A First Draft of History: Week of Feb. 6 – 13
here are a few important events from this week in history:
1689 – William of Orange and his wife Mary were proclaimed joint sovereigns of Great Britain, the culmination of the so-called “Glorious Revolution.”
William, a Dutch prince, married Mary, the daughter of the future King James II, in 1677. After the Catholic James took the English throne in 1685, the Protestant William kept in close contact with the king’s opponents. After the birth of an heir to James in 1688, seven high-ranking members of Parliament invited William and Mary to England. Essentially, they invited William to invade, promising him he’d encounter no opposition. Needless to say, they didn’t inform King James of this plot. William landed in Devonshire with an army of 15,000 men and advanced to London, James went out to confront him, only to have his entire army desert him. James himself was allowed to escape to France – in that sense he was more fortunate than his predecessor King Charles, whose beheading we commemorated last week - and in February 1689 Parliament offered the crown jointly to William and Mary, provided they accept a Bill of Rights. And this was the key point – with the Glorious Revolution, the idea that kings derive their authority from God alone finally died in England. After all, it was obvious that Parliament, not God, gave William and Mary their authority. And, since Parliament chose the king, it wasn’t a far step to assume that Parliament could also regulate the king’s power. And that’s exactly what the Bill of Rights did.
The Bill of Rights, which greatly limited royal power and broadened constitutional law, granted Parliament control of finances and the army and regulated the future line of royal succession. In particular, it declared that no Roman Catholic would ever be sovereign of England. Interestingly, a Jew or a Muslim or anyone else could theoretically be king, just not a Catholic. That law was finally overturned just last year. The Bill of Rights also stated that Englishmen possessed certain inviolable civil and political rights, a political concept that was a major influence in the composition of the U.S. Bill of Rights almost exactly a century later. In that sense there’s a clear line of development from the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Bill of Rights almost half a millennium later.
The Glorious Revolution, the ascension of William and Mary, and the acceptance of the Bill of Rights ended a tumultuous period in British history that began with the struggles between Parliament and King James I, witnessed a Civil War and the beheading of King Charles I, the dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, and finally the overthrow of James II and his replacement by William and Mary. When the dust finally settled, Parliament had emerged victorious in its long struggle against the crown.
1904 – The Russo-Japanese War, a conflict that in many respects anticipated the far larger and deadlier conflicts of the 20th century, erupted. Following the Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launched a surprise naval attack against Port Arthur, a Russian naval base in China. The Russian fleet was decimated.
During the subsequent War, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians, who underestimated the military potential of their non-Western opponent. In January 1905, Port Arthur fell to Japanese naval forces under Admiral Togo; in March, Russian troops were defeated at Shenyang, China; and in May, the Russian Baltic fleet was destroyed by Togo near the Tsushima Islands.
These three major defeats convinced Russia that further resistance against Japan's imperial designs for East Asia was hopeless, and in August 1905 U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt mediated a peace treaty at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (He was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for this achievement.) The Russo-Japanese War is largely forgotten these days, no doubt in part because it is overshadowed by the two World Wars that followed it, but it laid the groundwork for some of the most important developments of the 20th century. First, it marked Japan’s emergence as the first modern, non-Western world power that could keep up with the US and Europe in terms of industry, technology, and military might. Victory against Russia emboldened Japan and set it on a path of imperial conquest that would eventually lead all the way to Pearl Harbor. On the other hand, for Russia, being beaten by Japan was a major humiliation. In fact, it was so upsetting and demoralizing for Russians that it helped pave the way for the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the eventual overthrow of the czar.
1945 – On this week in 1945, on the evening of February 13, 1945, hundreds of British bombers loaded with incendiaries and high-explosive bombs descended on Dresden, a historic city located in eastern Germany. Less than 48 hours later, the city was a smoldering ruin with an unknown number of civilians--somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000—dead in the rubble.
By February 1945, the Allied forces were closing in on Nazi Germany. In the west, Hitler's desperate counteroffensive against the Allies in Belgium's Ardennes forest had ended in total failure. In the east, the Soviets had captured East Prussia and reached the Oder River –less than 50 miles from Berlin. The German air force, the Luftwaffe, had been largely destroyed, allowing the Allies to rule the skies over Europe, and to drop thousands of tons of bombs on Germany every day. By this time, the idea of precision bombing had been more-or-less abandoned; the Allies bombed everything, civilian areas as well as military targets, seeking to break the will of the German people. This strategy was known as "area" or "saturation" bombing. Before the development of the atomic bomb, cities were most effectively destroyed through the use of incendiary bombs that caused fierce fires in the enemy cities. Such attacks, Allied command reasoned, would ravage the German economy, break the morale of the German people, and force an early surrender.
