History is an anomaly among the arts and sciences. The exact sciences relate to the predictable. The liberal arts are free. History is neither exact nor free. Of course it evinces recurrent patterns and certain kinds of progress but the unpredictable act of some fanatic or madman can overthrow the best laid plans of governments and their advisors. Then, what about the complexity of all the forces that impinge on its course? Other disciplines are subject to uncertainties. Economics, for example, but it is the historical factor in economics which upsets ecomomic systems and predictions based on resultant analyses and studies. Perhaps the study of history reveals its affinity with the arts and the realm of the imagination in which leaps are occasionally necessary. We now consider some of the ironies and leitmotifs that we may discover in history.

Liberty Sweet and Sour

As the watchword of the American and French revolutions Liberty became a word imbued with immense political, philosophical and rhetorical force. How did it gain its status and to what extent had literary, theological and political works, treatises or other works contributed to its prominence? It is surprising that Voltaires treatise on liberte, written shortly before the French Revolution, had little to say about the words political implications but concerned itself with the ethereal issues of free will, its scope and limitations. It was the rakish agitator John Wilkes, one suspected of Devil-worship even, whose use of the word as a rallying call in election campaigns and manifestos prepared the way for its similar use by American and French revolutionaries.

Let us make a lightning survey of the ways in which the nature of "liberty" evolved over the centuries, at least as far as one can follow this development in the pages of literature. One could of course go back to the works of Milton or even Shakespeare to find antecedents of the political slogan that liberty so clearly became. In Shakespeares dramas those whom we might well recognize today as freedom fighters and social revolutionaries, such as Joan of Arc and Jack Cade, come off very badly. Evil tyrants like Richard the Third and Macbeth are indeed overthrown, but by the providential outworking of a divinely appointed moral order rather than by a popular rebellion. In Richard III and Julius Caesar somewhat sheepish crowds are shown to be easily swayed by clever rhetorical devices or artful deceptions. As a matter of interest, Richard staged his coup on 26th June in 1483, a day dedicated to Saint John and Saint Paul. This seems to be the reason that in Shakespeare's Richard the Third the usurper swears "By Paul." The same date in 1284 marks the appearance of the Pied Piper in Hamelin, and at least one critic of Shakespearean drama has conjectured that Shakespeare had the story of the Piper in mind when writing the lay just mentioned.

Milton, though most certainly a stalwart defender of Liberty, betrayed his awareness that the word was highly ambivalent by implying the abuse of liberty within a theological as well as secular set of parameters. In Paradise Lost the fallen angels, notably Mammon in the guise of an early industrial entrepreneur, were vociferous advocates of liberty(viz in Mammon's speech. PL, Bk II, 256).. A negative construction on liberty is further apparent in the term libertinage in France during the same period.. Though we are dealing with the semantics of the word liberty, the problems of differentiating between its political and theological senses lie at the heart of the Reformation and its origins , for Luther elevated the idea of the freedom of all Christians but was surprised and vehemently indignant when the common people understood freedom to have a strong social and practical implication.

The rhetoric of the Roman republic with its quiverful of watchwords like "patriot," "tyrant," "slave" and so on was adopted by both Whigs and Tories in the reign of Queen Anne. It received a strong impulse from the staging of Addison's play The Death of Cato. This vocabulary is strongly in evidence in the patriotic words of James Thomson's rousing chorus "Rule Britannia." The idea that founding an empire is the best way to avert the danger of becoming a slave is a striking paradox seen even in today's events. Thomson's epic poem "Liberty" portrays the Roman goddess (one of a number that filled the pages of Augustan literature, Dullness included) as something of a tourist who wends her way from Greece and Rome through various intermediate stages to the shores of Britain, there hopefully to take up permanent residence. Liberty was to appear on the New York skyline much later, as we know, but even in his day Thomson gained considerable sympathy among his American readers, whose "social freedom" Thomson greatly admired. It was John Wilkes who first turned the watchword "Liberty" into a political weapon directed against regal "tyrants" and the motto he and other members of the Hellfire Club adopted was a line from the works of Rabelais "Fay e que vouldras" (Do whatever pleases you). Here we are inside the region of what the Church and State in France decried as "libertinage," the freedom to defy Church doctrine, moral law and social norms. The influence of Wilke's appeal spread to America, where John Wilkes Societies were founded on the eve of the Amirican revolution, leaving a trace in the name of John Wilkes Booth, the actor who assassinated President Lincoln on Good Friday in 1865. The American Revolution promoted developments leading to the French Revolution, which proved a mixed blessing to say the least.

