Perfidious Albion
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"Perfidious Albion" is a hostile epithet for England or the United Kingdom: perfidious signifies one who does not keep his faith or word, while Albion is the Ancient Greek name for Britain.
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[edit] Origins: the struggle between France and England
The use of the adjective "perfidious" to describe Britain has a long history; instances have been found as far back as the 13th century.[1] A very similar phrase was used in a sermon by the eminent seventeenth-century French bishop, preacher and theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet:
L'Angleterre, ah, la perfide Angleterre, que le rempart de ses mers rendait inaccessible aux Romains, la foi du Sauveur y est abordée.
England, ah, faithless England, which was rendered inaccessible to the Romans by rampart of her seas, the faith of the Saviour spread even there.
The bishop's reference is to England's lack of loyalty to the Catholic faith: although England received the faith from Rome in the time of Pope Gregory the Great despite its isolation, since the Reformation it had become a Protestant country.
The coinage of the phrase in its current form, however, is conventionally attributed to Augustin, Marquis of Ximenez, a Frenchman who in a 1793 poem wrote:
Attaquons dans ses eaux la perfide Albion.
which means "Let us attack perfidious Albion in her waters." In this context, Britain's perfidy was political: in the early days of the French Revolution many in Britain, the most liberal of the European monarchies, had looked upon the Revolution with mild favour, but following the overthrow and execution of Louis XVI, Britain had allied herself with the other monarchies of Europe against the Revolution in France. This was seen by the revolutionaries in France as a "perfidious" betrayal.
"La perfide Albion" became a stock expression in France in the 19th century, to the extent that the Goncourt brothers could refer to it as "a well-known old saying". It was utilised by French journalists whenever there were tensions between France and Britain, for example during the competition for colonies in Africa culminating in the Fashoda incident. The catchphrase was further popularised by its use in La Famille Fenouillard, the first French comic strip, in which one of the characters fulminates against "Perfidious Albion, which burnt Joan of Arc on the rock of Saint Helena" (This is, of course, a joke - carried away by his anti-English fury the character mixes up Joan of Arc with Napoleon, also a victim of England).
[edit] Fascist Italy and colonial propaganda
After the 19th century, relationships between France and Britain improved, since the growing power of Germany was a threat for both the countries. During World War I the two countries were allies in the struggle against German forces, leaving to past their historical rivalry.
However, the term "perfidious Albion" would have been soon used again by fascist powers in order to criticize the global dominion of the British empire, that drains resources and occupies territories while leaving nothing to emerging nations like Italy or Germany which had in that time limited colonial empires.
For instance, Benito Mussolini called the British Empire "Perfida Albione" after the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, because the British approved sanctions against the Italian aggression over Ethiopia. In fascist propaganda, that was considered one of a general series of actions finalized to deny to Italy to gain its "rightful" colonial dominions, while instead the United Kingdom was trying to extend its influence and authority. Mussolini called "un posto al Sole" (a place in the Sun) the goal of the fascist expansionism, that is an extended colonial and politic power in order to bring back the glory of the Roman empire in the Mediterranean sea and the influence of Italy in the world.
This resulted in the creation of the Africa Orientale Italiana (Italian Eastern Africa) after the occupation of Ethiopia and the proclamation of the reborn Empire, made of Italy, Albania, Libya, Ethiopia (called Abyssinia), Eritrea, Somalia, Rhodes and the Dodecanese islands.
During World War II the term Perfida Albione was again used many times by the Italian fascist regime for propaganda purposes, but when the war in Africa was lost and the Allies were going to land in Italy herself Mussolini switched to a general invective against Western powers, especially United States. In Mussolini's propaganda, Western nations were winning only because they had superior industrial and economic resources, and the superior skills and valour of Italo-German soldiers were defeated only by overrunning numbers of men, weapons and machinery brought by "vile", "untruthful" and "wretched" plutocratic powers - with the aid of a claimed "Zionist conspiracy" against fascist powers.
After the end of the Second World War, the term survived in little neo-fascist groups, and its usage in war came again only in the Falklands War between Argentina and Britain.
[edit] Cultural references
Today the term is used in many contexts, and largely divorced from its historic origins.
- It is used by Argentinians in the context of the football rivalry between the Argentine and English national teams, born after the 1966 World Cup.
- It is used in the Traditional Irish song Foggy Dew, about the Easter Rising of 1916, "Oh the night fell black and the rifles' crack Made perfidious Albion reel".
- In Irish parlance, it often refers to the English reneging on the Treaty of Limerick of 1691, which ended the war between the predominantly Catholic Jacobite forces and the English forces loyal to William of Orange under favorable terms for the Irish. The treaty gave Catholics freedom to worship, own property and carry arms, but those terms were repudiated in the Penal Laws of 1695.
- It was used by then United States Vice-President Dick Cheney in response to the November 2008 meeting between British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. [2]
It is also often used in a humorous context, notably in France (Perfide Albion), Spain ("Perfida Albión") and in Italy ("Perfida Albione").
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Schmidt, H.D. 'The Idea and Slogan of "Perfidious Albion"'. Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Oct., 1953), pp. 604–616.
- ^ Hersh, Seymour M. "Syria Calling" "The New Yorker" (March 2009) http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/04/06/090406fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=3
