FinermanWorks

What is to done with Germany after the war?

That was the chief topic to be decided by Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin when the Allied leaders met at Yalta in February, 1945. With the Soviet army already over the eastern border of Germany, and the American and British armies amassed along the Rhine, one final offensive would crush the Third Reich. But the Allies wanted more from a defeated Germany than a white flag and a change in government.

As stated in the Yalta Declaration, the Allies’ goals were “to destroy German militarism and Nazism and to ensure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world.” The Yalta Conference agreed upon a general plan for a post-war Germany. Following its unconditional surrender, a defeated Germany would be occupied, governed and rehabilitated by the Allies. Each of the Allied powers would have a sector of Germany to administer. This territorial division would reflect the military reality of where the Allied armies were; the British and Americans in western Germany and the Soviets in the east.

However, Berlin would have a special status. The Allies intended Berlin to be the capital of their administration. A joint commission representing the Soviets and the Western powers would decide and coordinate their policies. Although Berlin was deep within the Soviet zone, the city also would be divided into sectors among the allies. The British and Americans would police and administer their respective zones in Berlin and, although one hundred miles in the Soviet sector, they would have unimpeded access to western Germany.

This spirit of cooperation lasted as long as Hitler did. He killed himself on April 30, 1945 as the Soviet army engulfed Berlin. The remnants of the German government formally surrendered a week later. When the Allied leaders–Stalin, Churchill and now Harry Truman–met at Potsdam, Germany in July, 1945, the Western powers already had evidence of the Soviets’ intentions in Eastern Europe. Communist governments had been imposed on Poland and Hungary, although Stalin promised that they would be just temporary administrations until free elections could be held.

On the question of post-war Germany, however, Stalin did adhere to the agreements made at Yalta. The Soviet army kept within its designated zone, half of Berlin was ceded to the western powers, and they participated in the Allied Control commission for the governing of occupied Germany. Of course, participating is not necessarily the same as cooperating. Beyond the ideological differences between Capitalism and Communism, the Western Powers and the Soviets had diametrically opposite goals toward Germany. The Americans and the British wanted to reconstruct an industrial but rehabilitated Germany, whose factories would produce cars rather than tanks. The Soviets, having lost more than 20 million soldiers and civilians in the war, wanted a suppressed Germany, shorn of heavy industry and reduced to being a 136,000 sq. mile farm.

With the Allied Control council in a general state of deadlock, each occupying power now sets its own policies in governing its German sector. Britain, herself impoverished by the war, accepted American policy and aid in reconstructing the British sector. By 1947, western Germany was being administered as one zone. If the Western powers were creating one Germany, the Soviets were creating their own. German communists, who had spent decades living as obscure pensioners in Moscow, now found themselves being elevated to government ministers in eastern Germany. The sectors of Germany had become divisions.

There would be two German states, each proclaimed in 1949. East Germany was 41,646 sq. miles and, according to a 1946 census, had a population of 18 million. West Germany was 94,911 sq. miles and had a population of 45 million; however, West Germany also held an additional 186 sq. miles of territory: West Berlin. One hundred miles within Eastern Germany, West Berlin’s independence and existence were precarious. Its nearly two million citizens depended on shipments of food and fuel from the West. One road and one rail line provided these supplies, and that tenuous link was at the mercy of the Soviets.

In 1948, angered that West Berlin would be part of West Germany rather than a neutral zone , the Soviets responded by attempting to starve the city into submission. The road and rail line from the West were blocked. It was an act of war and would have justified a military response, but the Western powers would have been at a distinct disadvantage. They had demobilized their armies after the World War; the Soviets had not. Yet, if the Americans and British had less tanks and foot soldiers, they still had the best air forces in the world.

Their airplanes literally surmounted the Soviets’ blockade by flying supplies to Berlin. While the blockade lasted, from June 1948 to May 1949, airplanes from the West delivered 2,323,738 tons of food, fuel and raw materials to the city. This supply operation, remembered as the Berlin Airlift, involved round-the-clock flights to keep West Berlin alive. There were 278,228 flights into the besieged city, an average of more than 800 a day. The Soviets finally relented and lifted their blockade, begrudgingly acknowledging the independence of West Berlin.

