Word: napoleon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Mufflered pedestrians looked like Napoleon's army fleeing Russia as they scrambled past the frozen corpses of cars stranded in the snow...
...ascendancy. Last week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee attempted to redress the balance somewhat, approving unanimously a report calling for a congressional curb on the President's power to commit the country to foreign military ventures. Quoting authorities ranging from Supreme Court Justice (1932-38) Benjamin Cardozo to Napoleon Bonaparte, William Fulbright's committee condemned what it called "the dangerous tendency" toward presidential supremacy in foreign policy from Theodore Roosevelt right up to Lyndon Johnson. "Only in the present century," it said, "have Presidents used the armed forces of the U.S. against foreign governments entirely on their...
...Paris has almost always been a laughing matter for the rest of the world. Underfinanced, undertalented and underrehearsed, the city's three major, privately backed, week-to-week orchestras (Lamoureux, Colonne and Pasdeloup) slog through their Sunday afternoon old-hat concerts with all the esprit de corpse of Napoleon's army after Moscow. Parisian conservatories turn out some of the best instrumentalists in the world, but they have very little incentive to remain at home. Arturo Toscanini once remarked that France could have the best orchestra in the world if it were willing to spend the money...
...aficionados well know, it was Lieutenant Hornblower who decimated "Boney's" Spanish fleet in the West Indies in 1800, Commander Hornblower who intercepted the French troops that Napoleon tried to sneak into Ireland in 1804, Commodore Hornblower who inspired Sweden to join the war and gave Czar Alexander the courage to stand up and fight in 1812. And when the end finally came at Waterloo, there was Lord Hornblower, leading a band of guerrillas that tied up nine battalions of Napoleon's troops. Not until now, however, did anyone guess that it was young Captain Hornblower...
Unfortunately, Hornblower's contribution to Trafalgar is not completely documented, for Author Forester died last year at 66 before he could finish the story. He left notes, however, telling briefly what Hornblower would have done. Equipped with Napoleon's official seal (captured by Hornblower from an unsuspecting French brigantine), he would have arranged to deliver Napoleon's fleet to Trafalgar, where Admiral Nelson was waiting in ambush. As far as it goes, this last Hornblower story is, like its eleven predecessors, told with impeccable, salty craftsmanship and a fine, bracing conviction that history needs to be improved...