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My historical interests work in cycles; I’ll pick some subject up and get thoroughly engrossed by it, then put it down, and then re-visit it in a year or two when newer material becomes available, giving me the opportunity to view it through a new lens. This is how I don’t burn out on key subjects of interest. It is not intentional on my part, but instead became a natural process over time.

A fun party game is to ask people in which historical period would they choose to visit if they were granted access to a functioning time machine, but only once. My answer would be Interwar Europe, which some of you by now would have guessed based on the content up on this site. It’s distant enough now to allow for a significant amount of objective evaluation, but still within touching distance today due to how relevant events from that time in history remain. Whether it be Civil War Spain or the Bavarian Red Republic (both of which I’ve covered here in the past), there’s something about the extremism, and urgency, of that era that continually fascinates me to this day. I never grow tired of learning more about it.

I know quite a lot about Spain, Germany, the Soviet Union, the UK, Italy, and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia of the two decades between the First and Second World Wars, but France of that era is relatively foreign to me, although nowhere near as alien as Interwar Poland, a terra incognita in my mental map that I hope to rectify in due time.

In January of 1917, 317 million Europeans were living in four empires that would be tossed into the dustbin of history less than years later. The great calamity that we call The First World War saw to it that industrial-scale mass killing caused by tactics being rapidly outpaced by technological innovation resulted in the dissolution of the Russian, German, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian Empires. A gigantic vacuum was thus created beginning with the Russian Revolution in which nations, cultures, societies, legal systems, and economies were unmoored from what were thought to be stable and durable imperial polities only a few years prior. This was the Great Upheaval that few could have imagined coming about from a war that was supposed to be over by Christmas of 1914.

A consolidated Europe gave way to a more fractured one. The collapse of the Russian Empire gave birth to the USSR, but also to Finland, the Baltic States, a sizable chunk of what would become Poland, and also witnessed the stillbirth of an independent Ukraine. The end of the Second German Reich completed the resurrection of Poland, as well as permitting the doomed Weimar Germany to arise from what remained of it.

It was the stunning end of the Dual Monarchy that left all of its citizens proverbially lost at sea, seeking an anchor to tie themselves to while in a state of panic and existential dread. The Austrian half of the Habsburg Empire was partitioned between its successor state, Austria, Italy, the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and with Czechoslovakia via Bohemia and Moravia forming the western part of this new country. The Hungarian Kingdom saw 2/3rds of its land mass become parts of Romania, and the aforementioned Czechoslovakia and Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The remaining rump third became the independent state of Hungary, a fact that Viktor Orban never misses the opportunity to lament.

The smallest successor state of that global catastrophe was the independent city-state of Fiume, located on the northeastern coast of the Adriatic Sea in today’s Republic of Croatia. Fiume, a port city of some fifty thousand souls, was 95% Roman Catholic, but was very mixed in ethnic terms. The Dual Monarchy did not break down census results by stated ethnicity, but instead used “primary spoken language”, which can be used in most cases (like the following one) as a proxy for the local population. Per the census of 1910:

The Italians were a plurality, and formed the urban and commercial elite of the city. Croatians were almost entirely working class (which becomes important in WW2), and largely resided in the suburbs. The presence of Magyars may surprise some here, but Fiume was Hungary’s port city i.e. access to the open seas. Fiume permitted easy access to the Danubian Basin by train for shipped goods and vice versa, unlike Trieste, which was blocked from servicing that region by the imposing Alps. Fiume also had smaller minorities such as Brits and Jews, with the latter forming up to 1.5% of the population, but heterodox, as some identified with the local Magyars, others with the Germans, and still others with the Italians and the Croats. A polyglot trading port for a that most polyglot of European empires.

First, A Note

Fiume is the Italian word for ‘river’, and the current official name of the city, Rijeka (Ree-ye-kuh), means the exact same thing in Croatian. It’s a horribly unoriginal name that denotes that the original settlement bearing that moniker was built on the site where a river flows into the Adriatic Sea. For the purposes of this book club, we will use Fiume in place of Rijeka, just as the book does (except for the following part below). Unlike the book, we will use the name ‘Yugoslavia’ to denote what was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes from 1918 to 1929 (when the name was changed to the much better known variant), except in a few specific cases.

This is what the city of Rijeka looks like today (background) as taken from above the tourist town of Opatija facing southeast across the Bay of Kvarner. Rijeka has long been a port town and is geographically isolated from the interior by the mountain range that you can see further in the background, mountains that are nowhere near as high as the Alps north of Trieste. Today’s Rijeka is commonly seen by Croatians (and others from the ex-Yugoslavia) as a very liberal, somewhat red, and anti-ethnonationalist city, a holdout from the communist regime that ended some 35 years ago.

It is also somewhat isolated in terms of political geography, with its hinterland to the east, south, and southeast being populated by some of the most nationalist voting blocs in the country. Its population finds more common ground with voters along the coast to the north and to the northwest on the Istrian Peninsula. The city is now 85% Croatian in composition, with small minorities of Serbs, Bosnian Muslims, Slovenes, and even Italians. The great demographic shift in Rijeka took place immediately after the completion of WW2. It is also important to note that its political colouring (that of an “anti-fascist city”) derives from the conflict between the Italians and Croatians and other Slavs.

Lastly, I want to point out that I do have an ethnic bias regarding this topic, but I think that I can do a good job in straining towards the maximal amount of objectivity that it permits. You can let me know if I achieve this goal when we wrap up this book club entry.

Anyway, let’s return to Fiume……….

Versailles, Woodrow Wilson, and the Vittoria Mutilata

The Kingdom of Italy was a late entry into WW1. Despite the general public sentiment being one of desired neutrality, the Triple Entente dangling the most delicious carrot in front of Rome to tempt it into joining their fight against the Central Powers: that of great territorial expansion for Italy reminiscent of the old Venetian Empire, and an echo of the Roman one too. Here’s what the secret Treaty of London (1915) promised the Italians if they joined the war on the side of Paris, London, and Moscow:

Quite the score!

For the purposes of this book club, the following map is much more important:

The yellow portions (going from west to south-east are South Tyrol, Friuli-Giulia-Trieste, Istria, Kvarner, Northern and Central Dalmatia) were pledged to the Italians should they open up a front against Austria.1 All these areas minus Dalmatia (excluding its then-capital, Zadar) were heavily populated by Italians. There was one problem with this: Istria, Kvarner (where Fiume is located), and Dalmatia were also heavily populated by Croatians, and in a few locales, Slovenes.

Another map (this portion is map-heavy for necessary reasons):

Harkening back to the days of the Venetian Empire, a lot of its geography was used to demarcate where the future borders of the Italian Kingdom would be in the case of an Entente victory. The Treaty of London granted the Italians everything within the red lines, but only received land within the green lines (please note the location of Fiume on the map).

The above map from 1910 shows the percentage of people who spoke Italian on a daily basis in Istria and Kvarner (with Fiume the east). A lot of Slavs residing in these areas made Italian claims to these lands not as clean cut as they would have liked them to be.

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The latest entry in the FbF Book Club starts tomorrow. We will be reading Dominique Kirchner Reill’s: The Fiume Crisis - Life in the Wake of the Habsburg Empire.

To join this book club, hit this button below:

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.I’ve already read the entire thing, and it’s a breeze. It’s also quite fun. As Gabriele D’Annunzio is one of the star performers of this play, we’ll use other material to supplement scenes in which he plays a prominent role.

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People have asked me to do another entry in the FbF Book Club. We’ve had a couple of hits and misses so far.

I am proposing that we cover this recent work about the Fiume Crisis i.e. the immediate post-war struggle over the city of Fiume/Rijeka on the northeastern Adriatic coast. This is where fascism first came into focus, where a lot of extremists of all political stripes collided (and even briefly co-existed), and where rock stars like Gabrielle D’Annunzio made their presence felt for all to see.

If you want me to start this up please express interest here in the comments and hit the subscribe button below if you aren’t yet a subscriber.

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The book is a 2020 publication (in English) from Harvard University Press and clocks in at around 300 pages in length, making it very doable. You can purchase it or “borrow” it at all the usual locations.

Lemme know if you’re interested in participating in this.

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Previous Entry - Chapter 3: The Most Remarkable Movement

We’re going to keep this entry lighter and also shorter in length, because the two chapters being covered describe how the Temperance Movement (now led by the Anti-Saloon League) went national based around a coalition of “racists, progressives, suffragists, populists, and nativists”. I want to get to the more interesting parts of this book, but there are some important highlights that we shouldn’t skip over before doing so.

Prohibitionists faced a big problem: much of the funding of the US Government came from taxes on alcohol. In the post-Civil War decades, that figure was around 20-40% of the overall federal revenue generated. Tax on alcohol was re-introduced by Lincoln in 1862 to pay for the Union’s war efforts, and it also helped finance the Spanish-American War at the end of the 19th century. So reliant was the federal government on taxes on alcohol that the brewers and distillers learned to love them, because they viewed this as the best bulwark against the Temperance Movement. If alcohol sales were banned, the federal government would be starved of money.

Okrent:

By 1910 the federal government was drawing more than $200 million a year from the bottle and the keg—71 percent of all internal revenue, and more than 30 percent of federal revenue overall. Only external revenue—the tariff—provided a larger share of the federal budget, and by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century the tariff’s continuation was the most intensely debated issue in American public life. It would be hard enough to fund the cost of government without the tariff and impossible without a liquor tax.

Looking at it objectively, all the Christian activists saying prayers as part of the Temperance Movement did seem to bring God on their side. Not only did a strange confluence of events manage to create a coalition of “racists, progressives, suffragists, populists, and nativists” to popularize their efforts, a populist reaction to the so-called “Gilded Age” and its newly-minted millionaires made the case for a national income tax, a tool that could plug in any financial hole left by Prohibition. Call it another stroke of luck or an Act of God….it doesn’t matter. Everything was working towards the benefit of the Temperance Movement.

On the push for a National Income Tax:

For the progressives, it was an obvious way to enhance the power and effectiveness of government. For many of the racially motivated prohibitionists of the South, whose populist anger was monochromatic but nonetheless real, it was a way to avenge Reconstruction by striking back at the economic and political imperialists of the North.

The big day for the ASL was December 10, 1913 when thousands upon thousands of people descended on Capitol Hill to present its petition for Prohibiton to Congress:

But no one could challenge the impact of the spectacle that unfolded in Washington when the ASL presented its petition. Washington in the late autumn of 1913 was filled with mendicants seeking the charity of Congress. Two weeks after a national meeting of suffragists was convened in the capital (the Washington Post had headlined its front-page story “Fair Cohorts Meet”), and just two days after the International Antivivisection and Animal Protection Congress was gaveled to order (featured speaker: William Jennings Bryan), Washington was occupied by the dry armies. From one mustering point fifty young girls dressed in white led a long column of women from the WCTU; from another marched the men of the ASL, representing all forty-eight states. After the two parades merged on the steps of the Capitol they presented a petition demanding a constitutional amendment to the men who would introduce it in their respective chambers: in the House the flamboyant Richmond Hobson of Alabama, and in the upper chamber Morris Sheppard of Texas, a Shakespearean scholar who was one of the Senate’s leading progressives. Thousands of bystanders had left the city’s sidewalks to follow the two parades to the Capitol. Apart from presidential inaugurations, Capitol guards told reporters, it was the largest crowd ever to gather on the building’s steps.

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Previous Entry - Chapter 2: The Rising of Liquid Bread

The United States of America is not only a vast country geographically with a massive population, it is also a country of continuous change, whether culturally, economically, socially, or demographically. Yet there are some threads that do reach back to its earlier times, one of the most notable being the progressive one that began in New England prior to the American Revolution.

The third chapter of this book starts out at Oberlin College in the first half of the 19th century. Many of you are familiar with Oberlin because it is associated with some of the more progressive currents in US politics today. The fact of the matter is that Oberlin was progressive since its founding by two Presbyterian clergymen in 1833. It is a progressive institute by design. Frances Willard, a star in the earlier days of the Temperance Movement was the product of two Oberlin graduates. The Reverend Howard Hyde Russell, a transplant from Iowa, was drawn to Oberlin, Ohio where he went on to form the Anti-Saloon League (ASL), the organization that was most responsible for lobbying the US Government to enact Prohibition:

The Anti-Saloon League may not have been the first broad-based American pressure group, but it certainly was the first to develop the tactics and the muscle necessary to rewrite the Constitution. It owed its success to two ideas, one core constituency, and an Oberlin undergraduate who sat in the front row of the balcony of the First Congregational Church on a June Sunday in 1893 and heard Russell outline his plan to deliver the nation from the death grip of alcohol.

