I'd guess it's because your country was at the height of its Empire and accustomed to wars across the globe. Well, not my country exactly, but since we were a suspect colony at the time, and it was our men they sent off to fight in those wars, I guess it might as well have been. The Victorian era came right between the two big Irish rebellions, the failed one in 1798 and the successful one during WWI (and my gods are we selfcentered about that! Everyone else was concerned with the Great War. We Irish were busy moaning about the Easter Rising).
So we share some ethnic history! *takes out her shamrock*
I actually think Queen Vic was the reason we didn't try our hand at a 19th century rebellion. With the White Queen at the height of her power, sensible colonies stayed cooperative, or they went the way of India in '57. Gods, but they were ruthless. Like the Romans, really. A military run with sheer engineering efficiency.
*nods*
Empire requires ruthless efficiency. Glory, pomp, and circumstance built on war and conquest.
I understand the preoccupation with the Civil War for Americans, though. I never meant to suggest otherwise.
I didn't think you did. :)
Same as we looked to our own freedom and ignored mostly the horror of WWI. Not out of pettiness, but because it turned our world upside down and made us something new. A free state, for the first time. In your case, it was a war that shook your nation to the foundation, ravaged huge portions, and forced a move towards true unification.
It was a big deal for those envolved, and that includes all the generations that have had to live with the consequences.
Some say the South is still fighting the War. :)
But the consequences do reverberate to us today, especially in race relations. And it was eerie how that in the 1960s, exactly a hundred years later, that the civil rights movement really began to gather steam from the late '50s and exploded with the Freedom Rides of '61, the Federal troops escorting James Meredith into Ole Miss in '62, and George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, blocking the schoolhouse door in order to keep black children out.
no subject
I'd guess it's because your country was at the height of its Empire and accustomed to wars across the globe.
Well, not my country exactly, but since we were a suspect colony at the time, and it was our men they sent off to fight in those wars, I guess it might as well have been. The Victorian era came right between the two big Irish rebellions, the failed one in 1798 and the successful one during WWI (and my gods are we selfcentered about that! Everyone else was concerned with the Great War. We Irish were busy moaning about the Easter Rising).
So we share some ethnic history! *takes out her shamrock*
I actually think Queen Vic was the reason we didn't try our hand at a 19th century rebellion. With the White Queen at the height of her power, sensible colonies stayed cooperative, or they went the way of India in '57. Gods, but they were ruthless. Like the Romans, really. A military run with sheer engineering efficiency.
*nods*
Empire requires ruthless efficiency. Glory, pomp, and circumstance built on war and conquest.
I understand the preoccupation with the Civil War for Americans, though. I never meant to suggest otherwise.
I didn't think you did. :)
Same as we looked to our own freedom and ignored mostly the horror of WWI. Not out of pettiness, but because it turned our world upside down and made us something new. A free state, for the first time. In your case, it was a war that shook your nation to the foundation, ravaged huge portions, and forced a move towards true unification.
It was a big deal for those envolved, and that includes all the generations that have had to live with the consequences.
Some say the South is still fighting the War. :)
But the consequences do reverberate to us today, especially in race relations. And it was eerie how that in the 1960s, exactly a hundred years later, that the civil rights movement really began to gather steam from the late '50s and exploded with the Freedom Rides of '61, the Federal troops escorting James Meredith into Ole Miss in '62, and George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, blocking the schoolhouse door in order to keep black children out.