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Copyright © Concordia University Irvine, History and Political Thought Department The Franciscan editors made every reasonable effort to trace rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this journal. In cases where these efforts failed, the department welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgments can be made in a future edition and to settle other permission matters when outside fair use. All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, translated, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form in any means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. The only exception includes reviewers who may quote brief passages. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for educational use, or those desiring to include the work in an anthology, may direct inquiries by email to [email protected].

First Edition.

Logo Designed by: Susan Eschelbach, Concordia University Irvine

Cover Designed by: Erin Ames, Concordia University Irvine

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THE FRANCISCAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY

CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY IRVINE

HISTORY AND POLITICAL THOUGHT DEPARTMENT

HISTORICAL EDITING CLASS OF SPRING 2020

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DEDICATION

This edition of The Franciscan is dedicated to Dr. Caleb Karges and Professor Rebecca Lott. Their advice, counsel, and encouragement were central to the creation of this journal.

Dr. Caleb Karges’ enthusiasm for history and his dedication to students at Concordia Irvine is herculean. Dr. Karges has supported this journal from its inception and advocated for its creation with both students and faculty. We are thankful for his support.

Professor Rebecca Lott, who advised this edition of The Franciscan, was invaluable in making the journal a reality. Professor Lott’s consistency was energizing and inspiring. We are thankful for her oversight and support.

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IN APPRECIATION ______Historical Editing Instructor Professor Rebecca Lott Senior Editor Denise Sprimont Lead Editors Meghan Gleeson Josiah Popp David Vasquez Editors Caroline Curtis Ryan Dunn Evangeline Gahn Jacob Lange Sean Nowlan Emily Yamada Aerie Director Professor Kristen Schmidt Graphic Design Professor Rachel Soo Cheyanne Arnold Erin Ames Kaelyn Whitcomb Susan Eschelbach Vanessa Bernzen Department Chair Caleb Karges, PhD Dean of Arts and Sciences Terry Olson, PhD University President Michael Thomas, PhD

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"Here, we are kids in a sandbox building ideas with others..." — Dr. C. J. Armstrong

In this journal we seek to expand upon and share ideas from history with others.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Letter From The Senior Editor ...... 1 2020 AWARD-WINNING PAPERS ...... 3 Article Section ...... 4 The Great African Conversation: African Solutions to the Unseen Poverty Problem ...... 5 A Brief History of ‘Otherness’ through the Lens of Dwarfism in Cultural Contexts and the Following Modern Impact ...... 21 Mussolini’s Albanian Foreign Policy and the Tension between Ideological Purity and Political Pragmatism, 1926-1939 ...... 30 The Historiography of John Warr’s ‘The Corruption and Deficiency of Lawes of England Soberly Discovered: or Liberty Working up to Its Just Height’ ...... 43 Indomitability and Aggressive Spirit: The Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Theatre,1939- 1941...... 48 The Executive and War: The Division of Strategic and Grand Strategic Powers in the Constitution ...... 63 From Denmark to Hungary: Exploring the Importance of Oral History through Personal Narratives ...... 72 Establishing Capital ...... 87 Mortal Enemies or Complicated Friends? A Brief Analysis of the Historiography of the Enlightenment’s Relationship to Religion ...... 94 Constantinople, the Holy Grail of Russian Grand Strategy: Reassessing Russia's Post-Soviet Ambitions ...... 103 Sweden’s Last Warrior: The Defamed Grand Strategic Skill of Charles XII ...... 112 Controversy in the Coffeehouses: How King Charles II’s Attack on the Coffeehouse Signaled the Decline of Monarchical Power ...... 147 Marlborough’s Grand Strategic Success and Strategic Failure of 1711: Marlborough’s Neglect to Integrate Politics and Military in the Bouchain Campaign...... 160 Partial Incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause: ...... 167 A Defense of a Hard Constitutional Commitment to Religious Liberty ...... 167 The Heart of the Matter: Bhakti, Eros, Agape, and Understanding the Good ...... 175 Evaluating the Military Success and Conduct of The Third Earl of Peterborough during the War of the Spanish Succession, 1705-1707 ...... 183 The Han Dynasty: A Golden Age of Eastern Freedoms ...... 190

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Book Reviews ...... 211 “Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome.” By A.M. Eckstein. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Pp. 398. Paper, $34.95.) ...... 212 “Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead” By James Mattis and Bing West. (New York: Random House, 2019. Pp. 300. Paper, $28.00.) ...... 216 “Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World” By Shadi Hamid. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016. Pp. 320. Paper, $15.57.) ...... 219 Forum ...... 222 Slavery, Union, and States’ Rights Pre- and After the Civil War ...... 223 Reproductive Aid as a Form of Ideological Neocolonialism: The Injustice of Racist Epistemologies on Reproductive Aid in Africa ...... 229 Historiography of the Social Construction of Native Americans: Social Injustices as Personal Problems ...... 235 The Franciscan Staff ...... 241 Authors ...... 244

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LETTER FROM THE SENIOR EDITOR

“‘Cast your sight below and see how wide a circle you have traveled.’” - Pariadiso XXVII:78

As I reflected on this year, I found myself stunned by the changes our little department weathered. Changes in faculty, administration, students, leadership, and curriculum. Moreso, I was impressed by the way we responded to these changes. Despite a global pandemic, economic crisis, and an empty campus, we have traveled very far from where we began. Our response to these trials has proven what many know to be true— we are rooted in Christ’s stability and consistency. Despite the tumultuous year, many things have stayed the same: early morning Latin classes, late-night studying, intellectually stimulating conversations, office hour visits, and small class sizes. Although we have traveled far, we have ended in the same place we began as freshmen— looking at the world with new eyes, afraid of the unknown, confident in God’s grace, and attempting to make a small mark on the world that may someday be labeled “history.”

The 2019-2020 academic year marked a year of expansion for CUI’s History and Political Thought Department. Under the direction of Dr. Caleb Karges, the department sought to create new connections with History and Political Thought students both past and present. In addition to the establishment of the first academic history journal at CUI, the History Department added the History Society, which rekindled interdepartmental relationships based on the shared love of history and its importance in our lives, and re-established a History and Political Thought Alumni Network. This year of expansion, which connected the past and present of the department, was an attempt to establish a platform for students and alumni to use to engage in scholarly conversations. This has created a network of academic excellence and increased contribution to greater national historical debates and conversations.

This journal is a testament to the caliber at which Concordia students and alumni contribute to the larger academic circle. The journal holds 23 distinct papers, each of which grapples with different questions, but all of which are demonstrative of scholastic excellence. This year’s research topics range from the historical conceptions of otherness, military strategy and grand strategy, reproductive aid, and ancient Chinese political systems, to the value of oral history, Russian Tsarism, and Mediterranean anarchy. Despite the diversity of topics, each paper displays the academic quality, excellence, and scholarship that embodies the mission of Concordia University Irvine and its History and Political Thought Department: wise, honorable, and cultivated historians that will change the landscape of the academic world.

On our beautiful cover stands the Flavian Amphitheater, which for years stood empty due to financial strain, natural disaster, misuse, tragedy, and changes in leadership. Today, it stands restored as a testament to the value and nature of history. This is an apt picture for the inaugural edition of The Franciscan. The Franciscan’s excellence is defined both by its monumental structure and by its contents. Despite our own global pandemic, tragedies, changes in leadership, and financial strains, the structure has stood, and the community of scholars at CUI have ensured that its contents are commemorative of the journal’s Inaugural Edition. The structure created for

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The Franciscan this year will continue to stand for years to come as a forum for debates, conversations, and inquiries centered around history. It is my hope that The Franciscan will continue to function as a place for scholars to sharpen their intellect, and that the echoes of this Inaugural Edition will remain as a witness to the value of history and its study.

Dr. Caleb Karges and Professor Rebecca Lott, to whom this edition is dedicated, are both owed a debt of gratitude for their leadership, care, dedication, and high standards. They both drove this journal from fruition to completion. I am sincerely thankful for Dr. Karges’ bold confidence in students. I am indebted to Professor Lott’s patience and growth mindset— without her, we would have been ‘up a creek without a paddle.’ Without them, The Franciscan would not have been as innovative (our beautiful website!), high quality, or professional.

Starting a student history journal and publishing it in the same semester was an arduous task. It would have been impossible without the support from the whole of the History and Political Thought Department. We are grateful to each of the professors who gave of their time and talent to promote the journal’s success.

Historians require collegiality; it is their purpose to engage in the conversations of humanity with peers, and with history itself. California State University Fullerton’s History Department has been an outstanding example of collegiality throughout this grand project. Their faculty’s willingness to provide resources, materials, and copies of their own journal to CUI’s History and Political Thought Department provided the editors of The Franciscan inspiration and guidance, and for that we are thankful.

The dedication and innovation of our lead editors embody the spirit of The Franciscan-- curiosity, dedication, and hope for the future based on the well-paved path of the past. Their examples of excellence will pave the path for the next group of zealous students who serve CUI through working on The Franciscan. Our editing staff exceeded all expectations this year. Their willingness to tackle formatting, layout, marketing, design, and editing was impressive. Lastly, I am thankful to Susan Eschelbach for designing our logo, and Erin Ames for our cover design.

To conclude, this journal should be no surprise to many. It is filled with the type of stuff for which the History and Political Thought Department is known: thought-provoking, well researched, historical analyses that grapple with those “human questions” we all face. I am now pleased to present the culmination of our work and dedication— 2020 Inaugural Edition of The Franciscan history journal.

Denise Sprimont Senior Editor 2020

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2020 AWARD-WINNING PAPERS

Senior Editor's Award The Senior Editor Award is awarded to the paper that best embodies the spirit of The Franciscan. This award goes to the paper that best engages with lasting historical conversation, addresses the questions of the Liberal Arts, and brings history to life through meaningful historical analyses.

Josiah Popp, “Constantinople, the Holy Grail of Russian Grand Strategy: Reassessing Russia’s Post-Soviet Ambitions.” Page 109

Alumni Submission Award Manoah Marton & Caleb Speakman, “From Denmark to Hungary: Exploring the Importance of Oral History Through Personal Narratives.” Page 276

Article Editor Award Godesulloh Bawa, “The Great African Conversation: African Solutions to the Unseen Poverty Problem.” Page 5

Forum Editor Award Denise Sprimont, “Reproductive Aid as a Form of Ideological Neocolonialism: The Injustice of Racist Epistemologies on Reproductive Aid in Africa.” Page 233

Book Review Award Luca Azuma, "Review of: Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome." Page 216

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ARTICLE SECTION

History is the lens we use to investigate the past and study events, people, and cultures different from our own. History reaches far beyond a single discipline as it explores the struggles and growth of humanity across the globe and throughout time. The articles in The Franciscan lead us to enter into a discourse that explores politics, economics, culture, and society. They seek to explore novel questions and unveil stories of the past through the eyes of the students who authored them. The broad range of topics examined by the writers in the article section encourages readers to investigate new interests and enter into conversations that contribute to their growth as students, researchers, and authors.

The writers in the article section were prompted to engage with topics that piqued a personal interest by composing high-quality academic research papers. Interdisciplinary research was welcomed in an effort to reflect the all-encompassing nature of history. All of the articles selected were deemed to be of a caliber that embodies the intellectual curiosity and academic excellence of the students and alumni of Concordia University, Irvine.

Please enjoy!

— The Article Editors

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The Great African Conversation: African Solutions to the Unseen Poverty Problem

Godesulloh Bawa Recipient of the Article Editor’s Award

“It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and that this can only be found in African unity. Divided we are weak; united, Africa could become one of the greatest forces for good in the world.” — Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana.

Abstract: The idea of finding African solutions to African problems is not a new one, and has been expressed in one form or the other by several African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Paul Kagame of Rwanda. It is a noble idea, but there are important questions that must be considered by anyone who wishes to embody it. The idea of African solutions is naturally linked to the concept of African thought. However, African thought is not as easy to define as some might think. It is easier to describe Western thought or Eastern thought, and how the foundations of these unique forms of thought influence the civilizations that rose out of them. Africa, however, faces a unique problem. The African mind did not progress naturally, and as a result, African thought was broken. This is a unique issue that is often overlooked because attempting to liberate the African mind is a task that some cannot comprehend, and others might see as impossible. Most of the pressing issues plaguing the continent arise from the fact that the African mind is broken, and government policies alone are not enough to mend it. This paper will look at the poverty problem in Africa. The material poverty is easy to see, and a decent amount of attention is given to it. However, there is an unseen poverty problem that lies in the brokenness of African thought. This paper seeks to start a Great Conversation in Africa, and to create an African Liberal Arts.

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“The solutions to Africa's problems lie in Africa, not in Live Aid concerts.”1 - George B. N. Ayittey

One of the central themes that has been vital to the foundation of Pan-African thought is the idea of Africans uniting together in order to solve the continent’s problems. This, in essence, is a definition of Pan-Africanism. In a political sense, this idea manifests itself as the need for Africans to find uniquely African solutions to the social and political problems affecting the continent. This idea raises a fundamental question in the life of Pan-African thought - what are “African solutions?” and, perhaps more importantly, where can they be found? Are African solutions simply solutions bred in the minds of African intellectuals? This might not entirely be the case because most Africans who reach the peak of their roles in academia were educated outside the continent and the ones who were not were most likely educated in school systems set up by colonial powers. This train of thought leads to another equally important question - is there truly such a thing as an African education? The questions that arise when considering the idea of African solutions are more connected than they might seem at face value. It is beneficial to further explore the concept of African thought because it is surprisingly difficult to explain accurately. It seems as though African thought is not as concrete or well-defined as it should be, and there are several reasons for this that will be explored later. Understanding the need to liberate the African mind potentially holds the key to properly utilizing African thought for the benefit of the continent in the present day, and safeguarding its future. Modern-day Africa is undoubtedly plagued with many issues. This paper will focus mostly on the poverty problem because poverty is one of the continent’s most pressing challenges, and solutions to it also effectively bring up answers that seek to eradicate or at least greatly reduce many other problems plaguing the continent. A substantial amount of solutions are often tossed around when discussing Africa’s poverty problem, but few of them, if any, actually make reasonable progress in making the continent financially stable. Most economic reforms implemented on the continent fail because they either miss the mark entirely or fail to recognize the true problems and waste resources battling the symptoms rather than the causes. The solutions often center around importing Western ideas - ideas that were formulated as solutions to Western problems - and attempting to make them solve African problems. Africa’s solutions lie in African thought. However, African thought has not been allowed to grow and evolve in an authentic and healthy way. This leads to more problems on the continent than most even realize. Poverty in Africa is a massive problem that is ever-growing. Because of the nature of the problem, it must be tackled in different ways. There are undoubtedly many substantial ideas that should be addressed when dealing with such a massive problem, but this paper will focus on two unique yet intertwined perspectives. First, the Atinga Development Model, as expressed by Prof. George B.N Ayittey. Ayittey is a Ghanaian economist and the president of the Free Africa Foundation. He served as a Professor of Economics at the American University in Washington D.C. and is an associate scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Ayittey has contributed tremendously to the Pan-African idea of producing African solutions to the continent's problems. His economic proposals are robust and seek to find ways to lift Africans out of material poverty from a policy standpoint. His model turns to indigenous pre-colonial African systems to

1 "Expert: Africa Needs More than Foreign Aid." NPR. July 06, 2005. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4731168.

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find economic solutions to the chronic poverty in modern-day Africa. This model is unique because it looks for creative solutions to economic problems that most African leaders have been unable to properly tackle. This model emphasizes solutions that truly are African in nature. However, this paper argues that an emphasis on economic policies alone might be able to lift people out of material poverty, but something greater is required to liberate the African mind and begin to tackle the unseen poverty problem. Beginning the Great African Conversation would lead to the liberation of African thought, and would go hand in hand with beneficial policies such as the Atinga model. The model would provide a way for Africans to be brought out of poverty, and the Great African Conversation would ensure that Africans remain free from it.

Africa’s Leadership Problem Part 1: The Failure to Fight Poverty “As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality exist in our world, none of us can truly rest.”2- Nelson Mandela

In the past quarter-century, great efforts have been made in the fight to eradicate global poverty. In 1990, 36 percent of the world lived on an income of less than $1.90 a day in 2011 purchase power parity. By 2015, 10 percent of the world lived under these standards. In 2015, more than a billion fewer people were living in poverty than in 1990, according to a report by the World Bank.3 Remarkable progress has been made across the globe regarding lifting nations out of poverty. However, this does not mean that the complete eradication of global poverty is clearly visible over the horizon. Africa has struggled to fight its poverty problems at a rate that is comparable to the number of people it has becoming impoverished. According to a report by the Brookings Institute, the average poverty rate for sub-Saharan Africa is about 41 percent. And, of the world’s 28 poorest countries, 27 are in sub-Saharan Africa.4 Poverty in Africa continues to be a crippling problem that makes the continent unable to function on its own, let alone in the international community. One factor that makes tracking poverty in Africa so cumbersome is the fact that poverty data from the continent is sometimes inaccurate because surveys conducted are often unreliable. The quality of the surveys are also usually not very high, thus contributing to sometimes inaccurate figures. For example, a survey in 2010 estimated Nigeria’s poverty rate at 26 percent, but another one conducted in the same year put the figure at 53 percent.5 Poverty data from Nigeria needs to be especially accurate due to the fact that about 20 percent of Africa’s population is in Nigeria. Another reason why poverty data is often unreliable is the fact that Africa is both blessed and cursed with a rapidly growing population. The standard of life might be improving slightly, but not at a rate that is comparable to the growing population.6 One thing, however, is crystal clear - Africa has an enormous poverty problem. And even more alarming, it appears as though a way out is not within the grasp of the continent. Africa had much potential in the aftermath of colonial rule. In some ways, many African nations were much stronger in terms of their economic standing shortly after gaining independence

2 Nelson Mandela - Speeches - Address by Nelson Mandela for the "Make Poverty History" Campaign, London - United Kingdom. http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/2005/050203_poverty.htm. 3 Piecing Together the Poverty Puzzle. World Bank, 2018. 4 Nirav Patel. "Figure of the Week: Understanding Poverty in Africa." Brookings. November 21, 2018. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2018/11/21/figure-of-the-week-understanding-poverty-in-africa/. 5 Kathleen Beegle, Luc J. Christiaensen, Andrew Dabalen, and Isis Gaddis. Poverty in a Rising Africa. World Bank Group, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2016. 6 Ibid.

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than they currently are.7 Some might think that Africa’s economic woes in the present day are a direct result of colonialism alone. There is undoubtedly a lot of truth in this idea. Colonialism did, in fact, negatively affect the continent in many ways, and some of the socio-political issues that plagued the continent in the aftermath of colonialism were directly tied to meddling by colonial powers. For example, the tragic Rwandan genocide of 1994 could be traced back to Belgian favoritism of the Tutsi based on rather arbitrary physical features;8 an act that would sow the seeds of discord that would eventually lead to one of the most brutal massacres on the continent. Another example would be the way that the British carved out the Nigerian border in order to make the country easier to control. In doing so, cultural tensions between Nigeria’s three main tribes would grow and spread before eventually culminating in a civil war in 1967 that would result in the death of about 2 million civilians.9 Colonialism led to truly catastrophic events on the African continent. Perhaps one of the greatest and most unspoken atrocities the colonialists committed was disrupting the natural evolution of African thought. As stated earlier, African thought has been unable to grow in an authentic fashion, and this is largely as a result of the influence of colonial powers. Civilizations around the globe have influential thinkers to look to that influence their belief systems and values in the present day. Western Civilization is privileged to have the likes of Plato and Aristotle to harken to, and Eastern Civilizations have the writings of thinkers such as Confucius to show the development of Eastern thought. Like Europe and Asia, Africa also has a rich history made up of influential figures, the difference is that the progression of African thought was stunted, and most of the history was lost. The continent and its people were reborn as a result of colonialism, but what they lost was far greater than what they gained. With that said, at this stage in its life as a continent, Africa cannot continue to simply lament at the evils of colonialism; it is time for actions to move the continent forward. Unfortunately, the fact is that independence from colonial powers did not bring freedom to Africa. As Prof. George Ayittey states in his book Africa Unchained, “true freedom never came to Africa after independence. In many African countries, independence was in name only; all that occurred was a change in the color of the master- from white colonialists to black neo-colonialists- and the oppression and exploitation of the African people continued relentlessly.”10 This is an interesting and extremely vital point because it shows that when attempting to find the cause of Africa’s economic woes, one need not blame the White Europeans for their corruption, but instead, look at African leaders - past and present. The African founding fathers such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, and Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria all sought to build a strong and free continent. They rejected colonialism and desired to set up a continent free from the chains of its oppressors. Their intentions were pure, and their hearts were in the right place. However, pure intentions alone are not enough to create and maintain a stable continent. This is perhaps the defining trait that separates the founding fathers of African nations from many leaders that have come before them. Unlike the founders, many presidents and public officials in recent history and even the present day do not seem to have the pure intentions that were present in the founders. The founding fathers made

7 George B.N. Ayittey. Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 2-3. 8 Gerar Prunier. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. Columbia University Press, 1995, 6-7. 9 "ICE Case Studies." Case Study. https://web.archive.org/web/20170214103207/http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/biafra.htm.

10 Ayittey, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, 33.

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some wrong choices that would lay the foundation for corruption and economic regressions in many countries on the continent. Ayittey argues that a part of the cause of this poor foundation was a perceived need to “catch up” to the Western countries.11 Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, stated that he sought to do in a decade what others have done in a century.12 This mode of thinking was present in many of the founding presidents, and in some ways, it certainly is understandable. Africa was once the “Dark Continent,” and for the first time, the affairs of the continent were in the hands of Africans while the world watched. The African leaders wanted to show that Africa is just as strong as any other continent, and they set out to establish numerous policies and economic structures that would enable them to show the world that Africans and, by extension, black people, were not racially inferior and were capable of setting up institutions that were present in Western “civilized countries.” Ayittey states that the early leaders suffered from a type of inferiority complex that fueled their desire not to appear uncivilized.13 Again, this is understandable considering the dehumanization of blacks during the slave trade and the degradation of African civilization during the colonial period. This inferiority complex caused the early leaders to adopt expensive and unnecessary policies in order to catch up to the West. The mentality was rather simple: symbols of civilization are present in Western countries; therefore, they must be brought to Africa. American farmers use tractors, so Africans must adopt them as well. New York has skyscrapers, so African cities must build them as well. Rome has a basilica, so one must be built on Ivory Coast as well.14 The list goes on. Ayittey further states that there was hardly any effort made to understand why these structures exist in the first place in Western countries. The leaders lacked the imagination and innovation to properly build upon indigenous African practices, instead, they rushed to superimpose unbelievably expensive Western structures on African soil. It is no surprise to see that these structures have not stood the test of time.

Africa’s Leadership Problem Part 2: Forced Non-African Ideologies “Name any foreign system and there is a collapsed replica somewhere in Africa”15 - George B.N Ayittey

Early African leaders also made the mistake of fusing together two very dangerous foreign ideologies - Marxism and military authoritarianism. Unsurprisingly, many early African leaders had Marxist tendencies. This was, in part, because they believed that capitalism and colonialism were cut from the same cloth. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first president, stated in a speech that capitalism had “denuded Africa of its wealth.”16 Nkrumah of Ghana was fueled by his disdain of capitalism when he set out to set Ghana towards industrialization and away from agriculture. He stated that cocoa was contaminated by capitalism and equated agriculture with bondage. This led to his eventual collectivization of agriculture in Ghana - against the wishes of farmers at the time.17 Socialist ideology manifested itself clearly in the policies of Julius Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania. In 1967, Nyerere published the Arusha Declaration, which was a blueprint for

11 Ayittey, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, 58. 12 Kwame Nkrumah. Ghana: The Autobiography. International Publishers, 1971, 8. 13 Ayittey, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, 84. 14 Ibid, 84. 15 Ibid, 85. 16 BlackPast. "(1962) Nnamdi Azikiwe, "The Future of Pan Africanism"." September 25, 2019. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/1962-nnamdi-azikiwe-future-pan-africanism/. 17 Nkrumah's Socialism. http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch25.htm.

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Tanzania’s future as a socialist state. Nyerere set out to establish what would become known as African Socialism. The word used to describe this ideology was “Ujamaa,” which is a Swahili word that means family or brotherhood. Ujamaa sought to amplify the socialist tendencies already present in traditional African civilizations. Nyerere focused on policies that improved the lives of his people, and for a time, the social fabric of Tanzania was strengthened, and the economy seemed promising. His policies led to the Tanzanian government becoming the largest employer in the nation, and virtually every sector was nationalized. The story would end with the eventual collapse of African Socialism and, along with it, the Tanzanian economy. Nyerere made a mistake that most African leaders and intellectuals continue to make regarding the socialist state of ancient African civilizations. A distinction needs to be made between communism as an economic ideology and communitarianism as a social structure. It seems apparent that ancient Africa, much like present- day Africa, was fairly community-oriented. However, in ancient Africa, this did not translate into economic systems. It is ironic that in an attempt to rid the continent of foreign systems imposed on African soil, the founding fathers brought in a European system and attempted to dress it up in African clothing. Military authoritarianism in Africa has been one of the key factors that has stunted economic growth on the continent. Military dictatorships rise up all over the continent, often as a result of bloody coups that topple the existing governments. What often follows is a strict consolidation of power into the federal military-led government, and this often includes a total government takeover of the economy, a concept that goes hand in hand with Marxism. Price fixing and government intervention have led to African nations being drained of their wealth. Take Zimbabwe, for instance. Zimbabwe was once a nation with great potential on the continent. It had the most broad-based economy in Africa and had a strong iron and steel industry.18 In 1980, as Zimbabwe gained its independence, Robert Mugabe rose to power as Prime Minister. He openly set out to make Zimbabwe into a Marxist-Leninist nation and centered all power in the federal government.19 Mugabe is a fascinating example of how African leaders can hold on to power in ways that are inconceivable in Western countries. Mugabe served as Prime Minister from 1980 until 1987, after which he was “elected” the president from 1987 until he was ousted in 2017. Mugabe served as president for 30 years and planned to hold the office until his death, after which he allegedly had plans for power to be handed over to his wife.20 Although Mugabe was not technically a military ruler, he embodied the rotten spirit of all the dictators that have ruled the continent. In his time as president, he set out to essentially manage Zimbabwe’s economy by himself. In 2000, he began a land distribution program that forcibly took farmlands from white farmers and gave them to black settlers. This act was one of the driving factors that crippled Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector and plunged the nation into famine. A famine that was completely avoidable.21 This might seem apparent to most, yet it still needs to be stated for African leaders- economies thrive and flourish under free markets. And free markets require freedom - the end goal of independence - in order to function. Interestingly enough, the idea of a free market is inherently more African than the founding fathers assumed. Sadly, African economies have been bashed and

18 Ayittey, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, 214. 19 George B. N. Ayittey. Africa Betrayed. St. Martin's Press, 1993, 175. 20 David McKenzie. "Mugabe Clears Way for 'Gucci Grace' as Succession Battle Heats up." CNN. November 10, 2017. https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/10/africa/zimbabwe-grace-mugabe/index.html. 21 Farai Maguwu. "Land reform, famine and environmental degradation in Zimbabwe: research report." Journal of Human Security 3, no. 2 (2008).

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beaten because African leaders have not allowed their countries to have true political or social freedom.

Africa’s Leadership Problem Part 3: Corruption “Africa has more dictators per capita than any other continent.”22 - George B. N. Ayittey

As stated earlier, the founding fathers had good intentions but bad policies corrupted by un- African, European ideologies. The leaders that followed simply saw an opportunity to get rich off the backs of their struggling nations. Corruption is one of the most corrosive enemies to the progress of the African continent. Most African leaders see their positions as opportunities to become rich beyond their wildest dreams and begin to loot whatever treasuries are available to them. Mugabe, for example, died with about £7.7m ($10m) cash in the bank. This was in a country where about half of the population faces severe hunger.23 Perhaps the most infamous of all the past African rulers was Sani Abacha, a military dictator who ruled Nigeria from 1993 until 1998. In a seemingly short period of time, Abacha is said to have stolen around £4 billion ($5 billion) from Nigeria.2425 This amount is so large that the Nigerian government is still in the process of recovering the funds and bringing them back to the country. In June of 2019, $267 million was seized from an account in New Jersey in the United States that was linked to Sani Abacha.26 The Nigerian government seeks out such funds, and they often end up making their way back to the country, although there really is no guarantee that they are in safer hands when brought back to Nigeria. African rulers in modern history have committed so many anti-human and anti-African actions, and some claim to do this in the name of moving their countries forward. Perhaps the best example of this was Idi Amin, who was given the charming nickname of the “Butcher of Uganda”. Amin was president of Uganda from 1971 until 1979 and is generally regarded as one of the cruelest despots in world history. In 1972, Amin declared that Uganda’s South Asian population, which was about 80,000 people at the time, had to leave the country, and they were given 90 days to do so. Amin justified this by claiming that they engage in “corruption” and that Uganda belongs to the ethnic Ugandans. The policy would eventually also include residents from India and Bangladesh. What followed after their expulsion was a startling act of redistribution of property where Amin essentially divided up all the possessions of the exiles to

22 "How to Defeat Africa's Dictators (Video)." Public Radio International. https://www.pri.org/stories/2011-06- 22/how-defeat-africa-s-dictators-video. 23 Jason Burke. "Mugabe Left $10m, a Farm and Five Houses, Says State Media." The Guardian. December 03, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/03/mugabe-left-10m-a-farm-and-five-houses-says-state-media. 24 Release, Press. “We Have No Record of How $5bn Abacha Loot Was Spent - AGF Malami.” Premium Times Nigeria, 15 Mar. 2020, www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/381938-we-have-no-record-of-how-5bn-abacha- loot-was-spent-agf-malami.html. 25 Press, The Associated. “Late Nigerian Dictator Looted Nearly $500 Million, Swiss Say.” The New York Times, The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2004/08/19/world/late-nigerian-dictator-looted-nearly-500-million-swiss- say.html. 26 Bukola Adebayo. "Former Nigerian Dictator's $267M Seized from Jersey Account." CNN. June 06, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/05/africa/nigeria-abacha-stolen-loot-jersey-intl/index.html.

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his people.27 In this way, he likely viewed himself as some sort of champion of African ideals. His blatant act of dehumanization and aggression would serve as one of the components that led to the collapse of the Ugandan economy. In 1987, Amin’s successor Yoweri Museveni inherited an economy that suffered the poorest growth rate in Africa.28 As crippling as African presidents and heads of state have been to the well being of the people they swore to serve, the corruption has made its way into all branches of most governments. The corruption is just as present and corrosive in the judicial branches and also at the state level. Corruption is so powerful and ingrained in African governments to the point where foreign aid to Africa from the West essentially becomes useless. Africa receives about $133.7 billion each year in aid, grants, and loans.29 African leaders in the past have exploited the mistreatment of black people throughout history in Western nations in order to justify their entitlement to aid from the West. Perhaps the most shocking example of this was a demand by the African World Reparation Truth Commission. This conference met in 1999 and called for all international debt owed by Africa to be “unconditionally canceled.” In addition, the group called for the West to pay Africa a jarring $777 trillion for the part they played in enslaving Africans and colonizing the continent. The conference set up a team of lawyers and sought to get the United Nations, International Court of Justice, and the Organization of African Unity, which would become the African Union, to support the cause.30 Unsurprisingly, nothing tangible came out of this conference, but it clearly shows how African leaders have used the race factor to make financial demands. These demands, in smaller scales, are often met and usually do little to help African countries. Western powers would do well to learn that giving aid to African governments is not the same as giving aid to the African people. There is such a sharp divide between African leaders and the people they are supposed to serve, almost to the point where African leaders cease to truly be African people. Thus far, they have been referred to as “leaders” mostly out of sheer courtesy. They are, in fact, despots. Africa has lacked true leaders. The corrupt rulers have no connection to the people they are to serve, and they have no love for the country they were born into. A person cannot have a love for something and yet at the same time, knowingly play a part in its destruction.

African Solutions “African elites and leaders lack original ideas and cannot use their imagination to craft authentically African solutions to African problems. If all they can do is imitate, then they might as well bring back the foreigners to come and rule Africa.”31 - George B.N. Ayittey

African leaders often turn to the wrong places when seeking economic reforms in their countries. Those who are not entirely useless usually look to Western systems in order to find inspiration, while others simply throw money at different problems in the hopes that something good will happen. Most African leaders lack the creativity to think of unique policies needed to lift their

27 "BBC ON THIS DAY | 7 | 1972: Asians given 90 Days to Leave Uganda." BBC News. August 07, 1972. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/7/newsid_2492000/2492333.stm. 28 Palash Ghosh. "Uganda: Forty Years After Idi Amin Expelled Asians." International Business Times. December 06, 2015. https://www.ibtimes.com/uganda-forty-years-after-idi-amin-expelled-asians-739228. 29 Firoze Manji, Pablo Yanguas. "Should the West Stop Giving Aid to Africa?" New Internationalist. February 26, 2020. https://newint.org/features/2018/11/01/giving-aid-to-africa. 30 "Africa | Trillions Demanded in Slavery Reparations." BBC News. August 20, 1999. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/424984.stm. 31 Ayittey, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, 85.

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people out of poverty. The solutions to Africa’s economic woes clearly do not lie in cheap imitations of foreign systems. If it is true that African problems require African solutions, then the most effective way to discover those solutions would be to explore the minds of pre-colonial Africans. There are undoubtedly different economic factors at play, such as the fact that Africa is now connected to the world economy, and things are at a much grander scale in many ways. However, the economic systems and practices in modern-day Africa are so far from what existed in pre-colonial kingdoms that a return to these indigenous African institutions might be what the continent needs to gain stability. The idea that pre-colonial Africans were simply hunters and gatherers who were largely unorganized is inaccurate. Elliott P. Skinner, an American anthropologist and US ambassador to the Republic of Upper Volta notes that West Africa was the region of greatest indigenous economic development in sub-Saharan Africa. The West Africans had economies which made agricultural produce available in large amounts to be sold in urban markets.32 Skinner further notes that the economic unity of West Africa does not receive the recognition it merits. Some scholars often note that some towns had large markets, but they sometimes jump to the conclusion that other towns were largely underdeveloped because they only had small markets. This is not accurate because the smaller markets were, in fact, the backbones of these systems.33 Most pre-colonial Africans were farmers, and agriculture was the primary occupation of the people.34 This is extremely important to note because in modern-day Africa, farming is still considered a way of life to many. About 60 percent of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is smallholder farmers.35 Agricultural reforms carried out by modern-day leaders often do not bring about the desired outcomes, this is because the leaders who go in this direction have the right idea, but fail to see what is actually required. Pre-colonial African farmer families divided tasks to different members based on specialization of labor. The African peasant woman was integral to the economy because of her role in farming food crops - a task that was reserved for females almost everywhere. Unsurprisingly, women make up about 60 percent of the agricultural workforce in modern-day Africa.36 As stated earlier, free markets require freedom in order to function, and fascinating examples of economic freedoms can be seen in pre-colonial Africa. Freedom existed in such a way that what a person grew on their land was their own free decision to make. The produce was private property. How much a person shared with his kinsmen and how much he kept to himself was an individual decision to make. In much of pre-colonial Africa, the means of production were owned by the natives, not their rulers.37 Arbitrary seizures of property and widespread looting of public funds was not present in pre-colonial Africa. Even chiefs did not have the right to take the property of their subjects without just cause.38 The market was an integral part of the economy and was essentially the heart of economic, political, social, and judicial activity.39 One fascinating aspect of these markets is the fact that prices were largely

32 Elliott Percival Skinner. Peoples and Cultures of Africa: An Anthropological Reader. Natural History Press, 1973, 205. 33 Ibid, 205. 34 Ibid, 207. 35 "Winning in Africa's Agricultural Market." McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/winning-in-africas-agricultural-market. 36 "Facts & Figures." UN Women. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/commission-on-the-status-of- women-2012/facts-and-figures. 37 Ayittey, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, 338. 38 Ibid, 341. 39 Ibid, 343.

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determined by the concept of supply and demand. While haggling was commonplace, the price of an item was ultimately determined by how much went into making it. This idea was understood by the peasant farmers and the chiefs as well. The chief did not have the ability to artificially fix prices or to interfere in the workings of the free market.40 This is a level of economic freedom that modern-day African nations have lacked. It is also interesting to note that the chiefs were largely held accountable to the people they served, and in some cases, the people had the power to “destool” chiefs from their seat.41 Traditional kings were not above the law and were always held accountable to chiefs and elders.42 Ayittey states that the secret to economic prosperity in Africa is not hard to find. Three things are necessary: peace, infrastructure, and economic freedom.43 These are three tenets that modern-day Africa has struggled to find. Military dictators have risen up and caused unimaginable amounts of bloodshed on the continent, and leaders that follow have engaged in practices that tamper with their economies in order to enrich themselves. The honor and obligation to subjects that was present in pre-colonial chiefs are basically nowhere to be found in modern-day leaders. Africa does not only need economic freedom but basic freedoms such as freedom of the press and freedom of expression. These were essentially nonexistent under military rulers, and nowadays, most countries claim to protect them, but the actions of certain governments prove otherwise. African countries continually perform poorly according to the Heritage Economic Freedom Index.44 Freedom of expression is intertwined with economic freedom because it gives Africans a voice in matters that affect their wellbeing. This freedom was present in pre-colonial Africa. In Botswana, the practice of “kgotla” was a system where chiefs and councillors would meet under a tree to reach consensus on important matters.45 All people are allowed to speak, and no one is allowed to interrupt. Modern-day Botswana still upholds this tradition, and this is one of the several reasons why Botswana does not suffer most of the economic strife plaguing the rest of the continent. At first glance, this kgotla system appears to be similar to the post-colonial parliamentary systems currently present in many African nations. However, it appears as though most of these parliaments do not get much substantial work done. Being a member of parliament is often not about reaching consensus on the important issues, but about filling pockets and occasionally getting into embarrassing fistfights in National Assemblies while the world watches.46 It is interesting to note that in Nigeria, for example, senators are entitled to a monthly allowance of about 13.5 million nairas ($37,500) per month. This is in addition to a salary of about $2,000 a month.47 These fees are designated for the “handling of the office,” but senators ultimately use them as they see fit. In a country where millions of people live in abject poverty well below

40 Ibid, 347. 41 Ibid, 123. 42 Ibid, 333. 43 Ibid, 353. 44 "Country Rankings." Country Rankings: World & Global Economy Rankings on Economic Freedom. https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking. 45 Embassy of Botswana website,. Japan. https://web.archive.org/web/20120721220745/http://www.botswanaembassy.or.jp/culture/body2_1.html. 46 “Fight in South Africa Parliament during Zuma Address.” BBC News, BBC, 9 Feb. 2017, www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-38923598/fight-in-south-africa-parliament-during-zuma-address; Biryabarema, Elias. “Lawmakers Brawl in Uganda Parliament for Second Day over Presidential Age Limit.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 27 Sept. 2017, www.reuters.com/article/us-uganda-politics/lawmakers-brawl-in-uganda-parliament-for- second-day-over-presidential-age-limit-idUSKCN1C21VI. 47 "Nigerian Senator Salary Calculator: How Do You Compare?" BBC News. April 01, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43516825.

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the global poverty line, justifying such an amount is extremely difficult. Essentially, most African countries have parliamentary systems because that is what was present in Europe. This appears to be yet another broken imitation that does very little to actually serve the African people. Running counter to this, Prof. Ayittey has conceived of an economic model that seeks to serve whom he classifies as “Atinga.” Atinga is an archetype of a rural African citizen. He is a farmer who is illiterate and poor and mostly cares about agriculture.48 Ayittey’s model seeks to empower him because, in the wake of independence, African leaders left him behind in the dust. He was seen as primitive, and there was no place for him in the newly liberated countries. The African leaders turned to industrialization and mass projects of grandeur in order to heal their inferiority complex. In doing so, Atinga was betrayed. African leaders do not need to go to Atinga and shove money down his throat or bombard him with expensive machinery that he does not require. According to Ayittey, “Africa’s salvation does not lie blindly in copying foreign systems but in returning to its own roots and heritage and building upon them.”49 Africa would have done well to learn from Japan in the 19th century. During the Meiji restoration, the Japanese were in a situation where they had to modernize in order to avoid being colonized. In reaction to this, they sent their brightest officials to Europe. They observed their systems and separated the wheat from the chaff, and brought back what was useful back to Japan. This example shows us that modernization does not mean Westernization.50 Africa must return to its economic roots and empower the Atingas. In practice, this means giving them what they need to be more effective and productive farmers. The solution is not to turn farmers into industrialized tech-wizards, it is to make farmers better farmers. This involves keeping them safe and secure in their villages. The African village is a place that is often connected to negative stereotypes of poverty and backwardness. But this does not have to be the case. The abandonment and ultimate rejection of village life was a grave mistake on the parts of African leaders. City life should be an option, and cities should be well equipped for those who wish to lead those lives, but for the countless Africans bound to their villages as a result of tradition who do not wish to live anywhere else, the villages should be equipped with everything they need to prosper. This does not necessarily involve paving massive highways straight through rural areas in the name of industrialization. It does mean ensuring that village people have access to water and electricity, and whatever they need to make them better farmers. Ayittey notes that none of these ideas are possible without ensuring one of the three tenets - peace. Delving into this is certainly worthwhile, but the focus will remain on poverty. This is a model in which the village is no longer seen as a place of primitive people, rather it is seen as a joint tradition that strongly connects the entire continent. Africa has the agricultural potential to be a major player on the world stage. However, when this vision was ripe for the plucking, the founding fathers chose another route that plunged the Atingas into despair. In Ayittey’s model, traditional chiefs need to be empowered in rural areas because they generally care about their people infinitely more than governors and senators. Empowering them with capital and resources would ensure that most of the time, the right person for the job is left in charge, as opposed to leaving the decisions up to dressed-up clowns in fancy buildings who do little except drive sports cars and engage in fistfights. Giving reasonable amounts of capital to local chiefs and entrusting them to oversee the economic affairs of their people is a much better gamble than spending billions of dollars on fancy machinery that nobody asked for. This Atinga

48 Ayittey, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, 365. 49 Ibid, 366. 50 Ibid, 366.

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model greatly empowers the African peasant woman who is generally overworked. There are simple ways to do this, such as revitalizing the use of animals such as donkeys and horses to carry produce.51 Such an idea seems unnecessarily backward to the modern-day reader; however, there is a lot of sense to it. Should Atingas wish to travel far distances, then roads, cars, and trains should be readily available to them. But when traveling short distances, there is no need to pave roads all across small villages when natural pathways already exist. All that is needed is a way to remove the stress of moving produce from one place to another. Perhaps Afro-Futuristic thought will lead to some sort of robot that is easy enough to operate, but for the time being, governments can easily provide Atingas with animals to help. Governments must learn their place in this model. It is not their role to forcibly create wealth, but to guarantee the peace of the people, and spend funds in appropriate ways. This is, in essence, a practical solution to lifting Africa’s poorest people out of poverty.

The Great African Conversation

Africa’s poverty problem goes much deeper than most African governments and foreign observers realize. There several beneficial solutions that ought to be implemented from a policy standpoint, such as the Atinga model proposed by Prof. Ayittey. However, something greater is needed to ensure that Africa pulls itself out of its state of poverty. Helpful policies can do many good things in the fight against poverty, but there is a more corrosive issue lurking in the shadows. As stated earlier, one of the most devastating effects of colonialism in the continent was the stunting of African thought. This has manifested itself in the inability of Africa’s leaders to conceive of original solutions or to be virtuous leaders. The psyche of the average African has been deprived of the freedom that is required to be a well-cultivated citizen. This is an important issue because it opens up the average African to be taken advantage of by despots who rise to power and continually leave them in the dust. This is one of the reasons why democracy, as it is, has generally failed on the continent. An unfortunately large number of the African people simply cannot handle the power to decide who their leaders should be because they are unable to see how they are being exploited by those in high places. Their votes can easily be bought with embarrassingly small amounts of money, and they often pledge their allegiance to political figures based entirely on arbitrary criteria such as tribe and religion, with no regard for policy objectives or character. The African mind is broken, and as a result, African thoughts are damaged. Indeed, Africans suffer from an even greater and more cancerous type of poverty - poverty of the mind. This is the unseen problem that destroys the African people, and in response to it, two things are required to safeguard the future of the continent - an African Enlightenment, and a transformed form of education centered around the “Afro-Liberal Arts.” The Enlightenment in the Western world was a philosophical and intellectual movement in Europe that sought to emphasize reason and logic over superstition and blind faith. This was a progression in the thought of European intellectuals that laid the groundwork for numerous contributions to several important fields such as science, medicine, and the arts. The African Enlightenment would mark the time in the history of the continent where the learned individuals rise up and begin properly tackling Africa’s problems. Such a concept would not be new, as there have been a decent amount of intellectuals who have risen to the occasion such as Patrick Loch

51 Ayittey, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, 379-380.

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Otieno Lumumba of Kenya.52 Intellectuals, such as him, would be diverse in their fields of study and in their nationalities. They would speak out against the moronic and diabolical practices of African rulers, and they would seek to bring forth fresh and creative ideas that challenge the status quo of the African elites who see themselves as untouchable. The eventual outcome of this enlightenment period would be the creation of much needed African classics. It is important to note that the virtues that are emphasized in the writings of the Western classics are indeed universal, and therefore apply to Africans as well. Virtues such as honor, wisdom, and courage apply to all people, not just Westerners. That said, the African should be able to learn and personalize these virtues not only from the Western classics but from African classics as well. Essentially, the African classics should explore these universal virtues in the African context. The African classics would comprise the works of prose and literature that have been written by Africans in the post-colonial era. Whatever writings that can be salvaged from the pre- colonial era will also be valued. However, because so much has been lost, and African thought has been disrupted, what is required is a generation of intellectuals who recognize this and begin to produce new African ideas. These ideas would be a combination of themes from the past of the continent and its new post-colonial identity. Africans should have an African basis in understanding these virtues and comprehending how they fit into the world of enlightened individuals. The African classics would include works akin to Aristotle’s Politics, that explain the state of the African and look at governance understanding the specific needs of the continent. A potential parallel to this might be Africa Unchained by Prof. Ayittey, a work that looks at the needs of the African and touches on political systems that respect those needs. The African classics would also include works like the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus that categorize leaders and display their virtues and vices for citizens to learn from. A potential African parallel to this might be Africa Betrayed, also by Prof. Ayittey, a work that puts the failures of the African leaders on display for Africans to learn from. The classics would include works of art that model the artisans of the pre-colonial era in such a way that puts the creativity of the African mind on full display. This would also include understanding music on the African continent and writing it down in order to properly preserve it, as well as allowing it to be studied and admired by musicians all over the globe. All these practices are necessary to the liberation of African thought, and contributions to the African classics already exist in the form of literature, political documents, and the work of great African orators. Works of literature by authors such as Wole Soyinka, Chiamanda Ngozi Adiche, and Chinua Achebe are filled with African stories that display African thought and virtues.53 For the Atinga to stay free, his mind needs to be opened to welcome knowledge, and his heart needs to be set towards virtue. These works of literature need to be held up as classics in order to be fully appreciated and utilized by the African people. Perhaps if Africa was never colonized, classics would exist that were written centuries ago. However, there is little benefit to dabbling in counterfactual history in this case. African classics that are as old as Western classics do not truly exist. Therefore, it is the responsibility of thoughtful Africans to willingly make contributions to the classics of the continent. As the Chinese proverb goes, the best time to plant a

52 Ebatamehi, Sebastiane. “Prof. PLO Lumumba: The Face of Pan-Africanism and Afro Optimism: The African Exponent.” The African Exponent, The African Exponent, 11 Sept. 2018, www.africanexponent.com/post/9128- prof-plo-lumumba-a-champion-of-pan-africanism-against-neo-colonialism-and-poor-leadership-in-africa.

53 Examples: Myth, Literature and the African World by Wole Soyinka, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chiamanda Ngozi Adiche, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

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tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. For Africa, the best time to develop the classics would have been centuries ago, but considering the way history progressed, the second best time is right now. The African classics would eventually serve as the foundation of the Afro-liberal Arts. The liberal arts seek to produce individuals that are wise, well-rounded, and perhaps, most importantly, virtuous. In classical antiquity, the liberal arts education was seen as containing all the subjects that were considered essential for a free person.54 The liberal arts also seek to liberate the mind and cultivate people who are free from the shackles of mental poverty. There are several components to a liberal arts education, and they are typically divided into two stages- the primary stage known as the trivium, and the secondary stage known as the quadrivium. The trivium consists of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The quadrivium consists of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.55 These all work together in their own ways at different stages in the life of a young learner in order to cultivate a spirit of curiosity, as well as setting the heart of a learner towards virtue. Virtue is fundamental to the very idea of the liberal arts, and it is just as important to the core of the Afro-liberal arts. Inculcating virtue into citizens is certainly beneficial for the functioning of a nation, but what is perhaps more important is having truly virtuous leaders. In Book IV of the Republic, Plato alludes to the idea of the cardinal virtues. These virtues would be expanded upon by thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. The virtues are prudence, courage, temperance, and justice.56 Most African rulers have been void of these four and have instead wholeheartedly embraced their parallel vices.57 No world leader can ever truly be free of vice; in fact, no human being at all could ever be entirely perfect at leadership. Corruption exists everywhere, so the goal of this is not to somehow magically produce flawless people to rule the African people. However, the extent to which African rulers have disregarded the welfare of their people in recent history and even in the present day has no place among proper individuals. Realistically speaking, the goal is not to create African rulers who are perfectly virtuous but to create a new breed of leader that is not entirely filled with unimaginable vices. The goal here is to remove the divide between the African leader and the African people. The people would set their minds towards virtue and have a love for wisdom and intelligence. These, according to Plato, are the makings of the “Philosopher King.” Africa needs a generation of people who aspire to this, regardless of whether or not it is nothing more than unrealistic idealistic thinking. According to the Renaissance philosopher Petrus Paulus Vergerius, the liberal arts are referred to as such because they benefit free men, and a study of philosophy makes men free.58 In the context of Africans, the Afro-liberal arts will set the minds of the African people free from the wrongs of the past. Africans would certainly be able to read the likes of Plato and Thomas Aquinas in order to grasp these ideas of virtue and proper living. But in addition to that, they should be able to also see similar words written by Africans in African contexts. There is a need for the liberation of the African mind, and the need to properly determine what African thought truly is. The Afro- liberal arts can create a generation of Africans who could potentially be materially impoverished,

54 Ernst Robert Curtius, and Colin Burrow. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Princeton University Press, 2013, 37. 55 Ibid, 37. 56 Benjamin Jowett. The Republic of Plato. United Kingdom: Clarendon Press, 1881, 121. 57 For examples, see Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa’s Future or Africa Betrayed by George B.N Ayittey. 58 Richard M. Gamble. The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being. ISI Books, 2017, 318.

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but have a solid grasp on their African identity, and are able to think on the good, true, and beautiful. This liberation of the mind would permeate through all parts of African life and would not only affect the common people, but those in power as well. This means that in the event that a despot should arise to power, he will have to face the wrath of empowered people who understand their rights as human beings, and will not allow their countries to be manhandled by anyone. With this liberation of the mind will come a liberation from abject poverty, and will go hand in hand with Ayittey’s call for freedom in Africa. As stated earlier, Africa was plunged into its sorry state because of a need to catch up on the part of its founding fathers. All African intellectuals have a role to play in the African Enlightenment and eventual liberation of the continent. For some who wish to snatch their nations aways from tyrannical governments and rule virtuously, their roles are perhaps more pressing and require immediate action. But for others, for the African Philosophers, there is no rush. The African classics must be collected and formulated properly. Those who wish to engage in archaeology to unlock the mysteries of past kingdoms must do so with courage, those who wish to gather information on the arts and music in order to codify them and enable future generations to continue in the liberating arts of music must exercise the temperance that is required when dedicating oneself to the arts. Those who seek to write tales of the human condition to provide a lense for future Africans to not only practice reading and comprehension but also to understand the classics from an African perspective must do so with prudence. Those who seek to rule over nations must do so with a love of justice in their hearts. Those who make contributions to the African classics will most likely not live to see their work serve as the basis of the Afro-liberal arts curriculum, but there is, in fact, no rush. Perhaps the ideas contained in this paper could potentially be seen as somewhat idealistic. However, there is a surprising amount of practicality that might not be apparent at first glance. For example, as stated earlier, Botswana does not suffer as much as most of its African neighbors. This is not only because Botswana takes the freedom of its citizens seriously, but it is also because, from an economic standpoint, Botswana carries out policies that seek to empower their indigenous people.59 Unsurprisingly, Botswana does not suffer from the chronic poverty that plagues most of the continent and has enjoyed strong and stable growth since its independence.60 Regarding the Afro-liberal arts, implementing a shared educational system across an entire continent is quite a mammoth task. However, this might not be as impossible of a task as it seems. One potential key to gathering the African classics lies in engaging the African Union. As it stands, the AU is a fairly redundant organization that is essentially another example of a failed European replica that exists in Africa. The AU does not do as much as it should in terms of diplomacy or peacekeeping, but to its credit, it occasionally makes potentially beneficial moves in the realm of economics, such as the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.61 The AU is an odd paradox that is simultaneously a symbol of Pan-African unity and also a symbol of African disorganization. However, because of the sheer potential, the Union has to be a force for good, it is a central part of establishing the African classics. The AU has enough resources under its belt to seek out the brightest in the continent both at home and in the diaspora in order to begin seeking out the

59 Ayittey, Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa's Future, 334. 60 "Overview." World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/botswana/overview. 61 "The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement. United Nations. https://www.un.org/ldcportal/afcfta-what- is-expected-of-ldcs-in-terms-of-trade-liberalisation-by-trudi-hartzenberg/.

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Philosophers and, by extension, the classics. The AU is also in a position to put certain countries on display for the rest of the continent to see. Say, for example, a decent amount of the African classics have been gathered, and the Afro-liberal arts curriculum is ready to be tested. Assuming that nations would not be particularly hostile to this new system, it should not be entirely difficult to get a few countries who are willing to test this system. This would be a somewhat long process, but the results should be clear for all to see. Beneficial educational reform can do nothing, but help countries produce a generation of fine individuals who will one day become the leaders of nations, and give birth to a generation of liberated African citizens. The same reform exercise could be carried out on a smaller scale with certain countries testing out the reforms in a few states. This would certainly be time-consuming, but the battle for Africa’s soul is worth the time, and anything worth doing is worth doing properly. The poverty of the mind has kept Africans from truly being free citizens. At their best, economic reforms can take a person out of poverty, but they cannot always keep them away from it, because poverty of the mind and material poverty go hand in hand with each other. This paper is, among other things, a call to action. It is shedding light on an issue that is often overlooked because it is not properly understood and is constantly in the shadow of a more visible problem- material poverty. This paper lays out the need to begin the Great African Conversation. The poverty problem in Africa goes far beyond what meets the eye, and the solutions are definitely unconventional. However, they are necessary and are indeed possible. African problems require African solutions, and African solutions are found in the minds of Africans. Africans must bring their thoughts and ideas together in order to establish a guiding way forward for the next generations of Africans.

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A Brief History of ‘Otherness’ through the Lens of Dwarfism in Cultural Contexts and the Following Modern Impact

Ingrid Becker

Abstract: Disabilities, especially dwarfism, have held the intrigue of humans for thousands of years, dating back to Ancient Egypt up to modern reality television. With this fascination, disabilities have experienced forms of approval and praise to ostracization and exclusion from society. As a form of otherness, disabilities can be classified as a master status for individuals, becoming the primary identifier of one’s social identity. Essentially, one is then simply known as their disability. By examining disabilities through the specific lens of dwarfism, it is evident that society has undergone several perspectives towards disabilities and consistently has a prevailing attitude. This study aims to highlight the underlying reasons for the formation of these perspectives and to identify what the current culmination of previous attitudes is today. Disabilities are a part of human life that have been treated by society with different attitudes at various points of time but have never been allowed to exist with no attached emotion.

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Forms of otherness, typically classified as disabilities, have always been a non-negotiable part of life. To clarify, disabilities are non-negotiable because they are not preventable and may occur at random instances, making disabilities a truly surprising aspect of life. Dwarfism, for example, occurs at a frequency of one in every 15,000-40,000 births, and many occur due to completely random genetic mutations.1 While outside factors can contribute to disabilities, these random, genetic mutations can also be the deciding factor. Disabilities boast a range of variance as not one disability is the same. However, because of this, disabilities have gained negative and positive associations, alongside a multitude of labels (such as gifted, freak, different, unique). These associations and labels call into consideration the concept of the master status, where each individual has a primary identifying characteristic. This phenomenon is rooted in our view of reality, wherein we separate and label humans based on a predetermined category. These characteristics can range from race, gender, religion, to the primary focus of this study: disabilities. As an individual with dwarfism, it is quite evident that the experience of having a disability is not merely personal, but rather, a public affair. Stemming from this public affair, throughout history, those with identifiable disabilities usually experience their whole identity as being broken down to their disability. This notion is evident throughout ancient texts and artistic depictions, theater and freak shows, and modern television. In order to begin examining the history of the broad category of otherness, the specific lens of dwarfism will be employed. This decision is supported by the Horn Effect, which describes how “a single negative attribute can bias subsequent impression formation judgments on unrelated dimensions in a negative direction.”2 When a negative view is taken against dwarfism, this view will transfer to other disabilities and, subsequently, other people who also look different. Because dwarfism is part of a broader category of disabilities, personal attitudes towards perceived disabilities will be interrelated and shared across the board. Prevailing social attitudes determine not only the social expectations and treatment prescribed to a person with a disability but also his or her self-image and personal function.

Historical Overview

Jean-François Staszak, writing for the 2008 International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, unpacks the phenomenon of otherness within human relations. In order to understand the concept of otherness and its implications on human interactions, it is essential to define key terminology. Staszak first defines otherness as an occurrence wherein a “dominant in-group” creates a “dominant out-group” through the stigmatization of differences, whether they be real or imagined.3 Staszak notes the importance that power plays in this phenomenon, as the dominant group has the ability to impose value on itself and devalue others, alongside the implementation of discriminatory measures.4 One of the earliest examples of otherness, Staszak explains, can be seen in the ancient categorization of Greek speakers and Barbarians. Barbarians were non-Greek speakers and viewed as uncivilized compared to the Greeks.5 This simple difference led the Greeks

1“Achondroplasia.” Genetics Home Reference. U.S. National Library of Medicine, May 2012. https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/achondroplasia#statistics. 2 Forgas, Joseph, and Simon Laham. Cognitive Illusions: Intriguing Phenomena in Judgement, Thinking and Memory. 2nd ed. (Abingdon: Routledge , 2017), 276. 3 Staszak, Jean-François. “Other/Otherness” (International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2008), 2. 4 Staszak, 2. 5 Staszak, 3.

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Articles to classify these non-Greek speakers as Barbarians, therefore creating the categories of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ For this study, the concept of otherness will be examined by using the example of dwarfism in comparison to the majority of the able-bodied population. To gain a sense of how otherness was initially seen and treated, it is essential to examine early civilizations and societies, beginning with Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egypt, one of the most prominent early civilizations, paid particular attention to otherness, especially dwarfism. Leading up to the treatment of dwarfism, the Ancient Egyptians faced several forms of otherness throughout their society, including their royals. Royal families, such as those of the Hapsburgs and of the Pharaohs, arguably faced more chances of developing disabilities and physical deformities due to inbreeding and incestual relationships to maintain a pure bloodline (Charles II of the Hapsburgs faced hematuria and intestinal problems along with delayed developmental from years of inbreeding).6 Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass reveals how Pharaoh Tutankhamen had malaria, a cleft palate, scoliosis, and a clubbed foot.7 This instance supports the notion that Ancient Egyptians were accustomed to, at some level, a range of otherness and disabilities. Therefore, individuals such as Tutankhamen were being accommodated to, rather than ostracized. Ancient Egyptian art points to positive and accurate depictions of dwarfism, with numerous artists taking special consideration of the disability. One instance of this mindset manifested in the statue of Seneb and his family. Seneb, who had dwarfism, was in charge of the royal wardrobe. A statue of him and his family, dating back to the 6th century B.C., features Seneb sitting cross- legged on a seat with his average-sized wife seated next to him. His wife, depicted with a smile on her face, conveys that she is happy with her husband. To compensate for the missing space underneath Seneb’s crossed legs (an average height man’s legs would usually fill this space), the artist chose to place his two children there. This particular choice helps establish a sense of balance and unity within the statue while offering respect to Seneb, by not drawing immediate attention to his dwarfism.8 Portrayals of dwarfism went beyond the representations of the average working man, as seen in the dwarf god Bes. Joshua Mark, a founder of the Ancient History Encyclopedia, describes Bes’s role as overseer of childbirth and fertility, sex, war, and humor while also serving as a protector of pregnant women and children.9 Interestingly, Bes has been depicted as both dwarf and giant, with ancient papyrus illustrating him as a “‘giant of a million cubits who carries the sky with his powerful arms.’”10 While acknowledging Bes’s short stature, this description highlights how important Bes was seen with his status elevated and celebrated. Alongside Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece also provided insight into the early treatment of people who were different. In Ancient Greece, it appears that physical disabilities were treated similarly to Ancient Egypt. Disabilities, for the most part, were integrated into society, and individuals with disabilities had access to prominent roles. People with disabilities, including dwarfism, were included in the Greek polis as citizens and could not be stripped of their

6 Alvarez, Gonzalo, Francisco Ceballos, and Celsa Quinteiro. “The Role of Inbreeding in the Extinction of a European Royal Dynasty.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, April 15, 2009. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664480/. 7 Hawass, Zahi, Yehia Gad, and Somaia Ismail. “Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamen's Family.” JAMA Network, February 17, 2010.

8 “Group Statue of Seneb and His Family.” Global Egyptian Museum. International Committee for Egyptology, n.d. http://www.globalegyptianmuseum.org/detail.aspx?id=14891. 9 Mark, Joshua. “Bes.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, November 7, 2016. https://www.ancient.eu/Bes/. 10 Dasen, Veronique. “Dwarfs in Athens .” (Oxford: Oxford Journal of Archaeology, July 1990), 52.

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The Franciscan citizenship.11 However, this perspective was not universally held across Greece. The philosopher Aristotle provided several commentaries on dwarfism with his views appearing largely negative concerning the quality of life and expectations for those with dwarfism. He described those with dwarfism to be inferior to men, with limited memory and less intelligence due to their physical appearance of bigger and heavier heads.12 There were limited artistic renditions of dwarfism in Ancient Greece, but the few available seem to lean towards more comedic and lowly portrayals. In order to avoid confusing little people with children, the features of dwarfism were heavily exaggerated and drawn out. Much of the portrayals feature little people in the role of slaves for adults and children. Swiss Archaeologist Veronique Dasen illustrates an example of one of these depictions:

Like slaves, short people are often naked and adopt comic or unusual poses...on the Ferrara cup, for example, a dwarf, characterised by his over-large head and his short limbs, follows a child as short as himself, who is wrapped in a cloak. This iconographic schema is frequent in vase painting: the master walks forward, followed by his servant who carries some item. On the Ferrara cup the dwarf replaces the familiar pedagogue, the trustworthy slave who accompanied children to school and to other public places.13

Depictions of normal life for disabled individuals also existed, where little people were assimilated into the majority non-disabled population within the artwork. Dasen brings up a few instances of little people shown dancing at festivals alongside their average-height companions. But, for the most part, the prominent view of little people and dwarfism was akin to children, as many depictions of little people appear on vessels and vases meant explicitly for children coupled with little people and children typically appearing together in artwork.14 Disabilities became, once more, the focal point within the Victorian and early American freak shows. With the word freak appearing for the first time in 1847, sister terms such as ‘monster’ and ‘curiosities’ quickly arose and accompanied the label of freak.15 Robert Bodgan notes how the term freak became “a metaphor for estrangement, alienation, marginality, the darker side of the human experience,” and these shows ultimately came to represent the “pornography of disability.”16 The first mention of freak shows in America occurred in the mid-18th century, as illustrated by a 1783 notice advertising “‘a female about four feet high, in every part like a woman except her head which nearly resembles the ape.’”17 However, freak shows hit their peak in the mid-to-late 19th century with the help of P.T. Barnum’s American Museum. Rosemary Garland Thomson catalogs Barnum’s expansive museum as home to “wild men of Borneo to fat ladies, living skeletons, Fiji princes, albinos, bearded women, Siamese twins.'' Performers such as “beauty contestants, contortionists, sharpshooters, trained goats, frog eaters” also joined the show.18 Interestingly, Barnum identified individuals from different countries to those with different body types to those with unique skills as all being worthy of display.

11 Dasen, 191, 200. 12 Dasen, 193. 13 Dasen, 199. 14 Dasen, 201. 15 Heider, Jeremy, Corey Scherer, and John Edlund. “Cultural Stereotypes and Personal Beliefs about Individuals with Dwarfism.” Journal of Social Psychology 153, no. 1 (January 1, 2013): 80–97. 16 Bogdan, Robert. Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), 2. 17 Bodgan, 25. 18 Thomson, Rosemarie. Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body (New York City: New York University Press, 1996), 5.

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Thomson explains how these individuals were not just gathered, but collected. This collection and categorization of freaks “emerge[d] from cultural rituals that stylize, silence, differentiate, and distance the persons whose bodies the freak-hunters or showmen colonize and commercialize.”19 Deviations from the perceived normality had to be identified by the culture or the majority group, and those with deviations were therefore ostracized (and potentially faced a form of removal from society). Meanwhile, “the exhibitions also simultaneously reinscribed gender, race, sexual [aberrance], ethnicity, and disability as inextricable yet particular exclusionary systems legitimated by bodily variation-- all represented by the single multivalent figure of the freak. Thus, what we assume to be a freak of nature was instead a freak of culture.”20 Thomson affirms that differences are not defined by natural law, but by human law. Today, the terms little person, dwarf, or midget are used to refer to an individual of unusually short stature. While the terms little person and dwarf are generally viewed as acceptable words, the word midget is typically seen as an offensive descriptor and is not preferable for use. The word dwarf stems from the Old English word dweorh, the Old Saxon word dwerg, Old High German twerg, and Old Norse dvergr, which all roughly translated to a short human or something tiny.21 On the other hand, the word midget developed from the Old English word mygg, or midge, which translated to a small gnat.22 Coupled with the suffix -et, the word midget was formed to refer to small bugs and, eventually, people of short stature. While these terms can refer to someone of short stature, they are usually reserved for someone who has the medical diagnosis of dwarfism.

Discussion

The ever-changing perception of disabilities, as dictated by society, is illustrated through these accounts of dwarfism throughout history. Dwarfism has been received with varying attitudes and perspectives, posing the question: “what changed?” Arguably, the disability of dwarfism has not changed, but rather, the attitude towards it has, and continues to, undergo change. Dwarfism still has the same features as it did thousands of years ago as individuals with dwarfism are shorter, have smaller/disproportionate limbs, and different facial structures. Instead, human perception has evolved where the classification of normal and other has fluctuated and depends on individual and collective ideals, environments, and current majorities. With the master status introducing the idea of identification on a single aspect such as disabilities, the divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’ only continued to grow. In Ancient Egypt, dwarfism held a prominent status. Disabilities, especially dwarfism, were integrated with the rest of society, revered, and seen as divine gifts. This divine mindset allowed individuals with dwarfism and other disabilities to not only have access to standard jobs and duties but to high ranking positions within the Egyptian hierarchy. With these portrayals in mind, it is worth noting that little people still experienced a form of removal from society. Salima Ikram describes this seemingly paradoxical situation in Egyptian Bioarchaeology: little people and “people of abnormally short stature were considered different from ‘normal’ people.”23 Ancient

19 Thomson, 10. 20 Thomson, 10. 21 Anderson, John. “Lexiculture: Papers on English Words and Culture.” Glossographia. Wayne State University , 2016. 22 The Merriam-Webster Dictionary . 11th ed (Springfield : Merriam-Webster Inc., 2004), 455. 23 Ikram, Salima, Jessica Kaiser, and Roxie Walker. Egyptian Bioarchaeology: Humans, Animals, and the Environment (Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2015), 163.

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Egyptians treated dwarfism as a “divine marking,” and while dwarfism was seen as positive and able-bodied, it was also still seen as a form of “‘other.’”24 Thus, dwarfism and disabilities did not just exist. They were still being pulled away from the majority and seen as something. Ancient Greece, while accepting of otherness as a part of society, shifted away from Ancient Egypt’s reverent view of disabilities and dwarfism. Ancient Greece’s outlook indicated how disabilities were not meant to be fully accepted. Aristotle’s commentary pushed towards a negative view of dwarfism and the idea that disabilities limited human potential. He expressed how those with dwarfism were expected to have lives of lesser quality and dismissed their potential intelligence as being limited due to their size. Despite the political nature of accepting disabilities as part of society, they were still being ostracized in a social sense through Aristotle’s social commentary and the artistic depictions. As the mid 19th century saw an explosion of disability popularity, this came in a combined sensation of both disgust and extreme curiosity stemming from the more abled-bodied majority of Americans. The majority of individuals controls this ever-changing perception, with the majority of individuals are those who are able-bodied. Robert Bodgan's observation of freak shows, along with their associated alienation of certain individuals, provides insight into how the concept of a master status affected disabilities. Disabilities were, and are, a primary means of identification for many. Personally, my peers have referred to me as "the girl with dwarfism," if my name does not suffice. This proves that my disability is an identifier. Rosemary Thomson's study examines how we, as humans, decide what forms of identification are acceptable or not acceptable in society. From this decision, we may also prescribe forms of consequences to those who are different. Ultimately, freak shows played on others' ability to make judgments on those who differed from the majority. As for standing out, this idea is dependent on changing categories prescribed by a particular group of individuals. The definition and representation of a freak fluctuated throughout the course of freak shows in their peak popularity. The word freak had a changing definition as it was subjective to a societal context, that is, the current time, place, and held beliefs. As a prominent physical disability, dwarfism stood out and gained attention from strangers. Perceived differences in body composition between those with dwarfism and those without dwarfism allowed those in the majority to capitalize upon these differences. Eventually, Hollywood actor Billy Barty formed an organization dedicated to the awareness and advocating for individuals with dwarfism. In 1957, Barty met with twenty other little people in Nevada and formed the organization Little People of America or LPA. The organization today includes approximately five thousand families across the nation.25 LPA holds an annual national conference, where individuals with dwarfism within the country can gather and meet. The national conferences feature discussions and lectures on various relatable topics, medical tools and resources, access to outside supporting organizations, and ample opportunities to meet and befriend other little people. Some smaller conferences and gatherings occur in regional districts, and these are not limited to meeting once a year, like the national conference. These smaller conferences do not provide resources on the same level as the national conference does, but rather focus on building relationships and fostering communities. The mission statement of LPA is as follows:

24 Ikram, et al., 163. 25 Backstrom, Laura. “From the Freak Show to the Living Room: Cultural Representations of Dwarfism and Obesity.” Sociological Forum 27, no. 3 (September 2012): 682–705, 688.

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To [improve] the quality of life for people with dwarfism throughout their lives while celebrating with great pride Little People’s contribution to social diversity. LPA strives to bring solutions and global awareness to the prominent issues affecting individuals of short stature and their families.26

Previous LPA President Gary Arnold encompassed this idea in his newsletter, collectively calling the member’s goal as “creating communities in which people with dwarfism can pursue educational, employment, and social opportunities on an equal playing field.”27 While LPA provides physical and health-related information, it also serves to connect individuals. For many, these annual conferences are their only chance to meet and connect with others who have similar conditions. Brian Watermeyer finds in Disability and Social Change how communities centered around the gathering and collaboration amongst individuals with disabilities provide means of coping, acceptance and relating socially.28 With the eventual diminishment of public freak shows, it is worth noting that these freak shows did not entirely vanish, but found a footing within the creation of reality television. Under the pretense of spreading awareness, reality shows about otherness and differences that emerged in television. Similarly, to freak shows, the focus of reality shows ranges from lifestyle choices to disabilities to unique living situations. A few examples of these reality shows include My 600 Pound Life, The Undateables, Sister Wives, and Hoarders. This modern representation through media leads to the current representation of dwarfism. With shows such as Little People Big World, The Little Chocolatiers, The Little Couple, Pit Boss, Our Little Family, and Little Women LA, dwarfism is no stranger to television and is at the forefront of reality television. The question might be raised, then, why is dwarfism a major focal point of reality television? The 2018 “Routledge Companion to Media, Sex, and Sexuality” proposes such fascination stems from an unconscious desire for individuals, part of the majority, to feel validated in their own skin.29 In a sense, these shows reinforce the socially-constructed bridge between ‘normal’ and ‘other.’ They perpetuate differences while seemingly pushing viewers to feel better about themselves. The constructed majority is validated in their decision to separate themselves from the labeled others, as the others’ lives are broadcasted on television and become the object of fascination and entertainment. Mariela Gonzalez captures this sentiment in her Thesis, “Stereotypes of Little People and Their Depictions within Fictional and Non-Fictional Television.” Gonzalez states that the media effectively “uses stereotypical images as a strategy of subjugation as a way of disempowering the little people community.30 Under the masquerade of empowering, reality television and media only perpetuate the culture of othering and otherness. Concerning dwarfism, Gonzalez argues there are three main categories used for representation: magical creatures and fantasy, angry or violent behaviors, or comic relief.31 All three of these categories work together to reinforce the stereotypes that haunt individuals with dwarfism continually. Fantasy depictions consist of mystical and

26 https://www.lpaonline.org/mission- 27 https://www.lpaonline.org/presidents-letter 28 Watermeyer, Brian. Disability and Social Change: A South African Agenda. (Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council, 2006), 375. 29 Smith, Clarissa, and Feona Attwood. The Routledge Companion to Media, Sex, and Sexuality. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018). 30 Gonzalez, Mariela. (2015). Stereotypes of Little People and Their Depictions Within Fictional and Non-Fictional Television (Unpublished master’s thesis). Retrieved from https://sfsu- dspace.calstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10211.3/141615/AS362015BROADG66.pdf?sequence=1. 31 Gonzalez, 9.

