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The Seven Years War could more accurately be called the Nine Years War; les Canadiens and His Majesty’s Virginia Militia were fighting for control of the Ohio Valley some two years before they had the formal permission of Paris and London.  In addition to its disputable length, the conflict could really be called the First World War.  While it might be a rebuff to our North American ego, our front was minor.  In fact, the French were reconciled to losing l’Amerique on the battlefield.  The French colonists in North America were outnumbered 20 to 1 by the British, and with Britain’s mastery of the sea, there was no hope of sending reinforcements to the embattled Canadiens.   Nonetheless, the French had a strategy.

The British navy did not control the Rhine, and so a hundred thousand French soldiers were ordered to march into Germany and seize Hanover from the British royal family.   Then, at the eventual peace negotiations, the French would exchange Hanover for the return of Canada.  Unfortunately for this French strategy, Hanover was protected by the nephew of George II, and he happened to be a military genius.  The man really was entitled to be called Frederick the Great.   Of course, the Prussian King was facing French generals who were chosen by their ability to flatter Madame de Pompadour.

Nonetheless, there was a third front–where the natives really were Indians–and the French had overwhelming odds in their favor.  Suraj ud Daulah, the Nawab (Viceroy) of Bengal, was not a genuine Francophile; he was not drinking his chai from Limoges teacups and none of his wives were wearing the latest from Paris.  Yet, he did have one trait that endeared him to France:  he hated the English.  Although the chosen successor of his grandfather, Suraj did have envious cousins (Well, who doesn’t?)  and there were inevitable conspiracies and attempted rebellions.  The East India Company, British imperialism’s corporate front on the subcontinent, had supported a losing claimant to Bengali rule, and the victorious Suraj was a vindictive winner. 

Within two months of ascending to the Bengali throne, the 23 year-old Suraj attacked the British fort at Calcutta.  According to folklore and British propaganda, on June 20, 1756 146 British prisoners were placed in a cell, 14 feet by 18 feet.  The next morning, only 23 prisoners were still alive.  This prototype and inspiration for airline seating is remembered as “The Black Hole of Calcutta”. 

The British navy was ever at the service of its corporate friend, and Calcutta was soon back in the portfolio of the East India Company.  But a chastened Suraj was still an enemy, and the Company was resolved to be rid of him.  As befits an empire, the Company had its own army.  Led by Robert Clive, a force of 3000 men–1000 Britons and 2000 native troops–marched into Bengal with the goal of overthrowing the Nawab.  Suraj probably did not feel too threatened; he had 50,000 men as well as fifty cannons from his new French friends. 

On June 23, 1757, Suraj’s army surrounded Clive’s meager force at a mangrove swamp near the village of Plassey.  Ironically, Clive had to be constrained by his war council from attacking.  Such confidence was not simply British arrogance; the Company had taken the precaution of bribing most of the commanders in Suraj’s army.   Of the 50,000 soldiers Suraj thought he had, 45,000 actually were just spectators.  The Nawab definitely had a personnel problem.  His own uncle already had been hired by the Company as the next Nawab. 

Suraj had to be quite disconcerted to see most of his army ignoring him.  Although his loyal troops still outnumbered Clive’s force, the Nawab now had more to fear from his generals.  With the enemy before him and traitors around him, Suraj decided to retreat; at least, he tried.  He did succeed in escaping the rout, but nine days later he was captured by soldiers of the new Nawab.  I think that you can imagine the nature of Suraj’s retirement package: abrupt.

For all the royal trappings, the new Nawab really was just an employee of the East India Company.  In return for British support, he had ceded the control of Bengal to the Company.  When he was just an ambitious courtier, he had not minded promising to pay 2.5 million Sterling to his British sponsor; but when he was an alleged sovereign, he rather resented the looting of the Bengal treasury.  Ingratitude is a bad attitude in an employee; the Company replaced him after three years, hiring his son-in-law instead.  But he turned out to be capable and conscientious, so he had to be fired, too.

Out of a British sense of protocol and pageantry, Bengal would continue to have Nawabs for another century; but there was no question as to who really ruled.  And Bengal was only the first province.  The rest of India would soon be part of the Company.

p.s.  For more on this topic:  https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/01/22/etiquette-and-empire/

https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/03/22/how-to-run-an-empire/

“On this day in 1854, the British Parliament abolished feudalism in Canada.”

