Sunday, October 31, 2010

Something of interest

We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old. I read this
well doing some research and fond it to be encouraging in a day that the world seems to be going to Hell in a hand basket it is impotent to remember that what we face is nothing compared to what people in the paced have had to go through. And that like them WE should be brave enough  to say We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end… we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender…

Friday, October 15, 2010

Swordsmanship

I have been wanting to do a post on swords for a long time now,but I just have never gotten up the energy to do it until now.I would like to first focus on the two schools of thought on swordsmanship,
Western and Eastern swordsmanship.
First Eastern swordsmanship.Eastern Swordsmanship can be summed up as Japanese swordsmanship.Swordsmanship(Kendo) changed almost nill in Japan from the time of Nobunaga,Hideyoshi,and Tokugawa,because,unlike the Europeans who had to face new challenges and multitudes of invaders the Japanese did not.They only faced enemies with the same type of sword and tactics.So instead of being forced to have to adapt, they perfected there own swords,and instead of innovating new ways for warfare,the Sword(used exclusively by the prestigious,honored, Samurai) became a symbol of power,and it's study a art form.Kendo(Way of the Sword)became a cult of itself teaching that to use ones sword it was a spiritual act,as much as a physical one,"One must achieve a state of no mind, were one's body and mind mesh in one purpose!'The next cut!'"quote Miyamoto Musashi

I will continue this thread,but if my esteemed college, and wizened scholar,Rennuk,would do one on Western Swordsmanship I would be much obliged.I admit to lack of study in that area.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Points of Prophecy.


Thanks to:My best Mentor who gave most of this information,and to Daniel who had this gift for prophecy

Permissions:This article was published with the permission of NamelessCybranPublishing,Court Jester Inc.,Gryphon Typing And Publishing,World Domination Society, Plagiarized Spicer-isms,
and the Fidelis Grand Arch-Master Strategos(Ph.d) of the Order of Shadow domination,(His Excellency Gryphon),With the approval of the Fidelis Grand Arch-Templar of Inner-Global Workings(His Magnanimity Rennuk)AND....with contributions from viewers like you...thank-you!

Now I am going to ask you to ignore the elephant(or statue) in the room for just one second.Now I take you back say 3500 years,(give or take.)to a time when Babylon was at it's height!The king had just finished with his conquering spree through the holy land.He had this brilliant idea that he could more easily govern his conquered people if he had those peoples people as advisers.So he took 4 brilliant,comely, and quick witted(starting to sound like the hunter here:)children to train for his advisers.They(the children) followed God, and by doing so were smarter and by far more honest, than any other councilors.One night the King had a dream, and to make a long story short only Daniel could make any sense out of it.(Now we get to the Statue in the room.)Daniel told the king that the statue symbolized 4 consecutive World-Empires that would follow his.I, after talking to a mentor well versed in the Bible, have written a article explaining this statue.
Golden Head:The Golden Head symbolized the Babylonian Empire.The reason for the color was that,the Babylonians instituted many of the government practices that were practiced in every government afterwords:Absolute Kingship,Bureaucracy, State Religion,State-run Schools,and Organized Taxes.(CURSE YOU!!!)Basically the Babylonians have provided the mold for every World Empire after it.Also gold does not shatter or break, symbolizes how the Babylonians did not break until they were completely conquered
Silver Arms:The Silver Arms symbolize the Medo-Persian Empire.The arms are a picture of the struggle between Medes and Persian for dominance,Cyrus the Great is the upper stronger arm,while Darius the Mede is the lower weaker arm,symbolizing Persian supremacy(Who in the world has ever heard of the Medes anyway?)Also it might be a coincidence,but the Persians had Twelve rulers and the statue had twelve ribs,maybe insignificant but interesting none the less.
Bronze Stomach And Thighs:The Stomach and Thighs are a bit more difficult.all I can find on them is that they are all one part,Alexander's empire had only one ruler before it was destroyed.
Legs of Iron:The Legs of Iron represents Rome.Iron is the strongest metal,Rome is still said to have the strongest military in history.But the interesting part is the subtle detail in the statue:There are two legs which represents the split of the East and West empire,the feet are remnants of Rome combined with weak "clay" making countries that are mini Romes.The Clay symbolizes the barbarian invaders mixing with Roman populace.The Ten toes on the feet are the ten countries that formed in Europe from the melding of Roman law and Barbarian law.(France,Germany,England,Spain,Portugal,Switzerland,Italy,Greece,and Byzantium.

