Mindless Land Transfers in History - Italian Edition

 Jealousy is one of the most corrosive acts of the human heart; it can have destructive personal affects and sometimes national affects.  Throughout history there have been many border and land changes.  Some have been just plain bizarre.  In 1860 the Italians, eager to unify the Papal States and their numerous city states, which had warred with each other for centuries decided to surrender the Province of Savoy and the city of  Nizza (Nice) to France in return for support of their unification.  The area of Nice was in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia at the time.  Italian unification was led by Giuseppe Garibaldi and his long time adversary, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour.  Click here to see a short summary of the history of Nice.  One of the main reasons that the Italians decided to cede Nice to the French, was Cavour's jealousy of Garibaldi, the hero of Italian unification, and a native of Nice.  The Italians also wanted  French help  in holding back any challenge from the Austrians.  

Garibaldi had spent most of his life fighting wars of freedom and unification in South America, specifically Brazil and Uruguay.  His most famous battle, however,  was in Rome in 1849, where he was defeated by a large, 30,000 strong, French Army who had come to help Pope Pius IX retain the Papal States, against his people's will.  The Pope was the absolute ruler and dictator of the Papal States.  Garibaldi had a small band of seasoned fighters that he brought from Uruguay and a rag tag army of Roman volunteers.  The French army had all the heavy weapons; Garibaldi had none.  Garibaldi's men fought a brave, ferocious, battle but it was a lost cause. Their fate could be compared to the famous Greek Last Stand of the 300 at Thermopylae in 480BC. The French bombed Rome with impunity and killed over 2,000 Romans in the process.   Despite the pleas of the French not to punish the rebels, Pius IX executed many people who had fought with Garibaldi, or supported the rebel cause.  There were no trials or verification of what they were accused of; many were publicly  executed in such places as Piazza del Popolo in Rome.  The French Army remained in Rome to help the pope rule until 1870 when they had to return to France to fight the German invasion of France in what became known as the Franco-Prussian war of 1870; a war France lost. The French Army posted signs all over Rome stating that anyone caught with a weapon would be summarily executed.

Garibaldi was the best military commander of his day.  He was enormously  charismatic and popular wherever he went.  After the end of the war in Uruguay, over 1,000 of his fighters followed him to Rome to help the people establish a free Italian state.   they all willingly gave their lives for Garibaldi.  One of those 1,000 was a brilliant black former Uruguayan slave and  warrior, known as Andrea il Moro, Andrea Aguyar.  This fierce fighter brought with him a tactic not known in Europe, the ability to lasso enemy cavalry, pull them off their horse and eliminate them.  Aguyar was killed on the last day of the battle for Rome; his last words were “Long live the Republics of America and Rome!” Aguyar, was one of the best soldiers of his day.  Garibaldi had appointed him as his aid-de-camp and his right hand man.  Among the truly remarkable warriors of all time, Aguyar is certainly one. Click here for a short story about Aguyar. Garibaldi got an equestrian statue in Janiculum Hill in Rome, but not Aguyar; a shame.  

One of the best biography of Garibaldi is a 1974 book by Jasper Ridley called "Garibaldi."  For a fine history of Garibaldi's 1849 Battle of Rome, see a very fine book by Tim Parks called "The Hero's Way," published in 2021 by W.W. Norton & Company.  This book brilliantly details the battle for Rome and the legendary retreat that followed.

To this day, we have regions in many countries who want to separate and become independent, such as Catalonia and the Basque Country in Spain.  The Italian city-states are another example from past history.  This experiment in local independence has been a complete failure throughout history, yet many still desire it.  

A second bizarre land transfer, again, involves France and Italy with the transfer of Corsica to France in 1769.  Corsica had been a part of the City state of Genoa. The Genoese sold the island to France two years earlier. Again, France got the better part of it. 

