Warm and Witty Side of Attila the Hun (2 page)

And the places of death. Battlefields, such as Hastings and Waterloo, already mentioned: Saratoga, 1777; my ancestral village, Sackets (sic) Harbor, 1812; Leipzig, 1813; and the camps,
the concentration camps, Dachau, Buchenwald,
Sachsenhausen
...

My point is this: things happen, interesting things, terrible things, wonderful things, and they are all interesting, important things that have had impacts upon the lives of all of us. It is this that I find
makes the study of History endlessly fascinating. I have been a teacher of History for forty years and a student of History for fifty years, and shall continue to be one until the day I die. In the course of my studies I have come
across many stories which for one reason or another impressed themselves upon my memory,
and as a teacher I have used many of them in the classroom, in high school and college both, to make points, illustrate ideas, and simply to amuse my students. These random anecdotal memories form the basis of this little book. In it the reader will find stories arranged somewhat
topically but in no particular order. The reader will not find a bibliography, references, citations,
or anything indicating the sources of these stories because, quite frankly, I never bothered to write anything of that sort down. I did have to look a few things up, such as the name of the recently deceased last survivor of the 1915 Christmas Truce ... I mean, who would remember something like that?... but by and large all of this is from memory, bolstered by decades of
repetition.

I once had a student ask me point blank and in all seriousness, "Do you really know all this stuff, or are you just making it up?" Delightful question, and unwittingly flattering. There is
no need for any serious teacher of History to make up any unbelievable stories, because so much of it is unbelievable in the first place. I mean, really, think about it: if the story of Henry VIII and his six wives hadn't actually happened, for example, would anyone believe it? Is there any drama
more intense than the story of Cleopatra, Caesar, Antony, and Octavian? (Heck, the entire story of the Julio-
Claudian
dynasty reads like one long soap opera!) And if Shakespeare had known the details of the life of his two-thousand-mile-away contemporary Ivan the Terrible, my God, what a tragic drama he could have written! (Speaking of which, let us not forget that
Macbeth
is based on a true story.)

There is no particular order to these anecdotes (except that I tried to adhere to chronology with the presidents), and no claim is made to comprehensiveness or, for that matter, importance. This is simply a collection of things I have come across over the years, things that I remembered,
things with which I amused, horrified, and intrigued my students, nothing more, nothing less. Think of it as the mental junkyard of an aging History teacher.

If the reader is constrained by the chains of political correctness, please be forewarned that the writer is not. There may be material here that some people will find offensive. I don't
care. Other readers may recognize some of these stories and may object to inaccuracies or distortions. I don't care about that either. This is something of an eclectic and eccentric
reminiscence, not an academic work.

In the pages that follow the reader will find stories about kings and queens, presidents
and dictators, personalities light and dark, events amusing and horrible. There are no funny stories about Attila the Hun, by the way. But there are a few real rib-ticklers about Hitler.

J.S.

P.S. If you notice that the same figure appears in each of the illustrations, rest assured that this is not your imagination. My dear wife is the illustrator, and she likes to use live models for her sketches. Therefore, the ubiquitous figure is me. Or is I. Whatever.

The rituals of court propriety in
England
were very strict in the 16
^th
century. Thus it was
that a member of the gentry named Guy de
Vere
committed an unpardonable
faux pas.
He was presented to Queen Elizabeth I, and as he performed the required deep and elaborate bow, he emitted a loud effusion of intestinal gas. Overcome with shame, he went into voluntary self-
imposed exile for many years. After a suitable length of time had passed, he returned to
England
and resumed his life. When, many years later, he was once again presented at court, his
presentation and bow went smoothly and without incident.

Until Queen Elizabeth regarded him with sudden recognition and said, “My lord, I had forgot the fart!”

 

Court propriety was just as strict and unforgiving at the court of the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs. One had
to be properly dressed at all times. The nobles could be counted upon to observe this requirement
without regulation, as could members of the military who were uniformed, but to prevent commoners from dressing improperly it had become mandatory that whenever a common man was in the presence of the Emperor he had to wear a frock coat, which in German is called a
Frak
.
(A frock coat was popular among gentlemen in the late 19
^th
and early 20
^th
centuries. It was
a lengthy garment which extended down to the knees.)

In 1916, as the Great War was raging, the aged Emperor Franz Josef was dying. This penultimate Austro-Hungarian emperor had been on the throne since 1848, and his days were
understandably numbered. Early in the morning of November 20, 1916, the court physician was roused from sleep and was told that the Emperor was having difficulty breathing. Throwing on a shirt and some trousers, the doctor rushed to the Emperor's soon-to-be death bed and was able by
his ministrations to ease the old man's respiration. The Emperor was able to take a few deep
breaths and then crooked his finger weakly to summon the doctor closer. The doctor inclined his
ear over the old man's mouth so as to be able to hear his words; whereupon Franz Josef took
another deep breath and then shouted,
"FRAK!"

 

The Roman emperor Vespasian was married to beautiful and vivacious woman named
Flavia
. It came as a surprise when he announced his intention to divorce her. One of his friends, who felt secure enough in their friendship to be allowed to raise so delicate a subject, asked him why he would wish to separate from such a desirable woman.

Vespasian pointed at his sandals and asked, "What are my sandals made of?"

His friend glanced down. "Gold. "

"Beautiful, are they not?"

"Very."

