Thursday, December 12, 2013

Nationalism

Ernst Renan had an interesting presentation on Nationalism, stressing that forgetting was necessary in order to forge a nation and keep it together.  It's hard to find on the web.  So here it is:

What is a Nation?

Ernst Renan

What I propose to do today is to analyse with you an idea which, though seemingly clear, lends itself to the most dangerous misunderstandings. [Consider] the vast agglomerations of men found in China, Egypt or ancient Babylonia, the tribes of the Hebrews and the Arabs, the city as it existed in Athens or Sparta, the assemblies of the various territories in the Carolingian Empire, those communities which are without a patrie= and are maintained by a religious bond alone, as is the case with the Israelites and the Parsees, nations, such as France, England and the majority of the modern European sovereign states, confederations, such as exist in Switzerland or in America, and ties, such as those that race, or rather language, establishes between the different branches of the German or Slav peoples. Each of these groupings exist, or have existed, and there would be the direst of consequences if one were to confuse any one of them with any other. At the time of the French Revolution, it was commonly believed that the institutions proper to small, independent cities, such as Sparta and Rome, might be applied to our large nations, which number some thirty or forty million souls. Nowadays, a far graver mistake is made: race is confused with nation and a sovereignty analogous to that of really existing peoples is attributed to ethnographic or, rather linguistic groups.

I want now to try and make these difficult questions somewhat more precise, for the slightest confusion regarding the meaning of words, at the start of an argument, may in the end lead to the most fatal of errors. It is a delicate thing that I propose to do here, somewhat akin to vivisection; I am going to treat the living much as one ordinarily treats the dead. I shall adopt an absolutely cool and impartial attitude.

Since the fall of the Roman Empire or, rather, since the disintegration of Charlemagne's empire, western Europe has seemed to us to be divided into nations, some of which, in certain epochs, have sought to wield a hegemony over the others, without ever enjoying any lasting success. It is hardly likely that anyone in the future will achieve what Charles V. Louis XIV and Napoleon I failed to do. The founding of a new Roman Empire or of a new Carolingian empire would now be impossible. Europe is so divided that any bid for universal domination would very rapidly give rise to a coalition, which would drive any too ambitious nation back to its natural frontiers.' A kind of equilibrium has long been established. France, England, Germany and Russia will, for centuries to come, no matter what may befall them, continue to be individual historical units, the crucial pieces on a chequerboard whose squares will forever vary in importance and size but will never be wholly confused with each other.

Nations, in this sense of the term, are something fairly new in history. Antiquity was unfamiliar with them; Egypt, China and ancient Chaldea were in no way nations. They .were flocks led by a Son of the Sun or by a Son of Heaven. Neither in Egypt nor in China were there citizens as such. Classical antiquity had republics, municipal kingdoms, confederations of local republics and empires, yet it can hardly be said to have had nations in our understanding of the term. Athens, Sparta, Tyre and Sidon were small centres imbued with the most admirable patriotism, but they were [simply] cities with a relatively restricted territory. Gaul, Spain and Italy, prior to their absorption by the Roman Empire, were collections of clans, which were often allied among themselves but had no central institutions and no dynasties. The Assyrian Empire, the Persian Empire and the empire of Alexander the Great were not patries either. There never were any Assyrian patriots, and the Persian Empire was nothing but a vast feudal structure. No nation traces its origins back to Alexander the Great's momentous adventure, fertile though it was in consequences for the general history of civilization.

The Roman Empire was much more nearly a patrie. Roman domination, although at first so harsh, was soon loved, for it had brought about the great benefit of putting an end to war. The empire was a huge association, and a synonym for order. peace and civilization. In its closing stages, lofty souls, enlightened bishops, and the educated classes had a real sense of the Pax Romana, which withstood the threatening chaos of barbarism. But an empire twelve times larger than present-day France cannot be said to be a state in the modern sense of the term. The split between the eastern and western (empires] was inevitable, and attempts at founding an empire in Gaul, in the third century AD, did not succeed either. It was in fact the Germanic invasions which introduced into the world the principle which, later, was to serve as a basis for the existence of nationalities.

What in fact did the German peoples accomplish, from their great invasions in the fifth century AD up until the final Norman conquests in the tenth century? They effected little change in the racial stock, but they imposed dynasties and a military aristocracy upon the more or less extensive parts of the old empire of the west, which assumed the names of their invaders. This was the origin of France, Burgundy, and Lombardy, and, subsequently, Normandy. The Frankish Empire so rapidly extended its sway that, for a period, it re-established the unity of the west, but it was irreparably shattered around the middle of the ninth century; the partition of Verdun' outlined divisions which were in principle immutable and, from then on, France, Germany, England, Italy, and Spain made their way, by often circuitous paths and through a thousand and one vicissitudes, to their full national existence, such as we see it blossoming today.

What in fact is the defining feature of these different states? It is the fusion of their component populations. In the above mentioned countries, there is nothing analogous to what you will find in Turkey, where Turks, Slavs, Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Syrians, and Kurds are as distinct today as they were upon the day that they were conquered. Two crucial circumstances helped to bring about this result. First, the fact that the Germanic peoples adopted Christianity as soon as they underwent any prolonged contact with the Greek or Latin peoples. When conqueror or conquered have the same religion or, rather, when the conqueror adopts the religion of the conquered, the Turkish system - that is, the absolute distinction between men in terms of their religion - can no longer arise. The second circumstance was the forgetting, by the conquerors, of their own language. The grandsons of Clovis, Alaric, Gundebald, Alboin, and Roland were already speaking the Roman tongue. This fact was itself the consequence of another important feature, namely, the fact that the Franks, Burgundians, Goths, Lombards, and Normans had very few women of their own race with them.. For several generations, the chiefs only married German women; but their concubines were Latin, as were the wet-nurses of their children; the tribe as a whole married Latin women; which meant that,.. from the time the Franks and the Goths established themselves on Rgman territory, the lingua ,francica and the lingua gothica did not last too long.

This was not how it was in England, for the invading Saxons undoubtedly brought women with them; the Celtic population took flight, and, besides, Latin was no longer, or rather had never been, dominant in Britain. If Old French had been generally spoken in Gaul in the fifth century Clovis and his people would not have abandoned German for Old French.

The crucial result of all this was that, in spite of the extreme violence of the customs of the German invaders, the mould which they imposed became, with the passing centuries, the actual mould of the nation. `France' became quite legitimately the name of a country to which only a virtually imperceptible minority of Franks had come. In the tenth century, in the first chansons de geste, which are such a perfect mirror of the spirit of the times, all the inhabitants of France are French. The idea, which had seemed so obvious to Gregory of Tours,' that the population of France was composed of different races, was in no way apparent to French writers and poets after Hugh Capet. The difference between noble and serf was as sharply drawn as possible, but it was in no sense presented as an ethnic difference; it was presented rather as a difference in courage, customs, and education, all of which were transmitted hereditarily; it did not occur to anyone that the origin of all this was a conquest. The spurious system according to which nobility owed its origin to a privilege conferred by the king for services rendered to the nation, so that every noble was an ennobled person, was established as a dogma as early as the thirteenth century. The same thing took place after almost all the Norman conquests. After one or two generations, the Norman invaders no longer distinguished themselves from the rest of the population, although their influence was not any less profound because of this fact; they had given the conquered country a nobility, military habits, and a patriotism that they had not known before.

Forgetting, I would even go so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation, which is why progress in historical studies often constitutes a danger for [the principle of] nationality. Indeed, historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origin of all political formations, even of those whose consequences have been altogether beneficial. Unity is always effected by means of brutality; the union of northern France with the Midi was the result of massacres and terror lasting for the best part of a century. Though the king of France was, if I may make so bold as to say, almost the perfect instance of an agent that crystallized (a nation) over a long period; though he established the most perfect national unity that there has ever been, too searching a scrutiny had destroyed his prestige. The nation which he had formed has cursed him, and, nowadays, it is only men of culture who know something of his former value and of his achievements.

