| Frank Turner – Love Ire & Song Lyrics | 15 years ago |
|
Lets be 1905 but not 1917 refers to Russian history, 1905 was when anti czarist sentiment in Russia started to swell, there were assassinations of nobility, union agitation, anarchist and socialist politics that extended into political terrorism, the whole shebang. World War 1 put attention elsewhere for a while, but in 1917 due to riots Czar Nicolas was forced to abdicate, as large portions of the public were furious with the way the government was conducting their efforts in ww1. A provisional government was set up at one point the government was not really fighting the war but the Bolsheviks were, and a few months later the Bolsheviks counter revolted in October, which led to the Russian Civil War, in which the White Army lost to the Reds who eventually consolidated into the Soviet Union. The Whites were mostly monarchists that wanted a constitutional monarchy, or just ideologically anti Bolshevik. The Light Brigade line does refer to the Tennyson poem, which again refers to a battle in the Crimean War in the 1850s in which 600 or so British Cavalrymen were sort of accidentally sent into a valley between two hills filled with Russian artillery to force back a force at the end of the valley. The officer who tried to turn them when he realized what was going on was hit with artillery and they kept going, changed through and ended up losing about half of their number but accomplishing their objective, some observers thought the British must have been drunk to charge through artillery the way they did, but as insane brave accidents go it isn't bad. Frank Turner has a graduate degree in European History if I remember correctly. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.