title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The artillery consisted of various field, mountain and fortress guns, most of it produced by the two world-leading manufacturers Schneider and Krupp. During the Second Balkan War, the Bulgarian army had lost a sizable quantity of its artillery, but by 1915 the country managed to recover its losses and even increase the number of available guns, so that by October 1915, the artillery park consisted of 1,211 pieces, of which 418 were not quick-firing guns. The ammunition for the artillery was however in short supply, and the lack of any large home-based manufacturing capability left the army with only about 500 shells per gun, enough to satisfy the artillery's needs for about two months.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: Bulgaria possessed a small naval force of torpedo gunboats and patrol boats that were restricted to operating only in the coastal areas of the Black Sea and along the river Danube. Following the Second Balkan War, the country acquired an outlet on the Aegean Sea, and in January 1915 the "Aegean" Section of the Bulgarian Navy was created by a royal decree. Initially, only 78 soldiers were assigned to the small force and were given a task to observe and defend the coastline by laying naval mines. These activities were centered on the ports of Porto Lagos and Dedeagach, but the true development of the facilities there was hampered by financial difficulties.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The Bulgarian air force had gained some experience during the First Balkan War, but its development was halted following the defeat in the Second Balkan War. The airplane and balloon sections were reduced to two companies and made part of a technical battalion that was attached to the army's engineers. The airplane section, which included 5 functional aircraft and 124 men (including 8 pilots), was stationed on an airfield outside of Sofia. Despite the difficult conditions, the command took measures to improve the material and personnel situation of the air troops by building a special repair workshop and opening a specialized school for the training of pilots, observers and technicians. Bulgaria's hostile neighbors practically isolated it from the big airplane manufacturers and prevented it from receiving new aircraft. Under these circumstances, an alternative had to be provided by a few Bulgarian air enthusiasts who attempted to build a fully functional Bulgarian airplane. In the summer of 1915, Assen Jordanoff was the first to succeed in this task by designing and building the first Bulgarian-made airplane, which was later named Diplane Yordanov-1. Still, in September 1915, the airplane section had only two German-made Albatros B.I, two French-made Blériot IX-2 and one Blériot IX-bis. They were however joined by three German Fokker-Е80Е-III and their German crew, whose task was to defend Sofia from any attacks. It was only after Bulgaria entered the war that the air force was able to receive new aircraft.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: 1915 also saw the birth of the anti-aircraft component of the Bulgarian armed forces. The first such specialized formation was a mixed battery of six guns (2 quick-firing 75 mm Krupp guns and 4 not quick-firing 87 mm Krupp guns), seven machine guns (five Madsen and two Hotchkiss), which was deployed around Sofia.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The decree for general mobilization of the Bulgarian Army was issued by the Bulgarian government on 22 September 1915, but as this happened late in the evening, the orders reached the local authorities only on the next day. Around this time the total surface area of the kingdom was 114,424 square kilometers and its population stood at 4,930,151 people, out of whom 2,484,122 were males.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The mobilization was carried out behind the established schedule because the nature of Colonel Ganchev's mission to Germany was held in great secrecy to the last moment, even from the Bulgarian General Staff, which was left out of the negotiations completely. The whole mobilization period, which lasted for 17 or 18 days, was accompanied with some difficulties of material character due to the insufficient quantities of uniforms, horses and carts. Even though there was no serious manpower shortage, the absence of the enthusiasm demonstrated during the mobilization prior the First Balkan War was visible. By the beginning of October, the total number of mobilized personnel reached 616,680 men, which represented over 12 percent of the population and almost a quarter of the male inhabitants of the country. Instead of the five divisions required by the military convention, Bulgaria mobilized 11 infantry and one cavalry division as well as numerous auxiliary and militia units. Most of these forces were deployed in three field armies, two of which concentrated on the Serbian border and one on the Romanian border.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The Bulgarian constitution designated the monarch as commander-in-chief of the Bulgarian armed forces in time of peace and in time war. In practice, however, the Bulgarian tsar could delegate this function in wartime by granting all the powers of the commander-in-chief to a different person. During the First Balkan War, Tsar Ferdinand had remained acting supreme commander, but his lack of military education and experience forced him to rely heavily on his assistant commander-in-chief Lieutenant General Mihail Savov.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The experience of the Balkan Wars convinced the tsar in 1915 to delegate the title and its powers entirely to a different person. Out of the few appropriate candidates that were available, Ferdinand chose the pro-German Minister of War Major General Nikola Zhekov. The powers of the commander-in-chief were not regulated by law and even from the beginning, this caused some friction with the government. In his new role, General Zhekov exercised direct control over all forces except those that remained in the interior of the country, which were placed under the command of the new Minister of War Major General Kalin Naydenov. At the same time, Major General Konstantin Zhostov succeeded Lieutenant General Kliment Boyadzhiev, who was appointed commander of the 1st Army as Chief of the Bulgarian General Staff.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The military convention between Bulgaria and the Central Powers laid down the general plan for its campaign against the Kingdom of Serbia. It severely limited the control of the Bulgarian High Command over the Bulgarian 1st Army, which was designated part of a combined German, Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian force commanded by Field Marshal August von Mackensen. He had recently led the German and Austro-Hungarian armies in the highly successful and victorious Gorlice–Tarnów Offensive of the Central Powers against the Russian army on the Eastern Front. His army group was created specifically to wage war against the Serbian army in the pre-1913 borders of the country ("Old Serbia"), to defeat it wherever it found it and to open the land route between Hungary and Bulgaria. As commander, Mackensen acted independently and received his directives only from the German High Command. However, the field marshal's orders to his Bulgarian forces had to be relayed to the commander of the 1st Army by the Bulgarian General Staff, which left room for the latter to intervene when needed. According to the convention, the Bulgarian commander-in- chief retained full and direct control over the Bulgarian 2nd Army and its operations in Vardar Macedonia.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The general mobilization of the Bulgarian Army caused great concern in Serbia, but its military leaders were quick to respond by drafting a plan to deter Bulgaria from entering into the war. The build-up of Serbian forces along the Bulgarian border peaked by the first week of October 1915, when 145 battalions, 25 squadrons and 316 guns were concentrated and prepared for operations against Bulgaria. These forces represented half the entire Serbian Army of 288 battalions, 40 squadrons and 678 guns. The plan relied heavily on the support of the Allies, from whom the Serbians expected to draw another 150,000 men for the defense of Vardar Macedonia. The Serbian government pressed this issue before the governments of the major Entente powers, but was not able to negotiate any commitment on their part. France, Britain and Russia were unable and unwilling to dispatch large numbers of troops, and instead felt that Greece, which had a defensive treaty with Serbia, should act in case of a Bulgarian attack.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: Allied inactivity allowed the Central Powers to continue their preparations for the offensive undisturbed. By early October, however, the Austro-Hungarians were unable to furnish the required minimum of 6 divisions for the attack, so the Germans had to step in with additional forces. The forces, under the overall command of Field Marshal Mackensen, were deployed in the German 11th Army, with 7 German divisions led by General Max von Gallwitz, and the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army, with 4 Austro-Hungarian and 3 German divisions led by General Hermann Kövess von Kövessháza. On 6 October 1915, Mackensen opened the offensive, as scheduled, with a powerful artillery barrage along the Sava–Danube front and on the next day, the main body of his forces crossed the rivers.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: According to the convention, Bulgaria was obliged to move against Serbia within five days of the German and Austro-Hungarian attack, but owing to a delay in the concentration of some of the forces needed, the schedule could not be kept. The Serbians were surprised by Bulgarian inactivity and were forced to begin shifting part of their forces from the Bulgarian border to face the Germans and Austro-Hungarians to the north, which eventually allowed their eastern neighbors to finish their preparations undisturbed. The Bulgarians deployed two field armies with a combined strength of almost 300,000 men. The Bulgarian 1st Army had a ration strength of 195,820 men. The 2nd Army, which remained under the direct control of the Bulgarian commander-in-chief, consisted of two infantry and one cavalry division under the command of Lieutenant General Georgi Todorov. The two armies were to operate against Old Serbia and Vardar Macedonia on a front stretching over 300 kilometers.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: On 14 October, with most of the preparations completed, Bulgaria finally declared war on Serbia and officially entered the First World War. Around this time, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians had penetrated into Serbia on a front that was 140 kilometers in length and 15 kilometers in depth. In order to close the 90-kilometer gap between the flanks of the German 11th Army and the Bulgarian 1st Army, Mackensen ordered the latter to invade the valley of the river Morava and take Niš and Aleksinac. In accordance with this order, the Bulgarians attacked along the entire front of their 1st Army, quickly driving out the Serbian units and taking control of the border area. Following this easy success, the speed of the advance was much reduced due to the bad weather, which turned roads into mud, and a dense fog that sometimes limited visibility to 50 meters. In addition, the stiffening Serbian resistance and the mountainous character of the area caused the flanks of the 1st Army to halt before the fortresses of Pirot and Zaječar that were only 15 kilometers from the border. A breakthrough in the centre of the front forced the Serbians to retreat, and the two towns were occupied on 26 October.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: Despite its smaller size, the Bulgarian 2nd Army achieved much greater success and completed its first objective as early as 16 October by taking the town of Vranje and severing all railway communications between Serbia and Vardar Macedonia. A small part of the army was then directed in the direction of Niš with the idea of assisting the 1st Army and cutting off the Serbian retreat routes. The remaining units advanced further west, reaching Veles and Kumanovo on 20 October. During the fighting around Veles, other Bulgarian troops located around Krivolak and Strumitsa for the first time met French forces that were finally advancing north in an attempt to aid the Serbians (See: Battle of Krivolak). The appearance of this new threat to the south forced the Bulgarian High Command to prepare the transportation of two more infantry divisions to Macedonia and divide the 2nd Army in two groups: a northern group operating against the Serbians and a southern group operating against the Allies. On 22 October, following a brief confrontation between Serbian and Bulgarian forces, the town of Skopje was taken, and a detachment was sent to occupy the Kacanik pass and block the Serbian retreat. The rapid advance of the Bulgarian 2nd Army created favorable conditions for the encirclement of the entire Serbian Army fighting in Old Serbia. The Bulgarian High Command decided to focus this objective and ordered the forces operating against the Allies to the south to assume defensive positions.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The exploits of the Bulgarian 2nd Army in Macedonia convinced the Serbians that the danger of complete encirclement was high and forced them to begin withdrawing their forces to Kosovo while offering stiff resistance to Army Group Mackensen. On 1 November, Kragujevac fell to the Germans, who began pursuing their opponents down the river Great Morava. Mackensen ordered his forces to "push the main body of the Serbian Army back and decisively beat it in the interior of Serbia". In accordance, the Bulgarian 1st Army continued its advance and captured the Niš, the wartime capital of Serbia, taking around 5,000 prisoners on 5 November. On the same day, the flanks of the German 11th Army and the Bulgarian 1st Army joined in a single line, closing the gap between them. Thus the main objectives of the Bulgarian Morava Offensive were completed, but more importantly, the main objective of the entire campaign was also completed and the land route from Austria-Hungary to Bulgaria was opened permanently.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The Serbian Army was now retreating and concentrating on the Kosovo plain, where they hoped to make a stand and buy time either to breakthrough and join the Allies in Macedonia or escape an encirclement. Under these circumstances, the Bulgarian High Command and the headquarters of Army Group Mackensen agreed to pursue the retreating Serbians relentlessly, to cut their possible retreat routes and to undertake a decisive advance towards Pristina. The plan required the Bulgarian 1st Army to attack from the east, the reinforced Northern Operations Group of the Bulgarian 2nd Army from the south, parts of the German 11th army from the north and finally the main forces of the Austro-Hungarian 3rd Army from the northwest. The plan however did not take into account the swollen waters of the river Morava, which slowed down its crossing. As a result of this delay, the Serbians concentrated greater forces against the Bulgarian 2nd Army, which was the main obstacle sitting between them and the Allies, but also the greatest threat to their retreat routes leading to Albania. Thus, when the operation started, the Serbians were not only able to resist the 2nd Army, but also launch a desperate attempt to break through it at Kacanik and reach the Allies. They succeeded in doing so because of the slow advance of the Austro-German and Bulgarian forces from the north and east due to the bad weather, bad roads and overextended supply lines. Mackensen had even pulled back most of the 11th Army, leaving only two divisions in the first line, which greatly reduced the already weak will of the German forces to advance rapidly. Despite this, the exhausted Serbians were not able to break through the northern group of the 2nd Army and retreated. Bulgarian attempts to cut their retreat from the south were thwarted, and when the Bulgarian 1st Army and the German 11th Army took Pristina on 23 November, the Serbian High Command was able to order a general retreat of the entire army to Albania in order to avoid its complete destruction. The pursuit of the retreating opponent was left mostly to Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian forces and on 29 November, the 3rd "Balkan" division took Prizren. Within days, the towns of Debar, Struga, Ohrid were also occupied. Finally, on 4 December, the Bulgarians entered Bitola. This marked the end of the operations against the Serbian Army, which continued its retreat through the Albanian mountains, and lost around 55,000 men in the process. Around 150,000 Serbian troops gathered in different Albanian ports and were evacuated by Allied ships to the island of Korfu. This beaten and demoralized force had lost practically all its equipment and had to be rebuilt from scratch.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: In November, while the decisive Serbian defeat unfolded, the French attempted to exert pressure on the Bulgarian 2nd Army, but were soon forced to halt their attempts to drive north. The forces of General Maurice Sarrail that consisted of three French and one British division dug in along an 80-kilometer front from the river Cherna to Lake Doiran. With the fall of Pristina, General Sarrail realized that the Allies could no longer help the Serbians and decided to begin pulling back his forces to Salonika. The Bulgarian High Command shifted its focus to the Allies in Macedonia and decided that the time was right to go on the offensive. Several days were lost, however, in scouting, and it was only on 3 December that the 2nd army commenced a general advance. Nonetheless, the French were able to retreat in good order towards Salonika. They were soon followed by the British, who were defeated at the Battle of Kosturino. On 11 December, the Bulgarian divisions reached the Greek border, where they were ordered to halt and warned repeatedly not to cross.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: By the middle of December, the entire Kingdom of Serbia was occupied by the armies of the Central Powers and the Allies were pushed back to Salonika by the Bulgarians. Within two months of its entry into the war, Bulgaria achieved its main war goal: the conquest of Vardar Macedonia. For the duration of military operations against Serbia and the Entente in 1915, the Bulgarian Army committed a total of around 424,375 men, while its casualties were held to around 37,000 men.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: By the end of 1915, the Central Powers had established firm and unbroken control over a vast territory that stretched from the North Sea to Mesopotamia. They also drew great political and military dividends from the defeat and occupation of Serbia. Bulgaria conquered almost all the territory it desired, Germany gained unrestricted access to the natural resources of Ottoman Asia, the Ottomans received much needed German matériel assistance and Austria-Hungary secured its southern flank and could completely focus its attention on the Russian and Italian fronts.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: Since November 1915, when Serbia was occupied, the Bulgarian army launched crimes against the civilian population. The use of the Serbian language was banned and books in the Serbian language were burned in Niš and Leskovac. Bulgarian soldiers publicly executed those that declared themselves Serbian, the worst example being the Surdulica massacre, where an estimated 2,000–3,000 Serbian men were executed in two years. Bulgarian atrocities purportedly sparked the Toplica Uprising in 1917. Bulgarian forces swiftly suppressed the insurrection, killing over 20,000 civilians and guerrillas in retribution. Bulgarians have deflected blame for these atrocities onto the Austro-Hungarians, though reliable sources confirm their culpability. Following the Allied breakthrough on the Macedonian front, Serbia pressed for an invasion of Bulgaria; this proposal was blocked by the British who feared the Serbs would take revenge on the Bulgarian population.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: In September 1918 the French, British, Italians, Serbs and Greeks broke through on the Macedonian Front during the Vardar Offensive and Tsar Ferdinand was forced to sue for peace. Under the terms of the Armistice of Salonica, Bulgarian troops had to evacuate all occupied Greek and Serbian territory; agree to surrender all of its arms and weapons of war; and the evacuation of all German and Austrian troops and Allied occupation of strategic points inside Bulgaria. With revolts occurring throughout the country, the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union leader Aleksandar Stamboliyski was released from prison in hopes of quelling the discontent. In order to head off the revolutionaries, he persuaded Ferdinand to abdicate in favour of his son Boris III. The revolutionaries were suppressed and the army disbanded.