It is [only) by contrast that these great laws of the history of western Europe become perceptible to us. Many countries failed to achieve what the King of France, partly through his tyranny, partly through his justice, so admirably brought to fruition. Under the Crown of Saint Stephen, the Magyars and the Slavs have remained as distinct as they were 800 years ago. Far from managing to fuse the diverse [ethnic] elements to be found in its domains, the House of Hapsburg has kept them distinct and often opposed the one to the other. In Bohemia [for instance], the Czech and German elements are superimposed, much like oil and water in a glass. The Turkish policy of separating nationalities according to their religion has had much graver consequences, for it brought about the downfall of the east. If you take a city such as Salonika or Smyrna, you will find there five or six communities each of which has its own memories and which have almost nothing in common. Yet the essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things in common; and also that they have forgotten many things. No French citizen knows whether he is a Burgundian, an Alan, a Taifale, or a Visigoth, yet every French citizen has to have forgotten the massacre of Saint Bartholomew,' or the massacres that took place in the Midi in the thirteenth century. There are not ten families in France that can supply proof of their Frankish origin, and any such proof would anyway be essentially flawed, as a consequence of countless unknown alliances which are liable to disrupt any genealogical system.

The modern nation is therefore a historical result brought about by a series of convergent facts. Sometimes unity has been effected by a dynasty, as was the case in France; sometimes it has been brought about by the direct will of provinces, as was the case with Holland, Switzerland, and Belgium; sometimes it has been the work of a general consciousness, belatedly victorious over the caprices of feudalism, as was the case in Italy and Germany. These formations always had a profound raison d'etre. Principles, in such cases, always emerge through the most unexpected surprises. Thus, in our own day, we have seen Italy unified through its defeats and Turkey destroyed by its victories. Each defeat advanced the cause of Italy; each victory spelled doom for Turkey; for Italy is a nation, and Turkey, outside of Asia Minor, is not one. France can claim the glory for having, through the French Revolution, proclaimed that a nation exists of itself. We should not be displeased if others imitate us in this. It was we who founded the principle of nationality. But what is a nation? Why is Holland a nation, when Hanover, or the Grand Duchy of Parma, are not? How is it that France continues to be a nation, when the principle which created it has disappeared? How is it that Switzerland, which has three languages, two religions, and three or four races, is a nation, when Tuscany, which is so homogeneous, is not one? Why is Austria a state and not a nation? In what ways does the principle of nationality differ from that of races? These are points that a thoughtful person would wish to have settled, in order to put his mind at rest. The affairs of this world can hardly be said to be ruled by reasonings of this sort, yet diligent men are desirous of bringing some reason into these matters and of unravelling the confusions in which superficial intelligences are entangled:

II

If one were to believe some political theorists, a nation is above all a dynasty, representing an earlier conquest, one which was first of all accepted, and then forgotten by the mass of the people. According to the above-mentioned theorists, the grouping of provinces effected by a dynasty, by its wars, its marriages, and its treaties, ends with the dynasty which had established it. It is quite true that the majority of modern nations were made by a family of feudal origin, which had contracted a marriage with the soil and which was in some sense a nucleus of centralization. France's frontiers in 1789 had nothing either natural or necessary about them. The wide zone that the House of Capet had added to the narrow strip of land granted by the partition of Verdun was indeed the personal acquisition of this House. During the epoch when these acquisitions were made, there was no idea of natural frontiers, nor of the rights of nations, nor of the will of provinces. The union of England, Ireland, and Scotland was likewise a dynastic fact. Italy only tarried so long before becoming a nation because, among its numerous reigning houses, none, prior to the present century, constituted itself as the centre of [its] unity, Strangely enough, it was through the obscure island of Sardinia, a land that was scarcely Italian, that [the house of Savoy] assumed a royal title.' Holland, which - through an act of heroic resolution - created itself, has nevertheless contracted an intimate marriage with the House of Orange, and it will run real dangers the day this union is compromised.

Is such a law, however, absolute? It undoubtedly is not. Switzerland and the United States, which have formed themselves, like conglomerates, by successive additions, have no dynastic basis. I shall not discuss this question in relation to France, for I would need to be able to read the secrets of the future in order to do so. Let me simply say that so loftily national had this great French royal principle been that, on the morrow of its fall, the nation was able to stand without her. Furthermore, the eighteenth century had changed everything. Man had returned, after centuries of abasement, to the spirit of antiquity, to [a sense of respect for himself, to the idea of his own rights. The words patrie and citizen had recovered their former meanings. Thus it was that the boldest operation ever yet put into effect in history was brought to completion, an operation which one might compare with the attempt, in physiology, to restore to its original identity a body from which one had removed the brain and the heart.

It must therefore be admitted that a nation can exist without a dvnastic principle, and even that nations which have been formed by dynasties can be separated from them without therefore ceasing to exist. The old principle, which only takes account of the right of princes, could no longer be maintained; apart from dynastic right, there is also national right. Upon what criterion, however, should one base this national right? By what sign should one know it? From what tangible fact can one derive it?

Several confidently assert that it is derived from race. The artificial divisions, resulting from feudalism, from princely marriages, from diplomatic congresses are, [these authors assert], in a state of decay. It is a population's race which remains firm and fixed. This is what constitutes a right, a legitimacy. The Germanic family, according to the theory I am expounding here, has the right to reassemble the scattered limbs of the Germanic order, even when these limbs are not asking to be joined together again. The right of the Germanic order over such-and-such a province is stronger than the right of the inhabitants of that province over themselves. There is thus created a kind of primordial right analogous to the divine right of kings; an ethnographic principle is substituted for a national one. This is a very great error, which, if it were to become dominant, would destroy European civilization. The primordial right of races is as narrow and as perilous for genuine progress as the national principle is just and legitimate.

In the tribes and cities of antiquity, the fact of race was, I will allow, of very real importance. The tribe and the city were then merely extensions of the family. At Sparta and at Athens all the citizens were kin to a greater or lesser degree. The same was true of the Beni-Israelites; this is still the case with the Arab tribes. If we move now from Athens, Sparta, and the Israelite tribe to the Roman Empire the situation is a wholly different one. Established at first through violence but subsequently preserved through [common] interest, this great agglomeration of cities and provinces, wholly different from each other, dealt the gravest of blows to the idea of race. Christianity, with its universal and absolute character, worked still more effectively in the same direction; it formed an intimate alliance with the Roman Empire and, through the impact of these two incomparable unificatory agents, the ethnographic argument was debarred from the government of human affairs for centuries.

The barbarian invasions were, appearances notwithstanding, a further step along this same path. The carving out of the barbarian kingdoms had nothing ethnographic about them, their (shape] was determined by the might or whim of the invaders. They were utterly indifferent to the race of the populations which they had subdued. What Rome had fashioned, Charlemagne refashioned in his own way, namely, a single empire composed of the most diverse races; those responsible for the partition of Verdun, as they calmly drew their two long lines from north to south, were not in the slightest concerned with the race of the peoples to be found on the right or left of these lines. Frontier changes put into effect, as the Middle Ages wore on, likewise paid no heed to ethnographic divisions. If the policies pursued by the House of Capet by and large resulted in the grouping together, under the name of France, of the territories of ancient Gaul, this was only because these lands had a natural tendency to be joined together with their fellows. Dauphine, Bresse, Provence, and Franche-Comte no longer recalled any common origin. All Gallic consciousness had perished by the second century AD, and it is only from a purely scholarly perspective that, in our own days, the individuality of the Gallic character has been retrospectively recovered.

