Hitler and the Habsburgs

In spite of Barbara Tuchman’s book The Guns of August, World War I did not begin in August 1914.  It was not the implementation of the Schlieffen Plan of the Germans, Plan XIV of the French, the invasion of Belgium, the mobilization of the Russian army, or the flurry of telegrams racing from capital to capital that started the war.

World War I started with one gun, one gunman (his confederates failed), and two casualties.  It happened in the distant south-eastern European city of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914.  At the end of the day, an heir to a throne and his wife were dead and their three children were orphaned.  Over four years later, millions had been killed by battle and the effects of war and Europe lay in ruins.  It would be those ruins which would then kinder the sparks that would lead to a second world war late 1930’s.

When studying World War I, numbers quickly cease to have any meaning.  A thousand soldiers die here, another thousand there, and soon the battles escalate to where ten thousand, twenty thousand, and even a hundred thousand die in a battle that barely moves the front lines and that doesn’t seem to hasten the end of the war.  But when the story becomes more focused and those first two deaths are seen not as numbers, not a members of a ruling family, but as real people and as a husband and wife, a father and mother, then the pain of World War I becomes more vivid.

The first two to die in that war were Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.  His title was Archduke and he was in line to be the next emperor or the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  If the story of Czar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra of Russia is poignant, the story of Ferdinand and Sophie is even more so.  They were truly in love and their love had a cost.

Sophie was of the lesser nobility of Bohemia (later to be part of Czechoslovakia) while Ferdinand was of the royal Habsburg family which had ruled Austria for centuries.  After the unexpected death (by suicide) of the Crown Prince Rudolf, Ferdinand stood next in line to rule what had become known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  The current Emperor Franz Joseph had ruled the land since 1848.  Like much of the noble classes, ignoble marital and extra-marital affairs were commonplace.  Marriages were, in true Habsburg fashion, more driven by political considerations than by love or romance.  Ferdinand broke the pattern and married Sophie.

As a result of this morganatic marriage, Sophie was not allowed the usual position of the wife of the heir to the throne.  When she was allowed to appear at public or social events, her lesser status kept her from being at her husband’s side.  Also, none of the children were to be considered as heirs to the throne after their father.  They were not even considered to be Habsburgs, rather they went by the name Hohenburg.

I had always assumed or maybe had read that Franz Ferdinand was a rather shallow man who was simply a pawn in history’s larger chess games.  He was actually quite visionary and wise.  He was destined, so it seemed, to rule over an empire that has been described as a polyglot.  Within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there were Germans (Austrians), Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Bosnians, Italians, and various other ethnic groups.  The Austrians were the dominant faction although Hungary had been given a greater degree of power and autonomy.  South eastern Europe tended toward two extremes:  It could either be a factious group of smaller rival nationalities or it could be an empire ruled by a dominant power.

Ferdinand sought a further choice.  He desired to be more visionary, more federal, and more open to a nation-state where the various groups could be united as one while maintaining more of their national interest.  Imagine it as a type of United States or European Union.

That dream ended when he and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo in June 1914.  By 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Habsburg monarchy were both brushed into the dustbin of history.

Sad story, but it didn’t end there.  One Austrian nurtured a hatred toward the various races and cultures of the empire.  He longed to see Germanic Austria joined to the greater conglomeration of Germanic nations that formed Germany.  After World War I, events enabled this Austrian, Adolph Hitler, to rise to political power within one German party and then to power in Germany as a whole.  One of his early great triumphs was the Anschluss.

Perhaps many best know of this event from the movie The Sound of Music when Admiral Von Trapp is “trapped” by the merger of his country with Nazi Germany.  He and his family, both in the movie and in real life, escaped.  Many people were arrested, removed from power, or killed because of their positions in Austria.

It is here that the key story of James Longo’s book comes into place.  Hitler hated the Habsburgs and their descendants.  Franz Ferdinand’s two sons were almost immediately arrested and imprisoned after the Anschluss.  Their crime was their being descended from the Habsburg family.  There was, to make matters worse, a movement within Austria to restore the Habsburg monarchy and make Otto Habsburg the new ruler.  As obsolete as we make think monarchy is, a restored Habsburg monarchy in the 1930s could well have prevented World War II.

The larger portion of Hitler and the Habsburgs covers the efforts of the two sons to survive Dachau and of the family to rescue them.  The daughter of the slain couple, Princess Sophie, endured being exiled from her family’s estate in Czechoslovakia twice in her life, being in danger constantly, and of losing two sons who were forced to serve the Third Reich’s armies on the Russian front.

