quote:

...Freed from tutelage, Farouk used to go to nightclubs, and then sleep the whole morning. He had caviar for breakfast, eating it directly from a can. Large quantities of boiled eggs, toast, lobster, steak, lamb, chicken, and pigeon usually followed. He liked fizzy drinks and drank at least 30 bottles a day. After having a series of nightmares about lions, Farouk went to Cairo Zoo, and shot its lions in their cage. The nightmares, however, continued.
Farouk owned several villa’s, yachts and airplanes, and more than 100 cars5. He had all his cars sprayed red and forbade his subjects to own a red vehicle. That way he could drive recklessly without being stopped by the police. When Farouk raced by in one of his red cars, people ran for their lives. When another car tried to pass him, Farouk shot at its tires. Supposedly, an ambulance followed him to pick up casualties...

In 1941, 21-year-old Irene Guinle had become Farouk’s first official mistress. For 2 years, they went together to nightclubs, slept nude together, played in the palace pool, and gossiped. “He was charming, like a naughty child you couldn’t help liking,” Irene explained. When her brother had pneumonia, and there was no penicillin, Irene didn’t get any from Farouk, until she threatened to let it be known that Farouk could have saved a life and didn’t.
Farouk’s next mistress was witty novelist Barbara Skelton, who looked like Katharine Hepburn. For 7 months they had an affair, which they continued for a while in 1950. Barbara described Farouk as a good kisser, but a bad lover. After spanking her, Farouk would “lie on his back like a beached whale”, and, when she got on top of him, it was usually quickly over. “His penis was tiny, and he adored having it sucked,” she added, “He was the King. He expected service.”

Farouk probably suffered from a hormonal deviation, probably a low level of testosteron6. Although he had flair, Farouk also suffered from mood changes. He was effeminate and his corpulence increased that impression. He was always surrounded by rumours about his prowess, virility and the size of his penis. Stories about his recurring impotence started early 1943. Farouk consulted hormone specialists, and tried love potions and aphrodisiacs, like hashish mixed with honey and even powdered rhinoceros horn. He also possessed a large collection of pornography and sex aides. Many of his mistresses described him as “a gentlemen, who wasn’t really that interested in sex”. For Farouk, food may have been a replacement for his disappointing sex-life.

Although he was immensely rich, Farouk was a cleptomaniac. He stole everything he fancied. He had even taken pickpocket lessons from a professional thief. At official receptions and parties, Farouk pick-pocketed watches, wallets and cigarette lighters. He even stole Winston Churchill’s pocket watch7. When, in 1944, the Shah of Persia had died, and his coffin landed in Cairo, Farouk stole the ceremonial sword, belt and medals from the corpse, thus straining the relations between Egypt and Persia. After Farouk’s deposition, they were finally returned to Persia. When Farouk visited people, they put away their precious items, because the next morning a truck would come from the palace to collect the things Farouk fancied. He was especially font of weapons, coins and stamps.

In November 1943, 23-year-old Farouk crashed his red Cadillac against a lorry, and into a tree. The stretcher, on which the King was placed, collapsed under his already considerable weight. With 2 fractured ribs and a cracked pelvis bone, Farouk was nursed in a British military field hospital, where he enjoyed himself so much, that he was reluctant to leave. Back in Cairo, his gluttony and card-playing mania increased. Farouk continually surrounded himself with women, who usually described him as charming and funny, but also as a miser. A refusal of his affections could result in sanctions, like a withdrawal of immigration papers...

In 1952, Nassar let a successful coup, and Farouk was forced to abdicate. He was seen as a hypocrite, when he took numerous crates of Champagne and Scotch with him, although, as a Muslim, he wasn’t supposed to drink alcohol. The crates, however, were packed with gold bars and represented the bulk of the fortune Farouk was able to smuggle out of Egypt with him..


On a dwindling fortune, overweight Farouk tried to keep up his pose of a playboy. He dated a succession of pretty young girls, like Joan Rhodes, a professional strongwoman who bent steel bars with her teeth. He also took up a friendship with exiled underworld leader “Lucky” Luciano (1897-1962), who was to protect the ex-King’s life on several occasions. Through him, Farouk met 18-year-old Brigitta Stenberg, and made her his mistress. According to Brigitta, Farouk was neither impotent with her, nor unconcerned with her pleasure. They rarely left his bedroom.
Farouk’s last official mistress was reddish-blond Irma Capece Minutolo. They met when he was 32, fat12 and bald, while she was – probably - only 16. “The girth became him,” Irma said, ”it was part of his royalty.” She also liked his “hypnotic, sphinx-like eyes”. She learned to walk properly and to curtsy, and was instructed in music, literature and riding. Her innocence was what Farouk seemed to cherish about her; Irma insisted that nothing happened sexually with Farouk for the longest time. Farouk never talked to her about other women, but Irma knew there were many, just from reading the papers. Farouk would also go to Paris to visit its famous bordellos.

On March 17, 1965, Farouk took 22-year-old Annamaria Gatti to a restaurant. He ate oysters, lobster with sauce, lamb, and beans. After dinner, he lit up his giant Havanna, collapsed at the table. He was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead just after midnight. Officially, his cause of death was a cerebral haemorrhage. However, a mistress of Salah Nasir, director of Nasser’s General Intelligence Bureau, claims Nasir expected and received a call about Farouk’s death that evening. They had supposedly poisoned the lobster.

