Unknown World War I – The battle that history is forgetting

The Siege of Leningrad and the Battles for Moscow and Stalingrad in World War Two (WWII) are well documented, but very little, certainly in the West, has been written about the Eastern Front during World War One (WWI). Apart from the crushing blows to the Tsar’s Imperial Russian Army at Tannenberg, the Masurian Lakes and the German Army’s march east, the only other battle that ever seems to get a mention is the short lived Brusilov offensive in June 1916.

Here, the author Frank Pleszak returns to the site and tells us about the little known Battle of Vileyka in September 1915.

During WWI there was significant fighting and demonstrations all along the eastern front from Riga on the Baltic Sea in the north all the way south to Romania, and once Romania entered the war, right down to the Black Sea. My dad was born and raised in a small Polish village about 100 kilometres east of Vilnius near to Lake Naroch (in what is now Belarus). Though he never mentioned it, there was a huge, and to the Russians catastrophic, battle there in the spring of 1916. It was of such importance that the historian Norman Stone said of it “Lake Naroch was, despite appearances, one of the decisive battles of the First World War. It condemned most of the Russian army to passivity”.

The ‘Battle of Lake Naroch’, the ‘Russian Spring Offensive of 1916’, occurred following the Russian ‘Great Retreat’ when the Eastern Front had settled down into positional trench warfare. It was an ill conceived, poorly planned, and disastrously executed Russian offensive across a front of nearly 100km over a series of frozen lakes and swamplands. Its intention was to bring Vilnius into striking distance in an attempt to draw German troops east and away from their offensive on the Western Front at Verdun. The Russian 2nd Army massively outnumbered the Germany XXI Army Corps, almost 450,000 infantry to 75,000 but suffered staggering losses of more than 120,000 while the Germans lost about 20,000. After two weeks of bloody and futile fighting in the most appalling conditions the battle came to an end with the Russians having only captured a tiny area to the south of Lake Naroch.

Fighting at Ladischky-Bruch during the Battle of Lake Naroch.

Forgotten?

There is almost nothing written about this battle in the west and it is in danger of being lost to history. In a small effort to prevent this happening I have researched the battle from both sides and almost completed a book on the subject that should be published later this year.

Other than the Brusilov campaigns, Russia did have some other battlefield success. In fact in the lead up to the Naroch debacle, the battle for the small town of Vileyka, where the German advance east was stopped and then pushed back is considered by some to be one of the most significant military victories ever achieved on Belarusian soil. There will be a chapter with detailed information in my forthcoming book, but I include a summary here…

So, following on from the success at the second battle at the Masurian lakes at the end of February 1915, the German X Army, commanded by General von Eichhorn, after heavy fighting, had by mid-August, taken the strategically important fortress at Kaunas but then found the capture of the city of Vilnius altogether harder.

After regrouping to the north of Vilnius, supplemented with additional reinforcements, von Eichhorn’s X Army bypassed Vilnius and towards the end of August broke through Russian General Radkevich’s 10th Army in the so called Swenziany (Švenčionys) gap. Elements pressed on east through the city of Postavy towards Hlybokaje, but the bulk of the force headed south-east towards the City of Maladzyechna (Molodechno) and the primary objective; the city of Minsk.

By mid-September, amidst stiff opposition, General von Garnier’s VI Cavalry Corps (H.K.K.6.) had captured the towns of Vileyka and Smorgon. The 3 Cavalry Division moved on towards Maladzyechna, some units even approached the west of Minsk, and others had penetrated to the east of Minsk and attacked a bridge along the Beresina River south of Borisov. Stavka, the Russian high command, were clearly concerned. Not only was Maladzyechna an important railway cross roads but it also contained important secret government and military installations. 

German cavalry attack at Vileyka.

On 17 September, as the German X Army began to surround Vilnius, Russian forces were withdrawn and the city ceded to the Germans. But as the German Army marched east their supply lines had increased and become severely stretched. Russia’s had shortened and their material losses were made good from increased production at home together with supplies from France and England. The Russian 2nd Army, devastated at Tannenberg and then obliterated at the Masurian Lakes, had re-formed and re-grouped, and under General Smirnov were given the ‘honour to finally halt the German advance’.

Back on the front foot

The H.K.K.6.’s rapid advance had left them vulnerable. Whilst they had easily crossed the rivers, streams and swamps their infantry and artillery support struggled over rivers with bridges blown up by the retreating Russians. The Russian 10th and 2nd Armies struck back, and immediately halted the German advance before Maladzyechna, and then pushed them back north along a 40km stretch of the River Wilja from the town of Vileyka to Milcza where they were slowly reinforced with advanced infantry units of the 115 Infantry and eventually 75 Reserve Divisions.

Extent of the German X Army Advance East.

By 22 September the town of Smorgon between Vilnius and Maladzyechna had been recaptured by a combination of a Russian 10th Army offensive together with Russians withdrawing from Vilnius. The Germans were exhausted and hungry, most of their artillery and supplies of food and munitions were still far behind their front. The Russians counter-attacked at Vileyka. Smirnov’s 27th Army Corps commanded by General Balanin had moved into positions to the south of Vileyka along the southern bank of the River Wilja and bombarded German positions. At 16:00 an infantry company supported by a machine gun company attacked across the railway bridge south of the town, scattering the German defenders that enabled two companies to ford the river and through the night occupy high ground to the southwest of the town.

By the early morning of 23 September all the Russian artillery, including two heavy batteries, had assembled to the south of Vileyka and by the same time further infantry had crossed the Wilja near the village of Olszyna just to the east of Vileyka causing a distraction to the German defences. Taking advantage, a further three infantry brigades were moved quickly from reserve to consolidate the breakthrough.

Russian Artillery.

The Germans regrouped and counter-attacked the positions to the south and west, but even more Russian Infantry was brought up to assist. The German action was brave but futile and by mid-afternoon as the Russians massed ready to storm Vileyka from the south, southwest and west of the town the Germans stubbornly repeated their attacks. At 16:00 massed Russian artillery began bombarding the outskirts of the town and at 16:30, as the wooden houses burned, Russian Infantry moved forward from the south. Within minutes they had driven the Germans back towards the centre of the town. Fierce hand-to-hand and bayonet fighting took place at almost every building but by 17:00 the centre was under total Russian control. Dogged German resistance prevailed around the cemetery and at the nearby prison but with the assistance of targeted Russian artillery the fighting quickly moved to the northern outskirts where a German howitzer was captured. The Germans fought desperately to recover the lost gun but Russian support arrived and repeated German attempts failed.

Russian Map of attack (original dates in Julian format).

At the same time Russian units moved, largely unopposed, around the west of the town preventing any German withdrawal to the west. Fighting within Vileyka concentrated along the northern perimeter and particularly around the railway station where a furious firefight erupted with the station changing hands several times. More Russian units moved in from the southwest and eventually cleared the remaining resistance around the cemetery before moving to the northern edge of town where they helped capture the station.

The closing stages

20 kilometres to the east at the village of Sosenka Russian cavalry failed in an attempt to capture the bridge over the River Wilja that was guarded by a single company of 80 German defenders. But nearer to Vileyka Russian infantry had crossed the Wilja around the village of Kasuta and within 4 hours had forced the German X Army back along the road towards the town of Kurzeniec, capturing the villages of Kaczanki, Hrycuki, and Kłynie together with several light field guns in the process.

Further Russian infantry crossed the Wilja capturing the villages Chołopy and Małmhy on the eastern outskirts of Vileyka. The remaining Germans were surrounded on three sides and their support was too far back to assist. Their position was hopeless so during the night all remaining units were withdrawn to new positions north of Vileyka around the village of Wołkowszczyzna.

