The Reality of the American Intervention in Afghanistan

In this article Brian McNash offers his hard-hitting perspective on the recent Afghanistan War. It also includes the context of the Iraq War and discusses the failures of successive US governments.

US soldiers march to a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Daychopan district, Afghanistan in September 2003. Picture by Staff Sgt. Kyle Davis, US Army.

Let’s call it what it is. George Bush lied to us about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We were doing well in Afghanistan. Gaining some traction and what we wanted most, control. Then, he siphoned troops and added more to fight an endless war on nothing. Our job was supposed to be to go get the Taliban, destroy them, capture the top people, if possible, punish them, and get out. Instead, we stayed for 20 years and played offense in Iraq to a fault while playing defense in Afghanistan. Our troops have been left to dry by every president since this war started including Bush, Obama, Trump, and even Biden. Afghans have been senselessly murdered under all these presidents. We need to acknowledge and take accountability for these truths.

We captured the top people and kept fighting a war that could never be won. We tried to destroy the threat to our homeland and emboldened a hate towards America because of our tactics, missions, and things we did over there. Our soldiers were on the receiving end of the blame, the trauma, and the effects. They were the face of America while the government officials who never stepped in Iraq or Afghanistan played chess. Those government officials include our Congress, Defense Secretaries, Vice Presidents, Speakers of the House, and President, among others. The officials who called the shots, paid out defense contractors, ran up our budget, and sent our deficit into free-fall in space. We left so much of our budget and deficit in Afghanistan and Iraq when we abandoned military vehicles, equipment, and so much more. No purpose for it anymore? Too expensive to get rid of. Not worth it? Whatever it was, we left more than just that behind.

Who failed?

Our government failed our troops, lied to everyday Americans, cost us lives, money, and years of sacrifices when it comes to our troops. Leaving behind pain and abandoning the Afghani people who helped us, only furthering a hate for America. Leaving behind equipment just gives an opportunity for terrorists to advance on their fellow people who don’t want to be ruled by them. By getting involved, America chose to take on their problems. We got too heavily involved and now the blame is on us. The troops just carried out orders. Orders from people who put contracts, lobbying efforts, lining their own pockets, and a war hungry mindset over the mission and point of going over there. The troops had to pay for it with their bodies, mental health, and sometimes their lives. We got caught slipping on 9/11 while indirectly funding the same people for years who attacked this country. Do you see why conspiracy theorists feel like they are on to something here? Our government hurt fellow Americans and our troops by waging a large offensive with big goals but a scattered plan. Talk to vets from WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, and any other conflict we have been involved in. They can tell you about the toll, the empty promises, the trauma they endured, and the lies that have been told to them by the country they served and would die for. We let down our troops. We let down the American people. By choosing to try to be the Superman of the world for our own economic benefit, we let down the Afghani people. We let down the Iraqi people. We should have never dug our feet in. We should have finished the initial mission and gotten out. 

Faults

Fault falls on Bush and his administration for lying throughout his presidency starting with the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” lie. Fault falls on Bush for letting Dick Cheney insert his war crazed policies into his Presidency and have way too much power. I have not seen a Vice President with that much power in a long time. This falls on Obama and his administration for not pulling enough troops out and deciding to half ass it, basically sending a message of “we will still have a presence”. When they captured Bin Laden in a massive estate near a Pakistani military base that should have told us all we need to know. Get the hell out because everyone in this area could be corrupt and complicit in one way or another. We tried to play the “it’s okay we still want to help” game and locked ourselves in for the next 10 years. The fault lays with Trump and his administration, who turned on the Kurds, our most intelligent, swiftest ally out there. Instead of them being an asset to us, we stopped funding them. Then, we ended up attacking them because they retaliated after we turned our backs on them. They helped our offensive and we cut them off because we were trying to save money. There is rarely any real justification for violence. But how would you feel if somebody did that to you? Trump advanced and signed into law the largest military budget for other operations. Within all of those billions of dollars, we could not provide funding to a much-needed ally. The shift was swift and that was his fault in this. Trump also brokered a peace deal with the Taliban that was good in some respects but mostly bad. 5,000 prisoners from camps, black site prisons, and Guantanamo Bay were released, including the Taliban leader. Some of those same prisoners are back in command of the Taliban now. Others are fighting against the very troops who put them in prison the first time. Imagine how you would feel seeing this cycle happen as a soldier from any country fighting against the Taliban.

Lastly, Biden and his administration left behind vehicles, equipment, and allowed looters to get their hands on it. He basically left the terrorists bits and pieces to put back together to use on their own people and advance their own evil interests. The helicopters might not work fully but the guns do whenever there is ammo left lying around for them. Not to mention, Biden supported these wars in Congress, voted on military budget bills for the past 40 years, and his own son paid the price of his actions later in life. He knows that. He has had to face the consequences of his actions every day then and now as President. He is pulling the US out of a situation he voted for as Senator. Every President has been complicit and barely helped this endless, hopeless situation. The troops have paid the price literally, emotionally, and mentally. Some have paid the ultimate price. We the people (everyday citizens) have paid the price and it has fostered into a distrust for the government. It has also resulted in war being the new normal. If you are 20 or younger, for your whole life America has been in war. Let that sink in. There are other generations before us who have had a similar experience. But, with the help of technology and media, we see war at its worst more than ever now. Through photos, videos, reports, and more, it has been engrained in our heads that war is a constant presence in our lives.

Capitalism

Moreover, we did not just come the Middle East to get back at the people responsible for 9/11. To bring democracy to Afghanistan. Or to capture Saddam Hussein and restore democracy in Iraq. We have a capitalist economy. You do not think our government is not smart enough to capitalize on what a country has to offer. Afghanistan has rare earth mineral fields under it and the most opium fields in the world (mostly used to make heroin). They lacked weapons but we do not. There were weapons deals done between us, corporations like General Electric, and different groups or countries. Some were allies, sometimes we sought control or to take inventory, and others we wanted to outright take advantage of. The Pentagon lost billions of dollars and Presidents weren’t even aware. Congress was in the dark. There was no trail leading back to wherever that money went. To connect this all, many soldiers knew back in 2008-13 that once they left the Taliban would take Afghanistan back. Most citizens of those countries did not want Americans there. The fight over the opium fields went a couple of ways: The farmers got shaken down by Taliban and Taliban sold opium, the Farmers field got carpet bombed by the US and then they joined Taliban, or US would give farmers fertilizer who used it to make more opium or sold it to Taliban who used it to make explosives. Who did they use those explosives against? It gets worse when it comes to resources though. Soldiers couldn’t throw batteries away because people would go through the trash, wire dead batteries together so they could make an IED, and detonate it. One soldier’s story I saw talked about a female soldier coming back after getting bodies out of vehicles that suffered an IED blast. He couldn’t help but think that was the fertilizer and batteries from the US that were put together to blow us up. We were fighting a (mostly) losing battle from all sides for so long. 

One more factor in all of this: Salt Pit, other black sites, and underground prisons. Mostly controlled and ran by the CIA, we took random Afghans and tortured them for information they never had.  Many detained Afghans had things like Bollywood films of women dancing in their possession. Most soldiers will tell you that they never found incriminating data on the phones of Afghan citizens, not even porn. Yes, some were associated with the Taliban or extremism, tortured for valuable information, and rightfully held in black sites. But, for those ones who were swooped up and brought in, how do you think that makes Afghanis feel? Afghans trusted us, we used them for their resources, for control, and then threw them away. The irony is if you are Team “Get out of the Middle East”, you are indirectly Team Taliban, ISIS, etc.  But the alternative is Team Stay Forever. We can’t do that. Every soldier can tell you this was a war of resources just as much (or more) as to get back for 9/11. Every soldier knew this was a lost war 10-15 years ago. We should have listened to the ones on the ground then and we should listen to them now.

What do you think of the article? Let us know below.

More about Brian:

A writer of mostly nonfiction poems, short stories, articles, and more who explores a wide range of topics. Like many writers, I have a blog called Good To You (doogotouy.com) and write for part therapy and part enjoyment. 

Evidence of a JFK Murder Conspiracy? The Dictabelt Recording of the Kennedy Assassination

While the Kennedy assassination occurred some fifty-eight years ago, the case still galvanizes the American public. There remains a constant fight over the release of records pertaining to the assassination from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), QAnon supporters gathered on November 22nd 2021 to await JFK and JFK Jr.’s return, and Oliver Stone is in the process of releasing a new (and quite factually inaccurate) documentary on the Kennedy assassination.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy still very much remains in the public consciousness and stimulates the minds of many. While the amount of persons who believe Kennedy was assassinated by way of conspiracy has decreased substantially, still nearly 25% of the American public believes there was a conspiracy of sorts, either with the CIA, the Italian-American Mafia, Castro’s Cuba, or the U.S. Armed Forces playing a role.

And one of the most definitive items of proof that conspiracy theorists provide comes from the House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations.

Alan Cunningham explains.

President John F. Kennedy just before his assassination in Dallas, Texas, Friday, November 22, 1963. Also in the photo are Jackie Kennedy, Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie.

The Findings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations

The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) was an eleven-man committee created in 1976 amidst the aftermath of the Church and Pike Committees and intended to investigate “not only the assassination of Kennedy, but also that of Martin Luther King, Jr.”. In the HSCA’s final 1979 report, the Committee found that “scientific acoustical evidence established a high probability that two gunmen fired at President John f. Kennedy” while stipulating that additional “scientific evidence did not preclude the possibility of two gunmen firing at the President”.

To quote more simply from Encyclopædia Britannica, “a Dictabelt audio recording made from a Dallas motorcycle policeman’s microphone that was said to provide evidence of four shots—that is, three by Oswald and a fourth by another shooter. That fourth shot, a miss, was thought to have come from the grassy knoll. As a result of this acoustic evidence, the HSCA concluded that there had been two shooters and that the assassination was likely the product of a conspiracy”.

Interestingly, this was the only real delineation the HSCA’s final report made from the Warren Commission, which had investigated the Kennedy assassination and submitted their final report over a decade before. To quote from Encyclopædia Britannica, “…the HSCA’s findings were largely in line with those of the Warren Commission (including the conclusion that a shot by Oswald had killed the president and that a single bullet had hit both Kennedy and Connally)... The committee also concluded that neither any U.S. security or intelligence agencies (including the CIA) nor the government of Cuba or the Soviet Union had been involved. It did not rule out the involvement of organized crime or anti-Castro groups, but it could not prove it”.

For the most part, the HSCA made only one demarcation from the original Warren Commission and it came in their analysis and acceptance of the Dictabelt recording.

The Evidence for a Second Shooter

On November 22, 1963, the day Kennedy was killed, a dictabelt recording was made. For those younger readers who may be less attuned to such devices, a dictabelt was an analog audio recording device, which came about in the late 1940s and predominantly was used to take dictation.

Essentially, the dictabelt would use “a stylus to emboss a groove into flexible plastic belt, the groove being much like the groove in a phonograph record”. This video here explains the Dictabelt in far greater detail.

On the day in question, a Dictabelt recording was made of all radio traffic coming from Dallas Police Radio Channel 1, the ordinary radio channel used by the Dallas Police Department. Channel 2 was reserved for special events, which the presidential motorcade would be classified as and was recorded using a different audio device. The audio recording lasts for roughly five and a half minutes and begins at 12:20 pm, a minute before the assassination took place. The full audio can be found here.

According to Vincent Bugliosi in his mammoth book on the Kennedy assassination Reclaiming History, “…two acoustics experts from Queens College in New York, Mark Weiss and Ernest Aschkenasy [claimed] based on their mathematical computations and a static-filled Dallas police Dictabelt recording…they were able to discern, from “impulse sounds” and “echo pattern predictions,” that there was a “95 percent or better” probability that the fourth shot was fired from the grassy knoll, and hence, a conspiracy”.

This evidence for the HSCA to claim that Kennedy was assassinated by way of a conspiracy came from these audio recordings and these audio recordings alone. Prior to this, the Committee was effectively going to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald had committed the act alone and even developed a draft of their final report. Four members of the Committee, Representatives Harold Saywer (R-MI), Robert Edgar (D-PA), Samuel Devine (R-OH), dissented to the final report with Sawyer even stating that the final report was based on “supposition upon supposition upon supposition”.

With this new evidence, the Committee entered into their report that President Kennedy was assassinated by way of a conspiracy. Today, the vast majority of Americans forget that the HSCA also affirmed that a single bullet struck both Governor Connally and the President, that Oswald had fired that round, that no signatory member of the U.S. Intelligence Community nor a Foreign Intelligence Entity (FIE) was involved in the assassination; the only thing that anyone takes away from the HSCA’s final report is that there was a conspiracy to kill the President.