Wheat Loaf posted:

They're fun to look at, but much more than that, they hint at this forgotten "shadow" music industry which existed independently of the mainstream, built on this network of everything from tent meetings to the early megachurches.

quote:

...By 1835 Lincoln had lived for four years in New Salem, a village in central Illinois that backed up to a bluff over the Sangamon River. Twenty-six years old, he had made many friends there. That summer an epidemic of what doctors called "bilious fever"—typhoid, probably—spread through the area. Among those severely afflicted were Lincoln's friends the Rutledges. One of New Salem's founding families, they had run a tavern and boardinghouse where Lincoln stayed and took meals when he first arrived. He became friendly with Ann Rutledge, a bright, pretty young woman with golden hair and large blue eyes. In August of 1835 she took sick. Visiting her at her family's farm, Lincoln seemed deeply distressed, which made people wonder whether the two had a romantic, and not just a friendly, bond. After Lincoln's death such speculation would froth over into a messy controversy—one that cannot be, and need not be, resolved. Regardless of how he felt about Rutledge while she was alive, her sickness and death drew Lincoln to his emotional edge. Around the time of her burial a rainstorm, accompanied by unseasonable cold, shoved him over. "As to the condition of Lincoln's Mind after the death of Miss R.," Henry McHenry, a farmer in the area, recalled, "after that Event he seemed quite changed, he seemed Retired, & loved Solitude, he seemed wraped in profound thought, indifferent, to transpiring Events, had but Little to say, but would take his gun and wander off in the woods by him self, away from the association of even those he most esteemed, this gloom seemed to deepen for some time, so as to give anxiety to his friends in regard to his Mind."

Indeed, the villagers' anxiety was intense, both for Lincoln's immediate safety and for his long-term mental health. Lincoln "told Me that he felt like Committing Suicide often," remembered Mentor Graham, a schoolteacher, and his neighbors mobilized to keep him safe. One friend recalled, "Mr Lincolns friends … were Compelled to keep watch and ward over Mr Lincoln, he being from the sudden shock somewhat temporarily deranged. We watched during storms—fogs—damp gloomy weather … for fear of an accident." Some villagers worried that he'd end up insane. After several weeks an older couple in the area took him into their home. Bowling Green, the large, merry justice of the peace, and his wife, Nancy, took care of Lincoln for a week or two. When he had improved somewhat, they let him go, but he was, Mrs. Green said, "quite melancholy for months."

.... Indeed, it became clear in Lincoln's late twenties that he had more than a passing condition. Robert L. Wilson, who was elected to the Illinois state legislature with Lincoln in 1836, found him amiable and fun-loving. But one day Lincoln told him something surprising. Lincoln said "that although he appeared to enjoy life rapturously, Still he was the victim of terrible melancholly," Wilson recalled. "He Sought company, and indulged in fun and hilarity without restraint, or Stint as to time[.] Still when by himself, he told me that he was so overcome with mental depression, that he never dare carry a knife in his pocket."

..Both sides of melancholy are evident in a poem on suicide that Lincoln apparently wrote in his twenties. Discussed by his contemporaries but long undiscovered, the poem, unsigned, recently came to light through the efforts of the scholar Richard Lawrence Miller, who was aided by old records that have been made newly available. Without an original manuscript or a letter in which ownership is claimed, no unsigned piece can be attributed definitively to an author. But the evidence points strongly to Lincoln. The poem was published in the year cited by Lincoln's closest friend, Joshua Speed, and its syntax, tone, meter, and other qualities are characteristic of Lincoln.

The poem ran in the August 25, 1838, issue of the Sangamo Journal, under the title "The Suicide's Soliloquy." At the top a note explains that the lines of verse were found "near the bones" of an apparent suicide in a deep forest by the Sangamon River. The conceit, in other words, is that this is a suicide note. As the poem begins, the anguished narrator announces his intention.

Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o'er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.

No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens' cry.

Yes! I've resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I'll rush a dagger through
Though I in hell should rue it!

To ease me of this power to think,
That through my bosom raves,
I'll headlong leap from hell's high brink
And wallow in its waves.

...Like the first, Lincoln's second breakdown came after a long period of intense work. In 1835 he had been studying law; in the winter of 1840—1841 he was trying to keep the debt-ridden State of Illinois from collapsing (and his political career with it). On top of this came a profound personal stress. The precipitating causes are hard to identify precisely, in part because cause and effect in depressive episodes can be hard to separate. Ordinarily we insist on a narrative line: factor x led to reaction y. But in a depressive crisis we might feel bad because something has gone awry. Or we might make things go awry because we feel so bad. Or both.

