Maximilian’s attempt to encircle the French

Transcript

Hello and Welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 206 – Maximilian I (1493-1513) – A Grand Plan for a Great War.

The European Political Landscape around 1500

Let’s rise on the wings of an eagle and look at Europe in and around the year 1500, or more precisely in 1496, the year Maximilian I puts his Grand Plan into action, a Grand Plan so grand you can turn it into a woodcut and call it an Triumphal Arch.

Looking down from 10,000 feet we can see that the endless conflicts between the kings and their vassals are rapidly abating. Even the Holy Roman Empire has developed a constitution that bans the endless feuding and created institutions that more or less kept everyone pulling in the same direction.

In this world of centralised authorities, civil servants, lawyers, cannons and massed pikemen, medieval notions of faith and loyalty do not count for much anymore. 17 years later Machiavelli will write quote: “In the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no court to appeal to, one looks to the end. So let a prince win and maintain his state — the means will always be judged honourable and praised by everyone.” He by the way never said that the ends justified the means, but clearly he meant it. Winning for a prince was keeping his state afloat through all the vagaries of fortune. Everything else — cruelty, generosity, honesty, deception — are just tools in the fight for survival.

It was no coincidence that Machiavelli’s focus on the ruthlessness of princes was born in Northern Italy. It was in Northern Italy that the fundamental imbalances in this new political framework of Europe had been put into stark relief.

Then and now the wealthiest parts of Western Europe were Northern Italy, the Rhone valley, Southern Germany, the Rhineland, the Low Countries and southern England. This is where most of the trading, innovation and manufacturing happened. Cloth, metalwork, arms, armour, art, luxury goods travelled up and down that route to be distributed further along. Silks and spices arrived in Constantinople and Alexandria from the east and were shipped via Venice and Genoa up this banana-shaped route. And what did the Indians and Chinese want in return? Certainly not Flemish cloth or Rhenish whine. The only thing the European had to offer to the east were commodities, gold, silver, copper, amber, precious stones. And much of that came from the mines in Tyrol, Bohemia, Hungary, Saxony and Sweden.

Now what have all these places, safe for Venice, Sweden and Southern England in common? They were all -at least formally- inside the Holy Roman Empire.

And that is reflected in the demographics as well. The Maddison project at the university of Groningen produces a reasonably reliable long term demographic dataset. Based on these numbers, the Holy Roman Empire, including northern Italy, the Low Countires, the Arelat and Bohemia had a population well in excess of 23 million, compared to France at less than 13 million when excluding the parts that were still in the empire. Poland was closer to 7 million and even adding in Hungary and Bohemia was unlikely to hit much above 12 million. Spain too comes in at just around 7 million.

In other words, the Holy Roman Empire was the economically and demographically by far largest  political structure in Western Europe.

But who were the most powerful monarchs in continental Europe at the time? King Charles VIII of France, king Kasimir of Poland-Lithuania who also controlled Bohemia and Hungry through his son, Wladislaw, and Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. These three ruled lands that had smaller populations and were economically peripheral to Western Europe. Their rich and fertile soil produced an abundance of food that could be exported to the centres of economic activity, but their fledgling industries could not compete with Milan, Ghent or Nurnberg. Their success was down to smart dynastic marriages, suppression of powerful vassals and patient acquisition of rights and territories by any means possible.

Is it surprising that Machiavelli thought brutal statecraft was the key to success, much more than the bands of loyalty, law and honour that had traditionally bound the Holy Roman Empire together?

When in 1495 king Charles VIII of France rode through Italy, smashing up its carefully calibrated political equilibrium, the whole of Europe felt like Michael Spinks after 93 seconds in the ring with Mike Tyson. Nothing would be the same any more.

As we heard in episode 222 the warring Italian states, including the pope were shocked into joining the Holy League together with Maximilian and the Spanish. And the Holy League managed to chase Charles VIII first out of Naples and then out of Italy altogether.

Maximilian’s Grand Plan

But that was not the end of the story. How could it be. The richest and most populous parts of western europe were politically fragmented and militarily dependent upon mercenaries. They were easy prey for the French kings whose country and army had been honed in not just hundred, but hundreds of years of war with the English and the Burgundian dukes. And even though Charles promised to hold his peace and never actually came back, everybody knew that it was only a question of time before the French would be back.

