The foreign nation on which I focus in analyzing American foreign policy--that is, Czechoslovakia--has a famous breakup in the first half of the 1990s, the so-called "Velvet Divorce" which is generally lauded as an example of how a nation can break apart without the need for bloodshed. Vaclav Havel, the writer-turned-dissident-turned-politician is likewise celebrated for having led the previous "Velvet Revolution" which overthrew Communism in Czechoslovakia, and Havel's suaveness is underscored by his famous meeting with the Rolling Stones after the Velvet Revolution. The whole affair is generally remembered as a great moment in Czechoslovak history when the Czechs and the Slovaks regained control of their sovereignty and found quick political expression of their native desires for freedom.

Having studied Czechoslovak history from its beginning to its end, I have to disagree with this interpretation of the breakup. Of the three most famous leaders of Czechoslovakia--Thomas Masaryk, Alexander Dubcek, and Vaclav Havel--I find Havel to be the one most lacking in vision and I believe this lack of vision led to the dissolution of what had been the most internationally influential European state relative to its size. Not only did Vaclav lack an overall vision for Czechoslovakia, he specifically had no understanding of the "Czecho-Slovak" ideal that the great leaders of Czechoslovakia professed.

Thomas Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, was a literal Czechoslovak (his father was Slovak, his mother Moravian with strong German influence) who perhaps overstated the unity between Czechs, Germans, and Slovaks because of his own background. Nevertheless, he was a scholar of great depth and values, and historians have treated him very kindly in this regard (Gordon Skilling's T.G. Masaryk: Against the Current almost obnoxiously so), and so it is easy to point to the historiography to defend this position.

Alexander Dubcek, however, has no such reputation. Czechs and Slovaks remember him for capitulating to the Soviet invasion in a tearful radio address (a moment immortalized in the very popular Czech novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being), while Western analysts find him disappointing because a close looks reveals that he did not maintain the kind of liberal-progressive values that one might expect from the leader of the Prague Spring. In a less scholarly sense, he is remembered internationally for being naive and weak, and his personal traits are in part to blame for Soviet intervention in the Prague Spring. In short, Dubcek is remembered as a kind of foil to Masaryk and Havel, who both succeeded in winning independence for Czechoslovakia.

Dubcek, however, is far more interesting than that. He believed that Czechoslovakia could succeed in creating the first (and this is his word; well, první or prvý would be his word, given the context) socialist state in Europe. His literal reading of Marx while studying in Moscow, as well as his retaliation that Russia was not the kind of advanced nation that Marx spoke about, led him to believe that Czechoslovakia had to take the leading role in the development of a socialism that would spread through the entire Eastern Bloc. His faith in Marxism led him to believe that he could challenge Soviet domination of Czechoslovakia because his success was inevitable. This idealism augmented a desire to unite the Czechs and Slovaks into one people as they provided a model which the rest of the world would follow. Dubcek was a Slovak who rose to power in part because Slovaks demanded more autonomy within Czechoslovakia. Dubcek intended to provide his nation just that (indeed, the federalization of Czechoslovakia remained one of the few lasting political legacies of the Prague Spring and ironically, given Dubcek's ideology, allowed for the Velvet Divorce some years later), but he also intended to accelerate Slovak development by liberalizing the Czechoslovak economy. By also allowing the Czech writers to openly challenge the Communist program, Dubcek found himself in the rare position of appealing to both Czechs and Slovaks, and, just as importantly, he provided his nation with a sense of pride in being Czechoslovakia. His reputation dissolved after the Soviet invasion, but one must keep in mind that, for a long time, Brezhnev supported Dubcek's efforts: Dubcek walked a fine line during the Prague Spring, and though he failed, he only did so because he went for it all.

Havel, on the other hand, was a great protest leader but a horrible leader after Czechoslovakia overthrew Communism. Moreover, his actions had very little bearing on Czechoslovakia's fate: internal Soviet affairs, as well as a push for Bloc independence led by Poland (this is another story), really set the stage for Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution (i.e., by the time of the Velvet Revolution, Czechoslovak independence from the Soviet Union was largely a given anyway--this is part of the reason it went so velvety!). Once his Czechoslovak nation had overthrown Communism, Havel, the spiritual leader of the protest movement for years prior to "revolution," found that various other political interest quickly seized control of Czechoslovakia's future and set it on the course for dissolution. As Dubcek said himself in his famous October Plenum speech of 1967, a political movement should not concern itself with "a defensive struggle against something," but rather "to work for further progress." Otherwise, you might end up like Havel--having won the battle against something without really having anything to fight for.

On the 14th of August 1193 the Princess Ingeborg of Denmark and King Phillip II of France were wed. Then things went immediately sideways.

That night the two had retired to their conjugal chambers to consummate the marriage and all as well, but when they emerged the next morning the King was suddenly insistent that he wanted nothing to do with her. As described by contemporary chroniclers, his visage soured at the coronation and he "by the devil's suggestion, began to be horrified, to tremble and turn pale at the sight of her. he was so deeply disturbed that he could scarcely restrain himself until the end of the ceremony which had just begun."

Whatever might have transpired in that bedchamber remains a mystery, but it left enough of an impression upon King Philip that he disavowed Ingeborg and had her imprisoned.

For her part, Ingeborg remained insistent that the marriage had been consummated and was therefore valid. At one point in 1205, "she called upon Pope Innocent III to ignore any renunciation of the marriage she might make under duress." Though Philip wished for a divorce, Ingeborg did not intend to go quietly.

Naturally, rumors swirled about this ill-fated couple, and while "the French chronicler Rigord attributed Philip's affliction to diabolical machinations and alleged sorcery," others saw more practical causes. William of Newburgh thought that the fault must lie with Ingeborg, either by "the fetid smell of her breath," or else some "hidden deformity." Some others felt that perhaps she had not come to him a virgin.

For his part, Philip would insist that she left him as one, as he spent twenty years seeking annulment on the basis that he never consummated by laying with her. All the while Ingeborg insisted that he had.

Whatever the difference between the two, this story is in fact one of a break-up which never was, as the two remained married unto death. Reconciliation would happen to a degree, but only when Philip saw political advantage in it. Apparently, not even bad sex outweighed his interest in contesting the throne of England.

From: George Conklin, "Ingeborg of Denmark, Queen of France, 1193-1223," in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. Duggan (London: Boydell Press, 1995), 39-52.