John Bull Profile picture
17 Nov, 9 tweets, 2 min read
Ewart, who captures the Eagle, survived and had kids.

His family emigrated to Australia and his grandson George, served in the Australian army in WW1.

He fought and died breaking the Hindenburg line in 1918 and is buried in Bellicourt Cemetery, less than 60 miles from Waterloo.
You've got two men here, from the same family, who both fought for their countries. Separated by just one or two generations.

One was British. One was an Aussie, who grew up 9,000mi away.

Yet they fought only 60miles from each other. And only one survived his brush with history
I wonder if George knew who his grandfather (or possibly great grandfather) was. I assume that he did. He captured an Eagle and is buried next to Edinburgh Castle.

Did that influence George signing up? Did he feel pressure to do so? Was he excited about his own chance at glory?
When George got to France and was sent to St Quentin, did he tell his comrades about his ancestor? Did he know just how close he was to Waterloo? Did he hope to visit it when the war was over and before he went back to Oz?

Would have been the chance of a lifetime.
We don't know. We'll never know. Because while Charles' luck held at Waterloo, George's luck failed him in the fighting for Bellicourt Crossroads.

Charles returned to his country from the continent, George never did.

60 miles, time and a bit of luck. All that separated them.
Indeed we only know they're related because of a message scrawled on the back of a photo in the Australian archives, which mentions how close he was to his famous ancestor when he died.

Which suggests George definitely told SOMEONE he served with, who survived.
But yeah. This kind of story is the moments where, as a military historian, I get a bit overwhelmed and contemplative about it all.

It's the connections and moments that are so personal and human that ram the tragedy of war, ALL wars, home.
Because (as with my fascination with messages on war graves) they hammer home that behind every soldier or civilian death is a story lost to history, or a future lost to them, their loved ones and any family they may have had themselves.
If Charles is killed in that cavalry charge at Waterloo, George never exists. Charles isn't, and George does, only to die in France within spitting distance of where Charles didn't die.

History, mofos.

Thinking about that shit too long will fuck you up.

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More from @garius

18 Nov
Worth noting that the last time London Underground had to enter a period of managed decline, the ultimate consequence was the King's Cross fire.
Wasn't the only factor of course, but it was a major contributor.

Railways, like air travel, rely on the "Swiss cheese model" of layers of error protection. All layers have holes, more layers stops them lining up and causing disasters.

Proper funding is one of those layers.
And yes.

I know what day it is.
Read 9 tweets
1 Nov
"Replicator, Pasty (Cornish) plus chips and baked beans."
Learnt the hard way to specify Cornish on that one.

These things default to American settings.
Re: Chips vs Fries in the replicator.

My understanding is that Picard logged that one via the Enterprise IT Help Desk as a VIP request, which is why saying 'chips' gives you proper ones.

The captain loves a nuggets and chips lunch.
Read 91 tweets
1 Nov
ME: it's 6am. I can get 2hrs more sleep.
MY BRAIN: Oh hai. You're awake. So in our hypothetical Columbo reboot with Donald Glover, we should do an episode where a famous speedrunner murders a fan who discovers he's cheating, but appears to be streaming when the murder happens...
ME: I just want sleep
MY BRAIN: Yeah. Cool. Anyway, I've worked out the basics. The fan blackmails the speedrunner who promises to help him become a famous streamer. The speedrunner convinces him they should fake an on-air robbery, just after the speedrunner raids him on Twitch.
ME: Go away
MY BRAIN: They film the fake robbery the day before. Then, on the MORNING of the planned fake vid the speedrunner actually murders the fan before he starts his stream, and sets the fan's computer up to play the fake video at the time of the raid. Bosh. Alibi.
Read 14 tweets
30 Oct
If we end up at war with the French next week I'd like to remind them that London has some lovely cafes and we're totally okay with some kind of 'free trade city' exclave setup.

Remember that pls when Bojo is unconditionally surrendering in a rail carriage on the Kingston loop.
Also: Don't worry, Watford isn't actually part of London. They just pretend they are so they can use the Tube.

So you don't have to have that bit. BoJo can keep it and move his capital there.
Also, if you force him to release Scotland in the peace deal, they'll probably sign an alliance with you straight away.

Trust me. I've played A LOT of Europa Universalis 4. Happens every time.
Read 5 tweets
29 Oct
Zuckerberg out there pretending the Metaverse is gonna be people doing complex AR Art and avatars.

When, in reality, you're just going to log on and be surrounded by a million versions of this:
Because sure. Your mum and dad are gonna spend hours working out how to sort their Blender meshes out properly before logging on to the Metaverse.
Metaverse is just going to be the Nextdoor version of Minority Report.
Read 7 tweets
29 Oct
A quick message for everyone who donated to the charity walk for MND we're doing tomorrow, from Jose (Clara's widower).

Many thanks from me too. And my particular personal thanks to the anonymous donor who made a big donation.

Still time to donate here justgiving.com/fundraising/cl…
This place can be rubbish at times. Really rubbish. But I've also always believed that you have to try and make Twitter the space you'd like it to be.

Over the last week, you lot have donated over £1,500 in memory of someone you never met just because I asked.

You're wonderful.
OBVIOUSLY I still don't believe any of you are real people. You're all bots and AI scripts.

But you're very nice bots. You helped make a widower (who doesn't quite understand why you did this) happy, and helped Clara's family make a difference for others with MND in her memory.
Read 5 tweets

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