Wellington Dined Alone I have been reading about the Battle of Waterloo in the Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes and in Howard Keegan's brilliant book The Face of Battle. Both works quote original sources, but the former quotes them at length and the latter quotes them sparingly while giving the reader an overview of the battle.

I find the combination of the anecdote and the overview is very instructive to one who wishes to understand the battle, not as a move in some European political chess game that Napoleon might conceivably have won, which is utterly ridiculous, but as a great tragedy, a needless waste of men and horses.

In the end, Napoleon was sending his cavalry (because that was all he had) against infantry squares, which actually welcomed the cavalry charges because they meant a break from the ravages of artillery bombardments.

The cavalry would gallop around the squares, and then they would either retreat or get shot or bayoneted. So many men and horses died needlessly.

Napoleon had not reckoned on the ability of the British and allied armies to withstand blistering atrtillery fire. And Wellington, knowing he could not rely on his Belgian allies to take the offensive, disposed them in defensive positions under the command of British and German troops of proven loyalty, blah blah blah.

Now the anecdote. After the victory at Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington returned late at night to his company mess hall, where they were awaiting the return of his staff. He went in and ordered his dinner, and he kept looking up to see if any of his staff officers had made it back.

Every single one had been killed or wounded. Wellington dined alone.  ¶ 8:31 PM 0 comments

  Ernie Pyle and Captain Henry Waskow At one point during the US campaign in Italy during WWII, Don Whitehead of the Associated Press dropped in on Ernie Pyle of Scripps-Howard. He knew Ernie had been feeling depressed.

"Ernie was all man, but there was something that made you want to take care of him, to lend him a hand whenever possible. I suppose we sensed that war was a heavier strain on him than on most of us because he was more sensitive to cold and hunger and pain and the shock of seeing men killed."

The campaign was far slower and more costly than anyone had anticipated, Whitehead writes, "and the strain began to wear on everyone."

Whitehead found Pyle at work. He had been to the front to get some stories about the mule teams they were using to supply the men fighting in the mountains.

"I've lost the touch," Pyle said. "This stuff stinks. I just can't seem to get going again." He tossed three columns to his visitor and said, "What do you think of 'em?"

The first one was a tribute to Captain Henry T. Waskow, a beloved commander whose body had just been brought down on one of the mules.

"The simplicity and beauty of that description brought tears to my eyes," Whitehead writes. "This was the kind of writing all of us were striving for, the picture we were trying to paint in words for the people at home.

"'If this is a sample from a guy who has lost his touch,' I said, 'then the rest of us had better go home.'"

Whitehead was correct in his assessment. Ernie's tribute to Captain Waskow was printed on the front page of more than 270 newspapers across the United States. The Washington Daily News gave it the entire front page, and as his friend Lee Miller says in his biography of Ernie, "Radio commentators helped themselves."

I have already suggested that Ernie Pyle's description of the firebombing of London, titled "This Dreadful Masterpiece," is the best piece of writing in any language since the blind Greek guy.

Ernie's tribute to Captain Waskow is the best summary I have ever seen of what Memorial Day is all about.  ¶ 9:47 PM 2 comments

  Another Fan of the Blind Greek Guy James O'Reilly, cofounder of Travelers' Tales feels the same way I do about books. Here's an excerpt from his website:

"To James O'Reilly, books are as important as water, air, and food. He writes: 'I would be a sad fellow indeed without them, and this has been true for as long as I can remember.

They are as rivers flowing through a universal mind that doesn't know the bounds of time. I can be with the dead as easily as the living—Homer or Stephen King, Sri Aurobindo or Isabel Allende, Wallace Stegner or Jan Morris, Mary Shelley or Redmond O'Hanlon.

Books are the aqua vita of the spirit; they form a kind of background radiation against which I measure my life and my endeavors. They buck me up when I'm down, inspire me out of torpor, galvanize me when I am ready to walk the fire.'"  ¶ 2:05 PM 1 comments

  A Triumph of Plain Speaking After the terrible losses they suffered at Waterloo, it must have brought great joy to the British soldiers to restore to the French people just what they had always wanted: a fat king named Louis.

