Ballistic

Ballistic (pronounced buh-lis-tik)

(1) A projected object having its subsequent travel determined or describable by the laws of exterior ballistics, most used in denoting or relating to the flight of projectiles after the initial thrust has been exhausted, moving under their own momentum and subject to the external forces of gravity and the fluid dynamics of air resistance

(2) Of or relating to ballistics.

(3) In slang and idiomatic use, (as “go ballistic”, “went ballistic” etc), to become overwrought or irrational; to become enraged or frenziedly violent.  For those who need to be precise is describing such instances, the comparative is “more ballistic” and the superlative “most ballistic”.

(4) Of a measurement or measuring instrument, depending on a brief impulse or current that causes a movement related to the quantity to be measured

(5) Of materials, those able to resist damage (within defined parameters) by projectile weapons (ballistic nylon; ballistic steel etc), the best-know use of which is the “ballistics vest”.

(6) As “ballistics gel(atin)”, as substance which emulates the characteristics and behavior under stress of human or animal flesh (used for testing the effect of certain impacts, typically shells fired from firearms).

(7) As “ballistic podiatry”, industry slang for “the act of shooting oneself in the foot”, used also by military doctors to describe soldiers with such self-inflicted injuries.  The more general term for gunshot wounds is “ballistic trauma”

(8) In ethno-phonetics, as “ballistic syllable”, a phonemic distinction in certain Central American dialects, characterized by a quick, forceful release and a rapid crescendo to a peak of intensity early in the nucleus, followed by a rapid, un-controlled decrescendo with fade of voicing.

(9) As “ballistic parachute”, a parachute used in light aircraft and helicopters, ejected from its casing by a small explosion.

1765–1775: The construct was the Latin ballist(a) (a siege engine (ancient military machine) for throwing stones to break down fortifications), from the Ancient Greek βαλλίστρα (ballístra), from βάλλω (bállō) (I throw). +‎ -ic.  The -ic suffix was from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European -kos & -ḱos, formed with the i-stem suffix -i- and the adjectival suffix -kos & -ḱos.  The form existed also in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (-ikós), in Sanskrit as -इक (-ika) and the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); A doublet of -y.  In European languages, adding -kos to noun stems carried the meaning "characteristic of, like, typical, pertaining to" while on adjectival stems it acted emphatically; in English it's always been used to form adjectives from nouns with the meaning “of or pertaining to”.  A precise technical use exists in physical chemistry where it's used to denote certain chemical compounds in which a specified chemical element has a higher oxidation number than in the equivalent compound whose name ends in the suffix -ous; (eg sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄) has more oxygen atoms per molecule than sulphurous acid (H₂SO₃).  The modern use (of the big military rockets or missiles (those guided while under propulsion, but which fall freely to their point of impact (hopefully the intended target)) dates from 1949 although the technology pre-dated the label.  The term “ballistic missile” seems first to have appeared in 1954 and remains familiar in the “intercontinental ballistic missile” (ICBM).  The figurative use (“go ballistic”, “went ballistic”) to convey “an extreme reaction; to become irrationally angry” is said to have been in use only since 1981 which is surprising.  To “go thermo-nuclear” or “take the nuclear option” are companion phrases but the nuances do differ.  The noun ballistics (art of throwing large missiles; science of the motion of projectiles) seems first to have appeared in 1753 and was from the Latin ballist(a), from the Ancient Greek ballistes, from ballein (to throw, to throw so as to hit that at which the object is aimed (though used loosely also in the sense “to put, place, lay”)), from the primitive Indo-European root gwele- (to throw, reach).  In the technical jargon of the military and aerospace industries, the derived forms included (hyphenated and not) aeroballistic, antiballistic, astroballistic, ballistic coefficient, quasiballistic, semiballistic, subballistic, superballistic & thermoballistic.  In science and medicine, the forms include bioballistic, cardioballistic, electroballistic and neuroballistic.  Ballistic & ballistical are adjectives, ballisticity, ballistician & ballistics are nouns and ballistically is an adverb; the wonderful noun plural is ballisticies.

The basilisk was a class of large bore, heavy bronze cannons used during the late Middle Ages and in their time were a truly revolutionary weapon, able quickly to penetrate fortifications which in some cases had for centuries enabled attacks to be resisted.  Although there were tales of basilisks with a bores between 18-24 inches (460-610 mm), these were almost certainly a product of the ever-fertile medieval imagination and there’s no evidence any were built with a bore exceeding 5 inches (125 mm).  As a high-velocity weapon however, that was large enough for it to be highly effective, the 160 lb (72 kg) shot carrying a deadly amount of energy and able to kill personnel or destroy structures.  Because of the explosive energy needed to project the shot, the barrels of the larger basilicks could weigh as much as 4000 lb (1,800 kg); typically they were some 10 feet (3 m) in length but the more extraordinary, built as long-range devices, could be as long as 25 feet (7.6 m).  Despite the similarity in form, the name basilisk was unrelated to “ballistics” and came from the basilisk of mythology, a fire-breathing, venomous serpent able to kill and destroy, its glace alone deadly.  It was thus a two part allusion (1) the idea of “spitting fire” and (2) the thought the mere sight of an enemy’s big canons would be enough to scare an opponent into retreat.