But for that, the Governor-General might have had the right to sleep with any bride on her wedding night. However, that would have made an interesting episode on “Anne of Green Gables.”

In fact, Parliament’s act was really meant for Quebec and the French populace. Les Canadiens still maintained a seigneurial system. After its conquest of Quebec, Britain found herself with 100,000 new and less than loyal subjects. Expelling them all would have been impossible. (Acadia only had a population of 7,000–and it was conveniently on the coast.) The British, showing surprising–even unprecedented–tact, allowed their conquered French subjects a generous autonomy.

The day to day affairs in the villes were left to the local chieftains and bullies: the usual cabal of landowners and priests. In fact, these Canadien dignitaries now enjoyed more power than the bureaucrats of France had allowed them. They were able to control and maintain their conservative, seigneurial society well into the 19th century.

That accommodation did keep les Canadiens loyal to Britain. Given their conservative temperament and comfortable arrangement, they certainly were not tempted to join the American radicals in their rebellion against Britain. And the French Revolution and Napoleon would have been abhorrently liberal to them. This was a society where the pulpits and church-run schools equated Voltaire with the Anti-Christ.

By 1854, however, Britain felt that Quebec was ready for the 19th century–or at least the 18th. Of course, Parliament’s noble sentiments required shrewd application, and the Crown played a skillful political game. The Byzantines may have invented the strategem of “divide and conquer” but the British made an art of it. There were two powers controlling the Canadien society; the British would undermine one while embracing the other. Britain’s affection for the Catholic Church would have amazed any Irishman, but it was the official and conspicuous policy in Quebec. The Church would have the first word and final say in local matters. For all practical purposes, a priest was an alderman and the bishop was the mayor.

In view of this accommodation, the Church agreed that it was un-Christian to have serfs. The landowners would simply have to regard their farm workers as better than livestock.

On this day in 1815 General von Blucher won the battle of Waterloo. The Duke of Wellington took the credit, and the Prussians pretended not to mind.

Wellington was willing to share his victory–with his alumni association:  “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.” In other words, the elan of upper-class twits was a more decisive factor than French incompetence or the timely arrival of that friendly Prussian army.

In fact, Napoleon should have won Waterloo.  Wellington’s forces were a dubious compiliation of third choices: untested British troops, German forces more likely to desert and Dutch soldiers more likely to defect to the French. (The best British troops–Wellington’s veterans from the Peninsular War–had been shipped off to America, where they burned Washington but then had been decimated at New Orleans.)  By contrast, Napoleon’s army was larger and comprised of veterans; the ones who survived Russia had to be indestructible.     

Although Wellington had placed his forces in an excellent defensive position, the French army should have been able to grind them down and rout them.  However, that day Napoleon seemed to have already exiled himself  to St. Helena’s.  The Emperor who usually supervised every detail was abdicating all the decisions to his generals, who seemed intent to do everything wrong.  The French attacks are pointless or uncoordinated; the infantry gets bogged down while the cavalry is squandered.  The arrival of the Prussian army simply ended the French farce.

But what if the French had won Waterloo?  It would have ruined Wellington’s perfect record, and the innkeepers of Brussels would have been accepting Francs instead of Pounds that night; yet, Napoleon still would have lost eventually.  However much Russia, Prussia, Austria and Britain quarreled and undermined each other at the conference tables at the Congress of Vienna, they were not going to tolerate the return of Napoleon.  They would keep raising armies against him until they finally had defeated him.   ABBA eventually would have had a song.

Did Napoleon think otherwise?  He certainly must have overestimated his charisma.  Perhaps he expected that America would break the Treaty of Ghent, and that Andrew Jackson would lead an amphibious invasion of England.  (“One thousand canoes landed in Cornwall this morning….”)  No, Napoleon obviously was a gambler.  Any of us would have been content with his achievements in 1807: ruling France and Italy, and dominating Germany and Austria. We wouldn’t have invaded Spain or Russia, and eventually ended up an exiled pariah.  But then, none of us are Napoleon and we wouldn’t have overwhelmed Europe–and history– in the first place.