As 1495 gave way to 1496, Maximilian came up with a grand plan to get rid of the French menace once and for all. Did he think in terms of economics, demographics and balance of power? Not likely. He was still more medieval then modern and his convictions were rooted in honour and the ancient imperial rights and obligations. In his eyes, the French invasion was an attack on the honour of the empire and disrespected him personally as King of the Romans and future emperor. Against all indications to the contrary, he believed Italy was still an integral part of the empire and therefore subject to his rule. He is known to have said that he would rather part with Burgundy, than with “his” Italy.

And then there is his Burgundian experience. He may still only be 36 years old, but he had spent almost half his life fighting ferocious wars against the king of France, wars where neither side took prisoners and relegated the laws of chivalry to the appendix of history. According to his biographer Wiesecker, Maximilian had come out of these wars with a profound hatred for the French. Maybe he did, but there was a rational basis for this antagonism. The King of France needed to wipe out Burgundy in order to sleep soundly in his bed, and hence the ruler of Burgundy needed to crush the French king so that he could sleep soundly in his bed. Only one of them could win and live.

Hence Maximilians Grand Plan was simple – wipe the king of France from the European political chessboard, send him back to Bourges to spend his days in futile prayer for a second Joan of Arc to show up….simples..

The way this was to work out was as follows.

The Holy League should flush the remaining French out of their hidey holes in Gaeta and Tuscany and Florence should be cleansed of the mad monk Savanarola. That done, the league army would then board ships to Provence and attack France from the South East.

Meanwhile the Spanish would cross the Pyrenees in force and merge with the Italians to go up the Rhone river together.

In the North, Maximilian’s son Philipp was to muster the Low Countries for a hard push into Artois and Picardie, whilst at the same time the English would land in Brittanny.

Last but not least, the army of the Holy Roman empire would push into the Franche Comte and the duchy of Burgundy and then on to Paris.

Under such an onslaught from all sides, the French monarchy could do nothing but crumble into dust. That was a Grand Plan if there ever was one.  

What are the chances that he could pull it off?

Maximilian’s advisors shook their heads arguing that this was all a bit too grandiose, but their lord was very much of the view that he had all the necessary bits and pieces in place.

The Holy League had already been established. Sure it was a purely defensive alliance covering only the scenario of a direct attack on any of its members, but wasn’t the next French attack imminent? Surely, all they were doing was preventing the almost certain next invasion.

As for the Spanish, Maximilian had just put all his eggs into their basket when he agreed to marry his only two children to the Infante and the Infanta of Spain. This marriage alliance had been so lopsided in favour of the Spanish, the least they could do was helping him get rid of that quarrelsome king of France.

And this self-same son Philipp who would marry Juana of Spain had been declared an adult and had taken control of the Low Countries. He of course owed loyalty to his father, if only for all the gold and iron Maximilian had spent on preserving his son’s inheritance.

The king of England, well, how could he not want Aquitaine and Normandy back, the lands that his predecessors had so valiantly defended at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. And as for that issue with the pretender Perkin Warbeck who Maximilian was still parading around as a Prince of England and true heir to Edward IV, that issue could sure be sorted through some land swap once France was on its knees.

And finally the empire, what a great opportunity to test drive its brand spanking new constitution. After all the estates had granted him the Common Penny of 250,000 florins and owed him suit on his coronation journey to Rome, which Maximilian has also somehow finagled into his tight timeline too.

Huzzah! The war is on and in six months little Charles VIII will we wailing in his palace, cursing the day he poked the mighty empire. All we need to do now is have a quick meeting to go over the logistics in some detail and then we are off. That meeting was scheduled for July 1496 in Glurns and Mals in the Vinschgau. Yes, these are real places in South Tirol, just on the Italian side of the Reschen pass. These are today and were then small and unnaturally beautiful towns, profoundly unsuited for a pan-European conference that was to decide the fate of the continent. But I am jumping ahead. Let’s talk about the buildup to this great conference.

The Build-up to Mals and Glurns

This timeline left Maximilian with almost 9 months from Charles VIII return to France to nail down his grand plan and make sure that everybody who showed up in Tyrol was fully committed to the success of the grand adventure. He tackled all of these in parallel, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s take them one by one, starting with the empire.

