Clusterfuck 5th Century B.C. Greece: Keggers and Treachery in the Peloponnesus Part 1.

The year is 415 B.C, and Greek General, politician and statesmen, Alcibiades was standing on the docks overlooking what was to be his fleet to Syracuse in Sicily.   Nearly sixteen years earlier the geo-political situation in the Aegean had escalated to conflict after Athens capitalized from the decline of the Persian Empire after the Greco-Persian War (See: Madness? This is Sparta! And other primary sources). Athens had used Persia’s decline to encircle the Aegean with colonies and allies while draining coin rich Lydia of all it had.  This Delian League held its meetings on the island of Delos, where its treasury was also kept until Pericles flipped the 5^th century equivalent of the bird and took the money to Athens for “safekeeping.” This league was for all intensive purposes “the Athenian Empire.” This pissed the hell out of Sparta, known for well, being pissed off at things. In response they formed the Peloponnesian League, composed of Sparta and all of the people Sparta was pissed off at to a lesser degree. Sparta at this time was not as wealthy as Athens, but had organized their society around military superiority. Only about 20% of the population within Sparta were Spartiate, the rest were Helots, indentured slaves which young Spartan men were allowed to kill for fun and sport during the Crypteia. So Sparta was a bit like The Running Man.  They had the land forces; Athens had the sea power and trade.  In some ways it was a like France and England during the majority of their history, but this is a gross overgeneralization.

What's got no arms, and loves drinkin?

Of course, Alcibiades was thinking of none of this (especially that part about England and France, as they hadn’t been invented yet), as he was the most hung-over he’d ever been in his entire life.  He couldn’t quite put his finger on what had happened the night before, except a lot of pre-partying for the next day’s voyage.  The voyage to Sicily, which was his idea, was to aid Segesta in their war against their neighbor, Selinus.  While Selinus was neither an ally nor friend of Sparta, Segesta had brought the Athenians a lot of silver and a hastily scribbled note supposedly from the Selinites insulting each of the Athenians mothers.  Alcibiades pushed for a military expedition to aide Segesta, gain a foothold in Sicily, and thus bring the wealth and grain from Magna Graeca to Athens, which would surly bring victory to them.  His main opponent was, Nicias, a silver mogul who wanted a quick end to the war without over-extending the empire.  Nicias was especially critical of Alcibiades’ wanton ways: he was known for throwing some of Athens’ wilder parties, and being that guy at every party.  So the Athenian aristocracy decided that the best way for the force work was if they combined Nicias’ level-headed wisdom, wealth, no-desire to actually lead the expedition and complete lack of strategic ability with Alcibiades’ hot-headed alcoholism and strategic brilliance and Lamachus’ complete poverty but generally decent strategic ability.  Nicias had suggested that they increase the number of ships, not because he wanted the expedition to succeed, but because he planned on picking a number so high that it would make a loss an incredible risk.  However the Athenian aristocrats thought it was a great idea, just throw more people at the problem until the problem goes away.  Thus the original plan of only sending 50 ships (a far from risky number for Athenian defense), was raised to 100 ships, five thousand hoplites and thousands more auxiliaries. Athens had effectively placed the Three Stooges in charge of conquering Sicily with an army that was “too big to fail.”

It’s no wonder that Alcibiades had spent the evenings following the decision drinking himself into a coma.  And while he was cursing the gods for not creating sunglasses or aspirin on this particularly bright, sunny, Aegean day he was summoned to a meeting of the Athenian aristocrats (say it with me kids, Athens was NOT a democracy, power was in the hands of only the wealthiest men, i.e. those who could afford to not work).  Anyway, the reason for him being called back to meet instead of sailing to Sicily was due to sacrilege.  Sometime during the night someone had run through the streets of Athens and had knocked off the phalluses from the Hermai—well endowed statues of Hermes that were kept around the city for good luck. Alcibiades, having declared himself the Duke of Debauchery was immediately accused, and his opponents brought false witness against him.  Alcibiades was not charged that day, however, and was allowed to continue the expedition, as his enemies wanted the army and those who supported him out to sea when the charges were brought against him.  His hangover would continue into the next day when he was charged for partying a little too hard.

