The Templars
By Piers Paul Read
If you are looking for proof that the Templars and the succeeding secret society of the Free Masons have something over on the Catholic Church, this book is not for you. If you want a thorough academic glimpse of a period of history that still reaches in to today, read this book. The author does a nice job putting the history in the context of the times and not only building a bridge to a current times paradigm, but he also crosses that bridge through the use of quotes from historians from intermediate eras along the way. What makes this book a prize is its collegiate delivery of the history with no appeal of hype to those looking to bash the Catholic Church by making martyrs of the Knights of the Temple. While it may have been the agenda for King Philip of France, this is one French trait that is put to rest.
As a fact finder, one would find more interest in the mechanics and strategy of civil governments on a world stage post collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of Western Civilization and European colonialism than who hid the Lost Sea Scrolls. More intriguing than any hype about the Templars is reading how the Church became a central influence over King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Baron, Duke, Knight, and serf of philosophy and hence a defacto government including financing of all causes espoused by said philosophy. What made the read intriguing was the sorting out of the back and forth chess match of politics between kings and popes where the Knights Templar and the average man, of any era, gets either caught in the cross fire or lost in the fog. The book in the process of history conveys first the selling and financing of crusades. In that process money and power overshadow what may have been honorable ideals where church and state collude to dismantle the Templars, the very arm that brought them both. In the end the Templars have every right to take a vengeance out on first the King of France and second the Catholic Church as a reluctant accomplice. For some reason Piers Paul Read leaves hyperbole surrounding the history of Christ and his family, and any Templar vengeance to the likes of Dan Brown.
The Pitch: From the time of the Prophet Muhammad’s first razzia, the Christians’ perception was that wars against Islam were waged either in defense of Christendom or to liberate and re-conquer lands that were rightfully theirs. The selling of the first crusades began with Bernard of Clairvaux, an appointee of the King of France. Pope Urban had a voice through Bernard. But in the rise to a decision to crusade the pope did not simply dream up the idea of crusading as a case had to be made. In the Latin Church, Alexius approached Pope Urban: His Ambassadors admitted to the Council at Piacenza and the Council fathers listened to their eloquent depiction of the suffering of their fellow Christians in the East.
In the chicken and egg quandary, the cause now properly sold to the Church ‘s highest authority, Pope Urban had a strong ally in France’s King Phillip where within his ranks was a charismatic preacher from Picardy known as Peter the Hermit who claimed to have had a letter from Heaven authorizing the crusade. So we have a collision course of tyranny, authority from God directly, and the Pope secondarily, and an ambitious King taking it to the people. The French nobles gathered in Vezelay, as had been arranged. Already the knowledge that Bernard was to preach had drawn admirers from all over France. At the core of his message was that a sojourn to the Holy Land was a once in a life time penance that all Christians should make. Sojourn, as it escalated up the ranks of the gentry and then the nobles morphed into a crusade, which went back down the social ladder compelling knights, sentinels, and servants to follow their king. When he had finished his address, so many French were ready to take the Cross that Bernard had to cut his habit into strips of cloth.
While sticking to the facts with a collegiate discipline the author spends time applying the sequence of event upon canvases of character building. Of the people in general, the church held a penitentiary obligation over the heads of their parishioners to trek and or crusade to the Holy Land, and you were guilty until you trekked. It is difficult, in the late twentieth century, when a monk is seen as an oddity on the margins of society, to understand how so many belonging to their country’s elite should have chosen a life of self-abnegation. Without necessarily doubting the sincerity of each one’s conviction that the choice for a scion of a noble house, or even the minor gentry, was then and was to remain for some time, between fighting and praying, warfare and ministry, the scarlet and black. Bernard’s power did not stem simply from influential connections: in a world where so many preached but so few practiced the Christian virtues, his piety and asceticism qualified him to act as the conscience of Christendom, constantly chastising the rich and powerful and championing the poor. Having the backing of King Philip of France only gave muscle to his message. To some modern historians, living in a period when most are indifferent to what awaits them after death, Bernard comes across as a self-righteous zealot – someone who ‘saw the world with the eye of a fanatic’ and had a disquieting tendency to take it for granted that his contemporaries were evil-doers who needed to repent. However, to Bernard, surrounded by secular brutality and clerical corruption, and utterly convinced of the reality of Hell, it was impossible to do too much to save the imperiled soul until the invention of the crusade.
Funding: With the politics of crusades, whoever really did make the final decision to crusade it had to be sold to t he people so that if could be funded. Albeit it was not always the case kings could ill afford to leave their people in a stir over an unpopular cause when he himself is embroiled in that far away cause. Leaving a Court and ministry behind that would not be tempted into a coup involved intrigue that is modestly covered in this book. The history is in the book, however because this author has little agenda towards intrigue you the reader must knit the facts together and make a case.
The funding of every crusade was essential to the politics of the crusade itself. The kings would look for funding first from their taxes and then through borrowing from the Church who saw their revenues from tithing who would lend at 10% interest and typically do so if the loan were backed by the Templars. These crusades and subsequent wars incurred enormous expense beyond what was initially envisioned, and the phrase a war that will be paid for by our children becomes prevalent where for example adding to the liability upon the people that Phillip had inherited from his father’s war against Aragon was around 1.5 million livres tournois. Every expedient available to the monarch was used to raise funds. Feudal obligations were exploited to the limit, and force used to extract taxes from the towns. While the author doesn’t brand the politics totalitarian, from a kings point of view it had every appearance to be as such when it came to collecting money, save the grace of the church who coerced the people into cooperation upon the crucible of guilt.
Political intrigue: What did Philip inherit you may ask: King Louis IX ‘s zeal for justice, and his scrupulous attention to the needs of the poor established his saintly reputation and an unparallel prestige, but it was taking of the Cross that set the seal of kingship: ‘crusading still held its place as the highest expression of the chivalrous ideas of the aristocracy in the west. Once the vow had been made, Louis prepared for the crusade with the same efficiency that he had shown in subduing his rebellious vassals and reorganizing the administration of France. His first objective was to raise money to fund his expedition overseas. This added a twentieth tax on the resources of the Church and subventions from the cities. And this alone was not enough for Louis did not foresee the costs of holding his winnings.
Paralleling the politics of the king and his people, the politics of all kings each individually with the Pope singularly is made clear where the Church may have sold the idea of crusading, it was the Kings and their subjects who individually made the decision to crusade. The Kings strategy included any war upon any select Muslim army and the employment of any Order including the Knights Templar to accomplish their goals. Given that the Pope had supreme authority over military orders, it shows some restraint that there was only one instance where Popes directly employed the service of any “Order” in their wars: that being in 1267 Pope Clement IV asked for Hosptaller help against the Germans in Sicily. Clearly, whether they were in the service of the popes or kings, individual knights belonging to their military orders were expected to take up arms to protect their master’s interest. That one case aside because it was through the church that taxes were collected, and it was through the Templars that funds were secured, the arrangement found the Pope, Kings, and Templars in a triangle of intrigue. The former two students of philosophy and higher learning and the latter a student of high minded honor and chivalry. The intrigue continues for close to 300 years until you read of King Philips’ disposal of the Templars in the early 1300’s and its not until the American and French revolutions that you see a bold separation of Church and State where the second shoe drops.
Appearance are not always what they seem to be: While it appears to be all about the money, not simply to launch off into a crusade but then to sustain the crusade and then support the conquered lands against re-conquest by Muslims or by rival Christian Kings led to schemes of power bestowed upon the Templars mostly by default. Honest tax collecting alone could not stand up to such goals. In the Kingdom of Aragon for example, the kings were constantly borrowing money from the Temple and in France the Order often had difficulty in meeting the royal demands to defend the lands for which their funds are underwritten. While the Church institutions were readier to lend money to the Crown if the Temple secured the loan it appeared as though the Templars were one up over both Church and State. While power is implied, the actuality of interest bearing profit did not always follow suit. In Syria and Palestine, too, the Templars’ wealth and power increased because the nobility of Outremer/Jerusalem, whose fiefs were now confined to enclaves around costal cities, could not afford to garrison their castles and so handed them over to military orders, including the Templars. In the same way that modern charities build up investments, the Templars used their funds not just to pursue the war against the Sacacens but also to extend their own estates in the East. But one must remember the expense to fortify the liberties for the people demanded by said clientele.
The appearance of cash and its accompanying power was deceiving, rising to the top of the heap of deception was King Philip of France. Despite the evidence that the Temple often had cash in hand, their running costs were considerable: in the Latin states they garrisoned and maintained at least fifty-three castles or fortified staging posts ranging from great fortresses like Castle Pilgrim to small watch towers on pilgrim routes. Though the Temple’s wealth had led to some envy, their annual income from landed property did not exceed 4,800 livers, not enough to inspire strong feelings of jealousy or a general dislike, with the exception of King Philip who was really in a power struggle with Pope Clement. James of Molay , the head of the order who at the time of French inquisition of the early 1300s had been warmly received by King Edward I when he visited England in 1294 was caught in the middle. He did not see it coming. The politics first between Philip and Pope Clement, and then the coalesced politics of neighboring kings of Europe who fell in line left the Molay and his Templar’s as the ‘odd man out’.
Due Process? While it is often called an inquisition the legal proceedings described in the book gave much to the transcendence of Jewish to Roman law as it survived through to the 14 century. Due process did exist in a primitive sense or should I say in the same way as we experience it today. The following dominoes had to fall in order for the Templars to meet their demise. First, founded to root heresy in Languedoc, and staffed by the friars of the Order of Preachers founded by Dominic Guzman, since 1234 a canonized saint, the Inquisition in France had become an instrument of coercion in the hands of the state. The chief Inquisitor, William of Paris, was King Philip’s confessor and given the King’s piety, was no doubt privy to his plans. On Sunday after the Templar’s arrest, it was Dominican preachers who first explained the reasons for the arrests at a public meeting in the King’s garden, appearing along side the officers of the King. Who was to argue?
King Philip using political maneuvering that I have come to know as typically French, put Pope Clement on the defense as a way to coerce his cooperation in the foiling of the Templars. When the trial eventually opened Clement himself defended the record of Boniface VIII, which was at the core of King Philips intrigue, before advocates of the French King, recalling his piety, his service to the Church and the many manifestations of his orthodox faith. After this, he allowed the trial to continue but, thanks to his knowledge of Roman law, was able to spin things out, either by calling for written depositions or in December 1310, by suspending the proceedings on the grounds that he was suffering one of the reoccurring bouts of his illness, thus leaving a complete distraction to evidence of Clements’ collusion with Philip against the Templars. In the end Clement only managed to slow Philip down as he found it easier to collude with the King that the head of the Knights Templar, who was not versed in politics, than to exonerate them.
While Hospitallers and the Masonic orders engaged the services of legal counsel, the Knights Templar ‘seem to have made little effort to recruit lawyers or to raise up legal experts from within their own ranks’ despite the vigilance with which the head protected their rights an immunities….James Molay later regretted his omission. Through ignorant chivalry where no prove of any allegations could be found in due process of a trial , so guilt was garnered through torture. Said Peter of Balongna of the torture of the Templar Knights to confess upon the allegations; ‘Torture, removed any freedom of mind, which is what every good man ought to have’ ‘It deprived them of memory, knowledge and understanding’ and therefore anything said under torture should be discounted, hence my earlier ascertain of a French totalitarian state which stood in varying degrees as such until 1892. What Philip won was his power back as he was persuaded by his brother, Charles of Valois, and his chief minister, Enguerrand of Marginy, that capitulating to Pope Clement on the question of the Templar’s property was a price worth paying to secure the definitive dissolution of the Order.
The evidence: King Philip IV of France was not making things up entirely. The Templar Knight left a trail of questionable activity that enabled the ‘French connection’ and conviction. in 1143; Of the seventy-three clauses in the Rule approved by the council of Troyes for the Knights of the Temple, around thirty are based on the rule of the Benedict of Nursia. Bernard and the Council fathers seemed more anxious to make monks out of knights than knights out of monks. Hence there was always an exclusive private mystery hanging over their day to day activities. When one thinks of the Knights Templar against the setting of the average educated person one must not get confused with the stories of King Arthur. The men of the order were of all sorts as it would require an Order to be completely self sustaining. They were not a band of merry chivalrous men banging mugs of mead on the table and reading scripture from the Dead Sea scrolls while shuffling the assets within their 401K accounts.
The Knights founder, Hugh of Payns proposed the incorporation of a community of knights that would follow the Rule of religious order but devote themselves to the protection of pilgrims, The Rule they had in mind was Augustine of Hippo, followed by the cannons of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Within that Order, living very Spartan lives the members of whom were not all knights, formed a close bond. They followed rigid rituals in daily life habits that may have drawn question, however the rituals were merely aimed at healthy eating and grooming separate from what may have been an imperfect world. Not intermixing with the common folks, women folk, it was easy to perceive that perhaps they were homosexual or at least homosexual activity was taking place. If it was, it was in no way a part of any Templar policy or sanction. If, therefore, one can avoid the distortions of late-twentieth century prejudice, one can be fairly certain that there was no institutionalized sodomy in the Temple as alleged by King Philip; and at the same the truth which has emerged from recent research is that the crusader frequently sold or mortgaged all his worldly wealth in hope of a purely spiritual reward. Unlike the Muslim jihad, the crusader commitment was always voluntary.
The conspiracy…or not.
Myth and history: There are 300 plus pages in this book and nothing is brought to the fore on the Mary Magdalene or the Lost Dead Sea Scroll conspiracy. There is a tremendous amount of dialogue surrounding the anti Christ and homosexual brought out by King Philip of France, home of the suggested burial of Mary Magdalene, only to be confessed to through torture. Was the Templars’ wealth extraneous in any one persons mind is a question answered only by King Philips’ condemnation of them in a power grab. Only time allowed for the culprits escape from this world where reputations live only in history books of all genres.
King Philips’ speculation did not end with the eighteenth century; in fact it has never been more feverish than it is today, creating, in words of Malcolm Barber, Britain’s foremost Templar historian, ‘a very active little industry, profitable to scientists, art historians, journalists, publishers, and television pundits alike’. Starting with esoteric claims of the Freemasons, the Templars are claimed to have been the guardians of the Holy Grail which in turn the chalice to have been used by Christ in the Last Supper, the blood line of the Merovingian kings descended from the union of Christ with Mary Magdalene, or simply the Templars’ most precious relic the Shroud of Turin.
Intriguing though such speculation may be, they betray by their use of language the lack of a plausible historical foundation: ‘the answer would seem to lie…’; ‘it seems very likely that’…’it seems certain that’…After some research, writes Andrew Sinclair in his book The Discovery of the Grail, these fantasists put forward a hypothesis. Was Christ or the Grail buried under a mountain in the south of France? Did Jesus marry Magdalene and provide the blood line of the Merovingian” Within a few pages, the assertion becomes the actual, the idea is changed into the proof… Or as Peter Partner succinctly puts it in relation to the Templars, Templarism…was a belief manufactured by charlatans for their dupes. It is this book that finally sheds light on the real culprit of the unjust case against both the Catholic Church and the Templar Knights. The first of many intrigues of French…imperialism?
Monday, October 12, 2009
The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code
By Dan Brown
The book uses the setting of a crime scene to quickly set the tone for a fast collection of “facts”. Be on guard, as the immediate set of facts has nothing to do with the outcome of the book, in my opinion. Without saying the word Catholic, Catholicism is indicted for non-consequential acts of conspiracy. The author wins the attention of a large group of people who have a problem with Catholics early on. The author also seems to have caught the passions of our doubting public at a time when fanatical religious fahtwas and 911 slammed our Western conscious, making the book a craze. Meanwhile the sublime proposition of “controversial interpretation” is lost in the shadows of angst to finally lay ones hands on proof. While the book criticizes Opus Dia for self-mortification practices, it seems popular for the readers I’ve talked with to punish themselves with a guilt complex vested in the book. The star player in the book is introduced as a famous professor with a knack for taking any symbol and making controversial interpretations. So we have a good-looking professor from Harvard, with a chocolate baritone voice to deliver a liberating message to the receptive American female ear. I had begun my reading with the intent to list each symbol Brown uses and examine them for error.
The controversy begins with a symbol interpretation of the Pentacle: A star, a pagan symbol of Venus and the feminine balance in humanity. The symbolism is orated in the book along side the Catholic strain of an Opus Dei practice of keeping men and women separate. In keeping with the spirit of the conspiracy theory I mused myself with my coincidental fascination with observing Venus bright on the western sky as my first start to see at night while reading the book. Star bright star light wish I may…
The symbol trail continues in an academic tone at first with PHI: Divine proportion. If you take any set of numbers from Fabonacci’s sequence, their quotients approach 1.618. Brown gets the reader excited all the marvels of mans accomplishments and underscores them with PHI. While there may or may not be truth in the coincidence of proportion, Brown offers no rationalization or evidence that the ancient engineering man or Renascence musician, purposefully applied PHI to their work. Nor beyond coincidence does Brown connect PHI with the Pentacle.
Mona Lisa: Da Vinci’s expression of the balance between man and women. Brown interpretation uses a few ancient Egyptian symbols Amon and Isis to (Mona Lisa) connect the balance. Brown applies his previously stated androgynous cryptology technique (with a few modifications to make it work) Take the A and move it to the back of Amon and then drop one if the Is’s and invent a L in the front and an A in the back. He also does a nice job teasing the reader with Da Vinci’s painting techniques to show a left to right imbalance giving a yin-yang or masculine – feminine perspective. When I look at the painting, nothing comes up. The secret Da Vinci held was also known in the Far East.
Browns attempt to use androgynous cryptology technique in modified form to produce results, which is a sin in the scientific community led me to read the rest of the book for mere entertainment of a mystery novel. And at this Brown does a fabulous job of presenting simultaneous storylines with unfinished business, conflicting agendas, blended with double-entendre riddles to keep you turning. All along the intrigue of police drama you are also strung along the feminine mystery line with your own drama that angst’s you to wonderment as to what exactly is the Holy Grail, why is it so sought after, where is it, and who is hiding it. If you remember the last scene in Indiana Jones, it is in the national archives…lost forever in the bowels of our government. Of course I am consumed with finding my car keys leaving absolutely no time for a Holy Grail.
