A Jester’s Fortune

Austria got mainland Venice and the city itself as a sop for the loss of Milan and Lombardy. France took Venetian Dalmatia and the Ionian Islands; a stretch from Hungarian Fiume at the Istrian Peninsula down as far south as Ragusa and Cattaro. In point of fact, after he'd dealt with Italians for over a year, Napoleon wrote that the Ionian Islands were his best bargain, and that all the rest of Italy wasn't worth the life of a single French grenadier!

The Directory in Paris was in its 'classical hero' mania, aping Rome and Greece, so they called their new conquests in the Balkans the II-lyrian Provinces, in the old Roman style. What Napoleon made of having to squat on all those termagant Croats, Serbs, Bosnians and such is not recorded. He sent engineers to build them some roads, but sooner or later they turned ungrateful, naturally. Good roads made it easier for enemies to trundle over and give their enemies a good bash-or vice versa.

There are no true, continual villains in the Balkans, the former Yugoslavia. Equally stupid would be to think that there are true, perpetual and long-suffering victims with clean hands deserving of sympathy, either. Allow me to recommend Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan, now in paperback (Vintage Press). It was there I found the tortures and unique methods of murder which Dragan Mlavic employed during his 'games.' Kaplan traveled the entire region, as well as Romania, Bulgaria, Moldovia, Macedonia, and Greece. Talleyrand, Metternich, Bismarck… they all called it 'the powder keg of Europe.' Still is, have you noticed? It was ruled in large part by every ethnic or religious contender at one time, its every potato-patch squabbled over by the descendants of somebody's umpteenth great-grandfather, back when 'we had an empire,' 'til those (fill in the blank) bastards come an' stole it! The peoples of the area have quite cheerfully despised their neighbours, time out of mind, and have delighted in taking a holy whack at 'em whenever they thought they could get away with it. And I doubt a millennium of U.N. overseeing, a thousand years of 'sweetness, light and Jeffersonian Democracy' lectures will change things. The only times the strife is at a low simmer is when they've been sat upon (rather brutally, too!) by a king who took as little guff as a Vlad the Impaler, Ottoman Turk generalissimos like Sultan Murad or his successor after Kossovo, the one known as Bayezit 'The Thunderer'-a Marshal Tito or a would-be Stalin.

In World War I, it was the Serbian Secret Service who arranged the assassination of the Austrian archduke and his wife at Sarajevo. They were rightly portrayed as villains and murderers. But, when the Serbs took the first invading Austro-Hungarian army apart like a rottweiler on a diet, they were then praised by the West as valiant, patriotic little heroes! Lately, they're villains again, neo-Nazi thugs resurrecting genocide to 'ethnically cleanse' every last potato-patch they could lay claim to by any stretch of the imagination.

But it's awfully easy to forget World War II, when the Serbs were Tito's partisans, lauded in the world press as hardy mountain and forest fighters (no matter many were inconveniently Communist), and the Croatian Ustashe gleefully hunted them down, as German auxiliaries, to 'kill a Commie-Serb for Christ' and eliminate all 'South Slavs' not of the Catholic faith. Awfully easy to forget, too, that Himmler bent a few of his own ethnic rules and enlisted (wonder of wonders!) Slavic Muslims. There were the 13th Gebirgs (mountain) Division 'Handschar,' and 23rd Gebirgsdivision 'Kama' made from Bosnians or Herzegovi- nians-as well as the 21st Division 'Skanderberg' (Albanische #1) of Albanian Muslim stock-in the Waffen SS! While never approaching the efficiency of an Auschwitz, the concentration camps in Yugoslavia exterminated more than their fair share of men, women and children from both sides-'just so they could go to heaven'-including Jews and Gypsies, and pretty much anybody else they didn't like.

It's been said the best thing might be to fence it in and let Ted Turner sell pay-per-view on CNN- Nightly Bang-Bang in place of Larry King. Or, call it Crossfire- and really, really mean it!

Napoleon's First Italian Campaign was a shock to the world, at that time, a rude violation of all the dearly cherished Rules of War. He did the impossible, like Hannibal, like Stonewall Jackson during his Shenandoah Valley campaign, or like Nathan Bedford Forrest… well, just about everywhere and anytime Forrest fought! No one had ever demanded messages back-and-forth to be dated and timed to the hour, massed guns in huge, death-dealing batteries, scattered his army over so many approaches to spread confusion and doubt to mask his intentions, then at the last moment concentrate, out-flank, out-march and, as my old ROTC instructors used to exhort, 'kick ass and take names.' Trapped between three or four or five attacking columns, Napoleon whirled to whip each in turn, then rout the lot. He was never beaten, because he would not admit he was beaten, and always found a way to punch back or exploit.

