title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: Chaitanya's epistemological, theological and ontological teachings are summarised as ten root principles called dasa mula.


title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is said to be a disciple of Isvara Puri who was a disciple of Madhavendra Puri who was a disciple of Lakshmipati Tirtha who was a disciple of Vyasatirtha(1469-1539) of Madhvacharya's Sampradaya. Despite having been initiated in the Madhvacharya tradition and taking sannyasa from Shankara's tradition, Chaitanya's philosophy is sometimes regarded as a tradition of his own within the Vaishnava framework – having some marked differences with the practices and the theology of other followers of Madhvacharya. He took Mantra Upadesa from Isvara Puri and Sanyasa Diksha from Keshava Bharati.


title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: Chaitanya is not known to have written anything himself except for a series of verses known as the "Siksastaka", or "eight verses of instruction", which he had spoken, and were recorded by one of his close colleagues. The eight verses created by Chaitanya are considered to contain the complete philosophy of Gaudiya Vaishnavism in condensed form. Chaitanya requested a select few among his followers (who later came to be known as the Six Gosvamis of Vrindavan) to systematically present the theology of bhakti he had taught to them in their own writings. The six saints and theologians were Rupa Goswami, Sanatana Goswami, Gopala Bhatta Goswami, Raghunatha Bhatta Goswami, Raghunatha Dasa Goswami and Jiva Goswami, a nephew of brothers Rupa and Sanatana. These individuals were responsible for systematising Gaudiya Vaishnava theology.


title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: Narottama Dasa, Srinivasa Acharya and Shyamananda Mandal were among the stalwarts of the second generation of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Having studied under Jiva Goswami, they were instrumental in propagating the teachings of the Goswamis throughout Bengal, Odisha and other regions of Eastern India. Many among their associates, such as Ramacandra Kaviraja and Ganga Narayan Chakravarti, were also eminent teachers in their own right.


title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: In the early 17th century Kalachand Vidyalankar, a disciple of Chaitanya, made his preachings popular in Bengal. He travelled throughout India popularising the gospel of anti-untouchability, social justice and mass education. He probably initiated 'Pankti Bhojon' and Krishna Sankirtan in the eastern part of Bengal. Several schools (sampradaya) have been practising it for hundreds of years. Geetashree Chabi Bandyopadhyay and Radharani Devi are among many who achieved fame by singing kirtan. The Dalits in Bengal, at that time a neglected and underprivileged caste, readily accepted his libertarian outlook and embraced the doctrine of Mahaprabhu. His disciples were known as Kalachandi Sampraday, who inspired the people to eradicate illiteracy and casteism. Many consider Kalachand as the Father of Rationalism in East Bengal (Purba Banga).


title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: The festival of Kheturi, presided over by Jahnava Thakurani, the wife of Nityananda, was the first time the leaders of the various branches of Chaitanya's followers assembled together. Through such festivals, members of the loosely organised tradition became acquainted with other branches along with their respective theological and practical nuances. Around these times, the disciples and descendants of Nityananda and Advaita Acharya, headed by Virabhadra and Krishna respectively, started their family lineages ("vamsa") to maintain the tradition. The "vamsa" descending from Nityananda through his son Virabhadra forms the most prominent branch of the modern Gaudiya tradition, though descendants of Advaita, along with the descendants of many other associates of Chaitanya, maintain their following especially in the rural areas of Bengal. Gopala Guru Goswami, a young associate of Chaitanya and a follower of Vakresvara Pandit, founded another branch based in Odisha. The writings of Gopala, along with those of his disciple Dhyanacandra Goswami, have had a substantial influence on the methods of internal worship in the tradition.


title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: From the very beginning of Chaitanya's "bhakti" movement in Bengal, Haridasa Thakur and others, Muslim or Hindu by birth, were participants. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the great sage of Dakshineswar, who lived in the 19th century, emphasised the bhakti marga of Chaitanya, whom he referred to as "Gauranga." ("The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna"). This openness received a boost from Bhaktivinoda Thakura's broad-minded vision in the late 19th century and was institutionalised by Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati in his Gaudiya Matha in the 20th century.


title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: In the 20th century the teachings of Chaitanya were brought to the West. For the first time, by Baba Premananda Bharati (1858–1914), author of "Sree Krishna—the Lord of Love" (1904)—the first full-length trearment of Gaudiya Vaishnavism in English, who founded in 1902 the short-lived "Krishna Samaj" society in New York City and built a temple in Los Angeles. He belonged to the circle of guru Prabhu Jagadbandhu with teachings similar laterer ISKCON mission. His followers later formed several organizations, including now defunct the Order of Living Service and the AUM Temple of Universal Truth. Another prominent missionary was A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896-1977), a representative of the Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati branch of Chaitanya's tradition. Prabhupada founded his movement known as The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) to spread Chaitanya's teachings throughout the world. Saraswata gurus and acharyas, members of the Goswami lineages and several other Hindu sects which revere Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, including devotees from the major Vaishnava holy places in Mathura District, West Bengal and Odisha, also established temples dedicated to Krishna and Chaitanya outside India in the closing decades of the 20th century. In the 21st century, Vaishnava bhakti is now also being studied through the academic medium of Krishnology in a number of academic institutions.


title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: Chaitanya's influence on the cultural legacy in Bengal, Odisha and Manipur, has been significant, with many residents performing daily worship to him as an avatar of Krishna. Some attribute to him a Renaissance in Bengal, different from the more well-known 19th-century Bengal Renaissance. Salimullah Khan (b. 1958), a noted Bangladeshi linguist, maintains, "Sixteenth-century is the time of Chaitanya Dev, and it is the beginning of Modernism in Bengal. The concept of 'humanity' that came into fruition is contemporaneous with that of Europe".


title: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

text: Noted Bengali biographical film on Chaitanya, "Nilachaley Mahaprabhu" (1957), was directed by Kartik Chattopadhyay (1912–1989). A Bengali film based on Chaitanya's demise, "Lawho Gouranger Naam Re", will be directed by Srijit Mukherji where Parambrata Chatterjee will be seen portraying Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.


title: July Revolution

text: The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious [Days]"), was a second French Revolution after the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King Charles X, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans. After 18 precarious years on the throne, Louis-Philippe was overthrown in the French Revolution of 1848.


title: July Revolution

text: The 1830 Revolution marked a shift from one constitutional monarchy, under the restored House of Bourbon, to another, the July Monarchy; the transition of power from the House of Bourbon to its cadet branch, the House of Orléans; and the replacement of the principle of hereditary right by that of popular sovereignty. Supporters of the Bourbons would be called Legitimists, and supporters of Louis Philippe were known as Orléanists. In addition, there continued to be Bonapartists supporting the return of Napoleon's descendants.


title: July Revolution

text: After Napoleonic France's defeat and surrender in May 1814, Continental Europe, and France in particular, was in a state of disarray. The Congress of Vienna met to redraw the continent's political map. Many European countries attended the Congress, but decision-making was controlled by four major powers: the Austrian Empire, represented by the Chief Minister Prince Metternich; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, represented by its Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh; the Russian Empire, represented by Emperor Alexander I; and Prussia, represented by King Frederick William III.


title: July Revolution

text: France's foreign minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, also attended the Congress. Although France was considered an enemy state, Talleyrand was allowed to attend the Congress because he claimed that he had only cooperated with Napoleon under duress. He suggested that France be restored to her "legitimate" (i.e. pre-Napoleonic) borders and governments—a plan that, with some changes, was accepted by the major powers. France was spared large annexations and returned to its 1791 borders. The House of Bourbon, deposed by the Revolution, was restored to the throne in the person of Louis XVIII. The Congress, however, forced Louis to grant a constitution, the Charter of 1814.


title: July Revolution

text: On 16 September 1824, after a lingering illness of several months, the 68-year-old Louis XVIII died. As he was childless, his younger brother, Charles, aged 66, inherited the throne of France. He was known to have more reactionary politics. On 27 September Charles X made his state entry into Paris to popular acclaim. During the ceremony, while presenting the King the keys to the city, the comte de Chabrol, Prefect of the Seine, declared: "Proud to possess its new king, Paris can aspire to become the queen of cities by its magnificence, as its people aspire to be foremost in its fidelity, its devotion, and its love."


title: July Revolution

text: Eight months later, the mood of the capital had sharply worsened in its opinion of the new king. The causes of this dramatic shift in public opinion were many, but the main two were:


title: July Revolution

text: Critics of the first accused the king and his new ministry of pandering to the Catholic Church, and by so doing of violating guarantees of equality of religious belief as specified in the Charter of 1814.


title: July Revolution

text: The second matter, that of financial indemnities, was far more opportunistic than the first. Since the restoration of the monarchy, there had been demands from all groups to settle matters of property ownership in order to reduce, if not eliminate, the uncertainties in the real estate market. But opponents, many of whom were frustrated Bonapartists, began a whispering campaign that Charles X was proposing this action in order to shame those opponents who had not left the country. Both measures, they claimed, were nothing more than clever subterfuge meant to bring about the destruction of the Charter of 1814.


title: July Revolution

text: Up to this time, thanks to the popularity of the constitution and the Chamber of Deputies with the people of Paris, the king's relationship with the élite—both the Bourbon supporters and Bourbon opposition—had remained solid. This, too, was about to change. On 12 April, propelled by both genuine conviction and the spirit of independence, the Chamber of Deputies roundly rejected the government's proposal to change the inheritance laws. The popular newspaper "Le Constitutionnel" pronounced this refusal "a victory over the forces of counter-revolutionaries and reactionism."


