Category: History

  • Schumacher (2021)

    Schumacher (2021)

    The Man Behind the Legend

    Directed by Hans-Bruno Kammertöns; starring Michael Schumacher, et al…

    After a fifty-year drought we’ve reached a golden age of motor racing film and television. There have been major features that weren’t awful — Rush (2013) and Ford v Ferrari (2019) — and a documentary that wasn’t dull — Senna (2010). Netflix’s riveting fly-on-the-wall racing reality show, Formula 1: Drive to Survive, is currently filming its fourth season. And Netflix also just released its own documentary on a racing legend: Schumacher.

    Early Life and Career

    Michael Schumacher was a prodigy from the start, racing internationally (and winning) in Karts from the age of twelve, before moving on to sports cars and lower formulae cars. In 1991 he landed in the rarified world of Formula 1 like a bombshell. At his first race, on the daunting Spa Francorchamps circuit, he put his underfunded Jordan 7th on the grid — faster than his more experienced teammate, and far closer to the front than that car had any right to be. A great rivalry was predicted between the new ace and Ayrton Senna, who had dominated the sport since the mid ’80’s. Alas, it was not to be. Senna was killed at Imola in early 1994, just as Schumacher and his Benetton team were becoming serious title rivals. Schumacher went on to win the championship that year, and it was the start of a remarkable decade in which he reigned almost alone at the top of the sport.

    Schumacher Jordan
    Schumacher in the Jordan

    Full disclosure: back in the day I usually cheered for Senna and Schumacher’s rivals. Despite being blessed with more than enough talent to succeed honourably, both these legends brought a win at all costs mentality to the track that too often showed itself in overly aggressive, even dirty, driving. They coarsened the sport and set a bad example for younger drivers such that F1 is still struggling to re-establish standards for clean, hard racing that prevent the blocking and bullying “back off or we’ll crash” manoeuvres normalized by Senna and Schumacher.

    The Senna documentary framed his uncompromising will to win as a shining example of the human drive for excellence. And I can understand why the Brazilian was revered by legions of fans despite his on-track ruthlessness. Handsome, mystical, and touched with an unearthly talent, he oozed charisma. But the jut-jawed, dour, and Germanic Michael Schumacher, whose inner life remained largely hidden? I could never understand why so many adored him. Surely their rabid enthusiasm was a kind of crude power worship, a fawning abasement at the altar of fame and success, regardless of how it was achieved?

    It’s interesting, then, that this first full-length recounting of Schumacher’s life focusses more on the man behind the motor racing legend than his on-track career. Family support for the project gave German filmmaker Hans-Bruno Kammertöns access to previously unseen home movie footage and opened the door to extensive, remarkably candid interviews with most of Schumacher’s family, friends, and teammates. The result is a remarkably intimate portrait of the private Schumacher — a man previously unseen except by his inner circle.

    The film’s opening section briefly recounts his childhood before the surprises start with the young Schumacher’s kart racing adventures with his dad. He’s a fresh-faced, working-class boy exuberantly enjoying his racing — a broad, infectious smile never far from his face. When he reaches F1, the early successes are followed by his signature move: an exuberant leap for joy high above the winner’s podium. The private footage of Schumacher partying and singing karaoke with his mechanics and rival drivers after a race, looking with open adoration at his wife, Corinne, or playing with his young children, show that even after becoming a star he enthusiastically embraced life as a family man. Close associates always claimed that the real Schumacher was a fun-loving, affectionate homebody, quite different from his closed off and ruthless persona. Here, for the first time, the rest of us can see what they were talking about.

    Was it a certain introverted shyness, or the pressures of stardom that caused Schumacher to keep his inner life so hidden? Regardless, this look at Michael Schumacher’s private world is the best aspect of the documentary and will be a revelation, even to his fans. For me, I’d forgotten what a breath of fresh air Schumacher was when he first reached F1. Those were the years of the bitter Senna-Prost rivalry when races would end, not with the happy winner jumping off the podium, but with the two antagonists glaring daggers at each other.

    A Paradox

    Unsurprisingly, this family endorsed project is not nearly so candid when it comes to the other side of Schumacher’s character: the ruthless, win at all costs competitor we saw on track. Schumacher’s willingness, while still F1’s new boy, to break his contract with Jordan after a single race, and join the better funded Benetton team, isn’t mentioned. Nor do we hear about the infamous 2006 Monaco GP, when Schumacher deliberately spun during qualifying to block the track and thus protect his provisional pole position.

    Other incidents, too famous or significant to leave out, are covered, but as sympathetically as possible. The treatment of 1994’s title deciding race is typical: Schumacher ran off the road while in the lead and, rather than parking against the barriers, steered his wrecked but moving car back on track in front of rival Damon Hill. Schumacher associates explain away the ensuing crash as a racing incident, his only fault, in their telling, being competitive instincts so strong he always kept going, even in hopeless situations. Not quoted are other, less sympathetic observers, who saw the move as a deliberate attempt to take out a rival. (Successfully in this case; with both cars out of the race, Schumacher kept his lead in the points and won his first F1 championship.)

    Schumacher & Villeneuve
    Schumacher & Villeneuve

    It’s harder to justify Imola, 1997, when Schumacher again hit a title rival, in this case deliberately driving into Jacques Villeneuve rather than let him pass. Schumacher only crashed himself out, though, and Villeneuve went on to take the 1997 championship (still Canada’s only F1 title). The documentary again uses friendly witnesses to put the collision in the best possible light — but even these can reveal more than you expect. Ross Brawn was engineering Schumacher that day and recalls that he returned to the pits fuming with rage and utterly convinced that Villeneuve was the one in the wrong! Brawn knew Schumacher well and testifies that this belief was quite sincere. Only after much arguing, and repeated views of the replay (which is unambiguous), did Schumacher finally acknowledge reality and admit he was in the wrong. (An offence so egregious the governing body stripped him of his 1997 points.)

    Equally revealing is the interview in which a friend recalls asking Schumacher whether he had ever been wrong in his whole life. Apparently, Schumacher thought about it for a moment, and then quite seriously answered, “no”!

    What combination of early success, public acclaim, competitive pressure, and the affirmation of rabid fans can make a seemingly normal person so utterly blind to their own behaviour? Schumacher is far from the only sporting legend to behave like this. Top level sports have become so competitive it really does seem that successful athletes need to maintain a level of self-belief almost indistinguishable from self-delusion (even insanity). This is a topic well worth exploring, but the film is content to leave it with the rationale that, in his own mind at least, Schumacher never believed he was acting badly (a conviction so strong even multiple penalties never dented it).

    Having thus whitewashed Schumacher’s culpability for the 1994 and 1997 incidents, the documentary chooses to make a big fuss about David Coulthard’s behaviour at the rain-soaked 1998 Spa Francorchamps race. In the opening laps Coulthard knew his damaged car was about to be passed by the much faster Schumacher and eased off at the entry to Pouhon corner to let him by. Not expecting this, and blinded by the rain, Schumacher ploughed into the back of Coulthard in a vicious, high-speed accident. His reality distortion field kicked in and Schumacher returned to the pits in a raging fury. Tearing off his helmet he went looking for Coulthard, shrieking that the McLaren driver had tried to kill him. Although Coulthard later admitted he shouldn’t have lifted while on the racing line, this was an honest racing incident where both drivers misjudged what the other was doing. That’s quite different from the many times Schumacher deliberately blocked, drove into, or intimidated other drivers on track. But, since this is one racing incident where the balance of blame is on the other driver, the film strenuously re-litigates it in a brazen attempt to establish a false equivalency to Schumacher’s more sinister moves. Coulthard’s crash even features in the teaser trailer. This goes beyond whitewashing; it’s is outright disinformation.

    Schumacher & Coulthard
    Schumacher & Coulthard

    Moving to Ferrari

    At the end of 1995, after two winning world championships with Benetton, Schumacher abruptly moved to the legendary but underperforming Ferrari team. This is framed as a desire to find “fresh challenges” (with no mention of the wedge of cash that accompanied them). And there certainly were challenges aplenty at Ferrari; it was the beginning of four wilderness years during which his driving abilities and strength of character were tested as never before.

    The Schumacher the film wants us to focus on is the inspiring leader who dragged Ferrari out of the doldrums and turned them into a championship winning team again. This section makes up the bulk of its run time.

    Ferrari had spent years in the doldrums when Schumacher arrived, brought low by its own poisonous politics and outdated technical standards. While the team rebuilt itself around him, it took all of his prodigious talent — driving the wheels off sub-standard cars — and all his determination as a leader to hold the team together through years of toil, disappointment, and near misses. This period is shown through magnificent race footage and (again) extensive private film of the behind-the-scenes action. We see Michael endlessly testing with the team, staying late into the night with his mechanics as they repair yet another broken car. Here is Schumacher at his best; a driving prodigy with a fierce will to win, it would have been understandable had his struggles with Ferrari’s uncompetitive cars turned him into a prima donna. Instead, he became the opposite; a loyal team player whose total commitment kept him working harder and staying later than anyone else. An inspiring leader, Schumacher genuinely deserves credit for Ferrari’s eventual return to the winner’s circle.

    But not all the credit, and this is where the documentary again leaves out so much it amounts to disinformation. Luca di Montezemolo, head of Ferrari, had recruited an ace Team Manager in Jean Todt even before Schumacher arrived. With his star driver on board, Todt was able to lure Technical Director Ross Brawn and Chief Designer Rory Byne over from Benetton. Together, this may have been the greatest collection of talent ever assembled in a single team. Equally remarkable, di Montezemolo successfully shielded Todt and his crew from Ferrari’s corporate politics, defending them when success didn’t come immediately, and providing the time and funding they needed to build proper foundations for success.

    More than any other sport, motor racing is a combination of athlete and equipment; both driver and car must be excellent to win. With Todt providing the organizational skills and racing strategy, and Brawn and Byrne delivering a series of every more competitive cars, they eventually delivered the equipment Schumacher needed. Yet Schumacher, the film, doesn’t mention their contribution at all, even though di Montezemolo, Todt, and Brawn feature heavily in its interviews.

