The doom of our culture was already well upon it’s way by the time of the Second World War — or War of the Republics as I would prefer it to be known, since this was conducted entirely betwixt differing republican systems, all equally loathsome. Possibly not Japan, I guess, since it was at least nominally a monarchy, although cursory search indicates it was more of a constitutional monarchy. WWII may be summarized as that the nazis were detestable; the western allies despicable; and the communists disgusting.
The Russians had reverted to becoming savages by 1945: the Americans maintained their customary anthropological status as barbarians. Their especially barbaric political system of representative democracy had grave consequence as victors… The very first moralistic theatre was the judicial murder of General Anton Dostler, of which may be read here, written by the son of his American defense counsel. Essentially, 15 American soldiers were captured disguised as Italian civilians, and the — non-nazi — General referred the case to Kesselring, who ordered them to be executed. Admittedly Smiling Albert had enough to occupy his mind right then without giving this a great deal of thought, but under the laws of war this was a done deal anyway. It is pointless to object or blame soldiers for disguising; it is equally pointless to object to the consequence — which procedure is actually there to protect civilians. Thus although guiltless — neither prosecutor nor defence expected anything except acquittal — General Dostler was then sentenced to death after new instructions were handed down from Washington in response to the revelation that the prosecution would fail, that is that henceforth in these trials hearsay evidence would be admissible. This was to satisfy the voting constituents. Democracy is awesomely repellent not merely in practice, but still more so in idealist theory…
‘Hope to God we never lose a war.’ said the prosecutor.
Ivanov Seven is an excellent boys’ book by Elizabeth Janeway, and regards a mid-19th century recruit into the Russian army who is fortunate enough to return home to the hills with a charming little howitzer named Katya for his very own > which is the sort of souvenir no-one could resist; particularly a Prussian ornate cannon that is antique bronze inscribed:
Anyway, during the royalist war in the Vendée against the brutish scum of the French Republic, there was another notable piece with a sweet name. She was a bit bigger, but just as lovable.
Really, the only engaging with life which makes the curious matter of existence endurable is to destroy republicans… And maybe, to collect cannon. Not only for that good purpose, but just because… I find myself unable to believe God created us in order that we might worship Him — although He would have every right so to do if He so Chose ( that’s the arbitrary and unfettered bit that is the essence of power; which we must try to mirror, howsoever unsuccessfully here on earth, at least for His equally arbitrarily Chosen lieutenants… ) — and His reasons for creation must remain a mystery, but fighting on the right side each time consoles us at least during each such struggle.
The soldiers reassembled in large numbers, till, with Bonchamps’ division, there were close on forty thousand, but destitute of powder; the army spent the night before La Châtaigneraie, which had been re-occupied by the Republicans. At daybreak the town was found to have been evacuated, all the Blues having fallen back on Fontenay. The Catholic Army marched forward without delay and towards noon reached Pissotte, three-quarters of a league from Fontenay; the Blues, to the number of ten thousand, with upwards of forty pieces of cannon, were drawn up in battle array before the town. The priests were asked to give the men absolution before the battle. “We have no powder, boys“, the generals said to them; “Come on and recapture Marie-Jeanne with your cudgels, as you did at first. See who can run fastest, for we cannot stop to fire this time.” M. de Lescure was in command of the left wing; his men showing a disposition to hang back, he was obliged to ride on alone forty paces ahead of them; then, pulling up, he called out “Vive le Roi !” He was instantly greeted with six rounds of grapeshot, for the enemy had aimed at him as though he was the bullseye on a target; by a veritable miracle he was not wounded, though his clothes were riddled, his left spur shot away, and also a large piece of his boot from the right calf. Turning round he called out to the men, “You see, boys, the Blues cannot shoot. On with you ! Forward !” The men, carried away with enthusiasm, rushed forward at such a pace that my husband had to break into a quick trot in order to keep at their head. Just then the peasants, catching sight of a mission cross, fell on their knees around it, though within range of the cannon. More than thirty balls passed over their heads. At that point there were only MM. de Lescure and de Baugé on horseback. The latter would have had my husband bid them go on. “No, let them finish their prayers first“, he answered quietly. At length they sprang up and rushed upon the enemy. Meanwhile M. de Marigny fired off the few charges we had with good effect. M. de la Rochejaquelein had put himself at the head of the cavalry with MM. de Dommaigné and de Beaurepaire; they all displayed the utmost gallantry, while Henri distinguished himself by a judgment beyond his years. After repulsing the Republican cavalry, instead of pursuing it, he fell upon the flank of the enemy’s left wing, which till then had been maintaining the fight with some success, and by so doing placed the victory beyond a doubt. I wish I could give further details with regard to the circumstances of this battle, but I can only say what I know for certain.
The Blues, appalled by the desperate onslaught of the Vendeans, were completely routed in three quarters of an hour. The left wing, under the command of M. de Lescure, reached the gate of the town, and he himself was the first to enter, but his men, to begin with, had not the courage to follow him. MM. de Bonchamps and Forest, spying him from a distance, dashed forward to join him ; it was high time, for he was alone and in a very perilous situation. The three officers together were rash enough to penetrate into the town, though the streets were still crowded with over four thousand Blues, who, paralysed with terror, fell on their knees and began begging for quarter. When they had reached the square they separated and took three different streets, likewise thronged with armed volunteers, to whom they cried, “Surrender, down with your arms !Vive le Roi ! We will do you no harm.” Scarcely had he parted from M. de Lescure, however, than M. de Bonchamps was wounded. One of the soldiers, after laying down his musket and crying for quarter like the rest, picked it up again as soon as he had passed, and fired, shooting him through the arm and fleshy part of the breast and inflicting four wounds upon him : luckily our troops were just then crowding into the town in the wake of their generals. Bonchamps’ men in their fury closed in on the street and slaughtered about sixty Blues who were in it, so that the guilty one should not escape their vengeance.
