Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2007 September 13

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[edit] September 13

[edit] Ion Perdicaris#The Perdicaris incident

Could somebody please name me the american ships that were sent to Morocco during this incident?--Tresckow 02:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

A pretty full listing of the ships involved can be found here. There are two other books, if you have the patience to sort through the snippets, or get them from a library, here. Here is the account given in T.A. Bryson, Tars, Turks, and Tankers (Scarecrow Press, 1980), p. 44:
“ The Sultan's counter-proposals fell short of Raisuli's demands and by May 27 negotiations had reached an impasse. On May 30, some sixty-five hours after departing Santa Cruz, Chadwick's South Atlantic Squadron, with Brooklyn in the van, Atlanta second, followed by the gunboats Castine and Marietta, entered Tangier harbor. Chadwick went ashore and immediately conferred with Gummeré and Sir Arthur Nicholson, British Minister. On May 31 the British warship Surprise steamed into Tangier from Gibraltar. On June 1 Admiral Jewell arrived with the ships of the European Squadron. The world looked on as seven American warships anchored in Tangier harbor in support of diplomatic efforts to release Perdicaris. In the meantime, Barker's battleships had arrived at Lisbon. At length, the Navy Department decided to send Barker's ships to Gibraltar to await further orders. ”
Wareh 13:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks!--Tresckow 16:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sad poems

Does anybody know any sad poems? --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 05:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course, "sad" is subjective. That being said, I would offer: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Do not go gentle into that good night. (Joseph A. Spadaro 05:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC))
Lewis Carroll's poem "A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky", which you can read about here has always made me quite sad. --JayHenry 07:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I would go for I Am by John Clare, written near the end of his life when he was struggling with mental illness. --Richardrj talk email 07:36, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Anglo-saxon poetry often has a sad melancholy edge, in poems such as The Wanderer and The Seafarer. All written in Old English though so you need a good translation to really get the poetic sense. Our article on Deor translates its most famous line as "that passed away with respect to it, and so may this.", hardly very poetic sounding! Others translate it as "that went by, so may this" or "That was overcome, so may this be". So good poetry, but unless you read Old English, something may get lost in translation. Cyta 07:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Anyone who has ever had a dog will find "The Power of the Dog" [1] by Rudyard Kipling affecting. DuncanHill 09:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Also, somewhat "sad" ... The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. (Joseph A. Spadaro 13:58, 13 September 2007 (UTC))
The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. I've loved that poem since I was a little kid. Corvus cornix 16:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


to make it less anglo-centric: Loreley#The Lorelei by Heinrich Heine Translated by Aaron Kramer or the, in the US totally unknown and very teary ballad John Maynard by Theodor Fontane set on Lake Erie: [2]--Tresckow 16:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

...where youth grows pale and specter-thin and dies... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.158.67 (talk) 17:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

More from outside the anglosphere: Since childhood, I have always found Rilke's Der Panther very sad. Not beautiful, smiling, nostalgic, or heroic sad, but downright depressing and malignant sad. ("The Panther - In the Jardin des Plantes, Paris"), 1902, from Rilke's Dinggedichte ("Thing-Poems").
For South American poetry, the title of Pablo Neruda's Poema 20 (from "Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada"/"Twenty Poems of Love and a Song of Despair", ) is translated The Saddest Poem in English. ("Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche." / "I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.") (Google will help you find it, I'm not sure I should link directly to translations, for copyright reasons) ---Sluzzelin talk 17:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
So much of the best of all poetry is sad, it's hard to know where to begin. The love poems of W. B. Yeats are sadder than most, as we know he longed hopelessly for Maud Gonne for most of his life. Try The Song of Wandering Aengus and Memory. There's also a grain of truth in G. K. Chesterton's rhyme - "The great Gaels of Ireland are the men the Gods made mad. For all their wars are merry, and all their songs are sad." Xn4 00:33, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Sad? Have you read A. E. Housman? If not you should. Into my heart an air that kills...Clio the Muse 01:51, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Tread Softly by Yeats.[3] Vranak 04:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I think the famous Burns poem To a Mouse is imbued with existential gloom and pathos.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 05:43, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I second To a Mouse -- absolutely beautiful (but sad) poem ... (Joseph A. Spadaro 06:29, 14 September 2007 (UTC))