Madona On The Rocks: Da Vinci’s expression of “so dark the con of man” The mission of the Priory as secret society to resurrect the balance of man and women that was apparently in existence before the Church. Brown trips over his story line in the demonizing of the Catholic Church when he mentions Judaism and Islam as co conspirators in the Crusade wars. Brown also drifts into the Hopi Indians that would trip ones memory of American Indians where women were not considered equal. But non the less if you were a “Women’s Right” advocate of any measure; you would now be easy prey to be seduced to thinking that Browns clues go beyond conspiracy theory and into facts to challenge the Catholic Church.
Through out the book Brown leaves other clues that use to be boring, except for those people consumed with the “truth” as though that might bring them power. There are data banks and libraries where thousands of theologians have been perusing the argument. There are volumes of books written in a multitude of languages. All of this is claimed to be wrapped up in arts and music, where today’s man seems content with the beat or something to hang on the wall to bring the color of the room and the sofa together. Brown inspires you to be curious to the extent that it could be mysterious or even ridiculous. For instance I have always made “pet projects” out of my rose bushes. This year not only did a mysterious rose bush crop up three feet away from the other two creating a trinity, but no rose came to bloom this summer. That is until I read this book. I am thinking of calling in the main character of the book to help me interpret this. I have a fung-shua compass and a magnetic compass and I still get nothing. I guess the prime meridian will have to stay in London awhile longer.
After enduring three hundred pages of Catholic bashing Brown redeems himself by disclosing the real culprit behind the crime scene leaving the church exonerated. Brown also leaves his own message that finds harmony with the Catholic Church. In his book he writes in the closing chapters: “It is the mystery of wonderment that serves our souls, not the Grail itself. The beauty of the Grail lies in the ethereal nature.” “The blind see what they want to see” And finally my most cherished goal he writes: “If you have learned nothing from me, please learn this….” “Forgiveness is Gods greatest gift.”
I was once debunked for speculating on the application of numbers without having a clue of what I was talking about. She was right; I didn’t. I was only speculating for friendly conversation. Of course that conversation never went anywhere with the scientific mind of my counterpart nor did the relationship. What I find amazing is that same scientific mind can attempt to apply this “mystery novel” presentation of coincidental and controversial interpretations of symbolism to attack the Catholic Church. She is blind to the idea that the arguments in the book and spawning from the book are two thousand years old and there is nothing new to alter the debate and declare victory. The book is entertaining in its presentation of facts and at the same time hypnotically deceptive; especially for those yearning to blind themselves with the compulsion of being right, being better, being on top. I am left with the phrase I once heard in a speech “that fanaticism is at the root of all conflict”. Had tolerance, another word for forgiveness, existed in that early relationship; fanatic insistence of being right would have given way to harmony.
I know, once again I came away from a book with a different reaction than the main stream. There has been religious conflict and social conflict since the invention of man. This book can cause harmony or discord. In my example above I can visualize first how easy it is for differences to erupt in interpersonal relationships and how hard it is for forgiveness comes to rescue the relationship. Imagining society being any better when it’s integral parts struggle leaves me at a loss. But I am left with this question: How often have you experienced difficulty in finding the keys to tolerance or forgiveness as your breakthrough to a better life? When I go to the museum, I’ll be looking for that answer.
Great Book, I recommend it with a light heart.
By Dan Brown
The book uses the setting of a crime scene to quickly set the tone for a fast collection of “facts”. Be on guard, as the immediate set of facts has nothing to do with the outcome of the book, in my opinion. Without saying the word Catholic, Catholicism is indicted for non-consequential acts of conspiracy. The author wins the attention of a large group of people who have a problem with Catholics early on. The author also seems to have caught the passions of our doubting public at a time when fanatical religious fahtwas and 911 slammed our Western conscious, making the book a craze. Meanwhile the sublime proposition of “controversial interpretation” is lost in the shadows of angst to finally lay ones hands on proof. While the book criticizes Opus Dia for self-mortification practices, it seems popular for the readers I’ve talked with to punish themselves with a guilt complex vested in the book. The star player in the book is introduced as a famous professor with a knack for taking any symbol and making controversial interpretations. So we have a good-looking professor from Harvard, with a chocolate baritone voice to deliver a liberating message to the receptive American female ear. I had begun my reading with the intent to list each symbol Brown uses and examine them for error.
The controversy begins with a symbol interpretation of the Pentacle: A star, a pagan symbol of Venus and the feminine balance in humanity. The symbolism is orated in the book along side the Catholic strain of an Opus Dei practice of keeping men and women separate. In keeping with the spirit of the conspiracy theory I mused myself with my coincidental fascination with observing Venus bright on the western sky as my first start to see at night while reading the book. Star bright star light wish I may…
The symbol trail continues in an academic tone at first with PHI: Divine proportion. If you take any set of numbers from Fabonacci’s sequence, their quotients approach 1.618. Brown gets the reader excited all the marvels of mans accomplishments and underscores them with PHI. While there may or may not be truth in the coincidence of proportion, Brown offers no rationalization or evidence that the ancient engineering man or Renascence musician, purposefully applied PHI to their work. Nor beyond coincidence does Brown connect PHI with the Pentacle.
Mona Lisa: Da Vinci’s expression of the balance between man and women. Brown interpretation uses a few ancient Egyptian symbols Amon and Isis to (Mona Lisa) connect the balance. Brown applies his previously stated androgynous cryptology technique (with a few modifications to make it work) Take the A and move it to the back of Amon and then drop one if the Is’s and invent a L in the front and an A in the back. He also does a nice job teasing the reader with Da Vinci’s painting techniques to show a left to right imbalance giving a yin-yang or masculine – feminine perspective. When I look at the painting, nothing comes up. The secret Da Vinci held was also known in the Far East.
Browns attempt to use androgynous cryptology technique in modified form to produce results, which is a sin in the scientific community led me to read the rest of the book for mere entertainment of a mystery novel. And at this Brown does a fabulous job of presenting simultaneous storylines with unfinished business, conflicting agendas, blended with double-entendre riddles to keep you turning. All along the intrigue of police drama you are also strung along the feminine mystery line with your own drama that angst’s you to wonderment as to what exactly is the Holy Grail, why is it so sought after, where is it, and who is hiding it. If you remember the last scene in Indiana Jones, it is in the national archives…lost forever in the bowels of our government. Of course I am consumed with finding my car keys leaving absolutely no time for a Holy Grail.
Madona On The Rocks: Da Vinci’s expression of “so dark the con of man” The mission of the Priory as secret society to resurrect the balance of man and women that was apparently in existence before the Church. Brown trips over his story line in the demonizing of the Catholic Church when he mentions Judaism and Islam as co conspirators in the Crusade wars. Brown also drifts into the Hopi Indians that would trip ones memory of American Indians where women were not considered equal. But non the less if you were a “Women’s Right” advocate of any measure; you would now be easy prey to be seduced to thinking that Browns clues go beyond conspiracy theory and into facts to challenge the Catholic Church.
Through out the book Brown leaves other clues that use to be boring, except for those people consumed with the “truth” as though that might bring them power. There are data banks and libraries where thousands of theologians have been perusing the argument. There are volumes of books written in a multitude of languages. All of this is claimed to be wrapped up in arts and music, where today’s man seems content with the beat or something to hang on the wall to bring the color of the room and the sofa together. Brown inspires you to be curious to the extent that it could be mysterious or even ridiculous. For instance I have always made “pet projects” out of my rose bushes. This year not only did a mysterious rose bush crop up three feet away from the other two creating a trinity, but no rose came to bloom this summer. That is until I read this book. I am thinking of calling in the main character of the book to help me interpret this. I have a fung-shua compass and a magnetic compass and I still get nothing. I guess the prime meridian will have to stay in London awhile longer.
After enduring three hundred pages of Catholic bashing Brown redeems himself by disclosing the real culprit behind the crime scene leaving the church exonerated. Brown also leaves his own message that finds harmony with the Catholic Church. In his book he writes in the closing chapters: “It is the mystery of wonderment that serves our souls, not the Grail itself. The beauty of the Grail lies in the ethereal nature.” “The blind see what they want to see” And finally my most cherished goal he writes: “If you have learned nothing from me, please learn this….” “Forgiveness is Gods greatest gift.”
I was once debunked for speculating on the application of numbers without having a clue of what I was talking about. She was right; I didn’t. I was only speculating for friendly conversation. Of course that conversation never went anywhere with the scientific mind of my counterpart nor did the relationship. What I find amazing is that same scientific mind can attempt to apply this “mystery novel” presentation of coincidental and controversial interpretations of symbolism to attack the Catholic Church. She is blind to the idea that the arguments in the book and spawning from the book are two thousand years old and there is nothing new to alter the debate and declare victory. The book is entertaining in its presentation of facts and at the same time hypnotically deceptive; especially for those yearning to blind themselves with the compulsion of being right, being better, being on top. I am left with the phrase I once heard in a speech “that fanaticism is at the root of all conflict”. Had tolerance, another word for forgiveness, existed in that early relationship; fanatic insistence of being right would have given way to harmony.
I know, once again I came away from a book with a different reaction than the main stream. There has been religious conflict and social conflict since the invention of man. This book can cause harmony or discord. In my example above I can visualize first how easy it is for differences to erupt in interpersonal relationships and how hard it is for forgiveness comes to rescue the relationship. Imagining society being any better when it’s integral parts struggle leaves me at a loss. But I am left with this question: How often have you experienced difficulty in finding the keys to tolerance or forgiveness as your breakthrough to a better life? When I go to the museum, I’ll be looking for that answer.
Great Book, I recommend it with a light heart.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
March of Folly
March of Folly
By Barbara Tuchman
I am sure you are familiar with the accusation on journalists where the editor says to the reporter here are the head lines go write the story and surround them with facts. The opening paragraph of this book introduces the headline thesis and then goes on to tell you how the story is about to unfold. I like that in an author. She goes on to provide a beautiful back drop in history as a collection of events where the common theme is a march of folly, that being irrational decisions made by leaders that goes against the better interest of their constituencies. The book is entertaining and a great summary of certain historical subjects, but her thesis is fraught, errors, omissions and with the same folly she thwarts upon leaders of state. She became wooden headed in her own argument.
In her introductory chapter she provides a general overview of moments in history that she could have chosen from. In her summary of WWI she discusses opportunities to have negotiated peace that were missed. She cites a German surrender when in fact an armistice was signed. This was indeed the Germans saying they were willing to negotiate a peace, only to be stabbed in the back. She also alludes to the Moor’s conquering of Spain. She claims that Spain was taken by Africans who happen to be Muslims as opposed to Muslims using African manpower to conquer Span. She claims that Muslims contributed to Western civilization as opposed to conquered Westerners moving this forward. While I will not attempt to take a side in the case of the Moors, I point to the mere fact that Wikipedia has frozen the entries on the subject because of the contentious disagreement on the authors version. With these gross errors in framing her thesis I became a suspect reader.
She chose to speak on Troy, The Renaissance Popes, and The American Revolution from the British perspective, and Vietnam. Upon completion of the book I could not find a solid rationale for knitting these over others, to make her case. In further degradation of her case within each case I find merit in the suspicion I spoke of earlier. While I am not equipped to refute her historical research, in this review I only take an argument for the defense and use her rules of engagement in a post posthumous debate with any to take up her torch. Her rules are to judge the decisions made within the context of the time of the decision making and in context of what the decision makers knew. The consistent thread I found was that Barbara Tuchman provided evidence within her own history that acquits her defendants. Additionally, while she deluges the reader with the history she constructs; she leaves gaps, or errant inferences to construct her argument. In the case of Vietnam she closes with a paragraph citing an actual quote in history, while apparently true it disgraces anyone who gave their last full measure to that cause.
With the Trojan-Greek war after reading one thousand pages of the Iliad and the Odyssey I found it remarkable that of all the folly found with the Greeks in terms of why leaders take their people to war, I take issue with Tuchman’s focus on the Trojan Horse leaving so much pertinent detail on the table. She may have discussed a tactical error, but she overlooked all strategy and philosophy in going to war. I also take issue with her attempt to use a story that has deep mythological interlude to it over so many other possibilities. She uses intellectual puzzling to make a case that it doesn’t matter if the story is true or myth and by mere referencing numerous authors of fame there is merit in the rationale she claims. I am not buying it as authors, prone to the novel when writing history are not leaders and therefore she selects an unqualified test group.
My specific issues with her first argument go as follows: By referencing discoveries in archeological digs, it could be true…if it could be proven that the remains a horse is not a battering ram. She totally overlooks how long it would take to get the Horse moved from the beech to inside the city walls and the prospect of survival or the discovery of smell of human excrement is not discussed. She suggests that mythological rational along a line of passion in a material argument, which is clearly a character of folly. And all the while what does the tactical mistake of the Horse have to do with the Trojan rationale for the war in the first place. She overlooks rational thought that Greece needed a superficial cause to unite their States as a possibility, a rationale that exactly what worked for Bismarck’s when he took Alsace –Loraine. She draws religion in to discussion and equates the Greek gods and our One God as the same. Greek gods were highly symbolic, with man made rationale while One God is spiritual in nature, where man corrupts it with a passion for power. The contrast throws a huge log into the spokes of her analogy. She attempts to contrast the rationale in terms of fate and free will. Fate is your free will when you recognize reality for what it is, which is not to be confused with leaps in science whose fate is to recognized nature and construct it to enhance our living condition in this world. So now the train of thought in support of her argument has lost too many wheels to support the weight of its argument as we round first base headed for second.
Tuchman’s second example is the Renaissance Popes. You have to be somewhat knowledgeable about Western Civilization in the post Roman Empire, or the Holy Roman Empire in order to find it plausible that the example actually fits her argument. For those with a fingernails grasp of what they learned in “Western Civ”, would remember that first the Papal States, insignificant as they were in terms of territory and power where ruled by kings and influenced by the Church. Second by the time the renaissance period dawned, the Church had endured 85 years where the papal curia sat in France and where heavily influenced by the rulers France. So this reader becomes at least highly suspicious of her ability to win a case in court, albeit the history is rich with detail not found in the average history book. So rich that you are sure you are reading a academic text book instead of hearing oral arguments from the Supreme Court of Historians.
I summarize the beginning of her Renaissance Pope argument as follows: At about the time Columbus discovered America – the Renaissance – which is to say the period of values of this world replaced those of the here after – was in full flower in Italy. This is a tug at a thread she left with Troy with its noose around the church. The agenda of too many academia nuts starts to show itself. She then follows with an assessment that the Popes folly was of perversity, perhaps the most consequential in Western history, if measured by its results in centuries of ensuing hostility and fratricidal war. It was a war where the King of France demanded that a Pope, so full of vices, so abominable in the eyes of the world must be removed, in order that a new pope be elected. Just such action, initiated by the Cardinals and resting on the support of the King of France, had caused the schism of recent memory, and nothing in Christian history had done the Church such irretrievable harm. What actually read is that entangled with a perverse lifestyle, prominent of the times, was an entanglement of the Papacy and the Monarchies to the extent that distinguishing the two becomes a cats-cradle.
Tuchman abides by another rule in her thesis which to show there was an alternative in the decision making of the rulers that could have taken place. With the Popes, in the political sphere, the alternative would have been a consistent institutional policy consistently pursued. If the popes had directed their energies to that end instead of dissipating their efforts in the petty paths of private greed, they could have maneuvered the hostilities of the secular powers in the interests of the Papal States. She forgets two things, first is the Spiritual agenda of the Catholic Church, weighed against course in perversity. But one cannot ignore the breakdown in her argument on alternative when she provides a pagan-christen dichotomy as follows: “meanwhile a new faith, nationalism, and a new challenge in rise of national churches were already undercutting Roman rule in the 15th century. To the extent pagan rulers fell in love with pagan antiquity, Italians of the ruling class felt less reverence for Christianity, which as Machiavelli wrote in The Discourses’, makes the “supreme felicity to consist in humility, abnegation and contempt of things human,” whereas pagan religion found the chief good in “grandeur of the solid, strength of the body and all qualities that make men redoubtable”.” Her alternative, given the church and the monarch of that time are indistinguishable breaks down in her own disclosure of history. As an attorney for the defense, using only the briefs provided by the prosecutor, while there is an over abundance of evidence to perversity, the argument for folly, that takes their people to war is fraught with enough conflict to acquit as you sort out “who the people” really are.
Tuchman moves on to the British version of the American Revolutionary war. Another of Tuchman’s rules in her thesis is to judge the leaders by the standards of their times. This rule is at least compromised as she sets the standards of the latter have of the 18th century where 200 families, including the Royal Family rule England, they all went to the same schools and learned the same line of thought and held the same ignorance to compete. This situation becomes exasperated when they have a king who inherited a throne at an incompetent age of 21. Cynical as he was fatherless and raised in conflict, low in character, whimsical in decision making as he fond himself appointing one faction then another and finally with no comprehension of the world and his colonies state of affairs brings a question of character or qualification and certainly not a question of folly in the a leader’s decision making pertinent to the continuance of the colonies.
With the overall foundation of Tuchman’s third example in deep trouble, she spends a tremendous amount of ink writing on the administrators, of the time making not irrational decisions, but decisions blind to the voice of Americans. There was an overarching need to recover economy to pay for the French seven years war causing a Royal Imposition of taxes, am imposition on trade, an Encampment of officers in homes and businesses to collect tax and tariff which are all logical decisions to maintain their Colony. One must have to remember, there was mutual lack of respect towards the colonial contribution to the French Indian war and a Colonial distrust of England’s need to stand up an army. There was an undercurrent of separation already afoot. It was the first step to ending the paradigm of colonialism, which until after Vietnam, her forth argument, you could hardly judge the British harshly using Barbara Tuchman’s guidelines.
