Liquid Courage

Aka, “Methias, You Won’t Believe What Went Down Last Night”
1199-1204
European Christians vs. Greek Christians

“Nay more, a certain harlot, a sharer in their guilt, a minister of the furies, a servant of the demons, a worker of incantations and poisonings, insulting Christ, sat in the patriarch’s seat, singing an obscene song and dancing frequently.” – Nicetas Chroniates on the sacking of Constantinople

Hey everybody, let's paaaaaaaaarty!

Most of us know from experience that parties do not always turn out as planned.  A quiet night with friends changes when someone opens the Jim Beam, the guys from next door stop by, and before you know it the toilet is broken and someone needs their stomach pumped.  The Fourth Crusade could have been the Christian West’s terrific gala to ring in the 13th Century.  The quote above suggests just how far the party got out of hand.

New Pope Innocent III needed two years (1199-1201) to get his crusade together, but eventually convinced an army of 33,500 knights, squires, foot soldiers and Alpha Delta Crappa brothers to attack Cairo and march on Muslim Jerusalem.  Those opportunistic party planners, the Venetians, were hired at tremendous cost to ship the war party across the Mediterranean to Cairo (the boats came with bottle service).  The Pope, who should have been an expert on the psychology of temptation, jinxed the whole expedition by giving the army just one rule: don’t attack Christians.

[Future Popes, take note: never give 33,500 religious extremists just one rule.  Even if you only have one rule you care about, make up a second rule just to be safe.  "Don't attack Christians and, um, bring me back some sandalwood bongos.  Don't forget the bongos!"  That way, you can pretend to be upset when they forget the bongos, and use it as cover to excommunicate your political enemies.  It's so easy.]

Does not carry cash

Anyhow, only a third of the expected Crusading party showed up in Venice.  The Venetians demanded full payment, which the Crusaders could not meet, having left their wallets back at the castle.  Instead of just washing the dishes, the Crusaders worked off the tab by sacking a Christian town the Venetians hated, and by accepting an offer of money from an exiled Byzantine prince to restore him to the Throne [seen at right].

Before many Crusaders knew what was happening, they found themselves besieging Constantinople.  They installed the prince, Alexius Angelus (now Alexius IV), on the throne and demanded payment.  Unfortunately, the deposed Alexius III had fled with a lot of cash, and Alexius IV could not pay the debt.  Meanwhile, the Constantinople citizenry grew weary of power grabs and the Crusaders’ penchant for burning down neighborhoods.  They supported the overthrow and murder of Alexius IV, and the new Emperor Alexius Ducas (imaginatively taking the name Alexius V) refused to pay the Crusaders.

Wait...didn't that Pope say there was one rule we needed to follow? What was it again? Meh.

At this point some frat brothers came up out of the basement having just finished three games of cognac pong, and the glorious crusade in Christ’s name went completely off the rails.  On April 13, 1204, the Crusaders began an epic three day sack of the city.  They destroyed the world-famous Library of Constantinople, murdered Orthodox clerics, ransacked the unprecedented and magnificent Hagia Sophia church, stole over 900,000 marks of silver, and worst of all, placed a prostitute on the Orthodox throne to sing “obscene song and dance frequently.”  That’s right, dance frequently.

The normal, straightforward, righteous quest to drive the Muslims from Jerusalem turned into the brutal sack of the Orthodox Christians’ most magnificent city.  Many of the Crusaders made off with terrific plunder, leaving vomit on the carpet, empties on the lawn, and the weakened Byzantine Empire to deal with the noise complaints called in by their Muslim neighbors across the Bosphorus.  The fatally weakened Byzantine Empire eventually fell to the Muslim Ottomans in 1453, and the already-tenuous relationship between the Roman and Orthodox Churches was unequivocally severed.

Drink: Pulling a Fourth Crusade

Note: not technically a drink, but rather an embarrassing episode

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of expensive liquor (preferably raki)
• 1 friend’s significant other
• 1 kitchen table
• 1 video camera (optional)

Directions:

1. Go to your friend’s liquor cabinet after the Pope asked you not to.
2. Take the most expensive bottle you can find.  Or all of them.
3. Drink it hastily with your friend’s significant other.
4. Have sex with him/her on your friend’s kitchen table.  Trash kitchen.  Videotape episode or talk about it with everyone.

