Euro Thursday: It has come to my attention....

Alright, so most people are familiar with how France was invaded during World War II. Germany invaded through Belgium, steamrolling over the small nation in order to have a convenient way around the Maginot line which defended the France-Germany border. Yes.

A lot of people also know that this happened before, back in WW I. The ironic part was that they actually did much better the first time, when it was a legitimate surprise. I know I had an entire post about France needing to get it together, but seriously now. Was it really that surprising that they would get invaded through Belgium again? They did it the first time, and that was before they had what everyone knew to be a straight up douchebag in control of their armies. It's not like the invasion itself was a surprise; Hitler had invaded Poland the previous year and actually waited out the winter to move all his troops into position to invade France, which is apparently far too busy looking at their impressively useless fortifications to realize that the man who had already violated the neutrality of multiple nations might not really mind having to go through a small, defenseless nation in a strategy that almost worked the last time this situation happened, and in fact would have worked wonderfully had the German general in charge hadn't decided to split up his troops.

To add insult to injury, France had an even better reason to be prepared for this: Belgium had the plans for the invasion, quite literally, in their hands. And the French had heard about it. A plane crashed, carrying the invasion plans, in Belgium. At this point, Hitler had a novel talking about his plans for world dominance and giving his enemies a nice little warning, and they had the invasion plans. So they sent one army group to hold off the roughly 800,000 German soldiers that were meant to be advancing. Germany didn't even revise their plans after this incident; they had evidently figured out that the rest of the world was, in fact, incredibly thick.

The development of the invasion plan over time. Note the lack of arrows in the bottom part of France, where the entirety of their defenses were organized. Also note: Holland was two revisions away from getting its shit wrecked.

So the French army stands around this whole winter, evidently doing pretty much nothing. Italy comes in at the end with a declaration of war that was the international equivalent of kicking somebody while they're down (a fairly weak kick, considering that Italy's claim to fame was finally having achieved punctuality). And then, Hitler brought the hammer down. Several million German troops stormed into France through (and nobody saw this next part coming) Belgium, taking everyone but the one French general who had warned of exactly this completely by surprise. That general's name was Dyle, and you can bet your ass that he got one of the best "I told you so" moments in history.

The only story that doesn't embarrass the allies coming out of this is that the English managed to get their troops out at Dunkirk in a "heroic and daring escape". Turns out, it was just the Germans being cautious and not advancing because they were already pretty surprised that this plan had kicked as much ass as it did.

Hitler wasn't that brilliant: The French were just that slow.

Over.

So, musical is over. What does this mean?

First of all, it means that I'm feeling that post-large-event moroseness that always plagues me after things like this.  There is a big musical-sized hole in my head right now that I don't really know what to fill with. Thankfully, my obsession with doing random stuff all the time has already provided a solution to this problem. Because musical being over also means that I now have to do all those little projects that I thought up during musical season but never actually got to doing because of all the craziness.

First off, this blog. It has been rather neglected over the last month or so, and I want to fix that. It's nice to have a writing that can use my own voice and not have the only things I write be about literature analysis and European history. Although I write about European history a lot here anyways. I think the big difference is that I'm allowed to use profanities here, which just makes everything so much more amusing. So there's that.

Also: Webcomic. Probably just posted on here, but it seems like it would be a fun thing to try. Even if it's just a weekly or randomly updated thing that never takes off, it'd be a fun way to present my... interesting sense of humor through a different medium. And then I'd have a bigger use for this here tablet. I think I already mentioned this a while back, but now it's actually a possibility. Should be really exciting, provided I actually do it.

Next, some Euro review to be posted here for the benefit of all my fellow classmates. I want to do a few timelines of eras and important events if I can. It'd help me to do the work to put it together, and it'd be useful in future studies as well. So why not?

Editing my NaNo is probably not happening now. I'm proud of the achievement, but it's not really worth refining all that much. If I were to pick it up again, I'd probably just rewrite it using a more cohesive plot and better characters. The frame itself needs a complete overhaul, not just the little decorative bits. So that's my plan for the next chunk of my life. Wish me luck, dear Readers. I'm gonna need it.

