FinermanWorks

March 29th

On this day in 1912, Robert Falcon Scott ended a rather disappointing trip to Antarctica. Nature evidently did not show the proper respect to a representative of the British Empire. The penguins did not greet his expedition with a few choruses from Gilbert & Sullivan, and the South Pole proved rudely aloof. Indeed, if the Pole had any sense of deference, it would have come to him.

Expecting to be the first gentleman to reach the South Pole, Captain Scott planned a grand tour, with modern conveniences as well as traditional fashions. His expedition included motorized sleds and horses, so he had a choice in how he would ride to the South Pole. Had he personally selected the dog teams, they probably would have been comprised of pugs.

The expedition promised to be an extravaganza. In addition to the complete catalog from Harrod’s, Scott’s team included a staff of scientists who would provide suitably British names for any discovered species, landmarks and eclectic oddities. Of course, the undertaking would be costly, and His Majesty’s government would only subsidize some of the expenses. Scott actually had some ability as a fundraiser, and found a number of private contributors. Fortunately, in the Edwardian era sponsors were more discreet, so Scott was not obliged to wear a parka covered with corporate decals. (However, you can imagine what Lipton would have paid to be the first tea brewed at the South Pole.)

The expedition arrived in Antarctica in early 1911 and spent the better part of the year preparing for the trip to the South Pole. For lack of Lyons restaurants along the route, food depots were established at some distances from the base camp to accommodate the polar tourists. The motorized vehicles and horses were thoroughly tested and found to be thoroughly inadequate. Neither could withstand the cold. The dog teams proved more resilient, but Scott had more faith in his own bipedal resolve. He and four members of his expedition would walk to the South Pole, dragging supply sleds with them.

After a two month hike, they arrived at the South Pole on January 17, 1912 only to discover that it already was the Norwegian consulate in Antarctica. Roald Amundsen had arrived there a month earlier, using dog sleds. It may have been summer in Antarctica, but Scott and his team were suffering from frostbite, dehydration and hunger. (Amundsen had relied on dogs for both transportation and–when necessary–an entree.) Depressed and malnourished, Scott’s crew became unlucky and careless. On the trek back, one Briton suffered a fatal injury, and no one could quite remember the exact location of the food depots. They actually were quite close to one of the food caches when, on March 29th, Scott and his team starved and froze to death.

Search teams from the base camp found the bodies, along with Scott’s diary. The diary, after careful editing to remove any hint of incompetence, was published as an epic of British heroism.

Of course, his heroism would have been unalloyed if Scott had the least idea what he was doing.

There were some advantages to being a Roman emperor. For instance, until the fifth century, the pay was excellent. You would rarely be turned down at an orgy. Furthermore, the job would never be outsourced to India, if only because the Romans had but a vague notion about India’s location.

Longevity, however, was another matter. From an actuarial perspective, an emperor would have regarded murder as a natural cause of death. In a period of five centuries, Rome had more than 80 emperors. The total is imprecise because the imperial reigns often were.

The Emperor Pertinax might have expected a longer reign. He certainly was an improvement over his predecessor, the debauched and incompetent Commodus. (You remember him from “Gladiator.”) Indeed, on his own merits, Pertinax had the makings of an excellent ruler. He was conscientious, honest and capable. You could add frugality to his virtues, but that actually was a flaw in Rome. The people wanted their bread and circuses, and the Praetorian Guard expected “donations”.

The Praetorians could overlook any vice in an emperor but stinginess. Pertinax had every virtue but generosity, so he did not survive his bodyguards. Today is that dubious anniversary.

The impulsive Praetorians seized the throne but had no one to occupy it. Then the extravagantly rich Didius Julianus,  the Donald Trump of his day, simply decided to buy the position of emperor. He showed up at the Praetorians’ camp and proceeded to bid for their loyalty. Another patrician competed in the auction for the Empire, but Julianus outbid him. His purchased Praetorians then cowed the Senate into acclaiming him the emperor.