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The Franciscan magical beings and phenomena. Gonzalez states films such as Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings utilize these fantastical depictions wherein little people are suggested to have superhero powers.32 Angry and violent portrayals of dwarfism encourage the notion that individuals with dwarfism are inherently prone to anger and are aggressive. With “mini-me” from Austin Powers and the “Hank, the Angry Drunken Dwarf,” little people are reinforced to be negative and perpetually upset individuals.33 Recently, the comic relief of little people appeared in Todd Phillip’s 2019 Joker. In Joker, the character Gary who has dwarfism (played by Leigh Gill), is used for laughs through numerous height-related jokes and to break a tense moment where Gary’s height is referenced as a means of potential demise. These categories and their accompanying media depictions remind society that for disabilities to have representation, they cannot solely exist by themselves; they must have some defining label. Because they are not fully understood or accepted by society, they must be a label to exist and have meaning. With these depictions in mind, it is equally important to recognize that positive depictions do exist. A positive depiction of dwarfism that has been at the forefront of disability awareness in the media is HBO’s Game of Thrones. Peter Dinklage, who has appeared in a multitude of shows and films, plays the character Tyrion Lannister. Tyrion is a member of the Lannister family and holds a high position in society as a Lord. Gonzalez examines his character and his impact on the show, finding that his physical representation prevents him from being seen as a mythical creature, but rather, he is presented as a human. The show works to portray Tyrion as “an independent person who recognizes his condition, which does not stop him from pursuing his ambitions and aspirations.”34 Game of Thrones not only acknowledges the discrimination, prejudice, and inequity that little people may face but works to present dwarfism and disabilities in a way that no other shows will do, escaping the “traditional hegemonic way” of stereotyping.35 This attitude that HBO has taken is essential to begin dismantling the box of stereotypes and representations reserved exclusively for those with disabilities. However, these positive representations cannot undo all of the damage inflicted by the negative portrayals. With centuries of negative leaning depictions, disabilities and dwarfism are still primarily seen as something that is and should be removed from society. In an ideal world, there would be no need to have distinct modes of identification or the “us” and “them” mentality. Watermeyer touches on this sentiment, finding this mentality to be an “illusionary binary opposition” with the media reinforcing this opposition and contributing to continuing stigmas and misunderstandings.36 These stigmas and misconceptions date back to the multitude of negative perceptions (as seen with Aristotle to the freak shows). They will take more than a few positive depictions in television to undo. Conclusion

While there are both positive and negative portrayals within the ancient and modern societies of humanity, it is important to look at otherness from a religious perspective. By examining and understanding the current history of otherness and dwarfism, one may start to see the role they play in God’s greater plan. The Bible contains quite a few instances of otherness and how they

32 Gonzalez, 9. 33 Gonzalez, 10. 34 Gonzalez, 35. 35 Gonzalez, 37. 36 Watermeyer, 374.

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Articles may impact the lives of others. The Gospel of John presents the parable of the blind man, highlighting how God utilizes several means of sharing His glory. The passage reads:

As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.37 Jesus explains how God’s glory can manifest in several ways, such as disabilities. Now, while this parable provides an instance of Jesus performing a miracle to heal a man with a disability, disabilities do not have the sole purpose of being healed. People with disabilities are given a unique situation in life and must experience trials that are unfamiliar to more able-bodied individuals. Because of this, those with disabilities may develop powerful testimonies of the strength and perseverance they must draw from God in order to face these difficulties. These personal strengths and testimonies call a witness to God’s almighty power and control in these situations and illustrate how faith is an unwavering and powerful component in our lives. We, as humans, are perfectly imperfect, tainted in sin yet made in God’s image. It is not our job, as humans, to make a judgment concerning disabilities as we cannot fully understand God’s plan for them. Therefore, it is conclusive that disabilities are not a product of sin but a gift from God. With the twenty-first century bursting with disability awareness and activism, it may feel like the culmination of the history of otherness is coming to an end. However, it is crucial to note that we are simply at the present culmination of the history of otherness and that it has not ended yet and will not until human life ends. If a person with a disability, such as dwarfism, were to be asked what their perfect world looks like, they may provide a reply along the lines of complete and utter acceptance and integration into society. Personally, as a disabled woman, I would say that my perfect world is to simply be me. I do not want to be seen as something accidental, bad, or pitied, nor do I want to be seen as a divine gift or blessing. I would prefer to exist as God made me, just as He made everyone else with their unique bodies. Beginning with Ancient Egypt’s reverence of dwarfism to Ancient Greece’s hesitation on full acceptance to the freak show’s capitalization, dwarfism has always been seen as something. Whether it be mystical and magical, to a curse, a hindrance, or abnormality, dwarfism is a form of otherness continually facing labeling and differentiation. For people classified as other, it is a constant battle to be seen as a person before the otherness, or disability. In the end, we want to be seen as a person, nothing more, nothing less.

37 John 9: 1-7, ESV.

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Mussolini’s Albanian Foreign Policy and the Tension between Ideological Purity and Political Pragmatism, 1926-1939

Ryan Dunn

Abstract: One of the most significant figures of 20th Century history is Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy from 1922 to 1943, a man who was foundational to the political philosophy of fascism. His abuse of Italian nationalism following the country’s unification led to a far-right movement that dominated Italy and spread to Nazi Germany and Francoist Spain, changing the face of Europe for decades. This paper evaluates Mussolinian historiography concerning his foreign policy toward Albania, a foreign policy riddled with peculiar decisions. His decision to invade a country with little strategic advantage to Italy brings into question Mussolini’s intention. Why would he invade Albania instead of maintaining dominance in Africa? Modern historiography contends that many of Mussolini’s decisions were not reliant on fascist purity, but, rather, the co-option of his political rivals. As opposed to relying on an ideologically dominated foreign policy, Mussolini eschewed fascist purity, using Albania as one tool to appease his opposition, to solidify his regime’s power over the Kingdom of Italy.

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The study of the dictatorial state is imperative to understanding the ideological landscape that determined 20th Century politics in Europe. One of the most consequential leaders of the 20th Century was Benito Mussolini, who himself is the founder of fascism. While Hitler is generally regarded as the preeminent example of fascism, the study of Mussolini allows for the exploration of a relatively philosophical man whose political ideology was shaped much by contingency, personal experience of World War I, and was less a result of other European fascist ideologies emerging in the years after the first war. Indeed, there are significant differences between Italian fascism and Hitler’s political ideology. Mussolini and Hitler differ significantly in their treatment of European Jews; while Mussolini viewed all Jews as Italian and, therefore, part of the superior Italian race, Hitler regarded German Jews as non-German and inferior. Traditionally, the range of historiography regarding Mussolini extended from Renzo de Felice to Denis Mack. Renzo de Felice focused on Mussolini as an acuminous diplomat with a solid ideology. Denis Mack Smith viewed Mussolini as an opportunist whose only political drive was to realize fascist goals. However, modern Mussolinian historiography, mostly promulgated by RJB Bosworth, is beginning to reconsider Mussolini’s fervor, instead noting that many of his actions were regarded as a response to political demand as opposed to ideology. Therefore, this paper argues that Mussolini’s foreign policy toward Albania was ultimately crafted for the co-optation of the Catholic Church, the Italian Monarchy, the Italian Army, and Italian society-at-large as opposed to fascist purity. Before the study of Mussolini’s foreign policy, it is imperative to understand more generally the theory of state authoritarianism. One prevailing theory, presented by Johannes Gerschewski, supposes a three-pillar system that propagates the authoritarian state. The first pillar is legitimation, which is the taking and maintenance of power through either legal or illegal means; in Mussolini’s case, both legal and extralegal means were utilized to assume power. Secondarily, repression, that is, the oppression and suppression of the opposition, is key to a dictatorial state. Lastly, co-optation, or working with, and to some extent, assuming the goals of the opposition, is imperative to maintaining power.1 This third pillar is the focus of this paper: how Mussolini co- opted his political opposition in his foreign policy goals, particularly Italy’s interest in the Albanian region. Concerning foreign policy, historians will likely note that Mussolini’s main goals and intentions revolved around Africa - more specifically, Abyssinia - as opposed to Albania. Mussolini’s foreign policy toward Albania stands as an extraordinary, unexpected focus of attention. Arguably, the European rush for the Balkans echoes the Imperialist fervor that led to the race for Africa in the late nineteenth-century. With the 1918 collapse of the Austro- Hungarian Empire and the 1913 removal of the Ottoman Empire from Europe, the Balkans suddenly entered into a precarious situation; the former hegemons left a power vacuum for other nations to move into. However, it should be noted that on the surface, the Balkans offered no distinct strategic advantage to Italy; for Italy already had access to the Mediterranean via all three sides of its peninsula and the Balkans altogether lacked natural resources, except Serbia - which was not the focus of Mussolini’s foreign policy. The Albanians were altogether different from the Italians; their population was about 70% Muslim and 10% Eastern Orthodox, compared to near-universal Catholicism in Italy.2 Mussolini’s peculiar choice, then, is worth exploring, for he had no strategic advantage to exerting his influence over Albania.

1 Johannes Gerschewski, “The Three Pillars of Stability: Legitimation, Repression, and Co-Optation in Autocratic Regimes,” Democratization 20, no. 1 (2013): 13-38. 2 Robert Wolff, The Balkans in Our Time, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1956), 136.

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Benito Mussolini’s Rise to Power 1915-1919: A Budding Ideology

As early as 1915, Mussolini began formulating his fascist ideology based on his life experiences. His earliest writings attempt to corral support by referring to his followers and himself as “noi, interventisti e fascisti” (It. we, interventionists and fascists).3 Having been a soldier in the Bersaglieri from 1905 to 1906, Mussolini’s early socialist tendencies began to turn into expressions of extreme patriotism.4 His patriotism developed into full-fledged nationalism following the violation of the 1915 Treaty of London, which had promised to grant Italy the regions of Dalmatia, Tyrol, Trieste, the Port of Fiume, and a protectorate status over Albania.5 The Treaty of Paris essentially ignored the Treaty of London; Italy won no new territorial gains, which filled Mussolini with righteous indignation. He surmised that the rest of Western Europe had excluded Italy, an act that would contribute significantly to the reshaping of his political beliefs and his articulation of a new Italian nationalism. In 1919, Mussolini launched the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (It. “Italian Fascists of Revolution”) movement. This political movement was focused both on an extreme idolization of Giuseppe Mazzini, who was foundational in Italian Unification, as well as an implementation of Mazzini’s political thinking in 20th-century Italy.6 Mussolini viewed Risorgimento (It. ‘Reawakening,’ Italian Unification) as evidence of Italy’s unique status among nations and credited Mazzini for this movement. Risorgimento, though it occurred in 1861, had deeply impacted Mussolini’s political beliefs and worldview. He saw Risorgimento as the first step in rebuilding a modern Italian-Roman Empire;7 Nevertheless, it is clear that without Mazzini, there would have been no Italian fascism as understood by Mussolini. Though Risorgimento itself was contingent on several factors, it promulgated a united Italy, which fought in the First World War, failed to arrogate its promised lands, which encouraged nationalists like Mussolini to craft ideologies. Mussolini was only able to form his ideology from the series of contingent events that started with Italian unification. Additionally, the Fasci Italiani di Combattimiento was in opposition to the Partito Socialistia Italiano (It. “Italian Socialist Party”).8 As such, Mussolini viewed Socialism as the fundamental contradiction of Risorgimento and a denial of Italian virtues. Mussolini began to define the tenants of fascism more clearly. Fascism itself is inextricably connected to nationalism and Social Darwinism, which both teach that the state and people therein are superior to other nations around the world. Likewise, Mussolini advocated militarism or the glorification and veneration of the military. He also applied Risorgimento’s idea of irredentism to the post-World War I settlement, claiming that the promised lands were due Italy’s name and that Italy ought to annex them. His fascist movement gave way to his relatively quick rise to power just a few years later.

1920-1927: From Political Theorist to Dictator

3 RJB Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of Mussolini and Fascism, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998), 38-39. 4 Gaudens Megaro, Mussolini in the Making, (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1938), 83. 5 Keely Rogers and Joanna Thomas, The Move to Global War, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015), 90. 6 Herbert Schneider, Making the Fascist State, (New York, Oxford University Press, 1928), 89 7 Rogers & Thomas, The Move to Global War, 97. 8 Schneider, Making the Fascist State, 89.

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At this point, Mussolini’s fascist movement began to gain an increasing presence in localities throughout Italy and began to shape itself into a formal political party. Small ‘revolutions’ occurred in Trieste, Ferrara, Bologna, Florence, and Empoli before Mussolini was appointed Prime Minister.9 Italian fascists were vociferously anti-socialist and became increasingly violent in their responses to local socialist politicians and governments. They co-opted the army and police forces of the prefectures, which also tended to be anti-Socialist.10 Fascism appealed to young individuals, who joined for the ceremonial aspects of the movement, such as the marches, uniforms, and salutes.11 However, Mussolini’s tasks and goals were too nebulous and philosophical for the average fascist to follow: he realized he had to call his men to arms.12 In the early 1920s, Italian politics was deeply divided, which, in part, made possible Mussolini’s October 1922 March on Rome. The Popular Party held a sort of coalition government but was unable to achieve any of its policy goals due to quibbling with the Partito Socialista Italiano.13 The Parliament and Government had been losing popular support, such that King Victor Emmanuel III was faced with the possibility of appointing a socialist Prime Minister to mollify his people.14 Mussolini called his men to arms; on October 28, 1922, he ordered about 50,000 men of his Black Shirts movement to march into Rome. After about a day of standstill between the military and the Black Shirts, the King offered Mussolini the position of Prime Minister, which he accepted.15 Victor Emmanuel’s appointment of Mussolini as Prime Minister was the most pragmatic option available for the King: he was an alternative to socialism and communism, the elite believed they could control Mussolini, and nationalism was already on the rise in Italy.16 In his first years as Prime Minister, Mussolini had to deal with the reality of a divided cabinet and parliament; however, several events in the next years would allow him to assume dictatorial powers. Upon creation of the Mussolinian Cabinet, only four out of 12 ministers were fascists.17 However, by February 1923, the Nationalist Party joined the Fascists, effectively allowing Mussolini’s desired legislation, including the Acerbo Law, to pass. The Acerbo Law stipulated that whichever party won a plurality of the votes in the Parliamentary election would be granted two-thirds of the total seats.18 Therefore, by April 1924, the Fascist Party increased its Parliamentary representation from 7% of the seats to 67%.19 Through intimidation and quite literally, murder,20 Mussolini strategically moved to make himself a dictator: in December 1925, the Law on Powers of Head of Government granted Mussolini sweeping executive powers. With his power, he banned opposing political parties and all unions, he significantly curtailed the freedom of the press, and he deposed elected officials at the local level, appointing Fascists to fill various roles.21 By 1927, Mussolini had established the Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la

9 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 41. 10 Ibid. 11 Schneider, Making the Fascist State, 79 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., 80. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., 82. 16 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 41. 17 Rogers & Thomas, The Move to Global War, 96. 18 Schneider, Making the Fascist State, 89. 19 Rogers & Thomas, The Move to Global War, 96. 20 Giacomo Matteotti was murdered by Fascists 11 days after giving a speech in the Chamber of Deputies in condemnation of Fascism. Though Mussolini had taken the blame, his support did not waver. See Delzell 13-15. 21 Rogers & Thomas, The Move to Global War, 96.

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Repressione dell’Antifascismo It. “Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism,” or OVRA), a secret police organization; likewise, he suspended habeas corpus and increased the scope of the death penalty to include anti-governmental action. Though he doubtlessly created an authoritarian regime, Mussolini’s rise to power differs from other 20th Century European dictators. He legitimized his power through the legal means of the King’s appointment, though, with the underlying, legally nebulous tactics of a march on the capital and nondemocratic legislation to aggrandize his power. He oppressed opposition through the Acerbo Acts and the OVRA, in addition to the overhaul of the Italian legal system. Unlike his dictatorial peers, Mussolini had to heavily focus on the co-optation of non-Fascists, notably, the King and the Pope. This co-optation would eventually force Mussolini into taking strategic foreign policy actions that he otherwise would have ignored, most notably, regarding Albania.

1912 – 1922: Albania, a Precarious Independence

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Balkans were entirely split among the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Specifically, Albania was under Ottoman control until it declared independence in November 1912.22 The independence effort was achieved following the First Balkan War (1912-1913), which effectively allowed the Balkan League, under the Russian Empire’s hegemony and material support, to push the Ottomans out of Europe permanently.23 For the newly independent Albania, an epoch of uncertainty and instability would lead them into the tutelage of Mussolini’s Italy. Following the First Balkan War, Albania crafted a provisional government under Prime Minister Ismail Qemali, which would only last from 1912 – 1914.24 This provisional government primarily sought to maintain stability and escape from the collapsing Russian and Ottoman hegemonies. By 1914, Albania was declared the Principality of Albania; Wilhelm zu Wied, a German Prince, assumed the title of King Vidi I and reigned for a brief time over this constitutional monarchy.25 The Parliament was a bicameral legislature, which answered to the Prime Minister, who acted as Head of Government.26 However, there was intense competition for hegemony over the Balkans between the Italians, who sought to dominate the Adriatic, and the Austrians, who wanted a powerful Albania to balance out Serbian power.27 Though he remained de facto King until 1925, Vidi I went into exile in September 1914, after only a six-month reign as King.28 The resultant crisis, with the Serbs, Greeks, Italians, and Turks prying for influence over Albania, was exacerbated by the First World War, which had begun in July 1914. By the end of World War I, the Principality of Albania was restored to its former status.

1922-1930: Ahmet Zogu

By December 1922, one of the most significant figures in Albanian history was appointed Prime Minister: Ahmet Bey Zogu.29 A prominent member of the Popular Party, Zogu was an ambitious

22 Robert Wolff, The Balkans in Our Time, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1956), 93. 23 Ibid., 92-93. 24 Ibid., 137. 25 Ibid., 95 26 Ibid., 136. 27 Ibid., 95. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibi.d, 137.

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Muslim leader of the Mati Tribe.30 He had mainly focused on agrarian reform and related domestic and infrastructural improvements.31 He had appointed advisors from throughout Europe in order to use diverse perspectives to begin to solve Albania’s military and economic issues.32 However, the ever-precarious situation of Albania forced Ahmet Zogu into resigning his position in February 1924; he went into a yearlong exile in Yugoslavia. The death knell of the Principality had been rung: the country would again collapse by December following Yugoslav intervention.33 However, by early 1925, Zogu had returned to Albania to form a new Republic with the remaining Parliament.34 He was elected President for a 7-year term and primarily focused on creating stability in the Albanian Republic; this included passing legislation to curtail vendettas and limit the number of firearms. His perceived success allowed for a Constitutional Amendment that eliminated the Senate and named Zogu King; he assumed the regnal name Zog I.35 His title was ‘King of the Albanians’, which indicated that he claimed authority over all Albanians, both within and outside of the country’s borders.36 During this period, he again focused on disarming warring tribes and maintaining British advisors, much to the consternation of the Italians.37 Throughout the unstable period of 1912-1930, the only individual in Albania that could form a functional government was Zog; however, he had to receive outside aid from somewhere to maintain power. Italy would soon fill that need. Mussolini’s Foreign Policy toward Albania: Factors and Goals

Rogers and Thomas have identified many factors that directly contributed to Mussolini’s foreign policy actions. Mussolini is noted as having set his goal “[t]o make Italy great, respected, and feared.”38 His goals included the typically fascist ideals of garnering nationalism and militarism, as well as a revision of the Treaty of Paris. His underlying goal, however, was to arrogate spazio vitale (It. “living space”) and build another Roman Empire.39 This goal highlights Mussolini’s belief that he was the rightful successor of Risorgimento, though he reimagined its irredentist goals to include promised lands and lands that could fall under Italian control: Abyssinia and Albania. Given the calls from within his party to focus on the African territories of Abyssinia, Mussolini’s focus on the Balkans generally and Albania, in particular, is all the more remarkable. Contemporary historiography now focuses on Mussolini’s political sway and the degree to which he was willing to exercise hard power in order to realize the goals of Italian fascism. With relatively attainable foreign policy goals, such as conquering Abyssinia or supporting the nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, Mussolini doubtlessly wanted to exercise hard power. However, with extraordinary policy goals, such as Albania and, to some extent, the Second World War more broadly, Mussolini did not exhibit the same jingoism as other European fascist dictators. Indeed, he told King Victor Emmanuel III in 1940 that “[e]ven if Italy changed its views and passed bag and baggage to the Anglo-French side, it would not avoid an immediate war with

30 Ibid., 136. 31 Ibid., 137. 32 Ibid., 137-138. 33 Ibid., 139 34 Ibid., 139. 35 Ibid., 140. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid., 141. 38 Qtd in Rogers & Thomas, The Move to Global War, 97 39 Ibid.

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Germany. Furthermore, this war would be one which Italy would have to fight alone.”40 Bosworth contends that Mussolini did not exhibit ideological faith or purity, but, rather, fear - a willingness to turn from his fascist ally Adolf Hitler - and consideration of switching sides.41 This is a stark contrast to the ideas presented by historians who continue in the tradition of de Felice, whom himself continued to assert that fascism was a radical revolution occupied with ideological purity and was Mussolini’s sole motivating drive.42 More notably, MacGregor Knox suggests that Mussolini’s goal was singularly “an ideological, fascist, and totalitarian war,” citing Mussolini as an ideological hardliner.43 But a more careful examination of Mussolini’s motives begins to reveal that he was not the bellicose dictator that history usually views him as, but, rather, an opportunist who used force out of necessity as opposed to ideology.

1926-1940

Mussolini had begun to exert Italian influence over the Albanian region in his early term as Prime Minister, working with Zog to establish Italian hegemony. In the first place, the First Treaty of Tirana (1926) allowed for a number of Italian officers to take over the training of the Albanian Army, and Italy declared itself the “guarantor” of Albania, promising economic and military support over the country.44 Zog saw it fit to choose Italy as Albania’s protector as opposed to Yugoslavia, who had, just a few years before, collapsed the previous Albanian government.45 The Second Treaty of Tirana (1927) was an official alliance that also allowed for Italy’s access to the Port of Vlorë and access to Albanian minerals. Access to the Port of Vlorë would serve as a conduit for the later Italian invasion of Albania.46 The Albanian economic dependence on Italy proved advantageous during the 1929 Great Depression that had struck the Albanians and paralyzed their economy, still reeling from the aftermath of the First World War. Though the temporary aid given to Albania was beneficial in the short term, Zog made three decisions that began to distance himself from Mussolini: he, firstly, did not renew the First Treaty of Tirana in 1931 and, secondly, refused the Italian demands of joining a customs union, giving telegraph and electricity monopolies to Italy, and teaching Italian in Albanian schools in 1933.47 Thirdly, he signed a trade treaty with Yugoslavia in 1934, which further pulled Albania away from Mussolini's Italy. Because the work Mussolini had done to craft a hegemony over Albania was beginning to fade, he was forced to take decisive and immediate action. It is in response to these events that Mussolini turned from soft power and embraced a hard power response in order to guarantee a continued Italian presence in Albania. Hard power translated into the sending of the Italian naval fleet to Albania in an attempt to dissuade them from aligning further with Yugoslavia, a response that turned out to be a significant failure on Mussolini’s part.48 Following this initial failure, Mussolini temporarily restored economic support for Zog; following his successful eradication of two domestic uprisings, Zog accepted a gift of

40 Qtd in RJB Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World 1860-1960, (London, Routledge, 1996), 36. 41 Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World, 36. 42 Ibid. 43 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 100. 44 Wolff, The Balkans, 139. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., 141. 48 Ibid.

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3,000,000 gold francs in addition to new loans.49 However, these economic overtures were merely distractions - temporary placeholders until Mussolini finished the more important tasks of fighting a war in Abyssinia and resolving Italy’s involvement in the Spanish Civil War.50 However, by April 1939, with no conflict to occupy his military with, Mussolini then set his eyes back upon Albania. Two days after the April 5 birth of Zog’s heir apparent, Mussolini decided to invade Albania with a force of 100,000 troops and 600 aircraft.51 By April 8, Tirana was seized, and four days later, the Parliament had deposed the King in absentia, joining the Kingdom of Italy, rendering Victor Emmanuel III the new King of the Albanians.52

Vested Interests in Italian Foreign Policy The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, led by Pope Pius XI from 1922 to 1939, was inextricably connected to the politics of the Kingdom of Italy. The Church had a massive influence overall Italian life, including near-free reign over public education, which resulted in the teaching of Catholic morals to the Italian youth.53 Bosworth explains that the Catholic Church held a firm “silent majority” over Italian life.54 In fact, Pius XI had foreign policy inklings that, at times, were more powerful than Mussolini’s; he sought the aggrandizement of the Church’s power.55 The Catholic Church held a trifold interest in controlling Mussolini: sway over Italian politics, the extirpation of Islam, and the reunification of Eastern Orthodoxy with Rome. Foremost, the Catholic Church sought to expand its power over Italian politics. The Church already had a tradition of exerting its power over Italy - most of this desire is rooted in the fact that the Papal States held power over many parts of Lazio and central Italy from the 8th Century until 1870, when Napoleon III withdrew his security from the Pope and Risorgimento annexed the entire city of Rome, except for the Vatican Hill. From 1870 until 1929, each Pope assumed the status of Captivus Vaticani (Lat. “Captive of the Vatican”), effectively imprisoning himself in the Vatican as an act of defiance against the Kingdom of Italy; he refused to celebrate public Mass outside of St. Peter’s or use the throne in the Lateran Basilica.56 The Vatican had instructed Catholics not to vote in Italian elections up until 1914, again trying to show its power over the newly-united Italy.57 The Popes were unabashedly opposed to any form of Italian independence and refused to recognize any Italian Government or any treaties with the same until the election of Pius XI. In order to more fully engage in and influence Italian politics, the Vatican realized it had to engage in actual diplomacy with Mussolini. In February 1929, Mussolini and Pius XI had agreed that the Holy See would remain an independent microstate and receive compensation for the loss of the Papal States and also receive extraterritorial privileges in certain Roman buildings.58 Both Mussolini and the Pope saw this Lateran Treaty as a victory: the Pope could more openly engage

49 Ibid. 50 Ibid., 142. 51 Rogers & Thomas, The Move to Global War, 147. 52 Ibid., 149. 53 Schneider, Making the Fascist State, 216 54 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 149. 55 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 144. 56 Fattorini, Hitler, Mussolini, and the Vatican: Pope Pius XI and the Speech That was Never Made, (Cambridge, Polity, 2011), x-xvi. 57 Move to Global War, 85. 58 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 115-116.

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The Franciscan in Italy, and Mussolini mollified his enemy.59 Mussolini was confident enough to close the Italian Catholic Action and various Catholic Youth organizations. However, this victory was short-lived for Mussolini: the Pope had authored a 1931 encyclical entitled Non abbiamo bisogno (It. “We do not need”), which unabashedly condemned fascism for statolatry, anti-Catholicism, and for impeding the mission of the Church. The Pope had written in Italian as opposed to the usual Latin, conveying the severity of the issue.60 Mussolini remained firmly anti-clerical, even in spite of the strides made toward fixing Church-State relations.61 Despite his personal annoyance with religion, Mussolini realized that he had to work with the Church in one way or another, and the way he decided to co-opt the Church quietly was through material support and an eventual invasion of Albania. Since Mussolini could not engage in the repression of the Catholic Church, he had to resort to the co-option of the Church and assume some of the Pope’s goals as his own. One of the main goals of Pius XI’s papacy was the prevention of Catholic persecution throughout the world. Pius had also scourged Nazism with his 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge (Ger. “With burning anxiety”) and atheist Communism with his other 1937 encyclical Divini redemptoris (Lat. “Divine Redeemer”), both of whose regimes were actively repressing Christendom.62 Similar to the noted regimes, Albania saw the persecution of Roman Catholics since they were a minority group. Albania also had a substantial number of practitioners of Eastern Orthodoxy throughout the country; it can, therefore, be logically inferred that the Pope saw Italian hegemony over Albania as something positive. In fact, following the Tirana Treaties, a number of Roman Catholic schools were opened in Northern Albania, under the control of Italians.63 With the 1939 invasion of Albania, the Church, at that point under the leadership of Pius XII, had remained silent, which is a stark contrast to the powerful denouncements previously made against authoritarian regimes. Though a takeover of Albania was not directly outlined as a pontifical foreign policy goal, the Papacy certainly benefited by the Kingdom of Italy annexing Albania: they could exert their influence in areas such as public education. While no action of Mussolini’s would have allowed for the full cooperation of the Papacy, his unusual decision to invade Albania was part of his plan of co-opting the Church, appealing to its perennial desire to hold power and land.

The Monarchy

Also holding a pertinent vested interest in Italian foreign policy, King Victor Emmanuel III assumed power over the Kingdom of Italy in 1900 and effectively led the nation through the First World War; however, the rise of Benito Mussolini and his assumption of dictatorial power began to curtail the King’s power. The Italian Monarchy had been under scrutiny since its foundation - each monarch had to serve as King of a great number of people groups with their languages and customs.64 In order to salvage his image and his throne, Victor Emmanuel had to either take or allow for radical action. Throughout his reign, the King’s actions were encouraged by both his religious faith and his desire to solidify his power.

59 Ibid. 60 Charles Delzell, Mussolini’s Enemies: The Italian Anti-Fascist Resistance, (New York, Howard Fertig, 1974), 104. 61 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 144. 62 Fattorini, Hitler, Mussolini, and the Vatican, 132. 63 Wolff, The Balkans, 141. 64 Delzell, Mussolini’s Enemies, 70.

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One of the King’s grand strategic errors was his blind faith in religion, which significantly impacted his ability to make sound decisions. As an heir to the pious Savoy- Carignano Throne, Victor Emmanuel III was a profoundly religious man who sought to please his Pope. Delzell notes that the King acts as a sort of “altar boy” for the Pope, allowing Pius XI to exert ecclesiastical influence overall Italian life.65 In allowing the Church to control public education, the King effectively granted the Pope free reign to control the Italian youth.66 Mussolini himself noted that Italy’s “ethical character… is Catholic but also Fascist, indeed before all else exclusively and essentially Fascist.”67 This speech essentially forced the King to choose between politics and religion, and he was forced, to some extent, to defer to Mussolini. Given that the King was the Pope’s puppet, one can reasonably assume that the King would remain silent where the Pope does. The Pope’s goal of ending Catholic persecution indeed was adopted by the King; therefore, Victor Emmanuel III becoming King of the Albanians served as a conduit through which he could further please the Pope by bringing an end to Christian subjugation in the Muslim-majority country. Second, the King needed to solidify his power over the Italian people in order to serve as a man who could unify his people. He was wildly unpopular among his people in the early 20th Century, such that one widely circulated leaflet said, “Italians who are suffering the shame of being written off by the world as a servile herd do not know if you are with them or with the garrison of oppressors. Your Majesty: Choose! There is no third road”.68 The King needed to unite the Italians, and that opportunity was granted by Benito Mussolini; with his specific goal of maintaining a unified Italy, it was a particularly wise choice to appoint Mussolini as Prime Minister. In fact, for extra measure, the King had endorsed the creation of three Catholic Nationalists, Fascist movies between 1940-1943, which had attempted to reconcile Fascism and Catholicism through popular culture.69 The invasion of Albania served as an opportunity to unite the Italians together: a common enemy for all would begin to assuage the conflicts between his people. While the King was privately opposed to invading Albania, Mussolini had effectively utilized co-optation in ensuring that the Parliament named both Mussolini and the King as the “First Marshal of the Empire.”70 Mussolini ensured that the King would be supportive of his foreign policy endeavors. Since the invasion of Albania allowed for greater unification of the Italian people, it was advantageous for the King, which is why he remained silent. Mussolini had effectively used his political power to force Victor Emmanuel into supporting his cause. The Army

Another pertinent factor in Mussolini’s foreign policy was the co-option of the Army since no totalitarian regime can survive without the support of the military. In the study of the authoritarian state, it must be noted that heavy utilization of the military can be attributed to most dictators;71 To keep the military in a state of acquiescence, the dictator must actively use, but not exhaust, it. Mussolini was tasked with the crafting of a realistic grand strategy for his military to carry out in order to co-opt them into supporting him to achieve his domestic goals, and part of his grand strategy was extended to dominating Albania.

65 Ibid., 101. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 Ibid., 70. 69 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 164. 70 Delzell, Mussolini’s Enemies, 174. 71 Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World, 38.

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Mussolini needed sweeping military action in order to ensure the Royal Italian Army remained under his tutelage. In order to gauge the status of the Army, he often sent Fascist squadrons to fight alongside the ordinary troops.72 Their tactics included poison gas and eradication of the enemy’s culture, both of which were incorporated most notably in Mussolini’s takeover of Abyssinia.73 At this point, the Army began to recruit a number of young fascists who were devoted to the militaristic and nationalistic fervor that swept over Italy - they had the desire to go to war for their fatherland.74 Part of Mussolini’s plan to aggrandize his power included an utter lack of military reform; the unethical status quo that existed, though it empowered Mussolini with the Army’s support, required a state of near-perpetual war.75 Notably, Mussolini was vehemently against Imperialism before the First World War, yet he became an interventionist, and an imperialist regarding Abyssinia and Albania, upon his assumption of leadership.76 This peculiar change of heart seems to be a response to the military’s own desire for war as opposed to gaining strategic advantage from Albania. Mussolini’s take-over of the military was a long-term, well thought out plan that he crafted to his advantage. In May 1927, around the time of the signing of the Treaty of Tirana, Mussolini said in a speech, “We must be ready at a given moment to mobilize five million men and be able to arm them… Then tomorrow, when, between 1935 and 1940, we shall… be able to make our voice heard”.77 Right on the dot, Mussolini invaded Abyssinia in 1935, intervened in the 1936- 1939 Spanish Civil War, invaded Albania in 1939, and joined the Second World War in 1940. From the initial support provided to Albania, Mussolini began to craft his grand strategic plan of Balkan domination. Though it provided no strategic upper hand, Mussolini cunningly planned his invasion of Albania, with the result of an Army fully backing him. Mussolini understood the strategic and tactical reality that Italy could not survive a sustained war against a powerful adversary like France or Great Britain; consequently, the more attainable goals of Abyssinia and Albania became the focus of his foreign policy.

Italian Society

In order to maintain his appearance of continuing the spirit of Risorgimento, Mussolini had to co- opt various facets of Italian society and be a leader that represents all Italians. He had to strike a balance between the aforementioned interests of the Church, the Monarchy, and the Army, with the interests of various Italian citizens. While he did repress the opposition, it is notable that Fascism itself was a spectrum of beliefs that Mussolini struggled to contain. Therefore, Mussolini had to co-opt the political goals of an entire spectrum of nationalists, militarists, and fully-fledged fascists. In order to achieve this goal, Mussolini had first to garner the support of the nationalists who believed in the superiority of the Italian people but perhaps ignored other fascist ideals. For example, Mussolini effectively amassed the support of radicals like Roberto Farinacci and less extreme nationalists like Luigi Federzoni through his appeal to the Church and Monarchy, which bolstered the nationalists, and the Army, which appealed to more extreme nationalists who sought

72 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 4. 73 Ibid. 74 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 41. 75 Ibid., 115-116. 76 Schneider, Making the Fascist State, 17. 77 Qtd in Ibid., 35.

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Articles military interventionism.78 With these actions, he was able to overpower anti-Fascist movements, for he garnered the support of all prideful Italians, appealing to various facets of their identities.79 Mussolini’s increased veneration of the military also co-opted the support of the most extreme faction of nationalists, whose ground was laid by men such as the publicist Matteo Pantaleoni and the Minister of Colonies Ferdinando Martini, both of whom advocated for the domination and genocide of certain non-Italian groups.80 Mussolini catered to these extreme positions by committing genocide against the Abyssinians and Albanians. Through his bold foreign policy initiatives, Mussolini effectively co-opted the support of an entire society of people. To a lesser extent, Mussolini also catered to the press itself through his foreign policy actions. During the early 1900s, a new philosophy of nationalism was formed that radicalized Risorgimento’s focus on patriotism. However, this radical nationalism was attributed mostly to young journalists like Enrico Corradini, who founded Il Regno.81 While Mussolini initially catered easily to those with whom his ideas aligned, he struggled to maintain the press’s support, leading to the repression of the opposition. Following the fascists’ 1924 murder of Matteotti, one of Matteotti’s fellow socialists had murdered the famed fascist syndicalist Armando Casalini; Mussolini failed to keep either side in check.82 The opposing press held Mussolini responsible for these murders, which led to Mussolini heavily repressing them. He incited fears of a Communist takeover, ensuring that even non-passionate supporters of his would flock to him. He furthermore suppressed some newspapers between 1924 and 1925, starting by oppressing the violent opposition, then gradually the less vituperative papers.83 Following his limiting of the press, Mussolini was then able to ensure a majority of publications were in his support. In order to garner the support of the remaining few who disagreed with him, Mussolini engaged in radical foreign policy with Albania, uniting all fascists against a common enemy.

Conclusion

In the period between 1926 and 1939, Mussolini took the extraordinary steps of exerting Italian influence over Albania. While Albania had the desired Port of Vlorë and some basic minerals that Italy could exploit, Mussolini readily accessed both of those through the Tirana Treaties; yet, despite the minimal strategic advantage with Albania, Mussolini took the unusual step of invading the country. With these historical facts in mind, the question of why Mussolini invaded Albania arises. With historiographical analysis, it becomes apparent that Mussolini’s foreign policy was done to co-opt his opposition; the Catholic Church, the Monarchy, the Army, and the society-at- large posed a significant threat to Mussolini’s regime. Mussolini’s rule over Italy was one of the most consequential periods of Italian and European history; this political theorist-turned-dictator reformed nationalism into an ideology that would affect Italy, Germany, and Spain for some years even after the end of the war. But an analysis of Mussolini’s correspondence also reveals that his public, fascist fervor was nothing but a facade used to amass support. Having riled up the Italian populace, promising a continuation of Risorgimento and the construction of an Italian Roman Empire, Mussolini effectively reformed

78 Bosworth, The Italian Dictatorship, 115. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid., 4. 81 Schneider, Making the Fascist State, 4. 82 Ibid., 95. 83 Ibid.

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The Franciscan the conscience of his people, uniting them with a nationalist zeal and common enemies in Abyssinia and Albania. He gathered the support of his people in crafting fascist regimes, be it through involvement in the Spanish Civil War or engaging in diplomacy with Nazi Germany. Even considering his fingerprint impressed upon 20th Century Europe, Mussolini’s impact on history can hardly be calculated; his ideology continues to live on in extremist factions and political parties throughout the West, who continue to venerate authoritarian regimes, military intervention, and extreme nationalism.

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The Historiography of John Warr’s ‘The Corruption and Deficiency of Lawes of England Soberly Discovered: or Liberty Working up to Its Just Height’

Meghan Gleeson

Abstract: This paper analyzes the political atmosphere at the time of John Warr's authorship of "The Corruption and Deficiency of Lawes of England Soberly Discovered: or Liberty Working up to Its Just Height." Research into adjacent political movements and their involvement in European controversies demonstrates the relevancy of John Warr's analysis in the 17th century. This paper also delineates the unique contentions within John Warr's arguments that enabled his composition to achieve impactful longevity within studies of political thought. John Warr's arguments offer key insights into the modern understandings of political positions and legal reform as he was a forerunner of Western Civilizations' political ideologies.

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Discovered: or Liberty working up to Its Just Height, written by John Warr as a call for citizens to intervene in politics. The political chasm during the early 17th century centered on ‘freedom’ and heavily influenced the writings of John Warr. Political and social extremists were among the popularly discussed topics of the day, and their ideas led to Warr’s inspiration to encourage the purification of the common law and the degradation of unfair legal rights. This paper will show that John Warr’s writings were conditioned to his time, but his unique principles achieved longevity. The historical context of Warr’s time includes economic distress and social inequality used as oppressive weapons against the majority of English individuals. Economically it appeared that the rich gained more money while the poor because more impoverished because of corrupt legislation. “Fortunes at every level do not seem to have risen markedly before 1660. The proportion of solvent London freemen with net personal estates of less than £500 fell from 58.63 percent in 1586-1614 to 39.32…”1 The majority of people were losing money while prices for necessities – such as food – climbed to new heights. “Composite food prices, however, between the 1490s and the 1650s increased by 687 percent, and though industrial prices increased more slowly, it is doubtful whether the charitable middling tradesmen improved their positions.”2 The economic crisis led to a social polarization between the poor and rich. The rich would segregate themselves from people they considered to be from a lower class than themselves. “The ‘poor inhabitants’ were set against opponents who were variously described as ‘some of the wealthier sort’; ‘men of great estate’ and as ‘some persons that have bene of the Richar sort’…we see the identification of social polarities feeding into the definition of community interests, and the identification of enemies of plebeian community.”3 Social segregation turned political sides against one another and encouraged clash amongst citizens. Within commonplace discussions, there was a social theme of constitutional rights and the necessity for social and political change. Dr. Paul Raffield’s4 research of early modern legal profession during the formulation of the English constitution discusses the effect of politics on familiar places such as the theater. Plays were required to be written for reading only and not performance if the play related to political strife in early modern England. An example – given by Dr. Paul Raffield – is an edition of a performance in which “The author invokes the constitutional supremacy of ‘the safety of the people’ enshrined in the Twelve Tables of Roman Law, Salus Populi est suprema lex: ‘The oath taken by the Members acknowledgeth a politique power in the King (governing according to his Oath at the Coronation) for the safety of the people.”5 Dr. Paul Raffield relates the common social places to the political discussion further when he said: “The political models suggested both by the above pamphlet and by Brathwait’s play of the same name resemble most closely those in which power vests in the community rather than a sovereign body.”6

1 Richard Grassby, “The Personal Wealth of the Business Community in Seventeenth-Century England.” The Economic History Review Vol. 23, No. 2. (1970): 225, JSTOR (DOI: 10.2307/2593827). 2 Grassby, The Economic History Review, 225. 3 Andy Wood, “Fear, Hatred and the Hidden Injuries of Class in Early Modern England.” Journal of Social History Vol. 39, No. 3. (2006): 811, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3790292 4 “Paul Raffield,” University of Warwick, last modified November 14, 2017, https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/people/paul_raffield/ 5 Paul Raffield, “A Discredited Priesthood: The Failings of Common Lawyers and Their Representation in Seventeenth Century Satirical Drama.” Law and Literature Vol. 17, No. 3. (2005): 381, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/lal.2005.17.3.365 6 Ibid. 381-382.

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The research of Dr. Raffield demonstrates how popularly discussed the fundamental beliefs of the Levellers were and maybe why John Warr felt compelled to write his political pamphlets. The Leveller movement of the early 17th century was considered radical socially and politically because they sought to break the traditional segregation measured by currency and make life fair in legal consideration. Dr. Philip Baker – Ph.D. and Research Assistant of the History of the Parliament Trust – wrote, “The Leveller movement was a distinctly urban phenomenon, a metropolitan cause that recruited its most persistent supporters from the capital. For these men (and women), the city and its suburbs served as the center of their printing and petitioning activities and as the scene of their greatest demonstrations.”7 The proletariats of cities were the founders and members of the Leveller movement and urged societal reform against the nobility and royals of English society. Dr. Baker wrote, “The Levellers have been regarded as the most forward-looking and ‘modern’ of the so-called radical groups of the mid-seventeenth-century English Revolution. Their views on the innate equality of man, on freedom of religious conscience, on the right to vote, and on the need to entrench these principles in a written constitution are frequently cited as a ‘program…filter for the twentieth century than for their own.’”8 The growth of extremism and communism from the Levellers led to acts such as the first agreement of the people. Ph. D. In Modern History – Dr. Ann Hughes wrote, “In the Agreement of May 1649: Lastly, from Levelling they proceed to introduce an absolute Community. And though neither the Athenian nor Roman Levellers, ever arrived at this high pitch of madnesse; yet we see there is a new Faction started up out of ours, known by the name of Diggers; who, upon this ground, That God is our common-Father, the earth our Common-Mother, and that the Original of Propriety was the mens pride and Covetousnesse, have framed a new plea for a Returne of all men ad Tuguria, that like the old Parthians, Scythian Nomades, and other wild Barbarians, we might renounce Townes and Cities, live at Rovers, and enjoy all in common.”9 The Diggers were the extremist that formed from the Leveller movement, and they embraced the antithetical arguments to tradition. The Agreement of the People in 1647 represented the political desires of the Levellers in England. The campaign that produced and preached the words of the Agreement led to the creation of the radical Leveller.10 England’s politics went from simple to being extremist, classing, and climaxing in aggression. Constant oppositions unsettled the nation and set the tone for the civil war to come and the writing of John Warr. In The Corruption and Deficiency of Lawes of England Soberly Discovered: or Liberty Working up to Its Just Height, Warr argues for the preservation and purification of common law. Warr sympathized with the Leveller movement and recognized the corruption of laws that could return to their original glory. He stated that the nature of “law reduced to its original state…is the protection of the poor against the mighty.”11 Warr believed that ideal laws would balance the power

7 Philip Baker, “London’s Liberty in Chains Discovered: The Levellers, the Civic Past, and Popular Protest in Civil War London.” Huntington Library Quarterly Vol. 76, No. 4. (2013): 560, JSTOR (DOI: 10.1525/hlq.2013.76.4.559) 8 Ibid. 559. 9 Ann Hughes, “Diggers, True Levellers and the Crisis of the English Revolution”, in The Agreements of the People, the Levellers and the Constitutional Crisis of the English Revolution (2012; Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2012), 218-219. https://page-one.live.cf.public.springer.com/pdf/preview/10.1057/9781137291707_10 10 Elliot Vernon and Philip Baker, “WHAT WAS THE FIRST ‘AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE’?” The Historical Journal Vol. 53, No. 1 (2010): 39-42, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25643882 11 John Warr, “The Corruption and Deficiency of Lawes of England Soberly Discovered: or Liberty Working up to Its Just Height,” in Divine Right and Democracy: An Anthology of Political Writing in Stuart England, ed. David Wootton (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 1986), 150.

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The Franciscan of rulers and the powers of proletariats. He wrote the “laws are the manacles of princes and the guards of private men.”12 During the early 17th century laws did not appear to achieve their intended purpose. The common law of England provided “bondage instead of freedom, and instead of safety, danger…the law of England is so full of uncertainty, nicety, ambiguity, and delay that the poor people are ensnared, not remedied, thereby.”13 The expected effect of laws was righteous, but the results were skewed. Warr witnessed the majority of civilians suffering from unequal favoring under laws. Warr pointed to two basic corruptions of the law. The first corruption was that “the rulers of the world…make their design to subdue laws as well as a person, and enforce both to do homage to their wills.”14 Warr’s statement reflects the political disagreements between the poor and the rich during the 1640s. The second corruption of laws is the “compliance” of the common people to obey these laws instead of fighting for their freedoms. Warr states “’Tis better to be ravished of our freedoms than to give them up as a free-will offering to the lusts of great men.”15 The nation of England, before the 1640s, choose to obey laws that enhanced inequality in representation instead of fighting to correct polluted legislations. The source of corruption in the written laws of England was not the fault of rulers at the time but flowed from the customs that favored conquerors. Warr described “fundamental laws” as the eldest customs that were written by conquerors of English land. He wrote, “Upon every conquest, our very laws have been found transgressors, and, without any judicial process, have undergone the penalty of abrogation.” Warr then recounts the past subjugators of England, going as far back as Rome victory over the Greeks. He prescribes the people of England the tasks to comb through legislation and to purify it of any victors’ bias custom. “If former ages have taken advantage to mix some wheat with the tares, and to insert some mites of freedom into our laws, why should we neglect to double our file, and to produce the perfect image of freedom, which is therefore neglected, because not known?” The citizenry of England may not know the exact pollution of regulation, but they should still strive to correct past mistakes of compliance. On the second corruption of the laws, neglecting to correct the laws in the past led to political strife reaching a climax in Warr’s era. Warr recognized both the higher powers that corrupted the statutes and the failures of the ordinary people to reject the debauchery. The freedoms that the English people enjoyed during the 1500s through the 1600s were won through battle, according to Warr. He wrote, “These freedoms were granted to the people not out of any love to them, but extorted from princes by the fury of war, or incessantness of address.”16 The people of England previously fought and must – during Warr’s time – fight for the defense of common law’s objective. Warr justifies the populace’s noncompliance and purification of legislation by appealing to the rational purpose of the law. He wrote, “Laws of freedom on behalf of people are more useful because directed to a more general good.”17 John Warr views political activism as not only a right but also an obligation of the people to maintain a thriving commonwealth.

12 Ibid., 152 13 Warr, The Corruption and Deficiency of Lawes, 157. 14 Ibid. 151. 15 Ibid. 151. 16 Warr, The Corruption and Deficiency of Lawes, 156. 17 Ibid. 158.

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Interpretations of John Warr’s The Corruption and Deficiency of Lawes of England Soberly Discovered: or Liberty Working up to Its Just Height, has linked his arguments to other dominant religious and political representation of the early 17th century. David Mulder wrote on the interpretation of Warr’s writings that “[His] pamphlets show first of all that John Warr possessed an original mind that was much influenced by his contemporaries, but which was dominated by none of them. He absorbed something of almost every radical religious or political trend of his time, but he put his special spin on each.” 18 Warr was politically active and aware of the English sphere. Mulder wrote, “For example, from the Levellers, he borrowed the idea that corrupt laws historically had been introduced into England by conquerors, but he rejected the Leveller’s idea that only the Norman Conquest was significant in this regard. To him, even the Roman conquest of Celtic Britain had introduced corrupt laws. Similarly, like Gerrard Winstanley, he believed that reason grew up in the minds of men because of the indwelling Spirit of God. However, he did not believe that this process would lead to communism, as Winstanley believed, but rather would lead to the spreading to all people of the spirit of liberty and equity.” Warr was original in his interpretations of specific arguments, but the fundamental points he made in his writings were derived from or very similar to other bureaucratic criticizers. He agreed with the overall scheme of Levellers but would disagree with minor points. The impact of Warr’s writing would later lead to revolutions but was far ahead of its time in the 17th century. “The most interesting aspect about Warr’s writings to modern people probably is that, with the ideas he drew out of the radical atmosphere of his time, he produced something that is disarmingly modern in appearance: a libertarian philosophy based on the idea that the proper role of the law is to protect the ruled from the ruler. When we read passages like ‘the end of just laws is the safety and freedom of a people,’ we cannot help but think of the men who made the American Revolution.”19 Mulder makes the point that Warr might have been a very early inspiration for the American revolutionaries in the late 18th century. Even Warr’s belief in written law’s ability to create equality in the commonwealth pioneered into later political theories. Mulder writes, “his distinctly early-modern belief in consensus politics, the notion that party and faction are not only evil but avoidable…He asserted that there was one common principle of freedom which (if discovered) would reconcile all.”20 This infatuation of freedom is homogeneous to the revolutions and civil wars in France and the Americas. Warr was heavily influenced and inspired by the current events of the 1640s but developed political ideals that would father greater revolutions than the civil wars of England. Political strife between the rich and the poor and movements such as the Levellers was among the major influences on Warr’s work. Warr believed that the common law of England should be preserved but should also be purified of corruption inherited from conquerors customs of the past. The thesis of John Warr’s The Corruption and Deficiency of Lawes of England Soberly Discovered: or Liberty Working up to Its Just Height, is the call for the people to fight for freedom and defend the virtuous intents of the common law.

18 David Mulder, “A Spark in the Ashes: The Pamphlets of John Warr.” Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies Vol 25. No. 2. (1993): 309-310, JSTOR (DOI: 10.2307/4051476). 19 Mulder, Albion, 309-310. 20 Mulder, Albion, 309-310.

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Indomitability and Aggressive Spirit: The Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Theatre,1939-1941

Jacob Lange

Abstract: The Battle for the Mediterranean during the Second World War is a topic that is often overshadowed by other, more well-known events. However, an understanding of this conflict is essential to envision how the circumstances surrounding pivotal battles such as Normandy and Stalingrad came to be. British strategy and operations in this theatre can be best understood through the writings of Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, the commander-in-chief of the British fleet in the Mediterranean. His correspondence with his superiors in London and other British commanders across the globe, found in the Churchill College Archives of the University of Cambridge, demonstrate his perspective of the role that his forces played in the grand scheme of the war. He firmly believed that his task was to assert British control of the Mediterranean Sea and to prevent Axis shipping and communication between North Africa and Italy. His recognition of the importance of air supremacy substantiates the arguments of historians such as Phillips Payson O’Brien, who argue for the ascendancy of airpower. Cunningham’s outstanding conduct and determination in the war for the Mediterranean confirm his standing as one of the premier commanders on either side of the conflict, ensured the safety of British forces in Egypt and the Middle East, and provided the Allies with a myriad of opportunities to strike at the Axis coalition from the south.

Terms and Abbreviations: RAF – British Royal Air Force RN – British Royal Navy Regia Aeronautica – Royal Italian Air Force Regia Marina – Royal Italian Navy Luftwaffe – German Air Force Combined COS – Combined Chiefs of Staff Fliegerkorps – Flying Corps (German) AA – Anti-aircraft

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The Second World War is often seen in terms of pivotal events and battles. Operation Overlord, the Battle of the Bulge, Stalingrad, the contest in the Atlantic, and Pearl Harbor are all well-known cases in popular memory that can be widely recognized and described. However, a focus on the sensational events can cause one to lose sight of the wider picture in this truly global war. One vital area that suffers from this myopic vision of the war is the conflict in the Mediterranean Sea. The British Mediterranean Fleet and its commander-in-chief, Admiral Andrew Cunningham, played a crucial role in preserving Allied influence in an area that was hotly contested by the Axis powers. The primary goal of the British squadron under Cunningham’s command was to deny control of the Mediterranean to the Axis, thereby cutting off the Italian colonies in North Africa and perpetually threatening the southern flank of Europe. Had the British forces failed in this endeavor, the Allied conduct of the war would have been significantly altered. But because of the refusal of the British squadron to cede control of the Mediterranean to the Italians, the Allies were provided the flexibility needed to eventually threaten Germany from the south; this included defeating the Axis war effort in North Africa, knocking Italy out of the war, and launching bombing raids against crucial German possessions like the Ploetsi oil fields of Romania. However, reaching such a state of affairs was a not easily done, especially in the challenging circumstances of the early war when Britain found itself fighting the Axis coalition alone. Cunningham had to make nigh impossible decisions every day with the wider picture in mind despite the near continuous state of imminent crisis surrounding his command. Using the Cunningham Papers located in the Churchill College Archives, one can piece together how the admiral used operations to advance British strategy in the Mediterranean by analyzing the information he received. It contains a record of the decisions he made and his communications with his superiors in London, subordinates under his command, and with commanders in other theatres. Through these interactions, his perception of the role his operations played in British strategy and grand strategy can be comprehensively understood. In order to better understand how Cunningham acted in his role in this conflict, one must place it within the ladder of military activity.1 British policy in the Second World War was to destroy the military and political institutions of Nazi Germany, resulting in an end goal of forcing unconditional surrender. In order to achieve this policy, Britain employed a grand strategy of economically isolating Germany through a naval blockade and gradually increasing levels of American support. British strategy in the Mediterranean theatre consisted of cutting off the Axis forces in North Africa from the supply lines in Europe and preventing the Italian fleet from breaking out into the Atlantic. In order to support these strategic objectives, Cunningham undertook operations such as running convoys to Malta in order to provide a base for light forces to disrupt Axis shipping between Italy and Libya. A major threat to these convoys was Axis air

1 For an in-depth explanation of the ladder of military activity, see Appendix 1

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The Franciscan power, so Cunningham ensured that his fleet possessed a sufficient number of radar equipped cruisers to provide a tactical advantage over his enemy.2 Due to the constantly changing nature of war, especially at the tactical and operational levels, this analysis of the Mediterranean war will be necessarily done in a chronological manner. In the historical context, new decisions are made in light of the consequences of previous decisions in a world that is always in flux. Humans must act in the context of the past and with the future entirely unknown. Therefore, the decisions made by historical figures and the consequences thereof can only be understood by examining the circumstances surrounding and dictating their actions. Admiral Cunningham was being perpetually influenced by new information of enemy movements, the will of his superiors in London, and the greater context of the war in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. From such an approach, one can draw out the impact of overarching political and strategic goals on seemingly mundane decisions. Finally, this paper will serve as a case study of the arguments of historians such as Phillips Payson O’Brien regarding the preeminence of air power over a modern battlefield. Armies are required to occupy territory and only ships can transport men and materiel overseas, but a military that cedes control of the skies cannot effectively maneuver or protect its encampments, supply depots, and cities.3 In a theatre such as the Mediterranean, this becomes self-evident, as land and carrier-based planes are able to cover the entire sea and consequently dictate strategy and operations for both belligerents. This was not lost on Cunningham, who would continually stress the necessity of air power. O’Brien’s argument is critical to understanding the war in the Mediterranean and the eventual results of the conflict. Before analyzing how Cunningham charted his course in the unfolding events of the Second World War, one must understand the personality of the man himself. Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham, commander-in-chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet from 6 June 1939 to 1 April 1942, was an indomitable leader, commanding respect from virtually everyone he knew, including the Supreme Allied Commander and future president Dwight Eisenhower, who described him as “one of the finest individuals that I ever met” and had “the utmost respect for his military judgment as well as for his great human qualities”.4 Alfred Gruenther, a member of Eisenhower’s staff, described him as “brilliant” and possessing “an unchallengeable integrity of character”.5 According to General Sir R.N. O’Connor, the commander of the British Corps XIII in North Africa, he was “the greatest sailor by far since Nelson”.6 He was a “truly remarkable naval officer” and a magnanimous leader of men (once signaling on the 3rd of July to all American ships under his command, “How can we Limeys help you Yanks celebrate the Fourth of July?”7) as well as a courageous commander who regularly faced the dangers of modern naval combat. Yet he responded to them with typical British understatement, once casually accusing a German pilot of having the “impertinence” to bomb his flagship, the Warspite.8 Finally, according to the British naval war historian Stephen Roskill, “He was without superior as a sea commander in World War

2 Allan Millet and Williamson Murray, A War to be Won (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 583- 590. 3 Phillips Payson O’Brien, How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 485. 4 CUNN 2/2 – Correspondence between Oliver Warner and Dwight David Eisenhower on 21 February 1966. 5 CUNN 2/2 – Correspondence between General Alfred M. Gruenther and S. W. Roskill on 15 January 1967. 6 CUNN 2/2 – Correspondence between General Sir R. N. O’Connor and S. W. Roskill on 28 March 1967. 7 CUNN 2/2 – Correspondence between Vice Admiral Leo Thebaud and S. W. Roskill on 15 March 1966. 8 CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 6 July 1941.

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II, and with his gaiety, indomitability, and aggressive spirit was in the Nelson tradition”.9 In short, he possessed the necessary attributes for one of the most demanding posts in the entire war. Cunningham took up his command in 1939 in a world preparing for war. Britain and France stood opposed to the expansionist, Fascist regimes of Germany and Italy. Nazi Germany, under the direction of Adolf Hitler, had been blatantly disregarding treaties and international arms agreements by building up its military and annexing regions of Czechoslovakia and Poland.10 Italy, led by Benito Mussolini, had established colonies in Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia and was also strengthening its armed forces with increasing speed, although it was by no means a first-rate power.11 On the side of the Allies, France possessed Algeria in North Africa, while Great Britain held significant influence in Egypt and the Middle East, in addition to controlling India and large colonial possessions in Africa. The British Dominion – comprised of areas such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – would also take part in the conflict. Prior to the outbreak of war, Cunningham’s Mediterranean Fleet was moved from its base at Malta to the Egyptian city of Alexandria because the island was considered indefensible due to its proximity to Italian air bases in Sicily.12 The Second World War would finally begin in September of 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, triggering an Anglo-French declaration of war and launching humanity into the deadliest conflict it had ever seen. At this point, the war was contained to Northwest Europe, but in the likely event that Italy should enter the war on the side of the Axis, France and Great Britain drew up plans to challenge the Italian Fleet in the Mediterranean. Most of the Allied surface fleets would operate independently of one another, although a few older French battleships and modern cruisers would operate under Cunningham’s command in Alexandria.13 The French, who would be responsible for the western Mediterranean, would base two battlecruisers and some smaller cruisers and destroyer in Messa Kebir (Oran) on the North African coast. Meanwhile, four 8-inch cruisers would be stationed with a squadron of destroyers in Toulon to threaten the Gulf of Genoa.14 However, the reliability of the French navy was already suspect before the war, as demonstrated in a post-war letter by Commander G. H. Oswald to Capt. Steven Roskill which reported that the common French sailor had little faith in Jean Darlan, the French Admiral of the Fleet, to either prosecute the war or cooperate with the Royal Navy.15 With the French covering the western Mediterranean, the British were responsible for the Eastern Mediterranean.16 The battlefleet under the command of Cunningham would be based in Alexandria to support the British Army in the Middle East and deny commerce routes to Italy. With French support, the Combined COS (Chiefs of Staff) believed the British could effectively challenge the Italian surface fleet, but there were still concerns about the sizable bomber fleet of the Regia Aeronautica and the 105 submarines possessed by the Regia Marina. Consequently, the British Merchant Marine was directed to sail around the Cape of Good Hope and through the Suez Canal rather than risk the shorter trip through the Central Mediterranean.17 More immediately,

9 CUNN 8/1 – Biographical notes regarding Cunningham by S. W. Roskill. 10 Millet and Murray, A War to be Won, 12. 11 Richard DiNardo, Germany and the Axis Powers (Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 31. 12 S. W. Roskill, The Navy at War (Wordsworth Military Library, Herts: Wordsworth Editions, 1998), 101. 13 Ibid., 33. 14 ROSK 4/64 – Notes regarding dispositions and operations of Mediterranean forces from Sept. 1939 – Feb. 1940. 15 ROSK 4/41 – Letter from Commander G. H. Oswald to S. W. Roskill in 1961. 16 Nathan Miller, War at Sea (New York: Scribner, 1995), 110. 17 Roskill, The Navy at War, 33.

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Cunningham needed the support of land-based aircraft in order to fend off the Regia Aeronautica and conduct successful antisubmarine warfare.18 The Mediterranean Coastal Command, under the command of the RAF, was designed to operate autonomously from the navy, which would go on to pose significant problems in the coordination of air and sea power for the British throughout the war.19 This would only be complicated by the fact that the Combined COS had decided to virtually abandon Malta, and correspondingly stripped the island of most of its military and logistical resources. While the surface ships of each nation would be mostly separated, French and British submarines would congregate at the British bases of Malta and Alexandria to form groups and threaten Italian shipping.20 This was hopefully enough to challenge the Italians, but Cunningham understood he had to be ready for worst-case scenarios. Therefore, he expressed concern about the possibility of the Turks or particularly the Soviets, whom he considered as legitimate a threat as Hitler, entering the war on the side of the Axis. 21 In a letter to Geoffrey Blake, the commander of the Far East Squadron, on 30 March 1940, he noted that he believed that this could be neutralized by offering a cash payment to the Turks and rushing an Allied fleet into the Black Sea in order to threaten the Soviet Union.22 As for the conflict with Germany, he openly questioned the Anglo- French strategy of forcing the Nazis to stand down under economic pressure and stated that “I am tired of the eternal question ‘What will Hitler do next?’”, expressing his frustration with the reactionary Allied policies regarding Nazi Germany.23 Despite his concerns, Cunningham was confident in the ability of his fleet to quickly establish control over the Mediterranean Sea upon Italian entry into the war. In June, it was looking increasingly likely that France would be knocked out of the war, forcing the British to rethink all of their pre-war planning. The British had already evacuated the continent in late May and the Admiralty was not convinced of the importance of the Mediterranean Sea in comparison with the Atlantic Ocean, proposing the removal of all British naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean in June of 1940. This proposal was strengthened by the concern over the security of British trade routes in the Atlantic and the threat posed by German U-boats and commerce raiders.24 The Admiralty thought that the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet based in Alexandria should be moved to Gibraltar in order to prevent an Italian breakout into the Atlantic as well as defend any French and Spanish ports against German occupation. However, Cunningham countered that removing the fleet would only cause new strategic issues to arise. The action would produce negative repercussions in in India, embolden the still neutral Japan in the east, and compromise the economic blockade of the European Axis powers by allowing them access to the Middle East and naval bases in North Africa. But the primary issue caused by the fleet’s withdrawal would be the undermining of the stability of the British Army in the Middle East. Egypt, Cyprus, Palestine, and Malta would all undoubtably be lost to unopposed Italian amphibious invasions, giving the Axis free reign both to move supplies between Europe and North Africa and to threaten India. Furthermore, Cunningham was confident that he would be able to hold the Regia Marina and supply Malta with the ships already available to him, even without

18 O’Brien, How the War was Won, 239. 19 CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 6 July 1941. 20 ROSK 4/64 - Notes regarding dispositions and operations of Mediterranean forces from Sept. 1939 – Feb. 1940. 21 CUNN 5/2 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Harold Burrough on 20 January 1940. 22 CUNN 5/1 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Geoffrey Blake on 30 March 1940. 23 CUNN 5/2 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Harold Burrough on 20 January 1940. 24 Miller, War at Sea, 111.

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French support.25 He suggested the creation of a small force at Gibraltar to deny access to the Atlantic to the Italians, which they could use to merge with the German fleet and threaten Allied shipping; this force would eventually be realized in the form of Force H under the command of Admiral James Somerville consisting of the carrier Ark Royal, the battlecruiser Hood, two battleships, and several cruisers and destroyers.26 Cunningham’s sound arguments convinced the Minister of Defense to eventually veto the Admiralty’s proposal on the grounds that the political, economic, and military reasons (grand strategic) for maintaining the fleet outweighed the purely naval reasons (strategic and operational) for withdrawing it.27 As the German blitzkrieg turned south to finish off France, Italy declared war on the Allies on 10 June 1940, throwing Cunningham’s fleet into immediate action. The manner in which he commanded his forces was dictated by his belief that “we must never let the enemy think that it is safe to go to sea; we must make him realize that he is only safe when in harbour. Contrariwise, our fleet must feel that it is natural for them to be at sea.”28 Consequently, he immediately showed an aggressive front and pushed into the central basin with the major strength of his battlefleet. Neither the Regia Marina nor the Regia Aeronautica were prepared to engage the British fleet, and it returned to Alexandria without experiencing any serious action.29 However, the pre-war Allied plans were soon thrown into disarray with the capitulation of the French to the German Blitzkrieg on 25 June 1940. Force H would pick up the mantle of the French fleet in covering the western Mediterranean, but the powerful French squadrons stationed in several naval bases across the Mediterranean posed a much more complicated problem for the Royal Navy. The British government decided that the French ships must be kept out of Axis hands at any cost, either through peaceable disarmament or, should negotiations fail, destruction. Admiral Somerville was ordered to proceed on 3 July with Force H to Oran where three battleships, one battle cruiser, and several lesser ships lay at anchor. Admiral Gensoul, the commander of the French fleet, was instructed to either sail under supervision to a British port or the French West Indies, join the British forces, or scuttle his ships within six hours. Yet Gensoul refused to obey and Somerville was forced to open fire, killing 1,297 Frenchmen and devastating most of the fleet, although five destroyers and the battle cruiser Strasbourg escaped.30 Meanwhile, Cunningham also had to deal with a French force stationed under his command in Alexandria made up of the battleship Lorraine, three 8-inch cruisers, one 6-inch cruiser, and numerous smaller ships. Unlike Somerville, he managed to come to a personal agreement with the French commander for their disarmament, but unfortunately peaceful resolution was the exception rather than the rule. The modern French battleship Richelieu had been dispatched to the West African port of Dakar and the Admiralty ordered a lengthy and ultimately fruitless assault on the port which only served to exacerbate tensions with the French Navy.31 The collapse of France left the British and Italians to duel over the Mediterranean during the first year of the war. After negotiating for the disarmament of the French fleet in Alexandria, Cunningham again pushed into the central basin in order to forestall any Italian confidence over the French

25 ROSK 4/67 – Notes regarding Mediterranean Strategy, June 1940. 26 Roskill, The Navy at War, 83. 27 ROSK 4/67 – Notes regarding Mediterranean Strategy, June 1940. 28 CUNN 2/2 – Correspondence between S. W. Roskill and Captain T. M. Browning on 20 January 1966. 29 Roskill, The Navy at War, 104. 30 Ibid., 84. 31 Ibid., 85.

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The Franciscan surrender.32 On 7 July the Mediterranean Fleet left port to cover a convoy transporting men and supplies from Malta to Alexandria. A submarine patrolling the central basin reported a strong Italian Force approximately midway between Taranto in Italy and Benghazi in North Africa. Cunningham increased his speed to place himself between the Italians and their base, despite coming under sustained attack by the Regia Aeronautica.33 On 9 July the Italian fleet came into view of Cunningham’s advanced cruisers and battle soon broke out. The British flagship Warspite quickly arrived to aid the embattled cruisers and landed a hit on the battleship Giulio Cesare, seriously damaging it and forcing it to slow. The Italian fleet immediately retreated towards Calabria under cover of smoke and managed to break contact. Eagle’s strike squadrons were unable to inflict further damage the retreating fleet. Cunningham launched a pursuit but was unable to relocate his target and was forced to return to Alexandria by reinvigorated, although belated, Italian air assaults.34 Despite the nuisance of the Regia Aeronautica, Cunningham had firmly established the supremacy of the Royal Navy over the Regia Marina. On his return, he sent a letter to Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff, on 13 July revealing his reaction to the Action off Calabria and his opinions on how the fleet should proceed. He and the sailors under his command were confident they could handle the Regia Marina, as the British force had effectively chased off the powerful Italian fleet, but Cunningham would need more fighters and, if possible, an armored carrier to contest the air. Because of this, he believed that if the British wished to launch another serious thrust into the Central Mediterranean, they must be prepared to lose at least one World War I era battleship to the Italian bombers. The British Mediterranean fleet would soon find this Italian air superiority to be overwhelming, and by the beginning of August, no ship under Cunningham’s command had been able to leave harbor for three weeks without quickly being discovered by the effective Italian reconnaissance planes and bombed.35 Two of Cunningham’s battleships, Malaya and Warspite, were forced to remain docked in Alexandria or endure severe air attack. Without the support of the French Fleet or more air cover, the relatively light British presence in the Mediterranean was unable to push out of Alexandria. Despite the difficult situation, Cunningham would soon seem to be vindicated in his defense of the existence of the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet and his request for more air cover. In early November, Cunningham once again led his fleet out of Alexandria and into the central basin. After strengthening the defenses of Malta and meeting reinforcements approaching from the West, the fleet turned north to the Italian naval base of Taranto.36 Using reconnaissance planes transferred from Malta to the newly arrived, armored carrier HMS Illustrious, the British confirmed that all six Italian battleships were docked in the harbor. On the night of 11 November 1940, twenty carrier-based swordfish torpedo bombers from the Illustrious launched a strike at the heavily defended base accompanied by spotter planes and several dive bombers. The bombers hit three of the six battleships, Cavour, Littorio, and Duilio, all of which sunk at their moorings. The Littorio and Duilio would be raised and repaired in five and six months, respectively, but the Cavour never went to sea again.37 This reduced the capability of the Italian surface fleet to

32 Miller, War at Sea, 112. 33 Ibid., 115. 34 Roskill, The Navy at War, 104-105. 35 ROSK 4/64 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 3 August 1940. 36 Charles W. Koburger, Naval Warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1940-1945 (Westport, CT.: Praeger, 1993), 20-21. 37 Roskill, The Navy at War, 110-111.

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Articles challenge Cunningham in the central Mediterranean so severely that the British admiral believed that the remaining Italian battleships would not risk leaving the harbor and, even if they did, he was confident that Warspite and Malaya would be able to handle them. Perhaps even more importantly, the Italian stranglehold of the air was finally broken with the arrival of Illustrious. Together with planes from the older carrier Eagle, British carrier fighters in the Mediterranean now held “mastery of the sea”.38 This was a far cry from their previous dilemma of being “bombed in every corner of the sea” and unable to escape or bring down Italian planes; now any member of the Regia Aeronautica within 25 miles of the fleet was taking a deadly risk. The combined airpower of the Illustrious and the Eagle provided Cunningham with unmatched operational flexibility in the Mediterranean theatre. At the turn of the year, the British were in a far more advantageous position in the Mediterranean than they had been on 10 June, when Italy had declared war on the Allies. The initial Italian advantage in aircraft and surface ships had been negated with the Battle of Taranto and the arrival of the Illustrious.39 Admiral Somerville’s Force H had successfully filled the pre- war role of the French navy in covering the Western Mediterranean and denying the Axis passage through the Straits of Gibraltar. The defenses on Malta, which had been in a state of utter disrepair at the beginning of the war, had slowly been built back up with a succession of convoys.40 Critically, the fighter forces of the island had been steadily reinforced, allowing the British to withstand constant attacks from the Regia Aeronautica and threaten Italian shipping to North Africa. Furthermore, in Egypt, General Wavell’s Army of the Nile had repelled the woefully incompetent Italian offensive and was driving west towards Benghazi with continuous support from an eclectic fleet of ships out of Alexandria. The ill-advised Italian invasion of Greece, which had begun on 28 October, had stalled in the face of a staunch Greek defense.41 However, this success covered the fact that the British fleet was operating with far fewer resources than it required and had been saved multiple times by Italian incompetence and timidity. A more able and aggressive enemy would pose far more problems for the resolute British fleet. Germany, which had previously taken no part in the Battle for the Mediterranean, was concerned by the performance of its floundering ally (and a suddenly insecure southern flank) and decided to intervene. Hitler’s first move was to transfer Fliegerkorps X from Norway to various Italian airfields across the mainland, Sicily, and Tripoli. This unit was Germany’s “specialist antishipping force” and had received specific training in assaulting naval targets. It consisted of approximately 450 aircraft ranging from long range bombers, dive bombers, fighters, and reconnaissance planes. Furthermore, it possessed its own fuel, transport, signals, ammunition, and AA weapons for airfield defense; it was entirely self-sufficient.42 The first contingents of Fliegerkorps X began to arrive in Italy and Sicily by the beginning of January 1941 and would soon make their presence known. On 10 January 1941, a British convoy and its cruiser escort passed through the Sicilian narrows bound for Malta and Greece. It met Cunningham’s Mediterranean Fleet halfway between the Tunisian coast and Malta in preparation for the final leg of the journey. Around midday, the first of some 40 Ju.87 and Ju.88 Luftwaffe bombers began to appear in the sky. Illustrious’s air cover was outnumbered and out of position, and the German planes began to circle the fleet carrier

38 CUNN 5/3 – Letter from Cunningham to Rear Admiral Hugh England on 23 November 1940. 39 Koburger, Naval Warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean, 21. 40 Donald G. F. W. Macintyre, The Battle for the Mediterranean (London: Severn House, 1975), 79. 41 DiNardo, Germany and the Axis Powers, 52. 42 Koburger, Naval Warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean, 26.

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The Franciscan and begin their attack. Despite the massed AA firepower of the entire British fleet, the German bombers managed to land six bomb hits on the beleaguered carrier, which was only saved by its armored flight deck. Illustrious managed to limp into the Grand Harbor at Malta along with the remainder of the convoy and undergo emergency repairs. It would be continually bombed in port until it sailed to Alexandria on 23 January and then to the safety of America for complete repairs.43 The convoy had been saved but at the cost of the fleet’s key to air supremacy in the Mediterranean. This action would mark the end of Britain’s short ascendancy in the Mediterranean and introduce a year full of setbacks. This was not lost on Cunningham, who, on 18 January 1941, sent a letter to Sir Dudley Pound expressing his deep regret at the loss of the Illustrious. He also noted the inefficacy of cruisers that were not equipped with radar, two of which had been sunk by the assault on the convoy. With the sudden arrival of Fliegerkorps X, he believed that the Mediterranean would be reduced to an air war between Sicily and Malta, a war which would lean heavily in favor of Germany.44 In the same letter of 18 January, Cunningham also expressed his fears on what consequences these new realities would hold for the ongoing British offensive in North Africa. The Army of the Nile had been successful in their westward push and was on the verge of capturing the port of Tobruk. However, the navy was now responsible for protecting the entire logistical system of the army, which was entirely dependent on shipping. The Germans would soon intervene in North Africa as well with ground troops under the command of Erwin Rommel on 12 February.45 The Italian army in Libya had suffered a catastrophic collapse in the face of the British offensive, and the German commander was sent to stabilize the situation.46 The British had at that point penetrated into Libya as far as Benghazi and could threaten all shipping destined for North Africa travelling between Malta and Cyrenaica. Fortunately for Rommel, his arrival corresponded with increasing interest in Greece on the part of London and the halt of the Army of the Nile’s offensive. He reorganized the reeling Italian army as Wavell halted the push from Cairo, having taken Cyrenaica and failing to see the Axis vulnerabilities from Cairo.47 The experienced and effective desert units and command staff, led by General R.N. O’Connor, of the British army in Libya were subsequently transferred to Operation “Lustre” bound for Greece, and replaced by fresh and inexperienced troops from India and Australia.48 This operation, the transport of troops from Egypt to Greece, began on 5 March and consisted of large convoys leaving Alexandria for Greece every three days for three weeks. This opening allowed Rommel to exceed his conservative orders to simply hold the Italian forces together and instead launch a counterattack into Cyrenaica. The advancing Axis troops were met only by small units of disorganized troops and commanders with no experience in desert warfare. By the middle of April, all of the British gains in Libya had vanished, with the sole exception of Tobruk.49 By the time the siege would finally be lifted in January of 1942, the Mediterranean Fleet would have to sacrifice twenty-six combat ships as well as six merchant vessels in supplying the

43 Roskill, The Navy at War, 149-150. 44 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 18 January 1941. 45 DiNardo, Germany and the Axis Powers, 59. 46 Koburger, Naval Warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean, 26. 47 Millet and Murray, A War to be Won, 108. 48 Dinardo, Germany and the Axis Powers, 54. 49 Roskill, The Navy at War, 159.