As soon as it appeared in Europe, it was understood the nature of battlefields would change and the end of the era of the castle was nigh.  It was the deployment of the big cannons which led to the conquest of Constantinople (capital of the Byzantine Empire now Istanbul in the Republic of Türkiye) in 1453 after a 53 day siege; the city’s great walls which for centuries had protected it from assault were worn down by the cannon fire to the point where the defenders couldn’t repair the damage at the same rate as the destruction.  In an example of the way economics is a critical component of war, the Austrian cannon makers had offered the cannons to the Byzantines but the empire was in the throes of one of the fiscal crises which determined to outcomes of so many conflicts and had no money with which to make the purchase.  The practical Austrians then sold their basilisks to the attacking Ottoman army and the rest is history.  Despite such successes, the biggest of the basilisks became rare after the mid sixteenth century as military tactics evolved to counter their threat by becoming more mobile and the traditional siege of static targets became less decisive and smaller, more easily transported cannon, lighter and cheaper to produce, came to dominate artillery formations.

Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol, Navy, Army and Air Force Institute Building, Dover Castle, Dover, Kent, England.

Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol was a basilisk built in 1544 in Utrecht (in the modern-day Netherlands), the name derived from it being a presented to Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) as a for his daughter (the future Elizabeth I (1533–1603; Queen of England & Ireland 1558-1603) although the first known reference to it being called “Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol” dates from 1767. Some 24 feet (7.3 m) in length and with a 4.75 inch (121 mm) bore, it was said to be able to launch a 10 lb (4.5 kg) ball almost 2000 yards (1.8 km) although as a typical scare tactic, the English made it known to the French and Spanish that its shots were heavier and able to reach seven miles (12 km).  Just to makes sure the point was understood, it was installed to guard the approaches to the cliffs of Dover.  Modern understandings of the physics of ballistics and the use of computer simulations have since suggested there may have been some exaggeration in even the claim of a 2000 yard range and it was likely little more than half that.  Such use of propaganda remains part of the military arsenal to this day.

It was fake news:  Responding to viral reports, the authoritative E!-News in April 2013 confirmed Lindsay Lohan did not "go ballistic" and attack her ex-assistant at a New York City club.  For some reason, far and wide, the fake news had been believed.

Despite the costs involved and the difficulties in maintaining and transporting big cannons, some militaries couldn’t resist them and predictably, Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), who thought just about everything (buildings, tanks, trains, monuments, cars, battleships et al) should be bigger, oversaw some of the most massive artillery pieces ever built, often referred to by historians as “super heavy guns”.  The term is no exaggeration and the most striking example were the Schwerer Gustav and Dora.  With a bore of 31.5 inches (800 mm), the Schwerer Gustav and Dora apparatus weighed 1350 tons (1225 tonnes) and could fire a projectile as heavy as 7.1 tons (6.4 tonnes) some 29 miles (47 km).  Two were built, configured as “railway guns” and thus of most utility in highly developed areas where rail tracks lay conveniently close to the targets.  The original design brief from the army ordinance office required long-range device able to destroy heavily fortified targets and for that purpose, they could be effective.  However, each demands as crew of several thousand soldiers, technicians & mechanics with an extensive logistical support system in place to support their operation which could be fewer than one firing per day.  The Schwerer Gustav’s most successful deployment came during the siege of Sevastopol (1942).  Other big-bore weapons followed but success prove patchy, especially as allied control of the skies made the huge, hard to hid machines vulnerable to attack and even mounting them inside rock formations couldn’t resist the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) new, ground-penetrating bombs.

Schwerer Gustav being readied for a test firing, Rügenwalde, Germany, 19 March 1943, Hitler standing second from the right with Albert Speer (1905–1981; Nazi court architect 1934-1942; Nazi minister of armaments and war production 1942-1945) to his right.  Hitler referred to huge gun as “meine stählerne faust” (my steel fist) but it never fulfilled his high expectations and like many of the gigantic machines which so fascinated the Führer (who treated complaints about their ruinous cost as “tiresome”) it was a misallocation of scarce resources.

It was the development of modern ballistic rockets during World War II (1939-1945) which put an end to big guns (although the Iraqi army did make a quixotic attempt to resurrect the concept, something which involved having a British company “bust” UN (United Nations) sanctions by claiming their gun barrel components were “oil pipes”), the German’s A4 (V-2) rocket the world’s first true long-range ballistic missile. The V-2 represented a massive leap forward in both technology and military application and briefly it would touch “the edge of space” before beginning its ballistic trajectory, reaching altitudes of over 100 km (62 miles) before descending toward its target.  Everything in the field since has to some degree been an evolution of the V-2, the three previous landmarks being (1) the Chinese “Fire Arrows” of the early thirteenth century which were the most refined of the early gunpowder-filled rockets which followed a simple ballistic path, (2) the eighteenth century Indian Mysorean Rockets with the considerable advance of metal casings, the great range a shock to soldiers of the British Raj who had become accustomed to enjoying a technology advantage and (3) the British Congreve Rockets of the early nineteenth century, essentially a refinement of Mysorean enhanced by improved metallurgy and aerodynamics and made more effective still when combined with the well organized logistics of the British military.

Philadelphus

Philadelphus (pronounced fil-ah-del-fiss)

(1) Any shrub of the temperate genus Philadelphus, cultivated for their strongly scented showy flowers (family Hydrangeaceae).

(2) As Philadelphus coronaries (mock orange), a deciduous, early summer-flowering shrub with arching branches that bear racemes of richly scented, cup-shaped, pure white flowers in profusion with finely toothed, bright green foliage.  The plant is grown for its ornamental value.

(3) A male given name with origins in the Ancient Greek.

1600s (in botanical use): From the Ancient Greek Φιλάδελφος (Philádelphos) (brotherly love) & philadelphon (loving one’s brother).  Philadelphus is a proper noun.