The battle for Vileyka was effectively over. The Germans, overstretched without supplies, exhausted and hungry, struggled on for a few more days but with increasing demands from the Western Front it became clear that the prospect of any further German short-term progress to the east was unrealistic. On 25 September General von Hindenburg ordered a halt to the advance east, withdrawal of all the forward troops along the River Wilja back to positions around Lake Naroch, and for the establishment of permanent defensive lines (Dauerstellung) which were developed through the winter of 1915.

Isolated but bloody fighting erupted periodically in sections along the whole of the new front through the winter and early spring of 1916. Both sides continued to build up their forces and prepare for battle, but neither were prepared for the onslaught that eventually came in the March of 1916. The Russian success at Vileyka was not to be repeated; in fact, despite overwhelmingly superior forces they were so badly beaten that the consequences were drastic and far reaching…

Frank Pleszak has written a book about his father’s journey from near Lake Naroch via the GULags of Siberia to England entitled Two Years in a Gulag.

It is available here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

You can also hear an excerpt from the book in our related podcast here.

Frank has also almost completed a book on the Battle of Lake Naroch. His YouTube presentation is here. He is working on a history of the Polish 2nd Corps – Anders Army. Finally, Frank’s Twitter handle is @PolishIICorps.

James Monroe - The Forgotten Founder and a Historical Myth

In William Bodkin’s fifth post on the presidents of the USA, he reveals a fascinating tale on the Forgotten Founder, James Monroe (in office from 1817 to 1825). And the real reason why he was not unanimously re-elected to the presidency.

William's previous pieces have been on George Washington (link here), John Adams (link here), Thomas Jefferson (link here), and James Madison (link here). 

James Monroe as painted by William James Hubbard in the 1830s.

James Monroe, fifth President of the United States, was the last American Founder to become President and a hero of the Revolutionary War.  At the Battle of Trenton, Monroe, then a Lieutenant, and Captain William Washington, a cousin of George Washington, stormed a Hessian gun battery to prevent what would have been the certain slaughter of advancing American troops.  Captain Washington, Lieutenant Monroe and their men seized the Hessians’ guns as they attempted to reload.  For their efforts, Captain Washington’s hands were badly wounded, and Monroe was struck in the shoulder by a musket ball, which severed an artery.  Monroe’s life was saved by a local patriot doctor who clamped the artery to stop the bleeding.[1]  Monroe’s heroism was such that it is said that in the famous painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, capturing the moment when George Washington led the Continental Army into New Jersey prior to the Battle of Trenton, James Monroe stands next to George Washington, holding the American flag.[2]

Following the revolution, Monroe embarked on a long career in service of the new nation.  He studied law with Thomas Jefferson, and then served as a United States Senator from Virginia, Ambassador to France, Governor of Virginia, Ambassador to England, Secretary of State and Secretary of War during James Madison’s administration, and was then twice elected President.

Despite this heroic and distinguished career, Monroe seems overlooked as a Founder, eclipsed by the long shadows of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison, his presidential predecessors who created the new nation with their considerable intellects and political skills.  Perhaps this is because Monroe was not considered their equal.  William Plumer, a US Senator from New Hampshire, who went on to serve as Governor of that state, described Monroe as “honest”, but “a man of plain common sense, practical, but not scientific.”[3]

James Monroe is generally remembered for two things: the Monroe Doctrine, which sought to block Europe from further colonizing the Americas; and the fact that he was almost unanimously elected to his second term.  History tells us that Monroe was denied a unanimous second term for the noblest of reasons.  One defiant elector in the Electoral College voted for John Quincy Adams because he believed that George Washington should be the only unanimously elected President of the United States.[4]

Except that is not true, and the real reason is a lot more interesting.  The truth involves William Plumer, who did not think much of Monroe, Daniel Tompkins, a Vice-President frequently too drunk to preside over the Senate, and the greatest orator in American history, Daniel Webster.

Unpacking the real story

Following the War of 1812, post American Revolution political tensions eased into the “Era of Good Feelings.”  The Federalist Party had collapsed following the revelation that during the war, they were plotting to secede from the union,[5] essentially leaving no other national party to challenge the Democratic-Republicans of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe.  The country, though, was not united behind Monroe, he just had no organized opposition.  Monroe faced plenty of criticism, including from Thomas Jefferson, who opposed his former law student’s extravagant deficit spending and expansion of the federal government.[6]  But with the Federalist Party unable to put up a national candidate for president, there was no way to protest Monroe’s policies.  At least, not until a plan was hatched by Daniel Webster to protest Monroe by voting against the re-election of Daniel Tompkins to the Vice-Presidency.

Tompkins was widely regarded as a failed Vice-President.  A former Governor of New York, Tompkins was far more interested in his state, even running again for Governor in 1820, just prior to being re-elected Vice-President.  Tompkins was also a chronic alcoholic.[7]  His alcoholism, though, was allegedly tied to a valiant cause.  As New York’s Governor, Tompkins personally financed the participation of the state’s militias in the War of 1812 when the New York State Legislature voted against providing the funding.  After the war, however, the state refused to reimburse him, causing him financial ruin.[8]

Despite the noble roots of Tompkins’ problems, Webster resolved to vote against him.  Webster settled on a plan to gather votes for John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams and then James Monroe’s Secretary of State.  This plan was complicated, however, by the fact that Webster was a presidential elector from the state of Massachusetts.  The head of that Electoral College delegation was John Adams.  Webster, perhaps wisely, chose not to broach the subject with the former president.  Instead, Webster sent an emissary to William Plumer, then mostly retired from political life, but who was serving as the head of New Hampshire’s Electoral College delegation, to enlist him in the plan.[9]

The vote against

Plumer embraced the idea.  He sent a letter to his son, William Plumer, Jr., New Hampshire’s Congressman, asking him to approach John Quincy Adams with the idea.  When the younger Plumer did, however, Adams was appalled.  Adams noted that any vote for him, in any capacity, would be “peculiarly embarrassing”, especially if it came from Massachusetts.  Adams made clear to Plumer he wished Monroe and Tompkins be re-elected unanimously, and that, in any event, there should not be a single vote given to him.  Adams told Plumer that a vote for him would damage his prospects for winning the presidency in 1824.[10]

Plumer sent word to his father immediately, but it did not reach the elder Plumer before he left for Concord, New Hampshire, to cast his electoral vote.  It is not clear where Plumer resolved to vote for John Quincy Adams not for Vice-President, but for President, and to do so as a protest against Monroe himself.[11]  But he did.  In a speech to his fellow electors, the elder Plumer announced his intention to vote for John Quincy Adams for president.  In his remarks, Plumer stated that Monroe had conducted himself improperly as president, echoing Jefferson’s complaints concerning the vast increase of the public debt during the Monroe administration.[12]

How does George Washington fit into this?  It is really not known.  Newspaper accounts of the time accurately recorded Plumer’s dissent.[13]  The first references to Plumer’s vote preserving Washington’s status emerged in the 1870s, when historians assessing the Founding Era noted the parallels between its beginnings, with the unanimous acclamation of George Washington as the indispensable man to the Republic, and its end, with its unanimous acceptance of James Monroe as the man no one opposed.  The theory was first floated around then and it took on a life of its own.[14]  In the absence of clear evidence of how this American legend began, perhaps it was just one of history’s quirks that James Monroe, who nearly sacrificed his life in service to George Washington’s army, was destined to sacrifice part of his historic reputation in service of creating the myth of George Washington, Father of the United States.

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[1] For the full story, see David Hackett Fisher’s “Washington’s Crossing” (Pivotal Moments in American History), Oxford University Press (2004).

[2] http://www.ushistory.org/washingtoncrossing/history/whatswrong.html

[3] William Plumer, Memorandum of Proceedings in the United State Senate, March 16, 1806.

