Λερνία Ὕδρα

         As a young man, at the dawn of my ethnonationalistic fervor, I began to idolize Vercingetorix of the Gauls. He represented to me, the metaphoric struggle of Celt vs. Roman, rugged individualism against the forces of spirit crushing order and automation. This was obviously foolish on several levels but can you blame a teenager in his rebellious phase? The main issues which my younger, foolish counterpart failed to grasp are as follows: The most obvious is that Vercingetorix actually morphed the Gauls into the very Romans which he so despised. In order to attempt victory, the Gauls were forced to adopt Roman tactics in their fighting. This was the most logical action for Vercingetorix to take and I find no fault in it but it does slightly dampen the Romantic notion of the noble Gaul standing for freedom and individualism. The second point, of which this post is focused upon, is that by uniting the Gauls, Vercingetorix hastened the conquest of Gaul by a significant number of years. There are sixty five individual kingdoms of Gaul which I can name; every one was a nation unto itself with its own tribal leader or king. They all shared similar culture and customs but they were separate peoples and had no notion of a Gallic Nation. Once the surviving tribes were united under Vercingetorix, Caesar no longer had to defeat the Belgae, the Arverni, the Sequani, and the rest; he had to defeat Vercingetorix. There was now a head of state and that head had only to be cut off to defeat the state.
         Jump now, to a slightly more familiar tale, that of Alfred of Wessex. Alfred the Great! The man who saved England from the Danes and restored Christian order to the land! Also, the man who handed England to William the Bastard. It all starts in Anno Domini 793 in Lindisfarne, Northumbria where St. Cuthbert's Monastery was raided and burned to the ground. There were several such raids in the continuing years but it wasn't until 865, when the Ragnarsson brothers arrived with their great army, that the possibility of conquest became a reality. Northumbria was soon conquered, followed by the kingdoms of East Anglia and Mercia. Wessex was the last kingdom of what we now call England!(Wales, Cornwall, Cumbria, and Scotland are not counted as part of England) Everything was in the pious hands of Alfred (after he stole the crown from his nephew with false tales of papal intervention). And Alfred followed through, he slowly but surely recaptured the kingdoms and drove the Danes to the very edges of the island! We love to concentrate on the heroic antics of Alfred but oftentimes fail to recognize what allowed him to save the English peoples: Four separate kingdoms. Northumbria fell and the Northumbrians fled to East Anglia; East Anglia fell, on to Mercia and so on. They were all united by their blood as Anglo-Saxons but separated by four different heads of four different states. Four heads are much more difficult to sever than one, especially when these heads work together and offer shelter to one another.
         So now that Alfred has saved the day, what does he do? He destroys the very concept that saved his people by declaring himself king of the now united Angleland. It is presented as four heads being merged into one stronger head but in truth, three heads are chopped off. Fast forward a few decades to September 25, 1066, The Battle Stamford Bridge where Harold II of England defeats the invading Harald Hardrada of Norway. Harold barely made the journey North in time but he was successful; the Kingdom of England was safe from Norwegian invaders! Unfortunately, three days later, William the Bastard of Normandy landed at Pevensey. After another frantic march and some basic preparations, Harold arrived at Hastings on October 13 to do battle with William. Crash, boom, bang, arrow through the eye, and England is now William's property. Poor Harold could have used some more heads.
         I could continue to recount stories of unification gone wrong but I'm sure you have grasped my point. Feel free to investigate Harald Tanglehair's unification of Norway, the Roman survival technique of splitting the empire, or countless other events if you need more convincing. I will now reluctantly move my topic to a more modern subject: The United States of America. At least that was the idea; the united states seems to be a vestigial name in these days of strong, centralized government. Imagine, if you will, an attempt to conquer the US. Would you prefer the conquerer to defeat the government in Washington D.C. and think, "Great place, I'll contact the movers" or, "Shit, fifty more to go"?