History Spotlight, 1/13

One this day in 1942 one of the worst civil right abuses in modern US history gets rolling when FDR signs Presidential Proclamation 2537, requiring resident aliens to report and change of address, employment or name to the FBI. This would lead in turn to Executive Order 9066 which required that all American citizens of Japanese descent (as little as 1/16th Japanese ancestry) on the West Coast be kept in "internment camps."

California of the early 20th century was rife with anti-Asian sentiment, of an intensity not seen in other parts of the county. This was, of course, because there weren't many Asians in the other parts. Asians (or "Mongolians" as they were known) were added to the anti-miscegenation laws of the time. The Federal Immigration Act of 1924, which was supported by the eugenicsts of the day, put severe limits on almost all immigration but fell upon the prospective Asian immigrants especially hard.

When the Empire of Japan struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, war fever hit the whole country, but especially on the West Coast where they feared an iminent invasion. This may not be as far fetched as it sounds - after all the Japanese war machine had made almost unbelievable advances in the Western Pacific and many people felt that the oil fields and industry of the US Pacific Coast would be an irresistible temptation. Of course, this couldn't be further from the truth - the Japanese Empire had overextended itself just getting to Hawaii - full assaults California or the Panama Canal would have been nearly impossible.

But that didn't stop the hysteria. Various groups (including the California State Legislature) issued reports stating that the Japanese never could be fully assimilated into American culture and would be prone to committing acts of espionage or sabotage. California Attorney General Earl Warren petitioned the US government to remove all Japanese people from the West Coast.

On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed the infamous Executive Order 9066 which allowed the military to designate so-called "military areas" in which any person within may be excluded. By the end of the war, the exclusion zones would comprise all of the West Coast and most of the East Coast (about one-third of the country) Interestingly, most of these rules didn't apply in Hawaii, where you would think war fever would be at it's peak. The problem was that people of Japanese descent were about one third of the total Hawaiian population and the islands would have shut down if that much of the population had to be incarcerated.

Many Japanese living on the West Coast initially tried to get somewhere on the East Coast or the Midwest, either living with friends or family. But most of those states were not looking forward to a mass movement of Japanese into their territory. "There would have been Japs hanging from every pine tree," said Wyoming Governor Nels H. Smith. On March 27, 1942, a freeze order was issued, preventing any more Japanese people from leaving the West Coast. They were initially put in "assembly centers" such as hastily converted horse stalls on in empty fairgrounds. They were soon shipped out to one of ten regional internment centers as far away as Arkansas. The head of the War Relocation Authority, Milton Eisenhower (brother of Dwight) resigned in disgust and advised his successor that he would have trouble sleeping at night. The camps weren't on the level as the depravity seen in the German, but barbed wire and machine gun nests are the same everywhere.

In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which provided an offical government apology and $20,000 for each surviving detainee.

History Spotlight, 1/12

Irish politician and spiritual founder of modern Western Conservatism, Edmund Burke was born today in 1729. Burke is best known for his support of the American Revolution and for his opposition to the French Revolution.

In the lead up to the American Revolution, Burk saw that the Colonists had a just disagreement over taxes. In a speech before Parliament, he said, "...leave America, if she has taxable matter in her, to tax herself."

One of the big disagreements the Americans had with the Crown was that they were doing business with all these companies that operated out of Britain and also paying taxes back to the Crown and not really seeing much of a return on all that money. Burke's feeling was that, if American was forced to do business with Britain and also forced to pay taxes on that business then they should also be able to reap the benefits of that business or else it would be nothing more than slavery in all but name. A smug modern like me would point out that the Americans did have the benefit of having one of the finest armies in the world protecting their frontier from the French and Indians without having to invest the manpower or industrial capacity, but I don't think they saw it that way and, in any event, I've always been a bit of a Royalist.

