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13 May, 4 tweets, 2 min read
French officers at the Tomb of Napoleon
I did a whole thread on Napoleon here, that, my earlier self would be shocked that I did, but, now, even I have to defend Napoleon

This by @northumbriana on the French is one of the best pieces I have read in English - would add that the graves & history of hundreds of thousands of Australian & Empire war dead buried in France are very well taken care of a century later

Like Churchill, I am a Francophile - also like Churchill, I am aware that, to the Anglo, the French are maddening at times .... "General de Gaulle thinks he's Joan of Arc, but I can't get my bloody bishops to burn him"

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More from @GrayConnolly

Gray Connolly Profile picture
11 May
There are 17 people in Australia who care about budget deficits and 9 of these dweebs are on TV now discussing the budget. Australia is a rule of law, first world, energy superpower. Reality is these deficits are cabfare for an economy Australia's size. #Budget2021
I yield to no one here in being conservative etc but Australia got hit hard by Covid & the Federal Government did what it is there to do in our system - inject funds to hold the society together. Conservatism 'conserves' the realm above all else.
#Budget2021
Yes, the one thing an Australian Government has trouble doing in a time of near zero interest rates and few safe harbours is .... borrow money. #Budget2021
Read 4 tweets
Gray Connolly Profile picture
10 May
A lot of these Soviet deaths were in captivity. Also the absolutely wasteful Soviet approach to human life esp in 1941-1942. The various Soviet peoples showed great bravery - their commanders often showed only terrible stupidity
This is the Allied effort for D-Day alone. The Soviets contributed enormous manpower on the eastern front (obv) but the decisive blows were struck in the West by capacity the Soviets could never muster. Even the British Empire alone in 1941 was sending urgent aid to the USSR. Image
Will add that we lack a good investigation into the persistent stories that in early 1943, the Soviets & Nazis discussed a compromise peace on the eastern front. Imagine until Allied archives of wartime Swiss & Swedish dealings are open, we will not know.

nytimes.com/1971/01/04/arc…
Read 5 tweets
Gray Connolly Profile picture
7 May
One of the worst consequences of the long Thatcher-Reagan era on the Right was the indiscriminate targeting of trade unions, which weakened one of the few bastions on the Left of a practical politics that could successfully resist the Woke & hardcore Socialists/Trots/Corbynism
As a very conservative Tory, I have long said the neoliberal Right would rue the day it went after the trade unions (the day may soon be here). The relative decline of unions means the Left recruits now from media and the universities, not the more practical trade unions.
People who complain about trade unions dominating Left parties should look at look what happens when the trade unions do not dominate Left parties - you get the worst of the University campus and the worst of identity politics. The old union bosses never tolerated this idiocy.
Read 6 tweets
Gray Connolly Profile picture
7 May
Whenever the Conservatives have been a Tory party - conserving & protecting the British realm & its people - the more electorally dominant the Right has been. Only Tories breach Red Walls. The British future of Red Tories and Blue Labour should be interesting & good for Britain. ImageImageImageImage
No one is voting Conservative in the British heartland because of Thatcher or privatisation or some dead Austrian economist. The Conservatives are winning because they, finally, repudiated Thatcher, as well as the dead consensus on Europe. The Conservatives are winning as Tories
The greatest threat to the Conservative is listening to the Whigs, who should never have been allowed into the party. The idiotic, indulgent, parasitic, Oxbridge, spiv class of Whigs, who almost ruined Britain in the 19thC. The Whigs have always been Britain's true enemy within.
Read 5 tweets
Gray Connolly Profile picture
4 May
This is, on any view, a sign of cultural sickness

The tomb in the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris of Napoléon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, who passed from this life on this day, 200 years ago. #Napoleon2021 ImageImageImageImage
#Napoleon2021 Image
Read 4 tweets
Gray Connolly Profile picture
14 Apr
One of my small Afghan War threads as it is in the news and there are so many militarily and geopolitically illiterate takes floating around this accursed website 👇
Generally try not to get into personal stuff here but re Afghanistan, solidarity for those who spent much longer there esp when Iraq was 'the big war' in the AO that matters & the Afghanistan theatre was .... not.
If this is your war's campaign plan, as conceived by your 'best and brightest' in command, then it was always a fool's errand - and the lions were led not by donkeys but by McKinsey rejects. Two decades of "Omnicluster". Image
Read 4 tweets

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