The Therapy Zopne

Village Observation; Number 2 speaks with someone on the telephone, that someone is me, the Butler. Well who do you think told number 2 that number 6 had arrived at the green dome to see my master number 2?

Butler “Number 6 is here to see you.”

Number 2 Is he, show him in.”

Then of course I do show Number 6 into Number 2’s office as instructed. So just because you don’t hear me speak, doesn’t mean I can’t! {As is the thinking of the majority of fans of the Prisoner.} However the proof of the pudding is in the eating, to borrow one of No.2’s sayings, because a good Butler see and hears everything, but says nothing. Such a role model would be Jeeves, Bertie Wooster’s gentleman’s gentleman. 

 In this way, I saw and heard everything, but said nothing, and that is why people arrived at the thought that I cannot speak, simply because they had not heard me speak. Magasfontein Lugg on the other hand,  being the personal Valet and Butler to one Albert Campion,  is a far different for of gentleman’s gentleman. He has experienced the more shadier side of life, skills such as lock-picking to cat burglary are well within his grasp. He is also opinionated, has views on most things and is not afraid to voice those opinions to his mater. Yet at the same time, Lugg can be depended upon in a tight spot, and when it does really count, can remain silent.
 Yet for all his faults and graces, Lugg is the very opposite to that of myself and Jeeves, not that I attain to the heights of Jeeves, the very essence of what a personal valet, gentleman’s gentleman, and Butler should be.

    Village Observation: The stock market of the late 1800’s saw sellers and buyers on the stock market floor dressed in black suits, frock coats, and top hats, this in very much the style of the “Top Hat” village administrative officials. Today those working on the stock market floor are more akin to dress as in the style of the village, in blazers of numerous description, including “piped blazers.”

    A 3 year university degree course in 3 minutes, improbable and highly unlikely! Because for a one hundred percent entry and one hundred percent pass the citizens didn’t learn much did they!

Here is something of what ‘The General’ together with ‘Spedlearn’ didn’t tell you.

    ‘The treaty of Adrianople’ {1829} {also called ‘Treaty of Edirne} a pact which was settled between Russia and the Otterman Empire at the conclusion of the Russian-Otterman war of 1828-1829 at Adrianople in Turkey, now known as Edirne.

The Ottermn Empire gave Russia access to the mouths of the Danube and additional territory on the Black Sea, opened the Dardanelles to all commercial vehicles, commerce is liberated for cereals, live stocks and wood, granted autonomy to Serbia, promised autonomy for Greece, and allowed Russia to occupy Moldavia and Walachia until the Otterman Empire had paid a large indemnity.

    Adrianople – now Edirne is a city in Thrace, the westernmost part of Turkey, close to the boarders with Greece and Bulgaria. It has a population of 119,298 {2000 census}.

The city was known in English as Adrianople until after the First World War.

The city was founded by eponymously by the Roman Emperor Hadrian on the site of a previous Thracian settlement known as Uskadama, Uskudama or Uskodama.

Conquered by the Otterman Empire in 1362, the city served as the Otterman capital from 1365 until 1453. Edirne is the capital of Edirne province and its estimated population in 2002 was 128,400.

    ‘What happened in 1830’ February 3^rd 1830 Greece gained full Independence from the Otterman Empire as the final result of the Greek war of independence.

Negotiations for the boarders between the two states continued until 1832 under the supervision of Russia, France and Britain.

The Geek war of Independence {also known as the Greek Revolution} 1821-1827.

    ‘Who was Bismarck’s ally against the Danish prince Christian of Glucksburg?

    Fredrick of Augustenburg. He and the German Bundestag had never accepted the treaty of London, in 1852. Bismarck wanted war, but he wanted it waged by Prussia, and not by the whole German Bunt. He realized that a successful war against the Danes in 1864 would serve the same purpose as Cavour of Italy’s entrance into the Crimean war, namely that it would indicate future leadership and would, at the same time, raise Prussia’s prestige.

