Memo from NYC

I love history. Even though this is a blog about NYC, I'm obsessed with late 19th and early 20th century European history, the decades where the various rulers of the great empires in Europe made terrible decisions that led to war and revolution -- and shaped the world we live in today.

And in so many ways the lessons that can be learned from that time and place apply to our country and NYC today. 

"It was hard to be Tsar." So begins the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore's book about the Romanov dynasty that ruled Russia for 300 years. Ruling an empire, a country, a region or a city is hard work. Well, it's hard if you take the job seriously, if you strive to do it well, if you try not to make mistakes, and if you truly care about the welfare and progress of your people and your land.

But if you don't take it seriously, or handle it badly, catastrophe ensues. 

In the years leading up to World War I, three of Europe's biggest empires were ruled by people who were unfit to rule. In short, they were really bad at their jobs. They were incompetent, arrogant, delusional, prone to magical thinking, made huge mistakes, and it all ended in horror.

In Germany there was Kaiser Wilhelm II. An erratic, arrogant, narcissistic man-child, he engaged in building up a navy that Germany didn't need, just to piss of England (and his English relatives), tried to play different countries against each other, fired the best Chancellor that Germany ever had (Bismark), and finally plunged Germany into war in 1914 that forced it to fight on two fronts. Eventually Germany lost the war and Wilhelm fled the country -- leaving his country in ruin, eventually leading to the rise of the Nazis.

In Austria-Hungary, you had Emperor Franz Joseph, an amiable but unimaginable ruler who refused to give the 11 nationalities of his empire any real political sovereignty or respect. He was also vulnerable to demands of his army chiefs who yearned for war, any war, and eventually capitulated to their demands to attack Serbia -- that triggered World War I. Franz Joseph died in 1916, was succeeded by his very young nephew, and eventually Austria-Hungary lost the war, the empire broke up, and Franz Joseph's dynasty, the Habsburgs, lost power after 600 years.

And finally, in Russia, you had Tsar Nicholas II, the most staggeringly dumb man ever to rule a vast empire, who believed he'd be a great ruler because God wanted him to, who refused to make reforms until violence ensued, started wars (like the one with Japan) that Russia list in 1905, oversaw the massacre of Bloody Sunday, and finally plunged Russia into war in 1914 with an army that was totally unprepared to fight. This led to the fall of the Romanovs and the rise of Communism.

Disastrous rulers all -- and some of the people who worked for them were even more insane (like advisors who wanted wars or encouraged repression or ... Rasputin). It was rule by the unserious, rule by the mendacious, and it had very serious and cruel conseqences.

We see this in America today.

Today we are being ruled by reckless and unserious people who are dismantling our government, draining our country's power, condoning criminality and violence and repression, and destroying our nation's reputation. It's a horror show (unless you hate America, in which case it's a triumph). 

Closer to home we have Mayor Eric Adams, perhaps the worst and most unpopular mayor this city has ever had, a criminal and a narcissist, a disaster. And he sure doesn't take his job seriously -- Adams has even said that his job, being mayor of the country's biggest city, isn't hard! It's like when Donald Trump told Bob Woodward that he didn't think that the COVID crises was a leadership challenge!

Well, if you don't really care about your job or your city or your country or your people or the challenges facing them ... then leadership is easy. Then it's easy to be the Tsar, or the president, or the mayor, or the whatever. Like school. If you don't care about doing your homework or taking tests or getting good grades, then school is a cinch! But if you do care, well, it's a little harder.

If someone tells you that something that is intrinsically hard is in fact easy, then that is not a serious person -- and that person should never be in a position of power or responsibility. 

Last year I did a blog post about the kingdoms of NYC and I included links to a British mini-series from 1974 called Fall of Eagles. In 13 brilliant episodes it dramatizes the 70 years leading up to World War I and the fall of the German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires in 1918. I can't praise this show enough -- it's massively entertaining and also shows how the warped personalities and priorities of these rulers and their minions created hell.

I strongly recommend you watch it and you can find all the episodes for free on YouTube here. The best episodes, in my opinion are: Episode 4 about the 1889 Mayerling tragedy; Episode 5 about the Nicholas II and Lenin (played by a very young Patrick Stewart); Episode 9 about the annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary; and Episode 10 about the start of World War I. 

These episodes most of all demonstrate the failures of people unfit to lead or who operate through delusion and lies. And it makes you look at the people leading America and NYC today and realize that what happened in the past sadly is happening again today here at home.