The Anti-Saloon League (founded in 1893) decided to take a radically different approach to lobbying for Prohibition than the Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU) that came before it. Where the WCTU would involve itself in all sorts of causes in order to create a vast coalition that would support its drive against the production and distribution of alcohol, the ASL chose an approach that was totally the opposite; a laser-like focus on the single issue of Prohibition:

“The Anti-Saloon League is not in politics as a party, nor are we trying to abolish vice, gambling, horse-racing, murder, theft or arson,” one of its early leaders said. “The gold standard, the unlimited coinage of silver, protection, free trade and currency reform, do not concern us in the least.”

This was their strategy, one that allowed them to avoid the pitfalls of internal dissension that plagued the WCTU due to it having so many different groups at cross-purposes with one another. Politically agnostic, they aimed to control the swing vote in all elections, allowing them to use that as leverage with candidates. Regarding Russell: “…..[he] liked to cite rail baron Jay Gould’s credo—that he was a Republican when he was in Republican districts, a Democrat when he was in Democratic districts, but that he was always for the Erie Railroad.” This was pragmatism over idealism.

Russell was also lucky; he could rely on the Baptist and Methodist churches as the bedrock of his movement, and with its parishioners he could mobilize in massive numbers:

To gather the support needed to fund the group’s efforts and to line up those 10 percent of the voters who could tip the balance on election day, Russell and his colleagues mobilized the nation’s literalist Protestant churches and their congregations. Any pressure group would be fortunate to be blessed with a constituency like this one. It was scattered across the American landscape, yet easily reached when there was a message to deliver or an action to initiate. By its self-definition, it wore the mantle of moral authority. In its religious ardency, it was prepared for apocalyptic battle. The Anti-Saloon League was, its own slogan affirmed, “the Church in Action Against the Saloon.”

The leadership, the staff, and the directorates of the ASL and its affiliate organizations were overwhelmingly Methodist and Baptist. Clergymen occupied a minimum of 75 percent of the board seats of any state branch.

The ASL had a political project with a very large in-built constituency fired up by a clear and simple moral message. Russell had picked up a $1 million bill off of the sidewalk. With the WCTU lamenting the death of its leader, Frances Willard (and building up a Cult of Personality around her), the ASL had quickly moved ahead of it and became the leading organization fighting alcohol production and consumption.1 All he needed now was a general to marshal these resources to spread the Gospel of Prohibition across the whole of the USA.

Enter Wayne Bidwell Wheeler.

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Previous Entry - Prologue and Chapter 1: Thunderous Drums and Protestant Nuns

Pabst, Schlitz, Budweiser……..these names were so familiar to me growing up that I never thought to think that they were all German in origin. That’s just how truly American these brands were by the time I was born, and well before then too. To me, they were as American as apple pie and baseball, completely foreign to my grandfather and his German co-workers who would drink Doppelbock, Paulaner, or Kölsch during lunch on various construction sites throughout what was then known as “West Germany”. This Americanization of the product exemplified the complete and successful assimilation of the five million Germans who emigrated to the USA between 1820 and 1900.

I had initially thought that beer was just as popular in the New World prior to the arrival of Germans as it became afterward, but Okrent informs us that distilled spirits were king when the early USA was largely British in ethnic composition. One simple fact summarizes this for us perfectly: “In 1850 Americans drank 36 million gallons of the stuff; by 1890 annual consumption had exploded to 855 million gallons. During that four-decade span, while the population tripled, that population’s capacity for beer had increased twenty-four-fold.” Why? Okrent explains:

There was nothing mysterious about this change. Immigration was responsible, of course, at first from Ireland and Germany. The Germans brought not only beer itself but a generation of men who knew how to make it, how to market it, and how to pretend it was something it was not. The four-year-old United States Brewers’ Association declared in 1866 that hard liquor caused “domestic misery, pauperism, disease and crime.” On the other hand, the brewers maintained, beer was “liquid bread.”*

To German brewers, their beer was a harmless soft drink when compared to distilled spirits that caused misery and social ruin. It would be unfair to them to be lumped in with the distillers, a group that they viewed dismissively at best.

The arrival of German brewers and their beers also ushered in a proliferation of saloons across America, especially the Midwest where Germans were settling in major numbers, especially in the so-called “German Triangle” formed by St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati:

That the proliferation of saloons was abetted by immigrants (usually German or Bohemian), largely for immigrants (members of those nationalities, but also Irish, Slavs, Scandinavians, and many, many others), was not lost on the moralists of the WCTU and other temperance organizations. As early as 1876 Frances Willard had referred in a speech to “the infidel foreign population of our country.” Near the end of her career, Willard called on Congress to pass immigration restrictions to keep out “the scum of the Old World.” In the Mesabi and Vermilion ranges of northern Minnesota, congressional investigators counted 256 saloons in fifteen mining towns, their owners representing eighteen distinct immigrant nationalities. “If a new colony of foreigners appears” in Chicago, the muckraker George Kibbe Turner wrote in 1909, “some compatriot is set at once to selling them liquor. Italians, Greeks, Lithuanians, Poles—all the rough and hairy tribes which have been drawn to Chicago—have their trade exploited to the utmost.” U.S. census figures indicated that 80 percent of licensed saloons were owned by first-generation Americans. Among the rapidly proliferating unlicensed operations, the percentage could only have been higher.

As the Temperance Movement gained ground in the second half of of the 19th century, it had to contend not just with the established alcohol industry, but also with these new arrivals who were very different to them ethnically and culturally. Naturally, anti-immigrant sentiment was common among prohibitionists of that era, as these new immigrants brought their beer-drinking ways with them to their new country.

Benjamin Franklin is famous for many good reasons, but he was also notorious for being inherently anti-Germanic. His thoughts on Germans (and others) and how he felt that they were too alien to integrate into the America of his time as preserved in an essay and a letter that he wrote.

From “Observations Concerning the Increasing of Mankind, Peopling of Countries” (1755):

Europe is generally full settled with Husbandmen, Manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People: America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less, the Gardner on still less, and the Manufacturer requiring the least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could bee by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail’d on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers, who did not much interfere with the Natives in Hunting, and furnish’d them with many Things they wanted.

Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that a labouring Man, that understands Husbandry, can in a short Time save Money enough to purchase a Piece of new Land sufficient for a Plantation, whereon he may subsist a Family; such are not afraid to marry; for if they even look far enough forward to consider how their Children when grown up are to be provided for, they see that more Land is to be had at Rates equally easy, all Circumstances considered.

….There are suppos’d to be now upwards of One Million English Souls in North-America, (tho’ ’tis thought scarce 80,000 have been brought over Sea) and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather more, on Account of the Employment the Colonies afford to Manufacturers at Home. This Million doubling, suppose but once in 25 Years, will in another Century be more than the People of England, and the greatest Number of Englishmen will be on this Side the Water. What an Accession of Power to the British Empire by Sea as well as Land! What Increase of Trade and Navigation! What Number of Ships and Seamen! We have been here but little more than 100 Years, and yet the Force of our Privateers in the late War, united, was greater, both in Men and Guns, than that of the whole British Navy in Queen Elizabeth’s Time….

And since Detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their Places at Home so soon supply’d and increase so largely here; why should the Palatine Boors [Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.

Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionally very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.

Franklin not only feared a Germanization of Colonial America (this essay was written well before the American Revolution), but went as far as to claim that Germans were “swarthy” and therefore “black”, with the exception being the Saxons due to them being one of the two key elements that fused together to form the Anglo-Saxon race!

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The Drunkard's Quest" (1846) by Nathaniel Currier warns that moderate drinking leads to total disaster step-by-step.

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Previous Entry - Introduction

Tomorrow evening, I am hosting a small pre-Christmas party at my brother’s house. A good number of us cousins will be getting together to “eat and drink and make merry”, or however that line goes. My mother has prepared food for us to eat that she will deliver to my brother’s house tomorrow afternoon. I took care of the alcohol supply earlier today.

You can’t go wrong with vodka for a party. You can’t go wrong with red wine either, so long as it is of a certain minimal quality. I will partake in the former, but I am one of those who cannot drink red wine at all, whether it be a Chianti or a Cabernet, or anything in between. After a single glass I find myself dehydrated, sleepy, in possession of a headache, and not in a good mood. I am incredibly jealous of those who can and do enjoy drinking red wine, because it appears to me to be the most enjoyable buzz that alcohol can deliver. Therefore, I am forced to turn to other solutions, with bourbon being a particular favourite.

Some 15 years ago, I met a woman who is originally from Kentucky, but lives halfway around the world these days (she will be reading this series as she is a subscriber here already). Upon our first meeting, she chastised me for drinking Jack Daniel’s, insisting that I try Maker’s Mark bourbon instead. “Jack Daniel’s is a whiskey, not a bourbon. Bourbon can only come from Kentucky, and Jack is from Tennessee”, she explained. I took her up on her offer to try Maker’s Mark, and it has been a friend of mine ever since. In fact, I bought a bottle of it earlier today in anticipation for tomorrow’s festivities. I enjoy bourbon. I enjoy it neat. No mix, no ice, just straight up.

Both of my grandfathers each had one brother who had trouble with the bottle. My maternal grandfather’s brother managed to go sober at a young age and lived into his 80s, so his alcoholism wasn’t a beast that could not be contained. My paternal grandfather had several brothers, and his one brother was an alcoholic with a crippling addiction, dying of cirrhosis of the liver in his 60s. Check out his colourized pic (his eyes should be blue):

(A serious guy!)

Of all my cousins expected to be there tomorrow night, two have alcoholic parents (one has a father who is an alcoholic, and another has a mother who likes to drink far too much, and these two are brother and sister, with both their parents having been alcoholics). My one cousin drinks responsibly, and my other cousin has always been a teetotaler, as his mother’s alcoholism has always severely embarrassed him. No families are perfect, and those with very large extended families like myself are the perfect example.

In the Western World, alcohol and festivities naturally go together. Jesus did turn water into wine at that one wedding, didn’t he? The idea of a dry celebration is such an anachronism to us these days, but even now you will from time to time find celebratory events that eschew alcohol or other intoxicants, usually to make a point that they are not needed for a celebration. These exceptions only serve to prove the rule, and that rule is that we modern westerners do love our alcohol.

A World without Alcohol

Statistically speaking, there are some of you reading this that are alcoholics and have managed to enter sobriety (one day at a time!). Statistically speaking, there are some of you for whom alcohol isn’t interesting at all. For the former, alcohol can be life-threatening and no celebration is worth tempting fate. For the latter, partying (or even blowing off some steam) requires no alcohol whatsoever.

What about the rest of you? What about those of you who look forward to that Friday (or Thursday) night drink with friends and/or co-workers? What about those of you who like to pour yourselves a glass of scotch when you get home? And what about those of you who love to crack open a cold one on a hot summer afternoon? What is your first reaction when you think of a world where the manufacturing and sale of alcohol is forbidden? How does it make you feel when one of life’s great pleasures is denied to you in the name of the “greater good”?

“I can handle my intake of alcohol, so why should I be denied the right to do so even if others cannot?” is the immediate reply that I would offer up if confronted with this question. And it’s this very question that is the central one when it comes to the subject of this book: Prohibition. The “common good” decided to take on “the individual’s right to choose”, with the field of battle being alcohol. In the end, individual liberty won out….but to reduce this subject to such a simplistic dualism would be both unfair, and more importantly, ahistorical.

To me, the more important question is: How did the United States of America, a country founded on the primacy of individual rights, ever adopt Prohibition as the law of the land? Daniel Okrent’s book will guide us through this question, and will hopefully help us not only understand exactly how the USA found itself in this position, but also teach us lessons about today’s America as well. One theme to keep in mind is the constant tug-of-war between Puritanism and Libertinism that has coloured much of America’s history. Puritanism cannot be entirely blamed for Prohibition, but it did have an outsized role in successfully agitating for its adoption.

The Roaring Twenties

As I mentioned in the introductory entry to this book club, I find the first, second, and third decades of 20th century America to be endlessly fascinating, and for too many reasons to list here. I would like to focus on the Prohibition Era itself in this series, but I would be doing you a disservice by ignoring all the events, movements, and characters that led up to the passing of the 18th Amendment in January of 1919, (and the adoption of the Volstead Act in October of that same year) that ushered in Prohibition on January 20, 1920. We MUST look at the history and try to understand it, so that we can grasp why the USA found itself dry on that day. By not doing so, it would be the equivalent of starting to watch a movie halfway through.

