GREEKS

A nice set from Hill were these Victorian Greeks

timpo mountie

the previous post showed a hill mountie . look at the much better sculpture of the hill piece compared to this

hill mountie

superb mountie from hill look at that horse

KNIGHTS

HILL KNIGHTS

hill war and peace

During World War I, some 10 million Europeans were killed, about 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million seriously wounded, mostly young men of working age and middle class backgrounds. This loss, combined with the destruction of land and property, led to a European situation of grave pessimism and poverty for many.

 Living conditions declined dramatically at the close of the war, the infant mortality rate skyrocketed, and life was quite difficult for Europeans of the period. The widespread material destruction totaled billions of dollars of damage in Europe. The war's prosecution had cost the nations of Europe six and one-half times as much as the total national debt of the entire world during the years from 1800 to 1914. After the first World War many of the old-established Powers of Europe were never again to attain the full extent of their former power. Germany had been humbled, Austria-Hungary had disintegrated, Russia had suffered revolution, the Ottoman Empire was on the verge of collapse, France had suffered relentless warfare within her own eastern territories for four years, and within Britain a social revolution of profound importance had taken place. Such ideas as democracy, self-determination, and a general liberation from earlier restrictions were now in the ascendant in the new Europe, but the events of the inter-war period were to show that these new ideas came too soon, and came to a Europe that was unprepared for them; the change from the authoritarian pre-1914 Governments to the more liberal forms after the War was too sudden, and this change resulted in the emergence of totalitarianism in Europe. This appeared to be the answer for the masses of Europeans previously used to accepting authority, and who blindly sought for an authority to which to subject themselves.The German Weimer Republic was the government imposed on Germany after its defeat in WWI, when the Entente Powers forced Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate the throne. The Weimer Republic, its government, made Adolf Hitler its ruler. Hitler did not assume power through a revolution nor through a coup d' etat but rather by an election. The Weimer Republic's defeat did not come with the election of Hitler in 1933 but rather when it was created in 1919. The Weimer Republic was doomed to fail. The Republic was first led by a moderate Socialist, Friedrich Ebert, who also served as its first president. Ebert relied on old Imperial army officers to put in hold the Republic. Yet the army officers weren't able to completely put down the revolt, so Ebert authorized the creation of "Free Corps" which were voluntary extreme right-wing paramilitary organizations. By 1920 the threat to the Republic did not come from the left of the political spectrum, but rather from the far right of it. In post-war Germany, Germany suffered from a terrible case of Inflation, this inflation shattered the German bourgeoisie. With the rise of Gustav Stresemann from the conservative German People's Party, a new agreement on reparations was reached. In 1925, Germany signed the Lucarno agreement with France, by which Germany agreed to the current borders with France. In 1926 Stresemann was successful in making Germany a member of the League of Nations. Germany was on the road to recovery. Yet opposition from one, Adolf Hitler, who while in prison wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), would doom post-war Germany, and post-war Europe in general.

The RAF finished the First World War as the world’s first independent air force with strength of 293,532 officers and men and a self-confidence of its own capabilities as shown by its actions during the final campaigns of the war.However, despite the fact the RAF did not face the introspective analysis of the war that was required by both the Army and RN in terms of their roles in future wars it did begin to analyse the potential role that air power would play in the future. In January 1919 Air Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard, now Chief of the Air Staff, had the Air Ministry produce a synopsis of the role that the air force had played in the First World War.[3] This piece laid out four principles that were to form the core of RAF thinking for much of the inter-war period. The most important of these was the argument that central to the effective application of air power in the battle space was the attainment of ‘Command of the Air’ or air superiority.[4]

"Sic transit gloria mundi": All that remains of 130 years of German diplomatic history in London at 9 Carlton House Terrace, SW1 - the grave of "Giro", an Alsatian, the beloved pet of Ambassador Leopold von Hoesch. His master, too, died soon after

Foxhunting

Foxhunting still goes on you know!