The Emperor

The history of the title ‘emperor’ lies in the power of the Roman consul. What we today call a prime minister is somewhat comparable to a consul. In the Roman republic there were always two consuls, so one could keep the other in check. After all, if nothing else Romans detested tyranny#{a tyrant is one ruler with too much power, not necessarily an evil dictator like we understand the term today.}.

A consul’s most important power was imperium, or the right to command armies, uphold law and rule over citizens. Imperium could be limited to a certain region_—say, Gaul—and it could be overruled by equal or higher authority—say, that of the other consul. The term imperium is where the English-speaking world got the word emperor from, meaning so much as an absolute ruler.

That is a nice story, but the background of the terms Kaiser and Czar is much better.

The Kaiser and Czar

A consul could, in times of crisis, be declared dictator by senate, which would give him more or less absolute power for a limited amount of time. Julius Caesar was, quite exceptionally, named dictator for life in 45 BC after the republic had suffered under civil war for many years. Although Caesar was not the first to be dictator without limits#{conservative general Sulla had been named dictator for an unspecified amount of time, but he voluntarily stepped down when he felt he finished his job} he was the first to live up to it—he was murdered in 44 BC by conservative senators.

Caesar had been very popular with the Roman people and his death sparked yet another civil war whose victor (or ‘last man standing’) would become the first proper Roman emperor: Augustus, the (adopted) son of Caesar. Under Augustus the empire entered a new era of peace and stability and Romans have always looked back upon the age of Caesar and Augustus as a golden age.

We now call Augustus a Roman emperor, but the Latin term used at the time was ‘Caesar’. A name had become a title and it would remain in use for all emperors to come, just as ‘Augustus’#{’Augustus’ was a title by itself; his original name was Octavian.}. As time progressed the (Western) Roman empire fell and all over Europe new kingdoms rose that all looked back on Rome with great admiration. New rulers tried to project Roman majesty by adopting the emperor’s title, Caesar. Over time the spelling changed, but the phonetics probably haven’t: the [German emperor's] called themselves Kaiser. Ivan the Terrible, in Russia, called himself Czar of Russia. The title ‘Augustus’ was also used, for example by Charlemagne.

The title of Caesar was last carried by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Kaiser Franz-Josef of Austria-Hungary and Czar Nicolas II of Russia, who were all gone after the First World War. The title of ‘Caesar’ had lived to be 2,000 years old—a very respectable age.

I publish these pictures here not because I believe ‘atrocities’ are comparable or can be so easily judged over, but because the war in the east has always been conveniently ‘forgotten’ in the Western history books and minds of the general public. You can never remind people enough of what has happened. But above all this is just good material, unknown to me and interesting to study—so thanks to Russian Historian for sharing.

Here’s some Russian youth hanged by the Germans to make an example:

Here’s a picture of Soviet Red Army soldiers distributing food among the German population in Berlin 1945:

And here is a very silly picture that Russian Historian captioned with “very terrible atrocities indeed”. I love it.

So there you are. Regardless of the cruelty displayed in these and other pictures, isn’t it wonderful they let us look back in time? As a digital photographer a single picture means little to me; as a historian it never stops fascinating me.

First the redesign: I made the redesign a quick one above all; the result is of course a simpler site. It is not very polished or web 2.0-compliant but I care not. This place is about text anyway. I do hope readability has improved with the light background.

Then the writing: things have been quiet around here. That is not because I no longer enjoy history or writing about it, but because I started an academic study in History at Utrecht University which gives me plenty of history to write about, even without this website. For the last couple of months I’ve been finding my way around in a new city, a new school and new friends.

So the bad thing is: I’m so busy with writing about history there’s little time left to write about history. Then again, the good thing is I’ve got lots of interesting stories to tell. What is one to do? I’ve thought about stopping this site but decided against it. I would come to regret it pretty soon. So I’ve decided to give it another try and see where it goes.

Note: this has been a quick redesign. Mind your head, things might come tumbling down. I will repair the older posts and tweak the design over time.

There’s more from the Spanish Civil War: breathtaking photography at Photojournalism during the Spanish Civil War. And talking about journalism, have you ever wondered what it would be like had Fox News been around throughout history?

Seeing World War 1 colour photography makes a once so distant, epic event suddenly come very close and very real.

I’ve yet to check this out but it looks promising: the All Empires history forum. The same goes for Hyperhistory.

We all know the seven wonders of the ancient world, right? No, it does not include the Eiffel tower. Refresh your memory with this list of of all the seven wonders.

Numbers, numbers and numbers. And some more numbers. But a lot of other fascinating information is to be found in the 20^th century atlas.

This is an archive of 163 US interventions, a multi-faceted catalogue of coups, humanitarian incursions, covert actions, proxy armies, freedom fighters/terrorists and multilateral offensives. Out of this legacy a complex picture emerges.

A complex picture

And so it does. First let it be clear to all those naive Americans out there that the USA is no different from other countries in its violence, aggression or expansionism. I’ve seen many comments in online discussions saying the US is ‘a peaceful nation’, having never invaded another country—while countries like Germany supposedly constantly attack anything and everything they can get their hands on. This list should at least make you think again before talking rubbish.

