by Nancy Reagin
For our second historical parallel, we must go forward almost two thousand years in time. Yet many of the terms that are found in the Roman Empire, such as Senate, or consul, recur in this example. This is because, like many European states of the Early Modern Period, Revolutionary France viewed itself as the heir to Roman culture.
France had been a monarchy until the Revolution of 1789, which led to the establishment of the First Republic in 1792 (as in Rome, replacing a monarchy). As did the new American nation across the Atlantic, the French legislature proceeded to create a constitution for a French Republic in 1791. Like its Roman predecessor, however, the French legislature was hampered by ideological divisions and power struggles from the very outset. Into this situation came a young military officer. Napoleon Bonaparte was in his twenties at the time of the Revolution. From 1792 onward, he was involved in the wars of France, and in 1799, as one of France’s few militarily successful generals, he managed to become one of three consuls who were to rule France jointly for ten years, a similar arrangement to the Triumvirate of Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus. Like Octavian in that Triumvirate, Napoleon exploited his position within the Consulate, getting himself made First Consul and then emperor in 1804. Like the other dictatorships discussed in this chapter, there are clearly elements from the history of Napoleon and Napoleonic France that can be compared with the rise of Palpatine.9
The French had declared themselves a Republic in 1792, but this First Republic lasted for only twelve years. The Galactic Republic is a much more venerable organization and therefore carries more resonances of the Roman Republic, which lasted for nearly five hundred years before Octavian took sole control. Yet even this period is dwarfed by the twenty-five thousand years of the Galactic Republic’s existence.
A Senate was established by Napoleon’s 1799 reform of the constitution (the Sénat conservateur), and the Senate “vested” the republic in an emperor, thus turning over power to Napoleon; his elevation to the position of emperor was also approved by a large majority of French citizens in a referendum vote. As Padmé Amidala says in Revenge of the Sith, “So this is how liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause.”
Unlike Rome, where the transition from Republic to Empire was not at the time formally acknowledged, in Napoleonic France the birth of an empire was clearly signaled by Napoleon’s coronation in 1804. In his coronation oath, Napoleon claimed that he was taking power as emperor to “maintain the integrity of the territory of the Republic,” an assertion that reminds us of Palpatine’s pronouncement in Revenge of the Sith that the Republic must be reorganized into an Empire “in order to insure the security and continued stability.”
Jacques-Louis David, The Coronation of Napoleon (1805–1808). Napoleon (standing in the center of the painting) is wearing a garland meant to remind the viewer of a Roman victor’s garland, and he is about to crown himself emperor. Empress Joséphine is kneeling in front of him.
As with Augustus, Napoleon came to power on the back of military might. Yet Napoleon was himself an extremely successful military commander, whereas Augustus relied on others, such as his friend Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, to carry out direct military command. In this respect, Palpatine, who tends to operate through subordinates such as General Grievous or Darth Vader or, when directing the forces of the Republic, Jedi Knights such as Obi-Wan Kenobi, is closer to Augustus than to Napoleon. Napoleon also created an Imperial Guard (Garde Impériale). A parallel can be seen in Star Wars, where Palpatine also has a body of troops that is sometimes described as the Imperial Guard, who appear in Return of the Jedi, though the troops’ official name is the Emperor’s Royal Guard.
The wars that made Napoleon’s name were largely fought against foreign powers. There were internal rebellions in the First Republic, but Napoleon himself refused to take part in the War in the Vendée, a Royalist rebellion against the French Republic in western France that lasted from 1793 to 1796. He did, however, defend the National Convention (the Republican legislature) against Royalist rebels in 1795, in the incident that gave rise to Thomas Carlyle’s comment about Napoleon’s use of “a whiff of grapeshot.” This could be compared to the Galactic Republic’s wars against the Separatists, though, again, Napoleon was not secretly in charge of the enemies he was fighting.