For example, in one of the most notable (and historically inaccurate) films ever made, Oliver Stone’s 1991 picture JFK, a final title scroll reads, “A Congressional investigation from 1976-1979 found a “probable conspiracy” in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and recommended the Justice Department investigate further” while also detailing that the Department of Justice (DOJ) did not further investigate.

Most people remember the headlines, not the rest of the story. However, what gets left out of this story is the continued investigation of the Dictabelt recording by members of the U.S. government, news journalists, and scientific research based Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

The Problems with the Conspiracy Claim

Almost immediately, the HSCA’s claim was met with sharp criticism from a wide array of fields and experts.

The DOJ, in spite of Stone’s JFK claiming otherwise, did investigate, commissioning a study from the National Academy of Science (NAS), a non-profit and NGO focusing on the advancement of various scientific fields in the United States. A panel of twelve physicists with a wide array of practical and academic experience in the fields of astrophysics, atomic physics, astronomy, and nuclear physics analyzed the audio recording and released their final report to the DOJ and the public in 1982.

Quoting from the NAS report, the twelve-man panel found unequivocally, “…the acoustic analyses do not demonstrate that there was a grassy knoll shot, and in particular there is no acoustic basis for the claim of 95% probability of such a shot. The acoustic impulses attributed to gunshots were recorded about one minute after the President had been shot and the motorcade had been instructed to go to the hospital. Therefore, reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman”.

In the succeeding decades, additional information has come out placing further doubt on the credibility of the Dictabelt recording.

As briefly mentioned before, one of the best books on the Kennedy assassination is Vincent Bugliosi’s work Reclaiming History, a 1,000+ page work that was an over twenty-year endeavor documenting the assassination, the Warren Commission investigation, and the many conspiracies that have arisen in the over fifty years since the event. Bugliosi mentions the Dictabelt at various points and, in many cases, interviews persons with extensive knowledge of the recording.

Bugliosi writes how the DOJ also conducted their own investigation into the audio, building off of the NAS’ report and, in 1988, disclosed to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary that they disagreed with the HSCA on the charge of a conspiracy. He also found that the FBI’s Technical Services Division completed their own report on the recording in 1980 and reached the conclusion that the Committee could not conclusively prove that the sounds heard on the recording were gunshots or even came from Dealey Plaza.

Bugliosi also interviewed the Dallas police officer who was allegedly driving the motorcycle from which the recording came from, H.B. McLain. McLain had testified to the Commission that his own radio had been stuck in the “on” position, allowing the audio to be recorded, yet had done so without listening to the audio in question.

Hearing the recording later, McLain informed Bugliosi that the recording’s movements did not match his own actions on November 22nd (McLain followed the presidential motorcade the entire time from Dealey Plaza to Parkland Hospital with sirens on the entire time while the recording appears to have sirens simply passing by). McLain also claimed that the motorcycle’s engine from the recording was from a three-wheeled motorcycle while he only ever drove a two-wheeled motorcycle.

Other discrepancies within the audio can be heard, such as noise from the crowd never being heard on the recording in spite of the fact that hundreds had come out to see Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas and were making raucous noise throughout the procession.

In 2001, a rather important development occurred that, to some, seemed to vindicate the HSCA. Publishing in the peer-reviewed journal Science & Justice, Dr. Donald B. Thomas, an independent researcher of the Kennedy assassination and a research entomologist with the USDA’s Agriculture Research Service, claimed that the NAS study was flawed and that the HSCA’s original conclusion was in fact accurate. He writes, “The validity of acoustic evidence for a gunshot from the ‘Grassy Knoll’ was challenged on statistical grounds and on the basis of an anomaly on the Dallas police recordings. However, the assumptions underlying those criticisms were not in accord with evidence overlooked by the review panel. With a rigorous statistical analysis one arrives at a calculation for the probability that the recording contains a random pattern which by chance resembled the acoustic signature of a gunshot from the Grassy Knoll”.

This journal article prompted a re-investigation of the Dictabelt recording by various authorities and persons.

In 2003, multiple investigations were performed. Court TV commissioned an analysis by the signal analysis firm Sensimetrics, Inc. for a November episode of their program Forensic Files which “concluded that there is no valid evidence for gunshots on the Dallas Police Department (hereinafter DPD) recordings… the match between the suspect sound pattern on the DPD recording and a test shot fired from the grassy knoll, was no greater than expected to occur by chance”. After the episode premiered, Thomas wrote an article aiming to rebut the conclusions made by Sensimetrics and Court TV.

Also in 2003, Peter Jennings of ABC News, for the program Peter Jennings Reporting, analyzed the Dictabelt recording and came to the conclusion that the sounds recorded on the Dictabelt could not have come from Dealey Plaza and that H.B. McLain could not have been the originator of the recording as he had yet to enter the Plaza with the rest of the presidential motorcade. The reporting in this documentary also won the Edward R. Murrow Award for News Documentary in 2004.

Interestingly, some independent researchers have criticized both the NAS report and Thomas’ conclusions. Michael O’Dell, writing for The Kennedy Assassination blog in 2003 (the personal project of Associate Professor John Charles McAdams of Marquette University), concluded that the timeline both Thomas and the NAS relied upon was faulty while also finding that original claim of a “95 percent or better” probability that a shot came from the Grassy Knoll was logically unsound. In spite of this inaccuracy on the part of the NAS, O’Dell notes that, “Although the [NAS’] timeline is inaccurate, mostly due to the misunderstanding about the Audograph mechanics and missing the skips, the corrected timeline still supports their conclusionthat the impulses occurred after the shooting”.

Perhaps most significantly, many of the original investigators from the twelve-panel NAS report published their own article in response to Thomas’. In 2005, publishing in Science & Justice as well, five of the original twelve wrote, “We affirm the NRC conclusion “that the impulses attributed to gunshots were recorded about one minute after the President had been shot and the motorcade had been instructed to go to the hospital.” We also show that if, instead, the HOLD synchronization is ignored and the “YOU . . . Stemmons” synchronization is used, the first sounds alleged to be from shots occur at least 30 s after the assassination” while also noting that Thomas’ analysis utilized “erroneous parts of the Committee’s analysis of the Bowles recordings and combined it with an erroneous implicit assumption…”.

Despite this, debate still raged on. In 2013, Professor Larry J. Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and a Professor of Politics, commissioned an analysis of the Dictabelt recording, coming nearly fifty years after the assassination.

Utilizing various improvements in acoustical analysis and digital methods, Sabato’s commissioned team from Sonalysts, Inc. came to the overall conclusion “The evidence obtained suggests that the motorcycle was not part of the motorcade and therefore was not in a position to record the sounds of gunfire”. Expanding upon this in their conclusion, the team states, “These data uniformly indicate that the motorcycle with the open microphone was not part of the motorcade. Therefore, it is unlikely that the motorcycle was in a position to record the sounds of gunfire. Based on these observations, we conclude that the Dictabelt recording is not applicable to the identification of assassination gunfire”.

Conclusion

The Dictabelt recording has been analyzed again and again and again. Repeatedly, it has been shown that the Dictabelt recording has been inaccurate and scientifically incapable of proving a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. There are far too many inconsistencies for it to be utilized in any kind of argument. In fact, in 1986, there was a televised criminal trial put on by London Weekend Television in which Lee Harvey Oswald was tried for the murder of President Kennedy; Vincent Bugliosi played the role of the prosecutor (which would later inspire him to write the book Reclaiming History) and Wyoming based criminal defense attorney Gerry Spence representing Oswald.

Throughout the entire trial, Spence never once brought up the Dictabelt recording, as even he knew that utilizing this would damage his client’s case. This was even before the DOJ’s 1988 report in addition to the various scientific and investigative analyses performed with more advanced equipment in the 21st century. This to me is quite telling as Spence either knew the Texas jury would not be swayed by such evidence or would have no significant basis in having his client be freed.

To put it simply, the Dictabelt recording has been proven to have far too many inconsistencies for a criminal trial or for usage in determining the surrounding aspects of the assassination. Furthermore, even when combined with all of the additional forensic, documentary, eyewitness, and ballistic evidence the end result is the same; the only logically valid conclusion is that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting on his own, assassinated the President from the Texas Schoolbook Depository.

Various government commissions and committees, federal agencies, journalists, and historians have never been able to link a U.S. federal intelligence or law enforcement agency, the Italian-American mafia, the Johnson administration, Castro’s Cuba, the Soviet Union, or the U.S. Armed Forces to the assassination beyond circumstantial evidence. There has never been any conclusive, indisputable evidence put forth that shows a conspiracy or identifies another shooter or rifle used in the assassination.

The HSCA’s final report was written with the best of intentions, to examine the subject fully and try to either verify or refute the claims made by the Warren Commission. In the end, due to sensationalist and baselessly conspiratorial forces like Mark Lane, Oliver Stone, and L. Fletcher Prouty, the American public has gained a severely misinformed view of the assassination, which continues to cause problems for society and politics.

What do you think of the dictabelt recordings? Let us know below.

US Cold War Propaganda: The CIA's Ship for Radio Broadcasts to Albania in the Early Cold War - Part 1

The US had a variety of ways to influence citizens behind the ‘iron curtain’ during the Cold War. One of those was radio broadcasts. Here, Richard Cummings, author of a recent book Cold War Frequencies (Amazon US | Amazon UK), explains how the CIA got a vessel ready to broadcast in Albania in the early 1950s.

A 1980s Radio Tirana badge. Source: Rugxula, available here.

The best-laid schemes of mice and men

Go often askew,

And leave us nothing but grief and pain,

For promised joy!

From the Poem by Robert Burns, in modern English.

Introduction

The Voice of America began broadcasting to Albania in May 1943; the broadcasts were interrupted in 1945 and resumed in May 1951. Radio Free Europe began broadcasting from Munich on June 1, 1951 and stopped on September 30, 1953.

The June 30, 1953, report from the President's Committee on International Information Activities defined early Cold War white, gray, and black shortwave radio broadcasts as: 

·       White -- The first type consists of broadcasts made in the name of the American Government, such as the Voice of America programs, or by an overtly supported station such as RIAS (Radio in the American Sector of Berlin)

·       Gray -- The second type includes broadcasts by stations that are overtly supported by unofficial American organizations but to which the Government gives covert financial Support. Such stations are Radio Liberation, supported by the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism, Inc., which now broadcasts to Soviet occupation troops in Germany and Austria and selected areas in the Soviet Union; Radio Free Europe (RFE), supported by the National Committee for a Free Europe, which broadcasts to the Soviet satellites; and until recently Radio Free Asia (RFA), supported by the Committee for Free Asia, which has now ceased broadcasts to Communist China

·       Black -- The last, or black, the category includes CIA-supported clandestine stations, which purported to speak for groups inside the satellite countries

In the late 1940s, the United States decided to stem Soviet underground subversive operations and create a new clandestine agency. This would have to be a new organization not to operate against the established clandestine collection of intelligence and counterintelligence tasks already assigned to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). On June 18, 1948, the US National Security Council (NSC) directed that the task of confrontation with the Soviet Union clandestinely to a new Office of Special Projects – the name was changed later to the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC).

The NSC directive gave OPC,  "A loose charter to undertake the full range of covert activities incident to the conduct of secret political, psychological, and economic warfare together with direct preventive action (paramilitary activities)-all within the policy direction of the Departments of State and Defense." In October 1949, OPC planned to use a "sea-borne broadcast transmitter" to transmit recorded programs inland with "live spot" announcements.

Albania

It was planned to use a 1000-watt, medium wave transmitter to reach the largest audience in Albania by using a strong enough signal to overpower Radio Tirana's frequency: "It has been agreed that these broadcasts shall be based, for various technical, security, and political reasons, on a ship to cruise in and around the Adriatic and Ionian Seas. [T]his vessel with minor modifications can be converted into a floating broadcasting station capable of sending medium wave broadcasts into all points in Albania. It will be operated in a 100-mile arc at the end of a 300-mile radius from the farthest point to be covered in the country."

The decision to use a vessel carrying a medium wave transmitter was that there were, at that time, no OPC land-based transmitters in Italy or Greece. Medium wave broadcasts were chosen because of an estimate that of the approximately 50,000 radios in Albania, between 30,000 and 37,500 were medium-wave sets.  It was also estimated that 10,000 to 12,000 shortwave radios receivers were in Albania, owned mainly by Communist officials.

The idea was that the boat would be purchased in Britain. In November 1949, four prospective vessels were located, with one finally identified as being suitable enough for the operation. The cost of buying this vessel was $56,000 (circa $560,000 in 2021) and OPC was to pay for it. The British Intelligence Service (SIS) was to:

·       provide cover for the purchase, refit, and extended operation, plus

·       arrange for the transfer of the vessel's title and conceal the ownership through a cover owner

SIS was also to provide the crew and costs of refitting the boat for broadcasting and the operating costs were to be divided "fifty-fifty."

