War has always been, and will always be, about money.
That is always the real motive of those who get us into wars,
under the pretense of patriotism. For the rest of us, war has always been about the unnecessary horror and pain
inflicted on soldiers and civilians alike, all of them without blame for its beginning and conduct.
Here is how it works:
Reason 1. The natural resources of a nation are
coveted, and influential business leaders believe that these can be purchased at a lower cost, if the leadership
of that country is under their control.
Reason 2. The offending nation has become an inconvenient
competitor in the international marketplace. Destruction of some of that nation's industries and aquisition of
its major corporations by the victor will permit substantially increased profits without major investments by the captains
of industries of the victor.
The evil men who are responsible for the suffering of their
people are called "great statesmen" when they lead the winning site, and "war criminals", when their subordinates are unable
(or unwilling) to produce a victory.
During the early summer of 1968, while the permafrost still
lingered in the partially frozen ground of northern Norway, I participated in a Nato military maneuver near Bardufoss,
north of the arctic circle.
There, I had the great honor of serving with the officers
and men from the British, Belgian, and Italian Armed Forces. Most of the latter were "Alpini", their elite
ski troops.
I found them to be highly competent and well disciplined,
but with a healthy cynicism toward war, and a thorough contempt for those who claim that it is an answer to our world's
problems. Before we relapsed into barbarism, the Italians of the fifteenth century taught us to fight with a healthy
respect for the innocent victims of a military conflict:
During the fifteenth century, in Florence, Milan, and in
other ducal principalities, the civilian leaders relied on highly trained, professional mercenaries, contracted by their
captains. Since their motive was profit, they were always aware that their current enemy might be a future client.
Their war was an art form as much as a business, in which the ransoming of prisoners was more profitable than killing their
current employer's enemies. Prolonging a war, but a relatively bloodless one, rather than ending it, was clearly to
their advantage. In a highly evolved chess game, they would spend a whole summer on the siege of a fortified place,
but there was very little loss of life. Battles were mostly skilfully stage-managed affairs. Machiavelly reports
conflicts in which only two or three soldiers were slain, but hundreds of prisoners were taken. *
(*The Conduct of War, 1789-1961, by J.F.C. Fuller, pp. 15-16)
After Secretary-General Kofi Anan has become thoroughly disgusted with
his quarrelsome charges, we should shop for an Italian, who has been indoctrinated by his countrymen's (and women's) anti-war
attitude, to lead the United Nations. More than any other nation, the Italians seem to understand the
true nature of war. (Today, they are the only nation which supports a radio station dedicated to help the "Montagnards"America's
former allies in Vietnam, who saved thousands of American lives, and who are now being persecuted for their Christian
beliefs - Please click on the RadioRadicale link below). The rest of us urgently need to read their history in order
to receive the same enlightenment.
Marcus Lucinius Crassus
Crassus(115-53B.C.) had become extremely wealthy by buying the
properties of families which had been defeated by the dictator Sulla in a civil war, enriching himself by their
misfortune. He became even wealthier by organizing his own 500-man fire department. When a family's
house was on fire, he would rush to the scene, buy the property for a fraction of it's value, then extinguish the flames.
In 54 B.C., he pulled a few strings in the Roman Senate,
and was assigned the province of Syria. He was to govern it as proconsul, but his ambitions were even greater. Even
though they were friends and allies of Rome, he intended to conquer the people who lived in what we now call Iraq. His
ambition was to loot their cities of anything of value, all for his own personal gain. Despite the fact that a considerable
number of wise and influential Romans opposed the scheme, he raised an army of 40,000 men and successfully invaded Iraq.