On the other hand, a straight chronological telling of the story of Prohibition would not be the best way to tell the tale. After all, the third decade of the 20th century in the USA were described as “roaring”, DESPITE the fact that the manufacture and sale of alcohol for drinking was against the law. ‘Roaring’ implies loudness, celebration, progress, and so much more. How could a decade (and three extra years) roar if sober? It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

“The most expensive orgy in history”, is how F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of that most 1920s book of all, The Great Gatsby, described that decade. The USA entered the 1920s as a creditor nation, having saved the UK’s bacon (and France’s as well), by entering the war on the side of the Triple Entente, dealing a final blow to the war efforts of the Kaiser. Unlike the belligerents across the pond, the Americans did not lose an entire generation of young men, many of whom would have formed the future elites of France, Germany, Italy, the UK, Russia, Austria, Hungary, and so on. The USA entered the war very late, and came away unscathed, losing very little blood, gaining quite a lot of treasure, and proving to itself that the absence of the squabbles of the Old World made America the land of the future.

This condition saw America not just rise in global standing and power, but also speed up its own economic, social, and cultural development during the following decade. An economic boom (that eventually went bust in 1929) did take place:

The ’20s were “a prosperity decade, no question about that,” says Dighe. Gross national product ballooned by 40 percent between 1922 and 1929. The Second Industrial Revolution—most notably electricity and the advent of the assembly line—led to a manufacturing boom. Cars could be put together in 93 minutes instead of half a day, and by the close of the decade, one-fifth of Americans owned an automobile, which they could use for leisure activities like traveling. The popularization of personal credit also enabled middle-class Americans to buy consumer goods in droves. The government, too, under the Republican administrations of Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover, shared this spirit of wholehearted materialism, boosting corporations and otherwise taking a light touch to policy that corresponded with the prevailing anti-government sentiment of the time.

This was the era of Jazz, of Silent Film and Silent Film Stars…..of Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The decade of flappers, of mobsters and speakeasies, of Babe Ruth, and of so, so many inventions:

1. automobiles with combustible engines

2. hair dryers

3. band-aids

4. bulldozers

5. liquid-fueled rockers

6. bread slicers

7. car radios

8. electric shavers

9. shortwave transmitters

10. Tommy guns

11. traffic signals

12. frozen food

13. instant cameras

……and many, many more!

The 1920s was the first full decade in US history where more Americans lived in urban settings than in rural ones. It was also the decade where the country decided that it had absorbed enough new immigrant populations, closing the door in 1924, and keeping it shut for the most part until 1965.

Prohibition was applauded by its supporters early on in that decade as just another form of progress to go along with that being made in technology, economics, politics, culture, and society. Idealistic? No doubt, as the “progress” of Prohibition was shown in time to be very regressive, and in many ways, counter to the spirit of the era.

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One of my favourite (and quite possibly my favourite) era of American history is the interwar period between the First and Second World Wars. The United States was quickly rising in terms of global power due to the strength of its economy and the vast resources it was able to exploit. By the end of WW1, the British Empire was heavily indebted to the USA (with many arguing that these debts were the reason for the US entry into that war). The future looked very, very bright for this New World land, far removed from the squabbles of the Old World.

The USA was for decades prior absorbing the massive waves of migration from Europe, with some difficulties in how to manage these new arrivals. In 1924, Ellis Island was shut down, as the Americans decided to try and assimilate people from places like Italy, and what were once the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.

The interplay between these new arrivals, and how they interacted with the already settled Americans, is one of the things that most fascinates me about this era. The 1920s themselves were known as “The Roaring Twenties” due to the economic boom that took place in that first decade of the interwar period. Oddly, enough, a decade that is now known for economic prosperity and a liberalization in social attitudes was paired with Prohibition on the sale and consumption of alcohol. A puritanism stting right next to liberalization is a theme of American culture and history.

I first read Daniel Okrent’s 2010 book “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition” over a decade ago and really, really enjoyed it as I learned quite a bit about it. This isn’t just the story of “killjoys” and “bootleggers”, but about an America struggling to come to terms with how it was changing and with how it already had changed. From the link above:

From its start, America has been awash in drink. The sailing vessel that brought John Winthrop to the shores of the New World in 1630 carried more beer than water. By the 1820s, liquor flowed so plentifully it was cheaper than tea. That Americans would ever agree to relinquish their booze was as improbable as it was astonishing.

Yet we did, and Last Call is Daniel Okrent’s dazzling explanation of why we did it, what life under Prohibition was like, and how such an unprecedented degree of government interference in the private lives of Americans changed the country forever.

Writing with both wit and historical acuity, Okrent reveals how Prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces: the growing political power of the women’s suffrage movement, which allied itself with the antiliquor campaign; the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities; the anti-German sentiment stoked by World War I; and a variety of other unlikely factors, ranging from the rise of the automobile to the advent of the income tax.

Through it all, Americans kept drinking, going to remarkably creative lengths to smuggle, sell, conceal, and convivially (and sometimes fatally) imbibe their favorite intoxicants. Last Call is peopled with vivid characters of an astonishing variety: Susan B. Anthony and Billy Sunday, William Jennings Bryan and bootlegger Sam Bronfman, Pierre S. du Pont and H. L. Mencken, Meyer Lansky and the incredible—if long-forgotten—federal official Mabel Walker Willebrandt, who throughout the twenties was the most powerful woman in the country. (Perhaps most surprising of all is Okrent’s account of Joseph P. Kennedy’s legendary, and long-misunderstood, role in the liquor business.)

It’s a book rich with stories from nearly all parts of the country. Okrent’s narrative runs through smoky Manhattan speakeasies, where relations between the sexes were changed forever; California vineyards busily producing “sacramental” wine; New England fishing communities that gave up fishing for the more lucrative rum-running business; and in Washington, the halls of Congress itself, where politicians who had voted for Prohibition drank openly and without apology.

This book is written in a popular style, which means that it is very accessible to all. The most recent book we covered in this FbF Book Club was much more dry and academic. I can assure all of you that this one will much more resemble the most popular book that we have covered in the FbF Book Club, Edward J. Watts’ 2015 work “The Final Pagan Generation: Rome’s Unexpected Path to Christianity”.

I anticipate a lot of activity from the community here in this upcoming book club as the Prohibition era has something for everyone, whether it be True Crime, religious politics, ethnic politics, colourful characters, and so on.

Anticipated Launch Date: December 14, 2023

Previous FbF Book Club entries can be found at this link which you can find at the top of the main page on this site, and if you scroll to the bottom and hit ‘archive’.

We have done six book clubs so far (with varying degrees of success I must admit).

Prohibition America was a country that was very, very different from the one only a single generation prior to it. It was also being pulled in two different directions. I am confident that participating in this book club will be an excellent exercise to prep everyone for what promises to be an insane year of American politics in 2024.

If you are cash poor at the moment, I can lend you a digital copy of this book (just replyl to this email). Most of you will be able to afford a Kindle/paperback/hardcover (please support the author if you can).

This iteration of the FbF Book Club should take around two months to complete and will be for subscribers only, with the introductory post being available for non-subscribers as well.

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If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, hit this button below:

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Final Note: I am a bit under the weather, and am trying to complete this weekend’s SCR. Bear with me!

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Previous Entry - Chapter 9: The Second Revolution

“Kicking the can down the road” has long been a feature of politics, liberal democracies in particular. The Brits pride themselves (in their typical, self-deprecating manner) on “muddling through”. The American political system is built on compromise, whereby both sides are able to save face without resolving key questions, as they are left to a later date (think national debt, budget deficits, and so on). The French have for decades now done the same regarding their issues with certain immigrant groups, accepting the occasional flare-up of violence as an acceptable price to pay to avoid painful reforms.

Strong, stable, and wealthy polities are able to kick the can down the road seemingly endlessly. 1918-1919 Bavaria was neither strong, nor stable, and certainly not wealthy. For five months (beginning with the November Revolution), its political leadership could not resolve the matter of the councils, and what role, if any, they would play in the new regime. For five months, this can was kicked down the road. Bavaria ran out of road in April of 1919.

The radical communists had forced a showdown after months of agitation, violence, and effective organization. The ruling cabinet blinked, and fled to Bamberg in Northern Bavaria. They were quickly followed by the deputies who were to populate the Landtag.

Mitchell opens up this chapter by asking what he considers the most important question of this history: Just how was a soviet republic possible in Bavaria? He says that the reasons are too many, but highlights several key ones:

1. paralysis of the economy

2. inadequacy of security preparations

3. lack of firm support for the cabinet by the largest political party (BVP)

4. unsettling effect of developments outside of Bavaria

5. concerted agitation of a purposeful minority (radicals)

6. divided ambitions and ineptitude of political leadership

We can reduce these six causes into three:

1. collapsing economy

2. red wave moving through Europe

3. the opening up of a power vacuum in Bavaria’s capital, Munich

There were actually two soviet republics during April and May of 1919: the first was a “Pseudo-Soviet Republic” that lasted only six days, and failed to get the support of even the communists, despite it being declared in Munich on April 7. The second was the actual Soviet Republic (Räterepublik) that was under the strict control of the Bavarian communists, who were no longer led by Max Levien, but by a newcomer using the pseudonym Niessen, but was actually named Eugen Leviné:

But Levien was no longer the leader of the Bavarian Communist Party; that was now a man called Niessen. Eugen Levine, alias Niessen—born in Russia, raised and educated in Germany—had been one of two men designated by Rosa Luxemburg just before her death in January to represent the KPD at the first congress of the Third International in Moscow. Prevented from crossing the border, Levine returned to Berlin where he was given another assignment by the new chief of German Communism, Paul Levi: to travel to Bavaria and assume command of the Communist Party there. Levine had therefore arrived in Munich for the first time on March 5. By the end of that month, unknown to all but those on the inside, he had already made "fundamental changes" in the KPD's structure and policy. He assumed the editorship of the party journal, the Miinchener Rote Fahne, and on March 18 began daily publication. He managed a quiet purge of the party's executive committee, forcing out five of its seven members, retaining only the two original founders, Levien and Hans Kain.

Like Levien, Leviné was a Jew from Russia, a fact that would have tremendous consequences for Jews in Germany and beyond not too far in the future.

The farce that was the first soviet regime in Bavaria:

The first soviet regime in Bavaria lasted six days. It was a week of raucous and at times ridiculous confusion. Regulations, pronouncements, proclamations, orders and counter orders were drafted, printed, and distributed in hectic tempo. The press would be socialized along with the mines, the banks would be reorganized and so would the bureaucracy, special revolutionary tribunals would replace the courts, living quarters would be registered, foodstuffs would be confiscated, the bourgeoisie would be disarmed and the proletariat armed, the Red Army formed, the Soviet Republic defended, the International greeted, the World Revolution extended. And, as the new regime recognized, the Bavarian population would be bewildered: "Comrades! You do not know what a Soviet Republic means. You will tell it now by its work. The Soviet Republic will bring the new order."

The Bavarian Government-in-Exile (in Bamberg) was not sitting idly by as Munich and all the rest of Bavaria below the Danube River fell into the hands of the Reds:

"The regime of the Bavarian Freestate has NOT resigned. It has transferred its seat from Munich. The regime is and will remain the SINGLE possessor of power in Bavaria and is alone qualified to release legal regulations and to issue [administrative] orders. . . ." This manifesto had been signed by Johannes Hoffmann in Nuremberg on April 7, and as he sat in his office at the city hall in Bamberg a few days later, his only problem was to enforce it. Although his government-in-exile had been successful enough in its initial efforts to quarantine soviet rule below the Danube line, to regain the capital was another question. In the cities of northern Bavaria the excitement of the Soviet Republic's proclamation had lasted no more than a day or two: in Wiirzburg, Fiirth, Ingolstadt, Regensburg, and Schweinfurt there had been proclamations, crowds, "encroachments," and then a swift restoration of order. Nuremberg and Bamberg had remained quiet and loyal, while in the countryside the general reaction was either continued indifference or increased hostility to the whims of big city politicians. Only in the triangle bounded by Augsburg, Rosenheim, and Garmisch—an area of less than 2000 square miles in all—could Munich still claim precedence over Bamberg.