One hundred miles within East Germany, West Berlin stood as an enclave of freedom, a showcase of western prosperity, and a sanctuary for those who sought to escape the tyranny and subsistence of Communism. In 1956, East Germany’s population had fallen to 17 million. One million East Germans had defected, and most had escaped to West Berlin. While most of the East German border with its Western rival was defined by guards and lined with barbed wire barriers, the division between East and West Berlin was perfunctory.

People passed freely from one sector to the other; half a million people crossed on a daily basis. Many East Germans worked in the Western half of the city; the capitalist wages were higher. Shopping was another enticement; the stores of West Berlin certainly had more to offer than those of East Berlin. There were checkpoints at the pedestrian and traffic crossings, but a proper ID sufficed. The subways and trains between the sectors did not even have checkpoints; one could defect for the price of a ticket. It actually seems surprising how many people were willing to return to East Berlin; by 1961 the number of defections was more than two million.

East Germany had a demographic crisis: it was depopulating. Worse, the defections included the most skilled and ambitious of its workforce. Walter Ulbricht, the leader of East Germany, had a solution that would be grotesque, barbaric, humiliating but effective: a wall around West Berlin. Being the dutiful stooge, he asked Moscow’s permission. The Soviet Union agreed but insisted that the work and the responsibility be solely East Germany’s. August 13, 1961, early Sunday morning as Berlin slept, East German soldiers and militiamen began constructing barriers along the eastern boundary of the city.

This, the first form of the Berlin Wall, was 27 miles of barbed wire across the face of the city. The northern and southern boundaries of West Berlin, separating the city from the rest of East Germany, were also blocked with barriers. This barbed wired wall extended 103 miles around West Berlin. Transportation from West Germany remained unimpeded; but traffic between the two Berlins was now confined to a few heavily guarded checkpoints. Ulbricht announced that the barriers were meant to deter Western aggression. It did not deter the world’s denunciation, but the Wall withstood the criticism.

The barbed wire ring was soon with supplemented with a 12-foot-high wall of concrete blocks. It took three years to complete. Yet, people continued to escape, climbing over or tunneling under the Wall. The masons working on the Wall had to be guarded against defecting. As a further deterrent. the East Germans began building a second wall one hundred yards further east of the main barrier. The ground between these two walls was cleared of buildings and pitted with trenches and traps. Furthermore, 116 watchtowers overlooked the area, and the guards had shoot-to-kill orders. That 100 yards between the Walls became known as the Death Strip.

The Wall became the symbol of the Cold War. On June 26, 1963 President John Kennedy visited Berlin and, in sight of the Wall, he defined the “great issue between the free world and the Communist world.

“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. The wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system: an offense not only against history, but an offense against humanity.”

But the Wall and East Germany seemed impervious to history and humanity. The only changes were further enhancements in the Wall’s formidable structure. Five years of construction created a new wall built of reinforced concrete slabs, 12 feet high and 4 feet wide, each weighing 6000 pounds. Ironically, although the slabs were built to withstand impact and erosion, their surfaces were susceptible to graffiti. The youth and artists of West Berlin made a defiant art of decorating their side of the Wall.

This was the ominous yet satirically adorned Wall that President Ronald Reagan denounced on his visit to Berlin on June 12, 1987. The Cold War was thawing, a new and moderate leadership now prevailed in the Kremlin, and yet the Berlin Wall still stood. Reagan addressed the Soviet Leader on this cruel incongruity.

“General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Mikhail Gorbachev was of the same mind. The Soviet Union was decaying, a fourth rate economy that could not guarantee subsistence to its own people yet was subsidizing a world-class military and a restless empire. If the Soviet Union had any hope of survival and reform, it had to accept its limitations. The Soviet Union withdrew from Eastern Europe in 1989, allowing those former satellites to determine their own paths. The satellites’ Communist governments attempted to survive on their own, replacing the tyrannical hardliners with accommodating moderates.