For some unknown reason, this project was not jointly pursued. In April 1950, OPC, using the outline of the British plan for Albania code-name VALUABLE, decided to seek a vessel in the United States to be put into operational use in August 1950.  The project was given the cryptonym BGSPEED, a subproject of the OPC Albanian country plan BGFIEND: "A country project to select, train, and infiltrate indigenous agents into Albania to effect and support resistance activities for the purpose of overthrowing the Communist-controlled government in Tirana." 

The requirements for this vessel included:

·       Ability to support a propaganda staff of five men in addition to a full complement of the crew

·       Ability to carry sufficient water, fuel, and food to remain on the station of the heel of Italy for at least twelve consecutive days with a full complement aboard, between return trips to Athens, Greece

·       Sufficient stock of engine parts and spares aboard to operate overseas independently for one year

·       Sufficient space aboard to permit installation of radio equipment and one compartment to be used as a recording and broadcasting studio

OPC decided to use a "yacht-type vessel" because it was:

a.     The more suitable for reasons of the flexibility of operation

b.     Private cover potentialities as viewed against commercial cover

c.      Height of masts in relationship to size for the accommodation of the radio broadcast antennae

The vessel

By May 1950, two yacht brokers were asked to locate an appropriate vessel. Three yachts were identified: one was in Acapulco, Mexico, one in Miami, Florida, and one in Gloucester, Massachusetts. OPC then used a cleared "cutout" for the purchase of the yacht.  The man already owned two yachts and bought and sold yachts for years.

The "cutout" was to be financed by OPC, receive the title to the yacht and deliver it to the Smith Boat Yard in Baltimore, Maryland, for refitting and conversion to include "decking, placing of copper sheathing on the hull, …broadcast studio, and other repairs necessary for extended operations."  The "cutout "owner then was to transfer the vessel to Panamanian registration. With an OPC security clearance, a Panamanian-licensed master named Leslie Holmes would then choose the crew. $150,000 ($1,500,000 in 2021)was budgeted for the purchase. 

After inspection of two of the vessels, the "motor sail /ketch" IRMAY was chosen as the most "adaptable from the point of view of broadcast requirements, maneuverability, accommodations for the crew and staff and can be outfitted in the least time and expense." The IRMAY was purchased for $80,000 (circa $880,000 equivalent in 2021).

The captain of the IRMAY and crew were experienced and reportedly were involved in several scientific expeditions in the Caribbean and South America.

The operational cover included the chartering of the vessel to a non-existent "Institute"-- the Marine Biological Research Institute (MBRI), Inc, which was incorporated in Maryland as a non-profit organization engaged in research of Marine biology. The Charter included in the articles of incorporation was:

To promote generally the accumulation, analysis, and dissemination of scientific knowledge in the field of Marine Biology by undertaking, sponsoring, participating in studies, research projects, and field expeditions in any part of the world – making loans and gifts for such purposes – and to make such knowledge available through articles, lectures, books, letters, motion pictures, etc. 

Four Directors of the "Institute" were listed, three of whom were pseudonyms.

Funding came from a "fictitious person purportedly of eccentric habits and keenly interested in this field of science." In reality, OPC's finance office sent a cashier's check to a Baltimore bank. Other cover activities included the printing of the letterheads, issue of bona fide stock to the Directors, chartering of the vessel (including the actual transfer of funds", and the establishment of a bank account in Baltimore for "Mediterranean Marine," through which funds to pay personnel aboard and to operate the vessel would be transferred regularly to a bank account. OPC hired a part-time trusted bookkeeper to keep "double-entry bookkeeping of both the overt and covert expenses.

The "Institute" also made a letter of endorsement to the Chief OPC officer on board the vessel, indicating that he was employed in "scientific explorations in the Mediterranean." 

Approval & Set-up

OPC Assistant Director for Policy Coordination Frank Wisner approved the project on June 14, 1950. However, he wrote this handwritten comment on the cover sheet: "This project has been approved, with much trepidation… I have seen this kind of thing tried twice during the last war with eventual project abandonment in each instance."

Final arrangements for the cover "Institute" were made. A lawyer in Baltimore was cleared to set up the articles of incorporation in the State of Maryland.  His office was listed as the official address of the "Institute" for any correspondence. Four Directors of the "Institute" were listed, three of whom were pseudonyms. The printing of the letterheads, issue of bona fide stock to the Directors, chartering of the vessel (including the actual transfer of funds", and the establishment of a bank account in Baltimore for "Mediterranean Marine," through which funds to pay personnel aboard and to operate the vessel would be transferred regularly to a bank account.

In June 1950, a joint Bulgarian-Albanian propaganda center was set up in Athens, Greece. The Albanian broadcasts were to be prepared there, based on a joint propaganda policy-directive approved with the British. However, the British were not involved on the operational level. One of the Athens central radio stations would transmit to the vessel a daily teletype broadcast of the next day's program. Spot broadcasts would be transcribed on the boat.

The IRMAY left Baltimore for Miami, Florida, in December 1950 with OPC engineering personnel on board. There were tests conducted of the medium (sky-wave) transmissions on the way. Rough seas off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, seasickness, and mechanical problems ensued, but the tests were generally positive. The conclusion: "It can be seen that there are no technical radio factors which might limit the effectiveness of BGGIEND project as originally planned."

While in Miami, Captain Holmes made an unknown security violation. The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) became aware of the OPC connection to the IRMAY. The Miami office of the Bureau of Customs wanted to inspect the vessel, but OPC contacted the Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Customs with the request to stop the inspection. ADPC Frank Wisner sent a message to Navy Rear Admiral Leslie C. Stevens giving some details of the BGSPEED operation. Admiral Stevens, coincidently, would later become President of the American Committee for the Liberation of Bolshevism – the parent organization for Radio Liberty. Wisner promised Stevens and the Bureau of Customs that any future operations having any bearing on those agencies would be advised by OPC.

OPC decided to let Captain Holmes continue to hold his position until the first port of call in Europe when he would be replaced and returned to the United States, possibly to face prosecution.

In St. Thomas, American Virgin Islands, the name of the yacht was changed to "JUANITA," and the registry changed from the United States to Panama. JUANITA departed from Barbados on February 1, 1951, for Europe and arrived in Patras, Greece, on March 25, 1951.

What could go wrong?  A lot…

This article is based on Chapter 5 of Richard’s book: Cold War Frequencies: CIA Clandestine Radio Broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, published in 2021 by McFarland & Co. Available here: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Now read part 2 on what happened during the catastrophic mission in Europe here.

The Paraguayan President who Brought his Country to Military Catastrophe – Part 3: Devastating Battles for Both Sides

Francisco Solano Lopez was president of Paraguay from 1862 to 1870. He led the country during one of the most devastating defeats in all history – the War of the Triple Alliance. Here, Erick Redington continues this fascinating series by looking at the events in the War of the Triple Alliance, including the Battle of Tuyutí and the Battle of Curupayty.

If you missed it you can read part 1 on the early life of Francisco Solano Lopez here and part 2 on the start of the War of the Triple Alliance here.

A depiction of the Battle of Curupayty.

With Marshal Lopez's advance into Corrientes stunted, he knew that pushing all the way to Uruguay was no longer possible. He had achieved much by aggressively invading the Allied Powers. Their armies had been thrown back on their heels, causing increased dissention between the Brazilians and Argentinians, Lopez's only real hope of victory. A wealth of materiel was captured by the Marshal's army aiding the war effort immensely. The small Paraguayan industrial base would have difficulty throughout the war supplying the army with the materiel it needed to fight. The small Paraguayan nation was proving itself to be very dangerous to its larger neighbors. To some, Lopez looked brilliant. To no one more so than the Marshal himself. 

The Allies knew they would have to control the rivers in order to maintain their supply chain. The first Allied target was Humaitá, called the "Gibraltar of South America." They knew that as long as the fortress held out, they would not be able to advance further into Paraguay and take the capital, Asuncion. The Marshal knew this as well. He was determined to use every effort to defend the fort. But he knew that Humaitá needed further reinforcing. Therefore, the best strategy would be to delay the Allies as long as possible in order to improve the fortifications. In the process, the Allies would further bleed, and potentially, greater dissention would grow between the Brazilians and Argentinians. 

The Marshal also knew that Argentina was fragile at this time. President Mitre had assumed office only a few years before, after yet another civil war. Lopez knew that there were many elements within Argentina who were very sympathetic to him and were perfectly happy to see Marshal Lopez create a strong Paraguay. To these Argentinians, Paraguay was the wrong enemy at the wrong time. The right enemy would always be Brazil. The war would be used throughout as a weapon to attack those in power in Argentina. President Mitre himself was tired of the condescension with which he was treated by the Brazilian officers. They saw him as just another caudillo in a long string of caudillos ruling Argentina. The Marshal hoped that if he could inflict a few further defeats on the Allies, one or both would be willing to come to the peace table and Lopez could get a peace he could live with, rather than the partition and exile that the Treaty of the Triple Alliance called for.

The Marshal Counters

The Brazilian naval commander, Baron Tamandaré would use his fleet to advance further up the river system to allow the Allies to invade Humaitá. When the Allies made a landing at the town of Riachuelo, Lopez sensed an opportunity. The Marshal was not a man to sit back and just take what was coming, so he ordered his fleet to attack the Brazilians. The Paraguayan navy was heavily outnumbered.  The Brazilians had better armored ships with more guns. None of this mattered. What mattered was élan. Lopez would fling his navy in a night attack against the Brazilian fleet and in one brilliant move end the threat of an Allied offensive by having his sailors board the Brazilian ships under the cover of darkness, capture them, and then sail the new prizes back up the river to reinforce the Paraguayan fleet.

Of course, this is not what happened. The ships arrived after sunrise. The Paraguayan commander ordered his ships to pass the Brazilian ships and fire on the ground troops. The Paraguayans would lose more ships and have to retreat upriver. It was a disaster for the Paraguayan navy. Marshal Lopez impetuously ordered his fleet to attack an enemy that heavily outnumbered him with a confusing and frankly ridiculous battle plan to not only defeat the Brazilians but also augment his own fleet. Why did he do this? As we have seen, it was in the nature of the man to take risks and wager everything on bold, Napoleonic, plans. As someone who believed he was a military genius, he believed his plans could work. As a brutal dictator in charge of a police state, no one was brave or foolhardy enough to tell him otherwise. Due to this, a sizable part of the Paraguayan fleet that could have been used in the defense of Humaitá was lost, and future defenses were weakened.

By 1866, the Allies were finally prepared to begin what they saw as the war-winning offensive. The Allies crossed the Paraná River and entered Paraguay. The Marshal was a believer in the offensive-defensive strategy. He did not make a general, theater-wide offensive, but he began launching localized counterattacks to make the Allies keep their guard up and slow their advance. This was in keeping with the Marshal's character, but it was also the sound military move. The Marshal knew this would be a war of attrition. He had to make the Allies bleed. He needed to cause further dissention. Passively waiting to be strangled would only lead to being strangled. He had to fight. 

The local counterattacks, while not leading to battlefield victories, worked their intended purpose. The Paraguayans were able to slow down the Allies, stopping their advance at Estero Bellaco for a time. The Marshal began to grow more confident. He had been mostly successful in his strategy so far. With his increasing confidence grew his willingness to gamble. He now began to envision knocking out the Allied army with one decisive blow. When the Allies began advancing again, Lopez decided to strike the blow. The bloodiest battle in the history of South America began, the Battle of Tuyutí.

Tuyutí

With the Brazilians on the left, the Uruguayans in the center and the Argentines on the right, the Allies were drawn up in a flat, swampy area. The Marshal decided to focus his attacks on the Brazilians and the Uruguayans. Lopez had a very low opinion of Brazilians, and the Uruguayans were the smallest contingent. Initially, the Paraguayans made gains, however the Brazilian artillery would seal the fate of the Paraguayan army, and the Allies came away with the victory. The importance of the victory was not that the Allies won the battle, but that it had been so deadly.

Statistics from the Paraguayan army at this time are problematic at best. Due to the dictatorial nature of the country, and the importance that Lopez placed on propaganda, reported casualty figures from the Paraguayans can be taken sometimes with a grain of salt. The best estimates for battlefield losses were 6,000 dead and 7,000 wounded out of an army of about 25,000 men. The Allies lost over 5,000 men out of about 35,000. For the Allies, the losses were terrible, though replaceable. For the Paraguayans, this was a national catastrophe. Based upon prewar population, the losses in this battle represented over 3% of the people in the entire country. These men represented the cream of the large pre-war army the Marshal had accumulated and led into Argentina and Brazil. His army would never recover. Never again would the Marshal order a mass attack on the Allies. 

