This series looks at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
The Consequences of Cannae
The Battle of Cannae on 2 August 218 BC was such a catastrophic defeat for Rome that it has become almost a by-word for disaster.
The Second Punic War has already been going incredibly badly for the Republic.
Rome was famed for its seemingly inexhaustible supplies of manpower for the legions, a series of catastrophic defeats at the hands of Hannibal in Italy at Trebia in 218 BC and Lake Trasimene in 217 BC as well as a series of other setbacks at home and abroad. Nevertheless, the scale of losses which Rome kept on enduring against Hannibal seriously called into question the wisdom and even the capacity of the emerging power to keep on fighting.
It wasn’t just the brilliant way in which Hannibal comprehensively out-thought and out-manoeuvred the legions, or the fact that no significant army now stood between Hannibal and Rome, it wasn’t even the appalling scale of Roman losses that day – it was the fact that at a stroke almost an entire generation of current and future leaders was wiped out.
Rome, being Rome, would fight on until Rome won. But how could they win against Hannibal – and who would lead them now with so many of their commanders either dead or defeated and demoralised.
The sheer scale of the losses at Cannae is worth remarking on. Of the 83,000 Roman infantry in the battle Polybius estimates that 70,000 were killed, 10,000 taken prisoner and only about 3,000 escaped alive. Of the Roman cavalry he estimates that out of a strength of 6,000 fewer than 400 survived.
When it comes to Roman leaders present Livy estimates that in addition to the Consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus in joint command of the Roman forces, former Consul Gnaeus Servilius Geminus, the former Master of Horse Marcus Minucius Rufus, 80 men of Senatorial rank, 29 Military Tribunes and 2 Quaestors survived. Those few commanders including the other Consul Gaius Terentius Varro who survived were publicly blamed for the defeat and in no position to offer further leadership.
As things stood Hannibal was aware that his forces were not likely to be equal to the task of sieging Rome, so he concentrated instead on continuing his campaign rampaging through Italy in the hope of turning Rome’s Italian allies against her. This met with some success and the Carthaginian cause grew in strength there and throughout the Mediterranean in the coming years.
For the next few years Rome was only able to recover by stewarding its strength following Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus’s famed “Fabian Strategy” of avoiding the brilliant Carthaginian commander in major battles and seeking to manoeuvre around him to limit his options and impact. As things stood though Rome continued to suffer defeats against Carthaginian forces throughout the wider Mediterranean – including in Spain were Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal was in the ascendant.
After a spirited Roman attempt to bottle up Carthaginian forces in Spain looked to be at an end with the defeat at the Battle of the Upper Baetis in 211 BC in which the Roman commanders Publius Scipio and Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus were killed matters came to a head in which not one of the remaining experienced military commanders was willing to take on the command.
This presented the opportunity for Publius Cornelius Scipio to take on overall command of Roman forces in Spain – a far greater command than he would normally have been likely to secure at the age of 25.
Publius Cornelius Scipio, went on of course to become Scipio Africanus – the commander in whom Rome had finally found a match for Hannibal – a brilliant strategist and tactician who reversed the course of the war in Spain and eventually went on to defeat an admittedly outnumbered and deteriorating Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC.
Cannae was of course a disaster for Rome and a huge number of lives were lost. It is however doubtful whether Scipio or many others like him who demonstrated considerable promise, bravery, talent and patriotism from a young age would ever have got the chances there hadn’t been quite so many empty places to fill in the hierarchy after the loss of quite so many of those ahead of them in line in the Senatorial class.
If Cannae hadn’t happened it is possible to imagine an alternative history in which the Second Punic War ended much like the first, with the lack of any outstanding Roman leadership resulting in a messy compromise, no knock out blows and the seeds of the next conflict already being sown.
It is often hard to tell the significance of historical events in their immediate presence – yet even a catastrophic defeat can lead to much needed change and the emergence of better leadership in the future.
We may do well to remember it.
Potemkin Villages
There a number of moments in history which so perfectly encapsulate something – usually some aspect of human behaviour, an attitude, a feeling or a characteristic of a people or a time – so perfectly do they convey this that on one level it barely matters if they actually happened at all.
One such moment happened – or may not have happened – under the supervision of Prince Grigory Potemkin, the high ranking Russian nobleman, politician, military commander and lover of Catherine the Great.
After the Russian war with the Ottoman Empire, which concluded in 1783 with the annexation of Crimea by the former, Potemkin was given the task of settling this vast new region, now to be known as New Russia, with Russian settlers.
Russia regarded the still largely Turkish populated region as potentially being at risk from uprisings or likely to collaborate with any invading Turkish army as and when hostilities broke out again. As such there was a strategic imperative to populate the newly taken lands and to do so rapidly. This, along with Catherine’s constant desire for development of Russian territory, in tune with her general disposition as an “Enlightened Sovereign”, meant that Potemkin was under pressure to deliver fast.
There was also a wider diplomatic pressure to consider.
Catherine was keen to increasingly orientate Russia to the West. To position herself as an enlightened modern ruler, to build alliances and commercial treaties with Western European powers, Britain in particular, and to position Russia as a major and powerful player in European diplomacy. That meant challenging the conceptions people had in many Western European countries of Russia as being backward, underdeveloped and more Asiatic than European.
So for Potemkin specifically, but also for Russia more generally, there was a real need to demonstrate tangible progress, to show development, to put on a show.
This was the background to the particular episode which happened (or didn’t) in 1787 with Russia and the Ottoman Empire on the verge of a further war in the region and an incredibly grand and prestigious six-month state visit by Catherine and a large group of European ambassadors to New Russia.
The Royal Barge, as the story goes, was slowly working its way down the Dnipro River passing village after village, seemingly well populated and teeming with activity – well lit up at night and clearly prosperous and growing – truly demonstrating the modernity and strength of Russia and the effectiveness of the settlement campaign to both the Empress and the ambassadors.
But the whole thing was a sham.
The villages were nothing more than facades. A few rows of buildings – or just the shells of buildings – set up within sight of the river by Potemkin’s soldiers – lasting only so long as those who needed to be impressed could see them – then quickly packing up and heading off to “settle” somewhere else further down river.
The Empress and the ambassadors were left with the delightful and encouraging impression of a region under development and colonisation and Potemkin’s and Russia’s purposes were well served.
Or maybe not. Because maybe none of it happened at all.
Most modern historians dispute whether the events described happened at all – or at least in anything like the way described.
Some historians concede that Potemkin added decorations to existing towns and settlements to make them seem somewhat more impressive. Others that illustrative scenes were added at various points on the journey, explicitly intended not to give the impression of current occupation but to demonstrate what the region would look like in future. Still others claim that it was actually on the return journey, on another river and under another Governor that the deception occurred.
It is also worth noting that even if these events did happen as described, that they may not have been designed to fool both the Empress and the Ambassadors – Potemkin could have had clear motive for wishing to fool either one of them.
Obviously on one level it matters a great deal whether these events happened or not. Truth matters. If they did not happen this is not history – or at least not true history, more a history of ideas, of stories and of thought.
But the latter points to why on another level it that the relevance and value of this tale does not depend entirely upon its literal truth – because the very survival of this story passing itself off as history tells us something about people’s perceptions, ideas, attitudes, ideas and characteristics.
The fact that this took place in a country which was vast, different, rapidly developing and modernising for sure, but still largely empty, barely touched by modernity in many ways and even less so by its Government – even whilst its Government aspired to enlightened absolutism speaks volumes about the political culture one could expect or imagine in such conditions. There is a cleverness to the deception, a brilliant and effective element of political calculation and something almost admirable in just how amoral and calculating it is carried out.
Entirely separately from the specific historical events (or non-events) the term Potemkin Village has caught on in political parlance and is used to describe all sorts of deceptions, facades or thin veneers intended to fool, impress or convey a false impression.
Those who need to be fooled or impressed may change, as do the characters playing Potemkin – but we can all relate to situations where it feels like this kind of deception might be occurring.
Confidence is so important in modern politics that central banks, economic policies and whole Governments depend upon a degree of Potemkinnery in their dealings with financial markets.
Political parties also must secure supporters – and then as often as not pursue a programme in office of which those supporters do not approve – doing just enough to create a necessary façade to retain our support.
And of course, when we consider the myriad of ways in which we are distracted, willingly fooled or happily misled by the modern world – it starts to become apparent that Potemkin may have been on to something after all.
How can we say that Potemkin villages never happened when we are surrounded by them?
The “Auspicious Incident” and the end of the Janissaries
The Janissaries were rightly famed for much of their history as one of the most modern, professional and effective military units in Europe.
There is some debate as to when exactly they were first established but many sources mention them as being first active during the reign of Sultan Murad I – who led the Ottoman Empire from roughly 1362 to 1389 – first seeing service in their frequent battles against the Byzantine Empire in modern day Turkey.
It was standard practice at the time for the Sultan to lay claim on one-fifth of all of those captured and enslaved after battles as his own personal share – it was from amongst this share that the first Janissaries (literally new soldier) slave armies were formed.
But before long the recruitment system changed. Like so many aspects of the Ottoman Empire, there was a mix of cruelty, pragmatism, bribery and strategy involved.
New recruits into the Janissaries were to retain the same status as slaves but would be drawn from the strongest and most promising sons of the conquered Christian populations of the empire (Islamic law prevented the enslavement of fellow-Muslims.)
The recruits would be forced to convert to Islam, taught Turkish and then entered into an extensive and intensive training programme – primarily based in their Orta, the main military operational unit (equivalent to a regiment) with the strongest bonds being built in close knit companies known as Ocak.
With the intense training and strict discipline there also came other rules and restrictions. The Janissaries were expected to remain celibate and certainly could not marry. They were not permitted to take on any trades other than soldiering and they could not inherit or pass on property.
In exchange the Janissaries were given a number of great compensations. They were not just paid but well paid. They received additional bonuses and allowances for their food and weapons, they had the honour of guarding the Sultan and were extremely well provided for in terms of logistical support and supplies in times of war.
These privileges were so significant that before long there was actually competition amongst families to get their sons recruited into the Janissaries and despite their notional slave status it began to be seen as something of a mark of favour to join the Janissaries. So much so that considerable pressure had to be resisted to open up the units to the sons of wealthy and established Turkish families.
This prestige only grew when the Janissaries continued to prove their military effectiveness. As one of the first and most professional armies in Europe they had considerable success in the field – they were amongst the first units to adopt firearms and to develop effective tactics for their mass use by units – with disciplined soldiers working effectively to protect one-another during reloading. It was this professionalism which led to many of the Ottoman successes in Europe and in North Africa – driving the seemingly inexorable Ottoman war machine all the way to the gates of Vienna.
It was outside Vienna, during the second major attempt to capture the city in 1683 that the growing weakness of the Janissaries started to show – whilst Europe had modernised, initially learning much from the Turks on firearms and artillery – but then applying enlightenment scientific principles to drive remarkable advances in the area, the Ottomans had failed to keep pace. In addition, the Polish cavalry which proved so decisive in the battle and in breaking the siege had no comparably effective counterpart in the Turkish forces, where elite forces remained concentrated in infantry units. Perhaps the most decisive factor undermining the Ottoman military at this point though was the rot which had set in within the Janissaries themselves.
Because technology and the Ottoman armies were not the only things which had been advancing inexorably over time.
It started with the status of the Janissaries themselves. Whilst still notionally slaves, their sheer effectiveness and efficiency had led to them becoming increasingly relied upon by Sultan after Sultan, ultimately being added to the askeri military, governing class. This increased and advanced the power of the Janissaries and did the same to the pressure being applied by wealthy families seeking to buy their way into the military unit.
This was ultimately conceded – dramatically changing the nature and composition of the units over time. This change was embedded and extended when it became possible not just to buy your way in but to buy the right to pass on Janissary status, as well as other property to your sons – sons which could now be had because of the lapsing restrictions on marriage.
This trend, coupled with the increasing administrative duties of the Janissaries helped to gradually turn a previously elite fighting force into an increasingly cosseted and self-serving establishment class – one which, like the Roman Praetorian Guard, was increasingly prepared to depose and elevate Sultans according to their own narrow wishes.
A particularly marked example of this came in 1622 when Sultan Osman II became aware of the sheer extent of the decline of the Janissaries effectiveness after comprehensively losing a war with Poland. He made no secret of his determination to abolish the languishing organisation and to replace it with more modern and effective forces modelled on their European rivals. The Janissaries responded to this threat by first imprisoning then executing the Sultan. A pattern which was to be repeated over the coming centuries.
It was only in 1826, by which point the bloated Janissary class had swelled to nearly 140,000 people that a Sultan was able to face them down.
Mahmud II was determined to modernise and Westernise the crumbling Ottoman Empire. He had seen first hand the ineffectiveness of current Ottoman forces in clashes against the Russians and most notably during the Greek War of Independence. His increasing diplomatic contact with the British and French had also opened his eyes to how fast those states were advancing – he was determined that the Ottoman Empire would not be left behind – and the Janissaries were both a clear symptom and cause of that decline.
Recognising the strength of entrenched opposition Mahmud had been stoking popular opposition to the Janissaries for some time and building support for the idea of reform. He also refrained from moving for an immediate abolition and instead focussed most of his efforts on building the replacement – a modernised, artillery heavy European style army being trained and initially led by experienced officers from the West.
It was when the scale of these preparations of the alternative became apparent that the Janissaries realised how serious the Sultan was about reform and on 15 June went into open revolt.
The population had long resented the privileged and arrogant Janissaries and showed them no support. The propaganda efforts of the Sultan, now crowned by effectively declaring a religious war on the Janissaries sealed the deal– so when the best cavalry units of the Ottoman army, the North Africa Sipahi counter-attacked the Janissaries were promptly driven back to their barracks.
Mahmud now had the opportunity to put his newly trained modern artillery to the test and launched a sustained bombardment on the Janissary headquarters. This proved predictably effective and over 4,000 Janissaries were killed during the bombardment and a resulting fire before they issued their surrender.
Despite the huge numbers of deaths in what was notionally peacetime the event became known as The Auspicious Incident as the circumstances which allowed for the rapid defeat and subjugation of the Janissaries were to have long-term and beneficial consequences for Turkey, at least as far as the reformers were concerned.
The remaining elements of the Janissaries were ruthlessly rounded up and executed – while Mahmud’s new model forces and emerging imperial bureaucracy paved the way for the reforms in the latter part of 19th Century Turkey, which in turn created the conditions for the rise of the modern Turkish state.
—
We do so often see this as a recurring theme in history. Institutions are established with a clear purpose and with the conditions to succeed. They prosper and can prove incredibly effective at that purpose at first – but over time they become corrupted often ending up completely useless at what they were originally intended to do, counter-productive even on that score, yet possessing greater and greater self-confidence and arrogance over time, certain of their indispensability and unable to understand a possible difference between their own good and the common good – or the good of those they are due to serve.
So many bureaucracy and institutions end up resembling the late-stage Janissaries or Praetorians it almost starts to resemble a law of history – that any powerful or effective institution is doomed to internal decay, mission-creep and ultimately betrayal of its purpose over time.
It is hard to think of any exceptions to this rule – but in history there is almost always an exception to every rule.
Readers are welcome to get in touch with any ideas which come to mind – and more importantly, what you think the reasons are as to why.
Riots and solidarity in defence of corruption: The Aurelian Mint Revolt
“Just as though it were ordained for me by Fate that all the wars that I wage and all commotions only become more difficult, so also a revolt within the city has stirred up for me a most grievous struggle. For under the leadership of Felicissimus, the lowest of all my slaves, to whom I had committed the care of the privy-purse, the mint-workers have shown the spirit of rebellion. They have indeed been crushed, but with the loss of seven thousand men, boatmen, bank-troops, camp-troops and Dacians. Hence it is clear that the immortal gods have granted me no victory without some hardship.” Aurelian, private letter
Third Century Rome was no one’s idea of an exemplar of stability, rectitude or convention. By the time that Aurelian was proclaimed Augustus in 270AD nearly all of the things which had made Rome successful had either disappeared or where on their way out.
Competing emperors were being proclaimed by armies in different parts of the Empire after successfully seeing off Rome’s enemies. These Emperors would then decline to follow-up these victories and instead turn their forces on Rome itself. Whether they won or lost, or won and were promptly assassinated or quickly deposed, the only constant was that Rome’s enemies became consistently stronger, Rome weaker and the next succession even more contested and uncertain.
As well as the armies proclaiming new Emperors the Senate had not completely given up on the practice and in a triumph of hope over experience would proclaim experienced political insiders or sound and earnest administrators Augustus and then expect them to see off toughened generals with the best troops in the Empire at their backs.
Aurelian’s reign started in just such a manner. When Claudius Gothicus fell ill and died out on campaign Aurelian as his most senior and capable commander was a natural choice to succeed him and was duly proclaimed Augustus by his troops.
Against him the senate proclaimed the previous Emperor’s brother, Marcus Aurelius Claudius Quintillius as the new Augustus. Inevitably Quintillius lasted a matter of months before being defeated at Aquiliea – with his troops then the Senate then realising their mistake and agreeing that Aurelian was in fact the new Emperor.
Despite this Aurelian had never been popular amongst the Senatorial classes. Whilst a brutally effective military commander and friend to several Emperors he was clearly mostly interested in keeping the army onside and made no attempt to hide his early disdain for the venerable body.
It was just as well that he was so popular amongst the army and so keen to retain its support, as he would lead a reign of constant warfare, in defence against invading Germanic and Vandal tribes and in a series of successful campaigns to reunite the Roman Empire – earning himself the title Restitutor Orbis (restorer of the world) in the process.
This started almost immediately with invasions by the Vandals then the Juthungi, the latter a Germanic tribe which reached as far as Italy – causing Aurelian quite a few problems before eventually being defeated.
By the time the various invaders had been seen off though, and before he could turn his attentions East and then West to reunify the Empire Aurelian was faced with a particularly strange, and surely unique domestic crisis.
Although his later victories against the Palymyrian and Gallic breakaway Empires would earn him considerable popular and political support, at this point there was nothing to suggest to most Romans that Aurelian was anything other than the latest in a series of brutal generals Emperors, and a particularly tough and disciplinarian one at that. He retained a large number of enemies in the Senate and the Palymyrian capture of Egypt had raised food prices and was already making unrest likely.
As it was, a rather different spark was to cause this particular conflagration.
Emperor Aurelian considered the continuing debasement of the Roman currency to be both a slight on Rome’s pride and on his own status – it was his likeness which appeared on the coins after all. He also recognised that the near-to-vanishing silver value of the coins and what we now understand as inflation, was causing real problems in paying his troops properly and keeping them happy.
This led Aurelian to insist that the Imperial Mint should start to raise the silver level in the Divus Claudius coin which had fallen by some counts to officially as low as 2% by the start of his reign. In practice though it was actually much lower than that – because the officials tasked with running the Mint were not truly accountable or supervised – so what little silver was due to go in to the coins usually found its way in to their pockets instead – with the silver content of the currency being practically nothing.
Aware of Aurelian’s reputation for discipline and aware of the fact that the Emperor was due to finally arrive in Rome soon, those in charge of the Mint, apparently led by an official named Felicissimus decided that it was pretty obvious what would happen to them once their corruption was revealed. They therefore decided that this was the hill they would die on – and launched a series of strikes which turned into riots which in turn became an attempt to wrest control of the city in order to defend their larceny.
The particular hill was the Caelian Hill, at a key strategic point in Rome where crowds tended to gather anyway. In their fight the mint workers received a surprising level of popular support for what has got to be one of the most nakedly self-serving strike and popular rebellions in history, securing thousands of supporters from the unemployed masses of the city, and the covert support of many of Aurelians enemies in the Senate.
The ensuing street battles were bloody and costly – and as must surely have been foreseeable – Aurelian won, but not without thousands of deaths and a good deal of destruction happening first.
One longer-term cost with far longer-term consequences was that Aurelian made the decision to close the mint in Rome entirely – relocating one to what is modern day Milan and then opening further mints near the major garrisons of the Empire.
This was the first in a series of steps over the coming decades which transformed the status of Rome from the beating heart of the Roman Empire, to more of a historical relic – out of the way, increasingly rarely visited by Emperors, and serving few, if any, important Imperial purposes.
Much of this would no doubt have happened anyway – nevertheless, any surviving mint workers, on surveying the loss of human life in the city, the loss of prestige for Rome and the complete disappearance of their industry and source of employment – all brought about by their greed and corruption may have wished that they had recognised when the gig was up, pocketed their loot and accepted that it really wasn’t defensible.
But people who are doing that well in that kind of situation never seem to be able to see when they are on their own Caelian strike or riot, do they?
The Grasper
“This fellow was the refuse of mankind, the reproach of the English; an abandoned glutton, a cunning miscreant; who had become opulent, not by nobility, by specious language and impudence. This artful dissembler, capable of feigning anything, was accustomed, by pretended fidelity, to scent out the King’s designs, that he might treacherously divulge them.”
William of Malmesbury on Eadric Streona
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today
Rarely in history is a bad ruler enough to bring disaster upon a country. Usually it takes bad advisors, poor choices in allies and a fair bit of foul play to really take things from just bad to downright awful.
King Aethelred is often known as The Unready but that is just one of those strange errors which has crept in to history based on the disparaging term used to describe him at the time – Aethelred Unraed – Aethelred the ill-advised. And there was no one who provided more ill-advice, no worse choice of ally and no greater source of foul-play than Eadric Streona – meaning Eadric the acquisitive – Eadric The Grasper.
Aethelred was another one of those recurring characters in English and global history. He was not so much bad as weak and stupid. Completely unsuited to the incredibly important office he inherited, not having had sufficient opportunity to be educated and prepared for it and far more interested in enjoying the trappings of his office than in carrying out its responsibilities.
Ascending to the throne at a very young age in dubious circumstances he was at least at first blessed with highly capable advisors inherited from his father King Edgar and his brother King Edward. He also inherited a kingdom which was recovering from Edgar’s weaknesses earlier in his reign and was increasingly centralised, well-governed and wealthy.
Although there were legitimate questions to be asked about the declining martial culture of the Anglo Saxons at the time there is no doubt that the military structures and system of administration which dated back to Alfred and Athelstan were amongst the best in Europe and capable of supporting a fantastic military machine.
The death of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury and the subsequent side-lining of the more experienced and capable advisors marked a turning point in Aethelred’s reign – from that point on the administration of justice became more capricious, military matters, particularly support for the fleet and upkeep of the burghs became increasingly lax and there was a noticeable shift in courtly priorities -with more of an insular focus on splendour, lifestyle and the King and his advisors seemingly focussed on nothing other than themselves.
Chief amongst these advisors, and unrivalled amongst those seeking their own good at the expense of the Kingdom was Eadric Streona.
As Viking raids proliferated, key battles were lost and the fleet proved manifestly incapable of playing a role, as Normandy intentionally harboured raiders so as to weaken England and as the King did his level best to alienate England’s settled population of Danes and Norsemen, this weak and stupid King needed a wise councillor, a clear strategic thinker and a loyal and steadfast ally to prevent the situation getting worse – instead he elevated one of the most obnoxious schemers in English history.
Eadric first appears in the court records in 1004 alongside a number of brothers. He came from a relatively modest landholding family in Shropshire but it was clear that he possessed quite astonishing rhetorical and influencing powers which saw him shoot up through the court and to find a place very quickly in Aethelred’s inner-circle.
Eadric was almost certainly responsible for the murder of Ealderman Aelfhelm at his estate in Shropshire, again almost certainly at the request of Aethelred himself. This was one of a series of incidents which demonstrated how the morality-free Eadric was able to ingratiate himself in Royal favour – being rewarded with the astonishingly elevated title of Ealderman of Mercia shortly afterwards, and the hand of the King’s daughter in marriage shortly after that.
As the Danish threat returned, Aethelred had ordered that the fleet be rebuilt but thanks to a falling out between Eadric’s family and one of the great commanders of the fleet much of it was lost and disbanded before ever seeing combat.
As a result, in 1009 when Thorkill The Tall arrived with Viking raiders and set about Kent and Essex it became imperative for the English army to mobilise and to demonstrate clearly that it was still a force to be reckoned with. Instead, Streona played a crucial role in first of all delaying Aethelred’s intended military response until the opportunity for decisive action had passed, then after nearly three years more bloody and expensive conflict in 1012 , persuading Aethelred that it would be better to buy off the Danes to secure peace. Unlike previous Dangelds this one was not paid from a position of desperation or weakness but rather from convenience. A policy which would become institutionalised during Aethelred’s reign and end up being far more costly even than the military options would have been. In this particular instance Streona convinced the King that such a Danegeld was necessary to recover the Archbishop of Canterbury who was being held hostage – yet as things turned out the Archbishop was killed anyway, a massive tribute was paid and sure enough, before too long the Danes were back.
The following year in 1013 when a fresh invasion was under way by Sweyn Forkbeard, Eadric proved his steadfast loyalty and solidarity with the King by… leaving the country and seeking sanctuary in Normandy until the conflict was over.
By far the most serious threat facing England was to arrive two years later when King Cnut succeeded Sweyn and sought to assert his claim over the country. In the meantime Eadric had kept his hand in the murky politics game by murdering rival nobles Sigeferth and Morcar at a sham council he had arranged in Oxford.
With King Aethelred sick and even more unable to lead than ever before, as the leading nobleman of the Kingdom, as as Ealderman of Mercia Eadric had a huge role to play in mobilising the army. This he duly did… before promptly swapping sides and taking his army with him over to Cnut.
Before long Eadric’s old friend Aethelred died of sickness – and the crown passed to his far more capable son King Edmund Ironsides, who won an astonishing series of victories over the Danes and their allies and freed much of Wessex from the invader. Not to be outdone in valour, Eadric when facing the young King in battle picked up the severed head of someone who looked a bit like the King and nearly succeeded in routing the English forces by proclaiming to them that their King was dead. As it was the forces rallied and the battle ended in stalemate.
As the tide turned – so did Eadric Streona. Remarkably, given the litany of offences set out above, and clearly having lost none of his rhetorical and influencing skills, Streona convinced Ironsides to take him on as a key confidante and battlefield commander.
The obvious and inevitable consequences of this were borne out at the Battle of Assandun in Essex in 1016 in what looked set to be the last best chance to chase the Danish invaders out of England. Eadric Streona did exactly what you would expect of the man – and at the crucial point withdrew his forces and pledged fealty to Cnut.
The consequences for King Edmund were that he had to agree once again to a partition of England with the Danes, ceding most of the North and Midlands to Cnut – before promptly dying and allowing Cnut to claim the whole.
The consequences for England were both immediate – huge further tributes to the Danes and a massive transfer of wealth out of the country – albeit mitigated in the short term by the fortuitous fact of Cnut turning out to be a decent King – and lasting – decades of instability, weakening administration and ultimately leaving the door open for further contested successions, most terribly that which allowed William’s spurious claims in 1066 and the catastrophic invasion of England’s worst ever King which followed.
The only silver lining was the consequences for Eadric Streona himself – presenting himself with all of his flattery, fluency and oleaginous charm to King Cnut on Christmas Day in 1017 to claim his reward for betraying King Edmund the new King commanded his closest ally to “pay this man what we owe him” – and he was decapitated on the spot (see accompanying picture). England’s new King making clear what he thought of both Streona’s craven betrayals – and presumably also of his predecessors’ choice of lieutenants.
It can seem astonishing to us when we see figures in history such as Eadric Streona somehow securing chance after chance for themselves and being trusted time and time again, despite what must seem obvious to everyone about their character. And of course time and time again they betray their own side and put their own narrow agenda first, no matter the consequences for their supposed friends and allies.
Then again, when our period is looked back on in future, I’m sure we can all think of fairly prominent figures from our own time who will be seen in the same mould.
The Tragedy of Ulpian
The basic principles of law are: to live honourably, not to harm any other person, to render each his own.
Ulpian, Roman Jurist and advisor to Emperor Alexander Severus
Due to a combination of structural factors Rome had been on a pretty steady downward swing since at least the death of Marcus Aurelius (and arguably since the death of Trajan). As The Torch has documented earlier, too much of the population was idle, its huge natural resources and potential were not being invested in and developed, dependency had become a way of life and vested interests, most prominently the Praetorian Guard and to some extent the Legions were dictating Imperial policy to match their own interests, rather than the long-term strategic interests of the Empire. This became so institutionalised that emperors knew they had to follow this path if they wanted to remain in office – indeed some only got their by explicitly buying them off.
These factors, if not tackled by a truly great emperor were always going to doom the Empire – but given the huge scale of the Empire and the resources at its disposal it was always likely that this would take some time and always possible that its course could be corrected. It took a few truly awful emperors – some of Rome’s worst (and that’s really saying something) to ensure that the rot became terminal.
Commodus has a really good claim to being the very worst Roman Emperor of all time, and we’ll run a special article on his incredibly imaginative awfulness in due course. Septimius Severus was at least a competent military commander but also a tyrant who effectively subjugated the entire Empire to the service of military interests, further entrenching vested interests in the process, and Caracalla and Elagabalus were hedonistic incompetent parasites who bled the Empire dry, weakened it against external threats and in short did all they could do hasten Rome’s demise.
Despite this all was not entirely lost and after the long-overdue assassination of Elagabalus in 222 AD Rome was treated to a rare non-awful Emperor – Alexander Severus.
Despite being at 14 the youngest Roman Emperor he did not follow the standard insane-hedonistic template for younger Roman Emperors and partly through an usual degree of moral seriousness, partly through a good-natured easy-goingness he was actually prepared to take extensive sound advice and guidance from people in good position to provide it – chiefly his grandmother Julia Maesa, his mother Julia Mamaea and a council of the best minds of the Senatorial class – particularly the historian Cassius Dio and the jurist Ulpian.
In contrast to the self-indulgent and capricious extravagance of Elagabalus, Alexander appeared a model of moderation, reducing the size and splendour of the Imperial court and introducing greater constancy and consistency in the administration of justice under the guidance of Ulpian.
After some initial necessary devaluation of the currency to address overhanging debts and obligations from the previous administration Alexander consistently raised the silver value of the currency, he introduced measures to promote science and artistic freedom and most crucially, cut down the punitive and damaging taxes which had built up under his predecessors.
As well as raising the overall tax burden on each province the Edict of Caracalla in 212 had at a stroke raised every free man of the Empire to the level of citizenship.
Whilst in previous eras such a prize had been incredibly valuable and fought over, being a guarantor of rights, safety and the capacity to be involved in political life, as political institutions had ossified under the Empire this badge of honour had increasingly become little more than an imposition. Those who were Roman citizens paid direct taxes and counted considerably more towards each province’s tax liabilities.
As such Caracalla had not been elevating and enfranchising the people so much as imposing a tax liability.
This accounting mechanism had been on its own terms incredibly successful and brought in ever greater amounts of tax revenues from the provinces into the Imperial coffers thence to be dispensed to vested interests and Imperial hangers on.
It had also had the inevitable effect that high tax burdens always have though – and stifled the economy, killed investment and growth and left the Empire stagnant at a time when it needed to grow rapidly to face down ever growing threats on its eastern and Germanic borders.
