French Armed Forces
The French Armed Forces encompass the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the National Guard and the Gendarmerie of the French Republic. The President of France heads the armed forces as chef des armées. France maintains the first in the European Union. France has the largest armed forces in size in the European Union. France maintains the world's third-largest nuclear deterrent; the military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas including modern France, greater Europe, French territorial possessions overseas. According to the British historian Niall Ferguson, France has participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars fought since 1495, in 168 battles fought since 387 BC, they have won 109, drawn 10 and lost 49: this makes France the most successful military power in European history—in terms of number of fought and won; the Gallo-Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar.
After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars; the Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century.
Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies; as the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre-Revolutionary borders; the rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium and Mexico.
Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, Franco-German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime; the Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and a liberated French nation emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council; the imperative of avoiding a third Franco-German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power and since the 1990s its military action is most seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners.
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence, military self-sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, has worked with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post-Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee. France remains a firm supporter of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO-Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations and Security. Outside of NATO, France has and participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more deployable, better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel and headquarters, rationalistion of equipment and the armaments industry.
Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on
Anastasio Bustamante
Anastasio Bustamante y Oseguera was president of Mexico three times, from 1830 to 1832, from 1837 to 1839 and from 1839 to 1841. A Conservative, he first came to power by leading a coup against President Vicente Guerrero. Bustamante was exiled to Europe both times, his father, José María, worked hauling snow from the volcanoes of Colima to Guadalajara but was able to provide his son with a good education. At 15, the younger Bustamante entered the Seminary of Guadalajara; when he finished, he went to Mexico City to study medicine. He passed his medical examinations and went to San Luis Potosí as director of San Juan de Dios Hospital. In 1808, he entered the royal army as a cavalry officer under the command of Félix María Calleja. In 1810, General Calleja mobilized the army to fight the rebels under Miguel Hidalgo, Bustamante participated on the royalist side in all the actions of the Army of the Center. During the War of Independence, he rose to the rank of general, he supported the Plan of Iguala.
When Iturbide was declared emperor of Mexico, Bustamante continued his support, as did many other conservative elites, who saw centralized, monarchical government as the optimal government for independent Mexico. On 19 March 1821, in support of Agustín de Iturbide, a personal friend, Bustamante proclaimed the independence of Mexico from Spain at Pantoja, Guanajuato. A few days he removed the remains of the 1811 insurgent leaders from the Alhóndiga de Granaditas in Guanajuato and had them buried in San Sebastián cemetery. Iturbide named him commander of the cavalry, second in command of the Army of the Center, a member of the governing junta; the Regency named him field marshal and captain general of the Provincias Internas de Oriente y Occidente, from 28 September 1821. He fought and defeated a Spanish expeditionary force at Xichú. At the fall of the Empire in 1823, he joined the ranks of the federalists for which he was arrested and confined at Acapulco, but President Guadalupe Victoria again put him in command of the Provincias Internas.
In December 1828, under the Plan de Perote, Congress named him vice-president of the Republic under President Vicente Guerrero. He took possession of this office on 1 April 1829 but soon was at odds with Guerrero. On 4 December 1829, in accord with the Plan de Jalapa, he rose against Guerrero, driving him from the capital. On 1 January 1830, he assumed the presidency on an interim basis. Congress declared Guerrero "incapable of governing." In office, Bustamante removed employees not having the confidence of "public opinion." He took steps to suppress the press. He expelled US Minister Joel Poinsett, he was involved in the execution of his predecessor, Guerrero. He supported the clergy; those and other policies stimulated opposition in the states of Jalisco and Texas. In 1832, a revolt broke out in Veracruz; the rebels asked Antonio López de Santa Anna to take command. When their immediate demands were met, they demanded the president's ouster, they intended to replace him with Manuel Gómez Pedraza. Bustamante turned over the presidency to Melchor Múzquiz on 14 August 1832 and left the capital to fight the rebels.