Word got to Larry, Curly and Moe that Segesta didn’t actually have the money the promised. But with all these ships and troops, they might as well go kill something.  However it was precisely the size of the force that kept the supposedly friendly cities of Southern Italy from granting aide, they were worried that Athens was there for their heads.  Because of this, drastic action was being discussed on the part of the generals. Nicias suggested making “a show of force.” Alcibiades thought maybe encouraging revolt in Sicily would be a good idea, while Lamachus said, “Fuck it, let’s just see how much damage we can do to Syracuse.” This discussion—hopefully in the form of a drinking contest—lasted until an Athenian ship arrived to arrest Alcibiades. Now that most of his friends were on boats next to him, his political enemies and problem non-drinkers were free to bring charges against him, convict him, and condemn him to death.  So Alcibiades did what anyone with a boat, hundreds of miles, from his enemies would do… get the hell out of Dodge.  This left the armada in the hands of Nicias, who as mentioned early was incompetent, rich, and above all others did NOT want to be there, and because the Athenians were expecting results, he chose to go for Syracuse. Alcibiades initial test invasion before his flight had put some fear into the Syracusans, but Nicias’ delay gave them time to restore strength and morale. The Athenians also lacked any cavalry, meaning that marching on the city would be impossible, as the Syracusan cavalry could easily out-flank the slow moving hoplite phalanx, and destroy all their infrastructural support, leaving the army to starve.  The Athenians however won a minor victory through deceit, by getting the Syracusan army to leave the city to meet an imaginary force they moved in under their nose.  Rather than take the city, Nicias signed a truce and because the army had no money, no cavalry, and dwindling supplies, left the campaign in a rather half-assed manner.

The war in Sicily continued in 414 B.C. with Nicias still at the helm.  After some minor victories with newly arrived cavalry, both Nicias and Lamachus had their own strategies, Nicias opting for slow encroachment of siege walls, Lamachus opting for outright killing everything in sight.  However both were plagued by their respective strategies. Perhaps due to long lethargic bouts, Nicias developed a kidney infection.  Lamachus died in battle after a failed surprise assault.  The Athenian force was now entirely under the command of a weak-willed silver mogul with a kidney infection who at that moment especially did not want to be there. Rather than continue building his walls, or intercepting supplies and men from the Peloponnesus, Nicias opted for a nap.  The Spartans raised an army and reinforced Syracuse. The Corinthians took his supplies. The well-rested Nicias asked to be recalled. Athens disagreed, and instead just sent more troops. Now the expedition that was too big to fail, now failed several times over, was even bigger and even more fail proof.  Meanwhile, Alcibiades had found a new party to crash in Sparta.

To Be Continued…

Clusterfuck 1914: Austria takes Three Left Turns in the Balkans

It is the end of June 1914, on a particularly hot summer in the Balkans as Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is given a parade-tour of Sarajevo.   His Gräf & Stift Convertible, the epitome of luxury in European motor carriages is left open, on account of the heat, as it pulls up to its first destination the barracks.  Ferdinand needed to check on the strength of his troops because their military control on the area was slipping.

Austria-Hungary during the 19^th Century was a massive territory stretching from Milan in the West to the Carpathians in the East, from Bohemia in the North to Kotor in the South.  It was a vast Empire made up of nearly two-dozen principalities held by the Habsburg Family.  The birth of the Austrian Empire and the growth of Habsburg power was intricately linked to Habsburg suzerainty over the Holy Roman Empire and after Napoleon’s obliteration of that clusterfuck (which will be detailed in future posts), Austria was left to expand into the retreating Ottoman Lands. As it expanded it met a varied landscape of high mountains, flat plains, and multitudes of different peoples who spoke vastly different languages to the German they were accustomed to, and many of who worshiped religious sects diametrically opposed to their own.  By 1914 the Empire contained Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ukrainians, Slovenes, Croats, Serbians, Romanians and Italians.  The Slavs among them were Orthodox Christian with a smattering of Sunni Islam thanks to the Muslim Turks. As you can clearly see the term varied does not do justice to the lands and people of the Austrian Empire.  After the rise of Nationalism, the Liberal Revolution of 1848, and the fact that the Habsburgs had spent the better half of the previous millennia interbreeding to the point that they had become the biological equivalent of walking tumors with big chins, it became apparent that this train wreck of an Empire was headed for ruin.  In 1867, after losing to Otto Von Bismarck and the rising Prussian state, the empire was forced to capitulate to intensifying tensions and create a shared system of government with the Hungarians: separate parliaments were ruled by one Habsburg from Vienna. The end of the 19^th century saw the Habsburg kings and queens grasping at straws to maintain stability and control over the rest of their lands, which was made more and more difficult by the fact that the interbreeding had given them the mental capacity of a turnip.  It didn’t help that Russian aspirations to wash their beards in warmer waters—especially those recently owned by the Sultan in Constantinople (renamed Istanbul in 1930)—meant that the smoldering desires of Pan-Slavism faced them at every wrong turn in the Balkans.