The well-intentioned but hapless and ill-fated Emperor Macrinus had recognised how unsustainable this state of affairs was. He had made efforts to reign-in the lavish donatives which Severus had introduced for the Praetorian Guard and legions and to repair Rome’s international standing in an effort to secure peace on its borders – but the power of these vested interests was too great and he lacked the bravery needed to face down the inevitable rebellion which ensued – thus his downfall and the rise of the utterly feckless Elagabalus.
Under Alexander Severus there was now a real opportunity for the Imperial Government to hold its nerve and to force through the kind of reforms which were needed to save the Empire.
It was by this point in Roman history fairly standard practice for Praetorian Prefects to be lacking in military background, often being selected for administrative or legal abilities, reflecting the burgeoning bureaucratic responsibilities of the role.
It was in this capacity that Ulpian, effectively serving as Alexander’s chief advisor, pushed through the tax cuts and deregulation needed to reverse Imperial decline. This also meant that he was in the direct firing line for vested interests when he spearheaded the flipside of those same reforms – reducing the privileges and donatives of the Praetorian Guard and the legions.
As a result Ulpian became the target of a series of covert and not-so-covert attempts at assassination as well as associated attempts to discredit him and to get the Emperor to dismiss him.
He managed to escape a number of these plots as the Emperor stood by him and his reforms and in the process almost accidentally stoked up public opinion – that is the overwhelming but often ignored majority who were not in the legions or the Guard – in his favour and in outrage against the plots.
This boiled over into a series of riots in Rome in 228AD with warring mobs of citizens and legionaries engaged in a series of brawls and riots – with the citizens eventually being dispersed and Ulpian himself forced to seek sanctuary in the Imperial Palace.
It was there, in the Imperial Palace, where Ulpian was finally murdered. The hope of much-needed and radical reform being embedded and saving the Empire from its own failures died with him. The Praetorian Guards had won out, their privileges and donatives were assured – and a clear signal was sent to anyone who would consider treading the same path in future.
The Emperor Alexander was ultimately too weak and too aware of his own position to take on the guard, and although some leaders were moved out to the provinces and met a minor performative sort of punishment the bigger battle, the clash between institutional vested interests and the broader public interest and those who would put the long-term strategic interests of the Empire first, had already been lost.
The lesson then, as now is clear – when faced with reform which runs against their own priorities vested interests will rally round and do whatever they can to kill it off (sometimes literally) – too often potential reformers pull back and engage in self-preservation. Those who do not are left isolated and usually defeated in a bloody pool of chances missed.
Britain’s first “Prime Minister”
“I unequivocally deny that I am sole and prime minister.”
Robert Walpole, Prime Minister
There was nothing about Robert Walpole that would have made him stand out as someone likely to become particularly significant or transformative for the British state.
The rather plump provincial fifth child of minor local gentry, unrefined in manners or culture, moderately successful at school without being spectacular, Robert looked a good fit to become a local clergyman – and very nearly did so, only changing course once his elder brothers died in turn and he found himself stuck with administering their Norfolk estates and securing the family finances.
It was this accidental vocation which led Walpole to discover his talent for making money – both through his close study of finances in order to make shrewd investments and more importantly through even more shrewd study of people and their behaviour – which led him to bail-out from some of those investments – such as the infamous South Sea company just before its share price crashed.
Walpole’s political ascent was similarly marked by a combination of accident, reacting to events and a surprisingly sound and consistent ability to rise to them.
Walpole had always been a Whig but more by habit and convenience than anything else. He did not demonstrate any particularly strong political views or loyalties, at least early on in his career, and found himself out of moderation and a desire to keep the peace opposing several of the measures being pursued to persecute high ranking Tories as well as the broader political vendetta against popular opponents of the Whig ministry such as the preacher Henry Sacheverell – a vendetta which would bring about the fall of the Whig ministry of the day.
This inherent moderation and quiet competence in financial matters allowed political figures to project views on to him – thus he was brought by Lord Godolophin, the de facto leader of the Whigs at the time into the ministry – serving in a variety of roles including Secretary of War and Treasurer of the Navy. Yet in turn, with the fall of the ministry after the Sacheverell riots and the elections of 1710 he was openly courted and approached by Robert Harley and the Tories with a view to joining their grouping – losing office when he eventually refused to do so – either in a rare demonstration of political principle and loyalty or as a result of careful long-term political calculation.
Finding himself now seen as a threat and an enemy Walpole faced prosecution himself under the Tory ministry and in the highly partisan mood of the times threw his energies and abilities into pamphleteering against the Government.
His choice of loyalties proved astute and with the death of Queen Anne he found himself back in favour and in power with the Whigs under George I – once again rising through the ranks and demonstrating his soundness to his political affiliation by pursuing some performative investigations and prosecutions against Tory leaders such as Lord Bolingbroke but ultimately siding with the Tories to prevent the prosecution of Robert Harley – resigning and splitting the Whigs in the process.
Once again Walpole’s general competence in financial administration and his shrewd reading of events played a key role in advancing his career – with the South Sea Bubble bankrupting many rivals and causing the fall of others. Walpole found himself well positioned to be a consensus figure brought in to steady the Government’s parlous finances – and also to prevent the prosecution of his negligent predecessors in order to protect the King’s reputation. A role he performed so effectively he was to become known as the Screenmaster General.
This was though just part of a wider strategy which was to serve Walpole so effectively from 1721 onwards as he was appointed to three crucial roles: First Lord of the Treasury, Leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer – making him the first Prime Minister in all but name.
Walpole had an incredibly astute understanding of the core constituencies he needed to keep onside in order to retain his power and to pursue his now developing philosophy of peace, moderation and steady accumulation of wealth for both the country and himself.
Managing to cultivate both the King and simultaneously his increasingly hostile son – the future George II through the prince’s wife, Princess Caroline, Walpole was able to embed his position and remarkably managed to survive and thrive with the royal succession – elbowing out his only competitor for power, his brother-in-law Lord Townshend in the process. He was also more than willing to build a web of clientage in Parliament, which along with his increasing assurance and the dispatch box and his alliance with merchant and minor gentry interests and the resulting healthy return of support from the rotten boroughs, made his position near unassailable.
The sheer length of his tenure was enough to successfully embed not just his party but the Hanoverian dynasty itself which could very plausibly have fallen to either financial headwinds, internal division or Jacobite insurrection under less assured, calm and sure leadership. It also helped to establish and embed both his own political priorities of steadily growing trade and industry through political and legal certainty, and indeed the governmental institutions which would underpin this in the coming centuries.
Walpole was eventually brought down in the 1740s by a fundamental change in the political environment – as an increasingly belligerent Spain, and an enthusiastic and energetic generation of British politicians determined to use the power of Britain’s growing financial strength in international relations added up to an inevitable war breaking out – a war in which the now clearly ageing Walpole was not seen as the man to lead Britain into. His longevity had meant that over the decades he has given enough people enough reason to hold a grudge, and his coalition of merchants and minor gentry no longer shared his policy goals and priorities.
Despite all this and despite ceasing to be “Prime Minister” in 1742 and being elevated to the Lords, Walpole remained a dominant figure in British politics for his remaining years – serving as confidante of both Pelham and the King. And of course his impact on British politics – both his overwhelming policy determination to secure domestic stability and tranquillity and his entrenchment of an established and for the day highly effective set of political institutions, was to stand the country in good stead for a long time to come.
Walpole’s circumstances and political career are of course a world away from our own politics today. Nevertheless his example should remind us both never to underestimate the transformative potential of the right leader at the right time – even if they may not have stood out as such in advance – and of course of the benefits of keeping a leader in role long enough to actually put an approach into effect and to prove its worth. Lessons we can only hope to heed more in future.
The first two Kings Charles
God Save The King! The United Kingdom and a number of countries around the world have a new monarch – Charles III. Long may he reign. In these early days Charles III appears to have risen to the occasion well. He talks of duty and of following his mother’s example. He talks of respecting and protecting Parliament and sovereignty. His public utterances have been well pitched and well received.
If he does prove to be a Good King then Charles will be breaking with precedent when it comes to previous Kings Charles – both of whom were disasters for Britain
Obviously monarchs do not automatically share characteristics with their predecessors. While the last two Kings George were steadfast and dutiful George IV was a timewasting lightweight socialite – much as the last two Edwards were, in sharp contrast to some of their serious minded predecessors. And the contrast between the last two Henrys couldn’t be more marked – with one of England’s best kings rebuilding the national finances, strengthening our defences and international standing and bringing internal and dynastic stability – and his son doing pretty much the opposite.
The thing is – with the exception of John (and there was only one of him), and the debatably included Stephen, there is no monarch’s name in English history which is so consistently associated with badness as Charles.
Charles I is of course best remembered for causing the English Civil War and losing his head in the process. There charge sheet is longer than that though.
As has been the case remarkably often with royal second sons – they have not been fully prepared for the role of King from birth and have often proved themselves to be constitutionally unsuited to the role.
Utterly mis-reading the ever increasing association between Protestantism and English Scottish patriotism and identities, Charles spent considerable periods of time before his accession pursuing a variety of Catholic princesses from England’s old enemies Spain and France – having been rejected by Maria Anna of Spain he eventually settled for Henrietta Maria of France. This misjudged diplomatic match would cause immediate anger and concern amongst his Protestant Parliament when the new Queen refused to take part in Charles’s coronation because it did not follow a Catholic liturgy.
With the 30 Year War in full progress religious fervour was reaching fever-pitch and Charles once again misjudged public opinion – keeping England out of the war on the side of the Protestant states and actually concluded a secret treaty with France which included lending ships to France which were then used to supress the Protestant Huguenots at La Rochelle. When England did eventually get involved with plans to attack Spanish overseas possessions and eventual support to the Huguenots Charles’s preferred lackeys proved stunningly incompetent and led both operations to disaster.
This inability to read the changing nature of his Kingdom and public opinion, combined with a preference for more deferential absolutist modes of monarchy found in the Catholic powers was at the core of his eventual antagonism with Parliament.
Charles I was an avid believer in the Divine Right of kings and seemed intent on reversing centuries of progress back towards the English nobility playing a bigger role in major political decisions which had started to recover from its Norman nadir with Magna Carta and had accelerated under Henry VII and his attempts to modernise and systematise revenue generation for the state and to ensure peace and internal cohesion following the Wars of the Roses.
Even though we was a practising Protestant Charles I was incredibly Catholic in doctrine and tone – strongly supporting extremely high church practices and seeking to impose them in both England and Scotland against significant opposition in both.
The King’s determination to aggrandise and stand by his favourites such as Buckingham, Laud and Stafford despite their manifest unpopularity and counter-effectiveness was to prove yet another source of his undoing.
Distrust of the king led Parliament to more carefully guard its powers and checks on him – only granting him key taxes for short periods of time and more carefully circumscribing how he could use the resulting budget. Point blank refusing to give him multi-year unrestricted settlements or to meekly consent to forced loans Parliament angered Charles’s vanity to such a degree that he determined to govern without it.
Ultimately proroguing Parliament and concluding peace with France and Spain Charles went on to refuse to recall it until his antagonism of the Scots led him to the brink of financial ruin Charles as well as his vindictive treatment of his opponents and backing for his lackeys set the scene of the Civil War, which will be covered more fully in a future article.
Even in the course of the Civil War though, and despite repeated attempts on behalf of Parliament to compromise with the wannabe absolutist monarch, Charles refused to make concessions or to encroach on his inflated and anachronistic conception of kingship until such a point where his bad faith and continued plotting and hostility led him to his fate.
Charles II by contrast gets off relatively lightly amongst most historians. Enamoured with his art collections and architecture historians have tended to let their professional interests in these objects and their clear relief at the end of the dour and messy Protectorate cloud their judgement on an altogether awful king.
Charles was once again a very continental monarch – having largely been raised in and around the French court – and having followed his father in unsuccessful courtships of prominent Catholic princesses until he married Catherine of Braganza. He was clearly influenced by the absolutist style of the Bourbons and shared their tastes for expensive ostentation and luxury.
It was these expenses which led Charles II to become increasingly dependent on France as a source of financial support – an arrangement which reached its pinnacle with both the sale of Dunkirk to France and the Secret Treaty of Dover in which gave him a sizable life pension from the French state in exchange for serving French interests, agreeing to provide military support to France and to become Catholic himself when the moment was right.
Charles embroiled England alongside France in an expensive and damaging war against the Dutch – only deepening his dependency and weakness.
In addition, despite his huge number of illegitimate children he failed in one of the first duties of kingship and the crown headed in the direction of his openly Catholic brother – the future King James.
On an administrative level too it was not all laughter and fun in English politics, starting his reign with bloody retribution against the surviving Parliamentary civil war leaders and ending it with executions and banishment of many prominent Whig leaders.
For all his pomp and glitter Charles II followed much the same pattern as Charles I and found himself unable to work constructively with Parliament or to recognise the real concerns his people had over foreign interference and Catholicism – eventually eroding all trust in the monarchy and ending his days ruling without Parliament as a weakened but absolute monarch.
Returning to today – Charles III shows no signs of wishing to emulate his predecessors – and possibly his only error so far is in his choice of Reginal name.
Let us hope that he chooses to continue to follow the examples of his last two immediate predecessors – rather than those of his two namesakes.
A reflection on the end of an era
Today Queen Elizabeth, the longest reigning Monarch in British history has died. As a mark of respect The Torch has decided to pause our political comment for now and instead to dedicate this column to a brief reflection.
The only Monarch to have reigned for a similar duration and one of the few to have left such a mark on the institution of the Monarchy itself is of course Queen Elizabeth II’s Great Great Grandmother – Queen Victoria.
Both Queens left their mark not so much through direct involvement in affairs of state but in the overall tone and tenor of their reigns – tones which became deeply embedded due to the sheer amazing longevity of their service.
Queen Victoria of course oversaw the British Empire reaching its zenith in terms of influence and power. It is no exaggeration to say that she oversaw the creation of the modern world and there are many who would argue that the decency, values, civilisation and wisdom of that age still stands as a beacon to us today.
She is also likely to have played a big role in the relative lack of major European conflicts in her reign, particularly in the final decades. The family ties built by Victoria and her family were seen as both a useful diplomatic channel, and an insurance policy to prevent diplomatic hostilities simmering over into armed conflict.
This did very much depend on her own personal status as the de facto matriarch of Europe’s royalty – with most of the major (and many of the minor) Royal Houses of the continent tracing some family links to her – including the royal families of Germany and Russia.
Her embodiment of a certain way of doing things, of certain expectations, standards and values served as a pre-emptive reproach to some of the potential hot-heads of state in a way which another figure would not, and could not prove capable of.
After a long illness Queen Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight on 22 January 1901 surrounded by her children and grandchildren – including the new King Edward VII and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany…
One of the great constants of the age was over. Indeed, that glorious confident and dutiful age is often referred to as the Victorian Age.
The Edwardian Age was to prove very different – the only certainties were gone and so too soon, was the old Europe and the character which defined the world.
At The Torch our thoughts and prayers are with all who grieve for the loss of our noble, dutiful, faithful longest serving Monarch Queen Elizabeth II.
Queen Elizabeth II was an incredibly unifying and inspiring figure. In an age which in many ways seems to be increasingly obsessed with the immediate, the self, with image and with instant gratification her presence, her character, her faith and her fundamental and constant decency has served as a constant mild but unarguable rebuke to the worst excesses of our society and politics. She represents an irreplaceable loss of wisdom and insight for our political leaders and a major loss of stature to our traditional and unifying institutions.
Our minds therefore also turn to those who hold a sense of uncertainty, foreboding and concern for the end of the Second Elizabethan Age and what it may presage.
We must prayerfully look ahead to the new age with a new King.
God Bless Queen Elizabeth II.
God Save The King.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold – the first modern diplomatic summit
The much of Henry VII’s reign and the start of Henry VIII’s had seen a remarkable lack of war between England and France. This is not to say that the relationship was peaceful – it was not. But conflict had consisted mostly of English raids into the territory around Calais and sporadic French attempts to evict the English from the key strategic port city.
On the whole this ill-defined period of semi-conflict had worked to England’s favour. Henry VII had managed to translate a raid followed by a short siege into a substantial annual tribute from France in exchange for an end to such activity at the Peace of Etaples in 1492 which lasted for the rest of his life.
Henry VIII had continued this ploy in the early part of his reign with a successful raid on the economically vital town of Tornai – which he then sold back to the King of France for a healthy profit. This was one of a series of intermittent conflicts between the two kingdoms with a series of small scale battles such as the Battle of the Spurs taking place as part of the wider Italian Wars.
Henry VIII and his soon to be rival King Francis of France were however cut from a very different cloth to the likes of Henry VII. Whilst the frugal, effective, disciplined and effective Henry VII could be seen as the last of the late Medieval monarchs, or possibly as the very model of an early-modern monarch, Henry VIII was determined to be cutting edge and modern in everything – which at that time meant seeing himself as a Renaissance King.
The combination of Christian idealism and Renaissance Humanism together with a healthy dose of self-serving power politics which defined the archetype of the Renaissance King required that monarchs should put petty raiding and squabbles behind them and strive to be, or at least be seen as, strong but peaceful defenders and embodiments of peace, generosity and brotherliness. Clearly repeats of the Tornai gambit were therefore out of the question.
With diplomacy requiring that both Henry and Francis be able to pose as offering peace to one another from a position of strength any peace required a huge degree of choreography, a great degree of diplomatic skill and insight and a keen awareness of the power of symbolism.
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was the possessor of all of these qualities in abundance and, as any astute diplomat must, he understood the characters of both monarchs well.
His plan for the summit in 1520 which became known as The Field of the Cloth of Gold required a huge degree of planning and a great deal of expense both on England’s part and on the part of France.
The substance of the meeting had been long since been agreed and delivered long before the protagonists even met – both monarchs had signed a non-aggression pact two years previously, so the summit itself was not strictly necessary from a legal perspective and was entirely a public relations exercise.
Despite the inevitable awkwardness of meeting just outside Calais – with France maintaining a claim on the port and Henry claiming to be the rightful monarch of all surrounding French countryside, there was nevertheless a determination to paint both kings as absolutely and precisely equal in every way.
The two sides were to camp on either side of a valley – with each side of the valley carefully landscaped so as to ensure that they were both exactly level with one another. Both kings were permitted to bring precisely the same number of nobles, soldiers, courtiers, clerics and servants. There were even restrictions in place on how many horses each side could bring.
There was however still plenty of room for each side to attempt to out-pose the other – and both kings took up the opportunity with gusto.
On both sides the encampments were a sea of gold with fashionable and extremely expensive cloth of gold embroidery being found in abundance on most of the 3,000 or so tents on each side. At the centre of both encampments were the Royal tents – which more resembles palaces than anything else.
Henry’s for example was constructed by over a thousand skilled craftsmen brought over specially for the occasion. They constructed an eight foot high brick wall running enclosing over 10,000 square metres. On top of this was another thirty feet of cloth reaching up to peaks. This structure was painted to look like it was stone or brick throughout.
The costumes worn by the protagonists were no less elaborate with Henry reportedly wearing a suit of armour made of no less than 2,000 ounces of gold and with over 1,000 pearls on it.
The entertainment was no less lavish, with wine fountains, exotic monkeys, huge banquets at which hundreds of sheep and other meats were consumed, and carefully planned jousting amongst the best knights of both countries. To the astonishment of precisely no historians both kings found themselves victorious in the jousts and were of course carefully kept apart so as to avoid any diplomatic incidents.
The summit was on its own merits a huge success. It certainly allowed both leaders to grandstand in precisely the sort of way they would have liked and it caught both domestic and international attentions and imaginations. Since it was effectively intended just to rubber-stamp the peace and understanding which had already been agreed there was also no chance of the respective leaders upsetting diplomatic harmony by saying or proposing anything new either.
One potentially unintended effect of the whole summit was that the ruinous cost of all this diplomatic theatre meant that neither side would have had the funds available to engage in military hostilities in any event – and France in particular was so burdened by the cost that it had a lasting impact on Royal finances for over a decade.
Looked at objectively though the whole event is nothing short of farcical.
At no point did either side make any real concession in terms of its historic claims on the others’ territories and within months of the elaborate acclamations of friendship between England and France Wolsey was working on another much more binding accord with Francis’s most ardent enemy – the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. This alliance which committed England and Charles’s territories to mutual assistance in the event of war with France was to lead to England and France resuming hostilities on opposite sides of the Italian Wars within two years.
Francis for his part continued to invest heavily in France’s alliance with Scotland, encouraging England’s northern neighbour to adopt an increasingly hostile posture in a bid to distract and undermine Henry’s position. In addition, when Henry went on to seek French support for his plea to the Pope to have his marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled he found his erstwhile “friend” to be lukewarm at best.
The whole expensive and time consuming business was in short nothing more than an opportunity to inflate the egos of the leaders of the nations involved and to adopt the postures they wanted on the world stage, it was scripted and choreographed rather than substantial and seminal, fleeting rather than firmly founded, a publicity stunt rather than serious statesmanship – and made no real lasting difference to anyone.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold was in short the very model of a modern diplomatic summit.
Dieu et mon droit – an assertion of sovereignty
“I am born in a rank which recognises no superior but God, to whom alone I am responsible for my actions; but they are so pure and honourable that I voluntarily and cheerfully render an account of them to the whole world. The treaties I have concluded with the King of Sicily contain no infraction of the law of nations. I do not understand how I can be reproached for the conquest of Cyprus. I avenged my own injuries and those of the human race, in punishing a tyrant and dethroning an usurper; and by bestowing my conquest on a prince worthy of the throne, I have shown that I was not prompted by avarice or ambition; so much so, that the Emperor of Constantinople, who alone had any right to complain, has been wholly silent on the subject. In reference to the Duke of Austria, he ought to have avenged the insult on the spot, or long since to have forgotten it; moreover, my detention and captivity by his orders should have satisfied his revenge. I need not justify myself against the crime of having caused the assassination of the Marquis of Montferrat; he himself exonerated me from that foul charge, and had I my freedom, who would dare to accuse me of deliberate murder? My pretended correspondence with Saladin is equally unfounded; my battles and victories alone disprove the false assertion: and if I did not drive the Saracen prince from Jerusalem, blame not me, but blame the King of France, the Duke of Burgundy, the Duke of Austria himself, all of whom deserted the cause, and left me almost single-handed to war against the infidel. It is said that I was corrupted by presents from the sultan, and that I joined the crusade from the love of money; but did I not give away all the wealth I seized in capturing the Bagdad caravan, and what have I reserved out of all my conquests? Nothing, but the ring I wear on my finger. Do you, then, render justice to me; have compassion on a monarch who has experienced such unworthy treatment, and put more faith in my actions, than in the calumnies of my deadly foes.”
King Richard of England in response to the accusations of the Holy Roman Emperor’s Diet of Easter 1193
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
Ever since the Norman invasion of 1066 England and its rulers from the House of Normandy had existed in a legal grey area as regards feudal dues and obligations.
Normandy had always been a belligerently independent Duchy ever since its creation through a grant of land to the Viking leader Rollo in 911. Technically owing allegiance to the King of France the Dukes had in reality spent almost the entirety of their history waging war and intrigue against their neighbours and generally undermining the peace of France. This reflected both the warlike character of its leaders and a deliberate policy on their part to assert their political detachment.
Normandy had always been powerful enough to ensure its de facto independence but had often had diplomatic reasons for maintaining alliances with its neighbours. Following the invasion of England in 1066 though the power dynamics started to shift dramatically.
Simply put, taking possession of the huge and well organised resources of England gave the House of Normandy a huge military advantage. Being able to draw on most of the capacities of a large and relatively united kingdom in addition to the mercenary forces which could be bought with English taxes in addition to the already formidable knights of Normandy and Brittany put the Dukes in a far more powerful position than the French kings.
Over succeeding reigns significant further territories were added in France through strategic marriages up to a point where more territory of what now constitutes France was in the hands of the Dukes of Normandy and Kings of England than in those of the French King.
Despite all of this the legal fiction of fealty to the French king remained – although this was routinely ignored in practice, and of course rarely asserted to the English kings.
One of the seminal moments which changed all of this was the reign of King Richard I, and in particular his series of disputes with the French king and other European monarchs.
Matters came to a head in 1193 when the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, who was far more sympathetic to Richard’s enemies including the Duke of Austria and the King of France, convened a Diet to hold Richard to account for a litany of genuine and fabricated allegations about a series of military and diplomatic actions in Southern Europe and the Middle East – including the liberation of Cyprus.
More important than the specific answers to the allegations as set out above are the preamble statement in which Richard explicitly and officially repudiates any claims of fealty or subsidiarity to any other monarch or authority.
By stating that he “recognises no superior but God, to whom alone I am responsible for my actions” Richard is asserting absolute sovereignty over his actions, possessions and dominions at least from an earthly perspective and is in effect refusing to recognise the legitimacy of any external body seeking to hold him to account. The rest of the response should therefore be viewed as little more than an addendum or public relations statement.
This statement is therefore a clear and official break from any outside sovereignty and seems to reflect a definite effort at positioning developed by Richard and his advisors.
A further and far snappier exposition of this thinking can be found a few years later towards the end of Richard’s reign at the Battle of Gisors in 1198 in which Richard had his forces explicitly adopt the battle cry “Dieu et Mon Droit” – literally “God and my right.”
This battle cry both neatly summarises Richard’s assertion of independent sovereignty and serves as a propaganda tool to make what Richard wanted to be seen as the case for his actions – that by his continued conflicts in France and elsewhere he was serving God and protecting his rights.
It is notable that this powerful, assertive and almost arrogant statement would go on to become the official motto of the English then the British Royal Families.
It was Henry V who officially adopted the motto into the monarchy’s coat of arms and it has been remarkably durable ever since – surviving religious divisions in the Tudor-Stuart period, significant challenges to the implied divine right of kings during the English Civil War, Glorious Revolution and Hanoverian Succession, and of course the decline in both Royal Prerogatives and the importance of faith in politics over the last few centuries.
Part of the reason no doubt why the motto has lasted so well is the clarity, simplicity and emotive pull of the arguments for unmitigated domestic sovereignty which it makes.
Suffice to say that such deep emotive, instinctive and deeply engrained political, religious and cultural values which the motto draws upon remain potent in politics even to today and are underestimated, ignored or trifled with at the peril of any domestic UK body, or today’s supra-governmental bodies.
The Sacred Chickens and the Battle of Drepana
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
Rome has a well deserved reputation for martial prowess. If there was one thing the Republic and the Empire both took seriously it was military tactics and strategy. While the Greeks had philosophy, the Romans had the legions.
Yet whist the Romans were excellent students and rapidly adopted technological and organisational advances from their foes, not every aspect of Rome’s war machine was scrupulously rational and choreographed.
Indeed, one of the oldest traditions of Rome in warfare was that no battle, major foreign policy decision or expedition should be initiated without the approval of the Sacred Chickens.
The Sacred Chickens were poultry which had received a special and ritualised upbringing by priests and whose behaviour was seen as a strong indicator of the approval of the gods.
When a decision was to be made grain (there’s no record of the grain being particularly special) would be put in front of the chickens. If the birds happily set about their dinner with much flapping about and such like then this was taken as a positive sign of the gods’ favour. If they were reluctant and picky this was taken as a very bad omen and either no action would be taken or the action would be delayed.
Obviously we are talking about fairly predictable livestock here so it will be no surprise to discover that the behaviour of the birds could be influenced quite significantly by the priests – by withholding food for a substantial period of time in advance for example, so always staying on the right side of the priests was a good idea for any ambitious politician or general.
Whilst the whole charade sounds entirely absurd to us, it was taken very seriously indeed by the Romans and there would be great resistance from all ranks and levels if the auguries of the chickens were ignored.
As the first Punic War broke out in 264BC the Romans found themselves struggling against Carthaginian naval superiority. Rome had no real seafaring tradition and had never held sailors in the same esteem as they did proper legionaries.
As the war progressed they were forced to adapt though and started to produce their own ships and to develop their own tactics to simplify sea combat to compensate for their inferior seamanship.
In a remarkably short period of time the Romans were successful and they won a string of surprising victories over the Carthaginians as they closed in on crucial Carthaginian holdings in Sicily by winning a the battle of Mylae near Sardinia in 260 BC and then two in the immediate vicinity of Sicily itself at Sulci in 257 BC, Ecnomus in 256 BC, before pivoting to an unsuccessful attack on North Africa before salvaging their armies from defeat in Africa at Cape Hermauem in 255 BC.
With the war now firmly focussed back on Sicily the Romans gradually broke the stalemate on the island and undertook a siege of the vital Carthaginian base at Lillybaeum.
This was however proving less than successful as the Carthaginian fleet at Drepana was able to outmanoeuvre the stolid Roman blockade and to keep bringing in fresh supplies.
This led the senior Consul of 249 BC who was in command of operations around Sicily, Publius Claudius Pulcher, to devise a plan for a night raid on Drepana with a superior number of Roman ships. The idea was to sail the short distance under a moonless night and to catch the Carthaginians in port, negating their superior seamanship, and to allow for the destruction of the majority of the Carthaginian fleet, thereby allowing for a more rapid conclusion of the siege of Lilybaeum.
On the face of it a good plan, one which made good military sense and one which the majority of Rome’s leaders supported.
The only problem was the chickens.
The Sacred Chickens were having none of it (literally) and point blank refused to eat, remaining steadfastly in their cages.
Perhaps they were spooked by the heave of the ships, perhaps the Claudii’s characteristic arrogance and sliminess was not quite bringing the best out of the priests (or the chickens), it may even have been a warning. Whatever the reason, the chickens were not for moving.
Facing time pressure to get going with the raid and wider time pressure as his term as Consul ran down Publius Claudius Pulcher grew exasperated and rather than throw the towel in he chose the chickens instead.
Loudly declaring that “if they do not want to eat, perhaps they want to drink” Pulcher picked up the chicken cages and threw them and the chickens overboard.
Whatever concerns of trepidations they had the fleet set sail for Drepana.
Immediately things started going wrong.
The inexperienced Roman sailors found it difficult to keep close formation even for the relatively short distance to Drepana and they found themselves dispersed and scattered over a wide area. The whole trip took far longer than expected – and then they were spotted by Carthaginian sentries.
Despite not expecting any attack it happened that the Carthaginian fleet was nearly all ready to sail and their commander was able to take them out of port and out beyond where the Roman fleet would appear from and from where they would have the advantage of the wind.
As the Romans approached Drepana it became clear that they had lost all benefit of surprise and Pulcher made efforts to get his fleet to form up and prepare for the inevitable Carthaginian counter-attack – but they were too slow and lacked the expertise of the Carthaginian sailors.
The ensuing battle was a disaster for Rome – the vast majority of the fleet was either sunk or captured and very few made it back to Rome. Rome’s hopes of winning the war rapidly were sunk – and the strategy of trying to match Carthage at sea to allow them to ferry troops around the Mediterranean (a strategy which eventually brought Carthage down at the end of he second Punic War) was blown far off course.
Amongst those who did make it back was Pulcher who went on to face trial – not for losing the fleet though – for ignoring the chickens of course.