The new face of East Germany was Egon Krenz. Elevated by the party leadership in October 1987, he was a hack but 25-years younger than his Stalinist predecessor. Hoping to cultivate popularity, Krenz promised that the borders between the two Germanys would eventually be opened. The vagueness of his timetable, however, was lost in the publicity. The news was announced on November 9th, and tens of thousands of East Germans assembled at the Wall’s  checkpoints, demanding access to West Berlin. The border guards were overwhelmed by the multitude, and no one in the government dared to oppose the popular surge. The gates went up and the crowd came pouring through. The Berlin Wall no longer had a purpose.

And now history and humanity had their revenge. Without the Wall, there was no East Germany. It was reunited with the West in October 1990. The Wall itself became a quarry, subject to the chisels and hammers of souvenir hunters. Some sections were auctioned off, much of the rest was simply torn down. A few stretches remain as a historical monument. Fragments of the Berlin Wall are on display in various museums, at the U.S. State Department, the CIA Headquarters, and the Presidential Liberties of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Richard Nixon. A section of the Wall can also be found in a Las Vegas casino, in a men’s room.

Most of the fabled walls of history–the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall, the walls of Constantinople–served to protect their people, and those fortifications stood for hundreds of years.  The Berlin Wall was built to suppress its people, and it stood for 27 years.

Three years, I went to our local movie theater with the intent of seeing “The Wind That Shakes Barley“, an acclaimed Irish film that relates (read this with  a brogue) “The Troubles.” The owner and manager of this theater knows me to be a fan of fine foreign films–and a loyal customer, so he made a point of warning me about this movie. Yes, the film was excellent but its dialogue was authentically Irish-English and an unintelligible mumble. The manager said that he had seen the film twice and still could not understand half of the dialogue. Under normal–masochistic–circumstances, I would have braved the Gaelic din, but it seemed unfair to bewilder my wife. We saw another film–which I cannot recall.

However, if you wait long enough and pay a fortune for cable television, you will have the chance to see any movie that you missed the first time around. “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” was broadcast last week, and I finally saw–and heard–it. To be honest, I might as well have watched a silent movie. The dialogue defies comprehension.  Ten minutes before the film’s end I deciphered that the two main characters were brothers. Of course, many silent movies were excellent; and so is this. The emotions and the conflicts of Ireland in 1920 are powerfully conveyed.

Ironically, the dialogue is not completely unintelligible. The bad guys speak clear English because that happens to be their nationality. In fact, one Anglo-Irish aristocrat (and complete bastard) possesses such a melodious diction that you would want to hear him recite Shakespeare before he is so deservedly gunned down.

When kidnapped by the IRA, the aristocrat sneers that Irish independence would only lead to a priest-infested rule. If you know Irish history–or have seen “The Magdalene Sisters”–you might concede the truth of his comment. But if the Irish lived under repressive Catholicism, at least that was their choice. Self-determination allows a people to construct their society based on their own values and prejudices. Yes, they even have the right to be myopic, backwards or parochial, and it is not the prerogative of a more advanced society to impose itself. My Judean ancestors did not appreciate Rome’s “improvements”, and the Spanish rebelled against Napoleon’s Enlightenment.  I am sure that you can think of more recent examples.   The natives always prove ungrateful for the foisted gifts of the superior power.

That is one lesson that the “primitive society” teaches the civilized, but the civilized never seem to learn.

“Hello, I’m Bob Costas, with Matt Lauer. We welcome you to our coverage of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing, China.”

Matt: Thanks Bob. Our viewers would be interested to know that China is the most populous country in the world. It has 1.3 billion people. That is one fifth of the world’s population. China is approximately the same size as the United States, but it has four times the population. If you piled 1.3 billion Chinese people, one on top of the other…

Bob: This is fascinating but….

Matt: That would be 1,321,060 miles, which is the equivalent of three round trips to the moon.