The Soviet regime(s) in Bavaria were not popular in conservative and Catholic Bavaria, despite its hold over the capital. What little popularity it had was whittled away by the draconian measures it took against its own citizens during its brief rule. The dividing line had been drawn, and civil war was inevitable. Making matters worse for the soviets was the fact that various red regimes in Northern Germany had already been snuffed out by the federal government, through the leadership of SPD politician and Minister of Defence, Gustav Noske, with the assistance of the Freikorps.

Hoffmann, the leader of the government-in-exile in Bamberg, wanted to extinguish the Soviet Republic without any aid from Berlin, and decided to approach the matter in three different ways, simultaneously:

1. total blockade of Munich (food, coal, etc.)

2. negotiations

3. military assault

Enter Ernst Toller: an unknown 25 year old poet who supported the declaration of a soviet republic in Bavaria, but who wanted to avoid bloodshed and was open to negotiations to prevent it. He was foisted into the official capacity of leader of the Soviet Republic despite not being aligned with Levien and Leviné.

The soviets drew first blood when an attempt by the Bamberg government forces to take Munich had failed:

April 13 was Palm Sunday. Before dawn a detachment of the Republican Security Troops broke into the Wittelsbach Palace and arrested several members of the Zentralrat quartered there, among them Erich Miihsam and Franz Lipp. It was the kind of putsch-attempt for which Munich was to become famous, in which success would depend on the uncertain threat rather than the immediate presence of great armed strength. In Ingolstadt Ernst Schneppenhorst was standing by with six hundred men, awaiting word that the capital had been taken from within before moving in to secure its "liberation." He and Prime Minister Hoffmann had made this arrangement with Alfred Seyfferitz, who probably had no more than a few hundred reliables among his Security Troops inside of Munich, but who had agreed to make the first move against the soviet regime. By mid-morning a fresh layer of placards pasted on the neighborhood kiosks announced that the Zentralrat was deposed and urged the populace to avoid "starvation [and] civil war" by restoring the Hoffmann government. Sunday strollers prudently stayed away from downtown Munich when word was passed for soviet supporters to gather on the Theresienwiese that afternoon. Automobiles with armed soldiers packed inside and on the running boards moved through the streets. At three o'clock there was a fit of wild shooting on the Marienplatz, in front of the Rathaus: though several were wounded, the first fatality of the day was a sailor struck while playing billiards on the second floor of a nearby restaurant.

…….

Shortly after four o'clock the battle began and lasted into the evening. By nine o'clock no help had arrived and the terminal fell to the attackers, as the Security Troops escaped through the rear by train or scattered into the city. The total casualties numbered more than twenty dead and a hundred wounded. The Soviet Republic had survived; it was now a question of who would dominate it.

Soviet Republic of Bavaria 1 - Bavarian Government-in-Exile 0

Communist Rule and Red Terror

A collapsed economy and the blockade of Munich forced the soviets to immediately enact coercive measures to protect itself from the coming “reactionary” attacks. As per Bavarikon:

Munich's second Soviet government sought to establish a communist dictatorship. Through a series of arbitrary acts it attracted the deep abhorrence of the Munich population; massive fears of the establishment of a Bolshevik system spread. The communist rulers used means of state terror ("red terror") and indiscriminately threatened, intimidated and held members of the bourgeois camp hostage or put them under preventive arrest. In addition, cash holdings were confiscated, safe-deposit boxes were opened and the freedom of the press was blocked. New revolutionary tribunals were set up to eliminate counterrevolutionary activities. These actions were criminal in nature, but they were also massively exaggerated by enemy propaganda.

The “Red Terror” experienced by Bavarians in Munich during that fateful month would resonate for decades to come, and go far in explaining why Bavaria became as reactionary as it was during the Weimar Republic, and why the early NSDAP found such fertile soil there for its politics. Leviné, a Russian Jewish communist who had never set foot in Bavaria until the first week of March, became the face of the Soviet Republic as he was made its chief executive. His status as a foreigner and a Jew would also be very consequential.

The “Whites” (Bamberg Government-in-Exile forces) immediately set up a Volkswehr to try and snuff out the Red Republic, but were disastrously rebuffed at Dachau. Hoffmann and his cabinet were thus forced to turn to Berlin for support:

Gustav Noske promptly authorized 20,000 troops to move into Bavaria, of which 7500 were actually to arrive. The Wiirttemberg contingent numbered 3750, and the Volkswehr and Free Corps recruited in northern Bavaria (though not entirely comprised of Bavarians) totaled about 22,000—bringing the strength of the fully-equipped invading forces to nearly 35,000 men.

The Freikorps were on their way. Meanwhile, the Red Terror continued unabated. The Soviet Republic declared the churning of milk into butter or cheese to be “criminal sabotage against the regime”, for example. But this was minor in comparison to what else it was doing to its own citizens:

Because of the blockade, the Vollzugsrat found it necessary to order the confiscation of all available foodstuffs in the city. This resulted in the entering and searching of private homes by groups of armed men, and permitted thefts and violations of privacy which the regime (though it tried) was helpless to control. If the confiscations were an understandable and, therefore, not altogether unpopular measure (as when a certain countess was reported to be hoarding a bathtub full of eggs), most of the food obtained was consigned to provision the Red Army and never reached the population at large.

From Bavarikon on the taking and shooting of hostages:

On 26 April, radical supporters of the Soviet Republic took eight hostages and brought them to the Luitpoldgymnasium in Munich's Müllerstraße. Seven of them were members of the anti-Semitic and anti-republican Thule Society, which had been involved in the foundation of the German Labour Party (DAP) in January 1919. In 1920, the DAP was to become the NSDAP. On 30 April, members of the Red Army shot the hostages together with two Prussian soldiers in the courtyard of the grammar school.

This act sparked massive outrage in Bavaria and beyond, and served to “justify” the massive reprisals against the communists after the Soviet Republic was extinguished.

Weakening and Collapse of the Soviet Regime

Mitchell:

By the end of Easter Week, then, it was becoming evident to everyone acquainted with the facts that the Soviet Republic was neither economically viable nor militarily defensible. The result, as inevitable as anything can be, was the political collapse of the Communist regime. Opposition to "the Russians," Levine and Levien, had been mounting since April 13. Much of it was attributable to the calumny against "foreigners and Jews" which had earlier worried Kurt Eisner, but some it it grew from disagreement on specific military and economic measures. Ernst Toller had already had at least two serious altercations with Levine; after one of them he was briefly detained under virtual arrest but, being the "liberator of Dachau" and the closest thing to a genuine hero among the soviet leaders, he was released and allowed to continue his military command.

Toller did not mince words:

The third charge was frankly emotional: that "the present regime was," in Toller's words, "a calamity for the working people of Bavaria." His accusation was that Levine and Levien had made all too effective use of their Russian passports to gain their way with the radical leaders in Munich. "The great feat of the Russian Revolution lends to these men a magic luster. Experienced German Communists stare at them as if dazzled. Because Lenin is a Russian, they are assumed to have his ability. 'In Russia we did it differently'— this phrase upset every decision."

On April 27, a no confidence vote in the government passed and the soviet government collapsed.

The newly-created Red Army of Bavaria wasn’t having it and declared that it would defend the Bavarian Soviet Republic by force of arms:

“The Red Army was not founded as an instrument of politics but as an organ for the defense of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the Soviet Republic against the counter-revolution of the White Guard. In accordance with this assignment, the General Command declares that it will defend the revolutionary proletariat—whatever the cost may be—against the White Guard, and will not allow itself to be forced into a betrayal of the social revolution by any faction, not even by the Factory Councils.” - Rudolf Egelhofer, Red Army Commander

May Day, the most important day in the communist calendar, proved to be the most fateful one for Bavaria’s Soviet Republic:

On the first of May Lenin spoke to an immense gathering at the Red Square in Moscow: "In all nations the workers have set foot on the path of struggle with imperialism. The liberated working class is celebrating its anniversary freely and openly not only in Soviet Russia, but also in Soviet Hungary and Soviet Bavaria." That same day the troops of General von Oven closed a tight ring around Munich and prepared for the final assault. There was a celebration in the city—an organized march of school children—yet for most of the day it was strangely quiet downtown, the streets almost deserted. The plan of the invaders was to wait until noon of May 2 before advancing farther, presumably so as to provide no martyrs for future May Day observances. But at that moment it was learned that ten hostages had been murdered inside Munich at the Luitpoldgymnasium. This was not only a wicked and futile act—it turned the civil war into a virtual slaughter.

Slaughter:

Some of the aroused invaders broke formation in the early evening of May 1 and began moving into the city with the avowed intention of giving it "a thorough cleansing." Resistance was quickly and ruthlessly broken. Men found carrying or hiding weapons were shot without trial and often without question. On the evening of May 2 only the main railway terminal and a cluster of military barracks remained to be taken. By the next afternoon the city was quiet again and the dead numbered over six hundred. The irresponsible brutality of the Free Corps continued sporadically during the next few days as political prisoners were taken and sometimes beaten or executed.

The Soviet Republic of Bavaria was brought to a bloody end.

Max Levien managed to somehow escape unharmed. Ernst Toller was sentenced to five years in prison. Eugen Leviné, seen as the face of the regime, was captured and put on trial. He was convicted of treason and executed on June 5, 1919.

Concluding Remarks

Modern histories tend to gloss over the various communist regimes that sprung up across Germany after its defeat in WW1. This does us a great disservice because it is impossible to understand the rise of reactionary politics in Germany without understanding the experience of Germans under red regimes, and the “red terror” that they lived through. The rise of fascism on the European continent was a direct reaction to these red regimes in Berlin, Bavaria, Hungary, and elsewhere. They did not arise in a vacuum.

The main reason why I chose this brief period in history and why I chose this book is to provide readers of this Substack an opportunity to see how a country actually falls apart. The volatile Trump Era (and visible signs of wear and tear in the USA) has led many people to believe that the USA is itself collapsing. As you all already know, I disagree with this assessment. When you look at the Bavaria of 1918-19, you see a collection of catastrophes that beset that land in rapid succession: significant deaths in a war that was lost but which many assumed was being won, rapid economic decline and collapse, power vacuum after power vacuum, erosion of physical security, inflation, energy blackouts, and so on. The USA of today is experiencing none of this crises that hit Bavaria during those several months. 1918-19 Bavaria shows us how it looks when a country falls apart, something that, in my opinion, is not happening in the USA today.

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Previous Entry - Chapters 7 & 8: Deterioration and the End of the Eisner Regime

Imagine being Eduard Auer, leader of the Bavarian SPD, on the morning of February 21, 1919. You wake up and smile, realizing that your decades’ old goal (capturing political power in Bavaria) is about to finally be achieved later today. You’ve marginalized the radicals in the council system, you have made Eisner a political zero, and you have ring-fenced the Landtag whereby the Catholics of the BVP cannot enter government. All that’s left is a few procedures in today’s opening of the Landtag and for the first time in Bavarian history, social-democracy will rule the land.

…and then fate intervenes: a right-wing radical named Count Arco-Valley pulls out of a revolver and kills Kurt Eisner, doing to him physically what you (and the Bavarian electorate) did to him electorally. Being assassinated proves to be a great career move for Eisner, and he becomes THE symbol of revolution in Bavaria, with many of his critics, detractors, and opponents overnight lionizing him.

Only a few hours later, a left-wing radical decides to take a shot at you. Luckily, you manage to avoid Eisner’s fate, but are left wounded and physically weak, and withdraw from public life for the next several years, just as you were about to conclude your life’s great achievement.

Arco-Valley’s stated aim of preventing a second revolution in fact did the opposite: it made it possible, as Mitchell explains. The transfer of power to the Landtag was forestalled, and the councils revitalized and further radicalized just as they were about to legally marginalized.

As mentioned, Eisner became a folk hero, post-mortem:

During the last weeks of his life Kurt Eisner had suffered one indignity after another. He had been humiliated at the polls, ridiculed in the press, badgered in cabinet meetings, and vilified as a Jew and a foreigner. Now it seemed suddenly that he was the noblest Bavarian of them all. Everyone claimed him as their own: the radicals, as martyr of the revolution, liberator of the proletariat, and champion of the council system; the others, as the man who had been on his way to the Landtag to acknowledge the restoration of parliamentary authority. The name of the man who had been so little known before the beginning of his premiership, and so little respected during it, was momentarily elevated to the status of a Bavarian folk-hero.

Left-radicals demanded that Eisner’s death be avenged. What his death managed to do was re-open the council question again, to the delight of these same left-radicals.