Philadelphus coronaries (mock orange) in flower.

The mock orange plant has long been valued for its decorative and functional properties.  Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; US president 1801-1809) was a keen gardener and horticulturalist of some note and on 19 April 1807 noted in his “garden book”: “Planted 9 Philadelphus coronarium, Mock orange in the 4 circular beds of shrubs at the 4 corners of the house.”  Although the origin is uncertain, biologists suspect the strong growing, medium-sized shrub is native either to northern Italy, Austria & Central Romania or Central & North America and Asia; in Europe & North America it has been cultivated at least the sixteenth century.  Before modern standards of taxonomy were codified in the eighteenth century, the plant was classified under the genus Syringa (covering the species of flowering woody plants in the olive family or Oleaceae (commonly called lilacs) and a typically comprehensive description was recorded by Lady (Jean) Skipwith (circa 1748–1826), a Virginia plantation owner and manager still celebrated among botanists for her extensive garden, botanical manuscript notes, and library, the latter reputedly the largest at the time assembled by a woman.  Lady Skipwith called the plant a “Syringa or mock orange” while the US naturalist, explorer & explorer William Bartram (1739–1823) preferred the former, reflecting a scientist’s reverence for anything Greek or Latin.  Syringa was from the stem of the Latin syrinx, from the Ancient Greek σῦριγξ (sûrinx) (shepherd's pipe, quill), the name reflecting the use of the plant's hollow stem to make pipes, flutes & tube.  In modern use, “Mock Orange” tends to be preferred by most, the name derived from the fragrance of the flowers being so reminiscent of orange blossoms.  The origin of the scientific name “Philadelphus” (first applied in the early seventeenth century) is attributed usually to being a tribute to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (Ptolemaîos Philádelphos (Πτολεμαῖος Φιλάδελφος in the Ancient Greek) 309-246 BC, pharaoh (king) of Ptolemaic Egypt (284-246 BC), said to be a keen gardener (which can be translated as “he kept many slaves to tend his gardens”).

The literal translation of the Greek philadelphon was “loving one’s brother”, something used in the sense of “brotherhood of man” as well as when referring to family relationships.  For the pharaoh, the use was a little more nuanced because, after some earlier marital problems, he married his older sister Arsinoe II (316-circa 269 BC).  This appalled the Greeks who condemned the arrangement as incestuous and the couple thus picked up the appellation Philadelphoi (Φιλάδελφοι in the Koinē Greek (sibling-lovers)).  Historians however are inclined to be forgiving and suggest the union was purely for administrative convenience, Egyptian political & dynastic struggles as gut-wrenching as anywhere and there’s no evidence the marriage was ever consummated.  Just to make sure there was the appropriately regal gloss, the spin doctors of the royal court circulated documents citing earlier such marriages between the gods (such as Zeus & Hera).  It certainly set a precedent and the intra-family model was followed by a number of later Ptolemaic monarchs and the practice didn’t end.  The scandalous marriage of Heraclius (circa 575–641; Byzantine emperor 610-641) to his youthful niece Martina resulted in her becoming “the most hated woman in Constantinople” and it was a union certainly consummated for “of the nine children she bore her husband, only three were healthy, the rest either deformed or died in infancy.”

The Philadelphi corridor

The Latin proper noun Philadelphi was the genitive/locative singular of Philadelphus.  In 2024 use spiked because the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) use “Philadelphi Corridor” as military code for the narrow (14 km (9 miles) long & 100 m (110 yards) wide) stretch of land used to separate the Gaza Strip from Egypt; it runs from the Mediterranean coast to the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel and includes the Rafah crossing into Egypt.  The IDF created the corridor (from Gaza territory) as a “buffer zone” (or “cordon sanitaire”), ostensibly to prevent the Hamas, the PIJ (Palestine Islamic Jihad) and others smuggling weapons and other contraband into Gaza through a remarkable network of underground tunnels.  The corridor assumed great significance after Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982 and later after its disengagement from Gaza in 2005; it has long been among the more contested spaces in the Middle East.  According to the IDF, the term “Philadelphi Corridor” was allocated during a routine military planning conference and the choice was wholly arbitrarily with no historical or geographical significance related to the region or any individual.

Just because a military say a code-name has no particular meaning doesn’t mean that’s true; the IDF is no different to any military.  The most obvious possible inspiration for the “Philadelphi corridor” was the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus but one influence may have been cartographic, the geographic shapes of the Gaza Strip (left) and the US city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (right) quite similar and were the monstrosities Northwest, West & Southwest Philadelphia to be annexed by adjacent counties, the shapes of the two would be closer still.  

Lindsay Lohan in Philadelphia, 2012.

The Philadelphi corridor has assumed a new importance because Benjamin Netanyahu (b 1949; Israeli prime minister 1996-1999, 2009-2021 and since 2022) has added Israeli control of it to his list of pre-conditions for any ceasefire in negotiations between his government and the Hamas.  It was designated as a demilitarised border zone after the withdrawal of Israeli settlements and troops from Gaza in 2005, prior to which, under the terms of Israel’s Camp David peace treaty with Egypt (1979), the IDF had been allowed to maintain limited troop formations in corridor but without heavy weapons or heavy armour.  Old Ariel Sharon (1928–2014; prime minister of Israel 2001-2006) arranged the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza subsequently forming the Kadima (Forward) political party because he could persuade the Likud (The Consolidation) party to follow his vision.  Very much a personal vehicle for Mr Sharon, Kadima did not survive his incapacitation from a stroke while the Likud fell into the hands of Mr Netanyahu.  Following the Israeli withdrawal, responsibility for the corridor’s security fell to Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, this maintained until the Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007; it was seized by Israel in May 2024 as the IDF’s Gaza ground offensive extended into Rafah.