In The Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes, edited by Max Hastings, we hear the uplifting account Private William Wheeler of the reduction of Cambray, in my view a real triumph of plain speaking.

The city had raised the tricolor [a sign of resistance] and the British had had to scale the walls and take possession of the gates to let in their troops. The French troops retired to the fortified citadel.

"We were, as was usual, received by the people with vivas, many of whom had forgot to wash the powder off their lips caused by biting off the cartridges when they were firing at us from the wall.

"Pickets were established at the citadel , and about dusk the remainder of the division were marched out of town and encamped. We had picked up some money in the town, or more properly speaking we had made the people hand it over to us to save us the trouble of taking it from them, so we were enabled to provide ourselves with what made us comfortable.

"The 25th we halted," Private Wheeler continues, "and his pottle belly Majesty, Louis 18th, marched into the loyal town of Cambray. His Majesty was met by a deputation of his beloved subjects who received their father and their king with tears of joy.

"Louis blubbered over them like a big girl for her bread and butter, called them his children, told them a long rigamarole of nonsense about France, and his family, about his heart, and about their hearts, and I don't know what...

"No doubt the papers will inform you how Louis the 18th entered the loyal city of Cambray, how his loyal subjects welcomed their beloved king, how the best of monarchs wept over the sufferings of his beloved people, how the citadel surrendered with acclamations of joy to the best of kings, and how his most Christian Majesty effected all this without being accompanied by a single soldier.

"But the papers will not inform you that 4th Division and a brigade of Hanoverian Huzzars were in readiness within half a mile of the this faithful city, and if the loyal citizens had insulted their king, how it was very probable that we should have bayoneted every Frenchman in the place.

"The people well knew this, and this will account for the sudden change in their loyalty or allegiance from their Idol Napoleon (properly named) the Great, to an old bloated poltroon, the Sir John Falstaff of France."

[Falstaff is a drunken blowhard in several of Shakespeare's plays.]  ¶ 8:35 PM 0 comments

  Those Wascally Wabbits To celebrate his victory over the Russians and the Prussians, resulting in the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Napoleon ordered a lovely hunting party in the country and had his chief of staff, Alexandre Berthier, arrange everything.

Berthier, a paragon of efficiency, had the coaches arrive at the Tuilleries on the stroke, a beautiful lunch was prepared, with music from a band on a lovely bandstand, and the party drank from crystal goblets and dined on delicacies. Then, led by the emperor, they set out for a day of shooting.

Berthier had arranged to have a thousand rabbits released, so the hunt was sure to be successful. The problem was, they were tame rabbits and they were used to being fed twice a day.

They mistook Napoleon for the guy with their food and they all came running at him. Berthier and his men tried to beat them back with horsewhips, but the rabbits executed a classic double envelopment and came at them from all sides. Napoleon had to fight his way back to his carriage, in which he promptly set off for his palace.

I picked up this nugget from the Oxford Book of Military Anecdotes, edited by Max Hastings, a wonderful volume I got for a dollar. The anecdote is attributed to A. G. Macdonell.  ¶ 3:40 PM 1 comments

  In Which I Dutifully Take My Lumps There are a lot of ups and downs to blogging, and a lot of learning experiences. Here, for example, is a response to my "Short Disquisition on the London Derriere":

I wrote that "Danny Boy" is a woman's song and men have no business singing it. "It's a song about loss," I wrote. "It's about finding love in a sad and sorry world and then some guy starts honking on a pigskin in the next glen over and the one you love is taken from you forever and all you have left is the love." I was wrong as Anonymous points out:

"Danny Boy",(writ by a Brit,man who knew it was-) an apellation never to be used by a lass (you ass), perhaps a mother, but certainly not a lover; more likely a father or other male kith or kin. The assumption has always been of a father or(Gran)singing to his son (you moron)-called to honorable service. It is the elder who fears he'll not survive the interim."

"And, sure, you are the rarest of things. A man that can be sweetly sentimental and wrong in all thought that has the misfortune of fortune passing ~effortlessly thru his mind. But pardon my assuption; I realize you may not be a man at all~so unlike those who've sacrificed so you can so smuggly embrace and expound your peevish ignorance."