Burke also noted that the rebelling American colonists were still Englishmen (Protestant Englishmen) the same people who had, less than 100 years before, thrown off the yoke of a Catholic monarchy in the Glorious Revolution on 1688. Now, these same people were trying to simply assert some degree of autonomy in their economic dealings (this being March 1775, the colonies weren't yet in open rebellion until the Battle of Lexington and Concord in April, 1775)

With the French Revolution of 1789, Burke was appalled by the violence, especially when a mob of enraged Parisians marched on the palace at Versailles to force King Louis XVI to return to Paris. As the brutality escalated, Burke became more and more horrified. By 1790, he had escalated into openly denouncing the Revolution. The problem he had is that he was always dogged by rumors that he was a closet Catholic. His father was Protestant (his family had emigrated from England during the reign of Henry II back in 1172) but his mother was Catholic and, although he had been raised Anglican and taken an oath against the supremacy of the Pope and against the doctrine of transubstantiation, tongues still wagged. His point was that just getting rid of the monarchy didn't automatically mean that freedom flowed into the vacuum.

Burke was the obverse side of a coin shared with the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rosseau. Where Rosseau believed that mankind's natural inclination in the absence of governmental or societal influences is to freedom. Burke believed, if not the exact opposite, then that freedom wasn't a given in the absence of government. This argument about human nature is still being waged today, and probably will be for the foreseeable future.

History Spotlight. 1/11

One of the more controversial (and best dressed) figures of the British Raj, George Curzon, was born today in 1859. He was the Viceroy of India from 1899-1905.

All during Britain's time in India there was someone on the ground running things for either the East India Company or the Crown. Prior to the Indian Mutiny of 1857, that person was called the Governor-General. After the Mutiny, the Crown took over the whole country from the Company and the position of Governor-General got changed to "Governor General and Viceroy," or just Viceroy, because that was less wordy. The Viceroy reported directly to the Crown on matters relating to India.

In 1899, Curzon was appointed Viceroy of India. He arrived in the middle of a famine that was raging over most of the subcontinent. After a period of drought in 1899, the summer monsoons failed. Coming on the heels of another failed monsoon and famine in 1896, the population was suffering. Curzon's reaction to the famine was actually pretty good - better than other administration's reactions had been, at least. Famine relief and irrigation projects were begun and a summer monsoon in 1900 that wasn't a total dud helped between three and five million people in the affected provinces.

Curzon's reaction to the problem wasn't the issue, it was his reaction to his reaction that was the issue. He didn't want the government's emergency famine relief programs to become an excuse to go all crazy and, you know, start trying to feed the millions of people who starved to death on a daily basis in late-19th Century India. After the famine ended, he not only stopped the emergency assistance, he cut back the regular assistance to the poor to pre-famine levels and made it much harder to get assistance. His infamous quote is, "...any government which imperiled the financial position of India in the interests of prodigal philanthropy would be open to serious criticism; but any government which by indiscriminate alms-giving weakened the fiber and demoralized the self-reliance of the population, would be guilty of a public crime." Oh, snap!

Of course, it's important to recognize that Curzon was reacting as someone of his time would have. That kind of obsessive devotion to the tenants of the free market is practically unknown to people in the 21st century, but it was pretty common among the Victorians and they honestly thought they were helping people.

In Curzon's plus column for his time in India is his refurbishment of the Taj Mahal. By the time of Curzon's administration, it had fallen on hard times. The 1857 Mutiny had been especially hard on it and it had become overgrown with vegetation and a bazaar had take occupancy in the front section. Curzon was always very keen on Indian culture (he wasn't one of the viceroys who wanted to make "brown Englishmen") and architecture. He ordered the bazaar to move out, removed the vines and had the damage from the fighting (and looting) during the Mutiny repaired.Curzon's star as viceroy quickly faded and he resigned under a cloud. Later on, he became foreign secretary in 1919, but he didn't get along with Prime Minister Lloyd George and didn't last very long.