For Lincoln in this winter many things were awry. Even as he faced the possibility that his political career was sunk, it seemed likely that he was inextricably bound to a woman he didn't love (Mary Todd) and that Joshua Speed was going to either move away to Kentucky or stay in Illinois and marry Matilda Edwards, the young woman whom Lincoln said he really wanted but could not even approach, because of his bond with Todd. Then came a stretch of intensely cold weather, which, Lincoln later wrote, "my experience clearly proves to be verry severe on defective nerves." Once again he began to speak openly about his misery, hopelessness, and thoughts of suicide—alarming his friends. "Lincoln went Crazy," Speed recalled. "—had to remove razors from his room—take away all Knives and other such dangerous things—&—it was terrible."

In January of 1841 Lincoln submitted himself to the care of a medical doctor, spending several hours a day with Dr. Anson Henry, whom he called "necessary to my existence." Although few details of the treatment are extant, he probably went through what a prominent physician of the time called "the desolating tortures of officious medication." When he emerged, on January 20, he was "reduced and emaciated in appearance," wrote a young lawyer in town named James Conkling. On January 23 Lincoln wrote to his law partner in Washington:

"I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me."

This spare, direct letter captures the core of depression as forcefully as the Gettysburg Address would distill the essence of the American experiment. It tells what depression is like: to feel not only miserable but the most miserable; to feel a strange, muted sense of awful power; to believe plainly that either the misery must end or life will—and yet to fear the misery will not end. The fact that Lincoln spoke thus, not to a counselor or a dear friend but to his law partner, indicates how relentlessly he insisted on acknowledging his fears. Through his late twenties and early thirties he drove deeper and deeper into them, hovering over what, according to Albert Camus, is the only serious question human beings have to deal with. He asked whether he could live, whether he could face life's misery.

Finally he decided that he must. Speed recorded the dramatic exchange that began when he came to Lincoln and told him he would die unless he rallied. Lincoln replied that he could kill himself, that he was not afraid to die. Yet, he said, he had an "irrepressible desire" to accomplish something while he lived. He wanted to connect his name with the great events of his generation, and "so impress himself upon them as to link his name with something that would redound to the interest of his fellow man." This was no mere wish, Lincoln said, but what he "desired to live for."

In his middle years Lincoln turned from the question of whether he could live to how he would live. Building bridges out from his tortured self, he engaged with the psychological culture of his time, investigating who he was, how he might change, and what he must endure. Having seen what he wished to live for, Lincoln suffered at the prospect that he might never achieve it. Even so, he worked diligently to improve himself, developing self-understanding, discipline, and strategies for succor that would become the foundation of his character.

The melancholy did not go away during this period but, rather, took a new form. Beginning in his mid-thirties Lincoln began to fall into what a law clerk called his "blue spells." A decade later the cast of his face and body when in repose suggested deep, abiding gloom to nearly all who crossed his path. In his memoirs the Illinois lawyer Henry C. Whitney recounted an afternoon at court in Bloomington, Illinois: "I was sitting with John T. Stuart"—Lincoln's first law partner—"while a case was being tried, and our conversation was, at the moment, about Lincoln, when Stuart remarked that he was a hopeless victim of melancholy. I expressed surprise, to which Stuart replied; 'Look at him, now.'" Whitney turned and saw Lincoln sitting by himself in a corner, "wrapped in abstraction and gloom." Whitney watched him for a while. "It appeared," he wrote, "as if he was pursuing in his mind some specific, sad subject, regularly and systematically through various sinuosities, and his sad face would assume, at times, deeper phases of grief: but no relief came from dark and despairing melancholy, till he was roused by the breaking up of court, when he emerged from his cave of gloom and came back, like one awakened from sleep, to the world in which he lived, again."

In one sense these spells indicate Lincoln's melancholy. But they may also represent a response to it—the visible end of Lincoln's effort to contain his dark feelings and thoughts, to wrestle privately with his moods until they passed or lightened. "With depression," writes the psychologist David B. Cohen, "recovery may be a matter of shifting from protest to more effective ways of mastering helplessness." Lincoln was effective, to a point. He worked well and consistently at his law practice, always rousing himself from gloom for work. He and Mary Lincoln (whom he had wed in 1842) had four boys. He was elected to a term in the United States Congress. Yet his reaction to this honor—he wrote, "Though I am very grateful to our friends, for having done it, [it] has not pleased me as much as I expected"—suggested that through booms and busts, Lincoln continued to see life as hard.

Indeed, he developed a philosophical melancholy. "He felt very strongly," said his friend Joseph Gillespie, "that there was more of discomfort than real happiness in human existence under the most favorable circumstances and the general current of his reflections was in that channel." Once a girl named Rosa Haggard, the daughter of a hotel proprietor in Winchester, Illinois, asked Lincoln to sign her autograph album. Lincoln took the book and wrote,

To Rosa
You are young, and I am older;
You are hopeful, I am not—
Enjoy life, ere it grows colder—
Pluck the roses ere they rot.

quote:

“Of all the great national heroes and statesmen of history Lincoln is the only real giant. Alexander, Frederick the Great, Caesar, Napoleon, Gladstone and even Washington stand in greatness of character, in depth of feeling and in a certain moral power far behind Lincoln. Lincoln was a man of whom a nation has a right to be proud; he was a Christ in miniature, a saint of humanity, whose name will live thousands of years in the legends of future generations. We are still too near to his greatness, and so can hardly appreciate his divine power; but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.