title: Bulgaria during World War I

text: The story ¨Kradetzat na praskovi¨ (English: "The Thief of Peaches") depicts the love story between a Bulgarian colonel's wife and a Serbian prisoner of war. The First World War is so far best presented in that story by the late Emiliyan Stanev, one of the greatest Bulgarian writers.


title: Military exercise

text: A military exercise or war game is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat. This also serves the purpose of ensuring the combat readiness of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment from a home base. While both war games and military exercises aim to simulate real conditions and scenarios for the purpose of preparing and analyzing those scenarios, the distinction between a war game and a military exercise is determined, primarily, by the involvement of actual military forces within the simulation, or lack thereof. Military exercises focus on the simulation of real, full-scale military operations in controlled hostile conditions in attempts to reproduce war time decisions and activities for training purposes or to analyze the outcome of possible war time decisions. War games, however, can be much smaller than full-scale military operations, do not typically include the use of functional military equipment, and decisions and actions are carried out by artificial players to simulate possible decisions and actions within an artificial scenario which usually represents a model of a real-world scenario. Additionally, mathematical modeling is used in the simulation of war games to provide a quantifiable method of deduction. However, it is rare that a war game is depended upon for quantitative results, and the use of war games is more often found in situations where qualitative factors of the simulated scenario are needed to be determined.


title: Military exercise

text: The actual use of war games and the results that they can provide are limited by possibilities. War games cannot be used to achieve predictive results, as the nature of war and the scenarios that war games aim to simulate are not deterministic. Therefore, war games are primarily used to consider multiple possible outcomes of any given decision, or number of decisions, made in the simulated scenario. These possible outcomes are analyzed and compared, and cause-and-effect relationships are typically sought for the unknown factors within the simulation. It is typically the relationships between visual aspects of the simulation that aid in the assessment of the problems that are simulated within war games, like geographic locations and positionings that would be difficult to discern or analyze at full-scale and for complex environments.


title: Military exercise

text: War games involving two or more countries allows for better coordination between militaries, observation of enemy's tactics, and is a visible show of strength for the participating countries. According to a 2021 study, joint military exercises within well-defined alliances usually deter adversaries without producing a moral hazard because of the narrow scope of the alliance, while joint military exercises outside of an alliance (which are extremely rare) usually lead to conflict escalation.


title: Military exercise

text: Exercises in the 20th and 21st centuries have often been identified by a unique codename, such as Cobra Gold, in the same manner as military contingency operations and combat operations like Operation Phantom Fury.