The desire for revenge factored into the Allies’ decision. Germany was the first to employ area bombing tactics during its assault on Poland in September 1939 and during the Battle of Britain, in 1940. The British were especially eager to avenge raids the Germans had launched against London and Coventry in 1942.
Very few people in the Allied countries had qualms about the mass slaughter of enemy civilians through air raids, but even so, what happened in Dresden was so awful that it elicited condemnation among a few people at the time and many more in subsequent decades. Before World War II, Dresden was known as "the Florence of the Elbe" and was regarded as one the world's most beautiful cities for its architecture and museums. Dresden's contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities. It was neither a war production city nor a major industrial center, and before the massive air raid of February 1945 it had not suffered a major Allied attack. Furthermore, by February, 1945, the city was packed with refugees fleeing the Russian advance in the east. And it was virtually undefended, since Hitler had decided to concentrate his remaining forces around Berlin.
All these factors meant that there was no real reason for the Allies to bomb Dresden.
Nonetheless, on the night of February 13, hundreds of RAF bombers descended on the city in two waves, dropping their bombs indiscriminately over the city. The city's air defenses were so weak that only six bombers were shot down. By the morning, some 800 British bombers had dropped 1,478 tons of high-explosive bombs and 1,182 tons of incendiaries on Dresden, creating a great firestorm that destroyed most of the city.
Later that day, as survivors made their way out of the smoldering ruins, over 300 U.S. bombers began striking the railways, bridges, and transportation facilities, killing thousands more. On February 15, another 200 U.S. bombers continued their assault on the city's infrastructure. All told, the bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force dropped 954 tons of high-explosive bombs and 294 tons of incendiaries on Dresden. Later, the Eighth Air Force would drop 2,800 more tons of bombs on Dresden in three other attacks before the war's end.
The Allies claimed that by bombing Dresden, they were disrupting important lines of communication. There may be some truth to this, but there is no disputing that the British incendiary attack on the night of February 13-14 in particular was conducted also, if not primarily, for the purpose of terrorizing the German population.
Because there were an unknown number of refugees in Dresden at the time of the Allied attack, it is impossible to know exactly how many civilians perished. After the war, investigators from various countries, and with varying political motives, calculated the number of civilians killed to be as little as 8,000 to more than 200,000. Estimates today range from 35,000 to 135,000. Looking at photographs of Dresden after the attack, in which the few buildings still standing are completely gutted, it seems impossible that only 35,000 of the million or so people in Dresden that night were killed. Cellars and other shelters would have been meager protection against a firestorm that blew poisonous air heated to hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit across the city at hurricane-like speeds.
At the end of the war, Dresden was so badly damaged that the city was basically leveled. A handful of historic buildings--the Zwinger Palace, the Dresden State Opera House, and several fine churches--were carefully reconstructed out of the rubble, but the rest of the city was rebuilt from virtually nothing.
2011 - And lastly, on a happier note, on this week in 2011, a news radio show began gracing the airwaves of NC’s Outer Banks. With its robust commitment to research, its winning blend of sentimentality and satire, and its unwavering devotion to the truth, the show quickly grew, and now attracts listeners from across the country and around the world.
International News:
The Greek parliament approved a deeply unpopular austerity bill to secure a second EU/IMF bailout – this one valued at about 130 billion euros - and avoid national bankruptcy, as protestors set fire to buildings across central Athens and violence spread around the country. If only the Greeks were as energetic at working as they are at rioting.
Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens as protesters fought riot police outside parliament.
State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Shops were looted in the capital where police said 34 buildings were ablaze.
The package parliament agreed to demands deep pay, pension and job cuts, all part of an effort to borrow enough money to maintain Greece's place in the European mainstream.
National News:
Another week, another round of contests in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. I hope this thing wraps up quickly, because frankly I’m running out of metaphors to describe it. I’ve already referred to it as a heavyweight bout, a reality show, and a war of attrition. I suppose I could just reuse some metaphors, but I know you all expect more than that from this show. I may have to resort to recycling though, because if this week’s results are anything to go by, the contest is far from over.