History Spotlight, 1/10

Today, in 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, started a civil war. The Rubicon was a river in northern Italy flowing east to the Adriatic Sea. Over the years which river was the Rubicon has been forgotten, but most scholars (the ones writing Wikipedia articles at least) think that it's the current Piscatello River.
During Caesar's time, the Rubicon was considered the northern border of Italy and there was a prohibiton against Roman legions crossing it. This was to stave off military coups or the other nastiness that can happen when you got tons of bored soldiers sitting around drinking.
The Roman government had been having difficulties for a long time. A sucession of leaders ranging from inept to downright crazy had irked the populace. The Marian reforms, named after Gaius Marius, increased the effieciency of the Roman legions. Prior to the reforms, in order to be admited to the Roman military a person had to had to have property worth 3000 sesterces in value, be a member of the fifth census class, and he had to supply his own armor and weapons. The military units were also raised and commanded by the elected Roman consuls, so you got a lot of units being commanded in the field by politicians who may not know what they're doing.
Marius changed this so that the landless could join the military and didn't have to pay for their own weapons. He also offered them the possibility of advancement and pay increases, and for people who had no land in a society where land is everything this was a golden opportunity. He also standardized training and equipment and gave command to people who were good at it and perhaps not landowners. Basically, it sounds to me like he came up with Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army 1500 years before Cromwell. In addition to the other reforms, he provided retirement pay (including land in conquered regions) and allowed foriegeners to become Roman citizens after a period of service.
Sounds great, right? The problem lay in the fact that, over time, the soldiers' loyalty would shift from Rome to the general that commanded them. After all, if you're a soldier and you're on campaign in Africa or Gaul, who are you going to be more loyal to. A bunch of politicians in Rome who think you're a third-class (at best!) citizen or the guy whose tactics and leadership are keeping you alive?
Caesar had a seat in the senate, was a miltary hero and was seen as a champion of the common man. His political alliance with Crassus and Pompey had just broken up in acrimony anbd it looked like they were both going to take their armies and rumble. The senate sided with Pompey and asked Caesar to disband his army. He sent them back a letter that said, basically, "Pompey first," which enraged the senate. They thought they were in charge! Caesar asked him men to support him agains the senate and they said, "Sure!" The senate, and Pompey, said, "You get back here and disband that army, young man and don't cross the Rubicon." Caesar crossed and it was go-time.
This would end with Caesar installing himself as dictator and getting stabbed to death on the senate floor.

History Spotlight, 1/9

Man, it's getting difficult to keep these at 500 words. Sorry about the length, but it's about Lord Nelson.

On this day in 1806, Admiral Horatio Nelson was laid to rest in St Paul's Cathedral, after he had died the previous October at the Battle of Trafalgar. The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval battle that took place between the British Navy and the allied forces of France and Spain during the several wars collectively known as the Napoleonic Wars between 1803 and 1815.In 1805, Napoleon controlled most of continental Europe, but Britannia, as usual for that time, controlled the waves. Nappy set up what was called the "Continental System" which forbade any European country that Nappy controlled (that is, most of them) from doing any business at all with the British. Tne British, being a "nation of shopkeepers" (as Napoleon sneeringly dismissed them) needed that trade were forced to take the war off the seas and onto land.

With the Third Coalition (Austria, Portugal, Russia, Britain and assorted others) getting creamed on the Continent by Napoleon (considered to be one of the finest military minds of the age) he had the idea of an invasion of Britain. It makes a certain amount of sense: look at the allies listed above and see who the linchpin of that alliance is. Russia's a big dog, sure (and Napoleon would attempt to settle scores with them in 1812, disastrously for him) but Britain has a killer navy, a huge empire -and don't think for a minute France had forgotten how the British muscled them out of India in the 18th Century- and an army that is second only to France's and not by much. Nappy knows he needs to take Britain out, and take them out now.

By way of comparison, think about what the Japanese mindset was prior the US entry into World War II. They were running roughshod over Asia without much resistance and their only serious regional competitor was the US. At the time, all the US was doing was enacting an oil and steel embargo (remember when we use to use oil embargos on other people? Man, that was sweet) and making various diplomatic grumpy noises. But the Japanese knew that war with the US was going to come sooner or later and they might as well strike from a position of strength. Same deal with Napoleon (except that France was already at war with Britain). He knew that, at some point, Britain was going to have to be dealt with, so why not do it while their ground armies are getting shellacked on the Continent? Hell, it makes sense to me but you'll notice that, like the Pope, I have no divisions.

There are two troubles with that line of reasoning: 1) the British aren't stupid, they know what Nappy's planning and 2) the most powerful navy the world had ever seen is flying the Union Jack and sitting in the English Channel.

On October 21, 1805, Admiral Nelson was in command of his flagship, the HMS Victory and 27 other ships of the line. The Franco-Spanish fleet fielded 33 ships-of-the-line, including some of the largest ships in the world at the time. The majority of the ships were French becuase the Spanish were very much the junior partner in that alliance.