In rounding third and headed for home Tuchman drags America once again through the pains of Vietnam. Written in 1984, four years in to Reagan’s road to rediscover American pride, this author had her head buried into an agenda that was overrun by history in the making. She missed the boat. There is a lot I found to criticize her accounting of the Vietnam trauma on the world. Was there folly? Of course there was. Did she capture it accurately? She came close. Did she frame it properly, not a chance. Did she circle up with her thesis,? I think she got lost in the rhetoric of the 70’s as she beat a solo drum of folly.
Again the damning evidence is in her detailed accounting of history that begins in 1919 and ends in 1975. Just stop and try to imagine how much world history that took place that may have overrun any decision taken by any American leader. If you are not up on history think back on the Depression, WWII, Korea, China, the Cold War that directly confronted the leaders that brought us into the Vietnam war. To think that any train of folly may have been derailed by superseding events is not very hard to do. And that is Tuchman’s grand mistake. So I call it a double play as she is tagged out at second and then again at the plate as she insults Americans who gave their last full measure.
In summary our involvement or the beginning of her case for folly begins with Woodrow Wilson as he denied Ho Chi Minh and his people the right to self determination which sent him off on a visit with Lenin in the new USSR. The Bolshevik phenomena captured everyone’s attention as early as 1900 and totally distracted Wilson from recognizing that the folly in colonialism that was only budding in 1776 was now in full flower on its last day. Hence the French once again find a way to perpetuate the oppression and extortion of people who are not French. While Roosevelt who was fully sympathetic with the Vietnamese in 1945, he was preoccupied with closing out WWII, The Red Threat from the USSR and his own death. Truman in his stead was equally concerned with the Red Threat as we first lost China to it and then North Korea. It was a real deal of the times and carried its day as an overriding factor to aid the French in their colonialism, not to perpetuate colonialism but the continued rampage of the falling dominos, that were falling as Czechoslovakia, Hungry, and Cuba also fell before Kennedy committed combat troops in 1962. To accuse our leaders of not being keen to the dominos theory is not looking at the bigger picture.
So while America is not innocent of making mistakes of folly, I must point to where I agree with her in part where folly was detrimental to the will of her people. She reports that credibility emerged in the Berlin crisis of that summer of 1961 when, after a harsh intimidating meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna, Kennedy said to James Reston, “now we have a problem in making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place. Under Kennedy, increased activity required more than a training command. In February 1962 a full field command under the acronym MACV superseded MAAG with a Three-star general named Paul D. Harkins…If a date is needed for the beginning of the American war in Vietnam, the establishment of Mac-Vee as it became known, will serve. Being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Kennedy evidently stung, lied at a news conference in February 1962, “we have not sent combat troops there – in the generally understood sense of the word. We have increased out training mission and our logistics support….” And this was ‘as frank as I can be” consistent that unfailing refuge, “our security needs in the area.” To this she writes ‘the United States is now involved in an undeclared war in South Vietnam,” wrote James Reston on the same day. “this is well known to the Russians, the Chinese Communists and everyone else concerned except the American people.” Kennedy was no wooden head; he was aware of the negatives and bothered by them, but made no adjustments, nor did any of his chiefs of staff.
Kennedy’s death left Johnson with a smoking gun that he mismanaged would be an understatement. Johnson faced a presidential election of 1964. Because his bellicose opponent was Barry Goldwater, he had to appear as the peace candidate. He took up the chant about “their” war; “ We are not going to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves. We do not want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys. When six months later after he was elected, when American boys were sent into combat with no dramatic change of circumstance, these phrases were easily recalled, beginning the erosion of Johnsons credibility. The underlying need, given the rapid falling of the South, was to redress the military balance so that the United States should not negotiate from weakness. He was stuck between the tactics of fighting Kennedy’s undeclared war in conjunction with his campaign promises and the military decisions that were at hand, well documented in the Pentagon Papers, but missed by this author.
There was an alternative in 1962 that Tuchman missed, which was to tell the truth to the nation and the world and sell them on the reasons to go to war. On their own merit in 1962 that was plausible considering how fearful Americans of the color red. In hindsight to claim that the domino theory was an argument of folly is not winnable for either side. What we do know is that the relationship between the USSR and China fell in to a disaster. Meanwhile Kissinger and Nixon played ping-pong with the Chinese and relations warmed there. Also Chairman Mao’s death set China of in to a new direction. All accounts while very visible post 1962 or even 65 to the casual person of 35 years of age or older, Tuchman missed them in 1984. Why is that? They were events in history that would refute here thesis, and therefore the whole story need not be told by Tuchman. She told only what supported her argument and held her consistent with the rules of her argument. G.H. Bush and Colin Powell learned from that lesson and produced dramatic and opposite results in 1991, where it is plausible the same could have been achieved in 1962, making the argument not one of folly to go to war, but folly in the strategy in how to take a country to war.
In wrapping this up, I find Tuchman excellent in capturing intriguing detail in history. The history alone was entertaining. I concede that one book cannot capture it all when at that level. And so to apply an agenda to the history and omit critical surface events while burying the reader with detail, is an oft found flaw in academia that you must be on guard for. Tuchman is a renowned author of history, and therefore even within the system you must be mindful to keep your own bibliography of detail as you may be sold down the river. Where I find my highest degree of criticism in Tuchman’s effort here is when she writes: “The new political order in Vietnam as approximately what it would have been if America had never intervened, except for being far more vengeful and cruel. Perhaps the greatest folly was Hanoi’s – to have fought so steadfastly for thirty years for a cause that became a brutal tyranny when it was won.” And then three pages later she writes: The longest war had come to an end. Faintly from a distance of 200 years might have been heard Chatham’s summary of a nation’s self-betrayal: “by the arts of imposition, by its own credulity, through the means of false hope, false pride and promised advantages of the most romantic and improbable nature.” A contemporary summing it up was voiced by a Congressman from Michigan, Donald Riegle. In talking to a couple from his constituency who had lost a son in Vietnam, he faced the stark recognition that he could find no words to justify the boy’s death. “There was no way I could say that what had happened was in their interest or in the nation’s interest or in anyone’s interest.” All along the interest of the Ho Chi Minh and his Vietnamese people was the same freedom our soldiers fought for in WWI and was requested in the settlement of the peace in 1919. Connecting the historical dots was a betrayal to those fighting to preserve freedom for all men, the same freedom won in 1776 but lost in 1975.
I closed the book in total dismay. Not about the argument to or not to wage war as philosophically any path towards war should be labeled folly. Also keep in mind that is not the same argument to defend freedom, whether it is ours or someone else's. To sell out on America and choose Vietnam in this argument/thesis, was only to sell a book.
I have 10 pages of bibliography notes for those interested. Simply request and ye shall receive.
By Barbara Tuchman
I am sure you are familiar with the accusation on journalists where the editor says to the reporter here are the head lines go write the story and surround them with facts. The opening paragraph of this book introduces the headline thesis and then goes on to tell you how the story is about to unfold. I like that in an author. She goes on to provide a beautiful back drop in history as a collection of events where the common theme is a march of folly, that being irrational decisions made by leaders that goes against the better interest of their constituencies. The book is entertaining and a great summary of certain historical subjects, but her thesis is fraught, errors, omissions and with the same folly she thwarts upon leaders of state. She became wooden headed in her own argument.
In her introductory chapter she provides a general overview of moments in history that she could have chosen from. In her summary of WWI she discusses opportunities to have negotiated peace that were missed. She cites a German surrender when in fact an armistice was signed. This was indeed the Germans saying they were willing to negotiate a peace, only to be stabbed in the back. She also alludes to the Moor’s conquering of Spain. She claims that Spain was taken by Africans who happen to be Muslims as opposed to Muslims using African manpower to conquer Span. She claims that Muslims contributed to Western civilization as opposed to conquered Westerners moving this forward. While I will not attempt to take a side in the case of the Moors, I point to the mere fact that Wikipedia has frozen the entries on the subject because of the contentious disagreement on the authors version. With these gross errors in framing her thesis I became a suspect reader.
She chose to speak on Troy, The Renaissance Popes, and The American Revolution from the British perspective, and Vietnam. Upon completion of the book I could not find a solid rationale for knitting these over others, to make her case. In further degradation of her case within each case I find merit in the suspicion I spoke of earlier. While I am not equipped to refute her historical research, in this review I only take an argument for the defense and use her rules of engagement in a post posthumous debate with any to take up her torch. Her rules are to judge the decisions made within the context of the time of the decision making and in context of what the decision makers knew. The consistent thread I found was that Barbara Tuchman provided evidence within her own history that acquits her defendants. Additionally, while she deluges the reader with the history she constructs; she leaves gaps, or errant inferences to construct her argument. In the case of Vietnam she closes with a paragraph citing an actual quote in history, while apparently true it disgraces anyone who gave their last full measure to that cause.
With the Trojan-Greek war after reading one thousand pages of the Iliad and the Odyssey I found it remarkable that of all the folly found with the Greeks in terms of why leaders take their people to war, I take issue with Tuchman’s focus on the Trojan Horse leaving so much pertinent detail on the table. She may have discussed a tactical error, but she overlooked all strategy and philosophy in going to war. I also take issue with her attempt to use a story that has deep mythological interlude to it over so many other possibilities. She uses intellectual puzzling to make a case that it doesn’t matter if the story is true or myth and by mere referencing numerous authors of fame there is merit in the rationale she claims. I am not buying it as authors, prone to the novel when writing history are not leaders and therefore she selects an unqualified test group.
My specific issues with her first argument go as follows: By referencing discoveries in archeological digs, it could be true…if it could be proven that the remains a horse is not a battering ram. She totally overlooks how long it would take to get the Horse moved from the beech to inside the city walls and the prospect of survival or the discovery of smell of human excrement is not discussed. She suggests that mythological rational along a line of passion in a material argument, which is clearly a character of folly. And all the while what does the tactical mistake of the Horse have to do with the Trojan rationale for the war in the first place. She overlooks rational thought that Greece needed a superficial cause to unite their States as a possibility, a rationale that exactly what worked for Bismarck’s when he took Alsace –Loraine. She draws religion in to discussion and equates the Greek gods and our One God as the same. Greek gods were highly symbolic, with man made rationale while One God is spiritual in nature, where man corrupts it with a passion for power. The contrast throws a huge log into the spokes of her analogy. She attempts to contrast the rationale in terms of fate and free will. Fate is your free will when you recognize reality for what it is, which is not to be confused with leaps in science whose fate is to recognized nature and construct it to enhance our living condition in this world. So now the train of thought in support of her argument has lost too many wheels to support the weight of its argument as we round first base headed for second.
Tuchman’s second example is the Renaissance Popes. You have to be somewhat knowledgeable about Western Civilization in the post Roman Empire, or the Holy Roman Empire in order to find it plausible that the example actually fits her argument. For those with a fingernails grasp of what they learned in “Western Civ”, would remember that first the Papal States, insignificant as they were in terms of territory and power where ruled by kings and influenced by the Church. Second by the time the renaissance period dawned, the Church had endured 85 years where the papal curia sat in France and where heavily influenced by the rulers France. So this reader becomes at least highly suspicious of her ability to win a case in court, albeit the history is rich with detail not found in the average history book. So rich that you are sure you are reading a academic text book instead of hearing oral arguments from the Supreme Court of Historians.
I summarize the beginning of her Renaissance Pope argument as follows: At about the time Columbus discovered America – the Renaissance – which is to say the period of values of this world replaced those of the here after – was in full flower in Italy. This is a tug at a thread she left with Troy with its noose around the church. The agenda of too many academia nuts starts to show itself. She then follows with an assessment that the Popes folly was of perversity, perhaps the most consequential in Western history, if measured by its results in centuries of ensuing hostility and fratricidal war. It was a war where the King of France demanded that a Pope, so full of vices, so abominable in the eyes of the world must be removed, in order that a new pope be elected. Just such action, initiated by the Cardinals and resting on the support of the King of France, had caused the schism of recent memory, and nothing in Christian history had done the Church such irretrievable harm. What actually read is that entangled with a perverse lifestyle, prominent of the times, was an entanglement of the Papacy and the Monarchies to the extent that distinguishing the two becomes a cats-cradle.
Tuchman abides by another rule in her thesis which to show there was an alternative in the decision making of the rulers that could have taken place. With the Popes, in the political sphere, the alternative would have been a consistent institutional policy consistently pursued. If the popes had directed their energies to that end instead of dissipating their efforts in the petty paths of private greed, they could have maneuvered the hostilities of the secular powers in the interests of the Papal States. She forgets two things, first is the Spiritual agenda of the Catholic Church, weighed against course in perversity. But one cannot ignore the breakdown in her argument on alternative when she provides a pagan-christen dichotomy as follows: “meanwhile a new faith, nationalism, and a new challenge in rise of national churches were already undercutting Roman rule in the 15th century. To the extent pagan rulers fell in love with pagan antiquity, Italians of the ruling class felt less reverence for Christianity, which as Machiavelli wrote in The Discourses’, makes the “supreme felicity to consist in humility, abnegation and contempt of things human,” whereas pagan religion found the chief good in “grandeur of the solid, strength of the body and all qualities that make men redoubtable”.” Her alternative, given the church and the monarch of that time are indistinguishable breaks down in her own disclosure of history. As an attorney for the defense, using only the briefs provided by the prosecutor, while there is an over abundance of evidence to perversity, the argument for folly, that takes their people to war is fraught with enough conflict to acquit as you sort out “who the people” really are.
Tuchman moves on to the British version of the American Revolutionary war. Another of Tuchman’s rules in her thesis is to judge the leaders by the standards of their times. This rule is at least compromised as she sets the standards of the latter have of the 18th century where 200 families, including the Royal Family rule England, they all went to the same schools and learned the same line of thought and held the same ignorance to compete. This situation becomes exasperated when they have a king who inherited a throne at an incompetent age of 21. Cynical as he was fatherless and raised in conflict, low in character, whimsical in decision making as he fond himself appointing one faction then another and finally with no comprehension of the world and his colonies state of affairs brings a question of character or qualification and certainly not a question of folly in the a leader’s decision making pertinent to the continuance of the colonies.
With the overall foundation of Tuchman’s third example in deep trouble, she spends a tremendous amount of ink writing on the administrators, of the time making not irrational decisions, but decisions blind to the voice of Americans. There was an overarching need to recover economy to pay for the French seven years war causing a Royal Imposition of taxes, am imposition on trade, an Encampment of officers in homes and businesses to collect tax and tariff which are all logical decisions to maintain their Colony. One must have to remember, there was mutual lack of respect towards the colonial contribution to the French Indian war and a Colonial distrust of England’s need to stand up an army. There was an undercurrent of separation already afoot. It was the first step to ending the paradigm of colonialism, which until after Vietnam, her forth argument, you could hardly judge the British harshly using Barbara Tuchman’s guidelines.
In rounding third and headed for home Tuchman drags America once again through the pains of Vietnam. Written in 1984, four years in to Reagan’s road to rediscover American pride, this author had her head buried into an agenda that was overrun by history in the making. She missed the boat. There is a lot I found to criticize her accounting of the Vietnam trauma on the world. Was there folly? Of course there was. Did she capture it accurately? She came close. Did she frame it properly, not a chance. Did she circle up with her thesis,? I think she got lost in the rhetoric of the 70’s as she beat a solo drum of folly.
Again the damning evidence is in her detailed accounting of history that begins in 1919 and ends in 1975. Just stop and try to imagine how much world history that took place that may have overrun any decision taken by any American leader. If you are not up on history think back on the Depression, WWII, Korea, China, the Cold War that directly confronted the leaders that brought us into the Vietnam war. To think that any train of folly may have been derailed by superseding events is not very hard to do. And that is Tuchman’s grand mistake. So I call it a double play as she is tagged out at second and then again at the plate as she insults Americans who gave their last full measure.
In summary our involvement or the beginning of her case for folly begins with Woodrow Wilson as he denied Ho Chi Minh and his people the right to self determination which sent him off on a visit with Lenin in the new USSR. The Bolshevik phenomena captured everyone’s attention as early as 1900 and totally distracted Wilson from recognizing that the folly in colonialism that was only budding in 1776 was now in full flower on its last day. Hence the French once again find a way to perpetuate the oppression and extortion of people who are not French. While Roosevelt who was fully sympathetic with the Vietnamese in 1945, he was preoccupied with closing out WWII, The Red Threat from the USSR and his own death. Truman in his stead was equally concerned with the Red Threat as we first lost China to it and then North Korea. It was a real deal of the times and carried its day as an overriding factor to aid the French in their colonialism, not to perpetuate colonialism but the continued rampage of the falling dominos, that were falling as Czechoslovakia, Hungry, and Cuba also fell before Kennedy committed combat troops in 1962. To accuse our leaders of not being keen to the dominos theory is not looking at the bigger picture.
So while America is not innocent of making mistakes of folly, I must point to where I agree with her in part where folly was detrimental to the will of her people. She reports that credibility emerged in the Berlin crisis of that summer of 1961 when, after a harsh intimidating meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna, Kennedy said to James Reston, “now we have a problem in making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place. Under Kennedy, increased activity required more than a training command. In February 1962 a full field command under the acronym MACV superseded MAAG with a Three-star general named Paul D. Harkins…If a date is needed for the beginning of the American war in Vietnam, the establishment of Mac-Vee as it became known, will serve. Being caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Kennedy evidently stung, lied at a news conference in February 1962, “we have not sent combat troops there – in the generally understood sense of the word. We have increased out training mission and our logistics support….” And this was ‘as frank as I can be” consistent that unfailing refuge, “our security needs in the area.” To this she writes ‘the United States is now involved in an undeclared war in South Vietnam,” wrote James Reston on the same day. “this is well known to the Russians, the Chinese Communists and everyone else concerned except the American people.” Kennedy was no wooden head; he was aware of the negatives and bothered by them, but made no adjustments, nor did any of his chiefs of staff.