    With Ferrari
    With Ferrari

    A real shame because they were equal partners in an amazing accomplishment. When the championships came, they came in flood: five in a row from 2000 to 2004. Such dominance for so long by a single driver was unprecedented; Schumacher smashed almost every record: most championships, most wins, most fastest laps… Not that you would know from watching this film. After focussing so much on the character-building years, it pushes the Ferrari championships into its brief final chapter; all we get are impressions of Schumacher crossing various finishing lines and jumping off podiums, accompanied by a few period sound bites randomly commenting on how great he was. His life since is treated equally hastily.

    Weighing Up

    And this is where Schumacher’s storytelling method goes from merely annoying to infuriating. If you want to be one of the cool kids in the documentary world these days, you have to “show not tell” to a ridiculous degree. Any use of an omniscient narrator or bridging commentary to actually tell your audience what’s going on would brand you a fuddy-duddy. So, throughout its run, Schumacher relies almost exclusively on period commentary and clips from its contemporary interviews to stitch the story together. When there’s enough time and material, this works reasonably well. But, when so much ground has to be covered so quickly, as in its closing chapter, we’re left with elliptical references to events about which we’re told frustratingly little.

    Thus, the highlights of Schumacher’s later life are alluded to without any attempt to answer the questions they raise:

    • Why did Schumacher retire from Ferrari so abruptly after his five world championships — obviously before he was ready? (Rumblings at the time hinted of discontent with Ferrari being too obvious about lining up a successor to their aging star);
    • Although Schumacher obviously enjoyed having more time for his family during retirement, why didn’t he find some new pursuit or profession beyond just channelling his prodigious energy into daredevil sports?; and
    • Why was he not more successful during his short-lived return to the sport with Mercedes? (The film says nothing about the former legend tooling around in mid-field, the only possible allusion a seemingly random comment from David Coulthard: “I could tell I was missing moves at thirty-seven I wouldn’t have missed when I was younger”).

    Schumacher’s horrific 2013 skiing accident is treated with similar indirectness. He has not been seen in public since and little is known beyond the fact he suffered a brain injury. The family has refused to discuss his medical condition and the only thing Corrine will say is: “Michael is here. Different but here. He still shows me how strong he is every day.” For now, that remains the final word.

    Michael & Corinne Schumacher
    Michael & Corinne Schumacher

    Ultimately, the good parts of Schumacher are good enough that this film can’t be ignored or written off as a mere hack job. The period racing footage is fantastic, the behind-the-scenes coverage is revelatory, and an amazing assortment of Schumacher’s family, friends, and close associates have agreed to speak on the record, some for the first time. However, the omissions and whitewashing of other aspects of Schumacher’s character are such that the documentary should come with a warning label. And the elliptical method of storytelling means that, if you want more than impressionistic vignettes of his life and career, you’ll need to watch with Wikipedia open beside you.

    For me, it’s disappointing that the film never quite grapples with the immense contradiction between the private Schumacher and the racing legend. But, if the man himself remains a mystery, I finally understand why his fans adored him so.

    WOBBLY THUMB

  • Election 2021: A Style Guide

    Election 2021: A Style Guide

    An Excruciatingly Correct Aide-Memoire

    Whee! It’s election time in Canada again. Last Sunday Justin Trudeau put the rumours to rest by requesting and receiving dissolution of the 43rd parliament. We head to the polls for the second time in two years on 20 September. Aside from the — you know — politics of it all, anyone who cares about Canadian history, or our system of constitutional government, knows it’s going to be a rough five weeks.

    Blame the lack of civics education in this country, the fact that the press corps includes as many lazy and incompetent drudges as any other profession, or the way Canadians binge US news (absorbing the language of a very different system), but a lot of people who should know better are going to spend this election saying dumb things. These will range from errors that are merely annoying (getting terminology wrong) to such egregious misrepresentations of how things work as to amount to disinformation. And the “real journalists”, if history is any guide, will not be much better than the most uninformed chatterer on Twitter or Facebook.

    This is terrible for our civic life but, rather than bitch and moan about it, I’m posting the following excruciatingly correct style guide to Canadian elections. Now, you too can be the annoying know-it-all in your friend group — erm — I mean now you too can be part of the solution!

    Prime Ministers Do Not “Call” Elections

    To begin, dissolving parliament to trigger an election is a crown prerogative, not something a Prime Minister can do alone. In other words, it’s one of the Sovereign’s reserve powers, exercised in Canada by the Governor General as the Crown’s representative. Thus, Prime Ministers do not “call” elections; they can only request that the Governor General dissolve parliament.

    This may seem a distinction without a difference. Under the principle of responsible government the Governor General only acts upon the advice of a First Minister who holds the confidence of parliament (otherwise we could hardly call ourselves a democracy). But we’re not just splitting hairs; in exceptional circumstances the reserve powers of the Crown serve as an important check on abuses of power by partisan politicians.

    A recent example is the British Columbia election of 2017. The outcome was just ambiguous enough (the governing Liberals won more seats than the NDP, but one less than the combined opposition) that Premier Christy Clark felt able to request the immediate dissolution of the provincial legislature. In effect, she wanted a do-over for the election she’d just lost. Quite properly the Lieutenant Governor refused this unconstitutional request. The loss of her majority meant Clarke no longer held confidence in the legislature, there had been a recent election to determine the wishes of the electorate (six months is the accepted norm here), and an alternate government was available in the form of an NDP/Green coalition. Her desperate gamble having failed, Clark resigned (as a First Minister whose advice had been refused by the Crown, she could hardly do otherwise) and the NDP/Green coalition went on to form a government. In the oft-used metaphor, the Crown had acted as a “constitutional fire-extinguisher”.

    Every healthy democracy makes a distinction between the authority and legitimacy of the nation state, which is permanent and unchanging, and the actual exercise of state power through an elected government, which is temporary and subject to electoral defeat. This is the distinction between Head of State (for us, the monarch) and the Head of Government (the Prime Minister).

    To personify the state (effectively to provide an agent for its actions in the real world) republics elect presidents as their heads of state. In constitutional monarchies, such as ours, the Sovereign personifies the state. Either way, the separation between the source of state power, and those who exercise it, prevents either entity from wielding an unrestricted and potentially tyrannical authority. Sloppily attributing Crown powers to the Prime Minister, merely because it is he or she who normally exercises them, dangerously misrepresents this.

    Note: arguably, a constitutional monarchy provides an almost ideal solution for the division of state power. The democratically elected legislature is supreme in governance (that’s what the “constitutional” part guarantees) while having a hereditary sovereign as head of state keeps the office non-partisan and apolitical. The United States takes almost the exact opposite approach with an elected president who is not merely a figurehead (as in many republics) but who combines the offices of head of state and head of government in a single figure.

    Another Note: other crown prerogatives include appointing Prime Ministers (which is crucial to government formation — see below) and enacting laws (which is why bills become laws only when they receive royal assent).

    We Still Have a Government

    In a cack-handed attempt at “objectivity”, the Canadian press has a bad habit of not referring to the Prime Minister as such after the election starts; he’s referred to as the party leader. This creates a false impression that we don’t have a government once the writs are issued. In fact, Prime Ministers do not resign when they request dissolution; throughout the election Justin Trudeau remains Prime Minister, and his ministry will continue to function as the government of Canada. The only thing he cannot do is pass new legislation, which would require parliament be sitting.

    And yet, even accredited journalists have already asked Justin Trudeau who is in charge to deal with the tragedy in Afghanistan that began almost simultaneously with his election announcement. His answer was, of course, “I am” (the CBC — our “national” broadcaster is terrible about stuff like this). Unfortunately, even those who should know better, often don’t. Annamie Paul, leader of the Green Party, has called for parliament to be recalled under the Emergency Powers Act for an emergency debate in the House of Commons about Afghanistan.

    Where to begin… A parliament that has been dissolved cannot be recalled — it no longer exists. The Emergency Powers act does not apply to emergencies outside of Canada. And an emergency debate is nothing more than an opportunity to make speeches, which Paul can do from the hustings. Whether Paul is actually this uninformed, or merely posturing, it’s unfortunate that ignorance of basic civics in this country can cause so much confusion and unnecessary handwringing about our ability to govern ourself during an election.

    Admittedly there is a “caretaker convention” which holds that (for obvious reasons) governments should not undertake major new initiatives during an election. Opponents of the government often claim this prevents it from doing anything they don’t want it to do. But the caretaker convention is a convention rather than a law precisely so it can be interpreted flexibly enough for the government to deal with the unexpected.

    Finally, if the Liberals win enough seats to continue governing, Trudeau will not be “re-elected”, or even re-appointed as Prime Minister. Since he never resigned, his current appointment as Prime Minister will merely continue into his third parliament (Canada’s 44th).

    The Governor General Will Not “Drop the Writ”

    Speaking of writs, it’s often said that an election begins with the Governor General “dropping the writ”. In actuality, the Governor General merely dissolves parliament. The resulting election is conducted by Elections Canada, an independent federal agency headed by the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada. It is the Chief Electoral Officer who issues the writs (all 338 of them) to conduct elections in the 338 electoral districts (or “ridings”) that make up the House of Commons. Technically, then, we are about to have not one election, but 338.

    We Do Not Elect Prime Ministers (Nor Governments)

    Saying that we’re about to have 338 simultaneous elections is another one of those persnickety details that may seem unimportant in practical terms, but actually says something important. We cast our vote in local elections for Members of Parliament to represent our ridings. Even the electors in Justin Trudeau’s riding of Papineau will only be voting for their local MP on 20 September. What our elections do is determine the composition of the House of Commons (parliament’s elected lower house). We elect neither Prime Ministers nor governments.

    Certainly, many Canadians will vote for an MP based on his or her party affiliation — because they want that party to “win”. But this distinction still matters to an understanding of how government formation works.

    Governments are formed in the House of Commons after the writs are returned with the election results and the new distribution of seats is established. The essential consideration is that any government must be able to hold the confidence of the house. That is, it must be able to muster enough votes to pass bills (otherwise it couldn’t function). By convention, all supply (money) bills are confidence votes and losing one will bring down a government.

    If an existing government returns with a majority, or even a plurality of seats, it retains confidence and thus stays in power. There is no need to form a new government (remember that the government never resigned or ceased to exist during the election). Otherwise, a new party (or coalition) that wins either a majority, or the greatest number of seats short of a majority, is the strongest candidate to form government. The Governor General appoints the leader of this party or coalition as Prime Minister. And the new Prime Minister can then forms a government by appointing a cabinet of ministers.