The Praetorians’ loyalty lasted two months. When an ambitious general marched on Rome, the imperial guard switched sides again. Julianus did not live to regret it. He now is remembered as a joke. (The same might be said of Donald Trump.)

If embezzlers and MBAs had a Hall of Fame, Nicolas Fouquet would be shamelessly prominent. As the Minister of Finance during the early reign of Louis XIV, Fouquet maintained a bookkeeping system modeled after the Gordian Knot. It could be said that he would collect all the revenues but was willing to share some with the government, or at least the officials he liked.

Fouquet had the finest home in France. It seems unlikely that he afforded it just by brownbagging his lunches. The thought certainly occurred to Louis XIV, who evidently resented being the social inferior of his minister. The King ordered Fouquet arrested for embezzlement. There was a public trial, and the verdict could hardly be in doubt, but the judges proved unusually sympathetic to the accused. (Had they been past recipients of Fouquet’s generosity?) They sentenced him to banishment; you might well suspect that Fouquet planned a comfortable exile. The King, however, overruled that lenient sentence and condemned Fouquet to life imprisonment. The disgraced minister spent the last fifteen years of his life in a less than luxurious cell. He died there in 1680.

His second career began in the 1930s. Someone in Hollywood had been reading Alexandre Dumas. The 19th century French novelist apparently had screenplays in mind. “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo” had been box office hits, and the studios wanted more. While Dumas himself was no longer available, he had been prolific and his works included a sequel to The Three Musketeers. Based on a legend about a prisoner in the Bastille, the story was known as “The Man in the Iron Mask.”

Dumas had imagined that the title character was Philippe the twin brother of Louis XIV, hidden from birth but now the center of a plot to substitute him on the throne. In the novel, the younger brother was the unknowing pawn of ambitious men. Their attempted coup fails, however, due to the heroism of D’Artagnan and the shrewdness of a government minister named Fouquet. The real king is saved (even if France isn’t) and Philippe is condemned to the Bastille where his royal features are covered by an iron mask.

It seemed like another swashbuckler perfect for Hollywood…except for one problem: the villains. In Dumas’ novel the conspirators were the Jesuits, led by the renegade musketeer Aramis. Hollywood was not prepared to vilify the Catholic Church (although the Church never has been shy about vilifying Hollywood). So, a new villain had to be created.

Poor Fouquet already had a criminal record. Since he was an embezzler, why not make him a traitor, too? So, from helping to foil the plot, Fouquet became the mastermind of it.

But then Hollywood came up with yet another improvement on the plot. Instead of making poor Philippe a malleable cipher, portray him as a noble alternative to his wicked older brother Louis–and have the plot succeed. Good Philippe would secretly replaced Louis, who then would become The Man in the Iron Mask. Of course, Fouquet would still have to be a villain, but he would prove his intrinsic evil by being loyal to the legitimate King.

The logic of the plot was very similar to Fouquet’s Gordian bookkeeping. Dumas would have been dismayed; he actually seemed to like the wily minister. In fact, Dumas even gives Fouquet one of the novel’s few jokes.

Fouquet has heard rumors of the twin prince. He asks a trusted henchman, “Do you recall some mystery surrounding the birth of Louis XIV?”

The aide replies, “Do you mean that Louis XIII was not the father?”

Fouquet corrects him, “I said a mystery.”

March 13, 1881 was a terrible day for Russia but a great day for show biz.  Neither was the intention of a group of radical students in St. Petersburg; these young revolutionaries simply expected to transform Russia into an instant democratic utopia by killing Tsar Alexander II.  Ironically, Alexander was the most progressive Tsar since Peter the Great (although Catherine the Great proclaimed her liberalism…but only in French, which the serfs did not understand).  Alexander had liberated the serfs in Russia in 1861, perhaps setting an example for Abraham Lincoln.   The Liberator Tsar also established community councils for local self-government, and he granted autonomy to the Finns–who evidently were more likable than the Poles.  In fact, the Tsar had commissioned plans to establish a parliament in Russia; he only had to sign the final authorization but that could wait until Monday.  March 13th was a Sunday and the Tsar had his weekend routine.  That included a carriage ride.

