One of the main justifications I give when I
get asked “what’s the point in doing history?” by my students is that it
regularly repeats itself which allows us to learn from the mistakes of the
past. Thankfully there are rarely follow up questions because it would be
pretty hard to give a positive example of where we’ve actually learnt from the
mistakes of the past. Repetition is also a theme when it comes to sobriquets
and “The Iron (insert job title here)” is one which has been applied to many
historical figures.
Rather than focus on just the one example in
this post I thought it would be worth examining two particularly ferrous
figures from history in an attempt to see who is most deserving of their
moniker. Apologies to Brazilian hero the Duke of Caxais, former Archbishop of
Vancouver William Mark Duke, Massachusetts Democratic politician John F.
Thompson, South African football administrator Irvin Khoza and Arthur Wellesley,
the Duke of Wellington, who didn’t make the sample. As for the Iron Lady,
Margaret Thatcher, I didn’t think I could provide a balanced account of her
career. And it’s Christmas and she’s the last person I want to be thinking
about. Instead I will be looking at Otto von Bismarck and Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the 3rd Duke of Alba.
The Iron Chancellor – Otto von Bismarck
As the man who instigated a series of wars to
establish a united Germany Otto von Bismarck seems to fit the iron bill rather
well. Bismarck began his career in Prussia as a royalist politician who
initially campaigned against the unification of Germany as well as advocating
the divine right of kings. Once deployed to Frankfurt in 1851 by the Prussian
King Frederick William IV his views began to change as he saw that the Prussian
sovereignty he sought to protect may only be saved by uniting with other German
states to avoid Austrian dominance. In 1862 his speech to the Prussian Chamber
of Deputies outlined his increasing desire for German unification with Bismarck
stating “the great questions of the time will not be resolved by speeches and
majority decisions…but by iron and blood.” Successive victories against
Denmark, Austria and France with a whole load of iron and blood secured
unification in 1871 and Bismarck, somewhat unsurprisingly, served as the
nation’s first Chancellor.
Bismarck takes his hat from the umpire and heads to deep fine leg.
Bismarck’s chancellorship started with a
determined campaign to decrease Catholic influence in German politics through
the Kulturkampf. Several bishops were exiled from Prussia and Catholic
marriages were no longer legally ratified without a civil ceremony.
Unfortunately for Bismarck this merely strengthened the resolve of the Catholic
Centre Party and, when it became apparent that their votes were needed to put
through Bismarck’s laws, the Kulturkampf was abandoned in 1878. Much of
Bismarck’s anti-Catholic legislature was slowly reversed following the death of
Pope Pius IX with the more pragmatic Leo XIII proving to be a far better
negotiator.
His approach to his other main political opponents,
the socialists, was far more subtle. In an attempt to limit the appeal of his
left-wing rivals and earn the loyalty of the German working classes, Bismarck’s
administration introduced remarkably progressive welfare legislation for the
period including sickness and accident insurance as well as old age pensions
for industrial workers. Bismarck was careful to avoid irritating his
conservative allies and steered clear of such Marxist nonsense as improving
workplace safety, limiting working hours or banning child labour and thus
managed to placate both factory owners and workers in a way that the New Labour
movement would have been proud of. This also ended years of emigration as young
German workers stayed at home to reap the benefits of these reforms rather than
chance their arms in the USA.
The deaths of Kaisers Wilhelm I and Friedrich
III, both supporters of the Chancellor, in quick succession in 1889 brought
Wilhelm II to the throne and, with it, an end to Bismarck’s chancellorship.
Wilhelm and Bismarck clashed on a number of points, in particular foreign
policy, where the new Kaiser believed his Chancellor had pursued a far too
careful path which denied Germany its “place in the sun”. Intriguingly,
however, it was a disagreement over Bismarck’s increasingly aggressive
anti-socialist policies which led to the Chancellor being forced to resign in
1890. As his health deteriorated over the 1890s he made several gloomy
predictions regarding Wilhelm’s reign (“the crash will come…if things go on
like this”) and the state of Europe (“the great European war will come out of
some damned foolish thing in the Balkans”) which were dismissed as the
ramblings of a bitter old man. Bismarck didn’t help this image with a
posthumous dig at the Kaiser on his sarcophagus which was inscribed with the
epitaph “a loyal German servant of Kaiser Wilhelm I”.