The bloody course of the French revolution and the rise of Napoleon, if they did not discredit the notion of liberty itself, gave pause to reflect on the abuse of this noble concept and on its ambivalence in terms of its relation to perennial questions concerning moral choices and values. A critique of liberty or rather its abuse, as reflected by Schillers Die Ruber (The Bandits) , William Blakes The Mental Traveller and even Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, pointed to the dangers that attended the revolutionary age even from the beginning in voicing the fear that freedom might spawn monsters and tyrants of its own.

The positive association of Liberty had a biblical as well as a Graeco-Roman basis as the words Declare Liberty throughout the land on the Liberty Bell attest, for these words are cited from the Book of Leviticus in connection with the declaration of liberty during the year of Jubilee, when previous obligations relating to land tenure were dissolved. . The bell originally recalled the grant of a royal charter to the colony of Pennsylvania in 1701 and marked the colonys jubilee celebrations in 1751 in accordance with the lapse of 50 years set down in the Bible.. That the bell became the symbol of political liberty and the independence of the United States was a historical coincidence, though a very revealing one, for it demonstrates the process in which the liberties and charters granted by monarchs and aristocrats came to be understood as evidence of the restrictive and arbitrary nature of undemocratic rule. Thus the chartered Thames in William Blakes London appears as a symbol of repression.. or as William Cowper put it in The Task:

Whose freedom is by sufferance, and at will

Of a superior, he is never free.

It was perhaps William Cowper who as clearly as any averred that that true liberty would not be reduced to subservience to some partial interest or commandeered in the service of an oppressor. Cowper, the victim of deep depression and a dread of being condemned to Hell, a fate to which he, the most humble and temperate of men, was surely the least eligible, almost prophetically yearned for the fall of the Bastille five years or so before it took place. He realized that liberty worthy of its name is the indivisible right of all humanity, an insight that is evidently wanting in the minds of many politicians even to this day. the following lines are found in The Task / Book V The Winter Morning Walk:

To France than all her losses and defeats,

Old or of later date, by sea or land,

Her house of bondage, worse than that of old

Which God avenged on Pharaohthe Bastille.

Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts;

Ye dungeons, and ye cages of despair,

That monarchs have supplied from age to age

With music, such as suits their sovereign ears,

The sighs and groans of miserable men!

Theres not an English heart that would not leap

To hear that ye were fallen at last; to know

That een our enemies, so oft employd

In forging chains for us, themselves were free.

For he who values Liberty confines

His zeal for her predominance within

No narrow bounds; her cause engages him

Wherever pleaded. Tis the cause of man.

See video clip: my homage to William Cowper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJbroRj5Rrs

Hitler and Napoleon. But Which One?

Any number of historians, philosophers and others have raised the question as to whether Napoleon was in some sense a precursor of Adolf Hitler. Certainly the disastrous Russian campaigns of both men invite comparison, as do their overweaning ambitions to master Europe and further afield. Some would even go so far as to assert that Napoleon's treatment of black slaves in Haiti anticipates Hitler's genocidal persecution of the Jews and other minorities. Surely this is overstepping the mark of meaningful comparison. In any case one might consider drawing parallels between Hitler's politcal career and that of a person other than Napoleon I