Over the years, the tunnel complex has proved a remarkably effective means by which to facilitate cross-border smuggling of weapons, other materiel, fuel and a variety of stuff including food, medicine and consumer goods, despite many attempts by the IDF and Egyptian authorities to end the traffic, the latter perhaps a little less fastidious in their endeavours.  The tunnels are impressive pieces of civil engineering, including electricity, ventilation systems, air-conditioning and communications facilities; some are sufficient large to allow heavy trucks to pass and there has long been speculation about the extent to which financial and logistical support for tunnel construction, maintenance & repair is channelled from the Gulf Arab states.  In Cairo, the government viewed the IDF’s seizure of the corridor with some alarm and remain a “status quo” power, insistent that an ongoing Israeli presence will “endanger” the Camp David peace treaty, no small matter because the “ripple effect” of the 1979 agreement had profound consequences in the region.

Pointing the way: Mr Netanyahu (left) explains the Philadelphi corridor (right).      

Still, Mr Netanyahu has made clear he intends to maintain a military presence in the corridor (including the Rafah crossing) and that remains an unnegotiable condition for a ceasefire with the Hamas; opposition to this stance has come from Cario, the Hamas and some of the third parties involved in the negotiation.  In Tel Aviv, that would not have been unexpected but there is now an increasingly persistent protest movement among Israeli citizens, the allegation being the prime-minister is cynically adding conditions he knows the Hamas will be compelled to reject because as long as the war continues, he can remain in office and avoid having to face the courts to answer some troubling accusations pre-dating the conflict.  Mr Netanyahu responded to this criticism by saying as long as the Hamas remained a threat (later refined to “as long as Hamas remained in control of Gaza”), the offensive needed to continue.  One of the great survivors of Middle East politics, Mr Netanyahu recently assured the more extreme of his coalition partners (described as “right-wing” which, historically, is misleading but descriptive in the internal logic of Israeli politics) by engineering a vote in cabinet binding Israel to retaining control of the corridor.  Despite this, opposition within the cabinet to the ongoing “moving of the goalposts” to prevent any possibility of a ceasefire is said to be growing.  The opposition accused the prime-minister of being more concerned with placating the extremists in his government than securing the release of the remaining hostages seized by the Hamas in the 7 October 2023 attack and left unstated but understood by implication was the message Mr Netanyahu regards them as the “collateral damage” in his manoeuvres to avoid the courts.

Interregnum

Interregnum (pronounced inn-ter-reg-numb)

(1) (a) An interval of time between the close of a sovereign's reign and the accession of his or her normal or legitimate successor.  (b) A period when normal government is suspended, especially between successive reigns or regimes.  (c)  Any period during which a state has no ruler or only a temporary executive

(2) The period in English history from the execution of Charles I in 1649 to the Restoration of Charles II in 1660.

(3) An interval in the Church of England dioceses between the periods of office of two bishops.

(4) In casual use, any pause or interruption in continuity.

1570-1580: From the Latin interregnum (an interval between two reigns (literally "between-reign), the construct being inter (between; amid) + rēgnum (kingship, dominion, reign, rule, realm (and related to regere (to rule, to direct, keep straight, guide), from the primitive Indo-European root reg- (move in a straight line), with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line", thus "to lead, rule"). To illustrate that linguistic pragmatism is nothing new, in the Roman republic, the word was preserved to refer to a vacancy in the consulate.  The word is now generally applied to just about any situation where an organization is between leaders and this seems an accepted modern use. The earlier English noun was interreign (1530s), from French interrègne (14c.).  Interregnum & interregent are nouns and interregnal is an adjective; the noun plural is interregnums or interregna.

The classic interregnum.  One existed between 1204 and 1261 in the Byzantine Empire.  Following the Sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, the Byzantine Empire was dissolved, to be replaced by several Crusader states and several Byzantine states.  It was re-established by Nicean general Alexios Strategopoulos who placed Michael VIII Palaiologos back on the throne of a united Byzantine Empire.

The retrospective interregnum.  The Interregnum of (1649–1660) was a republican period in the three kingdoms of England, Ireland and Scotland.  Government was carried out by the Commonwealth and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell after the execution of Charles I and before the restoration of Charles II; it became an interregnum only because of the restoration.  Were, for example, a Romanov again to be crowned as Tsar, the period between 1917 and the restoration would become the second Russian interregnum, the first being the brief but messy business of 1825, induced by a disputed succession following the death of the Emperor Alexander I on 1 December.  The squabble lasted less than a month but in those few weeks was conducted the bloody Decembrist revolt which ended when Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich renounced his claim to throne and Nicholas I declared himself Tsar.

