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Since the 15th seems to be retreating, and the forum is reduced to algebra quizzes (nice questions BTW), I thought I might as well post a quiz I did for one of my grogier (read that how you like) parties some while ago. It's a quotation quiz, some UV relevant(ish), some less so .

Should be fairly easy for you walking libraries out there!

Who said or wrote the following, and about whom? (Two marks each).

S1. Mad is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other generals.

S2. A man who hath had his hand very deep in the blood of many innocent men.

S3. There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today, _______.

S4. In defeat unbeatable; in victory unbearable.

S5. There is ______, standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer.

S6. Brilliant to the top of his army boots.

S7. In this country it is thought proper to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others.

S8. By many degrees, the greatest soldier on record.

S9. _______ was the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon.

Part 2. Who said, or wrote the following (one mark each).

S10. I have tremendous admiration for Caesar. But …I myself belong rather to the class of Bismarcks.

S11. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the stomach of a king….

S12. Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds. (modern quote, not original source).

S13. Scratch one flat top. (bonus point for the occasion - and I mean exactly, not just the battle!).

S14. I shall return. (better have occasion, date, and what he had in his pocket for this one, given the forum!)

S15. All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable…..

S16. I've lost my leg, Egad! ( & Occasion?)

S17. Peccavi. ( & Occasion?)

S18. My dear McClellan, If you don't want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while.

S19. The enemy came. He was beaten. I am tired. Good night.

S20. And Finally, which operation caused R W Thompson to write:
In fact, Montgomery's decision to mount the operation…. was as startling as it would have been for an elderly and saintly Bishop suddenly to decide to take up safe-breaking and begin on the Bank of England.

(More fun than maths huh....although Maths is fun too, so maybe I'll do one on that next!

S1. James Wolfe to King George II. I think
S4. Winston Churchill to Montgomery

Originally posted by gmenfan
S1. James Wolfe to King George II. I think
S4. Winston Churchill to Montgomery

1: Close, actually George II about Wolfe
4: yes (altough I don't think he actually said it to him!

S4 It might of been about him instead
S1 Your right had it backwards it was when King George II was telling it to an English court.

S13 Commander Dixon of the Lexington to radio the immortal words "Dixon to carrier: Scratch one Flat Top" during The Battle of the Coral Sea

S15 Sun Tzu's Art of War

S12 The Bhagavad-Gita, quote by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer

S11 Elizabeth I Speech to the Troops at Tilbury

Hi

Please stop it with the questions already. Its making the wait even more painful.

Dan

At first glimpse...
S3
Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty, to his flag captain Chatfield, on HMS Lion after HMS Queen Mary and HMS Indefatigable blew up at Jutland during the battlecruiser action. Your Warspite had a stearing casualty and was repeatedly hit during this battle, the first of her sterling career.

Pretty long list, let me get a coffee.

S20 Market Garden.

S9 Jellicoe. Statement refers to the exact timing required to deploy the Grand Fleet at Jutland.

S12 Oppenheimer.

S5 Jackson?

S13 Dixon to USS Lexington after nailing Shoho at Coral Sea.

S18. My dear McClellan, If you don't want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while.

Lincoln.

BTW. The Civil War returns to PBS this fall. Great documentary. Remember to pledge to PBS (or at least pay your taxes).

Originally posted by gmenfan
S4 It might of been about him instead
S1 Your right had it backwards it was when King George II was telling it to an English court.

S13 Commander Dixon of the Lexington to radio the immortal words "Dixon to carrier: Scratch one Flat Top" during The Battle of the Coral Sea

S15 Sun Tzu's Art of War

S12 The Bhagavad-Gita, quote by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer

S11 Elizabeth I Speech to the Troops at Tilbury

13 - yes, but which carrier?
15 - correct
12 - yes - on which occasion?
11 yes

so far so good.

Originally posted by Ron Saueracker
At first glimpse...
S3
Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty, to his flag captain Chatfield, on HMS Lion after HMS Queen Mary and HMS Indefatigable blew up at Jutland during the battlecruiser action. Your Warspite had a stearing casualty and was repeatedly hit during this battle, the first of her sterling career.

Pretty long list, let me get a coffee.

S20 Market Garden.

S9 Jellicoe. Statement refers to the exact timing required to deploy the Grand Fleet at Jutland.

S12 Oppenheimer.

S5 Jackson?

S13 Dixon to USS Lexington after nailing Shoho at Coral Sea.

3 - spot on
20 correct (aka Arnhem)
12 corect (but when/why)
5 correct, but who said it?
13 spot on (7th May 1942 IIRC)
9 correct, although I am not sure it was absolutely specific to Jutland. Also who said (or wrote?) it?

Originally posted by 11Bravo


Lincoln.

BTW. The Civil War returns to PBS this fall. Great documentary. Remember to pledge to PBS (or at least pay your taxes).

Spot on. I don't recall on what occasion - sometime in 1862? (anyone?)

Originally posted by Ron Saueracker
At first glimpse...
Your Warspite had a stearing casualty and was repeatedly hit during this battle, the first of her sterling career.

Give the guy a bonus point!
Warspite was hit whilst turning to port. She duly continued her turn for 720deg (IIRC), whilst under fire from the High Seas fleet. The turn had dropped her out of line TOWARDS the enemy! I think she took 13 large calibre hits, but made it home. This was the first of her wayward manoevres. Can anyone give me her last unplanned move?