“If one would know the greatness of Lincoln one should lis- ten to the stories which are told about him in other parts of the world. I have been in wild places, where one hears the name of America uttered with such mystery as if it were some heaven or hell. I have heard various tribes of barbarians discussing the New World, but I heard this only in connection with the name of Lincoln. Lincoln as the wonderful hero of America is known by the most primitive nations of Asia. This may be illustrated through the following incident:

“Once while travelling in the Caucasus I happened to be the guest of a Caucasian chief of the Circassians, who, living far away from civilized life in the mountains, had but a fragmentary and childish comprehension of the world and its history. The fingers of civilization had never reached him nor his tribe, and all life beyond his native valleys was a dark mystery. Being a Mussulman he was naturally opposed to all ideas of progress and education.

“I was received with the usual Oriental hospitality and after our meal was asked by my host to tell him something of my life. Yielding to his request I began to tell him of my profession, of the development of our industries and inventions and of the schools. He listened to everything with indifference, but when I began to tell about the great statesmen and the great generals of the world he seemed at once to become very much interested.

“‘Wait a moment,’ he interrupted, after I had talked a few minutes. ‘I want all my neighbors and my sons to listen to you. I will call them immediately.’

“He soon returned with a score of wild looking riders and asked me politely to continue. It was indeed a solemn moment when those sons of the wilderness sat around me on the floor and gazed at me as if hungering for knowledge. I spoke at first of our Czars and of their victories; then I spoke of the foreign rulers and of some of the greatest military leaders. My talk seemed to impress them deeply. The story of Napoleon was so interesting to them that I had to tell them every detail, as, for instance, how his hands looked, how tall he was, who made his guns and pistols and the color of his horse. It was very difficult to satisfy them and to meet their point of view, but I did my best. When I declared that I had finished my talk, my host, a gray- bearded, tall rider, rose, lifted his hand and said very gravely:

“‘But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know some- thing about him. He was a hero. He spoke with a voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock and as sweet as the fragrance of roses. The angels appeared to his mother and predicted that the son whom she would conceive would become the greatest the stars had ever seen. He was so great that he even forgave the crimes of his greatest enemies and shook brotherly hands with those who had plotted against his life. His name was Lincoln and the country in which he lived is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived.Tell us of that man.’

“‘Tell us, please, and we will present you with the best horse of our stock,’ shouted the others.


“I looked at them and saw their faces all aglow, while their eyes were burning. I saw that those rude barbarians were really interested in a man whose name and deeds had already become a legend. I told them of Lincoln and his wisdom, of his home life and youth. They asked me ten questions to one which I was able to answer. They wanted to know all about his habits, his influence upon the people and his physical strength. But they were very astonished to hear that Lincoln made a sorry figure on a horse and that he lived such a simple life.

“‘Tell us why he was killed,’ one of them said.

“I had to tell everything. After all my knowledge of Lincoln was exhausted they seemed to be satisfied. I can hardly forget the great enthusiasm which they expressed in their wild thanks and desire to get a picture of the great American hero. I said that I probably could secure one from my friend in the nearest town, and this seemed to give them great pleasure.

“The next morning when I left the chief a wonderful Arabian horse was brought me as a present for my marvellous story, and our farewell was very impressive.

“One of the riders agreed to accompany me to the town and get the promised picture, which I was now bound to secure at any price. I was successful in getting a large photograph from my friend, and I handed it to the man with my greetings to his associates. It was interesting to witness the gravity of his face and the trembling of his hands when he received my present. He gazed for several minutes silently, like one in a reverent prayer; his eyes filled with tears. He was deeply touched and I asked him why he became so sad. After pondering my question for a few moments he replied:

“‘I am sad because I feel sorry that he had to die by the hand of a villain. Don’t you find, judging from his picture, that his eyes are full of tears and that his lips are sad with a secret sorrow?’

“Like all Orientals, he spoke in a poetical way and left me with many deep bows.

“This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become.

“Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skilful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character. He had come through many hardships and much experience to the realization that the greatest human achievement is love. He was what Beethoven was in music, Dante in poetry, Raphael in painting, and Christ in the philosophy of life. He aspired to be divine—and he was.

“It is natural that before he reached his goal he had to walk the highway of mistakes. But we find him, nevertheless, in every tendency true to one main motive, and that was to benefit man- kind. He was one who wanted to be great through his smallness. If he had failed to become President he would be, no doubt, just as great as he is now, but only God could appreciate it. The judgment of the world is usually wrong in the beginning, and it takes centuries to correct it. But in the case of Lincoln the world was right from the start. Sooner or later Lincoln would have been seen to be a great man, even though he had never been an American President. But it would have taken a great generation to place him where he belongs.

“Lincoln died prematurely by the hand of the assassin, and naturally we condemn the criminal from our viewpoint of justice. But the question is, was his death not predestined by a divine wisdom, and was it not better for the nation and for his greatness that he died just in that way and at that particular moment? We know so little about that divine law which we call fate that no one can answer. Christ had a presentiment of His death, and there are indications that also Lincoln had strange dreams and presentiments of something tragic. If that was really the fact, can we conceive that human will could have prevented the outcome of the universal or divine will? I doubt it. I doubt also that Lincoln could have done more to prove his greatness than he did. I am convinced we are but instruments in the hands of an unknown power and that we have to follow its bidding to the end. We have a certain apparent independence, according to our moral character, wherein we may benefit our fellows, but in all eternal and universal questions we follow blindly a divine pre- destination. According to that eternal law the greatest of national heroes had to die, but an immortal glory still shines on his deeds.

