As I write this week’s blog entry, the House of Representatives is engaged in yet another attempt to elect a Speaker of the House. After years of denouncing the Democratic Party’s majority rule, the difficulty of even selecting a Speaker seriously tests their claim of better leadership.
To be fair, of the twenty holdouts, a few seem to be more interested in press coverage than in making any meaningful changes. It is probably safer to French kiss a honey badger than to stand between the press cameras and Lauren Boebert as she denounces the leadership of Kevin McCarthy. She never mentions that she was only narrowly reelected last November and would have been unsuccessful save for the $2 million dollars of campaign funds that McCarthy gave her.
The rest of those holdouts do have a couple of valid points. In the last couple of decades, regardless of which party held the majority, Congress has been run poorly, with few issues being debated on the floor, but through closed door party negotiations that are then lumped into giant omnibus bills that are usually passed at the last minute without anyone ever reading the thousands of pages that make up the bill. In the last half of the 20th Century, the power of the Speaker has increased dramatically, effectively giving the Speaker enormous power to shape legislation. This is why the majority of bills that do pass do so with “unanimous consent.”
Still, the long-drawn-out process of failed ballot after failed ballot gives the appearance of the Republican Party members shooting themselves in the foot. Reload and repeat. Someone wrote to ask if there was a historical precedent. Since there is a historical precedent for everything, I give you the Battle of Karánsebes.
In 1788, Austria was a year into the four-year war with the Ottoman Empire. This is not unusual, since for most of the latter half of the 18th Century, most of Europe was at war with damn near everybody else over practically nothing. Since Austria was still being led by the hapless Hapsburg Royal Family, it would be easier to list the times that Austria was not at war with somebody.
The Austrian Army, made up of roughly 100,000 men drawn from Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Croatia, Serbia, and Poland, suffered from the units lacking a shared language, from raging epidemics, and from being personally led by Emperor Joseph II. Joseph was yet another Hapsburg absolutist, and like his sister, Marie Antoinette, was certainly no one to lose your head over.
As the army blundered around in present-day Romania in search of the Ottoman forces that had invaded Austrian territory, Joseph sent the Hussars out to scout the nearby territory. For those of you who didn’t take my military history classes, Hussars were light cavalry whose uniforms looked like they had been issued by an Italian opera company. They were only lightly armed because their usual job was to act as scouts.
On September 21, 1788, the Hussars rode out across a river in search of the Turks, but failing that, they successfully managed to find a band of Gypsies who gladly sold them a large quantity of schnapps. There was enough booze for the Hussars, but not nearly enough to share with the rest of the army, so the Hussars dismounted and began to reconnoiter the bottom of the liquor bottles.
Concerned about the prolonged absence of his scouts, Emperor Joseph sent a contingent of infantry across the river to locate the Hussars. By the time the infantry got across the river, it wasn’t hard to locate the party, as the Hussars were loudly drunk and stubbornly refused to share their schnapps with the thirsty infantry. Arguments turned into shouting, then brawling and then it got serious. The Hussars thought they were better than the infantry, who in turn generally thought the cavalry were just better dressed clowns who left the real fighting to the infantry. Since both groups were armed and alcohol was involved….well, we will never know who fired the first shot, but before long, both groups were shooting at each other.
It was definitely someone in the infantry who had the idea of scaring off the Hussars by yelling “Turks! Turks!”
The Hussars did exactly what was expected: they mounted their horses and fled. So did the majority of the infantry, not knowing it was a ruse. Both groups continued firing at each other, at the enemy that wasn’t there, and at anything else that moved. The retreat turned into a stampede that was headed directly back towards the camp.
Unfortunately, not every unit in camp knew that the Hussars (and then the infantry) had been sent across the river, but they certainly knew that a large group of screaming soldiers was coming across the river, directly toward their position, and that those men were firing their guns while yelling about the Turks. Naturally, those units in camp, believed they were being attacked and began to defend themselves. An artillery officer ordered his cannons to begin firing to defend the camp.
As the rest of the men in camp woke up, all they could hear was screaming, cannons booming, and guns firing. Worse, the sounds were obviously getting closer. Within minutes, whole regiments were firing wildly at other regiments who promptly returned fire. In the smoke and confusion, officers got separated from their units, finding themselves surrounded by troops that spoke a different language. Emperor Joseph, believing that his army was under attack by Ottoman forces, ordered a retreat and then promptly got separated from his protection detail. Two days later, Joseph and one, lone aide wandered into the Austrian Army camp.
How many men were lost in the battle is still being debated, but the most often quoted account says that 10,000 men were killed. The Austrians had fled so rapidly—from themselves—that they left behind their wounded, a lot of their cannons, and the supply wagons containing the army payroll.
Two days later, the Ottoman Army arrived, easily securing the area around Karánsebes. They had won a battle they hadn’t even fought.
The Republicans should remember that it is possible to lose a battle because of friendly fire.
It may have been chaotic in appearance, but the conservatives got some concessions from the would-be Speaker of the House. At least someone in the party was showing a little principle.
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