Ethnographic considerations have therefore played no part in the constitution of modern nations. France is [at once] Celtic, Iberic, and Germanic. Germany is Germanic, Celtic and Slav. Italy is the country where the ethnographic argument is most confounded. Gauls, Etruscans, Pelasgians, and Greeks, not to mention many other elements, intersect in an indecipherable mixture. The British isles, considered as a whole, present a mixture of Celtic and Germanic blood, the proportions of which are singularly difficult to define.

The truth is that there is no pure race and that to make politics depend upon ethnographic analysis is to surrender it to a chimera. The noblest countries, England, France, and Italy, are those where the blood is the most mixed. Is Germany an exception in this respect? Is it a purely Germanic country? This is a complete illusion. The whole of the south was once Gallic; the whole of the east, from the river Elbe on, is Slav. Even those parts which are claimed to be really pure, are they in fact so? We touch here on one of those problems in regard to which it is of the utmost importance that we equip ourselves with clear ideas and ward off misconceptions.

Discussions of race are interminable, because philologically- minded historians and physiologically-minded anthropologists interpret the term in two totally different ways.' For the anthropologists, race has the same meaning as in zoology; it serves to indicate real descent, a blood relation. However, the study of language and of history does not lead to the same divisions as does physiology. Words such as brachycephalic or dolichocephalic have no place in either history or philology. In the human group which created the Aryan languages and way of life, there were already [both] brachycephalics and dolichocephalics. The same is true of the primitive group which created the languages and institutions known as Semitic. In other words, the zoological origins of humanity are massively prior to the origins of culture, civilization, and language. The primitive Aryan, primitive Semitic, and primitive Touranian groups had no physiological unity. These groupings are historical facts, which took place in a particular epoch, perhaps 15,000 or 20,000 years ago, while the zoological origin of humanity is lost in impenetrable darkness. What is known philologically and historically as the Germanic race is no doubt a quite distinct family within the human species, but is it a family in the anthropological sense of the term? Certainly not. The emergence of an individual Germanic identity occurred only a few centuries prior to Jesus Christ. One may take it that the Germans did not emerge from the earth at this epoch. Prior to this, mingled with the Slavs in the huge indistinct mass of the Scythians, they did not have their own separate individuality. An Englishman is indeed a type within the whole of humanity. However, the type of what is quite improperly called the Anglo-Saxon race" is neither the Briton of Julius Caesar's time, nor the Anglo-Saxon of Hengist's time, nor the Dane of Canute's time, nor the Norman of William the Conqueror's time; it is rather the result of all these [elements]. A Frenchman is neither a Gaul, nor a Frank, nor a Burgundian. Rather, he is what has emerged out of the cauldron in which, presided over by the King of France, the most diverse elements have together been simmering. A native of Jersey or Guernsey differs in no way, as far as his origins are concerned, from the Norman population of the opposite coast. In the eleventh century, even the sharpest eye would have seen not the slightest difference in those living on either side of the Channel. Trifling circumstances meant that Philip Augustus did not seize these islands together with the rest of Normandy. Separated from each other for the best part of 700 years, the two populations have become not only strangers to each other but wholly dissimilar. Race, as we historians understand it, is therefore something which is made and unmade. The study of race is of crucial importance for the scholar concerned with the history of humanity. It has no applications, however, in politics. The instinctive consciousness which presided over the construction of the map of Europe took no account of race, and the leading nations of Europe are nations of essentially mixed blood.

The fact of race, which was originally crucial, thus becomes increasingly less important. Human history is essentially different from zoology, and race is not everything, as it is among the rodents or the felines, and one does not have the right to go through the world fingering people's skulls, and taking them by the throat saying: 'You are of our blood; you belong to us!' Aside from anthropological characteristics, there are such things as reason, justice, the true, and the beautiful, which are the same for all. Be on your guard, for this ethnographic politics is in no way a stable thing and, if today you use it against others, tomorrow you may see it turned against yourselves. Can you be sure that the Germans, who have raised the banner of ethnography so high, will not see the Slavs in their turn analyse the names of villages in Saxony and Lusatia, search for any traces of the Wiltzes or of the Obotrites, and demand recompense for the massacres and the wholesale enslavements that the Ottoss inflicted upon their ancestors? It is good for everyone to know how to forget.

I am very fond of ethnography, for it is a science of rare interest; but, in so far as I would wish it to be free, I wish it to be without political application. In ethnography, as in all forms of study, systems change; this is the condition of progress. States' frontiers would then follow the fluctuations of science. Patriotism would depend upon a more or less paradoxical dissertation. One would come up to a patriot and say: 'You were mistaken; you shed your blood for such-and-such a cause; you believed yourself to be a Celt; not at all, you are a German.' Then, ten years later, you will be told that you are a Slav. If we are not to distort science, we should exempt it from the need to give an opinion on these problems, in which so many interests are involved. You can be sure that, if one obliges science to furnish diplomacy with its first principles, one will surprise her many times in flagrant delit. She has better things to do; let us simply ask her to tell the truth.

What we have just said of race applies to language too. Language invites people to unite, but it does not force them to do so. The United States and England, Latin America and Spain, speak the same languages yet do not form single nations. Conversely, Switzerland, so well made, since she was made with the consent of her different parts, numbers three or four languages. There is something in man which is superior to language, namely, the will. The will of Switzerland to be united, in spite of the diversity of her dialects, is a fact of far greater importance than a similitude often obtained by various vexatious measures.

An honourable fact about France is that she has never sought to win unity of language by coercive measures. Can one not have the same sentiments and the same thoughts, and love the same things in different languages? I was speaking just now of the disadvantages of making international politics depend upon ethnography; they would be no less if one were to make it depend upon comparative philology. Let us allow these intriguing studies full freedom of discussion; let us not mix them up with matters which would undermine their serenity. The political importance attaching to languages derives from their being regarded as signs of race. Nothing could be more false. Prussia, where only German is now spoken; spoke Slav a few centuries ago; in Wales, English is spoken; Gaul and Spain speak the primitive dialects of Alba Longa; Egypt speaks Arabic; there are countless other examples one could quote. Even if you go back to origins, similarity of language did not presuppose similarity of race. Consider, for example the proto-Aryan or proto-Semitic tribe: there one found slaves speaking the same language as their masters, and yet the slave was often enough a different race to that of his master. Let me repeat that these divisions of the Indo-European, Semitic, or other languages, created with such admirable sagacity by comparative philology, do not coincide with the divisions established by anthropology. Languages are historical formations, which tell us very little about the blood of those who speak them and which, in any case, could not shackle human liberty when it is a matter of deciding the family with which one unites oneself for life or for death.

This exclusive concern with language, like an excessive preoccupation with race, has its dangers and its drawbacks. Such exaggerations enclose one within a specific culture, considered as national; one limits oneself, one hems oneself in. One leaves the heady air that one breathes in the vast field of humanity in order to enclose oneself in a conventicle with one's compatriots. Nothing could be worse for the mind; nothing could be more disturbing for civilization. Let us not abandon the fundamental principle that man is a reasonable and moral being, before he is cooped up in such and such a language, before he is a member of such and such a race, before he belongs to such and such a culture. Before French, German, or Italian culture there is human culture. Consider the great men of the Renaissance; they were neither French, nor Italian, nor German. They had rediscovered, through their dealings with antiquity, the secret of the genuine education of the human spirit, and they devoted themselves to it body and soul. What an achievement theirs was!