As for M. de Lescure, he had the greatest pleasure a man can experience ; on leaving M. de Bonchamps and Forest he had taken the Street of the Prisons, which he caused.to be thrown open, to the cry of Vive le Roi, and flung himself into the arms of M. de la Marsonniere and the two hundred and forty prisoners confined along with him. This officer and several of the men were to have been guillotined the following morning; he had shown at his examination a nobility and greatness of character worthy of the highest praise. M. de Lescure had hastened to deliver them for fear they should be massacred by the Blues, and having done so flew at once to another prison in which were confined the relations of émigrés and other suspected persons, to the number of over two hundred. They had viewed the battle from afar and barricaded themselves on the inside for fear of being butchered by the patriots. M. de Lescure knocked repeatedly, crying, “Open, in the King’s name !” Immediately the doors flew open, while the prison rang with cries of Vive le Roi ! All the captives embraced M. de Lescure, but without recognizing him, even though a great many were relations or friends of his ; after telling them his name he left them, to engage in the pursuit of the patriots like all the other officers.
Forest had taken the street leading to the Niort road, and accordingly found himself at the very head. Everyone’s chief concern was to recapture Marie-Jeanne, the idol of the army, while the Blues, who were aware of this, used every endeavour to save her. They were already well over a league from the town. Forest had pushed forward so far that he found himself in the midst of over a hundred gendarmes ; fortunately he had the horse, saddle and weapons of a gendarme he had killed in a previous engagement, besides which, he was not dressed like a peasant and had no white cockade, and as at that time most of the Republican regiments were full of new recruits not yet in uniform, the Blues took him for one of their own men. “Comrade,” said one of them, clapping him on the shoulder, “there is a reward of twenty-five thousand francs for those who save Marie-Jeanne; she is in danger; let us turn back and prevent her from being taken.” All the Blues promptly turned back, whereupon Forest began to play the hero, declaring that he must be the foremost, and so gradually worked his way forward till he found himself leading, some way ahead, and followed only by the two boldest. When he was only a short distance from our men, he turned round with a cry of Vive le Roi ! and killed the two Blues who were following him, while the Vendeans, recognizing him, fell upon the enemy and captured Marie-Jeanne who was defended by some foot. To bring the history of this gun to a conclusion, I will add that she was brought back by the soldiers in triumph to La Vendée, where, in all the villages, the women came out to meet her, embracing her and covering her with flowers and ribbons.
Memoirs of the Marquise de La Rochejaquelein [ trans : Cecil Biggane ]
Henri, Marquis de La Rochejaquelein fighting at Cholet
A/ Marie-Jeanne was a 12-pounder, one of six sisters from the Château de Richelieu.
B/ The insurgents had a wise grasp on the historic duplicity of the English and their historic lack of good faith [ after all, the British governance was equally as, and is still, revolutionary as the American or French of then or now: their oligarchs merely moved in a century earlier than those two others ]. Two excerpts:
i/ M. de Tinténiac was the second son of the marquis of that name, and belonged to one of the noblest and wealthiest families in Brittany. He was a man of thirty, of small stature, with a face that sparkled with intelligence, and his countenance did not belie him. He carried his despatches in two double-barrelled pistols, fully loaded, in which they took the place of wads. He was firmly resolved, if arrested, to fire all his four shots and so preserve the secret of his mission. My father, MM. de la Rochejaquelein, de Lescure, the Bishop of Agra, des Essarts and de Béjarry were at La Boulaye. At first they received M. de Tinténiac with some suspicion, enquiring how he came to be chosen in preference to so many other émigrés who belonged to that part of the country. He replied that several had declined so dangerous a mission, while others did not happen to be within reach, and added with a noble candour : “Over and above the motives that would have prevailed with anyone else, I will not hide from you that I have had a very blameworthy youth and wished to wipe out my past follies or die in the attempt.”
He then delivered his despatches, which were, I think, from the English minister Dundas; there were also letters from the Governor of Jersey. The despatches contained compliments on our valour together with extremely flattering offers, and expressed a wish to cooperate in the maintenance of the insurrection. Nine questions followed ; I think I can remember them more or less ; they were :—
Why had we not established relations with England ? What was the real object of the revolt ? What had given rise to it ? What were our relations with the other provinces and the Allied Powers ? What was the extent of the territory in revolt ? How many men had we ? What were our resources in the way of money, provisions, clothing, cannon, muskets and powder ? How came we by them all ? In conclusion they offered to provide us with all we needed, and asked us to suggest a suitable place for a landing.
All the despatches were written in a tone of sincerity together with a sort of apprehension lest we should reject the help of England, since we had not asked for it; they even seemed to be doubtful, or at least not to know for certain, whether we were out and out Royalists or supporters of a Constitutional Monarchy or even Federalists. Everything was addressed to M. Gaston, the hairdresser of Challans of whom I have made mention, who had been the first to be named in the newspapers as a leader of the rising, and who the English thought to be the same as a M. Gaston who had commanded at Longwy in the campaign of 1792.
M. de Tinteniac was speedily convinced that we were Royalists pure and simple. He read our proclamation of Fontenay, reprinted at Angers, with which the English must certainly have been acquainted for all they pretended to know nothing about it, for how could a proclamation published in all the newspapers possibly have been unknown to their Government ? This proves beyond a doubt that their pretended uncertainty as to our opinions was a piece of sheer duplicity. We, for our part, perceiving that M. de Tinteniac was really an emigre confidence was established between us, and laying aside the character of English ambassador he unbosomed himself and told us the truth without reserve.
ii/ We were to have proceeded from Fougères to Rennes; it was our best plan, and we were on the point of adopting it, for Henri had never favoured the march on Granville; but two émigrés, sent by the English Government, arrived with the news ( which was quite true ) that there were troops at Jersey ready to support us; we must therefore do our best to capture a sea-port, and then the English would supply us with all we needed. What chiefly decided us was the hope of securing a safe refuge where we could leave the women, children, old folk, wounded and non-combatants, amounting to about twenty thousand people, who greatly hampered the army and whose own lot was most pitiable. By this course all these advantages appeared to be combined.
I do not know the names of the two emigres who came to Fougères; they were disguised as Breton peasants, and one of them was a member of the Parliament of Brittany; they drew the English despatches out of a hollow stick. The English Cabinet, after making them the most favourable offers, asked the Vendeans what kind of government they wished to set up; to which we replied that all we wanted was to restore the King to the throne, without troubling about what laws he established thereafter, which was no business of ours. When the two envoys had discharged their commission from the English Government, they snapped their stick in another place and took out a short letter from M. du Dresnay, one of the most important of the Breton nobles, who informed us that all the émigrés in Jersey were burning to join us, but that they had been deprived of their arms and all possibility of getting across. [ eg: by the British. ]
My italics in the last. No nobler sentiment has ever been expressed on God’s Earth. Even a non-legitimist such as Evelyn Waugh, whatever faults he may have had, never voted once in his life, because as he said magnificently: it was not for him to advise his sovereign on whom to choose for a government.
