How were Medieval Castles used in World War One?

In spite of the fact that they were constructed centuries before the start of World War One, Medieval castles had a role to play in that war. The grand old structures were useful defensive locations and could be used to attack the enemy. Here, Rowena Hartley tells us the story of two castles in southern England and how they were used in World War One.

The First World War saw a great change in British society as the population, economy and industry were mobilized more than ever before. Yet it was not only the modern parts of society that were affected. Like many countries in Europe, Britain is dotted with the remains of old castles and forts that had been specifically made for defending and housing the troops from as early as the Middle Ages. With the threat of invasion from Germany, these old castles once again came into use as a place to house troops and mount defensive operations. 

St Mawes by J.M.W. Turner, circa 1823.

The south coast of England was naturally viewed as the most vulnerable to invasion as it lay closest to France. Therefore the southern ports and estuaries had to be defended against potential attacks. If they had fallen this would have given the Germans a safe place to harbor their ships; and in the case of an estuary, a river that could lead them to cities and strongholds further inland. Given the history of Britain, many of these ports have been the sites of vicious battles in the past and so were tactically significant for the same reasons they were in WW1.

The castles of Pendennis and St Mawes lay either side of the River Fal in Cornwall, South West England. Together they are a perfect example of how castles were repurposed from the medieval era to suit the purposes of modern warfare.

A twentieth century gun in front of the Tudor Pendennis Castle. Author's image used with author's permission.

Pendennis and St Mawes under the Tudor Kings

In the mid-16th century England was faced with the threat of invasion from continental Europe, although in that time it was from the Catholic countries of France and Spain. The Protestant king, Henry VIII, needed to have military buildings which could match his taste in powerful enemies; this led to an explosion in military spending and castle building especially along the south coast.

Pendennis and St Mawes were built from 1539 to 1545 with a central fort and gun tower to hold the cannons and a small garrison of soldiers. These types of castle were known as Device forts or Henrician castles; this meant they were comparable to the machine gun nests of trench warfare -good for killing at a distance but not easy to defend at close quarters. The cannons housed in Pendennis and St Mawes were capable of shooting half way across the River Fal so access to the estuary was near impossible without a ship incurring serious damage, especially as St Mawes was built in a clover-leaf pattern so that it could target as much of the estuary as possible. Yet the castles were vulnerable to an attack from the land, especially when compared to vast fortresses and towns of Europe that could survive sieges of months (such as Boulogne in France which withstood Henry VIII’s attack from July to September 1544).

Throughout the Medieval era there were various advances in castle building and naturally each country attempted to keep up with such advances. The greatest advancement of the 16th century was the creation of Trace Italienne, also known rather less impressively as star castles.  As the name suggests these castles were built without the straight squares or rounded curves of previous designs but rather with triangular walls that jut out from each other meaning that there were no blind spots for the guns as each triangle of the star could be seen and shot at from another of the triangles. In siege warfare this meant that the enemy could not use battering rams on any part of the castle without being victim to near constant attack.

After the death of King Henry VIII his Protestant successors, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, also suffered from the paranoia that the country would be invaded by the powerful Catholic countries. This meant that they began to adapt Henry’s castles to accommodate these architectural advancements. The cloverleaf design of St Mawes meant that it was already relatively well equipped for such warfare but Pendennis’ close central fortress was relatively vulnerable. So at the end of the 16th century Pendennis was redesigned to accommodate the technological advances. The central fortress largely remained unchanged in design but a new outer wall was added in the distinct star castle shape and a moat was dug with the excess earth being used to add height and padding to the outer fortifications. The castle was now able to defend the River Fal as well as survive an attack from the land.

The later Pendents buildings, where World War One and Two soldiers' barracks were located, taken from the castle barracks. Author's image used with author's permission.

Testing the Fortifications

However, unlike the castles of Europe (especially Italy where the Trace Italienne originated), English castles were rarely fell victim to sieges. It was only truly Elizabeth’s vastly expensive fortifications at Berwick-Upon-Tweed that defended the border between England and Scotland that actually tested the star castles on British soil. Although Elizabeth’s successor effectively united England and Scotland leaving this vast castle practically pointless other than as a testament to the expensive military tastes of the Tudors.

Therefore it was not until the English Civil War of 1642 to 1651 that Pendennis and St Mawes were tested, as they were Royalist strongholds supporting King Charles I against the republican Oliver Cromwell. The more recently developed Pendennis castle survived a 3-month siege and only surrendered when the men ran out of food. However, St Mawes failed to play to the castle’s strengths; instead the commander, believing that the republicans would attack by sea, aimed all of his guns towards the River Fal only to find Cromwell’s men knocking on his gates after a highly successful land attack. Despite their failure in the Civil War, no further changes were made to either castle, as they were believed equal to their role of defending their corner of the south coast.

From the 17th century to the early 20th century there were not too many serious threats of invasion, but Britain managed to successfully aggravate the majority of countries in Europe and beyond, which was enough cause to keep a small garrison to man both castles in case of invasion. No great changes were made to the outer fortifications but the insides of Pendennis castle were modernized in the Georgian era, especially as Falmouth, the port town at the foot of Pendennis castle, was benefiting from trade in the British Empire. St Mawes remained largely untouched and while Pendennis stands apart on a hill side the smaller sister castle is almost obscured by the residential buildings running up to its gates.

St Mawes Castle from the River Fal. Author's image used with author's permission.

Improving and Rearming

Since the attack of the Spanish Armada in 1588, England had not faced too many serious threats of continental invasion and so, despite the events of the English Civil War, the castles of Pendennis and St Mawes had not been updated to deal with more modern weaponry. This changed with the outbreak of the First World War; although the Germans never landed on British soil the fear of naval attack was very great. Naturally new and purpose built defenses popped up in reaction to the First World War, such as trenches and “Pillboxes” (small camouflaged huts made of stone which provided a hidden shooting space). Yet, however newly built these defenses were, they were still basically lumps of stone and mud which were far less purpose built than the great defensive structures of the 16th century.

So why take the time to build new defenses when you live in a country dotted with well-fortified and highly serviceable castles in key tactical locations. Pendennis and St Mawes, as well as countless other castles across Britain and Europe had stood for hundreds of years and it is testament to the original architects and tacticians that very little was done to change them to suit the very modern First World War.

St Mawes saw no great structural changes. Machine guns and modern artillery weapons were installed and aimed across the River Fal to deal with any naval threat, and many of the old canons still remained in its grounds during the war. Deeper trenches were cut along the outside fortifications, although whether these followed previous patterns is unclear, and an old gunpowder store was then filled with the shells and bullets common to modern warfare. Across the river far greater changes were under way Pendennis was the command center for artillery defenses in West Cornwall and so needed up to date equipment in order to effectively defend the headland. Yet whilst some minor fortifications and underground bunkers were added little else was done to modernize the castle itself. Georgian buildings which stand across from the castle, but within the fortifications, housed soldiers who were being trained before leaving for the trenches of Belgium and France, but even here the buildings were only changed in minor details as this area had originally been built to house a garrison. Further small changes were made upon the outbreak of the Second World War, but after the modernization during World War One, little changed. The castle and barracks housed British and American soldiers who updated a few guns and installed equipment for identifying and firing upon submarines and enemy vessels.

There is a tendency to look upon the First and Second World Wars as revolutionizing warfare. After all, the advances in guns, machine guns and bombs were vast. Yet the centuries-old castles that dot the European countryside were still used to house garrisons and mount defenses. These castles were used to support soldiers as well as protect against gun and cannon fire, making them very useful defensive bases. I wouldn’t argue that they’d survive a modern nuclear attack but the bunkers would make them a far safer bet than nearby settlements. It appears that despite the increasing modernization of warfare, old rules still apply. The recent wars in the Middle East faced as much difficulty as the European empire builders centuries before, no one would invade America without expecting fierce grass roots resistance, and most people know not to attempt attacking Russia in winter. The trenches, tanks, planes and advanced artillery of the First World War may have changed the parameters of warfare but in many cases the scenery remained the same – and only slightly more camouflaged than the grand stone buildings of the medieval era.

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References

• ‘History of Pendennis Castle’, English Heritage, http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/pendennis-castle/history-and-research/history/
• ‘St Mawes Castle’, English Heritage, http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/st-mawes-castle/
• Marcus Merriman, ‘Realm and Castle: Henry VIII as European Builder’, History Today, Vol 41:Iss 6 (1991), http://www.historytoday.com/marcus-merriman/realm-and-castle-henry-viii-european-builder
• ‘Star Fort’, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_fort
• ‘Henry VIII’, The Official Website of British Monarchy, http://www.royal.gov.uk/historyofthemonarchy/kingsandqueensofengland/thetudors/henryviii.aspx
• A lot of the information was also gained from a tour of the castles, although much of it can also be found in these sources. 

Who Freed the Slaves in America?

Slavery finally came to an end in the United States during the 1860s. But who should take credit for freeing the slaves? The slaves themselves or the Union Army that defeated the Confederacy in the US Civil War? Hannah McDermott tells us what she thinks…

Fugitive slaves in the Dismal Swamp, Virginia. David Edward Cronin, 1888. Many fugitive slaves joined the Union Army in the US Civil War.

In a letter to Horace Greeley in August 1862, President Abraham Lincoln declared that his ‘paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery’.[1] Yet by the end of the American Civil war the enslavement of blacks had been formally abolished thanks in part to legislation such as the Emancipation Proclamation, as well as the post-war 13th Amendment to the Constitution. In popular memory, the man responsible for these great changes to American society is Lincoln; remembered as the ‘Great Emancipator’ and depicted as physically breaking the shackles binding African Americans to their masters. Though it is true enough that the inauguration of this Illinois statesman and his Republican administration provided Southern slave owners with an excuse to push for secession and defend their property from what they claimed to be an imminent threat, Lincoln was very clear in his presidential campaign and at the outset of his presidential term that his aim was not to touch slavery where it already existed, but simply to prevent its expansion. Was the President, therefore, as integral to the demise of black enslavement as has been suggested?