It seems obvious to us that even the most pampered poultry does not have powers of foresight or a hotline to divine beings who can predict the outcome of major events.
Yet by ignoring a sign which so many of his fleet and army would have put so much store by was Pulcher guilty of hubris and of damaging their morale? Were potentially more experienced priests trying to warn him of something which no one else had the guts to say?
We do not know – but it should give us pause for thought the next time some traditional knowledge or beliefs point one way and we find it a bit too easy to treat them with scorn and throw them overboard when we want to take some new radical course of action. We might find out that the chickens were right after all.
The utter ruin of the state: Rome and the Cura Annonae
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
Bread had always played an important role in the politics of the Roman Republic. The Populares had always championed some form of bread or grain provision by the state as a means of supporting the city’s population in the face of high and variable prices (and as a means of securing their own support.) The provision of grain and the means of acquiring it at the expense of the Senatorial classes had been one of the main causes of conflict between the Gracchi brothers and their Optimates opponents – a conflict which would eventually lead to their assassination.
Despite initially being controversial when first introduced, the rapidly growing population of Rome, the frequent price spikes and shortages brought about by threats to key sources of grain such as Sicily and the lure of political advantages from securing popular support meant that before the end of the Republic bread and grain handouts had become a standard feature of Roman life and politics.
The poorest elements of Rome were in this way effectively brought wholesale into the patronage systems of the Roman ruling classes. In return for continued supplies of bread (and occasional circuses to be sure) they were expected to act publicly and vociferously as clients to their patrons in control of the state who could reasonably regard them as bought and paid for.
The bread dole, by now formally known as the Cura Annonae (named after a Roman goddess of grain), went on to become a permanent feature of the Roman Empire, one which went on to require a colossal logistical operation: growing or purchasing grain across the whole Mediterranean (but particularly in Egypt), transporting it by ship up to Rome, milling it, baking it and then distributing it to approximately 200,000 of Rome’s million citizens every day. All of this was overseen by a massive bureaucracy headed by a senior Roman official.
So whilst the handouts played an important role in supporting the Emperor’s popularity in the capital, and even became a core part of the Imperial cult, the sheer cost, scale and complexity of the Cura Annonae became a massive drain on the time and energy of the Government. Indeed, Tiberius Caesar went on to describe it as “the utter ruin of the state.”
Yet with such strong expectations having been developed around its continuing even the strongest willed Caesars decided against removing it.
There were many reasons why the bread dole ended up becoming such an overwhelming feature and burden of the Empire. Obviously political expediency and a desire to gain popularity played a big role – yet behind this it cannot be denied that there was a persistent demand amongst the plebeians for something like this long before it became established – clearly there were socio-economic factors at play too.
Most obviously was the fact that Rome had high and persistent levels of unemployment and under-employment. Despite efforts by both Julius and Augustus Caesar to discourage less well off members of society from moving to or staying in the capital this remained a feature as people travelled from all over the peninsula in search of better prospects.
Behind the lack of prospects was the rise throughout the late stages of the Republic and the early empire in the use of slave labour – not just for agricultural or construction work but increasingly over time for what in most societies are considered more professional and middle-class roles – such as administrators, clerks, ships captains and teachers.
As a result small-holders throughout the peninsula got squeezed out of land, and despite the incredible wealth of the aristocratic families it became hard for a professional or mercantile class to develop under them, to accumulate wealth and ultimately to drive both demand for more goods and services and to drive the innovation and enterprise needed to create the industries which could have supplied this. Industries which would in turn have soaked up large numbers of labourers and resulted in an upward drift in incomes, thus generating further industries.
That small number of Roman citizens who were able to accumulate capital did not take the lead in developing new industries and sources of wealth either. Most commonly these aristocratic families would use their wealth competing with one another under the patronage system in securing popular support – and increasingly the support of other key influential figures or institutions – such as the Praetorian Guard under the Empire.
When wealth was put to productive use it would be invested in purchasing overseas holding – or lands expropriated from political enemies – this, especially the former, had some positive net economic impact but in the long-term all it was dependent on the availability of new opportunities overseas. Even when these dried up there were very few examples of these families repatriating wealth to intensify domestic production.
In addition, many of the most productive resources and lands of the empire, which could reasonably have been expected to have provided outlets for Rome’s unsustainable population in the form of colonies and settlements, where in the dead hand of the Empire itself and its administration, which showed remarkable little appetite to explore and exploit these opportunities.
Throughout history this is the process which has kept large non-agrarian societies in balance. There must be scope for advancement, progress and innovation – with people able to aspire to move up in society, to accumulate wealth and to spend or invest it, in turn creating more employment and investment opportunities for others, moving forward like a man on a bike, or else the whole vehicle comes to a halt and collapses.
Instead, with too few engaging in productive industry, too few creating opportunities for others and Rome continuing to show a remarkable capacity for finding new ways for self-enrichment and corruption the whole of the Empire was in a sense becoming an extension of the patronage system.
The result was frequent implosion, division, tumult and civil war – most famously in the later stages of the Republic but also, other than during the reigns of a handful of competent Caesars, during the Empire itself, especially during frequent times of succession.
The only particularly remarkable thing about all of this is that somehow, against the odds and with such massive structural flaws and no willingness to correct them, that Rome lasted as long as it did before eventual collapse.
It is worth reflecting from our own perspective on how our own structural flaws and weaknesses, as well as our own politicians’ willingness to engage in forms of patronage and populism has led to the rise of something similar to the Cura Annonae – with potentially equally ruinous consequences.
It is notable how in much of the West a cult of dependency and clientage has been developing throughout most of the post-War period with an ever widening list of handouts and universal benefits – all of which are much easier to agree to from a political perspective than taking on the tougher underlying structural challenges we face.
We have found our own sources of cheap labour in the form of mass migration, we have made it increasingly harder and more bureaucratic for people wishing to innovate or engage in start-ups and enterprise and we have become increasingly risk-averse, suffocating many new ideas and potential new industries.
Government patronage has of course reached new heights during the economic emergency created by the Government’s Covid response – handouts for individuals and whole sectors have proliferated and an almost entirely unchallenged media narrative has emerged – that as soon as a new problem or challenge emerges, that more Government handouts are needed.
Given the structural under-investment in energy (mostly resulting from the Government’s own policies and hostility to most forms of energy and energy innovation) we are now seeing an inevitable rise in energy prices – and as The Torch predicted, calls for Government handouts.
The question has to be, with our Cura Annonae now taking hold – how are we going to avoid the ruin of the state? And will we be as lucky as the Romans in avoiding ruin for as long as they did?
The Agadir Crisis of 1911
This post is part of our series looking at lessons from history to the challenges facing us today.
On 21 July 1911 a high ranking UK politician, David Lloyd George, then serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer made a dramatic, unofficial but entirely authorised diplomatic intervention into a major territorial dispute in order to contain growing German aggression. British intervention in the crisis was ultimately enough to secure a stand-down from the Germans and to avert an immediate conflict between two of the world’s major powers. Whilst it is certainly the case that many of the wrong lessons were drawn from the conflict on both sides, what seems most remarkable now was the clear-minded strategic thinking which guided British and French diplomatic and military moves throughout the crisis.
Lloyd George’s Mansion House Speech might sound mildly and reasonably worded now – but in diplomatic terms it was a barely concealed threat to Germany to comply with its undertakings to Britain and its allies – or else to face war with both.
The crucial passage went as follows:
“I believe it is essential in the highest interests, not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disaster and even from national extinction. I would make great sacrifices to preserve peace. I conceive that nothing would justify a disturbance of international good will except questions of the greatest national moment. But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation in tolerable for a great country like ours to endure. National honour is no party question. The security of our great international trade is no party question; the peace of the world is much more likely to be secured if all nations realize fairly what the conditions of peace must be.”
Whilst the British cabinet remained resolutely opposed to intervention and Britain’s official position remained one of neutrality this intervention was approved by both the Prime Minister Asquith and the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, as a deliberate attempt to show some steel and force the Germans to back down.
The tensions between France and Germany which lay behind the Agadir Crisis did of course have their roots in the Franco-Prussian War and the French desire for “revanche” after the humiliations inflicted in the resulting Versailles peace treaty. In fact it is arguable that the underlying national antagonisms went back further to the equally humiliating terms inflicted on Prussia by Napoleon seventy years before that, terms which were consciously mimicked in the second peace treaty.
With France seeking opportunities to isolate and weaken Germany and their newly unified rival no longer benefiting from Bismark’s wise and strategic guidance, a collision seemed increasingly inevitable.
Under the Kaiser’s belligerent leadership Germany was seeking to assert its growing power more outside of Europe and to grow its imperial possessions. Most of the success of this policy had come in Africa – where Germany was growing both in territory and in trading interests.
The Algeciras Conference of 1906 had been a major blow to German ambitions in North Africa with the Kaiser’s threats failing to break the Anglo-French entente, failing to secure concessions in terms of German influence and failing to secure international (particularly American) support.
The conference had however afforded Germany some solace by enshrining their right to ongoing commercial relationships in Morocco with an agreement that both countries would secure each other’s economic interests there. the
A minor rebellion in early 1911 had provided France with the opportunity to test limits of this agreement and to isolate Germany further. French diplomats were able to persuade the Sultan of Morocco to request French military support to protect key trading sites and European communities throughout the country.
The risk to French or any other interests from the rebellion was minor to say the least and the spurious nature of the excuse was apparent to all concerned – so it can as no surprise that French forces were on standby to intervene at a moment’s notice and very rapidly established themselves on the ground.
Diplomacy broke out and then rapidly broke down between France and Germany – with Germany correctly seeing the crisis as a trumped up French attempt to violate the terms of Algeciras. Anger and pique at French actions was then redoubled with French diplomats produced ready made proposals to trade-off German claims in North Africa for territorial concessions around The Congo.
Once again though, rather than capitalising on initial diplomatic support and sympathy, the Kaiser reached fairly quickly for literal gunboat diplomacy and dispatched SMS Panther to the waters outside Agadir under an even thinner pretext of defending German nationals in the settlement who not only had to be dispatched rapidly in order to get there in time to be protected – but who actually failed to arrive before the warship sent to defend them!
Had Germany reacted differently it is perfectly possible that France would have overplayed their hand here and that a wedge could have been driven between Britain and France, that most great powers would have insisted on Algeciras being honoured and that the German position would have been strengthened. Instead the absurdity of the German pretext and its equally heavy-handed overreaction brought about moral equivalence. From this point onwards the great powers would be free to determine their choices based entirely on self-interest.
France responded to German intervention by orchestrating a run on the German stock market in order to increase domestic pressure alongside growing international pressure. This had the desired effect and negotiations started on what a deal could look like.
Britain had waivered in its support for France initially and the majority of the cabinet were still firmly opposed to intervention – but Sir Edward Grey in particular, who had witnessed German aggression first hand in the Algeciras negotiations – as well as Asquith and Lloyd George were firmly of the view that Germany must not be permitted to hold a Mediterranean port.
The net result of British intervention was to significantly strengthen the French negotiating position and weaken the German – leading to far smaller concessions to Germany in Central Africa which amounted to little more than face saving after being forced to back down.
The German conclusions from the crisis were that they were increasingly isolated on the world stage and that if things ever came to a diplomatic arm-wrestle that they would be defeated yet again. This reinforced the Kaiser’s determination to pursue a military solution next time round.
France on the other hand concluded that Germany was a paper tiger. That whilst the Kaiser could be relied on to explode if tactically prodded – that when faced with an Anglo-French joint position that they would fold.
These attitudes were of course contributing factors to the outbreak of the First World War three years later.
From a modern perspective though what stands out here is the maturity, gravitas and far-sightedness of many of the actors in this drama.
Whilst this week’s intervention in Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi was also almost certainly approved by the Biden administration there is no discernible strategy or diplomatic advantage to the intervention. It appears by contrast to be a blundering act of a lightweight politician desperate to make some kind of impact in a sensitive region at a time when the US is already distracted elsewhere and with no clear diplomatic gain available.
China’s predictable belligerent reaction mirrors Germany’s from 111 years earlier – missing out on an opportunity to take the moral high ground and overreacting in a way which will leave it diplomatically isolated.
Ludicrous, useless and dangerous though the Kaiser was, at least his diplomatic corps saw an opportunity to secure territorial gains and concessions – even though events took this away from them.
Across all of the great powers involved though – France, Britain and Germany at the time and the US and China now it is depressing how inexperienced, inept, unstrategic, blundering and confused those commanding the fate of the world are now compared to their predecessors 111 years ago.
And that should be more than a little bit concerning considering how badly things turned out even for them in the following years.
Keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs: the political constancy of Winston Churchill
When you’re 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you’re 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you’re 60 you realise no one was ever thinking about you in the first place. You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Sir Winston Churchill
If you’re not a Liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a Conservative at forty, you have no brain.
Sir Winston Churchill
Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.
Sir Winston Churchill
Britain’s political parties have always been broad and changing coalitions of different philosophies, beliefs, characters and ways of seeing the world. As The Torch has commented previously, the terms left and right are completely the wrong ones to describe the dividing lines in politics and for most of British history a far better guide would have been dividing the sides between rationalists and traditionalists. There is obviously something to be said for both of these and by and large the nation has thrived in the tension between these two. It is only when we get an interloping ideology based more on emotion or quasi-religious fervour that this balance falls apart. Examples of these interloping ideologies have included Royal Absolutism, Theocracy and for the past century and a half socialism.
It was in the late 19th and early 20th century that Britain saw the impact of socialism radically reshaping the balance of Britain’s political parties.
The Liberal Party, which had always roughly corresponded with the rationalist end of the spectrum started losing support in the cities to the newly emerging and socialist Labour Party. This had the effect of pulling that party in a socialist direction and warping its positions on many issues.
The Labour Party itself was emerging and clearly set to become one of the major forces of British politics.
The Conservative Party meanwhile, which had always corresponded with the traditionalist end of the spectrum, was consciously repositioning itself around the values of patriotism and empire in what it thought was its best defence against socialism and its best chance of emerging as the main anti-socialist force in British politics.
It was in this context that a young Winston Churchill was first elected as a Conservative MP.
Since the repeal of the Corn Laws and the ensuing division the Conservative Party in the latter half of the 19th Century had found a way of coming to terms with economic reality and had by and large embraced free trade. There were always a few landed vested interests and economic illiterates who craved after a return to protectionism – using many of the same arguments we still here these days about security and national interests. These though had successfully been kept under wraps by an expedient Disraeli and a wise Lord Salisbury. Salisbury only really let the side down through his coronation of his successor and family member – the bumbling and lightweight Balfour, and on this much would hinge for the coming decades.
Under Arthur Balfour the Conservative Party veered away dramatically from the successful formula which had underpinned Britain’s economic success in the latter half of the 19th Century – embracing protectionist theories of “Imperial Preference” – that is imposing tariffs on goods from outside of the Empire. The Government also tabled the Aliens Bill – a particularly odious piece of legislation which sought to latch on to growing anti-Semitism in society at the time and to make life difficult for Jewish migrants to Britain.
It was this direction, these decisions and ultimately this clear change in governing ideology and principles which drove Winston Churchill out of the party and into the Liberals.
Following his departure the fortunes of the Conservative Party and Churchill differed markedly. Within a year and a half Balfour resigned as Prime Minister, the Liberal Party were invited to form the Government and were returned after the election with the majority they needed to do so. Winston Churchill took his first steps onto the Ministerial ladder and went on to be probably the single most effective, imaginative and visionary minister in Asquith and Lloyd George’s War Governments. The Conservatives by contrast took years to get their confidence and sense of direction back – finally resurfacing more as a result of the implosion of the Liberals than anything else.
Churchill’s principles had always been economically liberal, towards free trade, free enterprise and growth. Although traditionalist on some social issues he would have fit in exceptionally well with the Liberal Party of the mid-to-late 19th Century. By the 1920s under the terrible post-war leadership of Lloyd George though they were increasingly desperate to see off the Labour challenge and were adopting more and more socialist policies – whilst also working closely with Britain’s reds.
This in turn drove Winston back to the policy and principle light Conservative Party under Baldwin – who in the absence of any real beliefs or direction had nothing for Churchill to object to.
Churchill was of course viewed by many senior Conservatives as a radical, a maverick and found himself cast out from the establishment which was becoming increasingly illiberal, stodgy and paternalist in nature. It did of course take some of the most dramatic events in European history to bring about his return and ultimate elevation as Prime Minister.
The rest as they say – is history.
We should bear this in mind when we think about our current circumstances. Our parties are more in flux than ever before, as are the electoral coalitions which underpin them. The leadership, philosophy, principles and priorities of all three of the UK’s main parties have shifted dramatically since the mid-1990s.
There are politicians in The Conservative Party now who were in the Labour Party or Liberal Democrats in the 1990s who may reasonably argue that they have changed parties but their principles have remained the same.
Parties themselves are a highly imperfect institution in democracies. They can warp decision making, loyalties and even the actors on our democratic stage. It would be madness to make loyalty to these over time the absolute litmus test of political virtue.
It is a test which Sir Winston Churchill would never have passed.
Dropping The Pilot
On 18 March 1890 Otto Von Bismarck, the Imperial Chancellor who had played the decisive role in creating the first unified German state, who had won victory after victory against rival powers and who was seen in diplomatic minds as almost interchangeable with German power, resigned at the demand of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The impetuous young monarch who had never personally liked Bismarck and who had been agitating for nearly all of his short reign to get rid of him saw his chance to force the issue and took it. From now on there would be no iconic statesman setting Germany’s course through the rocky waters leading to the high-seas of great power politics. Wilhelm would be left to chart a new course for Germany on his own.
Shortly afterwards the brilliant and farsighted news magazine Punch published a cartoon which summed up the situation perfectly – as reproduced above. Part of what made the satirical take so clever was that it was immediately welcomed and recognised by both sides.
The cartoon shows the aged Bismarck making a stately procession down a ladder off a formidably modern and powerful looking ship of state. As he descends he is watched by the notably younger and satisfied Kaiser Wilhem, still aboard the ship with arms folded.
As far as Bismarck was concerned the cartoon demonstrated the moral righteousness of his cause. As the wise and experienced guide to the ship of state he had guided Germany past many shoals which would not have been seen by others and done so well. Without him the ship would never have safely got out of harbour and by right it should be him who continues to steer it. Without its pilot Germany would now be susceptible to many dangers which it would otherwise not have been – and the inexperienced figure of Wilhelm looked almost an almost petty and childish replacement in the background.
Kaiser Wilhelm and his allies by contrast also took satisfaction in the cartoon. Seeing an aged and tired figure descending the steps and a younger more martial figure now higher up and on deck accorded with their self-perceptions – as did the depiction of Bismarck as a pilot. A pilot after all is a specialist and functionary role – whose defined and limited job is to guide a ship in its very early movements out of port but who is habitually dropped and no longer needed when the ship heads to the high seas.
Bismarck is most often remembered as the man of “blood and iron” and for his dramatic successes in the Dano-Prussian War of 1864 and the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 which allowed him to create the first unified German state. He’s also well remembered for instigating the stunning victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 which gave Bismarck the opportunity to solidify all of Germany into the state it came to be and which asserted German military dominance in Europe. But Bismarck was far more than an aggressive warmongering expansionist. His far greater strengths lay in building the domestic underpinnings of the German state – and even more so in his diplomatic skill in maintaining subsequent peace and a balance of power in Europe.
In the years after 1871 Bismarck completed the largely subsequently peaceful unification of Germany, created the conditions for German industrial growth, restrained the power of the traditional squabbling Germany military class, continued to professionalise and modernise the Germany army, created a modern state with public services and welfare systems, launched a highly effective cultural programme to embed the idea of Germany and launched an effective and extensive programme to undermine and weaken the growing socialist movements within Germany.
One need not agree with all, or indeed any of these achievements to see an effective, strategic mind at work, one which clearly had a coherent vision for Germany and was straining every aspect of domestic statecraft to achieve it.
If anything though his achievements and strategic prowess in foreign policy were even greater though. With the Austrian Empire fatally weakened and in terminal decline, with the decrepit Ottoman Empire falling apart even faster and new states springing up across the Balkans Bismarck managed to insert Germany as the key arbiter and power player in all diplomatic negotiations – restraining Russian influence and expansion, keeping France under wraps and only occasionally (particularly under Disraeli and Lord Salisbury) finding Britain to be his diplomatic equal.
Bismarck made some concessions to political demands in Germany for imperial expansion outside of Europe but was sensibly restrained in this area – rightly detecting the absence of significant German threat to the other powers overseas as an opportunity to build alliances and support where they really mattered in Europe. He managed to maintain positive and productive relations with the chaotic and fluid political leadership of Italy and most importantly, managed to harness both Austria and Russia to the German cart despite their massive geo-political rivalries in the shape of the Three Emperor’s League.
Bismarck’s alliances, diplomatic skill and stature were sufficient to avert numerous conflicts which could have been triggered by events in the Balkans and he consistently understood and stated it as being in Germany’s interests to avoid major conflicts between major powers in Europe.
By contrast, Kaiser Wilhem II who had not been expected to succeed to the throne, only doing so because of the premature death of his elder brother, had almost no strategic or diplomatic insights or skills.
The Kaiser resented Bismarck’s go-slow on German global ambitions “our place in the Sun” and failed to comprehend the strategic value in stewarding German strength in Europe and avoiding unnecessary conflict. Equally he underestimated the socialist domestic threat to Germany and publicly clashed with the Imperial Chancellor over measures to quash the rapidly growing movement. It was these differences in vision (or lack of vision in the Kaiser’s case) which destroyed what remained of a working relationship and personal respect between the two and which finally furnished the Kaiser with the excuse he needed to demand Bismarck’s resignation.
Freed of Bismarck’s restrain the Kaiser was now free to dictate an immediately more aggressive, confrontational and ultimately destructive course. Germany went on to pursue every given opportunity to pursue conflict with Britain in Africa, pumped huge investment into a fleet which was only suitable for operations in European waters – a direct threat to Britain’s safety which resulted in the inevitable arms race, adopted a heavy-handed and unpredictable approach in the Balkans and worse of all, failed to maintain the Three Emperor’s League.
The consequences of this abrupt change in direction for Germany, Europe and the world are of course well documented and played out to their conclusion in 1914-18 and afterwards.
Turning to today, Britain has just undergone its own astonishing change in leadership. Boris is of course no Bismarck – and The Torch has found plenty to criticise, particularly in the economic malaise, the safety-first paternalism, the missed opportunities, the destructive Net Zero policies and the culture of our leadership.
He did though have a vision of Britain – and particularly in achieving Brexit, standing up to Putin (albeit not enough), in the development of the vaccine and in starting to fight back against some small parts of Cancel Culture he did have some big strategic achievements. It is fair therefore to say that Post-Brexit Britain, for good or for bad, has dropped its own pilot.
We must all hope that his successor will build on the best of these achievements and not throw them away and that she will have both the vision and the ability to build a peaceful, freer and more prosperous Britain making the most of the opportunities of Brexit in the years ahead.
Dancing together off the edge of a cliff: The Roman Optimates and Populares
In 82 BC Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, better known simply as Sulla, marched his army for the second time into Rome to save the Republic, determined to establish a stronger and more lasting order and avoid future civil war and strife. As a result of Sulla’s actions the next 55 years would see unprecedented plotting intrigue, attempted and actual coups, two further civil wars and the final death of the Republic. Sulla’s march in to Rome was immediately preceded by the Battle of the Collilne Gate in which what was left of the Marian forces were joined by Rome’s traditional Italian rivals, the Samnites, in making a last stand against the relentless advance of one of the greatest generals of his age. The battle brought to end the long civil war which had seen two of Rome’s greatest ever generals – Gaius Marius and Sula squaring off for a variety of reasons but primarily because of their own egos. Ultimately though they tapped into the two sides of the major dividing line of politics – before spreading the conflict to engulf the wider politics and divisions of the Italian peninsula and beyond. It was the precise location of this fissure in Roman politics between these two factions which gave their rivalry much of its strength, relevance and impact and which went on to similarly power the forces which brought about the Republic’s final fall. The two major political forces of Roman politics can be described as factions and as wings but not really as parties – not having anything like the formal organisational structure of modern political entities. Despite this the underlying values, structure and support for these forces was just as strong, fervent and persistent. It is not certain to what extent the terms we use were in common currency at the time but when Cicero repeatedly made use of them to describe the two sides no one was in any doubt what he was getting at. The Optimates were those who were ostensibly motivated by preserving Rome’s constitutional integrity, traditions and order. In particular this meant upholding the power of The Senate above all else, upholding the electoral system which was massively skewed in favour of the oldest aristocratic orders (whilst pragmatically admitting some grudging entry from the new rich), insisting on the enduring relevance and significance of unwritten customs and traditions – and above all, a hostility to encroachments into this power by the Tribunes and popular assemblies. Behind this, it should be apparent, was considerable self-interest and fear of losing their privileged position in Roman society. Optimates may well believe that it was their class who had made Rome great and who continued to uphold traditional Roman values but they would certainly have been aware that the Roman constitution had changed considerably over time – often only when forced to by a revolt of the Plebeians – sometimes in reaction to the excesses of more democratic elements. The order and traditions they stood for was not therefore all that old or traditional and had no special claim to veneration over any other shifting constitutional balance. It should also be noted that the Optimates, although opposed to power by the masses, were not averse to securing power through the masses – and they were as willing as their opponents to make extensive use of mob violence, intimidation and crowds of supporters to win their way in trials and votes. The other major force in Roman politics was the Populares. Those who justified their position by reference to the popular will as expressed through the Tribunes, popular assemblies and spontaneous – or not so spontaneous popular demonstrations. This was very much a faction which was for the Plebeians, rather than being of the Plebeians. The Populares were patricians themselves, usually very wealthy and often would curiously find themselves advocating on the basis of these principles when they had not succeeded in attaining power through more traditional and formal means. As such both factions, no matter their justifications, were really interested in power and in finding justifications for seizing it or clinging on to it. There was certainly a great deal of travel back and forth between the two factions. To take two prominent examples – Cicero, starting from a background in minor provincial gentry and with many of his enemies being highly aristocratic, scored a number of early successes through his oratorical skills in sending up the absurdities and self-serving nature of the patricians and their conventions. In time though, having rapidly ascended through Rome’s elective offices, becoming established and grudgingly accepted by the patricians, he became the Optimates’ most vocal defender against future Populares. Similarly, Pompey the Great, establishing himself early on as a popular and effective general but being unable to attain elected office, spent a time as the de facto leader of the Populares, it was only when both his popularity and military record were both surpassed by Julius Caesar that he became a wholehearted convert to the Optimates. Behind the rise in this conflict was the rapid expansion of Roman territory. A series of overwhelming victories in the prior decades over the Carthaginians, the Macedonians and the Greeks had given Rome effective control of nearly the whole Mediterranean. This had certainly made Rome richer – it had also made a number of Roman generals and leaders far wealthier. It had provided Rome with a huge new supply of slaves, it had denied Rome the threat of a credible external enemy and it had brought about the rapid expansion – and thus greater democratisation and professionalisation of the Roman army. The greater wealth of Roman leaders meant that they were in a stronger position to buy loyalty – both in politics and in their armies. This coupled with the celebrity attained by generals as a result of the recent stunning successes expanding Roman territory presented an opportunity for those with sufficient resources and great enough egos to create personal followings and to start to think of themselves as potentially greater than the Republic itself. The supply of slaves had really transformed not just the Roman economy but Roman society too. Suddenly most Romans were not to be found working on the fields (as they were replaced as workers by slaves or bought out as small holders by increasingly wealthy patricians) and started to form poorer working classes in the cities and in Rome in particular. This provided the foot soldiers for both factions in Roman politics but particularly the elements for the popular mob the Populares would increasingly appeal to and call on to attain power. This started in earnest with the Gracchi brothers who pushed land reform and redistribution as a major political issue and tapped in to major popular support as a result. In their case it is worthy of note both that the Populares Gracchi abused and violated tradition in holding the Tribunate beyond specified term limits – and that their Optimates enemies ultimately resorted to political assassination to bring them down – then flagrantly changed the constitution to suit their own purposes. The lack of sufficiently concerning enemies was ultimately a major factor in the fall of the Republic as a whole but certainly played its part in the conflict between Marius and Sulla – whilst both scored significant successes against external threats and whilst Sulla spent years distracted by threats to the East, none of these was ever a serious existential threat to Rome the way that the Carthaginians had been. It would have been unthinkable for Roman leaders to have secured the popularity they did when waging internal civil wars if such threats had existed externally. It was overwhelmingly though the professionalisation and widening of participation in the Roman army which provided the immediate means for effective and popular generals like Marius and Sulla to fatally undermine the Republic. Marius firmly established his popularity with his legions through a series of victories in North Africa and in defending Italy against invading Gaulish and Germanic tribes. The foundation of his success was his complete reorganisation of the Roman army, instituting greater discipline and updated structures. His earlier military victories as Consul in 107 BC were the reason for his return by popular demand as Consul in 105 BC. This popularity and his awareness of the power of his celebrity and popular support encouraged him to disregard all convention and to hold on to the Consulship for five years in a row in this second spell. His personal hatred of his earlier subordinate Sulla was also a major factor in his determination to hold on to power and in his subsequent further steps to undermine and break the Roman constitution. Resenting the rise of Sulla during the Social War and his ultimate election as Consul, Marius sought the command of the Roman legions being sent on expedition against Pontus but the command was given to Sulla. This led Marius to seize his chance for continued popularity and to conspire with a Tribune Publius Sulpicius Rufus whose recent Bill to facilitate provincials from Italian tribes securing Roman citizenship had been blocked by Sulla, to provoke riots in Rome. These rioters eventually took hold of the city and under Marius’s command they purged the Senate and sought to reverse the decision to appoint Sulla as commander of the expedition. Sulla’s response to this flagrant breach of the constitution was to engage in an arguably even greater breach himself – marching his legions into the city – the first time any such act had happened in Roman history. And thus the dance of Populares followed by Optimates in turn violating and reshaping the constitution continued. Marius was exiled and Sulla went off on campaign – but this was not yet the end of the matter, with Marius returning from Africa and working with his Italian allies to once again seize control of the capital. Sulla’s popularity itself having taken a hit from his march on the capital and his reprisals. Marius died before the conflict in the East finished but the Populares continued in the ascendancy until their final defeat as we mentioned at the Colline Gate. In this action Sulla not only violated the convention against armies entering Rome once again but also began a series of further constitutional outrages – culling a large number of Marian allies and Populares and setting himself up as dictator for life. Sulla eventually resigned his life dictatorship and retired – stating his clear hope that the new constitutional arrangements he had put in place would finally resolve the conflicts of the Republic. Yet the example he had given from his own actions – that any written constitution could not withstand a well-led and loyal Roman army was the counterpart to Marius’s own lesson – that mob rule and acclaim could cut through any convention, no matter how venerated. Ultimately it was the dance of the Populares and the Optimates together which undermined the credibility and respect for Rome’s institutions and conventions. It was their actions, not their justifications which served as a lesson to later generals such as Pompey, Crassus, Caesar and ultimately Octavian and which would bring about the death of the Roman Republic. If all of this hypocrisy, grandstanding and false justifications for personal ambitions seems incredibly familiar we don’t blame you. Neither should the fissure between cronyist establishment, self-serving Optimates versus belligerent, egotistical posturing Populares seem too distant to us. America especially has seen one President trashing convention after convention followed by another now seeking to undermine the constitutional position of his own Supreme Court and engaging in many other abuses of his office – with both ignoring limits on executive powers and accountability as it suited them. The dance continues – and much like the Roman Republic, the modern West without constitutional certainties and conventions in public life might be about to dance off the edge of a cliff…
Adam Smith’s other book: The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Art historians and archaeologists have developed a considerable body of expertise over the centuries in using the material products of a society as a key to understanding the broader values of a society or a culture – what they consider important and why, what their social expectations of one another are and how they establish an identity in the world.