[4] See, Boller, Paul F., Jr. Presidential Campaigns from George Washington to George W. Bush, Oxford University Press (2004), p. 31-32.

[5] See, connecticuthistory.org/the-hartford-convention-today-in-history/

[6] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, December 26, 1820.

[7] Letter of William Plumer, Jr. to William Plumer, his father, on February 1, 1822, describing Tompkins as
“so grossly intemperate as to be totally unfit for business.”

[8] http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Daniel_Tompkins.htm

[9] Turner, Lynn W. “The Electoral Vote Against Monroe in 1820—An American Legend”  The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 42(2), (1955), pp. 250-273

[10] Turner, p. 257

[11] Turner, p. 258

[12] Turner, p. 259

[13] Turner, p. 261.

[14] Turner p. 269-270.

The Autumn of Terror: The Legacy of Jack the Ripper and the Newspapermen who made him

During the autumn of 1888, London was in turmoil. A series of gruesome murders were taking place in the East End. Prostitutes were strangled to unconsciousness or death before being gently lowered to the ground where their throats were cut. They were then mutilated and abandoned, usually in the street. Several names were attributed to the killer who stalked the streets of Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Aldgate. Some at the time simply called him the Whitechapel Murderer, others called him “Leather Apron”. In the modern day, we know him as Jack the Ripper. Nick Tingley explains….

Despite the murders occurring over a century ago, we are no closer to identifying who this mysterious killer was. Historians and Ripperologists have published hundreds of books and papers that describe the murders in exacting detail and have made various claims about the identity of the killer but none of them could ever hope to put the debate to rest. The reason for this is not so much from a lack of evidence, although the presence of today’s scientific methodology in late nineteenth century London may well have stood the police force of the time in better stead. In fact, if there is anything that truly hounds anyone attempting to identify Jack the Ripper, it is the overwhelming amount of evidence that must be shifted through to find the grain of truth.

Jack the Ripper as depicted by Tom Merry in Puck magazine.

There is even debate about how many murders can be attributed to Jack the Ripper. Theories range from the generally accepted five canonical victims (who were all murdered between August 31 and November 9, 1888) and a further thirteen victims who were murdered between December 1887 and April 1891. And whilst the police struggled to find the Ripper, they were hampered by the press, both locally and across the country, who were keen to keep the Jack the Ripper story going for as long as possible. Hundreds of letters were sent to the police during the Autumn of Terror, all of which claimed to have been written by the Whitechapel Murderer. Of those that were not written by fools trying to incite more terror, most were almost certainly written by newspapermen attempting to flesh out the story.

It is from many of these regional newspapers that we can find some interesting stories that show the Autumn of Terror was not just a plague of fear that was rampant in London. It was a genuine horror that spread all across the British Isles and even reached out across Europe.

“I am Jack the Ripper”

Throughout the Autumn of Terror there were many instances of people claiming to be Jack the Ripper. Whether it was in the form of a letter sent to the police or newspapers or whether it was a man surrendering himself to a police station, the newspapers were ready to report it. In fact, many of the smaller regional newspapers even started having regular Jack the Ripper bulletins to keep everyone up to date on the comings and goings of the case.

More often than not, these bulletins were short and matter of fact. One such bulletin from the Edinburgh Evening News (October 11, 1888) tells the story of a man named Gerry who surrendered himself to the police in London, claiming to be the Whitechapel murderer. The report mentions that he was quickly released without charge but still makes a point of mentioning the incident to keep the Edinburgh populace completely up to date with events in London.

With small incidences like these making their way into the local newspapers, it is hardly a surprise that soon stories began to be printed of events where criminals made casual remarks to Jack the Ripper. One such story was printed in the Cornishman (November 8, 1888), which detailed the story of a young St Buryan woman who was accosted by a strange man who announced that he was Jack the Ripper when she refused to walk with him. She quickly ran back to her home and the man disappeared. The following day, Mary Jane Kelly, the last of the canonical victims, was found butchered in her lodgings in London and the newspapers had something more concrete to report on.

These incidences of people claiming to be Jack the Ripper continued throughout 1888, and were reported by the newspapers of the time. Many of these reports came from court proceedings. More often than not, these detailed events where a man was arrested for being drunk and disorderly and, during the course of disorderly conduct, happened to shout that he was Jack the Ripper. While it was apparent that the police were not concerned by these impromptu drunken confessions, the local newspapers were quick to question whether any of these were just the ramblings of a drunken man.

The Ripper Victims Who Weren’t

The Autumn of Terror had spread so far that it was almost inevitable that it would eventually hurt someone. On October 27, 1888, the York Herald reported a story that had come from Northern Ireland. In Kilkeel, County Down, a young lady named Millegan would become a victim of Jack the Ripper. Whilst walking down the street, Millegan was startled by a man who jumped out at her, brandishing a knife and claiming he was Jack the Ripper. Such was the shock of this incident that Millegan fainted and suffered from a fever from which she never recovered.

On the same day, the Aberdeen Journal reported the story of Theresa Unwin from Sheffield who had been found dead at her home. She had committed suicide with a carving knife. Although her husband was keen to point out that there was no history of insanity in the family, Theresa had reported having a dream about Jack the Ripper. The papers were keen to play up to the idea that this dream had been what prompted her suicide.

Although neither of these women probably ever had contact with the man who committed the Whitechapel Murders, it is undeniable that they were victims of Jack the Ripper and the terror that had been spread around the country by the newspapers of the time.

Amateur Sleuths

While the terror inspired many to made outlandish claims of being the Ripper to terrify those around them, others seemed to be inspired to take action to capture the Whitechapel Murderer – sometimes with hilarious consequences.

On October 16, 1888, a few weeks after the murders of Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddows, both generally believed to be Ripper victims, “An Elderly Gentleman” wrote to The Times of London detailing his recent trip to the north of Britain. The gentleman wrote of how he had been walking along a road to visit a friend of his when seven young colliers confronted him. The young men apparently believed he was Jack the Ripper and wanted to take him into custody. When the gentleman refused, they attempted to threaten him, with a gun they didn’t have, and coerce him using the authority of the police, which they also didn’t have. The gentleman simply continued walking to his friend’s house at which point the seven lads disappeared.

This was not the only time when people in Britain attempted to take the Jack the Ripper matter into their own hands. All across the country, newspapers began to publish reports of young men who were arrested after beating up other members of the community in the belief that they had found Jack the Ripper. In one instance, a man named John Brinkley was charged with being drunk when he went out into the streets of London dressed in a woman’s skirt, shawl and hat (Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, November 14, 1888). When questioned by the police, Brinkley replied that he had intended to dress like a woman so he could lure Jack the Ripper to him and catch him in the act. It apparently had never occurred to Brinkley, that this act was not only ridiculous but could also have put him in serious danger – although probably not from the Ripper himself. 

​

The first letter from Jack the Ripper - September 25, 1888.

The Travelling Ripper

A month or two after Mary Jane Kelly’s murder, it appears that the wave of terror was beginning to calm down in Britain. Regional newspapers were publishing less about the Whitechapel murders, although it had by no means stopped. By November 27, newspapers were beginning to report on a letter that had purportedly come from “The Ripper’s Pal”. This letter, sent to the Nottingham Daily Express, claimed that the Ripper had come from Bavaria and that he, the Ripper’s Pal, had come from America and that they would soon be heading out of the country.

Whether this letter really did come from anyone associated with the Whitechapel murders, we will never know. What is interesting is that, barely a month after this letter was published around the country, someone seems to have taken it on themselves to finish the story. On December 18, Jack the Ripper reportedly arrived in Berlin, sending a letter to the Chief of Police stating:

“As I now intend to stay some time here, I should like to see if the celebrated Berlin police succeed in catching me. I only want 15 victims. Therefore, beware! Jack the Ripper.”

