Baron von Steuben Day

Today is Armistice Day, or Veteran's Day if you prefer the uniquely American retconning of a holiday originally meant to acknowledge the end of a war into a celebration of war in general.  This is a macabre and cynical view, of course, but I mostly view these military parades as another excuse for hawks to hide behind the Sanctity of the Troops as a prima facie justification for their reckless wars.  (Curiously, their support for The Troops only endures so long as they don't possess any opinions of their own;  see the excellent documentary "Sir! No Sir!" about the GI peace movement during Vietnam or, more recently, the right-wing treatment of congressman Jack Murtha.) 

Anyway, this causes me to don my very-amateur historian suit and reflect on some people who don't often get much credit on days like today despite their contributions to American military history.   I'm thinking in particular of this post's titular character, and perhaps the first in history to fit the bill, the Baron Fredrich Wilhelm von Steuben.  Steuben was a Prussian mercenary brought by George Washington to Valley Forge in the famous winter of 1778 to drill the inexperienced Continental Army in European military tactics.  Though he's considered by some the founder of the US Army and honored with a minor holiday and a statue in Lafayette Park, most schoolchildren probably wouldn't have his name roll off the tongue when listing American Revolutionary War heroes.

Oh yes, Lafayette.  You might wonder why there are so many "Lafayette"'s dotting the Eastern US.  That would be on account of this guy.   But I haven't got to the good part yet.  You see, in 1778 Ben Franklin himself went to a European capital to ensure a certain country's entry into the American Revolution.  That country would later provide a decisive factor, including the war's final battle when their fleet (in the absence of a cogent colonial navy) prevented supplies from relieving Cornwallis at Yorktown and compelling him to surrender. 

Put away your Freedom Fries, kids.  The United States owes its independence in part to none other than the dirty French. 

I'm never amazed at the historical depravity of Americans, but sometimes I find the temptation for admonishment too much to pass by.  I wonder if the people who created the infamous Google joke about French military victories had ever heard of this guy.  Or her. Just to name a couple.  I'm sure they were thinking only of the Second World War, or as I like to call it, The Glorious Manifestation of Holy American Salvation, for which the world is forever indebted to us Amen.  Even this obscures the fact that the Eastern Front of WWII was far larger than any theatre that Americans participated in, and indeed larger and deadlier by itself than the any conflict in human history.  Far more Russians died to stop the Wehrmacht than anyone else, which is not how we like to remember the story. 

What America needs is a national holiday to formally recognize the non-Americans who often played a critical role in the country's military history.  Sure, there are minor, regional holidays, like Casimir Pulaski Day, which has since been immortalized by the eponymous Sufjan Stevens song.  But there should be something more national and universal, if for no other reason than to remind people that history is usually sloppy and the idyllic portrait of a Self-Made Man in a Self-Made Nation is an inaccurate and eventually dangerous whitewashing of the honest record. 

Comments

[Clint]

I think Americans are secretly jealous of the cultural superiority of the French.