Did none of them consider you worth keeping?

Quote from: FierceKitty on 15 April 2014, 04:09:29 PM
Did none of them consider you worth keeping?

Well the blind date definitely would have, but my standards may be low but not that low.

I was married to one of them for a nightmare 16 years.  Best £150,000 i ever spent getting rid of her.

Then there was the date with the the person I am with now........As I have said before like you  "I live the dream", so a definite keeper.

It seems that most historians today call the period 'The Early Middle Ages' in an attempt to shake off the pejorative overtones of the old name. Even back in 1967 it was being queried, the first question on the St Andrews University Bursary Competition history paper being, "How dark were the Dark Ages?" I'd certainly opt for Byzantium were I to wargame the period.

It has to be a 'something' Dark Age or a Dark Age in 'somewhere' because there was more than one: there was a Dark Age in Greece after the collapse of Bronze Age civilization. Early Medieval is preferable. Roman period, Viking Age etc also better than THE Dark Ages.

Quotethere was a Dark Age in Greece after the collapse of Bronze Age civilization

I think that's they key point here, the Victorians or possibly Georgians who coined the phrase saw it as the time after the fall of the Roman civilisation in Britain and before the arrival of the French (Norman) civilisation here.  As for the definative article well if you're a Victorian then other places and times might have A dark age but only Britain can have THE Dark Ages.

Quote from: DanJ on 16 April 2014, 08:17:41 AM
  As for the definative article well if you're a Victorian then other places and times might have A dark age but only Britain can have THE Dark Ages.

I think the Victorian view was " Your whole so called civilization was a Dark Age until you were lucky enough to have us turn up on your doorstep"

How Victorious were the Victorians?

QuoteHow Victorious were the Victorians?

Pretty much all conquering as long as the foe was armed with soft fruit, and even then it was likely to be a close run thing.

I must admit the Victorian campaigns aren't my strong suite but I get the impression there was a definate pattern of sending a few troops somewhere on the pretense of helping a local ruler, then having that force destroyed by the locals before returning in overwheming force to add a new part of the globe to The Empire.

I think that the Blackpowder rulebook lists most of the people the Victorian army fought and it includes just about someone from every letter of the alphabet.

Seems to me, gentlemen, we're trying that difficult feat on comesting one's Battenburg, yet have it remain on the salver.

To say that the Zulu army, the Ashanti, the Maori were without merit seems to be to reach for the ring of Britain bashing at the expense of sound history. Why don't we denigrate the Romans for taking out the Gauls because they had superior technology and discipline? Those naughty Prussians for using breach loaders against the poor French? America and the Vietnamese ...

Yes, the Brits had superior technology. However, they rarely had the numbers, nor the local knowledge, and the ordinary Tommy was often tiny street scum sent off to somewhere hot in a bloomin' big red coat with "kill me" emblazoned across it, and yet they won through in so many cases.

We do them a disservice to belittle their military achievements, even if we don't agree with the goals of their political masters.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there" - L P Hartley

QuoteZulu army, the Ashanti, the Maori were without merit

I wouldn't say that any of these were without merit or that the British Soldier wasn't brave in situations which were often terrible.  However many of those situations were either deliberately manufactured by politicians, often in existing colonies, or were the result of mismanagement by commanders who repeatedly underestimated the opposition.

The Victorians were doing the same as everyone else had done throughout history, they were just much better at it than anyone else had ever been, a unique combination of technology, lust for adventure, sheer greed and ruthless self confidence.

Quote from: DanJ on 16 April 2014, 01:24:29 PM
The Victorians were doing the same as everyone else had done throughout history, they were just much better at it than anyone else had ever been, a unique combination of technology, lust for adventure, sheer greed and ruthless self confidence.

And religious zealotry. Like you say, they just did what the Romans, Persian/Medes, Swedes et al have done, and doubtless the Americans, Russians and Chinese continue to do.