mi mundo: The Mad Monarchist

Friday, May 26, 2017

Imperial China, Identity and Worldview

Most readers will have, perhaps, heard of the infamous Opium Wars in
which Victorian Great Britain defeated the China of the Great Qing
Empire. Contemporary observers and even fairly modern historians have
said period of conflict can be seen in more ways than that of an
undeniably shameful effort to force an entire country to become drug
addicts. There were other issues involved but one which I think deserves
some reflection is the attitude and overall worldview of Imperial
China. It is still not one to totally vindicate the British by any
means, at least not in my opinion as I hope to show, but rather reflects
on how people even in the Victorian era may have been trying to enforce
a sort of global norm or international order of a sort on an empire
which was very much out of step with the rest of the world in how it
interacted with others. For myself, I do not think the Sino-centric
worldview of Imperial China was entirely worthy of condemnation, though
it requires some context to fully explain.

Anglo-centric view of British mission to China

Regular readers will be aware that the old, traditional, monarchical,
Imperial China or, as I like to refer to it, the *real* China dealt with
the world beyond their borders in a very specific way in keeping with a
very Sino-centric worldview. China has often been referred to as “the
Middle Kingdom” and this was a term the Chinese often used to refer to
their country. However, many mistakenly believe that this referred
*only* to China whereas the Chinese applied it to the entire world.
There was the Upper Kingdom in the heavens, the Low Kingdom in the
underworld and the earth was the Middle Kingdom. They also believed that
the most important person on earth was the Emperor and everything about
traditional China emphasized this point. The Forbidden City, where the
Emperor lived, was held to be the center of the world and no building
was allowed to exist that was taller than the Hall of Supreme Harmony,
the preeminent, central throne room of the Chinese Emperor. The Emperor
of China, titled as the “Son of Heaven” was held to be the divinely
ordained ruler of the world, not only China, it was simply that some
inconsequential and unsophisticated people beyond the borders of China
were too ignorant to understand this basic fact.

Le Emperor of Vietnam before Chinese officials

In keeping with this view, the Chinese (which is to say the Han people)
believed that they were the most advanced and civilized people on earth.
Others, if they recognized their place within this Sino-centric world
view, could also be considered civilized but any who did not were
barbarians, unworthy of serious consideration. It is also for this
reason that the Chinese refused to deal with anyone who did not, at the
outset, recognize the total supremacy of the Chinese Emperor and adopt
or at least make a show of adopting their worldview. The Emperor of
China was the only emperor, the rulers of Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and
so on had only kings. One reason for the longstanding antagonism between
China and Japan was that, while there were periods when the Japanese
played along and sent tribute to the Chinese Emperor, they never totally
went along with this system and tended to insist on referring to their
ruler as the Emperor of Japan and would not tolerate the notion that he
could be a vassal or in any way subordinate to the Emperor of China.

Of course, not everyone went along with this way of thinking. The
Vietnamese in particular were well known for referring to their ruler as
“king” when dealing with the Chinese but using the title of “emperor”
among themselves. They were ruled by the Vietnamese Emperor and everyone
knew it but, for the sake of peace and stability, they would pay court
to the Emperor of China since that was what was required to keep the
Chinese happy. The Europeans were a more mixed bag. Some went along with
this local custom, while others refused, first by insisting on meeting
the Emperor face-to-face as any ambassador would do with a European
monarch and then refusing to get down on both knees and bow down in
front of him. They did not show such obeisance to their own monarchs,
much less a foreign one. This, of course, inevitably led to problems.

Barbarians on the rampage

This, however, was a mentality that was actually very common and
certainly not unknown to Europe. The English word, “barbarian” comes
from the Greek word “barbaros” and was used to refer to pretty much
anyone who was not Greek and even among the Greek city-states themselves
as an insult. The Romans, likewise, referred to almost everyone who was
not Roman as a barbarian. In America, many Indian tribes, such as the
Navajo with “Dineh”, referred to themselves as ‘the people’ or ‘the
humans’ which made the other tribes they encountered non-humans. The
traditional worldview of the Jews is that they are the chosen people of
God, favored above all others and that all other people in the world,
the gentiles, are unclean and to be shunned for fear of contamination.
It is not hard to imagine this mentality leading to trouble, yet, I also
think this mentality is a major part of why the Jews have survived for
so long, even without a nation-state of their own. If you are no better,
which is to say no different, than any other people, there is no reason
why you should survive. You are not needed, you may even be a
hindrance, so why bother trying?

The despicable talking shop of the world

In the west, all of this was supposed to have been done away with after
the adoption of the Westphalian system (named for the Treaty of
Westphalia), following the horrific Thirty Years War in central Europe
(mostly Germany). It was that system which said that every nation-state
is sovereign within its own borders, should not interfere in the
internal affairs of other states and that all are equal in terms of
their sovereignty. However, after World War I with the League of
Nations, the west seemed to disregard the Westphalian system and it
would be hard to argue that it was not abandoned completely after World
War II with the establishment of the United Nations, International
Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization and the increasing
use of economic pressure to reward or punish countries who do not follow
along with the prevailing international order. China, of course, is one
of the five “ruling” members of the United Nations, China is a member
of the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the
World Bank. Yet, China never seems to have fully ‘bought in’ to any of
these organizations and many explain this by saying that the old
Sino-centric worldview has not completely disappeared from China.

After all, the People’s Bandit Republic of Chinese Sweatshops has
certainly not embraced the liberalism and human rights called for by the
United Nations. It deals with countries that the UN says are to be
shunned, it has engaged in currency manipulation to give its own economy
an advantage and has even begun trying to establish a “World Bank” of
its own. In effect, they have adopted the forms but not the substance of
these new internationalist organizations. They use them to their own
advantage but never adhere to anything they say which would, in their
view, be detrimental to the current Chinese ruling class and political
system. It may be that the Sino-centric mentality does survive in Peking
and I would say it proves that the mentality was not all that bad in
the first place. Obviously, if you are not Chinese, you are not going to
agree with it but if you are Chinese, it has helped them remain more
independent than other countries that no longer feel that they are
anything unique or special.

Emperor Tongzhi of the Great Qing Empire

The point, in my view, where Imperial China began to go down the wrong path was with the death of the Tongzhi Emperor,
the tenth ruler of the Great Qing Empire and one not generally
considered very exceptional at all. However, his personal qualities are
rather beside the point, what mattered was that his reign saw the
attempt at what was called the “Tongzhi Restoration” in which
traditional, Imperial China tried to begin the process of modernization
while retaining their traditional values, traditional culture, mindset
and, of course, their imperial monarchy. This came after China had been
defeated by Britain, then Britain and France in the Opium Wars, most of
the Chinese coast had become dominated by the ‘foreign devils’ and China
had been forced to sign the “Unequal Treaties” with numerous foreign
powers. This greatly disturbed the Chinese and quite rightly so. They
should have been disturbed because what happened to them was completely
unjust. At the same time, they looked over at Japan which, after the
“Meiji Restoration”, was growing more advanced, more prosperous and more
powerful with each passing year. Traditionally, the Chinese had always
viewed the Japanese with contempt, calling them “dwarfs” and a nest of
pirates, but now saw them becoming more advanced and not being pushed
around by the Europeans the way that China was.

As absurd as giant portraits of Karl Marx?

Since the Tonghzi Restoration did not work out, there are of course a
horde of historians who can explain why it was doomed to failure after
the fact. However, I remain obstinately unconvinced. The basic idea was
good, the only problem was in how it was implemented and the
considerable opposition that existed at court to any change whatsoever.
It probably did not help that, whereas the Meiji Restoration returned
political power to the Meiji Emperor of Japan, the Tongzhi Restoration
did not bring about a similar empowerment of the Tongzhi Emperor of
China. He was still capable of being thwarted by powerful factions at
court, particularly the clique around the powerful Empress-Dowager Cixi.
She came around to the need for reform eventually but by that time the
situation had deteriorated considerably and the reserves of public
patience had been largely depleted. The result was the Xinhai Revolution
and the end of traditional China with the resulting republic proving
unworkable and ultimately falling victim to a new absolutist ideology,
one dreamed up by a Jew in Germany in the 19th Century. Yet, despite
being foreign in every way, even under Communism, the Chinese remained
confident in their own identity and Chairman Mao invoked the traditional
Sino-centric worldview on his day of triumph, when he stood on the
Tiananmen Gate and proclaimed the “People’s Republic of China” saying
that, with his victory, “the world has stood up”.