Making matters worse, cabinet members and parliamentary deputies fled the Bavarian capital, rendering the Landtag mandate “null and void”, at least in the eyes of the left-radicals of the council system, who then filled the power vacuum by convening meetings, declaring martial law, enacting a three-day general strike, and ordering a curfew. Munich was now radicalized and in the hands of the councils.

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Previous Entry - Chapter 6: Party System and Bürgerwehr Crisis

By January of 1919, the honeymoon phase of the November Revolution was over.

Violence was spreading throughout Munich as councils became more radicalized due to both the fear of being eliminated and communist infiltration of these same councils. At the same time, the economic situation was deteriorating rapidly, just as the elections for both the Bavarian Landtag and the National Assembly in Berlin were due to be held. Eisner’s delicate balancing act was reaching the end of its rope, as both the inevitable SPD-led government and the left radicals agitating for “all power to the councils!” were moving in completely opposite directions from one another.

The Elections of January 1919

Bavarians went to the polls twice during January 1919, first to vote for a new Landtag, and then one week later for the new National Assembly in Berlin.

Contrary to expectations, both votes went off without a hitch. Bavarians went to the polling booths in record numbers due to an expanded franchise (including women for the first time in its history), voting to not only continue with parliamentarianism in Bavaria itself, but also to send its representatives to Berlin in order to represent their interests and define the southern republic’s relationship to it.

As per Bavarian tradition, voting broke down largely along confessional lines with Catholic regions mainly supporting the former Zentrum now Bavarian People’s Party (BVP), and Protestant regions in the main supporting the SPD:

As Mitchell notes, only in and around Munich did the SPD manage to break the confessional barrier, with the SPD drawing the most support. This was still not enough for the SPD to be the outright winner of the vote, as the BVP managed to win a plurality, but in the knowledge that they would not be forming the next government due to a lack of viable coalition partners.

The SPD won the lion’s share of the votes of those inclined to vote for socialist platforms, resulting in utter disaster for Kurt Eisner and the USP. Eisner’s humiliation was repeated one week later during the vote for the upcoming German National Assembly, one in which the resulted reflected those of the Landtag election:

The USP managed only 2.5% of all votes in the Landtag election in Bavaria, while doing a little better one week later in voting for the National Assembly, securing 3.7% of the overall total. No silver lining was possible to see here. These results were a catastrophe for both Eisner and his party, proving the case that neither he nor the USP had the popular support of the Bavarian people, on whose basis they claimed to effect the November Revolution, and on whose basis they claimed to act during the provisional government’s existence. Auer and the SPD could point to these results and state that the USP was superfluous to its needs to form a new government.

Nevertheless, Eisner attempted to argue that a government without the USP would lead to either a “bourgeois” regime, or a Bolshevik one. Only an all-socialist unity government could forestall further revolution, or counter-revolution. Auer and the SPD were left unconvinced. The clock on Eisner’s Premiership was ticking, as the Catholic press concluded: "A man, a Jew, who still flusters after the Berlin putschists, should no longer stand at the head of a Volksstaat whose voters have just prepared for him a crushing defeat.” Where Eisner had managed to overthrow a regime during a power vacuum with the support of only twelve key individuals, two elections managed to expose just how little popular support he had managed to gain by doing so.

If Eisner and the USP were in trouble, the communists of the KPD were in an existential crisis. Their agitation for the end of parliamentarianism in Bavaria meant that they could be outlawed as “seditious” by the time the next Landtag convened. It was this sense of self-preservation just as much as their revolutionary fervour that mobilized them to radicalize rapidly via the council system so as to prevent the convocation of the next Landtag.

Radicalization:

A meeting of council delegates was opened by Gustav Landauer's demand that the radicals also be included in the united front. In the midst of "great agitation" Eisner attempted to defend his exclusion of them. He said that he would "stand and fall with the workers', soldiers', and peasants' councils," but that he could not endorse the threat of armed force; nor could he hope, as a practical matter, to gain the cooperation of the SPD if he made such an endorsement. When the meeting then lapsed into disorder, several Independents exchanged insults with radical leaders Miihsam and Max Levien. In the confusion a reporter was able to record only that Eisner was charged with perpetrating "vulgar lies." Other Independent leaders such as Ernst Toller, who represented both the USP and the council system, attempted to save the situation, but a falling-out between the Communists and the Independents was, under the circumstances, unavoidable. The immediate result of the Landtag election was thus to leave the USP more isolated and the KPD more adamant. On the Wednesday after election day the first issue of the Communist Miinchener Rote Fahne appeared with the slogan: "DOWN WITH INTERNATIONAL CAPITALISM! ALL POWER TO THE COUNCILS OF WORKERS, PEASANTS, AND SOLDIERS!"

The USP was left stranded as it could not join with the communists, and was unwanted by the triumphant SPD. Nevertheless, it continued to agitate for the formalization of the council system via a new constitution that was to be drawn up by the next government. On the other hand, Auer and the SPD continued to pay lip service to the councils as they recognized that they symbolized the revolution and could not yet be done away with. They would then proceed to keep watering them down, waiting for the new Landtag to take office. The unresolved future role of the councils would act as Damocles’ Sword over the heads of Bavaria.

Economic Collapse

With Damocles’ Sword above their heads, a quickly collapsing economy best evidenced by galloping inflation and surging unemployment proved to be a series of punches to the Bavarian gut.

Sources of unemployment:

The immediate sources of unemployment in the capital were close enough to the surface to be seen with the naked eye. The inevitable regimentation of the war years had increased in importance and size the administrative functions of the state government located in Munich. Despite the severe attrition of Bavarian troops in combat (which took an estimated 13,600 citizens of Munich alone), the population of the city had increased steadily since 1914 and was approaching 650,000 by 1919. For the period immediately following the Armistice it is proper to speak of overpopulation, due in the main to the problems created by the demobilization of manpower and the reconversion of wartime industry.

The return of the troops from the front:

The return of Bavarian troops from the front had begun in force during late November and continued unabated throughout January. Munich was both a major processing center for those being mustered out and an attraction for discharged veterans at loose ends. Civic officials had made every effort to meet the problem of crowding, assuming it to be temporary, by requisitioning school buildings, hotels, and beer-hall cellars, and by beginning on November 26 to organize a program of quartering in large private homes. By mid-December Munich already had one hundred barracks and temporary dormitories, housing 50,000 men in groups of 60 to 3000. The return of additional troops during the Christmas holidays and thereafter stretched the city's facilities and tolerance to the limit. It is therefore not difficult to appreciate the importance of this mass in terms of political instability and economic liability.

Lots of idle, angry, hungry, and broke men milling about does not make for a good situation. It makes them very prone to radicalization. Compounding this situation was the fact that the ‘reconversion’ of the wartime industry meant that thousands of thousands of workers were, after Eisner’s cabinet dragged their own feet, put out of work because their factories were shut down to retool for non-wartime purposes. As Mitchell describes, the situation by January 1919 in Munich was highly “combustible”.

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Previous Entry - Chapter 5: Council System and Cabinet Crisis

Here’s how we ended the previous entry:

While reading this chapter and the one previous to it, I was left wondering what the radicals were up to, as they seemed to have disappeared from the story altogether. Just in the nick of time, they pop up to produce some rioting and street violence, just to remind everyone that they are there, and that they are organized, and ready to pounce:

It was this knowledge, coupled with the apprehension in some quarters about the future of the council system, which produced the first serious recurrence of radical discontent since the night of the Munich Putsch. A new mood of belligerence became evident on the evening of December 5 at an open meeting in the Wagnersaal, where a political address in favor of the National Assembly by Max Weber was repeatedly interrupted from the floor until the speaker was unable to continue. Twenty-four hours later a night of rioting and confusion showed that the street was once again a political factor. Apparently without pre-arrangement, two separate public meetings erupted into the city in a spirit of protest. A party of nearly three hundred men broke into the residence of Erhard Auer, roused him out of bed, and obtained his written resignation at the point of a gun. Meanwhile, anarchist Erich Miihsam and another group seized several of Munich's leading newspapers, assumed editorial control, and granted ownership to the astonished typesetters.

Recall that Eisner had a) for years positioned himself to the left of the SPD, but to the right of the radicals, engaging in a very delicate balancing act, and b) been warning about the radicals and their threat to the take over the November Revolution.

It is in this chapter that an unforced error by Bavarian SPD Chief Erhard Auer allowed for the radicals to reassert themselves via the council system, and pose a threat to the Bavarian People’s Republic. This will be the main focus of this entry, but first we will get the political jockeying for position out of the way in order to clear the path for it.

December 1918-January 1919 Political Topography

SPD

Led by Erhard Auer, the Bavarian branch of the Social-Democrats was for all intents and purposes well-placed to inherit the government after the upcoming Landtag Elections set for January of 1919. Not only did they have the strongest organization of all political parties, they also had control over the vast majority of the labour unions (with the additional benefit of their mobilization on behalf of the party), and they were able to point in their role in not opposing the November Revolution, but also being a coalition member in its first provisional government. Lastly, they could also point to the role being played by the national party in Germany in forming the first post-war government in Berlin.

BVP

Alongside the SPD, the Bavarian People’s Party (BVP) was one of the two largest political parties in Bavaria at the time. The newly-formed BVP arose from the ashes of the Zentrum, the party of Catholic Monarchism in the pre-war era. The natural ruling party of Bavaria, its ties to the ancien regime and the lost war meant that its popularity had taken a hit among the people, enough to give the SPD first place in election projections. The BVP was the only party in favour of a restoration of the Wittelsbach Dynasty, although this position was not formalized nor broadcast widely as it was far from an opportune time to push for restoration. Murmurs of Bavarian separatism were still audible in its ranks, but federalism was by far the majority stance within the party.

USP

Eisner’s Independent Socialists could point to being the spearhead of the November Revolution and could also trumpet the pro-labour changes it had initiated since then (such as the eight hour workday), but it lacked the strength, depth, and wide popularity of bot the SPD and the BVP, as it was largely a party of urban intellectuals in a land that was still highly rural and conservative. The USP needed coalition partners, with the SPD foremost among them, but found their advances unrequited. They themselves knew that they would not perform well in the Landtag election, and managed to find an ally in the BBB (Bavarian Peasants’ League) only after watering down their proposals for the socialization of the agricultural sector.

DDP

The German Democratic Party (DDP) inherited the mantle of the pre-war Liberals, and were more than happy to entertain a coalition with the SPD as both sought to prevent the return of the Catholic Monarchists to power, while rejecting the socialization of the Bavarian economy found to the SPD’s left (and toyed with by Eisner). They, like the SPD, were adamant federalists, upset with Eisner’s disastrous foray into national politics in Berlin where he brought up the threat of reigniting Bavarian Particularism.

Spartacist League/KPD

Lurking in the background was the tangible threat of radicalism from the far left, but as Mitchell explains: “There is little….that can be said with precision about the development of radicalism in Bavaria after November 7, since neither its strength nor its importance was strictly measurable”. Rejecting the National Assembly in Berlin and party politics altogether, these radicals took inspiration from the Bolsheviks, seeking to spread “Global Revolution” to Bavaria. The Bavarian chapter of the Spartacist League was only set up on December 11th when its emissary from Berlin, Max Levien, arrived with instructions on how to “unite internationalist and the local elements of potential radicalism in Munich”. They had quickly concluded that the revolutionary councils would be ineffective until brought under the discipline of the Spartacist League (re-named the Communist Party of Germany, KPD, on January 1, 1919). The party had no appetite for participating in the elections for two reasons: 1. distaste for the “bourgeois” system, and 2) knowing full well that they would get annihilated at the polls. Their call was “all power to the councils of workers, soldiers, and peasants”.

The Crisis of Christmas Week

Bavaria was still experiencing peace, albeit under the cloud of shock from the loss of the war and the bloodless revolution that followed it. A new regime had been put into place, security was assured (for now), and the bureaucracy was won over via a guarantee of continuity. The docility of the Bavarians did have value after all. But would that reputed docility survive the upcoming Landtag election scheduled for the 12th of January? And could that docility prevail in light of violent outbursts that had broken out in Berlin?

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Previous Entry - Chapter 4: Problems of Peace and Order

The fifth chapter of Mitchell’s book covers what would be the high water mark of Eisner’s revolutionary (or better yet, “revolutionary”) regime. Only three short weeks after the November Revolution took place, the honeymoon was already coming to an end.