The British newspapers again jumped to report the migration of Jack the Ripper, although they were careful to point out that the German police had already disregarded the note as a practical joke. The fear of Jack the Ripper had spread to the European continent and now it appeared that German citizens were hopping on the bandwagon.

But it didn’t stop there. Within ten days, similar letters and telegrams had been sent to King Leopold in Brussels, announcing that Jack was coming to commit his crimes there. What had been a wave of crime that had been very much contained within a square mile area of London had now become a pandemic of fear across a continent.

Ultimately, the identity of Jack the Ripper will remain a mystery forever. But his legacy lived on and lasts to the modern day thanks to the newspaper coverage of the Whitechapel murders and the subsequent wave of terror that followed.

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Colonial repression at its worst? Conrad and the Belgian Congo

Joseph Conrad’s book Heart of Darkness, set in the Belgian Congo, illustrates some of the worst abuses of colonialism. It is important to remember that the book was very much based on real events though. Julia Routledge tells us about the book and contrasts it with actual happenings in the Congo.

‘Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish… The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once – somewhere – far away – in another existence perhaps… And this stillness of life did not in the least resemble a peace. It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you with a vengeful aspect.’

The human condition has always embraced the allure of adventure; for Charles Marlow, the intrepid protagonist of Joseph Conrad’s celebrated novella, ‘Heart of Darkness,’ this fascination with the unknown manifests itself in an urge to command a steamboat down the mighty Congo River. It reminds him of ‘an immense snake uncoiled,’ and he recalls that ‘it fascinated me as a snake would a bird – a silly little bird.’ The ensuing tale is a damning exposition of the corruption and insatiable greed of colonialism, and of mankind’s capacity for savagery. Yet this story is rooted in historical fact: it stems from Conrad’s own disillusionment whilst working on the Congo River in 1890, and Marlow is thought to be his alter ego.

Proprganda from the Belgian Ministry of Colonies in the 1920s.

Exploration in the Congo

In 1876, King Leopold II of Belgium hosted the Brussels Geographical Conference, aiming to garner support for sowing seeds of civilisation amongst the indigenous people of the Congo. He advocated the creation of an International African Association, under whose umbrella various countries and groups would collaborate: it would be the purveyor of progress to the benighted natives of Central Africa. Leopold was instated as its first chairman, and, whilst his intentions were ostensibly philanthropic, in reality, he used his authority to further Belgian interests in the region.

At around the same time, Henry Morton Stanley – famous for locating the Christian missionary, Dr Livingstone – set out to explore the uncharted territories of Central Africa and to trace the Congo River to the sea. He discovered a region replete with natural resources and ripe for development, yet British financiers were lukewarm about his findings. In King Leopold, however, he found a zealous leader who required an agent to expedite the establishment of a Belgian presence in the Congo. Leopold’s de facto hegemony over the area was confirmed at the Berlin Conference in 1884, where fourteen European states convened to carve African territory into national possessions. The Congo Free State was proclaimed the following year; unusually for an overseas colony, it did not belong to a country, but was instead Leopold’s private fiefdom. Its population was about to experience the ruinous consequences of an ‘enlightened’ man’s unfettered power.

Leopold began swiftly to assert his authority by funding railway construction to facilitate exploration, and challenging the troubling existence of Arab slave gangs, led by the formidable Swahili-Zanzibari dealer Tippu Tip, along the Lualaba River. Leopold had pledged to tackle African slavery at the Belgian Conference, but the gangs’ presence in the north-east also constituted an intolerable threat to the economy, for each labourer or portion of ivory claimed by the traders detracted from the Belgian regime’s power. After several years of tense co-operation, open conflict broke out between the unhappy bedfellows in 1892, and the Arabs were ultimately subdued and crushed.

Leopold promulgated various decrees which stifled free trade and curtailed the natives’ rights, until these subjugated citizens were little more than serfs. He also established the Force Publique: a loyal private army of indigenous soldiers and European officers who enforced his rule with breathtaking brutality. The region offered a cornucopia of exploitable materials, notably ivory and rubber, and although demand for the latter significantly increased with the advent of motor cars and inflatable bicycle tubes, it was around the ivory trade that Conrad centred his book.

Marlow is confronted by the reality of colonial oppression soon after arriving at his Company’s station. In a narrow ravine nearby, he stumbles upon ‘black shapes… in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.’ It is self-evident that the labourers have come to this place to die: ‘They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now – nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought back from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air – and nearly as thin.’

Fiction and fact

Charged with relieving a company agent, Mr Kurtz, from his station, Marlow ventures into the depths of the sprawling, primordial wilderness on his steamboat. Mr Kurtz’s reputation precedes him: he is a remarkably productive ivory trader who possesses ‘universal genius’, and Marlow nurtures a growing obsession to meet this enigmatic figure. At the end of his perilous journey up river, he finds an individual wallowing in his own supremacy, and so engorged with authority that he coerces the native people to revere him as a god-like entity. Through his quasi-divine status, Kurtz obtains prodigious amounts of ivory from the Congolese; yet lurking behind this glamour is an egregious relationship of elaborate manipulation and viciousness, captured by the gaunt heads on stakes that surround Kurtz’s dwelling.

Colonial cruelty and exploitation were just as dreadful in reality. Appalling punishments were meted out to natives who failed to harvest enough wild rubber to meet their quotas, including the burning of their villages and the murdering and mutilation of their families. One of the most infamous punishments carried out by Force Publique soldiers was to chop off the right hand of a native in order to verify that he had not been squandering his resources on hunting and had instead been actively implementing Belgian authority. Photographs from the era attest to this perverse discipline: in one image, Congolese stare bleakly at the camera, each consciously bending the remainder of their arm inwards; in another, two impassive militiamen grasp severed hands: grotesque tokens of their dominance. Famine, disease and exhaustion were other major killers: they stalked the country, seizing first upon the elderly and weak labourers, before welcoming the able-bodied into their chilling embrace. Although it is impossible to ascertain the true human cost of Leopold’s avaricious and merciless regime, some estimates place the death toll in the region of ten million.

This flagrant indifference towards human life inflamed international opinion, and Heart of Darkness contributed to this outburst of moral revulsion. Leopold might have been able initially to conceal the hideous underbelly of his regime, but by the turn of the century, criticism was mounting. The British government was compelled to establish an investigation into the reality of life under Leopold’s administration, the findings of which were published in the 1904 Casement Report. Roger Casement, a British diplomat and human rights activist, had listed Belgian atrocities meticulously, and an interview with a native illustrates the rampant abuse:

‘We had to go further and further into the forest to find the rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating the fields and gardens. Then we starved. Wild beasts – the leopards – killed some of us when we were working away in the forest, and others got lost or died from exposure and starvation, and we begged the white man to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, but the white men and their soldiers said: “Go! You are only beasts yourselves; you are nyama (meat).” We tried, always going further into the forest, and when we failed and our rubber was short the soldiers came up our towns and shot us. Many were shot; some had their ears cut off; others were tied up with ropes round their neck and bodies and taken away… Our chiefs were hanged and we were killed and starved and worked beyond endurance to get rubber.’

The report engendered further outrage at the plight of the Congolese, and also triggered the foundation of the Congo Reform Association, a movement which counted Conrad, Mark Twain and Arthur Conan Doyle among its notable supporters. Leopold’s position was becoming increasingly untenable, and he eventually succumbed to international pressure by conceding the Congo Free State to the Belgian government in 1908. Yet it was not until 1913 that the Congo Reform Association officially disbanded: a reflection of the Belgian government’s reluctance to investigate or even acknowledge the crimes perpetrated under Leopold’s regime. When considering the abhorrent and systematic abuse of the Congolese, it seems therefore apposite to end with Kurtz’s final, ambiguous yet visceral, exclamation before he died: ‘The horror! The horror!’