You will notice that he said, “the world” and not simply that China or
that, “the Chinese have stood up”. The pertinent point is that the
Chinese do not view themselves as no different from any other people,
they do not view themselves as replaceable or interchangeable in the way
that western Europeans seem to. They do not ‘go along to get along’
but, on the contrary, insist that others ‘go along’ with their point of
view in order to ‘get along’ with them. The most obvious example of this
is their insistence on being recognized as the one and only legitimate
government of China and refusal to maintain formal relations with anyone
who continues to maintain formal relations with the Republic of China
on Taiwan.

Once a sacred ritual, now empty play acting

Obviously, holding yourself superior to all others and insisting on
groveling submission to all you deal with is not a recipe for good will
and friendly interaction with foreign powers. However, the traditional
Chinese worldview has served China well once they were able to moderate a
bit and be more realistic about it. They have not been swallowed up by
the internationalist machine but have rather used it to their own
advantage, though even in China there are inroads being made by the
mindset of the global elite that must be pushed back against. The
biggest tragedy, however, is that the regime in China which is doing
this is itself not truly Chinese in any political, cultural or
traditional sense. With the overthrow of the monarchy, starting with the
original Republic of China and the abdication of the last emperor,
China effectively cut out its own heart, the centerpiece of all they
once were, the apex of the mountain of history and heritage that
ultimately defined them as a people. In that regard, they have much yet
to learn and must fully restore their traditional and truly Chinese
society. However, in terms of identity, how they view themselves and how
they view the world, the rest of the world could learn a thing or two
from China.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Trump Meets Some Monarchs

U.S. President Donald Trump is currently on his first foreign trip as
chief executive and has stopped in at some places of royal significance
and met with a few monarchs. As best as I can recall, the first monarch
to meet with him as president was King Abdullah II of Jordan and on this
trip he has met with King Salman Abdulaziz in Saudi Arabia, Pope
Francis (sovereign of the State of Vatican City) in Rome and with King
Philippe of the Belgians in Brussels while in town to talk to NATO
which, while running for office, Trump dismissed as "obsolete" and a
rip-off for the United States but, after proper coaching from the neocon
clique, he now says is "not obsolete" and is just great. Whatever. In
between Riyadh and Rome he also stopped in at Jerusalem but, of course,
there was no royal to meet with in Israel. In fact, no reigning European
monarch has ever visited the State of Israel, though I think an African
royal from a no longer reigning family might have visited a long time
ago in an official capacity. European royals have made unofficial visits
but as far as full-fledged, government sanctioned,
roll-out-the-red-carpet type state visits or official visits of any
kind, there has never been one. Recently, some where saying the British
might be the first, but, personally, I doubt it.

As for Trump meeting with the King of Saudi Arabia, I am less than
pleased. He certainly got a much warmer reception than Obama had,
despite the media constantly informing everyone that Trump is
"Islamophobic" and he did not kowtow nor did the First Lady cover her
hair. The Arab monarchs seemed to have intentionally moved to meet with
Trump quickly and put on a great show of friendship but, personally, I
am not buying it. As I have long said, I would prefer the Arab monarchs
to the most likely alternative which would be a Sunni version of the
Iranian Islamic theocracy but being so cozy with the Saudi king and
selling him so many weapons does not sit well with me. The level to
which America has befriended the Arab monarchies, even to the point of
fighting a war to restore an absolute monarch to his throne, has not
resulted in any increase in goodwill from the Islamic world (or among
monarchists I have noticed) and any sort of benefit remains unknown to
me. The Middle East is going through an Islamic civil war with Iran and
the Shiites on one side and the Saudis and other Arab states and the
Sunnis on the other. I think America should stay completely out of this
and not picking a winner between two sides which, frankly, each despise
the United States.

Moving on from Jerusalem to Rome, President Trump met with Pope Francis,
something which caused some anticipation given that the two had some
cross words for each other in the past. The Pope saying that anyone who
wanted to build a wall on their border was not a Christian, so I guess
he got over that, "who am I to judge?" sentiment, at least on certain
issues. I suggested that, upon arrival, Trump might complement the
Pontiff on the extremely high walls that surround Vatican City and his
private army of Swiss mercenaries who, backed up by the Italian police,
keep the little papal state secure. Somehow, I doubt that happened.
Trump seemed much more pleased than the Pope but a Vatican spokesman
said that the two found common ground on the subjects of "life,
religious liberty and freedom of conscience". That sounds nice. However,
I could not help but notice that of the three items listed, the
Catholic Church was, until fairly recently in ecclesiastical terms,
absolutely opposed to all but one of them.

The Pope also urged Trump not to pull out of the Paris "climate change"
agreement which seems just as bizarre a thing for a pope to be stuck on
as it is to hear a pope advocating for democracy, freedom of religion
and the separation of Church and state. Has Pope Francis perhaps heard
of his predecessor (Blessed) Pope Pius IX? He might read Pius IX's
controversial Syllabus of Errors and see how far it coincides
with his own views. Of course, they might say that Pius IX was speaking
about areas beyond his field of expertise but, last I checked, this
would likewise apply to Pope Francis talking about "climate change".
Again, it also just seems an odd subject for a pope to take up, rather
smacking of monumental human arrogance to think that a group of powerful
men are going to get together and sign agreements that will change the
weather. Past pontiffs might, I suspect, have been more concerned about
Trump being a protestant or his multiple divorces than his position on
the planet's temperature. However, the meeting of these two men, with
the media constantly repeating how completely opposite they are, also
called to mind something I doubt you will see anywhere else. Yes, it's
just that mad.

This meeting has obviously been implied to be a meeting of humility and
arrogance, the austere and the opulent and yet, I think that may not be
all wrong but not in the way people are thinking. Just consider this for
a moment. In numerous official statements from President Trump and his
staff, Trump has repeated over and over that he is "learning" more and
more all the time about how things work. He has certainly changed many
of his positions since he was elected to office (not a good thing in my
view btw) and that would necessarily reflect an admission of error. Yet,
on the other hand, Pope Francis has said that the papacy has not
changed him at all. He is exactly the same man now as he was before his
election. In fact, the papacy has had to change considerably in order to
adapt to him rather than him adapting to the papacy, everything from
dress codes to living arrangements to security procedures have had to be
changed. Which then, at the bottom of it, is the more "humble"
attitude? One man attains high office and must learn and adapt while the
other attains high office and says he has not changed at all, which is
to say, there must have been no room for improvement. Of course, I'm
probably wrong but that is what occurred to me anyway.

Lastly, as for Trump meeting with the King of the Belgians, it seemed to
go well enough but frankly there was not much to that. It was more of a
courtesy call than anything else. Trump is there to talk to NATO, to
two the neocon line and since Belgium currently has a government, there
is little for him to do in terms of national decisions. Perhaps, at
least, the fact that King Philippe and Queen Mathilde survived will
reassure the British that the Queen and Prince Philip will not be
subjected to any immediate danger from meeting with the Trumps. After
recent events in Manchester, perhaps they are reconsidering how terrible
Trump's suspension of travel from countries like Libya might be? Well,
of course not, that would just be crazy...

Sunday, May 21, 2017

The Battle of Aspern-Essling, Austrian Victory Over Napoleon

It was on this day in 1809 that the Battle of Aspern-Essling was fought,
during the War of the Fifth Coalition, between the forces of the French
Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Austrian Empire of Kaiser Franz I,
with the Imperial and Royal Army being led by Archduke Charles of
Teschen, probably the most formidable continental foe of the illustrious
Corsican conqueror. The battle is not generally listed among the most
significant of all time in the world but it was certainly not
unimportant and had some very interesting aspects. It was a dark time
for the Austrian Empire, Vienna had recently been taken by the French
and the French or their allies were in possession of much of the
Austrian heartland. Napoleon wished to cross the Danube and finish off
the Archduke and his army but the Austrians had done a good job of
destroying the bridges to hinder this effort. The idea, however, was to
hinder and not attempt to stop, which the Archduke did not wish to do.
Instead, it was his intention to allow Napoleon to cross the Danube so
as to be able to fall upon his forces as they came across, before the
entire Grande Armeé could arrive in force and concentrate against him.
The Austrian plan was for the French to cross the river and they would
then attack them on a front from the village of Aspern to the village of
Essling.