Such methods are just as relevant when considering the ideas which take hold and become popular in a society – their political theory, philosophy and religious beliefs and even their assumptions and inter-personal conventions.
It is perhaps telling therefore that at the height of the intellectual and philosophical wave which started with The Renaissance that we saw the publication of Adam Smith’s truly ground-breaking Theory of Moral Sentiments. It is also noteworthy how today this apogee of Renaissance Humanism has been almost entirely forgotten and discarded by our modern political theorists – who are far more interested in theories derived from the comparatively lightweight Marx and Hegel.
Indeed, brilliant and seminal though his other book, The Wealth of Nations is, philosophically it should really be seen as a secondary development of The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Published in 1759, A Theory of Moral Sentiments made the case that mankind was both selfish and of course capable of evil acts, but that there was something intrinsic to us as humans, and partly deriving from this self-interest which made us inherently sympathetic to one another – of deriving satisfaction from supporting and helping one another and that this human sympathy was both the basis of our moral judgements about one another and society and also the only really effective basis on which society could exist and function.
To unpack that further it is worth contrasting it with other prevailing theories at the time. Thomas Hobbes in particular is a good counterpoint. Shaped by the chaos and destruction of the English Civil War and the phenomenal cost in life and property Hobbes claimed that without the strong and constantly threatening power of the state that society or any positive interaction would be impossible and that mankind would devolve into war of all against all – that life would be full of constant fear of violent death – to use the famous quote “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
Hobbes’s justification for a strong state is still the only one which has not been entirely discredited on its own terms – and even we and Smith concede that mankind is capable of monstrous acts and of causing unsettling fear if there is not some strong deterrent and that in practice this deterrent force should consist of a monopoly of organised violence by the state.
Hobbes was too pessimistic and defeatist though in putting all of his meagre hopes for mankind in the hands of a state which to his mind, so long as it left us life and the minimum means of sustaining life, was reaching the threshold of all that could be expected of human existence.
Hobbes’s successors in justifying and glorifying state authority and control have of course gone further and sought to set out what they believe are aspirational social engineering goals – ways in which the state can make us better people and less tainted by the inherently nasty and quarrelsome human nature which so concerned Hobbes.
Smith’s take in Moral Sentiments was entirely different. He also had hopes for a brighter future for mankind – but not based on social engineering by authority and instead based on the fulfillment of the positive potential of human nature.
This means not more state control, more authority and force but rather more positive and free human interaction, allowing more trade, more voluntary support, more association, in short more society. All of this will develop our natural sympathy for our fellow humans, soften our otherwise brutal edges and develop our capacity for humanity.
From this it is easy to understand how Smith’s belief in the Wealth of Nations that free and unregulated economic interaction can drive human prosperity and the common good.
It also poses an existential challenge to much of the state – other than punishing and deterring violence and threats of violence – a function of the state which is often neglected or carried out poorly nowadays anyway – the overwhelming majority of state activity becomes not just unnecessary but an actual obstacle to human improvement. Voluntary association and help to our fellow humans can only really grow when those functions are not carried out by a massive, invasive, costly and compulsory state apparatus.
Yet all of the evidence of the last few hundred years suggests that moral impact of voluntarism, philanthropy, freedom and organic human based morality have a far more positive impact than even the most benevolent compulsion, command, control and state direction ever can.
This is clearly an existential threat to huge swathes of Big Government and plenty of vested interests but that alone does not explain why this noble, well-evidenced and reasonable idea has dropped out of circulation over the past two centuries and a half.
To explain that we must return to studying how societies shape ideas as much as how ideas shape us.
What is evident is that over this period renaissance ideals themselves have been in headlong retreat. Aggressive and divisive Marxist and Hegelian derived theories have sought to compartmentalise humanity into one faction or group or another – to divide us and to undermine the core Renaissance Humanist belief that the most fundamental thing about us is that we are human with a shared humanity. And that if this is the case then we cannot trust any claims about human nature or human empathy – that we are instead shaped by false-consciousness based not on individual experience but on group experience and group identity. That class, gender, race or some other characteristic consciousness should be and is the basis of all fellow-feeling.
This is absolute nonsense and must be rejected entirely.
Such ideas are now being used to question not just our shared humanity but to undermine scientific empiricism, deductive logic, truth, freedom and individuality. We are seeing more and more public bodies, academics and media outlets claiming that only “lived experience” is a valid means of knowing anything. That the indirect experience of someone as part of a particular group matters more than their individual circumstances and most poisonous of all – that true universal human sympathy is not even possible.
Whilst such ideas are clearly wrong and concerning – what is more concerning is what it says about what has happened to us over the past two and half centuries, how far we have fallen, and what this says about where we are going as a society.
Fools or traitors? Losing a war you should know how to win
“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.”
Robert Conquest
It seems that every time The Torch visits an episode of Russian history things are going badly and that people are dying in large numbers as a direct result of the policies being pursued by their own Government. Plus ca change!
The latest instance we would wish to highlight though is one to which we most people in most countries can relate – and certainly many of us in the UK in recent years.
In 1916 the Russian war effort in World War I was going badly. Hundreds of thousands of conscripts were being sent in to battle badly equipped and supplied and terribly led.
Whilst this was true of most armies in World War I, especially on the allied side, the situation was an order of magnitude worse in Russia. Lessons were persistently not being learned but ignored, despite patriotic attempts by consortiums of industrialists to sort out supply problems they were being stymied and sidelined, and incompetent Tsarist cronies were in charge of every aspect of supplying and supporting the war effort.
This was also true when it came to military leadership. Russia actually had one of the more capable allied commanders in Marshal Brusilov who had proven himself capable of making astonishing advances against the Austrians – nearly knocking the Habsburgs out of the war if it had not been for a refusal of commanders of other armies to coordinate. Despite this the only exceptional commander on the Russian side had been moved aside and the bloody, costly, demoralising stalemate had returned.
In short it was now clear that the war was going in the wrong direction and that no victory was on the horizon.
This situation was particularly dangerous for the Tsarist regime as Nicholas II had made the very public decision to take personal command of the war effort – to no noticeable positive outcome – and had left the command of the domestic government in the hands of the Tsarina.
Because the Tsarina herself was German and had many close family ties to the German Empire, because of her reclusive and hostile nature which had won her few friends in Russian society or the media and because of a number of stupid decisions the Government had made at her command – largely due to any true understanding of Russian politics – it was becoming increasingly common for enemies of the regime to question her loyalty and to speculate about the existence of a pro-German cabal undermining the war effort.
Throughout the war the Duma had attempted to assert itself, largely to little effect. The opposition to the regime was in a minority after recent restrictions to the franchise and eligibility and that opposition was itself divided between the agrarian socialist Trudoviks, the communist Social Democrats and the liberal reformers in the Constitutional Democrats.
The increasingly dire war situation was leading to heightened rhetoric on the political fringes – with both the ultra-conservative elements and the socialists accusing one another of treason and conspiracy. The few competent Ministers had found it productive to work with the Constitutional Democrats and their able, effective and popular leader Pavel Milyukov, particularly to secure the Duma’s approval for the Imperial budget but increasingly these reformers were being squeezed out by the Tsarina and replaced by incompetent or malleable appointees – often based on the appallingly bad advice she was receiving from Rasputin.
When the Duma met at the end of October 1916 it was therefore no surprise that the leader of the Trudoviks spent much of the session haranguing the Government and casting every possible aspersion on its Ministers. This had been factored in. The Trudoviks were numerically tiny and were expected to engage in such antics. So long as the regime was able to secure the ongoing, increasingly strained but still grudging approval of the professional classes, the industrialists, bankers, investors and much of the media in the form of the Constitutional Democrats though it would be possible for them to retain a broad enough base to ward off any serious challenge to its authority.
All of this is what makes what transpired next so crucial and dramatic for the regime – leading to its rapid isolation, undermining its last vestiges of support, so that when the revolution of February 1917 finally came all it took was to kick the door in and the whole rotten structure came falling down.
Pavel Milyukov had been expected to mollify the situation. To provide his usual constructive critique of the Government and to accompany it with positive and productive proposals for change. As things stood though, the worsening war situation, the recent firing of key allies within the administration and the increasing pressure he found himself under within his own party caused him to adopt a different tone entirely.
Claiming to have seen extensive evidence of treason implicating several Ministers in the Government Milyukov at length held forth on the many and repeated failings of the administration. He started systematically working through Ministry by Ministry exposing failing after failing, pouring scorn on the stupidity and possible treachery of the Ministers and even of large parts of the Duma he was addressing claiming that such strategy could only be motivated either by stupidity or by treason.
This motivated Nikoloz Chkheidze – one of the socialist delegates present to defend himself – exclaiming “I may be a fool but I am no traitor!”
Milyukov as if on cue took this as an opportunity to satirize the Government as a whole. Asking:
“Does it matter, gentlemen, as a practical question, whether we are, in the present case, dealing with stupidity or treason? When the Duma keeps everlastingly insisting that the rear must be organised for a successful struggle, the Government persists in claiming that organising the country means organizing a revolution, and deliberately prefers chaos and disorganisation. What is it, stupidity or treason?”
He then went through numerous examples asking the Duma repeatedly which they thought it was – eliciting cries of “stupidity” “no, treason!” in turn – forcing erstwhile defenders of the regime to choose stupidity as the lesser of two crimes, even while his core point remained the same – that the net result of the two policies was the same.
Milyukov finished his speech by laying down a challenge – that until the Government could clearly demonstrate a new direction, rectifying the manifest failings of the past and heeding the proposals he put forward that it would cease to command the confidence of the Duma.
The speech was rapidly turned into a pamphlet and circulated widely – achieving not just higher profile and ultimately position for Millyukov inside the post-February Ministry – but fatally undermining the regime he had until that point been at pains to protect.
Once the regime lost the benefit of the doubt – pushing potential allies too far by refusing to do what clearly needed to be done to win the war it allowed itself to become this object of ridicule.
Hostility, anger and resentment it could withstand – but scathing ridicule it could not. This was the end of any kind of popular support it had – and though it certainly was more due to stupidity, arrogance and being out of touch than actual treason it could not be said it deserved any different fate.
The ultimate fate of Milyukov himself and the constitutionalists after the February 1917 election is of course a far sadder and more sympathetic tale – but also not without its own stupidity.
As our own establishment and institutions manifestly fails to learn the obvious lessons before it and persist in their astonishing failure against socialism, against misanthropy, against inflation, against state intrusion, against the destruction of our economic competitiveness, against science and innovation, against the warping of our institutions and the poisoning of our culture, against the threats to our individual freedom and our sovereignty it may be time for them and their Parliamentary cheerleaders to answer this question for themselves – fools or traitors?
And how much does it even matter which of these they are?
Magna Carta: Revolution, reaction and setting the pattern
This past week has seen the anniversary of one of the foundational documents of the British Constitution, and one which encapsulates much about the way in which constitutional change happens in this country – Magna Carta.
Although the date most commonly cited for royal agreement to Magna Carta is 15 June 2015, the reality is that what was agreed that day in Runnymede was probably just the heads of terms – with the full charter being presented and receiving the Royal Seal in the ten days after.
By this point 807 years ago Magna Carta had already been transcribed into writ and was on its way to several key counties of England.
Over the centuries since the Norman invasion England had abandoned the patchwork of local rule and restraints on centralised Royal power which had characterised most of the Anglo Saxon monarchies. Partly as a means of subduing a conquered people and partly in reflection of the different political traditions of Normandy and of France, the Houses of Normandy and Angevin accepted far greater Kingly power as not just accepted but as ordained by God. Under this tradition the King had the power to seize lands, mete out punishments and pronounce new and capricious laws with no means of appeal or due process.
Under Henry II this centralisation was elevated to a new level through the development of the writ, the standardised Royal letter which would allow the King’s commands to be rapidly disseminated throughout the Kingdom without him needing to be there himself. It was this and the bureaucracy which accompanied it, together with its reforms to taxation and the subjugation of Scotland and Ireland into the wider Angevin Empire which underpinned the success of the dynasty and turned the Empire into perhaps the greatest power in Western Europe at the time.
King John developed this system further. Possessing a good understanding of the law and of bureaucracy he significantly increased the output of these writs and proved highly effective at ensuring that the Crown secured taxes and rents from the Barons which had not previously been pursued with such rigour. This helped him to built a very substantial war chest equivalent to several years of Royal revenues early on in his reign. Coupled with his significant land holdings in France this seemed to put him in a very strong position.
It was thus strangely a combination of both John’s administrative and legal abilities and his strategic and military incompetence which brought him low.
In the early years of John’s reign he found himself in competition with Phillip II of France for control of his family’s possessions in France. Through a combination of poor military decisions and worse diplomatic ones John had lost nearly all of these territories by 1204 and spent the next ten years on increasingly expensive and futile attempts to regain them, culminating in the disastrous defeat at Bouvines in 1214.
To the honour crazed and militarily obsessed aristocracy of the time it was the series of humiliating defeats as much as the financial and military cost of the war which pushed them over the edge. The King was expected to be their leader, a strong and ferocious military commander who could and would secure his territories against external threats and impose his will on domestic challengers alike. To have lost so badly and for such an extended period of time seriously damaged John’s credibility amongst those who he had already aggrieved through his insistent chasing of Royal dues and taxes.
As such, when John returned home from France he found himself facing an array of Barons, largely from the North and East of the country bound together by a litany of complaints about his conduct. These Barons swore a solemn oath to defend the country and the church against the King calling for more protections against arbitrary Royal power – invoking both the Coronation Charter of Henry I and King John’s own efforts earlier in his reign to set out a constitution.
These precedents were carefully chosen with the assistance of Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury (who was notionally neutral in the matter but who would have had more than enough reason to resent John after the King’s attempts to block his appointment to the role which were eventually overruled by the Pope.) They served the dual purpose of covering the Baron’s specific concerns in relation to arbitrary rulings, seizure of property and taxation – whilst also having legitimacy as originating themselves in Royal decrees.
A new charter (the so called “Lost Charter”) based on these and with a particular and unashamedly self-serving focus on the Barons’ own interests was presented to the King at a conference in a neutral church belonging to the Knights Templar in London. John refused to budge in these discussions though and instead dragged matters out as long as possible to give himself time to secure Papal support.
Having finally lost patience with the King the rebel Barons mobilised their armed bands, securing key locations across the country including London, and congregating near Northampton. John had by now secured Papal support and further letters from the Pope to the Baroness and the Archbishop clearly aligning with his side of the argument and thus sought to refer the whole matter to the Pope for arbitration. This offer was naturally enough refused by the Barons – who had seen John himself disregard Papal commands when they didn’t suit him in the past. The matter was accordingly forced and John was forced to meet the Barons at Runnymede for talks about a new charter.
The resulting Magna Carta went much further than the demands presented by the Barons thus far. Not just introducing the requirements for due process in the justice system, the protection of property and the requirements for consultation for further taxation – but also establishing the means by which the distrusting Barons could ensure ongoing compliance by the King.
The most radical of Magna Carta’s original provisions was Clause 61 which established a council of 25 Barons who would have wide ranging responsibilities – including assessing whether the King was complying with the charter and having the power to take military action if not, hearing complaints about Kingly behaviour and having the power to enforce their verdict, having the power to reallocate Government land and property and even having the power to fill any vacancies which arose in their number in future.
The effect of these reforms, both taken to their logical conclusion and in the way they were implemented in the months after the charter was sealed was to turn something resembling the Venetian Republic (that is to say an aristocratic oligarchy) far more than Angevin Monarchy – with the King reduced to little more than the Barons’ delegated executive, his powers highly circumscribed and the his own life, liberty and property, as well as the whole operation of the Government dependent entirely on the will of 25 of his erstwhile enemies. It was in short, nothing less than a complete transfer of ultimate sovereignty from the King to the Barons.
Whilst John was a bad King – petty, avaricious, a terrible war leader, an inveterate schemer, pretty much entirely without honour and clearly not up to the task the truth is that the Barons were not much better either. They came from the same ruling aristocracy which was obsessed with conflict and showed little to no concern with the wellbeing of the country as a whole – a country they still largely ran as a subdued foreign territory. They were largely uneducated and had a warped sense of honour.
As such it is remarkable that they should have played a role in developing a document of such seismic importance – though the true constitutional scholar and likely guiding hand behind this was almost certainly Stephen Langton, who was a different proposition entirely. What is probably much less remarkable is that both John and the Barons engaged in bad faith from the start – neither attempting to make Magna Carta work and both sides focussed instead on manoeuvring to secure support from other factions within the Kingdom, and in John’s case, ongoing support from the Pope. John’s intrigues were probably more effective on both of these scores – so whilst the Barons were able to enrich themselves significantly by their use of the charter and to redress a number of old grievances against the Monarch, they ended up losing widespread support – and several of their key leaders found themselves excommunicated by the Pope – who also demanded that Magna Carta be set aside and that all concessions were void.
The little that was left of John’s reign was therefore spent in open civil war with his leading Barons – now supported by Prince Louis of France as a pretender to the throne before John pulled off the biggest single strategic masterstroke of his reign and put the Angevin dynasty back on the front foot – by dying in October 1216.
The young Henry III with the support of William Marshall, his Regent and Earl of Pembrooke were rather more astute than John and recommitted themselves to the charter – in earnest this time – but with a few crucial amendments in new versions in 1216, 1217 and ultimately in 1225. These removed the major concessions on power sharing, used language which reaffirmed Monarchical rights but did deal with the main concerns around the justice system and taxation.
The new compromise still preserved the bulk of Kingly powers and resources but moved the balance just enough to tie the Barons firmly in to the new settlement and to see prevent any further substantial constitutional innovations for centuries.
The impact of Magna Carta really cannot be understated. As the first constitutional innovation in Western Europe for centuries and one which became a central part of the constitution in practice it went on to become a touchstone and reference point for reformists and revolutionaries for centuries – through the English Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolutionary War and since. It was in many ways the first sign of light re-emerging into British politics after the disaster of the Norman invasion and the stamping out of the restraints which the House of Wessex had faced. By its example and it would ultimately bring about the whole theory and practice of constitutional monarchy and even mass democracy.
It is also though highly illustrative of the process through which political change takes place time and time again in England, Britain and the UK. There will be the process of revolution or reform – often triggered by fairly quotidian and banal concerns yet harnessed by greater political minds to represent a genuine far reaching and laudable reform which goes no to serve as an example for the future. Yet against this there is the reaction – the reformers overplaying their hand, then the watering down, the compromises and the ability of the establishment to co-opt just enough of the reform in to itself to secure peace and a new settlement – whilst quietly binning off the genuinely radical elements and somehow making itself stronger as a result.
This has happened time and time again throughout British history and seems likely to happen to us again as we live through the early days of our latest constitutional innovations.
Didius Julianus: When the Praetorian Guard sold the empire
Sometimes an institution or an idea takes hold in the popular imagination of history and from that point on, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the initial conception of that institution or idea will hold.
One of the most remarkable examples of this is in relation to the Roman Empire’s Praetorian Guard.
When people use the phrase “Praetorian Guard” in journalism – usually in relation to politics or sport – they are referencing the idea of an elite, highly loyal and dedicated band of close allies and bodyguards, selflessly committed to their chief. They are on balance seen therefore as a good and noble thing – and certainly a great group to have behind you.
In reality of course – for large parts of Roman history, if you had the Praetorian Guard standing behind you, you’d better watch your back.
The Empire’s Praetorian Guard evolved out of a number of Praetorian guard units in the Roman Republic. Each high ranking official – Consuls, Proconsuls, Praetors and Aediles had a retinue of lictors who were responsible for the personal safety of that official. With the near inescapable mob violence of Roman politics and the fondness of some Roman politicians for assassination and violent intimidation this was a sensible and understandable precaution.
In the civil war which followed the most famous of such assassinations Praetorian Guard units could be found at the centre of both sides – with Mark Antony personally commanding three such units and Octavian inviting his in to Rome to become the first military units permanently stationed in the capital.
Following Octavian’s success and in his reign as Augustus he put the Praetorian Guard on the footing to which they are best known. During his reign they came closest to the idea of a Praetorian Guard which is so widely held.
It was during this short period that the Praetorian Guard really were the Emperor’s most trusted bodyguards (a role which would later belong to the Imperial German Bodyguard) – guarding his person, acting as a general staff and military intelligence and owing their loyalty to Augustus alone. Such an ideal barely outlived Augustus himself though and already in the troubled and chaotic reign of Tiberius they were playing a major role in Imperial politics in their own right. With their prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus becoming both the Emperor’s closest advisor and also at some points effective co-Emperor.
Sejanus played a key role in eliminated supposed political opponents of Tiberius – up to and including the Emperor’s own son – Dursus Julius Caesar. It is likely though that many of these “opponents of the Emperor” were in fact Sejanus’s own rivals for power and influence over the Emperor. Yet with each elimination Sejanus’s own power and influence over the Emperor expanded – ultimately reaching the point where he took over the administration of the whole Empire during Tiberius’s absence. Ultimately Sejanus over-reached and whether he was actively seeking to displace Tiberius or had just provided ample reason for the Emperor’s paranoid mind to suspect this he met his end in 31 AD and was arrested and executed on the order of the Emperor following an internal power struggle.
Under his successor Caligula it was the Emperor who lose the power struggle – with the Praetorian Guard carrying out the assassination – setting the tone of the relationship between these elite “guards” and their alleged commander for the remainder of their existence.
A key feature of this relationship was of course financial. The Praetorian Guard were not just afforded special privileges in terms of access to Rome and the Emperor, the best barracks etc they were also paid considerably more than the rest of the legions – pay which was supplemented by the “Donativum” – a very large bonus payment amounting to several years pay – on the occasion of special events such as the accession of a new Emperor.
It was these bribes and privileges which were to lead to one of the most astonishingly cynical events of the Roman Empire (and that’s up against some pretty stiff competition.)
The assassination of the woefully inept and deluded Emperor Commodus at the start of 193 AD began the so called “year of five emperors”. Pertinax, his successor who was almost certainly in on the assassination plot, was determined to reimpose both military and financial discipline on the Empire – including the Praetorian Guard.
Accordingly Pertinax sought to significantly row back the pay and privileges of the Praetorian Guard for the good of the Empire. He even went so far as to refuse to supply the Donativum as demanded.
This reversal of the pampered life approach they had received from Commodus affronted the Praetorian Guard’s elevated sense of its own dignity and importance – with this anger inevitably resulting in the assassination of an Emperor who at least seemed interested in reversing the self-destructive course the Empire was on and who had introduced promising and effective control over the Roman money supply for the first time in decades.
Rather than denying complicity in Pertinax’s murder or seeking some shred of legitimacy by securing the support of a popular and credible alternative the Praetorian Guard decided to follow their actions through to their logical conclusion – going all in and putting the role of Emperor itself up for sale – and calling for offers to be made for the Roman Empire itself.
The subsequent scenes were comedic to say the least. The two main bidders who emerged for arguably the most powerful office in the world were actually related – Didius Julianus and his father-in-law Titus Flavius Claudius Sulpicianus. Neither of them was particularly qualified – and crucially neither of them had popular support amongst the legions.
Offers were shouted in turn over the Praetorian Guard’s barracks walls – with Julianus eventually winning out with an offer of 25,000 sesterces for each soldier – ultimately to be paid out of Imperial coffers of course.
Because of this and his inevitably weak and unpopular position amongst the population at large Didius Julianus felt it necessary to double down on the inflationary and economically destructive policies Pertinax had been moving Rome away from. These ultimately did nothing to sustain his position and very quickly both the people of Rome and many of its most important provinces and commanders turned against him.
The Praetorian Guard was by this point scarcely even a fighting force at all (unless you count those assassinations) and represented a wafer thin constituency on which to base either military or popular support. Accordingly Julianus was challenged by a number of rivals – ultimately and successfully by Severus. His attempts to get this hardened soldier to play by his rules by seeking to buy him off inevitably failed and he was swiftly defeated and then executed having served as Emperor for under nine weeks. He was promptly executed along with the ringleaders of Pertinax’s assassination.
Didius Julianus and his elevation by the Praetorian Guard strikes most people as one of the most ludicrous and brazen examples of self-serving corruption by a self-important, incompetent and self- serving “elite” whose own sense of their own dignity and propriety was far more important to them than the interests of the empire as a whole.
In modern times we are far more used to their successors at the top of our political and politicised institutions hiding their corruption beneath a veneer of specious unconvincing rhetoric of the sort the BBC, judges, senior civil servants and their unthinking supporters specialise in.
Perhaps when they eventually do succeed in knifing the current Prime Minister they may wish to consider a more honest approach and launch a bidding war between the different contenders to become the next Prime Minister? Which of them will offer them the most privileges, shielding from accountability and economic reality, bribes and donatives to secure their support?
We’d obviously end up with an entirely unsuitable candidate – but it would make the whole charade a lot more transparent and we might even get a laugh out of it. Also, if history repeats itself then he’ll not be in office long before our own Severus comes along and throws their pretender and the worst of them out for good.
The Vortex: Centralisation of power and distrust of local government
This article is part of our series where we take a look at bad ideas motivating recent political decisions and explain what lies behind them – and what the Government should be doing instead.
Sir Humphrey: Bernard, if the right people don’t have power, do you know what happens? The wrong people get it: politicians, councillors, ordinary voters!
Bernard: But aren’t they supposed to, in a democracy?
Sir Humphrey: This is a British democracy, Bernard!
Yes Prime Minister, Power to the People
In the 1970s local government in Britain was a mess. Whilst retaining huge mounts of power over local decision making and spending, councils had become increasingly dependent on central government grants for their funding. These were then supplemented by a highly skewed system of local taxes paid only by a minority of the population and at punitively high rates.
This state of affairs had of course come about in the post-war era of British politics in which the Conservative Party was utterly directionless and managerialist and in the Labour Party, other than a thin slice of its leadership at the very top, was increasingly hardline socialist in nature.
As a result there was a real lack of accountability throughout local decision making, and only the most tenuous interest in making local areas successful – especially when politicians of a socialist persuasion found it much easier to stoke grievances and self-pity than to promote enterprise and potentially powerful rivals in the private sector.
This manifested itself in some genuinely terrible and wasteful local policies. Many councils across the country sought to develop their own foreign policy or defence policy. Criminal corruption was rife and several high-profile Labour political figures were eventually sent to prison. Even in the traditionally better run Conservative shires the quality of local government had declined markedly after Edward Heath’s botched local government reorganisation of 1972 which had radically redrawn boundaries, severed local ties and broken up many of the more successful councils.
In response to this corruption, waste and incompetence Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s adopted quite a hostile approach in their dealing with local councils, particularly the larger city authorities – most notably abolishing the Greater London Authority and facing down law breaking by Liverpool City Council.
From that point onwards Governments of all stripes have been suspicious of local government. Viewing local councillors as largely incompetent, hubristic, egotistical, bumbling and as a cause of embarrassment. In pursuit of “good government”, consistency and economies of scale more and more powers have been taken away from councils, particularly district councils and found their way into either central government or regional government.
Powers over roads, local transport, planning, waste collection, the environment, housing, social care, health, education, emergency planning, licensing and regulation and even local democracy have all been centralised.
Alongside this there has been a centralisation of local government funding and taxation. Councils have astonishingly little leeway when it comes to setting or varying business rates or to how local council taxes are calculated, a large proportion of council funding still comes directly from central government, and even those councils which succeed through their policies in attracting business, enterprise and investment end up penalised through a redistributive tax system which subsidises those with worse policies.
Alongside this centralisation and in some ways because of it we have seen the proliferation of new tiers of Government – not just executives for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but attempts at regional government in England, the creation of regional enterprise councils comprising a motley selection of corporatists and local government figures, and health and social care structures aplenty.
These bodies – each with their own agenda, bureaucracy and budget have been created because of a dull awareness in central government that they do not have sufficient awareness to run and decide everything in every part of the country – but has just led to these highly unaccountable bodies vacuuming up power from local government and to them pressing their own agendas for more power – even whilst failing to use the ones they have to any positive effect. In fact it is noticeable how in many policy areas – education and health in particular – devolved regions have fallen behind England during the period they have existed.
This centralisation of power from local government is remarkable when set against other areas of Government where a philosophy of devolution and accountability down to the lowest possible level has prevailed. Education for example, with the rise and success of the academies programme has seen headteachers and education providers being entrusted with far greater professional independence and flexibility, albeit within a national framework, than has existed for decades. The academies programme started cautiously – with only those schools which had demonstrated excellent leadership and teaching being allowed to take on more powers. Before long though thousands of schools followed and with the withdrawal of the dead hand of the state from running schools academies have prospered, massively outperforming comparable schools still in state hands.
Partly this is understandable. Whilst there are many good headteachers and educationalists out there (at least enough to make the policy work) it is also true that the Government has good reason to be concerned about the quality of many councillors. Of course there are many excellent, innovative and hard working councillors throughout the UK. There are also however too many councillors who get in to it for the money to supplement pensions, or who seek the roles out of ego, determined to “be something” rather than to do anything – and lots who may once have been good but who should have retired long ago.
A look at most council chambers across the country will reveal the truth that they are not populated entirely by the best, brightest and most dedicated a town has to offer.
If central government distrusts the quality of local councillors it will always be less likely to trust local decision making.
But this is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Because as long as central Government continues to centralise powers, to strip local government of the power to make real change, to innovate and to succeed based on their own decisions and policies it will always be a less attractive proposition to many good people. Thus they do not stand and the quality of councillors continues to fall and the whole wretched spiral continues and speeds up – dragging the quality of local decision making and independence down with it.
Yet local government truly can be successful and transformative. The UK is something of an outlier when it comes to just how little power and independence local government has.
Instead of regarding local government with suspicion central Government should realise that local government can significantly increase democratic engagement, help to implement central government policies more effectively, save central government money, be an engine of local growth and act as a brilliant source of innovation in policymaking – by effectively creating dozens of real-life experiments in different competing policy approaches at the same time. In addition, by allowing more innovation over methods, priorities and funding there is huge potential for empowered and liberated local government to play a big role in delivering the Government’s so far unsubstantial “levelling-up” agenda.
This means moving away from cliched concerns about “postcode lotteries” – which really is just bureaucratic code for saying that there will be variety in provision driven by local preferences. It also means showing a bit of political courage and actually trusting local government to deliver.