After ensuring order in Bavaria, both in terms of security and the bureaucratic apparatus of state that came at the price of compromises that blunted the “revolutionary” aspect of the new regime, Eisner now tasked himself with guiding the formation of a “new spirit” that was to engulf the land. This new spirit would lead the councils (Soldiers’, Workers’, and Peasants’) to serve as the vehicles for “true democracy”, sweeping away the old forms that were aristocratic and not at all democratic. Defining the role of the councils and the power that would be accorded to them would lead to the very first cabinet crisis of the People’s State of Bavaria.

Eisner had returned from Berlin with the impression that the revolution was on safe grounds back in Bavaria. His attempt at inserting himself into German foreign policy had failed horribly, and questions were now being asked as to whether he was about to launch a drive for Bavarian independence, something that he had personally and publicly opposed for at least two decades and showed no signs of embracing any time soon. Nevertheless, by playing the “Bavarian Particularism” card in Berlin, he opened himself up to these charges.

At the same time, his vocal attacks against SPD representatives in Berlin upset his Bavarian SPD coalition partners, who voiced their anger via their local media outlets. Auer’s Bavarian SPD had joined the coalition because they saw the revolution as a fait accompli, and that only by staying in government could they influence its future course. The SPD had strong popular support (unlike Eisner’s semi-radicals), and knew the ins and outs of political horse trading (also unlike Eisner). Lastly, they had a strong level of support in the bureaucracy.

Councils

The backbone of the Bavaria’s revolutionary regime would be comprised of the revolutionary councils divided into three types:

1. Soldiers

2. Workers

3. Peasants

We have already seen how these councils were used to maintain order in Bavaria, specifically within the capital of Munich itself. These councils were not only to serve as vehicles for the participation of the people in democracy, but also to stave off more “Bolshevik” types, forestalling a second and more radical revolution.

These revolutionary councils popped up all across Bavaria in November of 1918, but were not all alike politically. In some places, radicals did indeed seize power (Augsburg), while in most other places they were comprised of much less radical elements who chose to work with existing authorities (Nuremberg). Still yet, there were other locales where the councils were quickly brought under control of the old authorities, completely defanged (hyper-Catholic Regensburg).

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Previous Entry - Chapter 3: The November Revolution

The more I think about the November Revolution, the more farcical it seems to me. Eisner consulted and conspired with around twelve men in the lead up to the momentous day, and then simply led a segment of the demonstration in the opposite direction from the rest. Mitchell describes the events of that day as both “arresting” and “bizarre”, but the ease with which power was seized in Munich brings to my mind the picture of a brazen shoplifter daring the store owner to do something about his theft while in the act of doing it.

The paralysis of the Bavarian regime in its inability to do something to stop Eisner in his tracks was in the main a product of the shock that the whole of Germany was experiencing in learning that their war effort had collapsed. This shock turned into disgust with and rage at the ruling authorities, resulting in the annihilation of confidence in their rule. This confluence of events allowed the shoplifter to walk through the open door and help himself to the products inside. Eisner simply capitalized on the opportunity that presented itself to him.

It’s one thing to seize power, and it’s another thing to rule. The fourth chapter of this book deals with the first few days of the Bavarian People’s State and how Eisner (especially) and his regime dealt with the two most pressing issues facing it: the need to instill order, and the question of peace with the Entente powers. Both of these issues are very important to the story, but this chapter as a whole serves as a bridge, which means that this entry will not be a long one.

Order At Home

Even though untested at the polling booth, Eisner’s socialists were less popular in Bavaria than the local SPD branch under Auer. The amount of support for Eisner and his putschists was therefore unknown, forcing the new regime to rely on those already in state administrative roles. This posed a significant problem, as their political sympathies were not clear. How would the bureaucracy react to the new boss?

Even before the question of functional administration could be tackled, an even more important matter had to be resolved: the question of legitimacy. Eisner took matters into his own hands and placed power in the cabinet:

Without recalling either council to obtain a formal enabling act, Eisner released a statement on November 10 which was intended to settle all questions of competence for the time being:

Through the resolutions of the provisional assembly of the councils of workers, soldiers, and peasants, the executive power has passed into the hands of the cabinet of the Bavarian People's State. Henceforth no decrees have the power of law which are not issued by the cabinet of ministers.. . . Within a few days everything will take its accustomed course.

There was no push back of significance to this, meaning that that the question of legitimacy in legal terms was immediately settled.

A decree was issued placing security services under the control of the Ministry of Military Affairs:

Henceforth this power would reside in the Ministry, to be exercised by Rosshaupter himself. All Munich police and "security forces" were, by decree, likewise brought under the direction of the new regime. The confusion had been extraordinary, with various units operating their own patrols under separate regulations and from different beer-halls and barracks. Six signatures were finally required on the governmental order to regulate the situation. Even so, the absence of a more clearly defined and unified command continued to hamper the housing, feeding, and demobilization of the thousands of troops which poured through Munich in November and December.

A decree is one thing, but reality is a different matter:

In reality, the headquarters of the three Bavarian army corps stationed at Munich, Nuremberg, and Wiirzburg were virtually autonomous and uncommitted politically. There were at first few important changes in military command at the top level, apart from Rosshaupter, and his position was obviously no more secure than that of the regime itself.

The confusion of the first weeks of the new regime gave Eisner breathing room with the military, but Mitchell informs us that by December relations would sour rapidly.

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Previous Entry - Chapter 2: Kurt Eisner

It took one, single day of organized action for the centuries’ old Kingdom of Bavaria to fall apart and for King Ludwig III to be overthrown.

What makes it even odder is that there was no real agitation to end the regime, dissolve the monarchy, and support republicanism, especially in light of the fact that all the major political groupings represented in the Landtag agreed on a compromise package to reform how the kingdom would be run. A deal was agreed by all relevant parties, and the “docile” Bavarian people did not object to it…with only a few exceptions1. It was most of these exceptions2 that brought down the Wittelsbach Dynasty on November 7, 1918 in the Bavarian capital, Munich.

Mitchell asks how it was possible for the revolution to succeed in light of this. He offers up two explanations, the first being:

How was it then still possible for a revolution to succeed? One explanation is simply that most people did not have time to comprehend the importance of the reforms. If it was not a case of too little, it was certainly too late. Most of the visible signs of the old regime, moreover, were left in full view. For most Bavarians the King was the symbol and the Upper House the embodiment of traditional authority—they were both to remain. The new cabinet would be led by the same Prime Minister, and the Center Party would retain an absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies, at least until new elections were held at some undesignated time in the future.

This answer is not fully satisfactory. Mitchell instead provides a more ‘fundamental’ answer; that the constitutional reform could not end the war, a war that was clearly failing.

By January of 1918 (as you recall, the only time that any significant, radical labour action took place in Bavaria during the war), the German High Command was worried that the introduction of American forces on the Western Front would tilt the balance against the German Reich. With reinforcements available now that the Eastern Front was no longer a threat thanks to the Russian Revolution and the end of that empire’s active involvement in the war, General Erich Ludendorff decided to place all of his country’s stakes on one huge gamble in the west. Conscious of the fact that the naval blockade of Germany was now really biting into the war effort, so much so that food security and hunger was now significant issues, Ludendorff and his staff came up with a plan to decisively end the war before the American advantage could present itself.

The German Spring Offensive of 1918 initially scored some successes, but problems in logistics and a reorganization of Allied command halted Ludendorff’s attempt to split the British forces from the French. From the link in the previous sentence:

A further attack on the River Aisne at the end of May (Operation Blücher) netted the Germans another 40 km, but their strategic aims remained beyond their grasp. Each advance only stretched their dwindling resources. German factories, starved of materials by the Allied naval blockade, struggled to replace the weapons and equipment that had been lost. Between March and July, the German Army lost a million men killed or wounded, including many irreplaceable experienced and elite soldiers. In desperation, the German authorities began sending 17-year-old conscripts to the front.

Ludendorff’s bold gamble had failed by the middle of that summer, and the news managed to trickle back home:

Munich was a different city from the one which Eisner had left in January. The confidence and high spirits on the home front which had buoyed LudendorfFs drive in the West had been, like the military offensive, broken. The news of impending defeat and the imminent necessity of seriously compromised negotiations had been taken especially hard by a people long kept ignorant of the facts and then suddenly confronted with them. It was not only a universal weariness with the war effort. "In October of 1918," one Liberal writer admitted, "we finally considered ourselves, everyone without distinction of party, deceived and duped."

Recall that Mitchell described the Bavarians of that time as “docile”. Docility was in large part present because Bavarians, like other Germans, were under the impression that the war was being won, albeit very slowly. All the perceived excesses of the war regime, particularly increased centralist control from Berlin in matters like agriculture, could be forgiven so long as victory was assured.

Preventative Measures

The stunning news of failure on the Western Front aggravated the hostility to Berlin over its wartime management, and it also created a crisis of legitimacy in the regime as it could no longer be trusted to tell the people the truth. “Among the dissatisfied there was open talk of "swindle" and, as officially reported to Berlin, an intensified attitude of "wearied disgust" toward the Empire (Reichsverdrossenheit)”, said a report to German Chancellor Georg von Hertling. Mitchell lists the two most important errors made by the Bavarian regime in the second half of 1918:

1. that they had the situation under control

2. confusing the passivity of the populace with loyalty to the status quo

Much as in the rest of Germany, the Bavarian Government had to open up discussions with the SPD (Soc-Dems) in order to shore up the regime in the wake of the disaster on the Western Front. The price for cooperation in Bavaria was constitutional reform, which was then delivered on November 3rd. The SPD, under new leader, Erhard Auer, committed itself to helping maintain order while obtaining these concessions, proving that its reformist-not-revolutionary approach would bear fruit.

Auer was also entrusted with restraining the newly-released from prison Kurt Eisner, a task that he assured the government his “disciplined” SPD could be trusted to accomplish. Bavarian authorities must have thought that Eisner’s release from prison would weaken the opposition SPD, but was not strong enough to threaten actual order. As we will see, this was another massive mistake committed by the regime.

Auer’s restraint, typical of the Bavarian SPD:

We are living through the greatest revolution which has ever occurred. Only the form is now different; different because other forms are possible . . . through the discipline of the working population, because it is possible to achieve in a legal way that for which we have striven for decades." Two things were characteristic of this statement, and were to be typical of Auer from this time until the revolution was an accomplished fact: the notion of a gradual and entirely peaceful transition which had already commenced, and an unmistakable ambiguity as to its objective.

“Revolution” through legalism and gradualism.

Ambiguity:

The Party resolved to support "the transformation of Germany into a Volksstaat with complete self-determination of the people in nation, state, and city." Since it was well known that “Volksstaat" was the generally accepted Socialist euphemism for a republic, this was presumably a demand for the Kaiser's abdication. But the terms of the statement might have been fulfilled just as well by a constitutional monarchy as by a republic, providing that "the people" so determined; and it was conspicuous that no precise reference was made to the future of the Wittelsbach dynasty.

And some populism aka ‘Bavarian Particularism’ for good measure:

He was persistent in his denunciation of "the hegemony of Prussia which . . . was and is the misfortune of Germany." But he wavered between demanding that "the present system must be discarded root and branch" (in reference to Berlin)…..

Bavarians were quickly turning against the war which they now learned was in danger of being lost, shortages were becoming more pronounced, and the SPD had managed to wring concessions out of the regime which was growing fearful for its continued existence. At the same time, all of the Bavarian elites and centres of power were still onside with the now-reformed regime.

So what went wrong?

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Previous Entry - Chapter 1: The Origins of the Revolution and the War Years

In the first chapter of the book, Mitchell sets the stage for the revolution by arguing that although it took everyone by surprise, it was still the result of a progression of reforms that saw Bavaria transition from a strong monarchy to a “ministerial and bureaucratic oligarchy”, through to a parliamentary system in the 100 years prior to it. The revolution was a culmination of this progress combined with the dissipation of the rule of law, allowing opportunists to seize power.

These opportunists were radicals, in a state and kingdom where radicalism barely existed. They were empowered by earth-shattering events in other parts of Europe, especially the failing German war effort. Their numbers were bolstered by the demographic changes that swept parts of Bavaria during the war, specifically the arrival of tens of thousands of industrial workers who were employed at new factories near Munich and Nuremberg. Lastly, these opportunists managed to capitalize on the growing disaffection of Bavarians toward Berlin, and its centralization of power in the name of greater economic efficiency to support the war effort.