Religion cannot supply an adequate basis for the constitution of a modern nationality either. Originally, religion had to do with the very existence of the social group, which was itself an extension of the family. Religion and the rites were family rites. The religion of Athens was the cult of Athens itself, of its mythical founders, of its laws and its customs; it implied no theological dogma. This religion was, in the strongest sense of the term, a state religion. One was not an Athenian if one refused to practise it. This religion was, fundamentally, the cult of the Acropolis personified. To “swear on the altar of Aglauros" was to swear that one would die for the patrie. This religion was the equivalent of what the act of drawing lots [for military service], or the cult of the flag, is for us. Refusing to take part in such a cult would be the equivalent, in our modern societies, of refusing military service. It would be like declaring that one was not Athenian. From another angle, it is clear that such a cult had no meaning for someone who was not from Athens; there was also no attempt made to proselytize foreigners and to force them to accept it; the slaves of Athens did not practise it. Things were much the same in a number of small medieval republics. One was not considered a good Venetian if one did not swear by Saint Mark; nor a good Amalfitan if one did not set Saint Andrew higher than all the other saints in paradise. In these small societies, what subsequently was regarded as persecution or tyranny was legitimate and was of no more consequence than our custom of wishing the father of a family happy birthday or a Happy New Year.

The state of affairs in Sparta and in Athens already no longer existed in the kingdoms which emerged from Alexander's conquest, still less in the Roman Empire. The persecutions unleashed by Antiochus Epiphanes in order to win the east for the cult of Jupiter Olympus, those of the Roman Empire designed to maintain a supposed state religion were mistaken, criminal, and absurd. In our own time, the situation is perfectly clear. There are no longer masses that believe in a perfectly uniform manner. Each person believes and practises in his own fashion what he is able to and as he wishes. There is no longer .a state religion; one can be French, English, or German, and be either Catholic, Protestant, or orthodox Jewish, or else practise no cult at all. Religion has become an individual matter; it concerns the conscience of each person. The division of nations into Catholics and Protestants no longer exists. Religion, which, fiftytwo years ago, played so substantial a part in the formation of Belgium, preserves all of its [former] importance in the inner tribunal of each; but it has ceased almost entirely to be one of the elements which serve to define the frontiers of peoples.

A community of interest is assuredly a powerful bond between men. Do interests, however, suffice to make a nation? I do not think so. Community of interest brings about trade agreements, but nationality has a sentimental -side to it; it is both soul and body at once; a Zollverein' is not a patrie.

Geography, or what are known as natural frontiers, undoubtedly plays a considerable part in the division of nations. Geography is one of the crucial factors in history. Rivers have led races on; mountains have brought them to a halt. The former have favoured movement in history, whereas the latter have restricted it. Can one say, however, that as some parties believe, a nation's frontiers are written on the, map and that this nation has the right to judge what is necessary to round off certain contours, in order to reach such and such a mountain and such and such a river, which are thereby accorded a kind of a priori limiting faculty? I know of no doctrine which is more arbitrary or more fatal, for it allows one to justify any or every violence. First of all, is it the mountains or the rivers that we should regard as fanning these so-called natural frontiers? It is indisputable that the mountains separate, but the rivers tend rather to unify. Moreover, all mountains cannot divide up states. Which serve to separate and which do not? From Biarritz to Tornea, there is no one estuary which is more suited than any other to serving as a boundary marker. Had history so decreed it, the Loire, the Seine, the Meuse, the Elbe, or the Oder could, just as easily as the Rhine, have had this quality of being a natural frontier, such as has caused so many infractions of the most fundamental right, which is men's will. People talk of strategic grounds. Nothing, however, is absolute; it is quite clear that many concessions should be made to necessity. But these concessions should not be taken too far. Otherwise, everybody would lay claim to their military conveniences, and one would have unceasing war. No, it is no more soil than it is race which makes a nation. The soil furnishes the substratum, the field of struggle and of labour; man furnishes the soul. Man is everything in the formation of this sacred thing which is called a people. Nothing [purely] material suffices for it. A nation is a spiritual principle, the outcome of the profound complications of history; it is a spiritual family not a group determined by the shape of the earth. We have now seen what things are not adequate for the creation of such a spiritual principle, namely, race, language, material interest, religious affinities, geography, and military necessity. What more then is required? As a consequence of what was said previously, I will not have to detain you very much longer.

III

A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. Two things, which in truth are but one, constitute this soul or spiritual principle. One lies in the past, one in the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present-day consent, the desire to live together, the will to perpetuate the value of the heritage that one has received in an undivided form. Man, Gentlemen, does not improvise. The nation, like the individual, is the culmination of a long past of endeavours, sacrifice, and devotion. Of all cults, that of the ancestors is the most legitimate, for the ancestors have made us what we are. A heroic past, great men, glory (by which I understand genuine glory), this is the social capital upon which one bases a national idea. To have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present; to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more - these are the essential conditions for being a people. One loves in proportion to the sacrifices to which one has consented, and in proportion to the ills that one has suffered. One loves the house that one has built and that one has handed down. The Spartan song -'We are what you were; we will be what you are" 3 - is, in its simplicity, the abridged hymn of every patrie.

More valuable by far than common customs posts and frontiers conforming to strategic ideas is the fact of sharing, in the past, a glorious heritage and regrets, and of having, in the future, [a shared] programme to put into effect, or the fact of having suffered, enjoyed, and hoped together. These are the kinds of things that can be understood in spite of differences of race and language. I spoke just now of 'having suffered together' and, indeed, suffering in common unifies more than joy does. Where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties, and require a common effort.

A nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifices that one has made in the past and of those that one is prepared to make in the future. It presupposes a past; it is summarized, however, in the present by a tangible fact, namely, consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue a common life. A nation's existence is, if you will pardon the metaphor, a daily plebiscite, just as an individual's existence is a perpetual affirmation of life. That, I know full well, is less metaphysical than divine right and less brutal than so-called historical right. According to the ideas that I am outlining to you, a nation has no more right than a king does to say to a province: 'You belong to me, I am seizing you.' A province, as far as 1 am concerned, is its inhabitants; if anyone has the right to be consulted in such an affair, it is the inhabitant. A nation never has any real interest in annexing or holding on to a country against its will. The wish of nations is, all in all, the sole legitimate criterion, the one to which one must always return.

We have driven metaphysical and theological abstractions out of politics. What then remains? Man, with his desires and his needs. The secession, you will say to me, and, in the long term, the disintegration of nations will be the outcome of a system which places these old organisms at the mercy of wills which are often none too enlightened. It is clear that, in such matters, no principle must be pushed too far. Truths of this order are only applicable as a whole in a very general fashion. Human wills change, but what is there here below that does not change? The nations are not something eternal. They had their beginnings and they will end. A European confederation will very probably replace them. But such is not the law of the century in which we are living. At the present time, the existence of nations is a good thing, a necessity even. Their existence is the guarantee of liberty, which would be lost if the world had only one law and only one master.

Through their various and often opposed powers, nations participate in the common work of civilization; each sounds a note in the great concert of humanity, which, after all, is the highest ideal reality that we are capable of attaining. Isolated, each has its weak point. I often tell myself that an individual who had those faults which in nations are taken for good qualities, who fed off vainglory, who was to that degree jealous, egotistical, and quarrelsome, and who would draw his sword on the smallest pretext, would be the most intolerable of men. Yet all these discordant details disappear in the overall context. Poor humanity, how you have suffered! How many trials still await you! May the spirit of wisdom guide you, in order to preserve you from the countless dangers with which your path is strewn!

Let me sum up, Gentlemen. Man is a slave neither of his race nor his language, nor of his religion, nor of the course of rivers nor of the direction taken by mountain chains. A large aggregate of men, healthy in mind and warm of heart, creates the kind of moral conscience which we call a nation. So long as this moral consciousness gives proof of its strength by the sacrifices which demand the abdication of the individual to the advantage of the community, it is legitimate and has the right to exist. If doubts arise regarding its frontiers, consult the populations in the areas under dispute. They undoubtedly have the right to a say in the matter. This recommendation will bring a smile to the lips of the transcendants of politics, these infallible beings who spend their lives deceiving themselves and who, from the height of their superior principles, take pity upon our mundane concerns. `Consult the populations, for heaven's sake! How naive! A fine example of those wretched French ideas which claim to replace diplomacy and war by childishly simple methods.' Wait a while, Gentlemen; let the reign of the transcendants pass; bear the scorn of the powerful with patience. It may be that, after many fruitless gropings, people will revert to our more modest empirical solutions. The best way of being right in the future is, in certain periods, to know how to resign oneself to being out of fashion.