If the role of Lincoln as the driving force is to be questioned, it follows to ask what other influences were at play. More recently, some historians have done just this. In the wake of the social and political upheaval of the later 20th century, the American academy has produced a ‘new social history’, of which has led to a separate branch of Civil War historiography looking to the role of the slaves themselves in securing their own freedom. Historians such as Ira Berlin have emphasized the grass-roots movement of black slaves during the war, and their personal fight for freedom through escaping to Union territory and challenging the status quo. However, it is difficult to view these historical people and events in complete isolation. Thus, in this essay, I will examine the actions of slaves in conjunction with that of the Union army and also the administration in order to illustrate how the process was more complex and multi-layered than simply one person, or one group, as the harbinger of emancipation.

Slaves and the Escape to Union Lines

Slaves were far from the passive and docile creatures that some pro-slavery activists liked to suggest. A steady trickle made the passage North even before the Civil War began, where their presence shaped the anti-slavery activities of white northern men. Frederick Douglass, for example, was a former slave who had managed to escape from his southern house of bondage in 1838. Douglass brought a unique perspective that would influence the abolition movement since he was able to express the hardships of enslaved blacks, as well as demonstrate the intelligence and capabilities of African Americans to northern audiences.

It was during the Civil War, however, that the number of slaves running away from their masters reached its peak and was largely based on the knowledge that refuge could be sought within the lines of the Union army. Prior to the Fugitive Slave Act, those who escaped to ‘free soil’, non-slaveholding regions, were considered to have self-emancipated; during the war, proximity to free soil was increased as the Union lines crept further and further south.[2]

From the outset of war, thousands of African Americans flooded Union camps, sometimes in family units, and left army generals wondering how they should respond. After entering Kentucky in the fall of 1861, General Alexander McDowell McCook appealed for guidance from his superior, General William T. Sherman, on how he should respond to the arrival of fugitive slaves. McCook worriedly declared to Sherman that ‘ten have come into my camp within as many hours’ and ‘from what they say, there will be a general stampeed [sic] of slaves from the other side of Green River.’[3] General Ambrose E. Burnside faced a similar situation in March 1862, describing how the federally occupied city of New Bern, North Carolina, was ‘overrun with fugitives from surrounding towns and plantations’ and that the ‘negroes…seemed to be wild with excitement and delight.’[4] Such encounters would continue throughout the war as slaves made the decision to leave behind their life of enslavement for the hope of a better life with the advancing ‘Yankees’.

The Union Army: Active and Passive Advocates of Emancipation

Though it is clear that slaves made the personal decision to runaway, it was one that was facilitated by the context of war. While there were exceptions to this, including stories of slaves found hiding in swamps only 100 feet from their master’s homes, most had a destination in mind when they fled. Archy Vaughn’s escape is a case in point. One spring evening in 1864, Archy Vaughn, a slave from a small town in Tennessee, made a potentially life-changing decision. As the sun went down, Vaughn stole an old mare and travelled to the ferry across the nearby Wolf River, hoping that he would be able to reach the federal lines he had heard were positioned at Laffayette Depot. Unfortunately for the Tennessean slave, luck was not on his side. Caught near the ferry, he was returned to his angry master, Bartlet Ciles, who decided that an appropriate form of punishment for such misbehavior was to castrate Vaughn and to cut off a piece of his left ear. [5] In spite of the barbaric outcome, that Vaughn was hoping to ‘get into federal lines’ is demonstrative of how many slaves departed plantations on the basis that they would be able to seek refuge within the lines of the Union army.[6]

Indeed, the role of the Union army was crucial to the shaping of the future of fugitive slaves. Though this took various shapes and forms, it is a contribution that makes it impossible to view the road to freedom as one that slaves traversed alone and unaided. Some generals took a pragmatic approach to the situation they faced when entering slave-holding territory. General Benjamin Butler and his ‘contraband’ policy are noteworthy in this instance as examples of the army capitalizing on the events of the war. In July 1861, General Butler wrote a report to the Secretary of War detailing his view on how runaway slaves should be treated by the Union army which would become known as Butler’s ‘contraband’ theory. Here he made an emphatic resolution, decreeing that in rebel states, ‘I would confiscate that which was used to oppose my arms, and take all the property, which constituted the wealth of that state, and furnished the means by which the war is prosecuted.’[7]  Hinting at the two-fold benefit of adding to the workforce of Union troops and damaging the rebellion’s foundation simultaneously, Butler’s theory that fugitive slaves were ‘contraband’ was the first to explicitly express the potential gains to be made from legitimizing the harboring of ex-slaves.

Other generals were more vocal of their hatred towards slavery, and more aggressive in the tactics they employed. One incident was General John C. Frémont’s proclamation of August 30, 1861, which placed the state of Missouri under martial law, decreed that all property of those bearing arms in rebellion would be confiscated, including slaves, and that confiscated slaves would subsequently be declared free.[8] Frémont’s proclamation at this stage in the war was provocative and quite blatantly breached official federal policy; slaves could be emancipated under martial law when they came into contact with Union lines, and this had certainly not been the case here.[9] Lincoln ordered that the general rescind the proclamation, but its initial impact was not lost, for it had signaled the possible direction that the focus of the conflict could be turned toward, and substantiated southern beliefs that the northern war aims were centered around an impetus to rid the nation of the evils of slavery.

Frémont was not alone in pushing the legal and political boundaries set by the administration, and similar occurrences repeated themselves throughout the war. Even when blocked by Lincoln, as in the case above, abolitionist Union officers were essential in the changing direction of the war. Whilst not all Union troops were politically motivated, the combination of those realizing the value of slaves in bolstering the war effort and those of an anti-slavery persuasion like General Frémont was an effective tool in aiding and sustaining the freedom of slaves across the United States.

The Republican Administration and Emancipation

In studying the response of the Union military it is easy to come to the conclusion that the federal government often lagged behind or was slow to respond to what was already happening within the Union army, or even that they were less supportive of the plight of the slaves during the war. Indeed Lincoln and his administration are often criticized on their attitude towards making the Civil War a war to free the slaves, particularly by historians who place the responsibility of slave emancipation on the efforts of the slaves themselves. Berlin describes the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation as ‘a document whose grand title promised so much but whose bland words delivered so little’, and further states that it freed not a single slave that had not been freed under the legislation passed by Congress the previous year in the Second Confiscation Act.[10] First of all, that the First and Second Confiscation Acts were the products of the administration should be noted. The Second, as referenced by Berlin, declared that any person who thereafter aided the rebellion would have their slaves set free.[11] Secondly, the notion that the Emancipation Proclamation was in essence no more than a grandly worded document without any backbone is false when it is understood how the proclamation’s inclusion of black conscription had wider repercussions for the Union military effort and the attainment of black freedom. Though examples of blacks serving in the military are visible before Lincoln’s proclamation, for instance Jim Lane’s 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry formed in 1862, the new federal policy made this a much more frequent occurrence. This is also to say nothing of the emotional and moral impact such a document made on the psyche of the African American community.

Though it can be conceded that the Emancipation Proclamation positively contributed to emancipation efforts, it would be wrong to claim as James McPherson does that Lincoln played ‘the central role’ in ending the institution of bondage.[12] The same is true for evaluations of subsequent abolitionist legislation, notably the Thirteenth Amendment. Oakes’ emphatic declaration that the amendment, which formally prohibited slavery across the United States, ‘irreversibly destroyed’ slavery is correct in highlighting the importance of an anti-slavery constitutional amendment but simultaneously overshadows the role played by non-political actors in the fight for freedom.[13] The movement of slaves towards federal lines and the protection they were then given is surely comparable to the effects of the Thirteenth Amendment, despite being described by Carwardine as ‘the only means of guaranteeing that African Americans be “forever free”.’[14]

Instead, as this essay has demonstrated, the freeing of slaves during the Civil War is best understood as a multi-layered, interactive process. Slaves were not passive participators; they could and would act on the opportunities to leave behind a life of slavery for one of freedom. Though things might not always go to plan, as Archy Vaughn’s violent tale illustrates, the impetus to leave among enslaved African Americans was strong. Nevertheless, they did not free themselves. The action of slaves alone was not enough to ensure freedom, and the slaves themselves knew this. The decision to seek refuge with the federal army is indicative of how slaves predicated their choice to leave from the very beginning on the support of Union military power. Members of the federal forces were also not passive agents in the emancipation journey. While General Frémont, for example, may have identified the need to destroy slavery from the very beginning of the conflict, by the end of the war there was a shared sentiment among the Union forces that the use of ex-slaves in the fight against the South, menial tasks and armed battle included, was a vital component of the war effort. The federal administration realized this too; implementing policies that further aided and legitimized the support given by the army to slaves, as well as enhanced the contributions made by slaves to the achievement of Union victory. Slaves were freed, therefore, through the interaction of the mutually reinforcing interests of fugitive slaves and the Union war effort. It was this collaboration that enabled the mutually beneficial outcome in which the Confederacy was defeated at the hands of an emancipating Union vanguard.