    Side Note: As our governments consist of a cabinet within the legislature, that cabinet is sometimes referred to as “the executive” though this Americanism isn’t an exact fit and is also used to describe the Crown (or the Cabinet plus the civil service).

    Another Side Note: Since we don’t elect them, a new Prime Minister is obviously not a “Prime Minister Elect” during the period between the announcement of their appointment and their swearing in. “Prime Minister Designate” is a better term.

    Yet Another Side Note: A reminder that Justin Trudeau is already Prime Minister and has not resigned. If he “wins” the election (that is, wins enough seats to continue governing) he will not be re-elected Prime Minister nor will he be the “Prime Minister Designate”. He will merely continue his appointment into a new parliament.

    Trudeau Has Not Served “Two Terms”

    “Term” implies a fixed period for an appointment or institution, and so its use is appropriate in the United States, where there are fixed election dates and governments serve for a fixed period to time. However, it doesn’t apply in our parliamentary system, where we neither elect governments, nor do they sit for a fixed period after formation.

    As noted above, our governments are formed and maintained based on confidence. A lost confidence vote can bring a government down at any time, and a Prime Ministers who no longer finds parliament functional can request dissolution whenever they feel the need, the need for speed — er — no, the need for an election. Thus, governments in Canada do not serve for any sort of fixed term. A better word is “parliament”, as in: “a government that has won two elections has been in power for two parliaments” (Trudeau’s current count).

    Side Note: another Americanism that serves as a useful test of civic literacy is “administration.” In the United States this is often used as a synonym for “government” (as in, “the Obama Administration”). It’s appropriate there because so many senior positions in the US civil service are political appointments. In Canada we have a permanent civil service that serves from government to government (even Deputy Ministers, the civil service department heads who act as the professional advisor to their Minister, often retain their appointments through a change of government). So, any commentator who refers to a Canadian government as an “administration” is helpfully revealing their ignorance. It’s better to just say “government” or, since our governments are made up of a cabinet of ministers, “ministry” (as in, “the Trudeau ministry”).

    This Election is not Illegal Under the Fixed Term Law

    There has been a fair bit of chatter about whether the current election is even legal under Canada’s fixed term legislation. In 2007 Stephen Harper introduced Bill C-16, an amendment to the Canada Elections Act which set a fixed election date in October for federal elections and a set term of four years. This was sold as a democratic reform, at the time of its passage, as it would stop Prime Ministers gaming our system by requesting dissolution when it was advantageous for them.

    Such legislation is currently quite popular: the UK and several Canadian provinces also have some form of fixed term legislation. I believe this is due to fixed terms being a simple and easy form of legislation to pass without amending the constitution. In actuality, the whole concept of fixed terms is alien to our parliamentary system.

    The UK gave its Fixed-term Parliaments Act real teeth and the result was a constitutional crisis when Boris Johnson lost a possible confidence vote. This went to the courts to decide whether the confidence convention was triggered and, if so, whether his ministry should fall or continue to the end of its term. If the fixed term did have precedence over the confidence convention, it would call into question whether the reserve power of the Crown to dissolve parliament even still existed. The unintended consequences of the act were so disruptive and potentially profound that the House of Lords is currently conducting an inquiry into the whole mess (at which our own Philippe Lagassé testified).

    Fortunately, Canada’s fixed term act was passed mainly for show and is so toothless that most legal experts think its only effect is to put a four year limit on the life of parliaments. (One less than the maximum of five years set by Section 50 of the constitution). Thus, when Trudeau found the current minority parliament difficult sledding, his right to request dissolution was unaffected.

    As more than six months had passed since the previous election (see above), and he held confidence in the house, the Governor General was bound to grant this request. In a shameless political stunt, the leaders of the Conservative Party and the NDP (who had used their combined majority to obstruct the government while strategically not voting against confidence motions) promptly called upon Her Excellency Mary Simon to refuse dissolution. In doing so they were urging the representative of an unelected Sovereign to act unconstitutionally (a profoundly undemocratic act) and ignoring the basic fact that a Prime Minister whose advice is refused by the Crown is bound to resign — which would trigger the election they claimed to be trying to stop!

    Thus, this early election is neither unconstitutional nor an abuse of Prime Ministerial power. If Justin Trudeau has taken unfair advantage to game the timing of the election, it is the job of voters, not the Crown, to punish him for it. Which is precisely what elections are for…

    Sources

    I hope you found the above useful and even interesting. As a layperson I’ve relied heavily on the knowledge of real constitutional experts. Here are links to the best and of these:

    • Philipe Lagassé: is perhaps our pre-eminent constitutional expert in crown and defence matters. He contributes frequently to journals and maintains a blog at: https://lagassep.com.
    • Emmet Macfarlane: is a professor at the University of Waterloo in constitutional law, and is active (and robustly opinionated) on Twitter as @ EmmMacfarlane; he also maintains a blog at: http://www.emmettmacfarlane.com.
    • Dale Smith: is a veteran Ottawa journalist — far and away the most knowledgeable I’ve found on constitutional matters and how government works generally. He’s active on Twitter as @ journo_dale, has a personal blog at https://www.routineproceedings.com, and publishes regularly with https://looniepolitics.com.
  • The War That Ended Peace

    The War That Ended Peace

    The Road to 1914

    Margaret MacMillan
    Penguin Books, © Margaret MacMillan 2013

    The War That Ended Peace is a giant doorstop of a book: more than 700 pages (with notes) in the Penguin trade paperback. But then, it’s tackling a big, difficult question: how could Europe — so peaceful, prosperous, and powerful in 1914 — plunge itself into the horrors of The Great War? Margaret MacMillan’s previous work (History’s People, Nixon and Mao, Women of the Raj…) has focussed more on social and personal history than military or diplomatic. However, her sharp analytical skills and keen eye, both for individual human behaviour and its broader social context, equips her well for this particular task.

    The Setting

    MacMillan begins with a broad survey of European society and politics in the years leading up to 1914. After the cauldron of the Napoleonic wars, the 19th Century had been a time of relative peace during which the larger European nations grew into the great powers of the globe. By 1914 they had the most productive and advanced industry, the most powerful armies, and the richest and best educated citizens. European colonies and dependencies sent their wealth to Britain and the continent from every corner of the planet. At sea, the Royal Navy’s pax Brittanica kept the peace and guaranteed trade wherever there was water enough to float its ships.

    As the 20th Century began cracks were appearing in the brilliant facade, though. The rapid urbanization, industrialization, and scientific advancement of the 19th Century had also brought an almost overwhelming amount of social change. While those who had risen to the top (or been born there) celebrated European cultural, commercial, and military superiority, others endured an often unfair and unequal distribution of wealth and benefits. The middle classes chafed that their growing economic importance was not represented in the top ranks of military and government, where the traditional aristocracy still clung to its perquisites. The spread of education to the new urban working classes produced divergent social movements: a growing sense of national identity — even nationalism — among the traditional and patriotic, and support for pan-national pacifist and socialist causes among the more radical and idealistic.

    Jealousies and resentments of historic wrongs festered between nations too. Russia and Austro-Hungary, vast backward multi-national empires both, were falling behind in the race to modernize, while suffering more than most from the centrifugal social forces that progress was unleashing. Although Germany had become the leading land power, her late development left her behind in the race for overseas colonies, feeding a seething envy of Britain’s naval power and overseas empire. France, in her turn, nursed a patient grudge against Germany for taking the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine in 1870.

    HMS Dreadnought
    HMS Dreadnought

    These strains were growing in an environment that increasingly took peace for granted. As memories of the terrible wars of Napoleon dimmed (there had been wars since 1815, but limited ones or far from the heart of Europe) European states became readier to gamble on armed conflict to solve their diplomatic issues — in the words of von Clausewitz, to treat war as “the continuation of politics by other means”. This was especially true of the declining empires who feared their time in the sun was running out. The long peace, and increasing domestication of modern life, also produced a generation of young men who felt that they had not been tested as their grandfathers had — that they had not yet found a great cause in which to prove their own worth. A series of diplomatic crisis in the first years of the new century repeatedly tested the European powers, and repeatedly they averted war through good luck more than good judgement. Which may have led them to overestimate both their luck and their abilities.

    The Dramitis Personae

    Regardless, in 1914 their luck ran out. Unlike World War Two, which has a clear cause in Nazi aggression, World War One (it ceased being “The Great War” when there was a second) was the product of errors and miscalculations by all the great powers. MacMillan approaches these events through a series of character sketches. These intimate portraits of kings, prime ministers, and foreign ministers (and their Fin de siècle lifestyles — all mistresses, grand parties, and country manors) are fascinating in their own right, but also a superb introduction to each nation’s situation and ambitions as they themselves understood them at the time. Taken together, MacMillan’s dramatis personae embody the insecurities and ambitions that built road to war, and the failures of imagination that set Europe sleep-walking down it.

    The first steps fell in June 1914, when slav nationalists assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, a provincial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The independent Balkan states on Austria-Hungary’s southern flank had long supported slav separatism including, it was soon discovered, harbouring the assassin. The Austrian Chief of Staff, Count Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf responded with an ultimatum to Serbia whose harsh terms he knew would be unacceptable. When Serbia refused, Austria-Hungary would have casus belli to crush its small but irksome neighbour once and for all.

    As the Balkan states enjoyed the protection of their fellow slavs in the Russian Empire, this immediately provoked a European crisis. Alone, Austria-Hungary was the weakest of the great powers, but Hötzendorf was counting on his own allies. Austria-Hungary had joined a Triple Alliance with Germany and Italy in 1882. This was ostensibly a defensive treaty but Germany, aggressively pursuing a naval race with Britain, was ready to challenge the status quo. At one time Germany’s “Iron Chancellor”, Otto von Bismarck, would have tempered these ambitions with realpolitik, but the immature and headstrong Kaiser Wilhelm II had sacked him in 1890. In the decades since Wilhelm had turned to less thoughtful advisors: the ambitious von Tirpitz (Secretary of State for the Imperial Navy), the technically clever but morally weak von Moltke (Chief of the General Staff), and the manipulative Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg (Chancellor). With their help Kaiser Wilhelm turned Germany (still an absolute monarchy) into the most erratic member of the great power club, but it was Bethmann-Hollweg who concealed Britain’s offer to mediate the Serbian crisis and who assured Austria of Germany’s full support in any resulting conflict (the infamous “blank cheque”).

