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.Only the alacrity of Caesar and the trust of his own men in him as awar leader prevented disaster from occurring.Caesar maintained the complex siege againstVercingetorix while defeating the attacking army in his rear.After defeating this latter army,Alesia finally surrendered.Things were not going well in Rome while Caesar was away.Crassus had overplayedhis hand by playing the general (which he was not fit to be) and being ignominiously de-feated and killed by the Parthians in the near East.Meanwhile, Pompey had grown waryand jealous of Caesar and had drifted back into the faction of the senatorial establishment.Civil war now proved inevitable once a law was passed in 50 bc that ordered Caesar to giveup his military power and return to Rome.To follow the law would be suicide for Caesarin the conditions that now prevailed in Rome.To resist meant becoming an outlaw.Con-fronted with the dilemma, Caesar chose action instead of delay and so kept his opponents offbalance and guessing at his intentions.Caesar crossed the famous Rubicon river in north-ern Italy in 49 bc at the head of his battle-tested and loyal army.It took little more than a GGBD161C01 GR4818/Polelle Top Margin: 5/8in Gutter Margin: OctoberThe Leader as Politician 27year to defeat the main senatorial army under Pompey.Caesar soon found himself in Egypthunting down the now discredited Pompey.While there, he became enamored of QueenCleopatra.This was the first act to turn average Romans against him for the first time.Bybringing the Greco-Egyptian Cleopatra back to Rome itself, Caesar allowed the impressionto develop that he was falling under the sway of easterners and foreigners.Some even sug-gested that he now wished to establish monarchy in Rome.All this was too much too soonfor patriotic Romans to swallow given the Roman memory of the hated Etruscan kings.Caesar s continual successes (summarized in his appropriate victory phrase: veni, vidi, vici)perhaps led him to speed up his timetable for remaking Rome and thus alienated even hisstaunchest supporters.He seemed to be trying now to do too many things at once: preparingfor a new campaign against Babylon in the East; giving land to his army veterans and otherRoman citizens while permanently weakening the Senate; perhaps setting up his own per-sonal kingship; and greatly strengthening the imperial government.Ironically, it may havebeen Caesar s generosity and magnanimity as a leader that led to his assassination in 44 bc.His only chance to advance all his ambitious schemes in a deeply conservative political cul-ture would have been to ruthlessly eliminate all his political opponents at once.Instead, hesought to gently co-opt them into his fold.To no avail.Cassius and Brutus would lead theassassination plot against him, a plot that would have been impossible had Caesar crackeddown earlier on such known Republican diehards as these two.Caesar demonstrated that aleader who shows every intention of arrogating all power to himself puts himself in dangerwhen he leaves his opponents standing to fight another day.FURTHER READINGMeier, Christian.Caesar.Munchen: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997.PETER THE GREAT: THE LEADER AS MODERNIZERPeter the Great (1672 1725) transformed Russiafrom a backward medieval polity into a modernEuropean great power.His objective was to western-ize Russia as fast as possible.He protected Russia fromSwedish invasion and founded the city of St.Peters-burgh.His methods of modernization were harsh andcruel, but he believed there was no other choice but tobring Russia into the modern age as quickly as possiblelest it be preyed upon by rival powers.Peter the Great was the ultimate Enlighteneddespot. He was a zealous believer in autocracy whosaw himself as the first servant of a newly mod-ernizing Russian state.What made him somewhatunique as a czar of Russia was his willingness to de-Peter the Great.[Courtesy Library ofmand as much from himself as he did of others.Congress, Prints and Photographs Di-After he remade the Russian army, he established avision, LC-USZ62-121999].new military ranking system.He made sure that hehimself was listed in the last rank until he could progress by merit, as he expected othersto do.Unlike other autocrats, he was simple and modest in his tastes.As first servant of GBD161C01 GR4818/Polelle Top Margin: 5/8in Gutter Margin: October 9, 200728 Leadershipthe state, he projected the model of himself as a leader by dressing simply and enjoyingthe company of average Russians (though he often demanded that his guests humble ornot keep up with his prodigious drinking ability).Peter literally towered (he stood 6 6 )over others in terms of his size and his outsized ambitions for Russia.Although Peter was given the title of emperor by the end of his life for all of his accom-plishments, his early life was really rather humble.Peter s father Czar Alexis died in 1676when he was but four years old.His half-brother Fyodor III took power at this time, buthe was a weak ruler controlled by a faction that was unfavorable to Peter s interests.WhenFyodor died in 1682, it looked as if Peter would assume the title of czar.However, thefaction unfriendly to Peter took action by mobilizing the Streltsy (an elite musketeer unit)in order to advance the interests of another half-brother to Peter, Ivan.Ivan would remainnominal co-czar until his death in 1696.This factional strife left an indelible imprint uponthe young Peter.Other younger men in this position would have been overwhelmed by themany conspiracies and court intrigues surrounding the young czar at the Kremlin, but Peterused the challenges to his rule to make himself a stronger man and ruler.While he bided his time before assuming his sole rule over Russia, he focused his energieson pursuing his passion for military studies and a variety of practical subjects (ranging fromshipbuilding to blacksmithing).For his training and amusement, he was even provided withhis own regiment of soldiers to help him learn sophisticated military skills in as realistic amanner as possible.By the time Peter began exercising true control over matters of statein 1689, he was confronted with one big problem and many opportunities.The biggestproblem that was to dominate Peter s reign was the fact of Russia s economic, social, andtechnological backwardness.The opportunities that Peter grasped, however, were many.Ifhe could meet the challenge of beginning Russia s modernization, he could also begin thedrive to expand Russia s borders westward at the expense of the Swedes and Turks.Bothof these peoples were blocking Russia s access to the West and the modernity it stood for.Peter s genius in fact lay in his ability to come up with foreign and domestic policies thatcomplemented one another.By driving the Turks and Swedes back from what Peter regardedas Russian territory, Peter would be able to truly open Russia to the West and its modernizingcurrents at the same time.An early success came when Peter engineered the significant feat of taking the port ofAzov away from the Turks in 1696
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