At the end of World War II, Italy, again, was forced to cede territory in the north eastern border with Slovenia and Croatia; the area known as Istria.  Italians living in this are were forced to abandon their property and vacate the land.  One such famous person who was one of the evacuees was the auto race driver, Mario Andretti.  Click here for a YouTube video documentary by Mario about how his family was forced to abandon their home in 1948.  The Italian government never paid these people for the lost property.  A very fine book, in Italian, called "Il Lungo Esodo" (2005) by Raoul Pupo, details the painful, and tragic events of this terrible exodus.  This territory was then given to the communist dictator and tyrant, Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia.  The Yugoslavs murdered many Italians in this area during this period.  This, without doubt, was the most disgraceful surrender of national territory.  Men have fought and died for far less than this.  This will live in infamy in Italian history. Viva Garibaldi.

The Winds of War

 The current Ukrainian success against a much stronger Russian military may or may not be surprising. The history of war is full of examples of small, outnumbered forces beating larger armies. Here are some examples:

The United States vs Great Britain in 1776 and 1812.  Britain was the greatest empire of the world at the time the United States declared their independence.  The British military was the number one power in the world.  Yet they were decisively beaten by a rag-tag American army made of of private citizens for the most part.  You could argue about what the cause of the British failure, but one reason for the American success was its leadership under George Washington.  In Roman times this proved to be the deciding factor in victories or defeats.  During the time of Julius Caesar, his leadership was so esteemed that whenever he appeared to his troops, they would turn the time of the battle.  In World War II the United States was blessed with strong, proficient leaders such as General George Patton, Dwight Eisenhower, or General Douglas MacArthur.  The same could be said of the German military with such competent leaders as Erwin Rommel, Herman Goering, Friedrich Paulus, who commanded the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, and others.

The French Indochina War of 1946-54.  The French had a formidable army.  The Vietnamese were a third world colonial country. The French had modern weapons and an Air Force and help from the United States.  Yet, the Vietnamese soundly defeated the French in the final decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

Italy loses to Ethiopia - 1895-96.  A modern European power loses a war against tribesmen of a backward country like Ethiopia.  

In ancient history we have the example of Greece vs Persia.  The Greek city states were not all united; some even fought for the Persians. The Persians, at the time, had the largest and greatest empire of their day.  Then they got greedy:  the wanted to take Greece too. Two Persian invasions of Greece took place. The first was under King Darius in 492 BC.  It ended with a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.  The Persians were so humiliated that Darius vowed revenge.  Revenge took place in the name of Darius's son Xerxes.  This second war took place from 480 BC to 479 BC, again, it ended in a humiliating Persian defeat. Some of the famous battles in this second war include the naval battle of Salamis, the Battle of Plataea and Thermopylae Pass. 

The Tyranny of Tyrants

Tyrannical regimes have very little crime.  Saddam Hussein had a way of dealing with criminals that democracies do not have:  they were summarily executed, whether guilty or not. Iraqi soccer players who did not win international tournaments were turned over to Saddam's sons who would torture them.  During Mussolini's tenure the Sicilian Mafia did not move a finger.  In North Korea, you can be executed at the whim of the tyrant there at the time.  Currently it's Rocket Man, aka, Kim Jung Un. In Communist China, if you criticize the tyrannical regime you're history.  Today the Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen is in prison for not being a supporter of the Chinese tyrants.  If you protest in Hong Kong, there is a good chance you'll end up dead or in prison for a long time.

Tyrants have come in history in many guises, Kings, dictators and tyrants of all stripes.  The English King, Henry VIII, not only ordered the execution of anyone who displeased him but his wives too. When Henry did not get what he wanted from the Catholic Church, he started his own church.  To this day, England follows that example.  In ancient history, for example, King Xerxes of the Persian Empire, decided to go to war against Greece because his wife wanted a Greek woman servant.  So King Xerxes mobilized hundreds of thousands of his troops to wage war on Greece, a war that he eventually lost at enormous costs.  Tyrants tend to get greedy.  Persia had one of the largest empires of all time in the 5th Century BC.  Their territory stretched from the entire Middle East, modern day Iran, to Egypt and as far as India.  Click here for a map of the Persian Empire of Xerxes. His empire was the greatest of his day. For a terrific history of this period there is a great new book, "The Harvest of War" by Stephen Kershaw.  Click here for a review of the book.

