Seed of Hope

     Invasive species are a side effect of intercontinental trade that override native ecosystem species and generate a population explosion that disrupts normal biological interactions. Most invasive species invigorate preservative and restorative environmental efforts to prevent long term or significant damage, but certain species fill ecosystem niches that prevent complete extraction. The kudzu vine, lion fish, and brown marinated stink bug are prevalent examples of invasive species currently expanding in the United States of America, but one of the first known invaders came from China at the beginning of the twentieth century. A scourge that destroyed huge portions of native American woodland and decimated lumber began in 1904 in New York City.
     The American chestnut was one of the most exceptional species of hardwood trees native to American woodlands. It provided a steady supply of nuts and lumber. Spread through the Appalachian Mountains, the American Chestnut consisted of one-third of all hardwoods in Eastern North American woodlands. The prevalence of the trees created a reliance on the mast (nut) production in early summer months that provided an off set to the autumn mast of most oak trees. Chestnut wood is also unusually resistant to rot and was useful for fence posts and shipbuilding and served as a key component to the expansion and quality of the British navy in the eighteenth century.
     Brought over by trade, the American Chestnut Blight swept through the eastern scoreboard in the first few decades of the twentieth century with the prevalence of the tree only contributing to its spread and infection. By the onset of World War II, chestnuts were ecologically extinct and were replaced by oak and maple in the woodlands of America. The tree joined the list of species negatively impacted by the spread of trade and disease. The prior importance of the chestnut to the culture of America brought the public's attention to the destroy of the native foliage and helped establish the American Park System and market hunting restrictions.

   
     After half a century of rotten stumps scattered through the new growth forests of the United States, a coalition of people interested in restoring the "king of trees" to the American woodland established the American Chestnut Foundation. Immediately they began a resistance breeding program that involved crossing the surviving American saplings with the resistant Chinese chestnut species. After more than a two decades of back-cross breeding to check for resistance to the blight, and the ACF began introducing breeding orchards to chapter houses along the chestnut's native range.
     With the documentation of the extinction of the dodo in the 1700s, the impact of humanity on the world became clear to the modern mind. By the early 1900s the impact of industrial exploitation of nature and the spread of disease through trade forced countermeasures to the unrestricted growth of capitalism. Since that time, mankind has striven to reverse some of his impacts and restore the areas of his destruction. As the most powerful, capable species on this planet, our decisions and commitments have great effect from the tiniest fungal spore to the reintroduction of the pride of the American forest, the king of trees, the mighty American Chestnut.

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Agatha Tyche

Demigod Or Demon

     The nature of history is loss. Records, memory, technologies, treasures, and empires all erode from the persistent wearing of time. Through most of history the insights and experiences of the common people are virtually unknown aside from the laws they lived under and the pottery they discarded. With the language and culture of victorious empires prevailing to spread their perspectives, the loser silently slips from consciousness until only faded words on dusty manuscripts recall the men and their deeds. Certain men can shine through the fog of history with the power of titans. The glow surrounding them illuminates the effects of their actions for a time. Charlemagne's educational reforms provide nearly all the knowledge of his era while the Roman emperors and their armies still impact laws and beliefs today.
     Unfortunately, the brilliance of an individual can overcome the other components that enable it as with Alexander the Great and his generals Parmenion, Cleitus, and Hephastion. Napoleon Bonaparte rose through the ranks of the French artillery during the chaos of the Revolution to eventually establish a short-lived empire that permanently altered the Western World. He rose because of his charisma and capability, but his continued success must be recognized from the ability of his generals and the determination of the French people. One man that sought to make France great but not for the glory of the new emperor was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas.
     A mulatto born in present-day Dominican Republic to an enslaved black woman and lower French nobleman, Dumas was the only one of his siblings to reach Europe. After business disagreements with his brother terminated his sugar plantation investments, Dumas's father sold all of his slave-born children to pay for his return to France. Four years later, his father bought back only Dumas and freed him in France in 1776.
     Forced to sell some of his estates because of his failed enterprises shortly before Alexandre's arrival in Europe, his father spoiled him with the best education and noble hobbies. However, ten years later, in 1786, his father married a French woman and cut off Dumas's allowance. Free but black, Dumas sought employment in the military, but because his skin forced him to enlist in the infantry, his father refused him his noble surname. Disowned and penniless, Thomas-Alexandre abandoned his noble heritage and enlisted in the French army under the surname of his slave-mother, Dumas.
     Courageous, brutally strong, charismatic, and strategically intelligent, Dumas enjoyed enormous success in all of his military endeavors. Proven in the skirmishes along the French border and as a riot policeman in Paris, Dumas was recruited as Second in Command into the "Black Legion," composed of free Frenchmen of color from the Americas. Thus, after eight years in the service, he was a general and led 53,000 men along the French border to defend against Italian and Austrian forces.
     Along this border on March 23, 1797, at Clausen along the Eisack River, a French battalion was pinned down and unable to cross the river by Austrian forces. Leading a small group of twenty-five or so light cavalry, including eye-witness Dermoncourt, the small assault succeeded in pushing the Austrians off the bridge. Every man was injured from bullets or sabre wounds. After the initial charge that pushed past the barricades, the French were pinned down and sought cover behind the bodies of the dead. Dumas, employing his strength, wielded his sword and engaged the Austrian enemy gallantly and alone. He struck down all that came at him until relieved by reinforcements.

