Dear friends,
I have been here for a couple of days , on this annual vacation, taking in the sights and sounds of this city of London. The last time I was here in 1998, I did what a tourist would- absorbing the many attractions of this city, mostly fun and frolic and less of history.
This time it is different- I deliberately took time for a detailed look at the many statues and monuments commemorating the exploits and victories of its soldiers, sailors and airmen. This has been a very touching and moving experience- more so, when at every turn, I looked back to figure out what we have done for remembering the war dead in India.
There is so much visible gratitude that this city has placed on its roads and sidewalks- the victories in the Arakans , Kohima and Imphal, Fd Marshal Slim's exploits- the El Alamein battles; the grim figure of Monty (his risk management was legendary- Operation Lightfoot, a superiority ratio of 1:5; there are wonderful notes on each of these battle victories at these monuments. Then there is this monument for the RAF- Never in the history of conflict was so much owed by so many to so few, as Churchill said- I started counting the names of F/Os and P/Os, the young pilots who went down in the Battle of Britain 1940 and later- there were at least 300 of them, couldn't count more. Interestingly, there is a tombstone to the Unknown Warrior in the Westminister Abbey too. I also liked the idea of old Regiments maintaining their museums in cities and towns. More on this later..........I hope to look for similar monuments in the other cities of Europe too , sometime.
Back home, the veterans have won an interim victory (remember a mail of last fortnight where there was a mention of the Governor of Karnataka initiating a class PIL to see that the War Memorial did not come up in Bangalore)- thankfully, the High Court just turned it down few days ago with the remarks that a National War Memorial was a laudable initiative, since it would instill patriotism in the hearts of the country’s citizens. Hope the National War Memorial in Delhi also happens- that is a bigger and bloodier issue, in any case.
Dear friends,
Past 48 hours have been great. A day spent around the Flanders and North of Paris- scene of battles both in the Great War (WW I) and the Second WW- trench warfare in the first and attrition warfare in the second (remember the last rounds where both boxers were almost out). A lot of memorials there. Mostly well laid out cemetries except one- Canadian Memorial, they have left the battlefield untouched, no individual tombstones, just one large forest populated by elms, all trees brought in from Canada- the PM visits every year.
An ironic monument can't be missed- a stone which says "A War to End All Wars", laid post WWI...........years later the same stone with bullet marks on its reverse!! Same place, similar circumstances.
An interesting trivia piece- we have had the word “escarpment” in our Glossary of Military Terms. The word originated from the village by the name of Escarp, which was a ridge defended in vain by the French Army in the Flanders region, short of Loos. The concept of the moving Artillery barrage also originated here.
Could not visit Dunkirk- did see the castle on the Dover cliffs, the RAF comd HQ during the Battle of Britain.
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Back here in Paris, Napoleon is still a national figure- opinions divided, many call him the greatest Frenchman of all time, there are others who say he heaped miseries due to wars he began, the worst being his failed Russian invasion. Napoleon II was a far popular king. Paintings in the Louvre devote many pieces to his reign and the battles. There is an interesting one where he is coronating himself (normally done by the Pope)--------arrogant that he was, the Pope is present but looks on uninterestedly.
Back to the subject- the symbols of military campaigns in the country side- chateaus of France were originally the seats of local power- each chateau has some semblance of a fortress, and housed a representative of the powerful troika- it was said that the entire Europe at one time was controlled by a few families. Each chateau had a moat and a coat of arms. There were also local armies, fed and armed by the nobles. All paid taxes to Rome.
After the Russo-Austrian conquests of the nineteenth century, generals realized that France lay vulnerable due to its geography. They then set about building the Maginot Line, a DCB kind of defensive system- this is South West of France and I passed one of the ramparts of the Line yesterday afternoon at a place called Belfort. . This Line little served the purpose, the Germans later bypassed the Line and attacked France from the North, doing a maneuver through the Netherlands. So much for defensive lines. Years later, a similar line called the Siegfried Line (towards the Rhine plains) was also built- military memory is short!! And in the counter-offensive of the early 1940s, what Gen Patton said is worth the quote “I will go through Siegfried Line like shit through goose”!,
Lunch was at Besancon , clock making town- when the Inquisition stated in Europe, the Moors (Moslems ) in Spain had to make a hasty retreat; a lot of tradesmen and metal workers were Arabs who then feld to Switzerland, even then a state with moderate ideologies- these tradesmen who were good at fine metal work and filigree work began servicing the clock industry here.