Notes

(Notes followed by an asterisk are the translator's.)

A lecture delivered at the Sorbonne, 11 March 1882. 'Qu'est-ce qu'une nation%', Oeuvres Completes (Paris, 1947-61), vol. I, pp. 887-907. An earlier translation, which I have consulted, is in A. Zimmern (ed.), Modern Political Doctrines (London, 1939), pp. 186-205.

2* I have left patrie in the original French because it seems to me that to translate it into another European (or, indeed, non-European) language would be to eliminate the kinds of association the term had, in a very large number of countries, throughout the epoch of liberal-democratic nationalism. Parrie draws with it a whole cluster of complex and interlocking references to the values of the patria of classical republicanism. For an observer like Marx, these values were destroyed forever in the black farce of 1848. In another sense, as Marx's arguments in The Eighteenth Brumaire allow, they continued to influence the leaders of liberal, nationalist revolutions throughout the nineteenth century - although, obviously, if one were to phrase it in Italian terms, the Cavourian moderate rather than the Mazzinian or Garibaldian radical wing. It may be worth noting that, in the domain of scholarship, Fustel de Coulanges' The Ancient City (1864), a study which profoundly influenced Emile Durkheim and which Renan himself had very probably read, shattered the vision of classical republicanism which men such as Robespierre and Saint Just had entertained.

The doctrine of natural frontiers was given its definitive formulation in the course of the French Revolution, and was subsequently applied to other European countries, such as Germany or Italy; it was this doctrine that fuelled the irredentist movements of the second half of the nineteenth century. Justification of territorial claims often rested upon the interpretation of classical texts, such as Tacitus's Germania or Dante's Commedia.

4* The partition of Verdun (AD 843) ended a period of civil war within the Frankish -Empire, during which the grandsons of Charlemagne had fought each other. Two of the newly created kingdoms, that of Charles the Bald (843-77) and that of Louis the German (843-76), bear some resemblance, in territorial terms, to modern France and modern Germany. Furthermore, much has been made of the linguistic qualities of the Oaths of Strasbourg, sworn by Louis and Charles to each other's armies, in Old French and Old High German respectively. This has often been regarded as the first text in a Romance language (as distinct from Latin) and, by extension, as the first symbolic appearance of the French (and German) nations.

5* 'Gregory of Tours (c. X39-94) was a Gallo-Roman and Bishop of Tours from 573 to 594. His History of the Franks is an account of life in Merovingian Gaul.

6* Upon the occasion of the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, in 1572, many thousands of Huguenots were killed. This was an event with momentous repercussions for the history of France in general, and for the development of political theory in particular.

7 The House of Savoy owes its royal title to its acquisition of Sardinia (17?0).

8* The Pelasgians were believed, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to

have been the original inhabitants of Italy.

9 I enlarged upon this point in a lecture, which is analysed in the Bulletin of the Association scienrifique de France, 10 March 1878, 'Des services rendus aux Sciences historiques par la Philologie'.

10 Germanic elements are not more considerable in the United Kingdom than when they were in France, when she had possession of Alsace and Metz. If the Germanic language has dominated in the British isles, it was simply because Latin had not wholly replaced the Celtic languages, as it had done in Gaul.

11 Aglauros, who gave her life to save her patrie, represents the Acropolis itself.

12* Zollverein is the German word for customs union. Both participants in bourgeois, national revolutions and later commentators emphasize the relation between the nationalist cause and free trade within a single territory. However, E.J. Hobsbawm's comments, on pp. 166-8 of The Age of Revolution (London, 1962), shed some light upon Renan's aphorism, in that the vanguard of European nationalism in the 1830s and 1840s was not so much the business class as 'the lower and middle professional, administrative and intellectual strata, in ocher words, the educated classes'. At another level,

335

 

 


 Renan's observation reflects his shock at the defeat of France by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian war, which is expressed in both major and occasional writings.

13* Such epitaphs were part of the habitual repertoire of early-nineteenth century nationalism, as Leopardi's 'patriotic' canzoni make plain.

336

 

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Bismarck and Social Security



Bismarck has a well- founded reputation as the innovator of a social security system.  This link gives some idea of his contribution to, or, if you're against Social Security, his role in the destruction of civil society.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/ottob.html

Friday, November 15, 2013

Book Proposal

Starting to put together a formal book proposal, using advice from the web and other published authors.  It's oddly difficult to be convincing.  This is necessary, though, to face the facts:  I've never published a book.  I have no formal training in history or historical fiction writing.  I'm a lawyer, trained in a somewhat artificial style, unused to belles lettres.
On the plus side, I have a good idea, fully fleshed out to at least 500 pages.  I checked and lots of writers have written on aspects of the events of 1870. No one has written a book that puts all those events together and examines their implications for today's world.  And, last but not least, I'm a lawyer, writing every day and trained in staying on point and delivering work on time.  
As to the topic, I've been reading and studying about European history for about ten years, including several trips to Europe, the battlefield at Sedan, Rome, Paris.  I speak French pretty well, read it better and have some proficiency in Italian, German and Russian.  
So I am looking forward to making up a plausible proposal with the needed chapter drafts.

I will endeavour to persevere.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Alternate History

I spent some time figuring out what would have happened right up to today if 1870 hadn't happened the way it did.  Convincing?  For rank speculation, I suppose so!
Plausible, though, right up to the EU.  I am encouraged by the robustness (antifragility?) of the counter-concept.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Marshalling my forces

It's been a while!

I've now finished the draft manuscript of the first part of the 1870 series, called "A Little Gleam of Light".

It deals with the experiences of a young soldier in the French Army after the battle of Sedan in September 1870. The battle was a catastrophe for the French. Robert, our hero, fled to Paris after barely escaping from the bloodbath. The Germans were right behind him.

My enthusiasm for 1870 as a focus for an epic came from a sudden realization that many linked events that affected world history occurred in 1870. Events were set in action that led to the creation of the German Empire, the destruction of Imperial France under Napoleon III, the restriction of the possessions and powers of the Pope, the unification of Italy as a limited monarchy and the rise of Revolution as a power that would not quit despite the failure of the Paris Commune to achieve state control.

I took a trip to Europe to see the places and soak up the atmosphere of the times when the events I relate took place. The first book happens mostly in Paris. But the little eastern French town of Sedan is also connected. So I went there. The train trip from Paris

On September 4, 1870, at Sedan, something  happened that may never happen again in the history of the world. An Emperor of a major power was captured in battle. Napoleon III surrendered his sword and his army to Otto von Bismarck himself, the personification of what was soon to become the German Empire. Arguably Bismarck was even more important to the success of that Empire than the Emperor.

I walked around Sedan for a few days, taking notes and photographs. Climbing the nearby hill from which the German generals watched the ill-fated French cavalry charges plunged me into the feelings that I imagined the soldiers and journalists of that last day must have felt. Seeing the immense fort in which nearly an entire French army was battered and blasted to pieces by German artillery gave me an intense sensation of the changes that had come about in war since the first Napoleonic era. The time of the machine gun and high explosives had arrived with a vengeance in the heart of Europe.




Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Maps and charts and images

I can tell I have a lot to learn about putting images, maps and charts and graphs in my book.  For instance, this image goes fine in this blog post:

(Although I'm not quite sure how to get beyond it!) In Word or in "Pages" on my iPad, though, it seems difficult to handle, unpredictable.

