Ideals/France

The Betrayal and Execution of the French Revolution’s Ideals as Performed by the Sole Inmate of the Longwood House Under the Direction of Himself in His Guise as the Emperor de France

More than a little ironic, indeed.

In addition to taking care of his family—by marrying them fruitfully into various royal European families & thus locking in extreme wealth and privilege for hundreds, if not thousands of years—as was outlined in the previous post—Napoleon also created and bestowed about 2,200 new titles of aristocratically ranked and privileged nobility. Thousands of new Dukes and Counts and Barons and Knights out of people who had not been before. Some of these new Nobilities were rewards for good performance, for ability. (If Bonapartism is seen through a critical Buddhist lens, then he bestowed these titles to people for Napoleonically Right Action; i.e., display of strength, aptitude, talent or skill that contributed toward Napoleon’s upward mobility.) But the key feature of those rewards is that they weren’t just for the people receiving them. They were heritable. They, by definition, were intended to last “forever”, to be passed on to the people’s kids based on no acts or merits of their own.

King of France, sooo rrrregal! So important!

Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t that just sound an awful lot like the, uhhh, same exact thing that was going on for more than a thousand years before his time that dictated what would or wouldn’t be possible for everyone in French society? That was swept away by the French Revolution in 1789?!

Emperor of France, so …imperial! Not so different….

It would appear to be very close to the exact thing that had been going on for more than a thousand years and dictated what would or wouldn’t be possible for everyone in their society which had indeed been swept away by the French Revolution.

Specifically, between decrees issued August 4, 1789—just about 3 weeks after the storming of the Bastille—and legislation in 1790 enacting the intent of the decrees, the French government abolished nobility and the extra perks, privileges, allowances on behavior and absence of accountability it entailed. (Ya wanna talk about “White Privilege”? That was a good part of its venal, and not-yet-agreed-on origin story). But, quite interestingly, on the history-heavy August 4th of 1789, it was two aristocrats, members of the nobility itself, who broached the subject and introduced the idea of ridding France of the nobility (the First Estate) and its privileges (taxation being the biggie): Armand de Vignerot du Plessis-Richelieu, Duke d’Aiguillon, and Louis-Marie, Viscount de Noailles. The National Assembly then voted on and passed the decree, and a little less than a year later did more toward that end with new laws. And really, this was further enacted when they abolished the monarchy in 1792.

To merely recapitulate the same sort of protection racket for the ultra wealthy, the same system of institutionalized oppression and unjust mechanisms of control that had engendered the revolution which allowed Napoleon the chance to be on top was essentially, I’d posit, just as ugly as the “Terror” phase. It was just as undesirable an outcome of that set of circumstances, of the Revolution, that offered nothing toward the more equitable societies that revolutions in general so commonly coalesce around—and that one in France in particular erupted in pursuit of.

Such posturing antics by Napoleon—arrogant in the extreme, gasp-inducing in how matter-of-factly did he simply plop onto the heart-broken wreckage of French society a nearly identical system of controlling wealth and power and protection using inheritance exclusively from one’s biological parents et al reveal quite plainly how far his heart and mind were from the core ideals of the Revolution. His re-establishment of an inherited aristocracy and royalty—while tellingly NOT restoring the rights and privileges of the nobility that the Revolution had abolished aimed at a permanent change—that all undercut, from an intellectually honest position, all the “good”, supposedly charitable, rational and civic minded acts Napoleon undertook.

Jerry, King of Westphalia

Lou, King of Holland

If he had believed in, or even at least agreed with the various premises behind the Revolution’s legal negation of the power and privileges of nobility, his actions once in power would show consistency with them. But instead, the clarity with which they bring into focus his fundamental disregard for them is a grievous, bleeding gut wound. Because normal thinking would go something like this: “well, yes, clearly he was a dictator and abused power…” etc etc, and then continue: “but his enthusiasm for ensuring soldiers’ abilities to ascend the ranks based on their merits, his bestowing of legal codes and bequeaths aimed at widespread education show that he had good intentions and was just using the headship of state as a means to those good and just ends, surely in accordance with the French Revolution”.

Joe, King of Spain

And yet no, not at all.

The purity of the viewpoint he obviously had instead—and his intentions—showed themselves years before he created the new dukedoms, etc. Generally, where Napoleon was coming from is in plain, even garish view in his making some of his brothers suddenly into Kings: of Spain, Italy, Holland and a collection of some Holy Roman Empire principalities dubbed “Westphalia”.

She was the young American: Elizabeth “Betsy” Patterson

But here’s a specific example where all his cards were right there on the table. The youngest in the family, Jérôme (Giralamo) happened to sail to the new U.S. of A. aboard a French Navy vessel in 1803, when he was 19. Their port of call was New York City, but he visited a friend, as well, down the coast a bit in Baltimore, then the third biggest city in the young nation. He met a vivacious, sexy girl about his age not long after arriving in town. She was the daughter of a rich businessman in Baltimore. She was also keenly aware that he was the brother of the most powerful man in Europe. They hit it off. But apparently she insisted they marry before any teenage hijinks would ensue. Comically, Jérôme used his status as brother of the head of France to officially borrow money from the official French mission office in the USA to pay for the wedding to this sweet Baltimore treat.

Napoleon must’ve been, let’s just say it, pissed off something fierce when he learned about the marriage from a London newspaper. He dashed off a letter to Jerome, received a few months later cuz: sea travel, telling him: “Bro: divorce her & get TF back here or else I will dismantle your life.” He was arranging marriages for his siblings with various noble Euro Houses so they could carry out his bidding throughout Europe and their children would be locked-in nobility. But Jérôme wanted to enjoy his new life with his bouncy and fun new American wife, so waited a year to return to Europe.