Back at the Imperial diet of Worms (episode 223), Maximilian had tried to get the Reichstag to ratify the Empire’s participation in the Holy League. That  proposal did not pass but the Reichstag had committed 250,000 florins in immediate support for the war in Italy.

However collection of these funds was slow, so slow it was almost imperceptible. Bankers who had offered to loan Maximilian the money in advance of collection withdrew their offer when they saw how little was coming in. And anyone who had not paid realised that only the shmucks were paying and so they stopped too. Only about 50,000 florins were ever collected, most of it in the Habsburg lands. Maximilian called another diet for Candlemas 1496 in Frankfurt to discuss any impediment to the tax collection, but nobody showed up, not even the archbishop of Mainz and archchancellor who was only a few miles away.

That was a setback, but Maximilian should be able to rely on the oldest rights of a King of the Romans, the obligation of his vassals to accompany him on his coronation journey to Italy. This was one of the last functional elements of the medieval constitution of the empire. Even his father – thoroughly despised as he was -could gather at least a handful of princes when he went in 1452. Maximilan called the estates of the empire to appear fully armed and with their retainers in Feldkirch on July 1^st, 1496 and muster for a jolly down to Rome. But for Maximilian, the Last Knight and upholder of chivalric culture, not a single imperial prince honoured the ancient oaths.

But Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure that once his campaign had shown some initial success, the imperial princes would flock to his banner. Moreover, he still had England, Burgundy, Spain, the Italians, Venice, Naples, the Pope and Milan and of course, Spain.

The discussions with king Henry VII of England were not going to smoothly. The Tudor was still upset about Maximilian’s support for Perkin Warbeck. So Maximilian’s in-laws, Ferdinand and Isabella took the lead there. And they could convince Henry VII to join the Holy League, brilliant. But there was a snag. Henry VII was no Henry V. He did not hanker after grand conquests in French lands. His country had not yet recovered from the War of the Roses, and quite frankly, Yorkist pretenders weren’t exactly helping. So he would watch events with profound sympathy and if attacked would respond, but landing in France – maybe later.

But Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure that once his campaign had shown some initial success, the imperial princes would flock to his banner and England would land troops in Brittany. Moreover, he still had Burgundy, the Italians, Venice, Naples, the Pope and Milan and of course, Spain.

Burgundy was now ruled by his son Philipp. A strapping young man of 17, tall, slim, athletic, fair, and elegant in a manner that got his contemporaries exclaiming, what a handsome prince. Philipp had grown up in the Netherlands, educated by Burgundian officials at Mechelen, including Olivier de la Marche and Frans van Busleyden. Philipp had lost his mother aged four and had barely seen his father during his youth. Philipp was much more Netherlander than Austrian. His loyalty lay with his subjects and his tutors, not with his father, the house of Habsburg or the empire. And after 15 years of war, the Low Countries were still utterly devastated. So Philipp declined to help. Even when his father summoned him to Tyrol and berated him for a whole day, he stayed firm. His lands would pay the imperial tax, but no more.

But Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure that once his campaign had shown some initial success, the imperial princes would flock to his banner, England would land troops in Brittany and his son would muster the spirit of Charles the Bold. Moreover, he still had the Italians, Venice, Naples, the Pope and Milan and of course, Spain.

So when the parties came together at Mals and Glurns on July 17^th, 1496 Maximilian tried to impress his guests with a display of the family fortune he had just recently brought back from Nürnberg, where his father had hidden it behind a false wall in the Marienkirche. Whether that worked out is less clear since the Venetian envoy remarked in his letters home about the somewhat threadbare appearance of tapestries and dimness of the silver tableware.

His tent and table may be a bit shabby, but the plan that Maximilian presented to the assembled representatives of Venice, Naples, the Pope and Spain, as well the duke of Milan, was the opposite. Here are the details:

The Spanish should cross the Pyrenees with 20,000 men, Naples, Milan, Venice and the Pope should raise a combined force of 35,000 to which he would add the 20,000 men he would cross the Alps with. Together they would clean out Tuscany and then attack France from the south. As for the northern frontier, the war would trigger the obligations of the Holy League for England plus there was always the other fundamental driver of human behaviour – greed.