At first the going was easy, but the enemy had a different and much more effective way of fighting than that to which the
Roman soldiers were accustomed. While the Romans forces consisted mostly of infantry, the Parthian armies were
mostly heavily armored cavalry - the fighters, and even their horses wore armor of overlapping metal plates. The Parthian
arrows could easily penetrate the lighter armor of the Roman infantry, while the Roman infantry could never get close enough
to the enemy to throw their javelins, let alone use their swords, until the Parthian arrows had devastated the Roman
ranks . The enemy was not only a lot tougher, but also much more agile than Crassus had anticipated, and
the Roman soldiers never had a real fighting chance. The entire Roman army was wiped out, and both Crassus and his
son were killed.
Publius Quintilius Varo (Varus)
As governor of Syria, Varus had made a great fortune.
Historians describe him as "a man of mild character and of a quiet disposition, somewhat slow in mind as he was
in body, and more accustomed to the leisure of the camp than to actual service in war". Dio Cassus tells us that "Besides
issuing orders to them as if they were actually slaves of the Romans, he exacted money as he would from subject nations".
Varus's problem with the German tribes had a lot to
do with the influence of German women. Historians say that Varus had arrived in Syria as a poor man in
a rich province of Rome. When he left, Syria had become poor, and Varus had suddenly become rich. Some might
even call his approach to taxation theft, but I shall leave that judgment to you.
The Germans did not have a lot of gold, and what they had,
was used primarily for the jewelry of the wives of the German chieftains. It seems that these wives were upset by all
this, and motivated their husbands to put an end to what they irreverently called theft.
Varus had five legions under his ineffective command: Two
at Mogontiacum, and three, during the winter, at Vetera and Aliso (Haltern - on the upper Lippe river). In the summer, these
three were stationed near Minden of the Weser river.
Although the summer of 9AD was quiet, in September, as Varus
was about to move from summer to winter quarters, he received news of an uprising. Instead of returning directly to
his winter quarters in Aliso, Varus decided to make a quick detour to settle the dispute.
The "revolt" was actually a trap laid by a young Cheruscan,
whom the Romans called Arminius, and who had served the Romans faithfully in crushing a revolt in Pannonia and Illyricum.
The young man was the son of Sigimer, chief of the Cherusci, and he had been granted Roman citizenship and held
equestrian rank. Nevertheless, he possessed a hatred of the Romans, and regretted that he had helped the Romans to
crush a revolt by a people who wanted their freedom.
Despite warnings from an informant (Segestes),Varus set forth
to settle the imaginary dispute, at the head of 20,000 soldiers, followed by a long baggage train and the families of his men.
Arminius accompanied Varus, and his men served as scouts for the Roman legions. When the legions were winding their way through
the swamps and forests of that part of Germany, their German scouts suddenly disappeared, and a report reached Varus, that
a small group of Roman soldiers had been slaughtered.
Varus failed to heed that warning, and headed for the road
which ran through the Doeren Pass to Aliso. From then, and during his disastrous retreat, the Roman legions were continually
attacked. Because of the dense forests, the Roman soldiers were unable to assume their combat formations, and the German
tribes slaughtered almost all of them during their inglorious retreat.
Roman prestige had received a mortal blow, and the German
tribes were now certain that the legions were not invincible. In Rome, Caesar Augustus despaired, because he assumed
that the enemy would march against Rome. According to Dio's Roman History, Rome was overextended, and there remained no citizens
of military age who were suitable for active duty.
Nevertheless, when no men showed a willingness to serve
the nation, he made them draw lots, depriving of his property abd disenfranchising every fifth manof those still under
thirty-five, and every tenth man who had passed that age. Finally, when many ignored his decree, he put some to death.
Depite these draconian measures, during his lifetime the lost legions were never replaced.
General Fuller, one of the greatest of all military historians, believes
that part of the Roman problem at that time was that Augustus was a splendid rather than a heroic figure, though he did
not lack courage. He was, in fact, a tolerant opportunist, who, by his policy of "divide and conquer", became the managing
director rather than the monarch of his Empire. He believed in Rome as a great business, a vast monopoly, and looked
upon states and frontiers as bonds and securities. He lacked that power to electrify men and to compel them to accomplish
the seemingly impossible, which distinguishes the man of genius from the merely great.