At least as far as the Machiavellian art of manipulating constitutional and democratic procedures is concerned, a wider basis of comparison emerges when one focusses on the political careers of Hitler and Napoleon III, Napoleon I's nephew. (For biographical details consult an encyclopedia or work of historical reference, e.g. click: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_III_of_France ). Strangelly enough, Napoleon III and Adolf Hitler share April 20th as their day of birth. As in similar instances in history, this quirk of circumstance might prompt one to reflect on parallels that cannot be readily dismissed as mere coincidences. (For a survey of odd coincidences in history click : http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/273832 . Of course, Napoleon III, as in the case already considered, displayed nothing of Hitler 's malignancy and desire to glorify war. For all his faults Napoleon was little better or worse than many another autocratic rulers in recent history and arguably possessed qualities that could even arouse sympathy and admiration. However, certain parallels between Napoleon and Hitler remain. These may be listed as follows:

Both were despotic rulers who gained supreme power despite immense obstacles presented to them by their social and family origins (but so, one may object, were quite a number of others who fought their way to the top despite similar handicaps, men such as Oliver Cromwell, Napoleon I, Franco or Lenin).

What marks Napoleon III and Hitler out from the others is the ability they evinced in gaining their initial political leverage by exploiting established constitutional instruments and procedures and then abolishing them in order to gain absolute power. This they achieved, unlike Cromwell or Napoleon I, without being military leaders or conquerors. The latter did legitimise his authority by a plebiscite, as indeed did Napoleon IIIand Hitler, but plebiscites legitimise political actions retro-actively rather by means of the due process of standing laws.

The ability of Napoleon III and Hitler to exploit and then pervert or abolish the legal procedures devised to regulate the continuation of political authority demands the kind of personality that is bold and audacious enough to seize every opportunity conducive to their aims, that is perspicacious enough to recognize the desires and fears of the respective populace and that is shrewd enough to promise that they can fulfill such desires and allay such fears.

Both possessed histrionic skills that allowed them to sway popular feelings, though Hitler's gestures and postures were held to ridicule by Charlie Chaplin, who used his histrionic genius to entertain and educate mass audiences instead of deluding them

Napoleon III pionered use of propaganda to foster a personality cult. Goebels perfected it in Hitler's cause.

Napoleon III and Hitler had careers that reveal significant points of resemblance.

Both began their political activism by staging abortive putsches.

Both learned from this experience that the way to political power led through accepted legal channels

Both became political prisoners in a "romantic" castle setting.

Both were beguiled by initial military success into believing that they were infallible military geniuses.

Both experienced their final political demise by attempting to make a heroic last stand against overwhelming odds, either in Sedan or Berlin

Both shrewdly exploited the sense of national shame and humiliation occasioned by terms agreed at an international conference, be this the Congress of Vienna or the Conference of Versailles.

In fairness to Napoleon III it should be stressed that his ambitions, though inspired by a thirst for gloire and aggrandizeiment ,betray little of the lunatic quality of Hitler's passions. it was his goal to promote France as a leading world power in concert with the wider interests of what he believed to be he Latin world , a world uniting all who spoke a romance language. He evinced caution when not pushing Austria into the arms of Prussia after the battle Solverino, doubtless aware that his Italian campaign might be construed as a case for the German Conferation to take up according to agreements on mutual defence. He retracted his support for Maximilian's claim to be emperor of Mexico when the United States was in a position to maintain the Monroe doctrine once the Civil war was over. True, he allowed himself to be provoked into waging a war against Prussia at Bismarck's instigation. The German chancellor shrewdly anticipated that the claim of a Hohenzollern prince to the Spanish throne would be seen by Napoleon as a gross affront to French claims to hegenomy in Spain and the Latin world. It is ironic that events in the life of Queen Isabella II of Spain played a decisive role in setting up and finally bringing down Napoleon's political fortunes. The controversy surrounding The Affair of the Spanish Marriages, a controversy between France and Britain on the question of choosing Isabella's future husband, weakened the foundations of the July monarchy to such an extent that Napoleon could engineer its overthrow and take over the reins of power in France. Isabella's abdication in 1868 brought on the situation which Bismarck exploited in order to achieve German unification by war. The events in the history of continental Europe between 1868 and 1874 offer a premonition of the turbulent history of the twentieth century. The chaotic situation in Spain led to the countriy's first republic. The Communard uprising of Paris in 1871 was a dress rehearsal of the Communist revolution in Russia and the inauguration of the German Empire in Versailles made the very name of that palace a contentious symbol in 1919 and during the years leading to Hitler's rise to power.