Monsieur 1st Consul, Napoleon

When they arrived, it turned out the wife—Betsy Patterson was her name—was with child, and His First Consulship refused to let them disembark from the ship in France at all. So they had to do so in England. As a result, their son, Jerome Jr was born near London. Napoleon succeeded in strong-arming his baby brother to let the baby-mama Betsy and the baby sail back to America and to marry a German princess he’d lined up for him instead.

I make the laws!

It’s what Napoleon said to his brother Jerome on hearing about the baby, that is quite the tell as to his whole worldview being significantly detached from reality, and aimed at royally entrenched power.

       "Your union with Miss Patterson is null and void in the eyes of both religion and the law." 

John Carroll, 1st Archbishop of the US

In the words of comic actor Jordan Peele spoofing scientist Neill de Grasse-Tyson: “Well, actually…” not so much. Napoleon had put a direct request in to the Pope to annul the marriage. But as it was legally performed in the state of Maryland and by the laws of the USA, and had been administered by the ranking Catholic priest there at the time, the Pope in Rome was cool with it. No annulment. Fully valid, legally and under the authority of the religion involved, the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church. Napoleon didn’t want it to be, so he pretended it was not.

But he was in charge of France. And threats to cut off his bro from any money or job or military post proved effective. Baby Mama & the tyke were sailed off back to Maryland. That son was cut out of the privileges etc of also being a Prince. He was totally barred from “carrying on” the inherited prestige, power, perks, etc.

Jérôme and his German princess, Catharina

And though the marriage Napoleon had arranged for Jerome with the daughter of the Duke of the German principality of Württemberg was technically bigamous, if you were Frederick the German Duke and Napoleon had just wiped his ass with various opposing armies, I venture that any of us would likewise have said, “Mmmm, oui, Herr, non! Monsieur! Je m’excuse pour mein Français approximatif!” U-hem.

Also, it seems since Napoleon was le’tat, then even though the religious authority under which the wedding was consecrated and the laws of the nation where it occurred rendered it legal, since France didn’t accept its legal status, somehow that held the day. (I wonder if it would stand up in today’s world; if the world would be forced to accept a dictator’s world-contradicting line in the sand. Maybe therein lies a measure of a dictator….)

Perhaps you’re wondering: is any of this more than mere historical curiosity? Ok, so this year is the 200th anniversary of his death—and sure, France can go all out in commemorating it (as certain people there are). But why give the guy so many column inches here?

Because the totally unlikely and the utterly inconceivable turned out to actually happen here, on our home turf in the immediately recent past. History can indeed offer lessons, but it needs to be known in order to impart that magic gift of “avoiding the same mistakes and tragedies”

Actions, Words–you know the drill…

And yet.

As I’ve been discovering more about the French Revolution and Napoleon researching this, and as new facts and details of his actions remain consistrent with an objectively defensible view that frames him in a basically negative light, I’ve been bugged by a hovering sense of something else at work.

King Hugh “Capet”, founder of the Capetian dynasty

It seemed clearly inadequate to write it off as “a paradox”! Or to settle for simplistic summaries like, he was a bad guy who was also sensible. I guess this was the thing fueling the engine of my obsessive curiousity about the Napoleon phenom: WHAT on earth (I wondered) can explain how all the facts of this guy’s nation seizing, other-nation marauding, free-speech-censoring heavy-handed politics so neatly line up in the “self-absorbed, meglamaniacal tyrant” column, but then so many people think so highly of him? On the face of it, it seemed so self-evident that he killed the French Revolution.

King Louis XIV, the “Sun” king

Then a couple weeks ago I discovered a book by a scholar’s scholar of the Revolution. And it brought some incredible clarity and helped me see what was going on. But before the big reveal, the nature of the thing that indeed resolves the seeming paradox received some foreshadowing in my hunt for answers. And like the best foreshadowing, I didn’t realize it at the time, but had an empty pocket plopped into my mental schema.

It was a fact that, honestly, blew my mind when I learned of it just a month or two ago. The over-simplified version of the French Revolution that gets served to most Americans spares us many of the developments of, in and around the governing bodies of France between 1789 and 1800. One of these is the fact that even after the Bastille was stormed and the “regular” folk of the third estate formed its National Assembly governance body, the King was still upheld as…worthy and taken to be in charge. It wasn’t until it was revelealed he’d tried to skeedaddle out of the country that people were like: the king, he got to go.

The way it’s told here, one gets the impression that after July 14, 1789, the King was in prison (or soemthing) until his head rolled.

It’s the fact that French society did not, in fact, do that at all, that’s also, I believe, at the heart of why Napoleon’s behavior is not, in the end, paradoxical or even potentially contradictory.

(Big Reveal of Unifying Theory of the Seeming Napoleon Paradox & concluding bits in Part 3)

From: Au revoir, noblesse! To: An Empire Strikes Back!

Here’s the follow-up post to the last one, the (semi) critical reading of Napoleon Bonaparte’s name.

Today we consider the fact of Napoleon’s creation, while he was in charge of France, of new nobility, in particular the extraordinarily high, heritable royalty he bestowed on his siblings, in the context of the French Revolution having abolished the very same a decade earlier.

As the previous Napoleonic post coincided with his birthday in August, I present this post a few days behind December 2nd, which was the 219th anniversary of his crowning himself Emperor of the French in Notre Dame in Paris.