The usual way to have a naval battle in the early 19th Century was to line everybody up in parallel lines, good guys on one side, bad guys on the other, and just start blasting. This was an improvement over the old system (everybody sailing at each other in a mess and blasting until only one side was left afloat) because it allowed for better communication, defense and withdrawal if needed. The problem lay in that last part. If one side decides that its losing too much, they withdraw and the battle is a draw. Repeat until you're sick of it. Knowing that there was an invasion force on those ships, Nelson desperately wanted to wipe them out. This he did in a novel way.

Instead of forming up into a tidy scrimmage line, Nelson formed his forces into two lines and sailed them right at the enemy line, one in the center and one near one of the ends. He planned to cut the line in half, surround the halves and prevent them from withdrawing. He also hoped to cut off the enemy flagship so that they couldn't see their admiral's signals. This was going to be a risk because, although the British could close quickly, there was going to be an aggravating amount of time that they were going to be exposed to the full force of enemy guns and would not be able to respond. Nelson had an ace in the hole however: he knew that British sailors were some of the finest in the world, British gunners were the most trained and that every last man-jack of them knew that he was fighting for his homeland. Furthermore, he knew that the enemy gunners were poorly trained and would be supplemented by the ground forces, most of who knew nothing about firing cannons at ships at sea.To make a long story short (too late), at the start of the battle, Nelson sent the famous signal to his fleet "England expects that every man wil do his duty" and the battle was joined. The battle was a resounding success, and demonstrated to the world that Britain was indeed the preeminent naval power on the globe. Tragically, Nelson caught a bullet from a French sharpshooter and died as the battle was ending. His last words were, "Thank God I have done my duty for God and my country."

The Apotheosis of Nelson

Nelson remains one of Britain's most famous and loved heroes and his column in Trafalgar Square is a must-visit stop for tourists. He faces the Channel, always vigilant.

History Spotlight, 1/8

Yesterday, we were in the 16th Century with Henry VIII and company. Today, we’re going to jump forward roughly 200 years to 1746 with Bonnie Prince Charlie and his occupation of Stirling Castle.

What happened in between, briefly: Henry VIII begat two useless monarchs: Edward IV (who died young) and Bloody Mary (who probably should have). Then came Elizabeth I, who everybody knows. She had no children and the crown would have gone to her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots (Mary Stuart) if it weren’t for the fact that Elizabeth had Mary’s head cut off. The crown goes to James VI of Scotland (Mary’s son) and he also becomes James I of England. He dies, his son Charles I becomes king. After the English Civil Wars end, General Oliver Cromwell cut Charles's head off (“with the crown on it!”) Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector until he died. In the chaos that followed, General George Monck said, “Mister, we could use a man like Charles Stuart again,” and brought back Charles I’s son back from the Continent and made him Charles II.

Charles II was a lot of fun – when you think of “Merrye Olde Englande” you’re probably thinking of the reign of Charles II. Charles's son, James II was much less fun, and a closet Catholic to boot. His wife was much less closeted and when they started raising their son as a Catholic, all the ghosts of Bloody Mary's reign came back. A group of Parliamentarians known as "The Immortal Seven" invited William of Orange and his wife Mary across the Channel to run the place in The Glorius Revolution. OK, we're almost there. After William and Mary, the reign passes to Queen Anne, the last of the Stuarts. After Anne, the throne passes to the Georges (I, II, and III) of Hanover and that's where we stand in the 18th Century. That's 200 years in 200 words, try getting that at your fancy-pants East Coast Ivy League college, hippie.

But what about James II's kid, James Francis Edward Stuart? After all, he was next in line for the throne, and for all the beatings the Great Chain of Being took during Cromwell's reign and the Glorious Revolution, many people still believed in it and believed that the rightful king had been forced out. As a baby, James Francis escaped England during the Glorious Revolution to France. After his father's death in 1701, his cousin Louis XIV of France proclaimed him King of England, mostly because it would really annoy the English. He made a couple of half-hearted attempts to retake the throne, but none were ever successful and he finally retired in Rome on a tidy Papal pension.

