Winston Churchill without a doubt. I couldn't let a day go past without reading his ever-quotable quotes!
One of my favorites 'I know History will view me kindly - because I intend writing it' - and he did!
Lovely stuff - there's a whole forum waiting for these, I am sure.
....or even 'points' Jane?
We have a huge & prominent plaque on the place des Lices in St Tropez commemorating the beach landings on Pampelonne led by General Patch, US Army, after whom a boulevard is also named... the landings were the prelude to some very nasty fighting through the Massif des Maures on the way to Toulon & the naval base.
Love it. My daughter keeps showing me her history stuff, we are doing the Hundred Years war at the moment, little mention of Poitiers and no mention of Azincourt! Although she is quick to tell me that the English burnt Jeanne d'Arc :-)
The other one I love is her geography of France over the years, did you know that the Allies only liberated Normandy and Paris. The rest of France was evacuated by the Germans and liberated by the Resistance.
How does he compare with Claude Nicolas Ledoux who predates him? He designed the Royal Saltworks in Arc et Senans and he too offered Utopia in 1775 despite the fact that the deshydratisation of the salt killed the average employee of at the age of36! But hte architecture is stunning and well worth the visit to the UNESCO site.
perhaps Florence Nightingale ....
My dad was great. He survived a tough upbringing to create a business, survived the POW camps, actually lived after an experimental brian tumour operation in 1955 which left him handicapped, fathered and brought up three sons and carried on building his business against all the odds. A remarkable man, good father and husband tho' it took me about 40 years to appreciate just how much he meant to me. I'm not a believer in God but I do believe in the afterlife and I know he is caring for me now.
I thought it was David Beckham !
I find it quite opposite. In his 1959 speech in Strasbourg, de Gaulle said "Oui, c'est l'Europe, depuis l'Atlantique jusqu'à l'Oural, c'est toute l'Europe, qui décidera du destin du monde." (Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the destiny of the world). From the sidelines he took part in drawing up and putting in place the Treaty of Rome that established the European Economic Community that mainly focused on economic co-operation, but it also set out a wider political vision for 'an ever closer union' to 'eliminate the barriers which divide Europe'. Those are the words in the treaty.
He had hated Churchill profoundly, but when he became president in 1959 over his 10 years he had Macmillan who he though slow and stupid, Douglas-Home who he though was especially stupid and above himself and Wilson who he thought below any political values whatsoever. So, he excluded the UK and fought against the EFTA seven ever competing with the six.
The notion of a core was a leadership of the body but he predicted the end of the East Bloc and the inclusion of most members of it in a free, united Europe. Free trade and free movement of people that the likes of ukip want to end effectively fell into place with Rome in his time. Adenauer, Spaak, Segni, Bech and Luns all signed for their countries but ironically it was Pineau and Faure who signed for France because it was two years before de Gaulle became president.
Despite being a fairly loathsome, arrogant man, his European values were almost visionary. Unfortunately not one French president has lived up to his ideas about a united and powerful Europe - conditional on France being right at the core of it.
De Gaulle didn't like or trust the British Labour Party (ironically in the sixties it was the left that were anti-Europe and the Tories who were pro) under Harold Wilson. He was vehemently opposed to any notion of US Hegemony (and look where we are today!) and was set against a huge Europe with an unwieldy number of members (again, look where we are today!) De Gaulle's vision was of a European core with free trade and an 'unofficial' agreement on matters such as defence. He obviously didn't want to see France back in the untenable position in which she found herself in 1939, with no defence against invading forces, so a united Europe was essentially in his interests - but he had the foresight to see what could happen if the Union became too large and if the US continued to interfere. We can only speculate, but I'm certain he would have opposed the introduction of the single currency and the rapid expansion which has led to today's economic and monetary chaos. Still an arrogant and self-seeking man, however!!
Mine would be Oscar Wilde.
The problem was that the UK unfortunately played the victor card and was very dismissive of the smaller members of the inner six original members of the ECSC where it all started. The UK wanted to tell Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands how to run their countries, saw Germany as a nation defeated six years earlier, Italy much the same and France as a junior partner in that victory (to an extent so true). The seven nations that founded EFTA, including the UK, thought they could make the running. De Gaulle reacted to that and seeing the UK as a Trojan horse for US interests, vetoed British membership. Pompidou 'unblocked' it. Yes, had the UK joined at the beginning it would have been different, but had they also had a different and more flexible leadership that was not a close to the USA it would have worked with the UK at the core and de Gaulle open to having them, after all it would have been in France's best interest. Odious man he was, in fact he was probably right to do as he did but sadly even that has gone awry.
His refusal to allow Great Britain is behind the problems we have with the European Community.
If we had joined at the beginning we would have had such more influence and I am sure the outcome would have been different.
I try to explain this to French friends, if you had been refused entry to Europe after you have just given so much to save it, how would you feel?
Oddly enough, my choice was going to be Charles de Gaulle! I'd long regarded him as an arrogant, self-seeking kind of character just the kind of person I wouldn't normally pick - but I have just finished reading a fascinating biography of him, written in 1968. I still think he was an arrogant, self-seeking so-and-so, but I'm now convinced that without his influence, Europe and France would not be what they are today. He stuck to his principles, right or wrong - and there aren't many leaders of whom you can say that (and before someone else says it, yes, I know his principles changed a little from time to time, but a man's entitled to change his mind!!)
Surely you mean Charles de Gaulle saved Europe. It says so in my daughters' history books ;-)
An impossible question. Winston Churchill because he saved UK and Europe, Albert Einstein, Hereward the Wake, who opposed the Church for good reasons, on and on!!
My father died when I was thirteen, but not before showing me the meaning of unconditional love.
Peter,
I think it`s good to read that your dad was such a good influence on you - mine was too - his pearls of wisdom and good advice will live with me forever. Fortunately I did get the chance to tell him how much I loved him as he was in hospital for many weeks and we bothe knew he wouldn`t get back home so we had long chats when I visited him.
Yes seeing the cranes fly over in the last few days is always a great sight and a sign that the better weather is on its way!
Boudicca stood up for her tribe and Godiva stood up for the people of Coventry against her husband.
Fantastic sight, nature at it's inimitable best...
The formation is incredibly symmetrical.