The conspirators knew the route and were waiting with bombs.  The first bomb killed a guard and wounded the carriage driver and bystanders, but the Tsar remained safe.  Stepping out of the carriage and its bullet-proof exterior, the Tsar wanted to console the casualties.  He became one himself.  The second bomb landed at his feet–and removed them.  Carried back to his carriage, the Tsar was rushed back to the palace where he bled to death in the sight of his son, the Tsarevich, as well his grandson Nicholas.

The death of Alexander II did not topple the monarchy, but it definitely killed any progressive tendencies in the government.  ( You can also imagine the life expectancy of the captured conspirators. )  The new  Tsar Alexander III had never agreed with his father’s liberal ideas, and now he felt vindicated in his reactionary views.  The radicals had murdered his father, so Alexander III was determined to suppress any and all challenges to his autocratic authority.  Although he could not reestablish serfdom (that would have been too awkward), he managed to undo many of his father’s reforms.  The local community councils were abolished, and you can imagine his reaction to the idea of a parliament.  He personally shredded the authorization plans.  Alexander’s idea of reform was any program that would make his tyranny more effective.  A sadist in need of an outlet now had a promising future in the Tsarist secret police.  Of course, the suppression created as many radicals as it executed, and the Siberian prison camps became finishing schools for revolutionaries. However Alexander III did not live to see the consequences; his kidneys failed before his policies did.  His ineffectual but equally narrow-minded son Nicholas would pay the reckoning.  The last Romanov brought upon the very Revolution that he hoped to crush; but at least Alexander III might have admired the tyranny of the Communists.

But how was the murder of Alexander II a great day for show biz?  The new Tsar had a hobby:  Anti-Semitism.  The Jews were his favorite phobia, and he made his hatred the government policy.  He initiated a series of Anti-Semitic laws that the Spanish Inquisition might have envied.  The Jews were restricted to what they could do, and where they could live.  They certainly were not welcome in St. Petersburg and Moscow; the expulsion order made that clear.  Russia’s Jews were confined to Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania.  Of course, there were exceptions.  Even Anti-Semites like music.  So a violin prodigy would be allowed to study in St. Petersburg, but his parents could not visit him there.  Jews did have the distinction of being the official scapegoat for any and everything that went wrong in Russia.  Every Jew evidently was both a Rothschild and a Communist.  Of course, if any mob felt like attacking Jews, the Tsar cheerfully conferred that uncivil liberty.

Tsar Alexander III did grant the Jews one right:  emigration, and the sooner the better.  The restrictive laws and the pogroms were the Tsar’s idea of a bon voyage party.  Two millon Russian Jews took the hint, moving to a land where the Irish cops were more humane than the Cossacks.  And although America did not offer imperial scholarships to the talented, it still provided opportunities.  But for Alexander III, Hollywood might yet be an orange grove.

March 11th

On this day in 1851, Guiseppe Verdi presented what would be one of his most popular works: “Music to Make Pizza.”   Underestimating his importance to Italian cuisine, however, Verdi merely called the opera “Rigoletto.”  By my conservative estimate, at least 43 billion pizzas have been flipped to the musical accompaniment of “La Donna E Mobile.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3zetSuYRg

(It is physically impossible to hear this and just order plain cheese.)

Rigoletto is the story of a warped, malevolent jester who lives for vengeance.  (Perhaps I do identify with the title character although I have yet to plot the murder of any of my clients–but I am an underachiever.)  Bringing it to the stage, Verdi had to contend with the warped, malevolent jesters in the Austrian civil service.  At the time, Northern Italy was still Hapsburg property and the Austrian administrators were a bunch of suppressive prudes.  To those Austrian bluenoses, the original story was both pornographic and revolutionary.