Fortunately, King John was Anti-Semitic; so it was unlikely that he would have married Ayn Rand. She would never have let him sign the Magna Carta on this–or any other day–in 1215.

You could imagine their conversation at Runnymede.

John: Well, I’ve lost another war. This never happened to Richard. Perhaps heterosexuals don’t belong in the army. In any case, the barons are demanding that I sign this charter guaranteeing them all sorts of rights and protections.

Ayn: Only a weakling wants anything in writing. If these barons want their rights, they must seize them.

John: If I don’t sign, they’ll kill me.

Ayn: Only a weakling dies.

But John did sign–and immediately reneged on the terms. The barons decided to oust the little weasel and invited the French crown prince Louis (what else) to be king of England.

John, who had the remarkable ability of being both unscrupulous and incompetent, was losing this war, too. England seemed likely to be ruled by King Louis I. But John took the initiative and actually did something decisive that completely undermined his opposition: he dropped dead. The death was suitably ridiculous: a surfeit of peaches and ale. Yet, it effectively ended the rebellion.

The barons realized that John’s heir, his nine year-old son Henry, would make a much more malleable king than an adult French prince. In return for the barons’ allegiance, the regency of Henry III un-reneged the Magna Carta. And it has been in effect ever since.

June 14, 1381: The Chancellor of England Overestimates His Popularity

Simon of Sudbury really was an innocuous, well-meaning sort. In our day, he would have found fulfillment as a vice president of human resources. Unfortunately, he did not live in an innocuous, well-meaning time. The 14th century was anything but. However, Simon’s ineffectuality was his charm.

John of Gaunt liked the hapless and affable English cleric. The Duke was a critic of the Church, practically a Proto-Protestant, and it suited his heretical proclivities to have the passive Simon as the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Simon also seemed the Duke’s ideal candidate for Chancellor of England. The compliant Simon would do the bidding of his royal patrons, levy another poll tax (the third) on the peasantry and try to reestablish a strict application of serfdom. But the serfs were not as compliant as Simon was.

The Bubonic Plague had turned out to be quite a liberal development. Half of the peasantry had died, and the survivors realized that their luck also extended to supply and demand. The supply of labor was now limited, so it could exact greater demands from the nobility. The peasants might now expect to be treated as well as the livestock. Some even demanded the end of serfdom. Of course, the nobility resisted. It tried to reimpose the legal shackles on the peasantry. The monarchy thought that additional taxes might restrain the peasants’ upward aspirations. Instead, those taxes incited a peasant revolt in 1381.

A peasant horde terrorized the nobility, swept aside the barely organized resistance and marched on London. Ransacking the capital, the peasants destroyed government offices and killed any bureaucrats they captured. Simon of Sudbury was among them. Being an Archbishop, he thought that the mob might show some deference to him. His head was ripped off. (Would I be so cruel as to call that deed a head tax?)  

The mob demanded an audience with the young king, Richard II. In what turned out to be the high point of an otherwise abysmal reign, the royal youth confronted the mob and demonstrated a majesty and courage that impressed his subjects. He addressed the peasants, representing himself as their advocate and leader, and promising to fulfill their demands. Awed and gratified, the mob dispersed and returned to their homes. Richard really had no intention of honoring those promises but he didn’t have the power to reestablish the status quo either. For all practical purposes, serfdom had ended in England.

June 6, 1944 should be remembered as Germany’s lucky day. With the Americans and British landing on Normandy, the Germans now had an enemy willing to take prisoners. The Russians were not so amenable; for some reason, they took their attempted annihilation rather badly and were quite vindictive. So, imagine the choice confronting Lieutenant Helmut Schmidt, Private Helmut Kohl and Private Josef Ratzinger. Should they surrender to 20 million Russians enraged with vengeance or 10 million GIs offering Hershey bars?

In films with a German perspective on World War II, I have observed a mathematical impossibility. In “Cross of Iron” there is only one Nazi in the squad. In “The Enemy Beneath” and “Das Boot” there is only one Nazi on each U-Boat. Just how many times did that one Nazi vote in order to elect Hitler.

May 29th: Memorial Day, 1453

Greeks are in a bad mood today, and the reason has nothing to do the economy.  This is the anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople and a day of mourning.