     Having taken several severe wounds while succeeding in taking the bridge, Dumas earned the nickname "the Black Devil" from the terrified Austrians. His success inspired the interest of Napoleon who sent him a letter to compliment his achievement and comparedal him to the Roman hero Horatius Cocles.
     The next year Dumas accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, but division between the two emerged. While Napoleon sought his own glory, Dumas wanted French security and disproved of Napoleon's pride. With his impressive size and physique, Dumas towered over Napoleon and was mistaken by enemies as the leader of the French force. These insults burned hatred into Napoleon against Dumas culminating in signing orders for Dumas to leave Egypt for France.
     Dumas's return ship was damaged and forced to dock in Italy where he was captured and imprisoned for two years. Eventually his wife, who he has married in 1792, succeeded in petitioning his release and return to France. Upon Dumas's arrival home, Napoleon was emperor and refused to re-instate Dumas into the military and back-pay for the years of imprisonment. Seeking legal recourse as his health and finances diminished, Alexandre Dumas died of cancer in 1806.
     Napoleon's treatment of Dumas has been blamed on racism, fear, and jealousy, but regardless of the cause, his actions robbed France of a dauntless Republican general whose love for France outshone his love for his own life. Even as a general, dark-skinned Dumas suffered the effects of racism and had a unique perspective: the highest military honors and the lowest social tolerance.
     Isaac Newton credited his achievements to "standing on the shoulders of Giants." Napoleon is granted the remembrance and fascination of history, but his success came through the strength and ferocity of the French people, those fierce, loyal patriots that conquered Europe and that rushed at death with sabre and musket.
     Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the Black Devil, lived a rough life from slavery to military glory and political betrayal. Bold, daring, and strong, he breathed for France. That fervor distilled in his son, Alexandre Dumas, who became one of the great French writers as well as one of the most influential men in modern world literature. In the spirit and darring-do of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo, Alexndre Dumas never surrendered.