title: Military exercise

text: Military exercises are sometimes used as cover for build up to an actual invasion such as in the cases of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, or it can provoke opponents at peace to perceive it as such in the case of Able Archer 83.


title: Military exercise

text: A Command Post Exercise (CPX) typically focuses on the battle readiness of staffs such as a particular Unified Combatant Command or one of its components at any level. It may run in parallel with an FTX or its equivalent, or as a stand-alone event for headquarters staff only with heavy emphasis on simulated events.


title: Military exercise

text: Historical names for the field exercise, or the full-scale rehearsal of military maneuvers as practice for warfare in the military services of the British Commonwealth include "schemes," while those of the military services United States are known as Field Training Exercises (FTX), or, in the case of naval forces, Fleet Exercises (FLEETEX).


title: Military exercise

text: In a field exercise or fleet exercise, the two sides in the simulated battle are typically called "red" (simulating the enemy forces) and "blue", to avoid naming a particular adversary. This naming convention originates with the inventors of the table-top war-game (the "Kriegsspiel"), the Prussian Georg von Reisswitz; their army wore Prussian blue, so friendly forces were depicted by the color blue.


title: Military exercise

text: Several different armed forces of the same nation training together are described as having a joint exercise.


title: Military exercise

text: Those involving forces of multiple nations are described as having a combined exercise or coalition exercise, also called a bilateral exercise if based on security agreements between two nations, or a multilateral exercise if multiple nations.


title: Military exercise

text: Other types of exercise include the TEWT (Tactical Exercise Without Troops), also known as a sand table, map or cloth model exercise. This type of exercise (in recent years assisted by computer simulation) allows commanders to manipulate models through possible scenarios in military planning. This is also called warfare simulation, or in some instances a virtual battlefield and in the past has been described as "wargames." Such examples of modern military wargames include DARWARS, a serious game developed since 2003 by the US DARPA agency with BBN Technologies, a defense contractor which was involved in the development of packet switching, used for ARPANET, and which developed the first computer modem in 1963.


title: Military exercise

text: Military's operations and training have included different scenarios a soldier might encounter with morals and different ethics. In one military operation soldiers are frequently asked to engage in combat, humanitarian, and stabilization roles. These increase the ambiguity of a role one may encounter and challenge of ethics. This will also lead the military personnel to have to make a difficult call in challenging circumstances. Even in difficult situations and conditions, military personnel still has to follow rules and regulations such as: 1) when the right thing to do is not immediately clear; 2) when two or more important principles or values support different actions, and 3) when some harm will result, regardless of the actions taken (Defense Ethics Program, Department of National Defense, 2012). These simulations involve crude living conditions, sleep deprivations, time limit, and either lack or ambiguous amount of information.


title: Military exercise

text: A subset of simulated exercises is the Table Top Exercise (TTX), typically limited to senior personnel stepping through the decision-making processes they would employ in a crisis, a contingency, or general warfare.


title: Military exercise

text: The use of military exercises and war games can be found to date back to as early as the early 19th century, wherein it was the officers of the Prussian Army who created the contemporary, tactical form of wargames that have since been more widely used and developed by other military conglomerations throughout the world. Non-tactical forms of wargames have existed for much longer, however, in the forms of tabletop games such as chess and Go.


title: Military exercise

text: The modern use of military exercises grew out of the military need to study warfare and to 'reenact' old battles for learning purposes. During the age of "Kabinettskriege" (Cabinet wars), Frederick the Great, King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, "put together his armies as a well-oiled clockwork mechanism whose components were robot-like warriors. No individual initiative was allowed to Frederick's soldiers; their only role was to cooperate in the creation of walls of projectiles through synchronized firepower."


title: Military exercise

text: This was in the pursuit of a more effective army, and such practices made it easier to look at war from a top-down perspective. Disciplined troops should respond predictably, allowing study to be confined to maneuvers and command.


title: Military exercise

text: The stunning Prussian victory over the Second French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) is sometimes partly credited to the training of Prussian officers with the game Kriegspiel, which was invented around 1811 and gained popularity with many officers in the Prussian army. These first wargames were played with dice which represented "friction", or the intrusion of less than ideal circumstances during a real war (including morale, meteorology, the fog of war, etc.).


title: Military exercise

text: 21st century militaries still use wargames to simulate future wars and model their reaction. According to Manuel de Landa, after World War II the Command, Control and Communications (C) was transferred from the military staff to the RAND Corporation, the first think tank. Around the mid to late 20th century, computer simulated war games were created to replace traditional war gaming methods with the goal of optimizing and speeding up the process and making it possible to analyze more complex scenarios with greater ease. In 1958, the Naval War college installed a computer war game system where their traditional war gaming activities were held. The system was called the Navy Electronic Warfare System, and cost over $10 million to install. The change from traditional war gaming methods to electronic computer simulated ones meant that the value and accuracy of a war game simulation was less dependent on skill and individual experiences, and more dependent on quantitative data and complicated analysis methods.


title: Military exercise

text: Von Neumann was employed by the RAND Corporation, and his game theory was used in wargames to model nuclear dissuasion during the Cold War. Thus, the US nuclear strategy was defined using wargames, "SAM" representing the US and "IVAN" the Soviet Union.


title: Military exercise

text: Early game theory included only zero-sum games, which means that when one player won, the other automatically lost. The Prisoner's dilemma, which models the situation of two prisoners in which each one is given the choice to betray or not the other, gave three alternatives to the game:


title: Military exercise

text: This modelization gave the basis for the massive retaliation nuclear doctrine. The zero-sum fallacy and cooperative games would be theorized only later, while the evolution of nuclear technology and missiles made the massive retaliation nuclear strategy obsolete.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: Bloodhound LSR, formerly Bloodhound SSC, is a British land vehicle designed to travel at supersonic speeds with the intention of setting a new world land speed record. The arrow-shaped car, under development since 2008, is powered by a jet engine and will be fitted with an additional rocket engine. The initial goal is to exceed the current speed record of , with the vehicle believed to be able to achieve up to .


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: Driver Andy Green will attempt to break his own record, set in 1997. The previous business behind Project Bloodhound went into administration (bankruptcy) in late 2018. Entrepreneur Ian Warhurst bought the car to keep the project alive. A new company called Grafton LSR Ltd was formed to manage the project, which was renamed Bloodhound LSR and moved to SGS Berkeley Green University Technical College. Lack of funds and the COVID-19 pandemic stalled progress in 2020, and in 2021 the vehicle was offered for sale.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The venue for high speed testing and future world land speed record attempts is the Hakskeen Pan in the Mier area of the Northern Cape, South Africa. An area long and wide was identified as suitable, with the first runs in October 2019. Further runs in November 2019 achieved a top speed of , the eighth vehicle to attain a land speed of over .


