tired fools

In Roman times success as a general often turned out to be far more dangerous than failure. There are countless examples of generals returning in triumph only to be murdered by the emperor, generally because they now represented a threat as a viable alternative to the incumbant that discontented factions could rally around. I was reminded of this today when reading that General Patton may have been assassinated by the US secret services.

Mr Wilcox told The Sunday Telegraph: “Patton was going to resign from the Army. He wanted to go to war with the Russians. The administration thought he was nuts.

“He also knew secrets of the war which would have ruined careers.

I don’t think Dwight Eisenhower would ever have been elected president if Patton had lived to say the things he wanted to say.”

This may have happened in Britain, too, in 1935. T E Lawrence (of Arabia) died in a motor cycle accident. He was apparently on the verge of joining Moseley’s blackshirts and may have been intending to meet Hitler. MI5 had his house under surveillence and a witness claimed to have seen a black car at the scene of the accident.

It would be interesting to read what a future Gibbon, say in “The decline and fall of western civilisation”, might write.