This little gem, "Postage Stamp" by the New Zealander William Hart-Smith, always has that effect on me:

If you should ever have to
part from someone dear, tear
yourself away, be sure
the tear is where
the perforations are. Please,
please do not ever
recklessly sever, sheer
yourself from someone other
so that their stamp is torn
and you have part of their
living, bleeding
flesh at your side worn. -- JackofOz 08:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

W.H. Auden's "As I Walked Out One Evening" has always seemed sad to me, or rather melancholoy. I love it. Crypticfirefly 01:07, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

D. H. Lawrence's poem about the snake at the watering-hole. It is heart-rending. There is also the one that begins, "The pain of loving you / Is more than I can bear." 161.13.1.225 19:58, 15 September 2007 (UTC)MelancholyDanish
In the same line, W. H. Auden]'s Stop All the Clocks, repopularised by Four Weddings and A Funeral is a poem for a dead lover. It's definitely a sad poem. Steewi 03:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Britain and the road to war

What were the main factors leading to Britain's decision to go to war with Germany in 1914? Would it have been possible for the country to have remained out as it did when Germany and France went to war in 1870? 86.132.5.45 10:15, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Feels like - Do your own homework. The reference desk will not give you answers for your homework, although we will try to help you out if there is a specific part of your homework you do not understand. Make an effort to show that you have tried solving it first. Lanfear's Bane 10:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to directly answer your question, but what has always struck me as one of the more stupid decisions in the run-up to WW1 was the German attempt to build up a bigger and more powerful surface navy than Britain's -- because for Germany its navy and overseas colonies were more of a symbolic show-the-flag international prestige type of thing, rather than having any great practical importance. By contrast, Britain was a maritime power which was not self-sufficient in food production, and so was basically dependent on shipments of food from overseas to avoid starvation -- which meant that Britain would do whatever it took to match and exceed Germany in the naval arms race, regardless of the cost. In the end, when WW1 came, the German surface navy didn't really seriously challenge British sea power outside the North Sea, but building the navy had very seriously soured British-German relations preceding WW1.... AnonMoos 15:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that you read our article World War I, although the article is weak on the causes of the war and particularly on the reasons for Britain's involvement. Of course, the situation was very different from the simple bilateral conflict between Germany and France in 1870. Probably the biggest difference was the system of alliances: the Triple Entente and the Central Powers, or Triple Alliance. Russia, a member of the Entente, was allied with both Serbia and Britain, and Britain had also pledged to defend the neutrality of Belgium. Armed with this information, you can find the answer by reviewing the linked articles. Let us know if you have any further questions. Marco polo 16:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

There was certainly no obligation on Britain to go to war in 1914, at least not until the German army crossed the Belgian border, thereby violating the 1839 Treaty of London. The country was not tied into the European alliance system. The Triple Entente of 1907 was merely an 'understanding' rather than a commitment. Indeed, by the summer of 1914 relations with Germany were friendlier than they had been for years, as disputes over the Berlin-Baghdad railway and the Portuguese colonies had been resolved amicably. In the years of the long Edwardian summer educated opinion in Britain was far more favourable to Germany than autocratic Russia or republican France. C. P. Scott, writing in the Manchester Guardian, declared that war against 'our German cousins' was unthinkable.

So, what went wrong? It may no longer be fashonable to give weight to personalities, but the deteroration in Anglo-German relations owns so much to the personal intervention of dear old Kaiser Bill, the perpetual adolescent. His attitude towards Britain-and to his uncle-was made up of a complex mixture of admiration and envy. Britain had a grand fleet, so he wanted one too, disregarding the view of Bismarck and Moltke that an understanding between Britain and Germany could only be based on the latter's disinterest in seapower. The tragedy was that the Kaiser's ambition, in his juvenile style, was not to mount a serious strategic challenge to the Royal Navy, but to match Uncle Eddie in playing at sailors. Bernhard von Bulow, Imperial Chancellor to 1909, wrote of the Kaiser,

What Wilhelm II most desired was to see himself at the head of a glorious German fleet, starting out on a peaceful visit to England. The English sovereign with his fleet would meet the German Kaiser at Portsmouth. The two fleets would file past each other, the two monarchs each wearing the naval uniform of the other's country would stand on the bridge of their flagships. Then after they had embraced in the prescribed manner, a gala dinner with lovely speeches would be held at Cowes.