With victory comes overconfidence. The Allies, having achieved a major victory now began to advance more rapidly against the Marshal. Where other men would draw back in the aftermath of such a catastrophic defeat, Lopez was as defiant as ever. The Paraguayan army would go on to defend itself well against Allied advances. However, at the Battle of Curuzu, the Paraguayans were defeated again and finally Marshal Lopez was growing concerned. He decided to try a different tack, one which he had not utilized so far: diplomacy.

The Marshal Tries Diplomacy     

With the Allies on the move, and getting closer to Humaitá, the Marshal hoped to capitalize on the war-weariness of his opponents. He unexpectedly invited the Allied leaders to a conference to try to end the war. The Brazilians wanted nothing to do with this conference and refused to negotiate with the Marshal. President Mitre, however, decided to meet his enemy. For Mitre, beset by political opposition at home, facing rebellion in outlying provinces, and weary over his own conduct of the campaign (he was supreme Allied army commander, after all), Mitre wanted to find a way to end the war. For Lopez, this represented a wonderful opportunity. Despite his reputation as an insane warmonger, it was said that in person the Marshal could be very charming and a great conversationalist. He was very well read and quick-minded. For Lopez, this was finally his chance to divide the Allies, get Argentina to leave the war, and then take on the enemy he hated, the Brazilians. And he failed miserably. 

Accounts of the meeting vary, with some saying that the conversation was amicable, and others saying the two men got into an argument. Either way the conference was a failure. President Mitre told President Lopez of his determination to abide by all clauses of the Treaty of the Triple Alliance. This included the article demanding the removal of the Marshal from power before any peace could be had. Lopez could have agreed and lived a comfortable life in exile in Europe or North America. Instead, he refused. He would fight on to the bitter end. And that is exactly what would happen. No peace, but war, war to the knife.

After the failure of the conference, Mitre decided to restart the offensive and attempt to deal the killer blow, reach Humaitá, and from there to Asunción. The invasion of Paraguay was on. The Allied army approached the Paraguayan army entrenched at Curupayty. The Paraguayans had used the truce to improve their fortifications and build further defenses. They had brought in artillery and reinforced the trenches. The Paraguayans only numbered about 5,000 men, a quarter of the advancing Allied force. In their confidence after Tuyutí, many in the Allied camp believed the Paraguayans were on their last legs and ready to fall apart. This overconfidence led to Mitre preparing a battle plan whereby the Brazilian navy would shell the Paraguayans from the river, and once softened up, the Allies would launch a grand assault to rout the enemy. Once the fleet had finished the bombardment, Mitre ordered the men in. 

The Battle of Curupayty can be likened to other thoughtless slaughters like Cold Harbor or the Somme. Allied troops went in and were massacred. The Paraguayans only lost about 50 men in the battle. The Allies, however, lost about 9,000, according to the best estimates. It was a shocking and devastating loss, but it could have been worse for the Allies. The commander of the Paraguayan army was not Marshal Lopez. He would never expose himself to battlefield danger. That was not his way. The field commander was General José Diaz, a good commander in his own right, but he operated within the Paraguayan system of nothing is done without the dictator's permission. Even considering the casualties, the Paraguayans were still outnumbered and outgunned, but they had morale on their side. If they had counterattacked and pursued the Allies, a decisive, perhaps war turning victory could have been achieved. Diaz was not stupid. He was not going to take the initiative and incur the wrath of the Marshal. The Allies were allowed to withdraw back to their entrenchments. Here the war would sit for longer than any of the participants had anticipated. For the Allies Humaitá would have to wait. Recovery from the embarrassment of Curupayty would take far longer than anyone expected. They had much bigger problems at hand.

On the Pale Horse

Part of the original defense plan of Marshal Lopez was utilizing the geography of Paraguay to slow the Allies. Much of the country is located in tropical, low-lying swamps. These swamps bred interminable swarms of mosquitos and other insects. The mosquito was, and still is, a primary vector to transport infectious disease from person to person. For the Paraguayan troops, malnourished and under equipped, disease was a fact of life. For the Marshal, there was no ability to import medical supplies. The traditional Paraguayan cure-all for everything was yerba mate, which was obviously ineffective against infectious disease. Every man lost to disease was a man out of the gun line for the Marshal. There was very little he could do to stop the epidemics though. 

With the defeat at Curupayty, the Allies needed to rest and regroup before another advance. Camp life at this time was dull and unsanitary. Given the geography of the area the Allies found themselves, and the filth of the camps, it is no surprise that epidemics began amongst the Allied troops. Dysentery, cholera, and yellow fever were some of the worst. The conditions in the camps, coupled with the terrible defeat the Allies had taken, would lead to much needed changes within the Allied army, but this was small comfort to those who had been stricken.

Out With the Old…

After Curupayty, the squabbling between the Brazilians and Argentinians only grew worse. The Allied field commander, President Mitre, was called a bungler for directing one of the most lopsided losses in modern military history. Mitre was not happy either. He was growing tired of field service. Rebellions were breaking out against his rule in the outer provinces of Argentina. Many within his own government wanted peace. He believed in the necessity of the war still, but he did not believe that he would be the man to lead it. In January 1868, Mitre would leave his army and return to Buenos Aires.

Also out at this time was the President of Uruguay, Venancio Flores. He was also worn down with campaigning and would leave the army. His term as president was ending anyway, and he was to turn over his powers to a new leader from his Colorado Party. He would be assassinated four days after leaving office. The crime was never solved. 

For Marshal Lopez, these changes symbolized a weakening of his enemies' resolve to make war on him. What he did not know was that with Argentina mostly out of the war, and Uruguay effectively out of the war, the Allies would finally have solved the one major disadvantage they suffered through compared to the Paraguayans: unity of command. And that unity would come in the form of Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, the Marquis de Caxias.

What do you think of the devastating battle for Paraguay and then the Allies? Let us know below.

Now read part 4 on the end of the War of the Triple Alliance here.

References

Saeger, James Schofield. 2007. Francisco Solano Lopez and the Ruination of Paraguay: Honor and Egocentrism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Whigham, Thomas L. 2002. The Paraguayan War, Volume 1: Causes and Early Conduct. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2005. I Die with My Country: Perspectives on the Paraguayan War, 1864-1870. Edited by Hendrick Kraay. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2017. The Road to Armageddon: Paraguay versus the Triple Alliance, 1866-70. University of Calgary Press.

Jacqueline Kennedy’s Influence on the Arts in America

In 1963 President John F. Kennedy gave a powerful speech on the arts in America. But what is less known is that Kennedy’s speech was heavily influenced by his wife Jacqueline Kennedy. David Huff explains.

Jacqueline Kennedy in May 1962.

Art and history

On Saturday, October 26, 1963, President Kennedy gave a speech to the students at Amherst College as he dedicated a library named for the American poet Robert Frost, who died on Tuesday, January 29, 1963. The speech was rich, eclectic, and moving as he galvanized a generation of Americans not only to lead lives of civic commitment, but also to challenge the conventional power structure that existed in America at that time.

The speech is well known for its stirring statements in which the late-President issued a clarion call about the hope and possibility for American society. Kennedy, who was ahead of his time, spoke eloquently when he declared:

"I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, which will protect the beauty of our natural environment, which will preserve the great old American houses and squares and parks of our national past, and which will build handsome and balanced cities for our future"

"I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America, which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well. And I look forward to a world which will be safe not only for democracy and diversity but also for personal distinction."

Yet, Kennedy also issued a warning that is true today as it was in his time:

"And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost's hired man, the fate of having "nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope."

Jacqueline Kennedy and the arts

In our contemporary society, we need to improve the growing differences that divide us as a civilization. The ongoing discussions and vitriolic debates regarding race, poverty, social unrest and economic disparity fail to provide a positive impetus for a consensus as to the course of action. Yet, many Americans do not realize that President Kennedy's innovative speech at Amherst was, in fact, influenced by the artistic mind-set of Mrs. Kennedy when she was first lady. Eclectic and forward thinking, she adopted as her mantra that successful civilizations can achieve a cultural renaissance by cultivating the reservoir of talent and individual ingenuity that resides within its people.  Mrs. Kennedy understood that other parts of the world, such as Europe, had implemented cultural policies not only to preserve their unique cultural heritage, but also to broaden public participation in cultural life. For example, Belgium, France, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and Britain are countries that promote an active cultural policy in their respective countries. Mrs. Kennedy believed that if these Western civilizations engaged in the improvement of the cultural and artistic fabric of their modern-day societies, America had the power to create a Department of Culture that would provide the basis for an educated exchange on the improvement of our own unique culture.

The creation of a culture department could help oversee the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, assist colleges with instituting and preserving arts management programs; and assist in the coordination of complex and myriad tasks that confront major artistic American centers and symphonies. In addition, a Department of Culture could conduct arts and cultural economy studies, develop cultural plans for neighborhoods or cities or towns that elevate eclectic cultural communities and assets, and allocate workforce investment and small business administration, and community economic development funds to arts and culture organizations. 

Furthermore, a culture department could work closely with major American music festival organizers - such as those at Aspen and Interlochen, the Tanglewood Music Festival, and the Wolftrap National Park for the Performing Arts - to encourage and assist young people, via corporate and privately sponsored scholarships, to study the performing arts.

The generous commitment of corporations, foundations, nonprofit groups, individual donors and others to invest time and resources in support of a department of culture would greatly benefit children and youth and provide the impetus for the kind of bold and creative synergy that the performing arts really need for continued growth and development in America. Prominent organizations, such as The Ford Foundation, The Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation have demonstrated a keen interest in promoting and supporting arts organizations throughout the United States.

Lack of Artistic Willpower and It’s Consequences

Unless there is a concerted effort, however, on the part of government, corporations, private philanthropy, and grass-roots organizations, the political climate - and debate - concerning the arts is likely to get worse. Throughout our nation, politicians are cutting arts programs in the public schools and universities at both the state and federal level. In addition, artistic institutions, such as symphony orchestras, are struggling to survive due to a lack of corporate sponsorship and poor ticket sales. One might ask if poor ticket sales are a direct result of the decease in music and art programs in public education. As these programs have been the first to be cut in education over the past forty years, there goes any chance for children to gain knowledge and an appreciation for classical music and art.

Conclusion

The creation of a culture department in America is not quixotic, even in these turbulent times. In our multicultural society, the partnership between the government and corporations and individual philanthropy in sponsoring a department of culture would provide the engine for an infusion of creative, engaging and innovative ideas that will inspire people regardless of race, gender, and economic background to reach for something better. Artistic expressions would serve as a beacon of hope and promise in a world enveloped by skepticism and uncertainty. To those who suggest we cannot afford to implement a Department of Culture, I reply that America cannot afford not to do so. We have the funds to create a Department of Culture, we simply need to summon the will and self-discipline to raise the cultural bar in our country. The missing link, however, is the political willingness to embrace, to encourage a forward-thinking enterprise capable of creating a cultural renaissance in America. To that end, the American people - particularly the young - deserve a better society that benefits all of our citizens, not just a few.

What do you think of Jacqueline Kennedy and the arts? Let us know below.

David M. Huff was born in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1968. A violist, he studied with the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra from 1983-1984. He attended the Interlochen Arts Festival and Interlochen Arts Academy from 1984-1986 and also participated in the Boston University Tanglewood Institute's Youth Program during the summer of 1986. He earned a B.A. in History from West Virginia University and an M.A. in History/Research from West Virginia University. He works in a Washington, DC International law firm as an Intellectual Property Trademark, Litigation, and Patent Specialist.

How the 1952 US Election Led to the Modern Election Campaign

The 1952 election was important for a number of reasons, with Dwight D. Eisenhower becoming the first Republican president for two decades – but in many ways it was also the birth of the modern election campaign. Here, Victor Gamma looks at the story of how television commercials became a part of the campaign thanks to an advertising executive.

Eisenhower on the presidential campaign trail in Baltimore, September 1952.

In October 1952 millions of television viewers began seeing twenty to thirty-second advertising “spots” that appeared every hour between their favorite programs. Audiences were used to seeing ads, but this one was like nothing they had ever seen. The ad did not feature Lucky Strikes or some other product; it featured one of the candidates running for president that year. After the announcement “Eisenhower Answers America” blared into the living room, viewers watched the Republican candidate deliver short, simple answers to questions from average citizens. 