The constitutional interregnum.  In the UK, under normal conditions, there is no interregnum; upon the death of one sovereign, the crown is automatically assumed by the next in the line of succession: the King is dead, long live the King.  The famous phrase signifies the continuity of sovereignty, attached to a personal form of power named auctoritas.  Auctoritas is from the Old French autorité & auctorité (authority, prestige, right, permission, dignity, gravity; the Scriptures) from the Latin auctoritatem (nominative auctoritas) (invention, advice, opinion, influence, command) from auctor (master, leader, author).  From the fourteenth century, it conveyed the sense of "legal validity" or “authoritative doctrine", as opposed to opposed to reason or experience and conferred a “right to rule or command, power to enforce obedience, power or right to command or act".  It’s a thing which underpins the legal theory of the mechanics of the seamless transition in the UK of one the sovereign to the next, coronations merely ceremonial and proclamations procedural.  Other countries are different.  When a King of Thailand dies, there isn’t a successor monarch until one is proclaimed, a regent being appointed to carry out the necessary constitutional (though not ceremonial) duties.  A number of monarchies adopt this approach including Belgium and the Holy See.  The papal interregnum is known technically as sede vacante (literally "when the seat is vacant") and ends upon the election of new pope by the College of Cardinals.

The interregnum by analogy.  The term has been applied to the period of time between the election of a new President of the United States and his (or her!) inauguration, during which the outgoing president remains in power, but as a lame duck in the sense that, except in extraordinary circumstances, there is attention only to procedural and ceremonial matters.  So, while the US can sometimes appear to be in a state with some similarities to an interregnum between the election in November and the inauguration in January, it’s  merely a casual term without a literal meaning.  The addition in 1967 of the twenty-fifth amendment (A25) to the US Constitution which dealt with the mechanics of the line of succession in the event of a presidential vacancy, disability or inability to fulfil the duties of the office, removed any doubt and established there is never a point at which the country is without someone functioning as head of state & commander-in-chief.

Many turned, probably for the first time, to A25 after watching 2024’s first presidential debate between sleazy old Donald and senile old Joe.  Among historians, comparisons were made between some revealing clips of Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989) late in his second term and reports of the appearance and evident mental state of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR, 1882–1945, US president 1933-1945) during the Yalta conference (February 1945).  In 1994, Reagan’s diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease was revealed and within two months of Yalta, FDR would be dead.  Regarding the matter of presidential incapacity or inability, the relevant sections of A25 are:

Section 3: Presidential Declaration of Inability: If the President submits a written declaration to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President becomes Acting President until the President submits another declaration stating that he is able to resume his duties.

Section 4: Vice Presidential and Cabinet Declaration of Presidential Inability: If the Vice President and a majority of the principal officers of the executive departments (or another body as Congress may by law provide) submit a written declaration to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President immediately assumes the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

If the President then submits a declaration that no inability exists, he resumes the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of the principal officers (or another body as Congress may by law provide) submit a second declaration within four days that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. In this case, Congress must decide the issue, convening within 48 hours if not in session. If two-thirds of both Houses vote that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President continues as Acting President; otherwise, the President resumes his powers and duties.

Quite what the mechanism would be for a vice president and the requisite number of the cabinet to issue such a certificate is not codified.  Every president in the last century-odd has been attended by a doctor with the title “Physician to the President” (both John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) and Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001), uniquely, appointed women) and presumably they would be asked for an opinion although, even though FDR’s decline was apparent to all, nobody seems to have suggested Vice Admiral Ross McIntire (1889–1959) would have been likely to find the threshold incapacity in a president he’d known since 1917 as served as physician since 1933.  Vice presidents and troubled cabinet members may need to seek a second opinion.

Fashions change: The dour Charles I (left), the puritanical Oliver Cromwell (centre) and the merry Charles II (right).

The famous interregnum in England, Scotland, and Ireland began with the execution of Charles I (1600-1649) and ended with the restoration to the thrones of the three realms of his son Charles II (1630-1685) in 1660.  Immediately after the execution, a body known as the English Council of State (later re-named the Protector's Privy Council) was created by the Rump Parliament.  Because of the implication of auctoritas, the king's beheading was delayed half a day so the members of parliament could pass legislation declaring themselves the sole representatives of the people and the House of Commons the repository of all power.  Making it a capital offence to proclaim a new king, the laws abolished both the monarchy and the House of Lords.  For most of the interregnum, the British Isles were ruled by Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) an English general and statesman who combined the roles of head of state and head of government of the republican commonwealth.

When Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of England and other places variously 1952-2022) took her last breath, Charles (b 1948) in that moment became King Charles III; the unbroken line summed up in the phrase "The King is dead.  Long Live the King".  In the British constitution there is no interregnum and a coronation (which may happen weeks, months or even years after the succession) is, in secular legal terms, purely ceremonial although there have been those who argued it remains substantive in relation to the monarch's role as supreme governor of the established Church of England, a view now regarded by most with some scepticism.  As a spectacle however it's of some interest (as the worldwide television ratings confirmed) and given the history, there was this time some interest in the wording used in reference to the queen consort.  However, constitutional confirmed that had any legal loose ends been detected or created at or after the moment of the succession they would have been "tidied up" at a meeting of the Accession Council, comprised of a number of worthies who assemble upon the death of a monarch and issue a formal proclamation of accession, usually in the presence of the successor who swears oaths relating to both church (England & Scotland) and state.  What receives the seal of the council is the ultimate repository of monarchical authority (on which the laws and mechanisms of the state ultimately depend) and dynastic legitimacy, rather than the coronation ceremony.

Some fashions did survive the interregnum: Charles II in his coronation regalia (left) and Lindsay Lohan (right) demonstrate why tights will never go out of style.

Reich

Reich (pronounced rahyk or rahykh (German))

(1) With reference to Germany or other Germanic agglomerations, empire; realm; nation.

(2) The German state, especially (as Third Reich) during the Nazi period.

(3) A term used (loosely) of (1) hypothetical resurrections of Nazi Germany or similar states and (2) (constitutionally incorrectly), the so-called “Dönitz government (or administration)” which existed for some three weeks after Hitler’s suicide. 

