18 BC. Among his many military reforms, Augustus set the pay for the army. Surprisingly, over the next 250 yeas or so, the army would receive only three raises. Domitian (r. 81-96) would raise the pay in A.D. 84, by the simple expedient of adding a fourth payday to the annual calendar. In 197 Septimius Severus (r. 193-211), who believed in enriching the army and ignoring everyone else, doubled the pay. Fifteen years later his son Caracalla (r. 211-217) increased pay by 50 percent, to insure the loyalty of the troops after he had murdered his younger brother and co-emperor.
This table sets out the standard pay rates for legionary “enlisted” personnel, but not for officers, who were compensated on a much higher scale.
Figures are in sestertii, the value of which remained fairly stable until widespread debasement of the coinage began under Maximinus Thrax, who came to power in 235. This debasement was one factor in the disastrous bout of civil wars the followed over the next 50 years.
27 B.C.-A.D. 84 A.D. 84-197 A.D. 197-212 A.D. 212-235
Primus pilus. 54,000. 72,000. 144,000. 216,000
Primi ordines. 27,000. 36,000. 72,000. 108,000
Centurio. 13,500. 18,000. 36,000. 54,000
Eques legionis. 1,050. 1,400. 2,800. 4,200
Miles legionis. 900. 1,200. 2,400. 3,600
Eques cohortis. 900. 1,200. 2,400. 3,600
Miles cohortis. 750. 1,000. 2,000. 3,000
The ranks were,
Primus pilus, or primpilus: senior centurion of the legion, something like a divisional command sergeant major.
Primi ordines: the senior centurion in command of a cohort, a battalion-like formation.
Centurio: effectively a company commander, though not actually an officer in the modern sense.
Eques legionis: legionary cavalryman
Miles legionis: legionary infantryman
Eques cohortis: cavalryman of an auxiliary cohort
Miles cohortis: infantryman of an auxiliary cohort.
Personnel assigned to various special duties, such as legionary clerks, standard bearers, scouts, and so forth, would receive additional sums above their normal base pay, usually defined as a “pay-and-a-half man” or a “double pay man.”.
Although about half of a soldier’s pay ended up as deductions – rations, equipment, pension, etc. – his compensation compared rather favorably with most civilian jobs. In the First Century, for example, a secretary, a fairly high status civilian occupation, might earn about 700 sestertii in a year, assuming he worked full time. As for purchasing power, for one sestertius a person could buy a pound of bread and a pint of vino vulgaris in Rome itself, where prices were about double those in the provinces, and maybe have a little left over to spend an hour or so in the baths.
1814. Surrender of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) to HMS Bacchante (38), Cptn. William Hoste, HMS Saracen (18), John Harper, and troops.
1865. Confederate torpedo boat St. Patrick strikes the side-wheel gunboat USS Octorara, off Mobile Bay, but her spar torpedo fails to explode.
1920. The Spanish Foreign Legion was formed -- "The Bridegrooms of Death".
1965 French general Maxime Weygand (1867-1965), who lost the big one in 1940, was officially certified as having been born “of unknown parentage" in Brussels, Belgium, by two male witnesses who claimed to be unable to sign their names. Initially raised by one Virginie Saget, a widowed midwife in Marseilles, at the age of 6 he entered a boarding school there run by a David Cohen de Léon and later enrolled in a Roman Catholic secondary school. In 1884 using the name “Maxime de Nimal,” apparently adapted from the maiden name of M. Cohen de Leon’s wife, he was admitted as a foreign student to the French military academy at Saint-Cyr. Upon his graduation in 1887, he was commissioned in the cavalry. At that time François-Joseph Weygand, an accountant for the Cohen de Leon family, legally “acknowledged” the young man as his son, and the young man changed his name to Maxime Weygand.
Now one would think this should settle the matter of Weygand’s parentage. But it only makes it more certain that the accountant was not his father. To begin with, while M. Cohen de Leon might have waived the boy’s tuition because his purported father worked for him, someone had to be paying the young man’s bills at his secondary school, and someone had to have some pretty impressive connections to get him into Saint-Cyr. And then there was the cost of outfitting the new sous lieutenant of cavalry in 1887.
So, who were his parents?
Rumors of his parentage are linked to the Belgian royal family and their circle.