It was snobbery; it was one-upmanship. The political cost, though, was high. The Kaiser's hobby began to look aggressive and unwelcome, especially so after the Agadir Crisis of 1911. For Britain maintaining a lead over the Germans in the naval race was not a question of prestige; it was a question of national survival. But, in the end, as I have indicated, the immediate British decision to go to war hinged on one thing, and one thing only: Germany's behaviour in the summer of 1914. If there had been an eastern Schlieffen Plan, if the war had been confined to the east, instead of brought to the west, it is quite possible that Britain would have remained aloof, just as in 1870. Clio the Muse 01:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

My recollection of what I read in The Guns of August some years back is that Tuchman lays great stress on the issue of Belgium. I think that, despite the declarations of war in the east, and even after the French declaration, opinion within the British government was split about whether to enter the war. Britain saw itself as the guarantor of Belgian neutrality, however. Once Germany invaded Belgium, there was near-unanimity in the Cabinet that Britain had to enter the war. (Incidentally, Clio, you're right about the political cost of the High Seas Fleet, but the military cost was significant, too. The resources devoted to building the fleet, which accomplished virtually nothing, would have significantly augmented Germany's land forces. Paris might have fallen.) JamesMLane t c 05:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes indeed, James. Thank you for raising that important point. Clio the Muse 22:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you overplay Britain's favourable disposition towards Germany in the "long Edwardian summer". At least in some quarters - perhaps outside the educated elite - there had been an underlying atmosphere of suspicion for decades, led by "Tuetophobic" newspapers and periodicals such as Lord Northcliffe's Daily Mail and Leopold Maxse's National Review, not to mention the literally hundreds of invasion scare stories since George Tomkyns Chesney's The Battle of Dorking in 1871 - including, in particular, William Le Queux (The Great War in England in 1897 and a long list of others), Robert Erskine Childers (Riddle of the Sands) and Hector Hugh Munro (When William Came).

In the background, we have German interference in Britain's affairs - the Kruger telegram in 1896 - and sniping at France, Britain's ally, the First Moroccan Crisis in 1905 and the Agadir Crisis in 1911.

The original questioner may want to read Causes of World War I. -- !! ?? 15:08, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can you open a bank account without an address?

I'm a transient and have no address where I can receive mail. Can I still open a bank account, so I don't have to carry all my cash with me?

I do have an e-mail address I check frequently. Also, this is in Europe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.158.67 (talk) 12:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I know that in the UK some banks will offer bank accounts to people in your position, though it is not easy. Do you have an equivalent of the Citizens Advice Bureau near you? They may be able to give advice and support, also it is probably worth contacting banks directly and asking them. Best of luck! DuncanHill 12:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I also found this link which wants to sell me the morsel of information. What do you think the person has in mind or knows that we don't? 81.182.158.67 13:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

:Some years ago (*cof* 25 years *cof*) I opened a bank account in a French bank through my own UK bank. It was called, as I recall it, a "compte etranger en francs". I would imagine that your own bank would have some kind of correspondence with a bank in Europe that they can use to open account for you there. However I have been able to use a Visa debit card to draw cash from my own UK account from cash machines all over Europe, in and out of the EU, as well as in Australia and the USA. I suspect maybe you don't need to carry cash now! SaundersW 15:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC) Sorry, read your question more carefully. SaundersW 15:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Has a bank refused your money? The only reasons I can think of that they would do that is tax or other legal stuff. A Swiss bank account perchance? Maybe Luxembourg? DirkvdM 18:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I see your IP address is in Budapest. When I was last sure of the answer to your question, a good place for 'numbered accounts' was Liechtenstein. Failing that, it isn't so hard for a traveller to get an address. In most countries, you can rent a mailbox from someone who will give you an address which doesn't include the word 'mailbox'. Or you may be able to find a friend who will let you use his or her address for your account (and, indeed, for other purposes). Xn4 00:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
what's this numbered account thing then? 81.182.158.67 01:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC).
See Numbered bank account. Xn4 02:29, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
That terminology used to baffle me, too. Don't all bank accounts have numbers, I mused. Then I realised that these accounts are identified by number only, not by name. -- JackofOz 03:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
It has become harder to open a bank account in the UK because of precautions against money laundering, especially from terror-related activities. Once you can open one account, it does get easier to open another. You need to prove your identity, for which a passport or driving licence will work, and also something like a utility bill with your name and address. It appears that if you can get the Prince of Wales to help you, then some of the difficulties can be resolved. [4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by SaundersW (talk • contribs) 08:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Once upon a time, it wass possible (at least in the US) to get a passbook account. The bank wouldn't have to mail a statement for these accounts, so they'd have little need to know your address. I'm not sure if passbook accounts are still widely available, though. The Photon 17:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] scientology inventor