Four states held their caucuses this week, and although Mitt Romney won one – the contest in Maine – he lost badly in the other three, in all three cases, to Rick Santorum. In Minnesota, Santorum took 45% of the vote. Ron Paul came in 2nd with 27%, while Romney was 3rd with 17% (and that was despite the fact that former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has been one of his biggest supporters). In Colorado, Santorum won 40%, while Romney won 35%. In Missouri, Santorum was again the winner by a wide margin. So, Romney had just one win, and even in Maine, he barely eked out a victory, that time over Ron Paul. Now, the Romney camp was quick to point out no delegates were awarded in the contests, because the caucus results in each state are not binding on the delegates who will eventually vote at the convention. Still, the results punctured the aura of inevitability Romney has been trying to cultivate. The campaigns are now focusing their efforts on Arizona and Michigan--two contests that will award a collective 59 delegates on Feb. 28—as well as Super Tuesday on Mar. 6, when 10 states will vote.
This week’s results raise two questions – basically the key questions people have been asking throughout the primary campaign: First, given the consensus that Romney is the front-runner, who’s the alternative: Gingrich or Santorum? Santorum of course took the lead after Iowa, Gingrich surged after S.C., but now it once again looks like Santorum has seized the mantle of the anti-Romney candidate. Will he continue to hold that position, or is Gingrich going to make another run? At some level, I imagine Romney hopes both men stay in the race so that they keep splitting the anti-Romney vote. And this leads to the second question: Can Romney win over the conservative base of the Republican Party? Each time it seems like the party might finally get in line behind the front-runner, we have another set of results like this week’s. When, if ever, will the base decide that beating Obama is more important than ideological purity and get behind Romney? Well, although the caucuses can’t have been encouraging for Romney this week, he did get some good news – his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this week was very well received by attendees, and in fact he won the straw poll at the conference. We’ll see what twists and turns this week brings.
One other national story this week, and it’s a story with very interesting implications for the meaning of the First Amendment and the reach of government power. You may recall that awhile back there was a big to-do over the new health care law President Obama and Democrats pushed through Congress. One provision of this new law is that employers are now required to provide free contraception for female employees as part of their health insurance. If you’re wondering why, it’s one of the inalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty, and birth control. The health care law as a whole has been very controversial, but this provision has been especially so because many organizations have religious objections to contraception. It’s worth stressing that the law doesn’t just say that employees must be allowed to use contraception, it says that the employers actually have to pay for it. Forcing someone to actively participate in something that violates his or her religious principles looks to many people like a pretty blatant violation of the First Amendment. And, incidentally, if you’re wondering why anyone would have a religious objection to contraception, it’s basically a matter of Aristotelian philosophy as applied by St. Thomas Aquinas.
The requirement that employers must offer free access to contraception for female employees exempts employers, like churches, whose main purpose is to inculcate religious values and that primarily employ and serve people who share those values. But the exemption does not cover religious schools, colleges, and hospitals. A number of colleges, including Belmont Abbey here in NC, have complained about or filed suit over the policy.
In the face of these objections – and it’s worth noting that many Democrats have also spoken out against the law, including Tom Kaine, the recent chairman of the Democratic National Committee – President Obama announced on Friday a new policy. Under this plan, women who work for religious organizations that object to contraception will still receive free contraceptive coverage, but the employers will not be required to pay for or provide referrals to that service. Instead, insurance companies will be required to provide the coverage free of charge.
Some hailed this as a satisfactory compromise, but others were not convinced. First, for some, there’s the troubling precedent of the government compelling private companies to provide specific services free of charge. Frankly, I think the administration’s next step should be to compel Krispy Kreme to give away their donuts free of charge, since they are essential to my happiness and flourishing. There’s also a problem in that many religious organizations are self-insured, so what are they supposed to do? Others view this plan as basically an accounting trick. The plan says insurance companies will have to provide the coverage for free, but numerous commentators have pointed out that insurance companies don’t give away anything for free – they’ll simply raise their premiums, and the employers will still end up paying for the contraception. The government’s argument here is basically analogous to its argument that it doesn’t fund abortions. It gives money to Planned Parenthood, for example, but stipulates that they money can’t be used for abortions. But every dollar it gives for cancer screening or whatever else frees up a dollar of Planned Parenthood’s own money, which then can fund abortions. In other words, if I do three things – A, B, and C – the more money you give me for A and B, the more of my own money I have for C. Whether or not you say that your money can go to task C is irrelevant. One might make the argument that it’s fine for the government to fund abortions, but it’s disingenuous to say that isn’t happening. Similarly, one could argue that it’s fine for the government to compel religious groups to purchase contraceptives, but we shouldn’t pretend that this bill wouldn’t do that.
