Word: subaltern
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...Malenkov's parental and class origins hardly anything is known. He was born on Jan. 8, 1902 in Orenburg, since renamed Chkalov in honor of the famed Soviet flyer who in 1937 hopped over the North Pole to the U.S.* His father was presumably a Cossack subaltern. Orenburg, on the southern flank of the Urals, where Europe meets Asia, was in those days a terminal for camel caravans from Turkestan. It also had the reputation of being a restless, independent place. The Cossacks and peasants of the Orenburg region had mounted one of the most troublesome popular uprisings...
Churchill went into politics after his only success-the army-turned into disappointment. He discovered that he could not live on his subaltern's pay, ?250 a year. He quit the army in 1899 after taking part in the last old-style cavalry charge, the one in which Kitchener at Omdurman fastened Britain's grip on the Sudan. He ran for Parliament from Oldham, and was beaten...
...reached the stage when no one in authority dare say 'carry on' if a meteorologist says it is going to rain?" Brigade HQ countered apologetically: "There were storms-there was a cloudburst over Clapham Junction [four miles away]." Britons felt cheated. Blimped the father of one subaltern: "Dammit, the Guards never run-nor do their uniforms...
...studied at the University of California, was ambassador to the U.S.) to know something about getting the foreign help that Ecuador desperately needs. If the court decides for Flor-well, Plaza might win anyhow. "If they try to deprive us of victory by such means," threatened a Plaza subaltern, "blood will flow...
...diary: "Went ashore at Port Said." He received a stern classical schooling at Winchester (the twelfth of his line to go there), proceeded comfortably through Sandhurst, then, like his father before him, joined the Black Watch Regiment, in which he was a kilted second lieutenant. As a subaltern he saw the tail-end of the Boer War. Later Wavell returned to India for a spell of soldiering, pigsticking, horse racing, and Kiplingesque social doings at Peshawar...