The heritability of rank and title is a huge part of what makes them problematic, such that the Revolution got rid of all that. It’s also what makes family tree charts the perfect way to track them and their implications. And what the family trees of Napoleon and his siblings show is that, despite the idea being so repugnant to the French revolutionaries as to be officially eradicated only three weeks after the storming of the Bastille, Napoleon’s resurrection of the deeply entrenched, non-merit-based aristocratic way guaranteed his family’s future success, wealth and power.

Truly Unique

It’s not easy to name any other person from history whose long, long shadow and attention grabbing impact stand as singularly occupied by little else than just the individual themselves. Sure, there are candidates: Julius Caesar, good ole Genghis. But it doesn’t take but a brief breath of time until it’s: Caesar and his antics with Marc Antony, with Cleopatra, his great-nephew Octavian, with the Senate, the Gauls, and so on.

And with Genghis, it’s like, he isn’t mentioned without his people, the Mongols…then there’s the horses, and of course his grandson, Marco Polo’s main man Kublai. But with Napoleon…it takes a good long bit of the Earth’s rotating while we sit bedazzled by the Emperor…and his cleverness, his bravado, his sheer success… until the name “Josephine” finally pops up. But she wasn’t even a muse which led him to his grandeur, nor even mother of any heirs.

His actual death mask

Whatever your opinion of the guy—and he remains deeply divisive 200 years after he died—the uniqueness of his truly singular reputation is a little dumbfounding.

So it’s been with some relief, I guess, that after a bit of deep-diving on the guy over the last several months, I realized, and am bemused to report, that the story of Napoleon and very specifically, of his legacy which most certainly extends to right this very minute, is not just his story. It’s the bundle of stories of his family. To grasp the whole story, that is, to gain a thorough and useful handle on how he did what he did, how things unfolded as they did and why the heck it still bears on us today in our COVID, mobile-screened world, can—I will here assert—only be had through knowing about the whole Bonaparte family.

Follow the Family Money

Went to West Point

Founded the FBI!

I stumbled some months back on the fact that there were great-nephews and nieces of Emperor Napoleon here in America. I was literally, like: what? So I started digging and learning about them. As readers of this blog are aware, I organize historical information readily through assembling the family trees of folks and events of yore. Following Napoleon’s brothers with American families led me to discover Napoleon’s own kids. This was mind blowing because, here in America, even for those who are pretty well versed in history—these topics don’t really come up, and so that he had kids at all, for instance, is hardly known. Excepting, I suppose, for those who go heavy into that 4th year of high-school French, or that select brand of exceptionally sharp studious types who end up studying (& later teaching) about the French Revolution.

Un, Du, Trois

The short form of what I learned, more broadly—and also unexpectedly—from following the descendants of Napoleon and his brothers is threefold:

One: he was even worse than I knew. (Reintroduced slavery after the Revolution had abolished it. Good lord…)
Two: he was way better than I had any idea. (Vaccinated the army…)
And Three (most satisfyingly): he and his legacy are complex—as anything worth deep examination usually reveals itself to be. He and his legacy are not reducible to any simplistic pronouncement, good or bad. Real history is like that. Compelling topics, people, events, are almost always like that.

Now, that said, part of the main thrust of this posting is that indeed, at least a large part of Napoleon’s whole “thing”, a major component driving his motivation can be discerned from the fates of his progeny and that of his nephews and nieces. And you don’t even have to read into it, or between any (family) lines to apprehend what it was. Further, it’s already in literal writing in the forms of rules and laws he issued as edicts and thus encoded into the very pages of History. Historians, francophiles and -phobes, the French and we can argue (oui oui!) till the baguette’s ready about how good or bad a ruler he was or wasn’t, but what has got to be indisputable is that Napoleon was the all time best brother and uncle and son ever in the history of families. The most concrete, lasting impact of what he did as Emperor was to ensure—again, by literally writing it into the pages of French law, of history, that his mother, siblings and nieces and nephews would be Boom! Solid! 100% taken care of in perpetuity. He locked in what might be called the bags of life possibilities into which each and every one of his relatives would be henceforth born and live and die. Forever. There’s really only one way to do that: marry “up”. Not just up, like petty Rothschilds or Rockefellers. As if!

Le Definition: Irony

Take a look at this family tree showing his siblings —

Ok, so a the thing you might notice is a very serious intertwining with the highest, most aristocratic, most royal, most noble crowned heads of Europe. The very sort of state sovereignty that the French Revolution was against. !!!

I mean, you get it, right? Cuz Napoleon was only in the position that allowed him to take over France because the French Revolution had propelled him there. Which Revolution had erupted 10 years after France had helped pay for mostly English colonists in America to make a war on England so that they could be their own country, the USA. Though the French had bigger, more, u-hem, long-standing issues of actual tyranny and such on the agenda, the same spirit of change infused and was part and parcel of its history-changing momentum.

And that momentum was 100% about—full stop—ending the 1000-plus-year way of organizing society and money that was unfairly skewed known as rule by kings, nobility, and royalty. That’s the world the French Revolution (and the American Revolution) were stepping out of, away from, over the corpse of with acute self-awareness of the radical break with the past that that represented.

So then—from that heady froth one dude emerges who seizes power and…I mean, even the Medici took a handful of generations until they were intermarried with the French and German kings and had some popes. But Napoleon had his siblings IN the royal bedchambers toot sweet, made an uncle a Cardinal! and way before he stumbled into the delusion of the Russian invasion. Good damn brother!

