On 18th January 1936 the "Little Princesses" left Sandringham. Their grandfather, King George V, was gravely ill and they had seen him for the last time. Princess Elizabeth born in 1926 and Princess Margaret Rose born in 1930 were the daughters of the Duke of York and his wife Elizabeth. As their uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, was unmarried they ensured the line of succession and attracted enormous public interest. They were the future of the monarchy in the eyes of the public and those in the know about their uncle's passionate devotion to a married American woman would have suspected that this was not going to change. As their nickname suggests, the Princesses were surrounded by a fairy tale aura. Together with their uncle they were probably the most glamorous faces of the monarchy at the time. In one of his novels Grahame Greene mocked the adulation they attracted.
Eighty years ago, Chamberlain is finally held to account for his dismal record
The wheels completely fell off the British operation in southern Norway. It had achieved nothing and the forces involved had suffered severe casualties. They had been entirely outclassed by the Germans both in the land and the air. The only option to escape complete destruction was a rapid and full evacuation; the northern element of the British forced embarked at Namsos, where it had landed. The only saving grace for the British that this was accomplished smoothly with little interference by the Luftwaffe . It was a major military humiliation. After only three weeks on shore the British army had withdrawn leaving most of Norway to its fate. In the north of the country around Narvik the British and French fought on rather more successfully, helped by the presence of two squadrons of RAF fighters, which provided the air cover that had been sadly lacking around Trondheim. But this was only a very modest compensation. Inevitably the government had to face a debate in
A promising start - Good Luck with this!
ReplyDelete