From there, the broken sword of the Stuart line was taken up by his son Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, and we're finally getting to the point of this essay. The Scots had never really gotten behind the Glorious Revolution. It took them months to even bother to acknowledge the rule of William and Mary, and that wasn't until some dirty dealing by the English in the Massacre at Glen Coe, where hundreds of old men, women and children were put on a forced march in their bed clothes in a driving blizzard. After the English made Scotland an offer they couldn't refuse and forced the Act of Union on them in 1707 (under Queen Anne) the bad blood got worse. The Scots had always loved the Stuarts (even when they were dethroning them). After all Mary, Queen of Scots was one of theirs and James was James VI of Scotland long before he was James I of England. It was a case of "Local Boy Makes Good."

In 1743, Bonnie Prince Charlie raise enough fund for a small (two ships) navy and a company of soldiers and landed on the Scottish coast where the Jacobites (Jacobus is the Latin form of James - don't get it mixed up with the Jacobins who were in the French Revolution) welcomed him with open arms. His Army grew rapidly and by 1746 he had liberated most of Scotland, including Stirling Castle one of the most important castles in Scotland, and was marching south. He made it almost to London (Scotland conquering England!) but, ignoring his commanders' advice to take the city, turned around and started marching back north. The English took the advantage and Field Marshal George Wade mostly destroyed the Scottish army as it retreated. Bonnie Prince Charlie never succeeded in capturing the throne and retreated to the Continent, where he lived in luxury and indolence until he died 1788.

This is where we get the little-used 6th verse of the national anthem of the United Kingdom:

God grant that Marshall Wade
May by Thy mighty aid
Victory bring
May he sedition hush
And like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush
God save the King!

History Spotlight, 1/7

On this day in 1536, King Henry VIII of England's first wife, Catherine of Aragon dies of natural causes. Cathy was actually Henry's brother Arthur's wife in a political marriage meant to solidify relations with Spain (Cathy was Ferdinand and Isabella's youngest child) and annoy the French. When Arthur died of a "mysterious sweating sickness" the marriage was still necessary, so Henry married her when he ascended to the throne. This was to cause lots of problems in the future.

Catherine of Aragon

Henry's big wish was to have a son to carry on his line. Cathy gave birth to five sons and a daughter. All five sons died. Modern thinking has it that the children were sickly because Henry was crawling with sexually transmitted diseases, which he then passed to his wife who gave them to her fetal children. At the time, of course, nobody had any idea about that sort of thing and Henry alternately blamed himself (for marrying his brother's wife - he found an obscure Biblical tract that I can't remember to back it up) or he blamed Cathy for being a woman and having dirty, dirty womanly parts.

Henry VIII

As noted, Henry was desperate to have a son. England didn't have a tradition of having female rulers (the last female monarch, Empress Matilda, ruled for less than a year almost 400 years previously).
The problem with not having a male heir lay in the fact that the Tudor line rested on very preciarious foundations. Henry VII came to power at the end of the Wars of the Roses when the Lancastrian team beat the Yorkists in double overtime. Henry VII wisely united both sides with a political marriage, but there were still several pretenders to the throne out there and he never could quite shake the notion that he had come to power by breaking the Great Chain of Being and overthrowing Richard III.
At this point, Henry VIII is absolutely paranoid to 1) Not have Wars of the Roses II (with him possibly on the losing side) and 2) Solidify his reign by having a strapping young lad to carry on his line. Either directly or indirectly, he places the blame squarely on his marriage to Cathy. About this time he makes the acquaintance of a toothsome wench named Anne Boleyn who is everything that Cathy isn't. Anne is fun and vivacious, young and pretty. Cathy is prim and pious and "never on Sunday" if you take my meaning. It's The Patty Duke Show in Tudor England. The big similarity between them is that Anne wasn't about to put out for the king unless there was a ring on her finger. If she had wanted a dalliance, she could have gotten all she wanted from any number of muscley, non-syphilitic stable boys and farm hands.