What explains the parallels so far considered? We must problably view the careers of these men within a wide historical context, taking account of the breakdown of a belief in the divine right of kings and its replacement by the notion that political authority is vested in the national or popular will.

This understanding provides the basis of democratic government, but also of deviant theories and practices realized by those who have laid claim to personifying the popular will and acting as its defender and agent. For such men as they, democratic procedures may prove useful as a means to achieving "a greater end." Such men have also sough to overcome the void left by the demise of divine authorty by appealing to the need to restablish a lost empire. Napoleon III felt himself predestined to fulfil this role on the strength of his very name, and by defeating Napoleon and celebrating the inauguration the Second German Empire in Versailles, Bismarck regained the mantle of the Holy Roman Empire which Napoleon I had impiously snatched from the House of Hapsburg.

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Leipzig, History's Fulcrum

Leipzig deserves the title of the pivot of Europe as at three junctures in history what happened in or near Leipzig changed the course of European destiny. They are: the Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631, the Battle of Leipzig or the Battle of Nations (Vlkerschlacht bei Leipzig) in 1813 and the peaceful revolution that sprang from non-violent demonstations around the Saint Nicholas Church in Leipzig and culminated in the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

The Battle of Breitenfeld was been hailed as a victory of the individual's freedom of faith against the attempt of the Holy Roman Empire to eradicate or cripple the Protestant cause. On the Imperial side was Tilly, whose ruthless policy of punitive action against noncombatants had cost about 30,000 inhabitants of Magdeburg their lives a short time before. A Swedish army under King Gustav Adolph confronted Tilly at Breitenfeld on the outskirts of Leipzig and won the ensuing battle thanks to a revolution in military tactics based on the organization of soldiers in thin and hence readily maneuverable lines rather than, as previously, in dense unwieldy squares. Both Tilly and Gustav Adolph were soon to die but the Swedish king's victory thwarted the Imperial plan to suppress Protestantism and the free exercise of relgious faith in Germany and beyond. Tilly did finally show a token of common humanity when he spared the captured city of Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber from being reduced to ash and rubble and thus unwittingly preserved a major tourist attraction. He did so on condition that the Town Mayor would swill down a huge tankard of beer in one gulp. The mayor's accomplishment is commemorated by figurines that emerge when an antique clock in the town's main square chimes to ring the hour.

The Battle of Nations in 1813 dealt a death blow to Napoleon's ambition to master Europe by military force. Napoleon attempted to rally his forces after the ignominious retreat of the Grand Army from Moscow. This he failed to do for his former reluctant allies, Prussia and Austria, turned against him. The German flag composed of the colours black, red and golden yellow, originated from the colours of the so-called Ltzow free corps of volunteer patriots that became renowned for their valour in this great battle. Long before the flag was finally accepted as the national emblem of Germany after the Second World War by both German states before reunification, it stood for the cause of unity and civil freedom during the attempt to establish a pan-German democratic parliament in 1848. Even the Prussian king displayed the flag if only to curry favour with the German population enthralled by the hope of democratic change and national unity.

The last great turning-point in history that followed momentous events in or near Leipzig was markedly different from the two already mentioned, for during its course no shot was fired or body wounded. It was a moral victory in the best spirit of the liberal and humane tradition inside and outside the churches and temples of religion, asserting that the ultimate foes of humanity are not of flesh and blood but pose certain intangible and lofty powers occupying the minds of tyrants and ideologues who have sought to impose one or other form of slavery on common humanity.

Good intentions, good luck and the bomb.