Veterans Today

A couple years back I asked my kids if they knew why they had no school that November 11th. After a minute the older one answered “Veteran’s Day!”, and then I asked if she knew what that was about.

Not surprisingly, they didn’t, so I commemorated Veteran’s Day by informing my kids (as nonchalantly as possible 😉 why it was they didn’t have school that day. And I used the fact that my grandpa was there, was “on site, so to speak, as the engine of telling them how the holiday came to be, all the while trying my damnedest to put it in terms they could at least somewhat grasp.

I was helped in this by the fact they enjoyed a very warm, fun and close relationship with their grandma, i.e., my mom. And it was her “daddy” (as they would term it at the time I did this) who was the soldier in question. So it was at least a hook. And they were relatively rapt for several continuous minutes as I did a show ‘n’ tell about it with photos of my grandpa from the war & postcards he sent and brought back.

He was a soldier of the American Expeditionary Force stationed on the Western Front at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 when a cease fire was declared and Word War One ended. More on that is below, if you want to read it.

On to honoring the vets in my life.

Both my kids’ grandfathers served, (which includes my dad), both of my own grandfathers served, as did my two uncles on this side of the Atlantic, and one of their sons, my first cousin.

Each story of each of these guys is a fascinating one, and framed their lives in one way or another.

Some of the most moving words I’ve ever come across came to me in a correspondence with a relative some years back. That person had been intimately acquainted with life in the military, and conveyed to me with a slap-down honesty that even when military personnel and their families disagreed with or disapproved of the wars or actions with which they’d been charged — as the person in question and their family did of certain conflicts — that indeed because of the price that real people pay in the service, that supporting our troops in all and every way possible was not merely their (and our) duty, but that it’s the kind of responsibility akin to keeping a dog on a leash on a busy street, of feeding your newborn baby. Because just like in those cases, it’s life itself, on the line that they were talking about.

Lee Campbell (grandfather)
US Army  1st Division
WW I; Occupation of Germany – 1917-1920

John Dunn (grandfather)
British Royal Navy
Ireland; England; Hong Kong – 1921-1929

John Dunn (dad)
British Army & Commando Unit
Egypt & Libya – 1945-1949

George Campbell (uncle)
US Navy
Philippines; Pacific Ocean; San Diego – 1965-1977

Joel Campbell (1st Cousin)
US Army Airborne
Hawaii – 1994 – 2005

“Red” Cobb (uncle by marriage)
US Naval Academy, Annapolis
US Navy – 1960s

Robert Sheehan  (father-in-law)
US Air Force
Kentucky; Northern California – 1957-1963

I think the pictures and the fact that they know their gramma (my  mom) really well, and that I emphasized that this person I was talking about was her DADDY, that she actually KNEW this guy, could remember being held by him, and maybe that I had WW I sounds playing in the background…anyway, I was able to actually hold their attention telling that story, reading the bits from his letters, and they were into it.

I also then charted out so they (and I!) could see just how many of our relatives were and are veterans. Only the one I just mentioned, my grandfather Lee H. Campbell participated in WW I and experienced the Armistice of 11/11/1918, but practically every male relative has served. Here, then, is a list of my relatives who’ve served. In the cases where I don’t have a picture of the individual in question, I’ve put pictures instead representative of their service (read the captions for specifics).

To those who have served, serve now and will serve.
God’s speed and Amen.

Lion of NewCity claims bonus, neighbors say it’s more than his share!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I post today, admittedly a day late, in honor of the birthday of a special guy.

And to honor him, I’m posting some trees showing the family of that wily and reviled world leader, that studious and admired military commander, that loved and hated man—hateful of mobs, though also mindful of how to quiet them (i.e., by killing or by churching), the hero of Toulon, the one-time seething mortal enemy of the Habsburgs then later husband of Marie-Antoinette’s own niece, that’s right, the one, the only Napoleon Bonaparte.

Napoleon & his brothers – the dashed lines indicate those kids as illegitimate; the multi-dashed line to “Napoleon III” indicates that he wasn’t even Louis’ son at all. But if he or Louis knew that is unknown as DNA proved it only recently.

I’ve been boning up on ole Bonaparte the last year and discovered some amazing, not widely known tidbits that are fascinating (like the bit about him marrying the beheaded Queen of France’s niece). I’ve also encountered just what it was that made—and continues to make—him so damn compelling that it takes effort not to fall into hero-worship. But the general view I had before embarking on this learning journey holds firm—if more nuanced and informed now.

Namely that, in the words of British journalist Andrew Marr in his TV series History of the World, on Napoleon crowning himself “Emperor of the French” there in Notre Dame December 2, 1802: “Absolute power was back.”

No outlier, this

And that act was absolutely not isolated, was absolutely indicative of his view of Statecraft and did indeed represent absolutely all of the very reasons the French Revolution had ignited into action and dethroned its thousand-year-monarchy just nine years earlier in the first place. For, the good that can be credited to Napoleon shows, not as his too-numerous-to-count-in-spite-of-it-all admirers would have it his native concern for people, rights, so-called liberty, republics or democratic ideas. The good that he wrought demonstrates, on the contrary, precisely how absolute power is wrong in that it depends on the luck of the dice, the whims, personalities etc of the lucky chucky who winds up on top.

What’s more, the good he did was mostly not his. They were things the people of the actual Revolution had enacted, legislated, put in place, created and otherwise brought about.

