Think About This:
Catholic Aristocrats and the “Common Man”
General Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, of Britain , had at his command a large army of British Soldiers. These were common men (non- aristocratic), fighting men all Christian Protestants, well-fed and on “a high” of beer, beef and belief. They would have been well trained and dedicated to their master’s cause.
It was he who was sent by the British Government to confront the “upstart” Napoleon Boneapart of France, a common man – not related to aristocracy at all.
What was Napoleon Boneapart’s crime?
He was carrying on the French revolution and expanding it. He was taking it to the Catholic aristocrats of France and later, other countries of Europe , wherever they practiced the Inquisitional forms of execution done mostly, .. er… to the common man.
Napoleon Boneapart was driving them out from their seats of power over the common man, first in France where 200,000 aristocrats fled out of France .
Why was it so easy for him to recruit thousands of men willing to fight?
The reason is that all the non- aristocratic people of France , the poor mostly, hated the Catholics and their aristocracy authorized by God himself, and the consequent misery and torture they imposed on the common people; but not least, Napoleon was a good General! He was their greatest chance for the French to free themselves!
Other countries had had their wars of freedom – the Thirty Years war Germany where 18,000,000 had died of war, civil atrocities – (See poet Schiller’s notes) or starvation all to get free from Rome . Britain had had King Henry 8th and Cromwell. But sadly, the Protestant Huguenots of France had been defeated previously by aristocratic treachery, about 5,000,000 people killed and leaving central France devastated. The “Common People” wanted an end to it in France and here was their great chance at last!
Military use of superior force was the only way of driving off these vultures and their cleaners and janitors – the carrion crows. The French had learned that from the defeat of the French Huguenots earlier.
The whole of free Europe roared their approval of Napoleon, led by the students. (All except Britain which was under the control of alarmed Protestant Aristocrats all demanding political stability!)
Beethoven wrote his masterpiece, the Fifth Symphony depicting Napoleon as “The hero as revolutionary overcoming all adversity.”
Aristocrats fled France . They went to surrounding countries and demanded that their hosts raise armies to attack this upstart Napoleon – using the common men available there!
When Napoleon entered Madrid , in Spain , he put an end to the Inquisition there. His men, hardened soldiers, were sickened by the sight of tortured prisoners, all naked and many insane in the monastery in Madrid . They laid down gunpowder to the place and blew it all up.
The Duke of Wellington entered Spain to stop Napoleon and his successes. (They claimed that he was getting too much power – and indeed, threatened Britain ’s aristocrats – which may have been the only truth of the matter.)
And the Spanish army fought back, too.
The foreign prisoners the Spanish took were executed by saw. This means that the prisoner was tied to a framework, head down.
A saw was then used to cut from the groin downwards. Death would only come by the time the saw reached the naval – perhaps a messy two hours using the crude saws of the time.
Several hundred British soldiers were executed this way.
Think about it:
There is an irony here. These British common men (non-aristocratic) came to beat back Napoleon’s army of “common men” soldiers in practical terms supporting and strengthening the aristocrats of Spain .
Wellington contested Napoleon in Spain but some of his men were captured by the Catholic Spanish and accordingly, they were executed by Inquisitional means, too!
As these British soldiers, common men, held head down on the wooden frame, felt the first draw of the teeth of the Spanish saw they would realize they had made a big, big mistake in opposing Napoleon. They would heartily wish they had supported Napoleon in his effort to end the Inquisition. They knew they had been bamboozled by their aristocratic superiors.
Dear reader, this could have been you. Please do not get bamboozled by the loud voices of authority and power in this world!
Think about it!
Adjutorium, June 2007