Once the French were defeated, king Charles should be offered peace on condition that he gave up his claim on Naples, handed over half of Provence to Spain, which would become an imperial fief again, Burgundy and Artois would go to the Habsburgs, Brittany to England, Florence to Venice and the French Church would be brought back under the direct control of the pope. Something for everyone.

But when Maximilian handed round the pens for the signing, no ink was forthcoming. Of course everyone agreed that king Charles VIII needed to be given a lesson and Italy needed to be defended, the honour of the empire restored etc., etc…but all this was a bit off the scale…

Maybe, if he came down to Italy and they would start somewhere, like mopping up the remains of the French occupation, or maybe pushing for regime change in Florence, removing the mad monk Savanarola who was France’s main ally in Italy, maybe that was a good start.

And Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure that once his campaign had shown some initial success, the imperial princes would flock to his banner, England would land troops in Brittany, his son would muster the spirit of Charles the Bold, the Italians would raise the troops needed and the Spaniards would come across the Pyrenees. Moreover, he still had – well his title and his mesmerising personality.

And to show his guests what he was made of, he staged a hunt, a hunt for Gemsen, the Chamois who live in the sheer alpine cliffs. You may have seen them in nature documentaries. They are sure footed European antelopes, who leap across impossible gaps along sheer cliffs, as if gravity did not exist. Hunting them means following their near impossible paths. Maximilian, for all his faults, was an outstanding hunter, a serious athlete. And so the delegations watched at the bottom of the Wormser Joch as Maximilian and his fellow huntsmen drove the Gemsen across the bluffs and escarpments, making several of them nearly faint. The guests, not the Gemsen. The huntsmen drove the animals down into the valley and right before the assembled dignitary where they were mercilessly slaughtered, just like Maximilian hoped he could do with the French.

But how?

It was decision time. None of his allies had made any binding commitments to his grand plan. But they had also not said no either. The duke of Milan in particular begged him to come to Italy and protect him from future attacks by Charles VIII. If he stayed back in Innsbruck after telling everyone and their dog that he was going to crush the French and be crowned emperor in Rome, he would look very much like a fool. And a man who jumps from one tiny ledge to another in pursuit of a largely inedible antelope, looking like a fool was not a real option.

The other option was to bet on his luck, something that Machiavelli described as (quote) “one of those raging rivers, which when in flood overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place; everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it”. And such kind of fortune had been his trademark ever since he had clapped eyes on the gorgeous Marie of Burgundy and her even more gorgeous cities, palaces and castles.

And so in August 1496, once more a king of the Romans crossed the alps to tame the Italian peninsula. He came, not with 20,000 as promised, not with 5,000 like Henry VII, the last one to have shared his ambition, but with just 300 armed riders.

Once again, Maximilian was skint. He had squeezed every last penny he could out of the population of Austria that had suffered from Hungarian and Turkish incursions. He had pawned what was left of the revenues from the great silver mines of Schwaz. The family heirlooms that so failed to impress the Venetian envoys was given as security for a loan from the Gossembrot bankers of Nürnberg. Some financial help came from the duke of Milan, Ludovico il Moro, who over the whole of their relationship, had given Maximilian a cool 1 million gulden but who was now also on his last leg. Venice reluctantly chipped in with the promise of subsidies, though Maximilian was annoyed when Venetians claimed they had hired the King of the Romans as their condottiere, their mercenary captain. But he bit his tongue, after all, he had a grand plan to implement.

Over the course of the campaign, these funds will bring him a few thousand men that arrived in drips and drops. Which meant he was making a big bet on his Italian allies, his friend and in-law, Ludovico il Moro, the murderous duke of Milan, the shrewd Republic of Venice and the depraved pope Alexander VI Borgia. What could possibly go wrong?

As he came down the Wormser Joch again, he pushed on, not to Milan where he was offered a coronation with the iron crown and all that, but to the small but truly stunningly beautiful town of Vigevano. If you have not been, it’s Piazza Ducale built in record time by Ludovico is amongst Italy’s finest, which means a lot.

Maximilian detour to Vigevano was less for sightseeing than to avoid embarrassment. His measly 300 men were not the kind of imperial entourage that the people of Milan expected from their future king and emperor.