Yet, despite its pretty looks this list does not hold divine truth; some events on this list are hardly noteworthy, or were regarded as mere ‘business as usual’ in those days. Naive Europeans claiming the USA is a band of gun-slinging rednecks shooting first and not even bothering to ask questions at all is equally wrong.

The word Freedom

The most interesting I found about this list is its demonstration of the American definition of freedom. Freedom to a 19^th-century American apparently meant ‘freedom for Americans to do whatever they want, wherever they want, as long as the Americans have the biggest guns.’ Apparently the protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness only counted for American citizens, not foreigners.

Of course this concept has changed over time. Mr. Bush’s use of the word—with a frequency that spammers are envious of—even rendered it completely void of meaning. But let’s forget about that; head over to the timeline, enjoy and make up your own mind.

I find myself sitting next to a smart, tweed-jacketed man called Ray Ellis, with thick white hair and a ruddy face. His regiment, the South Nottinghamshire Hussars, were trapped by the Germans in a corner of bleak desert known, ironically, as the Knightsbridge Box. They had already been in the desert for a year, without a day’s leave, when, under heavy attack, they were given orders ‘to fight until the last drop of ammo’. Ray it was who fired the last shot, before being captured, taken to Tripoli

From the extras of the TV series I’ve transcribed mr. Ellis’ story:

I was taken prisoner at Knightsbridge where all these men died. And then we were dragged across—I say dragged because it is too long and too horrible a story to relate at this time—dragged across the desert all the way to Tripoli. Many men died on the way of dysentery, starvation and that sort of things.[...] We had to march for water. And many men died on the way. They didn’t die of thirst because the Germans mercifully shot them as they fell to the floor. They dispatched them so they didn’t die of thirst. That wasn’t being cruel, that was being kind.

Then we were dragged all the way to Tripoli and then we went across to Naples on a cargo ship in the bottom of the hull, buttoned down and praying. It was the most frightening journey I ever made in my life, afraid of being sunk by the RAF or the Royal Navy. [..] We were a dirty, lousy, filthy, unshaven, thin, begrimed group of men. In this way they marched us through the streets as propaganda: this is the British army. And the population were cheering and mocking and I hated them. I was full of hatred.

But then something happened that has been with me for all my life. A girl came from the back of the crowd and put a peach in my hand. It was… it was fantastic. And all my life afterwards when things are being bad, I have always thought: somewhere there’s girl with a peach. Someone with another idea, another thought, who isn’t following the general trend. And as I said, that girl with the peach has stayed with me for all my life.

I find it a wonderful story illustrating not only a different kind of war from what we know from the eastern front—but I also find it amazing how little events like these are so powerful they survive for decades and are told even today, be it with mixed emotions. I hate to think of how many stories like this remain unrecorded and will soon be forever forgotten.

Safe investments

No self-respecting monarch hides a small fortune in cash under his mattress. Royal money is usually invested. At the beginning of the 20th century Russian railroads were a popular investment amongst European monarchs. Here’s why:

• railroads would surely be around for a while;
• railroads are state-owned and carry less risk than private enterprises;
• all royal families were related in one way or another and the Czar of Russia wasn’t going to turn his back to his Western family members all of a sudden.

The Western European fortunes were safely invested, the risk was low and the Russians got their railways. Generally, life was good—until the Russian revolution came along and Lenin simply declared he had no business with the Czars finances. The Russian railroads belonged to the Russians and if the Europeans wanted their money back they should turn to the Czar, not to the Russians. The Czar, however, was quite inconveniently dead and hence the money was gone.

As a consequence safer investment options were sought for the royal families. Around the start of the Second World War the Dutch queen Wilhelmina had invested considerable amounts in Dutch real estate. It seemed safe until the war lay most of the country in ruins. The Dutch government, theoretically in control of the Royal fortune, demanded even safer investments in the future. They would have to be distributed abroad so as not to be vulnerable to a single event (such as a European war) again.

A queen on a spending spree

Wilhelmina strongly opposed the new policy as she wanted to invest in her own country and people. A power struggle between the queen and the government followed. In the end, the queen reluctantly gave in. And invest she did. When the decision was made she took a personal assistant, walked outside from where she was at that very moment (the USA), took a car and drove around town buying every single piece of property that was for sale until she ran out of money to spend (I’ll spare you the financial quotum details).

Upon hearing of this, the Dutch government was in shock. What had this stupid woman done? She spent a fortune buying property at random! And yes, it was outside Europe, but in no way distributed so it was still highly risky!

Fast forward several years; when the queen went out on her spending spree she had been in New York city and the pieces of land, the small hotels and modest office-blocks she had bought are today known as down-town Manhattan—featuring some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Queen Wilhelmina’s near-incomprehensible profits put the Dutch government in a bit of an awkward position, to say the least.