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The Bloodhound project was announced on 23 October 2008 at the London Science Museum by Lord Drayson – then Minister of Science in the UK's Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills – who first suggested the project in 2006 to land speed record holders Richard Noble and Andy Green, a pilot and Wing Commander serving in the RAF. The two men, between them, have held the land speed record since 1983.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: In 1983, Noble, a self-described engineer and adventurer reached 633 mph (1,019 km/h) driving a turbojet-powered car named Thrust2 across the Nevada desert. In 1997, he headed the project to build ThrustSSC, which was driven by Green at , thereby breaking the sound barrier, a first for a land vehicle (in compliance with Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile rules). Green is also Bloodhound LSR's driver.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The Bloodhound project was named for the Bristol Bloodhound surface-to-air missile, a project that Bloodhound Chief Aerodynamicist Ron Ayers had previously worked on.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The project was at first based in the former Maritime Heritage Centre on the Bristol harbourside, next to Brunel's . In 2013 the project relocated to a larger site in Avonmouth. The head offices of the project moved to Didcot, Oxfordshire in late 2015.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: In May 2018, the team announced plans for high speed testing at in May 2019, and then a run in 2020. However, the company backing the project, Bloodhound Programme Ltd, went into administration (bankruptcy) in late 2018 leaving a funding gap of £25 million, which put the venture's future into question.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The project was "axed" in December 2018, with plans to sell off the remaining assets. Later that month, Yorkshire entrepreneur Ian Warhurst stepped in to rescue the project by buying the assets and intellectual property, including the car, for an undisclosed sum.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: In March 2019, it was announced that Warhurst had formed a new company called Grafton LSR Ltd. to manage the project, which became the car's legal owner. The company said in a statement that Warhurst was trying to save the project with new sponsors and partners.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The name of the new team became 'Bloodhound LSR' (for Land Speed Record). The car and the project's headquarters moved to SGS Berkeley Green University Technical College in Berkeley, Gloucestershire near Gloucester.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: High speed testing of the car took place at the Hakskeen Pan in October and November 2019. Test runs driven by Green began on 25 October, using only a Rolls-Royce Eurojet EJ200 engine, with an expectation of reaching . The car achieved on 6 November 2019, and a final top speed of on 16 November, making it the eighth vehicle to attain a land speed of over 600 mph.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: Lack of funds prevented the fitting of the Nammo rocket in 2020, and combined with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, this meant the opportunity to run the vehicle in 2021 was lost. In January 2021, Warhurst said the vehicle was up for sale and it was reported that the team had moved on to other projects. Warhurst stepped aside as CEO in August 2021 and Stuart Edmondson, the project's Engineering Operations Manager for the previous five years, took over the role. When interviewed in July 2022 Edmundson stated that, while on hold, the Bloodhound LSR project was "very much alive" and a new land speed record could be achieved very quickly if new investment could be secured. Edmundson also reported that the project had adopted a new environmental focus, with the aim of achieving a net zero carbon land speed record.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The car was designed by Bloodhound's Chief Aerodynamicist Ron Ayers and Chief Engineer Mark Chapman, along with aerodynamicists from Swansea University.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: Bloodhound LSR is designed to accelerate from 0 to in 38 seconds and decelerate using airbrakes at around 800 mph, a parachute at a maximum deployment speed of around and disc brakes below . The force on the driver during acceleration would be 2.5 g (two-and-a-half times his body weight) and up to 3 g during deceleration.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The aerodynamics of Bloodhound have been carefully calculated to make sure the car is safe and stable, particularly because it will create a shockwave when it reaches the speed of sound.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The College of Engineering at Swansea University has been heavily involved in the aerodynamic shape of the vehicle from the start. Dr Ben Evans and his team used Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technology designed by Professor Oubay Hassan and Professor Ken Morgan to provide an understanding of the aerodynamic characteristics of the proposed shape, at all speeds, including predicting the likely vertical, lateral and drag forces on the vehicle and its pitch and yaw stability. This technology, originally developed for the aerospace industry, was validated for a land-going vehicle during the design of ThrustSSC.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: Three prototype Eurojet EJ200 jet engines developed for the Eurofighter and bound for a museum were loaned to the project. The car will use one EJ200 to provide around half the thrust and power the car to . A custom monopropellant rocket designed by Nammo will be used to add extra thrust for the world land speed record runs. For the runs, the monopropellant rocket will be replaced with a hybrid rocket from Nammo. A third engine, a Jaguar supercharged V-8 is used as an auxiliary power unit to drive the oxidiser pump for the rocket, although this will be replaced by an electric motor.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: Initially Bloodhound SSC was going to use a custom hybrid rocket motor being designed by Daniel Jubb. The rocket was successfully tested at Newquay Airport in 2012. However, constraints on cost, time and test facilities led to a decision to instead use a rocket designed by Norwegian company Nammo.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: At first the plan was that the car would use a Nammo hybrid rocket or cluster of rockets, to be fuelled by solid hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene and liquid high-test peroxide oxidiser. This plan was revised in 2017 and the car will use a monopropellant rocket for the land speed record runs.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: For the car to achieve , the monopropellant rocket would need to produce around 40 kN (8992 lbf) of thrust and the EJ200 jet engine 90 kN (20,232 lbf) in reheat.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: For low-speed testing at Cornwall Airport Newquay in 2017, the car was fitted with four runway wheels based on those of an English Electric Lightning fighter jet with refurbished original tyres. These were replaced for the high-speed test runs in the desert in South Africa in 2019 by four diameter wheels weighing , forged from an aircraft-grade aluminium zinc alloy. These were designed to spin at up to 10,200 rpm and resist centrifugal forces of up to at the rim.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: Three Timken high-speed (DN around 1,000,000 at full speed) tapered roller bearings support each wheel. When the car's mass increased to , Timken recalculated bearing life to be 50 hours, or a 5000% safety factor given the less than 1 hour run time.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The car was built at sites in Bristol and Avonmouth. A full-scale model was unveiled at the 2010 Farnborough International Airshow, when it was announced that Hampson Industries would begin to build the rear chassis section of the car in the first quarter of 2011 and that a deal for the manufacture of the front of the car was due. The car was largely completed by October 2017 when full reheat static testing was undertaken with the jet engine at Cornwall Airport Newquay followed by low speed test runs.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: Further construction was carried out before the project went into administration and the car was then completed at Berkeley before high speed testing.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: Early in the project, Swansea University's School of the Environment and Society was enlisted to help determine a new test site for the record runs because the test site for the ThrustSSC record attempt had become unsuitable. The venue chosen for high speed testing and for the land speed record runs was Hakskeen Pan in the Mier area of the Northern Cape, South Africa, on a track measuring long. The local community cleared 16,500 tonnes of stones by hand from an area measuring 22 million square metres to create space for 20 tracks each 10 metres wide, as the car cannot run twice on the same strip of desert.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: High speed testing at Hakskeen Pan began in October 2019. The car achieved on its final run on 16 November 2019.


title: Bloodhound LSR

text: The Bloodhound Project had an education component designed to inspire future generations to take up careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by showcasing these subjects and interacting with young people and students, in partnership with engineering companies including Rolls-Royce. Bloodhound-related education activities are provided by Bloodhound Education Ltd, a standalone charity registered in 2016. The charity's Bloodhound Education Centre is at SGS Berkeley Green UTC.


title: ExCeL London

text: ExCeL London (an abbreviation for Exhibition Centre London) is an exhibition centre, international convention centre and former hospital in the Custom House area of Newham, East London. It is situated on a site on the northern quay of the Royal Victoria Dock in London Docklands, located between Canary Wharf and London City Airport


title: ExCeL London

text: The centre was designed by Moxley Architects and built by Sir Robert McAlpine. It opened in November 2000. In May 2008 it was acquired by Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company. Phase II of development, which included building London's first International Convention Centre (ICC) and creating an "eastern arrival experience", was completed on 1 May 2010 with Phase 3 expected to be completed by 2023/24.


title: ExCeL London

text: In 2015, CentrEd at ExCeL was opened, which expanded the centre's facilities to incorporate training and meeting space near the western entrance of the venue overlooking Royal Victoria Dock.


title: ExCeL London

text: The Royal Victoria Dock closed to commercial traffic in 1981, but it is still accessible to shipping. The Centre's waterfront location allows visiting vessels to moor alongside the Centre. An example of this is HMS "Sutherland" visiting the 2005 London Boat Show.


title: ExCeL London

text: The design of exhibition building consists of two column-free, rectangular, sub-divisible halls of approximately 479,493 sq. ft. (44,546 sq. m.), on either side of a central boulevard containing catering facilities and information points. There are also three sets of function rooms, one overlooking the water, another above the western end of the central boulevard, and the third on the north side of the building which are used for smaller meetings, seminars, presentations and corporate hospitality. The property is surrounded by six hotels, bars and restaurants, and 1,800 parking spaces situated underneath the property with 85 accessible spaces.


title: ExCeL London

text: ExCeL London has hosted numerous consumer and trade, private and public events, including exhibitions, conferences, concerts, weddings and religious events. Among these have been WorldSkills London 2011, the London Boat Show, the British International Motor Show, Grand Designs Live, the Carole Nash MCN Motorcycle Show, MCM London Comic Con, the London International Music Show, Star Wars Celebration Europe, London Marathon registration, the World Travel Market, The Clothes Show London, Defence Security and Equipment International (DSEi), The Dive Show, the Global Peace and Unity Event, the 2009 G-20 London Summit, IP Expo Europe and Summer in the City.


title: ExCeL London

text: In 2011 ExCeL London was awarded the Business Superbrand, and welcomed its 20 million visitor on 18 June 2014. ExCeL has also been awarded 'Venue of the Year' on several occasions at various industry ceremonies. In 2012, ExCeL hosted several events for the Olympics and Paralympics, and has since erected a "legacy wall" featuring the handprints of athletes who won Gold at the venue and the former Mayor of London Boris Johnson.


title: ExCeL London

text: In 2014 ExCeL hosted the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, chaired by American actress and UN Special Envoy Angelina Jolie and attended by 79 ministers from 123 country delegations.


title: ExCeL London

text: It was announced on 24 March 2020 that the centre was to be temporarily converted into the 4,000-bed NHS Nightingale Hospital as part of the response to the 2020 coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Military engineers and contractors supported the erection of the facility, and army medics assisted the NHS nurses, doctors and other staff. The Nightingale was opened on 3 April 2020 by Charles, Prince of Wales via videolink.


title: ExCeL London

text: ExCeL London is served by two Docklands Light Railway (DLR) stations, which span the full 600-metre length of the venue. The western entrance is directly linked to Custom House for ExCeL station, which serves the Platinum Suite and the event halls and is located next to the glass pyramid. Since 24 May 2022, the western entrance of ExCeL has been served by the Elizabeth Line (known as Crossrail while under construction), connecting the venue to central London in 12 minutes. This will eventually provide a direct link to Heathrow Airport in May 2023 once construction on the line is complete.


title: ExCeL London

text: The eastern entrance is connected to Prince Regent station. The eastern entrance serves the International Convention Centre (ICC at ExCeL), which was opened in 2010 by then-Mayor Boris Johnson and is London's first and currently only ICC. During major shows with large visitor attendances, extra shuttle trains are run between the venue and Canning Town station, which connects with London Underground's Jubilee line. Since June 2012, the Emirates Air Line cable car now links ExCeL to The O on the Greenwich Peninsula.


title: ExCeL London

text: ExCeL London is also located near London City Airport station, which is linked by the DLR and a number of dual-carriageway roads which also provide onward access to the office and commercial district of Canary Wharf.


title: ExCeL London

text: ExCeL London participates in the UN Global Compact Scheme, the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative which invites companies to align with universal principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. As part of this scheme, ExCeL hosts annual events to communication on progress addressing the issues of Human Rights, Labour, Environment and Anti-Corruption. Since joining the scheme in August 2007, ExCeL has undertaken a series of initiatives to reduce energy usage, increase recycling efforts and increase transparency across the business, such as the introduction of a whistleblowing hotline in May 2015. Despite this, there are no water bottle refilling facilities at the venue, forcing the purchase of water bottles.