“However, the highest heroism is that which is based on humanity, truth, justice and pity; all other forms are doomed to forgetfulness. The greatness of Aristotle or Kant is insignificant compared with the greatness of Buddha, Moses and Christ. The greatness of Napoleon, Caesar or Washington is only moon- light by the sun of Lincoln. His example is universal and will last thousands of years. Washington was a typical American, Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country— bigger than all the Presidents together. Why? Because he loved his enemies as himself and because he was a universal individualist who wanted to see himself in the world—not the world in himself. He was great through his simplicity and was noble through his charity.

“Lincoln is a strong type of those who make for truth and justice, for brotherhood and freedom. Love is the foundation of his life. That is what makes him immortal and that is the quality of a giant. I hope that his centenary birth day will create an impulse toward righteousness among the nations. Lincoln lived and died a hero, and as a great character he will live as long as the world lives. May his life long bless humanity!”

Johnny Aztec posted:

So, then you disagree with the tearing down of Columbus then?
Columbus as the pure Exploration figurehead?

quote:

Nevertheless, on 9 May 1940, immediately prior to Fall Gelb, Van Severen was one of a number of far right and far left activists arrested.[5] The arrested men were put under the care of the French Army and stationed near Abbeville. On 20 May, when the advancing German Army cut off the area, a group of French soldiers carried out a massacre and killed a number of members of Verdinaso, Rex and the Belgian Communist Party, among them Van Severen.[5] Twenty one suspects of varying political stripe were selected and executed without trial.[9]

quote:

On 15 May the prisons of Bruges in Belgium were overflowing with "fifth columnists" and with the approach of the German Army the 79 suspects were despatched to Abbeville in France.





The convoy included Leon Degrelle - the well known Belgian Fascist. He was lucky; he was recognised and dragged out and beaten-up by French soldiers and handed over to the Sureté.



Also included was Joris Van Severen, head of a party called Verdinaso, very right wing and advocates of Greater Belgium (based upon Charlemagne's "Frankish -Flemish" Empire of 800ish). This party, however, was very anti-German.



The remainder were a very mixed bunch:



14 Germans, 6 Dutch, 3 Luxembourg, 9 Italians, 2 Swiss, 1 French man (from Alsace - with a German accent), 1 Austrian, 1 Czech and 1 Canadian - Robert Bell, Ice-Hockey Coach.



The remainder were of unknown nationality - in most cases lack of "papers" had been sufficient to get them incarcerated.



This motley group arrived in Abbeville on night of 19th may 1940 and for want of anything appropriate were locked in the cellar of a large shop. An unfortunate Belgian who had refused to join the French Army was added to the group.



On the very next day, 20 May Guderian's Panzers arrived.



Capitan Marcel Digeon (Major rank in the US or British Army) and his 5th Company, 28th Regional Regiment was in charge. He orders Sgt Mollet to dispose of the prisoners.



Mollet was uncomfortable and returns to Dingeon who this time is more explicit "shoot the lot" is the answer.



To get it over with a French soldier throws a grenade into the Cellar but it does not explode. Then Lieutenant Rene Caron, whose Platoon is involved and who is believed to be drunk, joins the group.



The prisoners are taken out and shot in groups of two and four.



A total of 21 are summarily murdered without even an attempt at a Courts Martial.



The slaughter is only stopped when another French Officer, Lieutenant Leclabart also of 28th RR comes by - "are you mad" he exclaims and stops the massacre.



Too late to save the 20 men and one old lady who have already been executed. Those executed included, a Benedictine Brother (but German), four Anti-fascist Italian Refugees, the driver of the transport (shot by mistake) and the Canadian Ice Hockey Team Coach.



The Germans set up Trial in 1941 but Capitan Dingeon committed suicide immediately prior to its sitting - it is unclear what happened to others involved.

quote:

Robert Arthur Bell

He was born in Lachine, Quebec 1905 and attended McGill University in the mid 1920's. [Not to be confused with legendary McGill coach Robert Blagrave Bell]. Bell then came over to Europe in 1927 as a member of the Montreal Victorias, invited by Swedish sponsors. Their exhibition tour in Sweden was a smashing success and they quickly recieved invitations from another six countries, ending up playing 14 games on their European tour, winning them all [Total score was 155-10]. The team had two ex-NHL'ers (Dave Campbell and Earl Robinson], plus one future NHL'er [Joe Lamb], so it was a very good team.

Bell was approached by HC Davos just after the Victorias had won a mini-tournament in Milano. Bell had scored 3 goals against a Davos/St.Moritz combination and impressed the Davos management. He wasn't cheap though, recieving a hefty 2,000 Swiss francs per month, which was a lot of money back then. Bell went on to play and coach for HC Davos between 1927-29. Bell also played for the Paris Canadians in 1928-29, made up of mainly Canadians studying in Paris.