He defeated them on 14 August at Gallinero, Dolores Hidalgo and returned to fight Santa Anna, nearing Puebla. After two more battles, the three candidates, Santa Anna and Gómez Pedraza, signed the Agreements of Zavaleta, by which Gómez Pedraza was to assume the presidency and hold new elections. Bustamante was to go into exile, which he did in 1833. While in exile in France he inspected military and medical facilities, he returned to Mexico in December 1836, as he had been called back by President José Justo Corro to fight in the War of Texas Independence. However, once he was back in the country, Congress declared him president. With the treasury exhausted and the army depleted by a series of revolts, Bustamante was limited in his military response to crises. France issued an ultimatum on 21 March 1838, on 16 April, it began blockading Mexico's Gulf ports; the French declared war on 27 November 1838, bombarded San Juan de Ulúa, occupied Veracruz. Around the same time, Guatemalan general Miguel Gutiérrez invaded Chiapas.
Bustamante temporarily left the presidency from 20 March to 18 July 1839 to campaign against rebel General José Urrea in Tamaulipas. Santa Anna and Nicolás Bravo served as president during his absence, he became president again on 9 July 1839 and served until 22 September 1841. During this term, the first Spanish diplomatic representative to Mexico, Ángel Calderón de la Barca y Belgrano, arrived; the boundary between Yucatán and Belize was established. Treaties were signed with Belgium and Bavaria, relations with the United States were re-established. On 15 July 1840, General Urrea escaped from prison and led a force against Bustamante in the National Palace. Bustamante resisted. During the siege, artillery destroyed the southeast corner of the Palace, he did not relinquish the presidency, however. Around a revolt broke out in Yucatán. In August 1841, Santa Anna and Paredes, the military commanders of Veracruz and Jalisco, launched a new rebellion against Bustamante, he turned the government over to Francisco Javier Echeverría on 2 September 1841.
Echeverría lasted only until 10 October. Bustamante again went into exile in E
Spanish language
Spanish or Castilian is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain and today has hundreds of millions of native speakers in the Americas and Spain. It is the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century; the oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo capital of the Kingdom of Castile, in the 13th century. Beginning in 1492, the Spanish language was taken to the viceroyalties of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the newly-discovered Americas, as well as territories in Africa and the Philippines. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin and, through Latin, Ancient Greek. Spanish vocabulary has been in contact with Arabic from an early date, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula.
With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin. It has been influenced by Basque, Celtiberian, by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. Additionally, it has absorbed vocabulary from other languages the Romance languages—French, Portuguese, Catalan and Sardinian—as well as from Quechua and other indigenous languages of the Americas. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, it is used as an official language by the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Union of South American Nations, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the African Union and many other international organizations. Despite its large number of speakers, the Spanish language does not feature prominently in scientific writing, with the exception of the humanities, it is estimated that more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language, which qualifies it as second on the lists of languages by number of native speakers.
Instituto Cervantes claims that there are an estimated 477 million Spanish speakers with native competence and 572 million Spanish speakers as a first or second language—including speakers with limited competence—and more than 21 million students of Spanish as a foreign language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, 19 countries in the Americas. Speakers in the Americas total some 418 million, it is an optional language in the Philippines as it was a Spanish colony from 1569 to 1899. In the European Union, Spanish is the mother tongue of 8% of the population, with an additional 7% speaking it as a second language. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States. In 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over, 38 million speak Spanish at home. According to a 2011 paper by U. S. Census Bureau Demographers Jennifer Ortman and Hyon B. Shin, the number of Spanish speakers is projected to rise through 2020 to anywhere between 39 million and 43 million, depending on the assumption one makes about immigration.
Most of these Spanish speakers will be Hispanic, with Ortman and Shin projecting between 37.5 million and 41 million Hispanic Spanish speakers by 2020. In Spain and in some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only español but castellano, the language from the kingdom of Castile, contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Asturian, Catalan and Occitan; the Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows: El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado.... Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas... Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State.... The other Spanish languages shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities... The Spanish Royal Academy, on the other hand uses the term español in its publications, but from 1713 to 1923 called the language castellano.
The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas states that, although the Spanish Royal Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms—español and castellano—are regarded as synonymous and valid. Two etymologies for español have been suggested; the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus,'from—or pertaining to—Hispania'. Other authorities attribute it to a supposed mediaeval Latin *hispaniōne, with the same meaning; the Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin, brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War, beginning in 210 BC. Several pre-Roman languages —unrelated to Latin, some of them unrelated to Indo-European—were spoken in the Iberian Peninsula; these languages included Basque, Iberian and Gallaecian. The first documents to show traces of what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century.
Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era, the most important influences on the Spanish lexicon came from neighboring Romance languages—Mozarabic (Anda
Louis-Mathieu Molé
Louis-Mathieu Molé 1st Count Molé from 1809 to 1815, was a French statesman, close friend and associate of Louis Philippe I, King of the French during the July Monarchy. Molé was born in Paris, his father, a president of the parlement of Paris, who came of the family of the famous president noted below, was guillotined during the Terror. Count Molé's early days were spent in Switzerland and in England with his mother, a relative of Lamoignon-Malesherbes. On his return to France, he studied at the Ecole Centrale des Travaux Publics, his social education was accomplished in the salon of Pauline de Beaumont, the friend of Châteaubriand and Joubert. A volume of Essais de morale et de politique introduced him to the notice of Napoleon, who attached him to the staff of the council of state, he became master of requests in 1806, next year prefect of the Côte-d'Or, Councillor of State and Director-General of Bridges and Roads in 1809, Count of the Empire in the autumn of the same year. He served as Napoleon’s advisor on Jewish affairs and was involved with Napoleon’s gathering of a Jewish Grand Sanhedrin in 1807.
Mole did not support Jewish emancipation, though he seems to have moderated his position over the course of his involvement with the Sanhedrin and Abraham Furtado. In November 1813, he became Minister of Justice. Although he resumed his functions as Director-General during the Hundred Days, he excused himself from taking his seat in the Council of State and was not compromised, for Louis XVIII confirmed his appointment as Director-General and made him a peer of France. Molé supported the policy of the duc de Richelieu, who in 1817 entrusted to him the direction of the Ministry of Marine, which he held until December 1818. From that time, he belonged to the moderate opposition, he accepted the result of the revolution of 1830 without enthusiasm, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first cabinet of Louis Philippe's reign, was confronted with the task of reconciling the European powers to the change of government. The real direction of foreign affairs, lay less in his hands than in those of Talleyrand, who had gone to London as the ambassador of the new king.
After a few months in office, Molé retired, it was not until 1836 that the fall of Thiers led to his becoming Prime Minister of a new government, in which he held the portfolio of foreign affairs. One of his first actions was the release of the ex-ministers of Charles X, he had to deal with the disputes with Switzerland and with the Strasburg coup of Louis-Napoléon, he pursued an active policy in Mexico and in Algeria. Personal and political differences arose between Molé and his chief colleague and led to an open rupture in March 1837 in face of the general opposition to a grant to the duc de Nemours. After some attempts to secure a new combination, Molé reconstructed his ministry in April, Guizot being excluded; the general election in the autumn gave him no fresh support in the Chamber of Deputies, while he had now to face a formidable coalition between Guizot, the Left Centre under Thiers, politicians of the Dynastic Left and the Republican Left. Molé, supported by Louis Philippe, held his ground against the general hostility until the beginning of 1839, after acrid discussions on the address, the chamber was dissolved.
The new house showed little change in the strength of parties, but Molé resigned on 31 March 1839. A year he was elected to the Académie française, though he continued to speak he took no important share in party politics. Louis Philippe sought his help in his vain efforts to form a ministry in February 1848. After the revolution, he was deputy for the Gironde to the Constituent Assembly, in 1849 to the Legislative Assembly, where he was one of the leaders of the Right until the coup d'état on 2 December 1851 drove him from public life, he died in the family castle of Champlâtreux in Épinay on 23 November 1855 and was buried in the little church of the village. See Paul Thureau-Dangin, Histoire de la monarchie de juillet This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Molé, Louis Mathieu". Encyclopædia Britannica. 18. Cambridge University Press. P. 653
Zócalo
The Zócalo is the common name of the main square in central Mexico City. Prior to the colonial period, it was the main ceremonial center in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan; the plaza used to be known as the "Main Square" or "Arms Square", today its formal name is Plaza de la Constitución. This name does not come from any of the Mexican constitutions that have governed the country but rather from the Cádiz Constitution, signed in Spain in the year 1812. So, it is always called the Zócalo today. Plans were made to erect a column as a monument to Independence, but only the base, or zócalo was built; the plinth was buried long ago but the name has lived on. Many other Mexican towns and cities, such as Oaxaca, Mérida and Guadalajara, have adopted the word zócalo to refer to their main plazas, but not all, it has been a gathering place for Mexicans since Aztec times, having been the site of Mexica ceremonies, the swearing in of viceroys, royal proclamations, military parades, Independence ceremonies and modern religious events such as the festivals of Holy Week and Corpus Christi.
