[Tennessee Nana]

Full title: Ministers refuse to mark Waterloo: Campaigners say Government do not want to celebrate 200th anniversary in case they offend France

(Yes the grammar is wrong I just cut and pasted)

[Tennessee Nana]

Waterloo was fought a few miles south of Brussels on June 18, 2015.

Wellington described his own troops as ‘very weak and ill-equipped, and a very inexperienced staff’.

Britain and its allies had 68,000 men, and were joined by about 45,000 Prussians on the evening of the battle. The French had 72,000 troops.

Heavy rain had turned the battlefield into a swamp. The scale of casualties was staggering - around one in four men were killed.

But the victory brought about the final destruction of Napoleon’s army and the end of his bloody reign as dictator.

[katana]

But the Government is refusing to mark the battle’s 200th anniversary in 2015 amid suspicions it does not want to offend France.

Then I suppose St. Crispin's Day is off too.

[Tennessee Nana]

A painting of the Battle of Waterloo, which will celebrate its bicentennial in 2015.

The government has pledged little support to the occasion

[donmeaker]

I figure Englands greatest victory was Blenheim.

Waterloo was a victory of allied armies against Napoleon, with England, and Belgium’s cookies being hauled out of the fire by Prussia.

Is Prussia offended?

[Timber Rattler]

Wellington won, but it was hardly a rout. He himself later called it “a damned near-run thing.”

[ClearCase_guy]

DAUPHIN

For the Dauphin,
I stand here for him: what to him from England?

EXETER

Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my king; an’ if your father’s highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He’ll call you to so hot an answer of it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
In second accent of his ordnance.

Henry V Act 2 Scene 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKHihAPr2Rc

[Verginius Rufus]

Better to devote the attention to celebrating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta.

[DManA]

I suppose they didn’t mark the 70th aniversery of Operation Tourch last November for the same reaon.

The bastards RESISTED the allied invasion of North Africa.

[Cronos]

Technically it wasn’t “just” the British Army - out of the 100,000 allied troops, only 25,000 were British.

[Cronos]

"methinks the Moslems...."

What is strange is that Napoleon was courting Islam (to rise against the British) -- a role the Brits took over after 1815

[Jabba the Nutt]

I thought it was the Prussians (Germans), who saved the day for the Brits at the end of the battle. The French feel that the Germans and Brits are teaming up again. Shhh! Don’t say anythink.

[bert]

I would think that trying to not offend the French would be found offensive to the French.