title: July Revolution

text: The popularity of both the Chamber of Peers and the Chamber of Deputies skyrocketed, and the popularity of the king and his ministry dropped. On 16 April 1827, while reviewing the "Garde Royale" in the Champ de Mars, the king was greeted with icy silence, and many of the spectators refused to remove their hats, the traditional sign of respect for the king. Charles X "later told [his cousin] Orléans that, 'although most people present were not too hostile, some looked at times with terrible expressions'."


title: July Revolution

text: Because of what Charles X's government perceived to be growing, relentless, and increasingly vitriolic criticism of both the government and the Church, it introduced a proposal at the Chamber of Deputies for a law to tighten censorship, especially of newspapers. The Chamber, for its part, objected so violently that the humiliated government had no choice but to withdraw its proposals.


title: July Revolution

text: On 30 April, on the grounds that it had behaved in an offensive manner towards the crown, the king abruptly dissolved the National Guard of Paris, a voluntary group of citizens formerly considered a reliable conduit between the monarchy and the people. Cooler heads were appalled: "[I] would rather have my head cut off", wrote a nobleman from the Rhineland upon hearing the news, "than have counseled such an act: the only further measure needed to cause a revolution is censorship."


title: July Revolution

text: On 17 March 1830, the majority in the Chamber of Deputies passed a motion of no confidence, the Address of the 221, against the king and Polignac's ministry. The following day, Charles dissolved parliament, and alarmed the opposition by delaying elections for two months. During this time, the liberals championed the "221" as popular heroes, while the government struggled to gain support across the country, as prefects were shuffled around the departments of France. The elections that followed, taking place between 5 and 19 July 1830, returned a narrow majority for Polignac and his Ultra-royalists, but many Chamber members were nevertheless hostile to the king.


title: July Revolution

text: On Sunday, 25 July 1830, the king, with the agreement of Polignac, set out to alter the Charter of 1814 by decree. His decrees, known as the July Ordinances, dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, suspended the liberty of the press, excluded the commercial middle class from future elections, and called for new elections. On Monday 26 July, these decrees were published in the leading conservative newspaper in Paris, "Le Moniteur". On Tuesday 27 July, a revolution began in earnest , and ultimately ended the Bourbon monarchy.


title: July Revolution

text: It was a hot, dry summer, pushing those who could afford it to leave Paris for the country. Most businessmen could not, and so were among the first to learn of the Saint-Cloud "Ordinances", which banned them from running as candidates for the Chamber of Deputies. Such membership was indispensable to those who sought the ultimate in social prestige. In protest, members of the "Bourse" refused to lend money, and business owners shuttered their factories. Workers were unceremoniously turned out into the street to fend for themselves. Unemployment, which had been growing through early summer, spiked. "Large numbers of... workers therefore had nothing to do but protest."


title: July Revolution

text: While newspapers such as the "Journal des débats", "Le Moniteur", and "Le Constitutionnel" had already ceased publication in compliance with the new law, nearly 50 journalists from a dozen city newspapers met in the offices of "Le National". There they signed a collective protest, and vowed their newspapers would continue to run.


title: July Revolution

text: That evening, when police raided a news press and seized contraband newspapers, they were greeted by a sweltering, unemployed mob angrily shouting, ""À bas les Bourbons!"" ("Down with the Bourbons!") and ""Vive la Charte!"" ("Long live the Charter!").


title: July Revolution

text: France... falls back into revolution by the act of the government itself... the legal regime is now interrupted, that of force has begun... in the situation in which we are now placed obedience has ceased to be a duty... It is for France to judge how far its own resistance ought to extend.


title: July Revolution

text: Despite public anger over the police raid, Jean-Henri-Claude Magin, the Paris "Préfet de police", wrote that evening: "the most perfect tranquility continues to reign in all parts of the capital. No event worthy of attention is recorded in the reports that have come through to me."


title: July Revolution

text: Throughout the day, Paris grew quiet as the milling crowds grew larger. At 4:30 pm commanders of the troops of the First Military division of Paris and the "Garde Royale" were ordered to concentrate their troops, and guns, on the Place du Carrousel facing the Tuileries, the Place Vendôme, and the Place de la Bastille. In order to maintain order and protect gun shops from looters, military patrols throughout the city were established, strengthened, and expanded. However, no special measures were taken to protect either the arm depots or gunpowder factories. For a time, those precautions seemed premature, but at 7:00 pm, with the coming of twilight, the fighting began. "Parisians, rather than soldiers, were the aggressor. Paving stones, roof tiles, and flowerpots from the upper windows... began to rain down on the soldiers in the streets". At first, soldiers fired warning shots into the air. But before the night was over, twenty-one civilians were killed. Rioters then paraded the corpse of one of their fallen throughout the streets shouting ""Mort aux Ministres!" "À bas les aristocrates!"" ("Death to the ministers! Down with the aristocrats!")


title: July Revolution

text: [I saw] a crowd of agitated people pass by and disappear, then a troop of cavalry succeed them... In every direction and at intervals... Indistinct noises, gunshots, and then for a time all is silent again so for a time one could believe that everything in the city was normal. But all the shops are shut; the Pont Neuf is almost completely dark, the stupefaction visible on every face reminds us all too much of the crisis we face...


title: July Revolution

text: In 1828, the city of Paris had installed some 2,000 street lamps. These lanterns were hung on ropes looped-on-looped from one pole to another, as opposed to being secured on posts. The rioting lasted well into the night until most of them had been destroyed by 10:00 PM, forcing the crowds to slip away.


title: July Revolution

text: It is hardly a quarter past eight, and already shouts and gun shots can be heard. Business is at a complete standstill... Crowds rushing through the streets... the sound of cannon and gunfire is becoming ever louder... Cries of ""À bas le roi !', 'À la guillotine!!"" can be heard...


title: July Revolution

text: Charles X ordered Maréchal Auguste Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, the on-duty Major-General of the "Garde Royale", to repress the disturbances. Marmont was personally liberal, and opposed to the ministry's policy, but was bound tightly to the King because he believed such to be his duty; and possibly because of his unpopularity for his generally perceived and widely criticized desertion of Napoleon in 1814. The king remained at Saint-Cloud, but was kept abreast of the events in Paris by his ministers, who insisted that the troubles would end as soon as the rioters ran out of ammunition.


title: July Revolution

text: Marmont's plan was to have the "Garde Royale" and available line units of the city garrison guard the vital thoroughfares and bridges of the city, as well as protect important buildings such as the Palais Royal, Palais de Justice, and the Hôtel de Ville. This plan was both ill-considered and wildly ambitious; not only were there not enough troops, but there were also nowhere near enough provisions. The "Garde Royale" was mostly loyal for the moment, but the attached line units were wavering: a small but growing number of troops were deserting; some merely slipping away, others leaving, not caring who saw them.


title: July Revolution

text: In Paris, a committee of the Bourbon opposition, composed of banker-and-kingmaker Jacques Laffitte, Casimir Perier, Generals Étienne Gérard and Georges Mouton, comte de Lobau, among others, had drawn up and signed a petition in which they asked for the "ordonnances" to be withdrawn. The petition was critical "not of the King, but his ministers", thereby countering the conviction of Charles X that his liberal opponents were enemies of his dynasty.


title: July Revolution

text: After signing the petition, committee members went directly to Marmont to beg for an end to the bloodshed, and to plead with him to become a mediator between Saint-Cloud and Paris. Marmont acknowledged the petition, but stated that the people of Paris would have to lay down arms first for a settlement to be reached. Discouraged but not despairing, the party then sought out the king's chief minister, de Polignac – ""Jeanne d'Arc en culottes"". From Polignac they received even less satisfaction. He refused to see them, perhaps because he knew that discussions would be a waste of time. Like Marmont, he knew that Charles X considered the "ordonnances" vital to the safety and dignity of the throne of France. Thus, the King would not withdraw the "ordonnances".


title: July Revolution

text: At 4 pm, Charles X received Colonel Komierowski, one of Marmont's chief aides. The colonel was carrying a note from Marmont to his Majesty:


title: July Revolution

text: Sire, it is no longer a riot, it is a revolution. It is urgent for Your Majesty to take measures for pacification. The honour of the crown can still be saved. Tomorrow, perhaps, there will be no more time... I await with impatience Your Majesty's orders.


title: July Revolution

text: "They (the king and ministers) do not come to Paris", wrote the poet, novelist and playwright Alfred de Vigny, "people are dying for them ... Not one prince has appeared. The poor men of the guard abandoned without orders, without bread for two days, hunted everywhere and fighting."


title: July Revolution

text: Perhaps for the same reason, royalists were nowhere to be found; perhaps another reason was that now the "révoltés" were well organized and very well armed. In only a day and a night, over 4,000 barricades had been thrown up throughout the city. The tricolor flag of the revolutionaries – the "people's flag" – flew over buildings, an increasing number of them important buildings.


title: July Revolution

text: Marmont lacked either the initiative or the presence of mind to call for additional troops from Saint-Denis, Vincennes, Lunéville, or Saint-Omer; neither did he ask for help from reservists or those Parisians still loyal to Charles X. The Bourbon opposition and supporters of the July Revolution swarmed to his headquarters demanding the arrest of Polignac and the other ministers, while supporters of the Bourbon and city leaders demanded he arrest the rioters and their puppet masters. Marmont refused to act on either request, instead awaiting orders from the king.


title: July Revolution

text: By 1:30 pm, the Tuileries Palace had been sacked. A man wearing a ball dress belonging to the duchesse de Berry, the king's widowed daughter in law and the mother of the heir to the throne, with feathers and flowers in his hair, screamed from a palace window: "'Je reçois! Je reçois!"' ('I receive! I receive!') Others drank wine from the palace cellars." Earlier that day, the Louvre had fallen, even more quickly. The Swiss Guards, seeing the mob swarming towards them, and manacled by the orders of Marmont not to fire unless fired upon first, ran away. They had no wish to share the fate of a similar contingent of Swiss Guards back in 1792, who had held their ground against another such mob and were torn to pieces. By mid-afternoon, the greatest prize, the Hôtel de Ville, had been captured. The amount of looting during these three days was surprisingly small; not only at the Louvre—whose paintings and "objets d'art" were protected by the crowd—but the Tuileries, the Palais de Justice, the Archbishop's Palace, and other places as well.