The Prince of Liechtenstein

This was an excellent plan as it made the best use of the situation that
the Austrians found themselves in. It would allow them to attack and
annihilate a part of the French army which would be too strong to defeat
when it was altogether and the French had to come after them, not only
to deal with the threat that the Imperial & Royal Army posed to the
French occupation of Vienna but also because Austrian irregulars led by
the great hero Andreas Hofer from the Tyrol, were wreaking havoc on the
French supply lines and rear echelon forces. The French had to move,
they had to cross the Danube and as they did, Archduke Charles would
attack them. He organized three of his corps (the Sixth, First and
Second) to attack Aspern while the Fourth Corps would attack Essling. In
the center, to respond to any French cavalry attack, was the commander
of the Austrian reserve cavalry corps who happened to be Prince Johann I
Joseph of Liechtenstein who had been, and would be again when the
current crisis passed, the Sovereign Prince of Liechtenstein. Believe it
or not, long before they were known for banking and art collecting, the
Princes of Liechtenstein were more familiar as members of the Austrian
army.

On May 21, 1809 as the French army was getting across the Danube, the
Archduke launched his attack. First, at Aspern, the initial Austrian
blow was dealt by General Johann von Hiller where he smashed into the
French forces of General André Masséna, who he had fought before at
Ebelsberg when the Austrians had been forced across the Danube. The
fighting then had been savage and it was no less fierce on May 21. The
French offered tenacious resistance as the successive waves of three
Austrian army corps came smashing down on them, converging on their
location. Street by street, house by house, the Austrians inched
forward, slowly, painfully but inexorably until it seemed the French
might not hold. Concerned that his flank would be turned, Napoleon
launched an attack on the Austrian center, aimed at their artillery
which was shelling French positions in Aspern. The French heavy cavalry
in their shining cuirasses and plumed helmets with horsehair manes,
rumbled forward, smashed the Austrians guns and took care to avoid the
soldiers in square led by one Prince Friedrich Franz Xavier von
Hohenzollern-Hechingen. He was from a different branch of the House of
Hohenzollern than that which ruled the Kingdom of Prussia and, in fact,
he had fought against the Prussians during his long military career. The
French dashed around his infantry but met the Prince of Liechtenstein’s
cavalry and though they made a good showing, they failed in their
ultimate goal of diverting the Archduke from his plan of attack.

The French at Aspern-Essling

Meanwhile, at Essling, the town was hit by the Austrian Fourth Corps
under Prince Franz Seraph of Orsini-Rosenberg whose family had been
barons of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and Imperial
Counts. He faced the French Second Corps under Marshal Jean Lannes, who
would ultimately lose his life in the battle. Once again, the fighting
was fierce, the French just as determined in defense as the Austrians
were determined in attack. By the time night fell, the French still held
about half of the village of Aspern, the other half being in Austrian
hands and while they also still held Essling, the Austrians had advanced
so close that the two armies were said to be camped with pistol shot
range from each other. As it was, Napoleon was confident that his troops
had done well holding their ground and that the following day he could
work one of his military miracles and bring about another French
victory.

As dawn broke and the fighting erupted again on May 22, the confidence
of the French Emperor seemed well founded. In Aspern, Masséna launched a
counter-attack that stunned the Austrians and swiftly drove them back
and out of the village. Simultaneously, Prince Orsini-Rosenberg was
attacking Essling, however, Marshal Lannes and his men held on, were
reinforced and launched their own counter-attack which, likewise, drove
the Austrian forces from the town. However, that good news was followed
by worrying news. At Aspern, the Austrian generals Hiller and Heinrich
Graf von Bellegarde (a Saxon born officer from a noble family of Savoy)
who commanded the Austrian First Corps, counter-attacked and smashed
Masséna, driving the French out of town. Napoleon had to do something
and he decided, once again, to launch a frontal attack on the Austrian
center, this time with much more muscle. He aimed at precisely the point
where the Austrian forces of the Prince of Hohenzollern and the Prince
of Orsini-Rosenberg came together.

Austrian grenadiers charge at Essling

The French troops surged forward, infantry at the front, Lannes leading
his men on the left and with cavalry in reserve. They hit the Austrian
line and, as planned, the Austrians broke, each corps pulling back and
the French charging into the opening. Napoleon had victory in his grasp,
with the Austrian center broken, each wing could be rolled up in turn,
attacked from flank and rear. However, at that critical moment, Archduke
Charles himself personally led his last reserve forward, holding a
Habsburg flag as he rallied his faltering soldiers. The Austrians held
their ground, the French wave crashed against them but could go no
farther. Along the line, the French were stunned and being shot to
pieces. At the same time, unknown to the French, the Austrians had set
several barges adrift on the river which moved downstream and at that
moment hit the hastily assembled French bridges, destroying or damaging
them. Napoleon feared his line of escape would be cut off and he would
be trapped and destroyed on the riverbank so he called off his stalled
attack.

Archduke Charles of Teschen

At Essling, the fight continued to be bitterly fought and see-sawed back
and forth. The Prince of Orsini-Rosenberg attacked again and the
Austrians took Essling but the French were able to counter-attack and
drive him out. However, fearful of being cut off, Napoleon had ordered
his men to fall back and so the Prince of Orsini-Rosenberg decided to
shift his attack toward the French center since he had found no joy at
Essling. Marshal Lannes fought a sort of rear-guard action, holding the
Austrians off as long as possible while the French army retreated. He
was mortally wounded in the process and by the end of the day, both
armies were totally exhausted. Both sides had lost about 23,000 men
killed, wounded or captured. It was not a decisive victory as Napoleon
was able to escape with his army, nonetheless, it was a solid victory
for the Austrians and Archduke Charles had done something that many had
begun to think impossible; for the first time in about a decade, the
famous Napoleon Bonaparte himself had been defeated in battle and the
Archduke was the man who had done it. In the end, it was undone by
another of Napoleon’s great victories at the Battle of Wagram which saw
Austria defeated at the Fifth Coalition broke up, forcing the Kaiser to
come to terms with Bonaparte. Still, the sting that the Habsburg
Archduke had given him at Aspern-Essling meant that, while the terms of
peace were certainly harsh, Napoleon was much less vindictive than he
might have been and hoped to have Austria as a friend rather than a foe
in the future.

Thursday, May 18, 2017

British Virtue Signaling and African Republicanism

The fact that liberal to leftist republics predominate in the countries
of the world today can be traced back to two immediate and related
causes; World War II and the subsequent end of European colonialism,
particularly the end of the British Empire which was by far the largest.
Prior to World War II, while certainly more prevalent than prior to
World War I, the most common form of government in the world was still
some variety of monarchy outside of the United States and Latin America.
Even the French Republic maintained existing monarchies in parts of its
colonial empire in Indochina. In Europe itself, monarchies remained in
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Italy, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria
and Greece. Monarchs reigned over the whole of the Middle East, from
Egypt to Iran with the exception of the French mandates of Syria and
Lebanon, the rest bound up in various ways with the British Empire. In
the British Empire of India the King-Emperor in London reigned over a
small army of colorful Indian rajas and maharajas, even a sultan or two,
stretching all the way over to Burma whose last king had been exiled by
the British but, again, the monarch in London took the title as the
British soldiers took the country.

Growth of the British Empire

The Kingdom of Siam/Thailand was, then as now, still holding out, the
French maintained the Emperor of Annam (in Vietnam) and the Kings of
Laos and Cambodia, the British monarch presided over a collection of
sultans in Malaysia as the Queen of the Netherlands did in the Dutch
East Indies. To the north, China had gone republican and Mongolia had
been occupied by the Soviet Union but the Dali Lama was still in Lhasa,
the Korean royal family was still around, albeit within the orbit of the
Emperor of Japan and as of 1931 the last Qing Emperor had been restored
to his ancestral throne in Manchuria by the good graces of the Imperial
Japanese Army. Other than the French colonies, most of Africa had a
monarch either in London, Brussels or Rome and usually local chieftains
closer to home who were maintained by the imperial system. Prior to 1936
the only independent countries in Africa were Liberia and Ethiopia. The
most recent colonial readjustments in Africa had been the partition and
annexation of the former German colonies after World War I. Other than
the slices of Togoland and Kamerun that went to France, the native
Africans simply exchanged a Kaiser for a King and German for English as
the language of government.

