Sic Transit Gloria Something or Other

What a big day September 17th was for empires.  That's the way it goes in history sometimes.  Whole weeks drag by while the historians twiddle their fingers and peruse the help wanted ads then suddenly along comes a particular date and everything happens.  Time may, or may not, be linear but history appears to like clumps.  Clumps separated by several centuries but clumps nonetheless.

The first empire under the historical spotlight is that perennial favorite (of mine anyway) Byzantium.  On the 17th of September 1176 the Byzantine empire had a particularly bad day, getting itself severely spanked by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Myriokephalon.  At the time Byzantium had been staging a modest military renaissance after the even more disastrous Battle of Manzikert a century previously.  That battle and its aftermath had cost the empire virtually all of Asia Minor and ushered in a period of political instability as various magnates, politicians and generals (the three terms were pretty much interchangeable) fought over what remained.  Eventually a guy named Alexius beat all his opponents and he, followed by his son and grandson, managed to recapture most of the coastal regions of Asia Minor.  The interior eluded them, however, and it was to redress this that emperor Manuel (grandson of the aforementioned Alexius) mustered a huge (by modern standards tiny) army of some thirty odd thousand men and marched on the Seljuk capital of Iconium.  A measure of his success can be found in the fact that the region today is known as Turkey, not Byzantey.  To reach Iconium Manuel had to march his army through a narrow pass near Myriokephalon.  Full of confidence Manuel proceeded to do this without conducting a proper reconnaissance or securing the heights and the Turks, waiting in ambush, handed him his arse in a sack.

Fast forward about four hundred and fifty five years and it was the turn of the Holy Roman Empire to do something stupid with their army getting bitch slapped at the Battle of Breitenfeld on September 17, 1631.  Breitenfeld took place part way through a conflict known (in a triumph of accuracy over imagination) as the Thirty Years War.  The Habsburg emperor (aided by his Spanish cousins) was attempted to reimpose Catholicism (and not coincidentally, his own authority) over the recalcitrant north German princes who had embraced Protestantism (partly out of genuine religious feeling but mainly to loosen the emperor's hold over them).  As was appropriate for what was essentially a German civil war the Imperial forces were commanded by a Belgian in Spanish service and the heavy lifting on the Protestant side was done by the Swedish army under the command of King Gustav Adolf, the Lion of the North.  Tilly, the Imperial commander was a perfectly competent general but unfortunately Gustav was a military genius and the Swedes (with some moderately interested Saxons in tow) crushed the Imperial army and sent it fleeing from the field.  Gustav's principal reason for being in Germany seems to have been that he had raised a magnificent army and couldn't wait to try it out.  Fortunately for the empire he would die on another battlefield not long afterwards.  Unfortunately for the empire their most brilliant general turned out to be a megalomaniacal nutcase who eventually had to be murdered by soldiers loyal to the emperor.  With nobody of real talent in charge the war went on for another ten or fifteen years largely because noone could figure out how to stop it.

Hugging close to the twentieth century is an event that pitted two empires against each other (I know, pretty cool huh).  In 1894 the decaying empire of China found itself in a war with the thrusting, modernised empire of Japan in the first (and less well known) Sino-Japanese war.  Technically the war was over interests in Korea but it's more likely that the Japanese were simply sick of the Chinese calling them dwarf pirates.  On September 17th the Chinese and Japanese fleets collided in an engagement known as the Battle of the Yalu River (although it actually took place at sea).  The Chinese fleet commanded by a former cavalryman Ding Ruchang was escorting Chinese troopships carrying reinforcements to the Chinese army in Korea.  The Japanese fleet was attempting to disrupt the landing.  Although the Chinese fleet was the larger it suffered numerous problems.  Ding Ruchang himself was noted for his courage, loyalty and honesty (a more unlikely trio of talents for a contemporary Chinese imperial official to possess cannot be found) unfortunately his crews were poorly trained, his officers corrupt and incompetent and in a number of cases it was found that corruption in the munitions industry had led to shells being filled with concrete or sawdust rather than high explosive.  The Battle of the Yalu River was an absolute disaster for the Chinese for, whatever his other abilities, Ding Ruchang simply wasn't a sailor.  Matters weren't helped when the only sensible order he gave was ignored by the captain of his own flagship because it would put the vessel in danger.  It should be noted that the Chinese fought with determination (apart from a couple of ships that ran away) and despite crushing their foe the Japanese, their ammunition racks low, withdrew after beating them without molesting the troopships Ding Ruchang had been ordered to protect.  Ding himself was injured in the battle and what was left of his fleet fled for the safety of its harbour never to venture out again.  The Japanese, victorious on land as well as sea, eventually besieged the port and sank or captured the rest of the fleet.  Unable to bear the disgrace Ding committed suicide and in doing so performed one last duty for his empire.  The Japanese, who fully understood and approved of such an action, gave him a full military funeral and, as a mark of respect, released the prisoners they had captured in taking the city.

To get to the last and most interesting piece of imperial history one has to jump back a few decades to 1859.  This is a little out of place but perhaps time isn't linear after all.  On September 17, 1859 Joshua A Norton a failed businessman (and probably, although not necessarily, a complete nutcase) proclaimed himself emperor Norton I of the United States.  From his home in San Francisco he sent decrees abolishing congress (not, I think we can all agree, a bad idea) and ordering the army to move the (now fired) congressmen along.  From that point a series of decrees followed on whatever topic Norton deemed fit.  The rest of his time was spent walking the streets of San Francisco inspecting the sidewalks, trolley cars and diners to assure himself that all was well with his realm.  San Francisco seems to have taken him to its heart as they accepted his currency, allowed him to dine free of charge in the finest restaurants (in return for being allowed to display a "by imperial appointment" plaque) and when his uniform got tatty they bought him a new one.  When he was arrested (on the grounds that he was insane) the outcry from the public and the press was so great that the police chief stepped in and released him with apologies.  Norton graciously pardoned the arresting officer and henceforth the police saluted him when he passed them in the streets.  On his death in absolute poverty a San Francisco businessman's club paid for a fine funeral and thirty thousand mourners turned up. Norton is a whimsical moment in history (after all those bloody battles) but he does have his memorial.  One of his numerous decrees was a command that to improve commerce and communication a bridge and a tunnel should be built across San Francisco Bay.  Both were eventually built and at the Transbay Terminal of the San Francisco Bay Bridge is a plaque which reads, "Pause, traveller and be grateful to Emperor Norton I of the United States, Protector of Mexico 1859-80 whose prophetic wisdom decreed the bridging of the San Francisco Bay".