Well that is it if you disagree or want to comment please feel free.I hope you enjoy it as much as I did,and If it is okay with you rennuk i will post another like it here.

Gryphon

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Rennuke’s interpretation of the Fall of the Spanish Empire



Thanks: To everyone who commented on the original post and helped correct my mistakes.

Apologies: To anyone who read the original post for: bad grammar , horrendous English, typos, and incorrect history

Permissions: This article was published with the permission of the Grand vicar of the order of the Hospitallers brethren counsel of the protection of forbidden history and with the approval of the co supreme commander Jordan of the knights of historical preservation.  And the advice of the co champion of AOE2.,SM.FA., and SC2. Devotions of the RTS. Elite society.    


The loss of the Spanish armada was not what killed the Spanish empire I believe that it was God and nothing less.
As I understand it happened this way.
Ahem… when King Philip (the number escapes me at the moment) came to the throne of Spain he commanded an exploding economy that was enriched by a seemingly endless avalanche of wealth from enormous and mostly unchallenged American colonies, also large portions of Europe answered to him, the single largest religion in the world was right in his pocket, on land his armies were considered literally physically invincible. The people of Spain were happy, her coffers seemingly endless and she was the undisputed mistress of the seas. All the other nations of Europe were kowtowing and her only rival by any stretch of the imagination was England, and in the eyes of Europe it was like a emperies and a peasant girl. But this peasant was one of rare beauty founded in passionate independents of the early Britons tempered by Roman discipline bolstered up and sustained with Saxon law and vigor and finely crowned with Norman nobility and ambition. But in of herself England had no hope of toppling the” Queen of the World” Then comes the part where the legends get made. In a little out of the way Spanish province most people had never even heard of named the Netherlands. Now the Dutch were fine with their Spanish rulers but they had a problem. Lots of them were protestants so after Philip was crowned the inquisition told him that the Catholic Church would really appreciate it if he got rid of them and he said a….why not, turning the inquisition on them. The Dutch were horrified as they watched the atrocities poured on their neighbors just because the Pope didn’t like them. They had thought that there king would protect them but he was the one that gave the order. They tried appealing, enduring, flight, and finely when all else failed they took up arms to defend themselves. During this time they had been crying out to God to deliver them and He answered, he gave them a deliverer in the most unlikely place. Agenst all odds their own Prince decided to back them. You may have heard of him he is called the Prince of Orange. And under his leadership the protestants and the Catholics of Holland joined forces and beat off the inquisition. Philip was furious how dare they deify his royal order! So he ordered an army to finish the job. In fact he ordered the extermination of the Dutch as a people, thus fallowed one of the bloodiest wars in history. With the Spanish massacring thousands of Dutch and the Dutch fighting a haphazard war of desperately defending their cites attacking foraging parties and finely distorting the dike network and returning their land to the sea. On a side note this was one of the strangest wars I’ve ever heard of. From the besiegers being besieged to fleets freezing solid and being besieged by an army to entire battles with both sides on ice skates. It was the grave of the Spanish armies reputation Philip pored men and recourses in to it. But to no avail. Corruption helped some but I think that nothing short of the mighty hand of God could have saved them from their immanent doom. But by this time some other problems were forming. England was watching this and as quietly as possible helping the Dutch. Also a surprising number of English speaking pirates had appeared in the Caribbean, and that avalanche of Gold from America had caused some of its own problems the price of gold went through the floor, and just kept going. So the amount of gold the government had to spend to buy any given thing went up and up and up but thanks to those pirates the amount the government was getting went down. Then the English ,I mean the pirates started to win. The Spanish started calling the English sailors sea dogs  in fact it got so bad that entire ships surrendered to single boat loads of English. But this was strictly confined to the Caribbean. It was during this time that Francis Drake and his Golden Hide looted an attire Spanish fleet without a shot being fired. Also aided by England and other sympathetic nations of Europe the Dutch began to have some successes and even started a small fleet called the Zeeland pirates. Now Philip was no fool he saw the way the wind set. He was also discovering that the protestants that he was knocking off comprised most of his middle class artisans some of which were fleeing to England and helping their goring economy that was already being boosted by the Gold from captured treasure fleets. And he knew that if Spain was to win England was going to haft to go. So he needed a bigger fleet than the one that he had but instead of having one built he subsidized civilian ship building, on condition that they were built meeting military standards then when enough ship where built he would