Sunday, April 22, 2007
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Spoken by Great Men
"Give me 20 divisions American soldiers and I will beach Europe.Give me 15 consisiting of Englishmen,and I will advance to the borders of Berlin.Give me two divisions of those marvelous fighting Boers,and I will remove Germany from the face of the earth."
Veldmaarskalk Bernard L. Montgomery,Bevelvoerder van die Geallieerde Magte tydens die Tweede Wereldoorlog."
Take a community of Dutchman of the type of those who defended themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world.Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots,who gave up their name and left their country forever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.The product must obviously be one of the most rugged,virile,unconquerable races ever seen upon the face of the earth.Take these formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts,in circumstances in which no weakling could survive;place them so that they acquire skill with weapons and in horsemanship,give them a country which is immanently suited to the tactics of the huntsmen,the marksman and the rider.Then,finally,put a fine temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism.Combine all thes qualities and all these impulses in one individual and you have the modern Boer."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Veldmaarskalk Bernard L. Montgomery,Bevelvoerder van die Geallieerde Magte tydens die Tweede Wereldoorlog."
Take a community of Dutchman of the type of those who defended themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world.Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots,who gave up their name and left their country forever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.The product must obviously be one of the most rugged,virile,unconquerable races ever seen upon the face of the earth.Take these formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts,in circumstances in which no weakling could survive;place them so that they acquire skill with weapons and in horsemanship,give them a country which is immanently suited to the tactics of the huntsmen,the marksman and the rider.Then,finally,put a fine temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism.Combine all thes qualities and all these impulses in one individual and you have the modern Boer."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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