That is what it means to be a Subject, and merely not a wretched pitiful little piece of waste as a Citizen.
The account given by Pinto of the final surrender of Martaban to the Burmese, and of the events which followed, is graphic and interesting, and in many particulars bears the impress of accuracy and truth, though to the Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who had a very vague and inadequate idea of the greatness and splendour of the cities and countries of Eastern Asia, it appeared absurdly exaggerated. Here, as elsewhere, it must be remembered that Pinto had no means of accurately estimating numbers, and that he frequently was obliged to take his details from the reports of men who no doubt employed Eastern hyperbole with great freedom.
It appears that the unfortunate King of Martaban had reckoned greatly upon the assistance of the Portuguese, and had held out in the full hope that they would give him efficient succour. When he found them, to his intense chagrin, ranged on the side of his enemies, he gave up his cause for lost, and entered into negotiations with his assailant, offering to surrender his capital on condition that he should be allowed to retire in safety with his family. The faithless Burmese tyrant, after pledging his word that this condition should be granted, shamefully broke the promise he had given, and the unhappy prince was led forth in triumph with his wives and children, and exposed to great humiliation and ignominy. Pinto gives a very circumstantial account of the procession of guards and captives who marched forth from Martaban, giving the names of many of the princes, the chief priest, &c. He then says — “Immediately after these there came in a litter Nhay Canatoo, daughter of the King of Pegu, whose kingdom the Burmese monarch had taken away, and wife of the Chambainhaa. She had with her four little children, two boys and two girls, the greatest of whom was not more than seven years old, and around her were thirty or forty young women of noble family, and grandly beautiful. They all had their faces bowed down towards the ground, and tears in their eyes, and leaned upon other women. After these marched in order certain Falagrepos, who are among themselves like the Capuchins among us, and who all, barefooted and bareheaded, marched onward praying, and carrying in their hands a kind of chaplets. Moreover, they encouraged these ladies as well as they could, throwing water in their faces to revive them when their hearts failed them, which happened often enough — a lamentable spectacle, which it was impossible to look upon without shedding tears. This unhappy company was followed by a number of foot-guards, and after these came some five hundred Burmese on horseback. Near them was the Chambainhaa, mounted on a small elephant, in token of poverty and of the disregard of the world, conformably to the religion to which he had devoted himself anew. There was no greater pomp about him than this, and he was dressed simply in a long garment of black velvet, in token of mourning, having his beard, his hair, and his eyebrows shaved off; and, moreover, he had caused an old cord to be placed about his neck before he gave himself up to the king. This spectacle, too, was so mournful that none could look upon it and refrain, from weeping. With regard to his age, he was about sixty-two years old, of very lofty stature, with a grave and severe countenance, and the look of a very generous prince. When he had come to a place where a confused company of women, children, and old men awaited him, when they saw him in such a lamentable condition, before he had emerged from the city, they all raised, six or seven times, such a loud and terrible cry, that one would have said the earth was crumbling under his feet; and these lamentations and cries were incontinently followed by a multitude of blows that they inflicted on their own faces, striking themselves heavily with stones, with so little pity for themselves that the majority of them were in a short time covered with blood. Moreover, these things so horrible, to see and so terrible to hear, in such measure afflicted all the bystanders, that even the Burmese guards, though they were men of war, and consequently little inclined to compassion, and enemies of the Chambainhaa, could not refrain from weeping like children. It was at this place, also, that the heart of Nhay Canatoo, the wife of the Chambainhaa, twice failed her, and: all the other ladies gave way also, insomuch ilhat it was necessary to let him dismount from the elephant on which he was riding, that he might be able to encourage his wife and to console her. Then, seekig her lying on the ground like one dead, and embracing her four littte children, he knelt down on the ground and looked up with tears in his eyes.”
The severest part of the unfortunate prince’s trial was the mortification of meeting the Portuguese, who had behaved very treacherously towards him, and who were now standing to see him pass “all clothed in holiday dresses, with cuirasses of buffalo leather, their hats on their heads ornamented with a great number of plumes, and their arquebuses on their shoulders.” Juan Cayeyro, one of the number, especially attracted the notice of the Chambainhaa by flaunting in crimson satin. On seeing him, the fallen monarch bent forward on his elephant’s neck, and declared that he would go no farther unless these wicked and treacherous men were removed. The Birmans themselves were irritated at the double-dealing of the Spaniards, and the captain of the guard sarcastically bade them go shave their beards, and no longer deceive people into the belief that they were soldiers; and the Burmese would hire a number of women in their stead, who would serve for money. The Burmese guards, following their commander’s lead, thereupon pushed away the Spaniards with great contempt, and Pinto adds pathetically, “Not to tell a lie, nothing ever so sensibly affected me as this, for the honour of my compatriots.”
The plunder of the rich city of Martaban was the bait that had attracted the Spaniards to serve the Burmese invader. They made no doubt that their help would.be paid for by the abandonment to them of a great part of the spoil. But the Burmese conqueror had all the cunning of an Asiatic and all an Asiatic’s disregard of promises and oaths. He eaused the gates of the city to be very strictly guarded, that none might enter or go out without his express permission. He took occasion to convey away the Chambainhaa’s treasure privately; and so great was this treasure, according to Pinto’s assertion, that a thousand men were employed for two days in removing it. When he had thus taken care of his own interests, the tyrant gave up the city to be plundered by his own soldiers, to the great chagrin of the Portuguese, who found themselves cheated of the wages of their treachery. Pinto tells the story of these events in his usual graphic style. He says —
“After these two days were past, the king went very early on a hill called Beiddo, distant a couple of gunshots from thence, and caused the captains who guarded the gates to withdraw. Then the miserable city of Martaban was given up to the mercy of the men of war, and as a last signal a cannon was fired. Immediately all the soldiers rushed pell-mell into the place in such crowds that it is considered more than three hundred were suffocated at the entrance of the gates; for as there was an infinite number of men of different nations, the majority of them without a king, without law, or £he fear of God, they all rushed with dosed eyes to the spoil, and were so fierce about it, that they made no scruple of killing a hundred men for a crown. In truth, the disorder in the town was so great that the king was obliged to go six or seven times to allay it. The sacking of the city lasted three days and a half, and was carried on with such avarice and cruelty by these barbarous enemies that it was completely pillaged, and nothing remained that could attract the eye of covetousness.”