(4) Humorously (hopefully), a reference to a suburb, town etc with a population in which German influence or names of German origin are prominent; used also by university students when referring to departments of German literature, German history etc. 

(5) As a slur, any empire-like structure, especially one that is imperialist, tyrannical, racist, militarist, authoritarian, despotic etc.

1871: From the German Reich (kingdom, realm, state), from the Middle High German rīche, from the Old High German rīhhi (rich, mighty; realm), from the Proto-West Germanic rīkī, from the Proto-Germanic rīkijaz & rikja (rule), a derivative of rīks (king, ruler), from the Proto-Celtic rīxs and thus related to the Irish rí.  The influences were (1) the primitive Indo-European hereǵ- (to rule), from which is derived also the Latin rēx and (2) the primitive Indo-European root reg (move in a straight line) with derivatives meaning "to direct in a straight line", thus "to lead, rule".  Cognates include the Old Norse riki, the Danish rige & rig, the Dutch rike & rijk, the Old English rice & rich, the Old Frisian rike, the Icelandic ríkur, the Swedish rik, the Gothic reiki, the Don Ringe and the Plautdietsch rikj.  The German adjective reich (rich) is used with an initial lower case and as a suffix is the equivalent of the English -ful, used to form an adjective from a noun with the sense of “rich in”, “full of”.  As a German noun & proper noun, Reich is used with an initial capital.

Reich was first used in English circa 1871 to describe the essentially Prussian creation that was the German Empire which was the a unification of the central European Germanic entities.  It was never intended to include Austria because (1) Otto von Bismarck's (1815-1989; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890) intricate series of inter-locking treaties worked better with Austria as an independent state and (2) he didn't regard them as "sufficiently German" (by which he would have meant "Prussian": Bismarck described Bavarians as "halfway between Austrians and human beings".  At the time, the German Empire was sometimes described simply as “the Reich” with no suggestion of any sense of succession to the Holy Roman Empire.  “Third Reich” was an invention of Nazi propaganda to “invent” the idea of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) as the inheritor of the mantle of Charlemagne (748–814; (retrospectively) the first Holy Roman Emperor 800-814) and Bismarck.  The word soon captured the imagination of the British Foreign Office, German “Reichism” coming to be viewed as much a threat as anything French had ever been to the long-time British foreign policy of (1) maintaining a balance of power in a Europe in which no one state was dominant ("hegemonic" the later term) and (2) avoid British involvement in land-conflicts on "the continent".

The term "Fourth Reich" had been around for a while when it was co-opted by Edwin Hartrich’s (1913-1995) for his book The Fourth and Richest Reich (MacMillan 1980), a critique both of the modern German state and its influence on the European Economic Community (the EEC (1957) which by 1993 would morph into the European Union (EU).  The term is still sometimes used by those criticizing the German state, the not so subtle implication being Berlin gradually achieving by other means the domination of Europe which the Third Reich attempted by military conquest.  Fourth Reich is also sometimes used, erroneously to describe the two-dozen day “administration” of Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891–1980; German head of state 30 April-23 May 1945) who in Hitler’s will was appointed Reich President (and therefore head of state); the so-called “Flensburg Government”.  That’s wrong and the only difference of opinion between constitutional theorists is whether it was (1) the mere coda to the Third Reich or (2) mostly a charade, the German state ceasing to exist by virtue of events on the ground, a situation the finalization of the surrender arrangements on 8 May merely documented.  The latter view, although reflecting reality, has never been widely supported, the formal existence of a German state actually required to ensure the validity of the surrender and other administrative acts.  That the Allied occupying forces allowed the obviously pointless "Dönitz administration" to "exist" for some three weeks has been the subject of historical debate.  Some have suggested that there were those in London & Washington who contemplated using (at least temporarily) the “Flensburg Government” as a kind of "administrative agent" and it's true Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) did briefly flirt with the idea.  However, what's more plausible was it was so unexpected and no planning (military or political) had been had undertaken to deal with such a thing: "Hitler in his bunker was one thing, an admiral in Flensburg was another".

Hartrich’s thesis was a particular deconstruction of the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), the unexpectedly rapid growth of the economy of the FRG (the Federal Republic of Germany, the old West Germany) in the 1950s and 1960s which produced an unprecedented and widespread prosperity.  There were many inter-acting factors at play during the post-war era but what couldn’t be denied was the performance of the FRG’s economy and Hartrich attributed it to the framework of what came to be called the Marktwirt-schaft market economy with a social conscience), a concept promoted by Professor Ludwig Erhard (1897–1977) while working as a consultant to the Allied occupying forces in the immediate aftermath of the war.  When the FDR was created in 1949, he entered politics, serving as economy minister until 1963 when he became Chancellor (prime-minister).  His time as tenure was troubled (he was more technocrat than politician) but soziale Marktwirtschaft survived his political demise and it continues to underpin the economic model of the modern German state.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of the German edition of GQ (Gentleman's Quarterly) magazine, August 2010.  Although published in the Fourth Reich, the photo-shoot by photographer Ellen Von Unwerth (b 1954) took place on Malibu Beach, California during June 2010.  Sommerlust is not as exciting as it may sound to English-speaking ears; it translates as “summer pleasure”