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Agatha Tyche

Journey of Whys: From Blood To Blood

     The Angles, a Germanic tribe, are the namesake of the English. The current English monarchy inherited the throne while rulers in Hanover, Germany. Rooted in the Hanseatic League of the high medieval period connecting London to prosperous merchant guilds in Germany and the Baltic and continuing with merchants, mercenaries, and marriages from the northern Germanic region through the early modern period, England and Germany shared strong ties through much of Europe's tumultuous history, but the two largest wars in world history saw the might of their empires contest for supremacy. What ruptured the six centuries of good will and intermarriage to destroy one of the most steadfast political friendships of European history?
     Prussia, the main precursor to Germany, played a pivotal role in defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and was considered the weakest of the Great Powers of Europe at the Concert of Vienna in 1816, but after clever diplomatic maneuverings and two wars, Bismarck, Moltke, and Wilhelm I unified the German state around the Prussian core.
     Because France and Russia were Britain's main rivals in the 1870s, Queen Victoria passively allowed the formation of the German state hoping to create a strong ally against France and Russia on the European continent. With strong family, cultural, and economic ties to Prussia, the British enjoyed the rise of the Germans, especially the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.
     Bismarck's ability to politically isolate an enemy before striking prevented the entire continent becoming involved during the unification wars, but his system of multiple alliances for every front eventually led to a complex political weaving that formed a web around every empire in the world. Despite never formalizing an alliance, Great Britain and Germany enjoyed cordial relations both before and after Germany's unification in 1871.
     Since Germany focused on consolidation instead of expansion during the colonial period at the end of the century, Anglo-German interests rarely interfered, but with the coronation of Wilhelm II, the German empires focus shifted. Bismark was removed from his diplomatic position, overseas colonies were more readily established, and Prusso-German militarism shifted from the army to the navy.
     Anglo-French relations, though tense through much of the nineteenth century, improved from 1901 onward and culminated in the 1904 Entente Cordiale which positioned England and France against Germany in the case of an aggressive war. Though descended from a heavily influenced German line, Edward VII favored France at the expense of his nephew and German emperor, Wilhelm II.
     Inept and grandiose, Emperor Wilhelm II obsessively adored British culture and sought to imitate it. With the coffers of a rapidly industrializing empire, Wilhelm II urged the growth and development of the German navy to match the British Imperial Fleet. Since Britain relied on its naval prowess to secure its trade and security, the German naval race rapidly deteriorated relations between the two nations. Wilhelm II furthered the decline by his poorly timed, unconscionable comments in public statements. It was said that Wilhelm II, "approached every question with an open mouth."
     Though widely popular in Britain when Queen Victoria died in his arms and in constant contact with Edward VII, Wilhelm's open-mouthed approach to publicity incited papers to rally against him, especially when his naval build-up pressured the British to out produce the Germans. The attention seeking of Wilhelm II coincided with his staff's duel desires of imitating the British and securing a German empire to match.

     The increasing steel production and industrial capacity of Germany in the first decade of the twentieth century, pushed the British away for fear of de-stabilizing Europe and furthered the fears of Russia and France who signed alliances with one another. As Germany's military, economic, and industrial strength increased, it became further isolated except for the Triple Alliance with Italy and Austria. Internal fractures over land disputes between Austria and Italy eventually left Germany's only ally as the bankrupt, decrepit Austrian Empire.
     In the decade of preparation before the War to End All Wars, Germany isolated itself politically just as it had its own enemies in the wars leading to its unification. Otto Von Bismark's deft political handling of affairs accelerated Germany's unification, but the mismanagement of the same process escalated its disunion. The lengthy history of Europe is well known for its complex intricacy between families, nations, and empires. Though not always the most powerful or influential members involved, three nations are at the heart of what made Europe: England, France, and Germany.
     So it was that Britain forsook her blood ties in Germany and turned to France. So it was that Germany's creation led to its collapse. So it was that the largest empires of Europe fought the largest wars of history. From the blood of kin to the blood of the killed, Britain befriended France at Germany's provocation, ending centuries of friendship with one to end centuries of animosity with the other. So it was that history was made.

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Agatha Tyche

History of "Europe"