World War II would change this state of affairs as no monarchy, no
matter how briefly or nominally, who had anything to do with the Axis
Powers would ultimately survive with the exceptions of Thailand and
Japan (though it helped that in the case of Thailand the King was not
even present in his country for the war). The fact that the Emperor of
Japan maintained his throne was due entirely on the good graces of one
General Douglas MacArthur who asserted removing the Emperor would plunge
the country he was charged with occupying into unrest and irregular
warfare so long as a single Japanese man, woman or child remained a
live. Other than the “Land of the Rising Sun”, the war would see off the
last Emperor of China, the monarchs of Indochina, Bulgaria, Romania,
Yugoslavia, Italy and Albania. The aftermath saw the end of the European
colonial empires and this brought about the biggest explosion in the
number of republics around the world which brought about the state of
affairs we have today.

Marshal Badoglio enters Addis Abeba

Winston Churchill set these events into motion during World War II but
this was certainly not his intention. It was, nonetheless, the result,
particularly with his post-war defeat and replacement by the socialist
Clement Attlee. However, even before the war, Britain began a very bad
habit of making a national policy of what we would today call “virtue
signaling”. The British ultimately took this to the point of being like
the stereotypical liberal, a man too broadminded to take his own side in
a quarrel (as Robert Frost famously said). The British decided, even
before World War II, that the colonialism in which they had dominated
and come to control more of the land and peoples of the earth than any
other was suddenly a bad thing, originally for anyone other than
themselves and shortly thereafter, for their own selves as well. One
could, perhaps, excuse this sudden, and rather hypocritical, about-face
if it were to have actually benefited the British monarchy but, as the
plethora of post-colonial republics attests, it only ultimately
diminished it. The first sign of this came with the outbreak of war in
1935 between the Kingdom of Italy and the African tribal empire of
Ethiopia.

Britain, by use of sanctions and condemnatory speeches at the League of
Nations, gave her moral support to Ethiopia and admonished Italy, taking
the side of an African country Britain itself had previously invaded
for her barbaric misdeeds, against a fellow western, European country
which had been a friend and ally since the time of its formation. In
purely liberal terms, there would seem no reason to consider one better
than the other. Neither Italy nor Ethiopia were liberal, one was a
monarchy ruled by a Fascist dictator, the other was a monarchy in which
slavery was legal and widely practiced, something the British had
themselves invaded other African countries for in the past. When a
French woman challenged Winston Church on condemning Italy for doing
nothing that Britain herself had not done, for more often and on a far
greater scale, the future Prime Minister replied, “Ah, but you see, all
that belongs to the unregenerate past, is locked away in the limbo of
the old, the wicked days. The world progresses.” Would this make
Churchill the first virtue-signaling progressive? It seems an odd fit
for someone who served so proudly for the British Empire in India, the
British subjugation of the Sudan and the British conquest of the Boers
in South Africa. He never otherwise seem to consider these imperial
expeditions “wicked” or “unregenerate”.

Ethiopia's Roman Emperor

On the face of it, British interests were not impacted at all by whether
Ethiopia was ruled by the King of Italy or the King of Axum, however,
the broader implications were that the British Empire stood to have its
interests negatively impacted by alienating the Italians whose
considerable fleet sat astride the British naval base at Malta and was
well within striking distance of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. However,
in the end, this need to virtue signal meant that Britain lost an ally,
gained an enemy, imperiled the central artery of the British Empire and
gave Hitler the best friend he had long desired. Britain did eventually
recognize the King of Italy as the Emperor of Ethiopia but after the
outbreak of World War II fought a long, hard campaign to drive the
Italians out of the country and set the Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie
back on the throne he had fled in the face of the advancing forces of
‘Roman civilization’.

This is, of course, all leading up to the final question of what the
British Empire gained from this altruistic policy? Did they win a
lasting ally in Haile Selassie? No, Haile Selassie responded in an odd
way on one hand and a rather more understandable but still ultimately
futile way on the other. Rather than cheer the cause of the British
Empire which had restored him to his pre-war throne, he instead not only
cheered but actually fought for the very cause which had failed him;
that of collective security embodied in the post-World War II era by the
United Nations. As for the British Empire, he showed more racial
solidarity than the British had shown toward their fellow Europeans and
cheered the process of decolonization that brought down the British
Empire (all the while maintaining his own colonial rule over Eritrea
which he seized shortly after returning to power). It is, again,
entirely understandable that he should choose the side of people most
like himself rather than those most different. However, in the end, this
meant not only no British Empire but no Ethiopian Empire in Africa
either as the anti-colonial movements were seething with Marxism and
Haile Selassie was ultimately overthrown by a communist coup.
Unfortunately for him, by that time there was no British Empire to put
him back again a second time.

British Africa

However, if choosing the African side over the Italians did not end
well, things were little different when the British government chose the
African side over, well, the British side. It may be beneficial first
though, to look at an African colony in which the non-native minority
was less than significant but in an area of the continent with the
longest ties to Great Britain such as west Africa. Keep in mind, the
subject at issue here is not the right or wrong of colonialism but
whether the actions of the United Kingdom in giving up the empire were
of benefit to the British monarchy or even the cause of monarchy in
general. A conscious decision was made, after all, to concede the
independence of the colonies from the British Crown without a struggle
on the grounds that it was the ‘virtuous’ thing to do. True enough,
Britain could have had a difficult time holding on to a landmass such as
India for example, should the British have chosen to fight to maintain
themselves, however, the situation in Africa was not seen as so
insurmountable. There was no small amount of talk at the time of a
“third” British Empire (numbered as the first being lost with America
and the second going with the loss of India) centered on Africa. For our
first example, we will take the first in-line historically.

British officers with the Ashanti, 19th Century

In 1957 the British Parliament passed the Ghana Independence Act which
ended the era of the British Crown Colony of the Gold Coast, renaming
the country Ghana and making it an independent Commonwealth Realm. It
was an independent country but with HM Queen Elizabeth II as sovereign,
represented by a Governor-General and it was the first west African
country to be given independence. This period of Ghana as an independent
monarchy, however, lasted only until July 1, 1960 when a referendum was
held on a new constitution which removed the Queen as head of state and
made Ghana a republic with a President. So, unlike the United States
for example, Ghana did not have to fight a war for eight years to win
independence from Great Britain, instead, the United Kingdom graciously
gifted independence to Ghana only for the people of Ghana to show their
gratitude (or lack thereof) by, in only about three years no less,
voting 88% to 11% to abolish the monarchy in Ghana and replace the Queen
with a President. However, it did not end there for while the new
President lectured about the benefits of communism and socialism, he
also refused to take the side of the British in the Cold War, putting
Ghana in the “Non-Aligned Movement”. Taken together, this is rather like
saying, ‘we won’t help you and we won’t actively fight against you but
we hope you lose all the same”.

Prempeh II of the Ashanti

Naturally, Ghana might have chosen to reject an Anglo monarch but
restore to full sovereignty one of their own. Ghana was, of course, a
creation of British colonialism and no such historic place existed prior
to the British arrival but there were tribal kingdoms that could have
been elevated to the position, although no expert on the subject, I
would guess that the Ashanti chiefs would have been the most likely
source of potential native monarchs of whom the candidate at the time
would have been one Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu Agyeman Prempeh II. However,
as soon as independence was given to Ghana as a Commonwealth Realm (and
independent country in union with the British monarchy), the local
government began confiscating property of the Ashanti chief whose line
had not very long before been allowed back from exile in the Seychelles
where the British had sent them after losing the Anglo-Ashanti wars. It
had been the British colonial government of the Gold Coast, bear in
mind, which had allowed them back and granted the Ashanti tribal kingdom
self rule in 1935. The first post-colonial government was less
generous. Yet, nonetheless, the Ashanti king made peace with new
President and has carried on in cooperation with the republic ever
since. In the years since, one might say the Republic of Ghana has been
less than a resounding success considering that currently 7% of the
entire population has applied for visas to move to the United States. It
may also interest readers to know that Ghana has a rather unusual name
for, taken literally, “the Republic of Ghana” would translate to “the
Republic of the Warrior King” which is rather contradictory.