Besides being a riveting historical account, this book is an amazing testimony of the Christian faith.  The faith in God and marital love of the parents was passed on to the children.  Sophie, the daughter, perhaps better than anyone else, displayed a great certainty in God’s goodness in spite of all the losses she experienced in her life.

This book is history at its finest.  Yes, it is full of sadness, but there is triumph and perseverance and hope found in the story of this family.  Two World Wars brought incredible miseries upon them.  A fairy tale kind of royal life was denied to them at every step, but they endured and held fast to the truths that stand stronger than any empires or armies on earth.

Presidents Day Thoughts–About Biographies

Today is Presidents Day which focuses on the first and the sixteenth Presidents, but I am branching out beyond those two key figures in history to think of various others along the way.  With pride, I confess to having acquired a read many books on the U. S. Presidents, Presidential elections, and even on some of the failed candidates for high office.  With shame, I confess to having not yet gotten to many of the books I own which have become definitive in telling of the lives of our Chief Executives.

I will list a few favorites in this post.

I am guessing that I may have around 40 studies of George Washington.  Some are complete biographies, while others focus on one part of his life.  Add to that the many books I have about people who were alongside Washington.  James Thomas Flexner’s four volume set is a favorite simply because I read it back in 1976 as a Bicentennial study.  Along with that set, I love the works on Washington by Ron Chernow, Joseph Ellis, Paul Johnson, Thomas Fleming, and David Hackett Fischer.  I have been furiously acquiring the books by Tony Williams, Edward Lengel, and others.  Of course, I have the Douglas Southall Freeman books, although my set is missing a volume or two.

         

Just imagine how many more books would be available if only Martha had not burned George’s letters.

I reluctantly bought and read John Adams by David McCullough.  I thought that I didn’t like Adams, and I had a number of wrongful preconceptions of the man.  Granted, he could be quite irritating, but overall, he was a truly dedicated and brilliant man.  McCullough’s book is outstanding.  I have a few other biographies Adams as well.

For Jefferson, I would highly recommend Jon Meacham’s biography.  I also really enjoyed reading Confounding Founding Father: Thomas Jefferson’s Image in His Own Time by Robert McDonald.  There are many biographies of Jefferson, and once again, I have way more than is human to have (and far from all of them).  For libertarians, one might hit the older work on Jefferson by Albert Jay Nock.  For dedicated readers, the six volumes of Dumas Malone would be the choice.  Also, check out Kevin Gutzman’s Thomas Jefferson: Revolutionary.

James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams.

How embarrassing, but I have few biographies of these guys.  I know I have a book or two on Madison, but often the focus of books is on his greater work as a contributor to the Constitutional Convention and The Federalist.  I did read a fine short collection this past year called Letters of John Quincy Adams to his Son on the Bible and Its Teachings.  

Andrew Jackson fills a whole shelf (theoretically) in my library and mind.  Bradley Birzer’s recent biography is a great introduction or review or defense of the man who is so often castigated for his role as a military leader and later as a President.  I thoroughly enjoyed Jon Meacham’s Pulitzer Prize winning American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.  The man who is most often associated with Jacksonian studies is Robert Remini.  One can read his three volume biography of the man’s life as a whole, or you can choose one of his many shorter works on Old Hickory.

Presbyterians, take note:  Jackson, for all of his flaws and sins, was a Presbyterian and a committed believer.  Even in his worst moments–and they were legion–he always acknowledged and reverenced the faith of his mother and wife.  In his later years, he kept the Bible and the Westminster Confession close by.

Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, and John Tyler all have few biographers and defenders.  I know I have a book on Harrison and will lament it if I don’t have a defense of John Tyler among the stacks.

James K. Polk is often recognized as one of the most successful one-term Presidents ever.  His agenda consisted of about four major goals, and he made good on them.  Then he did what many more ought to do after a good first term–retire and go back home.  Scorn me to the extreme, but I own, but have not read the book A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican-American War, and the Conquest of the American Continent.  I also have a shorter biography of Polk by John Seigenthaler.

 

 

Zachary Taylor, like William Henry Harrison, merits attention more for his military career than his short and failed Presidency.  Millard Fillmore, to no one’s surprise, has few biographical works on his time in office.  Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan also get either little attention, or much criticism for their failures to avert an impending national crisis.

I would recommend The Mormon Rebellion: America’s First Civil War, 1857-1858 by David Bigler and Will Bagley as an overlooked event in the Buchanan Presidential term.

I am going to stop.  Getting into the discussions of the two Presidents during the time from 1861 to 1865 will be an adventure.  By that, I am referring to both Abraham Lincoln, the 16th U. S. President, and Jefferson Davis, the first and only Confederate President.

