1759-2009 - point de vue anglo-saxon

Bataille des Plaines

La moitié des Canadiens contre l'annulation



La Presse Canadienne - Un nouveau sondage suggère que près de la moitié des Canadiens estiment que l'annulation de la reconstitution de la bataille des plaines d'Abraham, à Québec, n'était pas la bonne décision à prendre. Selon un sondage La Presse Canadienne - Harris-Décima, 47 pour cent des Canadiens estiment que la Commission des champs de bataille nationaux (CCBN) n'aurait pas dû annuler l'év...

A war on our history

A few separatist agitators have managed to sweep away a part of Canada’s history


The claim that history is written by the winners doesn’t apply to Canada. Our history is written by the whiners. This week’s cancellation of the re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec City is anot...

Elegizing neverendum re-enactment



I see folks have been getting pretty "rory-eyed" (furious), as we say back home, over the freshly contentious Battle of the Plains of Abraham. To be more precise, there's been a partly manufactured battle over the re-enactment of the real battle. It's always good when an item of Canadian history stirs current interest and attention, and if a little controversy, factitious or otherwise, achieves that result - good....

Canada has its own cultural conflicts



Cultural conflicts within the United States are a daily occurrence, something we read about in the paper every day. But to the north of us, in what we consider a very stable and laid-back country, they have their own cultural problems. There are two sides to Canada -- the British and the French. However, the French lost control of their settlements when they lost the 1759 Plains of Abraham battle in Quebec, 250 y...

Quebec

Fighting old battles



A 250-year-old defeat still rankles THE Battle of the Plains of Abraham was brief and not all that bloody, but it was historic. On September 13th 1759, France’s loss of its colonial territories in North America was set in motion when British redcoats scaled cliffs protecting Quebec City and defeated troops and militia loyal to Louis XV. A modern-day battle over the battle, which concluded on Febr...

Le <i>National Post</i>, ami des souverainistes



Quand le National Post a été créé, à la fin des années 90, il a bouleversé les journaux canadiens. Le Toronto Star et le Globe and Mail ont dû se grouiller le derrière, gracieuseté de la concurrence. Puis, peu à peu, à mesure que les moyens (et le souffle) ont commencé à manquer, le National Post a commencé à sombrer dans une certaine médiocrité. Du tabloïd en grand format, s...

The National Post - un éditorial haineux et francophobe, un mépris total de la culture et de l'histoire du Québec. Bref, l'esprit canadian!

Un éditorial du National Post demande à Harper de tourner le dos au Québec



...

Tell Quebec where to get off

It's too bad Quebec's nationalists lack such maturity.


Each July at the annual re-enactment of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg in southern Pennsylvania, the Union soldiers always win. Gen. George Pickett's forces are always decimated in their futile charge up Cemetery Ridge and the Confederates are always forced to slink off south with their tails between their legs. Yet there are no petitions among Southerners to ban the historical staging -- which takes place on a de...

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham isn't over yet



"There will be no 250th anniversary re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, after all," The Globe's Konrad Yakabuski wrote Saturday in his Globe essay [Montcalm and Wolfe fail to meet again->18091] "The National Battlefields Commission, a federal agency embroiled in a war of its own, has bowed to Quebec nationalists and its taskmasters in Ottawa, and cancelled the event it had hyped as 2009's 'prem...

Emotional echo of the Plains



Did the National Battlefields Commission "cravenly surrender" to threats of violence when it finally decided, last week, to cancel the re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham that was supposed to take place this summer in Quebec City? This is what the Montreal Gazette said in a fuming editorial, but there is another way to look at the controversy. From the start, the commission should never have con...

Why battle with Quebec's malcontents?



By Andrew Hanon - Memo to all those anglophiles outraged over the cancellation of plans to re-enact the Battle of the Plains of Abraham: Get over it, for crying out loud. Your guys won the war. Do you really need to do an end-zone dance 250 years later? Yes, yes, everybody understands that the British sneak-attack on French fortifications in Quebec City on Sept. 13, 1759 was a turning point in ...

Quebec historians take the field

Re-enactments - We've been denied a valuable lesson - Desmond Morton


Desmond Morton of McGill says we missed an opportunity to portray the valour of militiamen in New France. Photograph by: Gazette files, Gazette files Battle re-enactments like ...

Montcalm and Wolfe fail to meet again

But the feuding clans within the Québécois nation join battle on the Plains of Abraham


There will be no 250th anniversary re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, after all. The National Battlefields Commission, a federal agency embroiled in a war of its own, has bowed to Quebec nationalists and its taskmasters in Ottawa, and cancelled the event it had hyped as 2009's "premier summer event in Quebec City." Now, the idea of reliving those 20 minutes in 1759 that made us who we are is ...

