Anyone worthy of admission to the university would already be fluent in French

But ever since the decline of Latin, French had been the language of cultivated cosmopolitan elites – and thus the European language par excellence. When, in the early years of the twentieth century, it was first proposed to introduce the teaching of French as part of the modern languages syllabus at Oxford University, more than one don opposed the idea on the plausible grounds that anyone worthy of admission to the university would already be fluent in French.

T. Judt, Postwar (2005), 760

Salazar, an economist who had for some years lectured at the University of Coimbra, was not only unperturbed at Portugal’s backwardness, but saw it instead as the key to stability – upon being informed that oil had been discovered in Portugal’s Angolan territories he commented merely that this was ‘a pity’ 

T. Judt, Postwar (2005), 511

The engine room of European culture for the first third of the twentieth century ... had ceased to exist

The intellectual condition of post-war Western Europe would have been unrecognizable to a visitor from even the quite recent past. German-speaking central Europe – the engine room of European culture for the first third of the twentieth century – had ceased to exist. Vienna, already a shadow of its former self after the overthrow of the Habsburgs in 1918, was divided like Berlin among the four allied power. It could hardly feed or clothe its citizens, much less contribute to the intellectual life of the continent

T. Judt, Postwar (2005), 203

Bulgaria always chooses the wrong card … and slams it on the table!

The Bulgarians has actually oscillated quite markedly over the years from enthusiastic pro-Germanism to ultra-Slavophilism. Neither served them well. As a local commentator remarked at the time, Bulgaria always chooses the wrong card … and slams it on the table!

T. Judt, Postwar (2005), 134 footnote

France ceased to be not just a Great Power but even a power

In six traumatic weeks, the cardinal reference points of European inter-state relations changed forever. France ceased to be not just a Great Power but even a power, and despite De Gaulle’s best efforts in later decades it has never been one since. For the shattering defeat of June 1940 was followed by four years of humiliating, demeaning, subservient occupation, with Marshall Petain’s Vichy regime playing Uriah Heep to Germany’s Bill Sikes.

T. Judt, Postwar (2005), 113

Boundaries stayed in broadly intact and people were moved instead

At the conclusion of the First world War, it was borders that were invented and adjusted, while people were on the whole left in place. After 1945 what happened was the opposite: with one major exception boundaries stayed in broadly intact and people were moved instead.

T. Judt, Postwar (2005), 27