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Stopping the British supporting the South? Charles Francis Adams in London

Charles Francis Adams, the grandson of Founding Father John Adams, was the third generation of the Adams family to go to London – and he probably had the toughest job. He had a major role to play as the American Civil War broke out and had to stop the British supporting the South… Here, Steve Strathmann follows up on his articles about John Adams (here) and John Quincy Adams (here) by considering Charles’ time in London.

Charles Francis Adams, Sr. had already had a long political career by 1861. He had served in the Massachusetts state house and run for vice president on a third party ticket in the 1840s. In late 1860, he was a congressman and joined a number of committees trying to end the secession crisis (to no avail). As Abraham Lincoln prepared to enter office in 1861, his Secretary of State-designate William Seward pressed for Adams to be the nation’s minister to Great Britain. Lincoln approved his choice and Adams presented his credentials to Queen Victoria on May 16. The third Adams in London had arguably the hardest job when compared with those of his father and grandfather. He had to try and keep Great Britain from becoming involved in the American Civil War.

Charles Francis Adams by William Morris Hunt. 1867.

The British View

As the American Civil War began, Great Britain did not react as the Americans expected it would. The British had long supported the abolition of slavery, so many in the North believed that they would support their side in the conflict. Problems arose when Lincoln initially framed the war as a fight to save the Union, not to free the slaves. The northern states also supported higher tariffs on foreign goods than the southern states had. On top of that, the large British textile industry used cotton grown in the American South, which would now be cut off by the North’s blockade. As historian Kathleen Burk wrote about this period, “there was, therefore, no reason of either British national interest or morality to support the North as a matter of course.”

The government of Lord Palmerston looked at the war as an opportunity to see a rival power weakened. Palmerston, along with his foreign minister John Russell, felt that if the United States became two or more separate nations, the result would be a more powerful Great Britain. On the other hand, the prime minister was reluctant to commit to any policy that may favor one side over the other, as his ruling coalition held many opinions on the American situation and could collapse over any disagreement. As a result, the British proclaimed themselves officially neutral in May 1861, but gave belligerent rights to the Confederates and met with several representatives from the breakaway states.

One other reason why the British were wary of taking sides as the Civil War began was a fear for Canada, which at this time was still a British possession. William Seward was known to be an Anglophobe, and some in London thought that Seward would convince Lincoln that the United States should invade Canada in order to make up for the loss of the South. This would never happen, but the Palmerston government was worried enough to send 11,000 troops to defend the Canadian frontier.

Seward’s dislike of Britain would continue to be a problem for Anglo-American relations. The messages he sent for Charles Francis Adams to relay to John Russell were at times blunt and confrontational, and could have caused a dangerous rift between the two nations. Fortunately, Adams was independent enough that he would at times hold back all or parts of these messages until they could be presented in a more diplomatic manner. Still, there were several times during Adams’ tenure when he feared that Britain and the United States would come to blows despite his best efforts. In fact, he would only rent his London home by the month, in case he was recalled to the United States.

The Trent Affair

The first major incident that Adams had to deal with was the Trent affair. On November 8, 1861, the USS San Jacinto stopped the British steamer Trent, and arrested two Confederate commissioners, John Slidell and John Mason, who were on their way to Europe. The captain of the San Jacinto, John Wilkes, acted without orders and against the advice of his crew, but was hailed as a hero in the North. The British were infuriated by the stopping and boarding of a neutral vessel. They claimed (rightfully) that Wilkes’ actions were illegal and demanded an apology from the United States, as well as the immediate release of Mason and Slidell. British public opinion turned so strongly against the United States over the Trent incident that preparations for war were started. This was the point when British troops were sent to Canada, and Palmerston was also close to sending the Royal Navy’s Channel Squadron across the Atlantic. Adams warned Seward that the mood of the British could lead to war.

Several factors helped defuse this situation. Prince Albert, in one of his last acts before his death, had the British government temper their demands in order to give the United States a way to back down from possible conflict. Adams and his British counterpart in Washington, Lord Lyons, made sure not to inflame the situation while waiting for instructions from their governments. Most of all, the time it took for messages to cross the ocean (usually several weeks as there was no trans-Atlantic telegraph service at this time) allowed public opinion to cool down. Eventually, the US relented and the two commissioners were allowed to continue to Europe, where they were largely ineffective.

The Alabama

Another incident that caused trouble between the two nations was the construction and escape of the Alabama. The Confederate government had contracts to have ships built in British shipyards. This was allowed as long as the ship wasn’t armed. The Alabama was one of these vessels and Adams tried to get the British to detain the ship by arguing that it would be armed as a privateer soon after leaving Liverpool. Russell replied that there was no legal reason to stop the Alabama from leaving port. Adams presented more proof to British authorities that the ship was due to be a warship, eventually persuading them to detain it. Unfortunately, the Alabama escaped hours before government officials arrived and proceeded to the Azores, where it was armed and set loose on the high seas. This event was seen by the United States as a violation of neutrality, and they would press claims for damages on Britain for the shipping losses caused by the Alabama. This disagreement would linger between Great Britain and the United States until 1872, when it was settled by international arbitration in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Laird Rams

After the escape of the Alabama, Adams continued to try and stop the construction of Confederate warships. He was especially focused on two ironclad Laird rams in Liverpool. It was claimed that these ships were being built for Egypt, but Adams presented proof to the contrary. The British once again hesitated to act, saying that there needed to be more evidence.

Adams now felt he had only one alternative left. He sent a message to Russell stating that if the ships were allowed to leave, the United States would have no choice but to view it as an act of war by Great Britain. Cooler heads would thankfully prevail. The British saw that at this point (late 1863) the North was gaining the upper hand in the Civil War, and realized that antagonizing them would serve no purpose. The rams were eventually purchased by the British for their own use, placing them out of the Confederates’ reach.

Tensions Ease

As 1864 began, the tensions that existed in Anglo-American relations finally began to ease. There were fewer incidents that would cause problems between the two nations, and Adams soon settled into the normal, sometimes tedious, business of running a diplomatic post. He still pressed the British on the Alabama claims, but he maintained good relations with Russell, who would become prime minister when Palmerston died in 1865.

Adams would serve in London until 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War. While he received warm tributes from Seward and several American newspapers, the British gave him even greater honors. His name was cheered in the House of Commons, and even the Times, a long-time foe, credited him for his judgment and discretion. His father and grandfather would have been amazed at these British compliments!

Thus ends the saga of the three Adams in London...

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Sources:

Brookhiser, Richard. America’s First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918. New York: The Free Press, 2002.

Burk, Kathleen. Old World, New World: Great Britain and America from the Beginning. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007.

Duberman, Martin B. Charles Francis Adams, 1807-1886. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960.

Ellis, Sylvia. Historical Dictionary of Anglo-American Relations. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009.

Foreman, Amanda. A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American CIvil War. New York: Random House, 2010.

Thomas Boleyn – King Henry VIII’s man? A powerful and controversial Tudor?

Thomas Boleyn was an important figure for many years in King Henry VIII of England’s reign. He was also the father of Henry VIII’s second wife Anne, as well as George Boleyn, Jane Boleyn’s husband. But was he a controversial, bad man? Or is that view misguided? Jennifer Johnstone gives us her opinion.

Thomas Boleyn

Thomas Boleyn was a more prominent figure than his daughter-in-law, Jane Parker (later Jane Boleyn, a lady who we have considered previously), as he was a leading politician during King Henry VIII’s reign. Indeed, he worked as a diplomat for both Henry VIII, and his father Henry VII. Born in 1477, in Norfolk, England, Thomas Boleyn was a shrewd and calculated politician. He knew how to work his way to the top, to the extent that his daughter became the queen.

