Everything and Nothing

Moving a bit forward in history this time, to the age of Metternich and his lot.

Julius Jacob von Haynau (October 14, 1786 – March 14, 1853).

The Hyena of Brescia.

Haynau was a Austrian noble and general whose hatred of revolutionary ideals (and revolutionaries, for that matter) was legendary. He also had an infamously bad temper, so when he was dispatched to Italy in 1848 to smother the revolutionary movements that sprang up that year, it ought not to come as much of a surprise that he treated the city of Brescia rather harshly. He is, for instance, known to have had women who showed sympathy for the revolutionaries, whipped. When he later was sent to Hungary to quench the revolution there, too, he further added to his rumour as a brutal suppressor. From here on I’d like to quote Wikipedia:

“The refugees had spread his evil reputation. In London he was attacked and beaten by Messrs Barclay & Perkins draymen when visiting their brewery, and he was saved from mob violence in Brussels with some difficulty. When Giuseppe Garibaldi visited England in 1864, he insisted on visiting the brewery to thank “the men who flogged Haynau”. G. K. Chesterton, the famous English author, describes the situation in ‘The Crimes of England’. “When an Austrian general who had flogged women in the conquered provinces appeared in the London streets, some common draymen off a cart behaved with the direct quixotry of Sir Lancelot or Sir Galahad. He had beaten women and they beat him. They regarded themselves simply as avengers of ladies in distress, breaking the bloody whip of a German bully.””

Ah, history. There’s really nothing like it.