Euro Thursday: A short history of Imperialism (Part I)

For any of you wondering why AP European History is so similar to world history in many aspects, I have your answer: AP Euro is a class on Europe and everyone they've screwed over. Which happens to be almost the entirety of the known world. And so, it ends up being very similar to world history. But don't forget, this is Europe we're talking about here. They can't just fuck up the rest of the world to help themselves. Oh no, they're going to trip themselves up too.

The first wave of imperialism started roundabouts 1492, in which Columbus sailed the ocean blue and gave a lot of people small pox in exchange for some syphilis. Columbus was kind of a massive dick to everyone, along with rather stubborn and generally not worthy of having all sorts of stuff named after him. But that's a tale for another time. Anyways, Spain and Portugal start land grabbing the shenanigans out of the Americas and surrounding regions, subjugating and conquering all the native populaces. England and France follow, seeing that it looks like a pretty good time over in this hip, fresh "New World" place. For awhile, Europe has it pretty good (except for the syphilis, which is a bit of a downer). But then they decide that it's a little too boring, this triangular trade thing.

There are some wars, such as the French and Indian war (which, as all your history teachers have probably told you, actually involved the French and the British. Seriously, why not just name these wars after who fought them and when?) in which the natives decide that one side is wrecking their homeland a little less than the other side and fight so that the French/British* can get more of the land that technically belonged to the natives for thousands of years. A little weird, but I'm sure the French/British were very persuasive. Anyways, this war was just a part of the larger 7 Years War, named for the amount of time it took to fight.** This was also really the first World War, although they had yet to hire the marketing people to name these wars dramatically or appealingly yet. They were still in the store brand period of war, in which they sounded pretty dull and stuffy.

So, lots of people die in the 7 Years War. In the French and Indian War, started over a land claim in Ohio (which is, if you ask me, a frickin' dumb place to start a war over. They didn't even have Cedar Point back then), a lot of people die as well. Some natives do as well, something that both sides can be happy about while they contemplate their next plan to make themselves look like squabbling children. Britain gained all of France's possessions in the New World, leaving them with what would eventually become French Canada and a whole lot of culture clash that would mysteriously lead to one of the most polite and well tempered nations in the world. They also succeeded in doubling their debt, something which led to higher taxes on things like tea. I wonder where this is headed?

By the way, Spain and Portugal are still chillin' in South America and the Caribbean. But Haiti's about to open up a can of whoopass.

*Yes, the Indians fought on both sides. The American name for this war is really rather silly.
**Much like the Hundred Years War but a lot less impressive sounding, and a little under a third of the length of the 30 Years War. Europe was in a bit of a creative slump at this time.

A Break?

So, apparently we have this week off of school. And yet, I've spent even less time at home than usual and probably an equal amount of time in the school building anyways. Funny how life works like that, I suppose. But now, I find the time to write some bloggage which has been sadly lacking the last two weeks or so. What to write about, I wonder?

Well, I put out a fire with my bare hands.* A small fire, but I think it fulfilled my bad ass quota for the month. I spent a good deal of time working on publicity for the musical (which you should totally come see if you aren't one of my Denmarkian, Japanese, or Norwegian readers that apparently have visited the site) which involved a lot of page designing and calling people. I can't say I'm much of a pro at either of these activities, so there was a bit of a learning curve involved. But in the end, things worked out and I finished that thing. So now there's just the set to work on, which will happen at some point during the week.

There's been a lot of these sort of things going on, along with some League of Legends-ing and what not. Samantha is off in France doing whatever it is one does in France, which is sad but totally awesome. I'm sure she'll bring back a multitude of tales to tell and there will be good times for all. My goal for the rest of the break, however, is to actually get some relaxing in for once. And finish that AP Euro calender thing.

Speaking of AP Euro, we're writing satires after the AP test is over. Is Derek excited? Yes. Yes he is.


*Or bear hands. I'm actually part bear, as you can tell from my muscular physique.