Isaiah say: therefore, you will know my name

Somewhat interestingly, the man’s destiny is all in his name. “Napoleon” as it is in English & various languages, comes from the Italian name “Napoleone”, which turns out to be pretty straightforwardly a basic compound of “Napoli” (the city in Italy, aka in English: Naples) and “Lion”. So, the Lion of Naples. And Naples is from the Greek: “Nea” + “Polis” or: New City.

The surname “Bonaparte” was, at his birth and before his rise to international man of hysteria “Buounaparte”. Which is Italian for “Bonus” and “Part” or “Portion”.

And so, a Critical Reading qua Allegory of the Special Birthday Boy’s name informs the diligent and lovely reader that this Lion of the New City, the New Polis, the New Polity perceived and took for granted as his whole vast tracts of lands-peoples-nations as simple and deserved Bonus Portions. Ye Olde: “I’ll take my half from the middle” syndrome, as my late mother used to be fond of saying, to describe those who took what was not theirs without asking those whose it was.

There’ll be a part 2. For now, I picked today to post not only because it’s his birthday, but also because it’s a nexus of Napoleonic anniversaries which all bear great relevance to the themes these family trees evince.

AUGUST in the life of Napoleon & the French Revolution

Aug 3 (1802) — Napoleon makes himself “Consul for Life”
Aug 4 (1789) — Abolition of feudal system (nobility)–notably not by Napoleon, who did, at least, later see fit to re-enact the rise by merit system the Revolution itself had brought forth to Europe.
Aug 9 (1792) — Paris Commune
Aug 10 (1792) — Napoleon watches mob storm the palace; freaks him out; he later turns cannon on similar mob, winning the hearts of the oligarchs who held power at that time
Aug 12 (1793) — Mass conscription into the army instituted
Aug 15 (1769) — Napoleon’s birthday …AND, in (1802) — Napoleon helps make his uncle a Cardinal (who later pressures Vatican into basically fabricating a supposed 4th Century Egyptian & Christian Roman soldier brutally martyred named “Napoleon/Napolus”, who, thus sanctified, gave a pretense for a “St. Napoleon” Day…whose feast was, u-hem, August 15th.

More on these families next time.

It’s 246 for US!! July 4, 1776

Ah, yes, the presence of the past.

A big topic, actually.

Take July 4, 1776.

And with that heavy duty date, take this:

Q: How many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were born in the United States?

                         (waaait for it…)

A: None!

The United States didn’t exist yet, silly!

That dorky trick question nails what happened that day 246 years ago and why it’s still worth celebrating.

The room you see pictured above in the Old State House in Philadelphia is the exact place where the deed went down: it’s the delivery room, the literal birthplace of the United States of America.

Where elected representatives from the 13 colonies* agreed to declare themselves independent from Great Britain. These days that room holds stand-in furniture selected to look like what was there in the 1770s. That portion of the room is then separated by a low, wooden wall from an area in the back from which 5 million tourists pay their respects in person every year, dutifully snapping pix.

These days….

We the living, breathing people of the United States of America are all the immediately compelling, real, hard and fast evidence of what went down in that room 246 years ago:

People who had been selected by the people they lived with in each of 13 different colonies to represent them in a collective and collectively minded ruling committee unanimously agreed to and did declare that together as a unit the 13 colonies they represented were as of then to be independent of the authority of England (aka Great Britain).

And with the declaration of independence, made on July 4th, two days after they voted to separate and become the United States of America, we are all here now as a result.

Why July 4th?

As the history geeks out there already know, August 2 is arguably our nation’s BDay…as is July 2 and maybe, probably July 4th too. Cuz different aspects of the things that were required to make this a legally binding act all happened on those various days in the summer of 1776.

July 1776: the USA’s Birthday Month

July 2, 1776 — in Philadelphia, the 2nd Continental Congress approved a motion from Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee that thereby, forthwith, and evermore a certain 13 British colonies on the mainland of America would be no longer part of Britain, but their own, independent and united states, such as they were. A nation of their own. This, a Tuesday, was the day the USA was born. (Massachusetts delegate John Adams was certain for a time that July 2nd would henceforth be the massively revered and celebrated holiday for generations to come.)

July 4, 1776 — Congress voted on and approved the document announcing this new independence and the reasons for it, that had been drafted by its committee created to draft such a document.  That document was, of course, famously drafted by Thomas Jefferson with critical input from Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. It was signed and endorsed by only the President of Congress, John Hancock of the Massachusetts delegation, and the secretary, Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia.

July 8, 1776 — in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence is officially read aloud publicly for the first time in the town square in front of the State House where Congress met.

July 9, 1776 — General George Washington has the Declaration read to his troops in New York City. A German translation is published in Philadelphia (analogous to a Spanish or Chinese translation being published if it were happening in California, today).

July 20-August 1, 1776 — a fancy-schmancy permanent version of the Declaration isprinted again on parchment

August 2, 1776 — the document is formally endorsed by the 2nd Continental Congress with each delegate signing his name to it (a few adding their signatures later.)

 

Part II

So since obviously none of the Signers were born in the United States since it didn’t exist, the valid question is how many of the 56 men who signed the Declaration were not born in America? And it turns out the number is eight, or 14.3% of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were not born in America.

26 of my kids’ 142 ancestors in America in 1776 were Fresh-off-the-Boat immigrants, or 18.3%, which happens to be statistically exceedingly close to the proportion of the Signers (8/56) …which also happens to be close to the proportion of the whole population of this place that’s born elsewhere since 1675 (clearly not including 100% since the arrival of Europeans to begin with! :-o)

That’s kind of amazing.

