The Miracle At Lepanto...

unknown ^ | October 24, 1998 | unknown

[Sparta]

If you want on or off the Western Civilization Military History ping list, please let me know.

[muawiyah]

The Crusades didn't last for centuries. Only one of them had any success and it held on for about 128 years. In the end the knights were allowed by Salaldeen to return to their ancestral homes in France.

The Reconquista, which happened in Spain, and which was not a Crusade, did last for centuries. It ended in 1492.

[Sparta]

West vs the Religion of Peace ping!!

Battle of Lepanto.

[SAMWolf]

Bump

[harpseal]

What most people forget is that the Islamic war machine conquered most of what is now Islam militarily. One either converted to Islam or faced death.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

[Restorer]

Another who took part in the great battle of Lepanto, Miguel de Cervantes, lived longer to write his famous tribute to Christian chivalry, Don Quixote.

It would perhaps be more accurate to describe Don Quixote as a parody of Christian chivalry. Cervantes would have been quite at home on Saturday Night Live.

[Diago]

bump

[onedoug]

Would you add me please? Thanks.

Victor Davis Hanson has a fine chapter on Lepanto in His Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Civilization.

[Sparta]

Victor Davis Hanson has a fine chapter on Lepanto in His Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Civilization.

He was the inspiration for the ping list. The man truly is America's best historian.

[MattinNJ]

A little bit of useless trivia here:If memory serves me correctly, Cervantes lost his hand during the battle of Lepanto, and became known as the man of le mancha(sp?). I believe it's translated into the man with one hand in english.

[Restorer]

Excellent book.

Highly recommended.

Don't mess with Westerners.

The same qualities that make us effective in commerce make us remarkably effective killers.

[saradippity]

Viewing the world today in light of this article,it is no wonder Pope John Paul II is trying so hard to exhort, suggest,request,encourage and convince Catholics to pray the Rosary more often.

It seems far more likely that prayers to God will be more effective than planning or threatening to enter every Moslem nation that appears to pose a threat or house some band of terrorists. I cannot imagine a more certain way to ensure that terrorist attacks will increase than to try to show over a billion Muslims,spread all over the world,including our own country, who's boss.I call this present plan,MAD;mutually assured destruction.

I prefer the Lepanto Plan!!

[Lizard_King]

"If memory serves me correctly, Cervantes lost his hand during the battle of Lepanto, and became known as the man of le mancha(sp?)."

He may have lost his hand, but "de la Mancha" means (literally) "Of The Stain", and in this case I believe it refers to the region Cervantes was from (at least that's what it mean in "Don Quijote de la Mancha"). Perhaps you are thinking of "de la MANO" which would mean "of the Hand".

[Lizard_King]

It depends on how you see Don Quijote and at what level of introspection. I spent much of my educational career in Costa Rica studying Spanish literature, and one of the ongoing debates in our class was whether the portrayal of the noble knight tilting at windmills was meant as a criticism of idealistic Christian knighthood or as a criticism of the cruel world that appeared to leave no place for noble sentiments to exist. I believe it is the latter perspective that is far more significant in the meaning of the work, and part of what made it so epic in literary history (appalling Hollywood sing-along versions aside).

[pariah]

I agree with the latter perspective, the morale being that the world is better for the attempt at nobility, no matter how frail the human who undertakes it. Edmund Rostand illustrates this in his Cyrano de Bergerac, a play about an equally Quixotic character:

(Cyrano, an impoverished soldier/poet, is speaking with de Guiche, a powerful nobleman. De Guiche makes Cyrano an offer he thinks he cannot refuse:)

de Guiche: Poets are fashionable nowadays to have about one. Would you care to join my following?
Cyrano: No, sir. I do not follow.
de Guiche: Your duel yesterday amused my uncle the Cardinal. I might help you there...
He is himself a dramatist; Let him rewrite a few lines here and there, and he'll approve the rest.
Cyrano: Impossible. My blood curdles to think of altering one comma.
de Guiche: Ah, but when he likes a thing, he pays well.
Cyrano: Yes -- but not so well as I -- When I have made a line that sings itself so that I love the sound of it -- I pay myself a hundred times.
de Guiche: You are proud, my friend.
Cyrano: You have observed that?
....
de Guiche: Have you read Don Quixote?
Cyrano: I have -- and found myself the hero.
de Guiche: Be so good as to read once more the chapter of the windmills.
Cyrano (gravely): Chapter Thirteen.
de Guiche: Windmills, remember, if you fight with them --
Cyrano: My enemies change, then, with every wind?
de Guiche: -- May swing round their huge arms and cast you down into the mire.
Cyrano: Or up -- among the stars!

[Cuttnhorse]

I am currently reading Hanson's Carnage and Culture...an excellent book!

[TxBec]

Please add me to your list. Thanks!

[Lizard_King]

Nice. I've only ever come across the Depardieu version, and was not too impressed...French lit has never been one of my strengths. I'll be sure not to pass that one up.

[RightOnline]

Add me to your list, please.

[Aquinasfan]

Sign me up too.

Our Lady of Guadalupe bump!