Re: the military bromance, I see Eugene and Marlborough have their military history issue, but I'm not sure it's worth ordering considering the blurb already makes a massive mistake, for it says:
Marlborough and Eugene were very different characters. The former was a largely self-made man who had risen through merit and court favour, whereas the latter was a man born to aristocratic privilege. While Marlborough was vain, avaricious, and concerned with his own advancement, Eugene took wealth and power for granted.
No, he didn't, because ever since Mom hightailed it out of France, he was a kid without either, and he had to run away from France and work hard to get it. Also, re: Marlborough rising through merit and court favour, here I have to bring up not Shaw's version but Charles II.'s actual quip re: young Jack Churchill/Barbara, and future Marlborough trying to apologize once he realised Charles knew: "I forgive you, young man, for I know you earn your bread this way."
The Encyplopedia Britannica's description of the Battle of Blenheim isn't as cool as Mildred's, but it does provide an example of how exactly the Marlborough-and-Eugene team work went:
Prince Eugene mounted a strong diversionary assault on his flank while Marlborough’s general Lord John Cutts mounted two unsuccessful assaults upon Blenheim. Cutts’s attacks forced Tallard to commit more reserves to defend Blenheim than he had intended, and thus served to further weaken the French centre. Since Eugene kept Marsin fully occupied, Marlborough then launched the main attack across the Nebel River against the French centre. Marlborough’s advance was hotly contested by French cavalry attacks, and only his personal direction and Eugene’s selfless loan of one of his own cavalry corps enabled Marlborough to maintain the momentum of his attack. Once successfully launched, however, the attack proved irresistible. The Allied cavalry broke through the French centre, dividing Marsin’s army from that of Tallard, and then wheeled left, sweeping Tallard’s forces into the Danube River.
Have some more quotes:
Eugene about his multinationality: "I have three hearts, a passionate Italian heart with which to confront my enemies, and obedient French heart for my monarch and a loyal German heart for my friends."
(Eugene: lived long before the French Revolution. Seriously though, you can tell he spent his youth in the France of Louis XIV by that remark, which indeed prized obedience to the (absolute) monarch.)
Eugene about Marlborough, when they first joined up: “a man of high quality, courageous, extremely well-disposed, and with a keen desire to achieve something; with all these qualities he understands thoroughly that one cannot become a general in a day, and he is diffident about himself.”
From a doctoral thesis, about which more in a moment:
In spite of historians’ different takes on the generalships of Eugene and Marlborough, Marlborough would later write that “Prince Eugene and I shall never differ about our share of laurels.”216 Both generals, however, “exposed their person repeatedly,” reported one officer. “Eugen went so far that it is almost a miracle that he escaped with his life.”
You can see why Fritz was a fan (though feeling let down when meeting old Eugene in person, which changed somewhat in his recollection once he himself had gotten old).
The doctoral thesis is about the fake memoirs, which in actually were written by Charles-Joseph, Prince de Ligne, whom we've met before; he was, among other things, part of Joseph's entourage at Neisse when Joseph met Fritz and is responsible for both the "Fritz & Co. wear white uniforms to "spare Austrian feelings" anecdote and the story about Fritz visiting the Antinous statue (which btw used to belong to Eugene, remember? Then Lichtenstein, then Fritz). Now I wronged him in that he didn't write the fake Eugene memoirs for cash; in fact, they were not published within his life time, but only after his death, when they were found among his papers. The doctoral thesis, which compares to the memoirs to their 18th century source, Mauvillon's biography "Life of Prince Eugene", which they are far too close to for, the thesis writer argues, contemporaries not to notice, or they should have, i.e. Ligne didn't expect them to be taken in. He mainly wrote them because he hero-worshipped Eugene and had literary ambitions, plus he wanted to vent about the French (post Diplomatic Revolution Austria's allies, about which de Ligne was not happy). Basically, it's fannish first person RPF. However, whatever his expectations, there were enough people taking the memoirs for the genuine article in the 19th century that they kept being used as sources, and some (i.e. English wiki, though not, note, German wiki) do so to this day.
Googling about Eugene and Marlborough, btw, can bring you weird places. Not this doctoral thesis, something else. Here I was, reading what first came across as a solid esay about Eugene, here, and then there's this passage:
In 1716 Austria and Venice went to war with Turkey and at Peterwardein in present day Serbia, Eugene defeated an army twice his army's size. This earned him from the Pope a consecrated had and sword which was the customary Papal award for victories over the infidel. Dare I hope that such a hat and sword be awarded by His Holiness to Eugene's successor victor over the infidels, Secretary Rumsfeld, for his victory at Baghdad over the infidel Saddam?
....What? thought I. Is this sarcasm? Irony? Alas, no. Later on:
But in a brilliant surprise counterattack, in which Eugene had been careful to well-fortify his troops with wine, brandy and beer, the Turks were again annihilated and Belgrade was won for Christendom (let's pray that Mr. Rumsfeld can pull off a similar coup).
...yeah. I checked the date - seems the essay was a lecture given in 2003 by one William B. Warren in New York City. Good lord. Well, Fritz had The Worst Fanboys. Go figure that Eugene has The Terrible Fanboys. Just for the record, William B. Warren, I suspect Eugene might have figured out you can't invade a country under a blatantly forged pretext, piss off nearly all your former allies ahead of this, expect the population to applaud you and then leave behind chaos. Given the importance he put on making and keeping alliances, you might say he'd have done the opposite. Also, if you're actually comparing the war against the Turks (who were doing the invading) with the Iraq Invasion, then you were definitely not a member of the reality based community in 2003 already.