Many were appalled. Senate hearings, conventions and addresses had all been televised before, but this felt more like watching a commercial than observing a serious discussion about national issues. Television was for low-class entertainment. When the Eisenhower ads began running, Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate, declared “I think the American people will be shocked by such contempt for their intelligence; this isn’t Ivory Soap versus Palmolive.”  In 1952 television was an uncertain element in the political landscape. That uncertainty, along with the contempt, would not last long. Beginning that year it would play such a significant role in American politics that, essentially, a run for the White House would soon become a glorified marketing campaign. Advertising people were now hired to help “sell” the candidate. These slick professionals would “handle” the campaign—at least the TV appearances. Politics had become a business. The results would forever affect everything from the way candidates were presented to the cost of campaigning, which would go from less than $20 millions in 1948 and rise steadily up to an incredible $260 million by 1972. 

The power of TV

The potential of television was first seen the previous year. On March 12, 1951 a political event was televised to a national audience for the first time. The occasion was the Senate Committee hearings on organized crime in New York. If the hearings had taken place just a year earlier not much would have happened, but since then the number of homes with television sets had skyrocketed. In New York 51% of homes now had a set. During the Senate hearings, people were not only glued to the television, they called their friends to tell them about it. Americans watched, mesmerized, as gangsters like Frank Costelo came under the harsh glare of questioning. At one point the camera focused on the Mafiosi’s hands, clearly revealing a frightened and guilty man. The mobsters in turn drummed nervously on the table, sweated, or tore pieces of paper to shreds. It was the stuff of Hollywood. The mob became the subject of conversation in households across America. LIfemagazine wrote, “Never before had the attention of the nation been so completely riveted on a single matter.” But an unexpected, and even more important result was that, overnight it catapulted the chairman of the hearings, Estes Kevauver, to national fame. The senator duly announced his candidacy for the White House shortly afterwards. The lesson was not lost on keen observers of the political scene: if the relatively bland and uncharismatic Kevauver could become an overnight celebrity with a shot at the presidency, what could be done with a candidate with more “star” quality? They were soon to find out - with the help of Madison Avenue. 

Rosser Reeve

By the time Rosser Reeve took his first stab at presidential politics, he was the most innovative and successful advertiser in the country. In his youth he left his native Virginia for New York to work in the advertising industry. After learning the ropes with a number of firms he co-founding Bates & Co. with Ted Bates and began to evolve an approach that would lay the foundation for ‘scientific’ advertising. His technique was simple, blunt, and amazingly successful. His ad for Anacin, for example, increased sales from $18 to $54 million in eighteen months. Sophistication and artistry were not a prominent feature of his ads. Many of them, in fact, have been called “the most hated commercials in television history.” But he knew how to sell a product. To be effective an ad had to stick relentlessly to a single theme, focusing on the essentials. Reeves invented a new term: unique selling proposition (USP) to describe his methods. The goal was to make a product stand out from the competition in a way that made sense to consumers. Reeves would find a simple, easily relatable concept and pound it into the head of potential buyers. For this he earned the nickname “The Prince of Hard Sell.” That was all well and good for Anacin, but could this same approach get a candidate elected? Reeves' first attempt took place in 1948.

That year Thomas Dewey was running for president against the incumbent, Harry Truman. Overwhelmingly, political pundits predicted an easy win for Dewey, Reeves was not so sure. He attempted to interest the Republican candidate in a series of campaign ads. He proposed to the nominee that they saturate the swing states in the two or three weeks before the election with short radio or television features that the industry called “spots.” Although the number of television sets in the nation was small, Reeves believed that the strategic use of well-crafted ads placed in critical states or counties could make the difference. The overconfident Dewey turned Reeves’ proposal down flat, “I don’t think it would be dignified,” the candidate remarked. The Republicans lost that November. Later research confirmed Reeves suspicion: the Republican contender had fallen short by just a handful of votes in a few key states.

1952

Four years later, in 1952, having been denied the White House for twenty years, the Republicans were desperate and this time it was Reeves who was asked to help with Eisenhower’s run against the Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson. Rosser’s chance had come. It took no time for the basic scheme to formulate in his mind; he would “package” Eisenhower just as he did his products; Eisenhower would be the unique item that television viewers needed and Stevenson would be brand X. Reeves understood the audience of the coming image-obsessed age: They would not sit still for a long speech. Instead of a thirty-minute speech by Eisenhower, (who was a mediocre speaker anyway) he would offer a mini drama. Viewers would see Eisenhower’s triumphant arrival, applauded by adoring citizens, some standing on chairs to see the conquering hero. Flags would be everywhere, and then shots of his proud wife Mamie, brief segments from his speech, more wildly cheering crowds, and then the hero’s equally dramatic departure. 

But it was another idea, the political spot that would have the greatest impact. The strategy was to deluge the public during the last three weeks of the campaign with short TV broadcasts called “Eisenhower Answers America.” The spots, lasting no more than thirty seconds, catered to a short attention span and did not appeal to depth of knowledge. The ads came straight out of a manual on marketing. To quote one of them;  “the art of penetrating a specific market with a high-density campaign and yet using a minimal amount of time and money.” In these spots, an average American citizen would be seen asking a question. The next scene would feature Eisenhower giving a short, pithy reply. Above all, the candidate would speak the language of the average person. But they would not waste money broadcasting them everywhere at once, they would concentrate on only the critical areas, forty-nine counties in twelve states, to be exact.

Spots

The whole scheme almost didn’t come off. When Reeves met with Eisenhower in the summer of 1952 to pitch his idea, the candidate at first resisted. The general failed to see how he could articulate his views in thirty seconds. But when the persuasive Reeves began to describe his television spot concept as “the essence of democracy,” Eisenhower capitulated. Reeves, now working with “Citizens for Eisenhower” set to work. His first task was to sharpen the candidate's image in the minds of the voters. He sat down with a stack of newspaper clippings of Eisenhower speeches and read through them. Ike’s speeches, like his entire campaign, tried to hit every target, like buckshot. There was no clear message. This was against every sound principle of advertising. The mind of the voters could only hold on to one, or at most three, simple messages. Focus on these and then you could hope to penetrate the hearts and minds of the people. Some protested that “you can’t say anything in a fifteen-second speech.” But the virtuoso adman would soon prove that “less is more.”  Reeves distilled three “selling points” from Eisenhower’s speeches: he would bring peace through strength, fight communism and clean up corruption. Nor would he have his candidate deliver lengthy orations like the brainy Stevenson. As Reeves later remarked, all anyone could remember of even the greatest speeches in American oratory were a handful of words like “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Next, with the help of Reader’s Digest and George Gallup, he conducted surveys of Americans' most prominent fears. Near the top of the list of worries were the issues of war and peace. He could now craft his TV spot to cater to those worries and come up with one, simple, effective slogan; “Eisenhower, Man of Peace.” “Time for a Change,” was the other slogan used. 

Now it was time to produce the spots. This proved easier said than done. First off, the Eisenhower campaign would only set aside one day for filming. Reeves had to reduce his vision of fifty spots down to twenty-two. The candidate himself presented a problem, too. In his earlier television appearances Eisenhower came across as wooden and clumsy. The lighting, which hadn’t adjusted for television yet, made him look old. They were working with very primitive equipment and a candidate uncomfortable with the whole process. Reeves wanted Eisenhower to appear without his glasses but the general could not read the prompter board. They adapted by creating a prompter with extra-large letters. Finally things began to click. The initially nervous Eisenhower began to warm up after the first few spots. Things were going so well, in fact, that Reeves coaxed an additional eighteen spots out of the candidate. Once Ike’s footage was complete, Radio City Music Hall was searched for anyone who looked and sounded like a typical American. They directed these “typical Americans” to ask questions that would fit with Eisenhower’s pre-recorded answers. To the television audience it would all look like the questions and answer sessions took place at the same time. The spots, at a cost of $1.5 million, were then to be strategically broadcast in the states that looked close. 

The spots start

Beginning in the second week of October, 1952, television viewers began to see the spot in which Eisenhower, looking directly at the camera, candidly fielded questions from ordinary Americans. One spot featured a frustrated woman who complained “You know what things cost today. High prices are driving me crazy!” Eisenhower answered, ‘Yes, my Mamie gets after me about the high cost of living. That’s another reason I say it’s time for a change. Time to get back to an honest dollar and an honest dollar's worth.” In another spot an anxious-looking man flanked by his wife asked “Mr Eisenhower, will we have to fight another war?” Eisenhower calmed his fears while at the same time getting in a jab at the Truman administration, “No, not if we have a sound program for peace. And I’ll add this; we won’t spend hundreds of billions and still not have enough tanks and planes for Korea.” The spots aired in a slot of time between popular shows, when viewership was high.  For the next three weeks, just as Rosser Reeves planned, millions of television viewers and radio listeners could not escape the hourly-broadcasted “Eisenhower Answers America.” 

Did Reeve’s experiment pass the ultimate test? We cannot credit the television spots too much. The word to describe their impact would be more “helpful” than “decisive.” For a variety of reasons, Eisenhower would most likely have won with or without “Eisenhower Answers America.” Additionally, television viewing of the campaigns was actually relatively low. The Republican Convention only achieved a 36 Hooper rating as opposed to a 62 recorded for I Love Lucy. Even during the height of the campaign, in October, a mere 15% of Americans heard either candidate on television.  The fact was, most of the television audience preferred to watch their favorite programs instead of the political ones. But the canny Reeves overcame that obstacle by running his political spots like ads, between popular shows. Viewers would see them whether they wanted to or not, just like a shampoo commercial. On the other hand, many non-voters and normally Democratic voters switched to Ike based on the commercials. They liked what they saw: a likeable, hard-hitting war hero who was down to earth and serious about solving the major problems of the day. It was not until the next election that television became truly critical, but those pioneering ads of 1952 laid the foundation. The possible dangers of the dominance of media advertising on politics were discussed even during the 1952 campaign. Charges of demagoguery and shallowness abounded. But regardless of the dire warnings of critics, the marriage of politics and Madison Avenue was here to stay. 

What do you think of the 1952 election commercials? Let us know below.

Now, read Victor’s series on whether it was right to topple William McKinley’s statue in Arcata, California here.

References

Halberstam, David, The Fifties. The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1993. 

Kathryn Cramer Brownell, "This Is How Presidential Campaign Ads First Got on TV." Time, August 30, 2016. (online article.) https://time.com/4471657/political-tv-ads-history/

Hollitz, John E. Eisenhower and the Admen: The Television "Spot" Campaign of 1952.”The Wisconsin Magazine of History. Vol. 66, No. 1 [Autumn, 1982], pp. 25-39 (15 pages)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4635688?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_cont   ents

“Eisenhower Answers America: The First Political Advertisements on American TV (1952)” Politics,Television | September 28th, 2012. http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/the_first_political_advertisements_on_tv_1952.html

Reeves, Rosser (1910-1984) Ad Age, September 15, 2003.https://adage.com/article/adage-encyclopedia/reeves-rosser-1910-1984/98848

The British Leader at the Height of Empire: Lord Salisbury

Lord Salisbury was Prime Minister of Britain at the peak of its power. He was Prime Minister on and off during the period from 1885 to 1902 and had a great influence on the country’s foreign policy at its colonial height. Avan Fata explains.

Lord Salisbury in 1886.

At the turn of the 20th century, the British Empire seemed to be at its zenith. Its colonial holdings far surpassed the second largest imperial power, the French, and the City of London was the trading capital of the world. Yet as the Victorian age gave way to the Edwardian, many in Whitehall and the Foreign Office came to the conclusion that these heights of economic and political might would not be easy to maintain, let alone to increase further. The economic-industrial disparity between Britain and other European great powers was closing, and from the New World the United States was also narrowing the gap.

In foreign politics too, there were signs of a storm on the horizon. The competition between imperial states had also reached a crossroads; large swathes of the globe had already been partitioned between imperialist European states, and some feared that the next “Scramble” would be over the dying carcass of an empire at the end of its tether; not for nothing was the Ottoman Empire termed the “sick man of Europe”. Britain had reluctantly taken up the task of helping to secure the Sublime Porte - as the Ottoman capital at Constantinople was known - from foreign encroachment and possible invasion.

Russia remained the perceived enemy of British foreign policy; its expansion eastwards and into Central Asia had been dubbed “The Great Game” by a British officer and later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim. But Britain also faced the rising ambitions of a newly-created German Empire, whose Kaiser Wilhelm II had dismissed Bismarck as Chancellor in favor of pursuing a more expansionist foreign policy, dubbed Weltpolitik (world politics). 

Enter Salisbury

It was in these circumstances that Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, became Prime Minister. First elected to 10 Downing Street in 1885, he would go on to serve two more terms (1886 - 1892, 1895 - 1902); leading Britain for a total of 13 years and 252 days - only Robert Walpole, William Pitt the Younger, and Lord Liverpool served longer. Curiously however, Lord Salisbury also served as his own Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; a realm which he had considerable experience in.