And looking ahead, I know that I will go overboard in trying to highlight books about Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan.

I welcome any recommendations, corrections, criticisms, and vicious attacks on who has been included and who has been left off this list.

Support Your Christian Authors

There is much to envy about the life of writers.  On the other hand, it is a life of long periods of working alone, and while being alone and being lonely are not exactly the same, they can overlap.  It is a life of much labor and frustration.  The love that the writer pours out onto the page goes for a long time–and maybe forever–without being requited.  For most who write, the trips to the bank are not frequent or overly exciting.  All this is assuming that the writer or would-be writer actually gets a manuscript completed, manages to get it revised, finds some way of getting it published, and then actually sees it get into the hands of willing readers.

Lots of people would like, so they say, to write a book.  Lots of people think they could write a book.  Most don’t get books written.  How many of those completed manuscripts should not have been written and should not be published is a different story.  Overall, the “successful” writers’ life is a hard life.  Only a very few writers in any field make enough money to live off of writing.  Often even the more successful writers find it necessary to devote lots of time to publicity and book signings and speaking in order to draw attention to their books.

That is the writer’s life.  I know a bit about it, having written a book or two and having written lots of articles and book reviews.  I also know something of how difficult it is to get the word out that a book has been written and is in desperate need for buyers and readers.  So, I am highlighting some books by Christian authors I know.  In most of these cases, I these are men that I only know through correspondence and social media.  However, I have discovered so many common bonds that I feel like we could have been life-long personal friends.

The first of the books is War in the Wasteland by Douglas Bond.  Set in World War I, this novel includes some actual people, such as C. S. Lewis.  There are also fictional characters.  I found myself drawn to this book for two reasons.  First, I used Bond’s book Hostage Lands in my junior high class. Set in the days when Romans and Celts were battling over lands north and south of Hadrian’s Wall, this book is rich in history with a compelling story of faith built in.  It passed the most difficult test: The judgment of junior high students.  After we read the book, one of them asked if we could read more books.

Already being pleased with this Bond book, I wanted to read his book on World War I in conjunction with my teaching on the Great War and my readings of some six or more other books on that war.  Bond’s books are perfect for introducing young people to history and reinforcing faith issues.  I confess to being some 20 plus books behind in covering all of Douglas Bond’s many works, but this journey to completion is now underway.

 

George Grant is no novice when it comes to writing books.  I have a whole shelf full of books he has written or compiled, and my collection is incomplete.  But he is so busy with pastoral duties and teaching that he doesn’t whip out books as frequently these days.  But it was exciting to see this book arrive in the mail.  An Experiment in Liberty: America’s Path to Independence is a great reading resource for studying American history.  I feel myself wanting to use this book next year with my junior high history class.

As expected in a George Grant book, you will discover many gems and witticisms and details about history that are usually obscured.  If someone seeks the more technical, scholarly type of work, look elsewhere.  But if you like the idea of story being an essential component of hi-story, go for this book.  Check and see if free copies are still being sent out.  All you pay is postage.  Here is the website:  https://www.georgegrant.net/?fbclid=IwAR1RCYGADQNyyDrwByQ1Se-tjlTrsrrbaRVXO3YipLSwo-Oinutq1hbQeiw

I have not known Paul Rydecki for long.  I learned about him through a mutual friend, Ryan Brown.  Ryan teaches Latin at Veritas Academy, and he crossed paths with Paul on a trip to Italy.  (There is a Biblical precedent for meeting someone named Paul in route to Rome.)  A month or so ago, Ryan mentioned that his friend from the Italy trip had just published a new edition of one of Luther’s works.

Titled Luther’s Small Catechism: An Introduction to the Catholic Faith, this beautifully done hardback volume is a great edition to any library.  Granted, I am a Westminster Shorter Catechism man, but I love the Heidelberg Catechism, the New City Catechism, and Luther’s Small Catechism.  This is a handy, compact of Christian truths. Besides the catechism, the book has a really useful list of Bible memory passages. And for those of us still getting our minds wrapped around the best of Christian traditions, it has a lectionary for Bible readings throughout the year.

Along with Christian education, a good church, and a solid family, getting grounded in the historic, Biblical, and Reformation-based creeds, confessions,  and catechisms are the most important components for Christian living and discipleship.  So, I urge everyone at whatever age or stage of life to begin reading and learning creeds, confessions, and catechisms.  Go to the historic documents of your own church tradition, but then branch out and little and glean from the breadth of God’s field.