An entrepreneurial spirit

Another part of the Dutch royal family’s fortune comes from stakes in private businesses. Here’s an example: in the 19th century one of royal family members lived in the Dutch Indies (now Indonesia). He was considered by the Dutch government as a loony and so they were happy to fund some of his little projects as long as it kept him on the other side of the world. One of these little projects involved some silly substance called oil. You probably know what this is leading to. Ever wondered where the prefix ‘royal’ in ‘Royal Dutch/Shell‘, one of the biggest and most profitable companies in the world, comes from? Now you know.

The fortune today

Although most these stakes have been sold today the Dutch royal family still has some shares here and there. No one knows exactly where, in what or how much, although some information can be found at the royal family’s official website (alas, no weblog). But I think queen Beatrix or crown prince Willem-Alexander won’t be needing a side-job as a call-center agent any time soon to make ends meet.

And really, you should! Don’t think they’ll never accept you because you don’t have hundreds of comments on every post, or because you’re not a rock-star webdesigner. The only thing that counts is passion. Passion for what you do. Do you know what I mean? Than you also know why it’s good to be one of the cool kids: everybody in the network is driven by passion. Interaction with these fellow ‘rulers is great—hence the 9rules forum is a real productivity killer. And you know you love to kill productivity. Oh and yeah, there’s also some serious gains in traffic and readership (note: not the same thing) to be gained, but that’s not really what’s it all about.

So got a website? Heads up then and subscribe as soon as you can.

Self-determination

Taking a step back, it is a remarkable development of warfare from the classic Napoleonic battles to the slaughters of the first and second world wars. When looking for an explanation one has to look first and foremost at mass society, a common national identity and the concept of the nation state. But that wouldn’t make as good a story as one of the secondary causes. Back to the Franco-Prussian war: the Germans won the war relatively easily, but a debate sparked over a people’s right to defend itself.

The Germans at the time argued that war was a soldier’s business. Civilians live in a state, a state has an army and an army goes to war. Hence, when the army’s defeated, so is the state and it’s civilians. Easy-peasy. The more liberal Brits and French argued that state is an indivisible nation. War between nations cannot be reduced to a clash of armed forces; everyone’s involved. The people have a right to self-determination, a concept we still hold dear today.

The typically militaristic Germans lost the debate and didn’t like it one bit. In the First World War the Germans acted ruthlessly in Belgium and Northern France, more or less saying ‘okay, if the people are allowed to fight we shall treat them all as enemy soldiers.’ Thousands of ‘innocent’ civilians were killed. The Second World War would even take this further with the bulk of the 50 million casualties being civilian.

A self-destruct mechanism?

Should we call this form of war the result of the will of democratic nations under a mass society or should we call it total wars of destruction (rather than mere ‘military conquest’)? This right to self-determination is a beautiful weapon in debates on ideals and moral values, but when applied on the microscopic scale it has demonstrated horrible and gruesome effects. Are we better off with it than without it? Does Western liberal civilisation carry a self-destruct mechanism with it?

About the new design

Although I have redesigned this site about three times now, I’ve always kept to a certain theme. Changes in the design and functionality always stayed within certain boundaries, and this rendition of my theme is no different—although it takes a greater step forward than previous iterations did. I’m moving to an even stronger monochromatic colour palette, I’ve dropped the radiating blue and got rid of the flower decorations. All in all I’ve tried to make the page a bit easier on the eye without changing the content all that much.

But the content has changed. Right now there’s no list of recent links, no links to fellow 9rulers and no blogroll. I’m not sure whether this change will be permanent. I am paying more attention to my own content now, giving the user more options to browse the archives or search the site. I now use an extra little list with ‘featured content’ to help readers discover more interesting articles. In the end it should help improve the findability of individual articles rather than the site as a whole.

Also new are article pull-quotes, JavaScript-powered footnotes, improved print stylesheets (although they’re still under construction), improved series-linking, gravatar-enable comments and… advertisements! They’re only displayed on long-enough article pages, though.

About the reboot

So I’ve rebooted the site and now all is back to normal. Alas, no! I had to make quite an effort to reboot today. Despite that the new design is live now the to do-list still sports a lot of tasks. There’s a huge task of editing all previous articles to adapt to the new functions of the new theme, there are most probably a bunch of dead links and there’s a lot of work under the hood to be done if I want to make this a stable theme.

I do want to make this a stable theme, for I now order myself not to redesign this site until May first, 2007. Until then there will only be small, incremental changes. The next couple of days or maybe even weeks will see various fixes here and there, so mind your head.

Interesting reboots

There are a lot of other interesting reboots out there. That’s why there’s the CSS reboot homepage. At the time of writing it’s down, so I’ll point you to the hot stuff when I find it.

• Avalonstar by Bryan Veloso
• Jonathan Snook
• Paul Stamatiou
• Chris J. Davis
• IfElse by Phu Ly
• Broken Kode by Khaled Abou Alfa

Update

• Matt Brett
• [EchoFaith](http://www.echofaith.com/ “Visit echofaith.com) by Jesse J. Anderson