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1. To Horace Greeley, 22 August 1862 in Roy P. Basler (ed.), The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953-1955) v, 389

2. James Oakes, Freedom National: the Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 (New York: London, 2013), pp. 194-96

3. Ira Berlin et al (eds.), Free At Last: A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War (New York, 1992), pp. 13-14

4. Ibid., pp. 35

5. Ibid., pp. 112-113

6. Ibid., pp. 113

7. General Butler’s “Contrabands”, 30 July 1861 in Henry Steele Commager and Milton Cantor (eds.), Documents of American History, 10th edn (New York, 1988) i, 396-97

8. Frémont’s Proclamation on Slaves, 30 August 1861 in Commager and Cantor (eds.), Documents of American History, i, 397-98

9. Oakes, Freedom National, pp. 215

10. Berlin, ‘Who Freed the Slaves?’, pp. 27-29

11. Second Confiscation Act, 17 July 1862 in United States, Statutes At Large (Boston, 1863) XII, pp. 589-92

12. James McPherson, ‘Who Freed the Slaves?’ in Drawn with the Sword (New York: Oxford, 1996), pp. 207

13. Oakes, Freedom National, pp. xiv

14. Carwardine, Lincoln, pp. 228

The end of an era? Swords in the American Civil War

By the 1860s swords played a lesser role in war than they did in earlier periods. Even so, they still had a vital place in some situations. Here, Mykael Ray looks at some of the most important swords at the time of the US Civil War and how they were used.

History has a lot to tell us about where we came from, and how it is we have everything we use every day. With all the important developments we have made through the ages, the advance in weaponry has always been key to a people’s survival. It is during the transition between these advances where things start to get interesting.

The use of the sword was vital in the ancient world, but it has become an obsolete technology.  The US Civil War was part of the beginning of the end for the production of swords for any practical combat use. Firearms were beginning to become more advanced, but the sword still had certain advantages. Below is a short list of swords that still had their place during this transitional period.

A US Cavalry Sabre, 1860s.

1832 Foot Artillery Sword

Crafted in 1832, the foot artillery sword was in circulation through 1872. It was modeled after the French foot artillery sword made in 1816, which in turn was designed after the ancient Roman gladius. Its hilt was made of brass that had a 4 inch cross-guard, its first difference from the gladius, which had no cross-guard at all. The blade itself was straight and double edged with a length of around 19 inches, which is dwarfed by the gladius’ 48 inch blade.

This weapon was not very popular, and wasn’t widely used despite the fact that thousands of them were issued. Its lack of range and minimal hand protection were most likely the largest deterrents, but it was a viable option for extremely close combat. The truly effective use for it was made in the swamps of the South, where it was most commonly used for bushwhacking. It became less of a weapon, and more of a tool for clearing vegetation and forming paths. The French make this assumption more valid with the nickname they gave it, coupe choux. Translated, this means “cabbage cutter”.

Though it remains uncertain how suitable it was for combat, it had its place in military dress.  Not serving as ceremonial swords either, they were considered to be more ornamental than practical, and would have been worn by an artillery regiment during formal occasions.

1860 Light Cavalry Sabre

Designed after the 1840 heavy cavalry sabre, this sword was made slightly smaller and lighter to make it easier to wield. The light cavalry sabre had a 35 inch curved steel blade. Its hilt was made of brass, and had a full brass hand guard that would reach all the way down to the pummel, and was carried in an iron scabbard.

Carried by most any soldier riding a horse, this sabre was mainly used during cavalry charges, where they would ride their horse’s head on into a line of foot soldiers, using the speed and height advantage to cut through enemy lines. This tactic was still popular due to the heavy use of the slow reloading muskets among foot soldiers. The curved design behind the sabre was to optimize the slashing motion used when attacking at speed and height.

Off of the horse, this weapon became more problematic. Its iron scabbard made it too clunky to carry on foot, as the material added extra weight, and the noise it would make gave away its wielder’s position. So, instead of wearing it on their person, they would attach it to their horse, making it readily available for the next cavalry charge, and leaving it behind with the horse when the rider had to dismount and carry on while on foot.

Though not the 1860 light cavalry sabre specifically, officers would use their sabres to issue orders as well. When giving orders to a regiment, visual cues would be more important than a vocalized order, either due to the need to be silent, or the possibility of overbearing background noise. Officers would waive and point, using their sabre as an extension of their arm to signal to soldiers out of earshot, or in the back of a formation.

1860 Cutlass

The 1860 cutlass sword was made specifically for the navy. It is often confused for a sabre, and based on its shape it is easy to see why. The differences however do make it an entirely different sword, despite the fact that it was designed with the sabre in mind. The blade of the sword still has a curve on it, but is overall much straighter and wider than the sabre’s. It is much shorter as well, being 26 inches long. The biggest difference is in the hilt, where it sports a full brass plate for the hand guard instead of a brass cage.

The design was to make fighting in close quarters as effective as possible. It was made short enough to be maneuverable in tight spaces, even when worn on the hip, yet long and heavy enough to be both a practical weapon and rigging tool. During ship boarding ventures, combat was often too tight to have effective use of most firearms, which was amplified even more when going below deck. This is why the cutlass was designed for not only slicing, but also thrusting, making it the weapon of choice for sailors.

When not in combat, the cutlass still proved useful on deck. During an emergency away from shore, it could easily have been used to cut ropes from riggings, and was heavy enough to chop through fallen boards. It would have been a much faster and effective means than using a knife.

Bowie Knife

Practically a sword itself, the bowie knife’s blade was between five and twelve inches long, and fairly consistently an inch and a half wide. Some have even been made to be 24 inches long. The blade is sharp on one side, and the tip is referred to as clip point, which is to say that the blade tapers in towards the point on the unsharpened side of the blade either directly, or concavely.

The uses for this knife are vast, making it the choice utility knife of the civil war. Its common uses were for hunting and skinning, and for self-defense. It has also been known to be used as a razor for shaving, a small hatchet for splitting wood, and a makeshift paddle; most likely while it was still in its leather casing.

Self-defense is the aspect that made it so popular, and is the reason it received its name. It was named after James Bowie, who made use of his knife in a brawl that preceded a public duel in which he killed a man who had just injured him by shooting him, bashing him on the head, and then stabbing him in the sternum. The story was so inspirational that even to this day, that knife is known as the Bowie knife.

Even though swords were still being used later in history, the Civil War proved that their effectiveness in battle was coming to a close. Mounted cavalry would soon start replacing their sabres for newly developed repeating rifles like the Carbine, and the development of the bowie knife proved that a short sword like the foot artillery sword was no longer a convenient secondary weapon. Regardless of where the weapons ended up, they played their part in military history, and still made an impact in a world where they coexisted with firearms.

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References

Dr. Howard G. Lanham “Enlisted Swords, Model-1832 Foot Artillery Sword” https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox/149399ce643498b2

Ron S. “Model 1860 Light Cavalry Saber” http://www.americancivilwarforum.com/model-1860-light-cavalry-saber-209577.html

Richard Meckel “Swords” http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/uniform_sword.htm

Norwich University “The Most Important Developments in Human History” http://history.norwich.edu/most-important-developments-in-human-history/

Image reference

Memecry2, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US-Kavallerie-II_1867.JPG

Nineteenth Century Crime – What really happened?

Crime in the nineteenth century was varied and often driven by poverty. In this intriguing article, Janet Ford looks at a newspaper from the city of Birmingham, England in 1872 in order to deduce the types of crime committed and some possible reasons why it was these crimes that were committed.

Crime has always been an interesting and in many cases shocking subject, as there are so many different types of crime and such a variety of criminals. It can also show what society, people and a place were and are like. To get an understanding of crime during a certain time and in a certain place, I am going to look at a week in March 1872 in the city of Birmingham in the UK using the newspaper, the Birmingham Daily Post. I only looked at reports that happened in the city of Birmingham itself, as the newspaper also reported on major crimes that occurred in the wider region and across the country.

A riot/attack outside a poorhouse - in this article we look at more low-level crime.

During the week I chose, there were 40 crimes reported in Birmingham. The crimes were stealing, assaults on strangers and wives, vandalism, drunk and disorderly behavior, refusing to work, receiving stolen goods, selling beer without a license, and having a pub open after hours. These crimes show that there was a variety of crime committed in the week from March 18, 1872.

Theft – The most common crime

The majority of the crimes were theft related, with 28 such crimes being reported. This means stealing was very much part of daily life for many. Both men and women, young and old, committed the crime, which also means stealing was not limited to one group of people. The reason why so many of the crimes were theft related was down to opportunity, as cities had a great deal of places to steal from, such as shops, employers’ houses and even other people. But there was a great deal of poverty within the city, and so people stole in order to survive. These reasons illustrate that life in nineteenth century Birmingham, like many other cities, was a struggle for many. There were many items stolen, from food to boots, animals to money. There was also a great deal of metal and jewelry stolen, which was due to them being major industries within Birmingham. In fact they were such big industries that areas of the city were named after them, including Jewellery and Gun Quarter. This means the city itself affected what was and could be stolen. An example of one of the many theft reports is shown below.

Assaults, vandalism and theft were not uncommon either. Such violence was not aimed towards just one group of people, as both men and women, strangers and people the criminals knew, were assaulted. Two husbands actually attacked their own wives - domestic violence was a sadly common part of Victorian society. Here is one example of this crime.

However, both men and women could use violence and force, as there were female pick pockets and thieves, as shown with this report.

The public house

The crimes also show that the control of pubs were taken seriously, as a person had to have a license to sell beer. This probably did not stop some people selling beer, but they were fined or spent time in prison if they were caught. And the hour that pubs were allowed to open was controlled. The reports for these crimes can be seen here.

This control was due to the government’s view of alcohol and concerns over public health. In terms of public health, they had to control the quality of the beer and who was selling it, as poor quality beer could cause people harm. The government controlled pub opening hours, as it generally had a negative view of drinking. After all, it caused negative effects on the public, such as drunk and disorderly behavior and theft. Two out of the three such pub licensing related criminals were actually women, which means pubs were not limited to just men. While it was difficult for women to have power and control within many spheres of the economy, pubs actually allowed women to have some control.