In the second chapter of this book, Mitchell introduces one of the main characters of this story, Marxist journalist and literary critic, Kurt Eisner. For three decades he contented himself with tossing witty bombs and lobbing irony-laden grenades at the establishment, especially the Prussian Aristocracy, in his writing. Somehow, he managed to become a revolutionary leader despite never having an actual following. Add this fact to the pile of surprises that characterized the revolution in Bavaria, which Mitchell describes as: “the first direct assault on the tradition of monarchy and, as such, removed the final restraint to revolution in Berlin.”

Enter Stage Left

Kurt Eisner never set foot in Bavaria until he was in his 40s. The son of a “modestly affluent Jewish shopkeeper” who “specialized in military accessories and decorations” and had a tony address on the Unter den Linden, Eisner was born in the German capital of Berlin in May of 1867. An attendee of elite schools throughout his early life, he ended up at Friedrich Wilhelm University studying Philosophy, only to drop out in order to begin a career in journalism (which Mitchell explains was due to the faltering financial situation of his father’s out-moded business). Mitchell on his writing:

His published writings, though scarcely known today, still comprise one of the wittiest and best informed commentaries on the public and political life of Wilhelmian Germany. Eisner's wit ranged from light satire to virtually unleavened irony……

This description suggests that Eisner would have been a good “shitposter”, in today’s parlance. The journalist-to-revolutionary pipeline is not an uncommon one; Benito Mussolini is one of the best examples of this professional trajectory.

Hired by the Frankfurter Zeitung in the 1890s, Eisner began to become attracted to the politics of the SPD (Social Democrat Party), something that he had shown scant interest in while living in Berlin. It was here that he finished his first book, a “study of the work and influence of Friedrich Nietzsche”. It’s important that we excerpt some of his thoughts on the notorious German philosopher because it illuminates his own political views at the time. Per Mitchell:

Above all, Eisner was sympathetic to Nietzsche's repudiation of the cultural mediocrity of the new German Reich, and to his rejection of the institutions whose primary function seemed to be the perpetuation of privilege: the parliaments, the press, the schools, and especially the universities—"these penitentiaries for bureaucrats are too confining for greatness." But in Eisner's view Nietzsche was a better poet than prophet:

"Everywhere he detects the weaknesses, the diseased places, with an uncanny perspicacity, but he errs in the discovery of causes, and he loses himself in magic witch-doctoring in his attempts to heal."

and

The congenital flaw of Nietzsche's philosophy, Eisner thought, was his "unreal vision of a master morality." Nietzsche was an egotist. His moral universe was all too neatly divided into two spheres: above, the select and superior few; below, the many, the masses, the "human worms." In this respect he shared something with Goethe, though Goethe's "healthy universality" contrasted with Nietzsche's chronic "illness of creative excitement."

Eisner and Nietzsche both found the Second Reich wanting, but for totally different reasons, as we can see here:

Purposely or not, Eisner observed, Nietzsche had emerged as a central figure in the cult of European decadence. His name was becoming a rallying-cry for an assortment of megalomaniacs, imperialists, free-traders, Social Darwinians, East-Elbian Junkers—for all those who claimed the right of the stronger. Eisner denied that Darwinian theories of biological evolution could be literally transposed to the field of public morality, and he accused Nietzsche of having given his name, perhaps unwittingly, to the apologists of social injustice. "The 'struggle for existence' is no justification for the oppression of the sick and the weak, nor is it a way to the superman."

Eisner’s worldview was therefore a moral one….one that required a social justice for the poor and the oppressed.

Eisner cited the fact that Nietzsche was an outspoken misogynist, a quirk which was probably "to be explained medically." He also regarded Nietzsche as an anti-Semite, contaminated with "racial fanaticism" by his sister and her husband.10 This, in turn, had led Nietzsche to oppose Socialism as "the consequence of the Semitic slave morality." Eisner regretted that Nietzsche hated Social Democracy without knowing anything of its positive goals and ideals. His own attitude and his case against Nietzsche were best summarized by a single phrase, when he called Nietzsche "the most dangerous and most seductive opponent of Social Democracy."

Even though both he and Nietzsche saw the Second Reich as lacking in greatness, what constituted “greatness” in their minds occupied two different poles.

Eisner’s term in Frankfurt was a short one, moving to nearby university town Marburg to take up a position with another publication. Mitchell says that it was his time spent in this town that saw him become a fervent disciple of Marxism, via a route leading from Immanuel Kant, and with the assistance of a professor named Hermann Cohen. This academic’s influence convinced Eisner that Kant’s ethics were compatible with the objectives of socialism.

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Previous Entry - Introduction

The collective meltdown experienced by US elites and tens of millions of Americans in the wake of Trump’s surprise 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton had the net effect of convincing many, many people that the USA (at least its constitutional order) was in an existential crisis. Fears of regime collapse and/or civil war breaking out became commonplace, with many (including readers at this Substack) still convinced that this could or will happen in the near future, seeing the USA as a crumbling polity politically, culturally, and so on.

The media-driven psychosis of the past almost-decade makes this view understandable, even if I disagree with these predictions of collapse. Constantly stoking the fire of extreme partisanship, the media has been very responsible for creating mountains of molehills, each one successively more existential in importance than those that preceded it. People have been left with a sense of continuous crises rocking their nation, with compromise all but impossible. When compromise is impossible, the door to brute force is opened. This was the story of 1930s Spain, where civil war was inevitable, and everyone could see the march towards it, helpless to stop it.

Michel Houellebecq once wrote: “anything can happen in life, especially nothing”. What he meant is that we humans are so self-obsessed, so wrapped up in ourselves and the story that we think that we are living in, that we are convinced that our lives will be filled by story-like narratives with their buildups, denouements, resolutions, and so on….except that it quite often doesn’t happen in that way. This is how I feel about the United States of America today, a country I view as incredibly resilient, with an elite that is very unified (and more distant than ever from its fellow non-elite Americans), and with economic and political power that is unrivalled, at least for now. Expectations do not always pan out.

Karl Marx had his own expectations, foremost among them that socialist revolution would break out in the most advanced capitalist countries first for the myriad of reasons he listed in his writings. He would have been shocked to have learned that it was backward Russia where revolution first took place, and where it first succeeded. Russia, a largely agrarian society only a little over two generations removed from feudalism, lacked the heavy industry of capitalism, and the large proletariat that was exploited by it, the cohort that would seize the means of production. The Russian Revolution was unexpected:

But October was not the revolution Karl Marx had had in mind. He expected oppressed factory workers to seize power in the wealthiest, most industrialized capitalist societies.

The point is: history throws up surprises all the time. The Russian Revolution was a surprise. So was the Bavarian one, the subject of this book club.

In this first chapter, Mitchell sets the scene for the revolution by looking at the previous 100 years of Bavarian history, including the four year long period known to us as The First World War. Mitchell opens up the chapter with a strong statement:

IT HAS usually been said of the 1918 revolution in Bavaria, as of the German revolution in general, that it was the result of a collapse rather than a seizure of power. There is no reason to resist this view except that it may provide an excuse to avoid the difficulties of locating the sources of revolution. Bavaria was no doubt suffering in November of 1918 from a temporary political insanity. But anarchy in itself does not explain the revolution unless one knows how a hiatus of public authority occurred, who was prepared to take advantage of it, and by what means a new order was imposed.

The Kingdom of Bavaria, that ‘rural, parochial, and predominantly Roman Catholic” autonomous state of the Second German Reich, was the least likely of all the larger German states to fall victim to a socialist revolution thanks to the following factors:

1. a lack of heavy industry/industrialization

2. little urbanization, meaning no significant proletarian population from which to draw from for the sake of revolution

3. less economic inequality than elsewhere in Germany

4. an absence of left-wing radicalism, whether in parliamentary chambers or through direct labour actions such as strikes

What happened in the late autumn of 1918 took everyone by surprise. Mitchell argues that this surprise was a culmination of the decades’ long series of reforms that saw Bavaria move away from monarchical rule towards parliamentarianism via mass politics, with a long period in between that saw the rule of a “ministerial and bureaucratic oligarchy”:

The revolution did terminate the monarchy, but more importantly it continued social and political developments already well advanced. For most of the century —excepting the three decades before 1848—the Bavarian monarchs were dominated by a ministerial and bureaucratic oligarchy. After 1890 a transition began toward the establishment of parliamentarianism. This was achieved in all but constitutional law by 1912. The revolution was to change the law and to secure a parliamentary system based on political parties. In this sense, far from being an aberration from tradition, the revolution came as a concluding episode in the accomplishment of reform.

All it took was a little opportunism from determined individuals who were well-organized and highly motivated. But we are jumping too far ahead.

Mitchell agrees that Bavaria was the least likely candidate for such a revolution to take place:

Measured by the usual standards of the nineteenth century, industrialization and urbanization, the state had experienced a remarkably lethargic development. Rural, parochial, and predominantly Roman Catholic, Bavaria seemed to offer an unlikely setting for political insurrection. Moreover, Social Democracy in Bavaria was the most moderate, the most outspokenly reformist representative of Socialism in all of Germany. It is virtually impossible, in fact, to locate anything which might properly be considered a radical movement in Bavaria before 1918. Yet Bavaria was the first of the German states to become a republic and the last to be released from the grip of radicalism.

It shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and it was the culmination of a decades’ long progression of reforms. Confusing, to say the least. Patience is required, as we are only at the beginning of this story.

The story of 19th century Bavaria is the story of transition. From the reactionary rule of Ludwig I (who viewed his ministers as “advisory, only”), to the “ministerial and bureaucratic oligarchy” that ran Bavaria under two insane kings (Ludwig II and Otto), through to the rise of the Catholic ‘Zentrum’ (Centre) Party, and the arrival of the Social Democrats (SPD), who, together, managed to introduce the kingdom to the era of Mass Politics, leading to almost-universal suffrage, while ending the rule of the oligarchs.

What we see in this timeline is an actual historical progression, albeit one that was both lagging behind much of the rest of Western and Central Europe, and one that was devoid of the radicalism present elsewhere. Bavarians were not revolutionaries, with Mitchell going as far as to characterize them as “outwardly docile” even during the First World War. Bavarians seemed content with their station, autonomous within the newly-founded Second German Reich, the result of the Prussian victory over the Habsurg Empire in 1866. Total independence for Bavaria was not a serious consideration per Mitchell: “The idea that Bavaria should organize a southern union as a third force in a confederated Germany never became a concerted policy or a serious alternative to Bismarckian unification.”

Bavaria as “special”:

The federal character of the Bismarckian settlement was something of a fiction—except for the maintenance of the state bureaucracy, whose function and personnel were scarcely affected by national unification. The special concessions granted to Bavaria, notably the state administration of beer and brandy taxes, assured the continuation of ministerial control in state policies.

……..

By 1870 Bavaria may have reached "the terminus of its history" as an autonomous state, but within its borders the conduct of government remained as before in the hands of "the combined ministers of state."

Business as usual for the Bavarian elites (and people).

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When an Anglosphere normie is asked what they think of Bavaria, their mind will automatically scroll through several images including: Oktoberfest, Lederhosen, and Nazis. Slightly savvier ones will have BMW and Audi come to mind, just like Adidas and Puma will for the athletic types and/or sports fans. Munich Re and Allianz will be the response of those familiar with the fascinating and totally-not-boring world of insurance.

Ask a European today about Bavaria, and they will mention all the companies listed above, but also will note just how wealthy this German state is. The median Euro will describe to you how Bavaria is very clean, orderly, humming with business, a centre of high tech, and a place where you are guaranteed a good standard of living. With an unemployment rate just above 3%1 and GDP per capita of €44,865, life is rather pleasant in the Free State of Bavaria.

source

On a per capita basis, Bavaria tops both its neighbour Baden-Württemberg and industrial powerhouse North Rhine-Westphalia. Germany’s largest and most southern state is an economic behemoth.

At the same time, Bavarians have the reputation for being conservative in both politics and culture. Unlike Cold War Hamburg or Weimar-era Berlin (two very liberal cities), the Bavarian capital Munich has never served as a magnet for libertinism, like those two cities. Politically under the control of the centre-right CSU (Christian Social Union of Bavaria, the sister party of the CDU/Christian Democratic Union in the rest of Germany), Bavarians like things the way they are, and do not like it when people rock the boat.

With this in mind, we are left asking ourselves this question: how did this very Catholic and ultra-conservative monarchy-within-a-larger-state fall to Bolshevism in the wake of the defeat of the Second Reich in WW2? It is this specific question that we will look to answer by reading through and discussing what we learn in Allan Mitchell’s 1965 book “Revolution in Bavaria, 1918-1919 - The Eisner Regime and the Soviet Republic”.