Salisbury’s first foray into foreign affairs came in 1876, when he was chosen by then prime minister Disraeli to represent Britain at the Constantinople Conference. Despite the conference’s failure to secure greater rights and land for Bulgarian and Herzogvinian subjects in Ottoman territory, it catapulted Salisbury into the political spotlight. Two years later during the Russo-Turkish War, when Disraeli’s Cabinet protested the Treaty of San Stefano, Salisbury was chosen to succeed Lord Derby (who had resigned as Foreign Secretary due to the protest). Even before his official appointment on 2 April, Salisbury single-handedly drafted a circular calling for a congress of European nations to re-examine the terms of the San Stefano Treaty, which was duly approved and dispatched to the great powers.

At the resulting Congress of Berlin (1878), Salisbury was overshadowed publicly by Lord Beaconsfield, but it was apparent to all the plenipotentiaries that he had been the architect of the Congress and the subsequent settlement. The Congress overruled many of the terms of the San Stefano Treaty, reducing the size of a new Bulgaria and returning Russian-conquered territories back to the Ottomans, whilst also securing Cyprus for the British - ostensibly for use as a naval base to dissuade any future Russian aggression into the Straits.

Despite being a Conservative, Salisbury was not particularly supportive of the Empire. He questioned its actual economic benefits, and would come to prefer maintaining the status quo as opposed to seizing any new territory. In a speech as Prime Minister after the Diamond Jubilee of 1897, he remarked that ‘our first duty is towards the people of this country, to maintain their interests and their rights; our second is to all humanity.’ In his foreign policy, he eschewed these priorities, placing the security of the Empire first and foremost.

Foreign policy

To Salisbury, managing foreign policy demanded a calm and unwavering statesman. ‘Sleepless tact, immovable calmness and patience’ were, he deemed, the qualities which would allow a diplomat to succeed. Perhaps more significant to his government and those in Europe, he refused to entangle Britain in any alliances. Much like Gladstone, Salisbury did not prefer to enter Britain into any mutual defense pacts, viewing them as commitments which would seriously hinder Whitehall’s ability to act independently of its continental counterparts. When his government and public opinion pressed for an Anglo-German alliance, Salisbury was reluctant to permit talks with Berlin. When it became clear that the Germans were unwilling to support Britain in the Far East against Russia, whilst simultaneously asking for British colonial concessions, Salisbury remarked to German ambassador Paul von Hatzfeldt that ‘you ask too much for our friendship.’

This commitment to a lack of commitment was seen by Salisbury’s Conservative colleagues not as a deliberate choice, but rather a continuity of a longstanding preference in British - and prior to 1707 English - foreign policy. As far back as the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, they argued, ensuring a balance of power in Europe and remaining independent of embroilments on the continent was the modus operandi. In 1896, Salisbury’s adherence to this doctrine earned a name: ‘splendid isolation’, after a Canadian politician and later Joseph Chamberlain (then Secretary of State for the Colonies) popularized it in debates. Salisbury’s critics were more inclined to use the term ‘terrible isolation’.

For his own part, Salisbury took disdain with the term, deriding it as ‘jargon about isolation’, and mentioned to Queen Victoria that isolation ‘is much less danger [sic] than the danger of being dragged into wars which do not concern us.’ In hindsight, non-intervention seems a more apt term to use, as Britain was far from isolated from the various quarrels taking place at the fringes of its empire: Russia in the Far East and Central Asia, Germany in Africa and the Pacific, and France in Northern Africa as well as the Sudan. In each case, Salisbury balanced the interests of London and the other powers with great skill and, as with the case of Portuguese claims in South Africa (1890), with military pressure if need be. It was during Salisbury’s reign that the Royal Navy adopted the ‘Two Power Naval Standard’, the policy that the British fleet should be equal in strength to the next two largest navies combined. 

Conclusion

Salisbury’s power declined following the Second Boer War, which broke out against his will in 1899. His own health was failing, and in 1900 he finally handed over the reins of the Foreign Office to Lord Lansdowne. At the end of his political career, he had managed to usher the British Empire into the 20th century with great diplomatic skill and tact. Far from being preyed upon by the other great powers,  Salisbury had defended British interests across the world and expanded the “red on the map” by six million square miles, a feat unmatched since the days of Pitt the Elder. His policy of splendid isolation however, was judged by his successors to be a relic of a bygone Victorian age, and Britain would enter into her first mutual defense pact with Japan in 1902. 

Let us know what you think of Lord Salisbury below.

Now read Avan’s series on First World War historiography here.

Sources

Darwin, John. The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970.                                     Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Howard, Christopher. “Splendid Isolation.” History 47, no. 159 (1962): 32-41. Accessed August 22, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24404639.

Leonard, Dick. British Prime Ministers from Walpole to Salisbury: The 18th and 19th Centuries. New                   York: Routledge, 2021. 

MacMillan, Margaret. The War that Ended Peace: How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World                                     War. London: Profile Books, 2014.

Margaret M. Jefferson. "Lord Salisbury and the Eastern Question, 1890-1898." The Slavonic and East                                European Review 39, no. 92 (1960): 44-60. Accessed August 22, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stab                               le/4205217.

Penson, Lillian M. "The Principles and Methods of Lord Salisbury's Foreign Policy." Cambridge                                               Historical Journal 5, no. 1 (1935): 87-106. Accessed August 22, 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stab             le/3020834.

Roberts, Andrew. Salisbury: Victorian Titan. New York: Phoenix Press, 2006. 

The Modern Military History of India: Part 1 - The Indian Campaigns of 1897 and the Bravery of the Sikh Infantry

India’s military history is rich, long and storied yet there is criminally little written about it and it is hideously ignored in many debates on military history of the 19th century. This perhaps is because Indians themselves know very little about what the Indian Army did in the years between 1858 and 1910. In these few decades, the Indian Army became one of the most combat experienced forces in the world as it fought alongside the British Army from Egypt to Afghanistan. The Indian Army (though officially known as the British Indian Army, it was always referred to as the Indian Army), which was already one of the most professional and most well-equipped forces in the world, by the time the Great War rolled around, had become arguably the single most experienced armed force in the world alongside the British Army.

Siddhant A. Joshi starts his series of the modern military history of India by looking at Indian Campaigns of 1897 and the Bravery of the Sikh Infantry.

Subadars (Sikhs) and Gunners (Punjabi Muslims) in the 1890s..

Introduction

Since the British and Indian Armies rarely fought alone, the technologies, techniques and tactics used by either one of them became commonplace in both. Not only that, but their military history also became inextricably interlinked and both armies developed processes that were born of their shared experience – processes and doctrines and traditions that stand to this day. The British Army commemorates the many contributions, sacrifices and stories of Indian soldiers with just as many memorials to Indians as there are to Brits. The Indian Army too does the same and has, in fact, kept many units that were raised by the British.

However, not many outside the armed forces know of this. That is the aim of this – to bring to light that which should long ago have been known.

The Frontier Campaign – Beginnings

To understand this little-known campaign, one must first understand an area of the Indian Subcontinent that was then called the North West Frontier Province or the NWFP. It was an area that had formed just south of the intersection of the Karakorum and Pamir Mountains and just north of the Hindu Kush Mountains and had long been used as a gateway for invasions since it stood between mountains that have been impassable for large armies for centuries. It quickly became the frontier of British India – lands ungoverned by any state and occupied only by tribes of armed Pashtuns.

It was the natural path into India from Afghanistan and its existence posed a threat to the existence of British Rule in India for one reason alone – the Great Game. During this period, the Russians and the British were playing a long-running and high-stakes chess match in Afghanistan for control of the country. Whoever controlled Afghanistan would control not only India’s North Western border but Russia’s southern border.

Afghanistan quickly became the linchpin for the two powers’ plans and prospects in Asia. And, sure as the sun rises every day, one of the most important chess pieces became the North Western Frontier Province. And, in the NWFP there stood a mountain pass – the infamous Khyber Pass –which was of immense strategic value in safeguarding the approach into the subcontinent (a value it still holds!). To guard this pass, the British had recruited a small regiment composed entirely of Pashtun Tribesmen from the neighbouring Tirah and Malakand regions since they knew the land the best.

However, Tirah itself was not of much importance. Colonel T. H. Holdich, writing a few months after the end of hostilities in the campaign, says ‘It is a species of cul de sac, possessing little or no strategic value.’[1] And Malakand was much the same.

If that were true, why did the British and Indians spend months fighting the tribesmen of the regions and mobilise well over 100,000 troops for the cause? It is simple. The tribes guarding the Khyber Pass revolted, attacked their own men and took up positions all along the Khyber. While of utmost importance was the Khyber Pass, securing it was of no use unless the rebellion was put down.

The Frontier Campaign – 1897-1898

‘Our little wars attract far less attention among the people of this country than they deserve. They are frequently carried out in circumstances of the most adverse kind. Our enemies, although ignorant of military discipline, are, as a rule, extremely brave and are thoroughly capable of using the natural advantages of their country.’ These were words written by author G. A. Henty when describing the Tirah and Malakand Offensives.[2]

Neville Chamberlain (yes, that Neville Chamberlain) wrote on the matter and Winston Churchill (yes, that Winston Churchill) was a young Second Lieutenant in the campaign and he too wrote on the matter extensively. It is their works that the remaining part of this article will rely upon.

The thing that is of utmost importance to understand is that the Tirah Campaign was one part of a larger conflict referred to as the ‘Frontier Matter’ by Churchill, with the entire conflict revolving around suppressing tribal rebellions in the NFWP. The Tirah Campaign which was an offensive against the Afridi tribes would take place simultaneously with the offensives against Pashtun tribes in Malakand and the offensive against the Mohamand tribes.

To tackle these rebellions, the Indian Army set up 2 distinct forces – the Tirah Field Force and the Malakand Field Force.

Composition of British Indian Forces

1.     Tirah Field Force - General William Lockhart, KCB[3]

a.     1st Division – Brigadier General William Symons

                                               i.     1st Brigade
- 2nd Bn The Derbyshire Regiment
- 1st Bn The Devonshire Regiment
- 2nd/1st Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 30th (Punjab) Regiment 
- No. 6 British Field Hospital
- No. 34 Native Field Hospital

                                             ii.     2nd Brigade
- 2nd Bn The Yorkshire Regiment
- 1st Bn Royal West Surrey Regiment
- 2nd Bn 4th Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 3rd Regiment of Sikh Infantry
- Sections A, B No. 8 British Field Hospital
- Sections A, C No. 14 British Field Hospital
- No. 51 Native Hospital

                                            iii.     Divisional Troops
- Gurkha Scouts
- No. 1 Mountain Battery 
- No. 2 (Derajat) Mountain Battery 
- No. 1 (Kohat) Mountain Battery
- 18th Regiment Bengal Lancers
- 28th Regiment, Bombay Infantry (Pioneers)
- Two companies, Bombay Sappers and Miners
- Karpurthala Regiment
- Maler Kotla Imperial Service Sappers
- No. 13 British Field Hospital
- No. 63 Native Field Hospital

b.     2nd Division – Major General A. G. Yeatman-Biggs

                                               i.     3rd Brigade
- 1st Bn The Gordon Highlanders
- 1st Bn The Dorsetshire Regiment
- 1st Bn 2nd Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 15th (The Ludhiana Sikh) Regiment
- No. 24 British Field Hospital
- No. 44 Native Field Hospital

                                             ii.     4th Brigade
- 2nd Bn, The King's Own Scottish Borderers
- 1st Bn The Northamptonshire Regiment
- 1st Bn 3rd Gurkha (Rifle) Regiment
- 36th (Sikh) Regiment Of Bengal Infantry
- Sections C, D No. 9 Field Hospital
- Sections A, B No, 23 British Field Hospital
- No. 48 Native Field Hospital

                                            iii.     Divisional Troops
- No. 8 Mountain Battery, Royal Artillery
- No. 9 Mountain Battery, Royal Artillery
- No. 5 (Bombay) Mountain Battery
- Machine Gun Detachment, 16th Lancers
- 18th Regiment Bengal Lancers
- 21st Regiment Of Madras Infantry (Pioneers)
- No. 4 Company Madras Sappers And Miners
- Jhind Regiment 
- Sirmur Sappers
- Section B Of No. 13 British Field Hospital
- No. 43 Native Field Hospital

2.     Malakand Field Force – Major General Bindon Blood[4]

a.     The MFF had no divisions

b.     1st Brigade
- Royal West Kent Regiment
- Highland Light Infantry
- 31st Punjab Infantry
- 24th Punjab Infantry
- 45th Sikhs
- No. 7 Mountain Battery

c.     2nd Brigade
- The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment)
- 35th Sikhs
- 38th Dogras
- Guides Infantry
- 4 Company Bengal Sappers
- No. 7 Mountain Battery

d.     3rd Brigade
- The Queen’s Regiment
- 22nd Punjab Infantry
- 39th Punjab Infantry
- 3 Company Bombay Sappers
- No. 1 Mountain Battery

e.     Cavalry
- 11th Bengal Lancers

 

The Tirah Field Force – Bravery of the Sikh Troops

To get to Tirah, the Force had to march through demanding terrain and the feats of bravery in combat and mountaineering of the Indian Army have been well recorded. In one instance, some 250 men of an unspecified Indian artillery regiment were told to move their guns across a mountain pass. G. A. Henty, referencing the event, describes it as a ‘splendid feat’ when the 250 Indians led by 2 British officers brought the guns by hand (their horses having gone lame or died) through the mountain pass in just a few days through immensely deep snow.