Many of the crimes occurred in employers’ houses, with servants stealing money, kettles and such. This was down to it being easy to do, but it also shows that servants were not afraid to steal from their own employers, which could have been down to wanting extra money or stealing what they thought they could get away with. An example of a servant stealing is shown here.

28 of the criminals were men and 12 were women. This illustrates that even though women committed crimes, they were in the minority when it came to being criminals. The vast majority of the crimes women committed in that week were theft related. There was also one being drunk and disorderly, one selling beer without a license, and another having their pub open after hours.

An interesting aspect of the criminals were their ages - they ranged from 14 to 55. However, there were more in certain age groups; 10 were in their teens, 6 in their 20s, 11 in their 30s and 3 in their 40s and 50s. This suggests that crime was not as common within the older population, possibly down to the role of drink, poverty and work.

In conclusion

Overall, the crimes within that week of March show that theft was common, and possibly that cities in the Victorian era were violent, while some people were opportunists. But it also demonstrates that various other crimes, such as the quality of beer, if a person worked or pub opening hours, were taken very seriously.

Much like today, the crimes people were arrested for reflected the authorities’ primary preoccupations.

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References

Birmingham Daily Post, March 1872

Report One: Tuesday 19th March 1872

Report Two: Tuesday 19th March 1872

Report Three: Wednesday 20th March 1872

Report Four: Thursday 21st March 1872

Report Five: Saturday 23rd March 1872 

The American Midterm Elections in History

The US midterm elections are taking place on November 4, and they are expected to produce some important changes. However, the midterm elections have a long and varied history. Here, Rebecca Fachner tells us about some of the more interesting midterms from the past.

Midterm elections are coming up in the United States on Tuesday November 4, 2014 and the pundits and political gurus are predicting a record low voter turn out. Midterm elections traditionally have a much lower voter turn out than presidential elections; often only 25 to 30 percent of the electorate turns out to vote, much lower than presidential cycles, which recently have usually been in the 55 to 60 percent range. What is remarkable about this is that midterms can be just as important politically. Historically, midterm elections have had quite a bit of political significance and it will be interesting to see what 2014 brings. In anticipation of the elections, and hopefully to encourage interest in the process, we will look back at what midterm elections have meant historically.  Here is a brief, non-partisan, non-political history of midterm elections in America.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidential portrait. Roosevelt has a very much unwanted midterm record.

DEFINITIONS

First, a definition. The term itself is confusing, because why would the US have an election in the middle of a term. Whose term are these elections in the middle of? The president’s term, as it turns out. As everyone knows, presidential elections are every 4 years, but in the middle of each president’s term, he is faced with an election, not for himself, but for the 435 members of the House of Representatives, and 33 senators. Each Congressperson has to get himself or herself reelected every 2 years. Senators have 6-year terms, but the 100 senators have staggered elections, so the country isn’t faced with electing 100 senators all at once. The 100 Senators are broken into 3 equal classes, so that one third of the Senate is up for election every 2 years. In addition, many states elect their governors during the midterm elections; 36 governors face election in 2014.

Midterm elections are generally seen as a referendum on the president, even though he isn’t the one on the ballot. Especially in a president’s first term in office, the midterms are a way of gauging public support for the president’s policies. If the electorate disapproves of the way the president has governed for 2 years, they will ‘punish’ him at the polls by electing Congressmen from the opposite party. If the president’s policies are favorable to the population, they will elect more members of his own party. For most first term presidents, however, midterm elections are a decisive swing away from his party. Almost every president in the modern era has seen his own party lose seats in his first midterm elections. 

The only modern presidents to actually gain ground in their first midterms were George W. Bush and Franklin Roosevelt. Both of their second midterms more than made up for it, however, FDR’s Democrats lost a record 71 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate, and Bush lost 30 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate. FDR even holds second place on the number of seats lost in the midterms: in his third midterms in 1942, the Democrats lost 55 seats in the House and 9 in the Senate. In more recent times, the record for the most dramatic loss goes to President Clinton, whose Democratic party lost 52 seats in his first midterms in 1994, and 8 seats in the Senate. The strangest outcome in modern times might be in 1962, when Kennedy’s Democrats lost 4 seats in the House but gained 3 in the Senate.

EARLY MIDTERMS

Although midterms have been happening since the beginning of the republic, the first one that has retained any significance was in 1858, the last midterms before the Civil War. The 1858 midterms were a decisive vote against President James Buchanan and his Democratic Party’s endorsement of slavery. The Democrats split bitterly over slavery, allowing the nascent Republican Party to gain significant ground. The Republican Party was formed in large part to get rid of slavery, and their overwhelming election to Congress fueled talk among Southerners of seceding from a country that clearly did not share their way of life. The election further underscored the dangerous divisions across the country and was a prelude to 1860 when the next election helped to spur secession.

The Republican Party remained in control of Congress through the Civil War and Reconstruction, into the 1870s. After Ulysses S. Grant had been reelected, his second midterm elections in 1874 became a referendum on Reconstruction and the Economic Panic of 1873. Voters decided they were tired of Reconstruction, tired of spending money on it and ended the Republican majority in Congress, ushering in a Democratic majority that would unceremoniously end Reconstruction.

The midterms in 1910 helped to cause such a split in the Republican Party that it fractured in half. Theodore Roosevelt declined to run for a third term in 1908, but, unwilling to give up control completely, handpicked his successor, William Howard Taft. Taft was ostensibly a progressive, like Roosevelt, but in 2 years managed to alienate the progressive wing of the Republican Party to such an extent that the progressives revolted in the 1910 midterms. Roosevelt was so horrified that his successor was abandoning his progressive principles that he hurried back from his travels abroad and decided to run for a third term as an independent in 1912. Roosevelt essentially started his own progressive third party, the Bull Moose Party, and became the first credible third party candidate for President in American history. Unfortunately, he wasn’t credible enough, and votes split between him and Taft, allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the White House in 1912.

THE 1966 MIDTERMS

Midterm elections are always seen as if they are a national reaction to the previous political turmoil, and nowhere is that more true than in 1966. This was Lyndon Johnson’s first (and only) midterm election, and it was in the midst of an incredibly turbulent moment in American history. Johnson had become president just under 3 years prior, in the wake of Kennedy’s assassination, an event that deeply shocked the nation. Johnson had won the presidency outright in 1964, bringing with him a liberal onslaught that quickly went to work, passing some of the most important and divisive legislation in modern times, Medicare and Civil Rights.  The midterms in 1966 combined a conservative backlash, as well as dissatisfaction over the escalation of the Vietnam War to put an end to Johnson’s liberal tidal wave. The backlash was so severe that it set the scene for 1968 when Richard Nixon was elected to the White House.

The most memorable midterms of the last several decades were in 1994. 1994 was such a huge shift toward the Republican Party and such a massive repudiation of Bill Clinton and his liberal policies that it was called the Death of Liberalism. Clinton spent his first 2 years in office trying to reform health care among other liberal causes, and Republicans made him pay in 1994. The election was described variously as a bloodbath or a Republican revolution, and brought in a huge Republican majority in Congress. It is not entirely clear whether the Republicans were the winners in the long term, however, as his huge loss in the midterms forced Clinton to become more moderate, something that paved the way for his reelection in 1996.

The midterms in 2014 will do several crucial things; for starters they will determine the lay of the land in advance of the 2016 presidential elections. Similar to Bush’s second midterms in 2006, the President is expected to lose significant support. In 2006 Democrats won a landslide, which underscored how unpopular Bush had become. The election will also make President Obama virtually a lame duck for 2 years. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the midterms of 2014 will begin the 2016 presidential campaign. In the last few decades, particularly since the beginning of 24-hour news cycles, the midterms have come to represent the unofficial opening of the next presidential campaign. It is considered improper to begin to campaign for the next election before this one has been held, so midterms have come to mark the unofficial beginning of the next presidential cycle. Prospective presidential candidates will begin jockeying for position before the votes have even been counted. In retrospect, this may be the reason that voter turn out for midterm elections is so low and drops lower with every midterm; perhaps voters are just exhausted by the process and reluctant to begin the presidential cycle all over again.

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Magna Carta - Then and now

The Magna Carta resulted from a groundbreaking agreement that King John of England submitted to in a very different age. And as we approach its 800th anniversary in 2015, Laura Taylor from the Manorial Counsel tells us more about it…

Page 1 of a copy of the Magna Carta. It is currently in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Whilst relating to history, and more specifically historical events, there are always particular ones that spring mind.  This can be influenced by current and topical events or historical anniversaries.

A prime example of this is the approaching 800-year anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta. This will be celebrated on June 15, 2015.  Fellow history enthusiasts will know the finer details surrounding Magna Carta, also called Magna Carta Libertatum or The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, and the events preceding its signing at Runnymede. 

Let’s take a look at the history surrounding the event…

On the surface it may seem like a group of disgruntled and rebellious Barons who conspired against King John. Magna Carta was authored over many months by the Barons in secret and anticipation in the caves at Reigate, Surrey. Magna Carta was actually rejected by many Barons. History tells us that King John was a volatile and unpredictable King with little compassion or regard for his subjects and his realm. The Barons based their rebellion around John's oppressive government. Magna Carta was the first instant of a Statute being imposed and enforced on a Monarch. Its intention was to limit King John’s powers and protect the rights of the Barons and English subjects.