Kennedy’s death left Johnson with a smoking gun that he mismanaged would be an understatement. Johnson faced a presidential election of 1964. Because his bellicose opponent was Barry Goldwater, he had to appear as the peace candidate. He took up the chant about “their” war; “ We are not going to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves. We do not want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys. When six months later after he was elected, when American boys were sent into combat with no dramatic change of circumstance, these phrases were easily recalled, beginning the erosion of Johnsons credibility. The underlying need, given the rapid falling of the South, was to redress the military balance so that the United States should not negotiate from weakness. He was stuck between the tactics of fighting Kennedy’s undeclared war in conjunction with his campaign promises and the military decisions that were at hand, well documented in the Pentagon Papers, but missed by this author.
There was an alternative in 1962 that Tuchman missed, which was to tell the truth to the nation and the world and sell them on the reasons to go to war. On their own merit in 1962 that was plausible considering how fearful Americans of the color red. In hindsight to claim that the domino theory was an argument of folly is not winnable for either side. What we do know is that the relationship between the USSR and China fell in to a disaster. Meanwhile Kissinger and Nixon played ping-pong with the Chinese and relations warmed there. Also Chairman Mao’s death set China of in to a new direction. All accounts while very visible post 1962 or even 65 to the casual person of 35 years of age or older, Tuchman missed them in 1984. Why is that? They were events in history that would refute here thesis, and therefore the whole story need not be told by Tuchman. She told only what supported her argument and held her consistent with the rules of her argument. G.H. Bush and Colin Powell learned from that lesson and produced dramatic and opposite results in 1991, where it is plausible the same could have been achieved in 1962, making the argument not one of folly to go to war, but folly in the strategy in how to take a country to war.
In wrapping this up, I find Tuchman excellent in capturing intriguing detail in history. The history alone was entertaining. I concede that one book cannot capture it all when at that level. And so to apply an agenda to the history and omit critical surface events while burying the reader with detail, is an oft found flaw in academia that you must be on guard for. Tuchman is a renowned author of history, and therefore even within the system you must be mindful to keep your own bibliography of detail as you may be sold down the river. Where I find my highest degree of criticism in Tuchman’s effort here is when she writes: “The new political order in Vietnam as approximately what it would have been if America had never intervened, except for being far more vengeful and cruel. Perhaps the greatest folly was Hanoi’s – to have fought so steadfastly for thirty years for a cause that became a brutal tyranny when it was won.” And then three pages later she writes: The longest war had come to an end. Faintly from a distance of 200 years might have been heard Chatham’s summary of a nation’s self-betrayal: “by the arts of imposition, by its own credulity, through the means of false hope, false pride and promised advantages of the most romantic and improbable nature.” A contemporary summing it up was voiced by a Congressman from Michigan, Donald Riegle. In talking to a couple from his constituency who had lost a son in Vietnam, he faced the stark recognition that he could find no words to justify the boy’s death. “There was no way I could say that what had happened was in their interest or in the nation’s interest or in anyone’s interest.” All along the interest of the Ho Chi Minh and his Vietnamese people was the same freedom our soldiers fought for in WWI and was requested in the settlement of the peace in 1919. Connecting the historical dots was a betrayal to those fighting to preserve freedom for all men, the same freedom won in 1776 but lost in 1975.
I closed the book in total dismay. Not about the argument to or not to wage war as philosophically any path towards war should be labeled folly. Also keep in mind that is not the same argument to defend freedom, whether it is ours or someone else's. To sell out on America and choose Vietnam in this argument/thesis, was only to sell a book.
I have 10 pages of bibliography notes for those interested. Simply request and ye shall receive.
Monday, June 29, 2009
A Peace to End All Peace
A Peace to End All Peace
by David Frokman
This book could have easily been titled “What If” or even better yet “Only If” as it describes at world leader level in detail not only intentions that were miss understood, but also entangled with poor timing of superseding events. If you had ever heard disparaging comments on Churchill as the prime instigator, this book helps you visualize that he was indeed a prime mover, surrounded by a cacophony of leaders on the rise and fall, as we were all twisted by a press leading their peoples into war and a peace that has yet to be achieved. Other prime mover instigators are The Mark Sykes the co author of the infamous Sykes - Picot Agreement between England and France to partition the Ottoman Empire. Infamous do to through his naivete, as it turns out. Also to the cast of British arrogance was Lord Kitchener’s march towards folly in the Middle Eastern debacle. And finally the granddaddy of them all was the British PM Lloyd George, who pulled the strings of many.
This book is clearly from a British perspective as it describes the art of getting the bureaucratic politics right, the chief endeavor of the book. It was clearly akin to the work of Picasso. The chief story plot in the framework of history is the Great Game which was to shield Britain's road to India from the motives of Russia and then France. It was a game where Russia plays a Central Role in the beginning through deception, the middle through folly, and the end through deception. If written by a Russian author it would be only slightly twisted through logical story telling that the British made all their strategic decision from a standpoint of paranoia.
As a late comer to World War One an American can say that Wilson, lost in his own theories of sovereign destiny, was duped by all sides in the conflict and the peace process. I mention this to help the American reader appreciate history's cause and effect and learn you must make a paradigm shift to the perspective of WWI to learn a critical lesson pertinent to our involvement in the Middle East. The book provides a worthy plot in a panoramic view worth the time to read you find nascent Modern Middle East politics entwined with the politics of the Great Powers in a time where the paradigm of a Palestinian State was lost, and still is. In the brokering of Palestinian land Syria was granted to the House of Hussein, and not the Palestinians. This huge gap in fate is only the collective total of what is still an enigma today which is peace. Leaders of that time left today’s world leaders, still blind to that oversight and now buried in time, trying to divide a small piece of unproductive land in Israel when in fact the fruitful land of Arab Syria is rightfully Palestinian. Even the author of this book, a historian uncovers the folly, but does not recognize what is right before his eyes. A paradigm shift in history is still at large.
The first British domino after the Duke Ferdinand was assassinated in Serbia drawing Russia and Germany at odds in a land where Great Britain was beholden as essential to the Great Game. It was only an excuse to go to a pending war to settle brewing international intrigue. Keep in mind this is only 55 years after the Crimean War over the very similar world order. To ward off such a folly; if only the world knew of Churchill’s intentions regarding Turkey, much like his arm waving in the 1930's. If only England knew anything at all about the inner movements of the Ottoman Empire's rising new leaders, and a missed opportunity to bring the Turks in on the side of the Western Allies. If only British admirals at sea actually knew that in their first attack on the Dardanelles, the Turks were out of bullets and evacuating the city, and a simple sail in to the harbor was all that was required to take The Ottoman Empire out of the war. If only.… WWI would have been reduced to a mere conflict. But rather the folly of deception and intrigue between Russia, and England, as the Great Game for the passage to India found new wrinkles of deceptive quagmire that would spin mankind into further world disorder. The deal, missed deal, and counter dealing between the West and the Middle Eastern factions would never have allowed to bloom into the man eating orchid that it had.
Delving into the first layer the reader learns that the partners that went in to WWI as allies came out some as adversaries and some as reluctant partners. Of course the agendas of the alliances were of equally folly as the reasons for their break ups. In every case the rationale could not be substantiated by any argument of self interest. Russia effectively changed sides in the peace process and found alignment with Germany. France and Britain lost their way over Syria. In the process of each country’s effort to out maneuver their partner in a political dance with their new dance partner in their face amidst dance partners among the Muslim survivors who had not learned how to dance to a sovereign tune. All that was missing was a “Square Dance Caller’. This found France with a mandate over a reluctant people and Britain over a vast disparate people that it could not afford to rule.
Where Britain had an opportunity to reach her goal of an empire that ran up the East coast of Africa, across the Middle East and in to India, her deceit in politics domestically and internationally led to the squandering of a peace founded in the footings of democratic rule. This book draws an ironic parallel to that of the American Colonists of the folly in colonial management of far away lands. The difference is is found in the American rue where their subjects who aware of the democratic process and were once amicable with the British Parliament and Crown. In the case of the Middle East mandates that went to Britain, they had no clue of parliamentary procedure and could only judge Britain on the early promises that they could not keep, because they were financial and politically, both domestically and internationally, exhausted.
This book provides detailed account of my summary. The reader gets to agonize over the near misses of peace. The chance for world order seemed always around the corner with ill timed or misplaced communications that would set world leaders off in to a direction totally against their lost goals and objectives. In the end you are as exhausted from frustration as you learn the belligerents of the war and the antagonists of the peace, there were no winners to be found. The following are synopsis’ of a few near misses and of intrigue.
1. The British government was unaware of Turkish diplomatic activity of CUP ( young Turks) and did not realize that the Porte was urgently seeking a Great Power Alliance rather than with Germany.
2. Admiral De Robeck's withdrawal from a Sea – land battle that the Turks had already retreated from combined with the army who failed to attack an enemy who had run out of ammunition. For Winston Churchill, who was only hours away from victory, was to become the torment of his life. It was more than a personal triumph that had slipped through his fingers. It was also his last chance to save the world in which he had grown up: to win a war while the familiar, traditional Europe of traditional established monarchies and empires still survived.
3. al-Faruqi a rogue Arab emissary under no authority form Hussein found himself negotiating the Damascus Protocol drawing up boarders of a partitioned Ottoman Empire with Britain. Language combined with British exuberance, hindered accuracy of the lines...But the geographical references made by McMahon for Britain were hazy. Was reference made for example to the city of Damascus, the environs of Damascus, or the province of Damascus? Did "districts" mean wilayahs (environs) or vilayets (provences)? Was it al-Faryuqi who spoke of districts, or was it McMahon or Clayton? By districts did the British mean towns? The significance of the Aleppo-Homs-Hama-Damascus demand had been bitterly debated ever since. For decades afterward s partisans of an Arab Palestine argued that if those four geographical terms were properly understood, boarders would be different. British Cairo had promised that Palestine would be Arab; while partisans of a Jewish Palestine argued the reverse. In a sense the debate was pointless; McMahon deliberately used phrases so devious as to commit himself to nothing at all. In fact the cities in question were merely four stops on a French railway, connecting Constantinople power to the Hejaz.
4. Whether or not they constituted a majority in the city- and the then current Encyclopedia Britannica indicated that they did not- the Jews were economically preponderant, Baghdad, along with Jerusalem, was one of the two Jewish cities of Asia, and a thousand years before had become the seat of if Diaspora- the head of Jewish religion in the Eastern Diaspora- and this the Capitol of Oriental Judaism. Jews in large numbers lived in the Mesopotamian provinces of Basra and Baghdad since the time of captivity by Babylonians about 600 BC and this settled in the country a thousand years before the coming of Arabs in 634 AD. Recognition of this could have found a Jewish State in Baghdad.
5. Weizman (Jewish leader to Palestine, was introduced the Feisal. He wrote, He is a leader! He is quite intelligent and very honest man, handsome as a picture! He is not interested in Palestine, but on the other hand he wants the while of Northern Syria and Damascus.. Grist contemptuous of the Palestinian Arab whole he doesn't even regard as Arab.
6. The Syrian National party of 1920 did insist on full immediate independence for Syria and was also prepared to recognize a Jewish National home in Palestine. At the same time an Arab delegation from Palestine confronted the British military governor with a resolution opposing Zionism and petitioning part of an independent Syria.
7. When the Palestinian – Jewish question came up the map of the time held that Palestine included what is now Jordan and part of Syria. By 1923 what was once Palestinian, became “token booby prize gifts” to Saudi kings who were not awarded Saudi Arabia and the Jews were left with a barren land to win 35 years and another World War later by comparison called Israel. Today we find ourselves further subdividing the small strip of land called Israel into two separate states on of which already has internal strife leading to further fractionating of Palestinian people.
8. Brought out in parallel events were the Bolshevik excursions of intrigue into Afghanistan and India including what is now Pakistan. This in conjunction with their return to the remains of the Ottoman Empire confounded British strategy to maintain their newly established supremacy of the Great Game. There was a keen fear of Bolshevism among all western powers long before the Totalitarian Communism fear took root. It was in the context of Jewish borne conspiracy that the second Russian Revolution was seen by British officials as the latest manifestations of a bigger conspiracy. Jews were prominent among the Bolshevik leaders; so the Bolshevik seizure of power was viewed by many within British government as not merely as German inspired but as Jewish directed. In the West Bolshevism was a threat to the order of rule by Captains & Kings” more-so that a threat to the liberties of the individual man. One can clearly see that the Jews had to win Israel, despite England’s attempts to "help them along".
In conclusion this strictly British view of the events the of 1915 to 1923 laid the frame work for continued hostilities from the Mediterranean Ocean to the Pacific Ocean open to further settlement by the last of political means…wars. It is clear that at the time the attempted colonial state, while it may have momentarily taken advantage of the local people deserving of self determination, there existed a temporary sense of law and order. The British pull back for what ever reason left one sixth of our world population to figure out how to organize a civilized form of government in a world that at the time was fully vested in nation building through self determination and democratic process. These people only knew government through edicts of corrupt Caliphs through the process of suzerainty. India, a non Muslim country figured it out as they actually maintained the quality aspects of the ruler they later threw out. A lesson learned.
So this leaves a question on Iraq and Afghanistan . Will the United States along with its half hearted world partners repeat the mistake made by the British 86 years ago? Will our efforts to plant the seeds of self determination, beginning at the will of the people take root without the nurturing akin to what France gave to the United States in 1776, or what United States provided to Japan and Germany in the aftermath of WWII? Or will the vacuum left in a premature pullback be a perpetuation of a region in continual conflict? Taking the unfortunate reality of rogue leaders out of the equation to maintain the scope of this book: If history can be of value, the lessons learned are for our world leaders of today to get past the agendas of attack and fear, and on to the recognition of the values found in world peace?
The number one obstacle to learning the truth about ourselves is fear founded in belief in scarcity that perpetuates greed and power. To over come that fear we must first have trust in ourselves and then in our neighbors. In a world of trust comes a world of knowing, a world of intelligence. It was the that lack of intelligence that led to the folly of wars producing more human destruction than any other period in history. This book exposes the need to re-prioritize that lesson learned. A must read.
by David Frokman
This book could have easily been titled “What If” or even better yet “Only If” as it describes at world leader level in detail not only intentions that were miss understood, but also entangled with poor timing of superseding events. If you had ever heard disparaging comments on Churchill as the prime instigator, this book helps you visualize that he was indeed a prime mover, surrounded by a cacophony of leaders on the rise and fall, as we were all twisted by a press leading their peoples into war and a peace that has yet to be achieved. Other prime mover instigators are The Mark Sykes the co author of the infamous Sykes - Picot Agreement between England and France to partition the Ottoman Empire. Infamous do to through his naivete, as it turns out. Also to the cast of British arrogance was Lord Kitchener’s march towards folly in the Middle Eastern debacle. And finally the granddaddy of them all was the British PM Lloyd George, who pulled the strings of many.
This book is clearly from a British perspective as it describes the art of getting the bureaucratic politics right, the chief endeavor of the book. It was clearly akin to the work of Picasso. The chief story plot in the framework of history is the Great Game which was to shield Britain's road to India from the motives of Russia and then France. It was a game where Russia plays a Central Role in the beginning through deception, the middle through folly, and the end through deception. If written by a Russian author it would be only slightly twisted through logical story telling that the British made all their strategic decision from a standpoint of paranoia.
As a late comer to World War One an American can say that Wilson, lost in his own theories of sovereign destiny, was duped by all sides in the conflict and the peace process. I mention this to help the American reader appreciate history's cause and effect and learn you must make a paradigm shift to the perspective of WWI to learn a critical lesson pertinent to our involvement in the Middle East. The book provides a worthy plot in a panoramic view worth the time to read you find nascent Modern Middle East politics entwined with the politics of the Great Powers in a time where the paradigm of a Palestinian State was lost, and still is. In the brokering of Palestinian land Syria was granted to the House of Hussein, and not the Palestinians. This huge gap in fate is only the collective total of what is still an enigma today which is peace. Leaders of that time left today’s world leaders, still blind to that oversight and now buried in time, trying to divide a small piece of unproductive land in Israel when in fact the fruitful land of Arab Syria is rightfully Palestinian. Even the author of this book, a historian uncovers the folly, but does not recognize what is right before his eyes. A paradigm shift in history is still at large.
The first British domino after the Duke Ferdinand was assassinated in Serbia drawing Russia and Germany at odds in a land where Great Britain was beholden as essential to the Great Game. It was only an excuse to go to a pending war to settle brewing international intrigue. Keep in mind this is only 55 years after the Crimean War over the very similar world order. To ward off such a folly; if only the world knew of Churchill’s intentions regarding Turkey, much like his arm waving in the 1930's. If only England knew anything at all about the inner movements of the Ottoman Empire's rising new leaders, and a missed opportunity to bring the Turks in on the side of the Western Allies. If only British admirals at sea actually knew that in their first attack on the Dardanelles, the Turks were out of bullets and evacuating the city, and a simple sail in to the harbor was all that was required to take The Ottoman Empire out of the war. If only.… WWI would have been reduced to a mere conflict. But rather the folly of deception and intrigue between Russia, and England, as the Great Game for the passage to India found new wrinkles of deceptive quagmire that would spin mankind into further world disorder. The deal, missed deal, and counter dealing between the West and the Middle Eastern factions would never have allowed to bloom into the man eating orchid that it had.
Delving into the first layer the reader learns that the partners that went in to WWI as allies came out some as adversaries and some as reluctant partners. Of course the agendas of the alliances were of equally folly as the reasons for their break ups. In every case the rationale could not be substantiated by any argument of self interest. Russia effectively changed sides in the peace process and found alignment with Germany. France and Britain lost their way over Syria. In the process of each country’s effort to out maneuver their partner in a political dance with their new dance partner in their face amidst dance partners among the Muslim survivors who had not learned how to dance to a sovereign tune. All that was missing was a “Square Dance Caller’. This found France with a mandate over a reluctant people and Britain over a vast disparate people that it could not afford to rule.
Where Britain had an opportunity to reach her goal of an empire that ran up the East coast of Africa, across the Middle East and in to India, her deceit in politics domestically and internationally led to the squandering of a peace founded in the footings of democratic rule. This book draws an ironic parallel to that of the American Colonists of the folly in colonial management of far away lands. The difference is is found in the American rue where their subjects who aware of the democratic process and were once amicable with the British Parliament and Crown. In the case of the Middle East mandates that went to Britain, they had no clue of parliamentary procedure and could only judge Britain on the early promises that they could not keep, because they were financial and politically, both domestically and internationally, exhausted.