He continued to play and coach for Zürcher SC, SC Bern and once again HC Davos until 1935, before moving to Germany. There he played for teams made up by German and European Canadians. He then played and coached for Düsseldorfer EG between 1936-38, before coaching SC Riessersee. In Düsseldorf he earned close to 400 reichsmark a month, plus a car and apartment.

Bell was well respected and popular among the players, a very good coach. He was hired to coach the German national team during the second half of the 1930's, leading them to several EC-medals.

Many details about his death is still unclear, but it is clear that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and that eventually cost him his life. He was detained during a border control in early March 1940, unclear where, and transported to Brussels on March 3. The reason was that he was travelling from Germany but had no papers/documents at all. He was suspected of being a German collaborator/spy. Bell was in a Brussels prison for nearly two months.


The Germans troops were getting closer to Brussels, so on May 15,1940 it was decided that Bell and 78 other suspected collaborators for the "other side" would be transported on trucks over the border to France instead, where it was deemed safer. A convoy of three trucks arrived to Abbeville (Northern France) late on May 19/early May 20 and the prisoners were crammed into a cellar below a music store.

The German troops where however approaching fast there too, so the French commanding officer, Marcel Dingeon gave the order to kill all 79 prisoners. Aside from Bell there were more than 20 Belgians, 18 of unknown nationality, 14 Germans, 9 Italians, 6 from the Netherlands, 3 from Luxembourg, 2 from Switzerland, 1 each from France, Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Denmark.


Groups of two or four prisoners at a time were brought out from the cellar and executed with gunshots or stabbed with a bayonette. One of them was Bell, who according to the survivors heroically stood up and voluntarily climbed up the stairs out of the cellar, showing no fear at all. After having killed 21 of the prisoners (including Bell), the soldiers wanted to speed things up, so one of the soldiers threw a handgrenade into the cellar, but it didn't explode. The German bombardment around them intensified and the French soldiers had to take cover all the time, delaying the executions.

At that point, lieutenant Jean Leclabart went by the scene, knowing the rules of POW's very well. He asked them if they had all gone crazy and demanded to see a written statement that these executions were sanctioned. When the soldiers failed to give him any documents he ordered them to stop the killing, thus saving the other 58 prisoners. Later that day, the Germans brushed through Abbeville, completely destroying the village.



The questionmarks here:

1) Bobby Bell is said to have coached SC Riessersee to a German title in 1941.

2) I have a note from December 1940 saying that he was the coach for SC Riessersee during a tour to Italy.

3) Some sources say he was killed in 1945

But that can't be correct unless that was another hockey playing Bobby Bell.
In any case, it's a tragic but fascinating story, one of many in the hockey world.

Frogfingers posted:

Their coat of arms is a doubled-headed eagle, which is a late Byzantine thing, so they're definitely still trying to project that kind of authority.

quote:

Pierre Eugene du Simitiere's sketch of his proposal for the Great Seal of the United States during the first committee's proceedings in 1776. The committee chose a similar design for their official proposal, but it was not used. Six years later, the E Pluribus Unum motto was used on the final seal, and the Eye of Providence was an element on the reverse. This design is apparently the origin of both, as far as their usage by the U.S. Government.

The seal depicts a shield with six regions, representing the "Countries from which these States have been peopled" (Rose for England, Thistle for Scotland, Harp for Ireland, Fleur-de-lis for France, Belgic Lion for the Netherlands -- then the Dutch Republic -- and an Imperial Eagle for Germany) surrounded by the initials of all thirteen states. The Goddess of Liberty is on the left (the shield's right, or dexter), and the Goddess of Justice is on the other side.

Platystemon posted:

quote:

Spain chastised the Moors five or six years ago, about a disputed piece of property opposite Gibraltar, and captured the city of Tetouan. She compromised on an augmentation of her territory, twenty million dollars' indemnity in money, and peace. And then she gave up the city. But she never gave it up until the Spanish soldiers had eaten up all the cats. They would not compromise as long as the cats held out. Spaniards are very fond of cats. On the contrary, the Moors reverence cats as something sacred. So the Spaniards touched them on a tender point that time. Their unfeline conduct in eating up all the Tetouan cats aroused a hatred toward them in the breasts of the Moors, to which even the driving them out of Spain was tame and passionless. Moors and Spaniards are foes forever now. France had a minister here once who embittered the nation against him in the most innocent way. He killed a couple of battalions of cats (Tangier is full of them) and made a parlor carpet out of their hides. He made his carpet in circles--first a circle of old gray tomcats, with their tails all pointing toward the center; then a circle of yellow cats; next a circle of black cats and a circle of white ones; then a circle of all sorts of cats; and, finally, a centerpiece of assorted kittens. It was very beautiful, but the Moors curse his memory to this day.

quote:

Benjamin Rush has been hailed as “the American Sydenham,” “the Pennsylvania Hippocrates,” the “father of modern psychiatry,” and the founder of American medicine. The American Medical Association erected a statue of him in Washington, DC, the only physician so honored. A medical school is named after him. He was a prolific and facile writer and a very influential teacher. Yet, the only enduring mark he has left on the history of American medicine is his embarrassing, obdurate, messianic insistence, in the face of all factual evidence to the contrary, on the curative powers of heroic depletion therapy.