By 1453, Byzantium was an empire in name and memory. It once had been the greatest power in Christendom, extending from Italy to Mesopotamia. Now, it was reduced to a ruined city and a few remnant outposts on the Greek mainland. Its emperors bore a revered title that dated to Constantine, but they wore crowns with paste jewels. Yet, built on an easily defended peninsula , and guarded by the most formidable walls in Europe, Constantinople had defied attack for 1000 years. The Ottoman Turks had conquered the Balkans, but they had learned through past failures to avoid Constantinople.

Mehmed II wanted the imperial city for his capital.  The Ottoman Sultan gathered an army of 80,000 men, nearly twice the size of the population of Constantinople.  His siege equipment included the largest cannons in the world. Furthermore, he created a navy to blockade the port city. Against this force, Constantinople had a garrison of 7000 men, Greeks and their Genoese allies.  Christendom was prepared to mourn Constantinople but not help her. 

Nine years earlier, a Christian army led by the King of Poland embarked on a crusade against the Turks.  This crusade ended at the battle of Varna, when its 20,000 men confronted the Sultan’s 80,000.  By the end of the day, the King’s head was on a pike, and the rest of his army did not look much better.  Catholic Europe could barely defend herself against the Ottomans; she could not help the Greek Orthodox of Constantinople. 

Yet, however much in decline and decay, the city defied conquest.  Its formidable walls withstood the Turks’ onslaught and eight weeks of siege.  Four times the Turks, with their overwhelming numbers, attempted to storm the city; and each effort was a bloody failure.  You can still see headstones of the fallen Janissaries outside the walls of Constantinople.  The Sultan’s engineers attempted to mine the walls; the Byzantines mined the Turkish mines.  You can’t outfox a Byzantine.  In his frustration, and quite contrary to his nature, Sultan Mehmed offered to negotiate.  To us, his terms were not all that generous; he would spare the city if it surrendered.  Keep in mind, however, that his soldiers expected to loot the city.  Sparing Constantinople, the Sultan would be paying off his disappointed horde out of his own coffers.

But Constantinople refused to surrender.  Despite its decline, the old capital still trusted in Heaven’s protection and its imperial destiny.  The Turkish war council was starting to come to the same conclusion but then Heaven seemed to show a Moslem bias.  On May 23, 1453, there was a lunar eclipse, and the Turks were heartened to see a crescent moon matching the one on their flags. 

The fifth attack was on this day, May 29th.   Constantine XI, the last Emperor of Byzantium, removed his imperial insignia before leading his men into their last battle.  He would deny the Turks any way of identifying his body and making a trophy of it.  The Sultan attempted to curtail the rampage of his victorious soldiers, protecting the city’s major churches and buildings.  As he instructed his soldiers in the etiquette of looting, “the people are yours but the city is mine.”  Even then, he only allowed his men a full day of looting; after that, Constantinople–and any surviving citizens–were under his protection.

The Sultan was only 21 and he would go on to conquer Serbia and Romania, and he was beginning an invasion of Italy when he died in 1480.  But he is remembered chiefly for conquering a decaying old city and then restoring it to its grandeur.  Constantinople indeed did have an imperial destiny, and for the next 450 years it would be the capital of the Ottoman Empire. 

Today the city is known as Istanbul, except on Greek maps.  There the name defiantly remains Constantinople.

Today–May 24th– Orthodox Christians honor the Saints Cyril and Methodius.  Roman Catholics would try to be politely indifferent to the hallowed pair, masking a genuine annoyance.  Ecumenicalism has its limits, after all.  Coke does not honor Pepsi. 

In the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, there was a competition between Rome and Constantinople to see who would convert the pagan Slavs to Christianity. The vying missionaries couldn’t always produce miracles on schedule to win converts, so they often used means that we might find nauseatingly familiar.

The Byzantines tried advertising. However, going door-to-door, they noticed that no one would read their Greek Orthodox religious tracts. The Slavs were illiterate and, even if they weren’t, it is not likely that they would want to read a foreign language. A pair of Byzantine marketing wizards, Cyril and Methodius, made their ad campaign more intelligible by modifying the Greek alphabet to the Slavic tongues. (Cyril and Methodius received sainthoods but Cyril got the glory; the Cyrillic Alphabet is named for him.)