title: July Revolution

text: A few hours later, politicians entered the battered complex and set about establishing a provisional government. Though there would be spots of fighting throughout the city for the next few days, the revolution, for all intents and purposes, was over.


title: July Revolution

text: The revolution of July 1830 created a constitutional monarchy. On 2 August, Charles X and his son the Dauphin abdicated their rights to the throne and departed for Great Britain. Although Charles had intended that his grandson, the Duke of Bordeaux, would take the throne as Henry V, the politicians who composed the provisional government instead placed on the throne a distant cousin, Louis Philippe of the House of Orléans, who agreed to rule as a constitutional monarch. This period became known as the July Monarchy. Supporters of the exiled senior line of the Bourbon dynasty became known as Legitimists.


title: July Revolution

text: The July Column, located on Place de la Bastille, commemorates the events of the Three Glorious Days.


title: July Revolution

text: This renewed French Revolution sparked an August uprising in Brussels and the Southern Provinces of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, leading to separation and the establishment of the Kingdom of Belgium. There was also a successful revolution in Brunswick. The example of the July Revolution also inspired unsuccessful revolutions in Italy and the November Uprising in Poland.


title: July Revolution

text: Two years later, Parisian republicans, disillusioned by the outcome and underlying motives of the uprising, revolted in an event known as the June Rebellion. Although the insurrection was crushed within less than a week, the July Monarchy remained doubtfully popular, disliked for different reasons by both Right and Left, and was eventually overthrown in 1848.


title: Sami Gayle

text: Gayle was born and raised in Weston, Florida. Her mother Robin previously owned her own business and now works as her manager. Her father is Larry Klitzman, an attorney. Gayle was home-schooled and followed Advanced Placement (AP) curricula in all subjects. She was nationally ranked in Public Forum Debate and has received two bids to compete at the Tournament of Champions, putting her among the top debaters nationwide. She studied political science and art history at Columbia University and graduated in 2018.


title: Sami Gayle

text: Gayle began her acting career as Baby June in the off-Broadway production of "" starring Patti LuPone. She reprised her role when the production transferred to Broadway a few months later. She later co-starred in the off-Broadway plays "Oohrah!" at the Atlantic Theatre Company and MCC Theatre's "Family Week" under the direction of Jonathan Demme. Gayle was featured in the 2007 Broadway production of "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical".


title: Sami Gayle

text: In addition to her role on "Blue Bloods", Gayle guest starred on USA's "Royal Pains" and had a recurring role on the CBS soap opera "As the World Turns". She co-starred in "Detachment", directed by Tony Kaye and released in 2012. She also appeared in "Stolen" (2012) and "The Congress" (2013). She co-starred in the 2014 film adaptation of "Vampire Academy", as Mia Rinaldi. In 2018, Gayle starred in the original Netflix romantic comedy "Candy Jar".


title: Sami Gayle

text: After appearing as a regular character on "Blue Bloods" from seasons 2 through 10, Gayle made only one appearance in season 11. There have been no official announcements from Gayle or "Blue Bloods" producers about the status of her character, the absence being owed to Gayle graduating Columbia University and being busy with other projects.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: Visa requirements for British citizens are administrative entry restrictions by the authorities of other states placed on citizens of the United Kingdom. British citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 187 countries and territories, ranking their passport 5th in terms of travel freedom (tied with France, Ireland and Portugal) according to the Henley Passport Index. Additionally, the World Tourism Organisation also published a report on 15 January 2016 ranking the passport 1st in the world (tied with Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Singapore) in terms of travel freedom, with the mobility index of 160 (out of 215 with no visa weighted by: 1, visa on arrival weighted by 0.7, eVisa weighted by 0.5 and traditional visa weighted by 0).


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: Visa requirements for other classes of British nationals such as British Nationals (Overseas), British Overseas Citizens, British Overseas Territories Citizens, British Protected Persons or British Subjects are different.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: Visa requirements for British citizens were lifted by many European nations in the few years after World War II. The first changes occurred in 1947. These were removed by France on 1 January 1947.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: This was then quickly followed by Belgium on 15 February 1947, Luxembourg 15 February 1947, Norway on 1 March 1947, Denmark on 22 March 1947, Sweden on 1 April 1947, Netherlands on 15 April 1947, Switzerland on 24 June 1947 Liechtenstein on 24 June 1947 and Iceland on 1 July 1947.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: The requirement was lifted by Italy on 1 January 1948, Monaco (8 November 1948), Austria (15 May 1955), Paraguay (27 November 1966), United States (1 July 1988), Poland (1 July 1992), Bulgaria (March 1997), Romania (1 January 2001), Serbia and Montenegro (31 May 2003), Ukraine (1 May 2005), Georgia (1 June 2006), Moldova (1 January 2007), Kyrgyzstan (27 July 2012), Armenia (10 January 2013), Kazakhstan (15 July 2014), Indonesia (13 June 2015), Vietnam (1 July 2015) Belarus (12 February 2017), Cape Verde (1 January 2019), Uzbekistan (1 February 2019), Turkey (2 March 2020), Oman (December 2020), countries in the Schengen Area (1 January 2021), Bulgaria (1 January 2021) Romania (1 January 2021).and Afghanistan* ( June 2022 )


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: Electronic visas for British citizens were introduced: India (15 August 2015), Djibouti (18 February 2018) and Malawi (October 2019).


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: Visas on arrival have been waived for British citizens by Mali (March 2015) and were for Malawi (1 October 2015 for four years, see above).


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: In April 2021 India announced that it would stop issuing Electronic visas for British citizens from August 2021, however this was reinstated on 05 December 2022.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: The United Kingdom, together with its Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man and the Republic of Ireland make up a Common Travel Area where:


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: However, there are occasionally checks on coaches and trains moving between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. British citizens living in Ireland have many of the same rights and entitlements as an Irish citizen. Citizens of third countries must have passports and, if required, visas to travel between the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: British visas don't enable travel to Ireland for people without agreement with Ireland, and vice versa. Passengers travelling between the Common Travel Area and the Schengen Area are subject to systematic passport/identity checks.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: This table documents the visa requirements, and not travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: Holders of exclusive categories of British passports have this visa-free access, to: China , Kuwait , Mongolia , Qatar and the United Arab Emirates . Holders of diplomatic or service passports of any country have visa-free access to Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe. Holders of British official and diplomatic passports require a visa for South Africa.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries have temporarily suspended visa-free entry for British citizens:


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: Most countries have also imposed additional non-visa requirements such as the need to show a COVID-19 vaccination record.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: On 23 June 2016, a majority of the British electorate who voted, did so to leave the European Union in a nationwide referendum. In March 2017, the UK sent notification of their intention to leave the EU to the European Council through Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. British citizens ceased to be EU citizens upon the UK's departure from the EU thus forfeiting the rights of citizens. The UK withdrew from the EU on 31 January 2020, but British citizens retained the right of freedom of movement until the transitional period ended on 31 December 2020.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: From 1 January 2021, when EU law ceased to apply to the United Kingdom, British citizens are afforded visa-free visits to the Schengen Area, for 90 days in any 180-day period. British citizens also enjoy visa-free entry to Bulgaria and Romania.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: From sometime in 2022, most visa-exempt travellers seeking entry to the EU and EEA must apply and pay for travel authorisation through ETIAS. This was confirmed on 12 September 2018 and has no exception, yet agreed, for British citizens. This excludes British-Irish travel which is governed by laws that pre-date the European Community.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: When in a non-EU country where there is no British embassy, British citizens no longer have the right to consular protection from the embassy of any other EU country present in that country.