Interesting aside - as well as My Dad coming home from Cape Town in convoy with Warspite (1942), I had a Biology teacher at school whose relation (grandfather?) was a Royal Marine in X turret at Jutland. He wrote a diary, and the teacher read from it once, at the end of term. The account of the battle was confused as you'd expect, but there was one bit where he noted the the bearing kept changing wildly. I think this is where the poor turret was trying to track the target whilst the ship did a Viennese Waltz all over the ocean!

S19

Vicomte Turenne, 1658 after the battle of Dunen

OK I cheated and looked it up, but I was just celebrating my new faster internet connection.

What’s interesting is that even though the quote is readily findable, any actual info about the battle itself is totally absent. Can anyone shed some light on the Battle of Dunen?

-Str.

Originally posted by stretch
S19

Vicomte Turenne, 1658 after the battle of Dunen

OK I cheated and looked it up, but I was just celebrating my new faster internet connection.

What’s interesting is that even though the quote is readily findable, any actual info about the battle itself is totally absent. Can anyone shed some light on the Battle of Dunen?

-Str.

Spot on - and I cheated to set that one (I looked it up as well)
Full name of the guy was HENRI DE LA TOUR D'AUVERGNE, VICOMPTE DE TURENNE

Ahh good I don't feel so bad!

Isn't it funny that when you google on the Battle of Dunen you get a few hits on people who have put the quote on their page, bit not one hit discussing the battle itself.....

Originally posted by HMSWarspite


3 - spot on
20 correct (aka Arnhem)
12 corect (but when/why)
5 correct, but who said it?
13 spot on (7th May 1942 IIRC)
9 correct, although I am not sure it was absolutely specific to Jutland. Also who said (or wrote?) it?

5 Southern troops retreating at (Bull Run?) General Bee saw Jackson and his troops holding their ground.

7. Voltaire, on the execution of British Admiral John Byng for failure to relieve Minorca during the Seven Years' War.

9. I believe the quote is by Churchill, from his "World Crisis" (about Jellicoe obviously).

18. I believe that this was Lincoln to McClellan after the failure of the Seven Days' battles.


Here is an excerpt from a biographical entry on Turenne on the Battle of the Dunes:

"In 1657 Mazarin & Cromwell agreed to combine their separate wars against Spain, and concluded a strategy by whereby a joint force, aided by the English fleet, would attack the coastal towns of Mardyk, Dunkirk, and Gravelines. Mardyk quickly succumbed to Turenne's army, and he proceeded straight to Dunkirk, despite the Spanish attempts to halt him by opening the dykes. His investment of the city was threatened, however, by the arrival of a Spanish Netherlands relief force under Don John of Austria and Conde himself. Turenne's victory at the ensuing Battle of the Dunes was decisive; he used the change of the tide on the beach, where the right flank of the Spanish infantry was drawn up, to carry out a cavalry envelopment of the Spanish left flank, on the inland side. Knowing that he had little to fear from the Spanish on the beach, whose sole anxiety was to escape fire from the offshore English fleet and to avoid the suddenly encroaching tide, he was able to concentrate the main weight of his cavalry on the Spanish left. The battle, which lasted only four hours, resulted in casualties of only 400 men for Turenne and 6000 for the Spanish, who had fought against Conde's advice and without the bulf of their artillery. It was a brilliant manifestation of Turenne's ability to use and incorporate in his battle plan local or natural phenomena. It allowed him to go ont to capture Ypres and to threaten the great Flemish cities of Brussels and Ghent . . ."

HMS Warspite broke her towline on the way to the breakers, I beleive near you on the Cornish coastline. Ran aground and foundered I think.

Warspite...you are obviously a naval buff as well?

Darn. JC got Byng before me. One of the first examples of a miltary leader being used as a scapegoat for the poor policies of their superiors. Damned "Fighting Instructions". It took the efforts of Nelson, Howe, Rodney, Hawke, Hornblower, and Bolitho to throw them out the porthole!:D

Originally posted by Ron Saueracker
Darn. JC got Byng before me. One of the first examples of a miltary leader being used as a scapegoat for the poor policies of their superiors. Damned "Fighting Instructions". It took the efforts of Nelson, Howe, Rodney, Hawke, Hornblower, and Bolitho to throw them out the porthole!:D

Sorry about that. Good point about the "Fighting Instructions." It's a bit funny to think that by the late-1800s the evolution of command tactics & signalling in the RN led to just as rigid a system as before & led to the Camperdown/Victoria disaster & nearly resulted in the loss of the Queen Elizabeths at Jutland. Prime example of history always repeating itself!

13 The Shóhó at 10:40 on the morning of May 4th 1942, is that specific enough?

Originally posted by HMSWarspite


13 - yes, but which carrier?
15 - correct
12 - yes - on which occasion?
11 yes

so far so good.

S4. Winston Churchill on Bernard Montgomery (nice list of quotes here: http://www.insults.net/html/political/w ... chill.html)

S6. David Lloyd George about General Douglas Haig, I believe following the 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) (September, 1917)

S12. Robert Oppenheimer, on seeing the first atomic explosion at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945

S14. MacArthur, the last part of a statement made to reporters after his escape from Corregidor in 1942

S16. Marquis of Anglesey to Wellington (Wellington's reply "By God sir, so you have")

S17. Charles Napier in a report to Britain after he had just conquered Scinde (India) (bad pun, baaaad pun)