Francophiles, Do Not Read

[porphyry]

Over the past year or so, Malkhos has been working pretty steadily at home on a series of articles which will be forthcoming in an encyclopedia. It is a job that suits him well, not in the least because he can work in the middle of the night (he is a “night owl” if ever there was) but more so because there probably isn’t a humanistic subject about which he doesn’t know something. Thus, he often is able to draft his articles based on information he already has in his magnificent brain. And I’m not talking general knowledge, either; I mean details. (One of the reasons, I must admit, he is such a joy to live with: he never gets boring and no one could ever accuse him of being a pseudo-intellectual.)

He does, however, have one weak point, and that is proofreading. This is where I come in. After he has revised his work, he hands it off to me to proof for errors because, as an English instructor of twenty years, I can proof quickly and miss nothing. He claims I don’t like commas, for instance, when if fact the truth is I know the rules of English grammar as it pertains to the relationship between dependent and independent clauses and whether or not to use a comma to separate them. The end result of all this is that he has become the darling of his editors who know that he will submit excellent copy long before it’s due. They even send him articles to rewrite that another so-called “expert” has managed to screw up knowing he can rewrite it within forty-eight hours (while minding two children under five, to boot).

So all in all, it’s a win-win situation for everyone. One advantage for me is that I get to learn so much more from reading his articles. Recently, I proofed a short article he wrote whose topic was military history in medieval Europe. Now, I have only a passing interest in military history at best whereas this is one of Malkhos’s greatest interests. One of the things I always enjoy reading about is French defeat, so you can imagine my delight as I read about the battle of Agincourt.

Picture this: approximately 6,000 British soldiers at one end, in a woods, and about 20,000 French soldiers at the other end, also in a woods, a field between them. The British have built a kind of wall of sharpened stakes as a defense, leaning at an angle; the archers stood behind the wall. I suppose one could call it something of a standoff, so the French, given their superior numbers, decided to charge. British soldiers of this time, however, were excellent with the bow (all Welsh, and practically born with a bow and arrow in their hands—and get this, the French military command KNEW this after Crecy and Potiers); the Welsh quickly laid waste to the first wave of French soldiers. And the second. And the third. So what do the French do? Send more soldiers. And more and more, until finally about 7,000—a good third, at least, were dead—before the French commanders decided to call a retreat.

This is the kind of story I actually laugh out loud about. What were the French commanders thinking? That French chilvalry was superior to the English, and that mere Frenchness would ensure victory? That it was WWI already?

Comments

[benicek.livejournal.com]

The 1870-1 siege of Paris is my favourite French defeat. British 19th century history seems so dull in comparison.

So how the hell does Mr Malkhos get anything done at all with 2 small kids to look after? Does he leave it all until they are asleep? I must know.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Indeed, from about 11:00 or 11:30 to 1:00, and occasionally an hour during the day if someone takes them out for a walk.

[stefanie-bean.livejournal.com]

Élan vital, anyone?

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's what they thought, too!

Really, I shouldn't be so hard on the French, I suppose.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Yes, he does. It is rather amazing. Sometimes I can wake up at two in the morning and still hear him typing away.

We had a rather strange encounter one night when I went, as you say, to the loo (another British usage I love but can't use here) and despite the fact I was still mostly asleep even though my eyes were open--he followed me, exasperated, with a half-panicky, half-annoyed look on his face, and so I said, "What's wrong?" thinking perhaps one of the children were ill.

"I can't write 4,000 words on mud huts!" he exclaimed, referring to an assignment on medieval African architecture, sub-Saharan. To which I could only say, "Please don't wake the children."

But still, he managed to write it, mostly in the middle of the night. As I said, he really is a night owl; does his best thinking at 2 a.m. I couldn't do it.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

4,000 words on mud huts? Bloody hell, that reminds me of the spirit-crushing archaeology degree I did years ago. What pointless crap we had to write about. Reconstructed Iron Age round houses always end up looking quite African. I've spent a few evenings sitting around a fire in one of them. I wonder if they are really accurate or whether British archaeologists are overly influenced by African forms.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I think that was the point of the article that I was not allowed to make, that if the most complicated structure is a mud hut (called waddle in Europe, I guess, or does that mean it has wicker work inside?) there isn't any architecure because the forms are inevitable. The finished work was certainly not as enlivening as my paean on the destruction of the Serapeum which they rejected on the unreasonable grounds that it took place 100 years before the period I was supposed to cover.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Yes, 'wattle and daub' is wickerwork covered with mud/straw/manure. The roof is always the biggest mystery, because these round houses are reconstructed using only basic ground plans gleaned from wall footings and post holes. They might have had all sorts of wooden ornamentation we don't know about. Same goes for Anglo-Saxon long houses; they could have been crude sheds or great big carved pagodas, like Norwegian stave churches.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Was that when the Germans took Alsace-Lorraine?

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

Yes, and then proclaimed the foundation of the new German Reich at the palace of Versailles!

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Delightful!

In all seriousness, though, I do remember learning about how that situation was one of the direct causes of both world wars.

Malkhos says the Germans should have completely subjugated France while they had the chance.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was wondering if there were any pictures of the event. I assume that's Bismarck in the white. It is only in the light of this that we can appreciate the symbolism (and insult to the Germans) of signing the 1919 treaty of Versailles in the same room.

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

Yes, Bismarck standing there imagining that he had achieved a great triumph. In fact it was a catastrophe for Germany; the new order was poisoned by the manner of its foundation. All those boots, spurs and swords.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Well, at least Bismarck established a health insurance system which outlasted everything else he created. At bit like Napoleon. May have been a maniac but the metric system is great :-)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Poor Louis XIV must have been turning over in his grave.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Yes, and shelled Paris for months, forcing the inhabitants to eat rats and all the animals in the zoo and communicate with the outside world using balloons. Then the German army sat back and watched the freshly defeated French army attack its own capital to get rid of the communards, killing more people than they had in the whole siege.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Puvis de Chavannes commemorated the ballon messages in the following work:

(http://www.geekimages.com)

But he also delt with the earlier effort to communicate with the outside world via carrier pigeon. The hawk attacking Lady France here is not symbolic. The Prussian officer corps delt with the problem by sending home for the falcons they kept.

A medal posthumously awarded to the brave French pigeons:
(http://www.geekimages.com)

(http://www.geekimages.com)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

A medal in commemoration of brave French pigeons? To whom were they pinned? The pigeons all dressed in kepi?

And then everybody wonders why I find the French so amusing.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

We're just as insane today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2593963.stm

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I was reading about the carrier pigeons during the siege. They used to carry in pieces of microfilm. This was then projected on a large screen in a theatre where a team of clerks who would copy all the news onto paper (I'm not sure if they were using typewriters at this point).

[siamhussein.livejournal.com]

Here is a detail of a large monument in Lille, just outside the citadel, which commemorates the carrier pigeons who "served" during the First World War.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/durando/267669913/