Late in the evening yesterday, we entered Switzerland- traditionally never a nation state but a loose federation of counties. all of you would have heard of William Tell’s story , in which the father shoots an arrow at an apple placed on his son’s head. This was in Basel. Passed by Basel , on the river Rhine, from which name comes the many Basel Mission schools in India set up by German missionaries two hundred years ago. By the way, four languages are spoken here including German, French and Italian. One aspect , however, stands out- for years, Swiss Guards provided protection to the royal families, until the massacre of the eighteenth century in Paris. Louis XVI’s reign was in turmoil, populace was deeply dissatisfied and one morning when he went for the Church service in Notre Dame, word spread that he had fled Paris………..mobs collected at the Palace and lynched 1000 Swiss Guards. The King escaped for the moment, but later, he and his wife Marie Antoinette were rounded up and beheaded. The commander fo the Guards at that time was on his vacation in Luzern in Switzerland – yesterday, I visited the monument built for the fallen Guards here- a Lion (deeply wounded countenance well sculpted) face cut in the rock, with tribute to the soldiers. This led to the end of the Guards system with one exception- the Pope still has Swiss Guards…………
Military service is mandatory- every house has arms – mountain passes are guarded (the only outlets for this mountain locked country, 80% of terrain is mountainous) and the mobilization time is 3 hours. There is a military airfield in Luzern, blast pens and all- any of you heard of the Pilatus aircraft?
More in the next dispatch.
Regards
KPM
European history goes back to 2760 years- In 2 BC, Romans began moving East and West, and set up their capital in Constantinople- a city which held the awe of many an Emperor from times immemorial.
To understand the position and standing of the soldier in European society, it is necessary to look at the history of Europe from the perspective of power brokering and conflict. In the early millennium, the Roman empire (not the Rome state, notice the difference) was the core of civilization (meaning the system of living in the “cities”)- they expanded rapidly to reach and cover most of the continent. There was always the threat of invasions by the tribes (Huns, Vikings, Magyars, Lombardis, Gauls etc) which held sway for brief periods-yet they could not have one single centrally controlled governance structure- necessarily they had to leave their nobles to take care of outpost kingdoms- feudal structures essentially….you see, the Hapsburg family from Austria cleverly laid the seeds of monarchy in Europe at this point by exploiting and maneuvering the social structure of nobility. This family married their sons and daughters , successively, to the noble families in most parts of Europe till , at one time, and later, every ruling family owed their origins to the Austrian roots. By the Dark Ages, it became clear that you had to have the Church to patronize the state since it had a hold over the population. Thus began the tight coupling between the state and the church. States , of course, needed powerful and trained armies to expand their influence. Over time, it became clear that the troika of church, state, and military were equal stakeholders in retention of power. All of the three arms began having political stakes, and it became obvious that, for ruling families, it was important to have its control over all the three wings. This led to ruling families and nobles’ families having the first born to be the king, the second to be the priest and the third to be the soldier.
This was also the time when Europe started looking outwards for getting its requirements of spices and salt (to preserve food and meat) and other rare items. The same ruling families sponsored ships to sail to the Americas and the East; they were not really begun for maritime reasons but for expansion of their trading writ. Columbus and Vasco Da Gama (and Vespucci), all were leaders of such causes with patrons from the ruling classes.
Just to get the sequence right, we had the Roman era, then the Dark Ages, Crusades (to free the Holy Land)………..remember the Moors were driven out of Spain in middle fifteenth century, then we had the Renaissance, the Reformation, Enlightened Despotism and the Revolutions (French, American….). In fact, if the Moslems were not beaten, Europe would have been Islamic.
Around the period of middle ages, the merchant class came into its own- all the expeditions (Marco Polo and later the sea farers) brought back riches- trade became a lucrative profession and the troika of the king-priest-soldier got drawn into its gains. The Merchant of Venice gives you a good idea of the societal relationships at that time. Florence, Venice, Naples and Rome were centres of trade- banks were set up and loans were advanced to sea faring expeditions. I understand (the local history buzz) that the Church got entangled in affairs of money- at one time, brothels, bordellos and money laundering had active participants from the priestly class.
In earlier centuries, great diseases and plagues hit the rural areas in Europe. Entire cities got wiped out –large scale migration into cities again started and as an insurance for family continuity, one son in every family was sent to the Army.
More in the next dispatch…………..