This is always going to be a tough decision for central government policymakers to take. It means abandoning the fashionable consensus about local councils being relics which need to be wiped away. It means accepting that much like in the real world there will be some failures and some unexpected successes – and that caution is not always the best way. It even means ignoring the clamour of the self appointed “experts” who are taking over so much central Government policy making. It may even mean abandoning the belief in the infallibility of the state.
But the academies programme points to the way forward here – even a limited move at first, trusting just the most capable and proven local councils with more powers and independence would rapidly bear fruit and lead to an inexorable expansion of the policy and the benefits it can deliver over time.
It does mean letting go though.
If you watch a vortex or whirlpool carefully you will notice how some of the flotsam or debris being sucked in will shoot out when it is at just the right angle. In this way it is possible to escape what might otherwise prove to be fatal.
It is time for the Government to grab hold of the opportunity to choose this moment and this idea to escape from the downward spiral it has created. To grab hold of this centrifugal opportunity and to break free.
And for local government to break free too.
Winter (of Discontent) is coming… again
We have remarked before at The Torch how bad many political figures are at learning the lessons of history. There is always some excuse for why “this time it will be different” or to claim that an old foe has been beaten forever never to return. Very rarely are such comforting thoughts true.
This can be the case even when the similarities between our current situation and a historical parallel are glaring.
Our latest example which should help to illustrate the size of the problems we are storing up for ourselves only just qualifies as history – being in the post-war period and having ended in the 1970s.
The post-war period of British politics was dominated by two dangerous and inter-twined forces – socialism and imperial decline and exhaustion. Both were in different ways the result of Britain’s leadership in the Second World War.
Having spent most of the period since 1940 collectively mobilised and directed to central endeavour, that is the war effort, large parts of the British population had become used to centralised planning and believed that they had just witnessed evidence of it working. Many of the greatest contributions and sacrifices had come from people with low incomes and little wealth.
Some of this central planning had even been organised under the direction of Labour Party politicians, most notably Ernest Bevin. Part of the central planning had involved giving unions an unprecedented say over management decisions and even over national policy.
After years of sacrifice and suffering the British people felt that they had earned something and believed that the state should and could provide it from the fruits of victory. But whilst they had certainly earned their freedom and that for millions of others the reality was that then as now, there was no harvest the Government could call on, no great reserve of funds and no magic source of future revenues. In fact the reverse was true and Britain had already mortgaged its future to defeat Germany and its allies.
For Britain’s unscrupulous socialists though there was no reason to admit this – and no reason why one mortgage could not be piled on top of another, and then another and then another…
These conditions and the mix of grievance, deference, entitlement, optimism, fear and exhaustion which they engendered were almost the perfect ground in which socialism could take root and grow rapidly.
This exhaustion was also another major feature of the post-war period. Britain’s financial and military exhaustion from waging total war and standing alone or nearly alone for large parts of it and propping others up when not had taken its toll both on the national leadership and on the resources which might have been used to chart a new national course.
There was also the very real matter of debts to be repaid and extensive repairs and rebuilding which had to take place through large parts of the country – this and the ongoing threat of the Soviet Union and others.
As such most of the Conservative Party leadership saw their role as being one of graceful retreat from the world and managed decline – whilst also looking to avoid any degree of antagonism or conflict with just about anyone – especially the leadership of the Labour Party they had so recently been in wartime coalition with.
The shocking and unexpected defeat of Winston Churchill’s Conservatives in 1945 led to the party concluding that it could not counter Labour’s promise of “lots of jam today with lots more jam tomorrow” with a more economically credible promise to rebuild the pubic finances and only then to consider future handouts. The party for reasons of tactics and instinct decided therefore to retreat from Conservative economic beliefs in the same way as Britain was retreating from empire, to manage a decline and to join Labour in a race to the bottom.
This form of Conservatism adhered fervently to the wrongheaded and already disproven theories of Keynes and found a new raison d’etre in subscribing to nearly all of Labour’s policies but of claiming that these policies would be pursued in a more effective and well managed way, a doctrine very much befitting a party leadership which was worryingly full of aristocrats and other self-satisfied paternalists.
With the socialist utopia of the Soviet Union earning an increasingly appalling reputation because of its habit of starving its own people, shooting the citizens of its allies, arresting and imprisoning political dissenters and looking to extend its charms to more of its neighbours the British people began to get suspicious of the direction Labour were taking the country – and the 1951 and several subsequent elections saw a return of notionally Conservative Government – but this time with a socialist soul. This also had the effect of forcing the more militant and obviously socialist elements of Labour underground and to lead to the elevation of those more skilled at taking the Stalinist edge off of socialism.
The new economic, social and political direction of a Conservative elephant with a Labour driver soon reached its apogee in Butskellism.
Butskellism was an incredibly pervasive and durable consensus between the adherents of Rab Butler and the Labour Leader Hugh Gaitskell. Its components including massive and expanding tax takes and state spending, unsustainable deficit spending, further borrowing to fund “infrastructure” (still the preferred term for political vanity projects), increasing levels of economic protectionism, massive state direction and intervention in the economy including nationalisations and interventions in businesses, eye watering levels of inflation and consequent falls in the value of the pound and of course a belief that unelected and increasingly socialist union leaders should be partners in all of this.
When Butskellism failed the answer was invariably more of the same. Those few critics in the Conservative Party such as Peter Thorneycroft were driven out of power and the cosy consensus was going to last forever – until of course it didn’t.
There was only so far printing more money, borrowing more money, devaluing the currency and punitive taxation could take a country – the wonder was actually that it held together as long as it did. Yet even in these conditions some post-war growth was achieved, and not just from house building. Yet the shoddy workmanship of British politics reflecting the increasingly shoddy work of our manufacturing was sure to break down at the side of the road the first time it went over a real bump – which it promptly did with the fuel price rises of the 1970s.
These and the increasing certainty that Britain would end up going cap in hand to the IMF were enough to send inflation into hyper-drive and union activity with it. The result – known as the Winter of Discontent involved an admission that Britain could no longer even keep the lights on – a three day week was introduced, union strikes meant that bins were uncollected for weeks on end with rubbish piling up in the streets – even bodies went unburied due to other strikes and NHS workers spent their time blockading and picketing hospitals to stop people receiving treatment.
The reported response from Prime Minister James “Jim” Callaghan “Crisis, what crisis?” perfectly summed up the other worldliness of Britain’s leadership at the time. It was also of course true – this was not so much an accidental consequence of socialism. This WAS socialism. This was exactly were socialism was always going to lead us, just as it always did.
The subsequent events are desperately close to being politics rather than history – yet no credible, whether they like her or not, disputes that the tough, resolute and visionary leadership of Margaret Thatcher were essential to save Britain from where both major parties had guided us. It is a bit of an understatement though to say that it was far from an easy journey.
Turning back to today of course we have all the same elements. The Conservatives exhausted from achieving Brexit and from inflicting draconian Covid measures on the population appear rudderless and willing to therefore engage in a race to the bottom with Labour when it comes to public spending, taxes, borrowing and state control. Labour has seen off the most extreme socialist leader it has ever had but still remains committed to the direction. Even the strikes, inflation and fuel crises are arriving on cue – though of course this time a major part of the fuel price rises is intentional government policy.
Britain’s system of Government is not built for consensus and it fails when we seek it. It is built for adversarial tests of strength between competing ideas. It is built for proper scrutiny and proper choices and differences between ideas. It is built to offer the British people a choice.
The Torch remains hopeful though. Whilst the darkness has set in rather more rapidly and alarmingly this time, reheated Buskellism from Mr Sunak and the Labour leadership will ultimately be as self-defeating as it was last time round. We believe there are enough true Conservatives around to see this and who will set fire to the consensus as a beacon of hope to lead us out of this death spiral.
The night came on quickly – but a new day will dawn just as soon and we know there are still some Conservatives in the party, the descendants of Thorneycroft and Thatcher who are preparing to greet it.
The role of exemplary heroes – Horatius, Mucius and others of their type
“Alone stood brave Horatius, but constant still in mind;
Thrice thirty thousand foes before, and the broad flood behind…”
From Horatius at the Bridge by Thomas Babington Macaulay
The legends of Horatius Cocles and Gaius Mucius Scaevola played an important role in the development of the idea of Rome and what it was to be Roman.
Horatius is the better known of these legends today and is captured in numerous artistic depictions, including brilliantly in Macaulay’s poem quoted above.
The story comes to us from Plutarch’s “Life of Publicoa” but was in nearly universal circulation in Rome at the time of writing.
Tarquinius Superbus, the deposed King of Rome was seeking to regain his throne and was circulating amongst Rome’s neighbours decrying the evils and threats posed by republicanism – suggesting that it would inevitable spread to the neighbouring kingdoms if not strangled at birth. Whether or not Tarquinius was believed it seems likely that they saw an opportunity to take advantage of what was seen as a likely weakness of Rome at the time. A series of conflicts did take place – the archaeological evidence bears this out, and one of these conflicts involved an invasion by the King Lars Porsena of the Etruscan city of Clusium.
Lars Porsena led a force which included forces commanded by the Tarquins. Successfully taking the Janiculum Hill, the last defensive barrier before the Tiber the Etruscan forces were able to fall on the significantly outnumbered Roman forces on that side of the river – inducing panic and a rout. The bulk of the Roman forces broke and made for the bridge.
Horatius Cocles, according to legend, was a junior officer on the Etruscan side of the bridge when the rout happened. He had the foresight to recognise the danger Rome was in if the Etruscans could follow the panicked Romans across the bridge and into the unprepared city.
Taking a stand, initially with two other officers, Horatius, according to legend, use the restricted entrance of the bridge as an opportunity to hold off the entire Etruscan forces, numbering in the thousands – either fighting wave after wave of forces as they assaulted the bridge or seeking to shame the Etruscans by challenging them to single combat.
With the rest of the Romans now safely over the river the defenders were then called back but Horatius stayed on, holding the bridge still longer until his colleagues could get back across and the bridge be set on fire. Only when the bridge was engulfed in flames and clearly beyond repair did the Roman hero jump into the river fully armed and armoured and swim across to Rome.
Horatius was subsequently lauded for his heroism and given accolades and rewards but because of injuries sustained in the battle was unable to take up positions of power and responsibility in the Roman state.
The second, less well remembered Roman legend relates to Gaius Mucius Scaevola shortly after the exploits of Horatius and during the same conflict with the Etruscans.
The Etruscan threat to Rome still remained and Porsena’s army was still nearby. This motivated Mucius to undertake a secret mission to the Clusian camp with the intention of assassinating the king. With the camp in confusion Mucius mistakenly ended up killing one of Porsena’s secretaries, rather than the king himself and was soon apprehended.
Seeking to make the most of the panic he had caused in camp Mucius sought to deceive Porsena about the threat he posed. He claimed to be the first of hundreds of fanatical Roman republican assassins committed to laying down their lives in the cause of killing Porsena. He claimed that he and his fellow Romans regarded Porsena rather than the Clusians or wider Etruscan forces as their foe and that so long as the conflict remained that Porsena himself would be under constant threat.
To emphasise the extent of his fanaticism and that of his countrymen Porsena put his hand into a fire and held it there until it burned – never flinching or withdrawing it – making the point that he and his countrymen feared no pain or death and would be prepared to endure staggering amounts of suffering without the least concern for their own wellbeing. This resulted in Mucius being released and ultimately in Porsena abandoning the conflict with Rome.
There is evidence to suggest that these figures did in fact exist but it is impossible to attest whether or not they actually carried out the acts described or anything like them. There is a very good chance that they were at least embellished over the centuries in which we lack written documents. This is rather less important though than the fact that these legends survived and were valued as they resonated with certain key attributes of the Roman character – or at least attributes to which the Romans aspired: disregard of personal safety and wellbeing for the good of the republic, patriotism, willingness to stubbornly fight on when all seems lost as well as a certain level of cunning and tactical intelligence over and above that of their enemies.
It is interesting how often the themes of defiance against impossible odds and either escaping by a cunning ruse or dying nobly to save the wider polity appear in legends, tales or celebrated histories.
One of the better known examples is the Spartan Thermoplyae roughly thirty years later in which King Leonidas led a massively outnumbered force to fight to their death to buy time to stave off a Persian invasion. Indeed Ancient Greece and early Rome were full of similar examples of personal sacrifice against the odds – and crucially, how their sacrifice resulted in ultimate victory over their foes.
Most modern nation states have their examples of such bravery and sacrifice from their history – Texas and the USA has the Alamo – with the brutality of the Mexican tactics ultimately galvanising the forces for Texan independence, Britain has aspects of the type in the stories of Dunkirk and Alfred in the Somerset Marshes.
Each of these historical examples has its own slant on the type – the protagonists may die or escape for example – and different attributes seem to play a significant role in the positive outcome depending on the values of the society they belong to.
There does seem to be a near universal respect and admiration for this level of sacrifice and a recognition of its value – not just in and of itself but as an example to the people as a whole.
To modern sensibilities though many of these sacrifices can seem almost alien. It does not take much to imagine how many modern commentators and political figures would regard these gestures as futile, unnecessary, avoidable or somehow appalling. Not that we do not respect bravery or heroism – we clearly do, but that the tragic elements of these tales seem to speak louder today than the inspirational. Our society’s concern is more with the humanitarian than with the exemplary
To take a recent example – the defence of Mariupol and the Azovstal steelworks by the Ukrainian armed forces. There was great admiration and respect in many of the accounts for the stubborn bloody minded determination of the defenders – yet far more humanitarian concern for their suffering and efforts to bring an end to it.
There may be something positive in this of course – perhaps we are, despite depictions in the media or attitudes on social media, becoming kinder and more caring as a species. There is also potentially some cause for concern here – just how likely are we to find ourselves willing to be our own Horatius on the bridge the next time the need arises for it?
Will we all take the sensitive and sensible way out and avoid not just the exemplary but even the necessary sacrifice? Will we increasingly regard no line, no point, no belief, value or place worth dying for against appalling odds?
If so there’s more than a little danger in this too.
Not many of us need to be Horatius or Mucius – but without a few of them, and the legends, tales and histories of these figures then will our societies and values have what we need to survive?
Anacharsis Cloots – the Mad Hatter of the French Revolution
History throws up a lot of interesting characters.
There are the inspiring heroes who triumph against adversity. There are the devious schemers who intrigue their way to the top and then usually down again. We see the brutal tyrants, the flawed geniuses, those who undergo an inspiring or depressing transformation and the cynics who manage to make money off of all of it. Beyond these it is of course worth remembering that the majority of people throughout history have not been any of these types and have spent their lives hoping to be left alone and struggling to get by.
There is also another type of character which pops up from time to time in our collective story. We speak here of fool, the deluded, self-aggrandising, preening posing fantasist, the cringeworthy comic relief – in short characters like the self-styled Anacharsis Cloots.
All of these characters are of course laughable. Some may be dangerous. Some pitiable. Some hypocritical. Some dishonest. Some end up as ironic destroyers of what they profess. Cloots was the apogee of the type in being all of these.
Unlike the original Scythian philosopher Anacharsis from Ancient Greece, Cloots was no cynic, no wit, no astute observer of the silliness of polite society and no particularly positive influence on anything. Whilst the original Anacharsis quipped how odd it was that great thinkers just spoke and fools spent their time making laws – Cloots spent his time well at home amongst the law makers of Revolutionary France.
Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grâce, Baron de Cloots, was as his name implies a high born, coddled and spoiled aristocrat. Starting life in Prussia to a family with significant Dutch ancestry, he was schooled from a young age in France, dropped out of the overly rigorous and demanding Prussian Army before seeing any active service and thenceforth an itinerant wastrel and fantasist.
Traveling throughout Europe on what amounted to an extended gap-year he filled his time in the usual way – drinking, passing out, talking rubbish and convincing himself in a very undergraduate sort of way that his having made a nuisance of himself in more than one country somehow equipped him with some special insight or experience needed to radically reshape society.
When the French Revolution happened in 1789 it attracted a wide variety of chancers from across the continent. It was this tidal wave of pretentiousness which washed Cloots back up in Paris in time to position himself as one of the more colourful actors in the high-budget student drama which was about to unfold.
Adopting a self-bestowed title (because of course he was) as Orator Of The Human Race he entered the thick of things in June 1790 at the head of a ramshackle self-selected delegation of 30 odd dilettantes calling themselves the “Representatives Of The Oppressed Nations Of The Universe.” Most of this group (who knew extremely little of the countries they claimed to represent and even less of oppression) were in fact bored students or unemployed actors.
Nevertheless they made quite an impression. Appearing in a variety of stage costumes they took to be the national dress of Turkey, India, Persia and other distant lands of which they knew little – as well as a selection of European peoples such as the Swiss, Germans and Dutch they made a ceremonial procession to the National Assembly and lauded the shambolic revolutionary body for apparently having “restored primitive equality among men” – claiming that France’s example was even now encouraging emulation around the world and that a wave of revolutions was sure to follow.
This fraternity and fellow-feeling which Cloots and his fellow thespians declared did not go so far of course as to have ever consulted the people of these lands. Much less did it entail any degree of sympathy or fellow feeling for the beliefs and values of their people. All religions for example were derided and condemned by this group and any preferences they may have had to not spend the next two and a half decades being invaded and losing large parts of their population and wealth too war were of course ignored.
The National Assembly reacted in a surprisingly sensible manner in asking this band to return to the lands from which they had come – in other words to go away and not come back.
Sadly Cloots did not take up this advice to return to the bar and stay there and busied himself extensively with waging war on Christianity and belief generally in the coming months and years, largely in alliance with the more extreme elements of the Jacobin Club such as the thug and polemicist Hebert.
He did however render himself somewhat useful to the revolutionary establishment when the tides of military conflict with their neighbours had turned in their favour and an excuse was being sought to extend French control up to and beyond her “natural borders” – declaring that it was France’s duty to “liberate” the people’s of Europe and that “The trumpet which sounded the reveille of a great people has reached the four corners of the Globe.” And that “The French will unravel the feudal chaos”… “We will make holy war with free soldiers and patriotic contriutions.”
Proving a useful idiot for those now controlling the revolution Cloots had supported French claims to be legislating for mankind and sought to bestow moral authority on the aggressive war making, dechristianisation and brutality of the revolution. His obvious foolishness and vapidity didn’t entirely discredit him so long as he remained useful. Let us not forget that based on no mandate or manifesto he sought to speak for the people’s of the entire world – and beyond – even the universe. Once going so far as to pledge that he would not sleep until there was a republic established on the moon! By this point there was more than one of his contemporaries tempted to send him on such a mission.
After a couple more years though the obvious falsehood of Cloots’s ravings had come home to roost. The war had turned nasty – French revolutionary armies were retreating on all fronts – particularly those facing Cloots’s true countrymen from Prussia and it was time for Cloots to serve one final purpose – as a scapegoat for the revolutions failings.
And so it was that when the French socialist left in the form of Robespierre and Saint Just needed to strengthen itself against the French socialist far left in the form of the Hebertists Cloots’s international masquerading became a useful tool to bring the faction down with trumped up allegations of conspiracy and foreign plots.
Cloots and many of his fellow travellers – those self-appointed, self-aggrandising preening, detached dolts of the revolution met their end at the end of a Guillotine blade on 24 March 1794. This was not before having played their part in turning the already tragic and shambolic events of the French Revolution from a misfortune for one great power, into a calamity for all of Europe.
Their self-importance coupled with their ability to somehow be taken seriously by those who wished to do so and found it convenient to do played a big role in exporting war, suffering, despoilation and devastation to a whole continent and beyond.
This all in the name of the brotherhood of mankind…
By now you may well have guessed at where we are going with our historical analogy. All we will therefore say is that the usual cast of characters has been meeting in Davos this week. Reports have not yet reached us as to whether anyone has yet claimed the title of Orator of the Human Race.
The Torch wishes “the Representatives Of The Oppressed Nations Of The Universe” their just desserts.
Death and Taxes: The Famines of 1921 and the Fruits of Fanaticism
“Calamity threatens starvation to millions of Russian people. Think of the Russian people’s exhaustion by the war and revolution, which considerably reduced its resistance to disease and its physical endurance. Gloomy days have come for the country of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky Mendelev, Pavlov, Mussogorsky, Glinka and other world-prized men and I venture to trust that the cultured European and American people, understanding the tragedy of the Russian people, will immediately succour with bread and medicines…”
Maxim Gorky Appeal for Relief, 13 July 1921
When people think about famine and food shortages in agricultural societies we tend to imagine the winter. We think of times when nothing is growing and when other harsh conditions prevail. In fact it is usually the summer months – the last days before the harvest when hunger is at its greatest. Stores, which can be comparatively plentiful in winter are running short and people can end up foraging for whatever they can to stay alive.
We also tend to think of famines as being natural phenomena caused by drought, frost or hail. Clearly these can and do have an impact – but it usually takes human decisions – politics, war, raids and revolutions to bring on really desperate starvation for a whole country.
By the summer of 1921 as a result of bad weather and civil war damaging the previous years harvests Russia and Ukraine were already destined for hunger and shortage. It was the deliberate choices of the political system though which succeeded in turning this into one of the most appalling famines in human history.
In the remaining months of Russian involvement in World War I and in the following years of civil war the Bolshevik regime had introduced a set of measures commonly referred to as “War Communism” – these were a mix of classic socialist dogma and measures which the Bolsheviks believed were a practical necessity in the circumstances. So all production was overseen and owned by the state, all labour was organised by and belonged to the state, the only legal means of distribution and trade were those organised by the state and private exchange and means of exchange including money were to be phased out.
It was only the few compromises with reality – the return of factory managers in industry and trained officers in the army which prevented a complete implosion of these sectors. Despite this even industrial production saw a marked drop estimated to be between 40-60% during the early years of communism.
In terms of agriculture, the Bolsheviks reneged as they had always planned to do, on their promises to the peasants that they would own their own land. Instead they were in effect reduced to the status of unpaid state employees. All agricultural surplus was to be centrally collected and distributed by the state. Severe penalties were put in place for those arbitrarily deemed guilty of hoarding and such severe interpretations of “surplus” were adopted that retained seed for next year’s harvest and even most of a peasant farmer’s own food supplies for his family were forcibly extracted.
Just as in industrial production the consequences were catastrophic. Needless to say distribution was a mess and vast quantities of food were forcibly extracted and then never delivered – rotting in distribution centres and in idle trains. The black market thrived and notions of equality and fraternity were thrown out of the window with Communist Party members getting the best of everything and more than their due share.
It was however in food production itself that the greatest tragedy occurred.
Even before the full measures of war communism had been introduced farmers were given very little incentive to produce surpluses – they could not exchange or sell for goods that they wanted from the cities – which were in increasingly short supply in any event, so inevitably less food was produced – far less and more and more peasants became self-sufficient subsistence farmers.
When the full implementation of Communist policies occurred though then the real shortages set in. With such severe interpretations of surplus and with such extensive seizures of grain farmers had no incentive whatsoever to produce any surplus – and good reasons of safety to avoid even the faintest suggestion of plenty. And so production nosedived further and even the farmers went hungry.
It is worth noting just how remarkable it is that these years and these policies which (with the possible exception of North Korea) came the closest the world has ever seen to pure socialism in action – managed to turn some of the richest and most arable farm land in the world into the scene of the one of the greatest famines of all time. But this is exactly what happened and what happens to a greater or lesser extent every time this fundamentally evil system of Government is tried.
Conservative estimates put the death toll from the famine at 5-6 million but the true figures are probably much higher – with some estimates concluding that 10 million people died with the number suffering reaching 20 million. There are also harrowing stories of millions of orphans and the rise of cannibalism in areas around the Volga River.
Even before 1921 Lenin and parts of the Bolshevik leadership had realised how destructive and futile their “Food Dictatorship” policies were. While never quite abandoning the ambition to return to full blooded socialism the party congress, under Lenin’s direction agreed to a the “New Economic Policy” which included a number of steps to allow the return of some elements of capitalism, free trade and economic freedom, including permitting farmers to retain some surpluses in future and for trade to return.
These measures did bear fruit pretty much immediately in industry but farms don’t work like that – and by the time the reforms were in place it was already much too late for a decent harvest to planted for 1921. As such that year saw the greatest depths of famine, hunger and all forms of material deprivation striking Russia and its vassal territories. This in turn motivated Maxim Gorky, a key ally of Lenin to pen the desperate appeal to the capitalist West to step in and save Russia from their self-inflicted famine, suffering and cannibalism. To save the Soviets from themselves. Once again, despite his fanatical belief in socialism Lenin permitted this begging letter to the capitalists to the issued.
The response from the capitalist democratic West to a regime which was pledged to their violent overthrow was nothing short of astonishing. British, American and European charities, philanthropists and Governments funded and supplied an unprecedented relief effort – convoying hundreds of millions of tons of grain and meat into Russia, feeding tens of millions of people every day for a prolonged period of time and playing a major role in developing an efficient distribution system to by-pass the corrupt and inept state system. The lives of millions of people were saved as a result
The lessons are stark and do not need labouring. Obviously socialism and its end point communism are synonymous with human suffering, dehumanising bureaucracies and the most appalling backwardness for a reason. We must remember this at all times when politicians who either do not know or do not care call on us to march in that direction again.
A second and more surprising conclusion we can draw though is that even as deluded a fanatic as Lenin can U-turn and take a few backward steps towards sanity in the face of human suffering his policies have inflicted. There should be some level of reassurance in this.
One must hope therefore that our present Government does not prove itself even more fanatical than Lenin and refuse to change course on its policies which are ruining the lives of millions. If Lenin could introduce a long pause on his march towards communism then surely our own leaders, even if they remain committed to a headlong charge to Net Zero no matter the human cost, can at least take a few years to pause, scale back the green taxes and welcome in the tax cuts, capitalists and free marketers who can save them from the mess that they have made.
The Continental System: Trade Wars Don’t work!
Sometimes the impact of an important historical event cannot be seen immediately. Like amateur chess players our attention is often fixed on the drama of the move itself rather than on the strategic consequences for the game as a whole and what they mean for how the game will play and pan out.
The Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 was clearly a dramatic event and worthy of study in its own right. The decisive victory of the Royal Navy over the combined French and Spanish fleets, the sinking or capture of the greater parts of the defeated navies and the death of one of Britain’s most capable leaders is certainly far more dramatic than trade policy!
Much attention is rightly paid to how defeat ended the possibility of Napoleon invading Britain or knocking Britain out of the war. Far more attention should be paid though to what this meant for the way in which this convinced Napoleon to entirely reshape French strategic, diplomatic and economic goals.
Britain’s unchallenged command of the seas around Europe meant that to Napoleon’s mind the only way to take the fight to Britain was to engage in the most extensive and comprehensive trade war in history. He was convinced that the success of such a strategy would cut the major continental powers off from British subsidies, loans and diplomatic support and thereby undermine future attempts to build coalitions against him.
Despite his undoubted military genius and his reforming zeal in a number of areas Napoleon was very much a product of Bourbon France and the form of education which would have been available to the minor nobility he came from. There is no evidence that he had any prolonged exposure to or interest in the emerging discipline economics – as such he resorted to the tried and failed formula of mercantilism.
On 21 November 1806 Napoleon formalised this approach through the Berlin Decree – later expanded through the Milan Decree of 17 December 1808.
The initial decree barred British trade and shipping from all ports under French control including those under the notional control of their client states. When these restrictions proved incredibly porous and ineffective the restrictions were expanded to cover all neutral shipping suspected of carrying British goods.
It should come as no surprise that this lauded “Continental System” was incredibly ineffective in damaging the British economy – instead it gave rise to resentments throughout Europe and led France to engage in further disastrous wars in order to shore up the edifice.
The Continental System was undermined and flawed in a number of ways. Most obviously it was ignored and by-passed both informally by the populations of Europe and deliberately by British diplomatic design.
Smuggling obviously exploded, with ever increasing numbers of citizens willing to take risks to benefit from black market trade in British manufactures and to turn a profit from in demand French and European goods.
Despite significant spending on policing and customs the coasts of Europe were too long, the rewards too great and the odds of detection constantly too low for these to have much of an effect in preventing the trade. All of the increasingly desperate measures to prevent smuggling did however add to the increasing hostility felt towards the French Empire both inside and outside France.
Britain also worked the diplomatic angles and ensured that countries just outside of the Continental System remained open to trade. Malta, Sardinia, Sweden, Portugal and most notably eventually Russia all stood outside of the Continental System – providing massive loopholes through which British trade could still take place with Europe.
Although British trade with Europe did decline there was no noticeable loss of economic activity or trade overall for Britain for the first several years of the system. As any true economist could have foreseen, trade was simply displaced into other markets – chiefly the Americas. It was only when these markets became increasingly inaccessible in the War of 1812 and with the mounting costs of the wars causing a ballooning in size of British state spending and taxation that British trade began to suffer.
Of course even if the Continental System had not been full of holes it would still have been an entirely counter-productive tool of military and diplomatic policy as Napoleon was in effect cutting off industry and consumers in the French Empire from goods and materials which they wanted and which could have been supplied most effectively to them by Britain. As The Torch has discussed previously, mercantilism hurts those engaging in it most and it is never realistic to expect it to work in the long-run.
It was however the decisions which Napoleon made in order to shore up the system which had the most disastrous consequences for his empire.
Attempts to plug the holes in the Continental System in the north of the continent started with intense French diplomatic pressure on Sweden before convincing Russia to declare war. Repeated French, Danish and Russian efforts did eventually compel a small degree of compliance from Sweden but even this was largely nominal and trade continued at pace.
Meanwhile Portugal, a long-term British ally, had refused to join the Continental System and in 1807 France exerted pressure on Portugal with attempts to capture the Portuguese fleet and royal family – dragging France into war in the Iberian Peninsula – providing the British Army with an effective base of operations for a conflict which escalated into the Peninsula War – and for Napoleon into the “Spanish Ulcer” – a constantly bleeding sore on the underbelly of his empire which drew inordinate forces away from the rest of the Empire whilst also providing an important symbolic set of victories for the allies – ultimately playing a big role in encouraging the formation of future coalitions.
The greatest blunder which the Continental System led Bonaparte into though was of course the 1812 invasion of Russia.
Without going in to the military details of the campaigns France now found itself facing energised popular resistance on two fronts against enemies which it was hard to pin down and fight in the classic Napoleonic style and with defeated enemies such as Austria and Prussia taking heart. All the while it was not just a military bleed which the Empire was facing – because even this overstretch was not enough to patch up the Continental System – trade continued to find a way through and every day the populations of Europe grew more and more resentful of its imposition.
As The Torch has concluded previously – trade wars and sanctions are an incredibly ineffective way to win real wars and instead inflict human suffering on people on both sides. Our alternative in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been set out here.
Europe should also be wary of trade war brinksmanship in Northern Ireland. Having repeatedly rattled sabres to secure the protocol as thing the EU is now wilfully disregarding its requirements for good faith and best endeavours to make it work and explore alternatives. This is inevitably going to lead to the UK ending the protocol sooner rather than later. The EU would be ill-advised to attempt a repeat of the Continental System against Britain in response. It would be likely to find the human, strategic and economic cost too much for it to bear and would bring about the same implosion in its own power as Napoleon faced over two hundred years ago.