That was not the only noteworthy achievement of Thomas though. He was a successful politician and man in his own right; he had become Earl of Ormond and Earl of Wiltshire by 1529. His political career was forced to end after a scandal involving his daughter and son; however, unlike his successor Thomas Cromwell, Boleyn managed to keep his head. He also retained his wealth and prestige, something that Jane Boleyn had taken from her when Anne and George Boleyn were executed.

Thomas was also honored with the knight of the garter, an elite and high honor in the Tudor era. In 1532 Boleyn was granted the Lord Privy Seal. All told, an impressive array of titles. Boleyn was obviously astute enough to play the game of Tudor politics and largely succeeded in that game.

An image that is said to be of Thomas Boleyn.

The career of a diplomat

Thomas wasn’t just a politician, he was a diplomat too. One of his more prominent roles as a diplomat was as Ambassador to France, a role he started in 1518. As ambassador, he was responsible for arranging the Field of Cloth and Gold, a meeting between King Henry VIII and King Francis I of France in 1520. He was also appointed envoy to Charles of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1521.

The reputation of Thomas

In my last post, I discussed how Jane Boleyn suffered - and suffers - from a bad reputation. This is unfair, but another person from the Tudor era who suffers a bad reputation is Thomas Boleyn. In the television show The Tudors, Boleyn is portrayed as an individual who used his children as bait to achieve his own political ends. In the show we also see that he is not very sympathetic towards his children when they are condemned to be executed. A perfect example of this is when Thomas is set free by Henry. He is not convicted of doing anything wrong, and on his way out of the castle, he stops to turn around. There he sees his daughter Anne looking out of a window, imprisoned, and gives her a cold look before walking off. Is this an accurate portrayal of Thomas Boleyn - was he a bad guy?

Well he tried to marry off his daughters Mary and Anne. Mary had an affair with the King, but it didn’t last – it was an unsuccessful fling. But Thomas was successful in marrying his second daughter Anne off to Henry. Even so, Thomas wasn’t unique in marrying, or trying to marry, his daughters off - it was common in Tudor England. So seeing Thomas as a bad guy for this alone is unfair. It’s more accurate to call Thomas an opportunist, and wanting the best for him, his daughters, and his family - and who wouldn’t want that?!

Even so, as much as Thomas could not prevent Mary’s affair, he tried to assist Anne. Indeed, Thomas removed Anne from court when he saw the King gaining an interest in her. And he brought Mary back to England from France when he heard about her exploits there. It seems as if he cared about his daughters.

He also gave his daughters the best education possible, sending them abroad for their studies. Women and girls being educated at that time was uncommon, as woman were seen as home makers, not as scholars or academics. It shows that perhaps Thomas wasn’t traditional, and that he was more liberal and open minded than many men of his time.

A lesson for the future

As we can see from both Thomas Boleyn and Jane Boleyn, their characters could be far removed from what we believe them to be. We will never really know what type of people Jane and Thomas Boleyn were as the sources available can be biased and or unclear, and so it is hard to really know their true motivations.

I suppose we have to look at the primary sources ourselves, and come up with our on judgments. We also have to view situations in context, and ask whether it was conventional for people to behave in a certain way in a given era, or when people were acting out of character. To know historic people, we must question sources - who wrote this? Why did they write this? What were their political and religious ideologies?

Sometimes people can be completely different depending on the angle through which we view them.

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James Madison: Helping make Thomas Jefferson an icon

This is William Bodkin’s fourth post for History is Now.  The first three touched on aspects of the lives of George Washington (link here), John Adams (link here), and Thomas Jefferson (link here). Today William discusses the fourth president of the United States, James Madison (president from 1809-1817). Madison was to have a great influence on another Founding Father – or Founding Brother – Thomas Jefferson.

I have always been fascinated by the personal relationships among the American Founders.  As I mentioned in last month’s post on Thomas Jefferson, their friendships, rivalries, alliances and disagreements still shape the country’s political discourse, with Jefferson having the most lasting influence.  However, when reading all of Jefferson’s writings, this influence and reach can come as a surprise, as it often seems that posterity was neither his intent nor his goal. 

James Madison by John Vanderlyn, 1816.

Jefferson was, of all the Founders, perhaps the truest revolutionary in spirit.  He expressed it unhesitatingly in his writings and letters when commenting on the events at the time.  One of Jefferson’s more famous expressions of his revolutionary fervor came not in the Declaration of Independence, but in a letter reflecting on Shays’ Rebellion in 1787.  Daniel Shays was a former captain in the Continental Army who took charge of a group of farmers in central and western Massachusetts protesting the Massachusetts’ government’s failure to take steps to alleviate the farmers’ debt burden, which often cost the farmers’ their property and landed them in prison.[1]  In response to a query about the rebellion, Jefferson stated “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.”[2]{cke_protected_1}  Jefferson noted that the United States had been independent eleven years, with only one such rebellion.  He wrote “What county before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion?  What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?”  It was in this letter he also observed that the “tree of liberty” must be “refreshed by the blood of patriots and tyrants.”[3]

How then, was this literally bloody-minded revolutionary transformed into the guiding philosophical spirit of a nation?  The answer is simple: James Madison.  Madison spent a good portion of his political career serving as a check and balance on Jefferson’s revolutionary spirit.

Madison, the fourth President of the United States, is rightfully celebrated for many of his personal accomplishments, including being the ‘Father of the Constitution’.  He was, if not the document’s primary draftsman, (it is generally agreed that that distinction belongs to New York’s Gouverneur Morris)[4] the driving force behind the “Spirit of 1787”, with its realization that the decentralized government of the Articles of Confederation had failed.  A new, stronger central government was needed if the United States of America was to survive.  This idea, however, seemed incongruous with the revolution that had just passed.  The Spirit of 1776 had at its core an inherent distrust of removed, centralized governments that were unresponsive to the needs of the populace.[5]  The resolution of this tension between the Spirits of 1776 and 1787 can be found in Jefferson’s and Madison’s friendship.  As the sixth President, John Quincy Adams, noted, “the mutual influence of these two mighty minds upon each other” was “a phenomenon.”  Future historians, thought Adams, would, upon examining the Jefferson-Madison relationship, “discover the solution of much of our national history not otherwise easily accountable.”[6]

Take, for example, Jefferson’s most famous pronouncement on the nature of law, expressed to Madison in a letter from 1789, where he questioned “whether one generation of man had the right to bind another” with its laws.  Jefferson believed that the earth belonged only to the living.  “By law of nature, one generation is to another as independent as one nation is to another.”[7]  Jefferson expressed this idea at a delicate time.  George Washington had just taken office as the new Republic’s first president.  Congress was sitting for the first time.  Questions abounded concerning whether the new nation could last.  Surely the word of Thomas Jefferson that the work being done could or should be undone in a mere twenty years would undermine the new government’s legitimacy.