And now come some of Pinto’s magnificent figures. He tells us — “When this was done, the king, with a new ceremony of publications, caused the palaces of the Chambainhaa to be destroyed, which were very beautiful and very rich ; and with them thirty or forty houses belonging to the principal captains, together with the pagodas and temples of the whole city, insomuch that, according to the opinion of many, it is held that; the loss of these magnificent edifices may be estimated at ten millions of gold ; with which, not yet content, he caused all the buildings of the city which still remained standing to be set on fire, and by the violence of the wind these kindled so fiercely that on the first night there remained nothing that was not burnt down; and even the walls and the bulwarks were destroyed to their very foundations. The number of the dead was more than sixty thousand persons, and that of the prisoners was no less. There was a hundred and forty thousand houses burnt, and seventeen hundred temples, in which were likewise destroyed sixty thousand statues of idols of different metals. Moreover, during the siege, those of the city had eaten three thousand elephants. There were found there six thousand pieces of artillery of bronze and of iron, a hundred thousand quintals of pepper, and as much more of different drugs — of sandal, benzoin, lac, aloe-wood, camphor, silk, and of divers other kinds of very rich merchandise; but especially an infinity of goods that had come from India in more than a hundred ships of Cambaya, Achem, Melinda, and Ceilam ( Ceylon ), and from Mecca, the Loochoos, and China. As to the gold, silver, and precious stones which were found there, its amount cannot be truly known, because things are usually concealed; therefore it shall suffice me to say that what the Burman king had for himself of the treasure of the Chambainhaa amounted, so far as I was assured, to more than a hundred millions of gold, whereof, as I have before said, our king ( the King of Portugal ) lost more than half, as much for our sins as for the weakness and want of courage of men who were cowardly and full of evil inclinations.”
The promises of the Burman tyrant were no more kept towards his captives than his engagements with the Spaniards had been. Wars in Eastern Asia at that time, and long afterwards, were wars of extermination. A captured dynasty was generally put-to death to the last man, woman, or child, for fear of reprisals; and this course was pursued by the conqueror of Martaban. He caused a number of gibbets to be erected; a great body of horsemen came forth from the king’s quarters, proclaiming that no man, “on pain of death, should appear in arms, or say with his mouth what he thought in his heart.” [ * ] Presently the whole army was paraded, and amid a great display of barbaric pomp and splendour of war, the unhappy king and his wives, children, and dependants were hanged en masse with circumstances of atrocious cruelty. In concluding the chapter which tells us of these barbarous proceedings, Pinto says — “As for the rearguard, it consisted of a hundred elephants, like those that marched in front. So that the number of warriors who were present at this execution, partly as a guard and partly for the pomp of justice, amounted to ten thousand foot soldiers and two thousand horsemen, and two hundred elephants, not to mention an infinity of other men, natives and foreigners, who had assembled to see the end of this wretched and miserable tragedy.”
Relation of Fernand Mendez Pinto, 1547 : World’s Explorers c.1872
Comte Louis de Robien was a cynical French diplomat attached to St. Petersburg during the First World War: in his diary of the final years he detailed the Revolutions and that curious time when at any given time Tsarists, democrats, bolsheviks, socialists, the German army, Ukrainians and many other groups of varying sizes could be either fighting each other, or in very temporary alliance contesting the other groups singly or in concert…
Monday 9th April 1917
Shubin is still very worried. The apparent orderliness of the demonstration in honour of the victims of the revolution does not reassure him.
He analysed the psychology of Russian crowds to us with great shrewdness — he understands them better than we do, their mentality is so far removed from ours.
“I saw,” he told us, “a troop of a thousand demonstrators in a small side-street, waiting their turn to take up their position in one of the processions. There they stood, each one in his place, from ten o’clock in the morning until eight o’clock at night, marking time in the melting snow without the slightest sign of impatience, with nothing to eat and nothing to drink, without asking for anything from the neighbouring houses. The bearers laid five or six red coffins down on the bare earth, and none of this great crowd gave any sign of impatience. And yet, on the banners which they carried, the most extreme and violent demands were inscribed. From time to time a leader raised his baton, giving the note, and they began to sing: ‘We will pillage ! — we will kill ! — we will cut throats ! — to the gallows with the Tsar ! — the bourgeois are vampires !‘ etc. . . . The tenors cried out for the heads of the aristocrats, the sopranos for that of the Tsar, the basses wanted no one spared. Then, when the verse was over they rested for ten minutes and then, at a new signal, they started again. It wasn’t until that night that the procession could start marching, the bearers lifted the coffins on to their shoulders, and the crowd left in an orderly fashion, singing: ‘We will pillage ! — We will murder !‘ etc. . . .”
Fat Shubin mimed the scene all the while he described it, rolling his pale blue eyes, beating time, singing first in a tenor voice, then in a bass… and then marching across the drawing-room with superb calm.
He was most amusing. But his observation is very exact. In no other country could people confine themselves to words like this, without breaking into action. But how dangerous it all is ! Because, once let loose, these brutes are terrifying. In 1905 there were atrocious scenes and the moujiks, so mild in appearance, pillaged everywhere with sadistic cruelty. Someone told me about one ‘estate’, where the peasants cut three legs off all the sheep. In other places they tore out the cattles’ tongues and put out their eyes. Let us hope that we do not see horrors like these !
Wednesday 8th August 1917
Everyone is interested in the battalions of women soldiers who exercise in the courtyard of the Paul Palace on the Fontanka . . . people talk of the ‘heroism of the Russian women‘ and they get all excited about it… as for myself, I feel that it is rather unpleasant histrionics. As far as fighting goes these women can only be thinking of the rough-and-tumble !