Anne Boleyn - not easy

Henry decides to ditch Cathy in favor of Anne, but it's not a simple as filing papers down at the courthouse. England, at the time, was a staunch Catholic country. Henry himself had been named "Defender of the Faith" by the pope for writing (or having ghost-written) some book about how awesome the Church was. While divorce is forbidden in the Church, pass some coin to the right people and you can get an annulment which is just as good. The problem lay in the fact that Pope Clement VII was being held virtual prisoner by Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire, who was Cathy's nephew and he wasn't about to let Henry treat his aunt like some common scullery maid.
Henry gets it into his head (with help from Anne) to break off from the Roman Catholic Church and start the Church of England with himself as the head. As head, he can divorce who he wants and set whatever rules he wants. He sends Cathy off to the Continent (not cutting off wives heads just yet) and marries Anne. When Cathy finally dies, Anne wears yellow in celebration. Little did she know she would be joining her in the hereafter less than six months later and not from natural causes.
Henry did manage to have one son, Edward, from his third wife, Jane Seymour, but he was a sickly lad (there's that syph from Daddy again). While he did ascend the throne on Henry's death, he only ruled for six years before dying at the age of 16. Then came "Bloody" Mary, Cathy's daughter and Elizabeth I, Anne's daughter.

History Spotlight, 1/6

On this day in 1941, the keel of the Iowa-class fast battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) is laid at the New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn, NY. She was the last battleship built by the United States. She was completed in 1944 and served in the Pacific Theater of Operations. The Missouri's main guns were 9 16-inch naval guns, which could fire 2,700 lb armor-piercing shells nearly 25 miles.

A 16" shell compared with a VW Bug

On April 11, 1944 she suffered a hit by a kamikaze pilot. The crash started a fire that was quickly brought under control and the pilot's body was recovered. Captain William M. Callaghan allowed the pilot to be buried at sea with full military honors.

The Big Mo is probably most famous for being the site of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay that ended WWII. After the second atomic bomb was dropped on Japan on August 9, 1945 rumors that Japan was prepared to surrender began to circulate. On August 15, President Truman announced Japan's acceptance of unconditional surrender. On August 29, the Missouri entered Tokyo Bay.

Between 8 and 9 am on September 2nd, various dignitaries for the warring power boarded the ship. These included General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, and Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu. Shortly after 9 am, MacArthur opened the ceremony by stating, "It is my earnest hope — indeed the hope of all mankind — that from the blood and carnage of the past, a world founded upon faith and understanding, a world dedicated to the dignity of man and the fulfillment of his most cherished wish for freedom, tolerance, and justice." By 9:3o am the ceremony was over, the Japanese dignitaries had departed and, by the next day, the Missouri sailed, unescorted, to Guam and from there to Pearl Harbor to ferry passenger back to the states.

Surrender aboard the Missouri

After the war, the Missouri was assigned to various training cruises and participated in the Korean War. In 1955, she was place into the "Mothball Fleet" on active reserve status in Bremerton, Washington.

In 1984, as part of the Reagan Administration's 600 ship naval policy, the Missouri was taken out of the Mothball Fleet and its weapons were upgraded, including Harpoon anti-ship misslies and Tomahawk missiles.It's final combat was seen during the Persian Gulf war and the Missouri was formally decommissioned on March 31, 1992. It was kept back in the Mothball Fleet in Bremerton when it was struck from the Naval Register and, on May 4, 1998 it was donated to the non-profit USS Missouri Memorial Association in Honolulu where it opened as a museum. It sits to this day in Pearl Harbor, watching over the sunken wreck of the USS Arizona. Because of the extensive post-war modifications, it is not eligible to be listed as a National Historic Landmark.

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History Spotlight, 1/5

One of history's most famous cases of Antisemitism takes place on this day in 1895, when French artillery officer and Jewish person Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life in prison on Devil's Island.

Alfred Dreyfus

Born in the Alsace in 1859, Dreyfus moved with his parents at the age of twelve to Paris after the Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by Germany during the Franco-Prussian War. He was later admitted to the War College where he graduated ninth in his class and showed an aptitude for math, which put him on the fast track for the artillery. At his examination in 1892, one of the presiding officers downgraded his and another student's grades because the officer wanted to keep Jews out of the higher levels of the service. When Dreyfus and the other candidate, Lieutenant Picard, protested to the commandant of the school, they basically got a shrug for response.
1894, the French counter-intelligence service discovered a leak in the General Staff that had been providing the Germans with information on the placement and disposition of artillery. Suspicion immediately fell on Dreyfus and he was tried and found guilty in a secret court martial, stripped of his rank and shipped off to Devil's Island.