This was right after some US soldiers raped and murdered a young woman in Iraq after murdering her family before her eyes, so I referred to the US as a "godforsaken country which send soldiers to other countries to commit rape and murder." I think that's what he (or she) was mad about.

What I should have said was, I love to listen to and play The Londonderry Air. It reminds me of John F. Kennedy and the pride that everyone in Boston felt to have an Irish president.

"Like most people in America and nearly everyone in Ireland, I loved this bright young president who called on each of us to do what we could do for our country," I wrote.

"And then he was shot dead in the street and no one in public life then or now seems to give a rat's ass who did it. With him died his dream, and Washington's dream and Lincoln's dream, of America as a powerful force for good in this world.

"And all that's left is the love."

But thanks, Anonymous, for setting me straight about "Danny Boy."  ¶ 3:19 PM 0 comments

  Vesta Roy and the Settlement Laws .

In my next to last entry I mentioned the all-too-brief enlightened reign of Senate President Vesta Roy. It was an historic window of opportunity that occurs only once or twice in a generation. A sincere call to set aside partisan politics and improve the law of the land. Child seatbelt laws, no smoking in supermarkets, water supply protection, child support enforcement, special consideration for child victim/witnesses. People used to refer to Vesta as Glinda the Good, and it was a moniker she well deserved.

Let me give just one example, although there were so many. When Senator Roy was elected Senate President, the state's system of services for children was fragmented and disorganized. The state ran an old-fashioned reformatory, and abused and neglected children, and other children in need of services (CHINS) were served, haphazardly, by whatever social service agency that would step up and take responsibility.

The problem was, the laws that determined who paid for these services were an archaic mess. It was unclear whether the town, the county, or the state was responsible. Much of the money that should have been going to serve children was being paid for attorneys' fees to determine who would pay for needed services.

Just to give you an idea of the complexity of the old laws: A child is deemed in need of services of the type that are usually paid for by the town. The parents live in Town X. The child is placed in a foster home and the parents each move to different towns. Who pays?

It was an issue of no political value whatsoever. There was not one chance in ten thousand of explaining its importance to a single voter -- unless that voter happened to be a town official, or a county commissioner, or an advocate for children. Senator Roy was all three, so the reform of the Settlement Laws became Senate Bill One, passed by both houses and signed into law.

The compromise that she hammered out between the state and the towns and the counties clearly delineated who was going to pay for what and the bottom line was better and more comprehensive services for children in need.

Senate President Roy exemplified an ideal of unselfish, dedicated, effective public service that could become a thing of the past if people are unable to tackle these kinds of messes and make the changes we need to make to progress as a society.  ¶ 7:13 PM 0 comments

  Be Bold and Fear Nothing Here's a poem by one of my favorite writers, Sony Stark, aka Pilotgirl. She wrote it while sailing the Pacific aboard the MV Explorer:

One day you finally knew what you had to do and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting,
though the whole house trembled,
though the wind pried its stiff fingers around your very foundation,
though the melancholy was terrible.

Little by little you left their voices behind
and the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice which you recognised as your own.
As you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
determined to do the only thing you could do -
determined to save the only life you could save.

It reminds me of what Julius Caesar said to the boatman when he crossed the Adriatic through Pompey's blockading fleet: "Be bold and fear nothing, for Caesar's destiny sails with you this night."

Labels: Julius Caesar, Sony Stark

  ¶ 8:53 AM 0 comments

  Senator Susan McLane: Walking Purposefully .

New Hampshire State Senator Susan McLane taught me how to quiet a crying baby. She took my newborn daughter in her arms and walked around the room. Bingo. Quiet baby. She told me the secret was to "walk purposefully."

Senator McLane walked purposefully through life, and it was my great honor to work with her in the New Hampshire Senate duirng the all-too-brief enlightened reign of Senate President Vesta Roy. Senator McLane was the chairman of the Health and Welfare Committee, and an articulate advocate for those in need, especially women and children.

She was a lot like Spiderman. Wherever you found meanness or injustice, there she was. Let me give one example only, though there were so many: a woman on welfare taught an advanced dance class and in exchange her daughters got beginning dance lessons. The state Division of Welfare, pursuant to their legal duty, required this woman to declare the value of her daughters' lessons as income.