title: ExCeL London

text: ExCeL publishes details of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts publicly in the UN Global Compact report and on their website. Currently ExCeL invests in the local community of Newham by supporting select charities, chiefly Newham All Star Sports Academy (NASSA) and Community Food Enterprise (CFE). ExCeL also provides space free of charge to local schools and sports teams, in addition to hosting an annual event called 'ExCeL in the Arts' for local children to attend. In 2016, ExCeL welcomed London celebrity chef, musician and entrepreneur Levi Roots, who in collaboration with a local food initiative organised a cooking class for local children


title: ExCeL London

text: For the 2012 Summer Olympics, ExCeL London was divided into five sports halls with capacities ranging from 5,000 to 7,000 that were used for boxing, fencing, judo, taekwondo, table tennis, weightlifting, and wrestling.


title: ExCeL London

text: ExCeL hosted two boxing matches on 10 December 2005, the first between British heavyweights Danny Williams and Audley Harrison and the second between Amir Khan and Daniel Thorpe.


title: ExCeL London

text: ExCeL also hosted the boxing match on 22 April 2008 between Amir Khan and Gairy St. Clair for the World Boxing Organization intercontinental lightweight title, and the boxing match on 29 November 2014 between Derek Chisora and Tyson Fury in a World Boxing Organization heavyweight championship eliminator.


title: ExCeL London

text: The Virgin Active London Triathlon is held at ExCeL London on an annual basis, with the cycling and running legs taking place within and around the venue and the swim taking place in Royal Victoria Dock, adjacent to ExCeL.


title: ExCeL London

text: The Formula E London ePrix was held for back to back races at ExCel in July 2021 with part of the circuit running around the arena and part of the circuit in the exhibition hall itself. It was also due to be held in 2020, however the event was cancelled after the ExCeL was repurposed as a temporary NHS hospital named NHS Nightingale, to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic.


title: ExCeL London

text: On 24 March 2020, the ExCeL was announced as a temporary NHS hospital, containing 5000 beds and named NHS Nightingale, to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic. This alternate care site was planned to shut down in early May 2020, but was also used as a mass vaccination centre as part of the COVID-19 vaccination programme from 11 January 2021.


title: ExCeL London

text: Demonstrators camped outside ExCel to protest against the DSEI fair in 2019, in an attempt to block access, which resulted in the police arresting 100 people for allegedly obstructing the highway.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Princess Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate (), (); known as Liselotte von der Pfalz, 27 May 1652 – 8 December 1722) was a German member of the House of Wittelsbach and, as "Madame" ("Duchesse d'Orléans"), the second wife of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (younger brother of Louis XIV of France), and mother of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, France's ruler during the Regency. She gained literary and historical importance primarily through preservation of her correspondence, which is of great cultural and historical value due to her sometimes very blunt descriptions of French court life and is today one of the best-known German-language texts of the Baroque period.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Although she had only two surviving children, she not only became the ancestress of the House of Orléans, which came to the French throne with Louis Philippe I, the so-called "Citizen King" from 1830 to 1848, but also became the ancestress of numerous European royal families, so she was also called the "Grandmother of Europe". Through her daughter she was the grandmother of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, the husband of Maria Theresa, and great-grandmother of Joseph II and Leopold II (both Holy Roman Emperors) and Marie Antoinette, the last Queen of France before the French Revolution.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Elizabeth Charlotte was born on 27 May 1652 in the castle of Heidelberg as the second child and only daughter of Charles I Louis, Elector Palatine, and his wife Charlotte of Hesse-Kassel. Named after her paternal grandmother Elizabeth Stuart and her own mother, from a young age she was nicknamed "Liselotte", a portmanteau of both her names. An emergency baptism was performed shortly after her birth due to her being very weak and thin. She was raised in the Reformed Protestant faith, the most widespread denomination in the Electoral Palatinate at that time.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte was a lively child who liked to run around and climb trees to nibble on cherries. She sometimes claimed that she would have preferred to be a boy, and referred to herself in her letters as a "wild child" ("rauschenplattenknechtgen").


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: The marriage of Liselotte's parents soon turned into a disaster, and Liselotte was frequently witness to acts of domestic violence. In 1657, Elector Charles I Louis separated from his wife Charlotte in order to marry morganatically with Marie Luise von Degenfeld, who thus became Liselotte's stepmother. Liselotte likely perceived her as an intruder, but had good relationships with many of her 13 half-siblings, the ""Raugrafen"". With two of her half-sisters, Louise (1661–1733) and Amalie Elisabeth, called "Amelise" (1663–1709), she kept a lifelong correspondence. Her half-brother Charles Louis (1658–1688), called "Karllutz", was a particular favorite of hers; she also called him "Black Head" ("Schwarzkopfel") because of his hair color and was ecstatic when he later visited her (1673) in Paris. His early death in battle deeply saddened her.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: The most important caregiver in Liselotte's life was her aunt Sophia of the Palatinate, her father's youngest sister, who also lived in Heidelberg Castle with Charles I Louis until her marriage in 1658 with Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In 1659, Liselotte's father sent her to her aunt's court in Hanover in an attempt to separate her from his estranged wife Charlotte. Liselotte later remembered this time as the happiest of her life. Sophia became an important motherly figure for her niece, and remained her most important confidante and correspondent throughout her life. During this time she also underwent a total of three trips to The Hague, where Liselotte met her paternal grandmother Elizabeth Stuart, the "Winter Queen" of Bohemia, who was still living in exile. Elizabeth wasn't particularly fond of children, but she became very fond of her granddaughter, whom she found similar to her own family, the Stuarts: "She is not like the House of Hesse...she is like ours". Her relatives in The Hague also included the slightly older William of Orange-Nassau, who was her playmate and was later to become King of England. She later also remembered the birth of Sophia's son George Louis, who also became King of England. Liselotte was fluent in French as early as 1661, when a French woman named Madame Trelon, who did not understand German, was appointed as her governess. When Duke Ernest Augustus of Brunswick took office as Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück in September 1662, Liselotte moved with Sophia to Iburg Castle.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In 1663 Elector Charles I Louis granted Liselotte's mother Charlotte monetary compensation in exchange for her vacating the Heidelberg residence. Immediately afterwards the Elector brought his daughter back to the court in Heidelberg. Liselotte now received a courtly education customary for princely houses at the time, consisting of lessons in French, dancing, playing the spinet, singing, handicrafts and history. In addition, she was regularly read to from the Bible "in two languages, German and French". Her new governess, Maria Ursula Kolb von Wartenberg, called "the Kolbin", instructed her against "any hatred or prejudice against someone because they belong to a different religion". This religious tolerance was quite unusual in its time and stemmed from the relatively relaxed attitude of her father Charles I Louis, who was a Calvinist himself, but had a built in Mannheim a Concordia church ("Konkordienkirche"), where the followers of the Calvinist (or Reformed), Lutheran and Catholic denominations could celebrate their rituals. Liselotte benefited from this relatively open religious attitude throughout her life; she had learned about the Lutheran denomination at court in Hanover and, decades later, she still knew how to sing Lutheran chorals by heart. Before her marriage, she was required to convert to the Catholic faith for dynastic reasons, though she remained skeptical of dogmatism throughout her life, and was often critical of "the priests", even while attending mass on a daily basis. She remained convinced of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and was critical of the Catholic veneration of the saints.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Etienne Polier, her first stable master and steward, became a lifelong confidante, whom she took with her to France after her marriage and who remained in her service for life.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte was married in 1671 to the brother of King Louis XIV of France, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, known as "Monsieur", the title given to the eldest brother of the King under the "Ancien Régime". As wife of the Duke of Orléans, Liselotte assumed the style of "Madame". This political union was conceived by Anna Gonzaga, Liselotte's aunt (as widow of Edward, Count Palatine of Simmern, Charles I Louis' younger brother) and an old friend of the Duke of Orléans; she negotiated the marriage contract, including the terms surrounding Liselotte's required conversion to Catholicism. Anna escorted Liselotte from Heidelberg to Paris. The wedding "per procurationem" took place on 16 November 1671 at the Cathedral of Saint Stephen in Metz by Bishop Georges d'Aubusson de La Feuillade; in representation of the groom was the Duke of Plessis-Praslin. The day before, she solemnly renounced her old Reformed faith and converted to the Roman Catholic faith. She met her husband, who was 12 years her senior, for the first time on 20 November 1671 in Châlons.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Until her husband's death in 1701, she resided in her own apartments in her husband's residences, the Palais Royal in Paris, and the Château de Saint-Cloud. The couple lived mostly at the royal court, where they had to be present for about three-quarters of the year, first in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and, after its completion in 1682, in the Palace of Versailles, where they had two adjacent apartments in the main wing. They also had apartments in the Palace of Fontainebleau, where the court went in autumn for the hunting season. Liselotte (unlike her husband) took part in this tradition with enthusiasm. She often rode with the King through the woods and fields all day long, from morning to night, without being deterred by occasional falls or sunburn. From Fontainebleau, the couple made regular visits to Montargis Castle, which belonged to Monsieur and which, according to their marriage contract, would later fall to Madame as a widow's seat. Liselotte maintained her own court of 250 people, which cost 250,000 livres annually, while her husband maintained an even larger one.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: This was the Duke of Orléans' second marriage, his first wife and cousin Henrietta of England died suddenly and under mysterious circumstances in 1670. He brought two daughters into his new marriage, 9-year-old Marie-Louise (with whom Liselotte was able to build a warm, sisterly relationship) and 2-year-old Anne Marie (who had no memory of her birth mother and whom Liselotte loved like her own child).