The Age of Gutenberg- 1448-2008
In the late 1440s in Mainz a goldsmith and entrepreneur named Johannes Gutenberg developed and created an invention which would not just revolutionise many aspects of society over the following centuries – but arguably also change what it meant to be human at all.
Even in its earliest iterations the printing press allowed for a hundred-fold increase in the number of pages one person could produce in a day and drastically reduced the cost and skill required to do so. As such, by the end of the 15th Century there were already printing presses in operation in most European countries.
This explosion in printing came at a time when literacy rates and rationalist thought were already on the rise – but the Printing Revolution made reading materials accessible to hundreds of thousands, millions then ultimately billions more people by reducing their cost, and created a much greater incentive for literacy by elevating the importance of the written word and expanding the range of materials which were available in the format.
The printed work which Gutenberg and his press are most synonymous with is of course the Gutenberg Bible. As The Torch has discussed previously this created the opportunity for far more people to engage directly and critically with the key texts of their Christian faith and played a key part in the emergence of rationalist individualism in religious and other spheres.
As well as widening access to written materials the press also extended the range of ideas and thoughts which could find their way in to circulation. Previously in order to become widespread ideas either had to find political or religious favour and thus find themselves amongst the relatively limited number of materials which were being hand written and curated by the small number of usually religious libraries, or to find social favour – that is, to conform closely enough to a village’s preferences and already accepted ideas and thus to be repeated and maintained by oral traditions such as story telling.
The vast majority of the communication and dissemination of ideas was by the latter of these – the oral tradition. Whilst there are significant areas of artistic and cultural interest in these traditions, the intellectual impact of such a medium was that the storyteller or speaker would be immediately associated with and tied to what they were saying. There was no possibility for anonymity, no distance and no safety from negative reactions to what was being said. Almost all communication was personal, immediate and therefore highly emotional.
It is noticeable from the above how in a very real sense the technology of the press changed something about what we are as humans – it created the conditions which fostered the values of rationality, intellectual detachment and bravery, made us more able to conceive of ourselves as individuals with individual values and relations to God, the church, the state and to each other. It also aided in the development of many of the noblest ideas and innovations we have seen over the past few centuries and supported the creation of truly global and democratic thought and political interaction.
Last week The Torch considered the conditions which brought The Renaissance into being, the huge and positive impact it had and the threats now looming to the values which drove it. The Gutenberg press and all of the advantages it brought are clearly part and parcel of this.
This week we encourage readers to consider how the result of these innovations and technological advances is to create a different form of communication – one which seems to be less favourable to these values and which may in turn have highly concerning results for what it is to be human in the centuries ahead.
The last several decades has seen both an explosion in the availability of written content but also a significant reduction in the value ascribed to the written word in and of itself and a significant growth in the social, political and technological ability to silence, undermine or discredit certain forms of the written word and certain authors and to venerate and elevate others.
Whilst the internet has given us access to more good and insightful writing on platforms which might not otherwise have been available (including The Torch!) there is an extent to which it can be hard to find good content when there is so much bad content out there. This has to some extent resulted in a strengthening of the power of well known outlets and individuals – particularly with the rise of social media channels giving them more outlets for their content and more ready followers.
When it comes to social media there has also been a number of well documented examples of the companies providing these platforms abusing their position as increasingly significant parts of the public realm to silence debate on certain issues – to drive out views with which they disagree and to adopt different standards of debate when it comes to causes they favour.
At the same time we have seen rising political control and attempts at political control of these channels of communication. The Online Safety Bill which has nearly finished progressing through Parliament is a particularly overt example of this. We do seem to be heading in a direction whereby technology gives state bureaucracies more power to police what we see and hear and who can post it.
Despite the apparent anonymity of the internet the over the top policing we have seen in the UK in relation to alleged “hate crimes” shows just how easily this anonymity can be undermined and bypassed.
This together with the rise of video based social media, the advent of “Twitter mobs” and other forms of online ostracism, the increasingly heavy hand of the state, the loss of anonymity and the increasing immediacy, inescapability of contact with the public realm and each other and the rise of “influencers” and other increasingly privileged celebrity platforms across the internet and social media is all having a profound effect on public discourse.
The merit of an argument or idea in and of itself is becoming less important and approval by social or political authorities is taking on more weight. We are as a society becoming less reliant on our individual critical faculties, more motivated by emotion and less by reason and more conditioned to seek social and popular approval.
The title of this piece dates the end of the Age of Gutenberg 2008 and the birth of Twitter. Obviously this is an artificial date and these trends were already underway before then and have accelerated since. There is of course hope that changing the owner of one part of the public sphere will have an impact but it is extremely unlikely that we will see a broader reversal of the trend we have discussed.
So in addition to the threats to the values and approaches of the Renaissance we discussed last week it is also possible that changes in the way we communicate and think are also posing a threat to who we are as mankind.
Whilst we usually finish these pieces with a bit of political advice it is not at all clear that such a massive trend in how we think and communicate can be reversed by political action alone. On a personal level therefore we would just urge that everyone cleave to literacy, rationality and individual identity as much as possible. And hope that the increasing pace of technological progress will mean that this too will pass – and hopefully sooner rather than later. Until then let’s hope we can see out the storm.
The Age of Gutenberg may well, God forbid, give way to the Age of TikTok. But something will come after that – and it surely can’t be any worse?
Division, disorder and disturbance – The roots of the Renaissance
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Harry Lime, The Third Man
Division, disorder and disturbance – the roots of the Renaissance
Historians spend a great deal of time arguing about exactly when The Renaissance started, exactly what should be considered within scope of the term and exactly how important it was. Rather than arid and fairly pointless arguments over dates it is probably more worthwhile looking at its characteristics. This in turn should help us to understand its significance and reach.
It is our view that The Renaissance can be defined by an approach. An approach which was first noticeable in philosophy and art but which ended up manifesting itself in politics, business, literature, religion, science and exploration, ultimately both blending in to and causing The Enlightenment. It is this approach and the values behind it which have made The Renaissance one of the most significant periods in human history with benefits still being felt today. It may be only now that we are starting to abandon this approach and values and to undermine much of what we have achieved and may otherwise achieve in future.
One of the terms most often used to describe the philosophical and artistic approach of the period is “Renaissance Humanism” – itself a hotly debated concept but in general terms, greater use of interrogation of sources and evidence, greater reliance on individual reasoning and critique and greater freedom to theorise and develop new positions. This in marked contrast to the scholastic approach of the Medieval period before in which the focus was more on understanding and synthesising great sources and philosophers of the past. For the avoidance of confusion it should also be noted that despite a similar name, Renaissance Humanism is an entirely different thing to the modern atheistic belief system which has also adopted this term.
Behind this we can already see evidence of certain values. Values which still resonate, at least to some extent today: valuing the judgement of the individual, accepting the validity and value of intellectual dissent, challenge and debate, a willingness to challenge authority, a focus on the individual as author and as an active player and most of all an almost fierce determination to find and depict truth.
This is all in marked contrast to what is perhaps an over simplification but nevertheless an essentially true depiction of Medieval culture in which far greater emphasis was given to group, coherence, concord, obedience, structure and perceived moral worth or meaning over factual or scientific truth.
To understand the reason such dramatic changes in the intellectual and cultural approaches being adopted throughout Europe in The Renaissance it is worth considering where they first took root and where they bore the greatest fruit: Not in the great, powerful, unified and relatively stable kingdoms of France and Spain but in the chaotic, competing mess of states, principalities, bishoprics and duchies of Italy and subsequently in other smaller, less stable and less centralised polities.
This was no accident.
In the division, disorder and disunity of Renaissance Italy philosophers and artists were subject to an entirely different set of incentives and norms to those prevalent in more unified and structured states. It was not just the advantages of turnover and quantity – a greater number of potential courts and patrons, it was also the fact of competition and choice. Far from a whole state obsequiously following the prevailing preferences of the ruler at the time it was possible to find differences in tastes and views in different areas – or even in the same area when one dynasty or regime was brought down and a rival replaced it.
This meant that differences in style and thought could emerge and also that philosophers and artists were incentivised to think for themselves and to differentiate themselves. From here it is but a short intellectual hop to realising that authority need not be revered and that it may be better to question it.
Italy’s political disunity had also set the conditions for the Commercial Revolution – the reorientation of many of the Italian economies towards foreign trade. This was essential for rulers in order to raise funds for their constant struggles and internal conflicts. It did also mean though that these areas became more open to outside influences and ideas and that it was that much harder for those in charge to prevent this. It was no accident then that many of the great Greek and Roman texts re-entered Europe through this route via trade with North Africa and the Middle East.
As the Renaissance grew over the decades and centuries it extended both into other European states but also into new fields of endeavour. Whilst notable contributions were present in most states – with even the centralised relatively stable France and Spain by seeing the likes of Rabelais and Cervantes following the footsteps of Dante, most of the greatest advances were still taking place in Italy or in other fragmented unstable areas such as Germany – or in areas highly influenced by the cultures of both such as England.
The Renaissance saw an explosion in exploration – almost the physical embodiment of the individualistic, questioning and adventurous nature of the age – augmented by a plethora of technological advances in navigation and in map making technology. Much of this exploration was powered by a desire to further trade and win personal fortunes as a result, or by competition between rulers desperate for prestige and an economic edge over competitors.
The Renaissance saw great advances in political theory and political understanding – most notably from the brilliant and under-rated Machiavelli but also from the likes of Thomas More.
Art – increasingly realistic and ambitious in scope such as that of Michelangelo and Botticeli flourished and science too benefited hugely from the method and environment described above with da Vinci, Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, Newton and Copernicus amongst the most obvious examples. Though by this point we are straying into what is more commonly thought to be The Enlightenment.
It is also worthy of note that many of the great scientists of the age were also artists, philosophers or active in the public realm. This was also no accident as the values of individual endeavour, judgement and reward resulted in the rise of many great polymaths – the “Renaissance Man” – who saw no reason to accept the specialisation driven by veneration for authority which would have strongly discouraged them from doing so in the past.
Almost every field of human endeavour came to be questioned, overhauled, refined, improved and ultimately revolutionised by the new approach and the values driving it as well as the more receptive political and economic environment which both fostered and thrived off this rich chaos.
Perhaps the greatest changes of all went hand in hand – the rise of printed literature and individual access to the written word on one hand and the Reformation of the Church on the other.
Much as the Medieval period had seen philosophical and artistic reverence for authority this was even more the case in religion. Since so few people outside of the Church could read – or even had access to written materials prior to The Renaissance it was necessary to accept the authority of priests and in their turn Bishops as to what The Bible said and what it meant.
The Gutenberg Press changed all of this. First The Bible then other religious tracts and finally of course a very wide range of written materials became available both in Latin and in local languages. The result was both a much wider incentive and opportunity for people to acquaint themselves directly with what key religious texts actually said and meant.
This had revolutionary effect – obviously for the Church itself – leading to the Reformation and even subsequently even greater division and disorder – but also for the way that people thought in general.
With its emphasis on direct personal engagement with The Bible, Protestantism had the effect of encouraging a far greater sense of individuality and a far greater sense that it was right and proper to think and to question authority. For surely if even The Bible must be carefully studied and understood and if even religious instruction could be questioned then how could it not also be fair to apply the same approach to every aspect of life.
It could reasonably be said that The Renaissance and the ensuing Enlightenment, its approach and values and the conditions which created it were the engine which drove European and global progress over the subsequent centuries. Not just in technological, artistic and scientific terms but also in political and social terms. Creating our whole modern conception of the individual and eventually leading to the reordering of the state and society around that.
However it is looked at incredible richness of The Renaissance in its immediate contribution and its extraordinary powerful legacy has played a great part in humanity’s progress and in creating our modern world.
With recent years and decades seeing fresh attempts to reassert the primacy of authority, ultra-specialisation, extreme caution about science an human progress, consensus, the middle ground, fluffy thinking on the aims of states, group rights, responsibilities and identity and perceived moral worth over truth – as well as societal pushes to limit free speech, limit trade, to centralise control and to create greater political union through multi-national blocks we should be very worried about what this might mean.
Can we stop or change course?
Or are we set to lose all that the gains that the Renaissance delivered for us for centuries?
The Repeal of the Corn Laws: The Triumph of Free Trade
For millennia the vast majority of work and the vast majority of economic activity has been associated with food production. It is only in the last couple of hundred years that this has changed in most countries, yet for obvious reasons, food production, distribution and trade remains one of the most vital, and often one of the greatest sources of economic, social and political contention.
The Corn Laws were introduced in 1815 following the end of the Napoleonic wars, though they had many precedents as recently as 1773 and also much further back in a variety of subsidies and tariffs on grains. Applying not just to corn but to all major cereals, the laws were designed to protect sizable landowners but were also justified in terms of the employment they generated for millions of people throughout the country.
In 1815, with much of Europe finally returning from the ravages of war and also fully opening up to British trade for the first time in decades with the fall of the Continental System, there was a rapid and sustained fall in the price of grains. This was welcome and in many ways essential as the UK and others unwound the distorting impact of the war on their economies and large numbers of people who had been employed in war industries or in the armed forces directly found themselves out of work. There was however, in political circles at least, considerable debate about what the consequences of this opening up were likely to be. Thomas Malthus (the originator of the comprehensively flawed theory that mankind would face starvation by the middle of the 19th Century) was one of those pushing for a “fair price” for corn of 80 shillings a bushel and warned of disastrous economic and humanitarian consequences if Britain became reliant on foreign grain.
Proponents believed that there was a risk in relying on cheap grain from overseas because a rapidly growing global population would mean that these sources of food were not sustainable. It was also argued that wages would fall throughout the country if artificially high grain prices could not be sustained. This depended on a belief that lower grain prices would result in a collapse in production, fewer people being employed in agriculture and resultant lower levels of spending on other goods, particularly the products of the emerging industrial revolution.
Despite it being pointed out even at the time by the likes of Ricardo, and even members of Lord Liverpool’s own cabinet, that the wider economic interests of Britain could only be served by free trade, Parliament was so dominated by landowners, other vested interests and their men that these made no headway. The Importation Act was signed in to law.
Almost immediately there was significant and widespread opposition to the laws, both in the form of representations from traders – including the Merchants Petition of 1820, and in more direct forms on the streets, with rising numbers of riots in response to inexorably rising food prices. One might have thought that, given the significant role bread prices played in triggering the French Revolution, the Government of the day might have been alert to these early warning signals and changed course. Yet despite repeated claims to being a supporter of free trade Liverpool and his cabinet believed that any change would be too complex and risky. This position it should be said, was with the overwhelming support of Parliament and from both parties.
The problems posed by consistently high grain prices were already evident by the end of the 1820s and under the Duke of Wellington the Government introduced sliding scales to facilitate some grain import and to alleviate the more obvious industrial poverty which was being caused by the measure.
Opposition really got going as a result of the efforts of the Whig MP Charles Villiers who proposed Bills in Parliament every year from 1837 onwards calling for the abolition of the Corn Laws. Despite this, and throughout the 1830s the even more overtly pro-trade Whig Government refused to act.
Alongside this the brilliant and far sighted Richard Cobden and John Bright – both of whom would go on to play key roles in expanding free trade in the middle of the 19th century – founded the Anti-Corn Law League in 1836 and consistently built popular support for the outright abolition of the measures, adopting similar measures to those used to great effect by the Abolitionists decades earlier.
Cobden and the others argued to great effect that opening up British agriculture to international competition would introduce greater efficiency, reduce costs for manufacturers, send a clear signal that Britain was serious about free trade and willing to commit to it and of course increase the quality of life and reduce the cost of living for millions of people throughout the country. None of this should have been remotely novel to anyone, having been a core part of Adam Smith’s arguments decades earlier .
Despite sticking to entirely peaceful tactics in their campaign for abolition, the reformers were subject to widespread character assassination – with opponents pointing out that as traders and manufacturers themselves that they would be likely to benefit – thereby relying on one of the longest lasting fallacies in arguing against policy change in assuming that if this was true it would invalidate their arguments.
Ultimately though, as with so many great reforms and awful revolutions, it took physical and human factors – including the terrible harvests of 1844 and the particularly awful famine in Ireland to bring matters to a head. The bad harvests of that year throughout the British Isles demonstrated the truth which should have been obvious from the start – that there was no true safety in protectionism. That by cutting Britain off from other sources of grain from overseas that the country was only ever one bad harvest away from a humanitarian disaster and that true safety and security and the only truly sustainable basis for economic growth lay in free trade.
Even then it took a the actions of a number of key individuals in combination for repeal to happen. Lord Russell, as leader of the Whigs was by now wholeheartedly supportive of reform. Robert Peel, as leader of the Conservatives had increasingly come round to the same view and was prepared to face down the majority of his own party in Parliament and to precipitate a split which completely realign British politics for decades in order to see the repeal through and even the highly conservative Duke of Wellington performed one of his last great acts for the country by guiding it through the House of Lords.
Even after passing the repeal in 1846 spectre of the Corn Laws remained for decades – with the intellectually and morally lightweight Disraeli as leader of the Conservatives constantly looking for an opportunity to use the issue to drum up his popularity or to cast aspersions on the motives of his more pro-trade opponents.
In the following decades the predictable happened – grain prices went on a downward trend in every subsequent decade, falling by 40% by the mid-1870s (by which point even Disraeli was no longer actively considering tariffs) and by 60% by the mid-1880s. The efficiency of British farms increased dramatically and more and more former agricultural labourers were able to take on better paid and more productive jobs in industry.
Internationally as well, Britain’s grain market played a significant role in driving growth, free trade and enterprise both in Europe and in North and South America – in turn acting as a spur to mechanisation and innovation in agriculture in later decades.
A complete counter-factual history is impossible to map out of course – but as well as forgoing all of these gains we should also factor in the near on certainty that the shortages and famines of 1844-1845 would have been repeated, both in Britain and in other countries which would have been less likely to follow the path of free trade if we had not trod it first.
The Torch has consistently argued against modern mercantilism – and history bears out the truth of our argument time after time. This argument applies not just to essentials such as food and fuel – but to every part of the economy and trade.
With grain prices set to spike in the year ahead and short-term global food challenges on the way, let us not forget the lessons of the Corn Laws and pursue protectionist policies which would make such shortages permanent.
The flawed legacy of Mirabeau – how he brought down everything he believed in
None but people of great passion are capable of rising to greatness.
Comte de Mirabeau
The Torch generally takes quite a sympathetic view of flawed politicians if they are overall having a positive impact in the circumstances they find themselves. No one is perfect and it takes a particular kind of driven confidence to secure high office and then to wield it to any effect. History is replete with figures who carefully secured the offices they craved, only to then achieve very little with them. These are often deservingly remembered with derision. Even more worrying than these are those unblinking, coldblooded figures who would have us believe that they are perfect and who pursue dangerous ideological projects – often dying or disappearing into denial when the consequences come home to roost.
Comte de Mirabeau lived in highly ideological times. Times with more than its fair share of both of these types of figure.
Before the start of the French Revolution Mirabeau was already one of the best known figures in France. A gifted and prolific journalist and a larger than life figure his name and image would have been well recognised throughout large parts of the country.
Visually distinctive – he was a large and powerful speaker with a massive head and a rough hewn face, scarred from an extensive bout of smallpox when he was a child, he played up to his ogre-ish image and used his physical presence to the full to dominate public debates. He was also highly intelligent, witty and capable of seeing the bigger picture behind current affairs in a way that many of his contemporaries could not.
Although an establishment figure – son of a well respected economist father and part of a wealthy and aristocratic family – he never let this hold back his anti-establishment instincts or prevent him from becoming one of the greatest critics of the Ancien Regime.
He liked to frequently remind revolutionary readers and listeners that he had been the subject of no less than three Lettres de Cachet – a means of imposing imprisonment without trial – two at the request of his own father and due to consistent rebellion and indiscipline in his youth.
This was the start of a scandal ridden life. He escaped imprisonment, absconded with another aristocrat’s wife to Switzerland and then on to the Netherlands before being arrested and imprisoned yet again, somehow evading a death sentence before going on to astonishingly depict himself as the victim and to win widespread public support when his wife undertook legal proceedings against him.
He used his experience of France’s archaic and monstrous justice system as a journalistic opportunity to secure massive public interest and support for his proposals for reform, but his writing was not all of the noble campaigning variety and he was not beyond turning his pen to producing semi-pornographic fiction in order to help pay the bills and secure his income. He even managed to embroil France in more than one diplomatic storm as a result of his use of insights secured from Government roles.
Nevertheless, his popularity as an anti-establishment journalist secured his election as one of the representatives of the people in the original Third Estate of the Estates General when it was called. Such was his popularity that he was elected in more than one area and despite his background it was never deemed unusual that he should be representing the people in the Third Estate rather than the aristocracy in the Second.
Mirabeau rose to become one of the leading figures of the early years of the French Revolution. He was one of the key figures ensuring that the three estates merged and defied Royal demands both for how they should behave and for the approval of much needed taxes to keep the King’s Government afloat. His oratory and journalism also played a key role in securing the support of the people of Paris and France generally.
Much of this was driven by a genuine hatred of despotism and a strong view that France needed to look more like Britain – with a representative Parliament and Kings who reigned rather than ruled. Much more a disciple of Montesquieu than Rousseau he believed in a separation of powers, an efficient state and in reform – yet as a good French patriot he was also proud of many aspects of French tradition and history and was appalled at some of the measures adopted against the King and the aristocracy.
Mirabeau was also a shrewd politician and not above using the levers of power to advance himself and his own prospects. Many of his most vicious and popular interventions both in debate and in writing were against the King’s Ministers, particular his rival Necker. He knew that by depriving the current Government of funds and legitimacy it would fail and his chances of securing high office would increase. In the early days of the revolution Mirabeau was in the happy position of these two goals aligning perfectly.
It was thanks to his interventions that the National Assembly was able to achieve so much in its early months and was perceived to have so much legitimacy and popular support. He had a clear vision of the type of English Monarchy he sought to create and with popular support, as an aristocrat who knew the court but who also knew public opinion, he came very close to achieving it – and probably would have done so if the King and his court had not been so manifestly not up to the job.
As the early opportunities to follow the English pattern were missed though and as the revolution swung further and further into radicalism Mirabeau found himself in an awkward position. His popularity emanated from being one of the most dramatic critics of the establishment yet his political instincts were much more conservative than the vast majority of his critics.
In a further complication, Mirabeau had himself approached the King and offered his advice and even his services to see off the dangers posed by the more extreme elements in the Jacobins. Rumours quickly spread that Mirabeau had even received significant financial rewards for this from the court and had in effect been bought. He was finding himself isolated and at risk of falling due to scandal at any point.
Mirabeau was therefore from one perspective hugely fortunate when at this point he unexpectedly died.
Mirabeau was treated as a hero, one of the greats of Revolutionary France and his body was interred with great fanfare. It appeared that his legacy was secured.
It was however less than two years later that the scandal hit anyway.
During the trial of Louis XVI (or Louis Capet as he was then called) numerous papers appeared which demonstrated that the rumours were true. Mirabeau had indeed been on the King’s payroll and had even offered him advice on how to secure himself in a potential military standoff with the revolution.
Despite a lifetime of scandal and bad behaviour this time the scandal really mattered.
Being on the King’s payroll was (to some extent truthfully) seen as a betrayal of the revolution. The rumours and suspicion around a character of whom such accusations were all too believable, and the fervent denials by him and his friends made the scandal much worse – particularly given the fact of Mirabeau’s flagrant hypocrisy in constantly attacking and vilifying the venality of the old aristocracy, whilst engaging in precisely the sort of behaviours he was railing against.
It was precisely the wrong kind of scandal. One which pitted him against the people and made him seem like the unreliable aristocratic chancer he had always been portrayed as – and to some extent always had been.
The scandal and fall of Mirabeau’s legacy mattered – not just for him but for everything he believed in.
The more radical elements within the Jacobins took this as vindication of their position and used it to great effect to discredit his friends, allies and ideas. It was precisely the sort of fodder on which the increasingly aggressive popular press would thrive. Exactly the sort of scandal to play a major role in changing perceptions of Mirabeau and by extension all who argued with him for similar ends. The chances of a moderate and limited revolution (which had been fading anyway at this point) were now snuffed out.
As a result of the final scandal that somehow felt inevitable all along Mirabeau ended up obliterating any possible chance of his vision of France being achieved. By his flaws as much as by his strengths, Mirabeau had ended up playing a major role in the direction of the French Revolution.
Turning to today, we do not need to look a million miles to find political figures with many similar qualities and flaws as Mirabeau.
Whilst everyone is imperfect and we absolutely must remember that many of the same qualities which may have made a leader successful may be those which also drove the behaviour behind the scandal, in this case the sheer hypocrisy of the scandal, all the denials and as seems possible, it being just the wrong type of scandal at just the wrong time does suggest that we may see something with parallels to what happened to Mirabeau’s legacy.
If this scandal leads to a fall and to long-lasting political change we must ask ourselves which legacy will take the hit? The at-all-costs green agenda? The Big-State public health obsession? The increasing nanny state or the vision of a global free-trading Britain post Brexit?
We will surely have our answer within the next couple of years.
Sakoku, reform and The Satsuma Rebellion – a lesson in vested interests
In 1603 Japan began a unique experiment which lasted 250 years which radically altered the path of one of the world’s great civilisations. An experiment which changed the way Japan developed, changed its relationships with its neighbours, and ultimately changed the geopolitics of the Pacific and the wider world.
In 1603 Japan was already a culturally distinct and well respected regional power, it benefited from strong cultural, artistic and academic traditions, it was a fast emerging maritime power with bases and proto-colonies throughout Asia and even as far away as Mexico. It was open to trade and had strong connections not just with China but with many European powers – the Dutch , Portuguese and Spanish in particular.
Japan was not without its major flaws (including a highly militaristic aristocratic class obsessed with honour culture) yet in many ways it was centuries ahead of its time in embracing huge parts of what we now refer to as the “Open Society” – it allowed far more freedom of trade, freedom of movement and freedom of thought and conscience than its neighbours. This even included a significant move towards Christianity amongst its population, starting with the Catholic mission of Francis Xavier and continued by the Jesuits.
By 1603 though Japan’s opportunity to continue down this development path was radically curtailed as a result of a policy which later came to be known as “Sakoku” – the locked country.
The powerful Tokugawa clan had won a series of internal conflicts against rival dynasties and established de facto control of the country through the Shogunate. They were in a highly precarious position though and recognised the threat posed by the fact that most of Japan’s major ports (and thus a major part of their revenues) were in the hands of rival clans. Given the rapidly increasing levels of trade, particularly European trade, which were happening, there was a real risk that one or more of these rival clans would be able to build themselves a financial and military position to challenge and displace the Tokugawa.
Japan was also rapidly absorbing European literature, philosophy, religion and ideas. There was therefore also a perceived risk that the very foundations of Tokugawa political power could be questioned and that the rapidly developing Japanese commercial class may seek to reform the Japanese power system itself.
The solution which was first imposed by Tokugawa Iemitsu was to drastically limit Japanese trade and openness to the wider world. Only a small number of ports, most notably Nagasaki, were allowed a restricted trade in certain items and with a limited number of trading partners (The Chinese and to an even more limited extent the Dutch.)
To justify this measure a wider political theory was developed – including stoking fears of Japan being colonised or subjugated by European powers, concerns about various forms of Christianity and a widespread association of foreigners with piracy, vandalism and violence (not that Japan was itself any stranger to piracy at this point.)
As well as the limits on trade there was a conscious closing off of Japan from what were perceived as outside influences. Christianity aggressively stamped out. Foreigners were banned from visiting Japan – even those doing so for trade had to do so outside of the main cities themselves and in semi-quarantine conditions. The measures eventually went so far as to execute foreign sailors taking refuge or washed up on Japanese shores.
It was these measures which finally brought about the end of Sakoku. In 1853 the American Commodore Perry brought a squadron of modern warships into Edo Bay and forcibly imposed a treaty whereby Japan would open itself up to more extensive American trade and interaction. Whilst there were certainly trading considerations at stake, the expedition had primarily come about due to increasing public outrage in America at the number of American sailors from its Chinese trading fleet and whalers who were being washed up on Japanese shores never to be seen again.
The shock of Perry’s mission illustrated to the most effective Japanese leaders – including the leaders of the Satsuma and Choshu clans – Saigo Takamori and Kido Takayoshi – that Sakoku had come close to achieving the precise opposite of its stated aims. Far from insulating Japan from foreign domination it had left Japan with centuries old technology, without alliances, an archaic military, social and economic system – all of the things most likely to lead to its falling under foreign control.
The political and strategic awareness of these leaders and their rapid understanding that Japan needed to modernise and open up to avoid being dominated culminated in the final end of the stale and sclerotic Tokugawa Shogunate and a period which became known as The Meiji Restoration.
The Meiji Restoration was hugely successful – turning Japan within decades into one of the world’s great powers and kickstarting a huge economic and industrial boom which was eyewatering even by the 19th Century’s high standards.
The Meiji Restoration was not without its foes though. There were a series of inter-clan conflicts before it could even get going, but then the biggest challenge came, as these things always do, from vested interests within the hierarchy itself.
For centuries the Japanese Samurai class had been growing. Equivalent to the old knight class in parts of Europe they held privileged positions in society and were synonymous with their exclusive right to carry weapons. They were also a huge drain on human and economic resources – all of them were paid a fairly healthy stipend for very little – and with nearly two million of them on the books the Japanese government and economy was being crushed under their weight.
A series of military reforms brought matters to a head – culminating in some of the Samurai going to war to protect their privileged and anachronistic status in the Satsuma rebellion.
The rebellion was hugely costly for the new Japanese government but ultimately the Samurai were defeated and both the legal authority of the regime and the superior military potential of the new Japanese conscript army was established.
Most Samurai did not of course rebel and many did find roles in the new state bureaucracy. The honour culture of this class did also remain and did have a major impact on Japanese political and military decision making right up until the end of World War II.
The Meiji reforms were the making of modern Japan – enabling it to defeat Russia in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-5 and securing Japan a seat at the top table and a particularly strong relationship with Britain.
None of this of course will change the fact that the Samurai who died so pointlessly in the Satsuma rebellion, nor the Tokugawa who so badly undermined Japan for centuries, went to their graves convinced that they were right, noble and morally superior to their reformist rivals.
There are of course lessons from all of this for the state bureaucrats and vested interests we face today. This week we have seen the UK’s own Samurai class taking to Twitter and the airwaves in their own Satsuma Rebellion to preserve state ownership and control of Channel 4 (which has similarly been left behind and stifled as channels and networks around the world have outpaced it) – much as they have done with dozens of quangos and state funded vanity projects in recent years – even while the institutions they claim to care about were ossifying and rotting in perfect Sakoku.
No nation or institution will thrive in isolation. For those who have taken this wrong path for long enough it takes a shock and then a willingness to embrace the winds of competition, free trade, freedom of thought, science and innovation to find a successful place in the world.
