931
Emmeline Pankhurst recalls how she brought some much-needed reason into the operations at Chorlton workhouse.
Emmeline Pankhurst’s campaign for women’s suffrage was not just about the right to vote: it was about the country’s desperate need for talented women actually in government. Her experiences as the only woman on the Board of the Chorlton-on-Medlock Workhouse in the 1890s rather proved her case.
Posted March 4 2018
932
The German Empire promised wonders to restless, grudging Europe, and not to let common sense wake us from our dreams.
On the eve of the Great War in 1914, Europe was weary of debates over religion, politics and history. Enervated, cynical and envious, her peoples were dreaming of a better world, so long as it brought instant gratification and did not require them to study those boring lessons of history and religion. As John Buchan explained in his History of the Great War, all Germany asked in return was abject obedience.
Posted March 3 2018
933
William Pitt complained that European politics offers only a choice of inhospitable extremes.
In 1793, Prime Minister William Pitt spoke about the French Revolution and the recent assassination of King Louis XVI. He reminded the country how fortunate Britain was to possess a Constitution designed to prevent the country lurching from one extreme politics to another.
Posted March 3 2018
934
John Buchan was moved by the way the nations of the British Empire volunteered for service in the Great War.
John Buchan, novelist, Governor General of Canada, and leading historian of the Great War, reminds us that the countries of our Commonwealth and Empire played a decisive role in frustrating the ambitions of the German Empire – all without having to be asked.
Posted March 2 2018
935
John Buchan compared how the Germans and the British understood their empires, and saw two very different pictures indeed.
John Buchan explains why the German Empire took the risk of engaging the British Empire in the Great War. The risk did not seem very serious, because the British had let their colonies become so independent and decentralised that London had no way to make them fight. And that was where the Germans made their mistake.
Posted March 2 2018
936
The French revolution failed because real liberty cannot be enforced overnight, or indeed enforced at all.
By 1793, William Pitt, Prime Minister for ten years, was thoroughly disillusioned with the French Revolution. The kind of liberty Pitt enjoyed at home, Sir Reginald Coupland reminds us, comes from peoples and not from governments, and takes centuries and not days to mature.
Posted March 2 2018