The more tolerant French government had the same reaction when Victor Hugo dramatized the story in 1832.  His play “Le Roi S’Amuse” depicted a shamelessly lecherous king whose innumerable seductions include the daughter of his court jester.  The murderous  jester then plots to avenge his defiled (but quite gratified) daughter; as you might guess in a melodrama, there are complications and the wrong person is murdered.    The French authorities considered the play to be a vilification of the reigning monarch Louis Philippe and an incitement to rebellion.  After one performance, “Le Roi S’ Amuse” was banned in France; and it would not be performed again there for fifty years.

The Austrian censors in Northern Italy were more zealous.  They first had to approve the storyline of the proposed opera before further work could be done on it.  Of course, Hugo’s original plot was rejected.  Kings were not to be depicted in an unflattering light, and there must never be any murderous plots against them.  Verdi and his librettist Francesco Piave had to continually negotiate a plot that would survive the censors. 

The Austrians did not mind the Italians depicting themselves in a sordid manner; so the setting was changed to Italia.  The role of the king could be changed to a noble; but that noble could not have any living descendants to complain to the Austrians.  Fortunately, Italian virility is overrated, and there were a number of extinct aristocratic titles and lineages.  So the King of France was demoted to the Duke of Mantua; but that was fine with the censors.

“Rigoletto” premiered in Venice  on March 11, 1851.  Given its notorious French origins, the opera was not presented in Paris until 1857.  The alterations, however, met with the approval of the French government.  Victor Hugo’s approbation was not so easily won.  He disapproved of the compromising changes perpetrated on his work.  Nonetheless, Hugo was curious enough to see “Rigoletto” and he was almost disappointed that he enjoyed it.  At least, he had a vicarious satisfaction in the opera’s success.

And he was to have another vindicating pleasure.  When, after a 50 year ban, “Le Roi S’Amuse” was again performed in Paris, Victor Hugo was there to see it.

February 27th

On this day in 1797 paper money became respectable.  However reluctantly, the Bank of England began issuing one pound notes.    The Bank had circulated notes in large denominations since its founding in 1694.  You certainly would not expect a duke to risk a hernia carrying  5000 Guineas.  But one Pound Sterling was a relatively trifling sum.  It might amount to three weeks’ salary for the average British laborer, but Jane Austen could have lost that much on a bad hand of whist and scarcely notice.

But the British government insisted on the issuance of one-pound notes.  John Bull was reserving his bullion for the ongoing, apparently endless war with France.  The government had a burgeoning debt, and even Admiral Nelson could not loot enough to make up the deficit.  So if Britain needed a circulating currency, it would have to make due with these new paper notes.  In theory, the pound notes could eventually be redeemed for their value in gold; one just had to wait until the government permitted it.  (That turned out to in 1821, the year of Napoleon’s death; Waterloo and St. Helena’s apparently were not sufficient to justify the return of gold coins.)

At least the staid, conservative Bank of England finally gave paper money a solvent reputation.  While America was undergoing its first throes of independence, in the zany period under the Articles of Confederation, individual states were issuing their own currency; no wonder that the preferred legal tender of the times was foreign coins.  Among the excesses of the French Revolution was the establishment of a paper currency, the Assignats, valued on land confiscated from the Catholic Church.  It really was not the most practical currency; how do you break change for a diocese in Provence?  (A liter of vin, some jambon and pain, and six dioceses in Bretagny?)  Worse for the Assignat’s value, the French Treasury thought it had the freedom of the press; it kept churning out the notes until they were worthless.  After that fiscal disaster, it is surprising that France’s other revolutionary gimmick–the Metric System–still had any credibility.

On this day in 1547, Henry VIII evidently won his wager with Francis I as to which of them would first die of syphilis. The smart money would have bet on the French king; he had the disease first. In fact, he may have indirectly infected Henry. A pioneer of venereal environmentalism, Francis used to recycle his mistresses. Among his many “friends” was Mary Boleyn. (You certainly are familiar with her younger sister.) When Francis and Mary parted ways, she returned to England and became Henry’s mistress. She may have brought back more than French fashion.

