It was the 15th generation Tokugawa Shogun who finally abdicated in 1867, ending over 250 years of Tokugawa reign. Ieyasu’s descendants still live in Tokyo to this day, and are something of a respected curiosity to Japanese people, occasionally getting written up in the newspaper.
That is something, is it not? To both build a system of government that can endure for over 250 years – and only ending with a massive foreign intervention and completely unknown disruptive technologies emerging – and likewise, laying down a testament for one’s ancestors to follow closely and learn by heart.
I find much wisdom in Lord Ieyasu’s writings – he might be said to be the Marcus Aurelius of Japan… if only Marcus Aurelius had experienced a much more difficult and brutal struggle to survive, and had Commodus turned out to be a wise and peaceful ruler.
Study these quotes again and again; Ieyasu wrote them in beautiful calligraphy, yes that’s true, but moreover, he wrote them in blood and spirit –
"Life is like walking along a long road shouldering a heavy load; there is no need to hurry.
One who treats difficulties as the normal state of affairs will never be discontented.
Patience is the source of eternal peace; treat anger as an enemy.
Harm will befall one who knows only success and has never experienced failure.
Blame yourself rather than others.
It is better not to reach than to go too far."
Can we pass on such things to our children? Is the force that animates us merely the present, or can we think generations out, living our lives as exemplars of patience, fortitude, frugality, temperance, economy, friendship, and family.
These were not words written with a pen; words, cheap words, paper to be discarded. No, these virtues were written with a much more permanent sort of ink.
An alternative translation of those opening lines of Ieyasu’s Testament, after all those years of struggle through hardship, survival as a hostage, desperate struggles, life and death, virtue cultivated, patience embodied –
“Life is like unto a long journey with a heavy burden. Let thy step be slow and steady, and thou will stumble not.”
– Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Third Great Unifier of Japan, Founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate
***
VALE, ET VALERE
This closes our series on Vantages, but I can’t help but recount that story one more time for its wisdom –
There is a famous parable in Japan about the three Great Unifiers of Japan.
In the parable, all three are in a tea garden, along with a Zen Buddhist monk.
A bird lands on a nearby tree branch.
The monk asks each man,
“If you want the bird to sing, and the bird does not sing, what will you do?”
Nobunaga speaks first – “If the bird does not sing, I will kill the bird.”
Hideyoshi speaks second – “If the bird does not sing, I will make the bird want to sing.”
Ieyasu is quiet.
“And you, Ieyasu? What will you do if the bird doesn’t sing?”
Ieyasu answers –
“Wait.”
TEMPORAL CONTROL
Temporal Control #1: Prelude
PRELUDE TO DISASTER, I: MAYORIAL RECEPTION
“Mr. Mayor, I come here on a visit and I am greeted with bombs. It is outrageous.”
The Archduke’s fury is understandable.
It is almost 11 o’clock in the morning, and the Mayor did not adjust accordingly to the incident at hand.
The visit to Sarajevo had been planned and announced in advance; now some unknown terrorist a mere half-hour earlier had thrown a grenade at the Archduke’s motorcade.
Nobody is too worried; people are more offended than worried.
The Mayor was apparently not the sharpest tool in the shed – despite the grenade incident a few minutes prior, he had begun to run through all the formalities of welcoming the Archduke into the city and began to give a prepared speech without acknowledging things.
The Archduke is furious and begins shouting at the imbecilic Mayor.
Duchess Sophie, the Archduke’s wife of 14 years, pulls her husband aside, whispers to him, soothes him, and the Archduke calms slightly.
The Mayor finishes his hackneyed speech. The Archduke takes his speech from his attendant, and gives it, and follows up with some remarks thanking the people of Sarajevo for the warm reception and defense of the monarchy after the failed terrorist attack.
The assembly breaks off with all its Viennese-style formalities, and there is some discussion among the Archduke’s retinue and security about what should be done.
The Archduke – a courageous man across his life – does not want to go into hiding, instead saying that they should visit the Sarajevo hospital and see those wounded in the grenade attack.
A number of the Archduke’s retainers suggest waiting for soldiers as an escort, but the local governor, Oskar Potiorek, thinks this is all silly and unnecessary.
He shakes his head; encourages everyone to be practical, says –
“Do you think Sarajevo is full of assassins?”
***
PRELUDE TO DISASTER, II: A CHANCE SANDWICH
Police and soldiers were scrambling through the area.
Cowards! Idiots! Damn! Damn! Damn!
Gavrilo Princip was eating a sandwich, trying to look inconspicuous, compose himself, and calm his nerves.