Nothing has changed.  Today we have tyrants such as Vladimir Putin of Russia, who, on his own accord, decided he wanted to reestablish the old Soviet Union, beginning with parts of Georgia and then followed by swallowing up the Crimea Peninsula and today, war on the entire country of Ukraine.  After less than a year of war it is estimated nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers have either been killed or wounded in battle, not to mention the loss of military equipment and the destruction of Ukraine.  A similar number of casualties for Ukraine.  All for the glory of one man.  During World War II Europe had an insane tyrant by the name of Adolf Hitler.  Just to satisfy his ego he invaded, conquered  and occupied most of Europe.  Not satisfied with that, he decided he wanted Russia too.  He lost.  On the way to doing all these misdeeds, he caused the death of about 50 million people.  German casualties in Russia alone amount to over three million soldiers.  The insanity goes on.  In the early 19th Century Napoleon of France had a big ego and wanted all of Europe and Russia too.  He waged war his entire life at the expense of the French solider. And the beat goes on. 

Tyrants in the World Stage

 The evil Russian tyrant, Vladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine.  He sent 150,000 of his countrymen to fight an evil and unjust war.  His glory at the cost of his soldiers.  I suppose that he thought that Ukrainians would just surrender at the sight of a Russian military column.  Bad mistake.  Did he not have any intelligence?  As of this date, it is estimated that 80,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded.  This is typical tyrannical insanity.  The tyrants wants glory so they will sacrifice their people to get it.  Let's look at historical tyrants:

Stalin.  Stalin was a crazed tyrant.  He killed as many of his own people as his enemy, the Nazis.  Let's take Ukraine, for example.  Over four million Ukrainians were starved to death by order of Stalin. Stalin wanted to get rid of private farms so he could replace them with his communist system. Click here for details.  During the Nazi invasion of Russia, Stalin sacrificed his own soldiers with mind boggling military orders to his commanders.  When a trained, experienced, Russian military commander would recommend a certain plan of defense, Stalin preferred inexperienced commanders with little experience, as long as they were loyal to him.  Any commander he saw as not loyal, whether in fact or not, he would either remove them or have them killed.  It is estimated that Stalin killed about 20 million of his own people.

Mussolini:  The Italian dictator had visions of a remake of the Roman Empire. The reality was that he did not have the means to do it under any conditions.  His military was in bad shape; they lacked the proper weapons, the training and the leaders.  Like Hitler, his insanity led him to declare war on the world, basically, when the truth was that he could not even beat a small country such as Greece.  To please Hitler, he sent 250,000 soldiers to Russia, without even the proper clothing, let alone the proper weapons.  Over half of these soldiers were killed, either in combat or by the fierce Russian weather.  The soldiers that managed to return, came back in such bad shape that he withheld showing them to the country.

Hitler.  I don't think I'm off by stating that Hitler was insane.  Let's take his Russian invasion for example. It is estimated that about three million of his soldiers perished in Russia.  He did not consider the size of Russia, the freezing winters nor the problems with supplying such a large army for so far away.  In the Siege of Stalingrad, Hitler refused to let his army retreat when it was clear they had no way of advancing nor surviving.  

We could go on and on with examples of the insanity of tyrants.  In our lifetime we now have Putin repeating Hitler's mistakes, we have the lunatic in North Korea, Rocked Man and the Chinese tyrants who want to flex their insane muscles.  The beat goes on.

Give Peace a Chance?

"Give Peace a Chance"  was an anti-war song by John Lennon recorded in 1969.  The  refrain is "All we are saying is give peace a chance."  Vietnam was the war. I was a participant in this war as an American soldier; I can understand the refrain.  Over 59,000 of my fellow soldiers gave their life in Vietnam for a misplaced political neurosis of the Washington politicians who really did not know what they were doing, starting with John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. The US Congress can be included here too.