In another incident, Chamberlain describes an attack by two unspecified Indian infantry brigades on a ridgeline (Dagrai Heights) thought to be impregnable on October 18, 1897. It took the two brigades a few hours to link up but when they did, it was found that they had only taken 9 or 10 casualties. He describes also the action of 3 regiments on October 20, 1897 – the Gordon Highlanders, the King’s Own Scottish Borderers and the 15th Sikhs whom he credits with saving a retirement of an infantry brigade from an overwhelming counterattack by the tribesmen saying ‘the retirement was only saved from being a disaster by the coolness under fire of those fine regiments’. 

It is here worth noting that the 15th Sikhs and the Gordons had taken heavy losses in a surprise attack that very day suffering some 250 casualties among them. [5]

In another instance of bravery and complete dominance by Indian troops, a Sikh battalion was given the order to secure another height from the tribesmen. Led by a Punjabi officer with a British 2IC (2nd in Command), the Battalion overwhelmed the enemy position though they were outnumbered 5 to 1.

The Malakand Field Force – Sikh Troops Shine Again

Churchill[6] – known for his admiration of Indian and ANZAC troops in WW2 – narrates an amazing incident where a 62-man Sikh unit was surrounded and outnumbered by the enemy. The only nearby friendly force, some British cavalry, was unable to breakthrough and rescue the Sikhs. It appears that having accepted death, the bugle sounded charge and the outnumbered men rose out of their positions and – swords drawn – charged the pathans (general word for Afghan tribesmen). Not expecting this, the pathans simply ran for no known reason and the small Sikh unit cut down hundreds of the retreating Pathans.

Churchill also describes in detail the actions of a company of the 35th Sikhs which, during a defence, had become surrounded by the pathans. With the assistance of a squadron of cavalry, the Sikh troops of the 35th broke the encirclement and drove the vastly outnumbering Pathans into a small mountainous gulley where they were massacred by the Sikhs and the cavalry.

Henty, regarding the Malakand Campaign, relays the famous story of the handful of men from the 36th Sikhs that defended Fort Saragarhi against 10,000 tribesmen. However, that story deserves its own article!

 

In Conclusion

First things first; while I have only discussed Sikh troops here, they by no means were the only brave soldiers. They were simply the ones I chose to focus on. Many different regiments were named and many soldiers were equally as brave. Secondly, the point of this article, as ever, is simply to shine a light on that which was not known and to exemplify the bravery of those unsung heroes.

What do you think of the Indian Campaigns of 1897? Let us know below.

[1] Col. T. H. Holdich, ‘Tirah’, The Geographical Journal, 12:4 (October, 1898)

[2] G. A. Henty, A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashantee (Blackie and Son; London, 1904)

[3] https://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/indiancampaigns/tirah.htm

[4] Churchill’s work

[5] Neville Chamberlain, ‘The Tirah Campaign’, Fortnightly Review, 63:375 (March, 1898)

[6] Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (Longmans; London, 1898)

The ‘Scramble for Africa’ – Then and Now

When European nations ‘scrambled’ for territory in Africa in the 1800s, the results were catastrophic for its indigenous peoples. A new scramble is now on and the jury is still out on whether Africans will actually benefit this time. Dan McEwen looks at ‘The Scramble for Africa’, then and now.

The 1884 Berlin Conference, as illustrated in "Illustrierte Zeitung"

‘Scrambling’ Everywhere But Africa

Blame Portugal. Ranked 109th by size, little Portugal was the first European country to make it big as a colonial power. Under Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese merchants were well ahead of the curve in the so-called ‘Age of Exploration’. Their trading ships had long been slowly feeling their way along Africa’s west coast and by the mid-1400s, their crews were making fortunes trading in slaves, sugar and gold. 

While Christopher Columbus was famously sailing across the Atlantic in 1492 with visions of Oriental sugarplums dancing in his head, the intrepid Portuguese were defeating the Ottomans in a power struggle for control of the lucrative Arab/Indian trade routes. Victorious, they continued east, becoming the first Europeans to arrive by sea in China and then Japan. So toxic was their contact with the shogunate however, Portuguese traders were expelled in 1639 and Japan sealed itself off in two hundred years of self-imposed isolation from the West!

Another small nation, Holland, replaced the Portuguese, enabling The Dutch East India Company [VOC], to become the largest company to ever have existed in recorded history! Next came the Spanish, venturing westward from their possessions in Central America, laying claim to several Pacific islands, including the Philippines. The French, latecomers to the rush, established outposts in Indochina, Vietnam and on a sprinkling of Polynesian islands before being lapped by the British. Their world-class navy would resort to gunboat diplomacy to forcibly establish colonies in China. Later, the Germans, Americans and Russians likewise bullied their way into the Pacific. 

Back in the western hemisphere, the British and French went head-to-head for supremacy in North America even as Spanish explorers, conquerors and settlers following Columbus’ lead, headed for the Caribbean and Central and South America. In their quest for "gold, glory, and God", in that order. Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec empire in Mexico, at a cost of 240,000 Aztec lives and Francisco Pizarro followed suite, nearly wiping out the Incas by 1572.  

"What happened after Columbus was like a thousand kudzus [weeds] everywhere,” laments author/historian Charles C. Mann.“Throughout the hemisphere, ecosystems cracked and heaved like winter ice.” 

Indeed, the impact of all this “exploration” on native populations was apocalyptic. Between 1492 and 1600, 55 million people, 90% of the indigenous populations in the Americas, died from European diseases like smallpox, measles and influenza. This traumatic population loss caused chaos among the indigenous tribes, making them even easier prey for technologically-advanced European powers. And now it was Africa’s turn.

The First ‘Scramble’

History books call it ‘The Scramble for Africa’, making it sound like an innocuous party game.  Africans call it ’The Rape of Africa’. By the mid 1800s, the European nations were elbowing each other aside in their headlong rush to plant their flag on African soil. Mostly it was about money.

As history professor Ehiedu E.G. Iweriebor at New York’s City University frames it; “The European scramble and the partition and eventual conquest of Africa was motivated by ...the imperatives of capitalist industrialization, including the demand for assured sources of raw materials, the search for guaranteed markets and profitable investment outlets.”

All this ‘scrambling’ made the imperialist governments as nervous as cats that a war would breakout in Europe over some far off colonial territory. To prevent this, wily, old Otto von Bismarck, the first Chancellor of a newly-united Germany, hosted a conference that still stands as an unparalleled act of racial and cultural arrogance. At the 1884 Berlin Conference, six European powers - Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Belgium - sat around a table and divided the so-called “Dark Continent” among themselves, redrawing the map of the continent to create 30 new colonies. 

The 110 million Africans who lived in those colonies were never consulted about the new borders. No Africans were invited to attend the conference and; “African concerns were, if they mattered at all, completely marginal to the basic economic, strategic, and political interests of the negotiating European powers,” says historian/author Thomas Pakenham. Between 1870 and 1914, “A motley band of explorers, politicians, evangelists, mercenaries, journalists and tycoons blinded by romantic nationalism or caught up in the scramble for loot, markets and slaves,” increased European control of African territory from 10 per cent in 1870 to almost 90 percent by 1914. Resistance was futile. 

Although most African rulers bitterly contested being handed over to unknown foreign powers, they were no match for rapid-fire rifles, gatling guns and field artillery. Their many battles frequently turned into one-sided massacres. Despite a stunning defeat at Isandlwana, British redcoats rallied and crushed the two million-strong Zulu nation in nine weeks. The Boers conducted a campaign of genocide against the natives who resisted their occupation, driving 24,000 of them into the desert to starve. As many as 300,000 Namibians died in a famine engineered by the German colonizers to bring them to heel. Eight million inhabitants of the Congo were exterminated by their Belgium overseers through a barbarous system of forced labor dedicated to supplying rubber for European vehicle tires. [Ethiopia and Liberia were the only countries not colonized - Ethiopia defeated an inept Italian army at Adwa in 1896, and Liberia became a country that some of the Black populations of the Americas moved to.]

From ‘Civilizing’ to Conquering

The motives the colonizers ascribed to this flagrant land-grab were rooted in a bedrock belief in their racial supremacy over the non-white, 'lesser' races of the world. “The French colonial ideology explicitly claimed that they were on a "civilizing mission" to lift the benighted natives out of backwardness to the new status of civilized French Africans.” But it was the British who proved especially adept at this pernicious snobbery, believing they had some higher calling to drag their Africa colonies into the modern world. Like the Spanish, they had a slogan: ‘Commerce, Christianity and Civilization.’ [Note its money first, civilizing last, just like the Spanish.] And it seems they still believe that. In 2014, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was unapologetic in his defense of the country’s tarnished record. “The days of Britain having to apologize for its colonial history are over. We should celebrate much of our past rather than apologize for it.” 

Tragically for Africa, it wasn’t just the Brits. “Almost without exception... [the colonization of Africa] is a story of the rankest greed enforced by disgusting levels of violence against the native Africans. In colony after colony, all the brave talk about white man’s civilization and justice and religion turned out to hypocritical garbage,” accuses professor Patrick Bond at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban.

Still other African scholars contend the partitioning of tribal lands into those 30 colonies had the most enduring affects on the African peoples. A 2016 study found that, “by splitting ethnicities across countries, the colonial border design has spurred political violence. Ethnic partitioning is systematically linked to civil conflict, discrimination by the national government, and instability. The study, which included more than 85,000 households across 20 African countries found that “members of partitioned groups have fewer household assets, poorer access to utilities, and worse educational outcomes, as compared to individuals from non-split ethnicities in the same country.” Furthermore, conflicts in partitioned lands are deadlier and last longer.

After World War Two, the victors assumed that decolonization would solve all these problems, and between 1945 and 1960, three dozen new states in Asia and Africa achieved autonomy or outright independence from their European colonial rulers. Alas, in state after state, the transition to independence led to violence, political turmoil, and organized revolts that only added to the misery of endemic poverty, hunger and disease. Tellingly, a comparison of 18 African countries found that only six saw economic growth after achieving independence.

Regrettably, most of the continent’s 54 countries remain devastated by; “...crippling rates of poverty, hunger, and disease.” 62% of Africans have no access to standard sanitation facilities. Only 43% have access to electricity and the internet. According to the World Health Organization, sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest under-5 mortality rate in the world. Yet there’s a cautious optimism that Africa’s fortunes are finally about to change for the better.

The New Scramble

By the usual standards of measurement, Africa is poised on the cusp of greatness. In 2019, six of the world’s 15 fastest growing economies were in Africa. The continent has a booming population of 1.3 billion and will soon outnumber the Chinese. This brings with it a “demographic dividend”: the average age in Africa is 19, meaning there’s a huge and growing pool of labor at a time when labor forces in more advanced countries are aging fast. Importantly, a major impediment to economic development is finally being addressed.

The continent’s colonial-era infrastructure remains one of the biggest drags on economic growth. “Africa’s new national states were so small and economically weak that they could not, without giant loans, even begin to embark on the policies of national development they eagerly promised,” writes investigative journalist Lee Wengaf. No nation had the economic wherewithal resources to take on the kind of major projects – highways, railroads, power dams and sea ports – needed to compete in the global marketplace. “Hobbled with weak infrastructures...and insufficient capital to technologically advance, these economies fell increasingly behind.” 

China is changing all that. The bottomless pockets of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have already shelled out billions in funding for 200 major infrastructure projects that promise to truly modernize the continent. Beijing’s willingness to invest in Africa long-term is particularly embarrassing to those ‘civilizing” European powers who never quite got around to it. Governments and businesses from all around the world are rushing to strengthen diplomatic, strategic and commercial ties. From 2010 to 2016, more than 320 embassies were opened in African nations. Facebook and Google are madly laying rings of cables around the continent to improve internet connectivity. 

However, to many, the new scramble looks a lot like the old one. The Financial Times commented that China’s pattern of operation in Africa, “draws comparisons with Africa’s past relationship with European colonial powers, which exploited the continent’s natural resources but failed to encourage more labor-intensive industry.”