First of all, who was Allan Mitchell?

He was a specialist in Franco-German affairs, focusing on the period beginning with the revolutionary year of 1848, through to the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), the Second Reich and its continued rivalry with France, and all the way up to the initial post-WW2 period.

From two links above:

His academic qualifications were irreproachable: a BA, Phi Beta Kappa, from Davidson College; two MA degrees, one from Duke University in history, the other from Middlebury College in German; Fulbright years abroad in both Germany and France; a PhD in history from Harvard University. He was inspired at Harvard by William Langer, one of the foremost diplomatic historians of his time, and by the eminent intellectual historian H. Stuart Hughes. His PhD in hand (or in a file cabinet), Allan easily ascended the academic hierarchy: first at Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he remained for ten years, and then at the University of California at San Diego. Both Smith and California offered him opportunities for extended residence abroad, which, along with his previous extended stays, gave him a profound grasp of the languages and cultures of France and Germany. He could even read with ease old-fashioned German handwriting—a skill that even many native-born Germans lack today, but one that is crucial for dealing with nineteenth-century German archives.

Why This Book, Niccolo? Why?

There are many reasons. Allow me to explain at length:

The triumph of western liberalism over fascism in 1945 and communism in 1989 meant that liberals were the only victors left standing on the global stage by the last decade of the 20th century. This meant that they now had a monopoly on how we were to understand the history of the last 80 years or so thanks to their interpretations based on their worldview. With fascism being Enemy #1 and communism a close second, their historical narratives leave a lot to be desired as to how these two radical political forms came about, as liberal historians are often self-serving court historians, with their work serving the regime and its ideological underpinnings.

Ask a normie why Mussolini managed to seize power in Italy and they will struggle to formulate an answer. Ask another normie why the Spanish Falangists initially posed a threat to that country’s landlords and they won’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about. Fascism in the normie western mind is understood as people who hate others and want to destroy them by any means necessary. There is little desire to try and learn why such movements came about; they were always “just there”, even though we knew that they weren’t.

Take Germany for example where the normie timeline goes as follows:

1. Funny-helmet Germans go to war with Russia on the eastern front and with France and the UK on the western front

2. Germans lose

3. Treaty of Versailles carves up Germany, Germans mad

4. Weimar Republic founded, hyperinflation follows

5. Hitler launches a Beer Hall Putsch that fails

6. Weimar Germany is a wild party culture that produces so much great art

7. Great Depression happens, Nazis form government

There is quite a lot missing from this timeline, and we cannot blame the normie for failing to possess many important facts (and the nuances and contexts that come with them).

The most important piece missing in the mainstream narrative is just how close large parts of Europe came to being captured by radical Bolsheviks shortly after the end of the First World War. Inspired by the shock of the Soviet capture of Imperial Russia, communists in Berlin, Hungary, and Munich launched revolutions in which they were convinced were going to succeed. These successes and failures were bloody, and they showed to the world just how much these Reds meant business. These communists had the fervour and zeal of the convert reminiscent of the Medieval Era.

Bela Kun and his comrades seized power in Budapest and set up a Soviet regime over what was left of Hungary. The Spartacists attempted to do the same in Berlin, but failed. In Bavaria, the Reds had more success than their comrades in the German capital. One by one, major cities were falling to the Soviets, and Europeans were frightened, as the butchery, outrages, and crimes of the communists in Russia was by then well-publicized in the rest of Europe. The first “Red Scare” put the fear of God into those Europeans who were afraid that they would end up like the victims of communism in the East. The whole of Europe was on edge.

The threat of “Global Revolution” resulted in a reaction, always bloody, in which these communists were removed from power and often liquidated. The threat that they posed to order had people clamoring for someone to step in and clean up the mess that was left in the wake of the First World War. Democracy was seen by many as a luxury that could be ill-afforded in times of crisis. Reactionary elements stepped in to restore order and undo what was done by the communists. Some of these reactionary elements eventually became fascists.

I have mentioned how fascist elements in Europe are assumed to have been present all along, a view that is historically ignorant. Fascism was a product of its time. At the same time, many do not understand why Bolshevism was so appealing to so many Europeans at the time. In order for us to obtain the full picture, we must understand the forces that created both of these radical trends in European politics and governance. They did not appear in a vacuum.

We will delve into these matters as we proceed through the book. Suffice it to say for now, Marxists of various stripes, ranging from social democrats to Bolsheviks, saw how late 19th/early 20th century industrialization and rapid urbanization, combined with increasing levels of literacy and economic inequality, laid the groundwork for what came to be known as “mass politics”. They seized on this burgeoning constituency and captured large parts of it thanks to the dissatisfaction of these same masses with their material conditions. The ruling elites, often aristocratic, were distant, and view the masses as asses. In short, they ceded this new and growing constituency to the Marxists.

The reactionary politics that followed the First World War understood that the pre-war elites shot themselves in the foot by ceding these masses to reformist and/or revolutionary forces. Fascism was the vehicle in which the masses could be attracted to reactionary politics out of fear of or disgust with Bolshevism. The rise of Fascism was a belated recognition that the elitist politics of old were dead and buried, and then mass politics would rule the day.

I chose Mitchell’s book because the Bavarian Soviet Republic is a) lesser known than the Spartacist Revolt in Berlin (thanks to the cults of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht), and b) because it was much more successful than the attempt in Berlin. Beyond that, Bavaria quickly became the most reactionary state in Weimar Germany, seeing it bounce from one extreme to another. Even though the Spartacists failed in their putsch in Berlin, the German capital remained quite red until the Nazis entered government in 1933.

I also want to use this historical episode to highlight how events can spiral out of control when disasters such as the First World War happen (especially when you lose a war). At the same time, I want all of you to try and draw parallels with contemporary politics to see what matches, and just as importantly, what doesn’t. In this book, we’re going to see a breakdown in law, order, and society, with significant violence as a result. We are also going to witness how zealous individuals can change their world through cunning, bravery, planning, and above all else, opportunism.

Action breeds reaction. We cannot understand reaction without understanding what it is reacting to.

Note: We will dive in with a history of Bavaria from the 19th century through to the end of the First World War. I aim to have this entry up by Sunday this weekend as I have already compiled my notes.

I anticipate that we will have around 8 entries in this book club.

For those who cannot find a copy of the book but want to participate, I can lend you one.

For those wanting to participate, click the Subscription button here:

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Previous Entry - People Are Not Products

One of the things that I have learned to appreciate about Louise Perry is that she is self-aware and is not a humourless scold, a trait common to self-described feminists. We can see this in how she titles the conclusion of her book “Listen To Your Mother”. This indicates a high level of self-awareness in which she understands that the resolutions she proposes are much, much more difficult to implement in real life at scale than to write down on paper.

The final chapter of this book is a defense of the traditional institution of marriage, something that will get one immeidately labeled a conservative by most, a fascist by some:

From roughly the 1960s onwards, and across the Western world, it suddenly became much easier to get divorced, and people who had been legally trapped in hellish marriages were freed from them, which was a good thing. But then came the problem of normal distribution.

Louise lays out the case that the easing of divorce laws in the West greased the slope that allowing divorce in the first place created, resulting in the collapse of the marriage of institution this past half-century. Suffice it to say that freeing women from the threat of pregnancy via The Pill had much to do with this, as did the greater role that they took on in the workforce. Women were not just sexually and economically emancipated, they were also liberated from that staid institution (and ‘patriarchal mode of control’) known as marriage.

All of us know full well that children raised in broken homes are on a back foot when they enter adulthood. There is no need to rehash the studies and the stats contained within them. What I want to focus on in this last entry is the conflict between liberating philosophies such as liberalism vs. basic human biology:

And no wonder, since the logic of individualism collapses upon contact with motherhood. The pregnant woman’s frame contains two people, neither of them truly autonomous. The unborn baby depends on the mother for survival, and the mother cannot break this physical bond except through medical intervention that will result in the baby’s death. Even after birth, the mother–baby dyad remains a unit, tied together both emotionally and physically. And, for many years following birth, the young child cannot be understood as an autonomous individual because, without the devoted care of at least one adult, death is a certainty.

and this:

And that goal was not without merit, given that women are still too often consigned permanently to the role of ‘someone’ – always caring, never cared for. But the solution to this problem cannot be individualism, because the whole concept is based on a lie. In a natural human life cycle, we begin as dependent babies, spend a very brief period as relatively independent young adults, before caring for our own dependent children, and then ultimately ending our lives in what Shakespeare called our ‘second childishness’.

But before we get into that subject, Louise does us the service of providing feminist takes on raising children that would not serve the patriarchy:

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Previous Entry - Violence Is Not Love

Around six or seven years ago, I decided to take a trip by car from Split, Croatia all the way to Barcelona, Spain. This was during the month of June, so the weather was guaranteed to be quite pleasant along the Mediterranean and its hinterland.

I had driven down from Milan all the way to Split many times previously, so I raced through this leg of the journey in the opposite direction, choosing to stay overnight in Milan as it was roughly the halfway point of the trip. I had not booked a room in advance, so I found myself looking around for a hotel not too far off of the highway. I found myself in an industrial area to the southeast of the city, and I noticed something very, very odd in the distance: there were people standing on the side of the road, each one alone, but seemingly equidistant from the next.

“Wait a sec”, I thought to myself. “These must be those prostitutes that I’ve heard of before.”

As I turned down the road to investigate, I saw cars approaching slowly and methodically from the opposite direction. As I got closer, I saw that these people were indeed female prostitutes, and they were all Black. Completing one circumnavigation, I noted that they were all wearing very tight miniskirts, and they all had a small campfire in front of them to keep them warm (it was already well past midnight).

“Italian guys are the biggest dogs”, I laughed to myself as I sped off towards the nearby Holiday Inn.

There are an estimated 10,000 Nigerian prostitutes in Italy alone, making up anywhere between 60% and 70% of the overall supply in that country. Strictly controlled by the Nigerian Mafia, they are lured to Italy (and elsewhere, including South Africa) with the promise of well-paying service jobs as waitresses or maids before being forced into prostitution. Most of them come from Edo State in Nigeria’s south, a poor part of the country lacking the oil wealth of the East and the agricultural abundance of other states. Italy has imported a class of foreign prostitutes to sate the market demand for cheap and easy sex.

Commonly described as “the world’s oldest profession”, prostitution has stood the test of time to be a permanent feature of human civilization. It is this “profession”, that is the subject of the seventh chapter of Louise Perry’s book.

She opens this chapter by introducing us to a woman known as Josephine Butler who campaigned against the procurement of prostitutes in India by the British military for their soldiers (one of her many, many campaigns). I did not know this detail of British history, but it falls firmly within what we know about warfare and prostitution:

For British Army officials in the 1880s, for instance, the necessary link between prostitution and the colonial project was simply common sense. The vast numbers of British men stationed in India needed to be provided with prostitutes, and the authorities would rather not have an epidemic of venereal disease on their hands. Thus there was a procurement system put in place. A circular memorandum from the quartermaster general, dated 1886, decreed that ‘it is necessary to have a sufficient number of women [and] to take care that they are sufficiently attractive.’

To acquire these women – described in this same memorandum as ‘convenient arrangements’ – British officials would typically show up in Indian villages and flourish a government order for prostitutes. ‘The poor people are afraid to refuse or resist; their daughters are delivered up,’ reported one medical officer. These young women – many of them below the age of consent in Britain at the time – were bought for 3 rupees apiece and then kept effectively imprisoned in the army brothels.

Warfare and prostitution go hand-in-hand. It’s a tale as old as time.

The madams took their clothes away on arrival, leaving them with only a translucent gown that would be conspicuously scanty if they ever ventured out on the streets, making escape difficult. The girls were also controlled through economic coercion, since they were required to pay a daily fee for their lodging, and this fee was made deliberately higher than the tiny sums they were paid by punters, meaning that a prostitute accumulated debt the longer she ‘worked’, tying her to the brothel forever.

The economic coercion of a well-known strip club owner (he owned over a dozen at one point) in Canada. This man (belonging to my ethnic group) hit upon the idea of sending scouts to the former Eastern Bloc shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to find new talent for his first club. He imported strippers from some of these countries (most were from Romania or the Czech Republic). Upon arrival, he would take their passports and tell them that they would get them back once they earned him a set amount of money, something between $20,000 and $50,000 if my memory serves me correctly.

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