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Articles city. An equal number of both combat ships and merchant vessels would also be damaged in the effort.50 Yet Operation “Lustre” placed an increased burden on Cunningham’s fleet. Despite not believing that he had either the air or naval resources to effectively support operations in Greece, Cunningham began a long effort to transfer large troop formations from Alexandria to Athens. In a report to Pound on 11 March, he commented that large convoys left Egypt every three days and had so far suffered no damage, despite light escort and heavy bombing by the Italians. Nevertheless, the effort was still taking a heavy toll on the Mediterranean Fleet, as many smaller ships were being sunk off the Cyrenaican coast in the convoy run.51 The effort would end on 25 March after the convoys had successfully carried 58,000 men along with supplies, vehicles, and ammunition. A total of twenty-five merchant vessels would be sunk in the operation, but most of these were lost either in port or on the return leg to Egypt, so the convoy effort did not noticeably suffer.52 However, the British army was still subject to several liabilities, such as not possessing nearly enough air power to contest a serious German offensive in either Greece or Libya. The combined Italo-German forces could field 200 fighters in the Balkans compared to a paltry 30 for the British. The army in the western desert had no air force whatsoever, giving the Germans an opportunity to launch a counterattack in North Africa.53 Operation “Lustre” would serve as a prelude to a decisive battle coming into the spring of 1941. On 25 March, Cunningham received intelligence that the Italians were planning on launching a strike against the “Lustre” convoys. He was determined to engage the enemy fleet and ruin Italian plans. He correspondingly removed the merchant marine from the area and proceeded to advance into the eastern basin with his three battleships and the armored carrier Formidable, which had replaced the Illustrious.54 On the morning of 28 March, an enemy fleet containing the battleship Vittorio Veneto was sighted by aircraft off Cape Matapan, and Formidable launched torpedo bombers to strike the fleet. The attack wave failed to land any hits on the Italians, but it did force the fleet to turn northwest and retreat away from the British. Formidable’s aircraft pursued the fleeing Italians, but did not manage to launch another strike until the battleship and its escort had met up with a sizable force of cruisers and destroyers. The ensuing attack again failed to hit the battleship but did cripple one heavy cruiser. The Italians continued to flee northwest in spite of light bomber attacks from the British airbases on Crete. However, the Italian commander ordered two cruisers and four destroyers to return to the stricken cruiser and offer assistance. On the night of the 28th, Cunningham’s fleet came into sight of this small force and opened fire, sinking all three cruisers and two destroyers.55 The Battle of Cape Matapan reasserted British naval supremacy in the Eastern basin at a critical moment as the Germans in Greece and the newly established Afrika Korps both prepared to launch offensives against the outnumbered British Army. The control of the Mediterranean would prove essential in preventing the upcoming setbacks from becoming routs. The overwhelmed British troops in Cyrenaica stood no chance of withstanding Rommel’s Afrika Korps, prompting Cunningham to realize that the only way to threaten the German Army in North Africa would be to cut its supply lines in the Mediterranean.

50 CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 17 January 1942. 51 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 11 March 1941. 52 Roskill, The Navy at War, 154. 53 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 11 March 1941. 54 Koburger, Naval Warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean, 27. 55 Ibid., 28-30.

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The Franciscan

Under pressure from Churchill, he led his fleet into the central basin on 18 April to bombard the Axis port of Tripoli, but to little effect.56 Merchant ships could only effectively be stopped while at sea, leaving the responsibility of constricting Rommel’s supply lines to the small force of submarines, destroyers, and aircraft stationed at Malta. Nevertheless, these light forces proved to be invaluable, sinking dozens of merchantmen and preventing Rommel from fully exploiting his advantage in the western desert due to consequent logistical shortages. Simultaneously, the Germans in Greece were advancing against the British with overwhelming force, and Cunningham’s fleet now found itself having to evacuate the very troops that they had so recently transported in the “Lustre” convoys. In such an emergency, the fleet would be forced to take any action possible to support the stranded troops, including leaving Formidable and the battleships in harbor so that their screening destroyers would be free to take part in the evacuation.57 Because of this, British troops in Greece, who had not seen a British plane for twelve days while being constantly harassed by 400 Axis bombers, would continue to have minimal fighter protection.58 British ships and shipping taking part in the evacuation would also suffer from lack of air cover and suffer critical losses.59 With the arrival of German air and land power, the balance in the skies had definitively shifted back in favor of the Axis, but Cunningham was still able to take to sea should the need arise. This contest between air power and sea power would soon come to a head with the German offensive against Crete. The invasion, launched shortly after the evacuation of Greece, would become an utter debacle for the British, culminating in the most grievous losses the Mediterranean Fleet suffered under Cunningham’s command.60 The plan originated in the Luftwaffe, whose leaders saw Crete as the perfect base both to control the Eastern Mediterranean and to connect their forces in Greece and Cyrenaica. Because the Germans had almost no surface vessels in the Mediterranean, the attack would be carried out primarily by Luftwaffe paratroopers, supported by Italian convoys carrying vehicles and heavy supplies. The main formations responsible for the attack would be elements of Fliegerkorps X from Sicily, Fliegerkorps VIII in Greece, and Fliegerkorps XI, German paratroopers, totaling over 700 aircraft.61 Aware of the incoming attack, Cunningham hastened to strengthen the island’s defenses and station naval forces between Greece and Crete to cut off troop transports, knowing that German success would depend on reinforcement by sea. Virtually the entire Mediterranean Fleet was spread around the island to protect against a seaborne invasion. The only notable exception to this was the Formidable, whose fighter complement had been reduced to just four Fulmar two-seater aircraft and needed to be resupplied before taking to sea again.62 The attack opened on 20 May 1941 with heavy bombing followed by paratrooper landings across the island. Yet the German invaders encountered far stiffer resistance than they expected, and by the end of the first day both sides had suffered heavy casualties. No effort was made to support the paratroopers until the night of the 21st, when the first convoy attempted to run Cunningham’s blockade. Luckily, the Germans were intercepted by a British squadron and turned

56 Roskill, The Navy at War, 159. 57 CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 12 June 1941, including casualty list for Battle of Crete and subsequent evacuation. 58 CUNN 5/3 – Letter from Cunningham to Rear Admiral Hugh England on 1 May 1941. 59 CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 12 June 1941. 60 CUNN 5/2 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Harold Burrough on 30 June 1941. 61 Macintyre, The Battle for the Mediterranean, 66. 62 Ibid., 68.

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Articles back with heavy losses. But this success was tempered the following day with the loss of several cruisers and destroyers to German aircraft. By the 24th, the main harbor at Suda was no longer usable due to the intensity of the bombing raids, and the British troops were running dangerously low on supplies. In spite of this, the Combined COS urged Cunningham on to greater effort to hold the island and insisted that the navy operate off the north coast.63 They recognized the strategic importance of holding the island, yet failed to appreciate the operational challenges facing the Mediterranean Fleet. Cunningham was ordered to maintain naval supremacy in the face of overwhelming air power, putting his fleet at risk of being crippled without guaranteeing any measure of success. By the 27th, the situation on the island had deteriorated so drastically that the government gave the order for the island to be abandoned, again calling on Cunningham’s already overworked ships. Nevertheless, the navy persisted and managed to evacuate about 18,000 troops, although leaving 12,000 behind. The fleet suffered substantial harm during this operation, losing three cruisers and six destroyers, with a further seven destroyers, six cruisers, two battleships, and one aircraft carrier damaged.64 Furthermore, no reinforcements were available to replace these losses.65 Yet the invasion would also be considered a disaster by the German High Command. Fliegerkorps XI had been so devastated by the staunch defense that it ceased to exist following the invasion of Crete and the Luftwaffe would never deploy paratroopers in their designed role again; the remainder of Fliegerkorps VIII was recalled to take part in Operation Barbarossa, leaving Fliegerkorps X to cover the entire Mediterranean Sea. A proposed aerial invasion of Malta was also shelved due to the high casualty rates, further securing the island against capture.66 The Germans had achieved their operational objective, but had been forced to pay a great strategic cost by the Royal Navy. Cunningham firmly believed that the island was lost because of a failure of the army to sufficiently prepare for the attack. Food and ammunition were left sitting undistributed at the main harbor at Suda, while poorly equipped soldiers were being overrun by German paratroopers. On the first night of the attack, commonwealth units abandoned a key position allowing the Germans to establish a secure foothold on the island.67 By morning, the German paratroopers were being steadily reinforced by air. This occurred in spite of the efforts of the Royal Navy to sink German troop transports before reaching the island. He estimated that four thousand to five thousand German infantrymen had drowned attempting to reach Crete in ten sunken caiques. Regardless of this, the army stood almost no chance, as the Royal Air Force simply could not challenge the vast concentration of German air power.68 Still, Cunningham, who had directed operations from his headquarters in Alexandria, regretted not being personally present in the battle, believing that he could have saved two destroyers and two cruisers. In a report to Pound on 30 May 1941, Cunningham again vented his frustration with the lack of air support given to the Mediterranean by stating that he believed Crete could have been saved by a few squadrons of long-range fighters and bombers.69 The Battle of Crete severely reduced the forces available to the British in the Eastern Mediterranean and further damaged relations between the Royal Navy and Air Force. The

63 Roskill, The Navy at War, 163. 64 Ibid., 165 65 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Admiral Sir Dudley Pound to Cunningham on 19 June 1941. 66 Macintyre, The Battle for the Mediterranean, 77. 67 Millet and Murray, A War to be Won, 107. 68 CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 12 June 1941. 69 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 30 May 1941.

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The Franciscan losses suffered at Crete, including damage to Warspite and Formidable, put the Royal Navy at a severe disadvantage for the remainder of the year and further demonstrate the necessity of air power to seriously contest the seas.70 The frustration between the services after Crete was the culmination of a year of poor relations between the Royal Navy and Mediterranean Coastal Command. Cunningham first voiced his concerns regarding the RAF to Pound on 6 February 1941 in a report accusing the deputy air commander in the Middle East, Peter Drummond, was impeding naval affairs.71 The source of Cunningham’s frustration was that the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean was given no jurisdiction over Coastal Command as they were nominally a division of the RAF and designed to operate independently from the navy. He then sent several more grievances from June to July of the same year, again labeling Drummond as non-cooperative and revealing that relations between the Navy and the Air Force had worsened since the debacle at Crete.72 Cunningham viewed himself as “engaged in a pitched battle with the RAF about Coastal Command”.73 This interservice conflict had significant repercussions for the conduct of the war as the battle between the Royal Navy and the Luftwaffe was going badly wrong for the British by the end of May, despite the earlier optimism of Admiral Cunningham.74 Months later, on 24 September 1941, nothing had yet been resolved as he considered himself in a constant state of war with the RAF.75 Such a state of affairs could not be allowed to continue, and the Combined COS needed to broker a peace. After a barrage of letters between London and Cunningham, Coastal Command Group 201 was changed to 201, Naval Cooperation Group, giving him complete authority over British forces operating in the Mediterranean, allowing for far better coordination and employment of inferior British forces in the face of German air dominance.76 This proved vital in solving one of the key operational problems caused by German air supremacy in 1941, namely the difficulty of keeping the British station at Malta supplied. The small island was strategically invaluable to the British war effort but was incredibly hard to defend against Axis planes flying out of Sicily. Light forces consisting primarily of destroyers, submarines, and aircraft operating out of Malta were able to threaten Axis convoys running between Europe and North Africa despite the inability of the British to control the central basin. Nevertheless, this ability was put in doubt with Axis domination of the air.77 On 11 March, the harbor was under constant air attack with only eight Hurricane-class fighters to defend it and six coming in as reinforcements.78 In May of 1941 Cunningham sent several reports to Pound noting both the effectiveness of the destroyers in damaging the Axis supply effort to North Africa and the dire logistical situation in Malta. He noted that the island was being continually bombed and mined, and subsequently suggested that future attempts to resupply Malta should originate from Gibraltar rather than Alexandria.79 Over the course of 1941, three large convoys and multiple

70 Ibid. 71 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 6 February 1941. 72 ROSK 4/65 – Letters from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 11 June and 25 July 1941; CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 6 July 1941. 73 CUNN 5/9 - Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 12 June 1941. 74 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 3 May 1941. 75 CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 24 September 1941. 76 CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 20 November 1941. 77 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 6 February 1941. 78 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 11 March 1941. 79 ROSK 4/65 – Letters from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 3 May and 30 May 1941.

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Articles aircraft ferrying operations reached totaling 39 large ships kept the garrison afloat.80 Force K, the small force of destroyers stationed at the base, had a relatively large impact on the war in North Africa by hindering Axis supply convoys to the Afrika Korps. The original force was recalled to the fleet to take part in the Battle of Crete, but was reconstituted in November with the arrival of a squadron of destroyers from the Home Fleet.81 By the end of 1941, the opportunity for the Axis to neutralize the small British base had passed, as the island was in a far more defensible state than when the year had opened. The beginning of 1942 marked the height of Axis control of the Mediterranean, but this reality had a time limit following Hitler’s foolish declaration of war on the United States on 11 December 1941. All Cunningham had to do was hold onto the Mediterranean until overwhelming American military power could be brought to bear in the theatre. However, in light of the military realities, this was easier said than done. Force K had been heavily damaged and dissolved in December, immediately spurring the Axis to run several convoys to their hard-pressed troops in North Africa. All of Cunningham’s heavy ships had been severely damaged or sunk by aircraft or submarines, with the result that the Italian navy finally controlled the seas.82 No reinforcements were available, in spite of Cunningham’s pleas, and the situation was so dire that the Admiralty considered removing the battleships from the Mediterranean entirely. However, he was able to successfully protest to these drastic measures.83 Operations in the opening months of the year were concerned with attempts to supply Malta, preventing convoys from travelling between Italy and North Africa, and supplying the Army of the Nile through Libyan ports. The Mediterranean Fleet simply no longer had the resources to achieve all these tasks, and by April Malta was again in serious danger of falling to the Axis. Rommel’s Afrika Korps was driving towards Egypt, isolating Tobruk for a second time. In the midst of this crisis, Admiral Cunningham was reassigned as a liaison to Washington D.C. in preparation for American participation in the European theatre, which would begin with the Operation Torch landings in North Africa in November 1942. He left his post on 1 April 1942, having ably commanded the Mediterranean Fleet for three years.84 He would regain his command with the American entrance into the theatre after participating in the planning of the operation. His role as commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean would eventually culminate with the surrender of Italy in 1943. Cunningham’s responses to the events of the Mediterranean war demonstrate his clear understanding of the purpose that his fleet served in the war: to deny control of the sea to the Axis and support the British Army by preventing supplies from traveling between Europe and North Africa. His establishment of dominance over the Italian fleet left Axis shipping exposed and prevented the Regia Aeronautica and Regia Marina from supporting Italian operations in North Africa. At the surrender of the Italian fleet, the flag captain of the cruiser Eugenio di Savoia admitted that “we have not been to sea for a long time; there was no object as we always got attacked… it was better to stay in harbor”.85 This only amplified the level of catastrophe for the Axis following the Italian army’s collapse in the face of Wavell’s offensive. Rather than an asset, Italy became a strategic liability to the Axis coalition. This forced Germany to pay constant

80 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 25 July 1941. 81 ROSK 4/65 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Dudley Pound on 23 October 1941. 82 Roskill, The Navy at War, 173-174. 83 ROSK 5/95 – Cunningham’s response to Admiralty in response to proposal to remove battleships from Mediterranean on 9 January 1942. 84 CUNN 5/9 – Letter from Cunningham to Admiral Sir Algernon Willis on 21 June 1942. 85 CUNN 2/2 – Correspondence between S. W. Roskill and Captain T. M. Browning on 20 January 1966.

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The Franciscan attention to its exposed southern flank, drawing of resources from other fronts, particularly the Eastern front and the Atlantic war. Holding against the Germans gave the Allies the opportunity to use the Mediterranean to strike at the Axis once the Americans entered the war. Under a less capable commander, the Mediterranean Fleet would have almost certainly been crippled early in the war and quickly withdrawn. This would have allowed Germany to commit far more resources to other fronts of far greater importance to strategic goals and would have ultimately granted Italy control of the Mediterranean and North Africa. In order to reenter the sea, the Allies would have had to smash through either the Straits of Gibraltar or the Suez Canal, both unenviable prospects at best. Admiral Cunningham’s exploits prove his status as one of the finest operational commanders on either side of the war and would go on to earn him a promotion to First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff of the Royal Navy.

Appendix 1

In order to understand an analysis of a military conflict, one must understand certain terms used in describing the conduct of war. The first of these is policy. Policy is a government’s plan of action in order to achieve what is considered in the best interest of the state. In a military sense, policy encapsulates war aims, dictating the manner in which a war is conducted, and the circumstances of its cessation. Grand Strategy is the plan to mobilize military, economic, and social forces to achieve policy goals by destroying the enemy’s will and ability to wage war. Strategy necessarily follows policy but also takes factors such as geography, coalition relations, and opposing military strengths and weaknesses into account. Strategy is the specific planning of the usage of force in achieving military goals. This involves unit training, army maneuvers, logistical capacity, communication, and enemy intentions and capabilities. Violent actions taken by military forces in the course of a war are known as operations. These are events in which opposing soldiers come into conflict with one another in order to gain a strategic advantage. These often take the form of missions, such as the bombing raids flown by American and British air crews to attack German cities during the Second World War. Tactics are the actions taken by soldiers, planes, and ships in order to defeat an enemy in battle. Tactical considerations can range from the mobility of a tank to the accuracy of a rifle to the armor thickness of a battleship. Tactics are also situational, evolving based on the circumstances that a troop formation finds itself in. An example of this would be the tendency of tank crews in World War II attempting to find shots into the rear or side of enemy tanks, where they were much more likely to deal significant damage because these areas were often less heavily armored than the front and turret of the tank.86

86 Millet and Murray, A War to be Won, 583-590.

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The Executive and War: The Division of Strategic and Grand Strategic Powers in the Constitution

Jacob Lange

Abstract: Abraham Lincoln is often accused of exercising nearly dictatorial powers during the American Civil War by some modern historians. However, his authority pales in comparison to the war powers claimed by the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War, the only other true military crisis faced by the United States. By comparing these two conflicts, this paper will contend that the Constitution does not provide the President with the necessary powers to effectively wage a war, despite his role as Commander-in-Chief. The actions of both the Revolutionary War government and Abraham Lincoln will be framed using the ladder of military activity. After the dissolution of the First Continental Congress, the Second Continental Congress formed in order to lead the colonies in the war against Britain. They immediately assumed military and civil control, placing the colonies in a state of military readiness for the impending conflict. However, once the war started, the delegates also had direct control of the actions of the Continental Army. The Commander-in-Chief, George Washington, recognized and submitted to the authority of the Congress without hesitation. After the war, he would once again assume the title of Commander-in-Chief, with slightly altered powers. The framers of the Constitution stated that war must be directed by a strong, single hand, and thus placed it under the purview of the executive. However, despite the president having strategic control over the military, all grand strategic decisions were entrusted to the legislature. In the Civil War, this disconnect caused serious issues for the Lincoln administration, as the executive could not wage war without Congressional oversight. Therefore, he felt forced to extend his own powers for the sake of the preservation of the Union but was unable to roll back his authority before his assassination.

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Abraham Lincoln is often accused of exercising nearly dictatorial powers during the American Civil War by some modern historians. However, his authority pales in comparison to the war powers claimed by the Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War, the only other true military crisis faced by the United States. By comparing these two conflicts, this paper will contend that the Constitution does not provide the President with the necessary powers to effectively wage a war, despite his role as Commander-in-Chief. The actions of both the Revolutionary War government and Abraham Lincoln will be framed using the ladder of military activity. After the dissolution of the First Continental Congress, the Second Continental Congress formed in order to lead the colonies in the war against Britain. They immediately assumed military and civil control, placing the colonies in a state of military readiness for the impending conflict. However, once the war started, the delegates also had direct control of the actions of the Continental Army. The Commander-in-Chief, George Washington, recognized and submitted to the authority of the Congress without hesitation. After the war, he would once again assume the title of Commander-in-Chief, with slightly altered powers. The framers of the Constitution stated that war must be directed by a strong, single hand, and thus placed it under the purview of the executive. However, despite the president having strategic control over the military, all grand strategic decisions were entrusted to the legislature. In the Civil War, this disconnect caused serious issues for the Lincoln administration, as the executive could not wage war without Congressional oversight. Therefore, he felt forced to extend his own powers for the sake of the preservation of the Union but was unable to roll back his authority before his assassination.

During his tenure as president, Abraham Lincoln greatly expanded executive power in order to most effectively conduct the American Civil War. Because of this, his contemporary political opponents and some historians accuse him of unconstitutional and dictatorial behavior. However, the Revolutionary War, the only other true military crisis in early American history, was directed by a Continental Congress that exercised far more authority than the Constitution entrusts to any single branch. George Washington, the commander-in-chief during the Revolution, was completely subordinate to Congress, which formulated military, economic, and social policy for the colonies. This conflict raises the question of whether or not the Constitution was designed to handle major military crises. The framers divided military powers between the executive and the legislature to protect against the establishment of a military dictatorship, but this inevitably restricted the ability of any branch to lead the country on a war footing. While the Constitution clearly grants the president operational and strategic control of the military as commander-in-chief, grand strategic powers are entrusted to Congress, compromising the ability of the President to direct a total war, which in turn prompted Lincoln to exercise extraconstitutional powers during the Civil War. This argument will be framed using the ladder of military conduct, a tool used to describe and understand the different aspects of warfare. The components of this ladder are policy, grand strategy, strategy, operations, and tactics. Policy, the first of these, is a government’s plan of action in order to achieve what is considered in the best interest of the state. In a military sense, policy encapsulates war aims, dictating the manner in which a war is conducted, and the circumstances of its cessation. On the other extreme, tactics are the actions taken by individual soldiers on the battlefield in order to gain an advantage. These can range from the formations taken by units to the range at which firearms and artillery pieces are most effective. However, the classifications that are most relevant to this discussion are grand strategy, strategy, and, to a lesser degree, operations. Grand strategy is the employment of all military,

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Articles economic, and social forces to destroy the “enemy’s will and ability to wage war,” thereby achieving policy goals. Factors such as geography, logistics, and military strengths and weaknesses are taken into account along with policy goals in order to determine grand strategy. An example of grand strategy during the Civil War is the Anaconda Plan, which blockaded all of the ports of the South in order to constrict the Confederate economy and restrict their ability to conduct foreign relations. Strategy is the specific employment planning of military force in achieving grand strategic and political goals. This involves launching campaigns as well as supporting troop movements with the necessary logistical systems. McClellan’s planning of the Peninsular Campaign in 1862 would be an example of strategy during the Civil War. Operations and strategy often overlap as operations are the violent actions taken by a military in pursuance of strategic goals. Battles, skirmishes, and reconnaissance missions are all examples of operations that were executed during the Civil War. 1 In order to understand the varying military powers granted to Congress and the President in the Constitution, one must first understand the context in which the Constitution was written. The founding document of the American government was written in 1787, a mere 4 years of after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, and ratified in 1789. It replaced the Articles of Confederation, which were deemed too weak and inefficient to effectively run the nation.2 Militarily, the Constitution was heavily influenced by the conduct and command structure of the colonies during the war and reflected the supremacy of the Continental Congress during that time. Therefore, understanding the colonial government during the Revolution is essential for comprehending how the framers conceived of the military organization of their new nation. During the Revolution, the colonies were governed by the Continental Congress, a representative body composed of 65 delegates from the respective colonies. The First Continental Congress was primarily intended to receive redress from King George III for the grievances of the colonies, but it lacked any significant administrative or executive authority. However, when the Second Continental Congress met on 10 May, 1775, it immediately “accepted active responsibility for the conduct of common affairs.”3 Led by figures such as Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Jefferson, the Congress would become the primary entity responsible for fighting the war. In spite of disagreement amongst the delegates regarding whether or not the colonies should separate from Great Britain, they quickly took measures to ensure that Americans were placed in a “state of defence.”4 They voted to issue $2,000,000 in paper money, raised troops in the central colonies, established the Continental Army, and laid down military regulations. After learning of the Prohibitory Act in February, 1776, the Congress authorized the outfitting of American privateers in order to threaten British merchant shipping. 5 As the war progressed, it became increasingly difficult for the Continental Congress to fund the effort, as they had no bullion reserves, could not impose taxes, and had no reliable credit. Their only recourse was to issue increasingly large sums of paper money and to rely on loans when possible. This caused mass

1 Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, A War to be Won (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2000), 583-591. 2 Michael Les Benedict, The Blessings of Freedom (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), 75-76. 3 Colin Bonwick, The American Revolution (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1991), 88. 4 Ibid., 88. 5 The Prohibitory Act cut off all British trade with the rebellious colonies and authorized the seizure of any American ships by the Royal Navy. It was passed in late 1775 but word did not reach the colonies until several months later.

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The Franciscan inflation but was a necessary strategy for keeping the colonies afloat in the conflict against Britain.6 They were also responsible for the payment of soldiers in the Continental Army. Late in the war, this became a serious problem for the Congress, as men and officers began to demand payment of wages and pensions. Congress attempted to launch a major financial program to pay back the Revolutionary War debt, but was unable to do so due to the restricting nature of the Articles of Confederation. 7 The debt would continue to be a contentious issue for between Congress and the states throughout the early years of the republic. All of these – paying troops, raising armies, authorizing privateers – constitute grand strategic considerations for a government. Without these economic and social factors, the Continental Army would have never been able to sustain itself in a war with Britain. However, the Continental Congress was also intimately involved in the strategic processes of the army. They delegates had been first assembled just after the action at Lexington and Concord, and had been entrusted by the colonies to lead the war effort. Because of this, “Congress’s central concern was with the conduct of the war."8 This singular focus allowed the body to exercise “close supervision over military affairs,” emphasizing civilian supremacy over the Continental Army.9 The Continental Congress functioned as both legislature and executive during the Revolution, ensuring that it had complete authority to best direct the war effort.10 Washington, the commander-in-chief of the army, willingly deferred to Congressional authority in the conduct of war, recognizing that his authority derived from these elected representatives.11 For example, when several states failed to furnish Congress with requested funds for the war effort, the New York state legislature suggested that the Continental Congress should command Washington and the Continental Army should be to compel such states to comply.12 The explicit task of the Continental Congress was to take responsibility for the conduct of the war, which could most effectively be achieved by controlling both strategy and grand strategy for the rebellious colonies. While Congress was forming and implementing policy in Philadelphia, George Washington was leading the Continental Army in the field against the British regulars, yet his influence would grow to exceed that of any single member of the legislature. He spent the entirety of the nine-year long war on campaign, even while the army was at winter quarters. Rather than traveling back to the comfort of his estate at Mount Vernon during the winter months, his wife, Martha, joined him at his headquarters.13 Despite losing several battles due to his inexperience as a military commander, Washington enjoyed almost universal respect from his soldiers and the citizens of the states because of his dedication and decorum.14 He was so influential that he held a “king-like status,” yet the de jure authority that he held was solely military.15 Without exception, he deferred to the authority of the Continental Congress and believed that his power derived from

6 Bonwick, The American Revolution, 103. 7 Ibid., 183. 8 Ibid., 106. 9 Ibid., 102.; Also see, “War Department, United States”, Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, November 2019. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=134501374&site=ehost-live. 10 Bonwick, The American Revolution, 102. 11 Joseph Ellis, His Excellency (New York: Random House, 2004), 82-83. 12 Ben Baack, “Forging a Nation State: The Continental Congress and the Financing of the War of American Independence”, Economic History Review 54, no. 4 (November 2001), 648. doi:10.1111/1468-0289.00206. 13 Joseph Ellis, His Excellency, 73,79. 14 Ibid., 78. 15 Ibid., 82.

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Articles the will of the people enacted through Congress.16 Nevertheless, Congress almost always acceded to his requests for manpower or funds.17 After the war, Washington refused to use his extraordinary influence as the hero of the revolution to gain political power. Just two months after the cessation of hostilities in 1783, Washington informed Congress of his resignation as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. He perfectly embodied the republican principles of the revolution as he read his resignation speech with a faltering voice and a shaking hand to the crowd of openly weeping congressmen.18 The future president recognized that the colonies needed a strong leader during the war, but assuming absolute authority with his immense popularity after the conflict would be both unnecessary and dangerous for the young republic. He would again be granted the position of commander-in-chief a few short years later, but the title would come with slightly altered powers and responsibilities than he had previously held. When framing the Constitution in 1787, the founders recognized that the nation would need a strong, motivated leader to lead the nation during war. In Federalist No. 74, Alexander Hamilton argued that entrusting control of the military to the president is an obvious decision. Among all the powers of government, war is unique in that it requires leadership by a “single hand.”19 This ensures that all of the common strength of the people is directed towards the policy of the nation. In a debate in the North Carolina ratifying convention, one delegate commented that the powers granted to the president to wage war seemed dangerous in their scope. In response, several members of the convention argued that the executive in almost all countries is tasked with the conduct of war. Furthermore, the president cannot raise armies or requisition funds, as the British executive can, as those are powers delegated to Congress, and is subject to the threat of impeachment; therefore, he is unable to abuse his authority over the military.20 In his commentaries on the Constitution, Joseph Story, an early Supreme Court Justice, noted that the responsibilities of a commander-in-chief are “powers so obviously of an executive nature… that a well organized government can scarcely exist, when they are taken away from it”.21 Thus, the Constitution was ratified with Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 granting the President the powers of the “commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States….”22 The president would theoretically inherit civilian control over the military from the Continental Congress but would be restrained to managing only strategic matters. The grand strategic powers exercised by Congress during the Revolution would instead pass to the new Congress of the United States. Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, the legislature is granted the authority “To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; To raise and support armies… To provide and maintain a navy; To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces” and to exercise similar powers over the militia of the several states.”23 While the president was granted

16 Bonwick, The American Revolution, 102.; Ellis, His Excellency, 82-83. 17 James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn, George Washington (New York: Times Books, 2004), 28. 18 Ibid., 30.; Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 205. 19 Alexander Hamilton, “Federalist No. 74”, The Founders’ Constitution, The University of Chicago Press. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_2_1s5.html. 20 “Debate in North Carolina Ratifying Convention”, The Founders’ Constitution, The University of Chicago Press. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_2_1s7.html. 21 Joseph Story, “Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution”, The Founders’ Constitution, The University of Chicago Press. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a2_2_1s12.html. 22 Article 2.2.1 23 Article 1.8.11

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The Franciscan the power to wage war, the House and Senate were entrusted to raise and allocate funds for the armed forces. The founders intended this division to inhibit the ability of the president to misuse his power over the army and navy and thereby create a military dictatorship. The economic and legal powers necessary for raising and maintaining an army, as well as the power to declare war, were reserved for the legislative branch. The peculiar nature of the conduct of the American Revolution heavily influenced the distribution of military powers under the Constitution, which would, in turn, determine how the government would wage war in future conflicts. The Continental Congress was explicitly formed to fight the Revolutionary War. This, in addition to its nature as both executive and legislature, put it in a unique position that allowed it to dedicate all of its resources towards the war effort. George Washington, as an appointed military officer, was completely subject to the directives of the Congress. However, during the formulation of the Constitution, this command structure was altered as a result of political considerations. As a result, the executive was given unilateral control over strategic aspects of the military, but was not trusted with grand strategic powers, as these could easily be abused. Congress received the grand strategic powers necessary to sustain the military, but this Congress differed greatly from the Continental Congress that preceded it. The body would now be responsible for governing all aspects of the young country, rather than having a single, defined purpose. This lack of a unified goal meant that the Congress became far more factional, and would continue to grow as states joined the union. This did not affect the ability of the Congress to manage the military in peacetime or even in lesser wars, but should a crisis arise, neither the executive nor the legislature would be able to the lead the country as the Continental Congress had in the Revolution. The first real test of the military clauses of the Constitution would not come until 72 years after ratification. Following the election of the republican Abraham Lincoln in 1860, thirteen southern states would vote to secede from the Union. This secession was the product of years of hostility and disagreement between the industrial North and agricultural, slave-holding South, marked by episodes of violence such as Bleeding Kansas and the raid on Harpers Ferry. The country had been economically and culturally divided for decades, as Northern sympathies moved towards abolition and a stronger federal government while the South remained avid states’ rights proponents with a slave-based economy. The war would officially begin on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces under P. G. T. Beauregard opened fire on federal troops in Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.24 The Civil War is unique in early American history with regards to both its scope and its consequences. The conflict completely embroiled the nation for four years and caused the deaths of at least 600,000 soldiers. The ranks of both sides were filled with millions of volunteers; although both sides employed conscription, only 6% of the Union forces were drafted.25 Armies would campaign across the entirety of the continent while the Union navy strangled the southern economy. The conclusion of the Civil War caused decades of repercussions in the form of the Reconstruction and inspired three constitutional amendments, which changed the nature of federalism in the United States.26 The enormity of the Civil War forced the new president, Abraham Lincoln, to devote all of his energies towards the struggle. He was fully committed to the preservation of the Union,

24 David Donald, Lincoln (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 285. 25 Mark Neely, The Last Best Hope of Earth (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 127. 26 Benedict, The Blessings of Liberty, 215-217.

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Articles believing his role to be the protection and continuation of the national government.27 In his First Inaugural Address, he reinforced the unity of the states and their common bonds of friendship, but the southern states interpreted these statements as proof of the inevitability of reconciliation with the new administration.28 Once the war began, Lincoln was heavily involved in the organization and strategic decisions of the army, despite his lack of military experience. He was aware of his own limitations and took care to learn from his mistakes and consider the advice of his subordinates.29 Nevertheless, he often personally appointed Union commanders, directed troop movements, and remained constantly updated on the actions of Union forces.30 The president actively created and enforced military policy as well, refusing to allow his ministers to issue orders without his authority.31 As commander-in-chief, Lincoln exercised the full scope of his strategic powers to organize the Union war effort. However, the president would soon begin to appropriate powers that he believed were necessary for the prosecution of the war, yet were not executive powers according to the Constitution. Lincoln’s addresses on April 15 and July 4, 1861, clearly indicated that he was convinced that the Chief Executive was constitutionally responsible for the direction of the war effort, “to be carried out with minimal interference from the other branches of the government and without excessive respect to Constitutional niceties protecting individual rights.”32 Using this reasoning, he justified taking measures such as enacting a blockade of southern ports, extending enlistments in the army, strengthening the army and navy, and allocating money for the purchase of weapons and supplies. Fortunately for the Lincoln, congressmen, irrespective of party lines, quickly rallied around him in the crisis. His speech was met with thunderous applause, and Congress retroactively approved all of the president’s extraconstitutional measures, as well as increased the size and budget of the army compared to Lincoln’s requests.33 Lincoln again overreached his constitutional bounds in 1862 when he adopted conscription for the Union army. This decision would become the most unpopular policy of Lincoln’s administration, yet he believed it was essential for the continuation of the war. None of his executive ministers were surprised at the idea, as many considered the draft an inevitable outgrowth of a modern war. 34 Many European countries relied on conscription in war and in peace, but the American aversion to standing armies caused widespread disapproval. Lincoln often argued for the draft in “logical, reasoned, and measured tones”, yet faced impassioned opposition from many Americans.35 As a result, Secretary of War Stanton was forced to impose heavy penalties on those who attempted to flee the draft, such as banning everyone eligible for the draft from leaving the country. Both federal and state officers were authorized to enforce this ban, being instructed to watch ports and the Canadian border. As a final measure, the writ of habeas corpus was rescinded for all those arrested for disloyalty to the union, including draft dodging. The suspension of the writ of habeas corpus was another controversial, arguably extraconstitutional action taken by Lincoln during the Civil War. The wording of the Constitution

27 Donald, Lincoln, 269. 28 Ibid., 284. 29 Mark Neely, The Last Best Hope of Earth, 61, 68. 30 Ibid., 65. 31 Ibid., 64. 32 Donald, Lincoln, 303. 33 Ibid., 304-305. 34 Neely, The Last Best Hope of Earth, 124-125. 35 Ibid., 127.

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The Franciscan does not make it evident where the power lies, but both the legislative and judicial branches were affronted by Lincoln’s assumption of it.36 The writ was first suspended just after the beginning of the war on April 27, 1861, when state militias marching to Washington D.C. were being harassed by anti-war Marylanders. To protect the incoming regiments, Lincoln declared that anyone arrested on the route between Philadelphia and Washington could be arrested without a trial.37 Habeas corpus would be repeatedly suspended in troublesome areas throughout the early years of the war and was suspended throughout the country on September 15, 1863. The remaining years of the war saw the near-constant infringement of individual liberties as thousands of prisoners, mostly smugglers, spies, and blockade-runners, were denied the right to appeal their imprisonment to a judge.38 During the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War, neither James Madison nor James Polk had introduced such restrictive measures on individual liberties. Likewise, the “notorious Sedition Act of 1798” only caused ten convictions; the arrests under the Lincoln administration were the severest attack on individual rights that the young republic had seen.39 Yet Lincoln justified his extreme actions by stating that an overly respectful treatment of citizens’ liberties during the war could allow “all the laws, but one, to go executed, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated.”40 His expansion of executive power might infringe on the letter of the law, but it was necessary because of the extraordinary circumstances of the Civil War. The extraconstitutional powers that Abraham Lincoln adopted for the purpose of fighting the war were clearly grand strategic in nature, allowing him to mobilize social and economic resources towards the ends of the Union war policy, as the Continental Congress had done during the Revolution. During his tenure, Lincoln was completely disinterested in anything that did not directly affect the war effort. Because the economy was growing and stable, he did not establish any economic policy, nor did he make any attempt at foreign policy. Similarly, he rarely dealt with civilian matters that did not have an influence on the mobilization of troops or the war.41 Just like the Continental Congress during the Revolution, Lincoln’s sole concern was with the conduct of the war, and he was determined that he would be the strong single hand to lead the Union in the greatest military crisis since the Revolution. However, he felt that the powers afforded to him as the commander-in-chief by the Constitution did not have the required scope to effectively lead the war effort, so he reached outside of his prescribed authority. This permitted him to exercise both strategic and grand strategic powers to achieve the war aims of the Union, enabling him to act far more efficiently than the Constitution would strictly allow. Nevertheless, Lincoln only assumed this quasi-legislative power because he believed that he had a constitutional responsibility to protect and preserve the Union at all costs. He acknowledged the authority of Congress to modify or annul his proclamations, but still sought to have the greatest influence on lawmaking as possible. Nonetheless, the legislature confirmed most of the decisions made by Lincoln, and he still respected legislative supremacy and “conceded Congress’s final authority over matters like Reconstruction.”42 This stood in stark contrast to the position taken by his successor, Andrew Johnson. Lincoln was assassinated in the midst of the

36 Donald, Lincoln, 303. 37 Ibid., 299. 38 Ibid., 304. 39 Neely, The Last Best Hope of Earth, 126. 40 Donald, Lincoln, 304. 41 Neely, The Last Best Hope of Earth, 123. 42 Benedict, The Blessings of Liberty, 193-195.

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Articles debate over Reconstruction, leaving this delicate issue to his vice president. Unlike Lincoln, Johnson blatantly flouted Congressional authority, opposing their Reconstruction policy and openly breaking the Tenure of Office Act. The furious republicans called for impeachment, but fell short by a single vote.43 In conclusion, the Constitution does not explicitly provide the president with adequate powers to lead the nation in a military crisis such as the Civil War. After the Revolutionary War, Congress recognized that the command of the military had to be entrusted to the executive, but refused to part with the grand strategic powers that they had exercised during the conflict. They argued that the legislature had to control these aspects of the government so that the president was checked in his military authority. As a result, Abraham Lincoln believed it was necessary to expand his authority during the Civil War in order that he could serve as a strong leader for the Union in the crisis, arguing that the Constitution first and foremost charged him to protect the Union. He used this argument to justify his assumption of quasi-legislative powers, but still recognized the supremacy of Congress. But he was prevented from playing the role of Cincinnatus, as George Washington had done, by his untimely death, allowing his successor, Andrew Johnson, to instead follow the example of Julius Caesar and expand his own executive powers over the Congress, even in peacetime.

43 Ibid., 210-212.

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From Denmark to Hungary: Exploring the Importance of Oral History through Personal Narratives

Caleb Speakman & Manoah Marton Recipient of the Alumni Submission Award

Abstract: Written sources which piece together a grand narrative have traditionally monopolized the field of history. This dominant methodology has excluded oral history, which seeks to construct a historical narrative using the memory of eyewitnesses whose lived experiences compose history itself. This paper seeks to defend the value of oral history in a methodological sense, then participates in oral history by telling the stories of the Brauner and Márton families. The Brauners’ story complements the grand narrative surrounding the occupation of Denmark by Germany in 1940; the Mártons’ story complements the grand narrative surrounding the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Each account contributes valuable experiential data to its respective grand narrative and showcases the merit of conducting oral history.

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The discipline of history is dominated by the spectacular: magnificent battles, illustrious nobles, powerful clergy. These icons combine to form the basis of grand historical narratives, descriptions of the past which employ traditional sources of documentation to structure an ostensibly comprehensive chronology. Even at the undergraduate level, students of history can recount transformative battles, monarchical dynasties, and the formulaic elements of political movements. Understanding these events gives one a valuable, but decidedly myopic, conception of history. Scholars can recite the facts of historical events without ever grappling with the personal side of history, leaving the historian with an incomplete understanding of the past and no meaningful connection to the present. The tradition of oral history is often misunderstood and characterized as a replacement for the traditional chronology of grand historical narratives. On the contrary, historians should understand oral history as a necessary complement to grand historical narratives. Oral history provides complexity in that it “democratizes history” by grounding past events in the lived experiences of eyewitnesses.1 It provides the historian with a methodology that breaks away from the routine memorization of fact and instead constructs a holistic historical narrative that depicts not only how events occurred but also how they were experienced. Particularly for undergraduate students, participating in oral history transforms conventional textbook material into a vibrant impression of the past. This paper examines the personal narratives of individuals involved in the German occupation of Denmark in 1940 and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956; it uses oral history to better understand these events and also uses these personal narratives to shed light on the importance of oral history.

Towards a Holistic Historiography: The Value of Oral History Oral history simply refers to “the use of oral sources in history or the social sciences.”2 More contextually, it is a method both of doing history and of relating to other people. It is an art of listening, a deeply relational way of understanding how the raw events of history imprint themselves on people’s psyches. Alessandro Portelli argues that oral history derives its weight from a series of relationships, between “interviewees and interviewers,” between present and remembered thoughts, “between the public and the private sphere,” and finally “between the orality of the source and the writing of the historian.”3 The primary act of a historian conducting oral history is the interview, and the primary result is consequently the transcriptions of these interviews. In interviewing, the historian must establish a relationship with the interviewee that draws connections between their own mindset vis-à-vis the present moment and the interviewee’s memories and beliefs. These discussions illuminate stories previously cabined to whispers behind closed doors. For example, Portelli describes the stories of women whose husbands were murdered in the “Nazi massacre perpetrated in Rome in 1944.”4 He learned of struggles never before mentioned in historical records, including the increase in sexual harassment experienced by newly widowed women. “Oral history,” Portelli argues, “allows us to access the historicity of private lives–but, most importantly, it forces us to redefine our preconceived notion of the geography of public and private

1Miroslav Vaněk. Around the Globe: Rethinking Oral History with Its Protagonists (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2013), 62. 2Alessandro Portelli. “An Approach to Oral History.” Expressions Annual (2005), 1. 3Ibid., 2. 4Ibid., 1.

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The Franciscan space.”5 The retelling, interrogation, and ventilation of private stories inextricably links memory and oral history. In fact, the ‘memory booms’ of the 20th century contributed to an unparalleled rise in interest in oral sources and made “historians more receptive to the value of oral history.”6 These ‘memory booms’ entailed an elevation of personal letters, photography, interviews, and other private materials in two separate waves, culminating in the glorification of the witness—as represented par excellence in the coming forward of Holocaust survivors.7 The overwhelming tendency of the post-war 20th century to focus on testimonies, witnesses, and other oral sources generated a lively debate over the relative value of memory, history, and their interrelation. Some scholars decried the ‘memory booms’ as an over-emphasis that, while superficially focusing on oral tradition, actually broke from a broader understanding of tradition and culture by being overly individualistic. For example, the French scholar Pierre Nora argues that memory has been reduced to mere recording; it “has been wholly absorbed by its meticulous reconstitution”—and no longer plays an organic role in creating and sustaining community.8 This historical and individualistic use of memory has actually distorted what Nora sees as ‘true memory:’ memory which takes “refuge in gestures and habits, in skills passed down by unspoken traditions, in the body's inherent self-knowledge, in unstudied reflexes and ingrained memories.”9 Nora argues that we have lost the older, more venerable notion of memory. The status quo represents a “conquest and eradication of memory by history,” a “revelation” that has broken “an ancient bond of identity.”10 Although he does not seem to think an entire reversal of this conquest is possible, what hope he does have lies in what he has famously called lieux de memoire, or sites of memory. These sites, which may range from a museum to an ancient document, can—if imperfectly—recreate the experience of the culture of which they were once a part. For Nora, oral history divorced from a deep cultural context is only grasping for “the ephemeral spectacle of an unrecoverable identity.”11 Other scholars have criticized Nora’s somewhat pessimistic outlook. Jay Winters, for example, calls Nora’s assertion that memory can only be recreated in artificial forms—the lieux de memoire—“curiously out of touch with cultural trends in many other parts of the world.”12 Alessandro Portelli provides another alternative view, saying that historiography and the subsequent “presence of writing liberates orality from the burden of memory.”13 Portelli argues that the written form allows speakers “to place their own subjectivity and experience at the center of the tale”—something Nora argues against with his critique of individualism.14 Thus, the central philosophical issue concerning oral history is that of context—whether oral history is only valuable

5Alessandro Portelli. “An Approach to Oral History.” Expressions Annual (2005), 4. 6Jeremy D. Popkin. From Herodotus to H-Net (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 151. 7See Jay Winter’s Remembering War. 8Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations, no. 26 (Spring 1989), 13. 9Ibid., 13. 10Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations, no. 26 (Spring 1989), 8. 11Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations, no. 26 (Spring 1989), 17- 18. 12Jay Winter. Remembering War: The Great War Between Memory and History in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 287. 13Alessandro Portelli. The Death of Luigi Trastulli, and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 75. 14Ibid., 75.

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Articles when contextualized by a living culture. Whatever their differences, however, Nora, Winters, and Portelli all agree that oral tradition plays an extremely vital role in historiography. In fact, oral history shatters the boundaries of the conventional historical method by broadening grand narratives to include nonhegemonic perspectives, experiential context, and personal anecdotes. Oral history maintains as its methodological focus “social classes and individuals that were previously ignored (were not written about) in traditional historical sources.”15 This spotlight illuminates the lived experience of millions of people and expands the general knowledge of historical events to include the perspectives, motivations, and stories of oppressed groups. For example, Miroslav Vaněk argues that “in a post-communist context” oral history can expose “knowledge of realities and experiences that were at odds with the established communist model and were suppressed before.”16 These considerations make oral history “a necessary (not a sufficient) condition for a history of the nonhegemonic classes.”17 In other words, oral history ought to work in tandem with traditional sources to provide a holistic understanding of historical fact. However, by failing to place the proper emphasis on oral sources, historians risk “turning these sources either into mere supports for traditional written sources or into an illusory cure for all ills.”18 Oral history helps to reshape the modern understanding of past events: “It is thus through oral history that the researcher gets new information, findings and views that enrich, expand or corrects his/her hitherto understanding of history.”19 Rather than “passively record the facts,” oral history “elaborate[s] upon them and create[s] meaning through the labor of memory and the filter of language.”20 This insight is possible because of the way in which oral history seeks to discover the meaning of events rather than document their mere occurrence. Employing oral sources obligates historians to interrogate “the role of people within the historical process” and consequently elucidates the context for established historiography.21 Establishing a contextual focus centers the historical process around a harmony of fact and narrative, data and experience, the political and the personal. Oral history allows individuals the possibility to recount their own experiences “instead of waiting for some historian 40 or 100 years from now to represent history for them.”22 Miroslav Vaněk recounts:

The greatest thing about doing oral history is actually sitting down with the individual and learning about that individual, having them tell you things that they would never have told anybody else, and getting them to explain their own past and their own events.23

15Miroslav Vaněk. Around the Globe: Rethinking Oral History with Its Protagonists (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2013), 20. 16Ibid., 86. 17Alessandro Portelli. The Death of Luigi Trastulli, and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 56. 18Ibid., 46. 19Miroslav Vaněk. Around the Globe: Rethinking Oral History with Its Protagonists (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2013), 25. 20Alessandro Portelli. “An Approach to Oral History.” Expressions Annual (2005), 5. 21Miroslav Vaněk. Around the Globe: Rethinking Oral History with Its Protagonists (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2013), 116. 22Miroslav Vaněk. Around the Globe: Rethinking Oral History with Its Protagonists (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2013), 54. 23Ibid., 139.

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This harmony reveals the true value of oral history. It represents the subjective experience of the individual and their story within the broader historical narrative and adds a layer of subjectivity to the historical tradition that embodies the lived experience of real people. Oral sources are not merely cosmetic additions to the grand narrative; they imbue the narrative with authenticity and serve as “the axis of another type of historical work, in which questions of memory, narrative, subjectivity, [and] dialogue shape the historian’s very agenda.”24 While modern scholars widely regard oral history as a necessary chapter in the study of past events, some have criticized the tradition for being subjective and susceptible to inaccuracy. Dr. William Menninger, in his article “Memory and History: What Can You Believe?” argues that oral history relies on memories which “may not be completely trustworthy and our recollections may be more wishful thinking than true reality.”25 Menninger suggests that factors such as self- conception, trauma, and the neurological fractionalization of memory unite to make oral history valuable only insofar as it aligns with traditional historical documentation. Menninger’s subordination of oral history improperly values the tradition in the larger context of historiography. First, the telos of oral history is not “to be the only privileged source of historical knowledge.”26 Instead, the discipline seeks to include within grand historical narratives “a specific type of information . . . that the historian cannot find in any other sources.”27 In fact, “written and oral sources are not mutually exclusive.”28 Rather, an amalgamation of traditional and oral history creates a more holistic understanding of past events. Second, oral history seeks to answer a different question than traditional historiography: “Oral sources tell us not just what people did, but what they wanted to do, what they believed they were doing, and what they now think they did.”29 Oral history seeks to break away from “questions of fact” and “questions of data” and instead interrogate “how people live in history.”30 Oral history embraces this inherent subjectivity to create a historical narrative that transcends the mere documentation of events to capture “aspects of historical experience,” which would otherwise be blotted out of the grand narrative.31 Finally, the risk of subjectivity is not a unique concern to the tradition of oral history. “Very often, written documents are only the uncontrolled transmission of unidentified oral sources.”32 Therefore, to ignore the work of oral historians would be tantamount to dismissing centuries of historical data cataloged in a similar manner.

Personal Narratives: From Denmark to Hungary

24Alessandro Portelli. “An Approach to Oral History.” Expressions Annual (2005), 5. 25William Menninger. “Memory and History: What Can You Believe?” Archival Issues 21 (2) (1996), 104. 26Miroslav Vaněk. Around the Globe: Rethinking Oral History with Its Protagonists (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2013), 24. 27Ibid., 20. 28Alessandro Portelli. The Death of Luigi Trastulli, and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 46. 29Ibid., 46. 30Miroslav Vaněk. Around the Globe: Rethinking Oral History with Its Protagonists (Prague: Karolinum Press, 2013), 23. 31Ibid., 144. 32Alessandro Portelli. The Death of Luigi Trastulli, and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 51.

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What follows are the personal narratives of Sofia and Svend Brauner and János and Mária Márton. The Brauner’s account was constructed from an original source document, written by Sofia Brauner about her experience during the occupation. That document was paraphrased by Mrs. Brauner’s great-grandson, Caleb Speakman, on February 12, 2018. The Márton’s account was constructed from a four-hour interview of János and Mária Márton, conducted by their grandson, Manoah Marton, and Caleb Speakman on January 21, 2018. The interviewees discussed their background, education, careers, and interaction with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

The Wagners and Brauners: Denmark, 1940–194533

Sofia Brauner (née Wagner, 1921-2017) and Svend Brauner (1916-1995) lived in Denmark during the German occupation. The occupation began on April 9th, 1940, and did not end until May 4th, 1945. During this time, Sofia and Svend raised a family, maintained their careers, and aided the resistance. For their families, the occupation was a personal matter, especially after Sofia’s brother Poul Wagner was imprisoned in a concentration camp. Sofia and Svend hid a German defector, held parties as alibis for friends in the resistance, and tried to live normal lives despite the ongoing war. Fortunately, the war years would only mark the first chapter of their lives together. April 9th of 1940 was a fateful day for the country of Denmark. In the early morning, the Wagner family was alarmed to hear planes flying overhead. When they turned on the radio, they found to their dismay that Denmark was being occupied by the Germans. It was not a very violent occupation, as the Danes lacked the resources to mount a meaningful defense. Sofia, eighteen at the time, took the train to Copenhagen, fully intending to attend school despite the occupation. The teachers and students, however, were in an uproar—and the students were sent home that day. As German soldiers had temporarily taken over the trains, Sofia stayed with her older brother Fredrik for a few hours before returning to her parents’ home.34 Although not immediately violent, the occupation did impact the daily lives of the Danes. The Germans took over the Danish radio; they attempted to use it as a source of propaganda, often painting the British as enemies of Denmark. A curfew was established—Danes had to darken their windows and only carry small flashlights after hours. Sofia and her sister Ingrid attended a concert in Copenhagen, but had difficulty traversing the streets at night with only small flashlights. Notably, however, it was still safe for them to travel at night in Copenhagen. At the beginning of the occupation, Sofia was working for the Department of Agriculture in a government building. She worked near several other government buildings, and thus was nearby when the R.A.F. began bombing German-held buildings in Copenhagen. Their primary target was a shipyard that the Germans were using; it was quickly destroyed. Sofia and other government workers hid for two hours in the basement of their building as the bombing happened. This particular bombing was accurate and only damaged the shipyard. However, other bombings entailed more severe collateral damage. One particularly horrendous example happened when the R.A.F. was bombing the lower levels of a building in order to free prisoners on the upper levels.35 Initially successful, one of the planes flew too low, became entangled in electrical wires, and

33Sofia Brauner wrote a personal narrative concerning her and her family’s experience during the occupation, which is the primary source for this summary. 34Fredrik and his wife Sigrid were dentists, who originally had a large clinic in front of Raadhuset, the county hall. This building was seized by the Gestapo, and Fredrik and Sigrid had to operate out of a much smaller clinic they rented from a semi-retired dentist. 35The same building Fredrik and Sigrid once used for their dentistry.

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The Franciscan crashed into a schoolhouse full of children and teachers. The German soldiers did not allow civilians onto the site, and no rescue was effected—all the teachers and students in the schoolhouse died. In the face of such tragedies, the Danish people still managed to present a united front. Sofia recalls how the Danes would gather together in parks and other open places to sing songs or simply walk together “to support each other and show our spirits to the Germans.”36 In the early days of the occupation, she remembers, King Christian X continued “his custom of riding on his horse from Amalienborg Castle through the street of the inner city of Copenhagen.”37 On Tuesdays, he would ride past the office where Sofia worked, with no guards but civilians following on bicycles or foot. Danish solidarity provided the key to Danish resistance. It allowed the Danes, alone among all the occupied nations, to rescue nearly all of its Jewish population. Sofia had friends in the underground resistance that helped smuggle the Jews into Sweden. As she recounts:

Unfortunately it did not take very long before the Germans tried to round up all of the Jewish people, but most Jews were helped to escape to Sweden by small fishing boats, manned by men…who knew the safest way to launch their boats to avoid the Germans patrol boats. Sweden was neutral and the Germans patrol boats could not enter their waters. The Jewish people stayed in Sweden until after the war. The Jews who had to leave the country were fortunate that their apartments were looked after by young Danish students who lived in them until after the war. When the owners were able to return, they were happy to find that all of their belongings were safe and well taken care of.38

In a geopolitical climate of anti-Semitic terrorism, the Danish people saw their Jewish neighbors not as sub-human but simply as fellow Danes worthy of protection and solidarity. They would not suffer the Germans to round up a section of the Danish population and send them away to concentration camps, not when it was within their power to prevent it. Simultaneous with the political happenings in Denmark, Sofia and Svend attempted to lead a fairly normal life. Their first date was at the Royal Theater, and it was interrupted by two air raids. Nevertheless, the date itself went well and marked the beginning of a relationship that would last for more than fifty years until Svend’s death. Sofia and Svend were married in April of 1944 by Sofia’s uncle Carl, a Lutheran pastor. They ate dinner at a nearby inn, enjoyed coffee at Sofia’s mother’s apartment, and then retired to their new home in Copenhagen. Sofia recalls inviting the family from Jutland, but not having enough furniture as it was still shipping. Their apartment was on the sixth floor. Whenever the air raid whistle blew, they were supposed to go downstairs to the basement, but it was “dark and full of electrical wires…[and] water pipes…hanging down from the ceiling,” so they never used it.39 The other option was a bunker built in the mall square, which they also did not use. Instead, they hid in the windowless hallway of their apartment. Often the air raid whistle was a false alarm, and the planes were only flying over to drop weapons and supplies for the underground. Sofia and Svend were the only ones of their friends to own an apartment. As a result, they would often host parties for their friends. Because of the curfew, the parties began at 9:00 pm and lasted until 6:00 am when people were allowed back on the streets, although she recalls going to bed around midnight. These parties sometimes functioned as alibis for some of their friends in the

36Sofia Brauner. “World War 2: Occupation Years in Copenhagen,” 2. 37Ibid., 1. 38Ibid., 2. 39Sofia Brauner. “World War 2: Occupation Years in Copenhagen,” 5.

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Articles underground.40 Many of their friends and family members were involved in the resistance, although Sofia and Svend were not always aware of this. Their friend Jens would listen to broadcast news from England and Sweden when he visited the Brauner’s apartment, would proceed to drop off his wife at his home, and then would go to pick up supplies from the R.A.F., having received a codename for the drop location over the radio. At the time, he was so secretive his wife feared he was seeing someone else. The Danes were usually successful in securing the supplies, but on one occasion they were caught, and only Jens escaped. It was a long while, Sofia recalls, before Jens was able to be active again.41 But daily life went on. Svend, a clock and watchmaker, began to work from home with an apprentice named Aksel. They worked and lived near two major bridges that connected different parts of Copenhagen. The Germans would occasionally lock down the bridges, letting only foot traffic across. On one such occasion, Svend heard about an escaped German soldier. This soldier spoke fluent Swedish, so he could communicate with the Danes fairly well. He had a printing press and wanted to print anti-nazi documents. Sofia notes that most of the soldiers from Germany were not actually nazis, and they “were told only what the Gestapo wanted them to know.”42 The defector, named Hans, stayed with Sofia and Svend for a few months, operating his printing press out of a little room behind their kitchen. All three of them were risking their lives to help the underground resistance and spread anti-nazi ideas. After a few months, Hans left their apartment for another location to continue aiding the resistance. After the war, they met again, and Sofia recalls that Hans “felt good about what he had been able to do.”43 In September of 1944, the occupation struck home for the Wagner family. At this time, the Germans took over the Police Academy in Copenhagen. The police officers there had been helping the resistance, so the Germans wanted to shut down their operations. After the academy was taken, “all of the police officers were transported directly to concentration camps in Germany.”44 Among these officers was Sofia’s brother Poul Wagner. They managed to send him supplies through the Red Cross, even though the Germans were moving the Danish officers from camp to camp in an attempt to withhold supplies. Poul survived his time in the camps and was even able to help other prisoners. Sofia recalls how he would entertain and enliven the prisoners by performing songs in several languages. He likely only survived, Sofia thinks, because a Polish doctor gave him some of the doctor’s limited penicillin when Poul became deathly ill. As a result of the illness, he was sent to a hospital and eventually reunited with his family.45 Shortly before the German surrender, Svend had sent Sofia and their new baby, Annette, to stay with Sofia’s mother, in a suburb south of Copenhagen called Karlslunde. He was worried that shooting would break out, as they lived fairly close to German barracks. While Sofia and Annette were safely away from the tumult, the Danes celebrated the end of the German occupation. They put candles in their windows, and dancing and singing filled the streets. “The following morning,” Sofia recalls, “I walked up to the highway with Annette in her baby buggy and [happily] greeted the caravan of English soldiers on their way into Copenhagen.”46

40Sofia’s daughter Annette recounted this detail when asked about the story. 41He later drove a meat truck, and rescued and then harbored a R.A.F. pilot whose plane had been shot down. 42Sofia Brauner. “World War 2: Occupation Years in Copenhagen,” 3. 43Sofia Brauner. “World War 2: Occupation Years in Copenhagen,” 3. 44Ibid., 7. 45A family friend, however, an old classmate of Sofia’s named Troels, was not so fortunate and died in the concentration camp. Troels was a member of the underground, and was part of a network of doctors and ministers who provided safe havens for resistance members. Pages 3 and 7. 46Sofia Brauner. “World War 2: Occupation Years in Copenhagen,” 7.

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János and Mária Márton: Hungary, 1934–195647

János Márton was born on March 22nd of 1934 in Békéscsaba, Hungary. His father owned a local bakery where János and his five brothers worked throughout childhood. From the age of eight, János remembers waking up at four or five o’clock in the morning to pump well-water and operate the massive ovens in the bakery. Leisure time was hard to come by, but when possible, János and his brothers met up with neighborhood children to play soccer. Békéscsaba is a small agricultural town roughly 130 miles southeast of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. The economy in the late 1930’s and early 40’s consisted primarily of agriculture and food production, but also featured a brick factory and textile manufacturing plant. In every way, Békéscsaba was a microcosm of the agricultural communities across Europe. Families were united by religious ties, particularly the attendance of a local Nazarene church; small businesses were very much familial endeavors. In 1945, when János was eleven years old, the Soviet Union succeeded in ending the German occupation of Hungary. Unfortunately, this transition marked a turbulent and chaotic time in Hungarian history. The Soviets infiltrated the country and proceeded to set up a centralized bureaucracy and network of communes in place of the previous market economy. Communities predominantly centered around agriculture were greatly affected, as the Soviets instituted collective farms without individual property rights. For János Márton and his family, Soviet control uprooted their family bakery and made the business an enterprise of the state. János’ father had to beg the Soviets to give him a job working at his own bakery. At age fourteen, János began attending professional school in Bekesh. He wanted to work in manufacturing and to learn to work with tools. The Soviets denied his request and told him that if he wanted an education, it had to be in the agriculture sector. From the age of fourteen to sixteen, János went to school in Bekesh, and he attended a school in Szeged until he was eighteen. In 1952, at the age of eighteen, János was mere weeks from graduating school with a degree in agriculture when a communist classmate, named Paul Ericky, almost ruined János’ life. Paul falsely accused János of speaking critically of a popular communist book and reported his accusation to the school’s authorities. János was instantly expelled from school and told he would not be permitted access to any educational institution in Hungary. Stalin, the current Soviet leader, made certain that no one could criticize communist ideology without punishment. Until Stalin died a year later, in 1953, János was unemployed. After Stalin’s death, János was permitted to finish his degree in agriculture and was given a job on one of the Soviets’ collective farms. This stability was short-lived because of the military service obligation in Hungary; all men were required to serve in the military for two years, starting at age twenty. And so, on November 11th of 1954, János joined the army. János’ stint in the military was initially uneventful. Because he was educated, he was given administrative work which required impeccable handwriting and transcription skills. It was towards the end of his term, in 1956, that János found himself in the middle of Hungary’s most defining moments. The first significant event was János’ participation in the funeral procession of Laszlo Rajk. János was randomly selected while on an administrative errand to serve in Budapest, Hungary’s capital, as a member of the honor guard. Laszlo was a Hungarian politician who was executed by

47János Márton was interviewed on January 21, 2018 by Manoah Marton and Caleb Speakman regarding his life in Hungary. That interview is the primary source for this summary.

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Articles the Soviets for alleged ties to Western powers and capitalism. Post mortem, Laszlo was viewed as a martyr and victim of communist ideology. He was executed in 1949 but was rehabilitated and given an official funeral in 1956. János served as an honor guard in Laszlo’s 1956 funeral procession, and he remembers perfecting the three-volley gun salute performed by his unit. Their commanding officer promised them extra leave if they fired their weapons exactly in unison, a feat which seemed impossible in the units’ practice volleys. At the funeral, János’ unit executed the salute to perfection. The period of time following the funeral marked the beginning of the Hungarian Revolution. Students began to lead protests in Budapest, which called for the expulsion of the Soviet Union from Hungarian borders. The nation rang with the chords of the traditional, Hungarian national anthem—an audible sign of public sentiment. These protesters rallied around János’ military base, beseeching the soldiers within to join their cause. The commanding officer ordered the soldiers to stop communicating with the protesters and back away from the windows, but János and his unit were still able to talk with the protesters through broken roof tiles in the attic. At this time, the protesters abandoned their attempts to recruit the Hungarian soldiers and instead moved to disseminate their message of freedom from the local radio broadcasting building. János’ commanding officer ordered his troops to assemble and prepare to defend the broadcasting building against the onslaught of protestors. When they arrived, the crowd of protesters was becoming unruly, having realized that the Soviet-controlled radio would not accurately depict their concerns. The radio center was controlled by the Soviets, the courtyard was manned by János’ unit of Hungarian soldiers, and an iron fence, with a gate guarded by Soviet soldiers, separated the courtyard from the increasingly hostile mob. Feeling the tension in the air, János leaned over to one of his fellow soldiers and said, “we will die here today.”48 Before the fighting erupted, János decided to try and escape from his unit’s precarious situation. The soldier he had spoken with earlier, named John, decided to follow him because “[János Márton] was always lucky.”49 János and his friend approached the Soviet gate guards, one of whom immediately pushed a pistol into János’ chest and demanded he explain where János and John were going. János told them that he and the man accompanying him needed to return to the base to “get more bullets.”50 This tactic to escape the courtyard was extremely dangerous, as both men had two magazines loaded with seventy-two bullets hidden underneath their jackets. If the Soviet gate guards had performed a simple, routine search, János and his friend would have been discovered. Instead, the guards seemingly assumed that János was operating under a superior’s orders and allowed both men to pass. János diverted the inquiries of several other Soviet soldiers on his way out of the general vicinity of the broadcasting building using the same excuse of “going to get bullets.”51 By the time János and his friend returned to their base, every other member of their unit had been killed in the courtyard around the broadcasting building. The protesters now controlled the broadcasting building. The military base was abandoned, except for low-ranking Soviet guards, who refused János access to his personal belongings. Worried that his military garb would attract unwanted attention from Hungarian protesters, János dressed himself in clothes from an abandoned clothing store and traveled back to his hometown of Békéscsaba.

48János and Mária Márton, in discussion with authors, January 21, 2018. 49János and Mária Márton, in discussion with authors, January 21, 2018. 50Ibid. 51Ibid.

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The Soviet regime was momentarily stunned by the ferocity of the Hungarian Revolution, but quickly quelled the uprising. When János returned to Békéscsaba, the area was under complete communist control. One of János’ neighbors was almost killed by Soviet soldiers for tearing down a Soviet flag. János tried to continue to work in the agricultural sector, but the communists told him that no more farmers were needed and that he would have to find a different job. János began looking for a new job, and met a man named Steve, who worked in the transportation industry. Steve’s transit operations were not limited to licit venues; Steve also ran contraband in and out of Hungary. Steve told János that his parents owned a home near the border and that he could get János out of the country to a refugee camp in Yugoslavia. After considering Steve’s offer, János decided to flee Hungary. They traveled to Steve’s parents’ home, often aided by Soviet troops who believed the men to be visiting a sick relative. Steve’s knowledge of transit enabled them to find a blindspot in the watchtowers guarding the border, and János escaped to Yugoslavia. There, he lived in a refugee camp before briefly settling in the country. In the following years, János met his wife, Mária, and they moved to Switzerland. Discouraged by the high-cost of living and generally poor living standards for immigrants, János and Mária moved to Canada. In Canada, János worked as a baker, exercising the same skills he learned as a child in Hungary. Today, János and Mária live in Yorba Linda, California. Their flight from the oppressive communist regime in Hungary gave their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren the opportunity to flourish in the United States.

Historical Context and Significance: The Brauners and the Mártons Revisited The Danish Grand Narrative & The Value of Sofia and Svend Brauner’s Story

The Germans invaded and occupied Denmark on April 9th, 1940. The initial invasion was met with little resistance, as the Danes lacked the military power to mount a viable defense. However, the narrative of what occurred between April 9th of 1940 and May 4th of 1945 is remarkable, both for its earnest simplicity and its deeper, political complications. As many historians have now noted, the anti-nazi sentiments that flourished after 1945 shaped not only Denmark’s rhetoric but also its very self-perception.52 Thus, histories that emerged immediately after the war tended to emphasize and glorify the underground groups that offered tangible, violent resistance to the nazis. Although these underground fighters were sometimes of key importance, the work of so-called ‘cooperators’—politicians, bureaucrats, and academics who preserved the Danish economy while strongly decrying nazi ideology—has gradually been recognized as being of key importance. In this sense, the response to the occupation was complex and divided into two main streams: “cooperation and resistance.”53 The resistance was initially pioneered by communists, such as the Frit Danmark and “the sabotage organization BOPA [Borgerlige Partisaner, Civil Partisans].”54 Later, groups working closely with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE)

52See especially Carsten Holbraad’s Danish Reactions to German Occupation and Phil Giltner’s “The Success of Collaboration: Denmark's Self-Assessment of its Economic Position after Five Years of Nazi Occupation.” 53Carsten Holbraad. Danish Reactions to German Occupation: History and Historiography (London: UCL Press, 2017), 214. 54Carsten Holbraad. Danish Reactions to German Occupation: History and Historiography (London: UCL Press, 2017), 136.

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Articles became more prominent.55 The resistance, however, did not wield considerable influence until 1943, when the Danish government abdicated rather than enforced a new ultimatum from Berlin. Before 1943, the Danes officially cooperated with their German occupiers. However, the majority of Danes did not accept or perpetuate nazi ideology—they often argued against it. Denmark’s National Socialist Labour Party (DNSAP) only “received 31,000 votes, i.e., 1.8 percent, and gained three seats” in 1939.56 Moreover, it was only “because of German political support” that this group wielded influence “despite its unpopularity [with the majority of Danes, its] weakness and lack of parliamentary support.”57 Hartvig Frisch, a classical philologist-turned-politician, is an example of a Dane who believed technical cooperation coupled with “intellectual and cultural opposition” was necessary to defeat the nazis.58 Indeed, most Danish officials balked at violent resistance. Frisch was unique in that he also brought his considerable scholarly powers to bear against the Germans; many other Danish officials were content to worry about the state of Denmark’s economy.59 After 1943, however, the policy of cooperation became less viable. Danish police had a dangerous conflict of interest—“most of them privately . . . sympathized with the national protest movement,” despite being obligated to arrest these protestors. The Germans responded to this conflict of interest with brutality—by arresting Danish police en masse and sending them to concentration camps.60 In this regard, the Danish police were less fortunate than the Danish Jews. Although the story of the rescue of Denmark’s Jews has been romanticized, the fact remains that over ninety percent of Denmark’s approximately 8,000 Jews successfully escaped to Sweden with the aid of their Danish neighbors. Nuanced scholarship suggests that this anomaly occurred not only because of Danish tolerance and solidarity, but also because a unique set of factors combined to convince German officials that expulsion was more efficient than extermination.61 The story of Sofia and Svend Brauner illuminates the paradoxically simultaneous complexity and simplicity of the Danish response. On the one hand, the politics of the situation were undoubtedly complex and Danish officials often worked closely with German officials. On the other hand, the Danish people had a tendency for less ideological motivations. With the exception of thinkers such as Frisch and more ideological resistance members, the ordinary Danish person did not express complex motives. They simply helped their neighbors escape when it became necessary and often aided the underground resistance in mundane ways. Sofia and Svend, for example, were not formal members of any resistance group. Sofia worked for the Department of Agriculture, which meant that she was a part of the Danish government that cooperated with

55See Holbraad, Chapter 3: From resistance to collaboration. 56Carsten Holbraad. Danish Reactions to German Occupation: History and Historiography (London: UCL Press, 2017), 44. 57Ibid., 45. 58Carsten Holbraad. Danish Reactions to German Occupation: History and Historiography (London: UCL Press, 2017), 144. For example, when approached by Frode Jakobsen, the founder of a “resistance organization that became known as the Ring,” in 1941, an initially excited Frisch turned Jakobsen away when he learned the resistance was intended to become violent. 59See Phil Giltner’s “The Success of Collaboration: Denmark's Self-Assessment of its Economic Position after Five Years of Nazi Occupation” for a detailed discussion of how Denmark managed to maintain a relatively strong economy throughout the war, unlike most occupied nations. 60Carsten Holbraad. Danish Reactions to German Occupation: History and Historiography (London: UCL Press, 2017), 116. 61By some accounts, as high up the hierarchy as Himmler. See Andrew Buckser’s “Group Identities and the Construction of the 1943 Rescue of the Danish Jews,” and Gunnar S. Paulsson’s “The 'Bridge over the Øresund': The Historiography on the Expulsion of the Jews from Nazi-Occupied Denmark.”

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The Franciscan the Germans for three years of the occupation. Svend was a clock and watchmaker, whose business would have been barely impacted by the Germans. However, they also were profoundly impacted by the occupation and were willing to place their lives on the line when necessary. Sofia’s brother Poul was one of the Danish police officers interred in a concentration camp, which made her stake in the resistance deeply personal. They risked their lives to hide a German defector who printed anti-nazi pamphlets from a room behind their kitchen. They were quiet heroes, as were many of the people of Denmark during one of its darkest periods.

The Hungarian Grand Narrative & The Value of János Márton’s Story Hungary was a state lost in the midst of the conflict surrounding World War II and the Cold War. Either due to lack of military prowess or geopolitical significance, the history of the Hungarians and their resistance to the Soviet Union is an often forgotten yet inspiring tale of fortitude. The Western world often uses passive language to describe Hungary in the 1950’s, depicting the country as “a ‘captive nation,’ to be ‘liberated’ sometime in the distant future.”62 After World War I, the Treaty of Trianon reduced Hungary to just 28% of its pre-war size.63 During World War II, Hitler informed the Hungarians that they would be treated as “an enemy and subject to complete occupation” unless Hungary fully cooperated with the Third Reich.64 During the Cold War, Hungary served as a Soviet proxy, unable to escape the shackles of their communist overlords. From 1920–1950, the Hungarian state was shaped by coercion, foreign occupation, and communism. The Hungarian people violently altered this perception in 1956. “The vulnerable, paralyzed, inept, and harmless captive nation of Hungary did not wait listlessly to be liberated, but decided to free itself and assert its human dignity, which had been denied for eight long years.”65 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 posed “the most serious threat to Soviet [regional] hegemony” during the Cold War period.66 Revolutionaries seized the Radio Budapest building and took control of the broadcast, seeking to diffuse a message of freedom throughout the nation. For a fleeting moment, the Hungarians were in control of their country once again. But the war machines of the Soviet Union soon crushed the resistance. Imre Nagy, a Hungarian politician sympathetic to the revolutionaries, begged the freedom-loving countries of the world: “Help Hungary . . . help, help, help.”67 No country came to Hungary’s aid. But the Revolution was not in vain. “33 years later, with the memories of the uprising still fresh in the mind, it spurred-on those who sought once again to end communist rule in Hungary.”68 By 1989, Hungary finally achieved freedom. János Márton’s narrative helps to ground a historical understanding of the Hungarian Revolution in the lived experience of the average citizen. His interview not only provides intimate details about the historical events surrounding the Revolution but also gives contemporary historians a glimpse into the decision-making framework and emotional experience of the

62Csaba Békés, Malcom Byrne, and János B. Rainer. 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002), xiii. 63Rupert Colley. The Hungarian Revolution, 1956 (London: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016), 8. 64Ibid., 21. 65Csaba Békés, Malcom Byrne, and János B. Rainer. 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002), xiii. 66Rupert Colley. The Hungarian Revolution, 1956 (London: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016), 1. 67Ibid., 81. 68Rupert Colley. The Hungarian Revolution, 1956 (London: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016), 2.

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Articles revolutionaries. Thus, János’ interview helps to reshape the grand narrative surrounding the Revolution. The deployment of Hungarian soldiers to the courtyard surrounding the Radio Budapest building is a well-documented historical fact.69 Absent from that narrative are the intricate details provided by János’ account, which describe the role of the Hungarian soldiers, their relationship with the Soviet guards, and János’ own daring escape. János’ interview illuminates the coercive nature of the communist regime; he and his fellow soldiers did not want to be in the army and did not subscribe to communist principles. They were prisoners in their own army. János’ also describes the animosity between the Soviet guards at the Radio Budapest building and the Hungarian soldiers. The sentiment among the Hungarian soldiers was that they were about to be slaughtered in the courtyard, forced to protect the Soviets in the building behind them. Finally, no traditional historical document references János and his friend John’s escape from the courtyard of the Radio Budapest building. That event, etched in János’ memory, has only now been included in the grand historical narrative surrounding the Hungarian Revolution. In the years following the Revolution, János’ account helps to reify a historical conception of the brutality of communism in Hungary. After János’ escaped the army in 1956, he returned to his hometown of Békéscsaba. János recounts the treatment of his neighbor by the Soviet police; János’ neighbor was “almost killed” for tearing down a communist flag, and the family was warned that any further rebellion would be met with similar violence.70 While historians do have a general notion of the brutality with which communist guards treated Hungarian civilians, János’ narrative provides a tangible instance of that violence.