Of the 142 of my kids’ ancestors present in the colonies in July of 1776, one was a quarter Native American. She was a 68-year-old widow, and with her son and his 13-year old boy represent the line that’s been in America the longest: the widow’s grandmother was of the Lenni Lanape people.

Here’s the interesting breakdown on those 142 ancestors, comparing them to the signers of the Declaration:

John Adams

Samuel Adams

      1 was 2nd-cousins with John and Samuel Adams

      1 was 3rd-cousin to Samuel Chase

      1 was 2nd-cousin to Dr. Josiah Bartlett

    18 served or fought in the Revolution

             (vs. 17, or 30% of the Signers)

13 “owned” enslaved people (vs. apx 33%, or 18 out of 56 of the Signers)

I have met America. And it is us.

EGYPT!

August 18th was the day, 192 years ago, that a certain ship landed in Alexandria, Egypt. The Eglé had sailed from Toulon in southern France and carried none other than Jean-François Champollion, the man who had successfully cracked the code of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and some dozen other members of his expedition to explore the ancient ruins and confirm his system of decipherment. The mission received funding from King Charles X of France and Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany. (Money the monarchs had borrowed, interestingly, from their bankers, the brothers Rothschild, one in Florence and one in France.)

They would get into the pyramids and the tombs of the Valley of the kings and see the temple of Abu Simbel before they were done in 1829.

There’s much more that could be said, but not here today.

Below (at bottom of post) is a chart I made showing the connections—unknown to me until I looked into it recently—between King Tut and Ramesses the Great. I had no idea they were so close in time, or actual chain of people, rulers and events as they in fact were.

From what I could tell, if Tut had lived even into his 40s, or died, in other words, not tragically and seemingly by accident when he was 19, it’s likely that Ramesses, and thus the whole 19th Dynasty would not have been. Because since Tut died so young and without any kids (heirs), his advisor (and great-uncle) Ay took the throne. But he was already on the old side and on his death, the only viable candidate was the guy–a general named Horemheb–married to Ay’s living daughter. He seems to have been similar to 38th U.S. President Gerald Ford (the one after the notorious Nixon, for our younger readers) in that he helped just get the country back on track after a rocky period (Tut’s dad changed the whole religion, stirred things up, then Tut died super young),

But so Horemheb and the Mrs, like Tut before him, had no kids, and consequently he had to choose a successor. Horemheb picked another general to be ruler after himself. That was Ramesses I, grandfather of Ramesses II, or “the Great”. But here’s what makes this interesting: Horemheb appointed Ramesses I partially because he already had a grown son and a grandson at the point a successor was sought; ie, he had two generations of heirs ready to go. In other words, the three rulers after King Tut were all older than he was, and Ramesses II was born around 20 years after Tut’s death. So if Tutankhamun had lived, then: Ay dies not as ruler but remaining the Vizier, Horemheb is thus not appointed Ay’s successor, who in turn would’ve had no need to appoint Ramesses I. If Tut had had an heir as well, then perhaps Ramesses II would just have been another general for the King, not had 100 kids, and not had his face carved all over the place.

And yet, he did. History is balanced on just such and so many sea-change pivot points.

Chart: (remember to click on it so it opens larger in another tab.)

Slicing Dominoes — Or, Revisiting the Cascade of Causes of World War One

This huge pic of the old timey dude is, of course, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a senior member of the ruling family (the Habsburgs) of what used to be a rather huge country in Europe called Austria-Hungary. His assassination in June 1914 was the causative domino  triggering the cascade of militarized power-plays that gave us the First World War.

But it was this day, July 28th–exactly a month after his murder–that his country made its choice of scapegoat official when it declared war on Serbia, the nation from which the assassin had hailed.  Young Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip, who ended Franz Ferdinand’s life with a bullet from this gun had not acted on behalf of Serbia, though. He was a member of a group of Bosnians in Serbia who wanted independence from the faltering and top-heavy Austro-Hungarian Empire. But the war that resulted did end the country so completely that even the name of it (here in America, anyway) seems to smell of ancient mold: “Austria-Hungary”. Doesn’t exactly roll off the American tongue (history geeks and professionals aside).

The war–the world’s first mega war, or, if you like, the opening salvo of the 20th Century War–engendered by Gavrilo’s gun so thoroughly obliterated the country–a country, mind you, that had existed for about 700 years–that today’s “Austria” (such a *charming* tourist destination!) and “Hungary” (don’t they have a really hard time of it, still?)–don’t even hint (in their colorful tourist brochures or the 6th grade textbooks here in the States) that up until June 28, 1914 Austria-Hungary (aka: the Austo-Hungarian Empire, aka: Osterreich &tc) had been one of the “MVP”s in European politics and oligarchic games of control. At one point the same clan, the Habsburgs mentioned above–was in charge of it as well as Spain when Spain was a Big Deal (Spain? Yes, Spain)…back when they had just conquered the Americas. Gone with the winds of war, though.

So gone, in fact, that even the title of the guy who was assassinated, and even his name, they don’t exist anymore, not in common parlance. Even the educated among us, if asked about it, will “have to access that file in my brain”: “Archduke”. What Americans wanna know is, if they even cared, is what the hell is an archduke anyway? And no one’s named “Franz Ferdinand” anymore except the pop-indie-rock band, who must be smart or something to pull their name from a history book, ironically wearing w/ pride the name of the actual man who died by an assassin’s bullet who unwittingly became that hapless symbol of a capital-“P”-Past whose exit was long overdue. “Take me out” indeed…(“I’m just a crosshair” sings the song)

So at the risk of stating the over-completely-obvious, WW I was a big big deal.

