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On this day in 1796, fading socialite beauty–and somewhat circulated mistress–Josephine de Beauharnais married a mumbling, young immigrant.  (No, Napoleon didn’t need a green card, just the status of having a celebrity wife.)  Within the year, however, Napoleon would have status of his own.  Smashing four Austrian armies and conquering Italy does get you noticed!

The couple had no children.  In fact, Napoleon apparently has no living descendants–although I have my suspicions about the Neo-Conservatives.  They are unusually short and truculent.  While Napoleon was in Russia, he might have stayed warm by impregnating a number of ghettos.

But–as usual–I digress.

Josephine, however, does have descendants.  Napoleon was only her second husband.  Her first was Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais.  As a Vicomte during the French Revolution, Monsieur Beauharnais obviously had a bad sense of timing.  He left his widow with a daughter and a son.  Hortense de Beauharnais–with the emphasis on the first syllable–would marry Napoleon’s brother Louis, but didn’t even pretend that all the children were his.  At least Napoleon III was certain that Josephine was his grandmother.

Josephine’s son was Eugene, a name that indicated his charm and ability.  He really was a capable, admirable individual.  Yes, he was appointed Viceroy of Italy through nepotism, but he governed so well–and how often do you hear efficient Italian government in the same sentence–that the Allies seriously discussed letting him stay on after Napoleon fell.  Of course, competence would have made the other rulers look bad, so Eugene had to be fired.  He had married a Bavarian princess, so he was in no danger of starvation.

Eugene de Beauharnais and his frau had a daughter named Josephine, a sentimental if tactless choice.  Young Josephine in turn married a nice French boy who happened to be the Crown Prince of Sweden.  (In an early example of a guest worker program, Sweden had offered its throne to a French general named Bernadotte.)  Her grandchild because the Queen of Denmark and her great-grandson became the King of Norway. 

So the royal houses of Scandinavia are all descended from the first Mrs. Bonaparte.  Even after a messy divorce, that is not a bad compensation.

Recognizing her unique talent, HarperCollins is paying Jenna Bush an advance of $300,000 to write a story about a young South American woman with HIV.  Ms. Bush was under the impression that HIV is a sorority.  Entitled “Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope,” the book will be non-fiction except that all the characters and circumstances will be fictitious.  Ms. Bush denies that she has plagiarized a Defense Department study.   

“I have been inspired by my work with adolescents in Central and South America,” Jenna Bush said in a press release.  “These young people have faced extreme hardships and exclusion but are strong in spirit and have an incredible will to succeed.”  Ms. Bush was deeply moved by how few of these adolescents ever had “jello shooters.”

The book will be written for the pre-adolescent reader, which fortunately happens to be Ms. Bush’s writing level.

Equally amazing is the fact that HarperCollins is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Now let’s talk about the most notorious of the barbarians: the Vandals. In some ways, they actually were the most impressive, a comparatively small tribe that proved remarkably adaptative. If anyone deserved to be named Entrepreneurs of the Fifth Century, it certainly was the Vandals.

The Vandals had first migrated from Spain. Andalusia was not named for a realtor’s daughter. They were among the first German tourists to loot Roman Iberia. Unfortunately for the Vandals, the Visigoths also heard about Hispania and migrated there, too. Preferring to be the sole barbarians on the peninsula, the Visigoths began wiping out the Vandals. Half of the tribe was gone when the Roman governor of North Africa saved the Vandals. He was rebelling against the Emperor and needed mercenaries, so he transported the entire tribe to North Africa.

Ironically, the Roman governor called off his rebellion, but the Vandals didn’t. They soon occupied the territory extending from Libya to Morocco. (Yes, Rommel’s Afrika Korps was actually the second German invasion there, and the less successful of the two.) The Vandals proved quite adaptive, and quickly developed a fleet that dominated the western Mediterranean and allowed them to sack Rome in 455.

Their rule in North Africa was relatively benign. They restored the stability and prosperity that the disintegrating Roman Empire had failed to maintain. The Vandals’ most conspicuous failing was religious intolerance. Like many of the Germanic tribes, they were Christians but did not subscribe the theological convolutions of the Nicene Creed. To the Germanic mind, God was Odin and Jesus was Thor. However, while the Goths were tolerate of the more sophisticated interpretations of Christianity, the Vandals were not. They persecuted the Church–and earned their ever-lasting infamy. (More savage tribes such as the Franks and the especially barbaric Angles and Saxons eventually converted to the Nicene Creed and received a baptism in history’s whitewash.)

Their kingdom in North Africa lasted until 533. To the Vandals surprise, the Byzantine army had stopped cowering behind city walls and now was on a vindictive offensive. Led by the greatest general of the age, Belisarius, the Byzantine army was formidable. In a two-year campaign, Belisarius overthrow the Vandals’ kingdom, ending their 100 year rule of North Africa.