    Hotzendorf
    Hotzendorf

    The emboldened Hötzendorf prepared to crush Serbia, undeterred by the contradictory signals sent by the powers who should have opposed such naked aggression. In Russia the weak and wavering Tzar Nicholas II feared war and opposed military action, but was only sporadically able to impose his authority on his bellicose Foreign Minister, Sergey Sazonov, who was more concerned with restoring Russia’s wavering influence in the Middle East. The ensuing muddle was bad enough for Hötzendorf to think he could wage a Serbian war without Russian interference.

    France had formed a common cause with Russia against Germany in a series of treaties signed between 1891 and ’94. The alliance was based on common interests (France had extensive investments in the empire) and common fears of Germany’s growing power. However, in this crisis, France remained paralyzed between her fear of a general war on one hand, and her desire for the return of Alsace-Lorraine (taken by Germany in 1871) on the other. In consequence, it remained ambiguous whether France’s support for her ally would go so far as military intervention (especially if Russia could be portrayed as the aggressor).

    Finally, Britain was dragged into the crisis through her historic guarantees of Belgian neutrality (the traditional German invasion route into France). However, as a naval power with a prejudice against continental entanglements, she too attempted to keep her options open. A conservative aristocrat, British Foreign Minister Edward Grey was reluctant to offer military guarantees on the continent (something Britain had avoided since 1815), while also briefing his government that abandoning Belgium entirely would be an unacceptable stain on British honour. The Germans interpreted this as meaning they could keep Britain out of any coming war by promising to restore French & Belgian territory after their victory. [1]

    The diplomatic fumbling ended on 28 July 1914 when an undeterred Austria-Hungary launched its war on Serbia. Despite the onset of what could be described as a nervous breakdown, Sazanov responded with Russian mobilization. This set off a rush to war. The surplus wealth generated by industrialized economies had enabled the continental powers to train vast citizen armies, rotating fresh batches of youths into active service as the previous intake returned to civilian life. Mobilizing these reserves took time, but going to war without them meant fighting outnumbered. Thus, Russian mobilization was a loaded gun pointed at the Triple Alliance.

    Three days later Germany declared war on Russia. As the conflagration spread, France’s dithering did not save her. The 19th Century had seen Europe covered by dense networks of railroads, the only quick and efficient way to move the new mass armies. But, railroads consist of fixed paths and trains must adhere to rigid timetables. Accordingly, von Moltke had produced an incredibly complex plan to use Germany’s superior network for a quick knock-out blow against France (the smaller of his two foes) before turning on Russia. Germany thus declared war on France only a few days after Russia. Worse, to widen and speed his deployment of forces, von Moltke intended to march the right flank of his armies through Belgium.

    Even Kaiser Wilhelm trembled at a plan that brought France, Belgium, and Britain (should she honour her guarantees) into the war, when smarter diplomacy might have kept them neutral. But von Moltke was adamant that the railroad timetables were too complex, and the forces involved too large, to change plans at this late stage. So, caught in a trap of their own making, Germany’s leaders flung their armies westward.


    [1] When Britain did respond to the German invasion by sending troops to Belgium, the Kaiser complained that they had intervened against all logic, an eery echo of Hitler’s complaint twenty-five years later that France and Britain, by honouring their obligations to Poland, were the ones responsible for starting a European war — against all logic!

    The Past

    Even as the shooting started, the belligerents hoped the war could be limited, like those of the previous century. Modern weaponry consumed munitions and materiel so rapaciously that many believed their economies would be exhausted after a single campaign, and that any war lasting beyond Christmas would wreck the complex system of international finance. (The Napoleonic Wars went on for so long because they were exactly that, a series of wars — most lasting only a single season.)

    The Somme
    The Somme

    They should have known better. The US Civil War had staggered on for four long years, demonstrating the ability of modern bureaucratic states to mobilize industry and manpower on scales previously unimaginable. France’s popular resistance to Germany’s 1870 invasion also showed how the strengthening of national identities was creating a popular patriotism capable of vast sacrifices.

    The great powers had played with fire, only to find they’d filled their house with inflammable materials:

    • Belgium resisted the German offensive strongly enough to save France from a knock-out blow and Britain did commit its army to the continent in honour of its guaranties, creating a stalemate in the West;
    • European states did, indeed, prove capable of mobilizing their industry on the massive scale needed to sustain modern total war; and
    • The international peace movements that had seemed so strong before the war were swept away by an inchoate tide of working class patriotism that would support mass mobilization through four years of horrific casualties.

    What’s more, the increased firepower of modern weaponry created a defensive advantage that cut down offensive after offensive in a welter of mud and blood. New tactics to overcome this only emerged in the final year of the war. Meanwhile, the immense size of the new citizen armies enabled them to extend across whole fronts in continuous lines, eliminating open flanks and, with them, possibilities for strategic manoeuvre. As BH Liddell Hart observed: “strategy became the handmaiden of tactics, while tactics became a cripple”.

    As the sacrifices of industrialized warfare mounted, they could only be justified by total victory. So the war became a fight to the death, only ending when the Triple Alliance collapsed under the weight of revolution, starvation, and military defeat. It was the hollowest of victories. Four years of total war left even the victors bankrupt and morally exhausted. The vicious peace terms they imposed, in the wake of so much suffering, set in motion a series of unforeseen events that would plunge Europe into a second, even more destructive, world war only twenty years later. In the meantime, buried in swathes amongst the ruined countryside from Flanders to Galicia, eight million young men lay dead.

    The Present

    The past is never dead. It’s not even past
    William Faulkner

    So, what were the causes of The Great War and the ensuing destruction of the old world order (in MacMillan’s words, the war that ended peace)? Clearly there were ample root circumstances, whether social (the growth of nationalism and its accompanying separatist movements), political (great power rivalries between rising and declining powers), or technological (developments in firepower and the growth of mass armies). Once war started, the alliance system dividing Europe into two armed camps almost ensured it would spread across the continent.

    But, this tinder had been drying for decades. It needed a spark to ignite it and Austria-Hungary (with its enabler, Imperial Germany) was the aggressor of 1914 — even if it intended only a limited war. That makes Count von Hötzendorf and Bethmann-Hollweg the villains of the piece, with the assistance of Wilhelm II, von Tirpitz, von Moltke, Bethmann-Hollweg, and Sazonov. The French and British, though not blameless, were sinners more by omission than commission.

    The Principals

    These decision-makers share an interesting distinction. MacMillan notes that all of them were blinded by a certain lack of imagination, an obliviousness to contrary possibilities so deep that it seems rooted in the culture of the time. Whether it was the long years of peace fostering a too sanguine attitude toward the dangers of war, or a feeling of being overwhelmed by the pace of social change and technological advancement, our actors too often threw up their hands and surrendered in the face of events (often in response to bad advice from their technocratic generals). “I had no choice”, wailed by supposedly powerful and mighty men, was the soundtrack of the Serbian crisis.

    None of this absolves them of personal responsibility. Here MacMillan draws an interesting parallel with US President Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He too received military advice to escalate the confrontation, but instead opened communications with Khrushchev and was able to negotiate a peaceful solution. In a rebuke to the architects of 1914, Kennedy showed that leaders can rise above events — that there is always a choice. Would we be so wise today? With so many eerie echoes of 1914 now sounding, this is no hypothetical question. We too are now facing the stress of significant social change after a long period of peace and prosperity. [2]

    In 1914 change took the form of extending legal equality and democratic participation to all citizens; today it is driven by the recognition that these are not, in themselves, sufficient conditions for a genuinely equal society in which all have the opportunity to participate fully. Women, minority, and marginalized individuals, by advocating for true equality, have spread awareness of the social attitudes and invisible barriers in the way of anyone who doesn’t fit a traditional mould. As we recognize our shared humanity, and finally accept its implications in full, the results are being seen in changing hiring practices, employment regulations, recognition of diversity, and greater representation in all areas of life, particularly the arts.

    Of course, any attempt to level the playing field is easily portrayed as a loss by those at the top. Consequently, a generation of populists has risen to exploit fear of change and champion white males as the real “victims” here (as though human society hasn’t been in a constant state of evolution since it began). In another echo of the past, numbers of young (mostly) men are again chafing at the mundanity of domestic life. Some are finding their cause in the alt-right and white-supremacy groups at the extremes of the counter-movement against change. Their numbers and penchant for violence now make these a significant domestic terror threat.

    As in 1914 these social tensions contrast with a complacent inability to imagine how terrible the consequences can be of political pyromania. The UK voted for BREXIT after a “remain” campaign that never took the danger of losing seriously and a “leave” campaign that traded in lies and nostalgia for an England that never existed. This is usually framed as a trade story (and BREXIT is already damaging the UK economy) but we should remember that the EU was originally formed as a peace agreement — to bind the warring nations of Europe in commercial ties. Moreover, in its haste to leave, the UK casually disregarded the consequences for the Good Friday Agreement governing the Ireland – Ulster border (also a peace agreement). The US is currently emerging from four years of the Donald Trump presidency, during which Russian interference was ignored, international agreements torn up, and trade wars started with allies and rivals alike. Those allies were treated of use only as scapegoats — whenever they could be attacked and demeaned to score cheap points at home. The most frequent such target being NATO, a treaty specifically drafted in the wake of WWII to prevent a third such tragedy. Although Trump is now out of office, uncomfortable numbers of voters remain supporters of him and his bomb-throwing approach to the world (perhaps the most erratic foreign policy since Kaiser Wilhelm II).

    Populism hasn’t gained as much traction in Canada (reflecting perhaps the lack of Rupert Murdoch owned broadcasters and newspapers here), but a similar unseriousness still cramps our ability to take real action on large problems. Environmental policies are only pursued when they cost next to nothing, while foreign policy is utterly neglected — despite the sea change wrought by the loss of US leadership and the rise of authoritarian states. Popular activism is as likely to take the form of demonstrating against basic public health measures (in the midst of a global pandemic) as it is advocating for more effective environmental policies, or a more engaged foreign policy.