title: Visa requirements for British citizens

text: When in a country where there is no British embassy, British citizens may get help from the embassy of any other commonwealth country present in that country. There are also informal arrangements with some other countries, including New Zealand and Australia, to help British nationals in some countries.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Kurt Ferdinand Friedrich Hermann von Schleicher (; 7 April 1882 – 30 June 1934) was a German general and the last chancellor of Germany (before Adolf Hitler) during the Weimar Republic. A rival for power with Hitler, Schleicher was murdered by Hitler's SS during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher was born into a military family in Brandenburg an der Havel on 7 April 1882. Entering the Prussian Army as a lieutenant in 1900, he rose to become a General Staff officer in the Railway Department of the German General Staff and served in the General Staff of the Supreme Army Command during World War I. Schleicher served as liaison between the Army and the new Weimar Republic during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. An important player in the Reichswehr's efforts to avoid the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, Schleicher rose to power as head of the Reichswehr's Armed Forces Department and was a close advisor to President Paul von Hindenburg from 1926 onward. Following the appointment of his mentor Wilhelm Groener as Minister of Defence in 1928, Schleicher became head of the Defence Ministry's Office of Ministerial Affairs ("Ministeramt") in 1929. In 1930, he was instrumental in the toppling of Hermann Müller's government and the appointment of Heinrich Brüning as Chancellor. He enlisted the services of the Nazi Party's SA as an auxiliary force for the Reichswehr from 1931 onward.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Beginning in 1932, Schleicher served as Minister of Defence in the cabinet of Franz von Papen and was the prime mover behind the "Preußenschlag" coup against the Social Democratic government of Prussia. Schleicher organized the downfall of Papen and succeeded him as Chancellor on 3 December. During his brief term, Schleicher negotiated with Gregor Strasser on a possible defection of the latter from the Nazi Party, but the plan was abandoned. Schleicher attempted to "tame" Hitler into cooperating with his government by threatening him with an anti-Nazi alliance of parties, the so-called "Querfront" ("cross-front"). Hitler refused to abandon his claim to the chancellorship and Schleicher's plan failed. Schleicher then proposed to Hindenburg that the latter disperse the Reichstag and rule as a "de facto" dictator, a course of action Hindenburg rejected.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: On 28 January 1933, facing a political impasse and deteriorating health, Schleicher resigned and recommended the appointment of Hitler in his stead. Schleicher sought to return to politics by exploiting the divisions between Ernst Röhm and Hitler but on 30 June 1934 he and his wife Elisabeth were murdered on the orders of Hitler during the Night of the Long Knives.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Kurt von Schleicher was born in Brandenburg an der Havel, the son of Prussian officer and noble Hermann Friedrich Ferdinand von Schleicher (1853–1906) and a wealthy East Prussian shipowner's daughter, Magdalena Heyn (1857–1939). He had an older sister, Thusnelda Luise Amalie Magdalene (1879–1955), and a younger brother, Ludwig-Ferdinand Friedrich (1884–1923). On 28 July 1931, Schleicher married Elisabeth von Schleicher, daughter of the Prussian general Victor von Hennigs. She had previously been married to Schleicher's cousin, Bogislav von Schleicher, whom she had divorced on 4 May 1931.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: He studied at the "Hauptkadettenanstalt" in Lichterfelde from 1896 to 1900. He was promoted to "Leutnant" on 22 March 1900 and was assigned to the 3rd Foot Guards, where he befriended fellow junior officers Oskar von Hindenburg, Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord and Erich von Manstein. From 1 November 1906 to 31 October 1909, he served as adjutant of the "Fusilier" battalion of his regiment.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: After his appointment as "Oberleutnant" on 18 October 1909, he was assigned to the Prussian Military Academy, where he met Franz von Papen. Upon graduation on 24 September 1913, he was assigned to the German General Staff where he joined the Railway Department at his own request. He soon became a protégé of his immediate superior, Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Groener. Schleicher was promoted to Captain on 18 December 1913.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: After the outbreak of the First World War, Schleicher was assigned to the General Staff at the Supreme Army Command. During the Battle of Verdun he wrote a manuscript criticising war profiteering in certain industrial sectors, causing a sensation and earning him the approval of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) chairman Friedrich Ebert and a reputation as a liberal. From November 1916 to May 1917, Schleicher served in the "Kriegsamt" (War Office), an agency tasked with administering the war economy led by Groener.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher's only front-line mission was as Chief of Staff of the 237th Division on the Eastern Front from 23 May 1917 to mid-August 1917 during the Kerensky Offensive. He served the rest of the war at the Supreme Army Command. He was promoted to Major on 15 July 1918. Following the collapse of the German war effort from August 1918 onward, Schleicher's patron Groener was appointed "Erster Generalquartiermeister" and assumed "de facto" command of the German Army on 29 October 1918. As Groener's trusted assistant, Schleicher became a crucial liaison between the civil and military authorities.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: After the November Revolution of 1918, the situation of the German military was precarious. In December 1918, Schleicher delivered an ultimatum to Friedrich Ebert on behalf of Paul von Hindenburg demanding that the German provisional government either allow the Army to crush the Spartacus League or the Army would do that task itself.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: During the ensuing talks with the German cabinet, Schleicher was able to get permission to allow the Army to return to Berlin. On 23 December 1918, the provisional government under Ebert came under attack from the radical left-wing "Volksmarinedivision". Schleicher played a key role in negotiating the Ebert–Groener pact. In exchange for agreeing to send help to the government, Schleicher was able to secure Ebert's assent to the Army being allowed to maintain its political autonomy as a "state within the state".


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: To crush the left-wing rebels, Schleicher helped to found the "Freikorps" in early January 1919. Schleicher's role for the rest of the Weimar Republic was to serve as the "Reichswehr"'s political fixer, who would ensure that the military's interests would be secured.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: In the early 1920s, Schleicher emerged as a leading protégé of General Hans von Seeckt, who often gave Schleicher sensitive assignments. In the spring of 1921, Seeckt created a secret group within the "Reichswehr" known as "Sondergruppe R", whose task was to work with the Red Army in their common struggle against the international system established by the Treaty of Versailles. Schleicher worked out the arrangements with Leonid Krasin for German aid to the Soviet arms industry. German financial and technological aid in building the industry was exchanged for Soviet support in helping Germany circumvent the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. Schleicher created several dummy corporations, most notably the GEFU ("Gesellschaft zur Förderung gewerblicher Unternehmungen", "Company for the Promotion of Industrial Enterprise"), which funnelled 75 million "Reichsmarks", some $18 million (equivalent to $ million in ), into the Soviet arms industry by the end of 1923.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: At the same time, a team from "Sondergruppe R" comprising Schleicher, Eugen Ott, Fedor von Bock and Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord formed the liaison with Major Bruno Ernst Buchrucker, who led the so-called "Arbeits-Kommandos" (Work Commandos), officially a labor group intended to assist with civilian projects but in reality a force of soldiers. This fiction allowed Germany to exceed the limits on troop strength set by the Versailles Treaty. Buchrucker's so-called Black "Reichswehr" became infamous for its practice of murdering all Germans suspected of working as informers for the Allied Control Commission, which was responsible for ensuring that Germany was in compliance with Part V of the Treaty of Versailles.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: The killings perpetrated by the "Black "Reichswehr"" were justified under the so-called "Femegerichte" (secret court) system in which alleged traitors were killed after being "convicted" in secret "trials" of which the victims were unaware. These killings were ordered by officers from "Sondergruppe R" as the best way to neutralize the efforts of the Allied Control Commission.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher perjured himself several times under oath in court when he denied that the "Reichswehr" had anything to do with the "Black "Reichswehr"" or the murders they had committed. In a secret letter sent to the president of the German Supreme Court, which was trying a member of the Black "Reichswehr" for murder, Seeckt admitted that the Black "Reichswehr" was controlled by the "Reichswehr", and claimed that the murders were justified by the struggle against Versailles; the court should therefore acquit the defendant. Although Seeckt disliked Schleicher, he appreciated his political finesse, and came increasingly to assign Schleicher tasks dealing with politicians.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Despite Seeckt's patronage, it was Schleicher who brought about the former's downfall in 1926 by leaking the fact that Seeckt had invited the former Crown Prince to attend military manoeuvres. After Seeckt's fall Schleicher became, in the words of Andreas Hillgruber, "in fact, if not in name [the] military-political head of the "Reichswehr"". Schleicher's triumph was also the triumph of the "modern" faction within the "Reichswehr", which favored a total war ideology and wanted Germany to become a dictatorship that would wage total war upon the other nations of Europe.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: During the 1920s Schleicher moved up steadily in the "Reichswehr", becoming the primary liaison between the army and civilian government officials. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel on 1 January 1924, and Colonel in 1926. On 29 January 1929, he became "Generalmajor". Schleicher generally preferred to operate behind the scenes, planting stories in friendly newspapers and relying on a casual network of informers to find out what other government departments were planning. Following the hyperinflation of 1923, the "Reichswehr" took over much of the administration of the country between September 1923 and February 1924, a task in which Schleicher played a prominent role.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: The appointment of Groener as Defence Minister in January 1928 did much to advance Schleicher's career. Groener, who regarded Schleicher as his "adopted son", created the "Ministeramt" (Office of the Ministerial Affairs) for Schleicher in 1928. The new office officially dealt with all matters relating to joint concerns of the Army and Navy, and was tasked with liaising between the military and other departments, and between the military and politicians. Because Schleicher interpreted that mandate very broadly, the "Ministeramt" quickly became the means by which the "Reichswehr" interfered in politics. The creation of the "Ministeramt" formalized Schleicher's position as the chief political fixer for the "Reichswehr", a role which had existed informally since 1918. He became "Chef des Ministeramtes" on 1 February 1929.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Like his patron Groener, Schleicher was alarmed by the results of the "Reichstag" election of 1928, in which the Social Democrats (SPD) won the largest share of the vote on a platform of scrapping the building of "Panzerkreuzer" A, the intended lead ship of the proposed "Deutschland" class of "pocket battleships" together with the entire "pocket battleship" building programme. Schleicher opposed the prospect of a "grand coalition" headed by the SPD's Hermann Müller, and made it clear that he preferred that the SPD be excluded from power on the grounds that their anti-militarism disqualified them from office. Both Groener and Schleicher had decided in the aftermath of the 1928 elections to put an end to democracy as the Social Democrats could not be trusted with power. Groener depended on Schleicher to get favorable military budgets passed. Schleicher justified Groener's confidence by getting the naval budget for 1928 passed despite the opposition of the Social Democrats. Schleicher prepared Groener's statements to the Cabinet and attended Cabinet meetings on a regular basis. Above all, Schleicher won the right to brief President Hindenburg on both political and military matters.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: In 1929, Schleicher came into conflict with Werner von Blomberg, the chief of the "Truppenamt" (the disguised General Staff). That year Schleicher had started a policy of "frontier defense" ("Grenzschutz"), under which the "Reichswehr" would stockpile arms in secret depots and start training volunteers, in excess of the limits imposed by Versailles, in the eastern parts of Germany facing Poland. Blomberg wished to extend the system to the French border. Schleicher disagreed, wanting to give the French no excuse to delay their 1930 withdrawal from the Rhineland. Blomberg lost the struggle and was demoted from command of the "Truppenamt" and sent to command a division in East Prussia.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: In late 1926 or early 1927 Schleicher told Hindenburg that if it were impossible to form a government headed by the German National People's Party alone, then Hindenburg should "appoint a government in which he had confidence, without consulting the parties or paying attention to their wishes", and with "the order for dissolution ready to hand, give the government every constitutional opportunity to get a majority in Parliament." Together with Hindenburg's son, Major Oskar von Hindenburg, Otto Meißner, and General Wilhelm Groener, Schleicher was a leading member of the "Kamarilla" that surrounded President von Hindenburg. It was Schleicher who came up with the idea of a presidential government based on the so-called "25/48/53 formula", which referred to the three articles of the Weimar Constitution that could make a presidential government possible:


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher's idea was to have Hindenburg use his powers under Article 53 to appoint a man of Schleicher's choosing as Chancellor, who would rule under the provisions of Article 48. Should the "Reichstag" threaten to annul any laws so passed, Hindenburg could counter with the threat of dissolution. Hindenburg was unenthusiastic about these plans, but was pressured into going along with them by his son, Meißner, Groener, and Schleicher. Schleicher was well known for his sense of humor, his lively conversational skills, his sharp wit and his habit of abandoning his upper class aristocratic accent to speak his German with a salty working class Berlin accent, full of risqué phrases that many found either charming or vulgar.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: During the course of the winter of 1929–30 Schleicher undermined the "Grand Coalition" government of Hermann Müller by means of various intrigues, with the support of Groener and Hindenburg. In January 1930, after receiving "Zentrum" political party's Heinrich Brüning's assent to heading a presidential government, Schleicher had told Brüning that the "Hindenburg government" was to be "anti-Marxist" and "anti-parliamentarian", and under no conditions were the Social Democrats to be allowed to serve in office, even though the SPD was the largest party in the "Reichstag". In March 1930 Müller's government fell, and the first presidential government headed by Brüning came into office. The German historian Eberhard Kolb described the presidential governments that began in March 1930 as a sort of 'creeping' "coup d'état", by which the government gradually become more and more authoritarian and less and less democratic, a process that culminated with the Nazi regime in 1933. The British historian Edgar Feuchtwanger called the Brüning government Schleicher's "brainchild".


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Although essentially a Prussian authoritarian, Schleicher also believed that the Army had a social function as an institution unifying the diverse elements in society. He was also opposed to policies such as Eastern Aid (Osthilfe) for the bankrupt East Elbian estates of his fellow Junkers.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: To bypass Part V of the Treaty of Versailles, which had forbidden conscription, Schleicher engaged the services of the SA and other paramilitaries as the best substitute for conscription. From December 1930 onwards, Schleicher was in regular secret contact with Ernst Röhm, the leader of the SA, who soon became one of his best friends. On 2 January 1931 Schleicher changed the Defense Ministry's rules to allow National Socialists to serve in military depots and arsenals, though not as officers, combat troops or sailors. Before 1931, members of the military had been strictly forbidden to join any political parties, because the "Reichswehr" was supposed to be non-political. It was only National Socialists who were allowed to join the "Reichswehr" in Schleicher's changing of the rules; if a member of the "Reichswehr" joined any other political party, he would be dishonourably discharged. In March 1931, without the knowledge of either Groener or Adolf Hitler, Schleicher and Röhm reached a secret arrangement that in the event of a war with Poland or a Communist "putsch", or both, the SA would mobilise and come under the command of "Reichswehr" officers in order to deal with the national emergency. The close friendship between Schleicher and Röhm was later in 1934 to provide a seemingly factual basis to Hitler's claim that Schleicher and Röhm had been plotting to overthrow him, thus justifying the assassination of both.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Like the rest of the "Reichswehr" leadership, Schleicher saw democracy as an impediment to military power, and was convinced that only a dictatorship could make Germany a great military power again. It was Schleicher's dream to create a "Wehrstaat" (Military State), in which the military would reorganize German society as part of the preparations for the total war that the "Reichswehr" wished to wage. From the second half of 1931 onwards Schleicher was the leading advocate within the German government of the "Zähmungskonzept" (taming concept) where the Nazis were to be "tamed" by being brought into the government. Schleicher, a militarist to the core, greatly admired the militarism of the Nazis; and the fact that "Grenzschutz" was working well, especially in East Prussia where the SA was serving as an unofficial militia backing up the "Reichswehr" was seen as a model for future Army-Nazi co-operation.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher became a major figure behind the scenes in the presidential cabinet government of Heinrich Brüning between 1930 and 1932, serving as an aide to "General" Groener, the Minister of Defense. Eventually, Schleicher, who established a close relationship with "Reichspräsident" ("Reich President") Paul von Hindenburg, came into conflict with Brüning and Groener and his intrigues were largely responsible for their fall in May 1932.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: One of Schleicher's aides later recalled that Schleicher viewed the Nazis as "an essentially healthy reaction of the "Volkskörper"" and praised the Nazis as "the only party that could attract voters away from the radical left and had already done so." Schleicher planned to secure Nazi support for a new right-wing presidential government of his creation, thereby destroying German democracy. Schleicher would then crush the Nazis by exploiting feuds between various Nazi leaders and by incorporating the SA into the "Reichswehr". During this period, Schleicher became increasingly convinced that the solution to all of Germany's problems was a "strong man" and that he was that strong man.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher told Hindenburg that his gruelling re-election campaign was the fault of Brüning. Schleicher claimed that Brüning could have had Hindenburg's term extended by the "Reichstag", but that he chose not to in order to humiliate Hindenburg by making him appear on the same stage as Social Democratic leaders. Brüning banned the SA and the SS on 13 April 1932 on the grounds they were ones chiefly responsible for the wave of political violence afflicting Germany. The banning of the SA and SS saw an immediate and huge drop in the amount of political violence in Germany but threatened to destroy Schleicher's policy of reaching out to the Nazis, and as a result Schleicher decided that both Brüning and Groener had to go.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: On 16 April, Groener received an angry letter from Hindenburg demanding to know why the "Reichsbanner", the paramilitary wing of the Social Democrats had not also been banned. This was especially the case as Hindenburg said he had solid evidence that the "Reichsbanner" was planning a coup. The same letter from the president was leaked and appeared that day in all the right-wing German newspapers. Groener discovered that Eugen Ott, a close protégé of Schleicher, had made the Social Democratic "putsch" allegations to Hindenburg and leaked the President's letter. British historian John Wheeler-Bennett wrote that the evidence for an intended SPD "putsch" was "flimsy" at best, and this was just Schleicher's way of discrediting Groener in Hindenburg's eyes. Groener's friends told him that it was impossible that Ott would fabricate allegations of that sort or leak the President's letter on his own, and that he should sack Schleicher at once. Groener refused to believe that his old friend had turned on him and refused to fire Schleicher.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: At the same time, Schleicher started rumors that General Groener was a secret Social Democrat, and argued that because Groener's daughter was born less than nine months after his marriage, Groener was unfit to hold office. On 8 May 1932, in exchange for promising to dissolve the "Reichstag" and lift the ban on the SA and the SS, Schleicher received a promise from Hitler to support a new government. After Groener had been savaged in a "Reichstag" debate with the Nazis over the alleged Social Democratic "putsch" and Groener's lack of belief in it, Schleicher told his mentor that "he no longer enjoyed the confidence of the Army" and must resign at once. When Groener appealed to Hindenburg, the president sided with Schleicher and told Groener to resign. With that, Groener resigned as Defense and Interior Minister.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: On 30 May 1932, Schleicher's intrigues bore fruit when Hindenburg dismissed Brüning as Chancellor and appointed Franz von Papen as his successor. Feuchtwanger called Schleicher the "principal wire-puller" behind Brüning's fall.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher had chosen Papen, who was unknown to the German public, as new Chancellor because he believed he could control Papen from behind the scenes. Kolb wrote of Schleicher's "key role" in the downfall of not only Brüning, but also the Weimar Republic, for, by bringing down Brüning, Schleicher unintentionally set off a series of events that would lead directly to the Third "Reich".