Setting Jefferson straight

Madison took care to set Jefferson straight.  When he responded to Jefferson, he first hailed the “idea” as a “great one,” that offered “interesting reflections” to legislators.  That said, Madison remarked that he was skeptical of this “great idea” in practice.  Madison wrote that a government “so often revised” could never retain its best features, even if they were the most “rational” ideas of government in an “enlightened age.”  The result, Madison stated, would be anarchy. “All the rights depending on positive laws,” such as to property would be “absolutely defunct.”  The most “violent struggles” would ensue between those interested in maintaining the status quo and those interested in bringing about the new.  All this being said, Madison thought the idea should at least be mentioned in the “proceedings of the United States,” since it might help to prevent legislators “from imposing unjust or unnecessary burdens on their successors.” [8]

Madison’s argument carried the day.  Jefferson never mentioned this idea to him again, and certainly never attempted to seriously advance the idea during his presidency.  As we know now, the great self-governance experiment envisioned by Madison has indeed carried on, allowing Jefferson, over time and history, to be honored as one of its great architects.  The idea that earth belonged only to the living, though, remained a philosophical theme to which Jefferson would return in his writings.  Indeed, it is perhaps “the single statement in the vast literature by and about Jefferson that provides a clear and deep look into his thinking about the way the world ought to work.”[9]

The relationship between Jefferson and Madison suffered not at all for this fundamental disagreement about the nature of law.  Madison went on to serve as Jefferson’s Secretary of State and then succeed him to the presidency.  Jefferson, always appreciative of Madison’s counsel, wrote toward the end of his life that “the friendship which has subsisted between us, now half a century, and the harmony of our political principles and pursuits, have been sources of constant happiness to me.”  Jefferson also recognized Madison’s frequent advocacy on his behalf, writing in the same letter that it was a “great solace” to him that Madison was “engaged in vindicating to posterity the course we have pursued.”  Jefferson acknowledged to Madison that “you have been a pillar of support through life,” and asked his old friend to “take care of me when dead, and be assured that I shall leave with you my last affections.”[10]

The often warm personal relationships between the Founding Fathers cannot be understated.  Amongst their peers, they were Founding Brothers.  It was these bonds of genuine affection that permitted, despite their conflicts, John Adams’ dying words to be of Thomas Jefferson, and despite the dueling interests of the Spirit of 1776 and the Spirit of 1787 for Jefferson to ask Madison to take care of him when dead.  The founders inspire many things in the American experience.  The nation’s political discourse continues their arguments today.  What often seems to be missing, however, is perhaps the Founders’ most important idea - that friendship can transcend partisan differences when it comes to advancing the interests of the nation.

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A brief note from the author:

The good people who run this website have graciously agreed to let me contribute columns on one of my favorite topics, the presidents of the United States.  My plan is to focus, roughly once a month, on less appreciated aspects of their lives, hopefully some things that most people don’t think about when considering the presidents.  This task is far easier with the Founding Fathers; often their time as president was their least important contribution to the United States.  I anticipate some challenges with the presidents to come.  For example, other than Hawkeye in M*A*S*H being named for him, I am unsure what Franklin Pierce’s contribution to the nation was, prominent or otherwise.  In any event, I will try my best to continue delivering what I think are interesting columns about the presidents, and hope the readers agree.

[1] For a fuller discussion, see www.ushistory.org, Chapter 15 “Drafting the Constitution,” (a) Shays’ Rebellion.

[2] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith, Nov. 13, 1787.

[3] Id.

[4] See, e.g., “Miracle at Philadelphia” by Catherine Drinker Bowen (1966).

[5] See e.g., Ellis, Joseph, “Founding Brothers,” Preface, “The Generation.”

[6] “The Jubilee of the Constitution,” A Discourse Delivered at the Request of the New York Historical Society in the City of New York, on Tuesday the 30th of April 1839; being the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States, on Thursday the 30th of April 1789 (Samuel Colman, VIII Astor House 1839).

[7] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, September 6, 1789

[8] Letter of James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, February 4, 1790.

[9] Joseph Ellis, “American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson,” 132-133 (Knopf, 1996).

[10] Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, February 17, 1826

Could a war pig really defeat a war elephant? – Amazing history

Horses were commonplace for many years in armies, but their use receded in the twentieth century. Even so, throughout history a variety of other animals have been involved in wars. Here Adrian Burrows shares the incredible tale of a battle between a war pig and a war elephant.

Ever since humans realized that riding a horse into battle was much more effective than running on their own feet, animals have been an effective and potent game changer in war. For Alexander the Great, the horse proved vital in carving out his empire in the ancient world. Alexander’s ‘Companian’ cavalry would charge forward in a wedge formation, their maneuverability allowing them to be the hammer to the foot infantry’s anvil and proving decisive in battles across Asia.

The use of the horse in warfare has continued to been seen in history, transitioning from use as cavalry to the transport of artillery after the invention of gunpowder and increasingly more effective long-range weaponry. But everyone knows about the horse in the use of warfare; what I want to share is the use of slightly more bizarre animals.

A depiction of the mighty war elephant.

Pigs and Elephants

Pigs versus elephants. It would be an odd match up that’s for certain, so first it’s important to clarify why pigs would be fighting elephants in the first place. Around the fourth century BC (no one’s particularly sure when) some bright spark in India decided that fighting while sat on an elephant would be a good idea. Indeed the general thoughts of Indian Kings at the time were that, “an army without elephants is as despicable as a forest without a lion, a kingdom without a king or as velour unaided by weapons.”

The sheer mass and thick hide of an elephant meant that they could not easily be stopped by the spears of infantry (unlike the much smaller horse); elephants can also reach a rather astonishing top speed of 25 miles per hour. Imagine, if you will, fifteen elephants charging towards you at almost the same speed as Usain Bolt (his top speed being 27.44mph) - it would certainly leave quite an impression on anyone in their way, both physically and (if you managed to walk away from it alive) mentally.

This already formidable creature was then enhanced with weapons and armor. In India and Sri Lanka heavy iron balls were chained to the trunk of elephants, which the animal was then trained to twirl and swirl with great dexterity and skill. Kings of Khmer utilized the elephants as mobile artillery, placing giant crossbow platforms on their backs that could fire long armor piercing shafts at the enemy.

So as you had a 4,500 kg mace wielding and arrow firing elephant, what exactly could stop it? The answer was not a lot; the elephant was the tank of ancient times. Even Alexander the Great respected the power of the war elephant, praying to the god of fear before going into battle against them for the first time at the battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC, and ultimately incorporating them into his own army as his campaign continued.

So how could a pig possibly hope to defeat an elephant?

The world found out during the War of the Diadochi, in which Alexander the Great’s generals fought over his empire after his death. The battle in question was the Megara siege in 266 BC, in which Antigonus II Gonatus advanced upon the city with a vast army, including a great number of formidable war elephants. The Megarians had to break the siege at any cost but how could they possibly hope to defeat such a vast and mighty army?

Enter the war pig. Just let that thought settle for a moment.

War pigs.

First question, why even think of sending a pig to go and fight an elephant? Well, the Siege of Megara was not the first time that it happened nor was it originally the Megarians idea to do such a thing. Instead it was Pliny the Elder (the Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher) who determined that “elephants are scared by the smallest squeal of the hog” which led to Romans utilizing squealing pigs and rams to repel the War Elephants of Pyrrhus in 275 BC. For the Megarians under siege, sending war pigs to attack war elephants didn’t seem nearly bizarre or dangerous enough. Instead they coated their war pigs in a flammable resin and set them on fire. The war pig had just become the incendiary pig. The Megarians drove the flaming pigs towards the massed ranks of war elephants in a screaming, squealing cacophony of angry burning pork. Despite the forceful commands of the mahouts (drivers) sat upon them, the elephants bolted. They ran back through their own ranks, crushing both man and horse and effectively crippling Antigonus II Gonatus’ forces in just a few moments.

The pig had been victorious. In the battle of war pig versus war elephant it was clear who the champion was.

Final Thoughts

So why did the war pig not catch on? Why is it not known throughout the world as an animal used in battles and to takes its place alongside horse, dog, cat, pigeon, and elephant?

Well the problem with a flaming war pig is that they have a relatively short range, about 400 feet, before the flames consume them. The other problem is that once you’ve set a pig on fire it is really rather tricky to tell them where to go (I don’t recommend you try it at home as a barbecuing technique). There was just as much chance that the war pig would dash through friendly forces as enemy forces, causing fires and chaos for both sides.

