Articles written by Paul Leclercq

What is Helium

About me - Paul Leclercq

So far a very varied life: one marriage (ended!) an unbelievable range of jobs from banking, civil servant, professional rock musician, driver, gardener, market researcher, classic car specialist, proofreader, etc., etc.

I am English but left London three years

+ more bio information

RSS Feed

Arts & Humanities > History (Other) Is Holocaust history repeating itself with the genocide occuring in Darfur, Sudan: 1 of 9
In taking the position of disagreement, I suppose that I am in general in accord with Robert Grason who wrote the opening article here: the planning and systems used by the Nazis involved makes their crime unique to the best of my knowledge. Its uniqueness, I stress, is not related to the staggering scale of the killing it is... More..
Arts & Humanities > The World Wars The legacy of Stalin: 1 of 7
In considering the legacy of Josef Stalin, one must first consider the nature of the man.Stalin was the ultimate bureaucrat: efficient, brutal, cynical and ruthless. This latter quality was especially noticeable in his achieving total control of the USSR, as has been well reported elsewhere. He was paranoid by nature (confirm... More..
Arts & Humanities > European History Peace in our time: Britain's attitude to Germany, 1919-39: 1 of 5
The origins of the Second World War are commonly held to be found in the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First. However, more than this, those terms were a major (although of course far from the sole) influence on Britain's attitudes to Germany in the period between the two wars.The victorious allies were f... More..
Autos > Antique Cars Automotive history: Bentley Motors: 2 of 6
Walter Owen Bentley, founder of Bentley Motors Ltd began his engineering career with an apprenticeship at the Great Northern Railway Works at Doncaster. Later he was in business with his brother H.M. Bentley importing French DFP cars, one of which the brothers raced in the TT just before the First World War in 1914. It was a ... More..
Arts & Humanities > European History The legacy of Guernica: Terror bombing as a tool of war: 1 of 3
The aerial bombardment of Guernica on 26th April 1937 by 28 German and Italian aircraft with fighter support, is considered to be the first of several "landmark" events of this kind, the others being Coventry, Hamburg, and Dresden. This tragic list continues with Berlin, Tokyo and of course the culmination of the trend: Hiros... More..
Arts & Humanities > History (Other) Battles that changed the course of history: 4 of 9
It is fortunate that the subject of this series is given in the plural since I propose to discuss two battles here: the first was a resounding success, undeniably changed history, but the war during which it took place was lost. The second was by contrast, after a promising start, a failure, but also undeniably changed histor... More..
Arts & Humanities > European History Russia under Stalin: Outlining the historical activities of the NKVD: 1 of 2
The following definition may seem all too familiar to historians and readers alike:"A vast organisation, operating outside the law, responsible for political repression, espionage, counter-espionage, operating forced labour camps, practising "ethnic cleansing"; for mass murder on an enormous scale, brutal torture, fabrication... More..
Arts & Humanities > European History The real cause of the Empire's collapse in the cold war: 1 of 2
The roots of the Soviet Empire's collapse may be found in its defective ideology. Supposedly based on Marx's thinking which included the famous dictum that eventually the "state will wither away" the Soviet State did precisely the opposite, exerting extensive control in an effort to maintain itself. It was said that at its mo... More..
Arts & Humanities > Origins & Firsts in History The most powerful bomb ever detonated: 1 of 1
There can be no argument on this topic: the most powerful bomb ever was detonated on 30th October 1961 at Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago inside the Arctic Circle in the North of the USSR, as it then was.The explosion produced an approximate yield of more than 50,000,000 tons of TNT: it was in normal parlance a 50-megaton devic... More..
Arts & Humanities > The World Wars The Battle of Britain: A turning point in World War II: 4 of 7
Battle of BritainThe winning of the Battle of Britain was undeniably of enormous significance, but it was not a "turning point" in the Second World War, that is to say not in military terms although once again it was a truly great victory and indeed a "close-run thing".In brief the situation in the summer of 1940 was that Ger... More..