The Emperor’s Royal Guard accompanying Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. (Return of the Jedi)
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Portrait de Napoléon Bonaparte en premier consul (Bonaparte, First Consul, 1803–1804).
The fact that Napoleon spent some years as First Consul before declaring himself emperor could be seen as similar to Palpatine’s thirteen years as chancellor, before he declared the Empire. Most notably, unlike Augustus, but like Palpatine, Napoleon was eventually defeated. Yet that defeat came about through the actions of external enemies, rather than internal ones—the armies and the population of France remained substantially loyal, and Napoleon remains a respected figure in France today. Unlike Palpatine, Napoleon was not killed at the point of his deposition but was forced to abdicate.
Today Coruscant, Tomorrow the Galaxy!: Nazi Germany and Palpatine
Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, manipulated a democratic republic to gain control over the government, using extra-constitutional means. As with Rome and France, the democratic republic followed the dissolution of a monarchy—in this case, the Weimar Republic was established following the abdication of the German emperor Wilhelm II in 1918, after the defeat of World War I. It should be noted, however, that “Weimar Republic” is, like “Roman Republic” and “Roman Empire,” a modern historian’s term; the official name for the state remained the Deutsches Reich, or the “German Empire.”
As in the Roman Senate and the republican French government, the Weimar Republic’s legislature, the Reichstag, was deeply divided between ideological extremes from the very beginning, and a large faction within the republic never did accept democratic forms of government. During periods when the economic outlook was good, this system functioned, but the coming of the Depression in 1929 threw the political system into gridlock, which offered Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party (the NSDAP) its opportunity.
Adolf Hitler at a Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, c. 1928.
During the Depression, the Nazi Party gained more seats in every election. By the early 1930s, no party or coalition of parties in the Weimar legislature was able to gain an overall majority in elections. Through the influence of conservative politicians, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. He then used political intimidation to give his Nazi Party sole power in the German state. A mysterious fire burned down the Reichstag building on the evening of February 27, and the Nazis claimed that the German Communists were responsible, and that the national government was in danger. The parallel to the final meeting of the Galactic Senate in Revenge of the Sith—where Palpatine demands absolute control in order to respond to a “plot of the Jedi to overthrow the Senate”—is a striking one.
After a final set of elections marked by violence and the suspension of constitutionally guaranteed civil rights in March 1933, Nazi storm troopers surrounded the German parliamentary building and refused to allow left-wing representatives to enter. In a chamber thus dominated by Nazi legislators and their allies (much like Caesar’s Senate), the Nazis proposed and passed an Enabling Act, which essentially ended democratic rule and proclaimed Hitler the dictator of Germany. In 1934, Hitler proclaimed himself Führer (“leader”). As in Rome (and on Coruscant), democratically elected representatives had voted for a dictator. People began to refer to the new German state as the “Third Reich,” though this term was never the official name of the state.
German Panzer officers during World War II.
The impact of the iconography of Nazi Germany on Star Wars is obvious. It is seen in the military of the Galactic Empire, most particularly in the uniforms worn by the Imperial forces, which resemble the uniforms worn by the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces,
in World War II.
Darth Vader and Imperial officers wearing uniforms with a very similar cut to the Panzer uniform. (A New Hope)
The Galactic Empire uses the term stormtrooper for its shock assault forces. The first storm troopers (Sturmtruppen) had been elite assault troops of the German army in World War I, and the name was later employed for the paramilitaries organized by the Nazi Party (known in German as the Sturmabteilung).
Imperial stormtroopers on the Death Star. (A New Hope)
German storm troopers, 1918.
Hitler is also, in some ways, the most like Palpatine of the three dictators discussed in this chapter. He is the closest in age to the mature galactic politician, being forty-three when he became chancellor (Napoleon was thirty when he became consul and thirty-four when he became emperor). More significantly, Hitler is popularly seen as evil and indeed as a symbol of evil. This makes him an appropriate model for Palpatine.