Ignorant ou manipulateur?

Even Quebecers should celebrate Montcalm's loss



On the Plains of Abraham the political fate of the northern part of North America was settled. Not the ethnic fate, the political fate. And it was settled in favour of democracy and toleration. The British government promised francophones "langue, loi et foi" and kept their word. [!!!]

Vive l'Écosse libre!...

Great Scots, Plains of Abraham really did pay off



NEIL REYNOLDS - OTTAWA -- Contrary to what people think, the English did not conquer the French on Sept. 13, 1759, at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. And the French didn't surrender, either. As a matter of fact, it was a Scot - Brigadier-General James Murray - who accepted the capitulation of French forces five days after the battlefield death of General James Wolfe, and it was a Scot - Major ...

Des zélotes anglos regrettent le temps béni où Ottawa savait sortir la matraque pour refroidir les ardeurs séparatissss.

Harper lets down Canadians by fleeing from separatist zealots



Kelly McParland - It’s...

An ignominious defeat on the Plains of Abraham



As expected, Canada's National Battlefields Commission cravenly surrendered the field yesterday, announcing that it was cancelling plans to re-enact the Battle of the Plains of Abraham this summer, because it couldn't guarantee public safety. The commission's decision is the greater of two evils. Pressing ahead with the re-enactment might have risked some disruption from the lunatic fringe of the separati...

ROC en colère

Quebec separatist army claims victory

Plains of Abraham revisited


Graeme Hamilton, National Post - A ragtag army of Quebec separatists, armed only with Internet petitions and menacing e-mails, have triumphed where the French army failed 250 years ago, preventing a...

Et les Anglos?



Le projet de reconstitution de la bataille des plaines d'Abraham à Québec, hilare et bien arrosée, 250 ans après la Conquête, virera sans doute bientôt en eau de boudin, sous les cris et la houle. Trop névralgique, l'événement, trop humiliant, trop provocateur. Que ledit spectacle en rutilants uniformes, avec mousquets fumants, ne puisse que semer le trouble en ...

Plains of Abraham re-enactment plan under fire



By Peter O’Neil, Europe Correspondent, Canwest News Service PARIS — A Canadian government-sponsored initiative to re-enact th...

Don't refight the Plains of Abraham

Serious concerns are being raised, however, about the wisdom of restaging this bloody and pivotal event in Canada&#8217;s history, and not just by Quebec nationalists.


Victor Suthren, Special to The Windsor Star - On Aug. 1, more than 1,000, largely American, military re-enactors -- hobbyists who dress in military uniforms and restage historic battles -- will carry out a re-enactment of the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. This event is being sponsored by the National Battlefields Commission. But already questions have been raised as to whether...

Charest ducking latest battle on Plains of Abraham

The premier is reluctant to be caught in political crossfire over re-enactment


Premier Jean Charest has been in Europe since last Thursday. After hanging out with the big-leaguers at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he went to Paris yesterday to be made a commandeur, the highest rank in the French Ordre de la Légion d'honneur, by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Otherwise, at the opening ceremony of the annual Quebec City winter carnival on Friday evening, I might have exp...

Plains Of Abraham

Battle site a loaded issue in Quebec



By Graeme Hamilton, National Post - How long does it take for old wounds to heal? Apparently, when the injury came at the hands of the British on the Plains of Abraham, 250 years is not long enough. Agnes Maltais, Parti Quebecois MNA for the Quebec City riding of Taschereau, is outraged that federal Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Josee Verner plans to attend a re-enactment this summer of t...

250 YEARS LATER

Controversy surrounds re-enactment of historic Quebec battle

Battle re-enactment hits nerve in Quebec


INGRID PERITZ - MONTREAL -- No one's even fired a musket, but this summer's lavish re-enactment of the British victory over the French on the Plains of Abraham is already setting off some pre-battle jitters. The chairman of the National Battlefields Commission says Ottawa has warned him to tread cautiously around the 250th anniversary commemorating Canada's famous battle, which will feature a ...

Wolfe in goat's clothing

Ignored by Quebec and scorned by historians, Major-General James Wolfe deserves better


Peter Shawn Taylor, National Post - The Queen wasn't invited. The Pope declined to come. But if there's one person no one wants to see at this year's 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City, it's the man responsible for 249 years of that history. Major-General James Wolfe is persona non grata at the site of his greatest achievement. This comes as no great surprise. The historical reputat...

Big laugh...

The big lie



Pauline Marois reminds us, almost a half-century after former premier Jean Lesage rolled in with his “equipe de tonnerre”, that we continue to be threatened by a resurgent reactionary strain that has always swung like a pendulum through Quebec’s history. The reactionary inability of Quebec to come to terms with its past. And therein lies the problem. The philosopher George Santayana once wrote that “those who...