Famous Quotes & Sayings

Peter Padfield Quotes & Sayings

Enjoy the top 6 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Peter Padfield.

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Famous Quotes By Peter Padfield

Peter Padfield Quotes 248767

Wealth from trade was the mainspring of Western material advance; the visible agents of change were great guns. These came of age in Europe in the 15th century. On land their potency in reducing castle walls favoured central over local power, since in general only monarchs could afford siege-trains; so nation-states were consolidated and extended into great territorial empires. At sea, guns transformed sailing ships into mobile castles virtually impregnable to opponents who lacked equally powerful ordnance. With the ocean-going gunned warship, western Europe began to extend around the globe. — Peter Padfield

Peter Padfield Quotes 1777874

Philip could not have wanted to annex England militarily, since this would have opened another costly occupation struggle, and brought France in against him. He might, however, neutralize Elizabth by supporting her internal Catholic enemies, even provoking civil war. — Peter Padfield

Peter Padfield Quotes 564951

It is clear that the flame of True Freedom had passed with naval supremacy and constitutional, consultative government from the United Provinces to Great Britain, where it was regarded with quite as much national pride. — Peter Padfield

Peter Padfield Quotes 1316388

The reason territorial monarchs failed time after time against maritime powers was not that absolutist, non-consensual governments were incapable of building great fleets in peace - quite the reverse - but that they were unable to fund them in the crises of war. Mainly this was because they were forced to divert resources from the fleet to their armies, to fight territorial rivals frequently financed by their maritime enemy from the profits of sea trade. — Peter Padfield

Peter Padfield Quotes 1388224

from 4,000 yards.4 He exceeded — Peter Padfield

Peter Padfield Quotes 1783909

Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now adhere to had the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin or his heirs prevailed in the titanic world struggles of the past four centuries. — Peter Padfield