A frightened, flabby old woman: How Oxford helped make World War II more likely
On 9 February 1933 the Oxford Union played its part in bringing war to Europe and the world.
The Oxford Union is amongst the most respected debating societies in the world. Its links to many current and past members of the University as well as its ability to attract many of the leading thinkers of the day have ensured that it benefits from a great degree of prestige and attention in the UK and throughout the world. This was at least certainly the case in 1933 before one of the most shameful episodes in its history.
The motion proposed by one Kenelm Hubert Digby was that “This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and Country.”
Motivated by a predictably naïve and ahistoric socialist understanding of the world, the proposers of the motion including the philosopher C.E.M. Joad argued that war was inevitably driven by imperialist and capitalist greed and that Oxford had an opportunity to send a signal to the world that the UK was turning its back on such ambitions and that this would motivate the rest of the world to follow suit.
Some of the speakers went further and were marginally more realistic – recognising that Britain abandoning its role as global policeman and guarantor of innumerable treaties and borders around the world might possibly tempt some of the less savoury powers around the world to act more aggressively. Yet the profound wisdom and experience of the undergraduate supplied an answer even to this charge – all that would be needed to defeat the aggression of the dictators and tyrants rising up across the world would be peaceful Gandhi-esque protests. Surely no Italian, German, Soviet or Japanese invading army would be able to withstand the might of a student sit-in? Unfortunately we never got to witness the effectiveness of this form of military strategy against the Stukas and Panzers which were favoured in the subsequent World War.
Those making the counter-argument were widely ignored or ridiculed. It was pointed out that Japan had already invaded Manchuria. Italy’s imperial pretensions were well known. Germany was already clearly set on a path towards extreme and violent socialism – either of the Nationalist or pure Socialist variety. The brutal and aggressive nature of Stalin’s Soviet Union was even held by some not to be a glorious dawn and the perfect endpoint of mankind but a serious threat to the peace and safety of its neighbours and the world at large.
Much like the doomed bravery of the Polish cavalry charging invading German tanks six years later, the seemingly antiquated and certainly outgunned opponents of the motion were no match for self-righteous left-wing students in full flow. The motion passed overwhelmingly by 275 votes to 153.
In the UK where the Oxford Union was already losing some of its lustre, and where the nature of British students was better known there was a mixed reaction. Winston Churchill – then very much out of favour with the establishment bemoaned the message it sent out to the world. Some newspapers castigated the students, other members of the public sent white feathers to the Union, one for each cowardly vote. On the other hand, the Guardian unsurprisingly was in favour of it all…
Around the world though the vote was met with dismay by Britain’s friends and allies and with glee by those threatening them. Universities throughout the Empire issued their own votes stating that they at least would fight even whilst the youth of Britain would not. Newspapers and commentators in Germany and Italy meanwhile revelled in this sign that there was at least some doubt in Britain’s position. Benito Mussolini was particularly enthused and cited doubts about Britain’s willingness to fight when launching his subsequent invasion of Abyssinia – describing Britain as a “Frightened, flabby old woman” who would not fight.
There is some doubt about exactly how much influence the gesture had in subsequent German and Soviet invasions of their neighbours – but given the profile that the issue attracted and the numerous references to it in NAZI state papers prior to the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland it was at least a factor weighing in war’s favour, encouraging the enemies of peace and needlessly bringing conflict in Europe one step closer.
But at least the students had some fun feeling important and worthy about it all.
Subsequently some of those who voted not to fight defended themselves on the ground that they were not telling the truth. That although they stated that they would under no circumstances fight, that many of their peers would go on to do so.
If the best defence that can be made of a statement is that it was a lie then you know you’re on shaky ground. At risk of sounding as antiquated as the opponents of the motion, we at The Torch believe that a bad, embarrassing and damaging statement is only made even worse when it is made dishonestly and uttered purely out of naivety, stupidity, ego, self-importance and infantile showing-off.
And thus we turn to modern day and recent statements from President Biden.
Immediately prior to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine at a time when NATO’s disunity and weakness was a clear threat to peace and at time when a robust, serious and respected stance in defence of the Ukraine may have helped to avert the war the US President said:
“It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera…”
This coming from the President of the United States, an individual one would normally expect to be a serious holder of high office and surely well above the foolish prattling of student politicians.
The gaffe was quickly corrected by his long-suffering staff team, but the damage was already done. Just like with the King and Country motion this alleged “misspeaking” seemed to confirm precisely what the likely warmongers already wanted to believe. In both cases, that the most likely guarantor of peace and opponent in war, the British Empire in one case, NATO in another, were divided, weak and keen to avoid a fight at all costs. Indeed, the quote suggested that NATO was more likely to fight amongst itself on deciding its response than to fight off Russian advances.
Unlike the Oxford Union President Biden has continued this strand of interventions. Stating that if Russia committed the monstrous atrocity of engaging in chemical warfare that the United States would respond “in kind” – suggesting that the US was considering launching its own chemical warfare strike, possibly even against civilians. This too was cleaned up by his staff and allies in the media and the quote rapidly relegated behind “respond accordingly.” Nevertheless this was a propaganda gift for Putin and his regime.
Most recently the US President has stated baldly that Mr Putin cannot be allowed to remain in power. A reasonable position to hold if you are willing to consider the available options – but not one the US or its allies holds – and yet again the Presidents allies were called on to clear things up.
We do not know for sure whether the bungling, naïve and stupid comments made by this US President threw away the last chance to avert a war in the Ukraine. Whether a clear and unambiguous statement that NATO would fight for every inch of Ukrainian territory against its invading and aggressive neighbour would certainly have averted a war and what the consequences will be in Taiwan and elsewhere before long.
We can say for certain that it would at least have made our enemies think about it.
It would help if those in charge of us did a bit more thinking too.
1042 – the real Norman invasion of England
One of the most famous years in British history is 1066 – the year in which William the Bastard became William the Conqueror, defeating King Harold II of England and ushering in one of the most brutal and damaging periods of British history. This year is certainly a dramatic and horrific turning point and one in which it is nearly impossible to find any redeeming benefits. It would be wrong though to ignore what had happened in the decades prior to it. Decades in which it is possible to say that the true Norman invasion of Britain started to take place.
Edward the Confessor began his reign in 1042 amidst great optimism at the return of an English king after the mindless brutality of the Danish King Harthacnut. It was hoped that Edward would make more use of the advice of his senior nobles in the Witangamot, that he would reign in the tyrannical practices of his predecessor and that he would govern more in accordance with English traditions. Such hopes were only possible because very few of the senior nobles of the country knew the kind of man Edward truly was.
Despite being born in England, Edward had spent most of his 39 years growing in in the strange and vaguely dystopian court of Normandy. He was the son of Athelred Unred (meaning Athelred the unadvised rather than unready as many mistakenly believe) and he had inherited much of his father’s character. He was fairly stupid, petty, violent, easily swayed by bad council, cowardly, unwilling to lead his armies in war and entirely lacking in any of the leadership qualities expected of a Medieval English King.
When Athelred was violently overthrown as King of England Edward has only in his teens, but by the standards of the time he was not considered a child and would have been old enough to play a part in the continued resistance. Instead he was packed off to safety in Normandy and never showed any particular inclination to play any role in the resistance or to return to support his elder brother, Edmund Ironsides.
Whilst this may be forgivable at such a young age, he also refused to act in his early 30s when King Cnut died and there was a clear opportunity to position himself for the English thrown. Instead he left matters to his younger brother, Alfred Aetheling and then refused to join him on his return to England in what turned out be a doomed attempt at return.
Such were the flaws in Edward’s character that his mother, Emma of Normandy, made strenuous efforts to prevent him ever acceding to the throne. If your own mother is out campaigning for kings of Norway and Demark to be King of England ahead of you that should give some cause for doubt about your suitability for that office!
But his manifest unsuitability to rule was not even the most concerning aspect of King Edward – far more so was the extent to which this weak, manipulable and petty King had been shaped, influenced and was ultimately controlled by Normandy to an extent to which he can reasonably be described as the first Norman King of England.
Firstly, whilst Edward failed to make much of an impression on his mother, the same could not be said the other way round. Emma of Normandy was incredibly capable and effective as the wife of two Kings of England and the mother of two more. She understood how to get things done and how to influence public opinion far more than her first husband or Edward. For the early part of Edward’s reign she was the true power behind the throne – and though he probably was not aware of it he probably owed one of his few accomplishments as King – lasting near 24 years in office – to her.
Secondly, not all of the Norman influences on Edward were as benign. Growing up in the Norman court he found himself surrounded by far more capable nobles – nobles who were prepared to use his weakness to extract promises of future services and rewards from this potential future king. By the time he became King Edward had so many debts of various kinds to pay that he decided the best thing to do was to bring a large number of this Norman nobles over with him, to grant them extensive lands in England and to shower them with prestigious and powerful roles in the Kingdom and in the church.
Thirdly, Edward then found himself a pawn of a particular faction at court. Based on a personal dislike for or envy of the influential and invaluable Godwin family he made every attempt to sideline and humiliate them and other key Wessex nobility – taking the country to the brink of civil war and them into an actual civil war in all but name in order to defend the privileges of his Norman faction.
Fourthly there was the abandonment not just of traditional English restraints upon Kingly power there was the repetition of many of the most unsavoury and brutal tactics which King Harthacnut had introduced in terms of meting out savage punishment to whole towns and regions for supposed slights on Royal or Norman interests.
Fifthly there was the failure of the King in his second most important duty as Monarch – the defence of the realm. Under Edward the Royal Fleet was allowed to decline into nothingness, Wales was allowed to unify under a powerful King – thus providing a threatening rival on the island – and sure enough Edward went on to lose at least two wars to this rival. By undermining the fibres of the English state so effectively England became a much more plausible prospect for invasion by his Norman friends in future.
Sixthly there was the failure of the King in his most important duty – either producing or identifying a clear heir. We do not know whether he chose not to have children with his wife or if they were not capable of doing so – but regardless of this it would have been possible to do, as King Athelstan had done, and identify a clear heir and successor and to give him a substantial role at court. By failing to do this Edward gave his Norman friends the pretext they needed for an invasion upon his death.
Ultimately, through a combination of weakness, stupidity, malleability, background and personal animosities King Edward was not one of the last Anglo Saxon Monarchs in anything but name. His policies, priorities and manner of rule clearly set him up as the first Norman King of England.
Turning to our own era, those of us who identify as Conservatives, Classical Liberals or Libertarians should read and shudder.
In 2019 the UK elected a leader who appeared to be a no nonsense proper Conservative. So many people were so relieved at this prospect after the chaos of previous years and the further chaos promised by the alternatives that Mr Johnson received a massive Parliamentary majority and bucketloads of political capital.
What we have seen instead is this Government adopt socialist policies, socialist priorities and socialist manners of governing. Taxes are at historic highs and rising fast. Inflation is back with a vengeance having been driven up by debasing the currency through quantitative easing, high taxes and high levies on energy. Conservatives are asked to applaud for increased “investment” (aka lots of spending) across the board even while public services remain grossly inefficient and unreformed. The tentacles of the nanny state are reaching ever further into our lives – seeking to dictate what we eat, how we shop and what we can shop for, what we can say and think and believe and how we can express disapproval of the whole thing. All of this because of a desire to please the wrong people – those in the corrupt court of the Prime Minister and because of weakness, cowardice and intellectual malleability.
We are in short in a position where our Prime Minister and his cabinet may appear to be Conservatives who are just not very good at being Conservatives. In reality, if the Conservative Party sticks with the same leadership, policies and approach then regardless of the outcome of the next election – we are witnessing the first term of a socialist, Labourish Government.
Let us just hope that the coming years will not mirror those after both Norman invasions.
If they do we will surely find ourselves before too long in need of our own new Magna Carta.
Only one winner: The 30 Years War and the triumph of French realpolitik
In wars there are winners and losers. Nearly always the winners gain power, influence and position at the expense of the losers. Quite often though it is the relative gains of the winners – the extent to which one wins more than another – which have the most lasting consequences.
Most of the really decisive wars of the last millennium have not taken place between two powers – more often there are alliance driven by economics, morals, honour or convenience on both sides. Because of the different foundations of these alliances and the fact that some are shakier than others it is also often the case that the nature and composition of alliances change during the course of conflicts.
Most of the time it is impossible to predict at the outset, or even most of the way through a conflict, what the shifting composition of the alliances means for the future of geopolitics. It therefore takes a particularly shrewd diplomatic and strategic mind to be one of the players in the conflict whilst also thinking many moves ahead.
It helps of course if you are not constrained by things like morality or empathy and are prepared to put or leave those who may have considered you allies in harm’s way – whilst you wait for the moment which best serves your own interests to make your move.
As the 30 Years War ravaged Europe, taking an appalling toll on the life and wellbeing of many states (particularly in Germany) and leaving people wondering if this was the start of the End Times, France was in possession of a leader both willing and able to act in such a way.
The 30 Years War had its origins in the Lutheran – Catholic conflicts of the late 16th Century, as well as in the complex dynastic and political squabbles of the Holy Roman Empire.
Starting with a relatively confined conflict in Bohemia, which even most German states thought they could stay out of, the war grew and grew, drawing in the ever land-hungry Habsburgs, then as a result the Dutch, Danish and Swedes – with even some conflicts spilling out into colonial possessions.
The newly anointed Holy Roman Emperor, and many of the Catholic powers across Europe had never truly come to terms with the reformation and the number of German states which had chosen to adopt the protestant faith. He and many of his early allies hoped and believed that the Peace of Augsburg and other assurances and acceptances of the new religious order could be rolled back. As such the continued growth of Protestantism within Germany and Northern Europe, and the recent emergence of Calvinism were seen as highly provocative and almost as cause for war in themselves.
Protestantism seemed to be coming right up to the borders of the most proudly Catholic states of Europe – and indeed there seemed a chance that the next Holy Roman Emperor could be a Protestant.
From its earliest days the conflict thus had a strong religious flavour, with nearly all of the combatants lining up on sectarian grounds. With any conflict of such scale though, and involving so many strategic, geographic and trade interests though, there were also questions of the balance of power at play – and opportunities for shrewd actors to provide their own answers.
The extent of Habsburg involvement in particular meant that for their rivals this was too good an opportunity to miss.
France certainly did not miss it.
Alone amongst the great Catholic powers of Europe France stayed out of the conflict. Under the guidance of one of the astonishingly effective, far sighted, cold, calculating and amoral Ministers which France was to produce so many of over the years – Louis VIII’s France grasped the opportunity before it to reshape the European political order.
Cardinal Richelieu had a clear vision of the territorial gains which France should make in the conflict – and just as importantly, of the ways in which the Habsburgs could most effectively be weakened as the conflict ground on.
Under his guidance France stayed out of direct involvement in the conflict for the first three-fifths of the war. It took the opportunity to cause a certain amount of trouble in Italy, doing just enough to stay on the right side of both parties in the early years – including allowing travel through French territories for Habsburg and Imperial armies – before increasingly providing financial and diplomatic support to the Protestant alliance.
Despite frequent and loud appeals from Catholic powers for support, France stayed out and Richelieu refused to see the war in the same terms as most contemporary leaders. Neither appeals to religious solidarity, not the broader Christian imperative to act when some parts of Germany were seeing population declines of up to two thirds were enough to sway the Cardinal to act.
Ultimately, when France did commit its vast military resources directly to the war against exhausted and depleted opponents it was at a well timed moment and had an incredibly decisive effect – with key battles at Kempen, Leipzig and Rocoi going a long way to making the Habsburg and Imperial war effort no longer viable and thereby securing the outcome of the war. Despite the war dragging on for years afterwards the outcome was no longer in doubt – the side which won was to be the side France backed.
The total French military commitment to the war was substantial but not in the order of that committed by the Habsburgs. France also benefited economically from the war – not being the setting for much conflict and largely being a safe haven for trade and financial interests and the rest of Europe joined the conflagration. Furthermore France had been using its time well, updating its armed forces, building up its strength and assuring itself that it would have absolute last mover advantage.
The resulting Peace of Westphalia secured for Louis XIV’s France nearly all the territorial gains they had desired – including substantial gains in Alsace and Lorraine and terminally wounded Habsburg power in Central and Western Europe. The balance of power had shifted and France would now be the key player in European politics.
Since the USA benefited substantially in Global strategic position from its own delayed entry into a war in World War II, they have, with a few exceptions, sought a moral or ethical basis for its foreign policy. At some points this has proved costly, at other points beneficial. The USA and other Western powers do however find it very difficult to engage in effective Realpolitik these days. Witness the contortions and very evident discomfort amongst our leaders as they seek to justify what they know is an immoral choice, born of political weakness, in not sending military aid to the Ukraine.
China on the other hand has no such compunctions.
The Chinese Communist Party is more than willing to allow and encourage Russian delusions of grandeur and Putin’s maniacal belief that the borders of freedom can be rolled back and the Soviet Union re-established. China knows full well that even if there are tactical victories, that this will result only in strategic Russian defeats and bankruptcy.
China also knows that the West will resort to ineffective but costly sanctions – causing huge economic hardship and eroding its own position. The Chinese leaders also know that the democracies of the West would not tolerate our Governments completely ignoring human tragedy, or looking to profit from it. The Chinese Communist Party on the other hand…
There is therefore every chance that as Russia’s wars of aggression grind on, as the human and economic costs rise and as the West plays by different rules, that China, like Richelieu’s France, will emerge as the great winner of this conflict. A subservient and dependent Russia, a weakened West and potentially even territorial gains in Taiwan and elsewhere are the prize.
This is by no means a certain outcome though – China’s leadership is amongst the most wrong-headed in the world when it comes to protectionism and modern mercantilism and this will hold back economic and growth, innovation and development in that country.
The West can still prevail but we must learn the lessons of the past. We must be aware that while we are playing one game, our rivals are playing another – must embrace the principles and methods which drove Western pre-eminence in the first place.
“…innumerable wrongs and oppressions of the people, murthers, massacres, rapes, adulteries, desolation, and subversion of Citties and whole provinces, look how great a good and happiness a just King is, so great a mischeife is a Tyrant; as hee the public Father of his Countrie, so this the common enemie. Against whom what the people lawfully may doe, as against a common pest, and destroyer of mankind…”
John Milton’s defence of tyrannicide in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates
Again the Israelites cried out to the Lord, and he gave them a deliverer—Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a cubitlong, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing.He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man. After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way those who had carried it. But on reaching the stone images near Gilgal he himself went back to Eglon and said, “Your Majesty, I have a secret message for you.”
The king said to his attendants, “Leave us!” And they all left.
Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his palaceand said, “I have a message from God for you.” As the king rose from his seat, Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly.
Judges 3:15-21
Checkmate! The history of justified assassination from Commodus to Yamamoto
Throughout history wars have always taken place within a cultural context. There are norms, conventions and even rituals which have influenced the parametres of conflict and the way in which conflicts are conducted. These do of course change over time, particularly and out of necessity when a civilisation with one set of cultural assumptions comes up against another.
These norms reflect the cultural values which different civilisations hold. The early Anglo-Saxons for example, as a highly militaristic society which valued warlike valour highly, would often precede battles with complex religious blessings and rituals – laying out branches, making speeches and getting the battle all framed and ready to be turned into an oral history. One advantage of such ritualised warfare was that it limited the numbers of people directly involved on both sides to a small number of professional soldiers. Once such norms came into contact with the reality of Viking raids and invasions though assumptions about warfare changed.
At other times conventions have limited warfare to certain times of the year – largely on the practical grounds that in agrarian societies there were clear disadvantages to having large numbers of able-bodied men called off to fight at times of peak activity, such as the harvest.
In our own times we have conventions – or more truthfully most of the West have them and other countries intermittently do. These include avoiding or minimising civilian casualties, viewing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons as beyond the pale, avoiding the use of suicide bombers etc.
As we have seen in the current war in The Ukraine and in other recent wars such as Syria – these norms are breaking down and are far from universally shared in any case. One particularly interesting norm which is widely accepted though is this – that assassination of the leaders of an opposing power is not acceptable. In the USA the Biden Administration has even gone so far as to slap down a senior US Senator for suggesting that this would be a valid tactic. It is however worth taking a moment to think about why this is a norm and whether it should be respected.
The obvious historical example people tend to draw when considering assassination is Hitler yet we need not choose such an extreme example to justify drawing the ultimate decision makers when it comes to war into conflicts of their own making.
The present example of Mr Putin does help to make the case in itself quite well. We have an example of an autocratic regime in which the decision over whether to wage war and how to wage it clearly rests to an astonishing extent with one individual. There has to be at least a considerable doubt as to whether Russia would continue its war if another individual assumed the helm. We have the despotic nature of the Putin regime, in which the freedoms and democracy of his own people have been trampled and much of the progress since the fall of the Soviet Union has been undone. As well of this we have the extreme and barbaric treatment of people in the countries which he has waged war on – and surely relevant – the fact that his regime is widely accepted as being responsible for the assassination or attempted assassination of the leaders of rival states and Russian opposition leaders, including those living in other countries.
History does furnish us with numerous examples of assassination which were viewed as not just acceptable and desirable but actually moral by contemporaries and historians.
The passage from the Bible cited above about Ehud is in some ways the classic justification for assassination and tyrannicide – coming as it does with God’s blessing.
It is also worth considering the example of the Roman Emperor Commodus. In his case his crimes were many – not just numerous examples of personal cruelty and capriciousness but the economic crippling of his own polity, the debasement of his own currency, the paranoid murder of many of the most eminent political figures of his day, increasing psychosis and megalomania – the list goes on. In his case he was not assassinated by a rival power but by a citizen of his own empire and a member of his own entourage.
Rome had more than its fair share of mad, bad and dangerous rulers so the fact that Commodus retains his position in history as one of the very worst suggests that the extent of his tyranny and abuse of state power was particularly egregious. Certainly, given the level of fear which his contemporaries lived under the assassination is not particularly surprising and is at least understandable. Perhaps a more worthy question is to consider how many Roman Emperors did not deserve to meet a premature end?
Turning to more modern examples, there have been plenty of instances of both a tyrants own people and his military enemies taking the opportunity to end him, to save lives and to prevent further damage. Russia has also witnessed a fair few political assassinations – including a few Tsars. It need not necessarily be the person in the highest office though who most merits assassination – sometimes it can be another figure wielding inordinate and cruel power.
Grigori Rasputin was famously assassinated – twice. Once again, in a context in which a particularly regressive and unqualified Tsar was ruling with a number of highly reactionary and stupid advisors it is worth considering the steepness of the grading curve when considering contemporary accounts of how damaging and malign an influence Rasputin was at court. Combined with personal cruelty he was also viewed as being the manipulating and driving force behind an administration which was leading Russia to economic and military disaster. Few tears were shed over the death of an individual who bore so much responsibility for the death and suffering of others.
A final example worthy of consideration is that of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Comander in Chief of the Japanese navies in World War II, Yamamoto was of course responsible for a huge number of savage violations of the norms of war at the time – including the treatment of prisoners and civilians, as well as of course the unprovoked and undeclared attack on Pearl Harbour.
More than these though, and unlike Commodus or Rasputin, it was actually the effectiveness and capability of Yamamoto which made him such a tempting target. By eradicating this figure it was hoped to both demoralise Japanese forces and to deny them the guidance of a brilliant and effective commander at a stage of the war when Japan needed all the tactical prowess it could muster. Whilst various American admirals and indeed the President felt the need to pass the buck and disclaim direct responsibility, by and large public opinion at the time applauded the death of Yamamoto as one step closer to the end of the war.
There are then many precedents for popular, acclaimed and even possibly moral assassinations of senior political and military figures. The question then is why there is such an aversion to the use of assassination today.
One detects a lingering sense of class systems and snobbery in this. The image comes to mind of the Duke of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo refusing to fire on the figure of Napoleon as he toured the French lines stating that Generals had better things to do than shoot at each other– despite the fact that killing the French Emperor would surely have saved thousands of lives that day. It is hard to deny that senior political figures are also military decision makers – determining whether war is waged and how it is fought – as such they are in a real sense part of the war machine.
Could it be that those arguing against assassination hate the thought of the top brass being targeted in this way as they identify much more with them than with the poor bloody infantry who are being shot at every day – or even the civilians who are often stuck in the middle of it (or deliberately targeted.)
On a human level it is understandable that Western political leaders are trying to avoid a situation in which they themselves – or even their families – could find themselves in effect on the military frontline, and believe that by refusing to support efforts to assassinate tyrants in other countries they are somehow avoiding setting a precedent.
In reality though they are kidding themselves. If and when it comes to war tyrants in other countries such as Mr Putin have shown themselves already to have no compunctions about targeting anyone if it furthers their aims. They also need to realise how distasteful it is for those in power to be prioritising their own fears about future risks to themselves or people like them over “ordinary” people today.
Ultimately, in a time when really worthwhile and sensible conventions and norms are already being violated in war it makes no sense to retain this relic of 18th Century warfare in how we view the assassination of tyrants.
Far from it – as John Milton argued, the assassination of tyrants is in fact the right and duty of those – in their own country or around the world who are suffering as a result of their actions.
It is time for a few more tyrants to share the fates of Eglon, Commodus, Charles I, Rasputin and Yamamoto.
Louis XIV and the tyrant’s quest for “natural borders”
Louis XIV’s accession to power in France was a mess. France was ripped apart by successive Frondes, civil wars of noble against noble and region against region. Royal and national power was waning and chaotic and the means of securing it were murky, depending on personal relationships and betrayal more than on perceived Divine Right.
It was in this context that the tendency of many to sympathise with Louis XIV’s drive to strengthen France both internally and externally should be understood.
Initially aided by his mother Anne and then by effective but ruthless advisors such as Mazarin, Richelieu and Colbert the French state was transformed and centralised into a quasi-religious institution built around the king.
Yet attempts to establish a more cohesive France were also the justification for increasing internal repression during Louis XIV’s reign – particularly of Protestants and Jews. A tendency which went hand in hand with increasingly aggressive foreign policy.
It was a cornerstone of French foreign policy under Louis XIV and his successors – up to and after the French Revolution, that France could only be safe from imagined external threat when it had reached its “Natural borders” – that is highly defendable borders of the Pyrenees, the Atlantic, the English Channel, the Rhine and the Alps.
In support of these aims France made a series of territorial claims and wars upon its smaller neighbours – leading it to claim Luxembourg, Strasbourg and Alsace, Franche Comte, Casale, modern-day Belgium and parts of modern-day Netherlands.
Although the French economy was not growing at the same rate as the Dutch and English economies during this time Louis was able to devote unprecedented military and financial resources to a series of wars throughout his reign. In this he was partially aided by the fact that much of Europe was exhausted by the 30-years war. But a large part of his success also came from the way in which the entire state of France was turned into an instrument of war.
This in turn deepened the repression of France’s own people, ensured that rises in quality of life and disposable income which were happening elsewhere in Europe did not manifest themselves in France – and of course resulted in large number of Frenchmen dying or getting maimed in Louis’s wars.
On top of all of this it goes without saying that territories acquired by Louis’s forces were looted, pillaged and sequestered into the service of the French state. A model of warfare which went on to be perfected by French Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies 150 years later.
To a detached observer there was a certain appeal to the logic of France reaching the “natural” borders described above, and certainly an understandable optimism that this would lead to the end of aggressive French expansionism. The results were however quite the opposite of this.
Far from encouraging a militaristic and vainglorious tyrant like Louis XIV to settle and engage in good faith with his neighbours, every additional level of defensive security achieved by the autocrat resulted in yet more aggression, repression and mercantilist nihilism.
Each territorial gain at the expense of one of its smaller neighbours, each additional fortification and each freeing up of more military capacity only encouraged Louis further to seek to force wider Europe to bend to his will.
Each demonstration of the “success” of centralisation and standardisation emboldened him further to undermine the identity and culture of different regions within France as well as the very safety of Protestants and Jews – culminating in the revocation of the relatively tolerant Edict of Nantes which caused a major migration of the Huguenots to England and the Netherlands.
Each demonstration of state power resulted in yet greater belief in state-directed economics and industry and greater determination to reduce France’s economic integration with its neighbours.
In short, each step towards achieving the natural borders and security of France, far from being a guarantor of greater peace, were a guarantee of greater aggression to come, greater internal repression and greater human suffering in France and elsewhere.
Ultimately, it was this ambition which caused Louis to overreach and caused his enemies to mobilise under the brilliant, obstinate and bloody-minded William III – who was prepared to face down considerable economic, political and military costs to create and sustain the multi-national alliance of European states which finally defeated the tyrant and brought him to the peace table.
The parallels between Louis XIV’s France together with his royal, revolutionary and Napoleonic successors on one hand and Imperial and Modern Russia on the other are strong.
With the odd, rare and fleeting exception, Russia has had pretty much the same foreign policy objective from Ivan the Terrible on through Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin, Stalin and Putin. The subjugation and assimilation of its smaller neighbours in order to help secure its “natural borders.”
The Ukraine is but the latest nation to have suffered from Russian aggression as the Rhinelands and low countries did under Louis XIV and his successors. Georgia, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Poland and many others have all experienced this over the past century.
When a state starts to prattle on about its need to secure its “natural borders” this should be treated as a warning sign of an aggressive, militaristic state which has turned its back on peaceful cooperation with its neighbours, which now sees them and the wider world as intrinsically threatening – and which will never be happy even if it does achieve them. And if it does its own people and its neighbours will suffer.
The borders between different nations, peoples and cultures are not sharp neat and linear like the lawns of Louis’s Versailles – they have been shaped by a thousand complicated and interacting factors over history and how matter how many military or propaganda efforts are made to deny the fact the truth is that “natural borders” inevitably means one set of people’s freedoms being sacrificed to a tyrants geopolitical ambitions.
A strong, coordinated military response, coordinated by defensive alliances amongst its neighbours is the only way of ending this threat which can otherwise last for centuries.
Don’t be taken in by talk of “natural borders” or “backyards.”
Hostages, Dangelds and Sanctions – the dynamics of diplomatic failure
When attempting to influence the behaviour of your antagonist it helps to understand his values, what matters to him and what incentives or disincentives are likely to weigh upon his decision making. This can be quite difficult when you do not realise how different the political cultural and economic background of your opponent is.
The Torch has been staunch in support of the Ukraine and their efforts to preserve their freedom and sovereignty from Russian aggression. As such we welcome moves from parts of the West to stave off further Russian invasion but in choosing sanctions rather than military intervention they are making a serious mistake. Assuming that the Russian Government is more western than it is will lead us to strengthening Putin’s internal position and undermining forces for reform in that country.
The West’s failure to understand the power dynamics in Russia has considerable parallels in the inability of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of the 9th-11th centuries to comprehend the motivations of The Vikings at that time.
During that time the Vikings were a considerable threat to the whole of what now forms the United Kingdom. The ability of the Vikings to strike rapidly along the coast and up rivers, loot then evacuate posed a considerable tactical headache to the English kingdoms. As The Torch has discussed previously, the lessons of history were not rapidly learned and the Viking terror was real for the vast majority of this period.
There were however times when the Vikings were defeated or fought to a standstill – and as a result times when the emphasis moved from defeating the Vikings to attempting to secure peace.