We now have a war going on in Ukraine.  Many nations are appalled by the evil brought on the Ukrainian people and have provided weapons to Ukraine.  The United States and many others have imposed sanctions on the evil Russian regime led led by the tyrant Vladimir Putin. In the September 24, 2022 edition of the Wall Street Journal, there is a story about the Italian elections coming up this week.  One of the biggest controversies in Italian politics is should Italy provide weapons to Ukraine as well as sanctions on Russia.  The Italian people are divided; about half of the people do not favor sanctions, fearing economic retaliation by the Russians.   The leader of the right leaning party, La Lega, Matteo Salvini, a Putin supporter, is against sanctions and ignores the evil Putin has done in Ukraine. Some others on the right favor sanction and providing weapons.

Italian politicians not favoring sanction or poroviding weapons to Ukraine, repeat the same refrain, give peace a chance.  In their words, Italy should be mediating between the warring factions.  Now, either these people live in an alternative universe or they are denying reality.  So, you just call up Putin and talk him into ending his war, right?  Have they tried that?  If so, what result did they get?  We tried this type of diplomacy in 1938 with Hitler.  After he conquered half of Czechoslovakia, the Europeans entered into an "agreement" with Hitler providing that he not attack another country.  How did that work out?  When will they learn? Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian oligarch and the richest Russian until he displeased Putin. His empire was seized by Putin and he spent 10 years in jail, says that Putin only understands force.  Diplomacy is useless.

Back to John Lennon's song "Give Peace a Chance."  So, what were the Ukrainians supposed to do when 150,000 Russian soldiers, their armored cars and ballistic missiles raining down on Ukraine?  Should they just play John Lennon's song to the approaching Russians and have a big sign saying "give peace a chance"?  As a former soldier who participated in a war, I agree that war is not the answer, but what do you do when attacked; just lay down?

The Italian politicians, and anyone else for that matter, who does not support sending weapons to Ukraine and supporting sanctions is cooperating with evil, I have just some questions for them: what will you do when the same evil comes to your back door? What will you do after the Russians conquer Ukraine and then go for the rest of the former Soviet Union?  Will you just sing "Give Peace a Chance"?  Will you not want others to help you?  Denying reality will not solve the problem.

Armenia: A Tortured Land, a Crucified People

 Armenia is under military attack, again by their neighbor, Azerbaijan.  Few other countries  have been tortured as much as Armenia has.  The Ottoman Turks conquered Armenia in the 15th Century and held it until the end of World War I, then the Soviet Union seized it.  Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Azerbaijanis have taken up the task of brutalizing Armenia with constant armed conflict.  All this while the world just looks on.  In Bob Dylan's classic song, Blowing in the Wind, he starts the song with this lament:  "How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand?"

Most of the world recognizes the Turkish Armenian Genocide of 1915.  Turkey does not to this day. Fearing the anger of Turkey, a Nato ally, the United States was reluctant to recognize the genocide until October 2019.  It is a sad tale that the world knows very little of these tortured people.  Click here for a fine piece on the Armenian Genocide in a 2015 article in the magazine, First Things.  The genocide was repeated seven years later, in 1922, in the ancient city of Smyrna, now called Izmir. Two books have recently been published detailing what happened in Smyrna in 1922:  The Great Fire by Lou Ureneck and Paradise Lost by Giles Milton.  These two books are well researched and brilliantly written. Highly recommended reading.  

The Turks, led by the brilliant military commander, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who later became the father of modern Turkey, after routing Greek forces, attacked and destroyed Smyrna and murdered at least 200,000 Christians, among them, Greeks and Armenians.  They were particularly brutal in the massacre in Smyrna; the Greek Bishop of Smyrna, was tortured to death in front of a cheering crowd.  Turkish soldiers went on rampages, looting, raping and killing women at will; with no one stopping them.  People desperate to escape the carnage were trapped in the Smyrna harbor and not allowed to escape; many drowned in the bay trying to escape the fire that was coming toward them. European ships anchored in the bay refused to help them.  Click here for a related story. The two books mentioned earlier go into great detail on the brutality. At the end of the rampage they set the city of Smyrna on fire and burned it to the ground.