Palpatine even uses some of Hitler’s rhetoric. In his address to the Senate inaugurating the Galactic Empire, Palpatine says, “I assure you [the Empire] will last for ten thousand years” (Revenge of the Sith). Such rhetoric can only make the viewer think of the “Thousand-Year Reich,” the term used by Nazis to predict their domination of the world. Both Hitler and Palpatine were to be proved very wrong, their empires lasting for only a few decades. Again, however, it should be noted that it was external wars that brought Nazi Germany down, not internal rebellion (there were German resistance movements, but they were small and largely ineffective).
Palpatine also uses a similar rhetorical style to Hitler. Hitler was a master of rabble-rousing rhetoric, as he demonstrated, for example, when addressing the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg. Hitler had massive party rally grounds constructed there and used them for the annual Nazi Party Congresses from 1933 to 1938. Hitler spoke to masses of Nazi Party members, troops, and other Germans. These mass addresses were often filmed, most famously by Leni Riefenstahl for her 1934 documentary Triumph of the Will. Hitler was very concerned about the opportunities for exploiting media, such as the cinema, television, and newspapers, for propaganda purposes. The 1936 Berlin Olympics were turned into a spectacle that would endorse Germany, the Nazis, and Aryan supremacy (though the victories of the African American Jesse Owens proved to be an embarrassment to that ambition). Palpatine’s address to the Galactic Senate will make many viewers think of the familiar footage of Hitler delivering speeches to his supporters.
Once again, one can see a connection between the importance of the military to Hitler and its importance to Palpatine. Unlike Augustus and Napoleon, Hitler did not use a preexisting military force to bring him to power—the German armed forces had been significantly restricted under the treaty of Versailles, limited to a hundred thousand men, and denied heavy guns, armored vehicles, submarines, and capital ships. Hitler rebuilt these forces and rearmed Germany, a significant factor in the consolidation of his power. Similarly, Palpatine has to build his military forces up from scratch. By the time of The Phantom Menace, the Galactic Republic has no military of its own and depends on the Jedi Knights to keep peace. These forces are inadequate in the face of the Separatists, so Palpatine is able to persuade the Senate to accept the creation of clone troopers to serve in the Army of the Republic. As noted previously, he subsequently uses that army to destroy the Jedi Knights.
The 1934 Nuremberg Rally. Adolf Hitler is the central of the three figures at the bottom center of the photograph.
Other similarities between the rise of Palpatine and the rise of Hitler suggest themselves, too. As in Germany, the leader of the Galactic Senate is given the title of “chancellor.” And just as Hitler’s rise to power was facilitated by other politicians who thought that he could be controlled and who did not understand the full extent of his plans, so Palpatine was able to persuade politicians such as Queen Amidala and Jar Jar Binks to support proposals that would resolve immediate dangers, but that also served to advance his own interests. Finally, like Palpatine (but unlike Augustus), Hitler eventually dispensed with his parliamentary body, the Reichstag, removing all legislative power and, after 1942, postponing its reconstitution (though he did not formally dissolve it).
Palpatine’s Clone army. Compare the massed ranks of soldiers to those seen in the photo of the 1934 Nuremberg rally. (Attack of the Clones)
“The Last Remnants of the Old Republic Have Been Swept Away”
This chapter has discussed some of the ways in which Lucas’s Star Wars galaxy reflects the historical precedents set by past dictators and their overthrowing of democracies. Some of this use is obvious—elements lifted from Nazi Germany and Rome can be easily identified in the history of the Republic and the Galactic Empire. Other elements are less obvious, although there are clear similarities between Napoleon and Palpatine. As on Coruscant and in Rome, France, and Germany, a republic was succeeded by an empire, and in all of these cases, the new emperor could rely on the support of many (or even most) of the republic’s elected representatives.