    ‘Bismarck’s War with the Danes’ – In the 1850’s Europe was a very different continent to what you see today, save for a united Germany which being the case today, and was the same then before East and West Germany, though Germany in the 1850’s was Called Prussia together with a large group of allied Federated Germanic principalities, and some Austrian controlled provinces, all of which stretched from Russia’s western border, and including most of Poland, to the French border, and even included two small districts of France.

    Three decades later to the south was to be Frans Josephs Austrian-Hungarian Empire, enveloping Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungry, Yugoslavia, Parts of Italy, Rumania.

The Otterman Empire – now Turkey – met its boarders in the South East, in what is now Northern Greece.

    Bismarck was a diplomat first and a politician later. He had the ear of the Prussian King Frederick William III and discussed with him the combining of the fragmented Germanic States under Prussian leadership, and gained early experience when he became Prussia’s envoy at the Confederation Parliament in Frankfurt.

    In 1858 King Frederick William IV succeeded his ailing brother as King. Bismarck did not have the same favor of the new King who sent him off to Russia as Ambassador to France. Finally on September 22^nd 1862 he was called back to Berlin to become at one time, Prime Minister and foreign minister.

    The principalities squabbled over small issues causing friction between the major partners with whom they aligned; Prussia and Austria.

   One area of unrest was Schleswig and Holstein – actually two regions on the border with Denmark and Germany. For sometime both had ruled Denmark but the inhabitants were predominately German.

The treaty of London May 8^th 1852 had sort to quiet the problem by keeping the Danish rule over Schleswig and Holstein and settling the problem of the Danish succession to the throne since the present King, Frederick VII had no male heir.

The six countries Russia, Great Britain, Austria, Sweden, France and Prussia which signed the treaty of London undertook to recognize Prince Christian of Glucksburg, a descendent through a female line of the family. When King Frederick VII died suddenly in November 1863 Prince Christian was proclaimed King Christian IX.

The Germans in Shcleswig and Holstein were up in arms. They claimed that Frederick of Augustenburg was the rightful direct descendent, all on the male side, from the Danish King Christian III, a century before.

A period of intense diplomacy and much shifting of position did not resolve the problem. Bismarck was a master strategist, planning well beyond the initial advantages, did not support the German claimant Augustenburg. His secret reason being that the two extra votes caused by brining Schleswig and Holstein into the Confederation Parliament could swing the power over to Austria.

In January 1864 Prussian and Austrian troops together with forces of Hanoverian and Saxon {Confederation} troops advanced into both Schleswig and Holstein and continued until the whole of Denmark was overrun.

Danish Troops, hardly surprisingly, offered little resistance against such might and Christian IX settled with the annexation of Schleswig and Holstein from the conquering nations.

    The political maneuvering by Bismarck now revolved around how to get Austria to agree to ‘absorption’ of both Schleswig and Holstein by Prussia.

Two years later, 1866, Bismarck took Prussia to war with Austria {over other troubles}, excluding it from Germany altogether, thus clinching the Schleswig and Holstein problem.

In 1870 Bismarck’s Prussia successfully went to war with France, resulting in further unity.

    Bismarck was a national hero, and the world’s most powerful man was created a Prince, then appointed Imperial Chancellor.

    ‘The Treaty of London May 8^th 1852’ – signed by Britain, Russia, Austria, Sweden, Prussia and France had sought to quiet the problem of unrest in the areas of the Danish Duchies of both Schleswig and Holstein in regard to the succession to the Danish Crown, and thus guaranteeing the integrity of Denmark.

    The Duchy of Holstein, through owing allegiance to Denmark, became included in the Germanic Confederation by virtue of Article LIII of the Vienna Congress Treaty of 1815, which declared that ‘the Sovereign Princes and Free Towns of Germany, under which domination for the present purpose are comprehended their majesties the Emperor of Austria, the Kings of Prussia, of Denmark and of The Netherlands, that is to say….. The King of Denmark for the Duchy of Holstein….., establish among themselves a perpetual Confederation which shall be called the ‘Germanic Confederation’.

The Duchy of Schleswig, long under the sway of the Kings of Denmark, was claimed by Denmark in virtue of guarantees given by Great Britain and France in 1720 and of the treaties concluded by Russia in 1767 – 1773.

Be seeing you