"But you do not know where they pinch my feet. I do."

 

The Greek philosopher Diogenes was unimpressed by wealth, power, or fame. Thus it
was that Alexander the Great, who succeeded his father Philip as ruler of
Greece
, desired to meet this man and attempt to draw him into friendship. Diogenes was sunning himself when
Alexander approached him and offered him anything he might want, anything at all. Diogenes thought for a moment and then said, “Please step aside. You are blocking t
he sun.”

 

A statement
(Warning ... not funny ...)
attributed to the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan: "There are four things that bestow happiness: killing one's enemies, torturing their sons, raping their daughters, and making their widows weep."

 

The vagaries of languages often alter the meaning of words over time, occasionally with
interesting results. When King James II of Great Britain and Ireland first beheld architect
Christopher Wren's masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral in London, he pronounced it "awful,
artificial, and amusing," which today would be regarded as derogatory remarks. But in the 17
^l
century "awful" meant awe-inspiring, "artificial" meant "displaying artistic skill," and "amusing" meant "bestowing pleasure." Big difference.

 

Vlad III (1431-1476) was
voivode
(prince) of the Romanian
province
of
Wallachia
from 1456 to 1462, and again briefly in 1476. He is known in his homeland as
Vlad
Tsepes
,
"Vlad the
Impaler
," because his favorite means of executing criminals and enemies was impalement, i.e., driving a long sharpened wooden stake through the body and then leaving the miscreant to
writhe in agony until death mercifully dispatched him. He is better known in the West as "the son
of the dragon." Dracula.

Dracula had a reputation for sadistic brutality, which, given the sadistic brutality
ubiquitous in 15
^th
century Eastern Europe, speaks volumes. His most infamous act was the
impalement of 20,000 rebels and captive enemies, though other stories that illustrate his nature have survived the passage of the centuries as well. (When Turkish envoys, devout Muslims all,
refused to remove their hats in his presence, for example, he had their hats nailed to their heads.)

He was killed in battle in 1476, and his head was sent to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. His
remains were eventually interred in a sarcophagus in the crypt of
Snagov
monastery on an island
in the Danube near Bucharest.

When the Irish novelist Bram Stoker was looking for a sinister character from medieval Eastern Europe upon whom to base a vampire, Dracula was a logical choice. Was he a vampire? Of course not.

It should be noted, however, that when in the 20
^th
century archeologists opened Dracula's sarcophagus in the
Snagov
monastery crypt, it was empty of human remains, containing instead only the bones of an animal identified as a wolf.

 

The degree of darkness of the so-called “Dark Ages” (476 – 800 A.D.) has been exaggerated for dramatic purposes in film and print; but it really was pretty dark. For example:

On Christmas Day in the year 800, Charlemagne, King of the Franks was crowned (Holy) Roman Emperor by the pope. He was the ruler of what is now France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, about 2/3s of Italy and a chunk of Spain. He was fluent in five languages.

He was also totally illiterate!

When he decided to build a cathedral in Aachen, his capital city (which is in Germany, adjacent to the Dutch and Belgian borders), he had to send all the way to Constantinople to find an architect; and when he decided to start a school in that cathedral to educate his nascent imperial bureaucracy, he had to send all the way to England to find a teacher, namely Alcuin of York. A dark age it was indeed.

 

Quite well known is the comment attributed to Louis XIV of
France
, the paradigm of the absolute monarch:
"L '
etat
, c '
est
moi
,"
I am the state. Less well known, but perhaps more circumspective, is the statement made by his successor, Louis XV, whose own successor, Louis XVI, was beheaded by the French Revolution:
"Après
moi
, le
déluge
,"
said Louis XV. After me, the flood.

 

Frederick I (the Great) of
Prussia
had a very low opinion of humanity in general and his
own relatives in particular. This can be seen in the fact that in his will he ordered that rather than being interred with his forbearers as would befit a great king of the Hohenzollern dynasty, his
remains were to be buried with those of his dogs. His wishes were ignored, of course. He is buried on the grounds of
San Souci
, his palace in the
Berlin
suburb of
Potsdam
.

 

Louis XVI was known for neither his intelligence, his perspicacity, nor his sense of
humor—on July 14, 1789, the day when the storming of the Bastille inaugurated the FrenchRevolution that eventually cost him his throne and his head, his diary entry read, "Went hunting.
Shot three grouse"—but even he had his moments.

In late 1776 Benjamin Franklin departed for Paris as special emissary of the Continental Congress, with orders to do whatever was necessary to secure an alliance with France. This Louis was unwilling to do, at least until the American victory at Saratoga in October
of 1777 convinced him that we might actually be able to win, with his help. But until late 1777, he would not even meet with Franklin.

Everyone else of consequence in France was not so reticent. Franklin, it must be
remembered, was a major international figure, second only to Voltaire as an embodiment of the
Enlightenment in the minds of many Europeans. Inventor of the Franklin stove, the bifocal eyeglasses, and the
harmonicum
(which was not the same thing as the harmonica, by the way), the scientist who identified lightening as electricity and tamed it with the lightening rod, the publisher
of Poor Richard's Almanac
who contributed to Diderot's
Encyclopedia,
creator of the first public library system, the backwoods philosopher right out of Rousseau's image of the unspoiled natural nobleman uncorrupted by civilization, etc., etc., etc. France loved him. King
Louis XVI had not met him, but could not stand him.