Syphilis was one of the most popular imports from the New World. Columbus traded it for smallpox. The Europeans certainly got the better of the deal. After all, no one enjoys getting smallpox. Although the Spanish first imported the venereal disease, people tended to associate it with France. (Something about Torquemada just isn’t erotic.) So the malady initially was known as the French Disease; an invading French army did introduce it to Italy in 1494. By 1503, English doctors needed a name for the disease; however, begrudging the French credit for anything, they preferred the term “the Great Pox.”

The disease finally acquired its formal name in 1530. Girolamo Fracastoro, an Italian physician who dabbled in poetry, wrote an allegory of the disease attributing its origins to an amorous but incautious shepherd named Syphilus. The name, like the disease, caught on.

January 25th:

If “Only the good die young,” that would explain Genseric’s long life. He died this day in 477 at the age of 87 or so. We are not quite sure of his actual birthday; being the illegitimate son of a chieftain of a minor barbarian tribe, who noticed? His departure was more conspicuous. After all, by that time he was the King of North Africa, the terror of what was left of the Roman world, and the scourge of the Church. Even today, his legacy lingers. Through his deeds, his tribe is remembered as a felony: Vandal.

Genseric’s career would make a suitable case study for any MBA program. If anyone deserved to be named Entrepreneur of the Fifth Century, it certainly was him. Of course, the early fifth century was a great time to be a barbarian. The Rhine River was all the defense that the Roman Empire had in the West, and it was hardly impassable. (The Germanic tribes waded into the Empire or–to use the Latin pronunciation– in-vade.)

Most of the tribes were competing with one another as to who would loot Gaul. The Vandals, led by Genseric and his annoyingly legitimate half-brother Gunderic, decided to avoid the mob and a losing battle by moving on to Iberia. They were among the first German tourists there. 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, Gunderic was dead, and Genseric was now the king of this sorry remnant; in 429, however, the Roman governor of North Africa saved the Vandals. The governor 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. Genseric liked North Africa; in those days the land was fertile and had not become yet an extension of the Sahara. Prosperous provinces but with meager defenses–what more could Genseric ask! Within ten years, the Vandals 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.) Carthage, the capital of Roman North Africa surrendered without a fight; the Vandals occupied the city while most of the populace was at the chariot races.

Genseric’s next venture was piracy. The Vandals proved quite adaptive and quickly developed a fleet that terrorized the western Mediterranean. They conquered the islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. What could Rome do but flatter him. In 442 the Emperor Valentinian III recognized Genseric as the King of everything he had seized; the official title was supposed to make him behave with regal decorum. Genseric would be further placated by a marriage into the imperial family. The Emperor’s three-year-old daughter was betrothed to Genseric’s oldest (and adult) son; it would be a long engagement. So for the next 13 years Genseric seemed content to administer his realm, restoring to North Africa the stability and prosperity that the disintegrating Roman Empire had failed to maintain. He did tax the patrician landowners and the Catholic clergy (who usually were one and the same) but most of the populace found Vandal rule an improvement.

And Genseric was bored! Although now was in his sixties, he definitely had not mellowed. Yet he felt constrained by his treaty with Valentinian III and the western half of the Roman Empire. True, he was free to attack the Byzantines or his old enemies the Visigoths, but they had the inconvenient capacity to defend themselves; and Genseric really did not like fair fights. However, the life expectancy of a Roman Emperor was rarely long, and Valentinian III made enemies. He was assassinated in March, 455, and two months later Genseric was at the gates of Rome, proclaiming himself the avenger of Valentinian and the protector of his family.