This book provides detailed account of my summary. The reader gets to agonize over the near misses of peace. The chance for world order seemed always around the corner with ill timed or misplaced communications that would set world leaders off in to a direction totally against their lost goals and objectives. In the end you are as exhausted from frustration as you learn the belligerents of the war and the antagonists of the peace, there were no winners to be found. The following are synopsis’ of a few near misses and of intrigue.
1. The British government was unaware of Turkish diplomatic activity of CUP ( young Turks) and did not realize that the Porte was urgently seeking a Great Power Alliance rather than with Germany.
2. Admiral De Robeck's withdrawal from a Sea – land battle that the Turks had already retreated from combined with the army who failed to attack an enemy who had run out of ammunition. For Winston Churchill, who was only hours away from victory, was to become the torment of his life. It was more than a personal triumph that had slipped through his fingers. It was also his last chance to save the world in which he had grown up: to win a war while the familiar, traditional Europe of traditional established monarchies and empires still survived.
3. al-Faruqi a rogue Arab emissary under no authority form Hussein found himself negotiating the Damascus Protocol drawing up boarders of a partitioned Ottoman Empire with Britain. Language combined with British exuberance, hindered accuracy of the lines...But the geographical references made by McMahon for Britain were hazy. Was reference made for example to the city of Damascus, the environs of Damascus, or the province of Damascus? Did "districts" mean wilayahs (environs) or vilayets (provences)? Was it al-Faryuqi who spoke of districts, or was it McMahon or Clayton? By districts did the British mean towns? The significance of the Aleppo-Homs-Hama-Damascus demand had been bitterly debated ever since. For decades afterward s partisans of an Arab Palestine argued that if those four geographical terms were properly understood, boarders would be different. British Cairo had promised that Palestine would be Arab; while partisans of a Jewish Palestine argued the reverse. In a sense the debate was pointless; McMahon deliberately used phrases so devious as to commit himself to nothing at all. In fact the cities in question were merely four stops on a French railway, connecting Constantinople power to the Hejaz.
4. Whether or not they constituted a majority in the city- and the then current Encyclopedia Britannica indicated that they did not- the Jews were economically preponderant, Baghdad, along with Jerusalem, was one of the two Jewish cities of Asia, and a thousand years before had become the seat of if Diaspora- the head of Jewish religion in the Eastern Diaspora- and this the Capitol of Oriental Judaism. Jews in large numbers lived in the Mesopotamian provinces of Basra and Baghdad since the time of captivity by Babylonians about 600 BC and this settled in the country a thousand years before the coming of Arabs in 634 AD. Recognition of this could have found a Jewish State in Baghdad.
5. Weizman (Jewish leader to Palestine, was introduced the Feisal. He wrote, He is a leader! He is quite intelligent and very honest man, handsome as a picture! He is not interested in Palestine, but on the other hand he wants the while of Northern Syria and Damascus.. Grist contemptuous of the Palestinian Arab whole he doesn't even regard as Arab.
6. The Syrian National party of 1920 did insist on full immediate independence for Syria and was also prepared to recognize a Jewish National home in Palestine. At the same time an Arab delegation from Palestine confronted the British military governor with a resolution opposing Zionism and petitioning part of an independent Syria.
7. When the Palestinian – Jewish question came up the map of the time held that Palestine included what is now Jordan and part of Syria. By 1923 what was once Palestinian, became “token booby prize gifts” to Saudi kings who were not awarded Saudi Arabia and the Jews were left with a barren land to win 35 years and another World War later by comparison called Israel. Today we find ourselves further subdividing the small strip of land called Israel into two separate states on of which already has internal strife leading to further fractionating of Palestinian people.
8. Brought out in parallel events were the Bolshevik excursions of intrigue into Afghanistan and India including what is now Pakistan. This in conjunction with their return to the remains of the Ottoman Empire confounded British strategy to maintain their newly established supremacy of the Great Game. There was a keen fear of Bolshevism among all western powers long before the Totalitarian Communism fear took root. It was in the context of Jewish borne conspiracy that the second Russian Revolution was seen by British officials as the latest manifestations of a bigger conspiracy. Jews were prominent among the Bolshevik leaders; so the Bolshevik seizure of power was viewed by many within British government as not merely as German inspired but as Jewish directed. In the West Bolshevism was a threat to the order of rule by Captains & Kings” more-so that a threat to the liberties of the individual man. One can clearly see that the Jews had to win Israel, despite England’s attempts to "help them along".
In conclusion this strictly British view of the events the of 1915 to 1923 laid the frame work for continued hostilities from the Mediterranean Ocean to the Pacific Ocean open to further settlement by the last of political means…wars. It is clear that at the time the attempted colonial state, while it may have momentarily taken advantage of the local people deserving of self determination, there existed a temporary sense of law and order. The British pull back for what ever reason left one sixth of our world population to figure out how to organize a civilized form of government in a world that at the time was fully vested in nation building through self determination and democratic process. These people only knew government through edicts of corrupt Caliphs through the process of suzerainty. India, a non Muslim country figured it out as they actually maintained the quality aspects of the ruler they later threw out. A lesson learned.
So this leaves a question on Iraq and Afghanistan . Will the United States along with its half hearted world partners repeat the mistake made by the British 86 years ago? Will our efforts to plant the seeds of self determination, beginning at the will of the people take root without the nurturing akin to what France gave to the United States in 1776, or what United States provided to Japan and Germany in the aftermath of WWII? Or will the vacuum left in a premature pullback be a perpetuation of a region in continual conflict? Taking the unfortunate reality of rogue leaders out of the equation to maintain the scope of this book: If history can be of value, the lessons learned are for our world leaders of today to get past the agendas of attack and fear, and on to the recognition of the values found in world peace?
The number one obstacle to learning the truth about ourselves is fear founded in belief in scarcity that perpetuates greed and power. To over come that fear we must first have trust in ourselves and then in our neighbors. In a world of trust comes a world of knowing, a world of intelligence. It was the that lack of intelligence that led to the folly of wars producing more human destruction than any other period in history. This book exposes the need to re-prioritize that lesson learned. A must read.
The Origins of the First World War
The Origins of the First World War
By James Joll
Poetic coincidence, I began reading this book while waiting for a plane in Geneva Switzerland, home of the European UN, in the country nestled between France and Germany. Also as bit of humor TJ lent me this book as a pass through from one of his friends who studied it for a class. I mused at what he took note of versus what I marked as noteworthy. We had to have taken away two different verdicts. This is the third in my series of books where I am purposefully looking for answers to the cause of war. The first two, Rise and fall Of the Third Reich and Paris 1919, only threw clues and inferences. Also know I have a library of read material related to the subject but such material was not necessarily read to answer this single question. I was hoping, from the author’s credentials as college professor and historian, to get something more absolute from this one. While I gained a lot of insight and can now start to draw my own conclusions I hate to say it but I am leaning towards the view of the French, which is always to be fearful of the German propensity for dominion. I am leaning with reservation because the French have yet to reach a level of national conscience that demonstrates peace for the right reason. This review will brush over the top of James Joll’s work and I will make an attempt to connect dots and draw conclusions. Keep in mind I am on to reading on Bismarck and then the Crimean War, so I reserve the liberty to modify conclusions written herin.
This book addresses seven different overarching factors starting with the July crisis in 1914 that may have attributed to the cause of WWI. Of the seven factors the mood of 1914 strikes me as the most intriguing. The mood involves the dynamics between the people and their leaders. The most essential aspect of the relationship is the timing of an action, which may be the result of decisions made long before the action. Power politics versus humanity with a civilized world order looming in the balance. While all the countries involved in WWI experienced these dynamics, Germany, albeit with a considerable peace movement in its midst, appears to have demonstrated the most tangible aptitude towards war.
Along the lines of a manipulated mood, one interesting dynamic the author includes is socialism-v-capitalism. What makes this intriguing is the author demonstrates that it is not the theory of the two philosophies but rather the way each may be applied. History clearly shows that free market, as a medium for freely negotiated division of labor, is an accelerator towards a peaceful society. Socialism has demonstrated the same when you look at Scandinavia. To this day the differences have not come close to instigating an international conflict. Only corruption and power politics internally and internationally can be found as a culprit.
In 1914 the novel idea socialism seemed to challenge the sense of internal power among the leaders where creating international conflict helped bring a sense of nationalism that would be perceived by the constituents as dependant on their leadership. This dynamic did not directly cause the war, but it gave leaders a motive to cultivate the approval to go to war. In the German case, the cultivation of the approval is most prominent. The first reason is the country was only 40 years old with many states questioning their unity. In Germany with the mechanics of their government the military was king. Rather than a civil war killing each other they opted for a war against their neighbors. Today in the European Union, there are many states questioning the purpose and fairness of a new Union, with Germany at center stage once again.
With regard to the mobilization of the war machine in Germany, the feeling of power in conjunction with the limitations in aptitude of one person(s) pulling the levers appears to have been a dynamic of the breakout of the war, but not the cause. To qualify this their was purposeful deception in justifying decisions for war but more so the direct mobilization of military machines were run amuck. Cause and effect was not clearly understood or communicated among the leaders involved. Connecting the dots of the diplomatic cause to the military effect, given that military action as the last instrument of diplomacy, finds the irretrievable orders of mobilization to war irreconcilable with the profit-loss aspects of a military result. Because this is an aspect of the war, I find it difficult to call it the protagonist of the war.
The protagonist to The Great War as history sees it appears to be clearly placed with Germany. In their unification, they found both as a people and in their leadership the desire to expand. At the same time they were internally conflicted which caused leadership to find international conflict a solution to bolstering a unified German mind. The legacies of Bismarck, Nietzche, and Treitschke over 40 years through the education in their schools, the German youth were a brainwashed a people apt to salute anything with a uniform. Those uniforms told them that they deserve more. The Kaiser, with an agenda for more pushed Austria to military action with Serbia. The Kaiser knew a conflict would draw in Russia. The Kaiser knew his plan would require the neutralization of France. The Kaiser miscalculated is English in-laws. Aside from his low level of mental acuity we question his motive.
In defense of the other belligerents, Austria-Hungary’s state of disintegration on its own may have taken a more passive position to a perceived attempt to disrupt the transition of Habsburg power from its current king to its prince in waiting. Russia had its interests in a warm water port guised in its protection of Slavic people, but was not in a position having just been defeated by Japan to go to war. France and England over years of disarmament were just not ready for war. Germany was going a different direction having built up its navy to rival England, and bolstered is army through a conscription level higher than its neighbors. Germany saw both Russia and England as rivals that they needed an upper hand on. The shot heard around the world was all the Kaiser needed to launch a military plan that caused general war. Could this have been prevented?
Balance of Power did not work to gain a world peace and eventually gave way to a United Nations, which obviously is not working, as there have been over 65 wars across national boarders since its inception. We also know building coalitions forces have its limitations as business and political agendas often conflict. It seems greed for money and power corrupt whomever sits at the helm of any type of organization. We know that boycotts and sanctions do not work as world consensus or for that matter consensus at any level is impossible to maintain. What will work? I have said before that it seems that when two or more people ban together for a common cause involving scarcity of some thing, there will be another group ready to fight for their share. Who should be the arbitrator of such conflict and can you scale this arbitration to a world level?
What is missing is Conscience…collective conscience… the power of one singular mind for mankind…the willingness to extend your being beyond your physical self. At the core is You/Us. If you have a conflicted conscience it would follow that your society has a conflicted conscience. Germany certainly displayed how a group of people can make their body temples a false alter through which they perceive the world. They sought for more…the god of more. They had collective conscience going in the right direction, but were merely focused on the State, their State and that is where they became delusional. But lets be fair, Americans in 2007 do it too. Cast a hue of shame on us for collectively lobbying our congressmen for banning the sale of key resources to international entities (China & Dubai) that we fear that they may get more than we get.
So lets turn the coin over and hit the fast forward button. Why does Iran fear the West? Read my past reviews, first they want something today that they once had which is recognition as a world power. They now fear others because those countries want something Persians have. (oil and/or warm water). They feared USSR because of their experience of a Russian agenda for more. (warm water port) They feared the British because of their same experience through bogus business deals. (oil) Iran, believe it or not, prefer to work with and through the United States for their rightful place on the world stage as right now only the United Sates through its diplomacy shine a light on that need. This phenomenon was also observed in my reading of 1919. Yet we fear them (Muslims} because we are convinced they are out to take away our way of life. I consider it merely to be a subplot rooted in Imam rhetoric, albeit rooted in the Quran, a fear that is snatched up by people on both sides of the equation living in fear. In every case there is a fear of one group of people taking away an object even if that object is an idea (ideal) from another group of people.
What if we did away with the groups of people? Sounds too much like communism. What if we did away with the objects? Sounds too much like Jesus. Oddly enough communism banned the teachings of Jesus. What was he teaching? Jesus was teaching that we are all one. When you make a slight on another you are making a slight upon yourself. When you make a gift for another you are making a gift for yourself. When you are giving up a material thing for another, you are gaining a material thing for yourself. When you live at the sake of another you are slighting that other man and thus slighting yourself. We are all one of one singular mind and that is to love (allow another to exist just as he/she is) and be happy with that reality (accept it). The average bear does not see or perhaps does not want to see it that way because he is not at one with himself. There is no singularity of the mind that would enable him to transcend his body temple. Therefore, he spends his energy consuming more things to make his body, family, village, city, nation, more comfortable.
Therefore groups of people build temples, shrines, or monuments that while intended to unite people, they miss all people, ending up with a group of people and therefore have unacceptable separate realities full of conflict, whether intended in its origin or not. Historically we find it to be a part of human nature to behave this way individually and as nations. We have failed to understand that the basic tenant of conflict is the failure to recognize that the human race is all one, the world is a billion piece jigsaw puzzle, where one damaged or missing piece renders the whole puzzle worthless. To break through, can we suspend with the idea of temples, as they are symbols of our separateness? Can we get rid of symbols as they unintentionally classify, which is a proponent of the process of division? These very questions suggest we do away with religion, government, and science, as we know them. They can be seen as opponents to each other and to mankind when applied in the wrong spirit of mind. Daunting!!!!
In the case of WWI it is easy to pass the buck on to Germany. They had motive, preconceived intent, and the ability. There people never saw the devastation on their side of the boarder in that war allowing Hitler to light another fuse. It took the their annihilation in WWII to finally eradicate their compulsion of war like behavior as a nation. But to slight them is to slight the whole human race. Whilst we maintain a continued vigilance on Germany and Japan, we should be mindful of our own thinking as well. Our option as history would propose… annihilation
Not sure I have said anything new, but will leave it here for now. I am on to finishing, Bismarck, Crimean, and then on to techno solutions.
End notes
The Old Alliance System
1. p. 56: The maintenance of Austria-Hungry as a Great Power became a major foreign policy goal of Germany, both on diplomatic grounds, since Austria was seen as Germany’s only ally, and because any internal crisis in Austro-Hungry might have repercussions in Germany.
2. p. 57: In the years between the Bosnian crisis and the outbreak of the First World War, four things were forcing a reassessment and tightening up of the alliance system in Europe. The upheavals in Turkey which encouraged Russian hopes of compensating for their humiliation in the Far East by gains in the Balkans, …Austrians must act vigorously against Serbia to prevent the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy…the German naval building was a threat to Britain’s imperial interest,…German belief they must take action in order to ensure that the world balance of power was in their favor, … the hopes of the French, using the alliance with Russia to obtain the return of Alsace and Lorraine.
3. p. 63: on the period before 1914: Although the Germans had given the Austrians some diplomatic support at certain points in crisis, the Balkan quarrels had not escalated into European war because the Germans were not prepared to give their ally free hand against Serbia.
4. p. 65: The realization by the Germans that Austria-Hungry was her only reliable ally and that she must be supported at all costs in any policies which Austrians thought essential for survival of the Habsburg State, was an important motive for the German decisions of July 1914; and these decisions have been seen in terms of the Austrian belief that Germany had not supported her sufficiently in the previous years.
5. p. 66: The existence of the alliance system above all conditions expectations laid about the form of a war would take if it broke out, and about who were likely to be friends and enemies. These expectations laid down broad lines of strategic planning, so that general staffs were taking decisions, which often committed them to irreversible military actions if war threatened.
Militarism, Armaments and Strategy
6. p. 70: by 1912 the German authorities were so worried about the Social Democrats won a third of the votes in the Reichstag, they had serious doubts about increasing the size of their army. …the government succeeded in1913 in carrying a three year law through parliament, the anti-militarist movement was strong enough for any government to take into account the mood of the conscripts before starting a war.
7. p. 71 in a town hall conflict a soldiers telegram “ Town Hall occupied by the military. We urgently desire information as to the reasons in order to reassure the excited citizens.” Satirists might laugh at this episode, but it was a sign of the readiness of Germans to accept without question the orders of anyone in a military uniform.
8. p. 72 While the general acceptance of military values by large sections of the German public may have contributed to the mood which made war possible and to the enthusiasm with which the outbreak of war was greeted, the most important aspect of the role of the German army in the coming war was its freedom from civilian political control
9. p. 77 And Winston Churchill, who became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, as result of changes in the cabinet….: I must explicitly repudiate the suggestion that Great Britain can ever allow another naval power to approach her so nearly as to deflect or to restrict her political action by purely naval pressure.” The German government was in fact hoping for just that and wanted political concessions in exchange for naval disarmament.
10. p. 79 The structure of German society gave a special role to the army and produced a special respect for military values. The naval policies of the Kaiser and Tripitz aroused British foreign antagonism and began a naval race which had important social and economic effects as well as producing a radical change in British foreign policy.