quote:

: A mixture of Nazism and a sort of bastardized Hinduism, with a dash of mysticism for flavor. Savitri Devi, the writer and "philosopher" who created the idea and who was deeply influential on later neo-Nazi movements, took Aryanism to a whole 'nother level, stating that not only did the Aryans come from India, but Hinduism was Aryan and Indian peoples in general were all Aryan and thusly connecting pan-Hindu ideologies and Indian nationalism to Nazism. She also applied Nazism to Greek nationalism, and argued for a sort of Pan-European identity based on Aryanism. She was also a great admirer of the Indian caste system, believing that the survival of light-skinned Brahmins after so many centuries in a multiracial society provided "living proof" that racial segregation laws would work.

The core of her philosophy, however, was a sort of apocalyptic millenarianism which fits very neatly into Nazism; according to her, the current age of the world was one of historical and racial degradation, in which increasing violence (called "lightning" by her, committed by 'unclean races', of course) had degraded the pure Aryan race, naturally a group of pacifistic, vegetarian uebermenschen, into the state she saw in her lifetime and also kept esoteric truth (referred to by her as "sun") from manifesting in the world.

From this she went on to establish the three types of great men which in her view guided history; the "Men in Time," "Men above Time," and "Men against Time". "Men in Time" are creatures of their era; guided wholly by self-interest and consumed by violence (she gives Genghis Khan as an example). "Men above Time" are those which have some fragment of the higher and esoteric truth of the world, but are doomed to failure by the age they live in (she gives Akhenaten as an example). Finally, "Men against Time" are those which understand the higher truths, but use the violent methods of the age in order to bring them forth into the world (she gives Hitler as an example). She also claims here both that Hitler was the ninth and penultimate avatar of Vishnu, sent into the world to preserve it, and that he failed because he was, in her words, "too magnanimous, too trusting, too good". Yes, that's right; we've reached that lovely part of the far-right that argues that HITLER WAS TOO NICE.

Anyway, her final idea and one of the more important in understanding how her version of a Nazi state would be is that Kalki the Destroyer, the final avatar of Vishnu, would be much, much more merciless than Hitler, and annihilate "...the lukewarm, the opportunists, the ideologically heretical, the unhealthy, the hesitating, the all-too-human; not a single one [would be left] of those who, in body or in character or in mind, bear the stamp of the fallen Ages." So, to summarize; we have an ideology that takes National Socialism, adds a strongly mystical and Hindu flavor to it, brings in the Indian caste system as a method of social organization, and advocates the mass murder of all those who don't fervently support the idea. It's rare that I find this to be true, but a state organized by this woman would most likely have been worse and much more horrifying than Hitler.

Mycroft Holmes posted:

oh wow, you're on ah.com too?

quote:

...Nelson was quite an imposing figure over Davis. William Nelson got his nickname, "Bull," in no small part to his stature. Nelson was 300 pounds and six foot two inches, described as being "in the prime of life, in perfect health." Davis was quite small in comparison, measuring five foot nine, and reportedly only 125 pounds

Two days later, on September 22, two days after Davis received his initial orders from Nelson, he was summoned to the Galt House, where Nelson had made his headquarters. Nelson inquired how the recruitment was going and how many men had been mustered. Davis replied that he did not know. As Nelson asked his questions, only receiving short answers that Davis was unaware of any specifics, Nelson became enraged and expelled Davis from Louisville. General James Barnet Fry, described as a close friend of Davis', was present for the events. Fry later wrote an account of the events surrounding the death of Nelson.[14] Fry states:

Davis arose and remarked, in a cool, deliberate manner: "General Nelson, I am a regular soldier, and I demand the treatment due to me as a general officer." Davis then stepped across to the door of the Medical Director's room, both doors being open ... and said: "Dr Irwin, I wish you to be a witness to this conversation." At the same time Nelson said: "Yes, doctor, I want you to remember this." Davis then said to Nelson: "I demand from you the courtesy due to my rank." Nelson replied: "I will treat you as you deserve. You have disappointed me; you have been unfaithful to the trust which I reposed in you, and I shall relieve you at once. You are relieved from duty here and you will proceed to Cincinnati and report to General Wright." Davis said: "You have no authority to order me." Nelson turned toward the Adjutant-General and said: "Captain, if General Davis does not leave the city by nine o'clock tonight, give instructions to the Provost-Marshal to see that he shall be put across the Ohio River."

quote:

Davis arrived in Louisville in the afternoon on Sunday, September 28, and reported to the Galt House early the next morning at breakfast time. The Galt House continued to serve as the command's headquarters for both Buell and Nelson. This, like most mornings, was the meeting place for many of the most prominent military and civil leaders. When Davis arrived, and looked around the room, he saw many a familiar face, and joined Oliver P. Morton, Indiana's Governor....