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher's example in bringing down the Brüning government led to a more overt politicization of the "Reichswehr". From the spring of 1932 officers such as Werner von Blomberg and Walther von Reichenau had started talks on their own with the NSDAP. Schleicher's example actually served to undermine his own power, since, in part, his power had always rested on the fact that he was the only general who was allowed to talk to the politicians.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: The new Chancellor, Von Papen, in return appointed Schleicher as Minister of Defense, who now became "General der Infanterie". Schleicher had selected the entire cabinet himself before he even had approached Papen with the offer to be Chancellor. The first act of the new government was to dissolve the "Reichstag" in accordance with Schleicher's "gentlemen's agreement" with Hitler on 4 June 1932. On 15 June 1932, the new government lifted the ban on the SA and the SS, who were secretly encouraged to indulge in as much violence as possible, both to discredit democracy and to provide a pretext for the new authoritarian regime Schleicher was working to create.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Besides ordering new "Reichstag" elections, Schleicher and Papen worked together to undermine the Social Democratic government of Prussia headed by Otto Braun. Schleicher fabricated evidence that the Prussian police under Braun's orders were favoring the Communist "Rotfrontkämpferbund" in street clashes with the SA, which he used to get an emergency decree from Hindenburg imposing "Reich" control on Prussia. To facilitate his plans for a coup against the Prussian government and to avert the danger of a general strike which had defeated the Kapp Putsch of 1920, Schleicher had a series of secret meetings with trade union leaders, during which he promised them a leading role in the new authoritarian political system he was building, in return for which he received a promise that there would be no general strike in support of Braun.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: In the "Rape of Prussia" on 20 July 1932, Schleicher had martial law proclaimed and called out the "Reichswehr" under Gerd von Rundstedt to oust the elected Prussian government, which was accomplished without a shot being fired. Using Article 48, Hindenburg named Papen the "Reich" Commissioner of Prussia. To help with advice for the new regime that he was planning to create, in the summer of 1932 Schleicher engaged the services of a group of right-wing intellectuals known as the "Tatkreis", and through them got to know Gregor Strasser.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: In the "Reichstag" election of 31 July 1932, the NSDAP became the largest party as expected. In August 1932, Hitler reneged on the "gentlemen's agreement" he made with Schleicher that May, and instead of supporting the Papen government demanded the Chancellorship for himself. Schleicher was willing to accept Hitler's demand, but Hindenburg refused, preventing Hitler from receiving the Chancellorship in August 1932. Schleicher's influence with Hindenburg started to decline. Papen himself was most offended at the way Schleicher was prepared to forsake him casually.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: On 12 September 1932, Papen's government was defeated on a no-confidence motion in the "Reichstag", at which point the "Reichstag" was again dissolved. In the election of 6 November 1932, the NSDAP lost seats, but still remained the largest party. By the beginning of November, Papen had shown himself to be more assertive than Schleicher had expected; this led to a growing rift between the two. Schleicher brought down Papen's government on 3 December 1932, when Papen told the Cabinet that he wished to declare martial law rather than losing face after another motion of no-confidence. Schleicher released the results of a war game which showed that if martial law was declared, the "Reichswehr" would not be able to defeat the various paramilitary groups. With the martial law option now off the table, Papen was forced to resign and Schleicher became Chancellor. This war games study, which was done by and presented to the Cabinet by one of Schleicher's close aides General Eugen Ott, was rigged with the aim of forcing Papen to resign. Papen became consumed with hatred against his former friend who had forced him from office.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher hoped to attain a majority in the "Reichstag" by gaining the support of the Nazis for his government. In mid-December 1932, Schleicher told a meeting of senior military leaders that the collapse of the Nazi movement was not in the best interests of the German state. By the end of 1932, the NSDAP was running out of money, increasingly prone to in-fighting and was discouraged by the "Reichstag" election of November 1932 where the party had lost votes. Schleicher took the view that the NSDAP would sooner or later have to support his government because only he could offer the Nazis power and otherwise the NSDAP would continue to disintegrate.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: To gain Nazi support while keeping himself Chancellor, Schleicher talked of forming a so-called "Querfront" ("cross-front"), whereby he would unify Germany's fractious special interests around a non-parliamentary, authoritarian, but participatory regime as a way of forcing the Nazis to support his government. It was hoped that faced with the threat of the "Querfront", Hitler would back down in his demand for the Chancellorship and support Schleicher's government instead. Schleicher was never serious about creating a "Querfront"; he intended it to be a bluff to compel the NSDAP to support the new government. As part of his attempt to blackmail Hitler into supporting his government, Schleicher went through the motions of attempting to found the "Querfront" by reaching out to the Social Democratic labor unions, the Christian labor unions, and the economically left-wing branch of the Nazi Party, led by Gregor Strasser.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: On 4 December 1932, Schleicher met with Strasser and offered to restore the Prussian government from "Reich" control and make Strasser the new Minister-President of Prussia. Schleicher's hope was that the threat of a split within the Nazi Party, with Strasser leading his faction out of the party, would force Hitler to support the new government. Schleicher's policy failed as Hitler isolated Strasser in the party.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: One of the main initiatives of the Schleicher government was a public works program intended to counter the effects of the Great Depression, which was shepherded by Günther Gereke, whom Schleicher had appointed special commissioner for employment. The various public works projects—which were to give 2 million unemployed Germans jobs by July 1933 and are often wrongly attributed to Hitler—were the work of the Schleicher government, which had passed the necessary legislation in January.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher's relations with his Cabinet were poor because of Schleicher's secretive ways and open contempt for his ministers. With two exceptions, Schleicher retained all of Papen's cabinet, which meant that much of the unpopularity of the Papen government was inherited by Schleicher's government. Shortly after Schleicher became Chancellor, he told some joke at the expense of Major Oskar von Hindenburg, which greatly offended the younger Hindenburg and reduced Schleicher's access to the President. Papen by contrast had been able to stay on excellent terms with both Hindenburgs.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Regarding tariffs, Schleicher refused to make a firm stand. Schleicher's non-policy on tariffs hurt his government very badly when on 11 January 1933 the leaders of the Agricultural League launched a blistering attack on Schleicher in front of Hindenburg. The Agricultural League leaders attacked Schleicher for his failure to keep his promise to raise tariffs on food imports, and for allowing to lapse a law from the Papen government that gave farmers a grace period from foreclosure if they defaulted on their debts. Hindenburg forced Schleicher to accede to all of the League's demands.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: In foreign policy, Schleicher's main interest was in winning "Gleichberechtigung" ("equality of status") at the World Disarmament Conference, which would do away with Part V of the Treaty of Versailles that had disarmed Germany. Schleicher made a point of cultivating the French ambassador André François-Poncet and stressing his concern with improving Franco-German relations. This was in part because Schleicher wanted to ensure French acceptance of "Gleichberechtigung" in order to allow Germany to rearm without fear of a French "preventative war." He also believed that improving Berlin-Paris relations would lead the French to abrogate the Franco-Polish alliance of 1921, which would allow Germany to partition Poland with the Soviet Union without having to go to war with France. In a speech before a group of German journalists on 13 January 1933, Schleicher proclaimed that based on the acceptance "in principle" of "Gleichberechtigung" by the other powers at the World Disarmament Conference in December 1932, he planned to have by no later than the spring of 1934 a return to conscription and for Germany to have all the weapons forbidden by Versailles.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: On 20 January 1933, Schleicher missed one of his best chances to save his government. Wilhelm Frick—who was in charge of the Nazi "Reichstag" delegation when Hermann Göring was not present—suggested to the "Reichstag"'s agenda committee that the "Reichstag" go into recess until the next budget could be presented, which would have been some time in the spring. Had this happened, by the time the recess ended, Schleicher would have been reaping the benefits of the public works projects that his government had begun in January, and in-fighting within the NSDAP would have worsened. Schleicher had his Chief of Staff, Erwin Planck, tell the "Reichstag" that the government wanted the recess to be as short as possible, which led to the recess being extended only to 31 January as Schleicher believed mistakenly that the "Reichstag" would not dare bring a motion of no-confidence against him as that would mean another election.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: The ousted Papen now had Hindenburg's ear, and used his position to advise the President to sack Schleicher at the first chance. Papen was urging the aged President to appoint Hitler as Chancellor in a coalition with the Nationalist "Deutschnationale Volkspartei" (German National People's Party; DNVP) who, together with Papen, would supposedly work to rein in Hitler. Papen was holding secret meetings with both Hitler and Hindenburg, who then refused Schleicher's request for emergency powers and another dissolution of the "Reichstag". Schleicher for a long time refused to take seriously the possibility that Papen was working to bring him down.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: The consequence of promoting the idea of presidential government where everything depended upon President Hindenburg's whims, with the "Reichstag" weakened, meant that when Hindenburg decided against Schleicher, the latter was in an extremely weak political position. By January 1933, Schleicher's reputation as the destroyer of governments, as a man who was just as happy intriguing against his friends as his enemies, and as a man who had betrayed all who had trusted him, meant he was universally distrusted and disliked by all factions, which further weakened his attempts to stay in power.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: On 28 January 1933, Schleicher told his Cabinet that he needed a decree from the President to dissolve the "Reichstag", or otherwise his government was likely to be defeated on a no-confidence vote when the "Reichstag" reconvened on 31 January. Schleicher then went to see Hindenburg to ask for the dissolution decree, and was refused. Upon his return to meet with the Cabinet, Schleicher announced his intention to resign, and signed a decree allowing for 500 million "Reichsmarks" to be spent on public works projects. Schleicher thought his successor was going to be Papen, and as such it was towards blocking that event that Schleicher devoted his energy.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: On 29 January, Werner von Blomberg was sworn in by Hindenburg as Defense Minister promptly and in an illegal manner because in late January 1933 there were wild and untrue rumors circulating in Berlin that Schleicher was planning on staging a "putsch".