The Degradation of Dreyfus

Devil's Island is not one of those places with a terrible name it doesn't deserve. In reality, Devil's Island is probably too nice a name for it. Made up of a small archipelago about 6 miles off the coast of French Guiana, disease was rampant, nutrition non-existent and the under-supervised guards were sadistic. Like many other horrible prisons (the Gulag, for example) political prisoners were housed with hardened criminals with the result being that the politicals were treated even more harshly by their fellow prisoners than by the guards.

A prison cell on Devil's Island

In August of 1896, the new director of French intelligence, Colonel Picquart, discovered evidence that exonerated Dreyfus and implicated another officer, Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. This evidence was ignored and Picquart was transferred to the deserts of Tunisia. Even worse, French military judges ignored evidence against Esterhazy and the French intelligence service fabricated evidence against Dreyfus. That was not the end of the Dreyfus Affair, however.
As reports about the sham trial, the lack of evidence, the fabricated evidence and the cover-up of conflicting evidence were leaked to the press, public ire increased. When the author Emile Zola's book J'accuse! came out and crystallized all of the conspiracies and cover-ups in one volume, a new trial was called for and Dreyfus was brought back from French Guiana. At the trial, all charges against Dreyfus were found to be false and he was reinstated into the French army and served during WWI achieving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Although his time on Devil's Island had adversely effected his health he served valiantly in the war and was awarded the Legion of Honor.
A statue of Dreyfus holding his broken sword stands at the entrance to the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris.

History Spotlight, 1/4

Edward the Confessor, King of England died today in 1066. Edward was half-Norman and spent a number of years of his youth across the Channel in Normandy picking up much of their customs. The Normans were ex-Vikings (like Fran Tarkenton) who had settled in Normandy and picked up the veneer of French customs but retained their Viking heart. Edward never really planned on becoming king and spent most of his early adulthood as a slacker. The previous king of England, Harthacanute, was harsh and unfair. He also spent far too much time in Denmark and was considered an absentee king. When Harthacanute died without issue in 1042, Edward was surprised to find himself king.

Harold wasn't in a very strong position and needed Harold Godwin, earl of Wessex, to help him keep his hold on the throne by getting the English Danes to switch their allegiance. Edward didn't really like Godwin, mostly because Harold had Edward's brother murdered, but also because of Edward's habit of switching sides at the most inconvenient moment.

Harold, for his part, wanted to be a kingmaker. He recognized that being a king is nice and all, but being the power behind the throne was pretty sweet too. Harold's plan was to get his son, Harold Godwinson, named as the heir but also to get Edward married to his daughter, Edith, so that any issue from that marriage would be in line for the throne too.

Edward didn't want any part of this, but was in no position at the start of his reign to do anything about it. By 1051, Edward's position was much more secure and he had Godwin, Godwinson and any other assorted Godwins banished and Edith was sent to a convent.

At this time William "The Bastard" of Normandy decided to pay a visit. He knows that Edward doesn't want the Godwins anywhere near the throne and he further knows that his father was Edward's cousin and that they got along great during Edward's time in Normandy. At this time, there may or may not have been a secret agreement where Edward named William as his heir.

The following year, Harold Godwin raised an army and invaded England. Edward was all prepared to call up an army, but the earls convinced him that another civil war wasn't need and Edward grudgingly pardoned the whole family. This made the Godwins even more powerful than ever, with Harold Godwinson acting as king-in-all-but-name. Considering the anti-Norman feeling in England, Edward couldn't publicly pronounce William as his heir (if that's what he did) so he tried to name some low-rent cousin in Hungary named Edward the Exile as his heir, but Edward died soon after, so he tried to name Edward's four-year old son Edgar as an heir. Nobody was buying that and King Edward was forced to name Godwinson as his heir if he died before Edgar came of age. But there was still that secret agreement out there.

On January 5, King Edward lay on his deathbed, unable to speak. Harold Godwinson and other advisiors stood next to his bed. Unable to speak, Edward reached out with one of his hands and clasped Godwinson's arm in a vicelike grip. But was it a blessing or a curse? Harold decided to call it a blessing and took the throne. William was to use his secret agreement as excuse to launch the Norman conquest of England in October of 1066.