It is in some ways surprising that the scientists who collectively did much to bring forth the bomb were men of integrity with pacifist leanings, or if not quite that, with a deep concern for the wellbeing of humanity. Such men were J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard. This historical irony can be partially explained by their being engrossed in the notion of pure science, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and partially by the dire constraints of a time when nobody knew whether the Nazi regime was planning to develop dissuade leading politicians from using the atom bomb against civilian populations and promoting the arms race, or in Oppenheimer's case, from constructing ever more destructive weapons such as the hydrogen bomb. Too late. Pandora's box had been opened. At least President Truman offered Oppenheimer an paper tissue when the scientist complained that blood was on his hands. All this tends to reinforce the sense of the proverb which says 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions'. However, we have not yet arrived in hell, and God forbid, we ever shall.. It appears , however, that to date our survival is due more to good luck than to good intentions.

Think of all the close shaves the world has had since the end of the second world war. There was the Berlin crisis in 1948 and 1949, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the bloodless fall of European communist regimes, several mid-east wars and false alarms created by human or technical error. Global terrorism and the potential major war in the Middle East pose the most immediate threats but in the longer term other hotspots could arise, in the Ukraine or Taiwan, for example.

Is our luck attributable to the bomb? One could make a case for arguing that it is. Stalins bid to dominate west Berlin ended when President Truman make it clear that the West could defend Berlin with nuclear weapons if necessary. In 1949 the United States still held a monopoly of nuclear power, and this served as an effective counterweight to the Soviet Unions overwhelming military superiority based on conventional armaments.

Soon the Soviet Union acquired its own nuclear capacity and so the MAD era of Mutual Assured Destruction or the balance of terror put paid to any ambition to win a global war by using nuclear weapons. Or did it? Even then the third world war came horribly close to being unleashed in 1962 during the Cuban missiles crisis. Evidently, even the prospect of a nuclear holocaust and the destruction of human civilization did not deter Khrushchevs reckless brinkmanship and the catastrophe was only averted by the luck of the Irish and a shrewd partially covert deal that allowed both sides to save face. War would most probably not have been averted if hawks like General Lemay (arguably the Dick Cheney of those days) in the US military had had their way and taken out the Russian missiles by force. Ironically it was the same man who thwarted Stalin's bid to grab Berlin by blockading Berlin. Our good fortune saved us again when the Berlin wall fell though it was attended by one or two nasty moments of suspense -. For that we must thank Michael Gorbachov.

Since the collapse of European state communism the credibility of nuclear deterrence as the main guarantor of world peace has significantly weakened as a result of the proliferation of nuclear capability shared by at least eight sovereign nations and the suspicion that rogue regimes and even stateless terrorist groups have their eyes on acquiring some kind of nuclear weaponry. The threat of uncontrolled offensive capacity is bad enough, but we have to add to this danger that of unpredictable pre-emptive strikes against actual or alleged manufacturing sites of nuclear devices.

It follows that 'the bomb', to use a popular collective term, has in large measure lessened the chance of a major war, until now that is, but seems less likely to maintain this effect in the long term. It has provided a Galgenfrist, to use a German word meaning a stay of execution, perhaps only a short one, allowing us time to work out a more permanent and intrinsically secure basis for peace. On philosophical grounds sole reliance on nuclear deterrence was, in any case, suspect from the start, since it condones the possible extinction of millions of innocents, non-combatants and even non-belligerents, and thus employs the tactics of blackmail and might even be termed the ultimate form of terrorism. The only way to escape this moral dilemma, if only apparently, has been to assume the self-justificatory role once ascribed to a fierce and wrathful god like Jove. Fundamentalists who believe in a final cataclism associated with the term Armageddon or the assaults of Gog and Magog, though they would hardly welcome such events in their own time, might put up less than dogged resistance to developments that render a final catastrophe more likely, as they consider this to be ultimately inevitable.

So lets hope that the luck that has prevented the third world war will continue to prevent it and, at the very least, do our part by avoiding moves that obviously draw us closer to the eve of destruction. will we be saved when mankind sees the light of reason or when a divine intervention saves us. Both events would amount to the same issue.