For a man who never really understood the sea (though he had at one time considered a naval career before obtaining entry to a French Army school), he knew that, could he retake his beloved Corsica, that would be it for the Royal Navy in the Med. With Spain in, and her Port Mahon in the Balearics denied Jervis, with Elba and Capraia tiny isles too far from succour and easily starved out, Jervis had no choice but to retire, ceding command of the seas. It was after the first of the year, in 1797, before Commodore Nelson successfully evacuated Capraia and Elba, after he'd convinced the muleheaded senior Army officer to obey Admiral Jervis s orders, and that-specific written orders to him from Horse Guards in London or not-it was 'time to trot.'

There is Felix Markham's elegant little study, Napoleon, for an overview, but I much prefer Napoleon by Vincent Cronin (HarperCollins) for more small details of the man, the people around him, and all the 'dish' of his personal life. Cronin shows us the boy, then the cadet; the young man, not that emperor-to-be frozen in stone; or, as Tom Hulce said as Mozart regarding tired old classical opera themes in Amadeus, not someone 'shitting marble.'

Napoleon really was 'bat-shit' for his 'incomparable' Josephine, truly unaware of her many affairs for many years, nor realising just how cold she really was. Her stay in the country, while Lieutenant Murat cooled his heels, was to recover from an abortion, so she wouldn't present Paul Barras of the Directory, or Lieutenant Hippolyte Charles, with embarrassment.

Poor bastard-Bonaparte never had a speck of luck with wives. I've had two, so I can sympathise. He never got the license plate from that coal truck that ran him over when it came to women. I've been sold too, of course- and turned down more times than a bed sheet, before, between, and after! Philosophically, we must trust that revered Southern sage of old-Gomer Pyle-who oft has said, 'Surprise, surprise!'

Admiral Jervis might have fared slightly better had he received the promised reenforcement from Admiral Mann-eight ships of the line plus attendant frigates. Mann dithered so long off Portugal that he'd eaten up most of his stores, then held a hand-wringing conference with his senior captains and decided it was too late in the year to stay on-station, Jervis likely didn't need him, his ships weren't tiptop any longer, his toes most likely hurt… so off he went for England, without telling anyone! Once there, he was ordered to strike his flag; and forget about being invited to dinner on Trafalgar Day, too, most-like! But it was too late to scrape up replacements and get them to the Med.

Jervis fell back on Gibraltar, but that base was top easy for a combined Franco-Spanish fleet to blockade, and he'd end up trapped and useless to anybody. He retired further, to Lisbon.

It's now dark days for England. Austria is out of the war, and the First Coalition is gone. Spain is allied with France. The French Navy is slowly getting better at its trade, ready for overseas adventures to retake lost islands and colonies. The Spanish weren't slouches, either, contrary to myth. Nor were the ever-able Dutch, who lurk in the North Sea or off the tip of Africa. There are rumours of insurrection in Ireland-more so than the usual festers, this time.

The Royal Navy will soon have woes of its own from the untold thousands of impressed seamen and new-come volunteers, who chafe under harsh conditions-low pay, poor food doled out niggardly by 'cheeseparing' pursers, and the brutal naval discipline from 'jumped-up' new officers in a fleet too quickly expanded and too hard-pressed to be so picky in selecting leaders. Mean t'say! They made Alan Lewrie a Commander, didn't they? Or might they be so desperate they'd jump him to post-rank? Oh, but surely…!

So, here's our hero Lewrie, in the tail of '96, just a tad bit older, perhaps only a wee iota wiser. He's fallen off the waggon with the entrancing, lovely and exotic Mrs. Theoni Kavaras Connor (and what real man wouldn't, I ask you?), in spite of his vow to almost, but not quite not, again. What portends from this amour, how long will he or she last- and will it end in heartbreak as Lucy predicted (spiteful baggage!)? Is there unfinished business between them? Will Sir Malcolm Shockley praise him in Commons; or will Lucy have a say about that, too? Will Toulon slaughter wee little Whiskers one dark night?

Will Commander Fillebrowne be gulled over those bronzes? Will Clotworthy Chute show us a clean pair of heels