Regards
KPM
Dear Friends,
From the town of Luzern, which has that military airfield set in the grassy plains I spoke about in the last despatch, we took the road cutting through the Alps into Northern Italy. The 13% of Italian speaking Swiss populace lives in this stretch which has tunnels all along the way (some places look similar to the Khandala section on the Pune-Mumbai expressway), the longest being 17 km long- the longest in Europe. Vicenza is a major US military base on the road to Milano from Switzerland. The biggest operation supported out of this base was the Iraq War of 1991. The entire area looks like a fortress.
Northern Italy is more enterprising and industrious- people have a higher standard of living as compared to the central and southern regions. The cultural sensibilities are, however, heightened across the boot-shaped country. Italy was never a single country until unified in middle 1800s. The twenty three states were as different as chalk and cheese in many ways. In fact, even during the Roman empire, they were never integrated. When the unification was consummated through a referendum in 1860, the king ordered a bronze monument be made in each town- on the monument you have the tally of votes “For” and “Against”-The one I saw in Venice had a ludicrous ratio- 168759 For versus 78 Against (or something like that)- certainly suspect and rigged- Venice till recently had a segment of population wanting a separate homeland for the Northerners. Few years ago, an APC with soldiers landed in front of the Mayors office and laid siege (all this is local folklore……..). Languages have different dialects across many provinces. Family ties and clan ties are very important. The attitude towards law is a little flexible to say the least- queues are not necessarily maintained, ashtrays can be found in no-smoking zones, and connections help in working around bottlenecks. There is a thriving black economy here. Silvio Berlusconi, the present PM, would have been in jail for fraud on multiple counts had it not been for his position. People owe their primary allegiances to the family, clan, and village/town/province in that order.
Consisting of 117 islands and first inhabited by fishermen alone, Venice was controlled by the Veneta tribe- there were others like the Lombardi too. Salt and cinnamon were the other trade items and by the 11th century Venice monopolized trade in the area and the Mediterranean. Salt-making , incidentally, was an art brought back by sailors who returned from Alexandria in Egypt. Marco Polo was a son of this region (and the airport here is named after him). Antonio Vivaldi, the famous composer, was also a son of this town. So also Christian Doppler (of the Doppler Effect fame in Physics). No automobiles move in Venice- you find every conceivable activity being done on boats, cranes, cement movers, ambulances, police patrols, fire department equipment, etc. Sisteri six of them.
There are no street names here- houses are connected by canals in an intricate web and finally connect to the Grand Canal. I found the navigation challenging- you had to go to St Marks Square each time you wanted to make a start- almost like the Reset button!! By the way, the patron saint here is St Mark and the emblem is a winged lion. There is also a set of two adjacent buildings – the ancient magistrate’s chambers and the prison; prisoners were awarded either death by beheading or life and the bridge connecting the two buildings is called the Bridge of Sighs, for obvious reasons. There is only one prisoner who escaped, that was Casanova (he is reputed to have bedded 6000 women in a short period of time).
The power troika of the king-soldier-priest is best seen in the history here. There were many monastic orders here- the first major action to break this stranglehold of the church was by Napoleon III (I am not sure) in 1797, when he closed down many of the 300 churches there. In 1914 when the Austrians came into Venice they restored many of the churches but a larger majority remained as govt offices and commercial establishments.
Venice had mandatory military service- which eventually got diluted to 2 years in the Ambulance Corps or with the Disabled Veterans Organization. There is a 300 year old Military School on the Grand Canal.
At the Battle of Locanto, the Admiral of the fleet got saved due to the cross on the mast which took the hit and bent to one side. This can be seen at the monastery short of Bologna on the road from Venice to Florence. Every year there is a festival attended by the faithful and many veterans as a token of gratitude to the patron-saint.
Another word in our military Glossary is “Arsenal”- this word came from the name of an island in Venice called Arsenali, where naval ships were built. Ship building was a major activity here and Venice had the reputation of quick delivery- for small ships, keel laid in the morning and delivery next day. Major navies of the region contracted ship making to Venice. By the thirteenth century, some of the richest traders and businessmen were located here. They also began the system of quarantine for ships coming in from the far West and East (40 days of isolation, and hence the word derived from “quanta”)
On a final note, as I get into the town of Florence tonight, this is a fashion conscious nation- the police and military have their uniforms designed by marquee designers of Milan.
Till the next dispatch, bye.