Bob: Why don’t you calculate the number of teeth in China while I tell the viewers about the Opening Ceremonies. The opening ceremonies for this, the 29th Olympic Games of the modern era, will feature a spectacular pageant of theatre, art, dance, and history. It is the part of the Olympics for people who don’t like sports.

You will also see a procession of athletes from more than 400 nations. That actually is more than twice the number of real countries, but the Chinese are shamelessly padding the list. You will see Olympic delegations from the Shriners Club, the Church of Scientology, Carthage, and the Klingon Empire–which is made up entirely of finance majors at the University of Chicago.

Matt: China has approximately 41,600,000,000 teeth.

Bob: That’s great. Now calculate that in Fahrenheit. In the meantime, to explain China’s history, we have Eugene Finerman.

Eugene: Thank you, Bob. When China last had this many foreign delegations, it was in 1900 and called the Boxer Rebellion. At that time, Chinese nationalists wanted to express their appreciation of European and Japanese exploitation by massacring the “foreign devils.” I don’t know if history is going to repeat itself, but the Opening Ceremony has commenced with 2008 soldiers pounding drums.

Bob: This is a countdown to a massacre? Wouldn’t the world be appalled?

Eugene: If this turned out to be a sequel to the Boxer Rebellion, I think that two-thirds of the world would call it “payback.” Don’t overestimate Latin America’s, Africa’s and Asia’s sympathy for European imperialism.

Bob: But the leaders of the world are here. President Bush and Brian Williams. Wouldn’t the United States avenge their deaths?

Eugene: President Cheney would use it as a justification for war with Iran. The countdown is ending; we’ll see if the massacre begins.

Bob: Three, two, one….Nothing is happening.

Eugene: Well, they still may butcher us in our sleep. But at least we’ll die having first enjoyed a fabulous tableau of Chinese history.

Matt: Wait, Fahrenheit doesn’t make any sense.

Bob: Then calculate it in metric.

Eugene: China’s foremost film director Zhang Yimou conceived and produced this opening ceremony. Ironically, this may be Zhang’s introduction to the Chinese public. Most of his films are not permitted to be shown in China; his stories of societal hypocrisy, a corrupt oligarchy and an incompetent bureaucracy just lack that “feel-good” spirit the Chinese government expects in a movie.

And keeping with that “cheerful or die” spirit, I see that the tableau of Chinese history has just skipped from the Ming Dynasty to life after Mao. A tactful omission of five centuries. No Chinese stagnation, no foreign exploitation, no Opium Wars, no civil wars, no Japanese rampage, no Cultural Revolution. Most Americans won’t notice the difference, although they will miss a tribute to Charlie Chan.

Bob: The march of the Olympic delegations is about to begin. What should we look for?

Eugene: I would be curious to see what obscene gestures that President Bush will make.

Bob: Perhaps there is something hyperallergenic about the Russians, but he does seem to be rubbing his face with just one finger.

Eugene: But I think that crotch gesture may be a tribute to Italy.

Bob: And the Iranians just saw President Bush’s moon program.

Eugene: Is the FCC going to fine you?

Bob: Probably not. Janet Jackson was not the President. And now we going to Matt Lauer with an exclusive interview.

Matt: I am here with the President of the International Olympics Committee Jacques Rogge. Mr. President, as the world watches the opening ceremonies of these games, tell us your feelings about John Edward’s confession of adultery.

Joseph Stalin would not want you to think that he was Southern. There were no Confederate flags decals on his troika, and he never mixed his vodka with Dr. Pepper. In other words, he would never call himself a Georgian. He and everyone from his native region called themselves “Kartvelebi“, the inhabitants of Sarkartvelo.

The real name of the alleged “Georgia” refers to the legendary figure Kartlos, the father of this misnomered people. So, how did his Kartvelebi descendants become confused with the Dukes of Hazzard. I know that this sounds too easy but “blame the Arabs.” The Arabs’ attempts to conquer the mountainous territory proved more difficult than they anticipated. (Not everyone was as effete as a Byzantine or as an incompetent as a Persian.) So, in begrudging respect, the Arabs referred to the region as a “land of warriors“–Gurjistan.