It is estimated that as many as 1.5 million Armenian Christians were murdered by the Ottoman Turks in the 1915 Armenian Genocide.  Historians believe that the Turks blamed their decline on the Christians, and that was a contributing factor in the genocide.  History shows that the Ottomans were in decline for the prior century.  The brutality of the Turks had no bounds; it was an example of man's inhumanity to man;  The two books mentioned earlier go into great detail on how Armenian Christians were marched into the desert on forced marches without food or water.  Many died of exhaustion and others were simply shot by soldiers along the way.

Religion is the glaring thread in this Armenian Genocide.  Muslims, in general, did not keep it a secret that their goal was to eliminate all the "infidels."  From the start, in the seventh century after Mohammed, the Ottomans made it their goal to conquer the world for Islam.  A quick perusal of history will back this up.  In the Middle Ages, we had the conquest of the Byzantine Empire with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, followed by many battles against the "infidels" such as the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571, and the two sieges of Vienna, Austria in 1529 and the last one in 1683.  These wars have never really finished.  Today we have different actors such as the 9/11 terrorists, Isis, al Qaeda and the like.  The wars continue.

Another common thread is the passivity of the rest of the world, namely, the Europeans.  After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, the eastern part of the Roman Empire continued under the name of the Byzantine Empire which lasted another thousand years.  During this last thousand years, the European Christian brothers watched and sat on their hands while the Byzantines were chewed up piece by piece.  Toward the end, prior to the fall of Constantinople, the Europeans denied the fervent pleas of their Byzantine brothers, preferring not to help.  One exception was a private military commander from Genoa, Giovanni Giustiniani, who collected a mercenary force of about 700 men and helped the Byzantines fight in the final battle for Constantinople in 1453.  After the fall of the Byzantines, the Ottomans went after the rest of Europe as pointed out earlier in the battles of Lepanto and the sieges of Vienna.  For the Europeans, it was see no evil, hear no evil. As the Spanish philosopher George Santayana once said, those who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it.  And the beat goes on.

Monarchs, Emperors and Madmen

 Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain died this week.  Our TV coverage has been extensive, more than any other foreign dignitary that I can recall.  Britain has, perhaps, the best, most stable monarchy in the world. It is also true that Elizabeth was a great monarch; steady, smart and measured.  She deserved all the accolades she has received.  Under the British Parliament system, legislative power rests with it, not the monarch. This has been the case since the early 18th century.  

When the monarch ruled he/she had all the power.  The monarch was the king, the legislature and the judge.  He/she could order anyone to be killed at will, as did King Henry VIII.  I've always been fascinated at how a country, of say, 60 + million people can be ruled by one person as was the case prior to the parliamentary system.  The king/queen was selected by accident of being born to the right person and place.  No experience necessary.  No rationality need be demonstrated.  In many cases, as with Henry VIII, you could be insane and could be killed at will.  He could order your people to go to war, whether it was necessary or not; just on his/her whim.  Indeed a tyrant.  Tyrants are with us today.  Just look at China, North Korea, or Russia.  The people have no voice, only the tyrant.  The British corrected the sinking ship when they started the parliamentary ship.  Very few other countries has been able to throw off the tyrant.  For this reason, the British throne stands out as the best possible monarchy.  The rest of the world should take some lessons; few will ever do.

The Roman Empire started with a Republic, which was very successful until the time of Julius Caesar.  Most of the territory of the empire was already in place by the time the Emperors started, with Caesar Augustus who reigned from 27 BC to 14 AD.  Augustus was a good emperor but many who followed him were not.  Nero who was probably insane, as was Henry VIII of Britain, ended up burning Rome.  Other Roman emperors were equally bad.  These men were tyrants with total control.  They could order the murder of anyone who may be a threat to them, whether real or imagined.  

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, the Eastern Roman Empire took over and lasted another thousand years.  The Byzantines, as they were called were ruled by emperors, or tyrants.  By the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople by the invading Turks, the empire was left with the city of Constantinople by itself.  Each emperor, ran it down.  Suffice it to say, emperors and tyrants do not have a successful history of rule.