Drink: Pulling a Custer

Ratings:
Strength: 2/5 (musket)
Skill: 1/5 (galley slave)
Rank: ?/5 (up to you, cowboy)

[ingredients:]

• any shot (recommended: Buffalo Trace whiskey and Tabasco)

[preparation:]

1. Refuse an offer of a chaser.
2. Take shot.
3. Gasp for chaser but find none available.
4. You have “Pulled a Custer.”

NOTE: for a summary of the Battle of the Little Big Horn in the style of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories, which is a totally obvious thing to do, please see the Briefing Room.

Background

Poor George Armstrong Custer.  He resides in the wing of American history devoted to those figures whose multifaceted careers are overshadowed in the popular imagination by one singular act (see also: Buckner, Bill; Hancock, John).  Custer was an American military officer who is and will forever be known primarily for leading troops into total annihilation by Native American warriors in 1876.  Still, there’s more to the man than a butt whupping, right?

A fan of publicity, but probably not this kind.

Custer was last in his class at the U.S. Military Academy, but graduated as the Civil War broke out.  So the jobs market was pretty good.  He was known for flashy uniforms and a love of publicity, but gained admirers for his aggressive tactics and willingness to lead charges.  He fought for the Union at the First Battle of Bull Run and at Gettysburg, and was present at General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.  How interesting!  Sort of a poor-student-makes-good story, isn’t it?

Doesn’t matter – he and his troops got demolished at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

Okay.  General Philip Sheridan was a sufficient fan of Custer that he presented Custer with the table upon which General Lee’s surrender was signed.  Custer gave it to his wife, Libbie, and it now resides in the Smithsonian.  In 1867 Custer was court-martialed for going AWOL in order to visit his wife.  How romantic!

Nobody cares – Custer got his ass and everybody else’s ass kicked by Sitting Bull in 1876.

They say Custer cussed like an Irishman.

Fair enough, but hear this: Reconstruction Era politics almost cost Custer his appointment as part of the campaign against the Sioux.  But his popularity with influential Army officers, and his own pleading, overrode President Grant’s animosity towards Custer and he was included in the campaign.  How tragic!  This has all the makings of some sweeping historical epic, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Colin Farrell!

Yawn – two thousand Native Americans booked Custer one-way passage on an express train to Deadville at the Battle of Greasy Grass Creek.

Fine!  Let’s talk about that, since it’s all anybody cares about.

Much of the events of “Custer’s Last Stand” remain debated.  The basic outline is that Custer took 700 men forward as part of the 7th Cavalry’s attack on a large Native American camp.  Custer split his forces into three groups to encircle the camp.  Custer was aware that he was probably outnumbered, but no one in the 7th Cavalry realized by just how much.  Custer has since been criticized for refusing reinforcements for the attack, for splitting his forces, and for leaving Gatling guns back at Yellowstone (back then, you could bring guns into a national park).  Yet all of those decisions were consistent with the information Custer had at the time, with standard American military strategy, and with his aggressive command style.

Looks heavy

What happened?  The other two prongs of Custer’s forces were driven back, allowing Sitting Bull’s entire force to focus on Custer’s prong.  Numbers vary wildly, but somewhere between 1,800 and 3,000 warriors attacked Custer’s 210 men on a bluff overlooking the camp.  Custer’s men likely made a stand in a circle, using dead horses and small ditches for cover.  They were quickly overrun and every single man was killed within an hour.  The remaining two prongs fought an inconclusive battle that day and the next, until U.S. reinforcements arrived, at which point Sitting Bull withdrew.

The nation at large, riding Manifest Destiny to the Pacific, was shocked by news of the defeat.  Blame for the trouncing was hotly contested, but Custer’s demise was quickly glorified in the national consciousness.  A trendy beer called Budweiser commissioned a lurid and entirely fabricated lithograph of Custer’s Last Stand, and put it up in every goddamn saloon in the country.

Man, that Custer was a hero. Barkeep, pour me another frosty.

Custer’s desire for publicity would probably be satisfied by the fame he enjoys today.  The specifics of that fame, however, he might not be so keen on.  The point is, Custer was a poor student, an aggressive and flashy Civil War office, a romantic, and was present for a lot of important mid-century events.  Also, he left Gatling guns at home and got everybody killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.