So, the memory of the war pig has faded somewhat over the last two thousand years. But that’s the wonderful thing about history, it’s all still there waiting to be discovered. And you have discovered it, now you know how a pig came to defeat an elephant.

Adrian Burrows works at Wicked Workshops, an organization that prepares and delivers great history workshops in schools around the UK. Find out more about their World War One: A Soldier’s Life workshop here: http://www.wickedworkshops.co.uk/#/world-war-1/4574301563.

References

http://www.planet-science.com/categories/over-11s/human-body/2012/06/how-fast-is-usain-bolt.aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_pig

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_elephant#cite_note-64

Tudor tales – Was Jane Boleyn responsible for deaths in her family?

Jane Boleyn, the wife of George Boleyn and sister-in-law to Anne Boleyn, is often portrayed as a wicked and jealous woman who was instrumental in the downfall and death of both her sister-in-law Anne, and her husband George. But is that the case? Is she the villainous woman that she is made out to be? There is evidence to suggest that she is not. Jennifer Johnstone explains…

Jane’s life

Jane Boleyn was born Jane Parker, to Henry Parker, 10th Baron Morley, and mother Alice in 1505. She came from a wealthy upper class family. Her father was an intellectual, a lover of books and writing. Little is known about her mother. There is speculation about Jane’s early life in Julia Fox’s Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford, but little solid evidence.

The first documented evidence we have about Jane is when she comes to the royal court as a teenager, and serves Catherine of Aragon. Her exact date of her arrival is not documented though. Unfortunately, we do not know what Jane truly looked like either, as there is no official portrait of her. Fox gives us a portrait in her book of what Jane might have looked like though.

Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford.

Scapegoat or villain?

In Fox’s book, she argues that Jane was history’s scapegoat, rather than an instrumental player in the downfall of her family members. Some other contemporary historians disagree with this, arguing that rather Jane was to blame for the executions of her family members.

As there is limited evidence, we have to work with what few sources we have about Jane. First let us see the evidence for Jane as a villain.

Villain

Jane has always been thought of as the woman who gave evidence to Thomas Cromwell about George and Anne having an affair, or Anne having an affair - depending on the source. There is evidence to say that Jane Boleyn spoke out about her husband during court proceedings. But there is no clear evidence for what Jane actually said, or, what her motivation was for saying whatever she said about her husband. So, if we don’t know what Jane said, we can’t condemn her for this. There is also no record of Jane saying anything about her alleged role in their downfall. Some have speculated that Jane gave this evidence in spite towards her husband for having affairs. But, is there any truth to these claims?

Let’s take the example of George’s alleged affairs. There is a poem called Metrical Visions about a womanizing young man - the young man is said to be George Boleyn. Even if this poem is accurate - that George had extra-marital affairs - there is nothing to suggest that there was friction between his and Jane’s marriage. Indeed, Julia Fox argues that the marriage between Jane and George was not an unhappy one! Of course, if there were affairs, Jane would have had a reason to be jealous, and that could have been her reason to give evidence against her own husband at the court trials. But even if it were true that George had an affair, or a string of affairs, at the time, it was the done thing in this age; it was common for men to have mistresses. So, if he did have affairs, it would not have got George into terrible trouble; it would have got a woman into trouble though.

However, there is evidence to suggest that Jane was instrumental in the Boleyn’s downfall. This evidence comes from the Bishop Burnet. Bishop Burnet claims he had access to primary sources, which show Jane’s role in the downfall of her own family. The source says, ‘’Jane carried many stories to the King or some about him (George) to the King.’’ There was further evidence Jane allegedly gave to the King, and that was that ‘’there was a familiarity between the queen, and her brother, beyond what so near a relationship could justify.’’

There are several problems with this source. One, there is no evidence from anyone else about this source documented, not from the King, Cromwell, or Chaupys. If this was true, it would have been well known within the court, and it would have at least been recorded by one other person – notably Chaupys as he documented many events and was well aware of court activities. A second reason to not believe this source is that it is from several decades after Jane was executed. A third, and final reason why I believe this source is not accurate is because there is little evidence of these primary sources that Burnet claimed to have.

Even people who argue against Jane, who argue she was responsible for the downfall of her husband and sister-in-law, admit that many details are unknown about her. This tells us that because we know so little about Jane, it is unwise to call her names such as ‘vindictive’ ‘wicked’, and ‘spiteful’.

Victim

It is equally plausible that Jane might have been innocent of the accusations that have been placed against her.

There were many noble women who gave evidence at the trials, not just Jane; there is nothing to say that it was her testimony that brought the axe down on her family. The ever reliable Chaupys does not tell us it was Jane who gave the damning evidence. In fact, he does not name anyone. He just says ‘’that person’’, was to blame for the downfall. I think it’s important to take Chaupys as a reliable source here as he championed Lady Mary’s return to court when it would have been in his interests to name and shame a Boleyn, because of the religions fraction between the Protestant Boleyns, and the Catholic Mary. Wouldn’t Chaupys want to stir up trouble for the Boleyns? After all, this was not a man shy of his words - he called Queen Anne ‘’the concubine’’.

It is still disputed today who brought down the Boleyns. Some believe that it is the Seymours, some believe it was the Boleyns themselves, other historians believe that it is Cromwell, or Lady Mary, and lastly, some think that the king himself wanted Anne gone. Whatever the truth, with missing evidence, and court politics and cover-ups, we are likely to never know the answer. We can but speculate.

One last thing…

But, there is one final and interesting point that Julia Fox raises. It is perhaps the most important point - Jane had everything to lose from the Boleyns falling. Why would a woman who had everything to lose, by turning on her own family, bring them down? It doesn’t make sense. She had never been in a better position because she was wealthier and more prestigious than she had ever been when they fell.

Maybe the truth is still waiting to be discovered somewhere…

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World War One Special – The new issue of History is Now Magazine!

World War One broke out 100 years ago in the summer of 1914. So to commemorate the Great War we have a created a special World War One issue of History is Now magazine. The new issue of our interactive magazine features a wide range of articles about that war, plus a few extra surprises…

The new issue of History is Now magazine is out now.

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Here is what our editor has to say…

It was 100 years ago, in the summer of 1914, when declarations of war were made in the most destructive war that the world had ever known. This war was of course World War One. It was not known in August 1914 that fighting would go on for over four more years and claim millions of lives. Many expected that the war would be over by Christmas, but they were ever so wrong. This issue of the magazine is a Great War special, with a particular focus on personal and original stories. After all, most of us are surely familiar with the political and military history of this war.

We start with a tale that began with a photograph of a soldier and how one historian then traced back her roots. She shares a fascinating story of a band of troops in World War One with us. Then we go further afield to the most powerful woman in the British Empire during the war years, Gertrude Bell. She played an immensely important role in the Middle East in the period. We follow this up with a short article about the roles that the closely linked European royal families of the time may have played in fomenting World War One. It is a quite original viewpoint.

This issue is not just about the Great War though. There is an article on Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famed fireside chats and how they helped rouse the US out of the Great Depression and on to victory in World War Two. On a different note, we take a look at segregation in the US and how events turned violent in one particular town following a decision to desegregate schools in 1970.

Then it is back to World War One. We have a podcast on a president who fought in the war, Harry S. Truman, although he was to play a more important role in events some thirty years later. We also consider the motivations that different people had in joining the war as part of an article by an author of a book on the conflict. Finally, we share an original and fascinating exhibition that is taking shape. The exhibition will commemorate the 1916 Battle of the Somme through the letters of one particular soldier.

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With all of that, I’m sure that you will enjoy this month’s History is Now magazine.

Click on one of the links below to enjoy the magazine today…

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George Levrier-Jones