Page 108 - The Circle of Life

burned the White House in Washington with relative ease and on whose Empire

the sun never set. A nation whose seamen on occasion rescued the Confederate
sailors (including the Confederate commanding officer Captain Semmes) when
the CSS Alabama was sunk and the U.S. Navy (USS Kearsage) did nothing to

prevent the escape for they could not (and wisely would not) open fire on a

yacht protected by the old Union Flag. You simply did not insult the British
Empire in those days as we in South Africa found out during two Boer Wars and
many other nations also.

* In an interesting footnote to history the CSS Alabama features in a South

African folk song and one of her officers is buried here too. It was exceedingly
funny when a fat politician objected to the song a few years ago stating in all

seriousness that it was a slave ship. Obviously his lack of knowledge made him
the laughing stock of many historians including me who claim no such title. It

was a warship and never transported any slaves ever even if there was one
aboard working as a cabin boy for Captain Semmes.

The fact is the British Empire was in charge of most of the world and respected

by everyone. The Royal Navy was everywhere and a welcome site the ships were
too. And then an Archduke got himself assassinated with his wife and an Empire

was sacrificed. For wat I ask? Is it to be wondered at that the Afrikaner nation
rebelled against their own elected government when they joined Britain against

Germany in the First World War? Or that America kept out of it for three of the
four years it lasted? And I understand have no official war monument for it

either feeling they were somehow drawn into a conflict on behalf of an empire
they do not support and had nothing to do with to start off.

Did you know that the English royals were so germanised they had to change

their name during the First World War and suddenly became known as the house
of Windsor to sound more English? It is very ironic. Even the so called arch
warmonger (extremely doubtful if he was one to begin with) Kaiser Wilhelm the

Second of Germany was Royal Navy Admiral and grandson of Queen Victoria, an

English queen married to a German prince who introduced the English speaking
world to Christmas trees.

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