11. p. 88 The King withdrew from, politics and Alexander became Prince Regent, while Pasic announced dissolution of parliament and new elections for 1 August. Thus, because of tension between the army and the civilian government, Serbia was in the midst of a major political crisis at the moment of the assignation of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
12. p. 90: Traditions of terrorism and conspiracy going back to the years of Turkish rule contributed an element of instability in both domestic and foreign policy (Serbian)…. Yet in the summer of 1914, when the Serbian army had not yet recovered from efforts in the Balkan wars, was hardly the moment for Serbia to provoke such a war; the evidence does not suggest that either the Serb government or the army command wanted to do so.
13. p. 91: The pace was set by Germany trying, for a variety of reasons, to shift world balance of power in her favor even if it involved a risk of war.
The Primacy of Domestic Politics
14. p. 109: notably that of Germany as we shall see, foreign policy was sometimes used as a way of providing a focus for national feelings so as to distract attention away from divisions and tensions of German society
15. p. 111: The Austro- Hungarian government believed that the establishment of some sort of control over Serbia was essential for the survival of their state.
16. p.111: The Liberal government had been in power in England since 1905 and there were many among supporters who held to tradition of …Gladstone, and believed that the balance of power was a dangerous concept, that expenditure on armaments was both wasteful and wicked and that Britain’s policy should be to maintain the freedom of trade and to keep herself free of foreign entanglements.
17. p. 115: If we look for responsibility for the First World War in the political and constitutional arrangements of the belligerent states, then the structure of the British government can be held responsible for Grey’s reluctance openly to commit Britain to support France and Russia before he was absolutely convinced he could carry his party with him.
18. p. 117: if a war was to come, it would have to be overran issue which would appear to the French public as involving a direct threat to France. For this reason the French government appeared to the Russians to be unreliable allies.
19. p. 117: French Prime Minister Poincare was convinced the he could produce a mood of national unity as was prepared to use his presidential prerogatives as far as they could possibly be stretched in order to do so. Domestic politics were to be subordinated to foreign policy.
20. p. 120: It was by then already clear to Poincare that the strength of anti-militarism had been exaggerated and that mobilization would proceed without interference from socialist or syndicalists.
21. p. 124: The Tsar himself was sometimes influenced by similar ideas for the reconstruction of central Europe. He told a rather bewildered British ambassador in April 1913 that he believed the disintegration of the Austrian Empire was only a matter of time.
22. p. 130: with regard to Germany, There is evidence that, at least from the 1890s, members of imperial government believed a vigorous foreign policy and encouragement of an aggressive nationalist spirit would be one way of overcoming the particularist sentiments in the individual states and producing a mood of national unity comparable to that of 1870.
23. p. 131: Bulow had successfully fought Reichstag elections of 1907 with slogans which combined nationalism, colonialism, and anti-socialism.. However the supporters of the view that it was concern for (German) domestic polititics that determined the conduct of German foreign policy would argue that this was more than just a matter of using foreign political issues for the immediate purpose of winning a particular election, and that foreign policy was deliberately used as a means of manipulating public opinion so as to create a sense of solidarity among German people and overcome the social and political divisions which were seen as a threat to every existence of the German Empire. The attraction of colonial Empire, a large fleet and an active policy would serve both as a basis for rallying the loyal elements around the Kaiser and government and as a means of countering the threat of a growing socialist movement.
24. p. 132: It is unlikely that German naval building would have been pursued so enthusiastically without the Kaiser’s personal commitment to the creation of a German fleet. This was no doubt partly the result of his own psychology – his emotional need to show himself the equal of his British relatives, and his country equal to England, which he both loved and hated.
25. P. 139: Between 1912 and the outbeak of the war, much nationalist propaganda was explicitly linking calls for preparation for war with the hope that a war might put an end to social democracy. ... While other members of the German government and high command believed that there was little point in postponing a war which they considered inevitable. Bethmann, with his eyes on the internal situation, was concerned that a war if it cam should appear to be one in which Germany was attacked by Russia. … From the time of Engals and Marx onwards, socialists had always believed that war against Russia, the most reactionary power in Europe would be justified, however they might criticize militarism at home.
The International Economy
26. p. 161: The international bankers were in a paradoxical position, symbolic perhaps of the whole capitalist system in Europe before 1914. Pm one hand, through their close collaboration with governments, they encouraged by their investment policy the consolidation of alliances and the growth of colonial rivalries. On the other hand the benefited by the flow of international trade and had an interest in uninterrupted international tension.
27. p. 164: The British share of world trade was falling…they had older industries. From a purely economic view of the United States was at least as dangerous a rival a Germany yet there was not talks of growing antagonism between the two. Sir Edward Grey in 1906 “ The economic rivalry (and all that) do not give much offence to our people, and they admire her steady industry and genius for organization. But the do resent mischief making. They suspect the Emperor of aggressive plans of Welpolitik, and they see that Germany is forcing the pace of armaments in order to dominate Europe and is thereby laying a horrible burden of wasteful expenditure upon all the other powers.
28. p. 168: Certainly there were industrialist and military men who hoped the war once begun would end with a peace that would extend their markets or safeguard their strategic position ( Field Marshal Hindenburg was to justify his demands for large annexations from Russia with the words “I need them for maneuvering of my left wing in the next war”)… Bethman approved a program of extensive annexations in the west to be followed in the pushing back of the Russian frontier and ending Russian control over non Russian [people … these gains that Germany went to war and that alone seemed to provide a way out of economic difficulties and contradictions so widely apparent in the spring of 1914.
Imperial Rivalries
29. p. 176 During the 1890s the main imperial rivalries had been between Britain ND France in Africa and Britain and
30. p. 176: Russia in the Far East. Britain and France had been close to war in 1898 over their claims to the upper Nile.
31. p. 181: For Britain in 1914 the threat to the empire which Germany appeared to represent was not a threat to any particular colony – as we shall see, right down to the outbreak of war there was always room for agreement between the two countries on specific colonial questions.
32. p. 181/182: Welpolitik or imperialism in this very general sense – and this was one of the reasons why it could serve as a unifying force for many different groups in German society – seemed to give purpose and a new mission to German state.
33. p. 188: The Turkish government ware increasingly concerned that their obvious weakness, after their defeats in Tripoli and Balkan wars made them vulnerable to a threat of partition, and they became convinced that they had more to fear from Russia than from Germany.
34. p. 181: Nevertheless the case of Turkey – like that of China a decade earlier – and the complex story of Anglo-German co-operation and rivalry there suggest that here was an area in which imperialist rivalries among European Great Powers were contributing to the instability which made the outbreak possible.
35. p. 191: Giolitti states: Tripolitania is a province of the Ottoman Empire, and Ottoman Empire is a European great power. The integrity of what remains of the Ottoman Empire is one of the principles on which equilibrium an peace is based… Can it be in the interests of Italy to shatter one of the cornerstones of the old edifice? And what if after we have attacked Turkey, the Balkans begin to stir? And what if a Balkin war provokes a clash between the two power blocs and a European war? Can it be that we can shoulder the responsibility of putting a match to the powder?
36. p. 192: Certainly Italy’s imperialist war was one of the sparks lighting what one historian has called the long fuse linking the outbreak of the First Wiorld War to remote origins in the Balkins.
37. p. 192: The outbreak of war in 1914 wa not caused by immediate imperialist rivalries; and Germany’s aspirations for colonial territory might well have been achieved by agreement with Britain if the Germans had been prepared to abate their claims to naval hegemony. Nevertheless weak independent states such as Morocco and Ottoman were a temptation for the imperialist.
38. p 195: Imperialist thinking had always accepted the risk of war and regarded armed struggle as an essential part of imperial extension, even though tin fact imperialist was had hitherto for the most part been limited in scope. By 1914 this intensified the crisis in which German ambitions, French grievances, Russian expansionism, British anxieties and Austrian fears lead to decisions that war was inevitable.
The Mood of 1914
39. p. 199: But the mood in which peoples of Europe accepted and in some cases welcomed the idea of war was not just the result of the way in which their governments had justified their immediate political decisions. It was founded on the accumulation of national traditions and attitudes which had formed beliefs about the nature of the state and authority, reinforced by the curriculum in schools over the past decades and the kind of language in which politicians and journalists had discussed international relations.
40. p. 203: at the Tsar’s initial peace conferences in 1899 and 1907, the Kaiser declared: I’ll go along with the on conference comedy but I’ll keep my dagger at my side during the waltz.
41. p. 204 Most members of the peace movement were anxious to stress that their attempts to reform their system of international relations and to reduce armaments did not mean they lacked patriotism… “ We cannot continue criticism of policy which has led to this war as we did in the case of South Africa, for our safety is at stake. We can none of now think of anything but this one object”.
42. p. 204: Among socialist, “The working man has no country” the Communist Manifesto had proclaimed in 1848, “National differences and antagonisms are daily more and more vanishing owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, the freedom of commerce, the world market, the corresponding thereto.
43. p. 204: The internal regime of a stat was opposing Russia was of little importance: Turkey, for example as in the Crimean War was on the side of history because, as Engals put it a few years later: “A subjectively reactionary force can in foreign policy fulfill an objectively revolutionary mission.
44. p. 208: in France the revolutionary syndicalists and some socialists were calling for general strike in the event of mobilization… the French departments were busy revising the lists of people who were to be arrested in the event of mobilization.
45. p. 210: in Germany, they never forgot the twelve years under Bismarck’s snit-socialist law which had made many of the usual activities of political party impossible and were terrified that similar restrictions might be imposed again. …Bebel in fact accepted the socialist’s impotence in the face of German state and the Prussian military caste…
46. p. 211: In short the governments were very successful in convincing their citizens that they were the victims of aggression and in appealing to immediate feelings of patriotism and self-preservation which proved stronger than any internationalist convictions.
47. p. 217. When the war broke out, the British at least were encouraged by their newspapers, propagandists and religious leaders to attribute the war specifically to the influence of two German writers, the philosopher Fredrick Nietzche and the historian Heinrich von Treitschke.
48. p. 218: The moment the State proclaims “Your State and the existence of your State are now at stake” selfishness disappears and party hatred is silenced…In this consists the grandeur of war, that trivial things are entirely lost sight of in the great ideal of the State.
49. p. 223: Baden-Powell enabling the British Empire to survive: “We must all be bricks in the wall of that great enterprise – the British Empire – and we must be careful that we do not let our differences of opinion on politics and other questions grow so strong as to divide us.”
By James Joll
Poetic coincidence, I began reading this book while waiting for a plane in Geneva Switzerland, home of the European UN, in the country nestled between France and Germany. Also as bit of humor TJ lent me this book as a pass through from one of his friends who studied it for a class. I mused at what he took note of versus what I marked as noteworthy. We had to have taken away two different verdicts. This is the third in my series of books where I am purposefully looking for answers to the cause of war. The first two, Rise and fall Of the Third Reich and Paris 1919, only threw clues and inferences. Also know I have a library of read material related to the subject but such material was not necessarily read to answer this single question. I was hoping, from the author’s credentials as college professor and historian, to get something more absolute from this one. While I gained a lot of insight and can now start to draw my own conclusions I hate to say it but I am leaning towards the view of the French, which is always to be fearful of the German propensity for dominion. I am leaning with reservation because the French have yet to reach a level of national conscience that demonstrates peace for the right reason. This review will brush over the top of James Joll’s work and I will make an attempt to connect dots and draw conclusions. Keep in mind I am on to reading on Bismarck and then the Crimean War, so I reserve the liberty to modify conclusions written herin.
This book addresses seven different overarching factors starting with the July crisis in 1914 that may have attributed to the cause of WWI. Of the seven factors the mood of 1914 strikes me as the most intriguing. The mood involves the dynamics between the people and their leaders. The most essential aspect of the relationship is the timing of an action, which may be the result of decisions made long before the action. Power politics versus humanity with a civilized world order looming in the balance. While all the countries involved in WWI experienced these dynamics, Germany, albeit with a considerable peace movement in its midst, appears to have demonstrated the most tangible aptitude towards war.
Along the lines of a manipulated mood, one interesting dynamic the author includes is socialism-v-capitalism. What makes this intriguing is the author demonstrates that it is not the theory of the two philosophies but rather the way each may be applied. History clearly shows that free market, as a medium for freely negotiated division of labor, is an accelerator towards a peaceful society. Socialism has demonstrated the same when you look at Scandinavia. To this day the differences have not come close to instigating an international conflict. Only corruption and power politics internally and internationally can be found as a culprit.
In 1914 the novel idea socialism seemed to challenge the sense of internal power among the leaders where creating international conflict helped bring a sense of nationalism that would be perceived by the constituents as dependant on their leadership. This dynamic did not directly cause the war, but it gave leaders a motive to cultivate the approval to go to war. In the German case, the cultivation of the approval is most prominent. The first reason is the country was only 40 years old with many states questioning their unity. In Germany with the mechanics of their government the military was king. Rather than a civil war killing each other they opted for a war against their neighbors. Today in the European Union, there are many states questioning the purpose and fairness of a new Union, with Germany at center stage once again.
With regard to the mobilization of the war machine in Germany, the feeling of power in conjunction with the limitations in aptitude of one person(s) pulling the levers appears to have been a dynamic of the breakout of the war, but not the cause. To qualify this their was purposeful deception in justifying decisions for war but more so the direct mobilization of military machines were run amuck. Cause and effect was not clearly understood or communicated among the leaders involved. Connecting the dots of the diplomatic cause to the military effect, given that military action as the last instrument of diplomacy, finds the irretrievable orders of mobilization to war irreconcilable with the profit-loss aspects of a military result. Because this is an aspect of the war, I find it difficult to call it the protagonist of the war.
The protagonist to The Great War as history sees it appears to be clearly placed with Germany. In their unification, they found both as a people and in their leadership the desire to expand. At the same time they were internally conflicted which caused leadership to find international conflict a solution to bolstering a unified German mind. The legacies of Bismarck, Nietzche, and Treitschke over 40 years through the education in their schools, the German youth were a brainwashed a people apt to salute anything with a uniform. Those uniforms told them that they deserve more. The Kaiser, with an agenda for more pushed Austria to military action with Serbia. The Kaiser knew a conflict would draw in Russia. The Kaiser knew his plan would require the neutralization of France. The Kaiser miscalculated is English in-laws. Aside from his low level of mental acuity we question his motive.
In defense of the other belligerents, Austria-Hungary’s state of disintegration on its own may have taken a more passive position to a perceived attempt to disrupt the transition of Habsburg power from its current king to its prince in waiting. Russia had its interests in a warm water port guised in its protection of Slavic people, but was not in a position having just been defeated by Japan to go to war. France and England over years of disarmament were just not ready for war. Germany was going a different direction having built up its navy to rival England, and bolstered is army through a conscription level higher than its neighbors. Germany saw both Russia and England as rivals that they needed an upper hand on. The shot heard around the world was all the Kaiser needed to launch a military plan that caused general war. Could this have been prevented?
Balance of Power did not work to gain a world peace and eventually gave way to a United Nations, which obviously is not working, as there have been over 65 wars across national boarders since its inception. We also know building coalitions forces have its limitations as business and political agendas often conflict. It seems greed for money and power corrupt whomever sits at the helm of any type of organization. We know that boycotts and sanctions do not work as world consensus or for that matter consensus at any level is impossible to maintain. What will work? I have said before that it seems that when two or more people ban together for a common cause involving scarcity of some thing, there will be another group ready to fight for their share. Who should be the arbitrator of such conflict and can you scale this arbitration to a world level?
What is missing is Conscience…collective conscience… the power of one singular mind for mankind…the willingness to extend your being beyond your physical self. At the core is You/Us. If you have a conflicted conscience it would follow that your society has a conflicted conscience. Germany certainly displayed how a group of people can make their body temples a false alter through which they perceive the world. They sought for more…the god of more. They had collective conscience going in the right direction, but were merely focused on the State, their State and that is where they became delusional. But lets be fair, Americans in 2007 do it too. Cast a hue of shame on us for collectively lobbying our congressmen for banning the sale of key resources to international entities (China & Dubai) that we fear that they may get more than we get.
So lets turn the coin over and hit the fast forward button. Why does Iran fear the West? Read my past reviews, first they want something today that they once had which is recognition as a world power. They now fear others because those countries want something Persians have. (oil and/or warm water). They feared USSR because of their experience of a Russian agenda for more. (warm water port) They feared the British because of their same experience through bogus business deals. (oil) Iran, believe it or not, prefer to work with and through the United States for their rightful place on the world stage as right now only the United Sates through its diplomacy shine a light on that need. This phenomenon was also observed in my reading of 1919. Yet we fear them (Muslims} because we are convinced they are out to take away our way of life. I consider it merely to be a subplot rooted in Imam rhetoric, albeit rooted in the Quran, a fear that is snatched up by people on both sides of the equation living in fear. In every case there is a fear of one group of people taking away an object even if that object is an idea (ideal) from another group of people.
What if we did away with the groups of people? Sounds too much like communism. What if we did away with the objects? Sounds too much like Jesus. Oddly enough communism banned the teachings of Jesus. What was he teaching? Jesus was teaching that we are all one. When you make a slight on another you are making a slight upon yourself. When you make a gift for another you are making a gift for yourself. When you are giving up a material thing for another, you are gaining a material thing for yourself. When you live at the sake of another you are slighting that other man and thus slighting yourself. We are all one of one singular mind and that is to love (allow another to exist just as he/she is) and be happy with that reality (accept it). The average bear does not see or perhaps does not want to see it that way because he is not at one with himself. There is no singularity of the mind that would enable him to transcend his body temple. Therefore, he spends his energy consuming more things to make his body, family, village, city, nation, more comfortable.
Therefore groups of people build temples, shrines, or monuments that while intended to unite people, they miss all people, ending up with a group of people and therefore have unacceptable separate realities full of conflict, whether intended in its origin or not. Historically we find it to be a part of human nature to behave this way individually and as nations. We have failed to understand that the basic tenant of conflict is the failure to recognize that the human race is all one, the world is a billion piece jigsaw puzzle, where one damaged or missing piece renders the whole puzzle worthless. To break through, can we suspend with the idea of temples, as they are symbols of our separateness? Can we get rid of symbols as they unintentionally classify, which is a proponent of the process of division? These very questions suggest we do away with religion, government, and science, as we know them. They can be seen as opponents to each other and to mankind when applied in the wrong spirit of mind. Daunting!!!!