confiscated them. This temporarily boosted his flagging financial system and gave him a large fleet for haft of what it should have cost him. Then after he squashed the fledgling British navy and landed his armies he could then return the ships to their former owners and he would end up with the England bagging him for mercy. A nice merchant marine. And without England the Netherlands would fall and those annoying pirates would go home and the gold would flow. It seemed to good to be true,  It was. Now before Spain went to war they wanted to get rid of Drake so Philip sent an ambassador to not so gently ask queen Elizabeth to execute the pirate and to everyone’s surprise she agreed after all he was a pirate. England was shocked how could she!?! And then she decided to witness it herself!!??!! But on the day a pointed as he knelt she took the executioners sword and used it to make him a knight. The condemned pirate left as Sir. Francis Drake and commander of the Britons Plymouth fleet. Philip’s response was simple, he declared war. He also formed the Spanish Armada and stated gathering an army that would crush Briton (after all to worked so well last time). England could see the Spanish navy and army was preparing for an invasion and started making preparations but political pressure agenst Drake clogged the naval arrangements. Infract English admirals paid out of their pockets just to keep the sailors from staving. Drake could see the storm gathering and bagged the Queen for more funds but again politicians blocked anything much from happing. In desperation Drake tried to buy more time for England by attacking the Spanish naval economy  in one valiant attempt he fought his way to and destroyed the Armada’s water barrel supply this does not see so important but keep in mind that a watertight  wooden barrel takes between 6 and 9 months to make and the Armada needed thousands .
If it had been almost anywhere else in the world this would have delayed them for months but this was the English channel so the Armada sailed anyway and just stop off along the cost for fresh water to refill their leaky water barrels and then off to England  they went. About this time the politicians that were giving such a hard time realized that if the Spanish were successful they wouldn’t be there to annoy Sir. Drake any more so in less time than it takes to say it… The navy had all the funding they needed ,well almost, but it was almost  too late to do anything  with it. With roughly 130 ships the Armada was on them. The first few engagements  were light but they  showed Drake that his small English ships could not face the Spanish giants toe to toe so he tried some complex maneuvers to maximize his fleets  maneuverability , fire ships, and a few other things. he took a few loses and gave a few but there was no real advantage from either side. But then the” weather” came to his rescue. Severely damaging the Armada. The Spanish feet gathered and decided to sail home for repairs. But the English Plymouth fleet was between them and Spain. So when the front door is locked go in the back way. They tried to sail all the way around Scotland and come back between Wales and Ireland. The bad weather fallowed them and ships were wrecked all along the coast only about 50% of the ships and less than that of the sailors made it home.  Spain was the laughing stock of Europe if a little rag tag bunch of Dutch merchants or a few little haft starved English ships could beat them why can’t we? The Spanish armed forces were in shambles, the economy was folding  ,and the Pope had found  a new favorite, Francs. The Spanish said  that the devil did it, and the English attributed it to God.
 Whatever  the cause. The after effects of the collapse  were enormous  The Dutch won their independents and became a power in their own rite. The power vacuum created on the main land was filled by the French, and on the sea the rising star of England began to shine as never before, both would expand their holdings  in the new world. Spain never completely recovered, new armies were trained fleets were rebuilt , reputation was restored  and the economy recovered , to some extent. But now she was a force to be reckoned with, not force itself,  she was a sea power, not the sea power. She would again be a star in the European sky but never again would she blot out every other star with her own brilliants. And the other two stars England and France? They are going to go to war and in the blood of their wars a new star would be born. And that star would shine like no star before it. But Europe was changed forever. The emperies had fallen and her crown placed on the head of the peasant girl only she was no longer  a peasant she had become a Queen.


                                                                                                                                                   Rennuke  Athrawes

Friday, October 8, 2010

Dictators Dasteredly Demises

I have noticed several things about Dictators over my studies.But my favorite thing is all the wonderful ways they meet their demises.I have compiled a list of my top-eight, all time favorites!
#8-Suicide:Adolf Hitler,One of the most evil men of all time!Who caused a war that killed more people than ever before and decimated minorities through the hellish holocaust!On the eve of his crushing defeat,the scum bag killed himself in a bunker under Berlin like the pathetic, coward he was!This one leaves a sense of un-satisfaction in me,I mean sure he took his own life(the ultimate action of defeat),but we should have been able to put him through a trial or give him some of his own medicine before he died!
To Be Continued!