Dylan Yachyshen of the Foreign Policy Research Institute agrees, warning that; “Accompanying its ambitious infrastructure projects, Chinese state banks made massive loans to African states, employing debt-trap diplomacy that renders states subservient to Chinese interests if they cannot pay. Though China has not established colonies, the trajectory of its activity in Africa parallels that of the infancy of the ‘Scramble for Africa’.”

Iranian-American journalist and historian John Ghazvinian put it much more forcefully in Untapped: The Scramble for Africa’s Oil. “Foreign oil companies have conducted some of the world’s most sophisticated exploration and production operations…but the people of the Niger Delta have seen none of the benefits. While successive military regimes have used oil proceeds to buy mansions in Mayfair...many in the Delta live as their ancestors would have done hundreds, even thousands of years ago.”

What is to be done? Patrick Lumumba, a lawyer specializing in African laws argues persuasively that the continent’s nations must unite in a pan-African economic union similar to the EU with a single passport, a single currency and a single army as essential prerequisites for African nations to take control of their own destinies.

“We [African nations] are weak politically, we are economically weak, socially we are disorganized, culturally and spiritually we are confused. As long as we remain as we are Africa will be re-colonized in the next 25 years.” 

What do you think of the ‘Scramble for Africa’? Let us know below.

Now, read Dan’s article on the lessons from World War I here.

The Paraguayan President who Brought his Country to Military Catastrophe – Part 2: The Start of the War of the Triple Alliance

Francisco Solano Lopez was president of Paraguay from 1862 to 1870. He led the country during one of the most devastating defeats in all history – the War of the Triple Alliance. Here, Erick Redington continues this fascinating series by looking at the outbreak of the War of the Triple Alliance and how Paraguay ended up facing Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay in the war.

If you missed it you can read part 1 on the early life of Francisco Solano Lopez here.

The 1865 Battle of Riachuelo during the war.

While the immediate casus belli was caused by the seizure of a Brazilian steamer, the real beginning of the war was the Paraguayan invasion of the Brazilian territory of Mato Grasso. While a Paraguayan offensive against Brazil might look insane by referencing a map, the true balance of forces held more than a cursory glance would tell.

When Brazil entered the Uruguayan War, the Marshal grew worried about the balance of power. He understood that in a conventional military sense, Brazil would heavily outweigh tiny Paraguay. Brazil had a significantly larger population, and a much larger navy. What Paraguay had was a people used to hardship and deprivation. The habituation of following orders came naturally to people who grew up in a police state. This discipline and iron will would be what allowed a small nation to take on almost all of its neighbors and fight a long war of attrition against all odds. 

To mitigate the significant Brazilian advantages in population, resources, and space Marshal Lopez introduced universal conscription. Paraguay had a prewar population of about 450,000 so every available man had to be called to service. Raising this force was easier than arming and equipping it. Although Marshal Lopez's father had attempted to modernize the economy, and had made some impressive strides, no industrial base existed to meet the immediate needs of the army, let alone expand it to levels never before seen in the country. Little prospect existed for importing arms as well. Brazil's large navy had no problem declaring a blockade of the La Plata and on all Paraguayan river traffic. Throughout the war, Paraguay would be short ammunition, uniforms, artillery, food, and other war material. These shortages would only grow worse as all available men in the country were absorbed into the army. Arms would be inadequate as well. As the world's armies were transitioning to breech loading rifles and artillery, the Paraguayans would have smoothbore muskets little changed from before the Napoleonic Wars (except the Marshal’s personal bodyguard, which was always armed with the latest breechloading rifles). Despite the lack of modern equipment and supplies, the Paraguayan soldiers would show themselves capable of superhuman efforts. 

A major issue facing the Paraguayan army was the officer corps. Marshal Lopez had been Minister of War since 1855 and had handpicked the officer corps. Although some officers were foreign specialists in artillery and engineering, the line officers had been chosen based upon personal loyalty to the Marshal. Many of these officers were barely literate and did not have the type of training in military affairs that he had received. Lack of training and incompetence would be exhibited throughout the war with poor logistics and tactical handling of the troops in battle. Bravery and obedience were the two primary weapons in the Paraguayan arsenal. 

The lack of arms led the Marshal to order as his first offensive action of the war to invade the Brazilian province of Mato Grosso. While there, the Paraguayans burned a few villages and planted the Republic’s flag on Imperial territory. More important was the large quantity of Brazilian arms captured. These supplies would help alleviate the Paraguayan shortages throughout the first year of the war. Although the Marshal's armies would very quickly return to their territory, the invasion would nevertheless be an embarrassment to the Brazilians while providing a morale boost to the Paraguayan forces. 

Creation of the Triple Alliance

In another opening move, Marshal Lopez wanted to send reinforcements to his Blanco allies in Uruguay. While this may have been sound strategy, it would be a costly mistake and show the Marshal's impetuousness. In looking at a map, it is easy to see that Paraguay does not border Uruguay, making it difficult to directly send men to the Blancos. Due to this fact, Marshal Lopez requested of the Argentinian government permission to cross their territory to reach Uruguay. The President of Argentina, Bartolome Mitre, was in no mood to accommodate Paraguay. In the recent civil war in Argentina, Paraguay had sent troops to support Blanco-aligned rebel groups. Mitre was suspicious of Paraguayan motives, and the Marshal's large army. With control of his own country uncertain Mitre knew his country could not afford to become a base for the Paraguayan army to operate against Brazil. When the request reached him to allow the Paraguayan army to cross Corrientes province, it was refused. Since the Paraguayans did not have control of the river, there was no other way to reach Uruguay, so the Marshal ordered his troops to enter Argentina anyway. Lopez, already at war with Brazil and Uruguay, then declared war on Argentina, occupied the city of Corrientes, and declared the annexation of several Argentinian provinces.

With the declaration of war against Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina would sign a formal alliance for the conduct of the war. This treaty covered many of the things a normal treaty would cover, but there were several important parts. First, the Allies agreed to fight the war until the Government of Paraguay was overthrown. This meant the removal of Marshal Lopez as President and the dismantling of his government was a definite war aim. It further stated that the Allies agreed to respect the territorial integrity and independence of Paraguay while also delineating the future boundaries of the nations after the war, dismembering Paraguay in the process. The treaty was supposed to be secret, but very quickly made its way to the British, who then published it to the world, eventually making its way to the Paraguayans. Of course, a treaty which promised his deposition would enrage Marshal Lopez, and only furthered his resolve to fight the Allies to the finish. The Allied plans to carve up the country would go on to be very helpful for the Marshal’s propagandists to rally support for the war.

What was he thinking?

What could have led to such rashness? In the Marshal's mind, he had a window of opportunity to strike at the Brazilians occupying Uruguay before they had the chance to completely destroy the Blancos. Also, Paraguay had mobilized a large army. If it could use that army to strike the Argentinians first and knock them out of the war with one bold strike, his position would be significantly strengthened. Argentina had been weakened from near constant internecine strife and was not as strong as it first appeared. President Mitre was a successful general but knew his country's weaknesses, especially how divided it was. While many historians have viewed the Marshal's decision to take on the two biggest powers in the region as borderline insane, it was not quite as reckless as it appears with hindsight. 

But it was still reckless. This goes to another of the Marshal's character traits. He believed himself to be a brilliant military commander. He had studied the military all his life, after all. He had observed the Crimean War firsthand. He did believe in his own brilliance, and expected others to believe it as well. Raised on tales of great Napoleonic battles such as Austerlitz and Marengo, the Marshal's lesson from his historical studies was that fortune favored the bold, decisive stroke. So, he struck, and furthered the odds against himself long-term.

Marshal Lopez had a view of the Allies facing him that did not necessarily match reality and contributed to his overconfidence. For many years, Paraguayan propaganda had portrayed a very racist view of Brazilians to demonize them. Brazil was one of the last slave societies in the western hemisphere. Many of Brazil's wealthiest elites owned slaves. Although the Emperor was personally against slavery, he had found himself unable to abolish the institution. Due to the large numbers of Brazilians of African or mixed African decent, many Paraguayans held racist beliefs and stereotypes of Brazilian soldiers. Marshal Lopez would call Brazilians "monkeys" throughout the war.

His view of the Argentinians and Uruguayans was more charitable. He believed, and made many public statements, that Argentinians and Uruguayans were being used as "tools of the Empire" and, if they could only see the light, their opposition to him and his policy of the balance of power would disappear. Marshal Lopez seemed to genuinely believe in his own purity of motives for this war. Of course, any dissent from anyone under his power would be punished severely and no opposing views to this belief were heard in the Paraguayan capitol. 

This is one of the great downfalls of all-powerful dictators. They are caught in a self-confirmation bubble from which no unpleasant or dissenting information can reach. When he believed that the Argentinian and Uruguayan people would support him, no one was there to warn him of the insanity of that belief. Marshal Lopez, convinced of his own righteousness and brilliance, had no way of gaining an accurate picture of the situation his country was facing early in the war. 

Allied Squabbling

While the early attacks prevented the Allies from fully coordinating their war effort, the Paraguayans did not have the reserves of manpower and resources to sustain a war winning offensive. The Paraguayans could not even reach Uruguay. There was very little chance they could reach Buenos Aires. They had as much chance of capturing Rio de Janeiro as they did Paris or London. Once the Allies were able to coordinate themselves, the Paraguayans would have to stop the attacks and husband their strength. 

The Allies did begin to bicker amongst themselves. The Allied land commanders were counting on the Brazilian naval commander, the Baron of Tamandaré to clear the riverbanks for an advance against the Paraguayans. The humiliation of the successful raids by the Paraguayans led to Allied commanders on land to blame Tamandaré for their failure to advance. Alliance land forces were to be under the overall command of President Mitre, himself a general. As the initial encounters were under the command of Argentinian and Uruguayan generals, this scapegoating of the Brazilian admiral who commanded the naval forces created further strains in the Alliance. Unity of command would be one major advantage the Marshal would have over his opponents throughout the war. The allies were unsure of each other, jealous and unsparing of criticism. Marshal Lopez had total control of the troops under his command, while loyalty and fear inspired unquestioning obedience to his orders. 

Preparations for Defense

During the time Paraguayan forces were on Allied territory, the Marshal would take the opportunity to fortify the homeland in preparation for Allied invasion. After all, he had studied artillery and engineering since his teenage years and had observed early trench warfare on the Crimea. Terrain was the vital factor in the defense of Paraguay. Swampy and crisscrossed by multiple unfordable rivers, there were few natural avenues of invasion. The road network, despite the modernization efforts of President Carlos Lopez, was poor and no roads were all weather. The climate was tropical which led to infestations of insects, especially mosquitos. Where there are mosquitos, there are camp diseases such as malaria and yellow fever. The longer an army sits in one place the more unsanitary the area becomes, leading to more mosquitos and more disease including that great killer of 19th century armies, dysentery, which comes from polluted water. All these factors went into the building of one of the most formidable fortresses in the Western Hemisphere, Humaitá. 

To maintain their supply and have secure communications, the Allied armies would have to advance up the river system to invade Paraguay. The Marshal would turn all his talents to defending a bend in the Paraguay River at Humaitá. A fortified post had existed here since independence, but large-scale fortification had started under the elder Lopez stemming from fears of Argentinian invasion. By creating a large fort capable of heavy artillery emplacement and a strong garrison, the Allies would be unable to pass farther up the Paraguay River, and any ship attempting to run past the guns of the fort would have to slow down at the river bend and be blown to pieces. The landward side was covered by swamps and the approach was difficult. The defense of this fortress, and the Allied frustrations in attempting to take it, would define the next stage of the war.

For the Marshal and the Paraguayan people, the defense of Humaitá and what would follow would become the national epoch, a symbol of the national will and the determination of the Paraguayan people to defend their independence. This fortress would be the primary reason for the war lasting as long as it did. For Marshal Lopez, it would be the one thing that kept the Allies from defeating him and overthrowing his government. The survival of the army and the defenses of the Republic would determine if Paraguay itself survived. Everything would come down to Humaitá.

What do you think of the outbreak of the war? Let us know below.

Now read part 3 on devastating battles for both sides here.

Further Reading

Saeger, James Schofield. 2007. Francisco Solano Lopez and the Ruination of Paraguay: Honor and Egocentrism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Whigham, Thomas L. 2002. The Paraguayan War, Volume 1: Causes and Early Conduct. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2005. I Die with My Country: Perspectives on the Paraguayan War, 1864-1870. Edited by Hendrick Kraay. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

———. 2017. The Road to Armageddon: Paraguay versus the Triple Alliance, 1866-70. University of Calgary Press.