In the case of WWI it is easy to pass the buck on to Germany. They had motive, preconceived intent, and the ability. There people never saw the devastation on their side of the boarder in that war allowing Hitler to light another fuse. It took the their annihilation in WWII to finally eradicate their compulsion of war like behavior as a nation. But to slight them is to slight the whole human race. Whilst we maintain a continued vigilance on Germany and Japan, we should be mindful of our own thinking as well. Our option as history would propose… annihilation
Not sure I have said anything new, but will leave it here for now. I am on to finishing, Bismarck, Crimean, and then on to techno solutions.
End notes
The Old Alliance System
1. p. 56: The maintenance of Austria-Hungry as a Great Power became a major foreign policy goal of Germany, both on diplomatic grounds, since Austria was seen as Germany’s only ally, and because any internal crisis in Austro-Hungry might have repercussions in Germany.
2. p. 57: In the years between the Bosnian crisis and the outbreak of the First World War, four things were forcing a reassessment and tightening up of the alliance system in Europe. The upheavals in Turkey which encouraged Russian hopes of compensating for their humiliation in the Far East by gains in the Balkans, …Austrians must act vigorously against Serbia to prevent the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy…the German naval building was a threat to Britain’s imperial interest,…German belief they must take action in order to ensure that the world balance of power was in their favor, … the hopes of the French, using the alliance with Russia to obtain the return of Alsace and Lorraine.
3. p. 63: on the period before 1914: Although the Germans had given the Austrians some diplomatic support at certain points in crisis, the Balkan quarrels had not escalated into European war because the Germans were not prepared to give their ally free hand against Serbia.
4. p. 65: The realization by the Germans that Austria-Hungry was her only reliable ally and that she must be supported at all costs in any policies which Austrians thought essential for survival of the Habsburg State, was an important motive for the German decisions of July 1914; and these decisions have been seen in terms of the Austrian belief that Germany had not supported her sufficiently in the previous years.
5. p. 66: The existence of the alliance system above all conditions expectations laid about the form of a war would take if it broke out, and about who were likely to be friends and enemies. These expectations laid down broad lines of strategic planning, so that general staffs were taking decisions, which often committed them to irreversible military actions if war threatened.
Militarism, Armaments and Strategy
6. p. 70: by 1912 the German authorities were so worried about the Social Democrats won a third of the votes in the Reichstag, they had serious doubts about increasing the size of their army. …the government succeeded in1913 in carrying a three year law through parliament, the anti-militarist movement was strong enough for any government to take into account the mood of the conscripts before starting a war.
7. p. 71 in a town hall conflict a soldiers telegram “ Town Hall occupied by the military. We urgently desire information as to the reasons in order to reassure the excited citizens.” Satirists might laugh at this episode, but it was a sign of the readiness of Germans to accept without question the orders of anyone in a military uniform.
8. p. 72 While the general acceptance of military values by large sections of the German public may have contributed to the mood which made war possible and to the enthusiasm with which the outbreak of war was greeted, the most important aspect of the role of the German army in the coming war was its freedom from civilian political control
9. p. 77 And Winston Churchill, who became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, as result of changes in the cabinet….: I must explicitly repudiate the suggestion that Great Britain can ever allow another naval power to approach her so nearly as to deflect or to restrict her political action by purely naval pressure.” The German government was in fact hoping for just that and wanted political concessions in exchange for naval disarmament.
10. p. 79 The structure of German society gave a special role to the army and produced a special respect for military values. The naval policies of the Kaiser and Tripitz aroused British foreign antagonism and began a naval race which had important social and economic effects as well as producing a radical change in British foreign policy.
11. p. 88 The King withdrew from, politics and Alexander became Prince Regent, while Pasic announced dissolution of parliament and new elections for 1 August. Thus, because of tension between the army and the civilian government, Serbia was in the midst of a major political crisis at the moment of the assignation of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
12. p. 90: Traditions of terrorism and conspiracy going back to the years of Turkish rule contributed an element of instability in both domestic and foreign policy (Serbian)…. Yet in the summer of 1914, when the Serbian army had not yet recovered from efforts in the Balkan wars, was hardly the moment for Serbia to provoke such a war; the evidence does not suggest that either the Serb government or the army command wanted to do so.
13. p. 91: The pace was set by Germany trying, for a variety of reasons, to shift world balance of power in her favor even if it involved a risk of war.
The Primacy of Domestic Politics
14. p. 109: notably that of Germany as we shall see, foreign policy was sometimes used as a way of providing a focus for national feelings so as to distract attention away from divisions and tensions of German society
15. p. 111: The Austro- Hungarian government believed that the establishment of some sort of control over Serbia was essential for the survival of their state.
16. p.111: The Liberal government had been in power in England since 1905 and there were many among supporters who held to tradition of …Gladstone, and believed that the balance of power was a dangerous concept, that expenditure on armaments was both wasteful and wicked and that Britain’s policy should be to maintain the freedom of trade and to keep herself free of foreign entanglements.
17. p. 115: If we look for responsibility for the First World War in the political and constitutional arrangements of the belligerent states, then the structure of the British government can be held responsible for Grey’s reluctance openly to commit Britain to support France and Russia before he was absolutely convinced he could carry his party with him.
18. p. 117: if a war was to come, it would have to be overran issue which would appear to the French public as involving a direct threat to France. For this reason the French government appeared to the Russians to be unreliable allies.
19. p. 117: French Prime Minister Poincare was convinced the he could produce a mood of national unity as was prepared to use his presidential prerogatives as far as they could possibly be stretched in order to do so. Domestic politics were to be subordinated to foreign policy.
20. p. 120: It was by then already clear to Poincare that the strength of anti-militarism had been exaggerated and that mobilization would proceed without interference from socialist or syndicalists.
21. p. 124: The Tsar himself was sometimes influenced by similar ideas for the reconstruction of central Europe. He told a rather bewildered British ambassador in April 1913 that he believed the disintegration of the Austrian Empire was only a matter of time.
22. p. 130: with regard to Germany, There is evidence that, at least from the 1890s, members of imperial government believed a vigorous foreign policy and encouragement of an aggressive nationalist spirit would be one way of overcoming the particularist sentiments in the individual states and producing a mood of national unity comparable to that of 1870.
23. p. 131: Bulow had successfully fought Reichstag elections of 1907 with slogans which combined nationalism, colonialism, and anti-socialism.. However the supporters of the view that it was concern for (German) domestic polititics that determined the conduct of German foreign policy would argue that this was more than just a matter of using foreign political issues for the immediate purpose of winning a particular election, and that foreign policy was deliberately used as a means of manipulating public opinion so as to create a sense of solidarity among German people and overcome the social and political divisions which were seen as a threat to every existence of the German Empire. The attraction of colonial Empire, a large fleet and an active policy would serve both as a basis for rallying the loyal elements around the Kaiser and government and as a means of countering the threat of a growing socialist movement.
24. p. 132: It is unlikely that German naval building would have been pursued so enthusiastically without the Kaiser’s personal commitment to the creation of a German fleet. This was no doubt partly the result of his own psychology – his emotional need to show himself the equal of his British relatives, and his country equal to England, which he both loved and hated.
25. P. 139: Between 1912 and the outbeak of the war, much nationalist propaganda was explicitly linking calls for preparation for war with the hope that a war might put an end to social democracy. ... While other members of the German government and high command believed that there was little point in postponing a war which they considered inevitable. Bethmann, with his eyes on the internal situation, was concerned that a war if it cam should appear to be one in which Germany was attacked by Russia. … From the time of Engals and Marx onwards, socialists had always believed that war against Russia, the most reactionary power in Europe would be justified, however they might criticize militarism at home.
The International Economy
26. p. 161: The international bankers were in a paradoxical position, symbolic perhaps of the whole capitalist system in Europe before 1914. Pm one hand, through their close collaboration with governments, they encouraged by their investment policy the consolidation of alliances and the growth of colonial rivalries. On the other hand the benefited by the flow of international trade and had an interest in uninterrupted international tension.
27. p. 164: The British share of world trade was falling…they had older industries. From a purely economic view of the United States was at least as dangerous a rival a Germany yet there was not talks of growing antagonism between the two. Sir Edward Grey in 1906 “ The economic rivalry (and all that) do not give much offence to our people, and they admire her steady industry and genius for organization. But the do resent mischief making. They suspect the Emperor of aggressive plans of Welpolitik, and they see that Germany is forcing the pace of armaments in order to dominate Europe and is thereby laying a horrible burden of wasteful expenditure upon all the other powers.
28. p. 168: Certainly there were industrialist and military men who hoped the war once begun would end with a peace that would extend their markets or safeguard their strategic position ( Field Marshal Hindenburg was to justify his demands for large annexations from Russia with the words “I need them for maneuvering of my left wing in the next war”)… Bethman approved a program of extensive annexations in the west to be followed in the pushing back of the Russian frontier and ending Russian control over non Russian [people … these gains that Germany went to war and that alone seemed to provide a way out of economic difficulties and contradictions so widely apparent in the spring of 1914.
Imperial Rivalries
29. p. 176 During the 1890s the main imperial rivalries had been between Britain ND France in Africa and Britain and
30. p. 176: Russia in the Far East. Britain and France had been close to war in 1898 over their claims to the upper Nile.
31. p. 181: For Britain in 1914 the threat to the empire which Germany appeared to represent was not a threat to any particular colony – as we shall see, right down to the outbreak of war there was always room for agreement between the two countries on specific colonial questions.
32. p. 181/182: Welpolitik or imperialism in this very general sense – and this was one of the reasons why it could serve as a unifying force for many different groups in German society – seemed to give purpose and a new mission to German state.
33. p. 188: The Turkish government ware increasingly concerned that their obvious weakness, after their defeats in Tripoli and Balkan wars made them vulnerable to a threat of partition, and they became convinced that they had more to fear from Russia than from Germany.
34. p. 181: Nevertheless the case of Turkey – like that of China a decade earlier – and the complex story of Anglo-German co-operation and rivalry there suggest that here was an area in which imperialist rivalries among European Great Powers were contributing to the instability which made the outbreak possible.
35. p. 191: Giolitti states: Tripolitania is a province of the Ottoman Empire, and Ottoman Empire is a European great power. The integrity of what remains of the Ottoman Empire is one of the principles on which equilibrium an peace is based… Can it be in the interests of Italy to shatter one of the cornerstones of the old edifice? And what if after we have attacked Turkey, the Balkans begin to stir? And what if a Balkin war provokes a clash between the two power blocs and a European war? Can it be that we can shoulder the responsibility of putting a match to the powder?
36. p. 192: Certainly Italy’s imperialist war was one of the sparks lighting what one historian has called the long fuse linking the outbreak of the First Wiorld War to remote origins in the Balkins.
37. p. 192: The outbreak of war in 1914 wa not caused by immediate imperialist rivalries; and Germany’s aspirations for colonial territory might well have been achieved by agreement with Britain if the Germans had been prepared to abate their claims to naval hegemony. Nevertheless weak independent states such as Morocco and Ottoman were a temptation for the imperialist.
38. p 195: Imperialist thinking had always accepted the risk of war and regarded armed struggle as an essential part of imperial extension, even though tin fact imperialist was had hitherto for the most part been limited in scope. By 1914 this intensified the crisis in which German ambitions, French grievances, Russian expansionism, British anxieties and Austrian fears lead to decisions that war was inevitable.
The Mood of 1914
39. p. 199: But the mood in which peoples of Europe accepted and in some cases welcomed the idea of war was not just the result of the way in which their governments had justified their immediate political decisions. It was founded on the accumulation of national traditions and attitudes which had formed beliefs about the nature of the state and authority, reinforced by the curriculum in schools over the past decades and the kind of language in which politicians and journalists had discussed international relations.
40. p. 203: at the Tsar’s initial peace conferences in 1899 and 1907, the Kaiser declared: I’ll go along with the on conference comedy but I’ll keep my dagger at my side during the waltz.
41. p. 204 Most members of the peace movement were anxious to stress that their attempts to reform their system of international relations and to reduce armaments did not mean they lacked patriotism… “ We cannot continue criticism of policy which has led to this war as we did in the case of South Africa, for our safety is at stake. We can none of now think of anything but this one object”.
42. p. 204: Among socialist, “The working man has no country” the Communist Manifesto had proclaimed in 1848, “National differences and antagonisms are daily more and more vanishing owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, the freedom of commerce, the world market, the corresponding thereto.
43. p. 204: The internal regime of a stat was opposing Russia was of little importance: Turkey, for example as in the Crimean War was on the side of history because, as Engals put it a few years later: “A subjectively reactionary force can in foreign policy fulfill an objectively revolutionary mission.
44. p. 208: in France the revolutionary syndicalists and some socialists were calling for general strike in the event of mobilization… the French departments were busy revising the lists of people who were to be arrested in the event of mobilization.
45. p. 210: in Germany, they never forgot the twelve years under Bismarck’s snit-socialist law which had made many of the usual activities of political party impossible and were terrified that similar restrictions might be imposed again. …Bebel in fact accepted the socialist’s impotence in the face of German state and the Prussian military caste…
46. p. 211: In short the governments were very successful in convincing their citizens that they were the victims of aggression and in appealing to immediate feelings of patriotism and self-preservation which proved stronger than any internationalist convictions.
47. p. 217. When the war broke out, the British at least were encouraged by their newspapers, propagandists and religious leaders to attribute the war specifically to the influence of two German writers, the philosopher Fredrick Nietzche and the historian Heinrich von Treitschke.
48. p. 218: The moment the State proclaims “Your State and the existence of your State are now at stake” selfishness disappears and party hatred is silenced…In this consists the grandeur of war, that trivial things are entirely lost sight of in the great ideal of the State.
49. p. 223: Baden-Powell enabling the British Empire to survive: “We must all be bricks in the wall of that great enterprise – the British Empire – and we must be careful that we do not let our differences of opinion on politics and other questions grow so strong as to divide us.”
Crimea
Crimea
by Trevor Royle
The prime players are Russia, Turkey, Britain, France. The issue is world power, or at least a strategic piece of the world's power puzzle. At issue in disguise were the holy prizes, masked in Russia's need to save '' the Christians '' in a Muslim ruled Turkey. It was a land within the Ottoman Empire in decline. ( a sick old man was the phrase of the time). With the battlefield looking like it should be Turkey, the Russian Crimean peninsula and actually the city of Sevastopol becomes the scene of the siege. There was an air of arrogance and possibly hubris amongst the European powers specifically amongst the people at large. Hubris spilled over into the leadership of each country as they were actually giving considerable thought to their strategic interest. England had concerns over an encroachment of influence immediately on their Indian colony. Russia was in search of a warm water port in the Mediterranean. France…well its not quite clear what she wanted outside of an influence in the Middle East as other than the Christian prizes there were no outside strategic interests. The one possible rationale for the French may have been the mood of the French where a convincing victory would remove the 1815 international shackles.
The Affair at Sinope is history’s lesson in poetic justice. Russia took advantage of their naval supremacy over Turkey. In proactive reaction to ward off the deployment of additional Turkish troops in Maldivian front, Russian ships sank the Turkish ships while still in harbor. They annihilated the fleet with a first in the use of solid shells. The burning fleet caught the harbor on fire. Turkey’s loss of 2000 soldiers and as many sailors. It gave the impression of a massacre to the rest of the world. Up to this point the world leaders were not anxious to war with Russia. That all changed as England and France took notice.
So one can look at the power strategic of military victory versus the power of the free press and ask which is most effective in terms of winning the long lasting minds of men. In particular the London Times worked the English people into lather over the ordeal that otherwise giving the speed and quality of information in 1855, could have gone unnoticed. The book does not delve into the reasons why. The reason I select hubris over arrogance is the aristocracy of the English would actually take knoll top picnics giving them clear vista over battlefields where thousands would die in a day.
You could also look at the leadership, but only from a perspective of the shortsightedness of their strategic vision. While arrogance may have played a minor part the book makes it painfully clear how ignorant the leaders were to how unprepared England and Russia were for the war. Only France, who by coincidence of recently having been involved in wars in North Africa had an army with a working practice on the battlefield. England had not seen war in almost 50 years so they let their armies, not yet institutions, go fallow. Russia did not have access to the same technological advancements as those of Western Europe. All belligerents involved had not yet learned the lesson of coordinating the military with the leaders. When you put poor vision in conjunction with a lathered up people, you have license to exercise a military power that may not have legitimate moral standing. Given the news still coming out of the Balkins and the Ottoman Empire, all this chemistry of a European and World society of man has yet to find stability.
The news turned from that of spawning war to that of severe criticism of the British government’s execution of the war. The armies went into the war theater unprepared where even in victory, there were heavy losses attributed to non-combat scenarios. At the first sounding of difficulty the English people became un-nerved at wars prospect. Poor, inaccurate, and untimely communication led to many interpretations of an event where not just knowledge, but timing of that knowledge was essential for a clear picture. And only an unmerciful God knew. With regard to the imminent attack on Sevastopol, while the British were on reconnaissance the Russians already new British intensions, they were reading the Times. I am most intrigued at most with the people’s views before, during, and after this battle. Arrogance -to- Blame. Arrogance in We - to - Blame in You. (any one but me )
The Crimean war gave significant ground to test the rapid advancements in technology coming from the western born industrial revolution. The naval attack on Odessa marked the last time a British war ship, the Arethusa would fight a sea battle fully under sail. The Russian introduced to mankind a new military weapon of under water mines in the harbor of Kronstdat in the Gulf of Finland. Other technologies include telegraph, balloons, tunneling; steam powered train, sulfurous fumes, missiles, periscope, and the Minie Rifle.
Behind the lines medical advancements along with an elevated awareness to the loss of life and limb gave room for the introduction of battlefield rescue and behind the line hospitals in war. Ladies with Lamps brings Florence Nightingale to a sorely exposed medical service. The press, for the first time in British history, brought home the horror of war. The controversy was politicized at a social class level. While the French were supreme in medical service, all the Christian contingencies in the war appealed to the new awareness of war enough to advance medical technology, while the Turks did absolutely nothing.