     A continent is a large landmass that has a distinct land border, distinct culture, and self-recognizes as a continent. Though there are alterations, expansions, and more restrictive definitions, the delineation for those geographical borders have become entrenched in the accepted knowledge of the world. One of the oldest questions of the Western World is: Where are the boundaries of Europe? From arguments in the European Union's acceptance of Turkey to the Greece's scorn of the Illyrians on their western coast, "Europe" has one of the most complicated definitions of political geography.
     According to Herodotus, Europe's eastern boundary stopped at the River Phasis - but some said the River Don. The Romans also decided that Europe stopped at the Don River. Since ancient times, the boundary of Europe has oscillated between a series of rivers but has stayed within the Greater Caucasus watershed that flows through the Turkish straits, Black Sea, along the Ural Sea through the Ural mountains, into the Ural River. Though disputed by several alternatives, the Ural River and Mountains are the most widely accepted border because they are the largest geographical features and most decidedly divide people groups.
     While the Dardanelles that separate the two halves of Constantinople are the accepted modern boundary for two continents, the ancient Greek's definitions for the true European peoples did not align to its borders and shifted regularly through history.
     Greeks resided in Greece and along the Anatolian coast. Some identified all Greeks as European while others divided the city-states as European and Asiatic. The Greek empires following the Macedonian conquest of the Persian Empire intermingled the economies, political boundaries, and identities of the crossroads of continents. Despite the eastern overlap, ancient Greeks did not see the uncivilized Germanic tribes to the north or west as European.
     Rome's boundaries overlapped the continental divide well into the Middle East and maintained the fluid definitions of the Greeks. Rome's expansion into Gaul and Germania brought Greek ideas to the tribes; thus the Roman civilization that connected the northern Mediterranean expanded the cultural inclusions of Europe.
     After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire Charles "The Hammer" Martel's defeat of the Muslims at the Battle of Tours in 732 cemented the European identity of Franks with Martel's triumph declaration that Christianity was safe in Europe. The defense against further Muslim advance combined with the Christianization of northern and eastern Germanic tribes coalesced to form a cultural-religious distinction of Europe that has endured. Charlemagne rose from the Frankish kings to gain considerable control over modern France, Germany, the Low Countries, and Northern Italy. His borders combined with the recent memories of Rome's glory incited a fervor within the later leaders of the kingdoms of Europe to form a grand, united empire. The Holy Roman Empire sought to maintain its control from modern Denmark to Rome but often failed in enforcing those borders. Aside from those attempts at a vast European empire a century after Charlemagne, the kingdoms of Europe focused on survival and expansion.
     With the division of Charlemagne's Empire and the Norse invasions, Europe became introverted. Aside from the Holy Land Crusades from about 1000-1400, Europe focused internally and warred amongst itself. This secluded development allowed Europe to strengthen its own identities, particularly with the development of the monarchy-based nation-state. Though a continent united by religious values, Europe remained divided into spheres of influence for the greater powers even with the colonization and settlement of the New World by the rising global powers of Portugal, Spain, France, and England.
     The shift of power away from the ancient empires of Greece and Rome into the iron-rich regions of England, France, and the Germanic states again redefined Europe to mean Christianized peoples of Latin and Germanic descent and began excluding a Greece that remained part of the Middle Eastern-focused Byzantine Empire despite that the Byzantine Empire was descended from the same Roman Empire that inspired Charlamagne's European unification.
     Though certain monarchs had European ambitions through the late medieval and early modern periods, notably Spain's control of the Netherlands, it was not until Napoleon Bonaparte's rise from the French Revolution that a serious, ambitious attempt to conquer all of Europe was undertaken. Napoleon's development of total war spread nationalism, ruptured the antiquated governance of the German states, and empowered British overseas developments. Despite the insubstantial attention his efforts to permanently unify Europe, his near-success inspired a re-invigoration of the unification concept in intellectual hopefuls. The Germans responded by creating a coalition parliament, and Prussia developed the Zollverein. Three decades after Napoleon's defeat and in lieu of the 1848 revolutions, author Victor Hugo gained public attention for his suggestions of unifying Europe as a coalition of states. However, the desired balance of Great Powers in the nineteenth century superseded all inter-European interests and ignored the desires of idealists.

     After the carnage of World War I, intellectuals and some government officials proposed a unification of Europe, but the bitterness created by the Treaty of Versailles, the Great Depressioin, and the development of competition between fascist and democratic states negated any efforts. Nonetheless, Hilter's solidification of Fortress Europe during World War II combined with the devastation and collapse of global empires facilitated an environment of cooperation. The Treaty of Rome, effective in 1958, was, essentially, an extension of the Zollverein that permitted free trade on steel and other materials within co-signer nations. The success of the European Economic Community (EEC) encouraged non-founder states to seek participation and led to the basis of the European Union which formed as a result of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993.
     As the European Union has grown and continued the post-world wars peace in Europe, the borderlands of Europe have sought acceptance into this profitable economic partnership. Greece gained admittance in 1981 despite questionable financial stability because of its history, trade, Christian religion and values, and involvement with both World Wars. Other Balkan states have since applied to join the EU as well but inconsistent economies and human rights records have delayed acceptance.
     Turkey, the main descendant of the power of the Ottoman Empire, applied to join the European Union first in 1987 but did not receive candidate status until 1999. It officially applied in 2005 and negations have continued through 2016 having been delayed by the global financial crisis of 2008, the Greek financial crisis, and the Syrian refugee crisis.
     Europe has been self-identified for centuries as Christian peoples of Germanic, Slavic, and Caucasian decent with strong Roman-Latin influences. Turkey is overwhelmingly Muslim, but has many of the values, economic strengths, and military alliances as its European counterparts. Turkey is the grey area, the dotted-line on the border between Europe and the Middle East. Many eurocentric diplomats campaign against Turkey's admittance into the EU, but a hundred years ago, Turkey controlled significant interests in the Balkans and was referred to as the "sick man of Europe." As religiously distinct as Turkey is, the history of the Greco-Roman period, Byzantine, and early modern periods indisputably tie Turkey into the squabbles of the European powers. If it has suffered through the same alliances, world and cold wars, and the changing of empires, should it not also share in the economic prosperity of the European Union?
     The boundaries of Europe have been dynamic since their creation and fluid in their definition, but it is the decision of the modern claimants to the continent as to whether or not they will safeguard the Hellespont against the Asia of the ancient Greeks or extend a hand of welcome to the Europe of the Imperial monarchs.