If you've never known poverty, then you'll never know what this kind of judgment can mean for a family, and I'm not going to try to tell you, because it would be a waste of time.

Similarly diligent employees of the D of W required welfare recipients to declare, as income, the monetary value of the produce from their gardens.

Susan McLane took a stand in cases like this, and the State of New Hampshire is better for it, now and forever. What kind of society do you want to live in, anyway? Do you want children to be happy?

Senator McLane was known as the "conscience of the Republican Party," a post that has been conspicuously unfilled, and unlikely to be filled, since her passing. The party of Abraham Lincoln!

But I have high hopes for the newborn baby that she carried in her arms. Let us all walk purposefully now. So much is at stake.

Labels: New Hampshire Senate, Senator Susan McLane, the conscience of the Republican Party

  ¶ 7:21 PM 0 comments

  Harry Golden and the I Ching I'm having such a great time rereading Harry Golden's three books Only in America, For Two Cents Plain, and Enjoy! Enjoy! I thumb through them, like reading the I Ching, and pick up all kinds of little nuggets of wisdom.

These books are just full of amusing anecdotes from Aaron Burr's trial for adultery at the age of 80 to Alexander Hamilton's dalliance with the infamous Mrs. Reynolds.

In response to New York Daily News columnist John O'Donnell's call for a system of prolonged torture for convicted kidnappers and murderers, in Yankee Stadium before national television camers, Golden observes that severe punishments do not seem to deter crime.

"A murder was committed outside the death house at Sing Sing," he writes, "and the murderer was the trusty who polished the electric chair before each execution."

"William E. H. Lecky in his History of European Morals, writes that in old England when they hanged pickpockets, all the pickpockets of the country would come to ply their trade among the folks whose attention was diverted."  ¶ 8:49 AM 1 comments

  The Shortest Possible Blog Entry A friend has challenged me to write the shortest possible blog entry. For me that means an entry that will amuse or interest the reader with the fewest possible words. OK. Here goes:

You are a reporter sent to cover a 100th birthday party for the resident of a nursing home. They bring in the cake and the 100-year-old honoree looks at it and says, "Pink shit."  ¶ 8:54 PM 0 comments

  Frank Paid a Price Frank Sinatra paid a price for his lifelong commitment to equality and justice. He was accused of being a communist seven times by the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and the FBI tried to smear him, too -- your tax dollars at work, or rather, your grandparents' tax dollars at work, or your great-grandparents'.

He once remarked that if you went on the radio and talked about a fair deal for the average citizen, you'd be accused of being a communist. [He was alluding there to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's radio 'fireside chats' in which he explained his New Deal policies to the American people -- policies like Social Security and Worker's Compensation.]

When the communist tag didn't stick, they decided to link Frank to organized crime. Of course! He's Italian! And they wasted a lot of our tax dollars on that angle and caused him a lot of trouble. Michael Powell details all this in a great article in "Popular Music and Society."

Now you might say, "Well, yea, but they never made a dent in Sinatra's popularity. He had a fabulously successful career from beginning to end."

I have to point out that FBI and HUAC accusations destroyed a lot of very promising careers, and even if, in the end, Frank was able to laugh them off, he ran a great risk. I consider him a hero. So does the NAACP, which gave him a lifetime achievement award.

He loved America, but he could also see what was tragically wrong with America, and he really did something about it. And on top of that, he did it with style. Frank snapped his fingers, and his adoring fans changed their attitudes.

One New York music critic, early in Sinatra's career, had this to say about the young singer's outspoken views in favor of racial equality:

"Some performers will suggest that Sinatra is stupid to step out of character, suggest that singing and social significance shouldn't be coupled. But it seems to this observer that Sinatra instead has added something new and important to popular singing, a species of disinterested public service we should all render to the things we believe."

That critic was a guy by the name of Ed Sullivan. He went on to host a variety show that got pretty popular. I think you could say he spoke for America. Thank you, Frank, for leading the way.  ¶ 7:20 PM 0 comments