Back to 1914, Archduke Ferdinand was checking on the military barracks, there to ensure that his family could hold onto the primarily Slavic region of Bosnia-Herzegovina.  As it turns out the Habsburgs had learned nothing from the previous half-century and annexed the territory in 1908 after it escaped from under the Ottoman mantle.  And because Austria-Hungary had dreams of bringing more people into their already complicated empire, intense planning was being done in Vienna for the invasion of Serbia as well.  So it’s no wonder that as Archduke Ferdinand’s motorcade pulled out from the barracks he should’ve closed the carriage top, rolled up his windows, tucked his head between his legs, driven away from the city and taken a train back to Vienna. He was heading for a shitstorm of consequences.

Enter the Black Hand. Austria’s conquest of Bosnia was in direct conflict with the main tenant of Pan-Slavism: unification of all Slavic speaking peoples, the main goal of the Black Hand (a.ka. Unification or Death) was the violent overthrow of Austrian-Hungarian control of conquered South-Slavic territories.  On June 28,1914 they would instigate a chain of events that would bring this about (eventually). Six Assassins gathered along the parade route to ensure the Archduke’s death.  The first two assassins, Muhamed Mehmedbašić and Vaso Čubrilović failed to throw their bombs.  The third assassin, Nedeljko Čabrinović threw his bomb, however due to a combination of nerves, incompetence, the wind and awful fuses, the bomb rolled off the car, and exploded the car behind the Archduke’s, as well as maiming a dozen Bosnian passersby. Čabrinović attempted to escape by jumping in a shallow river, but was easily dragged out by policemen and an angry mob that quickly took care of him.  It was looking like Ferdinand’s luck day as the motorcade sped away and the remaining assassins couldn’t light their fuses in time.   It turns out turn of the century bomb technology wasn’t reliable or effective.  However, out of some piss poor advice from his PR guy, Archduke Ferdinand decided to visit the victims of the bomb blast that failed to kill him. This was after he visited the mayor and interrupted his speech with, “Excuse me, I was almost blown up by a fucking bomb today, oh, wait, you were still talking, my apologies, I must’ve been distracted by the BOMB!”

The Archduke had decided after being nearly exploded in a region hostile to his government and people that the best plan was to visit a hospital filled with people who blamed his very existence on why they were in the hospital in the first place.  This would’ve been seen as a brilliant move had he survived the afternoon.  At a nearby café, Gavrilo Princip—having the benefit of being the only assassin in this tale whose name is less than six syllables long— was waiting, pistol still on his person. He was having a particularly bitter day, as all of his compatriots had failed to execute the indestructible Ferdinand.  Though luckily for him this particular café had poor service, which though made him angrier, meant that upon his emergence, he would witness the Archduke’s relatively unprotected motorcade speed away (the soldiers at the barracks were not mobilized for Franz’s protection, as many were missing the proper formal uniforms). Now you may ask yourself, how was Gavrilo to catch up to this speeding car and deliver the final blow? Well luckily for him the driver was a complete dunce.  The drivers of the other cars had been informed of the route change, but somehow Franz’s had not. Thus when a wrong turn was made, Princip used the confusion to jump from the crowd and fire two shots, one landed in the Archduke’s neck, the other the Duchess Sophie’s abdomen. Had Princip fired higher, the Archduke’s distended Habsburg chin may have deflected the bullet allowing him to breed another day, but luckily for the gene pool, and unlucky for the Archduke, it didn’t happen that way.

The end result of this chaotic affair was that the Habsburg monarchy used it as an excuse to annex the independent Serbian state (where the majority of the assassins had come from.)  UDue to the 19^th Century policy of interlocking alliances the situation in the Balkans exploded across the continent as more and more European powers were brought into the fight.  Princip’s bullets contributed the quick tumble into the Great War; those two bullets killed 16 million people.

Hello World, I’m incredibly sorry.

Greeting Humanity, you’ve made a lot of piss poor decisions ever since you crawled out of your cave and decided to sit down and form a civilization.  So today I innagurate this blog to detail all of the little mistakes we’ve made since that day, some of these things may be easily recognized as great moments in stupidity, others may only be recognized as such as we go down the chain of clusterfuckery. So I hereby declare this blog open.

With that, I should mention that on this date in 1956, the Interstate Highway System (USA) was signed into law, thus completing the American dream not for reasons of economic and infrastructural well-being, but because Eisenhower was scared shitless of the Commies.  He needed a system wherein he could get tanks, jeeps and airplanes from one end of the coast to the other in case Red Dawn became a reality (incidently Red Dawn had begun its life as a documentary about the Interstate Highway System but was eventually re-written, ok, that’s a lie). So the backbone of our economy was created because of the Cold War. And what beter way to worship quintessential American Individualism than to drive yourself in your gas guzzler from one coast to the other.  However the creation of the Interstate Highway System wasn’t the clusterfuck, the clusterfuck has clearly been the rise of car culture and dependence on all forms of petrol, the extent of which we haven’t fully realized yet.