i heard someone say that Elrond invented scientology. is this true? i though he was just a character in a book, so does this mean he was real??? did all the things that happened in the books really happen then?? thank you, ben —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.163.229.148 (talk) 15:45, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Either you misheard or someone was pulling your leg. See our articles on L. Ron Hubbard and scientology. Gandalf61 15:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Unless they were just saying "L Ron" SGGH speak! 19:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
This is bizarre, in The Hobbit (video game) elrond is well known for his cupboard ("elrond's cupboard = L Ron Hubbard").. Elrond gives you some food etc...83.100.255.59 17:34, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Partition of India 1947

Please account for the rise of the Muslim League and its role in the partition of 1947Soliman M —Preceding unsigned comment added by Soliman M (talk • contribs) 19:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Please see our article Muslim League. Marco polo 19:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
There are some unfortunate explanatory gaps in that article, Marco. Most seriously, it seems to suggest that the League, after Jinnah's return to India, started to perceive the Hindu majority as a 'threat' without making any attempt to explore by what route this conclusion was reached. Indeed, a casual reading might even suggest a direct causal relationship berween Jinnah's reappearance and the alienation of the Muslim minority from the Hindu majority.
What is important to try to understand, Soliman, is why the League, which fared so badly in the elections of 1937, had become the dominant political movement within the Muslim community less that ten years later. Begin here by looking at the mistakes Congress made after the pre-War elections. There was little or no attempt to reach a political understanding, or to share power, with the League. More seriously, an attitude of Hindu chauvinism became increasingly prevalent, challenging aspects of Muslim culture. Amongst other things Muslim school children were obliged to sing the whole of Vande Mataram, parts of which went directly against Islamic belief. It was the direct experience of Hindu domination in provincial government that made the Muslim people more receptive to the message of the League, that a Hindu 'Raj' would be an even greater threat than the rule of the British. It was only now that the call for Pakistan began to acquire serious momentum.
The second factor you have to consider is the political impact on India of the coming of the Second World War. In protest at Lord Linlithgow's declaration of war on Germany on behalf of India in his capacity of Viceroy, all of the Congress governments resigned. The British now began to treat Jinnah and the League as a serious political force, not as yet warranted by the actual influence they enjoyed. When Linlithgow made his statement of war aims in October 1939 Congress was defined as a Hindu organisation, accepting, by implication, that the League spoke for the Muslims. With great skill Jinnah stepped into the political gap, condemning the stand taken by Congress and offering support for the war effort. When Sir Stafford Cripps came to India on his mission in 1942 Jinnah gained further political ground, amplified by his opposition to Congress's ill-judged Quit India Movement. The League made steady progress in the Muslim provinces, especially in the Punjab and Bengal, so much so that its vote increased dramatically in the elections of 1946. It was from this point that partition became the new reality of Indian politics. Clio the Muse 00:21, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Time Line

I just got finished reading this book and to tell you the truth I do not get this story at all or what went on in it. It's not that I can't pay any attention but for me it is almost impossible to read these poem like books. Anyway every book that I do read I keep a time line of the major events that happened in the story. It's just a fun little thing I like to do even though I don't like the book. However I am asking if someone could do me a favor and just take up a few minutes of your time (who has read the book) to make a major event time line right here so I can make a document putting your words in to my own words and of course crediting you. Thank you so much!22:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

The plot summary in the article Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde gives a good synopsis, although it doesn't have a time line, per se. 152.16.188.107 23:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Government Information

I need to find information on the Articles of Confederation, Bill of Rights, 1-5 Amendments...and so forth where do I go for that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.58.169.16 (talk) 22:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Have you read our articles on Articles of Confederation, and the United States Bill of Rights? Splintercellguy 22:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)