King John, not wanting to relinquish any powers, which he deemed were his by divine right, tried to appease the Barons, and open up negotiations. The Barons were never going to accept John’s word as past experience proved he was not a man of his word and was selective regarding previous agreements. 

The King tried to delay, whilst waiting for support from Rome and paid mercenaries from other countries.  Further negotiations took place from January to June 1215. These resulted in the document named by historians as 'The Unknown Charter of Liberties'.

The Barons were not going to be suppressed any longer; they had the additional support from Louis the French Prince, and King Alexander II of Scotland. On the June 10, 1215 they marched on the city of London and forced King John to agree to a document known later as the 'Articles of the Barons'. Five days later the seal of King John was duly attached to the document, and in return the Barons reaffirmed their fealty to the King. Thus Magna Carta was set in law.

Twenty-five Barons stood to enforce Magna Carta, and together had the power to overrule the King if he defied any of the provisions of the Charter.

Once the Barons had left London John renounced the Charter immediately. What followed next is known as the “First Barons’ War” The Barons wished to replace King with Prince Louis of France. This was an unpopular choice with many as England and France had been at war for the last 30 years.

Magna Carta may appeared to have failed initially

However, upon the death of King John in 1216 and throughout the next 80 years, Magna Carta really came into provenance, albeit with some clauses removed or amended.  In 1225 King Henry III (King John’s son) was called upon to confirm the Charters, Henry reissued a shorter version of the Charter.  72 years later King Edward I then reissued the 1225 Charter. It is this version that remains in Statute today; obviously the majority of clauses have been repealed.

Forthcoming celebrations

There are many events planned worldwide to mark the 800-year anniversary, and currently there are copies of Magna Carta on tour in America, one of which is owned by Lincoln Cathedral, normally on display at Lincoln Castle.  We visited Lincoln Castle recently and spoke with one of the guides who explained to us that, whilst Lincolnshire’s copy of Magna Carta was currently on loan to the US, they were undergoing the task of having a new vault and display commissioned to house their copy upon its return.

Many readers will be familiar with the connection between Magna Carta and the American Bill of Rights. A prime example of this is when Maryland in 1638 sought to recognize Magna Carta as law in the province. This was not granted by the King.

One can’t help but wonder what would have been if those “disgruntled and rebellious Barons” had not rallied together and made a stand against their king? Would Magna Carta have ever happened in later years, perhaps under a different guise? One could suggest that it was all down to King John and the fact that he was despised by those he suppressed, so he bought it on himself.  History documents quite clearly the popularity of English Monarchs, their shortcomings and legacies.  There does not appear to be another monarch who was held in such disdain as John, or one whose volatile and unpredictable rule left such a legacy. So for that, should we be grateful?

If you are a descendant of the Barons who supported Magna Carta then you may be interested in the following publication: “Magna Carta Barons” 1915 – Baronial Order of Runnemede, by Charles H. Browning.

To find out more about acquiring a Barony title visit our website > www.manorialcounselltd.co.uk or contact ltaylor@manorial.co.uk

Quote History is Now 20 to receive your exclusive discount on any title purchase!

The story of the world’s most infamous penal system – ever?

The French started to send prisoners to their colony in French Guiana in the nineteenth century. The penal colonies set up there are probably some of the worst ever. Harsh conditions, dangerous animals, little medical care, brutal guards, and backbreaking labor led many to die in them. And the system lasted well into the twentieth century. Robert Walsh explains…

‘The policy of the Administration is to kill, not to better or reclaim.’

 - Rene Belbenoit.

The typical inmate’s attitude in the colonies, from Rene Belbenoit’s Dry Guillotine.

It is 1852. In France, Emperor Napoleon III, increasingly worried by rising crime and insufficient colonists to consolidate France’s empire, devises a new, dreadful solution. Napoleon isn’t interested in social reform, he’s interested in social cleansing where criminals can simply be exported elsewhere and forced into servitude, preferably never to return. His brainchild will become the most infamous penal system in history. Even today it’s a taboo subject for many French people. His plan is for a system of penal colonies in French Guiana. Inmates call it ‘Le Bagne’. Former inmate and escaper Rene Belbenoit called it the ‘Dry Guillotine’ and his 1938 book damned both the colony and the ideas behind it. The wider world still calls it ‘Devil’s Island’.

Many people today think of the Guiana colonies in that way, three small islands off the Guiana coastline (Royale, St. Joseph and Devil’s). They weren’t. Out of approximately 70,000 inmates, only 50 were incarcerated on Devil’s Island. It was also reserved for French political prisoners, not conventional criminals. 70,000 inmates went out to Guiana, only 2,000 or so returned. Only around 5,000 survived to finish their sentences. The rest succumbed to disease, murder, execution, failed escape attempts and deadly animals populating the Guiana jungle. Conditions were so bad that between 40% and 80% of one year’s intake would be dead before the next year’s intake arrived.

The trip begins

Inmates were collected from all over France, confined pending transportation at St-Martin de Re near the port of La Rochelle. Twice a year an old steamer named ‘Martiniere’ left for Guiana. The inmates were escorted from the prison to the dock under military guard. Specially trained Senegalese colonial troops with fixed bayonets marched them through the town where their friends and families would have their last sight of ‘Les Bagnards’ as they left, mostly never to return. To quote its most famous inmate Henri ‘Papillon’ Charriere: “No prisoner, no warder, no gendarme, no person in the crowd disturbed that truly heart-rending moment when everyone knew that one thousand, eight hundred men were about to vanish from ordinary life forever.”

Their suffering began aboard ship. Crammed below decks like sardines with only a half-hour a day on deck for fresh air and sunlight, with hardly any hammocks leaving many inmates sleeping on steel decks, with any trouble below decks punished by the guards turning hot steam hoses on the inmates, life aboard ship was miserable. Guards could also flog inmates who disobeyed even insignificant orders. Inmates often murdered each other to settle grudges or robbed each other of whatever small possessions they had. Life in Guiana, for those who survived the three-week voyage, was immeasurably worse. All an inmate had to endure the voyage was issued prior to embarkation; a convict uniform, wooden clogs, a hat and a small secret device known to convicts as a ‘plan’ or ‘charger’. A ‘charger’ was a small metal tube carried internally, perhaps containing money, gems, small escape tools, a map and maybe a small knife for self-protection. If an inmate was discovered carrying one, or indeed broke any other rule aboard ship deemed too serious for a mere flogging, they spent the rest of the voyage shackled in the bilges in searing heat and deafening noise, directly over the engine room and boilers.

In St. Laurent

New arrivals landed at St. Laurent, capital of the Guiana penal system. At St. Laurent most inmates would serve their sentences unless they were interned on the islands or sent straight to jungle work camps. At St. Laurent they were classified according to security risk and criminal record. Standard inmates were ‘Transportes’, transportees who had committed more serious crimes. Lower down were ‘Relegues,’ serial petty offenders with records for crimes like shoplifting or burglary. The few surviving their sentences were listed as ‘Liberes,’ in theory freed inmates. The worst of the worst were ‘Incorrigibles’ or ‘Incos’. ‘Inco’ went straight to the feared jungle work camps where food was short, work hard, danger significant and life expectancy seldom more than a few months. If not the jungle camps, then a permanent posting to Royale was their most likely destination.

Inmates especially hated ‘Doublage’. Any prisoner serving less than eight years had to spend the same amount of time in Guiana as a colonist. Anyone with more than eight years was barred from ever returning to France or leaving Guiana. A two-year sentence effectively became four, assuming the inmate survived.

Conditions were appalling. Food was barely edible and never enough for anybody performing forced labor. Medical care existed, but the prison hospital was poorly equipped and chronically under-staffed. Discipline was brutal, floggings, extended solitary confinement and the guillotine being the order of the day. In the jungle camps inmates worked to stiff daily quotas while underfed, malnourished and brutally disciplined at the slightest infraction. The camps were also breeding grounds for disease. Yellow fever, dysentery, malaria, typhus, cholera and leprosy were commonplace. The jungle was also home for deadly animals like jaguars, snakes, venomous centipedes and flesh-eating ants. The Maroni River was home to piranha and caimans. If these weren’t enough, mosquitoes, leeches and vampire bats were capable of infecting their human hosts with rabies and other blood-borne diseases.

The ‘human factor’

Perhaps the worst aspect was the human factor. The Penal Administration wasn’t concerned about how staff treated inmates provided work quotas were met and the inmates kept in line. Inmates not meeting their daily quota one day would be fed a small amount of bread and water the day after. Every failed day after that meant no food at all until the inmate met a day’s quota and also cleared their backlog of unfinished work. Otherwise, they’d starve, weaken and probably die.

Discipline was harsh, usually brutal. All guards carried pistols, many also carried rifles with orders to kill any inmate attempting escape. They also carried clubs and whips. Inmates could be publicly flogged even for minor infractions. Solitary confinement was a common punishment. Sentences lasting from six months to five years with multiple sentences served consecutively were standard. First escape attempts added two years in solitary to existing sentences. Second attempts added five.

The guillotine at St. Laurent.

For more serious offences, especially attacking or murdering a guard or colonist, the guillotine was freely used. It was operated by convict executioners who were the most hated inmates in the penal system. One executioner, Henri Clasiot, was so hated that other inmates tied him to a tree filled with flesh-eating ants, smeared him with honey and left him to a slow death. At St. Laurent, inmates were paraded before the ‘Merry Widow’ as the guillotine was known and forced to kneel. The execution would take place and the executioner would hold up the severed head while declaiming ‘Justice has been done in the name of the people of France’. It was a nauseatingly brutal spectacle designed to intimidate convicts as much as possible.     