For all his lofty proclamations, his basic demands were “give us everything and no one will be hurt”. Two years earlier, Pope Leo I had persuaded Attila the Hun not to sack Rome; the Pope would not find Genseric to be such a softie. The Visigoths in 410 had sacked Rome, indulging in murder, rape and pillage; but they had refrained from looting churches. The Vandals lacked that sense of etiquette; of course, after the Visigoths, Rome had little left to loot except the churches. Genseric’s sack was bloodless and platonic, but his irrreverent attitude to church property would earn the Vandals their lasting infamy. The medieval monk chroniclers would not forgive the Vandals’ transgression, and their animosity became our perception: VANDALS!. Although usually left to the victor, history is always written by the literate.

Furthermore, despite his agreement with the Pope, Genseric did not strictly observe his pledge of good behavior. Apparently kidnapping was still permissible. No, Genseric was not tacky enough to seize the Pope; but he did take the widow and two daughters of the late emperor. The dowager empress was a Byzantine princess, so Constantinople would be sent the ransom note. Genseric was only offering the widow and one daughter; the other–now nubile–girl was going to marry his son. The ransom negotiations lasted six years. In that time, the Byzantines were hoping that Genseric would succumb to enemies or old age. Both were reasonable expectations but he proved equally adapt at outfoxing his foes and time itself.

In 468, the Byzantines amassed an overwhelming force to crush the Vandal kingdom. More than 1100 ships, with 100,000 soldiers, ascended on Carthage. Unfortunately, the Byzantine emperor appointed his brother-in-law the commander. Genseric offered to surrender and, while the peace terms were being negotiated, the Vandals attacked the lulled Byzantines. Half of their fleet was lost. The idiot brother-in-law returned to Constantinople where he sheltered in a church until the emperor agreed only to exile him.

And the 80 year-old Genseric would outlast another two Byzantine emperors, five Roman emperors and the Western Empire itself. But his kingdom would only survive him by 57 years; he had left his sons an empire but none of the vision or the abilities to preserve it.

Today is the birthday of Frederick the Great! Genius is rare in royalty; in Prussian royalty it is extraordinary. Frederick was unique: imagine Oscar Wilde with an army. The politics of 18th century was based upon whom his scathing wit had offended. France and Austria had been enemies for 250 years. Frederick brought them together. He had ridiculed Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV, for being an overreaching strumpet. Lest you think that Frederick was a self-righteous prig, he taunted the respectable Maria Theresa for her piety and fertility. Austrian empresses do not enjoy being described as broodmares. (Frederick had no empathy with heterosexual activities.) The strumpet and the broodmare overcame their incongruity and formed an alliance. This coalition was joined by Russia; theTsarina Elisabeth had not appreciated Frederick’s quips about her girth.

France, Austria and Russia planned the Seven Years War to be a going-away party for Frederick. Here is my dramatization of that conflict….

FinermanWorks presents: The Seven Years War

based on a farce performed on Frederick the Great

with

Frederick the Great, by his own assessment.

George II, a very German King of England. He is Frederick’s uncle but nothing like him.

Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV and the real ruler of France

Maria Therese, a nice conservative hausfrau–whose haus happens to be the Austrian Empire

Tsarina Elisabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great. She inherited his realm and his size.

Peter III, Elisabeth’s very strange great-nephew and successor.

George III, a king of England who finally sounds like one.

(George II and his nephew Frederick are walking down a street.)

Frederick: You actually like Handel? I knew England would ruin your appetite but your hearing too? Still I suppose I would trade places with you. You have non idee how much I hate the sound of German.

George II: But that’s wat ve sprech un London.  Ja, Parlamunt ist un Anglische; but I nod to vatever.  It werks.

Frederick: You may be spoiling them.

(The men are suddenly confronted by Tsarina Elisabeth, Empress Maria Therese of Austria and Madame de Pompadour.)

Frederick: Are you three planning to proclaim my uncle the King of Scotland? He already is.

Pompadour: I am sure that you would rather be Queen of France.

Frederick: At least, Madame Fishmonger, with me at Versailles someone could think in French as well as speak it.  You reflect only in the Hall of Mirrors.

Elisabeth: You are a mean little man.

Frederick: Certainly half your size.

Maria Therese: You are a sacrilegious swine.