Our cartographers and geographers took the Arabs’ compliment as the actual name. Gurjistan became Georgia. The Russians made a similar mistake and called the area “Gruziya.” But a misnomer is the least that Russia has done to Sakartvelo–even now as I am writing.

The Armenians’ name for their northern neighbor is also incorrect but at least original. They refer to Sakartvelo as Vrastan, which invokes the ancient name of the area: Iveria. So it seems that Sakartvelo was fated to be confused with one region or another.

On the August 4 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Michael Savage declared that “The Statue of Liberty is crying, she’s been raped and disheveled — raped and disheveled by illegal aliens.”

Of course, it is a relief to know that those illegal aliens are heterosexuals. Just imagine if it were otherwise, and what those illegal aliens might be doing to Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore is a location, not a proposition! Thank our straight God that Gutzon Borglum only sculpted the Presidents from their necks up; no need for that extra temptation.

NEWS: The Italian government is deploying soldiers on city streets to combat crime.

Unfortunately, being the Italian army, it already has been mugged and robbed.

Of course, as any tourist can tell you, being robbed in Italy is part of the itinerary. The genius of Italian art lives on in any restaurant bill. Observe how the waiter has drawn a three to look like an eight, or a two to pass for a nine; so a bill for 23 Euros might be mistaken for 28. The waiter certainly hopes so. In my case, I avoided the trap. I knew what the bill was supposed to be; there are advantages to being cheap and paranoid. Leaving the correct amount, I looked the waiter in the eye. He smiled and shrugged, as if to say “You caught me; so what! There is always another tourist.”

But I can’t say that I left Italy unscathed. (Only the Visigoths and Vandals can make that claim.) No, I made the mistake of expecting change from a Rome cabdriver. He decided that a 11000 lira fare deserved a 9000 lira tip. (That would be an $18 fare and a $15 gratuity). When I demanded the change, he returned a 1000 lira note. So I refused to leave the cab. He drove the car into an intersection, got out and proceeded to yell aloud. I surmise that he was not praising me. A crowd of Italians gathered around the cab, and those who spoke English wanted to know why I was causing trouble. I told them the details and how I did not want to be cheated.

But my audience was not sympathetic to the plight of the robbed tourist. In fact, I was told, “This is Italy. When you’re in America, you can cheat us.” So I evidently was in breach of social etiquette. To resist theft would be unforgivably rude.

Do remember that when you are in Italy.

August 5, 641: A sainthood is always a nice consolation gift

On this day in 641, King Oswald of Northumbria became a martyr. He died attacking another English kinglet–Penda of Mercia—who evidently could defend himself. Since Penda was a pagan, that qualified Oswald for a sainthood. If Penda had also been Christian, then the slaughter would only have been intramural–and Oswald’s death would not have scored a halo.

But Penda’s victory was really the last Valhalliday for British pagans. The Angle-Saxon kingdoms were succumbing to the power and organization of an indominable Church: the Church of Ireland. Yes, at the time when the Pope was a threadbare Byzantine flunky–with the social standing of an assistant postmaster in Macedonia–the autonomous Church of Ireland was thriving, sending out its missionaries throughout the British Isles and onto the European continental. Britain, the Low Countries and Germany were being converted to the brogue.

By contrast, Rome’s organization in western Europe was a tenuous and nepotic network of patricians who served as bishops to protect themselves and their estates from barbarian encroachments. (The barbarians showed a superstitious deference to the Church; that was one way you could tell that they were barbarians.) This Church was hostage to the moods of barbarian princes as well as Byzantine magistrates. (Popes had been hauled off in chains to Constantinople.) So any claim to Rome’s primacy would have been a joke.

