[Juenger-list] Ernst Juenger and the Vendee II

[mvk575b@tninet.se (Bertil Häggman)]

Dear listmembers,

A little further on (p. 344) EJ writes again on Vendee:

"Dort (in Vendee) wurde ein Bauernkrieg gefuehrt; er hat
mit jenem, der fast dreihundert Jahr frueher in Deutschland wuetete,
kaum mehr als den Namen gemein. Der Aufstand in der Vendee
war zeitlich spaeter, doch morphologisch gesehen frueher...er war
noch gotisch; in ihm kaempften die drei Urstaende der Ritter,
Baurn und Pfaffen vereint. In Deutschland dagegen ruehrte sich, noch
unklar, ein Stand in einem neunen Sinn. Hier kam der Bauer
zu frueh und in der Vendee zu spaet. Hier wurden Brot und Bundschuh,
dort die Lilien im Feld gefuehrt."

One can of course speculate in why EJ is calling Vendee "gothic"?
The Peasants War in Germany 1524-25 ended in the defeat of the
peasants at Frankenhausen in 1525. East Germany used to try to picture
the war as some sort of premature rising of proletarians. But peasant
revolts periodically swept Europe: Flanders in 1323-1327, Wat Tyler in =
1381,
the Taborites in Bohemia. The peasants were unable to engage in =
sustained
efforts lacking organization and discipline. In some cases it was a form
of early social banditry, robbing travellers and attacking small enemy =
detachments.
In think EJ forgot that Vendee was not purely a peasant uprising. =
Numerous
nobles joined and it was both a modern counterrevolutionary war and a =
monarchist.
catholic war against the atheist revolution of Robespierre. The German =
peasants
were against monarchy and nobility, while in Vendee was fought under the
lily of the Bourbon royal family.

Also the war in the Vendee raged between 1793 and 1823 with periods of =
calm.
The German peasants were defeated in one year.

With Juegerian greetings

Bertil