Concluding Remarks Pierre Nora and Alessandro Portelli appear to disagree on the value of writing down oral histories. Portelli is optimistic, saying that “writing has taken up [the] burdens” of oral history, allowing it to be less concerned with precise factual accuracy and more concerned with the larger picture.71 Nora decries the “vogue for personalized documents” and “success of the oral historical tale” as overly individualistic and lacking in meaningful social context.72 The narratives of Sofia Brauner and János Márton provide the needed frame of reference to argue against Nora’s assertion. The sources are on the one hand, a personal account written by Sofia Brauner, and on the other an oral interview with János Márton. They both represent oral history in its content (personal narratives), while manifesting in the different forms of written versus spoken language. More importantly, however, their stories are ingrained in a cultural context. The account written by Sofia Brauner is not purely individualistic. It preserves a piece of 1940s Danish culture, a culture of solidarity and creative resistance to nazi occupiers. Likewise, the story of János Márton is not merely an exercise in personal history for self-aggrandizing purposes, as Nora might suggest, but rather a product of Hungarian culture, allowing interested parties to gain a much more personal understanding of the Hungarian Revolution and its impact on the every man. Thus, the stories of the Brauners and the Mártons refute Nora’s contention that oral history is overly individualistic by providing an example of oral history rooted in a broader cultural context. The German occupation

69Peter Sugar. A History of Hungary (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), 379. 70János and Mária Márton, in discussion with authors, January 21, 2018. 71Alessandro Portelli. The Death of Luigi Trastulli, and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 75. 72Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations, no. 26 (Spring 1989), 24.

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The Franciscan of Denmark and the Hungarian Revolution provide unique socio-political and military contexts within which these stories are recorded, making them not only personal stories but markers of social consciousness. From a historical standpoint, the two narratives suggest that there are a variety of ways in which the average individual responds to oppressive regimes. In Denmark, the economy remained relatively stable due to the Danish cooperation with German officials, with the most pressing problem being excessive inflation during the war. As a result, middle-class individuals like Sofia and Svend Brauner were able to maintain their jobs and were only at risk when they personally decided to aid the resistance. Sofia and Svend remained in Denmark during the entirety of the war, only emigrating from Denmark to the United States in the 1950s for non-related considerations. They modeled the Danish response of technical cooperation along with subtle subversion of German influence. In Hungary, the Mártons ultimately fled the country because “in Hungary [there] was no future, no future.”73 The nation of Hungary was economically devastated by occupation; on a small scale, this can be seen in the Márton family bakery—which was used as a food supply by Hungarian soldiers, then nazi soldiers, then Soviet soldiers. As a result, its inhabitants lacked means for resistance and often fled the country. Ultimately, the narratives of the Brauners and the Mártons provide specificity to the more general claims made by scholars concerning the value of oral history. They demonstrate the insights that can be gained by including oral sources in addition to—not in place of—traditional sources. In combination with broader historical narratives, such personal narratives can perhaps revitalize conversations often seen as uninteresting by the average student. Moreover, the method of this paper represents a synthesis, even a reconciliation, of warring views that oppose ‘facts’ to ‘stories.’ It suggests an organic and holistic approach to history that welcomes both facts and stories, not as enemies, but as partners.

73János and Mária Márton, in discussion with authors, January 21, 2018.

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Establishing Capital

Randy O.

Abstract: The capital system of today that we function in is something that no early modern English royalty could ever have predicted would come about. In our current capital system, the times and rules have changed into something much more oppressive and filled with competition, greed, and corruption. Capitalism has evolved into something that is very ingrained not only into our minds but into our everyday living. Some would go as so far as to say our psyches as well. Our mannerisms, customs, and even cultural traditions do now reflect or have elements of capital in them.

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The capital system of today that we function in is something that no early modern English royalty could ever have predicted would come about. In our current capital system, the times and rules have changed into something much more oppressive and filled with competition, greed, and corruption. Capitalism has evolved into something that is very ingrained not only into our minds but into our everyday living. Some would go as so far as to say our psyches as well. Our mannerisms, customs, and even cultural traditions do now reflect or have elements of capital in them. When we sit back and analyze what the world has become, is it hard to see it without capitalism. One element of capitalism that helps its existence is the psychological element of it. In order for it to exist, the masses of humans must adjust to it and become subjects of said system. With that being said, some contemporaries would argue that capitalism was not a system that originated out of a particular place, but rather a step in the evolutionary ladder and a natural path that humans took in order to survive and evolve. Much like Darwin’s theories, capitalism fits the ideologies of those who do and those who do not, or preferably those who will survive and those who will be forced to help others survive. Human evolution did not only occur in one area of the world, but eventually, over time, it happened throughout the world wherever humans may have been. However, certain events throughout history occurred with only specific people in certain parts of the world that came to affect the whole world. Capitalism is one of those events. Of course, the idea of business and currency and working have always existed. There is no civilization in which there were not those who were the workers, the royalty, and the auxiliary. Nevertheless, a system of exploitation that was strictly for selfish gains was still something non-existent and even more so on a global scale before the 15th-17th century. Even with all this being said, capitalism is hard to define in the context of exploitation. There has to be an insight into the social consequences of capitalism. When the origins of capitalism are discussed, it could be challenging to pinpoint when the social change occurred, and when capitalism became something programmed into the psyche. However, an overall starting point, time, place, and specific events are much easier to be pinpointed. America, surely, is run on capitalism. Yet, it is certainly not the exception to capitalism. The majority of the entire world runs on capitalism, and those countries or nations that do not, have a hard time maintaining themselves. More specifically, in the economic sense. When we look at the world and how it is run, capitalism has been a major factor in the schematics behind it all and forces the world to stay interconnected. The question that comes to mind is the start of it. The capitalism that is being spoken of here must be first clarified in order to understand its origins fully. Before going any further, though, a clarification must be made on what the definition of capitalism is. Ellen Meiksins Wood says, “Capitalism is a system in which goods and services, down to the most necessities of life, are produced for profitable exchange, where even human- labor power is a commodity for sale in the market, and where all economic actors are dependent on the market.”1 It is important to note that the capitalism that has been defined above is not something England would have recognized at this time. The term “capitalism” came much later with Karl Marx and his contemporaries, but it is important to note that capitalism came before it was officially granted a term. This interconnecting system, which has left some rich and many others underprivileged and oppressed, must have its origins in the past of what we would classify as the western world. Reason being that it is the western world in which we see capitalism being the means of dominance and common practice. The history of any nation or any continent at any time, more particularly in the past, will show signs of trade and use of some sort of currency. Even

1 Wood, Ellen Meiksins. Origins of Capitalism. London, UK: Verso, 2017.

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so, these trade systems and currency did not branch out into a general sense until England took the capital system to another level. It was in England during the 16th and 17th century where capitalism found its origins and began to form, more specifically, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth from November 1558 to March 1603. The origins of this system and the way it is understood in this day and age originate from the late 16th and 17th century England because it was here where international trade began to have a serious incline in the British economy and when England began to become a world power in which their economics at home played a vital role in this. Prior to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, England did not have a rapid population expansion or upward expansion of economics. Queen Elizabeth’s coronation did not come easy for her or England. She followed up after a sharp line of her own family. The reign of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, and Queen Mary, all came before Queen Elizabeth. With those before Queen Elizabeth, there was constant turmoil with religious changes and their subjects. King Henry VIII started a chaotic period of struggle with the Catholic Church. Consumed with initially trying to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, King Henry VIII’s economic initiatives and attention were mainly spent in trying to change England’s religious identity to make his divorce and future divorces go over easier. When the son of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, came into power, the religious turmoil became even more pivotal. King Edward VI was only nine at the passing of King Henry VIII, and the advisers who surrounded King Edward VI were all Protestants, and this reflected very much in his reign. King Edward VI did all he could to make England strictly Protestant while his father left England in a pseudo-Catholic-Protestant state. It was then after King Edward IV’s passing that Queen Mary came into power and focused England back on a Catholic path by reversing the acts of her father King Henry VIII during his reign. All of this religious turmoil left England very unstable and unable to focus on growth and the true prosperity of the people. “Elizabeth’s’ advisers and supporters proclaimed the dawn of a new, more optimistic, and glorious age under a queen who would bring harmony and peace.”2 Under the almost 45-year reign of Queen Elizabeth, England grew in more ways than one. She was able to focus less on the religion of England and put effort into other things that would set up England to become the powerful nation it is now. Queen Elizabeth was known to be very indifferent to any official religion of England. Sitting on the sidelines of her family’s reign, Queen Elizabeth observed and learned what not to do for her reign. “Our inquiry must begin with a single, fundamental fact which drove much of English social and economic history during this period: between 1525 and 1600 the population of England and Wales rose from about 2.4 million souls to 4.5 million.”3 For capitalism to grow in the early stages, it is important to have expansion. Population growth and economic growth is vital. A major factor that contributed to the population growth was the advancement of technology that allowed more woodland to be cleared for farming. The wheel plow, for example, allowed farmers to now prepare the fields faster and more efficiently for planting. Crop rotation and the draining of marshes were also seen during these times to improve farming overall. More food equals more nutrients, less poverty, and more sustaining of life. A concept to understand here is how the value of the land would change not only to the farmer but to England overall. Before this boost in farming, the land that was tilled was valued, but with the increase in technology and

2 Bucholz, R. O., and Newton Key. Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley, 2020.

3 Ibid.

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better care for the land, the way the land was valued changed as well. The concept of ownership became more intense as competition amongst landowners and farmers arose. Wood speaks on what followed this, “This brings us to the most famous redefinition of property rights: enclosure.”4 The enclosure of property is something very symbolic of ownership and making a statement of “it is not yours to use.” The 16th century saw a change with enclosures by large landowners who sought to enclose what might have been common land at one point or communal farmland and use it strictly for themselves and personal gain for profit. The common wanderer or vagabond was no longer allowed to be in what was once a communal land, “no trespassing” was now a thing. The farmland that was once passed down through generations with no official paperwork was a thing of the past. Wealthy men now bought the land and had official rights to it granted by Parliament. This concept of the enclosure may seem normal in today’s day and age, but this was something unseen during the 16th century. The enclosure ideal was brought to the New World and left the indigenous people in dismay. Private property was now something that became a symbol of wealth, of power, it further separated the growing class gap and places landholders at the top and those who did not own land at the bottom. Coming out of feudalism England, was accustomed to a similar system like this. However, a key difference between feudalism and the new growth of land accumulation was the distribution of the land amongst the wealthy. With transitions into new systems, there is usually a sort of quantity into quality exchange that takes place. During this period of time in England, as Queen Elizabeth was able to propel England economically, the wealthy landowners became fewer and fewer. Former feudal lords were either forced to relinquish what was once theirs or moved into the booming England cities for other opportunities. This also meant that those multiple feudal lords who once reigned many different areas of England countryside and rural areas started to become consolidated into one ultimate landlord. Capitalism thrives from the extreme separation of the upper and lower class. One thing about the upper class is the exclusiveness of it, and here is when it began. “In other words, in order to strengthen their weakened hold on the peasantry, feudal lords concentrated their formerly fragmented or parcelled coercive powers in a new kind of centralized monarchy.”5 This new centralized monarchy was not dominated by the royalty, but the rich. The disappearance of feudalism did not leave England in an absolute pure capitalist system. The new monarch that was arising was not aware of the roots they would be planting, but rather they were seeking to keep their hold on the peasant masses. In trying to reassert their dominance of the peasants, a pivotal moment in the development of capitalism was achieved, more centralization of the wealth and separation of the wealthy and poor grew even more so. Even with the growth of farming in rural England, jobs within the city grew. With this going on, there was no government regulation on economic practices. In other words, capitalism began to emerge even more so in England because of what was absent, government control over the business, constraints of economics. This time was vital for England also because of the way they began to appear to the rest of Europe. At the time, the Catholic Church had completely disassociated itself from England, and the Habsburg Empire was well in effect. England was peeking as a premiere nation. With no constraints on economic expansion comes another vital component of capitalism, competition. The expansion of farms was met with a demand for labor and a somewhat advanced landowner that was seen in early feudalism. Wood states, “Increasingly, as more land came under this economic regime, advantage in access to land

4 Wood, Ellen Meiksins. Origins of Capitalism. London, UK: Verso, 2017.

5 Ibid.

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itself would go to those who could produce competitively and pay good rents by increasing their productivity.”6 Aside from this, industries and factories took off as well. England during Queen Elizabeth’s reign saw a great expansion of the textile industry and wool exports. In regard to England’s exports at the time, wool accounted for 56% of its imports giving birth to more capital schemes. Aside from wool and the textile industry, silk began to become a commodity that was coming from India. The working labor force that manned all this came from the migration from other European nations into England that helped dramatically increase England’s population, as is noted above. All of these things that were happening inside of England made England an international economic factor to not be reckoned with. A combination of job growth and population growth in such a short period gave birth to unrestrained capital growth. With this comes a multi- layered class system, there is no longer just the rich and the poor. The middle class begins to emerge. The landowner is not royalty, but he is not a poor worker either. The land and factory owners are able not to buy labor and exploit the labor for maximum profit, especially from immigrants who are seeking employment. Also, the building of roads and the growth of London was a major factor in England becoming an international trade mogul. “Already in the sixteenth century, England had an impressive network of roads and water transport that unified the nation to a degree unusual for the period. London, becoming disproportionately large in relation to other English towns and the total population of England (and eventually the largest city in Europe), was also becoming the hub of a developing national market.”7 Before 16th-17th century England began to emerge, there were forms of human labor for sale, most explicitly being slavery followed by feudalism. Nevertheless, the slavery that the world grow accustomed to during the Trans-Atlantic Period was very much the exception because of the way it exploited human labor for gain and globalized the trade of humans and the treatment of humans. Imperialism became a way in which money seekers and entrepreneurs could seek to propel not only England but also propel themselves and further separate from the peasant masses. Free labor became a staple of capital. To not have to pay your workers and to extract whatever natural resources that were up for the grabs for free were a profit that had been unseen. Slavery before all this did exist, but not to this extent, not to the point where the slave was not seen as a human, but rather as a commodity and something that was to be worked at maximum potential and only maintained at a minimal. The treatment of humans in a commodity sense is something very key in capitalism, which is something we see happening out of England in the 16th-17th century. John Hopkins set out in 1562 intending to capture Africans from the west coast of Africa, and shortly after, in 1564, after hearing of the success of slave merchant success, Queen Elizabeth sponsored Hawkins with a vessel named, “Jesus of Lubeck.”8 This turned vigilante slave merchants into a government-backed business. Although Portugal was the first European nation to embark on the slave trade in and out of Africa, it would not achieve the global success, expansion, and rapid growth that England did. Sponsorship of Hawkins was a pivotal move for the economics of England. With slavery now an officially backed government endeavor, the commodity of humans and their forced labor allowed for a massive expansion in trade and the import of products from England’s already striving colonies and new ones that would be established. Hawkins was an example of what early

6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 “The National Archives.” The National Archives, n.d. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/early_times/adventurers.htm.

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The Franciscan vigilante ship captains did for England’s capitalism, the domination of the seas. Aside from Hawkins slave trading, Hawkins represented an aspect of early colonialism that was not so much concerned with just the establishment of domination on land, but the controlling of trade routes and establishing trade monopolies and the controlling of specific commodities. Sharing and equal distribution was a thing of the past. A new age of competition and domination of the world was teething, and England was at the forefront, as a planter of the seed. One thing that helped England maintain this expansion; it is starting to have on the globe is not a standing military at home, but a standing military overseas at its colonies. By the time England had established itself with sugar and plantation economics in the Caribbean and a heavy hand in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Triangle. The exports coming from India were protected very well by England, and it is here that we see England establishing its military outside of England to protect its assets overseas:

By the late seventeenth century, the English East India Company was fielding vast armies in India and fleets in the Indian Ocean, ready to fight the Dutch, French, and their native allies in order to force a monopoly trade on the local populace. Long before this, the English realized that the most effective way to infringe upon the Spanish, Dutch, or French trading position was to establish permanent bases or trading posts of their own in the New World.”9

It was due to people like Hopkins, who eventually become contracted mercenaries for England, that England, in comparison to other European nations, can maintain its strengthening economic holds and rise above its competition. With the international race for resources going on between European nations, England began to separate itself from the competition in various ways. Other European nations did not rise to the occasion as England did and did not experience the rapid growth of a city the way London did. Such factors were major components to England being the birthplace of the capitalism that we are accustomed to. The competition that came from inside England amongst the citizens themselves and the accumulation of resources from outside of England and their military presence which boost them up to world power. Something to note, though, is that England did not become a paramount nation on their own in an economic sense. For England to become a top contender, there had to be competition, and there had to be nations that would come in second place. A reason that England becomes the birthplace of capitalism is that they are the ones who will ultimately surpass every other European nation. To pinpoint all the exact reasons and an exact time for the birth of capitalism is more than what can be reported in this essay. What is given here are certain events and periods in which capitalism was becoming something that the world would eventually feel. The 16th and 17th century England was a constant change ravished with new ideas and new ways of living. What is certain is an improvement in life and rapid expansion not only in England but worldwide. It was here in this time frame when the sun began to never set on the British Empire. The contributing factors to the capitalism we see grow out of England must be mainly accredited to global expansion and domination accompanied by an economic shift in the homeland. What also needs to be noted here is the other manners in which England was able to propel themselves outside of what is coined economical. With the exploitation of humans, whether it was domestic or overseas, there comes an approach of very harsh violence. A traditional Marxist argument is that capitalism can hold onto its power through means of coercion and the usage of law enforcement and the military to assert their reign or will. It is somewhat a general rule of capitalism. England was not special in

9 Bucholz, R. O., and Newton Key. Early Modern England 1485-1714: a Narrative History. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley, 2020.

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Articles this regard, but they were special with the means of using these means to not only colonize parts of the world but to hold onto them as well. Queen Elizabeth is not single-handedly responsible for all these things, but she is the primary ruler who saw and endorsed this great shift in England. The argument here is not whether or not capitalism is wrong, but what is the origin of it. The capitalism that we are accustomed to today is not what England had at the time, the system we live under is something with decades in the making, but England at the time was planting the roots that would branch out into what we have today.

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Mortal Enemies or Complicated Friends? A Brief Analysis of the Historiography of the Enlightenment’s Relationship to Religion

Sam Leanza Ortiz

Abstract: Scholars of the eighteenth century can hardly avoid the thorny subject of the Enlightenment. The period in which Immanuel Kant "dared to know" is seemingly unknowable. Some historians promote a monolithic "Enlightenment" project, while others deny uniformity in favor of the "enlightenment(s)" thesis. The existing literature on the period also fails to adopt consistent periodization, leading to controversies regarding which figures and events can be considered appropriate topics in the broader field. A further struggle is to define the Enlightenment in its relationship to orthodox religion. Religion either flourished in a period of intellectual openness or gasped its last breaths in the dawn of secular modernity. This paper offers a brief analysis of scholarly interpretations of the period and how those definitions consider the period's relationship to religion, with a few concluding suggestions toward a more profitable approach to the period. This historiographical survey begins with Peter Gay's interpretation of a monolithic Enlightenment that gave rise to "modern Paganism." Gay's exclusive focus on France received its rebuttal a decade later in Henry May's fourfold interpretation of the Enlightenment in America, where religion played a critical role in intellectual life. Scholars of the 1980s promoted the thesis of a radical Enlightenment militantly opposed to religion with which scholars still grapple. Rebuttals to the radical Enlightenment thesis pointed contested its proponents' periodization and historical evidence, often citing inappropriate prioritization of the period's representatives that left out more religious subjects. To combat this problem, scholars of the early 2000s pursued the enlightenment(s) thesis, following the trajectory of the period in different cultural settings. Others turned to the case-study approach to devote attention to lesser-known figures whose work, when considered, broadens our understanding of the period. Finally, works dealing with the legacy of the Enlightenment will be considered.

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Historians of the Enlightenment, much like their subjects, have taken a broad range of approaches to the topic of religion. The variety of interpretations emerges from a lack of consensus on what “Enlightenment” and “religion” are to mean when discussing them historically. The Enlightenment has been defined in terms of a group of qualities, the modes of communication employed in the period, the project of modernity, or to define it contextually, whether that be within the Scottish Enlightenment or the Catholic Enlightenment.1 These definitions pose severe historiographical problems as they necessarily exclude one aspect that another definition holds as central. The monolithic Enlightenment project cannot coexist with the contextual enlightenment(s). Scholars' attempts to define religion yield even more problems in the academy. Enlightenment historians tend to be liberal on the issue, avoiding narrow, specific definitions. Religion could be anything from ecclesiastical institutions to a belief in miracles, essentially anything not grounded solely in reason. The scholarship referenced throughout this paper will illustrate that one or all of these could be employed in any one book. In all cases, unless stated otherwise, these various definitions will refer to Christianity. Historian Simon Grote lamented that this lack of a precise definition “obscures the fact that religion’s place in the Enlightenment depends as much on religion’s definition as on Enlightenment’s.”2 For example, an Enlightenment that ushered in modernity on the wings of pure reason would have no use for a religion based on faith. However, if the Enlightenment was about developing political liberty for all in the spirit of tolerance, religion would be permitted, if not celebrated, as a public good. Furthermore, without a clear understanding of religion, especially as Enlightenment thinkers defined it, making sense of the debates of the time would be a fool’s errand. How one defines the terms “Enlightenment” and “religion” affects a further determinative question that shapes one’s interpretation of how religion fared in the Enlightenment. That question is one of scope. Between the late seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century, intellectuals spanning from the easternmost parts of Europe to the young American nation could be counted as Enlightenment thinkers and have been by good historians. The recent global turn in Enlightenment studies has added even more potential subjects to this long list. The historian has a wide range of options from which to choose her focus. Some have attempted to capture them all in tomes that would impress the Enlightenment era historian Edward Gibbon, author of the nearly 4,000 page-tome, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The majority of the historians mentioned in this paper are intellectual historians. The works considered in this paper date back to the 1960s when encyclopedic, comprehensive approaches dominated. In the 1980s, the radical Enlightenment thesis developed as a foil to the more moderate interpretations of the preceding decades. However, following the radical Enlightenment thesis, case studies and synthetical interpretations of other movements attempted to combat this by showing that thoughtful, religious people could indeed participate in Enlightenment, broadly defined. Finally, this paper will consider some interpretations of the Enlightenment’s legacy. A consequence of writing on these given subjects is that the intellectual climate of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has a lot at stake in those interpretations. Many historians, regardless of their views of current society, cast the Enlightenment as the root of modern thought. Thus, whether one maintains society is still living in modernity or has moved past it, the Enlightenment requires historical treatment. For good or for ill, the period brings much to bear on the way we conceive of the time in which we live. Historical arguments about the period and its

1 Simon Grote, “Review-Essay: Religion and Enlightenment,” ed. David Sorkin et al., Journal of the History of Ideas 75, no. 1 (2014): 142–45. 2 Grote, "Review-Essay," 146.

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The Franciscan interactions with religion become arguments for how to view the world today. Some historians are worse offenders than others, but, unfortunately, polemical history of the Enlightenment and religion exists on both sides, radical and religious.

The “Enlightenment Project” The enduring patriarch of Enlightenment historiography is the intellectual historian Peter Gay. His tome-length volumes, including the provocatively titled The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, The Rise of Modern Paganism, attempted to comprehensively survey the Enlightenment. Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1966, it featured a wide range of scholarly treatments of both familiar and obscure actors. The lengthy bibliographic essay in the back of the volume illustrates the dizzying amount of research Gay put into this book. His resulting thesis was that the philosophes of the Western Enlightenment – the Francophiles – turned to classical antiquity, admittedly in degrees, to search for an intellectual foundation that shed its Christian inheritance. By appealing to antiquity, the philosophes developed a tense relationship with Christianity and “launched themselves on the sea of modernity” without looking back to their religious roots.3 Gay’s extensive work provoked decades of response, echoes of which are still visible in current scholarship. About ten years after Gay's,4 Henry May opened the door to studies of the Enlightenment in America in his transparently titled 1976 book, The Enlightenment in America.5 May’s methodology resembled Gay’s as he comprehensively analyzed how American intellectuals adopted and modified ideas of European origin. He came to a more moderate conclusion than Gay on the subject of religion. His four stages or categories of the ways the Enlightenment took shape in America foreshadowed the "Enlightenment(s)" thesis of later years. May contended that Americans experienced four different types of Enlightenment: the Moderate, the Skeptical, the Revolutionary, and the Didactic. Each adopted a different stance toward religion, though, for the Americans, Protestant religion had a hand in shaping their reception of Enlightenment ideals. May noted that the Skeptical and Revolutionary strands of the American Enlightenment were not as enduring, as they were most opposed to religion.

The Radical Enlightenment It did not take long for scholars to contest and build upon May and Gay. These more moderate interpretations would be revised in the radical Enlightenment thesis that emerged in the 1980s. The first to argue this was Margaret Jacob in her 1981 book, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons, and Republicans.6 Jacob essentially narrowed May’s four strains into two, positing a moderate, Newtonian Enlightenment that looks to a benevolent God against a radical Enlightenment filled with pantheistic materialists. Twenty years after Jacob, Jonathan Israel released the first of the now-standard work on the radical Enlightenment: Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (2001).7 The subsequent

3 Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation: The Rise of Modern Paganism, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 268. 4work, The second volume subtitled The Science of Freedom came out in 1969. 5 Henry Farnham May, The Enlightenment in America (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1978). 6 Margaret C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981). 7 Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.)

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Articles volumes Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity and the Emancipation of Man 1670– 1752, and Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution and Human Rights 1750– 1790 premiered in 2006 and 2011, respectively. Each volume runs close to one thousand pages, which, when coupled with Israel’s obtuse prose, presents a significant barrier to the layman. The volume’s thesis reflects the two-strand thesis of Jacob, but Israel placed the birth of the radical Enlightenment in the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza; a seventeenth-century Dutch Jewish philosopher turned pantheist, whereas Jacob placed its origins among radical Whigs and exiled French Huguenots. As Spinozism spread throughout Europe, society became more liberal and religiously tolerant as it broke free from the clutches of clerical religion. One reviewer called Israel’s second volume a survey of eighteenth-century philosophical debate narrated through “a positivist account of the progressive march of Enlightenment modernity through the advance of secularism, atheism, revolutionary liberty and equality.”8 Against this radical project, religious or “moderate” thinkers sought to compromise between reason and faith. From this, a dichotomy emerged; either the Enlightenment accepted religion in some modified, progressive form, or not at all. In 2010, Zeev Sternhell took this dichotomy to the extreme in his book The Anti- Enlightenment Tradition. He narrowly defined the Enlightenment as a political movement, containing “an intellectual tradition with immediate and practical objectives,” such as the autonomy of the individual and politically protected natural rights.9 Sternhell’s focus rested on what he believed to be the opposition to this political movement, which he labeled the “Anti- Enlightenment.” This Anti-Enlightenment railed against the liberal, universal nature of the Enlightenment and its members united around “all that differentiates and divides people,” namely, religion, which these Anti-Enlightenment thinkers believed to be the foundation of the society the philosophes aimed to reform.10 If religion can be said to have a place among Sternhell’s Enlightenment, it is only on the outside. The academy is still trying to make sense of the radical Enlightenment. Steffen Ducheyne and a team of international scholars collaborated to reconsider the radical Enlightenment thesis of Jacob and Israel in the 2017 publication, Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment. In the first chapter of the volume, Jacob and Israel defend their views to provide a state of the field from the creators’ perspective. Scholars contributing to the second section aimed to push research on the radical Enlightenment forward, either affirming or challenging the extent of radicality in the radical Enlightenment. Eric Palmer’s essay went against the radical Enlightenment thesis most explicitly, arguing that the lines between Christianity and the radical French Enlightenment cross more than one might suppose. He politely accused Israel of limiting the period, noting that “most traditional thinkers associated with and placed within Church structures Israel takes to have been excluded from contribution early on, becoming an explicit reactionary force bent on suppression by the beginning of the early Enlightenment period.”11 Palmer’s understanding of the Enlightenment as a nuanced historical phenomenon, rather than as a philosophical outcome, as Israel did, yielded a different result.

8 J. B. Shank, Review of Review of Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752, The American Historical Review 113, no. 2 (2008): 443. 9 Zeev Sternhell, The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2010), 4. 10 Sternhell, The Anti-Enlightenment, 8. 11 Steffen Ducheyne, Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment (New York: Routledge Ltd, 2017), 224.

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Reactionary Works The work of Jonathan Israel has proved to be as provocative as it is enduring. Two years after Radical Enlightenment, S.J. Barnett published The Enlightenment and Religion: Myths of Modernity, a textbook designed to push back against the “secularizing, reason-oriented enlightenment” in favor of “a process driven by politico-religious debate.”12 The book consists of a series of case studies that shed light on how the “notion that the Enlightenment founded ‘modernity’ has led to significant distortions in our understanding of religious and intellectual change.”13 Barnett sought to complete this task by focusing less on the enlightened elites who have taken the spotlight in Enlightenment studies, and instead, focus more on “lesser figures” and on wider social and religious change. In doing so, Barnett believed this approach would provide a more holistic understanding of the philosophes alongside their contemporaries, though his choice to focus on England, France, and Italy at the exclusion of Scottish and American figures perplexed reviewers.14 Seven years later, John M. Owen and J. Judd Owen took on the radical Enlightenment thesis in their edited volume Religion, Enlightenment and the New Global Order, maintaining the two-strand thesis of Jacob and Israel while arguing for compatibility, if not attraction, between religion and the moderate Enlightenment. In the introduction, they stated that the volume aimed to consider whether the Enlightenment solution to religious violence is feasible. Setting aside the anti-religious radical Enlightenment for the duration of the book, the volume’s contributors debate the ways in which religion gave rise to, enriched, and was affected by the moderate Enlightenment. While the editors hide the radical Enlightenment from the foreground, one reviewer notes, they maintain the radical Enlightenment’s charge that the Enlightenment’s celebration of religious toleration developed in response to the religious wars of the early modern period and not “as the birth-pangs of the modern secular state.”15 The most recent critical reaction to the radical Enlightenment thesis comes from William Bulman and Robert Ingram’s edited volume for Oxford University Press from 2016: God in the Enlightenment. Their project aimed to provide a “viable competitor to the secular liberal interpretation of the Enlightenment.”16 They ultimately call for a pragmatic attitude toward the Enlightenment as they search for a “usable conception of the Enlightenment” that defines the period not as a political or ideological program, but rather as the development and spread of ideas reacting to particular historical conditions. The closing chapter traces the origin of the Enlightenment project thesis to illustrate a congruence between the enlightenment(s) and Europe's continuing confessional traditions. Dale K. Van Kley remarked in his last line that “God survived the Enlightenment; rumors of his death at that time have been greatly exaggerated. But he did not survive in unaltered form.”17

12 Mark Knights, “Book Review: The Enlightenment and Religion, The Myths of Modernity,” European History Quarterly vol. 35, no. 1 (2005), 190. 13 S. J. Barnett, The Enlightenment and Religion : The Myths of Modernity (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003), 4. 14 R. A. Houston, Review of The Enlightenment and Religion: The Myths of Modernity, by S. J. Barnett, The Scottish Historical Review 84, no. 218 (2005): 284. 15 Murray Jardine, “Review of Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order,” Politics and Religion, vol. 5, 1 (2012) 214. 16 William Bulman and Robert Ingram, God in the Enlightenment (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 3. 17 Bulman and Ingram, God in the Enlightenment, 310.

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The Plural “Enlightenments” One of the inspirational texts to God in the Enlightenment was J.G.A. Pocock’s six-volume series Barbarism and Religion, which is regarded in the academy as the origin of the enlightenment(s) thesis. The volumes were released through Cambridge University Press between 1999 and 2015. His project centered around Edward Gibbon, the famous eighteenth-century historian, but it expanded upon that to argue for a “family of enlightenments,” where as a concept, “Enlightenment was a product of religious debate and not merely a rebellion against it.”18 Pocock adopted a twofold definition of Enlightenment: first, as a political endeavor of states to escape the wars of religion without succumbing to pan-European imperial monarchy, and second, as a movement against ecclesiastical monopoly in the public square. In Pocock’s conception of Enlightenment, there is a wide berth for theology, so much so that the movement cannot be understood without it. Following on the heels of Pocock, Gertrude Himmelfarb, an intellectual historian at Columbia, released The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments in 2004. The book, published through Alfred A. Knopf, is a user-friendly text that cleanly categorizes and explains the enlightenments according to geographical space. Himmelfarb turned to the primary intellectuals in these areas to support her thesis that each Enlightenment interacted with religion differently. The French Enlightenment, with Diderot and Rousseau at the helm, was the most radical. Himmelfarb argued that its dominant characteristic was its ideology of reason that assumed “the same absolute, dogmatic status as religion.”19 The British Enlightenment, to which Himmelfarb devoted the most space, finds its leads in Edmund Burke and John Wesley, whom Sternhell and other proponents of the radical Enlightenment cast in the Anti-Enlightenment. With its “sociology of virtue,” the British Enlightenment enlisted religion as a social ethos that went hand in hand with reason. Finally, the American Enlightenment, which upheld the "politics of liberty," viewed religion as an unthreatening and even desirable component to Enlightenment. The works of Cotton Mather, John Witherspoon, and Alexis de Tocqueville serve as supporting evidence. Ulrich Lehner and Jeffrey Burson advanced a different kind of Enlightenment in their 2014 edited volume of essays on Catholic thinkers in the Enlightenment: Enlightenment and Catholicism in Europe. Their work participates in the more niche topic of “Catholic Enlightenment,” but they are included in this essay as they represent the move toward more recent scholarship that highlights the diversification of interpretations of the Enlightenment’s approach to religion. Indeed, Lehner and Burson seek to defend the concept of the Catholic Enlightenment against the “perception within mainstream Enlightenment histories that Enlightenment Catholicism is reactive, philosophically unstable, and defensive.”20 The 21 biographical essays serve as a map of the intersections within transnational Enlightenment Catholicism, illustrating how Catholic writers participated in the philosophical discourse of the eighteenth century. An encouraging feature of this volume is the editors’ intent to ground the Enlightenment in both broader socio-cultural trends and in the biographical subjects’ relationships to the institutional church, which many scholars cast as the Enlightenment’s true archenemy. Furthermore, this

18 J. G. A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 1, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1737-1764 (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 5. 19 Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments, 1st ed (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 152. 20 Jeffrey D. Burson and Ulrich L. Lehner, Enlightenment and Catholicism in Europe: A Transnational History (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), 10.

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The Franciscan volume is more inclusive than most by paying attention to previously marginalized groups in Enlightenment scholarship, including those among the neglected Polish Enlightenment. This volume makes clear that the question of whom one should include determines how one interprets the period.

The Case Study Approach An alternative approach to studying the Enlightenment is the case study approach, in which one person, region, or group serves as the through-line for a more in-depth analysis of the period. Some historians, reacting to Gay and, more recently, to Israel, have seen this as an appealing approach to recover a more balanced interpretation of the religious strands of Enlightenment thought. This method provides a simple way to chip away at the interpretation of a monolithic Enlightenment that was opposed to religion. There are many examples from which to choose, but only two will be discussed here. In his 2001 book, Orthodoxy and Enlightenment: George Campbell in the Eighteenth- Century, Jeffrey Suderman gets to the heart of the problem as he asked in the opening line, “Who belonged to the Enlightenment, and to whom did the Enlightenment belong?”21 His answer to the question, going over and against the more secular interpretations of Gay and Israel, is his subject: George Campbell, a moderate Christian philosopher in Scotland. The book’s three parts, the biographical George Campbell, the enlightened George Campbell, and the religious George Campbell, build on one another to demonstrate that Campbell, the “middleweight,” popular author and preacher was more representative of the Enlightenment than controversial elites such as Voltaire or David Hume.22 Jonathan Sheehan’s The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture, published in 2007, is a case study of a different sort. While not focusing on a particular person or region, Sheehan argued that the Bible emerged as a character in and of itself in the ways it was used and abused by Enlightenment thinkers. For Sheehan, the Enlightenment did not connote any particular project, period, or region. He defined Enlightenment as a trend of new practices and institutions, such as the salon, techniques of data organization, and the formation of academic societies.23 The two practices of concern to Sheehan were scholarship and translation. The new philological, literary, and historical methods, when used in England and Germany, helped to rebuild the Bible and its authority. Sheehan did not deny that philosophical attacks on the Bible abounded in the eighteenth century, but she argued that the Enlightenment’s openness to new scholarly techniques made it possible to sustain scholarly engagement with the biblical text. As a result, the Bible evolved into a piece of heritage for the liberated West. Religion, if defined by adherence to a sacred, revealed text, was altered, but not cast aside, by the Enlightenment.

Making Sense of the Results

21 Jeffrey M. Suderman, Orthodoxy and Enlightenment: George Campbell in the Eighteenth Century, McGill- Queen’s Studies in the History of Ideas 32 (Montréal ; Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), 3. 22 Suderman, Orthodoxy and Enlightenment, 6. 23 Jonathan Sheehan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), xi–xii.

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Before the conclusion of this historiographical survey of the Enlightenment and religion, a brief word on the scholarship of the legacy of the Enlightenment and religion must be considered. Scholarly works on later developments in religion, politics, and philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries include the Enlightenment as a watershed moment which shaped the later movements serving as subjects. Conceptions of the Enlightenment in this scholarship tend to be negative, though, in the case of Jonathan Israel or Zeev Sternhell, the radical strain of the Enlightenment can be considered the source of contemporary liberal society. Christian scholars, perhaps except Michael Kugler, tend to see this as a double-edged sword that has ultimately been destructive to orthodox religion.24 In his 1985 book, Without God, Without Creed, James Turner meditated on the American intellectual adoption of Enlightenment thinking in the service of religious apologetics. He traced its effects to the development of nineteenth century agnosticism, thus blaming the rational, empirically driven evidential apologetics of the eighteenth century for the exchange of the supernatural in favor of the natural. In short, the Enlightenment was responsible for the demise of religion as it grew in Europe and spread to America. His view seems to be more reductionistic than Pocock’s or May’s strains of the Enlightenment(s), but his documentation of religious compromise among what some have categorized as “moderate” Enlightenment figures is compelling. Terry Eagleton took a similar position in his 2014 book, Culture and the Death of God. Eagleton posited that the Enlightenment, as understood by Israel, and to an extent, Gay, was the origin of intellectual secularization. His treatment of the Enlightenment itself is in the first part of the book, where he discussed several early modern attempts to search for a replacement for God. He couched the Enlightenment’s squabbles with religion as “a political rather than theological affair” that pitted the new privatized, rational religion against meddlesome clerics.25 Some Enlightenment thinkers rejected religion outright, but the more pervasive problems that the Enlightenment brought to religion came from the fact that “the God of the philosophers and the God of the masses were dangerously distinct sorts of being.”26 The rationalists maintained a belief in God, as Turner suggested twenty years before, but their conception of God reduced his transcendent nature to reasonable, abstract propositions that were of little use to sincere faith.

Conclusion The works surveyed here have yielded no simple interpretation of the Enlightenment’s relationship to religion. For historians like May and Sheehan, religion within the Enlightenment was considered beneficial to newer, more liberal societies. Others, such as Sternhell, saw religion as the arch- enemy to Enlightenment, hindering the masses from reaching the height of political freedom. These two analyses could not be more different. The major differences among all of the approaches surveyed in this paper point to a fundamental disagreement on definitions and scope. It seems that any strategies going forward will have to consider these methodological issues, which will be no easy task. Perhaps a helpful approach when writing about the Enlightenment would be to humbly remember that it was a historical phenomenon that did not have a set outcome. It occurred in different places in different ways, and the histories of those places shaped how the Enlightenment would run its course; Himmelfarb made this clear with her three enlightenments thesis. Indeed,

24 For more on Christian scholarship on the Enlightenment, see Michael Kugler, “The Faun Beneath the Lamppost: When Christian Scholars Talk About the Enlightenment.,” Christian Scholar’s Review 46, no. 4 (2017): 363–84. 25 Terry Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God (Yale University Press, 2014), 12. 26 Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God, 30.

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The Franciscan historical circumstances must remain primary when interpreting any period; the Enlightenment is no exception. Fatalist interpretations, such as Israel's, account the march to modernity and limit one’s understanding of the period. The definitional problems highlighted in the introduction are most apparent when they restrict the historical actors themselves. The entrenched debates become concerning when one considers that the implications of this lack of consensus bleed out of the walls of the academy into the ongoing debates regarding religion and the state. Impasses within those debates lead to passionate polemics regarding positions within the Enlightenment that might lend their respective side some credibility; some scholarly examples of this appeared in this essay. That such work affects popular audiences is not an inherently bad thing; it should be an encouragement to historians that their work matters to more than their academic peers. However, with much influence comes much responsibility. Historians should be careful to offer balanced analyses that will lead to a fruitful discussion, not inflammatory ammunition to use against intellectual opponents. A potential catalyst for this debate might be an increase in the number of conversations between intellectual historians and religious historians. Of the editors, authors, and contributors discussed in this paper, the majority of those historians were intellectual historians. These intellectual historians bring in the religious side of the period out of necessity, but if more religious historians entered the discussion, they would add a sorely missed perspective to this contentious disagreement. This new discourse would increase the quality of scholarship performed on this period because, as John Coffey and Alistair Chapman state in their introductory essay in Seeing Things Their Way, “only when religion is reinserted into our accounts will we be able to deliver a richer and more complete intellectual history.”27 One attempt at this feat can be found in God and the Enlightenment, from Bulman and Ingram, which, for the reasons stated above, presents an encouraging sign for the future of Enlightenment historiography. Their inclusion of religious historians, such as Brad Gregory, indicates a desire to add more voices to the conversation. They also pinpoint the issue of the historiography of Enlightenment and religion with the lack of any useful definitions, which can be attributed to scholarly disagreement. Their goal of reaching a “usable definition” clearly points to a search for scholarly consensus. Any fruitful scholarly conversation depends on such agreement. Whether scholars will find such a definition or whether it will lead to any future work on the Enlightenment and religion remains to be seen, but the door remains open.

27 Alister Chapman, John Coffey, and Brad S. Gregory, eds., Seeing Things Their Way: Intellectual History and the Return of Religion (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), 5.

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Constantinople, the Holy Grail of Russian Grand Strategy: Reassessing Russia's Post-Soviet Ambitions

Josiah Popp Recipient of Senior Editor’s Award

Abstract: In the three decades since the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia has not evolved into the liberalized democracy that the West hoped it would become. Instead, Russian foreign policy has been marked by its routine hostility and periodic military aggression. The prevailing narrative among modern American policy experts is that Russia is returning to its Soviet roots. This narrative assumes that because Russian actions appear irrational and sporadic, they indicate a concerted effort to defiantly sow chaos against the American-led international order. The question of Putin’s territorial ambition is limited to the scope of former Soviet territory. The prevailing narrative is attractive to American thinkers because it draws from the wisdom of U.S. experience in the Cold War. However, Soviet Russia was an anomaly in Russian history – a disastrous experiment. It is more likely that Russia is returning to its pre-Soviet roots; the older Tsarist-Byzantine model. In this paper, a re-evaluation of Russian grand strategy is offered. It is concluded that Russia, animated by its unique holy mission, likely has its sights set on a critical target envied by the Tsars for centuries: Constantinople. This acquisition would allow Russia to escape from its current crises while simultaneously undermining the current U.S.-led international order. Policymakers must consider this possibility if they seek to preserve America’s position as the global hegemon. Policies informed by the prevailing narrative will fail to prevent the ascendance of a New Russian Empire. Russia’s past is returning, but it is not the past that America recognizes from experience.

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American scholarship has accepted a dangerous prevailing narrative concerning Russian ambition: that Russia is seeking to restore its former Soviet glory by creating chaos in the U.S.-led international order. Peter Doran, a policy think tank president, and his colleague Donald Jensen, a former U.S. diplomat, have together concluded that Russia is pursuing a “strategy of chaos,” using Soviet-era empirics to make their case.1 The Brookings Institute’s Fiona Hill argues that Vladimir Putin is “out to score points for Russia. He is not out to win friends in Ukraine or Europe. Nor is he out to restore a Russian empire, or build a new Moscow-centric geopolitical order.”2 Ehsan Ahrari of the U.S. Army War College has written that “Because Russian President Vladimir Putin considers the implosion of the former Soviet Union to be ‘the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century,’ the grand strategy of his foreign policy has been to restore the Soviet Union’s past glory and superpower status to Russia.”3 As shall be contended, each of these scholars have missed critical facets of Russian grand strategic calculus. The conclusion of Doran and Jensen is incorrect because it starts from an assumption that Soviet-era politics can be applied to Russia’s current political calculations. Hill’s conclusion is incorrect because it misdiagnoses the purpose of Russia’s expansionist tendencies, assuming that the Kremlin’s “Soviet nostalgia” is driving its hostilities, and that Putin seeks no empire. Ahrari’s conclusion is incorrect because it maintains that Putin is looking to restore Russia as a superpower in the Soviet model with the territories it held during the Cold War. Though flawed, this prevailing narrative holds some important insights. Namely, that Russia is dissatisfied with the U.S.-led order, it aspires to at least be recognized as a great power, and that Putin is using an appeal to the past to energize his nation. But still, it does contain several troubling assumptions: that Russia’s aggression is untargeted chaos, Putin longs for the old Soviet world he knew as a spy, and Russia does not want a new empire, but if it does, it is aiming for former Soviet territories. This paper aims to refine the prevailing narrative by interpreting Russia’s aggression through a Tsarist-Byzantine lens rather than a Soviet lens. Consequently, it illuminates a potential Russian target that is not currently considered as a possibility: Constantinople. At the core of this thesis is the contention that American policymakers are searching for clues about Russian ambition in the wrong era. Sustaining the international order may require grand strategists to shake off the chains of Cold War familiarity and embrace the often-mystical world of pre-Soviet Russia – the world of the Tsars. To best determine what Russia wants, one must first examine its internal threats. In 2015, four-star Marine Corps General James Mattis (ret.) outlined Russia’s internal crises as geographic and demographic.4 Indeed, Russia’s massive size is a liability rather than an advantage, especially when coupled with its lack of consistent maritime access, which is critical to maintaining a formidable navy.5 As noted by the former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union George Kennan,

1 Peter Doran and Donald Jensen, “Putin’s Strategy of Chaos,” The American Interest 13, no. 6 (2018). 2 Fiona Hill, “This is what Putin Really Wants,” The Brookings Institute, February 24, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/this-is-what-putin-really-wants/ 3 Eshan Ahrari, “Dealing with Putin’s grand strategy: The impossibility of ‘bromance’,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 24, 2017, https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/dealing-with-putins-grand-strategy-the-impossibility-of- bromance/ 4 James Mattis, “The State of the World,” The Heritage Foundation, May 14, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCD5zHBNWG8 5 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers; Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House Books, 1987), 14-16; U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence, The Russian Navy: A Historic Transition (Suitland: Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review, 2015), xiv.

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Russia’s unfortunate geography has long been an important piece of its calculations.6 On the demographic side, Russia is under threat of losing 20% of its population by 2050 if it does not curb its unusually high rates of abortion, male suicide, and alcoholism.7 The economic slump of the 1990s began these trends, but Russia has seemingly ignored the problem by continually investing in its military rather than its social safety nets, much to confusion of liberalized nations in the West.8 The combination of the declining workforce and aging population has also intensified the impact of Western sanctions against Russia, creating vicious economic stagnation.9 One crisis that was absent from Mattis’s list, however, was Russia’s religious turmoil. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) re-emerged as a piece of lost Russian heritage and it continues to be closely-intertwined with the Kremlin.10 However, the ROC is more of a nationalist touchstone than a moral foundation for most Russians.11 According to a 2014 Pew Research report, 72% of Russians identify with the ROC, but only 7% regularly attend services.12 In the larger Eastern Orthodox world, the ROC is also struggling to assert ecclesiastical authority.13 In 2018, the patriarch of Constantinople granted autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, severing Russia’s spiritual ties with its long-standing territory.14 Both at home and abroad, the ROC is losing relevance even as it aligns itself with the Russian government. All of these crises provide essential clues for what Russia wants. It is likely seeking more favorable geographical positioning, a remedy for its demographic decline that does not include welfare spending, and possibly a renewed dominance in the Eastern Orthodox world. The prevailing narrative (and Western liberalism more broadly) largely downplays the impact of religion in state affairs, but religion does have a long-standing role in Russia’s political calculus. The Byzantine Empire was responsible for converting the Slavic people to Christianity in 988, and Russia considers its “golden days” to be the following two centuries when Kievan Russia was transcribing Byzantine law and culture onto itself.15 Indeed, twentieth-century Russian historian J.A. Kulakovsky wrote that, “Our Russian past is bound up with the Byzantine Empire by unbreakable ties, and on the basis of this union our Russian national consciousness has defined

6 George Kennan, Long Telegram (Washington DC: Elsey papers. 1946), 5. 7 Julie DaVanzo and David Adamson, “Russia's Demographic “Crisis” How Real Is It?,” Rand Corporation Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (1997): 2-3; Alexander Nemtsov. “Suicides and alcohol consumption in Russia, 1965–1999.” Drug and Alcohol Dependence 71, no. 2 (2003): 161-168. 8 Illan Berman, “Moscow's Baby Bust?,” Foreign Affairs, July 8, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2015-07-08/moscows-baby-bust 9 Radio Free Europe, “Russia Calls U.S. Sanctions 'Unacceptable' As Stocks, Ruble Plunge,” Radio Free Europe, April 9, 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-deripaska-rusal-shares-price-falls-sanctions/29154127.html; Mark Schrad, “Western Sanctions are Shrinking Russia’s Population,” Foreign Policy, October 19, 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/19/western-sanctions-are-shrinking-russias-population/ 10 Katarzyna Jarzynska, “The Russian Orthodox Church as Part of the State and Society [Русская православная церковь как часть государства и общества].” trans. Stephen Shenfield, Russian Politics and Law 52, no. 3 (2014): 88; Sergei Chapnin, “A Church Of Empire: Why The Russian Church Chose To Bless Empire,” First Thing Journal of Religion and Public Life (2015). 11 Dilip Hiro. After Empire: The Birth of a Multipolar World. (New York: Nation Books. 2010.) 103-104. 12 Pew Research Center, “Russians Return to Religion, But Not to Church,” Religion and Public Life, February 10, 2014, http://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2014/02/religion-in-Russia-full-report-rev.pdf 13 Christopher Stroop, “Putin Wants God (or at Least the Church) on His Side,” Foreign Policy, September 10, 2018, https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/10/putin-wants-god-or-at-least-the-church-on-his-side/ 14 Neil McFarquhar, “Russia-Ukraine Tensions Set Up the Biggest Christian Schism Since 1054,” New York Times, October 7, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/world/europe/ukraine-russia-orthodox-church.html 15 Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, 3rd ed. (Bungay: Random House UK, 2015), 75-78.

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The Franciscan itself.”16 When the Byzantine capital of Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the contemporary Tsar Basil III was told by the Orthodox monk Philotheus that Moscow was the third and last Rome – the final stronghold of Christendom in a world overrun by Muslim invaders.17 This religious zeal has provided important fuel for Russian nationalism, which has been seen throughout Russia’s monarchical history. For instance, when Moscow was burnt in Napoleon’s war of 1812, Tsar Alexander lamented that, ‘“…God has chosen the venerable capitol of Russia to save, through her sufferings, not Russia alone, but all of Europe.”18 Indeed, at the root of Russian nationalism lies a belief in a holy mission, inherited from Byzantium, in which Russia is called to suffer for Christendom.19 Vladimir Putin’s favorite philosophers, far from being communist, have confirmed and expounded upon this mission.20 Peter Stolypin (1862-1911), an iron-fisted enforcer of the last Tsar Nikolas II, is revered by nationalists for his brutal campaign to protect Russian heritage from communist revolutionaries.21 He endured a life of constant threats against himself and his family, eventually being shot in a theater – a haunting parallel to Abraham Lincoln. Religious philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948) wrote that the “Russian national thought… courses its way from the old idea of Moscow as the Third Rome…,” believing that Russia was called to lead the world away from the humanism that caused World War I, and towards a beautiful “unity” under Christ.22 Berdyaev saw Constantinople as the catalyst for that unity, writing, “The sole essential pretension of Russia appears to be Constantinople and egress through the water-courseways to the seas. A Russian Constantinople ought to be one of the centers of the unification of East and West.”23 Ivan Ilyin (1883-1954), another religious philosopher, believed that God had given each ethnic group unique cultural gifts and that recognizing those gifts was the “the only correct and consistent

16 Alexander Vasiliev. History of the Byzantine Empire 324-1453 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1952.) 35. 17 Ware, The Orthodox Church, 100-101. 18 Ernst Benz, The Eastern Orthodox Church (New York: Anchor Books, 1963), 188-189. 19 In the soul of Russia, hereditary bonds to Byzantium are in rooted in blood, faith, and toil. In 988, the Russian King Vladimir married Princess Anna, the sister of the Byzantine Emperor Basilios II. In 1472, Tsar Ivan III married the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor, creating a clear “dynastic link” to the fallen empire. Munin Nederlander, Kitezh: The Russian Grail Legends (London: The Aquarian Press, 1991), 118; Ware, The Orthodox Church, 100. 20 During Putin’s administration, he has directed his governors to read the works of these men, has in some cases raised monuments to them, repatriated their remains from foreign lands, and drinks deeply from their philosophies in his public speeches. Andrei Kolesnikov, “A Past that Divides: Russia’s New Official History,” Carnegie Moscow Center (2017): 1; Andrew Stuttaford, “The (Re)birth of Ivan Ilyin,” National Review, April 19, 2014, https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/rebirth-ivan-ilyin-andrew-stuttaford/; Anton Barbashin, and Hannah Thoburn, “Putin’s Philosopher; Ivan Ilyin and the Ideology of Moscow’s Rule,” Foreign Affairs, September 20, 2015, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2015-09-20/putins-philosopher; Mark Galeotti and Andrew Bowen, “Putin’s Empire of the Mind,” Foreign Policy, April 21, 2014, https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/21/putins-empire-of-the-mind/ 21 Stolypin hunted and hung so many communist revolutionaries that the hangman’s noose became known as “Stolypin’s necktie.” Christopher Byrum, “Renounced Without Regret: State Power and the Transformation of Rural Russia, 1881-1932,” (master’s thesis, University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2011), 41; Leonid Strakhovsky, “The Statesmanship of Peter Stolypin: a Reappraisal,” Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London; The Slavonic and East European Review 37, no. 89 (1959): 351-361. 22 Nikolai Berdyaev [николай бердяев], The Soul of Russia [Pусская дуща], trans. Fr. S. Janos. (Moscow: I.D. Sytin, 1915). 23 Nikolai Berdyaev [николай бердяев]. The End of Europe [Конец Европы]. trans. Fr. S. Janos. (Moscow: I.D. Sytin, 1915).

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development of the Christian understanding.”24 He believed that God’s gift to the Russian Slavs was to defend every other ethnicity so that their gifts could be peacefully cultivated. He saw Western liberalism as an existential threat to this mission because it seeks to bring all people into a single melting pot, thus destroying what God created.25 Russian historian and Soviet gulag survivor Lev Gumilev (1912-1992) wrote of a unique energy that leads ethnicities to domination – an energy he called “passionarity,” which is a will to conquer and dominate even to the point where conquest is no longer rational.26 In his book “Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere,” he cited Alexander the Great as having such energy, conquering for the sake of glory itself.27 Gumilev believed passionarity is that sort of energy that creates empires from ethnicities. All of these authors’ thoughts can be helpfully synthesized as follows: God created the Russian mission, Berdyaev envisioned its destination, Gumilev outlined the map to get there, Ilyin foretold of its dangers, and Stolypin modeled the hero who could make the journey. Together, they provide a clear picture of the Russian path to empire, with a great leader at the helm. It is more than plausible that Vladimir Putin believes that he is the leader that can make this journey in the new epoch of Russian history. Soviet ideology is hazardously familiar to American thinkers. America only became a superpower after the Bolshevik revolution uprooted traditional Russian heritage, and as such, the U.S. has never dealt with a Tsarist-Byzantine political calculus. America must be prepared to face the possibility that it has misdiagnosed its rival’s ambitions. Putin does not miss the Soviet Union; he misses the Russia that the Soviets destroyed. From this fresh perspective, it is possible to evaluate Russia’s recent hostilities more clearly. One of the lasts actions of the Tsarist-Byzantine political system was an attempt to acquire Constantinople as a Russian imperial territory.28 After the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War, Russia immediately began seeing the conflict as an opportunity to finally destroy their old mortal enemy. Between 1914 and 1917, Russian scholars and politicians saw three major advantages in taking the city: First, it would secure the Turkish Straits, which are essential to Russian trade and had been used repeatedly as leverage against them by the Ottomans.29 Second,

24 Ivan Ilyin [иван Ильин], “On Russian Nationalism” [О русском национализме] On Web, Russian Resurrection [Русское Воскресение] [http://gosudarstvo.voskres.ru/ilin/nz/nz-111-112.htm] 25 Ilyin’s central premise was that some ethnic groups are too weak to survive the liberty the West offered, and thus needed Russian protection. He predicted that if Russia lost its territories, “Russia, as a prey, thrown into plunder, is a quantity that no one will master, at which everyone will quarrel, which will cause incredible and unacceptable dangers to life for all of humanity.” To understand his position, it is helpful to consider the ethnic cleansing that ravaged the Balkans immediately after the Iron Curtain fell – an apparent confirmation of this theory from Russia’s perspective. Ivan Ilyin [иван Ильин], “What Does the Dismemberment of Russia Promise to the World?” [Что сулит миру расчленение России], On Web, Russian Resurrection [Русское Воскресение] [http://gosudarstvo.voskres.ru/ilin/nz/nz-101-105.htm] 26 Charles Clover, “Lev Gumilev: passion, Putin, and power,” The Financial Times, March 11, 2016, https://www.ft.com/content/ede1e5c6-e0c5-11e5-8d9b-e88a2a889797/ 27 Lev Gumilev [лев Гумилев], Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere [Этногенез и биосфера] (Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1990), 208. 28 The full diplomatic account of Russia’s attempt to take the straits during World War I can be found between the respective articles of Kucherov and Kerner. Samuel Kucherov, “The Problem of Constantinople and the Straits,” The Russian Review 8, no. 3 (1949); Robert Kerner, “Russia, the Straits, and Constantinople 1914-15,” Journal of Modern History 1, no. 3, (1929). 29 Kucherov, Problem of Constantinople, 208-210; David Mitrany, The Effect of the War on Southeastern Europe (New York: Howard Fertig Inc., 1973), 12-13.

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The Franciscan it would allow Russia to reclaim the ancient Hagia Sophia, which had been a mosque since 1453 rather than an Orthodox cathedral. Russian Prince Eugene Trubetskoy wrote in 1915 that, “The Cathedral of Sophia is precisely that pearl of the Gospel for which Russia must be prepared to give everything she possesses.”30 Third, the acquisition of Constantinople and the Turkish Straits would give Russia a substantial strategic advantage in Europe. It would immediately control the Black Sea, have unstoppable access to the Mediterranean Sea, and would be the undisputed hegemon of Eastern Europe and the near East. As the French scholar Petrus Gyllius once wrote, the waterway is, “the strait that surpasses all straits, because with one key it opens and closes two worlds, two seas.”31 The major European powers of the nineteenth century (Britain, France, and Italy) had resisted this outcome for fear of Russia becoming too powerful, but too much Russian blood had been spilled against the Central Powers to deny them this war trophy.32 By 1915, Russia had the new borders of Constantinople and the Turkish Straits drawn up with the written agreement of the other three major powers.33 But the rise of the Bolsheviks undermined this effort, and Vladimir Lenin characterized it as a capitalist scheme in the interests of bankers and billionaires.34 Ultimately, the 1917 revolution prevented Nikolas II from finalizing the acquisition of the territory with the other countries, and he was slaughtered with his entire family just three years later.35 The main application of this historical escapade is this: when Russia was on the verge of solving its geographical crisis, fortifying its economy, and fulfilling its holy mission, communism snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, dooming Russia to another century of suffering. This is a devastating rebuke to the prevailing narrative. When Vladimir Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the twentieth century,” he was lamenting the loss of Russian geopolitical standing, not the loss of Soviet ideology. If nationalism drove Russia towards Constantinople before the Soviet Union, it may do so again after the Soviet Union. Indeed, the value of the Turkish Straits and Constantinople has only increased over the past century. The waterway now controls a fifth of the world’s grain trade, which is projected to increase.36 Control of the city and straits would enable Russia to safeguard all of its exports, threaten Ukraine’s until it submits to the Kremlin’s will, construct and drill naval forces in the Black Sea without fear of harassment, and build leverage over Middle Eastern and North African nations who are projected to consume more of Eastern European grain as their populations increase.37 It was in no small part the economic power of Constantinople that allowed Russia’s Byzantine ancestors to survive for a millennium even as it was surrounded by enemies.38 Acquisition may also allow Russia to treat its demographic crisis at the source: individual immorality. From the perspective of the ROC, it is a deviation from traditional morality that has

30 Ibid, 208. 31 John Freely, Istanbul, the Imperial City (London: Penguin Books, 1998), 5. 32 Kerner, Russia, the Straits, 405-409. 33 Ibid, 411-413. 34 Kucherov, The Problem of Constantinople, 213-214. 35 Ibid, 215 36 Rob Bailey and Laura Wellesley, Chokepoints and Vulnerabilities in Global Food Trade (London: Chatham House, 2017), iv-vi, 11-12. 37 Ibid, 14-15, 77; Louis Delvoie, “The Middle East: Contending hegemons,” The Kingston Whig Standard, February 8, 2019, https://www.thewhig.com/opinion/columnists/the-middle-east-contending-hegemons 38 Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 49- 56.

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caused the curse of abortion, suicide, and drunkenness.39 It baffles the West to see Russia ignoring this problem, but in ROC thought, sinfulness can only be solved by fasting and praying, not by liberal social programs or secular support groups.40 The reopening of the Hagia Sophia as a Christian church would instantly be a prize of Russia pride – and Russians associate with ROC out of this pride. In short, it may be the key to a spiritual revival in Russia that draws the people back to their moral foundations through national zeal.41 Moreover, the Hagia Sophia would undoubtedly be a pilgrimage destination for the entire Eastern Orthodox world, as believers could once again worship in Constantine’s long-lost treasure. The fallout would certainly embarrass the Constantinople patriarch and force eastern Christendom to see Russia as Russia sees itself: as the God-ordained defender of Christ’s church body. Finally, and most troublingly, the political fallout would likely break the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Modern day Turkey is becoming increasingly authoritarian and is pursuing a “soft Islamization” under Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP party, signaling a return to the old Ottoman foundation that is incompatible with NATO’s political goals.42 Furthermore, nationalist impulses in Western Europe are showing signs of growth, fueled by fears over Muslim immigration and a loss of state sovereignty to the European Union.43 In the Balkan states particularly, nationalist rhetoric is largely founded upon Byzantine nostalgia and the revolts against the Ottoman caliphate during the nineteenth century.44 In both cases, the continent seems to be reverting to the political calculations of the 1800s, and it is questionable whether an alliance forged in the 1900s will endure. If the Turkish-NATO rift continues widening, few nations would likely risk open war with a nuclear Russia to defend Turkey. If NATO failed to respond to an attack on Turkey, the alliance would be as good as dead from the broken faith, and Russia will have defeated the single biggest barrier to its expansion. Viewed in this light, it is within Russia’s interests to slowly shear Turkey away from favor of the alliance, but not to the point where Turkey leaves it. Plausibly deniable aggression or “grey zone” warfare will then become a lethal blow to Article V if no European state has the political

39 At the 2017 Christian Future of Europe Conference, ROC Metropolitan Hilarion noted that the “militant secularism” of Europe was driving behaviors like abortion and same-sex marriage, identifying this as the root cause of demographic crises. Hilarion Alfeyev, “Presentation by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk at the Christian Future of Europe Conference,” Department for External Church Relations, September 23, 2017, https://mospat.ru/en/2017/09/23/news150374/ 40 Kallistos Ware. The Orthodox Way, 2nd edn. (New York: St. Vladmir’s Seminary Press, 1995), 116-117; Stan Fedun. “How Alcohol Conquered Russia.” The Atlantic, September 25, 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/how-alcohol-conquered-russia/279965/ 41 Luttwak notes that a piece of the Byzantine grand strategy was the use of the Hagia Sophia to astound and enchant visitors for the purpose of converting them into friendlier neighbors. Luttwak. Grand Strategy, 116. 42 Shadi Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), 159, 241; Judy Dempsey, “Judy Asks: Is Turkey Undermining NATO?,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 24, 2018, https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/75345; The Economist, “Turkey and NATO are Growing Apart,” The Economist Europe, February 1, 2018, https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/02/01/turkey-and-nato-are-growing- apart 43 Roger Scruton, “The Future of European Civilization: Lessons for America,” The Heritage Foundation, October 14, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMz3clGp_MY; Florian Bieber, “Is Nationalism on the Rise? Assessing Global Trends,” Ethnopolitics 17, no. 5 (2018): 537; Michael Cox, “The Rise of Populism and the Crisis of Globalisation: Brexit, Trump and Beyond,” Irish Studies in International Affairs 28 (2017): 17. 44 Fejzi Lila, “Rising Nationalism in the Balkans,” European Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies 2, no. 4, (2017): 32-33; William Langer, European Alliances and Alignments 1871-1890, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Alfred A. Knopf, 1956), 85-95.

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The Franciscan motivation to respond. Geopolitical winds seem to be favoring Moscow, and Constantinople now holds more grand strategic power than it did in 1915. If Russia does have its sights set on Constantinople, there ought to be observable warning signs in its recent actions. Aside from its attempted isolation from Turkey, Russia’s war with Georgia and Ukraine hold important clues, which apostles of the prevailing narrative have missed. First, in the brief war of 2008, Russia exacted a “humiliating defeat” against its southern neighbor, carving out the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazian.45 Russia dealt with this territorial gain as proponents of the holy mission may have expected: it seized a piece of its former empire, claiming to protect its unique ethnic groups under the paternal Russian banner. The annexation of the two regions was followed by a series of agreements in 2015 to extend protective Russian citizenship to their respective ethnic groups, while recognizing them as independent states.46 The war ultimately destroyed Georgia’s will to resist the Kremlin, and according to the U.S. Army War College’s Col. Robert Hamilton (ret.), Georgia is now ultimately unable to prevent Russia from overrunning the entire country.47 Georgian territory would be particularly useful in a new Russo- Turkish war, largely because it holds the oil pipelines between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and the port city of Batumi, which handles much of the region’s trade and is deep enough to accommodate forward-deployed warships near Turkey’s northeastern coast.48 The Georgian war likely was not the result of chaos. Putin placed forward-deployed troops within striking distance of a vital Turkish economic and military nerve. He now has the plausible option of erasing Georgia from the map and instantly landing on the Turkish doorstep with little fear of meaningful Western retaliation.49 In the ongoing war against Ukraine, it is clear that Russia obtained substantial naval advantages by annexing the Crimean Peninsula. The port at Sevastopol is now the epicenter of the Russian naval buildup, and according to Harvard’s Dmitry Gorenburg, “from Sevastopol, the Russian navy can pretty much control all approaches and dominate the region vis-a-vis Turkey.”50 While American observers wonder what Russia hopes to gain from its continued fight in the Donbass region, Norwegian scholar Jökull Johannesson has made a strong case that the purpose

45 Jahangir Arasli, “Blackout: Civil-military miscommunication as a recipe for a war failure – A case study of Israel and Georgia,” Baltic Security and Defence Review 14, no. 1 (2012): 88. 46 Dakota Wood, ed. 2019 Index of U.S. Military Strength (Washington DC: Heritage Foundation, 2018), 220. 47 Robert Hamilton, August 2008 and Everything After: A Ten-Year Retrospective on the Russia-Georgia War (Philadelphia: Foreign Policy Research Institute, 2018), 12-20. 48 So valuable is this location that Joseph Stalin attempted to trade it (and two other provinces) to Turkey in exchange for more favorable access to the Turkish Straits in 1921. Murat Pıçak, “Political, Economic and Strategic Dimension of the Turkish-Soviet Straits Question Emerged After World War II,” International Journal of Business and Social Science 2, no. 15 (2011): 184; Wood, 2019 Index of Military Strength, 221-222; Forbes Georgia, “From Kazakhstan to Batumi [ყაზახეთიდან ბათუმამდე],” Forbes Georgia, February 22, 2016, http://forbes.ge/news/1887/From-Kazakhstan-to-Batumi 49 The war has forced Georgia into the undesirable position of being reliant on defensive military aid from Western nations. If it were able to fully defend itself, military aid would end, along with the symbolic support of Russia’s enemies. Consequently, for its own good, it must maintain a status of weakness relative to Russia. Hamilton, Ten- Year Retrospective, 13. 50 Even aside from the Crimean Peninsula, the Ukrainian shipping industry holds extreme promise for the Russia economy if the Kremlin can acquire it. André Tienpont [Андре Тиенпонт] Ukraine Maritime Report – 2016: Will This Giant Awaken? [МОРСЬКИЙ ЗВІТ УКРАЇНИ – 2016 Чи пробудиться цей гігант?] (Mykolaiv: Vasiliy Torubara, 2016), 15-18; Matthew Bodner, “Black Sea Rising: Rebirth of a Russian Fleet,” The Moscow Times, March 17, 2016, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/03/17/black-sea-rising-rebirth-of-a-russian-fleet-a52191

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of the campaign is, essentially, to steal the Ukrainian military industrial infrastructure.51 The materials and manpower Russia has obtained from Ukraine have included thirty-one defense companies and high-tech weapon components for air-to-air missiles, ballistic missiles, fighter jets, personnel carriers, artillery, communication systems, and heavy armor.52 These weapons are not relevant in small-scale insurgencies but are relevant in sophisticated intrastate conflicts. In short, Russia has used Ukraine to build up its capability to sustain an offensive military posture in the Black Sea region. The possibility of a new Russo-Turkish war should not be removed from American considerations.53 In summary, it is unlikely that Russia is currently following the Soviet political calculation model. It is also unlikely that Russian aggression has been aiming to sow blind chaos. Given that Russian nationalism is incongruent with both communist philosophy and western liberalism, the unique Tsarist-Byzantine political calculus is most plausibly informing the Kremlin’s moves, just as it did before 1917. The empirical multi-faceted Russian interest in Constantinople as a territorial target should be troubling, particularly in light of the fact that its grand strategic value is increasing and the alliance network to defend it is fraying. Whether Putin premeditated both the Georgian and Ukrainian wars as a steppingstone to Turkey is certainly debatable, but it is quite transparent that Russia is far better situated to take Constantinople now than it was in 2007. The prevailing narrative may continue to leave the U.S. a step behind Moscow, and the blindfold of Cold War experience is unhelpful to U.S. interests. The past is indeed returning, but it is not the one America recognizes.

51 Jökull Johannesson, “Russia’s war with Ukraine is to acquire military industrial capability and human resources,” Journal of International Studies (2017): 67. 52 Ibid, 66-67. 53 Indeed, during the nineteenth century alone, the Tsars fought eleven such wars against Turkey. Kucherov, The Problem of Constantinople, 206.

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The Franciscan

Sweden’s Last Warrior: The Defamed Grand Strategic Skill of Charles XII

Josiah Popp

Abstract: Some assassinations occur after death. Charles XII, the last warrior king of Sweden, has been castigated by nearly all historical scholarship as an exceptionally wicked blend of humanity’s worst vices. He has been blamed almost universally for the fall of the once vibrant Swedish Empire and the suffering of the Swedish people in endless wars. However, there is substantial evidence that though he was unable to save the Swedish Empire, his actions reflected a keen strategic vision and a dedication to preserving the country his forefathers had built. This paper examines who Charles XII was, his involvement in Sweden’s last great conflict, the Great Northern War, and how he likely understood Swedish grand strategy. In 1707, Charles XII launched an invasion of Russia that ended in disaster, sealing the fate of the doomed Swedish Empire. This earned him the eternal scorn of historians who have interpreted this move as an act of blind aggression that sacrificed the Swedish people on the altar to his own hubris. However, this move was likely Charles XII’s best hope for saving the Swedish Empire before it was too late. It is concluded after a thorough examination of Swedish imperial history, Swedish financial structure, and Swedish military operations that Charles XII deserves to be remembered as a skilled strategist, not a calloused megalomaniac. This paper aims to exonerate a young man who has been condemned to a memory of shame despite his giving every pleasure in life, including his final breath, to save his people.

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Article Section

Assassinated in the Grave The legacy of King Charles XII, ruler of Sweden from 1697-1718, has almost invariably been trapped within a hateful image ever since he died in battle. Historians of all stripes have contended that his rule was defined by his hubris and lack of strategic thought, both of which led to the end of the once vibrant Swedish Empire. This negative memory has fueled the attitude of pacifism that continues to define modern Sweden.1 But this contrived caricature obscures the true character of Charles XII. Moreover, the popular insistence upon this depiction has blinded historians to the nuanced challenges that faced the Swedish Empire in its final days. Rather than glean lessons of grand strategy from the Empire’s fall, most popular histories simply scapegoat Charles XII as the sole author of Sweden’s collapse.2 The aim of this paper is twofold. First, this paper will seek to exonerate Charles XII from an unjust historical condemnation while demonstrating his strategic skill and vision. Second, this paper will present lessons in Swedish grand strategy that have been overlooked, which can be used to better understand how great powers ultimately succeed and fail. The first section will examine the background of the Swedish Empire, how the Great Northern War brought it to its knees, and how the ideological biases of historians have distorted Charles XII’s legacy. The second section will outline the three “pillars” of Swedish grand strategy. The third section will examine Charles XII’s decision to invade Russia in 1708. This choice is almost universally condemned as his ultimate act of arrogance and idiocy, but there is a strong case to be made that invading Russia in the winter was the best option available to the Swedes at the time. Finally, this paper will conclude that Charles XII should finally be laid to rest as the figure he truly was: a strategically astute young man who was willing to renounce all worldly pleasure and give his last breath for the preservation of the Swedish people.

A Teenage Lion Fights the Great Northern War At the outset of the 1700s, the entire European continent was engulfed in war. Winston Churchill would later describe just half of the total bloodshed as the first true “world war.”3 By 1700, two separate wars were underway: The War of the Spanish Succession and the Great Northern War (Figure 1). The War of the Spanish Succession raged in southwest Europe, while the Great Northern War raged in the northeast.4 While Western Europe fought over who would sit upon the Spanish throne, Northern Europe fought for control over lands surrounding the Baltic Sea. With Europe rent into two blocs, a dark fear lurking in the mind of most powers was the prospect of the two wars bleeding together into a single “world war.” Sweden’s fate was decided in the Great Northern War. Over the course of the preceding century, Sweden had risen into a formidable land and naval power. Under the leadership of Charles XII’s ancestor, King Gustavus Adolphus, Stockholm was able to seize control over the Baltic coastal provinces of Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, Pomerania, and Bremen-Verden (Figure 2).

1 Moerk, Ernst. “From War-Hero to Villain: Reversal of the Symbolic Value of War and a Warrior King.” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 35, No. 4 (1998), 465. 2 Sundberg, Ulf. Swedish Defensive Fortress Warfare in the Great Northern War 1702-1710. (Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press. 2018.) 55-56. 3 Churchill, Winston. Marlborough: His Life and Times, Book One. (Chicago: Chicago University Press. 1933.) 4 The War of the Spanish Succession included England, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Austria- Hungary, and Germany (then known as the Holy Roman Empire). The Great Northern War included the Swedish Empire, Denmark-Norway, Russia, proto-Ukraine, and Poland-Lithuania.