The Iron Duke - Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the 3rd Duke of Alba
The 3rd Duke of Alba joined the
military at the age of 17 in 1524 and within a year had been rewarded for his military
prowess with the title of Governor of Fuenterrabia following the siege of the
border town. By 1541 he had been appointed as High Steward to the King of
Spain, a title he held under both Charles V and Philip II until his death in
1582. Charles V had entrusted his son’s preparations for the Spanish crown to
Alba and he had accompanied Philip on a tour of Europe between 1548 and 1551 as
well as to his ill-fated marriage to Mary I of England in 1554.
Alba contemplates the difficulty of organising Philip II's stag do on such short notice.
Unsurprisingly, it was not for his travel and
diplomatic escapades that Alba earned his moniker the Iron Duke. Throughout the
1530s, 1540s and 1550s he led the Holy Roman Empire to a series of impressive
victories across Europe and Northern Africa spreading Hapsburg influence across
the Mediterranean and bloodying the noses of the French, the Ottoman Empire and
even Pope Paul IV. Alba was rewarded with several honours due to his
exceptional winning streak including a promotion to Grand Master of the
Illustrious Order of the Golden Fleece in 1548 and the creation of the title
Duke of Huéscar for his heir, Fadrique, in 1563. Despite Fadrique’s best
attempts to derail his father’s meteoric rise by breaking his marriage contract
with Magdelena de Guzman in 1566, Alba was made Governor of the Netherlands a
year later and Philip II, not famed for his forgiveness, even allowed Fadrique
to leave prison to accompany his father.
Alba’s main task in the Netherlands was to put
an end to the Protestant revolt which had begun in the summer of 1566 with
attacks on churches and monasteries. Within two weeks of his arrival in
Brussels he had established the ominously named Council of Troubles which set
to bring those behind the revolt to justice. Not content with targeting the
Calvinists Alba launched an attack on the Flemish aristocracy resulting in the
arrest, trials and execution of notable nobles the Count of Egmont and the
Count of Horn for daring to negotiate with Protestants. To top off his
questionable approach to winning over the locals he personally attended all of
the executions sentenced by the Council of Troubles just in case anyone got the
idea he had nothing to do with them. It was at this point in his career that
Alba became known as the Iron Duke.
Fittingly for the geographical area containing
the famous Belgian town the Spanish Netherlands turned out to be something of a
Waterloo for the Duke of Alba. Despite sustained military action and spending
as well as over five thousand executions Alba’s presence in the Netherlands
failed to end the Protestant rebellion. Whilst his soldiers remained fiercely
loyal and he retained the support of Philip II many areas turned to William of
Orange as a figurehead for revolt against Spanish suppression and Alba was
relieved of his duties in 1573. Unlike Napoleon, however, this was not to be
the end of Alba as he played a decisive role in securing the Portuguese throne
for Philip II in 1580. As 1st Viceroy of Portugal, his reward for
his success, he was officially recognised as second only to the Spanish king
until his death in Lisbon in 1582.
And the winner is…
Both Bismarck and Alba played a decisive role
in the shaping of Europe albeit three hundred years apart. This three hundred
year gap is probably the main difference between them and the deciding factor
in who I feel is most deserving of their sobriquet. Although Bismarck displayed
ruthlessness in establishing and maintaining the German state he also displayed
an element of adaptability to the political landscape of the time and
eventually lost his office due to his disagreements with Kaiser Wilhelm II over
Germany’s foreign policy. The 3rd Duke of Alba also displayed
ruthlessness in expanding and maintaining the Hapsburg Empire and, despite
ignoring a need for diplomacy and adaptability in the Netherlands, retained the
support of Philip II who relied so heavily on Alba for the growth and dominance
of his empire. His inflexibility makes it hard to look beyond Fernando Álvarez de Toledo as history’s true ‘Iron Man’. It doesn’t
mean you’d necessarily want to go for a pint with him.
Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba - so iron his clothes are made of the stuff.