Here's an image:

Or, rather, here isn't an image because it won't transfer.  I'm doing something wrong.  More work needed.  I guess I should leave this to the experts.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Putting it all together

Putting things together for the first time for 1870.  Quite exciting.  Still a long way to go.  But it feels like it all goes together.  I've left some room for my opinions, not just history.

Now to gather some maps, some more images, maybe a few charts.  Engage every sense.

Preface

Doing an Introduction or a Preface or a Foreword - subtle distinctions - is much harder than a continuing historical or fictional narrative.  It has to set up the story and "pre-qualify" the reader.  I don't want anyone even trying to read my book who isn't a good fit for it - that is, who isn't historically literate and highly skeptical, especially of sacred cows such as the Enlightenment.  And I want to give an  accurate idea of what's contained and what great ideas may be contained.  Tantalize and excite but don't give everything away - that's the idea!

Pictures - maybe some maps and graphs - would seem to be vital.  My gosh, but a book is a lot of work.  Lots less with the Internet, though.

Football's coming on TV today, but I'll still get some stuff done. 

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Some sort of winding up

It almost feel like I'm sort of finished.  I have my scheme complete.  I need more polishing, more editing, more debugging, as the tech guys would say.


Here's the progress of Prussia towards the German Reich:

I feel like these guys:
Taking a break but with so much more to do:

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Finale

Matching up events of 1870 with the future. World War I looks interesting.  The fall of Four Empires.  Only Germany came out intact.  Well, Russia, too, I suppose.  I need to make sure a good sharp line exists connecting events of 1870 with Twentieth Century disasters.  Plenty of those.


Bismarck - Flag                                              Bismarck and Napoleon III

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Hoffer

Cited a few bits from Eric Hoffer's books "The Ordeal of Change" and "The True Believer" today to get me started on more analysis of the effect of the Commune on social movements. 

Then I found a post by David Warren that got me going on the implications of socialism, nationalism and democracy.  It seems that everywhere I look these days I see references to the Commune, or to something that could have been affected by the Commune, or Napoleon III or Pio Nono or Garibaldi or Bismarck.  I know, that could be happening because I am, quite unknowingly, looking for that sort of reference.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Into the Summary

Now is the summary of our discontent.  Turned into glorious winter by the breezy sun of October.

Plowing the fields of wordy chapters organizing the materials without which one cannot possibly understand the jubilee year of 1870.

Part summary, part flats

Doing 2500 on one project and 500 (ok, a thousand) on another keeps life interesting.  Now when the imagination flags on one project, I can just switch!

I'm starting to get a point of view together, especially on the Commune.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Summary rolling along

Got into art, religion, literature, music and other forms of culture today.  All in search of echoing repercussions from the annus mirabilis!

European Apartments

Starting a pamphlet or e-book on how to save money in Europe by renting an Apartment instead of living in a hotel room.  A limited audience, to be sure, increased by all those dreamers who may not be ready to make the big trip for some years.  They want to be informed and enthused.  Ah, window-shopping!  One of the great pleasures of life!

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Deep into the not-so-summery Summary

Explaining why 1870 was so important is more difficult, but far more interesting to me, than telling what happened.  I have to roll things forward and see what traces still remain of that fateful year.

And I have to try not to stretch things too far, to hypothesize, to assume.  The evidence is everywhere, if you look for it.  And maybe from this analysis we can pick up some clues as to how to avoid another century like the Twentieth.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Finished with Roger and Saville

Finally put all the raw material in place for the Commune segment.  Got Roger and Saville married up and out of the city.

Started on the summary section.  Hmm.  This could be more difficult than I thought.  I'm pretty set on it being 100 pages (~50,000 words)  At 3000 words a day, though, that won't take long.

Themes:  Nationalism, technological change, colonization, international relations, and cultural changes.  How 1870 sprang from and affected the past and the future is the overarching analysis.  Was it really a turning point?  How so?  Evidence?  Argument?  Judgment.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Trying still to end the story

Not always easy to wrap up a story.  Now Jeanette has to go and die.  Gee whillikers!  Maybe that's the only way to end this thing, to kill off all the characters!

Did 4K yesterday, between work and school.  Busy at work, too, with Selph-ian razzmatazz.  Only attorney available.  Wish I had a secretary to keep track of my assignments so I could do more thinking.  That's what's really valuable and takes a lot of time.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Writing more and enjoying it more

So I rolled right along today, getting "A little gleam of light" back to its origins.  Which means wrapping it up, I guess.  I need a little imagination injection.  But I always rely on my characters for that.  I have every confidence in the originality and creativity of Jeanette and the Marquis, Roger and Saville, old M. Devereaux.  Too bad Jean and Madame l'Enfer had to die.  I wasn't exactly expecting that, but it seemed to flow from events.  I guess I should post up a "spoiler alert".  But that wouldn't be any fun.  So I won't

Monday, October 14, 2013

Writing in a car

Wrote my 3000 words today in a bouncing, swerving car on route 10 out to Okaloosa County.  Somewhat upsetting, but it worked.  Vertigo threatens.  But the Commune is really coming crashing down in my fictional setting.  The lady in red is a horrific production.  Where did she come from?

Saturday, October 12, 2013

The Marquis makes an appearance

Got Robert into the idea of abandoning the Commune.  Got into the street plan of Paris, following my characters around.  Sometimes it just flows.

It's challenging to describe the mood of the Commune as it changes.  Sometimes I feel like Proust. 

Friday, October 11, 2013

Back to Robert (Roger) du Vin

Dashed off an easy 3000 words following Robert and Jean through the streets of Paris.  The Commune's about had it.  My long-term dream is coming true, though.  A connected narrative setting out themes of the Commune.  The difference between straight history and historical fiction is like that between poetry and music.  History rhymes, has rhythm.  But historical fiction sings in tune!  Writing resembles composing a symphony (how would I know!  I merely imagine).

Thursday, October 10, 2013

I get indignant

I wrappedup the Commune today.  Reading over the mareials, I just got madder and madder about the Commune and the destruction and bloodshed it brought to Paris.  So I wrote and wrote to get out the analysis that was beating in my head.  I think this will form the basis of my critique of radicalism in general.  It is, of course, a radical critique, since the idiot leftists have apotheosized the Commune for 150+ years.  Not I.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

The Commune gets serious

Drawing a true but not too dramatic picture of the Commune takes some skill.  The whole bizarre and tragic episode was inherently dramatic.

It was a car wreck in slow motion.  The three part dace of te Government, the Commune and the Germans was and is fascinating.  I wonder if tere will ever be anything ike it again?

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Napoleon 3 and the newspapers and the radicals

The more I read, the more I understand that Napoleon 3 was obsessed with Bismarck.  And with his own uncle, which is understandable.

Lots of info today and speculation just flowed.  By 1869, though, France was a fermenting vat of different kinds of politics.  I do try to put myself in Napoleon's head.  Tomorrow or Thursday I should be getting to Sedan.  I need to read over my other materials.  I might have already done this.  But hey, there would be a first - the same material covered from a different point of view, with the same narrator!

Monday, October 7, 2013

Dreams of Grandeur in French America

Typing in the last of the notebook on Napoleon III's thoughts on his life.  Just got up to Mexico today, then it stopped, at, I believe 59 hand-written pages.  He did spark off some odd thoughts, though, about how deeply France had been involved in the New World since Cartier and La Verendrye.  The Louisiana Purchase is probably still regretted by some Frenchmen.  Who knows where that would have led?  Combine it with the Mexican Empire under French control and you've really got something.  Almost justifies the Monroe Doctrine.  I'll have to look in Google Books to resurrect my sources 

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Much more Napoleon

A lot more than I thought of Napoleon to transcribe.  Probaby another couple of days.  Lots of good quotes.  Napoleon had a lot of ideas, not all of them good.  Mexico, for example.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

More direct Napoleon

Transcribing this old material, written in the first person by my concept of Napoleon III, shows how my understanding of the history has not changed much.  But some of the notes I found I have no idea where they came from.  But I'll track them down.  I haven't been working on this book for six years or more to worry about a few references whose acronyms I don't remember.