He still had the .380 ACP semi-automatic pistol tucked under his clothing, but what good would it do?
Of the six Yugoslavian nationalist “Black Hand” assassins stationed to grenade and shoot at the Archduke, only one had acted – the 19-year-old Nedeljko Cabrinovic had thrown the grenade which wounded two members of the motorcade and two dozen pedestrians.
His suicide attempt had failed – he had taken a cyanide pill and jumped in a river, but he threw up the cyanide and a crowd dragged him from the river and beat him before he was arrested.
The other assassins dispersed rapidly. The attempt was a failure. A manhunt would be on soon for the remainder of the crew.
Princip is eating a sandwich.
Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.
They were not much older than children, really – still teenagers, more brave than ready for their macabre mission.
The young would-be assassins had been equipped with money, grenades, semi-automatic pistols, and forged access passes to get by guards into position along the motorcade’s route.
But even though half of the band had opportunities to attack, they froze when the moment came.
Now the mission was a failure, and the manhunt would be on.
What to do? Princip no doubt considered dumping the handgun and incriminating evidence as he finished his sandwich at Schiller’s Deli, when – wait, what is that?
The Archduke is en route to the hospital, but the driver was not told the route was to be modified.
The driver brakes quickly and the primitive automobile stalls and comes to a halt… right in front of Schiller’s Deli. As Princip walks onto the street, immediately in front of him, the Archduke and the Duchess sit in the stalled car.
Princip pulls the .380 semi-automatic from his clothes, and charges the car, firing wildly.
A bullet grazes the Archduke’s neck; another round pierces into Duchess Sophie’s stomach.
The car pulls away wildly as Princip tries to commit suicide; his cyanide fails, too, and the police tackle him and wrestle him to the ground, arresting him.
As the car speeds away, the Archduke does not realize the glancing blow to his neck – not so painful, really – has severed an artery.
He’s more concerned about his wife.
He holds his wife in his arms, the wife he defied his father The Emperor to marry, for love; his wife of 14 years and mother of their three children.
She’s bleeding badly, her eyes are rolling back into her head. Franz Ferdinand holds her closely, whispers, coaxes, begs, pleads –
�
��Sophie! Sophie! Don’t die! Live for our children!”
Ferdinand’s retinue ask the Archduke about his own wounds as Sophie is dying.
He shakes his head, partially out of shock, not realizing how serious is the wound in his neck.
He reassures the men in the car –
“It is nothing… it is nothing… it is nothing…”
But slowly, he starts gurgling his words, makes a low death moan, and the world would never be the same again.
The couple are both dead within the hour.
It is just before noon on the 28th of June, 1914, in Sarajevo.
***
PRELUDE TO DISASTER, III: DECIDING BY THE SWORD
Things move quickly.
1. Austria threatens war with Serbia.
2. Russia threatens war with Austria if the Austrians invade Serbia.
3. Austria inquires if Germany would attack Russia, if Russia attacked Austria as a result of Austria attacking Serbia.
4. Germany says they would fight Russia if Russia attacked Austria.
5. Germany asks France if they would defend Russia if Germany attacked Russia.
6. France says they would attack Germany if Germany attacked Russia.
7. Germany asks Belgium if their troops may pass through Belgium to attack France.
8. Belgium refuses to allow the Germans to attack France through Belgium.
9. Germany asks Britain if they will attack Germany, if Germany invades France through Belgium.
10. Britain says they will attack Germany if they attack France through Belgium.
11. Germany attacks France through Belgium.
12. All hell breaks loose.
The British reaction to the violation of Belgium is well-understood through one of its newspapers. 22 August 1914, in The Spectator, emphasis added –
“THE Times of Wednesday published a piece of news in regard to the final interview between Sir Edward Goschen, our Ambassador at Berlin, and the German Imperial Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, which is of the highest significance. If the report is true—and we feel confident that the Times would not have given it such prominence unless convinced of its truth—the Imperial Chancellor expressed with considerable irritation his inability to understand the attitude of England, and added: “Why should you make war upon us for a scrap of paper?” The Times goes on to tell us that “Sir Edward Goschen is reported to have replied that he understood the German statesman’s inability to comprehend British action, but that England attached importance to ‘the scrap of paper’ (the Treaty guaranteeing Belgian neutrality) because it bore her signature, as well as that of Germany.” Here we have in a nutshell the causes which produced the war—that essential difference of opinion and conflict of will which when they occur can only be decided by the sword, or by one or other of the nations concerned giving way, and through fear yielding to or adopting the view which it began by contesting. To put it in concrete form, we had either to adopt the German view that “scraps of paper“ —that is, the solemnly pledged words of nations—must be treated as mere shams of no binding force, or else endeavour to make our view that they are something more than ”scraps of paper” prevail by the supreme sacrifice of war. Thank God! the British Government and people did not hesitate, but were unanimous in resolving to keep their plighted word, though it might be to their own hurt, and not yield to the “scrap of paper” view of public morality.”