In Vigevano he held a war council with his allies, in fact just Milan and Venice, since the pope had sent legates but no levies.

Maximilian had played a double hand with his Italian friends. He had told the Venetians that he would gather a fleet to attack the French at sea and prepare for a landing in Provence. The Venetians did like that, since that would detain the French and keep the emperor out of Italy. The Milanese did not like that plan one bit. They wanted Maximilian to push into Asti and other French positions in the Italian Northwest, thereby strengthening and protecting Milan. The Venetians did not like a stronger and safer Milan one bit, given they were still squabbling over Brescia and Bergamo.

The obvious solution to this impasse was to go to Livorno. Livorno, just for those of you without a detailed map of Italy in your head is south of Vigevano, whilst France is east of Vigevano.

Still it sort of made sense, as Livorno was the gate into Tuscany where France’s ally, Savanarola still keeping Florence in a state of heightened agitation.

Livorno is a port city and the plan was to muster a fleet in Genoa and attack the city from both land and sea simultaneously. Maximilian’s generals promised this would all be a walk in the park. The city’s defences were weak and yes, it was already October, but Italian autumns are famously mild.

So on October 6, Maximilian’s fleet of 8 Venetian and 2 Genoese galleys plus 11 support vessels raised anchor. On board were 2,000 soldiers plus some artillery, whilst a similarly sized force was marching on land. Progress was shockingly slow. The fleet spent days being blown in, the roads were muddy, so the army moved extremely slowly. It took until October 22^nd before Maximilian and most of his forces arrived in Pisa, 25km north of Livorno. Squabbling amongst allies over the status of Pisa as a free imperial city or a potential prize for Milan or Venice did not add to the sense of imminent victory.

Finally on October 23^rd did Maximilian take his fleet to investigate the state of the defences of Livorno, where he was told, just 500 trained soldiers were holding out. He ordered his navy to blockade the harbour and his land forces set up their cannon to bombard the city. Maximilian was optimistic that Livorno would soon fall given the attackers outnumbered defenders five to one. Yes Livorno’s walls had unexpectedly been recently reinforced and were armed with powerful artillery, but how long before lord hunger would overwhelm them.

The problem with navy blockades is that they are weather dependent. In settled conditions, any traffic in and out of the harbour can be cut off by the heavily armed galleys. However, when the wind blows hard, or worse, in a storm, things can be very different. And even more so if the storm blows from the south west, pushing ships into the bay of Livorno and under the guns of their towers. It was the end of October, a time when the med can be extremely variable with huge fronts going across. I have a friend who got caught in one of these storms at the end of October and was knocked down three times off the coast of Algiers – not an experience he is keen to ever repeat. This, I am afraid, is not the gentle Mediterranean from the Tui brochures.  South westerlies are rare, but thet can occur.

And they did. On October 29^th, 1496 one of these storms made landfall at Livorno. The Venetian and Genoese galleys, including Maximilian’s flagship, the Grimalda, struggled to hold their position, when on the horizon a French fleet appeared. These ships, mostly smaller, and crucially propelled by sails not oars, zoomed past the Italians with the wind in their back. Attempts to attack them failed in the atrocious weather and given the speed of the relief ships. The citizens of Livorno could not believe their luck when the arrivals unloaded 800 Swiss guards, more guns and food to last them for months. Maximilian raged, but couldn’t do a thing. Conditions made it impossible to land and so his fleet headed out to whether the storm. He came back ashore in early November to find his land troops much diminished. As always, money had run out. The Venetians, who had more money than anyone else in Europe had stopped paying his troops, had even cut off their own mercenaries. That was an ominous sign.

But Maximilian did not give up. Once more into the breach comrades, he got back on his flagship and ordered an attack on the harbour of Livorno. The captain and his crew refused, his soldiers, most of whom had grown up at the foot of the alps had enough of the sea. Maximilian convinced them to go with him to Elba where he hoped he could find more seamanlike crew. But this was thwarted when another storm hit. This was the really nasty one. When Maximilian asked his favourite artists Hans Burgkmair to depict the scene he called his the worst days of his life.  There were occasional encounters with the French on the high seas but weather did not permit anything but occasional pot shots at each other. This must have been truly atrocious. Stuck on these comparatively small, massively overcrowded ships, fearing to be capsized or hit by a French cannonball. The artillery pieces were tied down, but will these ropes hold, and above all, what is the point. The defenders of Livorno sat in front of their warm fires, eating their generous rations, whilst the League soldiers were drowning in mud and the sailors was throwing up over the side.