    For all its faults, the world of the 21st Century is more comfortable, more free, and more full of opportunities for more people than any other time in human history. This is the brilliant façade of our age. But, as in 1914, the cracks are beginning to widen: a disruptive Russia and a rising China pose an authoritarian challenge to the liberal democracies. The stresses of social change need a better response than right-wing populism, as do the implications of globalization and technological developments for labour rights and the distribution of wealth. Meanwhile, climate change is the existential danger of our age.

    If we let peace and comfort dull our ability to imagine the consequences of failing to meet these challenges, then the tragedy 1914 shows how easily the existing order can be swept away. History never quite repeats itself, but the study of the past provides the critical tools needed to understand the present. The events of 1914 remain as relevant today as ever, and Margaret McMillan’s vivid account is a brilliant reminder that peace can never be taken for granted.

    THUMB UP

  • Statute of Westminster Day

    Statute of Westminster Day

    The Birth of the Canadian Crown

    If you pass a government building today you may be surprised to see the Royal Union Flag (popularly, the Union Jack) flying alongside the Maple Leaf. This marks an august occasion: 11 December 1931 is Statute of Westminster Day.

    “What the hell is the the Statute of Westminster?” you may well ask. Confederation in 1867, and its Canada Day celebration, is the only history we really memorialize in this country. And yet, 1931 is almost as significant a year in the story of our national development.

    When the British dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa…) were formed in the 19th and early 20th Centuries they were really self-governing provinces of the British Empire more than independent states in their own right. The British parliament in Westminster retained a veto power over any act of the dominion parliaments and centralized control over over all imperial foreign policy. These were considered essential measures to preserve the unity of the empire against its foreign rivals (and their knavish tricks!).

    Such a limited form of nationhood wasn’t just acceptable to the dominions, but welcomed. As member states of the British Empire they played a significant role on the world stage; by themselves they would have been insignificant minor powers. A lot of interesting work has been done on the nature of Canadian patriotism in the 19th Century and its tendency to express itself in the form of imperial boosterism (rabidly for anglophones but even, to some extent, for francophones).

    War changed all that. The dominions mobilized completely for World War One, remaking their societies and economies to meet its ever increasing demands. Both Canada and Australia eventually contributed complete corps-sized forces to the western front. These fought as distinct national formations and performed as well (often better) than any British corps. After so much sacrifice and effort, a subordinate national status was unacceptable. Letters and contemporary accounts from Canada’s overseas soldiers tell a remarkable story of how four years of blood and hard-won accomplishment created a distinct sense of national identity and pride within the Canadian Corps.

    Westminster Tweet

    To its credit, Britain recognized the dominions’ contributions and lobbied for them to have their own seats at the Versailles peace conference, rather than be included within the British delegation. (The United States, now an ally and trading partner of Canada, argued vehemently against this at the time — on the basis that it was just a trick to get more British votes!).

    The newfound maturity of the dominions remained a prime topic as the dominion and British heads of government met at the Imperial Conferences of 1926 and 1930. Their efforts were realized when the British parliament passed the Statute of Westminster In 1931. This formalized a new relationship within what was still called the British Empire. Essentially, it separated the crowns of the dominions from the Crown of the United Kingdom, creating separate heads of state for each, and putting each dominion parliament on an equal footing with Westminster.

    Thus, it ended the British veto over the dominion parliaments, along with British control of a centralized foreign policy. Effectively, the dominions became full nation states (now more properly styled as realms). It is proper from this point to refer to the dominion sovereigns as the King or Queen of Canada (Australia, New Zealand, etc) as they were now distinct legal personages from the sovereign of the United Kingdom.

    Enabling legislation followed in most of the dominion parliaments. Newfoundland bowed out because of its longstanding financial difficulties, and the Irish Free State barely paused on its road to full independence as a republic. But, with the exception of South Africa (booted out during apartheid), the rest of the dominions who attended those conferences are still joined by the shared monarchy they created in 1931.

    Thus, the Statute (and its accompanying national legislation) remains relevant to this day. It is the foundation of the Commonwealth Realm – an inner group within the Commonwealth of Nations — that share Elizabeth II as sovereign and head of state. Membership has even grown in recent decades as some former British possessions have achieved self-government.

    A final aside: it’s amazing to me that so much of the national development of this supposedly unmilitary nation has been spurred by war. Just as there is a direct line from Canada’s sacrifices and accomplishments in WWI to the Statute of Westminster, Canada’s enormous contribution to victory in WWII set the stage for the next step: the passage of the Citizenship Act, 1946. This established a distinct legal status for Canadian Citizenship, separate from that of British Subject. Since then, Canadians have been citizens of Canada and not — as before — merely British Subjects resident in Canada. The only development of similar importance since is the patriation of the constitution in 1982. It may be a sign of progress that this was managed without a preceding war…


    Fun Facts: Now you can appreciate how ignorant it is to complain about Canada being “ruled by the Queen of England!” Such statements are wrong in three distinct ways:

    1. In a constitutional monarchy the sovereign reigns but does not rule (the country is ruled by governments formed in its elected parliament);
    2. There has not been a Queen of England since 1707, when Queen Anne signed the Act of Union joining the crowns of Scotland and England into a United Kingdom; and
    3. Since the passage of the Statute of Westminster our head of state has been the Queen of Canada (a separate legal personage from the Queen of the United Kingdom, even though both are the same physical person).
  • Revolutions Podcast

    Revolutions Podcast

    Everything is Terrible, and Getting Worse

    Revolutions Podcast: 2013-2020
    By Mike Duncan

    I’m proud to say I didn’t spend the whole pandemic bingeing Netflix and eating Tim Hortons doughnuts. I also used the Days of Lockdown to listen to Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast. This was a perfect COVID project; the ten seasons run as long as fifty-five (!) episodes and, as the Table Of Contents shows, he covers every Great Unpleasantness that roiled European politics between 1640 and 1918:

    • Season 01: The English Civil Wars and revolution (1640-1660)
    • Season 02: The American Revolution and War of Independence
    • Season 03: The French Revolutions of 1789
    • Season 04: The Haitian Revolution
    • Season 05: The Spanish American Wars of Independence
    • Season 06: The French July Revolution of 1830
    • Season 07: The European revolutions of 1848
    • Season 08: The Paris Commune of 1870
    • Season 09: The Mexican Revolutions and Civil War, 1910-1920
    • Season 10: The Russian Revolution of 1918

    Duncan was a great host for these hours: engaging, knowledgeable, and possessed of a sly sense of humour. He packs each episode with fascinating details and telling anecdotes while never losing sight of the big picture. From the formidable amount of research on display, Revolutions was clearly a labour of love.

    What’s more, Duncan is a qualified historian (author of The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic). He’s always careful to place events and personalities in the context of their own time, never treating the actual outcome as predetermined, and never judging historical figures by modern standards. He’s as interested in the why and how as in the who, what, and when.

    This is real history, and it tells a story still relevant today. Duncan’s revolutionaries dashed crowns in the gutter and waged war across continents. They brought down kings and tsars whose rule had seemed fixed and eternal or, just as often, were sent to an early grave by betrayal or defeat. Either way, nothing was quite the same after they passed. We are all living in the world they created.

    A Story of Failure

    In short: Revolutions is terrific, and bingeing all ten seasons in one go was a great way to follow certain themes that kept popping up from season to season. Revolutionary movements, for example, splintered into rival factions so often that this began to seem intrinsic to their nature. Even when factionalism wrecked their chances for success, they seldom resisted the centrifugal forces tearing them apart. Despite this, I was surprised to notice just how often these revolutions failed. Some ended in outright defeat, others through corruption of the revolutionary ideal. But, by the end of the podcast, Duncan had told a remarkably consistent story of failure and defeat.

    The French Revolution is fairly typical. An uprising in 1793 sent the Sun King, Louis XVI, to the guillotine, but all attempts to establish a new, revolutionary government were beset by vicious factionalism and infighting. In consequence power passed to a revolving door of new strongmen, each securing their position by the murder of most of their predecessors. A stable new regime was only established when Napoleon took charge as First Consul in 1799 — essentially making himself a military dictator. After the chaos and death of the previous decade, there was little protest when he followed this up by crowning himself Emperor in 1804, reestablishing dynastic rule and spelling the end of the revolution.

    Madam la Guillotine
    Madam la Guillotine

    The Mexican Revolution successfully overthrew the Porfirio regime, which had provided a combination of stable government and crass exploitation for decades. Again, however, his would-be successors soon divided into rival factions. Ten years of civil war and banditry followed, during which the various blocs took turns putting their leader in the president’s chair. None could keep him there for long, however, and finally exhaustion and revulsion at the death toll enabled Alvaro Obregon to establish a more or less stable presidency in 1920. This brought peace and an end to the revolution, but his reliance on selling resource rights to foreigners — while most Mexicans remained poor sustenance farmers — meant the revolution had merely replaced one corrupt oppressor with another.

    The Russian Revolution succeeded in the sense that the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tzar and won the ensuing civil war. But, despite establishing a relatively secure revolutionary government, the death of Lenin sent their leaders into yet another murderous bout of infighting. When Stalin emerged triumphant, that government descended into a cruel dictatorship of death, tyranny, and terror – betraying every one of its founding ideals.

    The United States stands out as perhaps the only exception to this dismal record. The American Revolution established a new republic, broadly in accordance with the principles it espoused, and that republic has endured for almost two and a half centuries. Which raises two interesting questions: why do revolutions almost always fail? And, how did the United States avoid this fate?

    Anything Goes

    We’ve already seen that susceptibility to factionalism was a weakness within most revolutionary movements. This had its roots in the cornucopia of previously unthinkable philosophies and ideas that tended to be unleashed once the old order was challenged. In the atmosphere of freedom thus created, revolutions would attract a wide array of fringe groups, all of them championing wildly incompatible ideals and beliefs.

    When parliament rejected the authority of Charles I, for example, its aims were relatively moderate — to constrain royal authority within the existing social order. But the social upheaval and Civil War that followed soon unleashed more radical elements.

    The “Diggers” were led by William Everard, who had served in the New Model Army. Opposed to the use of force, they believed they could create a secular and classless society simply through seizing land and holding it in the “common good”. A relatively small group, they were suppressed relatively easily by the mainstream parliamentary forces, led by Cromwell and Fairfax.

