That Took a Bit Longer then We Expected

Today Germany paid the last payment related to the reparations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles and thus closing and balancing the books on World War 1. Ninety seven years after the war started, the lamps are coming back on all across Europe.

The costs of the war include 9 million soldiers, sailors, and airmen killed and 6 million civilians killed during Europe's four years of murderous insanity. The fighting cost the combatant nations about $180,000,000,000 in 1918 money. The Ottoman and Austrian-Hungarian empires disappeared forever, and the Russian empire was replaced by the Communist Soviet Union.

While today marks an ending, of sorts, of World War 1, we do well to remember how the war began. Capt. Edmund Blackadder explains the origins of the war in this clip from Blackadder Goes Forth(yes, that is Hugh Laurie).

What is this over here?

A Civil War prison camp.

I know exactly where this is at because when I lived in Augusta I would drive down to Millen for work and Millen was on the way to Florida. Unlike other places in Georgia, Augusta emerged from the Civil War relatively unscathed and unlike Savannah or Atlanta I never got the sense that Augusta was defined, in part, by a connection the war.

When I heard this story reported on the radio, I almost froze. It's always a weird feeling when you here about some obscure corner of the world that you think only you know about being talked about world wide. It makes the world seem a little smaller.

Obama as Commander in Chief

If the reports that Obama has rejected all the options about Afghanistan that the military has presented are true, then this is good news. President Obama wants a plan that more effectively deals with the corruption in the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzi and a plan that includes a timeline for eventual turning over of the war to the Afghan army.

I am glad to to see President Obama exercising his authority over the military. Even though our society regular treats military leaders as dispassionate experts, it is worth noting that military leaders always have an agenda.

I am reminded of a story about how Franklin Roosevelt exercised his authority as commander in chief. During the early months of World War II, Roosevelt was embroiled in a debate with his top military commanders. President Roosevelt agreed with Winston Churchill and the British military that there should be an invasion of North Africa. The American military did not want to invade North Africa. Army generals wanted to invade Europe directly and they wanted to invade as soon as they could. Navy Admirals did not want to invade North Africa because they wanted the resources allocated for North Africa to be sent to fight Japan in the Pacific Theatre.

When the allied governments announced their intentions to invade North Africa, American generals and admirals got together and said that they could not support the plan and all the the resources should be diverted to the Pacific. Roosevelt called their bluff and told them to have a detailed plan to him the next morning. Since the military did not have a plan ready, the plan they produced was not very good. Roosevelt rejected the plan and ordered the military to go along with the invasion of North Africa.

Roosevelt knew what I hope Obama is learning and that is the military's agenda does not always coincide with what the President was elected to do.

The Backbencher Institute of Christian History, Lesson 1

New York Time columnist Ross Douthat used the occasion of Pope Benedict's invitation to conservative Anglicans to join the Catholic Church to wish for a new crusade against Islam. Douthat's take is that "What's being interpreted, for now, as an intra-Christian Skirmish may eventually be remembered as the first step toward a united Anglican-Catholic front-not against liberalism or atheism, but against Christianity's most enduring and impressive foe.

Actually, Christianity's most enduring and impressive foe is western imperialism. Western imperialism, either by brute force or through a subtle co-opting of the Church, has often come close to defeating Christianity. However, there has always been a group of Christians(sometimes small and sometimes opposed by the hierarchy of their church) who have continued to fight western imperialism. They have been do so since literaly day one and may they continue to do so.

Historical Site

Kudos to officials in Dekalb County, Georgia for naming the site of the first ever Waffle House as a historical landmark.  Now college students and late night partiers will have a pilgrimage site.  2719 E. College Ave. in Decatur, GA is now a holy place. 

John Hope Franklin, RIP

John Hope Franklin, the esteemed historian if the African-American experience, died today.  I first came across Franklin's work when I took History of the American South in college.  Later in seminary I again encountered when I took History of the African American Church at the Interdenominational Theological Center as part of a consortium program at the McAfee School of Theology.  I quickly learned that if you wanted to study Southern history or African-American history then you needed to read Dr. Franklin.

My favorite story about Dr. Franklin is his refusal to serve in World War 2.  As a person with P.hD., Franklin was shocked to learn that in the segregated military all he could be was as an enlisted office aide.  Franklin thought that the U.S. Navy thought so little of his abilities and what he had to offer then the U.S. could win the war without him.

Dr. John Hope Franklin will be missed by all of us who love to study history.

Jessica Alba, Historian

Bill O'Reilly called Jessica Alba a "pinhead" because she suggested that Sweden was neutral during World War 2.  It turns out that Sweden was indeed neutral throughout the Second World War.  Alba was disappointed rather than angry and said, "it is so sad to me that you think the only neutral country during WWII was Switzerland."

The number of Americans now verified to be smarter than Bill O'Reilly stands at 300,000,001