The first thought occupying many inmates at Guiana was the same as for inmates everywhere; escape. Naturally, Guiana was chosen to make escape as hard as possible. There were only two realistic ways an escaper could escape the penal colonies; through the jungle and across the sea. The jungle was swarming with hazards; deadly animals, flooded rivers, unfriendly natives, diseases, search parties from the prison and, most hated of all, the ‘Man-hunters.’ Man-hunters were liberes-turned-bounty hunters, tracking escapers through the jungle for a reward, dead or alive. Being paid regardless of their prisoner’s condition, many of them killed recaptured inmates and delivered their bodies rather than endure the extra risk and difficulty of guarding a live prisoner. Other liberes made a lucrative (if loathsome) living by offering to help escapers through the jungle before robbing and killing them. Very, very few escapers were heard from again once they entered the jungle and those who were had either successfully escaped or been recaptured.

The sea was every bit as deadly, but the hazards were different. The border between French Guiana and neighboring Dutch Guiana and British Guiana was the Maroni River, itself infested with piranha and caiman, small crocodiles that took swimmers like any other prey. A boat was the only option. Dutch Guiana also handed back escapers found within its borders, while British Guiana only gave them two weeks before either they left or were returned to St. Laurent under guard. Boats could be stolen, but inmates with money could smuggle a bribe to liberes in return for a boat, compass and provisions to last a few days. Assuming, of course, that the boat wasn’t wrecked in a storm, neighboring countries such as Venezuela and Colombia didn’t decide to hand escapers back at their own discretion and the liberes didn’t take the bribe and still provide nothing useful. The sea wasn’t the most likely option for an escaper; it was simply the least lethal. As a former Warden once put it: “There are two eternal guardians here; the jungle and the sea.”

Failed escapes

Recaptured escapers faced harsh punishments. If a guard or civilian was killed during an escape, the guillotine was a virtual certainly. A first failed escape added two years in the dreaded solitary confinement cells, known as the ‘Man-eater’, the ‘Devourer of men.’ on St. Joseph Island. Second failed attempts added five years more. The solitary block became known for its rule of silence, prisoners being forbidden to speak a single word unless first spoken to by a guard or other staff member. The cells were damp, moldy and disease-ridden. They were also riddled with cockroaches, venomous centipedes and other dangerous animals and the prisoners were deliberately fed poor food only sufficient to keep them alive without keeping them healthy. As a former Warden at St. Joseph described it when Henri Charriere entered for his first two-year sentence: “Here we don’t try to make you mend your ways. We know it’s useless. But we do try to bring you to heel.” A small infraction meant an extra thirty days added to an existing sentence with longer additions for each additional infraction. Other punishments included screening a prisoner’s cell and leaving them for months in total darkness and perhaps cutting their rations by half. This in addition to potentially being guillotined for attacking a guard. Some inmates committed suicide and went unnoticed for weeks due to the rank conditions in the gloomy, disease-ridden cellblock. In short, an inmate didn’t so much live in the ‘Man-eater’ as exist until they died, took their own lives or went insane which, given the conditions, was more than likely.

Royale Island was the home of the ‘Incos’. ‘Incorrgibles’, if not worked to death in jungle camps like Cascade, Charvein and Godebert or along the unfinished roads ‘Route Zero’ and ‘Kilometer 42’ (which were never intended to be finished, existing solely as make-work for slave laborers) would be permanently interned on Royale. Some inmates and officials made a living by taking bribes to have a prisoner’s status changed, making them a regular ‘transported’ instead of an ‘Inco’ and so seeing them shipped back to the mainland where escape was more likely. This was a confidence trick. ‘Inco’s had their status decided back in France. Even the Guiana Penal Administration couldn’t have it altered. The most notorious inmates were quartered in the ‘Crimson Barrack’ where card games ran night and day, staff were too scared to enter unarmed and unescorted and even blatant murders were regularly committed. The threat of violent death firmly discouraged informing on anybody.

Royale had its own hospital, albeit understaffed and under-resourced. It had a chapel, several workshops, was disease-free for most of its existence and was generally the least worst part of the colony except for would-be escapers. The jungle didn’t guard the island’s perimeter and the staff didn’t have to do too much, either. Instead, guard duties were left to the nine miles of open water between Royale and the mainland, the rip tides that could force swimmers and makeshift rafts out past the islands to be lost in the Atlantic and to the man-eating sharks that infested local waters. Even the sharks served the penal system, both as guards and in a deeply macabre form of waste disposal. Convicts on the islands didn’t have their own cemeteries. Deceased inmates were taken out just off the island coastline and tipped overboard at dusk to the sound of a bell tolling. The sharks learned to appear at the sound of the bell when a free meal was guaranteed. To make things even more macabre, the sharks themselves were hunted by local fishermen, sold to the island authorities and fed to the convicts, completing a rather revolting circular food chain. Inmates weren’t deemed worthy of a decent burial, nor did the island have the space to cope with a constant flow of funerals. Burials at sea became the practical, if rather gruesome, solution.

Devil’s Island

The last of the three island prisons was Devil’s Island, also guarded by fierce rip tides and sharks with a few staff on hand too. It’s odd that the smallest and least-used part of the penal system became the totem for the entire network. During the 99 years of the penal colonies only around fifty prisoners were ever kept on Devil’s Island itself. They were all political prisoners and not felons. Devil’s Island owes its fame and symbolic status to having been the unwanted abode of Captain Dreyfus. Falsely accused of espionage, stripped of his rank and sent to Devils Island forever, Dreyfus was eventually pardoned and reinstated after a global campaign to prove both his innocence and the rampant anti-Semitism of his accusers.

Having spent over five years on the island, Dreyfus returned to France for a rehearing, pardon and reinstatement in the French Army, but only after heart-breaking misery at being framed and made a scapegoat by a country he loved and had served honorably throughout. A principal player in the Dreyfus campaign was famed French writer Emile Zola, whose famous essay ‘J’Accuse’ condemned the anti-Semitism in France and the cowardice of the French state in its treatment of Dreyfus while firmly supporting his claims of innocence. As a result of the Dreyfus case at the start of the twentieth century the world finally began to pay attention to Emperor Napoleon’s disastrous and sadistic pet project.

Further unwelcome attention came from Rene Belbenoit and Francis LaGrange, both former inmates of the colonies. Belbenoit, a petty thief given eight years for a small-time burglary, escaped successfully at his fourth attempt and made his way to the United States. His 1938 book ‘Dry Guillotine’, so named because the penal colonies killed as well as a guillotine only more slowly, was reprinted eight times in the first two months since its release and is a collectible to crime buffs and penal historians. LaGrange, a former art forger, also provided unwelcome publicity through sketches and drawings depicting life in the colonies and used in Belbenoit’s book. Increasing international scrutiny forced the French Government to stop sending inmates to the colonies in 1938 and their closure was scheduled until the Second World War intervened. During the war the islands were taken over by the Americans, who feared the Vichy government might try and make them an Axis base of operations. In 1946 the camps and islands began to be gradually phased out. Between 1946 and 1953, when Devil’s Island itself finally closed forever, the camps were shut one after another and the inmates repatriated. Over 300 inmates refused to leave, many staying on in St. Laurent as French Guiana remained a colonial possession. They decided that they had been too changed by their experience to fit back into French society and that Guiana was the only life they could remember. They were probably right. Of those inmates who were repatriated, a substantial number either returned to prison or were declared insane after failing to re-integrate into French society. Some even took their own lives. It was bitterly ironic that many of these men, men who had previously been cast out of French society, found it taking care of them in their last years.

Papillon

It wouldn’t be right not to give a greater mention to Henri ‘Papillon’ Charriere. Papillon’s eponymous book, first published in the 1960s after the colonies had closed, revived unpleasant memories for the French of an episode many would rather have forgotten. Even today the Guiana penal colonies are a taboo subject for many French people. Papillon’s honesty and whether or not he merely appropriated large parts of his book from other inmates’ experiences has been hotly debated, but his storytelling skills are beyond doubt. Although French authorities claim that only around 10% of his claims are true and it’s certainly true that he never served time on Devil’s Island (he was a safecracker convicted of the manslaughter of a pimp, a charge he always denied), the 10% would still be a damning indictment of the Guiana penal system and its purpose of socially cleansing France of its underworld. It even failed to do that, eventually.

There’s another irony in the penal colony story even today, one not recognized by many people. French Guiana is the site of France’s Ariane rocket space program. The rockets are launched from near Kourou, formerly one of the dreaded jungle camps, with control equipment being sited on Devil’s Island. The space project site is constantly under the guard of the French Foreign Legion who also use Guiana for jungle warfare training. Odd really, when you consider that many of those who have joined the Legion at some point might very well have once found themselves headed for Guiana unwillingly, wearing a different type of uniform altogether.

Modern-day France is ashamed of the penal colonies. In the words of writer, ex-convict and former Foreign Legionnaire Erwin James: “France is right to be embarrassed.”

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Sources

https://archive.org/details/Dry_Guillotine

http://www.trussel.com/maig/Maigret-in-France/bagn1.htm

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/04/france.prisonsandprobation

Papillon, Henri Charriere, Harper Collins, 1999.

Banco, Henri Charriere, Harper Collins, 1994.

Image sources

http://boisdejustice.com/History/History.html

http://www.belbin.net/images/File0004.jpg

A fascinating tale... Winfield Scott and the Aroostook War

Winfield Scott was one of the greatest servants in the American Army in the nineteenth century. Even so, he did not just undertake great feats in battle. He was also somebody who helped to promote peace, perhaps most notably in the Aroostook War. Steve Strathmann explains.

Throughout the nineteenth century, Winfield Scott could be found wherever the United States Army was fighting. In uniform for 53 years, he rose through the ranks to eventually command the army. Scott would serve on battlefields across North America, in conflicts as large as the War of 1812 and the American Civil War, and smaller ones against various Native American tribes.

