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News Roundup for January 7, 2025
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Plains of Abraham re-enactment cancelled

My work has offices in France, and a few transplanted workers from France on temp transfers. I just love the melodic sounds of their accent and AFAIK perfectly pronounced vocab. On the contrary, having lived in New Brunswick for three years, I was convinced that the French I heard there was akin to a sharp, squawking racket with anglais slang thrown in. In my office today, you can definitely tell the difference between the Quebec French and the blue bloods from France. I much prefer the sound of the latter.

I assume there must be places in France that have their own versions of Cockney slang that you hear in place of the Queen's English in Britain, but I haven't heard it yet on this side of the pond from folks visiting from France.
 
Tewder said:
You should try one some time, with an open mind. I always thought they were silly until I happened upon one in process one year driving through Fort Erie. It was twilight on a beautiful summer evening and the canons were blasting, the muskets firing, the smoke and fire and sound of fife and drums... it was all very thrilling and atmospheric with the campments set up and people 'living' the parts. I couldn't wait to tour the fort all of a sudden. It brought history to life for me at a place I would have driven by a million times without giving a moment's thought about its history, the lives lost there, the meaning of it all in a larger context of Canada's war of independence (from the American manifest destiny, not from England which evolved peacefully later).

I also have a friend who participated with her sister in one at Stoney Creek. They are the most unlikely people you could ever imagine doing so but they are huge history buffs and thought it would be silly fun. She's told me the experience was surprisingly exciting and moving. Unfortunately she was shot fairly soon, but relates the vivid memory of watching the lines behind her advancing in pure 18th/19th century style, stepping over her and the other bodies and being shot down in turn.
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backs up my thoughts in the previous reply. grownups having fun like children playing cowboys and indians; and i'm not trying to be pejorative when i say that. i guess there's a benefit though. it's like a history lesson come to life and at least the wars happened such a long time ago that anyone directly effected by the war such as a survivor or widow is long dead and doesn't have to relive the experience.

and of course it's thrilling. that's why we as humans are a messed up species. ;) also, these are open minded observations.



p.s, are there any war reenactments which portray recent wars? which one is the most recent?
 
In Canada, I think the most recent we go is the War of 1812. The US I think only goes as far as the Civil War.

We're probably going to see less interest in more recent wars because a) they mainly took place elsewhere, b) there are still people alive who can relay their memories of the war to younger generations, and c) the wars are being re-enacted in different ways, like movies, television and computer and video games.
 
DHLawrence85 said:
We're probably going to see less interest in more recent wars because a) they mainly took place elsewhere, b) there are still people alive who can relay their memories of the war to younger generations
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True, now that the veterans of the Second World War are dying off, I wonder how my great grandkids will think of the war? I imagine it would be seen as as more significant than that the war between Persia and the Greek States (BTW, I highly recommend you read about the Battle of Marathon, where had the Greeks not stopped the Persians, we'd all be Iraqis now).
 
DHLawrence85 said:
In Canada, I think the most recent we go is the War of 1812. The US I think only goes as far as the Civil War.

We're probably going to see less interest in more recent wars because a) they mainly took place elsewhere, b) there are still people alive who can relay their memories of the war to younger generations, and c) the wars are being re-enacted in different ways, like movies, television and computer and video games.
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A) makes sense but I disagree with b) and c). The real deterrent to re-enacting modern battles is how do you re-enact wars once planes and nukes are thrown into the mix? Not much fun and not much stuff (costumes and weapons) for a hobbyist to busy himself with beforehand. Few people are going to want to dig trenches and re-enact getting killed by shrapnel while still inside the trench. Perhaps, if they're allowed to be killed more than once in an event, they could relive some gas attacks, which would be funner than a shrapnel death in the mud. I doubt the 1812 re-enacters are going to include random artillery deaths well behind the front lines of muskets. Face to face and some degree of order are important and modern battles are just too random and impersonal for a group of costume and weapon fetishists to have any fun recreating and reliving. No one's going to build a tank in their spare time.
 
ganjavih said:
Another gold nugget from Beez. Can you explain this?
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Sorry, meant to say Iranians, not Iraqis, though both territories were part of the Persian Empire of the time.

Honestly though, to history buffs, Marathon was an extremely critical battle. Had the Greeks lost, the Persian Empire would have certainly expanded well into south west Europe, and the Greek-inspired ideals of democracy may have died.
 
You're giving the Persians too much credit. And I really don't think Western democracy directly stems from Ancient Greek democracy. Much of Europe was undemocratic until much more recently. Incidentally, the Persian Empire was probably the most civilised society at the time.
 
but we'd be iraqi or persian?

reminds me of "you're lucky they defeated the nazis of else you'd be speaking german" cliche. apparently, not wanting to speak german was the main justification of WWII for some people.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Honestly though, to history buffs, Marathon was an extremely critical battle. Had the Greeks lost, the Persian Empire would have certainly expanded well into south west Europe, and the Greek-inspired ideals of democracy may have died.
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Greece was invaded, and occupied for a few centuries, by Turks yet we aren't Turkish, and democracy seems to have done just fine.

I generally don't take the Greek democratic history too seriously, most of that line of historical thinking stems from 19th century nationalist historians in Western Europe who created a sort of pseudo historical pan-European narrative of democracy and liberalism, stretching to the dawn of European civilization, to justify their various undemocratic and imperial tendencies. When Greece finally did become a Republic in the 1830s, it didn't' take long for the European powers to install a Bavarian as King. So much for that great tradition.

Plus I can't help but wonder about a society with an expression such as "a woman for necessity, a boy for pleasure and a goat for ecstasy."
 
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