Wondering about CreateSpace for publishing.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Transcribing Napoleon

Transferring Napoleon from pen and paper to electrons is a step forward,and not as burdensome as writing from scratch.  Ideas are still relevant, even fom several years ago.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

First blood in the Commune

The Commune launched itself in massive confusion.  I tried to pick up all the good stuff from each of my sources.  And maybe add some cool insights.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Book to book

A new insight bubbles up from in between the stories told of the same events by three books, one in French.  Heck, they  quote from each other, why should I not quote them?  

The trick I am beginning to get is to see everything that happens the way that each character sees it.  And not to worry about who's right.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Starting the Commune

I didn't start the Commune!  Hey, that's Billy Joel, right?! (fake interrabang)  Ah, Billy Joel, the worst piano player who never should have started to sing.  And there's some competition there, believe me!

I think I'm getting the idea of this blitz writing, though.  Shifting from one source to another in between phone calls, pretty good.  Fact-based, entirely.

Bismarck is the guy who always pokes his head up wherever in 1870 I go.  Maybe my next book needs to be about him.  Or BY him!  There's the ticket!

History does get in the way of building a narrative, though.  It always horns in with, "No, that's not the way it really was!"  At least when you're writing about the future it never kicks over the traces to say, "That could never happen in a million years!"  And if the future did stick its busybody nose in like that, you could always change things to start out, "A miilion and one years from now ... "   Am I right?   !

Monday, September 30, 2013

On to the Commune

Lots of speculation today about the Siege and the genesis of the Commune.  Learning things about Napoleon Trois I did not know I knew.  Puttng myself in the place of a Parisian in January 1871.  Chaotic time.  My fictional hero seems more and more appropriate.

La chute de Napoleon Trois

Such a sad story, the hope and frenzy and anticipated delight in Paris in July of 1870!  They actually thought French troops would be in Berlin by the Fall, as in the time of Napoleon Bonaparte.  Somehow they avoided looking the facts in the face.  These oh-so-rational Frenchmen could not read the signs of failure before Sedan.  And the storm of hatred that burst on Paris after Sedan and blew out the Empire was proportional to the delusion.  The other part of the story, that Napoleon's capture allowed France to fight on, leading to the Commune, is just as tragic but not so well known.  It ties ogether the narrative in a satisfying way, though.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Military and morale

Thinking about the renovation of Paris.  But more investigating the ins and outs of morale and tactics and how they influence each other.  Bit pathetic following Father and Son, Emperor and Prince Imperial floundering around in the wake of losing armies.  Zeitgeist, indeed.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Napoleon toughs it out

The beginning of the arvtakes shape, with mobilization, alliances and Napoleon's health problems.  A little drama.  And Loulou adds pathos.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Ems again

Trying to wrap up the outbreak of war from the French perspective.  It was a trainwreck.  Need to go back over La Débâcle by Zola.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Bismarck collides with Napoleon III

Good stuff today about the second Empire.  The contrast between Bismarck and the French is drawn pretty strongly.  Napoleon's gang might have been more fun to hang around with, but I'd bet on Bismarck to get the job done.

Napoleon gets it together

Ah, that crazy Napoleon is finally acting like the second coming of his crazy uncle.  But I don't need to tell his whole story.  Just enough so his actions - or lack of them, his errors and disasters in 1870 will be a little more understandable.  If I can bring him to life as definitively as Bismarck, they will be worthy opponents, even though the French army was overmatched.  In the literary world, it's not necessarily whether you win or lose on the battlefield.  It's all about style.  Although I fear even in this arena, Bismarck will conquer.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Napoleon Day Three

Just re-telling the story of Napoleon III makes me shake my head in wonder.  How did he do it?  What was he thinking?

And how can I turn my life around in the same way?  Well, I'm doing it,just by writing 3000 words a day.  I never thought I would do that.  But here we are.

The political lessons are just as important a s the historucal. And far more frightening.  Good thing they didn't have teleprompters back then.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Napoleon

Got started on the Fifth Segment, about good old Napoleon III, one of my favorite guys.  What a story! He had a good time, this scion of the fantastic Bonaparte.  It seemed that just when he was about to run out of money or incentive or ambition, something would turn up, usually in the shape of a ditzy dame.  But I repeat myself.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Acton's Nationality - Second day

Interesting stuff forva political science major and political philosopher.  Wonder why I never ran into this theory before.  I'm quoting liberally from the essay, from the Home and Foreign Review of 1862.  30 pages.  Burke, DeMaistre show up.  I try to make some parallels to the present day.
Have to go to Napoleon tomorrow.  Hope I can get my 3000 words in before that class.  Then up to Smithville.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Mish-mash

A lot of different topics emerged from my reading today.  I did keep my concentration on Bismarck, but the problem is that the Siege of Paris just wasn't all that long.  I know, to the people in Paris it must have seemed a long time, what with eating cats and dogs and rats and camels and elephants and then having to deal with shells exploding in one's favorite bistro.  The price of a balloon ride out must have gone higher than the balloons.
The more I read and write about Bismarck, though, the better I like the guy.  A mensch, already!

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Bombardment

Got Bismarck through to the bombardment of Paris.  I feel as though I've been living at a mansion in Versailles for the last week or so.  Questions of military honor and strategy have been occupying my mind.  Psychology, too.  Bismarck was the psychologist par excellence.

So on we go down the long descent toward the Commune.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Done with Nietzsche for now

Today I tried to tie in some of what I've heard about Nietzsche with his service as a medical orderly during the Franco-Prussian War.  Also, I got a chance to use my book about the Paris Exhibition of 1867.  That has tons of cool pictures of cannon and rifles - I love the Chassepot! - and medical equipment, which came in handy when penciling in a few descriptions of a medical orderly's life. 

I also like the mitrailleuse, but they're probably illegal to own privately in any place but Texas.

My reading about war has tended to gloss over the actual killing and dying part.  I don't want to be one of those modern writers who stresses the gore or a Sophocles who positively glorifies horror.  Only Alfred Hitchcock can do horror without threatening Western civilization.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Nietzsche at Metz

A little historical fiction, today.  Okay, a lot of historical fiction.  But it tickles me to throw a character into the Prussian/German advance toward Paris.  He WAS really there,mas a medical orderly.  And I keep on digging up historical "facts" that very well, sort of might have happenedvand wouldn't that have been cool.  After all, something had to account for Friedrich Wilhelm's odd take on life.  Nothing will open one's eyes like war.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

On to Sedan and Beyond!

With Bismarck, onto the battlefield and victory and all its complications.  I now understand the intricacies of dealing with Frenchies.  No wonder seven thousand books have been written about the F P War.    Found a good one from Kessinger, for free on Kindle, though.  I bypassed Metz, where I caught the train to Frankfurt and Prague in 2007 (?)

Monday, September 9, 2013

That darned Ems Telegram

Wrestling with the Ems telegram again or still.  I learn something every day.  As to war, I learned that most of them can be avoided, or, if desirable, hurried up.  
Oh, and I also learned that Frenchmen are idiots.  I'm sure all the Begians out there will agree.  Ah! La Belgie!  Comme c'est belle!

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Morning, Sunday, Football day

Football season requires a different form of discipline to get the games in while keeping my chain unbroken.  Lovely.  It is just wonderful to get something accomplished, every day.  A foretaste of my retirement regime.