Hartrich was a neo-liberal, then a breed just beginning to exert its influence in the Western world, but he also understood that the introduction of untrammelled capitalism to Europe was likely to sow the seeds of its own destruction but he insists the “restoration” of the “…profit motive as the prime mover in German life was a fundamental step…” to economic prosperity and social stability.  Of course the unique circumstances of the time (the introduction of the Deutsche Mark which enjoyed stability under the Bretton Woods system (1944), the outbreak of the Cold War, the recapitalization of industry and the provision of new plant & equipment with which to produce goods to be sold into world markets under the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (1947)) produced conditions which demand attention but the phenomenal growth can’t be denied.  Nor was it denied at the time; within the FRG, even the socialist parties by 1959 agreed to build their platform around “consumer socialism”, a concession Hartrich wryly labelled “capitalism's finest hour”.  The Fourth and Richest Reich was not a piece of economic analysis by an objective analyst and nor did it much dwell on the domestic terrorism which came in the wake of the Wirtschaftswunder, the Baader-Meinhof Group (the Red Army Faction (RAF)) and its ilk discussed as an afterthought in a few pages in an epilogue which included the bizarre suggestion Helmut Schmidt (1918–2015; FRG Chancellor 1974–1982) should be thought a latter-day Bismarck; more than one reviewer couldn’t resist mentioning Hitler himself had once accorded the same honor to the inept Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945).

The word "Reich" does sometimes confuse non-specialists who equate it with the German state, probably because the Third Reich does cast such a long shadow.  Murdoch journalist Samantha Maiden (b 1972) in a piece discussing references made to the Nazis (rarely a good idea except between consenting experts in the privacy of someone don's study) by a candidate in the 2022 Australian general election wrote:

The history of the nation-state known as the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods: German Empire (1871–1918) Weimar Republic (1918–1933) Nazi Germany (1933–1945).

It's an understandable mistake and the history of the German Reich is commonly divided into three periods but that doesn't include the Weimar Republic.  The point about what the British Foreign Office labelled "Reichism" was exactly what the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) as a "normal" democratic state, was not.  The Reich's three epochs (and there's some retrospectivity in both nomenclature and history) were the Holy Roman Empire (1800-1806), Bismarck's (essentially Prussian) German Empire (1871-1918) & the Nazi Third Reich (1933-1945).  

The First Reich: the Holy Roman Empire, 800-1806

The Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth century.

The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that developed during the early Middle Ages, the popular identification with Germany because the empire’s largest territory after 962 was the Kingdom of Germany.  On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III (circa 760-816; pope 795-816) crowned Charlemagne (747–814; King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of the Romans (and thus retrospectively Holy Roman Emperor) from 800)) as Emperor, reviving the title more than three centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Despite the way much history has been written, it wasn’t until the fifteenth century that “Holy Roman Empire” became a commonly used phrase.

Leo III, involved in sometimes violent disputes with Romans who much preferred both his predecessor and the Byzantine Empress in Constantinople, had his own reasons for wishing to crown Charlemagne as Emperor although it was a choice which would have consequences for hundreds of years.  According to legend, Leo ambushed Charlemagne at Mass on Christmas day, 800 by placing the crown on his head as he knelt at the altar to pray, declaring him Imperator Romanorum (Emperor of the Romans), in one stroke claiming staking the papal right to choose emperors, guaranteeing his personal protection and rejecting any assertion of imperial authority by anyone in Constantinople.  Charlemagne may or may not have been aware of what was to happen but much scholarship suggests he was well aware he was there for a coronation but that he intended to take the crown in his own hands and place it on his head himself.  The implications of the pope’s “trick” he immediately understood but, what’s done is done and can’t be undone and the lesson passed down the years, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821; leader of the French Republic 1799-1804 & Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 & 1815) not repeating the error at his coronation as French Emperor in 1804.

Some historians prefer to date the empire from 962 when Otto I was crowned because continuous existence there began but, scholars generally concur, it’s possible to trace from Charlemagne an evolution of the institutions and principles constituting the empire, describing a gradual assumption of the imperial title and role.  Not all were, at the time, impressed. Voltaire sardonically recorded one of his memorable bon mots, noting the “…agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."  The last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II (1768–1835; Holy Roman Emperor 1792-1806) dissolved the empire on 6 August 1806, after Napoleon's creation of the Confederation of the Rhine.

The Second Reich: the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty, 1871-1918

German Empire, 1914.

The German Empire existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the abdication of Wilhelm II (1859–1941; German Kaiser (Emperor) & King of Prussia 1888-1918) in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic, remembered as the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, most ruled by royal families.  Although Prussia became one of several kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory and certainly the greatest military power and the one which exercised great influence within the state; a joke at the time was that most countries had an army whereas the Prussian Army had a country.

To a great extent, the Second Reich was the creation of Prince Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898; chancellor of the North German Confederation 1867-1871 and of the German Empire 1871-1890), the politician who dominated European politics in the late nineteenth although his time in office does need to be viewed through sources other than his own memoirs.  After Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck, without his restraining hand, the empire embarked on a bellicose new course that led ultimately to World War I (1914-1918), Germany’s defeat and the end the reign of the House of Hohenzollern and it was that conflict which wrote finis to the dynastic rule of centuries also of the Romanovs in Russia, the Habsburgs in Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans in Constantinople.  Following the Kaiser’s abdication, the empire collapsed in the November 1918 revolution and the Weimar Republic which followed, though not the axiomatically doomed thing many seem now to assume, was for much of its existence beset by political and economic turmoil.  

The Third Reich: the Nazi dictatorship 1933-1945

Nazi occupied Europe, 1942.