And the 100th anniversary–especially in the context of, well, the last hundred years in which the USA has inherited or aggressively taken over the UK’s role as global imperial force to be reckoned with–does in fact neatly demarcate a punctuation point; a time marker whereat we can take some note fer cryin’ out loud, of the violence wrought upon humankind by…well, by humankind. Maybe deploy the obvious in service of revealing the also obvious with an eye toward perhaps avoiding the ever-more-obvious logical conclusions that I think it’s fair to say the world’s oligarchic power players spend a lot of resources trying to obfuscate and distract us from [sic]. I.e., that war is *not* an axiom of human societal behavior but rather a learned collective behavior.

And like all learned behaviors (I’m talking to you, Racism, Bigotry, Intolerance and your selfish, roustabout, faithless buddies) this can be unlearned, or at the most practical level, it can be excluded from the curriculum. Not like Voldemort, as in not ever mentioning it, I’m not talking about denial, but rather not being taught & inculcated the way it is now force fed to all of us.

Here’s one funny thing about World War One:   the primary cliches we’re taught about WW-I–are pretty much spot on.

CLICHE the FIRST:

Proof positive of the efficacy of “mechanized warfare”

TRUE!

(well, duhhh, silly!) But yes, it seems to have been the first armed conflict in human history of which we have record in which more people died from weapons than from disease.

Machines work!

CLICHE the SECOND:

 

It was a dramatic unseating/sweeping away en masse of the modality of how nation-states had been ruled (& thus of how geopolitics had been conducted) for about a thousand years (at least).

 

TRUE!

Within 4 years: the nation-states w/ the greatest power were no longer ruled by singular, inherited and titled landed gentry, but by outsiders of that system (some of whom had taken their countries by force, ie, the Bolsheviks, which was actually a hold-over, a “transitional technology” so to speak, from the older M.O., which would be partially recapitulated w/in 20 years in Germany…w/ similar results whose distastrousness can be only in both cases measured in “orders of stratospheric catastrophe”).

Or, the shorter answer: What’s an archduke again?

CLICHE the THIRD:

It redrew the map of Europe as well as the power “balance”/dynamic

TRUE!

First Great (War) Example, In Which One Country (but a Double Kingdom) is Swapped for 5 and bits of 6 Others!

Before the war (1914), there was a country called “Austria-Hungary” which occupied an area just a bit bigger than Texas (apx. a Texas and a third) and had been around and swinging its power around the necks of England, France, Germany & anyone else who ventured too near or had too much cool stuff they wanted for about 700 years.

After the end of the war (~1920), that same area had become a bunch of lovely (and occasionally tyrannically run) travel destinations: Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, Czchekoslovakia, Moldavia, a little bit of Germany and a little bit of the Soviet Union; note that on the official circa 1920-1940 roster of countries-formerly-known-as-“Austria-Hungary” you will not find “Serbia” or “Croatia” or “Herzogovenia” or “Bosnia”; this becomes important later.

 

Second Great (War) Example, In Which One Country (Much-Diminished) Turns Into 8 (!!), or When Britain and France Declared Themselves Absentee Landlords of the Entire Fertile Crescent, Welcoming Themselves Back After a 600 Year “Exile”

Before the war (1914), there was a powerful country called “the Ottoman Empire” which occupied an area about the size of two Texases, and had been around and swinging its power around the necks of England, France, Germany & the Popes (& their team sport known as “the Crusades”) & anyone else who ventured too near or had too much cool stuff they wanted for almost 900 years.

After the end of the war (~1920), that same area had been carefully sliced and diced by the conquering Crusaders…er, by the caring British & French into a number of lovely travel destinations, especially for those interested in traveling for work in the oil industry: French Mandate of Syria, British Mandate of Palestine, British Mandate of Mesopotamia, Kuwait, “Trans”-Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Hejaz, Yemen, Armenia (and then not), and much to the consternation of the Brits & the Franks, Turkey–of its own accord, no less; note that on the official circa 1920-1940 roster of countries-formerly-known-as-“The-Ottoman-Empire” you will not find “Israel”; this becomes important later.

 

People’s History Jackpot!

Presence of the Past – History on the Screen   AND   World War One

The new film They Shall Not Grow Old, by Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, The Feebles, Bad Taste) which consists of meticulously colorized original film footage from World War One is astounding.

It’s a work of art. Jackson deployed the digital tools of storytelling that through his work on bringing the JRR Tolkein fantasy world to the screen he’s helped advance to the equally necessary telling of real life, true stories of history.

Even for history buffs and experts, there’s just some emotional, mental distinction rendered by images from the past being black and white. I’ve looked at thousands of incredible as well as mundane pictures of the First World War–and am lucky to have hundreds available to me in the form of the pictures and postcards brought home from that war by my grandpa, like this one of the tank. And I’ve checked out a good deal of the old filmed bits, too.

But nothing prepared me for how visceral, how suddenly present and real it all seemed in this marvel of film. Not only has he colorized it, but he’s done some pitch perfect sound editing that would make Walter Murch proud and which all audio engineers should pay attention to.

Probably the clincher, though, is the narration: the only voices heard are those of actual veterans of The Great War telling their stories. If it doesn’t at times bring tears to your eyes, I don’t know what would…maybe a war.

I think it’s safe to say that for the first time in recent memory, that infamous War to End All Wars (u-hem) is tangible.

See the trailer here.

WW I 100 YEARS

It was a hundred years ago today!

Indeed.