Tuesday 14th August 1917
What strikes one about the present events is the lack of men … the Kadets, who stirred up so much trouble in the opposition under the old regime, have shown themselves to be lamentably incompetent when in power. It makes one wonder whether the Emperor wasn’t quite right in not calling on their help. If he had given them power, far from saving him they would have precipitated his downfall, because they have shown themselves to be doctrinaires, muddlers and blunderers. . . .
During the first days of the revolution one of these brilliant theoreticians came to see Shubin, completely panic-stricken. Shubin expressed astonishment at his being in such a state at the moment when the event which he had spent his whole life preparing for was actually taking place…. “Yes,” his visitor replied, “the revolution is all very well, but it is not happening the way I wrote about it in my book….” The whole history of the Kadet party is contained in that answer.
Manstein ordered a signal to be sent back: “Withdrawal must be stopped at once.”
But the signal no longer got through. Corps headquarters did not reply any more. Count Sponeck had already had his wireless station dismantled. It was the first instance of a commanding general’s disobedience since the beginning of the campaign in the East. It was a symptomatic case, involving fundamental principles. Lieutenant-General Hans Count von Sponeck, the scion of a Düsseldorf family of regular officers, born in 1888, formerly an officer in the Imperial Guards, was a man of great personal courage and an excellent commander in the field. While commanding the famous 22nd Airborne Division, which in 1940 captured the “fortress of Holland” with a bold stroke, he had earned for himself the Knights Cross in the Western campaign. Subsequently, as the commander of 22nd Infantry Division, into which the Airborne Division had been converted, he also distinguished himself by outstanding gallantry during the crossing of the Dnieper.
The significance of the affair lay in the fact that Count Sponeck was the first commanding general on the Eastern Front who, when the attack of two Soviet Armies against a single German division faced him with the alternatives of hanging on and being wiped out or withdrawing, refused to choose the former alternative. He reacted to the Soviet threat not in accordance with Hitlerite principles of leadership, but according to the principles of his Prussian General Staff upbringing. This demanded of a commanding officer that he should judge each situation accurately and dispassionately, react to it flexibly, and not allow his troops to be slaughtered unless there was some compelling and inescapable reason for it. Sponeck saw no such reason.
What were the considerations which induced the Count to disregard superior orders ?
Although we have no notes left by him personally, his chief of operations and his deputy chief of staff, Major Einbeck, have laid down in a memorandum the arguments of the Corps command. An instructive report is also extant from Lieutenant-Colonel von Ahlfen, the chief of staff of 617th Engineers Regiment.
This is the picture that emerges from these reports: On 28th December 1941 Lieutenant-General Himer’s 46th Infantry Division, by rallying all its reserves, succeeded in smashing the Soviet bridgehead north of Kerch. The Soviets, and above all the Caucasians, had accomplished incredible feats. In spite of its being 20 degrees below zero Centigrade they had waded to the steep coast up to their necks in water, and had gained a foothold there. Without any supplies they had held out for two days. Their wounded had frozen rigid into ice-covered lumps of flesh. Frozen to death. The landings south of Kerch were likewise sealed off. But at that moment Soviet naval units attacked at Feodosiya, 60 miles behind Kerch. A heavy cruiser, two destroyers, and landing-craft entered the harbour under cover of darkness.
Of Army Coastal Artillery Battalion 147, detailed to defend Feodosiya, only four 10-5-cm. guns and the headquarters personnel had so far got to their destination. In addition, only one German and one Czech-manufactured field howitzer were in the port. The Soviet warships trained their searchlights on to the defender’s gun emplacements and shelled them to smithereens with their heavy naval guns. Then the Russians disembarked.
For infantry engagements the German forces available consisted of the sapper platoon of an assault boat detachment and a Panzerjager platoon with two 3-7-cm. anti-tank guns. Luckily the Engineers Battalion 46, en route to the west, had taken up quarters in Feodosiya for the night Count Sponeck put Lieutenant-Colonel von Ahlfen in charge of repulsing the Soviet landing. The lieutenant-colonel mobilized every single man he could find — paymasters, workshop mechanics, the personnel of food stores and field post-offices, a road construction company, and the men of a signals unit. From this motley crew the first covering line was organized outside the town.
At 0730 hours a signal arrived at Count Sponeck’s headquarters at Keneges: “Soviets are also landing north-east of Feodosiya on the open coast.” An entire division was disembarking.
A few minutes later telephone connections with Army and with Feodosiya were cut—just after Count Sponeck had received the mation that Manstein was sending 170th Infantry Division Sevastopol and two Rumanian brigades from the Yayla Mountains Feodosiya.
What were the Soviet intentions ? Their tactical aim, clearly, was cut the narrow neck of land between the Crimea and the Kerch Peninsula, and to annihilate the trapped 46th Infantry Division. But their strategic objective, undoubtedly, was to strike swiftly into the Crimea from their foothold at Feodosiya, to occupy the traffic junctions behind the Sevastopol front, and to cut off Eleventh Army from its supplies.
That the Russians were in fact pursuing this strategic objective, and not just making local raids on the coast, was proved by the fact that their invading forces comprised two Armies — the Fifty-first under General Lvov at Kerch and the Forty-fourth under General Pervushin at Feodosiya. The Forty-fourth Army had already disembarked some; 23,000 men of 63rd and 157th Rifle Divisions.
General Count Sponeck asked himself: Was 46th Infantry Division strong enough to throw the enemy forces back into the sea at Kerch and at the same time hold the Parpach Isthmus against the new landings at Feodosiya? His answer was No.
Major Einbeck records: “Corps command could only regain their initiative by immediately switching the focus of operations to the Feodosiya area. That was the place where the danger of a drive against Dzhankoy or Simferopol, now threatening Eleventh Army, might be averted. This decision involved surrendering the Kerch Peninsula as far as the Parpach line.”
Count Sponeck believed that, in view of the responsibility he had for his 10,000 men, there was no time to be lost. Because of his clearer, local grasp of the situation he felt justified in acting against the order of his Army commander. He realized that he was risking his neck. He knew the iron law of military discipline. But he was also aware of a military commander’s moral duty to put a meaningful order above a formal one. He did not evade the tragic dilemma which must arise whenever a man’s duty to obey clashes with his personal assessment of operational necessity.