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: The military, which until that moment had been Schleicher's strongest bastion of support, now suddenly withdrew its support, seeing the Nazis and not Schleicher as the only ones who could mobilize popular support for a "Wehrstaat" (Defense State). By late January 1933 most senior officers in the Army were advising Hindenburg that Schleicher needed to go.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: That same day, Schleicher, learning that his government was about to fall, and fearing that his rival Papen would get the Chancellorship, began to favor a Hitler Chancellorship. Knowing of Papen's by now boundless hatred for him, Schleicher knew he had no chance of becoming Defense Minister in a new Papen government, but he felt his chances of becoming the Defense Minister in a Hitler government were very good.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Hitler was initially willing to support Schleicher as Defense Minister but a meeting with Schleicher's associate Werner von Alvensleben convinced Hitler that Schleicher was about to launch a "putsch" to keep him out of power. In a climate of crisis, with wild rumors running rampant that Schleicher was moving troops into Berlin to depose Hindenburg, Papen convinced the President to appoint Hitler Chancellor the next day. The President dismissed Schleicher, calling Hitler into power on 30 January 1933. In the following months, the Nazis issued the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act, transforming Germany into a dictatorship.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Schleicher's successor as Defense Minister was his arch-enemy Werner von Blomberg. One of Blomberg's first acts as Defense Minister was to carry out a purge of the officers associated with Schleicher. Blomberg sacked Ferdinand von Bredow as chief of the "Ministeramt" and replaced him with General Walter von Reichenau, Eugen Ott was dismissed as chief of the "Wehramt" and exiled to Japan as military attaché, and General Wilhelm Adam was fired as chief of the "Truppenamt" (the disguised General Staff) and replaced with Ludwig Beck. The Army Commander-in-Chief and close associate of Schleicher's, General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, resigned in despair in February 1934 as his powers had become more nominal than real. With Hammerstein's resignation, the entire Schleicher faction which dominated the Army since 1926 had all been removed from their positions within the High Command, and thus destroyed any remaining source of power for Schleicher.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: In the spring of 1934, hearing of the growing rift between Ernst Röhm and Hitler over the role of the SA in the Nazi state, Schleicher began playing politics again. Schleicher criticized the current Hitler cabinet, while some of Schleicher's followers—such as General Ferdinand von Bredow and Werner von Alvensleben—started passing along lists of a new Hitler Cabinet in which Schleicher would become vice-chancellor, Röhm minister of defense, Brüning foreign minister and Strasser minister of national economy. Schleicher believed that as a "Reichswehr" general and as a close friend of Röhm that he could successfully mediate the dispute between Röhm and the military over Röhm's demands that the SA absorb the "Reichswehr", and that as such Hitler would fire Blomberg and give him back his old job as Defense Minister.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Hitler had considered Schleicher a target for assassination for some time. When the Night of the Long Knives occurred from 30 June to 2 July 1934, Schleicher was one of the chief victims. At about 10:30 am on 30 June 1934, a group of men wearing trench coats and fedoras emerged from a car parked on the street outside Schleicher's villa (Griebnitzstrasse 4, Neubabelsberg near Potsdam) and walked up to Schleicher's home. While Schleicher was talking on the phone, he heard somebody knocking at his door, and placed the phone down. Schleicher's last words, heard by his friend on the phone, were ""Jawohl, ich bin General von Schleicher"" ("Yes, I am General von Schleicher"), followed by two shots. Upon hearing the shots, his wife Elisabeth von Schleicher ran into the front lobby, where she was gunned down as well.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: At his funeral, Schleicher's friend von Hammerstein was offended when the SS refused to allow him to attend the service and confiscated wreaths that the mourners had brought. Hammerstein and "Generalfeldmarschall" August von Mackensen began trying to have Schleicher rehabilitated. The army somehow obtained Schleicher's file from the SS. Mackensen led a meeting of 400 officers that drank a toast to Schleicher, and entered his and Bredow's names into the regimental honor roll.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: In his speech to the "Reichstag" on 13 July justifying his actions, Hitler denounced Schleicher for conspiring with Röhm to overthrow the government. Hitler alleged that both Schleicher and Röhm were traitors working in the pay of France. As Schleicher had been a good friend of André François-Poncet, and because of his reputation for intrigue, the claim that Schleicher was working for France had enough surface plausibility for most Germans to accept it, though it was not in fact true. The falsity of Hitler's claims could be seen in that François-Poncet was not declared "persona non grata" as normally would happen if an Ambassador were caught being involved in a coup plot against his host government. François-Poncet stayed on as French ambassador in Berlin until October 1938, which is incompatible with Hitler's claim that the Frenchman had been involved in a plot to overthrow him.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: The army's support for clearing Schleicher's reputation was effective. In late 1934-early 1935, Werner von Fritsch and Werner von Blomberg, whom Hammerstein had shamed into joining his campaign, successfully pressured Hitler into rehabilitating General von Schleicher, claiming that as officers they could not stand the press attacks on Schleicher, which portrayed him as a traitor working for France. In a speech given on 3 January 1935 at the Berlin State Opera, Hitler stated that Schleicher had been shot "in error", that his murder had been ordered on the basis of false information, and that Schleicher's name was to be restored to the honor roll of his regiment.


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: The remarks rehabilitating Schleicher were not published in the German press, though "Generalfeldmarschall" von Mackensen announced Schleicher's rehabilitation at a public gathering of General Staff officers on 28 February 1935. As far as the Army was concerned, the matter of Schleicher's murder was settled. The Nazis continued in private to accuse Schleicher of high treason. Hermann Göring told Jan Szembek during a visit to Warsaw in January 1935 that Schleicher had urged Hitler in January 1933 to reach an understanding with France and the Soviet Union, and partition Poland with the latter, which was why Hitler had Schleicher assassinated. Hitler told the Polish Ambassador Józef Lipski on 22 May 1935 that Schleicher was "rightfully murdered, if only because he had sought to maintain the Rapallo Treaty".


title: Kurt von Schleicher

text: Upon hearing of the assassination, former German Emperor Wilhelm II, living in exile in the Netherlands, commented, "We have ceased to live under the rule of law and everyone must be prepared for the possibility that the Nazis will push their way in and put them up against the wall!"


title: Logitech

text: Logitech International S.A. ( ; often shortened to Logi) is a Swiss multinational manufacturer of computer peripherals and software, with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Newark, California. The company has offices throughout Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, and is one of the world's leading manufacturers of input and interface devices for personal computers (PCs) and other digital products. It is a component of the flagship Swiss Market Index.


title: Logitech

text: The company develops and markets personal peripherals for PC navigation, video communication and collaboration, music and smart homes. This includes products like keyboards, mice, tablet accessories, headphones and headsets, webcams, Bluetooth speakers, universal remotes and more. Its name is derived from "logiciel", the French word for software.


title: Logitech

text: Logitech was founded in Apples, Vaud, Switzerland, in 1981 by Stanford alumni Daniel Borel and Pierluigi Zappacosta, and former Olivetti engineer Giacomo Marini. For a time during its formative years, Logitech's Silicon Valley offices occupied space at 165 University Avenue, Palo Alto, California, home to a number of noted technology startups.


title: Logitech

text: In 2001, Logitech acquired Labtec for $150 million in order to expand its range of computer peripherals.


title: Logitech

text: In 2007, Logitech licensed Hillcrest Labs' Freespace motion control technology to produce the MX Air Mouse, which allows a user to use natural gestures to control a PC.


title: Logitech

text: In August 2008, Logitech acquired Ultimate Ears, supplier of custom in-ear monitors for professional musicians and Bluetooth speakers for the consumer market.


title: Logitech

text: In January 2013, Bracken Darrell became Logitech's chief executive officer; then-CEO Guerrino De Luca continued as Logitech's chairman of the board.


title: Logitech

text: In April 2016, Logitech agreed to pay penalty related to accusations that it and some former executives improperly inflated the company's results for its 2011 fiscal year to meet guidance and other accounting violations. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the alleged accounting issues left investors without an accurate view of the Swiss company's finances.


title: Logitech

text: On 12 April 2016, Logitech announced that they had agreed to acquire Jaybird, a leader in wireless audio wearables for sports and active lifestyles, for , with an additional earnout of up to based on achievement of growth targets.


title: Logitech

text: On 15 September 2016, Logitech announced that they had purchased the Saitek brand and assets from Mad Catz for .


title: Logitech

text: On 25 March 2017, Logitech signed a multi-year sponsorship deal with McLaren as the Official Technology Peripherals Partner. The deal would later be extended to McLaren's eSports endevours under the Logitech G brand in 2020. On 11 August 2017, Logitech acquired Astro Gaming, makers of professional gaming equipment (mainly headsets), for .


title: Logitech

text: On 26 September 2019, Logitech acquired Streamlabs, producer of software and tools for live-streaming, for approximately $89 million. In the same year, they also acquire Challonge, a webtool used to manage e-sport tournament brackets.


title: Logitech

text: On 29 July 2021, Logitech, in collaboration with choreographer JaQuel Knight, introduced its #Creators4BIPOC initiative under the Logitech For Creators brand. It allows social media creators, particularly BIPOC influencers, to copyright and monetize their online creations by making it possible for choreographers who amplify attention to hits by major artists in the entertainment business to secure copyright of their choreography using Labanotation and earn royalties from it.


title: Logitech

text: The first Logitech mice, starting from the P4, were made in Le Lieu, in the Swiss Canton of Vaud by .


title: Logitech

text: Production facilities were then established in the United States, Taiwan, Hungary and Ireland before being moved to Suzhou, China. , the manufacturing operations in China produce approximately half of Logitech's products. The remaining production is outsourced to contract manufacturers and original design manufacturers in Asia.


title: 2023–24 UEFA Champions League

text: The 2023–24 UEFA Champions League will be the 69th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 32nd season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League.


title: 2023–24 UEFA Champions League

text: The final will be played at the Wembley Stadium in London, United Kingdom. The winner of the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League will automatically qualify for the 2024–25 UEFA Champions League's league stage, and also earn the right to play against the winner of the 2023–24 UEFA Europa League in the 2024 UEFA Super Cup.


title: 2023–24 UEFA Champions League

text: This edition will be the final season with the current format of 32 teams participating at the group stage, after UEFA announced that a brand new format would be introduced for the following edition.


title: 2023–24 UEFA Champions League

text: A total of 80 teams from 54 of the 55 UEFA member associations are set to participate in the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League (the exception being Liechtenstein, which does not organise a domestic league). The association ranking based on the UEFA association coefficients is used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:


title: 2023–24 UEFA Champions League

text: For the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League, the associations are allocated places according to their 2022 UEFA association coefficients, which takes into account their performance in European competitions from 2017–18 to 2021–22. The team allocation reflects Russia's ongoing suspension from UEFA competitions.


title: 2023–24 UEFA Champions League

text: Apart from the allocation based on the association coefficients, associations may have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:


title: 2023–24 UEFA Champions League

text: The second qualifying round, third qualifying round and play-off round are divided into Champions Path (CH) and League Path (LP).


title: 2023–24 UEFA Champions League

text: The schedule of the competition is as follows. All matches are played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays apart from the preliminary round final and the final.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: In a legend, Saint Georgea soldier venerated in Christianitydefeats a dragon. The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tribute once a year. This was acceptable to the villagers until a princess was chosen as the next offering. The saint thereupon rescues the princess chosen as the next offering. The narrative was first set in Cappadocia in the earliest sources of the 11th and 12th centuries, but transferred to Libya in the 13th-century "Golden Legend".