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Agatha Tyche

Blown Out of Proportion

     Henry VIII's decision to remove England from the Catholic world and control of the pope set his kingdom against the most powerful empires of Europe. Spain and France, Catholic bastions that resisted the Reformation that divided the Holy Roman Empire, sought to pit their New World resources against the English for their blasphemous beliefs. Domestic support for the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church wavered for a several decades as every other ruler changed the official religion of the land. The protestant "virgin queen" Elizabeth I's support of the Netherland's rebellion against Spain combined with the strong religious disagreements of the two monarchs, saw the Spanish rouse an entire fleet to wipe out the English annoyance to Spanish and papal power.
     Philip II gathered 130 ships with the blessing of the pope to invade England and place whoever Philip II liked upon the throne. The Armada named "the Great and Most Fortunate Navy" sailed through the English Channel to connect with the Spanish armies posted in the Netherlands before staging an invasion on England.
     Before the Spanish could reach the Netherlands, the smaller English navy met the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Gravelines in the late summer of 1588. The English avoided a massacre by keeping their distance and aiming their guns just below the waterline of the Spanish ships. This strategy was developed to avoid the viscous Spanish boarding attacks that won them other historic battles. By forcing a draw instead of catastrophic defeat, as predicted by the Spanish, they were unable to make landfall at the Netherlands. The successful British precision fighting style at Gravelines prevented the Spanish from regrouping, attempting to invade England, and prevented a Spanish return through the English Channel. Instead, the Spanish were forced out to sea to sail around the British Isles through the North Sea and return to Spain by sailing around the west coast of Ireland.

     Because of the lengthy journey and the disrepair of many ships from the numerous, harrying battles, the Spanish Fleet was ill prepared for the devastating hurricane that smashed into the Armada as it sailed past Ireland. The strong winds combined with the loss of many ship's anchors during the battles smashed the ships onto the Irish coast. The survivors were finished off by English forces, and the ships raided by Irish locals.
     Only sixty-seven of the initial 130 Armadan ships returned to Spain. Many more men died as the ships waited in harbor from disease, injury, or sickness from exposure. This defeat definitely led to the slow decline of the Spanish Empire as it enable British settlements in the New World that developed into a rival empire.
     The successful defeat of the Armada both by battle and wind boosted English morale and the reputation of Elizabeth I. The fighting tactics of the English demonstrated the strength of cannon over boarding battles and changed naval warfare. Because of this pivotal shift in naval tactics, English quickly became the most powerful fleet in the Atlantic because of their quick adaptions and daring strategists.
     Additionally, the battle, and more importantly, the hurricane's destruction of the Spanish ships indicated to the Protestants of England and Europe that God had favored them. A providential view of events infused the histories and became a keystone to English identity as their New World colonies were settled. This strike against Protestant England by Catholic Spain failed, but two more attempts were made to invade in 1596 and 1597. Both of those fleets were also dispelled by storms, though not as disastrously.
     England's new naval tactics and the hurricane-wrought obliteration of the great Spanish Armada changed the development of European religion and the settlement of the New World. Despite the military and economic might of Philip II's Spain, the Protestant movement of Europe perceived an intervention by God. England triumphed when "He blew with His winds, and they were scattered." God saved the Virgin Queen.