Luther’s Small Catechism is a fine source for those of us who need to do more than just admiring Luther.

A book on that is on my “Read Next” stack is Susie: The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon–Wife of Charles H. Spurgeon by Ray Rhodes, Jr.  There are quite a few things that commend this book.  First of all, it is related to the life of Charles H. Spurgeon.  If I had my life to live over, I would have invested time and money in obtaining the sermons and writings of Spurgeon much earlier and with much more diligence.  I am where a person ought to be at age 20 in terms of reading and cherishing Spurgeon.  I will not refrain from encouraging others to read the man himself.  Read Lectures to My Students, An All Round Ministry, John Ploughman’s Talks (now reprinted as Spurgeon’s Practical Wisdom), Treasury of David, and the many, many collections of his sermons, but especially the series published by Pilgrim Publications.  And read biographies of the man.

That being said, if this woman merely knew Spurgeon, her story would be of interest.  But she was the woman behind the great, but often suffering pastor, preacher, writer, and organizer of many ministries.  Add to that, I have heard so many recommendations of this book.  I will be writing a review just as soon as I finish reading this work.  But don’t wait for me!  Get the book.

I reviewed Shortgrass by John J. Dwyer just a few weeks ago.  I am still reeling and swooning over that book.  I can hardly wait until the sequel comes out in May.  This novel is set in Oklahoma in the years of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.  War is looming in the near future, in spite of promises to the contrary by President Roosevelt and actions to keep us out of it by Charles Lindberg (both of whom appear in the story).  It was an age where flying was still coming into its own and was filled with thrilling adventure to those willing to learn the skill.  Lance Roark, the hero of the story, is the guy I would want to be.  Don’t parade any super-heroes before me, for they fall short of Lance.

This book has so affected me that I may just haul off and buy John’s books on Oklahoma history, even though it is illegal to own books about Oklahoma in my state of Arkansas.  (In my home state of Texas, people would wonder why anyone would bother to read about any other of the lesser states.)

A last add-on to the list:

The Resistance by Douglas Bond is his newest work, and my copy just arrived this week. This is a companion volume to War in the Wasteland, and it promises to be another great story set within a historical context.  In this book, the setting is World War II.  Expect more later.  But note this:  Both The Resistance and War in the Wasteland can be purchased together for a mere $25.  If you are homeschooling, use education as the excuse for buying these books.  If you are a Christian, use that as an excuse.  Find some reason and buy these books.

Coming soon:  New books by P. Andrew Sandlin, a reprinted book by David Chilton, more on Dostoevsky and Flannery O’Connor, new and older works on philosophy from a Christian perspective, more books on World War II, and books by historians that I have become acquaintances/friends with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How the Dutch Saved Civilization

 

This year I have been teaching a history course on the twentieth century. With a number of historical periods that I have studied, read about, and taught on, the twentieth century is possibly my most frequently studied period.  My class and I spent an inordinately long time studying the Great War (World War I) which, like all historical turning points, extends both back in time and forward in its causes and effects.  We are currently wrapping up a study of the Russian Revolutions.  Next I will be devoting attention to the period between the World Wars, leading up to a month or more of looking at World War II.

The chessboard of twentieth century history includes many key players.  The United States, Great Britain, Russia, Germany, and France are vital to the whole period.  But one cannot overlook Italy, Japan, China, and then some major minor players like Belgium and Serbia in World War I and Poland and Spain (particularly the Spanish Civil War) in World War II.  The post-war period brings in a whole new cast including Greece, Israel, Korea, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and other countries.

One could make analogies to various chess pieces and the leading countries.  Then there are the pawns whose movements may or may not be significant to the causes of events.  Any chess player (and I am not one) can affirm that pawns can make or break a game of chess.  They can be minor pieces, but their impact can direct the course of events.

This brings me to the topic of the Netherlands and the Dutch people in the twentieth century.  I am not when or if the fine textbook I am using refers to events in the Netherlands after the age of Napoleon.  The Netherlands was neutral during World War I (wise move on their part) and were a quick knock-out in World War II.  The Dutch underground in the Second War gets some attention.  The failed Allied offensive (recounted in the book and move A Bridge Too Far) took place in the Netherlands, but that story is one of the British, American, and German armies.

After World War II, the Netherlands was a NATO member, but has remained on the periphery of historical movements.  One recurring story is of decadence and immortality in that country which seems to be ahead of the rest of the West in moral degeneracy.