***
PRELUDE TO DISASTER, IV: THE CONFISCATION
The anecdote has largely been forgotten among the epic tragedy of the First World War, but it might be instructive to think for a moment about how Ottoman Captain Rauf Bey felt those days in August.
Greece’s Navy had grown strong and they were implacable enemies in the decades prior to the First World War.
They contracted to buy two battleships from the British Empire and had paid for them in full. They were to be delivered in August 1914.
Captain Rauf Bey wrote of the incident,
“We paid the last installment (700.000 Turkish liras). The manufacturer and we agreed on that the ships would be hand over on 2 August 1914. Nevertheless, after we made our payment and half an hour before the ceremony, the British declared that they have requisitioned the ships... Although we have protested, nobody paid attention.”
The dreadnought to be named “Sultan Osman I” – after the Sultan who founded the Ottoman Empire – was renamed “HMS Agincourt” after the famous English battlefield victory.
On 5 August 1914, the Ottoman Ambassador to London, Tevfik Pasa, telegraphs back to Istanbul –
“When I was informed that the British government has seized two warships of ours and asked our officers to leave, I went to see the under-secretary of the Foreign Office. He said that these measures have been deemed necessary by the Admiralty. When I asked if it is a definitive seizure, he said that it was not an act that obliges the British government to buy the ships, and the government is free to buy them or to return them to us in the future. I tried to question the legitimacy of this arbitrary action, but he didn’t want to discuss and simply repeated what he said before.”
In the grand scheme of things, the reactions of Rauf and Tevfik are not so significant.
But, obviously, it would have had considerable impact on Ottoman opinion when they made their reports in Istanbul.
Captain Rauf, in particular, must have felt rather bitter after overseeing construction for many months at the shipyards, making the final payment, and then being told his crew could not take the ships – right at the deadline.
The Ottoman sailors considered simply trying to take the ships by force from the port.
The First Lord of the Admiralty had considered the possibility, and ordered the British sentries to stop them by force if they tried.
Oh, and that First Lord? You know him. It was a 39-year-old Winston Churchill.
Almost exactly three months later, the British and Ottoman Empires would be at war.
***
DISASTER AT GALLIPOLI, I: SLOWNESS AND FASTNESS
1914 is ending.
The “Miracle of the Marne” turned back the German Imperial onslaught – barely – in early September.
The Germans had been five miles from Paris at their closest.
Trenches were dug. The short “war to end war” seems like it will take longer than expected.
The British Admiralty, under Churchill, begins exploring plans to see if they can break open the war in the Mediterranean.
In the East, the Russian Empire looks shaky; despite vast manpower, it is disorganized, the country’s economy is in ruins – it looks like it might collapse. The Russian monarchy appeals to Britain for help in January of 1915.
The Ottoman Empire controls the water gateway between the Mediterranean Sea and Russia’s key warm-weather ports in the Black Sea. Istanbul was built right on top of those channels in the Dardanelles.
The plan began to form. With Russia suffering and the Western Front a stalemate, the British might break open the war by conquering Istanbul and opening the Straits.
***
DISASTER AT GALLIPOLI, II: OBSOLESCENCE AND SENTIMENT
The weather is clearing. It is March 1915 in the Mediterranean.
But Admiral Carden asks for his dismissal from the Navy on the 15th of March.
This is concerning, because the so-called “Carden Plan” was approved two months ago on January 15th, and is to begin in two days.
The objectives under the Carden Plan –
“(a) Destroying the forts at the entrance of the straits;
(b) Destroying the inner defences from the entrance of the straits until Kepez;
(c) Silencing the batteries at the Narrows;
(d) Cleaning the mines, destroying the defensive positions at the Narrows and entering the Sea of Marmara.”
In two days, the British fleet is supposed to destroy the Ottoman forts guarding the approach and force the Dardanelles, but Carden’s mental and physica
l health are failing.
It is never a good idea to change a commander immediately on the eve of a major operation, but Churchill has no choice; Carden is done.
Vice-Admiral de Robeck replaces him on 17 March – the full naval attack is to happen the next day.
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