At 0800 hours on 29th December Count Sponeck ordered 46th Infantry Division to disengage itself from the enemy at Kerch, to proceed to the Parpach Isthmus by forced marches, and “to attack the enemy at Feodosiya and throw him into the sea”. He sent a signal to Army informing it of his move, and then ordered his wireless station to be dismantled.
So much for Count Sponeck’s strategic and tactical considerations. They made sense, they were sober and courageous. There was not a trace of cowardice, indecision, or guilty conscience.
In a temperature of 40 degrees below zero Centigrade, in an icy blizzard, the battalions of 46th Infantry Division, the anti-aircraft units, the sappers, and the gunners moved off. The distance they had to cover was 75 miles. Only occasionally was a fifteen-minute halt called to issue hot coffee to the troops. They marched for forty-six hours. Many were frost-bitten in their fingertips, toes, and noses. Most of the horses were not shod for the winter and were emaciated. They collapsed exhausted. Guns were abandoned on the icy roads.
***
Judging by results, therefore, Count Sponeck had been justified. Or was there room for doubt ? Manstein himself, in his memoirs, does not answer the question unequivocally one way or the other. He criticizes Count Sponeck for facing the Army with a fait accompli and making any other solution impossible.
Manstein says: “Such a precipitate withdrawal of 46th Infantry Division was not the way to maintain its combat strength. If the enemy had acted correctly at Feodosiya the division, in the condition in which it arrived at Parpach, would scarcely have been able to fight its way through to the west.” If ! But the enemy did not act correctly, and the outcome alone is what counts. Whichever way one judges the Sponeck affair, the general’s decision sprang neither from dishonourable motives nor from cowardice. His dismissal from his command, decreed by Manstein, can be justified on grounds of principle, as an issue of obedience to superior orders. But this was not all. At the Fuehrer’s Headquarters a court martial was held under the presidency of Reich Marshal Göring which sentenced Lieutenant-General Count von Sponeck, who had been summoned before it, to reduction to the ranks, forfeiture of all orders and decorations, and to death by execution.
Hitler himself must have had some misgivings about this barbarous verdict, for on appeal by the C-in-C Eleventh Army he commuted the death sentence to seven years’ fortress detention. Judged by his later verdicts, this was a remarkable decision, virtually tantamount to acquittal.
But some two and a half years later, after 20th July 1944, one of Himmler’s execution squads amended Hitler’s clemency by brutal murder. Count von Sponeck was shot without cause and without sentence.
Feldmarschall Graf Josef Radetzky von Radetz died at the age of 91 upon the 5th January 1858, having served his lord well for 91 years, and leaving Strauss the elder’s tribute march to perpetuate his memory.
Parts 1 - 4 of Erik Jorgensen’s award-winning video of anti-war protests in Northern California in 2003′.
Quite apart from the fact that protests rarely succeed in altering anything, any more than voting does, or contacting one’s — and I may add that I take it as a deep and perpetual insult to suppose that anyone can ‘represent’ me — representatives does; ultimately protesters and fascistic guardians are locked in a dance, and in the longer run keep exchanging roles. As Göring once affably pointed out to some ( agreeing ) communist prisoners: it could have easily been him in jail and them as the jailers. In this case I prefer the protesters philosophically, and despise the rigid guardians > yet in another I would as easily crush the iron heel down on protesters I personally despised… And in this case, neither side are efficient — beyond the habitual national characteristic of inefficiency — mainly because each claims to be speaking on behalf of ‘The People’: an entity, who like the Almighty, to which any assorted randomly chosen beliefs and feelings may be attributed. Oddly enough, the protesters prefer not to point out that thus they are speaking on behalf of redneck gun-toting anti-commies who gibber for Bush; whilst the state spokespeople equally refrain from acknowledging part of their constituency are shiftless liberal slackers who would elect for all war-mongers to be hung from apple-trees. Which is one of the prime jokes of conceptual democracy.
But anyway, this is funny and exquisitely chosen: for a state with such a worldwide reputation for wackiness ranging from hippydom to the extreme marcusian egalitarianism enshrined in PC to various cults, Californian policing appears to be modelled on the vague inchoate fascisimo of a Latin American country run by a demented authoritarian general who has been delaying death from extreme old age for thirty years during the mid twentieth century.
Monday, 31 December 2007 at 3:00 am
(Other, Places, War)
Not many weeks later, committing the charge and defence of his capital to Ooryphas, the Prefect, Michael again set forth to invade the Caliph’s dominions. But even, as it would seem, before he reached the frontier, he was recalled ( in June ) by the alarming news that the Russians had attacked Constantinople. When the danger had passed, he started again for the East, to encounter Omar, the Emir of Melitene, who had in the meantime taken the field. Michael marched along the great high-road which leads to the Upper Euphrates by Ancyra and Sebastea. Having passed Gaziura, he encamped in the plain of Dazimon, where Afshin had inflicted on his father an overwhelming defeat. Here he awaited the approach of the Emir, who was near at hand, advancing, as we may with certainty assume, from Sebastea.
An enemy marching by this road, against Amasea, had the choice of two ways. He might proceed northward to Dazimon and then westward by Gaziura; or he might turn westward at Verisa ( Bolous ) and reach Amasea by Sebastopolis ( Sulu-serai ) and Zela. On this occasion the first route was barred by the Roman army, which lay near the strong fortress of Dazimon, and could not be advantageously attacked on this side. It would have been possible for Omar, following the second route, to have reached Gaziura from Zela, and entered the plain of Dazimon from the west. But he preferred a bolder course, which surprised the Greeks, who acknowledged his strategic ability. Leaving the Zela road, a little to the west of Verisa, he led his forces northward across the hills ( Ak-Dagh ), and descending into the Dazimon plain occupied a favourable position at Chonarion, not far from the Greek camp. The battle which ensued resulted in a rout of the Imperial army, and Michael sought a refuge on the summit of the same steep hill of Anzên which marked the scene of his father’s defeat. Here he was besieged for some hours, but want of water and pasture induced the Emir to withdraw his forces.