Many remember his invasion of Mexico during the Mexican-American War or his “Anaconda Plan” to defeat the Confederacy in the Civil War. As important as these accomplishments were, one that has been forgotten is a war that he helped prevent, and how it led to the stabilization of the US/Canadian border. 

A lithograph of Major General Winfield Scott from 1847.

Troubled Borderlands

When the United States gained its independence after the Revolutionary War, its northern border with Canada (British territory until 1867) was left to be decided at a later date. Several attempts were made to establish a definitive border, but the two sides could not find common ground. The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, solved nothing when it just reset the vague terms of the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

One region where this indecision led to significant problems was the frontier between Maine and New Brunswick. Both sides claimed a wide swath of territory, including the Aroostook River valley. The area was coveted not only for its natural resources, but also as an overland connection between the Canadian coastline and Quebec. By the late 1830s, several incidents had caused tensions to rise, including the arrest of several Maine officials by New Brunswick authorities and fighting between lumberjacks for the rich timber growing in the valley. By early 1839, Maine state militiamen and British troops were facing each other down, possibly one incident away from starting an international conflict.

Enter Scott

The federal government in Washington was being called on to support Maine against the Canadians, so President Martin Van Buren and Congress authorized a body of Federal troops and funds to meet any northern invasion. Winfield Scott was chosen to lead this expedition, and recalled to Washington from Nashville to take over preparations.

There was a second reason to call on Scott for this assignment. He was known to have a professional relationship with Sir John Harvey, the governor of New Brunswick. The two men had served opposite each other during the War of 1812, and often on the same battlefields. In 1813, they served in staff positions that caused them to meet regularly. During truces and negotiations, a friendship of sorts grew between the two soldiers. In fact, Scott once kept Harvey from being shot by a squad of American soldiers attempting to capture him. On another occasion, he bought items taken from Harvey’s captured luggage in order to send them back to the British officer. The two men would continue to correspond with each other in the decades following the war.

This relationship would now prove to be valuable for the two men’s respective nations. The state of Maine might be willing to pull back its militia from the disputed territory, but only if the Canadians did so first. Unfortunately, Governor John Fairfield of Maine and Sir John Harvey had broken off communications, so it was up to Scott to try and calm the border situation down.

A map illustrating the Maine Boundary Dispute. The red line is the British claim and the blue line the American claim. The yellow line is the final agreed boundary in the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty..

Friendship Prevails

Upon arrival in Maine, Winfield Scott realized that he would have his work cut out for him. He had to convince Maine authorities to back down, but first had to get the British to pull back. He chose to open his correspondence with Harvey by answering a letter he had recently received from him while in Nashville. Harvey promptly responded and suggested that future letters between the two men be made public and semi-official to show the progress of negotiations.

Soon afterwards, the two men had come to an agreement. Harvey promised that the British forces would not escalate the situation if Maine would pull back its militia and replace it with only a small posse to maintain the peace. Both sides would continue to hold disputed territory, but would leave it up to negotiators from Washington and London to finally create a definitive border. Governor Fairfield and the Maine legislature accepted this arrangement and pulled back the militia. Negotiations began and eventually led to the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which established the American/Canadian border from the Atlantic Ocean to present-day Minnesota.

All sides recognized the importance of Scott’s involvement in the settlement of the Aroostook War, a ‘war’ that resulted in no combat casualties. One example of this recognition can be found in a private letter that Harvey sent to Scott as negotiations were just beginning: “My reliance upon you, my dear general, has led me to give you my willing assent to the proposition which you have made yourself the very acceptable means of conveying to me...”

Winfield Scott would find more military glory fighting in Mexico and defending the nation against disunion, and would gain so much fame that he would even run for president in 1852. Still, while many remember and celebrate his accomplishments on the battlefield, it is important that people also take note of the work he did to maintain peace.

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References

Buckner, Phillip. “HARVEY, Sir JOHN” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 8. University of Toronto/Université Laval, 1985. Accessed 26 September 2014. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/harvey_john_8E.html

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

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

Headley, Joel Tyler. The Life of Winfield Scott. New York: C. Scribner, 1861. Accessed 25 September 2014. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL23364695M/The_life_of_Winfield_Scott

Mansfield, Edward D. The Life of General Winfield Scott. New York: A.S. Barnes & Co., 1846. Accessed 25 September 2014. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL6558998M/The_life_of_General_Winfield_Scott.

The truths and untruths about one of the trials of the century…

Three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan was involved in one of the most important trials of the twentieth century. The Scopes Trial took place in 1925 and involved the age old debate between religion and science. Edward Vinski follows up on his first article on the trial (available here) and considers what William Jennings Bryan believed and when he believed it.

On the surface, William Jennings Bryan’s involvement in the famous State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes court case seems inconsistent with his earlier public life. Although he was long a supporter of progressive causes, Bryan’s prosecution of Scopes, a high school teacher who violated Tennessee’s statute against the teaching of non-Biblical Human Evolution, appears to represent an about-face: a harsh, conservative punctuation to the life of a man who famously backed women’s suffrage, prohibition and regulation of the railroads. Indeed, for those whose knowledge of Bryan comes only from the film or stage versions of Inherit the Wind, dramatizations that use the trial as a metaphor for McCarthyism, he appears to be an arch-conservative purveyor of hostility and fear. What is the truth about Bryan’s anti-evolution position? Were they long-held beliefs or did they reflect a growing conservatism in Bryan’s social ideas?

Who Was William Jennings Bryan?

Born in 1860, Bryan became one of America’s most influential political and social figures. His famous “Cross of Gold” speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention secured him that party’s presidential nomination. Despite his loss to William McKinley in the general election, Bryan would receive the Democratic nod two more times, losing to McKinley again in 1900 and to William Howard Taft in 1908. In spite of his pacifist leanings, he volunteered for duty in the Spanish American War, and although he never saw combat, he achieved the rank of Colonel in the Nebraska State Militia. Bryan was selected as President Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State, but resigned in 1915 over a disagreement with Wilson’s position following the Lusitania sinking. Still, he campaigned for Wilson’s re-election in 1916, and offered his services to the President following the United States’ entry into World War I. In the years following his work for Wilson, he was, among other things, a frequent speaker on the Chautauqua circuit, and a supporter of the progressive movements mentioned above. 

A campaign poster for William Jennings Bryan in the 1900 presidential election.

In the film version of Inherit the Wind, The Bryan character[1] speaks in opposition to “godless science” and “agnostic scientists”.  In fact, Frederick March, in his portrayal of the character goes so far as to pronounce “evolution” as “evil-ution” throughout the film. Bryan is portrayed as being a strict Biblical literalist who believed truly that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and in the accuracy of Bishop James Ussher’s estimates of the earth’s age. In fact, Bryan was excited by the potentialities of applied science. He went so far as to join the American Association for the Advancement of Science as a means of refuting the notion that he opposed scientific investigation. Bryan also accepted the possibility of non-human evolution, but he was worried that when science denied the supernatural, “every manner of immoral behavior” would be unleashed upon the world (Kazin, 2006, p. 273).    

Two questions now arise. First, did Bryan’s opposition to evolution reflect a long-standing belief or a change to more conservative opinions in his later years? Second, to what degree was his attack on science inconsistent with his progressivism? To answer these questions, we will turn our attention to three sources: Bryan’s oft-repeated speech “The Prince of Peace”, his argument against scientific testimony during the Scopes Trial and his never-delivered closing speech that was included as a postscript in the trial transcript.

The Prince of Peace

One of the first clues to Bryan’s position on evolution comes from his 1904 speech “The Prince of Peace” (published in book form in 1909). In it, he stated that:

I have the right to assume, and I prefer to assume, a designer back of the design-a creator back of the creation… no matter how long you draw out the process of creation, so long as God stands back of it you cannot shake my faith in Jehovah… I do not carry the doctrine of evolution as far as some do; I am not yet convinced that man is a lineal descendant of the lower animal. I do not mean to find fault with you if you want to accept the theory…you shall not connect me with your family tree without more evidence than has yet been produced” (Bryan, 1909, p.12-13).

Fine. He seems willing to say “to each his own”. Yet years later, he would be at the fore of the anti-evolution movement in the United States. Was this a change of heart? Well, a closer examination of “The Prince of Peace” demonstrates that there was not necessarily a substantial change, for there is one easily overlooked passage a mere three pages earlier that sheds light on his fears. In describing why a system of morality based upon reason alone would be deficient, he stated:

As it rests upon argument rather than authority, the young are not in a position to accept or reject. Our laws do not permit a young man to dispose of real estate until he is twenty one…because his reason is not mature (Bryan, 1909, p.9).

Bryan’s concern for the moral life of young people would, in part, drive his anti-evolution crusade decades later. He feared their blind acceptance of materialistic arguments without a solid foundation of faith behind them. Shortly after this statement, he described his own youthful skepticism before concluding that “I have been glad ever since that I became a member of the church before I left for college, for it helped me during those trying days” (p. 11). The young person “is just coming into possession of his powers, and feels stronger than he ever feels afterwards-and he thinks he knows more than he ever does know” (p. 11). Thus, young people can become easily confused.

The Argument Against Expert Testimony

The second source for understanding William Jennings Bryan’s ideas comes from the Scopes Trial Transcript. On Thursday July 16, 1925, the focus of the trial turned to whether or not the testimony of scientists would be admitted into evidence. The defense hoped that these scientists would demonstrate that the study of evolution did not necessarily contradict the Biblical account of creation. In speaking against such testimony, Bryan turned to the tried and true position that had made him a three-time presidential nominee: the right of the populace or their elected representatives to regulate what is taught in US public schools.