“Nazi Germany” is in English the common name for the period of Nazi rule, 1933-1945.  The first known use of the term “Third Reich” was by German cultural historian Moeller van den Bruck (1876-1925) in his 1923 book Das Dritte Reich (The Third Reich).  Van den Bruck, a devotee of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) and a pan-German nationalist, wrote not of a defined geographical entity or precise constitutional arrangement.  His work instead explored a conceptualized (if imprecisely described) and idealized state of existence for Germans everywhere, one that would (eventually) fully realize what the First Reich might have evolved into had not mistakes been made, the Second Reich a cul-de-sac rendered impure by the same democratic and liberal ideologies which would doom the Weimar Republic.  Both these, van den Bruck dismissed as stepping stones on the path to an ideal; Germans do seem unusually susceptible to being seduced by ideals.

In the difficult conditions which prevailed in Germany at the time of the book’s publication, it didn’t reach a wide audience, the inaccessibility of his text not suitable for a general readership but, calling for a synthesis of the particularly Prussian traditions of socialism and nationalism and the leadership of a Übermensch (a idea from Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) which describes a kind of idealized man who probably can come into existence only when a society is worthy of him), his work had obvious appeal to the Nazis.  It was said to have been influential in the embryonic Nazi Party but there’s little to suggest it contributed much beyond an appeal to the purity of race and the idea of the “leader” (Führer) principle, notions already well established in German nationalist traditions.  The style alone might have accounted for this, Das Dritte Reich not an easy read, a trait shared by the dreary and repetitive stuff written by the party “philosopher” Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946).  After Rosenberg was convicted on all four counts (planning aggressive war, waging aggressive war, war crimes & crimes against humanity) by the IMT (International Military Tribunal) at the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) and sentenced to death by hanging, a joke circulated among the assembled journalists that it would have been fair to add a conviction for “crimes against literature”, a variation on the opinion his fellow defendant Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945) should also have been indicted for “crimes against poetry”.  Von Schirach though avoided the hangman's noose he deserved.        

A book channeling Nietzsche wasn’t much help for practical politicians needing manifestos, pamphlets and appealing slogans and the only living politician who attracted some approbation from van den Bruck was Benito Mussolini (1883-1945; Duce (leader) & prime minister of Italy 1922-1943).  The admiration certainly didn’t extend to Hitler; unimpressed by his staging of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch (8–9 November 1923), van den Bruck dismissed the future Führer with a unusually brief deconstruction, the sentiment of which was later better expressed by another disillusioned follower: “that ridiculous corporal”.  The term “Third Reich” did however briefly enter the Nazi’s propaganda lexicon and William L Shirer (1904–1993) in his landmark The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) reported that in the 1932 campaign for the presidency, Hitler in a speech at Berlins's Lustgarten (a place which, again perhaps disappointing some, translates as “pleasure garden”) used the slogan: “In the Third Reich every German girl will find a husband”.  Shirer's book is now dated and some of his conceptual framework has always attracted criticism but it remains a vivid account of the regime's early years, written by an observer who actually was there. 

The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich (German Empire) between 1933-1943 and Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Empire) between 1943 to 1945 but so much of fascism was fake and depended for its effect on spectacle so the Nazis were attracted to the notion of claiming to be the successor of a German Empire with a thousand year history, their own vision of the Nazi state being millennialist.  After they seized power, the term “Third Reich” occasionally would be invoked and, more curiously, the Nazis for a while even referred to the Weimar Republic as the Zwischenreich (Interim Reich) but as the 1930s unfolded as an almost unbroken series of foreign policy triumphs for Hitler, emphasis soon switched to the present and the future, the pre-Beer Hall Putsch history no longer needed.  It was only after 1945 that the use of “Third Reich” became almost universal although the earlier empires still are almost never spoken of in that way, even in academic circles.

Van den Bruck had anyway been not optimistic and his gloominess proved prescient although his people did chose to walk (to destruction) the path he thought they may fear to tread.  In the introduction to Das Dritte Reich he wrote: “The thought of a Third Empire might well be the most fatal of all the illusions to which they have ever yielded; it would be thoroughly German if they contented themselves with day-dreaming about it. Germany might perish of her Third Empire dream.”  He didn’t live to see the rise and fall of the Third Reich, taking his own life in 1925, a fate probably not unknown among those who read Nietzsche at too impressionable an age and never quite recover.

Wilhelm Reich, Hawkwind and the Orgone Accumulator

Sketch of the orgone accumulator.

Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957) was a US-based, Austrian psychoanalyst with a troubled past who believed sexual repression was the root cause of many social problems.  Some of his many books widely were read within the profession but there was criticism of his tendency towards mono-causality in his analysis, an opinion shared by Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) in his comments about Reich’s 1927 book Die Funktion des Orgasmus (The Function of the Orgasm), a work the author had dedicated to his fellow Austrian.  Freud sent a note of thanks for the personally dedicated copy he’d been sent as a birthday present but, brief and not as effusive in praise Reich as had expected, it was not well-received.  Reich died in prison while serving a sentence imposed for violating an injunction issued to prevent the distribution of a machine he’d invented: the orgone accumulator.

The Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London (United Artists UAD 60037/8; referred to usually as Space Ritual) (1973).

The orgone accumulator was an apparently phoney device but one which inspired members of the science fiction (SF) flavored band Hawkwind to write the song Orgone Accumulator which, unusually, was first released on a live recording, Space Ritual, a 1973 double album containing material from their concerts in 1972.  Something of a niche player in the world of 1970s popular music Hawkwind, perhaps improbably, proved more enduring than many, their combination of styles attracting a cult following which endures to this day.