What we these days call today (and observe tomorow) “Veteran’s Day” began life (ironically) exactly 100 years ago TODAY as “Armistice Day” denoting that 11/11/1918 was the day on which a cease fire (or armistice) began between the armies of the German Empire and those of the armies united against it along what was called the Western Front, namely the armies of France, England and the United States of America (among others). It was the day marking the end of that world-shattering and recasting event that took around 40 million lives (   ….  words fail….) known as World War One.

I’m leaning on the honorable accident of history that my mom’s dad (seen post-war to the right) was present “somewhere in France”–as his letters and postcards of the time routinely stated–on the Western Front on 11/11/1918 at the moment that cease-fire ended the fighting of that First World War.

I’m posting below some of the photographs and postcards he sent and/or brought back home with him that depict various details of what he experienced during the war that was at the time known as the War to End All Wars. I know, the hubris of people calling it that back then might be funny if it wasn’t so…grossly awful.

In addition, and to the left and lower right, are pictures of soldiers he was ostensibly and very literally fighting: troops of the German army. Specifically, these men were in the regiments of the German forces in which the great-granddad of a friend of mine also served. He was from northeastern Bavaria (near the city of Nuremburg) and served in three different infantry regiments during the war…and lived!

On this day, 100 years ago, his great-grandad (named Wilhelm) and mine (named Lee) were about 350 yards apart from each other across the “Western Front”; i.e., the raged, jagged, tightly wavy line that ran from the waters of the North Sea near the France-Belgium border toward the southeast a couple hundred miles, terminating at the Alps of Switzerland.

 

Here are the “best-of” from my granddad’s collection.

WARNING: some of the images are graphic, I’ve done what I could to clearly indicate which, but if you’re not into it, do what you gotta do.

 

Senior Descendants of Edward III Pt.4

Below is the third family tree of the most senior line of descent from England’s King Edward III (1312 – 1377), through his daughter Isabella—the oldest of his children who left descendants.*

The previous (second) chart began with Jeanne of Bar (1415 – 1462), Edward III’s 2nd-great-granddaughter and her husband, a prince of Luxembourg named Louis. It showed that they had had several kids after the generations between the King Edward III and this Jeanne had tenuously existed, with short-lived parents of only children (shown in the 1st chart). Jeanne’s and Louis’s nice big brood ensured that the senior line of Ed3’s Plantagenet descendants would carry on. The eldest of their kids who had kids themselves—Jacqueline de Luxembourg—married into the wealthy French-Belgian family of de Croÿ. The second chart also showed how four generations down the line, the oldest child was again a daughter—Anne de Croÿ (1563 – 1635), whose marriage to Charles de Ligne (1550 – 1616) brought the massive riches of the Arenberg dynasty into the fold. Their family can be seen in this wild painting to the right and up top. That’s Anne there in the center, senior descendant in the 9th generation from Edward III. That chart concluded with Charles and Anne’s oldest child Philippe-Charles de Ligne d’Arenberg (1587 – 1640), presumably the boy standing in the painting next to dad. Through his dad he was the 3rd Count of Arenberg, and via his mom he was the 6th Duke of Aarschot.

Interestingly, Jacqueline of Luxembourg’s next younger sibling, a brother named Pierre—he and his wife turn out to be ancestors of both the Bourbon kings of France (and later, including now, of Spain) and the Stuart kings of Britain, who lead of course to the Hanover and thus current ruling Windsor family of the the United Kingdom; so ironically, the line ruling England—which, strictly technically, wasn’t the most senior line descended from Edward III did in fact link back into a significantly more senior line, though still not as much as the line from Jacqueline and de Croÿ.

So today’s chart picks up with Philippe-Charles de Ligne d’Arenberg, 6th Duke of Aarschot, 3rd Count of Arenberg. Fascinating guy. For the time period, he seems to have been an open-minded, smart person who cared about people, including his family. He died imprisoned in Spain by the Habsburg’s, whom he had served exceedingly well, but then was blackballed by someone accusing him of plotting against the King (Philip IV).

Two of his three marriages left kids. The first two from the first marriage, like his son Philippe François, 1st Duke of Arenberg, pictured to the left, had kids as well as grandkids. But the lines petered out after not too much time.

From the second marriage and his son Charles Eugene, 2nd Duke of Arenberg, seen to the right, descends the current 13th Duke of Arenberg, Leopold-Engelbert of Arenberg, lower right with his wife. Leo-Engelbert & the Mrs apparently are quite engaged in philanthropy and efforts of European cooperation.

But our designs here are on the Philippe-Charles’ third child, a daughter named once again Jeanne, who sired with her husband Alexandre II de Bournonville, seen with his most bushy hair/wig in this old print to the left, those who carried forward the still most senior descendants of good ole Edward III and the Plantagenets.

And their eldest, Anne-Marie, married back into the de Croÿ family, leading to Emmanuel, seen to the right, who was a Marshall of France and died in Paris just before the Revolution. The line has continued as the de Croÿ-Solre to the present day, with a daughter leading to the most senior descendant having a different name only in the latest generation.

 

Chart No. 3 Tracing Senior Plantagenets

 

________________________
*For those not versed in the topic, the oldest of Edward III’s kids was a son, also named Edward, who died just a year before his dad the king did, and although his son became king in his place when Edward III died, young Richard II had no kids. And though you can find scads of sources for seeing the descent from the sons Lionel, John, Edmund and Thomas—all younger than Isabella—I was surprised not to find any pre-traced documentation of the actual most senior line; this is the 4th part in my sharing there results of discovering who Isabella’s descendants were and are.)