“The statute,” he said, “defines exactly what the people of Tennessee desired and intended and did declare unlawful and it needs no interpretation” (Scopes Trial Transcript). The statute contained two provisions. It was illegal first “to teach any theory that denies the story of the Devine Creation of man as taught in the Bible” and second “to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals” (Tennessee House Bill 185). Bryan acknowledged that the testimony of experts would be acceptable if the statute only contained the provision relating to Biblical contradiction. By adding the provision about descent from lower animals, however, the legislature removed that possibility.

This is not the place to try to prove that the law ought never to have been passed…the people of this state passed this law, the people of this state knew what they were doing when they passed the law, and they knew the dangers of the doctrine-that they did not want it taught to their children (Scopes Trial Transcript).

It is not for nothing that he was called “The Great Commoner”. Long a champion of the working class and opponent of corporate power, he fought to protect the weak and poor from exploitation. “The rule of majority opinion against imposing elites” (Gould, 1999,p. 156) was long one of William Jennings Bryan’s primary focuses, and it is that point he tried to drive home in his attempt to block expert testimony.

Bryan’s Final Speech

A final source of Bryan’s views come from his proposed address following the trial. On the final day, the defense led by Clarence Darrow waived its right to closing argument and recommended that the jury return a verdict of guilty upon Scopes. In so doing, they not only set the stage for an appeal, but also deprived Bryan of his own closing remarks. Bryan’s speech was, however, appended to the trial transcript.

In the address, Bryan rehashed several of the points we have covered. Citing recent precedent, he pointed out the right of the state to control the public schools and to “forbid the teaching of anything ‘manifestly inimical to the public welfare’” (Scopes Trial Transcript). In addition, he claimed that the law was in no way an attempt to force religious beliefs upon the populace, but rather the majority’s attempt to protect its religious heritage from attacks by “an insolent minority…to force irreligion upon the children” (Scopes Trial Transcript). The statute, according to Bryan, did not represent a devaluation of science, and in fact Christians welcome truth wherever it may be found. This, in turn, led to his second point: that evolution is not truth but rather “millions of guesses strung together” and that “there is no more reason to believe that man descended from some inferior animal than…to believe that a stately mansion has descended from a small cottage” (Scopes Trial Transcript).

Toward the end of the address, however, Bryan describes Darwin’s “barbarous sentiment”. “Darwin,” he wrote, “speaks with approval of the savage custom of eliminating the weak so that only the strong will survive” (Scopes Trial Transcript). It was the Social Darwinism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that William Jennings Bryan most feared. He feared that under it, eugenics, euthanasia and sterilization would flourish as persons and nations tried to create a perfect race based upon the doctrine of survival of the fittest. From those perfect “supermen” world-dominating superstates would surely emerge. “Science,” he continued, “is a magnificent material force, but it is not a teacher of morals. It can perfect machinery, but it adds no moral restraints to protect society from the misuse of the machine” (Scopes Trial Transcript). In Bryan’s mind, this was never more evident than in the First World War - not yet a decade in the past. “Science,” he wrote, “has made war more terrible than it ever was before. “The world needs a Savior more than it ever did before” and it is only “the meek and lowly Nazarene” who could save it (Scopes Trial Transcript). With that, Bryan returns full circle to “The Prince of Peace”.

Conclusion

It’s clear that Bryan’s involvement in the Scopes Trial did not represent a substantial deviation from his prior progressive tendencies. He was long concerned with the effect adults can have on the impressionable minds of the young, and he strove to protect the young from such influence. He championed the right of the people to determine their laws. Finally, he long believed that, left unchecked, science posed a great threat to humanity. 

With hindsight, it is hard to argue with Bryan’s claims. One can only image his outrage at Nazi concentration camps, at US internment camps, and at bombs so powerful that they could destroy the world as we know it several times over. Bryan may have been wrong on a number of levels, not least of which is that scientific facts are not bound by majority opinion. But if he was wrong, he might well have been wrong for the right reasons.    

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Edward J.Vinski, Ph.D is Associate Professor of Education at St. Joseph’s College, NY.

[1] Bryan’s name was changed to Matthew Harrison Brady for Inherit the Wind. 

References

Bryan, W.J. (1909). The Prince of Peace. New York: Fleming H. Revel Company.

Gould, S.J. (1999). Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York: Ballantine Books. 

Kazin, M. (2006). A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. New York: Anchor Books.

Scopes Trial Transcript, 1925 Tennessee House Bill, 185.

Michael Collins - A myth about the Irish independence leader's death

The first article of this series (available here) opened a re-examination of several popular misconceptions about Irish independence hero Michael Collins. Here S.M. Sigerson looks at just one of the most notorious myths – that Collins died because he was inexperienced in live combat. 

Ireland's Revolutionary Era (1900 - 1923) was a time when controversy pervaded practically every aspect of life on that island. As a prominent leader in the conflict, Michael Collins lived and breathed controversy.

Some of the critical national questions at issue then have yet to be agreed, to this day. It is hardly surprising, then, that debate likewise continues, concerning points of Collins’ own character.

This is especially true in what may be the single most controversial event of his storied life: his suspicious death.  In the complete absence of the sort of official inquest which one would expect to have taken place, and utterly without the kind of authoritative records such an inquest would have bequeathed to us, folklore and gossip have rushed in to fill the gaps.

Remarkable assertions, plausible and otherwise, have tried to explain away unanswered questions around the killing of Ireland's Commander-in-Chief.  Some of these propositions have acquired a currency and repetition, tossed off in the heat of political debate, in the press, in interviews, in biographies through the years. But where did these "facts" come from?  Who said that? 

The contention that Collins was inexperienced in live combat had its origins among Collins' avowed opponents, at the time of Dáil debates on the Treaty.  They formed part of general efforts to discredit Collins; in the hope of dislodging his dominant position as head of the independence movement, in public perception.

This, in itself, places the question in the context of precisely the political conflict that culminated in his assassination.  It thus cannot be separated from a campaign of character assassination that immediately preceded, and then later, attempted to excuse his death.

Michael Collins in London in 1921.

Emmet Dalton

The promoter of the false charge simply expresses his gratification at finding that he had been misled (by erroneous information). It is not customary for him to express gratification... that, out of all the mud which he has thrown, some will probably stick!

- A Trollope

This misstatement about the Commander-in-Chief's battle experience is in no way improved by its association with Emmet Dalton.  The ranking officer under Collins that day, Dalton was the one most personally responsible for the Commander-in-Chief’s safety there.

When asked to explain the death of the one man he was there to protect, Dalton blamed the victim, claiming that Collins didn't know enough to keep his head down under fire.  This is the origin of the charge that Collins' death was caused by extraordinary incompetence on his own part. 

But there are problems with Dalton's statements.  At a glance they are consistently and suspiciously self-exonerating. Nor are they well corroborated by others who were present.

On the other hand, there is abundant testimony regarding the Commander-in-Chief’s career of astounding survival, through bullets and cannon, through countless ambushes and daring escapes, between 1916 and 1922.  Even those who later bore arms against him during the Irish Civil War have left vivid accounts of Collins' hands-on leadership under fire, in many now-forgotten raids.

Collins was apt to come up suddenly behind someone in the street and invite him to join him immediately in blowing up a barracks... they never knew when he might be serious. 

Collins got word that Lord French would be passing through College Street a little later and he got himself a gun, rounded up anyone who happened to be nearby, and set off to lead an ambush.

The balance of evidence reduces Dalton's claim to absurdity. Common sense likewise belies his "expert opinion" on the military prowess of "the man who won the war".  In his early twenties at the time, Dalton's insinuation is that his own military judgment was vastly superior to that of this famous general who had just defeated the world's most sophisticated Empire.  If so, it is remarkable that Ireland did not seem to make much progress under Dalton's leadership, once that supposedly less-competent superior was removed.

Although strategic command was Collins' foremost role after 1919, evidence is overwhelming that he not only oversaw, but personally commanded, carried out, and survived more such actions than can ever be known: due to the clandestine nature of the war, and other factors which made public statements or written records far less available to historians than under normal conditions. 

Volatility

Many of those concerned in these events took oaths of secrecy, sworn never to discuss the actions, nor to name comrades who took part. The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB, parent body of the IRA)  was a secret organization throughout Collins' life.  Armed conflict against the British, although officially ended in the 26 southern counties, was still alive and well in the northeast of Ireland, and frequently spilled over the as-yet-undefined border between.  The IRB in general, and Collins in particular, were highly active in arming and directing Irish military measures there.  These were secret operations, which the Commander-in-Chief showed no qualms about carrying on without much regard for the nascent Free State government's official policy.  Indeed, up until a short time before, the IRB had recognized no government outside their own Supreme Council; their own president being, according to their by-laws, President of Ireland.

Consider the volatility, at this writing, of similar details regarding armed conflict in Northern Ireland (1970s - 1990s). Any publication of details about the underground forces' personnel, numbers, operations, precise past whereabouts etc., have been a highly sensitive issue, involving risk of reprisals.  The more active and responsible, the greater the danger inherent to those concerned.

Michael Collins' ultimate fate, shortly after shared by many of his best and brightest, proves that such a threat to those "who won the war" was certainly very real and present in 1922. 

It is Collins' long career of continual escape from enemy ambush and survival under fire, which casts his ultimate end in such a curious light.  As an explanation of his death, "inexperienced in combat" is a square peg in a round hole: a paralogism that does not fit the big picture.

Portions of this article are excerpted from "The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened At Béal na mBláth?" S M Sigerson. It is available here: (Amazon US | Amazon UK) or ask at your local bookshop.

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