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Agatha Tyche

American Staple

     Survivalists tout the recitation of the rule of three: three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. Food is an integral part of human existence, society, culture, and economics, yet as vital as vittles are, alterations to dietary patterns often attract little social comment. Practitioners of old patterns may remark upon differences from memories, but the majority of a collected social gathering will dismiss those claims as insignificant.
     In the previous two centuries industrialization has impacted travel, production, work, communication, farming, war, and every other facet of civilization. The Industrial Revolution has additionally impacted food stuffs, preservation, and availability from Napoleonic France's innovations with canned goods to the adoption of the electric oven.
     The Silk Road's prominence in Europe gained its name from silk and china but maintained relevance mostly for the spices that preserved and improved upon the winter stores of bedraggled Europeans. Black pepper was sold for over $50/lb (0.5kg) which today can be bought for $3/lb (0.5kg). Spices were used to improve the taste, but, importantly, spice was used to preserve quality and mask the task of rot. Meat and vegetables do not greatly endure intact from the harvest to the planting. Thus, with the revolution of agriculture from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, preservation technology shadowed production technology. Napoleon's canned goods allowed his soldiers to fight through the winter and carry rations long distances. Pasteurization purified and preserved milk from bacteria, and germ theory helped cleanse and preserve our food stores against the degradation of mold, fungus, and bacteria.
     Beyond preservation, the changing nature of the home impacted food. From the turn of the twentieth century, gas and oil increasingly replaced coal, and as World War I consumed a majority of energy reserves, Americans turned to electricity. As the century wore on, appliances that used electricity became integrated into the middle class household. By the Great Depression, nearly all middle and high class kitchens had replaced the coal furnace with a gas or electric stove. The replacement of the soot and coal dust with clean burning gas allowed the kitchen to become one of the cleanest rooms in the house, challenged only by the bathroom with its new indoor plumbing. Gas and electric stoves and ovens easily maintained temperature and removed the burdensome task of keeping the coal furnace stoked. Cooks and recipes adapted to these technologies.
     Industrialization also changed the types of foods that were prepared. Railroads in England allowed fish to be brought inland to become a dietary delight, and now, is one of the stereotypes of British foods: fish and chips. Americans were able to send fruits from the North like pears and plums in exchange for the tomatoes and peaches of the South. A wider variety of canned foods was also available, and refrigeration allowed for the development of new foods and techniques altogether.
     Food processing changed how traditional foods tasted and needed to be cooked. Cornmeal, a staple for the Midwestern and Southern diets of the American South, used to be ground by water-powered millstones and filtered kernels through a single-sized grate. The large chunks of corn in the meal provided a flavorful, richly-nourishing bread. As the South embraced industrialization by the Great Depression, steel rollers replaced the millstones and produced a very fine, kernel-free cornmeal. The new texture changed the taste and preparation of cornbread and had a net-negative impact on its consumption in the South in the decades since as it has been replaced with wheat breads and sugared foods.

     As farm work subsided to factory work which transitioned to office work, the dietary patterns changed as well. Family sizes shrank as did caloric needs, and the preparation time diminished as processed foods reduced the amount of labor for the cook. These new experiences facilitated the Joy of Cooking cookbook that has sold over eight million copies. While meals were easier to prepare, fewer were eaten at home. Restaurants allowed office workers to eat closer to work instead of returning home. Thus, as food became faster, the locations of its consumption increased in variety.
     Plastics and Teflon further impacted cooking as containers became disposable and hassle-less to clean. Plastics renovated the style of the kitchen, but changes were still incomplete, and microwaves, introduced in the 1950s, became household items by the 1970s.
     From the type and availability of wide variety of food year round to the preparation, storage, and clean-up of the modern diet, the Industrial Revolution's impact on the kitchen and waist-line of modern peoples is imperceptibly huge. While no recent changes have completely revolutionized diets or cooking in the last few decades, with the advent of microchips and personalized diet data, the future's renovations to America's favorite room may be as dramatic and startling as the one's witnessed in the last century.