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte and Philippe's marriage was difficult, as he was bisexual and lived quite openly as such. He led a largely independent life, together with and influenced by his long-time lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine. He had many other favorites and numerous affairs with younger men, including Antoine Morel de Volonne (whom Monsieur made Liselotte's "Hofmarschall" during 1673–1683). Morel had a very poor reputation even by the standards of the time: "He stole, he lied, he swore, was atheist and sodomite and sold boys like horses."


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte had no choice but to come to terms with these conditions, and she ultimately became an unusually enlightened woman for her time, albeit in a somewhat resigned way:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Her most important biographer, the historian and Antwerp professor of French baroque literature Dirk Van der Cruysse, judges: "She was providentially placed between two completely dissimilar brothers, of whom the older made up for the fundamental inability of his younger brother through his appreciation and friendship: to love anyone other than herself. She showed her affection to both of them, wholeheartedly and without any ulterior motives, and accepted the overwhelming power of the one as well as the Italian inclinations of the other without complaint, as destined by fate."


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Philippe fulfilled his marital duties rather reluctantly; he didn't want to be hugged by Liselotte if possible and even scolded her when she accidentally touched him in his sleep. After fathering three children with his new wife, in 1676 he finally ended their sexual relationship, to Liselotte's own relief.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte became very close to her brother-in-law Louis XIV. He was "...enchanted by the fact that this was an extremely witty and lovely woman, that she danced well...". He was often quite amused by her open, humorous and refreshingly uncomplicated nature. They often went hunting together—a rather unusual occupation for a noble lady of the time. Her habit of going for long walks was also noticed by the French court and was initially mocked (she even went for a walk in the park at night) but the King was delighted: "The King used to say: "il n’y a que Vous qui jouissés des beautés de Versailles" (you are the only one who enjoys the beauties of Versailles)".


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Despite the fact that she was not particularly beautiful (considered an important asset at French court) and was somewhat unconventional in manners, Liselotte made a good impression on the courtiers. Originally they expected a 'rough' and 'uncultivated' foreigner. Madame de Sévigné remarked "What a delight to have a woman again who can't speak French!", in reference to Queen Maria Theresa, who had never really learned to speak French and was sensitive to the teasing and jokes of the "Précieuses". Later, however, the marquise praised Liselotte's "charming directness" and said: "I was amazed at her jokes, not at her lovable jokes, but of her common sense ("esprit de bon sens")...I assure you that it cannot be expressed better. She is a very idiosyncratic person, very determined and certainly has taste." Madame de La Fayette was also surprised by and made similar comments about Liselotte's "esprit de bon sens". When the Electress Sophia and her daughter visited Liselotte in Paris and Versailles in 1679, she stated: "Liselotte...lives very freely, and with more innocence: her cheerfulness cheers up the King. I have not noticed that her power goes further than making him laugh, nor that she tries to carry it further."


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In France, Liselotte only had two German relatives, two older aunts, with whom she had regular contact: Louise Hollandine of the Palatinate (a sister of her father and Abbess of Maubuisson since 1664) and Emilie of Hesse-Kassel (a sister of her mother, who had married the Huguenot general Henri Charles de La Trémoille, Prince of Taranto and Talmont).


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte had a warm relationship with her children. She was devastated by the untimely death of her eldest son Alexandre Louis at the age of two. She mourned him for six months before the birth of her daughter, who apparently helped her over the terrible loss.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Her younger son Philippe resembled her in appearance, and also shared her literary, artistic and scientific interests. During his father's lifetime and shortly thereafter, his relationship with his mother was distant under the influence of his father and his favorites, and his mother often criticized his debauchery. Later, however, their relationship improved.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: From around 1680 massive problems arose in the Orléans marriage, as the Chevalier de Lorraine, the Marquis d'Effiat and other favorites of her husband intrigued against Liselotte in order to eliminate her influence on the Duke. Among other things, her enemies conspired to have her confidantes, including her beloved lady-in-waiting Lydie de Théobon-Beuvron and her husband, the Chamberlain Count de Beuvron, dismissed from court. After these departures she was defenseless against the intrigues of the favorites and the arbitrary whims of her husband. To make matters worse, her personal relationship with the King had cooled as his mistress Madame de Maintenon gained influence, leading Louis XIV to be less and less inclined to intervene in Liselotte's quarrels with his brother. Liselotte became isolated, withdrawing more and more into her writing room.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Simultaneously, Liselotte was drawn into a larger court scandal through her wardship of Comte of Vermandois, whose mother had left court to become a nun. The young comte had become embroiled in a secret homosexual 'brotherhood' of French nobles and courtiers, which required members to "swear an oath to renounce all women." Several incidents were reported in which women were sadistically tortured, and also was reported that a poor waffle seller was raped, castrated and killed by courtiers. Though the Duke of Orléans didn't belong to this brotherhood himself, many of his favorites did. In June 1682, it became known that the 'brotherhood' included the Prince of la Roche-sur-Yon and the young Comte of Vermandois, among other notable figures at court. Louis XIV punished his own son severely and sent him to war, where he died shortly afterwards at the age of 16. Liselotte later recalled: "The Comte de Vermandois was very good-natured. The poor person loved me as if I were his birth mother...He told me his whole story. He had been horribly seduced." One of his 'seducers' is said to have been the Chevalier de Lorraine—her husband's lover and her avowed enemy.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Other problems arose in the following years due to quarrels with Madame de Maintenon, the last important mistress and, from the end of 1683, the secret wife of Louis XIV. Liselotte regarded the marquise with contempt due to her low social rank and her perceived lust for power. She described her in numerous letters with epithets like "the King's old drab", "old whore", "old witch", "Megaera", "Pantocrat" or as "mouse filth mixed with the peppercorns". At the instigation of the increasingly powerful Maintenon, contact between Liselotte and her brother-in-law was restricted to formal occasions, and if the King retired to his private apartments with some chosen relatives after dinner, she was no longer admitted. In 1686, she wrote to her aunt Sophia: "Where the devil can't get there, he sends an old woman, whom we all want to find out, being part of the royal family..." Since Liselotte's correspondence was secretly monitored, the King and the Maintenon were privy to her insults, which further degraded her relationship with the King.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In addition, since 1680—after the Affair of the Poisons, in which the previous "maîtresse-en-titre" Madame de Montespan was involved–Louis XIV, under the influence of the bigoted Madame de Maintenon, underwent a transformation from a philanderer who was primarily interested in his pleasure and not infrequently crept into the apartments of Liselotte's maid of honor, into a man obsessed with morality, piety and religion. In 1685, he issued the Edict of Fontainebleau, which ended the religious tolerance of the Edict of Nantes and renewed persecution of Protestants, in France known as Huguenots. Many French Protestants emigrated to Holland and Germany, including Liselotte's aunt, Emilie of Hesse-Kassel. The emigrants were supported by the Brandenburg ambassador, Ezekiel Spanheim, to whom Liselotte was very close because he had once been the tutor of both her father and brother. Since Liselotte herself was originally a Protestant and (in contrast to the half-Huguenot Maintenon) had only become a half-hearted Catholic, this became an important part of her problematic situation. She blamed the situation on the influence of Madame de Maintenon, who she regarded as hypocritically bigoted, corrupt and greedy for power:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte, however, also saw the opportunities that the Huguenots brought to Protestant countries after emigrating:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: When the Wittelsbach line of Palatinate-Simmern ended in 1685 with the death of Liselotte's brother, Charles II, Elector Palatine, Louis XIV raised a claim to the Electoral Palatinate on behalf of Liselotte, contrary to her marriage contract, and began the Palatinate War of Succession. Heidelberg (including the electoral palace) and Mannheim, were systematically destroyed. The experience was extremely traumatic for Liselotte: the death of her beloved half-brother "Karllutz" and the devastation of her homeland by her brother-in-law in her own name.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: This situation inevitably brought her into serious conflict with the King and his inner circle. Her husband Philippe generously distributed the spoils of war that befell him (the so-called Orléans money) to his favorites, in particular to the Chevalier de Lorraine.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In 1692, Liselotte learned that her powerlessness extended even to her own children when Louis XIV married her son Philippe, Duke of Chartres, to Françoise Marie de Bourbon, legitimized daughter of the King and his mistress Madame de Montespan. The King's other "bastards from double adultery" also married within the extended royal family, as their status as illegitimate barred them from marrying into foreign courts and even into other noble families in France, yet the King refused to have them marry below their "station". Liselotte and the courtiers viewed this marriage as a "mésalliance" and a humiliation, and she reacted with indignation and anger. Various chroniclers report that she was no longer in control of her emotions, and burst into tears of desperation in front of the whole court.Saint-Simon writes that she slapped her son in front of the whole court for consenting to the marriage. The wedding took place on 18 February 1692. The King gave his daughter a pension of 50,000 écus and jewelry worth 200,000 écus, and a two million dowry was promised in the marriage contract, which, in the end, was never paid. The marriage was not a happy one, and Philippe would have affairs throughout his entire life.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In 1693, Elisabeth Charlotte fell ill with life-threatening pox (smallpox). She defied the instructions of contemporary doctors and managed to survive the disease, but ended up with a pockmarked face. She did not concern herself with this, since she had always considered herself ugly (in excessive exaggeration, as earlier portraits by Mignard and Largillière, among others, prove) and had no interest in make-up. Possibly as a further consequence of the disease, from 1694 onwards she gained so much weight, that it began to interfere with her walks. Even so, she continued to hunt, but only with horses that were big and strong enough to support her weight. The external change in her appearance is clearly documented in the surviving portraits from this period.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In September 1700 she complained to her aunt Sophia: "Being a Madame is a great craft, I would have sold it like the batches here in the country, I would have long since carried it for sale". Sophia, who grew up in relatively modest circumstances in exile in Holland, commented on her niece's lamentations in a letter to her (rather poor) half-brother "Karllutz":


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: When Sophia was declared heir to the British throne in the spring of 1701 by the Act of Settlement, Liselotte (who would have had a better claim had she not become Catholic) commented on 15 May in a letter to her half-sister Raugräfin Luise: "I would rather be elector than king in England. The English humor and their parliament are not my business, my aunt is better than me; she will also know how to deal with them better than I would have done".