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Re: War of the Spanish Succession: Blenheim
Marlborough and Eugene were very different characters. The former was a largely self-made man who had risen through merit and court favour, whereas the latter was a man born to aristocratic privilege. While Marlborough was vain, avaricious, and concerned with his own advancement, Eugene took wealth and power for granted.
No, he didn't, because ever since Mom hightailed it out of France, he was a kid without either, and he had to run away from France and work hard to get it. Also, re: Marlborough rising through merit and court favour, here I have to bring up not Shaw's version but Charles II.'s actual quip re: young Jack Churchill/Barbara, and future Marlborough trying to apologize once he realised Charles knew: "I forgive you, young man, for I know you earn your bread this way."
The Encyplopedia Britannica's description of the Battle of Blenheim isn't as cool as Mildred's, but it does provide an example of how exactly the Marlborough-and-Eugene team work went:
Prince Eugene mounted a strong diversionary assault on his flank while Marlborough’s general Lord John Cutts mounted two unsuccessful assaults upon Blenheim. Cutts’s attacks forced Tallard to commit more reserves to defend Blenheim than he had intended, and thus served to further weaken the French centre. Since Eugene kept Marsin fully occupied, Marlborough then launched the main attack across the Nebel River against the French centre. Marlborough’s advance was hotly contested by French cavalry attacks, and only his personal direction and Eugene’s selfless loan of one of his own cavalry corps enabled Marlborough to maintain the momentum of his attack. Once successfully launched, however, the attack proved irresistible. The Allied cavalry broke through the French centre, dividing Marsin’s army from that of Tallard, and then wheeled left, sweeping Tallard’s forces into the Danube River.
Have some more quotes:
Eugene about his multinationality: "I have three hearts, a passionate Italian heart with which to confront my enemies, and obedient French heart for my monarch and a loyal German heart for my friends."
(Eugene: lived long before the French Revolution. Seriously though, you can tell he spent his youth in the France of Louis XIV by that remark, which indeed prized obedience to the (absolute) monarch.)
Eugene about Marlborough, when they first joined up: “a man of high quality, courageous, extremely well-disposed, and with a keen desire to achieve something; with all these qualities he understands thoroughly that one cannot become a general in a day, and he is diffident about himself.”
From a doctoral thesis, about which more in a moment:
In spite of historians’ different takes on the generalships of Eugene and Marlborough, Marlborough would later write that “Prince Eugene and I shall never differ about our share of laurels.”216 Both generals, however, “exposed their person repeatedly,” reported one officer. “Eugen went so far that it is almost a miracle that he escaped with his life.”
You can see why Fritz was a fan (though feeling let down when meeting old Eugene in person, which changed somewhat in his recollection once he himself had gotten old).
The doctoral thesis is about the fake memoirs, which in actually were written by Charles-Joseph, Prince de Ligne, whom we've met before; he was, among other things, part of Joseph's entourage at Neisse when Joseph met Fritz and is responsible for both the "Fritz & Co. wear white uniforms to "spare Austrian feelings" anecdote and the story about Fritz visiting the Antinous statue (which btw used to belong to Eugene, remember? Then Lichtenstein, then Fritz). Now I wronged him in that he didn't write the fake Eugene memoirs for cash; in fact, they were not published within his life time, but only after his death, when they were found among his papers. The doctoral thesis, which compares to the memoirs to their 18th century source, Mauvillon's biography "Life of Prince Eugene", which they are far too close to for, the thesis writer argues, contemporaries not to notice, or they should have, i.e. Ligne didn't expect them to be taken in. He mainly wrote them because he hero-worshipped Eugene and had literary ambitions, plus he wanted to vent about the French (post Diplomatic Revolution Austria's allies, about which de Ligne was not happy). Basically, it's fannish first person RPF. However, whatever his expectations, there were enough people taking the memoirs for the genuine article in the 19th century that they kept being used as sources, and some (i.e. English wiki, though not, note, German wiki) do so to this day.
Googling about Eugene and Marlborough, btw, can bring you weird places. Not this doctoral thesis, something else. Here I was, reading what first came across as a solid esay about Eugene, here, and then there's this passage:
In 1716 Austria and Venice went to war with Turkey and at Peterwardein in present day Serbia, Eugene defeated an army twice his army's size. This earned him from the Pope a consecrated had and sword which was the customary Papal award for victories over the infidel. Dare I hope that such a hat and sword be awarded by His Holiness to Eugene's successor victor over the infidels, Secretary Rumsfeld, for his victory at Baghdad over the infidel Saddam?
....What? thought I. Is this sarcasm? Irony? Alas, no. Later on:
But in a brilliant surprise counterattack, in which Eugene had been careful to well-fortify his troops with wine, brandy and beer, the Turks were again annihilated and Belgrade was won for Christendom (let's pray that Mr. Rumsfeld can pull off a similar coup).
...yeah. I checked the date - seems the essay was a lecture given in 2003 by one William B. Warren in New York City. Good lord. Well, Fritz had The Worst Fanboys. Go figure that Eugene has The Terrible Fanboys. Just for the record, William B. Warren, I suspect Eugene might have figured out you can't invade a country under a blatantly forged pretext, piss off nearly all your former allies ahead of this, expect the population to applaud you and then leave behind chaos. Given the importance he put on making and keeping alliances, you might say he'd have done the opposite. Also, if you're actually comparing the war against the Turks (who were doing the invading) with the Iraq Invasion, then you were definitely not a member of the reality based community in 2003 already.
Re: War of the Spanish Succession: Blenheim
LOL
He mainly wrote them because he hero-worshipped Eugene and had literary ambitions, plus he wanted to vent about the French
Awwww! Okay, this is actually kinda cute, if true.