Next, we will look at two more high-profile examples which have the
commonality of both containing sizable British and/or European minority
populations; South Africa and Rhodesia. Obviously, in South Africa,
there was a history of unfriendly relations between the British and the
Boers (White Afrikaners of Dutch and/or mixed European descent). The
British took the Cape of Good Hope from the Dutch in the Napoleonic
Wars, after which the Boers withdrew into the interior, establishing
their own republics which were later conquered by the British in the
Boer Wars. However, not long after, around 1909-1910, the British
granted considerable autonomy to the Boers and they proved their loyalty
and gratitude by fighting for the British in the two world wars, though
there were a sizable number who hated the British, always would and
always have. However, there had long been some tension between the
British and Boers over how each dealt with the native Black population.
There had long been a strong republican presence among hard-line Boers
but it had not gained real political momentum until after British Prime
Minister Harold Macmillan came to Cape Town and spoke of the inevitable
end of colonialism and criticized the apartheid (racial segregation)
policies of the Afrikaner-dominated government.

Twilight of the British Crown in South Africa

This quickly destroyed any vestige of loyalty felt by Afrikaners towards
the British monarchy. Only in Natal, which was the only area in which
the White population was majority Anglo rather than Boer, was there
opposition to the idea of a republic. They staunchly reaffirmed their
loyalty to Queen Elizabeth II and warned that republicanism would be the
ruin of South Africa. They were the one bright spot for monarchists in
this entire period of South African history, however, they too did not
seem to be too optimistic about the virtue-signaling coming from London,
referring to Prime Minister Macmillan’s “winds of change” speech as
“blowing up to hurricane force”. The Black African population also
opposed the idea of a republic but made no secret of the fact that,
being dominated by leftist ideologies and identity politics, this was
simply out of opposition to unfettered Boer rule and not out of any
actual support for the Crown. In any event, they would not be voting in
any referendum anyway.

In 1960 a referendum was held on whether South Africa would retain the
monarchy or become a republic. Those pushing for the republic conveyed
the message that the British were abandoning South Africa, along with
the rest of the empire, and that the republic was the only way to ensure
the solidarity of the White population and their continuation in a
majority Black country. Those campaigning for the monarchy mostly
focused on the economic benefits of trade ties with the other
Commonwealth Realms, the need for British military support against
communism and, it should be noted, African racial nationalism. Others,
and it is no surprise this was not successful, urged people to vote
against the republic but that this did not imply support for the
monarchy. Given that the British had already shown more inclination
toward the Black majority than the White minority, the campaign to
retain the monarchy was at a disadvantage from the outset with their
argument. In the end, the republicans won the day, though not by a very
wide margin.

Flag of apartheid era South Africa

Again, most opposition had come from Natal and some even talked of
secession from South Africa, however the growing belief that Britain
would support the Black population rather than the White population,
undercut them and most were forced to go along with the republican Boers
or face becoming not only a minority but a powerless and hated minority
in their country. The Boer-dominated republic made a few conciliatory
gestures to the monarchists but generally went their own way and severed
all ties with the British Crown. Great Britain later more openly and
vociferously condemned the racial policies of South Africa but held back
from going as far as others did in the international effort to impose
sanctions. Nonetheless, the effort to never stray too far to the left or
to the right ultimately succeeded in pleasing no one. Effective support
for the monarchy all but disappeared among the White population and had
never been genuinely present in the political movements of the Black
population either. As a result, when South Africa did end apartheid and
gave political power to the Black population in 1994. The result,
needless to say, was that the Black African government did not choose to
restore the monarchy and become a Commonwealth Realm again nor did they
elevate one of their own chiefs to be “King of South Africa”.

The most prominent of these were the Zulu kings and they have not always
had the best of relations with the post-apartheid South African
government, dominated by the African National Congress. King Cyprian was
in place when the switch to republicanism came and King Goodwill has
been in place since 1968. He has been the focus of a great deal of
criticism for being out of step with fashionable political trends such
as speaking disapprovingly of homosexuality and a little too approvingly
of the era of White-rule in South Africa. He also provoked calls for an
apology when he spoke in a critical way of Africans from outside South
Africa moving into the country in such large numbers. In short,
relations between the Zulu kings and the ANC government have been less
than absolutely cordial. Once again, British virtue signaling and going
along with the popular liberal trends of the day meant the loss of a
crown for the British Queen, no restoration for the natives and a
situation that is worse for everyone.

First Rhodesian parliament

The situation was even more stark in the nearby country of Rhodesia.
Established under British colonial rule, Rhodesia had become the
breadbasket of Africa with the most consistently productive farms,
probably on the entire continent. It was a place of one of the most
successful recreations of British society in a foreign land anywhere in
the world. However, again, it was a land with a White (this time largely
Anglo-Saxon) minority ruling over a much larger Black African majority.
In 1923 the British colony of Southern Rhodesia had become,
effectively, self-governing within the British Empire. Unlike South
Africa had the history of the Boer Wars and thus tensions between the
Anglo and Boer populations, Rhodesia had no such problems and the
Rhodesians were as ardent defenders of the British Empire as one could
ever hope to find and from 1923 to 1953 things seemed to be going fine.
However, as decolonization continued and British pressure mounted to
give the Black population the vote, which, given the size of their
majority, would mean total political domination over the White
population, the Rhodesian government began to grow nervous, particularly
after witnessing what happened to Northern Rhodesia as it became
Zambia.

Stamp showing post-UDI Rhodesia was still loyal

The British government, however, was adamant that the Black population
had to be given the vote. There was a choice to be made and the British
government chose to take the side of the Black population over the White
population and the result was the unilateral declaration of
independence in 1965. The Rhodesians established themselves as a
Commonwealth Realm monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as their Head of
State and Ian Smith as Her Majesty’s Prime Minister in Rhodesia.
However, the British government refused to recognize the country and
continued to apply pressure to end White rule and bring about Black
rule. Ultimately, Rhodesia’s time as an unrecognized, independent
monarchy did not last long under such circumstances. In 1970 Rhodesia
officially became a parliamentary republic, severing all ties with the
British Crown. There were probably no more reluctant republicans in the
world but the British government was far more active than it had even
been toward South Africa in forcing change on the Anglo population of
Rhodesia with sanctions, diplomatic opposition and even a military
blockade of sorts.

Ultimately, after holding out for decades, Rhodesia was finally forced
to surrender. With the fall of the Portuguese empire after the Carnation
Revolution and the weakening of the Boer regime in South Africa,
Rhodesia was completely isolated and could not survive. Finally, in 1979
the first steps were taken toward Black majority rule and in quick
order Rhodesia was destroyed and in 1980 the country became the Republic
of Zimbabwe led by the Marxist dictator Robert Mugabe (still in power
to this day) and the opening of a reign of terror against the White
population. The British, who never recognized Rhodesia, did recognize
the Republic of Zimbabwe and even allowed Zimbabwe to join the
Commonwealth as a republic the same year though Mugabe eventually took
the country out in 2003. It is the second most impoverished country in
Africa today, which is a far cry from the prosperous colony that had
such surpluses that it exported food which leads to an important point.

Still protesting Cecil Rhodes. It's not going away.

This is why virtue signaling and fashionable political trends make for
bad policy. In the end, in every case detailed above, the Africans have
ended up worse off than when they started. However, from a purely
monarchist perspective, one thing *should* (and I emphasize should,
because some do not seem to) be very clear. Robert Mugabe was no
different than any other post-colonial African leader in one regard; not
one of them chose to maintain the monarchy and retain the British
monarch as their Head of State. Neither did any choose to become a
monarchy with their own sovereign, though they certainly had plenty of
options in most cases. The only Black, African monarchies today are
Swaziland and Lesotho which never lost their status in the first place
and which are, let us be honest, essentially dependencies of South
Africa. The British had a choice between their own people and the
Africans and they chose the Africans. Now, majority opinion says that
was the right and virtuous choice to make, which remains so even though
no one could call any of the post-colonial countries a resounding
success. However, it certainly did not benefit the British monarchy at
all.

Britain leaves Africa, Africans move to Britain...and
then protest against the British in Britain.

Today, no country in Africa has restored Queen Elizabeth II as their
head of state even after Her Majesty’s government chose to empower the
African people at the expense of the British minority populations in
those countries. At the same time, by and large, the British surrendered
forever the goodwill and support of that same White population which
had previously been so loyal. The Rhodesians were, again, once the most
ardent supporters of the British in the world. Today, however, it is not
uncommon to find surviving Rhodesians who will damn the British in no
uncertain terms, some even more than they damn Robert Mugabe and,
frankly, it is not difficult to understand why. They have adopted a
diehard Boer-level hatred of all things Anglo. Given all that has
happened to them since 1980, it would be rather shocking if they did not
harbor fierce resentment for the government, made up of people like
themselves, who completely abandoned them and furthered their
displacement. Yet, in spite of this, as I have mentioned (and refuted)
in the past, the British monarchy is still accused of racism! Even when
they support other races against their own, no sizeable population is
won over and accusations of racism continue. So, how has this policy
benefited the cause of the British monarchy in any way?