You can well imagine how the Byzantines won. They infiltrated the Vandals’ Human Resources department, belaboring the Vandal army with inexplicable paperwork regarding its HMO coverage until the Germanic host was reduced to catatonia.

Actually, facing Belisarius, the Vandals’ King Gelimer forgot to get reinforcements and then had a nervous breakdown on the battlefield. And that is how a kingdom falls.

Yet, the Vandals evidently made some impression on the natives of North Africa. The blond hair and a possible tendency to goosestep would seem conspicuous. Almost two centuries later, when those North Africans conquered Spain, they remembered that the Vandals had come from there. So the Moors referred to this realm as “Andalusia”.

Yesterday, as part of Barbarian Week, the History Channel presented a program on the Saxons.

Episcopalians would not be flattered; fortunately, they probably were all watching the Golf Channel.  Their Angle-Saxon ancestors were accurately described as the most primitive louts among the Germanic tribes.  By comparison, the Vandals read Proust and played Cole Porter.

The other barbarian tribes actually admired Roman culture; sacking was just their expression of appreciation.  Only the Angle-Saxons were intent on eradicating all traces of classical civilization.  If you don’t believe me, just talk to yourself.  What do you hear?  A Romance language?  NOPE.  If the Angle-Saxons had shown a little refinement, we now would be speaking Brittic and sound like Barry Fitzgerald reciting Dante.

For the first 58.75 minutes of the television program, the Angle-Saxons were described in unrelenting detail as blood-thirsty louts. They certainly were not the valedictorian of barbarians. After destroying Londinium, the Saxons decided that it might be a nice place to live.  Yet, in the last minute of the show, after depicting the Saxons as the cultural inferiors of Neanderthals, the narrator breathlessly gushes that “their laws and institutions” were the basis of our civilization.

Actually, the only laws and institutions shown were the human sacrifices for Wotan. However, with that legacy, it does explain NASCAR and American Idol.

Yet, it seems a rather abrupt transistion from Wotan to Somerset Maugham.  I would have inserted a few anachronisms to hint at England’s potential and future.  Imagine a war council where the chieftains are debating the axe expenditures for the next year.

Aethelwurst of Anglia:  I do hope the axes of Essex are sharper than the arguments of the right honorable elderman.

Wulfmittel of Essex:  As always, my friend from Anglia is more generous with his hopes than with anything practical.   

Better yet, I would have depicted the Angle-Saxon invasions as an episode from Masterpiece Theater.  Sailing across the North Sea to Britannia, the officers are looking longingly at each other and singing:

Of course, in those days it would have been called the Wotan Boating Song.

(Be warned, the song takes nearly as long as the Angle-Saxon conquest.)

The Alamo might have been the first celebrity reality show…Tune in to see Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and their 187 roommates cope with the annoyances and stresses of living together under siege, bombardment and assault.

Unfortunately, the show would have had only 13 episodes and there were no possibilities for a second season.

On this day in 1836, the Alamo fell to the Mexican army. The ruined mission became the shrine of Texas’ Independence. But why exactly were the Texans fighting?

In 1835, the Mexican government adopted a new constitution, one that replaced a federation of states with a centralized government. Under the previous constitution, the province of Tejas and its immigrant population had enjoyed considerable autonomy.

For example, under the Mexican statutes for naturalization, the Americano migrants in Tejas were supposed to become Catholic. However, the loose federal system never imposed that theological requirement. But the new constitution was not interested in that either; in fact, it was Anti-Clerical and was more likely to prosecute anyone for being too Catholic.

No, the real manifestation of Mexican tyranny was the enforced abolition of a certain property right that obviously was cherished by the citizens of Tejas. Now what sacred cause would incite rebellion by Stephen Austin (from Virginia), Jim Bowie (from Louisiana), Sam Houston (from Tennessee), and Davey Crockett (from Tennessee)?

In Texas, independence was a relative term.

But, in triumphing over Mexico, the Texans got to keep their “property”, at least until 1865.

So, Remember the Alamo…just not the details.

item 1: 

“SWISS ACCIDENTLY INVADE LIECHTENSTEIN

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) — What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.”

In response to the growing Swiss-Liechtenstein crisis, France has surrendered. The German army has taken up defensive positions along the Seine, Arno and Moscow rivers.  Meanwhile in Washington, President Bush wanted to announce his support for embattled Liechtenstein but couldn’t pronounce it.

item 2:

“NEW DESIGN FOR WARHEAD IS AWARDED

The Bush administration annnounced the winner of a competition to design the nation’s first new nuclear weapon in nearly two decades and immediately set out to reassure Russia and China that the weapon would pose on new threat to either nation.”

The warhead of the new weapon is shaped like Jesus holding a map of Iran.