Yet, Rome persistently made that claim. Of course, it would have been effortless to ignore the pretensions of a figurehead of a theoretical church. But the Church of Ireland did not. By the mid-seventh century, it had grown and now was adminstering the ecclesiastical policies of all Britain. Yet a number of its prelates felt their British Church should abandon its autonomy and become subordinate to Rome. They were willing to cede their power and independence for the sake of a spiritual idea. Perhaps that was Christianity in action. The Celtic/British Church convened at a council in Whitby in 661 and, in effect, voted itself out of existence. The most organized and dynamic ecclesiastical system in Western Europe had submitted itself to a powerless, precariously balanced bishop in Rome.

And with that recognition, the Roman Church had become Catholic.

The Wrap Party:
I hope that you had a chance to see my premiere on YouTube. Of course, being only the writer, I am the least important contributor to the work. The real kudos must go to the clever animator Sue Amsbaugh and to the talented mimic Bob Kincaid (the Gielgud of West Virginia).

You should also read the shrill responses from Michael Savage’s fans. The bile-spewing commentator appeals to a very disturbed audience. At least while his fanatics are typing out their hysterics, they are too busy to torture small animals. By contrast, the Rush Limbaugh fan seems like Alastair Cooke.

On this day in A.D. 70:

If you had booked the Temple of Jerusalem for a wedding or a bar mitzvah, ask the High Priest for a refund. Either that, or ask the cater to set up some extra tables for a rampaging Roman army. On third thought, get the refund. The Romans destroyed the Temple. And don’t let the High Priest or your insurance agent claim that it was an act of God. After all, which God? I’d say it was Mars, although it took the War God and Rome four months to crush Jerusalem.

To commemorate this day, I will be eating spumoni ice cream. But for the Romans and their pacification policy of exiling the Judeans to Europe (where no doubt we would lose our identity), today I might look Yassir Arafat. (Worse, my wife might.) Instead we were forced to wade through some better looking gene pools. So, thanks Rome.

On This Day in 1704:

Austria gained control of Gibraltar. At least, the British claimed the captured peninsula on behalf of Archduke Karl, their candidate for the Spanish throne. Yet, the British somehow never did turn over Gibraltar; perhaps, they were waiting for the Austrian navy to show up. The British settled in and soon abandoned all pretense of acting for their Hapsburg ally. Of course, the Spanish and their French allies attempted to retake Gibraltar but they learned this lesson in military topography.
Attacking from the sea, you can take Gibraltar. Attacking from land, you can’t.

In 1713, with the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, the Spanish ceded control of Gibraltar only on condition that “no leave shall be given under any pretence whatsoever, either to Jews or Moors, to reside or have their dwellings in the said town of Gibraltar.” The British agreed but they did not order their immigration officers to check everyone for foreskins. And once the Jews and Moors were back, the British did not ask them to leave. (Irish Catholics would have been less welcomed.) Of course, Spain declared that this was a violation of the Treaty and used it as a justification for another war. But once again the Spanish attacked by land, with predictable results.

Spain–with French support–attacked again in 1782 and this time remembered to use ships as well as a large army. Good strategy but bad timing. The British had been preoccupied trying to restore order over some dyspeptic colonies in North America, but after 1781 had signed an armistice with the rebels. Britain was now free to thrash the Spanish and the French–which is exactly what happened.

Yet Spain would try once more. In 1808, with Spanish permission, Napoleon and his forces marched into Iberia with the understanding that he take Gibraltar. But there must have been a misunderstanding; Napoleon seized Spain instead. Add a cedilla to the irony, the Spanish needed the British to drive out the French.

(And Hitler offered to march through Spain to take Gibraltar. For some reason, Franco refused.)

Of course, Spain still demands the return of Gibraltar. Britain will probably schedule that a week after it returns the Elgin Marbles.

Well, Hollywood has yet to discover me–except Jeopardy–but I now have premiered on YouTube. Bob Kincaid, the versatile host of Head-On Radio, has given voice and visuals to “How Michael Savage Would Have Explained the Bubonic Plague“.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ss2p4t_E8c&feature=email

Enjoy it. And I certainly won’t mind if you give the presentation an outstanding rating. (Consider your arm twisted.)