The short answer is that it has not. It has not even benefited the
Africans as liberal opinion assumed that it would. All it has done is to
increase the number of republics and grow the ranks of those bigoted
against the British and Anglo-Saxon civilization. Yet, it does not yet
seem that the lesson has been learned though there are signs that people
are starting to come around. Hopefully, for the sake of the monarchy
and a thousand years of British tradition, they will not adopt the Boer
attitude when they do. Personally, I have come to my limit on the
subject. Warm feelings of doing 'the right thing' is no substitute for
victory and just because you think you are doing good for those who hate
you, doesn't mean you really are. No one should abide those who are
willing to let their own civilization fall in exchange for a feeling of
moral superiority.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

MM Movie Review: Der große König

“Der große König” (‘The Great King’) is a German biopic of the famous
Prussian warrior king Frederick the Great, released in 1942 and directed
by Veit Harlan. That information alone necessitates addressing the
‘elephant in the room’ when it comes to this film so, we may as well get
that out of the way. Yes, the film was made in Nazi Germany and was a
product of the film industry which was ultimately under the authority of
the Minister of Propaganda Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Because of this, many
will hate the film, sight unseen while others will and have inevitably
seen it through a tinted lens, which is unfortunate but, I am sure, for
some people it simply cannot be helped. Most broadly, it is usually
interpreted as a film about Frederick the Great in which the King is
meant to be a stand-in for Adolf Hitler. That may or may not be true but
I certainly think it is possible to see it without such a parallel and I
believe that if someone were to watch it and not be told when it was
made, many would see nothing ‘national socialist’ about it at all.

Prussian advance at Kunersdorf

Production values are very high with this film, reflective of the fact
that it was made in late 1940 and early 1941 when the Germans were
pretty much winning the war. It is set during the Seven Years War (for
Americans that is the French and Indian War) and stars Otto Gebuehr as
King Frederick II, Gustav Froehlich (who sci-fi fans will know from
“Metropolis”) as Sergeant Treskow and Kristina Soederbaum as his wife
Luise Treskow. The sets are all quite convincing and the major battle
sequences are truly epic in scope with large numbers of soldiers,
cavalry and all the rest. Otto Gebuehr does a great job as Frederick the
Great, was quite similar in appearance to the monarch and, as such, it
is not surprising that he played the part on more than one occasion. The
film opens with the Battle of Kunersdorf in which the Prussian army is
crushed by the combined forces of Austria and Russia, the worst defeat
of Frederick’s career. The Austrians held off the Prussian attack, then
counter-attacked and drove the Prussians from the field, a route it was
thought might well finish them. In the aftermath, the King is despondent
and his generals and officials in Berlin begin to talk of peace
negotiations and even doing away with the King if he stands in their
way.

In one telling scene early on, Prince Heinrich criticizes his brother
Frederick to his face, saying that under his rule, their enemies have
increased every year to the point that Prussia was opposed by all of
Europe. This, of course, was mostly true as historically, at this point,
Prussia was opposed by almost everyone with the British as their only
major ally. In a fury, the King also says that he had intended for the
first regiment that fled to be sacrificed, basically that he ordered
them to attack an Austrian position he knew they could not take but that
as they would be shot down, others could shelter behind their corpses
and prevent any counter-attack until the artillery arrived to open a
breach in the Austrian lines. After soberly listening to a tirade
against him by Luise Treskow, whose family mill was destroyed in the
battle (she thinking the King was just an elderly major), we see in this
scene that the King, while mindful of the suffering of ordinary people,
was fully prepared to order men to certain death in order to win the
larger victory. However, at Kunersdorf, it did not work because the
regiment in question had fled.

Graf von Laudon, the Austrian commander

Despite the wishes of his generals, King Frederick is determined not to
surrender but to carry on the fight and orders the regiment that fled,
the Bernburg Regiment, to be officially disgraced, at which point the
colonel shoots himself. The King is unmoved, seeing this as weakness.
Later, he survives a Habsburg attempt to poison him by a sleazy envoy,
dreams of his books and his music, the pursuits of peacetime while back
in Vienna, Kaunitz and General von Laudon talk about him. Count Kaunitz
is adamant that only a Habsburg has the right to rule Germany and that
the Hohenzollern is no legitimate monarch at all but simply the puffed
up Marquis of Brandenburg. Count von Laudon, on the other hand, has more
respect for his recently defeated opponent and points out that when it
was last in great peril, the Empire was saved, not by a legitimate
monarch but by the victories of Prince Eugene of Savoy. Kaunitz thinks
it unfair to the Prince to compare him to so despicable a character as
the King of Prussia but the matter is ended when word arrives that
Frederick has raised a new army and is on the move again.

Frederick is, however, ill and rages against his brother when he
suggests making peace and an alliance with France. The King tells him
that the French are not to be trusted and want to keep Germany as a
collection of small, powerless states that can all be easily dominated,
as it was, he says, after the Thirty Years War. That issue is put aside
in favor of the next battle, the Battle of Torgau, which is a great
victory over the Austrians of Daun. The Bernburg Regiment is restored to
favor, however, the coordinated attack was carried out by bugle calls
and when the adjutant who was supposed to order the attack on the front
where the Bernburg Regiment was stationed was killed, Sergeant Treskow
(recently married to Luise), sees the enemy approaching and blows the
bugle himself. King Frederick is outraged when he learns that a lowly
sergeant ordered the attack, though one might wonder why an attitude of
“all’s well that ends well” was not in order. Well, believe it or not,
this is. The King says that if the end result had not been a victory, he
would have had the sergeant shot immediately. Instead, he orders him
spread eagle to a wagon wheel for three days as punishment. Obviously,
this does not endear him to Luise Treskow who had been fuming against
the King since her family mill was destroyed.

"Old Fritz" and his generals

What she doesn’t know is that the King is simply trying to maintain
discipline and has ordered that Treskow be promoted to lieutenant when
he has finished taking his three days of punishment. But Sgt. Treskow is
indignant about the injustice of this and decides to desert. In the
meantime, Czarina Elizabeth of Russia has died and while other Russian
officers break out in cheers for Czar Peter III and start smashing
everything in sight to show their happiness, their commander, General
Zakhar Grigoryevich Chernyshov, is not so sure. He knows Czar Peter will
soon make peace with Prussia and then an alliance with him. However,
Chernyshov plans to deceive Frederick by offering more troops than he
has, withholding any real help and waiting for the Czar to be bumped
off. However, to his surprise, as well as those who know their history,
this all happens before he can do anything. Czar Peter is assassinated,
Catherine II is Empress of Russia and he then intends to isolate his
army as much as possible until Frederick is heavily engaged against the
Austrians at which time he will intervene on the Austrian side.

However, Frederick figured out what the Russians were up to, takes
General Chernyshov prisoner and orders that, while he doesn’t expect the
Russians to fight alongside him, they will still march to their
assigned position so that the Austrians under Daun will have to divide
to meet them. This culminates in the Battle of “Schweidnitz 1762” (if
you can find that one) where we see Prussians advance, artillery bow up a
tower and Sergeant Treskow is killed as he did not desert after all. A
victory parade is held in Berlin but the King does not attend. The
non-religious man checks on the widow Treskow and then goes to a large
cathedral, not to pray, but to cry some manly tears before a brief song
of tribute sings us out and the film ends.

Overall, the film is an entertaining one though not without flaws. It is
broadly accurate as far as the history goes, Frederick the Great did
meet with a stunning defeat, he did soldier on and he was ultimately
victorious, however, it does take a number of liberties with the
historical record, one major one being that the “Hohenzollern Miracle”
does not amount to much in this film as it never shows the Russians
playing any part in the ultimate success of Frederick. It says, at the
outset, that the words spoken by Frederick in the film are historically
accurate. Although I cannot claim to know everything Frederick ever
said, this seems dubious to me, particularly the scene in which he
justifies his war against Austria to his brother. He condemns the
Habsburgs as being unfit to lead a united Germany, makes clear that a
united Germany under Prussian leadership is his goal, on the grounds
that the Habsburgs share power with non-Germans. This little speech, and
I may well be proven wrong, sounds to me more like something Hitler
would have said than something Frederick the Great would have said.