Both Rome and Constantinople sought celebrity endorsements. Their respective salesmen appealed to the local kinglets and chieftains, who would then coerce their respective tribes to salvation. In wooing the petty royalty, the Byzantines had the advantage when it came to bribes: silks and crafted goblets, craftsmanship beyond the ability of those benighted western Europeans. To many a Slavic chieftain, the Byzantine luxuries were unearthly delights and easily seemed proof of Constantinople’s superior faith. That approach sold Russia.

Of course, Rome’s missionaries had their unique offers as well. They often could point to an army of Catholic Franks or Germans just across the border, and who were more than eager to proselytize in their own way. That proved very convincing as well, perhaps even more than silverware and a designer wardrobe.

May 23rd:  The Flammable Friar

Alexander VI was the type of Pope whom you would expect to die of syphilis. He was the personification of every vice and most crimes. One could concede that he was a doting father to his illegitimate offspring; unfortunately, those children happened to be Cesare and Lucretia Borgia.

By contrast, Friar Girolama Savonarola was a man of impeccable virtue who sought to restore morality to a corrupt Church and a decadent society. If given the choice between the cankerous Alexander VI and the austere Savonarola, any intelligent person would be writing fan letters to the Pope.

Savonarola was a Dominican, an order of monks that distinguished themselves for fanaticism and bigotry.  (Guess who ran the Spanish Inquisition?)  Hoping to do as much in Italy, he set up a repressive theocracy in Florence.  Much of his social agenda was to drag Florence back to the Middle Ages. His goons went from door to door, collecting or confiscating “vanities”–paintings and books deemed too secular, jewelry and even colorful clothing. These forbidden items were publicly burned in ceremonies called “bonfires of the vanities.” The kindling included works by Botticelli.

Savonarola was a spell-binding orator who exploited fatigue with Medici rule and popular disdain with the conspicuous corruption in the Church. It is remarkable that just two years after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Savonarola inspired and led a popular uprising that would drive the Medici out of Florence.

Although the Medici were pushovers, Alexander VI was not. He deeply resented Savonarola’s attacks. The Pope was a Borgia, so he wasn’t the passive type. Although he could easily have arranged for an accident–say food poisoning–for Savonarola, the Pope was going to make an example of his critic.

Apparently, criticizing a Pope can be heresy and so Savonarola was brought to trial.  The Dominican friar demonstrated his usual tact–none–before the tribunal of Alexander’s appointees.  So condemning him was effortless.  Indeed, one form of execution seemed insufficent.  Savonarola was simultaneously hanged and burned for heresy.   His theocracy ended with him–on this day in 1498.

If Savonarola made any mistake, it was his timing. He knew that the Medici were weak and fumbling, so perhaps he should have waited until one was Pope. Professor Luther did.

How should we celebrate the anniversary of Edward Jenner’s introduction of cow pox vaccine against small pox?  A cake covered with buttercream pustules?  (You know me: any excuse for frosting.)   

It is a tribute to English tolerance that Edward Jenner was merely vilified for his dangerous notion about vaccination…and not hanged or exiled to Australia.  The English were not just intimidated by medical innovation; they had developed a sentimental attachment to small pox.  The disease had proved extremely helpful in clearing North America of its natives.  (The Spanish were just as grateful for the same reason.)

However, the French–ever contrary–did not seem to like small pox.  Of course, they would prefer the great pox–and even earned the honor of having syphilis renamed the French Disease.  And small pox did not behave itself in France. 

It is the reason that Louis XIV was succeeded by his great-grandson.  So, what happened to Louis XIV’s dauphin and grand-dauphin? In 1711-1712, there was an outbreak of smallpox at Versailles. The mortality among the Bourbons would have made a Jacobin jealous. The future Louis XV was the third son of the Duc of Burgundy. By the time the epidemic had ended, he had lost both his parents, his two older brothers and his grandfather. The two-year-old had been fifth in line to the throne; he now was the heir.

Indeed his survival was due to the diligence of his nurse; she quarantined herself and the child–isolating themselves from any other contact. But for her zeal, the succession might have passed to the Orleanist branch of the royal family; and who would want intelligent, progressive kings of France?