The reason that these exemplars are not always obvious is, of course, that Lucas is not simply repeating real history in space. Rather, the Star Wars galaxy uses elements taken from various periods of history, which Lucas selected and modified to fit. The result is a rich and believable Galactic history that can be adapted to the requirements of a saga without destroying its credibility. This richness has been welcoming visitors since 1977 and will continue to do so for many years to come.
Notes
1. The career of Augustus is covered in a volume in The Routledge History of the Ancient World, Martin Goodman, The Roman World, 44 BC—AD 180 (London: Routledge, 1997). The equivalent volume for the end of the Republic, Edward Bispham, The Roman Republic 264–44 BC (Abingdon: Routledge, forthcoming), will be published in May 2012. Sir Ronald Syme’s account in The Roman Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939) remains worth reading.
2. The position of dictator in the early Republic gave the holder sole executive power, which was usually split between two consuls, but did so for a strictly limited period, usually for six months. The dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (82–81 BC) had not been limited, but Sulla had resigned after a year.
3. Lucas’s use of Rome is covered in Peter Bonadella, The Eternal City: Roman Images in the Modern World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 227–237, and in Martin M. Winkler, “Star Wars and the Roman Empire,” in Classical Myth and Culture in the Cinema, edited by Martin M. Winkler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 272–290.
4. For a good introduction to Roman religion, see James Rives, “Religion in the Roman World,” in Experiencing Rome: Culture, Identity and Power in the Roman Empire, edited by Janet Huskinson (London: Routledge, 2000), 245–275.
5. He did also have the title imperator, from which the modern word emperor derives, but this was a title indicating that the holder had been celebrated as a successful military commander.
6. There was also the Social War of 91–88 BC, fought by allies of Rome in Italy who wanted access to Roman citizenship, a servile war or slave revolt (that of Spartacus in 73–71 BC), and numerous wars of overseas conquest.
7. According to Lucasfilm reference materials, Palpatine is born in 82 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), so this would make him forty-nine to fifty when he is made chancellor and sixty-two to sixty-three when he assumes the imperial throne in Revenge of the Sith.
8. Anne Lancashire, “The Phantom Menace: Repetition, Variation, Integration,” Film Criticism 24, no. 3 (2000): 27–28.
9. For Napoleon, see Frank McLynn, Napoleon: A Biography (London: Jonathan Cape, 1997).
Chapter 6
Teen Queen
Padmé Amidala and the Power of Royal Women
Janice Liedl
“I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die.”
—Padmé Amidala, The Phantom Menace
Long ago, a young woman asserted her right to rule a prosperous paradise against a stiff o
pposition that temporarily prevented her from ruling. The youthful queen benefited from the support of powerful military men, however, who helped restore her to power. She disastrously pursued a romantic relationship with one of these fabled fighters, an intense man who was not free to marry her. The queen died tragically, never to see her children grow up.
This sad story parallels the rise and fall of Padmé Amidala, but it’s actually the story of Cleopatra. That Egyptian queen’s life demonstrates how much power and peril royal crowns brought to the women who dared seize them. Padmé’s problems are also mirrored in the lives of other historical queens, from Maria Theresa of Austria and Hungary to Catherine the Great of Russia, and even the doomed British Boudicca. From ancient times up to the recent past, history abounds with examples of extraordinary royal women whose public and personal lives encompassed a range of triumph and disaster, just as Padmé experiences.
The irony is that although many women were queens, few actually ruled. Law and tradition meant that the queen who held the title only because she was the wife of a king was rarely in a position to assert equal power. These queen consorts might even be royalty by birth—a princess from another country who married a fellow ruler—but that foreign birthright didn’t translate into their new realm. Only rarely did such a woman make a leap to wielding power independently, as happened when German-born Catherine, the wife of Tsar Peter II, engineered a coup against her own husband and took over the rule of the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. Sometimes, even when a woman was in the direct line of succession, she couldn’t receive the crown, due to traditions that either gave preference to a younger boy or ruled out women altogether.1