Frederick the Great, while a Prussian nationalist of a sort, was not as
xenophobic as this films seems to me to imply that he was. This was a
monarch who usually spoke French rather than German, had an army made up
of men from many different countries and who took in a number of
foreign exiles, a notable example being the Jesuits who he said he would
sell back to the Catholic countries when they regained their senses. It
is all the more strange considering that, while this film is set during
the reign of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, her successor, Emperor
Joseph II, would seem to have been more of a German nationalist than
Frederick was, going so far as to try to impose German as the primary
language of all Habsburg lands (which did not go over well as one can
imagine). However, while it seems to show an anti-Habsburg bias that was
more in line with Hitler than Frederick (who often expressed his
admiration for his Habsburg opponents, particularly Joseph II) it is,
overall, a well made, well acted and entertaining film. Perhaps knowing
when it was made distorts my view as it does others, it simply seems at
such times to be casting the views of Hitler on to the person of
Frederick. And Hitler, after all, while admiring Frederick the Great
immensely, was certainly no traditionalist, no monarchist and no friend
of the ‘old order’ but was, in fact, quite an egalitarian other than in
the area of race. It may also be noteworthy, given Hitler's opinion of
the Jews, that neither King Frederick nor Empress Maria Theresa were
particularly fond of them and not a few would likely say Frederick was
more tolerant of them than the Habsburg Empress was. However, Hitler's
opposition to the Habsburgs was clearly irrational and no facts would
have changed it.

Aside from this issue, the film has what I would consider only rather
minor flaws. It runs longer than it needs to and there are a number of
scenes which are rather superfluous. The drama surrounding the King’s
favorite nephew, who he hopes will succeed him but dies toward the end,
is not needed to drive the story forward and seems to exist simply to
show that the King has a great many burdens and heartaches and must
stand alone, shouldering the weight of the German destiny. The
conspiracy involving the Russians could have been cut out as it
ultimately came to nothing and did not matter to the overall narrative.
Many have commented on the fact that filming was in progress when war
broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union but not too much should
be made of this as it is extremely doubtful that the filmmakers would
have been aware of this impending attack. On the whole, I think it is a
good film for its time and one that people should do their best to view
on its own merits and not get bogged down in trying to find Nazi
propaganda messages throughout. I would even say it is a good film to
take a lesson from in how royal leadership is supposed to be, not swayed
by popular opinion and putting the good of the nation above the
personal happiness of the monarch.

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Monarch Profile: King Henri II of France

The French House of Valois in the Sixteenth Century is often seen,
rather dismissively, as a dynasty in decline and Henry II, succeeding
the ‘larger than life’ King Francis I, is all too often glossed over,
particularly in English-language histories, and remembered only for his
tragic and unusual demise. However, this is to do an injustice to a
monarch who deserves to be remembered as a formidable man and one of the
great “might have been” figures in French history. King Henry II was an
astute leader, a man who endeavored to do much with little and, as
such, had an active mind. He almost always had a number of irons in the
fire, was constantly plotting some geopolitical maneuver and would not
have been out of place in the city states of Italy of the time with
their numerous intrigues and plans within plans. Had he lived long
enough to see even some of these brought to fruition, he would almost
have certainly changed the fate of Christendom and brought the Kingdom
of France to a position of preeminence long before the glory days of the
Bourbon.

Henry as a child

Henry was born on March 31, 1519 at Chateau de Saint Germain-en-Laye,
the second son of King Francis I of France and Claude, Duchess of
Brittany and, as the second son, was not expected to ever be king. He
was the “spare”. However, even as a child, his life was not uneventful.
The Italian Wars were still raging and at the Battle of Pavia in 1525
King Francis I was defeated by the German Emperor Charles V, who was
also King of Spain, and taken prisoner. This, along with the subsequent
sacking of Rome, allowed Emperor Charles V to dictate terms to King
Francis I and his ally Pope Clement VII. A treaty was signed and it was
agreed that Francis I would be released from his Spanish captivity but
the Emperor demanded that this be a prisoner exchange and so, in the
place of the King of France, little Henry and his brother the Dauphin
had to take the place of their father. In effect, they were to be held
hostage by the Emperor to ensure that King Francis I adhered to the
agreement he had obviously signed under duress. So, for more than four
years, Henry and his brother were prisoners in Spain. They were not held
in terrible conditions of course, were generally treated appropriately
for their status but this may have had an impact on young Henry and his
future development.

Henry learned from an early age that being a prince was serious
business, that this was a high stakes game and that you always had to be
on guard for any threat and reaching for any opportunity. He also
learned that it was important to always have a backup in case things did
not work out. He never wanted to be a prisoner again. Later on, in case
he needed any further coaching in political intrigue, he was married to
Catherine de’ Medici on October 28, 1533 at the age of fourteen. This
was, of course, an arranged marriage on the part of King Francis I and
Pope Clement VII, the pontiff being from the Medici family, the Italian
clan which ruled the city-state of Florence, Tuscany. Catherine’s own
parents had been brought together in a similar alliance by King Francis I
of France and the Medici Pope Leo X in opposition to Emperor Maximilian
I. Previously, King James V of Scotland had hoped to marry Catherine
but ties to France were seen as more valuable than the more remote land
of Scotland and so her hand went to Henry, Duke of Orleans.

Henry and Catherine, brought together by Clement

However, this marriage, which neither bride nor groom had any desire
for, was ill-fated from the start, partly because of the intrigues of
Italian politics. A year after the wedding, Pope Clement VII died and
was succeeded by Pope Paul III, from the Farnese family, who opposed the
Medici, cancelled the papal alliance with France and stopped payment on
the dowry for Catherine, making her immediately less than popular with
the King.

Catherine would go on to no small amount of notoriety herself but she
and Henry lived mostly separate lives with the Duke of Orleans taking as
his mistress Diane de Poitiers, with whom he had a very long and very
close relationship to the point that she seemed to be his wife in all
but name. Diane, not Catherine, would be the dominant woman in France,
at least as long as Henry lived but, as she was mistress and not wife,
she was enough of a French patriot to insist that Henry still do his
marital duty and maintain conjugal relations with his wife in order to
secure the succession. That was certainly important as, in 1536, the
Dauphin suddenly died and Henry, Duke of Orleans moved up in the ranks
to be heir to the French throne. Just over ten years later King Francis I
died and on July 25, 1547 the Duke of Orleans was crowned King Henry II
of France according to ancient and sacred French royal tradition, at
the Cathedral in Reims. He was 28-years old, his father passing away on
his birthday.

Once the crown of France was on his head, King Henry II quickly showed
himself to be an ambitious and energetic monarch. He had many grand
aspirations and while he might focus on one thing at a time, he always
had other projects simmering on the back burner. Such was necessary as
the Kingdom of France was in a precarious position. After the defeat of
his father and the resulting treaty, Emperor Charles V was dominant in
Germany, Italy and Spain while King Henry VIII of England still had a
foothold at Calais and dreamed of becoming King of France himself. To
make matters worse, King Henry and Emperor Charles had previously been
allied against France before Henry VIII decided to divorce his wife,
Catherine of Aragon, who happened to be the Emperor’s aunt. Nonetheless,
France was encircled with an enemy on every border and a few enemies on
the inside as well. Along with the usual rebels here and there,
Protestantism had spread from its birthplace in Germany to France where
the Huguenots were a major concern for King Henry II who, while he may
not have been the most pious man in the world, was certainly a staunch
Catholic and adamant that the Catholicism of France was non-negotiable.

King Henri II

In Germany, Emperor Charles V had been urging the Pope to call a council
to enact Church reform and, hopefully, appease the Protestants in that
way. Eventually, when bloodshed persisted, he made peace with them in
order to focus on his external enemies such as the French or the Turks
or even the Pope himself. His Spanish lands were safe thanks to the well
established Inquisition which prevented Protestantism from ever taking
root. In England, religious divisions had already started to cause
problems but like King James V of Scotland, King Henry II of France was
determined to see Protestantism eradicated. The measures taken would
certainly seem harsh by modern standards but, it is simply a fact of
history that where religious differences were allowed to spread,
horrific wars were the inevitable result while countries which prevented
such differences, escaped such calamities. Had more French monarchs
been as harsh as King Henry II, a great deal of future bloodshed and
civil war might have been avoided. The Wars of Religion took a terrible
toll on France and it just possible that the suppression of King Henry
II might have prevented them. So, while Henry II was King of France,
heretic leaders were burned, people who spoke heresy might lose their
tongues, censorship was enforced and suspected Protestants were
imprisoned. Henry II certainly had no qualms about it, as far as he was
concerned, he was protecting the sacred foundations of the monarchy and
protecting the souls of his subjects from eternal damnation.