It has received foreign heads of state and is the main venue for both national celebration and national protest. The Zocalo and surrounding blocks have played a central role in the city's planning and geography for 700 years; the site is just one block southwest of the Templo Mayor which, according to Aztec legend and mythology, was considered the center of the universe. The modern Zócalo in Mexico City is 57,600 m2, it is bordered by the Cathedral to the north, the National Palace to the east, the Federal District buildings to the south and the Old Portal de Mercaderes to the west, the Nacional Monte de Piedad building at the north-west corner, with the Templo Mayor site to the northeast, just outside view. In the centre is a flagpole with an enormous Mexican flag ceremoniously raised and lowered each day and carried into the National Palace. There is an entrance to the Metro station "Zócalo" located at the northeast corner of the square but no sign above ground indicates its presence. Prior to the conquest, the area that the Zócalo occupies was open space, in the center of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan.
It was bordered to the east by Moctezuma II's "New Houses" or Palace and to the west by the "Old Houses", the palace of Axayacatl where the Emperor Ahuitzotl, Moctezuma's uncle and immediate predecessor lived. A European-style plaza was not part of the conquered Aztec Tenochtitlan; the current Zócalo occupies a space south-southwest of the intersection of roads that oriented Tenochtitlan. The north–south road was called Tepeyac–Iztapalapa; the Tlacopan road led west and stretched east a little before leading into the lake that surrounded the city at the time. These roads were the width of three jousting lances according to Hernán Cortés; this intersection divided the city into four neighborhoods. The sacred precinct, containing the Templo Mayor, was located to the northeast of this intersection and walled off from the open area for commoners; as to this area's relationship to the teocalli proper, some historians say that it was part of it, but others say no. The modern plaza of Mexico City was placed by Alonso Garcia Bravo shortly after the invasion when he laid out what is now the historic center.
After the destruction of Tenochtitlan, Cortés had the city redesigned for symbolic purposes. He kept the four major neighborhoods or "capullis" but he had a church, now the Cathedral of Mexico City, built at the place the four adjoined, he had the Temo become the Cathedral. The southern half was called the "Plaza Mayor" and the northern one was called the "Plaza Chica". Early in the colonial period, the Plaza Chica would be swallowed up by the growing city. During early colonial times, the Plaza was bordered to the north by the new church, to the east by Cortés's new palace, built over and with the ruins of Moctezuma's palace. On the west side of the plaza, the Portales de Mercaderes were built, south of Cortés’ other palace, the Palace of the Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca. On the south side, was the Portal of the Flowers, named so after its owner, Maria Gutierrez Flores de Caballerias. Next to this portal was the House of a government building for the city. Both of these were behind a small drainage canal.
Flooding was always the city in general. The plaza was flooded in 1629 with water two meters deep, ruining many of the merchants located there and requiring many of the portals to be rebuilt; the project to control flooding, known as the desagüe drafted Indian men over nearly the whole colonial period, to work on this major infrastructure project. Controlling flooding meant health benefits for Mexico City residents by preventing human waste from polluting the city during floods and controlling mosquitoes, which spread disease, it changed the ecological system that supported birds and fish populations and allowed for Indian cultivation of crops. After the Cathedral was constructed in the latter half of the 16th century, the look of the Plaza changed; the old church faced not to the Plaza itself. The new Cathedral's three portals towered south over the Plaza and giving the area a north-south orientation, which exists to this day. Over much of the 17th century, the Plaza became overrun with market stalls.
After a mob burned the Vic
Texas[citation needed]
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Louis Philippe I
Antonio López de Santa Anna
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