Benelux Next Time

195th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo (1815). If Napoleon had won, it's possible the Benelux countries would still be part of greater France, and the Germans might have been kept at bay in their later uses of the Low Countries as an invasion route. The British Empire may have run basically the same course through the present. But who knows?

In any case, Belgium, Netherlands (Holland) and Luxembourg are strange, interesting little countries, much fought over in the past. Belgium has Flemish and Walloon culture (I'm partly Walloon by way of Sweden) and good ale. I've spent time in all three, happily.

New book (really an old book, newly translated from German into English by Peter Hofschröer) -- Carl von Clausewitz, On Wellington: A Critique of Waterloo (2010). Von Clausewitz's work is full of pithy aphorisms. He was a thinker. From Vom Kriege / On War: "Action in war is like movement in a resistant element. Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, so in war it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results." (Michael Howard/Peter Paret translation).  Something still not learned very well by those who indulge in war.  

Waterloo keeps inspiring powerful cultural expressions, not only through books and visual art, but through metaphors, movies, monuments and music.  In its own way, Waterloo is as evocative as Cleopatra and Helen of Troy. What do you think when you hear the name?

Today's Rune: Wholeness.