The principal “suspects” are,
The Empress Carlota of Mexico, a Belgian princess, and Lieutenant Colonel Alfred van der Smissens, a Belgian volunteer in the service of her husband, Maximilian.
Carlota and Colonel Feliciano Rodriguez of the Imperial Mexican Army.
King Leopold I of Belgium, brother to Carlota, and a Polish noblewoman, possibly one Countess Kosakowska
Colonel van der Smissens and Countess Melanie Marie Zichy-Metternich, daughter of the Count Metternich, Napoleon’s nemesis and the “re-arranger of Europe,” who was one of Carlota’s ladies-in-waiting in Mexico.
We can address these in turn.
Carlota had gone to Mexico in May of 1864 with her husband, the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who was shortly proclaimed Emperor by a French-backed conservative faction in a civil war. By early 1866 the “Empire” was in trouble, as the Republican forces under Benito Juarez made dramatic gains, while the United States had initiated diplomatic and military moves that soon encouraged Maximilian’s sponsor, French Emperor Napoleon III, to withdraw his support. In a desperate bid to secure foreign assistance, that summer Carlota sailed for Europe. Landing in France in early August, she had two interviews with Napoleon III, who refused further assistance. Carlota departed for her husband’s estate near Trieste. Meanwhile, she had begun displaying signs of mental instability – not unreasonable given the stress she was under. In late September she went to Rome, to seek help from Pope Pius IX. The Pope declined. Carlota’s behavior while at the Vatican was extremely erratic, and the Pope even had to lodge her for a night, when she became hysterical, an historic first. She hung around Rome for some weeks, pestering the Pope, and at times behaving irrationally. Near the end of that month, her family dispatched a physician from Brussels to escort her to Trieste for treatment. She was later moved to Brussels, where she lived in seclusion until her death in 1927.
The tale about Carlota and Count van der Smissens is often repeated in Mexican histories of the French intervention, and may reflect an actual relationship between the Empress and the colonel, perhaps even an affair.
The rumor that Feliciano Rodriguez was Weygand’s father derives from the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who said he had it from the colonel himself, who was the brother of his maternal grandmother. Rivera also claimed that in 1917 he met with Weygand, who freely admitted the tie. This seems very unlikely. Weygand himself apparently never learned who his parents were. And Rivera was notorious for fabricating stories about his life.
For various reasons, Carlota is not likely to have been Weygand’s mother. Weygand’s birth was registered in Brussels as January 21, 1867, and so he would have been conceived in April of 1866. So when Carlota arrived in Paris in August, a pregnancy would probably have begun to be noticeable, and by the time she arrived in Rome, in September, it would have been obvious, but the scandal sheets of the day reported no such condition. Moreover, when Weygand was born, Carlota was still in Trieste; she didn’t return to Brussels until the summer of 1867. Most importantly, however, is that Carlota was almost certainly barren. Although married to Maximilian since 1857, they had produced no children, while Maximilian, who had numerous affairs, had produced least one illegitimate child while they were in Mexico, and perhaps others over the years as well (it’s good to be an archduke). So it seems highly unlikely that Carlota was Weygand’s mother, particularly since some historians believe Weygand’s date of birth was post-dated by perhaps as much as two years. Naturally, this doesn’t necessarily get Carlota off the hook for having had affairs with van der Smissens or Rodriguez.
What about Leopold? Well, he was certainly capable of acting like a cad and spurning his own illegitimate offspring, after all, this is the guy who ran the slaughter house known as “Kongo Free State” for several decades. Carlota could easily have learned of the Countess Kosakowska’s pregnancy when she passed through Belgium en route to Paris, and offered the protection of her household. Although by the time the child was born Carlota was very unstable, and she would fall into complete madness after learning of Maximilian’s execution (June 19th), her assistance could have continued through the boy’s early life. The fact that the child was being supported by her household could readily have given rise to speculation that she was his mother.
And then there’s the Countess Zichy-Metternich and van der Smissens. The Countess was married to a distant cousin with whom she was on bad terms, and an affair between her and van der Smissens would not have been impossible. Naturally, something would have had to be done with the child, and we’re back to Carlota lending a hand.
Now that’s about as far as the evidence can go. Certainly Weygand had a very high ranking, deep pocketed patron, and some connection to the Belgian royals seems certain.
Or perhaps not.