EXXON MOBIL 2Q PROFITS SET US RECORD
AP Business

“HOUSTON – Exxon Mobil says its second-quarter earnings rose nearly 14 percent to $11.68 billion, the biggest quarterly profit ever by any U.S. corporation.”

Denying any semblance to extortion, Exxon Mobil attributed its extra few billions from cancelling its sponsorship of Masterpiece Theater. “You have no idea how expensive that show was” explained the company. “Alastair Cooke demanded free lunch, and he never ordered the cheapest entree. And how would you like to pay the dry cleaning for all those doublets and codpieces on ‘Elizabeth R.’ At least, the costumes on ‘I Claudius’ were just sheets, although that still amounted to a fortune in linen.

“And what about ‘The Forstye Saga’? They had to do it twice? Soak the oil company; we’re too dumb to notice. Well, we finally caught on and stop being robbed by the Royal Shakespeare Cartel.

“So that is the reason Exxon Mobil had a good quarter.”

Impotence can be hereditary. As if Henry IV had enough problems seizing a throne and suppressing the resulting civil wars, his children failed to understand the physical requirements of a dynasty. He had four adult sons and none of them had bothered to marry. (And, no, none of them went to a British public school.) At least Henry could coerce his daughters into marrying. In fact, the two girls had yet to reach puberty when they were bartered to husbands in Pomerania and Bavaria. That diplomatic brutality, however, gave Henry him his only legitimate grandchild. Six children, one grandchild–but in Bavaria: the Lancastrian dynasty was not exactly propagating. Even the number of illegitimate grandchildren was discouraging: four sons, two bastards—and they weren’t even healthy.

So when Henry IV died in 1413 at the age of 47, the Lancastrian dynasty seemed an oxymoron. Even then, his sons continued to avoid the marital necessities of monarchy; slaughtering the French was more fun. But the French did not think so; and in a peace treaty they offered Henry V a royal princess and the succession to the French throne. How could a romantic like Henry refuse? However, he now applied himself to domesticity with impressive diligence. Married in 1420, a father in 1421…and dead in 1422. (Perhaps it was too much of an exertion.) With the death of Henry V, and only an infant on the English throne, his two surviving brothers finally succumbed to the necessity of marriage.

(The Duke of Clarence managed to avoid the responsibility by getting himself killed; apparently, one Frenchman did know how to fight back). The Duke of Bedford married a duchess of Burgundy in 1423 and finally got her pregnant in 1432; but she died in childbirth. The Duke then married Jaquetta of Luxembourg in 1433; but he died two years later leaving no heirs. Don’t blame Jaquetta, she married again and had 16 children; and her descendants include the current pensioners living at Buckingham Palace.

The Duke of Gloucester at least had some heterosexual exercise. During his brother’s reign, the brother had sired an illegitimate daughter. Perhaps he was hoping to become Minister of Education because he named his daughter Antigone. The Duke became engaged to a Dutch countess, although her husband must have objected. Fortunately, the Pope could be bribed and an annulment was forthcoming. Their marriage occurred in 1423, and the Duke had a new mistress by 1425. In 1428, the Pope (the same one!) declared that the first annulment had been invalid, so the Duke married his mistress.

Strangely enough, the Duke was faithful to this wife; so people suspected that she was a witch. In fact, formal charges of witchcraft were eventually filed against her. (In a remarkable coincidence, the charges were leveled by political enemies of the Duke. And she was “persuaded” to admit her guilt, implicating her husband and causing his imprisonment.) Whatever her supernatural powers, her natural ones did not include fertility. Other than the uniquely named Antigone, Gloucester left no heirs.

As for the infant king, Henry VI grew up but in a chronic state of insanity. He did marry, and his wife had one child, but Henry’s participation in the conception is probably polite optimism. Neither Henry nor his “son” would survive the Wars of the Roses. Those prolific Yorkists knew how to make a dynasty.