It is possible that the victorious general followed up his success by advancing as far as Sinope. But three years later, Omar revisited the same regions, devastated the Armeniac Theme, and reached the coast of the Euxine ( A.D. 863 ). His plan seems to have been to march right across the centre of Asia Minor and return to Saracen territory by the Pass of the Cilician Gates. He took and sacked the city of Amisus ( Samsun ), and the impression which the unaccustomed appearance of an enemy on that coast made upon the inhabitants was reflected in the resuscitation of an ancient legend. Omar, furious that the sea set a bound to his northern advance, was said, like Xerxes, to have scourged the waves. The Emperor appointed his uncle Petronas, who was still stratêgos of the Thrakesian Theme, to the supreme command of the army ; and not only all the troops of Asia, but the armies of Thrace and Macedonia, and the Tagmatic regiments, were placed at his disposal. When Omar heard at Amisus of the preparations which were afoot, he was advised by his officers to retire by the way he had come. But he determined to carry out his original plan, and setting out from Amisus in August, he chose a route which would lead him by the west bank of the Halys to Tyana and Podandos. The object of Petronas was now to intercept him. Though the obscure localities named in the chronicles have not been identified, the general data suggest the conclusion that it was between LakeTatta and the Halys that he decided to surround the foe. The troops of the Armeniac, Bukellarian, Paphlagonian, and Kolonean Themes converged upon the north, after Omar had passed Ancyra. The Anatolic, Opsikian, and Cappadocian armies, reinforced by the troops of Seleucia and Charsianon, gathered on the south and south-east ; while Petronas himself, with the Tagmata, the Thracians, and Macedonians, as well as his own Thrakesians, appeared on the west of the enemy’s line of march. A hill separated Petronas from the Saracen camp, and he was successful in a struggle to occupy the height. Omar was caught in a trap. Finding it impossible to escape to the north or to the south, he attacked Petronas, who held his ground. Then the generals of the northern and southern armies closed in, and the Saracen forces were almost annihilated. Omar himself fell. His son escaped across the Halys, but was caught by the turmarch of Charsianon. The victory of Poson ( such was the name of the place ), and the death of one of the ablest Moslem generals were a compensation for the defeat of Chonarion. Petronas was rewarded by receiving the high post of the Domestic of the Schools, and the order of magister. Strains of triumph at a victory so signal resounded in the Hippodrome, and a special chant celebrated the death of the Emir on the field of battle, a rare occurrence in the annals of the warfare with the Moslems.
J. B. Bury : A History of the Eastern Roman Empire — A.D. 802 - 867
“Glory to God who shatters our enemies !
Glory to God who has destroyed the godless !
Glory to God the author of victory !
Glory to God who crowned thee, O lord of the earth !
Hail, Lord, felicity of the Romans !
Hail, Lord, valour of thy army !
Hail, Lord, by whom — Omar — was laid low !
Hail, Lord — Michael —, destroyer !
God will keep thee in the purple, for the honour and raising up of the Romans, along with the honourable Augustae — Eudocia, Theodora, Thecla — in the purple.
Fire-organ played in Reykjavik at the Winter Lights Festival
Both the Bundeswehr and the late Nationale Volksarmee have/had no more legitimacy than Hitler’s mob, but although republican do/did obviously still carry out a little of the great tradition… Torchlight Parades are always so pretty.
Both uniforms are getting on the silly side, with ties and all ( and ugly impracticable Allied-Type helmets; which is kind of ironical now the Yanks are sensibly starting to model their helmets on the stahlhelm… ) and look really remarkably similar despite any supposed ideological differences betwixt state capitalism and the free-market kind.
Note the holy atmosphere of the NVA bash — no doubt anything would be a break from the necessity of writing up a daily report on one’s neighbours; and the poor production values of something shot in 1989 which films like 1962 outside the Iron Curtain. Note also the use of Jingling Johnnies aka La Pavillon Chinois which seem to really take one back…
Come hither, Evan Cameron !
Come, stand beside my knee —
I hear the river roaring down
Towards the wintry sea.
There’s shouting on the mountain side,
There’s war within the blast —
Old faces look upon me,
Old forms go trooping past.
I hear the pibroch wailing
Amidst the din of fight,
And my dim spirit wakes again
Upon the verge of night !
‘Twas I that led the Highland host
Through wild Lochaber’s snows,
What time the plaided clans came down
To battle with Montrose.
I’ve told thee how the Southrons fell
Beneath the broad claymore,
And how we smote the Campbell clan
By Inverlochy’s shore.
I’ve told thee how we swept Dundee,
And tamed the Lindsay’s pride;
But never have I told thee yet
How the Great Marquis died !
A traitor sold him to his foes;
O deed of deathless shame !
I charge thee, boy, if e’er thou meet
With one of Assynt’s name —
Be it upon the mountain’s side,
Or yet within the glen,
Stand he in martial gear alone,
Or backed by armed men —
Face him, as thou wouldst face the man
Who wronged thy sire’s renown;
Remember of what blood thou art,
And strike the caitiff down !
They brought him to the Watergate,
Hard bound with hempen span,
As though they held a lion there,
And not a ‘fenceless man.
They set him high upon a cart —
The hangman rode below —
They drew his hands behind his back,
And bared his noble brow.
Then, as a hound is slipped from leash,
They cheered the common throng,
And blew the note with yell and shout,
And bade him pass along.
It would have made a brave man’s heart
Grow sad and sick that day,
To watch the keen malignant eyes
Bent down on that array.
There stood the Whig west-country lords
In balcony and bow,
There sat their gaunt and withered dames,
And their daughters all a-row;
And every open window
Was full as full might be,
With black-robed Covenanting carles,
That goodly sport to see !
But when he came, though pale and wan,
He looked so great and high,
So noble was his manly front,
So calm his steadfast eye; —
The rabble rout forebore to shout,
And each man held his breath,
For well they knew the hero’s soul
Was face to face with death.
And then a mournful shudder
Through all the people crept,
And some that came to scoff at him,
Now turn’d aside and wept.
But onwards — always onwards,
In silence and in gloom,
The dreary pageant labor’d,
Till it reach’d the house of doom.
Then first a woman’s voice was heard
In jeer and laughter loud,
And an angry cry and a hiss arose
From the heart of the tossing crowd:
Then as the Græme look’d upwards,
He saw the ugly smile
Of him who sold his king for gold,
The master-fiend Argyle !