With regard to diplomacy there were channels between the leaders and press, between the leaders themselves, between the leaders and the Admirals and Generals, and finally between the participants. On the Battlefield the European combatants distained the Turks in many way, most notable for me was to read: “In fighting along side Turks, the French distained the Turkish ritual of beheading their fallen foe, so much that they did not want to fight along side them.” Missed Opportunities, during and immediately after the battle of Alma the first battle on the Crimean peninsula, first poor field reconnaissance resulting in disagreements by field command. Second was conflicting direction from Allied leaders lead to a battle victory but not a victory of what was to become the Crimean War.
The logistics leading up to the siege and actual of Battle of Sevastopol, found the French always waiting on the English and impatience drew a rivalry in who’s in charge. At Balaklava the Cavalryman’s Battle represents more of poor planning in a war that was hastily rushed in to. The Russians were mostly organized, however with a character of complacency. The allies found battle strategy undermined by poor communication across battalions within armies and generals of each army. On the French/British side Egos' were the prime protagonist. On page 272 you read: “That was the interpretation of the order but, from his position above the cavalry, Raglan wished them to move forward to take any of attacking the enemy. Instead he was treated to the sight of the Light Brigade dismounted and taking their ease in the morning sun. His inpatients were exacerbated by the tardy arrival of the infantry.” Myself I have to struggle to imagine, knowing I am going into combat, and taking a preverbal '' coffee break ''
Diplomacy, as we know it in the 20th century post 1917, amongst the leaders found to be lacking in every case in Crimea. It was only too evident that Napoleon III thumbed his nose at peace talks that were ripe for all when he had not convincingly beat the Russians. The English and the French had changed their tunes. Just prior to the battle of Sevastopol, it became apparent that even with an allied victory, a war could not be won. Even the United States came close to joining in the war. Nathaniel Hawthorne, had been instrumental in stopping an illegal shipment through a merchant called Field.....(This was quite a concession. Hawthorne had already admitted his preferences:’ I hate England; though I love some Englishmen, and like them generally, in fact'') this was in the course of diplomacy against England. It is clear, had we engaged, it would have been on the side of Russia. In the end Austria’s Ferdinand played the part of broker in a war of exhausted belligerents that did not see their way to a clear treaty. It is discussed that in 1877, twelve years later, the events and causes of the Crimean War were being repeated already. This time. Disraeli chose diplomacy over war. With Bismarck as broker, a peace treaty was drawn that laid down all manner of problems, which would re-emerge 36 years later in WWI. While not discussed in this book, I know from reading Bismarck that the protagonist of WWI was not Bismarck work, but rather the deviation from his work by the Kaiser. In 1914 Disraeli and Bismarck were gone but the same issues of Turkish {Islamic ) oppression of Christians and Russian expansion were catalyst where a reckless Germany lit the fuse. In all three wars the issues, the sides taken by the belligerents, and the peace treaties did not square up. The impending factor was the arrogant mood of hubris of the people, including the leaders, in conjunction with a fear of losing control of world power; a power that translated to psyche and life style of its people.
With regard to the moral cause for war, any war, it always seems to get lost in the shuffle. In the case of the Crimean War, one which I now call World War One, The Great Elche, Lord Stratford to the Sultan lays into a formal letter a call to an end of Islamic oppression and corruption. In doing so there would be no cause for international involvement, war. Ironically, the forth treaty point-of peace was Joint European guarantees of Rights for Christians in the Ottoman Empire. In Turkey, they said, How could Stratford in behalf of the Allies declared war on Russia because this Power was encroaching upon the independence of the Sultan by demanding to interfere in spiritual affairs of the Orthodoxies and how can he now demand a concession which they declared themselves, more than once, both verbally and in writing, to be inconsistent with the Sultans sovereign rights and independence? General Stratford: noted not only did the then leader Mahomet Ali lead an obnoxious personal life.... notorious for corruption and branded with criminality...he had been found guilty of murdering his Christian mistress and, at Stratford’s insistence, sacked from public life-but official Turkish appointment of him in the first place showed a contempt for British attempts to introduce reforms in court. What was the point of bolstering the Ottoman Empire by taking its side against Russia asked Stratford, if its rulers were in default to British demands that changes be made in its style of government? Ali’s successor Abd-el-Mejit agreed to a wide range of measures to protect Christian rights and all non-Muslims in his Empire, including the abolition of the death penalty for apostasy. This commitment was included in the peace settlement. I must make a note having traveled to Saudi Arabia, that when the aircraft crosses over into Saudi territory the captain comes on the public address and reads to the passengers key Islamic laws. Included in this is the abolition of Christianity, which he reads is punishable by death. When I heard that I rose from my business class seat to use the restroom. When I looked back all the women who were previously wearing some very skin bearing outfits were all in black ropes. It was alarming at least.
You could then ask, what was won. Russia's aim was a warm water port through a Russian solution to the Eastern Question. Nicholas succeeded, somewhat in 1855. The 1914 tzar/Chairman continued the success somewhat. I find it ironic that a man more evil than Hitler conned three of the Great Leaders of the free world to grant Nicholas' wish in signing a treaty in Yalta, on the tip of the Crimean Peninsula; went un-noticed!!! This gave Moscow 45 more years of warm water access. Only now as I write this review, sitting next to a woman from Crimea on an aircraft traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit, do I fully appreciate that the Crimea is now Ukraine and not Russia. What was lost or never really won; apparently free will amongst all man. Included with this reality is a fear that we are apt to do it all again.
So I ask in this time of immediate gratification and living in the here and now, what defines now? Is it this moment or could the study of history expand our worldview of now in a way that allows us at a larger social level, to learn from our lessons in history, an expanded now, and not touch the hot stove. Not to let the newspapers draw us to a level of consciousness that allows leaders to go unchecked, or worse yet be protagonist in their waging of a war. That airplane ride as much as this book makes clear to me that world peace may require a military that does not fire a shot. Is this a bit naive? Possibly…likely. When you consider it took the complete destruction of Germany and Japan to change their ways in defense of a free world, in a snap shot of a broader now; is that what it takes to bring the Eastern Question, a world that is not free to an answer?
Perhaps another solution is the appreciation that freedom is infolded in the world of free enterprise and democracy, the American experiment, is the government of choice to ensure a check on our leaders, and a free expression of its people. Perhaps the expansion in information technologies will help get a broader message to the people of the world. The Internet is a new twist in that articles not subject to editors biased messaging but rather bloggers where all information is openly and aggressively challenged. Keep in mind however North Korea struggles with electricity let alone infrastructure for the information rich web. Iran and China are demonstrably very capable of using that same web to monitor and control what is being viewed and said. Throwing that reality into the equation helps a person of the Western World appreciate an informational peace is not around the corner and is dependant on a certain “freedom of the press” Until then the poison of fear will poison us all.
I could have taken an intriguing view on the personal stories described in this book. They are equally valuable in understanding the travesty in war. I welcome all readers to have a good look at this book and fill in on items I may have missed.
by Trevor Royle
The prime players are Russia, Turkey, Britain, France. The issue is world power, or at least a strategic piece of the world's power puzzle. At issue in disguise were the holy prizes, masked in Russia's need to save '' the Christians '' in a Muslim ruled Turkey. It was a land within the Ottoman Empire in decline. ( a sick old man was the phrase of the time). With the battlefield looking like it should be Turkey, the Russian Crimean peninsula and actually the city of Sevastopol becomes the scene of the siege. There was an air of arrogance and possibly hubris amongst the European powers specifically amongst the people at large. Hubris spilled over into the leadership of each country as they were actually giving considerable thought to their strategic interest. England had concerns over an encroachment of influence immediately on their Indian colony. Russia was in search of a warm water port in the Mediterranean. France…well its not quite clear what she wanted outside of an influence in the Middle East as other than the Christian prizes there were no outside strategic interests. The one possible rationale for the French may have been the mood of the French where a convincing victory would remove the 1815 international shackles.
The Affair at Sinope is history’s lesson in poetic justice. Russia took advantage of their naval supremacy over Turkey. In proactive reaction to ward off the deployment of additional Turkish troops in Maldivian front, Russian ships sank the Turkish ships while still in harbor. They annihilated the fleet with a first in the use of solid shells. The burning fleet caught the harbor on fire. Turkey’s loss of 2000 soldiers and as many sailors. It gave the impression of a massacre to the rest of the world. Up to this point the world leaders were not anxious to war with Russia. That all changed as England and France took notice.
So one can look at the power strategic of military victory versus the power of the free press and ask which is most effective in terms of winning the long lasting minds of men. In particular the London Times worked the English people into lather over the ordeal that otherwise giving the speed and quality of information in 1855, could have gone unnoticed. The book does not delve into the reasons why. The reason I select hubris over arrogance is the aristocracy of the English would actually take knoll top picnics giving them clear vista over battlefields where thousands would die in a day.
You could also look at the leadership, but only from a perspective of the shortsightedness of their strategic vision. While arrogance may have played a minor part the book makes it painfully clear how ignorant the leaders were to how unprepared England and Russia were for the war. Only France, who by coincidence of recently having been involved in wars in North Africa had an army with a working practice on the battlefield. England had not seen war in almost 50 years so they let their armies, not yet institutions, go fallow. Russia did not have access to the same technological advancements as those of Western Europe. All belligerents involved had not yet learned the lesson of coordinating the military with the leaders. When you put poor vision in conjunction with a lathered up people, you have license to exercise a military power that may not have legitimate moral standing. Given the news still coming out of the Balkins and the Ottoman Empire, all this chemistry of a European and World society of man has yet to find stability.
The news turned from that of spawning war to that of severe criticism of the British government’s execution of the war. The armies went into the war theater unprepared where even in victory, there were heavy losses attributed to non-combat scenarios. At the first sounding of difficulty the English people became un-nerved at wars prospect. Poor, inaccurate, and untimely communication led to many interpretations of an event where not just knowledge, but timing of that knowledge was essential for a clear picture. And only an unmerciful God knew. With regard to the imminent attack on Sevastopol, while the British were on reconnaissance the Russians already new British intensions, they were reading the Times. I am most intrigued at most with the people’s views before, during, and after this battle. Arrogance -to- Blame. Arrogance in We - to - Blame in You. (any one but me )
The Crimean war gave significant ground to test the rapid advancements in technology coming from the western born industrial revolution. The naval attack on Odessa marked the last time a British war ship, the Arethusa would fight a sea battle fully under sail. The Russian introduced to mankind a new military weapon of under water mines in the harbor of Kronstdat in the Gulf of Finland. Other technologies include telegraph, balloons, tunneling; steam powered train, sulfurous fumes, missiles, periscope, and the Minie Rifle.
Behind the lines medical advancements along with an elevated awareness to the loss of life and limb gave room for the introduction of battlefield rescue and behind the line hospitals in war. Ladies with Lamps brings Florence Nightingale to a sorely exposed medical service. The press, for the first time in British history, brought home the horror of war. The controversy was politicized at a social class level. While the French were supreme in medical service, all the Christian contingencies in the war appealed to the new awareness of war enough to advance medical technology, while the Turks did absolutely nothing.
With regard to diplomacy there were channels between the leaders and press, between the leaders themselves, between the leaders and the Admirals and Generals, and finally between the participants. On the Battlefield the European combatants distained the Turks in many way, most notable for me was to read: “In fighting along side Turks, the French distained the Turkish ritual of beheading their fallen foe, so much that they did not want to fight along side them.” Missed Opportunities, during and immediately after the battle of Alma the first battle on the Crimean peninsula, first poor field reconnaissance resulting in disagreements by field command. Second was conflicting direction from Allied leaders lead to a battle victory but not a victory of what was to become the Crimean War.
The logistics leading up to the siege and actual of Battle of Sevastopol, found the French always waiting on the English and impatience drew a rivalry in who’s in charge. At Balaklava the Cavalryman’s Battle represents more of poor planning in a war that was hastily rushed in to. The Russians were mostly organized, however with a character of complacency. The allies found battle strategy undermined by poor communication across battalions within armies and generals of each army. On the French/British side Egos' were the prime protagonist. On page 272 you read: “That was the interpretation of the order but, from his position above the cavalry, Raglan wished them to move forward to take any of attacking the enemy. Instead he was treated to the sight of the Light Brigade dismounted and taking their ease in the morning sun. His inpatients were exacerbated by the tardy arrival of the infantry.” Myself I have to struggle to imagine, knowing I am going into combat, and taking a preverbal '' coffee break ''
Diplomacy, as we know it in the 20th century post 1917, amongst the leaders found to be lacking in every case in Crimea. It was only too evident that Napoleon III thumbed his nose at peace talks that were ripe for all when he had not convincingly beat the Russians. The English and the French had changed their tunes. Just prior to the battle of Sevastopol, it became apparent that even with an allied victory, a war could not be won. Even the United States came close to joining in the war. Nathaniel Hawthorne, had been instrumental in stopping an illegal shipment through a merchant called Field.....(This was quite a concession. Hawthorne had already admitted his preferences:’ I hate England; though I love some Englishmen, and like them generally, in fact'') this was in the course of diplomacy against England. It is clear, had we engaged, it would have been on the side of Russia. In the end Austria’s Ferdinand played the part of broker in a war of exhausted belligerents that did not see their way to a clear treaty. It is discussed that in 1877, twelve years later, the events and causes of the Crimean War were being repeated already. This time. Disraeli chose diplomacy over war. With Bismarck as broker, a peace treaty was drawn that laid down all manner of problems, which would re-emerge 36 years later in WWI. While not discussed in this book, I know from reading Bismarck that the protagonist of WWI was not Bismarck work, but rather the deviation from his work by the Kaiser. In 1914 Disraeli and Bismarck were gone but the same issues of Turkish {Islamic ) oppression of Christians and Russian expansion were catalyst where a reckless Germany lit the fuse. In all three wars the issues, the sides taken by the belligerents, and the peace treaties did not square up. The impending factor was the arrogant mood of hubris of the people, including the leaders, in conjunction with a fear of losing control of world power; a power that translated to psyche and life style of its people.
With regard to the moral cause for war, any war, it always seems to get lost in the shuffle. In the case of the Crimean War, one which I now call World War One, The Great Elche, Lord Stratford to the Sultan lays into a formal letter a call to an end of Islamic oppression and corruption. In doing so there would be no cause for international involvement, war. Ironically, the forth treaty point-of peace was Joint European guarantees of Rights for Christians in the Ottoman Empire. In Turkey, they said, How could Stratford in behalf of the Allies declared war on Russia because this Power was encroaching upon the independence of the Sultan by demanding to interfere in spiritual affairs of the Orthodoxies and how can he now demand a concession which they declared themselves, more than once, both verbally and in writing, to be inconsistent with the Sultans sovereign rights and independence? General Stratford: noted not only did the then leader Mahomet Ali lead an obnoxious personal life.... notorious for corruption and branded with criminality...he had been found guilty of murdering his Christian mistress and, at Stratford’s insistence, sacked from public life-but official Turkish appointment of him in the first place showed a contempt for British attempts to introduce reforms in court. What was the point of bolstering the Ottoman Empire by taking its side against Russia asked Stratford, if its rulers were in default to British demands that changes be made in its style of government? Ali’s successor Abd-el-Mejit agreed to a wide range of measures to protect Christian rights and all non-Muslims in his Empire, including the abolition of the death penalty for apostasy. This commitment was included in the peace settlement. I must make a note having traveled to Saudi Arabia, that when the aircraft crosses over into Saudi territory the captain comes on the public address and reads to the passengers key Islamic laws. Included in this is the abolition of Christianity, which he reads is punishable by death. When I heard that I rose from my business class seat to use the restroom. When I looked back all the women who were previously wearing some very skin bearing outfits were all in black ropes. It was alarming at least.
You could then ask, what was won. Russia's aim was a warm water port through a Russian solution to the Eastern Question. Nicholas succeeded, somewhat in 1855. The 1914 tzar/Chairman continued the success somewhat. I find it ironic that a man more evil than Hitler conned three of the Great Leaders of the free world to grant Nicholas' wish in signing a treaty in Yalta, on the tip of the Crimean Peninsula; went un-noticed!!! This gave Moscow 45 more years of warm water access. Only now as I write this review, sitting next to a woman from Crimea on an aircraft traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit, do I fully appreciate that the Crimea is now Ukraine and not Russia. What was lost or never really won; apparently free will amongst all man. Included with this reality is a fear that we are apt to do it all again.
So I ask in this time of immediate gratification and living in the here and now, what defines now? Is it this moment or could the study of history expand our worldview of now in a way that allows us at a larger social level, to learn from our lessons in history, an expanded now, and not touch the hot stove. Not to let the newspapers draw us to a level of consciousness that allows leaders to go unchecked, or worse yet be protagonist in their waging of a war. That airplane ride as much as this book makes clear to me that world peace may require a military that does not fire a shot. Is this a bit naive? Possibly…likely. When you consider it took the complete destruction of Germany and Japan to change their ways in defense of a free world, in a snap shot of a broader now; is that what it takes to bring the Eastern Question, a world that is not free to an answer?
Perhaps another solution is the appreciation that freedom is infolded in the world of free enterprise and democracy, the American experiment, is the government of choice to ensure a check on our leaders, and a free expression of its people. Perhaps the expansion in information technologies will help get a broader message to the people of the world. The Internet is a new twist in that articles not subject to editors biased messaging but rather bloggers where all information is openly and aggressively challenged. Keep in mind however North Korea struggles with electricity let alone infrastructure for the information rich web. Iran and China are demonstrably very capable of using that same web to monitor and control what is being viewed and said. Throwing that reality into the equation helps a person of the Western World appreciate an informational peace is not around the corner and is dependant on a certain “freedom of the press” Until then the poison of fear will poison us all.
I could have taken an intriguing view on the personal stories described in this book. They are equally valuable in understanding the travesty in war. I welcome all readers to have a good look at this book and fill in on items I may have missed.
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