Hohenzollern Labyrinth

An exploration today of the ins and outs of the controversy over the Hohenzollern Candidature for the throne of France.  The twists andturns are perfectly suited for the mind of Bismarck.  I enjoyed following it round and round and up and down. One gets an education in European politics just by keeping up with the rationales behind the various positions held by the players.  So many angles, so many implications.
It is marvelous just to watch Bismarck shifting his ground when addressing the different players.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Arms and back to Italy and runup to Spain

Lots of education today.  What is it that made the position of Prussia so central to the Industrial Revolution?  Bismarck, Moltke and Roon, and Garibaldi at Mentana.  Lots of cross-currents make it clear that the paucity of colonies may have been an advantage for Prussia.  They could concentrate on defeating France.  Details matter.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Military hardware

Today's 3000 words taught me a lot about the state of machinery for killing people in 1867.  The state of readiness is quite as important as the range and accuracy of one's cannons.  I also realize I have put together a good variety of sources for the book and don't really need another six months of research before I can write anything.  I will enjoy preparing an updated, improved edition, though.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Aftermath

The aftermath of the Austro-Prussian war gave Bismarck full rein for his talents.  I had never realized  until I read someof the sources for today's work how much he did, in his deceptively lazy way, to shore up the benefits of Königgrätz.  He may almost have done too much.  The Luxemberg crisis of 1867, though, proved both how necessary his efforts were and how good he was at what he did.  Wonders abound.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Through Sadowa

Bismarck's jolly adventures continue today.  Wow, how that guy could manipulate an alliance!  If he came back to life he'd teach the jokers today some tricks. Where's your magic hat, John Kerry?  You're going to need it!  And lots of ketchup.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Bismarck's operating style

Bismarck's wit and wisdom and practicality in the dog-eat-dog diplomatic world of the nineteenth century has always fascinated me.  Today's episode of the book delves into many of his fascinating demarches, with the help of Treitschke, Napoleon III and the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef.

The great Prussian had a number of fascinating habits, but primarily the tactic of concealing one interpretation of a fact by expressing a more outrageous one.  Clever fellow.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Run-up to the Austrian War

Made some distance today with getting Bismarck's plans going to make Prussia into the big dog in Europe.  It's hypnotizing to see the way he operated.  A model for all us aspiring international political kingpins!  He loved to get up at noon and stay up until two in the morning drinking, conversing and putting his deeplylaid plots into action.  Sounds like fun!

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Schleswig Holstein

Piloted the ship a little closer to 1870, through the formerly Danish lowlands.  Bismarck is drawing me further into his mesmerizing mind.  I love to see plans come out as planned.  Makes one almost sorry for Bismarck's opponents.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Bismarck, the beginning

The great problem with Bismarck is allowing him to play his essential part of the story of 1870 without taking it over completely?  He was such an accomplished raconteur and prophet that, if I am not careful, he will convince me that the book should be renamed The Glorious Doings of Herr Graf von Bismarck in1870!
He has so many good stories to tell, however, that I cannot forego letting him talk.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Garibaldi and Seinfeld and Tom Wolfe

Today I finished the first draft of the Garibaldi portion of my magnum opus.  There's so much else to be said... but I need to sleep on it.
So this is how I'm doing this book.  I owe this technique to Jerry Seinfeld.  I forgt where I read this.  But apparently Jerry Seinfeld said that if you wanted to do anything big and difficult, you had to get a calendar and start.  Then every day you have to have a goal, achieve it and put a big X on that date on the calendar.  Then, and I quote, "Don't break the chain!"

Can't you just see Seinfeld saying that, with his trademark intensity?  That's how he got to be a great comic, by working on his jokes every day.  

So, I figured, if I'm ever going to be a great writer, I have to start a chain and not break it.  I got the goal from Tom Wolfe.  He became a great writer by writing ten triple-spaced pages of prose a day.  So I determined to write 2000 words, approximating ten typewritten pages, triple-spaced, a day.

I find I can do this.  I've kept the chain unbroken now for 32 days, even though I did not come up with the 2000-word quota until a couple of weeks ago. September is going to be the real test.  If I can write 2000 words a day for the 30 days of September, that will be 60,000 words, or, counting 500 words per page, 120 pages.  I plan to start the Bismarck saga as it relates to 1870 on this Sunday, September 1, 2013, so we'll just have to see if I can get 120 pages by midnight, September 30.

Wish me luck!


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Well, a new blog on the Internet!  Hurray, no more of those annoying bulletin boards!

This one's about the year 1870.  Or, more precisely, from about December 1869 to May 1871.  And it's about Europe.  Yeah, sorry, those of you in Rio Linda, it's not about anywhere but Europe.  Although I do have little side trips.  It's about this project I'm getting started on.

I have become fascinated by the Franco-Prussian War.  Well, we each have our particular insidious addictions.  For some unnamed football players, it's PCP, for me it's the Franco-Prussian War!

Of course, things aren't that simple.  And maybe that's why I like the F-P War.  Its implications spread out like ripples on the pond of 19th century history.  And that means History with a capital H.  For the 19th century, in Europe, was the start of something big, and everything modern.  Maybe someday I'll do a project called just 1800s. 

From our point of view in 2013, though, several big things were going on in 1870.  I've separated my project into five parts, but that's pretty arbitrary.  I just do that for simplicity.  It's headlined by five straight white men.  Great guys all, or, at least, interesting guys.

But here are the five:

(1)The Pope (Pius IX, to be exact).  He had a lot going on, being God's representative on earth and all that.  He was in the middle of losing his temporal domains (populated territory governed by Popes for an indeterminate but very long time).  But he was shoring up his spiritual concerns.  He had called a Council of bishops and cardinals and that sort of higher cleric.  It was called The First Vatican Council.  All you amateur theologians are no doubt aware of the spiritual disaster called Vatican II.  (by the way, my personal views are included here, not just because they're inevitably right, indeed infallible, but because, hey, it's my blog.  Relax.  You'll learn something.  I guarantee it.)  Well, a Vatican II sort of requires a Vatican I.  And this was it, from about December 1869 to July 1870.  Hmm, now that I think of it, it was never formally prorogued.  So it may be still in existence.  So maybe Vatican II should really have been called Vatican I, Continued.  Or VATICAN I, THE UNDEAD.  Or something modern like that, fit for the 1960s. (more detail coming)

(2) Giuseppe Garibaldi.  He really needed to get his Italia together.  His situation in 1870 is - complex.  Maybe as complex as the Pope's.  He's got lots to worry about, on personal and political planes.  He had lived a fantastic life.  Having him in this project is pure bonus, because it allows and requires me to go back over his life.

(3) Otto von Bismarck.  Large German fellow.  Prussian, to be exact.  Six foot five;  high, squeaky voice; extremely subtle mind, wrote snappy telegrams that started wars; drank a mixture of good German stout and good French champagne for dinner.  Or at least that's how he is portrayed on the 1870 playing card set.  And board game and cable television show.  I'm looking ahead, you see.

(4) Napoleon III, AKA Louis Napoleon.  Short, mustachioed French fellow.  Knew that he wanted to be an emperor, like his uncle Bonaparte.  Looked in the want ads and saw no openings for emperors.  So he created himself a job.  Isn't that what we're all supposed to do now that unemployment is permanently over 100% (You don't really believe those govt. stats, do you?)  But Napoleon did a lot for Paris.  I like Paris, especially when it isn't raining and all the tourists have been driven away by the plague rumors I've been spreading - oops, forget you read that!

(5) Some guy who has decided to make a career out of running revolutions, especially in Paris.  I don't know what he looks like.  Maybe he's me.  But if you are addicted to starting revolutions, Paris in 1870 is not a bad place to be.  1871 is even better.  Why, you might even get Karl Marx himself to write about you.  In the past tense, most likely.

So there they are.  I'll be expanding on my ideas.  And I hope to give some information about writing style, too.  Welcome to Fact-Based Historical and Philosophical Interpretation.