In these situations a number of approaches were tried – largely without success. One of the most common recurring tactics was hostage taking.
Hostage taking had proved a very effective means of securing peace within and between the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. In order to ensure good faith high ranking nobles would often been swapped by the two sides. These hostages would generally be treated very well and reside at court. Crucially though, the Kings and the other nobles put considerable store on their wellbeing – and so were alive to the threat which would manifest if conflict were to arise again.
The reason hostage taking was so successful was that good behaviour made sense within the political, economic and cultural systems of the time. Then (as is still the case now to some extent) most of the aristocracy of England was closely related to each other many times over and in a number of ways which might make geneticists shudder. As a result, any high-ranking noble would be likely to be the King’s cousin, uncle, nephew, brother-in-law or all of these at the same time. So putting them at risk would mean putting a family member at risk – and potentially upsetting a lot of people close to you.
When it came to the Vikings though the same dynamic was not at play at all.
Even the most organised Viking hordes were not warrior nations or whole tribes as they are sometimes depicted in popular culture. They were instead loose confederations of bands or even individual mercenaries taking to a pirate lifestyle for a period of time to get rich. They were rarely closely related and although they would often fight fiercely for one another on the battlefield – their wider loyalties were… negotiable.
Like in many martial societies, Viking lords won and sustained their positions through a steady stream of military success. Constantly aware that their closest lieutenants who they relied on most in battle were also their most likely rivals and those most likely to displace them in future.
As such, when the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms met with a Viking chief and demanded that he leave behind hostages from amongst his high ranked Jarls they were imposing what they would have considered “tough” measures – removing key allies and comrades from the leader and surely bringing him to heel.
Of course from the Viking’s perspective this would have been an astonishing feat of good fortune. In effect he was being given an opportunity to remove his biggest rivals – and a promise that if he fought again that these would be killed entirely.
Obviously this had quite the opposite effect to the one intended – and may have even made future conflicts more likely by giving the Viking leader another reason to seek confrontation!
Attempts were sometimes made to strengthen this arrangement. King Alfred was a fan of converting Vikings after he had defeated them – hoping that by converting them to Christianity – or taking their word for it anyway – that they would alter their behaviour and act more like Anglo-Saxon rulers. Largely though, unless backed up by steel these conversions were just as unsuccessful.
Because at the same time all the other incentives – keeping your Viking army well feed, rich and loyal depended on a steady stream of victories.
In addition, as the kingdoms became weaker at the end of this period there was the increased possibility of Danegelds – effectively buying a little temporary peace at the price of yet greater incentives for future bad behaviour. Danegelds would never buy lasting peace because – of course – you could not trust the word of Viking leaders.
As a rule – militaristic societies run by violent lying thugs are not likely to put much store on the promises they made last year. This is even more true if you are weak, divided and refusing to learn the lessons of history.
And thus we turn to Mr Putin and the Ukraine.
As the above analogy should make clear – the West simply does not understand the dynamics at play here. As nations which put a high store on the economic wellbeing of our people we make the assumption that sanctions are likely to work and that increasingly aggressive military moves can be countered by bigger and hairier sanctions.
Looked at from the perspective of Mr Putin and his allies though these sanctions will not just have no effect – they will actively strengthen their position. Russians, as much as any other people like stuff, they like luxury and they enjoy the huge economic benefits which access to Western economies give them.
Now though, with the West introducing a variety of measures to limit this access to their economies – and to Western goods this influence is being lost. Mr Putin leads a barely democratic regime so doesn’t really give a damn about his people but he does want enough of them to be antagonistic against the West, thereby strengthening his own position. By introducing sanctions the West gives him something to blame the West for, whilst by contrast talking about how he is “reuniting” Russia.
We have also tried the good faith and conversion hope – and seen exactly what happens to agreements like Minsk. Meaning that diplomatic means are a complete waste of time – unless of course they are backed up by steel…
And of course the incentives remain. The loot and the Danegelds are there. Georgia and Ukraine have both been sacrificed in the hope of buying off Russia by an increasingly weak, divided and distracted West in the process of abandoning our core values and all of this reinforces the incentive in future for further invasions.
There is only one way of stopping Mr Putin and his raids on other people’s territory – the only approach which ever works with militaristic leaders like this. We must face him in battle and we must win.
The West must mobilise and send armed forces to support the Ukraine.
Most of Britain’s former Prime Ministers are in a sense the physical embodiment of the mistakes of the past so it is particularly interesting when, as is happening increasingly frequently these days, one of these embodiments of past mistakes resurfaces to remind us of how wrong they were and how they have not themselves learnt the lessons of history.
This week has seen just such an fascinating occurrence – with the former Prime Minister, creator of the Traffic Cones Hotline and greatest loser in Conservative Party electoral history, Sir John Major, putting in an appearance to make the case for nationalising British political parties – or “state funding” as it is politely referred to in the media.
Mr Major makes the case that current funding arrangements leave open the possibility of political parties being influenced by donors – or at least the perception that they will be influenced. Yet political parties by their very nature will represent only part of the nation and only part of its interests. This is part of what makes them at best, a necessary problem for democracy, but in the modern world, probably just a problem.
Britain’s first political parties grew in the lead-up to, and the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution. Both of the terms Whig and Tory were originally insults, calling into question the morality and loyalty of the opposing faction – both interestingly referred to a type of thief, Scottish cattle rustlers and Irish outlaws respectively.
The parties were not formal at first, but the Glorious Revolution and the determination of the Whigs (who had instigated the accession of William III) to exclude the Tories (who remained closer to the Stuarts) from power resulted in a fairly clear division in the body politic from very early on.
What is of particular interest though is that for a long time MPs would make a point of accusing their opponents of being part of a political party, but claim to be independent themselves. Political parties were seen as being a bad thing for democracy. Indeed, the derivation of the word “party” comes from the word “part” – that is to be a faction, not representing the whole of the nation.
This school of thought remained throughout the 17th and for much of the 18th Century. Indeed it outlived even the 18th Century, with some of the American Founding Fathers, such as James Madison railing against them and claiming that in a well-constructed state the power of parties would be broken. So it is a comparatively recent trend to regard parties as a good and essential thing for democracy – a trend which has mirrored the growth in Big Government and the increasing separation of the rulers from the ruled.
Obviously some parties were worse than others.
For most of the early 18th Century the Tories were excluded from power in Britain because they were seen to be (and actually were in some cases) plotting with foreign rivals and the displaced Stuarts, to bring them back, and the Jacobite uprisings of 1715 and 1745 undermined the claims of many Tories to be true and loyal Parliamentarians.
For decades, to be termed a Tory would have been enough to prevent a politician being given fair hearing by many in England – because whilst Britain had established a new settlement after 1688 the Tories could not reconcile themselves to it.
If all of this seems quite distant to the politics of today then think again. We really do not need to look very far to find political parties who are highly suspect in the minds of many in this country because we all know that in their heart hearts they are not willing to reconcile themselves to the United Kingdom as a post-EU state.
As well as there being a clear lesson here for Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, SNP and others – that their failure to reconcile themselves to the new reality will cost them years and decades in power if not corrected, there’s also a lesson when it comes to state funding for political parties.
Aside from the obvious political points – that making parties clients of Big Government is hardly liberating them from vested interests and is actually bringing them into the web of the biggest and baddest vested interest there is, that state funding entrenches the unresponsiveness oligarchical nature of politics and stifles competition, innovation and challenge from outside the system, and the moral indefensibility of adding extra cost onto the already overburdened taxpayer – there’s also a core point we can glean from history about what it is we are being told we must fund.
There is nothing inevitable or sacrosanct about political parties. Although they do already find ways to get the taxpayer to pay for things that they really shouldn’t, they have no automatic right to any of this. They are not formal parts of the state and they are not carrying out a core function of democracy.
Political parties are born of factions and are specifically designed to win power and to keep the other faction out – as the Whigs did so successfully in the early eighteenth century and as the Conservative Party has done for long periods of its history. Their very existence means that elected officials have a conflict of loyalty – between their constituents on one hand and their party masters on the other.
Parties can often believe in and advocate for things with which large parts of the population are entirely at odds – including overtly or covertly advocating for the end of the country’s independence and sovereignty or for the overthrow of our way of life.
That’s fine in so far as it goes – but to suggest that as taxpayers we should be forced to pay for factions to argue against our interests really is beyond belief.
To bring things home – The Torch believes in personal freedom, personal responsibility, private property, free trade and the value of British traditions and history. These are values shared by large proportions of the British population but very few MPs. The last thing we need is to be forced to pay through our taxes to allow them to be even more remote to have even fewer reasons to listen to people outside of the Westminster Bubble.
The proposal will go one step further in strengthening political parties, strengthening faction and weakening public engagement in politics. In adopting it the parties really would become true successors to the thieves and outlaws they were first named after.
The fall of Rome – a lesson in the importance of beliefs
When men stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.
GK Chesterton
This site has consistently argued that ideas matter, beliefs matter and that these explain far more about our every day behaviour and decision making than many people are often prepared to admit.
Equally, a change in beliefs can lead to dramatic and far reaching changes in how society and politics works – sometimes catastrophically so.
In his epic and very readable Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon chronicles numerous factors contributing to this fall – one of the most significant though, which helped to shape many of the other decisions and events was the wholesale adoption of a new religion in the empire.
Rome was an empire built on a vigorous, martial and often times brutal and cruel belief in the innate superiority of everything Roman – and therefore that war, conquest and heavy handed enforcement of Rome’s will was automatically a good thing. Rome was also highly traditional and operated without our modern fully developed idea of the individual. Finally, Rome was adaptable, almost cynical in its treatment of religion and beliefs and unashamedly co-opted gods, heroes and stories from its subjugated people if it served Rome’s purposes in keeping them in line.
With Rome’s conversion to Christianity though all of this changed.
As Gibbon put it:
“As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers’ pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity.”
Whilst fully accepting that Christianity brought significant benefits to the Romans including acts of charity, more honest public administrators and ultimately, more compassionate conquerors, Gibbon identified the core issue here. For an empire founded and made successful through the values set out above, Christianity undermined the foundations and made it harder to expand, subdue and brutalise much of Europe and the Mediterranean in the way the Romans had for centuries.
Turning to our own times we have seen over the past century something like Rome’s flexibility in adopting new beliefs and adding them to the rather messy and mutually contradictory beliefs which many of us hold at the same time. A thousand different superstitions have taken hold and people find themselves believing in anything as they seek to fill the void once occupied by Christianity.
Because unlike the Roman Empire, the success of the West has been built upon individual freedom and responsibility, common law, honesty, accountability, literacy, education, charity and a strong work ethic – all values which are part of, and promoted by Christianity. Alongside the decline of Christianity in the West we are accordingly seeing increasing trends away from all of the above: loss of freedoms, an erosion of individual responsibility, inconsistent application of the law and increased idleness and the undermining of rigorous education and the scientific method.
But it is worse than that.
Not only is the West losing its motivating beliefs – it is, like Rome, adopting a whole new belief system which is actively opposed to most of what made the West successful.
We have already discussed on this site how so much of the fringe climate change theories, models and policies is motivated by misanthropy. Mankind is viewed as a problem which must be limited and mitigated.
Whilst the West used to take a pride in the phenomenal degree of human progress it had driven over the past five centuries – now increasing numbers of people have started to regard progress, development, growth, steady expansion of Western civilisation, global inter-connectedness and increases in quality of life as something bad and harmful which needs to be stopped or reversed. This is in no small part driven by the fringe climate change theories which are taking on many of the aspects of a new public religion.
It has its own saints, it has its own shibboleths, it has its own high priests, a proliferating number sins, its version of Armageddon awaiting non-believers and of course its sacred texts which can never be questioned. Recently, with Net Zero it has developed its promised land and is demanding its tithes and penances to reach it. And much like Christianity in the Roman Empire – it has been stunningly successful in winning over those at the very top of our political institutions.
Meanwhile of course, emerging empires in China and India ignore this new cult and focus on learning what made the West successful.
It is to be hoped that the fringe environmental beliefs which hold so much sway right now are but a passing phase, yet another frothy superstition which, like the over the top Covid beliefs and measures of the past couple of years, will one day be abandoned then largely forgotten or only thought of with embarrassment.
But it is at least as likely that this new religion will bring down the West, just as happened last time the West forgot what made it successful.
Lord Roseberry – a warning to Rishi Sunak – and Keir Starmer
“He would not stoop, he did not conquer”
Winston Churchill on Lord Rosberry
In politics there often develops a strong sense of inevitability about a succession. Public, and particularly commentariat, impressions of particular politicians can be so fixed around the idea of them as “the coming man” that it is possible to not to notice that they’ve not really earned the right to succeed.
Lord Roseberry is in many ways the classic example of this. An establishment hero from his immaculate hair down to his fashionable shoes – he was the very model of what those who spend their time talking about such things thought a Victorian Prime Minister should be.
As well as “looking the part” he also had a number of other qualities – sporting excellence, personal charm and an aptitude for horse racing – all of which set up a vigorous and youthful contrast with the likes of his predecessor, the aged William Gladstone.
Lord Roseberry had something of an eye for public, or at least establishment, opinion. He cleaved to policy positions which put him to the right of the Liberal Party but to the left of the Conservatives. As Foreign Secretary he also made full use of his ability to keep a lower profile on more controversial issues, but made sure he was fully credited with popular decisions in his own portfolio, such as the decision to strengthen the British position in Egypt.
When it came to issues where he knew he would have to pick a side and alienate some support he was tactically adept – supporting Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill for Ireland, just publicly enough to provide some defence against accusations of cowardice or betrayal, let lightly enough to escape any of the ensuing unpopularity with the public which fatally wounded Gladstone and many of his other senior colleagues.
Roseberry then was in many was a tactically shrewd politician and one clearly on a mission to succeed Gladstone as Prime Minister. He managed to retain the support of the Grand Old Man of the Liberal Party without having really been that much help to him – at least not when it mattered.
Unlike many other nearly men of history, Roseberry’s “looking the part” and status as the crown prince of the Liberal Party did not backfire when it came to reaching his goal – and he did succeed Gladstone as Prime Minister – but that was when his troubles began.
With Gladstone having dominated the political stage in the UK for so long there was a palpable sense of relief, excitement and anticipation about a new start with a new, younger, and vigorous Prime Minister. So many hopes – not just of his own party, but of sympathisers in others and certainly the exhausted and impatient establishment figures of the civil service and the media were all too keen to pin their hopes on this new hope – who wasn’t Gladstone.
The trouble was that very soon after assuming office, not being Gladstone was not enough.
The strategy which had propelled Roseberry into office paralysed him once he was there.
When foreign and domestic policy decision had to be made, and real prioritisations happen, it rapidly became impossible to keep a coalition ranging from William Harcourt on his far left, to Asquith and Campbell Bannerman to his right functioning. As disappointment followed disappointment, especially for his informal allies in the media and civil service and for the left-wing of his party, anger and a sense of betrayal hung around him.
In many ways Roseberry’s reluctance to upset or alienate any potential support before he became Prime Minister represented a high interest loan – one on which the interest was now due. By refusing to “stoop” as Churchill put it, dirty his hands, and take up real positions on real issues, Roseberry had never really earned the support he was benefitting from. Although he may not have lied overtly, he had certainly deceived many about who he was and what he stood for.
Rosberry’s Ministry lasted just over a year. He lost a crucial vote on supplying the army when the left of his party refused to back him and he resigned shortly thereafter – never again to take up a major frontline role in politics.
The lessons of this should be obvious in our own time when we look at two figures attempting to follow the “Roseberry Route” to 10 Downing Street.
Both Rishi Sunak as heir apparent in the Conservative Party and Keir Starmer as Leader of the Opposition are both banking on the current unpopularity of Boris Johnson – and hoping that by saying as little as possible, when necessary making a few warm sounding noises and above all, by not being Boris Johnson, that they will succeed.
For what it is worth it is possible that Sunak will succeed to the office in the way that Roseberry did. But until The Conservative Party really knows what he stands for, what he is against and what he would do, such support is as borrowed, shaky and inconsistent as his recent budget announcements.
Sound political groundings and principles are as important as sound finance for good government.
The situation for Keir Starmer is if anything even worse. He cannot even be sure that when an election comes his one card of being “not Boris” will be worth anything – as he may have a new opponent by then. In addition, when considering just how far left Labour’s coalition extends these days – it would take a far more charismatic, capable and grounded politician to keep up the deceit for as long as he needs to also convince the wider British electorate.
And of course the British electorate are better at history than most people think. They will remember, and will be reminded of the positions he has adopted in the past in support of Jeremy Corbyn, no matter how hard he’ll hope we forget them.
By far the most likely outcome is that in the heat of a Conservative Party Leadership contest, or in a General Election campaign the Roseberry Route will lead nowhere.
The Monroe Doctrine – and why the Ukraine is no one’s backyard
Why don’t more of the Americas look more like Canada and the USA?
There are a great many reasons – the fact that most of these countries developed under looser and more centralised legal and administrative systems than the British commonlaw system, the lack of a history of representative democracy, questionable safeguards of property rights, the lack of the English language etc. But the main reason, and one lying behind all of these is the lack of European, and especially British direct involvement in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
In 1823 President James Monroe of the USA, almost as an aside in a speech to Congress, made what became a lasting commitment to a policy position for his country – that they would not tolerate any further European direct involvement in “their” hemisphere (hemisphere here being used in the incorrect American sense of meaning the Americas.)
This policy took on the status of a doctrine of US foreign policy and has retained that status ever since.
What is perhaps more surprising is that European countries, especially Britain took the least bit of notice.
The USA was already a significant power and one to be reckoned with, but hardly in the same league as Britain, especially in the post-Napoleonic war period. It was however, more importantly, already a superpower when it came to rhetoric and political positioning.
The Monroe doctrine was based on the assumption that to some extent the USA’s geographical proximity to Mexico and the nascent states of South America gave it a special right to involve itself in the affairs of those countries, and to insist on the exclusion of others. It appealed to the 18th Century thinking on spheres of influence and both broadcast the USA’s ambitions and had an inherent coherence and plausibility to those who took only a passing interest in the affairs of the region.
When looked at more closely though the doctrine is entirely absurd. No one is for instance asserting that Mexico, Venezuela or Columbia have a particular right to be consulted and involved in moves by other countries to build alliances or partnerships with the USA. This demonstrates that the doctrine is really based on a belief that the more powerful state has some kind of right to dominate or dictate to its neighbours. Of course such countries do often behave in just this way – but it takes quite a brazen cheek to insist that it is more moral or right that they should do so and that they have more of a right to do so than any other country.
The counterfactual of what might have happened if Britain and others had ignored this clearly self-serving doctrine and sought opportunities in Mexico and South America as the Spanish and Portuguese empires were imploding. Could Chile have ended up making as full use of its natural resources as South Africa did for a time? Could Buenos Aires have been the Hong Kong of Latin America? Would a decent system of laws, representative democracy and better infrastructure have averted South America from getting left behind in the way it did?
We’ll never know of course.
But the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine lives on – and since the USA first did it we have seen numerous powers, keen to throw their weight around a bit and to be taken more seriously, asserting that the countries around them constitute their backyard.
Of particular relevance right now we are seeing Russia making the same old argument in relation to Eastern Europe and the Ukraine.
Ever since the glorious collapse of the Soviet Union we have seen desperate attempts from Russia to assert that although the newly independent states are technically sovereign entities in their own right, that do on some level belong to Russia and that it is somehow wrong for Western states to build alliances and partnerships with them without Russia’s say so.
Not only is this doctrine clearly false and self-serving – it is also worryingly convincing for the uninitiated and extremely damaging to the long-term economic, cultural and political development of those countries if heeded.
If all that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing, then all that is needed for dictatorial regimes to triumph is for the West to stand back. We are seeing this economically in large swathes of Africa now as China fills the West shaped vacuum. We have seen this militarily in the Ukraine already in the Crimea, and we have seen just how much better outcomes can be when the West does engage in most of the rest of Western Europe.
If the West won’t stand full square for freedom, self-determination, democracy, sovereignty and the rule of law who will?
NATO must not accept that the Ukraine is Russia’s backyard. Let them set their own course, and let us stand with them and invite them in to NATO.
Socialism, inflation – and Vikings!
History isn’t just fantastic at helping us learn from past mistakes – it is also a brilliant reminder of what happens when we forget, refuse to learn, or convince ourselves that this time it will be different.
Some of these failures can have devastating consequences – and we may be on the verge of repeating some of them today.
The Raid on Jarrow in 794 is a great illustration of a lesson of history which was never properly learned or understood.
The Raid on Jarrow took place during an era characterised by rising numbers of Viking raids on Northern and Western Europe, including Britain. Northumbria had been subject to a number of these, including a particularly vicious and violent attack on Lindisfarne.
These raids were rising in number and were proving highly lucrative for the Danes and Norse who took part due to the particular institutions and organisation of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
8th Century England was divided into almost constantly warring small kingdoms which were prone to faction and coups (particularly Northumbria.) It also relied on small and highly trained armed forces to protect large areas – including a number of increasingly wealthy trading ports and abbeys. These ports – and the abbeys in particular presented highly attracted targets for Viking raiders, as they held huge amounts of wealth and were poorly defended.
Typically, by the time Vikings had landed, raided, looted, pillaged, raped and enslaved the war bands of the king or nobility were only just arriving – giving the Vikings the opportunity to escape.
But the Raid on Jarrow was different.
On this occasion, after looting and raiding the Abbey bad weather meant that the Vikings were not able to make their usual speedy escape – and the war bands of Northumbria were able to meet them in battle – and roundly defeated them.
Such was the success of the Northumbrians that for the next few decades the northern kingdom was left alone – and it appears that the Vikings found richer pickings in France instead.
The Viking raids had been so bad that senior figures in the Church, and leading scholars were convinced that they were God’s divine punishment for the sins of the Kingdom. It appeared now though to the Northumbrians that whatever sins had been committed had been atoned for and the scourge was over.
And of course it wasn’t.
It is no spoiler to reveal that decades later the Danes returned, first as Viking raiders, then ultimately as invaders and conquerors.
It is now apparent to us that at Jarrow Northumbria was lucky. But rather than learning the lessons – putting their kingdom on a more stable footing, ceasing the conflicts with other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, expanding the army, fortifying their towns and ports, introducing an early warning system and reforming the Abbeys (all tactics which ultimately worked elsewhere in the long-run) instead they convinced themselves that this was the end, it was all over and things could continue as usual without the need for vigilance or reform.
A few decades ago we in the West reached a similar conclusion. Indeed, one of the most influential books of the early 1990s was titled The End of History and the Last Man (by Francis Fukuyama – it is wrong but well written and still worth reading.)
Fukuyama and others after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union were convinced that we were entering almost a post-history period of history. That liberal, democratic, constitutionalist, free market Governments were emerging everywhere around the world and that the ultimate triumph of all of these good things was at hand.
The marauding, looting, pillaging and scourging menace of socialism had been roundly beaten by the incredibly effective and motivated leadership of the West in the form of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
At about the same time we started to convince ourselves of something very similar when it came to another menace to people’s livelihoods – which would steal hard earned savings, reduce many to poverty and bring the economy to ruin. I speak of course of inflation.
The sound money economic medicine of the early 1980s had worked. A tough check was being kept on the money supply, Government spending was restrained and the days of rampant inflation and stagflation seemed to be over for good.
And so we come to the present. And much like the Northumbrians and other Anglo Saxon kingdoms we appear to have forgotten or not learned the lessons of the past – vigilance has dropped and we have made no serious attempts to be more ready for when these menaces return – meanwhile all the factors which might bring them back remain.
And thus it comes to pass that Government around the world are intervening in more aspects of our lives than ever before – not just economically, with record high taxes and spending, but also in how we think, talk, interact and live our lives – all motivated by calls to a greater good and to make sacrifices for a great national effort. If it walks like socialism and quacks like socialism…
And inflation too is returning. Initially just as raids – but increasingly boldly.
Inflation is at its highest rate in over thirty years – yet Government spending increases, interest rates are astonishingly low, above inflation pay increases are being promised in the form of the “living wage”, the benefits roundabout is speeding up and “quantitative easing” continues.
Lessons can be learned. We do not need to repeat the mistakes of the past – but we must value historical knowledge and be prepared to fight again. Let’s not leave it much longer and just hope that inflation and socialism will be seen off by modern Alfreds and Aethelstans. We could just as easily end up with a new Danelaw.
Marie Antoinette and the diamond necklace affair
Marie Antoinette and the court of Louis XVI have become a sort of by-word for an out of touch social elite who do not realise how their behaviour fans the flames of popular revolt.
There are however a number of incidents concerning these individuals which can give us particular insight into our own out of touch court.
The Diamond Necklace Affair is a particularly strange sort of historical scandal in that none of the most significant figures of the court of France were ultimately responsible yet they did end up being irretrievably tarnished by it.
In short, the scandal involved an out of favour Cardinal attempting to buy favour and prestige with the Queen by arranging the purchase of necklace which the Monarchy had previously refused to buy. A court favourite persuades the hapless Cardinal that this has the Queen’s blessing, supported by a prostitute impersonating the Queen and a forged signature. The necklace ends up being pulled apart and sold piecemeal on the black market and the Cardinal ends up in prison.
Whilst the highest court of Paris ultimately found no blame attached to the Queen or the King, the court of public opinion came to a very different conclusion – with the Queen being depicted as rapacious, licentious and sly.
The reasons for this tell us a lot about the nature of the late Bourbon court. The Queen did indeed enjoy luxury and conspicuous consumption, even at a time when the state’s finances were strained. There was a whole galaxy of flunkies and hangers on who were obsessed with King or Queen’s favour, there appears to have been great licentiousness, glitz and glamour – and most crucially of all, no firm hand keeping all of this behaviour in check.
It was the failure of Louis and Marie Antoinette to give a clear steer and assert a proper sense of royal duty and decorum which encouraged this behaviour. Although she was innocent in this case, Marie Antoinette certainly enjoyed the fripperies of court a little too much and projected a strong sense that the morality and ethics of the rest of France did not apply there. It was this sense and other worldly detachment which encouraged the kind of behaviour to take hold which culminated in the Diamond Necklace Affair, which made all of the shoddy confidence tricks involved ring true to the obsequious admirer Cardinal and which made all of the exaggerated scandal in the press of the back of it completely believable to the people of France.
Turning to our own court and its own scandals and there are a number of very instructive parallels. In light of the steady drip of stories in the press about Downing Street parties during Lockdown there are a number of different reasons why people are angry with the Prime Minister and his court. Some are genuinely angry that these may have made the spread of Covid more likely – but this is not a major reason for most. Instead, most people seem to be outraged by the hypocrisy of our out of touch rulers imposing draconian restrictions on the rest of us whilst no such standards or norms applied in their little Versailles in Westminster.
The number of these scandals, not just about Covid rule flouting but about expenses, procurement, paid directorships and nepotism, taken together with an increasingly out of touch policy agenda (in which quality of life, our freedoms, lives and wealth are all sacrificed to an extremist environmental policy) all scream out as the metaphorical equivalent of “let them eat cake.”
Let there is no reason why this Government need resemble the dying days of the Bourbons. It has an extremely strong position in Parliament and an equally strong electoral mandate from 2019 – albeit based on carrying out measures very different to those currently being pursued in office.
There is however very little direction, grip or drive in Downing Street. No clear sense of standards, direction or priority – and things appear instead to have devolved into petty court politics in which various equally obnoxious factions fight and fawn for what they believe will attract the ruler’s favour in ways ranging from policies to parties.
We do not yet know the extent to which the Prime Minister is culpable for the Downing Street parties – but we do know that by allowing things to drift and for court life to adopt its own out of touch values, standards and obsessions that the PM is responsible for creating the kind of environment where these kind of goings on surprise no one.
If the man in charge will not change his court then it will need to be his head which rolls.
1688 and the need for Government to change
Over a year has now passed since we fully exited the EU and the media is full of commentary on its impact – mostly claimed to be negative. Equally, the Government is trumpeting some of its alleged successes.
When reading much of the vacuous commentary on the effect of Brexit it is tempting to call to mind Zhou En Lai’s quote about the French Revolution 180 years after the event and conclude that it is too early to say. Especially with everything else which had been consuming global politics and economy over that time it is inevitably going to be difficult to discern a clear picture. As with all policy choices we do not have a control group to compare policy outcomes with and anyway, other than some of the more shrill journalists and politicians there probably are very few of us who expected the full impact to be clear by this point.
And yet whilst the impact of Brexit cannot be fully appreciated this close to the events, we are, like those who lived through the French revolution, in a very good position to appreciate exactly what has been happening so far with Brexit and what it means. We also have enough perspective already I believe to identify a number of things which should have happened but which have not.
Whatever Brexit is though it is not a violent revolution. In this regard it is much more like the Glorious Revolution of 1688 than the French example of a century after. And without getting in to the rights and wrongs of the overthrow of James II at the time it is hard to deny that the Glorious Revolution and the events which followed it did prove advantageous to Britain for the subsequent century and a quarter.
The reassertion of Parliamentary Sovereignty, the modernisation of Government, the new global alliances forged, the encouragement of trade and the market and the decisive break with centralising authoritarianism gave Britain immense advantages in the long eighteenth century which followed from 1688-1815.
It was not of course inevitable that just by replacing James with William and Mary that this would have happened – those in power had to seize the moment to make the necessary changes, and they did so at a time when it would have been very easy to focus all of their attention elsewhere, with the Nine Years War in full swing.
A number of crucial institutions and modernisations followed the initial revolution in swift order including the Bill of Rights, the Toleration Act and the establishment of the Bank of England – all of which set the tone and direction for a globalist, inclusive Britain encumbered by only a modest and restrained state.
It is worth at this point remembering that we are not in the equivalent of 1688 though. Our revolution happened in 2016 – which puts us over five years into defining what Brexit will be and what our new institutional settlement will be.
There have been number of straws in the wind suggesting that institutional adaptation, modernisation and renewal might happen but no real substance. Dominic Cummings when he was in role was evangelical about the need to modernise our civil service. Michael Gove and others have talked at length about some form of Constitutional review or convention – and there has even been talk of a British Bill of Rights.
Yet here we are – fast approaching six years in to Brexit and apparently it has not yet meant any of these things – or any other form of constitutional or Governmental modernisation.
Not only that but the Government is increasingly pursuing policies and economics straight out of Gordon Brown’s and Tony Blair’s playbook – an approach obviously at odds with William and Mary’s versus James II.
Of course the Government has had its own distractions over the past couple of years with Covid, though one would argue that with the size, resources and power at a modern state’s disposal that the Nine Years war presented at least as much, if not greater, a challenge to our comparator post 1688.
What should certainly have been offered by now is a clear direction and ambition for how the institutions and constitution of the UK will be modernised to make the most of Brexit. This has not happened yet.
The opportunity has not necessarily passed – but as we attempt once again to emerge from the suppressions of liberty justified by Covid there has surely never been a better time for the Government to set out a new vision and settlement, to live up to its commitments to a British Bill of Rights and to learn the lessons of 1688.
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