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The narrative has pre-Christian origins (Jason and Medea, Perseus and Andromeda, Typhon, etc.), and is recorded in various saints' lives prior to its attribution to St. George specifically. It was particularly attributed to Saint Theodore Tiro in the 9th and 10th centuries, and was first transferred to Saint George in the 11th century. The oldest known record of Saint George slaying a dragon is found in a Georgian text of the 11th century.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The legend and iconography spread rapidly through the Byzantine cultural sphere in the 12th century. It reached Western Christian tradition still in the 12th century, via the crusades. The knights of the First Crusade believed that St. George, along with his fellow soldier-saints Demetrius, Maurice, Theodore and Mercurius had fought alongside them at Antioch and Jerusalem. The legend was popularised in Western tradition in the 13th century based on its Latin versions in the "Speculum Historiale" and the "Golden Legend". At first limited to the courtly setting of Chivalric romance, the legend was popularised in the 13th century and became a favourite literary and pictorial subject in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and it has become an integral part of the Christian traditions relating to Saint George in both Eastern and Western tradition.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The iconography of the dragon appears to grow out of the serpent entwining the "tree of life" on one hand, and with the "draco" standard used by late Roman cavalry on the other.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Horsemen spearing serpents and boars are widely represented in Roman-era stelae commemorating cavalry soldiers.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: A carving from Krupac, Serbia, depicts Apollo and Asclepius as Thracian horsemen, shown besides the serpent entwined around the tree. Another stele shows the Dioscuri as Thracian horsemen on either side of the serpent-entwined tree, killing a boar with their spears.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The development of the hagiographical narrative of the dragon-fight parallels the development of iconography.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: It draws from pre-Christian dragon myths. The Coptic version of the Saint George legend, edited by E. A. Wallis Budge in 1888, and estimated by Budge to be based on a source of the 5th or 6th century, names "governor Dadianus", the persecutor of Saint George as "the dragon of the abyss". a greek myth with similar elements of the legend is the battle between Bellerophon and the Chimera. Budge makes explicit the parallel to pre-Christian myth,


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: I doubt much of the whole story of Saint George is anything more than one of the many versions of the old-world story of the conflict between Light and Darkness, or Ra and Apepi, and Marduk and Tiamat, woven upon a few slender threads of historical fact. Tiamat, the scaly, winged, foul dragon, and Apepi the powerful enemy of the glorious Sungod, were both destroyed and made to perish in the fire which he sent against them and their fiends: and Dadianus, also called the 'dragon', with his friends the sixty-nine governors, was also destroyed by fire called down from heaven by the prayer of Saint George.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: In anticipation of the Saint George iconography, first noted in the 1870s, a Coptic stone fenestrella shows a mounted hawk-headed figure fighting a crocodile, interpreted by the Louvre as Horus killing a metamorphosed Setekh.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Depictions of "Christ militant" trampling a serpent is found in Christian art of the late 5th century. Iconography of the horseman with spear overcoming evil becomes current in the early medieval period.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Iconographic representations of St Theodore as dragon-slayer are dated to as early as the 7th century, certainly by the early 10th century (the oldest certain depiction of Theodore killing a dragon is at Aghtamar, dated c. 920).


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Theodore is reported as having destroyed a dragon near Euchaita in a legend not younger than the late 9th century.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Early depictions of a horseman killing a dragon are unlikely to represent St. George, who in the 10th century was depicted as killing a human figure, not a dragon.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The earliest image of St Theodore as a horseman (named in Latin) is from Vinica, North Macedonia and, if genuine, dates to the 6th or 7th century. Here, Theodore is not slaying a dragon, but holding a "draco" standard.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: George stands besides a cynocephalous St. Christopher, both saints treading on snakes with human heads, and aiming at their heads with spears.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Maguire (1996) has connected the shift from unnamed equestrian heroes used in household magic to the more regulated iconography of named saints to the closer regulation of sacred imagery following the iconoclasm of the 730s.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: In the West, a Carolingian-era depiction of a Roman horseman trampling and piercing a dragon between two soldier saints with lances and shields was put on the foot of a "crux gemmata", formerly in the Treasury of the Basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht (lost since the 18th c.). The representation survives in a 17th-century drawing, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The "Christianisation" of the Thracian horseman iconography can be traced to the Cappadocian cave churches of Göreme, where frescoes of the 10th century show military saints on horseback confronting serpents with one, two or three heads. One of the earliest examples is from the church known as Mavrucan 3 (), generally dated to the 10th century, which portrays two "sacred riders" confronting two serpents twined around a tree, in a striking parallel to the Dioskuroi stela, except that the riders are now attacking the snake in the "tree of life" instead of a boar.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: In this example, at least, there appear to be two snakes with separate heads, but other examples of 10th-century Cappadocia show polycephalous snakes.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: A poorly preserved wall-painting at the ("Snake Church") that depicts the two saints Theodore and George attacking a dragon has been tentatively dated to the 10th century, or alternatively even to the mid-9th.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: is from the "Zoodochos Pigi" chapel in central Macedonia in Greece, in the prefecture of Kilkis, near the modern village of Kolchida, dated to the 9th or 10th century.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The dragon motif was transferred to the George legend from that of his fellow soldier saint, Saint Theodore Tiro.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The transfer of the dragon iconography from Theodore, or Theodore and George as "Dioskuroi" to George on his own, first becomes tangible in the early 11th century.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: In the well-known version from Jacobus de Voragine's "Legenda aurea" ("The Golden Legend", 1260s), the narrative episode of Saint George and the Dragon took place somewhere he called "Silene", in Libya.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Silene in Libya was plagued by a venom-spewing dragon dwelling in a nearby pond, poisoning the countryside. To prevent it from affecting the city itself, the people offered it two sheep daily, then a man and a sheep, and finally their children and youths, chosen by lottery. One time the lot fell on the king's daughter. The king offered all his gold and silver to have his daughter spared, but the people refused. The daughter was sent out to the lake, dressed as a bride, to be fed to the dragon.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Saint George by chance arrived at the spot. The princess tried to send him away, but he vowed to remain. The dragon emerged from the pond while they were conversing. Saint George made the Sign of the Cross and charged it on horseback, seriously wounding it with his lance. He then called to the princess to throw him her girdle (), and he put it around the dragon's neck. When she did so, the dragon followed the girl like a "meek beast" on a leash.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The princess and Saint George led the dragon back to the city of Silene, where it terrified the populace. Saint George offered to kill the dragon if they consented to become Christians and be baptized. Fifteen thousand men including the king of Silene converted to Christianity. George then killed the dragon, beheading it with his sword, and the body was carted out of the city on four ox-carts. The king built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint George on the site where the dragon died and a spring flowed from its altar with water that cured all disease.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Only the Latin version involves the saint striking the dragon with the spear, before killing it with the sword.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The "Golden Legend" narrative is the main source of the story of Saint George and the Dragon as received in Western Europe,


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The princess remains unnamed in the "Golden Legend" version, and the name "Sabra" is supplied by Elizabethan era writer Richard Johnson in his "Seven Champions of Christendom" (1596). In the work, she is recast as a princess of Egypt. This work takes great liberties with the material, and makes St. George marry Sabra and have English children, one of whom becomes Guy of Warwick.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Alternative names given to the princess in Italian sources still of the 13th century are "Cleolinda" and "Aia". Johnson also supplied the Saint George's sword name "Ascalon".


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: and the "detailed" form also including the princess and the city walls or towers of Lacia (Lasia) with spectators witnessing the miracle.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The "concise" type originates in Cappadocia, in the 10th to 11th century (transferred from the same iconography associated with Saint Theodore of Tiro in the 9th to 10th century).


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The earliest certain example of the "detailed" form may be a fresco from Pavnisi (dated c. 1160), although the examples from Adishi, Bochorma and Ikvi may be slightly earlier.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The oldest example in Russia found on walls of the church of St George in Staraya Ladoga, dated c. 1167.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: In Russian tradition, the icon is known as ; i.e., "the miracle of George and the dragon." The saint is mostly shown on a white horse, facing right, but sometimes also on a black horse, or facing left.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The princess is usually not included. Another motif shows George on horseback with the youth of Mytilene sitting behind him.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The motif of Saint George as a knight on horseback slaying the dragon first appears in western art in the second half of the 13th century.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The tradition of the saint's arms being shown as the red-on-white St. George's Cross develops in the 14th century.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: Edmund Spenser expands on the Saint George and the Dragon story in Book I of the "Fairy Queen", initially referring to the hero as the "Redcross Knight".


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: William Shakespeare refers to Saint George and the Dragon in "Richard III" ( "Advance our standards, set upon our foes Our ancient world of courage fair St. George Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons" act V, sc. 3), "Henry V" ( "The game's afoot: follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!"' act III, sc. 1), and also in "King Lear" (act I).


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: A 17th-century broadside ballad paid homage to the feat of George's dragon slaying. Titled "St. George and the Dragon", the ballad considers the importance of Saint George in relation to other heroes of epic and Romance, ultimately concluding that all other heroes and figures of epic or romance pale in comparison to the feats of George.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: "The Banner of St George" by Edward Elgar is a ballad for chorus and orchestra, words by Shapcott Wensley (1879).


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: The 1898 "Dream Days" by Kenneth Grahame includes a chapter entitled "The Reluctant Dragon", in which an elderly Saint George and a benign dragon stage a mock battle to satisfy the townsfolk and get the dragon introduced into society. Later made into a film by Walt Disney Productions, and set to music by John Rutter as a children's operetta.


title: Saint George and the Dragon

text: In 1935 Stanley Holloway recorded a humorous retelling of the tale as "St. George and the Dragon" written by Weston and Lee.