This whole episode has raised grave fears among religious groups, and fans of the Constitution, who feel that the government has greatly overstepped its authority and has trampled on the First Amendment. It has also raised questions about the tactics of the Obama administration. One theory is that the administration was simply inept in how it handled this issue – in pandering to the far left of the Democratic Party it simply failed to anticipate how religious groups would react, leading it ultimately to this embarrassing retreat. But there’s another theory that in fact the administration was very cunning throughout this episode. By proposing an extreme measure first, it was then able to propose a measure that it still extreme but that seems moderate by comparison, in the process painting its opponents as the unreasonable ones for their unwillingness to accept the compromise. It’s like if I insisted that WOVV broadcast my show twelve hours a day, and when the station refused I said, ok, just give me six hours a day. When the station refused that too I could say, wait a minute, I’m willing to compromise, why aren’t you? Of course I don’t know whether the administration is inept or cunning, or a bit of both, but when challenges to fundamental constitutional liberties arise, it behooves us all to take note.
State News:
The University of North Carolina Board of Governors on Friday passed President Tom Ross's recommended tuition hike plan that will raise fees by an average of 8.8 percent on UNC system campuses for the 2012-13 school year.
The recommended plan will now go before state lawmakers for final approval. If adopted, tuition and fees will increase by more than $400 on average for the 16 UNC system campuses.
About 75 students protested both inside the BOG meeting and in the lobby of the UNC General Administration Building Friday while board members considered the increases.
Of course nobody likes to hear about rising tuition, but we should try to keep these increases in perspective. Tuition and fees at UNC for NC residents is around $7000/yr. Tuition and fees at Duke is over $40,000/yr. At Davidson, it’s about $39,000. At Meredith, it’s about $29,000. So, public colleges and universities in NC are still far, far less expensive than their private counterparts. You could go to UNC for four years for about the cost of one semester at Duke. And in fact UNC is also significantly less expensive than public schools in other states, like the University of Virginia or the University of South Carolina. Students in the UNC system will still be paying very little relatively for their educations. The problem is that when people are used to paying artificially low prices for services, they come to think of those prices as their God-given right and they become very resentful of attempts to raise them to more reasonable levels. It’s like the whole big debate here over…well…actually I can’t think of any other examples off the top of my head, but you know what I mean.
It’s also worth noting that the cost increases President Tom Ross recommended are well below what some campus leaders said they needed and will make up just 17 percent of the $414 million cut by state legislators last year.
Local News:
And speaking of money, and resentment, and general unhappiness, here’s a piece of local news this week: a group called the Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court asking a judge to halt the implementation of the new rules recently announced by the National Park Service governing the use of off-road vehicles.
The group says the new rules on beach driving along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, including permit fees for the activity will damage the culture and tourism of the area. Apparently this group operates with a rather expansive definition of “culture.”
A coalition of environmentalist groups, including Audubon North Carolina, Defenders of Wildlife and the Southern Environmental Law Center, though, said the lawsuit is off-base, since it protests the results of a process that the Preservation Alliance itself participated in.
This lawsuit by the Preservation Alliance says the Park Service ignored data and views that undermined the case against stricter regulations of beach driving. The environmental groups say any lawsuit is premature, since the rules were only announced last month and haven't had time to work.
The park service adopted the rules after a long process aimed at providing protection to populations of sea turtles and birds on the seashore.
So, we’ll see if the Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance succeeds in its lawsuit. If not, they could always try printing a bunch of bumper stickers, maybe something with an obscene gesture, or something like that. That’s always a great way to make one’s point.
Andrew Stern is, among other things, an historian, an Ocracoke resident, and a board member at Ocracoke’s community radio station, WOVV 90.1FM where you can hear his weekly broadcast of “A First Draft of History” every Monday morning at 9am.
