<P> In 19th century France, Anglophilia was popular amongst certain elements, though not with the French people in general . The popular Catholic royalist intellectual Charles Maurras took a virulently Anglophobic viewpoint that Britain was the "cancer" of the world, rotting out everything good, especially in his beloved France . In contrast to Marruas, the conservative French art historian and critic Hippolyte Taine was an Anglophile who greatly admired Britain as the land of "civilised" aristocratic order that at the same time embraced freedom and "self - government". In his youth, Taine had felt oppressed by the Catholic Church . He had been brought up in the Church by his teachers at his lycée, and he complained that they had treated him as "a horse between the shafts of a cart". At the same time, Taine distrusted the masses, saw the French Revolution as the sort of disaster caused when the mindless masses were given power, and stated that giving everyone the right to vote would be like making every sailor the captain on a ship . For Taine, Britain embodied his ideal political system that combined the best features of both order and freedom: a place where the state had limited powers yet the people instinctively deferred to the elite . For Taine, the essence of la grande idée anglaise was "the persuasion that man was above all a free and moral person". Taine attributed this to the "Hebraic" spirit of the British people, which he saw as reflecting the influence of Protestantism, especially the Church of England, which Taine greatly admired . Taine argued that because the Protestant British had to justify themselves before God, they had to create moral rules that applied not only to others, but to themselves, which created a culture of self - restraint . Taine had a low opinion of the ordinary British people, but he very much respected the gentlemen he met on his British trips, whom he praised for their moral qualities . Taine noted with some jealousy that in France the term gentilhomme referred only to a man known for his sense of style and elegance and did not refer to the man's moral qualities; in France there was no equivalent to the idea of a British gentleman . Taine noted that the difference between the French gentilhomme and the British gentleman was that the latter not only possessed the refinement and elegance expected of the gentilhomme, but more importantly also had a sense of fundamental decency and honour that prevented him from doing anything dishonourable . Taine believed that the reason why the British could produce gentlemen to rule their nation, while the French could not, was that the British nobility was meritocratic and always open to those whose talents had been allowed to rise up, while the French nobility was exclusive and very reactionary . Taine further admired the public schools like Harrow, Eton and Rugby for their ability to mould young men into gentlemen, though he found aspects of the public schools like flogging and fagging to be barbaric . </P> <P> A Frenchman very much influenced by Taine's Anglophilia was Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who after reading Taine's Notes on England wanted to establish schools to produce gentlemen in France . Coubertin was convinced that the stress laid on sports in English public schools was the key to producing gentlemen, and that young Frenchmen needed to play sports more often in order to learn how to be gentlemen . Coubertin was especially fascinated by the emphasis given to sports at Rugby School, which he keenly studied . Coubertin believed that Britain was the most successful nation in the world, as reflected by its worldwide empire, and that if only the French had been more like the British, then the French would never have been defeated by the Germans in the Franco - Prussian War . Like Taine, Coubertin admired the inequality of the British educational system, noting with approval that only well - off families could afford to send their sons to the public schools, writing: "Let us renounce that dangerous pipedream of an equal education for all and follow the example of the (British) people who understand so well the difference between democracy and equality!". After reading Tom Brown's School Days (a novel that Coubertin loved) and Thomas Arnold's essays, the Anglophile Coubertin believed that a regime of regular boxing, rowing, cricket and football as practised at the British public schools would create gentlemen and "muscular Christians" in France, in what Coubertin admiringly called the régime Arnoldien . Coubertin wrote based on reading Tom Brown's School Days that boxing was the "natural and English way for English boys to settle their quarrels", and so that: "Putting a solid pair of fists in the service of God is a condition for serving Him well". After meeting William Ewart Gladstone in 1888, Coubertin asked him whether he agreed with the statement that the renaissance britannique was due to Arnold's educational reforms, a thesis that astonished Gladstone, though he did tell Coubertin that: "Your point of view is quite new, but...it is right". In 1890, Coubertin attended the Wenlock Olympian Games organised by Dr William Penny Brookes, whom Coubertin called "an English doctor from an earlier age, romantic and practical at the same time". Coubertin was enchanted by the games held in the village of Much Wenlock in rural Shropshire, saying that only in England was this