On November 9^th, Maximilian needed to inspect the situation on land and – though the storm was still raging – ordered his flagship to deposit him near the army camp. He got into a dinghy and was rowed ashore, the little boat almost tipping over more than once. On one of these waves he suddenly saw his mighty flagship being lifted up, like by the hand of an angry god and smashed on to the shore. She broke apart immediately, disgorging its cannon, injured men and imperial treasure to the delight of the nearby Livornian. That same night, the league lost another three ships and 500 men, one of them, the Adornia going down with all hands.

This must be it. It must be over now. The fleet is sunk, the soldiers unpaid, the cannon lost and the camp is sinking into the Maremma sludge.

But Maximilian, who was not one for giving up prematurely, was sure, there was still a chance. Once more he led an attack, set up his guns to pound the walls of Livorno. As he looked down, he saw the French navy sailing out and taking the remaining Genoese galleys without a shot fired. Maximilian grabbed his last 20  men and ran down to the very last remaining ship and demanded an attack. But the captain refused, his soldiers turned around. Now it was surely over.

No, this guy does not give up. Yes, he had to raise the siege of Livorno. All the money was  gone. The Venetian envoy told him, it was time to go home. He did head north, but to Milan, to sit down with Ludovico il Moro to weigh their options. After all, the Holy league was still formally intact and the Spaniards were still in play. The marriage was still going ahead. The Reichstag had gathered in Lindau, so if he went there, the princes would realise that their honour was in peril if they did not come to help.

He headed back to Innsbruck in the midst of winter, still optimistic that his grand plan could come to fruition. He ordered more and better cannon to be made and kept in his armoury in Innsbruck. There is a painted inventory of these weapons, pages and pages with beautiful renderings of machines of war. How many pages? 560 of them. How many cannon? Probably the same number, maybe even more. No, Maximilan did not give up.

Until on February 25^th, 1497 the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella  agreed a truce with  Charles VIII. Two months later Milan, Venice and the Pope threw in the towel. The war of the Holy League was over. Maximilian tried one more, this time with an attack on Burgundy, an effort that came to nought when his son signed a permanent peace with France behind his back.

The league itself dissolved formally when Venice swapped sides and agreed a permanent peace and alliance with France in 1499. Meanwhile king Charles VIII had an unfortunate encounter with a doorframe. And in September of that same year the next French king, Louis XII marched into Milan. Ludovico il Moro fled to Maximilian in Innsbruck, mustered an army to take back his duchy, was defeated and ended his life as a French prisoner.

This attempt at encircling and diminishing France had been a truly epic fail. But it wasn’t the last. The next 250 years, until the Seven Years’ War, one main axis of Europe’s political history is the struggle between the French kings and the House of Habsburg, and arguably it laid the foundation for the subsequent and even more brutal conflict between France and Germany. Marx said that history repeats itself twice, first as tragedy and then as farce. These wars repeat themselves more than twice, more than 10 times, more like dozens of times, almost always as tragedy, but here, the first time, as farce.

The Early Modern Period has begun, sometime between Joan of Arc, the war of the Burgundian succession, Charles VIII invasion of Italy, the Fall of Grenada and Maximilian’s grand plan, the political map of Europe had turned from a north south axis to an east west axis.

And whilst France is growing and consolidating, what is the empire doing. Is the constitution going to hold the princes together. Was their reluctance to support Maximilian in his grand plan a bug or a feature? And what about the Swiss? Where were they in all that? Are they still in, or are they out? All will be revealed next week.

I hope you will join us again and remember, that your humble podcaster may not be as indebted as Maximilian was at the end of this campaign, running this show takes its toll. And if you were to find it in your hearts to share some of this burden, go to historyofthegermans.com/support where you can find various options to show yourself as a true imperial prince, faithful to his or her oaths. Such as Ole M., Kevin K. Alan J, Kevin B., Robert W., Johan S. Kalr K. John M. A. have already done.