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: On 9 June 1701, the Duke of Orléans died of a stroke at the Château de Saint-Cloud. Earlier, he had a heated argument with his brother at the Château de Marly about the conduct of his son—who was also Louis XIV's son-in-law. He left only debts, and Liselotte wisely renounced their common property. In his will, which was published publicly in the "Mercure galant" and the "Gazette d’Amsterdam", he did not mention his wife. Liselotte personally burned the love letters he had exchanged with his lovers so that they would not fall into the hands of the notaries: "...in the boxes I locked up all the letters the boys wrote to him, and then spent them unread so that it might not come into contact with others". She wrote to her aunt Sophia: "I must confess that I was much more saddened than I am if Monsieur had not done so "böße officien" (that is, 'bad services') to the King". Her attitude towards the deceased's "mignons" was no longer prudish, but rather serene: when she was reported in 1702 that the Earl of Albemarle, lover of the recently deceased King William III of England, almost died of heartache, she remarked dryly: "We have not seen such friends here with my lord...".


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: After her husband's death, Liselotte feared that the King would send her to a convent (as stipulated in her marriage contract), leading her to attempt a reconciliation with Madame de Maintenon. To the King, she explained frankly and freely: "If I hadn't loved you, then I would not have hated Madame de Maintenon so much, precisely because I believed she was robbing me of your favor". Madame de Maintenon confronted Liselotte with secretly-made copies of Liselotte's candid letters to correspondents abroad, which were bursting with abuse against Maintenon, and were read with relish in foreign courts. Liselotte was warned to change her attitude towards Madame de Maintenon, but the peace between the two women was fleeting, and Liselotte was "more tolerated than loved." Except on official occasions, she was rarely admitted to the King's inner circle. She was punished with contempt above all by Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, Monsieur's granddaughter from his first marriage and granddaughter-in-law of Louis XIV, who was a spoiled child, but an outspoken favorite of both the monarch and his mistress.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: After Monsieur's death, Liselotte lived in his former apartment in Versailles and took part in visits to the court in Marly or Fontainebleau. She was still allowed to take part in the court hunts, in which she and the King no longer rode on horseback, but sat and shot together from a calash. Liselotte avoided the Palais Royal and Saint Cloud until 1715 in order not to be a burden to her son and his wife. She rarely went to her remote widow's residence, Montargis Castle; but she refrained from selling it in case the King should grow tired of her presence at Versailles, which Maintenon endeavored to work towards:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Louis XIV died on 1 September 1715 after a reign of 72 years and 110 days; one of the last people he summoned to his deathbed was Liselotte, saying goodbye to her with noble compliments. In his will, the deceased monarch divided the regnal prerogatives among relatives and courtiers, allocating to his legitimized son, Duke of Maine, guardianship of the new monarch, Louis XV, who was just 5 years old. The Parlement of Paris overturned the will's provisions at the request of Liselotte's son, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, who, being the only legitimate agnate of the royal family in France, became Regent for the underage sovereign, beginning the time known as the "Régence". Liselotte became the first lady of the court; as she had been at least officially once before, between the death of Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria, Dauphine of France (20 April 1690) and the marriage of Marie Adélaïde of Savoy with Louis, Duke of Burgundy (7 December 1697).


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: The court at Versailles dissolved until the new King came of age, as the late Louis XIV had ordered, and Liselotte was soon able to return to her beloved Saint-Cloud, where she spent seven months of the year from then on, with her old ladies-in-waiting keeping her company: the "Marschallin" Louise-Françoise de Clérambault and the German Eleonore von Venningen (by marriage von Rathsamshausen). She didn't like to spend the winter in the Palais Royal (the official residence of her son and his family) because of the bad Parisian air from the smoke from the many chimneys (and "because in the morning you can only smell empty night chairs and chamber pot") and the bad memories of her marriage:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Although she had not made it a habit to interfere in politics, only one month after the Louis XIV's death, Liselotte successfully campaigned for the release of Huguenots who had been sent to the galleys for many years because of their beliefs. 184 people, including many preachers, were released; two years later she managed to release a further 30.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Despite her elevation in status, Liselotte did not share in the country's relief after the long rule of Louis XIV; she "was unable to decipher the signs of the times; she saw nothing but the decline and decline of morality, where in reality a new society was born, lively, disrespectful, eager to move and live freely, curious about the joys of the senses and the adventures of the spirit". For example, she strictly refused to receive visitors who were not properly dressed in courtly regalia:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Most of all, Liselotte was worried about the many intrigues and conspiracies against her son. She loathed the foreign minister and later prime minister, Father Guillaume Dubois (cardinal from 1721) and mistrusted the economist and chief financial controller John Law, who caused a currency devaluation and speculative bubble (the so-called "Mississippi bubble"):


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: As a clergy advisor, she valued two staunch supporters of the Age of Enlightenment: Archbishop François Fénelon (who fell from grace under Louis XIV) as well as her intermittent confessor Abbé de Saint-Pierre. Etienne de Polier de Bottens, a Huguenot who had followed her from Heidelberg to France, also played a special role as confidante and spiritual advisor. Liselotte, long a marginal figure at court, as the Regent's mother, was suddenly a point of contact for many. However, she by no means appreciated this role change:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte was interested in opera and theatre and followed their development over decades, and was also able to recite long passages by heart. She was well read, as evidenced by many of her letters, and had a library of more than 3,000 volumes, including all the popular French and German novels and plays of her time (Voltaire dedicated his tragedy Oedipe to her), as well as most of the classical Greek and Latin authors (in German and French translation), Luther Bibles, maps with copperplate engravings, travelogues from all over the world as well as the tomes of natural history, medicine and mathematics. She amassed an extensive coin collection, primarily of antique gold coins (it was not her father who inherited the 12,000 copies her father had inherited in Kassel, but her mother), she owned 30 books on coin science and corresponded with Spanheim and other numismatists. She also bought three of the recently invented microscopes, with which she examined insects and other things. She spent her days at court gatherings, writing letters, reading and researching.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In June 1722, she visited Versailles for the last time, when the 12-year-old Louis XV received his 4-year-old bride Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain. Upon seeing the room in which Louis XIV died, she came to tears:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, Duchess of Orléans, died on 8 December 1722 at 3:30 a.m. at the Château de Saint-Cloud, aged 70. She was buried in the royal necropolis at the Basilica of Saint-Denis, next to her husband and his first wife. Her son mourned her deeply (only a year later he followed her to the grave), and did not take part in the memorial mass on 18 March 1723. In the funeral sermon she was described as follows:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte is said to have written an estimated 60,000 letters throughout her life, 2/3 in German and 1/3 in French, of which about 5,000 have survived, and about 850 of these are in French. With this, she surpasses the second great letter writer and contemporary witness of her epoch, Madame de Sévigné with her approximately 1,200 letters.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: The letters deal with all aspects of life. They contain vivid and often satirical descriptions of court life, memories of her childhood and youth in Germany, the latest court gossip from all over Europe, reflections on literature and theatre, and thoughts about God and the world. Liselotte sought relief by writing long letters to her relatives in Germany, and the constant exchange became a cure for her inner melancholy and sadness. The letters were also a way of maintaining her German, the language being an important link to her home and cultural identity.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Her German letters were mixed with numerous words and passages in French, especially when she was relaying conversations with Louis XIV, with her husband Philippe or other French members of court. Johannes Kramer describes her letters as "the best studied example of the use of the German language in private letters between members of the high nobility". Liselotte tended to use coarse formulations, which was not uncommon in letters from princely persons of the 16th and 17th centuries, but in Helmuth Kiesel's view she had gone extraordinarily far in this, being psychological in disposition and frivolous in tone. Perhaps her previously reformed faith had contributed to the polemics known to her; in any case, their tone differed greatly from the "Précieuses" of the Parisian salons of their time, and also from the naturalness of the German bourgeois lettering style of the 18th century, as shaped by Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. She liked to draw striking comparisons and often incorporated proverbs or appropriate excerpts from plays. Her favorite saying (and personal motto) is often quoted as: "What cannot be changed, let go as it goes" ("Was nicht zu ändern stehet, laß gehen wie es gehet")


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Unlike Madame de Sévigné, she did not write for the public, but only as direct communication to her correspondents. This may explain the almost unbridled spontaneity and unrestricted intimacy of her style. The letters often appear to have no pretensions and are subject to spontaneous ideas, whereby they make the reader a living companion (W. L. Holland).