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Together, these territories gave Sweden incredible leverage over Baltic trade.5 However, these gains came at the strategic injury of Russia, Denmark-Norway, and Poland-Lithuania, who were threatened by the growth of Sweden and its ability to dictate regional affairs.6 After Gustavus Adolphus was killed on campaign in Germany in 1632, the next three monarchs of Sweden managed their newly expanded inheritance, while the neighboring powers struggled to contain it. Charles XII’s reign began at the age of just fifteen, when his father died in 1697. This signaled to his enemies that the time for revenge may be near at hand, compelling them to form a triple alliance of Russia (led by Peter I), Denmark (led by Frederick IV), and Poland-Lithuania (led by Augustus the Strong). In 1700, the alliance launched its attack.7 But Charles XII, who would come to be known by one painter as “The Lion of the North,” was a young man not easily intimidated (Figure 3). As a youth, Charles XII split his time between church, school, and the wilderness. As a devout Lutheran, his father emphasized above all else that his fledgling cub should be educated firstly in the scriptures.8 In Swedish martial tradition, the concept of “holy war” was alien to military sermons. According to available records “[i]mportant themes [in military sermons] were consolation, salvation and vocation. There was no war mongering or encouragements to murder and pillage.”9 The focus of Lutheran theology on vocation likely channeled Charles XII’s ambitions into a conviction that defense of his homeland was his purpose. The severe austerity he embraced throughout his short life – abstention from wine, women, sluggish pleasures, and even common comforts – demonstrates a deep and enduring commitment to fulfill his role as Sweden’s protector.10 During the war, a British diplomat who met Charles XII’s noted that his “fine gilt Bible by his bedside” was the “only thing that looks fine in his equipage.”11 This religious education was accompanied by rigorous study of classical languages and war histories.12 Charles XII’s tutor was instructed “to make Caesar's campaigns live again as if the boy were taking part in them.”13 Outside of his studies, Charles XII was keen on recreationally defying death.14 The royal court and Swedish nobles, knowing that there was no clear heir besides

5 Specifically, trade in grain, timber, mining, weapons, and fur. Natharius, Edward William. The Maritime Powers and Sweden 1698-1702. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1986.) 31, 36. 6 This was particularly true of Denmark. Denmark exercised control over the narrow waterways connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Baltic Sea, which allowed the Danish crown to tax trade moving through the straits. For fear of giving Sweden a reason to challenge their control, Denmark agreed to exempt all Swedish vessels from the tax, giving Swedish merchants a considerable market advantage in maritime commerce. Glete, Jan. Swedish Naval Administration, 1521-1721: Resources Flows and Organisational Capabilities. (Leiden: Brill Publishers. 2010.) 35; Kling, Steve and Einar Lyth.“A Collision of Northern Giants: The Great Northern War, 1700-1721 and its Major Battles.” Great Northern War Compendium, Vol. 1, (2015), 2. 7 Kling & Lyth, Northern Giants, 2. 8 Browning, Oscar. Charles XII of Sweden. (London: Hurst and Blackett. 1899.) 3-4. 9 These records are drawn largely from the best-documented Swedish Lutheran military chaplain of the time, Marcus Aurivillius, who was the chaplain of the king’s guard. Gudmundsson, David. “The Consolation of Soldiers: Religious life in the Swedish army during the Great Northern War.” Journal of Scandinavian History, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2014), 216. 10 Arouet, François-Marie. Charles XII King of Sweden. Trans. Winifred Todhunter. (London: Dutton & Co. 1731.) 38-39, 45. 11 Browning, Charles XII, 160-163. 12 These histories included authors such as Quintus Curius, who recorded the campaigns of Alexander the Great. Ibid, 3-4. 13 Ibid, 4. 14 Arouet, King of Sweden, 11.

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Charles XII, panicked at the boy’s regular hunting trips into the craggy Scandinavian wilds. On these excursions, the new monarch insisted upon hunting grizzly bears while armed with only a sharpened stick, saying that firearms were unfair to “so defenceless an animal.”15 This was the supposedly weak and passive king from whom the triple alliance expected to pilfer their lost territories. The coordinated three-pronged attack commenced in March of 1700 with Denmark invading Sweden’s satellite ally (Holstein-Gottorp) situated between Bremen- Verden and Pomerania, Russia invading Estonia and Ingria, and Poland-Lithuania invading Livonia (Figure 2).16 The counterstroke by Charles XII was so swift, decisive, and unexpected that by August, the Danish found themselves suing for peace in order to save their capital city, Copenhagen. The Russians, having believed the Swedes would be bogged down against Denmark, were blindsided when a report arrived that the Swedish king himself was leading an “innumerable army” up the Baltic coast to meet them.17 In November, Charles XII met the Russians at the city of Narva in northern Ingria. In a feat that trumpeted his name across Europe, Charles XII’s 8,000- man army sent 40,000 Russians into a fevered retreat.18 His subsequent assault against the Polish- Lithuanian forces in Livonia ended similarly, and by 1702 he had occupied the Polish capital of Warsaw.19 Instead of easily shearing off Sweden’s territories, each power in the triple alliance found themselves being mauled under the weight of Charles XII’s forces. In the following years, the members of the triple alliance made further attempts to scavenge for Swedish lands, but Charles XII repeatedly prevailed. As Winston Churchill noted in his histories of the era, Charles XII’s incredible ability to crush his enemies against all odds seemed to be evidence of a “charmed life.”20 But this flow of luck met choppy waters in 1704. While Charles XII was busy deposing Augustus the Strong from the Polish-Lithuanian throne and replacing him with a pro-Swedish ruler, Peter the Great had adapted his strategy to include naval forces. Although the Russians held no Baltic port, the Tsar succeeded in transporting his warships from the Arctic port of Archangel to the Baltic Sea by dragging them through nearly 100 miles of frosty hills (Figure 4).21 The Russians had succeeded in punching through the Neva River in Ingria, which connects Lake Ladoga to the Baltic Sea. This maneuver allowed the Russians to seize Ingria’s strongest fortresses and found the city of St. Petersburg (Figure 5). This was the moment at which the war began pivoting away from Swedish favor. Although Charles XII had successfully turned his Polish-Lithuanian enemy into an ally by placing his friend on the throne, securing this new satellite state was essential even as Russia pried into the Baltic. To prevent Augustus from leading a revolt against the new puppet ruler, Charles XII chased his remaining forces to the

15 In one such excursion, a bear came so close to killing the king that it ripped the powdered wig off of his head. Wigs in that age were seen as a symbol of refinement, wealth, and noble pomp. Apparently seeing this as an omen, Charles XII never again sported a wig, making his aversion to frivolity as clear as his bare head to those that saw him. He allegedly repaid the bear by bludgeoning it to death, along with fourteen of its kin. Browning, Charles XII, 17-18. 16 Kling & Lyth, Northern Giants, 2-3. 17 Fuller, John Frederick Charles. A Military History of the Western World. Vol 2. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company. 1955.) 165. 18 Ibid, 166. 19 Ibid, 167. 20 Churchill, Marlborough: Book One, 632-633. 21 Courtney, Anthony. “The Background of Russian Sea-Power.” International Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 1 (1954), 15; Massie, Robert. Peter the Great: His Life and World. (New York: Ballantine Books. 1980.) 436.

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The Franciscan southern border of the country. Finally, in 1706, Sweden was given its victory that killed off three- quarters of Augustus’ army at the battle of Fraudstadt, just barely north of the German border.22 At this juncture, Western Europe, embroiled in the War of the Spanish Succession, watched anxiously as Charles XII approached Germany. The memory of Gustavus Adolphus’ march into the heart of the country decades before was still fresh, and many (particularly the English) believed that the horror of a true continental war would materialize if Sweden once again invaded the German states.23 The young Swede, now twenty-one, set up his camp in Altranstadt, Saxony. Because Saxony was one of the German states in the Holy Roman Empire, Western European powers frantically sent out diplomats to either deter or recruit Charles XII. The resulting flurry of dread made Altranstadt the focal point of the continent during 1706-1707. Charles XII opted not to intervene in the War of the Spanish Succession, and instead embarked on a quest that would forever condemn his name: he invaded Russia with the intention of occupying Moscow. The result was catastrophic. Although his generals advised him to turn northwest to save the territories that Russia was devouring, Charles XII pressed on, and Peter’s “scorched earth” policy devastated the Swedish invaders until they were forced to divert their course – southeast! Charles XII aimed to ally himself with anti-Russian rebels in modern Ukraine, but when supplies ran low and promises of rebel troops proved empty, strategic planning was replaced by a mad dash to seek out a victory. Charles XII found his battle and his enemy Peter at the city of Poltava in 1709. At Poltava, Charles XII’s luck finally ran dry, and the Swedish army was routed, sending the young king fleeing into the Ottoman Empire, where he stayed for five whole years before returning to Sweden. After Poltava, the emboldened Russians immediately stormed through the Swedish territories taking fortress after fortress. Augustus returned vengefully to the Polish- Lithuanian throne, and Denmark began its raids against the Swedish coastal homelands. Even after Charles XII returned home to lead new campaigns against the triple-alliance, the economic, social, and strategic damage was too severe to be reversed. Charles XII himself died at the age of thirty- six after being shot in the head standing in the siege trenches of Fredriksten, Norway. Indeed, the word “Poltava” has become essentially synonymous with the collapse of the glorious Swedish Empire; Charles XII’s unnecessary disaster. Here one encounters the central question begged by historians: was not Charles XII simply a madman, drunk on his self-image of invincibility, and stubbornly bent on humiliating his enemies?

Historiographical Review There are three general strains of ideological editorializing that have fouled the well of Charles XII’s memory. In each of these cases, Charles XII’s legacy was a casualty in an attempt to tell a good story. First, from the Western European perspective, courteousness, cleanliness, and all manners of noble formalities marked a respectable ruler.24 During the Great Northern War, Western diplomats were shocked by Charles XII’s flagrant disregard for all such manners. The young king often felt that his adolescent appearance did not match his inward spirit, therefore he took pride in his smallpox scars and actively sought to leather his face with sunburns.25 First-hand accounts of

22 Kling & Lyth, Northern Giants, 4-5. 23 Simms, Brenden. Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire. (New York: Perseus Books. 2007.) 55-56. 24 These markers of noble civility and refinement were things such as wigs, luxurious frilled clothing, courtly dancing, perfumes, and general gentlemanly conduct. 25 Browning, Charles XII, 17.

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Article Section his appearance have been recorded by several appalled British diplomats who spent considerable ink in relaying exactly how repugnant Charles XII appeared. The British envoy to the Holy Roman Empire, George Stepney, wrote back to London vivid descriptions of a “slovenly” Charles XII, whose hair, waistcoat, and breeches were all “so greasy they may be fried,” and who would rush through meals brutishly “without any ceremony.”26 Dr. John Robinson, England’s most trusted intelligence source at the Swedish court during these wars, abetted this depiction of a wild man by writing to the British Secretary of State that Charles XII was driven by revenge alone, and that he was not “much guided by the consideration of his own interests.”27 These snapshots of a filthy, petulant, and vicious young man flooded back to Western Europe, doubtlessly saturating the contemporary Anglo perceptions upon which modern English scholarship has been built.28 Indeed, throughout Winston Churchill’s exhaustive history of the era, Charles XII is described as “dare- devil,” a “barbarian ruler,” and a leader split “between his various revenges and opportunities.”29 Surely, if a leader lacked even the most basic marks of high society, how then could he possibly understand the nuances of grand strategy, or even his own strategic interests? Second, to the libertine minds of France and the West, the story of Charles XII fit too perfectly into the anti-monarchical message to be ignored.30 Viewed in this light, Charles XII’s life is the tragic tale of absolute political authority falling into the hands of a young man who uses it to make war on all of his neighbors only to be led like a lamb to the slaughter by his own arrogance at Poltava. 31 The first biography on Charles XII was written as a dialectical tale to follow the political currents of France during the later 1700s, authored by none other than Voltaire himself. Voltaire’s work paints him as the most extreme case of an absolutist king whose personal piety is polluted by war as he heedlessly sends his country plunging into ruin.32 Indeed, Sweden’s fall in the Great Northern War was manipulated into secular historical propaganda for the new “Age of Liberty.”33

26 Ibid, 160-161. 27 Milne, June. “The Diplomacy of Dr. John Robinson at the Court of Charles XII of Sweden, 1697-1709.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Vol. 30 (1948), 84. 28 At those times, both the Whigs and the Tories breathed life into this “slovenly” image in order to benefit their own political machinery. Glaeser, Michael. “Casting Charles XII.” Great Northern War Compendium, Vol. 2 (2015), 302; Weinbrot, Howard. “Johnson, Jacobitism, and Swedish Charles: "The Vanity of Human Wishes" and Scholarly Method.” ELH, Vol. 64, No. 4, (1997) 950-952. 29 In the context of Winston Churchill’s overall history on this era, the framing of Charles XII in this barbarous light served an ulterior motive beside simply telling history as it was. John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, Winston Churchill’s ancestor, suffered defamation by British historians after his role in fighting the War of the Spanish Succession. Winston’s work aimed not only to restore his family’s reputation, but also to prove that John was an exceptional statesman. The entire two-thousand-page work is thus dedicated to proving John’s brilliance at every stage of the war. During Charles XII’s stay at Altranstadt in 1706-1707, John paid him a visit in a bid to prevent Sweden from uniting the two wars, a visit that allegedly resulted in Charles XII’s choice to invade Russia, and theoretically saving the British war effort. Winston uses the barbarian framing of British literature to prove that his ancestor was such a master of diplomacy that he could even redirect Sweden’s most furious hurricane of hate and violence. Churchill, Marlborough: Book One, 50, 221-223. 30 Gleaser, Casting Charles XII, 302. 31 Moerk, War Hero to Villain, 460; Glaeser, Casting Charles XII, 303. 32 Another effect of Voltaire’s historical interpretation was that forerunners of the French Revolution saw Charles XII’s faith in God’s provision as an ingredient in his failure. Throughout Voltaire’s biography, he takes special care to ensure that any mention of religion is accompanied by a statement of how ignorance followed wherever it was established (as he did in his exposition on the Russian Empire and the Orthodox Church). Arouet, King of Sweden, 22; Moerk, War Hero to Villain, 466-467. 33 Ibid, 460.

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Finally, Swedish historical tradition follows much of the same trend, but with a particular bitterness. Because Charles XII made a habit of ignoring his military advisors during his invasion of Russia, those who outlasted him and witnessed the collapse of the empire shared a general feeling of fuming vindication.34 The veterans that fought beside the King in battle remembered the valiance with which he led charges, but “as the last veterans of the war died off, so too did any surviving support for the king.”35 The citizens of Sweden, strained heavily by the demands of the long years of war, demoralized by the humiliation of seeing their coastlines ravaged by Danish warships after 1709, and fearful for the future, embraced negative portrayals of their fallen King as an obstinate fool. This sense of resentment manifested itself in a massive corpus of popular literary works from Stockholm to Rome, including a searing and highly-influential play by August Strindberg.36 Although a few poets over the eighteenth century attempted to cast Charles XII in a heroic light, they did not move public opinion away from Strindberg’s narrative.37 The perception of the young King as an “insensitive,” “narcissistic,” “obstinate,” and “psychopathic” man endured.38 Sweden’s general pacifism is based largely upon the distant memory of disaster. At critical moments in Swedish history, when war has appeared on the horizon, Strindberg’s play, like a “megaphone” of national conscience, has returned to Swedish stages as anti-war propaganda.39 Thus, for over three hundred years, Sweden has been haunted by the ghost of Charles XII: a selfish, barbaric, narrow-minded, and above all, heartless ghost.40 But the legacy of Charles XII ought to be a man who understood the foundations and limits of his power, animated by a youthful optimism and rugged determination to preserve the Empire his ancestors had gifted to him. His true skill is worthy of note in grand strategic literature. However, the most credible books on the topic, largely written to provide guidance for American policymakers, contain not a single chapter or tangential mention of the Great Northern War or Charles XII. The six most influential grand strategy books in the American canon contain a

34 Sundberg, Swedish Defensive Fortress Warfare, 53-54. 35 Glaeser, Casting Charles XII, 302. 36 Strindberg’s work was designed to immortalize the image of Charles XII as a man whose “life has been one big mistake.” One of the attitudes Strindberg captures in his play was the sense that Charles XII was unconcerned with the suffering of the Swedish people even as it surrounded him after returning home from the Ottoman Empire. In the second act, while the exhausted king lounges on a sofa, a drunken war veteran bursts into his chambers to angrily observe “the King of Sweden who lies in bed for seven years while the country is being ruined…” Strindberg, August. Queen Christina, Charles XII, Gustav III. Trans. Walter Johnson. (Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1955.) 130; Weinbrot, Jacobitism, 954-955. 37 Moerk, War Hero to Villain, 460-461. 38 There are merely a few pointed descriptions of the King presented in Strindberg’s play. Ibid, 461-462. Chance attributes the loss of Swedish territories during the war to Charles XII’s “obstinacy.” Chance, James Frederick. “George I in His Relations with Sweden.” The English Historical Review, Vol. 17, No. 65 (1902), 59-60. 39 At the outset of both World Wars, when pressure mounted for Sweden to enter the conflicts, Strindberg’s Charles XII began touring at once, driving up popular support for Swedish neutrality. Moerk, War Hero to Villain, 466. 40 The impact of these combined historiographical poisons is best illustrated in an unlikely setting: the genre of heavy metal music. In 2012, the Swedish power metal band “Sabaton” added the album Carolus Rex (the Latinized name for King Charles) to its discography as an artistic narration of the Great Northern War. Its twelve energetic tracks kindle emotions of absolute domination and invincibility through their warlike drum solos, suspenseful buildups, and choruses which can only be sung with a curled lip and raised chin. The lyrics of the title track prove that even reverent commemorations of Charles XII still frame him as a man utterly possessed beyond reason, believing himself to be “chosen by heaven.” Brodén, Joakim. “Carolus Rex (English version) – Lyrics.” On Web. Sabaton Band [https://www.sabaton.net/discography/carolus-rex/carolus-rex-english-version/]; Brodén, Joakim. “A Special Delivery from Carolus Rex.” Sabaton. 5 December, 2018.

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Article Section combined seventy-two case studies of nations that either succeeded or failed to survive, but only one even mentions the Swedish Empire (Figure 6).41 With this in mind, it is now time to depart for a moment from Charles XII himself and begin investigating the creation of the empire he inherited. As shall be demonstrated, Sweden relied on three major pillars of power, all of which began to collapse while Charles XII was deliberating his next move at Altranstadt. The invasion of Russia, far from being a blind march to elusive glory, was proof that Charles XII was a far more adept grand strategist than the prejudiced caricature suggests. The Pillars of Swedish Power: Defense of Peasants The first of these pillars was the method by which the Swedes were able to sustainably finance their armed forces and retain the allegiance of their people. Far from being a backward land of barbarians, Sweden was further ahead in the development of central government financing than other states. By the time of the Great Northern War, Sweden resembled more of a “modern” state than its enemies.42 But what did Sweden discover in public faith and finance that allowed it to punch above its weight on the world stage? The answer lies in the crown’s unique relationship to its subjects and the marginalization of nobles. In 1542, the Swedish King Gustav I, founder of the Vasa dynastic line (of which Charles XII was a part), won over the hearts of Swedish people by instituting a type of social contract between the crown and the peasants. Coastal communities, having endured systematic raids by the Danes that were reminiscent of older Viking warfare, gave over their manpower, expertise, and resources to the Swedish crown in exchange for defense.43 As found by Glete, “[h]e had to explain the innovative connection between resource extraction and the benefits of protection provided by resources under his control.44 The critical ingredient in financing was thus the peasants’ faith that any resources freely given to the crown would be used for national defense. It was trust in a public bargain – a social contract. The peasants would voluntarily funnel money, minerals, timbers, chemicals, and manpower to the crown, and in return, the crown would ensure that villages would not be overrun by invaders. Scandinavia’s rich mineral and metallurgical resources gave Sweden a significant advantage in the production of firearms and field artillery, which meant compliant peasants could produce weapons faster and cheaper than foreign powers.45 The manpower element was particularly important. Much of the terror that neighboring powers felt toward Sweden was

41 Kennedy, Paul, ed. Grand Strategies in War and Peace. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1991.); Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. (New York: Random House 1987.); Lacey, James, ed. Great Strategic Rivalries from the Classical World to the Cold War. (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2016.); Liddell-Hart, Basil. The Classic Book on Military Strategy. 2nd ed. (London: Meridian Press. 1954.); Murray, Williamson and Hart Sinnreich, ed. Successful Strategies: Triumphing in War and Peace from Antiquity to the Present. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2014.); Murray, Williamson, MacGregor Knox, and Alvin Bernstein, ed. The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States, and War. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994.) 42 Glete, Jan. “The Swedish Fiscal-Military State in Transition and Decline, 1650-1815.” Paper to the XIV International Economic History Congress, Helsinki, Session 69 (2006). 7. 43 In those times, Swedish peasants in towns with poor defenses suffered consistent Danish raids, and those cities that could defend themselves were subjected to Danish blockades of their ports. King Gustav I wasted no time in reminding peasants that the Danish would drown their men and women, burn their crops, and kidnap their women. Though some rebel groups formed against the new imperial state, the majority of Sweden traded their autonomy for security. Glete. Swedish Naval Administration, 645-646. 44 Ibid, 646. 45 Roberts, Michael. Gustavus Adolphus: A History of Sweden 1611-1632. Vol 2. (London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1958.) 234.

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The Franciscan due to its ability to sustain a large naval and land force even in peacetime, as native soldiers and seamen were always in high supply.46 This trust largely eliminated nobles as a necessary “middleman” to collect taxes, which allowed Sweden to shake off the old coils of feudalism before its rivals could.47 This had two indirect effects that benefited the royal treasury. First, nobles had fewer opportunities to plunder the common folk by raising taxes at will, which lowered the risk of tax revolts, ensuring a steady, predictable stream of revenue.48 Second, nobles looking to acquire income went to the crown, not to the peasants. Upper-class noble families looking to increase their wealth would voluntarily lend money to the crown in hopes of being rewarded with royal land and titles.49 As compensation for the security that these loans provided, the crown exacted lower taxes from noble-held lands, making the acquisition of royal land highly lucrative.50 Consequently, instead of having a single inefficient pipeline of resources from the peasants through the nobility, Sweden had a pipeline from each group, with the former providing raw materials and manpower, and the latter providing cash infusions. By the time of Gustavus Adolphus’ reign in the 1630s, Sweden was a well-oiled, roaring machine ready to consume large swaths of Europe, and he pushed it to its fullest potential before his death.51 With the Swedish homeland on the western Baltic shores secured against foreign raiders, Gustavus Adolphus aimed to lock down control of the southern and eastern shores so that no foreign enemy would have a safe port from which to launch an invasion.52 But there was also an economic element to his focus on securing ports. To cite one example, the Livonian city of Riga was located at the headwaters of the Duna River tributary (Figure 8). This river system served as both a naval highway from Poland and Russia, and a major trading route for a large section of fertile Lithuanian croplands further inland.53 This dual economic and strategic importance of the city made its acquisition one of Gustavus Adolphus’ most prized victories, and it “marked the beginning of a development which, ten years later, would subject every major river flowing into the Baltic to Swedish control.”54 Though Riga was exceptionally strong, its basic geography was not unique. Baltic cities were naturally built at similar headwaters. By taking such port cities, Sweden secured both inland trade and influence over the population. Under this strategic framework, Sweden managed to reach across the Baltic Sea and seize land power with sea power.55 The criticality of this point cannot be sufficiently overstated.

46 Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 205-206. 47 Jan Glete. “The Swedish Fiscal-Military State in Transition and Decline, 1650-1815.” Paper to the XIV International Economic History Congress, Helsinki, Session 69 (2006) 9-10. 48 Tax revolts and civil wars had routinely roiled European nations between 1560 and 1660, but Sweden did not face this internal turmoil, giving it a significant level of stability that was un-matched elsewhere during the early modern period. Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 27. 49 Glete, Transition and Decline, 12-13. 50 Ibid, 12. 51 When Gustavus Adolphus invaded Germany in 1631, he had a field army of 130,000 men at a time when an army of 20,000 was considered to be massive. Roberts, Gustavus Adolphus Vol 2., 203. 52 Gustavus Adolphus’ involvement in the Thirty-Years War was almost entirely motivated by his desire to prevent the Habsburgs or any other Catholic power from launching a naval invasion from unfriendly Baltic ports. Ibid, 22- 26. 53 Roberts, Michael. Gustavus Adolphus: A History of Sweden 1611-1632. Vol 1. (London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1958.) 204. 54 Ibid, 207. 55 Gustavus Adolphus would only march inland when he had first spread out his control of the seaboard behind him to provide logistical supply chains. Roberts, History of Sweden Vol 2, 276.

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Gustavus Adolphus’ various conquests brought Finland, Estonia, Ingria, Livonia, Pomerania, and Bremen-Verden into the Swedish Empire, fulfilling his dream of turning the Baltic Sea into a Swedish lake. The Swedish social contract was exported to the new territories, where Adolphus worked tirelessly to build peasant confidence in the crown as the legitimate defender of the people. Before Swedish rule, these peasants suffered immensely. The territory economies were hollowed out, poverty was rampant, and “the nobles worked their serfs so hard that on Sundays they had no energy to come to church.”56 One of Adolphus’ main tools in reversing these trends was the Swedish Lutheran Church, which became an exporter of clergymen to care for the poor in the territories, a source of direct representation for the working class, and a source of civilization in a darkened Eastern Europe.57 The Swedish Lutheran Church became an advocate for peasant education and the freedom to leave abusive masters.58 In this way, Gustavus Adolphus began replicating the social contract system and securing the trust of the masses. The result was that by the beginning of the Great Northern War, these revived territories were producing half of all Swedish crown revenue.59 Gustavus Adolphus successfully expanded the advanced Swedish financial system, and his successors were handed an empire that grew from two-thirds of the size Texas to nearly twice the size of Texas. Like Texas, an important piece of the Swedish state was a well-armed population. The uniquely high level of public trust between the crown and its subjects fostered the development of a guerilla warfare component in Swedish strategy. The Swedish kings encouraged peasants to keep and bear arms, ranging from pole axes and crossbows to billhooks and rifles.60 Because Sweden itself was a heavily-forested region with sharp ravines and endless archipelagoes, cavalry warfare could not be used effectively. Before the consolidation of power under King Gustav I, peasants resisted invaders by staging ingenious ambushes and relying on the enemy’s ignorance of the terrain. As Roberts notes, “Fighting on their own ground, [the Swedes were] mobile, resourceful, and masters of guerilla…”61 The Swedish Empire used this indigenous defense mechanism to its advantage. Foreign invaders were quickly met by the harassment of loyal peasant militias, which bought time for the Swedish military to organize and deploy to the theater. But acting alone, these militias could not stand for long periods of time.62 The greatest strengths of the Empire rested on the shoulders of loyal peasants. What the crown needed was a defensive infrastructure that could

56 Ibid, 420-421. 57 Adolphus selected a particularly libertine-minded commissioner, Rudbeckius to oversee church operations in the new territories – a man who was “revolted by the institution of serfdom.” Under Rudbeckius’ oversight, synods began requiring four peasants from each territorial parish to attend meetings, undermining the monopoly of communicative control enjoyed by the indigenous clergy. Ibid, 422-423. 58 Ibid, 423. 59 The authors of this work explicitly cite the “important attempts to improve education” and “free the peasantry from their oppressive feudal burdens” as the source of the territories’ financial utility to the Swedish Empire. Baigent, Elizabeth and Roger Kain. The Cadastral Map in the Service of the State: A History of Property Mapping. 1st ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1993.) 70-71. 60 Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 38; Roberts, History of Sweden Vol 2, 189. 61 Roberts describes an ingenious method by which Swedish guerrillas destroyed enemy forces, referred to as a brate, A brate was a combined ambush and booby-trap, constructed in the forest. “When the enemy fell into the ambush he found himself blocked by felled trees in front, and assailed in flank and rear. His difficulties were increased by the fact that the trees surrounding the position had been partially sawn through, and were now brought crashing down on his head…” Ibid, 189. 62 Kujala, Antti. “Finland in the Great Northern War 1700–1714.” Scandinavian Journal of History, Vol. 25 (2010), 78-79.

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Territorial Fortress Chain The century before Charles XII’s ascendance to the throne was marked by a monumental transition in European military planning. The age of gunpowder and field artillery demanded a revolution in fixed fortifications. Medieval-era castle walls lacked the sheer thickness required to stop a cannonball, and therefore European states began to modernize their outdated castles into “star forts,” named for their star-like layout (Figure 7). Built to be incredibly thick and angular, star forts aimed to ensure that artillery fire would glance off the fortress walls.63 Because the Swedish territories acquired by Gustavus Adolphus contained a patchwork of castles built by the dying order of Teutonic knights, his successors were left with a largely irrelevant defense infrastructure in the new lands. The task of modernization fell to Charles XII’s father, Charles XI. Financial resources were not infinite; therefore not all of the Teutonic castles could be reasonably modernized. However, by investigating which fortifications took priority during the modernization process, one can gain insight into how the Swedish military intended to defend these provinces. For the purposes of this paper, the term “fortress chain” will henceforth refer to the cities outlined in Figure 9 (Figure 9). Sundberg has done excruciatingly extensive work on this topic, recording the strength of over thirty different Swedish fortresses before the outbreak of the Great Northern War (Figure 8).64 His work reveals that Charles XI’s modernization efforts relied heavily on an engineer named Erik Dahlberg.65 Sundberg’s work illuminates a pattern in Dahlberg’s plans: Dahlberg chose to modernize fortresses that were on deep inland waterways within roughly ten to twenty miles from the open Baltic Sea. He left or leveled most inland fortifications that could be used by invaders, with only a few exceptions.66 The fortresses that received the most intense modernization efforts (Riga, Stettin, Reval, Narva, Stade, and Pernau) were deemed critical to Swedish naval operations to land troops and transport territorial supplies (Figure 8). From these choices, one can reasonably draw four conclusions. First, Sweden anticipated land invasions, not naval invasions, as the most likely threat to the territories. The deliberate destruction of inland castles would ensure that any invading force would be left to starve without a strong fort in which to rest or store supplies. Second, the Swedes looked to maximize their preexisting naval advantage to control the inland theaters. The intense fortification of the aforementioned cities indicates a desire to control the territories via sea-linked rivers. Third, the Swedish navy reasonably expected no significant challenger on the open Baltic Sea.67 The newly fortified cities would have made easy targets for naval blockades, but that threat

63 Parker, Geoffery. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1500-1800. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1996.) 29-32. 64 Sundberg’s analysis is based largely on primary source financial records, reports on the delivery of cannons, the funding of new bastions, and the razing of certain castles. Sundberg, Swedish Defensive Fortress Warfare, 1. 65 Erik Dahlberg eventually founded the Swedish Engineer Corps. Sundberg, Ulf. “Swedish Fortifications at the Beginning of the Great Northern War.” Great Northern War Compendium, Vol. 1, (2015). 46. 66 The exceptions were the cities of Kajaneborg in central Finland, Dorpat in central Livonia, and Kokenhausen in central Estonia. Each of these fortresses were lightly-armed “alarms” to detect invasions in each eastern province. Sundberg, Swedish Fortifications, 45-52. 67 Sweden’s prior victories over Denmark had kept the Danish navy bottled up in the south, the only strong Polish port of Danzig was operationally constricted by a massive jetty with only one narrow opening, and Russia did not

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Article Section was not apparent. Fourth, Sweden did not expect the Russian navy to enter Lake Ladoga (Figure 5). By the time the Great Northern War began, the fortresses defending the lake (Kexholm, Nyenskans, Vyborg, and Noteborg) faced neglect and dilapidation. Since the days of Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish navy was able to sail along rivers into northeastern Russia, creating a type of “naval guerilla warfare” on small lakes and rivers thus preventing Russia from advancing to the Baltic.68 Russia’s distance from the Baltic coast during the reign of Charles XI likely made the need to strengthen the fortresses around Lake Ladoga less urgent to Dahlberg. In summation, Sweden planned to defend its territories by keeping certain fortresses stocked, receiving early warning of a land invasion, swiftly sailing troops unimpeded across the Baltic, unloading them along the inland waterways, relieving the peasant guerillas, and supplying its armies from the nearest coastal star fort. But this shift to a reliance on the fortress chain had an unintended consequence: it moved Swedish naval strategy away from its roots. While the fortress chain acted as a wall against eastern threats, the Swedish navy became a wall against southern threats. In order to prevent Denmark from threatening Swedish supply routes to the territories Sweden moved its main naval base south from Stockholm to Karlskrona in 1680, near the southern tip of Sweden (Figure 8).69 With the navy focusing increasingly on containing Denmark, northern Baltic waters – and consequently the northern territorial fortress chain’s rear – was left vulnerable. King Gustav I learned early in his reign during the 1500s that Sweden needed two types of fleets: a shallow-water fleet made for rivers and tight archipelagoes, and a deep-water fleet made for patrolling the open Baltic Sea.70 Because the coasts had been locked down by Gustavus Adolphus’ campaigns and fortified by Charles XI, the need for a shallow water fleet became less apparent by the start of the Great Northern War. The Swedes thus focused on building deep water battlefleets that could only sail in wide waterways, and thus “the new Swedish Empire had made the southern Baltic into the decisive theatre for naval operations in the Baltic.”71 It was a classic case of strength itself, becoming an unpredicted source of weakness. But Denmark was not the only concern that Sweden faced in the open waters of the Baltic. There was a looming threat beyond the Danish Straits that demanded the crown’s attention: The Sea Powers.

Neutrality of the Sea Powers The final pillar of Swedish grand strategy was ensuring that the Sea Powers (England and the Dutch) did not enter the Baltic Sea to challenge the Swedish navy. Both found strength in foreign commerce and large navies, and both were attracted to Sweden’s deep reserves of raw materials yet have a single port in the Baltic. Natharius, Edward William. The Maritime Powers and Sweden 1698-1702. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1986.) 31; Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 43, 648; Roberts, History of Sweden Vol 2, 283. 68 Ibid, 278-279. 69 The fact that the Swedish crown decided to move the naval headquarters to Karlskrona despite Stockholm’s superior natural defensive qualities indicates that the administrative weakness of Karlskrona was outweighed by the value of its proximity to the Danish navy. However, one advantage that Karlskrona did have over Stockholm was the fact that harbors would thaw more quickly in the south than the north, allowing the Swedish navy to deploy faster than it did previously. Sundberg notes that Karlskrona was a very rare instance of an entirely new fortification being built under Charles XI, further highlighting its importance. Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 40. Sundberg, Swedish Fortifications, 55-56. 70 Roberts refers to these two distinct fleets as the “little fleet” and the “grand fleet.” Roberts, History of Sweden Vol 2, 286-287. 71 Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 44.

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(such as red copper, lead, steel, and iron) and cheap manufactured goods (guns, brass wires, pikes, cannon shot, and body armor) as a sustainable source of wartime materials.72 For states that relied on naval forces, the Swedish Empire represented such a limitless of source of timbers, pitch, and masts, that by the time of the Great Northern War, England was purchasing over three-quarters of its most basic naval supplies from Sweden.73 The Dutch (exceptional financiers as they were), provided much of the liquid capital needed to keep Swedish mining and agriculture in operation.74 As a cumulative result, both of the Sea Powers had major strategic interests in the stable flow of Swedish territorial goods in and out of the Baltic Sea.75 But as is often the case in international affairs, wherever critical strategic interests are found, they are accompanied by the scent of hidden tensions. Sweden and the Sea Powers were more than happy to facilitate bilateral trade as long as they both reaped their respective benefits. Sweden sought the economic development of its new territories to foster popular support and fuel the military, while the Sea Powers sought a stable supply of weapons and metals without which their war efforts might be put in jeopardy. Because of the conquests of Gustavus Adolphus and the complicated political missteps made by Charles XI, Charles XII came to the throne with almost no allies but the Sea Powers, and those relationships were based exclusively on the mutual interest in trade.76 One British lord at the time remarked that without the Baltic supply chains, the “whole navy of England will be rendered perfectly useless.”77 As Chance succinctly put the issue, “[i]t mattered little to [the Sea Powers] to whom belonged Bremen or Pomerania, Livonia, Estonia, or Finland, so long as they had leave to carry to the harbors of those countries the wares of the world, and fetch in return the timber, hemp, and pitch which the shipbuilders of the west required.”78 In other words, at the outset of the Great Northern War, the Sea Powers would have been willing to throw their lot in with whichever power could deliver the resources they needed.79 No loyalty to Sweden itself was present.80

72 Natharius, Maritime Powers, 25. 73 Moreover, because England’s iron foundries were facing a shortage of fuel at this time, London found itself importing two thirds of its iron from Swedish foundries. This shortage was largely due to deforestation across the British Isles, drying up supplies of charcoal. Ibid, 54-58. 74 Ibid, 26. 75 Denmark, even though it was Sweden’s nearest strategic rival, shared these interests. As the gatekeeper of the Baltic, the Danes had the necessary leverage to implement taxes and duties through the Sound Toll, which became a foundational source of Danish royal revenue. Every Dutch and English merchant ship passing through the Danish Straits into the Atlantic brought riches to the Danish treasury. So essential was the Sound Toll to Denmark’s financial structure that even when it was in open war with Sweden during the seventeenth century, it never violated the neutrality of commercial trade, and indeed made its territorial waters “safest region for long-distance shipping.” Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 35, 44. 76 Moreover, because of British reliance on Sweden’s raw materials, British merchants faced a degree of mistreatment at Swedish ports, including restricted housing arrangements and unfavorable loan practices. Chance, Relations with Sweden, 53-55; Natharius, Maritime Powers, 58. 77 Ibid, 61-62. 78 Chance, Relations with Sweden, 54. 79 These tensions did not preclude the possibility of helping Sweden in a limited capacity, as both the English and Dutch did during the first year of the Great Northern War by fighting the Danish prong of the invasion. But this effort was likely made to prevent Denmark from unilaterally closing the straits to trade if it became desperate. Ibid, 55. 80 In fact, the Dutch were beginning to develop a subtle affection for Russia, as they enjoyed almost exclusive access to rare Russian merchandise (such as furs, leather, beaver skins, and caviar), which fetched high prices across Western Europe. Obtaining these wares was made difficult by the fact that Russia had no Baltic port, and thus Dutch merchants had to make dangerous voyages into frozen Arctic waters in order to reach the Russian port of Archangel.

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The prospect of two large, highly lethal navies entering the Baltic against Sweden was not a trivial threat. Indeed, before the Great Northern War, the Swedish crown was going out of its way to sign peace pacts with Western European powers that traded in the Baltic in order to safeguard those waters from any hostilities.81 But as long as the trade veins of the Swedish Empire were kept open, Stockholm was free to continue its time-tested tradition of dominating the Baltic without smothering the economy. The only real threat to those veins was an incursion by the Sea Powers, making their neutrality a pivotal part of Swedish grand strategy.

Charles XII’s Vision With these pillars in mind, one can make a sounder judgment of Charles XII’s choices during the Great Northern War. But a central question must be answered before continuing: how much of Sweden’s geopolitical situation did the teenage king truly comprehend? Tarnished early records of Charles XII begrudgingly surrender some important details about his upbringing and tendencies along these lines. Voltaire’s biography notes that the very first book given to him at the outset of his education was a treatise on Sweden’s relationships with neighboring states, written by the renowned German jurist, economist, and historian Samuel von Puffendorf.82 Browning’s biography includes that one of Charles XII’s earliest pastimes for “relaxation” was transcribing the diary of his grandfather, Charles X, which contained various adventures and diplomatic dealings of his ancestor’s travels.83 When Charles XII was a youth, his ancestor Gustavus Adolphus inspired him, and his eventual excursion into Germany demonstrated that he had studied at least the geographical dimensions of Adolphus' campaigns along with his “character and personality.”84 He showed affection for the peasantry and distaste for nobles that matched the traditional dispositions of his predecessors.85 During the early stages of the war, he made a concerted effort to shore up relations with the Sea Powers and guarantee the removal of “all difficulties.”86 Before Poltava, he carried on his father’s policy of avoiding foreign military subsidies that could entangle Sweden in wars beyond its interests.87 Yet Voltaire alleges that once when Charles XII was being advised to negotiate rather than make war, he arose and declared his intention to “strike terror” into all who opposed him.88 However, when he finally left the diplomatic hurricane at Altranstadt in 1707, his aid, Count Piper, recorded him as saying, We have now been a whole year in Germany, the peace with King Augustus is concluded, and all disputes with other powers are amicably arranged without our having made a single new enemy. We have done all our business, and are in a position to leave Saxony, of which we were formerly so much in dread.89

Easy access to Swedish goods was necessary, but easy access to Swedish and Russian goods was optimal. Natharius, Maritime Powers, 36. 81 The fact that the Dutch noble (William of Orange) had ascended to the throne of England during the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 further compounded the threat of a joint intervention by lashing the interests of the Sea Power thrones even tighter together. Ibid, 78. 82 Though Voltaire does not specify which of Puffendorf’s works was given to Charles XII, it is likely that he is referring to his De occasionibus foederum inter Sueciam et Galliam (Dissertation on the Alliances between Sweden and France). Auret, King of Sweden, 11. 83 Browning, Charles XII, 3. 84 Ibid, 152. 85 Perhaps the greatest example of this preference for peasants over nobles was his coronation, in which he directed the nobles to attend on foot rather than on horseback as a sign of revocation of special social status. Ibid, 13-14, 151. 86 Milne, Diplomacy of Dr. John Robinson, 89-90. 87 Glete, Transition and Decline, 14-15. 88 Auret, King of Sweden, 37-38. 89 Browning, Charles XII, 168.

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The primary account from Piper sounds far more rational and calculated than the unattributed hearsay of Voltaire written decades after the king’s death. There is significant reason to believe that Charles XII understood Sweden’s foreign relations, the construction of the empire by his ancestors, and the unique societal norms from which it drew strength. Given the situation faced by Charles XII in 1706-1707, his invasion of Russia was a gamble, but one made out of necessity, not narcissism. By the time he had arrived victoriously in Altranstadt, Russia had miraculously entered the Baltic. It is likely that the twenty-five-year-old foresaw the impending collapse of all three Swedish grand strategic pillars, and the hunt for Moscow was his attempt to save them all before it was too late.

The Rationality of Invading Russia: Collapse of the Fortress Chain Rather than wait for his armies to be crushed by quickly-deployed Swedish forces, Tsar Peter learned from the early stages of the war that defeating Sweden’s territories required a navy. The dragging of Russian ships into Lake Ladoga in 1703 gave the Russian forces marching into Swedish Ingria the necessary support required to successfully besiege the cities left poorly- defended by Dahlberg decades beforehand (Figure 5).90 By 1704, the gatehouse between the lake and the Baltic, Noteborg, had fallen. Nyenskans had effectively been turned into the new city of St. Petersburg. The prize jewel of Narva had fallen. Peter slipped into the back door of Estonia and Livonia by taking Dorpat and controlling Lake Peipus, granting him access to the heart of the wealthy Swedish territories (Figure 10). But how did this come about? There are a number of facets to this explanation, most of which have been touched upon previously, but the most important being the atrophy of Sweden’s shallow-water naval capabilities. Both Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XI had relied primarily on deep-water battlefleets to keep Denmark at bay, allowing shallow-water vessels to rot and institutional knowledge of littoral combat to wither.91 Despite the fact that the Swedish navy had the ability to quickly build shallow-water oared vessels in 1703, it failed to do so. Shallow-water operations that could have dislodged the Russians from St. Petersburg were seen as “an inconvenient problem rather than a tempting opportunity to gain advantages over the enemy.”92 In short, the Swedish navy lost one of its core competencies because the naval staff believed it was no longer necessary. By moving its headquarters south to Karlskrona, it prematurely retreated from a theater that was now being contested. By limiting the scope of its mission, it was unable to see a fairly obvious solution to an unexpected problem. Meanwhile, Tsar Peter frantically poured money into securing St. Petersburg and turning it into a shipyard for deep-water vessels that could extend his reach into the Baltic. The Russian victory over Narva, previously the site of Charles XII’s most glorious victory, was largely made possible by the fact that it was supported by the sea. Even when the Swedish navy made attempts to regain the Neva River and Lake Ladoga in 1704, the deep-water battlefleet was only able to blockade the Gulf of Finland, leaving the Russian navy free to creep along the coastlines and hijack the fortress chain while using their own deep-water vessels to hold off the Swedish fleets (Figure

90 Massie, Robert. Peter the Great: His Life and World. (New York: Ballantine Books. 1980.) 432. 91 Roberts, History of Sweden Vol 2, 302. 92 Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 205-206.

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5).93 The city of St. Petersburg became the birthplace of a new era in Russian naval power, and a graveyard for the peasants that trusted the Swedish monarchs to defend them.

Collapse of Peasant Faith The Russians, having punched through the fortress chain with little resistance, turned to ravage the territories. In the summer of 1704, Moscow’s forces shredded through the fertile Estonian countryside burning over 1500 villages while the Swedish soldiers (cut off from naval support) hid within their remaining fortresses.94 With peasants being driven into desperation, Charles XII likely foresaw a replication of events that occurred early in his reign. Before the start of the war, Finland lost 22% of its population to famine.95 The economic and social fallout saw peasant resistance to royal authority, a spike in tax evasion, refusals to enlist in the local guerrilla forces, and desertion from militias altogether.96 This was likely an unsettling preview of how the territories would look if faith in the crown’s protection began to slip away.97 As Russian power grew across the territories, the failure to defend the peasants from enemy advances hollowed out the crown’s promise of protection. Every ransacked farm made the fear of broken trust more potent.98 The longer it continued, the more the panic would spread, threatening the very financial lifeblood of the Swedish Empire. By 1707, this crisis had reached a fever pitch. Russia invaded Finland, fanning “social conflict” into “endemic violence” against Swedish tax representatives across the territories.99 The most important pillar was crumbling away, and the final pillar was dangerously close to collapsing.

Collapse of Sea Power Neutrality Once Peter the Great gained control over Swedish territories, he began to stabilize Baltic trade on his own terms. The Sea Powers, anxious to ensure that their critical imports continued in a steady flow, were more than content to lay anchor in familiar cities now under a Russian flag. A naval blockade of St. Petersburg could be accomplished by stationing a Swedish battlefleet at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, but the blockading of each individual occupied port proved far more difficult.100 All of the territories’ wealth now began supercharging the growth of Russian power in the Baltic by lining Moscow’s pockets with new sources of revenue and materials. Soon, every Dutch or English merchant ship sailing through the Swedish blockade unharmed would be a severe threat to the Swedish Empire. By 1707, Charles XII likely saw the writing on the wall: the day was coming when his only remaining desperate option would be to seize foreign trading vessels, inviting the Sea Powers to militarily intervene against the already struggling Swedish navy.

93 Ibid, 204. 94 Sundberg, Swedish Defensive Fortress Warfare, 49. 95 This accounted for over 120,000 people. Kujala, Finland in the Great Northern War, 71. 96 Ibid, 72-79. 97 Compounding this fear was the fact that the nobles in the territories had been alienated by actions of Charles XI, who had increased taxes on the lands gifted to them by Gustavus Adolphus in order to pay for fortress modernization. The collapse of the fortress chain undermined incentives for nobles to cushion public war spending with private funds, syphoning off another source of potential emergency revenue. Kain & Baigent, The Cadastral Map, 71.; Sundberg, Swedish Fortifications, 46. 98 Fuller, Military History, 166. 99 Kujala, Finland in the Great Northern War, 76. 100 Ibid, 206; Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 211.

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This day did eventually come in 1712, when Charles XII greenlit the use of state-sanctioned piracy to cut off Russia’s ability to profit from Baltic trade. This move was predictably answered by the entrance of Dutch and English warships into the Baltic Sea to defend their merchant vessels.101 Further resistance to the Sea Powers would require the Swedes to choose between declaring war on Europe’s strongest navies or allowing Russia to enrich itself on Sweden’s former territories. This was the worst possible outcome for a young man who felt the weight of his ancestors’ accomplishments upon his shoulders. Yet the youthful optimism and rugged determination of a man who hunted bears with only sharpened sticks likely came roaring into the foreground while he weighed his options at Altranstadt in 1706-1707. It was time for the lion of the north to demonstrate that he was indeed worthy of the title once held by Gustavus Adolphus, and that he would follow in the footsteps of Alexander the Great.102

In Search of a Grand Bargain The invasion of Russia was likely a bid to obtain through concession what Charles XII’s navy could not obtain through combat: reclamation of the territorial fortress chain and all of its grand strategic power. By seizing Moscow, Sweden could theoretically turn back the clock on Russia’s conquests in the territories by demanding the return of all fortresses to Swedish control and the eviction of all Russian troops. This grand bargain would essentially trade the heart of Russia for the lungs of the Swedish Empire, rewinding the previous five years of disasters. The twentieth- century British military historian Basil Liddell-Hart would come to call this type of strategy the “indirect approach” or “exploiting the line of least resistance.”103 Rather than taking the expected course of action against the enemy, Liddell-Hart argues that strategic success is most often found in pursuing alternative objectives that the enemy does not expect. Tsar Peter had already demonstrated that he was capable of using his new naval power to successfully defeat Swedish land forces in the territories. Thus, continuing the direct approach of attack would have been foolish for Sweden. This direct approach is precisely what Charles XII’s military advisors requested on his march into Russia. Twice during the invasion, Charles XII had the opportunity to turn his army northwest, but he refused.104 The King, having studied the architecture of the Swedish Empire laid out by his ancestors, likely understood that if he had taken this advice, his forces would become the very type of invading land force that the entire fortress chain was originally designed to destroy. He would have run his field army straight into the trap laid by his forefathers – a trap now controlled by the enemy. Without peasant guerilla support, any inland fortress in which to find refuge, or any supply chains from the ocean, his army would have been just as doomed as previous invading armies that failed to seize the territories from Gustavus Adolphus or Charles XI. This was not madness or arrogance; it was prudence in the face of dire circumstances. It may be assumed by modern observers that invading Russia in the winter could never be the line of least resistance, especially when they enjoy the hindsight of the failed campaigns under Napoleon and Hitler. But in the case of the Great Northern War, it was Sweden’s best hope for saving the Empire.

101 Chance, Relations with Sweden, 72. 102 One alleged statement made by Charles XII in his youth was that Alexander the Great, though he died young, had “live long enough” to conquer a whole kingdom. Charles XII saw this as a sufficient milestone to reach before death. Browning, Charles XII, 12. 103 Basil Liddell-Hart. The Classic Book on Military Strategy. 2nd ed. (London: Meridian Books. 1954.) 335. 104 Browning, Charles XII, 173-174.

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Charles XII’s odd behavior at Altranstadt bolsters this interpretation of events. Spectators and historians have wondered why he stayed in Saxony for so long as Russia consumed his territories. The clearest answer is that he was giving his troops time to rest and regroup before their premeditated invasion campaign, which was likely decided upon before he even arrived in Altranstadt.105 His diplomatic actions at Altranstadt also demonstrate that he was testing the limits of how many concessions he could wring out of an enemy once he occupied their capital. The capture of Saxony after the battle of Fraustadt gave Charles XII immense negotiating power by which he could levy previously absurd terms of peace.106 The forcible surrender and torture of John Patkul (a Livonian traitor that first created the triple alliance) who had been sent to Altranstadt under the protection of diplomatic immunity, beyond all other demands demonstrated how far Charles XII believed he could push his adversaries into submission.107 The claim that the young king felt he had a personal score to settle with Peter is certainly not unfounded, but if Charles XII was able to replicate in Moscow his political situation at Altranstadt, he would have indeed been able to rewind the war in Ingria, Livonia, and Estonia.108 The humiliation of Peter himself could be an added reward on top of the grand strategic victory, but it was not the primary goal, as prejudiced scholarship would suggest. Far from being evidence of blind rage, Charles XII’s invasion of Russia was proof that he understood both the raw severity of Sweden’s deteriorating strategic situation and how indirect action could cut a new trail to victory. In the end, his youthful optimism and gritty resolve was unable to overcome the desolation of Russia’s scorched earth policy, and the resulting disaster at Poltava sank any hope of regaining the territories. Because he never reached Moscow, no grand bargain ever took place, and Tsar Peter, emboldened by his victory over the Swedish invasion, accelerated his annexations of Swedish territory, ensuring that Stockholm would not be able to recover from its losses.109 The failure of Charles XII to rescue the empire should therefore be attributed to overwhelming odds that favored Russia, not to the fabricated caricature of a petulant child leading his whole nation off of a cliff in search of revenge.

Conclusion: The Lessons of Sweden The American canon of grand strategic literature has not yet accepted a single chapter truly dedicated to the Swedish Empire. Let this be the first. As has been demonstrated, historians have obfuscated important lessons for modern policymakers and militaries by attributing all of imperial Sweden’s shortcomings to a single man. But there are three main lessons that the Swedish Empire provides. First, militaries should not abandon core competencies when they no longer appear relevant. Had the Swedish navy maintained its ability to wage shallow-water warfare even after no shallow-water rivals seemed apparent, it could have prevented Russia from gaining any

105 Ibid, 167. 106 Churchill, Marlborough Book Two, 221. 107 The treacherous surrender of Patkul by Augustus succeeded in dealing a massive blow to the trust between Augustus and Peter the Great. It was a sizable political victory for Sweden because it shattered the essential glue that held the triple-alliance against him together. After this insult, the sort of multipolar coordination that began the Great Northern War was never seen again. Browning, Charles XII, 158. 108 This naturally played into Charles XII’s character of proving he was not a mere boy that could be played and taunted. The Russian monarch’s promised peace with Sweden in 1700 was immediately violated after Peter received confirmation of a separate peace with the Ottoman Empire, believing he could backstab Charles XII with impunity. Fuller, Military History, 163. 109 Glete, Swedish Naval Administration, 208.

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The Franciscan foothold in the Baltic Sea by swiftly destroying the first ships dragged into the shallows of Lake Ladoga and the Neva River. Second, relationships with foreign powers must contain more than simply economic interests. When strategic partners have a vested interest in maintaining one another’s unique form of government, they are not so easily replaced by another state that can provide all of the same goods and services. The Sea Powers shared only economic interests with Sweden, and Charles XII’s predecessors fostered no new cultural or religious connections that gave the Sea Powers an interest in the continuation of the Swedish state uniquely. As soon as Russia was able to provide the same economic benefits as Sweden once did, Sweden’s hope to obtain allies in its time of need had vanished. Finally, states in which consensual (or quasi- consensual) government is the norm must prioritize the health of its citizens above almost all other facets of public life. Sweden is a prime example of how a strong social contract can create an exceptionally powerful state in terms of both finances and military lethality. Sweden rose like Colossus in northern Europe because it harnessed the power of individual initiative for the purpose of common defense faster than any other contemporary nation. Once such states neglect the health of the population, they can expect the quick unraveling of national strength, just as Sweden experienced. Modern policymakers can draw historical experience from the well of Swedish history, but only if one first removes the editorial poisons that have fouled up the memory of Charles XII.

Laying Charles XII to Rest Charles XII has not been allowed to rest in peace. When he was shot in the head on that fateful night in Norway, rumors later spread that he was actually assassinated by his own men, because his personal character and recklessness were so unbearable. Strindberg’s enduringly popular play ends by suggesting that this was, in fact, the case – that the Swedish people would have been justified in killing him in cold blood as vengeance for his hubristic destruction of the country. Consequently, Charles XII’s body has been repeatedly exhumed over the years to determine whether or not the gaping hole in his decaying head shows evidence of foul play. The insistence of biased scholarship that he was an insensitive warmonger disrespects his memory, and the frequent disturbance of his grave is the most grotesque manifestation of that dishonor. Political assassinations can occur in death as much as in life, and Charles XII suffers such an assassination nearly every time his name appears in prominent histories. There is a moral obligation upon historians to tell the truth to the best of their ability. To do otherwise is to both rob future generations of valuable insights while simultaneously denigrating those who become casualties in an attempt to tell a good story. Hurling into a pit the memory of a young man who forsook all earthly pleasures to fulfill his duties carries with it a moral repugnance. To shroud his true legacy in slanders and accusations of idiocy is to effectively expunge his true life from the memory of all posterity. The legacy of King Charles XII should live on as what he was: a man who, despite his youth, held a fervent love for his people and a keen strategic intuition.

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Controversy in the Coffeehouses: How King Charles II’s Attack on the Coffeehouse Signaled the Decline of Monarchical Power

Bradley Smith

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Posted at the center of town, “The Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee-Houses” stated that all coffeehouses must forfeit the selling of coffee, chocolate, sherbet, and tea.1 News of the royal edict’s demands traveled quickly between coffeehouses until the proclamation became known across England. The decree proclaimed on December 29th, 1675, went into effect on January 10th, 1676, causing the coffeehouse owners to act quickly out of fear and economic ruin. Not only would their business be sent into economic turmoil, but it would also render their investments and stocks, with merchants abroad, void and worthless. In a move to save their business, they drew up a petition. They sent two representatives to deliver it to King Charles II and his privy council a few days before the proclamation went into effect.2 Despite King Charles II suspicious feelings towards all dissenters since his coronation, he responded to the proclamation the next day, issuing “An Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses.” This new royal edict extended the implantation of the previous proclamation by six months under the condition that coffeehouse keepers pay hefty fines and penalties.3 When six months had passed, nothing happened—all business as usual. King Charles II took no action until the following month. He issued another extension, but this too expired with no subsequent actions from the monarchy. The coffeehouse businesses continued after the extension expired, and only a few coffeehouse keepers faced punishments.4 So why did coffeehouses appear to get a free pass? In reality, the coffeehouses never got a “free pass,” rather a culmination of reasons explain their success of preventing suppression. In the past, many historians from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries argue for the coffeehouse’s inevitable success as a democratic and social institution over monarchical rule.5 Some late nineteenth-century authors like Edward Robinson, attempt to understand the coffeehouse in a new way through the consideration of social and political factors.6 Robinson’s analysis, however, only directly focuses on the relationship between the coffeehouse patrons and the monarchy.7 In 1956, Aytoun Ellis in The Penny Universities temporally argues that coffeehouses lost their democratic community when they changed from inclusive public places to exclusive clubs in the eighteenth century. His work implies that seventeenth-century coffeehouses hosted patrons that valued democratic relationships.8 Markman Ellis, in the twenty-first century, shifts the historiographic narrative by using a cultural methodology. He argues, with the aid of various cultural aspects of the coffeehouse community, including pamphlets, customs, auctions, and debates, that coffeehouses held significant value in the public sphere and, therefore, possessed enough

1 England and Wales, Sovereign (1660-1685: Charles II), “By the King. A Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee-Houses,” Early English Tract C18:2[119], (London: Printed by John Bill, and Christopher Barker, 1675). 2 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house: A Cultural History, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), 94. 3 England and Wales, Sovereign (1660-1685: Charles II), “By the King. An Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses,” Early English Tract Supplement/ C18:2[120], (London: Printed by John Bill, and Christopher Barker, 1676). 4 Brian Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (New Haven, United States: Yale University Press, 2005), 199. 5 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 3-4. 6 Edward Forbes Robinson, The Early History of Coffee Houses in England: With Some Account of the First Use of Coffee and a Bibliography of the Subject, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1893) 2013), v. 7 Robinson, The Early History of Coffee Houses in England, see chapter VII “Coffee Houses Under the Stuarts: The Home of Liberty,” 140-180. 8 Aytoun Ellis, The Penny Universities: A History of the Coffee-Houses, (London: Secker & Warburg, 1956), xiii- xvii.

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Article Section communal support to resist suppression by the monarchy.9 Building on this approach, Brian Cowan expands the history of the coffeehouse to consider the context in which the seventeenth coffeehouses existed under the restoration of King Charles II and later monarchs.10 Unlike Aytoun Ellis and earlier works, the latter two authors reject the idea of the inevitable success of the coffeehouse. Following the lead of these latter two authors, applying a more vigorous social and political approach that analyzes the monarchy, coffeehouse keepers, and coffeehouse patrons as influential actors in the success of the coffeehouse will result in a more comprehensive understanding of the coffeehouses’ perseverance. Charles Tilly’s work Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties describes several conditions that indicate declining social and political power. His methodology relies on a social contract theory where the maintaining mutually agreed upon socio-political roles of society’s members determines how a successful society operates. Although Tilly’s work often models an ideal democratic society, understanding King Charles II’s attempt to suppress coffeehouses within this framework reveals how he inadvertently demonstrated his limited monarchical power. Therefore, the monarchy’s rash actions violated the social and political agreements between the king, the coffeehouse keepers, and the coffeehouse patrons and explain the survival of the coffeehouse in England while also indicating declining monarchical power under King Charles II (1660-1685).

Emergence of the English Coffeehouse Oxford established the earliest coffeehouses; however, several authors place more historical significance of coffeehouses to the first one in London, founded by Pasqua Rosee, funded by Levant merchant Daniel Edwards in 1650.11 In London, coffeehouse keepers initially marketed coffee to society through pamphlets. They described it as a medicine that would aid many ailments and help keep the mind sharp.12 As the coffeehouse gained more patrons, the cultural and social importance of the coffeehouse emerged. Several satirical works explain that men would “trifle away their time” or waste away the day simply talking.13 Both men and women would spend time in coffeehouses to conduct social and financial exchanges. Coffeehouses also served as auction houses and provided a place for reading clubs, political discourse, trade exchanges, stock trading, and to get the daily news.14 Since the coffeehouse began to grow in popularity during a time of political transition in England, King Charles II held anxieties about the people of England meeting in a readily available public place to exchange their political thoughts. No doubt, these exchanges happened in taverns or alehouses, yet Charles II’s concerns focused on the coffeehouse. Charles II’s fear of seditious ideas in writing and speech stems from the events in the previous decade before his rule. King

9 Most notably in: Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house: A Cultural History, (2005). See also: Markman Ellis, “An Introduction to the Coffee-House: A Discursive Model,” Language & Communication, Talk, 28, no. 2 (2008): 156– 64; Markman Ellis, Eighteenth-Century Coffee-House Culture, Vol. 1-4, (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2006); Markman Ellis, “Pasqua Rosee’s Coffee House 1652-1666.” London Journal 29, no. 1 (2004): 1-25. 10 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 193-224. 11 Tom Standage, A History of the World in 6 Glasses, (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006), 142; Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 26-27; Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 94. 12 Anon., “The Vertue of the Coffee Drink,” Early English Books, 1641-1700 / 2780:07, (Oxford, 1660). 13 Well-willer, “The Women’s Petition against Coffee,” Early English Books, 1641-1700 / 829:44, (London, 1674), 4. 14 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 120.

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The Franciscan

Charles II lived through the English Civil War and the execution of his father, King Charles I.15 While the complexities of the English Civil War will be lost here, the conflict centered around King Charles I’s defiant actions when standing trial and his claim to ordained authority from God.16 More clearly, Charles I believed that “regal power came from God, not the people, and the king was answerable only to God for his conduct.”17 When Charles I stood trial before parliament, he denied any misconduct despite the parliament’s plea. While monarchical power stood in opposition to parliament, regicide was not the goal. His punishment would have been minimal due to his monarchical status, however, refusing to answer to the court legally labeled King Charles I as a traitor of the country and warranted his execution.18 In King Charles I’s place, his son, King Charles II, continued fighting in the English civil war until his defeat in 1652. After the Cromwellian interregnum (1652-1660), parliament asked King Charles II to return to power in 1660.19

The Aggressor: King Charles II

Upon King Charles II’s restoration, he hoped he would resume political power equal to his father before his execution. However, due to the Cromwellian interregnum and parliaments increasing power, King Charles II’s power fell short of his expectations. Additionally, the growth of protestant culture during the interregnum also caused some hesitation to accept unregulated rule from a king sympathetic to Catholicism. Even the Tories (political supporters of the king) were more likely to support Protestantism over the monarchy.20 Whether King Charles II thought he resumed divinely granted power or in hopes of reestablishing it, when he acted authoritatively, he disrupted the unspoken social agreement with his subjects.21 In the twelfth year of King Charles II’s reign, he began to violate the otherwise innocuous relationship with the coffeehouse community through issuing the “Proclamation to Restrain the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government” on June 12th, 1672. This decree set out to criminalize seditious conversations and publications about the monarchy. This proclamation applied to “not only … coffee-houses, but in other places and meetings, both public and private.”22 It begs the question then, why name coffeehouses outright? While the king acted out of his own self-interests, he also received advice from his close advisors that resented the coffeehouse as an establishment. Notably, the Earl of Clarendon encouraged King Charles II’s fears by agreeing that “coffeehouses allowed ‘the foulest imputation [to be] laid upon the government.”23 However, King Charles II and his advisors never went to these establishments, and negative reports would unfavorably skew their knowledge against coffeehouses. Besides the rumors that ran throughout the royal court, the only other source of information came from the

15 John Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 236-237. 16 Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, 440. 17 Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, 440. 18 Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, 236-237. 19 Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, 237-238. 20 Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, 331. 21 Miller notes that some thought Charles II's friendly correspondence with King Louis XIV indicated he was seeking help “to establish absolute monarchy in England.” Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, 330. 22 England and Wales, Sovereign (1660-1685: Charles II), “By the King. A Proclamation to Restrain the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government,” Early English Books, 1641-1700 / 2819:16, (Printed by John Bill, and Christopher Barker, 1672). 23 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 194.

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Article Section reports delivered to the Secretary of State, Sir Joseph Williamson by “intelligencers.”24 Since these royal spies conducted most of their research in coffeehouses, a major social hub, the king only received negative statements of conversations seemingly all stemming from one type of establishment. Often these intelligencers reported inconsequential people who lacked political influence, and these reports also excluded many other non-political discussions that occurred in coffeehouses. Therefore the monarchy and his advisors had a limited understanding of the public function of coffeehouses. Nevertheless, valid or not, King Charles II set out to suppress the coffeehouse because he thought “dissenters, in particular, were great frequenters of coffeehouses.”25 The majority of the coffeehouse society worked around the 1672 proclamation by not reporting any violators to the government. King Charles II, in an attempt to reaffirm his power set out to issue another “Proclamation to Restrain the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government” (by the exact same name) in 1674. While using different words, the message remained the same between the two proclamations. Coffeehouses, however, are not singled-out, perhaps attesting to the controversy of his initial declaration.26 The reissuing of this proclamation attests that King Charles II did not possess as much authoritative power as he initially thought. Ultimately, King Charles II wished to remove the influence of his subjects and parliament from governmental affairs altogether. While not an absolute monarchy, this does not mean that the system was democratic. The act of citizens meeting in a common public space frequently, however, probably enticed fears of a revolution against the monarchical institution. King Charles II faced the problem that “a proclamation was only capable of reinforcement of existing legislation: there was no institution which could punish its breach.”27 This limit reveals that the monarchy, without parliament, possessed restricted “governmental capacity” to control its subjects within its domain—a key element of governmental decline. 28 King Charles II’s subjects also ignored his 1674 proclamation. The monarch, no doubt, felt that his proclamations exposed his inability to control his subjects, especially in the coffeehouse. Additionally, King Charles II sought to respond to the seeming omniscience of the coffeehouse, where news traveled fast and frequently. Being on the losing end of a power struggle for information between himself and his subjects, about the happenings going on in his own domain no less, is cause for concern. Tilly indicates that “knowledge gives political, financial, and existential advantages to its holders,” and “allows its holders to reproduce the institutions and relations that sustain their advantages.”29 Since King Charles II perceived the possessors of knowledge to be the coffeehouse patrons, he sought to snuff out their place of meeting once and for all. “The Proclamation for the Suppression of the Coffee-House,” issued December 29th, 1675, states the “coffee-houses be (for the future) put down and suppressed” and outlawed the retail sale of coffee, chocolate, sherbet, or tea by January 10th. Additionally, the proclamation stated to “recall and make void all licenses at any time heretofore granted.” Further, anyone operating without a license will receive a fine of five pounds per month and “the severest punishments that

24 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house: A Cultural History, 89. Ellis only provides Richard Bower as an example. 25 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 194. 26 England and Wales. Sovereign (1660-1685: Charles II), “By the King. A Proclamation to Restrain the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government,” Early English Tract Supplement / C9:1[100], (London: Printed by John Bill and Christopher Barker, 1674). 27 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house: A Cultural History, 91. 28 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 200. 29 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 122.

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The Franciscan may by law be inflicted.”30 In the short span of twelve days, the proclamation expected the coffeehouse keeper to abandon their current business and livelihoods. As King Charles II probably sat back and thought that he had rectified the situation, days before the proclamation went into effect, the coffeehouse keepers submitted their petition to the council. The council then had to prove that the proclamation reflected the law of the land. Their discussion centered around the legitimacy of the declaration and its goal. The committee questioned if the king could legally revoke the coffeehouse keepers liquor licenses, as compared to all holders of liquor licenses, by naming the four non-alcoholic products they sold at coffeehouses. The licensing laws, however, proved to be challenging to work with due to unclear language. It appeared that the king had the authority to prevent the reissuing of licenses; however, not all governing bodies agreed. Theoretically, under the Test Act enacted a year earlier, the governing bodies across England and all members of parliament took an oath to support the king.31 However, King Charles II’s attempt to get governing bodies to comply with monarchical authority did not serve its purpose in the case of the suppression of coffeehouses. The problem arises from the non-expired licenses that many coffeehouse keepers possessed who resided in London. Since the government granted coffeehouse keepers the legal right to sell these liquors, it would be improper to revoke them after their purchase. During the meeting, council member Sir Edward Turnor suggested that perhaps if coffeehouse keepers sold their coffee like other vendors and had their patrons come-and-go rather than sit all day, they could continue their business.32 Other members, however, argued that this revoking this right would then cause a problem with understanding the differences with similar gatherings in taverns, which might end with public disdain.33 As the council meeting revealed the faulty legality of the king’s proclamation, the king “and the council [were] soon deeply involved in figuring out a face-saving way of rescinding the proclamation while retaining its original intent of chastising the seditious activities that were thought to take place in the coffeehouses.”34 In quick succession, King Charles issued two more proclamations. On January 7th, 1676, King Charles II issued “A Proclamation for the better Discovery of Seditious Libellers” which detailed the king’s criminalization of subversive pamphlets and books—something within his authority. He offered rewards for the discovery of the printers and authors of the works for twenty and fifty pounds, respectively.35 The following day he issued “An Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses,” which claimed to acknowledge the pleas of the coffeehouse keepers in their petition. He recognized the possible financial burdens and losses that the coffeehouse owners would face by giving up their investments on such short notice and thereby extended the enactment date by six months.36 Since he intended to save face with this proclamation, he only drew attention to the coffeehouse keepers’ investments and hardships. By focusing on the coffeehouse keepers and “the duties [they] already paid,” he

30 “By the King. A Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee-Houses,” (1672). 31 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 90. 32 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 97. 33 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 197-198; Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 91, 94-98. 34 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 198. 35 England and Wales. Sovereign (1660-1685: Charles II), “By the King. A Proclamation for the Better Discovery of Seditious Libellers,” Early English Tract Supplement / C9:1[121], (London: Printed by John Bill and Christopher Barker, 1675 [i.e., 1676]). 36 “By the King. An Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses,” (1676).

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Article Section attempted to divert attention away from his limited authority to revoke licenses or products already approved by the government. 37 King Charles II also attempted to disrupt the relationship between coffeehouse keepers and their patrons. In order to foster mistrust, King Charles II required all coffeehouse business owners to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. The conditions found at the bottom of the proclamation mandated that coffeehouse keepers must “prevent and hinder all scandalous papers, books or libels concerning the government or the public minister thereof from being brought into his house, or to be there read, pursued of divulged; And to prevent and hinder all and every person and persons from declaring, uttering and divulging in his said house.” In addition to these conditions, it also required the coffeehouse keepers to report all instances or libels within two days to a governmental official that could correspond with the king.38 Undoubtedly, King Charles II wanted to deter the dissenters that he thought frequented the coffeehouse by enlisting the coffeehouse owners as a type of spy.39 King Charles II’s approach to eradicating the licentious speech and libels from coffeehouses should hold a lot of merit. It disrupts one of the critical societal sustaining elements in Tilly’s theory, “increase[ing] the likelihood of conflict in the relationship.” 40 These steps could then lead to the decline of the coffeehouse without direct legal force since the patrons would feel unsafe in an establishment that would be looking for treasonous speech—or so King Charles II thought. King Charles II employed a good strategy, but it fell short of success. It became clear that the coffeehouse keepers and patrons valued their social relationship more than their social contract with the king (this idea will be explored more in the sections about the coffeehouse keepers and patrons). King Charles II attempted to assert his power and suppress the establishment of the coffeehouse to prevent uprisings against his rule. He faced problems establishing his authority because of the political climate set by his father’s execution. Despite the limitations he faced, he attempted to continue a form of absolute monarchy even though parliament had increased its political power. In his attempt to suppress the coffeehouse, he revealed just how limited his authority had become. Ultimately, he failed to police his territory authoritatively, another sign of declining power, according to Tilly.41 When it became evident that he could not control the coffeehouse, he attempted to undermine the coffeehouse by turning the patrons and coffeehouse owners against each other to cause social disorder. However, this too revealed King Charles II’s declining monarchical authority.

Coffeehouse Keepers as the Middleman Like most arguments and disagreements in life, someone gets caught in the middle. In this case, the coffeehouse keepers of London found themselves in the middle. Largely bystanders in this state of declining monarchical power, coffeehouse keepers only acted as an advocate of their patrons through self-preservation. The coffeehouse keepers had to maintain two sets of transactional relationships: the one with the state and monarchy, and the other with their patrons and customers. According to Tilly, transactional relationships require both parties to both give and take to create a harmonious “cultural ecology” that would sustain a society built on “solidarity-

37 “By the King. An Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses,” (1676). 38 “By the King. An Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses,” (1676). 39 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 96. 40 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 21. 41 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 21.

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The Franciscan sustaining social ties.”42 As King Charles II continued to declare more and more proclamations, he made it increasingly difficult for coffeehouse keepers to maintain solidarity-sustaining social ties with their patrons and the king simultaneously, which eventually led the coffeehouse keeper to petition against the monarchical power. The coffeehouse keepers’ move to preserve their own business revealed the limited power of the monarchy to police its territory and caused the members of the public to unify together against the state, which both indicate declining governing authority, according to Tilly.43 The edicts “Proclamation to Restrain the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government,” issued in 1672 and 1674, targeted the relationship between the coffeehouse keeper and the coffeehouse patrons. The king attempted to persuade the coffeehouse owners to take responsibility for their patrons’ actions through the issuing of punishment to the speakers and hearers.44 Certainly, this would have driven their customers away and presented a situation of financial hardship should they have enforced the king’s proclamation. However, the coffeehouse keepers tried to maintain the cultural ecology with their patrons by not reporting instances of dissent. This tactic worked well since the patrons did not often report other patrons. In a way, the transactional relationship that existed between the coffeehouse keepers and their patrons required “protected consultation.”45 While Tilly uses protected consultation to explain democratization (or de-democratization), the coffeehouse keepers fulfill the role of governing agents, since “subjects (the coffeehouse patron) enjoy relatively broad and equal access to those agents (the coffeehouse keepers),” and “subjects receive protection against arbitrary action by governmental agents.”46 The coffeehouse keepers had to appeal to their patrons since the patrons had relatively free access to a multitude of coffeehouses within the city of London, fulfilling the first requirement of a democratic establishment. The coffeehouse keeper and their patrons met the second condition by continuing the transactional relationship they had: patrons would spend money and become returning customers, and the coffeehouse keeper would provide a safe and welcoming atmosphere that encouraged social interactions. Coffeehouse patrons and keepers recognized this expectation as early as 1661 found in A Character of Coffee and Coffee- Houses by M.P. Apparent critic of the coffeehouse, M.P. emphasized the talkative nature of coffeehouse patrons through descriptions of excess and even noted its detrimental effects on their lives. Comically he states that “men of such contrary judgments as here meet, cannot justly be feared to agree in a conspiracy. And in truth they talk too much, to be look[ed] on as dangerous, and active persons.”47 So while the patrons and the coffeehouse keepers knew that the vast majority of their customers could not and would not become a threat to the government, the monarchy did not possess the same understanding. This additional insight into the reality of the patrons allowed coffeehouse keepers to reasonably assume that if they made no reports at all, their business would continue unhindered. Tensions placed on the coffeehouse keepers to maintain their transactional relationship with both the monarchy and the patrons became increasingly complicated with the issuing of the

42 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 214. 43 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 20. 44 England and Wales. Sovereign (1660-1685: Charles II), “By the King. A Proclamation to Restrain the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government,” Early English Books, 1641-1700 / 2819:16, (Edinburgh, 1672). 45 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 35. 46 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 35. 47 M. P., “A Character of Coffee and Coffee-Houses by M.P.,” Early English Books, 1641-1700 / 1407:34, (London, 1661); quote at page 8.