    Almost as radical but more influential were the “Levellers”. At the end of the first civil war, in 1646, Leveller ideas (including universal suffrage and common land ownership) were debated by ordinary soldiers with their officers. The outbreak of the second civil war enabled the generals to reassert their authority and, when Leveller soldiers later attempted to mutiny, they were brutally put down and their leaders hanged.

    Although both these radically democratic factions were suppressed en route to the New Model Army’s victory over the royalists, they show how easy it is for revolutionary movements to spend almost as much energy on infighting as they do on overthrowing their avowed enemies.

    Liberal vs Social Revolution

    Although less radical than such back-to-the-land movements, conflicts between what what Duncan labels “social” and “liberal” revolutionaries was another source of factionalism. Liberals, representing the growing economic strength of the middle class, mainly wanted admittance to the political institutions that had been the preserve of the old aristocracy. Social revolutionaries sought to tear down, rather than reform, the existing system and redistribute wealth and economic opportunity all the way down to the working classes.

    For liberals, the extension of voting rights (usually to all landowners), and the acceptance of non-nobles into state offices and legislatures, was change enough. Their presence in the corridors of power, they believed, would produce reform for the benefit all. This wasn’t fast or sure enough for the social revolutionaries, to whom any revolution that didn’t include better wages, housing, and protection from starvation, was no revolution at all.

    Infighting between “liberal” and “socialist” factions tore apart several revolutionary movements, especially in Russia and France, where primitive rural economies and the positively feudal state of peasant society made social change for the poor literally a matter of life or death.

    Foreign Intervention

    While factionalism seems inherent to revolutionary movements, other factors contributed to many of their failures. Foreign invasions by counter-revolutionary powers fought agains several revolutions in an era when most royal families were related to one another and revolt against one was seen as a threat to all. Short of invasion, foreign intervention could also take the form of providing asylum for exiled aristocrats who needed a safe haven from which to plot counter-revolution. Even when such foreign pressure failed to prevail over revolutions outright, it deflected resources away from their social and political goals toward national defence.

    The French Revolution, for example, almost immediately faced invading armies from Austria and Prussia, turning the Committee of Public Safety into a war cabinet. A successful defence at Valmy only widened the conflict, resulting in ever-increasing demands for men and supplies. These were used to justify increasingly authoritarian measures on the home front. Soon the executions began for all “traitors” to the nation and, even sooner, such traitors included any “opponents of the revolution”. Revulsion against this murderous excess eventually destroyed public support for the revolution and paved the way for Napoleon’s dictatorship.

    Such military interference extended even into the 20th Century. In 1919 the victorious Allies sent an expeditionary force to Russia, in support of the White Army’s fight against the Bolsheviks. Predictably, this only made the Russian Civil War even more bloody and awful. And, also predictably, the expeditionary force’s main legacy was its use by the Bolsheviks to justify ever more murder and oppression against their political opponents, whom they could now paint as enemies of the state.

    The Basis for Legitimate Authority

    As archaic and unpopular as the ancien regimes may have been, they did at least have a well established concept of the state and its source of authority in a divinely appointed sovereign. This may seem odd to us moderns, but it formed a body of legal precedent for the day-to-day work of government.

    Once it had sent the King and Queen to Madam la guillotine, any new revolutionary government would have to create a new authority for state power from scratch. By what right are you enforcing the laws (and which laws?), collecting taxes, and conscripting citizens into the army? Claiming “we won” as the source of your authority only works until a rival faction takes power and produces a new winner. The result was, all too often, an invitation to bloody infighting and murder en masse as the each faction scrambled to establish themselves at the top of the bloody pile.

    Americans are taught that the answer to this question is a written constitution — a basic law that codifies the people’s will. The problem, of course, is writing such a beast when different groups want such different things. In the midst of a national crisis, if not outright war, it isn’t easy to gather representatives to write a constitution, or hold a vote to establish its legitimacy — especially when basic concepts about who is a citizen and what are their rights are in dispute. The liberals, as noted, believed all male property owners should have the vote, an idea that would grant political power to the previously disenfranchised middle class. The social revolutionaries wanted to go even further with a vote for all adult males. (Few were crazy enough to advocate votes for women.)

    Such disputes meant that some revolutions never managed to finish writing their constitution, while others produced too many. Either outcome meant failure to establish a legitimate, enforceable, and popularly recognized basis for the new government’s authority. In this absence a prolonged power struggle usually ensued between various pro and anti-revolutionary factions – until exhaustion led to some sort of restoration of the old regime. In France this period of struggle was particularly deadly, leading Jacque Mallet du Pan to observe: “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children”. In their time the Mexican and Russian revolutions would also do their best to prove him right.

    The Question of Succession

    A constitutional basis for state authority is also needed to establish a legitimate process for succession — the peaceful transfer of power to a new government or head of state. In consequence many revolutions, after managing to stumble from crisis to crisis, collapsed upon the death (or murder) of their founder.

    The English Revolution, for example, emerged triumphant from years of civil war. It executed a King and established parliamentary rule under Oliver Cromwell. But this “Protectorate” barely outlived its first Lord Protector. Constant infighting had led Cromwell to assume increasingly dictatorial powers and, like so many dictators since, he failed to establish a legitimate process for succession.

    Richard Cromwell
    Richard Cromwell

    When Cromwell died in 1658 The Protectorate was unable to agree on any better plan than to appoint his talentless son as the new Lord Protector. This, in an advanced country, with a strong parliamentary tradition. Richard Cromwell, however, proved so incapable of mastering the factions struggling to govern Britain that he lasted barely a year before George Monck gathered an army, marched on London, overthrew him, and restored the Long Parliament. In 1660 this led to the restoration of Charles II and the end of England’s experiment with republican rule.

    The US Exception

    With the odds so stacked against any revolutionary movement, how did the Americans avoid seemingly inevitable disaster? Despite a combination of fortunate circumstances and outstanding leadership, it was a near run thing…

    Anything Goes: the splintering call of radical philosophies was not a fatal strain on the American Revolution because of its decentralized political institutions. The War of Independence was waged by a confederation of 13 colonies who, after victory, formed a decentralized federation of 13 states. This was well suited to accommodate their wide variety of religious and other viewpoints. Most areas of social and business life remained under state control so Puritans, for example, could operate their churches freely in Massachusetts, without interference from more moderate states.

    Liberal vs Social: the same decentralization also helped keep the American Revolution from splitting along social versus liberal lines. While there were differing ideas on voting rights in the different colonies, these remained a State jurisdiction, accommodating such local differences. The principle of representative government had been a key belief of the revolution, but the various states were able to move at their own pace to eventually eliminate religious and property requirements from the franchise. Of course, it would take another bloody conflict to end slavery and create a truly universal male franchise.

    Foreign Intervention: the US faced weak neighbours on its own continent (Mexico and British North America) and was separated by wide oceans from the great powers, so foreign intervention was not a great danger to the new nation. Britain, who might have been tempted to recover its colonies, was almost immediately swept up in the Napoleonic Wars. The War of 1812 did reignite the squabble between old world and new, but by then the United States was well established as an independent power and was never under existential threat. When the conflict ended in stalemate Britain had to finally accept the legitimacy of the US republic, leaving it free to pursue national projects, such as western expansion.

    The Basis Of Legitimate Authority: arguments about the basis for legitimate authority, and the fight to draft a constitution, were by far the greatest threat to the success of the American Revolution. During the War of Independence, the 13 Colonies had formalized their alliance with a sort of proto-constitution, The Articles of Confederation. This served to coordinate their war efforts against the British, but its concept of the colonies as a union of sovereign states proved unsustainable once victory was achieved.

    The British defeat at Yorktown in 1781 was followed by years of confusion, economic hardship, and even new rounds of revolutionary violence (including a full-blown farmer’s revolt in Shay’s Rebellion). A variety of ideas emerged in the various States as to what form the new nation should take (in particular how centralized it should be — the essential question of how much power the states should cede to the centre).

    This was ominously reminiscent of the way other revolutionary movements had split apart. In response, the states called a convention in 1787 to draft a new constitution for the national government. Initially this seemed unpromising. One state refused to participate while others were dubious or slow to send representatives (of 76 delegates only 55 actually attended, of which 39 signed the resulting document).

    Fortunately for the new nation, those who did take part included some of the greatest minds of the day: George Washington, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin to name a few. They designed a bicameral legislature that provided effective central government while protecting the rights of smaller states. The founders also designed a system of elections to ensure peaceful succession and created the position of Vice President to ensure stability in exceptional cases when the presidency was vacant. Though not perfect, their work is justly revered in America today. They saved the revolution when its outcome hung in the balance.

    The Question of Succession: The authors of the constitution were a remarkable group, but it was one man’s character that kept America out of the dictator trap. After leading the Continental Army to victory, George Washington was a larger than life figure, essentially the military commander of the new nation. Unlike so many revolutionary leaders, though, he did not convert this into political power. Instead, in accordance with his belief in limited government, he resigned his commission and retired to his farm (famously following the example of Cincinnatus, the Roman commander who similarly retired in 458 BC).

    George Washington
    George Washington

    Called out of retirement to lead the Constitutional Convention, Washington’s stick-handling was essential to the success of that delicate process. In 1788 he bowed to popular demand and stood for election as the first President of the new republic. Winning by a landslide, his popularity and authority helped establish the legitimacy of the constitution and the national government it established.

    Washington seems to have genuinely desired to serve only one term as president but, concerned about increasing factionalism (the old story!) and ongoing economic struggles, he stood again in 1792. He again won overwhelmingly but, at the end of this second term, his work finally done, the aging Washington retired to his farm for good. The tradition he established by only serving two terms was later enshrined in the 22nd Amendment.

    On three separate occasions Washington’s leadership preserved the revolution when success hung in the balance:

    • By refusing to become a military dictator at the end of the War of Independence;
    • By overseeing the Constitutional Convention’s work to create a constitution acceptable to the states; and
    • By retiring after two terms in office when he could have easily remained President for life.

    Washington ensured the survival of America’s revolutionary idea in circumstances that corrupted or defeated them almost everywhere else. A modern Cincinnatus, indeed.