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Most of the letters are addressed to her aunt Sophia of the Palatinate, Electress of Hanover, whom she wrote twice a week. Sophia's strong personality offered her support in difficult life situations; Liselotte had also shaped the atmosphere of the Hanoverian court with her scientific and literary interest, her religious tolerance and her thoughts on morality and virtue in consideration of human inadequacies. After Sophia's death in 1714 she complains:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Sophia, however, who had been of a cooler and more calculating nature than her emotional niece, had commented on her letters:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte's half-sister Raugräfin Luise (1661–1733) subsequently became an inadequate replacement for the revered and admired aunt. She had also written regularly to another half-sister, Raugräfin Amalie Elisabeth ("Ameliese"; 1663–1709). She kept a lifelong contact with her Hanoverian educator Anna Katharina von Offen, the governess of the Electress Sophia's children, and with her husband, the chief stable master Christian Friedrich von Harling.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Her weekly [French] letters to her daughter, the Duchess of Lorraine were destroyed in a fire on 4 January 1719 at the Château de Lunéville, the country residence of the Dukes of Lorraine. In later years, the wife of the British heir to the throne and later King George II, Caroline of Ansbach, also became an important correspondent, although they never met. Caroline was an orphan who had become a ward of Electress Sophia's daughter Sophia Charlotte of Hanover and was married by Sophia to her grandson George in 1705. From her, Liselotte learned all the details about the family quarrels at the English court. She also wrote regularly with the sister of George II and granddaughter of the Electress Sophia, the Prussian Queen Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. Numerous letters to other relatives and acquaintances have also been found, including to Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his librarian Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who had previously been in the service of Sophia and her husband.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: She knew that the "Cabinet noir" opened her letters to copy critical passages and translate them; hence, she sometimes even incorporated derisive remarks addressed directly to the government, particularly to her favorite enemy, Foreign Secretary Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquess of Torcy. Her most frank letters are those which she did not send by post, but gave to travellers en route to Germany. In these letters she was able to freely express her frustrations with Monsieur's favorites in the Palais Royal and her hatred for Madame de Maintenon.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In her letters, Liselotte also mentioned her dislike for the pompous Baroque style that had become fashionable:


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: To characterize the nature of her correspondence, she uses the term "chat". The letters usually consisted of 15 to 30 folded sheets of paper with gilt edging, which she inscribed with large, energetic handwriting. Her biographer Dirk Van der Cruysse says: "Had Madame lived in our time, she would have spent her days on the phone". Her letters provide us with a unique perspective on court life in the Baroque period and a vivid picture of her personality. Her descriptions of other members of court are often less precise, but much more colorful and humorous than those of Marquis de Dangeau, whose court diary and memoirs made him the official chronicler of the reign of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, she wrote without literary ambitions and not for posterity either: "I write as I speak; because I am too natural to think before I write." After answering a letter, she burned the letter she had received herself, and probably assumed that the same thing happened to her letters after being read. Fortunately, just under a tenth escaped this fate.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Liselotte was described as solid and mannish. She possessed the stamina to hunt all day, refusing to wear the mask that Frenchwomen were accustomed to wearing to protect their skin while outdoors. As a result, her face developed a ruddy and weather-beaten look. She walked rapidly, and most courtiers were unable to keep up, save for the King. She had a "no-nonsense" attitude. Her hearty appetite caused her to gain weight as the years went on, and when describing herself she once commented that she would be as good to eat as a roasted suckling pig. Raised as a Protestant, she was not fond of lengthy Latin masses. She remained faithful and was at times outraged by the open infidelity practised by the aristocracy. Her views were frequently the opposite of those prevalent at the French court.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: She is known by different names and styles in different languages, either by variations of her given names, such as Charlotte Elisabeth, Elisabeth Charlotte and Liselotte von der Pfalz or variations of her titles and territorial designations, such as "Electoral Princess", "Princess Palatine", "of the Palatinate", "of the Rhine", "the Palatine", etc.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: The dynastic titles to which she was entitled were "Countess Palatine of the Rhine at Simmern" and "Duchess of Bavaria". At the royal court of France she was known as the "Princess Palatine Elisabeth Charlotte" prior to her marriage, and afterwards her official title became "Her Royal Highness, Madame, Duchess of Orléans," though she was more widely known simply as "Madame", a unique designation she was entitled to as wife of the King's younger brother.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In 1788, some longer excerpts from Liselotte's letters appeared for the first time in a French translation, then a few years later in the German original, under the title "Anecdotes from the French Court, especially from the times of Louis XIV and the Duke Regent". During the French Revolution, it was believed that Liselotte was a key witness to the depravity and frivolity of the Ancien Régime. This "Chronique scandaleuse" became popular in Germany when the editors of the letters succeeded in identifying the author as a moral and honest German princess in the midst of the depraved and frivolous French court life. In her aversion to the French way of life and her enthusiasm for everything German (and especially Palatinate), her published letters followed the pattern of anti-French sentiment in German literature of the 17th century.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: In 1791, a new, anonymously edited selection of letters appeared under the title "Confessions of Princess Elisabeth Charlotte of Orléans". In this publication, she was portrayed as "The good, honest, German woman–without all the pampered and creeping court sensibilities, without all the crookedness and ambiguity of the heart–", representative of "the more honest times of earlier centuries", to which the German courts had to return in order to prevent revolution. The Duchess of Orléans thus became a figure of considerable cultural importance in Germany.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: Friedrich Karl Julius Schütz published a new selection of the letters in 1820, also emphasizing the "strong contrast between the old, truly German simplicity, loyalty, honesty and efficiency...to the glamour, opulence, etiquette and gallantry, such as the unlimited intriguing spirit and the whole, systematically developed frivolity and hypocrisy of this court, for a full half of a century."


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: "In the further course of the 19th century, the letters lost their immediate political relevance, but because of their cultural and historical significance and their German usability, they found equally committed editors and a broad public." Wolfgang Menzel, who in 1843 edited a volume of letters addressed to her half-sister Raugräfin Luise, saw in the Duchess of Orléans the "simple German woman and the most open soul in the world", who "only had to watch too much moral corruption... understandable that she sometimes expresses herself about it in the crudest words". From then on, the letters were widely used as anti-French propaganda by a growing German nationalist movement. Liselotte was stylized as a martyr of the French court and elevated into a national cult figure, by figures such as Paul Heyse, Theodor Schott and Eduard Bodemann.


title: Elizabeth Charlotte, Madame Palatine

text: The so-called "palatine" is named after Liselotte; it is a short cape or turned-down collar trimmed with fur, which women use to protect the cleavage and neck from the cold in winter. Originally, she was mocked by the French court because of her "old" furs that she wore when she arrived from Heidelberg, but since she was very popular with the king in the 1670s, the ladies began to imitate this trend during the unusually cold winter of 1676. The result was a womenswear item valued for centuries. When Liselotte wanted to put on her old fur again in November 1718 to see a performance of Voltaire's "Oedipus", to which she was dedicated, she found that it had been eaten by clothes moths. But she took the opportunity to examine the moths under the microscope the next day.


title: Thermal equilibrium

text: Two physical systems are in thermal equilibrium if there is no net flow of thermal energy between them when they are connected by a path permeable to heat. Thermal equilibrium obeys the zeroth law of thermodynamics. A system is said to be in thermal equilibrium with itself if the temperature within the system is spatially uniform and temporally constant.


title: Thermal equilibrium

text: Systems in thermodynamic equilibrium are always in thermal equilibrium, but the converse is not always true. If the connection between the systems allows transfer of energy as 'change in internal energy' but does not allow transfer of matter or transfer of energy as work, the two systems may reach thermal equilibrium without reaching thermodynamic equilibrium.


title: Thermal equilibrium

text: The relation of thermal equilibrium is an instance of equilibrium between two bodies, which means that it refers to transfer through a selectively permeable partition of matter or work; it is called a diathermal connection. According to Lieb and Yngvason, the essential meaning of the relation of thermal equilibrium includes that it is reflexive and symmetric. It is not included in the essential meaning whether it is or is not transitive. After discussing the semantics of the definition, they postulate a substantial physical axiom, that they call the "zeroth law of thermodynamics", that thermal equilibrium is a transitive relation. They comment that the equivalence classes of systems so established are called isotherms.


title: Thermal equilibrium

text: Thermal equilibrium of a body in itself refers to the body when it is isolated. The background is that no heat enters or leaves it, and that it is allowed unlimited time to settle under its own intrinsic characteristics. When it is completely settled, so that macroscopic change is no longer detectable, it is in its own thermal equilibrium. It is not implied that it is necessarily in other kinds of internal equilibrium. For example, it is possible that a body might reach internal thermal equilibrium but not be in internal chemical equilibrium; glass is an example.


title: Thermal equilibrium

text: One may imagine an isolated system, initially not in its own state of internal thermal equilibrium. It could be subjected to a fictive thermodynamic operation of partition into two subsystems separated by nothing, no wall. One could then consider the possibility of transfers of energy as heat between the two subsystems. A long time after the fictive partition operation, the two subsystems will reach a practically stationary state, and so be in the relation of thermal equilibrium with each other. Such an adventure could be conducted in indefinitely many ways, with different fictive partitions. All of them will result in subsystems that could be shown to be in thermal equilibrium with each other, testing subsystems from different partitions. For this reason, an isolated system, initially not its own state of internal thermal equilibrium, but left for a long time, practically always will reach a final state which may be regarded as one of internal thermal equilibrium. Such a final state is one of spatial uniformity or homogeneity of temperature. The existence of such states is a basic postulate of classical thermodynamics. This postulate is sometimes, but not often, called the minus first law of thermodynamics. A notable exception exists for isolated quantum systems which are many-body localized and which "never" reach internal thermal equilibrium.


title: Thermal equilibrium

text: Heat can flow into or out of a closed system by way of thermal conduction or of thermal radiation to or from a thermal reservoir, and when this process is effecting net transfer of heat, the system is not in thermal equilibrium. While the transfer of energy as heat continues, the system's temperature can be changing.