Arthur Ashley Ascott

Arthur Ashley Ascott (Feb. 2, 1839 – Dec. 22, 1915) is a military historian most recognized for his Reference History of the Themiclesian Forces. Educated at a leading university in United Kingdom of Anglia and Lerchernt, he took an early interest in the Themiclesian military and wrote several well-regarded articles and treatises in the 1870s. He lived in Themiclesia between 1884 and 1898, granted access to the state archives, to research and write his Reference History, finally publishing it in 1901. He became a professor at his alma mater in 1903 and became an emiritus in 1912.

Reference History

After publishing his paper "The Themiclesian Navy: Diplomatic Impetus" in 1880, he was challenged by fellow scholar Timothy Chance about his interpretation of Themiclesia's policies in the late 1700s and the massive re-armament of the Navy between 1751 and 1759. To show the veracity of his argument, he decided to travel to Themiclesia and examine the "primary notation" of the Themiclesian government, which was known to preserve its transactions in great detail. However, along with the Tyrannian academic world, the behaviour of Themiclesia was anomalous with that characterized by Hemithean monarchies, such as Menghe and Dayashina of the day, so his sabbatical to "the orient" was designed to cover a much greater history not only to describe the relationship between the Themiclesian Foreign Office and the Navy, but to account for the trends of the foreign policy of Themiclesia in the modern period.

On the one hand, Themiclesians are orientals; their hearts and minds, conditioned by their history severed from the source of our civilization, are distinct from our hearts and minds. On the other hand, the purpose of conquest is one and the same, and we are compelled to think in similar terms to account for their actions, as our own. The Themiclesians have lost much of the reins over their machines of war, allowing them to rust and decay away, only giving it new paint and cogs infrequently for the modern appearance. I fear that if a modern and general account for their forces, which once have opposed those of the Merovingians, the Sylvans, the Hallians, and ours with soundness, is not attempted at this time, then all would be lost to history.

I write not only to record, but to correct errors in colleagues' work. The Themiclesian forces are ancient in their provenance and complicated through didactic conservatism and marriage to the civil service. To this day there is no obvious distinction, in form, between the military and civil government, though their legislative proficiency have carved out a functional military force, held together by thousands of statutes and supplementary rules. To rationalize it, despite a century of academic work by our colleagues, without resolving this gross enormity is hardly practicable. In writing this history, I present an exhaustive concordance of statutes, their effects, and their operation in the modern Themiclesian forces. I divide the whole of them into 206 services, each connected to a statutory origin and, thus, constitutional position. I thank Drs James, Porter, and Castle for their assistance with untangling Themiclesian laws and their correct interpretation.

— Preface in the Reference History, Ascott

Furthermore, his cause of undertaking an expensive sabbatical

See also

• Themiclesia