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“Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee-Houses” and later the “Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses” in 1675 and 1676. With this first proclamation, King Charles II violated the transactional relationship with the coffeehouse keepers. He threatened the livelihoods of the coffeehouse keepers that seemed to be secured through the legal contracts with the state through the excise tax and their liquor licenses. 48 Since the coffeehouse keepers gained steady profits from their business, the vast majority did not rely on cheating the system or smuggling due to a reasonable excise tax, though undoubtedly smuggling occurred on occasion. It is only in the eighteenth century that taxes increased, which encouraged the smuggling of coffee under King Charles II’s successor and brother, King James II.49 Since many followed the proper legal process, the coffeehouse keepers expected to receive support from the government to conduct their business. The cultural ecology, that is the give-and-take, between the state and these merchants dates back to the first coffeehouses in England in the 1650s. So, king Charles II upon upsetting this mutualistic relationship and threatening the livelihoods of coffeehouse keepers, the owners took coordinated action in hopes of preserving their business. The coffeehouse owners moved to petition the 1675 proclamation to maintain their business out of fear of economic ruin and to hold the monarchy accountable for the liquor licenses that had not expired yet. Markman Ellis posits that the public viewed the coffeehouse as a symbol of free speech; therefore, they fought for its survival.50 This argument, however, seems more apt for the coffeehouse patrons rather than the coffeehouse keepers. Similarly, Cowan articulates the monarchy’s fear of political conflict of dissenting earls and other noblemen that visited some of these coffeehouses and other coffeehouse patrons.51 Both authors leave the coffeehouse keepers’ motivations outside of their focus. Since the coffeehouse keepers wanted to maintain business, their petition focused on the promise of the government through licenses that had not yet expired, while potentially jeopardizing their relationship with their patrons. When the coffeehouse keepers put their petition forward, many keepers held anxieties about the effectiveness of a petition. Additionally, the representatives that delivered the petition feared that they would face trial for resisting King Charles II’s proclamations. Markman Ellis best describes the brief and humble transaction as follows: “The coffee-men kneeled at the open end of the table and placed their petition reverently on the board. And then it was over: without speaking, the coffee-men were signaled to withdraw.”52 Upon reviewing the petition and the laws, the privy council found it lucky that the coffeehouse keepers did not assert a stronger petition. This allowed the king to attempt to reestablish his authority by forcing coffeehouse keepers to swear they will turn in any “scandalous papers” and hinder patrons from spreading news or libels.53 One of the stipulations of his “Additional Proclamation” warned that the closure of the coffeehouse would be enforced in approximately six months giving the owners plenty of time to manage and sell their investments and goods “without great loss.”54 After seven months, the king extended the date again for another

48 The excise tax required coffee to be measured by the liquid gallon which resulted in wildly inconsistent strengths depending on the quantity of grounds used; nevertheless, twice heated coffee must have tasted awful; Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 87. 49 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 74, 191. 50 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 105. 51 Brian Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 193-194. 52 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 95. 53 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 97-98; “By the King. An Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses,” (1676). 54 “By the King. An Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses,” (1676).

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The Franciscan six months but never issued any other edicts concerning coffeehouses.55 Even though the first “Additional Proclamation […]” placed more responsibility on the coffeehouse keepers to supervise the actions within their business, it indicated that the coffeehouse keepers could hold the king accountable for laws already in place. Additionally, this compromise on a public scale revealed King Charles II’s limited monarchical authority. Through his proclamations, King Charles II showed he willingly violated the agreements of the state with the coffeehouse owners, which resulted in a decline of support from coffeehouse keepers towards the monarchy. While some coffeehouse keepers complied with King Charles II’s authoritative demands, most continued to allow patrons to discuss whatever they desired. Clearly, the authority within the coffeehouse belonged to the owner and not the king. This indifference further indicated the inability of the king to police the happenings within the owners’ businesses. The lack of authoritative follow-up King Charles II promised in the “Additional Proclamation” serves as the most significant evidence of his concession. Meanwhile, the consequences of the proclamations strengthened the relationship between the coffeehouse keepers and the customers, since the owners inadvertently defended their patrons’ right to talk freely.

Problematic Coffeehouse Patrons

The coffeehouse patrons, while seldom sharing interactions with political and governing bodies directly, influenced the continued success of the coffeehouse through their economic support. The various communities that met in coffeehouses, especially scientific and political ones such as the Rota Club, the Royal Society, and even tory societies that supported the king played a role in the preservation of coffeehouses.56 Aytoun Ellis describes how The Rota Club often met at Mile’s coffeehouse and served as an “armature parliament”—that is, a parliament-like system that discussed governmental policies.57 The Royal Society focused mostly on education and drew in many patrons seeking to discuss intellectual ideas. Aside from these formal societies, the coffeehouse also served as a place for auctions, trade and other forms of business to take place.58 When the king began his attack on the coffeehouses, the community of coffeehouse patrons ignored his threats, possibly understanding the sheer size of his seemingly impossible task. Whether patrons visited one coffeehouse or many coffeehouses, for social reasons or financial reasons, visiting these establishments daily became essential for the patrons’ lives. After the initial two proclamations, the “Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee-Houses” turned these patrons into resistors of the monarchy and his type of rule. Patrons responded to the 1676 proclamation with far more vigor than the first. The community of the coffeehouses did not need these unifying labels to rally under to maintain a tight-knit community. Coffeehouses served as a meeting place for other public events like auctions. The auctioning of paintings and books generally indicates a wealthy and educated society. In “A Curious Collection of Original Paintings,” not only are the artist and works listed in full for several pages, but the document also suggests its distribution to several neighboring coffeehouses such as, “Mr. Manships,” “Mr. Ric. Parkers,” “Marine coffee-house,” and many

55 This source has not been digitized, Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 199 (reference note 13, 300). https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3124982 56 Cowan has even noted that the restoration of King Charles II may be credited to these societies; Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 195. 57 Aytoun Ellis, The Penny Universities, 38. 58 Aytoun Ellis, The Penny Universities, 43.

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Article Section more. This detail suggests an expansive and cooperative community between several coffeehouses and patrons.59 Additionally, a catalog for a book auction follows a similar format. It also indicates other suggested coffeehouses for its circulation to draw as many individuals to the sale. The directory easily exceeds two-thousand books, varying in genre and language (mostly Latin and English).60 Since the coffeehouses put on such events, it demonstrates that coffeehouses drew intellectually and politically aware patrons since less than a third of the population was literate.61 Therefore, these events indicate an interconnected community that enticed educated and wealthy people into the coffeehouse culture. Historians have already covered that some coffeehouse patrons held land and high political statuses, such as the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Duke of Buckingham.62 Several members of society knew that these two would meet with their supporters in coffeehouses to discuss how to change out the current parliament, and even hoping that they “would give the king no money.”63 One particular event caused a bit of a worry for the coffeehouse owner, Thomas Garraway, since these individuals loudly proclaimed banned seditious speech. With the support of a trustworthy patron, however, Garraway made a report to the Secretary of State that did not incriminate any persons involved. Events like these frequently transpired, especially for noteworthy guests.64 These communities helped the coffeehouses persevere through their vital support even after the various proclamations against the establishment. Additionally, their maintenance of speaking freely also directed the monarchy’s blame away from the coffeehouse keepers. This support not only incentivized the coffeehouse keepers to continue their business, but it also demonstrated to the monarchy that the licentious speech ran deep in the community, independent from the coffeehouse keepers. King Charles II had “intelligencers” in various coffeehouses across England that reported the status of these patrons and the news.65 The right to speak freely, as Markman Ellis concludes, was embedded in English society due to the numerous reports of seditious speech, even after the proclamations.66 While Markman Ellis’s conclusions may be up for debate, the persecution of meeting and speaking freely in the coffeehouse caused the patrons to unify against the monarchy. They did not launch attacks against the monarchical institution. They only wanted to restore the status quo, or the cultural ecology, that the proclamations disrupted. No doubt, the decrees caused unrest in society, and conspiracies like the “popish plot” (a plot to kill the king) began to take form in the following years because of the general population’s resentment of King Charles II and the thought of his Catholic successor, James II.67 This event and other later events are not causes of the coffeehouse resistance, but they are a part of growing resentment toward the monarchy and Catholicism. The patrons saw King Charles II’s proclamations as a senseless attack on harmless institutions that served purposes other than political resentment. The edicts also threatened the livelihoods of traders and merchants that used coffeehouses as meeting places to conduct business because coffeehouses had powerful

59 John Bullord, “A Curious Collection of Original Paintings,” Early English Tract Supplement/ D6:1[82], (London, 1691). 60 William Cooper, “Catalogus Variorum Librorum,” Early English Tract Supplement / D8:2[4], (London, 1676). 61 Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, 421. 62 Robinson, The Early History of Coffee Houses in England, 170. 63 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 102. 64 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 102-103; Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 199. 65 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 89. 66 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 105. 67 Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, 330.

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The Franciscan connections and circulated accurate information.68 The threats to the livelihoods of the coffeehouse patrons share similarities with the coffeehouse keepers’ and once again indicate the declining monarchical support from the patrons. Therefore, when King Charles II issued the “Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffee-Houses,” he attacked the fundamental connecting structures of society, which divided the patrons and keepers from the monarchy.69 Then the attack on the coffeehouse set forward negative sentiment against the monarchy (even before the popish plot) by violating the transactional relationships between the king and his subjects, upsetting the cultural ecology. The reasons patron to patron undoubtedly varied, but each had many reasons to resent the monarchy for attacking their social life constructed around coffeehouses. Markman Ellis suggests that the “defense of the coffee-house, it was understood, was a defense of freedom of speech,” thereby giving the general public a reason to fight fiercely for its right to stay open.70 Aytoun Ellis similarly argues that “in coffee-houses that the great struggle for political liberty was really fought and won.”71 Cowan, however, explains that the reasons ranged from concerns of free speech to the political agenda of the elite to economic concerns, which provides a more complete picture of the complications.72 Whatever reason upset the patron, at the core of each issue, King Charles II attacked the very way of life that the patrons had previously enjoyed during the Cromwellian Interregnum and broke the solidarity-sustaining social ties.

Conclusion King Charles II’s desire to prevent public ridicule of his rule prompted him to target the coffeehouse. His attack on the coffeehouse accounted for King Charles II’s declining monarchial power because he upset the cultural ecology and transgressed the solidarity-sustaining social ties. Several instances since the proclamations indicated poor authoritative control. It also revealed to the public that King Charles II possessed limited authority to enact new laws, constraining his power to merely enforcing pre-established laws.73 Even though a few patrons and keepers faced chastisement for violating the proclamations, the vast majority continued their business uninterrupted and without consequence. Despite King Charles II’s efforts to reaffirm his power, his proclamations from 1672-1676 reveal his declining political authority. With the use of Tilly’s five circumstances that indicate declining political authority King Charles II’s waning power becomes clearly understood. King Charles II’s first proclamations show an “action that threatened the survival of crucial connecting structures within populations.”74 This threat applied to the coffeehouse keepers and the coffeehouse patrons, though both in their unique ways. Unfortunately for King Charles II, coffeehouse keepers generally abided by the laws and governmental regulations to operate a successful and legal business.75 Only after the proclamations, did they begin their resistance to monarchical power by neglecting to report patrons and pamphlets that spread seditious ideas. Following this, the coffeehouse owners petition and the issuing of the new proclamation fit three

68 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 38, 76. 69 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 20. 70 Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house, 105. 71 Aytoun Ellis, The Penny Universities, xv. 72 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 3, 261-262. 73 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 197-198. 74 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 20. 75 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 74, 191

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Article Section other conditions. The petition showed “resistance […] from well-organized segments of their [King Charles II’s] previous followers.”76 King Charles II’s attempted to reiterate his power through the “Additional Proclamation […]” by including several stipulations, such as hefty fines of five-hundred pounds, the requirement for owners to take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and report any “scandalous” activity spoken or brought in print to their establishments within two days. However, the revisal of the king’s proclamation had social and political ramifications.77 The “Additional Proclamation […]” signified King Charles II’s inability to “enforce previously constraining agreements,” or “police existing boundaries” in coffeehouses in Great Britain and Ireland.78 These reasons also applied to the relationship between the king and the coffeehouse patrons since patrons continued their regular gatherings and, in some cases, openly slanderous speech against the monarchy. These proclamations led many of King Charles II’s subjects to decrease their political support for King Charles II, even Tories.79 Ultimately, all of the proclamations brought awareness to King Charles II’s limited power in these short few years. Perhaps he could have recovered some authority if he had not issued another proclamation in July of 1675, extending the closure of coffeehouses again. Little did he know, he extended the forced closure of coffeehouses indefinitely. Cowan explains that the events that transpired under the rule of King Charles II set a precedent that other Stuarts would be forced to follow.80 Since coffeehouse owners are not political governing bodies, the significance of these events must be confined to just an analysis that demonstrates the declining political authority of the monarchy. However, this approach indicates that social and cultural methodologies can be applied readily to political events that reveal the significance of pre-existing cultural and transactional relationships. Although it could be tempting to draw out implications for the future of the governing system, it easily becomes teleological. Aytoun Ellis’s argument that King Charles II’s blunder in this situation marks the coming of democracy is too far-reaching.81 However, understanding this moment in light of future coffeehouse legislation and proclamations shows a lasting understanding of legal toleration by King Charles II and later monarchies despite their various protests to coffeehouses.82 So while these events did not establish an early history of democracy, they did secure the survival of the coffeehouse as a public meeting place where patrons could continue to talk and gather over a hot cup of coffee.

76 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 20. 77 “By the King. An Additional Proclamation Concerning Coffee-Houses,” (1676). 78 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 20-21. 79 Tilly, Identities, Boundaries, and Social Ties, 20-21; Miller, Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750, 331. 80 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 194. 81 Aytoun Ellis, The Penny Universities, xiii-xvii. 82 Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee, 194.

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Marlborough’s Grand Strategic Success and Strategic Failure of 1711: Marlborough’s Neglect to Integrate Politics and Military in the Bouchain Campaign

Denise Sprimont

Abstract: Marlborough’s unique political tact set him apart from other generals, making him an asset that acted as a diplomat, politician, and military man. This was also his downfall, however. The campaign at Bouchain failed because Marlborough pursued a strategy without evaluating the diplomatic and political implications of doing so. The contradiction of Marlborough’s successful failure in 1711 is reminiscent of the unavoidable complexity of war. Marlborough’s skill was unmatched, but the disconnect between grand strategy and strategy was damning. Marlborough’s isolation from domestic British politics made it impossible for him to successfully integrate politics and war. This complicated political, diplomatic, and military efforts that sought achieve the new grand strategy proposed by the Harley ministry, making Britain’s operations counter to the new grand strategy proposed by Harley. The dissonance between Marlborough’s strategy and British grand strategy resulted in Marlborough’s exile and failure of the 1711 campaign.

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Marlborough’s political and military prowess was recognized well before the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession, which caused him to be honoured repeatedly by Catholic and Protestant rulers alike. His skill was such that it was impossible to ignore, even when his politics staunchly clashed with his superiors. Towards the end of William’s reign, in 1691, tension began to rise between France and England, making it clear that conflict was imminent. During King William’s final council with the Allied commanders, the King asked the prince of Vaudemont his evaluation of the moral fabric and military aptitude of the active generals. In response, the Prince gave the following evaluations:

Kirk has fire, Laneir thought, Mackay skill, and Colchester bravery; but there is something inexpressible in the earl of Marlborough. All their virtues seem to be united in his single person. I have lost…my wonted skill in physiognomy, if any subject of your majesty can ever attain such a height of military glory, as that to which this combination of sublime perfections must raise him.1

The prince of Vaudemont was correct in his assertion— Marlborough quickly rose in rank from an English Colonel in 1678 to captain-general of the British armed forces and ambassador extraordinary to the States General of the United Provinces in 1701, and Duke of Marlborough in 1702.2 This gave Marlborough a dual role as statesman and military general, which informed his political and strategic decision making through necessitating an integration of military and political planning. Marlborough’s role as a diplomat allowed him to manipulate and shape both political and operational goals for the benefit of England. While Marlborough’s understanding of the intrinsic complexities of politics and war strengthened his ability to execute both strategy and grand strategy, Marlborough’s isolation from domestic politics eroded his relationship with the Harley political administration. As such, Marlborough’s role as statesman bifurcated his loyalties between the transitional administration from Godolphin to Harley, making him a less effective military leader. However, Marlborough’s association with the Godolphin administration did not affect his ability to successfully lead and execute operations or tactics until the evolution of the grand strategic aim of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1711. The end of the War of the Spanish Succession and the Peace Treaty brokered by the Harley administration demonstrate Marlborough’s failure to revise his operational efforts in 1711 to match the evolving political grand strategy of Britain. Ultimately, Marlborough’s dual role as statesman and military general worked for the grand strategic goals of Britain during the Godolphin ministry. When Marlborough became isolated from grand strategy, it complicated political, diplomatic, and military efforts to achieve the new grand strategy proposed by the Harley ministry. This made Britain appear to be contradictory in its operations and grand strategy. The political ramifications of the dissonance between Marlborough’s strategy and British grand strategy included Marlborough’s exile and the operational failure of Marlborough’s campaign in 1711 in light of grand strategic goals. Marlborough’s power remained intact despite the transition between the reign of King William and Queen Anne, and his presence in both the realm of politics and military action maintained a sense of cohesion for Allied commanders.3 As such, Marlborough quickly became a

1 William Coxe, Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough; with His Original Correspondence, Collected from the Family Records at Blenheim and Other Authentic Sources., vol. 1 (London: H.G. Bohn, 1847), 56, //catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000312422. 2 Churchill Winston, Marlborough: His Life and Times, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 79. 3 John Hattendorf, “English Governmental Machinery and the Conduct of War, 1702–1713,” War & Society 3, no. 2 (1985): 17, doi:10.1179/106980485790303935.

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The Franciscan symbol of British political and military priorities.4 Marlborough’s military role represented political power as well. His role as master-general from 1701-1711 during the War of the Spanish Succession gave him control over matters formerly conducted by the king. This included his position as captain-general of the general forces. Although this position was a lower rank than some of his previous positions, it was effectively more influential politically. These military roles gave him political power because it “brought him a seat in the cabinet and made him the official advisor of the government upon military affairs…he could and did influence the activities of other commanders-in-chief.”5 The relationship between policy and military was inextricable— Marlborough was required to cede ground politically in order to gain support for his diplomatic and military expeditions. Additionally, he was required to concern himself with both the strategic and grand strategic policy measures and goals of Britain. Although he was disinterested in politics for politics sake, he was willing to be political when his station demanded it.6 As such, his influence was widespread in Britain and throughout the Allied Forces during the War of the Spanish Succession. Because he was practically directing the war efforts, he “conducted or controlled all British diplomatic negotiations.”7 This gave Marlborough a great deal of political power, as he shaped the image of Britain abroad, spoke on behalf of its interests, and undertook negotiating party politics in order to keep the war front unified.8 In the early years of the War of the Spanish Succession, Marlborough balanced diplomacy and British military goals by sustaining and executing a coherent grand strategy. The precedent he set regarding diplomacy allowed for grand strategy to truly dictate military action throughout the war. Because “Marlborough understood…that Britain absolutely depended on its allies...,” he prioritized the grand strategic goal of the War of the Spanish Succession, and was therefore able to put aside political squabbles between allies.9 His success in implementing grand strategy was more than military prowess—Marlborough had political awareness that allowed him to be “hum[ble], tact[ful], and understanding [in the way in] which he handled his allies.”10 Not all allied commanders shared Marlborough’s prioritization of grand strategy over all other political aims. Although other commanders also “desired to see the destruction of the French threat, they also possessed significantly different goals and wartime aims.”11 As such, Marlborough acted as “diplomatic glue” in the midst of a variety of wartime aims, ensuring coherent Allied strategy based on British grand strategy.12 Marlborough understood grand strategic goals and their implementation through strategy, operations and tactics. While grand strategy required an intimate knowledge of politics and their innerworkings, strategy, operations, and tactics required both military skill and experience. Marlborough improved tactics through constant innovations in organization of artillery, battalions,

4 Ibid., 18. 5 Ivor Burton, “The Secretary At War And The Administration Of The Army During The War Of The Spanish Succession” (P.h.D. Thesis, University of London, 1960), 252. 6 William Thomas Morgan, English Political Parties and Leaders in the Reign of Queen Anne, 1702-1710, Yale Historical Publications. Miscellany, 7 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920), 275–77, //catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001145684. 7 Andrew Rothstein, Peter the Great and Marlborough: Politics and Diplomacy in Converging Wars (Springer, 1986), 33. 8 Voltaire, Collected Works of Voltaire (Hastings, East Sussex: Delphi Publishing, 2015), chap. XX. 9 Williamson Murray, Richard Hart Sinnreich, and James Lacey, The Shaping of Grand Strategy: Policy, Diplomacy, and War (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 38. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., 75.

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Article Section and reserves. While these may seem divorced from the intersection of military and politics, Marlborough’s innovations demonstrate that he was able to “[maximize] to the fullest extent, a total combined arms effort.”13 As such, he was able to utilize each portion of the war entrusted into his power to achieve the grand strategic goals of Britain, which necessitated an integration of political and military methodologies. Without this integrated understanding of the intricacies of strategy, operations, and tactics, Marlborough would not have been able to predict the actions of the French in 1708. In 1708, Dutch support was waning and allied grand strategic and strategic goals were more fractured than ever, causing disunity that effected operations.14 Because of Marlborough’s integrated understanding of politics and operations, he sought to avoid French offensive operations in Brussels and Oudenarde. He succeeded by reinforcing the fortresses and men in the two areas Marlborough foresaw opportunities for a French offensive. Marlborough wrote the following to Godolphin, demonstrating his understanding of the necessity of utilizing both political and military factors to defeat the French in 1708:

…I act to the best of my understanding, with zeal for the queen and my country, I cannot hinder being vexed at such [actions of my countrymen]… The next thing we have to apprehend is, the intelligences [the French] may have in our great towns, and particularly that of Brussels; for it is most certain the people are against us, so that we have been obliged to leave eight battalions and six squadrons for the security of the town.15

In his letter to Godolphin, he outlines his motivation and concern—his country. His operations and tactics are not based on the complaints of his countrymen or allies, but rather in the interests of Britain. Marlborough utilized both his political and military resources in order to organize operations and tactics in a way that would ensure British victory. Marlborough was more interested in international rather than domestic politics, and remained indifferent to party politics during the War of the Spanish Succession, save when they interfered with the war effort. Marlborough “distrusted the Tory leaders because they consistently gave priority to domestic issues over measures to support the war effort,” and prioritized temporary political convenience over grand strategic and strategic measures.16 Later in the war, when tensions between the Whig and Tory parties began to rise, Marlborough remained involved in domestic politics from a distance. Rather than actively siding with the Whigs or Tories, Marlborough acted somewhat “independently of the Whigs” and attempted to co-operate politically with moderate Tories.17 Marlborough attempted to remain politically moderate so that he could successfully accomplish his military strategy regardless of the political administration.18 This is evidenced by Queen Anne dismissing Sarah, the duchess of Marlborough from her service, but Marlborough’s political and military career continuing nonetheless. If Marlborough’s relationship with Queen Anne was purely political, or if Marlborough was perceived as a party politician, it is unlikely that

13 Eugene H Grayson, “The Military Career of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough” (Master’s Thesis, University of Richland, 1979), 137. 14 Ibid., 148. 15 William Coxe, Memoirs of John Duke of Marlborough with His Original Correspondence: Collected from the Family Records at Blenheim, and Other Authentic Sources, 2nd ed., vol. 4 (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, 1820), 220–21. 16 J. R. Jones, Marlborough, British Lives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 206, doi:10.1017/CBO9780511560637. 17 Christopher Thomas Atkinson, Marlborough and the Rise of the British Army (University of Michigan: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1921), 480, http://archive.org/details/marlboroughandr01atkigoog. 18 Ibid., 481.

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The Franciscan his role in Queen Anne’s administration would have survived Queen Anne replacing Sarah.19 After Sarah’s dismissal in 1709, domestic politics became more influential on war efforts because the Tory party was actively looking to end the war quickly.20 As Queen Anne’s administration became increasingly politicized along party lines, Marlborough was passively and actively involved in more party politics by necessity. This was, effectively, a change in the grand strategic goal of the War of the Spanish Succession. The grand strategic objective of the War of the Spanish Succession remained static throughout the Godolphin ministry, but changed drastically after the transition to the Harley government in 1710.21 Both administrations sought to protect Britain from the military threat of France and aimed to increase English trade through a balance of European powers. However, the Harley and Godolphin administrative positions on domestic politics, domestic power dynamics, the strategy of diplomacy, and the grand strategic goal of the war differed significantly. The Godolphin administration prioritized and supported the “…succession of the Hanoverians and the Parliamentary title to the throne established by the Act of Settlement” over immediate peace.22 The Harley ministry, on the other hand, showed a “readiness to agree to a peace…and a strong interest in supporting the hereditary title of James III although it placed the condition of acceptance of the Church of England on his succession.”23 The Godolphin administration relied heavily on the military to achieve the grand strategic goals of Britain, whereas the Harley administration lacked confidence in the ability for the military to resolve French aggression without diplomatic pressure.24 The Harley administration’s new grand strategy seemed a “duplicitous policy” in light of Marlborough’s campaigns, as the ministry “encourage[ed] the Allies to fight in all theaters [sic], no longer supporting Charles’s [sic] candidacy in Spain, and then appearing to seek a peace treaty of its own.”25 During his administration, Godolphin feared that if domestic political problems overwhelmed the British Parliament, that the war effort in Spain would be underfunded and under covered militarily, which is exactly what happened during the transition period between the Godolphin and Harley ministries.26 The transition between grand strategic goals was influenced by the progress of the War of the Spanish Succession, which changed the political, economic and diplomatic character of the Grand Alliance. Godolphin’s ministry attempted to form a strong alliance rallied on the grand strategic goal of “defeating France and balancing French power through an independent, Habsburg Spain.”27 The Harley ministry outlined the functional differences between his administration and the Godolphin administration in a letter penned by Harley: “the change of Ministers had made no change of measures as to the common cause unless it were in being more hearty and expeditious, more frugal of the nation’s money, and more in earnest for a speedy and reasonable peace.”28

19 William Coxe, Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough, with His Original Correspondence, vol. 5, 1847, 209. 20 Keith Feiling, A History of the Tory Party, 1640-1714 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 347. 21 John B. Hattendorf, England in the War of the Spanish Succession: A Study of the English View and Conduct of Grand Strategy, 1702-1712 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1987), 193. 22 Ibid., 194. 23 Ibid. 24 Paul M. Kennedy, Grand Strategies in War and Peace (Yale University Press, 1991), 26. 25 Ibid., 27. 26 Henry L. Snyder, “The Formulation of Foreign and Domestic Policy in the Reign of Queen Anne: Memoranda by Lord Chancellor Cowper of Conversations with Lord Treasurer Godolphin,” The Historical Journal 11, no. 1 (1968): 149. 27 Hattendorf, England in the War of the Spanish Succession, 194. 28 Edward Stanley Roscoe, Robert Harley: Earl of Oxford, Prime Minister, 1710-1714 : A Study of Politics and Letters in the Age of Anne (Methuen & Company, 1902), 120.

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Harley’s statement hardly reflects the grand strategic goal of the previous administration. Instead, it reflects a desire to end the war. Marlborough became increasingly estranged by the change in grand strategy in 1710. His political connections began to dissolve, and his political interests diverged from the administration’s grand strategic goals.29 Despite this, Marlborough’s participation in the war and in the administration was still critical in order to maintain allied confidence in Britain.30 Marlborough’s strategy in 1711 sought to repair his reputation, retain his political and military position, and obtain a peace according to the grand strategy of the Godolphin ministry. 31 This required an offensive strategy against the French. The Harley administration’s new grand strategy, however, required a defensive strategy against the French in order to maintain coherent military and diplomatic actions in the midst of Britian’s peace offer to France. Although the grand strategy had evolved, Marlborough’s strategy had not—Marlborough was unaware of any change in British grand strategy. This political disconnect led to Marlborough being “wedded to the unaccomplishable,” achieving a grand strategy which was no longer relevant throughout strategy based on outdated political and diplomatic information.32 His strategy, which attempted an offensive and decisive defeat of the French directly conflicted with the “peace overtures” of the Harley ministry. This gave the French a distinct advantage and prevented Marlborough’s strategy from accomplishing the goals of Britain, making Marlborough’s strategic victory in 1711 irrelevant to the contemporary British grand strategy.33 When the change in British grand strategy was revealed to him in the form of the proposed peace terms, Marlborough protested on the grounds that it would destroy the diplomatic, political, and military grand strategic aim of the War of the Spanish Succession: “…the measures pursued in England for a year past were directly contrary to her Majesty’s engagements with the Allies, sullied the triumphs and glories of her reign, and would render the English name odious to all other nations.”34 In light of the Godolphin administration’s grand strategic goals, Marlborough’s words are precisely true; the success of Marlborough’s strategy depended on a decisive defeat of France. In response to Marlborough’s consistent disagreement with the new grand strategy of Britain authored by the Harley administration, Harley exiled Marlborough.35 The dissonance between Marlborough’s strategy and British grand strategy caused the operational failure of Marlborough’s campaign in 1711 in light of grand strategic goals. Although Marlborough’s campaign in 1711 accomplished a political advantage for Britain, which was necessary for the Harley administration to broker peace, it did not accomplish Marlborough’s operational or strategic goal. Marlborough’s tactics were successful, but not to the extent necessary to accomplish the Godolphin administration’s grand strategic goal. Marlborough had successfully “broken the military power of France, and reduced the first of military nations to a condition in which they were no longer feared by any country. He had…destroyed the French barrier.”36 While Marlborough forced the French to surrender at Bouchain, he was unable to secure a victory that

29 Coxe, Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough, with His Original Correspondence, 5:291. 30 Maj. Gordon W Muir, Enduring Paradox: How The Duke Of Marlborough Succeeded And Faltered In The War Of The Spanish Succession (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2016), 32. 31 Ibid., 35. 32 Ibid., 32. 33 Ibid., 32–33. 34 Winston, Marlborough: His Life and Times, 2:967. 35 Ibid., 2:969; Earl Philip Henry Stanhope Stanhope, History of England, Comprising the Reign of Queen Anne Until the Peace of Utrecht, 1701-1713 (B. Tauchnitz, 1870), 501. 36 Winston, Marlborough: His Life and Times, 2:872.

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The Franciscan would have brought France to its knees in a decisive defeat without another campaign.37 However, total victory at Bouchain was not necessary for the Harley administration. Harley only required a strategy that would allow for flexibility, and a defeat at Bouchain that would compel France to peace.38 In this respect, Marlborough was successful, but not in the way he intended. His political ostracization from the Harley administration made Marlborough a less effective military leader and led to his political demise. Churchill argued in his account of the campaign that Marlborough’s supposed failure at Bouchain was a result of Harley and St. John’s backhanded and secret negotiations with France. 39 However, Marlborough’s political leverage remained throughout the Bouchain campaign, which should have allowed him to continue to integrate his political and military power to accomplish his strategic aims. As such, Marlborough was unable to accomplish his own political goals because of his inability to integrate politics and military action in his campaign at Bouchain. Marlborough’s political and military career was marked by an extraordinary ability to utilize both political and military means to accomplish his strategic goals. Marlborough’s success depended on his ability to leverage political power to accomplish military operations, as he did in 1708, and his ability to utilize military operations to accomplish political strategy as he did when he innovated tactical movements. When his political ability was isolated from his military campaigns, his grand strategic vision became clouded and his strategy was unable to successfully accomplish its aim. Although the success of Marlborough’s Bouchain campaign was not measured by the grand strategic goals of the Godolphin administration, and instead was assessed by its political utility to the Harley administration, that does not discount the failure of Marlborough to accomplish his established strategy in 1711. Marlborough’s success depended on his ability to maintain cohesion between political and military strategies, and his ability to leverage his political influence to ensure the success of tactics and operations. This does not remove the apparent communication barrier between the Harley administration and Marlborough, but does demonstrate the necessity of continuous evaluation of the political tools available to accomplish grand strategic aims. Marlborough’s unique political tact set him apart from other generals, making him an asset that acted as a diplomat, politician, and military man. This was also his downfall, however. The campaign at Bouchain failed because Marlborough pursued a strategy without evaluating the diplomatic and political implications of doing so. The contradiction of Marlborough’s successful failure in 1711 is reminiscent of the unavoidable complexity of war. Marlborough’s skill was unmatched, but the disconnect between grand strategy and strategy was damning. Marlborough’s isolation from domestic British politics made it impossible for him to successfully integrate politics and war. This complicated political, diplomatic, and military efforts that sought achieve the new grand strategy proposed by the Harley ministry, making Britain’s operations counter to the new grand strategy proposed by Harley. The dissonance between Marlborough’s strategy and British grand strategy resulted in Marlborough’s exile and failure of the 1711 campaign

37 James Watson Gerard, The Peace of Utrecht: A Historical Review of the Great Treaty of 1713-14, and of the Principal Events of the War of the Spanish Succession (G. P. Putnam’s sons, 1885), 198; Frederick William Orby Maycock, An Outline of Marlborough’s Campaigns: A Brief and Concise Account (G. Allen, Limited, 1913), 177. 38 Muir, Enduring Paradox: How The Duke Of Marlborough Succeeded And Faltered In The War Of The Spanish Succession, 33; Coxe, Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough, with His Original Correspondence, 5:90. 39 Winston, Marlborough: His Life and Times, vol. 2, chap. 27.

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Partial Incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause: A Defense of a Hard Constitutional Commitment to Religious Liberty

Denise Sprimont

Abstract: Partial incorporation respects soft constitutionalism while maintaining hard Constitutional commitments to religious liberty, which is necessary for a moral society. The partial incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause, while anachronistic, does not violate the jurisdiction of the Constitution, as it reaffirms the purpose of the clause. Without partial incorporation, nominalism would be able to erode religious liberty, thus undoing the moral fabric of America. The “two-tiered” standard of the courts shields states and individuals from religious oppression while allowing states to create and enforce their own laws regarding religion. The Constitution has structural protections for religious liberty and is not an agnostic document. As such, it does not violate the two-tiered approach of the Constitution to broadly commit to religious freedom through partial incorporation.

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In the early republic, laws regulating religious behavior varied from state to state. Often, this led to significant variations between federal and state laws regarding religious activity. While states discriminated against religious activities, the First Amendment restricted Congress from “prohibiting the free exercise [of religion].”1 The First Amendment created tension between Federal and State law concerning established religion and religious liberty. A strict delineation between the power of the state and federal government maintained community moral standards in states, preserving the cohesion necessary for the young country to survive. As the country grew, so did religious diversity, ushering in a new age of conflict between freedoms and community mores. Because the new nation was held together by values forged by religious persecution, the fiercely guarded “religious homogeneity” naturally followed when State Constitutions were established.2 While America had some small measure of diversity, Christianity had a significant influence on American common law and shaped both legislative and judicial understandings of moral law and understandings of the Constitution.3 Social order and religion were so closely intertwined, that duty to the community was nearly unilaterally valued above encouraging religious diversity. 4 George Washington outlines this in his famous Farewell Address, “…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”5 Washington proposes this as a reasonable and commonly understood conclusion, setting religion as key to the social success of the new country. The importance of religion in the social realm of the United States was evident even to contemporary foreign scholars. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: “[Americans] hold [religion] to be indispensable to… republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens…it belongs to the whole nation…”6 As such, it was descriptive of the early American constitution to say that it was a Christian Nation, both on a state and national level. The Federal Government’s inability to prohibit the exercise of religion did not disable the states from doing so. Rather, it seemed to tacitly give this ability to the states as a part of their power. This led to states adopting vastly different constitutional provisions and legal dictates regarding religion. The result of allowing states to put restrictions on religious freedom and practice was religious persecution when an individuals’ religion did not conform to community standards of acceptable religion. This included small scale persecution, like school punishments and fines, and large-scale persecution, like attacks on Mormon villages.7 This persecution, which

1 United States Congress and House, The Constitution of the United States of America as Amended: Unratified Amendments, Analytical Index (Washington: U.S. National Government, 1992), Amendment 1; Mark D. McGarvie, “Disestablishing Religion and Protecting Religious Liberty in State Laws and Constitutions (1776-1833),” in No Establishment of Religion: America’s Original Contribution to Religious Liberty, ed. Jeremy Gunn and John Witte, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 94. 2 Paul Finkelman, “Toleration and Diversity in New Netherland and the Duke’s Colony: The Roots of America’s First Disestablishment,” in No Establishment of Religion: America’s Original Contribution to Religious Liberty, ed. T. Jeremy Gunn and John Witte, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 130, 148. 3 Steven K. Green, John Witte, Jr., and T. Jeremy Gunn, “The ‘Second Disestablishment’: The Evolution of Nineteenth Century Understandings of Seperation of Church and State,” in No Establishment of Religion: America’s Original Contributions to Religious Liberty (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 285. 4 McGarvie, “Disestablishing Religion and Protecting Religious Liberty in State Laws and Constitutions (1776- 1833),” 71. 5 George Washington, Washington’s Farewell Address to the People of the United States (Hartford, Conn.: Printed by Hudson and Goodwin, 1813). 6 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (D. Appleton, 1904), 329. 7 Steven D. Smith, The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom (Harvard University Press, 2014), 109.

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Smith points out is not as violent as the religious oppression endured in other countries, should still not be taken lightly, as it was entrenched in both social standards and physical law.8 The common law of the states was often based on Christianity; the Supreme Court even recognized the legitimacy of the incorporation of the Christian religion in state common law, “[W]e are compelled to admit that…Christianity be a part of the common law of the state….”9 Endorsing or condemning certain religion or religious action in the physical law of states often came in the form of blue laws and restrictions on religious behavior.10 This allowed the early republic to “advance Christianity generally to the exclusion of other religions.”11 The exclusion of other religions in state law became a federal issue as the constitution of America became increasingly concerned with equality. This was originally mitigated by the “two- tiered” approach that the Supreme Court levied as an explanation for this complex relationship between religion in states as differentiated from federal religious protections. The first tier of this approach was the restriction on federal law protecting religious liberty, as stated in the First Amendment. The second tier was the freedom of the states to regulate established religion as they saw fit.12 This continued until the incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause into the Fourteenth Amendment in Cantwell v. Connecticut, which ruled that “The enactment by a State of any law… prohibiting the free exercise thereof is forbidden by the Fourteenth Amendment.”13 This has led to federal restriction on state law regarding religion, and the subservience of state law to the First Amendment.

Survey of Secondary Literature Scholars have evaluated the question of incorporation of the First Amendment largely in the context of the Establishment Clause. However, the implications of the incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause and criticism of the historical validity of the Supreme Court’s decision to incorporate the Clause have not been overlooked by scholars of the Constitution and Critical Legal Theorists. Steven Smith, in his book The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom, presents arguments against the historical validity of incorporating the First Amendment. He argues that the application of the First Amendment against the states would destroy the American Settlement, which protects against “aggressive judicial supervision,” and encourages the “principle of openness,” which allowed for both providentialist and secularist understandings to be “legitimate contenders” for interpreting the Constitution.14 Smith’s understanding of the incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause is rooted in the protection of soft constitutionalism. Similarly, McConnell argues that the incorporation of any portion of the First Amendment is “anachronistic,” as it ignores the purpose of the First Amendment.15 However, McConnell comes

8 Ibid. 9 Stuart Banner, “When Christianity Was Part of the Common Law,” Law and History Review 16, no. 1 (1998): 35, doi:10.2307/744320. 10 Ibid., 30–43. 11 Green, Witte, Jr., and Gunn, “The ‘Second Disestablishment’: The Evolution of Nineteenth Century Understandings of Seperation of Church and State,” 285. 12 Russell A. Hilton, “The Case for the Selective Disincorporation of the Establishment Clause: Is Everson a Super- Precedent?,” Emory Law Journal 56, no. 6 (October 2007): 1. 13 Owen Josephus Roberts and and Supreme Court of the United States, “U.S. Reports: Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296.,” Periodical, (1939), 1, https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep310296/. 14 Smith, The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom, 129–31. 15 Michael W. McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,” Harvard Law Review 103, no. 7 (1990): 78, doi:10.2307/1341281.

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The Franciscan to a strikingly different conclusion than Smith. McConnell acknowledges that the First Amendment was not meant to apply against the States, but that the “liberty of conscience [is] an unalienable right.”16 As such, he argues that because the state and Constitutional protection of religious liberty mirror each other, that “no structural distortions” arise in meaning or application because of the incorporation of the First Amendment.17 Duncan, on the other hand, evaluates the purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment and the First Amendment in context with one another. He argues that the purpose of the incorporation of rights into the Fourteenth Amendment is to “advance, but never to ‘constrain[] individual liberty.’”18 Duncan’s evaluation of the First Amendment supports partial incorporation based on similar justifications as Smith outlines for soft constitutionalism—that it avoids the imposition of religious burdens on individuals while maintaining a State’s ability to “recognize” the importance of religion in their state.19 Hammons similarly argues that there is a functional difference between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, which allows for partial incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause. Hammons systematically breaks down Supreme Court Cases (with a focus on Justice Thomas) and their effect on the original purpose and jurisdiction of the portion of the Constitution in question. Hammons concludes that the First Amendment follows a “dual model of federalism.” 20 He espouses that the Establishment Clause is jurisdictional and protects states from “national interference,” whereas the Free Exercise Clause was a commitment, which justifies partial incorporation.21 Hilton also offers an analysis of the First Amendment that favors partial incorporation. Hilton uses historical precedent and original intent to argue that the First Amendment demands a “two-tiered” approach, which allows for state and individual freedom.22 He argues that the tiered approach justifies the incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause because it “guarantees an individual right.”23 His analysis echoes that of the before mentioned scholars: Free Exercise is a “structural provision and a liberty guarantee,” whereas the Establishment Clause is structural.24 This added nuance of the Exercise Clause as both a structural and rights-based statement allows for incorporation based on its purpose to secure rights.

The Incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment can be incorporated without violating the intention or jurisdiction of the clause. While the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was dependent on the soft constitutional framework provided by the American Settlement, the Free Exercise Clause is a Constitutional commitment to rights, which necessitated consistent application among states. Without the incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause, the courts would be diluted, thus allowing for the tyranny of the religious majority to go unchecked within states. Presuming an American Settlement within the Free Exercise Clause undercuts the true meaning of

16 Ibid., 77. 17 Ibid., 78. 18 Richard F Duncan, “Justice Thomas and Partial Incorporation of the Establishment Clause: Herein of Structural Limitations, Liberty Interests, and Taking Incorporation Seriously” 20 (n.d.): 14. 19 Ibid., 13–15. 20 Christopher Hammons, “State Constitutions, Religious Protection, and Federalism,” University of St. Thomas Journal of Law and Public Policy 7, no. 2 (May 30, 2016): 14. 21 Ibid., 12–14. 22 Hilton, “The Case for the Selective Disincorporation of the Establishment Clause,” 1. 23 Ibid., 3. 24 Ibid., 12.

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Article Section the Constitutional commitment to religious freedom, and effectively undoes the ability of soft constitutionalism to function by allowing for nominalist interpretations of the Constitution to be considered legitimate. The Constitution and Bill of Rights were written with a consistent and open commitment to religious liberty. Despite variations in the Founders beliefs, it is clear that the document itself displays structural protections for religious freedom. Due to the Constitution taking a clear stance on its commitment to freedom of conscience and is not written neutrally, it is not appropriate to interpret the Constitution as an “agnostic” document.25 As such, it does not violate the principles of the Constitution to broadly commit to religious freedom nationally or to apply the Free Exercise Clause against the states. Partial incorporation maintains the two-tiered approach that gives states freedom to recognize the legal and social influence or establishment of religion while maintaining religious liberty. Because there are fundamental differences between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, partial incorporation preserves their individual purposes.

The Commitment of the Constitution The Founders held diverse, and sometimes conflicting opinions about the Constitution and its Amendments, which can be summarized by three intellectual traditions: “Enlightenment separation, political centrist, and pietistic separation.”26 Enlightenment separation and pietistic separation (which Smith calls “Secularism”) both sought to separate the institutions of church and government.27 Enlightenment separationists, like Paine, sought to shield the government from “religious domination.”28 Although pietistic separationists came to the same conclusion as Enlightenment separationists, their motivations were distinct. Pietistic separationists, like Madison and Sherman, prioritized the “purity” of religion, conscience, and religious activity.29 Political centrists, like Washington and Adams, were primarily concerned with the best method to obtain religious liberty and saw religion as independently valuable to private and public life.30 The Founders wrote the Constitution with strong Protestant influences and formed the religious clauses with religious justifications.31 Despite their variation of motivations for protecting freedom of religion, all of the Founders agreed that a commitment to religious freedom and the freedom of conscience were necessary.32

25 Smith, The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom, 135–36. 26 Arlin M. Adams and Charles J. Emmerich, A Nation Dedicated to Religious Liberty: The Constitutional Heritage of the Religion Clauses (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 31. 27 Ibid.; Smith, The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom, 108–11. Smith admits that the label “Secularism” is not ideal, but perhaps underestimates the way in which the label “Secular” influences his own view of founders like Jefferson and Madison, and the way that his overgeneralization eliminates the nuanced difference between Founders influenced mainly by the Enlightenment and Founders influenced mainly by pragmatic understandings of church-state relations. 28 Adams and Emmerich, A Nation Dedicated to Religious Liberty, 31. 29 Ibid.; James Madison, The Writings of James Madison, Comprising His Public Papers and His Private Correspondence, Including Numerous Letters and Documents Now for the First Time Printed., ed. Gaillard Hunt, vol. 1 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900), 19. 30 Adams and Emmerich, A Nation Dedicated to Religious Liberty, 31. 31 Steven D. Smith, “The Rise and Fall of Religious Freedom in Constitutional Discourse,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 140, no. 1 (1991): 7–10, doi:10.2307/3312322. 32 Adams and Emmerich, A Nation Dedicated to Religious Liberty, 31, 37, 44, 73, 110; Smith, “The Rise and Fall of Religious Freedom in Constitutional Discourse,” 1.

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Comparison of the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause The Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause fundamentally value religion as something that is inherently valuable.33 The values of the Free Exercise Clause are as followed; the protection of religious freedom and freedom of conscience, forbidding religiously targeted violence, maintaining a commitment to equality, and encouraging and reaffirming the value of religion in the civic and private realm.34 While these agree in principle with the values of the Establishment Clause, they are not functionally the same. The values of the Establishment Clause are: protection of religious freedom and freedom of conscience from interference from the federal government, equal standing under the law regardless of religion, the stabilization of national identity by avoiding religious disputes on a national scale, promotion of the “political community,” allowing states to “protect the public interest,” and the protection of churches from the “corrupting influences” of the national government, and the promotion of religion.35 Because there are structural differences in the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses, and the variations are not in their principles, but in their application, the First Amendment can be partially incorporated without compromising the integrity of either clause.

Soft Constitutionalism and Hard Constitutional Commitments in the First Amendment The Constitution was not intended to be an agnostic document; the Founders meant it as an obligation to a moral society, which cannot be separated from religious principles and foundations. In one of his earlier publications, Smith states that the Founders wrote the Constitution with strong Protestant influences and that the religious clauses were religiously justified due to their intrinsic merit.36 Smith argues in a later publication that there is no “hard” Constitutional commitment to religion, but that the Constitution was intentionally left neither secular nor religious. Here, Smith defeats himself—in order for Smith’s claim (that there was no established commitment) to be true, the Constitution must remain agnostic. Yet, he himself defines secularism and agnosticism equivalently, making a distinction without a difference.37 While the Constitution itself does not mention God explicitly, its justification in the form of the Declaration of Independence affirms God’s existence in word, and the Constitution does so in deed. As such, the Constitution cannot be agnostic, and therefore can legitimately maintain a Constitutional commitment to religion. A soft constitutional commitment to religious liberty would not reflect the commitment to religious liberty that Smith claims exists. This paper agrees with Smith’s claim that there is a foundational commitment to religious freedom, but a soft constitutional understanding of the Free Exercise Clause does not reflect that commitment. Rather, a soft constitutional understanding allows for the redefinition or disregard of Religious Freedom according to social norms.38 This is not a commitment at all, but instead is a weak attempt at justifying relativist understandings of the Constitution. While Smith does not seem to grapple with what soft constitutionalism looks like

33 Steven H. Shiffrin, “The Pluralistic Foundations of the Religion Clauses,” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2004, 9, doi:10.2139/ssrn.508683. 34 Ibid., 6–7. 35 Ibid. 36 Smith, “The Rise and Fall of Religious Freedom in Constitutional Discourse,” 7–10. 37 Ibid.; Smith, The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom, 104–10. An agnostic document would be one that claims neither belief nor disbelief in a Supreme Being; Smith defines a Secular document as one that does not make claims regarding religion, and leaves such discussion “to be purely private.” 38 Smith, The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom, 133–35.

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Article Section when applied to the Free Exercise Clause, it is not hard to imagine. Surely Smith understands that in a world of soft constitutionalism, the Commissions’ decision on Masterpiece would have been final, and events like the Trail of Tears could reoccur simply because of changing social norms. Because Smith does not contend that the only valid understandings of state religion would be that of the Founders Secularism or Providentialism, or that the only valid understandings of state religion belong to the legislative branch, religious liberty would be at the mercy of an ochlocracy. An attempt for modern America or the America of the early republic to apply soft constitutionalism would be disastrous for religious liberty.

Nominalism and the Constitution A soft constitutional approach to the Free Exercise Clause would preclude the legitimacy of an incorporated Free Exercise Clause, as incorporation necessitates a hard constitutional commitment to religious freedom. The soft constitutional approach allows for nominalism, which is a modern tool of relativism, as a legitimate interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause. Smith claims one of the benefits of soft constitutionalism is that, “by embracing what nearly all Americans agreed on (namely, religious freedom) while leaving firmly open what Americans did not agree on (namely, exactly what religious freedom in this country meant or entailed), the arrangement was well calculated both to unite citizens around a shared commitment and to bring them together in debating or contesting what was controversial.”39 At first, this sounds like a reasonable approach. However, it presumes that religious liberty should be debated and that the Free Exercise Clause and Free Speech Clause are analogous. Certainly, the extent to which religious liberty should be valued in conflict with other rights can be debated, but allowing the definition of religious liberty to remain a mystery opens the door to nominalism. Under Smith’s understanding of religious freedom, it’s entirely possible that the Masterpiece Cake Shop decision would not have violated religious liberty, because religious liberty could have been defined as “a homosexual’s right to have a wedding cake.” That would be nominally religious freedom, not the religious liberty that the Constitution protects. Smith is right that Free Speech opens up the marketplace of ideas but is wrong to state that it is the same case for the Free Exercise Clause.40 The purpose of Freedom of Religion is not to find the best or truest religion; the purpose of Freedom of Religion is to allow individuals to follow their conscience regarding religion. The right of the Courts to define and defend clauses in the Bill of Rights and Constitution is not only reasonable but also saves the American people from an inconsistent and inaccurate application of the First Amendment.

A Two-Tiered Approach The Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause are each one tier in the regulation of religion in the First Amendment. The first tier, the Free Exercise Clause, maintains the commitment to religion and religious freedom and is a structural Amendment and a liberty guarantee.41 The second tier, the Establishment Clause, is structural, thus keeping the Federal government from preventing or mandating state recognition or establishment of religion.42 Because the first tier is both structural and a liberty guarantee, it can be incorporated without any

39 Ibid., 104. 40 Ibid., 102. 41 Hilton, “The Case for the Selective Disincorporation of the Establishment Clause,” 12. 42 Ibid.

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The Franciscan violation of its original intent.43 Although it may be anachronistic, it does not change the meaning of the clause, but instead prioritizes the American commitment to religious liberty above state sovereignty to violate such commitment.

Partial Incorporation Cantwell v. Connecticut in 1940 incorporated the Free Exercise Clause into the 14th Amendment (thus overturning Permoli v. Municipality No. 1 of the City of New Orleans), but did not incorporate the Establishment Clause. The decision for the partial incorporation states, “Under the constitutional guaranty, freedom of conscience and of religious belief is absolute; although freedom to act in the exercise of religion is subject to regulation for the protection of society. Such regulation, however, in attaining a permissible end, must not unduly infringe the protected freedom.”44 Here, the court defends a hard Constitutional commitment to religious freedom itself, but a soft constitutional commitment to the regulation of religious action. This encompasses the “American Settlement” Smith expresses admiration for without violating the very principle such settlement seeks to protect. The Court explicitly embraces the two-tiered approach: “The constitutional inhibition of legislation on the subject of religion has a double aspect…No one would contest the proposition that a State may not, by statute, wholly deny the right to preach or to disseminate religious views.”45 Hammons and Duncan’s analysis of the First Amendment highlights that the Establishment Clause is strictly structural, whereas the Free Exercise Clause as a liberty.46 Therefore, the only legitimate incorporation is partial.

Conclusion Partial incorporation respects soft constitutionalism while maintaining hard Constitutional commitments to religious liberty, which is necessary for a moral society. The partial incorporation of the Free Exercise Clause, while anachronistic, does not violate the jurisdiction of the Constitution, as it reaffirms the purpose of the clause. Without partial incorporation, nominalism would be able to erode religious liberty, thus undoing the moral fabric of America. The “two- tiered” standard of the courts shields states and individuals from religious oppression while allowing states to create and enforce their own laws regarding religion. The Constitution has structural protections for religious liberty and is not an agnostic document. As such, it does not violate the two-tiered approach of the Constitution to broadly commit to religious freedom through partial incorporation. Further research on this topic should evaluate the impact of Cantwell on states prior to Everson.

43 McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion,” 78. 44 Roberts and and Supreme Court of the United States, “U.S. Reports: Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296.,” 1. 45 Ibid., 310. 46 Duncan, “Justice Thomas and Partial Incorporation of the Establishment Clause: Herein of Structural Limitations, Liberty Interests, and Taking Incorporation Seriously,” 17; Hammons, “State Constitutions, Religious Protection, and Federalism,” 12–17.

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The Heart of the Matter: Bhakti, Eros, Agape, and Understanding the Good

Rachel Tillman

Abstract: This paper advocates for the place of the heart in ethical living. Numerous teachings, both secular and religious, insist on viewing the heart as deceptive, wicked, and inherently corrupted by sin. Nonetheless, throughout numerous periods and cultures, the heart has served as the only stable locus of ethical outreach. This is a unifying principle. Though the heart cannot be trusted absolutely for doctrine, when it comes to true ethical behavior, love is the best starting point. Since this universal importance of the heart has been deemed as too subjective and one that denies the vitality of Jesus for living the Good life, this paper will examine different cultures to explore the mechanics, and Church Fathers to explore the substance of what living ethically from the heart looks like. It will first explore how love and the heart functioned in Indian and Ancient Greek traditions. Then, two objections to this role of the heart will be presented and addressed using the teachings of Augustine, Luther, and Hamann. Finally, this paper will conclude that the heart services a vital role in cultivating the ethical life.

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Today, when Christians use the phrase “follow your heart” in conversation, many cringe and begin to explain why such a mindset has the potential to be extremely harmful to all parties involved. Abusive relationships, cults, and other unhealthy controlling structures are all parties that seek to use love and the heart as tools of entrapping people for their own purposes. However, it is not the heart that should be blamed in these (or any!) situations. Rather, the implicated group is that of faulty understandings. Love, as defined in Indian religious beliefs, Platonist thought, and numerous other manifestations, is the pursuit of the Good. The trouble comes when someone has a misunderstanding of what the Good is and tries to direct their heart and expressions of love according to that faulty operational definition. In order to demonstrate the importance of having the heart and love direct one’s life, especially in Christian teaching and ethical living, this paper will seek to define what exactly is meant by love as the pursuit of the Good as seen in bhakti and Platonic Eros. Then, two objections to the heart as a tool for ethical outreach will be provided and addressed by examining what some of the most influential Church Fathers had to say concerning the immorality of the heart. Finally, this paper will explore how this new perspective ought to influence the actions of modern-day Christians.

Key Terms In order to best address the ways in which the heart’s expressions of love serve as the key to understanding the Good, one must first establish definitions of the concepts involved. The terms that must be defined in order to create a shared understanding and dialogue are those of the heart, love in a general sense, Sanatana Dharma1, bhakti, Eros, Agape, and finally, the Good. The heart is, according to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, that which recognizes nature, the soul, love, and God. In this paper, the heart is that which seeks solutions to ethical expressions of love and existence.2 Love, in its most general sense as used in this paper, is the pursuit of the Good.3 Sanatana Dharma is an Indian religious practice which references a ritualistic and organized way of living rather than abstract beliefs untied to outward expression. The virtues which Sanatana Dharma contains are those of “honesty, refraining from injuring living beings, purity, goodwill, mercy, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, generosity, and asceticism.”4 Bhakti, briefly defined, is how an individual who practices Sanatana Dharma is meant to go about demonstrating love to a personal God. Therefore bhakti is used to denote love or devotion in the context of ethically living.5 Eros, according to Platonic thought, is used to represent the ideas of love, admiration, and the pursuit/desire of the Good.6 Agape, as explained in Christian belief, is “goodwill, benevolence, and willful delight in the object of love.”7

1 Sanatana Dharma is used in this paper instead of Hinduism because the term “Hindu” refers to a specific geographical region in India. “Hindu” was used in reference to any citizen in the region, including Christians and Muslims. In order to be culturally sensitive to the negative political connotations the term has in modern-times, Sanatana Dharma will be used as well as Indian religious practices in order to avoid prescribing a belief system on a geographical region. 2 Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ethel Colburn Mayne, and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to His Family and Friends, Translated by Ethel Colburn Mayne, With an Introduction by Avrahm Yarmolinsky, (Peter Owen: London; printed in U.S.A., 1962). 3 Klaus Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007,) p. 602. 4 Wendy Doniger, Encyclopedia of World Religions (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006,) p. 966. 5 Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism, p. 595. 6 Plato and Walter Hamilton, The Symposium (London: Penguin Books, 1987,) pp. 79-95. 7 Colin Grant, "For the Love of God: Agape," The Journal of Religious Ethics 24, no. 1 (1996): 3-21.

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Additionally, agape “is used to describe the love that is of and from God, whose very nature is love itself.”8 Lastly, the elusive universal of the Good will be defined in this paper as either God Himself in reference to an individual, or to earthly well-being and prosperity as it relates to the “good” of a nation.9 The Heart in Bhakti Having defined the key terms, one can now examine the necessary role of the heart in pursuing the Good and for ethical living. To do so, this paper will first look at the Sanatana Dharma concept of bhakti, and then at the Platonic interpretation of Eros. Sanatana Dharma, one of the many branches of Indian religious expressions, emphasizes the integration of understandings of love and ethics into personal interactions. The teaching of bhakti is especially critical to the conceptualization that the heart is necessary and inseparable from being united with the Good. As taught in the Bhagavad Gita,10 one is only able to interact and pursue Brahman through the passion and love found within the heart. Reason alone is seen as insufficient for understanding how one ought to live in the light of the Goodness that comes from being united with the ultimate form of the Good.11 One of the reasons why such a pursuit is lauded in Indian religious beliefs is that it helps to take away the fear tied to opening one’s heart. Reasoning can lead to justifications about not reaching out for the sake of self-preservation, but living for love dismantles those excuses and opens countless doors for ethical living.

The Heart in Plato The next example of why the heart is a crucial component in pursuing the Good comes from Plato’s Symposium. In Platonic philosophy, the contextualization of love as the pursuit and understanding of the Good stems from interactions with Indian Religious beliefs as well as through habit and rituals. As Plato defines it, Eros is synonymous with an action-oriented love that serves to improve the lives of individuals and the overall polis. Habit and ritual are the ways in which this love is expressed, and by constant practice and implementation, a person can then improve on their understanding and implementation of love. In this utilization of love as the steps to achieving the Good, Plato then concludes that it is only through enacting this knowledge that one can arrive at unity with the highest Form, and will allow for the improvement of ethical and virtuous practices.12

The Flacius Objection After establishing the various cultural beliefs as to why the heart is vital for ethical living, one can begin to explore the two main objections to relying so heavily on such a corrupt organ. The first objection can be found in a modern misconception of a famous Christian teaching. Many Christians today believe that certain Christian teachers, especially Martin Luther, insisted that human actions must always be understood as those of a fallen and essentially evil creature apart

8 Colin Grant, “For the Love of God: Agape,” pp. 5-21. 9 W. L. Walker, “Good, Chief,” (edited by G. W. Bromiley), The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1979). 10 The Bhagavad-Gita, also referred to as the Gita, is a Sacred religious text to numerous denominations of Indian religions. 11 Zaehner, The Bhagavad-Gita, with a Commentary Based on the Original Sources, pp. 3, 30, & 35. 12 Plato and Hamilton, pp. 79-95.

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The Franciscan from Christ. However, this belief is a misrepresentation of Luther’s ideas and Christian orthodoxy in general. In reality, the idea that we are entirely evil by nature stems from the teachings of Lutheran thinker Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520-1575).13 Flacius argues that reason is inseparable from Free Will, and Free Will is what allows for expressions of love. However, he also argues that everything humans do speaks only to original sin, and there is no merit or redeemable factor in any action outside of the Good which God allows to it. Flacius states that it is an inherent lack in man which will continue to prevent any actions and expressions of love from being Good or helpful at all. He believed that all things from men are evil and can only serve a purpose through their context of waiting for the return and judgment of Christ.14 However, this teaching was officially condemned in the Book of Concord in the Second Article of Original Sin.

…He [Leo X] always wrote thus, namely, that Baptism removes the guilt of original sin, although the material, as they call it, of the sin, i.e., concupiscence, remains. He also added in reference to the material that the Holy Ghost, given through Baptism, begins to mortify the concupiscence, and creates new movements [a new light, a new sense and spirit] in man. In the same-manner, Augustine also speaks, who says: Sin is remitted in Baptism, not in such a manner that it no longer exists, but so that it is not imputed.15 The Haidt Objection The second and final main objection that many have to the place of the heart is that they believe it is inherently wicked and desires evil above all things. This wickedness does not necessarily rest in the religious definition of evil and a lack of Jesus in one’s life. Rather, it can be found in the simple modern concepts of psychology. Jonathan Haidt, a renowned moral psychologist, argues that the brain only rationalizes the heart’s desires. Haidt proposes that morals are merely a result of a highly evolved mind, and emotional responses such as love, anger, jealousy, hunger, and lust stem from a primitive sort of ‘heart.’ Luckily, Haidt articulates, “Moral reasoning can correct and override moral intuition.”16 What Haidt means by this is that emotions are simply unrefined base impulses that are archaic and ought to be viewed as unacceptable actions and thoughts without the ‘correction’ that moral reasoning provides. Haidt’s thesis then rests on the principle that the heart is merely the primitive and instinctual aspect of humankind that needs to have its more evolved counter-part provide oversight at all times.17 This implicates the heart as the source of good and evil in life. Following this logic, the heart is simply an evolved emotional storage unit that serves individual interests. By this definition and standard, there are no absolute ethical values or virtues that exist without ulterior motives.

The Heart in Augustine Although written far before the two objections as mentioned above, the first response to be evaluated comes from the theologian and philosopher of love himself, Augustine. In his famous

13 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Matthias Flacius Illyricus,” Encyclopædia Britannica (Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., March 7, 2020). 14 Heinrich Vogel, “The Flacian Controversy on Original Sin,” Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, vol. 76; January, 1979. 15 Arand, Charles P., and Robert Kolb, The Book of Concord: the Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005,) pp. 35-38. .Book of Concord 16 J. Haidt, “The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology,” Science 316, no. 5827 (2007): pp. 998-1002. 17 J. Haidt, “The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology,” pp. 999-1001.

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Confessions, Augustine talks at great lengths about the character and structure of the heart as it relates to everyday life. In the first book especially, he articulates just how God created man’s heart to pursue Him alone.

…he [man] bears his mortality about with him and carries the evidence of his sin and the proof that thou dost resist the proud. Still he desires to praise thee, this man who is only a small part of thy creation. Thou hast prompted him, that he should delight to praise thee, for thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.18

What Augustine means by this is that although man is sinful, he still pursues the Good. He argues that God will only provide rest for man’s heart when man rests in God. Similar to Sanatana Dharma, this shows that unity with the ultimate Good is the only way to achieve completion. Although Augustine does agree with the structuring of the heart for expressions of love and ethical living, he also argues that without Christ, there can be no true ethical life or pure love. According to Augustine, one ought to apply one’s understanding through love. How this functions in the context of Christian ethics and outreach is that love and perfect understanding come from Christ alone. Now, some might wonder how Augustine’s interpretation of the heart addresses the objections of Flacius and Haidt. As to the former, instead of accepting the heart as something irredeemable, Augustine teaches that it is something which God uses to bring His people closer to Him, and therefore the Good. For the latter, Augustine’s articulations demonstrate that the only archaic aspects of the heart are how it is bent by sin and re-directed by faulty reasoning and understandings. If one does not ground oneself in Christ, then there can be no real love, and the only truths to be found will be subjective.19 As Augustine wrote in “Homily 7: on the First Epistle of John,” There is something you may imagine, if you would see God; God is love. What sort of face has love? What form has it? What stature? What feet? What hands has it? No man can say. And yet it has feet, for these carry men to church: it has hands; for these reach forth to the poor: it has eyes; for thereby we consider the needy: Blessed is the man, it is said, who considers the needy and the poor.20

The Heart in Luther The second influential Christian voice that will be used to address the two objections to the heart is that of Martin Luther. According to Luther, the task of man is to “Love God and sin boldly.”21 The former concept is explained by Hoffman in his work Theology of the Heart. As Hoffman explains, Luther’s approach to faith was surprisingly mystical. Luther saw religion as something of an embodied phenomenon, something to be experienced. After evaluating the concept of life after death, Luther believed that living a Good Christian life came from using a different faculty only achieved through the heart. He explained that the only way to understand this way of living came from a different mechanism than faulty human reasoning. Hoffman then articulates Luther’s beliefs about the necessity of love in order to follow Christ and pursue the Good/God. While Luther does emphasize Paul’s characterization of humanity as simultaneously saint and

18 Albert C. Outler and Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430, Augustine: Confessions and Enchiridion (London: SCM, 1955), p. 11. 19 Albert C. Outler and Augustine, p. 11. 20 Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Philip Schaff, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 7 (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004). 21 Ralph Keen, “Philip Melanchthon and the Historical Luther,” Luther’s Lives, June 2010.

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The Franciscan sinner, Luther vehemently objects to looking at the latter before the former. If one does not view his neighbor or brother without the redemption given by Christ, then love and ethical/virtuous living are not possible. For Luther, reason will cause resistance, but the heart and love must, and ultimately will prevail in the end.22 How Luther’s teachings on the heart refute the objections of Flacius and Haidt stems from the core principle surmised in the statement: “God is to be loved in one’s suffering, needy, and ailing neighbors. God is thus hidden within disadvantaged humans, so that his goodness is to be seen only through them. But God may also be loved when one has experienced his love and mercy.”23 This answers the arguments of Flacius because Luther directly states that God is found within the people Flacius condemned as being inherently wicked and evil. By this logic, either evil is not merely the absence of Good, therefore making God responsible for evil, or hearts are not corrupt, therefore mooting Flacius’ entire point. As to the latter, Luther answers Haidt by stating that God, the Highest and most ultimate Good, reveals Himself in love. Although Haidt’s arguments regarding religion condemn the concept as a coping mechanism, without Christ, none can know their neighbor, therefore nullifying the notion that highly evolved minds could differentiate between emotional outbursts and moral reasoning. This approach is fortified by Luther’s assertion that the Christian responsibility to live ethically cannot be reduced to reason or rationality. Instead, Christians must implement their relationship with Christ in their daily lives in such a way as to foster continued growth in love and service, a task only accomplished through the heart.24

The Heart in Hamann The final response to the two objections regarding the heart comes from Johann Hamann. Hamann, a German Lutheran philosopher from Königsberg known as the “the Wizard of the North,” was one of the leading figures of post-Kantian philosophy, and an integral person in the Contra-Enlightenment. Unlike Kant and the rationalists of the philosophical period before him, Hamann argues that faith and religion are not based on nor subject to human reason. Instead, emotional and ethical capacity stems from the workings of the heart. Since religion deals with the metaphysical world, and the heart is seen as the interpreter and perceiver of this dimension, Hamann concludes that the only way to know of God in a high understanding is through love. Since the immaterial cannot be perceived or explained using Aristotle’s rules of reasoning, the heart is the only viable alternative. The heart perceives the immaterial world, therefore making the heart and its mechanism of love the only way to understand any of the higher Forms, and the only access to the highest Good.25 While a seemingly simple argument, Hamann’s articulations serve to disprove both objections posed against the purpose and characteristics of the heart. Regarding Flacius, Hamann disproves his theories by demonstrating that the heart is the only way to have the most straightforward understanding of God. Therefore, unless God can exist among and dwell within that which is inherently evil, Flacius’ position cannot stand. For Haidt, the nullification of his hypothesis is clear. If moral emotions require moral reasoning in order for them to be refined and

22 Kitamori Kazō, Theology of the Pain of God (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Pub., 2005), pp. 96-97. 23 Antti Raunio, "Martin Luther and Love," Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. 26 Oct. 2016. 24 Hoffman, Bengt Runo and Pearl Willemssen, Theology of the Heart: the Role of Mysticism in the Theology of Martin Luther (Minneapolis, MN: Kirk House, 2003), pp. 14-20, 227-231. 25 Ted Kinnaman, “Johann Georg Hamann (1730—1788),” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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Good, then humankind would have had to be given Goodness from something outside of itself. If morality is found only in highly evolved beings, that implies that concepts such as Goodness must have evolved as well. Moreover, while this may seem to support Haidt, it means that something which cannot be explained by reason can only be seen with reason. This is a terminal flaw in logic and would require either the acknowledgment of supernatural ideas and concepts or the admission that morality is not a signal of high evolution. Therefore, Hamann’s simple beliefs that the heart and love are needed to interact in this world to achieve an ethical life dismantle the complex arguments of secular as well as religious teachings.

Conclusion: The Heart for Contemporary Christians After evaluating the definitions, historical context, and modern applications of love regarding following one’s heart, one can then conclude on the importance of the concept in the every-day life of contemporary Christians. As shown throughout time, place, and framework, love is the key to understanding the Good. The heart, the locus and home of love, naturally desires and searches for the Good. What is understood as Good, however, is the structuring through which the heart acts. Therefore, what is implicated in situations wherein people and systems blame the individual for following their heart is not actually the heart and love itself, but rather a faulty understanding of the Good. These lessons then can be utilized by contemporary Christians in missions as well as in academics and everywhere in between. Following one’s heart is not just for those who wish to build orphanages or to teach elementary students about the love of Jesus. Instead, it is the foundation for all ethical forms of living and outreach, which can be implemented and improved the more they are practiced. The heart wishes to serve its neighbor in love, and with that understanding and uniting of the heart and the mind, the modern Christian can then go out into the world with confidence, knowing that as long as love is the guiding factor, the Good is never far off.

A New Beat In light of this new understanding of love and the role of the heart, some avenues for further investigation are those of how this change in perception of the heart ought to be implemented in everyday life and social structures. In my future writings, I will be focusing on how this can be achieved by using Agape as the steps to pursuing the Good. One of the ways this can be accomplished is through social justice. When one approaches societal issues and categorization from a transformed and non-transactional mindset of sharing love with everyone, then one can get to the root issues that affect societies and people groups across the world and across cultures. Where otherization, control, and abuse seep into structures is when love is not the driving force. Yes, every heart does want the Good, but not every person or group uses their hearts as the way to make decisions. Often, the striving for personal gain comes from non-functional self-love, wherein the abusive mentality becomes that of “I deserve this” instead of “Love, and everything after that, is a gift.” According to Williams, the transformation of justice in modern times is within reach as long as people use their hearts instead of relying solely on their reason. Love bridges gaps and stops otherization because if one views everyone as being a part of this love-centered world, then by nature, one cares for them and wishes to express that love as much and as healthily as they can. Within social justice, this can be giving equal credence to all peoples, not discriminating based

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The Franciscan upon appearance, and the like.26 While all of these actions may simply be seen as not being a bad person, social justice is that simple. Love is not complicated. It is non-altruistic. Love comes directly from God because God is love. Another component of the heart’s expressions of love for the modern Christian is love as participation. According to Howe and numerous other theologians, ancient and modern philosophers, and the bright scholarly minds of this century, love is participating in and expressing the Good towards others. While this may seem counterintuitive or not remotely possible, since God is the ultimate Good and God is also Love, it reasons to believe that the Good can be expressed and seen in terms of love, which is easier to comprehend. While what is Good is not always easy to articulate, showing and sharing love comes naturally. Love is in our nature. Our understanding of that nature has been corrupted, true. When the Fall happened, it caused a corruption of reasoning since humankind then knew what they were not meant to regarding the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, by participating in loving others instead of allowing reason to prevent outreach, one can grow in love and the understanding of it.27 How a Christian can come to grow in love, according to Bondi, is through practicing it. Like showing care to a plant or a child, nourishing the heart by allowing it to love fosters growth. By hampering the ability to interact with others, there can be no expression of love or sharing of the Good because of the way that love is structured to work.28 The last idea to be explored is that of Cooey’s belief that reaching an understanding that desiring for the Good and a better understanding of it is good. As Cooey argues, desiring for the Good, loving others, and sharing that way of living is in and of itself a good thing. Many are discouraged because they have continuously been discouraged by faulty reasoning concerning how they ought to express love. Love is unconditional, all-consuming, and the most amazing substance. By increasing awareness and understanding of the purpose and role of the heart and of love in pursuing the Good, then one can truly allow themselves to live their calling of love.29

26 Daniel Day Williams, The Spirit and the Forms of Love, (University Press of America, 1981.) 27 Reuel L. Howe, Herein Is Love, (General Books, 2010.) 28 Roberta C. Bondi, To Love as God Loves: Conversations with the Early Church, (Fortress Press, 1987.) 29 Paula Maria Cooey, Willing the Good: Jesus, Dissent, and Desire, (Augsburg Fortress, 2006.)

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Evaluating the Military Success and Conduct of The Third Earl of Peterborough during the War of the Spanish Succession, 1705-1707

David Vasquez

Abstract: This paper examines and explores the conduct and operations of Charles Mordaunt, Third Earl of Peterborough in Spain during the war of the Spanish Succession, particularly the campaign in Spain. The overarching thesis claim is that Peterborough was vital towards the success of the allied powers campaign in Spain, specifically through the ways Peterborough advocated for an offensive engagement and approach to the conquest of Spain in Catalonia. Additionally, this paper will demonstrate that without Peterborough’s efforts, the allies would have remained incapable of seizing a strategic advantage and stronghold in Spain. This paper examines the primary source materials in correspondence to and from Peterborough, particularly “An Account of the Conduct of the Earl of Peterborough in Spain” and “Letters from Peterborough to Stanhope in Spain.”