The major goals of King Henry II were too secure his power and defend
the Church at home and supplant Emperor Charles V as the dominant
monarch of western Europe. Swift suppression of dissent and dissident
opinion at home took care of the first while the second required a
number of plans. King Henry II planned to make use of the rivalries in
Italy to thwart the Emperor there, remove the German/Spanish domination
of Italy and replace it with French dominance while going for a more
direct offensive on his own. At the same time, he also had more
long-term plans to gain a pro-French Great Britain through dynastic
alliance and perhaps a little subterfuge. For a man who began his reign
with a recently defeated country, literally surrounded on all sides by
hostile powers, this was certainly an ambitious program indeed but, King
Henry II could never be accused of lacking in audacity.

King Henri II curing by his touch

As for his domestic life, King Henry II, despite his bad relationship
with Queen Catherine, did his duty to secure the French succession for
the House of Valois. He fathered no less than ten children by Catherine
de’ Medici, though, sadly, many died young and those which reached
adulthood seemed invariably doomed to lives of tragedy. He also had
three illegitimate children by three different mistresses, though none
by his most long-standing favorite, Diane de Poitiers. The relationship
would be extremely odd probably anywhere other than France. Diane and
Catherine de’ Medici were actually distant cousins, Diane approved of
the marriage between Henry and Catherine, encouraged Henry to do his
duty by her and even nursed Catherine backed to health when she became
extremely ill. In any event, any sympathy people might have for Queen
Catherine as the wife of an unfaithful husband, tends to be non-existent
given her reputation and later actions in life.

For King Henry II, the first pot that came to boil on his political
stove was the renewal of the Italian Wars. After the defeat of the Pope
and the imperial subjugation of Italy, the Medici family in Florence had
allied with the Habsburgs and were to be rewarded with a monarchical
title to all of Tuscany. However, there remained one city-state in
Tuscany that was outside their control which was the Republic of Siena.
When Florence moved to conquer Siena, the city-state called on France
for help and King Henry II answered, sending a small French force to
back up a largely Italian one commanded by Pietro Strozzi, an
accomplished soldier whose family, the Strozzi, were long-standing
rivals of the Medici. King Henry II also launched a direct offensive
against the Germans and their allies west of the Rhine. To do this, King
Henry II allied with some minor Protestant powers and also maintained
the existing alliance with the Ottoman Turks whose naval forces
cooperated in attacking imperial ports on the Mediterranean.

This requires a bit of explanation as modern readers tend to raise an
eyebrow at a staunch Catholic like King Henry II of France being allies
with Protestants and Muslims against a Catholic emperor. Of course, it
would be nice if such conflicts never happened, however, it was all too
common and King Henry II was certainly not unusual in this regard. The
Anglican King Henry VIII of England hired Catholic Italian mercenaries
to subdue a Catholic uprising in Cornwall. Emperor Charles V, certainly a
staunch Catholic, made concessions to win Protestant support for his
wars. Even when he made war on the Pope, the German army he sent in to
Italy consisted in large part of Protestants. Likewise, at the end of
their long reign, the last Habsburg monarch, Blessed Emperor Charles I
of Austria-Hungary, would fight his last war as an ally of the Ottoman
Turks, sending troops to help maintain the Islamic empire in the Middle
East. Even the Pope himself, when France later became the dominant power
in Europe, made common cause with Protestant powers against the
Catholic King of France. For purists, this is irritating but, again, it
was certainly not unusual nor unique to Henry II.

Henry II decorates a hero at Renty

In the course of the war, King Henry II made some major gains but was
ultimately thwarted in his effort to establish French dominance over
Italy, supplanting the Germans. At the Battle of Marciano in 1554 the
French backed forces of Siena under Strozzi were defeated by a larger
German-Spanish-Florentine army under Gian Giacomo Medici, securing
Medici control over the whole of Tuscany. Yet, nearer to home, the
French were more successful. King Henry II launched an offensive into
Lorraine and won a decisive victory at the Battle of Renty on August 12,
1554. Emperor Charles V had commanded the Germans and Francis, Duke of
Guise, commanded the French. The imperial offensive into France was
stopped and the cities of Metz, Toul and Verdun all fell into the hands
of King Henry II. Dispirited by these losses and tired from a lifetime
of stress and struggle, Emperor Charles V abdicated in 1556, dividing
his massive empire into a Spanish branch and a German branch. King
Philip II inherited the Spanish half and Ferdinand I became Emperor over
the German half.

King Henry II carried on the fight, hoping to secure a victory that
would enable him to negate the loss in Italy, however, King Philip II of
Spain allied with Duke Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, an accomplished
soldier, who led the Spanish army to a great victory over the French at
the Battle of Saint Quentin on August 10, 1557. England then decided to
join in the fun, King Philip II of Spain being married to Queen Mary I
of England, however the French still had some fight left in them and
aside from some minor victories in Belgium, struck an extremely painful
blow against the English by taking Calais, the last English foothold on
French soil. However, King Henry II realized that the war had not been
the great success he hoped and he had no choice but to agree to a
compromise peace. He would keep Calais, Metz, Toul, Verdun and Saluzzo
but would give Piedmont back to the Savoy, give some French princesses
to be married to the Habsburg and Savoy families and give up on trying
to dominate Italy.

King Henri II

It seemed as though the grand aspirations of King Henry II had been
thwarted, however, as stated at the outset, Henry II was a man who kept a
‘backup plan’ in reserve. For King Henry II, that backup plan was a
certain Stuart princess later to be Mary Queen of Scots. Her mother was
from the Guise family, the most stalwart Catholic family in France, and
King Henry had her brought to France to be raised and to make sure that,
come what may, France would dominate Scotland. Yet, there was still
more to it than Scotland alone for according to the Catholic Church,
Queen Elizabeth I of England was illegitimate and, as such, Mary of
Scots was to be considered the true Queen of England as well as
Scotland. Mary of Scots was supposed to be the real “secret weapon” of
King Henry II of France. With her, he could secure the whole of Britain
and Ireland as Catholic, French allies and together they could dominate
the whole of Christendom. It was a grand scheme and, considering the
great expense of his Italian adventure, a scheme was about all that King
Henry II could afford.

One could occupy a great deal of time trying to imagine how different
the course of history would have been if the intrigues of King Henry II
of France had come to fruition. As we know, they did not. While at a
joust celebrating the peace with Spain, as King Henry II loved jousting,
the French monarch was struck in the head by the lance of a member of
the King’s Scottish Guard. A splinter pierced his brain and King Henry
II of France died the following month on July 30, 1559. He was succeeded
by his ill young son, King Francis II, husband of Mary of Scots, but he
was not destined to live long either. A still younger son, King Charles
IX, would take the throne but Queen Catherine de’ Medici would be the
one in charge and the Wars of Religion soon followed, a horrible period
in French history. It was certainly not the future that King Henry II
had envisioned for his country.

King Henri II

Most historical accounts look back on the reign of King Henry II as
almost a disaster and the usual view of the monarch himself is an
extremely negative one. He has often been accused of having all of the
faults and none of the virtues of his famous father, King Francis I,
save for being a personally brave man. He is disliked and accused of
being cold, aloof, vindictive, reckless and bad tempered and so on and
so forth. However, that seems rather overly harsh to me and I have
always been rather fond of the man. He had audacity. That tends to win
me over as few other traits ever could. He inherited a defeated country,
surrounded by enemies and knew he would have to gamble in order to
succeed and if he was going to gamble, he was going to go for a prize
that would be worth the risk. I also do not think he was reckless or
foolhardy, he had, if anything, too many plans for too many schemes all
going at the same time. He was a man of great ambition and great
aspirations which, sadly for him, did not come to pass. Such is life,
you take a risk and you win or lose. King Henry II took his chance and
lost, though had he lived longer, he may, perhaps, have seen his second
succeed. It certainly would have made for quite a change if he had.