    Falling Into the Future

    If America’s combination of lucky circumstances and inspired leadership remains unique, this only provokes another question. If revolutions almost always fail, how has the world made so much progress?

    For all our contemporary wailing about the state of the world, the long tail of history shows an incredible improvement in every measure of human wellbeing since our story started in 1640. The absolutely feudal restrictions of ancien regime France, for example, with its internal travel boundaries, restrictive guilds, aristocratic perquisites, impoverished peasants, and the exclusion of even the middle class from civic and political life (much less the working class or poor), are almost unimaginable today. If all this didn’t change by revolutionary means, how did it happen?

    It’s revealing to take some of our earlier examples and follow them a little further. As we’ve seen, the English revolution failed because of factionalism and a failure to answer the question of succession: Richard Cromwell was overthrown by a cabal of worthies – who promptly returned a Stuart to the throne. However, while the end of the Protectorate meant the restoration of the monarchy, this happened in a nation that had been profoundly changed by the experience of war, revolution, and regicide.

    The divine right of kings had less force in a Britain that had chopped off the head of its previous one. Likewise, It was had become even less acceptable for the Stuarts to promote their twin enthusiasms of Catholicism and authoritarian rule. Having executed one king, it proved a much shorter step for the English to throw out his descendent. The same cabal of parliamentarians and English grandees who had restored the Stuarts, sent them packing for good in 1688. Instead of succumbing to strongman rule, however (the British had had enough of that under Cromwell), they sought a middle course – a constitutional monarchy.

    William and Mary of the Netherlands were interested, and Parliament invited them to succeed the Stuarts as king and queen of the United Kingdom – on condition they sign a Bill of Rights to limit royal power and guarantee the supremacy of parliament. They ascended to the British throne in the “Glorious Revolution” (actually counter-revolution) of 1688 and, in 1689, kept their word by granting Royal Assent to the Bill of Rights, 1689. (This is still a living constitutional document for the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Realms, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) Thus, though Britain remained a monarchy, the revolution ensured it was a constitutionally limited on. Henceforth, the Crown would reign but not rule.

    Napoleons defeat in 1814 (and final defeat in 1815…) also brought counter-revolution and the re-instatement of royal rule. As with the Stuarts, however, Louis XVIII became sovereign of a changed nation. Two decades without a king had seen France’s institutions almost entirely remade and Louis was expected to agree to a new constitution before ascending the throne. This ceded political power to the elected legislature effectively made him also a limited monarch.

    While Louis chafed at these constraints, his brother, Charles, attempted to rule like an absolute monarch of old when he ascended to the throne in 1824. Talleyrand famously observed: “they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing”. Such behaviour had become unacceptable, however, and in 1848 the Bourbons were sent packing again, this time for good.

    As in Britain, deposing a monarch was much less traumatic second time round. There was no popular uprising, no reign of terror, and no great regret at seeing the last of the old dynasty. Their place was taken by a populist strongman, Napoleon III. He ruled for a time as an elected President before making himself France’s last monarch. In 1870 his increasingly erratic leadership led to another popular coup, ending any chance of a new Napoleonic dynasty. Instead, yet one more constitution was drafted to establish the Third Republic. France has been a more or less stable democracy ever since.

    It seems that even when revolutions lose the argument, they change the context in which the argument takes place. The defeat of a revolutionary uprising is never the end of the story: more upheavals follow, sometimes amounting to minor insurrections in their own right. The movement may slip backward (or sideways), but that first calamitous experience of the unthinkable sets a process in motion that will not be stopped. Even in defeat, revolutions change the world; nothing quite goes back to the way it was before.

    This is an amazing story, and Revolutions tells it vividly and well. I’ve only touched on a few broad themes here. You’ll have to listen to Mike Duncan for the whole, riveting tale.

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  • A Writer at War

    A Writer at War

    “The ruthless truth of war…”
    Vasily Grossman, Edited & Translated by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova
    Vintage Books 2007

    In 1941 Vasily Grossman was a Russian-Jewish intellectual and novelist living in Moscow. When Germany invaded, he promptly volunteered for service, but was too old and unfit for combat. Instead he was sent to The Red Star, the army’s official newspaper, as a special correspondent – where a much better use was found for his skills. After a quick course on how to wear a uniform and whom to salute, he spent the rest of the war accompanying the Red Army as a front-line reporter. He was with them through the long retreats of Autumn (barely escaping Orel before it fell) and at the winter battles for Moscow. He was in Stalingrad for much of that epic struggle and was at the liberation of Treblinka death camp. Finally, he accompanied the leading troops into Berlin for the final victory.


    Grossman’s sympathy for the common soldier, and his willingness to share their dangers and hardships, put him as close as any non-combatant can be to what he called “the ruthless truth of war”. With his novelist’s ear for language, and his eye for the telling detail, he turned his interviews and eye-witness accounts into something close to poetry. It’s easy to understand why he’s considered one of the great war correspondents (along with such as Earnie Pyle).

    A Writer at War is a collection of his wartime journalism, edited and translated by the always excellent Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova. Unsurprisingly, Grossman tended to run afoul of the authorities, who often edited his articles to tone down the horror, add stock heroic sentiments, and write out bad behaviour by Soviet side. In consequence Beevor makes heavy use of Grossman’s unpublished diary and notebooks. These were kept private – as notes, observations, and raw material for his articles – and so escaped the eye of the censor. The result is an unvarnished picture of the human face of war.

    Modern historians no longer buy into the mythology of operationally brilliant Germans always beating up the primitive Soviets (if it weren’t for that darned Hitler!), but Russian original sources are still rare and hard to access. In consequence the Soviet side still tends to remain somewhat faceless, while the Germans receive vivid portraits of their plans and personalities. Grossman is a useful corrective with his eye-witness accounts of generals and common soldiers, farmers, bureaucrats, and village girls.

    He talked to a fighter squadron shortly after a pilot was awarded a medal for ramming a German plane and the surviving pilots argue vigorously about how easy it is to ram an enemy — not heroic or worthy of a medal — and what a waste it is of all that precious ammunition carried by the plane! His interviews with commanders complaining about their drunken and/or unreliable subordinates puts a human face on the Red Army’s attempts to modernize and improve.

    The famous soulfulness of the Russian personality comes through in his interviews with common soldiers as they wrestle with accepting their almost certain death, albeit in a worthy cause, against regret for everything they’ve left behind or haven’t yet experienced. (A horrifying number of these stories do end with an obituary.) He doesn’t neglect the civilian victims of war, and the book is a reminder that even so vast and “empty” a country as Russia was covered with a network of agricultural towns and villages. Wrenching choices had to be made in many of these about which was the greater danger – flight or occupation.

    A common thread throughout A Writer at War is the absolute faith of almost every Russian soldier in both the rightness of their cause and their superior skill and bravery compared to their German foes. In the West we’ve become used to the Wehrmacht’s portrayal as a skilled but under-equipped foe, only defeated by our superior firepower and resources. So, it’s jaw dropping to read Russian complaints about how the rich Germans win only because of their lavish supplies of aircraft, tanks, and ammunition. The interviews are full of eloquent criticism about how terrified German infantry is of close combat, fighting in forests, and fighting at night (unlike brave Russians!), relying instead on crushing weights of artillery fire.
    Grossman follows many of his subjects for extended periods, conducting multiple interviews and these, eventually, build to a complex portrayal of the strange mixture of inferiority complex, macho pride, and veneration for culture that makes up the personality of these soldiers. In contrast to the macho bragging above, when they find liberated Russian villages half destroyed and filth-ridden, they often sadly observe that the Germans are supposed to be the “cultured” race. When the Red Army enters East Prussia, the tidy towns, good roads, and luxurious homes cause many of them to ask: “why would the Nazis invade our poor country when it’s so nice here?”

    Grossman is too observant and too honest just to be a Red Army cheerleader, though. He is appalled at the common practice among higher commanders of taking a “campaign wife” from the young women in signals or nursing units. Likewise, he’s not a fan of how many of even the more professional officers keep up the tradition of physically striking their subordinates. And, in occupied Germany, his interview subjects include many locals abused and women raped by Russian soldiers.

    The centrepiece of the book, though, is his long account of the liberation of Treblinka death camp, which Beevor includes in full. The Germans attempted to cover up any evidence of Treblinka’s existence before retreating, but bits of bone and clothing were already poking above the surface of the empty fields when the Russians arrived. And most of the work of burning and burying the dead was done by prisoners, a few of whom were able to escape into the nearby woods before they too became victims of the final round of murders. Grossman interviewed all of them. And let me tell you, even if you think you know about the holocaust, his account of how Treblinka was operated will absolutely harrow you. He explains, with detailed stories and examples, exactly how the Germans used psychological tricks and manipulation to keep their victims docile, so as to reduce the number of staff needed to handle them. The same urge to efficiency kept the camp staff constantly developing their techniques for mass murder and the disposal of remains to keep up with the ever-increasing trainloads of men, women, and children arriving at the camp.
    Seventy-five years later this remains a vital and important record.

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    Note: If you want more Grossman, his post-war novel, Life and Fate, is a classic and widely available in translation.

  • The Black Flight

    The Black Flight

    The Memoir of Raymond Collishaw, CB, DSO, DSC, DFC

    Raymond Collishaw
    CEF Books 2008

    It’s remarkable that four of the greatest British flying aces of WWI are Canadian. Billy Bishop, with 72 officially credited victories, has the top score for the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) while Raymond Collishaw, at 60, tops the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS). Donald MacLaren, at 54, is not far behind and achieved more victories in Sopwith Camels than anyone else. William Barker, with 50 victories, won the VC in one of the most celebrated air combats of all time, ending the war as the most highly decorated pilot in British service.


    Amazingly, all four survived the war, and three returned to Canada to be celebrated and showered with business and professional opportunities. Billy Bishop even became a figure of pop culture and appears in various media to this day. You don’t have to be a history nerd to recognize his name. Donald MacLaren was a major pioneer in BC aviation history. And anyone with any interest in air combat at all knows of William Barker’s famous final duel, alone in his Sopwith Snipe, taking on fifteen or more Fokker D.VIIs.