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Charles Mordaunt, Third Earl of Peterborough and the First Earl of Monmouth, served as a capital and astute military leader during the War of the Spanish Succession, particularly excelling in his military prowess during the allied campaign's battles in Valencia, Altea, and Barcelona. Peterborough’s commission as Commander-in-Chief in Spain occurred in the 1705- 1707 period. Historians often remember Peterborough as being a varied Commander, receiving scholarly praise and criticism for his successes and failures in Spain. The purpose of this essay is to assess the contributing factors that led to Peterborough’s decisions and conduct in Spain. The contributing factors demonstrate that Peterborough’s offensive campaign efforts and his willingness to advance the allied army’s control in Spain in Valencia and Altea were vital to the allies' ability to gain a foothold of defense in Spain. Without Peterborough’s efforts to securitize the Eastern Spanish front, allied operations would have been irreparably hampered. Consequently, an allied failure to such a degree would have allowed Louis XIV and the French army commanded by General Berwick to re-establish a military foothold in Spain. This essay will survey the scholarship of historians in the early 18th century, along with later scholars in the 20th century. Through this academic survey, this essay will defend the claim that Peterborough was a successful Commander-in-Chief from 1705 to 1707 in Spain. The historical records and analysis of the correspondence between Peterborough and Stanhope, The Memoirs of Captain George Carlton, and the Original Manuscripts and Records of General Arthur Parnell serve as the primary focus of this scholarly analysis. The works of Peterborough and Carlton serve to substantiate the claims made herein that not only vindicate the criticisms Churchill has displaced onto Peterborough. Indeed, these works of scholarship also prove that Peterborough's presence was paramount in ensuring allied victory, and his dismissal directly contributed to the horrendous allied defeat at Almanza. The Manuscripts of Parnell serve to provide a base of historical criticism against Peterborough. However, the former two documents serve to annul the claims made by Parnell enough to acquit Peterborough's alleged misconduct. Churchill, in a similar fashion to Parnell’s claims, provides a critical case against Peterborough. Churchill attempts to deny this supposition, writing that his evaluation “cannot try here to appraise the character and quality of ‘“Earl of Peterborough,”’ but merely to present the reflections cast upon his memorable deeds and misdeeds by Marlborough’s judgment and actions.1 Through this lens, Churchill perceives Peterborough, in the words of Hoffmann, as “a thoroughly restless and quarrelsome character, incapable of dealing with anybody.”2 Though he attempts to maintain neutrality, Churchill does not eschew away from interpreting Peterborough’s conduct through a familial biased lens prompted by Churchill’s association to the Duke of Marlborough. Such can be seen in Churchill’s evaluation of Peterborough’s quality as a leader, with Churchill stating that, about Peterborough’s military ventures in Spain, that “Probably if Marlborough had been in Peterborough’s shoes in the Lisbon discussions he would have refrained from advocacy of any course.”3 The criticism Churchill places upon Peterborough must be speculated to a degree, considering the heritage Churchill possesses with the centering protagonist in his historical analysis of the War of the Spanish Succession. The best method then, perhaps, is to assess the strategic decisions and correlative correspondence regarding Peterborough’s actions in Spain to determine the actual effectiveness of Peterborough’s military leadership; such is the purpose of this essay in determining this proposition. When evaluating what effect Peterborough had in

1 Winston Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, Book Two (University of Chicago Press, 2002), 57. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid., 59.

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Article Section creating stable and even successful relations in Spain overall, it is apparent that there are varying degrees of both failure and success. Economics and politics are critical factors in the cause of the brevity of the ongoing campaign in Spain overall. One of the most important precursors in understanding is Peterborough’s economic standpoint, which provides an essential context to understand the choices that were made by Peterborough. Peterborough possessed a high degree of popularity with the Spanish peasants in Valencia. Peterborough’s welcome by the people was so incredible that it required Lord Mordaunt “To avail himself of this favorable opening…declaring that he (a true Spaniard, no doubt) had come to deliver the nation from the yoke of foreigners.”4 Stanhope documents that after moving from Gibraltar to Altea, Peterborough’s welcome in Altea was “to surpass the most sanguine expectations.”5 The people of Spain had grown so wearied of Bourbon control that it “had produced in this province a strong feeling in favor of the Archduke [Charles III].”6 This dissent towards French rule provided Peterborough the necessary knowledge to assess what Spanish cities remained willingly under French control, granting him a gauge on anti-allied power and loyalty in Spain. These facts will become important in dispelling the criticism placed on Lord Peterborough in his failing to advance further into Spain and in establishing a more substantial presence. Despite a strong command of the Military in Valencia and enthusiastic support for Charles III in Altea, Peterborough was not without challenges in his military career in Spain. Carleton’s memoirs document that Peterborough’s forces were half of the 25,000 troops that the Duke of Anjou possessed in Barcelona.7 Carlton further records that Peterborough’s methods rendered “All difficulties sunk before the creative power of his genius,” even despite such deficiencies as forbearing “a perilous expedition, in a country ill-affected to the cause, without supplies, stores, artillery, reinforcements, or money; he created substitutes for all these deficiencies –.”8 Carlton’s analysis of Peterborough’s economic standing in Spain represents Peterborough as a Commander who was able to maintain success and personal cohesiveness, despite errant external restraints upon his military operations. Such substitutions that partially remedied Peterborough’s military budget disparities included the use of Dragoons to plunder the banks of Genoa. Such a decision was vital to maintain the necessary funds to keep the army fed, clothed, and operational, as Peterborough wrote that “all my friends we could employ in Barcelona, could not obtain 6000l. to keep our troops from starving, either upon bills for Genoa, Leghorn, Lisbon, Amsterdam, or London.”9 The correspondence of Peterborough’s to Stanhope regarding his financial burdens in Spain underscore the importance of Peterborough’s operations in Valencia, and his diplomatic efforts in working with the Spanish in guaranteeing additional supplies and resources to relieve the allies’ dire conditions in Spain. Not only would the acquisition of resources by Peterborough be necessary for his armies' survival, but it was also essential to the allies in their re-assessment of their strategy in Spain.

4 Philip Henry Stanhope Stanhope, History of the War of the Succession in Spain (J. Murrary, 1836), 135. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 George Carleton and Daniel Defoe, Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton, an English Officer; Including Anecdotes of the War in Spain under the Earl of Peterborough, and Many Interesting Particulars Relating to the Manners of the Spaniards in the Beginning of the Last Century., 2 p. ℓ., xxiii, 463 p. (Edinburgh: A. Constable and Co.; [etc., etc.], 1809), v, //catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009710726. 8 Ibid. 9 Charles Mordaunt Peterborough, Letters from the Earl of Peterborough to General Stanhope in Spain : From the Originals at Chevening (London : Printed by William Clowes, 1834), 2, http://archive.org/details/lettersfromearlo00pete.

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Peterborough, in relaying the extremities he faced to Stanhope, stated he, “cannot get provisions put into a place which must expect a siege; I cannot so much as get the breach of Barcelona repaired…I have no money left; I have no credit…we have no medicines for our sick…we shall perish without being able to get to those places which only desire to be in our hands.”10 The financial strain of the war was immensely displaced upon Peterborough in Spain, requiring Peterborough to acquire resources in whatever possible manner he could that was befitting of a General. The necessity for resources that drove Peterborough to take such forward actions was not without warrant or merit, as Peterborough had been in communication with Godolphin about the state of his financial standing. Peterborough truthfully reported to Godolphin that he had "taken the most proper measures having Bills drawn upon the Paymaster General at Lisbon…upon the Portugueses, who have given me the authority…to procure the money at any rate…"11 These resources from the Portuguese never arrived, however, prompting Peterborough to naturally pursue remedies from Genoa, as he had done so. These resources captured from Peterborough’s calculated risks allowed for the successive captures Peterborough retained in Catalonia, Valencia, Arragon, and Majorca. These captures, however, were necessary to provide Galway the luxury of “marching to Madrid without a blow.”12 Peterborough’s gamble in pursuing a rushed strategic approach in Spain was crucial to providing Galway the gateway that allowed for an allied forward military presence in Spain. Nevertheless, despite Peterborough’s success in Spain, critics would quickly assign blame to him for failing to pursue a more expedient assault on Barcelona after the capture of Valencia. Colonel Parnell was among the chief figures to criticize Peterborough’s actions, charging that “that the earl did all in his power to divert the expedition from Spain to Italy, then from Barcelona to Valencia; he held constant councils of war, as even his panegyrists admit –the known and traditional device of a general who does not care to fight…and used the decisions of the councils, which he himself dictated, as pretexts for delay.”13 This argument is incorrect for three reasons: First, Parnell even admits that Peterborough “In the actual assault lie seems to have done his duty,” admitting that the Earl did not fail in his endeavors to capture Valencia, indicating an alternative explanation for the Earl’s decision in maintaining and slower pursuit is apparent. Additionally, Peterborough’s calculus of assault was not merely assessing the comparative powers between allied English and Spanish military, but also the degree to which the Spanish citizens would support the de facto emperor of Spain at the time, Charles III of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor. In Valencia, for example, where Peterborough had successfully led a desirable and successful capture, “Lord Peterborough saw the people friendly, the local authorities dismayed.”14 Additionally, support for Charles III remained high to the South in Altea. Where the people, upon learning of Valencia's capture, “came rushing down to Altea with loud proclamations of Viva

10 Ibid., 3. 11 A. C. M. Urwick and Peterborough, “932. CHARLES MORDAUNT, 3rd EARL OF PETERBOROUGH,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 54, no. 217, (1976): 60. 12 Carleton and Defoe, Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton, an English Officer; Including Anecdotes of the War in Spain under the Earl of Peterborough, and Many Interesting Particulars Relating to the Manners of the Spaniards in the Beginning of the Last Century., v. 13 Arthur R. Ropes, "The War of the Succession in Spain during the reign of Queen Anne, 1702-1711, Based on Original Manuscripts and Contemporary Records by Arthur Parnell," ed. Arthur Parnell, The English Historical Review 4, no. 13 (1889): 181. 14 Stanhope, History of the War of the Succession in Spain, 137.

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Carlos Tercero! Viva! (Long life to Charles the Third!) and loaded all kinds of fresh provisions for the use of his army”.15 However, though support in certain areas was high for Charles III, in French Bourbon occupied areas of Spain such as Almanza and Barcelona, there remained a formidable force and French occupation. Stanhope credits Peterborough with his realization that the Duke of Berwick could pose no formidable threat to the allies at Madrid, as Berwick “could not move alone: he must be closely followed by Galway and Das Minas; and while marching to repel one invasion, would undoubtedly draw another into the heart of Spain.”16 This calculated plan led Peterborough and Stanhope to conclude that “on approaching Madrid, he would not only find the English in possession of it, and ready to meet him in front, but would be pressed by a second army from behind, would, therefore, be placed between two fires, and either be beaten in battle, or compelled to a retreat.”17 To compound matters even more positively, such a conquest with an anticipated victory would have allowed for Peterborough and the allied forces to establish a forward military presence in Gibraltar.18 This presence in Gibraltar would have allowed the allies to possess a base much closer to England in Spain, even if Galway would fail in an attack against Berwick.19 Additionally, it would have also allowed safe passage for supplies to ship through Spain. This would not have been a possibility should the French- occupied Barcelona remain under French control. Such a failure to retake Barcelona would open the door to cut allied supplies to the English in Spain, a failure that would make the capture of Spain nearly impossible “without a long and laborious siege.”20 What, then, led Charles Mordaunt to refrain from an invasion of Madrid, combined with a successive march from Galway and Das Minas that would have most assuredly guaranteed success in Spain? Why did Peterborough take such expensive and hasty actions that contributed to his ultimate recall and the dismantling of his command in Spain? The answer lies in the Maginot Line and the subsequent Achilles Heel of Peterborough’s campaign: Charles III. Peterborough writes that Charles III’s policies, along with his “arrogant generals proved especially difficult.”21 Such were the difficulties that Peterborough faced with Charles’ generals that, in his letters to Stanhope, Peterborough wrote, “God preserve any country from the best of German Ministers! They have spent their whole time in selling places; all the money in the town so disposed of.”22 Not only was Charles’ ministers responsible for Peterborough’s externally seeming lavish lifestyle and tremendous expense, but it is also unfortunately apparent that Charles served as the primary hindrance in Peterborough’s seemingly flawless proposition to occupy Madrid. Dickinson aptly notes that,

It was generally considered that Charles III should make haste to Madrid in order to assume the crown of Spain. The task seemed so hopeful that it appeared all Charles had to do was embark on his coach unto the

15 Ibid., 136. 16 Peterborough, Letters from the Earl of Peterborough to General Stanhope in Spain, 138. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 B. van Thal, “Book Review: The Great Earl of Peterborough,” ed. Colin Ballard, The Journal of Modern History 2, no. 3 (1930): 487. 22 H. T. Dickinson, “THE EARL OF PETERBOROUGH’S CAMPAIGN IN VALENCIA, 1706,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 45, no. 181, (1967): 35.

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capital. No considerable force now stood between the allies and Madrid while in western Spain, an Anglo- Portuguese army under the Earl of Galway and the Marquis das Minas was already marching on the capital.23

A pursued campaign through Spain did not come to fruition, however, as the decision not to pursue Madrid came from the directive of Charles III, against the better wishes and advice of Peterborough. As such, Dickinson continues, stating that,

Unfortunately, the recent success in relieving Barcelona and the dazzling prospect of reaching Madrid did little to breach the rift between Lord Peterborough and the Court in Barcelona. The Earl complained to a friend that “the influence of the German ministry is capable perhaps of ruining all our endeavors in Spain though we had able and honest men here…”The King is obstinate in some circumstances beyond expression, where there is nothing but matters of form and pride.24

Peterborough’s criticism of Charles’ decisions ultimately led to a fracturing of relations between the Earl and the German court, as Charles “could neither brook the petulant language in which his general (Peterborough) too much indulged…The royal attendants, in like manner, looked with undisguised abhorrence upon a man who neither courted their interest nor affected to value their opinions.”25 It is very apparent, therefore, what attributing factors led to the failure of the allies to maintain a cohesive dominating strategy in controlling and occupying Spain. With regards to Peterborough, especially, one can see that the case for Peterborough being a military commander skewed by bureaucracy is much more self-evident and probable when juxtaposed with the claim that Peterborough was merely a haughty, ill-suited and irrational Commander-in-Chief. Critics would state that the command of the eastern front in Spain was a joint operation “under the direction of Charles III and the Earl of Peterborough,” yet this claim does not do justice to the varying political restraints placed upon Lord Peterborough. Tragically, the inability of Peterborough to exercise more autonomous control, along with already being strained for resources, indefinitely contributed to the defeat at Almanza in 1707. This defeat inevitably left “Spain in the hands of the Bourbon claimant, Philip of Anjou,” which eventually would lead the English government to have “recalled the Earl of Peterborough to answer charges of misconduct. The stage appeared to be set for another round of partisan finger- pointing with political as well as military reputations hanging in the balance.”26 Rather than placing blame upon the Austrian indecisiveness and the lack of Portuguese funding, it was merely much more comfortable for the English Parliament, and certain historians to assign blame to Peterborough, and state his “brief military career is also a tissue of falsehoods.”27 These tarnishing claims upon a successful, albeit a challenging and truthfully mired career, demonstrate that Peterborough cannot accept sole blame for his actions in Spain, nor can he be entirely credited with exclusive success, as his initial military successes in Altea and Valencia had mainly relied upon the banner of Charles III behind Peterborough’s command. While the successes of Charles Mordaunt, Third Earl of Peterborough, remain varied, several conclusions can certainly be drawn that serve to vindicate many claims made against Peterborough when assessing his command in Spain. Overall, Peterborough’s successes are mainly

23 H. T. Dickinson, “THE RECALL OF LORD PETERBOROUGH,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 47, no. 191, (1969): 175. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., 179. 26 Ibid. 27 Ropes, "The War of the Succession in Spain during the reign of Queen Anne, 1702-1711, Based on Original Manuscripts and Contemporary Records by Arthur Parnell," 181.

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Article Section owed to his use of the resources that he had at his disposal. Peterborough faced tremendous financial and political adversity, lacking the proper financial resources necessary to bring his plans to conquer Madrid to fruition individually. Additionally, much of the critical scholars such as Parnell and Churchill place on Peterborough’s character can also be resolved by the fact that Peterborough, though he was immensely limited by bureaucracy, did not act out of the instruction of the King he was pledged to and served in Spain. Therefore, though his recall of military action in Spain, and his eventual recall from military service overall may have damaged his political image, one can see that Peterborough’s honor and virtue remained intact because of Peterborough’s disposition as a man possessing the virtue of Marlborough. Therefore, Peterborough, restricted by powers beyond his control, should be praised for the successful endeavors he was able to achieve. Also, Peterborough should receive a certain level of leniency, as one can see through the works of Stanhope, Carlton, and Dickinson that Peterborough truly excelled in his position as Commander-in-Chief, despite the aristocratic inhibitions littered throughout his Spanish campaign. In this manner, not only was Peterborough a victorious general, he was a definite strategic necessity for the allied forces' grand strategy in the War of the Spanish Succession.

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The Han Dynasty: A Golden Age of Eastern Freedoms

Denise Sprimont & David Vasquez

Abstract: Anocratic principles of representative government and the promotion of individualism through Confucianism not only gave liberty to citizens in Han China but also provided them with the ability to challenge the supremacy and sovereignty of the Emperor of China. Current research on the Han dynasty lacks analysis of the political structure of the Han Dynasty. However, the shift between the Qin and Han Dynasty, a change from a monarchical and aristocratic government to an anocratic government, has had a long-lasting effect on Chinese governance. This paper examines the Han Dynasty’s political, cultural, religious, and economic institutions to compare and contrast the shifts in government and political hierarchies from previous administrations. The results of this evidence show the inverse correlation between the changes in the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty’s laws, and the change in society, culture, religion, and the economy. There are two implications from the research of the Han Dynasty. First, the foundations of its original Golden Age came from internal development and liberalization, not external western democratization. Secondarily, the anocractic principles that emerged in the wake of the tyrannical Qin empire doom the thesis that modern China is incapable of democratic and liberal reform and gives hope to the oppressed who seek for the dawning of a second golden era in China.

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In 147 B.C., Tian Shu arrived to take his place as Governor of the Commandery of Lu in China. When he arrived, more than one hundred commoners went to protest because the prince, Liu Yu, had seized their property unjustly. Tian reacted with disgust and had twenty of the leaders beaten for their inappropriate boldness. Tian’s actions demonstrated the ancient principle that those who challenged authority in any context would become an example to other would-be rebels through severe punishment. When the prince found out, he was angry with the Governor and decreed that recompense for the beating to be paid from the palace treasury. The dissonance between the Governor and his superior in their perception of the political hierarchy is striking. This interaction raises the question of the form of government of this Golden Age of China.1 The Han Dynasty rose to power in 206 B.C. in the wake of a revolution against the former tyrannical and imperial Dynasty, the Qin. Led by the King of Hanzhong, Liu Bang, Chinese peasants, and generals overthrew the Qin Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi. Liu Bang was established as the Emperor of the Han Dynasty and founded a new governmental structure that synthesized an imperial rule and democratic principles. Liu Bang’s reforms altered not only the course of the Han Dynasty but also the entirety of Chinese history. For the next four hundred years, the Han Dynasty would see a massive improvement in their economy, landmass, and governmental structure. The Han Dynasty endured until 220 A.D. when a power vacuum allowed three warlords— Cao Cao of Wei, Sun Quan of Wu, and Liu Bei of Shu to create a civil war within the Han Empire. This period, known as The Three Kingdoms Period, would mark the end of the Golden Age of China. An examination of the Han Dynasty and the unique anocractic structure of government through the development of the social, political, religious, and economic order throughout the Han Dynasty reveals the inadequacy in scholarly understanding of the events that led to the development of institutions in the Han Dynasty. The implications of an examination to these institutions reveal their significance in how the Monarchical or Aristocratic structure of the Han government shifted to anocracy, the adoption of religion through Confucian ideals, and the social benefits gained from both the newfound promotion of natural law as well as the economic benefit to the individual through territorial expansion. Thus, this paper raises questions regarding the connection between governmental structure and reforms to the social, economic, political, and religious order. It also brings to light concerning the validity of a defense of a structural change to government that led to a massive reform. This paper will answer these questions by showing the link between a decrease in monarchical, aristocratic, and tyrannical rule, and the subsequent growth in political and religious freedom, leading to a higher value of the natural and written law that increased societal order and virtue. These changes caused economic expansion by increasing the rights and freedoms of social institutions through governmental reforms. Scholars tend to set the trajectory of their research on affirming the Han government's identity as either monarchical or aristocratic in nature, with the restoration of a centralized government explaining the prosperity and expansion of the Han Dynasty.2 This paper will seek to prove that the growth and opulence of the Han Dynasty came from an anocratic shift in political institutions, which resulted in the development and success of social, religious, and economic institutions. The framework of anocracy, then, shall focus on how the centralized government demonstrated elements of representative government in an imperial regime, thus allowing for principles such as natural law

1 Ban and Dubs, 37.1983. 2 See Clyde B. Sargent, “Subsidized History: Pan Ku and the Historical Records of the Former Han Dynasty,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 3, no. 2 (1944): 119–43, https://doi.org/10.2307/2049763 and; M. Loewe, “The Orders of Aristocratic Rank of Han China,” T’oung Pao 48, no. 1/3 (1960): 97–174.

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The Franciscan and Confucian political thought to flourish. This phenomenon was unique to the Han Dynasty and was not possible under the previous monarchy, the Qin Dynasty. Previous to this paper, scholarship has evaluated the political status of the government of Han China in the context of a single influencing factor (social, political, economic, or religious). However, there has not been a holistic evaluation of these four factors and their influence on the governmental structure of the Han government. Some have proposed that the Han Dynasty was a pure monarchy due to the heavily centralized government and the sovereign power of the emperor.3 Others have countered this with the argument that the Han Dynasty was an aristocracy, due to the hierarchical nature of the arrangement of the government into layers of officials.4 Both of these have been simplified by scholars to argue that Han China was an early form of feudalism, with vassal states and an aristocratic government structure.5 This paper will argue that a survey of social, political, economic, and religious factors leads to the conclusion that the Han Dynasty was an anocracy. The Golden Age of China was supported by a hierarchical structure of government that was marked by unprecedented political freedom for all of the populace and was distinct from the previous dynasties through civil freedom, protections and the undermining of the absolute authority of the emperor and other officials in a reconstructed governmental system. The Han Dynasty has long been regarded as the Golden Age of China, changing the structure of the imperial government and paving a path for a better China. While these words certainly give Han China credit for its significant achievements, the West tends to disregard the significance and nuance of the changes between the Qin and Han Dynasty. Through the rise of previously banned schools of thought, political law influenced the social fabric of China, which introduced religious principles and ideals such as Confucianism. This moral structure provided society with a moral structure that governed power structures within the civil and political realm and influenced how individual morality and virtue. These drastic changes allowed for the rise of political agency, promoting not only social virtues but also economic expansion and development through market liberalization. This economic growth led to the opening of the Silk Road, and a period of immense wealth and territorial expansion. This brought about what scholars have coined the “Golden Age of Ancient China.” The Golden Age is marked by the governmental structure of the Han Dynasty, which shifted away from imperialistic rule to a society primarily governed by representatives of the people, or by the people themselves. The shift in the role of the emperor from an active administrative function to a role with nominal power created a political environment that allowed for politically, religiously, and economically motivated criticism of the emperor, effectively ending the monarchical power of the emperor to rule with full sovereign power. This shift marked a distinctly anocratic beginning to the Han Dynasty, which allowed for the rise of personal freedom and opened the Chinese to new forms of political thought, religious liberty, social freedoms, and economic prosperity.

Historical Narrative To understand the rise and decline of the Han Dynasty, one must understand the events that led to the creation of the principles, ideals, and policies that shaped the Han Dynasty. It has been purported by Dr. Arthur F. Wright that, “... [Dynasties], like men, have their periods of birth,

3 See Michael Loewe, Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China (Cambridge University Press, 1994). 4 See M. Loewe, “The Orders of Aristocratic Rank of Han China,” T’oung Pao 48, no. 1/3 (1960): 97–174. 5 See Clyde B. Sargent, “Subsidized History: Pan Ku and the Historical Records of the Former Han Dynasty,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 3, no. 2 (1944): 119–43, https://doi.org/10.2307/2049763.

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Article Section growth, maturity, senescence, and death...In its genesis a Dynasty received the mandate to rule from Heaven, which recognized the justice and promise of the new regime. And at its end a Dynasty lost the mandate when its performance...destroyed the moral basis of a good society.” Ergo, if the premise that the formation of Dynasties comes from the succession of one Dynasty in the wake of another is true, one must understand what was unique about the fall of the Qin Dynasty (the Han Dynasty’s predecessor) to understand the historical context that ushered in the “Golden Age” of Ancient China through the Han Dynasty. The predecessor to the Han Dynasty, the Qin Dynasty, lasted from 221 to 206 B.C.. The Qin Empire operated on ruthless legal practices, drafting Qin citizens into the military, extensive taxes that crippled Chinese merchants, and the burning of any text that spoke ill of the Emperor or his policies. Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi enacted policies to forcefully deport citizens, who he then forced to conquer lands in the northern regions of China, claiming the newly conquered territory as a part of China. Qin Shi Huangdi then enforced totalitarian laws in the new parts of his empire, without the permission of the people and without consulting their former leaders, thus forcing them to assimilate into Qin Chinese culture.6 The ruthless tyranny of Huangdi has prompted Chinese scholars to liken him to the Nero of the east.7 Once the Emperor established imperial rule through Chinese military hegemony, the Qin tyranny expanded to education, where Emperor Huangdi took measures to obliterate free thinking and intellectual opposition by banning ethical writings from scholarly authors, an event later entitled by Han Chinese as ‘The Burning of The Books.”8 However, this imperial rule failed to last for an extensive period. When Shi Huangdi died in 210 B.C., one of his younger sons, Huhai, was appointed emperor by Shi Huangdi’s former statesmen, Li Si. Huhai was not a cruel and ruthless emperor like his predecessor, leading to rebellion after rebellion due to widespread civil unrest and unpopularity in the Qin regime. Over the next three years, rebellions continued to occur as a result of the collapsed imperialistic structure. Revolts came from both peasant people who resented the persecutory tax levied upon them, and from Chinese scholarly intellectuals who no longer recognized the authority of the Qin empire.9 These revolts against the state resulted in the execution of Li Si in 209 B.C., and Emperor Huhai would be driven to suicide a year after.10 As a result, Zhao Gao, who was the next statesmen in line for the throne, assumed power for himself. Zhao Gao met a similar fate in 207 B.C. when he was assassinated by rebels, effectively destroying the remaining power structure that the central government relied on to prop up the Qin empire.11 The collapse of the administrative leaders in the Qin dynasty resulted in civil war throughout the kingdom. The civil conflict came to a head when the Qin military, the Chu rebel faction that spawned as insurrectionists to the Qin regime, the Western Chinese King of the Bashu region, and soon to be Han Emperor Liu Bang’s armies clashed in 206 B.C..12 Liu Bang emerged decidedly as the victor of the civil war in 202 ʙ.ᴄ. This victory caused the shift away from tyrannical rule and marked a new era for China in the Han Dynasty. This shift from despotism was

6 J.A.G Roberts, Life in Early China (United Kingdom: Sutton Publishing, 2007), 81. 7 Joseph R. Levenson and Franz Schurmann, China: An Interpretive History, 2nd Edition (Berkeley and Los Angeles California: University of California Press, 1969), 79. 8 Hook and Twitchett, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, 150. 9 Levenson and Schurmann, China: An Interpretive History, 81. 10 Hook and Twitchett, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, 150. 11 Hook and Twitchett, 150. 12 Hook and Twitchett, 150.

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The Franciscan not mere coincidence, as Liu Bang faced severe opposition due to the fear from the Chu rebels the rise of a peaceful emperor would only cause more despotism and tyranny.13 Liu Bang sought to reconcile this issue when he assumed power in 202 B.C.. Bang’s priorities focused on preserving the administrative authority of the Qin empire, while also ensuring that there was an increase of equality and civil liberty for the kingdoms and provinces to prevent a recurrence of a civil war. 14 This compromise led to Liu Bang promoting the separation of powers by dividing up conquered land amongst his allies and his relatives who ruled over individual kingdoms in ancient China. Thus, sharing authority and power between allies was cemented in Liu Bang’s rule, leading to the creation of aristocracy in the Han, which led to greater peace and security.15 Also, Confucianism began to emerge in the era of the Han dynasty, an emergence Liu Bang played to his support through the compromise of central power.16 The move towards Confucianism meant that officials had to place proper and significant value in the Confucian values of integrity and proper behavior that grew to become standardized in the administration of the Han regime.17 Ergo, Confucian values in integrity led to the development of more personal and familial relationships between social organizations and relationships; the implications of the structures of relationships meant that the emperor was not the sole imperial ruler over every citizen. Instead, society was a conglomeration of individuals answering to several superiors and subordinates before the emperor, indicating individuals possessed more autonomy and liberty.18 The collapse of the first half of the Han Dynasty and the corruption of the anocratic principles of the central government came in 9 B.C. when the founder and first Emperor of the Xin Dynasty, Wang Mang, came to power. As the statesmen charged with the task of ruling over the child Emperor Han Chengdi (33-7 B.C.), Wang Mang rose to power in the imperial court by assimilating control of the Emperor’s title.19 When Wang Mang became the official regent for Emperor Chengdi,20 he seized control of the empire by deposing the official emperor.21 Wang Mang attempted to justify his rule, claiming a hereditary right to rule the throne to secure a more convincing and authoritative right to rule.22 However, this false claim to legitimacy failed, as evident by the renowned Ancient Chinese scholar Pan Ku’s account in The Historical Records of the Han Dynasty.23 Pan Ku ensured that the legitimacy of Wang Mang remained insufficient, placing the biographical information of Wang Mang directly after a biographical section regarding “savages” and “barbarians.”24 This slander towards Wang Mang can only be interpreted as a Confucian “subtlety of condemnation,” as Pan Ku dedicated twelve annals in his work to the former emperors and dynastic rulers in the Han dynasty, which preceded Wang Mang’s rule.25 The

13 Levenson and Schurmann, China: An Interpretive History, 81. 14 Levenson and Schurmann, 81. 15 Levenson and Schurmann, 82. 16 Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Chinese Civilization and Society: A Sourcebook (New York: Free Press, 1981), 48. 17 Ebrey, 48. 18 Ebrey, 48. 19 Hook and Twitchett, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, 154. 20 “In China, Regent of the emperor” meant that the tasks and responsibilities of the emperor were tasked to a specific individual known as the Regent in order to fulfill the requirements of an Emperor till the official Emperor was of age to assume his mantle of leadership. 21 Levenson and Schurmann, China: An Interpretive History, 95. 22 Michael Loewe, “Wang Mang and His Forbears: The Making of the Myth,” T’oung Pao 80, no. 4/5 (1994): 198. 23 Clyde B. Sargent, “Subsidized History: Pan Ku and the Historical Records of the Former Han Dynasty,” The Far Eastern Quarterly 3, no. 2 (1944): 124, https://doi.org/10.2307/2049763. 24 Sargent, 124. 25 Sargent, 124.

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Article Section illegitimacy of Wang Mang’s rule eventually called into question the legitimacy of the government itself in 23 A.D., when riots broke out in the capital city of Chang’an, ultimately ending in a ransacking of the imperial palace, along with the overthrow and death of Wang Mang as well. This was due in part to Wang Mang appealing to legalists to hedge back against Confucian dissent. Wang made several politically driven policies, such as the limiting of private property to forty-two acres per owner, government control of granaries to ensure market equilibrium, and prevent inflation, along with state-run money-lending businesses.26 These policies failed drastically, due to the proponent supporters of Wang distributing granary funds and supply unequally to themselves; the poor in China never had an opportunity to see the benefits of this granary system.27 Wang Mang’s straw to break the Chinese citizens’ back came with additional taxes, which sent shocks throughout the economic market in China, destabilizing the currency and further decreasing support and public opinion of Wang Mang.28 Wang’s end came in 23 A.D. through a combination of rebellion and an alteration in the course of the Yellow River, which was believed to be a sign of the imbalance in Yin and Yang, signaling catastrophe and destruction, giving rebellious citizens all the reason necessary to depose Wang Mang.29 Thus, the oligarchy of legalism and the life of Wang Mang were short-lived, and the sour taste left in Chinese citizens' mouths meant that the re- ascension of the new Han empire held no protests. The shift from an oligarchic society to a more anocratic society was birthed in the Eastern Han dynasty in 25 A.D. when the first Emperor of Later Han Liu Xiu attained power.30 The Eastern Han Empire realigned with Former Han practices in law while offering new approaches to hierarchical structures in government.31 Eastern Han expanded upon the religious thought and proliferation of free-thinking through the expansion of the legalistic Daoist religious practices, along with the eventual founding of Buddhist establishments.32 Liu Xiu saw that the heavy emphasis on idealism rooted in Confucian thought led to the unstable collapse of the Western Han, and thus aired towards Legalistic thinking found in the Daoist tradition. This balance of idealism and legalism led to the eventual development of a significant academy of political thought at Luoyang, the capital of the Eastern Han dynasty, with an emphasis on a classical education that trained students in Confucian thought with an extensive Daoist education to correlate.33 One of the main reasons for this correlation was that Daoism, though legalistic, still was able to function under Confucianism as both pursued the same goal of harmony and an overarching philosophical ethic as a result.34

Introduction of The Han Dynasty The developments that led to the liberalization of the social, economic, and political structure of China are often forgotten, locked away in texts, and are largely unread in favor of a more contemporary historical education. Ancient Chinese political achievements are limited to concepts or landmarks that the West has similarities to, such as the Great Wall or Dynastic Cycle. Ancient

26 Levenson and Schurmann, China: An Interpretive History, 96. 27 Levenson and Schurmann, 96. 28 Levenson and Schurmann, China: An Interpretive History, 97. 29 Ebrey, Chinese Civilization and Society, 77. 30 Hook and Twitchett, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, 156. 31 Hook and Twitchett, 156. 32 Hook and Twitchett, 157. 33 Hook and Twitchett, 157. 34 Levenson and Schurmann, China: An Interpretive History, 116.

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China is taken at its face value, precluding meaningful discussion about the social and governmental institutions. Thus, it is necessary to address the context and foundation of the period, and the nuance that led to the growth and development of the Han regime which has come to earn the title for the period known as the “Golden Age” of Ancient China. The Han Dynasty provided a new foundation for all proceeding Dynasties through an increase in centralized and demarcated government control, while also ushering in a new era of peace through Anocracy that resolved the issue of tyrannical imperial rule and chaotic despotism found in warring nation-states and the preceding empires. The ascension of the Han empire (202 B.C.-220 A.D.) came in the wake of an insurrection in the former Qin (Chin) regime. The revolt was a rejection of the authoritarianism and intellectual conformity that sought to suppress free thought under the 1st Emperor of Qin, Shi Huangdi.35 Shi Huangdi tried to remove ethical ideals promulgated by erudite criticism. The criticism of the Qin empire declared that Shi Huangdi’s legalist system of laws and penalties created a society of oppression, which in turn made the populace resentful and hostile towards Shi Huangdi and the laws he established.36 The demise of the Qin empire began with Liu Bang, a statesman in central China, whose political movement ushered in a new era for China.37 Once in power, Liu Bang sought to reduce or eliminate the severities that had been created by the former regime.38 While aspects of Qin political order remained in the Han Dynasty (such as the imperial rule over kingdoms and the continuation of statewide taxes), Liu Bang sought to avoid the political mistakes made from Qin policy while maintaining their organizational success.39 Liu Bang faced a substantial barrier to ruling China because of the power dichotomy between providing more social and political freedom to kingdoms and citizens, while also preserving the rule of one Emperor, as was done in the Qin Dynasty (Emperor Liu fervently believed that maintaining imperial rule was necessary to emulate the administrative success of the Qin Dynasty).40 The solution to this problem was not straightforward and required the council of several scholars and statesmen. The council of statesmen, and the politicians that made up the council, such as Lu Jia (228 B.C.-140 A.D.), brought the answer to preserving the Han Dynasty. Lu Jia advised a milder version of Qin law, advocating for less severe punishment, and for more independence for the kingdoms that fell under the emperor’s rule. This model presented continuity between the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BCE) by utilizing similar policies and procedures for how the courts and laws would proceed while introducing milder forms of the Qin empires’ administrative policies. 41 Liu Bang’s next significant alteration to traditional political infrastructure was to move the capital of the Han empire from Luoyang, in the Western region of China to Guanzhong, in the Northern region.42 The geographical shift from Xianyang to Luoyang represented a symbolic break from the era of tyrannical rule under the Qin Dynasty to a more independent and autonomous society under the Han Dynasty, where criticism and dissident opinions were allowed, and even

35 Brian Hook and Denis Crispin Twitchett, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China (Cambridge England; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 151. 36 Michèle Pirazzoli-t’Serstevens, The Han Dynasty (New York: Rizzoli, 1982), 18. 37 Hook and Twitchett, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, 152. 38 Hook and Twitchett, 152. 39 An Liu et al., The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China, by Liu An, King of Huainan (Columbia University Press, 2010), 2. 40 Mark Edward Lewis, The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han (Cambridge, Mass.; London: Belknap, 2010), 60. 41 Liu et al., The Huainanzi, 3. 42 Lewis, The Early Chinese Empires, 61.

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Article Section welcomed.43 This change provided independence to kings ruling over the regions of China that fell under Liu Bang’s jurisdiction, freedom for statesmen to criticize or offer council to the Emperor, and liberty and equality the Han Chinese people socially and politically. The transition into the Han Dynasty began with the regional demarcation of territories in China that were previously ruled by tribes and warlords in the Qin Dynasty. Liu Bang established civil governors, military governors, and a direct representative of the people to the central government in areas where former warring states once ruled. This eliminated the Ancient Warring tribes in favor of a more centralized and representative government.44 Liu Bang expanded on this model of centralized government, adding provinces, commanderies, and counties45 to nation-states formerly ruled by Qin warlords.46 The critical difference between the Han and Qin empires with these expanded states was that Liu Bang allowed political figures to leverage their power against the Emperor and his imperial control.47 Initially, scholars and statesmen within Liu Bang’s court advised against such a proposal, arguing that too much freedom would result in revolt from kingdoms that would grow too independent.48 This fear wasn’t realized throughout much of the early Han dynasty, as only a few kingdoms still clinging to the Qin Dynasty revolted against Liu Bang. Absent of these revolts, which were seldom in comparison to the unstable Qin Dynasty, the peace that marked the Han Dynasty came from the Emperor delegating roles and offices to political leaders to centralize power and extend the policies from the Qin Dynasty.49 This unique element that cemented Han emperors’ rule came to complete fruition in 139 B.C. when the imperial kinsman Liu An presented to the emperor at the time, Emperor Wu, the Huainanzi (Master of Huainan), the master document on monarchy and kingship in China.50 The Huainanzi provided all the necessary knowledge for a monarch of China to rule adequately, providing both a fundamental understanding of human nature and society, while also giving a wide array of applications to be made for specific concerns to instill wisdom and practicality in the emperor.51 This framework for how a leader should rule provided the dynastic changes necessary for the Han empire, moving away from imperialistic, warring nation-states under the Qin, to a peaceful and independent society in Han China.

The Opening of the Silk Road The opening of the Silk Road (130 ʙ.ᴄ.) represented the outgrowth of the anocracy of Han China. It demonstrated the shift from economic and political isolationism to political trade with nearly all of Asia, Southern Europe, and Northern Africa. China primarily exported silk, and in exchange, received commodities such as Roman gold, wool, amber, ivory, and glass.52 The Silk Road served

43 Lewis, 61. 44 William Scott Morton, China: Its History and Culture (Lippincott & Crowell, 1980), 45. 45 In contemporary terms these would be countries, sub-divisions of countries (states or provinces), and counties within those sub-divisions. 46 Rafe De Crespigny, A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD) (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2007), 1228. 47 Walter Scheidel, Rome and China. ; Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires. (Oxford University Press, 2011), 56. 48 Liu et al., The Huainanzi, 4. 49 Scheidel, Rome and China. ; Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires., 56. 50 Liu et al., The Huainanzi, 1. 51 Liu et al., 1. 52 Lewis, The Early Chinese Empires, 115.

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The Franciscan as the mechanism for the economic expansion of the Han Dynasty, while providing China with an excess of economic capital, to the point at which the Roman naturalist Pliny “complained about oriental luxuries…draining Roman treasuries.”53 It is important to note that although the Silk Road did lead to an economic boom in the Han dynasty, it did not directly lead to the democratization of China. Rome had no knowledge of China beyond its silk trade. Sino-Roman relations, then, were purely economic and did not ever contribute to the Han Dynasty’s political development.54 Most Roman citizens merely referred to Han Chinese as “the silk people,” whereas most Han Chinese only knew of a “Great Qin” empire to the west. Since trade was purely economic, Rome and China did not engage in the political or ideological exchange of ideas in 1st-century ʙ.ᴄ.55 The ignorance of Eastern political structure in the West, and the ignorance of Western governmental system in the East was due in part to the trade routes, and the way commodities were exported in the ancient world. Asian trade routes were not direct; they typically passed through Central Asian markets such as India, Afghanistan, and Persia, before reaching Western nations such as Rome. Silk, for example, was not directly sent from China to Rome, for no merchant ever traveled from either Empire to the other. Instead, trade from China made its way to Central Asian markets, then to more Western nations until it reached Rome.56 Chinese expansion of trade to the West became possible when a longer period of peace was achieved throughout Central Asia and Southern Europe. This was partially due to the high demand for Chinese silk, which was valuable in the Roman world. This created an incentive to ensure the network of trade remained intact for merchant trade to remain stable throughout the ancient world.57 The increased trade bolstered China’s hegemony, which strengthened their war efforts against the warring Xiongnu confederacy to the north from previous failures to suppress and defeat the Xiongnu.58 The failure to properly extinguish the Xiongnu threat stemmed from the size of the Chinese military, which was too large to mobilize in short enough period to counteract the Xiongnu forces. The Xiongnu’s tactical warring tribes made their combat and ability to maneuver much faster than the Chinese military, giving them the opportunity to invade rural Chinese villages and retreat North before the Chinese army could mobilize to launch a counter-offensive. Originally, previous emperors such as Emperor Wendi (157-141 ʙ.ᴄ.) had pacified the Xiongnu with gifts that would deter the Xiongnu from attacking the northern rural region of China.59 This pattern of appeasement shifted when Emperor Wudi (Liu Che) of Han came to power. Emperor Wudi took a more direct approach towards the Xiongnu. Rather than mobilizing the military to try and meet a Xiongnu invasion, Emperor Wudi established a military district in the home of the Xiongnu, Mongolia. Furthermore, Emperor Wudi created a permanent defensive line along the western front of Manchuria province to the north of Mongolia.60 This military expansion by Emperor Wudi had several implications. Chinese military presence became permanent in the North of China, deterring the Xiongnu from invading the rural province of Gansu. The expansion of military presence in the North led to policies that expanded the military sphere of protection for

53 Michael Adas, Agricultural and Pastoral Societies in Ancient and Classical History (Temple University Press, 2001), 155. 54 Scheidel, Rome and China. ; Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires., 5. 55 Lewis, The Early Chinese Empires, 143. 56 Lewis, 143. 57 Hook and Twitchett, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, 47. 58 Hook and Twitchett, 153. 59 Hook and Twitchett, 153. 60 Hook and Twitchett, 153.

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Han merchants traveling along the Northern trade route of the Silk Road. This policy became more expansive throughout Emperor Wudi’s reign, leading to the protection of precious silk caravans traveling West along the Silk Road. Thus, as trade routes became more defined and utilized from Central Asia to the west, so did the military presence of the Han dynasty to secure the protections of these caravans. The Silk Road marked a period of immense growth in Chinese trade, expanding trade from nations located throughout Central Asia, to the shores of the Roman Empire. The trading of silk also provided the Han military with the necessary capital to combat the Xiongnu and expand the Han Empire further North and West in Mongolia and Manchuria, providing safe access for merchants traveling along the Northern route of the Silk Road. Ergo, the Silk Road’s expanse led to a period of immense wealth and prosperity in Han China, while also providing one of the longest periods of security for a Chinese Dynasty.

Ancient Eastern Anocracy

There is a rich vocabulary for Western and human right centric political systems, but “an adequate conceptual framework for categorizing and understanding different forms of authoritarian government” has not yet been developed.61 This has caused several problems for the development of Political Thought as it relates to history. Because of the lack of both conceptual framework and exhaustive vocabulary, historians face difficulty both categorizing and defining Ancient Eastern regimes. Because of this, Ancient Eastern regimes have been over-simplified and dismissed as “imperialistic” or “monarchical” without consideration for political nuance. It is necessary, then, to create a framework that is appropriate for historical application and useful for analyzing Ancient China. To properly understand political institutions and governmental development, various “types” of government must be analyzed as dynamic, not static.62 That is, no government will be entirely monarchical, autocratic, or democratic in nature or practice. It is helpful, then, to think of types of government on a gradient scale. A country may be more or less democratic, with monarchical or autocratic tendencies or undertones. Practically, it is difficult to label a government without generalization. In this paper, “democracy” will not refer to a pure democracy, rather to underlying democratic principles and values, such as moderation, the freedom of the individual, wisdom, and equality.63 A proper intellectual framework for Ancient Eastern “Democracy” would include three main categories: governmental structure (marked by institutional independence through the separation of powers), civil principles that encourage the freedom, virtue and due process for individuals, and the participation of the citizenry in civic activities. Democratic governmental structure manifests itself in the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, and institutional means for public discourse. The cultural values and principles that encourage democracy place a social emphasis on the importance of the rule of law. Therefore, democracy values and encourages “civil culture with all its ingredients such as moderation, tolerance, open- mindedness, respect for minority rights, efficacy, adequate information, opinion formation,

61 Francis Fukuyama, “The Patterns of History,” Journal of Democracy 23, no. 1 (2012): 14. 62 Richard Bourke, “Enlightenment, Revolution and Democracy,” Constellations 15, no. 1 (March 1, 2008): 10, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8675.2008.00482.x. 63 Kyong-Dong Kim, “Confucianism, Economic Growth And Democracy,” Asian Perspective 21, no. 2 (1997): 16.

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The Franciscan participation in political discussion,”64 and the citizens are equipped to engage in the politics. Participation of the citizenry in civic activities is not as evident in Ancient cultures because the cultures are Pre-Enlightenment; thus, their conception of the role of the individual in society is foreign to us, and because individualism was filtered through the lens of the aristocracy.65 The civil principles are still important to the development of “democracy,” although they take different forms. Instead of an emphasis on the individual as a policymaker, the citizen’s ability to participate in politics through representatives was underscored. This included the ability of the countryman to “effectively function as the countervailing force vis-a-vis the state.”66 The proper understanding of democracy as it relates to Ancient Eastern cultures establishes that while certain democratic indicators exist in Han China, there are also autocratic and even monarchical institutional arrangements. This dichotomy presents a form of anocracy. Anocracy is composed of three elements: (1) participation and integration of the citizenry in government, (2) government structure that supports and encourages the participation of citizens, and (3) increased individual and political freedoms. Bell explains the first aspect of anocracy as a “regime [with] the institutional capacity for some broader participation in the governing process.”67 This is the participatory aspect of anocracy, which allows individuals to create political change. The second element requires “some institutional ability to facilitate candidate recruitment beyond the selection by a small cadre of anointed leaders,”68 which was executed in Han China through recruitment of candidates for political offices that encompassed all citizens, which created a set of government officials that represented diverse portions of the populace.69 Bell and Regan argue that all that ultimately defines an anocracy is the final element, a “degree of institutional openness, the openness of pathways to participation, and the constraints on political recruitment.”70 These aspects of an anocracy were embodied in Han China through the separation of powers, allowing the common man to participate in government affairs, and through political infrastructure more concerned with the right and freedom of the commoner than with the position or status of a political officer.71 Anocracy in China is described in a passage from the Book of History.72 In the third section, Emperor Tai-Kung, who is described as “a corpse in office,” is reprimanded and given teachings

64 Kim Kyong-Dong, Korean Modernization and Uneven Development: Alternative Sociological Accounts (Springer, 2017), 200. 65 Bourke, “Enlightenment, Revolution and Democracy,” 10. 66 Kim, “Confucianism, Economic Growth And Democracy,” 82. 67 Patrick M. Regan and Sam R. Bell, “Changing Lanes or Stuck in the Middle: Why Are Anocracies More Prone to Civil Wars?,” Political Research Quarterly 63, no. 4 (December 2010): 748, https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912909336274. 68 Regan and Bell, 748. 69 Wang Yü-ch’üan, “An Outline of The Central Government of The Former Han Dynasty,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12, no. 1/2 (1949): 152, https://doi.org/10.2307/2718206. 70 Regan and Bell, “Changing Lanes or Stuck in the Middle,” 748. 71 See Yü-ch’üan, “An Outline of The Central Government of The Former Han Dynasty”; Charles Sanft, “Law and Communication in Qin and Western Han China,” Journal of the Economic & Social History of the Orient 53, no. 5 (December 2010): 679–711, https://doi.org/10.1163/156852010X539140. 72 This is the foundational text for Ancient Chinese political philosophy. Its importance was reified during the Han Dynasty when it was designated as one of the Five Classics of China, and during the Eastern Han Dynasty when it earned the name "esteemed documents," indicative of its place in political thought.Rafe de Crespigny, A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD) (BRILL, 2006).

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Article Section because “the people would not endure [his unmeasured indulgence].”73 The context emphasizes the importance of anocracy by framing it with the authority of the ancestors, indicating that the teaching was widely accepted, applied, and had become the expected behavior of the ruler. Emperor Tai-Kung is told, “Our great ancestor declared in his teachings that the people should be cherished and should not be debased. For the people are the country's foundation, and when the foundation is firm set the country is peacefully disposed.”74 This teaching embodies anocratic principles, encouraging a “primacy of the people.”75 This is very similar to the democratic Ancient West, which encouraged individualistic principles and freedoms through political infrastructure. This is similar to the democracy that Ober argues was the traditional view of democracy in the Ancient West. The Ancient West did not view democracy as a type of majority rule as it is viewed today, it viewed it as the “collective capacity of a public to make good things happen in the public realm.”76 This original meaning of democracy has less to do with representation within government, and more closely supports the modern understanding of anocracy. This helps shape the view from which the Han Dynasty can be evaluated, giving a historically accurate understanding of anocracy.

Government Structure While the Han governmental structure supported an imperial system, its principles were anocratic. The territory of the Han Dynasty was extensive, which made a pure monarchy impossible. As such, the landmass was divided into provinces and kingdoms, which were, in turn, subdivided into counties and districts.77 The administrative structure was centralized under the Emperor, which was not a deviation from previous dynasties. However, the beginning of the Han Dynasty marked a new period of Chinese political thought. Instead of hereditary succession or succession based on political or economic rank, the founder of Han, Liu Bang, came from a family of low social, political, and financial status. He came to power not because he was a man of “noble origin” or a man of “wisdom and virtue.” He was elevated in rank by the people. Liu Bang’s status of Emperor was awarded to him because he overthrew the brutal and tyrannical Qin Dynasty, because he brought peace to the people of China, and because he had distributed his power among those who had assisted him in deposing the Qin Dynasty. This was a drastic shift from the aristocratic system of choosing the line of succession and marked a new era in China. The Imperial Court of Imperial ministers was a system expanded from the Zhou Dynasty. As the empire expanded, administrative roles were expanded and added. The Three Lords, or the highest triumvirate, served as the second rank to the Emperor and consisted of the Chancellor of State, the Vice-Chancellor, and the Grand Commandant. The Chancellor of State was the second only to the Emperor and is described in the Han Shu as the “arms and legs [of the Emperor], the

73 Walter Gorn Old and Confucius, trans., The Shu King Or The Chinese Historical Classic: Being An Authentic Record Of The Religion, Philosophy, Customs And Government Of The Chinese From The Earliest Times (Kessinger Publishing, 2004), 65. 74 Old and Confucius, The Shu King Or The Chinese Historical Classic, 65. 75 Joan Judge, Print and Politics: Shibao and the Culture of Reform in Late Qing China (Stanford University Press, 1996), 62. 76 Josiah Ober, “The Original Meaning of ‘Democracy’: Capacity to Do Things, Not Majority Rule,” Constellations 15, no. 1 (2008): 6. 77Yü-ch’üan, “An Outline of The Central Government of The Former Han Dynasty,” 4.

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The Franciscan one with whom [the Emperor]… rule all within the Seas.”78 According to the same source, his duties were to “care for the state, and take charge of all the officials.”79 The Chancellor of State was to lead state affairs, determine the budget for the state, and was accountable for providing military supplies. This gave him direct visibility to all provinces, administrative actions, and records. As the second in command, he also acted in the absence of the Emperor.80 The Imperial Secretary was the third in power, was also called the Vice-Chancellor, who not only assisted the Chancellor but also kept him accountable to the law and his duties. He was “to take charge of the laws and to rectify their violations….[and] maintains a general supervision over all of the officials and sees to it that the superior and inferior check up upon each other.”81 His primary duty was the latter: to ensure the correct execution of authority. As such, he carried out orders for disciplinary action in political administration if it was necessary (this included officials above and below him).82 The Grand Commandant deserves mention, but had no administrative role, as his formal role was limited to the military alone. Under the Three Lords, nine ranking ministers ruled over separate administrative departments. These nine ranking ministers were as follows: the Minister of Ceremonies, the Supervisor of Attendants, the Commandant of Guards, the Grand Servant, the Commandant of Justice, the Grand Herald, the Director of the Imperial Clan, the Grand Minister of Agriculture, and the Small Treasurer. Each of them were the head of a department and thus were consulted on issues of the welfare of the state. The Minister of Ceremonies was the chief priest, reviewed all candidates for political offices, and oversaw the Imperial Academy by selecting and examining students. The Supervisor of Attendants supervised palace guards and candidates for political officers. The Commandant of Guards was the head of palace security and held no significant political role. The Grand Servant directed the chariots and horses of the Emperor, as well as the government pastures; much like the Commandant of Guards, the Grand Servant held no significant political position. The Commandant of Justice oversaw civil and military law and approved or declined all lawsuits that necessitated further judicial reasoning (The county administration was the lowest law court led by the County Prefect. If the case needed further legal evaluation, it proceeded to the Provincial Governor. The final opportunity for deliberation was the Emperor).83 He also established case law (called the Law of the Commandant of Justice). The Grand Herald oversaw the submission of barbarians and had a conglomeration of other duties that are insignificant to this topic. The Director of the Imperial Clan kept a record of the members of the Imperial House. The Grand Minister of Agriculture and the Small Treasurer both managed finances, including taxes, determining the monetary value of labor, directed government monopolies, and paid the expenses of the state and the emperor. This system of the Imperial Court essentially created a separation of powers and reified the idea that the label of “monarchy” ignores the significant political achievements of Ancient China. The structure on the local level was also extensive and supported citizen participation within the government. The emperor appointed a Palace Assistant Imperial Clerk who would influence and appoint the local officials. Directly under the authority of the Palace Assistant

78 Gu Ban and Homer H Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty (Place of publication not identified: publisher not identified, 1944), 81.21a. 79 Ban and Dubs, 82.5a. 80 Yü-ch’üan, “An Outline of The Central Government of The Former Han Dynasty,” 140–46. 81 Ban and Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, 83.16a-b.p. 82 Yü-ch’üan, “An Outline of The Central Government of The Former Han Dynasty,” 148. 83 Yü-ch’üan, 53–55.

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Imperial Clerk was the Circuit Inspector, also called a Governor, who ruled provinces. A similar administrative hierarchy continued with the Chief Commander, also called Administrator, who held a supervisory governmental role. The Chief Commander/Administrator led the Prefect (also called the Chief Magistrate), who ruled over Counties. The smallest populace was the District, which was ruled over by the Chief of Police. At a local level, however, Local Elders were allowed to establish the law and instruct their people morally and politically. This allowed for grassroots leadership to rise to power. Hsu explains that while this is far from democracy, “it is natural...because in daily life experience, those who actually governed were the community chiefs… It seems that the maintenance of order, the primary concern of the early Han government, would have rested very largely upon the local leaders at the district level.” The shift of government to this system sowed the seeds for anocracy, which later came to fruition through the law.84 It is interesting to note that the Emperor employed the Colonel of Censure and the Circuit Inspectors, both of which were officers whose sole duty was to ensure justice in the execution of administrative offices and to discipline any officer who was found to be unjust. The Colonel of Censure and the Circuit Inspectors were personal employees of the Emperor, not of the state, and thus were able to prosecute any officer without fear of repercussion. Their duty was to defend the people and investigate the powerful.85 The Han Shu describes the duty of the Circuit Inspectors, saying they were to consider in their prosecution and investigation “Whether… powerful clans… have overstepped the regulations… made use of their power to oppress the weak, or, relying on their greater number have tyrannized over the few. Whether [Provincial Governors] have failed to observe the Imperial edicts or failed to obey the statutes of the state; whether they have turned their backs on the interests of the state and have pursued their private interests… whether they have exploited the people by illegal exactions… Whether [Provincial Governors] have failed to give careful attention to doubtful law cases, or have put people to death cruelly; whether they have recklessly resorted to punishment… whether they have been so troublesome and tyrannical as to skin the people or cut them into pieces, and are so hated by the people… Whether [Provincial Governors] have been unfair in selecting officials, favoring those they like, concealing those who are worthy, and tolerating those who are stupid… Whether the sons and brothers of [Provincial Governors] … have demanded favors from those under his supervision… acted contrary to the public… [or accepted] bribes, thus invalidating the government ordinances."86 It is clear, then, that justice is a primary concern in governance as opposed to the preservation of the roles of bureaucrats. Thus, the Emperor was nominally the sole governor of China. The vast political structure, however, made his authority less than absolute. The Han dynasty brought about a new era of socio- political, economic, and religious principles and thought. The emergence of an anocratic government in response to a tyrannical regime led to the development of individuality and a moral framework for how society should be governed. It created a type of a representative government, while also reforming administrative structure to allow increased freedoms for the people, and increased accountability for government officials. This was a new era for China, which ushered in the necessary tools for the partial emancipation of the people of China. The emancipation of the people of China through freedom of political thought and the increased freedom of the people led

84 Cho-Yun Hsu, “The Changing Relationship between Local Society and the Central Political Power in Former Han: 206 B.C.-8 A.D.,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 7, no. 4 (1965): 364–65; Crespigny, A Biographical Dictionary of Later Han to the Three Kingdoms (23-220 AD), 1225–36. 85 Yü-ch’üan, 151–59. 86 Ban and Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, 19A.15a-b.

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The Franciscan to territorial expansion. The vast economic gain that China received from the opening of the Silk Road allowed the nation to become well known in the ancient world for silk, while also expanding China’s imperial footprint. This expanded its territorial, maritime, and military boundaries, culminating in one of Ancient China’s most peaceful, and most secure period ever witnessed or documented. The expansion and trade of China were so successful that the Han Dynasty became the Eastern economic and hegemonic contemporary of Ancient Rome during the Golden Age of Rome. The Dynastic Cycle and series of successions that occurred throughout the Han dynasty also represented the progression of societies and polities. This is empirical proof that the Eastern theory of the Chinese Dynastic Cycle and the Western theory of anakyklosis are parallel, occurring in the dynasties preceding and proceeding the Han dynasty. This is significant because it transcends cultural borders and underlines the commonality of Natural Law, the tendency towards freedom, and the necessity of reformation within all governments. Thus, neither tyranny nor democracy are uniquely “Western” or “Eastern,” instead, they are uniquely human, and describe how individuals interact with each other in the context of power struggles and relationships of hierarchy. With proper examination, one can see the progression of various dynasties and their rise and decline in China. Qin, Former Han, Xin, and Eastern Han all emulate the Dynastic Cycle of an empire rising to power through claiming the Mandate of Heaven, losing the Mandate, disseminating in civil wars, famine, and poverty, ultimately allowing for a new dynasty to rise in the ashes of the previous administration. This theory of the Dynastic Cycle was developed during the Han Dynasty, which further reifies the idea that the Han Dynasty was the first Chinese Imperial Administration to conceive of the idea of reformation after tyranny, and the first dynasty to recognize the significance of individual rights and moral integrity throughout society, emphasizing individuals within the populace to support and uphold peace and the natural law in civil affairs. The structure of Ancient China allowed anocratic principles, and the Han Dynasty reified the idea that anakyklosis was not uniquely Western. Rather, the West and the East are both founded on principles of Natural Law (or li) that emphasizes the importance of the individual's ability to alter the public and political realm to fit the will of the people, and for society to become more virtuous. This is a significant discovery because it establishes the socio-political and cultural touchpoints for democracy in the East. The West has long viewed Western Democracy as the only way to free the East from political, social and religious oppression. Still, scholars and political theorists have labeled China as a “no go” zone for democracy because of cultural, political and economic “incompatibilities” between the East and West. The proven thesis that Ancient China, which is commonly known as a time of oppression and strong political hierarchies, was anocratic, and therefore had democratic tendencies flies in the face of the excuse of the West to allow the oppression of the Chinese to continue. This implies that the cultural and political foundation of China does not preclude the ability of the East to shift of its own accord to a more liberalized form of governance. The internal workings of China support and even encourage the social, political, and ethical predecessors to anocratic China. This is apparent in the cultural dissonance that is arising in modern China with the dichotomy of the all-powerful state that has attempted to reshape the Chinese people into its own image, and the restless populace whose values, ideals, and ancestors push against tyranny and long for freedom. Thus, Modern China mirrors the desire of Ancient China for freedom, for democracy, and the ability to have political influence. The Anocractic principles that emerged in the wake of the tyrannical Qin empire doom the thesis that modern China is incapable of

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Article Section democratic and liberal reform and gives hope to the oppressed who seek for the dawning of a second golden era in China.

Law and Politics: Hierarchical Interactions Law ultimately sets boundaries, establishes rights, and determines the form of government for any state. The Han Dynasty established freedoms, methods for bottom-up political change, and allowed for anocratic representation of the people within government. The structure of Ancient Chinese law was based on two fundamental concepts: fa and li. These foundational principles were intended to curb wrongdoing and to encourage virtue in the citizenry. Fa can be literally translated as “law,” but has a rich meaning that is commonly overlooked by those who do not have access to the historical context of its legal and social use. Fa is composed of three components: “(1) the element of a model, i.e., something worthy to be followed or striven after; (2) the element of water-level, hence the idea of fairness and balance; (3) the element of a linear ruler, hence the idea of straightforwardness and justice.”87 Han law embodied these three elements of fa. First, Ancient Chinese law was positivist in nature and acted as a series of punishments for those who did not follow the law.88 Positive law provides guidelines for what an individual is entitled to, thus shaping the law in a way that encouraged virtue instead of discouraging wrongdoing. The differentiation between those two concepts may seem minuscule, but it is significant. Confucius summarized the difference between the two when he said: “As a judge, I decide disputes, for that is my duty; but the best thing that could happen would be to eliminate the cause for litigation.”89 Li is the moral law of China and has no English equivalent. It is similar to the Western concept of natural law in that it recognizes that humans are, by nature, evil and that it is necessary not only to curb immoral behavior but also identifies that it is beneficial to encourage virtue through structured governmental order and civil law.90 This concept of a natural order of justice was accepted throughout China and came to trump fa in importance. Mei makes the analysis that “[li] was a body of definite and uniform rules of civil conduct. To the Chinese, a violation of li was even more serious and more shameful than a violation of law.”91 This created a moral code that was stronger than the coercive and punitive power of government. Eastwood and Keeton make this analysis when they state that, "…Professor Jenks advanced the view that… the time may eventually arrive when law will be obeyed because people think it right and not because the organized force of the sovereign state is prepared to enforce it. This idea is not a new one. It is reflected, for instance, in some old philosophies, notably the Chinese."92 Li created fundamental change because it established a law common to all, that trumped even the law of the emperor. As in the West, this created an underlying sense of moral equality among individuals, which lead to increased political, moral, and social freedoms for individuals. Naturally, this led to individuals following the law because of a moral compulsion to do so. This freed the government from needing

87 Ju-Ao Mei, “China and the Rule of Law,” Pacific Affairs 5, no. 10 (1932): 864, https://doi.org/10.2307/2750016. 88 Mei, 871. 89 Confucius and James Legge, The Analects of Confucius, 2017, chap. XII. 90 Antonio S. Cua, Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy (Routledge, 2013), 646–49. 91 Mei, “China and the Rule of Law,” 870. 92 Reginald Allen Eastwood, George Williams Keeton, and John Austin, The Austinian Theories of Law and Sovereignty [i.e. Those of John Austin (Pp. viii. 82. Methuen & Co.: London, 1929), 64 See also; George W Keeton and Chinese Social and Political Science Association, Chinese Law and Historical Jurisprudence (Peking: Chinese Social and Political Science Association, 1928).

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The Franciscan extensive and tyrannical law. While li as a concept preceded the Han Dynasty, it was first emphasized and widely adopted in the Han Dynasty due to the state endorsement of Confucianism, which was previously banned (which effectively outlawed the application of li). The freedom from the law, but the obligation to virtue can be seen in the change in the length of law at the beginning of the Han Dynasty. At the beginning of Liu Bang’s reign as emperor, he both established law that was drastically different from the Qin Dynasty and communicated to the people a new era in China. In his speech, he said, “Elders, you have long suffered under the harsh laws of Qin. The entire families of those convicted of slander [against the emperor] were executed, and those convicted of plotting were executed and left in the market. I made an agreement with the various lords that the first to enter the pass should be king [within], so I should rule the area within the passes as king. And I make this agreement with you: The law shall have only three sections: one who kills another shall die, and one who harms another or steals shall pay recompense for the crime. The rest of the Qin laws are all done away with.”93 Because of this, “the people all gave their hearts to him.”94 It is clear that Liu Bang desired to break the tyrannical trajectory of the law of Qin and wanted to establish “virtue and kindness.”95 This type of legal code was only possible because of the natural inclination towards morality in Chinese culture. Wingmore expounded upon this idea, comparing it to the modern concept of justice saying, "To the Anglo-Norman lawyer, accustomed to do homage to strict legal principles as in and of itself the summum bonum of law, and to regard legal justice as manifesting itself only in a system of unbending rules, this quotation (from Puchta) will indicate better than anything else the great gulf that is fixed between his own system and that which was indigenous in China... Yet there are peoples to whom this type of justice is utterly alien. The 'struggle for right,' which the great German jurist, von Jehring, inculcated as the basis of civic law and order, is alien to Chinese thought. An unyielding insistence upon principle, and a rigid demand for one's due are almost as reprehensible as a vulgar physical struggle. Moral force, and the 'rule of reason,' should control, rather than strict technical rights. Compromise is the highest virtue; intolerance and obstinacy a mark of defective character…"96 The Chinese embrace of a strong sense of moral duty was due to the adoption of Confucianism as their official religion. This alone is indication of the beginning of a shift in government. When combined with the fact that Liu Bang desired to free his people from the tyranny of the law, his confidence in li becomes clear. Although Liu Bang eventually added to the legal code, its significance remains as both a political act and a speech of passion. Throughout the rest of the Han Dynasty, li was established through fa. The result was that “governance [was] fair, and prosecutions [were] principled.”97 The strained relationship between the state and the people was mitigated by the introduction of a law that favored the people and allowed grassroots change to unjust legal code or corrupt judicial decisions. This marked the end of a people subjugated by law and freed individuals to act virtuously. Through li, the people of the Han Dynasty were granted a sense of equality, which influenced the fairness of fa itself.

Confucian Ideals and Values: Social Power Relations

93 Gu Ban and Homer H Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty (Place of publication not identified: publisher not identified, 1944), 1A.23. 94 Ban and Dubs, 1A.23. 95 Ban and Dubs, 4.106. 96 John Henry Wigmore, A Panorama of the World’s Legal Systems (Holms Beach, Fla.: W.W. Gaunt, 1992), 149– 50. 97 Ban and Dubs, The History of the Former Han Dynasty, 49.2296.

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Scholars have long discussed the dichotomy between power and freedom in China in the context of legal freedoms and Confucianism and the influence these factors had on both the masses and the power structure. Previous to the Han Dynasty, legal, religious, social, and personal freedoms were heavily regulated. The Qin Dynasty, the direct predecessor of the Han Dynasty, is infamous for its brutality and its legal, religious, and social restrictions through government mandates. The extreme cruelty of the Qin Dynasty inversely affected the Han Dynasty, leading to an age of increased freedoms for citizens. The political atmosphere in the Qin Dynasty did not tolerate rebellion or those with anti- Qin sentiments, and those who did rebel were punished swiftly and severely to discourage other insurgents. While the policy of punishment for the sake of setting an example did not end in the Han Dynasty, the threshold for who deserved such a punishment changed drastically. The Han Dynasty did not execute rebels or those with unsavory sentiments; they punished criminals (officials who were corrupt at the expense of their people, those who murdered, and those who stole or damaged the property of another).98 The Qin Dynasty punished those who spoke out against government abuses, but the Han Dynasty not only accepted but also encouraged reporting abusive officials. Common people were also allowed to vocalize corruption in the justice system, which was unique during to the rule of the Han.99 The ability for the commoner to have completely equal civil and political rights to those who ruled can be seen in the case of Zhang Shizhi vs. Emperor Wen (203-157 ʙ.ᴄ.). A local man ran into the pathway of the imperial chariot, posing a potential risk to the emperor’s life (in the case that the horses bucked, the emperor would have been injured). The Emperor demanded severe punishment beyond what the law called for due to the sheer negligence of the commoner. Zhang Shizhi, the statesman charged with prosecuting the foolish man, resisted, stating that “while the emperor could have summarily executed the man [while the case was in his hands], [but] once the matter was given over to [Zhang Shizhi], he was obliged to follow the law.”100 The primacy of the law and its prioritization over the emperor provided common citizens with the necessary civil rights to prevent corruption of power and to ensure their freedom and safety. This access to civil rights was an alteration of the previous process of administrative political order and created a political and civil atmosphere of equality. This political participation was due partially to the difference in the toleration of the governing officials, but also because the government increased the channels through allowing the populace through six political acts: (1) written disapproval or approval, sent through a political official to the emperor, (2) speech acts that expressed both a problem and a solution, (3) the direct appeal from the people to the emperor, (4) folksongs, (5) general political criticism, and (6) writing literature. Political criticism was the means for the intelligentsia to express a political opinion.101 These mechanisms for political participation cover a variety of methods, making it accessible to each citizen. This gave the people representative and direct power of the government, enabling commoners to engage in the political system. This is evident in the case of the old man Guang, an individual bestowed with what was known as the “kings staff,” which entitled him “...to specific legal privileges, including immunity to prosecution by local officers; [and] if prosecution was

98 Ju-Ao Mei, “China and the Rule of Law,” Pacific Affairs 5, no. 10 (1932): 683, https://doi.org/10.2307/2750016. 99 Mei, 680–770. 100 Charles Sanft, “Law and Communication in Qin and Western Han China,” Journal of the Economic & Social History of the Orient 53, no. 5 (December 2010): 703, https://doi.org/10.1163/156852010X539140. 101 Liu Tai-xiang, “Political Participation Mechanism in the Han Dynasty,” Institute of the Han Dynasty Culture, Nanyang Normal University, Nanyang Henan 473061, China, 2008, http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL- LDXT200802004.htm.

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The Franciscan deemed necessary, recourse to a higher authority was required.”102 This right was tested when he was “disrespect[ed] after being arrested and punished in contravention of the edict.”103 Guang confronted the emperor himself with his complaint against the officer. Guang then stated that if the law were not upheld, he would relinquish his privileges and become a slave. The emperor listened to the commoner and executed the officer who had violated Guangs rights. The emperor immediately punished the officer in order to uphold the law and to honor the rights and privileges granted to common citizens. This emphasizes the value placed on upholding the law in all instances, which allowed individuals to maintain their liberty. The cultural and religious changes were ushered in by the state embrace of Confucianism as the state religion. While Confucianism may seem antithetical to anocratic concepts, it naturally follows a regime that both perpetuates a monarchical government structure and a politically free population. Confucianism values the same ideals of a democracy (freedom, equality, representation in politics, justice, and virtue), but contextualized to the community as opposed to the individual.104 Confucianism established equality in the Han Dynasty in its doctrine that all men, despite being born flawed, have a natural desire to acquire the characteristics of loyalty, piety, propriety, and righteousness.105 This established a basic moral equivalence among the people of China, despite their rank in the political hierarchy. This justified political action and leadership from the populace. Although Confucianism reified some hierarchical structures (claiming that the emperor should be a man born virtuous), anocracy also supported imperialistic structures, so the argument made by many historians that any democratic ideals are incompatible with Confucianism does not function when holistically interpreted. Confucianism demands devotion from individuals to virtue, which does not exclude devotion to a politically free society. This is evident in the two core concepts of Confucian philosophy: ren and li. Ren was defined by Confucius as “loving others” and expresses the Confucian desire for “harmonious human-society relationships.”106 This Confucian principle drove the Chinese of the Han Dynasty to be morally bound to principles that supported anocratic principles, such as equality and justice, through political participation. The concept of li united the concept of law and ethics, internalizing these Confucian principles into legal code,107 creating the governmental shift to anocracy. All of this can be summarized in the importance of equality, truth, and fair respect for individuals in Confucian thought. Because Confucianism did not distinguish the “humanness” of the elite from the “humanness” of the populace, both the elite and the common man shifted to a middle ground of human (as opposed to divine and savage).108 This concept was furthered by the importance of moral rights in Han China, which prioritized fairness through political procedures structured to find the truth. This ensured a type of mandated due process in order to satisfy the religious obligation to truth. Because of the state-mandated promotion of Confucianism, religion, philosophy, and politics became intimately intertwined, reconstructing the Han government in the form of an ideal Confucian society. The promotion of Confucianism and the focus on due process allowed for

102 Sanft, “Law and Communication in Qin and Western Han China,” 696. 103 Sanft, 696. 104 Sor-hoon Tan, Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction (SUNY Press, 2003), chaps. 1–2. 105 Yu Chen, “Confucianism versus Constitutionalism,” Journal of Cambridge Studies 2, no. 2 (June 2007): 26. 106 Jianhong Liu and George B Palermo, “Restorative Justice and Chinese Traditional Legal Culture in the Context of Contemporary Chinese Criminal Justice Reform,” n.d., 4. 107 Liu and Palermo, 4–6. 108 Liu and Palermo, “Restorative Justice and Chinese Traditional Legal Culture in the Context of Contemporary Chinese Criminal Justice Reform.”

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Article Section individuals to check back against tyranny at an unprecedented rate, regardless of the political status of the oppressor. The prioritization of the law and justice over the political hierarchy is demonstrated in the case of Tian Yunzhong, the Grand Administrator of Huaiyang. Tian Yunzhong ruthlessly executed individuals contrary to the law, prompting officers and citizens from his province to complain about his tyrannical practices. The central government bestowed upon Tian Yunzhong the same fate he had so liberally given to his offenders. Thus, equality and due process were upheld. Ergo, the Confucian promotion of due process and strict adherence to the law maintained the social and political order the Han Dynasty established. Social and political shifts in the Han Dynasty caused a drastic shift in power from the Qin Dynasty, who severely restricted their citizens intellectually and politically. The effect of legal freedoms and Confucianism on both the masses and the government created social and religious reform that supported anocracy in the Han Dynasty, allowing for extensive political reforms that would increase the political freedoms of the commoner.

Conclusion The Han dynasty brought about a new era of socio-political, economic, and religious principles and thought. The emergence of an anocratic government in response to a tyrannical regime led to the development of individuality and a moral framework for how society should be governed. It created a type of a representative government, while also reforming administrative structure to allow increased freedoms for the people, and increased accountability for government officials. This was a new era for China which ushered in the necessary tools for partial emancipation of the people of China. The political and social emancipation of the people of China led to territorial expansion. The vast economic gain that China received from the opening of the Silk Road allowed the nation to become well known in the ancient world for silk, while also expanding China’s imperial footprint. This expanded its territorial, maritime, and military boundaries, culminating in one of Ancient China’s most peaceful, and most secure periods ever witnessed or documented. The expansion and trade of China was so successful that the Han Dynasty became the Eastern economic and hegemonic contemporary of Ancient Rome during the Golden Age of Rome. The structure of Ancient China allowed anocratic principles, and the Han Dynasty promoted civil virtues and liberty. Thus, the West and the East are both founded on principles of Natural Law (or li) that emphasizes the importance of the individual's ability to alter the public and political realm in order to fit the will of the people, and in order for society to become more virtuous. This is a significant discovery because it establishes the socio-political and cultural touchpoints for democracy in the East. The West has long viewed Western Democracy as the only way to free the East from political, social, and religious oppression. Still, scholars and political theorists have labeled China as a “no go” zone for democracy because of cultural, political, and economic “incompatibilities” between the East and West. The proven thesis that Ancient China, which is commonly known as a time period of oppression and strong political hierarchies, was anocratic, and therefore had democratic tendencies, flies in the face of the excuse of the West to allow the oppression of the Chinese to continue. This implies that the cultural and political foundation of China does not preclude the ability of the East to shift of its own accord to a more liberalized form of governance. The internal workings of China support and even encourage the social, political, and ethical predecessors to anocratic China. This is apparent in the cultural dissonance that is arising in modern China with the dichotomy of the all-powerful state that has attempted to reshape the Chinese people into its own image, and the restless populace whose values, ideals, and ancestors push against tyranny and

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The Franciscan long for freedom. Thus, Modern China mirrors the desire of Ancient China for freedom, for democracy, and the ability to have political influence. The anocractic principles that emerged in the wake of the tyrannical Qin empire doom the thesis that modern China is incapable of democratic and liberal reform and gives hope to the oppressed who seek for the dawning of a second golden era in China.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Have you ever been deeply impacted by a book, essay, or other historical work? When we read, we are being given a profound gift. Authors from the past have taken the time and energy (sometimes at great personal risk) to commit their life experiences to paper so that we can gain wisdom and avoid pitfalls into which they may have fallen. Books are the primary way that legacies are preserved after death; a way of ensuring that what has been learned is not lost to time. Through books, we can draw insights from the bottomless well of history to guide our own lives and wrestle with questions both trivial and profound. Please Enjoy! — Book Review Editors

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“Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome.” By A.M. Eckstein. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. Pp. 398. Paper, $34.95.)