Frederick: You confuse my contempt for you with sacrilege. There is a considerable difference. Actually, I rather appreciate your piety and take full advantage of it. “The Austrian army’s idea of military manuevers is to attend mass.” (Actual quote by Frederick)

Pompadour: Let’s see if my nails are as sharp as your tongue.

(She lashes out at Frederick; Elisabeth and Maria Therese join in the assault. George steps aside, keeping a respectful distance from Elisabeth and while making polite overtures to Maria Therese.

George II: How are der children? You are looking vell. I can’t help reminiscing about our old alliance against France.

(However, George does periodically lunge against Pompadour, slugging her in the back, grabbing her Indian jewelry, Canadian furs and purse. While Frederick is trying to fend off the assault, his uncle hands him some of Pompadour’s cash.)

George: Keep up der gut fight.

(Then Elisabeth manages to smash Frederick in the head, nearly knocking him out. However, the exertion also kills her. She is succeeded by her great nephew Peter III who has a big surprise.)

Peter: Oh, Frederick, what are those bitches doing to you! I’m switching sides.

George II: Excuse me, I have enjoyed dis immensely but I now must act mein age und die.

George III: I say, what, what. Jolly good war but I think that we should say cheerio.

Frederick: Frau Hapsburg, you’ve no more Russian army and I’ve no more English money. Shall we end this war?

Maria Therese: We’ll call it a draw.

Frederick: Since I am still breathing, I’d call it a victory.

Of course, you would expect an Orangeman and an Irishman to brawl whenever and wherever they met. But on this day in 1760, the brawl would determine the control of India. The Orangeman, the painfully named Eyre Coote, commanded the forces of the British East India Company. The obviously Irish Thomas Arthur O’Lally, in his lifelong war with Britain ended up in the French army and commanded its forces in Southern India.

Yes, there was another French and Indian War and, however deflating to our North American egos, at the time the control of India and its riches seemed more important than the muskrat trade in the Ohio valley. Unlike the North American conflict, where 2 million British subjects were pitted against 100,000 Frenchmen and any native tribes who had survived smallpox, the conflict in India was evenly matched. Both European armies had several thousand men as the core of their force, but their preferred strategy was to let their allied Indian princes slaughter each other. Since this was a traditional pastime among Indian princes, the British and French really were just spectators who lent cannons.

Fighting to the last rajah, this war could have lasted indefinitely. However, Thomas O’Lally was a decisive man; and the French commander decided that he didn’t like India. His idea of the caste system was to treat everyone like an Untouchable. While this egaliterian rudeness might have earned O’Lally the gratitude of India’s dung collectors, the lower castes were not leading the armies on which the French strategy depended. Insulted princes are not usually the most reliable allies. O’Lally learned that when he advanced upon a British fort at Wandiwash. His Indian allies forgot to show up.

British commander Eyre Coote was on excellent terms with his Indian allies and, with his conspicuously larger force, he routed the French. From that day–January 22, 1760–the French were in continual retreat until the remnants of their empire were confined and besieged in the town of Pondicherry. When Pondicherry surrendered, O’Lally was taken as a prisoner to Britain. Ironically, at least he was safe there.

The French government charged O’Lally with treason. Considering that the Seven Years War was a world atlas of French defeats, Versailles should have been accustomed to incompetent generals. But only O’Lally was condemned as a traitor. He had not merely lost a battle; he had sabotaged the underlying alliance on which French India was based. Perhaps for that very reason, the grateful British were willing to offer O’Lally political asylum. However, he insisted on returning to France to defend his career and honor. At worse, he would be executed; and for Thomas O’Lally that would still be preferable to living in England. He certainly got his wish; returning to France after war ended in 1763, he was immediately imprisoned and beheaded three years later.

Eyre Coote had a considerably more successful career, gaining a knighthood and a fortune. (The opportunities for graft in India were wondrous.) He died–of natural causes–in 1783, leaving a vast estate in Ireland where his heirs treated the Irish like Untouchables.