possible . Coubertin loved the English countryside, and was impressed by the way in which the villagers were proud to be both from Shropshire and from Britain, leading him to write: "The Anglo - Saxon race alone has succeeded in keeping up the two feelings (love of the nation and one's region) and in strengthening the one through the other". The Much Wenlock games, held in conscious imitation of the Olympics in ancient Greece, inspired Coubertin to organise the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896 . </P> <P> Between the 14th to the 17th centuries, the Balkans region of Europe was conquered by the Ottoman Empire . In the 19th century, various Orthodox peoples such as the Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs, charging that they were being oppressed by the Muslim Ottomans fought wars of independence . British policy towards the "Eastern Question" and the Balkans in particular oscillated between a fear that the decline of Ottoman power would allow Britain's archenemy Russia to fill the void in the Balkans and the Near East vs. a humanitarian concern for Christian peoples oppressed by the Ottomans . In 1876, an uprising in Bulgaria was harshly repressed with the Ottoman state unleashing the much feared Bashi - bazouks to wage a campaign of plundering, murder, rape and enslavement against the Bulgarians, killing at about 15,000 Bulgarian civilians in a series of massacres that shocked the West . The Conservative government under Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, which saw the Ottoman Empire as a bulwark against Russia sought to deny the so - called "Bulgarian horrors" under the grounds of realpolitik . By contrast, the Liberal leader, William Ewart Gladstone came out energetically in support of the Balkan peoples living under Ottoman rule, publicised the "Bulgarian horrors" in his famous 1876 pamphlet The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East, and demanded that Britain support independence for all of Balkan peoples on humanitarian grounds . Even though the government under Disraeli supported the Ottomans, Gladstone's campaign to publicise the gross human - rights abuses committed by the Ottomans and support for Balkan independence movements not only made him extremely popular in the Balkans, but led to a wave of Anglophilia amongst certain Balkan Christians, who admired Britain as a land capable of producing someone like Gladstone . Anglophilia was rare in the Balkans in the 19th century as Balkan Muslims looked towards the Ottoman Empire while Balkan Christians generally looked towards France or Russia for inspiration . Gladstone saw himself as the defender of human rights which led him in 1890 to criticise anti-Chinese laws in Australia under the grounds that Chinese immigrants were being penalised for their virtues like the willingness to work hard rather any supposed vices . In the same way, Gladstone perceived himself as the champion of the rights of small nations, which led to support "Home Rule" for Ireland (i.e. devolving power from Westminster to an Irish parliament). The same principles that led Gladstone to support Home Rule for the Irish and the rights of Chinese immigrants in Australia made him very sympathetic to the Balkan peoples . Balkan Angophiles such as Vladimir Jovanović and Čedomilj Mijatović in Serbia; Ioannes Gennadius and Eleutherios Venizelos in Greece and Ivan Evstratiev Geshov in Bulgaria were all inclined to admire British liberalism, especially of the Gladstonian type . Furthermore, all five of the above - named men saw Britain as an example of a liberal power which had successfully created institutions that were meant to serve the individual rather the state, which inspired them with institution - building in their own newly independent nations . Finally, though Venizelos, Geshov, Jovanović Gennadius, and Mijatović were all nationalists, by the standards of the Balkans they were tolerant nationalists who admired the United Kingdom as a state which had brought the English, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish living together in peace and harmony in one kingdom (the precise accuracy of this view is besides the point - this is how the UK was viewed in the Balkans), which they saw British unionism as an example for their own multi-ethnic nations . </P> <P> Jovanović was a Serbian economist and politician of marked liberal views who was much influenced by John Stuart Mill's 1859 book On Liberty and by Gladstone, taking the viewpoint that Britain should be the model for the modernization of Serbia, which had emerged as a de facto independent state in 1817 after being under Ottoman rule since 1389 . In 1863, Jovanović published in London the English - language pamphlet The Serbian Nation and the Eastern Question, where he sought to prove the parallels between British and Serbian histories with the emphasis on the struggle for freedom as the defining feature of both nations' history . After his return to Serbia, Jovanović gave a lecture in Belgrade where he stated: "Let us take a look at England whose name is so famed . Fortunate circumstances have made her a country where general progress of humanity has been achieved in the best way . There is no known truth or science that has not enriched popular consciousness in England...In a word, all conditions for progress that are known today are there in England ." </P>

What is the american version of an anglophile