Reviewed by: Luca Azuma

Recipient of Book Review Editor’s Award

Eckstein begins the main body of his work by first explaining Realist thought for historians. To start with, he shares three conditions for applying the Realist paradigm: lack of international law; a “grim self-help regime” of “power-maximizing conduct,” and the importance of “stability or instability of balances of power.”1 Eckstein continues by giving background on the roots of Realist theory, citing a Hobbesian world-view, though it is by no means an unlimited endorsement of Hobbes. Eckstein next elaborates on the difference between multipolar anarchic structures, in which states fight for themselves and are similar in capabilities, and a hierarchic unipolar structure, in which comparative advantage abounds. He continues the exposition by further defining a “self- help regime” as one in which security considerations predominate, and that long-term empire- planning is nonexistent in the face of short-term necessities.2 In the historiography, Eckstein engages primarily with William Harris’s War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (1979). Harris’s work was monumental at the time of its release, skillfully countering the mainstream of scholarly thought on Roman expansion as an exercise in “defensive imperialism” thanks to the work of Theodor Mommsen. Harris in contrast paints Rome as pathologically aggressive and a “machine” of conquest, effectively changing the course of study on Rome. Eckstein belongs on the side of Mommsen, though not completely so. It will doubtless spark debate among scholars the extent to which Eckstein is re-inventing the ideas of Mommsen or contributing original ideas. Eckstein then returns to international relations theory, fielding critiques of Realism. He relies upon the work of Kenneth Waltz in giving rebuttal to the point that Realism does not give enough weight to agency below the system level. To this, he answers that state culture is considered by Realists, but that zooming in on the state obscures the importance of context and gives the impression that decisions are made in vacuums, an unfortunately accurate observation. This provides effective defense against structuralist critiques generally, and simultaneously provides cover for Realism specifically. Finally, Eckstein answers the linguistic criticism from the constructivist school, which argues that by subscribing to a pessimistic view of state relations Realists are throwing fuel into the fire, and instead should focus on “communitarian discourse”. Eckstein is flippant in answering this critique, relegating their points to the work of academics lulled by relative world peace in the late twentieth century. He evidently struck a few nerves with this particular passage and was lambasted by Smith and Yarrow in their introduction to Imperialism, Cultural Politics, and Polybius (2012). It appears that scholars might have the most

1 A.M. Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006, 12. 2 Ibid, 14.

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Book Review Section success in critiquing Eckstein’s work by attacking the Realist paradigm, as Smith and Yarrow begin to do in their introduction. They question Realist bifurcation of domestic and foreign decision-making, scrutinizing the application of Realist agency to the ancient Mediterranean. They do not develop their critiques however, but nonetheless this avenue of attack shows promise. In chapter three, Eckstein examines the state of international affairs in Greek city-states, showing their history of multipolar anarchy. He immediately refutes Nancy Kokaz’s assertion that informal international law existed between the city-states, and that this law was sufficient to foster discourse between them. Eckstein questions Kokaz’s definition of international law and provides his thoughts on what constitutes the existence of such a system. What Eckstein calls “informal customs of state conduct” he argues had no means of enforcement and that pragmatism dictated policy decisions.3 He also takes the opportunity to delineate the war-like character of Greek city- states, dispelling some of Athens’s legacy in the arts and philosophy apart from war. In Thucydides’ description of the Peloponnesian War, Eckstein points to the role of fear in decision- making in a multipolar anarchy, and subsequent “systemic pressures” causing militarization. Eckstein then targets liberal-institutionalist critics who say that quick communication and diplomatic structure foster interdependence between states, softening the Hobbesian world in which Realists think humans live. He does not attempt to defend the entirety of Realist thought from this attack—he instead argues that it does not apply to the city-states (as for Rome) because there were no permanent embassies, and that there “failed to develop either a specialized corps of experienced diplomats, or a specialized diplomatic language.”4 This point also applies to his section on refuting the linguistic perspective’s desire for “communitarian discourse”, as the absence of a lingua franca and skilled negotiators precludes the existence of such a thing. Eckstein further argues that had this existed, ancient Mediterranean culture would have prevented its efficacy, as “haughty discourse”, “honor culture,” and notions of “Homeric heroism” were commonplace. Finally, Eckstein introduces “unit-attribute theory,” a twentieth-century theoretical paradigm bred from opposition to colonialism and associated with John Hobson’s Imperialism: A Study. The theory seeks to find pathological origins for imperialism by focusing intently on individual states. In short, this shifts agency to the state and its culture from the system-level analysis conducted by Realists. As his most serious challenger, Eckstein takes time to point out inconsistencies with which unit-attribute analysis. At various points, Eckstein claims that unit- attribute theory has justified expansion thanks to certain attributes in Athenian democracy, only to ignore similar attributes in the less aggressive Corcyraean democracy. Eckstein’s over-arching critique is that unit-attribute theory accounts poorly for similarity in structure but difference in outcome. Chapter four moves to the Hellenistic period, where Eckstein challenges the scholarly status quo which favors informal international law of the sort Kokaz previously suggested. Eckstein sides with Pierre Leveque and expands on Leveque’s pre-Realist assessment of the situation, which has a militaristic view of the Ptolemies, Seleucids, and Antigonids. He directly contrasts Leveque and M.M. Austin as the champions of Realist and unit-attribute theory respectively, building upon Leveque to show by historical example the war-like nature of Hellenistic empires. Eckstein also examines second-level powers on the Peloponnese, observing the tension between the Aetolian and Achaean Leagues and the aggressive nature of city-states during this time period—a significant point demonstrating the depth to which multipolar anarchy permeated. The major point of the chapter is the weakening and eventual fall of the Ptolemies as

3 Ibid, 42. 4 Ibid, 59.

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The Franciscan the catalyst for Roman intervention in the Eastern Mediterranean. This occurred in the late third century, when six-year-old Ptolemy V ascended the throne and poor regency and indigenous rebellions weakened the empire, resulting in a “power-transition crisis,” where a major force in the balance of power falls and “hegemonic war” results. Eckstein then introduces readers to “status quo” states—those who want to retain the balance of power—and revisionist states—those who want to gain in their position. Eckstein adds that this categorization is a gradient and that in an anarchic climate, few states are purely in favor of the status quo. However, this last distinction is made for the sake of preserving the idea that all states at this time are war-like. This categorization is a stretch for the city-states of the Peloponnese who reached out to Rome for help against Philip V, for while it is true that these states gained territory and influence from Roman intervention, their primary motivation for turning to Rome was to retain the balance of power. Chapter five focuses first on Roman competition on the Italian peninsula, showing from the beginning that Rome faced systemic pressures even as a regional power. The first sentences explain that Realists highlight individual experiences of elites as the driving factors for their decisions in international politics, but also note that these experiences are shaped by outside pressures over long periods of time.5 Hence, Eckstein sets out to prove that from the beginning of Roman history, these pressures existed. Much of this chapter is devoted to showing the war-like nature of the rest of the Western Mediterranean: the Etruscans, Celts, Samnites and Carthaginians are all addressed. In the early Republic, Eckstein focuses on societal scarring due to outside pressures, referencing the 390 sack of Rome by the Celts, from which he claims the Romans took generations to recover.6 The section on the Samnites provides a prime example of the historical battle going on between Harris and Eckstein, as Eckstein claims to bring forth important details Harris neglected, namely that the Samnites acted aggressively towards the Romans. In visiting Harris however, he argues of the Samnite invasions after the Caudine Forks that the campaigns were a minor part of the war and over-exaggerated by Livy.7 Harris is skeptical of the narrative bent of ancient sources, and while this is an important observation, it undercuts reliance on Livy in other parts of his work (the same can be said of Eckstein). Finally, Eckstein successfully attacks the popular conception of Carthage as a docile, merchant-state, highlighting Carthaginian conquests prior to the Roman conflict and their use of “harsh compellence diplomacy.” Chapter six engages Harris on an epistemological level more directly, claiming Harris fell prey to the trap of unit-attribute theory and takes a narrow view of Roman decision-making. Thus, Harris and others who harp on Roman imperialism “distort” the Roman world and wrongly ascribe to the Romans an “illegitimate use of force.” One might also add that few of these authors engage with Just War theory in their works to solidify what constitutes an appropriate use of force. Eckstein also leaves behind some earlier reservations about cultural influence and state-level agency, instead appearing to adopt an analysis weighted more in favor of structural agency and nearly outright serving as an apologist for defensive imperialism. In the rest of the chapter, Eckstein examines Roman triumphs, “permanent sites of memory” commemorating battles, and even makes an attempt at statistical analysis. Eckstein could have done without the attempt, for interesting though it was, it does not significantly contribute to his argument. Adamson and Koyama later attempt a statistical analysis on the very subject of Roman warfare, but they, too,

5 Ibid, 118. 6 Ibid, 132. 7 Harris, William Vernon. War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327-70 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979, 177.

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Book Review Section conclude mixed results.8 Eckstein also addresses a milestone in Roman cultural aggression according to scholars, the making of Rome into an “imperial polity” in the mid-fourth century. This Eckstein refutes first on economic grounds, then continues to refute in the same fashion as before, noting the need for security and the long tradition of Roman militarism. In the lengthy final chapter Eckstein answers the question of why, if not an exceptionally bellicose people, Rome was able to expand. The answer simply is that Rome assimilated outsiders and created the closest thing to a modern nation-state that existed in the ancient world. This is not a unique conclusion, for scholars have long acknowledged this talent of Rome’s (indeed, he credits Mommsen here). He does, however, centralize the importance of assimilation to Roman success, modernizing the case and making it relevant once more in the context of modern scholarship. Eckstein does this by comparing citizenship standards in Rome to that of the Greeks and the treatment of conquests by the Hellenistic monarchs, attributing their inability to expand to their difficulty in controlling their already massive territories. Eckstein then shifts gears, zooming in on Roman intervention in the Eastern Mediterranean, dealing in a dense mass of minute narrative detail and hypotheticals almost ad absurdum. The depth of Eckstein’s research is commendable for the lengths to which he goes in showing that Roman intervention was not a product of exceptional bellicosity. Though he starts out the intervention against Philip V by showing that, in agreeance with Mommsen, Rome was reacting to a shift in the balance of power in the multipolar anarchy, he drifts into the defensive imperialism thesis in demonstrating Roman reluctance to join the fight. This is especially true of Eckstein’s conclusion regarding re-intervention in Greece thanks to the threat from Antiochus, though his continued injections of the concepts of modern international relations soften this position and serve to keep him at arm’s length from other defensive imperialists.

8 Adamson, Jordan and Mark Koyama. “Democracy, Hegemony, and War: New Data from the Ancient World.” (2017).

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“Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead” By James Mattis and Bing West. (New York: Random House, 2019. Pp. 300. Paper, $28.00.)

Reviewed by: Josiah Popp

Embracing the conversational attitude of classic small-town American life, James Mattis, assisted by his co-author, Bing West, offers a unique glimpse into his own personal and professional development during his years in the U.S. Marine Corps and Defense Department in Call Sign Chaos. As a character-oriented book, it fills in a hole in existing strategic scholarship, which largely focuses on dense historical essays surveying past conflicts. Mattis’ work engages not only the head, but the heart as well, so that students of military history and statecraft can better examine their own personal leadership ethos, rather than becoming industrial iron funnels into which strategic analysis can be simply dumped and processed. The book can be best described as a memoir, but its tone and approach distinguish it from other works by former State and Defense Department officials. Rather than focus on the day-by- day record of America’s recent wars, Mattis offers insights into how the evolution of combat theaters and political climates molded his own leadership ethos. Though West is listed as a co- author, the entirety of the work is written in the first person from Mattis’ perspective, with West being identified in the acknowledgements as providing “guidance” in the writing process. Mattis identifies that the book is designed to impart lessons acquired over his long career to any Americans looking to learn, framing his work as a moral return on taxpayer investment:

My purpose in writing this book is to convey the lessons I learned for those who might benefit, whether in the military or civilian life. I have been fortunate that the American people funded my education, and some of the lessons I learned might prove helpful to others.

Mattis often eludes to this sense that his knowledge is a public good, created by the sacrifice of the American people, public servants, Gold Star families, and members of the U.S. armed services. Rather than following the distant expositional style of most Washington insider memoirs, readers will find that Call Sign Chaos feels more like a dialogue between a father and his middle-aged son on a creaky porch swing amidst the faint sounds of crickets at twilight. Short sentences, easy-to- follow logic, and occasional interjections of humor are paired with a deeply nuanced understanding of foreign policy, sufficiently detailed explanations of problems, and an appropriate degree of solemnness when discussing war’s grim realities. The final result is a book that balances high accessibility with high professional utility. Readers will also find that Call Sign Chaos is quite a different sort of work from Proser’s biography of Mattis, No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy. Proser’s approach focuses on placing the reader in the middle of the action on Mattis’ glorious campaigns. The effect is that Proser tells an exciting story, which clothes the American general in a godlike wonder. But he leaves much of Mattis’ own thoughts to conjecture, stating in places that Mattis is “likely” thinking this or that.

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Call Sign Chaos, on the other hand, presents a far more mortal and relatable version of Mattis. Proser’s work should thus be read more as a novel and less as a biography. In order to structure his lengthy career, Mattis breaks Call Sign Chaos into three overall categories: Direct Leadership (focusing on his time working directly with his troops in the field), Executive Leadership (his time working in higher command to plan and execute major operations such as Iraqi Freedom), and Strategic Leadership (his time as a general, in which much of his work morphed into office paperwork and diplomatic engagements). In each section, the lessons he offers to the reader focus much more on individual development than the granular details of why situations unfolded as they did. In contrast to analysis-heavy works such as The General’s War, Mattis relays his own experience in Operation Desert Storm with broadly applicable advice such as, “As the leader, anticipating heavy casualties, I had to compartmentalize my emotions… The mission must come first. Personal solace must wait for another day,” “commanders have searched in vain for the perfect battlefield that unfolds according to plan. It doesn’t exist,” and “If you don’t like problems, stay out of leadership.” Though historical patterns may repeat themselves, the moral and psychological dilemmas of wars can be traced to deep antiquity in the Iliad, as Mattis notes several times throughout the book. As such, the same war will likely never occur twice, but the tough choices faced by those who fight it likely will, making Call Sign Chaos a uniquely valuable piece in the American canon of strategic studies. Mattis also gives sharp warnings to those who fail to devote themselves to reading. “Reading is an honor and a gift… If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you.” Attached to the end of the book is a reading list prescribed by Mattis, containing novels, grand strategy essay collections, nonfictional accounts of war, biographies from statesmen, and philosophy. Throughout the book, Mattis’ own personal experiences are seasoned with insights he gleaned from his expansive pool of readings, seamlessly integrating, for instance, the “common humanity” moral framework of the Stoics with the outrage of Achilles’ defilement of Hector’s body in the Trojan War and the moral arguments of Washington in the Revolutionary War. The American failures, as seen by Mattis, throughout his time in service, tended to be birthed from a narrow vision in leadership. By both outlining the moral mandate of leaders to read vigorously, and demonstrating how such studiousness births victory, Call Sign Chaos guides aspiring leaders to be better-rounded individuals, not just specialists in a tight corner of a vast strategic arena. The war in Iraq is given substantial space in the book, as it provides several instances of sound strategy being frustrated by thin, short-sighted vision. From the complete disbandment of the Iraqi military to the ill-timed “halt” order in the First Battle of Fallujah, Mattis outlines his calculus at each stage of the conflict. Ever conscious of the real human cost of war, Mattis remarks after one “directionless policy,” that “It was a tough time for me, because higher-level decisions had cost us lives, but now was not the time to go inward. You must always keep fighting for those who are still with you.” The disposition of this work, once again differs from other accounts of the war, including McChrystal’s My Share of the Task, Gates’ Duty, and Gordon’s The Endgame, all of which read roughly like captain’s logs outlining the exact details of each week. Their deeply nuanced and analytical approach is useful but impersonalizes the experience and shrinks the audience that could truly apply its lessons. Mattis’ work thus functions as a valuable crossbeam in the overall study of the war. Throughout the book, this principle holds true. The theme of accessibility over specialization is brought out exceptionally well in the final chapters of Call Sign Chaos, when it became clear to Mattis, upon his promotions to NATO’s

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Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation and the head of U.S. Joint Forces Command, that the assumption of technological and political omnipotence from leaders did extensive damage to American strategy. From his previous experiences in the field, he recognized this dangerous faith in cyberspace. Digital intelligence and emails, as stressed by Mattis, cannot compensate the importance of intuition and interpersonal relationships. From this premise, Mattis draws a conclusion that bleeds through nearly every page of the book but is crystallized in his “reflections” chapter: decentralization of command is critical to achieving victory. A decentralized force, he argues, breaks the rigidity of thinking that makes adaptation impossible by outsourcing elements of the command structure to the initiative of the lower-level officers or diplomats. The will and vision to adapt is unleashed by the human spirit of subordinates. As he puts it, “Planning, which is simply another world for anticipatory decision-making… is a constant, never-ending process.” Any system, whether military or political, that is designed to micromanage that process is doomed to fail, in Mattis’ view. His solution, therefore, is engaging as much human intuition as possible, built upon an ever-expanding cushion of historical experience. This is what truly sets Call Sign Chaos apart from other strategic study books: it is human-centric instead of event-centric. For students of diplomacy, war history, long-term strategic rivalries, or statesmanship of any form, no amount of data input will successfully turn them into pure war machines. The discipline of “grand strategy” mainly finds its home in the works of Murray, Lacey, Kennedy, Sinnreich, and Liddell-Hart. The academic rigor of their various compendiums is indispensable but unilaterally insufficient for creating successful leaders. The first ingredient in politics, and by extension war, is the human spirit. Thucydides’ eternal insight from The Peloponnesian War is that humans are animated by honor, fear, and interest. There is a danger in reading histories like a mortician prepares bodies. Removal of oneself from the picture, disassociation from the tragedy of violence, and callous handling of histories like dead flesh, only serve to give a student an incomplete education in the topic. It is not as though Mattis witnessed a time in which foreign policy was foolishly handed off to unqualified leaders. The strategic failures he outlines are not an indictment of the character or intentions of current leaders, but rather evidence that the human element of war cannot be excised. Scholars should not view themselves as distant and impartial actors, but rather view their own thoughts and moral leanings as a constitutive piece of the whole process of war. As Jones notes in his essay on the exceptional German statesman Bismarck in The Shaping of Grand Strategy, the origin of the Iron Chancellor’s strategic success was his “character and judgement,” rather than his “formulas and systematized theories.” Call Sign Chaos is an opportunity for students of grand strategy to slow down and deeply consider how their own decision-making skills may be impacted by their character. It invites aspiring statesmen and stateswomen to cleanse their detail-saturated academic pallets with a uniquely personal narrative from one of America’s most universally respected leaders. Just as libraries and late nights are essential to cultivating strategic intuition, so too are rich conversations with an old veteran on a rustic porch in the American west. Aspiring leaders ought to accept Mattis’ invitation to pour a glass of lemonade and take a seat.

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Book Review Section

“Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World” By Shadi Hamid. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016. Pp. 320. Paper, $15.57.)

Reviewed by: Denise Sprimont

Shadi Hamid’s book, Islamic Exceptionalism, discusses the ability of Islam to modernize according to the model of the Christian Reformation in a manner accessible to the lay reader. Hamid’s argument is compelling and provides a nuanced and clear thesis regarding the exceptionalism of Islamic culture and the future of Islam as it interacts with Western values and culture. His argument, which focuses on the international nature of Islamic politics, provides a holistic analysis of Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries whose Islamic religion has shaped their involvement in the international community. However, it grossly undercovers those cultures which Hamid states are “outside the scope of [his] study, since [his study is]…one based on the innovative and relatively new Shiite doctrine of ‘guardianship of the clerics.’”1 It is the nature of a book that relies on case-studies as evidence to exclude certain examples and include others. However, it becomes problematic when a book reliant upon case studies excludes glaring oppositions to their thesis. Hamid’s exclusion of Iran from his argument omits meaningful discussion of the way in which Shia Islam has attempted to modernize its culture according to the Christian Reformation. The exclusion of Iran provides an incomplete analysis of Muslim Secularism and contradicts his argument about the uniqueness of the Muslim view of religion. Furthermore, the lack of analysis of Pakistan, which is a democratic parliamentary federal republic with an established state religion, prevents tracing of the historiography of an Islamic democratic republic, weakening Hamid’s thesis. Hamid postulates that Muslim interaction with statecraft is fundamentally different than that of the West due to the exceptionalism of the religion itself, and to the implications of a naturally political religion.2 This, however, does not establish the particular exceptionalism of the Shiite or Sunni Muslim understanding of the Quran and of secular politics, but rather of Islam as a whole. The delineation that Hamid makes in his explanation for the dismissal of Iran as a legitimate example of an integrated and political Islamic State is based on the functional differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims and the Shia doctrine of clerical rule. It is true that the guardianship of the clerics is a uniquely Shia doctrine, and that this was legally implemented through the Iranian Supreme Leader, Assembly of Experts, and Council of Guardians. However, this does not change the doctrinal similarities between Sunni and Shia political traditions, both of which are based in Islam’s ability to dictate how Muslims interact with political structure and order.3 The historiography of the delineations between Sunni and Shia conceptualizations of the boundaries of the political versus the religious began in the same place—“…membership in the

1 Shadi Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle over Islam Is Reshaping the World, 2016, 31. 2 Hamid, 42. 3 Hamid, 30.

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Muslim community entailed participation in a state order, with…the Caliph representing both the religious and the political aspects… independent from that of states and empires.”4 Eventually, Muslims became identified as both subjects of a political ruler and subjects of a Muslim school of law (whether it be Shia, Sunni or Sufi). While the modern understanding of these concepts appears to be drastically different, recent historiography indicates that they stemmed from the same doctrine: the Caliph. This doctrine is enshrined in the Quran and Hadith and is therefore perpetually shaping the role of the Muslim in the modern world.5 Because the origin of this concept, which Hamid identifies as the litmus test for the relevancy of Iran, is rooted in Islamic doctrine, not a unique Sunni or Shia doctrine, there are certainly cross applications in the existence of an Islamic state in Iran. Hamid generalizes the Shiite understanding of the role of the cleric, making it difficult for the reader to dismiss Iran as an important example of Islamic socio-political control. The fairly new idea of the Guardianship of the Clerics does not have the unified meaning Hamid insinuates it holds. Rather, the role of the clerical power in Iran continues to develop; as such, it exists in dissonance, and does not have a universally accepted or understood significance.6 While the Iranian Revolution simplified these disputes, it did not solidify doctrine entirely. Because of this, an interrogation of the importance of the ulama in clerical roles in Iran would still be a relevant addition to Hamid’s examination of secularism and religion in the context of the Middle East. There are absolute and limited understandings of the Islamic Jurist in Iran (and in the Shia doctrine) which would allow for an interrogation of the extent to which it is appropriate, or possible, for politics and religion to be separate in an Islamic context. While it seems noble to address one sect of Islam at a time, Hamid defeats the foundation of his argument when he does so. In his second chapter, Hamid attempts to establish that Islam is vastly different from all other religions and is therefore exceptional. This argument is based on comparative analysis of religion and is therefore not a discussion of the substantive nature of Islam. Rather, it is an exposure of the foundational philosophy and implications of Islam in the modern world. If Hamid’s argument is true, then his argument of Islamic exceptionalism would apply to Sunni and Shia Muslims alike. While Pakistan has social differences from Egypt, Turkey, and Tunisia, the internal cultural and social differences in the countries he does choose to examine indicate that socio-political peculiarities are not a reason to exclude a country.7 Pakistan, a democratic parliamentary federal republic that has established Islam as the state religion seems to be a natural argument against Hamid’s thesis. The criterion of the Arab nations in Hamid’s book are all present in Pakistan: “sectarianism, Salafism, insurgency, strongmen autocrats and, not the least of which, democracy” are all evident in Pakistan. Pakistan has resolved sectarianism and made cultural differences a part of Pakistani culture, which Hamid claims would be damning to a modern Islamic State. The strongest counterargument to Hamid’s thesis is the existence of a modified form of democracy in Pakistan. This alone is enough to cause a reader to doubt the thesis, as Pakistan is a unique blend of secularism with strong Islamic undercurrents. While Hamid’s argument is compelling, it leaves the reader desiring a robust discussion of Iran and Pakistan. While they are often considered outside of the orbit of Arab culture, a proper

4 Ira M. Lapidus, “The Separation of State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 6, no. 4 (1975): 23. 5 Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism, 51–53. 6 Robert W. Hefner, Shari’a Politics: Islamic Law and Society in the Modern World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011), 128, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/fullerton/detail.action?docID=713664. 7 Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism, 105–7.

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Book Review Section discussion of the historiographic differences between Sunni and Shia Islam and an analysis of the clerical role in Shia and Sunni Islam is critical to a discussion of the modern Islamic State. However, the analysis Hamid provides is a complex explanation of the underlying socio-political factors of statecraft in the Middle East. Hamid’s thesis provides a method for Islam to enter the modern world according to the model of the Christian Reformation.

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FORUM

The Franciscan’s Forum papers provide a thoughtful exposition of a thesis based on an in-depth academic discussion. The topic selection for the 2019-2020 academic year is “Historiography of Race in the Americas: Social Justice, Race Relations, Construction of Race.” Please enjoy! — Forum Editors

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Slavery, Union, and States’ Rights Pre- and After the Civil War

Benjamin Lange

Abstract: This paper seeks to prove that, prior to the American Civil War, a desire to protect state autonomy and the economic interests of the Union prevented reforms to the Southern states’ slave labor system; however, in the Reconstruction Era, the temporary suppression of Southern state autonomy gave former enslaved peoples the ability to create the basis of a legal and institutional identity that would prove critical to weathering decades of white-supremacist Southern governments and racial animosity. In order to prove this thesis, this paper examines the economic relationship between the Northern and Southern states, the opinions of President Lincoln as revealed through his speeches and letters, and the effects of increased education and suffrage among black Americans in the Reconstruction Era.

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More than one hundred and fifty years after its occurrence, the Civil War—the bloodiest war in America’s history—continues to ignite controversy and debate, particularly about the justification of the war itself and the removal of the autonomy of the Southern states. Many Southerners believed that the North violated the autonomy and fundamental rights of their states, to the extent that some Southerners today continue to call the war by an alternate name, the “War of Northern Aggression.” However, if the North chose to ignore the activities of the South, both before and after secession, millions of people would have continued to suffer and die under the South’s slave labor network, calling into question the idea that unity between the states could be achieved without violating fundamental freedoms. Before the Civil War, unity between the states would lead to one of two outcomes: the removal of states’ autonomy from the southern states or the continued oppression of millions of enslaved peoples. After the Civil War, temporary disunion led to the long-term preservation of freedom for millions of black Americans. During the buildup to the Civil War, the Northern states were put in a unique predicament. Popular sentiment in the Northern states reflected a vehement antislavery attitude. However, the Southern states were unwilling to emancipate their enslaved people and viewed compromises with a suspicious attitude at best and outright hostility at worst. Distrust between the states meant that government officials from the North were unable to pass true antislavery measures. Harry Stout, when describing the North’s position, writes that “Most Northern Republicans shared Lincoln’s hatred for the institution of slavery, yet, as he did, they accepted both Southerners’ constitutional right to own slaves and the obligations imposed on them by the Fugitive Slave Law to return, by force if necessary, runaway slaves.”1 Northern states, despite their hatred of slavery, were constricted by differing interpretations of Constitutional Law and the emergence of the South as an agricultural and economic powerhouse. Furthermore, the purely economic benefits of slavery disincentivized Northern Congressmen from to truly confront their Southern neighbors over the horrific violence of slavery. At the time, cotton produced on southern plantations via slave labor was one of the premier cash crops of the global economy. Cotton had become a “core ingredient of the world’s most important manufacturing industry,” transforming not only the Southern agricultural economy but the northern manufacturing economy, as well as cementing the United States as the predominant global cotton exporter.2 Sven Beckert writes of American cotton exports that “by the late 1850s, the United States accounted for a full 77 percent of the 800 million pounds of cotton consumed in Britain, 90 percent of the 192 million pounds used in France…and as much as 92 percent of the 102 million pounds manufactured in Russia.”3 Elimination of slavery in the South would have severe political and economic repercussions, as Abraham Lincoln and many Northern Congressmen recognized. President Lincoln himself, like many other Northern politicians, was forced by political reality to strike a position between emphasizing an antislavery platform while seeking to preserve union with the Southern states. He maintained that a peaceful resolution to the problem of slavery was possible; claiming that “‘It shall be my endeavor,’ he now explained, ‘to preserve the peace of this country so far as it can be done, consistently with the maintenance of the institutions of the

1 Harry S Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), 15, http://rbdigital.oneclickdigital.com. 2 Sven Beckert, “Emancipation and Empire: Reconstructing the Worldwide Web of Cotton Production in the Age of the American Civil War,” The American Historical Review 109, no. 5 (2004): 1408, https://doi.org/10.1086/530931. 3 Beckert, 1408–9.

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Forum Section country.’”4 While Lincoln sought to end slavery, and personally believed in its immorality, his ultimate goal was preservation of the union. When examining Lincoln’s viewpoint on the balance between the prioritization of the moral high ground on slavery or unity between the states, he believed it more beneficial to Maintain the union. Stout, quoting Lincoln, writes that “To fellow Republicans, he insisted, ‘Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation.”5 In an 1862 letter to Horace Greeley, he wrote that “‘My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery…What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”6 Nevertheless, as Stout writes, “Lincoln would not budge on two issues, however: the right of states to secede from the Union and the expansion of slavery into the territories. Neither was allowable or negotiable. Lincoln’s patriotism burned deep and informed his morality.”7 Thus, in order to eliminate slavery without encroaching on Southern autonomy, Lincoln hoped to simply check the spread of slavery in hopes that it would eventually die out. However, the Southern states were unwilling to accept compromise, taking a hardline stance on slavery and holding to a severe distrust of the North. Leading up to the Civil War, the South saw the North’s efforts at compromise as a veiled power grab. The secession resolution of the state of Mississippi demonstrates the Southern viewpoint of the numerous compromises, stating that “They claim the right, and demand its execution by Congress, to exclude slavery from the territories…that they thus seek by an increase of abolition states ‘to acquire two-thirds of both houses’ for the purpose of preparing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolishing slavery in the states.”8 Despite attempts at compromise by the North, the South had no intention of giving up its enslaved peoples. Mississippi’s secession resolution also claims that slavery was not only supported by the Constitution, but that “all efforts to impair its value or lessen its duration by Congress, or any of the free states, is a violation of the compact of union, and is destructive of the ends for which it was ordained.”9 Because of a combination of economic necessity and distrust of Northern abolitionists, the South vehemently refused to surrender its enslaved peoples, placing the North in a moral quandary. For the North, further action was impossible, as was passivity and inaction. Options to act on slavery were limited—either force the Southern states to act on slavery or allow the continued oppression of black enslaved people on Southern plantations. The South viewed states' rights and slavery as inextricably linked—Stout writes that “South Carolina did not appeal to free states to join in secession, because her citizens saw the bond of states’ rights and slavery as indissoluble.”10 An outright ban on slavery, in the perception of the Southern states, would violate their fundamental freedom to self-governance, leaving the North left with tenuous, politically fraught compromises. The multiple attempts at compromise, including the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850, served largely to exacerbate the divide between Northern and Southern

4 Richard Nelson Current, Lincoln and the First Shot (Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1990), 19. 5 Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation, 14. 6 Stout, 184. 7 Stout, 14. 8 Hillsdale College and History Faculty, American Heritage: A Reader, 2011, 458. 9 Hillsdale College and History Faculty, 457. 10 Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation, 9.

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States. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, according to Michael Woods, has been identified as “the first of these turning points”11 which “fundamentally altered how Americans thought about slavery and the Union.”12 Its effects began the widening of the split between both the South and the North; the Missouri Compromise in the South “nurtured a less crassly self-interested defense of servitude,”13 while in the North, the Compromise “tempted northerners to conceptually separate ‘the South’ from ‘America,’ thereby sectionalizing the moral problem of slavery and conflating northern values and interests with those of the nation.”14 The 1850 Compromise proved just as damaging to the Union, if not worse. The concept of permanent disunion took hold after the Compromise of 1850; Woods writes that “the concept of disunion as a process of increasing alienation between North and South gained credibility during the 1850s as proslavery and antislavery elements clashed, often violently, over the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the extension of slavery into Kansas.”15 Compromises provided no chance of unity, leaving the North’s only options as oppression of the Southern states or allowance of the oppression of slavery. Thus, any unity of agreement between the states would have arisen from the suppression of freedom and autonomy, either that of the South, or of the enslaved peoples themselves. Since unity between the states and the preservation of individual freedom were mutually exclusive, the union eventually devolved into a de facto state of war. Throughout the Civil War, Lincoln maintained that union had been possible, if not for the actions of the Southern states. In his Second Inaugural Address, he claimed that “both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.”16 In the same speech, he continued to reinforce the idea that he had never planned to eliminate slavery from the south; instead his administration “claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement”17 of slavery. However, while he desired the possibility of a slavery-free union, he acknowledged that the horrors of slavery and the deprivation of freedom from millions of individuals had brought the bloodshed of war on American soil as divine retribution. Lincoln said that “until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword…so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.’”18 Thus, Lincoln regretfully acknowledged the inevitability of the war and the difficulty, if not the outright impossibility, of maintaining unity between the states without trampling on either the freedoms of the Southern states or the enslaved peoples. Nevertheless, despite the state of disunion and open war, the quandary remained: strip Southern states of autonomy, or allow the trampling of freedoms of millions of black enslaved peoples. During the war itself, Lincoln’s options for resolving the tension were limited; however, at the beginning of 1863, Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation, a document that would not only prove useful to the war effort, but also critical to the restoration of freedoms in the postwar period. The Emancipation Proclamation enabled Lincoln to finally end the tension between state autonomy and individual liberty by coming down firmly on the side of individual liberty. As Stout

11 Michael E. Woods, “What Twenty-First-Century Historians Have Said about the Causes of Disunion: A Civil War Sesquicentennial Review of the Recent Literature,” The Journal of American History 99, no. 2 (2012): 423. 12 Woods, 423. 13 Woods, 423–24. 14 Woods, 424. 15 Woods, 423. 16 Hillsdale College and History Faculty, American Heritage, 501. 17 Hillsdale College and History Faculty, 501. 18 Hillsdale College and History Faculty, 502.

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Forum Section writes, “Lincoln was an abolitionist at heart in his personal views (‘If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.’). He detested the ownership of one human being by another. And with emancipation as a war measure, he could at last bring his personal views more in line with his public executive self.”19 Some scholarship has dismissed the Emancipation Proclamation as merely a war measure with limited impact in the Northern states.20 However, its impact cannot be understated, as it provided a massive psychological and moral boost to freed slaves, who received news of the Proclamation with “unbridled joy and enthusiasm,”21 and set the tone for postwar Reconstruction efforts with its firm antislavery stance. The conflict between Southern states’ rights and slave freedom was decided by the Emancipation Proclamation and carried out in the postwar Reconstruction period. Ultimately, union could not be preserved without trampling some freedom, and during postwar Reconstruction, the Southern state governments were the ones to lose autonomy. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution not only stripped the Southern states of their decision-making power, but revised the contemporaneous doctrine of federalism to tilt the balance of power heavily toward the government. However, this change was necessary to protect the rights of the newly freed slaves; Robert Kaczorowski writes that “a change in federalism was a prerequisite for Congress to legislate for the protection of civil rights, in light of the nineteenth- century concept of federalism.”22 Without the guarantees of federal power, the civil rights instituted by the new Congress would hold no weight with state governments. If civil rights were given to persons as citizens of individual states, not as a single country unified under a federal government, “Congress would not have had the authority to legislate for their protection. These fundamental rights would be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the states.”23 In order to protect the rights of enslaved peoples in a newly reunified country, it was necessary to strip states’ rights, not only from the Southern slaveholding states, but from the union in general. However, the loss of state freedoms were counterbalanced by an increase in individual freedoms and civil rights protections given to newly freed slaves, who used their newfound liberty to create a support network for socioeconomically disadvantaged and racially targeted African- Americans, which enabled them to weather future decades of racial discrimination. Michael Cobb and Jeffery Jenkins note that, as a condition of readmittance to the Union, “Congress required southern states to extend suffrage to all males, and by 1868 more than 700,000 blacks were registered to vote in the South.”24 As a result, black voters began to elect representatives to Congress, including other black Americans who would represent their own race. According to Cobb and Jenkins, “In all, 22 different blacks were elected to Congress between 1869 and 1901, 20 in the House and 2 in the Senate.”25 According to their findings, “Black members of Congress during Reconstruction were significantly more representative of blacks’ interests than were white members of Congress, even those white Republicans who represented similar constituencies.”26

19 Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation, 183. 20 Mark M. Krug, “Lincoln, the Republican Party, and the Emancipation Proclamation,” The History Teacher 7, no. 1 (1973): 49, https://doi.org/10.2307/491202. 21 Krug, 56. 22 Robert J. Kaczorowski, “To Begin the Nation Anew: Congress, Citizenship, and Civil Rights after the Civil War,” The American Historical Review 92, no. 1 (1987): 47, https://doi.org/10.2307/1862782. 23 Kaczorowski, 47. 24 Michael D. Cobb and Jeffery A. Jenkins, “Race and the Representation of Blacks’ Interests during Reconstruction,” Political Research Quarterly 54, no. 1 (2001): 184, https://doi.org/10.2307/449214. 25 Cobb and Jenkins, 185. 26 Cobb and Jenkins, 195.

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By gaining access to the representative system, black Americans were able to find a foothold in the legal system, achieve self-representation, and begin building a social support network for themselves that would prove critical to weathering decades of racially-charged animosity, feats accomplishable because of the temporary suppression of Southern states’ rights. As part of their newly-acquired representation in the government, black Americans pushed for an educational system that would enable them to access a means of upward mobility. According to David Tyack and Robert Lowe, “The creation of public schools that included blacks depended on active collaboration between Southern blacks and their allies in the Congress.”27 Public schooling in the South, particularly for black Americans for decades afterward continued to follow a pattern of segregation and underfunding; however, “the Reconstruction conventions and legislatures were responsible for founding universal public schooling in the South. Largely as a result of the public schools thus created, black illiteracy dropped from 79.9 percent in 1870 to 44.5 percent in 1900.”28 The fight for black education in the South would face major hurdles, particularly after hostile white supremacist governments regained control in the post- Reconstruction period, but the brief period of self-governance After the Civil War allowed black Americans to begin “construction of institutions that enabled them to survive the repression that followed”29 Despite the loss of states’ rights, and the racial tensions that followed for decades afterward in the American South, the reunification of the Union proved critical for the long-term freedoms of newly freed slaves in the American South and black individuals across the United States. Before the Civil War, unity between the states would lead to one of two outcomes: the removal of states’ autonomy from the southern states or the continued oppression of millions of enslaved peoples. After the Civil War, temporary disunion led to the long-term preservation of freedom for black Americans. Without the violation of Southern state autonomy, slavery would likely have continued unchecked, leading to many more deaths and the continued oppression of millions. Ultimately, unity between the states became the enemy of freedom. However, while disunity led to a brutal conflict and a lengthy period of political turmoil, the inevitable division between the states preserved the Union and the individual freedoms of millions of Americans in the long term.

27 David Tyack and Robert Lowe, “The Constitutional Moment: Reconstruction and Black Education in the South,” American Journal of Education 94, no. 2 (1986): 238. 28 Tyack and Lowe, 249. 29 Tyack and Lowe, 253.

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Reproductive Aid as a Form of Ideological Neocolonialism: The Injustice of Racist Epistemologies on Reproductive Aid in Africa

Denise Sprimont

Recipient of Forum Editor’s Award

Abstract: The United States is the largest donor of reproductive aid in the world and is one of the largest purchasers and distributors of forms of contraceptives internationally. The stated goal of USAID is to “improve the health, well-being, and economic status of the peoples of the developing countries by improving the conditions of human reproduction in these societies.” While this seems like a noble statement, it is necessary to understand the motivation and enforcement of this endeavor before embracing its policies. As such, this paper will evaluate the epistemological motivations of Reproductive Aid in Sub-Saharan Africa, and evaluate the effect of such policies through statistical analysis of economic decline, fertility and population decline, disease rates, legislative coalitions on foreign reproductive aid, and the deterioration of family values.

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As society becomes more aware of the fruits of racism, the institutionalized Western colonialism that for so long defined the ontology and epistemology of persons of color is viewed as a historical event that ended with the civil rights movement. The West views remnants of structural racism as existing passively as opposed to being actively discriminatory. As such, the West, particularly the United States, has shifted the way they interact with African culture from a conscious colonialism to an unconscious colonialism. This slight shift in mindset among individuals and communities alike has led to the growth of unconscious oppression of distinctly African values. Through the United States’ structured racism and policies formulated based on false assumptions, reproductive aid from the United States has become a tool of ideological neocolonialism. The history of America’s interactions with Africa is a troubling one. The Middle Passage, which sociologists identify as, “The transatlantic slave trade [which] concerns the history of three continents over four centuries… has served as a crucial element of New World [development] since the slave trade soared in the eighteenth century in response to the increasing demand for unfree labor….”1 This caused a shift in the way that African slaves viewed their role in relation to others. (From now on, this particular shift will be referred to as an “ontological shift.” Ontology refers to the study of being). This shift created a hierarchy within American culture that has lasted for generations. As such, the Middle Passage has become a defining historical event, and the cultural impact of this event “has become the discourse of the oppressed… more authentic and better suited to our chaotic times than the (official) historical discourse.”2 The remnant of racism in society shaped the way in which Africans relate to, and see themselves in relation to white American culture. This “self-definition” was created by the slave traders who believed themselves to be superior based upon a Western ideology that allowed for individuals to be “natural[ly] order[ed].”3 This historiography is the foundation upon which internalized modern racism rests. The ontology influenced by colonialism provided a fundamentally hierarchical way of understanding the nature of reality, shaped the way in which America understood and processed information (the way in which individuals and societies understand and process the world will be referred to as epistemology).4 That is, the ontological underpinnings created in the Middle Passage shaped the epistemology of Americans. This epistemology allowed for, and even excused colonialism in Africa. The Berlin Conference of 1884, which was called in order to properly “partition Africa into territories that would then be occupied, annexed, and colonized by the participating countries,” was the beginning of the American participation in the direct colonialism of Africa as a nation.5 After WWII, however, the Atlantic Charter made it difficult for the United States to continue as a colonizer of Africa. The Atlantic Charter identified the right to govern one’s

1 Raphaël Lambert, “The Slave Trade as Memory and History: James A. Emanuel’s ‘The Middle Passage Blues’ and Robert Hayden’s ‘Middle Passage,’” African American Review 47, no. 2 (Fall 2014): 338. 2 Lambert, 337. 3 Lambert, 337; Barbara Fields, Region, Race and Reconstruction Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, ed. J. Morgan Kousser, James M McPherson, and Comer Vann Woodward (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), chap. Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America. 4 Vivien Lowndes, David Marsh, and Gerry Stoker, Theory and Methods in Political Science (Macmillan International Higher Education, 2017), 179; Fields, Region, Race and Reconstruction Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, chap. Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America. 5 Obianuju Ekeocha, Target Africa: Ideological Neocolonialism of the Twenty-First Century (San Francisci: Ignatius, 2018), 18.

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Forum Section own nation as “the right of all peoples.”6 As such, the 1950’s saw the end of the colonization of Africa, and the beginning of independent African nations, returning Africa to independent governance after a century of occupation and colonization.7 While the United States has attempted to alter and minimize the way in which racism is verbalized in political discourse and policymaking, these methods of curbing epistemological assumptions remain unsuccessful. This has led to “the durability of racial inequality in the face of both political contestation and individual identity.”8 Not only does this account for racism domestically, but these epistemologies have also informed the way in which the United States Government interacts with the international community, particularly African nations. Amongst American policymakers, tribal customs and morals are trivialized and viewed as savage.9 African values and ideologies are largely based on what would be referred to in the U.S. as “superstition,” and what is referred to in Africa as religion.10 As a country whose epistemology is largely influenced by post-Enlightenment thinking, the United States automatically counts superstitious beliefs as invalid and untrue. This evaluation of African ideology and epistemology may be unconscious, but it is evident in the results of Foreign Aid to Africa. Despite the end of overt racism through colonialism, the United States still exercises control and influence on African institutions, resources, and ideologies. The epistemology and ontological ordering created by colonialism makes it easy for the United States to execute ideological control over African nations. This power over Africa is implemented in the form of influence. As Dr. Ernest Wilson, a former senior staff member of the NSA and Information Agency, and specialist in International Policy explains, “In international politics, having ‘power’ is the ability to influence another to act in ways in which that entity would not have otherwise acted.”11 This is the case in Africa; African policy makers frequently cede their right to govern their nation to the influential U.S. policy “advisors” who expect, and receive “obedience [from African leaders] due to the African predisposition, from the days of colonialism, to look up to the White Man.”12 This way of exercising influence is referred to as “‘political will,’ a term that, by definition, implies a certain show of force and commitment on the part of leaders to carry through a policy, especially one that is not popular. It is a soft version of totalitarianism invoked by imperialists… who want to force millions of Africans to let go of their morals.”13 While this form of colonialism and totalitarianism is implemented in many ways, it is especially implemented through aid.

6 United Nations and Office of Public Information, Yearbook of the United Nations, 1946-47., vol. 1 (New York: UN, 1947), 2. 7 Ekeocha, Target Africa, 19–20. 8 Aliya Saperstein, Andrew M. Penner, and Ryan Light, “Racial Formation in Perspective: Connecting Individuals, Institutions, and Power Relations,” Annual Review of Sociology 39, no. 1 (2013): 371, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145639. 9 Ekeocha, Target Africa, 94. 10 Benson O Igboin, “Colonialism and African Cultural Values,” African Journal of History and Culture 3, no. 6 (July 2011): 1. 11 James . Major Hackbarth USAF, “Soft Power and Smart Power in Africa,” Strategic Insights 8, no. 1 (2008): 114, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a517405.pdf. 12 Ekeocha, Target Africa, 22. 13 Ekeocha, 63.

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The political ideology that motivates aid can often be measured by “legislative coalitions” in Congress that support or suppress certain ideals.14 Legislative coalitions in Congress are not traditional alliances for re-election or to please constituents.15 They are formed because of the ability of foreign policy to export ideologies and values to the world. Because ideology is the way in which individuals export epistemology into culture, “ideology shapes foreign policy, and [thus] aid policy.”16 Dr. Helen Milner and Dr. Dustin Tingley, experts in International Affairs and Government, examined five sets of Congressional votes on foreign aid and determined control and independent variables to ensure exact results. The goal of their study was to “explain legislators’ votes on foreign aid bills from 1979 to 2004… [and determine if it is true that] no set of systematic political factors explains support for…aid….”17 The result of their study was that. “Interests matter, but so does ideology. Legislators respond…to their ideological predispositions.”18 Because United States policy makers are predisposed to understand their policies as superior, it becomes natural to impose ideology through aid. One of the most culturally intimate forms of foreign aid is reproductive aid, as it goes beyond politics and economics. Reproductive aid is, at its core, about the family, and the ability to manipulate, control and shape the way in which family is formed (or not formed). The United States is the largest donor of reproductive aid in the world and is one of the largest purchasers and distributors of forms of contraceptives internationally.19 The stated goal of USAID (United States Agency for International Development) according to R. T. Ravenholt, one of the directors of the USAID program, is to “improve the health, well-being, and economic status of the peoples of the developing countries by improving the conditions of human reproduction in these societies.”20 While this seems like a noble statement, it is necessary to understand the motivation and enforcement of this endeavor before embracing its policies. The underlying assumptions upon which policy is made are necessary to examine, as they inform the development of the policy. The epistemology of policymakers affects policy and can have positive or negative ramifications based on the ideology exported through said policy. According to Ravenholt, the creation of USAID was because “coercive social measures of population control are needed [to curb population increase].”21 This necessary curb of population increase refers to the “population explosion” expected in Africa. While statistics regarding the population growth from 1969 are difficult to find, the projected trend has remained the same, and USAID continues to operate based on fear of a drastic increase in population. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs projects that the percent of the global population in Africa will grow to 25% in 2050 and to 39% in 2100 due to high fertility rates.22 The same forecast

14 Helen V. Milner and Dustin H. Tingley, “THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF U.S. FOREIGN AID: AMERICAN LEGISLATORS AND THE DOMESTIC POLITICS OF AID,” Economics & Politics 22, no. 2 (July 1, 2010): 200– 201, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0343.2009.00356.x. 15 Milner and Tingley, 200–203. 16 Milner and Tingley, 209. 17 Milner and Tingley, 210. 18 Milner and Tingley, 227. 19 Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation, “The U.S. Government and International Family Planning & Reproductive Health Efforts” (Global Health Policy, August 2018). 20 R. T. Ravenholt, “AID’s Family Planning Strategy,” Science 163, no. 3863 (January 10, 1969): 124–27, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.163.3863.124. 21 Ravenholt. 22 United Nations, “World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision, Key Findings and Advance Tables” (Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2015)), 3.

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Forum Section shows that the United States will have one of the lowest replacement fertility levels.23 The concern for population levels has to do with resources and the lack of land to populate. The current population density of the United States is 92.2 people per square mile, and the United States has 4.2% of the world population.24 On the other hand, the continent of Africa (which contains 54 countries) has a population density of 65 people per square mile with 15% of the world population.25 In comparing these statistics, it becomes clear that it is not a question of land available, or of population density, as both of these problems have solutions in the status quo (low population density in Africa, and low replacement rates in the United States and other Western nations). The rhetoric of the “African population bomb instead of a population boom, which could help to grow African economies and to lift many Africans out of poverty…bring[s] back to life every debunked Malthusian prediction.”26 The underlying assumptions that necessitate coercive control of populations are false, based on fallacious principles. A proper understanding of this evidence removes the urgency of the USAID’s mission, and leaves the voluntary endorsement of its policies to African nations. African values are vastly different from modern Western values, despite the influence of colonialism on the nation. In Africa, family is the “primary unit of the social life of the community”27 In Africa in particular, reproductive aid is aid that has to do with the very core of all African values and ideologies. Reproductive aid in Africa is particularly influential, as all other facets of African life flow from it. The USAID’s current platform is based on the “unmet need” of contraceptives and abortions.28 However, this platform is not consistent with African values. In 2010, USAID reported that Africa had the countries with the highest desired number of children, with averages ranging from 9.2 desired children in Chad, 9.1 in Niger, 4.1 in Zimbabwe, and the lowest in Swaziland with a desired 2.7 children.29 In the same report, it states that Africa has the countries with the lowest rate of unwanted and terminated pregnancies.30 While an American woman may be blown away by these numbers, they are commonplace to an African woman, as these statistics demonstrate the strong emphasis on family in Africa. While reproductive aid labels these desires and practices as false or misogynistic desires, they are simply descriptive of the culture of Africa. The majority of reproductive aid, which targets birth control and abortions, is irrelevant in Africa, as it is not consistent with African values. In fact, Obianuju Ekeocha, a Nigerian woman who serves as an advisor to African Members of Parliament, African United Nations delegates and Ambassadors, explains that the ideologies that are exported through reproductive aid are destructive to the family-oriented culture of Africa, and make it more difficult to solve human rights abuses against women. As such, many of the feminist movements in Africa have re-entrenched dangerous practices like female genital mutilation, sex trafficking, and child marriage.31 Because African and American epistemologies differ, policy makers must be sensitive

23 United Nations, 5. 24 “Population Density of the United States 2017 | Statistic,” https://www.statista.com/statistics/183475/united- states-population-density/; “Total Population by Country 2018,” http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/. 25 “Africa Population 2018 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs),” accessed December 14, 2018, http://worldpopulationreview.com/continents/africa-population/. 26 Ekeocha, Target Africa, 32. 27 Igboin, “Colonialism and African Cultural Values,” 99–100. 28 “Family Planning and Reproductive Health,” https://www.usaid.gov/what-we-do/global-health/family-planning. 29 Charles Westoff, “Desired Number of Children: 2000-2008,” DHS Comparative Reports (Calverton, Maryland, 2010), 4–6. 30 Westoff, 21. 31 Ekeocha, Target Africa, 76–105.

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The Franciscan to the way in which American policies are received in African nations, especially when they are detrimental to the health of those they seek to help. Many argue that it is necessary to solve HIV and AIDS epidemics in Africa, and as such, it is necessary to provide reproductive aid.32 Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 70% of the global population with HIV, and 74% of death due to AIDS.33 This is certainly an out-of-control crisis that must be solved, but the United States’ aid has been woefully insufficient and ineffective. The policy solution exported through reproductive aid was to legalize sex work, which would reportedly “reduce HIV infections by 33-46% over the next decade.”34 This solution, however, would only increase sex trafficking in Africa and legitimize the sexual subjugation of young women.35 International Planned Parenthood Federation, whose main funding and influence comes from the United States, has attempted to destigmatize HIV through a “Healthy, Happy and Hot” guide to life with HIV, which encourages non-disclosure of HIV before sex, and encourages youth to have sex, and encourage underage drinking and drug activity.36 These strategies are not only ineffective, they are counterproductive, and the HIV and AIDS rates continue to rise. African solutions, which were ideologically aligned with African values, saw a 70% reduction of HIV. Instead of focusing on American values of individualism and sexual expression, the campaign provided the “ABC prevention plan,” which stood for “Abstinence before marriage, Be faithful in marriage or to one partner, Condom use if A and B are impossible.”37 These policies, written by Africans for Africans, focused on values that supported the African ideology of family first, and through working within the African ideological system, was able to successfully reduce HIV in Uganda. American policy making, which is shaped by epistemologies rooted in racism, has the tendency to apply uniquely American ideologies on Africa, believing that American ideals are more evolved than African ideals, and therefore superior. These remnants of structural racism have influenced American reproductive aid to Africa, and are the basis for the “need” for such aid. While the epistemologies are passively discriminatory, they have tangible negative effects on African nations through policy failures and the adoption of ideologies antagonistic to African culture. This has led to the unconscious oppression of distinctly African values, pushing reproductive aid into the hands of Africans who do not desire it. Instead of freeing women from the burden of misogynistic policies, the United States has created ideological neocolonialism, a new, unconscious colonialism that co-opts healthy African movements, and leaves them useless. This ideological neocolonialism is rooted in racism and is perpetuating and retrenching policies that are detrimental to Africa, and African ideologies.

32 Ezekiel Kalipeni, HIV and AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006). 33 Ayesha B.M. Kharsany and Quarraisha A. Karim, “HIV Infection and AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa: Current Status, Challenges and Opportunities,” The Open AIDS Journal 10 (April 8, 2016): 34–48, https://doi.org/10.2174/1874613601610010034. 34 Ekeocha, Target Africa, 73. 35 Ekeocha, 73. 36 Foundation, “The U.S. Government and International Family Planning & Reproductive Health Efforts.” 37 Ekeocha, Target Africa, 68.

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Historiography of the Social Construction of Native Americans: Social Injustices as Personal Problems

Denise Sprimont

Abstract: Throughout history, Native Americans have been relegated to the slums of America, both literally and figuratively. Although Americans commonly view Native American struggles as personal problems caused by personal choices, the historiography of race relations in America show that the U.S. has intentionally excluded Native Americans from access to the American Dream.

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The longstanding American tradition of protecting rights, ensuring domestic tranquility, and equal representation for all have long been celebrated privileges of citizens in America. There have historically been groups of people that are denied these privileges due to structural oppression. However, there has been no social group that has endured structural persecution to the extent that Indigenous Americans have been structurally excluded from the American Dream, and from accessing fundamental rights. These longstanding structural constraints on the life and freedoms of Indigenous Americans have led to poverty, a social problem that is hidden by structural segregation, oppression, and assimilation. Systemic social problems in the Indigenous American community, like a lack of affordable housing and access to healthcare, high rates of crime and police brutality, alcoholism and mental health issues, are all deeply personal and far removed from the average American, leading many to presume that the poverty that plagues Indigenous Americans is a personal trouble. A historical understanding of the relationship between the U.S. Government and Indigenous Americans, the widespread nature of poverty amongst Indigenous Americans, and the active discrimination against Indigenous American communities reveal the source of these antagonisms to be entirely social, classifying them as a social problem despite their personal implications. The destruction of Indigenous American culture and peoples through assimilation is systematic, both in nature and in practice. Although this erasure began through colonization, it has continued through law that segregates, discriminates and oppresses Indigenous Americans. At the founding of America, colonists, driven by Manifest Destiny, applied religious urgency to the assimilation of Indigenous peoples. William Barret, a Jamestown colonist, wrote a series of defenses of colonization of Indigenous peoples in 1610. This defense was rooted in religion with the goal of assimilation: “To preach the Gospell to a nation conquered, and to set their soules at liberty, when we haue brought their bodies to slauerie…the possessor of the west Indies, first destroied, and then instructed [italics added for emphasis].”1 This defense demonstrates the origin of colonization: slavery first to conquer and destroy, then an attempt to “instruct” the Indigenous people to become more civilized— more American. The assimilation enacted by the first colonizers did not end with the colonial period in America but instead became compounded by formalized racism in law and politics.2 In 1896, the Peace Policy was put in place, which formed the Board of Indian Affairs (which still exists today), and gave Protestant layman control of the Board of Indian Affairs.3 While the Peace Policy made some short-term positive material changes, it also formalized assimilation into law.4 One of the practices of The Peace Policy was to use education as a tool of assimilation. The B.I.A. increased the number of Indian Boarding Schools, which disastrously fractured the lives of Indigenous Americans. The goal of these schools was to remove Indigenous children from “evil” influences and to help them adjust and assimilate to American culture, which the Grant administration warned was inevitable. While peaceful in

1 William Barret, “Tracts and Other Papers Relating Principally to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America from the Discovery of the Country to the Year 1776.,” Original Document, 1610, https://lccn.loc.gov/04027018. 2 Naomi Schaefer, The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians (New York: Encounter Books, 2016), i, https://www.worldcat.org/title/new-trail-of-tears-how-washington-is-destroying- american-indians/oclc/1013996896&referer=brief_results. 3 Elsie Rushmore, The Indian Policy During Grant’s Administrations (Queensborough, New York: The Marion Press, 1914), chap. Government and Protection of the Indians. 4 Rushmore, chap. Government and Protection of the Indians.

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Forum Section principle, the boarding schools were disastrous in practice. 5 Children were abducted from their homes to attend boarding schools, which were rampant with sexual abuse, forced sterilization, torture of children who spoke in their native language instead of English, inadequate nourishment, and poor healthcare.6 These schools alone ultimately led to the murder of 50,000 Indigenous children. 7 America’s history, as outlined above, continues to be a reality for Native Americans— 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in their lifetime.8 The same B.I.A. oversees 183 schools (4 of them boarding schools), with severe underfunding.9 Boarding schools instilled unhealthy and nutrient deficient ways of eating, instilled abusive cycles of discipline, and caused an intergenerational distrust of schooling.10 The effects of the historical interactions with Native Americans have come to characterize the American attitude towards Native Americans. This history of assimilation, however, is not a reality for the average American, as it does not affect them, and typically does not even touch their neighbors (due to segregation on reservations, and due to gentrification). Instead, assimilation of Native Americans is relegated to reservations and low-income neighborhoods.11 Alternatively, in places where assimilation was successful, Americans do not recognize “problems” as distinctly Native American problems because of the reverse one-drop rule, which erases Native identity as it becomes diluted by assimilation. In these cases, Americans simply see people who are (in their view are not) Native Americans as a personal problem.12 The social distance from these structures that define Native American history deludes the average American’s understanding of Native American poverty as a social issue because they do not have structural awareness of the roots of Native American poverty. The majority of Native Americans are impoverished to an extreme extent. This can be measured through the quantity and quality of poverty in Native communities, and the knock-on effects of poverty. One in four Native Americans live in poverty, Native Americans have higher rates of unemployment, and Native Americans are the racial group with the highest amount of poverty.13 The sheer quantity of poverty in Indigenous communities indicates that there is a common factor dictating poverty, or a common structural inhibition to income. This oppression, however, is often veiled by government bureaucracy. For example, through a series of traps, the

5 Andrea Smith, “Boarding School Abuses, Human Rights, and Reparations,” Social Justice 31, no. 4 (98) (2004): 89–102. 6 Smith. 7 Smith. 8 Sarah Deer, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America (U of Minnesota Press, 2015), chap. Knowing through Numbers? 9 “Bureau of Indian Education | Schools,” accessed April 26, 2019, https://bie.edu/Schools/; Stephen Sachs and Barbara Morris, Re-Creating the Circle: The Renewal of American Indian Self-Determination (UNM Press, 2011), chap. Reasons for Low American Indian School Performance. 10 Rebecca Peterson, “The Impact of Historical Boarding Schools on Native American Families and Parenting Roles,” n.d., 11. 11 Schaefer, The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians, chap. Someone Else’s Responsibility. 12 Daniel J Sharfstein, “Crossing the Color Line: Racial Migration and the One-Drop Rule, 1600–1860,” MINNESOTA LAW REVIEW, n.d., 8. 13 Schaefer, The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians, i; Jens Krogstad, “One-in- Four Native Americans and Alaska Natives Are Living in Poverty | Pew Research Center,” Pew Research, One-in- four Native Americans and Alaska Natives are living in poverty, accessed November 13, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/13/1-in-4-native-americans-and-alaska-natives-are-living-in- poverty/.

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The Franciscan government managed to force Native Americans to pay to own their own land, which made living in homes (or even on their property) untenable. Schaefer summarizes the effect of this: “…the result is substandard housing, and the barren, rundown look that comes from a lack of investment, overuse and environmental degradation. It’s a look that’s common world-wide, wherever secure property rights are lacking….”14 A tribal leader described poverty as being caused by the government “legislat[ing us] out of the economy. When you don’t have individual property rights, you can’t build, you can’t be bonded, you can’t pass on wealth.”15 This demonstrates a structural inhibition to property rights, a key tenant to the American Dream.16 Not only are property rights inhibited, but inherited wealth, which is necessary to break cycles of poverty, is destroyed. This creates cyclical poverty that individuals are limited by, thus incentivizing Indigenous Americans to throw off their identity as Native Americans in order to survive in America. This form of economic assimilation is a new form of oppression that further hides the structural inhibitions Native Americans face; it deludes the American community into believing that Native Americans can work hard enough to overcome their “problems.”17 Americans believing that an individual can overcome their circumstances without external aid is the cause of the delusion that Native American poverty is an individual trouble. The quality and quantity of Indigenous Poverty fly in the face of this claim. While a lack of awareness regarding the origin of assimilation has largely obfuscated the continued oppression of Native Americans, it has not changed the material destitution of Indigenous Americans. A lack of access to basic necessities, like affordable housing and healthcare, are endemic of America’s failed attempt to assimilate Native Americans. By creating the B.I.A., not only did America segregate Native Americans physically and culturally, but America also eliminated the political and social capital of Native Americans. Because the priority for many Native Americans is simply survival, it is difficult, if not impossible, for them to start significant social movements that will have any effect on their long-term survival.18 Many Native Americans still have “difficulty functioning” because of abuse and oppression, and “many adults still can’t even talk about their experiences….it has significantly affected [parents] ability to raise their own families [italics added for emphasis].”19 By stripping Native Americans of their culture, their rights, and their very bodies, America has stripped them of the ability to do anything but survive. Assimilation has affected the most intimate details of Native American’s lives—even their ability to parent. Segregating the Indigenous into poor communities and reservations has effectively created a community of individuals unable to speak for themselves, to fight for their lives, or to function normally. Because of these longstanding traditions of structural segregation, Native American communities have become areas with high amounts of crime, police brutality, alcoholism, and mental health issues. This, however, is not because of passive discrimination. Keith Matthew, a former Chief of the Simpcw Band, speaks to the active nature of discrimination against Indigenous American communities, which reveals the source of these antagonisms to be entirely social, classifying them as a social problem despite their personal implications: “When

14 Schaefer, The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians, 13. 15 Schaefer, 13. 16 Jim Cullen, The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation, 9th Print edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 47. 17 “The Brain Drain on Reservations Around the Country - The Atlantic,” accessed November 13, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/11/blackfeet-brain-drain/568156/. 18 Schaefer, The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians, 4. 19 Schaefer, 150–51.

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Forum Section you have archaic clauses that govern…you…, there is virtually no opportunity for the creation of our own [community].”20 The attempt at assimilation further removed the ability of Native Americans to thrive. While many troubles that Native Americans face are deeply personal in their implication, they are entirely social in their origin, making the extreme poverty that Native Americans face and thus the problems that Native Americans face as a result of extreme poverty and segregation, Social Problems. Ignorance and social distance make it difficult for many Americans to understand the root of social problems, veiling the historical causes of the large quantity of poverty in Indigenous communities. The effort to assimilate Native Americans was and is social and is thus a continued structural inhibition to the political and social capital. These doom Native Americans to be continually relegated to poor communities without access to the American Dream and fundamental rights. The reality for the Native American is still the simple motto that colonists of centuries past used to justify the assimilation and destruction of Native Americans: we will bring you to slavery, first destroyed, then assimilated. 21

20 Schaefer, 43. 21 Barret, “Tracts and Other Papers Relating Principally to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the Colonies in North America from the Discovery of the Country to the Year 1776.,” 1610.

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THE FRANCISCAN STAFF

FACULTY ADVISOR

Professor Rebecca Lott has been an adjunct faculty member at Concordia University Irvine since 2017 and taught the Historical Editing class responsible for publishing The Franciscan. Professor Lott is a current Ph.D. candidate at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Her research interests include early modern poor relief, charity, and migration.

SENIOR EDITOR

Denise Sprimont is a graduating senior History and Political Thought major and Law and Politics minor at Concordia University Irvine, and will graduate as an Honors Scholar. She earned first place in Concordia's 2018 Presidential Academic Showcase of Undergraduate Research for her research on the Han Dynasty. She has been a leader during her time at Concordia: she founded The Franciscan History Journal, started the History Society, and served as president of the Young Americans for Freedom chapter, in addition to working as Lead History Tutor and a Writing Consultant on campus. She has participated in the forensics program at Concordia since her freshman year and ended her debate career as the top team in the nation. She was nominated and selected to attend the 2019 American Enterprise Institute's Summer Honors Program on War and Decision-Making and the 2020 War Studies Program through the Hertog Foundation. In her spare time, Denise enjoys reading at coffee shops, spending time with her family and friends, and baking.

LEAD EDITORS

Meghan Gleeson is agraduating senior at Concordia University, Irvine in the History and Political Thought Discipline. She was one of the top 10 competitors in the National Parliamentary Debate Association collegiate competitions all four years of her undergraduate career. She was one of the founding members of The Franciscan in 2020 and also a founding member of Concordia's History Society. She will graduate from Concordia University Irvine cum laude. In addition to school, Meghan worked two jobs during her entire collegiate experience. Meghan's historical passions include legal historiographies, diasporic cultures, women's history in America, and modern racial relations.

Josiah Popp is a graduating senior from Concordia University Irvine with a major in History and Political Thought, and minor in Law and Politics. Josiah will graduate as an Honors Scholar. He has submitted several works to academic competitions and won second place in Concordia's 2018 Presidential Showcase of Undergraduate Research and won first place in the competition (Tier 1) in 2019. He was nominated and selected to attend the American Enterprise Institute's 2019 Summer Honors Academy's War and Decision-Making Program. He was also recognized for leadership positions such as Lincoln Douglas Debate Captain for CUI Forensics, Vice

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President and Leader of the Year Award of Concordia's Omicron Kappa Delta (ODK) circle. Political Thought II tutor and visiting English/debate teacher at Peking University.

David Vasquez is a first-generation student at Concordia University Irvine from the Central Valley in California. He is a senior in the History and Political Thought Department at Concordia, and a Law and Politics Minor. He was one of the founding members of The Franciscan in 2020 and also a founding member of Concordia's History Society. He served as the Captain of Forensics for the Concordia Speech and Debate Team and served on campus as a Resident Assistant in his senior year, and has been involved in various clubs around campus such as the Young Americans for Freedom Club and the History Society.

EDITORS

Caroline Curtis is a graduating senior from Concordia University Irvine. Throughout her time at CUI, she has been given the opportunity to learn what truly interests her within the field of history. When taking a class on the War of the Spanish Succession, she discovered her passion for French history and the intricacies of their governmental system during the early 18th century. Her paper attempts to shine a new light on the Sun King and portray some of his strengths during this complicated period of history. While writing this paper she found that she was able to examine people of that time period from different points of view, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

Ryan Dunn is a sophomore majoring in History/Political Thought at Concordia University, Irvine. He is also involved in Forensics (Parliamentary Debate), Enactus, the History Society, and is an editor for The Franciscan. In his study of history, he enjoys researching totalitarian governments and the ideologies that propel authoritarian states.

Evangeline Gahn is a sophomore student at Concordia University Irvine. She is a History and Political Thought major with minors in Creative Writing and Philosophy. During her two years at Concordia she has had the opportunity to study abroad with the Concordia Cambridge program, and so far is particularly interested in the history of European textile trades and fashion.

Jacob Lange is a junior History and Political Thought major, with minors in Classical Languages, Law and Politics, and English. Last year, he had the opportunity to take part in the Concordia Cambridge Study Abroad Programme along with nine other students from Concordia Irvine. While there, he conducted research in the Churchill College Archives which he then submitted in the President's Academic Showcase, earning a place as a finalist. He also plays trumpet in the Concordia Wind Orchestra, Sinfonietta, and Jazz Band and works as a student assistant for the CUI Honors Program. He plans on attending graduate school to continue studying history following his final year at Concordia.

Sean Nowlan is a freshman at Concordia University Irvine, currently working on his degree History and Political thought. A botanist, historian, and game designer at heart. Sean can be found working on spreadsheets as much as gardening carnivorous plants. His interests include reading, organizing, and Dungeons & Dragons.

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Emily Yamada is currently a sophomore at Concordia University Irvine, where she is working on a degree in History and Political Thought with a minor in Creative Writing. She has recently returned from a study abroad semester at Cambridge University in England with the Concordia Cambridge program, where she picked up an interest in the sociopolitical effects of Dante and Chaucer’s writings. She also sings in Concordia’s all-women's choir, the Donne di Canto. Her interests include reading classic literature and drinking coffee, while her historical passions are currently aimed towards Japan’s Sengoku period and the Prohibition era in America.

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AUTHORS

Luca Azuma graduated from CUI in 2019 with a B.A. in History/Political Thought and a minor in Law/Politics. He played the double bass for the CWO and Concordia Sinfonietta and enjoyed living in Global Village for two years during his time as a student at Concordia. He is currently pursuing his M.A. in history at CSU Fullerton, and has interests in financial/economic/business history, American conservatism, the Republican Party in California, Gaetano Mosca and generally the history of political thought. Luca is a proud volunteer for the OC Parks, and you will most likely find him hiking or running somewhere in the Santa Ana mountains on his days off.

Godesulloh Bawa is a senior History and Political Thought major at Concordia University Irvine. He was born and raised in Abuja, Nigeria. He is interested in African history, specifically African philosophy as it relates to the current state of the continent and the mind of the African. At Concordia, he is also a part of the music department and studies guitar and composition.

Ingrid Becker is a senior at Concordia University Irvine studying Elementary Education, but she has a passion for History and Disability advocation, and loves combining these two subjects! Besides academia, she has a soft spot for snuggling cats, gardening and being in the sunshine, and reading and writing. One of her dreams is to eventually become a history professor.

Benjamin Lang is a senior at Concordia University Irvine, where he studies English Literature. His research has been featured in the CUI President's Academic Showcase, where his paper, "Violence, Feuding and the Wergild: Christian and Germanic Metaphysics in Beowulf," was selected as one of five finalist presentations. He hopes to become a published novelist and professor after college, and currently lives in Sacramento with his family.

Manoah Marton graduated summa cum laude from Concordia University Irvine in 2018, where he studied History & Political Thought. He currently attends UCLA School of Law and serves as a Managing Editor on the UCLA Law Review. When he graduates from law school, Manoah will join the law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in their Irvine office. In his free time, Manoah enjoys deep-sea tuna fishing, NFL football, and mixology. Caleb Speakman graduated summa cum laude from Concordia University, Irvine, in May 2018. At Concordia, he studied History and Political Thought, Philosophy, and Classical Languages. He is currently pursuing his M.A. in Classics at the University of Arizona, where he teaches Latin and works as a graduate assistant. His academic interests include intellectual history and ancient Greek philosophy. Caleb enjoys hiking, birdwatching, and reading in his spare time.

Coming from Long Beach, CA, Randy O. is a senior at Concordia University of Irvine. He is a History/Political Thought Major. Politics and history fascinate him because for him it explains how we as a society get ourselves into the situations that we get ourselves into. The historical figures of the left provided him with answers to the questions of the world and why the people of color are treated like second hand citizens. Although she has passed, his grandmother is his biggest inspiration and he says he will never forget where he has come from.

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Sam Leanza Ortiz graduated from Concordia University, Irvine, in 2016 with her BA in History and Political Thought and a minor in philosophy. She competed collegiately for CUI Swim & Dive, earning NAIA All-American her sophomore year. Sam has been a publishing assistant for 1517 Publishing since 2017. Prior to joining 1517, Sam interned for the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. In addition to her work for 1517, she is also pursuing her MA in History at Baylor University where she researches eighteenth-century ecumenical Protestantism. A proud California native, Sam currently lives in Waco, Texas, where she can often be found cooking Italian food with her husband Patrick.

Bradley Smith graduated Summa Cum Laude and as an Associate Honors student from Concordia University Irvine (CUI) in 2016, earning with a B.A. in History and Political Thought and a minor in Design and Technical Production. He also earned his California Teaching Credential in Social Science from CUI in 2017. Bradley is currently enrolled as an M.A. student of History at California State University Long Beach with emphases in World History and U.S. History. His particular areas of interest include American Indian history and material culture of global commodities such as coffee, cotton, and sugar.

Rachel Tillmann is currently a sophomore at Concordia University Irvine. She is originally from a small town in Wisconsin, where she lives right across from several farms and her Dad's Church. She ended up at CUI through a series of God-Winks, and she could not be more blessed with the family she found on campus. She is currently majoring in Behavioral Science with an emphasis in Psychology and a minor in Philosophy. One of her favorite aspects of CUI’s curriculum is how the different disciplines, such as science and history, overlap and offer unique perspectives that would be difficult to find outside of a Liberal Arts education. At CUI, she has been blessed to be a part of the Forensics community with debate, she has studied abroad at Cambridge University, and she could not have prayed for a better second home.

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THE FRANCISCAN HISTORY JOURNAL The Franciscan history journal is published and edited by students at Concordia University Irvine and advised by Professor Rebecca Lott. The Franciscan is an opportunity for students and alumni of Concordia University Irvine to publish their historical research and share their analysis and conclusions with larger scholarship. First published in 2020, The Franciscan is named after Dr. Adam Francisco, a faculty member and alumni of Concordia University Irvine’s History and Political Thought Department. Dr. Francisco’s dedication to students and academia was demonstrated by his service as department chair from 2015-2019.

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