    Raymond Collishaw, in comparison, has remained obscure — despite being, perhaps, the most extraordinary member of this quite extraordinary group. Perhaps this is because he flew for the publicity averse RNAS, or because he continued in British service after the war. But it’s typical that his 1973 memoir, Air Command, wasn’t even released in Canada. Fortunately, it has been republished as The Black Flight (2008) and is now more widely available. I purchased a copy at The Museum of the Regiments during a recent visit to Calgary.

    If there’s any justice, this new edition will introduce Collishaw to a wider audience. It’s a slender volume at 272 pages (with notes) and moves along briskly, concentrating on the highlights of his well-packed military career. Significant events are recalled in sharp detail, though, including things Collishaw couldn’t have known at the time. So the text has also clearly benefited from some post mortem research. (The original release, Air Command was written with the help of ex-RCAF historian Ronald Dodds.) There’s not a lot in the way of personal or family detail, but the book is well written, with a wry sense of humour, that seems to capture Collishaw’s personality.

    The story begins in Nanaimo, British Columbia, where Collishaw was born to British parents who had immigrated in search of adventure and fortune in the gold fields. Their son soon showed that the apple doesn’t drop far from the tree. He joined the Fisheries Protection Service (a sort of proto-Coast Guard) as a cabin boy at the age of just fifteen. Having worked his way up to rank of First Officer by the time war broke out in 1914, he promptly sought a transfer to the Royal Navy. This looked to be a slow process, but the air service was short of flyers and actively recruiting in Canada. The only hitch was the requirement to have your own flying certificate before applying. Collishaw promptly raised the necessary cash and headed to Toronto for private lessons at the only flying school then operating in Canada. He was in a navy uniform and on his way to England by January 1916.

    World War I

    After completing advanced flying training, he was posted to 3 Naval Wing in the Alsace region. This was flying the first independent bombing missions against deep targets and pioneering the techniques of what we would now call strategic bombing. Collishaw flew escort to these raids in Sopwith 1 ½ Strutters and, despite the weather often limiting their flying, soon showed himself a skilled and useful combat pilot.

    After some home leave, and promotion to Flight Commander, he was posted to 10 Naval Squadron, near Ypres. There he achieved what fame he does have with air enthusiasts, commanding the famous “Black Flight”, an elite, all-Canadian flight of black-nosed Sopwith Triplanes. 10 Squadron amassed an extraordinary combat record during the dangerous days of 1917, shooting down 84 enemy aircraft in the critical period of April to July alone. Collishaw accounted for 27 of these himself in his personal Triplane, Black Maria.

    On average only one of the original flyers in each five-plane flight survived Bloody April unwounded. Remarkably, and despite several close calls, Collishaw came through unscathed. More than once enemy bullets passed close enough to shatter his goggles. On another occasion his controls were shot away, resulting in a crash landing. Once, in thick fog, he landed on a German airfield by accident. Upon noticing the black crosses on the other planes, he cracked the throttle open and barely managed to take off before capture. In one dogfight he even manoeuvred so severely, to avoid a collision, that his seat belt snapped and he was flung out of the cockpit. He managed to grab onto the upper wing struts of his Triplane and, despite the plane’s uncontrolled swoops and lunges, eventually levered his legs back inside and regained control.

    Collishaw in a Sopwith Camel
    Collishaw in a Sopwith Camel

    Various observers of this period have noted Collishaw’s outstanding qualities as a leader. To boost the confidence of new pilots, for example, he would take them up as his wingman for their first few flights. If they found a German aircraft, he would lead them into an attack, with the new pilot typically filling the sky with holes while Collishaw put a few short, well-aimed bursts into the enemy’s vitals. Upon return, Collishaw would clap the novice on the back and exclaim: “Well done, old boy — you bagged your first hun!” The terrified and confused novice would swell with pride, and the new-found confidence probably boosted his chances of survival significantly. More than one commentator has calculated that Collishaw’s official victory tally would be significantly higher if it included all the kills he gave away.

    Typically, Collishaw himself says nothing of this. Throughout The Black Flight he does pause the narrative occasionally to comment on various topics, including the true nature of chivalry in the air war, how pilots coped with the dangers they faced, the role of a combat leader, and so on. These asides are always thoughtful and interesting but, the one time he discusses victory claims, it’s only to note how fleeting and fraught are the circumstances in which they’re made, and therefore how unreliable they are (regardless of even good faith efforts to verify them).

    After a period of leave in Canada, and promotion to Squadron Commander, Collishaw commanded a coastal defence squadron for most of 1918, racking up yet more kills in Sopwith Camels. Despite the drastic downsizing of the services at the end of the European war, he was offered and accepted a permanent commission in the newly formed Royal Air Force (which absorbed the old RFC and RNAS).

    Russia

    Western participation in the Russian Civil War has become an obscure footnote of history, but this became the scene of yet more dramatic adventures for Collishaw. He was offered the poisoned chalice of commanding the air contingent being sent to assist White Russian forces against the Bolsheviks. Although this meant cancelling a planned attempt at the first cross-Atlantic flight, Collishaw’s reaction was immediate: “what I had thus far heard about the Bolshies led me to believe they were a thoroughly bad lot, and I accepted without hesitation.”

    Between his arrival in south Russia in June 1919, and the collapse of the enterprise in March 1920, Collishaw’s mixed squadron of fighters and bombers gave air support to Deniken’s White Army. To cope with the vast distances, all his ground support elements were based out of three steam trains (one per flight). Thus organized they could quickly deploy forward or back, hastily setting up flying strips wherever they stopped. For months on end the rapidly changing fortunes of war took Collishaw and his squadron all across Southern Russia. He took part in several missions and even shot down a Red Army Nieuport himself to increase his final score to 60 victories. Less happily, he caught typhus at one point and almost died, surviving only by the lucky chance of falling into the care of a refugee Russian Countess who had been trained as a nurse.

    Collishaw in Russia
    Collishaw in Russia

    When the White cause began to fall apart, Collishaw consolidated his remaining aircraft onto a single train and began a fraught retreat, over the snow-covered countryside, to Crimea and the last Allied held port. Their progress was frequently slowed by weather and the need to repair rails torn up by local Red sympathizers. And, soon, a Bolshevik train was spotted behind them in hot pursuit. This was only kept at bay by frantically tearing up the newly repaired rails as they passed. The fate for anyone who fell prisoner in that murderous internecine conflict didn’t bear thinking about, but the air contingent reached port without losing a man – a remarkable feat of leadership. Collishaw and his squadron remained in Russia almost until the end; when the last Intervention Forces were finally evacuated, he brought the remaining elements of his squadron home with almost no loss of life from their Russian service.

    Between the Wars

    Seemingly allergic to a quiet life, Collishaw then commanded RAF squadrons in Iraq and Palestine, pioneering air re-supply techniques and the use of punitive air raids to quell local rebellions with minimum loss of life (and expense). Energetic and open to new ideas, a typical Collishaw scheme was his decision to fill the inner tube of a bomber tire with water to see if this could speed up re-supply by air. The test, however, did not go well: “The wretched tire and inner tube hit the ground as planned, but as if possessed of some evil intelligence immediately bounced up onto a rolling position and changed course for the hanger line. Those who saw the 750-pound monster bounding toward them at close to 100 miles per hour took violent evasion action, but nothing could save the hanger…” (The book is full of anecdotes like this, though many are such that the other parties must remain nameless.)

    Service with a home squadron in England followed, which he describes as the most boring period of his whole career. This gave him the time, though, to finally marry his sweetheart, the sister of a fellow pilot he met while on leave in Canada. He hadn’t felt able to marry during the war (possibly leaving her a widow), and active service in Russia and the Middle East had interfered since, so it had been a Very Long Engagement indeed. Now happily joined, the couple promptly produced two daughters.

    World War II

    Service on an aircraft carrier followed, and then command of the Desert Air Force in Egypt. Here Collishaw seems to have been in his element, improvising madly as he prepared for another world war in a secondary theatre that would receive only very limited resources. When the Italians attacked out of Libya in 1940, he put his theories of air power to the test, hitting their ground elements with pinprick raids that caused them to disperse their much superior Air Force in a futile attempt to defend everywhere. The odds were so uneven he resorted to rigging machine guns on the undercarriages of his old bombers to make up for the lack of proper fighter escorts. His only modern fighter (a single Hurricane) was kept busy moving from field to field and flying one plane patrols over different sectors each day in an attempt to fool the Italians about his strength. When a supply of ancient (and probably unsafe) 20 lb bombs were found in a warehouse, he had bombers fly over the the Italian positions at night with the crew manually fusing and flinging them out an open door. The 20 pounders were too small to do much damage, but they could ruin the sleep of the infantry.

    Then Collishaw struck with concentrated force, not letting his own squadrons be tied down defending static positions. Despite having to divert planes to Greece and then Crete, he supported the British desert offensive so successfully that the Italian Air Force was almost completely swept from the skies. All for remarkably little loss to his own squadrons.
    Things got tougher when the Germans arrived, of course, but by then Collishaw was approaching fifty – ancient by the standards of wartime command. The reward for his accomplishments was promotion (to the permanent rank of Air Vice-Marshall) and being shuffled off to a quiet command in Scotland. In 1943 he was retired from the service, to spend the rest of the war in the UK as a civil air liaison.

    Retirement

    In 1945 Collishaw and family returned to Canada, laden with decorations and honours: Companion of the Order of the Bath, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, DSO, DFC, Croix de guerre, etc, etc. Unsurprisingly he approached civilian life with the same energy he’d shown in military service. Settling in Vancouver he took up the family business and, for the next two decades, initiated various mineral exploration and mining operations in northern British Columbia. For five years he was president of Craigmont Mines. In 1976 Raymond Collishaw passed away, unknown to most of his fellow Canadians.

    Fortunately, he completed this book before then, in whatever free time his other activities allowed. The Black Fight is a terrific account of a remarkable personality. Amazingly, for a senior officer’s wartime memoir, it is entirely without rancour or score-settling. Collishaw seems to have been that most rare of animals: a hugely successful person who remained utterly humble, self-aware, and at peace with himself. The final paragraph is typical of his tone, so he gets the last word: “I am often asked whether – If I had it to do all over again – I would do it differently. So far as the basic pattern of my life is concerned, I do not think so, although I might try to do everything just a bit better. I must qualify this, though, for my wife may some day read this book. Perhaps, given another chance, I should not wait so long to get married.”

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