770. I’ve never heard of a 6 y.o. being involved in winning the war for independence. There were a number recruited by various Royal governors. Now if only those slave sellers in Africa hadn’t enslaved anyone, no one would have been for sale. Then……
Fred,
Yarrow Mamout from DC is another well documented one, from the 18th century. I wonder how many black slaves in the US at the time were literate in arabic.
Serge,
Zero. Bilali Mohammed did not spring forth as a trained scholar like Venus being born from the shell, someone taught him, and probably not in the British colonies. Yarrow was enslaved at age 16 in Guena, then brought here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/yarrow-mamout-the-slave-who-became-a-georgetown-financier/2015/02/13/06710a98-b30b-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html
The American War for Indepence was the beginning of the end of slavery on the continent, and most of the world. Be sure to thank the Christians.
With levels of cooperation between the two countries growing since WWI, and observing the evident, close planning and coordination during the 21st, including esp the efforts from behind the curtain to influence and undo the 2016 election, one wonders how much of the separation of 1781 survived the 20th century and Cecil Rhodes.
It is actually surprising to me how completely isolated the British were diplomatically.
Spain and France essentially declared war on Britain, the Dutch supplied the patriot cause, Russia and others (hilariously enough, Anhalt Zerbst, where Catherine the Great originally came from, was actually pro British and send mercenaries to the Brits) declared a league of armed neutrality to protect their shipping from British raiders, this leage would eventually be joined by nearly everyone else.
All the Brits had in terms of “friends” were German minors.
Fred,
I misspoke, I meant how many slaves shipped to the States were arabic-literate. I know that in Brazil a sizable proportion of black slaves were muslims and that they organized and revolted along these lines, which is a distinguishing feature that I see as demarcating them from the otherwise passive/docile historical slave populations of both north and south america, barring the Haitian example. I am not imputing responsibility on the whites for introducing slavery in the virgin Americas, I am well aware of the slaveholding/cannabalistic penchants of Les Sauvages in north america, features that you will find pointed out time and time again in any 17th century french american text. And the habits of their south counterparts need not be mentioned, of course.
Serge
Are you “literate” in Arabic? I think not. If you were you, would know that the written language is so difficult that there is little chance that many, if any, of the slaves could read and write Arabic.
Colonel,
There is an extant arabic manuscript written by Bilali Mohammad above , the Brazilian muslim slaves would organize by distributing written scriptures of the Koran. This is what I meant by literate in Arabic, in the most basal religious sense, being able to read and retransmit the Koran to one’s peers and thus avoid the cultural oblivion that seemingly all black slaves experienced upon being shipped here. I was not referring to an ability to issue a fatwa or to author a tafsir or to actually converse in arabic, of course very few if any black slaves would have had this ability. Maybe the Spanish galley slaves, but not the blacks.