A short time later, General Nelson entered the hotel and went to the front desk. Davis approached Nelson, asking for an apology for the offense Nelson had previously made. Nelson dismissed Davis, saying, "Go away you damned puppy, I don't want anything to do with you!" Davis took in his hand a registration card, and while he confronted Nelson, took his anger out on the card, first gripping it, then wadding it up into a small ball. He took the small ball and flipped it into Nelson's face. Nelson stepped forward and slapped Davis with the back of his hand in the face.[e] Nelson then looked at the Governor and asked, "Did you come here, sir, to see me insulted?"[f] Morton said, "No sir." At which point, Nelson turned and left for his room.

This set the events in motion. General Davis asked a friend from the Mexican–American War if he had a pistol, which he did not. He then asked another friend, Thomas W. Gibson, from whom he did get a pistol. Straight away, Davis went down the corridor towards Nelson's office, where he was now standing. He aimed the pistol at Nelson, and fired. The bullet hit Nelson in the chest, tearing a small hole in the heart, mortally wounding the large man...

Many in close confidence with General Nelson wanted to see quick justice with regards to General Davis. There were even a few, including General William Terrill, who wanted to see Davis hanged on the spot. Even General Buell weighed in, saying that Davis' conduct was inexcusable. Fry states that Buell regarded the actions as "a gross violation of military discipline."
It was Major General Horatio G. Wright who came to his aid, securing his release and returning him to duty. Davis avoided conviction for the murder because there was a need for experienced field commanders in the Union Army.

Davis was released from custody on October 13, 1862. Military regulations required charges to be formally made against the accused within 45 days of the arrest.[21] The charges never came, ...There was no trial nor any significant confinement, as it appears that Davis was staying at the Galt House without guard, based partly on Wright's statement. Davis simply walked away, returning to duty as if nothing had ever happened

quote:

Old John believed it impossible for men to drink with tranquillity in the presence of women; there is a fine back room in the saloon, but for many years a sign was nailed on the street door, saying, “Notice. No Back Room in Here for Ladies.” In McSorley’s entire history, in fact, the only woman customer ever willingly admitted was an addled old peddler called Mother Fresh-Roasted, who claimed her husband died from the bite of a lizard in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and who went from saloon to saloon on the lower East Side for a couple of generations hawking peanuts, which she carried in her apron. On warm days, Old John would sell her an ale, and her esteem for him was such that she embroidered him a little American flag and gave it to him one Fourth of July; he had it framed and placed it on the wall above his brassbound ale pump, and it is still there. When other women came in, Old John would hurry forward, make a bow, and say, “Madam, I’m sorry, but we don’t serve ladies.” This technique is still used.


...Whenever Bill completely lost his temper he would jump up and down and moan piteously. One night in the winter of 1924 a feminist from Greenwich Village put on trousers, a man’s topcoat, and a cap, stuck a cigar in her mouth, and entered McSorley’s. She bought an ale, drank it, removed her cap, and shook her long hair down on her shoulders. Then she called Bill a male chauvinist, yelled something about the equality of the sexes, and ran out. When Bill realized he had sold a drink to a woman, he let out a cross between a moan and a bellow and began to jump up and down as if his heels were on fire. “She was a woman!” he yelled. “She was a goddamn woman!”...

quote:

As is well known, when Emperor Franz Josef died in 1916, his son Karl ruled briefly in his stead until the Hapsburg Empire was dismembered by the victorious allies after the World War. Karl and his wife Zita, whom he had married in 1911, went into exile. Karl died in 1922, but Zita lived on for another 66-plus years. She died at the age of 96 on March 14, 1989.

Zita had a right to be buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna, and the Austrian authorities agreed to that on the condition that the Hapsburgs paid all the expenses. The funeral, held on April 1, was huge—more than 6,000 mourners attended, including a personal representative of the Pope.

But the clerics discovered a problem as they anticipated the funeral service. Zita’s titles, as befitting an Empire that had married more than fought its way into expansionary greatness over the centuries, were very lengthy—and according to the order of the imperial funeral, all of them had to be read out loud as part of the ceremony. The titles included her own royal identity in the House of Parma and ended, two and a half pages later, according to the official list, with: “and the Duchess of Auschwitz.”

Should the officiating clerics say that, given the acquired sensitivities of that place name? They fell silent for several moments. And then, as though at once, they all knew and agreed: Yes, “Duchess of Auschwitz” should be said, and they all knew why: Because if the Hapsburg Empire had not been destroyed, there never would have been a death camp in that place.

Loxbourne posted:

And then the Titanic's radio operator is ordered to clear a backlog of messages from first class passengers, most notably a stack of bets and live horse-race commentary. This means when a neighbouring ship, the SS Californian, sends an alert that the Titanic is in the middle of an ice field and they are stopping all engines for the night for safety, he responds (with his big shiny transmitter) with "SHUT UP SHUT UP I AM WORKING CAPE RACE."

("Cape Race" in this case referring to the receiving station).

This stunning display of professionalism causes the Californian's radio operator to roll his eyes and go to bed, for which he was later slated by the Court of Inquiry. For not ten minutes later, Titanic hit the iceberg, and despite being close enough to render assistance and even see signal rockets being sent up, the Californian sailed on blissfully in ignorance of the Titanic's distress signals.

Josef bugman posted:

Holy poo poo.

What is the book that is from!