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Agatha Tyche

Journey of Why: Brewing Hatred

     The animosity between England and France molded the course of European history as decidedly as Charlemagne, the Catholic Church, and the New World, but over the last century, the two perennial powers reached a cordial accord. Seven-hundred years the two kingdoms warred against one another. Battles were waged on French soil, across Europe, in every ocean, and touched every continent of the world. With a record stretching back to the turn of the first millennium, why was the chaos of war ignited?
     The birth of what Europe is can be credited to the boundaries of the Roman Empire, but Charlemagne became the ancestor of most European monarchs and established political boundaries for the disparate peoples. After the death of Charlemagne, his empire was weakened and split between his sons who divided the lands for separate rule. This division of strength allowed an already ambitious Scandinavian people to control the seas, coastlines, and rivers of much of Europe. Charles the Simple, king of what became France, secured his northern coast bordering the English Channel by giving land and title to Rollo, a viking warlord who vowed to defend against other Viking invaders. He took the title Duke of Normandy and was baptized as a Christian under the name of Robert.
     The descendants of Rollo maintained their holding along the coast for centuries and actively expanded their lands with William I's conquest of England in 1066. For a time, the kings of England remained Dukes of Normandy and held court in France. In 1204 King John lost his Duchy and barely held his throne, and his son, Henry III, finalized this cession with the Treaty of Paris in 1259. Under these contentious agreements, England and France both justified their rule over the coast of Normandy and excused countless deaths and centuries of hate.
     Essentially, the core of the dispute is that the French king felt threatened that one of his feudal lords controlled such significant holdings and sought to disperse that power. By removing the French-located seat of the English monarchs, the French kings allowed their English opponents an isolated realm to consolidate power and violently re-deploy forces in their historic mainland holdings
     Only a century after the Treaty of Paris, Edward III began re-asserting English claims within France and ignited the Hundred Years War. From that time on, the two kingdoms were in a state of tension with brief recovery periods disrupting the decades of war. With few exceptions, England and France fought against each other in every European War, trade agreement, and political alliance until the twentieth century. Feeling that their bloodlines, power, and rightful lands compelled a stronger case for the French throne than the incumbent, the English began raiding the coastal region of France in 1337. After a century of war and occupation of the French throne, Joan of Arc is credited with rallying the French forces in Southern France to begin the successful, permanent expulsion of English kings from French lands.
     The generations-long, bloody war destroyed relations between the two kingdoms. Between the Hundred Years War and World War I, the British and French Empires opposed each other's movements as a matter of political determination. If a nation sought to ally itself with France, by default, it sided against the British.
     In a period where Spain's naval dominance and New World wealth positioned her for an expansion of control through Europe, British and French forces formed a brief alliance to deter Spanish expansionist desires. This resulted in Henry VIII and Francis I meeting at the gloriously expensive Field of the Cloth of Gold where the two nation's knights jousted and feasted but failed to build upon their loose alliance and were at war again shortly after.
     As Britain developed her navy for New World trade in conjunction with the Spanish navy's slow decline from prominence, the British Isles became impenetrable since no nation could land an army on her shores. The monarchy remained less fortified and on two occasions was temporarily ousted from power. Charles I was executed and power was consolidated around Oliver Cromwell. Two generations later, James II endured the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that later inspired the American Revolution, another low point for the British crown.
     Of all the nations of Europe that traded alliances through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, France and Britain remained embattled through the Wars of Austrian Succession and American and French Revolutions.
     Despite that history of animosity, the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars aided the two nation's cooperation. With the victory at Trafalgar, the British Navy was the undisputed champion of the seas. The Concert of Vienna in 1816 formalized the Greats Powers' foreign policy with each other and established the peace of The Long Century. With British imperial might expanding globally and French imperial might re-solidifying new political movements domestically and abroad, the two empires became rough, tense political allies and opposed Russia's expansion into Ottoman lands in the Crimean War.
     As the Asian region became saturated by European influences and ignited the Scramble for Africa in the last part of the nineteenth century, tensions between France and Britain resided on the brink of war. Through compromise and careful negotiation, the two powers made effective use of diplomacy to avoid bloodshed. With the conclusion of the Fashoda Incident of 1898 in modern South Sudan over disputed land claims, Britain cemented its strength in controlling the area which mollified France and began the de-escalation of tensions that aided in the establishment of a more permanent alliance between the two nations.
     France sought a strong ally because of fear of Germany whose unification and rapidly expanding industrial production outpaced the French. Germany's naval arms race with the British fleet during the same period also worried Britain who agreed to more friendly relations with France to match Germany's new might and maintain the balance of European power.
     The crowning of Francophile Edward VII in 1901 invigorated the political interactions of two of the world's largest empires. Edward VII managed to secure the Entente Cordiale in 1904. English-French relations changed from five centuries of continuous war to peaceful co-existence through the nineteenth century and concluded with four decades of cultural exchange that created a special political relationship between the two nations and solidified desires for the maintenance of the status quo.
     After contention over the rightful king of France in the 1300s, millions of dead, religious zeal and spite, and political posturing as large of the Colossus of Rhodes, England and France made amends. After Napoleon's attempt to conquer Europe created a tense political stasis and after Britain's global empire reduced its insecurities, the threat of a nation stronger than either England or France forced them to conclude: England AND France.

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Agatha Tyche