Same Circus

When you consider the delusional and incompetent leadership that made decisions in Europe prior to WWI and compare it to the delusional and incompetent leadership in Washington today, we can only say that it is the same circus, just different clowns.

In 1900 the monarchs of Europe were the clowns. The insane regimes of Germany and Russia were lead by autocratic airheads who had tunnel vision, were duplicitous and just plain stupid. German megalomania was verbalized by the Kaiser who was essentially a blowhard with a temperament and uncontrolled anger. His personal need to expand German influence was the central focus of his ideology. (Hitler’s aims were similar but his mantra was “living space”.) Add to this a sizeable helping of religious puffery to the extent that the Kaiser believed, as does Bush, that he too spoke for God.

Leaders of the French Republic were not much better. For example, at the battle of the Marne, Marshall Foch was loudly calling “attack, attack” when actually retreat was indicated. When asked why he called for attack, he didn’t really know except that his men were there, he had the will, and God was present. These were soldiers on the ground attacking automatic machine gun emplacements. And, of course, huge numbers of men were needlessly lost on that day. [1]

It is mindful of the 1850’s when Britain was fighting the Russians and the famous cavalry unit known as the Light Brigade was ordered to make a frontal assault on Russian heavy artillery emplacements. In a situation like this the usual attack would have been from the flanks but because of the geography this was not possible. The British should have retreated but instead were defeated. As a result, they lost in essence the whole Brigade. The commanding generals blamed each other. No one was willing to take responsibility.

As for WWI the Kaiser wanted Belgium as an ally. King Leopold, however, refused. The Kaiser’s reply was that “anyone not with me is against me.” Now where have we heard that before? It was Bush’s favorite mantra when he was trying to put together a coalition to invade Iraq. Both Bush and the Kaiser confused themselves with God. In fact the Kaiser deluded himself into believing that the Germans were “the chosen people”. Sound familiar?

We can learn a great deal from history but we tend conveniently to forget the lessons and the country suffers.


[1] Tuchman, Barbara. The Guns of August. Random House, 1962