The history books and the news accounts often miss or don’t know the whole story or even the greater story.  The late 19th and 20th century history of the Netherlands is rich in certain respects.  Unlike my hopeful title, the Dutch have not saved civilization, but they have pointed to and promoted what would be civilization saving in many respects.

There are a number of Dutch Christians who lived in the middle to late 1800’s and up through the mid-1900’s who have grasped issues even more important than the immediate challenges of ending World War I, defeating Naziism in World War II, or holding on to the Free World against the Communist Bloc in the Cold War.

The names are familiar to those who have waded into the deep currents of Reformed theology and philosophical thought.  Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Herman Dooyeweerd, Geerhardus Vos, Klaas Schilder, Hendrik van Riessen, H. R. Rookmaaker, and Cornelius Van Til are among the key leaders in the intellectual revolution of the past 100 plus years.

I could devote quite a few paragraphs and pages to talking about the various men named above.  I actually have talked and written about most of them.  In fact, I have literally talked from coast to coast about them.  (I spoke at two conferences years ago–one in Virginia and one in Alaska.)  For now, I will focus on two of the many books that are now available highlighting key ideas from the Dutch Calvinist Worldview Thinkers, as I like to call them.

Lectures on Calvinism by Abraham Kuyper is a Christian classic.  It has been reprinted and edited many times since it first emerged from the Stone Lectures that Abraham Kuyper gave at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1898.  One such reprinting and repackaging changed the name to something other than either Lectures on Calvinism or The Stone Lectures.  The goal of all such publications is to get the message of these lectures out.

This book calls for a big dose of humility from all Christians.  Reformed Christians need to realize how limited our vision is when we think of Calvinism as a system of 5 Points or we think that our efforts to promote Christianity are full-orbed.  Non-Calvinists need to realize how, despite whatever struggles they may be having in regard to soteriological (salvation related) issues, the claims of God are over all areas of life.

Many books, movements, schools, colleges, ideas, study centers, and terms have grown out of this book.  Many Christians speak today of having a Christian worldview without knowing that this idea springs from Kuyper.  Kuyper, however, spoke of a World and Life System rather than using the more compact term Worldview.  Every concern that comes up about the Christian role or lack thereof in politics needs to be referenced back to Kuyper’s chapter on politics.

He also spoke about science, art, and the future, which can be studied for how Kuyper may or may not have foreseen events.

American Vision has reprinted and edited the edition of the book pictured above.  Some of Kuyper’s sentences were a bit long and heavy and many of his references are obscure to most of us.  This book has modified some of the language and punctuation without rewriting or condensing the content.  Also, footnotes explain many of the terms or references that Kuyper and his audience would have been familiar with.

I would include this book for essential reading not just in my top 100 or 50 or 25 reads, but in my top 10 reads.  Furthermore, it is not a read-once-and-shelve book.  This is a book to reread often.  Get it and read it.

One of Abraham Kuyper’s mentors and contemporaries was Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer.  Usually and conveniently, he is referred to as Groen, pronounced to rhyme with prune and equivalent to our word green.  Groen was a brilliant Christian historian and political leader in the Netherlands.  At some point in his career, he gave a series of lectures at his house on the key determining issue of his age.  That issue was the French Revolution.  It was not the details of the storming of the Bastille or execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette that concerned Groen.

Behind the Revolution and preceding from it was a worldview or philosophy.  As has been often, but not often enough, pointed out, the so-called American Revolution and the French Revolution were not twin events.  Their differences are comparable to the knife use of a surgeon and that of a street criminal.  Lest someone think this is a odd-Christian weirdo interpretation, just look at such books as James Billington’s Fire in the Minds of Men.  

Before Billington and before all the forces for secularism, humanism, and whatever other objectionable isms of the twentieth century, Groen was discussing the essential beliefs and unbeliefs that propelled Europe into the modern age with revolutions continuing for over a century.

For years this book has been hard to find.  It was translated into English and published by a small Canadian publisher back in the 1980s and 90s.  I doubt that it is on the reading lists of any or certainly not many college courses on the French Revolution, modern thought, revolution in general, or political philosophy.  Groen would not have been shocked or surprised by that omission.

Unbelief and Revolution has been reprinted by Lexham Press.  Along with a number of great books, including Geerhardus Vos’s Reformed Dogmatics and many volumes by Abraham Kuyper, Lexham Press is turning into a modern center of Reformed Christian thought and theology.  Harry Van Dyke, a great scholar and acquaintance of mine, translated this book.  Jake Mailhot, who is what I want to be like when I grow up, is a key figure in the distribution of Lexham Press publications.

Get this book.

Read the Dutch Christian authors.  Start with Kuyper and Groen.