The Marquis gaz’d a moment,
And nothing did he say,
But the cheek of Argyle grew ghastly pale
And he turn’d his eyes away.
The painted harlot by his side,
She shook through every limb,
For a roar like thunder swept the street,
And hands were clench’d at him;
And a Saxon soldier cried aloud,
“Back, coward, from thy place !
For seven long years thou hast not dar’d
To look him in the face.”
Had I been there with sword in hand,
And fifty Camerons by,
That day through high Dunedin’s streets,
Had pealed the slogan cry.
Not all their troops of trampling horse,
Nor might of mailed men —
Not all the rebels of the south
Had borne us backwards then !
Once more his foot on Highland heath
Had trod as free as air,
Or I, and all who bore my name,
Been laid around him there !
It might not be. They placed him next
Within the solemn hall,
Where once the Scottish Kings were throned
Amidst their nobles all.
But there was dust of vulgar feet
On that polluted floor,
And perjured traitors filled the place
Where good men sate before.
With savage glee came Warristoun
To read the murderous doom,
And then uprose the great Montrose
In the middle of the room.
“Now by my faith as belted knight,
And by the name I bear,
And by the bright Saint Andrew’s cross
That waves above us there —
Yea, by a greater, mightier oath —
And oh, that such should be ! —
By that dark stream of royal blood
That lies ‘twixt you and me —
I have not sought in battle-field
A wreath of such renown,
Nor dared I hope, on my dying day,
To win the martyr’s crown !”
“There is a chamber far away
Where sleep the good and brave,
But a better place ye have named for me
Than by my father’s grave.
For truth and right, ‘gainst treason’s might,
This hand hath always striven,
And ye raise it up for a witness still
In the eye of earth and heaven.
Then nail my head on yonder tower —
Give every town a limb —
And God who made shall gather them:
I go from you to Him !”
The morning dawn’d full darkly,
The rain came flashing down,
And the jagged streak of the levin-bolt
Lit up the gloomy town:
The thunder crash’d across the heaven,
The fatal hour was come;
Yet aye broke in with muffled beat
The ’larum of the drum.
There was madness on the earth below
And anger in the sky,
And young and old, and rich and poor,
Came forth to see him die.
Ah, God ! that ghastly gibbet !
How dismal ’tis to see
The great tall spectral skeleton,
The ladder and the tree !
Hark ! hark ! it is the clash of arms —
The bells begin to toll —
“He is coming! he is coming!
God’s mercy on his soul !”
One last long peal of thunder:
The clouds are clear’d away,
And the glorious sun once more looks down
Amidst the dazzling day.
“He is coming ! he is coming !”
Like a bridegroom from his room,
Came the hero from his prison
To the scaffold and the doom.
There was glory on his forehead,
There was lustre in his eye,
And he never walk’d to battle
More proudly than to die:
There was color in his visage,
Though the cheeks of all were wan,
And they marvell’d as they saw him pass,
That great and goodly man !
He mounted up the scaffold,
And he turn’d him to the crowd;
But they dar’d not trust the people,
So he might not speak aloud.
But he look’d upon the heavens,
And they were clear and blue,
And in the liquid ether
The eye of God shone through;
Yet a black and murky battlement
Lay resting on the hill,
As though the thunder slept within —
All else was calm and still.
The grim Geneva ministers
With anxious scowl drew near,
As you have seen the ravens flock
Around the dying deer.
He would not deign them word nor sign,
But alone he bent the knee;
And veiled his face for Christ’s dear grace
Beneath the gallows-tree.
Then radiant and serene he rose,
And cast his cloak away:
For he had ta’en his latest look
Of earth, and sun, and day.
A beam of light fell o’er him,
Like a glory round the shriven,
And he climbed the lofty ladder
As it were the path to heaven.
Then came a flash from out the cloud,
And a stunning thunder roll,
And no man dared to look aloft,
For fear was on every soul.
There was another heavy sound,
A hush and then a groan;
And darkness swept across the sky —
The work of death was done !
William Edmondstoune Aytoun : The Execution of Montrose
For sentimental reasons, the Lancastrian usurper PKing Henry V is somehow excused for ordering prisoners killed at Agincourt — even in the following civil wars affecting parts of England during the rest of the century, caused by his verminous House’s illegal seizure, this would only happen to prisoners of high enough status to merit expungement — however, although England has actually had more monarchs who were usurping thieves than legitimate rulers, this little fellow may well be in the top three for unpleasantness: a snivelling pious puritan who majored in self-righteousness and slaughtered as freely as any serial killer for pointless aggrandizement.
Usually however it’s considered a bêtise to slay the surrendered — the Aussie furore on behalf of Breaker Morant and his mates being shot for so doing may be charitably ascribed to pitiful anti-Pom nationalism rather than condoning his shooting of captives.
After the invasion of Russia in 1941 the Germans, partially through luck and partially through skill were rewarded with hundreds of thousands of prisoners: partially through immediate inability and partially through ideological imperative a large proportion of the 5-6 million soviet POWs were starved to death in a crime worse than the labour-camps. This had a precedent ( apart from the fact that 85% of German POWs died in the camps that Stalin kept for his own people, and anyone else he could collect… ):
In the evening of the long day, as the imperial column was approaching Gzhatsk, we were surprised to find a number of dead Russians, still warm, on the road in front of us. We noticed that their heads had all been shattered in the same manner, and that their brains were scattered about. We knew that two thousand Russian prisoners had gone before us under the escort of Spanish, Portuguese, and Polish troops. Some of our generals greeted this with indifference, others with indignation, still others with approval.
…
…but the next day those murders had stopped. After that we simply let our unfortunate prisoners die of hunger in the enclosures where we penned them up for the night, like cattle. This was doubtless an atrocity; but what were we to do ? Exchange them ? The enemy refused to consider it. Set them free ? They would have spread the news of our destitute condition far and wide, and soon would have joined up with others and returned to dog our steps. In this war to the death we should have sacrificed ourselves in letting them live. We were cruel by necessity. The evil lay in the fact that we had got ourselves in a position where we were faced with such a terrible alternative.
Count Philippe-Paul de Ségur : Napoleon’s Russian Campaign
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